FBI Files 2020 Criminal Pursuit

the fbi is the most sophisticated law enforcement agency in the world pursuing the most dangerous criminal when two deaf college students are savagely killed in their own dorm rooms everyone was really blaming each other in the community the bureau mobilizes the killer had great access to both of these dorm rooms and carried out these crimes unnoticed who has access to both of these students i mean who has a motive to do this sort of thing everybody was thinking we've got a serial killer loose here fbi criminal pursuit september 28 2000 it's a quiet day on the campus of gallaudet university the harvard of higher education for the deaf surrounded on all four sides by fencing the campus is a tranquil island in one of dc's roughest neighborhoods once you got right outside of gallaudet you'd get mugged like that the fences didn't to me feel safe because things can happen inside of an island not just outside of an island [Music] at 8pm in cogswell hall a male student nervously approaches resident advisor lauren husby he told me that he was supposed to meet up with eric plunkett for a tutoring session so i told him you know why don't we wait a few minutes and see maybe he'll show up a little bit later but he was really persistent he wanted me to check his room and the other thing about him he said that eric plunkett's room had smelled funny lauren follows the student to eric plunkett's room at the end of the hall she notices that eric's door is closed [Music] that's unusual for the outgoing 19 year old freshman who has a mild case of cerebral palsy lauren can't enter the room alone the rule is that i was supposed to have a second person there for witnessing purposes and also that would have to be a male [Music] she finds resident advisor thomas cook and then lauren showed up in my room and i was like hey what's going on and she said i don't know someone reported that eric's room smelled funny so i said all right well let's check it out as he approaches eric's room thomas feels uneasy it was very strange to have his door closed because most of the time his door was open he was always welcoming everybody anybody could go to his room at any time he rings eric's doorbell several times the doorbell has a light bulb above the door we could see that the light was flashing in the room when the doorbell rang but there was no response [Music] we have a master key where i can get into anybody's door at any time [Music] we opened the door turned the light on and there was just a shocking scene there was a big red splotch on the floor i thought it was really odd so i followed those spots to his body and his body was face down on the ground horrified thomas rushes to eric's side my very first thought was i hope it's just a seizure i hope it's something like that but i was seeing so much blood around the room i just i just knew thomas tells lauren to call campus security while he gets their supervisor i went to go see my boss i just said one word i said death thomas and his boss hurry back to eric's room dc metro police are called to the scene it's clear to them that eric's death was no accident there was a broken chair in the room and they surprised that he was struck with the chair and maybe repeatedly with parts of the chair could someone have snuck onto campus and broken into eric's room to rob him investigators look around but nothing seems out of place there were certain items that were left behind his computer hadn't been touched and other items like that were still there within the room detectives doubt that robbery was the motive does that mean a cold-hearted killer broke in or is the enemy within gallaudet's walls technicians carefully recover blood samples hairs fibers and fingerprints hoping to find dna evidence that will lead them to a suspect eric's mother and stepfather kathleen and chris cornell's are asleep in minnesota when police arrive at their house two o'clock in the morning the phone rang at the same time that there was a loud wrap on the front door and kathleen responded first to the telephone [Music] hello who is this this is the police the police are downstairs what is this about okay we're on our way we'll be there in a minute [Music] they asked if he you know was a student in gallaudet washington d.c yes then they told us there'd been an altercation and that he was dead eric's sister calls their father craig plunkett in oregon i believe she asked me if the police had come to the door and i said no what's going on and she says they found eric dead in his dorm room i have one chair that i set in i went over i sat in my chair i sat in that chair all day long as word rapidly spreads around the small campus everyone is stunned though he was new to gallaudet eric was already popular i just kept thinking why him i have to admit i was starting to think you know well maybe he was an easy target i did think of that he did have cerebral palsy he did live alone he lived at the very last room on the hallway he wasn't very close to where traffic areas where people congregated detectives begin interviewing witnesses because of the language barrier it's a painstaking process you're oftentimes restricted on the the pace of the interview because a lot of times you have to go through an interpreter and so it takes so much longer and sometimes you miss out on nuances and things like that that you would typically pick up on somebody who could speak with you detectives finally gleaned some intriguing information eric was homosexual and had recently become secretary of a campus club for gay and lesbian students there's great concern it was the result of a hate crime due to his particular sexuality one student even tells detectives that he saw another student sign one less [ __ ] after eric died everyone was really blaming each other and there's another possible motive could eric have been killed by a lover what they saw in the crime scene is this was a crime of passion it was their impression that this was perpetrated by somebody that had an emotional attachment to eric a potential suspect emerges when a