Remnant of Blame | TRIPLE EPISODE | The New Detectives

118 Tonight Clues gathered in a homicide challenge investigators' preconceptions Evidence now forces them to search for the killer The last place they thought to look An unidentified body is abandoned on a Texas highway Investigators have miles to go before To gather enough clues To catch her killer, a young woman goes missing,

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must weave a missing person case around a tattered shirt and a fragment of plastic. Big crimes are often solved with the smallest of clues, each criminal taking something from the crime scene and leaving something behind. Forensic science is science. to build a case by reading every trace of

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thanks Northeast of Atlanta is the city of Sugar Hill Georgia, it is a small city of about 5,000 inhabitants, but it found itself in the middle of a major urban problem on the morning of April 16 1993.

The owner of the garage found an abandoned car in his parking lot. He looked inside and discovered a terrible crime. The body of a woman was slumped in the dead driver's seat. Gwinnett County Police Department officers responded to the scene from the position of her body and the direction of After the blood spatter, it was clear that the woman had been shot in the head. Her purse was not in the car. Police couldn't find any identification nor did they have a suspect, but evidence pointed to a motive. Deputy Police Chief John Lati believed it was a carjacking. went wrong the ignition was on but the engine was out of gas in the tank uh he removed the power windows and his window was down but he had his seat belt in the car in a random crime like car theft the perpetrator leaves few clues That the police didn't even know where to start all that changed with the arrival of a man named Michael Thompson driving by the scene, noticing the commotion and then seeing that the car looked like his mother's.

Latty Thompson's arrival was too much of a coincidence. We were interested in him due to the fact that he appeared on the scene at the time we did it um he also had a shady past he had a criminal record he was a suspected drug user and therefore preliminary suspicion fell on him Michael Thompson confirmed what the vehicle registration had indicated about the victim was his mother Emma Jean Thompson, 53. When police investigated Thompson's background, they learned that his mother had called police in early April to report a robbery. Gwinnett County Police Officer Michael Chapel responded to that call and was told that seven of the fifteen thousand dollars the victim had taped to the back of her dresser had been stolen.

Michael Thompson didn't know it, but Emma Jean had told Chapel that she thought her son might have stolen the money she was entrusting to Officer Chapel to catch the thief and, if possible, find her. money, she actually showed him at his request the rest of the money, which we probably estimated to be around seven thousand dollars and all the money was in new hundred dollar bills. Officer Chapel assured the victim that the money would be easy to find. Because it was in new bills numbered consecutively after the murder of Emma Jean Thompson, the police discovered the rest of the cash missing from its unusual hiding place, they believed that Thompson might have killed his mother for the money, they would just have to prove it.

The autopsy revealed that the victim had been shot twice in the head at point-blank range with a large-caliber weapon. Someone in the area must have been hit by gunfire. Police set up roadblocks to question drivers about what they remembered from the night before finding an unusual number of Potential witnesses Emma Jean Thompson had been murdered on April 15 Traffic passing the crime scene on the way to the nearby post office remembered it because it was tax day and they said we observed a vehicle behind the victim's vehicle, they all said it looked like a police vehicle that was not only the patrol car, but it was one of the police patrol cars in the Gwinnett County and that it had a specific type of police car design, so we were able to determine that it was one of ours.

Witnesses located the police car at the crime scene between 9:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. Many said it looked as if the victim's car had been stopped. This disturbing revelation diverted the suspicions of the victim's son as more witnesses came forward. The police had to consider the situation. terrible possibility that the killer was one of their own, the investigation began within the department,

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knew that Officer Michael Chapel had responded to the victim's robbery report two weeks earlier, when Chief Latty sought Chapel's report about the case, he couldn't find it. I was asked about it, this is his reason for not filing a report about the theft.

He seemed credible, of course, he had explanations that he thought it was a case of nonsense and that he didn't want to bother writing a report, so I asked him to gather all the information from that moment and write a report while Chapel prepared the late report the Detectives interviewed the victim's friends said that Emma Jean Thompson had been moved by Officer Chapel's personal interest in her robbery case, dear and of course, I have these conversations with her friends. She also told her friends that Officer Chapel was concerned about her and was watching her and that he had observed him following her on several occasions.

He believed he was worried about her and was keeping an eye on the detectives. He was starting to seem. as if this guardian angel could have only had his own best interests at heart but they had no evidence to support this theory chapel had an alibi for the time of the murder he said he went to the fire station to watch tv between 8 and 10 30 pm However, interviews at the fire station did not dispel suspicions that Reed Chapel was the president, but no one could agree on when he left the Chapel. The Chapel's alibi was shaking. He still could have had the opportunity to commit the crime.

A background check revealed a possible motive prior to the murder. Deep in debt after the murder, his creditors told police he paid what he owed with hundred-dollar bills, but this would never be enough to convict one of Gwinnett County's top detectives. They needed more evidence before they could make an arrest. They had to be absolutely Some investigators soon learned that the victim may have met his death through a date. We did an interview with one of the victim's close friends, who told us that he had had a conversation with a victim and that the victim had advised that he would be meeting with Officer Chapel. that night and that he had ordered her to bring him money because he had recovered some of her money and could compare serial numbers and hopefully recover some for her.

I don't envy them that task a week after they called Crime Officer Chapel. I'll show up for a second round of questioning, if I'd ever be sitting here tonight talking to you about a murder. I just stayed down and out. Chief Latty spoke with Chapel at the police station for hours in hopes of getting it done. give them some information that would point fault elsewhere, he couldn't, there are no other suspects at this time, it was during the course of the interview, probably about two hours into the interview, that Investigator Burnett came into the room and told him. reported that he was being accused.

With this crime, Chapel became an enemy of the law he had sworn to uphold, he reacted with a fallen sign and began talking about the fact that he knew there was no bail on a murder charge or an armed robbery charge and who would probably be in prison. jail for a long time before he could prove his innocence that's overwhelming evidence all I have that's not going to do me any good I don't want that I don't have an alibi I don't have anything nothing would make Latty happier than if Chapel could prove he was innocent but friendship must take a backseat to justice the chief knew what he had to do Chapel was relieved of his duty and told to hand over his gun and badge it was important to treat this case like any other only evidence could prove it Yes Whether or not Chapel pulled the trigger, Officer Michael Chapel killed Emma Jean Thompson.

In cold blood to discover that search warrants were executed for his locker in the trunk of his patrol car. The chapel's belongings were entered into evidence and examined closely. His raincoat was sent to the lab and tested for any type of trace evidence the tests were minuscule amounts of blood were positive the stains were in the form of high velocity blood splatters when a bullet hits a body the impact creates a fine mist of fluids that often back up toward the gun and shooter While the blood was being analyzed, detectives received another name from a sharp-eyed car wash manager.

Chapel's dolphins had been at the car wash the day we discovered the victim's body and had detailed her car and his patrol car as well. that he had paid her with a new hundred dollar bill for the work on the car. His patrol car was taken to the crime lab and examined for potential evidence that detailers might have missed. An adhesive strip was used to lift hair or fibers left by the victim, a stain on the upholstery warranted closer inspection. Jennifer Archer, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's serology and DNA unit, received a head start on her work when I received the scam from the Gwinnett County Police Department, telling me they had performed a test. field test called luminol this test showed them that there was a possibility of a blood stain on the armrest of the patrol car seat tested a sample of the armrest to see if the stain was really blood, dried the cloth with two swabs of moistened cotton swabs, each swab was treated with a different chemical substance, both swabs change color, confirming the presence of blood.

Human scientists were tested for that too. A drop of unknown blood was added to a sample of human antiserum and an enzyme. that reacts with proteins found only in human blood gravity attracts the blood through the antiserum if the blood is human a white line appears the blood in the police car and in the raincoat it was human only the results of a comparison of DNA could definitively link the bloodstains to the victim Emma Jean Thompson the blood was placed in a gel medium and subjected to an rflp test in this process a gentle electrical current separates the longer and shorter fragments of DNA in a pattern The victim's DNA resembled the sample taken from the Cruiser's armrest.

Computer analysis statistically confirmed the coincidence. No more than one in 10 billion people would share these battles. Detectives had forged an unbroken chain of evidence between Chapel's coat, her vehicle, and Emma Jean Thompson's blood. The lab confirmed the grim reality: one of the Gwinnett County police officers was a murderer with the forensic evidence in place. The events leading up to the murder became clear. On April 15, Chapel arranged to meet her victim to steal money the robber had left behind when the victim opened the door. Chapel's purse opened fire; most of the incriminating blood evidence on the coat and patrol car was barely visible to the naked eye, but forensic science highlighted the remains of the crime in court; the only key piece of evidence was DNA evidence.

There's no doubt about that very powerful evidence and the fact that there were probably very serious doubts in the minds of many people in Los Angeles that Officer Chapel could have committed or would have committed this crime, so some sort of uh was needed. , deep or strong physical evidence to link him to the victim's blood, as always, the final test of the forensic evidence took place in the jury box, after 18 hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict against Michael Chapel, but he received more Mercy than he had received. he showed his victim that he was sentenced to two life sentences plus five years in prison, the harshest penalty allowed under Georgia law, short of the death penalty.

Chapel disguised his crime to look like a botched carjacking. Other murderers try to hide his crimes by disposing of the body. The roads leading to Houston remain as beautiful as the city itself, but on March 27, 1992, a team of truckers on a highway outside the city made an ugly discovery: someone needs a television. The cardboard box looked normal at first, but when they removed the flaps, they found. They themselves lie the dismembered remains of ahuman being After the 1960s, the homicide division of the Houston Police Department sent a forensic syndicate to the scene. The technicians searched the road for evidence that the victim had been dead for several hours, dismembering the body would have spilled up to 12 points of blood, but not a drop of blood or any other clue was discovered in the vicinity.

