Latest / History Dark / How Forensic Pathology proved He was a Pathological Liar _ Murder of Bunchie Niehaus

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How Forensic Pathology proved He was a Pathological Liar _ Murder of Bunchie Niehaus · History Dark

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: In a murder case, the best witness for the state
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is death.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: We just don't know exactly what the cause of death was.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: We did not recover a significant portion of the body.
• 0:17
  Speaker 4: If someone has no dental work, it is certainly more
• 0:20
  Speaker 4: challenging to identify them.
• 0:23
  Speaker 5: The trauma to the skull was at or near the
• 0:26
  Speaker 5: time of death. There was no indication of any healing
• 0:29
  Speaker 5: on those bones.
• 0:31
  Speaker 6: What I find sad about this whole thing is kids
• 0:34
  Speaker 6: not having a mother.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: He was trying to say it was an accident.
• 0:45
  Speaker 7: We know he lied to cover up the disappearance.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: This case has been called the talking skull case.
• 0:55
  Speaker 8: Every murder is a mystery. But a victim's body is
• 1:03
  Speaker 8: a sea of evidence. Every fiber is a clue. Every wound,
• 1:10
  Speaker 8: a piece of the puzzle. The medical examiner holds the
• 1:14
  Speaker 8: key to unlock their stories and catch a killer. This
• 1:20
  Speaker 8: is Secrets of the Morgue. Sixty miles south of St. Louis,
• 1:32
  Speaker 8: on the edge of the Ozark Mountains, the town of Farmington,
• 1:36
  Speaker 8: Missouri is surrounded by nine state parks.
• 1:39
  Speaker 7: The whole general area is rural farming and wooded areas.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: It's basically a bedroom community. A bulk of the people
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: who live in that area are employed either by industry
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: or in the St.
• 1:54
  Speaker 7: Louis metro area.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: There's crime everywhere in Missouri, but Farmington would be a
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: relatively crime-free area.
• 2:05
  Speaker 8: Deep in the woods near this small, quiet community, a
• 2:08
  Speaker 8: park ranger receives a disturbing report.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: We get a call that remains of a body have
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: been discovered on the Boy Scout camp. It is a
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: wooded and grassed area. There's not trails where you would
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: actually be walking down a prepared trail. You got to
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: get off the road and out through the woods to
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: find the location.
• 2:34
  Speaker 8: Detective William Conway's been a policeman for 40 years, but
• 2:39
  Speaker 8: he's never encountered anything like this before.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: It is a bleached white object on top of the
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: ground in the grass. When you got close enough to it,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: you could tell it was a skull. It wasn't deformed.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: It wasn't cracked or broken. It was an intact skull.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: You've got a skull. You don't know how long it's
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: been there, who it belongs to.
• 3:07
  Speaker 8: At first, investigators aren't sure if this is a recent
• 3:11
  Speaker 8: crime or ancient history.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: You have to consider the possibilities. Missouri is an area
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: that there was a lot of Civil War activity. There
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: was also a lot of Native Americans that lived in
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: this area at one point. It did not appear to
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: be a place that would have been a likely burial ground,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: but you'd never know. Solving cases is fascinating because as
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: frustrating as some are, there's always a good feeling at
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: the end when you can contact a family and let
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: them know you've found their loved one and been able
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: to solve the crime that's been a part of their lives,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: sometimes for years. When you get called to a body
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: on top of the ground and there's only a skull there,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: you start wondering why. Normally you find a body, you
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: don't just find pieces of it.
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: It's extremely challenging when skeletal remains and just partial skeletal
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: remains are found. At the beginning, you're starting with an
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: absolutely blank slate. You don't know what you have in
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: front of you.
• 4:32
  Speaker 8: The shallow grave may hold clues to help identify the victim.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: During the initial excavation, we found some of the smaller
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: bones and some of the smaller items. We find remains
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: of blue jeans, and the biggest thing that came up
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: that caused us to believe this was not an Indian
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: burial or a Civil War burial was the fact that
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: we found a plastic bag in the grave.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: The bag was from Service Merchandise, which was a retail store.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: We were able to determine the time that that service
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: merchandise bag went into production or use in 79 and
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: then was no longer used after 1985, although there would
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: be some residual use of that as the supplies lasted.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: That gave us a perspective of how long it might
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: have been in the ground.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: It eliminated the possibility that this was an Indian grave,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Civil War grave, any old grave.
