Stolen Identity? | DOUBLE EPISODE | The New Detectives

A woman has been murdered The police are sure of it but that's all it seems Investigators must determine who is the victim and who is the murderer A father's greeting cards are nothing to cheer about when his daughter suspects him Not the man he pretends to be, the

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follow a paper trail through a labyrinth of lies to find the truth. A twist of fate alerts investigators to a killer's elaborate plan, but to obtain a conviction they will need his cooperation in taking a life. Some murderers take the phrase literally after killing. They assume their victims live by concealing their crime and hiding inside their new

stolen

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thank you thank you home to over a million people Detroit is the largest and toughest city in Michigan and, like most metropolitan areas of its size, sees her share of crimes On May 4, 1994, Betty Cole arrived at the Detroit Police Department to report her 32-year-old sister Annie missing.

She said Annie had left to run a quick errand with her boyfriend Mo Jones several hours earlier, but she had not returned. Jones was supposedly involved in drugs and Betty was worried. that something bad had happened to her sister, but police policy requires at least 24 hours before a missing person investigation can be opened, not as precise a time as that, you know, Betty would have to wait, why? Why don't you go home? She will probably go to her Although she was upset, she returned home hoping that her sister would show up soon the next morning. An anonymous 9-1-1 call led police to an abandoned warehouse when they arrived.

Betty Cole and members of her family were waiting outside. Betty had also received an anonymous call. call from a man who claimed his sister Annie was inside, officers entered the building, at the end of a hallway they found the lifeless body of a young woman who had been shot three times in the head, police returned outside and He asked Betty to identify the body when she saw the victim collapsed and confirmed it was her sister Annie Cole. Forensic technicians began processing the scene near the body. They collected three spent small caliber casings. They also found a purse nearby, but it did not contain cash, credit cards or any form of identification.

The bullets recovered from the victim were sent to the Detroit Forensic Services laboratory, where Sergeant Paul Hartzell analyzed the bullets and casings recovered using a digital micrometer. The micrometer is a tool that we can use to help us determine the caliber of a bullet or to help us determine a probable marking of a particular bullet, this is done by mounting the bullet with the base facing up so that we can measure the diameter of the bullet to help us determine the caliber or we can measure the lands. and grooves in the bullet to help us determine a likely make of a gun that may have fired that bullet.

Each brand of gun creates its own characteristic pattern on a bullet and each individual firearm leaves unique marks on a bullet, much like fingerprint analysis of the gun. Marks on the three bullets recovered from the victim led examiners to conclude that it was a gun, a Smith and Wesson .22 caliber, that had been used to commit the murder, indicating that the trigger was the only one. Sergeant Patrick Henahan of the Detroit Police Department began his investigation by looking for the last person reported to have been with Annie Cole, her boyfriend Mo Jones, we were unable to develop any information on Mo Jones, we searched for, you know, arrest records from department, the Bureau of Narcotics records things of that nature that we couldn't find.

With nothing while the search for the mysterious Mo Jones was underway, investigators attempted to learn everything they could about Annie Cole, the victim's fingerprints recovered from the crime scene were entered into the police database containing fingerprint records after an exhaustive search, the database did not return any results. Coincidences Annie Cole had apparently stayed out of trouble until this terrible day. Unable to locate the victim's boyfriend, Detective Hanahan relied on Betty Cole for information, but after a few days it seemed like she had disappeared. She made another attempt, after the weekend, to contact her and it was almost as if she had suddenly fallen off the face of the Earth Pat, why don't you take a look at this with no clear clues in sight?

She enlisted the help of homicide detective Monica Childs. Her initial investigation revealed some troubling things. inconsistencies, although the victim's prints were not on file with the police department, a records check revealed an extensive history of serious crimes under the name Annie Cole, in fact, there was currently a warrant for her arrest and a violation of probation who were trying to resolve conflicting information. The examiners compared the The prince recovered at the crime scene with those contained in Annie Cole's criminal record did not match Annie Cole and the victim found in the warehouse were not the same person and although there were several people named Annie Cole who lived in the Detroit metropolitan area, the victim. and the known criminal shared a common address looking for answers the police went to the funeral home where the victim's body was kept there the director stated that Betty Cole had been four days earlier to request a prompt cremation for her sister she was in her four days Betty had emphasized that there was not going to be a national service was scheduled for the next day for Detective Monica Childs the arrangements did not make sense due to the age of the victim and perhaps in an African American, I know that culturally we have a service. okay, if there is no body we have a memorial service, even if the person is cremated there is a service and Pat and I talked about it, he said that doesn't sound right, that sounds a little strange, I said that's very unusual , here are some of the crime scene investigators' strongest clue in this unusual case was in a coffin that was about to be cremated.

She doesn't have her shoes. Her shoes are there. They got a court order to postpone the cremation to figure out the things the police needed to find Betty Cole. a woman who claimed to be the victim's sister at the address Betty had given us her own investigators were met by a man named James Shaver said he was Annie's brother Cole said it was impossible that Annie had been murdered a week ago he he had just seen her the day before leaving on a trip to Mississippi he had never heard of Betty Cole he agreed to accompany the police to the funeral home to try to identify the shaver he saw the body with a complete lack of recognition this woman whoever she was was not his sister Annie, if anyone could identify the anonymous victim found in the warehouse, it was the fictitious Betty Cole, who was nowhere to be found by investigators.

It was clear that she was deeply involved in this deadly charade. Detroit police struggled to make sense of a bizarre forensic murder investigation. Evidence showed that the young victim believed to be Annie Cole was misidentified and the woman who had identified her was now missing in hopes of giving a name to the victim found shot to death in the warehouse. Police recorded recent missing persons reports that one matched their The victim Quinetta and Roy Spruill had reported their niece Stella, 28, missing on May 4, the day before the body was found. Stella's co-workers had called the Sprouls looking for her.