Sergeant Mike Peters believed that most of the forensic evidence was elsewhere and the conclusion we reached is that this was not the actual crime scene, but just a place where the victim had been placed by the suspect after that the crime occurred. Trust the boxes placed on the pillar next to the body. It didn't contain much, just an old blue blanket. At the crime lab, investigators tried to identify the victims, but all they had was the torso they needed. If the right arm the police had to rely on partial remains to tell the full story determined that the victim was a woman in her early twenties the autopsy revealed that she was pregnant investigators tried to match her fingerprints but they were not in the file they Sergeant Peters was hoping to have better luck with missing person reports only the night before police received a call from a man named Oscar Reyes, who said his wife Cecilia had not returned home from her job at a liquor store, the Police found Reyes and his wife's co-worker missing. people Flyers to post in the neighborhood Oscar Reyes was able to identify his wife's torso by a surgical scar on her neck his wife had been found the murderer was still at large what is the make and model do you know that investigators had to consider the possibility that Oscar Reyes If Cecilia Reyes had been murdered here, they would have found a large amount of blood, none was detected.Oscar Reyes off the list of suspects, investigators had to find other clues where Cecilia worked.

Her manager said she was last seen the night before while she was heading home. Her coworkers described her as a cheerful, open-hearted woman with no known enemies, but she had an unwanted admirer. A man named Gerardo Márquez occasionally hung around the store. They said he enjoyed flirting with women, especially Cecilia. Thank you. He often brought her gifts, although she asked him not to be strange. Harmless enough right here. The police paid a visit to Gerardo Márquez. who lived a few miles from the liquor store was a 36-year-old part-time fence builder who had a girlfriend and was distraught upon learning of Cecilia's death Reyes didn't seem like the kind of monster who would kill and dismember someone he He did not hesitate to allow the police to search his apartment when they asked him about the scratches on his face.

Márquez told the police that he had cut himself while climbing the fence. His explanations seemed completely plausible. His manners were completely disarming. Traces of blood were found in his bathroom. Sink. Márquez said he cut himself. Detectives reasoned that if a body had been dismembered here much more blood would have been spilled. The identity of the killer and the original crime scene remained a mystery at the Houston Police Department's crime lab. Technicians searched for clues they hoped would lead to Other suspects traced the box to a manufacturer in the same neighborhood as Márquez, but there the tracking group keeps attention focused on the blanket that had been the victim's shroud, although free of blood it could hide other clues, air fibers, and other easy-to-miss tracking evidence.

They are often more revealing than a striking bloodstain. Criminologist Raiden Hillman examined her. There were several areas that looked like stains, but they had a particular pattern indicating that perhaps a piece of furniture had been placed on top of the blanket and refinished. or painted over, you measured the pattern of the dark spots, the legs of the furniture were resting on the blanket, forming the 14 inch wide by 25 inch long rectangle, while taking the measurement, she also noticed my new feathers lodged in the fabric of the blanket that was sent to them for analysis some clues the detectives made the most of what they had they asked Márquez's girlfriend to come to the police station for further questioning she mentioned that Márquez had a blue blanket stained with painting that he had not seen recently the blanket seemed to link Márquez to the crime, but the detectives had to be sure that it was the same blanket that the girlfriend had talked about;

The distance between the paint stains would provide the answer, so with these measurements, Sergeant Steve and Shirley went to Marquez's house. and they measured the posts at the base of the dresser and exactly measured the marks on the blanket, the dark spots on the blanket match the dimensions of Marquez's dresser. Hillman then had to be sure the stains came from the dresser by following the trail. As evidence, she reasoned that if the dresser left its mark on the blanket, then the blanket must have left its prints on the fibers of the dresser stuck to the bottom of the piece of furniture and at least tied the blanket to the place where the murder had occurred. .

Hillman's theory about fibers was soon proven to be true. The researchers found small blue filaments stuck to the tips of the dresser legs with the fibers and legs of the dresser. Investigators began building a case against Gerardo Márquez to establish the link between the victim and Márquez's apartment. Ironclad Hillman I used an infrared spectrometer to compare the paint on the blanket to the paint on the dresser. Very well, let's try to compare it with some painting that was found. The spectrometer shines infrared light onto the sample, which absorbs and reflects it in certain ways, producing the The device then measures how the sample absorbs the light and displays the measurements as a series of peaks and valleys.

Each substance has its own unique spectroscopic fingerprint. By looking at the total spectrum, we can see that we would compare the known sample to any unknown. samples Blanket paint dresser paint spectra lined up paint map Gilman and Sergeant Peters compared the fibers from the dresser leg to the blanket fabric once again the two samples came from the same source the blanket from Marquez's apartment that was obviously affiliated with the victim was now affiliated with his department also based on information from the lab the detectives now believe they had found their men they returned to Marquez's house he remained cooperative and made it clear that He was eager for the police to solve the case.

In the case he admitted that the blanket was his, but after using it as a protective cloth he said he threw it in a garbage container. The real killer must have retreated to wrap the body. The explanation was convenient and irrefutable, but the researchers still had work to do. He examined his bathroom using leuco malachite, a chemical that makes traces of blood glow. He lit up. Blood on the shower curtain. These stains could not have been the result of a minor cut, but again Marquez had an easy explanation. Oh, he revealed that he slaughtered his own chickens in the bathtub, the freezer contained the evidence and the likely source of the feathers that Hillman found in the blanket while they were in the kitchen.

Márquez offered the researchers some soft drinks. Gerardo Márquez acted like a totally ruthless man while the police searched for the murderer. by Cecilia Reyes put their hopes on the evidence of blood recovered from Gerardo Márquez's apartment Márquez had told the police that the blood found on his shower curtain was chicken blood the laboratory would determine if Márquez was telling the truth samples were analyzed of blood with The human antiserum reacted by showing that the blood on the shower curtain was shed by a human, not a chicken, but the researchers did not find enough blood to perform a full battery of tests and not enough to indicate that here A murder took place, however, there was enough blood and enough questions to warrant another visit to Marquez.

The technicians came to remove the tiles from the floor of his bathroom. The room had been thoroughly cleaned but the evidence remained just below the surface. It was obvious that enough had soaked under the floor. Tile testing on the sample revealed it was type O. Both Marquez and his girlfriend had given blood samples and neither of them had that type, but Cecilia Reyes did, she had been here according to the forensic evidence. Gerardo Márquez was arrested and charged with the murder of Cecilia Reyes when When presented with the evidence accumulated against him, he said that while his girlfriend was away, Reyes had voluntarily gone to his apartment, they argued and she fell, hit her head and body died for fear that no one would believe his story, investigators told Márquez to believe him.

To examine the rest of the body to confirm the cause of death, Cooperativa as always Márquez took the police to a field on the outskirts of Houston there abandoned two more corrugated cardboard boxes for the rest of the remains of the 52 victims. An autopsy revealed a bruise on the victim's head supports Marquez's story. Medical examiners then found a deep knife wound in his throat. The stab wound was above the area where the victim had been dismembered and appeared to have been made with a different type of blade, suggesting that the wound had been inflicted before the victim's death and not during the gruesome dismemberment once again. the suspect was caught in a lie the police reconstructed what had probably happened to the victims last night leaving work alive as usual Cecilia Reyes was approached by Márquez during the kidnapping and he took her to his apartment there she rejected his sexual advances by remove the scratches that detectives had seen on his face during the struggle.

He stabbed her to death to erase evidence that the victim had ever been in her house. Márquez dismembered his remains and then placed the body inside three cardboard boxes in the In the middle of the night he abandoned the boxes miles from his apartment, although the suspect's guilt was finally written in blood, an ordinary blanket prompted the investigation. Gerardo Márquez was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. Often the most gruesome murders are solved with the most mundane solutions. Clues: The trick is knowing where to look and how to use them.

Most homicide cases begin with a body, casual observation, a torn shirt half-hidden in the grass and a dark stain on the road that could be blood when Officer Kenny Corcoran noticed it shortly afterward. had breakfast one Sunday outside his home on smiling Acres Road in Tangapahoa Parish, Louisiana, he knew exactly what to do, Detective Chester Pritchett tells you what I got, you actually have blood and Road, here you go, you see the marker of the car, yes, as soon as he arrived Bridget wanted to see what Corcoran had found there was a stain on the road Corcoran explained that it was most likely blood from a deer or a dog hit by a passing car the shirt was a little harder to explain, both men agreed that they should go a little deeper into this.

Will you hear something? Do you know why Bridget was known as a careful police officer? Before leaving the house that Sunday morning she had checked to see if any accidents or missing persons had been reported. None. It was only on Tuesday that he learned of the disappearance of a young girl in On the wall of the courthouse, Pritchett found a poster of a missing girl. Rebecca Forbes, a 19-year-old high school student who disappeared just 48 hours earlier, was wearing a white shirt that appeared to match the one she found Sunday. go talk to the family get a better picture get an idea of ​​what she was wearing to Pritchett her disappearance and the discovery of the torn shirt were reasons enough to begin an investigation at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 28, 1990. at her home in Dedham Louisiana Rebecca Forbes prepared for a night of partying at the Italian Festival in nearby Independence.

It was the last time Virginia Forbes would see her daughter alive at the festival. Rebecca met a young man who they talked and danced with and were still together when Rebecca's friends lost track of her. They remembered hearing his name, but with the help of police records Richard hoped they could still identify him in police files. One of Rebecca Forbes' friends made out the man's face. His name was Kelly Drot. He was only 20 years old. He was well known as a troublemaker. He'd been arrested more than once for home invasions and had time to check out his side of the festival events before that, he'd hoped to get a report on the T-shirt Annie Corcoran had found at the Louisiana state crime lab.

Pritchett had given him thet-shirt to forensic scientists. George Skiro and Pat Lane asked them to learn everything they could from it. Skiro's examination began with the physical condition of the jersey. He examined it for what is called trace evidence, hair fibers, material of any kind attached to it. Then, the most basic question was the dark spots really blood to determine that skiro performed a cascade of chemical tests successively designed to confirm or eliminate the presence of blood first a cotton swab was moistened with distilled water the blood was dissolved in water by rotating the tip of the swab brown then a reagent called phenolphthalein added now if there was blood present the brown stain would turn green thanks then a drop of hydrogen peroxide the blood products produce a deep pink color performed a test to confirm your diagnosis is well add another chemical looks for red crystals of hemochromagin chemical complex formed only in the presence of blood and this is the final step in proving that the substance is blood, it is not species specific, this particular test only tells us that blood is present For skiro, this was just the beginning, I would schedule more elaborate tests if it were human blood. had found or that of some animal and if it was human from whom getting answers would become more urgent as the investigation progressed.

