Young Mother Murdered In Indiana | The New Detectives | Real Responders

[Applause] a young mother is found murdered near her indiana home investigators have only one piece of evidence to help them find her killer [Music] when a female body is discovered along the banks of an alabama river detectives must rely on a few tiny shreds of evidence to make their case in new york a woman is found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs police must determine if her death is a suicide or murder when there are no eyewitnesses to a murder investigators look to the physical evidence to make their case forensic examiners seek out that one clue that can break a case wide open a clue known as the silent witness [Music] [Music] named for the river flowing through its center elkhart indiana epitomizes the ideal of small town america it's a quiet close-knit community a place unfamiliar with the problems of violent crime on march 3rd 1992 a concerned father entered the elkhart police department to file a missing persons report my daughter ruben hernandez hadn't heard from his daughter in nearly 15 hours 25 year old sandra hernandez had dropped off her three-year-old son around 5 p.m the previous evening [Music] reuben believed that sandra had a date that night after saying her goodbyes sandra promised she would be back in a couple of hours to pick him up reuben and his wife were always happy to spend time with their only grandson and they were glad to see that sandra was starting to enjoy her life again she had recently ended a turbulent four-year relationship with her child's possessive father reuben explained that when he went to check on sandra at her apartment he got no response though her car was still parked out front one particular guy that's been giving a hard time mr hernandez concerns prompted elkhart police lieutenant tom cutler to forgo the 24-hour waiting period required before opening a missing persons investigation he's a fellow who was very concerned about not only his grandchild who was taken care of but also his missing daughter and he knew that she wouldn't take off and leave the child without touch and face with him after distributing sandra's description to area law enforcement agencies police quickly contacted her ex-boyfriend did you guys argue sean parks strongly denied any knowledge of sandra's disappearance but he admitted that his four-year relationship with her had been rocky he said that recently he and sandra had been arguing frequently and sometimes violently mostly they fought over custody of their son sandra vowed she would never give up her child but despite the tensions parks insisted he would never hurt sandra or their son what were you doing sunday night on the night sandra disappeared he claimed he was at work though parks was cooperative investigators know from experience that custody battles can sometimes end in murder we checked with work and he was there all night and didn't leave the premise so he had no reason to believe that he had interacted with sandra hernandez on that night with the only obvious suspect eliminated investigators had to consider that sandra might have left town on her own volition and though that seemed unlikely they had to be certain they went to her residence to search for answers what they found only supported their suspicions that the young mother had met with foul play none of sandra's clothes seemed to be missing and her luggage was still neatly stored in her closet hey jim in the kitchen detectives found a container filled with 230 dollars in cash driver's license sandra's driver's license was also in the tail with several other personal papers police saw no evidence to suggest that she had simply packed up and left town i don't think she was going anywhere her neighbors later stated that they had not seen or heard sandra at her apartment since she left to drop off her son the night she disappeared [Music] with each passing hour investigators realized that the chances of finding sandra unharmed grew slimmer needed to determine if sandra had in fact been on a date the night she disappeared and if so with whom [Music] sandra's friend who worked with her at a door manufacturing company came in to answer questions [Music] she hadn't noticed anything unusual about sandra's demeanor in recent days in fact the night she disappeared sandra was excited about a date she was going on with a co-worker [Music] pushing the issue for quite a while the man ricky joyner was a delivery driver at the company and had been friends with sandra for some time when contacted by police joyner volunteered to come answer questions investigators immediately noticed fresh scratches on his face and hands joyner claimed a door falling on him at work caused the injuries he admitted that he had been out with sandra the night she disappeared but only as friends [Music] he said he picked her up at 6 pm they had dinner and then went to a movie that lasted about two hours he dropped her off around 9 30. sandra was in a hurry to pick up her son he watched her get into her car and [Music] investigators asked joyner to fill out a scientific content analysis form referred to as a scan questionnaire [Music] like a polygraph the questionnaire allows investigators to analyze a person's written responses for signs of deception or inconsistencies [Music] the scan questionnaire is a written form that we give people that ask people pointed questions and ask them to