Little Girl Goes Missing In Broad Daylight | The New Detectives | Real Responders

in the florida panhandle a young passerby discovers a killer's dumping ground a metal chain may be a link to a victim's final but hours must first confirm the identity from the charred bones if they ever hope to solve the brutal crime an idyllic backyard in rural tennessee becomes the backdrop for the unthinkable jackie a little girl disappears in broad daylight with every passing hour police lose hope of ever seeing her alive this one but before detectives can prove murder they must find her body some killers choose to hide their victims [Music] and investigators must then rely on forensic examiners to uncover proof of murder these are just two extraordinary crimes that have made their way into the medical examiner's casebook [Music] [Music] in this episode some of the names have been changed the gulf coast of the florida panhandle is known for its quiet beaches and peaceful living but on march 4th 1999 okaloosa county's tranquil lifestyle was threatened that afternoon investigator stan griggs of the okaloosa county sheriff's office was called to an isolated wooded area [Music] children discovered a body while playing in the woods panicked a young mother phoned police in his 15 years with the department briggs had never seen anything like it there was a charred body that was secured to a tree with chains and rope we actually could not tell definitively if it was male or female the investigator scoured the scene for clues looking for anything that would tell them who this person was and why he or she died so violently although the crime scene was littered with debris physical clues were scarce there wasn't a lot of evidence around the body a few cans a roll of duct tape a couple items of clothing we didn't find anything that would lead toward the identification of the victim much less ain't perpetrators the victim's hands were bound with a blood-stained cord and duct tape was stretched across what remained of the skull fragmented bones and tattered clothing were charred beyond recognition it appeared the victim had been dead for quite some time there was insect activity an insect activity that indicated that whoever perpetrated this made more than one visit the body showed evidence of maggots a process that normally takes two weeks but the finding posed more questions than it answered the insects were burned just like the body forensic specialist jan johnson took samples it was a puzzle we couldn't figure out why someone would come back obviously a couple weeks after the person that died to burn the body dr michael birkland chief deputy medical examiner for the district carefully prepared to recover the remains we were uh very intent on getting the body removed exactly the way it was pretty much positioned at the scene uh because of the uh an injury that i identified to the neck region that was going to be very important to keep the neck in that in that position until we got back and were able to x-ray the remains were taken to the morgue for autopsy evidence collected at the scene was transferred to the forensic science unit at the florida department of law enforcement none of the items found at the crime scene produced anything concrete authorities were no closer to identifying the victim or the killer after examination it was determined the victim was an adult male less than six feet tall establishing cause of death would fall to dr michael birkland when we got the body back we went ahead and did x-rays looking for any projectiles or foreign bodies and we did not see any evidence that this represented either a gunshot wound case or there were no foreign knife tips or anything like that left in the body the x-rays showed a number of fractures to the body of the upper extremities what we call defense injuries where the arms had been put up to try to ward off blows there were a number of skull fractures that caused extensive fracturing of the base of the skull dr birkland believed the victim was killed by a blunt force trauma to the neck the autopsy report documented a brutal murder and it also helped establish a sequence of events if you're transporting a dead body to a what we would consider a secondary dump site there's no need to bind it gag it and chain it to a tree so it was common sense that told us that the body was probably transported there initially live may have already indeed been injured because this was a fairly stocky person and so without subduing him somehow i would have thought he would put up a considerable fight and certainly you would not have to chain a dead person to the tree but dr brooklyn was still puzzled by the insects there were several populations of maggots present in the body he concluded from their numbers and their size that the victim had been dead about a month the most startling revelation was that there was charred maggots indicating that the maggots had been there for a while grown up a little bit and then somebody came back and set the fire for the investigation that meant that whoever had brought the body there had came back to the scene again fingerprinting the victim was difficult his hands had been damaged by fire but there was enough soft tissue on the right thumb to make an impression given that uh one of his fingers was not badly involved in the charring process we were able to find enough minutia and ridge detail so we were able to have sufficient information from that one finger to attempt to match while the prints were sent for comparison to the florida crime lab investigator griggs was determined to learn the identity of the victim the autopsy established the victim died sometime around the first of february investigator griggs began checking missing persons reports we send out a bulletin over the law enforcement net that we have found the body and asking for any kind of missing persons information other agencies may have [Music] one stood out as a strong possibility a local restaurant worker was reported missing on february 13 1999. cordell richards was a 32 year old male of asian descent the last time anyone saw him was around the third we checked with the full walton beach police department and they told us a friend had reported cordell richards missing they naturally went to the apartment to check on