Joseph's Confession: Stormy Clues and the Missing Women Puzzle | The New Detectives | Real Crime

when three women vanish Without a Trace investigators comb for Clues and find themselves on the trail of a Savvy Serial [Music] Killer without Witnesses detectives are at a total loss to find a missing woman to solve this case requires an act of God when a woman disappears from under her own roof investigators suspect that she was murdered but getting to the bottom of it will require some sophisticated technology most murder investigations begin with a body but when the body is missing detectives face the ultimate Challenge catching a killer when the victim is presumed dead [Music] [Music] nobody should die that way I've never seen anything that hrif one of the duties of a pathologist is to determine the cause of death watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription required download bely now like And subscribe tips hotline it was a Monday June 19th 1989 when police in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park Kansas received a call from worried parents their daughter 24-year-old Joan Butler hadn't shown up for work that morning she hadn't even phoned in how long no one had seen her since early the day before that's interesting because uh though she had been gone just over 24 hours her parents were convinced something terrible must have happened to prevent her from contacting anyone police agreed to check on [Music] her when investigators searched Joan's apartment with one of her friends they found no sign of her and according to Detective Pat Hinkle no sign that she planned on being away uh no bags had been packed uh the makeup her makeup was still around the sink no clothing appeared to been removed from the apartment so the only thing missing was was Joan they learned that Joan had spent Saturday night with her girlfriends at 4:00 a.m. Sunday she went home have you that explains it thanks again I'll call you tomorrow that was the last time they saw [Music] her Joan Butler wasn't the kind of person to leave without a word she saw her parents at least once a week and socialized often with her friends she wouldn't miss work without good [Music] reason in her apartment her friend pointed out to police the clothes Joon was last seen wearing so she had definitely made it home but her purse wallet and her car were missing by roll call Tuesday Morning the mystery had deepened a check of Butler's bank account revealed that $300 the daily maximum had been withdrawn from an ATM at 6:00 a.m. Sunday just 2 hours after she was last seen got the it happened again early Monday and early Tuesday all the ATMs were in the Kansas City area want to go over none had video cameras the pattern suggested that someone else was in control of Joan Butler's account and maybe in control of Joan he had gone down and played I don't remember her family and friends posted leaflets all over Kansas City describing Joan and her car and pleading for help to find her her disappearance made the news but turned up no leads until one week later on June 25th police got their first tip Sor can I speak Jon's car has been spotted outside an apartment complex 40 m from her [Music] home the man with Jones Keys told the officer that he borrowed them from his buddy inside the officer suggested they go in and sort things out the suspect began to escort the officer inside then took off he caught the policeman by surprise and made an agile Escape the officer learned that the fugitive was a painting contractor named Ricky Cho and the men were his crew they also told him that Cho recently started driving a new red car Butler's car when police examined the trunk they discovered part of the carpet had been cut away they also found a dark stain they presumed it was Joan Butler's blood according to detective Hinkle if that were the case it would prove that she hadn't left of her own free will any experienced officer would then suspect that possibly the trunk had been used for the storage of the person who belonged to the car you know the missing person investigators couldn't be certain it was Jon's blood without having a sample from her to compare it to they hoped the new forensic technique called reverse paternity could help them it works on the theory that a person's DNA shares the same traits as the DNA of her parents by taking a close look at both parents' DNA investigators could estimate what their children's DNA might look like what blood samples would have to be taken from Butler's mother and father then the DNA from the blood found in Joan Butler's car would be extracted and compared the meticulous process would take weeks unicorn while awaiting analysis of the stain detectives ran a background check on Ricky Cho the name turned out to be an alias one of many his real name was Richard Grom he was a 28-year-old old Exon with a WAP sheet almost as old as he was his criminal background included um a history of forgery a history of auto theft and a prior conviction of homicide um in which he killed an elderly woman in the city of lenworth Kansas he was charged as a juvenile in that crime and served only a few years before he was back on the Street Gram's father was African-American and his mother was Asian giving him a striking combination of features that allowed him to drastically alter his appearance throughout a decade of crime and disguise he had evaded capture police worked the equation a young woman's sudden disappearance a drained bank account and a stolen en car factor in a convicted killer named Richard Grom and the result pointed to kidnapping possibly [Music] murder if Joan Butler wasn't dead yet investigators feared she soon would be police fanned out across Kansas City interviewing friends and colleagues of grism but no one admitted seeing him after Joan Butler's bank account was emptied her Trail evaporated too investigators had no more leads the last time de then on Monday June 26th David roou received a message that his daughter Christine was sick and wouldn't be coming into his optical lab where she worked later that day roou went to her home to check on her she wasn't there neither was her roommate Teresa Brown who had also called in sick Christine's car was gone neither woman had checked into a hospital and none of their friends had seen them the women seemed to have simply vanished good good the next day their families filed missing persons reports both women were well-liked with close families and friends might go out tonight don't Christine aged 22 enjoyed working at her dad's shop Tera also 22 had saved enough money to enroll in college neither woman had any problems to speak of and neither was the kind to Sherk her responsibilities their behavior like the mess in their home was out of [Music] character detectives combed the apartment for their wallets were missing but oddly a curling iron was left on it was all very disturbing especially so soon after The Disappearance of Joan Butler detectives collected hairs and fibers including two dark hairs found in the roommate's bedding that didn't seem to belong to either woman no blood was found in the apartment no weapon no sign of forced entry or struggle in short no evidence of a crime the front door hadn't been forced if there had been an intruder it was either someone the women knew or someone with a key it wasn't much of a case to hand district attorney Paul Morrison we didn't have a crime scene here what we had was a lot of different fragments and so our task was to try to see what we could put together from that and build a scenario and piece together what we think happened detectives learned that pass Keys had been given to a painting company Richard gom's Painting Company what began as a missing person's case now looked like a spree of kidnappings the day after police searched Christine in Theresa's apartment Christine's abandoned car was found a few hundred yard from her home on the driver's side fender were fresh Flex of blue paint but inside they found no viable Clues later a check of the roommate's bank records showed another Sinister parallel with Joan Butler their accounts were quickly drained through multiple transactions but if investigators hoped to link Richard Gren to the missing women they'd need solid proof it surfaced in the lab when the dark hairs found in the roommate's bedding were analyzed the hairs proved to be of African Asian origin like the suspect that wasn't the only L from Gram's employees police learned that he had rented a storage locker for his business detectives obtained a search warrant to have a look inside they collected some hairs and outside a potentially bigger clue a 6ot length of duct tape watted up and embedded with hair what you got some duct tape here with about