Cases Involving Drug Lords | DOUBLE EPISODE | The New Detectives

investigators on the scene of a drug overdose find themselves matching wits with a serial killer [Music] something in the water has killed an office worker in Arizona her colleagues are lucky to be alive now detectives must decipher a mass poisoner's chilling agenda [Music] when a healthy woman is found dead in her bath investigators know she didn't drown on her own chemistry confirms there's more here than meets the eye but can it lead them to the Killer our material world is built on just 113 kinds of atoms their combinations can produce a world of good but in the wrong hands they're just bad medicine [Music] [Music] thank you at 10 A.M on Saturday December 10 1994 Detroit police arrived at the hotel suite of Lowell and Roberta Amos just one block from police headquarters Lowell had reported that his wife had overdosed on cocaine and was dead [Music] police found a cocaine straw and playing card in the nightstand but no signs of the drug Mr Amos said he panicked and flushed it when he woke to discover that his wife was dead to police it seemed that Amos had done more than dispose of the cocaine the room was neat as a pig practically scrubbed clean the bedding where the victim lay however was thoroughly soiled and smeared from side to side how much more you got to work on there though the victim wore no makeup the pillowcase was saturated with cosmetics when the medical examiner removed the victim it was clear that she had been dead several hours before police were notified suspicions arose that there was more here than Amos was telling homicide was called in and Lowell Edward Amos gave police his account of what happened that night [Music] Roberta Amos was last seen with her husband in the hotel suite of his business partner Norbert Crabtree and his girlfriend Darcy Smith we'll never notice fine thank you the event was the company Christmas party and Executives were given Suites at the hotel so they wouldn't have to drive afterward s though Lowell and Roberta Amos were unofficially separated she agreed to accompany him to the party afterward Crabtree had invited Lowell and Roberta to his suite to continue celebrating they stayed until 4 30 A.M two years ago Lowell told police that after they returned to their Suite they made love and started doing cocaine Lowell fell asleep while Roberta continued using the drug he said that she had sinus trouble and couldn't snort it so she found other ways to get it into her system she must have overdosed while he slept because drugs were involved he was afraid to call the police right away and flushed the remainder but that didn't adequately explain why he waited so long to call authorities swabs taken from the victim's vaginal area tested positive for traces of cocaine other than that there were no other external signs of the drug that was strange internally she had 14 times more cocaine than is normally seen in an overdose she died before half of it was broken down thank you in cocaine poisoning death is preceded by violent convulsions forensic chemist Phyllis good believe that Amos could not have shared the victim's bed and slept through that in fact he probably couldn't have fallen asleep at all cocaine is a central nervous system stimulant and has the effect of keeping a person awake and full of energy um it's not the usual case that a person would go to sleep right after they've used cocaine get this sheet off of here that should be the last thing Lowell Amos did his best to clean up the scene but his story of his wife's death just wasn't washing now investigators had to prove that he killed her at the Michigan State Police crime lab Phyllis good examined the bed sheet to determine what caused the stains nothing in Lowell amos's scenario could have accounted for their condition because the victim's body was so clean they suspected that Lowell had watched it before he called police investigators hoped some evidence remained in the Linens the sheet was treated with chemicals to more clearly reveal the stains portions were cut out and labeled because the stains occurred on virtually all portions of the sheet good took samples from all areas [Music] process was repeated with a pillowcase to see if anything besides makeup could be identified the pattern of the smudges suggested that the pillow wasn't simply wiped across the victim's face what appeared to be a lipstick or characterized as lipstick is that there is an imprint on the pillowcase of what had appeared to be imprint of uh teeth marks and they are located in this area under the blue spot the blue coloration is from Laboratory Testing people at the Christmas party told police that they had seen the victim wearing makeup when your body was found she had none but the pillow revealed she went to bed wearing it well he always can sit with the basketball apparently she had bitten hard on the pillow or the pillow had been pushed hard into her face before she died bruise on her nose suggested that it was pressed with tremendous Force the samples from the pillowcase and Sheet were sent to the state police crime lab for analysis investigators awaited the results meanwhile police interviewed Norbert Crabtree and a business associate he admitted that on the day of the death Lowell Amos had phoned his room at 8 30 a.m saying he needed help he wasn't specific Crabtree who was awakened by the call didn't arrive until 9 30 with another business associate Lowell told them that Roberta was dead and gave them a bag to hold for him detective Patrick henahan was assigned to the case the items were described as a a washcloth from the hotel linen that was stained and very foul smelling a sport coat and a syringe without a needle in a small leather type carrying case Amos collected the items from his friends later investigators never recovered them to determine what happened they had to rely on the evidence at hand namely the bed sheet and pillowcase the lab results showed traces of cocaine throughout the sheet but that was all the results of the tests were the lack of urine or presence of urine the lack of semen or seminal fluid and the only thing that was identified in the brown areas was characterized as vegetative matter the identity of the brown stains was inconclusive they shed no light on what happened only deepening the mystery the fact that the cocaine was also smeared around the sheet and tucked under the sides merely told investigators what they already knew that Lowell Amos had manipulated the seed either out of fear of being blamed or contributing to his wife's death or to hide the evidence that proved he murdered her as investigators mulled over which it could be Lowell amos's past began to catch up with him Amos may have been a real lady killer as word spread of the investigation into the death of Roberta Amos investigators in Detroit learned much about the suspect Lowell Amos he had an unsettling history with women two came forward who said that before he married Roberta they met him at a bar had drinks with him and woke up in his apartment with no recollection of how they had gotten there other women reported becoming violently ill after being intimate with him they claimed they'd been drugged but the most astonishing Revelations were yet to come I began to receive phone calls from my relatives who received phone calls from doctors private investigators police officers friends from as far away as Oregon most of the information that was coming in and was in regards not just Roberta Mowry Amos but also her husband Lowell Amos I was advised that this was not his first wife to die at a young age under suspicious circumstances none of the deaths were considered criminal at the time but times had changed and the death of Roberta Amos shed new light on Old events in 1994 Michigan amended its Rules of Evidence past incidents could now be entered into a current criminal trial if amos's dark history could be shown to have some bearing on Roberta's death the case against him would be the first one tried under the new rules Nancy westfeld assistant prosecuting attorney for Wayne County Michigan was brought in to see if the rules applied to Lowell Edward Amos if somehow we could demonstrate what Mr amos's real intentions were by looking back and looking at these other women looking at their lives looking at their deaths looking at how Ed Amos had treated them and in the end what he did to them as they died the first Mrs Amos Sandra Amos died in 1979 at age 36. the couple had been married nine years according to Lowell Sandra mixed dalmaine a sedative with wine and must have collapsed and hit her head on the bathroom counter though Sandra's autopsy revealed traces of dalmaine and alcohol in her system it wasn't enough to incapacitate her most of the drug was still in her stomach undigested she showed only a small abrasion over her eye not enough to knock her out or kill her her cause of death was undetermined the circumstances were not suspicious enough to launch an investigation however in hindsight one detail stood out after Sandra was taken away a neighbor walked in to find Amos