Latest / Weird Darkness:True crime & The unexplained / The Most Disturbed Killer the FBI Had Ever Profiled
Transcript
- 0:09Speaker 1: In western Pennsylvania, everyone dreads the dead of winter.
- 0:14Speaker 2: Pittsburgh winters are very, very brutal.
- 0:19Speaker 1: Now, a new force destroys anything in its path.
- 0:24Speaker 3: I was in a panic. The scene flashed before my eyes,
- 0:28Speaker 3: and it still does.
- 0:29Speaker 1: Police hunt a madman who kills for the thrill of it.
- 0:34Speaker 3: To commit a crime this heinous, you have to be
- 0:37Speaker 3: a monster.
- 0:38Speaker 4: He said, catch him. because he's done it before and
- 0:42Speaker 4: he'll do it again.
- 0:52Speaker 1: In Pittsburgh, there's no protection from the howling icy winds.
- 0:57Speaker 5: It just gets this bitter, bitter cold that just sinks
- 1:01Speaker 5: into your marrow and it makes you wonder why you
- 1:04Speaker 5: would ever want to leave the house.
- 1:07Speaker 6: We'll get it.
- 1:08Speaker 2: Heavy snows and really bracing winds. You know, wind chills
- 1:12Speaker 2: that'll take the temperature below zero very easily.
- 1:16Speaker 1: Equally harsh, the winds of change began turning the steel
- 1:20Speaker 1: city into a rust belt has-been. But in the late 80s,
- 1:25Speaker 1: Pittsburgh fought back.
- 1:27Speaker 2: This was the beginning of a transformation into a service
- 1:30Speaker 2: industry of education, technology, and medicine.
- 1:35Speaker 1: Defying the cutting cold, Pittsburgh strives to be cutting edge.
- 1:41Speaker 1: In 1989, Children's Hospital is the jewel in the city's crown.
- 1:46Speaker 5: It's such a thriving medical community. This is where tons
- 1:49Speaker 5: of cutting edge research is done. At the time, the
- 1:53Speaker 5: transplant area was just blossoming, especially in pediatrics.
- 1:59Speaker 1: That reputation draws top interns, like 26-year-old Dr. Jeffrey Farkas.
- 2:06Speaker 3: So I thought that Pittsburgh was an extremely safe city
- 2:08Speaker 3: and thought it would be a nice place to live.
- 2:10Speaker 3: So being safe is one reason why he came to Pittsburgh.
- 2:16Speaker 7: In 1988, there were only 24 homicides in the whole year,
- 2:19Speaker 7: and I believe we solved all of them. In 1989,
- 2:24Speaker 7: I believe that we had maybe 30, 35 homicides. December 3rd, 1989,
- 2:26Speaker 7: a typically.
- 2:26Speaker 1: Frigid Sunday night. Jeff returns to the house he rents
- 2:38Speaker 1: on Beachwood Boulevard in the quiet neighborhood of Squirrel Hill.
- 2:45Speaker 1: It's actually his second trip home that night.
- 2:48Speaker 3: Dr.
- 2:48Speaker 4: Farkas was home alone, and a friend of his had
- 2:54Speaker 4: gone to a restaurant in Squirrel Hill, and when he
- 2:56Speaker 4: came out, his battery had died. So he called Dr.
- 3:01Speaker 4: Farkas and asked if he could come down and give
- 3:03Speaker 4: him a jump.
- 3:05Speaker 5: That is so typical Jeff. I mean, he's the kind
- 3:09Speaker 5: of person that, yeah, you would call him. He would
- 3:11Speaker 5: have said, hey, you know, even though it's Sunday night
- 3:13Speaker 5: and I'm, you know, home, I'm nice and warm, I'm, no, yeah,
- 3:17Speaker 5: I'll be there in 10 minutes.
- 3:43Speaker 1: About six hours later, one of his two roommates arrives.
- 3:48Speaker 2: His roommate came home that morning a little bit after 4,
- 3:52Speaker 2: and he found it unusual that there were lights on
- 3:55Speaker 2: upstairs in Jeff's room. Because again, it's a little bit after.
- 3:59Speaker 6: 4 in the morning.
- 4:00Speaker 1: Yet Jeff's car is not outside.
- 4:04Speaker 6: He goes to the door, and it's open a crack.
- 4:09Speaker 3: Jeff?
- 4:10Speaker 1: The roommate is also a doctor. Kent Driscoll.
- 4:13Speaker 4: Jeff! He entered the house and he saw that things
- 4:24Speaker 4: were just not the way he thought they should be.
- 4:33Speaker 2: But what really made his stomach sink was when he
- 4:39Speaker 2: walked into the kitchen and there on the floor It
- 4:42Speaker 2: was Jeff's wallet with his driver's license and his credit
- 4:46Speaker 2: cards strewn about.
- 4:53Speaker 4: Also, a bloody knife.
- 5:15Speaker 3: He got something to protect himself, because now he was
- 5:17Speaker 3: really scared, and he went upstairs.
- 5:40Speaker 2: And goes into the bathroom. and finds his friend and
- 5:45Speaker 2: roommate in a very horrific fashion.
- 5:55Speaker 7: Dead.
- 5:56Speaker 3: Didn't want to be in the house even long enough
- 6:02Speaker 3: to call the police, he ran out.
- 6:07Speaker 2: Jumps into his car and drives to the Zone 6
- 6:10Speaker 2: Pittsburgh police station, which isn't very far away. Runs in screaming,
- 6:15Speaker 2: my roommate's been murdered.
- 6:17Speaker 1: Officers rush to the scene.
- 6:19Speaker 4: Got the entire homicide squad called out, the entire mobile
- 6:23Speaker 4: crime unit called out.