every 8 in there was a large number of Long human hairs and then a space and then Long human hairs as if the tape had been used as a gag had been wrapped around the mouth of someone investigators hoped this was what they needed to link Grom to the victims they compared the hairs on the tape to those gathered from the missing women's hair brushes but the sun had bleached the hair found on the roof making a definitive comparison impossible that along with the gag suggested she had been held there again against her will the discovery raised more questions than it answered why was there no sign of her roommate Teresa brown or of Joan Butler where were the women now rolling back and forth while investigators pondered these questions the case progressed on another front the results from the testing of the blood stain found in Joan Butler's trunk had come back from the the DNA in the sample closely matched DNA from her [Music] parents physical evidence now linked Grom to two of the three victims their whereabouts and groms remained a [Music] mystery as police searched for Richard Grom their hunt LED them from Kansas City to Grand View Missouri 22 miles away Gram's own car was found abandoned in a parking lot it was taken to the police impound lot where detectives spent 5 hours processing the incriminating contents they found false IDs and stolen credit cards some belonging to Christine Ro and Teresa Brown police also found keys to their apartment to the home of Joan Butler and dozens of others family members were brought in to identify the items the evidence connecting the criminal to his victims was now more than circumstantial but so far it was mov Richard Grom was even now on the land and police were no closer to catching him Christine rouch's father identified three rings belonging to his daughter but still no sign of Christine 3 days into the investigation hopes of finding the women alive were fading as police continued to dig they learned through an inform that on the very day that roou and brown disappeared grome had rented a second storage locker in the Kansas City suburb of Stanley he stopped using it just 3 days later the manager told police a young woman had paid for the unit I do but she filled out the application under the direction of a man yes I did the manager couldn't positively identify grum's picture I have her she recalled that the woman seemed distressed like she needed help she signed her name roou yet the woman the manager identified in the photo was Teresa Brown there seemed no reason for Teresa to impersonate Christine unless she had no choice detectives searched the locker but found no signs of violence or other leads then on their way out they spotted something familiar blue paint this u storage facility had a computerized gate access where you have to drive up punch in a series of codes your your PIN if you will and then it would allow you entry into the uh storage facility uh the poles were set rather close to the touch pad and it was apparent that several cars had run into this these poles in the past the paint was similar to the paint found on Christine's car police took chips from the poles and the vehicle and sent them to the Johnson County Crime Lab where forensic examiner Gary Dirks analyzed them the question paint chip displayed no differences when compared against no one paint that was removed from a a blue concrete pole beside the the the storage shed that Richard Grom rented the Blue Chip helped police paint a picture of what might have happened in the storage shed our belief of the coming and goings from the uh from this storage facility was that uh that's where he was hiding out that's where he was hiding from the police and that's where he most likely was hiding Christine Rouge and very possibly Teresa Brown as Kansas City Police continued their search for three missing women a final clue turned up on the other side of town courtesy of an 18-year-old Good Samaritan he was on his way home from work when he spotted something on the roadside it seemed someone had lost their valuables a checkbook credit cards receipts and other papers the young man decided to contact the owner her name was Christine roou [Music] police found four checks unaccounted for in The Ledger they were traced and recovered on the morning of Monday June 26th the day Christine called in sick she cashed them at the drive up Windows of four branches of her bank within an hour her account was emptied of $2400 none of the transactions were filmed but police believed Grom was with Christine Hammer shot to the body burn you can look at her checks as she signs them that morning clearly Christine rou you know uh very uh steady legible handwriting with each check the U signature degrades more and more and more to to the point that the last one you you almost can't read it and you can only imagine um you know Christine sitting in the front seat of a car um knowing that uh what fate might be at 10: p.m. that same day Christine drove to an ATM in belon Missouri and cleaned out the bank account of her friend Teresa Brown police believed by this point Grom had already killed Teresa and Christine was next these are the last photos taken of Christine alive local media Kansas City police were desperate to capture the elusive Richard Grom paper and called it to many then they got a break gram slipped up and told friends where he was heading they informed the police who apprehended him in Texas and brought him back to Kansas you grow up in the L more well the police still had no bodies but they had a long chain of evidence leading to Richard grome besides the stolen jewelry and emptied bank accounts they amassed a wealth of forensic evidence stains paint Flakes and hair samples each forensic piece of evidence by itself probably did not make or break the case but the consistent thing about all those small pieces of evidence were that they all pointed directly at Richard Grom as being the perpetrator of these crimes on November 4th 1990 Richard Grom was convicted of kidnapping robbery theft fraud and murder have around he's serving multiple life sentences in the Kansas State Prison Grom never explained what happened back in Kansas City but police have their own theories grome had keys to the apartment of Christine roou and Teresa Brown so getting in was no problem for him he'd also done work in Joan Butler's apartment complex and obtained a key for her unit as well to this day the whereabouts of the missing women remains a mystery closely guarded by Richard Gren I think uh uh Grom is a um a true um Power freak and U I believe that this is his last Act of uh Defiance that he was able to get over um on on the police uh be able to prove that he is Superior in some manner uh because the investigators have never been able to find the bodies and I think that's his last uh card a determined experienced killer cont tax a police department's resources but so can a killer who acts on impulse Elizabeth New Jersey is an industrial town and a residential suburb of New York City like any City it has its share of crime and its police force is trained to handle whatever might come up through deadly force or shrewd detective work once a criminal is in their sights they don't give up shortly after 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday August 5th 1992 a mechanic arrived for work at his auto shop he spotted a car parked out front that didn't belong there he found out the owner was Karen Sherer he phoned her to pick up her car but her parents said she wasn't home they hadn't heard from her in 2 [Music] days her family was alarmed to learn that Karen hadn't shown up for work that her car had been abandoned her sister reported her [Music] missing detective Christopher Kenny was assigned to the case the family was definitely concerned right right right from the beginning it was unlike her to to not call anybody or contact anybody over a period of time she has a lot of friends located here in Elizabeth her family was down to Shore and she would she would be in touch with someone at this time she hadn't called anyone or spoke to anyone from the family police learned that Karen had gone out for a night on the town two days before one of the bars she stopped in was right across the street from where her car was found on the same day that Karen Sherer was reported missing police launched a search to pick up her Trail it led three blocks away to the city of Elizabeth Recreation Pier along the Elizabeth river there a police dog picked up Karen's scent going onto the pier and then the trail went [Music] cold the search for Karen Sherer took New Jersey detectives back to the last place she was seen the bar across the street from where her car was parked the owner and one of his customers