burning something in the fireplace he told the neighbor it was his wife's clothes bloodied from her accident but whatever killed Sandra left no bleeding Cuts or lacerations there was no blood at the scene and she was taken away in the clothes she was wearing when she died so the question became for us what was Ed burning in the fireplace and why was it so important did he get it destroyed before anyone saw exactly what it was Lowell Edward Amos received 350 000 as beneficiary of his first wife's insurance shortly after came wife number two Carolyn Amos Lowell's mistress while he was married to Sandra you are irresponsible no their marriage was Rocky the friction point was the huge insurance policies Lowell kept taking out on his new wife when he would not drop these policies in 1988 Carolyn threw him out of the house [Music] he went to live with his mother Mary tolles age 76. he stayed with her approximately two weeks when she became ill and was brought to the emergency room her doctor commented that it appeared as though she was drugged but none of the medications prescribed to her could account for her disorientation at the hospital she began to recover was sent home Carol and Amos phoned Mary tolls every day to check up on her a few weeks after told's returned from the hospital Carolyn's call was answered by Lowell who had just discovered that his mother was dead apparently for several hours Carolyn raced over to the house with a friend to find Lowell packing his belongings into his car he didn't want anyone to know he was living there Lowell inherited more than a million dollars from his mother's estate no autopsy was performed on Mary tolls because of her age Carolyn let Lowell move back into the house nine months later in the spring of 1989 Carolyn II was dead [Music] according to Lowell's report to police he brought Caroline a glass of wine while she was in the bathroom blow drying her hair [Music] when he went to check on her later he found her dead on the bathroom floor eerily like his first wife it took a while for medical assistants to arrive at their secluded house by then it was too late to revive her Amos suggested that she may have been electrocuted from the blow dryer an examination of the cord showed that it had been cut but Carolyn wasn't electrocuted her cause of death was never determined [Music] though the case was never pursued the medical crew found inconsistencies at the scene the wine glass was missing found later rinsed and in the dishwasher and the position of the victim's body suggested that she had been moved her pajama top and her pajama pants were up at the ends both at the bottoms of her feet as well as at her waist hitched up as it were as if she had been moved certainly not in a position they would have been if she had crumpled to the floor Lowell received eight hundred thousand dollars from his second wife's insurance policies for investigators Lowell Amos was the kiss of death to the women he purportedly loved detective hennehan believed it had to be more than coincidence I have had three close relatives of mine that have died I've never been within 500 miles of any one of them when they died Lowell Amos was in the company of all four of these persons when they died he benefited emotionally and financially from their deaths like the other deaths Roberta Amos lay dead for some time before authorities were notified Ed wanted to make sure that each of these women was beyond help he wanted to make sure none could be resuscitated none could be medically brought back to life because he wanted all of these women dead though Roberta amos's marriage was failing she enjoyed a measure of professional success shortly before her death she had purchased a house with her own money her plan was to legally end her marriage to Lowell and make a fresh start the Lowell Edward Amos had no Financial stake in her death investigators believed that he couldn't stand the idea that she had rejected him [Music] the similarities between the death of Roberta Hamas and Lowell's other wives was enough to expose him as an opportunistic serial killer who murdered for money or just to end an inconvenient marriage based on the collected evidence and the ghosts from his past authorities had what they needed to arrest him for the murder of his third wife Roberta Amos from the photographs of that night Roberta Mowry Amos looked happy she looked like she was having a good time she must have had hope for the future then she shouldn't have at trial the prosecution presented an account of the last night of Roberta amos's life [Music] after leaving Norbert Crabtree's Suite the couple went to their own room where Lowell dissolved a large quantity of cocaine in water [Music] he was somehow able to incapacitate the victim once she was subdued he used a syringe to administer the lethal dose of cocaine then perhaps as she was convulsing he smothered her with a pillow he then scrubbed the body and cleaned up the crime scene as best he could before calling Crabtree to dispose of the remaining evidence for his crime Lowell Edward Amos was sentenced to life in prison without parole Lowell Amos escaped suspicion through the subtlety of his crimes but his past and forensics caught up with him at last other killers are more obvious in their methods though they may be just as difficult to catch Monday March 24 1986 started out like any other Monday 8 30 a.m the employees at the TransAmerica Title Insurance Company in Tempe Arizona were already at the office their weekends of fading memory like her co-workers 46 year old Julianne Williams eased into the day with a trip to the break room the coffee was on but she preferred a drink of cool water [Music] [Music] just one sip told her something wasn't right [Music] come with you she immediately didn't feel well and headed to the ladies room she didn't know it but she was beyond help when Julie Williams was found in the Ladies Room shortly before 9am she was in cardiac arrest [Music] by the time paramedics arrived she had slipped into a coma they rushed her to the hospital [Music] something was in the water while the co-workers discussed what had happened one of them Diane Harry was on the phone to her husband she was more concerned than the rest because something similar happened to her just a few days before [Music] by the time police arrived to investigate Diane Harry's husband Lewis Harry was already there looking for what might have poisoned the water it wasn't just the cooler that was tainted [Music] Tempe Police Sergeant Mike Palmer led the investigation detected an owner within the room upon examining uh almost every cup or container of any type and the coffee pot that was in there I could see that there was some type of substance in almost all of them boy we decided that someone had purposely placed whatever this material was in these containers in order to injure people the office workers were lucky that no one else was hurt but Julie Williams after lingering in a coma was not so fortunate whoever spread poison in the break room was now a murderer samples of the unknown poison were taken for identification police dusted for fingerprints but no suspicious ones turned up [Music] the police interviewed the office workers Diane Harry told detectives that on the previous Friday she became ill after taking a sip of scotch at home that Saturday a cup of tea affected her the same way [Music] as she remained ill the entire week and she barely could get out of bed uh and she told me that the smell uh of the substance that she had inside her house in Phoenix was pretty much the same as the smell that was in the substance that was in the break room questions as far as what happened she was concerned that she was the poisoner's target which is why she called her husband to the office when Julianne Williams became ill police talked to Lewis Harry he too was worried that someone was trying to poison Diane Harry he said he'd been receiving threatening letters from the abusive boyfriend of a woman need help perhaps this was his revenge Lewis was sent home to collect the letters along with the Scotch bottle and tea kettle so they could be analyzed meantime police collected the security cards that every employee needed to enter the building investigators suspected that whoever planted the poison did it sometime during the weekend a check with the security company showed that only one security card had been used that weekend at 10 18 on Saturday morning it belonged to Diane Harry when I confronted Mrs Harry about her card being the only one used during the weekend she denied having used it the only thing she could tell me was that she did not know where it was at other than the fact it should have been in her purse because that's where she'd placed it the last time she'd used it the card was in fact in her purse Monday morning when she went to work and never left the house it says that you checked into the uh so far all the evidence pointed to Diane Harry but was she the prime suspect or the intended victim it was too soon to tell well detectives were trying to identify the criminal scientists were trying