student reveals that eric was in a romantic relationship the student doesn't know the young man's identity just the first name thomas and the last initial b was eric killed by his boyfriend an angry student or by a total stranger it's a riddle that only the fbi will be able to answer but not before the campus is thrust deeper into a bloody nightmare i was very scared and nervous i felt to the point that i just wasn't safe anymore it's been less than 24 hours since 19 year old college freshman eric plunkett was beaten to death in his dorm room at gallaudet a university for deaf students in washington dc a makeshift memorial grows outside his dorm window we had a vigil right in front of cogswell hall and we had a tree there and we put flowers pictures of eric and we tried to mourn eric grief stricken eric's mother stepfather and sister arrive in dc where they're met by detectives they took us right to the precinct they took us into a conference room and we expected to get information in that session and they were basically interviewing us asking us questions [Music] and there's a reason during their search of eric's room detectives discovered that eric's computer was powered up he was instant messaging his sister aaron who is likely the last person who saw him alive does she have clues as to what happened in the moments before eric's death they wanted to understand from her what were you guys talking about what was the conversation leading up to that did you see anything did he tell you anything what was going on aaron tells detectives that eric seemed totally normal during their last chat except for one eerie moment when aaron was communicating with eric with the webcam going on she noticed that somebody walked by who was lingering by eric's door detectives need to find out eric's family leaves the precinct and makes the grim trip to gallaudet eric's mother flashes back to the day she dropped eric off we were getting ready to leave and i'm leaving my hug and i said just the typical good luck i don't want to leave you [Music] he's like mom you don't have to worry about me i'll be fine and those were the last words that he said to me when i last physically was with him don't worry about me mom i'll be fine with only a fuzzy webcam image as a lead detectives continue their investigation they focus on eric's resident advisor thomas cook who discovered the body [Music] cook has a master key to every dorm room in the building including eric's it's typical in homicide investigations to scrutinize the individual that found the body that's kind of basic police work at the same time detectives try to track down a student named thomas b who was allegedly in a relationship with eric they first got a name of thomas b from some of the other students they really couldn't identify who that person was initially but in reviewing some of the log books and other records that's when they finally came up with the name of thomas mitch thomas minch is a freshman with no criminal record and no disciplinary problems at the school [Music] it was also determined that they apparently had a bit of a falling out sometime prior to his death [Music] detectives debate whether the killer targeted eric for being homosexual or if thomas minch himself killed his former friend it's now been five days since eric's murder and detectives are desperate for answers they bring 18 year old thomas mitch in for questioning thomas i appreciate you coming in to speak with me today detectives interview minch for more than two hours yes i pushed him down so minch admits he and eric had been close and fought when minch ended the relationship he admitted that he had been in an argument some time before and he admitted that during that argument he pushed eric once minch admitted to this physical violence of eric plunkett then the interview stopped thomas stand up stand up what stand up out of your chair why chan's behind your back you're under arrest for the murder of eric plucking you have the right to remain silent and that was accepted as a confession that he in fact had essentially beaten eric plunkett to death [Applause] d.c metropolitan police arrest thomas mitch and charge him with second-degree murder news of the arrest reaches eric's family just minutes before his wake we were all really excited we hugged each other now we have someone that we know has done it police said that he did it now i can have someone to vent my anger at the news that thomas minch is in custody shocks many on gal udette's campus there were some groups they were like what him you know especially the ras we'd be like really never would have thought him but as time will tell not everything is as it seems you should never ever lock yourself into one theory without challenging that theory every step of the way just hours after thomas minch is arrested for the murder of eric plunkett the sensational news of one deaf student killing another on a world-renowned campus floods the airwaves they were involved in a personal relationship which resulted in a physical altercation resulting in a death for mr plunkett [Music] we saw a lot of it in the papers of course and we saw a lot on the internet i mean it's strange to see your son's name in the newspaper and especially attached to something like this dc metro police are convinced there is only one reason for the murder a falling out between minch and plunkett nobody had any reason to believe that this could have been a robbery [Music] detectives collect fingerprints blood and handwriting samples from minch to compare to evidence collected at the crime scene but almost as quickly as the case appears to close there is a shocking turn of events basically the u.s attorney's office said you do not have enough probable cause to make an arrest you should not have made an arrest on this we're going to throw the case out at this point to everyone's surprise minch is released though he remains the chief suspect [Music] eric's family learns of the dramatic development the day of eric's funeral what do you mean you let him go he confessed [Music] doesn't didn't make