While Pritchett returned to Smiling Acres Road, which had been declared a crime scene, inch by inch his men scoured the ground collecting anything. As insignificant as it may be, it could be a clue that we recovered cigarette butts, there may be saliva from the cigarette butts, maybe it's help, we have a couple of beer cans and a bottle that could produce the same thing and there was a small piece of transparent plastic. I'm going to send all these other items to the crown lab just to see if they can do something with them. Do we make that a good question?

Was the plastic fragment just roadside trash? Was it a clue? It would be several more weeks before it was true. Meaning Emerged I think we got some good information on Friday, May 4, six days after Rebecca Forbes Detective Chester Pritchett finally caught up with suspect Kelly Drive. Did he just have a brief encounter with Rebecca or did he know more than he was willing to admit? meeting Rebecca, she took a cigarette from him, they danced around 10 o'clock, she disappeared into the crowd and that was the last time Rock saw her, he said, charming casually or not. Kelly Drot's story began to unravel as soon as investigators examined her car in the trunk.

There was no map, no floor liner, it had been removed, and there was water in the wheel well, which told us that tried to wash the car to and from the hinges and on the tail light, we found splatters of what appears to be tiny blood stains. Many of them, he says, are dear blood. When she hit a deer, she put the deer in the trunk and thrashed around, that doesn't make much sense. Richard immediately ordered the suspect's car to be impounded. Being examined by George Skiro and Pat Lane in the crime lab. I will look in the outside places where, for example, if someone tried to clean up blood, where would this blood go?

Would it leak behind the seat cushions? As the search continued, Skiro began to notice blood in places inconsistent with someone hitting a deer. The blood stained the inside of the door jambs and the light switch now that the pressure was on skiro had to determine the source of the blood from the blood stained shirt and in kelly drott's car it was fine once we determined that there was human blood on the blouse and human blood on the trunk The next step was to do a blood type and try to determine what blood type it was. When we did the examination, we discovered that both the samples on the blouse and those in the trunk of the car were typographic blood, the evidence was minor.

It is conclusive that Skiro expected type O blood to be the most common human blood group here, as it turned out that both the potential victim and the potential suspect possessed it, thus providing no information or value. The next step was to send him for DNA analysis. To see if a more specific genetic profile could be built on Bloods, several weeks would be needed for DNA testing to be completed, for which the case would take a dramatic new turn on Sunday, May 19, three weeks after Rebecca Forbes was arrested. two men last seen hunting. Along the Tangapahoa River we came across a badly decomposed corpse.

Well, the way this case started was with a mystery. They found us some bloody clothes in the middle of the road. Next thing we know we have a vehicle that has blood on it, supposedly deer blood, but we proved otherwise, that it was human blood and the last thing we needed to tie this case together was to find a body that could be linked to all of these different scenes critical to connect the elements of the Rebecca Forbes case. It was Gene's screen one. One of the most sophisticated testing labs in the United States, the state crime lab had identified Rebecca and Kelly Drott's blood type.

Jean Screen was in charge of refining those analyzes in our cells. We each possess our own unique individual form of DNA. The genetic testing experience is in the testing. body tissue to reveal her DNA fingerprint blood from Kelly Drott's truck and the woman's bloodstained T-shirt had already been sent to the lab the lab also received material from Rebecca Forbes' severely decomposed body oh, that's the director of the genetic screen Bob Giles uh DNA is a very useful forensic tool it is very useful because it is highly discriminatory when it comes to identifying people in this particular case.

It was very important because this is a case that involves circumstantial evidence and without the DNA test the investigators were unable to link the victim's blood to the suspect's car when the test results could not have been clearer, as the scientist Genetic analysis Judy Floyd explains that the DNA told us that, indeed, the blood on the blouse was Rebecca Forbes' and we can say that with a high degree of certainty the blood in the back of Mr. Drought's car was also probably Becca Forbes, the victim. What the DNA didn't tell us was what really happened that night.

The chain of events that led to that tragic attack. One last piece of evidence that cemented the case. against Kelly dropped that oddly shaped piece of plastic that was found near the bloody shirt. It was a fragment of glass from a watch. Rebecca Forbes had been wearing a wristwatch when her body was found in the river. The broken glass certainly seemed to come from Rebecca. She watched how it fit perfectly into her face, but Lane needed more evidence to prove that the two parts belong together. Along the edge of the glass, she noticed a series of spots where small pieces had been left when the glass broke.

Lane made a mold. from the bottom of the rim to the patterns on the rim and the crystal matched the piece we are looking at now will be the MicroCell mold that was made of the watch face, more specifically the area where the crystal is located. In reality it would have been stuck in or on the watch face, now I could make a detailed comparison between the Knicks along the edge of the Crystal and the plastic fragments still trapped under the edge of the watch that that piece of bark or fed with the little imperfection break that had gotten stuck in the track along the margin of that and it actually turned out to be a very beautiful fracture of that Crystal.

With the last piece of evidence in place, investigators were able to piece together what happened the night of the Italian Festival. Rebecca met Kelly and danced with him around midnight, took her for a ride in his car, stopped at the smiling Acres Road, where they argued in violent fury. Kelly drott killed Rebecca Forbes, the victim is dead, obviously, in this case she can. not talking to the suspect even if he is talking we do not know if he is telling the truth or not physical evidence will not lie it has the ability to tell us at a given moment that a certain event took place it does not necessarily tell us an entire sequence of events, but it does tell us allows to at least point to a particular moment in time that this event took place which can then be compared to statements the suspect made on May 23, just four days after the discovery of Rebecca's remains.

Drott was arrested and found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison. Well, Kelly worked on a construction crew at a local chicken processing plant and had a disagreement with one of her coworkers when he was being driven to work. She told them that she told the guy several days ago that if he didn't watch her mouth she would find herself in the river just like the girl he had thrown into the river. Evidence that can be seen with the naked eye is vital to solving the murder, but forensic science combined with rigorous investigation techniques brings the smallest clues to life and brings more killers to justice.

Two murders are linked by unusual bullets, but linking them to The Killers seems like a shot in the dark. A woman points the finger of

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at her killers, but it's up to her to catch them. About a forensic technique that has not yet been invented. Detectives tracking down the cattle thieves discover what appears to be a serial murder. They ask the coroners to help them round up the suspects. They say that a shared burden is reduced by half, but when partners come together. for murder, the weight of their crime may drag them both down the burden of proof falls on the coroners to capture the accomplices of the crime November 19, 1989 around 11:30 pm on Mean Streets in Trenton, New Jersey, a passerby discovered a brutal murder, the victim was 38 years old Francis C Bodner, a driver for Golden Calves, officers at the scene examined the victim's body and searched the taxi for clues.

Along with the slugs, they recovered a small metal disc with a raised edge, almost like a miniature bottle cap. Surprising, it was a disconcerting find, Detective Lieutenant. Michael Salvatore felt that he held the key to solving this crime. Tell me about that case last night because no one had seen that kind of bullet before. There was a possibility that the bullet had been created by an enthusiast, someone who loads. his own bullets at home if that were true it would be almost impossible to trace the bullets Salvatore had not seen the last of them just four hours later he was called to another crime scene a second taxi driver was shot dead Willie Rogers, 33, had been discovered in the taxi he drove for Diamond Cab Company.

What do we have, guys? Investigators recovered the same foreign metal disc along with a spent bullet, and in both cases witnesses reported seeing three black men in the taxi before the murder. The testing technician. Another clue soon occurred: a fingerprint taken from the front passenger door of the first taxi, the Trenton Police Department's testing laboratory transmitted the print to the national fingerprint database, a clearinghouse for information. fingerprint tests from all over the country. It would be some time before the results came back. There was no guarantee that the print on the taxi belonged to the killer.

The Mercer County Medical Examiner performed the autopsies that same day. Bodner and Rogers were killed with a single shot to the back of the head. Style of Execution: The executioners left little aside from the unusual bullets. To solve the execution-style murders, Trenton police had to rely on ballistic evidence taken from the crime scene. It was all they had at 11 o'clock on the morning they killed the drivers. Trenton police had turned the bullets over to the captain of the New Jersey State Police Laboratories. Mike Licinger's bullets stumped him as much as they did Detective Salvatore, and Licinger had been a ballistics expert for more than 20 years.

His reference books showed that the small metal cap was called a gas control. The gas control is very unusual because you never see this. In commercial ammunition, this was the first time we encountered a gas control. Since I'm in ballistics, this was something unique for us. A gas control is placed at the base of the bullet to prevent it from melting and clogging the gun barrel with lead. Many people who make their own bullets use gas controls, but the license could say that these bullets were manufactured commercially, although No American company made them now had to determine what type of gun fired them using the laboratory's stereoscopic microscope.

He identified the pattern of alternating grooves and the spaces between the grooves or lands left on the bullets as they advance through the barrel of the weapon. These landsand grooves are class characteristics of a weapon and ballistics experts can use them to identify the type of weapon most likely to have left them in a bullet license determined that Trenton's gas control bullets had a five-land pattern. and slots with a turn to the right. He told Salvatore to look for a Taurus revolver, a Ruger revolver, or a Smith and Wesson, all of which were in common use among Trenton criminals.

Any one of thousands of weapons could have left its mark on the bullets. Researchers didn't even know where to start looking at short notice; However, they got their first clue in the early hours of November 27. An anonymous caller told Trenton police that two of the gunmen were twins named Ron and John Allen later that same day. John Allen was arrested for breaking car windows during a street fight. Investigators brought him in for an interview. John Allen said he had been with his twin Ron and his friend all night. the taxi drivers were killed, they had been in a couple of clubs until 3am. m.

