Death At The Hands Of A Stranger | The New Detectives | Real Responders

police in northern oregon are overwhelmed by a string of brutal murders at first glance the cases appear unreliable but as victims continue to surface the investigation begins to expose a more terrifying truth a quiet town in central california becomes the backdrop of a violent double homicide with no witnesses and little physical evidence investigators struggle to identify a suspect to make their case police must rely on determination ingenuity when death comes at the hands of a stranger investigators depend on the physical evidence to make their case forensic science offers the only hope of justice when innocent victims are caught in a killer's deadly age [Music] only 16 miles from portland the quiet town of hillsboro oregon feels far away from the problems of big city life 91 482 but a few hours before dawn on october 9th 1992 dispatchers from the hillsborough police department received a 911 a resident living along cornell road reported hearing multiple gunshots police arrived at the scene to find an abandoned 1966 volkswagen beetle pulled up onto the sidewalk [Music] the car was riddled with bullets shattered glass a purse and traces of blood littered the front seat over a dozen bullet casings were scattered on the ground in the glove compartment police found the vehicle's registration the car belonged to a woman named martha bryant [Music] a driver's license found inside the purse also belonged to her but martha bryant was nowhere to be found [Music] as officers tried to piece together what had happened another call came in from police dispatch yeah go ahead half a mile away witnesses reported a woman lying bleeding in the road the officer arrived to find paramedics frantically working to save the woman's life [Music] she had been shot twice the emergency team rushed her to the university hospital in portland [Music] but after several hours of fighting for her life 41 year old martha bryant was pronounced dead later that morning authorities contacted her husband he couldn't imagine anyone wanting to harm her [Music] he said that martha was a dedicated midwife at the hospital where she worked you [Music] it wasn't unusual for her to be at the hospital well into the morning hours helping families bring new life into the world martha bryant just didn't seem to have any enemies [Music] at autopsy the medical examiner noticed signs that martha bryant had been sexually assaulted a single nine millimeter bullet had pierced her lung but it was an execution style shot from a 22 caliber weapon to her right temple that killed her [Music] the slugs were removed and forwarded to the crime lab 30 degrees criminalists at the oregon state police crime lab began scouring the volkswagen for clues [Music] number 120 degrees trajectory analysis showed that martha bryant had driven through a hail of bullets number five [Music] examiners determined that 17 rounds had pierced the car [Music] the attack had come from two positions [Music] from the right rear of the vehicle and from just outside the passenger window [Music] it looked like an all-out ambush by someone determined to kill her next examiners compared the bullets collected from the vehicle to those recovered from the victim they matched and the markings left on the bullets told investigators that a browning nine millimeter handgun had probably fired them examiners also confirmed that the fatal shot to the victim's head had been fired from a different weapon a 22-caliber handgun [Music] this suggested two shooters with no motive and no obvious suspects hillsboro police believe this would be a difficult case to solve detective michael o'connell of the nearby washington county sheriff's department was asked to assist in the investigation it was extremely unusual the the extreme violent nature of it the senseless random nature of it it was unlike anything that that we had had or unlike anything that had happened even in the whole portland metropolitan area news of martha bryant's murder sent shockwaves through the community the public came forward with dozens of tips but they all led nowhere [Music] two months after the shooting the martha bryant investigation ground to a halt but detective o'connell refused to let this senseless murder go unsolved believing that martha bryant had been randomly targeted o'connell began reviewing another cold case he was working from a year earlier that victim also seemed to have been targeted by a stranger he began looking for signs that the two cases may be connected [Music] on april 19 1991 washington county investigators were dispatched to the home of an elderly hillsborough resident there they discovered 62 year old margaret schmidt in that angle there she had been sexually assaulted strangled and then suffocated with a pillow [Music] the only piece of evidence recovered from the scene was a man's size eight and a half reebok sneaker print left in some spilt talcum powder the subsequent investigation into margaret schmidt's murder had uncovered no solid suspects margaret schmidt had no enemies led a very quiet lifestyle there were no actual witnesses that night to this person sneaking into her house other than the shoe prints we had nothing else to go on after reviewing the case file o'connell could find no similarities between the two murderers the mo in each was radically different the only thing that martha bryant and margaret schmidt shared in common was that both appear to be unlikely victims [Music] still investigators at the washington county sheriff's department needed to find a way to close these two investigations and their caseload was about to increase [Music] two months after martha bryant's murder a passing truck driver spotted something on the side of the road [Music] as he got closer he realized he had found the lifeless body of a young woman he immediately called the washington county sheriff's department detective scott ryan received the call the information that we had at that