Hidden Obsessions | FULL EPISODE | The New Detectives

in the heartland of america the miami river acts as a makeshift grave a severed torso washes up on shore [Music] the gruesome discovery leaves investigators with unanswered questions in san diego california a killer has left behind pieces of evidence detectives must sort through these small clues to prove murder [Music] some killers go to great lengths to leave little trace of their violence or their victims but the twisted path that led them to murder is often paved with lies sometimes those closest to us can be the most dangerous beneath a layer of trust can lie a hidden obsession [Music] in this episode some of the names have been changed [Music] in hamilton ohio residents enjoy a peaceful suburban lifestyle the inner city crime of cincinnati is miles away but on april 13 1998 it didn't seem quite so far a couple had spotted a human torso washed ashore along the miami river and called the butler county sheriff's office major anthony dwyer was the lead investigator on the case he was also the first to closely examine the remains because the body had been in the river it was badly decomposed and barely recognizable when we first discovered the torso it was up here on the bank and there's very little we could determine from that you could tell that it was a white person but you couldn't even tell if it was a male or female because of the condition of the body the investigators were unable to tell much about the torso but one thing was clear this was no accident the extremities being cut off we took a close look at the bones it looked like there were saw marks there the torso was carefully collected and transported to the morgue for a more thorough examination investigators continued to search the area for missing body parts or clues that would help them identify the body they found nothing butler county chief coroner dr richard burkhardt performed the autopsy without a head or even fingerprints to guide him identifying the body would be difficult [Music] and there was an additional challenge he first needed to determine the victim's gender the unusual thing about the torso was that we weren't immediately able to say whether it was male or female an examination was made of the lower abdomen or pelvis and we found the presence of a uterus and ovaries obviously now the torso is a female from there into the injuries on the arms up in the chest but dr burkhart still did not know how she died we x-rayed the body to make sure there wasn't any lead from a bullet and examination of the heart lungs for conditions that could have caused death such as stab wounds none were found the only certainty was that her head and limbs had been cleanly severed the tool markings left on the body looked as if they were made with a household saw based on the temperature of the river and the level of the body's decomposition burkhardt believed the woman had been dead for at least two weeks when we come to the neck at the butler county sheriff's office major dwyer read the autopsy report and began to slowly piece together a case a woman was dead but he knew little else each year an average of 50 people are reported missing in butler county alone our first priority was to try and identify the body then the subsequent part is obviously it's a homicide or some kind of abuse of a corpse where they've cut somebody up it's going to be a long run to even try and identify it if major dwyer hoped to ever identify the woman he needed more information to narrow the search investigators turned to dr elizabeth murray an anthropologist at the college of mount st joseph in cincinnati one of only 50 certified forensic anthropologists in the country she is an expert in analyzing skeletal remains after boiling the bones to remove the flesh dr murray examined them to establish the victim's approximate age because the chest of the torso was slight in build she could not rule out the possibility that the victim was a teenager however a closer examination of the collarbone ribcage and pelvis showed otherwise when i came up with the rough age range of probably 25 to 45 years of age at time of death and i felt that she was probably somewhere right in the middle of that age range dr murray next began the difficult process of determining the victim's height normally you would measure long bones such as one from the legs but in this case we didn't have those i had to use some unusual methods i had to take the clavicle from the torso measure it and try to come up with a stature based on that and that isn't a bone that directly contributes to your stature so that method was a bit unusual [Music] dr murray concluded the victim was taller than average between five feet six and six feet one although the physical description was vague it gave major dwyer a definite lead torso only recovered he resumed his search where he had started it back at the river major dwyer searched databases of missing persons reports starting 20 miles upstream from the hamilton area north along the great miami river the river runs to the south so we figured the body was placed somewhere north of hamilton they got a hit 14 miles upriver a woman from middletown ohio was missing requesting all she fit the physical description both slender and taller than average we found several missings from north of hamilton we started individually pulling those reports and we located this one missing that was cheryl durkin so we started focusing on her she fit the bill as the best possible missing person to match what we have [Music] at the middletown police department major dwyer met with detective frank hensley [Music] detective hensley headed up the missing person investigation on cheryl durkin cheryl's sister carla edwards reported