The Science That Solved the OJ Simpson Case & More

[0:04] A hat, a glove, a trail of blood. [0:11] Investigators believed they led to a killer. [0:14] The prosecution thought it had an airtight case, [0:20] hard evidence, bolstered by rigid science. [0:25] The defense argued the evidence was tainted [0:31] and the science was shoddy. [0:36] The jury expressed reasonable doubt [0:38] about the guilt of Orenthal James Simpson [0:41] and serious doubts about forensics. [0:45] In courts of law and the halls of science, [0:56] it was the trial of the century. [1:26] Los Angeles, California, a town famous for sunshine, [1:32] celebrities, and scandal. [1:36] But even by L.A. standards, [1:37] the events of June 1994 were electrifying. [1:42] In an affluent suburb, two people were found brutally murdered. [1:46] The prime suspect was a football star turned film actor. [1:54] All eyes focused on the Los Angeles County Courthouse [1:57] as the trial unfolded like a Hollywood movie. [2:02] For 10 months, the state of California [2:04] versus Orenthal James Simpson played out in the courtroom [2:08] and on televisions around the world. [2:11] On October 3, 1995, the world held its breath [2:17] as the jury rendered its decision. [2:20] It took just under three hours to reach its verdict. [2:24] We, the jury, in the above-entitled action, [2:27] find the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson, [2:29] not guilty of the crime of murder [2:31] in violation of penal code section 187A, [2:34] a felony upon Nicole Brown Simpson. [2:36] The verdict was a shock to the Los Angeles County [2:40] District Attorneys who tried the case [2:42] and to the families of the victims. [2:44] But for the defense, it was confirmation that the quality [2:51] of the evidence must be weighed before depriving a person of his freedom. [2:58] From the start, Simpson was also being tried in the court of public opinion. [3:03] Though many applauded the verdict, others were stunned. [3:08] Homicide Detective Tom Lang of the Los Angeles Police Department [3:15] was one of the men in charge of overseeing the evidence collection at the crime scene. [3:20] There are people on death row, death row. [3:23] There are people that have indeed been put to death on much, much less evidence, [3:28] on a tenth of that evidence. [3:30] Defense attorney Barry Sheck was a member of Simpson's Dream Team [3:35] and one of the most vocal critics of how the evidence against O.J. Simpson was collected and processed. [3:42] The way that crime scene was handled by the criminalists from the Los Angeles Police Department, [3:47] by the people in the crime lab when they did the initial DNA testing, [3:52] and by the medical examiner's office, was shameful. [3:59] Soon after the trial began, it became clear that more than Simpson was on trial. [4:04] Forensic science would also have its day in court. [4:08] Could the evidence and the methods under which it was collected withstand the defense team's harsh scrutiny? [4:17] There were no eyewitnesses to the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. [4:24] But from the very beginning, the prosecution thought strong circumstantial evidence pointed to the killer. [4:32] In the Brentwood section of Los Angeles in the early morning of June 13, 1994, [4:43] a dog led some neighbors to the front walk of Nicole Brown Simpson's condominium. [4:52] There lay the mutilated bodies of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman. [4:57] Their killer, or killers, had slit their throats. [5:04] Bloody shoe prints and drops of blood to the left of them led away from the murder scene toward a back alley. [5:13] Police believed the prints belonged to someone who'd been bleeding from the left hand as he quit the scene. [5:23] Also found near the bodies were a blood-soaked glove and a pullover cap. [5:28] The killer had apparently left them behind. [5:31] After the crime scene had been secured, the officers called the Homicide Division. [5:39] Detective Lang received a call at 3 a.m. on the 13th to take charge of the investigation. [5:46] He arrived at the scene around 425 a.m. [5:53] The first impression was that it was an overkill, probably a rage, some type of rage killing, that there was one killer. [6:01] The ground was littered with potential clues. A leather glove, a ski cap, Ronald Goldman's pager, and his car keys, [6:17] a dog's footprints in the blood, and one set of size 12 shoe prints leading away from the bodies. [6:25] Detectives had to determine which were important. They started with the blood. [6:31] Along with the heel-to-toe stride analysis of the bloody shoe prints told us that the source was in fact walking. [6:38] Not what you would expect after committing a brutal double murder. [6:44] There was an interruption in his gate, and he stops, and there's two or three prints that point back towards where he was, [6:57] indicating the possibility that the killer stopped and looked back. [7:01] Now, when he did that, was he looking, say, hey, I lost my cap, I lost my glove. [7:11] Should I go back and get them? No, I better get out of here. It's very dark down there. [7:15] Uh, so that may have been that hesitation in that, in that stride that we saw in those bloody shoe prints. [7:23] Request of his superior, Lange left the crime scene to notify the victim's estranged husband, [7:35] former football star and broadcaster O.J. Simpson, that his ex-wife had been killed. [7:40] He traveled the short distance to Simpson's home on North Rockingham Drive with his partner, [7:51] Phil Van Atter, and other detectives assigned to the case, one of them named Mark Furman. [8:00] It was the first time Lange and Van Atter had worked with Furman. [8:04] Mr. Simpson, this is the police. Mr. Simpson, this is the police. Will you please open the gate? [8:09] They approached the front gate of Simpson's home. Though they could see lights on in the house, [8:14] no one responded to the buzzer. According to the testimony of Mark Furman at trial, [8:23] he then noticed a white Ford Bronco outside the gate. It was parked at an odd angle. Through the [8:31] window, he saw a small black bag bearing the label Orenthal Productions. Furman concluded the car [8:38] belonged to O.J. Simpson. He then called Tom Lange over to show him something else he had found. [8:47] Near the door handle on the driver's side, there appeared to be a spot of blood. [8:55] Lange testified that the detectives feared Simpson was injured and decided to enter Simpson's property [9:05] to investigate, even though they didn't have a warrant. Furman climbed over the five-foot wall and let [9:14] the other detectives in. Lange and Van Atter checked the front door while Furman investigated behind the [9:28] house. It didn't appear as if anyone was home. Detectives roused Cato Kaelin from a bungalow at the rear of [9:52] the house. Kaelin, a guest of Simpson's, wasn't certain of Simpson's whereabouts, but told the [10:02] detectives he'd heard several loud thumps behind his room earlier that evening. Police later learned [10:11] that Simpson had left hours earlier for Chicago. While the other detectives continued their search, [10:23] Furman, alone, went to investigate the cause of the strange noises Caelin reported. He found a bloody [10:34] glove in plain view. It appeared to match the blood-soaked glove found at the murder scene. Furman brought [10:45] Van Atter to show him his discovery. Simpson's Rockingham estate was declared the second crime scene [10:53] of the night. O.J. Simpson was now a prime suspect. He was not a suspect initially when we went on the [11:02] property, but once the glove had been found, he most definitely became a suspect. According to the [11:10] testimony of Philip Van Atter, as dawn broke over Los Angeles, he was able to see drops of blood in [11:16] Simpson's driveway. They led from the Bronco to Simpson's house. Later, Van Atter found drops of [11:25] blood in the entrance hall. As he looked into the Bronco, he saw still more traces of blood on the [11:32] console and seat. Van Atter ordered the car seized and, by 1045, obtained a warrant to search the house [11:43] for additional evidence. Meanwhile, Simpson returned from Chicago. Police had notified him by phone of his [11:52] ex-wife's murder. He agreed to be interviewed by detectives Lang and Van Atter without the presence of his [11:58] lawyer. The detectives noticed a deep cut on a finger of his left hand. Van Atter asked Simpson repeatedly [12:09] about the injury. His responses seemed inconsistent and contradictory. First, he said he cut his finger in [12:16] Chicago on a broken glass. Then he changed his story and said he may have cut it in L.A. and reopened it in Chicago. [12:24] To Lang and Van Atter, Simpson's explanation seemed evasive. They began to investigate his whereabouts [12:40] on the night of the murders. Police located the limousine driver who took Simpson to Los Angeles [12:52] International Airport for his flight to Chicago. He had arrived at Simpson's estate ahead of schedule [12:58] at 1025 p.m. Mr. Simpson? He testified he didn't see the Bronco and received no answer when he pressed [13:06] the buzzer at the gate. He then drove around the block and returned shortly before 11 p.m. The driver [13:16] said at that time he noticed the Bronco parked on the street and saw an African-American male walking [13:21] hurriedly up the driveway into the house. Then he saw a light go on. O.J. Simpson told him over the intercom [13:34] that he'd overslept and would be down in a moment. Police believe the murders took place around 1030. [13:43] The prosecution felt Simpson's alibi couldn't hold up. They now had to find a motive. To build their case, [13:53] police interviewed friends and family members of Nicole Brown. They suggested the killing was the [13:59] final act of a vengeful and abusive husband. Nicole, battered and bruised, had called the police in 1989, [14:08] charging that Simpson had beaten her. [14:14] Can you get someone over here now to 325 Gretna Green? He's back. [14:18] Please. Okay, what does he look like? He's O.J. Simpson. I think you know his record. [14:22] Could you just take somebody over here? Okay, what is he doing there? He just drove up again. [14:27] Can you just throw somebody over? Okay, wait a minute. What kind of car? He's in a white Bronco, [14:31] but first of all, he broke the back door down to get in before. Okay, wait a minute. What's your name? [14:35] Nicole Simpson. Okay. For his actions, a court ordered Simpson to perform community service. [14:44] More recently, friends said he'd been stalking Nicole, threatening her and pressuring her to renew [14:49] their marriage. Nicole had also become concerned about a missing set of keys to her condominium. [14:56] They would resurface after his arrest. Days before she was murdered, she told her mother that they [15:03] were missing and she had thought Simpson had stolen them and we find them on his person. Based on the [15:11] evidence they had collected, the LAPD filed formal charges against Orenthal James Simpson for the [15:17] double murders. He was scheduled to deliver himself into custody at 11 a.m. on June 17, 1994. When he [15:29] didn't arrive at police headquarters, the LAPD went to arrest him, only to find he had fled. As they [15:42] began an extensive search, a television news helicopter began broadcasting images of Simpson and his friend A.C. [15:49] Cowlings driving along the freeways of Los Angeles in a white Ford Bronco. After driving back to his [16:01] Rockingham mansion, Simpson surrendered to police. The circumstantial and forensic evidence appeared to [16:09] confirm Simpson's guilt. The prosecution felt it now had a case that could be proven beyond a reasonable [16:17] doubt. Instead, the case would raise a cloud of doubt about forensic science itself. A week into the [16:29] investigation of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, the LAPD turned its case over [16:36] to the district attorney's office. Prosecutors, along with the LAPD's Tom Lang and Phil Van Atter, [16:43] were increasingly confident their case would hold up in court. Phil and I talk about our last 10 murders [16:52] combined don't have this evidence. So unquestionably there's more evidence than that I challenge any [17:00] prosecuted to tell me they've seen more, unless you've had it in Yankee Stadium in front of 80,000 [17:07] people. I've never seen more evidence or even heard of more evidence in a criminal case than this. [17:14] The prosecution accumulated what it felt to be a mountain of evidence. The two blood-stained gloves, [17:25] blood found at the scene, in Simpson's Bronco, and on his clothing, as well as hair found on the knit cap, [17:33] consistent with that of an African-American male. This is very important evidence. Circumstantially, [17:39] yes, but extremely important evidence. What's interesting on this case is every little thing [17:47] like that ended up in the LAPD of OJ Simpson. Nothing was exculpatory. Nothing said someone else [17:54] was involved or a second person. Nothing says this guy didn't do it. The trial of OJ Simpson for the [18:02] murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman began in January 1995 in the Los [18:09] Angeles County Courthouse. Because California state courts allow TV cameras, an audience of millions [18:19] followed the trial day after day. It was the most watched trial in history. For LAPD Detective Tom [18:28] Lange, this made testifying difficult. So I'm on the stand and after all these days and I've got a jury [18:37] glaring at me. Above them is this camera with 50 some odd million people watching me live. Am I [18:43] concentrating on that camera and all these millions of people that I know are watching me? Or am I [18:48] concentrating on the attorney and the questions being asked of me? That's the negative impact that [18:54] that much publicity can have on a case. And it did play a factor here. The prosecution would try to prove [19:02] that OJ Simpson acted alone, killing Brown and Goldman with brutal efficiency. Brown's blood was [19:11] found on Goldman and vice versa. To the prosecution, this meant the same knife had been used to kill [19:17] both victims. To better understand how the murders could have been committed, the prosecution sought the [19:23] expertise of crime scene reconstructionist and former homicide detective Rod Englert. So I have to just [19:29] look at the evidence, let the evidence do the talking, and then find support for that evidence to [19:35] work out a logical sequence. That's what a reconstructionist does. Seven weeks after the murders, [19:40] Englert first walked through the crime scene in an attempt to piece together the elements of his [19:45] reconstruction. So the first thing that I did was to get a feel for the scene, the dimensions, the space, [19:55] walk through Nicole's home, upstairs, downstairs, and looking. And you might find this interesting. [20:01] You know what I was looking for? I don't know what I was looking for. I just know it when I see it. [20:07] I know what's out of place because of that experience. Not that I'm cerebral or anything, [20:11] but you just, you know, having seen these so many times, you just sort of, you recognize when [20:16] something's not right. This reconstruction is based on Englert's written report as presented to the court. [20:24] It speculates how the crime may have occurred and how long it might take, assuming the prosecution's [20:29] theory that O.J. Simpson was the killer. The defense contended that the murders would have [20:35] involved a prolonged struggle of as much as 15 minutes. The prosecution, however, believed they [20:41] took a total of 30 seconds. The evidence suggests that when Nicole came out of her door and we're [20:47] going in slow motion, that she was approached by O.J. Simpson, who hit her on the head numerous times, [20:52] and then she has three stab wounds to the left side of her neck that went very, very deep, [20:57] and she goes down causing abrasions to her elbow, to her face from hitting the concrete. Then after [21:05] she is down on the ground, then Ron Goldman walks up, and when he walks up, an altercation is between the [21:13] two of them. The glove comes off because O.J. had his left arm around. The glove drops in the scene, [21:20] and he incapacitates Ron Goldman, and then goes back to Nicole, and then picks up her hair, [21:28] cuts her throat from left to right, all the way back to her spine, lures her head down, and then, [21:37] with the evidence that is on the knife, goes back to, and then cuts the throat of Ron Goldman, [21:44] and then he's bleeding on the bars, and then lays him over on his left side through that process. [21:50] And this is a position that Goldman was in somewhat. Then he goes back to Nicole, steps on her back, [21:58] there's a foot impression in this area on her back, and then leaves the scene. [22:05] Englert also came up with a theory about how the killer's glove had been left at the crime scene, [22:12] and how O.J. Simpson cut his hand. [22:18] That consistent with the glove being removed, this is how this occurrence happened, that during the [22:22] struggle, the glove came off and dropped to the ground, and notice that the knife blade at this [22:27] point to stick your finger out would be parallel to where O.J. Simpson's hand would be, and that [22:31] could come across and cut this incision that was on his finger. Everything is parallel. There's nothing [22:39] cross-section to it, and this is consistent with the evidence of a struggle, which can happen. [22:46] Prosecutors felt that by cutting his own finger, Simpson had inadvertently left the trail of blood [22:51] evidence that by itself was highly incriminating. That, plus his motive and lack of an alibi, [22:59] was quite possibly enough to obtain a conviction. But prosecutors still had mostly circumstantial [23:06] evidence against him. They would attempt to ice the case through DNA collected from the blood stains. [23:14] DNA analysis over the last two decades had begun to revolutionize criminal investigations. Until recently, [23:26] blood evidence had limited use in helping identify criminals. By examining what are called the [23:32] antigens in blood, scientists could determine its type, A, O, B, or AB, but could not trace a blood [23:40] sample to any one individual. Beginning in the 1980s, science promised to make blood evidence much more [23:50] significant by examining its DNA. Found in every cell of our bodies, DNA contains the coded instructions [24:01] of our being, the color of our eyes, our height and hair color, the size of our brain, and so on. Since no [24:10] two humans are alike, except identical twins, it follows that no two people have the same set of DNA [24:17] instructions. By breaking the code, scientists have been able to identify the patterns or markers that [24:27] distinguish one person's DNA from another's. Two tests are used to isolate and identify human DNA. One, called [24:37] polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, requires a small sample of blood cells, which are then replicated to [24:45] produce a larger sample. For the other test, called restriction fragment length polymorphism, or RFLP, researchers [24:56] must start with a much larger sample of cells. Most of the testing in the Simpson case use the simpler [25:02] PCR test. Though most courts have accepted DNA evidence, there remains some controversy about [25:10] its reliability and methods. Like critics of fingerprint science 100 years ago, some question whether we [25:20] have truly broken the code. In addition to that, DNA science is difficult to explain and, for many jurors, [25:31] hard to understand. The results of DNA analysis in the Simpson case were stunning. A prosecution expert [25:40] testified that the drops of blood leading away from the murder scene were probably O.J. Simpson's. The [25:48] odds the blood came from someone else were calculated at one in 170 million. Blood found on the back gate at [25:57] the murder scene was also identified as Simpson's. Here, the odds of it being someone else's were one in [26:05] several billion, greater than the population of the planet. This essentially proved the blood was Simpson's. [26:14] Simpson's blood was also identified on the Bronco's door panel, dashboard, and near the headlight [26:22] switch. Simpson told police he'd last driven the Bronco before dark on the day of the murders. Crime [26:30] scene reconstructionist Rod Englert. When do you turn on your headlights? Daytime? Not really. So there was a [26:39] transfer on that dash which was blood consistent with O.J. Simpson's DNA. But even more remarkable was the [26:48] console between the passenger seat and the driver's seat. And it had numerous transfer patterns. One [26:59] was a hand pattern on the back far side of the console, on the console between the passenger seat [27:05] and the console, which you can see distinctive finger marks, a transfer. And then there's another [27:11] swipe. These transfers belong to, and it was blood consistent with, the DNA of Ron Goldman and Nicole [27:20] Brown. But for the defense, forensic blood spatter expert Herbert McDonnell testified that he was [27:28] leery of the blood found in the Bronco because it was so minute. I don't see how anyone could have been [27:35] in a struggle with Ron Goldman, or for that matter, Nicole