What Happened To Melissa Brannen? | The FBI Files | Real Crime

in 1989 residents of a close knit apartment community in Virginia gathered for a holiday celebration for Tammy Brannon and five-year-old daughter Melissa Christmas was always a special time then without warning and the little girl was born her disappearance ignited an impassioned search law enforcement in a local community spared no effort but would they feast to gather the evidence and find her before it was too late [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] in 1989 in front of close to 200 witnesses a child disappeared five year-old Melissa Brennan vanished from a Christmas party at her mother's apartment complex in Virginia children have a way of wandering off but it soon became clear this was more than a case of a lost child someone had taken Melissa what sorrow compares to a mother's grief what kind of monster preys on children I'm Jim Kallstrom former director of the FBI's New York office the hunt for Melissa galvanized the community as a nation held its breath and waited for word all victims deserve justice all criminals must be punished but when a crime involves a child the stakes become so much greater on December 3rd 1989 the Woodside apartment complex in Lorton Virginia held its Yuletide Christmas party the Woodside was a large but friendly complex a community that revolved around family life and children's activities the kids were always excited about the party which meant special treats and presents [Music] a single mom Tami Brennan had found in the Woodside complex a safe community which to raise her only child Melissa as the evening wound down Tami stopped to visit with a friend before going home ok but come right back [Music] [Music] she lost sight of her daughter for only a few seconds but that was long enough for our mother's worst nightmare to begin [Music] Melissa Melissa Mellisa disappeared the fairfax county virginia police department was called immediately i'm gonna do everything i can to find your girl but you have to tell me everything detective bill Wilden assured Tammy they would do all they could to find her little girl the detectives began questioning the people at the party no one could recall seeing Melissa leave the party or anywhere near the front door I'm detective Wilden this is Richard Rapoport the Fairfax Department search commander join detective Wilden to organize the search party he would head up the investigation everyone understand one of the possibilities of course was that she had just hidden somewhere in the building was playing with some friends or had wandered off so immediately the patrol officers on the scene that a very good job is searching the building and they began a search of the immediate area surrounding the building the night of December 3rd was a bitterly cold night in the Washington area someone outside that was five years old without a lot of protection probably would not have survived through the night it was that cold report coordinated a more specific grid search of the area with patrol officers and dozens of volunteers from the complex [Music] the search effort began nearly a hundred neighbors police and army personnel from nearby Fort Belvoir combed the woods around the complex most were parents themselves united by a single concern to find Melissa like the detectives they expected to find a shivering frightened little girl lost in the dark woods and crying for her mother [Music] officers began to question the 200 people who attended the party and interview over 400 other Woodside residents though the complex was large many residents knew Melissa and knew her to be very shy shocked to hear that she had disappeared almost all expressed doubt that she would ever have gone off without her mother and certainly not with a stranger detective Wilden went with Tammy to her apartment to interview he questioned her extensively about her past and possible troubles with her neighbours or employer an accountant she had never had any problems with anyone Tammy had lived at Woodside for over three years since her divorce from her husband in Texas she had experienced the normal readjustments of a newly single mom but she and her ex-husband were on good terms when detectives discovered an open window in the furnace nobody Jim Goldman the crime-scene investigator for the Fairfax County Police Department was asked to examine the way the door was set up everybody had to either go through the crowd to get out the front of the building that was the only the main door and the only door available to get out with the exception of there's the hallway down to the bathrooms in the furnace room they had large large windows and in in the furnace room itself had a window what was discovered open and from there the assumption was made that possibly that's how she was taken from the building [Music] Melissa's disappearance was suddenly far more complicated the search for a missing child had become a possible abduction case the police continued their questioning with even greater urgency and began to hear repeated mention of the strange even bizarre behavior of the maintenance man for the complex [Music] several of the women reported how offended they were by extremely vulgar sexual propositions made to them by Caleb Hughes there was a possibility that if she had been abducted for sexual purposes that she might be molested but we were very very hopeful that we could at least find her alive before her life was in jeopardy now that they were dealing with a possible abduction case detectives returned to Tammy's apartment and