respond in their own writing so it gives us a way to do a informal interview that sometimes reveals a lot about the information that the person's given investigators analyzed joyner's statements using the information to reconstruct sandra's movements prior to her disappearance lieutenant cutler quickly found a troubling inconsistency part of his statement was that he'd let her off at the apartment and she'd got into her car and left well her car was still there and the neighbors said no she didn't nobody came there that night so that leads us to believe that that part of the story was not true though police had no motive and no direct evidence that a crime had been committed they obtained a warrant to search joyner's residence but the search turned up nothing investigators knew they needed to look past the obvious [Music] they collected ordinary household items including a trash bag from joyner's kitchen dotted with stains that appeared to be blood tests later showed however that the substance was not of human origin having found no hard evidence linking joyner to sandra's disappearance the investigation threatened to go cold where she lived well certainly they're looking grim unfortunately we still don't know how to assess them we suspect that some foul plays happened we've seen cases where people take off and vanish for reasons that nobody knows about and they come back we were certainly certainly concerned that this was not a good situation that we were going to find her dead on april 15 1992 a month and a half after sandra hernandez was reported missing their worst fears were confirmed a farmer in nearby lagrange county indiana made a gruesome discovery the body of a young woman as investigators in elkhart indiana continued searching for 25 year old sandra hernandez they received a call from police in nearby lagrange county a body matching sandra's description had been found in an isolated field a black trash bag covering the victim's head was removed and preserved as evidence using photographs investigators confirmed that sandra hernandez had finally been found [Music] police began scouring the scene for any useful evidence [Music] but nothing that could help them identify a suspect was found after an exhaustive search of the area it appeared that sandra's killer had been careful not to leave any trace of evidence behind at autopsy the medical examiner determined that sandra had died of asphyxiation resulting from manual strangulation an analysis of the victim's stomach contents indicated that she had been murdered within an hour after eating the medical examiner's analysis made ricky joyner's alibi impossible sandra could not have gone to a two-hour movie after eating dinner with joyner as he had previously claimed has anybody been in her house yet but to prove murder investigators knew they needed more than a few inconsistencies in joyner's story [Music] they had to come up with hard evidence to tie joyner to the crime scene but all they had was the trash bag recovered from joyner's apartment the trash bag turns out to have the most significance of anything that's taken the trash bag that's found on the corpse when the state police tech decide to look at the evidence send it to the lab they talk to our techs and they decide hey we've got this bag from from joyner the suspect's apartment let's send it to the lab with the bag we found in the corpse just to have them look at it the bags were sent to forensic examiner john van der kolk at the indiana state police crime lab though it seemed like a long shot vander kulk was asked to determine if the bag recovered from the victim and the bag seized from joyner's apartment could have come from the same piece of plastic to begin his analysis vanderkolt began by looking for repeatable class characteristics the repeatable class characteristics would be the cutting tool that would use to cut the bags apart the size and shape of the bag the general color of the bag the dimensions of the bag in any feature of the bag that can be repeated by the manufacturing process by shining a light through the evidence vanderkolk determined that random color variations microscopic impurities and stretch marks were consistent between the bags he continued his analysis by comparing the bags end to end vendor coke found that the unique tool marks made as the bags were separated during manufacturing corresponded between the top of one of the bags and the bottom of the other he was certain that the two bags had originated from the same piece of plastic and in fact they had come from the same role [Music] i was convinced by the random pigment variation they carried over from one bag to the other and also the random impurities and the stretch marks generated off the impurities that carried over from one bag to the other directly across the cut separation the randomness definitely carried over throughout the circumference of the bottom of the bag from sandra hernandez's head and the top of the bag that elkhart police department had recovered from ricky joyner's house with no way to explain how a trash bag from his apartment ended up around the victim's head ricky joyner was arrested and charged with the murder of sandra hernandez police surmised that after going out to dinner together sandra went with joyner to his residence but something went wrong after a violent struggle joyner strangled sandra to death police theorized that before putting her body into his car he