The Impossible Cold Case Closed By A Beer Bottle | The New Detectives | Real Responders

After taking advantage of all their resources, investigators are unable to link the killer to his crime. Six

bottle

s of

beer

will make a

case

. A woman is taken from her watery grave. The only witnesses have taken wings. The

detectives

must use an empty cocoon to catch a murderer. A cunning serial poisoner. Stay one step ahead of the law to stop him Investigators need to extract a confession from a graveyard of deleted computer files Police rarely have the benefit of smoking guns or bloody fingerprints to solve crimes after obvious clues are revealed cool

detectives

with an eye for detail can use science to probe the most unlikely sources november 1996 friday the 13th a man and his dog took their usual morning walk around the ymca football fields in columbia south carolina, but on that day something stopped them in their tracks what he thought was a childish act the prank turned out to be horribly

real

face down on the grass lay the motionless body of a woman with her hair covered in blood the authorities confirmed that the woman was dead with several gunshots in her head. head at point-blank range using his body temperature as an indicator that they estimated that he had died just a few hours before, between three and four in the morning, the investigators walked the grass without knowing what could give a clue, photographed and collected all the garbage found around the body, the shoulder pad of a woman's blouse could have been torn off during the The fight against an empty bag pointed to robbery as a motive: two empty

beer

bottle

s could contain the killer's fingerprints;

It was too early to tell. Expanding their search, police found evidence of more immediate value: three bullet casings and two spent bullets, which indicated to investigators that the woman had been The shooting at this location was not simply dumped here, it also gave them the basis for a ballistic comparison, but first they would need a suspect and before they could find one they would need to know who the victim was. The body was taken to Richland Memorial Hospital. where she was identified by her fingerprints as Virginia Russell, 30 years old, she had a police record for drunk driving in the laboratory, the forensic

case

was paralyzed, the technicians could not find any physical link with the murderer, the shoulder pad was a dead end fingerprints on beer bottles were too smudged to identify body lacked foreign hairs, fibers or other samples that could link a suspect to the crime sergeant detectives turned to friends and family to talk to the aunt From the victim, investigators learned that the hospital where her body now lay was actually the last place Virginia was seen alive.

She had spent the last night of her life visiting her cousin's sick baby. Her relatives were happy to see that after a struggle with alcoholism, Virginia Russell was turning her life around since she took a new job at a night cleaning service. Her wallet was always full of cash. This caused detectives to speculate about the robbery as a motive do you remember how much money the wallet had not yet been found what they probed for more information the ant remembered that russell's pager went off when russell returned? On the page she was heard taking directions to an address in the Olympia neighborhood, but Russell was not heading to clean an office nor was it the line of work that paid her bills, another family member confessed to the police, virginia russell was a prostitute.

Working for an escort service, the job put her in the company of a host of shady characters, most of whom concealed her identities with such a list of suspects. The case would be challenging, if not

impossible

, to solve, but police took a break the day after the body was discovered. His car was found in a parking lot in Olympia. There was blood on the back seat console. Inside his trunk. There was a single bottle of nickel-brand of the same brand found near her body the car was towed to the police laboratory where technicians looked for fingerprints hair and fiber they found nothing they took blood samples from the dashboard that matched the blood type of the Victim Russell must have been shot at least once while in the car.

Detectives had taken another step toward reconstructing the actual crime, but they were nowhere in pursuit when Sergeant Andrew Caldwell of the Richland County Sheriff's Office found out. of the murder, he suspected it was not an isolated incident, he was puzzled by a rape case at the time and wondered if the same brutal individual could be responsible for both crimes, his theory. It was based on more than one hundred processes, one of the main similarities was that both were employed by escort services as prostitutes, as well as the location of Virginia Russell's car. Virginia Russell's vehicle was found within sight of the apartment where the sexual assault had previously occurred.