his welfare there they found young people who claimed they didn't know where he was a young student named crystal maestas rented a room from cordell seventeen-year-old ron bell was her boyfriend the two teenagers confirmed cordell left in early february but they didn't know why is there anybody else in the house just us sir could you have a seat on here ron bell and crystal maestas stuck with a story that cornell richards just disappeared after receiving some unknown type of court papers he piled up some black bags in the apartment and the next day he was gone along with the black bags they never saw him again [Music] detective griggs decided to interview the friend that reported cordell richards missing let's have a seat right there i understand that you're the one that reported richard's missing yes correct your friend to us yeah well we've known each other for about a year okay according to his friend cordell richards was a good [Music] enough to go play some man later huh he was especially close to his grandparents spending a lot of time with him since his grandfather had fallen ill cordell was divorced with two small children thank you so much he worked at two jobs in order to support his family everybody i talked to about cordell richards told me what a responsible person he was a hard-working person he worked several jobs and his bosses always considered him highly reliable investigators finally believed they were about to put a name on the victim that had remained anonymous for all these weeks the name was cordell richards [Music] in okaloosa county florida investigators struggled to identify a body that was not much more than a skeleton the victim was badly burned and chained to a tree after checking missing persons reports the sheriff's department uncovered a possible match [Music] forensic specialist jan johnson worked to identify the body using a single thumb print [Music] this body was extremely decomposed and burned and i was very shocked to find that there was still enough friction rich detail to affect an identification the fingerprints did match the fingerprints of the unidentified deceased which was the skeletal remains of cordell richards investigator greggs fingerprints confirmed it cordell richards was no longer a missing person he was a murder victim investigators returned to the fort walton beach apartment complex where cordell richards had lived answered the door what's going on i need to ask you a few questions about cordell richards yeah i ran a room for me which room the one right there okay forensic specialist jan johnson analyzed the apartment we have a search warrant for this apartment okay because we're trying to locate mr richards once you look it over if you want to step on outside yes ma'am it was sparse but there were some items left behind that to me the average person wouldn't leave behind i knew cordell richards exclusively rode a bicycle he didn't drive a bicycle was there it was a small but important clue griggs wondered if cordell was taken from his apartment by force [Applause] a visual examination did not detect any blood evidence so we decided to use luminol luminol is a presumptive test which is used on trace amounts of blood or blood that's been cleaned up we sprayed the apartment and there were eight areas that did give a positive reaction for blood we've got a medium velocity spatter pattern here it looks like also a couple of transfer stains and looks like partial hand impressions after i document the blood spatter i then swabbed those areas and those swabbings were sent to our laboratory for dna analysis and the blood came back as being conclusive as that of cordell richards back in the lab johnson tested her theory of how the spatter got onto the wall using blood-soaked sponges and paper targets she reproduced medium velocity spatter medium velocity spatter is one millimeter to three millimeters in diameter and normally is associated with forceful impacts from blood force trauma okay thank you they now had proof cordell richards was brutally beaten in his apartment but in order to find his killer they needed to find out why have you heard of any robberies home invasions or burglaries detectives checked for reported break-ins in the area there weren't any in fact in recent years there were very few robberies in the neighborhood i didn't know why cordell richards was killed we're looking at possible uh gambling debts uh possible debts like he may have owed that was a possibility it didn't seem like he was broken in as a haphazard thing investigators canvassed the neighborhood near where the body was found do you remember anything one woman recalled seeing an unfamiliar car parked near the woods about a month before and i noticed two teenagers coming from those woods over there okay it was a grey hatchback it had a missing window like a compact car and one of the rear windows was punched out and was broken because there was a black trash bag covering it okay the next day investigators found ronald bell and crystal maestas as they were about to enter a grey car matching the witness's description is this your vehicle yes sir for this yes bell confirmed the car belonged to him you know kodo richards um yes i met him a few times and i've come to pick her up do you know photo richards man yeah i read a room from him okay what happened to your window on the vehicle um had a burglary a couple of weeks ago evidence was mounting both teenagers knew cordell richards bell's car was spotted near the crime scene and the victim's blood was found on the walls of the apartment crystal shared with him [Music] it was enough to obtain a warrant to search the car [Music] the car was searched and dusted for fingerprints but no evidence was found connecting the vehicle to the victim next investigators questioned officials at the school ron bell attended that you already saw in there i did note that he was gone from the second to the fifth straight and then he was absent several days in early february an unusual pattern for him come on in [Music] ted mazzo a fellow student confirmed ronald bell borrowed his truck twice during that time you don't mind me answering any questions or anything i have today [Music] but mazzo was not the only person to have information on bell so what can you tell me about cordell richards