recalled seeing Karen early on the morning of Tuesday August 4then she was with a man named Joseph sabita detectives called zabita in for questioning after learning that he had been paroled from prison just a few months before according to detective Kenny at this point he seemed a likely suspect the criminal history showed that he had been arrested numerous times in the past uh and that he had also been arrested for a rape and spent time in prison for a rape zabita admitted being with Sherer the night she vanished he explained they went bar hopping on Monday the 3D and early on the morning of the 4th wound up at a Tavern on Front Street he said sharer was giving him a ride home when they passed a man she knew she stopped zabita got out the other man got in that zabita said was the last time he saw Karen he said he didn't know the other man's name or where they were going during the interview detectives noticed a crescent-shaped bruise on zita's arm he explained he had caught it in the tailgate of a pickup [Music] truck it's he allowed the detectives to take photographs for the record once we're done interviewing him and talking to him that evening we had let him go because we had no evidence to hold still Detectives didn't buy Zaba Story the bruise on his arm looked a lot like a bite mark to be sure they sent the photographs to forensic Dental consultant hcll Asin uh I did determine upon looking at the photographs that this was uh in my opinion a human bite mark and uh uh it was a matter of finding the teeth to match up with this bite mark if Karen Sherer made that Mark it would prove that more went on than zabita admitted but to match the teeth that made the mark investigators still had to find Sherer the next day they were back on the waterfront this time they brought along an officer from the New Jersey State Police missing person's unit again the search was feudal with no word from Karen Sherer and no reason for her to disappear on her own investigators had to assume she was dead detective Kenny had no motive no evidence no body and no case still he kept his suspect in his sights zabita was the last person seen with Karen Sherer we would call Mr zabita in we would speak to him talk to him again he stayed to his story basically and uh we spent about 3 months just trying to find Karen sher's body police had tried everything from interviewing witnesses to tracking with blood hounds and had come up empty the victim's family applied pressure to keep looking Karen sher's family and friends uh came to us and they requested that uh we do a search they they want to do a search they felt like they they want to do something to try to find her uh they told us they would go out they would make up Flyers they would get volunteers investigators agreed to one more search but then Mother Nature intervened the worst storm in a century walloped the New Jersey coast churning up the entire Elizabeth River Waterfront once the flooding subsided sherer's family insisted that the search proceed some 30 police officers firefighters and civilians combed the banks of the Elizabeth river not far from where Karen's car had been found but the odds of finding anything now seemed astronomical they searched all day without turning up anything then near the railroad bridge a Searcher noticed something in the weeds a few feet from the water's edge he'd found a human skull it was apparently washed up by the storm then left behind as the waters receded it was an amazing find but was it the remains of Karen Sherer the teeth would provide proof positive except that every last one of them was missing the search for Karen Sherer turned up a skull in the Elizabeth river but without the teeth the first solid clue seemed utterly useless investigators brought Haskell Asin back on the case to apply his expertise his first finding was unsettling examination of the skull suggested to me that the teeth had been uh forcibly or traumatically uh removed from the skull even though though the teeth were missing Asin found distinguishing traits in the skull the shape of the sockets where the teeth had been the shape of the roots and a distinctively shaped bone along the sinuses Asin then compared his findings to skull x-rays taken by sherer's dentist there was no doubt in asin's mind the skull was Karen sharers Joseph armed with these findings detected returned to the zabita household and served an arrest warrant on Joseph zabita tell me you got can I down at the station he revised his story something to add to your story We explained to him what we believed happened uh we told him what evidence we did have uh after talking with Jose Bea for for a little bit of time uh Jose admit to us that he did fact back uh kill car areer as before zabita said they left the tavern in the victim's car by now they had spent several hours together and he had slowly won sherer's trust then he betrayed it they drove to an access road down by the Elizabeth river there he ordered her to stop the car they began to fight and zabita hit Karen in the face he couldn't recall how many times he struck her uh once he struck her she wasn't moving he was nervous worried zabita left her there then he parked her car across from the auto body shop and walked home what happened there zabita never explained why he cut off the the victim's head police speculate that zabita worried after being questioned about the crime returned to the scene and tried to destroy the victim's physical identification in our legal system a confession may not guarantee a conviction cases are one on the merits of the evidence without the victim's teeth investigators couldn't prove she made the bite mark on zab's arm they had nothing to definitively link the suspect to her so they asked zabita to show them where he dumped the body police divers never found the remains detectives built their case on what they had eyewitnesses who saw zabita with the victim on her last night alive and the x-rays of the victim's skull Joseph sabita pled guilty to aggravated manslaughter and was sentenced to life in prison he won't be eligible for parole for 25 years investigators traced Karen sherer's murder to a chance meeting with a Sinister stranger detectives in South Portland Maine had far less to go on on August 16th 1991 police were called to the home of William and pearl Bruns Pearl's daughter Elaine was worried because she hadn't heard from her mother in 3 days so when was the last time you spoke with your mother Pearl never went far from home and always phoned her detective Linda Barker spoke with Elaine the daughter was very adamant that her mother always called her at least once or twice during the the week he calls me like two three times a week I didn't her from her a couple of days now inside the first thing the detective noticed was droplets of dried blood starting in the kitchen sink and trailing through the house [Music] I saw drops of blood at the sink I saw drops of blood um as you go into the bathroom and in the bathroom sink indeed there was a lot of drops of blood in various places throughout the home drops or something elae explained that her mother was a hemophiliac and bled easily when cut Pearl had cut herself in the kitchen on the day elain last saw her and rushed to the bathroom to dress the womb show you the rest of the sure along the way way she must have left a trail aside from the disconcerting blood stains most of the Bruns home was neat and orderly but the bedroom was a sham um yeah I don't know where she would have been going but this is not the way she passed it looked as though Pearl was interrupted while packing to leave oh look there's some more blood on the suitcase were more drops of blood like I said even a small cut well I mean it's unusual just that you know she on the bookcase elain noticed something that upset her more than the blood well she never took her mother's friendship ring her best friend she got it 14 years ago and it's never Elaine explained that Pearl never went anywhere without it and you just now found that yes she also said that um Pearl had not taken her car Pearl loved her Cadillac and it was still sitting in the garage and she said there was no way her mother would leave without her beloved Cadillac the Cadillac might have been the only beloved thing in the home after 5 years the Bruns marriage had soured Elaine said when she last Saw Pearl she was depressed her credit cards were maxed out her husband complained of Pearl's spending Pearl had told Elaine I'd be better off dead she wondered if Pearl might have done something [Music] rash there was no sign of her anywhere in the house the one place the Portland Police hadn't looked was a place Pearl rarely ventured the [Music] seller they didn't find her but they found more