Using Science To Uncover A Sadistic Killer | The New Detectives | Real Responders

In Tampa, Florida, women become prey to a

sadistic

killer

and cemeteries are personal dumping grounds as the body count rises,

detectives

confront a serial

killer

who uses

science

as his only weapon in North Carolina. , A young mother disappears on her way home from work when her body is discovered, Detectives must expose the hidden traces of a killer if they want to find justice for her family in most homicides, Police rely on motive to hunt down a killer, but when the killer is a stranger, the crime can go unsolved for years, a full arsenal of forensic techniques is needed.

To track a deadly encounter in this episode, some of the names have been changed Tampa, Florida, October 10, 1986 Detective Robert Parish received a disturbing call. A jogger had discovered the naked body of a young black woman in the Centro Español cemetery. Crime Scene Investigators were sent to the scene while setting up a perimeter, Parish Detectives questioned jogger Ron Denny said he ran through the cemetery every day, rarely seeing anyone, but this morning was different. The detective examined her body for injuries. We had a new black woman in an open cemetery here. We found no signs of any cuts or stabbings, there were no open wounds like that.

He had a fine mist of blood on his right side that appeared to be coming from his nasal area, indicating that he had died from blunt force trauma or asphyxiation due to the condition of the body it appeared that the victim had been murdered less than 12 hours earlier, more than enough time for the killer to flee. Detective Paris knew it would be a difficult case and they had to conduct an exhaustive search of the crime scene while photographing the victim, they noticed that she was barefoot, interestingly, the soles of her feet were clean, the ground was wet, she could not have walked until this location and investigators saw no evidence that she was dragged.

The victim's personal effects were scattered throughout the area. Each piece was numbered and cataloged as potential evidence, we found her panties on top and her wig scattered when we did a search of the crime scene, the forensic team recovered a pair of women's shoes, there were also beer bottles and a packet of cigarettes, but there was no wallet or driver's license to identify. On the victim, not far from the body, investigators found fresh tire tracks. Detective Parish assumed that the victim had been murdered elsewhere and dumped in the cemetery. The main object we found was nine feet from his head and in the soft dirt there was a tire track obviously made by a large tire plus on 46th Street here we had tire tracks coming in and what looked like tire tracks coming out of a large vehicle a truck or SUV made the tracks technicians made molds of the tread marks

using

plaster based on the condition of the body that investigators were sure If a vehicle had been involved in the crime, the plaster would harden in minutes, but it would take days to determine if the prints were significant.

After processing the crime scene, officers searched the neighborhood in hopes that someone might have seen or heard something the night before, when was the last time, I'm not sure anyone would have, at the autopsy , the medical examiner noticed pitula, a specific hemorrhage in the victim's eyes. This, in addition to linear abrasions to the collarbone and throat area, indicated that the victim had died from asphyxiation. Several bones were also found in her neck. broken, the medical examiner determined that a large individual had used his hands to manually strangle the victim. Ligature marks on her wrists revealed that she had been tied up before being killed based on the degree of rigor mortis and the amount of insect activity.

The medical examiner concluded that she had been murdered less than 12 hours before locks of the victim's hair were collected in case a suspect emerged, it was possible that a lock of her hair was still in the suspect's vehicle to identify the victim, was their next priority the fingerprints were taken and analyzed the tampa police database within hours detective perish had a match the victim was 34 years old tamara jones after i found her identity i located her mother and gave her the news and I didn't get as much information you get as much background information as possible about her habits who she was dating some steady boyfriend from the parish detective Tamara's mother learned a lot about the victim she had been an outgoing girl full of promise until the attractiveness of the crack reduced her to a life of painful addiction to pay for her habit.

Size leg work, you know, I found out that everyone spoke pretty highly of her, everyone I interviewed said she was a very good girl and that she was a very good person, yeah , but Tamara's life on the streets brought her into contact with many unpleasant people. characters no one police spoke to could identify a suspect in tamara parish murder

detectives

hit a dead end now looking for clues and other unsolved homicide cases not only in tampa but also in hillsboro county and the surrounding cities, it took a week to review two years of homicide files looking for similarities.

