The Impossible Cold Case Closed By A Beer Bottle | The New Detectives | Real Responders

[Music] after tapping all their resources investigators are unable to link the killer to his crime will six beer bottles make a case [Music] a woman is pulled from her watery grave the only witnesses have taken wing detectives must use an empty cocoon to catch a murderer a shrewd serial poisoner stays one step ahead of the law to stop him investigators need to rouse a confession from a graveyard of deleted computer files police rarely have the benefit of smoking guns or bloody fingerprints to solve crimes after the obvious leads grow cold detectives with an eye for detail can use science to probe the most unlikely sources [Music] [Music] november 1996 friday the 13th a man and his dog took their usual morning stroll past the soccer fields at the ymca in columbia south carolina but on this day something stopped them in their tracks what he thought was a childish prank turned out to be frighteningly real face down in the grass lay the motionless body of a woman her hair was covered with blood authorities confirmed that the woman was dead shot several times in the head at close range using her body temperature as a gauge they estimated that she had died just hours before sometime between three and four that morning investigators scoured the grass not knowing what might yield a clue they photographed and collected all the litter found around the body the shoulder pad from a woman's blouse might have been ripped out during the struggle an empty purse pointed to robbery as the motive two empty beer bottles could hold at killer's fingerprints it was too soon to tell expanding their search police found evidence of more immediate value three shell casings and two spent slugs this told investigators that the woman had been shot at this location not simply dumped here also it gave them the basis for a ballistics comparison but first they'd need a suspect and before they could find one they'd need to know who the victim was the body was brought to richland memorial hospital where she was identified from fingerprints as 30-year-old virginia russell she'd had a police record for driving while intoxicated [Music] back in the lab the forensics case was at a standstill technicians could find no physical link to the killer the shoulder pad was a dead end the fingerprints on the beer bottles were too smeared to identify the body was lacking any foreign hairs fibers or other samples that might link a suspect to the crime sergeant detectives turned to friends and family in talking to the victim's aunt investigators learned that the hospital where her body now lay was actually the last place virginia was seen alive she had spent the last night of her life visiting her cousin's sick baby relatives were pleased to see that after a struggle with alcoholism virginia russell was turning her life around since taking a new job at a nighttime cleaning service her wallet was always filled with cash this made detectives speculate about robbery as a motive do you recall how much money no wallet had yet been found what they probed for more information the ant remembered russell's beeper going off [Music] when russell returned the page she was overheard taking directions to an address in the neighborhood of olympia [Music] but russell wasn't heading out to clean an office nor was that the line of work that paid her bills as another family member conceded to police virginia russell was a call girl working for an escort service the job put her in the company of any number of shadowy characters most of whom concealed their identities [Music] with such a suspect list the case would be challenging if not impossible to solve but police caught a break the day after the body was discovered they found her car in a parking lot in olympia there was blood on the console in the back seat inside its carrier was a single bottle of nickelo blight the same brand found near her body the car was towed to the police lab where technicians searched for fingerprints hair and fiber they found nothing they took blood samples from the dashboard it matched the victim's blood type russell must have been shot at least once while in the car detectives had come a step closer to piecing together the actual crime but they were nowhere in their manhunt when sergeant andrew caldwell of the richland county sheriff's office learned about the murder he suspected that it wasn't an isolated incident he was puzzling over a rape case at the time and wondered if the same brutal individual could be responsible for both crimes his theory was based on more than a hundred process one of the major similarities were both were employed by escort services as call girls uh as well as the location of virginia russell's car virginia russell's vehicle was found within eyesight of the apartment where the sexual assault had occurred earlier if caldwell could solve the rape case he might catch a killer in the process on the evening of november 10th three days before virginia russell's death a 20 year old call girl was dropped off in olympia by a driver from the service she was to meet a man who said his name was daniel davis the man attacked her almost immediately if she wanted to live he told her she'd have to comply with his every whim he dragged her to the bedroom and sexually assaulted her after the attack he emptied the young woman's wallet and threw her out of the house [Music] as she wandered dazed into the neighborhood her assailant drove away she got one last look at his face before calling for help [Music] daniel davis was a fake name the apartment investigators learned was rented to a man named roy becht jr who matched the description the victim gave police his was a familiar name around the department a series of burglaries had kept him in and out of trouble since his teenage years from a computerized database investigator randy strange compiled a group of images from a library of mugshots by bringing up the specifics of the suspect as far as age race height hair color the computer automatically gives us possible candidates that match the suspect like roy beck all of the men were in their mid-20s around 5-5 with dark