How A Partial Skeleton Told The Story Of Its Murder | The New Detectives

police investigating the disappearance of a woman in iowa close in on a suspect but to prove murder they must identify a severed torso pulled from the mississippi river in ohio a grave is unearthed at a construction site a makeshift coffin and human bones are all investigators have to lead them to a killer an illinois state trooper makes a gruesome discovery on the side of the road investigators must make their case from the unknown victim's teeth some killers believe that they have left no trace of themselves or their victims behind but forensic scientists have found ways to decipher a killer's calling card by reading clues written in bone [Music] [Music] located on a bend on the mississippi river davenport iowa is known as a quiet fishing community but on march 18 1983 police were visited by a concerned citizen named marianne roth marianne was worried about her friend joyce clint they had spoken on the phone earlier in the morning and had made plans to spend the afternoon together but joyce hadn't shown up joyce had been under a lot of stress in recent weeks her marriage was in bad shape and she and her husband jim were considering divorce [Music] marianne described joyce as a dedicated mother not the type to simply run off without a word [Music] for the sake of their son bart joyce had tried to keep the marriage together but she wasn't naive marianne turned over a tape that joyce had made several days before her disappearance joyce had planned to use it as evidence if the divorce went to trial [Music] when investigators played the tape they quickly realized that joyce had secretly recorded an incriminating conversation between her and jim on it she confronted her husband about money he was allegedly skimming from his chiropractic business responding to the threats jim told joyce that if she exposed him he would put her head under the pillow smother her and then cut her up into little pieces [Music] though it was savage talk police are used to hearing these kinds of violent threats from couples facing divorce to investigators it was more likely that joyce had decided to leave town with the tape safe at marianne's she could slip away until the divorce case went to trial that theory was supported the following day joyce's friends discovered her car parked near the airport inside the vehicle police found no evidence of a struggle or any signs of foul play for investigators everything suggested that joyce had gone missing on purpose [Music] corporal jerry mccabe of the davenport police department worked the investigation it first looked like a possible family argument where she may have taken off and hadn't spoken anybody in a while but the persistence of joyce clint's friends convinced police to look into the disappearance [Music] they paid a visit to jim clint jim readily admitted that he and joyce had fought on the morning of the 18th he had stormed out and gone to the marina where he kept his boat in order to cool off because of rising flood waters he decided not to go out on the river he secured his boat and returned home [Music] by that time he said joyce was gone along with a closet full of clothes and four thousand dollars of his money investigators checked on his alibi with a visit to the marina did you see him on march 18. a restaurant manager confirmed that she saw clint that morning around 11 a.m she saw clint loading filled trash bags onto his boat she said he left the dock in his boat returned sometime later and then went out again this eyewitness account contradicted jim's alibi [Music] detectives decided to take a closer look into jim clint's background jim clint's drinking and philandering were well known in the small community of davenport police learned that he had been having a blatant affair with one of his patients [Music] hoping to learn more investigators tracked the woman down [Music] she told investigators that on the day of joyce's disappearance jim had invited her over around noon he had a surprise he said that joyce agreed to a divorce and had left town now they could finally be together joyce's threats to expose jim's alleged embezzling coupled with the information about his extramarital affair gave investigators reason to believe that jim clint had motive to kill his wife but without any hard evidence that a crime had been committed it was still just speculation but on april 15th nearly a month after joyce's disappearance the mississippi river would offer a gruesome clue several miles south of davenport two fishermen noticed something floating in the river [Music] as they got closer they could see that it was the remains of something human they fled the scene and called 9-1-1 [Music] investigators responded to the riverbank and pulled the body from the water it was a female torso severed just above the navel and just below the tops of the thighs for even the most seasoned detectives the scene was difficult to comprehend [Music] a limited autopsy determined that the victim was a caucasian woman who'd been in the water anywhere from two weeks to four months the cut marks appear to have been made by a chainsaw with a 5 16 of an inch chain mindful of the violent threats jim had made on the tape investigators believe they had found joyce clinton but they were a long way from proving murder [Music] to make their case they would first have to identify the remains and that wouldn't be easy investigators turned to renowned forensic anthropologist clyde snow at the university of oklahoma [Music] his approach is simple and basically what we try to do is look at the skeleton all 200 bones and 32 teeth and we're trying to answer two questions primarily who is this person who was this person and how did they die snow's expertise allows him to develop a profile from the barest of bones even with only the torso to work with snow could tell a lot about the victim to determine her age he studied the area of the pelvis known as the pubic synthesis the surfaces of this this joint undergo some fairly regular changes with age in younger people there's a a system of strong grooves you might say in ridges they gradually begin to disappear in the 20s 30s and 40s so on until finally you wind up with a rather flat featureless surface based