In the end, Detective Parish was stunned by what he found. Detectives had been working on several reports of previous homicides and victims of similar types. We had other black women. They were known as prostitutes. They were found in cemeteries. new, they were all strangled, they had literature marks around their wrists meaning they had been tied up or a restraint device had been used on their wrists. Detectives from the Tampa Police Department and the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office pooled their resources along with other agencies in the area. They formed a task force to find and apprehend a cemetery killer, but the lack of physical evidence found at each of the crime scenes and the victims' lifestyles made the cases difficult to solve.

Detective Parish was sure they were dealing with a serial killer. The police did not have a single clue about her identity. Authorities in Tampa, Florida, were sure they were dealing with a serial killer. Two recent homicides bore striking similarities to a series of murders dating back more than two years. Detective Robert Parish knew they needed a suspect, but none. Of the investigators working the case had even a lead, all the other detectives were obviously involved in the other cases, we were at different stages, but no one

real

ly had anything concrete we could say, 100 sure that several of the other detectives had different leads they were investigating and Garden Memories news reports about the latest victim caught the attention of a potential witness.

A man named Adam Childs contacted police and told them he knew Tamara Jones from the Tampa bar scene. He had seen her the night before her body was found. At the cemetery, a dark van approached Tamara on the street. She spoke to the man inside. The boy had seen the vehicle in the neighborhood but did not know who it belonged to. For investigators, the dark van rang a bell. They searched their files for a again eight months Previously, a prostitute claimed that a customer in a dark truck had tried to kill her. The woman was afraid to press charges, but she agreed to talk to police about the incident.

What happened inside the truck, as she told investigators to a large black man she knew as such. Mike tried to pick her up that night they were talking about, you know, something about a prize for sex and then he grabbed her by the neck and started strangling her, she reached for the door handle and then she got out and ran and screamed at him. The neighborhood called the police and he had fled the scene. She gave investigators descriptions of Big Mike and the truck she was driving, but she again refused to press charges or testify against him.

Investigators reviewed her files. Big Mike was the nickname of a Tampa man named Michael Tyrone Crump the police went to Crump's residence the suspect was not home but a dark truck matching the witness' description was parked in the driveway the officer photographed the vehicle Detective Parish then asked Adam Childs to return to the station I did what's called a photo package I took, you know, six different photographs of different trucks, including this individual who we now label as a suspect and the witness immediately chose the truck. Tampa police believed that Michael Tyrone Crump had committed at least two crimes, but they did not have enough evidence to arrest him based on his two witnesses, they had probable cause that these crimes were committed in his truck, and the police have the authority to seize a vehicle if they believe it was used for illegal activities and may contain evidence of those crimes detective parish We wanted to impound Trump's vehicle in a public place when it was on a public road, we stopped the truck on the city streets and informed the driver, who It turned out to be Michael Tyrone Crump, who needed his truck as proof that it had been used in a recent crime. contact when we finish processing a truck i will call you crump remained calm even when asked if he knew tamara jones said he was not informed that he was not in custody and was free to go his truck was taken to the county sheriff's impound lot Pinellas, where it was examined by trace evidence specialist Timothy Whitfield as part of the search for the vehicle.

He charged us with finding any and all evidence that might be there, from things that are visible to things that might be invisible. to the naked eye, investigators first processed the vehicle for visible evidence. They found a woman's earring on the floor of the cabin. They also found a wooden device with a piece of rope tied to it called a garat. Whitfield had no doubts about his purpose. Could be used. to wrap the hands or feet of the victims and of course that is unusual, not everyone has that in their vehicle and you would ask well why do you need this?