Salvatore wasn't convinced, but with no physical evidence linking John Allen to the murders, he had nothing when John Allen's Prince didn't match the one the Purge detectives in the taxi were wondering about. Ron Allen's Prince was pulled from a previous arrest record by his brother Trenton police compared the print from Ron Allen's file to the one left in the taxi the point-by-point comparison was a coincidence that Ron Allen had been in the vehicle of the murdered man, that wasn't enough to prove he was the killer, the taxi saw dozens of fares each day, but the coincidence told investigators they were on the right track.

Police discovered that the Allen brothers were Trenton locals who became involved with a rough and dangerous gang called the New York Boys Turf was in a cousin in the Big Apple, so the gangs began to colonize New Jersey, the Allens were recruited. Chief Williams' detectives continue to interview friends and enemies of the Allen brothers in hopes of finding holes in their alibi in hopes of finding something they could use, can I do it? Almost everyone on the street knew what was going on, but unfortunately in many of the homicide cases I've worked on, people are very reluctant to come forward and give that information.

The information they gathered continued to implicate the Allen brothers, but it was not enough to arrest them, so on the night of December 20, 1989, a brave witness came forward when police assured him he would be safe, he agreed to talk and He told police he was parked directly behind the first victim's taxi during the crime that he saw Botner. he shot from behind and heard the window break then drove, drove, asked the taxi fast and saw three men going through Bodner's pockets. He identified Ron and John Allen as two of the three men he had seen in the taxi that night.

Dragnet was approaching. about the Allen brothers, but a single fingerprint and a rushed eyewitness account might not be strong enough to earn the maximum sentence for these alleged killers. Detectives still needed to find a way to use the killer's ammunition against them. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. here the investigation into the gang-style murder of two Trenton taxi drivers was moving slowly the police had a witness who could place the Allen brothers at the scene of a driver's murder now they had to put a gun in their hands they got help from the police Informant That's what I'm talking about, you're interested, he told the police that the islands had tried to sell him guns and ammunition several weeks ago and that the guns had two bodies, two murders, let me think he didn't buy.

They're fine, I think it's right to prove Allen's involvement. Detective Salvatore needed those weapons. He sent the informant to look for them. The informant risked his life to do it today during the holidays. Within two days we received a phone call from him and the informant. he had the weapons he handed over the two revolvers and a fist full of bullets that he had just bought on the islands our taxi drivers we also have Salvatore he sent the weapons to the ballistics laboratory to compare them with the slugs recovered from the taxis both weapons had five lands and grooves with a turn to the right both could have fired the bullets found at the crime scenes another test would determine if one of them actually had the weapons were test fired the marks on the test bullets from one of the weapons matched the fatal slugs The Investigators had found the gun they were looking for the gun that killed Francis Bodner and Willie Rogers.

The police got the warrants they needed to arrest the officers who invaded their hangout spots, found John Allen, and brought him in. Ron Allen called the detective. Salvatore, a few hours later, asked about his twin detectives. They traced the call while I was talking to Iran on the phone. We had a couple of teams here in West Trenton, a couple of detective teams set up at various locations here, because we knew that this is where he frequented and where he probably was and as soon as we got the information from the Bell operator, we sent that information to our units on the street and they came here and forced their way in. house and arrested Ron Allen, who was still on the phone with me at the time of the arrest, tell me your story one more time.

At first, Ron Allen denied everything, then investigators listed the evidence against him. Allen turned it in for himself, his twin, and a third man. Allen said that on the night of the murder he and his twin were out with a man named Greg Williams. He claimed Williams pulled the trigger at 7 p.m. An arrest warrant had been issued for Williams. Five days later, authorities arrested him in Ocilla, Georgia. but Salvatore was never convinced for a minute that Williams had been the man who fired the gun used in the murder of the two taxi drivers were guns owned by the Allen brothers there were guns carried by the Allen brothers Gregory Williams was not likely to own the gun and kill the taxi drivers.

We believe it was the Allen brothers who killed them on July 10, 1990. Ronald and John Allen were convicted of the taxicab murders. On August 16, they were sentenced to two consecutive years. life sentence the Allen twins will be over one hundred years old when they are eligible for parole for their involvement in the crime Greg Williams was sentenced to life in prison also the Allen twins and Greg Williams killed two men for just over a hundred dollars of the money they intended to spend in New York City to buy drugs that they could sell in Trenton in jail, the Allens bragged about robbing and killing taxi drivers saying they were easy targets with ballistic evidence, just like the items the Allen brothers They found their victims on the streets but staying home doesn't necessarily mean being safe Los Angeles, April 17, 1991.

This morning, Marilyn Rush knew something was wrong when her friend Joan Dolly didn't show up for work. Joan was never late and she didn't answer her phone because she was worried about Marilyn driving. to the house Joan shared with her husband Dennis to make sure she was okay even though Jones' car was not in the driveway Marilyn went in to check on her friend and found her in the bedroom Joan John John oh god , it's okay when the Los Angeles police responded. At first glance the crime scene looked like a botched robbery the bedroom had been ransacked Joan Dawley's bruised hands told investigators she had tried to defend herself Dolly's neighborhood had had a series of escapes and she matched the pattern outside A screen had been removed from an open window and there was a ladder underneath, but as police worked the scene they began compiling a growing list of clues that didn't fit the robbery scenario.

The wet floor beneath the window bore no footprints or marks from the ladder. The window sill where the burglars allegedly climbed was clean of dirt or scuff marks and a hundred dollars were left visible on the kitchen counter, it looked as if someone had worked hard to make it look like Joan Dolly had interrupted a detective. LAPD Robbery Officer, Paul. Tippin wasn't convinced of all of these things, along with the evidence that the supposed entry point didn't add up initially, of course you write it off as a robbery murder, but as it progressed it turned out to be a made up crime scene.

Basically, the police suspected that the killer had masterminded the scene after killing Dolly. Officers notified the victim's husband, Dennis Dawley, and asked him some routine questions. If you have that type of murder, you will have to eliminate the spouse. Well, you have to get over it. hurdle before he could move on to the next step Dennis told police that he and Joan were high school sweethearts married for 35 years. He last spoke to his wife the night before, she was still asleep when he left the house at a quarter to five that morning to go to his job at the golf course he had no idea what could have happened or who could have done it.

Wanting his wife to die, he said he couldn't bear to stay in the house. If police had more questions, they could locate him at his daughter Debbie Myers' home. Reuniting with Dennis Dolly above suspicion continued on in his search for clues to this horrific murder. I'll take it back, the autopsy found that the victim had been killed by blunt force trauma to the back of the head. Tests revealed no evidence of sexual assault. The coroner discovered traces of blood and foreign matter under the victim's fingernails, but investigators had no sure way of knowing if they were The Killers or the victims.

In these early days of DNA technology, accurate testing required large samples to test for traces of material under the victim's fingernails. The nails would jeopardize the only piece of potential evidence. My first question was: do you think we can get DNA evidence from any evidence under her fingernails? And the answer was yes, but once we do it, we will be able to destroy all the evidence through analysis, so at that time I was very reluctant to do it, the risk was too great. Tippin would have to rely on some old-fashioned detective work to solve this matter, at least for now, four days after the murder.

Joan Dawley's missing car reappeared. Her son-in-law was discovered. In a parking lot across from the card store where Joan had worked, police found her keys, but no useful leads, two days after the victim's funeral detective, Tippin, called Dolly at her daughter's house. to see if he had noticed anything else the thieves might have. See you when she gets back, but Debbie Myers told Tippin that her father was gone. Dolly said that she needed to get away and that she planned to spend a few days quietly fishing on Lake Mead. Myers told Tippin the name of the Las Vegas hotel where her father lived.

Tippin's experience told her it was strange for a man to leave town so soon after his wife's murder that he asked a friend at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to monitor Dolly Tippin's opinion of her heartbroken husband. that was about to change Joan's situation. The Dawley murder investigation took a strange turn when Dennis Dolly appeared at a Las Vegas casino at 3:30 in the morning, he was in the company of a woman, Detective Tippin received surveillance photographs of the couple after checking that the woman was identified as Brendata Taliano. It didn't sit well with me after I determined he was in Las Vegas with a woman two days after burying his wife of 35 years.

I became very suspicious. Tippin looked into Taliano's background and discovered that her record included prostitution and drug convictions. she had no fixed address and also discovered that Taliano had been staying at the Mission Hills motel in Los Angeles during the time of Joan Dawley's murder. The motel was only a quarter mile from where Joan's car had been recovered. This was worth a closer look. so I went to the Mission Hills motel and talked to the manager and basically what happened was he gave me a list of phone calls and phone numbers going back a month. Tippin reviewed Taliano's outgoing call list.

She had called Dolly's house, the golf resort where he worked, and a local bowling alley that was her favorite Hangout. It was time to make a call to Taliano. He tracked her to a North Hollywood motel. Detectives from the Police Department approached. Taliano and they asked her to register her room here surprisingly she accepted without batting an eyelid in general terms. I mean, if someone is that Cooperative, he's not thinking that he has anything that could become a lead or make him believe that he was involved in a homicide. The search found several pieces of jewelry, most of which were trash,but one piece seemed particularly valuable and not the type of jewelry taliano would normally own.

Italiano had an explanation ready, she told them that she was often hired to clean Dolly's house while she was there, she took some jewelry, but not entirely without the knowledge from Dennis, they were having an affair. She wanted us to believe that she was basically okay with Joan being around Dolly and Dennis, but Joan didn't know that she was engaging in sexual activity. Secretarial detectives found a note that said Dennis was nervous that Taliano would keep the jewelry and wanted her to fence it. That suggested he was involved in her very nice jewelry theft here a few days later Debbie Myers identified the jewelry recognized the piece that her mother always wore If that were true then Taliano couldn't have stolen it from the victim Jones jewelry box Jewelry in Taliano's possession and a note linking Dolly to the stolen pieces too many coincidences were piling up too fast maybe her secret profit didn't stop at the theft once I identified the Italiano brand and the things that were going on with her and Dennis Dawley.

