Found Dead In Her Bathtub: Who Killed The Neglectful Mother? | Real Stories True Crime Documentary

[Music] source of life and cause of death water can wash away clues dilute evidence and conceal corpses for investigators water can be a cunning opponent for criminals a most accommodating ally for the perfect crime just add water [Music] [Music] it was one of the most notorious crimes in canadian history a crime so evil and chilling it captivated the people of southern ontario for more than a year this case is protected by the youth criminal justice act the identities of the victim the defendants and the witnesses cannot be revealed [Music] [Music] mississauga ontario is a quiet toronto suburb on january 18 2003 at 10 35 pm a 9-1-1 call is received at the peel regional district call center a distraught young girl tells the operator that her mother has drowned in the bathtub the police and emergency response teams are dispatched to a house in a middle class neighborhood [Music] the two hysterical teenage sisters open the door they point to the upstairs bathroom and tell the emergency personnel that their mother has drowned in the bathtub the paramedics pull her body from the tub and attempt to resuscitate the mother but she is unresponsive they cover her body with a sheet and leave it for the corner to examine when he arrives right from the beginning bathtub drownings don't occur very often and so they have to be looked at with a degree of suspicion so this was a suspicious death i still have difficulty with believing that people drown in bathtubs on their own i i know it's possible to it but i still have that mindset going in that until i prove it to myself i don't believe it forensic identification officer bernie weber arrives at the house his first task is to observe and photograph the scene i actually arrived just shortly before the corner and so i go and i photograph everything the way that i find it i don't touch anything i don't move anything you know i don't even take the blanket off of the deceased and i don't even want to get in to start moving anything until the coroner gives me that sort of authorization i want him to see the scene the way that i have we still didn't know exactly what we were dealing with i did some photographs in other areas of the home one which showed the living room where everything was relatively neat and tidy but there was a vodka bottle which was lying on its side on the coffee table while weber continues his inventory of the scene inspector brent magnus begins his preliminary investigation he will be the first person to record the sister's version of the events they tell him they went to meet friends for dinner at jack astor's restaurant around 6 pm when they left their mother was drinking heavily when they returned around 10 30 they were shocked to find their mother unconscious face down in the bathtub during that brief interview or talking with the girls they requested to go to the ants she agreed that the girls could stay with her it was close by and it was easy to take them to a place of safety the girls are escorted to their aunt's house nearby that scene was initially identified as a sudden death scene and the coroner would have responsibility over that particular scene the coroner arrives he and bernie weber begin to reconstruct the sequence of events a normal size between five two and five five she was slightly overweight whenever you start to move a body and they talk about that dead weight it would have been very difficult actually even just for her small size to try to get her out of the bathtub like the fire department did um so for things not to be completely knocked over within the bathroom wasn't a surprise it was actually still relatively in order so i was asked by the coroner to fingerprint her in order to identify her i take a dark fingerprint powder on a brush i put the powder onto the skin itself and then what i do is i put a piece of tape over top of that finger and then as i pull it away i get that impression so i'm left with the fingerprint impression and i can use that for comparison they are looking for clues that will tell them whether this was an accident or a homicide in a case like this the tiniest clue can take the investigation in a whole new direction what has appeared to be just an accident can suddenly turn into a cold-blooded murder she had a little bit of liquid coming out of her mouth which is very common in all drowning cases because that's the normal process of the body getting rid of the liquid when a person drowns there is moisture in the lungs some of it may come from the water they drowned in but some also comes from their own body the blood draws it into the lungs because of the lack of oxygen that moisture is rich in proteins because there are a lot of proteins in the blood and some of them will cross into the lungs those proteins get mixed with the air so when you press the lungs foam comes out you see that foam in the respiratory tract but even before you begin the autopsy often there is a big mushroom of foam around the nose and the mouth before long weber and the coroner begin to notice details that aroused their suspicions we started to see things like we had two different glasses within the bathroom itself that had alcohol in it i started to make other observations within the tub itself six inches of water depth within the tub so with the body in there would have obviously displaced but the the water had cooled down to air temperature so i