- 6:26Speaker 1: Police comb the house for intruders. No one's there. After
- 6:38Speaker 1: the coroner removes the victim... detectives try to make sense
- 6:43Speaker 1: of the unspeakable crime.
- 6:48Speaker 4: It appeared to us that he had been picked up
- 6:50Speaker 4: and piledriven into the bathtub. So he was head down,
- 6:55Speaker 4: his head was cocked, and his feet were leaning out
- 6:58Speaker 4: of the tub.
- 6:59Speaker 7: He was tied up. He was stabbed. He appeared to
- 7:04Speaker 7: be strangled with a cord.
- 7:09Speaker 4: There were four knives, a pair of scissors, One knife
- 7:12Speaker 4: was bent, one was broken.
- 7:14Speaker 1: The killer used them to stab Jeff's chest, neck, and head,
- 7:19Speaker 1: even his eyes. But the murderer didn't stop there.
- 7:26Speaker 4: The toilet tank top was broken in several pieces. Parts
- 7:30Speaker 4: of that were in the tub. It was an end
- 7:33Speaker 4: iron that was from downstairs that was there that was
- 7:37Speaker 4: broken also. You get a shot of that?
- 7:45Speaker 1: The attacker put a lot of time and effort into
- 7:48Speaker 1: this slaughter.
- 7:51Speaker 4: Thought went into it. There was activity went into it
- 7:55Speaker 4: where they had to go to this location to find
- 7:57Speaker 4: the scissors. They had to go to this location to
- 7:59Speaker 4: get the knives. Clearly, this person is of one mindset.
- 8:07Speaker 4: I'll do whatever it takes to kill the victims.
- 8:11Speaker 1: Curiously, police find a cord cut from the vacuum intricately
- 8:16Speaker 1: knotted around Jeff's neck.
- 8:18Speaker 4: It wasn't the typical knot that one sees when somebody
- 8:21Speaker 4: ties their shoes or ties a necktie or when they
- 8:25Speaker 4: tie a rope together. This was a more complex, more
- 8:28Speaker 4: complicated knot. And so that's something right away you say, uh-huh,
- 8:33Speaker 4: is this person specifically trained in this because they're whatever...
- 8:40Speaker 4: occupation they might have or had at one time.
- 8:45Speaker 1: The most bizarre detail of all, a carved wooden Caribbean
- 8:51Speaker 1: art mask placed near the body. It also has stab
- 8:59Speaker 1: marks in the eyes.
- 9:02Speaker 4: You've got to ask yourself, what's the significance of the mask?
- 9:13Speaker 4: that is really the person who's responsible, conveying a message
- 9:17Speaker 4: to us and to the world. You're not going to
- 9:20Speaker 4: identify me for this. There's going to be nobody to
- 9:23Speaker 4: identify me.
- 9:26Speaker 7: It was definitely overkill. There was a lot of violence there.
- 9:30Speaker 7: I have seen certain things like that before. And always,
- 9:35Speaker 7: it was somebody that the victim knew.
- 9:38Speaker 1: Though the intense violence seems personal, The scattered wallet and
- 9:43Speaker 1: other burglary evidence points to a more random motive, mixed
- 9:48Speaker 1: messages from a murderer.
- 9:51Speaker 4: Early in the investigation, you just really don't realize the
- 9:55Speaker 4: significance of what you had. Is this something that was
- 9:58Speaker 4: staged to throw us off, to make it look like
- 10:01Speaker 4: there was a stranger? Or is this something that occurred
- 10:06Speaker 4: during a robbery, burglary, murder? We're looking for fibers, hairs.
- 10:16Speaker 4: We're looking for fingerprints. We're looking for anything that might
- 10:21Speaker 4: have been touched.
- 10:23Speaker 1: Most telling is what detectives haven't found. Jeff's car. It's missing,
- 10:31Speaker 1: possibly stolen by the killer. Police put out an APB.
- 10:37Speaker 4: And so what we did was contact Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio,
- 10:43Speaker 4: New York State Police, and had them broadcast the description
- 10:47Speaker 4: of the victim's car every hour statewide, because who knows
- 10:52Speaker 4: how far this person could have traveled.
- 10:54Speaker 1: The horrifying news travels fast. That morning, Jeff's great aunt,
- 10:59Speaker 1: who lives in the city, learns of the tragedy.
- 11:03Speaker 3: She heard on the news that a young doctor who
- 11:06Speaker 3: lived in Squirrel Hill on Beechwood Boulevard was murdered. And
- 11:10Speaker 3: she knew Jeff was a young doctor who lived in
- 11:12Speaker 3: Squirrel Hill on Beechwood Boulevard and figured it couldn't be
- 11:15Speaker 3: anybody else.
- 11:16Speaker 1: She and Jeff's uncle raced to the house, confirmed their fears,
- 11:22Speaker 1: and called Jeff's dad in Florida.
- 11:24Speaker 3: And I got a phone call from my brother. Didn't
- 11:28Speaker 3: pull any punches. He said, Jerry, Jeff's dead. The police
- 11:37Speaker 3: are here. They got all the place cordoned off. One
- 11:43Speaker 3: of the worst things that can happen is... the death
- 11:46Speaker 3: of a child, because it's against nature. A child is
- 11:49Speaker 3: not supposed to die before you do. You know, why Jeff?
- 11:52Speaker 3: Why is this happening?
- 11:54Speaker 1: It's a question detectives ask Jeff's roommate, Kent Driscoll.
- 11:59Speaker 7: Everybody's a suspect, including the individual who reports the crime.
- 12:04Speaker 7: We try to eliminate everybody, and then what we have
- 12:07Speaker 7: left is the person who did the crime.