collected nightgown hair brushes and bedclothes any items bearing traces of Melissa as detectives continued questioning the people of the party they learned more disturbing details about Hugh's behavior that night he had spent what seemed to many to be an unusual amount of time playing games with the children he made the parents uneasy by touching the kids there was something unsettling something indecent about him at the party he was not dressed as well as the rest of the people he wear his work clothes he mingled with some of the people he knew at the party and he spent some time talking with Melissa's mother making comments about Melissa and offered to take Melissa a couple other children to the restaurant if they needed to go he just had some very suspicious behavior for him out of his age around the children with growing suspicion the detectives tried repeatedly to reach Hughes by phone and then went to his house but we're told by his wife which he had no idea where he might be he had left the party some time before our arrival there he lived only four miles away but it took us several hours for us to contact him because he had not yet returned home finally two and a half hours after Melissa's disappearance Caleb Hughes called the police who then returned to his house upon questioning he claimed he had simply taken the long way home the officers immediately noticed he was wearing different clothing from that reported by witnesses at the party in the washing machine they found that clothes shoes had been wearing as well as his sneakers and a leather belt with a knife sheath the knife was missing [Music] he'd been gone for several hours and to come home in the middle of the night when your family was asleep and to feel the immediate need to wash everything you had been wearing including your shoes we found that rather suspicious behavior and that just further added to our our interest in a and his whereabouts as Hughes appeared reluctant to speak in front of his wife the officers decided to take him to headquarters for further questioning suspecting that hues might be covering for time spent with a girlfriend the officers wanted to allow him the opportunity to tell the real story do you know Melissa Brannon now dinner to the detective surprised there was no real story Hughes had no alibi he claimed he had no idea who no as it was that he had driven the long way home why were you watching after picking up a six-pack and then had simply washed his clothes you normally watched her shoes with your clothes he said as an excuse that that work they were his only wore clothes and he had to be to work the next day and they were dirty so he needed to clean him for work look my being charged with anything despite hours of intense questioning he was remain smug and evasive finally a detective Wilden told him he was free to good I know you told was almost certain he was lying are you gonna have to prove it there aren't you as far as the Fairfax County Police Department was concerned Caleb Hughes was the prime suspect believe in Caleb Hughes was involved in Melissa's disappearance detective bill Wilden contacted Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Robert I ran it was a suspected homicide certainly by then he made some statements that that were out of character for somebody who really is a suspect in a crime of this nature you would normally think a minute somebody would suggest you or I have abducted a five-year-old child think we'd be most vigorous veeneman outbursts of course I did well they got nothing like that that fact at one point he said - he said the Wilden prove it again it an unusual reaction for somebody who had nothing to do with it Goggan had photocopied Melissa's picture and printed hundreds of Flyers to help in the search and as the Sun came up the search expanded into further down south on a highway they sent soldiers out to do a massive searches through the woods along the railroad tracks and as possible ideas of locations where she might have been were developed again hundreds of people were were gathered to search and walk those areas the car Hughes had been driving that night belonged to his wife she gave investigators permission to impound and search it detectives examined it for fingerprints blood fibers hair any evidence that would document Melissa's presence there fingerprint tests revealed that only the Hughes family had left prints on the car next all the hairs and fibers needed to be collected from the interior this type of trace evidence was usually retrieved with a vacuum cleaner but there was simply too much debris inside when I first approached the car looked inside I just kind of went whoa they had two large dogs that Hughes they carried them a lot in that car they were it was just plotted with dirt and debris and just just a mess inside that car and I just kind of shook my head like this was going to be a real challenge so I decided to to to use the masking tape as an alternative to do vacuum cleaner just hoping to just get what was on the surface that was an unusual technique circle in my ears that was the first time I ever had run into it in the Fairfax Police Department and it's it's a very common technique now Dogen then placed the tape between layers of clear plastic so that it could be examined intact under a microscope as the car processing continued Melissa's disappearance quickly became the lead news story in the Washington DC metropolitan area Melissa Brannon is three feet tall 48 pounds with blue eyes and dark blond shoulder-length hair she was last seen wearing a pink ski jacket red plaid