The employees said that when Stella left for lunch that day, she was going to meet someone, although she never said who seemed optimistic, but when Stella did not return, they began to worry. The day after Stella disappeared, a department store employee called the Sprouls looking for her niece. Stella had just applied for a credit card and the store needed to verify. certain information in their application the sprouls could not imagine that Stella would simply walk away without saying a word Stella's evidence from what we learned of the family was a religious young woman a loyal friend simply a good person in every way the police asked the schools to see the body found in the warehouse which had since been returned to the medical examiner's office the victim was her niece Stella Sproul now the police had to find out who had murdered her and why

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contacted the department store where Stella had supposedly completed the credit card application Well, a surveillance camera had captured the transaction, detectives recognized the woman in the video and it was not Stella Sproul, it was the person who had identified herself as Betty Cole, the sister of The victim at the crime scene was now recorded posing as Stella and, although investigators were convinced that the woman in the video was the real Annie Cole.

They had yet to determine how she was connected to Stella Sproul in hopes of finding an answer. They went to Stella's workplace. The employees there recognized the woman on the tape. Her name they said was Annie Cole. She used to work there with Stella and the two were friends to the researchers. There was no doubt that Annie Cole was behind the government assassination of Stella. Now they needed proof. Police turned to Annie Cole's family for help. Annie's brother and one of her daughters were brought in. For questioning, police believed they could identify the male voice on the anonymous 9-1-1 call that led police to the warehouse where the victim's body was discovered.

James Shaver didn't recognize the voice, but Annie Cole's daughter thought he did. while she was listening to the copy of the 911 tape, uh, the only daughter said, well, that's my cousin Leander Annie Cole. Leander Annie Cole's seventeen-year-old nephew, Leander Foster, was brought in for questioning, police recognized him as being with the fictional Betty Cole in the warehouse when the body was discovered Foster, who had no criminal record, collapsed under the questionnaire and helped her. He admitted that Annie had promised him and her best friend five thousand dollars each to kill Stella Spruills the day before the murder.

Annie agreed to meet Stella in a shopping center parking lot. Leander and his partner were nearby to see their intended victim, so he showed us where she hangs out the next day when Stella arrived at lunchtime to meet Annie again. Leander Foster and her friend were waiting at gunpoint and forced her inside. The car and took her to the abandoned warehouse right there. Foster Sale shot him three times with a .22-caliber Smith and Wesson that Annie had given him for work. He cleaned out her purse and gave Stella's ID to Annie the next day from Annie Cole. filed the false missing persons report Leander called the police to report the body idea, this is all Annie's idea, so she didn't know what happened to the murder weapon on May 11, 1994, a week after the murder of Stella Sproul.

Annie Cole was located at a relative's home in Indianola, Mississippi, she was arrested and taken back to Detroit for questioning, but police had already discovered the motive behind Annie Cole's deadly plot. Annie Cole was probably an accomplished con artist; She was aware of the outstanding warrants for her arrest and she made a calculated decision. that she did not want to go back to prison based on her interviews with the co-defendants and Witnesses, she put in place a plan to assume that another person's

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disappears into the sunset if she will and live happily ever after to fake the her own death. and he needed a real victim, but she didn't have anyone in mind, the victim found her, yes.

Stella Spruill called her former coworker to invite her to a makeup demonstration. He refused, but realized at that moment who her victim was going to trust. working at the Stella school Annie Cole was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison Ender Foster also received life in prison the other accomplice pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 15 years in prison some people murdered to purify their reputation others are motivated by pure greed Bonner County, Idaho, lies between Washington state to the west and Montana to the east, but in 1994 it found itself in the middle of a mystery.

In late February, Shelley Kepley arrived at the Bonner County Sheriff's Office and everything seemed to be in order. She had flown from Reno, Nevada to check on her father Paul Gruber, who lived in the area. She suspected something was terribly wrong. Shelley said she had last seen her father a month earlier, when he had come to Reno for the holidays. At 54 he was independently wealthy as a result of good investments and had recently retired from teaching school. He had been living in Idaho for about six months and seemed happy there, butDuring the last month Shelley and her son had received several greetings. cards and cash gifts from her father, but the signature on the cards did not really resemble her handwriting and his repeated phone calls went unanswered.

If he had gone on a trip, he would have told her his plans, believing that someone could be impersonating his father. Shelley didn't know who else to turn to. Investigators sent the documents to the Idaho Department of Law Enforcement's crime lab, where examiners compared Gruber's known handwriting samples with the signatures on the greeting cards, but there was not enough to work with and examiners were unable to exclude Paul Gruber as the person who signed the cards, although the police had no evidence of foul play, They agreed to investigate the matter under the circumstances. Shelley had been granted power of attorney over her father's estate.

She gave police permission to search his property. Lieutenant Harvey Thompson went to Gruber's house to look around. Shelley had told him that her father kept his financial records and an inventory of his possessions in a locked box hidden in the crawl space. Lieutenant Thompson went there to retrieve it. There was an inventory inside. There were titles. Inside the vehicles there was some jewelry and insurance documents with the inventory now in hand. Investigators toured the house. Plastic sheets covering the furniture suggested Gruber had been gone for an extended period. It soon became evident. that several items on the list were nowhere to be found and were not the kind of things you pack just to go on a trip, I discovered about the missing weapons I discovered that a piece of computer equipment that should have been there was missing, a safe for weapons had just disappeared, uh, a lot of things were missing, it seems that Shelly Kepler's concerns about her father's disappearance were well founded and, although there was no physical evidence to prove it.

Police were now beginning to believe that Paul Gruber had suffered some harm. Foreign police in Bonner County, Idaho, continued to search for clues into the mysterious disappearance of 54-year-old Paul Gruber, and although no one had heard from him for some time, his stories were still active as they searched through financial records. obtained from Gruber's bank. Lieutenant Thompson found something suspicious. Paul Gruber had been paying someone else's mortgage so the police had discovered, which seemed completely out of character when talking to Shelley Kipley. Mr. Gruber's daughter. Mr. Gruber did not pay any others. people's mortgages didn't lend other people their vehicles, you know, which Mr.

Gruber gets pretty good at. Mr. Gruber's Daryl is great. The man whose mortgage Gruber was paying was brought in for questioning. He told police that he was a general contractor that he had done a lot of. work at Gruber's house on February 27 said he was starting a new home security business and other ventures that Paul Gruber had decided to invest in instead of investing cash; However, Gruber had agreed to make payments to Kuhl's Mortgage Company, who are investigating the agreement he failed to do. Sounds like something Shelley Kepler's father would accept to be sure they were talking about the same person.

