(ominous music) A six year-old girl is found viciously raped and murdered. No witnesses, no murder weapon. It's up to forensic science
to catch her killer. But the science points to
someone no one suspected. (tense music) - It was seven
weeks ago yesterday that Andrea Atkinson
disappeared from her home. - When the forensic evidence
started to turn his way, it surprised us a little bit. - The experts say their
technology doesn't lie. - Would you expect to
see this profile again? No, you would not. - One man's innocence or
guilt hangs in the balance. - It's a case that had too
much reliance on science, and certainly in some aspects, we know today, is just flawed. - This is the story of the tragic death
of a little girl, and the story of
forensics on trial. (pensive music) (funky electronic music) October 14th, 1990. A low-rent apartment
building in downtown Toronto. It's a quiet Sunday morning
on a holiday weekend. (jingling) A six year-old girl named
Andrea Atkinson goes missing. (ominous music) Andrea's single
mom calls police. She describes her daughter
as blonde, outgoing, wearing a pink coat,
and blue stockings. An apartment key is tied to
a whistle around her neck. - So, I have a missing child. - The police try to calm her, saying Andrea will probably
turn up at a friend's. - She was over there, right? - By the end of the day,
there's still no sign of Andrea. Police launch a massive search. (dramatic music) Rick Gauthier was a
homicide detective in 1990. - Andrea was not a kind of child that ventured away
from the building, so the fact that she went
missing, suddenly disappeared, that was very unusual, and that made us start to think that there may
foul play involved. - News of the missing child
spreads like wildfire. - More than 33 hours ago, six year-old Andrea
Marie Atkinson. - As day turns to night, police classify Andrea's
disappearance a homicide. - Andrea never made
it back to the-- - After interviewing neighbors, Gauthier gets his first lead. - The first significant
piece of information that surfaced on this case that made us suspicious or
concerned about foul play was a sighting given
by a resident nearby who said that in the early
morning hours of Sunday, they had seen a young,
blonde-haired girl who they thought was Andrea, being forced into a blue
van and driven away. - For the past five days, the search has been focused
on wilderness area, such as-- - The eyewitness is mistaken. - In and around. - Police have lost precious
time chasing down a false lead. - Police have already searched the immediate area twice today, and tomorrow plan to
expand their search. - Gauthier calls in
the forensic team, highly-specialized CSIs who
search for microscopic clues. Detective Rick Bunting
was the CSI assigned to search Andrea's bedroom
for forensic evidence. His grim job is to find
fingerprints to identify Andrea, in case she is found dead. (tense music) - When you're trying to
find a missing young girl, with adults, sometimes they
have fingerprints on file, with their company they
work with, military service, something like that. With young children,
they don't have a lot, they're young into the world. So you would try and find
something at their apartment, and that would help
you identify them, if and when the need became
apparent that you had to. - Police still
have no indication as to what may have
happened to Andrea Atkinson. And after each day goes by, police say fears of
foul play are growing. - A missing child's a
big concern to the city. It's more than just a
regular missing person, particularly if there's a fear of sexual assault or a homicide, it increases the
intensity of the matter. - Nothing is spared
in the search. Little do police know that Andrea never
wandered far from home. Meanwhile, Andrea's mom
continues to hold hope that her daughter
will be found alive. - It makes me feel so good because I know she's
like a little miracle. And I mean, everybody loves her, and it reinforces us to
keep hanging in there and be positive. This is her daycare zone. (wistful music) (somber music) - Nine days after
she went missing, Andrea Atkinson's lifeless body
is found in the boiler room on the sixth floor of
her apartment building. - Well, right now,
we're on the sixth floor at 33 Coatsworth, which
is a maintenance area. The room behind us is the
actual mechanical room, where there are hot
water tanks and heaters. Andrea was lying
on her right side, and her body was partially
tucked underneath one of the hot water tanks. Approximately a foot's gap between the floor and
the bottom of the tank. She was wedged underneath that. And what I could see was, it was the body of a
blonde girl, young girl. Next to Andrea was a series of cards that
