The Violent Home Invaders Who Disturb The Peace | The New Detectives | Real Responders

a cleveland woman is killed in her home can 40-year-old evidence absolve a dead man of guilt a stormy argument ends with a gunshot to investigators the situation screams murder until years later when forensics throws new light on it two homicides one suspect but the evidence needed to make the case was buried long ago will an exumation put the final nail in the killer's coffin [Music] at a murder scene police must ring the full meaning from every available clue but when the evidence is inadequate detectives must return to the victim to make their grave discoveries [Music] [Applause] [Music] in 1998 a breakthrough in dna analysis helped solve a 40-year-old murder case at sunrise on the morning of july 4th 1954 dr sam shepard slowly came to on the bay village ohio shore of lake erie the events of the pre-dawn hours flooded back to him like a nightmare fearing the worst he staggered into the lakefront home he shared with his wife marilyn and their young son sam there in the bedroom his wife lay brutally beaten to death she had been four months pregnant dr shepard told police he was awakened on the downstairs couch by his wife's panicked cries when shepard rushed to help her he was attacked by a tall intruder the resulting fistfight ranged from room to room and ultimately spilled onto the beach [Music] there the doctor was dealt a knockout blow to the neck [Music] a bag of the shepherd's jewelry was found near the house suggesting that the couple had interrupted a burglary but the police work was soon overshadowed by rampant speculation in the rush to justice the shadowy intruder was forgotten sam shepard became the only suspect but a few people refused to believe shepard was guilty and were determined to prove his innocence decades later in the early 1990s cleveland attorney terry gilbert began studying the case and felt that shepard was railroaded by a cursory look at the evidence dr sam gribber the coroner had concluded within an hour or two after being at the crime scene that they had their man and it was dr shepard it was a death by domestic homicide [Music] a trail of nearly 60 drops of blood led through the house these were checked to ascertain they were human but nothing more could be done with them forensic dna analysis was 30 years away some of the blood stains on the cellar stairs were overlooked for decades since dr shepard had no open wounds police assumed this blood trail fell from the murder weapon clutched in his hand forced entry marks on the door to the basement were never entered as evidence despite obvious signs an intruder had penetrated the house dr shepard was arrested for killing his wife the coroner staged a public inquest dr shepard was grilled on live television for five hours without his attorney the media grabbed hold of it and sensationalized this murder the cleveland press through editor louis seltzer every day ran articles about solving the shepherd case why is dr shepard not indicted why is he not in jail cartoons showing him running through the house with some kind of a murder weapon dripping blood local officials hurried to close the high profile case the trial began just two months after shepard's arrest the coroner testified that the blood found throughout the house was human it was assumed that it came from the victim the prosecution argued that the doctor had faked his own neck injury the jewelry bag was also presented as phony evidence of burglary it was just a complete travesty of justice in terms how that trial uh emerged during that time and uh he was convicted it was a foregone conclusion he did not have a chance we the judy in this case being duly empowered and sworn do find the defendant sami shepard not guilty of murder in the first degree but guilty of murder in the second degree [Music] dr shepard was sentenced to 35 years in prison but his family challenged the verdict refusing to give up a month after the conviction they brought in forensic expert leland kirk to examine the blood spatters in the house his analysis of several stains in the bedroom undermined the state's argument two blood stains larger than the spatters in the bedroom stood out to investigators their size and round shape suggested a puncture wound the victim may have bitten her attacker in kirk's view evidence strongly indicated a third person was at the scene but the court wouldn't hear a word of it in 1959 five years after the murder the case took a strange twist [Music] cleveland handyman richard eberling was arrested for robbing a home where he worked and police found among his spoils one of marilyn shepard's diamond rings at his interrogation eberlin who resembled the man shepard and witnesses described unwittingly volunteered some incriminating information he said he had cut himself at the shepherd's house the week of the murder which would explain any strange blood found there but he couldn't have known that investigators had questioned the bloodstains it sounded like a killer's alibi even so the county prosecutor refused to look at this new evidence on july 16 1964 a federal district court ruled that shepard was denied a fair trial after serving 10 years in prison he was released and granted a retrial evidence that was ignored misread or suppressed would finally be seen for his second trial in 1966 two years after his release dr shepard had rising legal star f lee bailey handling his defense how do you explain his conviction in the first place uh it was a result according to judge weinman and in my opinion of mass hysteria generated by an overzealous press are you in on the case at the beginning no i've only been a lawyer for four years he's been in jail for 10. bailly eroded the prosecution's case point by point after years of neglect the forced entry marks on the cellar door were entered as evidence bailly also argued that traces of a possible intruder were lost when the victim's body was prematurely washed by the coroner