to name their poison samples from the office water cooler coffee creamer and sugar bowl along with the tea kettle and Scotch bottle from the Harry's house were brought to the Arizona Department of Public Safety crime lab where they were analyzed by supervisor Jim Timmons he knew that the poison was a fast-acting white powder that helped him narrow down his tests I really came up with a pretty short list of poisons that could have resulted in the information that I had heard about the case and the short list was arsenic strychnine or cyanide investigators applied a series of tests to the compound to narrow the list even further and to check and double check his results an ultraviolet light was shown through a solution of the unknown substance and measured on an apparatus called a spectrophotometer strychnine which absorbs UV light would give a reading Arsenic and cyanide which reflect UV wouldn't register the unknown substance gave a reading on the spectrophotometer proving it wasn't strychnine they then performed a test for arsenic samples of the substance were dissolved in acid and a copper wire was placed in the resulting solution if arsenic were present it would attach to the wire and turn it black no arsenic was present the unknown poison in the office and in the Harry's home was most likely cyanide be certain Timmins used a commercial kit for identifying cyanide it's actually a very simple test but it involves some pretty complex chemical reactions ultimately what happens is a red dye is formed if you have Cyanide and you test this on a paper strip that you drop into a solution and in this case it was positive indicating cyanide was present to remove all Shadow of Doubt Timmons further confirmed his results with a gas chromatograph Mass spectrometer [Music] the substance was sealed in a test tube of acid if it was truly cyanide it would form hydrogen cyanide gas like a mini gas chamber [Music] the gas was drawn off and injected into the apparatus which confirmed that the cyanide gas was created [Music] the battery of tests would provide essential forensic evidence for the courtroom if the poisoner was ever brought to trial Timmins was not done yet cyanide most commonly appears in two forms sodium cyanide and potassium cyanide both are equally lethal a technique called Energy dispersive x-ray analysis allowed him to simultaneously check for various elements in the compound he found potassium samples from the office and from the Harry's home gave identical results both were potassium cyanide the water cooler alone had enough cyanide to kill 150 people the killer had set his or her traps in both places and cast a wide net to catch one victim Diane Harry was either lucky to be alive or trying to disguise her role as the poisoner the questioning continued a question Miss Harry about her husband's ability to get her uh electronic card that allowed access to the building and she stated that he could have but as far as she knew it was in her purse she indicated to me that uh she was not sure where he had been on that Saturday morning from approximately nine in the morning until 12 30. if Diane truly didn't use her security card on Saturday perhaps her husband did he was the only other person who would have had access to it he said he was running errands that day he couldn't account for his exact whereabouts at the time the card was used to enter the building he insisted that the killer was the jealous boyfriend of the woman whom he had helped he had the threatening letters to prove it while the documents were being examined investigators looked further into Lewis Harry's movements their Quest took them to a convenience store across the street from his wife's office building we were able to find an individual who actually observed a blackmail subject driving a blue sports car which is what Mr Harry drove inner at the approximate time that his wife Diane Harry's key card was used to open the door to the business gave investigators The Leverage they needed to serve a search warrant on Lewis Harry's office he worked in the athletics department of a community college foreign detectives found a label from a chemical supplier some white powder on a bookshelf and a small plastic knife also speckled with powder that was later identified as cyanide the cyanide found in his office didn't prove he put it there a defense lawyer could argue that whoever tried to poison his wife also left cyanide at Lewis's office yes sir but the next Discovery would be much more difficult to explain away also there was a legal pad that was that we found that had the handwritten version of the threatening letters that had been mailed him the last few of the threatening letters the pad and a box of envelopes were brought to the Department of Public Safety where they were analyzed by forensic document examiner Bill Flynn in many ways handwriting is even more individualistic or individualizing than DNA for this reason there are groups of people in society like monozygotal twins or identical twins who do in fact have identical DNA characteristics however in forensic handwriting identification we've never found any two people that have exactly identical handwriting characteristics the handwriting on the letters was compared to samples of Lewis Harry's writing taken from business forms at his office and that the Department of Motor Vehicles Flynn was able to say that Harry had actually written the drafts of the two threatening letters he claimed were sent to him after he perfected his wording long hand he typed the letters and mailed them an analysis of the envelopes proved it the letters that Harry presented to police were sent in slightly defective envelopes the unused envelopes in the Box confiscated at Harry's office bore similar flaws Flynn exploited that weakness to strengthen his case a defect of the type that we had seen in the in that envelope was actually rare the reason it was rare is that it would be severe enough to shut down the line they would actually have to clear the envelope making line and restart it in order to to clear that type of error for Lewis Harry the defective envelopes were especially incriminating [Music] but they didn't seal his face forensics had proved only that he'd sent himself the threatening letters prove he'd carried out his poisoned promises [Music] to tie Lewis Harry to the poisoning of his wife's office detectives needed to prove that he'd purchased the cyanide they went to the chemical company listed on the label found in his office and obtained their sales records the clerk recalled selling potassium cyanide to an African-American male on the receipt the name was Charles Holly an African-American man named Charles Holly was contacted he told police he'd never purchased cyanide his signature wasn't close to the one on the receipt Lewis Harry was asked to give a handwriting sample we'd asked Louis Harry to write the name Charles Holly he did do that and from the earlier writings that I had in my office and now with the new exemplars I was able to identify Lewis Harry as actually writing the name that was all detectives needed to make their case against Lewis Harry [Music] according to the prosecution scenario Lewis Harry did receive threatening letters from the ex-boyfriend of the woman who was secretly Harry's New Lover the letters gave Harry the idea to write his own more threatening letters and send them to himself implicating the ex-boyfriend he practiced his poison pen letters before typing them [Music] when his attempts to poison Diane Harry at home didn't work he secretly borrowed her security card sneaked into her office and poisoned everything he could find in the break room he was a frequent visitor to his wife's office so his fingerprints weren't suspicious but when his wife called him after Julianne Williams was poisoned he wasted no time coming to the office to leave even more friends while pretending to show concern Diane Harry's trust in her husband was steadfast to the end throughout the investigation she refused to believe that he could be the poisoner though she remained unconvinced by the evidence the jury saw it another way for the murder of Julianne Williams Lewis Harry was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder plus 105 more years for attempted murder he's serving at least 95 years [Music] even after Lewis Harry's conviction Diane Harry swore that he was a victim of circumstance [Music] her feelings changed a year later when her brother uncovered the box of cyanide hidden in the Harry's attic foreign for every criminal who thinks he's committed the perfect murder there's a team of dedicated investigators out to prove him wrong in Albuquerque New Mexico on the morning of March 28 1990. six-year-old James Woodward called his dad because he couldn't find his mother the Woodwards had been separated for three months David Woodward told his son to go to the neighbor for help [Music] the boy told the neighbor that he thought his mother was locked in the bathroom but he couldn't hear any sounds inside she followed James to the bathroom go call 9-1-1 quick she jimmied the lock and found 30 year