skirt and black shoes with gold buckles the night of the party Melissa had been wearing a navy blue acrylic sweater with a Sesame Street Big Bird picture red tights a red cotton plaid skirt and a pink parka when I found the red blue fibers that were visible on the tape I did kind of get excited about that but at the time I was excited but worried because we needed to find her to identify the clothes of the possible clothes without Melisa that was going to be real tough when Gogan conducted luminol testing on the interior of Hughes's car he found traces of blood on the steering wheel brake pedal and floor mat when a light is shined on the luminol treated area bloodstains will appear fluorescent while the luminol process is quite accurate as a blood locator it can also destroy the genetic characteristics of the sample when I sprayed the steering wheel I got the reaction on the steering wheel and as well as on the the pedals of the vehicle that's where the it fell to these items were swapped and collected Hughes's shoes had been washed but the lab was able to identify possible bloodstains on their soles where fresh cuts had been made it became very suspicious when I received the clothes from the the officers who searched the house and noticed that he had cut his tennis shoes kind of kind of putting two and two together that why was he cutting his tennis shoes and why did I get a reaction to blood on two gas bottles surely caleb hughes had tried to cover his tracks to avoid a link to an unimaginable crime [Music] with the luminol findings showing blood in his car the detectives were increasingly confident they could get a confession from Hughes he was brought in for a polygraph test he had no explanations for the fresh cuts in his shoes once again he gave no explanation for the two-hour 30-minute delay and get in home but as it turned out it never was an explanation he said I just took the long way home that was the best I got did you harm Melissa Brannon No did you kill Melissa brand he's a proven to deception when he was denied outright that he had killed Melissa polygraph examiner Rick Danielle was sure he was lying he really denied ever having seen his child that I known who the child was and was showing pictures of her never seen that child before and of course police knew that was not true because he had been at the same table with the child had talked to the child Danielle was absolutely satisfied he was hiding something he was lying about something he was attempting to deceive of course know that under Virginia law and as you may know no that's evidence you're not allowed to use it at trial investigators were convinced Hughes had abducted and harmed the beautiful little girl but Tami Brennan tried to keep her hope alive fighting her worst fears Melissa's Christmas presents waited under the tree News 7 has confirmed tonight that the investigation into the disappearance of five year old Melissa Brennan appears to be focusing on one primary suspect police will continue their search efforts and to pursue leads there is now a $10,000 reward for any information concerning Melissa's whereabouts for Tami Brennan and her parents the hours passed agonizing wait for more information Melissa's disappearance electrified the tiny rural community of Lauryn a suburb of Washington DC only five months earlier a ten-year-old rosie gordon have been bike riding in her neighborhood when she was abducted raped and murdered her killer had never been so Rosie's mother quickly came to Tami Brennan supported the yellow ribbons that punctuate trees and balconies at the Woodside apartment complex in wharton have watch Melissa's disappearance was reported on the news the community rush to her solution yellow ribbons began appearing on Christmas trees throughout the area by all indications Tammy was a wonderful mother very loving mother very very protective of her child melissa was her only child and I just think all those facts together struck a chord that virtually anyone could identify with those circumstances and in people's hearts went out to the to the Brandon family [Music] hundreds of people volunteered the post Flyers throughout the region and assist the local authorities in their search a new expert was also brought into the search effort the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sent John go one of their search-and-rescue consultants we are legislated into being as the state clearinghouse for all the information regarding missing persons and we also assist families and law enforcement Congress and liaison between the two working as many cases as we can after debriefing Gould and his partner went directly to the apartment complex Clubhouse just ride out here outside they found adult male footprints leading from the furnace room window to a split rail fence whose top rail had recently been broken we began to find transferences on the other side of the fence into a small parking lot there beside the clubhouse in the parking lot I think it's an abandoned restaurant or some type of building there and that's where the tracks stopped straight through here right from the beginning I found the adult footprints but we never found the child's footprints so we felt comfortable that if that was the abductor we were looking for and we felt pretty comfortable it was that melissa was probably being carried even from out outside the window was being carried by the abductor to the point where she she and the adductor got into the vehicle where would Hughes have taken her detectives received a lucky break when did you know he was wanting to come in she