covered sandra's head with a trash bag to keep traces of blood from being left behind he then drove his victim to nearby lagrange county he placed her in the isolated field and left her there after extensive legal proceedings a jury found ricky joyner guilty of the murder of sandra hernandez he was sentenced to 60 years in prison ricky joyner believed that an ordinary trash bag would cover up his crime other killers will go to even greater lengths to conceal their guilt [Applause] nestled in the tennessee river valley the city of decatur alabama clings to a rich and colorful past [Music] its laid-back southern charm and its reputation as a fishing haven attract thousands of sportsmen each year but in 1988 the river attracted a different kind of visitor on july 5th a fisherman called decatur police after stumbling upon a body dressed in a nightgown and a blue pajama top near the shoreline police could determine that the body was female but little else the victim had been decapitated after securing the area investigators began the task of processing the scene for clues that could tell them who this victim was they knew that because she had been decapitated her identity would be the key to exposing this killer the crime scene had little to offer blood spattered rocks on the path and drag marks in the overgrowth led detectives to conclude that the victim had been killed elsewhere and then brought to the river there were no signs of tire tracks or anything else that could help police identify the killer with only the victim's fingerprints to work with sergeant john boyd of the decatur police department began trying to put a name to the jane doe and from those fingerprints we tried a number of agencies to see if we could make an identification we tried through here we tried through huntsville and we couldn't get anything to expand the search the prints were cataloged and then forwarded to the fbi whose national fingerprint database might yield better results in the meantime investigators hoped an autopsy could tell them more about how this victim died determining the exact cause of death would be difficult but the medical examiner did find a few faint ligature marks below where the head had been severed indicating that the victim had been strangled before being decapitated with a dull cutting tool the pajama top and nightgown worn by the victim were collected and forwarded to the alabama department of forensic sciences there trace evidence examiner john kilbourne began processing the clothes for any potential clues we use a method that we call taping where we take cellophane tape and using the sticky or adhesive surface of the tape we press it down on the clothing and what this does is collect any particles hairs fibers or other particles from the surface of that clothing kilborn found a substantial number of hairs and assorted red and black synthetic fibers that had clung to the victim's clothing [Music] having more than 20 years experience analyzing similar evidence from crime scenes kilbourne believed he knew their origin some of the fibers were unusual in that the fibers had adhesive on them some type of glue on the surface i have had other cases similar that had fiber similar to this and in each of these cases it turned out to be adhesive from a felt car mat in the trunk mat and i felt like in looking at these fibers we're looking at possibly this victim having been in the trunk of a car but until examiners had a source of comparison the value of these items on their own would remain limited three days later police believed they got their first break fishermen reported finding a human head floating near the shoreline [Music] the area was less than a mile from where jane doe's body had been discovered it had been decaying obviously at least three days it was an overwhelming stench the head was in a severe state of decomposition we had extreme difficulty in even picking it up to get it inside the boat we finally had to get enough plastic bags and and bag it up and put and put it on ice and bought put it in styrofoam cooler and put it on ice and carried it down the forensic lab but prolonged exposure to the elements made it impossible for examiners to find any identifiable features frustrated by the lack of progress police realized that until they could find a way to identify the decapitated woman this case would likely remain unsolved police in decatur alabama were making little progress in identifying a headless female victim pulled from the banks of the tennessee river [Music] over the next 10 days investigators scoured through dozens of missing persons reports in an effort to learn the victim's identity but none matched the description of their jane doe the case threatened to go unsolved but on july 15th they got a break searching through military files the fbi found a fingerprint match with the victim questions jane doe was identified as 32 year old sandra gail leslie formerly enlisted in the united states air force records indicated that she currently lived in nashville tennessee 120 miles away from where she was found police jumped on the lead on that same day after we learned who she was we contacted nashville metro authorities and found out that they did in fact have a missing person report on mrs leslie police learned that sandra leslie had been reported missing by her husband two days after her body was discovered in alabama [Music] decatur police traveled to tennessee and teamed