The True Story Behind Netflix's Mind Hunter | The New Detectives | Real Responders

[Music] investigators are on the trail of a serial killer who is leaving behind a series of almost invisible clues [Music] in Maine police depend on a few paltry fibers to sew up a case against a deadly rapist the evidence is in hand but they have nothing to compare it against Florida investigators confront a fast car a fatal accident an unlikely story and forensic scientists used fibers from the crash scene to find out what really happened tiny filaments practically invisible to the naked eye are the key to solving these crimes in the lab scientists can weave the truth from the shreds of evidence [Music] [Music] in 1981 a peaceful hike in the suburbs of Atlanta Georgia ended with a grim discovery the body of a young man was lying at the edge of a field for Atlanta police it was the kind of scene that was becoming all too familiar for 21 months more than two dozen bodies had turned up in fields empty lots and less traveled roads the victims were young african-american males some were children most were strangled at first the crimes were investigated routinely but as the murder count climbed it became clear a serial killer was on the loose he would leave few clues in his deadly wake parents of the victims demanded answers and as more bodies turned up police assembled a task force to find a link among the murders and to trace every clue but the murders continued lawmen from the surrounding area joined citizens even psychics in the search for victims and their killer a reward fund reached $100,000 but no one came forward to claim it racial tensions grew as panic gripped this southern city assuming the crimes were racially motivated police looked for a white male and the outcry for justice in the african-american community grew deafening as the death toll climbed past 20 investigators hoped it was only a matter of time before they caught the killer but time was their enemy and they had few clues at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation micro analyst Larry Peterson set his sights on the almost invisible clues known as trace evidence I began applying more or less full-time efforts into looking at the cases individually and also comparing them to see if they were related Peterson was counting on fiber evidence to be the common thread that bound killer and victims by their nature fibers are easy to pick up hard to brush off they provide a nearly invisible record of every place a person visits by the same token every victim was literally covered in hundreds of fibers most of them meaningless to find out which strands were important required a concentrated effort each fiber collected from one victim had to be visually compared against hundreds pulled from the next multiply that by twenty victims and investigators were examining hundreds of thousands of fibers the task could easily stretch in two months it's hard to determine automatically what bits material important that could be from let's say a killers environment what bits of material is from the victims own home from places that they frequent using a stereomicroscope that renders the fiber evidence in three dimensions Peterson analyzed fibers culled from the crime scenes and during autopsies their length shape and texture suggested some were from a household carpet others were from an automobile I was still looking for any other kind of evidence that may link different cases together in addition to the ones I had already found after scanning hundreds of samples Peterson singled out fibers with similar characteristics on most of the bodies he kept coming across purple acetate fibers as well as yellow-green fibers that appeared to be from a carpet as the evidence began to accumulate he needed more specialized microscopes to see if they were from the same source he placed the carpet fibers on a high magnification comparison microscope it allowed him to compare the fibers side-by-side their colors and shapes match [Music] Peterson was encouraged perhaps that was the link he needed [Music] he now had proof that all the victims were connected in some way and that they were probably killed by the same person if he could figure out where the fibers came from he could catch the killer fortunately the fiber had an unusual structure if he could locate its manufacturer he'd be that much closer to solving the case that required comparing the fiber against the hundreds of samples submitted by carpet manufacturers an interminable and painstaking job that would add more weeks to the investigation [Music] he couldn't do it alone pal Dedmon the FBI's master micro analyst signed on to help me my initial role was to assist the Georgia Crime Laboratory in attempting to identify these fibers to see if the manufacturer of these fibers could be identified while the search for the elusive fiber wore on young men and boys were dying and Atlanta was scared as the city's anguish continued hide post of the Atlanta Journal covered the story the mood of the city during most of the investigation was was a real strong feeling of helplessness desperate for leads Atlanta police canvassed victims neighborhoods and streets near where