would expect in a normal situation if she had been a normal bath that the water would have been warmer the water temperature will help determine the time of death it's just a matter of process whenever you're dealing with a drowning a water sample should always be taken at that time and so that's what i did there but also in the bottom of tub there was a granular material and that appeared to be either vomitous or fecal matter that it just mixed in with the water this was not collected at that time because we were still in that process of trying to determine what sort of death that we had so that was left in there because if something suspicious had come out of the postmortem examination i knew that we would be returning to the home under criminal code warren and we could grab that at that time the mother's body shows no signs of struggle and no evidence of foul play can be found but the investigators still consider this a suspicious death we were hoping that something would come out of the post-mortem examination that would lead us to conclude one way or the other [Music] the house is sealed off until after the autopsy police officers are posted to ensure that no one can enter the home and that all potential evidence remains intact so far everything seems to point to an accidental drowning [Music] but in cases such as this the final determination cannot be made until the autopsy has been completed it is often the pathologist who finds evidence of foul play mississauga ontario a woman is discovered in her bathtub by her 15 and 16 year old daughters investigators are very suspicious since bathtub drownings are extremely rare an autopsy is ordered to determine the cause of death [Music] back in his office bernie weber prepares his report it will be used by the pathologist at the autopsy the following day [Music] he compares the victim's fingerprints to those in the rcmp database to confirm her identity i wanted to ensure that she was in fact the lady that we thought she was i was able to pull the fingerprints i made that comparison and then i subsequently notified the coroner identified this lady as well as the officer in charge the following day dr timothy feltes prepares for the autopsy i've done about almost 4 000 medical legal cases over my career drowning actually is still not that common i've probably done perhaps maybe 25 drownings and i've done maybe six or seven that have occurred in a bathtub from a forensic pathology point of view any death in a bathtub is highly suspicious it's unusual for people to die in a bathtub full of water automatically we treated this as a homicide right from the get-go a homicide autopsy in this case with the death and water meant that we had to do some very specific things we'll take blood samples that will be used for toxicology we'll take urine samples that will be used for toxicology we also take a sample of stomach contents that's kind of a backup in this case we don't usually use the stomach contents all the time and it is submitted to the center for forensic science in this case we also took an extra sample of blood and took it up to our pathology lab and ran it for alcohol [Music] often when people die in a bathtub they may be strangled so that means we have to do what's called a dry neck dissection whereby we remove the chest and abdominal organs and the brain before we even go near the neck that is so that we decrease any chance of introducing artifactual blood into the neck by removing those organs secondly we would obviously make a very very detailed search of that body for any evidence of trauma including bruising scratches abrasions etc what we're seeing is blood vessels deep down that have ruptured so blood has collected there through the skin we see the bluish or reddish area the medical term is eccomosis but in everyday language we call it a bruise but if the area where there is bleeding is very small or very deep or if the skin is very dark sometimes the injuries are invisible so as a precaution we open all the tissue in the back and the back of the legs to see whether there are any injuries we have missed the other thing that's important in this case to realize is that this woman who died was considered to be an alcoholic often in alcoholic people we will see evidence of bruising from various falls what's interesting in this case is that there are no old bruises on this woman's body now that doesn't mean that she isn't an alcoholic she may be what are called a careful drunk so i would have expected in this case that if there's a long history of alcoholism that we might have seen evidence of previous falls with some bruising that was not evident in this case at all the results of the blood analysis have returned from the lab we immediately during the course of the autopsy knew that this woman had a significantly elevated blood alcohol level in the range of 400 milligrams per 100 ml that is a potentially fatal level of alcohol levels of only 325 milligrams per 100 milliliters can be fatal to an average person now somebody who's a chronic alcoholic might be very much different but it's certainly a level under which somebody might pass out in a bathtub and accidentally drown if you've taken enough alcohol and it depresses your central nervous system it might suppress the cough response you have to get that water out of your lungs and so that you can take the water in the water just flows in a lot more easily than it would if you weren't inebriated with alcohol any death in