up with nashville authorities their first visit was to sandra leslie's husband thirty-nine-year-old billy leslie told police that his marriage to sandra had been shaky but he loved his wife of almost 10 years and said they were trying to work out their problems a few days before her disappearance the couple dropped off their two kids with relatives in an effort to spend more time alone together but on the afternoon of july 4th billy returned home from running errands to find that sandra and her clothes were gone hello hey how are you doing he said that in the weeks before her disappearance sandra had received numerous unexplained phone calls afterward she would often leave the house with no explanation leaving billy to take care of the kids he was convinced she was having an affair though he didn't know with whom as a matter of routine police asked if they could look around billy gave his consent to their surprise investigators immediately found inconsistencies with his statements sergeant robert moore of the nashville police department took part in the search he said she took her clothes with her closet was so full of clothes you couldn't put another blouse in it there was no room for anything else dresser drawers her clothes are gone but yet every drawer was full i mean it just didn't look like somebody had moved out though billy couldn't explain the discrepancy he insisted that he would never hurt his wife and he certainly had nothing to do with her murder he agreed to let forensic technicians process his living room luminol was applied to the floor but investigators found no traces of blood or any other signs of violence but there were indications that the residents had been thoroughly cleaned recently you despite the lack of evidence investigators suspected that billy leslie was hiding something police began interviewing friends and neighbors one neighbor claimed that billy and sandra fought often just a few days before sandra disappeared she heard what she described as a knock down drag out fight coming from outside her window when she looked outside she saw billy screaming at sandra as the fight escalated billy became physically abusive toward his wife the neighbor didn't recall seeing sandra after that she just assumed sandra had finally decided to leave billy [Music] perhaps that's exactly what billy leslie wanted everyone to believe come here one of sandra's friends told police that sandra had recently filed for divorce and as a result billy had become increasingly violent toward so much so that just before her death sandra decided to change the beneficiary of her life insurance policy prior to the change billy leslie stood to gain 150 000 from sandra's death she had feared for her life and she changed the beneficiary of that insurance policy uh to her brother in california uh and and specifically ask him to make sure her children were taken care of should anything should anything happen to her billy wasn't informed that he was no longer the beneficiary for investigators a possible motive for murder was beginning to emerge billy leslie as far as he knew had a lot to gain from his wife's death but so far their case was only circumstantial [Music] later that evening police obtained a warrant to search billy's car possibly used to transport sandra's body to alabama luminol was applied to the trunk investigators found an overwhelming amount of substance that appeared to be blood billy leslie explained he had gone fishing recently and put his catch into the trunk the trunk mat was collected and sent back to the decatur crime lab for a more thorough forensic examination while waiting for the test results investigators continued to build their case hoping to find witnesses that could put billy near the crime scene police released details of the murder to the media in alabama a few days later the tactic paid off a decatur resident remembered having a conversation with a man at a convenience store a few hours before sandra's body was discovered and so he had asked where to find a good fishing spot the woman directed him to an area half a mile away it was the same location where the victim she had no idea who the suspect on the photo lineup was but she was able to immediately point to billy leslie and say this is the guy this is the guy that was here and asked me about a place to fish the witness testimony put billy leslie just a half a mile away from the crime scene on the day of the murder and investigators had no doubt that he was responsible for his wife's death now they hoped the crime lab would provide irrefutable proof authorities were closing in on billy leslie the man they believed responsible for the decapitation of his wife sandra though their case was largely circumstantial they hoped a trunk mat collected from the suspect's car could physically link him to the homicide serological tests determined that the blood found on the trunk mat was not fish blood as billy leslie claimed alabama department of forensic sciences space analyst john kilbourne began analyzing dozens of hairs and fibers recovered from the mat using a comparison microscope he began looking for common characteristics between samples from the trunk mat and those recovered from the clothes sandra leslie had been wearing the color texture and cross-sectional shape of the fibers matched we found a number of fibers from the victim's clothing that were consistent to the some of the known fibers from the trunk mat