Car Of Missing Woman Found In Tennessee Woods | The New Detectives | Real Responders

georgia investigators are relieved to find no one at home during a house fire but as forensic examiners know first impressions can be deceiving [Music] in the dense woods of northern tennessee a hunter discovers the abandoned car of a missing woman detectives quickly realized the scene poses more questions than it answers although investigators routinely rely on first-hand accounts and physical evidence to piece together clues there are times no such clues are apparent [Music] it is these times when science acts as eyes leading law enforcement to answers when forensic science takes the place of an absent witness [Music] [Music] in this episode some of the names have been changed the savannah river is at once both tranquil and mighty [Music] its waters run fast and deep [Music] beneath its surface lies a murky world full of dark secrets on august 15 1998 the richmond augusta county fire department in augusta georgia responded to an urgent 9-1-1 call a house on elizabeth drive was on fire [Applause] investigators arrived as dense smoke consumed the house they scrambled to bring the fire under control [Music] as firefighters made their way through the smoke they detected the faint smell of gasoline they hurried to find anyone who may be trapped inside there were indications the fire started in the foyer although the bedroom was filled with smoke there was little damage from the fire [Music] firefighters were relieved to find no one was home [Music] it was now up to arson investigators to determine the cause of the fire neighbors told police a man named al hamilton owned and lived in the house they hadn't seen him since yesterday and his car was gone does anyone else live here i don't think anybody lives the richmond county sheriff's department began a routine investigation to investigator dwayne piper there were many unanswered questions my initial impressions of the scene was that there was foul play involved the fires did not seem to start from the actual walls themselves they seem to originate just out from the wall and in my mind that suggested that it wasn't an electrical fire [Music] that afternoon a woman named donna edwards arrived at the sheriff's department [Music] she said she was al hamilton's girlfriend and was concerned when he missed their date she drove by his house and panicked his house was burning and they said i should come up well we've been to the house and i can assure you i was not in the house donna was relieved to hear that no one was injured but she was still worried i haven't even talked to him since last night the last i saw again it wasn't like him to just take off without a word [Music] hamilton was very close to his family he took care of his elderly mother and disabled sister who lived in town donna called them and they hadn't heard from him either recently divorced and living in her mother's house donna told piper she and hamilton were very happy were looking to buy land and build a house together donna had plans with hamilton to look at property that morning but he never showed up donna told detective piper that hamilton worked as a manager at a local bar she worried about his long hours and said he didn't get off work until after 3am she was sure something happened to him although he agreed to look into it investigator piper explained to donna there was little he could do hamilton was a grown man could disappear if he wanted [Music] after two days there was still no word from al hamilton piper and his partner investigator joanne nutter were eager to read the arson report the report indicated there were two sources of origin the fires were set using an accelerant in both the entryway and the bedroom although they suspected the accelerant was gasoline the results were inconclusive al hamilton was still missing and the report convinced investigators something terrible had happened they needed to find him 1012 1065 missing vehicle 10 12 10 65 missing vehicle an apb went out to field officers to be on the lookout for hamilton and his car [Music] piper suspected there were more answers at the crime scene hello this is investigator piper with the sheriff's office he called the georgia public safety office for assistance [Music] investigator piper and forensic expert jerry findley of the gps met at hamilton's house [Music] findlay noticed a strange dent on the footboard of the bed looks like an impact of some kind some object there something rounded it was consistent in size and shape with a baseball bat findlay also saw what appeared to be blood on the footboard the pattern resembled a swipe stain a swipe stain is when a bloody object comes in contact with a non-bloody surface and you can tell movement and direction which way the swipe is actually going the stain traveled from left to right as he faced the foot of the bed and something else caught his attention we found little pieces of hair in the swipe which would be consistent with a head injury and a bleeding head coming in contact with the footboard yeah this area here the location of the stains revealed to me that someone was bludgeoned very severely at the foot of the bed [Music] as they inspected the room for more clues they found more blood stains at the side of the room on the wall i observed stains that were consistent with cast off stains and in looking at those i believe that there had to be more there do this very carefully because we don't know how stable they are finley needed to get a closer look at the top i got a rag and started wiping and found the remainder of the cast off stains were under the soot