hair from that lineup the victim identified roy beck jr as her attacker officers went to beck's apartment to arrest him for the attack on the call girl but he was one step ahead of them they found the place abandoned and in disarray [Music] the power had been turned on beer bottles and other garbage were strewn on the floor armed with a search warrant investigators combed through the mess looking for clues linking back to the rape they found ammunition for various guns detectives thought they had found a positive link between beck and the murder of virginia russell but none of the ammunition matched the fatal bullets investigators directed their energy into finding back to get their hands on him they set up a sting they obtained an arrest warrant for the sexual assault then contacted beck's old girlfriend we were able to persuade her into helping us find him she paged him and he returned the page and asked for her to come pick him up in an apartment complex in town [Applause] when beck emerged from his hideout to meet her he was arrested and brought to the station for questioning in the meantime detectives went upstairs to the apartment where beck had been hiding out the apartment belonged to beck's friend richard bullard consented to a search and pointed investigators to a loaded gun on the sofa that wasn't the only weapon they found we were able to locate a large rambo style hunting knife which was described by our rape victim and used in that crime as well as a phone book in beck's room that he was using with various escort services underlined and highlighted the gun knife and a pair of boots were collected and brought to the lab where the first solid links to virginia russell's murder were forged ballistics proved that the gun found in bullard's apartment was used to kill russell the boots had blood on them consistent with the victim's type with the evidence mounting against him it seemed impossible that beck could dodge a murder conviction but he did his best to wriggle out of it by laying the blame on his friend richard boulliard the gun was in fact registered to bullyard and beck argued the boots belonged to him too investigators couldn't deny that all the evidence was found in bull yards not beck's apartment investigators were at an impasse the rape victim's testimony had established beck's violent pattern of call girl solicitation and robbery but that evidence was circumstantial at best without tangible clues investigators had no way of proving beyond reasonable doubt that beck had ever been with russell or that he and not bullyard had fired the gun with the case crumbling before their eyes detectives had to gamble on a long shot the only physical evidence that connected roy beck virginia russell and virginia russell's car was six michelobe light beer bottles investigators had found two empty bottles next to the body three empty bottles in roybeck's abandoned apartment and one unopened bottle in the victim's car if they could be shown to have come from the same six-pack it would prove that beck had been with russell that night but without usable fingerprints linking the beer bottle seemed impossible anheuser-busch distributes almost 200 million bottles of michelob light each year finding a connection between the six bottles seemed remote without it roy beck would go free to tie a murderer to his crime detectives in south carolina had the improbable task of proving that six bottles of beer came from the same six-pack for help they turned to the anheuser-busch bottling plant in williamsburg virginia in turn mark landers manager of quality assurance relied on a coding system the company had adopted just that year the coding question was 17 october 96. and the other four characters were wf-58 the first part of the code showed that the beer was bottled on october 17 1996. the w stood for the williamsburg plant and the f indicated a particular line within the system the final part of the code 58 specified that the beer was bottled during the 58th 15-minute increment on that day as the bottles are packaged and labeled they are placed in six-pack carriers and in a case all the bottles produced during the 15-minute time period will contain the same exact code in lander's expert opinion the beer bottles in beck's house had come from the same carrying case as the bottles found near the victim it was an irrefutable argument that locked back to his crime sought as a last-ditch effort the beer bottles enabled detectives to piece together virginia russell's final hours with beck after leaving the hospital her escort service sent her to beck's home where they drank the first three beers from the six-pack police surmised that when virginia stepped out of the room beck discovered the stash of money in her purse police theorized that they grabbed the beer and drove to a soccer field where they drank the fourth and fifth bottles at some point beck decided that robbing his victim wasn't enough he wanted to kill her he shot her in the head dragged her out of the car and shot her twice more he then drove away abandoning her car within walking distance of his apartment he left behind the final unopened beer and with it the clue that experts needed to link him to the crime i remember during the testimony beck's defense attorney listening to this testimony putting his head in his hands and shaking as if he didn't know how to recover from this very damaging testimony that was occurring and it was at that point i really felt good about the case and knew that we had back and he would probably be convicted by paying strict attention to the most banal of clues detectives made sure that beck would pay for his crime he was sentenced to life in prison sometimes it's not the evidence that's so improbable but rather the unlikely way in which it's found in western michigan the cool brisk current of the muskegon river is a popular summer attraction for canoers fishermen and innertubers but in june of 1989 its peaceful waters divulged a violent secret two recreational divers were scavenging the river bottom for something treasure dropped motors lost fishing tackle old anchors a flash of metal told them they were onto something big bigger than they thought