point was not specific the people on the scene did not know if was the victim of a hit-and-run or if the body had been dumped for some other reason when officers arrived at the scene they found that the victim had been shot at point-blank range from underneath her chin by a 22-caliber pistol she had also been badly beaten and sexually assaulted but other than the bullet used to kill her no physical evidence was recovered [Music] investigators had no idea who this woman was or why she had been murdered hoping to identify her the victim's fingerprints were run through the police database they got a hit records indicated this victim had been charged on a minor violation a few years earlier she was identified as 23 year old shanti woodman of portland oregon [Music] detectives interviewed woodman's friends but no one had any useful information she was known as a free spirit and everyone fully spoke with liked her like the margaret schmidt and martha bryant investigations the murder of shanti woodman quickly threatened to go cold to keep the number of unsolved murders from growing higher washington county authorities organized a task force comprised of officers from area law enforcement agencies the difference in the ages of the victims and the different mo in each murder led the team to conclude these cases were unrelated and though a 22 caliber handgun had been used in two of the murders examiners at the lab concluded they were different weapons for the next several months police followed hundreds of leads in each of the three unsolved cases but despite their efforts little progress was made and then new reports of violence began to pour in the normally quiet community of hillsborough seem to be caught up in a deadly crime as police in hillsborough oregon struggle to keep pace with the growing number of unsolved homicides in their community a new rash of assaults were being reported investigators learned that two elderly women had been attacked in separate incidents police spoke with one of the victims who was still recovering in the hospital she said a man came to her door asking to use a phone once inside he attacked her but the woman managed to activate an alarm pendant the assailant panicked and fled the woman was certain that her attacker was a man who used to live in her apartment building 30-year-old caesar baroni [Music] the second victim was also able to identify baroni as her assailant [Music] a warrant was issued for his arrest investigators quickly tracked baroni to a local bar [Music] he was placed under arrest for the two assaults stand up please put your hands on the bar unlike the unsolved murders of margaret schmidt martha bryant and shanti woodman it seemed the latest rash of violence would be quickly [Music] resolved at the weekly task force meeting detective o'connell learned about baroni and details of the recent assaults baroni had an extensive felony record which included a number of assaults and rapes on elderly women as he continued listening detective o'connell realized that the mo of the recent assault wore striking similarities to one of the unsolved murders that of 62-year-old margaret schmidt right away we're speculating could he be responsible at least at the very least for the murder of margaret schmidt because of the age of these victims that survived and the fact that the one victim lived only a block away from margaret schmidt though it was only a hunch that the cases may be connected detectives interviewed baroni in jail he claimed he had never heard of margaret schmidt and denied any involvement in the recent assaults on the elderly women having been positively identified investigators were convinced that baroni was lying looking for any useful information they asked him if he owned any weapons for their surprise he admitted to owning several [Music] one he said was a browning nine millimeter semi-automatic pistol [Music] investigators had been searching for the same type of gun in connection with the shooting death of 41 year old midwife martha bryant the hunch that baroni was connected to the murder of margaret schmidt had uncovered a possible link to another unsolved case [Music] looking for evidence that could tie barony to the two murders police obtained a warrant to search the house he shared with a roommate showed up at the same time the man led them to barony's browning nine millimeter semi-automatic pistol we sent that gun in to be test-fired and compared to the martha bryant ballistics evidence but at that time it was only a hunch there was nothing that directly led us to believe that he killed martha bryant police continued searching for evidence that could tie barony to the unsolved murders in his bedroom they found another potentially vital clue a pair of reebok tennis shoes the same type of shoe that had left the print at the margaret schmidt crime scene at the crime lab examiners analyzed the shoes recovered from barone's house they were determined to be reebok ers tennis shoes size eight and a half examiners overlaid barone's shoes onto transparencies of the print lifted from margaret schmidt's house the unique characteristics present on the treads of barone's shoes were identical to those found at the crime scene examiners concluded that barone's shoe had left the print speculating that they had inadvertently exposed a serial killer investigators turned to the gun recovered from barone's house the one suspected in the shooting of martha bryant criminalist chris johnson fired the browning nine millimeter weapon into a water recovery tank [Music] under a comparison microscope the samples were compared to the nine millimeter bullets recovered from martha bryant's lung and from her volkswagen detective o'connell was contacted and given the results of the analysis chris johnson test-fired that browning nine-millimeter pistol and determined that that gun and that gun alone had fired those bullets removed from her volkswagen and had ejected those casings found along cornell road to the exclusion of