- 12:13Speaker 4: Why didn't he call from the home? Why didn't he
- 12:14Speaker 4: use the home phone? Did he leave the house because
- 12:17Speaker 4: he wanted to stage a burglary?
- 12:20Speaker 1: As the sun rises on one of Pittsburgh's most grisly killings,
- 12:25Speaker 1: an icy fear grips family, residents, and police. The brutal
- 12:30Speaker 1: killing has made the winter that much colder. In a quiet,
- 12:38Speaker 1: snowy neighborhood, police investigate the savage murder of Dr. Jeffrey Farkas,
- 12:44Speaker 1: an intern at Pittsburgh's Children's Hospital.
- 12:48Speaker 3: To commit a crime this heinous, you have to be demented.
- 12:52Speaker 3: I mean, you have to have something wrong with you.
- 12:54Speaker 3: You have to be a monster.
- 12:56Speaker 2: Veteran detectives could not believe the brutality that they found.
- 13:02Speaker 6: This was a bad one. This was a whodunit.
- 13:06Speaker 2: And they had never seen a crime scene so horrific.
- 13:12Speaker 1: How the monster gained entry isn't clear.
- 13:15Speaker 7: Although the house was ransacked and there looked like there
- 13:21Speaker 7: had been a fight, there was no sign of forced entry.
- 13:25Speaker 7: There was no broken windows. There was no broken door.
- 13:28Speaker 7: So that would suggest that the victim knew the person
- 13:32Speaker 7: that killed him.
- 13:33Speaker 4: You think it's somebody that he knows, that he let
- 13:36Speaker 4: in the house, or somebody that has a key to
- 13:38Speaker 4: the house.
- 13:39Speaker 1: At least two other people have keys, Jeff's roommates.
- 13:44Speaker 4: So the two that we had to look at from
- 13:47Speaker 4: the very beginning were the two housemates.
- 13:52Speaker 7: Usually when you have that type of overkill, what you
- 13:56Speaker 7: have is some sort of relationship between the victim and
- 13:59Speaker 7: the person who did the killing. There is a rage
- 14:02Speaker 7: that that person has, and he's taking it out on
- 14:05Speaker 7: the body.
- 14:07Speaker 1: Investigators continue questioning Kent Driscoll.
- 14:11Speaker 4: Kent's fingerprints were found on one knife. Of course, he
- 14:15Speaker 4: covered that by saying, yeah, I went there and I
- 14:19Speaker 4: became very suspicious, so I picked.
- 14:21Speaker 6: Up a knife.
- 14:23Speaker 4: And then you think to yourself, It's unusual, a doctor
- 14:29Speaker 4: picking up a knife and going through the house. It's
- 14:32Speaker 4: not what your normal reaction would be.
- 14:37Speaker 1: They asked where he was that evening.
- 14:40Speaker 4: He worked late at the hospital, and then he left
- 14:43Speaker 4: the hospital and went home.
- 14:46Speaker 1: But his alibi is not airtight.
- 14:49Speaker 4: People can't account for every minute of every day, generally,
- 14:53Speaker 4: and so there were some time lapses there. Well, then
- 14:55Speaker 4: you think, wow, he could have driven from the hospital home,
- 14:59Speaker 4: killed him, and driven back, and nobody would have missed him.
- 15:06Speaker 1: Investigators interview the other roommate, Donovan Lentz. His alibi is solid.
- 15:13Speaker 1: He was with his girlfriend almost the entire night. Based
- 15:17Speaker 1: on verifying where he was at the time the murder
- 15:20Speaker 1: took place, we were able to eliminate Donovan. By dawn
- 15:24Speaker 1: on the morning of the murder, police find a potential clue.
- 15:28Speaker 4: In the snow, there were two shoe impressions. That is
- 15:33Speaker 4: a three-dimensional, they have depth. And we could see the pattern.
- 15:39Speaker 1: Forensic techs make snowcasts.
- 15:43Speaker 4: Snow is different than soil or mud because when you
- 15:48Speaker 4: put the material in, it generates a little bit of
- 15:51Speaker 4: heat and tends to melt it. So you have to
- 15:53Speaker 4: be very careful and you have to spray it with
- 15:55Speaker 4: a specific chemical first so it sets up and it
- 15:59Speaker 4: doesn't melt. And you have to be careful how you
- 16:01Speaker 4: put the material in.
- 16:03Speaker 1: The impressions were made by size 13 shoes and don't
- 16:07Speaker 1: match what Jeff or his roommates wear. It's still so
- 16:13Speaker 1: little to go on. Jeff's loss is a hard reality
- 16:25Speaker 1: to face.
- 16:26Speaker 3: He was extremely friendly. When you met Jeff, he made
- 16:30Speaker 3: sure that you were a friend right from the very beginning.
- 16:34Speaker 3: People just loved to be around him.
- 16:38Speaker 5: He really had that kind of carpe diem attitude to him.
- 16:41Speaker 5: I have a picture of Jeff, and he took it
- 16:44Speaker 5: during the intern retreat. He took this great selfie with
- 16:48Speaker 5: his grin, and this grin is just so infectious and
- 16:52Speaker 5: so mischievous. There's this twinkle in his eyes. I love
- 16:56Speaker 5: that picture of him because it just says so much
- 16:59Speaker 5: about him and about the kind of person he was.
- 17:02Speaker 1: He also had a more serious side, a commitment to
- 17:06Speaker 1: help others.
- 17:07Speaker 3: One day he called me up and said, Dad, I
- 17:09Speaker 3: want to be a doctor. kind of shocked me a
- 17:13Speaker 3: little bit. And I said, well, that's a pretty big undertaking, Jeff.
