Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: DNA and The Murder of Nancy Anderson
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- 0:08Speaker 1: Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Back in the late sixties,
- 0:22Speaker 1: probably my all time favorite television show premiered I was
- 0:27Speaker 1: a little boy. I'd wait on those certain weekday nights
- 0:32Speaker 1: for the show to appear, and I knew it was
- 0:34Speaker 1: coming home because of the music, and then the visuals
- 0:36Speaker 1: would just kind of burst on the screen, that tiny
- 0:39Speaker 1: TV that my MoMA and I had in our house, trailer,
- 0:43Speaker 1: gigantic waves, crashing, exotic land place. I didn't think i'd
- 0:49Speaker 1: ever go, still having to this day, but that show
- 0:51Speaker 1: was called a Wifeivo. I was amazed by it. And
- 0:56Speaker 1: you know what, at the end of each show, back
- 1:00Speaker 1: lord he was a detective. He solved every one of
- 1:05Speaker 1: those cases, it seemed like. But you know, for almost
- 1:08Speaker 1: fifty years, there was an unsolved homicide in Hawaii, one
- 1:14Speaker 1: that was so brutal they would never portray on that
- 1:16Speaker 1: television show from back then. I'm talking about the homicide
- 1:20Speaker 1: of Nancy Anderson. Today we're going to talk about it
- 1:25Speaker 1: and how that case has been solved. Finally, after all
- 1:27Speaker 1: these years. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks.
- 1:37Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, when this case came across the wire,
- 1:40Speaker 1: and I began to read about it. It turned up
- 1:43Speaker 1: all kinds of memories from childhood for me, because you know,
- 1:46Speaker 1: you always felt liked that the police in Hawaii, We're
- 1:48Speaker 1: gonna solve these cases that they're confronted with. But you
- 1:53Speaker 1: realize that your idea that you have from Hawaii vow
- 1:57Speaker 1: from when you were a kid, that's merely fantasy. That
- 2:00Speaker 1: it is the real world out there and sometimes cases
- 2:03Speaker 1: just go unsolved. But now in the world that we
- 2:07Speaker 1: live in, with all of this technology at our disposal,
- 2:10Speaker 1: things are changing, and they certainly did in this case.
- 2:14Speaker 1: Joining me is Jackie Howard, executive producer for Nancy Grace's
- 2:18Speaker 1: Crime Stories. Jackie, I'll tell you what I know that
- 2:22Speaker 1: the family of Nancy Anderson is just beyond excited and
- 2:28Speaker 1: probably sad, but excited because finally, after all these years,
- 2:32Speaker 1: they appear to have some answers. Nancy Anderson was one
- 2:36Speaker 1: of nine children, it was a large family. So I'm
- 2:40Speaker 1: sure Joe that you are absolutely correct, and going back
- 2:43Speaker 1: to what you were saying in your opening, you're telling
- 2:45Speaker 1: our age because I did the same thing. Watched hawifive
- 2:49Speaker 1: O religiously when I was growing up, and never in
- 2:54Speaker 1: my life. Imagine that the kind of things that were
- 2:56Speaker 1: on that show were real that actually happened in the
- 3:00Speaker 1: real world. Covering this case, nineteen year old Nancy Anderson
- 3:05Speaker 1: moved from Michigan to Waikie Key after graduating high school.
- 3:12Speaker 1: She was nineteen years old. She was working Adam McDonald's
- 3:19Speaker 1: and when she died. When she was killed, it really
- 3:23Speaker 1: put a scare in her neighbors in the apartment complex
- 3:28Speaker 1: because they had no idea what was going on. Was
- 3:33Speaker 1: their exterial killer running round? Was there a killer amongst them?
- 3:36Speaker 1: Was somebody else going to be targeted next? The leads
- 3:40Speaker 1: in this case dried up quickly after looking at boyfriend, salesman, neighbors,
- 3:50Speaker 1: co workers. The tips dried up. And you're right, it
- 3:54Speaker 1: took over fifty years to solve this case. What happens,
- 3:58Speaker 1: Joe when a case gohoes called like this? Obviously technology
- 4:02Speaker 1: has grown tremendously in the last fifty years, But how
- 4:06Speaker 1: do you mount an investigation when there really is nothing
- 4:10Speaker 1: to go on. It's almost like a ghost appeared in
- 4:13Speaker 1: Nancy's life and ended it. And this is not something
- 4:17Speaker 1: just you know, just so that we understand that the
- 4:20Speaker 1: brutality that was involved in this homicide, I can imagine
- 4:24Speaker 1: by those standards, and during that time was absolutely shocking.
- 4:29Speaker 1: They were in Wiki Key. This is a location that
- 4:33Speaker 1: for the most part, people go for vacation or maybe
- 4:37Speaker 1: if there have the ability, you know, maybe someplace to retire.
- 4:41Speaker 1: But young Nancy, and she was just out of high school.
- 4:45Speaker 1: I mean, I think less than a year at that point,
- 4:47Speaker 1: and she she had made a decision during that period
- 4:51Speaker 1: of time, which is something you kind of hear a
- 4:53Speaker 1: lot about now, taking what's called a gap year. You know,
- 4:55Speaker 1: I'm a college professor now and there are kids that
- 4:58Speaker 1: take gap years. It is that period of time between
- 5:02Speaker 1: the end of high school and generally you go off somewhere,
- 5:07Speaker 1: you get a job, maybe a travel and some people
- 5:09Speaker 1: think that it's a good idea because you matured a
- 5:11Speaker 1: little bit during that period of time before you actually
- 5:14Speaker 1: start your college years. And that's what she had done,
- 5:18Speaker 1: and from what we understand, you know, it was it
- 5:21Speaker 1: was her dream. But it was an absolute nightmare because
- 5:25Speaker 1: if you're a police officer and you walk into this
- 5:28Speaker 1: apartment after the roommate has essentially found Nancy deceased, and
- 5:33Speaker 1: you know, the roommate, the roommate at first thought that
- 5:36Speaker 1: this was a suicide. Isn't that amazing she thought that
- 5:39Speaker 1: it was a suicide. So, you know, when this call
- 5:42Speaker 1: comes out over the radio and there we have codes. Actually,
- 5:46Speaker 1: you know where where you'll you'll hear a radio code
- 5:48Speaker 1: that'll come out. And I'll give you an example. When
- 5:50Speaker 1: I was in New Orleans at twenty nine, if at
- 5:52Speaker 1: twenty nine came out over the radio, that meant death, Okay,
- 5:56Speaker 1: that means it's a code for death. And then if
- 5:58Speaker 1: it's at twenty nine, that was code for death suicide.
- 6:04Speaker 1: And so can you imagine you're a beat officer and
- 6:06Speaker 1: maybe just came up as a death, maybe suspected suicide.
- 6:11Speaker 1: You'll roll onto the scene and it is far from
- 6:14Speaker 1: a suicide. You've got this young woman who has absolutely
- 6:18Speaker 1: been brutalized and she's only been there for a short
- 6:22Speaker 1: period of time. You know, you first glance, you know
- 6:25Speaker 1: she's living with a roommate, she's got a job, she's
- 6:28Speaker 1: gainfully employed. There's no signs of forced to entry or struggle.
- 6:32Speaker 1: And you're thinking, well, what kind of enemy could she
- 6:37Speaker 1: have made that would absolutely rip her to shreds like this?