• 5:39
  Speaker 8: The plastic bag dates the burial to sometime in the
• 5:42
  Speaker 8: last nine years. Police now consider the forest a crime scene.
• 5:50
  Speaker 9: In order to ensure that you have recovered all the
• 5:54
  Speaker 9: available evidence, you conduct a grid search.
• 5:58
  Speaker 8: The area of interest around the grave is the size
• 6:01
  Speaker 8: of a football field. Police map it in four-foot squares
• 6:05
  Speaker 8: and search every inch.
• 6:07
  Speaker 9: The reason you need to do a grid search when
• 6:09
  Speaker 9: you find bones, you're dealing with the elements, you're dealing
• 6:13
  Speaker 9: with animals. Animals will move parts of the body to
• 6:18
  Speaker 9: eat them. And you may find a set of bones
• 6:22
  Speaker 9: in one spot and find another set of bones 150
• 6:24
  Speaker 9: yards away.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: We recovered bones over 300, 400 feet from the center
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: of the grave.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: With animal predation, you can have marks on the bones
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: that a medical examiner will have to determine what they're from.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: Did they come before death or after death? And what
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: caused them? Was it from animal predation in the post-mortem period?
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: Or was it some sort of inflicted injury at the.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Time of death?
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: We did recover part of the pelvis.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: We did recover the skull and the lower jaw, some
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: teeth that were missing. We did not recover a significant
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: portion of the body.
• 7:17
  Speaker 8: Investigators are hopeful that the bones they do have will
• 7:21
  Speaker 8: tell the victim's story. The remains are turned over to
• 7:25
  Speaker 8: the morgue for analysis.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: They had been in the ground for years, as far
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: as we could tell. There was no autopsy right after
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the crime. So this was a monumental task.
• 7:49
  Speaker 10: Determining the identity of the victim is often the cornerstone
• 7:54
  Speaker 10: of any homicide investigation. They don't know who a person
• 7:59
  Speaker 10: may have been with when they died. They don't know
• 8:02
  Speaker 10: who they can go and talk to to gather more information.
• 8:06
  Speaker 10: They often find themselves scratching their heads, running up against
• 8:09
  Speaker 10: a wall.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: We started initially with dental records. We started trying to
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: compare those to missing persons.
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: The teeth can be very helpful, but more often than not,
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: it's easier to rely on dental fillings. Those will often
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: have very unique appearances and easily compared between x-rays.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: We really put a lot of weight into the dental records,
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: but the remains that we recovered did not have any
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: dental work. There was no fillings, no crowns, nothing.
• 8:50
  Speaker 8: The teeth don't match the records of any missing persons
• 8:53
  Speaker 8: in Missouri.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: In a murder case, the best witness for the state
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: is dead So you have to use circumstantial evidence, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: the best circumstantial evidence is scientific evidence.
• 9:08
  Speaker 8: Police need more help to identify the bones and turn
• 9:12
  Speaker 8: to forensic anthropologist Nita Bittner.
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: The work of forensic anthropologists is tremendously important, first of all,
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: to the families involved. If your loved one is missing
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: or unaccounted for, There's nothing more important to you than
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: getting that identification. I didn't intend or start out in
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: this type of work. The idea that a person could
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: look at bones and from that determine who they were
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: was fascinating to me. When we get a set of remains,
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: the first thing we do is lay them out in
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: anatomical position. If we have multiples of certain parts, then
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: you know you're dealing with multiple people. In this case,
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: it appeared that we just had one single set of remains.
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: I naturally go towards the skull or whatever is there
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: of the skull. A female has a rounded forehead. Males
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: tend to slope farther back. The pelvic girdle also indicated
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: that it was a female. An angle greater than 90
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: degrees where they meet indicates female. The remains that were
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: collected included long arm bones, leg bones, and we could
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: use those for some of the better measurements to determine
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: what the height was, plus or minus an inch. We
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: were looking at a female closer to five foot tall,
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: about 120 pounds.
• 10:50
  Speaker 8: It's the first break in the investigation, but with so
• 10:54
  Speaker 8: few bones, they still can't identify their Jane Doe. But
• 10:59
  Speaker 8: detectives have another clue to follow, the woman's jeans found
• 11:03
  Speaker 8: at the crime scene.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: We also found what's referred to as a tack button.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: It's the top button on your blue.