she used to play with, and they were The New
Kids on the Block, I think were the
name of the group. Those cards were scattered
about the floor in front of her. (tense music) - Gauthier summons the
forensic identification unit. The CSIs are experts at
uncovering microscopic evidence that might help him
solve the mystery: Who killed Andrea Atkinson? - Yeah, it's quite a lot, here, you see that
it's already (mumbles). - We are looking
for body fluids, could be semen, could be
blood, could be saliva. We're looking for hairs,
we're looking for fibers. We're looking for
fingerprints on the floor, different areas, and it's a very
systematic approach. You start at one end, and you
just work your way through, you don't jump all over
in something like this. - In a murder with no
suspects and no witnesses, forensic evidence will
be their only hope of catching the killer. - Whoever stands the furthest,
(mumbles) right there. - Right there? - Can you take care from
over that (mumbles). - Tony Tessarolo is
a forensic scientist who specializes
in trace evidence. - The transfer of hairs and
fibers between locations, or between individuals, all stems back to
what was said by Dr. Edmund Locard,
a French scientist, who said that the microscopic
debris that covers our bodies are the mute witnesses,
sure and faithful, of all our actions and
all our encounters. What he meant by that was that whenever two objects
come into contact, there is always a transfer
of material between them. - A vicious killer
is on the loose, and Gauthier is
determined to catch him. - You do that by
staying focused, not allowing your emotion
to get in the way, and concentrating on
the matter at hand. Some of us call it
keep your game face on, and that's what it is. You stay focused on
what your job is, and your job is to
find out what happened. (ominous music) - The boiler room is soundproof. Gauthier believes that the
killer knew it was a location where no one would hear a
little girl's cries for help. Then the CSIs find
a critical clue. - Hey, you got magnets, please. I think it's a child's bracelet. - Exactly what it looks like. - And as we stood
back and looked, we saw that there was a
small bracelet on the floor, just to the right of
where I'm standing. (eerie music) - There is something. - And when you got
down to the floor level and looked a little closer, you could see that
there was, in fact, a reddish color smear that
had been dried upon the floor. (unsettling music) - If it's blood, this
could be their best hope at finding out who
killed Andrea Atkinson. (tense music) (electronic buzzing) (ominous music) At midnight, forensic
detective Dick Bunting removes Andrea Atkinson's
body from the boiler room. (suspicious music) He and his partner wear
full protective clothing. (plastic crunching) Bunting says it's critical to avoid contamination
of the crime scene. - We have to be able
to collect the evidence so that we can say exactly
where it came from. Also we have to be well aware that we don't contaminate
that evidence. Add anything to it,
take anything away, or collect it in such a
way that we may degrade it. We have to think of
her as a crime scene, we have to be able to use her, to have her tell you what
happened in her own way. - This is when CSIs
sometimes make mistakes. Leo Adler is a defense attorney who has pitted himself
against forensic experts for three decades. - I find that scientists, some scientists, sometimes, subconsciously come to accept
what the police tell them. And I think a lot of people, they come to resent when
someone questions them, perhaps finds fault with what they do. - For Adler, the
forensics surrounding Andrea Atkinson's murder
soon become an obsession. (somber music) - Late last night, the
body of a small girl was carried on a stretcher
from the apartment complex. - The news of Andrea's
murder shocks the community, leaving a city
paralyzed with fear. - For an examination,
including laser tests. - A killer is
still on the loose. - Police say forensic
identification
confirms the remains. - I wouldn't let
my daughter out. - Paranoid, I feel paranoid. (somber music) - Andrea's mother
cannot face the reality that her only daughter is gone. Homicide detective
Rick Gauthier admits police made a mistake in
not finding her body sooner. - The officers that were
in charge of the search did not have in their possession a copy of the blueprints
for the building, and in hindsight, that turned
out to be a significant error. - Told her mother
she was just going to a friend's apartment
down the hall. - What they did not realize
is that on the sixth level, although it's not a full floor, there's a elevator room
and a maintenance room, and that ultimately is