- 17:15Speaker 3: And he said, yeah, but that's what I wanted to do.
- 17:18Speaker 3: I've been working with kids. He decided he wanted to
- 17:21Speaker 3: be a pediatrician.
- 17:23Speaker 1: After medical school in Michigan, Jeff does a rotation at
- 17:27Speaker 1: a Detroit emergency room.
- 17:30Speaker 2: Detroit had a lot of violent crime, and Jeff saw
- 17:34Speaker 2: that working in the trauma center, and it affected him.
- 17:38Speaker 3: One time he was walking out of the hospital with
- 17:41Speaker 3: his friends and they were mugged. His friend was shot.
- 17:46Speaker 3: And that was not the kind of environment that he
- 17:48Speaker 3: wanted to work in.
- 17:51Speaker 1: He moves to Pittsburgh to intern at the prestigious Children's Hospital,
- 17:55Speaker 1: attracted by the city's relative safety.
- 18:03Speaker 2: Dr. Farkas had a special gift with children.
- 18:07Speaker 3: He discovered that he had a natural ability to ease
- 18:12Speaker 3: a child's fear of the medical environment. The kids that
- 18:16Speaker 3: he worked with just absolutely loved him.
- 18:19Speaker 1: Like one young girl who was suffering from Crohn's disease.
- 18:24Speaker 3: One thing he had to do was listen to her stomach.
- 18:26Speaker 3: So he'd put the stethoscope on her stomach and say, oh,
- 18:29Speaker 3: good morning, Mr. Stomach. Boy, you sound great today, much
- 18:32Speaker 3: better than yesterday. That girl just thought the world of him.
- 18:37Speaker 7: Wow.
- 18:38Speaker 3: It made her stay in the hospital tolerable.
- 18:45Speaker 1: Jeff's compassionate soul makes his death all the more tragic.
- 18:52Speaker 4: A lot of our killings, they're drug-related. They're people that
- 18:56Speaker 4: are criminals themselves and put themselves in bad situations. Dr.
- 19:01Speaker 4: Farkas was the complete opposite. Totally innocent person who's and
- 19:07Speaker 4: wishes were to help mankind. People said, Pittsburgh's a pretty
- 19:14Speaker 4: safe town. Maybe you should go there. And he liked
- 19:17Speaker 4: Children's Hospital, so he applied. And there is tremendous irony
- 19:21Speaker 4: in that. He came to a place that he thought
- 19:24Speaker 4: was safe, and that's where he died.
- 19:29Speaker 1: Jeff's body was so brutalized, the medical examiner can't even
- 19:34Speaker 1: determine which injury caused his death.
- 19:37Speaker 2: It was attributable to blunt force trauma, strangulation, to stabbing.
- 19:42Speaker 2: Any of those would have been fatal. The coroner likened
- 19:46Speaker 2: it to a body that was killed in a high-speed
- 19:51Speaker 2: collision in an automobile. That's how brutally he was beaten.
- 19:56Speaker 1: The three knife wounds to each eye are especially disturbing.
- 20:00Speaker 4: On a personal, emotional level, You really thought, was this necessary?
- 20:06Speaker 4: Why did you have to stab Dr. Farkas in the eyes?
- 20:09Speaker 4: He's dead.
- 20:12Speaker 1: And the matching wounds to the Caribbean mask?
- 20:20Speaker 5: It felt almost as if a diabolical kind of spit
- 20:24Speaker 5: in your face type of thing. Like, I did this.
- 20:29Speaker 5: I'm proud of it. I'm displaying something here.
- 20:33Speaker 1: Is that display a clue in itself? The mask was
- 20:37Speaker 1: a childhood present.
- 20:40Speaker 3: His mother and I had a business trip to Nassau,
- 20:43Speaker 3: and we were just doing some shopping, wanted to bring
- 20:45Speaker 3: him back a gift. And so that was kind of
- 20:49Speaker 3: special to him.
- 20:51Speaker 4: The fact that it was a personal item that was
- 20:54Speaker 4: cherished by Dr. Farkas, it was his. He kept it
- 20:58Speaker 4: in the bedroom close to him. And so we had
- 21:02Speaker 4: to ask ourselves, Was it somebody that knew Dr. Farkas
- 21:05Speaker 4: and knew his relationship to this piece of art? So again,
- 21:09Speaker 4: that raises another red flag.
- 21:12Speaker 7: In any homicide, there's usually a connection between the victim
- 21:16Speaker 7: and the person that murdered them. In this case, that's
- 21:20Speaker 7: what we thought. We have a case of overkill. We
- 21:23Speaker 7: have a personal item that was brought by the victim's
- 21:27Speaker 7: parents and given to them, and that was in the
- 21:30Speaker 7: tub with them.
- 21:32Speaker 1: Unlike the police, Jeff's friends can't believe he knew his killer.
- 21:37Speaker 5: It's just so over the top that we knew this
- 21:40Speaker 5: was a stranger. We knew this wasn't anyone that Jeff knew.
- 21:45Speaker 1: Investigators start to think the same, especially once they rule
- 21:49Speaker 1: out roommate Kent Driscoll.
- 21:51Speaker 4: What he said was backed up.
- 21:54Speaker 7: We were able to go and interview people that verified
- 21:57Speaker 7: his whereabouts when this happened.
- 21:59Speaker 1: The killer remains free.
- 22:02Speaker 2: So there was some fear among residents that this was
- 22:08Speaker 2: going to continue.
- 22:10Speaker 4: In homicide investigations, rarely do you reach out to the FBI.
- 22:16Speaker 4: Unless you have a very strange or unusual case, something
- 22:20Speaker 4: that they can work with. Clearly this was an overkill.