on the ridge detail in the victim's pelvis snow believed the victim was between 26 and 34 years old next he studied the dimensions of the remaining leg and hip bones and calculated that she was between five feet and five feet six inches tall and weighed between 125 and 140 pounds [Music] even though joyce clint fit those measurements police soon learned that so did dozens of other missing women until investigators could narrow down their pool of possible victims the identity of the severed torso would remain a mystery police in davenport iowa struggled with two cases the disappearance of joyce klimp and the discovery of a severed torso pulled from the mississippi river they believed the cases were connected and they believed joyce's husband jim was responsible but until they could positively identify the remains they couldn't prove murder [Music] using the description of the victim supplied by forensic anthropologist dr clyde snow davenport police lieutenant dennis kern began a computerized search of all missing women in the region [Music] the computer returned the names of 17 missing women [Music] detectives were able to eliminate eight of the women since they had disappeared after the torso was found [Music] two of the women were ultimately found and another three didn't match the physical description when we were finished we were finished with four people one of whom was joyce clint with the investigation taking on a more narrow focus investigators decided to pay another visit to jim clinton they returned to his home this time with a search warrant [Music] in his garage they found what they were looking for a chainsaw with a 5 16 of an inch chain the same width as the cut marks on the body technicians processed the chainsaw with indicator fluid that turns pink in the presence of blood they covered every square inch of the saw [Music] not a single drop of blood or tissue could be found [Music] either jim clint was smarter than investigators had imagined or the torso found in the river was not joyce clinton there was only one way to be sure police had to find a way to positively identify the remains though dna analysis hadn't yet been developed in 1983 there were new ways of identifying an individual from genetic markers in blood enzymes blood samples were subpoenaed from jim clint and his son bart a comparison with the blood from the victim showed a genetic consistency with bart further tests of joyce clint's parents blood also showed consistent patterns [Music] the genetic information on its own was not enough to establish identity but out of the four unaccounted for women only joyce clint matched both the physical description as described by dr snow and the genetic description provided by the blood tests the conclusion was unmistakable [Music] looking at the women that met these physical characteristics what of those four what were the odds that any one of them would have matched the genetic picture and the odds were infinitesimal the torso belonged to joyce clint and all of the evidence pointed to her husband jim as the killer there's some division of monies properties and that he was going to lose he was going to have a lot of things taken away from him because she was done fed up ready to go and the girlfriend motive was there there were so many that he thought that were in his way of a happier life jim was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife police believe that jim executed his plan on the morning of march 18th [Music] after murdering joyce in their home he drove her remains to a remote spot where he dismembered her with a chainsaw he used his boat to dispose of the body parts and the saw he then placed her car near the airport to throw investigators off his trail though he maintained his innocence through the trial the jury found jim clint guilty of second-degree murder he was sentenced to 50 years in prison jim clint thought that dismemberment would keep himself and his victim from ever being identified [Music] in ohio a killer tried to avoid prosecution by keeping his horrible secret buried deep in the ground [Music] on june 20th 1990 in the small northern ohio town of illyria a construction worker uncovered a long buried secret [Music] his bulldozer struck a hard object resting several feet beneath the ground it appeared to be a wooden box as he walked closer to the find he was overwhelmed by a horrible over he realized he had unearthed the makeshift grave he called police lieutenant dan jaekel of the illyria police department was immediately dispatched to the site due to the construction the scene had already been compromised but we were concerned about the evidence the evidence was being pushed down by the bulldozer there are bits of pieces and wood that might have been carried 25 30 40 yards away besides the initial scene that we had to protect that wasn't their only problem rain clouds threatened to destroy possible trace evidence with the site now exposed they would only have this one chance to get what they needed to preserve any potential findings investigators had to treat the scene like an archaeological dig sifting through the earth for stray bullets jewelry or other identification with deliberate precision the initial search of the construction site turned up no clues to tell investigators the identity of the victim [Music] after several hours the badly decomposed body wrapped in garbage bags was hand dug from the grave [Music] despite their continued efforts no additional evidence or identification was found police needed to know who was in the grave before they could figure out how he or she got there for help investigators called on distinguished anthropology professor dr owen lovejoy at kent state university i went out and examined the body and collected some materials the purpose of which was to provide as many details about that individual in life as i could from the condition of the pelvis examiners were able to determine that the body was a female somewhere around 28 to 30 years old [Music] an examination into the shape and proportions of the skull told him that the victim was caucasian dr lovejoy measured the thigh and arm bones and factored them into an equation to determine the victim's height [Music] she was surprisingly tall almost six feet [Music] dr lovejoy