old Deborah Woodward submerged in the tub an odor like solvent hung in the air the paramedics and Deputy medical examiner arrived to study the scene the victim showed no contusions or abrasions to suggest that she slipped in the tub probably get a printer there was nothing to indicate why she may have drowned and there was no explaining the odor permeating the room [Music] according to forensic Pathologists Sparks veezy the situation was peculiar from the start a normal healthy adult generally does not just drown in four five six inches of water in a in a bathtub we look for some explanation for that at autopsy blood was drawn and screened for alcohol which might have contributed to the drowning while a body is wet injuries may be obscured but as it dries more is disclosed as the examination continued a chilling Revelation sprang from the victim's own lips the examination of the inside of the lip showed injuries inside the lips which were suggestive that something had been forcefully placed over the decedent's mouth and pressed into the teeth cause causing injuries of the inside of the lips the case was looking more like homicide by the minute the blood work showed no alcohol in the victim system but it did reveal a volatile substance similar to acetone or nail polish remover a sample of the blood was placed in a gas chromatograph to better identify the substance it turned out to be ether in fact every tissue in the victim's body was saturated with it ether is a volatile liquid that can depress the central nervous system depending on how much is inhaled it can cause dizziness unconsciousness or death by respiratory failure it was once a common form of medical anesthesia that was replaced by more predictable and safer methods ether can be produced in the body by the breakdown of some other chemicals or drugs the victim might have taken Chief toxicologist Ronald backer didn't believe this was the case but the fact that it was distributed in all tissues and in very high concentrations was a good indication that this was a significant substance that was not an artifact that really was involved in rendering her unconscious the victim had enough ether in her system to knock her out but it was the drowning that did her in this was no accident [Music] while investigating the suspicious death of Deborah Woodward police learned that she was separated from her husband David even so she shared her house with him until it could be sold in an unconventional timeshare Arrangement their three sons stayed at the house while Deborah and David took turns living there and sharing child custody the plan was designed to create some stability for the boys but the friction between the couple laid just below the surface Deborah had a restraining order preventing her husband from approaching the house while it was her turn to live there none of the couple's problems escaped the scrutiny of Albuquerque police detective Damon Faye who was investigating Deborah Woodward's murder so now I had to explore every part of her life and I had to just open up all of the canisters of her life one of them was her diary particularly ghoulish to read Because I could see the buildup of heading towards marriage with David all of her excitement that goes along with that the new marriage the early years of it then the deterioration of it in her Diaries which Deborah entrusted to a friend for safe keeping she recounted the physical and emotional abuse that she endured Dave slapped me around in the bathroom messed up my clothes broke things so much anger hell absolute hell after the separation Deborah tried to get on with her life she began dating and was starting a serious relationship but her husband was jealous that she was fearful of what he might do according to investigator Faye she counted on her neighbor a retired police Sergeant to keep an eye out for her especially at night and had actually come to the rescue of Deborah on several occasions where she felt David had been skulking around or she heard bumps in the night wanted him to sort of investigate it he would have walked across the street and take care of things walk around her house on occasion so we had sort of passing knowledge about the domestic turbulence the neighbor told police that six months earlier Deborah had noticed something odd in her car foreign to take a look and discovered that David an Electronics expert at a garage and planted a tape recorder in her car that switched on whenever the engine started [Music] it also bugged the house and telephone lines there was nowhere in the house where she couldn't go that he could overhear whatever conversation was taking place he could then take these tapes away and dissect them go back through them listen to them and that would just infuriate him everything in his power to keep tabs on his wife while Deborah devoted all her strength to making a clean break it was a rough game of tug of war and it looked like something had finally snapped [Music] the neighbor told police that several days before the murder he saw David Woodward dismantling the motion sensor spotlights he'd recently installed around the perimeter of the house he thought nothing of it at the time now it seemed too convenient Woodward had the motive and opportunity to kill his wife but where was the weapon though ether was obviously used to incapacitate the victim it was the impurities in it that Drew the focus of investigators the killer had used impure industrial grade either like the kind used in carburetor starting fluid considering that David worked in a garage that seemed a likely source if they could link him to a brand of starting fluid with the same contaminants in it they'd be that much closer to closing the case tested every can they could find with no matches as investigators were busy tracking down The Ether one of Woodward's co-workers contacted police oh man there's so many ways that a year earlier what would have talked about getting away with murder by using a volatile substance like ether Woodward claimed it would be untraceable he was very detailed about it but the co-worker wasn't paying close attention and what you do is you spray it based on this lead and the other circumstantial evidence gathered at this point police obtained a warrant to search the garage I'll understand They confiscated an assortment of chemicals including more cans of carburetor's starting fluid we never did find any brand uh that was perfect but we found some that were very close and ones that we would we could put a star next to as the possible source of the uh of The Ether in the Deborah Woodward uh blood sample but in terms of evidence it was enough David Woodward was arrested all right based on the evidence police reconstructed the murder of Deborah Woodward it was the victim's Habit to take a late night soak after putting the children to sleep while she was getting ready for her bath David used his key to enter the house he had already dismantled the motion sensors so he could sneak into the yard under cover of Darkness foreign with starting fluid overpowered his wife and caused the marks seen at autopsy as the victim lay unconscious David pushed her head below the water [Music] he thought The Ether would evaporate and with it would go all evidence of a crime the truth of the matter is that dead men tell plenty of tales if you have a competent team of forensic investigators which include the police at the scene the uh autopsy people taking the samples and the laboratory that analyzes the samples David Woodward received life in prison for murder in an additional nine years for aggravated burglary for entering the home and battering his wife no poison is perfect clearest liquid or finest powder still leaves behind its residue and though the victim May at first appear unmarked science can reveal how death was dispensed and dispensed Justice to the poisoner [Music] a heart surgeon appears to have died by his own hand but forensic science gives investigators a second opinion to solve a woman's brutal murder investigators must rely on Forensic techniques that haven't been invented yet but time is on their side a senseless murder becomes even more perplexing when investigators find two strange marks on the victim could mean nothing or everything even when the scene of a murder reads like a page of Pulp Fiction detectives must somehow piece together the plot so too must the writers who tell the stories of True Crime [Music] [Music] the mystery began on a cold Monday morning in February 1996 in Sims Township Ohio the usually punctual heart surgeon Dr Daryl Sartorius missed his morning rounds at the hospital for the second day in a row attempts to page him brought no response colleagues asked the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department to check on the doctor at home his wife Della Dante sutorius said she didn't know where her husband was she hadn't seen him in days but that wasn't unusual though they lived under the same roof the couple LED Separate Lives she often went weeks without seeing him the police asked if they could look around the home first they checked to see if