- 6:42Speaker 1: And I can only imagine that the local police. We're
- 6:45Speaker 1: scratching their heads in this case, once the autopsy was
- 6:49Speaker 1: done on the body, I would have been scratching my
- 6:51Speaker 1: head too. The information that was released found that Anderson
- 6:57Speaker 1: was stabbed at least sixty three times. Sixty three separate
- 7:03Speaker 1: wounds were visible. Now, as you and I've talked a lot,
- 7:06Speaker 1: that number can actually be deceiving, Joe, because depending on
- 7:11Speaker 1: how in the position the stabs were made, you may
- 7:15Speaker 1: not be able to really count them. You're absolutely right,
- 7:19Speaker 1: there's a big difference between stab and slice. The boiler
- 7:24Speaker 1: plate for it. When we're describing them in terms of
- 7:27Speaker 1: forensic pathology, the stabs tend to be narrow and deep, okay,
- 7:32Speaker 1: And we can imagine that and just imagine a stag
- 7:34Speaker 1: knife in your hand. You're going to plunge it into
- 7:37Speaker 1: a target, if you will, so it'll be narrow and deep, okay.
- 7:42Speaker 1: And if it's a slice, which is different than a
- 7:45Speaker 1: stab wound, you're cutting across the surface and those are
- 7:49Speaker 1: more shallow and they're longer, all right. So you just
- 7:52Speaker 1: think about you know, in the idea of you're slicing something, Okay,
- 7:56Speaker 1: you're slicing a piece of paper, it's going to be
- 7:58Speaker 1: shallow and it'll be so. The fact that they said
- 8:02Speaker 1: that these were stab wounds, they didn't say that they
- 8:05Speaker 1: were sharp force injury. They didn't say that there was
- 8:08Speaker 1: a mixture of these wounds gives you an indication that
- 8:11Speaker 1: they saw evidence of stabbing. Now to your point, and
- 8:16Speaker 1: this is you're right on the money here, because with
- 8:20Speaker 1: a stab wound and you have this many, you'll get
- 8:23Speaker 1: this mixture of these things. And it's hard to try
- 8:27Speaker 1: to understand where one ends and one begins because you
- 8:31Speaker 1: have to think, first off, if it is sharp force,
- 8:34Speaker 1: that means that you're in a very tight personal space
- 8:38Speaker 1: with the individual. So if you have an attacker that
- 8:42Speaker 1: has an individual the victim, on the floor and they're
- 8:44Speaker 1: on top of them, these wounds tend to be highly concentrated,
- 8:49Speaker 1: that means like right on top of one another. Imagine,
- 8:53Speaker 1: if you will, an old fashioned sewing machine with the
- 8:57Speaker 1: needle in place. You're moving that needle, or that needle
- 9:00Speaker 1: is you know, is going up and down at a
- 9:03Speaker 1: rapid motion, and it's striking very precise areas because of
- 9:06Speaker 1: the close proximity to it. The only thing that changes
- 9:09Speaker 1: is moving the cloth beneath the needle in the same
- 9:14Speaker 1: principle with a stab wound, it's over and over a
- 9:16Speaker 1: close proximity. You've got this kind of piston like action
- 9:20Speaker 1: of the individual that is withdrawing the blade and then
- 9:23Speaker 1: reintroducing the blade into the body. And not all of
- 9:26Speaker 1: these injuries are going to be the same depth, which
- 9:30Speaker 1: is something you have to account for. It autopsy, you
- 9:32Speaker 1: get an idea as to how deep these insults are
- 9:36Speaker 1: going into the body, because you know, every time you
- 9:39Speaker 1: plunge a knife down into someone's chest or their back
- 9:44Speaker 1: or their abdomen, these wounds are going to be striking
- 9:48Speaker 1: different anatomical structures. Beneath the skin. You might say, for instance,
- 9:53Speaker 1: to strike the abdomen, and you're just going to go
- 9:56Speaker 1: through the abdominal wall, which is made up primarily of
- 9:59Speaker 1: the skin subcue fat in the underlying muscle. But if
- 10:02Speaker 1: you move up the torso, now you begin to get
- 10:06Speaker 1: into the area where your organs are protected by your
- 10:10Speaker 1: rib cage, your interior ribs. So unless you make it
- 10:14Speaker 1: in between the ribs, which is that's called the intercostal space,
- 10:18Speaker 1: you have muscle that's in between the ribs, then you're
- 10:21Speaker 1: going to strike bones. So that wound is obviously not
- 10:25Speaker 1: going to be as deep as say, if you plunge
- 10:27Speaker 1: the knife into the into the abdom and the same
- 10:30Speaker 1: as true with the back, and as a matter of fact,
- 10:32Speaker 1: you're dealing with even more structures back there because you
- 10:34Speaker 1: have the scapula, which are the shoulder blades, and then
- 10:39Speaker 1: you're also talking about the bony prominences of the spine.
- 10:42Speaker 1: So you begin to think about how many of these
- 10:44Speaker 1: wounds were actually fatal, and that's one of the issues
- 10:49Speaker 1: that the forensic mythologist has to deal with when they're
- 10:51Speaker 1: doing this examination. What vessels are clipped, what organs are impacted,
- 10:55Speaker 1: and then ultimately, you know, you begin to measure the
- 10:59Speaker 1: amount of visit blood that you have contained, say, for instance,
- 11:02Speaker 1: in the abdomen or in either side of the chest,
- 11:05Speaker 1: the left chest or the right chest, and you begin
- 11:07Speaker 1: to appreciate maybe what organs were impacted to the point
- 11:12Speaker 1: where it was no longer compatible life, and you can
- 11:14Speaker 1: also get a sense for how much blood free flowed
- 11:18Speaker 1: through those spaces. Another surprising finding of the pathology report
- 11:24Speaker 1: is the absence of any drugs or alcohol in Nancy
- 11:28Speaker 1: Anderson's body, and the fact that she had not been raped.
- 11:32Speaker 1: There was no sexual assault. So if you take out
- 11:36Speaker 1: two likely scenarios for Nancy's death, that is in something
- 11:40Speaker 1: happened while she's intoxicated or an assault, this makes this
- 11:45Speaker 1: a really strange circumstance. You throw around word like sadistic,
- 11:51Speaker 1: you know, sadistic, you know kind of falls under this
- 11:54Speaker 1: kind of psychosexual motivations for killings, you know, sadism, all
- 11:58Speaker 1: those sorts of things, not say, but sadism you don't
- 12:02Speaker 1: have to necessarily have, and you can talk to most
- 12:05Speaker 1: forensic psychologists that are out there, you know, you don't
- 12:08Speaker 1: necessarily have to have what would be considered a classic
- 12:12Speaker 1: sexual assault, you know, where clothing is ripped away and
- 12:15Speaker 1: you have evidence of sexual assault through rape and these
- 12:18Speaker 1: sorts of things. To have something that is motivated by lust. Okay,
- 12:23Speaker 1: because part of this, on this kind of spectrum, you
- 12:26Speaker 1: can have an individual that will attack someone and rip
- 12:29Speaker 1: them to shreds and they receive some kind of gratification
- 12:34Speaker 1: out of this. What's fascinating about this is you begin
- 12:39Speaker 1: to think back then Honolulu. We mentioned it being portrayed
- 12:43Speaker 1: on television. It's very exotic, and you see, this is
- 12:46Speaker 1: not a tiny, tiny town. This is a place where
- 12:49Speaker 1: you know, we've been there, Our nation has been there
- 12:52Speaker 1: for years and years, occupying space, a lot of military personnel,
- 12:56Speaker 1: a lot of people coming and go in out of
- 12:57Speaker 1: this area. And so when you see something this brutal
- 13:00Speaker 1: as an investigator, you begin to think, well, do I
- 13:03Speaker 1: have any other cases that might fit within this category?