any other gun in the universe it was an absolute solid positive match though it was powerful evidence it didn't prove that barony fired the fatal shot [Music] as police searched for that gun they got a break an inmate locked up with perroni came forward [Music] the inmate said baroni had been bragging about the murder of martha bryant baroni told the inmate that he was the lone gunman he had used the nine millimeter to shoot up the victim's volkswagen and then the 22 to deliver the fatal blow that's crazy you know like the baddest criminal and that wasn't all brony had bragged that he and another man had committed yet another murder several months before that had remained unsolved the details of that homicide also sounded familiar to investigators [Music] detective scott ryan reviewed the inmate's statements one of the cases that mr brony had described to the inmate was a case of a female who was uh picked up in portland transported out west and raped and murdered there was only one case that that could be consistent with and that was the death of shanti elise woodman the investigations into three seemingly unrelated homicides were converging exposing a trail of murder that led to one serial killer now police needed to find hard evidence to make sure that caesar baroni would never be free to kill again [Music] having conclusively tied suspected serial killer caesar baroni to the unsolved murder of margaret schmidt police in hillsborough oregon now sought to link him to the murders of 41 year old martha bryant and 23 year old shanti woodman barone's alleged accomplice in the woodman murder was tracked down to a local jail where he was serving time on an unrelated charge perhaps you might be able to tell me at first leonard darcel was uncooperative but after being confronted with the inmate's testimony he decided to talk [Music] darcel told the detectives that he and baroni had met shaun t woodman in a portland bar the night she was killed they conned her into baroni's car once inside baroni beat and raped her then they drove her to a remote location darcel told police he begged baroni to just leave her alive by the highway but baroni shot her anyway using a 22 caliber pistol though police were getting close to making their case they needed to find the weapons used in the martha bryant and shanti woodman murders in the course of interviews with barone's acquaintances the police learned that he had scattered guns all over town leaving many with ex-girlfriends police tracked down and collected several of these weapons including a number of 22-caliber pistols the weapons were forwarded to chris johnson at the oregon state police crime lab before the test firing however johnson decided to first swab the barrel of one of the weapons that was consistent with the gun used to kill martha bryant we knew that the head wound to martha bryant was a contact near contact and that with a gunshot wound you can get high velocity blood spatter we swap the outside of the barrel and the inside of the barrel first before we test fire to check for back spatter we were able to find blood inside the barrel [Music] dna testing showed the blood on the inside of the gun barrel was consistent with blood recovered at autopsy from murder victim martha bryant this was the link needed to prove that barone's gun delivered the fatal head wound [Music] examiners at the crime lab were also able to conclusively tie another of barone's 22 caliber guns to the murder of shanti in all oregon authorities had linked serial killer cesar baroni to three unsolved murders oh yeah 18. detectives marched into the washington county jail and charged caesar baroni with the murders of margaret schmidt martha bryant and shaun t woodman and also with the assaults on the two elderly women [Music] based on the evidence police believe that baroni constantly prowled the area searching for vulnerable women to abduct molest and kill though he targeted elderly women anyone who crossed his path was a potential victim not only had he gone after so many elderly people that should have had some type of peace in their later years but he'd uh perform some very terrifying attacks on on some people that were just totally unsuspecting as to what a predator he really was caesar baroni stood trial for the murders of martha bryant shanti woodman and margaret schmidt in all three trials he was sentenced to death for his involvement in the shanti woodman kidnapping and murder leonard darcell was sentenced to 20 years without the possibility of parole serial killer caesar baroni waited until his victims were alone before attacking other killers strike whenever the opportunity presents itself atascadero is known as a small peaceful town nestled in the foothills of california's beautiful central coast but a handgun will shatter the tranquility of any town and the tascadero is no exception in the early morning hours of february 5th 1987 police and paramedics were dispatched to an apartment complex there they discovered the body of a young woman lying on the sidewalk she had a single gunshot wound to the left temple the emergency team also removed a nylon stocking that had been used to gag the victim as prime techs fanned out to search the area for evidence police began interviewing residents at the complex they identified the woman as their neighbor 22 year old lori rainwater they said that they had rushed outside after hearing screams followed by several gunshots but because of the fog they couldn't see anything clearly they had no idea who could have done this as the search for clues continued police discovered another victim at the rear of the building he was dead the victim of a gunshot wound to the chest and an execution style shot to the back of the head he had also been gagged with a stocking neighbors later identified him as laurie's husband 25 year old john ray water police made their way to the couple's apartment there they discovered that the bedroom was on fire this killer had gone to great lengths to obliterate