her missing on march 20th three weeks before the torso was found the sister was really concerned at that time because she hadn't checked in with her and it was out of character for her not to do that carla her sister now they needed to confirm that the torso found in the miami river was cheryl durkin two one one one i'll give her a call and go out and talk to her since neither dental records nor fingerprints could be used for identification investigators turned to dna for confirmation in the lab researchers compared two dna samples one from cheryl's mother and the other from the victim they matched cheryl durkin was no longer a missing person she was now the victim of a homicide in hopes of tracking down her killer investigators needed to learn as much about cheryl's life as possible they began by retracing the last moments of her life we started looking towards suspects and you generally look to the last to see them the first to find them in the closest to them those are your key factors in most homicides [Music] they hoped cheryl's sister carla could provide them with the answers they needed they asked her about her sister's recent activities carla said that although her sister had been involved in drugs in the past she appeared to be putting her life back [Music] and make a together start cheryl had moved in with carla [Music] in spite of all the difficulties the two were very close this is for breakfast she told police that just before they discovered her sister's torso she received a phone call from a man named scott rothwell [Music] rothwell asked her if cheryl's body had turned up yet he also made comments about her being cut up in a barrel someplace you know everything and if you think of anything else give us a call i'm sure we'll be in touch with you thanks [Music] this information quickly made him the prime suspect a criminal background check indicated he had been arrested several times and accused of domestic abuse by his former wife he lived close to the river there were some other attributes there that started to make us look very closely at him as a potential suspect mr rothwell lives in the city of middletown he was a close friend of cheryl she'd spent some time at his house she called him quite frequently come on in have a seat major dwyer brought him to the butler county sheriff's office for questioning i appreciate you coming down rothwell explained he'd heard rumors that a local drug dealer had killed and dismembered a woman fitting his friend cheryl durkin's description a couple three years he didn't know the man's name but he agreed to help in any way he could show you something when we first targeted scott rothwell as a suspect one of the first things we did is we pulled his phone records that enabled us to track phone calls that she had made to him and isolate when she was still alive then any known call ended at about february 24th of 98 and that helped us narrow down a time frame as to when she probably disappeared the last phone call cheryl made to rothwell was from a pay phone on garfield avenue he explained that cheryl frequently called him from that pay phone because she didn't have a car she relied on friends for rides dwyer believed his story right he was a pretty stand-up guy he came forward cooperated he helped us quite a bit with the phone records i'll tell you what scott you know i appreciate you coming out it's been a long day as the case unfolded he became less and less of a potential suspect the investigators were convinced scott rothwell was not a killer [Music] even with more information it amounted to nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumor they were no closer to solving the cheryl durkin case than when they began her killer a person capable of extraordinary cruelty was still out there in ohio a vicious killer had murdered 34 year old cheryl durkin and cut her body to pieces her torso had washed up on the shores of the miami river the victim's head as well as her arms and legs had not been found [Music] desperate for leads they tried a new approach [Music] cheryl's remains were sent to dr stephen sims at the university of tennessee regional forensic center as a tool mark expert dr sims needed to determine what was used to dismember sheryl's body sims examined the distinctive markings on the ends of the bones i can look at striations and determine something about the shape of the blade in this case it's a very unique cut in that the striations of the cut marks in the cut surface of the bone are not straight in fact they show a fixed radius curvature i saw numerous false starts which usually indicates a power saw due to the fact that the blade could not penetrate and it was sort of attacks the bones in different angles the fact that the blade is round and at very high speed a lot of energy given to the blade all indicate mechanically powered circular saw it would have been difficult to cut through bone and tissue with a circular saw dr sims believed they were dealing with a brutal killer who would do anything to hide his crime the doctor's theory provided investigators with new insight into the person they were looking for news of the homicide outraged the citizens of middletown the police department was flooded with tips from anonymous callers [Music] one woman agreed to meet with investigators but she was too scared to come into the police department she'd heard rumors that a local thug named james lawson was responsible for cheryl durkin's death and that he had hidden her body parts in his sister's garage the sister's name was rachel zimmer the woman knew both cheryl and lawson she had seen them together on more than one occasion together yeah although the story seemed outrageous police believed the young woman and obtained