bodies were found they questioned people door-to-door looking for any piece of information that might help them at night patrol cars searched the neighborhoods looking for anyone suspicious on the streets police had few leads but in the lab micro analysts were getting closer to pinpointing an original source for the unique fiber the media caught wind that investigators were using trace evidence to tie the Atlanta area murders together but publishing the news didn't stop the killer it only made him change his tactics suddenly instead of in the woods are dumped by the roadside the bodies began to show up in water the victims found in the rivers were either nude or partially clothed was the murderer trying to eliminate fiber evidence from being traced back to him lawmen suspected as much without alerting the media and armed with the knowledge that the killer was now disposing of the bodies in water scores of police recruits staked out Atlanta's bridges they were fishing for a murderer that had eluded them for 22 months week after week the recruits would secretly assemble under the bridges to keep their vigil for all their efforts officers dubbed them trolls all they could do was wait for the killer to strike again [Music] around 2:00 a.m. on May 22nd 1981 the calm along the Chattahoochee River was broken by a splash in the darkness the trolls waiting under the James Jackson Parkway bridge sprang into action to find the cause but they could not see what made the splash [Music] they radioed to nearby officers intercepted a station wagon and questioned the driver [Music] his name was Wayne Bertram Williams a 23 year old Greenland's photographer and self-proclaimed music promoter Williams didn't fit the assumed profile of the killer in fact as a young black man he was more likely to be a victim Williams told police he was coming home from a nightclub where he went to hear a new app he was considering signing as a matter of procedure police searched his car then took his name and address and sent him on his way two days later the body of 27 year old Nathaniel cater surfaced in the Chattahoochee River downstream from the James Jackson Parkway bridge cater black males and the medical examiner's determined had been strangled fit the profile of the victims murdered in the months before he'd been dead an estimated two days the trace evidence collected from Katers body was sent to Peterson two fibers had been extracted from the victims hair in structure they matched those found on the other victims but the color didn't match [Music] it could have faded from the water or it could have been a mismatch but viewing the fibers under polarized light revealed the structure of the fibers to be identical police decided to take a second look at Wayne Williams after an interview and background check a picture of Williams developed he was a pampered only child a college dropout at age 19 no one had seen him at the club he said he was at the night when he stopped him on the bridge bought in this one live his alibi crumbled Williams now became their chief suspect they obtained certain warrants for his house and car Williams been feeling he had been wrongly accused because of his race held a news conference to proclaim his innocence but he didn't allow the press to take pictures they openly said you killed Nathaniel cater and you know it and you lied to us they said that some members of the african-american community also found it hard to believe that Williams could be considered a suspect I think it was very difficult for the community to believe that an african-american might have committed these crimes an african-american had gone about systematically killing other African Americans there was no history of black serial killers serial killers is a middle-aged white guy thing or seem to have been and this ran counter to that pattern in the early 1980s DNA testing wasn't available yet all that forensic investigators had to go on were these small fibers the strand seemed to point to Williams guilt his house was covered with yellowish green carpet Peterson collected as many fiber samples as he could he also collected dog hairs and fibers from a purplish bedspread and from the trunk liner and glove compartment of Williams car inside these bags of evidence could lie the key to catching the murderer Peterson was hopeful that fibers from Williams house would match fibers from the victim's clothing took the evidence back immediately to the laboratory that rare evening and mount us on the samples up to see you know does this have any potential or not let's just kind of see right away the violet acetate along with the green carpet fibers from Williams home matched the fibers found on nearly all of the victims so far but as strong as that evidence see it simply wasn't enough to make their case investigators faced a staggering challenge to determine how many other people in Atlanta had the exact same carpet based on the fiber evidence Wayne Williams now looked like a strong suspect in the Atlanta murders but anyone else in Atlanta with the same taste in yellow green carpeting would be equally suspect police needed more to go on they needed to find out how much of that particular yellow