- 13:07Speaker 1: Because I think most of us that are we're investigators.
- 13:11Speaker 1: We don't think that this is going to be a
- 13:13Speaker 1: one off event. There's somebody that would rise to this
- 13:17Speaker 1: level and attack a total stranger, a young woman that
- 13:21Speaker 1: is just graduated from high school. You have to think that, well,
- 13:25Speaker 1: are there more victims out there? Do you have some
- 13:28Speaker 1: type of killer that is roaming about that takes pleasure
- 13:32Speaker 1: in absolutely just ripping a young woman to shreds like this?
- 13:37Speaker 1: So it makes you examine the evidence very hard. And
- 13:39Speaker 1: I think that on one hand, if you're looking for
- 13:41Speaker 1: physical evidence, so certainly a sexual assault can be rich
- 13:45Speaker 1: with that because you can find all kinds of things
- 13:47Speaker 1: relative to a sexual assault that you might not find
- 13:50Speaker 1: in another case. Say, for instance, if you have a
- 13:52Speaker 1: sexual assault, there might be an opportunity if you're going
- 13:55Speaker 1: to do what are called pubic combings, which is something
- 13:58Speaker 1: we do as part of a rape, because you might
- 14:00Speaker 1: find a pubic here that's not associated with the victim. Okay,
- 14:04Speaker 1: you might find seminal stains, for instance. And back then,
- 14:07Speaker 1: one of the things that we look for in cases,
- 14:11Speaker 1: because we didn't have DNA that we would turn to
- 14:14Speaker 1: was if you had saliva or if you had siminal stains,
- 14:19Speaker 1: you would look for someone that's referred to as a secret.
- 14:23Speaker 1: And there's you know, just less than fifty percent of
- 14:26Speaker 1: the population and I don't know the figure exactly off
- 14:28Speaker 1: the top of my head are secrets. And what that
- 14:32Speaker 1: means is that when you test those samples from either
- 14:36Speaker 1: saliva or from semen, and there are other elements of
- 14:40Speaker 1: the body as well, but in those in particular, you
- 14:42Speaker 1: can actually find red blood cells contained in those areas.
- 14:46Speaker 1: So back then, with the absence of DNA, you can
- 14:49Speaker 1: actually type the blood based upon you know, those secretions
- 14:53Speaker 1: that you might find in the course. As you mentioned,
- 14:55Speaker 1: in this case, there was no evidence of that. And
- 15:16Speaker 1: it goes without saying nineteen seventy two where that was
- 15:19Speaker 1: a different a different time than present day. So much
- 15:24Speaker 1: has changed since that time. But you know what, basic
- 15:28Speaker 1: crime scene investigation has not changed, has not changed one wit.
- 15:33Speaker 1: And in this case, I think that the police actually
- 15:36Speaker 1: had more to go on than they thought. A lot
- 15:38Speaker 1: of that information came from Nancy Anderson's roommate. So one
- 15:44Speaker 1: of the things I've learned from you, Joe, was like,
- 15:46Speaker 1: let's start at the beginning and set up our timeline.
- 15:49Speaker 1: So we know that Nancy Anderson was talking to believe
- 15:55Speaker 1: it or not, two door to door knife salesman the
- 16:00Speaker 1: afternoon when her roommate came home. She told police she
- 16:05Speaker 1: saw Nancy talking to these two gentlemen in the living room.
- 16:10Speaker 1: Now from there she went into her room, and that
- 16:15Speaker 1: time was around two o'clock that afternoon, and the body
- 16:20Speaker 1: wasn't found for approximately three hours later that afternoon, after
- 16:27Speaker 1: the roommate went to take a nap. The body was
- 16:30Speaker 1: found around five fifteen. The roommate found Nancy Anderson's body
- 16:37Speaker 1: in the bathroom. So I've got a couple of questions
- 16:40Speaker 1: about that, But my main question is, we know, with
- 16:44Speaker 1: over sixty stab wounds that this was a very very
- 16:48Speaker 1: violent death, and she moved from the living room where
- 16:53Speaker 1: she was originally talking to the salesman to the bathroom.
- 16:58Speaker 1: How could even if the roommate when she first woke up,
- 17:02Speaker 1: she thought that Nancy had committed suicide because of how
- 17:05Speaker 1: she was in the bathroom. But if this had been
- 17:07Speaker 1: a very violent attack, as we believe it was, how
- 17:11Speaker 1: could she not have heard it? How is that even possible?
- 17:14Speaker 1: And I want to visit this idea of thinking that
- 17:16Speaker 1: it was suicide. My thought on this when I first
- 17:20Speaker 1: read this. Because the room, the bathroom that is, has
- 17:25Speaker 1: been described as almost being bathed in blood, super saturated
- 17:29Speaker 1: with blood. I think there's something within us in our mind.
- 17:33Speaker 1: And I'm talking about from the perspective of the roommate.
- 17:35Speaker 1: I think her initial reaction was probably suicide because it's
- 17:41Speaker 1: almost like she's protecting herself, you know what I mean.
- 17:45Speaker 1: I mean it's like, you think about it, you think
- 17:47Speaker 1: I cannot imagine, maybe at an unconscious level, that a
- 17:51Speaker 1: homicide has taken place in my presence you were talking
- 17:56Speaker 1: about just a second ago, where how could she have
- 17:59Speaker 1: not heard this? And I think that there's almost this
- 18:02Speaker 1: safety switch that flipped on possibly with her where she's saying, oh, well,
- 18:06Speaker 1: it had to be a suicide, you know, because I
- 18:08Speaker 1: can't imagine that homicide has been perpetrated and to this
- 18:12Speaker 1: degree when I am asleep just right down the hall
- 18:17Speaker 1: from where this horror show takes place. And so her
- 18:21Speaker 1: initial reaction was, yeah, this is a suicide. She noticed,
- 18:25Speaker 1: and you know what was what cued her is that
- 18:28Speaker 1: when she woke up, and this is a very important
- 18:31Speaker 1: piece of information here from an investigator standpoint, she heard
- 18:34Speaker 1: water running. The water was running in the bathroom adjacent
- 18:38Speaker 1: to where Nancy's remains were found, and that gives you
- 18:43Speaker 1: an indication after of course, you know you've inspected seen
- 18:46Speaker 1: as the investigator, gives you an indication as to what
- 18:49Speaker 1: was going on, potentially that maybe, just maybe there was
- 18:54Speaker 1: an attempt by the perpetrator to clean himself up at
- 18:58Speaker 1: that point in time, that they were making some kind
- 19:02Speaker 1: of effort to get rid of evidence that they may
- 19:07Speaker 1: have on their body. Because if the room is bathed
- 19:09Speaker 1: in blood, this is not something that this individual is
- 19:12Speaker 1: going to get away with cleanly. They will concurrently be
- 19:18Speaker 1: saturated in blood, particularly over the surface of their hands.
- 19:22Speaker 1: If they're wearing long sleeved shirts, that'll be up to
- 19:26Speaker 1: the elbow perhaps, if not, if the lower arm is
- 19:30Speaker 1: not protected, you're going to have blood stain on both
- 19:34Speaker 1: the palmer aspect of the form and probably the top
- 19:39Speaker 1: side of the forearm as well, even beneath the fingernails,
- 19:42Speaker 1: because blood is so tacky, it's kind of the way
- 19:45Speaker 1: that it transfers to the body. So with the water running,
- 19:48Speaker 1: would I would suspect that if there had been a
- 19:51Speaker 1: bar soap sitting there. Remember this is before the days
- 19:54Speaker 1: of you know, where you've got some kind of pump
- 19:56Speaker 1: bottle of liquid soap. They didn't do that back then.