blood it was red not Brown so it looked fresh you do agree this doesn't PL his [Music] blood with pearl nowhere to be found the logical person to question was her husband William he was a truck driver who was out on the road hi when he returned William Bruns recapped his last day with pearl [Music] after Elaine left he said an argument broke out over the same old thing money around 600 that evening he left the house he said he went to a donut shop ran some errands then stopped for dinner when when he got home Pearl wasn't there she didn't return and he never gave it another [Music] thought it became very apparent that she didn't just leave and he just didn't [Music] care Barker launched an exhaustive investigation into the whereabouts of pearl Bruns she questioned neighbors she visited Pearl's old hauns no one had seen Pearl since she'd been reported missing next Barker phoned taxi services bus Depots and Airlines every call was a dead end if Pearl had left town it seemed she'd gone on her own two feet or hadn't really left at all with no sign of pearl the detective returned to speak with William Bruns I know a casual remark turned into a potential clue I said g bill you've you've had your carpet cleaned and he goes oh no I I haven't cleaned it at all and I said well then you've replaced it I mean this is like brand new rug I mean that's how clean it was and he said no I I haven't cleaned it and I haven't replaced it spil on it but a check with neighbors revealed that he had rented a commercial carpet cleaner a few days earlier a little bit on it really bad stain why he would cover up such a trivial matter made investigators only more suspicious by now two months have passed since Pearl Bruns had dropped out of sight no one had seen her or heard from her the police suspected she wasn't simply missing but murdered they'd handled the case as a homicide they used cadav dogs to continue their search they combed rivers and woods and other places where a body would likely be concealed none turned up their main suspect was was William Bruns who still seemed unconcerned about his wife's disappearance Bruns drove his refrigerated delivery truck throughout New England and into Canada if he were the killer he could have disposed of his wife anywhere a check of the truck revealed it had been scrubbed clean no traces of blood were [Music] found in Maine homicide investigations are conducted by the state police Sergeant Mike Harman was assigned to the case Harman began with the brunza home if only to rule it out uh we wanted to better search the home and the surrounding areas to see if possibly uh Pearl's remains were within the home uh in the basement or in the surrounding area possibly buried in a shallow grave on November 17th inves instigators paid another visit to William Bruns this time they brought a caver dog to search the woods around the house the search was another dead end in the cellar the dog detected something yet when police dug they found nothing likely will while the search was proceeding Harman interviewed William Bruns suddenly the normally Bruns seemed shaken all right he broke down and started crying and we thought well maybe we're going to begin to hear something here and then he just reiterated I wouldn't hurt my pearly now that the case had moved from missing persons to homicide the detectives analyzed the dark brown stains found all over the Bruns home maybe not all of it was pearls perhaps it wasn't even blood they didn't want to overlook any detail at the State Crime Lab forensics expert Ron Kaufman ran two tests the first simple test would determine if the stains were actually blood it proved positive the second test would determine if the blood was human he used an enzyme that reacts to human blood proteins it reacted proving the blood was human but the lab couldn't determine if the blood was pearls uh we had no record of uh Mrs Bruns blood type So eventually uh we sent samples of the blood that we found on the suitcase along with a a blood sample from her daughter and the biological father of that daughter to a private DNA laboratory uh where they conducted uh what they call reverse paternity testing on the samples the reverse paternity test yielded a match the blood came from Pearl Bruns the blood evidence gave the state police enough evidence for a warrant they returned to bruns' home and began looking for more blood enough to indicate Foul Play this time they sprayed the entire house with luminol a chemical that makes even the faintest residue of blood glow in the dark detectives were astounded by the results the whole area lit up bright green the whole carpet the wall um it was quite Inc incredible you could actually even see footsteps where someone had walked through uh the blood and you could also see where someone had cleaned the carpet you could see the Motions back and forth where someone had had attempted to clean it and indeed had cleaned it by the naked eye but the luminol could pick up the blood detectives submitted the stains to the forensics lab as they feared it was Pearl's blood in fatal amounts detectives concluded that William Bruns had lied about more than cleaning his carpet but to prove murder they needed the [Music] body police believed that Pearl Bruns was murdered in her home but they weren't at all certain they'd find the body there cadav dogs couldn't pinpoint anything Sergeant Mike Herman knew they needed more drastic measures we had either the choice of removing the house from the foundation and digging that cellar with a back hole or finding an alternative means which was ground penetrating radar to thoroughly scan that basement to see if there was a disturbance in that soil ground penetrating radar beams high frequency radio waves into the Earth the reflected waves can detect anything from fuel tanks to power lines by revealing changes in the soil structure detectives turned to geophysicist Scott pulin to conduct the search if you think of of soil aayers being laying down horizontally uh they have a certain structure and if that structure is uh compromised by a shovel a back uh somebody digging uh the soil structure again is destroyed if anyone had dug in the brunza cellar GPR would reveal it on the morning of September 11th detectives returned with another warrant the GPR made pass after pass across the dirt floor we have one de about 90 minutes into the survey the GPR detected an anomaly a spot where the soil was Disturbed we informed the main State Police of the presence of an anomalous area and that anomalous area was approximately 5 ft by 18 in wide uh suggesting a the presence of of some sort of burial pit something was down there the digging began after 5 minutes police uncovered an oblong object wrapped in plastic and bound with a rope it was a human body the body was taken to the medical examiner's office for autopsy on one arm they found a wristwatch with a name engraved pearl Bruns the examination showed the victim had been struck hard across the face it was more than her frail body could bear she had a broken orbit of her eye she had a broken cheekbone broken nasal canular uh Pearl bled to death if she had been uh given uh first aid or rescue had been called to that home that day she would have survived the injuries confronted with the evidence William Bruns pled guilty to manslaughter he was sentenced to 15 years Bruns never explained why he let his wife bleed to death without calling for help police know the couple was arguing perhaps over Pearl spending the half-packed suitcase implied she was threatening to walk out what is certain is the case assembled against William Bruns the forensics in this case was extremely important I had done a considerable amount of leg work over the past year and yet didn't have the tools that the state police actually had the the cadaver sniffing dog the luminol uh the access to the ground penetrating radar all these tools made the discovery of Pearl's body possible without that we we could literally still be looking for her time was police had to produce a body to prove a murder no more now murder can be proven when the victim is merely presumed dead Becky Rea investigators find a clue they think will lead to a Killer's front door but instead find themselves heading down a blind alley now their most important evidence is withering before their eyes when a man reports his wife missing her abandoned car becomes the biggest clue but it's the nosy neighbors who drive the investigation 4 months into her marriage a woman disappears but when her body turns up it's clear she was no Runaway Bride investigators must rely on flimsy evidence to bag her killer for some lovers marriage can be murder even though proving it may pose a challenge Killers can't divorce themselves