If Caldwell could solve the rape case, he could catch a killer in the process. On the night of November 10, three days before Virginia Russell's death, a service driver dropped off a 20-year-old prostitute in Olympia to meet with a man. who said his name was Daniel Davis the man attacked her almost immediately if she wanted to live he told her she would have to fulfill his every whim he dragged her to the bedroom and sexually assaulted her after the attack he emptied the young woman's wallet and threw her out of the room the house while she wandered dazedly through the neighborhood her attacker took away.

He took one last look at her face before calling for help. Daniel Davis was a fake name. The apartment investigators discovered was rented to a man named Roy Becht Jr., who matched the description the victim gave police. His name was familiar throughout the apartment. A series of burglaries had kept him in and out of trouble. Since his adolescence, from a computerized database, investigator Randy Strange compiled a group of images from a library of police photographs, bringing together the details of the suspect in terms of age, race, height, hair color, the computer automatically gives us possible candidates that match. with the suspect as roy beck all the men were in their 20s around 5-5 with dark hair of that lineup the victim identified roy beck jr as his attacker the officers went to beck's apartment to arrest him for the attack on the prostitute, but he was one step ahead of them, they found the place abandoned and in disarray, the light had been turned on, beer bottles and other rubbish had been lit. lying on the ground armed with a search warrant, investigators combed through the mess for clues that related to the rape, found ammunition for several weapons, detectives thought they had found a positive link between Beck and the murder of Virginia Russell , but none of the ammunition matched. the fatal bullets that investigators directed their energies to finding to get their hands on him, they set up a sting operation, obtained an arrest warrant for sexual assault, then contacted Beck's old girlfriend, we were able to persuade her to help us find him, she She called him and returned the page and asked him to come pick him up at an apartment complex in the city when Beck came out of hiding to meet her.

They arrested him and took him to the station for questioning. Meanwhile, detectives went up to the apartment where Beck had been hiding. The apartment belonged to Beck's friend, Richard Bullard. He consented to a search and pointed out to investigators a loaded gun on the couch, which was not the only weapon they found. We were able to locate a large Rambo style hunting knife that was described by our rape victim and used in that crime, as well as a phone book in Beck's room that he was using with various escort services, underlined and highlighted, the pocketknife and a pair of boots were collected and taken to the laboratory where the first solid links to Virginia Russell were found.

The murder was faked. Ballistics showed that the gun found in Bullard's apartment was used to kill Russell. The boots had blood consistent with the victim's type. With the evidence piling up against him, it seemed

impossible

that Beck could avoid a murder conviction, but he did everything he could to escape this by blaming his friend Richard Boulliard, the gun was in fact registered to Bullyard and Beck argued that the boots also belonged to him. Investigators could not deny that all the evidence was found at Bull Yards, not Beck's apartment. In a stalemate, the rape victim's testimony had established Beck's violent pattern of soliciting prostitutes and stealing, but that evidence was circumstantial at best, with no tangible clues.

Investigators had no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Beck had ever been with Russell or that he and not Bullyard had fired the gun. With the case unraveling before their eyes, detectives had to go for a long shot the only evidence. physics that connected roy beck virginia russell and virginia russell's car were six bottles of michelobe light beer investigators had found two empty bottles next to the body three empty bottles in roybeck's abandoned apartment and one unopened bottle in roybeck's car The victim, if it could be proven that they came from the same six-pack, would prove that Beck had been with Russell that night, but without usable fingerprints linking the beer bottle it seemed impossible.

Anheuser-Busch distributes almost 200 million bottles of Michelob Light. each year finding a connection between the six bottles seemed remote without it roy beck would be free to link a murderer to his crime south carolina detectives had the unlikely task of proving that six bottles of beer came from the same six pack in search For help they went to the Anheuser-Busch bottling plant in Williamsburg, Virginia. In turn, Mark Landers, quality control manager, relied on a coding system that the company had adopted precisely that year. The question about the coding was October 17, 96. and the other four characters were wf-58.