had been somewhat suspicious that he might go somewhere else after work she didn't want him to go anywhere except to work and directly back home and so unbeknownst to him she had made a note of what the mileage was and the following day told us that she had checked the mileage again and the twelve miles had been put on the car we now had to pay another piece of possible information about the extent to which he goes on to heights I first marked the location of the crime this was the apartment complex in southern Fairfax we next located caleb uses residence which was in northern Prince William County roughly in this area we then took a string that was the equivalent of 12 linear miles and tied the two ends of the string together and placed him over the pins so we simply took a pencil and defined that area so that any point at the end of that string represented the outer limits of the search that was conducted on December the 8th [Music] within three days of Melissa Brennan's disappearance investigators had organized a 25 square mile don't search with the Army Police Department Civil Air Patrol and Coast Guard over 500 volunteers turned out for the effort we have a 12 mile radius that we need to cover [Music] we had dozens of search teams that are comprised of trained law enforcement people civilian volunteers and military personnel they were doing step by step searches of defined areas each area had been broken down and was assigned to a team they had specific instructions on how to search if they found anything which they thought might be evidence they were to market not to disturb it and we had teams of crime-scene people who would then respond to that particular location and process the evidence at this point we've not found anything today that puts us any closer than we were this morning the volunteers were frustrated and extremely disappointed I know there were nights when I would go home and my family would have seen a newscast about another day of searching and my own children would say daddy are you are you gonna find that little girl what are you gonna find that little girl and and I think that was a conversation that was occurring in the homes of dozens of investigators and police officers involved in this case [Music] while the search continued Gogan approached the nearby FBI lab with the evidence he had processed from the car because melissa was still missing the FBI's state-of-the-art technology would be critical in establishing the connection between the hair fibers and bloodstains collected an ELISA Brennan [Music] agent Doug Deedrick of the FBI's trace evidence unit would examine the evidence perhaps he could find a link to Melissa Brennan there you have to go to extraordinary measures to try to recreate if at all possible the environment of the victim most recent environment and also the types of hair is that the victim may have the type of clothing of the victim a head may have been wearing the night of the disappearance and that's that's a difficult part as long as Melissa was still missing filing charges against Caleb Hughes was all but impossible unless compelling evidence could be found Diedrich and the lab examiners were impressed by the large number of fibers that had transferred onto the passenger seat of Hughes's car Fairfax County investigators had identified nearly 70 different fibers that included the the blue acrylic fibers the red cotton fibers the black rabbit hairs and and there were I believe one or two head hairs in the case but that's monumental it sounds like a small number that's huge once the FBI entered the case its agents conducted their own investigation of Hughes's house when Caleb uses name was released as the primary and only suspect in the case a media frenzy followed Hughes has not been charged in the case but he is the target of round-the-clock surveillance by the FBI federal investigators working with police from Fairfax County last night executed a search warrant on the grounds keepers rented town house they recovered several items which have been taken to the FBI laboratory to be tested to see if there is any evidence linking this man to Melissa in the meantime the FBI's official comment is no comment the FBI brought the power of a federal grand jury to the investigation the grand jury ordered Hayes to submit to blood and other forensic tests something the local authorities had not been able to work use complained bitterly and interviews that his life had been ruined by the invasion details of a troubled past emerged his grew up in an abusive dysfunctional home he had a record as a juvenile delinquent a long history of drug and alcohol abuse and a disturbing attraction toward children as an adult he had been convicted of larceny he had been convicted of car theft he had been convicted of contributing to delinquency of a minor the evidence indicated that he did spend a lot of time with young children nobody the age of Melissa Brannon but certainly a lot of children in their early teens in the lab FBI examiner's had begun analyzing the stains on the soles of Hughes's shoes the luminol testing had damaged the samples taken from his car they became increasingly convinced that these minut traces contained blood serum proteins that could determine the crucial connection to Melissa the samples were submitted for DNA and serology tests [Music] fifteen days after Melissa's abduction a candlelight vigil for Melissa was held at the apartment complex the little girl's disappearance had United the Fairfax community and compassion and outrage and during that whole Christmas season of 1989 that every