had provided investigators with their first glimpse of how the victim appeared alive it was now up to them to discover her identity [Music] detectives started by looking into unsolved missing persons cases but in all of those cases none of the missing women fit the description of the buried body investigators turned their attention to the only other piece of evidence though it seemed like a long shot they called in a draftsman to measure the fractured pieces of the makeshift coffin and render a detailed illustration of it investigators turned the illustration over to the local paper along with the description of the unidentified woman [Music] days later a woman called to say that she thought she recognized the makeshift coffin [Music] the woman remembered admiring the piece in her friend sandra stuller's apartment she told police it had been over three years since sandra disappeared without a goodbye she wasn't able to offer any speculation on what happened to her old friend but she was able to give police a valuable piece of information like the woman found at the construction site sandra stuller was six feet tall though still unsure that they'd identified their victim it was the investigators only lead detectives tracked down an aunt and uncle of sandra's living in the area like the witness who identified the chest they hadn't seen their niece in the past three years the relatives said that shortly before they lost touch sandra had rekindled a relationship with her ex-husband doug hartman he had been a loving and supportive husband at first but as the years went by he grew abusive sandra eventually left him but doug wanted her back and against the wishes of her relatives she decided to give him another chance and the family told sandra this is a bad move you should not go back to douglas hartman in fact if you decide to do that you're no longer part of this family but sandra stuck with doug and the family severed ties they hadn't heard from her since now investigators needed to pick up the story where the aunt and uncle's account left off they tracked down the manager of sandra's last known apartment where she lived just before she disappeared in 1987. she had paid rent in full right but apparently the reunion with doug had been short-lived sandra had been living alone at the time the manager remembered that the circumstances surrounding sandra's departure were strange in december of 1987 she saw a man moving sandra's belongings out of the apartment and into a rental truck the manager had not seen the man before she didn't see sandra that day or ever again [Music] sandra had abandoned her apartment without a word investigators suspected the man moving sandra's things was doug hartman to prove that theory they went to the truck rental agency they poured over hundreds of receipts from three years before on one of the receipts from december of 1987 they found what they came for do you happen to remember anything about this gentleman the name of sandra's ex-husband doug hartman i appreciate it it was time to question doug but there was no record of him living in town but detectives managed to find a relative still in the area he told police he hadn't heard from doug since he had gone to live with his grandmother in fredericksburg virginia a few years back detectives wondered what had prompted doug to leave town but their theories would be meaningless until they could prove that the buried remains belong to sandra stuller detectives in illyria ohio believe that the body and the makeshift coffin unearthed at a construction site belonged to sandra stuller and they suspected that her ex-husband doug hartman had put her there word of the investigation into sandra stuller's whereabouts spread quickly a local bank manager contacted detectives he too had been searching for sandra she had stopped paying rent on a security deposit box investigators obtained a search warrant the contents of the box included sandra's divorce decree her will and some diamond and gold jewelry not the kind of valuable items a person would carelessly abandon unless as detective dan jakel thought they had no choice [Music] and that reinforced my idea that the person that we uncover on shannon road was in fact sandra stuller but i had to prove it detectives were running out of ways to accomplish that goal desperate for any information they plugged sandra's social security number into a law enforcement database they got a hit sandra had been in a car accident shortly before she disappeared the report mentioned that she had been taken to the hospital for treatment which included x-rays [Music] it was the break detectives were looking for when i found out that there was a chest x-ray taken i knew that this would help the case and when i contacted dr lovejoy he told me if i can get that original x-ray there's a real good chance that he can identify the remains investigators visited the hospital and subpoenaed sandra stuller's x-rays now that they had a source of comparison they turned back to the expertise of forensic anthropologist dr owen lovejoy [Music] initially when we looked at her skeleton and compared it to these chest films we realized that there were a number of very special characters that were very rare one of these was the fact that she only had 11 ribs when a normal individual usually has 12. that's a fairly rare abnormality another is that the individual had suffered a fracture of her right clavicle and so these were two characters that matched both the bones that we had it was powerful evidence but not conclusive lovejoy next had to examine the very fine details preserved inside the bone there small features called trabecular are as unique as the characteristics of a fingerprint to make the comparison dr lovejoy began by re-x-raying the bones with a powerful machine called a faxatron that produces resolution images of bone that completed he then compared the trabecula one by one we did this in this particular case and found that they were in fact an exact match so that there was no question that these were the remains of sandra stuller the victim had finally been identified investigators now needed to establish and prove motive in her death looking through her financial records they believed they found their answer [Music] prior to her