Latest / History Dark / Cynthia Ray _ Exhibit A _ S2E02

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Cynthia Ray _ Exhibit A _ S2E02 · History Dark

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is my first case in homicide.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: They weren't referred to by a surname and a first name,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: but by their street names.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: And also in this case, there was a vodka bottle.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I've been doing this now, homicides now, for 10 years.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And he is one of the wickedest people I have
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: dealt with.
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: Enter the world of forensic science, the science of crime,
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: where a suspect's guilt or innocence can hang on a
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: single piece of evidence. The Brothers Grimm made up fairy
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: tales that warn children about the evils of the world.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: This is a contemporary Grimm fairy tale, only it's true.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: Exhibit A, not what was in the bottle, but the
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: bottle itself. The fire is in a three-story derelict house
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: in one of the city's most upscale neighborhoods. Because it's
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: been boarded up, the fire is confined to one front room.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: As firefighters assess the damage, they detect an odor.
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: If you've ever experienced the smell of a burnt victim,
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: within the confines of a structure.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It's something you don't soon forget.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: The body is charred beyond recognition. Initially it's thought the
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: victim is a transient who fell asleep while smoking. To
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: confirm the cause of death and help determine the victim's identity,
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: the body is sent to the morgue to be autopsied
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: by a forensic pathologist.
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: Back of the body showed two areas where the skin
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: had been spared from the effects of heat. The skin
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: was clearly white. There was a charred gag in the
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: mouth of the individual and obviously a gag in the
• 3:02
  Speaker 6: mouth would preclude smoking and careless use of cigarette butts.
• 3:06
  Speaker 6: The body appeared to be that of a young female.
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: I stopped what I was doing at that stage and
• 3:14
  Speaker 6: awaited the arrival of of the homicide investigators.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: This was my first case in homicide.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: It became quite clear that this was not a fire
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: death at all. In fact it was a homicide and
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: a rather brutal homicide.
• 3:27
  Speaker 6: The cause of death in this case was attributed to
• 3:31
  Speaker 6: ligature strangulation effected by the elastic material in the bra
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: which was tightly bound twice around the neck. There was
• 3:43
  Speaker 6: evidence of injury to the vagina, that this woman was
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: bound around the ankles, and had the effect of fire
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: not been so great, it would be my opinion that
• 3:55
  Speaker 6: she was equally bound by the wrists.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Because of the sexual assault aspect of it, because of
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: the forcible confinement and.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: The arms being.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Tied, the ligature across the throat, the.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Gag in the mouth, various other aspects of it.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: It was always a first degree murder.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: Now that it's an official homicide, investigators return to the house.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: They search the front room where the body was found,
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: looking for clues. Then they head for the second and
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: third floors.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Once on the third floor, it became quite obvious somebody
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: had set up a small room at the front of
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: the house.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: Detectives would later discover the place was a squat house
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: for street kids.
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: There was rats running around. There was human excrement all
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: over because they had been using this place for what
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: they call a squat, and of course that's what squat means.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: We squat and we do our thing. Some of the
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: rooms were actually knee-deep in discarded items.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: Detectives survey the crime scene, but the ident people actually
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: collect the evidence.
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: Well, we never know in the first instance, you know,
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: what role any particular item can play in the thing.
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: and you can assume that it's going to have considerable
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: importance in some way, but again, at that time, you
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: really don't know.
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: At this point, the investigation has two major prongs, to
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: find out who committed the murder and to determine the
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: victim's identity.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: We started searching our own Toronto files to begin with
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: for missing persons. We had an approximate age. We had
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: a female who a range of age was... 15 to 25.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: 30, we had no idea.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: We put out a request through the media, and as
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: a result of that, there was one phone call from
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: an officer in Niagara Region who hooked up a missing
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: person down there. We got dental records, and from the
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: dental records, an odontologist matched up the teeth, and that's
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: how we did our identification of her.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: The victim was a 16-year-old girl, the youngest daughter of
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: professional parents She was from a small city near Niagara Falls.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: Her name was Cynthia Ray. As a last gasp of
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: freedom before starting a summer job at a local burger joint,
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: Cynthia Ray and a young friend had hitchhiked into Toronto
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: to spend a weekend hanging out in the punk scene.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: That was on a Friday. On the following Tuesday morning,
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: her charred remains had been discovered. what had happened in between,
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: and who had murdered Cynthia Ray. Grady's investigation plunged him
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: into a unique and alien culture, the punk and skinhead universe.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: They weren't referred to by a surname and a first name,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: but by their street names. So we got familiar with
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: those street names. And then when we referred to them
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: as their street names, I think they appreciated it. They
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: were quite cooperative to speak with. We had some of
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: these kids come in and they would have their Doc
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Martin boots. There were all kinds of different boots they wore.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Paratrooper boots, there was army boots, there were police boots.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Within this little hierarchy of Doc Martens were the ones
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: that everybody wanted to wear.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: Investigators eventually discovered Cynthia Ray had been seen with a
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: guy whose street name was Rodent. Rodent was a punk
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: from a well-to-do family. He'd met Cynthia on Saturday afternoon
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: when she bought a bunch of them some fast food
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: and booze. Cynthia was what was known as a poser,
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: a kid who lived at home during the week and
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: made the scene on the weekends. On the plus side, she.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Had a bank account.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: When Rodent noticed Cynthia had too much to drink, he
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: felt sorry for her.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: There was a woman there who was out taking photographs
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: of interesting people, and there was a group. of which
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: the now deceased, they were amongst the group of people
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: who were being photographed along with some other street kids.