The first part of the code showed that the beer was bottled on October 17, 1996. The w represented the Williamsburg plant and the f indicated a particular line within the system. The final part of code 58 specified that the beer was bottled during the increase. of 15 minutes number 58 that day, as the bottles are packaged and labeled, they are placed into six-pack containers and, in one box, all bottles produced during the 15-minute period will contain the exact same code. In Lander's expert opinion, the beer bottles in Beck's home came from the same case as the bottles found near the victim.

It was an irrefutable argument that, locked in his crime, he sought it as a last resort. The beer bottles allowed detectives to piece together. Virginia Russell's final hours with Beck after leaving the hospital, her escort service sent her to Beck's house, where they drank the first three beers of the six-pack. Police surmised that when Virginia left the room, Beck discovered the pile of money in her purse. She theorized that they took the beer and headed to a soccer field where they drank the fourth and fifth bottles. At some point Beck decided that robbing his victim was not enough.

He wanted to kill her. She shot her in the head and dragged her out of the car. and she shot him two more times and then drove away, abandoning her car a short distance from her apartment. He left behind the last unopened beer and with it the clue that experts needed to link him to the crime. I remember during testimony that Beck's defense attorney heard this. testimony putting his head in his hands and shaking like he didn't know how to recover from this very damaging testimony that was happening and it was at that moment that I

real

ly felt good about the case and I knew that we were back and that he probably would.

Being convicted by paying strict attention to the most banal clues Detectives made sure Beck would pay for his crime He was sentenced to life in prison Sometimes it's not the evidence that's so unlikely but the improbable way he finds himself in West Michigan The cool, swift current of the Muskegon River is a popular summer attraction for canoe and tuber anglers, but in June 1989 its calm waters divulged a violent secret. Two recreational divers were searching the bottom of the river looking for something. The metal told them they were in something bigger than they thought it was a red car belly up in a 15 foot gap and there was something floating inside it looking through the windows the divers saw the bloated shape of a body human and contacted the police as The car was removed from the water.

Authorities and onlookers could only wonder about the identity of the body inside. How had it arrivedthe car into the water and for how long the river had hidden this sad grave. A fully clothed woman was taken from the car despite being submerged in water. The remains were well preserved. The investigators searched the body and the vehicle to identify it, but all they found were mud insect larvae and cocoons. The body was taken to the office. from the medical examiner meanwhile investigators searched the area trying to figure out how the car went into the river the vehicle had little bodily damage the nearby overpass showed no signs of a car accident galen brookins the police chief of nearby fremont looked for other points At the outset, one of the theories we had considered was that it was possible that motor vehicles could go down this path that other vehicles obviously had and end up in the river at this point in a very straight path.

The strong current had carried the car to the other side of the piles where it finally settled in a deep ditch because the car had fallen into a deep ditch it was impossible to see it from the surface the detectives hoped the autopsy would reveal the secrets the river had kept hidden the medical examiner had two tasks to help identify the body and finding out how she died Dental x-rays and fingerprints were taken in hopes of giving this Jane Doe a name. Head injuries indicated the cause of death. This woman did not die in a car accident.

She had been hit at least six times with a hard, blunt object. The medical examiner was also able to determine that she was dead before she fell into the river. Someone had attempted to hide his body by pushing his vehicle into the murky depths while the autopsy was being performed. Police conducted a search of the vehicle identification number and discovered that the car belonged to David Smith, a nursing home employee who was living not far from the Muskegon River. The discovery of the car and the revelation of David Smith's name surprised Fremont residents. police department nine months earlier, on October 2, Smith had visited the police station and came to report his wife missing.

At that time, the police suspected nothing more than a typical domestic dispute and a spouse venting that he and his wife had had a disagreement and she had left on Friday afternoon, September 30, and he had not seen her since. Smith told police that his five-year marriage to Hai Yan, a Korean national, had turned sour after her latest shouting match. She threw a plate at him. He then got into his car and drove off after the officer interviewed him. He had instructed her that he should contact family and friends and try to determine if any of them had heard from him and then inform our department, but months passed without any follow-up. -up of david smith nor any sign of the missing woman or her car were shocked by what they found police learned through interviews with friends and family that smith was hardly acting like a grieving spouse just four days after reporting his missing wife he had filed for divorce, he had been actively dating ever since and wasted no time pawning High Yan's jewelry.