- 22:24Speaker 4: The eyes, that was highly unusual. The uniqueness of it.
- 22:29Speaker 4: and told us immediately, you've got to call the FBI.
- 22:34Speaker 1: Freeman tells an FBI criminal profiler about the brutal attack,
- 22:39Speaker 1: the eyes, and the Caribbean mask. The profiler can't link
- 22:44Speaker 1: the attacker to other recent crimes, but he knows this
- 22:49Speaker 1: type of sick psychology and gives a dire warning.
- 22:55Speaker 4: And what he told us, it was very chilling. He said,
- 23:01Speaker 4: catch him because he's probably done it before and he'll
- 23:05Speaker 4: do it again.
- 23:19Speaker 1: Pittsburgh's bleak winter turns even crueler as the murder of
- 23:24Speaker 1: a beloved pediatrician grabs the headlines.
- 23:28Speaker 5: The whole city was kind of abuzz about this. People
- 23:30Speaker 5: were feeling frightened. A lot of people were kind of
- 23:34Speaker 5: hanging out at work and saying, do you want me
- 23:36Speaker 5: to walk you to your car? We were all kind
- 23:38Speaker 5: of a little bit on edge.
- 23:41Speaker 1: A shadowy killer still stalks the icy suburban streets.
- 23:46Speaker 4: We don't know how fast his predatory clock is ticking.
- 23:52Speaker 4: Some it will be days between killings, some it will
- 23:56Speaker 4: be weeks, and some it will be months. With this person,
- 24:00Speaker 4: we didn't know how fast that clock was ticking. We
- 24:05Speaker 4: don't want somebody else to die like this. So let's
- 24:09Speaker 4: get them.
- 24:11Speaker 1: Seeking leads, investigators conduct interviews with everyone in Jeff's inner circle.
- 24:17Speaker 2: They did that by talking to their roommates. by examining
- 24:22Speaker 2: Jeff's life going all the way back to high school
- 24:25Speaker 2: and coming up to present time, even interviewing his paper girl.
- 24:33Speaker 3: He never did anything wrong. I mean, he wasn't dealing
- 24:35Speaker 3: in drugs. He wasn't going out with a married woman.
- 24:37Speaker 3: He wasn't doing any of that kind of stuff. The
- 24:40Speaker 3: deeper they dug, the more they realized what Jeff's personality
- 24:44Speaker 3: was and what a kind person, giving person that he was.
- 24:49Speaker 4: You see case after case where somebody's died or murdered. Oh,
- 24:52Speaker 4: he was a great guy. In fact, they weren't. But
- 24:55Speaker 4: in this case, it was absolutely true. And there was
- 24:58Speaker 4: not one person said one negative thing about him. Everything
- 25:03Speaker 4: was positive.
- 25:04Speaker 1: Jeff literally didn't have an enemy in the world, which
- 25:08Speaker 1: means his murder might be random after all.
- 25:14Speaker 7: We couldn't find anything that would indicate to us that
- 25:18Speaker 7: somebody did this as a vengeful thing, so we were
- 25:21Speaker 7: looking for a stranger.
- 25:24Speaker 4: That made the investigation so much more difficult.
- 25:27Speaker 6: It can be any one, almost.
- 25:32Speaker 2: Detectives found that a number of items were missing, including
- 25:36Speaker 2: a VCR, a CD player, a telephone, a telephone answering machine,
- 25:42Speaker 2: and a 35 millimeter camera. They were pretty sure that
- 25:47Speaker 2: what they had was A burglary, which turned into a robbery,
- 25:52Speaker 2: which turned into a homicide.
- 25:56Speaker 1: Police get a lead about the shoe prints in the snow.
- 25:59Speaker 1: When they learn, a call came in about a strange
- 26:02Speaker 1: man walking around Beachwood Boulevard near Jeff's house that night.
- 26:08Speaker 2: There had been a number of burglaries in the Squirrel
- 26:10Speaker 2: Hill neighborhood, so there was some fear that whoever was
- 26:14Speaker 2: committing these burglaries was the person.
- 26:17Speaker 6: Who had killed Jeff.
- 26:20Speaker 1: Investigators talk to residents who remember a tall, young African-American
- 26:25Speaker 1: man who knocked on their door and asked for a
- 26:28Speaker 1: woman named Cindy.
- 26:30Speaker 6: This is a trick the burglars use.
- 26:32Speaker 2: They will go to a darkened house, knock on the door,
- 26:36Speaker 2: and make up a name if somebody comes to the door.
- 26:41Speaker 4: They became alarmed because he didn't seem sincere in what
- 26:44Speaker 4: he was doing. It looked like he just sort of
- 26:46Speaker 4: wanted to get in. And they told them, nobody lives here,
- 26:50Speaker 4: that name. And one watched them walk down her steps
- 26:53Speaker 4: and make a left and go towards the neighbor's house.
- 26:58Speaker 1: The second neighbor was even more suspicious.
- 27:02Speaker 7: He felt that there was something shaky about him, and
- 27:05Speaker 7: he called the police.
- 27:07Speaker 1: Dispatch sent a patrolman.
- 27:10Speaker 4: The officer, using his flashlight, saw shoe impressions going to
- 27:16Speaker 4: the back of the house, which meant he was back there.
- 27:19Speaker 4: So that suggested this guy is not looking for Cindy.
- 27:22Speaker 4: He's looking to do something.
- 27:25Speaker 1: The officers searched the area but didn't find anyone.
- 27:29Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Jeff Farkas' killer already was in Jeff's house.