finally a doctor testified that the fractured vertebra in shepherd's neck could not have been self-inflicted twelve years after the murder the focus of the case switched to the mysterious intruder in the retrial of convicted killer sam shepard the discoveries of forensic expert leland kirk were finally going to be heard kirk testified that one blood drop on the closet door came from a puncture wound the victim had died of blunt trauma ruling her out as the source of the stain but a re-examination of the autopsy record showed that her teeth had all the signs of inflicting a single powerful bite just before she died dr shepard showed no such wound after a dozen years the phantom attacker was taking on human form kirk's road to the truth was a trail of blood any forensic scientist even then would have told you that blood as soon as it hits the air dries and coagulates the blood could not have dripped from a weapon long enough to have made the trail these were all of equal size which indicates that it came from an oozing wound and none of this was looked into in 1954 though the victim was forever silenced the evidence was speaking out the second trial lasted three weeks f lee bailey had stirred a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury on november 16 1966 sam shepard was acquitted of killing his wife but no one reopened the investigation into who had committed the murder potential suspects like richard eberlin continued to be ignored there was one reason many still felt shepherd was the killer but that he'd been released on technicalities though the bloodstains gave him his freedom they still smeared his reputation he couldn't revive his medical practice just six years after his release and after a failed second marriage dr shepard died of the effects of alcoholism through all the turmoil dr shepard's surviving son sam lived quietly out of the spotlight but in 1989 richard everland the cleveland handyman and burglar wrote to him from prison eberling was jailed for forging a woman's will and then beating her to death for the million-dollar inheritance sam met with everling the convict shared little-known facts about the shepherd case sam wanted another trial to prove that eberling was marilyn shepard's killer at this point terry gilbert sued the state of ohio for dr shepard's wrongful imprisonment after his release shepard had sought no damages for the loss of his freedom forty years after the crime his family hoped to prove the doctor's innocence by unlocking the secrets hidden in a drop of blood the blood stain evidence was passed to dr mohammed tahir dna analyst at the indianapolis marion county forensic services agency and the actual challenge was not the dna analysis because this work we do every day and the only challenge in this case was because the evidence was very minimum very old for comparison dr tahir needed a standard dna profile from both the victim and dr shepard this way if he found a third genetic profile in the decades-old blood stains he would know it belonged to the intruder dr tahir found a clean dna profile for the victim in hairs plucked from her deathbed 40 years before though shepard had died 18 years after his wife a sample of his dna seemed as elusive as the killer without this forensic key the case to clear dr shepard's name was stalled then the doctor's son thought he had a first-class source of his father's genetic material he presented some love letters that his father had sent his mother when they were courting in 1943 dr shepard's dna might still be in the saliva mixed with the glue on the envelopes and stamps but over the decades the envelopes had been handled by too many people any dna found on them was tainted and unusable once again the case bogged down there was still one place left to search for the doctor's dna his grave hounded in life even death could offer shepherd no peace in 1996 an order for his exhumation was granted on the headstone were the letters vqp standing for the latin meaning he who endures conquers perhaps after nearly half a century dr shepard would finally be vindicated dr tahir was able to extract a completely clean dna profile from one of shepard's teeth after 24 years in the grave but for comparison he needed evidence taken from the crime scene dr tahir performed dna tests on the bloody pants shepherd and worn the night of the murder while he waited for those results he processed two other vital clues the first was the mysterious blood drop that dr kirk had collected from the closet door back in 1955 [Music] the second was a blood-stained wood chip sam had salvaged from a cellar stair tread before his childhood home was torn down in 1993 the results of dr tahir's analysis became the new backbone of the case there was a third person's dna in the stains not dr shepherds and not the victims the mysterious intruder was no longer a product of shepherd's imagination he was flesh and blood but who was the third man attorney terry gilbert thought he knew where to begin his search the imprisoned richard eberling was required to give a sample of his blood for comparison dr tahir found that the convict's dna could not be excluded from the blood stain on the wood chip or on the pants the test results were sixteen thousand to one in favor that the strange blood stain in the house was eberlin's but those odds weren't good enough the courts require a certainty of millions to one for a conviction and whenever link heard his dna was linked to the bloody stare he reminded investigators of his alibi that he had cut his hand at the shepherd's home shortly before the murder forty years after the fact everling knew there was no one to dispute his story because the dna evidence was inconclusive the truth about the murder might never come out time was conspiring to hide the killer's name many people involved in the case had long since died a private detective agency volunteered to locate any surviving witnesses after months of searching they found vern lund and ed wilbert two other