Brown, where the blood was all over the area [27:43] and not got much more blood on them than was reportedly on Mr. Simpson or in his Bronco. The [27:50] the Bronco, in my estimation, had less than one drop total in that whole vehicle. Regardless of the blood [27:58] in the Bronco, prosecution DNA tests had identified the ample blood from both murder victims on the glove [28:05] found behind Cato Kalin's bungalow. The forensic evidence gathered by the police and prosecution [28:15] pointed a bloody finger at OJ Simpson. The defense would point its finger at the police. The defense [28:27] in the Simpson case would focus its attack on a chain of events beginning in the wee hours of June 13th, [28:33] 1994. Defense attorney Barry Sheck contended that what happened and what didn't happen in the 24 hours [28:41] following the murders was enough to cast doubt on the prosecution's case. There was a lack of [28:49] coordinated effort between the criminalists, the detectives, and the medical examiners. And you [28:57] want to make sure that you keep everybody out of that crime scene until you have looked at it carefully, [29:05] looking for the unexpected, making sure that you have seen absolutely everything before you allow [29:11] all kinds of brass and, you know, supervisors to walk in and out, walk in and out, walk in and out, [29:18] and begin to destroy the scene. The defense set out to prove that evidence gathering went from bad to [29:25] worse. Well, the significance of the Simpson case lies in the way that crime scene was handled and its [29:34] amplifications for the lab work. And we're talking here about the way that the criminalists on the [29:40] scene collected the evidence, the way it was initially processed in the laboratories, and the way the [29:45] medical examiner's office dealt with that. At the scene of the murders on South Bundy Drive, [29:52] camera crews arrived at 7.30 a.m. Rod Englert believes the cameras were a distraction that [29:59] seriously affected the way the crime scene was handled. It's just really difficult to do your [30:04] job when just a few feet away you've got 15, 20 cameras over your shoulder that's going to be [30:09] second-guessing you. Well, what are you thinking about? Are you thinking about the evidence while [30:12] you're down on your hands and knees? Are you thinking about these people shooting up the back of [30:17] your dress? You see what I'm saying? Detective Lang, in charge of the investigation, couldn't stop the [30:25] crews from filming. But he wanted to shield vital crime scene information so it wouldn't become [30:32] public knowledge. Lang covered Brown's body with a blanket he found in her house. This would draw [30:39] criticism at trial. The bodies, of course, themselves are evidence. The blood patterns on the body are [30:47] evidence. If you have a camera crew show up and videotape that, you've compromised it. And you [30:52] can't necessarily use that if you had a potential suspect or a witness that you'd interviewed down [30:58] the line. The media today has lens that could highlight a human hair at 200 feet. You know, [31:07] we're just honing in on the crime scene on the one victim, Nicole Brown, in all of the evidence, [31:12] compromising that evidence. That's one reason that body was covered. They took a blanket and they put it [31:19] over the bodies and they brought hairs and fibers all across that scene, when obviously some of the [31:24] key pieces of evidence in the case might come down to hairs and fibers. Where did they come from? [31:32] Only one of the bodies had been covered and Lang felt his reason was valid. Did we contaminate it? [31:39] There's always that possibility. But in this case, it was exactly the right thing to do because it was [31:45] no contamination. There were no foreign hairs, fibers or debris found on Nicole Brown or her clothing. [31:53] It was a tight, tightly knit, clean hospital blanket that was used. The cameras, meanwhile, [32:01] became a useful tool for the defense. We were able to get some of the videotape of the cameras looking in [32:11] as the officers were processing the crime scene and able to demonstrate that they weren't changing [32:20] their gloves, that they were commingling some of the evidence, that people were walking in and out [32:26] of the crime scene at times when they probably shouldn't have been. The defense began a theme it [32:34] would stress throughout the trial, that the blood evidence in the case had been contaminated. When blood [32:41] is shed, bacteria immediately begins to break it down, along with its DNA. The defense suggested [32:49] improper handling of the blood swatches had allowed the blood to deteriorate too far to permit accurate [32:55] test results. Chief criminalist Dennis Fung had relied primarily on swabbing the blood at the murder scene [33:02] and transferring it to cotton swatches. The swatches were supposed to be dried, then wrapped in cloth bindles [33:09] for transfer to the lab. But several of the bindles were blood-stained, proving the swatches were wet [33:17] when placed inside. That could encourage bacterial contamination. Fung also left the blood evidence in [33:30] his enclosed van for hours without air conditioning in the hot California sun. And the last thing in the [33:38] world one should do is put it into a plastic bag and stick it onto a truck, a crime scene truck, and let it [33:45] bake for seven hours because you're going to degrade the DNA there. That's a terrible mistake from the [33:51] point of view of a criminalist, isn't it? Yes. The theme of contamination was one of the most hotly [34:00] contested issues at the trial. Murders do not occur in a sterile lab setting. There was contamination, [34:09] there always has been. But they would lead you to believe that this somehow affected the outcome of this [34:15] blood evidence, and the reality of it is it did not. The fact of the matter is, if you're looking strictly [34:21] at the DNA in this case, you could have collected all those blood samples and placed them out on Bundy Drive [34:28] for a month, let the traffic run up and down over them, and then collect them. Is that going to [34:33] contaminate them? Well, sure it's going to contaminate them. Is that going to change the DNA properties? [34:38] Is that going to make O.J. Simpson's DNA appear there? No. It's there or it's not there. It's as simple as that. [34:47] But Sheck raised another argument, that criminalists at the scene may have commingled some of the blood [34:52] samples so that no one could say whose blood was whose. Dennis Fung had first collected drops of [35:03] Simpson's blood at O.J.'s home, then arrived at the murder scene to collect blood samples there. [35:09] A ruling cross-examination by Barry Sheck raised serious doubts that Fung had changed his gloves, [35:19] or even worn gloves, while collecting evidence at the murder scene. And there were some moments during [35:30] the trial where I guess the moment that everybody remembers most is that Mr. Fung was picking up [35:38] that envelope from the scene and he was claiming that he of course did that with his gloves on, [35:44] all of a sudden in the courtroom, in a way we'd never even done it before because we had a better [35:50] video machine in the courtroom. And you could see very, very clearly Dennis Fung grabbing the envelope [35:57] and touching it without his glove on. The defense went a step further. It argued that besides the [36:05] inept collection procedures, more errors were committed when the samples were analyzed. It contended [36:11] that the handling of the samples in the laboratory was so sloppy that the test results could not be [36:17] relied upon. This is a lab that was operating without a protocol, without procedures that people were [36:25] trained in. Nobody ever taught them how to do it right. That was apparent. As the defense steadily chipped [36:30] away at the prosecution's case, another theory began to take shape. Somebody played with this [36:38] evidence. A police conspiracy to frame O.J. Simpson. A mountain of forensic evidence in the Simpson case [36:49] was turning to rubble. The defense now raised its own theory. Some of the evidence had been planted. [36:56] Proof began at the gate of Nicole Brown's condominium. According to testimony, the police returned to the [37:05] murder scene three weeks after the murders and found Simpson's blood on the back gate near the bloody [37:14] shoe prints of the killer. Because it was missed during the initial investigation, the defense [37:21] suggested it may not have been there at the time of the murder. Detective Tom Lang acknowledges the blood [37:28] on the gate should have been collected earlier. Generally at a crime scene, the detective will do a final [37:37] walkthrough of the criminalists, photography people, latent print people, other detectives who have done [37:43] canvassing and other things, and they'll walk through, did we do this, did we do that. If that had occurred [37:49] here, we wouldn't have had the problem with the blood on the rear gate. During his initial questioning, [37:58] Simpson consented to giving police a blood sample. The defense suggested someone had planted some of it [38:05] the blood on the gate. Though presumably exposed to the elements three weeks longer, the DNA from the blood [38:12] on the gate hadn't decomposed as much as the DNA from the blood collected hours after the crime. About [38:21] the same time Simpson's blood was found on Nicole Brown's gate, Brown's blood was discovered on a pair of [38:27] socks recovered from Simpson's house the night of the murders. Its significance wasn't missed by the [38:34] prosecution or the defense. The prosecution's crime scene reconstructionist, Rod Englert, believes the [38:42] drops of blood were spattered on the socks as Simpson stepped in his ex-wife's blood. And on the socks we [38:49] have a projected blood pattern of blood that had to be airborne. When it landed on these socks creating [38:56] numerous spots around the ankle and the front of one of them and numerous match head size spots on the [39:04] other. Now, I don't know which one was right or left, but those spots stopped at where the shoe would [39:08] be on if it was a regular street-sized shoe. Those spots stopped at a certain level on both of them [39:14] where pant legs would be. And so when that was analyzed, I remember Tom Lang calling that evening, [39:20] very excited, and said, we were right. It was Nicole's blood. To test his theory on how the blood would [39:30] have been spattered on Simpson, Englert staged a reenactment. To recreate the struggle, he used police [39:39] officers dressed in white so the blood would show up better. The white set matched the exact dimensions [39:46] of the murder scene. The violent struggle between the killer and the second victim, Ronald Goldman, [39:54] took place in close proximity to the deepening pool of blood from Nicole. Englert matched the amount of [40:01] blood from the crime scene exactly and found that it would have been difficult to avoid spattering, [40:07] as the test amply demonstrated. Forensics experts Herbert McDonnell and Henry Lee conducted their [40:16] own examination of one of the socks found in Simpson's bedroom. The ankle stain was very large. [40:23] It was not spattered. Both men claimed the blood had not been spattered at all. It was not projected [40:32] there. It was not dripped there. It was not cast off and landed there by flying through the air. It was [40:39] transferred from contact by something that had blood on it. Because the blood on the socks was not found [40:46] between the fibers, McDonnell concluded it had been wiped across the sock. The margin around the center of [40:55] that stain shows blood on the surface of the fibers only. It does not show blood permeating between the [41:02] fibers. Therefore, we know it's transferred. McDonnell also found evidence that Simpson's foot was not in the [41:10] sock when the blood transfer took place. McDonnell uses a shirt sleeve to demonstrate how he thinks the [41:16] blood was applied to the sock. He places a single drop of blood on top of the cloth, which he calls [41:23] surface one. He rubs the blood in and it soaks onto the back or surface two. The blood is then transferred [41:32] to surface three, but does not soak through to surface four. McDonnell and Lee found that blood had seeped [41:42] through from sides one and two of Simpson's sock onto side three, which would have been impossible [41:49] if Simpson's foot had been inside the sock between surface two and surface three. To the defense, [41:59] this was compelling evidence the blood could have been planted on the sock, either at the crime scene [42:05] or while the socks were in police custody. The conspiracy theory was supported by defense [42:12] experts who found the presence of a substance called EDTA in both the blood on the sock and the blood [42:18] from the gate at the crime scene. EDTA is a preservative added to blood in a test tube to prevent it from [42:25] clotting. It's also present naturally in small quantities in the human bloodstream, but witnesses [42:32] testified that the amount of EDTA in the two bloodstains was much higher than normal, suggesting the blood on [42:41] the gate and the socks came from the lab. Down but not defeated, the prosecution brought out its most dramatic [42:52] evidence. The trial of OJ Simpson reached a turning point with the pair of gloves. Co-mingled on them [43:05] was the blood of both murder victims. According to testimony at trial, one glove was found at the scene [43:12] of the murders, the other on Simpson's property on Rockingham Drive. But a now infamous courtroom [43:21] demonstration seriously undermined the evidence. The prosecution team decided to have Simpson try on the [43:28] gloves in front of the jury. The result was a disaster. The gloves apparently did not fit. The prosecution [43:41] was forced to scramble for an explanation. A former executive of the company that manufactured the gloves [43:48] testified that when soaked in blood and allowed to dry, the gloves might shrink 10 to 15 percent. To see [43:56] if that was possible, McDonnell tested this theory with an identical pair of gloves. So I took the gloves that [44:04] were sent to me and I poured my own blood over these gloves in a controlled condition so I knew exactly [44:12] how much blood remained on the gloves. They were really wet. The blood was worked into them and then [44:18] they were allowed to dry. Prior to the experiment, McDonnell photocopied the glove to document its size. [44:31] After the bloody glove dried, he again photocopied it for comparison. It had shrunk less than one percent. [44:38] Next, he wanted to find out how small the glove would become if it really did shrink as much as the [44:45] manufacturer claimed. He used the photocopier to reduce the glove to 10 and 15 percent of its original [44:52] size. Then he compared the reductions to the original photocopy. The change was enormous. At 15 percent, [45:02] the gloves would have shrunk over an inch and a half. In McDonnell's opinion, the change was too drastic. [45:13] Since it seemed unlikely that the gloves belonged to Simpson, the defense had an opening to expand [45:18] its theory of a police conspiracy. It had already suggested that someone had planted blood on the [45:24] back gate at the murder scene and on the socks from Simpson's bedroom. Now it put forward the theory [45:31] that the glove found on Simpson's property had also been deliberately planted. Mark Furman had been [45:38] alone when he found the glove at Simpson's house. He'd also been among the first detectives to arrive at [45:44] Brown's condominium where the first glove had been found. The defense suggested that Furman had picked [45:51] up the second glove at the scene of the murders, taken it with him to Simpson's estate, and planted it on [45:57] the pathway behind Cato Kalin's bungalow. For LAPD Detective Lang, it would have been impossible for [46:04] Furman to have found the second glove at the scene of the murders because he was the 13th detective to sign [46:10] the log. Because 12 people there before Furman only saw one glove, and it's very logical the way [46:19] Furman found the glove. He was doing what anybody should have done, following up on an interview with [46:23] Cato Kalin. Taking its theory a step further, the defense suggested that before he planted the glove, [46:30] Furman may have used it to smear the blood of the victims inside Simpson's Bronco. It was a claim that made [46:39] the LAPD's blood boil. Mark Furman did not plant any blood, absolutely. He did not do it. He would [46:51] have no knowledge how to do that, and there's no evidence of that whatsoever. None. There was no [47:01] sprinkling of blood in that Bronco whatsoever. There weren't any drops. That was all transfers, [47:05] and the significance of it was that it was transferred in the patterns consistent with one [47:10] who had blood on his hands or possible clothing to get in and open the door, open the interior door, [47:15] turn on the lights, touch over here with a hand transfer, and if implements or something was placed [47:22] on the seat to be able to do that, someone would have to be so knowledgeable and so cerebral about [47:29] predicting what was going to happen that they, I don't have that capability, I don't know anybody that [47:35] does to be able to make it consistent, and then to do it on the socks at the house, impossible. [47:46] The defense had no real evidence that the glove was planted, and at first it could provide no [47:51] motive for Furman to plant it, but that soon changed. You say on your oath that you have not addressed [47:58] any black person as a or spoken about black people as in the past 10 years, Detective Furman. [48:05] That's what I'm saying, sir. So that anyone who comes to this court and quotes you as [48:10] using that word in dealing with African Americans would be a liar, would they not, Detective Furman? [48:15] Yes, they would. [48:15] All of them, correct? [48:16] All of them. [48:20] In one of the trial's most dramatic moments, the defense introduced evidence that Furman had [48:25] expressed hatred toward blacks. The defense had found its final weapon for casting doubt on the [48:32] prosecution's case. It played the race card. Tom Lang feels the issue of race was irrelevant. [48:42] Furman's racism, or whatever else Furman is, has nothing to do with the two people getting [48:47] murdered. It's unfortunate he was in the middle of it for the first couple hours, [48:52] but you have to deal with that. And if you think he's planted evidence or anything else, [48:57] we need to see evidence of that. Case number BA097211. [49:02] The prosecution had been so certain of its forensic evidence, it had withheld other evidence pointing [49:08] to Simpson's guilt for fear of exhausting the jury's patience, but the defense had effectively [49:16] nullified each piece it presented, claiming it had been contaminated by sloppy handling and a disregard [49:23] for the procedures established to protect it. October 3rd, 1995, Orenthal James Simpson was found not [49:33] guilty of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Tom Lang is convinced the jury [49:41] disregarded the compelling evidence the prosecution had put forward. [49:44] The prosecution proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt. I've never seen so much evidence, [49:49] even there was a tremendous amount of evidence they didn't put on, but there was a tremendous [49:53] amount they did. I've never seen that much put on in a case. When a jury comes back in two and a half [49:59] hours, it's pretty evident they didn't do what they were instructed to do, regardless of the outcome, [50:03] regardless if it's guilty or not guilty. They did not do what they were told to do, [50:09] and the court did not follow up on that. Defense attorney Barry Sheck feels the jury's verdict was [50:15] based squarely on reasonable doubt. He believes the way the LAPD handled the evidence was totally [50:23] inadequate. People in the forensic community recognized that this was wrong, that these procedures [50:30] were unacceptable. The more sophisticated the technology, the more powerful the forensic evidence, [50:40] the greater the importance that these people develop and are able to maintain a high sense of [50:47] independence and professionalism. That kind of laboratory is the kind of laboratory and the kind [50:55] of crime scene people that are our best protection for convicting the truly guilty and exonerating the [51:02] truly innocent. After Simpson's acquittal, lawyers representing the victim's families in a civil suit [51:11] case, would learn from the mistakes of the criminal trial. They would bring in circumstantial evidence [51:18] not presented earlier, such as the fact that Simpson owned a pair of the expensive Bruno Molle shoes, [51:24] like those that left their imprint at the scene of the crime. The prosecution only had to convince a [51:32] majority of the jurors beyond a 50% certainty that Simpson was guilty. The prosecution was successful, [51:39] and O.J. Simpson was found liable for the deaths of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown. He was required to [51:46] pay 33.5 million dollars to the victim's families. During the criminal trial, the prosecution had what [51:55] it believed to be irrefutable evidence. It was wrong. Careless handling and collection techniques robbed the [52:05] evidence of its power. It served only to raise doubt. The aftermath of the Simpson trial resonated [52:13] throughout the halls of science. Forensics itself was put on the stand, and it became clear that the [52:20] most reliable witness can also be the most easily compromised. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, February 6th, 1995, [52:33] police officers responded to a 911 call. They arrived at the home of Ted Mills, his wife, [52:41] Mamie Hernandez-Mills, and stepson, Nathan Latu. Mamie and Nathan had come home from a dental [52:53] appointment to find Ted Mills dead and the house ransacked. Mills lay with a shotgun wound in his head. [53:08] The back door of the house showed signs of forced entry. The strewn clothing seemed to indicate a robbery [53:21] had taken place. Then, police found a note, typed on a [53:36] torn sheet of lined yellow notepaper. It read, this is for our bud that you sent to jail. Rest in peace. [53:46] It was one clue that would speak volumes, not just in the words on the page, but in its paper and ink. [53:56] Sergeant David Palmer of the Minneapolis Homicide Unit relied on the expertise of forensic document [54:02] examiner Karen Runyon to help him read between the lines. Document examiners match writers with their [54:11] penmanship, typists with their typewriters, counterfeiters with their forgeries. Using computers, [54:20] microscopes, and digital enhancement, these new detectives delve into the minuscule world of paper [54:26] fibers and carbon particles to solve crimes. As the document examiner in this case, it was up to [54:35] Runyon to learn all she could from the slip of paper. The note was collected by the crime scene people [54:42] and brought to me. And I first made an examination to determine how the note had been prepared. [54:49] And it had been prepared with a typewriter that used a carbon film ribbon, which told me that if the [54:57] ribbon could be located, the ribbon could be read and matched possibly to this entry. [55:02] Runyon told officers to look for an electric typewriter with a carbon film ribbon. And if they [55:11] found one like that, they should collect it as evidence. As well, they should be aware that this [55:19] document had a fractured lower edge to it where it's been torn off of the rest of the piece of paper. [55:25] And they should look for any pieces of paper like this with any fractured edge or any type of tablet [55:33] that this might have been torn out of. While Runyon focused on the note, the police questioned [55:44] the victim's wife and stepson. According to Mamie and Nathan, they were at a dental appointment when [55:53] the murder occurred. They'd phoned home from the dentist's office, but no one answered. Ted should [56:00] have been home, but they assumed he was sound asleep since he worked nights and slept days. The note [56:09] suggested the murder and burglary were a payback for a past burglary at their home that was foiled by the [56:15] victim. Mills had helped send the burglar to jail. Sergeant Palmer initially believed the story, [56:29] but the seeds of doubt were already sprouting. Well, there was some truth to this and we couldn't [56:38] discount this. But at the same time, our experience tells us that generally burglars are not going to [56:43] return or have somebody return and kill somebody because of an identification that they have made. [56:51] During questioning, which police videotaped, Nathan Latu told police he saw a handgun next to Mills' body, [56:58] but police couldn't find it. They were skeptical. Certain details didn't match Latu's story. [57:09] They have two dogs in the house that bark whenever strangers come, and yet Ted Mills is sleeping [57:15] upstairs and never woke up. To Palmer, that suggested the culprit wasn't a stranger, but Mamie and Nathan's [57:24] alibis had support. A caller ID unit at the house registered their call from the dentist's office [57:31] around the time of the murder. Another detail nagged at Palmer. The place seemed ransacked in too orderly [57:41] a manner, not the way a burglar would generally tear up a room. We were suspicious about this because [57:48] our experience as investigators, most burglars are not this neat as we found contents pulled out so they [57:54] could be put readily and easily back into the drawers that they were dumped. Latu's 911 call to police [58:03] raised further suspicion. [58:08] What happened? [58:08] We just got home. I was at the Villa Hospital. My mom broke in the back door. They shot him. [58:16] He just had too much knowledge that he was able to tell us immediately. Most people, [58:22] when you talk to them and they're in a hysterical state like this, they can't hardly tell you what [58:27] time of the day it is. All they've been doing is screaming and crying and get somebody out there [58:31] to help us, but this was a different thing. We had an uneasy feeling about this. [58:39] Something about the case didn't ring true. The pieces just didn't fit. [58:45] The strongest indication that all was not as it seemed was a fingerprint on a broken window at the [58:50] point of entry. It belonged to Nathan Latu. When Nathan Latu was confronted with the fingerprint [59:07] evidence, he broke down and admitted his involvement in the murder. Days before the killing, Latu said his [59:16] mother asked him to write out in longhand the phrases typed on the note found next to Mills. [59:24] Now investigators had reason to believe that Mamie Hernandez-Mills typed the note herself. But how? [59:32] She said she couldn't read or write English and there was no typewriter in the house. Police needed to [59:40] find the typewriter used to create the note. Now that Nathan had implicated Mamie, Runyon and investigators [59:47] began to focus their search. They remembered that Hernandez-Mills cleaned houses for a living. Police [59:56] decided to look for a typewriter in the last few homes she worked in. In one of them, police found an [1:00:10] electric typewriter with a carbon film ribbon. The last few words of the note were clearly visible. [1:00:23] They also found several yellow notepads with paper similar to the note. The ribbon was brought to [1:00:37] Karen Runyon's lab for analysis. She was relieved to find the film cartridge had been left in the typewriter. [1:00:45] If the ribbon had been used up and discarded, the case would have become even more complicated. [1:00:52] To confirm the ribbon contained the full text of the note, she carefully pried open the cartridge. [1:00:59] I took the ribbon cartridge apart and then I transcribed the ribbon itself working from the final [1:01:06] entry which we could see on the ribbon as we took it out of the typewriter. I worked backwards from there [1:01:13] transcribing everything that was typed on that ribbon. Runyon discovered the note had been typed [1:01:20] three times. It proved that whoever typed it knew little about how to use the typewriter. The first two [1:01:28] times it was typed there were spelling errors and the typist must not have realized that there was a [1:01:33] correcting device on the machine and so they must have started over. Runyon compared fibers that had been [1:01:41] transferred from the paper onto the ribbon. When the carbon is knocked off the ribbon onto the [1:01:48] document, paper fibers adhere to that mylar strip that the carbon is on in the ribbon cartridge and the paper fibers [1:01:56] stay on the ribbon itself. By matching the fibers adhering to the ribbon with the fibers on the note, Runyon [1:02:04] concluded that the note was indeed typed using this ribbon. You match the fibers almost like a fingerprint. [1:02:13] The fibers are in a random pattern and they've adhered to this ribbon in that same random pattern that they [1:02:19] were on the paper itself. With Karen Runyon's help, the sordid story inside the plastic casing [1:02:28] began to unravel. Within the typewriter ribbon cassette lay the true story of what happened to Ted Mills. [1:02:39] The clues were microscopic but their significance was great. In this case, I was able to match all the [1:02:48] fibers in each of the letters on this note. Karen Runyon had linked the note to the typewriter and police [1:02:57] linked the typewriter to Mamie Hernandez-Mills. But the full story still needed to be told. Sergeant [1:03:05] Palmer had to determine Mamie's role in the crime and a motive for committing it. He continued to coax more [1:03:12] details from Nathan Latu. He said that his mother had got the shotgun that belonged to her husband up [1:03:22] from the closet upstairs and had gone over and had shot her husband while he was laying in the bed sleeping. [1:03:31] He, in fact, said that he went and got the shotgun that was used in the murder, took it down and [1:03:35] concealed it in a room downstairs in the basement that was next to where he slept. Nathan eventually [1:03:42] tells myself and my partner Sergeant Krebs what we wanted to know that he and his mother were [1:03:47] responsible for the death of Ted Mills. Nathan Latu swore, however, that he didn't pull the trigger. [1:03:55] By the same token, as he implicated his mother, he was also gravely concerned about her fate. [1:04:04] He's very worried about what's going to happen to his mother, more so than himself. He's very worried [1:04:14] and very protective of his mother throughout this whole thing. He keeps admonishing us not to hurt [1:04:20] his mother, not to do anything to his mother. Mamie Hernandez-Mills maintained her cool and her [1:04:29] innocence. When she's talking to us, she's very cooperative with us. I mean, she gives you the [1:04:34] appearance to ask me anything. I'll tell you anything. But obviously, except for that one thing, [1:04:39] she will never, even in this interview, admit that she had anything to do with the death of Ted Mills. [1:04:44] As the pressure of the interrogation began to build, Mamie turned against her son, [1:04:51] just as Nathan had turned against her. She told police Nathan had at gunpoint. Hearing this lie, [1:05:00] Nathan Latu broke down again. He had been withholding his greatest secret of all. He and his mother had been [1:05:08] having an intimate relationship. 41-year-old Mamie Hernandez-Mills had only recently reunited with [1:05:16] 22-year-old Nathan Latu, whom she gave up for adoption years earlier. Now, Mamie was exerting [1:05:24] a profound influence on her son. The police used that influence as leverage to obtain a confession from [1:05:31] Latu. We're kind of using, we're saying, Mamie, your mother kind of pushed you to doing this, [1:05:37] because she's a very strong, controlling person in this relationship that they have. [1:05:42] Mother is controlling son. Finally, Latu agreed to testify against his mother in return for a [1:05:48] reduced charge of second-degree murder. At about the same time, investigators discovered that Mills had [1:05:56] a life insurance policy through work and that Mamie had called to claim it shortly after his death. [1:06:05] With this motive now exposed, the shuffled events of that bloody February day fell into place. [1:06:12] Mamie Hernandez-Mills had typed the note on her employer's typewriter, using Nathan's handwritten [1:06:18] note as her guide. Each time she made a mistake, she started over, leaving behind a telltale story [1:06:27] inside the typewriter cartridge. Each keystroke pulled fibers from the paper, transferring them to the [1:06:35] mylar strip on the ribbon. Nathan Latu faked a break-in at their home. He made it look just as a burglar [1:06:45] man who had had months before, but he left behind an incriminating fingerprint. As Nathan and Mamie [1:06:56] climbed the stairs, they were careful not to wake Ted Mills. On entering the bedroom, they wasted no [1:07:05] time. After killing Mills, the two faked the burglary. Mamie left a note meant to steer investigators [1:07:39] toward an avenging intruder who never existed. Then, mother and son went to the hospital to keep a dental [1:07:50] appointment. While there, they used a phone to check in at home, knowing their call would be [1:08:01] registered by the caller ID unit. This call was the basis for their alibi. When they arrived back home, [1:08:12] Nathan placed the 911 call to police. He later told investigators he'd hidden the murder weapon in a [1:08:22] pipe and buried it beneath a tree. In court, he testified against his mother in exchange for a reduced [1:08:29] sentence. Mamie Hernandez-Mills was convicted of first-degree murder on April 20, 1996. She is serving [1:08:44] a life sentence. Nathan Latu pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 24 years. By leaving a note, Mamie [1:08:55] Hernandez-Mills and Nathan Latu meant to cast blame on a fictional intruder, but they left too much real [1:09:02] world evidence to the contrary. The note was left next to the body and that the note was part of a scheme [1:09:11] to make this look like another type of crime than what it really was. And in that perspective, this was [1:09:19] an interesting case and the fact that we did find the machine with the ribbon. For investigators Palmer [1:09:27] and Runyon, a note meant to throw authorities off track led them right to the killer. In Virginia, [1:09:36] a murder case was even more ironic. In a scrawled note to himself, a man made his deadly intentions [1:09:43] terribly clear. The shooting death of an elderly woman in February 1995 brought police to a home in [1:09:52] eastern Virginia. The only thing missing from the scene was $5 taken from the woman's purse. Police knew [1:10:01] the crime was committed by 18-year-old Richard Webb, live-in grandson of the victim. According to police, [1:10:10] Richard planned to kill his grandparents, steal their money, and take their van. The grandfather escaped [1:10:17] when the gun malfunctioned. Unable to find keys to the van, Richard Webb fled on foot and was apprehended [1:10:25] a short time later. Webb was guilty, but his guilt was a matter of degree. If police were right and [1:10:34] Richard planned the killing with intent to rob, he'd be guilty of first-degree murder. But if he killed on [1:10:42] a sudden violent impulse, he'd probably receive a lesser charge. It was up to the police to determine the [1:10:50] killer's intentions. While searching Richard's bedroom, police found an important clue in a torn [1:11:00] piece of cardboard. On it was written a to-do list. Among such mundane items as play pool and watch movie [1:11:12] was item number eight. It stated simply, kill. After that was get money and leave. The list seemed strong [1:11:25] evidence that Webb had planned his crimes. It was turned over to Michael Moore, document examiner at [1:11:34] Virginia's Division of Forensic Science in Richmond. In order to prove that Webb wrote the note, he'd need [1:11:41] to look for similarities between the handwriting on the note and samples known to have been written by Webb. [1:11:47] The handwriting identification is based on the premise that handwriting embodies certain qualities and [1:11:58] features which are sufficiently personal to serve as the basis for an identification of the writer. [1:12:04] Webb's murderous list, now classified as evidence, was securely sealed and delivered to Michael Moore. [1:12:16] Our handwriting is as personal as our fingerprints. As youngsters, most of us were taught to write by [1:12:23] imitating a standard system, often referred to as a copybook system. In spite of this standardized [1:12:30] technique, we begin to develop our own personal handwriting that stays with us for life. These deviations [1:12:37] provide the basis for analysis. When examining a document, Moore looks at speed, skill, slant and height [1:12:49] ratio, proportion, and the overall appearance of the writing. Similarities as well as differences are [1:12:57] scrutinized. Consistent combinations of features are what Moore seeks to identify. Does it exhibit good line [1:13:06] quality? Are there some unusual stopping and starting places? Does it have patching or retouching? Are there [1:13:14] blunt beginning and ending strokes? He set to work, applying a three-step process to the handwriting [1:13:24] examination. He knew from the start this was to be a challenging assignment. In the first phase, he was [1:13:32] concerned strictly with the writing surface. Moore noted that something had been torn from the face of the smooth [1:13:40] cardboard, exposing rough inner layers. Any handwriting on these layers might be distorted by the rough surface. [1:13:49] Portions of this particular piece of cardboard being so rough were difficult to write on and there was [1:13:55] some overwriting. You know, meaning that the person that did the writing had to actually write over [1:14:01] several times in order to get a visible image. Glue adhering to the cardboard interfered with the movement [1:14:09] of the pen. Moore had to factor that into his analysis. Some of the unusual or blunt, awkward movements, [1:14:22] for example, where the ink or the pen came into contact with the foreign matter, with the adhesive. [1:14:31] Is this the habit of the writer to square off this particular portion of this letter? Or is this as a [1:14:37] result of coming in contact with this amount of glue? The first phase of the examination showed that [1:14:45] the rough edges, as well as the glue, may have affected the shape of the letters. In item number two, [1:14:52] the bottom of the W in work is squared off where the pen hit the glue. If the writing sample contains [1:15:05] letters with closed loops, the document examiner must determine whether they are the habit of the person [1:15:10] who wrote the sample or if they were created by the water-based ink bleeding and closing the loop. [1:15:20] These variations in the writing surface can cause the letters to deviate from the author's normal [1:15:25] handwriting, making it difficult to analyze. In the second phase of examination, Moore studied the known [1:15:40] material or handwriting known to have come from the suspect. Again, he faced a challenge. In custody, [1:15:51] Webb was asked to fill out forms, take dictation on a piece of cardboard, and produce other writing to [1:15:57] compare with the original list. Moore made the comparison, but he found the samples inadequate. [1:16:09] Webb penned the dictated writings in a very formal, controlled environment. The original list was [1:16:19] undoubtedly written under very different conditions. The two sets of writing only vaguely resembled each other. [1:16:28] Moore was able to say he had some reason to believe that Webb had written the list, [1:16:33] but he couldn't be absolutely certain. To make a more conclusive judgment, he needed to see more of [1:16:39] Webb's writings. No two writings from any one person, even if they were done by the same person, will ever be [1:16:46] exactly alike, meaning that they'll superimpose. It can't happen. People are not machines. He asked the [1:16:53] detective for additional writings from Webb, because factors such as body position and writing surfaces affect [1:17:01] handwriting. He requested the samples come from a variety of circumstances. [1:17:07] The type of medium that was written on, you know, one would expect that it was probably not done [1:17:13] at a table or at a desk. It could have been standing up, unsupported. It could have been holding [1:17:19] a piece of cardboard in his hand. Just no way to know. The sheriff's deputies gathered an assortment of [1:17:26] Webb's writing, including personal letters, cards, and some of his poetry. Webb had written these [1:17:35] samples over a period of time, so they showed a wider range of his handwriting styles. Now came [1:17:46] Moore's biggest challenge, the final phase of the handwriting examination, where he'd make the critical [1:17:52] side-by-side comparison of the list and Webb's previously written material. For presentation in [1:18:02] court, he used a black and white enlargement of the list. The features and characteristics used to [1:18:10] identify handwriting take many forms. Some are conspicuous. Some are subtle. On the cardboard [1:18:17] list, Moore noted that the relative size of numerals to capital letters was consistent. The number one was [1:18:24] taller than the capital C in call. The number two was also taller than the capital W in work. Moore [1:18:35] found this same habit reflected in the known writings of Richard Webb. The significance of Webb's natural [1:18:44] range of variation raised a problem for Moore. He had to account for Webb's tendency to form the letter [1:18:51] R slightly differently each time he wrote it. In item number one, the letter began well to the left of the [1:18:59] spine, then continued on to form a rounded upper portion. In item nine, that capital R still began to [1:19:08] the left of the spine, but the top portion was flat. Moore recognized the same variations of the letter [1:19:16] of the letter R on Webb's known writings. They matched exactly the variations found on the cardboard list. [1:19:24] The combination of these features led Moore to a single conclusion. He could state with virtual [1:19:34] certainty that Richard Webb was the person who wrote the list on the cardboard and had therefore [1:19:40] premeditated his crimes. Ultimately, it takes a human mind to