from the consequences of their broken vows [Music] [Music] in the early morning hours of December 28th 1995 Melinda and David McLean let themselves into the apartment of their sister-in-law Becky Vargas the telephone and electricity in her unit hadn't been switched on yet Rebecca Becky was separating from her husband and had just rented the Ogden Utah apartment Becky she had told her husband Steven Vargas that she was going to try to start organizing her belongings and would return in an hour or two but that was several hours ago Steven had asked Melinda and David to check on her since they lived nearby Melinda who was Steven's sister and Becky's best friend was glad to go though they didn't see Becky all seemed quiet and [Music] safe leaving them unprepared for what they found Becky Vargas lay dead in the leaves outside the building even before the sun was up the Weber County Utah Crime Scene Investigation Unit began its day processing the murder [Music] scene the victim's blouse had been pulled up [Music] at first glance the condition of her clothes made her appear to be the victim of a random sexual homicide but a closer look revealed the story was not so [Music] simple criminalist Russ Dean thought the scene might have been staged it was as if her body had been moved from one location to another uh her arm was under her body as if she'd been dragged her coat was removed and was under her body the leaves were bunched up in certain locations around her arms and legs and there was no other obvious indication of any type of sexual assault in fact though the victim had suffered a head injury most of the blood had pulled at her feet suggesting she'd been turned around whoever did this had apparently tried to throw off the invest tigators the forensic team documented and collected a set of car keys a cigarette lighter fragments of blood spattered leaves and most significantly the apparent murder weapon a broken flashlight stained with blood and entangled with [Music] hair they spent 6 hours sifting through every inch of the area before they were satisfied they determined that although the body had been repositioned the victim hadn't been moved far the only blood found was just a few inches from where she [Music] lay3 because the bloodstained flashlight was the most compelling clue it was analyzed first at the Utah State Crime Lab in Salt Lake City doesn't speak investigators could see that it had a partial fingerprint on it stamped in blood according to latent print examiner Scott spute a bloody fingerprint can be even better than a Smoking Gun when we have a bloody fingerprint for example it's the victim's blood it's not her finger it's someone else's finger on the evidence it's a crucial pinpointing item of evidence in which we can identify someone being at that crime scene leaving that Bloody fingerprint behind at the scene as they left it would be bad practice to home in on that one print the lab had to inspect the flashlight for additional prints the obvious ones and the ones that remained invisible it required two separate processes blood stains because they're not oily can flate or rub off to fix them in place the flashlight was heated to 100° C for 10 minutes after I heat it on I then put a a stain on there which is called a meal black which reacts to the blood and makes it very visible and often times brings out areas of blood that were invisible prior to treatment to develop the latent or unseen prints the flashlight was exposed to Super super glue [Music] Vapor the adhesive bonds to the moisture on the print creating a durable shell that exposes and preserves it then a fluorescent dye is applied which adheres to the superglue the latent prints shine under ultraviolet light this one testing revealed no other bloodstained prints the original one along with the latent Prince would have to do once a suspect was isolated investigators were confident that the bloody fingerprint was all they'd need while the clues were being scrutinized Melinda mlan and her husband David went to the police station to give their statements I'm assuming it was her she Melinda told police that she'd been best friends with Becky Vargas for 14 yearsan and then and then then we went back Becky had been married to her brother Steven Vargas for nine of them but it looked like their marriage was coming to an end you and things AR going well as far as she knew the split was amicable but you know he's trying to work things out I have a j okay there's there's SC though Becky was having an affair that her husband Steven Vargas may have suspected there didn't seem to be a lot of tension between the couple in fact Steven who had called the mlan to look in on her after the police told him they had no officers available to check on his wife always David mlan down the hall told police a similar story us he said that Steven Vargas had called him just before 11:00 p.m. the night before the murder uh did Steve at all go over there Steven was worried because she was away so long the apartment had no lights disturbing it's right he said that he and Melinda stopped by though Becky's car was in the driveway there was no [Applause] answer they went to a window to see if everything was okay but stopped when they heard moaning hear that yeah she s busy they thought that perhaps her boyfriend was there so they left they went to a pay phone to tell Steven that everything was fine with him they told him what they had heard then they left your wife said that she been seen David told police that out of curiosity they drove back to Becky's a short time later now they were surprised to see Steven vargas's Jeep parked out front soon he appeared from beside the building got into the vehicle and drove off David said that they caught up with him Steven was wearing his bathrobe and slippers he told him he wanted to check on Becky himself but asked the mlan not to tell anyone he was there when David revealed this detail to the police Melinda reluctantly admitted it was true David told police that Steven called them once more early the following morning he said that Becky still wasn't home and asked them to check on her again that's when they found her dead back by now at autopsy the medical examiner determined that the lantern found at the scene wasn't the actual murder weapon but it may have been used to sub do the victim from the shape of the wound she was apparently struck down with a hammer or something similar no such object was located the killer was clever enough to carry off or remove some of the most incriminating evidence authorities hoped he'd left enough behind at the police station investigators continued to talk with the mcleans their detailed story seemed to Pivot on Steven Vargas then it took a more provocative twist when the police dispatcher told detective David wheo that Vargas was on the phone but he wasn't calling about his wife she said that he was on the phone inquiring about his sister and his brother-in-law and if they were in fact at the police station and I told the dispatcher yeah that's who we're we're in here talking to and if she would ask him if he would mind coming down to the police station as well your separation police told him about M said his in-laws were fine but he might not be because Belinda and David saw him at the murder scene he admitted that he was there that night just as the mlan had said he peaked in the window but he heard and saw nothing because the window was right next to where the victim was found wheo didn't believe brother-in to see if Steve had gone there to look and listen uh I don't think it would have been likely that he would have not seen Becky lying just a few feet away his suspicious Behavior and the eyewitness testimony by the mcleans was enough to get a warrant to search Steven vargas's Jeep and to collect his fingerprints and a blood sample can you get a uh can you get a paper bag investigators were after anything that could link him to the crime scene they found nothing but miniscule fragments of leaves and not even many of those actually I wish I could find my little the Jeep looked recently vacuumed they collected what they could then returned the vehicle to Vargas and sent him home the forensics team hoped they wouldn't need to rely on the leaves now that they had Vargas his fingerprint they could compare it to the ones from the flashlight most of the prints did in fact match Steven Vargas but that made sense he owned it so the only one that really mattered was the one stamped in blood the bloody fingerprint had a shape called a tented arch of the three features of fingerprints Loops arches and whirls arches are the least common and tented arches are rarer [Music] still only 5% of the population has them Steven Vargas was among that [Music] group