- 19:58Speaker 1: You would have a know, a bar of old fashioned
- 20:01Speaker 1: hand soap that was sitting there perhaps and the individual
- 20:04Speaker 1: was washing their hands or making an attempt and soap
- 20:08Speaker 1: is There's been any number of cases where people have
- 20:11Speaker 1: transferred blood from their hands to soap, and you know,
- 20:13Speaker 1: of course we collect that and you can get valuable
- 20:17Speaker 1: evidence off of the surfaces. Soap because it has such
- 20:20Speaker 1: attacking us about it, it'll hold on to a number
- 20:23Speaker 1: of things. You know, you can find hair on there,
- 20:24Speaker 1: you can find dead skin cells. You can also find
- 20:27Speaker 1: blood that will transfer over there. You know, as you're
- 20:29Speaker 1: holding this, so the thing that you're attempting to clean
- 20:32Speaker 1: up with can actually be the thing that trips you up.
- 20:35Speaker 1: I think that probably what it came down to is
- 20:37Speaker 1: that within this environment. I found a number I mean
- 20:41Speaker 1: a number of towels that have been used, and of
- 20:43Speaker 1: course there was blood on the surface of that. So
- 20:47Speaker 1: that's going to be a big starting place for the police.
- 20:50Speaker 1: In this case, you were talking about the wounds, Joe.
- 20:54Speaker 1: There were lots of injuries, but that the pathology report,
- 20:58Speaker 1: the autopsy described as defensive wounds on her arms and
- 21:04Speaker 1: her legs. How do you know the difference? How can
- 21:07Speaker 1: you tell the difference in these kind of wounds? Excellent question.
- 21:12Speaker 1: And one of the reasons is that I call this
- 21:15Speaker 1: an excellent question is that if you're targeting an individual
- 21:19Speaker 1: as an aggressor driving a knife through either the palm
- 21:24Speaker 1: of someone's hand or through the back of someone's hand,
- 21:26Speaker 1: or through the webbing. You know where you slice through
- 21:28Speaker 1: the webbing, and folks will look at their index finger
- 21:31Speaker 1: and their thumb and that area right in between there.
- 21:34Speaker 1: That's often where we'll see a slice injury because people
- 21:38Speaker 1: will grab hold of the blade. You'll see it on
- 21:40Speaker 1: the palmer aspect or on the palm itself of the
- 21:43Speaker 1: hands where the knife will kind of pass over that
- 21:46Speaker 1: surface and cut the hand right there as well. Those
- 21:50Speaker 1: are atypical what we refer to as atypical injuries because
- 21:54Speaker 1: you think of an attacker an aggressor if you will
- 21:58Speaker 1: moving forward toward a target, Well, where are they going
- 22:01Speaker 1: to try to stab when they're not looking down at
- 22:04Speaker 1: the sides of the body where they're going to aim
- 22:07Speaker 1: for the hands or maybe the arms. If you throw
- 22:10Speaker 1: your forearm up in a blocking motion, that's that's not
- 22:13Speaker 1: what their target is. In kind of this defensive posture
- 22:17Speaker 1: that we naturally go into as a response to something
- 22:20Speaker 1: that's oncoming, whether it's a car, a knife, or somebody
- 22:24Speaker 1: has thrown a gun up at us to shoot at us.
- 22:28Speaker 1: You know, people throw their hands up in arms up
- 22:30Speaker 1: as a defensive posture. It's just kind of a natural reaction.
- 22:34Speaker 1: The way you're able to kind of discern between these
- 22:37Speaker 1: types of injuries is the fact that the typical attacking
- 22:41Speaker 1: area is going to be the neck, the face, maybe
- 22:46Speaker 1: certain areas of the head, and certainly the chest in
- 22:48Speaker 1: the abdomen. I mean, that's that's what the attacker is
- 22:51Speaker 1: going after. And you know what's really curious about this
- 22:54Speaker 1: case as well, and I've gotten my thoughts about this.
- 22:56Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up these injuries on the legs.
- 23:00Speaker 1: You don't commonly hear of defensive injuries to the legs.
- 23:05Speaker 1: My thought is is that he had Nancy in a
- 23:10Speaker 1: submissive position, probably on her backside on the floor, and
- 23:17Speaker 1: she is attempting to kick him away with her legs,
- 23:20Speaker 1: and he's just flailing at her with his knife. And
- 23:23Speaker 1: so as she is kicking at him, he's flailing with
- 23:26Speaker 1: a knife, he's actually attempting to stab at her legs.
- 23:30Speaker 1: And this is my other thought. You know how we
- 23:32Speaker 1: talked about there was an absence of evidence of a
- 23:36Speaker 1: sexual attack. Okay, maybe this was an incomplete attack. Maybe
- 23:43Speaker 1: something spooked this individual, because let's think about it. The
- 23:46Speaker 1: individual has gotten Nancy on her back in a submissive position,
- 23:50Speaker 1: he's dominant. I've used the term asymmetrical before, and this
- 23:54Speaker 1: is an asymmetrical attack where you've got someone that's an
- 23:57Speaker 1: a dominant position above and there's wing down. You can
- 24:01Speaker 1: have it in bludgeoning cases, you can have it stabblished. Hello,
- 24:05Speaker 1: you can even have it in shooting cases where you're
- 24:07Speaker 1: in a dominant position above the individual. And so maybe,
- 24:12Speaker 1: just maybe the individual's goal was to perpetrate a sexual attack,
- 24:16Speaker 1: but they couldn't complete the action. Maybe they got spooked
- 24:19Speaker 1: in some way, maybe they heard something. I'm thinking that
- 24:23Speaker 1: this individual had to have known, had to have known
- 24:28Speaker 1: that the roommate was there. But wait, Joe, if we
- 24:31Speaker 1: were to make an assumption that the killer was one
- 24:33Speaker 1: of the two salesmen, which would seem to be an
- 24:36Speaker 1: obvious jump, since they were just there and the roommates
- 24:38Speaker 1: saw them, then we would know the person knew that
- 24:42Speaker 1: the roommate was their right quite potentially. And isn't it
- 24:46Speaker 1: odd to these two salesmen that the roommate witness they're
- 24:51Speaker 1: selling silverware. You know, you got a figure that contained
- 24:54Speaker 1: in the silverware. You've got sharp instruments, right, any kind
- 24:58Speaker 1: of knives, I would imagine you maybe you have you know,
- 25:02Speaker 1: some people call them case knives, butter knives, you know
- 25:06Speaker 1: that sort of thing. You might have steak knives. You
- 25:08Speaker 1: have all of these sharp instruments. And not to mention,
- 25:10Speaker 1: you've got serving forks. You've got regular forks, salad forks,
- 25:14Speaker 1: anything that has a point on it like that. And
- 25:16Speaker 1: they're selling this And these are the last two people
- 25:20Speaker 1: that the roommates saw in connection to Nancy. And I
- 25:25Speaker 1: find that so odd in this case. What are the
- 25:28Speaker 1: odds of that that those would be, these two individuals
- 25:31Speaker 1: selling these types of items would be part of this
- 25:35Speaker 1: story is super bizarre. And of course as investigators, you're
- 25:39Speaker 1: going after these people and they will be known because
- 25:42Speaker 1: you know, back then, during that time, you and I
- 25:44Speaker 1: had an offair discussion about experiences that we had, particularly
- 25:48Speaker 1: when we were younger. You know, vacuum cleaner salesman would
- 25:52Speaker 1: come by the house regularly, you know, I mean people
- 25:54Speaker 1: sold encyclopedias. They'd come to your door and sell them.