Police showed Kuel a photograph of Paul Gruber, but Cool did not recognize him. That was not the man he knew. Apparently someone else was trying to get through. himself while Paul Gruber investigators asked him to describe the man who hired him to a police sketch artist police would have any hope of finding the missing Paul Gruber first they would have to identify the impostor police canvassed Gruber's neighborhood wondering but no one He recognized the face and no one had seen Gruber for some time as the race to put a name to the face in the sketch intensified.

The researchers had a break. The manager of the local post office had heard about The Disappearance and informed the police that Paul Gruber's mail was still being collected. from his post office box, yeah right, listen to me, do me a favor, he handed over a tape from a security camera that was located near Gruber's post office box. The video revealed three men at different times in the vicinity of Gruber's post office box, one of them partially obscured and in profile. One of the men who was in Mr. Gruber's Box looked familiar. During the period of time it seemed to be Daryl Cool, suddenly the best witness of the investigation was becoming the main suspect, although the image on the video did not was conclusive, it was enough for investigators to obtain.

In a warrant to search Kuel's property inside his home, they found a variety of tools, electronic equipment and other items similar to those missing from Paul Gruber's residence. Daryl Cool insisted the things belonged to him, but detectives discovered that some of the items had matching serial numbers. inventory of Gruber's safe, although police suspected that Kuel had killed Gruber and then assumed his identity to profit from his victim's wealth, they found nothing to support a murder charge. I had enough probable cause to arrest him for perhaps theft and possibly forgery, but I didn't have a body I couldn't prove that something had really happened to Mr.

Gruber feeling like something may have been overlooked Lt. Thompson ordered another search of the house de Gruber one of the investigators had found a strange depression in the crawlspace and the excavation team began digging beneath the house and kept at it for hours, but with no luck, about two feet deep they were overcome by the unmistakable smell. of a decomposing body. Police in northern Idaho were getting closer to solving the mysterious disappearance of 54-year-old Paul Gruber. In the crawl space of Gruber's house, police believe they had finally found him, we left the house and about two and a half feet down found a white plastic trash bag, took it out and found several pairs of glasses and glass cakes inside, also a distinctive order of a deteriorating body 17 months after his daughter reported him missing Paul Gruber's body was found wrapped in an air mattress and buried beneath his own home.

He had been shot six times. Police theorized that Paul Gruber had been murdered to clean up. the way someone steals his identity and his success the investigators of his wealth believed that someone was Daryl great now they had to prove it and the best way to do it was to physically link him to the plan to steal Gruber's identity the greeting cards that the daughter of Gruber allegedly received from his father were sent to the laboratory for DNA analysis. Examiners removed the seals from the envelopes hoping to find DNA from the person who mailed them, but according to Carla Finis of the Idaho Department of Law Enforcement crime lab, they found usable DNA samples on the envelopes.

The back of a seal was a long shot when talking about a seal or envelope, the cellular material comes from cells that have been shed from the saliva from the cheeks and tongue of the individual licking the seal or envelope. Imagine that is considerably less DNA than would be found in a normal blood sample. Still, examiners were able to isolate and extract a single tiny trace of saliva. The sample was sufficient to develop a DNA profile. Now they needed a source of comparison despite their protests. of Innocence Daryl kuel was arrested on suspicion of murdering Paul Gruber once in custody the police wasted no time obtaining a blood sample the evidence was sent back to the crime lab the examiners generated a DNA profile of Daryl cool the results later were compared to the profile generated by the Fusion root it was indisputable Daryl cool had licked those stamps the police had made their case from what investigators could determine he well had a history of shady business schemes he saw his employer, the rich retiree Paul Gruber, as an easy target, but Gruber must have seen through the scams.

Refusing to be taken calmly, he then came up with another plan to get his money back. He would become Paul Gruber. Daryl Cool was found guilty of first degree murder, grand larceny and forgery. He received 25 years for murder and 25 years for robbery. His daughter's diligence did. Cool finds it difficult to maintain his charade, but some predators rely on the vulnerability and isolation of their victims to carry out their plans on August 15, 1997. State police were sent to the home of Thomas Wayne Jones, 56 years, in Milford Delaware, when the Jones home The care nurse arrived at work and found traces of blood on the floor.

The house had been ransacked. Valuable coins and various. Financial records appeared to be missing. His employer, who was confined to a wheelchair, was not outside. Police combed the area for clues in Jones' case. Whereabouts one of the officers followed faint tire tracks that disappeared in a field. They left him 500 meters from the house and directly to the body of Thomas Wayne Jones. They had shot him in the back of the head but he was still alive. Emergency personnel rushed over. Upon arriving at the scene, the rich businessman was in critical condition, but still conscious he managed to tell the police the identity of his attacker.

An old friend named George Calamaris Jones said that after he was shot, Calamares put him in a white pickup truck and dumped him in a field. A warrant was issued for Calamaris' arrest records indicating Calamaris lived across the Delaware border in Silver Spring Maryland. There, Montgomery County Police Department officers were asked to bring in the suspect in the shooting of Thomas Wayne Jones, but when police went to pick up Calamaris. He was not home, Calamaris' wife Noreen stated that she had not heard from her husband in a few days, but agreed to contact the police when she heard from him, the police were skeptical that Calamaris' wife really I would deliver it in a few hours.

Later, Montgomery County Detective Terry Ryan received a call. Ms. Calamaris notified police once George Calamaris contacted her. He lived in a wooded area essentially in Lamb near her house and he contacted her in an effort to get some money and clothing. Calamaris told police that her husband was headed to a nearby store to buy supplies. He got out of the story, they moved in and made the arrest. He was transported to the Maryland Detention Center and booked for the attempted murder of Thomas Wayne Jones. Foreign squid admitted. He was friends with Jones and had recently returned to the area after living in North Carolina.

Calamares had gone to visit Jones that morning. He strongly denied any knowledge of the attack, although investigators suspected that Calamaris was lying, they had no obvious motive or strong evidence linking him to The crime believed that the squid truck used to transport the victim to the countryside would provide valuable clues. Police spent the next few months trying to locate him, but his whereabouts remained unknown, then they received a tip: an anonymous caller told police the van could be found. at an auto shop in nearby Dickerson, Maryland, owned by one of Calamaris' friends, but when they arrived, investigators saw no sign of the truck.