he told us that ron bell asked him to decipher the password on a computer he described the computer to me he also described the layout of the interior of cordell richard's apartment ron and crystal were trying to log onto the internet but they couldn't get past the password they asked paul martin to hack in home or something try something else yeah you gotta help us with some bags paul noticed that all the files on the computer belong to someone named cordell he also said that ron bell disposed of some property from that apartment and some dumpsters we searched dumpsters up and down the area didn't find anything of course by this time it had been a couple months we just had hopes that maybe something may have fallen out to the side we did have some fortune where cordell richards identification card was found near a dumpster by some telephone workers although there was a wealth of circumstantial evidence it wasn't enough it's without a witness to tie it all together they couldn't make a case that won't talk to anybody but us okay be right there hey can i call you right back okay thank you on march 17th investigator griggs received a startling message someone wanted to talk about the murder anonymously 32 year old cordell richards had been brutally murdered his body was so badly burned the medical examiner had trouble establishing the cause of death thank you just as it seemed the case would go cold investigator stan griggs of the okaloosa sheriff's department received a call the caller was young and terrified he said he had information about the case but he only agreed to talk to investigators anonymously the informant claimed renee links a friend of crystals was bragging about the murder he told us that renee links told him that she ron bell and crystal maestas were going to kill a guy because the guy had made advances on crystal i didn't believe right now she and crystal were going to seduce him ron bell would hit him over the head knock him out and they would dispose of his body it was a chilling story renee links was called into the sheriff's department for questioning in exchange for a reduced sentence renee links admitted she helped ronald bell and crystal maestas abduct cordell richards and chained him to a tree in the woods despite beating and burning him cordell richards was still alive they purchased a meat cleaver at a discount store to finish him off if you could just go ahead and stand up place your hands behind your body for murder renee links was only 15 years old when she was arrested for murder crystal maestas and her boyfriend ronald bell were also arrested their fate hung on whether or not investigator griggs could prove they purchased a meat cleaver at a discount store as renee lynx had alleged this store has better than average surveillance cameras we've got video of ron bell crystal masters and renee links not only buying the cleaver but returning it for a refund exactly what i need i'm gonna have to take that from you when you see their faces on the video this was not a bad happenstance that got out of hand they're laughing on the video is that the original tape yes okay is there any possible way you can trace the new owner of the meat clear i have to check the bar they had records of where three cleavers have been returned one was purchased by a credit card they checked the inventory numbers and confirmed that that was the cleaver that was in question the one that was used yeah that one right there investigators retrieved the meat cleaver as evidence sure you haven't used it in the lab jan johnson analyzed the blade for blood ultimately no blood stains were found they would have to rely on circumstantial evidence and witness testimony to convict the three teenagers who purchased the cleaver crystal maestas gave a very condensed version of the murder of cordell richards [Music] crystal didn't always get along with her landlords [Music] are you guys deaf or something i can't even hear myself thinking there with me under the very cradle come join us but she also knew cordell was attracted to her this made her boyfriend ronald bell very angry he decided to do something about it he knocked cordell unconscious with a blunt object he was rolled up in a blanket taken to a place in the western part of our county he revived they secured him to a tree they began beating him with a baseball bat they take turns hitting him in various parts of his body he's still moaning he's unconscious he's moaning and he's starting to revive again and it's then ron bell pulls out some cigarette lighter fluid soaks cordell richards with it and lights them on fire they come back the next day cordell richards is still alive he's moaning for help they go to a nearby department store buy a meat cleaver go out there and they finish him off [Music] i think the whole community was horrified essentially children this age committed such a crime crystal maestas was tried and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole ronald bell is also serving a life sentence for his role in the murder they were both tried as adults [Music] florida investigators combined science and determination to convict killers who were barely old enough to drive [Music] but in tennessee when a child is the victim a whole community comes together to track down a human predator [Music] montgomery county tennessee is located just 40 miles outside of nashville it's a place where life is simple and people feel safe jackie jackie but on the afternoon of july 8 1996 jeannie meyer learned the meaning of fear jackie she was running late her son had a dental appointment and her daughter jackie was in the backyard picking blackberries jackie jackie jeannie's annoyance quickly turned to panic her daughter was only nine years old and now she was missing jackie can you describe her to me she's nine years old she had a pink shirt on and she had her favorite the montgomery county sheriff's department responded jackie beard was four foot seven with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes she was wearing a pink shirt and jeans jeannie tried to think of anything unusual that happened she recalled seeing a stranger in the neighborhood [Music] he was talking to jackie and her friends [Music] hey little girl when you're playing around here if you just look on the ground