sense didn't compute [Music] once again the galludet campus is gripped with fear the students felt nervous about minch's release they were looking behind their backs making sure they were safe and they complained to the president of the university and the president had told them you know that he won't be coming back to school until the investigation's over and that he was suspended not making any decisions about tom minch's guilt or innocence that will come out later minch returns to his home in new hampshire but students can't help but wonder has a killer been set free eric's mother writes an open letter to students encouraging them to stay calm my strong hope is that this tragedy does not deter other students from pursuing their goals and dreams at this university please know that eric speaks to her was a wonderful part of his life his first real step towards independence my sincerest wishes for continuing success for gallaudet university [Music] one month later eric's mother is at home in minnesota when she receives a package of forwarded mail from galludet inside is eric's bank statement so i looked at the bank statement and saw that there were charges from his debit card on september 28th i knew that there was still no defined timeline in terms of when eric had actually been killed they found him on the evening of the 28th and so i thought oh this is great he was alive on the 28th and he went to union station and he used his card eric's mother calls detectives to tell them about the statement by the time they respond it's too late to get security camera footage from union station the 30-day over a period for the cameras had already occurred so they weren't able to capture those images [Music] january 2001 three months after eric plunkett's murder classes resume at gallaudet everyone felt that we were back for the second semester and that it would be a pretty good semester that optimism is shattered in the early morning hours of february third a fire alarm goes off at cogswell hall the same dorm where eric plunkett was killed the alarm is accompanied by flashing lights to alert profoundly deaf students husby and the other ras go room to room making sure everyone evacuates and i saw the other ra who recently checked the fourth floor his facial expression was really in shock he looked down to talk to my supervisor and they said there's another one and i thought what are you talking about another one [Music] there's another dead body and i said what i just couldn't believe it this can't be happening again officer you can call me and take her dc metro detective james traynor arrives on scene the room was in such disarray and the victim was in such a state that nobody had been able to make a positive id who he was with a second body on their hands dc metro police immediately reach out to the federal agency equipped to handle high-profile homicide investigations the fbi fbi special agent john adams a forensics expert has two columns with children enrolled at gallaudet there was some personal investment in this case on my part so that not only the gallaudet community could have some peace of mind but really that these fbi folks they they could have some peace of mind when he arrives on scene it's clear to the veteran agent that this victim has been stabbed repeatedly in the chest and head his throat is also slashed his body was laying on the floor beyond a bed where the mattress had been turned over there was a lot of blood on the victim's body there was a lot of blood spatter on the walls the victim is identified as 19 year old ben varner a quiet sophomore from texas who often kept to himself but is known as kind and helpful several important items are missing from ben's room debit card and checkbook and this time the attacker left plenty of evidence there was a bloody trail of shoe tracks that appeared to exit benjamin varner's room and progressed down the hall in the cogswell dorm [Music] there was a blood trail that came from out of the building and we were able to follow it and it led past a dumpster that was located over in that area and the initial crime scene technicians who got on the scene what they found was a bloody jacket in the dumpster could the murder weapon be inside the dumpster as well the detective who was actually assigned to the case he pulled his pickup truck to the back of the dumpster i jumped in and i began throwing stuff out of the dumpster into the back of this pickup truck and that's when we find the bloody knife inside the dumpster the team is hot on the killer's trail they have shoe prints a jacket and a bloody knife will the evidence be enough to lead them to the killer before he strikes again everybody was thinking we've got a serial killer who's here gallaudet students were afraid for their personal safety there was even greater concern that the killer was still targeting gallaudet students four months after eric plunkett is murdered in his gallaudet university dorm room ben varner is killed in the very same building i felt really responsible i thought maybe i didn't pay attention to the people in the dorm why didn't i notice a stranger coming into the dorm investigators managed to recover bloody shoes a jacket and a knife from the crime scene they quickly determined that the knife belonged to ben himself but the investigation slows when the interviews begin we just interviewed everybody in the cogswell dorm and anybody that had any connection to benjamin varner trying to get a better understanding of his movements and his activity dealing with uh interpreters that really slowed down that process and there was a number of individuals that needed to be interviewed and so that took several days to get through all that the agents stick with it convinced that the heartless killer is within reach the killer had great access to both of these dorm rooms and carried out these crimes unnoticed so it was fairly clear to us that we're dealing with somebody that is on campus and very likely resided within the dormitory itself to be able to gain that level of access without raising anybody's scrutiny