recognize a human hand. While computers are [1:19:54] helping to solve more crimes every day, Michael Moore feels his job is secure. While computers are useful [1:20:03] in some areas of forensic document examination, they really just are not applicable to comparative [1:20:08] handwriting by the mere fact that they have no way of, first of all, gauging the relative individuality [1:20:15] of the question signature. Even if 20 variations of a signature were scanned into a computer, [1:20:22] it might still fail to identify a 21st signature as coming from that same writer. Computers do not [1:20:29] have the ability to judge the range of variation or the circumstances under which the writing was [1:20:35] produced. Computers are just not, not in today's, what's available in today's market are just not, [1:20:42] not capable of, of doing what, what the human can do. When confronted with Moore's findings, [1:20:49] Richard Webb pleaded guilty and received a life sentence for capital murder. Ultimately, handwriting [1:20:58] analysis matched the killer to his crime. But when comparing handwriting, the analyst must always be [1:21:05] certain he's focusing on the right clues. The most crucial writing samples may come from the least [1:21:14] likely sources. One handwriting expert's small lapse in judgment fueled the flames of one of the greatest [1:21:24] hoaxes in modern history. In April 1983, the world was riveted by the news that Adolf Hitler's diaries [1:21:34] had been discovered in Stuttgart. The 60 handwritten volumes, written over 35 years, were found by a [1:21:42] German journalist. To determine if the books were truly written in Hitler's hand, the German government [1:21:50] enlisted a brigade of specialists, including handwriting analyst Ordway Hilton. Hilton was given seven [1:21:57] samples of Hitler's writing to compare to the diaries. Based on these samples, he declared the diaries [1:22:04] authentic. It was an honest mistake that almost destroyed his reputation. Hilton was duped. He correctly [1:22:15] determined that the author of the diaries also wrote the samples he used to compare them with. But his fatal [1:22:22] flaw was his assumption that Hitler wrote the samples. He didn't. They were written by the same person who [1:22:30] forged the diaries. That man was Conrad Cujot. The diaries were sold for more than two million dollars [1:22:40] before the fraud was exposed by an international team of document examiners, chemists, and historians. [1:22:48] By studying the composition of the paper, the quality of the type, and other characteristics, [1:22:54] they determined the diaries were no more than four years old. When the West German state archives announced [1:23:01] their findings, they discredited the books in no uncertain terms, declaring the diaries the grotesquely [1:23:08] superficial concoction of a copyist endowed with a limited intellectual capacity. Even so, Cujot [1:23:16] perpetrated the most expensive fraud in the history of publishing. If it weren't for the expertise of [1:23:22] forensic examiners, he might have pulled it off. But incriminating documents seem to have a way of ending up [1:23:30] in the right hands, especially if the crime is murder. In Smyrna, Tennessee, outside of Nashville, [1:23:40] a man made a poignant televised appeal for help in 1994. Ricky Bryan, a 39-year-old welder, had a sporadic [1:23:52] five-year relationship with 72-year-old Charlotte Scott. I did date the woman for a little over six years. [1:24:02] She's missing, so we gotta find her. Scott had been missing for two weeks. I wish she'd come back [1:24:10] home wherever she's at. The family was hopeful she would be found. I have to pray that something, [1:24:18] someone comes forward. Scott's daughter, Rosalie, reported her missing after finding her gone [1:24:24] and her apartment door left open. We just would like to know where, where she is. Police [1:24:41] searched Scott's home on October 19th. She was last seen filling a prescription and going to a money [1:24:49] machine. Her car was parked outside her apartment. Doors still open. You wanna check upstairs? There [1:25:03] were no indications of forced entry. All the signs of a daily routine were still intact, as if she would [1:25:12] be returning shortly. With no clues to be found in the house, police turned to Ricky Bryan. They hoped he [1:25:23] could provide some information. At first, it didn't seem Bryan could help them. He said he was out of [1:25:34] town when Scott disappeared and claimed they hadn't spoken in three months. But Bryan helped police more [1:25:41] than he imagined. Detectives E.J. Bernard of the Metro Nashville Police and Clayton Thomas of the Smyrna [1:25:49] Police found a hole in Bryan's story, a hole they hoped to climb through to get to the truth. They discovered [1:25:57] Bryan had used Scott's ATM card the day she was reported missing. Detective Bernard. He told us [1:26:06] he wasn't in Nashville, but we had proof of this through the camera, statements from his relatives, [1:26:12] as well as the transactions from the bank, which was very close to her residence. With that proof, [1:26:19] Bryan's alibi crumbled. But just because he took Scott's money didn't mean he was involved in her [1:26:26] disappearance. Even so, the lie made him the only suspect in this crime of few clues. After he failed [1:26:41] a polygraph test, police obtained a warrant to search his home. They were looking for ATM receipts, [1:26:51] weapons, tools that might be used in a kidnapping or a murder, anything that could link Bryan to the [1:26:57] crime. They found nothing. They had no physical evidence and no more leads. The investigation ground to [1:27:10] a halt. A few frustrating days passed before detectives received a break. Some of Bryan's [1:27:24] family members stepped forward. They told police he had divulged an outrageous story. According to [1:27:33] Ricky Bryan, Charlotte Scott was murdered by a gang of drunken men at a rock quarry, where the couple [1:27:39] frequently met. Ricky had left for a few minutes, and when he returned, Charlotte had been killed. He knew [1:27:48] the story sounded absurd, and he had no witnesses to prove he wasn't involved. So he decided to bury [1:27:56] the body and deny he knew what happened to her. In one respect, police agreed with him. The story was [1:28:07] absurd. But why would he concoct such a tale unless he really did bury Charlotte Scott? If the strange tale [1:28:16] was his way of deflecting guilt from himself, it had the opposite effect. Police now had reason to suspect [1:28:24] that Charlotte Scott was murdered and that Ricky Bryan killed her, but they still had not a shred of [1:28:31] evidence. When police confronted him about the story, he denied he ever told it. Even so, the story was the [1:28:41] only lead they had. They began searching for the buried body. Despite their long hours and the use of [1:28:50] cadaver dogs, they turned up nothing. Then, Michael Thompson, Ricky Bryan's nephew, approached Detective [1:29:00] Thomas and offered his help. The 19-year-old would soon lead investigators to a spot in the woods and [1:29:10] Ricky Bryan to a point of no return. Investigators rely on skill, wit, and luck to find breaks in criminal [1:29:30] cases. In the murder investigation of Charlotte Scott, the break stepped forward in the form of [1:29:36] Michael Thompson, nephew of Ricky Bryan. Thompson volunteered to speak with Bryan and hopefully [1:29:45] learn the whereabouts of the victim's body. Police told Michael Thompson they'd appreciate him [1:29:53] sharing any information he might find out. On November 15, 1994, Thompson went to visit his uncle. [1:30:03] Bryan was extremely suspicious. He was convinced his house was bugged and that police were watching his [1:30:10] every move. After searching his nephew for a listening device, Bryan and Thompson engaged in a stilted [1:30:18] dialogue meant to mask the true thrust of the conversation. Bryan needed to recover a shovel and [1:30:26] rake he buried in the woods with Scott's body. Here was his confession. But he wasn't about to say it [1:30:34] out loud. Instead, he wrote it in a notebook. Each time he wrote a message, he ripped the paper from the [1:30:43] notebook and burned it in a wood stove. He was afraid if they were found the tools would link him to the [1:30:51] body. And during the written communication, Bryan sketched a detailed map pinpointing where the tools [1:31:00] and the body were buried. Then he burned the map just as he had burned the other notes. That evidence [1:31:08] was gone. But not for long after leaving Bryan's home, Michael Thompson immediately called police. [1:31:31] Following the directions he'd memorized from the map drawn by his uncle, he led them to a pit in the [1:31:36] woods. There, they found a body. There was an odor of decomposed flesh. We then started going through [1:31:59] the items. There was a lot of debris. We pulled debris out. And at one point, Detective Thomas found [1:32:04] the foot belonging to the victim. The remains were crushed and mutilated almost beyond recognition. [1:32:14] With the help of an identification unit, Detectives Thomas and Bernard recovered and identified the body [1:32:20] of Charlotte Scott. Nearly a month had passed since she had last been seen. The case had stalled for [1:32:32] several weeks as investigators tried in vain to trip up Ricky Bryan. But now they could go forward. [1:32:41] Charlotte Scott had been found. And Ricky Bryan's weird story about burying her body had led to her [1:32:49] discovery. Police had what they needed to arrest Ricky Bryan, but not enough to convict him. They needed [1:32:58] hard evidence that proved Bryan knew where the body was buried. The testimony of his nephew may not have [1:33:05] been enough to convince a jury. They needed the notebook in which he drew the map. The map itself was [1:33:13] unrecoverable. But if the notebook could be found, perhaps the remaining pages would bear its faint [1:33:19] impression, proving Bryan had total knowledge of the slaying. Once again, Bryan's family helped police [1:33:29] by bringing Detective Thomas the clue he sought. In December, the brother of Ricky Bryan was cleaning [1:33:38] up the house that Ricky Bryan resided in and came across a notebook. The notebook was then immediately [1:33:45] brought to me. Upon looking at the notebook, I could see impressions of where something had been written on. [1:33:50] The vague impressions defied all efforts to read them. But Thomas was convinced they could be turned [1:33:59] into hard evidence if only they could be made legible. For that, he depended on the forensic laboratory [1:34:07] of the U.S. Postal Service in Memphis, Tennessee. Examining more than 17,000 documents each year, [1:34:15] it's one of the busiest document evaluation centers in the United States. The lab is equipped to analyze [1:34:23] anything having to do with ink and paper. They can regain writing that's been erased and even illuminate [1:34:30] signatures that have been scribbled out. An infrared light source called a crime scope makes some inks [1:34:38] invisible and others fluoresce, disclosing hidden writing. The lab usually examines documents relating [1:34:46] to white-collar crimes, credit card thefts, forgeries, and fraud. It occasionally assists with outside [1:34:55] criminal investigations, especially in cases of murder. Forensic document analyst Grant Sperry has [1:35:02] been with the lab for 18 years. Postal Service normally does not get involved in local police cases. [1:35:09] Our primary responsibility is to assist or support postal inspectors in the investigation of their [1:35:15] offenses by providing them with forensic expertise in the area of fingerprints or document examination. [1:35:21] However, in certain cases, such as this one where heinous crime has been committed, [1:35:27] we will offer our assistance. Grant, what I have here is a notebook. In November of 1994, [1:35:37] Detective Thomas brought forensic document analyst Grant Sperry the notebook from Ricky Bryan's house. [1:35:46] If these seemingly blank pages could be coaxed into revealing their secrets, [1:35:51] Thomas would have the evidence he needed to convict a killer. [1:35:55] We can conduct. He would depend on Sperry and the postal laboratory to decipher the faint [1:36:03] impressions of writing left on the page. These telltale furrows are called indented writing. [1:36:10] They're embossed on a blank page when the page above is written on. Would the ghostly impressions in the [1:36:20] notebook tell the story of Charlotte Scott's murder? Would they be enough to convict Ricky Bryan? [1:36:27] Okay, Patricia, we need to photograph. Using a fiber optic light source to illuminate the surface [1:36:38] of the paper, Sperry determined that Bryan's notebook did indeed contain faint impressions [1:36:44] of the map and other indented writings. After photographing it, he utilized the electrostatic [1:36:51] detection apparatus, or ESDA. The ESDA would make the ghost-like indentations visible. [1:37:00] The beauty of the ESDA is that it's non-destructive for the most part. In other words, your document [1:37:06] is protected by the film, the imaging film. You can retain a permanent record of any of your [1:37:13] indentations that are developed. Sperry placed the page from the notebook on a brass plate and pulled [1:37:22] plastic film over it. Then a vacuum drew the film into the paper fibers and into the impressions. The film [1:37:33] was then electrically charged while toner cascaded over it. The toner was attracted by the charge and [1:37:41] filled the indentations in the film. Once the toner settled into place, Sperry secured it with a sheet of [1:37:49] adhesive-backed plastic. The next step is to press, take the clear plastic adhesive, which now has an image [1:38:01] on it developed with our ESDA and cut this image down to size, removing the excess plastic. Before lifting [1:38:15] the plastic film, Sperry smoothed it to remove air bubbles. A single document might go through the ESDA [1:38:24] process five to ten times to bring out every nuance. See here we have entries that appear to be school [1:38:33] inside. If necessary, the lift can be scanned into a computer to enhance and separate the image. In this [1:38:42] case, the lift of the map was so bold that Sperry could read the indented writings with a magnifying [1:38:49] glass. Thomas and Sperry were pleased with the quality of the lift and with the number of writing [1:38:56] samples that emerged. ESDA disclosed every detail of the carefully drawn map, leading no doubt as to [1:39:05] where it led. An arrow drawn to this little circled area. Does that mean anything? Yes. This is going [1:39:13] to be Industrial Boulevard. The roadway will be the pit. The pit? That the body was located in. It was, [1:39:19] okay. Additionally, you have the words shovel and rake alongside that. On his map, Brian used specific [1:39:26] detail to describe where he buried his victim. This was the evidence detectives were looking for. Once he [1:39:36] had a clear image of the map, Sperry compared the writing to known samples of Ricky Bryan's writing. [1:39:44] Well, in this particular case, not only was it important to have the details of the map as they [1:39:49] ultimately were revealed through this examination, but because we had writing available to examine, [1:39:56] obviously since the details of this map are precisely and pinpoint precisely where the body was [1:40:02] located. The author of the map, one would think, would have absolute knowledge of where that body was. [1:40:08] So it became important to determine exactly who did, in fact, write it. The writing samples on the map [1:40:15] matched known samples of Ricky Bryan's handwriting. Sperry had proved that Ricky Bryan was the author of the map. [1:40:25] Once all the evidence was revealed, Detective Bernard pieced together a likely scenario of Bryan's crime. [1:40:31] He went to her house late one night, took her from the house, brought her to this isolated area here, [1:40:37] killed her, mutilated her, and then buried her in a grave. What led Ricky Bryan to brutally murder the [1:40:47] woman he claimed to love? Some said it was for her money. Clayton Thomas feels differently. I think he was [1:40:57] really in love with her. I feel that during this time she was breaking off the relationship and I felt [1:41:09] that if he couldn't have her, no one else could have her as well. Ricky Bryan never admitted killing [1:41:18] Charlotte Scott. To the end, he clung to his story about the mysterious gang of men. He was charged with [1:41:27] first-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years before he'd be eligible for parole. When a killer leaves [1:41:36] behind a paper trail, little does he know that he may have already signed his confession. Every document [1:41:44] tells two stories. One is intended by the writer and anyone can read it. But the other is a secret tale that [1:41:54] sometimes hides a terrible truth. Document examiners are the tellers of these tales, who seek the [1:42:02] indelible truth behind the paper and ink. On a stormy Halloween night, a passenger plane begins a [1:42:14] routine landing, but what happens is far from routine. Investigators must determine what terrible chain of [1:42:23] events brought it down nose first, killing everyone aboard. In the fog, a Canadian commuter plane aborts a [1:42:32] landing maneuver. Seconds later, it plows full speed into the woods nearby. Was the accident caused by [1:42:40] mechanical failure or a fatal lapse of judgment? The answers are preserved in the indestructible [1:42:47] black box, dutifully recording a plane's final maneuvers and the crew's last words. Black boxes help [1:42:55] investigators make sense of the fields of destruction. After a crash, a black box is often the only surviving [1:43:06] witness to terror. On the evening of October 31st, 1994, American Eagle flight 4184 took off in the [1:43:41] rain from Indianapolis to Chicago, less than 200 miles away. As the twin-engine turbocrop approached its [1:43:49] destination, air traffic controllers told the crew to expect delays. A fierce storm was backing up traffic [1:43:56] outside O'Hare International Airport. The plane was put in a holding pattern over a rural section of [1:44:05] northeast Indiana. The pilots noticed some icing and activated equipment to crack it off the wings. [1:44:15] They depended on the autopilot to keep the plane steady and to maintain altitude. Attendants tried to [1:44:23] reassure passengers that they would make their connections. All the other flights were delayed too. [1:44:29] One of the busiest airports in the world was at a total standstill. In an announcement reconstructed [1:44:37] from transcripts, the captain tried to reassure the restless passengers. [1:44:41] Well, folks, captain, I do regret to inform you that the control is saying at this point [1:44:48] another 13 minutes. I apologize. The plane had been holding for more than 30 minutes. Because of the storm, [1:45:00] some passengers had debated whether to board the flight. Now they grew increasingly anxious. Finally, [1:45:07] the transcripts indicated that controllers cleared flight 4184 to begin landing procedures. [1:45:17] The last communication flight 4184 would have with controllers. As the plane began its descent, [1:45:36] something went terribly wrong. Instead of leveling off at 8,000 feet, the plane continued to descend, [1:45:46] picking up speed. It plummeted through 7,000 feet, 6,000 feet, 5,000 feet. At 4,000 feet, [1:45:56] it vanished from the radar screen. The aircraft plunged into a muddy soybean field in rural Indiana, [1:46:05] shattering on impact. Fighting driving rain and freezing temperatures, rescue workers searched through the [1:46:13] night for any sign of life from the 72 passengers and crew. Finally, they faced the truth. No one survived. [1:46:28] When an airplane crashes in the United States, it's up to the National Transportation Safety Board, [1:46:35] the NTSB, to determine what went wrong. Greg Feith was the lead investigator in the case of flight 4184. [1:46:44] When I go out to an accident site, I'm playing Dick Tracy. My job is to go out and find all the evidence, [1:46:51] all the clues to tell us what happened. The public demands answers and looks to the NTSB to provide them [1:46:59] the devastation, fast, so agents are brought in quickly. They are often among the first to witness [1:47:07] the devastation. It can be very overwhelming. I mean, it's an emotional thing because when you're [1:47:13] walking through all of this wreckage, you're seeing pictures, you're seeing teddy bears, [1:47:17] you're seeing clothing of children and things like that. So you can't help but start to become [1:47:22] emotionally attached. But as an investigator, in order for me to remain objective, you have to separate [1:47:28] your emotion out of that and you've got to block it out so that you can do your job and do it effectively. [1:47:33] And that's not always easy for us. As the sun rose the next morning, it revealed the true horror of [1:47:40] the accident. Impact craters marred the once peaceful farm, transforming it to a field of death. The narrow [1:47:51] country roads of Roselawn, Indiana, bustled with truckloads of rescue equipment and the clamor of news [1:47:57] crews. A team of forensic aviation