What are you

using

it for if you're not using it as a restraint device hidden between the rubber mat and the tire wall investigators found another clue: it was a driver's license that belonged to janet king one of the young women murdered before tamara jones her body had also been found in a cemetery since king was a prostitute and crump was an acquaintance john the article itself could be explained but to whitfield the location of the license was incriminating whether the suspect placed it there intentionally to hide it or perhaps the victim put it there in the hope that in the coming days someone would find something of it in that vehicle now the team focused on evidence invisible to the human eye they used a chemical called luminol to test the presence of blood a phosphorescent glow revealed a fine mist the pattern was familiar it matched the splatter of blood from tamara jones's nose and face unfortunately the droplets were tiny, no bigger than pinpoints there was no way to prove they belonged to the victim, there was nothing I could do due to the microscopic nature of the blood which of course predated days. of DNA and a little more blood was needed to do complete tests.

Investigators vacuumed the interior of the truck for any hair or fibers that could link the victims to the suspect. One intriguing find was a long knife hidden behind the front seat of the truck. good surface, although in the laboratory forensic examiners determined that the garat rope had the same diameter as the ligature marks found on the victims' wrists, perhaps one of the most important pieces of evidence was a long strand of hair that could not They come from the suspicious analysis of the root which showed that it had not only fallen out, but had been pulled out of the scalp.

The lock of hair was compared to samples taken from Tamara Jones. The color and texture did not match when she compared herself to Janet. King's hair, however, matched, both being dyed with identical hair dyes. The technicians were sure they came from the same person, while the evidence from inside the truck was compelling, all it proved was that Janet King had been inside the vehicle. Now the detectives needed to tie up Michael. tyrone crump's vehicle to the murders time was running out without solid evidence trump would remain free and more women could end up dead authorities in tampa, florida were certain he was a serial killer two recent homicides bore striking similarities to a series ofmurders that occurred More than two years ago, Detective Robert Parish needed to connect the murder of Tamara Jones to the suspicion.

Tire tracks from Michael Crump's truck left at the scene were his best hope. He sent tire molds made at the crime scene along with the vehicle's tires to the Florida Department of Law. Law enforcement analyst Oral Woods studied the treads to see if Crump's truck had left the impressions found near Tamara Jones' body. Woods was surprised that Crump's truck had three different types of tires, the two front tires had similar treads, the rear tires had different tread designs, two of the tire tread designs on Crump matched the tread designs and molds made at the crime scene and I told Detective Paris that we are definitely in the ballpark, we could definitely do something with them and that there were class characteristics present in the cast as well as Some individual characteristics, class characteristics such as tire size and tread design, may indicate a specific manufacturer by carefully comparing the photographs.

Woods determined that the tire tracks at the crime scene had identical class characteristics to those on Crump's rear tires. He then analyzed the molds and tires for individual characteristics. such as tread nicks or embedded pieces of gravel that can make a tire track as unique as a fingerprint on the right rear tire. He found what he was looking for. I found an area on the tire that had some cuts and nicks that I was also able to identify. found in the plaster that was poured at the crime scene, I went a step further, made a plastic mold of that area and recorded the same individual characteristics, Woods confirmed that the tire track found at the crime scene was made by the suspect's right rear tire on February 7.

Michael Crump went to the Tampa Police Department to ask about getting his truck back, but First Detective Parish had some big questions. for him, like how a woman he had been seen with on October 9 was found dead the next day and why her tire tracks were found several meters from her body. Crump again denied knowing Tamara Jones and claimed she had been working in the area. and he went through the cemetery the night before the murder let me show you some of what was found in your truck, you see, that's his license and that was found when the detective pulled out one more piece of evidence, Janet King's driver's license, Krump was surprised and he felt like he had been caught, he's a big guy and he had dropped and looked down, which told me he had the license, showing him the license, that he had hit a nerve, he admitted to picking up tamara jones that night. in question he claimed that they fought and that Tamara had tried to stab him he admitted to strangling her but swore it was self-defense for Detective Trump the version of her death could not explain the restraint device and ligature marks left on the victim the evidence pointed to a well-planned mo that Krump had used before detectives questioned him about the murder of Janet King.