disappearance sandra had inherited over 100 thousand dollars when her mother died she had set up a 50 000 mutual fund and had been living off the interest but a letter in the file signed by sandra after she had already been murdered requested that her assets be transferred to an account in fredericksburg virginia [Music] that account was in the name of doug hartman sandra stuller had been murdered for her money [Music] and through bank records and subpoenas i was able to track that 51 thousand dollars into douglas hartman's own personal checking account i did have a motive then doug was brought back to ohio for questioning when investigators confronted him with all of the evidence he began to crumble he confessed to killing her but claimed that it had been an accident police believed otherwise [Music] after murdering sandra and burying her body doug fled to virginia where he had all of her assets transferred into his bank account it took a jury less than six hours to find doug hartman guilty of aggravated murder tampering with evidence abuse of a corpse and then he was sentenced to life in prison though sandra stuller's body had been buried for more than three years investigators were able to solve her murder from the bare bones in illinois investigators had even less to work with stretching from chicago to springfield i-55 is one of the most heavily traveled highways in illinois state troopers regularly cruise its length hunting down speeders but on march 10 1986 it was not a speeder that caught the trooper's attention something was burning on the side of the road [Music] as the officer approached he thought it was a mannequin that had been set on fire but as he got closer he realized it was something far more disturbing [Music] it was the charred mass of a human body after extinguishing the blaze the trooper called for backup the following morning evidence technicians from the illinois division of criminal investigations began processing the area for clues the scene offered little indication as to who could have committed this brutal act the only potential evidence was a set of tire tracks imprinted in the soil but on a well-traveled highway they could have belonged to anyone technicians made a plaster mold of the treadmarks in the hopes a suspect would emerge and could then be placed at the scene but finding a suspect would be difficult if not impossible until detectives could identify the remains at autopsy the examiner concluded the female victim had died from blunt force trauma to the head the only identifying feature that survived the fire were her teeth a pearl necklace and a ring bearing the letter e were removed from the victim [Music] based on her petite stature and slender hip dimensions the examiner believed the victim to be between 18 and 25 years old and possibly hispanic for lieutenant carlos heavier of the illinois department of criminal investigations the information wasn't a lot to go on the first order of business is identify who's the victim in this particular case we had difficulty because of the fact that we didn't have a photograph to go around when we were doing canvassing nonetheless investigators began questioning people in the neighborhoods around the scene of the fire one clerk at a nearby gas station remembered selling a can of gasoline the night before he helped investigators come up with a composite the sketch was publicized but no one came forward to name the suspect investigators launched a statewide media campaign a flood of tips came in but after two weeks detectives still couldn't match the remains to any missing persons cases with their whole case hinging and identification investigators sought help from the state's forensic anthropology department after taking a life-sized x-ray of the victim's skull they built a three-dimensional model sculpting a face in modeling clay it might not be an identical match but hopefully it would bring about a spark of recognition from the public photographs of the reconstructed head and the victim's ring were sent to local press but again no one came forward to identify the young woman [Music] now several weeks after the murder chances of solving the case were dwindling away a methodical killer still walked the streets after several weeks investigators were no closer to solving the brutal murder of an unidentified woman whose body had been set on fire and left burning on the side of an illinois highway desperate to identify the remains investigators sent the victim's skull and teeth to dr steven smith a consultant in forensic dentistry in the worst of circumstances the teeth pretty well survive and so because of that we become very useful for uh the uniqueness of the the human dentition we can find the uniquenesses that everybody has in their dentition and that's enough to separate us from one human being to another the arch of the jaw suggested that the victim was most likely asian not hispanic [Music] after studying the general anatomy dr smith examined each individual tooth this would be the temporary cement that would indicate that this person is probably going to be going back to the dentist and i see some bone loss in this area this would indicate periodontal disease and that the person probably was possibly seeing a periodontist this kind of dental history gave dr smith new insight into the victim's age as i looked at this information and as i came to my independent evaluation i i thought this person had to be at least in their 40s 38 to 40 maybe 42 43 somewhere like that but not more than a five-year difference dr smith's detailed analysis had exposed a critical flaw in the original description of the victim she couldn't have been between the ages of 18 and 25 as previously thought [Music] he showed that she was some 20 years older than that in this particular case we were scrambling because we were chasing an 18 to 25 year old missing person that was not our victim so when they came up with that it was like somebody just opened a door you know now almost two months after the burning body had been found detectives went back to the statewide police computer network and modified the victim's description the new findings paid off within hours of modifying their search investigators received a call from nearby dupage county sheriff's