and you see something all right about six keys oh yes ma'am the man identified himself as tommy robertson an undercover police officer and i lost my keys out here he said he'd lost his keys somewhere in the neighborhood if i could find him and i saw you he wondered if the children had seen them if they could see them around anywhere so your name is what again yeah it's tommy man i'm tommy robertson and i i appreciate it if y'all see my keys around here we'll just call a police department okay all right um they're her favorite shoes the montgomery county police officer reassured genie more often than not missing children come home in the meantime they would do everything they could to find little jackie after a quick search of personnel records investigator billy batson discovered there was no tommy robertson on the force the optimism police felt now turned to concern and every available officer was called in to find the missing girl jackie [Music] in montgomery county tennessee nine-year-old jackie beard was picking blackberries in her backyard jackie ten minutes later she disappeared jackie along with police montgomery county rescue squad coordinated the massive search effort dispatching the canine unit and community volunteers [Music] they combed the woods searching for any sign of the missing girl billy batson an investigator with the montgomery county sheriff's department tried to remain optimistic it's a missing child at this point we have initiated ground searches including dogs and people who have volunteered to to search the area looking for jackie certainly our hopes were high that we would find her and that she would be she would be safe and close to home using the myers house as their starting point investigators fanned out they searched the woods for hours and with each passing hour it seemed more likely that jackie had been abducted children from the neighborhood were called into the sheriff's department and asked about the man posing as a police officer can you look at these here and tell me which one looked close to you they gave descriptions of the stranger who called himself tommy robertson [Music] this one let's capture that feature by feature a composite photo slowly emerged [Music] in jackie's neighborhood the ground search intensified [Music] there was no sign of the child or of the man police now suspected of abducting her police went door to door hoping someone would provide them with any information regarding the little girl's whereabouts ah yes detective shocked this is officer nothing turned up investigators hoped media attention would bring them closer to finding jackie and the stranger who police believed had taken her from her own backyard the next day after this information had been in the newspaper we started receiving several phone calls about an individual named glenn rogers who matched the description that was given in the paper and that these people were concerned that he at least needed to be checked out investigator batson ran a background check william glenn rogers had a long list of felony convictions police were dispatched to bring rogers in for questioning [Music] rogers claimed that although he was in the myers neighborhood the day jackie disappeared he never saw her he was only looking for his keys yes police didn't believe him and the results of a polygraph examination confirmed their suspicions no it indicated he was lying i've been out of work a long time then he came up with a much different story he said when he couldn't find his keys he returned to his car [Music] as he put the car in reverse he felt a bump as if he'd hit a tree instead he said he accidentally ran over a little girl killing her instantly rogers panicked he knew his record would make the accident seem suspicious so he didn't know what to do he got in the car he came to a bridge which goes over the cumberland river not far from that scene and he got out of the car went to the pastor's side got jackie from the car and threw her over the side of the bridge into the cumberland river batson along with special agent brett murray of the fbi were more than a little skeptical the interview right after the polygraph test i did not believe i i did believe the fact that he was responsible for her disappearance which she basically said he was but the facts surrounding how she disappeared were not something that we believed we knew there was more to the story the key then was to try to find jackie rogers was placed under arrest while investigators checked out his story the montgomery county rescue squad and surrounding county squads were dispatched to the cumberland river they searched for much needed physical evidence if they hoped to disprove roger's story that jackie's death was an accident glenn rogers has confessed that he was responsible for jackie beard's death and he said in his statement that he took her body and threw it off the bridge zinc plant road that crosses cumberland river and at this time we've initiated dragon operations if in fact that's true we hope to recover her body despite an exhaustive search investigators came away empty-handed there was no sign of jackie police headed back to their only hope the one person who knew where to find her that man was glenn rogers and this time they were determined to get to the truth in tennessee a nine-year-old girl had been missing for three days william glenn rogers a convicted felon claimed he accidentally hit jackie beard with his car he said he panicked then dumped her body in a river a search team dragged the cumberland river but there was no sign of jackie beard's body investigators suspected rogers was lying they called his wife to take a shot hi mrs rogers she admitted that on the night of july 8 her husband left the house for several hours that's correct he was about three hours late actually his wife remembered the incident because she was angry rogers came home late that night bill do you know how late it is where had you she noticed he had mud on his pants and a spot of blood on his shirt the car was muddy too rogers made a vague excuse he said he'd been walking through the woods she was waiting for the car to take her grandkids to a school function so she remembered that she also indicated that at some point she noticed some small smeared fingerprints on the passenger