• 11:10
  Speaker 7: Jeans at the waistband.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: The button was identified by the lab as having the
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: wording Textwood on it. There was a Textwood company that
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: did manufacture clothing, but it was on their blue jeans,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: and none of their blue jeans were sold in the
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: United States.
• 11:30
  Speaker 8: But the jeans are sold across Asia. Detectives hope that
• 11:35
  Speaker 8: Nita Bittner can determine their Jane Doe's ethnicity.
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: Forensic anthropologists are trained to identify certain features associated with
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: different races. They look at things such as the shape
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: of eye sockets, the shape of the nasal bones. There
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: are a series of measurements that forensic anthropologists take of
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: the different bone structures and the different features of a skull.
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: Looking at the skull, there were what the average person
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: would say high cheekbones. And the high cheekbones are merely
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: squared off. And based on that squared off look, it
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: would give somebody a broader face. The nasal bone was
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: not extended out from the face very far. Much more
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: typical of somebody with Asian Native American background.
• 12:33
  Speaker 8: Bittner's analysis of the skull reveals another disturbing piece of information.
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: We always look for means to identify, but often we
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: can find trauma. And so each bone individually gets looked
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: at to make sure it's intact. In this case, we
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: were a little bit surprised to discover indication of trauma
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: on the skull. was at or near the time of death.
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: There was no indication of any healing on those bones.
• 13:08
  Speaker 7: None of us recognized anything. There was nothing obvious.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: However, when the anthropologist determined that there was a defect
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: in the back of the skull, that was significant.
• 13:16
  Speaker 7: But at the time, we didn't know that.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: We just knew there was a defect there, which would
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: then lead you to believe that this probably wasn't a
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: natural death.
• 13:25
  Speaker 8: Dumped in a shallow grave and lost for years, Jane
• 13:29
  Speaker 8: Doe's remains uncover a chilling secret.
• 13:33
  Speaker 7: She was murdered. This is a huge mystery. Who is
• 13:38
  Speaker 7: this person?
• 13:42
  Speaker 8: Forensic anthropologist Nita Bittner is helping Missouri detectives learn everything
• 13:47
  Speaker 8: they can about the skeleton of a Jane Doe found buried.
• 13:52
  Speaker 7: In a forest.
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: There is... An area in the innominates that is impacted
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: when a woman goes through childbirth. And a groove gets formed.
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: If they've had a C-section, you're not going to see that.
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: This had a definite groove, indicating that the woman had
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: at least one child, naturally.
• 14:19
  Speaker 8: With the new clue, police expand their search to other states.
• 14:23
  Speaker 8: and look specifically for missing mothers.
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: We got a response.
• 14:30
  Speaker 8: 700 miles away, police in Eastman, Georgia, are looking for
• 14:35
  Speaker 8: Gloria Cato, a Filipino-American mother who fits the profile.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: It was really looking very much like this was going
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: to be our victim. I went to Georgia and worked
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: with the state police down there. We did interviews of
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: the family. We confirmed data that was from their original
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: missing person report, looking for possible leads.
• 14:59
  Speaker 8: To find out if the skull belongs to Gloria Cato,
• 15:03
  Speaker 8: Bittner assists detectives using the best facial recognition technique available
• 15:08
  Speaker 8: in 1989. The police, they.
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: Asked for and received an image of the person in question.
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: The next step then was to try to do a superimposition.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: The photo skull superimposition method is take a picture and
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: match it with a skull. The police asked for pictures,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: gave them to the anthropologist. The anthropologist tried to match
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: that up.
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: In doing a photo superimposition, we try to lay a
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: photograph of an individual on a specific skull. matching specific landmarks,
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: the eye orbits, the nasal opening, the mouth, where the
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: ear attaches. And if it isn't the right individual, it's
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: very difficult to get the eyes and the nose and
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: the mouth and the ears all to line up. We
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: took the photograph sent to us. We take the skull
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: and we then try to mesh the two on a monitor.
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: You get the eyes to match, the mouth is off.
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: You get the nose to match, and nothing else matches.
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: It wasn't doable. They just don't fit. It was not
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: close to a match.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Based on their superimposition of the skull in the photographs
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: that we had, we eliminated her as our victim.
