Decomposed Body Found Along The River Bed | The New Detectives | Real Responders

paper was light gold in medieval times i want tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong a deadly house fire in boise idaho claims the lives of a father and his two young stepchildren as investigators sift through the ashes for answers they uncover evidence that the blaze was no accident in northern california a man is reported missing and all indications suggest a tragic accident is to blame [Music] but a routine investigation soon exposes a web of deception fraud and possibly murder when money is at stake some predators will stop at nothing to exploit another's trust but even the most complex schemes can't survive the scrutiny of those determined to find justice for victims who have been fatally [Music] betrayed [Music] nestled in the western foothills of the rocky mountains ada county idaho is home to the state capital of boise it is also home to some 400 000 residents who work live and play here [Music] in the pre-dawn hours of february 10th 1992 emergency dispatchers received a 9-1-1 call a man reported that his house a two-story duplex was on fire and he believed a family of four who shared the house was still trapped inside [Applause] within minutes firefighters and emergency units from the surrounding area responded to the call [Applause] fire and smoke consumed the duplex [Music] firefighters struggled to bring the first floor blaze under control [Music] rescue workers fought their way through the flames and thick smoke to see if anyone had been trapped inside [Music] in a second floor bedroom they discovered a man lying motionless on the bed a young girl was found on the floor a few feet away [Music] as the search continued firefighters recovered the body of a young boy in a nearby bedroom all of the victims were rushed outside for treatment [Music] but despite the rescue workers efforts all three were pronounced dead at the scene the man who lived in the separate residence inside the duplex told police that around 4 am he was awakened by his smoke alarm he tried to wake up the other family but got no response [Music] he identified the victims as 34 year old randy rowe and his two step children he didn't know the whereabouts of the children's mother robin rowe who also lived at the residence then two women arrived at the scene one identified herself as robin rowe visibly shaken by the news emergency workers escorted the young mother away from the house her friend joan mchugh told police that robin had fallen asleep at her house earlier that evening robin had awakened her just a short while earlier and wanted to return home she had a premonition that something bad had happened to her family all of the victims bodies were removed from the scene and transported to the medical examiner's office for autopsy [Music] now fire marshal doug mcgrew began looking for clues to tell him how and why the fire started we started looking into the ignition source of the fire by doing like we do on all fires we do an exterior walk-around of the building we look and see where the lease damage is we go there and we start working towards the areas where the most damage occurred once we get into that area then we start digging down through and layering through the debris and trying to determine exactly what ignited the fire almost immediately investigators made a strange discovery the circuit breaker that controlled power to the family smoke alarm was in the off position but that did little to explain how the fire started and because the damage was so extensive finding those answers would take time within hours autopsies were performed on randy rowe and the two children [Music] the medical examiner found lethal amounts of soot and carbon monoxide in each of the victims lungs and mucous membranes he concluded that all three had died as a result of smoke inhalation caused by the fire [Music] as the search for the fire's cause continued into the morning hours arson investigators sifting through the ashes made a troubling find on the carpet and in a charred pile of laundry they discovered burn patterns suggesting a flammable liquid had been poured over the area and the spot was just inches away from vents that circulate air throughout the residence investigators collected several pieces of the charred remains for further analysis all indications were pointing to arson and that suggested that the fire that had claimed the lives of the two young children and their stepfather had been intentionally set to find out state fire marshal don dillard delivered the charred samples collected from the house to the idaho state police crime lab located in pocatello by comparing a burned sample believed to contain an accelerant to one that was untouched by the fire he hoped criminologists could find answers what i've asked our criminologists to do is to compare the two we feel the one to be evidence and then one we feel probably doesn't have any kind of an excel run on it and she compares those two and by doing doing that you know hopefully comes to the conclusion that there either is or isn't an accelerant involved in the case forensic examiner susan williamson began testing the samples for the presence of an ignitable liquid first williamson inserts a strip of charcoal ribbon in the sealed cans that contain the charred samples then the can is placed in a chamber and heated for several hours if any flammable substance is present the heat will turn it into vapor which will then be absorbed by the charcoal strip once the evidence has been heated the charcoal strip is removed from