green carpet was installed in Atlanta's homes so they dug much deeper microscopic analysis of the fiber structure helped identify their manufacturer the carpet was made in the early 70s but that particular shade was produced for just one year a little more than 16,000 yards of the carpet had ever been sold in the southeast in Atlanta the calculated odds that someone owned the same kind of carpet as Williams were less than one in 8,000 the evidence was stacking against Williams but not nearly enough to win a conviction to narrow the field investigators compared automobile carpet fibers found on some of the victims to the rug in Williams car it was estimated that approximately one out of 3500 cars in the Atlanta Georgia area might be expected to have a carpet fiber like that found on many of the victims that were linked to Wayne Williams put another way the victims would have had to randomly visit 3500 cars plus nearly eight thousand homes in order to pick up both fibers the odds of that happening randomly were one in more than 29 million add to that the purple acetate fiber from the bedspread and it became nearly impossible that the victims could have picked up these three fibers someplace else the numbers didn't lie Williams was arrested to forensic scientists the fiber evidence was overwhelming panel of jurors it might be confusing we wrote a story at the beginning of the trial that the prosecution strongest case strongest evidence could be contained in the thimble more than just Williams was on trial prosecutors knew that the science that led to his arrest would also be scrutinized the defense would do everything it could to snarl their credibility if you do enough searches and you find another environment where there's that same green carpet what are the odds that there'll be an automobile that had the same floorboard carpeting or that the family would possess the same blanket and bedspread and throw rugs and clothing items that's one of the key that combination cannot exist on February 27 1982 Wayne Williams was found guilty of killing two men the jury deliberated 11 hours 10 other murders were definitely linked to him during the trial and the task force closed the books on 27 murder cases between 1978 and 1981 connecting them to Williams on the same fiber evidence the Wayne Williams case was the first time a crime was solved solely on the basis of fibers the amount and variety of fibers found on Williams victims snared him in a net of evidence but in a case in Maine investigators had far less to catch a killer November 30th 1990 was a brutal day in northern Maine on that day a worker at the Cummings concrete corporation in Alton called police after discovering the body of a young woman [Music] [Music] the victim was facedown she was new except for the socks on her feet the rest of her clothes were piled near by [Music] police on the scene contacted detective edy thorne of the nearby Bangor Police Department they knew he was working on a month-old missing-persons case and the victim fit the description of the missing woman the state police mobile crime lab was called in investigators were on the trail of a killer potentially important clues like tire tracks or footprints had to be quickly gathered before someone accidentally or intentionally destroyed the evidence Maine State Police crime scene investigator Craig Handley supervised collection of evidence according to Hanley the very act of arriving on a crime scene and compromised the my new evidence if the crime scene is not properly secured and we end up with contamination like an inadvertent contamination sometimes by the offices themselves it's very important for us to interview the first responders and to find out exactly where they walked what they touched what they moved and what they removed and if they've done the job properly they should have everything noted so they can explain this to us there's nothing better than for a crime scene investigator to arrive on the scene and find in a very good condition the scenes original condition was recorded on film and notes were jotted down on paper soil samples and debris were collected in a case that might hinge on microscopic evidence there was no way of knowing what might become important investigators had two questions before them who was the victim and who killed her the body was taken to the medical examiner's office where an autopsy was performed and a positive ID could be made her clothing and physical features matched those of 18 year old Lisa garland the missing woman that thorn had been searching for she had been reported missing one month earlier the medical examiner later confirmed her identification through fingerprints [Music] garland was last seen around 1:00 a.m. on October 27th leaving the convenience store where she worked she lived only a short distance away Bangor police detective Edie thorn had reason to believe that garland arrived at her apartment after she left the store what happened then is an open question from there she would have walked or got a ride down to a residence which is approximately 150 yards from the store we know she arrives because her pocketbook her keys to the house some money and all along is