cleveland handymen who had known richard eberling they remembered that marilyn sheppard had once caught everling robbing her home when the victim was murdered they knew eberlin had the motive and this prompted one more recollection eberling was out sick the week before the murder he could not have bled at the shepherd's house as he claimed eberling's alibi was shattered when all the evidence was held up to the light the events of that tragic night so long ago came into focus the victim screamed when she found an intruder in her room [Music] dr shepard rushed to her aid but was knocked unconscious [Music] the intruder tried to finish ransacking the house bleeding from a wound all the while when shepard accosted the killer again the fight carried on to the beach there the doctor was struck so hard a vertebra was fractured but broken bones mean little compared to broken lives it took forensic science 42 years to put the pieces back together the forensic that we uncovered in 96 was approximately 100 pieces of evidence it excludes dr shepard as the attacker and points to a very likely suspect named richard ebeling eberling has denied that he's the killer but in interviews over and over again he has said things about the case that only the murderer would say and this is an open case it's still unsolved technically with each new clue everling's shadow cast a longer paul over the but he died in july 1998 keeping his secrets forever forensic evidence is only as revealing as the experts who study it the positive identity of marilyn sheppard's killer remains a mystery but thanks to a clear-eyed look at the clues at least dr shepard was able to convince his son of his innocence from beyond the grave [Music] assumptions of the crime scene can shape or distort an investigation to clear a suspect investigators must first believe he's innocent and then prove it scientifically on july 6 1984 the platte county wyoming sheriff's office received a frantic call from martin frias in a mix of spanish and english he told police that there had been a shooting he could not give clear directions to the scene since priests and the officers both knew a certain cafe in neighboring wheatland they met there prius guided officers to the trailer he shared with his girlfriend ernestine pereira a grim scene awaited them inside herreya's body lay face up on the floor she had a wound in her abdomen prius's 300 magnum rifle laid close beside her police found two bullet fragments lodged in the blood-spattered wall behind the body priya said he'd heard a muffled thump before he went to bed thinking it was merely perea hurling shoes in one of her temper tantrums he went to sleep [Music] hours later when prius awoke he discovered the truth his stormy relationship was over suicide was the initial ruling [Music] after detectives interviewed freyas he was released then a coroner examined the victim's remains more closely the bullet wound in the lumbar region was small like an entry wound police felt it was impossible for the victim to shoot herself in the back with a rifle all the clues now pointed to homicide but not everyone was convinced that frias was a murderer four days after the death of ernestine perea martin frias was arrested and charged with his girlfriend's murder prius's attorney robert moxley believed in his client's innocence from the beginning when she was killed and they didn't have the scenario of her being shot in the back pat in their minds yet they turned him loose he had no real ties to the community he'd been there a long time but he was an illegal alien from mexico he didn't leave he could have just disappeared and never been seen again but at trial the state's forensic evidence was more compelling than frieza's cooperation with police it even outweighed the fact that though frias had a severely injured arm he had somehow managed to load [ __ ] and fire an unwieldy weapon that required two good hands and given prius injury the victim could have defended herself but none of this mattered at the trial according to the state's forensic tests the victim's blouse showed no gunshot residue clearly she had been shot from a distance a medical examiner confirmed that the clean edged wound in the victim's back marked where the fatal bullet had struck her according to the medical examiner the bullet had then passed through her body fragmented and exited her abdomen leaving a much larger wound with uneven edges to police the conclusion was obvious and so as a circumstance of evidence case if she was shot in the back and if he was there if his fingerprints were on the gun well then they could make the case that he had done it the jury agreed martin prius was convicted of the second degree murder of ernestine perea he was sentenced to 25 to 35 years in prison moxley appealed the verdict he believed the forensic evidence had not been fairly explored wyoming law had not allowed him to call his own experts in the case he'd had to use the same experts as the prosecution at the time the public defenders were required to rely on the state crime lab to be their neutral expert while they were still the neutral expert quote unquote that was making the prosecution case for the prosecution moxley felt this bias the analysis of the evidence against the defendant over the next year and a half he and his assistant walter carroll fought their way through the courts to have martin fries retried in order to make the case for retrial moxley brought on the best experts in the business he had the victim's wound evidence re-examined by dr vincent demaio the chief medical examiner of bexar county texas dr demaio was a foremost expert on high velocity rifle gunshot wounds and i found out that he was going to be lecturing in cheyenne so i jumped in my car and went to his hotel in cheyenne and cornered him with these autopsy photos he took really one look at those autopsy photos he held him out like this and he held him up to his nose and he says that's a contact wound and that's about how long it