side of his car on the windshield detective batson was determined to find out how those tiny fingerprints got there and whether they proved jackie beard was still alive when rogers put her in the car for that he needed a closer look at the suspect's car a forensic team searched every inch of the vehicle for an older car it was suspiciously clean rogers had done a thorough job of detailing his car so thorough there wasn't a shred of evidence that jackie beard had ever been inside it if there's anything that you want frustrated batson questioned rogers about the discrepancies between his statement and his wife well now you know um i've been thinking about this thing now there is something i forgot about um rogers quickly changed his story to match hers without physical evidence or even a body the sheriff's department couldn't prove him wrong four months to the day on november 8th police in nearby stewart county received a crucial call a deer hunter reported seeing human skeletal remains at the land between the lake's wildlife and recreation area 245 brother temple the call was relayed to investigator baxton give me a description the agent in charge down there had heard about this case and he called me and described to me the clothing that they had found down there and i knew at that point that it was possibly jackie investigators and canine units converged on the national park along with agents of the tennessee bureau of investigation the combined team launched an intensive search to recover the remains investigators found a skull several strands of sandy blonde hair were still attached not far away they discovered a clump of similar hair children's clothing was recovered and bagged as evidence dr murray marks led a team of anthropologists from the university of tennessee in a controlled search and recovery effort a crime scene a forensic scene is like an archaeological site there's only one chance to excavate it the crime scene was in a rural area heavily wooded though all the leaves were were down many times that makes the recovery a little bit more difficult we found elements scattered in a pretty wide area and then we systematically go through looking at for one thing different layers of leaves we can tell the seasonality if the bones are on top of the leaves obviously and that's happened after they fell if they're under the leaf or under two or three layers of leaves we know how many seasons have gone by the skeletal remains were under one or two layers of leaves so we knew some time had passed to learn more dr marx needed to analyze the skeletal remains he returned to the forensic anthropology lab at the university of tennessee in knoxville we knew that we had a sub-adult individual prior to 20 years of age you can look at dental development and the way the long bones grow and how how long they are so you can make an assessment of age relatively easy sex is difficult to ascertain prior to puberty prior to puberty we cannot make an assessment of sex in skeletal remains so we had no idea we were dealing with a female or a male [Music] the length of the long bones revealed that the victim was young between the ages of seven and nine 271. we're going to be interested dr mark's determined the remains were consistent with the child had died three to nine months ago well within the time jackie beard disappeared we didn't see cut marks that are indicative of sharp force trauma we didn't see bludgeoning or blunt force trauma no fracture to bone we didn't find the fragile bones in the neck that would tell us about strangulation there was no evidence on the bone that told us anything about a cause or manner of death now investigators could only hope to make a positive identification we also did mitochondrial dna comparing the dna of jackie with her mother and that was a match identifying the remains was an important step but batson was missing the physical evidence needed to link william glenn rogers to the death of jackie beard once again science provided answers when her clothing was collected it was sent to the tennessee bureau of investigation crime lab for further analysis when they examined the clothing they found some some fibers on jackie's clothing that they really couldn't identify fibers of this type were also found in glenn rogers car but they didn't match the car's carpet fibers forensic investigators went back to roger's house and collected fibers from his carpet the carpet fibers matched those on jackie's clothing rogers had tracked the fibers into his car the match conclusively placed jackie inside the suspect's car did you find your keys hey little girl montgomery county investigators theorized that on july 8 1996 glenn rogers lured nine-year-old jackie into his car by posing as a trusted figure a police officer he then drove to a secluded spot where he raped and killed her he later hid her body in a secluded area in land between the lake's national recreation area in january of 2000 william glenn rogers was convicted of the abduction rape and murder of jackie beard at his sentencing hearing jackie's mother spoke of her loss jackie looked up to me more than anyone else and i couldn't do the most important thing i would ever do in my life i couldn't save her from a horrible situation i cannot bring myself to imagine what she must have had to go through my beautiful baby scared taken by force molested and then killed by a man she thought was a safe person william glenn rogers was sentenced to death to cover their tracks some killers go to great lengths to hide their vicious acts of violence but in the end most efforts fail forensic science can uncover the smallest clue [Applause] because even the most determined killer cannot commit the perfect crime

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 117,248

Keywords: police documentary, the new detectives, forensic science, investigation, detectives, police investigation, cold cases, criminals, crimes, true detectives, sherlock holmes, real crimes, real detectives, private detective, the new detectives 2020, the new detectives full episodes, the new detectives 2021, the new detectives new episodes, the new detectives serial killers, the new detectives real responders

Id: GWNlNFTwK5U

Length: 48min 59sec (2939 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 25 2021