were there the keys and valuables found in her house led police to believe that she had not left on her own after a month detective thorn and his colleague Bob Cameron saw their missing-persons case turned into a homicide the autopsy revealed the victim had been raped and killed by a blunt force to her head most of her internal organs were intact preserved by the cool weather at the Maine State Crime Laboratory forensic chemist Chris Montagna analyzed trace evidence collected from the crime scene most notably the socks the victim was wearing at the time of her death he was hoping they would hold some small clue to the killer's identity we knew that one of the key pieces of evidence we're gonna be looking at are these socks I began the process the socks simply by doing a visual examination seeing what I could find if there was any hairs or fibers grass anything that might be from the environment of the he found maroon fibers experience told him they were from the carpet of an automobile in terms of clues it wasn't much but Montagna felt the entire case could hang by this one thread of evidence in July 1991 a 15 year old girl was riding her bike on a lonely road in New York Maine more than 200 miles south of Bangor a car slowly approached and forced her off the road she fell into the grassy embankment the driver got out of the car and dragged the girl into the woods there he raped her stabbed her and left her for dead amazingly she survived after her attacker left she found her way to a neighbor's house where she called for help at the York Police Department she picked out her attacker from the mug shot file the suspect was a convicted rapist named David Fleming who had been released from prison just nine months earlier in a state as quiet as Maine news of violent crime spreads fast after months of chasing dead-end leads to find Lisa Garland's killer detective thorn heard about the violent rape in York Bangor police became interested in David Fleming just maybe he had something to do with Lisa Garland's death in York DNA taken from the rape victim matched Fleming's DNA Fleming pleaded guilty to raping and assaulting the young woman in York he was sentenced to 80 years the Lisa Garland murder case was still open Bangor detectives believed that if they could match Fleming's DNA to samples collected at the crime scene they'd have their man but the DNA would have to wait in the early 1990s DNA testing could take months today it takes weeks if police were to prove that David Fleming killed Lisa garland they would need to rely on more conventional evidence in this case carpet fibers extracted from David Fleming's car the fibers were sent to chemist Chris Montagna he compared them with the ones found eight months earlier on Lisa Garland's socks Montagna placed each fiber on a separate stage of a comparison microscope to analyze them side-by-side with a few adjustments he could see that the pattern of dark and light stripes in the fibers lined up when laid end-to-end the fibers looked like one continuous strand indicating that they came from the same source it looked like the breakthrough investigators needed the match allowed detectives thorne and Cameron to trace eight-month-old evidence back to David Fleming detective Bob Cameron understood the importance of the fiber evidence the fiber that was found on the victims sock that was matched to the carpeting on the vehicle that Fleming had been driving and it narrowed it down considerably because the fiber that matched the carpet in the car was the only year that they put that color carpeting in those vehicles [Music] the results were now conclusive the fibers matched but would this single shred of evidence be enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt fortunately an overlooked piece of evidence was found in the victims body bag it was a small chip of wood hardly worth keeping but Montagna noticed that it had been squared off leading him to believe that the wood had been machine Ian's successful once with carpet fibers Montagna asked the investigators to again comb through Fleming's car to look this time for a speck of matching wood inside the trunk covered by a large cloth play small hand-carved wooden boats Fleming learned to craft wood during his previous prison stints Montagna sent the chip and the boats for analysis the results again looked bad for Fleming the chip was made of white pine and so were the model boats the wood had all been machined the same way now there were two strong reasons to link fleming to lisa garland the fiber evidence and the wood chip showed that garland was in Fleming's car but none of this evidence proved that he raped and murdered her establishing that fleming killed her would be much more difficult he appeared to have an airtight alibi around the same time lisa garland disappeared he was in the hospital with serious injuries lisa garland was last seen alive when she finished her shift at the convenience store in bangor around 1 a.m. on October 27th at around 6:00 a.m. that same day David Fleming was involved in a car accident that left him hospitalized for two weeks fiber evidence showed that Garland was in Fleming's car but to prove he was her killer