a bathtub has to be suspicious all the findings were was we had this high level of alcohol in a relatively young woman who had signs of freshwater drowning and no evidence of trauma we didn't have any evidence that directly pointed to a homicide you need absolute proof and in terms of the autopsy there wasn't any the coroner compares the autopsy results with his own observations and the testimony of the victim's daughters he concludes that the cause of death was accidental drowning due to excessive alcohol consumption [Music] peeled district police closed the file the sister's aunt becomes their legal guardian the girls inherit nearly two hundred thousand dollars from their mother's life insurance policy [Music] however 11 months later a surprising piece of evidence is brought to the attention of the peel police and the case is reopened [Music] in mississauga ontario a woman is discovered drown in her bathtub her teenage daughters find her body and call the police investigators are very suspicious because bathtub drownings are extremely rare [Music] a full investigation autopsy and toxicology are carried out the coroner concludes that it's an accidental drowning due to toxic levels of alcohol and the case is closed [Music] eleven months later a teenage boy contacts the police with surprising information about the bathtub drowning this individual received some information from the older of the two sisters he became aware of certain information and that the mother had actually been murdered or forcibly drowned in the bathtub of the residence brent magnus must first prove that the young man is telling the truth i discussed it with a crown attorney because initially when this information came forward through the friend i realized that we would have to go to an authorization intercept communications in order to corroborate what this friend was telling us the police examine the young man's computer they find online conversations between him and the older sister that are very disturbing he was providing us information that only the girls would be privy to and that they had actually murdered their mother the case is reopened and becomes a criminal investigation the police begin to plan an undercover operation with the young man playing the lead role even though he has been friends with the sisters for many years this operation could put his life at risk he had been a longtime friend of the girls both families growing up were fairly close the police provide the young man with a car wired with audio and video recording equipment he acted pretty much in a capacity as an agent for the police and threw some guidance with a agent handler was able to meet with the girls and gain engage both girls in conversation relating to the murder during the next four weeks the young informant records many incriminating conversations with the sisters [Music] he went out to meet the older of the two sisters he obtained a statement from her with respect to the murders and it was obvious from reviewing and transcribing that entire intercept that the older sister and possibly the younger sister were definitely involved in the murder of their mother [Music] the first intercepted conversation is chilling the older sister openly reveals details of the murder that they had been planning for months i think initially uh you don't want to believe that a 15 and 16 year old would murder a parent and especially their mother i mean the videotape that the police set up was brilliant because these girls had no idea they were being videotaped in fact at one point the i think it's the older girl she gets into the car and the first thing she says to their friend is uh i'm not being videotaped am i the sisters came from a broken home for many years their mother had been turning to alcohol to death in the pain of two failed marriages [Music] they were able to use the mother's weaknesses against her which was uh the recent relationship breakup with her boyfriend when this occurred she would consume alcohol [Music] over the course of a few weeks the young informant meets the sisters four times the meetings produce many hours of recordings and dozens of leads that must be followed up one startling discovery comes out in the first recording the girls had given their mother deadly cocktails of vodka and tylenol 3 a potent painkiller containing high levels of codeine we realized we should do a toxicology test looking specifically for cody a warrant is issued to release the blood and urine samples taken from the mother a year earlier a full analysis on the samples had relayed to us that the mother had a abnormal amount of codeine in her system at the time of her death the investigators have the proof they need the next step is to plan how to arrest the sisters and their accomplices i had officers assigned to find out what schools they went to and any other background information we could dig up on them the police are concerned that news of the arrests will spread quickly through the community they're afraid the accomplices might have the opportunity to consolidate their alibis because the younger generation of people are in communication with one another more readily through cell phones through blackberry's internet it wouldn't take a very long period of time for individuals to realize that the girls were arrested it would be difficult to prevent accomplices from communicating online and covering up important information [Music] the investigators had to come up with a fail-safe