where Andrea was found. - For the CSIs, losing nine
days is a major setback. - If we had found
Andrea Atkinson within a day or two
of her being murdered, the evidence would have
been probably a lot greater, the physical evidence, 'cause the condition of the body lent to a lot of
degradation of evidence, and we had those
questions, you know, if only we could have
found her a lot earlier. (tense music) - Gauthier zeroes in on a
handful of maintenance workers who have keys to the
locked sixth floor. He takes three men to
headquarters for questioning. The first has a criminal record, which is of interest
to Gauthier. - The first that we dealt with was a gentleman who
worked here as a cleaner. He was under suspension at
the time that this happened. And we had several callers
call into the police to advise that they knew him, and that they knew
he had a history of sexually assaulting children. - The second knew Andrea well, he used to sleep
with her mother. - The second cleaner, or
maintenance individual, he also had been involved
with Andrea's mother for some time in a
personal relationship. So, he was well-acquainted
with Andrea. - The third suspect had
access to the boiler room, but has a solid alibi. - That took us to the third one, who actually worked that
Sunday in the building, but he went home early
because he said he was sick. And he was somebody who had
been in trouble with the law, but it was minimal. - All three denied
killing Andrea. Gauthier decides
that the cleaner who had been involved
with Andrea's mom is his prime suspect. - Take it you know,
take what you need, and get me out of here. - Homicide's resources now
focus on building a case against suspect number one. - You better be
telling the truth. (suspicious music) - He takes blood and hair
samples from all three men. At a time before DNA testing, blood typing and hair matching are the best forensic
tools available. (tense music) Now it's critical for
the CSIs to retrieve the killer's hair, blood, or
semen from the crime scene. Paul Culver is a Crown
Attorney in Toronto. - There's very seldom a
witness to any murder, and quite often with children, particularly where
you're dealing with
a stranger abduction, there's no one you
can easily link to, so a lot of times
that's all you have, and it's not so much any single piece of
the forensic science, it's the combination of it. When you bring all the pieces
of the puzzles together, you see a picture. (suspicious music) - To collect hair and fibers, Bunting uses a Mylar sheet,
an electrostatic blanket that creates plastic
snapshots of the crime scene. - We hit it with a static
electricity charge, and what it does, it
attracts the dust and fibers, and anything that's underneath
this piece of Mylar, and it can give you
fibers on the floor, footprints, markings,
anything like that that is on the floor. The dust and fibers, everything
adheres to the Mylar, so you can look at it later. - The remaining hairs and
fibers are retrieved by hand in a painfully slow
forensic process. Nothing can be overlooked. (zipper unzipping) (somber music) That night at the morgue, a scan with a UV light
reveals semen stains on Andrea's clothes. Whoever killed her
also raped her. (suspicious music) (electronic buzzing) - Andrea's body had
been in the mechanical, or the boiler, room for
approximately nine days. - The coroner speculates that
the killer strangled Andrea with the shoelace that held
her key tied around her neck. The next step is to
send Andrea's clothes to the Center of Forensic
Sciences in Toronto for detailed analysis. (pensive music) In the era before DNA testing, blood typing was the best way to narrow the list of suspects. Keith Kelder is the scientist
who examined Andrea's clothes. Using a chemical
called Fast Blue, he finds several semen stains. - And they were in the seat area of the panties, dress, and leotards, inside and outside. So several spots,
several locations. - The four universal blood
types are A, B, AB, and O. (dramatic music) (electronic buzzing) The killer's semen tells
Kelder that he is blood type O. It is an important clue,
but not conclusive. (tense music) 30% of the male population has the same blood
type as the killer. - And so, here was evidence
that was of some help, but that's it. It was able to put
it on the scale of inclusion and exclusion. (suspicious music) - The question now, are any
of Gauthier's suspects type O? Then, a twist. There is a new suspect,
Andrea's mom's boyfriend. (dramatic music) - Ruth had a new boyfriend who
had recently just moved in. Now, his name was Doug. - Police say Douglas
Heinbach is to be interviewed regarding Andrea's whereabouts. - In cases where children
get sexually assaulted, or go missing, and