permission to search rachel zimmer's garage [Music] investigators scoured the scene looking for clues although nothing was found the search kicked the case wide open there was a flurry of activity that started to unfold from there we were on the same street that mr lawson lived on and when we were there searching a garage he started to take some actions by pulling up carpet painting some walls he had done several things that started to lend even more suspicion to him then we received another phone call from a woman stating that there were stains on this carpet that he was trying to remove as investigators waited for a search warrant for the lawson residence they ran james lawson's name through the national criminal database the suspect had been in trouble before his ex-wife had accused him of criminal trespassing of 94. major anthony dwyer and detective frank hensley served james lawson with a search warrant he agreed to go to the police department for questioning [Music] forensic technicians from the butler county sheriff's office collected carpeting from the backyard [Music] inside the house investigators found blood stains along the baseboard in a hallway samples of the blood were collected for analysis in the lab in the bedroom the chemical luminol revealed blood stains on both the carpet and the baseboards samples were taken there as well [Music] police searched james lawson's basement looking for anything that might tie him to the murder they noticed the work area was freshly painted using an unusually heavy industrial grade paint but the paint wasn't enough to stop investigators from finding an important clue where they use the luminol [Music] it looked like a slaughterhouse when it lit up with with the amount of blood that was was sprayed by the saw and cutting her up although the circular saw was never found the amount of blood in the basement convinced investigators that james lawson had murdered cheryl durkin i want to talk to you about homicide we're working there was a girl a torso found major anthony dwyer interviewed the suspect at the middletown police department i think i did read something about it lawson admitted that he'd heard of the murder but he said he didn't know cheryl durkin [Music] he said he injured himself while he was cutting drywall the blood on the carpet was his own dwyer believed lawson was lying but without more evidence to tie lawson directly to the crime they would have to let him go we had a lot of evidence we removed from the house as well as the painted basement we didn't have dna to connect the victim from being in the house so we didn't have enough probable cause to charge him at that point over the next few weeks the blood evidence was analyzed samples of blood taken from the house were compared to cheryl durkin's dna profile it was a positive match investigators now had enough evidence to arrest her suspected killers weren't here for james lawson did you enter it with a pickup radius of one and make sure the guy's in the streets but they were too late with nothing to hold him james lawson had already fled our young woman had been brutally murdered her severed head and limbs were still missing [Music] ohio police were closing in on a suspect although they finally had enough evidence to arrest james lawson he was nowhere to be found [Music] it was a complicated case major anthony dwyer needed to find lawson but he also needed to find the missing body parts as this investigation unfolded and james was on the run we still didn't have a cause of death we did not have the head the arms or the legs we just had the torso that was causing us a great problem for prosecuting the case with no cause of death knew a murder conviction would be difficult to obtain if they did not find the rest of the body they looked at those closest to the suspect for clues that might lead them to the victim's body parts [Music] one of those people was rachel zimmer james lawson's sister major dwyer and detective frank hensley had already searched her garage now they picked her up for questioning we had to get away from all this we felt very strongly that she was involved in the case we felt that she maybe even have buried some of the body parts rachel finally admitted that lawson had hidden cheryl durkin's body parts in a barrel in her garage then when things settled down she and her mother buried them in another part of the state [Music] rachel insisted that she hadn't heard from her brother since he disappeared do you think you can find it if we head that way knowing that she helped cover up the crime she agreed to help them in hopes of a lighter sentence she led police to the places where she and her mother had buried the body parts [Music] we parked in a very secluded area and we walked back into the woods there was a trail she looked back up at the roadway and could tell about how far she walked when she buried the parts [Music] right here this depressed area right here there the investigators found a skull buried in a shallow grave [Music] we did some light digging and were able to undercover the top of cheryl's face as we brushed the dirt away you can see the enamel on her teeth kind of lit up and then we stopped at that point to bring in the forensic anthropologist dr murray to do the complete excavation yeah this is lieutenant dwyer yeah go ahead and put an all page out for the detectives we need some people up here to secure this area backed by a team of anthropologists and police officers dr elizabeth murray excavated the rest of cheryl durkin's body because of my background in archaeology i used modified archaeological techniques to excavate the remains [Music] okay the shallow grave sites contained the head and neck and also the right leg and both of the feet [Music] after processing the remains dr murray examined the skull to determine the cause of death [Music] there were at least four impact sites to the skull there was some damage to the region of the cheek here that extended across the nose and that could have been one maybe two different blows to the face and there was a sharp margin here at the edge of the nose that looked like the weapon had some kind of an edge to it also on the side of the skull there was an area of damage here that was blunt trauma where a large piece of bone had been driven into the skull from the from a lateral aspect inward and then a small lesion behind the ear here where something had impacted the skull from behind so obviously the person was battered with some kind of a blunt object the lab tests confirmed the suspicions of the investigators the dna evidence obtained from the torso the skull and the limbs all matched they all belonged to cheryl durkin now police turned up the heat on one of the people who helped lawson dispose of the body his mother forty-six-year-old susan abdal was arrested at her home on september 1st 1998. [Music] abdow admitted to her role in the cover-up but claimed she didn't know anything about the murder until after the fact she told investigators that she was only trying to protect her son well according to abdal james had left town and had not contacted her [Music] once again investigators hit a dead end lawson was on the run and his trail had gone cold [Music] months passed and then dwyer got a phone call criminal profiling ship contacted us and wanted to feature him as a suspect that was on the run so they came in they filmed it a few weeks later it aired [Music] again tips poured in by the hundreds they received a phone call from an elderly woman in indiana [Music] detective section she claimed her granddaughter was living with a man she believed to be james lawson when's the last time i saw okay we'll be right there she actually had a video with lawson's picture on it at that time we went to indiana she showed us the videotape there and we immediately identified a man she knew as david wallace as james lawson not today she said he had been acting suspiciously since the broadcast he was extremely uneasy about being photographed or videotaped an arrest team from the middletown police department as well as officers from four other departments surrounded lawson's residence [Music] [Music] during interrogation lawson admitted nothing [Music] but the evidence against him was overwhelming [Music] based on the evidence investigators believe that cheryl had stayed the night at lawson's house after he picked her up at the pay phone [Music] the couple argued lawson lost his temper and cheryl paid a tragic price [Music] he then dumped her body in the miami river hoping it would disappear forever [Music] on december 13 1999 james lawson was convicted of the murder and dismemberment of cheryl durkin he was sentenced to 21 years to life for murder evidence tampering and gross abuse of a corpse [Music] james lawson believed destroying the identity of his victim would mask his guilt but a relentless investigation and solid forensic evidence exposed his brutal crime in southern california investigators faced an equally disturbing case in order to solve the crime they would have to delve deep into the mind of an obsessed killer [Music] in the summer of 2000 the city of san diego california was the site of a gruesome discovery [Music] on august 14th a young man searched a dumpster outside a pet shop he was looking for cans to recycle [Music] inside a paper bag he saw something that startled him [Music] it looked like a charred finger [Music] investigators from the san diego police department were called to the scene they questioned the man who called in the report [Music] he said he was collecting aluminum cans when he found what he thought were fingers just stay right here we're gonna go ahead and check it out but could you stay right here [Music] although they appeared to be human fingertips detectives needed to be sure they called in experts to analyze the findings [Music] tom washington a latent fingerprint expert searched the contents of the dumpster to avoid contamination he isolated each piece of potential evidence on white lab paper he knew immediately they were dealing with something highly well unusual off the bat we could tell they were human fingertips because they had their fingernails on them he found eight fingertips in all investigators sifted through the dumpster careful not to disturb any evidence along with the fingertips they also found a number of other items including a pair of bolt cutters on the cutters they noticed a bar coded skew number police believed it could lead them to the store where they were purchased and perhaps the most chilling was a page of handwritten notes that outlined the crime step by step there's some papers that had different things written on them kind of a to-do list things like rent a vehicle large enough to extract a body time off from work console with the victims grieving family basically a schedule of things that the murder had planned on doing the evidence in the dumpster pointed to a crime that had been carefully planned and then brutally executed whoever did this wanted to make sure the identity of the victim remained a mystery san diego police were facing a complex case sergeant bill holmes knew it would not be easy well initially we didn't have any leads when you have no idea where your crime scene is or where the rest of the body is that's a tremendous challenge investigators hope the crime lab would find more answers forensic expert tom washington examined the fingertips the main challenge was identifying the victim we had the fingertips