but the fingerprint on the flashlight wasn't clear enough to make a definitive [Music] comparison Vargas might have left it and then again maybe not I cannot say he did not leave that print behind I can only say it's not enough to identify it positively they thought the flashlight would illuminate the Killer without it their hopes of solving the case look considerably more dim investigators working to solve the Becky Vargas homicide saw their most promising piece of evidence rendered useless according to detective wheo a case that had looked cut and dried now depended on very fragile Clues after we lost the flashlight uh about the last piece of of physical evidence we had that we could try and do anything with were the leaf fragments that were recovered out of the Jeep if investigators could find specks of Blood on the tiny fragments they would support the idea that Steven Vargas was close enough to the body to have track them into his [Applause] Jeep it fell to supervising criminalist pillar shortsleeve to analyze the minuscule samples trying to see blood on a small piece of colorful Leaf was difficult we used a stereo Zoom so we could get down and look very closely at the leaves and and then um to kind of guesstimate if we had any stains and then we would do some preliminary tests well out of the five samples of leaves pillar short sleeve found traces of blood on two but she had no proof the blood was the victims she rushed the samples to a DNA lab for analysis fearing it might already be too late whenever um blood or body fluids are left on soil or or samples that contain a lot of possible bacteria the bacteria begin immediately in destroying the sample um they destroy not only the cells but they get into the DNA and start to break the DNA down it would take 3 months for the results to come back from the lab investigators had to bide their time but they didn't do it idly they had to assume that the results would be negative to be began to build their case some other way police served a warrant to search vargas's apartment varas they were after the bathrobe and slippers he was seen wearing at the crime scene if he had beaten his wife to death surely they'd be blood spattered Vargas left the clothes in plain sight easy to find what are you looking for he was supposed to wearing a bathrobe and a pair of slippers the bathrobe had been freshly laundered the slippers had no trace of debris on them bag that in itself was strange considering he admitted walking outdoors in them it seemed like uh Steven Vargas was one step ahead of us on getting rid of any physical evidence that might link him to the crime scene uh it seemed like every step that we thought of to locate that evidence was foiled Robert but there was one clue he couldn't bury because it was 375 M away in Cheyenne Wyoming after several weeks of wrestling with his conscience vargas's half brother Robert esel called police to tell him a favor that Steven had asked before Becky's murder Steve had asked him if he would come out here and kill Becky for him police set up a phone tap in esel's apartment then had him call Vargas to get him to talk about their previous conversation Steve had gone through this this denying or not remembering that part of their conversation that it had been a joke and towards the end even got threatening though it stopped short of a confession Vargas had said enough for police to arrest him on January 11th 1996 for the murder of Becky Vargas but they weren't sure they had enough evidence to convict him 1 month later the results of the DNA test on the blood spattered leaves found in Steven vargas's Jeep came through a comparison of the DNA from the blood on the leaves matched Becky vargas's DNA the blood on the blood fragment match Rebecca Vargas now authorities were confident of a conviction don't believe no where are you going based on the evidence police put together a likely scenario Steven Vargas angry with his wife for her infidelity and their upcoming divorce confronted her at her new apartment they fought don't you dare accuse me of being a bad mother don't you it escalated tell me I not a good mother because you know that I am right there I'm not going to let you leave me in the and he hit her with with a flashlight knocking her out he moved her to the side of the house thinking she was dead he was wrong you hear that he wanted someone else to find the body so he asked the mcleans to check up on her can we go home now they mistook her death throws for the throws of passion when they told Steven he returned to finish what he'd begun using a more Lethal Weapon tiny fragments of leaves told told the whole story well in this case in particular we had this flashlight that had a possible fingerprint in it in Blood and that would have been the piece of evidence that kind of closed all the Loose Ends but it didn't happen in this case it was a very small piece of leaf that was found in a vehicle that had blood on it that came from the victim and it was just the interesting and exciting part that something so small could be so integral in a case Steven Vargas was convicted of first-degree murder and is now serving 20 years to life the case of Becky Vargas began with the discovery of her body but when a person just disappears it's not clear that a crime has even been committed in this story the names of the victim and the killer have been changed on the morning of July 31st 1987 Dan Remington of San Diego California was taking his kids to the YMCA on Route he noticed his wife's abandoned car on the side of the road not wanting to alarm his children he dropped them off at daycare then rushed home to call the [Music] police San Diego Police dispatched an officer on his way to Remington's house he stopped to examine the vehicle the car apparently had a flat tire the doors were locked and he could see no spare nor any sign of 29-year-old Liz Remington when the officer arrived at the Remington's home Dan Remington told him that he last saw his wife at 10:30 the previous night when she left for work about 10:30 last night going get ready to go for work after he saw her car at 7:30 he called the hospital where she was a maternity nurse but she hadn't shown up Remington admitted that their 12-year marriage was Rocky they were discussing divorce but hadn't filed the papers yet I've called around and made a couple phon you have by chance have a key for the Dan handed the officer a key to the car and granted permission to impound it in search of Clues while it was possible that lizz's disappearance could be logically explained missing persons cases fell under the domain of the homicide unit they had the skills to collect and preserve every piece of potential evidence found at the scene you check the spare yet they found nothing obvious to indicate Foul Play and towed the car to the police [Music] garage any overlooked Clues would be preserved in case the car required a closer [Music] look detectives visited a nearby convenience store thinking that Liz might have gone there after her tire went flat the clerk told him that she had been in the night before she needed to break a $20 bill to make a phone call he didn't know who she called police remembered that Dan Remington told them she hadn't called home change right it seemed reasonable to believe she may have simply run off with someone else her walk towards the park Liz's sister told police that was in inconceivable she wasn't the kind of woman who run from a failing marriage no matter how bad things became she'd never leave her children Sergeant Dennis bugos of the San Diego Metro task force found that was the consensus she was very devoted to her children and her family she helped at school she helped at little league and just not the type of woman that would ever walk away from her family she put those in Liz's sister told police it was strange that the spare tire was missing Dan had changed the oil 2 weeks earlier and made a point of Thoroughly checking the car including the spare investigators took statements from the Remington's neighbors afternoon described his character many spoke of the deteriorating relationship between Liz and Dan the information was duly noted but in terms of evidence that any crime had been committed investigators had absolutely nothing at the time of Liz Remington's disappearance San Diego Police were grappling with an apparent serial killer because there was no evidence that Remington had left against her will these more violent crimes took priority there was no body there was no weapon and therefore she was simply one of many missing adults throughout this County and at that particular time there was actually a series of sorts that was going on where there was upwards of 40 women who who were found