- 25:57Speaker 1: So you'd have salesman, traveling salesman that will come about.
- 26:00Speaker 1: And if they've gone to these two young women's apartment
- 26:05Speaker 1: and knocked on the door, guess what they've knocked on
- 26:07Speaker 1: other people's stores as well. They've probably left contact information
- 26:10Speaker 1: with people, so they would be easy for the cops
- 26:12Speaker 1: to track down at that point. And you're own an island,
- 26:15Speaker 1: you ain't going nowhere, so they can track them down.
- 26:18Speaker 1: I would imagine that early owning the investigation, they were
- 26:21Speaker 1: able to kind of strike these two individuals off the list.
- 26:25Speaker 1: So I am fascinated by the bathroom yet again, because
- 26:32Speaker 1: the bathroom seems to be a place where a lot
- 26:37Speaker 1: of people end up and getting murdered in the bathroom.
- 26:40Speaker 1: Do we have a tendency to think that the bathroom
- 26:44Speaker 1: is some kind of I don't know. You see it
- 26:47Speaker 1: in horror movies. You see it when we're talking about
- 26:50Speaker 1: hurricanes or I mean with tornadoes or bad weather. The
- 26:54Speaker 1: bathroom is safe. The bathroom is safe. Is that kind
- 26:56Speaker 1: of just something that's ingrained in us? If I can
- 26:59Speaker 1: get to the BA bathroom and shut the door, I
- 27:01Speaker 1: will be safe. Yeah, it's a it's a point of retreat.
- 27:04Speaker 1: And I got to tell you there's an interesting little
- 27:06Speaker 1: aside here as well. And you know, I've posed this
- 27:10Speaker 1: question to my students a lot and people that I
- 27:12Speaker 1: talked to, and you talk to other people that were
- 27:14Speaker 1: in my profession medical legal death investigators. You ask them
- 27:16Speaker 1: and say, well, where do you generally work the most
- 27:19Speaker 1: deaths in a home as a death investigator? And automatically
- 27:23Speaker 1: hands will go up and they'll say the bathroom. Well
- 27:26Speaker 1: it's for a different reason though than this, okay, And
- 27:29Speaker 1: it's kind of odd. Most people don't think about it.
- 27:31Speaker 1: But we have something that's referred to actually as toilet
- 27:35Speaker 1: sign and it's just a term that we use because
- 27:38Speaker 1: we find that a lot of people deceased on the
- 27:40Speaker 1: toilet because one of the leading cause of death in
- 27:42Speaker 1: America's heart disease, and of course people have m eyes
- 27:45Speaker 1: or heart attacks and they will have a need to
- 27:49Speaker 1: go to the bathroom. You'll find them deceased on the
- 27:51Speaker 1: toilet many times. But people do in fact retreat to bathrooms.
- 27:56Speaker 1: You know, it's seemingly And there's also another piece to this.
- 27:59Speaker 1: I think that many times perpetrators will do great harm
- 28:04Speaker 1: to people and then to cover their tracks. The bathroom
- 28:08Speaker 1: is what you refer to as a wet room. Right,
- 28:10Speaker 1: So what is the best area other than running the
- 28:14Speaker 1: risk of taking someone outside of a freestanding dwelling and
- 28:18Speaker 1: rinsing the body and the evidence off in the yard.
- 28:20Speaker 1: The best place you're going to have protection, we have
- 28:23Speaker 1: access to water is going to be the bathroom. You
- 28:25Speaker 1: can put potties in tubs, you can wash your hands
- 28:28Speaker 1: in the sink. You've got tile floor. Many times you'd
- 28:30Speaker 1: think that you can rinse it down. It's not going
- 28:32Speaker 1: to soak through through wood or carpet or whatever. So
- 28:35Speaker 1: it's an environment in which I think is a natural
- 28:39Speaker 1: place for perpetrators to go. And for some reason, many
- 28:42Speaker 1: times it's a place for people to retreat to. I
- 28:45Speaker 1: don't necessarily know that that was the case in Nancy's death.
- 28:49Speaker 1: Maybe she had the thought that she could put distance
- 28:53Speaker 1: between herself and her attacker after she was initially attacked
- 28:56Speaker 1: in that front room and retreated to the bathroom, but
- 29:00Speaker 1: she too much harm was done at that point. She
- 29:03Speaker 1: couldn't get this guy off of her. I will never
- 29:26Speaker 1: stop mentioning Edmond Lecard on the show is he is
- 29:30Speaker 1: the godfather of all things forensics as far as I'm concerned.
- 29:33Speaker 1: And of course we go back to Leocard's exchange principle
- 29:37Speaker 1: where he said every not some, but every contact leaves
- 29:43Speaker 1: a trace. And in this case, the one thing that
- 29:47Speaker 1: the perpetrator left behind was an essence of themselves there
- 29:52Speaker 1: at that scene. And that essence, of course was blood.
- 29:56Speaker 1: There was lots of blood found in this apartment and
- 29:59Speaker 1: blood towels. Whether that was from trying to clean themselves
- 30:04Speaker 1: up or trying to quell the spread of the blood
- 30:08Speaker 1: from the wounds. It ended up being a wealth of information.
- 30:11Speaker 1: It just took a long time to figure out the
- 30:15Speaker 1: information that they needed. Talk to me a little bit
- 30:17Speaker 1: about the blood, Joe, because what kind of testing does
- 30:21Speaker 1: it go through to begin with, I'm not even talking
- 30:24Speaker 1: about getting to the DNA. I'm just talking about in general.
- 30:28Speaker 1: Do they break it down in some way? Yeah, yeah,
- 30:32Speaker 1: they do. And so when you begin to think about
- 30:35Speaker 1: this with blood, and I want our listeners to really
- 30:38Speaker 1: understand that because you walk away hopefully every time you
- 30:41Speaker 1: listen to body bags with a little bit more information.
- 30:44Speaker 1: When we go out to a scene, we might see
- 30:47Speaker 1: a crusted red stain somewhere. Now you might suspect that
- 30:52Speaker 1: that's blood, but you never say that it is blood,
- 30:55Speaker 1: not until you can confirm it. And so there's a
- 30:58Speaker 1: series of testing that's done even to this day. Just
- 31:01Speaker 1: because you see something red doesn't mean that it's necessarily blood.