- 27:40Speaker 1: Detectives compare the shoe impressions from the neighbor's house and
- 27:44Speaker 1: find a match to those in Jeff's yard.
- 27:47Speaker 4: This has got to be our guy. I mean, it
- 27:49Speaker 4: was the most promising thing we had up to that point,
- 27:53Speaker 4: and we focused on that.
- 27:55Speaker 1: Neighbors provide enough detail to create a composite sketch.
- 28:00Speaker 2: It was a tall black man who was wearing an
- 28:04Speaker 2: army coat with a hoodie and was carrying a dark knapsack.
- 28:13Speaker 1: As detectives work on the sketch, they catch another break.
- 28:17Speaker 1: The APB on Jeff Farkas' missing car pays off.
- 28:23Speaker 2: Jeff had a 1989 Acura that was found the next
- 28:29Speaker 2: morning three miles away in a town called Homestead, which
- 28:34Speaker 2: is right across the Monongahela River.
- 28:37Speaker 4: That gave us another scene to process and we sent
- 28:40Speaker 4: technicians there, and it was interesting because there was snow.
- 28:45Speaker 4: They found footwear impressions in the snow that matched the
- 28:49Speaker 4: ones we had back at the house.
- 28:53Speaker 1: Techs search for fingerprints, fibers, any kind of evidence to
- 28:57Speaker 1: link to the killer, but come up empty.
- 29:02Speaker 6: However, the location of the car was a clue.
- 29:08Speaker 4: With the cold weather, we feel somebody's not going to
- 29:11Speaker 4: park the car and go a great distance walking.
- 29:15Speaker 1: They begin canvassing, hoping someone saw something.
- 29:20Speaker 4: We contacted every bus driver that was on duty that
- 29:25Speaker 4: night around those times. Did you pick up anybody in
- 29:28Speaker 4: this area? We called every cab company, and it was negative.
- 29:37Speaker 1: Three days after the murder, Jeff's family holds his funeral. Friends, co-workers,
- 29:45Speaker 1: and patients line up to pay their respects.
- 29:49Speaker 3: I don't know how many. To me, it looked like hundreds.
- 29:52Speaker 3: And each one wanted to say something about Jeff, about
- 29:56Speaker 3: how he personally affected their lives.
- 30:02Speaker 5: At first, I remember feeling a little jaded and wondering,
- 30:05Speaker 5: do all these people really know him, or are they
- 30:07Speaker 5: just here because it's been in the newspapers and the news?
- 30:11Speaker 5: But then, as people started speaking and as, you know,
- 30:14Speaker 5: I began listening to their conversations, I realized these were
- 30:18Speaker 5: all people that Jeff had touched with his life.
- 30:22Speaker 1: The rabbi calls his life an immeasurable blessing.
- 30:26Speaker 3: When I was at the funeral home and had these
- 30:33Speaker 3: literally hundreds of people wanting to talk and tell a
- 30:37Speaker 3: story about a situation that happened that affected them, that
- 30:42Speaker 3: involved Jeff. It was just mind-boggling. I mean, how could
- 30:46Speaker 3: one person in six months touch so many lives? I
- 30:49Speaker 3: don't know. To me, that's special. I mean, that's special.
- 30:57Speaker 1: The crime lab works around the clock on the hundreds
- 31:00Speaker 1: of fingerprints collected.
- 31:02Speaker 2: The pressure on detectives was immense. They had that report
- 31:09Speaker 2: from the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit, which urged them immediately
- 31:14Speaker 2: to find this guy for fear that he was going
- 31:17Speaker 2: to do it again. They felt that they were racing
- 31:22Speaker 2: this person. And the longer the investigation went on, the
- 31:28Speaker 2: fear grew. that they were gonna lose and he was
- 31:31Speaker 2: gonna win.
- 31:33Speaker 1: An icy chill slices through the Pittsburgh community after the
- 31:37Speaker 1: brutal slaying of pediatric intern Jeffrey Farkas.
- 31:42Speaker 5: He cared, but he cared in a way that wasn't heavy.
- 31:46Speaker 5: It didn't make you feel obligated. It was more of
- 31:49Speaker 5: a generosity of spirit, and that really is the kind
- 31:53Speaker 5: of man he was as far as being a friend.
- 31:56Speaker 5: but was also the kind of doctor he was with
- 31:58Speaker 5: his patients and his.
- 31:59Speaker 1: Patients' families. When fingerprint analysis from the crime scene comes through,
- 32:08Speaker 1: most of the prints match Jeff, his roommates, and friends.
- 32:12Speaker 2: They had identified every fingerprint in that house but one,
- 32:17Speaker 2: and that was a thumbprint that was left on the
- 32:21Speaker 2: door of the bathroom. And they were praying that that
- 32:25Speaker 2: was the fingerprint of the person who had killed Dr.
- 32:28Speaker 6: Jeffrey Farkas.
- 32:31Speaker 1: That print has an unusual characteristic, a straight line across
- 32:37Speaker 1: the bottom.
- 32:39Speaker 4: The technician felt that whoever deposited this fingerprint because of
- 32:43Speaker 4: that line was wearing a Band-Aid on the finger.
- 32:47Speaker 1: This partial print might hold all the answers, but IDing
- 32:51Speaker 1: it will take time. automated fingerprint systems weren't online in 1989.
- 32:59Speaker 1: Aside from the partial print, investigators have footprints in the
- 33:03Speaker 1: snow and the victim's car found abandoned in Homestead. No
- 33:10Speaker 1: one knows the area better than the cops.
- 33:15Speaker 4: We spoke to the Homestead police, the officers that were
- 33:18Speaker 4: working night turn, asking if they saw anything, they noticed anything.