strategy [Music] in mississauga ontario two teenage girls report that their mother has drowned at home in the bathtub at the time it is determined that the death was due to excessive alcohol intoxication and it's ruled accidental the case is closed [Music] one year later the police received disturbing information suggesting the death was not an accident with the help of an informant the police obtain enough evidence to trap the two teenage killers on january 21st at 7 am the police serve warrants for the arrest of the two sisters for the murder of their mother the sisters are taken into custody still dressed in their pajamas they were brought into the homicide area of peel regional police they were obviously separated we did not want them talking or influencing each other during that process i had officers obtain specific clothing for them so they would be addressed appropriately they both declined to wear anything but the pajamas that they were wearing when they were arrested at the same time i had approximately 50 to 55 officers that were out involved in the execution of the search warrant at the residence searching the residence and i had identified approximately 45 other individuals that i needed interviewed within a very short period of time anybody i thought could provide us information on the girls or the murder of the mother and i had to keep in the back of my mind to have the girl's family interviewed first the conversations intercepted by the informant show that the girls had been speaking openly with their friends about the crime that they had committed young people who commit this type of crime and brag about it afterwards face a dilemma on the one hand they want to prove that they are capable of action that they're not all talk uh but on the other hand the more they talk about it the more they risk getting caught detective magnus wanted to make sure he was able to question the immediate family members before the two accused could talk to them he had to ensure that a lawyer was present when the two girls were being interrogated they were given the opportunity to speak with counsel almost immediately any other adult or family member that they would feel confident in speaking with and they were given the opportunity to have those individuals present with them during any interview that would take place [Music] right from the start both sisters denied any involvement in their mother's death but it soon becomes apparent to the police that the older sister is extremely nervous after several hours of questioning she finally breaks down in tears she admits to her role in the murder and describes it in detail then remarkably she curls up on the floor and falls asleep [Music] that's not uncommon i've been involved in several arrests where individuals have an adrenaline dump or some type of change physically that once they have been arrested they for some reason fall asleep but the younger sister continues to deny any involvement in her mother's drowning no after several hours of speaking with her she did not provide any information to police however the two girls wanted to speak with one another i made the decision to allow that to happen and they did speak to one another about the murder they put the two girls together and they come up with a scheme about how they were going to pretend it was all a big joke they were putting on their friend and and that's the story they're going to tell the police they come back into the rooms again and she says well can you can you be in trouble for lying to police and and the officer says well what do you mean like well i didn't kill my mother i was just lying to you the older sister's retraction leaves the investigators with just one promising lead the logs of the online chat stored on the girl's computer hard drives joe coltson from the technological crime unit examines the computers they're taken back to the technological crime lab and the computers themselves are physically taken apart at which time we forensically image the hard drive basically we copy the drive from start to finish every bit is copied we do it in such a way that we can prove that the image that we've taken is identical to the original computer and we do all our work from the forensic copy of that drive when you delete something from your computer that file pretty much in its entirety is still resident on that computer a typical user will go in and say okay i should delete that now as far as the chat goes you can physically go in and delete that chat but again with the software programs that we use sometimes we can we can recover that as coulson recovers the files he begins to piece together the girl's sinister story and it's not exactly what the investigators had expected these these two girls were brilliant kids one of the uh the guidance counselors said that he they were the most intelligent kids that he'd ever seen in 30 years of teaching but he said their best quality was their ability to manipulate people their online chats paint a picture of an unhappy family life their mother had been in two difficult relationships with abusive men they accused their mother of spending more money on alcohol than on their well-being they began to fantasize about a better life without their mother [Music] within a very short period of time their entire lifestyle started to change around the time that they came up with the plan they started hanging out with different people than they used to they started skipping school started