• 16:33
  Speaker 7: It turned out it wasn't her.
• 16:36
  Speaker 8: But the photo superimposition test gives the anthropologist a new idea.
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: Facial reconstruction. is a process where we take known tissue
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: depths dependent on sex. Males and females are built a
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: little differently and have different tissue depths. Racial background impacts
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: the tissue depths. You then build a clay face.
• 17:02
  Speaker 11: A clay reconstruction is where we mount the skull or
• 17:06
  Speaker 11: a resin reproduction of the skull, attach the mandible or
• 17:11
  Speaker 11: lower jaw, and then work backwards building muscle and building
• 17:15
  Speaker 11: tissue out of clay and traditional tools and hands to
• 17:18
  Speaker 11: create an image of what the person may have looked
• 17:21
  Speaker 11: like in life.
• 17:25
  Speaker 8: The process takes weeks, but the forensics team is able
• 17:29
  Speaker 8: to rebuild and reveal Jane Doe's face.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: The reconstruction looked very realistic. You don't know for sure
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: what the hair looked like, but the facial features were
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: pretty solid. based on the science and using the skull
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: as a basis. We take the photographs of the reconstructed
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: facial features, and those were put into a news article
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: and released to the local newspapers.
• 18:00
  Speaker 11: With facial reconstruction, its main purpose is to get the
• 18:03
  Speaker 11: information out and just hope that one person sees it,
• 18:08
  Speaker 11: has some information, and shares the information with authorities. In
• 18:12
  Speaker 11: police work, you just never know when the next lead
• 18:15
  Speaker 11: is going to come in.
• 18:20
  Speaker 8: A few weeks after the photographs are released, detectives receive
• 18:23
  Speaker 8: a tip from a local man named Carmen Cox.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: We get a phone call from Carmen Cox, who recognized
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: the reconstruction.
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: I pulled up a newspaper and looked through it, and
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: I saw the photo. I'm thinking that this just looks
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: like her. You know, it's almost got to be her.
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: So I believe I called the number it mentioned that time.
• 18:53
  Speaker 8: Cox tells police he's sure it's the face of a
• 18:55
  Speaker 8: woman he hasn't seen in years.
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: Her friends saw it and knew immediately.
• 19:02
  Speaker 7: It was her.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: That looks like Bungie Nye House. That closed it in.
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: It wasn't. This is like our friend. It was, this
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: is our friend.
• 19:17
  Speaker 8: The friend is Bunchy Nihouse, a woman who has something
• 19:20
  Speaker 8: in common with Cox's wife. Both are from Thailand.
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: We moved in in about 1980, and my wife being Thai,
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: she was always looking for another couple or another people
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: to be friends with.
• 19:35
  Speaker 8: For three years, Cox and his wife got to know
• 19:38
  Speaker 8: Bunchy and her husband, Richard.
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: Bungie, she was very nice. We became fairly close friends.
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: We have two boys the same age as theirs.
• 19:49
  Speaker 8: Cox tells police they were confused when Bunchy seemingly left
• 19:53
  Speaker 8: her husband and kids and never looked back.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: They were told the victim just left, left her family,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: went back to Thailand.
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: They didn't think that was suspicious at all.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: But the fact that she left the United States and
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: didn't say goodbye to their friends, that wasn't right. The
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: explanation from her husband they didn't think was realistic.
• 20:22
  Speaker 8: Police ask Cox if he has a photograph of Bunchy.
• 20:25
  Speaker 8: They want to superimpose it on the skull to prove
• 20:28
  Speaker 8: she's their Jane Doe.
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: The image provided to us was going to be a problem.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: because it wasn't a traditional heads-on photo. And she was laughing.
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: Her head was at an angle. Her mouth was open.
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: And our initial thought was, how are we going to
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: make this work? So we had to find a way
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: of keeping the skull together with the mouth open at
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: an odd angle. The eye orbits lined up, and the
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: nasal cavity lined up. And in this case, because her
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: mouth was open, we could even get the teeth to
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: line up. And as unlikely as it was, as frustrating
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: as it was to get the match, we did.
• 21:20
  Speaker 8: The successful superimposition convinces investigators their Jane Doe is Bunchy Nyehouse.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Once police knew that it was Bunchy Nyehouse in the grave,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: they go to her husband.