it was a red car belly up in a 15 foot indentation and there was something floating inside it peering through the windows the divers saw the bloated figure of a human body they contacted the police as the car was removed from the water authorities and spectators could only wonder at the identity of the body inside how the car had gotten into the water and for how long the river had concealed this dismal grave a fully clothed woman was removed from the car despite having been submerged in water the remains were well preserved [Music] investigators searched the body and the vehicle for identification but all they found was mud insect larvae and cocoons the body was taken to the medical examiner's office in the meantime investigators searched the area trying to figure out how the car got into the river the vehicle had little body damage the nearby overpass showed no indication of a car accident galen brookins the chief of police from nearby fremont looked for other points of entry one of the theories that we had entertained was that it was possible for motor vehicles to come down this trail which other vehicles obviously had and to end up in the river at this point in a very straight trajectory the strong current had carried the car to the other side of the pilings where it finally settled in a deep ditch because the car had landed in a deep ditch it was impossible to see it from the surface detectives hoped that the autopsy would disclose the secrets that the river had kept hidden the medical examiner had two tasks to help identify the body and to find out how she died dental x-rays and fingerprints were taken in the hopes of giving a name to this jane doe head wounds pointed to the cause of death this woman didn't die in a car accident she had been struck at least six times with a hard blunt object the medical examiner could also determine that she was dead before she went into the river someone had tried to conceal her body by pushing her vehicle into the murky depths while the autopsy was being performed police ran a search on the vehicle identification number they learned that the car belonged to david smith a nursing home employee who lived not far from the muskegon river the discovery of the car and disclosure of david smith's name raised eyebrows at the nearby fremont police department nine months earlier on october 2nd smith had paid a visit to the station he came to report his wife missing at the time police suspected nothing more than a typical domestic dispute and a spouse who was blowing off some steam he and his wife had had a disagreement and she had left on friday evening september 30th and that he had not seen her since that time smith told police that his five-year marriage to hai yan a korean national had turned sour after their latest screaming match she threw a plate at him then climbed into her car and drove off after the officer interviewed him he had indicated that he should take and contact relatives and friends and try to determine if any of them had heard from her and then report back to our department but months passed without any follow-up from david smith nor any sign of the missing woman or her car they were surprised at what they found police learned from interviews with friends and family that smith was hardly acting like a grieving spouse just four days after reporting his wife missing he had filed for divorce he'd been actively dating since and wasted no time in pawning high yan's jewelry clearly smith didn't expect to hear from high yan ever again though his behavior was suspicious it was not illegal the situation had all the ingredients of a homicide except there was no body police were determined to find high yan dead or alive in february 1989 four months before the body was recovered brookins turned to the michigan state police for help state police worked the phones contacting friends of the missing woman in the u.s and korea no one had seen or heard from her since september now missing for five months investigators were losing hope that high yan would ever surface as he proceeded with telephone interviews detective richard miller of the state police uncovered a lie though david smith told law enforcement that he had heard nothing from high yan he told several friends a different story mr smith had made statements during her absence that he knew she was alive and well that she had contacted some mutual friends in other parties but investigators found no one to confirm smith's story and he refused to take a lie detector test then five months later on the night of june 23rd the suspect's car was pulled from the muskegon river with a dead woman in it the waiting was finally over [Music] having found the body detectives secured a search warrant for david smith's home which he now shared with his new girlfriend technicians scoured the house searching for the tiniest shred of evidence that might tell them whether a crime had happened here the odds of finding anything were slim but it had been almost a year since haiyan's disappearance and there was no guarantee that this was even the scene of the crime investigators used an alternative light source to search for clues a killer wouldn't think to clean up this searchlight penetrates paint layers making it easy to find the remnants of blood the beam highlighted some smears on a kitchen wall and below them police found what they were looking for behind the freezer my new traces of blood splatter stained the wall the crime lab personnel further expanded their search in the immediate area and by removing the molding along the wall we discovered a large area of contamination from human blood they believed this to be the scene of attack from the pattern of the blood spatters investigators were able to corroborate the medical examiner's findings someone had been beaten numerous times with a blunt object from the amount of blood under the floor it was likely that the person had been fatally wounded but detectives faced a big problem they were able to eliminate david as the source of the blood but there were no records of high yan's blood type she had been in the water too long to determine it from her remains dna tests at the time also were not sensitive