end up murdered, we always start in the
home and work our way out. And a new boyfriend who had
a history with the police was of interest to us. (ominous music) (somber music) (electronic buzzing) - Two weeks after her murder, Andrea's funeral
draws so many mourners that loudspeakers
are set up outside. Her murder has cast a dark
cloud over the entire city, made darker by the knowledge that her killer
remains at large. - Andrea, gift of God, your life was much too short, taken by someone who took
what was not theirs to take. We weep with grief, and
hurt and anger and outrage, because we could
not protect you. - The pressure is mounting
daily on Rick Gauthier to find Andrea
Atkinson's murderer. The city is beginning to think the homicide squad is
bungling the investigation. (tense music) For six days, the
CSIs have been waiting for blood expert Keith Kelder to examine the mysterious
stain on the floor. - And so, I arrived
at the gray stains and I put my UV light on it, and sure enough,
they fluoresced, and I tested them to see
if they were semen stains. - They are, but will it match
the type O semen found on Andrea's clothes? - Jeff, we're off to
the races, perfect. - Get the other light. (tense music) - Meanwhile, another team of
scientists analyze the hairs, which Bunting's CSIs have
retrieved from the crime scene. Tony Tessarolo is a leading
hair and fiber expert. - There are a significant
number of microscopic features that can be used to
distinguish hairs, between and amongst
the individuals. And in doing so, the
hair and fiber examiner would look at a hair,
microscopically, at a magnification up
to about 300 times. To examine in detail
the root of the hair, the tip of the hair, the individual components
of the hair on the shaft, something called a cuticle,
cortex, and medulla, and look at these
microscopic features that are present in
variable quantities, and degrees within
an individual, and between and
amongst individuals. - Of the hundreds
of hairs retrieved from the crime scene, four are similar to those from
18 year-old Johnny Terceira. (ominous music) - We found a piece of your
hair at the crime scene. - The hair is enough
to convince Gauthier it's worth bringing
Terceira back in. - I don't know. - John absolutely denied
having had any sexual or physical contact with Andrea, and certainly he denied having
been involved in her death. - Maybe somebody that
goes into the boiler room, the super dragged it
or stepped on my hair. - But Terceira makes
a stunning statement. Two days after
Andrea went missing, Johnny went up the sixth
floor to smoke a joint. He saw Andrea's
dead body and ran. (tense music) He claims he never
told the police because he was afraid
of getting fired for smoking dope on the job. Gauthier begins to wonder if he's been building a
case against the wrong man. Defense attorney Leo
Adler says that today he doubts this hair evidence would turn the
focus on Terceira. - I don't think that
there is a scientist today who would dare
literally hang somebody or convict somebody on a hair, given what we now
know, and given the, the fact that hair doesn't have any particular characteristic, except at the very root
where you can get DNA. So that science,
I think, has been, if not discredited, certainly
diminished by today. - But in 1990, the hairs take Detective Gauthier's
homicide investigation in a new direction. - Well, to be candid, I didn't
believe his story at all. Things were turning John's way, and certainly, I did not
accept the fact that, with the strong police presence, the community uproar
over this missing girl that had been murdered, if he was innocently there, and did come up here for a
cigarette and saw the body, it would be
important information for everybody to
know right away, particularly the parents
of a missing child. (eerie music) - Gauthier also learns that
the six year-old knew Johnny. She thought of him as a hero for stopping other kids
from picking on her. And she liked to help him
with his cleaning tasks around the building. (ominous music) At the Center of
Forensic Sciences, tests from the smear
outside the boiler room confirm that it's
semen and blood. The blood is Andrea's. The semen is type O. It's a match for the samples
found on Andrea's clothes. The question is, are any of
Gauthier's suspects type O? (dramatic music) (electronic buzzing) - Pam Newall ran the Center
of Forensic Science's groundbreaking DNA lab in 1990. - 99.9% of all of our
DNA is exactly the same, and it's DNA that says
build a human being. Put a head on the
top, two eyes, a nose, ears, fingers, toes,
liver that functions, heart that functions, et cetera. We're not interested
in that DNA, we're interested in the DNA that is different