Clearly, Smith did not expect to ever hear from High Yan again, although his behavior was suspicious, it was not illegal, the situation had all the ingredients of a homicide, except. There was no body Police were determined to find High Yan dead or alive In February 1989, four months before the body was recovered, Brookins turned to the Michigan State Police for help. one had seen or heard from her since september now missing for five months investigators were losing hope that tall yan would ever turn up as telephone interviews proceeded state police detective richard miller uncovered a lie, although david Smith told authorities that he had heard nothing from Alto Yan told several friends a different story Mr.

Smith had made statements during her absence that he knew she was alive and well that he had contacted some mutual friends elsewhere, but investigators found no one to confirm Smith's story and he refused to take a lie detector test and five months later, on the night of June 23, the suspect's car was pulled from the river muskegon with a dead woman in it, the wait finally ended after having found the body, detectives obtained a search warrant for david smith's house, which Now shared with his new girlfriend, technicians searched the house looking for the most smallest shred of evidence that could tell them if a crime had occurred here.

The chances of finding anything were slim, but it had been almost a year since Haiyan's disappearance and there was no guarantee that this was even the crime scene. Investigators used an alternative light source to search for clues that a killer would not have thought to clear. This reflector penetrates the layers of paint, making it easier to find traces of blood. The beam highlighted some stains on a kitchen wall. and below them the police found what they were looking for behind the freezer my new traces of blood spatter stained the wall the crime lab staff further expanded their search into the immediate area and upon removing the molding along the wall we discovered a large area of ​​human blood contamination, they believed this was the scene of the attack because of the pattern of blood spatter, investigators were able to corroborate the medical examiner's findings someone had been struck numerous times with a blunt object because of the amount of blood underneath from the floor, it was likely that the person had been fatally injured but detectives faced a big problem: they were able to eliminate David as the source of the blood, but there were no records of Yan's high blood type.

She had been in the water too long to determine from DNA testing of her remains that time was also not sensitive enough to be of use. Someone had been severely beaten in this kitchen but detectives still couldn't make a case. murder case to arrest smith. Investigators needed some hard evidence linking him to Ian's murder in order to catch him. The police suspect him of hoping to catch Smith in his own lies. He had told several people that he knew Haiyan was alive in January. If the police could prove that she had been in the water before them, they could prove that Smith had been in the water.

They intentionally concealed the crime but had a major obstacle to overcome. We were able to prove a man's cause or death, but we were unable to determine from his state of preservation exactly when he died. Miller had an idea and remembered when they fished the car. The cocoons had been removed from the windshield and fender from the water. He knew that insects are useful in determining the time of death on land. Could they do the same in the water to link David Smith to the death of his wife? Detectives in western Michigan needed to determine how long his body had been in the river.

The only clue to him was a cocoon. Police turned to forensic entomologist Richard Merritt to see if he could learn anything from this unlikely witness. When I received the samples from Detective Miller I saw that they were black flies and the black flies are a group that I have been working on for the last 20 years, so I knew right away that there was something there that I could identify and probably give more information than them. they did not have on the merit of the case. Based on your knowledge of the life cycle of black flies to calculate when the car hit the water Like all insects, the black fly goes through four life stages, the first stage is the egg.

Black flies in the Muskegon River hatch in November or December and then develop into maggots. Like larvae, black fly larvae stay in that stage and grow over the winter in the river on any substrate they can attach themselves to, it could be leaves, it could be rocks or in this case it was a car in April or The larvae entered the pupil stage. They built cocoons around themselves and remained dormant until late May or early June, when they emerge as adult flies to begin the life cycle again. The presence of cocoons in High Ian's car indicated that the vehicle had to have entered the water no later than November for that particular species that was found in the car in late June, since it was the immature stage, it had to occur all winter in the car in the river, otherwise that particular species would not have proven the merits of that particular species to Detective Miller that David Smith had completely made up the stories about his wife's whereabouts since her disappearance.