the doctor's car was in the garage the engine was cold he hadn't driven it recently their search was cut short by a screen [Music] [Applause] in a basement room Daryl Sartorius had been found his head lay in a pool of blood a steel 38 caliber revolver gleamed on the carpet after devoting his life to Healing others it appeared the doctor had killed himself his wife of little more than a year was now a widow [Music] the officers on the scene couldn't foresee that this was the beginning of a case that would be read by hundreds of thousands of True Crime fans as news of the death was splashed across the pages of the Cincinnati newspapers it caught the attention of best-selling crime writer Aphrodite Jones it was the front page of all the papers and I heard people were talking about it and you know I went and grabbed the papers right out on the bookstand and I just said whoa this is that I just immediately knew this was my story I had to have the story I was like Falling in Love this story would become Jones's fourth True Crime book the sutorius case had all the right ingredients deception betrayal and death at the scene there was every indication the victim's death was a suicide the gun was collected and gunmetal tests on the victim's hands proved that he had fired the weapon [Music] to try to understand why the victim would take his own life police questioned his wife Della too short [Music] she told them they were practically estranged in her few encounters with her husband in the weeks before his death he seemed angry and depressed he had good reason Daryl and Della had fought off him mostly about money to keep the peace they agreed to live on different floors of the large house they shared Della believed that her husband had killed himself rather than face a painful divorce while Della had her say forensics experts were finding a different story at the scene though the doctor may have been lonely police were not convinced he was by himself when he died investigators weren't ready to write it off to Suicide just yet police found a second bullet lodged in the rug when the pistol was examined it was found that two shots not one had been fired strange as it seems according to coroner Carl Parrott that's not unheard of in suicide cases some suicides do include multiple shots some suicides include a test shot or so-called test shot it's theorized that people uh discharge the weapon just to see how loud it is but another clue was not so easily dismissed among the blood spatters was a smear on the couch cushion but from the position of the mark it was unlikely that he could have made it as he fell sutorius could not have killed himself and then smeared his own blood it looked as if someone had altered the scene [Music] parrot also noticed something odd about the position of the body the victim's right hand was extended out from the couch directly over the gun it looked like the gun had fallen from his lifeless fingers but the blood spatter contradicted that on the Palmer surface there was sprayed or spattered blood spray blood um implies that this surface of the hand was up and exposed to blood which is uh exhaled during terminal respiration now however the hand is out like this the victim's position had apparently changed after the Fatal shot was no other way to explain the blood on his hand the head wound was unlike any suicide Dr parrot had ever seen The Gunshot wounded entrance was above the superior attachment of the of the right ear and the trajectory was front going at about 45 approximately 45 degrees this is also a non-contact wound the entrance wound was high at the back of the head and the gun had to have been fired from some distance away people typically don't pull the weapon well behind this is an uncomfortable position to adopt particularly when you're lying down it was unlikely that a surgeon so well-versed in anatomy would have risked missing his mark it now looked like the doctor had been murdered the irregularities at the scene were incriminating but not damning to prove murder investigators would have to first prove that someone else pulled the trigger the prime suspect was the victim's Widow Della sutorius but they lacked solid evidence to find out more about the couple's relationship detectives talk to friends and relatives the doctor's attorney revealed that Daryl sutorius had confided that he was afraid of his wife and wanted to end their marriage well in fact his divorce papers were waiting to be executed on the same day his body was found load and the fact is that contradicted what Della had told police either sutorius had changed his mind about seeking divorce ordello was lying but I need to get out of this where are the kids now are they with her the case against Della was building Hamilton County Ohio's Chief assistant prosecutor Tom langano was brought in to our case the forensic evidence was most important coupled with the facts that she had made statements to people that she would do him bodily harm and Daryl in fact had confided in friends and relatives that he was in fear for his life that Della had threatened to kill him it seemed that Della had made good on her threats but first she cast her spell on suitorius investigators learned that the lonely doctor had met his bride to be through a dating service and had rushed to the altar only three months later seduced by her lies the honeymoon hadn't lasted long Della sutorius's stylish cover story soon opened unto page after page of dime novel violence and deception and she was posing as somebody named Dante and he didn't care and she was posing as somebody who went to UCLA and graduated from college and he never checked on it and she was posing as somebody who had all this fantastic knowledge of the Arts Etc he never knew anything about that he knew she looked good in a bathing suit she claimed that she loved him and that's all they cared about she had no college education as she purported and until she set her sights on the doctor she was in constant need of money she'd been married four times before not twice as she said during their brief courtship she had been Della Hoffer Della buyer Della Bassett and Della Britain each of her relationships had ended in angry divorces her marriage to Sartorius seemed to be following the same course Della and the doctors fights over money became increasingly bitter the rancor reached New Heights when the surgeon's daughter announced her wedding plans to pay for his daughter's wedding right Della had a fanatical need to fuel her spendthrift ways without a prenuptial agreement she would gain little from a divorce they were not married very long and under Ohio law she was not really entitled to much by way of financial settlement on the other hand if he had died of a suicide or natural causes she stood to inherit about a million dollars it was to Della's benefit to prevent the divorce did that mean murder perhaps but investigators needed hard evidence to make the case the peak into her past revealed her capacity for violence she had set one boyfriend on fire while he slept she threatened another with a gun this cycle of violence escalated throughout her life so it went from being just throwing things around with husband number one throwing dishes and that kind of thing to then all of a sudden um you know destroying property of the car and this and that with husband number two to then destroying homes to then then pulling knives and with the last husband she took a gun and pulled the trigger at his head it was empty the bullets were not in the gun but she didn't know that she didn't know that she was ready to kill David Britton he testified to that in court she was going to blow his head off in the case of Daryl sutorius it appeared that Della may have succeeded in her murderous plans yes I'm looking for a gun for self-defense investigators traced the serial number on the gun that killed the doctor it's a 38 revolver it was registered to Della sutarius purchased shortly before the murder further checks revealed that this was not the first pistol she'd owned an officer on the case recalled that several months before the shooting a man approached him to turn in a 22-caliber handgun [Music] he said it belonged to his wife she had threatened him with it that man was Daryl sutorius the officer told him to hand over the weapon at the police station and to file charges of domestic violence the gun was turned in but he didn't file charges so he thought he got the gun out of the house and he was safe will did he know she went out and bought herself another gun the owner of the gun shop where Della bought her second pistol remembered that she was a tough customer he told police that even though a shooting lesson was included in the price of the weapon Della didn't need it she was a natural Dead Eye and with the loaded pistol in her hand she'd told him she wouldn't let her husband get away with divorce but hearsay about threats still wasn't enough to bring charges investigators had to place her in the room with the Smoking Gun [Music] the death of Dr Daryl Sartorius looked like murder investigators had learned that his wife Della