investigators learned that resident advisor thomas cook who had discovered eric plunkett's body lives across the hall from ben this is another one of my students eric was my kid and ben was my kid and i was like why is this going on what did i do and you know did i not protect them enough was i supposed to be protecting them investigators i cook as a possible suspect and i was just 100 percent furious i mean who would have suspected who dare think that i would do something like that to think i would be a murderer cook's dna is tested but it doesn't match evidence left at either scene investigators turned their attention once again to thomas mitch the man who had initially been charged with eric plunkett's murder who happened to be in dc at the time of ben's killing they started looking at thomas minch and learned that he was scheduled to testify at a grand jury hearing in the next day and so they were concerned that he may come into town early and still had access to the dormitory and may have committed this crime as well the initial focus was oh my god where was he they were really convinced at first that he had come back into the building and killed somebody else but strangely no one remembers seeing minch on campus at the time of ben's murder if anybody would have seen him someone would have known and said something you know everybody would tell everybody right like everyone else eric plunkett's parents can't believe this is happening we just fell apart again we thought that it was mitch that did it but he's out of school so did he come back did someone else kill him what is going on the theory unravels when minch's grand jury testimony reveals that he only confessed to getting into a fight with eric not to killing him once the detective heard that i struck or i pushed eric in his mind what he had was a confession and he didn't critically analyze how did this actually fit the crime as we know it without a confession and with no dna evidence linking him to either crime scene thomas minch is cleared as a suspect investigators have no other leads but they still suspect their killer is living on campus it seemed like such a peaceful tranquil place and to have two bit students murdered in one dormitory just kind of violated all that tranquility that you experience when you're on that campus despite hundreds of interviews investigators can find no witnesses who saw or heard anything during either crime now everything hinges on the evidence research reveals that the bloody shooters trailing away from ben's dorm room come from a specific cross-training sneaker from a major brand the thing about the bloody footprints is that they're no good until you have something to match it up to so it gave us a clue something to look for you know who might have this sort of shoe this size shoe that sort of thing but until we could actually link a person to that actual shoe it wasn't going to be much good the team also believes the killer may have been injured in the attack if you don't have what we call a combat knife and that's a knife with a big hilt right here that protects your hand if you have like a kitchen knife or a paring knife or something like that and you're fighting with the person and you're struggling going back and forth you're hitting bone and a lot of times when you hit bone or you hit some kind of solid object that life slips and it cuts your hand investigators finally catch a break when the bank of the second victim ben varner alerts them to a possible forged check they found out that during the time period that he should have been dead that somebody actually cashed a check that was supposedly written by varner to joseph mesa [Music] joseph mesa jr a sophomore from guam lived across the hall from eric plunkett and he's the same student who reported the odd smell coming from eric's room security footage from the bank showed mesa cashing the check now on the check there was a comment on there like old laptop detectives are growing suspicious for other reasons as well both victims eric plunkett and benjamin barner were acquaintances of joseph mesa it didn't appear that they were close friends but they were in fact acquaintances and though he had transferred to a nearby dorm before ben's murder mesa still had access to cogswell hall i saw him at cogswell hall a couple of times he was there with the students and i didn't even think odd that he was coming in to cogswell hall because he was socializing with the other students there investigators bring mesa in for an interview they're looking for undeniable physical atmospheres what you're looking for are cuts on the hand that's a telltale sign do investigators finally have their man are they once again on the wrong trail after ben's murder everyone did look at each other was it you or not it became ugly there were so many people pointing fingers towards each other [Music] investigators have identified 22 year old joseph mesa as a prime suspect in the stabbing death of galludet university sophomore ben varnet they know they'll likely see cuts on mesa's hands if he is in fact the killer so when they interview mesa what they asked to do is of course to look at his hands and he saw that there were cuts on his hands despite these telltale signs mesa denies everything during the interview mesa lied to them and a lot of times a lie can be as good as a confession he said that he had never been in varner's room that he had never gotten a check from varner and that there was nothing about a laptop in there agents suspect mesa's their man but after what happened with thomas minch they want to make sure at this time the right killer is caught the detectors were able to use those lies were able to use the check and the videotape and able to use the fact that mesa said that he had a certain type of shoe which matched what the fbi said they were able to use that to develop probable cause to actually get a search warrant for his role [Music] but just as investigators submit paperwork to obtain the search warrant mesa shocked him by coming forward to confess he had talked to his girlfriend he