A Brutal Double Murder | The New Detectives | Real Responders

a quiet maryland suburb is rocked by a brutal double murder to solve this case investigators must retrace the killer's footsteps the dead body of a missing girl is found at an oregon highway rest area strange markings on the victim's arm are investigators best hope of identifying her killer a minnesota man finds his estranged wife dead in her home the apparent victim of a sexual assault but detectives soon learn that things aren't always what they appear to be some crime scenes have few clues to offer but killers always leave some trace of themselves behind to make their case investigators turn to forensic examiners to isolate hidden impressions and turn them into patterns of guilt [Music] [Music] in this episode some of the names have been changed [Music] the affluent suburb of annapolis maryland is a quiet alternative for those looking to escape the hectic pace of washington dc in this peaceful community violent crime is almost non-existent on monday may 16 1994 all of that changed when prominent dc attorneys jeanne gamble and her husband joseph thomas failed to show up for work a secretary asked ricky cole a handyman who did work on the couple's home to check on them on the front door he found a note indicating the couple was away on vacation but that didn't make sense this was their vacation home [Music] cole let himself in with the key the couple had given him no one appeared to be home but in the bedroom he made a horrifying discovery underneath the sheets gene gamble and joseph thomas lay murdered in their bed officers and crime scene technicians from the anne arundel county police department were quickly dispatched to the scene investigators discovered that each victim had suffered a single gunshot wound to the back of the head from point-blank range blood was spattered on the wall above the bed anne arundel county homicide detective tim zwalik was at the scene when we saw the crime scene and realized that it was contact wounds and the people were basically executed it was just such a horrific crime that we knew at that point we were dealing with something that was very very unusual as forensic technicians began scouring the scene for any clues to the killer's identity investigators found joseph thomas's wallet and his wife's purse cash and a few credit cards seem to be missing the double murder appeared to be a robbery gone wrong [Music] as police continued searching the house they found no signs of a forced entry but a pile of wood mulch on the floor near the unlocked kitchen door suggested the killer's probable entry point hoping the suspect had inadvertently left footprints behind forensic technicians applied fingerprint powder to the floor the tactic paid off a sneaker print was revealed a gelatin substance was applied to the footprint and allowed to harden preserving it as evidence convinced the killer left the note to keep people away investigators scoured it for potential clues the manner in which the date had been written day first then month led them to believe their suspect had served time in the military though no usable prints were recovered tiny brown fibers were removed from the adhesive on the tape with no witnesses to the double murder and no obvious suspects to pursue homicide detectives knew this would be a difficult case to solve and they feared time was working against them this person who committed this crime needs to be gotten off the street if he can do a murder like this so cold and boldly then this person's going to do it again and again and again and it's just a scary thought the autopsies had a little more information to offer [Music] the levels of rigor mortis led the medical examiner to conclude that the couple had been dead for at least 24 to 36 hours before being discovered that placed the time of death at late saturday evening or early sunday morning examiners at the anne arundel county crime lab believed that the key to the killer's identity lay in the shoe print recovered from the scene [Music] after identifying a new balance logo on the shoe print examiners searched through catalogs looking for a model with a similar tread design they concluded that the print left at the scene had come from a new balance running shoe model size seven and a half trying to learn as much about the victims as they could police began canvassing the neighborhood [Music] one neighbor described jean and joseph as a bright hard-working and well-liked couple she said that she had last seen them saturday evening as they headed out to dinner in jean's red acura she didn't recall seeing the car the following day and just assumed the couple had decided to drive together back to washington to investigators it seemed more likely that the car had been stolen [Music] an apb was issued for the vehicle a short while later a local bank manager who had been following the investigation in the media contacted police [Music] one of the victim's bank cards had been used to withdraw cash from an automated teller machine the transaction occurred only hours after the couple had been murdered though less than one-third of all atms were equipped with security devices in 1994 this one had a surveillance camera in place the man was sitting in the driver's seat of gene gamble's red acura investigators believed they were looking at the face of the couple's killer they worked feverishly to establish his identity pliers containing the suspect's photograph were distributed to the public the publicity paid off a second bank manager turned over a surveillance tape revealing the same suspect using a