- 31:05Speaker 1: And you know, just because something is another color doesn't
- 31:08Speaker 1: mean that it's not blood. Well, let me let me
- 31:10Speaker 1: test what I've learned from each other. Yeah, a fresh
- 31:14Speaker 1: blood stain will be bright red. However, a blood stain
- 31:19Speaker 1: that's been there for a while, as it oxidizes, begins
- 31:23Speaker 1: to turn a darker brown color. Yes, it does. I
- 31:27Speaker 1: got it, actually right, you did, hey, and let me
- 31:32Speaker 1: let me give you this is for extra credit. Do
- 31:33Speaker 1: you recall what happens if you have a pool of
- 31:35Speaker 1: blood over a period of time, one begins to happen there. Oh,
- 31:38Speaker 1: I'm not getting any extra credit. Okay, Well, what begins
- 31:42Speaker 1: to happen is that after blood has been pooled for
- 31:44Speaker 1: a while on the ground, you'll see the red blood
- 31:47Speaker 1: cells begin to migrate away from the serum. Wait wait,
- 31:50Speaker 1: wait and explain that migrate away from the way. Yeah,
- 31:53Speaker 1: the blood. Blood is not a standalone liquid. It's not
- 31:57Speaker 1: like you know, you've got water, which, of course water's
- 32:00Speaker 1: got two components hydrogen oxygen. But with blood, it has
- 32:04Speaker 1: multiple components. So as it's not circulating through the body,
- 32:08Speaker 1: it'll separate out into various components. And one of the
- 32:12Speaker 1: things that you see happen is that the serum, which
- 32:15Speaker 1: is clear, will begin to separate from the red blood
- 32:19Speaker 1: cells and you'll see it and it migrates away, so
- 32:22Speaker 1: you'll have this disdain that actually changes color. But to
- 32:26Speaker 1: a bigger issue here. One of the things that we
- 32:28Speaker 1: do we have to confirm whether or not something is
- 32:31Speaker 1: in fact blood. So there's a test you can do
- 32:34Speaker 1: in the field to determine if it is in fact blood,
- 32:37Speaker 1: because you don't want to waste your time on something
- 32:38Speaker 1: that's not blood. But you have to eliminate it, right,
- 32:41Speaker 1: If it is blood, you have to determine, well, is
- 32:45Speaker 1: it animal or human? So we then do another test,
- 32:50Speaker 1: a confirmatory test in that area, and then it's at
- 32:53Speaker 1: that point that you begin to do blood typing. That's
- 32:58Speaker 1: kind of where things kind of froze back in nineteen
- 33:01Speaker 1: seventy two, if you will. And what they determined is
- 33:05Speaker 1: that the blood that they had at the scene, obviously
- 33:08Speaker 1: there was a lot of Nancy's blood that was spilled.
- 33:12Speaker 1: You know, God rest her soul. She went through a
- 33:14Speaker 1: horrible event here. But they found they found the essence
- 33:19Speaker 1: of somebody else, and that individual happened to be a positive.
- 33:23Speaker 1: And we know our blood groupings, you know, we've got
- 33:25Speaker 1: A and B and O, and then you've got positives
- 33:28Speaker 1: and negatives and all these sorts of things. But a
- 33:30Speaker 1: pause is actually the second most frequent blood type, and
- 33:34Speaker 1: this is kind of how we used to narrow down
- 33:37Speaker 1: who perpetrated a crime or who we would have interest
- 33:40Speaker 1: in speaking to. So if it's the second most frequent
- 33:43Speaker 1: blood type, it doesn't do a lot of good. It
- 33:49Speaker 1: doesn't help you as much as you would like for
- 33:51Speaker 1: it to say, for instance, if you had a B
- 33:54Speaker 1: pause or AB nag, which tend to be more rare.
- 33:58Speaker 1: You got a pause which is the second most frequent,
- 34:01Speaker 1: which about I don't know if thirty four percent of
- 34:03Speaker 1: population has, but it's a place to start, right and
- 34:07Speaker 1: that's what you're looking for, because right now you don't
- 34:09Speaker 1: have anything, or the police didn't, and so what I
- 34:13Speaker 1: would what I am I'm just fascinated by in this case,
- 34:17Speaker 1: and if I shake their hand, I would do it
- 34:19Speaker 1: to this day, the crime scene investigators that were at
- 34:23Speaker 1: that scene on that faithful day back in nineteen seventy two,
- 34:28Speaker 1: they did something that many departments cannot effectively do even today,
- 34:33Speaker 1: and that is the blood evidence that they had at
- 34:36Speaker 1: that scene, they preserved it. They preserved it so that
- 34:41Speaker 1: fifty years later, imagine that, fifty years later, they were
- 34:47Speaker 1: able to take a blood sample off of a towel
- 34:52Speaker 1: that was evidence in arguably one of the most brutal
- 34:58Speaker 1: homicides up to that point that had taken place and
- 35:00Speaker 1: certainly unsolved homicides that have taken place in Honolulu at
- 35:04Speaker 1: that point in time, and they were able to actually
- 35:07Speaker 1: get a DNA profile off of this unknown blood sample.
- 35:11Speaker 1: This this a positive person that was just floating around
- 35:15Speaker 1: out there that no one knew. Okay, I've got my
- 35:17Speaker 1: hand up, professor. I know you can't see me because
- 35:19Speaker 1: we're in two separate locations. But how did they actually
- 35:22Speaker 1: preserve that? In moving a body from the death location
- 35:26Speaker 1: to the morgue, if there's a suspected murder or attack,
- 35:31Speaker 1: the hands are covered with paperbag as opposed to plastic because,
- 35:36Speaker 1: as you've taught me, plastic makes the hand sweat, which
- 35:39Speaker 1: can change what you're going to be, can change your findings.
- 35:44Speaker 1: How do you preserve that type of an evidence. A
- 35:47Speaker 1: towel which number one possibly could be wet because we
- 35:51Speaker 1: know there was water running, is wet from the blood
- 35:56Speaker 1: in it. So how do you keep it from molding?
- 35:59Speaker 1: How do you keep from degrading? How do you store it? Well,
- 36:04Speaker 1: it has to be dried. And I can't speak to
- 36:07Speaker 1: what technology they had at the police department in Honolulu
- 36:11Speaker 1: back in nineteen seventy two, but I can tell you this,
- 36:15Speaker 1: If the towel was wet, which obviously we know that
- 36:19Speaker 1: there was blood on it, so it had to have
- 36:20Speaker 1: been wet. First off, your right in remembering back, we
- 36:23Speaker 1: don't put plastic bags on hands because it makes things sweat.
- 36:28Speaker 1: I mean, listen, forensic science is not rocket science. We're
- 36:32Speaker 1: not going to Mars here. Anybody can understand this. It's
- 36:35Speaker 1: actually common sense. It's what it comes down to. If
- 36:37Speaker 1: you don't want something to sweat, don't put it in plastic.
- 36:40Speaker 1: And you have this wet sample, it has to go
- 36:43Speaker 1: into a conveyance like a paper bag, just like we
- 36:47Speaker 1: put on the hands. I've actually put paper bags over
- 36:50Speaker 1: heads before because you've got valuable evidence. It's there, and
- 36:53Speaker 1: you don't want to make that area around the heads
- 36:57Speaker 1: sweat with plastic. It's certainly not something that you would do.
- 37:00Speaker 1: But if you're trying to preserve, for instance, firearm evidence,
- 37:04Speaker 1: I've had projectiles that are barely almost about to fall
- 37:07Speaker 1: out of the side of the head that's just beneath
- 37:09Speaker 1: the skin. So I will not remove it at the scene.
- 37:13Speaker 1: You don't want to do that, you want to be
- 37:14Speaker 1: able to document it. I'll put a paper bag over
- 37:17Speaker 1: the head. And it's the same principle. Even with these towels,
- 37:20Speaker 1: they're damp, so what they would have had to have
- 37:23Speaker 1: done is take them back in an environment that is
- 37:26Speaker 1: conducive to dry this item out, because once you dry
- 37:29Speaker 1: it out. Once you dry it out, it's kind of
- 37:31Speaker 1: frozen in time at that point in time, and then
- 37:34Speaker 1: you have to stort safely so that all of these
- 37:36Speaker 1: years later, First off, it's not going to degrade to
- 37:39Speaker 1: the point where you can't get a usable sample off
- 37:42Speaker 1: of it, and it's not going to be exposed to
- 37:46Speaker 1: changes in relative humidity. You know where it's going to
- 37:50Speaker 1: rise and fall, and where it's a predictable environment where
- 37:53Speaker 1: you can go back and you can actually access this
- 37:55Speaker 1: and cut a sample out of it and test it,
- 37:57Speaker 1: which is eventually what has happened in this particular case.