the can [Music] to transform any trapped vapors back into a liquid solvents are then added to the strip [Music] the resulting liquid is then subjected to sophisticated detection equipment that measures for the presence of known flammable substances [Music] when the process was completed williamson analyzed the results one of the samples contained an ignitable liquid in this case i identified a heavy petroleum distillate and heavy petroleum distillates include things like kerosene number two and number one diesel fuel and fuel you know heating fuel oil and so forth the analysis had exposed the deadly fire as an act of arson and more disturbing it had exposed a triple homicide forensic examiners had exposed a house fire in ada county idaho that had claimed three lives as a triple murder [Music] the findings were passed on to homicide investigators looking for answers detectives turn to robin rowe the wife and mother of the three victims when asked why she wasn't at the residence on the night of the fire robin explained she had been staying at her friend's house over the past few months her marriage had been falling apart in fact robin believed that her husband randy might have intentionally set the deadly fire [Music] she said that recently randy had become increasingly abusive toward her the smallest things would set him off and he couldn't seem to control his anger even in front of the children robin claimed that on one occasion randy had struck her so hard she was forced to go to the hospital several hours before the fire randy had called her at her friend's house and demanded that she come home when she refused he threatened that she would never see him or her children again though it appeared randy rowe had made good on his threats the story troubled veteran detective gary rainey any parent is protective over their children and and had he been this abusive parent any reasonable spouse would have wanted to remove the kids from that situation her story was that he was only abusive with her and not with the kids that's not the norm and certainly in law enforcement we recognize that that abusive personality that violent personality the anger control problems is not going to just be focused on one particular person especially with those preteen age kids who who sometimes anger parents pretty easily with their suspicions raised police wanted to learn more about the rose marriage and corroborate robin's alibi okay so they began with joan mchugh the woman who had been with robin at the time of the fire well there were some abuse problems because of randy's abuse robin she said had been staying with her that night robin had fallen asleep on her couch around 11 p.m joan went to bed a short while later and never heard anything to suggest robin ever left the apartment joan had no doubt that robin was a victim of domestic violence and she said that it had been going on for quite a while but she had never said anything to anyone and it just seemed to escalate over a period of i don't know about four or five weeks and a few times she came here 10 or 11 o'clock with the children because they were escaping from randy the information gave robin rowe a solid alibi for the time of the three deaths and the result of the forensic analysis had made it plausible that randy rowe had in fact killed himself and his two step children in a vengeful act of rage but that theory would not go unchallenged i learned that there had been some domestic violence going on but then as couple other people called and i learned that there wasn't domestic violence going on according to them and so i just started not adding up very well to learn more police brought in randy rose's sister to answer questions any signs that robin or the kids were the victims of any kind of violence any bruises by anybody she didn't believe that robin was the victim of domestic violence as she had portrayed herself to be though randy and robin had begun to fight more and more he was not a violent person [Music] the kids were randy's life his sister knew that he never would have harmed them and according to the sister robin treated randy as little more than her kid's babysitter as a result randy talked openly about the possibility of divorce but he loved the children as if they were his own [Music] and the kids made it clear that they didn't want randy to go the children had at one time reportedly told robin that they wanted to stay with randy and not go with her and of course they were robin's natural children and not randy's to resolve all of the conflicting information about the couple investigators decided to take a closer look into robin rose background what they found was shocking according to records robin had tragically lost a son nearly 15 years earlier her six-year-old boy had died in a suspicious fire at her california home [Music] arson investigators were never able to determine a cause of the fire [Music] but for idaho police the similarities between the tragedies had to be more than coincidental robin rowe was now emerging as the prime suspect in the deaths of her husband and two children but with an airtight alibi and no obvious motive to explain such an unthinkable crime police knew that proving it would not be easy police in ada county idaho struggled to find answers in a deadly house fire that had claimed three lives robin rowe the wife and mother of the victims had an airtight alibi for the night of the murders but all of the evidence was pointing to her as the prime suspect [Music] what investigators needed was proof [Music] looking for potential clues they began reviewing statements