night on the 6 o'clock news she saw the video shot that her grandfather had taken of Melissa Brannon and I'm sure I was like many many people in the metropolitan area Washington who felt that they knew her from seeing this lovely child every night on television but shortly after New Year's a judge in the next County received a letter from Hughes his probation officer informing him that Hughes at violated probation for an auto theft conviction two years earlier On January 24th the judge revoked Hughes his probation and he was finally put behind bars the earliest he could be released was November giving the Fairfax County prosecutor ample time to build his case without sufficient evidence to file charges Hughes had remained free but now with Hughes safely put away the FBI had the time needed for the extensive testing required by the trace evidence there was still a chance Melissa's body might be found but without it the case against Hughes would have to be made in the FBI lab [Music] already FBI examiner Doug Deedrick had found his first big break in the case I remembered some black animal hairs in the debris from the front seats of the car and in looking through the little girl's nightshirt I noticed these similar black hairs sticking out of out of the nightshirt just rang a bell I went back mounted those up on slides and compared them sure enough diet rabbit hair and they matched each other the rabbit hairs from Hughes's car and those found on Melissa's nightgown both revealed a distinctive corncob texturing an exact microscopic match agent Diedrich immediately called the prosecutor to determine whether Tami Brennan owned a rabbit fur coat not only was it confirmed that Tammi Brannan owned a rabbit fur coat she had worn it to the Christmas party her mother had bought it in Germany and it was died an extremely rare bluish black color almost unknown in the United States Melissa had handled the coat of the party and at home Diedrich had made the crucial connection between Melissa and the car of Caleb Hughes you not only you tied those rabbit hairs you tied that match not only to the fur coat of her mother and you tied it to the front seat of the car but you also tied it to the child's environment itself they rabbit here son on the shirt of the child to me that was a significant point in the case because then it starts pushing me in the direction of we might have something and from there was a matter of digging some more see if I couldn't find some additional fibers that may be of value so I started digging a little bit more certain look a little closer asking questions of myself asking questions of the evidence because it's speaking strange but it's speaking to me as week after week past Melissa's name eventually disappeared from the news life in Fairfax County had returned to normal but Tammy Brennan was still no closer to finding her child [Music] it's tremendously difficult for the family to come to terms with everything that that has gone on to come to terms with we're still trying to hold on that glimmer of hope that their child's alive and in the realization that in all likelihood you know they may never find their child alive or may never find the body of their child even if they've been murdered Tammy was forced to face the reality that by now there was almost no chance Melissa could still be alive we wanted to close this case and and not just close the case in the sense of identifying and prosecuting a suspect but we wanted to bring real closure to the case in answering the question what happened to Melissa Brandon that night why did it happen such questions plagued Tammy Brandon depressed and unable to work she remained secluded in her apartment wait agent Diedrich had examined the blue acrylic and red cotton fibers in the passenger seat evidence collected by jim Gogan at first glance they appeared to match descriptions he had been given of the red tights and Big Bird sweater melisa wore that night but without a duplicate outfit to make an exact fiber comparison he was at a dead end as I went home spoke to my wife of course she straightened me out right away that if it had a big bird on and it wasn't Winnie the Pooh and it had to be sold to JC Penney's having young kids in my own about the same age Diedrich asked his wife if she kept any old JCPenney catalogs in the house from the last few years she said she knew she had a Christmas catalog Diedrich was astonished to find a picture of an outfit that exactly matched the description of that worn by melissa the FBI contacted JC Penney and the store began a search of its records for more than two months Tami Brennan had anxiously waited by the phone for some kind of information or word about her daughter then completely unexpectedly she received a phone calls a man's voice told her he was holding a mistletoe ransom and that she must deliver seventy-five thousand dollars the next day or her little girl would be seriously hurt had Melissa been found the national statistics will tell you that a child who's abducted by strangers really did it in three hours of the abduction so the likelihood of Melissa being live months after the abduction extremely slim Tammy immediately called her mother but detective Wilden cautioned them not to let their hopes get too high no don't don't call anyone I'll tell you all about it just come over right now once again Melissa Brennan was about to become front-page news detective Wilden had instructed Tami Brennan to cooperate if a ransom demands in the hopes of daughter would be recovered alive as extortion falls under federal guidelines the FBI coordinates