He said she was seen in January. The asshole said she had been in the water since November. Mr. Smith had told his co-workers and other people that he knew his wife was alive and that she had contact with several people around the country. country, the doctor merits studies of the black fly larva and the various stages that we found in the vehicle positively demonstrated that it was simply not true that she was submerged in the waters of the Mosquegon River. The insects demonstrated that Smith was undoubtedly lying to cover his tracks. and apparently theirs weren't the only ones when news broke of the murder investigation, a co-worker told police that a month before Ian's disappearance, David had been trying to find a hitman, police cited Smith's phone.

In September there were an unusually high number of calls to two numbers in Pittsburgh, one was the dry cleaners where his father worked and the other traced back to the home of one of the father's co-workers, Kenny Lamont, Vladimir when investigators confronted Vladimir with the evidence accumulated against his acquaintance david smith vladimir crumble told the police that smith had offered him five thousand dollars to kill his wife when he hired vladimir smith the marriage was a disaster but he was already paying alimony at first wife and not wanting another responsibility, he hired Vladimir to kill the victim with a dose of bad heroin, but the plan didn't work, so Smith beat her to death with a wooden statue and Vladimir then put her in a car and He pushed him into the river.

Faced with the unlikely testimony of a vacant asshole, Smith was arrested in December 1989, a jury found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to 15 to 20 years in prison for his role in the murder and conspiracy. Kenny Lamont, Vladimir, received 20 to 60 years. years and smith senior got three and a half to five the black fly's improbable testimony thwarted david smith's plot to cover up the murder of his wife in dana point california detectives would rely on more unlikely evidence to link a killer to his actions for years 46 years - the old janet overton a civil servant had suffered a deterioration in her health although she was dizzy and weak she was determined not to let the illness get her down one morning in January 1988 she was looking forward to a family walk in the ocean Pacific never made it out of the driveway.

Richard, Janet's husband, called paramedics, but Janet couldn't get help within hours of her death. The autopsy that followed could do nothing to shed light on the cause of Janet Overton's death. A routine examination of her blood and tissues was performed to find commonly used substances. She eliminated all conventional over-the-counter or prescription medications as having contributed to her death. Her strange illness seemed to be as much of a mystery in death as she had been in life for four years. Overton suffered weight loss. Stomach aches. Tingling in the fingers. and a rust-colored rash none of the specialists could make a diagnosis despite extensive testing for viral infections allergies bacterial problems anything that could explain the strange illness they called toxicologist paul sedgwick they were completely baffled they checked left and right there are tons of records a couple of feet high and from what I can see they never found a specific cause for any of the symptoms they found, all they knew was that Janet Overton had been devastated from the inside out after her death, samples were stored of blood and tissue. at the coroner's office the body was cremated his death could have remained a medical curiosity, but then a telephone tip to lieutenant tim carney of the orange county sheriff's department turned it into a homicide investigation six months after the death of Janet Overton, Richard Overton's first wife, Dorothy told officers To take a good look into her ex-husband's past, her daughter had made a strange discovery while visiting the Overton home, while going through some of Richard's things, she found a syringe, rubber gloves and a tube of mascara, he reported them to his mother, who contacted the police.

Kearney examined 20 yearsof records to uncover the Overton family secret. Dorothy Boyer told us that after divorcing her husband around 1967, there were a number of years in which she suspected that her husband had been poisoning her as her second. Dorothy's health worsened. between 1967 and 1973 she would fall violently ill without any explanation she was dizzy her mouth tasted like metal one day she noticed a strong sulfuric smell coming from her shampoo the same smell emanated from some of her food she began to suspect that richard had access to her house, even after her divorce, he was trying to kill her to find out for sure, she set a trap with the help of the sheriff's department.