using drugs and alcohol i realized after examining some of the intercepts that this was actually not a spur of the moment homicide or murder that this was planned and calculated researched by both individuals the mother unbeknownst the girls was saving money for them providing them a good home life and working several jobs to provide that the girls didn't recognize that once the girls sat down and came up with the idea of killing their mother for insurance monies i believe they hatched the plan through research and talking with some friends probably the most important part of the analysis on this case was keywords and the analysis of keyword hits on these drives the investigators used specially designed software to help them sift through the enormous volume of data all of their conversations were being logged on the computer i don't know whether they knew it was logged or not but it was being logged on their computer the first hit that we got was alcohol effects and tylenol and that was sort of that first glimpse when i found that first shred of evidence that first smoking gun there was the adrenaline it was like there it is came up with the idea of getting her intoxicated and providing her pills to incapacitate her they actually did research into the amount of alcohol the amount of tylenol or coding and its effects mixed with alcohol and the amount of time necessary to drown a person or hold them under water to facilitate a murder the police recover information that proves the girls had been actively planning their mother's murder for months but the two sisters had not acted alone we were able to show that the girls were actually chatting with this particular individual and that he was willing to be an alibi for the two girls he actually did show up the night of the murder at a local restaurant to act as an alibi the young accomplice was also a lifeguard he was well aware of how easy it is to drown someone he provided the one sister with tylenol pills sufficient enough to incapacitate the mother along with the alcohol for an entire year the sisters have managed to get away with the perfect crime now the time has come for the investigators to build the perfect prosecution southern ontario was shocked by the news that a one-year-old accidental drowning case has been escalated to murder the accused are two teenage sisters from mississauga they are arrested and charged with drowning their mother after months in a detention center the two sisters are accompanied by their lawyers to their bail hearing surprisingly they are still wearing their pajamas i've covered you know hundreds and hundreds of cases the last 10 15 covering crime and and i've never ever seen two girls so young show up in court dressed in their pajamas especially two girls who were allegedly arrested for killing their mother and i thought what's going on here their immediate family and circle of friends believe the police have made a terrible mistake in fact during the bail hearing there was laughter throughout the whole courtroom the father didn't believe it the ants certainly didn't believe it their cousins thought it was a big joke after their hearing their lawyers talk to the media their lawyers came out and said that you know these poor girls were wrestled out of bed and they weren't allowed to dress and the the cops did this and and it's just a terrible story and and of course what we didn't know at the time was the girls lived in their pajamas refused to get dressed and had spent the better part of the day before just sparring with seasoned interviewers about what happened of manipulation the sisters begin to sway public opinion using their lawyers family and friends there was a lot of media coverage you know young girls killing their mother how could that happen let's feel sorry it must be in their lifestyle the mother must be abusive [Music] some four months after their arrest they were given bail with specific conditions placed on them by the judge and one of those conditions was being to remain within the residence where they were residing which was the aunt's house [Music] the girls are released from the detention center and placed under house arrest with their aunt until the trial it just meant that they weren't free to do anything they wanted i mean they could go to school if they could have they could have gone to doctor appointments they could go to work if they wanted they just had to be with somebody chaperoning them some of the computers were given back to the family we actually obtained a lot of the evidence from a computer that had been brought with them from their previous residence the sisters continued their deception the family still believes the girls are innocent but their online chats tell a completely different story [Music] and they spend that entire year living at the aunt's house and this is the aunt whose sister they have killed and everybody supports them they think the police have made a terrible mistake with the same computers they use to hatch their diabolical plan the sisters continue their online chats and brag about how they've been able to fool everyone [Music] when the investigation is complete the sisters cruel clever plan is finally brought to light while the sisters are under house arrest the logs of their previous online chats are examined with a fine toothed comb investigators are then able to piece together a detailed timeline of the events that led up to the murder the evidence clearly proves that the sisters had