made by robin's friends and family they found that one friend had stated that a few days prior to the fire robin had mentioned that she had rented a storage unit and had taken some of her belongings there the timing of the rental was too close to the murders for police to ignore [Music] detective gary rainey followed up on the lead soon he was able to locate the unit that robin had rented with a warrant in hand investigators were dispatched to the storage unit there they found boxes of personal papers belonging to robin among the items was an envelope filled with several hundred dollars in cash and bingo receipts from the ywca where robin rowe worked police also collected several life insurance policies taken out on robin rose's husband and her two children robin was listed as the sole beneficiary on all of the policies and she stood to gain more than two hundred seventy five thousand dollars from the three deaths it was powerful circumstantial evidence of murder [Music] one of the most disturbing facts being that she took out the last two policies she already had multiple policies but robin took out the last two policies on the children january 24th and the fire was february 10th still it wasn't enough to take robin rowe into custody police began interviewing robin's co-workers at the ywca the manager was surprised to learn that cash and receipts had been found in the storage facility robin had reported that proceeds from the y's last bingo game had been destroyed in the house fire that killed her family though authorities lacked hard physical evidence of murder they now had proof of embezzlement the prime suspect in the triple homicide investigation was placed under arrest and charged with grand theft but police were a long way from proving that robin rowe was a cold-blooded killer [Music] hoping to generate a lead that could destroy her alibi details of the crime were released through the media [Music] a short while later police got a tip [Music] a local newspaper delivery man called and told police that he remembered something unusual on the night of the fire he said that while making deliveries around 4am that morning he saw a car driving away from the duplex he wasn't sure of the make of the car but he described it as a late model four-door with rectangular tail lights [Music] detective ken smith asked the delivery man to come down to the station we had prior to his arrival at the sheriff's office that arranged to have vehicles similar to robin rose vehicle in the back lot and robin rose vehicle was in the back lot we walked him into the lot and asked him to look for vehicles that or look and see if there were any vehicles that matched the description of the vehicle that he had seen in the subdivision on the morning of the fire when he observed robin rose vehicle he immediately pointed to that vehicle and stated that it was the same body style same color and resembled the car that he had seen you sure definitely the witness had placed a car similar to robin rose near the crime scene just a short while before fire consumed the duplex detectives still had to overcome a major obstacle robin's friend joan mchugh had provided her with a solid alibi for the time of the homicides [Music] though police didn't think joan was lying they theorized that robin had managed to slip out of the apartment undetected detective gary rainey was determined to find out i devised a scenario to try to prove or disprove robin's presence in the apartment and that was to have joan confront robin with the idea that she got up in the middle of the night 3 30 in the morning which was the time that we knew about when the fire started that joan would tell robin that she came downstairs to get a drink of water and robin wasn't there when contacted joan mccue agreed that the next time robin called her from prison she would tell her the false story and record the conversation joan was only too happy to cooperate i'm sure i really shouldn't speak for detective ramy but i'm sure that he believed that somewhere in the phone calls she would absolutely destroy all her fur alibis and i just knew that she was going to explain everything and he was going to feel like a fool because she was innocent there was no way a mother kills her children and so i agreed to tape the phone calls on the evening of february 20th robin called joan from prison there's something that i have to talk to you about that morning i came downstairs and you weren't here robin where were you yeah i know i went outside it wasn't the answer she expected robin repeated her story that at around 3 30 am she was awakened by a strange premonition that something bad had happened to her family but now she added that she then contacted a psychiatrist and left the apartment to speak with her for over an hour on tape robin had destroyed her alibi [Music] joan mchugh was devastated it was terrible and i didn't know what to do after it was on a tape recording and it was like you know do i call gary or do i just take this thing and throw it in the trash and no one will ever know but i would have known and probably sounds dramatic but randy and the children deserve better than that so i call gary police finally had enough evidence to charge robin rowe with three counts of first-degree murder based on the evidence detectives believe that in the early morning hours of february 10th robin rowe slipped out of her friend's house and returned to her own home she turned off power to the smoke alarm then driven by a twisted desire to cash in on her family's life insurance policies she placed a pile of laundry near the air vents and