Richard Overton's first wife, Dorothy, devised a plan to see if he was poisoning her. She cleaned a new coffee can by rubbing. Then, the alcohol marked the lid to find out if it had been tampered with. The rest would be up to Richard. After three days, she discovered that someone had opened the lid. Fingerprints taken from the can were compared to Richard's fingerprints taken when he applied for a municipal permit. work that coincided without the permission of his ex-wife, Richard Overton had sneaked into his house, entered the cupboards and mixed some reddish powder in his coffee.

When the contents were analyzed, the researchers discovered a mineral of strong smell called selenium. Selenium is an element that in small quantities is necessary for good nutrition and health. In large quantities it is poisonous. Richard was interrogated. He initially denied having poisoned Dorothy, but when faced with the evidence, he confessed. Dorothy agreed to drop the charges as long as Richard stayed out. Of his life now, 20 years later, Richard Overton faced another round of questions about the poisoning of his second wife, Janet, but before detectives could pursue him, they needed to find out if selenium poisoning had contributed to Janet Overton's death. .

On paper, the two Overton ladies seem to have suffered the same thing. undiagnosed ailment according to lieutenant carney it seemed like history was repeating itself what we saw was comparing dorothy boyer's medical history from the late 60's and early 70's from doctors in the 1970's along with janet overton's medical history in the decade 1980 and what we saw was almost a mirror copy of the symptomatology of the classic heavy metal poisoning dorothy boyer and now the police wondered if the mascara that richard's daughter found in her house contained selenium in a simple selenium test The sample in question is dissolved in a test tube hydrochloric acid and other chemicals are added if the solution turns red indicating that selenium is present Tests on the mascara showed that it contains selenium.

Detectives contacted the manufacturer of the mascara and discovered that selenium is not an ingredient in any of their cosmetics; if it was found in the product, it had to have been added after purchase if high quantities were purchased. Of the mineral could also be detected in samples of the victim's body. Investigators would have a solid basis in their case against Richard Overton. To the dismay of investigators, an abnormal amount of selenium was not found in any of the victim's tissue samples. stopped dead but would not close for long thanks to a fortunate discovery in the laboratory of the open vial of Janet Overton's stomach.

Contents Sedgwick was overcome by the smell of bitter almonds, the signature of a poison far more deadly than selenium and I knew While there was cyanide even two feet away, only 50 percent of the population is genetically predisposed to smelling cyanide and because the original test was done under a smoking hood, the smell was easy to miss if there were no cyanide. Had it been Sedgwick's chance discovery, it is likely that the cyanide would have remained hidden forever. We did not detect cyanide initially because it is one of the less common compounds that we see requires special testing and is not in the general analyzes that were initially requested for Sedgwick to determine that Janet Overton's blood, brain and stomach samples contained cyanide, including a small dose of white powder can be lethal a year after Janet Overton's death.

His cause of death was ruled acute cyanide poisoning for Detective Carney Richard Overton seemed the most likely suspect, but poisoning cases are notoriously difficult to solve. Forensic analysis can be used to identify the deadly toxin, but it is of little help in linking the poisoner to the body Lieutenant Carney knew about. that had an uphill battle to prove a case of poisoning can be difficult when time passes, it is still necessary to analyze the aspects of the investigation that include not only physical evidence and we are talking about years of poisoning here and we also have to look at the reason and opportunity and so far investigators have not found it true that Richard Overton had a history of manipulation, but in person he hardly looked like the killer sword, he was a brilliant and accomplished man who had nothing to gain from the death of his wife. financial reason janet's life insurance policy had been paid out to her son nor was there a history of violence the 15-year marriage was loving and understanding richard said that at first the detectives did not let on that they knew of his attempts to poison his first wife simply asked Richard who might have tried to poison Janet.

He mentioned that his wife had enemies because of her involvement in local politics. Janet had also struggled with depression. She could not rule out the possibility that she had committed suicide five hours after the onset. In the interview, the police dropped the bombshell. I confronted him with the 1973 investigation in which he poisoned his ex-wife. He denied it to me until I showed him the documentation of the report questioned by his shady past. Overton abruptly ended the conversation and refused to contribute further to the case. Investigating detectives had caught Overton in a blatant lie during an interview with a business partner, Mel Hubbard, they had caught him in another Overton, they had told detectives that he did not have access to cyanide.