The store owner denied any knowledge of the vehicle, although he admitted that he was a friend of George Calamaris. The lead seemed to be a waste. of time until a package of mail caught the detective's attention the name on the letters due to a striking similarity to the name of the Delaware shooting victim with several emails sent from our bank in North Carolina addressed to a person named Gary Wayne Thomas, I knew that this similarity in the names of our Delaware victim, Thomas Wayne Jones, was probably more than a coincidence, in fact, at the time we expected it, it was probably some alias that Calamaris had come up with from the Jones case, said that Thomas' mail arrived there and George Calamares picked it up safely and now that Calamaris was in prison awaiting extradition to Delaware, his wife picked it up not being sure if this tip was related to the shooting of Thomas Wayne Jones in Delaware .

Montgomery County Detective Joe Mandano contacted the Bank of North Carolina to see if there really was a customer named Gary Wayne Thomas, they said yes there was and I said, well can you describe him to me? And I was expecting them to describe what George Calamaris looks like and they describe someone completely different and I asked well, when is this him? The last time you saw Gary Wayne Thomas and the bank said, well, come to think of it, it was probably in 1996, mid-'96. And this was more than a year later, according to bank records. Gary Wayne ThomasHe was worth millions, no one had seen him in over a year for the UFC to continue as police struggled to uncover the connection.

News came that Thomas Wayne Jones died as a result of injuries from the shooting attack. Now police shifted their focus to building a murder case against their suspect George Kalamas. As police struggled to link George Calamaris to the murder of Thomas Wayne Jones in Delaware, their investigation uncovered a strange clue that Calamaris was receiving mail from a bank. in North Carolina for a man named Gary Wayne Thomas. Thomas was not sure who this person was or how he was connected to George Calamaris. He contacted the authorities. of the North Carolina police, Detective Ricky, the best in the Greenville Police Department, was asked to follow the lead.

I was asked to check a certain location here in Greenville to try to locate Gary Wayne Thomas. They were investigating the murder case themselves and wanted to know if Caraway Thomas existed. It was best for the detective to start by talking to the manager of the bank where the letters to Gary Wayne Thomas originated. She confirmed that Thomas was in fact a real person and that he lived off the interest of a trust fund worth over a million dollars. We are still active and the money was withdrawn regularly, but for the past year he communicated only through letters. and rare phone calls in search of answers.

Greenville Police contacted Thomas' family. His father confirmed that he had created the trust fund for his son. He said Gary was a troubled young man who struggled with drug and alcohol dependency and was now concerned about the well-being of his son. He ordered the family's lawyer to draw up the trust that he hoped would limit the amount of money Gary could access to buy drugs and alcohol, but the arrangement had caused friction and Mr. Thomas had little contact with Gary afterward. In fact, he had not heard from his son in more than a year. The information did not bring investigators any closer to making the connection between Gary Wayne Thomas and George Calamaris that they needed.

To find Thomas in hopes of locating him, police contacted the apartment manager at his last known address. She said Gary Wayne Thomas disappeared sometime around June or the first part of July 1996 and she thought he would be strange because he left all of his belongings behind. she there at the apartment, but one of Gary's friends, whom she referred to as George Calamaris, told her that Gary was in Maryland. Police had established that George Calamaris and Gary Wayne Thomas had lived in the same apartment complex in North Carolina and were friends of the wealthy Gary. Wayne Thomas was missing, the information was passed to Maryland detectives.

I got some police. He now feared that Gary Wayne Thomas had suffered the same fate as Thomas Wayne Jones in Delaware, that he had been murdered in an attempt to recover his money, but he had no evidence that anything had actually happened to Gary Wayne Thomas. In fact, money was still being withdrawn from Thomas' account through a bank in Silver Spring Maryland, but it couldn't be Calamaris making the withdrawals. He was in prison. Well, we ask the bank to please. keep the account open, don't close it, allow the withdrawals to continue so we can start tracking them and when we did, immediately from the transaction code codes we were able to find out which bank the money is in. it was being withdrawn because of Maryland we got the film from the bank and the first film we got the person who got the money was Noreen Calamaris George's wife who had been Cooperative from the beginning of the investigation was arrested for bank fraud and money laundering a subsequent search for the calamari At his home they discovered Gary Wayne Thomas's ATM card and some unsent letters supposedly signed by him asking his bank to increase his monthly allowance.

Noreen told police that after her husband was arrested, her friend at her Machine Shop began bringing Thomas' mail, which included bank statements and ATM card. and blank checks, she said her husband told her that Thomas had given them permission to use the items that Noreen had not seen or heard from Thomas since he left North Carolina with George Calamaris several months earlier. The information led investigators to search for letters written in Calamaris' cell. ready to be mailed to bank in North Carolina signed Gary Wayne Thomas were confiscated because the US mail was being used to perpetuate crimes the evidence was sent to the US Postal Inspection Service crime lab.

In the U.S. in New York, forensic sciences manager John Schatz compared the handwriting of documents found in Calamaris' home and jail cell against known samples of Gary Wayne Thomas. We know that we never write exactly the same way, if we have writings that are exactly the same, usually it is an indication that it is a trace forgery or another type of photocopy that has been reproduced and the document has faded, but in many cases what we do is compare the idiosyncratic movement, we do a comparison of similar motions and dissimilar motions and then determine if they are written by the same author.

In addition to the shape and slant of the letters, analysts also look for pressure on the page and places where a forger paused to consciously form his letters in a certain way. These pen lifts may be an indication of a fake when we made those comparisons. Able to determine that Mr. Calamaris was the author of Gary Thomas' signatures on the typewritten letters, unable to evade the evidence, Calamaris knew his career was over to avoid the death penalty, confessed to his crimes and told investigators who had been friends with Gary Wayne. Thomas, but soon became jealous of his wealth, plotted to kill him and take over his life or at least his trust fund.

In July 1996, the Calamaris offered to show Thomas some marijuana plants that he said he was growing in a field near the apartments. beautiful, but when they drove there, the squids shot Thomas to death, he left him in the woods and then returned to scatter the remains so they would never be found. The crime went undetected for almost three years financially. It had worked well for the calamari, but that was it. Shortly after returning to Maryland, he began advising another plan: he would kill his friend Thomas Wayne Jones, assume his identity, and profit from his victim's wealth.