detectives had to pinpoint exactly when she could have been there Fleming would have had two chances to abduct Garland the first was in the five hours between the time she disappeared and the time he had his accident the second was the two-week period between Fleming's release from the hospital and when Garland's body was found an examination revealed that she was killed shortly after she was raped but the cold weather had preserved her body and made it impossible to determine how long she'd been dead police knew she could not have been in Fleming's car while he was in the hospital and the car was being repaired so if they could prove she was dead before Fleming was hospitalized it would mean that Fleming was her killer police needed some way of narrowing the timeframe Bangor police learned that an aerial photo of the crime scene was taken two weeks before the victim's body was found while examining the photos investigators made a startling discovery at first it was blurry and indistinct but an enlargement brought it into focus there in the fit lay the body of Lisa Garland here was photographic proof that the victim was dead before Fleming was hospitalized that meant she must have been in his car before his accident the fiber had placed Garland and Fleming's car the photograph established the time of death all indications pointed to Fleming as the killer detectives thorne and Cameron felt they now had all the evidence they needed to win a conviction then came the clincher the analysis of the DNA from the crime scene came back from the lab the DNA test was done at the FBI lab and the results were that Fleming was definitely a match at the trial the events of that night were reconstructed by the prosecution based on police speculation lisa garland did make it home just after 1:00 o'clock in the morning on October 27th David Fleming had followed her from the store as she walked into her apartment she forgot to lock the door behind her a simple mistake that would prove fatal David Fleming saw his opportunity he then went into her apartment it's not clear where he committed the crime but fiber evidence proved that Garland's body was in Fleming's Delta 88 before he dumped it by the sandpit in the town of Halton Fleming then returned home where his girlfriend remembered him walking in around three o'clock in the morning she [Music] recalled him not sleeping soundly and leaving around 5:00 a.m. about an hour later Fleming got into an accident with an 18-wheeler he was out of commission for two weeks but the evidence showed he had already committed his the fiber evidence linked the victim to his car the photograph established an approximate time of her death and the car accident closed his window of opportunity to just a sliver on March 22nd 1995 David Fleming was convicted of raping and murdering Lisa Garland he is serving a life sentence on top of the 80 years for the rape in York in case after case fiber evidence has linked victims to their killers but in a case in Florida investigators relied on fibers to reconstruct the circumstances of a fatal car accident [Music] on a road in Tallahassee Florida in 1994 a mild October even turned terribly tragic strewn among broken beer bottles snapped tree limbs and mangled car parts lay the lifeless body of 30 year old Michael Mennella a second victim named Curtis Davison was able to summon health before returning to the scene and collapsing as paramedics treated Davison Tallahassee Police sized up the scene of the fatal accident four crash investigators time is even more critical than at a homicide investigation at a homicides officers can cordon off the crime scene and return to it later not so with a car wreck officers get just one chance to collect evidence traffic must return to normal as soon as possible crash investigators often rely on eyewitness accounts as a first source of information but no one had seen this late night crash no one other than survivor Curtis Davison and he was in no condition to make a statement [Music] crash homicide investigator Mike Walker had to rely on preliminary judgments based on the evidence he saw at the accident scene and what really struck me and immediately was the passenger side of the vehicle was totally destroyed the passenger door was nearly torn off the vehicle we had an intact driver side of the vehicle to Walker that meant the passenger of the car would have sustained the most severe injuries it was doubtful he could have survived let alone walk away from the crash but Davison told police he was the passenger by some fluke that may have been true but could it be possible that Davison was lying to avoid being prosecuted for his friend's death it was Walker's job to find out the truth investigators questioned anyone who might have seen the man before the crash witnesses told police that the two met at a local bar after work where they had several drinks they were then seen in another bar later that evening around 1:00 a.m. they left the bar and drove off together but no one saw them get into the car without any witness the detectives would have to rely on forensics to tell them who was driving they first had to determine all they could about the crash and what factors