experts from the NTSB arrived. Their job was to create order from the [1:48:06] growing chaos so they could focus on the difficult task of figuring out what happened. Immediately what [1:48:13] our investigator and the team will do is actually what we call document the four corners. We want to [1:48:19] look for all of the wreckage. We want to make sure that both wings are there, the tail section is there, [1:48:22] the engines are there. But the investigation was hampered by health risks. Fuel covered everything. [1:48:31] The site was declared a biohazard. Only those in safety gear went in and out. Rescue workers [1:48:39] and investigators teamed up to flag evidence and remains. They worked side by side, examining every [1:48:46] piece. As soon as possible, parts of bodies were transported to the morgue to begin the difficult [1:48:53] identification process. For us, the investigators, we're looking at physical evidence of the airplane, [1:49:01] that is the wreckage itself. For the coroner who has to go out there and look for the bodies or the [1:49:07] victims, they had as tough a time as we did because they didn't have whole people. They had fragments [1:49:14] of people. And so for both of us to do our job, we had to work hand in hand because if I found a piece [1:49:20] of wreckage, there may have been critical evidence for the coroner in a piece of victim. And so we worked [1:49:28] hand in hand when we were looking at all of this wreckage so that I could help him collect whatever [1:49:33] evidence he needed to identify the people that were on that airplane. As bodies were identified, [1:49:39] they were released for burial. Family members found solace in each other and in the chaplains and [1:49:46] counselors who volunteered to help. But in the midst of family sorrow, investigators kept working. They [1:49:55] scoured the soybean field for answers. To figure out how the plane broke up, they viewed the wreckage [1:50:03] from above. They examined the scars in the earth created by the impact and the locations of the [1:50:10] scattered pieces of airplane. The patterns can tell them if a piece broke off on impact or if it fell [1:50:17] off during flight, causing the accident. What they found in the ruins of flight 4184 was startling. [1:50:26] Typically when you have an airplane that's either come straight down or made an emergency type landing, [1:50:31] you'll find the initial impact point and then wreckage in a V-tail or fan-shaped pattern. With [1:50:38] this particular accident site, we had a very high speed, high angle of attack impact into the ground. [1:50:45] So we had a main impact crater, but we found the tail section in a very oddball place in relation to [1:50:51] the main impact crater. That led to the team to think, hmm, how did that get there? And it was evident [1:50:57] that it was an in-flight breakup, so the tail had come off before the airplane hit the ground. [1:51:00] Now investigators had a possible explanation. A structural failure may have caused the tail [1:51:07] to break off in flight. But airplane tails don't just break off. Something must have triggered the [1:51:14] failure. More evidence needed to be examined. More data gathered. The weather that night provided the [1:51:22] first clue. The conditions were ideal for icing. To many, the freezing rain in which the plane was flying [1:51:30] could have been a major factor. But it seemed unlikely that icing on the wings could cause [1:51:36] the tail to fracture. The only way to determine what really happened would be to look inside the [1:51:44] plane's black box. A black box is actually two boxes. And they're not black. They're orange, [1:51:51] making them easier to find. One contains a record of the plane's mechanical workings. [1:51:58] It's called the flight data recorder. The other is the cockpit voice recorder. Basically a crash-proof [1:52:05] tape recorder. It contains an account of everything the pilots say. It also picks up alarms, engine noise, [1:52:13] and perhaps the horrifying sound of impact. Within hours, the boxes were whisked away to [1:52:22] NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C. There, technicians prepared them for analysis. Sometimes black boxes [1:52:31] provide instant answers. Other times, they only deepen the mystery. As investigators prepared the [1:52:40] playback equipment, they also prepared themselves. They'd be the first to hear what the pilots said as [1:52:46] they faced death head on. After maintaining a holding pattern near O'Hare airport, flight 4184 was [1:52:59] cleared to descend from 10,000 feet. Seconds later, the plane crashed into the earth, killing everyone [1:53:06] aboard. Now, investigators would listen to the cockpit voice recorder as the plane began its fatal plunge. [1:53:16] The crew's words during the terrifying last moments are taken from transcripts. Chilling tape made it clear [1:53:41] the pilots were completely broadsided. They didn't know they were in trouble until it was too late. [1:53:46] But it raised more questions than it answered. Investigators were no closer to learning what happened. [1:53:58] Their last hope lay inside the second box, the flight data recorder, or FDR. Now all the plane's mechanical [1:54:07] functions, or malfunctions, would be analyzed. Doug Brazy is a black box expert at NTSB. He's responsible for [1:54:16] turning the complicated bits of data from FDRs into useful information. The data recorded by an FDR depends [1:54:25] on the age and type of plane it's in. The one on flight 4184 monitored about 100 mechanical functions. [1:54:36] Brazy downloaded the information to a computer using tape decks that translate the coded data. The [1:54:44] information appears as charts and graphs on the computer. They represent the pilot's actions and the [1:54:51] airplane's performance in the final minutes before it plunged to earth. The readouts were placed side [1:54:58] by side on a timeline to see their relationships. As the data appeared, Brazy discovered the plane had [1:55:06] experienced an abrupt, catastrophic event. To get a better understanding, he created an animated version [1:55:16] of the plane's last moments. It's very difficult to get a sense of time and how quickly or slowly things [1:55:25] can unfold from looking at numbers and graphs. The animation helps us see how quickly or how slowly [1:55:30] things develop in the accident sequence. The animation combines all the plane's functions, [1:55:38] just before it fell, into a visual model that investigators can study. It began as the plane started [1:55:45] its descent from 10,000 feet. Without warning, the autopilot disengaged. The ailerons, flaps on the wings [1:55:54] that control flight, suddenly flipped. The plane rolled violently to the right. The pilots grabbed [1:56:01] the controls and struggled to level out, but the speed of the roll was too great. It yanked the controls [1:56:09] out of their hands and the nose dived toward earth. As they burst through the clouds, the ground filled [1:56:16] their windshield, rushing toward them at 400 miles per hour. Futilily, the pilots pulled back on the [1:56:25] controls to bring up the nose. The resulting strain on the tail was too great. It snapped off just before [1:56:32] the plane hit the ground. The animation made the sequence of events tragically clear. The airplane [1:56:42] was in flight. When the airplane rolled, it initially rolled to approximately 77 degrees the first time, [1:56:49] and the nose started to pitch down. The first officer was able to recover it slightly, and as he tried to [1:56:53] pull the nose back up, the airplane then rolled again completely through 360 degrees, the nose pitched [1:57:00] down, and the roll continued another approximately 140 degrees until the first officer was able to get [1:57:07] the the roll stopped. But because of the very steep attitude that the airplane was in, and as he tried [1:57:13] to pull out, he had a lot of aerodynamic force on the tail section of the airplane because he was pulling [1:57:19] extreme. He was actually moving these flight control surfaces to their maximum high aerodynamic loads. [1:57:25] This part of the airplane literally came off, and the airplane then basically went over on its nose, [1:57:31] striking the ground, and then fragmenting. And as it fragmented, this part of the aircraft [1:57:37] ended up getting slingshotted to the furthest point in the wreckage area. It was now evident that the crash [1:57:44] wasn't caused by the tail breaking off in flight. That left icing as the probable cause. But Brazy knew [1:57:53] icing would normally show up on the screen as a slow, steady buildup, not a sudden cataclysm. What [1:58:02] could have overpowered the plane so quickly and sent it careening to Earth? Knowing what makes a plane fly [1:58:10] can provide clues to how it can fall. At Embry-Riddle University in Prescott, Arizona, wind tunnels are used [1:58:19] to demonstrate the aerodynamics of flight. Here, the invisible forces of wind are made to glow, unveiling [1:58:29] the basic principle of flight. The faster that air moves over a surface, the less pressure it exerts. The [1:58:37] slower moving air underneath pushes upward, causing the surface to lift. Aerospace engineer Richard Felton [1:58:47] demonstrates the principle with a simple experiment. Let me demonstrate with a sheet of paper if I might. [1:58:55] I'm going to blow over the top of this surface of paper, so I'm not going to create anything below. [1:59:01] There's no magic here at all. And as you can see, the paper actually raises. Wings are not flat like paper, [1:59:15] but they work the same way. The air moves faster across the round top of the wing because it has more [1:59:22] surface to cover. But it's critical that the top surface be smooth and that nothing on it disrupts the [1:59:29] flow of air. If the airflow is disturbed, the object loses the pressure that lifts it. Any foreign objects [1:59:38] on the wings can disrupt the airflow. For instance, ice can build up, then break off, leaving jagged edges. [1:59:46] That may produce enough turbulence to bring down a plane. Flight 4184 was an ATR-72 series airplane. [1:59:57] Roselawn investigators discovered that these planes had a history of icing problems. But the FDR showed that [2:00:06] its de-icing system was working properly, and the readout didn't show normal icing patterns. Then, [2:00:14] investigators learned of a weather phenomenon called supercooled drizzle drops, extra-large freezing rain. [2:00:22] A check with meteorologists told them the conditions that stormy Halloween night were right for this [2:00:28] phenomenon to occur. Was weather the fatal factor? To find out, the manufacturer of the ATR took to the skies [2:00:41] over the Mojave Desert in California. There, they tried to recreate the exact conditions of the storm. [2:00:49] In an experiment called a tanker test, a modified U.S. Air Force jet produced an icing cloud eight feet [2:00:56] wide. An ATR, like the one at Roselawn, flew into the cloud. The freezing rain clouds were infused with [2:01:06] yellow dye so investigators could see the ice forming on the nose and wings. To make sure the tragedy was not [2:01:14] repeated, test pilots flew very high for added recovery time and were prepared to eject if necessary. [2:01:20] At first, normal freezing rain was released. The small water droplets froze the instant they hit the [2:01:29] front of the wings, but the de-icing boots cracked the ice off. Then, a cloud of supercooled drizzle drops [2:01:38] was released. When the drops hit the wings, they didn't freeze instantly. Instead, they spread across the [2:01:47] wing, freezing behind and out of reach of the de-icing boots. At last, the final piece of the puzzle [2:01:55] was put in place. Typically, when the wing has no contamination on it, these bands or relative wind are [2:02:04] smooth flowing over the top and the bottom of the airfoil. But with the Roselawn accident, when we had the [2:02:10] ridge of ice, which is represented by this triangle, we have now disrupted that airflow. As the airflow then [2:02:16] reattached or came back across the very top of the wing, it got very turbulent as it came off the trailing [2:02:23] edge, which is represented by this area right here. That turbulence was right over the top of the ailerons. [2:02:29] And when the turbulence created a very low pressure system, this aileron started to move from like a [2:02:36] neutral position up to its maximum deflection of 14 degrees in a quarter of a second. Now, investigators [2:02:43] concluded what happened that night and why. The pilots were in the holding pattern. They were chatting. [2:02:50] The autopilot was on. They thought everything was fine. What they didn't know was that behind the [2:02:57] de-icing equipment, a ridge of ice was building up. As they started to descend, the ice cracked off. [2:03:05] What remained left ragged edges on the wing, causing turbulent airflow. The turbulence created a powerful [2:03:13] low-pressure system that acted like a vacuum. It literally sucked the ailerons up, forcing the plane [2:03:20] into a roll. Attempts to right the plane only snapped the tail. The plane then dove into the earth. [2:03:30] Afterward, all was silent except for the driving rain and then sirens. The crater in a soybean field in [2:03:45] Roselawn, Indiana is a scar that can never be healed. By solving the accident, investigators had done [2:03:55] all they could. After the investigation, the ATR's de-icing system was redesigned, extending farther [2:04:03] back on the wing, and ATR pilots are now trained for icing conditions. The work of the NTSB and others [2:04:15] on the Roselawn case helped to reduce the chances of a similar accident happening again. Every airplane [2:04:23] crash is the result of a fatal mixture of conditions. The ingredients come from the plane, the weather, [2:04:31] and the pilot himself. In Canada, investigators tried to reconstruct a commuter plane's recipe [2:04:38] for disaster. The mountains of British Columbia are among the most breathtaking in North America, [2:04:49] but for pilots flying through them, they can be treacherous. In 1989, two young pilots at Skylink [2:04:58] Airlines were flying five commuters in a 19-seat turboprop from Vancouver to Terrace, just over 400 miles [2:05:05] miles away. They'd made the trip dozens of times, and they were familiar with the dense morning fog [2:05:12] that often drifts through this part of Western Canada. The morning of September 26th was the start [2:05:19] of just another day. Shortly before Flight 70 made its final approach to the runway, a 300-foot fog bank [2:05:27] engulfed the airport, bringing visibility to zero. The pilot expected to see the runway lights pierce the fog [2:05:35] at any moment. Instead, he saw only gloom. As the plane swooped down for the landing, he had second [2:05:44] thoughts and safely aborted the maneuver. But as he pulled away, treetops suddenly loomed large through [2:05:53] the dense haze. The airplane plowed through the branches, rolled, and burst into flames. The pilots [2:06:11] and passengers were killed on impact. Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada [2:06:18] were assigned the horrible task of making sense of the tangled wreckage. Trees had cracked and fallen [2:06:27] onto the fuselage. One of the wings had sheared off. The cabin was crushed. The cockpit was peeled open, [2:06:37] exposing a snarled mass of wires, cables, and circuitry. The force had twisted and snapped off the [2:06:44] propellers. It took days to find pieces of aircraft that hurtled into the forest. Reading the wreckage would [2:06:53] take even longer. It's a forensic skill that requires intensive training. At Embry-Riddle University, [2:07:03] would-be investigators gain experience by studying the remains of actual crashes reconstructed on the [2:07:10] site. Director of Aerospace Safety Bill Waldock instructs his students in what to look for and how [2:07:20] to find it. Well, just like in a crime scene, what I want the students to be able to do is to identify [2:07:30] all of the things about this scene that are significant, to be able to find all of the parts, [2:07:36] to be able to understand how those parts got where they were and what they mean, and then to be able to [2:07:41] take that and put it into the rest of the story and literally fit all the pieces of the puzzle back [2:07:46] together and come up with a clear picture of what happened to this aircraft and why it happened. [2:07:52] According to Waldock, finding out what caused a crash is the first step to preventing another one. [2:07:59] The main purpose we do investigations is to try to figure out what happened and why it happened, [2:08:05] and once we've done that, then we can go change things and try to improve the rest of the system. [2:08:13] It's an expensive way to learn, but usually it's one of the most impressive ways to learn, [2:08:18] and we get the point across pretty well that way. Every detail of the wrecks is painstakingly duplicated, [2:08:26] right down to the flames. If a crash site is on fire, it's crucial to determine if the flames started [2:08:33] in the air or on the ground. A plane that burns, then crashes, shows a different pattern than a [2:08:39] plane that crashes, then burns. A fire that ignites during flight generally burns hotter than a fire [2:08:47] caused by impact because it's fanned by the rushing wind. According to Waldock, pre-impact fires leave a [2:08:56] distinctive signature. One of the things that we look for in considering pre-impact fire versus post-impact [2:09:03] fire is evidence that metal was hot when it hit the ground. Right in this area of the engine [2:09:09] compartment on the left side, you see a little bit of feathered aluminum. To get that aluminum to [2:09:15] broom straw or feather, that metal has to be up near its melting point, and right here we see a little [2:09:20] bit of evidence that that process has occurred. That tells us that we had a pre-impact fire in this left [2:09:27] engine compartment. Less than seven percent of fires occur on impact, but when they do, they make the [2:09:35] investigators work much more difficult. When rescue crews put out the flames, the force of spraying water [2:09:42] moves parts a considerable distance, and the fire itself can destroy valuable evidence. Fire will tend to [2:09:52] get rid of our physical evidence. We're looking for, for example, fatigue in a metal structure. If the [2:09:58] airplane caught on fire when it hit the ground, it'll tend to erase that evidence, tend to burn it away, [2:10:04] and fire is one of the worst things we can do. At the crash site in Canada, fire was only the first of [2:10:13] the many challenges investigators would face. Burn patterns showed that the fire was the result of the [2:10:20] impact, not the cause of it. Lead investigator Roger Ayotte recalls the scene. The aircraft had crashed a [2:10:28] some 1,500 feet away from the airport, and the actual crash site itself was not particularly large. The [2:10:36] airplane had hit the ground at fairly high speed, and the destruction was considerable. It certainly [2:10:42] wasn't evident when we went onto the accident site what the problem had been. When we did start [2:10:49] examining the wreckage, we realized that the aircraft, in fact, had impacted the ground inverted, [2:10:57] because the engine positions were switched on the ground. Ayotte and his team reasoned the fog may [2:11:03] have played a role, but only a minor one. The pilots were too experienced, the collision too fast and [2:11:10] furious, the devastation too complete. In the charred rubble, investigators located the flight's black boxes [2:11:19] still bolted to the tail. Their bright orange exteriors were camouflaged with soot. Perhaps the boxes [2:11:28] would reveal what happened. They were flown to transportation safety board headquarters in [2:11:34] Ottawa for analysis. In the lab, black box expert Michael Poole and computer analyst Bob Hoyle were [2:11:46] stunned by what they found. The flight data recorder should have been an electronic device that captured [2:11:53] most of the plane's mechanical functions on magnetic tape or microchip. Instead, it was an unauthorized and [2:12:03] antiquated model invented in 1951. Its use had been prohibited in many countries. Rather than electronic [2:12:12] circuitry, the box used a stylus to etch information onto a moving roll of foil. [2:12:18] Okay, the flight data recorder on this aircraft was an old design. It was a foil type recorder, [2:12:24] which is a metal foil, which five parameters are inscribed on the foil. And of those five, [2:12:31] heading, which is a key parameter, was actually not functioning. So we, in fact, only had four [2:12:36] parameters. And in contrast with today's modern aircraft, which have five, six hundred parameters [2:12:42] per second, obviously there's a very big difference here. So we had a very limited flight data recorder. [2:12:48] The data on that recorder is also, the resolution is very poor and it's extremely time consuming to [2:12:54] extract the information off of these foil type recorders. In its time, the foil recorder was a [2:13:00] technological advance because it could survive impact and fire. Now, its primitive workings [2:13:08] threaten to cripple the investigation. To eke out some meaning from the foil