The plan failed, however, when Jones lived long enough to identify his victim. attacker for his crimes, George Calamaris received 395 years for the federal crime of bank fraud, life imprisonment for the murder of Thomas Wayne Jones and 45 years for the murder of Gary Wayne Thomas thank you Noreen Calamaris received six months of house arrest for money laundering and postal fraud some murderers took their lives it is not enough that they want to become their victims the result is a continuous deception that is difficult to maintain every day increases the chances that a murderer will be exposed hiding behind a

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identity a young mother is found murdered Near her home in Indiana, investigators only have one piece of evidence to help them find her killer.

When a female body is discovered along the banks of the Alabama River, detectives must rely on a few tiny fragments of evidence to present. their case in New York, a woman is found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs the police must determine if her death is a suicide or a murder when there are no eyewitnesses to a murder the instigators look at physical evidence to make their case the Forensic examiners search for that clue that can blow a case wide open a clue known as the Silence Witness, named for the river that flows through its center Elkhart Indiana embodies the ideal of small town America, a quiet community and united, a place unfamiliar with violent crime problems on March 3, 1992, a concerned father walked into the Elkhart Police Department to file a missing persons report.

People report that my daughter Rubén Hernández had not heard from her daughter in almost 15 hours. Sandra Hernandez, 25, had dropped off her three-year-old son around 5 p.m. m. the previous night. Rubén believed that Sandra had a date that night. After saying goodbye, Sandra promised that she would return in a couple of hours to pick him up. Reuben and his wife were always happy to spend time with her only grandchild and were happy to see that Sandra was starting to enjoy her life again; She had recently ended a relationship. The turbulent four-year relationship with the possessive father of her son, Reuben, explained that when he went to see Sandra at her apartment he got no response, even though his car was still parked in front of a particular guy. that he had been having a bad time.

Mr. Hernandez's concerns prompted Elkhart Police Lt. Tom Cutler to waive the 24-hour waiting period required before opening a missing person investigation. He is a guy who is very worried not only about his grandson, who was cared for, but also about his missing daughter and he knew she wouldn't leave. and leave the child without touching base with him, what do you know about that? Distributing Sandra's description to area law enforcement agencies, police quickly contacted her ex-boyfriend. Did they argue? Sean Parks strongly denied any knowledge of Sandra's disappearance, but admitted that his four-year relationship with her had been Rocky, saying that recently he and Sandra had been arguing frequently and sometimes violently, mainly fighting over custody of their son.

Sandra swore that she would never give up on her child, but despite the tensions, Parks insisted that he would never hurt Sandra. or her son the night Sandra disappeared, he claimed he was at work, although Parks was cooperative. Investigators know from experience that custody battles can sometimes end in murder. We checked with work and he was there all night and did not leave the premises, so he had no reason to believe that he had interacted with Sandra Hernandez that night with the only obvious suspect eliminated. Investigators had to consider that Sandra could have left town of her own volition and, although that seemed unlikely, they had to be sure that they went to her residence.

Searching for answers, what they found only supported her suspicions that the young mother had encountered Foul Play, none of Sandra's clothes appeared to be missing and her luggage was still neatly stored in her closet. Hi Jim, In the kitchen, detectives found a container full of $230 in cash. Sandra's driver's license was also in the tip along with several other personal documents. Police saw no evidence to suggest she had simply packed her bags and left town. I don't think she went anywhere. Her neighbors later stated that they had not seen or heard Sandra in her apartment since she left to drop off her son the night she disappeared.

With each passing hour, investigators realize that the chances of finding Sandra unharmed decrease and they need to determine if Sandra had been on a date the night she disappeared. And if so, who did Sandra's friend who worked with her at a door manufacturing company come with to answer questions? He hadn't noticed anything unusual about Sandra's behavior in recent days. How long has she been with the company? In fact, the night she disappeared. Sandra was. excited about a date she had with a co-worker who was pressing the issue for a rather large man Ricky Joyner was a delivery driver at the company he had been friends with Sandra for some time when he was contacted by the police Joyner offered to come and respond questions that researchers immediately noticed. new scratches on his face and hands Joyner claimed a door that fell on him at work caused the injuries.

Sandra the Gentleman showed up but only her friends said that she picked her up at 6 pm, they had dinner and then they went to the movie which lasted approximately two hours and dropped her off around 9:30. Sandra was in a hurry to pick up her son. He saw her get into her car and get out of it. She had not seen or heard anything from Sandra Sims. The researchers asked Joyner to fill out a scientific content analysis form. As a scanning questionnaire like a polygraph, the questionnaire allows investigators to analyze a person's written responses for signs of deception or inconsistencies.

The scanning questionnaire is a written form we give to people that asks them specific questions and asks them to respond in their own writing. It gives us a way of doing an informal interview that sometimes reveals a lot about the information the person provides. Investigators analyze Joyner's statements using the information to reconstruct theSandra's movements before her disappearance. Lieutenant Cutler quickly found a troubling inconsistency. Part of his statement was that he dropped her off at the apartment and she got in his car and drove off, well his car was still there and the neighbors said no, no, no one came here that night, which brings us to to believe that part of the story was not true, even though the police had no motive or direct evidence that a crime had been committed.

They obtained a warrant to search. Joyner's resonance search found nothing. Researchers knew they needed to look beyond the obvious. They collected common household items, including a garbage bag. Joyner's kitchen, dotted with stains that appeared to be blood tests, later showed, however, that the substance was not of human origin, having found no conclusive evidence linking Joyner to Sandra's disappearance, the investigation threatened to freeze. Well, they certainly look bleak, unfortunately we still don't. We don't know how to evaluate them, we suspect some foul play occurred. We have seen cases where people leave and disappear for reasons no one knows and come back.

We were certainly worried that this was not a good situation we were in. They were going to find her dead on April 15, 1992, a month and a half after Sandra Hernández was reported missing, her worst fears were confirmed. A farmer in nearby LaGrange County, Indiana, made a gruesome discovery: the body of a young woman as investigators in Elkhart, Indiana, continued to search. Sandra Hernandez, 25, received a call from police in nearby LaGrange County. A body matching Sandra's description was found in an isolated field. A black trash bag covering the victim's head was removed and preserved as evidence using photographs.