enough to be of use someone had been severely beaten in this kitchen but detectives couldn't yet make an airtight case for murder to arrest smith investigators needed some hard evidence to link him to high ian's murder in order to nail their suspect police hope to trap smith in his own lies he had told several people that he knew haiyan was alive as of january if police could prove that she'd been in the water prior to them they'd be able to prove that smith had intentionally concealed the crime but they had a major obstacle to overcome we were able to show cause a man or death but we were not able to determine by her state of preservation exactly when she died miller had an idea he remembered that when the car was fished from the water cocoons had been removed from the windshield and fender he knew that insects are helpful in determining time of death on land could they do the same in the water in order to tie david smith to his wife's death detectives in western michigan needed to determine how long her body had been in the river their only clue was a cocoon police turned to forensic entomologist richard merritt to see if he could learn anything from this unlikely witness well when i received the specimens from detective miller i saw that they were black flies and black flies are a group that i've been working on for the past 20 years so i knew right away that uh there was something there that i could identify and probably give some more information that they didn't have on the case merit would rely on his knowledge of the black flies life cycle to calculate when the car hit the water like all insects the black fly goes through four life stages the first stage is the egg black flies in the muskegon river hatch in november or december then turn into worm-like larvae the larval blackflies remain in that stage and grow during the winter in the river on any substrates that they can attach to could be leaves could be rocks or in this case it was a car in april or may the larvae entered the pupil stage [Music] they built cocoons around themselves and remained dormant until late may or early june when they emerge as adult flies to start the life cycle over again the presence of cocoons on high ian's car told merit that the vehicle had to have entered the water no later than november for that particular species to be found on the car in late june as it was the immature stage had to occur for the entire winter on the car in the river otherwise you would not have had that particular species merits findings proved to detective miller that david smith had completely fabricated the stories about his wife's whereabouts since her disappearance he'd said she was seen in january the cocoon said she'd been in the water since november mr smith had told co-workers and others that he knew his wife was alive and that she had contact with various people across the nation the doctor merits studies of the black fly larva and the various stages we found on the vehicle proved positively that was simply not true that she was immersed within the waters of the muskegon river the insects proved that smith was lying no doubt to cover his tracks and apparently his weren't the only set when news of the murder investigation came out a co-worker told police that a month before high ian's disappearance david had been trying to find a hitman police subpoenaed smith's phone records in september there was an unusually high number of calls to two numbers in pittsburgh one was the dry cleaning plant where his father worked the other was traced to the home of one of the father's co-workers kenny lamont vladimir when investigators confronted vladimir with the evidence heaping against his acquaintance david smith vladimir crumble he told police that smith had offered him five thousand dollars to kill his wife by the time he'd hired vladimir smith's marriage was a wreck but he was already paying alimony to a first wife and didn't want another liability he hired vladimir to kill the victim with a dose of bad heroin [Music] but the plan didn't work so smith beat her to death with a wooden statue smith and vladimir then put her into a car and pushed it into the river thanks to the unlikely testimony of a vacant cocoon smith was arrested in december of 1989 a jury found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to 15 to 20 years in prison for their parts in the murder and conspiracy kenny lamont vladimir received 20 to 60 years and smith's father got three and a half to five the improbable testimony of the black fly foiled david smith's plot to cover up the murder of his wife in dana point california detectives would rely on more improbable evidence to link a killer to his actions for years 46-year-old janet overton a public official had suffered from declining health though dizzy and weak she was determined not to let illness keep her down on a january morning in 1988 she looked forward to a family outing on the pacific ocean she never made it past the driveway janet's husband richard summoned paramedics but janet was beyond help within hours she was dead the autopsy that followed could do nothing to shed light on the cause of janet overton's death a routine scan of her blood and tissues was performed in order to find commonly used substances it eliminated all conventional over-the-counter or prescription drugs as having contributed to her death her strange illness seemed to be as much of a mystery in death as it had been in life for four years overton suffered from weight loss stomach aches tingling in her fingers and a rust-colored rash none of the specialists could make a diagnosis despite extensive testing for viral infections allergies bacterial problems anything that could explain the strange illness toxicologist paul sedgwick was called in they were completely baffled they checked right and left there are stacks of records a couple feet high and from whatever i can see they never did find a specific cause for any of the symptoms that they found all they knew was that janet overton had been ravaged from the inside out after her death blood and tissue samples were put into storage at the coroner's office the body was cremated her death might have remained