- 38:02Speaker 1: They did such a fantastic job all those years ago, oh,
- 38:05Speaker 1: all these years ago, where the scientists, the modern scientists,
- 38:09Speaker 1: were able to go back and snip some of that
- 38:13Speaker 1: area because you don't want to use all of it,
- 38:15Speaker 1: but snip some of that sample area and use it
- 38:18Speaker 1: and apply modern scientific technique to it. And you know,
- 38:22Speaker 1: now we have evolved to such a point in our
- 38:26Speaker 1: technology where we don't need as large a sample any
- 38:29Speaker 1: longer in order to generate a biological or DNA profile
- 38:34Speaker 1: on an individual. You know, we can do smaller and smaller.
- 38:37Speaker 1: Now we don't require as large large of a sample
- 38:41Speaker 1: of blood in order to facilitate this, not just blood,
- 38:45Speaker 1: but any kind of biological sample that we might can
- 38:47Speaker 1: harvest DNA front. But how would you do it? I mean,
- 38:50Speaker 1: if that towel is wet with blood, like we know,
- 38:56Speaker 1: is it. It's not like you're going to put it
- 38:57Speaker 1: in the dryer. I mean, do you get you say that?
- 39:00Speaker 1: You say that, but did you know that there are
- 39:02Speaker 1: actually forensic evidence dryers and they're not tumble dryers. These
- 39:05Speaker 1: are Yeah, they're actually glass boxes that are utilized. We
- 39:10Speaker 1: have them in morgues, they have them at forensic laboratories
- 39:14Speaker 1: where you just knock down all of the humidity in
- 39:17Speaker 1: the environment and the thing just dries out. It dries
- 39:20Speaker 1: in place, and so you can go back once that
- 39:22Speaker 1: is preserved and let's say blood, for instance, it doesn't
- 39:25Speaker 1: have that tackiness to it any longer. It's actually a
- 39:27Speaker 1: dried sample that you have there. You can preserve it.
- 39:30Speaker 1: It's not going to modify it to the point where
- 39:32Speaker 1: someone that knows what they're doing can't grab a sample
- 39:36Speaker 1: off of it that's going to do a trimming, you know,
- 39:38Speaker 1: where they're going to go in at a very minuscule
- 39:42Speaker 1: section of that sample clip some of it out. They
- 39:46Speaker 1: can actually produce a sample from that that they are
- 39:49Speaker 1: able to examine and to develop a profile out of.
- 39:51Speaker 1: And one of the things, for instance, that we do
- 39:54Speaker 1: at autopsy will take what are called blood cards, and
- 39:58Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting. They'll reserve at autopsy a tiny
- 40:02Speaker 1: blood droplet and it will go onto a specially treated card,
- 40:07Speaker 1: and that card is actually filed away and we can
- 40:10Speaker 1: hang on to that blood sample for a protracted period
- 40:14Speaker 1: of time, a long time. But you know, we're not
- 40:16Speaker 1: necessarily talking about a card here, We're actually talking about
- 40:19Speaker 1: an unknown blood sample on this towel. Now here's what's key.
- 40:24Speaker 1: They were able to preserve enough of it even in
- 40:26Speaker 1: the face of having previously identified let's don't forget, they
- 40:30Speaker 1: previously identified this blood droplet as what AB pause at
- 40:34Speaker 1: that point, so they had already sampled it before, way
- 40:37Speaker 1: back when when they sampled every region on that towel,
- 40:40Speaker 1: they were able to go through it and eliminate Nancy's
- 40:43Speaker 1: blood type out of there. But somehow they were able
- 40:46Speaker 1: to find that sample on their way back when sample
- 40:50Speaker 1: it and type it and come back with AB pause,
- 40:53Speaker 1: and they saved enough of it after all of these
- 40:56Speaker 1: years to go back and create a DNA profile off
- 40:59Speaker 1: of that drop little blood. You were talking about being
- 41:02Speaker 1: able to rule people out. We talked earlier about the
- 41:06Speaker 1: traveling salesman and they were ruled out. They passed a
- 41:10Speaker 1: polygraph test as well as their fingerprints did not match
- 41:14Speaker 1: what was found on the murder scene. So years pass
- 41:20Speaker 1: storage of all this important, delicate information that you're talking about,
- 41:24Speaker 1: and technology improves, and all of a sudden, we've got
- 41:27Speaker 1: all these big words thrown about Joe that I'm going
- 41:31Speaker 1: to let you choose which one you want to talk about.
- 41:33Speaker 1: We've got phenotyping, We've got genealogy, we've got the new
- 41:38Speaker 1: DNA testing. Pick one, now let's start. I know I'm
- 41:42Speaker 1: going to pick one. Let's start with the phenotyping. What
- 41:44Speaker 1: is it and what good did it do with the investigation. Well,
- 41:48Speaker 1: the phenotyping is quite fascinating because you can take a
- 41:51Speaker 1: sample of blood in this case, and you can actually
- 41:55Speaker 1: begin to run a test in order to develop a snapshot,
- 42:00Speaker 1: if you will, of a probable suspect. And when I
- 42:04Speaker 1: say probable suspect, this is the beauty of it, and
- 42:07Speaker 1: it's amazing. Can you imagine, you know, five generations ago,
- 42:11Speaker 1: maybe even four generations go actually telling somebody back in
- 42:14Speaker 1: time that we would be able to do this with
- 42:17Speaker 1: the phenotyping based upon their DNA profile, you can develop
- 42:23Speaker 1: a pretty good guess about what race the individual is,
- 42:27Speaker 1: what their hair color is. And in this case, in
- 42:30Speaker 1: this particular case, they were able to as a result
- 42:34Speaker 1: of this phenotype, determined that the individual at twenty five
- 42:39Speaker 1: years of age would look like an individual with average
- 42:44Speaker 1: body mass, had a BMI They estimated with the phenotype
- 42:48Speaker 1: of twenty two, which is kind of on the average
- 42:52Speaker 1: size for an individual. This individual had fair or very
- 42:56Speaker 1: fair skin, and they created a composite of this individual. Now,
- 43:01Speaker 1: how powerful is that when you're going back in time
- 43:04Speaker 1: as a result of this phenotyping, where it leaves behind
- 43:07Speaker 1: this kind of fingerprint of what the individual would look like,
- 43:11Speaker 1: where you can create and forensic artists can go in
- 43:13Speaker 1: based upon this and create a template, if you will,
- 43:17Speaker 1: of an individual in what they might look like with
- 43:19Speaker 1: these characteristics. Now, obviously it's not going to be absolutely
- 43:23Speaker 1: dead on spot on this individual when you find them,
- 43:26Speaker 1: but it's going to put you in the ballpark. And
- 43:29Speaker 1: you know, for instance, that out of this group and
- 43:31Speaker 1: You're going to look for somebody that had fair or
- 43:35Speaker 1: very fair skin, that has dark hair, and is going
- 43:39Speaker 1: to be about this size at this particular age in life,
- 43:43Speaker 1: and that person for that moment when they that droplet
- 43:46Speaker 1: of blood was spilled, they're kind of frozen time at
- 43:50Speaker 1: that moment in time. And that's absolutely fascinating. And you
- 43:53Speaker 1: take phenotyping, you take phenotyping technology, and you marry that
- 43:58Speaker 1: up with what eventually brought this case to a resolution,
- 44:01Speaker 1: and that's forensic genealogy. Let's recap the numbers joke, because
- 44:05Speaker 1: you were talking about the confidence that could be gained
- 44:08Speaker 1: from this phenotype report. The report said with eighty two
- 44:13Speaker 1: percent confidence that the skin color was fair or very fair,
- 44:18Speaker 1: ninety nine percent confidence that it was not brown or
- 44:22Speaker 1: dark brown skin, the eye color ninety seven percent confidence
- 44:27Speaker 1: that it was brown or hazel, ninety seven percent confidence
- 44:31Speaker 1: that it was not green, blue, or black. Hair color
- 44:36Speaker 1: ninety nine point eight percent confidence that it was black
- 44:40Speaker 1: or brown. And what I found really fascinating was that
- 44:44Speaker 1: even with the phenotyping, they could determine whether somebody had
- 44:49Speaker 1: freckles ninety one point seven percent confidence that this person
- 44:55Speaker 1: had no freckles. How does phenotyping determine whether or not well.