murdered uh in the East County area so certainly that would had precedent over a missing person four years passed since since Liz Remington's disappearance most of the murdered women were transients or prostitutes so she was not considered one of the killer victims but when a task force was formed to look into the serial killings her file came up too and investigators realized she was still missing after all this time the neighbors taped statements and the detective reports were dusted off well before Liz's disappearance they had kept a close eye on the remingtons and helped Liz out whenever they could over time friction between the couple increased and neighbors grew concerned about her and the children one even kept a log of what went on at the house after Liz disappeared to demonstrate how the Remington's relationship had deteriorated a neighbor told investig tigators about how Dan tried to sell lizz's car without her permission no you going to sell it come on now you get the house I get the car no no no no no according to the neighbor Liz wasn't just surprised she was Furious a huge fight ensued he said that the only reason Dan didn't sell the vehicle was because Liz had the only key and wouldn't give it to him but police recall that on the day Liz disappeared Dan had the key to her vehicle in his possession police also learned that neighbors had reported seeing Dan Remington filling in a ravine at the back of his property with a bulldozer shortly after lizz's disappearance they said that after her disappearance they saw him visit that part of the property every few days he never ventured back there before she disappeared remarkably because the case had never been officially closed lizz's car had remained impounded all this time Dan had sued to get it released but lost technically it was still considered evidence [Music] now it would be looked at more [Music] thoroughly one of the first things investigators found were coins in the ashtray reportedly Liz had been last seen by a convenience store clerk when she wanted change to make a phone call the clerk statement suggested she was okay now investigators were weren't so certain since she had ample change in her car they contacted the clerk to interview him again that clerk at the convenience store actually said he wasn't real sure that it was her so that helped us to establish the fact that we didn't really know for sure whether she was there suspicions of Foul Play had been aroused rugos won wondered if the flat tire could have been staged he sent the flattened tire from lizz's car to Goodyear Tire and rubber in akan Ohio their lab is designed to evaluate the causes of Tire failure here the tire was examined on the rim report was the tire was flat is still flat there's definitely no investigators found no outward signs of damage only a tiny puncture which would have led to slow deflation once the leak was isolated product analysis manager Chester Patterson took the tire off its Mount and examined it more thoroughly from the looks of it the tire went flat after the car had stopped we saw no damage on this car we saw no reason to have alerted any driver in the vehicle that something was going soft or or whether the tire was deflating because in order to do that the tire is beginning to come apart and you would see that damage on the tire itself and we saw no such damage but he did see something he'd never seen in his 35 years experience the tire removed from Liz Remington's car had been punctured from the inside outre has been punctured from the inside side see these two Impressions circular Impressions right under the punctures of the tire and we notice the rust that's contained in them and told me that somebody had taken a nail and pounded it through the inside of the tire to cause that circular nail head Impressions on the liner itself he concluded that the tire had definitely been tampered with 4 years after Liz Remington's disappearance investigators had enough to get a warrant to search Dan Remington's house take here talk to they found nothing of significance [Music] inside outside hold a different story in the yard a police backhoe went to work Excavating the filled-in Ravine uh the back hoe was probably 2 or 3 hours into the job when it hooked onto a piece of chain link fence that was lying flat uh the excavation slowed down what we found underneath that chain link fence was a tire the tire was the missing tire from lizz's car and underneath that tire wrapped in sheets and blankets was the body of a female and a missing person's investigation became a murder [Music] case hand Dan Remington was arrested taken away officially the body was considered a Jane Doe until a positive ID could be made a forensic anthropologist determined the remains were those of a Caucasian female who had died of blunt trauma to the Head she had been in her late 20s to early 30s about the same height as Liz Remington but you won't be seemed like they had found what they were looking for but the law required more proof than that forensic dentist Norman sperber was called in everything hinged on the teeth teeth are the most durable part of the body and we fortunately had Dental films from her dentist we were able to take films of her teeth cuz they were in very good condition by comparing the shape and position of the victim's fillings and teeth with Liz Remington's dental records sperber was able to make a positive ID Liz Remington had been found because the victim was discovered wrapped in bed linens investigators believed that Dan killed her while she was napping before work afterward he carried the body out to the Ravine buried it in a shallow grave then rented the Earth moving equipment a short time later piling on 8 to 12 ft of dirt then he drove to the scene and replaced the good Tire with the one he had flattened next morning he reported his wife missing confident the police would never piece it together his unwitting accomplice was a suspected serial killer who demanded all of the police department's resources but the clues eventually resurfaced exposing the crime though Remington's exact motive will never be known authorities believe he couldn't bear the shame of divorce or the fact that he'd lose half of his wealth and property in October 1992 Dan Remington was found guilty of the first-degree murder of his wife he was sentenced to life without parole Remington went to a great deal of trouble to hide his crime others take an easier approach which sometimes makes their crimes harder to [Music] solve on September 21st 1995 a body was discovered in a wooded area in Boise Idaho plastic bags bound with duct tape encased the feet and head from its state of decay it had obviously been there several days no ID was found no attempt had been made to conceal the body it appeared to have been hurriedly dumped there because of its position and wrappings investigators couldn't even determine the victim's gender without disturbing an already disturbing scene at this point anything could be a clue so the body wasn't unwrapped or inspected until it got to the morg where it was scrutinized under controlled conditions okay the tape was carefully cut away and the bags removed and [Music] preserved the victim was female around 60 years old the coroner determined that she was strangled she was most likely killed elsewhere wrapped up and transported to the woods where she was found she fit the description of Wanda kachef reported missing 6 days earlier Wanda had been reported missing by her second husband Ben kachev when she failed to return from work see this the couple had been married just four months both had retired from the large firm they worked for your father and you you little Wanda took a job cleaning offices you are beautiful than you Ben a Russian immigrant who had once been artistic director for the Idaho ballet now worked for a security company after Ben reported her missing detectives wondered if Wanda had had second thoughts about her second marriage and simply run off but a check of her jewelry and possessions showed she'd taken nothing with her that's never a good sign and then her body turned up the victim's car had not been found so the bag she was wrapped in became the most important clue criminalist Cynthia Hill set to work examining them it was all she had well in this case we didn't have a murder weapon there were no eyewitnesses and the place where Wanda was found was not the murder scene so all these things were playing against us Hill fumed the bags in Superglue to bring out any fingerprints the glue contained in foil pouches vaporizes and bonds to the print preserving it the print can then be dusted with powder to make it more [Music] visible then photographed to create a record Hill found only one print on