any trace of himself from the crime scene police in atascadero california continued searching for clues in the double homicide of john and lori rainwater [Music] after extinguishing a fire that had been deliberately set inside the couple's apartment police began processing the scene blood spatter found throughout the apartment suggested a vicious attack no fingerprints were discovered police did find evidence that the murdered couple had been bound yards of duct tape used to bind them were recovered they also found two makeshift mittens made from socks wrapped with duct tape probably used to keep the victims from loosening their bonds as the search continued police noticed two empty jars on a table all of the items were collected and sent to the crime lab for a closer examination at autopsy the medical examiner determined that each of the victims had suffered deep blunt force lacerations there were also signs that they had been sexually assaulted but it was a 38-caliber gunshot wound to the head that killed both john and laurie rainwater [Music] the recovered slugs were forwarded to the california department of criminal justice crime lab [Music] as examiners started processing the evidence investigator bill hanley of the san luis obispo county da's office began looking for leads [Music] with no eyewitnesses to the double homicide there were no immediate suspects to pursue the homicide occurred at approximately 6 a.m it was a very foggy dark morning which hindered eyewitness is ability to see anything clearly with little evidence to go on investigators turned to the victims families for information mrs martinez lori rainwater's mother could not imagine anyone that would want the couple dead she said that john and laurie were a happy and deeply religious couple they worked several jobs one of which included taking care of the apartment building for their landlords [Music] they carefully budgeted their money in fact they had recently saved enough to move to a bigger apartment in order to raise a family [Music] mrs martinez said lori had stored their savings in small glass jars [Music] investigators realized that those jars had been found empty the information led investigators to theorize that robbery was the motive behind these savage murders [Music] they hoped the evidence could tell them more the duct tape and the empty jars believed to have contained the rainwater savings were analyzed by latent print examiner marty collins [Music] an inspection of the jars however revealed no signs of fingerprints next collins turned to the duct tape but the tape was stuck together and crushed [Music] once you get the tape that is stuck together although there are ways to try and take it apart the chance of getting latent prints is greatly diminished traditional methods of locating and raising a print were unsuccessful but collins had one technique left to try a dye staining process [Music] after applying the chemical rhodamine 6g to the tape a laser light was applied to the evidence the dye adheres to any latent prints present on the tape [Music] under the light a small section of a fingerprint emerged but the discovery was not that encouraging [Music] collins realized that this evidence could not be compared to prints already on file [Music] the print from the tape was from high up on the tip of the finger not on the pad of the finger where inked prints of suspects are taken over the next few months police developed several suspects they were all brought in for questioning but eventually fingerprint analysis eliminated all of them for detective hanley it seemed that the investigation into the deaths of john and lori rainwater was at a standstill [Music] due to the high publicity of the case for approximately the next two and a half months on a daily basis up to 16 17 hours a day we ran down leads these leads were from different parolees or offenders in the area to people calling up and saying that they believe that their neighbor did it although having no really proof on it all the leaves that we had run into came up to be dead ends but then on april 29 1987 two months after the murders police received a phone call from a woman who claimed to have information about the rainwater homicides she agreed to come in and answer questions the informant said that she had met the rain waters a few days before they were [Music] murdered while looking for an apartment she and her boyfriend dennis dwayne webb had spoken with them the rain waters explained that they only collected rent money from the tenants for the landlord they didn't actually rent out apartments [Music] but while in the apartment the informant noticed that her boyfriend was constantly glancing at the money jars on the kitchen counter [Music] for investigators the story hardly proved murder but there was more she went on to say that a week or so after meeting with the rainwaters she and dennis dwayne webb were arrested in a drug raid police had collected drugs and several weapons but failed to find a hidden 38 caliber pistol having followed the double murder investigation in the media the informant knew that was the same type of gun used to kill john and laurie rainwater [Music] the informant was released on bail the following day shortly thereafter webb called her from jail he wanted to talk about the hidden 38 caliber handgun she advised me that at dennis webb's insistence that she was to dismantle the gun take it to the coastal area in california and throw it off the cliff into the ocean the informant did as she was told after taking the gun apart she drove to a remote area along the coast and threw the gun over a 300-foot cliff after months of having no solid leads police now considered dennis dwayne webb as the prime suspect in the murders of john and laurie raymond but to make their case they needed to locate the murder weapon and after viewing the area investigators were not optimistic frankly when i went there and noticed where she did throw it off i thought there was little or no chance of