- 33:22Speaker 4: And one officer said, I saw this guy and he
- 33:26Speaker 4: was walking. He's one of our bad guys. He's a
- 33:29Speaker 4: real criminal. And he was not too far away from
- 33:36Speaker 4: where the car was. And so he gave us the
- 33:38Speaker 4: guy's name. It's Lucas Hillman. He had a history of violence.
- 33:45Speaker 4: He had been arrested multiple times. He had served time
- 33:47Speaker 4: in prison. He was a drug user. He had committed
- 33:50Speaker 4: armed robberies. He had committed burglaries and thefts. And so
- 33:54Speaker 4: he had a long criminal history. The type of person
- 33:57Speaker 4: that could commit this type of murder.
- 34:01Speaker 1: Detectives wonder if he's the creepy man in the army
- 34:04Speaker 1: jacket and backpack asking neighbors about a woman named Cindy.
- 34:09Speaker 1: They bring him in for questioning. He admits he was
- 34:14Speaker 1: in the area where Jeff's car was found.
- 34:16Speaker 4: It's freezing out here.
- 34:17Speaker 1: What took you so long? But only because he was
- 34:19Speaker 1: visiting a friend who lived there.
- 34:22Speaker 4: He was able to give us a partial alibi, and
- 34:27Speaker 4: we talked to some other people, and his print didn't
- 34:30Speaker 4: match the print on the inside of the door. And
- 34:34Speaker 4: we were eventually able to clear him.
- 34:39Speaker 1: More time wasted. Commander Freeman throws all the department's resources
- 34:44Speaker 1: at the case.
- 34:46Speaker 2: Vacation days were canceled. Off days were canceled. Six additional
- 34:50Speaker 2: detectives from the burglary, robbery, and mobile crime unit squads
- 34:54Speaker 2: were assigned to homicide temporarily.
- 34:57Speaker 6: This was priority number one in the Pittsburgh Police Department.
- 35:01Speaker 1: Police reach out to the public for help.
- 35:04Speaker 7: There's two things that bring people out, and that is
- 35:07Speaker 7: a reward and a composite.
- 35:10Speaker 1: And we had both in this case.
- 35:11Speaker 7: $ 20, 000 offered by the family, and we had a composite.
- 35:16Speaker 4: When you put out a composite, it's a double-edged sword.
- 35:21Speaker 4: People don't like somebody, so they say it matches that person.
- 35:24Speaker 4: And so you've got to follow up on that. It
- 35:26Speaker 4: just creates a lot of work.
- 35:29Speaker 1: Most of the calls end up going nowhere, but one
- 35:32Speaker 1: tip seems promising.
- 35:34Speaker 4: We got a call from someone, and they said, I
- 35:38Speaker 4: know a person that looks like the composite sketch. And
- 35:45Speaker 4: he's seeing this girl named Cindy. We didn't give this
- 35:50Speaker 4: information out about Cindy.
- 35:54Speaker 1: A man's name, Jamal Jackson, and he's bad news.
- 35:59Speaker 4: He had a long criminal history, a lot of violence, drugs,
- 36:02Speaker 4: and that's the kind of person who would go out
- 36:04Speaker 4: and beat somebody up and kill them and take their money.
- 36:07Speaker 4: Not only did he match the description physically, he habitually
- 36:12Speaker 4: wore a backpack, which the two people across the street saw,
- 36:16Speaker 4: and he also had a green army jacket.
- 36:22Speaker 1: Detectives track him down.
- 36:25Speaker 4: He knew that we really saw him as a possible suspect,
- 36:31Speaker 4: a very viable suspect, and he didn't want to be
- 36:34Speaker 4: linked to that murder. And so he finally, after several days,
- 36:38Speaker 4: agreed to cooperate. Then he gives us an alibi.
- 36:43Speaker 1: It checks out, and his shoe size doesn't match the
- 36:47Speaker 1: prints from the crime scene.
- 36:49Speaker 4: And we were able to go back and then clear him.
- 36:52Speaker 4: He was not involved. When we realized that Jamal was
- 36:57Speaker 4: not our killer, it is very disappointing to us, because
- 37:02Speaker 4: as a unit, we thought this was probably our guy.
- 37:06Speaker 1: Police still believe Homestead, where Jeff's car was found, is
- 37:10Speaker 1: the right place to look. So they return there and
- 37:16Speaker 1: try putting themselves in the killer's size 13s.
- 37:20Speaker 7: Well, we're doing the canvas of the Homestead area around
- 37:26Speaker 7: where the car was found. I was working with my partner,
- 37:31Speaker 7: and I said, you know, it was so cold that night.
- 37:33Speaker 7: This guy had to stop somewhere. So we pulled into
- 37:37Speaker 7: a fast food place, the first one past the homestead
- 37:41Speaker 7: high-level bridge. We walked in there, and I spoke with
- 37:44Speaker 7: the manager. And he said that he was working that night.
- 37:48Speaker 7: And he remembered a guy coming in, and the reason
- 37:51Speaker 7: why he remembered.
- 37:52Speaker 4: Him was the guy was so tall. And he was
- 37:55Speaker 4: wearing a backpack and an army-type jacket, and he had
- 37:58Speaker 4: the hood up.
- 38:00Speaker 7: We felt that the individual who was at the fast
- 38:03Speaker 7: food restaurant was also the individual who was on Beechwood
- 38:07Speaker 7: Boulevard asking for Cindy.
- 38:11Speaker 1: Unfortunately, there's no security camera. The man ordered a triple cheeseburger,
- 38:16Speaker 1: paid cash, then left, vanishing into the cold.