set the deadly blaze after murdering her husband and two children robin calmly returned to joan mchugh's house to establish her alibi psychological experts have described to me that it's simply a balance in her mind of what she personally is better off with a husband and two children or the proceeds of life insurance policies and the opportunity to move to a new state and that she simply weighed those two things and decided that the money and the new life was what she wanted today [Music] robin rowe was convicted of arson and three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her husband randy and her two children [Music] she was sentenced to death idaho police had to reconcile conflicting information to find the truth in california detectives must follow a complex maze in order to expose a murder [Music] known for its temperate climate and lush farmland yolo county california offers a quiet rural lifestyle miles outside the state capital of sacramento but residents there are no strangers to tragedy on the morning of february 5th 1997 911 dispatchers at the yolo county sheriff's department received a call from a concerned mother she feared that her son was missing deputies responded to the home patty howard told the officer that she hadn't seen or heard from her 18 year old son nick since the previous evening patty said that the night before nick had helped her close up the auto body shop that the howard family owned as they were leaving nick said he had to retrieve a wallet he had left behind at a nearby restaurant he told his mother he would be home in a couple of hours and said goodbye but around midnight nick called and left a message on the answering machine [Music] he said he was having car problems and was running late but he never made it home that night the family was very close and it was completely out of character for nick not to call and check in missing teenagers often turn up within a few days but for yolo county detective larry ciccatini nick howard didn't seem to fit the profile of a typical runaway this is probably one of the closest knit families that i've ever seen they just from all indications they were very close very loving family for nick to call and not come home was just something that had never happened before investigators feared the teenager's car troubles had led to an accident police friends and family retraced his usual route but after two days the search had turned up nothing then two men out on the search flagged down a patrol car near the banks of the sacramento river they had discovered tire tracks that led from the shoulder of the road down toward the riverbank right down up here right right over here why do you think these are there but i figured nobody else would be laying those tracks down there i don't know one of the men 42 year old ralph marcus said he was a close friend of the howard family charles 22 i think we have a 972 that went over the flip you could start dark ralph said that he and his associate jake stanton were out looking for nick when they came upon the tracks unsure if the discovery was related to nick's disappearance detective cecatini was contacted he knew that stretch of highway well and the news was not encouraging this strip of roadway is a winding strip of river road there are no guard rails on our county side quite frequently inattentive or sleepy drivers do go into the river search and rescue units from the yolo county sheriff's department and officers from the california highway patrol responded to the scene the team followed the tracks down an embankment they led to the water's edge and then disappeared into the river members of the yolo county boat patrol and rescue divers began scouring the river after several hours of searching divers signaled they had found something 16 feet below the surface they had discovered a vehicle resting on the riverbed a tow truck pulled the car from the muddy river the vehicle matched the description of the one driven by nick howard [Music] a wallet recovered from the passenger seat contained the driver's license of the missing teenager [Music] examiners began searching the vehicle for clues on the floorboard they found nick's prescription eyeglasses they were bent as if his head had violently impacted the dashboard or the steering wheel then police noticed that a film of oil coated the vehicle's interior [Music] it appeared to have come from an open container of motor oil located in the back seat the vehicle was towed to a police impound lot for a more thorough examination officers and divers from the boat patrol continued searching the area for any signs of nick howard but there was no trace of the teenager and if he was unconscious and not wearing his seat belt when he went into the river the powerful currents had likely carried his body miles away with so many unanswered questions police looked for clues to explain the accident but aside from the tire tracks at the side of the road little else was found usually if the vehicle went into the water at a high rate of speed you're going to have a lot of broken rocks you're going to have debris possibly some skid marks some significant physical evidence as the investigation continued detectives received some unexpected information nick howard's family had handed over some papers they found while going through his room one was a life insurance policy in the teenager's name that was worth eight hundred fifty thousand dollars there was also an uncompleted change of beneficiary form that listed ralph marcus the man who had discovered the tire tracks at the river as the new beneficiary police were