Hubbard told a contradictory story. Mr. Hubbard informed us that he, in fact, does have it. He uses cyanide and the extraction of gold and silver from mineral samples in his mining operations and has cyanide on hand at his residence. Mr. Hubbard also informed me that Richard had the keys to his residence and would look after his home when Hubbard was away during his mining operations. Finding out that Richard had access to cyanide was like putting him in the same room with the murder weapon to plant that weapon. firmly in his hands. Detectives would need to find a motive without him, they would have little chance of taking this case to court. and even less chance of a conviction armed with a search warrant sheriffs arrived at the suspect's home confiscated richard's diaries along with his computer and 131 floppy disks richard's children had told investigators that he first kept a voluminous diary, first he would write notes by hand and then type more detailed versions into his computer and find some confession in the suspect's own words;

It would be the detectives' last chance to present his case. Careful inspection showed that some of the writing had been manipulated. The entries had been deleted on the page corresponding to the date. of janet's death had been eliminated by using an ultraviolet light to see through the white house investigators discovered that richard suspected janet of having an affair there was the possible motive but investigators needed more to prove it detectives hoped to find answers in the richard's computer files they spent hours scrolling through the hard drive and opening floppy disk after floppy disk but came up empty-handed, it seemed that Richard had deleted or written almost his entire electronic diary, but then detectives noticed something strange at the bottom of one Of the documents, there were some out of order.

Lines of text and in the text there were phrases that suggested journal entries. Maybe the data was not gone after all, but how to recover it from the computer. Detectives in Orange County, California, believe Richard Overton's computer would link him to the poisoning death of his wife. Janet, but Overton had erased her hard drive and his floppy disks. Data recovery experts were called in to launch the first computer forensic investigation in Orange County history. Although Overton had cleaned the files, computer experts like William Riddle knew that there was a good chance that the information was still on the computer.

What most people don't know is that once you delete a file from a computer or disk and the information that was in the file is still there on the computer, it's just that the computer has flipped a little flag or character and told the table of contents section of the computer that this space is now available for storage , so something can be overwritten in this space inside a computer, the media is stored in files as magnetic information, sometimes that information overlaps, the process is like writing and rewriting over it The mystery of the sheet paper began his work by copying all of Overton's computer files in this way, he would not risk losing the data forever during his investigation, he installed a specialized computer program on his systems and then set about the grueling process of opening files one by one.

Once the program removed layers of text leaving fragments of documents that were once stored there, it took hundreds of hours to expose the tangle of plain text, but that was just the beginning, using the handwritten journal as a reference, the technicians Then they sorted through the files that reconstructed Richard Overton's diary word for word from the jumble. The technicians were finally able to reassemble Richard Overton's secret diary and with it his intention to kill his wife, the recovery of Overton's damning words would prove to be a turning point in the case, although the suspect had proclaimed that he and the victim had a love marriage his own words extracted from electronic oblivion would prove otherwise, in fact there was a point in the records where richard overton declared that their love relationship and hatred towards his wife had turned into pure hatred and that something was going to happen very soon this was only a few days before his death on January 24 investigators assumed that richard was angry about his wife's infidelity and resentful because she had achieved political success without a formal education as he had done with his first wife, added selenium to his wife's beauty products and foods to cause long-term illness, at some point he stopped giving her selenium and removed himself from her body, then administered a single lethal dose of cyanide to kill her, he thought. that no one could ever catch him and that he was almost right if it hadn't been for his own writings the detectives would have only had their suspicions after years of investigation they now had both motive and opportunity the information recovered from the computer disks convinced the jury that Richard Overton had plotted for years to kill his wife, after only six hours of deliberation, they found him guilty of first-degree murder.

He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, even in the wilderness of computer files, beer bottles and insect cocoons. The investigator may find a conviction for murder. The most important clues sometimes wait to be discovered from the most unlikely sources.