had both motive and opportunity to kill him but could they raise tangible evidence to prove it coroner Carl perrett thought he could he noted that a thin Sheen of blood covered practically all of the gun's surfaces occasionally you'll see blood on the weapon after a suicide but the distribution is where you'd expect it to be on the muzzle front sight maybe the front of the trigger guard the places you would not expect to see it or on the grips which are shielded by the shooter's hand parrot found a partial bloody palm print left on the grip of the weapon he determined that the plant had been transferred to the grip by a blood-stained hand when the blood was almost dry given the lethal nature of his wound Dr Sartorius could not have shot himself dropped the gun and then picked it up again finally here was proof positive that a second person had been at the scene the print was too smeared to compare it with Della's but Della sutorius had no alibi for the weekend her husband lay dead in the basement when all the evidence was assembled the events of the doctor's last day alive became clear the style to which Della sutorius had grown accustomed was slipping through her fingers pressure was mounting divorce was imminent on Saturday February 17th she reached the end of her rope and the end of the eight-day waiting period to pick up her new gun after shooting her sleeping husband she arranged his body to make it appear that he had killed himself then she placed the gun in the lifeless hand and pulled the trigger once more making the Bullet Hole In The Floor now gunshot residue would be found on the doctor's Hand by any forensic expert who looked for it in February 27 1996 the Widow was arrested for the murder of her husband in her book Della's web Aphrodite Jones described the final moments of the trial four months later the sordid Saga of Della Dante Faye Hall Hofer buyer Bassett Britain Sartorius ended on June 7 1996 a tear rolled down her face as she listened to closing arguments then Della collapsed in her chair as the jury announced the verdict guilty of aggravated murder in the death of her husband the Widow sutorius was sentenced to life in prison she will be 70 years old before she's eligible for parole though many homicides are solved with the tools at hand sometimes the clues and ultimately the victim must wait for new technology to reveal their secrets best-selling True Crime writers Don Weber and Charles Bosworth Jr found themselves thrust into the midst of just such a case in June 1978 in the quiet town of Wood River Illinois Carla Brown had just gotten engaged to her high school sweetheart David Hart and they were moving in together Hart went to work as usual leaving Brown to start arranging their home [Music] but later that morning when a friend stopped by to see the new house Brown didn't come to the door [Music] after work Hart gave his friend a tour he couldn't understand why his fiance had gone out and left the door unlocked walked through the house the reason became horribly clear [Music] [Music] ly Brown hadn't gotten far in her unpacking before she was attacked police found her on her knees doubled over with her head in a bucket of water her hands were lashed behind her back she was naked from the waist down police questioned David Hart he was inconsolable his co-workers confirmed that brown had been murdered while he was at work [Music] he was not a suspect [Music] detectives processed the scene for Clues [Music] slashed electrical wire had been used to bind the victim's hands foreign she had two linear bruises on her face and neck she had been sexually assaulted [Music] socks tied around her throat suggested she'd been strangled [Music] a pool of water tinted pink from the victim's blood was found beneath one end of the couch more blood LED from the couch to the body but the most perplexing through lay not on the floor but overhead the carafe from a coffee maker was jammed into the rafters [Music] Illinois State Police crime scene inspector Alva Bush didn't trust what he saw at the scene he had worked many homicides involving sexual assault and felt that the position of the victim meant the scene had been staged the victim was bound around one wrist and then the cord went underneath her and came up and the other wrist was tied and I felt that this wasn't right because it would allow the victim access to her attacker inspector Bush made sure a painstaking series of photographs was taken of the entire scene then the body was wrapped in a sheet so that no trace evidence would be lost during transport to the coroner's lab when the victim's injuries were examined it was determined that she'd been struck a single devastating blow broken her jaw in two places and left two blood trauma bruises on her face the marks suggested the back of a claw hammer [Music] though Carla Brown had fiercely resisted her attacker she'd been overpowered and possibly knocked unconscious ultimately her cause of death was drowning Charles Bosworth Jr a reporter who covered this case for the St Louis Post-Dispatch experienced firsthand the community's fear and outrage this was a murder that happened in the home of a lovely young woman minding her own business moving into a home starting a new life with her fiance it happened in the in broad daylight and it immediately raised the issue for us of the the lack of safety in a person's own home and that terrifies the public co-author Don Weber who in 1978 was the assistant State's Attorney was called into the case the criminal whoever he was undermined any sense of safety the hardware store sold out of locks uh women were afraid to go anywhere by themselves the impression I got when I went to the house was it was just a terrible brutal cold-blooded crime and there were absolutely no clues police interviewed Carla Brown's neighbors one witness said that on the day of the murder she'd seen two men drinking beer and smoking marijuana in the yard of the house next door to the crime scene the two men were brought in for polygraph tests John prenti passed the test displaying no abnormal responses to the questions [Music] but when Dwayne Conway's turn came the results were declared inconclusive due to erratic emotional disturbances only a disturbed mind could commit a crime like this one Conway became the lead suspect but the crime scene gave as many mixed signals as his polygraph no identifiable fingerprints were found at the crime scene the case reached an impasse after a year even though Carla Brown's killer was still at large the murder investigation was called off then a chance encounter over 1 000 miles away broke it open thank you a murder case may be officially closed but it's never forgotten that was true of the Carla Brown case in 1979 almost a year after the crime investigator Alva Bush traveled from Illinois to New Mexico to testify in an unrelated stolen vehicle case when that trial was delayed he passed the time attending a seminar on a brand new forensic technology photographic image enhancement he had no idea this seminar would be the turning point for the brown investigation the lecturer that day was medical investigator Homer Campbell on most photographs there's more information than you really perceive and what enhancement does in different steps it really simplifies the photograph it makes the edges clear for instance it lets you see different segments of the film differently with renewed hope Bush sent photographs of the Carla Brown murder scene to Campbell for analysis he hoped this new technology would help solve an old case [Music] the photographs were enhanced using a computer that paired away only the Blurred fragments of each image one tiny section at a time [Music] in the Brown case the results were dramatic Campbell called bush with his initial findings [Music] the twin bruising on the victim's face had been caused when the killer struck her with the metal legs of a TV tray which were barely visible in one photograph the victim's former fiancee David Hart still had the TV tray in his home when police re-examined it they discovered microscopic traces of blood and a short strand of blonde hair but no fingerprints though the weapon had been found the killer was still free [Music] but Campbell's enhancement of the photographs provided even more shocking evidence of the Killer's brutality then he kind of dropped the bomb on me when he says what about the bite marks on her neck and I just couldn't believe it I said what bite mark and he says she's definitely got a bite mark on her neck the enhanced image made it clear the victim had sustained a Savage bite during her assault since the bite was inflicted close to her time of death the bruises had no chance to heal but they'd still been too faint to draw a notice until now the first thing is to examine the entry itself and from the injury what is the investigator able to see can he see uh what's called gross characteristics can he see little individual characteristics maybe something individual about this that would really make it different from anything else Campbell determined that Carla Brown's killer had a small mouth with