amongst individuals. (electronic buzzing) We're looking for DNA that's
in regions of the DNA molecule that do not code for
physical features or for physical functions, it's DNA in a
repetitive sequence. - Veteran homicide detective
Rick Gauthier was skeptical. (tense music) - Back in the fall of 1990, DNA was something that we
had just barely heard about, and we certainly had
not had any cases in Toronto involving DNA. And there was even controversy
about whether or not it was a science
back in those days. - Doctor John Waye helped
conduct the DNA tests on the Andrea Atkinson case. - So in a case like this, you'd be looking for
blood, semen, saliva, anything that might contain DNA. Then you extract the
DNA from those stains, and that's just a process
of breaking open cells, releasing the DNA, purifying the DNA away
from everything else that's in the cell, a lot
of proteins, et cetera. Then you end up with a
pure preparation of DNA. Usually takes a week, two weeks, to process that DNA
and get it to a point where you can actually learn
something from and analyze it, using the technology
back in 1990. - While Gauthier waits
for the DNA results, he continues to gather
more forensic evidence. CSI Rick Bunting hopes to
make the invisible visible, with a forensic technique
called superglue fuming. - Now, superglue is a process
whereby you add cyanoacrylate, and that's a type of glue. We built a hood with plastic, put some of these
glue-fuming items that create the fumes
inside this hood, and then it, sort of, fumes just sorta vaporize
throughout this hood. Once the enclosure was
removed by ourselves, we then used a type
of fingerprint powder. - A few fingerprints are found in the area around the stairs. The process works, but
who will the prints match? (suspicious music) Four weeks after
Andrea was murdered, the blood lab comes
back with results of samples taken from
the four main suspects. - Comparison samples were
submitted from four suspects, and these samples were
subjected to ABO typing, and it was determined that
one was an A secretor, two were B secretors, and one was an O secretor. - A list of four
is reduced to one. (ominous music) John Terceira moves to the top
of Detective Gauthier's list. The homicide
investigator is shocked. - To be candid, the first
individuals, on the surface, were of great interest to us
because of their backgrounds. And then, along came
the 18 year-old, who had minimal police contact, didn't seem to have any, certainly had no history
of anything like this. When the forensics evidence
started to turn his way, it surprised us a little bit, because we hadn't really
gotten to John Terceira yet. - Gauthier now focuses all
his resources on Terceira. He gets a warrant
to search his house, looking for clothing that might
link him to the crime scene. (rustling) - Johnny Terceira was wearing a pair of blue track
pants that Sunday. (rustling) The police confiscate them, and send them to the
lab for analysis. - First of all, we
do some microscopy to determine the
diameter of the fiber, the overall color, and
the cross-sectional shape. - Exact colors are distinguished under different light sources. After that, the fibers are
tested for birefringence, or distinctive
molecular structures. Finally, the fiber is heated
to determine its melting point. - And at the end
of the application of this battery of tests, if we find no
significant differences, with respect the results, from the questioned fibers
and the known fibers, then we must conclude that they
are microscopically similar, and could have originated
from that same source. (dramatic music) - Fibers from John's track pants
are microscopically similar to those found all
over Andrea's clothes. Defense attorney Leo Adler
calls this junk science. - We're not talking
about some exotic, handmade, original Chanel
creation that was worn by the assailant, containing a type of fabric
that only that dress contained. We're talking about ordinary
track pants of the sort. Very, very common. Again, I think today, no scientist in his right
mind would say that, and give the types
of conclusions that were given at
the Terceira case as to matching, and the likelihood
of anybody else having the same type of
fiber in their pants. - Back in 1990, it's one more strike
against Johnny Terceira. Then the final devastating blow. DNA testing confirms
the forensic trail. - The result of
the analysis was, number one, we were successful in generating profiles
from the semen, and from the blood, in the blood-semen stain
from the concrete floor, and we were successful
in generating profiles from both the blood
and from the semen, in the semen-stained,
blood-soaked leotards from the body of