a medical curiosity but then a tip phoned into lieutenant tim carney of the orange county sheriff's department turned it into a homicide investigation six months after janet overton's demise richard overton's first wife dorothy told officers to take a good look at her ex-husband's past her daughter had made an odd discovery while visiting overton's home while going through some of richard's things she found a syringe rubber gloves and a tube of mascara she reported them to her mother who contacted the police kearney dug through 20 years of records to uncover the overton's family secret dorothy boyer told us that after her divorce from her husband around 1967 that there was a series of years where she suspected her husband had been poisoning her like the second mrs overton dorothy's health declined between 1967 and 1973 she would become violently ill without explanation she was dizzy a mouth tasted of metal one day she noticed a strong sulphuric smell coming from her shampoo the same odor emanated from some of her food she began to suspect that richard who had access to her house even after their divorce was trying to kill her to find out for sure she laid a trap with the help of the sheriff's department richard overton's first wife dorothy devised a plan to see if he was poisoning her she cleaned a new coffee can with rubbing alcohol then marked the lid so that she would know if it had been tampered with the rest would be up to richard [Music] after three days she discovered that someone had opened the lid [Music] fingerprints lifted from the can were compared to richards taken when he applied for a municipal job [Music] they matched without his ex-wife's permission richard overton had snuck into her house gone into the cupboards and mixed some reddish powder into her coffee [Music] when the contents were tested investigators discovered a strong smelling mineral called selenium selenium is an element which in small amounts is necessary for good nutrition and health in large amounts it's poisonous richard was brought in for questioning he initially denied having poisoned dorothy but confronted with the evidence he confessed dorothy agreed to drop the charges so long as richard stayed out of her life now 20 years later richard overton faced another round of questions regarding the poisoning of his second wife janet but before detectives could go after him they needed to find out if selenium poisoning had contributed to the death of janet overton on paper the two mrs overtons seem to have suffered from the same undiagnosed ailment according to lieutenant carney it looked like history was repeating itself what we looked at was comparing dorothy boyer's 1970 late 60s early 70s medical history from doctors along with janet overton's medical history in the 1980s and what we saw was almost a mirror copy of symptomology of classic heavy metal poisoning dorothy boyer and now police wondered if the mascara richard's daughter found in his home contained selenium in one simple test for selenium the question sample is dissolved in a test tube [Music] hydrochloric acid and other chemicals are added if the solution turns red that indicates that selenium is present [Music] tests on the mascara showed it contains selenium detectives contacted the mascara manufacturer selenium they learned is not an ingredient in any of their cosmetics if it was found in the product it had to have been added after it was purchased if high quantities of the mineral could also be detected in samples from the victim's body investigators would have a solid foundation in their case against richard overton to investigators dismay no abnormal amount of selenium was found in any of the victim's tissue samples the investigation halted in its tracks but it wouldn't be shut down for long thanks to a lucky discovery in the lab from the open vial of janet overton stomach contents sedgwick was overpowered by the smell of bitter almonds the signature of a far deadlier poison than selenium and i knew instantly that there was cyanide from even two feet away only 50 percent of the population are genetically predisposed to smell cyanide and because the original testing was done under a fuming hood the smell was easy to miss had it not been for sedgwick's chance discovery it's likely that the cyanide would have stayed hidden forever we didn't detect cyanide initially because it's one of the least com one of the less common compounds that we see it requires special testing and is not in the general screens that are initially called for [Music] sedgwick determined that janet overton's blood brain and stomach samples contained cyanide even a small dose of the white powder can be lethal one year after janet overton's demise her cause of death was ruled acute cyanide poisoning to detective carney richard overton appeared to be the most likely suspect but poisoning cases are notoriously hard to solve forensics can be used to identify the deadly toxin but are of little help in tying the poisoner to the body lieutenant carney knew that he had an uphill battle proving a poison case can be difficult when time goes by you still need to look at the aspects of the investigation which include not only physical evidence and we're talking about years of of poisoning here and also you have to look at motive and opportunity and so far investigators had found neither it was true that richard overton had a history of tampering but in person he hardly seemed the murderous sword he was a bright accomplished man who had nothing to gain from his wife's death there was no financial motive janet's life insurance policy had been paid out to her son nor was there a history of violence the 15-year marriage was loving and supportive richard said at first detectives didn't let on that they knew about his attempts to poison his first wife they simply asked richard who might have tried to poison janet he mentioned that his wife had enemies stemming back to her involvement in local politics janet had also struggled with depression he couldn't rule out the possibility that she had killed herself then five hours into the interview police dropped the bombshell i confronted him with the 1973 investigation where he