- 45:01Speaker 1: It's this unique recipe that we have that's given to
- 45:05Speaker 1: us v our parents DNA, the merging of our mother's
- 45:10Speaker 1: DNA and our father's DNA, that is going to dictate
- 45:15Speaker 1: why our appearance moving forward, and those probabilities can be
- 45:19Speaker 1: estimated essentially based upon what was going on at the
- 45:23Speaker 1: time of when this individual developed and early on. I
- 45:26Speaker 1: mean that stamp is on us early on in our
- 45:28Speaker 1: developmental stages, even in the womb, and so that's something
- 45:33Speaker 1: that you carry with you and it's fascinating to me
- 45:36Speaker 1: because this kind of blueprint that we have now through
- 45:39Speaker 1: phenotyping is something that is changing the way we approach
- 45:47Speaker 1: crime scenes and the way we approach unknown circumstances where
- 45:51Speaker 1: some biological element has been left behind. It's like almost
- 45:55Speaker 1: as if nature has given us the playbook, if you will.
- 45:59Speaker 1: It's literally caused us to leap ahead light years as
- 46:03Speaker 1: far as this technology is concerned. You take phenotyping and
- 46:07Speaker 1: you combine that with the technology of a full on
- 46:12Speaker 1: DNA profile, and you begin to look at familial connections
- 46:17Speaker 1: where you have someone that has taken say their DNA
- 46:21Speaker 1: and submitted it into an open source database for the
- 46:25Speaker 1: purposes of genealogical study, where they're trying to determine who
- 46:29Speaker 1: their ancestors were, their points of origin, and only sorts
- 46:32Speaker 1: of things, who they're related to all of these and
- 46:35Speaker 1: once you start to hit on those peripheral areas where
- 46:38Speaker 1: if you have an individual that might have a third
- 46:41Speaker 1: or fourth cousin out there that has submitted a sample,
- 46:44Speaker 1: say a buckle mewcoastal swab that's gotten from inside of
- 46:47Speaker 1: the mouth from the gum line, and they've submitted it,
- 46:50Speaker 1: or maybe they've spitten a little tube and they've sent
- 46:53Speaker 1: this off to be examined. Suddenly you've got a whole
- 46:56Speaker 1: new world that opens up to you, because if you've
- 46:59Speaker 1: got an unknown which in the case of Nancy Anderson,
- 47:02Speaker 1: we have an unknown suspect here, an individual that we
- 47:06Speaker 1: think was probably involved in it because we've got this
- 47:08Speaker 1: blood sample from way back then, all of a sudden
- 47:13Speaker 1: that that was very, very fuzzy for a long long
- 47:16Speaker 1: time suddenly comes into focus. And in this case, that
- 47:20Speaker 1: happened all the way across the board. It's it's almost
- 47:23Speaker 1: like Nancy's case intersected with science at the right time
- 47:29Speaker 1: where they were able to pin an individual down regarding
- 47:34Speaker 1: their DNA makeup their genealogical profile, and boy did it
- 47:39Speaker 1: pay off. It did. The link here came from, as
- 47:44Speaker 1: you said, genealogy, and the link was found to be
- 47:49Speaker 1: a son. Yeah, you're right, Jackie, it was the son.
- 47:53Speaker 1: You know. You you know, when they began to look
- 47:55Speaker 1: at the DNA profile that they had, they saw that
- 47:58Speaker 1: through forensic genealogy they had a third or fourth cousin
- 48:02Speaker 1: out here. They begin to do this study relative to
- 48:06Speaker 1: the probability would be. And once you have that information,
- 48:12Speaker 1: you can begin mathematically to narrow this thing down to
- 48:16Speaker 1: a very fine point where you can go back and
- 48:19Speaker 1: look for what are referred to as common ancestors. You know,
- 48:22Speaker 1: if you have cousins, that means that you've got aunts
- 48:25Speaker 1: and uncles that are connected. And then you take that
- 48:29Speaker 1: narrow it down even further to where you have not
- 48:32Speaker 1: just aunts and uncles, now now you have brothers and sisters.
- 48:36Speaker 1: And when you begin to narrow it down to brothers
- 48:39Speaker 1: and sisters, it come down to mom and daddy. And
- 48:42Speaker 1: in this particular case, they were able to narrow this
- 48:45Speaker 1: down so tightly that they zeroed in on this one
- 48:49Speaker 1: young man and the authorities actually went to his home
- 48:52Speaker 1: and said, we'd like to get a DNA sample from you.
- 48:56Speaker 1: And of course the rationale was is that they believed
- 48:59Speaker 1: that young man's father could potentially be the suspect they've
- 49:03Speaker 1: been looking for for fifty years. That suspect ended up
- 49:07Speaker 1: being Tutor Cilla, a former attorney living in Reno. It
- 49:13Speaker 1: was discovered that at the time he was living in
- 49:15Speaker 1: Hawaii in the nineteen seventies and he was a University
- 49:19Speaker 1: of Hawaii grad assistant. And you begin to think about,
- 49:22Speaker 1: you know, those old tomes that we go back to
- 49:25Speaker 1: in investigations where we think about, you know, motive and
- 49:28Speaker 1: opportunity and accessibility and you know, all of those sorts
- 49:33Speaker 1: of things that kind of you know, play into this.
- 49:36Speaker 1: At this point, we don't know what a motive would
- 49:38Speaker 1: have been, and the police believe that this individual was
- 49:43Speaker 1: involved in Nancy's homicide. And I think in this particular case,
- 49:49Speaker 1: what happened was that the perpetrator actually sliced their hand
- 49:54Speaker 1: or cut a finger, and as this occurred, there's a
- 49:59Speaker 1: na troll inclination to grab the closest thing you can,
- 50:03Speaker 1: in this case a towel and stem the bleeding and
- 50:08Speaker 1: that's what he did. He took that towel, placed it
- 50:11Speaker 1: around his hand in order to stop the bleeding, and
- 50:16Speaker 1: when he did that, he sealed his fate. He transferred
- 50:19Speaker 1: that droplet of blood to that towel that was preserved
- 50:21Speaker 1: after all those years, and ultimately that provided them with
- 50:25Speaker 1: a DNA profile. Rilla has been charged in Nancy Anderson's murder.
- 50:31Speaker 1: This case has not yet gone to trial. I'm Joseph
- 50:38Speaker 1: Scott Morgan and this is body bags