Andrea Atkinson, and that the profile
from the semen could not have come from
three of the suspects, and matched the profile
from John Carlos Terceira. - Newall calls Gauthier. Seven million to one, Johnny Terceira killed
Andrea Atkinson. (ominous music) (electronic buzzing) - I remember very clearly meeting with Paul
Culver and Rick Gauthier for the first time, bringing autorad's
DNA films with me to show them what a
profile looked like, and how easy it was to read
that there was a match, and I think that they
were less than impressed. (tense music) - The autorad is a
piece of clear plastic, a human bar code. Theoretical science claims that no two people's genetic
codes are alike, and that the DNA found
at the crime scene was left by John Terceira. - This is the profile that
was found on the sperm on the leotard of the victim, and this is the
profile on sperm-blood found on the floor
in the boiler room, which matches Mr. Terceira. Doesn't match suspect number
one, which was sampled twice. Doesn't match
suspect number two, doesn't match
suspect number three. - And then they gave
me the same cards back. - I can't say that
I ever got it. My background is
definitely not in science, but I knew Pam Newall, I knew that she was a very
respected forensic scientist, and she did her best in
layman's terms to explain to me. - However, police are-- - Detective Gauthier
considers his options. - Died. - Without the DNA profile, he's not sure he's got enough
to arrest John Terceira. (tense music) On the other hand, the
homicide detective is nervous about trusting a science
he barely understands. - Well, back in 1990, the thought of going to
trial with DNA evidence, with what we knew at that time, we were concerned. A homicide investigator knows that you only get
one opportunity to
prosecute these cases, and you have to present
the best evidence you have. And typically in these cases, it's hair and
fiber and serology. DNA was new, and we did not
know what impact, if any, DNA was going to
have on our case. - He and his partner consult
Crown Attorney Paul Culver, for whom the case has a
deep personal meaning. - Andrea Atkinson, who
was ironically born on the same day as my daughter,
the same day and year. She was exactly the same age, so a lot of the
things that we saw in Andrea's life as a six
year-old at that time, the Barbie dress, the New
Kids on the Block cards, the wanting to be out playing with her friends on
a Sunday morning, became much more personal. - Culver advises them
to make the arrest. (electronic buzzing) - 18 year-old John
Carlos Terceira, seen here moments
after being handcuffed by homicide officers Tom
McNamara and Rick Gauthier. (tense music) - Defense attorney Leo
Adler takes Johnny's case. He believes the 18
year-old is innocent. - You get to know your client. You get to know your
client very, very well, especially in a
case such as this. Johnny has been consistent
throughout that is wasn't him. No matter how I cross-examined Johnny, he was consistent in
what he was telling me, and the fact that
he hadn't done it. (pensive music) - In the months leading
up to the trial, Pam Newall's lab conducts
further DNA tests. - We had a frequency of
occurrence of 1.18 million for the semen found on the
leotard from Andrea Atkinson, and we had a frequency
of occurrence of one in seven million, for the semen sample found
on the concrete floor. - According to her tests, there is no doubt that John
Terceira raped the six year-old. Now it's up to her to explain
the science to a jury. (dramatic music) Two years pass before the John Terceira murder
case goes to trial. (tense music) By now, scientists
are bitterly divided on the accuracy
of DNA profiling. - They'll be used-- - At that time there was
still a controversy raging, particularly in
the United States, and there were two
groups of scientists that sort of traveled around
North America, really, testifying, one group
testifying for the Crown, or the prosecution, and one group testifying
for the defense. - For Pam Newall, the case is a chance to prove
that DNA profiling works. - This is a very significant
case, for me personally, and for the Center of Forensic
Sciences and the DNA unit. This was one of our early cases. This was a case that had a tremendous amount
of media coverage, and an enormous amount
of interest from
the general public. - Leo Adler puts the entire
forensic team on trial. - I saw problems. The computer dates, for
example, were out of whack. The times were out of whack. It wasn't scientific to me, at least, in my view. And I felt that, that for this particular case, that the Center was really biting off
more than it could chew. (people chattering) - The trial process here was