planned to kill their mother in cold blood [Music] our belief that the girls pour drinks for the mother provided her pills which was not abnormal for them to do that [Music] the mixture of alcohol and codeine from the tylenol iii soon puts their mother in an almost unconscious state [Music] isn't it while their mother is heavily sedated the sisters fill the tub and prepare the bathroom [Music] they help their mother up the stairs taking great care that she doesn't fall and bruise herself [Music] the older sister helps her mother climb into the tub [Music] telephone and computer records proved that the sisters were communicating with their friends as they prepared to drown their mother the older sister puts on latex gloves then holds her mother's head under 15 centimeters of water until she stops breathing [Music] [Music] the sisters rush out of the house in order to establish an alibi they have arranged to meet a girlfriend and their accomplice the lifeguard at a local restaurant after dinner they returned home and staged their 9-1-1 call the older sister makes the call the younger sisters in the background the older sister sounds like she is upset but when you review that with other evidence in the case you realize that she was play acting 9-1-1 operators ask the girls to provide the mother assistance if they found or just drowned in the tub when police first responded there was some evidence of rigidity rigor mortis and liquidity which would indicate that it had transpired several hours prior to the girls calling 911 one year after their arrest the trial begins they become known as the bathtub sisters [Music] people ask me what was this a hard trial to sit through and he must have been you know a gasp all this every day uh myself and other reporters that covered it couldn't wait to get to the courtroom because we just couldn't wait to find out what was going to come next the crown attorneys would say if you you know if you thought this was good stay tuned the sisters have two motives for their crime one is to escape from an abusive home life and an alcoholic parent the other is just plain greed they know their mother has a life insurance policy worth nearly two hundred thousand dollars that's what makes this whole thing bizarre chilling disturbing yay there were three close friends who knew was going to happen beforehand knew afterwards nobody ever goes to their parents nobody goes to police nobody goes to any authority figure whatsoever and and i think during that whole year they got away with it there had to be hundreds of kids in two different high schools that either suspected they had killed their mother or knew firsthand they had done it but nobody ever tells anybody their accomplices eventually testify against the girls and help to convict them [Music] the young male accomplice is also arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder as the trial progresses the police continue to bring forward new evidence found on the seized computers technical evidence added so much validity and so much weight to these other witnesses statements because we were able to corroborate what these witnesses were saying the digital evidence in this particular case really became the crux of the case to my knowledge is probably one of the um the foremost technical investigations that took place in this country at that time after a trial lasting several weeks justice bruce duncan hands down his decision he says the two defendants set out to commit the perfect crime but instead they created the perfect prosecution [Music] the case against them is overwhelming he declares that this is the strongest case he's ever seen in over 30 years of prosecuting and judging criminal cases he finds the defendants guilty of first-degree murder were convicted as youth under the youth criminal justice act it meant that the all they could serve was a maximum of 10 years first degree murder that's the most you can serve you can only serve a maximum of six years in custody the rest can be served in a halfway house even in their own house under house arrest eventually when they get released after that 10-year period is up they can go anywhere in canada they don't really need to get new names because nobody will know their names but for the average public they'll always be known as the bathtub girls i feel strongly that everybody came to the same conclusion that these two girls were evil the horrific thing about this is these were 15 and 16 year old kids and they almost got away with the perfect crime [Music] the deadly power of water was used to cover up an almost perfect crime the mother's drowning would have gone unpunished had it not been for one person following his conscience once again water would have been a ruthless accomplice silent perfect [Music] so [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Real Stories

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Keywords: real stories full documentary, real stories full documentary 2023, real stories documentary, true crime documentary, teenager killer documentary, crime documentary, full documentary, full length documentaries, the bathtub sisters, dark waters of crime canada, forensic documentary, dark waters of crime real crime, real stories uk, family documentary, dark waters of crime episodes, dark waters of crime full episodes, real stories, britain's deadliest kids, true crime

Id: NrJSx_N9kpI

Length: 45min 40sec (2740 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 31 2022