at a ransom drop the FBI SWAT team was ready when two young men showed up in the parking lot to pick up the money [Music] but did they have an ELISA in their possession the information provided in the ransom call was so vague and so generalized it's entirely possible that the person who called may have picked up that information simply by watching the news or reading the newspaper usually if there's a ransom demand that is legitimate they're going to have very specific information that would be known only to the abductor and probably some of the investigators the two arrested users were famous students and roommates from the nearby University who had seen an opportunity to make some easy money out of Tammy Brennan's tragedy they were convicted of five counts including conspiracy and extortion in the United States District Court in Alexandria Virginia turned out to be injustice terrible hoax I mean just terrible the notion that you would do that deliberately to the mother who was going through what she was going through there were copious amounts of dog hairs in the tape samples collected by Fairfax County crime-scene investigator Jim Goggan as well as dozens of human hairs the FBI lab examiner's separated and painstakingly subjected each one to testing finally a hair was found that was different from the others the hair was a very light blonde the only one of its type found in the vehicle but it was an exact match with the hairs found in Melissa's hairbrush matching the human hair with Melissa was the second big match for Diedrich but the critical link of Melissa's clothes to the fibers from users car was incomplete without a duplicate Big Bird outfit to analyze because it had been a special Christmas outfit produced only once it could not be found in stock JC Penney gave the FBI a list of people who would purchase the outfit from its catalogue division they then sent FBI agents out across the country to locate those people and determine if they still had the big bird outfit that they had bought from the JC Penney catalog and ultimately they were able to locate a sample outfit from a family that still had the outfit obtaining the outfit could mean the difference between conviction and acquittal in the case the FBI asked the family traced through the JCPenney records to send it to their crime lab well I remember that day pretty clearly I knew the outfit was coming in the fiber color according to the color and the catalog was navy blue but the fibers that I was finding were sort of purplish blue I was a little anxious that maybe this wasn't the same outfit that maybe we were going the wrong direction so when that package came I was again and uncomfortable with even opening it because I have what I thought I had was on the right track but I didn't I didn't want to be wrong open up the box and sure enough it had a purplish coloration to it so it kind of gave me a nice warm fuzzy feeling there that I might have the right color anyway fibers were pulled from the red cotton skirt and the blue acrylic sweater a thorough analysis of the fibers from the outfit indicated an identical match with the fibers from Hughes's car from the red cotton threads to the blue acrylic yarns to the yellow cross threads from the plaid skirt the duplicate Big Bird outfit matched in every respect with the car fibers what I was finding was meaningful evidence that an abduction had taken place and in fact the victim in all likelihood had been in the front seat of the subjects car with the new evidence the prosecution could now piece together the actions of Caleb Hughes on the night Melissa disappeared at the party he was had tried to pick up several adult women but when they rejected him he sought a substitute fueled by frustration and alcohol Caleb use became a desperate predator with a perverse desire his stalking eye fell upon the children he waited and watched until an opportunity presented itself well it did Caleb you seized an innocent and trusting child hey listen remember me commit by abducting Melissa Brennan Hughes across the boundary into the unspeakable we're gonna [Music] you should catch up Peter [Music] [Music] the analysis of the duplicate Big Bird outfit produced compelling evidence it would be a powerful tool in the case against a man who investigators felt was a ruthless child molester and murderer but agent Diedrich had to convince the jury how incredibly unlikely it would be that these fibers had come from any source other than Melissa's outfit he began asking people at the FBI to give him any items they may have made of navy blue clothes he collected more than objective was to see do the fibers that I found the front seat of Cal Hughes card do they match any of these the answer was no from the items Diedrich collected 126 different acrylic fibers he made seven thousand nine hundred and eighty-three comparison tests with those fibers against the ones found in Hughes's car out of almost 8,000 tests only one succeeded in making an exact microscopic match with the blue acrylic fibers found in users car and that was the duplicate Big Bird outfit whenever you match two things it has a lot of significance these aren't random events these in most cases occur is it possible they can't deny the possibility that it could be a coincidence they after looking at this stuff for a lot of years I'm not a big believer in coincidence three weeks before the trial was scheduled to begin as investigators made final preparations for the case a stunning development occurred they received a phone call two counties away police had just found the body of a child on the