but we didn't know who they belonged to but the tips were so badly charred a readable fingerprint would not be possible police knew they would need more information if they ever hoped to find out where these fingertips came from and how they ended up in the dumpster [Music] eight human fingertips had been found inside a dumpster in san diego who they belonged to and how they got there were anybody's guess police looked at items found in the dumpster for clues that might lead them to the killer at the san diego police crime lab the bolt cutters were examined by forensic specialist sean mo petit investigators suspected they had been used to cut off the missing victim's fingers when i looked at the bowl cutters i noticed what appeared to be small pieces of apparent tissue on the cutting surfaces it was determined to be human and saved for dna analysis but no fingerprints were found on the item [Music] investigating further police hoped the bolt cutters would yield more clues using the skew number detective bill holmes set out to see who purchased them so i sent detectives to some stores in the area we were able to locate where the bolt cutter was purchased a hardware store in the area the bolt cutters were purchased with a credit card but because of the time of day when we got the information we couldn't access the computer to find out who that credit card belonged to we had the number but we couldn't find out at that time who it belonged to the investigators noticed an additional charge on the credit get a credit card the same person who purchased the bolt cutters also rented a carpet cleaner in doing further checking we learned that that credit card was used to pay for the rental of the rug doctor at the same store but for the rug doctor he had a sign to fill out and sign a rental contract the name on the rental contract was calvin parker [Music] police now had a solid lead to track down [Music] a background check revealed that calvin parker had no criminal history was a veteran and certainly did not fit the profile of a brutal killer detectives were beginning to think this case would go cold they got an important break [Music] a few miles north of san diego in carlsbad california two residents discovered something unusual on their daily walk although it was an ordinary trash can the lid had been secured shut with duct tape by the car and i'm gonna go take a look at it okay the trash can emitted an unusually strong foul odor the officer carefully opened the trash can and discovered the body of a i need woman corners van to 5 000 christopher street at the san diego county medical examiner's office dr christopher swalwell examined the victim a white female in her early 30s the level of the body's decomposition put time of death somewhere between one and three days earlier she was naked except for a scarf around her neck since his office had been notified of the findings in the dumpster dr swalwell knew what to look for the fingers were all missing so that's when we sort of put two and two together and and worked under the assumption that the those two were related dr swalwell determined the cause of death to be a large cut on the side of her neck which severed her jugular vein the other significant injury she had was a laceration on the scalp which actually had an underlying skull fracture so that was a significant injury there was also evidence that the victim had been raped [Music] dr swalwell noted strange bruises around the victim's wrists on her face and on her back indicating the woman had been beaten prior to her death at the same lab dr norman sperber a tool mark expert was called in to examine the strange markings on the victim's body he believed the killer had handcuffed the victim behind her back and that the cuffs had left the deep marks on both her wrists and on her back we took out some handcuffs from property now the san diego police department i applied those handcuffs to her wrists and had her body face down on the examining table and the handcuffs just came right to place where the that horizontal mark was just on the lower back the victim was restrained and subdued before she was murdered [Music] investigators went to look for calvin parker he wasn't home but police kept his house under surveillance we had some of our special investigations detectives go and sit on that residence to see if calvin showed up female 20 to 30 red hair although the investigators were making progress the victim still remained nameless investigators searched missing persons reports going back several days hoping to put a name on the body they didn't find any remotely matching the victim's description anywhere in san diego county or surrounding areas [Music] as news of the grizzly homicide hit the streets people came forward with information one witness lived in an apartment facing the dumpster she had seen something unusual the night before the fingers were discovered she said that she saw a rental truck back up to the dumpster a blackmail legs at the truck and throw a couple bags into the dumpster and then leave [Music] the witness also remembered seeing the man throw something into the bushes her initial impression was that it was a cigarette but she didn't see any ashes or sparks coming from it investigators returned to the scene and searched the area they found the tip of the victim's right thumb the tip was taken to the san diego police crime lab tom washington performed the examination the print had enough ridge detail to capture a clear print [Music] but after running it through the database and coming up empty they still had no one to compare it to sergeant holmes focused detectives on their newest lead the rental truck spotted by the witness [Music] with that information sent a