took him to know that that's what we have a contact wound results when a gun is fired with the muzzle pressed against the target dr demaio's impromptu analysis of the photo bucked the state's evidence in the first trial but to an expert the explanation was simple when the hot gases are propelling a bullet down the barrel of a gun it is compressing the air in front of it the last few inches of the bullet's travel outside the barrel is preceded by this air which is compressed so hard that it's like a knife and it goes in first then the bullet goes in then liters and liters and liters and liters of hot gas follow the bullet this hot gas has violently expanded the victim's abdominal cavity to the point of tearing the jeans and snapping off the top pants button the state's original view of the evidence was backwards the bullet first struck the abdomen not the back though it was still possible the victim had been murdered a contact wound in her front recalled the original scenario ernestine pereira could have taken her own life but only new tests would confirm this radical take on old evidence the victim's remains have long since been buried but police still had her autopsy x-rays and the blouse sheet worn when she died when demaio's findings were presented to the wyoming supreme court the case was reopened martin frias was granted a retrial [Music] in preparation for the new trial along with demaio moxley brought in robert lance director of the rocky mountain instrumental laboratories in fort collins colorado to examine the case mr moxley asked me for my opinion too as far as whether or not it was at all likely that the bullet had come into her backbone from the front or from the back after all it's impossible to shoot yourself in the back or at least very difficult and so he first asked me that i looked at the x-rays and said this simply doesn't seem right but no side view x-rays of the victim's torso had been taken in the original autopsy and lance couldn't conclusively tell from frontal x-rays which direction the bullet had traveled for now he had to focus on the blouse with a stereo light microscope lance observed that the fabric around the bullet hole in the front of the blouse was scorched and melted this indicated a point-blank discharge of the weapon but from the front not the back next lance studied the gunshot residue on the blouse its distribution would tell him whether or not the gun was fired at close range when the muzzle is close to the target the residue saturates a very small area at longer range the residue area expands but starts to thin out i tested the overall cloth using what's called rotazonic acid the rhodosonic acid is very useful to give me a pattern of the gunshot residue so that i can make an estimate of what the firing distance was and to see whether or not there is more gunshot residue on the front of the shirt or in the back of the shirt [Music] he placed acid treated paper over the inside and outside of the large bullet hole in the front of the blouse the hot iron made the acid turn any gunshot residue on the paper bright purple [Music] the prosecution in the first trial had claimed the victim was shot at a distance to dr lance the evidence told a different story and this shows us very easily the pattern so that we could see that there was a great deal of gunshot residue in a very tight mark around the hole and relatively little even a short distance away once again the forensic evidence pointed to a very close range shooting if the victim had been shot from the front she had seen death's approach the question remained whether she'd welcomed it in the retrial of martin frias forensic gunshot analyst robert lance was wiping the defendant's slate clean with the victim's own blouse but more rigorous tests were still needed to confirm that the victim was shot from the front no ordinary microscope would be up to the task to find the truth lance placed samples of the blouse in a scanning electron microscope to analyze the gunshot residue more closely he discovered that the concentration of the residue decreased as the microscope panned from the front of the blouse to the back that suggested a frontal entrance wound the new defense was almost ready but moxley wanted to build the strongest case possible for his client's second trial a blood spatter expert proved that perea was seated on the floor when she was struck from the of the front where the blood splatters were a ballistics test proved that the slug had expended its energy before striking the spine breaking up and exiting the body again suggesting front entry medical records showed that the victim had been hospitalized for attempted suicide several times in the past and perea's fingerprints on the gun were oriented as if she'd held it upside down thus bringing the trigger within reach the new evidence was strong but moxley was determined to add the victim's own testimony to the new trial we got the family's permission to exhume the body and we did another autopsy we had dr eckert come to participate in the autopsy and for the first time they did lateral x-rays the original pathologist had not done x-rays except from the front and you couldn't tell the bullet direction from the x-rays the side x-rays showed bullet fragments and fragments of vertebrae that had been pushed between the victim's spine and the skin of her back only a bullet speeding through from the front could have left this kind of damage in its wake [Laughter] when all the parts of the puzzle were fitted together a picture of the victims last night became clear [Music] after an argument with his girlfriend martin fries fell asleep in another room anger depression and a high blood alcohol level drove ernestine pereira to make a final suicide attempt she sat on the floor with the rifle resting on her extended legs but the instant her troubles ended was the very moment her boyfriend's nightmare began we convincingly proved just exactly how ernestine committed suicide we showed the pathology evidence