• 21:35
  Speaker 8: Richard Nihouse may be the only person who can help
• 21:38
  Speaker 8: solve the mystery of how his wife ended up dead
• 21:41
  Speaker 8: in the forest.
• 21:43
  Speaker 7: He was very cordial, very cooperative.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: I told him that we were investigating some remains that
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: had been found and that I understood that his wife
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: had left him.
• 21:56
  Speaker 10: Mr.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Nihouse, he said they had a fight over if she
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: wanted a new house, and she was just walking away.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: It was possible she could have left.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: He had taken her to the airport in St. Louis,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: dropped her off, and he had never seen her again.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: I found it hard to believe that a mother would
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: get on a plane and leave her two children and never,
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: you know, look back.
• 22:22
  Speaker 9: In the 1980s, it was much easier to vanish off
• 22:26
  Speaker 9: the face of the earth because we didn't have debit
• 22:29
  Speaker 9: cards and bank cards and video cameras. cameras all over
• 22:34
  Speaker 9: the place. Your driver's license was a piece of paper,
• 22:37
  Speaker 9: not an electronic card.
• 22:42
  Speaker 8: To check Richard's story, detectives ask Interpol for any records
• 22:46
  Speaker 8: to confirm Bunchy left the country.
• 22:49
  Speaker 9: Interpol is a worldwide organization to which police services are
• 22:55
  Speaker 9: members of. So when you are looking for somebody who
• 22:59
  Speaker 9: has gone missing, If you think your victim is from
• 23:02
  Speaker 9: another country, then you go to Interpol.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: We started looking into her history and started looking for
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: her immigration files. After, I think, March of 1983, we
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: couldn't find anything that she had left the country, arrived
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: anywhere else.
• 23:22
  Speaker 8: More disturbing facts surface when they look deeper into Richard
• 23:25
  Speaker 8: and Bunchy's marriage.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: They had a very contentious relationship. There was a lot
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: of arguments.
• 23:34
  Speaker 10: In over 50% of the cases involving women who are murdered,
• 23:37
  Speaker 10: the romantic partner is the person who is behind it.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: Ultimately, after she had left him, he didn't know where,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: he hadn't heard from her. He took her off of
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: his insurance, divorced her in absence, and he never, ever
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: reported her missing to the police.
• 24:03
  Speaker 8: Investigators are trying to solve the mystery of how a
• 24:06
  Speaker 8: young mother ended up dead and buried in a Missouri forest.
• 24:10
  Speaker 8: They've learned that the victim, Bunchy Nighouse, was born in
• 24:14
  Speaker 8: Thailand and came to America with her brother.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: We tried to run the guy down, the brother, to
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: find him. The last sighting was in Alaska, and we
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: sent the Alaska Highway Patrol to look for him.
• 24:29
  Speaker 8: Bunchy's brother tells police he hasn't seen his sister in
• 24:33
  Speaker 8: over six years, but he has been in touch with
• 24:36
  Speaker 8: her husband, Richard.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: It turns out that the brother had sent money to
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Bunchy to keep for him. When Bunchy disappeared, he started
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: looking for his money back. He had contacted Richard. At
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: that point, he was told that Bunchy left him and
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: went back to Thailand.
• 24:59
  Speaker 8: Bunchy's brother tells police that Richard eventually repaid him.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: We were able to find a check to her brother.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I believe Mr. Nihouse made a $ 5, 000 payment.
• 25:14
  Speaker 8: Investigators wonder why Richard would pay off the brother after
• 25:18
  Speaker 8: the divorce. Suspicious of his story that Bunchy walked away
• 25:23
  Speaker 8: from their marriage, police put Richard under surveillance to learn
• 25:26
  Speaker 8: more about his life.
• 25:30
  Speaker 7: His kids were in Boy Scouts.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: We pulled the Boy Scout records, and sure enough, he's
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: listed as a Scout leader in the troop.
• 25:38
  Speaker 8: The connection is alarming. Bunchy's body was recovered in the
• 25:41
  Speaker 8: same area Richard went with the Scouts and his children,
• 25:46
  Speaker 8: even after she went missing.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: We learned that he was taking vacation time to go
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: to the Boy Scout camp where his wife's remains were recovered.
• 25:57
  Speaker 7: What are the odds of this happening?