scratchings, [2:13:14] Hoyle scanned them into a computer. Perhaps modern technology would give its predecessor [2:13:20] a helping hand. Hoyle was able to sharpen and focus the information from the course etchings [2:13:28] enough to interpret them. The FDR showed that the plane flew an unwavering course into the trees [2:13:35] at more than 200 miles per hour. But one mark indicated something strange. A sudden burst of speed [2:13:43] just before the plane struck. The information was incomplete and contradictory. Why would a plane, [2:13:51] in the midst of an aborted landing, suddenly plunge into the ground? [2:13:55] Hoyle and his colleagues turned to the cockpit voice recorder for an explanation. They found only more [2:14:04] contradictions. The pilot told the co-pilot they were going to abort the landing. Go around and try again. [2:14:12] On the tape, in the background, the engines roared to full power. That was consistent with a climb, but it [2:14:21] wasn't consistent with the disturbing final exchange between the pilot and co-pilot. Transcripts indicate [2:14:28] the co-pilot began to warn that the plane was losing altitude. When we first listened to the voice [2:14:39] recorder, it was quite, quite perplexing because the crew had initiated a missed approach. They were [2:14:46] starting to do a go around. We could hear engine power coming up. They were asking for gear up. They were [2:14:51] asking for flaps up. They were starting to climb out. And for some reason, the airplane transitioned from a [2:14:56] climb out to a descent and crashed very quickly. So this was quite puzzling, and that was really where [2:15:02] we started to focus why was this airplane, which should have been able to fly out, shouldn't have [2:15:07] been a big problem, transitioning from an ascent to a descent and hitting the ground. The black boxes yielded [2:15:15] only vague clues. They held none of the hard data Poole had come to expect from them. He relayed the bad news to [2:15:24] fellow investigators. The gaps left by the primitive data recorder would have to be filled in manually. A team of [2:15:32] nearly a dozen forensic aviation specialists would have to engage in hardcore, old-fashioned detective work. [2:15:40] Fortunately, they had an arsenal of sophisticated tools to help them. The first step was to determine if the [2:15:47] damaged engine was the cause of the crash or the result of it. For that, investigators depended on engineering services [2:15:55] specialist John Garstang. As part of the crash site investigation, we saw that the right engine was [2:16:04] extensively damaged and disintegrated. In order to understand this damage, whether it occurred in flight [2:16:11] or it occurred in the ground as a result of ground impact, we had to know how the aircraft broke up. [2:16:18] That's where we used tree information together with the attitude that it hit the ground to determine the [2:16:23] breakup sequence. Garstang specializes in coaxing clues from places investigators can't go, like the tops [2:16:32] of the trees. He mounted a stereoscopic camera on a helicopter and shot 3D photos of the damaged trees. [2:16:42] He used these photos to determine the angle at which the plane struck the forest. This is the crash site. [2:16:52] The red dots are pieces of wreckage. The aircraft initially descended through the forest starting here. [2:16:59] All the black dots are trees that have been damaged, most of which had been cut by the aircraft. [2:17:04] He then created a model showing the path of the plane as it plowed through the trees. [2:17:15] It showed the plane was level as it clipped the treetops. Both engines must have been in place, [2:17:21] keeping the plane balanced. The roll didn't occur until after it hit the trees. Garstang concluded the [2:17:29] engines were attached on impact. Now he had to see if they were working properly. Erratic moves in the final [2:17:38] flight path of the plane might hint at an engine problem. But because the FDR didn't have the data [2:17:45] Garstang needed, he had to devise a clever way to reconstruct the plane's movements. He made a map [2:17:52] showing the locations of witnesses when they heard the plane. We used the location of witnesses on the [2:17:59] ground and through triangulating from where they are to where they either saw the aircraft or heard it, [2:18:07] we were able to determine that the general flight path was in an arc like this that came approached [2:18:14] towards the airport in this direction and then ultimately the plane crashed over here. Witnesses [2:18:20] determined the flight showed no sign of trouble and they provided Garstang with other useful information. [2:18:27] Initially we heard that the witnesses heard noises or sounds like a wowing change in pitch [2:18:36] that made us wonder whether there was possibly an engine problem or a propeller problem. [2:18:40] And at the crash site we were missing pieces and there's an extensive damage done to the right [2:18:46] engine that initially led us to try and focus in that area to see if that was an area of concern. [2:18:53] Engine trouble is often the cause of small plane crashes. To see if it was behind this accident, [2:18:59] Chief Analyst Bill Taylor dissected the battered engines. [2:19:03] When we're doing an engine investigation and doing a tear down, there are two or three things that we're [2:19:09] looking for. First of all we want to see whether there's been a mechanical failure in the engine. [2:19:14] That's most apparent, most obvious and the easiest thing to do. The second is to look for evidence of [2:19:24] the power level. That's very helpful in an accident investigation to discover whether the engine was [2:19:32] producing full power. It may be running but running at low level, at idle as you might say. [2:19:36] It gives an indication again of what was available to the crew at that time. [2:19:46] If the engine was at full power when it crashed, it would bear the scars of its moving parts as they [2:19:53] struck the engine body. Deep markings indicated the engines were at high power. The large amount of dirt [2:20:01] and debris sucked into it on impact confirmed that finding. Taylor gave the engines a clean bill of health. [2:20:09] He determined the wowing sounds heard by witnesses were normal engine sounds bouncing off the uneven [2:20:16] terrain. He'd have to look elsewhere for answers. He checked the landing gear. It too was working. [2:20:26] It was nearly retracted at the time of the crash, consistent with the procedure for an aborted landing. [2:20:34] So far, the plane seemed in perfect working order. No clues had surfaced. Investigators were stymied. [2:20:42] But was it possible something was driving the pilot to land quickly and take risks? Could he have been [2:20:49] running out of fuel? John Garstang used infrared photography to find out. What we have here on the [2:20:57] left is a conventional color photograph of the forest and on the right is what's referred to as a near [2:21:03] infrared photograph. In conventional photography, fuel blends into the natural shadow. But shot with [2:21:11] near infrared film, the spray of fuel appears as a dark stain. Records like the weight and balance gave [2:21:19] us a good indication of what the fuel quantity should be. And we used the infrared imagery to confirm that [2:21:25] there was sufficient quantity or a large quantity of fuel present. We have the ground scar here left [2:21:31] by the right wing. And you can see a general area of discoloration where the fuel has been sprayed, [2:21:38] as well as there's been a ground fire and branches have been broken. The photographs revealed the plane [2:21:44] arrived at the airport with fuel to spare. Another dead end for the investigators. According to all [2:21:52] indications, Flight 70 should never have crashed. But it did. And until investigators figured out why, [2:22:00] the tragedy could recur. The nagging question remained. After aborting the landing, why would the [2:22:09] pilot start to climb and then dive into the earth? Engineer Jim Foots checked the accuracy of the aircraft's [2:22:16] instruments. Perhaps they were lying. Well, we look at the instruments and which leads to looking at the [2:22:24] dial faces and in the internal mechanisms of the instruments. Because again, not all FDRs record [2:22:30] all parameters. So we can look at the instruments and at times get information from the dial face, [2:22:37] such as pointer slaps, gear train damage, and they will tell us what that actual system was doing at impact. [2:22:47] If the impact was severe enough, the pointer would slap against the dial face and leave a mark. [2:22:53] Even if the pointer was lost, the telltale mark would remain. Most of the instruments were destroyed [2:23:03] beyond recognition. Only the altimeter survived. And it showed the plane's altitude setting was right [2:23:10] where it should have been. The pilot should have known how close to the ground he was. Once again, [2:23:17] the solution remained elusive. But Foots had his suspicions. If the plane was going down, [2:23:25] a warning system should have alerted the pilot. Unless the warning system itself was faulty. [2:23:32] He directed his attention to the warning lights. Light bulb filaments can tell a great deal about [2:23:40] conditions at the moment a plane crashes. Well, we do light bulb analysis, even if the aircraft does [2:23:47] have an FDR or CVR. If the FDR gives us an indication that there was a problem, a warning, [2:23:55] then we can look at the light bulbs and actually say, yeah, this light was on. And that the pilot did [2:24:02] have a warning or a caution light. A bulb that's lit when it's broken reacts very differently than a [2:24:08] bulb that's off. It's easy for the trained eye to spot the difference. What we're looking at here is [2:24:15] the filaments. And what we look for with the filaments is deformation, as you see here, total uncoiling of [2:24:26] the filament, which is indicative of a hot or illuminated filament when impacted, as opposed [2:24:32] to a lamp that was off or cold at impact where we have just a straight brittle fracture. Foots found [2:24:41] that none of the 37 surviving warning bulbs from Flight 70 had been on. But that didn't necessarily [2:24:49] mean all was well with the craft. Still searching for clues, investigators focused again on the position [2:24:56] of the aircraft. While attempting to abort the landing, perhaps the plane's nose tilted too [2:25:03] high. At a steep angle, air can't glide easily over the wings. The plane stalls and drops from the sky. [2:25:11] In order to figure out if Flight 70 stalled, investigators would have to climb into the pilot's seat. [2:25:25] Whatever happened to Skylink Flight 70 came without warning. Now investigators had to reconstruct the [2:25:32] the tragedy. The stall avoidance system on this type of aircraft was notoriously unforgiving. It provided [2:25:40] very little notice to the pilot before a stall. At low altitude, the difference between stall and crash [2:25:47] and life and death is mere seconds. To see if the plane's pitch or angle in the air would cause a stall, [2:25:57] investigators needed to reconstruct its final moments. For that, they needed a flight simulator. [2:26:05] They fed in all the data they collected, along with pilot commands from the voice recorder. [2:26:10] The simulator would combine these disconnected clues into a close estimate of the plane's position. [2:26:18] We knew what the altitude and airspeed of the aircraft was at the start of the missed approach. [2:26:24] We also knew when they added the power, when they retracted the landing gear, and when they retracted the [2:26:29] flaps. So we were able to come into the simulator and use those parameters that were available off the [2:26:36] flight data recorder and fly the airplane in accordance with those parameters and then through [2:26:41] that process determine what the pitch attitude of the aircraft was. If the pitch was too steep, [2:26:47] the plane would have stalled, then crashed. But that wasn't what happened. The simulator showed the [2:26:55] plane's pitch was fine. Stalling and a faulty stall avoidance system were ruled out. After a tireless [2:27:04] examination of the plane from nose to tail, investigators could finally rule out mechanical failure. They had [2:27:12] only one more place to find answers. With the man in the cockpit, to determine if human error was at fault, [2:27:21] Roger Ayotte needed to get inside the pilot's head. Once we had eliminated the possibility of any of [2:27:30] mechanical malfunction of the aircraft, and that was probably a couple of months into the investigation, [2:27:37] then we were able to focus all of our efforts on the operational and human performance sides of the accident. [2:27:44] While one type of investigator searches for physical clues, another looks for psychological ones. [2:27:51] Black Box expert Mike Poole created a voice print, turning emotion into a picture, [2:27:57] and human performance investigators Ron Coleman and Beth McCullough were brought in to study it. [2:28:05] To explore what was going on in the minds of the pilots, they scrutinized their final words. [2:28:10] So his first response... [2:28:17] The first one's casual. [2:28:18] Yes. [2:28:18] It's, uh, okay, no big deal, but... [2:28:21] The second one's got a lot of anxiety in it. [2:28:25] When the co-pilot alerted the pilot they were descending, the pilot answered calmly with a simple, [2:28:30] okay. McCullough felt there was far more going on than the first playback led them to believe. [2:28:37] But if you've got someone next to you who's obviously expressing, um, concern, [2:28:42] and, and, and in a rather agitated voice, then you begin to wonder, and that might be your first [2:28:47] question, is this captain being really calm about the situation, has it fully under control, [2:28:52] or is he unaware of the gravity of the situation? [2:28:54] The first thing that we picked up was the anxiety in the co-pilot's voice, [2:29:03] uh, when he uttered the second descending. Um, after that we went back, listened to the entire [2:29:10] tape many, many times to try and determine the various, uh, operational issues that might have [2:29:16] emerged or did emerge, and also some of the human performance issues that were clear just from [2:29:21] listening to the voices and the pauses and the hesitation. [2:29:24] From the voice recording, Coleman and McCullough surmised that the pilot sounded unconcerned, [2:29:30] oblivious to the fact that he was speeding towards certain death. [2:29:34] They ruled out psychological profiles were normal. The investigation team suspected the pilot was [2:29:42] literally lost in the clouds. He didn't know which way was up and he wasn't trusting his instruments [2:29:50] or his co-pilot to set him straight. Did pilot error cause the crash? The team was close to figuring [2:29:59] it out. But before they could, more testing was necessary. Was the pilot of Flight 70 truly disoriented in the fog? [2:30:11] To illustrate what he might have experienced, Mike Poole collated the data and produced an animated version [2:30:17] of the fatal flight. Next to it, he created an illusion plane. It was based on what the human [2:30:25] performance experts believe the pilot may have perceived. [2:30:28] The columnist approached. He asked for the gear to come up. The gear is selected up. He calls for [2:30:35] the flaps to come up. And the first officer has responded with flaps coming up to half. [2:30:40] Shrouded by fog, unable to see the runway, the pilot searches for visual clues outside his window. [2:30:48] In his efforts to get his bearings, he fails to notice his gauges or to heed his co-pilot's concern. [2:30:55] What we know and from our operational investigators suspect that he is maybe adjusting the throttles in [2:31:03] the cockpit. He's maybe unfamiliar with his flight director. He's in fog. He's perhaps a little bit [2:31:08] lost in respect to where exactly his runway is to my right is to my left. So all these factors can be [2:31:14] distracting him from that task of watching those instruments. The animation showed that the pilot did [2:31:22] indeed confuse up with down. The condition is called somatographic illusion. It occurs when pilots are [2:31:30] deprived of visual cues. Instead, they rely on gut instinct. Basically, the human body cannot distinguish [2:31:39] the difference between a force through your stomach pushing against the back of your chair due to thrust, [2:31:45] due to being accelerated down a runway, for example, or the same force due to pitching you up and feeling [2:31:53] the effects of gravity pushing you back in the chair. Though the pilot may have been operating under [2:31:58] an illusion, the consequences of his actions were dreadfully real. Investigators went back to the [2:32:06] simulator to experience for themselves Flight 70's fatal illusion. A simulator is an excellent place to [2:32:13] perform a test for illusions because it's a machine that's been built to trick the eye and mind. [2:32:20] In a simulator, you're in a building and obviously it can't accelerate you down a runway, [2:32:24] but it wants to make you feel that. So to achieve that, what they do is they tilt you back in your [2:32:29] chair and you feel the force of gravity in your chair and then they fool your visual senses by [2:32:34] taking the horizon instead of you would normally see it rise. They actually keep it level. So your eyes [2:32:39] think the horizon's level. You're feeling this force through your stomach into the back of the chair. [2:32:44] That is the sensation of accelerating down the runway and that essentially is the somatographic illusion. [2:32:49] Roger Ayotte took the mock fatal flight. All the data were entered and the horizon taken away so he [2:32:56] could feel the sensation as the pilot had. But he'd fly under instrument flight rules or IFR, relying totally on [2:33:04] his gauges so he would know where the plane was relative to the ground. Okay and this is the same [2:33:11] approach being conducted in IFR conditions. So you have to concentrate totally on your instruments and [2:33:17] as you can see that you have no visual references outside the cockpit. With his view blocked, he couldn't [2:33:24] tell if he was going up or down while accelerating. But the gauges told him he was heading toward the ground. [2:33:30] The simulated flight proved that the pilot had fallen victim to the illusion. You can fly by the seat of [2:33:40] your pants to a certain extent when you're in visual flight conditions and that is done frequently. [2:33:45] However, when you're in instrument flight conditions, so when you're flying in fog or cloud or something [2:33:49] like that, then you don't have those visual senses that you do when you're flying visually. [2:33:56] The forces of motion in three dimensions can play tricks on the mind. The inner ear regulates balance [2:34:04] and lets us know where we stand, but it needs a visual reference. It's extremely difficult to overpower the [2:34:11] human instinct to rely on vision when flying. But through sheer willpower, a pilot can stay true [2:34:18] to the instruments until his mind overcomes his body. Unfortunately, the pilot of flight 70 wasn't [2:34:29] aware of the danger. It takes a network of complex systems to keep a plane in the air. It also takes a [2:34:39] tangle of circumstances to send one crashing down. In both Roselawn, Indiana and Terrace, British Columbia, [2:34:48] a combination of factors conspired against the aircraft, dooming the passengers and crew. But [2:34:56] aboard the planes were the black boxes. These indestructible witnesses, coupled with human [2:35:03] ingenuity, determined what went wrong. By surviving a crash, black boxes enable us to prevent countless [2:35:12] others. An elderly man is shot dead in front of his family at a July 4th celebration. No one knows where the [2:35:24] bullet came from. How can police track down his killer? A charismatic leader of the Black Panthers [2:35:33] is killed in a police raid. His supporters say he was assassinated. The police claim they shot him in [2:35:39] self-defense. Can a forensic expert determine who is lying? A child dies in a drive-by shooting. Can a [2:35:50] state-of-the-art computer link evidence from this crime to another and win a conviction? It takes a split [2:35:58] second for a gun to deliver death. Solving the crime takes much longer, but with increasing speed, [2:36:06] expertise, and accuracy, forensic detectives are zeroing in on their deadly target. [2:36:39] In Bloomingdale, Illinois, a small town 40 miles northwest of Chicago, July 4th, 1989 began like any [2:36:47] other Independence Day. Like people all across America, families and friends gathered to celebrate [2:36:54] the country's birthday by relaxing and holding the traditional backyard barbecue. Kids amused themselves [2:37:02] with sparklers while eagerly waiting for the sun to set and the town fireworks display to begin. [2:37:10] On the picnic grounds, a carnival provided an endless array of diversions, something for everyone to [2:37:16] enjoy. But for one Bloomingdale family, the celebration ended in tragedy. In a field near the picnic grounds, [2:37:29] the family joined a crowd gathered to await the fireworks. The grandfather passed time playing with [2:37:35] his