credit card belonging to the victims this second transaction had taken place the day after the murders and this time the suspect's shoes were partially visible in the photograph the photograph was forwarded to the anne arundel county crime lab examiners studied the image in an effort to determine if the shoes worn by the suspect were the same make and model as the shoe that had left the print at the crime scene evidence collection supervisor jeff cover contacted a shoe designer from new balance and we actually made a trip to the factory in lawrence massachusetts and met with their shoe designer there and who could identify the outsole in the atm photograph as a new balance 480. it was the same type of shoe that had left the print on the victim's kitchen floor [Music] believing that robbery was the motive behind the murders investigators began scouring dozens of burglary reports hoping to find photographs of known burglars that resembled the murder suspect look at the atm look at his height this guy can't be that big but they found nothing homicide detectives continued searching through reports a detective from the burglary division caught a glimpse of the suspect in the atm photo [Music] he recognized the man [Music] it was scotland williams a suspect in a string of burglaries arrested eight months earlier when we got this break it was a break you dream about having it it was all of a sudden we've got the guy identified we had to move fast and for the first time ever we had a name to go with the face having physically linked scotland williams to the murdered victims atm card and their missing vehicle investigators obtained a warrant for his arrest at six o'clock the lead stories on all the news channels was this murder case scotland williams picture accessing the atm machine was shown to the public we our surveillance team was in place and at 605 the front door opened and scotland williams was running out the house police moved in and placed him under arrest scotland williams insisted he knew nothing about the murders [Music] looking to prove otherwise investigators searched the residence inside the house police found what they were looking for several pairs of sneakers including some new balance running shoes they were all size seven and a half a pair of brown cotton gardening gloves was also collected and forwarded to the crime lab under questioning williams maintained his innocence [Music] and though records indicated he had served 12 years in the military he insisted the note found on the victim's front door was not his handwriting investigators confronted him with the atm photos he admitted it was him at the atm when i showed him the picture of him he looked at the picture and said yeah that's me he admitted himself at the atm but he never made any other admissions to us he refused to talk to us investigators looked to forensic examiners to make their case but the analysis revealed that none of the shoes recovered from william's house had left the print found at the crime scene police were convinced that scotland williams was responsible for the brutal murders of gene gamble and her husband joseph thomas but until they could come up with hard evidence linking him to the crime scene their suspect would likely get away with murder police in anne arundel county maryland believed they had arrested the man responsible for the murders of prominent washington d.c attorneys jean gamble and her husband joseph thomas the suspect scotland williams had been captured on tape using the victim's atm cards wearing shoes that were consistent with a print recovered from the crime scene but none of william's shoes recovered during a search of his residence produced a match hoping to find something that may have been overlooked detectives went through every page of scotland williams burglary reports from eight months earlier they found the one clue they needed to make their case detectives from the burglary division had photographed the soles of williams shoes a xerox copy of the shoe print was in the file using the reference shoe from the manufacturer as a point of comparison evidence technician eric love first determined that the shoe print in the xerox copy had been made by a new balance model 480 bk size seven and a half next he compared the unique wear patterns and nicks on the sole of the shoe print from the crime scene to those present in the xerox copy of scotland williams shoe all of the unique characteristics matched for evidence technician eric love the evidence was overwhelming we knew that scotland williams owned a pair of model 480 from the xerox we also knew that scotland williams was wearing a shoe that was consistent with a model 480 bk the day after the murders so by analyzing all this evidence we were able to conclude that indeed scotland williams had a pair of 480 bks that type of shoe was found at the crime scene and that the xerox of scotland william's shoe was consistent with that found at the crime scene [Music] if any doubt about william's guilt remained further analysis erased it examiners concluded that the brown fibers recovered from the adhesive tape on the note attached to the victim's front door were consistent with fibers from the gardening gloves found in william's home [Music] police believe williams entered the victim's residence with the intention of burglarizing the house but when he discovered gene gamble and joseph thomas sleeping he pulled out his gun and shot them he made off with cash and an atm card unaware that he had left behind a clue that would lead police right to him scotland williams was tried and convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole plus 70 years scotland williams killed his victims as they lay in their own bed but for some murderers the first step is to get the victim as far away from home as possible june 17 1986 a passing motorist traveling along highway 97 in klamath falls oregon spotted something lying beside the road it was a sleeping bag and it seemed to be in good condition but when he looked inside he found items that appeared to be bloodstained concerned the motorist collected the items and took them to the klamath falls station of the oregon state police [Music] there detectives began searching the bag they discovered some items of clothing a pair of white winged tennis shoes a woman's purse and duct tape attached to green paper towels all of the items appeared to be blood stained inside the purse investigators found identification belonging to a 20-year-old woman named carrie love to detective kenneth cooper the items suggested viral play [Music] it was obvious that we had a female that was missing or possibly a homicide because of the amount of blood on the tennis shoes and in the sleeping bag itself and the wad of paper towels had duct tape in different layers on it and when i started opening the paper towels i noticed clear indentation of what i thought was a nose and the chin area and it appeared that the paper towels were put on the face other items found inside the purse indicated carrie love worked for northern star trucking company located more than 400 miles away in seattle washington detectives contacted the company and learned that kerry had recently left on a business trip from seattle to los angeles with the company's owner 42 year old jesse pratt they were traveling in his 18-wheeler and their route would have put them passing through klamath falls the information along with the blood-stained items found along the highway led investigators to fear the worst they decided to return to highway 97 but now they believe they were looking for carrie love's body for three hours the search turned up nothing and with the vast stretch of highway and the dozens of rest areas kerry love could be anywhere but then detective cooper remembered one isolated spot in particular the chelmouth rest area there's no facilities there it's totally unlit it's behind a full wall of trees it's totally secluded and at night it's absolutely pitch black and that would be an ideal place to pull a body and cover them up with the gravel when the detective arrived at the location he realized his instincts had been dead on partially buried underneath a pile of gravel lay the lifeless body of a young woman for investigators there was no doubt that kerry love had been found blood-stained items found along a highway in klamath falls oregon led police to the body of 20-year-old carrie love an employee of a seattle trucking company who disappeared while traveling to los angeles on business with her boss and the evidence suggested her death had been a brutal one she had been stabbed repeatedly her crushed head and torso indicated she had been run over by a large vehicle strange bruises on her arm appeared to be tire tracks detectives meticulously documented and collected every scrap of evidence seeing the young woman so brutalized only intensified detective kenneth cooper's resolve to see that her killer was brought to justice when you run into something that bad it's hard not to get personal it's important that you do everything correct because at this point you know beyond any doubt if you don't do it perfect you could lose it in court and you can't afford to do that because at that point we become this person's mouthpiece we're the ones that's going to scream justice for her because she's unable to at this point at autopsy the medical examiner determined that kerry had been asphyxiated then stabbed 12 times before being run over the stab wounds were consistent with those caused by an ice pick or a knitting needle [Music] she had also been raped though no usable biological evidence was recovered other than the tread impressions the only clues to the killer's identity were some red cotton fibers found in the victim's hands [Music] the day i dropped her off as word of carrie's murder spread through her hometown of seattle her boyfriend came in to speak with police there he believed that kerry's boss 42 year old jesse pratt had something to do with the murder he said pratt had a strange fixation with kerry in fact a month earlier he and carrie attended a high school prom together as they were leaving the boyfriend spotted jesse pratt sitting in his car across the street he was just watching them the boyfriend confirmed that the last time he saw kerry was when she and pratt left the northern star trucking company heading to los angeles that was two days before kerry's body was discovered in oregon seattle police began trying to locate jesse pratt the last person seen with carrie love the receptionist at northern star trucking had not heard from her boss since he left for los angeles a few days earlier as the questioning continued a call came in this is mona hey jesse it was jesse pratt the detective [Music] seeming eager to cooperate he told police he and kerry had left seattle together on june 16th now but an hour or so after leaving she decided she wanted to fly to los angeles instead he believed she became uncomfortable being with him after the two had consensual sex pratt said he drove her to the seattle airport and continued on to los angeles he said he was currently in phoenix arizona making a delivery but he would be back in seattle the following day [Music] but police didn't want to wait an apb was issued for his rig a few hours later arizona authorities spotted the 18-wheeler just outside of phoenix when jesse pratt could not provide a valid trucker's license police took him into custody his truck was impounded for a thorough examination oregon state police detectives flew to arizona to question pratt themselves by the time they arrived however pratt had hired an attorney and he advised his client not to answer any questions insisting he had nothing to hide pratt consented to giving police his red t-shirt for a closer examination as he removed his shirt they observed and photographed several suspicious scratches around his ribs [Music] convinced the injuries had been caused during a struggle police searched pratt's truck for signs of violence inside the cab they recovered a briefcase some duct tape and a roll of unopened green paper towels similar to the ones found with the victim's belongings along highway 97 [Music] forensic technicians also examined the tires of pratt's rig though the treads didn't appear to resemble the bruising found on the victim's arm the tires were removed and stored as possible evidence for detective sergeant richard stroup of the oregon state police the search of pratt's truck had failed to produce evidence of murder interestingly the truck itself did not provide us with any significant evidence and i think that in and of itself was significant at least to me because it was very obvious this thing had been clean it was spotless there was there was no forensic evidence found in the vehicle and you would have expected to see something there so obviously it was obvious to us that jesse pratt had cleaned that truck out pretty thoroughly investigators scrutinized the contents of pratt's briefcase they found a potential clue a gas receipt from a truck stop located 100 miles south of the seattle airport the receipt was dated the evening of june 16th two days before carrie love's body was found perhaps someone there remembered seeing pratt the attendant who worked that evening was shown a photo lineup and asked if anyone looked familiar without hesitation he pointed to jesse pratt the attendant remembered him well what stuck out in his mind was the mismatch between pratt's unkempt appearance and that of the attractive young woman traveling with him they had stopped to fill up [Music] the young woman asked about using the restroom but the driver seemed to be in a hurry yelling at her to hurry up the attendant remembered feeling that the two seemed like an odd pair [Music] when asked if he could identify the woman traveling with pratt he picked out carrie love investigators knew that pratt could not have dropped kerry off at the seattle airport as he previously claimed jesse pratt had been caught in a lie [Music] at the crime lab examiners compared fibers from pratt's red t-shirt with those recovered from carry love at autopsy [Music] the shape color and texture of the fibers were all consistent though the case was largely circumstantial a jury found jesse pratt guilty of first degree murder but this case was far from over in january 1990 pratt's conviction was overturned on appeal and a new trial was ordered oregon state police wasted no time preparing for the next trial that's the actual tire that we think ran over right they were determined to present the new jury with a bulletproof case [Music] and the best way to do that was to prove that the strange bruises found on the victim's arm had come from the tires of pratt's 18-wheeler [Music] photographs of kerry love's injuries and inked impressions of pratt's tires were forwarded to renowned tire tread expert pete mcdonald in hudson ohio first he confirmed the contusions on the victim's arm had been made by a tire but not from the outer tread the marks which appeared as bars on the victim's arm had come from design patterns located on the side of the tire and all of the bars were the same size and shape except one for mcdonald that was a telltale sign that the tire he was looking for had been retreaded the contusions on the victim's arm captured the exact spot where the old tread had been spliced with the new one looking for a match he traveled to the oregon crime lab to view the evidence himself after viewing the side design patterns of all 18 wheels mcdonald believed the right rear most tire which had been retreaded looked the most consistent with the injuries found on kerry love's arm using carbon paper he traced the tire creating an exact reproduction for later comparisons [Music] mcdonald measured the unique bar patterns from the tire and compared it with photographs taken to scale of the injuries [Music] all of the dimensions matched next mcdonald created a model that would help the new jury understand how an 18-wheel truck could run over a person with only one tire i made a little model of the victim's body to scale with this tractor trailer and then i moved the tractor trailer and as you can see this right rear tire and only the right rear tire is making the imprint and now the inside of that tire is coming across the inside of the victim's arm still mcdonald knew from experience that his analysis was not foolproof he contacted the manufacturer of the retread attire for specific information whenever i end up going into court i find that the defense attorney is going to logically say well you identified this tire imprint but there are millions of these tires out there i called this manager and he informed me that there were very few tires like 300 of this brand and only about a hundred of this actual size the manager