It became increasingly clear that it was a conspiracy and that these two people were involved in the case. Investigators began to believe that Joan Dawley's murder was a crime motivated by love, not because of Dennis and Brendita's love for each other, but because of her mutual adoration of money. He divorced his wife, he would lose half of everything he owned and Joan had recently inherited nearly one hundred thousand dollars. The police suspected that Dennis Dolly was a cunning and dangerous man if he and Brendita had conspired to kill Joan because Dolly wanted all of her money.

So why would you want to share it with Brandita? I was also a little worried about Brandita and her situation because I thought there was a possibility that Dennis would murder Brandida just to get her out of the way. The evidence against the couple was only circumstantial. Investigators had no physical evidence placing them at the crime scene on the morning of April 17, but they had enough to bring them in for questioning, at least then authorities could keep their eyes on the couple based on what they had gathered so far. now. The detectives developed a strategy they had. 48 hours to charge them or let them go was a calculated risk.

Tippin knew that he had no evidence to accuse them, so he was betting that once in custody they would break down and attack each other. Dennis admitted to having met the Italiano brand. on the street and that's basically all he admitted, yes he was wrong and he hooked up with Brandida and had her as his girlfriend, but as far as the murder or anything else, he wasn't involved in anything. Italiano told a different story a few years ago. Months before Jones' murder, Taliano had been serving time in a women's prison in Los Angeles, visiting her there, my God, he had asked her for a favor.

Did he know anyone he could hire for an important job? He assumed that meant murdering his wife. Italiano recommended a man named Gary. Ware Dolly's deal with Wear must have ended while Taliano was in prison. He said Dolly never told him what happened. It was a hot lead, but investigators would need so much more evidence to make it a murder charge that he would stick and Tippin's 48 hours were. The authorities were forced to let Dolly and Taliano go right now while I'm filming where there were no choirboys. A man with a criminal record like yours might be capable of committing a contract murder.

His phone records showed that Dolly called him before Jones. death, but not after, suddenly I have him right in the middle of this homicide with phone calls that Dennis Dolly makes to him, so I had to find out why those calls were being made and what his participation or involvement was. But a hardened criminal like where he didn't just offer information to the police, Tippin spent a year trying to get him to talk to his lawyer. We finally admitted to the authorities that Dolly had contacted him with an interesting business proposal that the two agreed upon.

Knowing well, Dolly wanted where to kill his wife, she gave him thirty thousand dollars in cash and told him that she didn't care how, but that she wanted her to leave at first. Tippin could not understand why he would involve himself in the murder of Joan Dawley. It turned out that he had an airtight alibi the morning the victim was murdered. he was locked up in Chino State Prison. Tippin's most promising lead vanished before his eyes after spending more than a year investigating the murder of Joan Dawley. The case was frozen. Although LAPD detectives had a suspicion that they still needed hard evidence that would place Dennis Dolly and Brendet Italiano at the scene of Joan Dolly's murder, one lead after another came up empty, so on the last day of February 1994, the Detective Paul Tippin received a call telling him that he had been waiting three years since Joan Dawley's murder.

DNA analysis technology had been greatly refined. A new technique allowed even a small point of genetic material to be analyzed. Now the lab could accurately analyze just a portion of the foreign matter found under the victim's fingernails without the risk of ruining the entire DNA sample. The lab's new testing technology called PCR (polymerase chain reaction) stimulates the DNA. carry out its natural function continuous duplication a carefully controlled environment of chemicals and heat works like a genetic copying machine Colin Yamauchi is a criminalist in the DNA unit of the LAPD crime lab, we can start with a small sample and put it into this instrument that can make hundreds and then thousands and then hundreds of thousands and millions of copies of that same DNA, so that was kind of exciting. moment in forensic serology when PCR came online and we were able to use this technology with PCR an immeasurable amount of DNA can be grown in an analyzable sample the procedure was performed on a portion of material taken from under Joan Dawley's fingernails and then compared to her DNA.

Blood that didn't match, someone else's cells were under Joan Dawley's fingernails, which meant that the possibility of a suspect's DNA was there and that was very, very important to me because now It created a situation where maybe I could directly connect a suspect to the victim and that was very, very important. Dennis Dawley's genetic material was tested with his wife's fingernail sample quite well and came back negative. When Brendy D'Italiano was in prison for an unrelated crime, a court order was issued and a sample of blood. This time Tippin got the match from him. There could now be no doubt that Brendita Taliano murdered Joan Dolly, but Tippin was still not convinced that Taliano had acted alone.

Dennis Dolly's knowledge of the stolen jewelry is an attempt to hire a hitman and a long series of incriminating phone records before the crime implicated him in the murder. I truly believe they were both in it, they were both involved in it, they were both there when it happened. As it happened, the jury agreed that Dennis Dawley and Brandita Italiano had conspired and murdered Joan Dolly almost four years after her death. His murderers were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Dolly and Taliano believed that murder was the easy path to health. Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones. those who feel this way some people make murder part of their business plan Livingston County north central Missouri more than a hundred years ago this was a wild and harsh country under the government of Frontier Justice today it has settled into the essence of rural America old style towns surrounded by farmland a place where farmers struggle with the vagaries of the weather and the realities of the economy people here believe in an honest wage or an honest job at least most of them believe that you will buy the first two would have been here Hamilton in October 1986 the Livingston County Sheriff's Department received a call from a nearby Livestock Auction Company.

A man named Dennis Murphy had passed a bad check for six thousand dollars to buy cattle. He had paid for the cattle, loaded them onto a truck and disappeared even though Murphy was a stranger. he seemed to be working with a local farmer named Ray Copeland. Ray had attended the auction and, although he had not purchased any cattle, he provided a truck with some cattle that Murphy had purchased. Sheriff Gary Calvert visited Mr. Copeland to find out more about Murphy. admitted that he knew Dennis Murphy, that Dennis Marine was in his pasture to keep those cows and that he had in fact sold some of Dennis's own cows and the dentist said that he had given him a bad check and that it could also have been the end of the story, except a month later, Calvert received another call about a Hobo passing bad checks for about six thousand dollars worth of livestock.

The Tramp resold the cows, took the money and disappeared again. Ray Copeland had been at the auction, it was his truck that took the cattle, but once again, Copeland said he was also a victim of five of them, and well, that may have been true. Calvert had reason to doubt. Ray Copeland had been arrested several times for passing his own bad checks and we're going to have to find something that Still, Calvert had no proof that he was behind this. The two cattle rustlers had arrest records constantly being in and out of jail on minor charges.

Calvert assumed they would surely be arrested again. He would soon catch up to him, all he had to do. Two years passed without further problems, and then in October 1988, Calvert learned that three more tramps were passing off bad paper for good cattle. This was not the type of crime Calvert had often seen. He had now seen five cases in 24 months. They had to be related when Calvert investigated the two men who had stolen the cows two years earlier he found no record of them they had not been arrested again anywhere Calvert could not believe that these petty criminals had reformed into model citizens, but he didn't know where they had gone or if Copeland might really be involved.

Calvert had heard rumors, although Copeland's neighbors told him that he was hiring hobos from the local mission to help him at livestock auctions because he couldn't hear. Well, since Copeland supposedly promised to pay the men fifty dollars a day to stay on his farm and not tell anyone they were there, even if those rumors were true, they didn't mean much. It was a year before Calvert got more information, and he didn't. What I Expected On August 20, 1989, an anonymous call to the Nebraska Crime Stoppers hotline alerted authorities to beware of Rey and Faye Copeland of Mooresville, Missouri.

The caller said she had worked for Cochlears. Rey had done it. buying cattle with bad checks and then threatened to kill him said he was not the first to suggest that Rey was a murderer Jack McCormick on September 6, 1989, just two weeks after the anonymous caller's phone information surfaced Jack McCormick was arrested outside Salem, Oregon for sleeping on the side of a road when the police computer revealed an outstanding warrant for bad checks in Missouri, he was extradited when he got there, he admitted to making the anonymous call. McCormick said Copeland met him at a homeless shelter and hired him to work on his farm after he moved into Copeland's house.

Copeland opened a bank account for him so he could buy cattle. It seemed like a fair deal, but McCormick became suspicious when he found a closet full of men's clothing that belonged to other men at the shelter, some with their names written on it in a common practice among homeless people. During the 15 days he lived on the farm, McCormick said he made several livestock purchases for Rey and Faye Copeland, but soon McCormick overdrawn the bank account, the Sullivan County Sheriff issued a warrant for his arrest right after that, on the 10th. On August 1, 1989, McCormick claimed that Copeland tried to kill him with a .22 rifle and then, for some reason, Copeland changed his mind.

McCormick fled the county. It sounded like a far-fetched story, but the sheriff couldn't dismiss it out of hand. I hit him and then came the wildest accusation of all. McCormick said he found. a human skull and a leg bone at Copeland's Farm when he suggested that what might be happening here is that Mr. Coupler might be killing people, we thought we'd better look into it based on what McCormick told the authorities and along with the fact that two of the cattle rustlers were seen with Ray Copeland. The sheriff had enough to arrest Rey and his wife Faye on charges related to check fraud.

A search warrant was issued to determine if they were up to something much worse. A homeless man named Jack McCormick accused Rey and Faye Copeland of murder.He said the evidence was buried on his farm on October 9, 1989. The couple were detained. The Copelands were behind bars at the Livingston County Jail. Officers searched the farm. They found items that seemed to corroborate Jack McCormick's account. First it was the closet. of the men Clothes they had been cutting to make a quilt. Some clothes had the names of the missing men just as McCormick had described. Officers also found a list of men's names hidden in a camera case that included The Men Who Had Passed. bad checks, the ones that disappeared had X next to them, let's go ahead and follow up if McCormick was telling the truth and Copeland was a murderer.