He admitted to picking her up once, but claimed she dropped him off within minutes. He said he didn't know anything about the other seven victims. I don't believe his explanations, everything indicates that because other black women appeared in a similar type of death in which he was involved, we were able to link him one hundred percent to two of the homicides that were similar, but there was not enough evidence to determine it. . the others in separate trials trump was found guilty of the murders of tamara jones and janet king received two life sentences without the possibility of parole the other murder cases remain officially unsolved michael tyrone crump attacked women he randomly selected from the streets but in north carolina an innocent encounter with a stranger ends in violence and death on august 8, 1990 a raleigh north carolina police officer responded to a report of a suspicious minivan parked on a side street the officer marked the license plate numbers The vehicle was registered to 24-year-old Katie Valoria, an employee at a nearby hospital.

The night before, Katie's husband had reported her missing. The officer made a gruesome discovery inside the van. It was the new body of a young woman as police cordoned off. the area crime scene investigators arrived on scene detective john beasley examined the van indications we are looking through the windows there was a struggle inside the van due to his shoes being located in the front of the van his body is in the back of the truck painting hoses around her neck they had tightened them, they weren't knotted or anything like that, but they were still tight around her neck it was obvious they had strangled her.

The victim's clothes and purse were missing. There was also evidence suggesting that sexual assault investigators searched the exterior of the van. In search of clues, he called a canine team to help the handler, gave the dog the scent and ordered it to track the dog. He led the guide down the street and away from the crime scene investigator's van. We, Hensley, were part of the search team, he basically told us. that whoever parked that truck there so early in the morning got out of the truck on the driver's side and went up the street to the hospital employee parking gate, went through that gate and went to an area where there was a parking space.

And that was significant, it seemed that the attack had started here. Police searched the area but found no additional clues. The van was taken to the Raleigh Police Depot where the body was removed for an autopsy. I felt that by moving the van we would eliminate the entire crime scene. the body inside and move it to a location where it could be properly processed hensley did not want to lose any critical hair or fiber evidence by opening the van in less than ideal conditions each crime scene tells a story the time of day the environment conditions who the victim was What kind of signature could the suspect have left in terms of the processing of the vehicle?

We feel that the trail of evidence, which is hair, fibers, things of that nature, were going to be very important to the case. Of course, the possibility of fingerprints or any other type of impressions you can get, they dusted it for fingerprints, but only found a few useless smudges. Apparently, the killer had tried to clean the prince off of him before abandoning the vehicle. Whoever entered that vehicle left something of themselves there. and then they took something from that vehicle with them, so we were looking for any trace of those two criteria in the front seat they found a pair of women's shoes that were scuffed on both the heel and toe, they also found a set of jumper cables In the front seat, jumper cables indicated that the victim was possibly in the process of helping someone with a vehicle problem, probably in the parking lot, on the driver's floor mat, investigators saw traces of mud, there was a print on these rugs and it seemed to be that. of a tennis shoe we felt that possibly that could be an asset to us, but the mats had to be handled with extreme care.

What we had to worry about is that the mats are flexible to flex or move as much as I wanted. We were actually going to distort the impression left in the mud, so we had to keep them perfectly flat, place them in boxes and cover them with tape so we could transport them without disturbing the impressions. Technicians looked for traces of evidence that any hair or fibers attached to the tape would lift up. being preserved and examined they found some hairs embedded in the roof of the van that did not match the victim's hair, which meant they could belong to her killer.

Detectives theorized that the killer had climbed on top of the victim and rubbed his head against the roof of the van. The van investigator, Hensley, began putting together a profile of the killer based on every indication that he was in the employee parking lot. and therefore may be associated with the victims to some extent, and worked at the same location. At the autopsy, the medical examiner observed bruises on the victim's neck and determined that she had been strangled to death. Locks of hair were removed and placed in an envelope. The hairs went to the crime lab where analysts could compare them with other locks found during the investigation.