ever recovering that weapon again members of the search and rescue team from the san luis obispo county sheriff's department were brought out to the site after surveying the area the team meticulously mapped out their missions they double checked all of their equipment to ensure their safety and then geared up it was now up to them to repel down the perilous cliff and search the beach below for the weapon believed to have been used to kill john and laurie rainwater as investigators in atascadero california continued searching for evidence in the slayings of john and lori rainwater they finally got a break an informant admitted that at the instruction of her boyfriend dennis dwayne went she had thrown the murder weapon off a 300 foot cliff into the pacific ocean though finding the weapon seemed like a long shot the search and rescue team slowly made their way down the sheer cliff because of the treacherous conditions it took the two-man team nearly three hours to reach the bottom once there they began searching for the gun for over an hour the search turned up nothing but then under some rubbish they found what appeared to be the frame of a 38-caliber smith and wesson revolver though it was badly damaged police believe they had found the murder weapon the team made their way back up the cliff and turned the gun over to investigator hanley for him its value as evidence was questionable looking down the barrel of this weapon this was covered completely in rust frankly i didn't think we were going to be able to get any type of ballistic help at all from this [Music] police sent the gun to the california department of justice crime lab [Music] technicians managed to reassemble and clean the gun enough to test-fire it the test-fired bullets were then compared to those recovered from john and laurie rainwater the markings left on the bullets as they traveled down the barrel of the gun matched in some areas but not all [Music] investigators were building a good case but they were still a long way from proving murder [Music] police turned to their informant for help they asked his girlfriend to wear a wire and record conversations with him in prison she agreed to cooperate despite the danger of being exposed i'm convinced that the informant's motivation was only to see that justice was done at no time during the investigation did the informant ask for any leniency on any pending criminal case she had nor did she ask for any type of reward that was out there it was only to see that justice was done during their conversations webb made no overt references to the murders he believed that the correctional facility recorded all conversations but when the informant told him she was worried that police suspected him in the murders he began talking but he spoke in code police were able to break it for instance when he referred to the weapon that was recovered off the coastline he referred to that as a cat when he would talk about killing somebody he would talk about popping grapes it was that kind of code that we had to decipher webb assured the informant not to worry in addition to discarding the murder weapon he said he had made certain that none of his prints had been left behind the web statements were incriminating they felt short of a confession but they were enough for investigators to obtain a warrant to search webb's car [Music] underneath the driver's seat investigators found a roll of the same type of duct tape found in the rainwater's apartment [Music] in the trunk they found a receipt for the table stamped with the date and time february 4th 1987 at 8 37 pm the purchase of the duct tape had been made just hours before the rainwaters were murdered though convinced that webb was the killer police still needed to physically link him to the crime scene because the print on the duct tape found at the scene was from high up on the finger examiners were unable to match it to any of webb's fingerprints already on file but investigators were able to obtain a court order to get new prints this time from the area high up on webb's fingertips marty collins of the department of justice crime lab performed the analysis with the use of a five power magnifying glass i compared the photograph that i'd taken of the print on the tape with the inked fingerprints of dennis webb and until i found the finger that was identified and i found a sufficient number of ridge characteristics to make the identification the analysis proved that dennis dwayne webb had bound the victims with the duct tape the information was enough for investigators to charge him with two counts of capital murder investigator hanley police theorized that after seeing the money in the rain waters apartment dennis dwayne webb began plotting to take it from them a few days after that chance encounter he returned to the couple's apartment and forced his way inside not only did he steal their savings he also terrorized and tortured them for hours when the couple managed to somehow escape webb chased them down and murdered them in cold blood he then set the place on fire hoping to destroy any evidence he may have left behind [Music] on june 20th 1988 dennis dwayne webb was convicted of burglary robbery and two counts of murder with special circumstances [Music] during the penalty phase of the trial webb testified and for the first time admitted his responsibility for the deaths of john and laurie rainwater [Music] after hearing his admission of guilt the jury sentenced dennis dwayne webb to death stranger on stranger homicides are among the hardest to solve but fortunately for investigators killers always leave clues behind they rely on forensic experts in the lab to help them solve the crimes and bring about justice when killers take deadly aim

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 340,545

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, Murder, Forensics, california, oregon

Id: uKGmnQNVNKU

Length: 49min 35sec (2975 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 29 2021