grandchildren. Then, without warning, he tumbled out of his chair. His wife thought he had a heart attack. [2:37:48] Two off-duty detectives happened to be picnicking with their own families nearby. They rushed to offer assistance. [2:38:00] When they turned over the man's body, they found a bloody wound beneath his ribs, a bullet hole. This 64-year-old [2:38:08] grandfather had been shot dead. Shock was followed almost immediately by mystification. No one had heard [2:38:17] a shot or seen anything. A search of the field came up empty. No gun, not even a spent cartridge could be [2:38:26] found. The killing was the most baffling case the Bloomingdale police had ever encountered. Who had shot [2:38:34] the man and why? Unraveling the mystery, forging a link between victim and killer, would demand all the [2:38:42] ingenuity forensic experts could muster. Lieutenant Richard Vaughn is the ballistics examiner at the DuPage [2:38:51] County Sheriff's Department. As soon as an autopsy had been performed, the Bloomingdale Police called [2:38:57] him in. The coroner confirmed that a bullet had struck the victim on the right side, then penetrated [2:39:04] beneath the ribcage, causing his death. He also recovered the bullet. Fortunately, it had not hit [2:39:12] Bone and was in near-pristine condition. Vaughn's initial task was to try to establish what kind of gun had [2:39:20] fired it so he and detectives could begin to look for the gun and, ultimately, its owner. Under his scrutiny, [2:39:29] the bullet's size and weight and any physical marks could provide vital information. The evidence bullet [2:39:37] in this case, the first question would be what caliber is it? Caliber is determined by the weight of the [2:39:43] bullet and by the diameter of the bullet. Vaughn started by weighing the bullet on a digital balance. [2:39:50] Then he measured it with an instrument called a micrometer. When the process was completed, he determined [2:39:57] the bullet was a .44 caliber. It had come from one of the most powerful handguns on the market, [2:40:04] a .44 Magnum revolver. Several companies manufacture such weapons. Vaughn had to determine the make and model [2:40:13] of the one that shot the fatal bullet. He placed the bullet under a microscope and examined its rifling [2:40:20] characteristics. All guns leave a series of spiral grooves on a bullet as it speeds down the barrel. [2:40:28] The number of grooves, their width, and whether they twist to the left or right, [2:40:33] varies with the manufacturer. This particular bullet had six grooves and six lands, the raised regions in [2:40:42] between. They spiraled along the bullet with a right-hand twist. Now, Vaughn turned to a device called a [2:40:49] measuring projection unit. It enabled him to accurately determine the widths of each land and [2:40:55] groove. Armed with this information, Vaughn turned to a computer database called the General Rifling [2:41:02] Characteristics File. Maintained by the FBI, it contains information about thousands of weapons. [2:41:11] Feeding in the caliber, number, and width of lands and grooves, and the directional twist of the bullet [2:41:17] enabled him to identify the probable make of the gun. [2:41:20] We had a groove with measurement of .129 thousandths of an inch. When we then refer to the .44 Magnum caliber [2:41:30] category, you will note that the probable make and model of firearm that could have fired the evidence [2:41:37] bullet was a firearm manufactured by Sturm Ruger, and the model would be the Redhawk model. Within two hours, [2:41:46] Vaughn developed a vital piece of evidence. The gun was a Sturm Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum, but a search of [2:41:54] local gun shops turned up no record of any such weapon being sold. Vaughn decided the only way to [2:42:00] trace the killer was to find where the bullet had been fired from. An ammunition manual told him that a [2:42:08] Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum has a maximum range of about a mile and a half, but the chances of locating [2:42:16] where the bullet had been fired in an area that large would be next to impossible. To reduce the search [2:42:23] area, Vaughn went back to the site of the killing to reconstruct the incident. All that he required was a [2:42:32] mannequin, a lawn chair, and a wooden dowel. He seated the mannequin in the same place and position as the victim. [2:42:40] Then he inserted the dowel through its body in the precise angle of the bullet wound. The dowel rod [2:42:52] now represents the actual trajectory of the bullet. Since we have an entrance wound here on the right [2:42:58] side and the bullet was recovered on the left side, you'll note that the dowel rod is pointing in this [2:43:04] direction here. We will now refer to this as the alleged flight path of the bullet. The dowel pointed [2:43:12] roughly northwest. If Vaughn was right, that was the direction from which the bullet had been fired, [2:43:18] back in his lab, he began to map out the area where the police should concentrate their search. [2:43:29] This is a Bloomingdale Township map which I was able to pick up at the highway department, [2:43:37] which I took to the scene, and it demonstrates or depicts the search area. You'll note this area [2:43:48] here is the open field in which the spectators were seated waiting for the Fourth of July fireworks [2:43:54] to occur in this area here. The decedent was seated in a chair here. Now we had determined by a quadrant [2:44:03] that our search area was going to be to the north and northwest. But from where in this search area [2:44:10] had the bullet been fired? Vaughn's references told him the muzzle velocity of a Red Hawk is 1200 feet per [2:44:18] second. But from the 15-inch-deep wound in the dead man, a medical examiner estimated the bullet slowed [2:44:25] down to less than 700 feet per second when it hit. With the help of a computer ballistics expert, [2:44:32] Vaughn calculated how far the bullet must have traveled for its velocity to have been reduced to [2:44:36] this amount. We came to realize that the impact velocity being approximately 450 feet to 700 feet per [2:44:46] second that we would have to concentrate our search in an area between 500 yards and 700 yards. So our [2:44:55] search area would have been in this span right here. So what we did is we actually established a cone of [2:45:01] origin, if you will, where we would focus our search from this line depicted here to this roadway, [2:45:09] which is depicted here. After narrowing the search area, Vaughn and police combed the neighborhoods [2:45:16] between 500 and 700 yards northwest of the picnic grounds. They conducted door-to-door interviews, [2:45:24] searching for any evidence that a large caliber gun had been fired. Eventually, they arrived at a [2:45:30] residence on Lawrence Avenue. During a search of the backyard, they made a crucial discovery. In a corner [2:45:40] was a 55-gallon drum perforated with holes. Vaughn felt they could have been made by 44 caliber bullets. [2:45:49] The edges showed little sign of rust, suggesting they were new. Had they been made by the same [2:45:56] magnum that killed the elderly man? To find out, Vaughn had to recover one of the bullets and compare it [2:46:03] to the bullet from the dead man. He relied once again on dowels to point him in the right direction. [2:46:10] With luck, they'd lead him to a bullet. We have evidence that the shots were fired at an angle where [2:46:18] they entered a little bit higher than they exited. You also note that the metal on this side, that [2:46:24] there's an indentation here that the actual metal folds inside, which is indicative of this being [2:46:30] where the bullet entered. And on the other side, we have evidence of the bullet exiting, where the [2:46:35] metal fold is actually folding towards the outside. So this is indicative of the bullet exiting. So we're [2:46:43] going to take this dowel rod here and we're going to reconstruct the trajectory, in other words, [2:46:49] the flight path of the bullet from the time it struck the 55-gallon drum until it exits. Again, you [2:46:56] can see the actual metal around the periphery of the hole and the fact that it's folded out is indicative [2:47:01] that this is an exit. So this would demonstrate that this bullet continuing in a straight flight path [2:47:07] would most likely have hit the grass somewhere in here. So what we're going to have to do is focus our [2:47:11] search on this area. We're going to have to conduct a grit search. Vaughn and detectives spread out to [2:47:18] find a bullet. Despite their thoroughness, they found nothing. Perhaps the barrel had been moved [2:47:25] since the shots were fired through it. If so, metal detectors would be required to search a larger area. [2:47:33] Then one of the deputy sheriffs had an idea. Perhaps the shooters had been burning logs in the barrel [2:47:39] while using it as a target. Maybe the bullets were in the nearby pile of ashes. He sifted through the [2:47:47] cinders and found what he was looking for. If Richard Vaughn could prove the bullet came from [2:47:53] the same gun that killed the elderly man, he'd have the break he needed. When the man died in a picnic [2:48:05] ground in Bloomingdale, Illinois on July 4th, police had only two clues. The bullet recovered at autopsy [2:48:12] and the wound it left behind. Now ballistic examiner Richard Vaughn had a second bullet found near the [2:48:20] 55 gallon drum. A comparison of the bullets would tell him if they came from the same gun. Every Ruger [2:48:30] Redhawk magnum leaves similar rifling marks on a bullet. Six lands and grooves with a right hand twist. [2:48:37] But every gun also leaves its own unique individual signature on the bullets it fires. [2:48:43] Produced by tiny irregularities in the rifling. The bullet found in the drum was deformed by the [2:48:50] impact. But Vaughn was still able to discern a series of distinguishing marks. They were enough [2:48:58] to conclude it came from the same weapon that killed the victim. The net was closing in. But an important [2:49:08] question remained. Could a bullet fired from the backyard travel unobstructed for nearly a half mile to the [2:49:15] picnic grounds. Vaughn enlisted the help of an engineering firm to survey the bullets likely path. [2:49:23] They recorded ground elevations and the positions and heights of every house and tree between the [2:49:29] Lawrence Avenue residents and the picnic grounds. Then they constructed a diagram. The red line here [2:49:38] demonstrates the calculated trajectory of the fatal bullet. The dark line here demonstrates the terrain. [2:49:47] We do have documented here the dwellings that fell within the line of the trajectory of the fatal bullet. [2:49:57] What we were able to determine was that this particular residence, for an example, the bullet went directly to the right [2:50:03] of it. But this indicates where the barrel of the firearm was. This is the fence that was at the back of the [2:50:09] property, of the suspect's property. And this is the area where the decedent was seated. [2:50:14] On its half mile journey to the picnic grounds were many potential obstacles. Amazingly, [2:50:22] the bullet missed every one. But would it still possess enough power to kill once it got there? [2:50:29] To make his case, Vaughn had to prove it could. He turned to wound ballistics expert Martin Fackler, [2:50:38] who had devised a standardized way to test how far a bullet penetrates human flesh when traveling at [2:50:44] various speeds. The depth of the wound depends on the velocity of the bullet. To simulate the penetrating [2:50:54] power of a bullet after a half mile flight, some gunpowder is removed to slow it down to between 400 [2:51:01] and 700 feet per second. This is referred to as a bullet inertia puller. And we're going to use this [2:51:09] to pull and separate the bullet from the cartridge case, so that we are able to actually remove the [2:51:17] gunpowder from the cartridge case. Vaughn carefully tips out a measured amount of the gunpowder. [2:51:27] It's a trial and error process. Empty out some powder, fire around. Measure the bullet's speed. [2:51:35] If it's too high, remove a little more gunpowder. If it's too low, remove a little less from the next [2:51:41] round. To ensure that the bullet impacts the block at the intended velocity, its speed is measured with an [2:51:49] electronic timer. This is a chronograph. This is used to measure the speed of a moving projectile. [2:51:57] It is nothing more than a timer. And the timer is started by the shadow of a bullet passing between [2:52:03] these first two rods. The timer is stopped by the shadow of the bullet passing between the second two [2:52:09] rods. The speed in feet per second of the projectile is then recorded in the front of the machine. [2:52:16] Finally, when everything is set, the test bullet is fired into the gelatin. Firing in the hole. [2:52:24] The bullet traveled 15 inches, almost identical to the depth of the fatal wound. What's more, [2:52:35] like the bullet found in the victim, it had not deformed. The test proved that the bullet had enough [2:52:43] power to kill the man from a half mile away. Further evidence that the shot had been fired from [2:52:50] Lawrence Avenue. The results of Vaughn's test gave Assistant State's Attorney Joe Burkett grounds to [2:52:57] serve a search warrant on Robert Logsdon, resident of the home where the drum was found. [2:53:04] Logsdon admitted he and his girlfriend held a party on July 4th. But at first, [2:53:10] he denied owning a handgun. As a convicted felon, it was illegal for him to possess one. [2:53:16] He lied about virtually everything until he was confronted with facts that were known to us that [2:53:22] we had put in a warrant. And he ultimately confessed and implicated his girlfriend as well in the [2:53:28] shooting. Under pressure from Burkett, Logsdon produced a .44 caliber Strum Ruger Redhawk. He later [2:53:38] confessed and revealed the events of his party. It had started ordinarily enough, a barbecue for a few [2:53:46] close friends. Sometime in the afternoon, Logsdon had gone into the house to fetch his Ruger Redhawk. [2:53:55] A jug of water was placed on the 55-gallon drum as a target. Logsdon fired off five rounds. One hit [2:54:08] the jug, but four missed and hit the drum instead. Then, he handed the gun to his girlfriend, who shot [2:54:17] missed the jug and drum completely. From Logsdon's statement, Vaughn determined that the girlfriend [2:54:24] fired the fatal bullet. Because she was shorter than Logsdon, she tilted the gun higher. The [2:54:30] increased angle gave the bullet a trajectory high enough to reach the picnic grounds. Logsdon pleaded [2:54:37] guilty to unlawful use of a handgun, to possessing a stolen weapon, and to involuntary manslaughter. [2:54:44] His girlfriend also admitted firing the gun and likewise pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. [2:54:52] Logsdon was sentenced to six years. His girlfriend received 90 days plus probation. [2:54:58] It was really just a tremendously successful investigation because, [2:55:03] as with any murder or any homicide, police officers and prosecutors don't take holidays. We worked [2:55:09] closely with the Sheriff's Office, the Coroner's Office, Bloomingdale Police Department, Sergeant [2:55:16] Vaughn and the Crime Lab. Everybody did an excellent job. In Bloomingdale, victim and killer were completely [2:55:24] unaware of each other's existence and were a half mile apart. It took the tools of forensic science [2:55:32] and the dedication of law enforcement professionals and ballistics experts to bridge the gap. The [2:55:40] Bloomingdale death was a tragic accident caused by carelessness and an astonishing twist of fate. [2:55:47] Its randomness made it a challenge to solve. In Chicago, during the turbulent 1960s, an investigator [2:55:57] struggled with a different challenge. A political activist lay dead. Was he killed in self-defense [2:56:04] or assassinated? The bullet-riddled walls held the answer. December 4, 1969, 4.45 a.m. 14 police officers, [2:56:21] handpicked by Illinois State Attorney Edward Hanrahan, approached an apartment in Chicago's Oak Park area, [2:56:27] the heart of the city's black ghetto. They were about to embark on what would become one of the most [2:56:33] controversial events in Chicago's history. The first-floor apartment was occupied by members [2:56:40] of the Black Panther Party, a militant left-wing organization that preached social revolution. [2:56:46] As the main group of police entered the front, a smaller force came in at the back. 15 minutes later, [2:56:56] the tiny two-bedroom apartment was laced with 100 bullets. When the smoke cleared, two young Panthers [2:57:05] were dead. Four more were injured, two of them seriously. Two policemen received superficial wounds. [2:57:13] The raid yielded a cache of arms, 19 guns, and boxes of ammunition. Among the dead was Fred Hampton, [2:57:24] age 21, the charismatic leader of the Panthers' Illinois chapter. Hampton was the 28th Black Panther [2:57:42] killed by police in less than two years. The Black Panthers emerged in Oakland, California, [2:57:50] a product of the 1960s social unrest. While Black leaders such as Martin Luther King advocated civil [2:57:58] disobedience and political action to advance civil rights, the Panthers seemed prepared to use violence [2:58:05] if necessary. The December 4th raid quickly became a media event, as the Panthers and the authorities gave [2:58:15] radically different accounts of what happened. Hanrahan claimed the police were serving a legitimate search [2:58:21] warrant when the Panthers started shooting. When the police officers announced their office, [2:58:27] they were fired upon. In a filmed demonstration, the police gave their account of the raid. In this [2:58:35] version, Panther Mark Clark was sitting in a chair in the living room. He fired a shotgun through the front [2:58:42] door as police approached. Police then burst in and shot him dead. As more Panthers began shooting, [2:58:50] the exchange escalated. There were three shots. Their bedroom was coming in. It backed out again. [2:59:01] According to police, when they entered Hampton's bedroom, they found him in bed, lying on his stomach. [2:59:09] He opened fire with a .45 caliber automatic and a shotgun. In self-defense, they shot him twice in the head. [2:59:17] But the Black Panthers told a different tale. The police burst in without warning, started shooting, [2:59:25] and killed Mark Clark, who fired only after being fired upon. No other center used a weapon. More police [2:59:34] stormed in from the back, found Fred Hampton asleep, and shot him twice in the head before he had a chance [2:59:40] to wake up. Hampton's girlfriend was in bed with him when the raid began. Still half asleep. I looked up and [2:59:50] I saw bullets coming. It looked like the front of the apartment from the kitchen area. Pigs were just [3:00:00] shooting. When he looked up, just looked up. He didn't say a word. He didn't move, except for moving [3:00:10] his head up. He laid his head back down to the side like that. He never said a word. He never got up out [3:00:18] the bed. The Panthers were convinced that Fred Hampton was assassinated and that police had launched a [3:00:25] full-scale cover-up. Panther lawyer Skip Andrew acted as their spokesman. Anyone who went through [3:00:33] that apartment and examined the evidence that was remaining there could come to only one conclusion, [3:00:40] and that is that Fred Hampton, 21 years old and a member of a militant, well-known militant group, [3:00:46] was murdered in his bed probably as he lay asleep. Police arrested the surviving Panthers and charged [3:00:53] them with several offenses, including attempted murder. To defend the Panthers, their lawyers needed [3:01:00] evidence to support their version of the raid. They turned to ballistics expert Herbert McDonnell. [3:01:09] He seemed an unlikely choice. More than once, he had investigated gun fights between the police and [3:01:16] black radical groups. He usually sided with the police. I understood it was a shootout, similar to [3:01:23] the ones I'd investigated before in the Republic of New Africa and Fred Ahmed Evans and others. So I expected [3:01:31] to find out what happened. This would be another black militant group who were in the wrong and the [3:01:35] police were in the right. As McDonnell saw his role, it was to decide whether the police or the Panther [3:01:42] account of the raid was nearer the truth. To determine this, he would have to reconstruct the raid from [3:01:49] bullet holes and spent bullets in the apartment. It would take all of McDonnell's skill to find out what [3:01:56] happened. He entered the apartment through a small foyer, which led to the living room. Mark Clark, [3:02:05] the first Panther to die, had been shot here. Beyond the living room were two bedrooms. Fred Hampton had [3:02:12] died in the farther one. Finally, at the back lay the kitchen, through which the rear contingent of [3:02:19] Hanrahan's force had entered. McDonnell started his investigation in the living room. [3:02:25] I spent 10 and a half hours collecting evidence, taking photographs, and observing the trajectories [3:02:34] of various bullets. I had never seen an area that had been so shot up as