surprised that someone as young as nick howard would have such a large insurance policy he was spending a quarter of his monthly income on a life insurance policy which struck us as odd it's not something that uh life insurance just isn't something that an 18 year old thinks about especially when it costs that amount of money right there and that wasn't the only troubling news an acquaintance of nick howard came forward with information he believed that nick was alive and well recently he said the teenager had boasted that his life insurance policy would make him a millionaire all he had to do was fake his own death disappear and then have ralph marcus collect on the policy polygraph test later confirmed he was telling the truth [Music] the frantic search for a missing teenager had taken an unexpected turn now investigators had to consider that nick howard had staged the auto accident and his own disappearance to find out police enlisted the aid of the california highway patrol's accident reconstruction unit using the tire tracks found by the side of the road as his guide investigator steve walker surveyed the scene detailed measurements indicated that the car had left the road at a 45 degree angle and there was no evidence of vaulting or bouncing onto the shoulder that suggested the car was traveling no faster than 14 miles per hour when it left the road it was unlikely that a sleeping or inattentive driver had caused the vehicle to end up in the river and there was no evidence suggesting that a collision had taken place no debris there were no fluids on stains on the roadway there was nothing that would that you typically see in a traffic collision it was very very anomalous and uh it likewise fit the uh idea that the car had uh um not departed from the roadway in a violent manner that it was set up to leave the roadway in a more controlled manner police next examined the engine of nick howard's car looking for any mechanical problems that could explain the accident almost immediately they found a clue a plastic bottle cap had been intentionally wedged into the engine's throttle holding it open and the cap had originated from the opened container of motor oil recovered from the vehicle's interior with their suspicions raised police turned to auto expert charles radford of the california highway patrol to determine the significance of the findings he conducted an experiment he wedged the cap into the throttle of a car with a similar manual transmission engine he put the car in gear and then turned on the ignition [Music] the engine revved up to 6000 rpms and then lurched forward [Music] and we could get speeds in second as high as 20 miles an hour and in fourth gear was approximately 15 miles an hour within a 100 to 150 foot range what this shows is that it was it would be very easy for someone to be able to take a car and put it in the river by use of an oil bottle cap all of the evidence police had gathered now led them to believe that 18 year old nick howard had in fact staged his own disappearance [Music] and now he was wanted for questioning in the elaborate insurance fraud scheme but so far all efforts to locate the teenager had turned up nothing police in yolo county california continued their search for 18 year old nick howard while looking for answers they uncovered evidence suggesting the teenager and his friend ralph marcus had staged the disappearance it appeared to be an elaborate scam to collect on a life insurance policy worth 850 thousand dollars but with nick howard's whereabouts uncertain police turned their focus to ralph marcus the beneficiary of the insurance policy a background check on the 42 year old heightened detective larry czechokini suspicions that the disappearance was in fact a hoax and that ralph marcus was somehow involved ralph marcus had done thefts identity scams insurance fraud bankruptcy fraud he was a drug runner under questioning ralph marcus denied any involvement in nick's disappearance and he knew nothing about any insurance scams tell me about your relationship ralph said he had been a friend of the howard family for years nick was like a godson to him he was shocked to learn that he was the beneficiary of nick's life insurance policy ralph said he wasn't interested in the money police sensed he was lying but with no hard evidence they had no choice but to release him the investigation was going nowhere then on february 25th 1997 three weeks after nick howard disappeared yolo county police got a break but it wasn't one they had expected a man fishing on the sacramento river had called police after discovering human remains less than a mile from where nick howard's car was found police recovered the partially decomposed remains of a young man the victim found with a single glove on his right hand matched the description of the missing teenager and dental records later confirmed that nick howard had finally been found with no obvious cause of death the body was transported to the yolo county coroner's office [Music] there forensic pathologist dr brian peterson began looking for answers [Music] a close examination of the glove and the clothing indicated that no traces of motor oil were present and that suggested the victim was not in his car when it went into the water for detective cecatini the findings didn't make sense a couple of things just didn't add up for one the body had was wearing one glove which we thought was somewhat unusual i remembered that the car was coated with motor oil when we initially located it but yet there were no traces of motor oil on the clothing granted he'd been in the