findlay discovered that the soot had preserved the blood this indicated the fire was set after the beating someone had tried to cover up a violent act [Music] to reconstruct the events findlay ran strings backwards from the blood spatter on the walls to the area of origin of the blood okay a laser beam helped him determine the exact angles and trajectories of the spatter and that's where you need to go here i completed my analysis by first determining the directionality of the impact stains i calculated the angles at which they actually struck the wall and drew the strings back to where the strings crossed that is the point of origin of the blood which would have to be the head of the victim okay duane one thing i can tell you right now the person was either on his knees or sitting down at the time he was being bludgeoned right in this area right here this is the area of impact for these stains right in this area [Applause] [Music] the dent on the footboard suggested the victim was struck with a blunt force object using a baseball bat in the lab findlay replicated the cast off spatter found on the bedroom walls a cast off stain is as the item is brought upward uh from that impact it has a certain amount of blood on the instrument itself and that blood is actually being cast off as it comes across it's breaking away from that instrument uh whether it be a hand a baseball bat or a brick or whatever it's going to break away and be cast upward and out of usually across the ceiling if you're hitting straight on like so investigators knew something violent had happened in al hamilton's house but now the question was was hamilton the perpetrator or the victim [Music] the blood found at the crime scene was sent to the georgia bureau of investigation crime lab al hamilton recently had blood work and his doctor supplied a sample to compare with the blood found on the footboard they matched al hamilton was the victim [Music] chief medical examiner chris sperry analyzed the photographs of the scene the ark of the blood and the amount of cast off trajectories told a violent story based upon the evidence that was illustrated in the photographs this was a crime that incorporated a great deal of aggression of anger or perhaps even hatred all of the blows were directed at the head and probably the face as well and there were repeated blows and basically what it indicated was this man was beaten about the head and the face multiple times until he was dead police were now working a homicide al hamilton had not survived the vicious attack investigator piper retraced his last steps hi i'm investigator piper with sheriff's office richmond county his first stop the bar where hamilton worked as a manager his boss told investigators he was a model employee no he's he also said nothing out of the ordinary had happened at the bar that night and hamilton had locked up around 3am piper met again with donna edwards i'm okay you drive okay yeah it's been better he asked her if she could think of anyone who would want to harm hamilton she did recall something that had happened a few months earlier [Music] she and hamilton had been returning from dinner one night when a large truck came out of nowhere and headed straight for him [Music] he jumped out of the way but was almost run down the truck looked like the one her ex-husband rodney richardson used at work she said richardson couldn't come to grips with the divorce and was jealous of her relationship with hamilton [Music] donna also told piper richardson was abusive throughout their marriage and she was afraid of him recently he'd even stopped by her mom's house and confronted her about her relationship with hamilton but still donna didn't believe richardson was capable of murder besides she said she had received a phone call from rodney at 1 am at her mom's house on the night of the murder he told her he was at a phone booth on the other side of town to investigate her piper rodney richardson had motive to murder al hamilton but motive doesn't always make a killer and without a body it would be difficult to prove a murder took place at all both al hamilton and his car vanished a body can be disposed of anywhere [Music] but a car is almost impossible to hide [Music] and the only place large enough to conceal a car was the mighty savannah river [Music] in augusta georgia investigators uncovered the brutal slaying of al hamilton took place his killer set fire to his house attempting to cover up the cry [Music] donna edwards hamilton's girlfriend was concerned her ex-husband rodney richardson was involved [Music] but there was no evidence against him [Music] hamilton's body and his car were still nowhere to be found police believed the answer lay at the bottom of the savannah river [Music] despite a thorough search they found nothing investigator dwayne piper was frustrated by the case there were many challenges that we faced in the investigation for starters there was no bodies so a lot of the evidence had been consumed in the fire or destroyed in the extinguishing of the fire there were no eyewitnesses to the investigation so there was no one with whom we could speak that could tell us what happened well it was real piper learned richardson dropped by donna's mother's house on the morning of the fire he came in but donna was not home he woke me up donna's mother recalled richardson carrying two cloth bags he asked if he could leave some things in donna's bedroom when he came out he wasn't wearing his shoes and he no longer had the bags [Music] they were there here they are great she gave the items to the police piper sent the shoes to the forensic lab for analysis