Sheriff Calvert would have to find the bodies, but after a week of searching, officers found no trace of the missing men while searching the Copeland farm. Television stations began reporting on the case. Rancher Keith Albright saw the story and called the sheriff to report what he knew. Albright had rented a farm just six miles from Copeland. Ray had done some odd jobs for him. Albright told the police that he had found some bones in a field at the time he thought they were animal bones now he wasn't so sure having found no bodies at Copeland's Farm the police believe that Albright might be up to something that Copeland was guilty of and that he wouldn't know was careless enough to bury all of his victims in his own land.

They spread out to search Albright's farm in the barn. They noticed that some areas of the dirt floor had been disturbed. They started digging at the end of the day. Officers discovered three bodies in shallow water. Calls about the graves on Albright's property kept coming to the sheriff's department and they tracked down every promising lead when people found out that we were suspicious of what he may have been doing, they were suspicious of everything they had seen him do, so we left. on a lot of wild goose chases, okay, it looks like we have something down here, I don't really know what it is when the bodies started showing up, maybe Copeland, trying to minimize his involvement, started telling crazy stories, he said he heard some strangers talking about littering. a body in a neighbor's well, sure enough, investigators found the body of one of the missing Drifters, but the LIE backfired: the discovery implicated Copeland even further down, the search on that farm intensified, and a fifth victim was excavated beneath two thousand bales of hay using dental records the five men were positively identified a few weeks later, among them was Dennis Murphy, pulled from his watery grave.

It was a good start, but investigators needed forensic evidence to link Copeland more directly to the murdered men. Calvert collected the .22 rifle found in Copeland's home. and a stack of 22 bullets recovered from the bodies and turned over to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The rifle was tested in his crime lab. He would leave his unique set of marks on the slugs as they were thrown down the canyon. A foreign microscope was used. to compare the markings on one side, the test bullet on the other, a bullet taken from one of the five murder victims, the markings on the bullets lined up exactly with firearms and ballistics expert, Todd Garrison, that It only meant one thing after comparison and examinations that it could be conclusively said that this particular bullet had been fired from this particular Marlin Farm;

Bullets obtained from the Copeland Farm from the same rifle killed each of the five victims, but investigators still needed to know if Faye Copeland had any role in this. The note found in the Copeland House report said a lot. Ray, who was illiterate, could not have written down the names on the list to see if she was the author. Calvert gave the list to the handwriting section of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, although a person's handwriting varies, certain characteristics remain consistent. Writing expert Don Lott compared the note against a known sample of phased writing, noting several distinguishing features, for example, the letter B always appeared capitalized even in the middle of a word.

Luck concluded that this and other details were common to the note and two examples of phased handwriting, but what about the X's, was it possible that Faye had simply written down the list of names and Rey had placed the while killing the men. That would be harder to judge. Could you just look at the Luck even compared the ink used to write the names with the ink used to write the X's. His conclusion was that the same ink had been used for both foreigners. Copeland wrote the names. and she marked the X's while her husband killed the men one by one.

Locke and Garrison provided the forensic evidence to charge the Copelands with five counts of first-degree murder on November 12, 1990. Faye was sentenced to death. Ray followed her on May 22, 1991. Two years Faye and Ray Copeland were the only death row couple sentenced for the same crime. Ray Copeland tricked the executioner when he died in October 1993 at the Potosí Correctional Center. In 1999, his wife of more than 50 years' sentence was reduced to life in prison, although neither of the Copelands ever confessed as investigators reconstructed this scenario. Rey somehow came up with the idea of ​​hiring Drifters to write checks for him after the men outlived their usefulness or when orders passed checks with no accumulated funds.

Copeland murdered them. Faye kept the books. How much is a human life? Police estimated that the Copelands made thirty thousand dollars from their skiing. Six thousand dollars per victim. They thought no one would notice that a few Drifters were missing. They were wrong. It is often said that two heads are better than one when committing murder. Having a partner gives the police twice the evidence to gather and twice the chance of catching the killers. Investigators face the case of a sexual sadist who leaves painfully few clues, even his victim is anonymous when a woman leaves her home and disappears.

The detectives find evidence that she will never return with no one, no witnesses and few clues. The truth about her fate hangs in the balance. A horrible crime comes to light on a remote river, but all evidence has been cleaned up. Investigators have no hope of solving it unless the killer strikes again. Greed, rage and revenge motivate most Assassins, but some hunt just for sport to catch these killers. Investigators must follow a trail of scattered clues. Under the gaze of California's Sierra Nevada mountains lies the resort community of Lake Tahoe. The foreign air and majestic forests instill a sense of harmony, but to a lost traveler this was the cruelest place on Earth.

On September 17, 1987, investigators from the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department were called to an isolated location on the side of an abandoned service road. The young woman had been gagged with a piece of pantyhose. Investigators found what they believed to be the murder weapon. A strangulation device made from a tree branch and a shred of the victim's clothing that appeared to have been cut with scissors, as opposed to rope or bare hands. A garage is mainly used to torture the killer. A lot of trouble finding a place to organize their long assault. Sergeant Jim Watson was shocked to find a body in such a remote location.

At the time it was just a big question mark in my mind: how did it get here? Where did he come from? There were many unanswered questions at the time, but it was where we started, what they did know was that the killer must have chosen this location in advance, the remote service road was difficult to find, it was not a place you just came across. It bumped into and was It was not chosen simply as a place to dump a body. The road was too steep to transport the victim. The lack of injuries on the soles of her feet told detectives that her shoes were not removed until they walked her here working outward in a spiral.

Pattern they scoured the ground looking for additional clues. We began a sweep of the entire area from here to the road, which is about a third of a mile. That sweep revealed pieces of clothing that were scattered in various bushes and trees from here to the main road. The technicians picked up what they thought it was. the remains of the victim's suit, a dress, a pair of underwear, a single shoe and remains of pantyhose, not knowing what they could use later, they also collected a packet of cigarettes and the butane lighter, a white cord found nearby suggested that the murderer held his victim before he killed her the detectives had no idea of ​​the victim's identity nor any solid clues about her killer they hoped the medical examiner would give them something they could use the post mortem examination conducted here between the ages of 16 and 21.

She had a large bruise on her head, but that was not the fatal injury, the ligature around her neck had entered her life based on the amount of cavities, the medical examiner estimated that she had died between two and four weeks earlier, no. tissue was found under her fingernails, no foreign fluids were found on her body Technicians use duct tape to collect trace fibers from textiles, processed every square inch of the victim's clothing and cataloged each fragment in the hope that Someday they would find a source of comparison, but without a suspect, this evidence was useless and until they could identify the victim, the murder investigation was at a standstill, a sadistic predator was free to roam and kill again, the detective reviewed hundreds of records of missing persons, but to no avail, documents published in artists depicting the dead woman, suggestions from families poured in. and friends searching for missing teenage girls one by one were eliminated there was nothing to do but wait as the months passed the search for missing people gradually spread up the coast it was not until four months later, in January 1988, that the Police received a call from a Seattle woman who recognized the girl's dental records eventually gave the victim a name.

Seventeen-year-old Darcy Frackinpole was a runaway from Seattle who tried to build a life in Sacramento. She ended up working as a prostitute. Her friends last saw her on August 24, three weeks ago. before her body was found yes, for a predator looking to kill prostitutes they are easy targets night after night they let strangers lead them into the dark sometimes they don't come back investigators looked for similar attacks on prostitutes in the sacramento area one called her attention three Days before Darcy's body was found, another prostitute had a brutal encounter with a client while she was bending over to close the door, the man grabbed her by the wrists and tried to handcuff her, but before he managed to subdue her, an officer police officer driving through the neighborhood noticed a couple fighting and interceded after the prostitute escaped from the car the perpetrator tried to flee but was caught the opportunity through the window through the window open the door hands in the air looking towards the building walks A good look at a bag found in her back seat told the police that the prostitute had escaped just in time.

It contained a pair of scissors, handcuffs, and a garage assembled from two wooden pegs and a piece of white cord. It seemed to be some kind of anti-crime team. Police arrested the 48-year-old suspect. -Old Roger Kibby, a furniture maker Kibby had a history of theft spanning two decades. Illiterate, but his intelligent acquaintances described him as a quiet man who liked to take long car rides at night. He was given an eight-month sentence for assaulting the prostitute while in prison Darcy Frackinpole had been identified in Lake Tahoe more than 80 miles away and the search for her killer Gibby attacked the prostitute in Sacramento and his crime team turned up The Haunting investigators suspected that this was not the first attack they had made.

I don't know how many women had made the mistake of getting into kibby's passenger seat, they wondered if frackinpole was one of them. A garat is an unusual and memorable weapon, although the one found on Kibby's crime team bore no resemblance to the improvised device used to kill Frackinpole. The white cord used in its construction resembled the rope found at the crime scene and, like his Sacramento assault victim, Brackenpole was a prostitute, investigators questioned him in hopes of findingincriminate himself in the fracking pole murder. He denied any involvement. The detective's suspicions were purely circumstantial. The only thing they had to follow was the nylon cord, it deserved a closer look under the magnifying glass of a stereoscopic microscope.

Technicians compared cord samples from the Frackenfold crime scene and Kibby's car. Both yarns contained the same amount of fibers composed of the same fabric. and pattern researchers discovered that this was not just household rope, but parachute rope. They learned that Kibby worked at a storage facility and rented a unit. There they obtained a warrant to search him. Oh yeah, there's a skydiving kit right there for Roger. They learned that he enjoyed skydiving and when they removed a photograph from the wall they made an unexpected discovery: the image was hanging from a piece of parachute cord exactly the same as the one found at both crime scenes, but it was not irrefutable proof.

Investigators found nothing to definitively link Kibby to Darcy's death frackinpole this relatively common rope would not bear the weight of a murder investigation unless they found more evidence. Kibby would be out of prison in just a few months and then probably disappear, but the tiny fibers could prove stronger than the strong rope now that investigators. If they had a suspect, they could compare the traces of evidence originally collected from Frackinpole's clothing with the fibers. collected from Kibby. There are many serial type crimes where we don't have blood analysis or DNA analysis and if there are no bullets, blood or semen, we have no choice.