we showed the blood splatter evidence we showed the gunshot residue evidence there weren't any questions to be answered by the time we were done with our forensic evidence ultimately the new x-ray evidence from the victim's grave clinched the case in martin fries's second trial the jury needed only an hour and 45 minutes to find him not guilty after serving two years and ten days in prison for a crime he didn't commit he was finally set free exumations are an investigator's last resort the forensic evidence taken from the grave can either acquit or convict [Music] on the rainy night of october 19 1983 a couple driving on a lonely road in saint charles county missouri were the first on the scene of a single vehicle accident the car was abandoned but the engine was still running when the good samaritan tried to turn the car off he found blood smears on the seat then he saw a woman lying in the shadows beneath the dashboard she was barely breathing police from the saint charles county sheriff's department noted the heavy odor of gasoline throughout the car the threat of fire made them hurry to pull the victim to safety when the woman's blonde wig slipped to one side rescuers saw just how badly she was hurt detective ed copeland feared for her life at that point while i was down in the car i could feel that the back of her head had trauma to it or it was it just didn't feel right like a skull scholarship field as the woman was rushed to the hospital the car's registration was traced it belonged to jim williams a successful electrical contractor police phoned williams then drove to his home to inform him of his wife's accident they found him sitting in the rain waiting for them at the hospital doctors told williams and his youngest son that sharon wouldn't survive her massive head injuries jim williams signed the forms allowing his wife's removal from life support she died later that day jim's friend joanne notice tried to console him then three months after the accident their roles were reversed when her own marriage hit the rocks after a bitter quarrel joanne's husband walter notice a band singer stormed out into the cold december night wearing only a blue warm-up suit hours passed but he didn't come home joanne notice told police he'd run off she suspected he was having an affair but captain wes simcocks of the saint charles county sheriff's department said walter notice's absence didn't seem planned it was extremely bad weather it was very cold there was snow on the ground walter was not dressed for that type of weather and she was concerned about his uh well-being walter notice didn't return that night the next day joanne notice and jim williams broke into her husband's briefcase seeking clues to his whereabouts joanne notices suspicions were confirmed in living color the briefcase held steamy photos of her husband in the arms of his backup singer [Music] a group of friends was organized to search for walter jim williams volunteered to scout the parking lots at the airport there he found walter's car he drove it back to the notice house before he told police of the discovery joanne notice was disturbed and so was any trace evidence that might have been left in the vehicle though police appreciated jim williams zeal they were also suspicious of it captain simcox felt that jim williams kindness to the missing man's wife seemed to overreach the bounds of friendship the evening after walter's disappearance jim stayed at walters home with joanne it's something you just do not do friend or not there were several other things where there had been relationships between jim and joanne neighbors saying that they'd had what appeared to be a love affair going defying the ugly rumors williams continued to aid his friend in her time of trouble he helped her search the truck the band toured in if walter notice had deserted his wife she'd need bank records or securities he might have stashed there but in the search for money joanne came up empty-handed in the search for walter the police had no better luck new year's eve came and went with walter notice missing his band's best playing gig of the year he needed the money police thought he would have shown up if he were able none of walter's friends or band members or family members could verify that that in fact he had left the country or the state or had gone somewhere so it was our opinion that that foul play was involved but here again we couldn't find anybody police stepped up the investigation of jim williams they learned that just two weeks after walter's disappearance he was making plans to sell his house and move in with joanne notice detectives questioned jim williams children his youngest son brett still live nearby he told police he thought it odd when his father ordered a flower box built in the dead of winter at the house he was trying to sell but the young man told police he had gotten an even more disturbing surprise one night shortly after the death of his mother brett williams went out with his fiancee his father and joanne notice came along brett was upset to see his mother's favorite bracelet on joanne's wrist jim williams was getting on with his life at a breakneck pace even more suspicious police learned that right after walter notice disappeared his wife began canceling his singing appearances it seemed that no one expected walter to make a return engagement okay mr williams i'm just going to ask you a few questions about the night in the disappearance of walter notice detectives questioned jim williams where he had been so helpful before they suddenly found him reticent dancing when joanne's turn came she was still angry over her husband's desertion bothering me joanna during the interview had made some comments about her and walter's relationship that was not good anymore that she in fact wanted the divorce she made the comment that if in fact walter was gone or dead the good riddance so she was not happy with walter at all their relationship was very weak she wanted out of