discovered he still had the bill of sale for the retreaded tire that had run over carry love northern star trucking had purchased it [Music] ironically the check for the tire had been signed by carrie love herself just a few weeks before she was murdered [Music] police believe that as pratt and kerry passed through klamath falls oregon on the way to los angeles he pulled off the road at a rest area and made sexual advances toward carrie when kerry resisted pratt raped and killed her then buried her underneath the gravel and drove his truck over her body the jury found jesse pratt guilty of aggravated murder on april 16 1991 he was sentenced to death by lethal injection all of his subsequent appeals have been denied [Music] jesse pratt believed that burying his victim would conceal his crime but others will manipulate the crime scene itself hoping to send investigators in the wrong direction saint paul minnesota march 20 1996 an early morning call brought police from the saint paul police department to the home of 31-year-old stacy brown stacy's estranged husband had stopped by the house and discovered his wife dead on the couch [Music] she had been brutally beaten and strangled to death the position of her body on the couch and the fact that she was nude from the waist down suggested she had also been sexually assaulted while examining the body homicide detective keith mortensen found a strange clue there were odd-shaped contusions and bruising on the inside of the victim's leg i thought that it was an odd location for a bruise for for someone to normally get a bruise typically i think if you get a bruise it's on the shin area or on the front of your leg sometimes on the side from bumping into something but more unusual to get it on the inside of the leg though stacy appeared to be the victim of a sex crime a closer examination of the scene led investigators to have some doubts one of her legs was up on the arm of the couch yet there was a coffee table there with a number of items on it which were undisturbed her underwear were on the floor at the base uh or kind of by her right foot and again it didn't appear to be in the position that it would be a if someone were attacking her sexually investigators now had to consider that this crime scene had been staged in an effort to conceal the real motive behind the murder they hoped an autopsy could tell them more police in saint paul minnesota had no doubts that 31-year-old stacy brown had been brutally murdered in her home [Music] but a closer examination suggested her killer had staged the crime scene in an effort to make her death appear to be the result of a violent sexual assault at autopsy the medical examiner concluded that stacy had died as a result of asphyxiation she had been strangled with a telephone cord and a wire hanger and despite the fact that stacy had been found nude from the waist down he found no physical evidence that she had been sexually assaulted he was also unable to explain the source of strange bruising found on stacy's leg convinced the crime scene had been staged to throw investigators off the killer's trail police believed the suspect would be someone close to the victim 34 year old lewis brown stacy's estranged husband and the man who discovered her body was brought in for questioning he was devastated that stacy was gone brown who wears leg braces as a result of childhood polio stated that he dropped by the house early that morning to drop off presents he bought for his youngest daughter when he noticed the keys dangling in the front door he made his way inside that's when he discovered his wife dead on the couch brown realized that his impending divorce made him a logical suspect but he insisted he still loved stacy his wife of eight years and the mother of his three children on the night that she was murdered brown said he was at a local bar playing pool until going home around 1am he could think of only one person who would want to hurt his wife a man involved with stacy's best friend rebecca rebecca was contacted and she agreed to an interview she admitted that her boyfriend quan tran and stacy had not gotten along stacy felt tran was abusive and it urged rebecca to end the relationship but tran became enraged by stacy's meddling a few days before the murder he had smashed out the windows of stacy's car [Music] and later that same evening there was another incident a piece of a brick suddenly came crashing through the window of stacy's house as she and rebecca ate dinner attached was a frightening message written in broken english apparently from tran the message threatened stacy's life and warned her to stay out of tran and rebecca's business stacy had reported the incident and gave police the brick and the letter [Music] despite trans temper rebecca didn't believe he was capable of murder [Music] was considered a suspect in the breaking of the porch window as he had just been there and broken out some windows on a car it also left him as a suspect in the murder case as well [Music] because of the of the involvement if we could link the the other two incidents together then maybe we can link him to the murder as well tran was picked up and brought to the police station under questioning he admitted smashing the victim's car out of anger but he adamantly denied throwing a brick through her porch window he also denied any knowledge of stacy's murder but investigators noticed scratches on his hands and on the sleeve of his jacket there were stains that appear to be blood he claimed he had injured himself at work police took the jacket and forwarded it to the crime lab okay [Music] he was also asked to provide a handwriting sample mr tran didn't know exactly why we suspected him other than that we explained to him that he had been to the victim's home and he had broken out windows there and and that the next incident that happened was another broken in window and then the next incident that happened was a murder though the evidence was pointing to tran as the suspect he believed he was being framed for stacy's murder crime lab analysis of the evidence seemed to support his claims of innocence handwriting analysis revealed that tran had not written the threatening letter to stacy and dna testing of the blood stains found on his jacket proved that the blood had not come from the victim the investigation had hit a dead end police were back where they had started with a dead body and no solid suspects police in saint paul minnesota struggled to identify a suspect in the murder of stacy brown a 31 year old mother of three feeling something may have been overlooked police began re-examining all their evidence including statements made by the victim's estranged husband 34 year old lewis brown brown had claimed that on the night of the murder he went to a local bar and played pool until 1am to corroborate the alibi police decided to go to the bar there employees who had worked the night of stacy's murder were shown photographs of lewis brown [Music] no one recognized the man and they felt certain they would have remembered him they stated that they had very few asian customers and that they would have definitely noticed someone with a marked limp who was wearing braces on their legs though the information hardly proved that brown was a killer it suggested he had lied to police about his whereabouts the night of the murder to learn more police visited the facility where brown was employed as an alarm technician for the saint paul school system [Music] investigators asked his supervisor to look around brown's workstation [Music] there the detective noticed and collected pens and a yellow writing pattern which looked consistent with the note attached to the brick that had been thrown through the victim's window as the detective made his way out of the building he spotted a broken piece of a brick being used as a paperweight to hold down some newspapers he took it on the remote chance it was from the same brick thrown through stacy's window when the edges of the two broken pieces were lined up detective mortensen was astonished to find a perfect fit lewis brown not quan tran had thrown the brick with a note written in broken english through his wife's window though brown's efforts to frame tran had backfired police still lacked hard evidence linking him to the murder scene they obtained a warrant to search his house brown's roommate led police to the suspect's bedroom there investigators found a few articles of clothing that appeared to be bloodstained [Music] detective mortenson forwarded the evidence to the ramsey county medical examiner for analysis there dr michael mcgee worked the case after reviewing the autopsy photos he believed that identifying the source of the bruises on stacy's leg would be the key to exposing her killer's identity it had a peculiar appearance to it that was a broken line separated by a by gaps or spaces that were fairly even and if you looked at it you could tell it was caused by some type of object that was machined and had certain dimensions to it then dr mcgee learned from police that the prime suspect lewis brown wore leg braces he began analyzing all of the braces collected from the suspect's bedroom one in particular caught his attention [Music] it contained a knee support with an l-shaped hinge dr mcgee superimposed the hinge of the leg brace directly on top of a photograph of the wound the brace in the open position matches exactly with the abrasion and injury that's present the open edges of the hinge are responsible for the area of a braided tissue present on the subject's leg the spaces in the part part of the mechanism here are responsible for the clear spaces present on the injury the bruise that extends in an upward l fashion is due to the smooth aluminum strut the only way the leg brace could have caused the injury to stacy's leg was if the person wearing it had been directly on top of her lewis brown was the only person known to have worn those graces he was arrested and charged with the murder of his estranged wife police theorized that on the evening of march 19 an argument between lewis and stacy turned violent after strangling his wife he staged the scene to look like a sexual assault in an effort to throw investigators off his trail but all the while his leg brace had pressed down on her leg on january 31st 1998 a jury found louis brown guilty of murder a few days later he was sentenced to life in prison when leaving the scene of a murder most killers believe they have successfully covered their tracks but no matter how hard they try clues to their identity always remain [Music] forensic examiners can uncover hidden prints and impressions and expose patterns of guilt

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 389,090

Keywords: police documentary, the new detectives, forensic science, investigation, detectives, police investigation, cold cases, criminals, crimes, true detectives, sherlock holmes, real crimes, real detectives, private detective, internet, cold killer, murder documentary, murder documentary 2021, murder documentary new, Minnesota, Oregon, double murder

Id: eJgcwS1_fDQ

Length: 49min 33sec (2973 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 26 2021