In addition to looking at particles or traces of evidence at the California Department of Justice crime lab, criminalist Faye Springer examined the numerous fibers taken from Darcy Frackenpold's clothing. Hours can be spent analyzing a square inch after three weeks analyzing the evidence. Springer found two fibers that stood out for their larger size; the distinctive shape and color of the fiber's cross section told him they were blue nylon carpet fibers. This is where her 30 years of experience paid off. She asked investigators to find out what kind of car Kibby had. was driving at the time of the assault a search warrant was executed and the suspect's car was taken for inspection it was on target the mats were blue, plus one had a red stain a sample was taken and sent for analysis the results were Disappointingly, it turned out to be pink, but the blue fibers from Kibby's car still had forensic value.

A sample was compared to fibers found on the victim's clothing, not only were the shape and composition of the strands the same, a spectral dye analysis confirmed that they were exactly the same color was this proof that Darcy Frackinpole was in Kibby's vehicle. The exact same blue carpet could not be found on tens of thousands of vehicles. If investigators wanted to catch Kibby, they would need something more conclusive, but an uncanny similarity couldn't do it. It was taken into account that both the fibers of the car and those of the victim's clothing were sprinkled with small specks in the shape of a soccer ball.

Samples from both were sent to a laboratory in Chicago that specializes in identifying microscopic contaminants until the results came back. Investigators had no other evidence besides. parachute cord When they began their careful scrutiny for anything they might have missed, they realized that Kibby could have left enough parachute cord to hang himself in California. Criminalist Faye Springer was trying to use three pieces of rope to tie up a murderer. She examined the ropes. under increasing magnification until he noticed something strange: the rope found at the scene of Darcy's fracking pole murder had small specks of red paint, as did the garat cord found in Roger Kibby's car, as did than the sample from your storage unit.

Spectral analysis showed that the paint on all three cables had the same chemical composition, including some microscopic black specks that must have been trapped under the drying paint, it was a powerful connection, so it seemed that not only did we have the same type of cable, but we also had cable that lived or existed in the same environment it was exposed to the same type of contaminants for all intents and purposes it was the same rope but the investigators needed more to close their case that's when the call came from the testing lab in Chicago that had finished analyzing the Carpet Fibers The unidentified football shapes found in the carpet fibers were fungal spores, single-celled organisms that could have come from dirt or mold, but there was something else.

The lab's powerful microscopes had identified a red stain in the carpet fiber found on the victim's clothing. It was paint, it had the same properties as the paint on Kibby's car mat. The carpet fibers were not only similar, but identical. Both contained the same soccer ball-shaped fungal spores and the same paint stains. The victim and suspect were now irrefutably linked. What about the other man, Roger Kibby, who was arrested on April 25, 1988 for the murder of Darcy Frackenpole during the trial? The police had gathered details of the victims the previous night. She had been working the streets when she accepted an invitation that would turn out to be a date with death.

Investigators suspect that after restraining her with parachute cord, Kibby took her to a location he had selected in advance after cutting off her clothes and torturing her. for several hours, killed her and then scattered her clothes Roger Kibby was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison no one knows how many other victims similar to Darcy frackenpoles at least three other murders that coincide with Roger Mo Kibby believes they are his own work if it had not been for a powerful microscope and with some astute detective work, the number could continue to increase.

Roger Kibby had covered his tracks by going out in search of strangers, but not all predators hunt far from home in On a cheerful October morning in 1992, neighbors watched Laura Hotling leave the Bethesda, Maryland, home she shared with her mother. The 24-year-old Harvard graduate returned after college and had no trouble finding a job. in a consulting company, but he never came to work that day. A close friend and a colleague went to check on her, although the back door was open she found the house empty Laura Laura someone did not come to work today there was no sign of Laura or any indication of where she had gone she contacted Laura's family concerned Laura's mother interrupted her business trip.

Neither she nor her son had any idea where Laura could be. She wasn't the type to run away without leaving serious news about her career. Laura was known for her diligence and punctuality. No heavy secret seemed to weigh on her. in his mind he didn't hint that he was going to leave town his family filed a missing persons report with the Montgomery County Police, at this point all Detective Ed Tarney could do was a routine check, we checked with friends , they had not heard from her, she did not leave. one note, he was very suspicious, also during the course investigation we checked all of his credit card bank accounts, there had been no activity, but as far as missing persons cases go, this was in its infancy, it had only been a few days since Laura Hotling was last seen.

Although there was no sign of her, there was also no sign of foul play. Hey, how are you doing, friend? Well, the police interviewed the hotlings. Friends, neighbors, gardener, no one could offer any information about the woman's disappearance after seeing her leave. At work the The previous morning there had been no sign of Laura or any indication of trouble at her home, but then, as they searched the woods around the house, investigators found something that told them this was more than a missing person case: the case. pillow and the pillow inside. They were stained with what appeared to be blood when we brought the bloody pillowcase into the house, it matched the other pillowcases that were there and at that point we knew we were on to something very very serious to find out more about the stains.

She turned to forensic scientist Susan Ballou at the Montgomery County Crime Lab. Baloo first tested the stains to confirm that they were made with human blood. She wanted to see if we could detect a type consistent with Laura who we knew from her donations to Red Cross facilities. she was blood type A. The blood stained on the pillow was proven to be the same type by its bright red color. Blue knew he was looking at stains less than a week old, although his findings could only prove that someone with type A blood had bled on Laura's bedroom pillow.

Hotaling was enough to turn the missing person case into a possible homicide. investigators needed to find out what had happened in Laura's room under the quilt they found something strange there was a flat sheet on the bed but the fitted sheet was gone and on the mattress underneath there were some faint stains that looked more like blood. The researchers saturated the mattress with a chemical called luminol when it combines with blood proteins, even those invisible to the naked eye, glow when seen in the dark. Laura's mattress radiated a pattern of blood stains and streaks that spelled murder there was a large amount of blood that appeared on that bed that was when we knew she had probably been murdered there in her bedroom the lack of splatters on the walls or surrounding furniture He told detectives that the killer had used the pillow to stop the flow of blood.

The absence of a trail of blood leading from the bedroom suggested that the killer had cleaned his tracks or wrapped the body before taking it out of the house. Investigators collected fibers and samples from Laura's hair in case they ever needed to make a comparison, thanks. Meanwhile, technicians search the pillowcase for any link to the suspect, a crucial detail emerged based on the repeated pattern of triangular spots, they assumed that the killer had stabbed the victim with a narrow, pointed tip. gun which was then cleaned on the fabric hidden in the corner of the pillowcase Baloo made a more significant discovery when I looked at these areas closely I could see partial footprint impressions on them which turned out to be what is called a patent print, an impression that is made with blood, however, there were not enough details of Ridge to obtain enough information in his current state.

The print was too vague to be used for identification, but criminalists like Baloo have ways of turning faint prints into obvious evidence. She applied a sensitive protein. dye to enhance the pattern now that they had a workable print all they needed was a suspect. Mrs. Hoddling couldn't think of anyone who would want to hurt her daughter, although she did remember that her gardener had not done it. Clark had been fascinated by Laura since On her first day at work, he also told police that he discovered her spare key was missing. Clark had worked for the family for several months during the day, during the day he was allowed in to use the bathroom or help himself to some coffee during the night.

He lived in a truck he had in the parking lot of a nearby church. How long has he been working for the hotel? Although Clark denied any knowledge of an attack on Laura, his agitated behavior brought him into question; it was not Clark's first encounter with the law that he had ever had. was arrested on a robbery charge when Clark's prints were compared to the patent print on the pillowcase which matched the suspect Gardener had left his print in wet blood on the pillow in the victim's bedroom and the only way What he could have done, according to the police, was if he had killed her even though they did not yet have the body.

Police arrested Clark on November 6, 1992. Inside his truck, along with his gardening tools, they found a hardware store receipt for Carpenter's thread tape and plastic sheeting, normally harmless materials that homicide investigators see more of. of what corresponds to them. Detectives believe Clark was the killer, proving that it would be another matter despite the circumstantial evidence amassed against him, all the police had was a bloody fingerprint. Clark's lawyers were already formulating his rebuttal. The homeless man regularly scavenged through forest trash and could have easily left an innocent footprint on the pillowcase, it was up to the prosecution to prove otherwise, so inAt that moment we realized that the fingerprint was not going to be the crux of this particular case and we had to go further despite its dubious profile, the detectives did not have a single one.

One shred of physical evidence for Ty Clark of the murder and without a body, the case would be nearly impossible to prove. Investigators searched Clark's squalid camp looking for a weapon or even a body, but no weapons were found and the only bodies were animals he caught for food. Detectives began scouring the site for smaller clues that would prove Laura had been there, but realized that finding anything of value in this Hubble would be impossible. The trial date was just weeks away if the prosecution failed to convince the jury of Clark's guilt. able to try him again even if the body turned up later and without any convincing evidence it seemed that his case against the gardener would wither on the vine the trial date was approaching and Maryland investigators needed to find some physical link between Haddon Clark and the victim.

Laura Hodelling, because the victim's body had not been found, the case would have to rely on other evidence, investigators were unable to determine what that evidence might be as they searched the suspect's belongings. Forensic Technician Susan Ballou continued processing evidence from the crime scene. In preparation for any possible hair comparison, Baloo inspected more than 90 hairs taken from the victim's brush and made a shocking discovery. When I started doing that, I noticed that one of the fibers I put under the microscope was a wig fiber and it just jumps out at you. you are very different from real hair and took me by surprise can you ask me Ted Tourney please Baloo learned that none of the victims' family or friends owned or wore wigs from receipts found in Clark's truck.

Investigators learned of a storage facility he rented. In Rhode Island, investigators realized that his penchant for dressing up might be the one thing that could ultimately expose him. If technicians could prove that the only wig fiber found on the victim's brush came from one of the suspect's wigs, they could prove that he had been at the crime scene in disguise. Baloo took samples of hair fibers from each of the 24 wigs and compared them to the single wig fiber found in the victim's brush after looking under the microscope at all the different fibers from these wigs that I found. a wig that the fiber of that wig had the same color composition, the same diameter, it also had the same internal characteristics as that wig fiber that I recovered from that hair brush now that Baloo had narrowed his search to a wig, which said with the original thread to a crime lab that specializes in hair testing the last and most definitive test would compare the dyes in both samples although indistinguishable to the human eye each wig made in the USA has a unique fingerprint each Of the approximately 7,000 commercial dies, it has a registered trademark by the company that formulated it.