median strip of interstate 95 I call Wilden Leanne in his car and there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that that's that was going to be it because huge new that area spent time down in that area this has been beer that section of medium and i-95 is wide and densely wooded it would have been easy for use to pull over hide the body among the thick vegetation and drive off unnoticed and there would be little chance of someone finding the remains but someone found the body was it Melissa's if it was Melissa Brandon's body in the highway meeting Fairfax County Commonwealth attorney Robert Iran felt he could put Hughes behind bars on murder warrant charges his hopes were high but they were soon dashed as soon as we got there as soon as I saw it I knew it wasn't Melissa Brannon put the skeleton had rings on three fingers but it was a young girl she's 13 12 13 14 year old who had been in that media for two growing seasons the young girl's body was never identified finally nearly one year after Melissa's disappearance Hughes was arrested on a grand jury indictment for abducting Melissa Brennan he was transferred from the Prince William County Jail to the Fairfax County Jail Iran had delayed the indictment for several months in the hope that Melissa's body would be found by then [Music] I know we were all pretty satisfied that the worst had happened to child unfortunately under Virginia law you can charge somebody with murder without the body but you have to be able to prove where the murder occurred and of course without the body in this case we had no way of proving where it occurred so we couldn't charge him with murder abduction with intent to defile was the strongest case that could be brought against him Hughes pleaded not guilty few people in Fairfax County believe that Melissa could still be alive but everyone most of all Tami Brennan needed to know what had happened and needed to see justice served because it's tremendously important that the family of that child had definitive answers that they know what happened to their child even if the news is not plays they need to understand exactly with concrete information what happened to the child they need to be able to have closure they need to be able to to give that child the burial that they deserve and go on with their lives with agent Diedrichs airtight analysis into trace evidence Robert Iran went into the trial confident that he could convince the jury beyond reasonable doubt the trial began on February 26 1991 the chief part of Iran's strategy is depicting Hughes deviant sexual behavior at the party he produced several female witnesses who recall the crude vulgar sexual propositions he had made to him and others who testified he had spent considerable time playing with Melissa and had been talking to her just before she disappeared [Music] his behavior was even more extreme trying to eliminate the evidence washing his clothes his leather belt his shoes he could not account for the fresh cuts on the soles of his shoes nor could he account for his whereabouts for the two and a half hours between leaving the party and arriving home but the problem for the defense is somehow you had to explain that time and there was never an explanation I mean he would have done it our case our case is over if you can explain any of that time though tests for blood on the shoes that proved inconclusive the prosecution was now able to show the jury the exact matches made between the rabbit hairs the head hair and the fibers found at Hughes's car nonetheless the defense argued that all of the fiber and hair evidence was purely circumstantial it may be circumstantial but it is powerful certain Stan's real evidence because it doesn't change [Music] in order to obtain the maximum sentence for Ernest moran needed to convince the jury that hughes had intended to defile melissa once he had her in his car and the only way the fibers from her outfit would have been found on the seat is that her car her coat had been removed while she was in that car the prosecution charged that Hughes would only have removed Melissa's coat from one purpose an attempt to defile the true answer is that that five year old was seated against her will in the front seat of that vehicle caleb uses trial lasted eight days after nine hours of deliberation the jury found him guilty of abducting melissa brennan with intent to defile he was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the family members it can't end because of the eternal hope if you will that some that this child it's never been seen never been found this child someday will appear and that's that's hard stuff at his hardest Kalib use is still serving his sentence today and the body of Melissa Brennan has never been found eventually Tami Brennan moved from the inside apartment complex which he never changed the telephone number that Melissa had memorized by heart hoping that one day [Music] [Applause] you [Music]

Channel: Real Crime

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Keywords: Melissa Brannen, best documentaries on youtube, crime documentary channel, documentary movies - topic, fbi documentary, forensic, forensic documentary, full documentary 2022, full length documentary 2022, hd crime documentary, hd documentary, murder documentary, pedophile Caleb Hughes, real crime, the FBI Files S1 EP11, the fbi files, the fbi files full episodes, the fbi files season 1, true crime, true crime documentary, true crime documentary usa

Id: oh20WuQkG-c

Length: 52min 39sec (3159 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 30 2020