Investigators confirmed that Sandra Hernández had finally Police began combing the scene for useful evidence, but nothing was found that could help them identify the suspect. After an extensive search of the area, it appeared that Sandra's killer had been careful not to leave any trace of evidence in the autopsy, the medical examiner. It was determined that Sandra had died from asphyxiation. The result was a global strangulation. An analysis of the victim's stomach contents indicated that she had been killed an hour after eating. The medical examiner's analysis made Ricky Joyner's alibi impossible. Sandra couldn't have gone to see a two-hour movie after eating.

Dinner with Joyner, as she had previously claimed, had anyone been to her house yet? But to prove the murders, investigators knew they needed more than a few inconsistencies in Joyner's story. They had to present strong evidence to link Joyner to the crime scene, but all they had. It was the garbage bag recovered from Joyner's apartment. The garbage bag turns out to have the most significance of all. The garbage bag found on the body has been removed when the state police technician decides to look at the evidence in the senator's laboratory. they talked over our texts and he decides, hey, we got this bag from Joyner suspect's apartment, let's send it to the lab with the bag we found on the body just so they can look at it.

The bags were sent to forensic examiner John Vanderkolk of the Indiana State Police. lab, although it seemed like a long shot, Vanderkop was asked to determine whether the bag recovered from the victim and the bag seized from Joyner's apartment could have come from the same piece of plastic to begin her analysis. Van Der Coke started by looking for repeatable class characteristics. repeatable class characteristics would be the cutting tool that would be used to cut the bags the size and shape of the bag the overall color of the bag the dimensions of the bag any characteristics of the bag that can be repeated in the manufacturing process Illuminating the evidence, Vanderkolk determined that random color variations, microscopic impurities, and striations were consistent between bags.

He continued his analysis by comparing the bags end to end. Erkolk discovered that the unique tool marks made when the bags were separated during manufacturing corresponded between the top of one of the bags and the bottom of the other, he was certain that the two bags had originated from the same piece of plastic and, in fact, came from the same paper. I was convinced by the random variation of pigments that moved from one bag to the other and also the random impurities and streaks generated by the impurities that moved from one bag to the other directly through the separation of the cut, the randomness it definitely moved to the entire circumference of the bottom of the bag from Sandra Hernández's head. and the top of the bag that the Elkhart Police Department had to recover from Ricky Joyner's house Ricky Ricky with no way to explain how a bag of garbage from his apartment ended up around the victim's head Ricky Joyner was arrested and accused of the murder of Sandra Hernández police officer He assumed that after going out to dinner together Sandra went with Joyner to his residence but something went wrong.

After a violent struggle, Joyner strangled Sandra to death. Police theorized that before putting her body in his car, he covered Sandra's head with a garbage bag to prevent traces of blood from remaining. He then took his victim to nearby LaGrange County and placed her in the isolated field and left her there after extensive legal proceedings a jury found Ricky Joyner guilty of the murder of Sandra Hernandez he was sentenced to 60 years in prison Ricky Joyner believed that a ordinary garbage bag would cover up his crime other murderers would go to even greater places strives to hide his guilt nestled in the Tennessee River Valley, the city of Decatur Alabama clings to a rich and colorful past.

The south's charm and reputation as a fishing paradise attract thousands of sportsmen each year, but in 1988 the river attracted a different type of visitor. On July 5, a fisherman called Decatur police after stumbling upon a body dressed in a nightgown and blue pajamas near shore. The police were able to determine that the body was female but little else, the victim had been decapitated after securing the area, investigators began the task of processing. The crime scene had little to offer: blood-spattered stones on the road and drag marks on the road. Overgrowth LED detectives concluded that the victim had been murdered elsewhere and then taken to the river.

There were no signs of tire tracks or anything else that could help police identify the killer with only the victim's fingerprints to work with Decatur Police Sergeant John Boyd. The Department began trying to put a name through Jane Doe and from those fingerprints we tried several agencies to see if we could make an identification. We tried here, we tried through Huntsville and couldn't get anything to expand the search for prints. They were cataloged and then sent to the FBI, whose national fingerprint database might yield better results. Meanwhile, investigators hoped an autopsy could tell them more about how this victim died.

Determining the exact cause of death would be difficult, but the medical examiner found some weak ones. ligature marks below where the head had been severed, indicating that the victim had been strangled before being decapitated with a dull cutting tool. The pajama top and nightgown the victim was wearing were collected and sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, where evidence examiner John Kilborn began processing the clothing for possible clues. We use a method we call taping where we take cellophane tape and using the stickier adhesive surface of the tape, we press it onto the clothing and what it does is it collects any particles, hairs, fibers or other particles.

From the surface of that clothing, Kilbourne found a substantial amount of hair and a variety of red and black synthetic fibers that had adhered to the victim's clothing. He had more than 20 years of experience analyzing similar evidence from crime scenes. Kilbourne thought he knew his origin. Some of the fibers were. unusual because the fibers had adhesive, some type of glue on the surface. I have had other similar cases that had fibers similar to this and in each of these cases it turned out to be adhesive from a felt mat on the trunk mat and I felt that by looking at these fibers we were seeing that possibly this victim had been in the trunk of a car, but until examiners had a source of comparison, the value of these items alone would remain limited.

Days later, police believed they got their At the first break, fishermen reported finding a human head floating near the shore. The area was less than a mile from where Jane Doe's body had been discovered. It had obviously been rotting for at least three days. It was an overwhelming stench. The head was in a severe state of decomposition. We had extreme difficulty even lifting him and getting him into the boat. We finally had to get enough plastic bags, pack it up and put it on ice and put it in a Styrofoam cooler and put it on ice and take it.

Frustrated by the lack of progress, police realized that until they could find a way to identify the decapitated woman, this case would likely remain unsolved. Foreign police in Decatur Alabama were making little progress in identifying a decapitated female victim pulled from the banks of the Tennessee River over the next 10 days. Investigators reviewed dozens of missing persons reports in an effort to learn the identity of the victim, but none matched the description of their Jane Doe case. They threatened to go unsolved, but on July 15 they had a break when searching through military archives, the FBI found a fingerprint matching the victim.