The laboratory studied the samples under a microscope sensitive to ultraviolet rays, which they called Baloo, and with their findings they were able to determine that the dye content in the wig as well as that fibers in question recovered from the brush were actually one Similarly, Clark's defense attorneys were unable to avoid this single strand of hair as they realized it could not elude the evidence. Clark confessed that he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for the reduced charge that he agreed to reveal Laura Hotling's grave located nearby. his camp Clark admitted to stabbing the victim with a pair of scissors the autopsy concluded that she was also asphyxiated finally investigators reconstructed her last hour driven by the sick Obsession Clark learned that his victim would be alone while her mother was out of the house City, using the spare key, entered the house, suffocated Hodling with a pillow and then stabbed her in the neck.

Clark must have rolled the body in the missing sheet and then wrapped it in the plastic and duct tape he had bought at the hardware store. He put the body in the truck and drove to a clearing near his camp where a shallow grave awaited him the next morning. Clark returned to the crime scene to clean up and cover his tracks; he thought that by posing as Laura Hodling he would throw any nosy neighbors off his path. The last look in the mirror would prove his undoing without the ironclad forensic case against him. Clark probably would never have confessed that his victim's body could still be in a lonely grave and Haddon Clark could have extended his killing streak.

Fortunately, the cunning killer was unable to escape. evidence he was sentenced to 30 years in prison there's no telling where he could lead a trail of evidence sometimes investigators stumble upon more than they bargained for at 4:30 a.m. m. On January 21, 1995, police in Marion County, Oregon received a phone call from a prostitute named Lisa Louise Benson claiming to have been attacked. Benson was taken to the hospital for treatment. Lt. Bob Stye questioned her about her ordeal. She had ligature marks on her neck and also had an abrasion and signs of bruising on the back of her neck. abrasions on her hands and knees her wounds were photographed as evidence that same morning she told investigators that a customer had tried to kill her she had never seen the man before but he did not seem threatening she got into his truck he brought Benson to a store retailer Carpet Outlet after manhandling her in an office, forced her into the warehouse, tied her to a dumbwaiter and told her she was going to die and then Oyster literally lifted the elevator up to where she was dangling with her feet around it.

Six or eight inches off the ground she hung there for almost a minute, then the rope broke and she worked her way free. The plastic wrap that tied her wrists was taken as evidence. Police learned from the carpet store manager that an employee, Larry Reed, fit the suspect's body. description When Reed showed up for work the next day, the police were there to greet him, he admitted that he had picked up a prostitute the night before, but when asked about it he became evasive and uncooperative, he refused to give any more information without a lawyer present, police heard. all they needed was to arrest Reed for the attempted murder of Lisa Benson.

A look at her background revealed a disturbing history of assaults on little girls and older women. He had been institutionalized more than once, but nothing seemed to tame her instinct to prey on vulnerable women. He read fit the profile of a sadistic sexual predator, but until now the case against him was based only on the word of a prostitute for the conviction to stand. Detectives needed physical evidence to prove he caused her injuries. They obtained a warrant to search the office where Benson claimed to have been attacked They found blood spatter throughout the office The pattern of drops revealed repeated blows to the body probably with a blunt instrument The underside of the carpet revealed two large blood stains although the top of the carpet had been cleaned often called criminals continued to build a case from a single drop of blood in this case, however, they had large amounts, they found more in the dashboard glove compartment and on the column address of Reed's car, the evidence was sent to the laboratory, the results were anything but routine tests that confirmed that all the samples were blood, but not a drop came from Lisa Benson.

Oregon researchers were faced with a disturbing situation. His routine investigation into Lisa Benson's assault had exposed a much larger crime. Not only did Benson's blood not match, the splatters and saturated carpet did not match. Forensics determined that the amount of blood spilled indicated that someone had been brutally murdered in the manager's office. Now they had a homicide investigation with no leads on the victim. They didn't even know when he was killed. Suspect Larry Reed, his manager at the carpet store, told investigators that nearly two months earlier, Reed had said he needed his carpet cleaned. Reed explained the situation to his boss.

Mr. Reed had reported that a customer had entered the business during the afternoon hours of December 7. and that this person had complained of being sick and had entered this office and had vomited and as he vomited he had also vomited some blood. The story was unlikely, but at least it gave investigators a time frame for the murder that a little investigation brought up. To discover an unsolved murder in the next county in December 1994, fishermen noticed something peculiar floating in the Santiam River. Closer inspection revealed it was a body, they marked the location and contacted the Sheriff's Office.

Investigators recovered the naked body of a woman from the muddy water. the water had distorted her features beyond recognition the numerous wounds on her head were evident someone had murdered this woman and dumped her body in the river these murky depths the murderer hoped they would conspire to keep their secrets hidden forever the medical examiner determined that The victim was around 40 years old, the degree of tissue decomposition and the amount of mud and algae that covered the body indicated that he had been in the water for several weeks. Seven penetrating wounds had fractured his skull, causing fatal damage the size and magnitude of After the wounds, pathologists believed the murder weapon was a tool with a hammer on one side and a cutting blade on the other.

Identifying the victim would be a challenge because he did not have fillings, there would be no dental records to compare and because of his age. in the water, technicians couldn't take fingerprints with the standard inking method, but they had other ways. The hands were amputated in accordance with standard scientific practice and sent to the police laboratory. Very detailed photographs of the fingertips were taken there. These photographs were compared with those of a police officer. database of fingerprints of women matching the victim's description, they found a match: the fingerprints belonged to Marjorie Lynn, sessions with a 38-year-old prostitute who would be her time.

Detectives with the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office, which is south of us, reported that they are working a homicide. In the case involving a woman named Margie Sessions, Linn County detectives reported that Margie's lifestyle was being involved with methamphetamine use and prostitution. On December 7, the same day Reid reported that the bloodstain on the carpet was the day Marjorie Sessions had last been seen alive since both women were prostitutes, it appeared that his attack on Lisa Benson was part of its chilling pattern and that is why it was those two significant facts that led the detectives to join the two cases, only a DNA test could definitively link what was read with the murder of Marjorie Sessions, if the victim's DNA matched DNA taken from blood found in the carpet warehouse, investigators would choose their man.

It wasn't that easy, the victim had been in the river so long that the water degraded the DNA in her blood, but there was one. last chance in March 1995, three months after her death, the victim's body was exhumed. Technicians extracted dental pulp and bone marrow from these samples. They generated a DNA barcode to confirm that the DNA had not been degraded. Technicians compared it with tissue samples from the victim's body. parents, the genetic pattern was intact when compared to blood samples from the suspect's office and matched the DNA pattern for each stain. Blood tests collected showed that Marjorie Sessions had been injured in Larry Reed's office and that the suspect had transferred some of the blood into her vehicle, but could not prove with certainty that Larry Reed had killed her, the only way to do that would be to establish a link between the suspect and the dumping of the foreign body before the To solve this case, investigators had one more river to cross to prove that Larry Reed had murdered Marjorie.

Sessions detectives needed to prove the suspect was responsible for disposing of his body in the river, searching police records for similar attacks in the area, made a crucial discovery on December 7, the day after Sessions was arrested. last seen alive, a report of illegal dumping was filed in neighboring Polk County. Residents had reported a man. fitting the description of Reed getting out of a truck to shoottrash along the road make sure we get that tag the bag that had traces of blood contained blood stained paper towels mixed in between them was a single sheet of shrink plastic nearby investigators found a rug The remains were also stained with blood, They had no way of tracking whose blood it was or who had dumped the trash there until now the samples had been saved and taken to the forensic lab.

Each element was carefully studied. A single piece of plastic wrap was compared to the wrap collected from the Benson case's criminalist, Brad Putnam, who performed the analysis. The first thing we did was look at the class characteristics. The physical characteristics of plastic. Is clear? Color?. Is it opaque? Can you see through it? We took measurements of the thickness of The width experts could not prove that the plastic wrap found in the landfill came from the same paper as the plastic used to gag Lisa Benson, but they were able to show that it was identical to the wrap found in the factory where Reed I worked it.

It had exactly the same shape, width and color, that is very significant for us because we knew that Mr. Reed works as a carpet salesman. We also knew that at the carpet store he had used shrink wrap on Miss Benson to put it around her mouth and around her. around her throat and we had the same type of plastic wrap found in the illegal dump, blood found on the carpet and sealed paper towels. Reed's fate matched the blood found in his office. It came from Marjory sessions based solely on forensic evidence. He had pieced together the details of his murder from the initial contact to the moment his body entered the water.

Witness statements supported by the coroner about the illegal dumping helped solidify some of the theories that could have been going on and really tied together something of a multi-jurisdictional nightmare. and a nice, neat package for the prosecution police believe that on the night of December 7th Reed resumed sessions at a bar as he had done with Benson and took her back to his manager's office where things turned violent, repeated punches on The head ended her life. Reed then dumped the body in the Santiam River. Even if she was eventually found, he thought there would be no way to link her to him, but Reed underestimated the power of forensics to establish a link to Marjory's sessions. with Coca-Cola's DNA from the grave and convert it. flimsy pieces of trash on an incontrovertible murder charge in the face of so much physical evidence uh it's pretty hard to deny his involvement Reed was sentenced to 40 years for the murder of Marjorie Sessions and the attack on Lisa Benson thanks to forensic analysis a case that seemed destined It was proven beyond a doubt that the predator, who may have been hunting for years, was stopped in its tracks, honing its skills with each attack.

Sadistic killers are some of the hardest criminals to catch today. Science is giving advantage to law enforcement. Using advanced forensic techniques, investigators can build a strong case from the scattered clues they leave in their wake.