the marriage but here again she did not indicate that she was involved in any way with walter's disappearance detectives refused to give up the search they combed williams job sites and his property looking for clues but walter notice was nowhere to be found it was as if the earth had swallowed him up in april of 1986 six months after joanne notice had divorced her husband she and jim williams tied the knot neither suspected it would soon become a noose then a coincidence sent police down a familiar road but with a brand new point of view at the exact spot where sharon williams had fatally crashed her car a second car plowed into the ditch it landed at precisely the same place as the williams car indicating it was going the same speed but this driver emerged without a scratch investigators began to rethink sharon williams death the connection between the death of sharon and the death of walter was made when one of the officers that was at the scene had called me and asked me if i recalled that accident and who the husband of this woman was and of course it was jim williams with no new clues to walter notice's disappearance investigators took a closer look at sharon williams fatal accident in october of 1986 when chief medical examiner mary case studied the accident report she finally saw what others had missed my opinion after reading all of that material was i think that it is highly inconsistent this injury that she has with the accident i think it's very likely that she had a homicidal assault blunt trauma to her head someone beat on her head and caused her to die this meant the accident might have been staged but case couldn't prove it based on the old report there wasn't enough to implicate a suspect by this time the only concrete evidence lay at the bottom of sharon williams grave in april of 1987 almost four years after sharon williams was buried her remains were exhumed and re-autopsied the body was very well preserved and after the autopsy i made the the diagnosis that her cause of death was the head injury a massive craniocerebral trauma and that the manner of death was a homicide dr case's suspicions were confirmed the accident was now a murder and jim williams was the prime suspect his rush into joanne notices arms further implicated him in walter notice's disappearance but police still needed a body to prove it [Music] pursuing any lead they interviewed jim williams oldest son jim jr estranged from his father he was jailed in florida for armed robbery but for an early release he was willing to talk hey jimmy how you doing [Music] though detectives refused to deal jim dropped hints about a well behind his father's old house police hadn't seen a well but they remembered the large planter detectives returned to the suspect's former home there they served a search warrant and examined the flower box that jim williams had commissioned four years earlier as police dismantled the planter they broke open the case the new owners of the house had no idea they also held a mortgage on a burial plot [Music] we got out there we brought several investigators with us and began the task of taking apart a flower box that had been placed over top the cistern once the lid was removed from the cistern it was amazing to us that the body of walter scott was floating on top of the water [Music] the body was still clothed in a blue jogging suit only now it wore rope restraints and a bullet hole dr case made a positive identification the murdered singer had been found the x-rays revealed the betrayal without even doing an autopsy you know this is a homicidal death he didn't bind himself up and get in there and die either from natural accidental or suicidal causes somebody did this to him an autopsy confirmed that the victim had been shot once in the back though police had suspected foul play almost from the beginning forensic science uncovered the entire murderous scheme investigators believe that in october of 1983 jim williams bludgeoned his wife with a pipe or a crowbar he then drove her to the country road where he staged the wreck after he doused the car with gasoline he started a small fire hoping to incinerate the evidence then he left her for dead but the rain put a damper on his plan though williams failed to kill his wife with a blow to her head he finished the job with the stroke of a pen only two months later he ambushed walter notice he bound the body and lowered it into the well successfully hiding it for years on april 10 1987 jim williams was arrested for murdering both his former wife and joanne notices former husband walter no-tice in 1992 williams was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison joanne notice got five years for hindering the prosecution forensic science had given the two victims a voice after years of silence where the housewife and the singer had been shown no mercy in life at least in death they received justice measure for measure detectives know that a cemetery can be an important landmark on the path to the truth while evidence gleaned there cannot raise the dead it can sometimes grant peace of mind to those who are left behind [Music] the scene of a murder usually yields a wealth of clues when properly studied they can point to a killer unfortunately it's possible for a victim to take crucial evidence to the grave then it's up to forensic science to resurrect the truth [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Real Responders

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Keywords: Real Responders, crime scene analysis, crime solving techniques, criminal justice, criminal minds, criminology studies, detective tactics, forensic anthropology, forensic evidence, homicide detectives, murder investigations, real crime stories, real life detectives, real-life detectives, serial killer investigations, true crime channel, true crime tales, unsolved mysteries, violent crime cases

Id: B0brVVpx12w

Length: 52min 2sec (3122 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 17 2020