the bag around the victim's legs but so far she had no one to compare it with Ben kachef was called to the police station to provide a set of prints for comparison in a murder investigation it's standard procedure to get a spouse's PR you ever been fingerprinted before no sir let me do all the work okay usually it eliminates the spouse as a suspect in this case that isn't quite how it worked out I keep this the print on the bag matched Ben that didn't necessarily mean he'd had a hand in his wife's murder if the bag had been taken from the victim's own car Ben might have handled it prior to its use in the crime the print was lifted from a portion of the bag where one would normally grab it in terms of evidence it wasn't enough these people are living together they're touching objects that one another uh touch um you have to be able to find a fingerprint in a location where they wouldn't normally have touch or it's in conjunction with another piece of evidence that puts them um at the scene Hill still believed that the bags might contain more prints though she didn't have the technology to lift them she knew that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police crime lab did If Prince were there the mounties could find them or so she hoped she carefully packed her bags sent them to Canada and awaited the results while Cynthia Hill waited for her prince to come from Canada investigators in Idaho found Wanda kev's car more than a week had passed since her body was covered the vehicle had been abandoned in a store parking lot 4 miles from where she was found police processed the vehicle for fingerprints they raised two prints from the trunk lid their placement suggested they were left by the person closing the trunk inside investigators found something surprising nothing at all for detective David Smith of the Boise Idaho Police Department that was a significant Discovery and talking with the family members they said that she would always carry her Jehovah Witness literature in the trunk in fact they said you could not put anything in her trunk because it was so full but the trunk wasn't entirely empty investigators found a single drop of blood it belonged to the victim whoever had put her in the trunk had also left fingerprints on the gearshift knob prints on the trunk and on the gear shift matched Ben kachev investigators faed the same challenges as before the car belonged to Ben's wife it stood to reason that he could leave his fingerprints on still it seemed strange that his were the only clear prints found especially since he told police that as far as he knew Wanda was the last person to drive the vehicle the evidence suggested that Ben drove it last leaving behind the clearest Prince tests were conducted to show that in approximately 70% of all cases the last person who drives the car and and activates the gear ship lever will destroy the person's prince who drove the car prior to two and leave their prce on the gear shift lever the prince made detectives 70% sure that Ben kachef was lying that wasn't good enough an inspection of the car seat disclosed another clue I want to stature in that she was 5'4 and 140 lb when I looked at the seat it appeared to me to be back farther than usual for a woman of that stature to be driving the vehicle So I placed a female of 5'4 140 lb in inside the vehicle she was unable to reach the pedals which appeared to be a comfortable driving position conversely I put a male matching bins description 511 190 lb into the driver's seat and they fit very [Music] comfortable the experiment provided more circumstantial proof that Ben was a liar but it still didn't prove he was a [Music] Murder By Now the Canadian Royal Mounted Police Poli lab had performed their tests on the trash bag used to wrap the body of Wanda kosachev the test called vacuum metal deposition is a state-of-the-art method for lifting difficult prints from plastic the bag was placed in a vacuum chamber and then pelted with ions of gold which cling to the plastic but not to the oily prints then it's exposed to ionized zinc which clings only to the gold leaving the prints untouched and in contrast against the plastic the process revealed a second print on the bag according to Cynthia Hill the position of this print was far more incriminating the second uh fingerprint that was developed using the vacuum metal deposition proved that he had a direct contact with that bag because the positioning of the hand was in such a way that he would be grabbing the plastic bag wrapping the tape around Wanda and he would be the only one that would be leaving the fingerprint in that position at that time in most cases that would be enough to win a conviction but investigators weren't so sure proving espousal murder on fingerprints alone would be a hard sell The Prince and other evidence they' gathered gave them enough to get a search warrant for the kev's [Music] home they found no signs that this was the murder scene but they did find the Jehovah's Witness literature that the victim's family said she never removed from her car the items presented more circumstantial evidence that had been involved in the Murder by January 1996 4 months after the crime investigators were still building their case against Ben kachev detective he began to feel the circle of evidence closing in on him and he announced he was going back to Russia at that point police had no choice but to charge him with Wanda's murder let me go if he returned to Russia he'd be a free man beyond us extradition though they had enough to arrest him they weren't certain they had a solid case for Murder in the First between the time of his arrest and the trial date investigators continued to gather evidence against kachev under surveillance in jail he couldn't make a move without authorities knowing about it we placed monitoring devices on approximately 17 phones inside the jail at the Ada County jail now that gave us the ability to monitor his conversations as outgoing as well as whoever he was seeing as a visitor uh the end result was that uh we receiv received nothing um that could be used in court nothing incriminating came about the phone calls but help came from an unlikely Source kachef had confided details of his crime to his cellmate I don't The Prisoner disturbed by kev's lack of remorse reported the details to authorities he had nothing to gain by doing so Ben and his cellmate were watching TV one evening when the news media broadcast that we had located to witness who had told us that she had in fact sold B duct tape and trash bags the inmate told us that Ben found this humorous that he had in fact purchased for from this lady but they were not the ones that we were looking for that he used in the crime the inmates information though hearsay provided one more strike against Ben kachev investigators realized they gathered all they were going to get they weren't sure they had enough but because Ben was likely to be released and flee to Russia they had to take the case to trial my own from what police could put together 4 months after their marriage van and Wanda's honeymon was over he had been dependent on her money but wanted to return to his homeland she refused to go their animosity built and Ben strangled her he wrapped her body in plastic bags emptied the trunk of her car loaded her in and dumped her in the woods then he abandoned the car in the parking lot based on the accumulated evidence Ben kachef was convicted for the second degree murder of his wife Wanda and sentenced to 21 years to life for detective David Smith solving this case meant more than simply delivering Justice you do become personally involved I mean this guy has come into to your town committed this heus act and now you have this grieving family that you want to do everything in your power to solve this case for and that's how I personally take it and I know any other see a homicide detective will tell you the same thing when spouse kills spouse the clues are sometimes difficult to read but the marriage of forensic science with good detective work can bring together what the killer had tried to put us under

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 81,754

Keywords: DNA analysis in crime solving, Real Crime, cold case investigation, crime documentary channel, crime documentary series, crime scene examination, crime scene reconstruction, criminal case breakthroughs, criminal case files, criminal motive analysis, criminal profiling, criminal psychology, criminal psychology insights, forensic technology, homicide detectives, murderers on the loose, solving complex crimes, tracking down murderers, unsolved murders

Id: gsrbmU7iOKM

Length: 102min 9sec (6129 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 03 2024