were involved like how fast the car was traveling returning to the crime scene the next morning Walker and his partner David Folsom found the clues they needed the 300zx suspect vehicle was traveling northbound on this road as it rounded the curb he began to lose control the driver turned the wheel to follow the curve but the cars inertia kept it moving forward as it left the road it began to spin then it hit a tree the vehicle continued sliding sideward striking another tree as it struck the other tree of went airborne approximately 40 feet landing back in the road when a fast-moving vehicle changes direction the tires slide sideways leaving scuff marks on the road by measuring these marks called critical speed scuffs and factoring in the friction of the road surface investigators can calculate how fast the car was moving as it sped out of control the measurements from the critical speed scuff indicated that the vehicle was traveling at 89 to 96 miles per hour almost from the start of the investigation police had a hunch alcohol played a role broken beer bottles were found at the scene and paramedics and officers detected alcohol on Davidson's breath and on Mandela's body if Davison was the driver and was under the influence at the time investigators needed to test his blood alcohol level and quickly a blood sample was taken within two hours of the crash it's very important that once we established that there's suspicion that he is the driver of a vehicle then we have to obtain a blood sample because alcohol dissipates from the system Walker and Folsom ordered the blood work that morning the sample was taken to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement crime lab to determine its alcohol level first the analyst takes a carefully measured portion of the blood she wants to test and places it into a clean labeled vial the alcohol in the blood is volatile as the blood is shaken it evaporates into the air or headspace of the vial it's the components of the blood in the headspace and not the blood itself that's tested the gas in the headspace is drawn into a chromatograph which identifies its components and their concentration [Music] the computer looks specifically for alcohol in the blood gases [Music] in ten minutes it provides a reading the results showed Davidson's blood alcohol levels at point zero four safely below Florida's legal limit but that was the level when his blood was drawn at the hospital not the level he had at the time of the accident because alcohol dissipates from the bloodstream at a consistent rate the analyst can calculate what the level was two hours earlier when the accident occurred Davidson's level at the time of the crash was estimated to be between point zero six and point zero eight in Florida a level as low as point zero five one can be considered driving under the influence but investigators still had to prove that he was behind the wheel back at his office Walker pored over the accident scene photos and compared them to his notes parts of Davison story weren't adding up first was the car's restraining system Walker recalled the driver side airbag had been deployed airbags by design pin the driver in place if Mennella were driving it seemed unlikely he'd have been thrown on the vehicle yet his body was found some 50 feet from where the car came to rest on the other hand the passenger's side seatbelt looked like it hadn't even been used who ever sat here one more clue aroused suspicion a bloody handprint on the outside of the driver's side door it was too smudged to read but it seemed likely it was made when the driver exited the car after the accident but according to Folsom the evidence could be misleading now traditionally we cannot say that just because there's a bloody handprint that someone driving that car put it there because there's such thing as scene contamination one of the rescue personnel or one of the police officers could have done it but it was enough to spur suspicion as to who was actually the driver the deceased or the survivor by themselves the evidence of a bloody handprint seat belt meant very little taken together they created serious doubt about Davison story Davison however was sticking to it insisting that he the definitive version of the tale would be told in the lab investigators faced no shortage of clues about the car crash that claimed a man's life the trick was to make sense of them crash investigator Mike Walker had the wreck towed to a secure impound facility for analysis Lord Schwab is an analyst at the Department of Law Enforcement lab one of the parts of my job as crime-scene analysts is to go and examine a vehicle without any outside influences a lot of the times I'll go and look at the vehicle itself and try not to learn any of the particulars about the case I'll take an objective view of the vehicle see what I can determine see what the evidence tells me to piece together the particulars he began with the driver's side seat belt fastening it in a position as if someone were wearing it he noticed spots on the seat belt near the door they tested positive for human blood that indicated the seat belt was probably worn at the time of the crash it also meant that whoever