as well as some foreign fibers that were in the trunk mat so we were able to show a link between the the fibers and the hairs out of the vehicle to the to the victim herself sandra leslie's body had been in the trunk of that car and the only other person known to have driven the vehicle was her husband billy billy leslie was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife sandra police theorized that billy leslie believed he had much to gain from killing his wife before their divorce was finalized [Music] on july 4th 1988 after a heated argument billy made the decision to kill his wife after strangling sandra he loaded her into the trunk of their car and set out to dispose of the body on the banks of the tennessee river in decatur alabama not realizing that her fingerprints were on file with the military billy believed that separating the head from the body would make identification impossible in december of 1989 billy wayne leslie was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison even in death sandra leslie managed to leave behind clues that pointed to her killer's identity but in some cases investigators have no idea where the evidence will lead them the quiet middle-class neighborhood of lake grove new york is a haven of suburban life the community's illusion of serenity however was unable to provide protection from tragedy on april 7 1994 police and paramedics were dispatched to the home of 47 year old stuart kovacs kovacs said that irene his wife of more than 20 years was inside dead he believed she had killed herself by jumping off the second floor balcony not wanting to contaminate the scene the officer allowed only one paramedic into the house inside 45 year old irene kovac's lifeless body was lying on the floor covered with a towel her hair was wet indicating she had recently showered the paramedic noted bruising on the victim and a cut lip an empty container of gasoline additive lay nearby a large quantity of the substance was found pooled in the victim's mouth it appeared that irene kovacs had poisoned herself and then jumped or fell from the second floor balcony stuart kovacs said that while working in the garage he cut himself on a power tool going inside to get a band-aid he discovered his wife on the floor panicked he called 9-1-1 and then went upstairs to the bedroom to get a towel to cover her and to clean up his wound on the couple's bed he discovered a suicide note tucked underneath the family bible as a matter of routine protocol homicide investigators were dispatched to the scene armed with a video camera the team made their way into the residence almost immediately they were struck by the victim's appearance lieutenant john gearash of the suffolk county police department explains it's somewhat unusual that a woman would want herself to be discovered not dressed in and of itself that is not proof of anything other than suicide but it is one of the circumstances that we take into account as we investigate after removing the body police continued examining the scene on the second floor landing they found a piece of recently dented sheetrock on the wall about ankle height as though it had recently been kicked in anger or perhaps a struggle unsure of its significance the area along with the rest of the scene was thoroughly photographed a short while later after learning of his mother's death the kovac's 19-year-old son came in to speak with detectives he said that the situation at home had grown tense in recent months he was just he had probable cause i think so he found it his parents divorce was due to be finalized soon and his dad had become increasingly abusive often exploding into a rage over nothing [Music] in one recent incident stuart kovacs returned home early from work and confronted irene with a note he had found that had been sent to her by a business associate though irene denied any wrongdoing stewart accused her of having an affair and began threatening her with violence suffolk county homicide detective robert doyle the kovac children indicated to us that there was a very very poor relationship at home that apparently irene kovacs was in tremendous fear of stu kovacs he abused her mentally probably more so than physically it was a it was a real hellish situation to be children in that particular home the son added that on the night before his mother's death she had seemed normal and happy not at all depressed or suicidal [Music] for investigators the routine suicide investigation had raised more questions than answers irene kovacs just didn't seem a likely candidate for suicide now police realized that the circumstances surrounding this tragedy demanded a closer look [Music] though it appeared that 45 year old irene kovacs had poisoned herself and then jumped off the second floor balcony of her home police in lake grove new york were not convinced a few hours after her body was discovered police returned to the residence with a warrant now they were searching for evidence that irene's husband stuart kovacs had murdered her forensic examiner robert jenna was asked to assist in the search the fact that we have somebody claiming that this is a suicide the husband and the pieces of the puzzle just don't seem to fit a suicide you now have to focus strongly on the physical evidence to try to either show that it was in fact a suicide or show that it was fact something other than a suicide to disprove the suicide story police searched for