strictly about forensics, it was an attack on
the credibility of
the police service. It was an attack on the
Center of Forensic Sciences. It was an attack on the
sciences themselves. And what was not dealt with was what happened with
John Terceira that day. He testified he had
nothing to do with this, but the trial was all
about the forensics. - Adler humbles the forensic
scientists one by one. Despite superglue fuming and days of examining
one partial print, Detective Bunting could
not prove without a doubt that the print was
John Terceira's. - The ridges were there,
the fingers were there. We spent a couple of
days trying to enhance, trying to get more
out of those fingers, and we just could not get enough to identify them to anybody. - Adler argues that
because John Terceira had regular access
to the boiler room, it's no wonder the CSIs
found hairs similar to his. He even reveals that the blood Terceira voluntarily
gave to police took an extra day
to reach the lab, trying to create
reasonable doubt whether it's his blood at all. - And ultimately,
I think, our hope-- - Leo Adler is making
a compelling case that forensics aren't foolproof. Up next is the
prosecution's star witness, and Gauthier's last hope,
DNA expert, Pamela Newall. (dramatic music) (electronic buzzing) For three days, defense attorney Leo
Adler grills Pam Newall and her DNA evidence. To this day, they
are bitter rivals. - In retrospect, I thought that if I
cross-examined her at length, that the jury would see
the problems with the case. - I think that Mr.
Adler's approach was that this was black magic, that we didn't know
what we were doing. (electronic buzzing) And his attack was if he couldn't break
down the DNA science, then he would break
down the DNA scientists. (dramatic music) - In the final days of
the four-month trial, John Terceira himself
takes the stand. His story never changes: He didn't kill Andrea Atkinson, the forensic scientists
have made a mistake. - The forensics
are the forensics, they don't change,
they don't lie. The facts stay the same. In John's case, he
was an 18 year-old that had raped and murdered
a six year-old girl. It's not something that
is easy to admit to. - After two days
of deliberation, the jury returns their verdict. Johnny Terceira is found guilty for the murder and rape
of Andrea Atkinson. - 20 year-old John
Terceira left the court a convicted child
killer this afternoon. (siren blaring) - To this day, he
declares his innocence. - I can't believe that
if Johnny did this, that he wouldn't have
faced up to it, by now. As I said, I've
come to know him, and I've been doing this
for almost 29 years, maybe I've fallen for a
story that isn't true, and that, and my
assessment of him is wrong. But it's a case that had too
much reliance on science, that certainly, in some aspects, we know today is just flawed. (dramatic music) - Rick Gauthier has worked
more child murder cases than any homicide
cop in Toronto. He's certain he
got the right man. - A successful
homicide investigator has to have the ability to detach their personal
feelings from the case. And that is so important. It's too easy to get wrapped
up in the community problem, the family issues that
are surrounding it, and if you don't do
that, no one else will. - Leo Adler has appealed Johnny Terceira's murder
conviction at the Supreme Court, and has been denied. He's still convinced
the CSIs were wrong. - I think that there were
problems with this case. I think that what I would like to see is not a re-analysis of the extract of DNA, which apparently
may still be around, but I would like to take the, the leotards, which was
the key piece of evidence, because it's the leotards
that the little girl wore, and do a modern-day DNA analysis. - Newall says she has
conducted this test. - We went back to
the extracted DNA from the samples in this case and used the most current DNA analysis system
that's available. The profiles matched. The frequency of occurrence
is now with 13 different loci, is less common than one in
the population of the world, so it's less common
than one in six billion. In other words, it's
virtual identity. Would you expect to
see this profile again? No, you would not, in anyone who has ever been
born, or ever will be born. I think that's the
end of the case. - John Terceira's life sentence brings no comfort to
Andrea Atkinson's mother. - And Andrea's mother,
Ruth Windebank-- - During the futile
search for her daughter, she never gave up hope. - We have a bond, and I can't
get through life without her, and she can't get
through life without me. - In 1994, her words
proved prophetic. She commits suicide on what would have been
Andrea's 10th birthday. (somber music)