crooked teeth after one year with no breaks whatsoever this gave police their first solid lead we knew that we had something now that we could link to the killer something very personal something he's not going to change I I can recall that I was excited about it because I I felt that this guy would have to pull all of his teeth out at least most the ones in front to get away from this type of evidence by the early 80s forensic experts were depending more and more on the unique characteristics of bite marks the prime suspect Dwayne Conway was forced by the court to have an impression made of his upper teeth [Music] open your line a little bit longer this mold was then sent to Dr Campbell [Music] oh yeah by going to the teeth you look again at the gross characteristics of the teeth you look at the individual characteristics of the teeth something you look for something a little different that would make this individual the photos simply didn't provide enough information without a clearer view of the bite wound the case would grind to a halt [Music] stymied at every turn there was only one path open to investigators they started the paperwork to have Carla Brown's remains disinterred but the investigation moved forward on another front detectives on the case learned that the new science of psychological profiling was helping police close murder cases across the country Detective Bush and his colleagues wondered if a profiler could help them get inside the mind of Carla Brown's murderer they gathered all the crime scene photos and drove more than 800 miles to the FBI's Behavioral Science unit in Quantico Virginia there Pioneer profiler John Douglas studied the images and made a startling prediction Douglas was just amazing you know he he started just talking after he's seen the photographs and he says that the crime scene was definitely staged and that if we're going to exhume Carla's body that we need to do a lot of high profile news media on it and he says that this guy the killer will call you he'll contact you and he'll want to inject himself into the investigation [Music] the timing of this new information couldn't have been better in May of 1982 four years after her death permission to exhume Carla Brown's remains was finally granted as the FBI profiler recommended the police and the media cooperated making a public event of the Grim proceeding to further shake up the murderer investigators publicized the previously unknown fact that the victim had a bite mark on her body and that an arrest in the case was imminent [Music] according to assistant State's attorney Don Weber this was all-out psychological warfare we were trying to make the killer nervous he'd coped with the crime he'd learned that he got away with it he was really proud of himself and John Douglas said you have to make him nervous while new photos were being taken of the bite marks on the victim Weber's office received a telephone call from the prime suspect's friend during an office meeting we were having about this case my secretary broke in and said John pranty's on the phone though pretty had passed a polygraph and wasn't a suspect he was behaving like the Killer the profiler said the killer would try to insinuate himself into the investigation that's what John prenti was doing the publicity surrounding Brown's exhumation and the bite wound also brought out new Witnesses who called investigators with crucial information they said that at a party just one week after Carla Brown's death prenti had been describing the murder scene to his friends in lurid detail including a description of the bite mark the only way he could have known about the mark three years before the police learned of it was if he'd inflicted the wound himself [Music] Randy was ordered to give a devil impression the mold along with the impressions of three other people were forwarded to a forensic odontologist for analysis we brought him four sets of dental Impressions and we said which one is our killer and he put three aside immediately and then he took up Franny's Dental Impressions and he measured him and he got a caliper out and he looked at the picture and then he just sat down and he said that's your man extreme patience and new forensic techniques had finally Justified an arrest warrant on June 8 1982 four years after the murder of Carla Brown John prenti was arrested one thing about a homicide investigation they're forever there's nothing sacred in them there's you continue to search for that individual there's no statute of limitations that you have to deal with so if somebody out there has done a murder your fair game Forever Until It's solved when the evidence was assembled police sketched a picture of the victim's first morning in her new home and her last day alive Freddy made a sexual advance that was strongly rebuffed the struggle escalated until pretty bit Brown on the neck and struck her face with the TV tray knocking her unconscious he tried to revive her by splashing water on her face from the coffee carafe when his efforts failed he redressed her and tied socks around her neck to hide the bite mark bound her hands and tipped her forward into the bucket of water where she drowned after print he fled the scene he washed The Tell-Tale blood from his hands at the home of next door neighbor Dwayne Conway thanks to the emerging Sciences of image enhancement forensic odontology and psychological profiling Carla Brown's killer was finally brought to Justice those interminable seconds the period of time Don Weber hated more than anything else passed as the verdict was handed from the foreman to the bailiff to the young judge reading his first trial verdict judge Romani said solemnly the verdict the court has been handed reads as follows we the jury find the defendant John pranty guilty of the offense of murder on September 27 1982 printy was sentenced to 75 years in prison while the process of solving a crime can bring welcome resolution it can also stir up some ugly ghosts from the past Clifford line decker has been a true crime writer for 22 years he has published 32 books to date being a crime writer's greatest job in the world every book or every magazine piece I do I get to look into the lives of new people look into the deaths of new people too for that matter but you really see life at its uh at its Rost you strip everybody's Secrets away and uh if you're if you're a snoop a former journalist so that's uh that's that can be pretty exciting in the last century Leo Tolstoy wrote that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way leindecker found that it's still true and still makes good reading I kind of pride myself on keeping up on what's happening with with True Crime and especially my favorites now which I call Family murders in 1993 line decker learned of a brutal murder case in the resort town of Steamboat Springs Colorado it began in October at the hardware store owned by Jerry and Douglas Boggs on this morning Jerry was very late for work and Douglas was worried Douglas tried to reach his older brother by phone no one answered when he went to Jerry's house to check on him Douglas found him brutally murdered on the kitchen floor [Applause] an officer from the Steamboat Springs Police Department responded to Douglas boggs's call he confirmed that Jerry Boggs was passed all hell 52 1090 supervisor though there was a deep gash across the victim's forehead death had come from two gunshots to the bank detective Rick krutz was called to the scene and noticed something unusual and looking at uh Jerry boggs's body there was there was a mark that on his ear and in his cheek right here that we could never figure out what the Mark was It was kind of reddish and circular and and there was a spot up on the lobe of his ear but I mean we we'd uh we'd guessed at the onset that this is a muzzle of a gun being shoved into his head and that was the bruising and the mark left by a gun muzzle a blood-stained shovel was discovered at the crime scene it provided another possible explanation for the marks if the victim had been struck with the tool the rivets would have made the wounds police also found a slug and blood drops on the floor along with pools of blood as agent Tom Griffin examined the blood spatters the full savagery of the murder became clearer this convergence abstains this three-dimensional convergence was basically underneath the ceiling beam the ceiling beam had a curved gouge in it which was suspected to be a result of the shovel the blade of the shovel coming in contact with the ceiling beam investigators collected several shell casings perhaps they could hold a clue to lead them to the Killer forensic experts continued to build the case after the Fatal slugs were removed from the victim they were submitted to the Firearms Lab at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation there agent Alan Hammond went to work I was able to determine that the bullets were 22 long rifle caliber they had been fired from a barrel of a firearm that had rifling of eight lands and grooves with a right twist detectives had a bullet but no gun they had a shovel but