Jane Doe was identified as Sandra Gail Leslie, 32, formerly enlisted in the United States Air Force. Records indicated that she was currently living in Nashville, Tennessee, 120 miles from where she was found, police took the initiative that same day after we learned who she was, we contacted Metro Nashville authorities and found out that they did, in fact, have a missing person report on police for Ms. Leslie. She learned that her husband had reported Sandra Leslie missing two days after her body was discovered in Alabama. She traveled to Tennessee and ended up with authorities in Nashville. Her first visit was to Sandra Leslie's husband.

Billy Leslie, 39, told police his marriage to Sandra had been rocky but he loved his wife of nearly 10 years and said they were trying to resolve their problems. A few days before her disappearance, the couple left their two children with relatives in an effort to spend more time alone together, but on the afternoon of July 4 Billy returned home from running errands to discover that Sandra and her clothes were missing. Hello how are you? You said that in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, Sandra had received numerous unexplained phone calls; Afterwards, she often left the house without explanation, leaving Billy. to look after the children, he was convinced she was having an affair, although he did not know with whom, as a matter of routine, the police asked if they could look around her.

Billy gave his consent to the surprise. Investigators immediately found inconsistencies in his statements. Sergeant Robert Moore of the Nashville Police Department participated in the search and said he took her clothes because her closet was so full of clothes that she couldn't fit another blouse in there, there was no room for them. nothing else. The dresser drawers, his clothes were gone, but still, every drawer was full, I mean it, it just didn't look like anyone had moved in, although Billy couldn't explain the discrepancy, he insisted that he would never hurt anyone. his wife and certainly had nothing to do with her murder, he agreed to let forensic technicians In the process of his living room, luminol was applied to the floor, but investigators found no traces of blood or any other signs of violence, but there were Despite the lack of evidence, investigators suspected that Billy Leslie was hiding something, police began interviewing friends and neighbors.

A neighbor claimed that Billy and Sandra often fought a few days before Sandra disappeared. He heard what she described as a rampaging fight coming from outside her window when she looked outside and saw Billy. yelling at Sandra as the fight escalated, Billy physically abused her wife, the neighbor didn't remember seeing Sandra after that, she just assumed Sandra eventuallyhad decided to leave Billy, maybe that's exactly what Billy Leslie wanted everyone to believe, come here, just have one Sandra's friends told the police that Sandra had recently filed for divorce and as a result, Billy He had become increasingly violent towards her.

I think, first of all, so much so that just before her death, Sandra decided to change the beneficiary of her life insurance policy that we are working on. with the people in Decatur Alabama before the change, Billy Leslie was going to win 150 thousand dollars for the death of Sandra who had feared for her life and changed the beneficiary of that insurance policy to his brother in California and specifically asked him to insure her children were cared for in case anything happened to her. Billy was not informed that he was no longer the beneficiary for investigators. A possible motive for the murder was beginning to emerge.

Billy Leslie, as far as he knew, had a lot to gain from After that night, police obtained a warrant to search Billy's car, possibly used to transport Sandra's body to Alabama. Luminol was applied to Trump. Investigators found an overwhelming amount of substance that appeared to be Billy Leslie's blood. He explained that he had recently gone fishing and put his catch in the trunk. The trunk rug was collected and sent back to the Decatur crime lab for a more complete forensic examination. While he awaited test results, investigators continued to build their case. Hoping to find witnesses who could expose Billy near the crime scene, police released details of the murder to the media in Alabama a few days later; the tactic paid off.

A Decatur resident recalled having a conversation with a man at a convenience store a few hours before Sandra's body was discovered. Well, the woman directed him to an area half a mile away, it was the same place where the victim was found. She was shown a list of photographs. Well, I was in the community. She had no idea who the suspect in the photo lineup was, but she could. She would immediately name Billy Leslie and say, this is the guy, this is the guy who was here and asked me about a place to fish. Witness testimony put Billy Leslie only half a mile from the crime scene on the day of the murder.

They had no doubt that he was responsible for the death of his wife now they expected the crime lab to provide irrefutable evidence. Authorities were closing in on Billy Leslie, the man they believed responsible for the beheading of his wife Sandra, although his case was largely circumstantial. Mat collected from the suspect's car could physically link him to the homicide after serological testing determined that blood found on the trunk mat was not fish blood as Billy Leslie claimed. Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences monitoring analyst John Kilbourne began analyzing dozens of recovered hairs and fibers. From the carpet, using a comparison microscope, he began looking for common characteristics between the trunk carpet samples and those recovered from the clothing Sandra Leslie was wearing.

Color, texture and shape of the cross section of the matching fibers. We found several fibers from the victim. clothing that was consistent with some of the known fibers from the trunk mat, as well as some foreign fibers that were in the trunk mat, so we were able to show a link between the fibers and hairs outside the vehicle. The victim herself, Sandra Leslie's body had been in the trunk of that car and the only other person known to have been driving the vehicle was her husband Billy Billy Leslie was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife.

Sandra Police theorized that Billy Leslie believed there was much to be gained by killing his wife before their divorce was finalized on July 4, 1988, after a heated argument, Billy made the decision to kill his wife after strangling Sandra loaded her into the trunk of her car and prepared to dispose of the body on the banks of the Tennessee River in Decatur, Alabama, without realizing that her fingerprints were on file with the military. Billy believed that separating the head from the body would make identification impossible in December 1989. Billy Wayne Leslie was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

In prison, even in death, Sandra Leslie managed to leave clues that pointed to the identity of her killer, but in some cases investigators have no idea where she will take the evidence. The quiet, middle-class neighborhood of Lake Grove, New York, is a haven of suburban living. However, Serenity's illusion could not provide protection against the tragedy. On April 7, 1994, police and paramedics were sent to the home of 47-year-old Stuart Kovacs. Kovac said Irene, his wife of more than 20 years, was inside dead and he believed she had killed him. herself jumping from the second floor balcony not wanting to contaminate the scene the officer allowed only one paramedic to enter the house inside the house.

The lifeless body of Irene Kovac, 45, was lying on the floor covered with a towel, her hair was wet, indicating that she had recently taken a shower. The paramedic noticed bruises on the victim and a cut lip. There was an empty container. with gasoline additive nearby a large amount of the substance was found accumulated in the victim's mouth strange that Irene Kovacs had been poisoned and then jumped or fell from the second floor balcony Stuart Kovacs said that while working in the garage he cut himself with a power tool while going inside to get a Band-Aid, discovered his wife on the floor in a panic, called 9-1-1 and then went up to the bedroom to get a towel.