• 26:02
  Speaker 8: Detectives plan to confront Richard at the crime scene with
• 26:05
  Speaker 8: what they know about Bunchy's death.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: We waited till he got down to the Boy Scout
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: camp with his kids. We thought it would be to
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: our psychological advantage if he was approached right where her
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: remains were found.
• 26:20
  Speaker 10: Even when police don't have a lot of physical evidence,
• 26:23
  Speaker 10: the interrogation is another way that they can gain that
• 26:26
  Speaker 10: evidence and learn how or why a person committed a crime.
• 26:30
  Speaker 10: Some of the things they use include the power of suggestion.
• 26:34
  Speaker 10: They make the person feel as if they have an
• 26:37
  Speaker 10: overwhelming amount of evidence that proves their guilt. They have
• 26:42
  Speaker 10: no other option but to confess to what they've done.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: We hope that because he was there, it was going
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: to be very hard for him to deny the fact
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: that he knew the area.
• 26:54
  Speaker 7: It would be difficult for him.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: To explain away the fact that she was found right
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: in the same area where he was currently at.
• 27:01
  Speaker 7: So that was to our advantage.
• 27:05
  Speaker 8: They catch Richard off guard and lay out their case.
• 27:08
  Speaker 8: They know Bunchy never left America, and they've identified her
• 27:13
  Speaker 8: remains found right where he is standing.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: We just said, you know, that just doesn't make sense.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: We don't believe it, and we think maybe some Something happened.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: He admitted at that point that, yeah, he had caused
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: her death.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Nyhouse was admitting that was his wife in the grave.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: But he was trying to say it was an accident.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Richard Harold Nyhouse.
• 27:54
  Speaker 8: At their office, Richard tells police his version of how
• 27:58
  Speaker 8: Bunchy died.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: We got our video camera and asked him if he
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: would make a recorded statement, which he agreed to. It's
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: very much us business. There's some remorse, but there's no crying.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: There's no sobbing. It's just a matter of fact. Here's
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: what happened.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: My wife and I got into an argument.
• 28:16
  Speaker 10: She got more and more aggressive.
• 28:20
  Speaker 9: After the phone call, she got violent. One of the
• 28:43
  Speaker 9: most common tactics used by a suspect when they're being
• 28:47
  Speaker 9: interviewed by the police after a murder is self-defense. Most
• 28:52
  Speaker 9: investigators are very alive to this tactic.
• 29:18
  Speaker 8: Despite Richard's confession, investigators don't believe Bunchy's death was simply
• 29:23
  Speaker 8: an accident.
• 29:25
  Speaker 7: Once Mr.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Nyhouse said, that's my wife, and I pushed her down
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and she died. And I buried her in the woods.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: And you've got to think, if it was just an accident,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: call a hospital, tell her relatives. tell her friends that
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: what happened. And then you had to believe because of
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: that story that it was more than that.
• 29:55
  Speaker 10: People make partial confessions all the time. They omit different
• 29:59
  Speaker 10: details that implicate them as the person who came up
• 30:03
  Speaker 10: with the idea to kill a person. Sometimes an offender
• 30:08
  Speaker 10: will say that they actually did it, but then they'll
• 30:11
  Speaker 10: also withhold other information. And this is a way to
• 30:15
  Speaker 10: mitigate their responsibility in the killing.
• 30:18
  Speaker 8: To uncover what really happened to Bunchy, detectives bring in
• 30:22
  Speaker 8: top forensic pathologist Dr. Mary Case.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Mary Case As far as I'm concerned, she's the best
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: medical examiner I've ever seen. She's that good.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Initially, I wanted to be a doctor. When I was
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: in college, I worked in the pathology department at the
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: University of Missouri where I was going to school and
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: discovered pathology. It's the puzzles that keeps me interested.
• 30:53
  Speaker 7: Dr.
• 30:54
  Speaker 8: Case examines the trauma to the back of the skull
• 30:57
  Speaker 8: for clues to the cause of death.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: When Bungie fell, according to Mr. Niehaus, she hit the
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: back of her head on the corner at the base
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: of that support. I x-rayed it and I could see
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: there is a fracture and it was kind of at
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: the back of the head. It's in the parietal bone
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: on the left, but it's not all the way at
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: the back. I took off the top, the cap of
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: the skull. And on the internal component, you can see
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: a much bigger fractured piece that's been pushed in.