evidence of a violent struggle and though kovacs blamed a deep cut to his finger on a power tool accident police speculated it could also be explained by a blow to a sharp object like a tooth but traces of stuart kovac's blood were found exactly where he insisted the accident took place the search continued inside the home in the couple's second floor bathroom police found traces of blood on the commode lid a washcloth found in the sink also appeared to be blood stains kovacs said the blood had come from his injured finger [Music] investigators collected the evidence in the bedroom an officer recovered the suicide note found earlier by stuart kovacs even though the writing was identified as irene's a close inspection of the language caught investigators attention what he purported to be a suicide note was in fact some writings of irene kovacs that really had nothing to do with suicide at all she was talking about her life she was talking about various things that she was going through personally in her life at no point did that particular note indicate or suggest that she was going to commit suicide unsure what to make of the evidence police hoped irene herself could give them answers the medical examiner determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma to irene's head and chest but he could not rule out that the injuries occurred as a result of the fall from the second floor blood and tissue samples were collected and forwarded to the suffolk county crime lab there toxicologists began analyzing the samples for the presence of the alcohol methanol the main compound used in gasoline additives like the one irene allegedly swallowed first examiners analyzed irene's blood samples by using a gas chromatograph an apparatus that separates complex mixtures into individual compounds the analysis of the blood confirmed that fatal amounts of methanol were present toxicologist ed briglia of the suffolk county crime lab continued the analysis on the tissue samples subsequent to that finding we analyzed other specimens that we received primarily gastric contents intestinal contents and esophageal contents those specimens revealed no methanol to be present which was totally contrary to the notion that mrs kovacs could have consumed methanol shortly before her death the reason this is the case is that it takes a period of time anywhere from a minimum of approximately one hour upwards to approximately four to five hours for the alcohol to be removed from the stomach for methanol to be found in the blood but not in the tissues told examiners that the gas additive had been absorbed through irene's skin not ingested through her mouth she never swallowed the gas additive to make sense of the findings police turned back to forensic examiner robert jenna [Music] using photographs and diagrams from the scene jenna found a clue [Music] there were portions of irene's body lying underneath the second floor landing it was unlikely that she came to rest in that position after falling over the railing and stuart kovacs claimed he never touched irene's body and there was something else one of the photographs revealed that the gas additive stains on the floor formed an outline of irene's body in order to get this type of pattern the victim would have to have been lying down in this position when the material was deposited on her as opposed to her falling from the top landing already having the material in her system so it was consistent with her being in this position lying on her back the liquid deposited on her face and body causing this outline that led us to believe that this particular case was not a suicide but a homicide the outline coupled with the toxicologist's findings the evidence showed that the gas additive had been poured into irene's mouth while she was already dead or dying on the floor to make their case police still needed proof of a struggle examiners performed dna tests on the various blood samples collected from the couple's bathroom believed to have been left by stewart's cut finger but the analysis disproved stuart kovac's story all of the blood found in the bathroom had come from irene that proved that she had been bleeding prior to the fall from the balcony for investigators it was proof that irene kovacs had not taken her own life but that stuart kovacs had taken it from her with a warrant in hand police quickly tracked down stuart kovacs as he returned home from work he was taken into custody and booked for murder investigators believe that after beating irene as she got out of the shower stuart kovacs forced her over the balcony after pouring the gas additive into her mouth to make her death look like a suicide he smeared blood from a cut sustained during the assault on the power tool in the garage on december 17 1996 stuart kovacs was found guilty of second-degree murder he was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison some killers will stop at nothing to conceal their crimes when there are no human observers to a murder investigators must look for a different kind of witness to reveal a killer's identity they turn to the crime lab where forensic examiners can uncover the truth by turning the smallest clue into a silent witness

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 288,948

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, Indiana, Suicide

Id: O3YGvO2f1Bg

Length: 49min 35sec (2975 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 12 2021