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: Roden and Cynthia slept in a park Saturday night. The
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: next day, Sunday, they hung out together and later had
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: sex in a parking lot stairwell. But when Rodent called
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: home and found out that a girl he'd met in
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: Europe was at his parents' house, he decided to go home.
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: The last time he'd seen Cynthia Ray, she was talking
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: to a couple of guys she knew.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Sean Ross, who was known as Football, at this time
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: was 16 years of age.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: The other, James Harbottle, he was a little older.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: I think he was 19 or 20 at the time
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: of the offense. He was a punk rocker. He had
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: his hair in a mohawk at one point. He had
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: it shaved right down at one point. He had leather jackets, studs.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: He was more of a guy who had a rough
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: life and lived on the streets because of his rough life.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: It turned out Harbottle had met Cynthia and a friend
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: when they were panhandling the month earlier. He gave them
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: a tab of acid. That night, while her friend slept
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: in the nearby bed, Cynthia had sex with Harbottle. The
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: place where they had spent the night was the same
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: squat house where a month later Cynthia was found murdered.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: Harbottle's street name was Evil. Meanwhile, the vodka bottle had
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: been sent to the Centre of Forensic Science to be analysed.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: One of the issues was whether she'd been sexually assaulted.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: And so routinely in homicide cases, we get a number
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: of medical samples to check to see whether or not
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: there's semen present. I had those, and also in this case,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: there was a vodka bottle. In this particular case, I
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: noticed some crusty yellow material in the area around the
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: bottle cap. What we want to do is get the...
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: get the material off. And then it's simply a question
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: of swabbing that area. So from looking at the bottle,
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: swabbing off the material, and then testing it, this is
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: what we find. First, that we have spermatozoa present. Secondly,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: that we have epithelial cells present. And thirdly, that they're
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: vaginal epithelial cells because there's a lot of glycogen present
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: in most of the cells. That combination... Plus the typing
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: was consistent with the Crown's theory of what had happened,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: which was that the vodka bottle had been inserted vaginally.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: This confirmed Rodent had slept with Cynthia. But what about
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: Evil or Ross?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: All we knew at that time is they were the
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: last ones to be seen with the deceased.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: And off they had gone.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: And we had no story from then until when the
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: deceased is found. So we wanted to locate them and
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: find out, was there another perpetrator? Was there something else?
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Did they.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Perhaps smoke a joint or whatever and just leave her
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: with somebody else? We had to find them.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: Grady received a report that Evil and Ross were stopped
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: on the outskirts of Toronto by a police officer and
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: told to move on. The officer noted that Ross had
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: a pair of eight-hole Doc Martin boots. Cynthia Ray had
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: eight-hole Doc Martins. The next report was that they had
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: hitched out west together. Then Evil and Ross split up.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: When Grady found out Ross, aka Football, had been transported
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: back to Montreal, he was anxious to talk to him.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I thought he could probably be the best witness in
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: this case.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: And if you think of it, the one guy's street
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: name is Football. The other's is Evil. And I mean,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: it may be very basic, but When you're dealing with this,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: and one was 16 and the other was a little older,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: one was a bit more of a leader on the
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: street scene, being evil, a guy who'd been around the
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: streets a bit longer. He'd had a bit of a
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: checkered past, been in and out of trouble with the police.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Whereas Ross, at this stage, was 16 and didn't seem
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: to have the history that we knew of at that time.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And as we're interviewing him, we realize he has a
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: pair of 8-hole Doc Martin boots on. When I showed
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Ross the picture of the deceased wearing the boots at
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: the Eaton Center with the other people, all friends of his,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: he took a look at the picture and he just
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: moved back.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: He goes, they're hers. Take them.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: And he took the boots right off there and gave
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: them to us.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: Ross claimed Evil had sold him the boots. Then he
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: told detectives about running into Evil and Cynthia on that
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: fateful Sunday night, and how they'd invited him to come
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: back to the squat with them to smoke some hash.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: The only way into the squat was a third floor window,
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: and Ross helped Cynthia climb in. They smoked and went
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: to sleep.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And then in the morning, he got up, went off
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: to the Scott mission, got some new clothes, and then
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: met up with Harbottle, and off they went to Points West.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: He basically gave us Harbottle with exclusive opportunity.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Meaning he didn't say he saw evil kill Cynthia, but
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: he certainly implied it. But Grady didn't entirely buy Ross's story.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: he had a hunch Ross was more involved than he
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: was letting on.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: You know, there was nothing to substantiate it, but we
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: were much more concerned after the interview than we were,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: you know, before, that's for sure.