There was also evidence of sexual assault. The examiner collected samples. of biological fluids found in victim a brutal rapist and violent murderer was loose on the streets of raleigh north carolina detectives had to find him before he could strike again in north carolina police investigated the violent rape and murder of a 24 year old wife and mother with little information and no witnesses the detectives went to the hospital where Katie Valoria worked according to her colleagues Katie was very loved and had no enemies the night of her death she left work shortly before 6 pm the coworker He described Katie as a devoted wife and her mother got along well with everyone in the workplace.

Katie's colleagues said they couldn't imagine Katie having a single enemy in the world. A colleague who left moments later didn't even see her. she or any strange individuals in the parking lot with no investigative witnesses He would have to try a new approach since Katie's purse was not in her car. The killer could have stolen her credit cards. Detective Beasley contacted his bank and learned that on the night of the murder someone used his cash card three times at the same ATM. 100 the first time you used it and that was all you could type at that time from an ATM, so one day it's 100, it came back, tried to use it again and then tried to use it a third time.

Detectives recovered the security camera from the ATM. photos, but they were too blurry to identify the man using the machine between the first and second transaction, another customer used the machine, the man told police he vividly remembered the encounter, a young black man had just made a withdrawal when came, but he didn't. She didn't seem to be done with his business, she was standing next to him when he took out the hundred dollars and then she saw the guy trying to use the card again. He said that he was acting suspicious because he was wondering why he was taking so long.

He had already seen him take out the money, so he knew he couldn't do it, but once and here he is there trying to use it again. The witness gave a police sketch artist information about the suspect's height, weight, color and facial features. Armed with a detailed description, investigators went to the hospital. Someone recognized the face. It looked like a man who worked in the hospital laundry. The laundry supervisor confirmed that the image looked like 23-year-old Michael Sexton. His time sheet showed he had been in work the day of Katie's murder but disappeared that afternoon, she said she returned around 6:30. he had been missing for like two hours and suddenly he runs into the hospital and says he has to go home, he has been having car and book problems and doesn't show up to work on thursdays and fridays before the detectives michael sexton was acting as a man with something to hide but they were still a long way from linking him to the rape and murder of Katie the detectives went to the house Sexton shared with his girlfriend who allowed them to search the residence, they collected some of his uniforms and pairs of tennis shoes According to We Hensley, we collected three pairs of sneakers and took them all into our possession and of course they were marked as potential evidence.

The items and we take them to our laboratory to analyze possible matches. The suspect's shoes and muddy mats were sent to the Wake County Identification Office. There Johnny Leonard specializes in fingerprint analysis. There's one thing about criminals: they can put on gloves. They put socks on their faces, but almost no one thinks about their feet because with that you run and with that you walk, so I always think that footprints are the most overlooked evidence at crime scenes. Leonard studied the muddy tracks first looking for class characteristics such as tread pattern. Then he looked for individual features like cuts or crevices.

He then studied the three pairs of sneakers taken from the suspect's home. By looking at the footprints, he could easily tell that two of the pairs of shoes didn't leave those footprints because you can obviously look at them. and he saw that class characteristics were notthe same but the third pair was of a similar size and marked like the print from the crime scene Leonard sprinkled the sole of the shoe with magnetic powder then with a wide piece of tape he lifted the design from the sole and adhered it to a card As a backup, the card was placed in a large camera where it would be photographed and transferred to a transparency once developed, they could place the transparency over the mat photograph to compare, but that would take time, they still needed it.