poisoned his former wife he denied that to me until i showed him the documentation of the report challenged by his shady past overton abruptly ended the conversation and refused to contribute any further to the investigation detectives had caught overton in a bold-faced lie during an interview with a business associate mel hubbard they caught him in another overton had told detectives that he had no access to cyanide hubbard told a conflicting story mr hubbard informed us that in fact he does use cyanide and the extraction of gold and silver from ore samples in his mining operations and he keeps cyanide at on hand at his residence mr hubbard also informed me that richard had keys to his residence and would care for his home when hubbard was away during his mining operations discovering that richard had had access to cyanide was like putting him in the same room with the murder weapon to place that weapon firmly in his grip detectives would need to find motive without it they'd have little chance of getting this case to court and even less of a chance of a conviction armed with a search warrant sheriffs descended on the suspect's home they seized richard's diaries along with his computer and 131 diskettes richard's children had told investigators that he kept a voluminous diary first he'd write notes longhand and then he'd type more detailed versions into his computer finding some confession in the suspect's own words would be detectives last chance at making their case careful inspection showed that some of the writing had been manipulated [Music] entries had been whited out the page corresponding to the date of janet's death had been removed by using an ultraviolet light to see through the white house investigators learned that richard suspected janet of having an affair there was the possible motive but investigators needed more to prove it detectives hoped to find answers in richard's computer files they spent hours scouring the hard drive and opening diskette after diskette but they came up empty-handed it seemed that richard had erased or written over almost all of his electronic diary but then detectives noticed something strange at the bottom of one of the documents were a few jumbled lines of text and in the text were phrases that suggested diary entries perhaps the data wasn't gone after all but how to retrieve it from the computer detectives in orange county california believe that richard overton's computer would tie him to the poisoning death of his wife janet but overton had erased his hard drive and diskettes data retrieval experts were called in to launch the first forensic computer probe in orange county history though overton had cleansed files computer experts like william riddle knew that there was a good chance the information was still on the computer what most people don't know is that once you delete a file off a computer or disk and the information that was in the file actually are still there on the computer it's just that the computer has turned a small flag or a character and has told the table of contents section of the computer that this space is now available for storage so something can be overwritten in this space inside a computer media is stored in files as magnetic information sometimes that information overlaps the process is like typing and retyping over the same sheet of paper riddle began his work by copying all of overton's computer files this way he wouldn't risk losing the data for good during his investigation [Music] he installed a specialized computer program on their systems then set about the grueling process of opening files one at a time the program removes layers of text leaving behind bits and pieces of documents that were once stored there it took hundreds of hours to expose the raw unformatted tangle of text but that was only the beginning [Music] using the handwritten diary as a reference technicians then sorted through the files piecing together richard overton's diary word by word from the jumble technicians were finally able to reassemble richard overton's secret diary and with it his intention to kill his wife the recovery of overton's damning words would prove to be a turning point in the case though the suspect had proclaimed that he and the victim had a loving marriage his own words pulled from electronic oblivion would prove otherwise in fact there was a point in the discs where richard overton stated that his love-hate relationship for his wife had turned purely to hate and that something was going to happen very soon this was just a few short days before her death on january 24th investigators surmised that richard was angry about his wife's infidelity and resentful that she'd achieved political success without a formal education as he had done with his first wife he added selenium to his wife's beauty products and food to set up a long-term illness at some point he'd stopped giving her the selenium and it cleared from her body then he administered a single lethal dose of cyanide to kill her he thought that no one would ever be able to catch him and he was nearly right had it not been for his own writings detectives would have had only their suspicions after years of investigation they now had both motive and opportunity the information retrieved from the computer disks convinced the jury that richard overton had plotted for years to kill his wife after only six hours of deliberation they found him guilty of first-degree murder he was sentenced to life in prison without parole even in the wasteland of computer files beer bottles and insect cocoons a keen investigator can find a murder conviction the most pivotal clues are sometimes waiting to be uncovered from the most unlikely sources [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 375,481

Keywords: bombs, bomb, bomb disposal, mail explosive, explosive disposal, 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, true crime garage, true crime asmr, serial killers podcast, crime documentary murders, true crime daily 2020, the new detectives season 4, true crime youtubers, new detectives documentary

Id: vjbp63VP_GM

Length: 53min 0sec (3180 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 07 2020