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: At this time, blood samples were voluntary. Through his lawyer,
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: Ross declined to give one. But the detectives rushed back
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: in to collect the used cigarette butts for saliva samples.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: We actually take the paper itself, And then we would extract,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: put it into a special liquid. In the case of
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: ABO typing, it's just water because the ABO substances are
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: soluble in water.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: The ABO system could not nail a suspect, but it
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: could exclude one.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Ross was an A-secreter, so he was eliminated because there
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: was no group A substance found on the vodka bottle
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: or on the vaginal swabs.
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: From the deceased.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: Maybe Grady's hunch about Ross was wrong. Maybe he'd been
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: telling the truth, that Evil was the sole sick murderer.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: But when they eventually caught up with Evil, he would
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: tell quite a different story. Grady had been getting police
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: updates about Evil's whereabouts, but he still couldn't catch him.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: Then something he never expected happened. Evil called him.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: He was phoning and trying to say that he was
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: a nice guy. He didn't do anything, doesn't know what
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: went on. And we had him arrested while he was
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: on a pay phone.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: For the first time, Grady was face to face with Evil.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: Grady had a tape recorder with him. He turned it
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: on and asked Evil if he wanted to say anything.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: This is a story Evil told him on the ride back. Yes,
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: Ross had run into him and Cynthia that Sunday night.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: And yes, they'd helped Cynthia climb into the squat. And yes,
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: they'd smoked some hash and gone to sleep. But this
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: is where Evil's story differed from Ross's. In Evil's account,
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: both he and Ross had gone off in the morning
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: to the Scott mission to get clean clothes, leaving Cynthia
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: still sleeping. But according to Evil, he and Ross both
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: went back to the squat. Ross wanted sex, and when
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: Cynthia wasn't interested, Ross said, Let's rape her. Evil thought
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: it was a prank, but it suddenly got serious when
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: Ross started cutting off Cynthia's clothes and tied her up.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: Then Ross sexually assaulted Cynthia with the vodka bottle. Cynthia
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: cried she was going to the police, so Ross took
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: Evil to the next room and said, Well then, we're
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: going to have to kill her. And Evil said, Go
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: for it. but do it kindly. But there was nothing
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: kind about it. Evil and Ross tried cutting her wrists.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: When that didn't work, they carried her downstairs and strangled
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: her with her bra. Then they went out to huff
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: some glue. That's when they decided to return to the
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: squat and hide Cynthia's body under an overturned couch and
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: set the whole thing on fire. It was brutal and sadistic. Ross, meanwhile,
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: was on the lam. It took police two months to
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: find him.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: He's arrested in Montreal.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: For doing a robbery of a kid, and the robbery
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: was for a pair of eight-hole Doc Martin boots.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Evil was charged with first-degree murder and sentenced to life.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: But Ross denied any part in Cynthia Ray's murder.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: He has never admitted to it. Has never admitted his part.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Has denied everything. Denied sexually assaulting the deceased in this matter.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Has denied anything to do with the vodka bottle or
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: anything like that.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: Evil was willing to testify against Ross. But what judge
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: or jury would believe him? It would all come down
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: to the vodka bottle. Exhibit A. We're all used to
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: hearing about the phenomenal results of DNA, but only with
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: fingerprints do you get an absolute match.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: What we're looking at.
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: Is just the root structures, any place where they divide
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: or where they end, where there are small dots. These
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: are all individual characteristics or characteristics that are unique to
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: that one impression. There is no reported or known case
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: of two person's fingerprints being the same. This is the
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: actual bottle from the crime scene. They have applied the
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: photograph here to show the actual location of the print.
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: This impression is the left ring finger of Sean Ross.
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: This is on the item in a position consistent with
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: the scenario of Ross using this to sexually assault the victim.
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: I think that's what they call the clincher.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: Thanks to this forensic evidence, Sean Ross, a.k.a. Football, was
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life. Because he
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: was a young offender at the time of the incident,
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: he would be eligible for parole in 10 years.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Ross had no conscience, had no remorse. Harbottle, as diminished
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: as the remorse was, at least there was some, as
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: his remorse, to me at least, was for his lack
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: of action dealing with Ross. I think Ross did it
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: because he liked the power, the control, and as he's
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: told other witnesses, he liked watching the eyes bug out.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: That gave him a lot of power and control. I've
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: been doing this now, homicides now, for 10 years, and
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: he is one of the wickedest people I have dealt with.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Most of the time we don't get involved with the people.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: We get involved with samples. But there are still cases,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter, they get to you no matter how you
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: try and keep them from doing so. And usually those
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: are really nasty cases. They're the kind that can give
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: you nightmares.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: How many of us can think of the close calls
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: of our youth when we unknowingly put ourselves in awful
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: danger and how lucky we were to escape? Cynthia Ray
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: had her whole life ahead of her. Like so many
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: teenagers before her, she was just trying to fit into
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: a scene. The tragedy is that on that fateful Sunday night,
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: Cynthia Ray got too close to the flame when she
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: entered the house where evil lives. The stories on Exhibit
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: A are based on actual cases. The names of the
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: victims have been changed to protect their identities. The names
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: of the guilty are real.