piper contacted donna and asked her why she never mentioned the bags she said she was afraid to say anything she recognized the bags as belonging to hamilton and didn't want to believe that richardson was somehow involved investigator piper was certain rodney richardson had killed al hamilton he now hoped the tennis shoes could place him at the scene at the lab the technician examined the shoes for any debris or ash in the treads and he also ran tests for the presence of gasoline the treads were clean traces of gas were found on the shoes [Music] but traces of gas weren't enough richardson worked in construction and came into contact with it daily [Music] [Music] here they are piper remembered donna said she received a 1am call from richardson on the morning of the fire saying he was calling from a pay phone piper wasn't so sure on a hunch he secured al hamilton's phone records on the night in question a call was made from hamilton's house to donna's house at 1am al hamilton couldn't have made the call he worked until 3 a.m though circumstantial the call suggested that rodney richardson was in hamilton's house on the night of the murder a moderate level so it doesn't drown out the conversation from across the room okay and once police needed direct evidence to make an arrest and they asked donna edwards for help [Music] she agreed and tried to get a confession on tape donna recorded her conversations with rodney over a period of several evenings [Music] she told him she wanted to know what happened to hamilton so she could get on with her life what do you want me to give you what do you want me to tell you i want you to just tell me the truth tell me what happened just tell me what happened richardson finally admitted to the crime all right i killed him he said he hadn't meant to kill hamilton he only wanted to scare him it was an accident but then he lost control i mean the next thing he knew hamilton was dead can you treat me like this richardson said he disposed of the body and was sure the police would never find it and without a body he bragged they could never prosecute him if they tried he said he would not go down without a fight what do you want me to give the confession was enough to get an arrest warrant [Music] all right i killed him how about that i didn't mean it to happen but it did given richardson's history of violence investigators plotted with donna to take him by surprise while donna and richardson were out the police hid inside her house [Music] their plan worked richardson was arrested without incident based on the evidence investigators believe rodney richardson broke into al hamilton's home to ambush him but he was overcome by rage and after repeated blows hamilton was dead [Music] richardson stashed the body in hamilton's car and hid the car where no one would find it attempting to cover his crime he set the house on fire neither al hamilton's body nor his car were ever found rodney richardson was convicted of first-degree murder he was sentenced to life in prison the importance of forensic science in this case was absolutely crucial without the blood pattern work the dna work and the arson investigation this case would have never gone to court there would have never been an arrest it was through these three methods of investigation that we were able to make the arrest without a body and to the state we still haven't gotten the body kind of rodney richardson mistakenly believed without a body investigators wouldn't be able to make their case against him he was wrong [Music] in rural tennessee authorities must piece together blood-stained clues to find a missing woman dead or alive stuart county tennessee is a small rural community where even the police know everyone by name they average just one violent crime a year on a monday night in late 1990 a hunter spotted a car partially hidden by trees it appeared to have run off the road [Music] as he approached the car he noticed no one inside [Music] the hunter wrote down the license plate number and contacted police [Music] the stewart county sheriff's office received the call thank you spirit 903 [Music] there's been a report of an abandoned vehicle the dispatcher sent a patrol unit to investigate she ran the license plate number and discovered the car was registered to june atkins [Music] earlier that day a woman was reported missing now police feared june atkins was wandering the woods alone and injured in tennessee stuart county police were dispatched to an abandoned car that had run off the road the car was registered to a missing woman named june atkins police found the car wedged against a tree the passenger side door was opened and it looked as if someone had gotten out inside the car police found little they searched the area wondering if june had crawled out and lay injured somewhere nearby [Music] they found nothing [Music] sheriff david hicks questioned june's husband about his missing wife he said june went to visit her mother in a nearby town but never arrived atkins was concerned if she didn't go to her mother's house he didn't know where she was we don't start taking missing persons investigations this serious this week sheriff hicks told atkins he found her car and believed she had been in some kind of accident [Music] june's car was impounded investigators hoped it would yield some clues as to her whereabouts forensic examiners looked for fingerprints and anything else that would explain what happened to june [Music] but the only thing they found were the missing woman's fingerprints police needed to act quickly if june atkins was injured and wandering in the woods she would need medical attention [Music] a team of local and state law enforcement personnel along with dozens of community volunteers searched the woods where june's car was discovered [Music] we had had a tremendous amount of help from surrounding counties a lot of people that just called in volunteering wanting to help when they heard that june atkins was missing we're going to divide up the two groups half of it's going to go on the right side half of you is going to go on the left side stay within 15 20 foot of one another so you've got good side of everybody as we do as we go through the woods okay let's go the search party fanned out in different directions officers on horseback tackled the off-road terrain [Music] [Music] the tennessee highway patrol provided helicopter surveillance and a contact point from above [Music] the search lasted for several hours [Music] police received a call over the radio [Applause] something had been found near the paris landing bridge rick stout of the tennessee bureau of investigation was part of the search team he brought what was discovered to sheriffs on highway 79 a group of searchers had found a patchwork quilter [Applause] [Music] [Applause] it appeared to be bloodstained near the quilt were a pair of men's cotton work gloves the glove smelled of gasoline [Music] the investigation changed as searchers realized they may now be looking for a body [Music] crime scene technicians joined the search later that afternoon several miles from where the quilt was found a woman's wallet was discovered [Music] we found some contents of a purse some of them we know belonged to june atkins because her identification was in a wallet that was found found some other contents that appear to have come from a purse the search continued for several more hours then more disturbing news here you take the camera a large amount of blood had been found in the grass [Music] the area was photographed and the blood swabbed for analysis [Music] [Music] they collected anything that may be of help including blood-soaked grass underneath the grass they found a woman's watch rick stout believed the finding suggested something horrible had happened to june atkins we have a car that was dumped in the woods we have her personal belongings we have a quilt that had blood on it it's got to be an explanation for that and when we find personal belongings thrown out along the side of the road she's not going to do that you know her driver's license or wallet and other personal items that tells us that there is foul play involved rick you take there was blood but no body and investigators had questions [Music] at this point they had no idea what happened to june atkins [Music] we did not find any evidence as to where june might be or her body might be we were had some hopes of possibly finding june live but we did not i think the first thing we'll do is everything collected was sent to the tennessee bureau of investigation crime lab [Music] forensic serologist patty choti tested the items for blood i opened the quilt up spread it out it did have a very large blood stain on it and so the first thing i did was a chemical color test to see if it was blood and my chemical color test indicated that it was so the next thing i wanted to do was determine if it was human blood or not definitely blood so i did testing on that and determined that it was indeed human blood [Music] the work gloves were too dark to see any it blood look at that using an alternate light source jordy examined the gloves [Music] she discovered several small stains resembling blood but they tested negative the results were inconclusive [Music] she then examined the sage grass from a different scene they had brought in some grass that they had just pulled up and so i looked at the grass and did indeed find blood on the grass the blood on the items was compared with a sample of june atkins blood provided by her doctor [Music] the blood matched was asked by investigators if she could determine whether june was still alive the volume of blood that was on the quilt was a fair amount of blood but i mean it could have been from maybe a non-lethal injury but the fact that there was two or three areas of grass that had blood on it that was more indicative of someone who had bled out quite a bit and that was fairly indicative that she could have been mortally wounded [Music] june atkins was dead [Music] [Music] and now police needed to find out who killed her and why tennessee police continued to investigate june atkins brutal murder although no body was found massive blood at the scene indicated she could not have survived [Music] can you tell me if that's june's watching june's husband recognized his wife's watch [Music] he had given it to her as a christmas present [Music] sheriff hicks broke the news of june's murder to her husband and asked if he could think of anyone who wanted to harm her june's husband recalled a note he found in june's car several weeks before she disappeared it was in a man's handwriting asking her to meet him at the dyers creek boat ramp [Music] that was all he knew [Music] deputies spoke with june's co-workers hoping her friends could identify the mystery man sheriff david hicks franz of gene told us that june had been seeing a man by the name of kenneth pipkin and that they had been meeting at the dyers crate boat hicks tracked down kenneth pipkin at the logging site where he worked he admitted he knew june he was dating her husband's sister [Music] and he denied ever meeting her at the dyers creek boat ramp sheriff hicks was not convinced we needed to gather a lot more information before we talk to them police canvassed