detective to check the rental agency that handles that brand of truck agencies or several in the san diego area and the detective eventually found an agency in the mission valley area the name on the rental contract was one they had heard before calvin parker [Music] investigators confiscated the truck and took it to the impound lot the chemical luminol revealed a circular blood stain someone had been bleeding inside the truck and police believed it was their victim after a frustrating start with nothing to go on but discarded fingertips san diego police now had enough evidence to arrest a suspect in the murder of a young woman although they now had a readable fingerprint she was yet to be identified investigators had found a ring of blood in a vehicle rented by calvin parker a man whose name came up early in the investigation at the san diego police crime lab sean montpetit compared the tissue on the bolt cutters to the victim's dna dna analysis of the tissue revealed that it was in fat tissue from the victim he then compared the findings with the blood in the truck both the blood and the flesh on the bolt cutters matched the victim's dna police now had the direct evidence they needed to obtain a search warrant for calvin parker's apartment detective bill holmes led the team we had enough information to believe the calvin was responsible for this crime and that it probably happened probably occurred where he lived so we obtained a search warrant to search that residence and search his person [Music] police cautiously entered the suspect's residence [Music] there was no sign of him but as they began searching investigators found clues that made everything fall into place when we entered the apartment we weren't sure who our victim was we didn't know a name we were sure that the carlsbad body belonged to our fingers but we had no idea who she was until we entered calvin's apartment and then we found her pictures and found her identification card her name was misty gear and she was calvin parker's roommate investigators would spend the next week working 18-hour shifts to recover over 100 pieces of evidence well we found a variety of notes and documents in the kitchen we found some credit card applications using misti's name we found some of her checks that have been filled out and made out to calvin we found some notes both at the dumpster and at the apartment sexual in nature pointing directly at misty that were written by calvin the evidence against calvin parker was quickly [Music] mounting forensic examiners sprayed luminol throughout the apartment to detect any blood [Music] although the carpet had been recently cleaned massive blood stains led from misty's bedroom into the bathroom [Music] at the san diego police department tom washington compared the victim's right thumb print obtained from the thumb found in the bushes to the thumb print on misti's identification card [Music] two prints matched the victim was positively identified as misty gear [Music] investigators hope those who knew misty best would lead them straight to parker they asked her co-workers about the suspect's relationship to misty [Music] he and misty had been roommates for about three months each having their own bedroom and bathroom strictly platonic although he did have desires for her she wanted nothing to do with him in that way [Music] police now had a motive calvin parker was obsessed with his roommate but they still needed to find the missing suspect the apartment was still under 24-hour surveillance on the morning of august 15 calvin parker stopped by his apartment to pick up his mail [Music] calvin you know why we're here yeah put your hands behind your head stay there put your hands behind your head he was arrested and taken in for questioning we found the girl's fingers in the dumpster in the interrogation room police confronted calvin parker with the overwhelming evidence they had compiled against him so please tell me what happened parker told sergeant holmes his version of events that led to misty's death calvin said that he was home watching tv in his bedroom when misty returned from work about 10 30 or so that evening she went into her bedroom was watching tv about half an hour later he went into her bedroom sat on her bed they watched tv for a little bit and then they had consensual sex according to parker misty agreed to be his girlfriend then changed her mind they argued and she insulted him he said he couldn't take it and just snapped he lost his temper picked up a picture frame that was next to the bed and struck her three times once in the head in the throat and in the chest she started bleeding profusely the extent of her injuries and the handcuff marks on misty's wrists told a different story [Music] we did find picture frames next to the bed none of which were damaged none of which were strong enough or heavy enough to do the damage we saw on misty's body investigators believe calvin parker was attracted to misty when she didn't return his affection he grew dangerously obsessed and attacked her while she slept he then dragged her body into the bathroom where he cut off her fingertips to destroy her identity [Music] on july 17 2002 calvin parker was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death murderers will go to extreme lengths to avoid prosecution destroying all traces of the crime and their victims but even the most careful killers cannot anticipate the precision in which forensic science will unearth even the most hidden obsessions [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The New Detectives

Views: 275,944

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

Id: 3eEx_ASinbo

Length: 48min 54sec (2934 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 02 2021