no clue as to who wielded it by now the killer could be miles away or very close to home police in Colorado had few leads and fewer suspects in the shooting death of Jerry Boggs they turned their attention to the man closest to the victim his brother died so at that point in time everybody you know everybody that that uh is associated with with that is a suspect well I left when I went to look for him and what time blood and hair samples were taken from Doug Boggs and compared to forensic evidence from the scene no match was found Doug was not the Killer but he did Point investigators to a suspect his former sister-in-law Jill Court Jerry Boggs had met Coit while she was restoring her bed and breakfast in town she bought all her Hardware at the boxes store and soon the lifelong bachelor Allowed no one but himself to wait on her after their wedding in April of 1991 Jerry Boggs assumed part ownership of Jill Coit's bed and breakfast a [Music] soon Jerry and Jill began having marital trouble [Music] Boggs was shocked to learn that his wife was still married to another man 's insisted they separate until she ended her other marriage Jill left but his writer Clifford lein Decker discovered in researching his book Jill returned to Steamboat Springs making an amazing claim Jill either ratted or borrowed a baby and showed up in Steamboat Springs went around town showing everybody and said this is a this is Jerry's baby and this rotten guy threw me out of the house and he won't take care of me and he won't support his little girl the child couldn't be his or even hers a partial hysterectomy years before had left Jill quite unable to have more children what was quite up to find out Boggs hired a private detective the results of her report were startling the private investigators actually turned up quite a history for Jill and of course they really relate that to Jerry Coit had been married not once but 11 times before Jerry Boggs to nine different men like her marriage to Boggs several of her other marriages had overlapped Boggs had his marriage annulled and soon quite sued him for his share of the bed and breakfast the case was bitterly contested investigators wondered if this was a motive for murder if Coit's long string of marriages wasn't enough police found another skeleton rattling in her closet in Texas one of Jill Coit's former husbands had also met an untimely death decades before now when we began to investigate Jill Coy I mean she had uh we'd uncovered I mean numerous marriages and several of of those marriage were bigamists we we uh found out that she was a prime suspect and a murder of a previous husband William Quaid in Houston and it was like 21 years earlier 20 years earlier um and you know following up on on that murder I mean the murders were phenomenally similar William Coit like Jerry Boggs had been shot in the back at close range the 22 caliber bullets piercing his lungs for lack of evidence Jill Coit was never charged in William Coit's death it seemed history was about to repeat itself [Music] investigators in the Jerry Boggs murder faced the same circumstances [Music] then one of Jerry boggs's neighbors revealed a startling piece of information she told police that on the day of the murder she had seen two men walking by her house what caught her eye was that they were wearing heavy coats on a mild fall afternoon then she realized that one of the men was actually a woman wearing a false mustache Jerry boggs's attorney confirmed that he and his wife had once seen a woman disguised as a man driving past the courthouse the woman was definitely Jill Court we learned during the subsequent investigation that Jill Coit did this she dressed up as a man wore beard and mustache and she'd use this disguise to follow Jerry Boggs around town you know spying on him police suspected that the two mysterious men were really Jill and her boyfriend Michael Backus but Jill Coit told police that at the time of Jerry boggs's Murder She and Bacchus were away camping police had no solid leaves to support an arrest the investigation stalled Court sped to the airport clutching tickets to Mexico police could only watch as she boarded a flight to Freedom two men were dead killed 20 years apart both were shot in the back with 22 caliber pistols and both had been married to Jill Coit she was the prime suspect in the death of Jerry Boggs but she was still in Mexico beyond the reach of authorities even if she returned to the states coincidence was not strong enough evidence for police to bring charges then according to crime writer Clifford leindecker a surprise witness turned the case around I think the turning point in the investigation really occurred when Jill's oldest son Seth Stephen Seth turned against him not only had Jill Coit and Michael Backus openly planned the murder of Jerry Boggs in front of her son she'd even called him when The Butchery was finished telling him it's done and it's messy foreign to believe her he'd found evidence of the deed in a bathroom sink at the bed and breakfast where she may have washed up with Seth Coit's testimony police now had a case but they couldn't act until Jill Coit came back to Colorado finally in November 1993 investigators got a call from her son once again he said that Jill Coit was making a quick visit to the U.S to tie up some loose ends on the sale of a property foreign police were waiting for her as it turned out Joe Coit and Michael Backus would be staying in Steamboat Springs much longer than they had planned when detectives searched the suspect's cars they found spec 22 caliber cartridges in the ashtray and then they discovered a weapon they weren't even searching for a stun gun what do you think is this a stun gun uses two electrodes to deliver a non-lethal shock of 100 000 volts it can incapacitate a human being for several minutes suddenly the strange marks on the victim's face and neck began to make sense but forensic data on stun gun injuries was scarce because they were so rarely fatal detective Crux contacted the Arapahoe County coroner Dr Michael doberson for help just by measuring the distance from the electrodes on the stun gun we were able to compare that with the injury that we saw in the picture and found that these injuries were pretty closely related to where the electrodes would have been though autopsy photographs gave some clues about the marks on the body only tissue samples from the victim's remains would prove that a stun gun caused the marks if investigators could find tissue damage consistent with the use of a stun gun they could connect Jill Coit to the murder scene but by now Jerry boggs's remains had been buried for 10 months [Music] they were exhumed to look for evidence doberson found some Not only was there an injury on the cheek but there were also similar types of injuries or scratches on the earlobe and also on the outside of the ear samples of the injuries were closely analyzed [Music] because skin tissue is electrically charged high voltage can disturb its structure near the surface of the damaged area the skin had greatly thinned out foreign nuclei of all the cells had begun to align and migrate beneath the surface like iron filings on a magnet or a school of fish in a current but this current wasn't water it was electricity lots of it to doverson the results were conclusive the skin showed all the signs of an electrical injury the stun gun in Jill Coit's car linked her to the injuries on her ex-husband's body after months of Investigation police now knew what had happened on the day Jerry Boggs died Joe Coit and Michael Backus had ambushed Jerry Boggs soon after he'd come home the victim was assaulted with a stun gun first then beaten with a shovel three gunshots later the crime was complete once her husband was back in Culver she worked Clifford line Decker's book poisoned vows details the end of the sordid Tale the jury deliberated only five hours before returning verdicts against both defendants of guilty to all counts she picked the wrong town she picked the wrong man and she picked the wrong family Douglas Boggs said of his former sister-in-law after the verdicts were revealed for their crimes Jill Coit and Michael Backus were sentenced to life in prison forensic evidence both from the scene and from the grave had unraveled the mystery when the plot is murdered investigators must piece together the real story from a tangle of seemingly unrelated Clues as long as killers think they are above the law there will always be Tales of True Crime but forensic science will always write the Final Chapter

Channel: The New Detectives

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Keywords: The New Detectives, New Detectives, New Detectives Full Episode, Full Episodes, New Detectives Documentary, Crime, Crime Documentary, Crime Patrol, True Crime, True Crime Daily, Unsolved, FBI, FBI Files, Crime Stories, Crime Documentaries Full Episodes, Unsolved True Crime, Mystery, Solved, Investigation, Police, Criminal, Forensics, Forensic Science, Science

Id: 6K_HV9YutGM

Length: 104min 5sec (6245 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 21 2023