the neighborhood around the boat ramp [Music] a clerk at a nearby convenience store knew june well and she also knew kenneth pipkin she didn't think highly of pipkin she described him as a womanizer obsessed with his truck so obsessed he kept a patchwork quilt on the seat to keep it clean one day she recalled seeing pipkin and june talking outside she watched as june followed him out of the parking lot in the direction of the dyer's creek boat ramp [Music] the clerk told police pipkin had come in looking for june on more than one occasion her story did not match pipkins police got a break [Music] a fisherman called in with new information he said on the day she disappeared that he was the dyers creek boat ramp he saw a woman and a man in a pickup truck his description of the vehicles matched both pipkins and dunes police brought kenneth pipkin in for questioning they showed him pictures of the bloody quilt i remember having a blanket he admitted it was similar to one he used in his truck [Music] pipkin swore he had nothing to do with june's disappearance he claimed he hadn't even seen her on the day she disappeared police knew kenneth pipkin was lying but they needed more to prove he was a murderer now they needed to learn why police in tennessee had a suspect in the murder of june atkins large amounts of her blood were found in the nearby forest but no body had been recovered probably i got pictures of it but we probably need to spread it out [Music] the suspect kenneth pipkin was seen with her shortly before her disappearance a search warrant was issued for his truck and home crime techs processed the vehicle they discovered tiny cloth fibers on the floor they were collected and sent to the crime lab several pairs of cotton work gloves were found in the house they were the same size and style as those found at the crime scene [Music] the evidence was sent back to the tennessee bureau of investigation forensic specialist russ davis assisted on the case he brushed the quilt found at the crime scene collecting any loose fibers the issue became can we connect the victim through this blanket to our suspect that's where the fiber evidence came from fiber's associative evidence fibers are the basic unit of all textiles clothing carpeting anything like that will shed the fibers the very small portion which makes up the textile garment and that's what can transfer [Applause] [Music] davis then checked for a match samples are then compared to the known samples from the vehicle in this case then they are looked at to determine if there in fact was fibers just like the ones found on the blanket found inside the vehicle fibers from the bloody quilt matched the fibers collected from pipkin's truck the report went out dealing with the serological evidence that this quilt had in fact been bled on by the victim the following work on the fiber then said that this material in this swatch of the quilt in fact there were fibers like that found in the suspect's vehicle that makes a link between suspect and victim through this quilt [Music] the evidence was presented to district attorney dan also brooks [Music] we're gonna have a hard time proving that she's dead when we don't have a body we just got one shot also brooks was apprehensive about taking pipkin to trial the obvious challenge of the case was the lack of a body once we got to trial with this issue of not having a body end up being reasonable out for the jury but police were determined to bring pipkin to justice and ran through the evidence again we've got the quilt that has her blood on it we know that was her blood on the quilt her blood at the crime scene and we can put the quilt in his truck we don't get two chances to try a murder case he's found not guilty that's it the d.a was unconvinced he could get a conviction and we know that that quilt murder cases is very difficult to make if it's totally circumstantial we know it's you got to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that there's been a homicide and then prove beyond a reasonable doubt who committed the homicide sheriff hicks knew june's body was out there somewhere two years later on august 23 1993 a fisherman made a gruesome discovery the lower half of a female torso surfaced in the tennessee river her family recognized the clothing and they knew it was june kenneth pipkin was arrested and charged with murder police believe that june threatened to expose their relationship pipkin killed her to ensure her silence but with the help of forensic science june's story was finally told for a small town murder i probably had as many expert witnesses that i've ever had in the case i had a forensic pathologist that had done the autopsy you had fiber experts you had a blood expert from the tbi it was a fascinating case to put together as a prosecutor kenneth pipkin was found guilty of second-degree murder he is now serving a 20-year sentence [Music] some killers go to great lengths to keep their victims aware about some mystery leaving no bodies and only traces of the crime [Music] there was a time when justice was scarce for these perpetrators but today forensic science arms law enforcement with the necessary weapons to convict providing a witness where there is none [Music]

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 129,244

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, the new detectives 2020, the new detectives full episodes, the new detectives 2021, the new detectives new episodes, the new detectives serial killers, the new detectives real responders

Id: arYxoabXpu8

Length: 49min 4sec (2944 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 06 2021