the living room. On one wall, [3:02:42] the south wall, there were 45 bullet holes of various calibers. The larger ones were .45 caliber [3:02:50] fired from a Thompson submachine gun. There were blasts from shotguns, and there were .30 caliber and .38. [3:02:58] Having different sizes made it somewhat easy to establish which were fired from various weapons. [3:03:05] Who had fired these shots? The Panthers or the police? McDonnell hoped his investigation would provide [3:03:12] the answer. As streams of sightseers trooped through the apartment, McDonnell set to work, [3:03:19] unpacking the simple tools of his trade. A camera, notebook, ruler, and a ball of string. Soon, he made a [3:03:27] curious request. I asked if I could have some straws brought in and some dowels. The Panthers went out, [3:03:37] some of them, and they came back very quickly with a big handful of straws and a bundle of dowels, [3:03:43] small ones. After measuring the precise position of every hole in the living room wall, McDonnell gently [3:03:50] pushed the dowels and straws into them. By following the direction of a dowel, [3:03:55] he could trace the path of a bullet. The straws protected the holes, ensuring that a dowel did not [3:04:02] knock out plaster and destroy vital evidence. When he finished, the result was startling. All 45 [3:04:11] bullets had been fired from the vicinity of the living room door. All must have come from the police [3:04:17] as they burst into the room. When I began looking at the number of bullet holes, it became apparent [3:04:25] that the vast majority seemed to be coming into the apartment rather than going out. The investigation [3:04:33] seemed to be favoring the Panthers' version of the raid, but the police were quick to state their case. [3:04:42] In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Hanrahan produced a photograph of bullet holes in the [3:04:47] molding around the back door. He called it irrefutable evidence that the Panthers had fired at the police [3:04:54] as they entered from the rear of the apartment. Reporters studied the photos. The pictures you gave [3:05:01] the Tribune had two bullet holes on the right side of what was supposed to be the rear door. But when [3:05:07] reporters inspected the apartment, they found the marks to be not holes but nails. Hanrahan backpedaled. [3:05:16] I have said that we released the pictures. We have not characterized or described the conditions that [3:05:24] they portray other than to say that that is an accurate portrayal of that particular object. Now, [3:05:32] the police changed their story. The Panther bullets, they said, whistled through the open door. That is [3:05:39] not what McDonnell found. The claims that there were bullets fired out at the police, out the back door, [3:05:48] are unfounded. There is no way the bullets could not have hit a person in the door, [3:05:53] and if they missed them, they would have struck a brick wall. McDonnell continued his investigation [3:05:59] in the front bedroom, where he discovered bullets fired in the living room had passed through the wall. [3:06:08] While in the bedroom, he noticed the door was also pierced by bullets. He counted 25 of them. The [3:06:16] police had claimed Panthers in the bedroom shot at them and refused to stop firing despite orders from [3:06:22] officers. At first sight, the door seemed to confirm this part of the police's story. All the shots in [3:06:31] the door came from the inside out, exactly what would be expected if Panthers in the bedroom had been [3:06:37] shooting at the police. But there was a puzzle. None of those 25 shots hit an officer, nor was there any [3:06:45] trace of them in the hallway beyond. But on closer examination, if those bullets were fired when the [3:06:53] door was closed, as was claimed by the police, they would have struck the hall right across from that [3:06:59] bedroom door. There was not one point of impact there. So having the dowels between the living room [3:07:07] and that bedroom recessed, I could open the door all the way. And then all I had to do was to push the [3:07:15] dowels from the living room side. And out of the 25 holes in the door, 25 were explained by the bullets [3:07:23] coming from the living room when the door was wide open. When these shots had been fired, he concluded, [3:07:30] the bedroom door was open, roughly parallel to the bedroom wall. Bullets fired by the police in the [3:07:37] living room passed through the wall, then continued on through the door. By now, the evidence was [3:07:45] overwhelming. Of all the bullets fired, only one, a shotgun blast in the living room door, [3:07:52] seemed to have been fired by a Black Panther. This was beginning to look like a very one-sided gunfight. [3:08:01] There were at least 99 fired in. So when you have 99 to 1, it's not a shootout. It's a shoot in. [3:08:11] But what happened in the back bedroom when Hampton lost his life? Was he waiting in bed, [3:08:17] ready to fire, as police claimed? Or was he asleep and murdered in cold blood by the police, [3:08:23] as the Panthers insisted? The trajectory of the bullets through his skull might solve the riddle. [3:08:32] On January 3, 1970, a federal grand jury ordered Hampton's body exhumed. Two earlier autopsies had [3:08:40] given conflicting results. One, conducted by the Cook County Coroner, reported that the two bullets in his [3:08:48] head came from opposite directions. That suggested he was awake and moving. Hampton's relatives arranged [3:08:57] a second one by a private pathologist. He found that both bullets had struck from the right and [3:09:03] traveled on roughly parallel paths, suggesting Hampton was lying down. The new autopsy confirmed the second [3:09:11] one regarding the trajectory. Both shots had entered Hampton's head from the right. The finding supported the [3:09:19] Black Panthers claim that Hampton had been asleep, lying on his back with his head down. From the trajectory [3:09:27] into the head of Fred Hampton, both shots were fired in nearly parallel trajectories, which projected back [3:09:35] to the doorway. So if one policeman came in and fired a shot, Fred would have still been lying in that [3:09:42] position when the second person came in with a different caliber and fired a second shot at what [3:09:50] probably was either a dead or dying person. McDonald's meticulous investigation and the autopsy [3:09:57] supported the Panther version of events. It looked as if the police had indeed assassinated Fred Hampton. [3:10:04] But the most crucial question had not yet been answered. Did the Panthers or the police fire first? [3:10:13] If the Panthers had started the shooting, even if they had fired just a single shot, the police could [3:10:18] maintain they shot back only in self-defense. To answer this question, McDonald performed his most [3:10:26] dazzling piece of detective work. The gunfight evidently had started as the police stormed the [3:10:33] living room. McDonald found that the living room door contained two bullet holes. His examination of [3:10:40] powder marks and wood splinters established that one bullet came from outside, from a police 38 revolver. [3:10:47] He recovered the bullet from the living room wall. A second, larger hole likely came from Mark Clark's [3:10:56] shotgun. After blasting a hole in the door panel, the slug had gone through a wall and ended up in the [3:11:02] stairwell outside the apartment. McDonald had an idea. By figuring out how far the door was open when the 38 [3:11:11] bullet and the shotgun slug passed through it, he might be able to tell who shot first. He traced the bullets' [3:11:18] paths as they flew through the door. He knew that, by their own admission, the police had forced open [3:11:24] the door as the raid began. He threaded a string through the 38 caliber hole in the door to the 38 hole [3:11:33] in the wall. Then he adjusted the door until the string was straight. The door was barely ajar. Next, [3:11:43] he ran a line from the slug hole in the stairwell through the hole in the door and then to Mark Clark's [3:11:49] chair. This time, when the string was pulled straight, the door was three quarters open. Through [3:11:57] his experiments, McDonald pieced together the scenario. As police pushed open the door at the [3:12:03] start of the raid, they fired the 38. As it swung open further, a Panther shotgun went off. That was the [3:12:15] only evidence of any shot being fired out. McDonald's conclusion was clear. The police fired first. [3:12:23] According to McDonald's findings, the police broke in, firing a 38 caliber pistol as they slammed open [3:12:31] the living room door. A Panther, presumably Mark Clark, returned the fire. As the fusillade of police [3:12:41] bullets poured into the apartment, Panthers fled to the second bedroom, where they tried in vain to awaken [3:12:47] Fred Hampton. When the police reached the bedroom, they shot Hampton twice in the head. In court, charges [3:12:58] against the surviving seven Black Panthers were eventually dropped. No indictments were ever [3:13:04] handed down against State Attorney Hanrahan or the 14 officers involved in the raid. But Hanrahan's [3:13:13] credibility had been tarnished and his political career was ruined. Twelve years later, in a civil [3:13:21] suit brought by the Panther survivors, the raiders were found liable and the city ordered to pay 1.8 [3:13:27] million dollars in damages. McDonald's detailed investigation helped to tip the scales and ensure [3:13:35] that in the end, justice was done. It's been 30 years since Fred Hampton's death. But today, crime [3:13:44] solving takes as much tenacity and ingenuity as ever. Investigators are finding a new ally in the computer. [3:13:53] It's proving time and again that a criminal's past can catch up with him. On March 8, 1996, a young boy [3:14:06] was spending the evening as any 12-year-old would when tragedy struck. A gang war simmered on the streets [3:14:25] of his New Orleans neighborhood. The boy became a casualty of that war, a bullet in his head from a [3:14:32] senseless drive-by shooting. Within minutes, police and paramedics were on the scene. They rushed to save the [3:14:40] boy's life. But from the start, the prognosis looked grim. Homicide detectives from the New Orleans [3:14:48] Police Department began interviewing eyewitnesses. Two men who had run for safety when the drive-by occurred [3:14:55] returned to the scene. One of them was the victim's uncle. The men admitted to police that they were the [3:15:02] intended victims. They recognized the car and identified the trigger man as Kevin Jordan, a gang member [3:15:10] and drug dealer. Meanwhile, the child was taken to the hospital. Fifteen hours later, he died. [3:15:26] As the search for Kevin Jordan started, Sergeant Michael Rice and John Tretaway, firearms examiner for [3:15:33] the New Orleans Police, began their own quest. Two bullets had been found at the crime scene, [3:15:39] and a third had been recovered from the little boy. Could they link those bullets to a gun, [3:15:46] and then link that gun to the killer? The bullet was placed in our evidence room, [3:15:52] and it was delivered to the firearm section for me to examine. Examining the bullet, I found that it [3:15:58] was a .38 caliber having a six right rifling twist. Most drive-by shootings involve semi-automatic handguns, [3:16:06] but this bullet was fired from a revolver. So I was able to inform the detective bureau that [3:16:14] the gun that was used was a .38 caliber revolver. But were all three bullets fired from the same .38? [3:16:22] To find out, Tretaway had to compare the fine details of each one. So do you see how pronounced [3:16:30] this is? If you look up on the monitor in the groove, you can see about two-thirds of the way down [3:16:37] is a good match. It notches on the following land and the following groove. This is a hit, no doubt at all. [3:16:44] This is a, both, both bullets fired from the same wall, no doubt. Okay. And I think this is what they needed. [3:16:50] Now, detectives in the field knew that only a single .38 revolver had been used. Until they found it, [3:16:59] there was little more that Tretaway could do. [3:17:02] Over the door, police. Detectives, meanwhile, learned the name of the driver. He was Henry Talley. [3:17:09] They also found out he owned a .38 caliber revolver. On March 16th, [3:17:18] they arrived at Talley's home armed with search warrants. A search turned up drug paraphernalia, [3:17:25] marijuana, crack cocaine, and three guns, including his .38 caliber revolver. He was taken in for [3:17:33] questioning. Talley's weapons were confiscated and sent to Tretaway at the ballistics laboratory. [3:17:41] Could he tie the .38 revolver to the bullet that killed the boy? If so, the police could build a solid [3:17:49] case against Talley and the alleged trigger man, Kevin Jordan, who had already been arrested on [3:17:54] suspicion of murder. The first order of business was testing for fingerprints. Had Talley or Jordan [3:18:05] last fired the gun and left prints on the trigger? Timothy Susano, a fingerprint expert with New Orleans [3:18:13] Police Department, demonstrates how he finds them. Latent fingerprints, prints invisible to the naked eye, [3:18:21] are developed in a two-stage process. The first involves fumigating with super glue. Molecules [3:18:28] of the glue will stick to a print. Then you want to take your liquid super glue and pour it into the [3:18:35] lumen dish. Next, I'm going to place the lumen dish onto a hot plate that's located inside this tank. [3:18:43] That's going to heat the super glue and accelerate the fuming process. Within an hour, [3:18:50] the gun is cooked. Now it's ready for the second stage of the test. It's washed with a fluorescent dye. [3:18:59] If any prints exist, the dye will adhere to them and become visible under the ultraviolet light source. [3:19:05] Unfortunately, none showed up on the 38 found at Talley's residence. The test could not help pin [3:19:15] the shooting on Talley or Jordan. Still, the test is often worth performing. Sometimes it can yield [3:19:24] dramatic results. This is an example of a partial latent fingerprint that was developed on the trigger [3:19:31] guard of a weapon that was used in a murder. As you can see, the partial fingerprint right here, [3:19:37] that's on the front part of the trigger guard, which is located right here. To establish a connection [3:19:44] between Talley's gun and the fatal bullet, Treadaway needed to inspect a bullet shot from the gun. [3:19:50] In this room is our ballistic tank that we test fire our weapons in. This is Officer Glenn Surpass. He's [3:20:02] going to test fire these weapons. We're going to test fire this 38 first. Before we do anything with [3:20:09] this, we normally like to check to make sure that the weapon is functional. We make sure that there [3:20:15] are no obstructions in the barrel and all the parts on the weapon are in place. I'm going to go ahead and [3:20:21] load it. We need to put some air protection on. It gets a little loud in here. The gun is fired into an [3:20:34] 800-gallon tank of water, informally called the hot tub. Water halts the bullet without distorting its [3:20:41] shape or marking its surface. Once the weapon's fired, I then unload the weapon, remove the spent [3:20:55] caissons. The bullet retrieval system is simple but effective. A broom handle and a lump of silly putty. [3:21:07] Once the bullet was recovered, its markings were examined and compared with bullets found at the [3:21:11] crime scene. The match was undeniable. So I performed my test fire and examined the bullet, [3:21:22] the test bullet, under the microscope with the three bullets that I received previously and [3:21:28] determined that that gun had fired those three bullets. Talley's gun had indeed shocked the little [3:21:35] boy. Both Talley and Jordan were convicted felons and by now the New Orleans police had enough evidence [3:21:43] to charge Jordan with murder. But they suspected that the guns found in Talley's house had been used [3:21:51] in other crimes. Could a new computer system implicate Talley in past crimes? When the 12-year-old boy died [3:22:05] in a drive-by shooting in 1996, New Orleans police had a brand new crime-solving tool available. Earlier that [3:22:14] year, they installed the Integrated Ballistic Identification System, or IBIS. It dramatically speeds up [3:22:21] the time it takes to match bullets from crime scenes to guns confiscated by police. Sergeant Michael [3:22:29] Rice runs the IBIS operation. For him, it's a vast improvement from the old method. We would go and [3:22:37] physically get these guns and test fire them and examine them on the microscope. Well, right now, [3:22:45] with our IBIS system, we can now simply, as a matter of routine, test fire these weapons and put them [3:22:51] into IBIS. This image will then be correlated and checked against all of our current database. And [3:23:02] if this gun had been used in a crime, we will know about it in a very short period of time, perhaps within [3:23:09] the hour. At the heart of IBIS is a sophisticated computer program linked to an elaborate microscope. [3:23:17] Attached to the microscope are two tiny video cameras. When a test bullet is placed under one of the cameras, [3:23:23] its magnified image appears on the screen. Greg McRae is one of the New Orleans detectives trained to use [3:23:33] the new system. We have the projectile, the bullet itself, mounted on a little fixture with the [3:23:40] information recorded on it. It's glued on here. We're going to mount it to the machine, rotate it, [3:23:48] and lock it in. The flip of a switch, the cradle begins to move, turning the bullet through one complete [3:23:59] revolution, scanning an image of the bullet into the computer. As you can see, you see striations, [3:24:06] you see groovings, you see markings. As we move it down, we'll take a picture of it. The machine [3:24:13] digitizes this picture as it takes it. Now, when we process it, it is, the picture is taken, processed [3:24:27] digitally from this machine into the next machine, the next computer, which will in turn correlate it. [3:24:34] Built into IBIS is a program designed to scan each image for its distinctive pattern of marks or lines. [3:24:41] Having picked it out, the program searches through its database, looking for other images of bullets [3:24:47] that match. Within less than a minute, it can scrutinize thousands of bullets, a task that would [3:24:54] take a ballistics expert like John Credaway years to perform. This part of IBIS is called bulletproof. [3:25:03] A second subsystem, BrassCatcher, enables him to scan and match spent shells. The casing, which is the other [3:25:12] section of the bullet, would be put in this area here and locked in here and secured. This particular [3:25:21] microscope will take a picture with the camera mounted up here of the back end, or I should say, [3:25:25] the breech face of that casing. The breech face and also the firing pin, which is in this area right here. [3:25:31] Now, the computer records the shell's distinctive features, the positions and shapes of indentations [3:25:39] left by the firing pin and tiny gouges left as it's ejected from the weapon. The operation is completed [3:25:47] in two to three minutes. IBIS had been installed less than a month when a bullet from the .38 revolver [3:25:54] that killed the 12-year-old boy was entered into it. There were no hits, no matches with the thousands of [3:26:01] other bullets in the computer's database. But the system's real power was demonstrated with bullets [3:26:08] test-fired from a second gun, a .45 caliber automatic found in Henry Talley's apartment. [3:26:16] The firing pin, which we're looking at, if you look very closely, you can see this duck image [3:26:21] right here, center in the firing pin itself. But this is very clear. We knew from looking at the [3:26:28] screen that the probability of a match was very, very high. IBIS made a hit, implicating Henry Talley [3:26:37] in another unsolved drive-by shooting. It was enough to strengthen the case against him regarding the [3:26:44] death of the child. IBIS had proved itself on its first case. Prior to IBIS, this case would have [3:26:53] probably been unsolved. It would have never picked up any additional follow-up unless there was a specific [3:26:58] reason for it. We have uncovered and linked many, many cases involving homicides as well as shootings [3:27:10] here in the city. And we made those links and those correlations and tied them all together by simply [3:27:18] what Greg's doing right now. And we're kind of proud of what we do here. And I would not want to be [3:27:26] without IBIS today. The death of the 12-year-old boy was solved partly by traditional ballistics work. [3:27:34] But without the IBIS computer system, police would never have connected Talley's weapons to another [3:27:40] crime that might have otherwise gone unsolved. Both Kevin Jordan and Henry Talley were convicted of [3:27:48] first-degree murder and are now serving life sentences. By developing new ways to trace bullets to guns [3:27:58] and guns to criminals, forensic detectives are increasingly able to turn a criminal's own [3:28:04] ammunition against him. So long as there's a bullet, there's a clue. And so long as there's a clue, [3:28:12] there's a chance to catch a killer.