department they had a missing persons case that matched the new description [Music] illinois state police met with dupage county sheriffs to discuss the case they learned berlinda anderson was a 43-year-old housewife reported missing by her sister in early march [Music] born in the philippines she'd come to the united states to marry her husband william the fact that this victim's name began with the letter e led investigators to believe they were on the right track [Music] deputies told investigators that they had met with william anderson shortly after his wife was reported missing he was questioned about his wife and their marriage it hadn't been a traditional courtship during the interview anderson admitted that he'd met her linda through a classified act she was looking for an american husband he was looking for companionship the relationship started well anderson said she seemed very happy with the comforts of middle class america but as the marriage wore on berlinda became very homesick [Music] he insisted erlinda wasn't missing in fact he'd seen her board a plane bound for the philippines in early march [Music] following up on william anderson's story dupage county investigators questioned erlinda's friends [Music] they confirmed that her linda had been unhappy with her life in the u.s mostly because of her marriage to william and she had been longing to return home but it was strange that they hadn't heard from their friend in months william anderson's inconsistent story coupled with dr smith's forensic analysis led investigators to now believe the victim found burning on the side of the road was erlinda anderson and that would make her husband the leading suspect in her murder but so far there was no evidence to prove it investigators from the illinois department of criminal investigations were getting closer to identifying charred remains found along a highway they believed the victim was 43 year old erlinda anderson but until they could be sure police wouldn't be able to make a case against the prime suspect her husband william [Music] with only the victim's teeth to work with investigators subpoenaed erlinda's dental records [Music] they were sent to forensic dentist dr steven smith for comparison [Music] while awaiting the results of his examination detectives began scrutinizing william anderson's alibi he had claimed that he had seen her linda board a plane bound for the philippines [Music] investigators paid a visit to the airlines [Music] anderson had in fact purchased a ticket to manila in herlinda's name [Music] but a week before her body was found records showed that william anderson cashed in the ticket [Music] berlinda never boarded a plane to the philippines william anderson had been caught in a blatant lie but if anderson had killed his wife the question now before investigators was why a further background check revealed that erlinda had been william's fifth wife based on a search of anderson's phone records they learned that he probably didn't intend her to be his last many of the bills reflected calls to one of anderson's female co-workers the woman who was married reluctantly admitted that she and anderson had been having an affair anderson complained to her that her linda was constantly spending his money always sending gifts to her friends and family in the philippines the day after the body was found william took her out for a romantic dinner he told her to leave her husband and marry him instead she questioned anderson about you know what about your wife and uh anderson told her don't worry about my wife she's not coming back the case was now in the hands of forensic dentist dr steven smith when making an identification smith superimposes the living dental records with the x-rays made after death on this case here i can take and move it around and all of a sudden i see a clear picture it was fuzzy now it's totally clear it means that the one film overlays the other one perfectly in myself if i'm asked is this a match i could say yes i would be assured looking at this film that this film matches that film and i could say that this dentition belongs to that remains after months of frustration the burned body had finally been identified as her linda anderson and with a new romance brewing william anderson had motive to get rid of her [Music] still lacking physical evidence linking him to the murder investigators paid him another visit they asked him to follow them to the police station for further questioning [Music] while police began their interrogation a warrant was obtained to search anderson's car though the tire treads did not match those found at the crime scene the trunk and the items inside it were splattered with red stains indicator tests confirmed the presence of human blood on a windbreaker and a tire iron the blood was too deteriorated to make a detailed comparison but it was one more piece of incriminating evidence the results of the examination were brought up to police [Music] william anderson was placed under arrest investigators believe that anderson used the tire iron to beat her linda in the head after she was dead he drove her body down interstate 55 [Music] he doused her body in gasoline thinking that all his problems would burn away in the ensuing fire without the insights of forensic dentistry he might have gotten away without a trace a jury found william anderson guilty of murder and sentenced him to life in prison some killers are determined to keep the identity of their victims a secret when they are successful their deeds threaten to go unpunished but forensic scientists can breathe life into a dying investigation and find justice written in bone you

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 693,455

Keywords: Real Responders, cold case investigation, crime documentary series, crime scene clues, crime solving techniques, criminal evidence collection, criminal forensics, detective documentary, detective show on TV, detectives TV series, evidence collection, forensic anthropology, murder case analysis, murder mystery, murder solving methods, police detective series, police procedural, solving criminal cases, true crime TV shows, true crime channel

Id: wQR9rU2ewXk

Length: 50min 14sec (3014 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 22 2021