To locate Sexton, who had not been seen in days, North Carolina detectives worked around the clock investigating the brutal murder of Katie Valoria, a 24-year-old wife and mother. A man named Michael Sexton had been identified as a suspect but had not yet been located. The crime lab's latent print examiner, Johnny Leonard, had extracted latent shoe prints from evidence taken from the crime scene, placed a transparency of the The suspicious sneaker print on a carpet transfer from the floor of the victim's car, Leonard compared the individual features and finally found what he was looking for. There was a small cut in the arch of one of the tread designs. which was also present in known shoes, so we certainly knew it was the same one made with the same shoe.

Investigators had evidence linking the perpetrator to the vehicle, but he still had nothing that would put him in contact with the victim, while latent shoe prints are usually obtained from flat objects at the crime scene - even uneven surfaces can give an occasional hint. Leonard applied magnetic powder to the top sole and heel of the victim's shoe and lo and behold, a very small portion of a shoe print appeared. He placed the partial shoe print on a backup card and compared it to the full-size print of the suspect sneaker. Katie Valoria's partial shoe print matched a portion of the suspect's shoe print with no doubt that the suspect had been in personal contact with the victim.

Police went to the home Sexton shared with his girlfriend according to Detective Beasley. Detectives located Michael Sexton. At that point we told him that we were talking to people at the hospital and that he was the one who in turn would come and talk to us about it, which he agreed to do at the police department. Sexton cooperated and agreed to provide biological samples for testing. Sexton swabbed the inside of his mouth to provide a DNA sample and willingly allowed hairs to grow. These two would be taken and compared in the laboratory. Criminalist Hensley recognized the importance of the evidence that we were dealing with and what we felt we were dealing with as far as potential evidence in this particular vehicle was blood, bodily fluids, hairs, fibers, clothing and those. are the things we focus on using a comparison microscope, examiners looked for similarities between two hair samples, color, length and diameter are among the main characteristics analyzed, known sample taken from victim at autopsy and the unknown sample from the victim's truck were compared side by side.

On the other hand, the analysis confirmed that the victim was not the source of the hair found in the van, but when the hair from the victim's van was compared to the sample taken from the suspect, it was practically a perfect match and was not the only one evidence that located Michael Sexton. In the back of Katie Viloria's truck, to completely process the clothing taken from the sexton's house, the technicians placed the clothing on a wide table using clear tape, combed every inch of fabric for hair and fibers. Fibers from the victim's truck were found on the suspect's clothing and fibers from the clothing were found in the truck.

Investigators still need to determine whether the suspect's DNA matches the biological fluids found on the victim. Certainly, the bodily fluids that we find on the victim's body have the potential for DNA analysis and are more or less a positive form of identification in addition to fingerprints. I can't find fingerprints, which is certainly one of the best forms of identification for analyzing the suspect's DNA samples. The scientists used a process called electrophoresis to separate specific enzymes from each sample. Certain enzymes vary from person to person. Electrophoresis uses an electrical current to separate enzymes for analysis the sample is placed on a gel and a current is applied which causes the enzymes to move through the gel each enzyme moves a certain distance creating a banding pattern if two blood samples create the same pattern, they are likely coming from the same source in this case they coincided at the police station the detectives confronted Sexton with the evidence, he denied everything as the interview progressed, he continued to dig a hole a little deeper deep to himself and denying that he knew her and I think then he started looking for something kind.

The sexton told the police he was having car trouble, he said the victim offered to take him to his cousins ​​to get some jumper cables and he said when he got there, she She consented to having sex with him and then when they got into the back of the van she changed her mind and he knew she had seen his name tag and everything she was going to report him to, the detectives knew there was more to it. the story they believed. that sexton used her car problem as bait fueled by a criminal appetite he took advantage of katie's kindness and dominated her the people of the state of north carolina convicted michael sexton of first degree murder and rape he received the death sentence and he was executed in November 2001.

When a murderer and a victim do not share a personal history, detectives may find themselves working in the dark, but for investigators committed to the pursuit of justice, no evidence is too small. Today, forensic

science

can

uncover

a murder and

uncover

evidence of a lethal encounter.