wore it was probably not ejected from the car signs again pointed to Davison the evidence was suggestive but slippery even if the blood proved to be Davison's the defense could argue that it could have spattered onto the belt while the car was spinning or that Davison could have bled on it after the crash as he staggered around the to seal this case investigators needed to find evidence that fit three criteria first the evidence could be left only at the moment of impact second it had to be unique to the individual who left it and third had to prove where that person was sitting in the car investigators depended on fibers to meet those criteria and they depended on regional Crime Lab micro analyst Paula Sauer to read them detectives Walker and Folsom gave Sauer several pieces of material evidence collected from the accident scene including a dashboard with two dents in it and clothing worn by the victims the dents in the dash were on the passenger's side it was presumed they were caused by contact with the passengers knees remarkably the force of the crash created so much frictional heat that woven patterns and fibers were actually melted into the vinyl there were fibers numerous fibers embedded in the dashboard area that would be directly in front of the passenger seat these fibers were microscopically consistent with the fibers composing Manila's pants the evidence seemed to indicate that Monello was in the passenger seat but Sauer wouldn't stop there she scrutinized every piece of evidence to be certain her results were consistent she turned her attention to strands of human hair and synthetic fibers gathered from the cracks of the passenger side of the windshield michael Mennella wore a hairpiece composed of both human hair and synthetic fibers if the fibers from his hairpiece matched those in the windshield it would strengthen the argument that he was the passenger and that Davison the survivor of the crash was driving an inspection of the synthetic hairs using a high-power comparison microscope suggested the fibers in the windshield matched those in Manila's hairpiece but analyzing these fibers required more than a visual inspection because of the small size of their molecules to complete her comparison Sauer used an instrument called a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer or FTIR it is an instrument that is used to determine the generic class of synthetic fibers by generic class I mean whether it's nylon polyester acrylic and this technique is very effective in that manner because it's actually looking at the molecules that are making up those fibers so it can give you an exact identification the characteristics of both fibers were displayed on a computer the red lines represent fibers from the hairpiece the green lines represent fibers pulled from the windshield [Music] in every way they were identical so far all indications were that Mennella was in the passenger seat if that were true if meant Davison would have left his mark in the area of the driver's seat most likely on the airbag which would have deployed at over 100 miles per hour Sauer analyzed fibers clinging to the tightly woven fabric of the airbag she found nine fibers matching the fabric of Davidson's pants her conclusion Davison was driving Paula Sauer used her sophisticated objects to put the accident scene into focus not only had she placed a manila and the passenger seat but also determined that Davison was the driver the evidence was handed over to the state's attorney who showed in court that Davison lied about the events that unfolded in the early morning hours of October 6th 1994 the prosecution's theory was that after a night of drinking it was Curtis Davison who got behind the wheel of manila's Nissan 300zx anxious to test the sports cars power Davison put it in high gear racing down the tree line two-lane road ignoring the 35 mile-per-hour signs Davison climbed toward 90 then the narrow road started to curve and Davison lost control no longer heating the steering wheel the car slid sideways and careened off an oak tree michael Mennella he wasn't wearing a seat belt the sports car continued to spin out of control smashing into another tree before coming to rest on the side of the road Davison saved by the airbag crawled out of the car he went around to the passenger side to look for Mennella his bloody left hand leaving a smear on the door Mennella was dead in the road Davison went for help a Tallahassee jury took just ten minutes to find Davison guilty of manslaughter by culpable negligence he was sentenced to seven years the analysis of tiny fibers traces of evidence found in ordinary items turned the tables on three men who denied any involvement in their respective crimes [Music] the ability of forensic scientists to pinpoint the makeup of fiber down to the most microscopic detail allows prosecutors to tear alibis shreds of evidence [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 1,083,623

Keywords: forensic science, new detectives, the new detectives, fibre analysis, trace evidence, trace analysis, true crime, georgia serial killer

Id: zr6hhRRG5-k

Length: 52min 35sec (3155 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2020