To cover her and clean her wound in the couple's bed, he discovered a suicide note hidden under the family Bible. As a matter of routine protocol, homicide investigators were sent to the scene armed with a video camera and the team entered the residence almost immediately. They were struck by the appearance of the victim, Lt. John Girash of the Police Department. Suffolk County explains that it is unusual for a woman to want to be discovered undressed and on her own, which is not evidence of anything other than suicide, but it is one of the circumstances we take into account as we investigate after removing the body, police continued examining the scene on the second floor.

On the landing they found a piece of drywall recently dented in the wall at ankle height, as if it had recently been kicked in anger or perhaps a fight without being sure of its meaning, the area along with the rest of the scene was thoroughly photographed A short time later, after learning of his mother's death, Kovac's 19-year-old son came to talk to detectives and said the situation at home had become tense in recent months, if he had the problem of causing things, her parents' divorce was about to be finalized soon and her father had become increasingly abusive, often exploding in anger over nothing in a recent incident.

Stuart Kovacs returned home early from work and confronted Irene with a note he discovered had been sent to her by a business associate, although Irene denied any wrongdoing. Stewart accused her of having an affair and threatening her with violence. Suffolk County Homicide Detective Robert Doyle, the Kovacs children indicated to us that there was a very, very poor relationship at home that apparently Irene Kovacs had a tremendous fear of Stu Kovacs he abused her mentally probably more than physically it was a situation really hellish to be children in that particular house the son added that the night before his mother's death she had seemed normal and happy to investigators, not at all depressed or suicidal, the routine suicide investigation had raised more questions than answers .

Irene Kovacs just didn't seem like a possible candidate for suicide, now the police realized that the circumstances surrounding this tragedy demanded a closer look, although it seemed that 45-year-old Irene Kovacs had poisoned herself and then jumped from the balcony from the second floor of her home in Lake Grove, New York, police were not convinced. A few hours after her body was discovered, police returned to the residence with a warrant as they were searching for evidence that Irene's husband, Stuart Kovacs, had murdered his forensic examiner. Robert Jenna was asked to assist in the search. The fact that we have someone claiming that this is a suicidal husband and the pieces of the puzzle just don't seem to fit into a suicide.

Now you have to focus heavily on the physical evidence to try to prove that it was actually a suicide or prove that it was something other than a suicide to disprove the suicide story. Police looked for evidence of a violent struggle and though Kovacs blamed it. A deep cut on his finger in a power tool accident police speculated could also be explained by a blow received with a sharp object such as a tooth, but traces of Stuart Kovac's blood were found exactly where he insisted the accident occurred. . The search continued inside the house. In the couple's second-floor bathroom, police found traces of blood on the toilet seat, a washcloth found in the sink also appeared to be stained with blood.

Kovac said blood from his injured finger investigators collected evidence in the bedroom, an officer recovered the suicide note found earlier. by Stuart Kovacs Although the writing was identified as that of Irene, a close inspection of the language caught the attention of the investigators, if it was intended to be a suicide note, it was actually some writings by Irene Kovacs that really had nothing to do with it. do with suicide at all what she was talking about. her life she was talking about various things she was personally going through in her life at no point did that particular note indicate or suggest that she was going to commit suicide not sure what to do with the evidence that the police hoped Irene herself could Al To give them answers, the medical examiner determined that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to Irene's head and chest, but could not rule out that the injuries occurred as a result of the fall from the second floor.

Blood and tissue samples were collected and sent to the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory, toxicologists began analyzing the samples for the presence of methanol alcohol, the main compound used in gasoline additives, such as the one allegedly Irene swallowed. The first examiners analyzed Irene's blood samples by using a gas chromatogram that separates complex mixtures into individual compounds; analysis of the blood confirmed that there were fatal amounts of methanol. Toxicologist Ed Briglia of the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory continued analysis of the tissue samples. After that finding, we analyzed other samples that we received mainly, gastric contents, intestinal and esophageal contents, those samples did not reveal methanol. be present, which was completely contrary to the idea that Ms.

Kovacs could have consumed methanol shortly before her death. The reason this is the case is that it takes a period of time from a minimum of about an hour to about four or five. hours for the alcohol to be eliminated from the stomach so that the methanol is found in the blood but not in the tissues told the examiners that the gas additive had been absorbed through Irene's skin; she never ingested it by mouth. swallowed the gas attitude to make sense of Following the findings, police turned to forensic examiner Robert Jenna using photographs and diagrams of the scene.

Jenna found a clue that there were parts of Irene's body lying under the second floor. On landing it was unlikely that she would rest in that position after falling over the railing and Stuart Kovacs claimed that he never touched Irene's body and there was something else: one of the photographs revealed that gas additive stains on the floor formed an outline of Irene's body to get this type of pattern in which the victim would have to have been lying down. this position when the material was deposited on it instead of falling from above. Landing already had the material in her system, so it was consistent with her being in this position lying on her back, the liquid deposited on her face and body causing this contour.

That led us to believe that this particular case was not a suicide but a homicide. The scheme along with the toxicologist's findings showed that the gas additive had been poured into Irene's mouth while she was already dead or dying in the room. ground to state their case The police still needed evidence of the fight. Examiners performed DNA tests on the various blood samples collected from the couple's bathroom. Woman relieved she left Stewart's severed finger, but analysis disproved Stuart Kovac's story. All of the blood found in the bathroom came from Irene, which showed that she had been bleeding before the fall from the balcony to theinvestigators, was proof that Irene Kovacs had not taken her life, but that Stuart Kovacs had taken it with a court order in his hand.

Police quickly located Stuart Kovacs as he returned home from work. He was arrested and booked for murder by vehicle. Investigators believe that after hitting Irene while she was getting out of the shower, Stuart Kovacs forced her to jump onto the balcony and poured the gas additive in his mouth to make his death look like a suicide. blood from a cut suffered during the assault on the power tool in the garage on December 17, 1996 Stuart Kovacs was found guilty of second degree murder he was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison some murderers will stop at nothing to hide their crimes when There are no human observers in a murder.

Investigators must look for a different type of witness to reveal the killer's identity. They turned to the crime lab where forensic examiners can uncover the truth by turning the smallest clue into a silent witness.