water for some time but the traces of motor oil are not going to be entirely washed from the body dr peterson next looked to establish a cause of death [Music] fluid found in the victim's lung suggested nick howard had drowned but there was also something else additionally there were changes consistent with manual strangulation bleeding inside the muscles of the neck nick howard had been murdered for the howard family and for investigators the discovery was devastating [Music] in addition to the tragic loss it was now clear that nick howard had not staged his own disappearance and ralph marcus was now the prime suspect in his death now we have a body we've pretty much determined that the body was not in the car when it went in we have an 850 000 potential life insurance payout and we have the beneficiary and we're doing everything that we can to make sure that we get to the bottom line on this and get to the truth of what happened [Music] police contacted the insurance agent in nearby sacramento who handled nick's policy according to records nick came in a few weeks before he disappeared requesting that ralph marcus be named the new beneficiary but he didn't have all of the correct paperwork and the change was not completed but nick didn't seem to understand and the agent believed that he left that day convinced that his policy had in fact been updated in the insurance agent's opinion when nick left he was under the impression that the change was completed and that ralph marcus was the beneficiary though incriminating the information fell short of the smoking gun investigators would need to prove murder then they got a break a witness asked detective cecatini to meet him at a pier on the sacramento river jake stanton the man who was with ralph marcus when the tire tracks were discovered at the river believed he had important information about the case jake said that shortly after nick went missing ralph had asked for his help in searching for the teenager while driving along the sacramento river ralph pulled up to the pier he said it was one of nick's favorite spots as they searched the area jake saw ralph marcus walk to the end of the pier toward a black glove as jake turns around he sees ralph ditch the glove off the top of the pier before jake even says anything ralph mentions to him i was trying to get the glove detectives showed jake the black glove recovered from nick howard's body [Music] he was certain it was identical to the one marcus had kicked off the pier jake was adamant about the fact that ralph was trying to kick the glove off so that it could not be recovered the significance of this is that we had never told anybody that when nick was found he was wearing one glove the information brought police one step closer to proving that ralph marcus had murdered 18 year old nick howard but so far all of the evidence was circumstantial police in yolo county california were now certain that 18 year old nick howard had been murdered for his life insurance policy worth 850 thousand dollars all of the evidence suggested that ralph marcus the beneficiary of the policy was responsible the suspect was brought in for another interview police showed him the black glove that had been recovered from the victim the witnesses saw marcus kick an identical glove into the sacramento river he claimed he hadn't seen one like it before marcus continued to insist that he had no knowledge of nick's life insurance policy and was in no way involved in his death he pointed to the fact that he had gone to great lengths to help find nick after he disappeared but detectives believe that ralph marcus had only done that in order to divert attention from himself authorities obtained a warrant to search the home ralph marcus shared with his mother there they found several documents relating to nicholas howard's insurance policy and marcus was in the process of filing a claim for the 850 000 the suspect was well aware of nick's life insurance policy something he had repeatedly denied he was placed under arrest and charged with first-degree murder police believe that ralph marcus was able to get 18 year old nick howard to agree to stage his own death after making him the beneficiary of his life insurance policy but marcus never intended to split up the money once the plan was in place he beat and strangled the teenager then tossed him into the river to die [Music] after placing the teenager's wallet and glasses inside the vehicle marcus rigged the engine of nick's car with an oil cap and sent the vehicle into the water hoping his death would appear as an accident [Music] ralph marcus was convicted of the first degree murder of nicholas howard and sentenced to life in prison greed and self-interest can be strong motivations for murder [Music] and when the killer is cunning the truth can be elusive [Music] but detectives and forensic scientists are dedicated to finding justice for unsuspecting victims who have found themselves betrayed

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 103,588

Keywords: bombs, bomb, bomb disposal, mail explosive, explosive disposal, police documentary, the new detectives, forensic science, investigation, detectives, police investigation, cold cases, criminals, crimes, true detectives, sherlock holmes, real crimes, real detectives, private detective, the new detectives 2020, the new detectives full episodes, the new detectives 2021, the new detectives new episodes, the new detectives serial killers, the new detectives real responders

Id: CFHeoCMTBMg

Length: 49min 3sec (2943 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 16 2021