had admitted to her that he had done the murders and she had convinced him that he needed to do the right thing and come turn himself in and that's what he did he came in and he confessed to the murder of honor i want to show you a night and you tell me if this night is similar yeah that's it mesa says he brought a knife to ben's room but he saw a larger knife belonging to ben and decided to use that one instead i stabbed him i stabbed him he walked got up walked over and fell then i stabbed him right here in the cheek and he started bleeding and he tried to defend himself and tried to get away he came towards me and then got blood on me i tried to chill him i tried to choke him and i had his neck in my arm trying to choke him that way after killing ben mesa took his money i took his wallet i got his checkbook and everything together and then went back to my room and i assigned started assignment forging the chat he went in there without much more of a plan than stealing and killing that was pretty much it he did a poor job covering his tracks i mean he definitely went above and beyond what he needed to do to accomplish his goal which was to kill and to rob i mean the overkill that was totally unnecessary detectives ask mesa if there's something more he needs to get off his chest and then they asked him is there anything else that you want to tell us about and he said oh yeah i killed eric plunkett as well mesa says he picked eric because he was an easy target he didn't have great balance because of his cerebral palsy mesa knew that if he could get him on the ground he could kill him according to mesa the motive was always money nothing more i don't understand why i needed the money i had 550 so this was an additional 650. so i thought with my 550 and with that 650 that would be enough to buy whatever we wanted you know to buy things from my girlfriend like a tv uh mouse so it matched everything so it'd be purple all over he explains that he would go sobbing with eric and eric would have his debit card and seem to have a lot of money or had easy access to money ben had loaned him money and so joseph had had the experience of generosity from ben so why did he need to kill ben to get money if his objective was to get money why did he need to kill eric to get money when he could have just asked for money the robbery motive that turned out to be the driving force behind the killings that joseph mesa perpetrated was quite different than what was thought to be the motive during the investigation investigators still need concrete physical evidence to lock their case they search mesa's dorm room and hit the jackpot going into his room that's when they found the bloody shoe and that's when the game was up the shoes match the bloody shoe prints leading from varner's room investigators also uncover some items that had been bought with eric plunkett's debit card after his death among the purchases are some t-shirts from union station and two bicycles one of the things that we evaluated was the fact that eric plunkett had cerebral palsy and so he couldn't ride a bicycle and so clearly he didn't order those for himself so it only solidified the case against joseph mason investigators arrest mason and charge him with two counts of first degree murder plus 13 other counts including burglary and robbery and i was like are you serious joseph mesa how i mean maybe he just snapped you know maybe he just snapped and started killing people but who is this person when eric plunkett's family learns of mesa's arrest they realize they've seen joseph mesa before he offered his sympathies the day they arrived on campus following eric's murder there was a big huge poster that the student government had put together i wanted to show you a poster that the students made to remember eric and aaron turned and said i want to write on the poster no pen there were two students a boy and a girl and our contact asked for a pen and it gave us the pen [Music] after we were done signing the poster we took the pen back to them he knew eric he's very sorry thank them and they gave us a hug [Music] mesa was the student who loaned them a pen to sign eric's poster joseph was the one who killed her i can't imagine knowing what i did and then hugging the mother of the person who i just killed and offering sympathy [Music] eric's sister realizes that mesa is also the mysterious student she saw lurking in the background of their last video chat eric's father comes face to face with his son's killer at the arraignment i was looking at the kid that killed my son and i wanted to kill him and i had to sit there like a human being and watch this process go at trial mesa claims insanity his defense was that he had a mental disorder and that there was a hand that was telling him to commit these murders and since he couldn't hear it couldn't be like a voice talking to him so what he described was his hand hovering in the air and using sign language to instruct him to go out and kill these people the jury doesn't buy it after deliberating for only three hours they find mesa guilty on all counts he is sentenced to six life terms special agent john adams can finally rest knowing his colleagues children are safe there is a very personal sense of duty that i felt that that we get involved in this investigation and provide whatever expertise and assistance that it required to ensure that the killer was caught as quickly as possible and a conviction was upheld in court and person was sent away for a long time eric's family hopes his murder won't keep other deaf students from pursuing their dreams at gal udette he found his place he found his independence he you know he was free you know i think that he would definitely not want other students to not have that opportunity

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Keywords: yt:quality=high, FBI Files 2020 Criminal Pursuit, Files 2020 Criminal Pursuit, 2020 Criminal Pursuit, FBI Files 2020 Criminal, FBI Files, FBI Files 2020

Id: YGcvvC-X0Z4

Length: 50min 34sec (3034 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 24 2020