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: Mr.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Niehaus said she fell down and hit her head and died.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: The injury that we have to the skull is not
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: consistent with that story. And response to that story is
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: that is not a true story.
• 31:47
  Speaker 8: Dr. Case has caught Richard Niehaus in a lie. So.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Why do you lie if you're coming clean and you're
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: saying it's an accident? And why would you marry her
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: in the middle of a Boy Scout camp if it
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: wasn't homicide?
• 32:09
  Speaker 8: Investigators believe that Richard Nihouse killed his wife Bunchy in
• 32:13
  Speaker 8: cold blood, but they need to prove it.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: To me, it was premortem that he had to hit
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: her in the head to finish her off. which makes
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: it a much more horrible crime.
• 32:32
  Speaker 8: Armed with a warrant, detectives searched the Nye House basement
• 32:36
  Speaker 8: for evidence of how Bunchy really died.
• 32:40
  Speaker 7: The basement was as he described it.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: The support pillar was there, but there was a steel
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: support post set on top of, I believe, a brick,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: and it had a square metal base, which was consistent
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: with what he had told us about her falling and
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: hitting her head on that metal base. Off to the
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: side in the basement was a little storage area. There
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: was a chest-type freezer there. He said he buried her
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: with a shovel. We were able to find a similar shovel.
• 33:09
  Speaker 8: The crime scene matches the details in Richard's story, but
• 33:12
  Speaker 8: detectives know he's been weaving lies for years.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: We know he lied and he told her friends that
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: she had disappeared in an attempt to cover up the disappearance.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was the biggest lie of all. My
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: wife got on a plane and never saw her again.
• 33:32
  Speaker 8: Detectives turn up the heat and order a polygraph test.
• 33:36
  Speaker 9: There are a number of psychological techniques that an investigator
• 33:41
  Speaker 9: can use when they're conducting a polygraph test. They need
• 33:45
  Speaker 9: to know who you're talking to, you need to know
• 33:47
  Speaker 9: their background, and you need to know their weaknesses, their
• 33:50
  Speaker 9: psychological weaknesses, and you attack those during the course of
• 33:53
  Speaker 9: an interview.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: The goal was to determine was it in fact an
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: accident or had he intentionally killed her.
• 34:01
  Speaker 7: They set up the questions.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: The polygraph examiner determined that there was deception indicated on
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: the charts.
• 34:09
  Speaker 8: After several hours, Richard's story changes again.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: He claims after he knocked her down, she was bleeding
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: and she was yelling she was going to call the police.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: She was going to take the kids. They were going
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: to go back to Thailand. He would never see them again.
• 34:32
  Speaker 10: Breakups can often be triggers, and it can send somebody
• 34:36
  Speaker 10: into a blind rage that they then exercise on the
• 34:39
  Speaker 10: person who did it to them.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: I was scared she was going to wake the kids up,
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: and basically I was trying to shut her up.
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: So I put my hands over her.
• 34:50
  Speaker 11: Mouth and her nose and suffocated her.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: He checked to make sure she had no heartbeat. He
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: put the service merchandise bag over her head because of
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: the blood.
• 34:59
  Speaker 7: Then he buried the body.
• 35:04
  Speaker 8: But in his new version of events, Richard still says
• 35:07
  Speaker 8: it was all an accident, and he panicked to cover
• 35:10
  Speaker 8: it up. Investigators are convinced this wasn't an accident. They
• 35:18
  Speaker 8: return to Dr. Case to prove it.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: What you can tell by looking at the skull is
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: that there has been an impact to the head, and
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: it's located in the left parietal region, and it has
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: been done with some kind of object that struck with
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: a somewhat not exactly pointed, but not a flat surface.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: The falling down hitting the head is not consistent with
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: that injury to the skull.
• 35:48
  Speaker 8: Dr. Case studies the bone. in an attempt to learn
• 35:52
  Speaker 8: when the critical blow landed.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: In post-mortem fracturing, because the person is dead, the bone
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: dries out over time. And as it dries out, it
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: becomes more brittle. And when it breaks by various things
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: that might happen in the environment, we tend to see
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: linear fractures. But it does not have that wedged-out bone
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: structure on the inner table as the Niehaus skull had,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: and that kind of tells me that was anti-mortem.
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: Dr. Case is certain.
• 36:26
  Speaker 8: Bunchy's skull was fractured by an object before she fell
• 36:30
  Speaker 8: down the stairs.
• 36:33
  Speaker 9: Dr.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Case was able to say it wasn't caused by the
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: base of a support beam. She was hit with blunt force,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: and this was made before she died.
• 36:43
  Speaker 8: But investigators still have a problem. They can't identify what
• 36:48
  Speaker 8: Richard used to kill his wife.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: We can't quite say, and he wasn't going to say.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: We just don't know exactly what the cause of death was.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: You can find the truth in the bones and in
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: the body to why a person has died. We don't
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: ever guess.
• 37:13
  Speaker 8: It's been three years since investigators in Missouri identified the
• 37:17
  Speaker 8: skeleton of Bunchy Nihouse and charged her husband Richard with murder.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: When I became prosecutor, I thought, you're going to fight
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: for victims. And this was one that didn't have a
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: voice of her own. The range of punishment for manslaughter
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: at that time, I believe, was 10 years. And capital
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: murder was 50 years without parole or death.
• 37:41
  Speaker 8: The key will be proving this was a deliberate act.
• 37:45
  Speaker 10: Investigators are nervous if they don't have evidence tying a
• 37:49
  Speaker 10: suspect to the crime because they know this case might
• 37:53
  Speaker 10: not hold up in court. Oftentimes, jurors will want to
• 38:00
  Speaker 10: see something more concrete that links that person to the crime.
• 38:06
  Speaker 8: The DA works with Dr. Case to prove that Richard
• 38:09
  Speaker 8: Nyhouse planned both the murder and the cover-up.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: We call it premeditated murder. Used to be in cold blood.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Either killed her by hitting her over the head, or
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: he could have strangled her too.
• 38:25
  Speaker 9: Forensic evidence can often be the most compelling. If you
• 38:30
  Speaker 9: can come up with a picture that makes sense and
• 38:33
  Speaker 9: that is provable, That is often the most powerful evidence
• 38:36
  Speaker 9: to present to a jury.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: I remember Dr. Case getting up, taking the skull and
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: approaching the jury box, and they sort of gathered around.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: If you fell and hit your head, you could get
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: what we call a depressed skull fracture, meaning the bone
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: is dented inward. If you can imagine kind of like
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: a wedge, a wedge from the outside. This had a
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: wedge on the inside and a round hole on the outside.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: So I would say that he, in my opinion, has
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: killed this woman. He deliberately struck her with something. What
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know is what happened after he hit her,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: because I don't know the internal part in terms of
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: the brain and the damage and what the outcome was.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: But then because he told another story about the Suffolk
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: you have to wonder if he didn't combine a couple
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: of true things. She had a hit to the head.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: She had some asphyxiation, both at his hand, not just accidentally.
• 39:45
  Speaker 8: The forensic evidence presented to the jury is indisputable. A weapon,
• 39:50
  Speaker 8: not a fall, caused the skull fracture. Intent, not an accident,
• 39:56
  Speaker 8: led to Bunchy's tragic death.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: This case has been called the talking skull case. Bunchy
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Nyehouse was not alive, but she certainly was talking in
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the courtroom. I said, Bunchy Nyehouse is here thirsting for justice. And, uh,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: You're the only one saying you can give it to her.
• 40:24
  Speaker 8: Two hours later, the jury reaches a verdict. Richard Nyhouse
• 40:31
  Speaker 8: is sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for
• 40:34
  Speaker 8: 50 years for premeditated murder.
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: There's no excuse for what he did. No reason to
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: get violent with her. You know, You have to be
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: awful mean to do that. What I find sad about
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: this whole thing is kids not having a mother.
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: In most of our cases, we were working with homicides,
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: which means there's family left behind. In this case, there
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: were children left behind. Not fair to them. Certainly not
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: fair to Boon Chee.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Science helped to solve the mystery of what happened to her.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: I was able to apply knowledge about forensic neuropathology in
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: terms of the head injury. Is it consistent with the
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: story that was being told? What I felt was a
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: false story.
• 41:36
  Speaker 7: Dr.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Case's determination of the cause of the defect in the
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: skull really changed this from being an accident to an
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: intentional act. without the cause of the defect in the skull,
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: could have caused us not to solve the crime or
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: could have caused the jury not to come to the
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: conclusion that they came to.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: I'm proud of the fact that we helped her out
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and justice was served.