- 38:23Speaker 4: And so, yeah, you feel pressure. He felt a real
- 38:26Speaker 4: obligation to get him before he kills again, because he's
- 38:30Speaker 4: going to kill again. In Pittsburgh.
- 38:33Speaker 1: The heat is on to find an ice-cold killer who
- 38:36Speaker 1: might be on the prowl for his next victim. But
- 38:40Speaker 1: police are still a long way from catching him.
- 38:44Speaker 2: They got a lot of calls. They brought in people
- 38:47Speaker 2: of interest. But nothing panned out. Detectives are just totally frustrated.
- 38:53Speaker 2: They're running out of leads.
- 38:57Speaker 1: They re-interview witnesses, hoping someone will remember new information.
- 39:03Speaker 2: They basically went back and retraced their steps. And in
- 39:08Speaker 2: talking to the witnesses from the fast food restaurant who
- 39:14Speaker 2: had seen this person come in, they talked about the
- 39:20Speaker 2: man's height. And the detectives were under the impression that
- 39:26Speaker 2: they were talking of when they said tall, that they
- 39:28Speaker 2: meant 6'3.
- 39:30Speaker 6: Six, four.
- 39:32Speaker 2: And these witnesses now said, no, we mean tall, like
- 39:39Speaker 2: somebody who would be the center on a basketball team.
- 39:43Speaker 2: And the detective said, well, what are we talking about? Six, seven, six, eight.
- 39:49Speaker 2: Something like that.
- 39:52Speaker 1: At a loss, they review files on all recent parolees.
- 39:57Speaker 7: I contacted the supervisor down there, and I told him
- 40:00Speaker 7: that we were looking for anybody from the Duquesne, Homestead,
- 40:04Speaker 7: Munn Hall area who may have been released from prison.
- 40:08Speaker 1: It means sifting through hundreds of records. Detectives have to
- 40:13Speaker 1: play it smart. There were just so many.
- 40:16Speaker 7: So we decided to eliminate everybody who was 6'4 and below.
- 40:21Speaker 7: We only looked at people to start with 6'5 and above.
- 40:27Speaker 7: We came across an individual who was 6'8, was on
- 40:32Speaker 7: parole for a burglary in the same general area.
- 40:36Speaker 1: The man is 24-year-old William Yarbo.
- 40:40Speaker 7: As soon as I saw his picture, I told my partner,
- 40:43Speaker 7: I said, this is him. We actually drew a hood
- 40:47Speaker 7: on the picture, and it looked just like the composite.
- 40:52Speaker 2: They go immediately get his printed fingerprint card. Compared to
- 40:57Speaker 2: the thumbprint, they go, we got the guy. You know,
- 41:00Speaker 2: I mean, that was sort of a eureka moment.
- 41:02Speaker 4: I'll never forget, I was sitting in my office, and
- 41:05Speaker 4: all of a sudden, the fingerprint technician is standing there.
- 41:08Speaker 4: He said, it's him. We got him. We got him.
- 41:11Speaker 4: We got him. He was really excited about it, as
- 41:13Speaker 4: was everybody.
- 41:15Speaker 1: Investigators determined Yarbo is a cook at a fast food
- 41:19Speaker 1: restaurant not far from victim Jeff Farkas' house.
- 41:26Speaker 2: And they go in, asked if he could come outside.
- 41:29Speaker 1: He does.
- 41:31Speaker 2: And it took him into custody without incident.
- 41:34Speaker 7: Me and my partner went back and interviewed the manager.
- 41:38Speaker 7: We asked her if he had a locker. We were
- 41:40Speaker 7: going to get a search warrant. He said, no, everybody
- 41:43Speaker 7: leaves their stuff there. Right there was a large size
- 41:46Speaker 7: 13 shoe sitting there.
- 41:49Speaker 1: And I said, who do they belong to?
- 41:50Speaker 4: And she said, they belong to William Yarborough.
- 41:54Speaker 1: The pattern on the sole matches the impression left in
- 41:57Speaker 1: Jeff's yard and by his car. And technicians find Jeff's
- 42:02Speaker 1: blood on one of Yarborough's shoes.
- 42:05Speaker 4: When he was arrested, it was observed that he had
- 42:08Speaker 4: a Band-Aid on one of his fingers, which matched the
- 42:12Speaker 4: information that the fingerprint technicians gave us.
- 42:21Speaker 1: Investigators learned that when Yarbo was young, he'd been sent
- 42:24Speaker 1: to a camp for troubled youth. There, he learned a
- 42:29Speaker 1: skill he put to use on the night of December 3rd, 1989.
- 42:33Speaker 4: To camp, one of the things they taught them was
- 42:37Speaker 4: knot tying. And one of the types of knot they
- 42:39Speaker 4: teach in Matai was a type of knot that was
- 42:41Speaker 4: found around Dr. Farkas's neck.
- 42:45Speaker 1: They also learn he harbors a lurid fascination with slasher films,
- 42:51Speaker 1: even adopting their over-the-top symbolism, like stabbing the eyes out
- 42:56Speaker 1: of the mask.
- 42:58Speaker 2: He was obsessed with those kinds of films, and particularly
- 43:01Speaker 2: with Freddy Krueger.
- 43:04Speaker 1: Yarbo pleads not guilty. At trial, prosecutors lay out what
- 43:10Speaker 1: they believe happened that night. Yarbo was going door to
- 43:16Speaker 1: door throughout the neighborhood, looking for a place to break into.
- 43:23Speaker 1: When anyone was home, he moved on.
- 43:27Speaker 2: He went to Farkas' house, knocked, received no response, tried
- 43:33Speaker 2: the front door, and the latch was open.
- 43:38Speaker 1: Someone simply forgot to lock it, a small but fatal oversight.
- 43:45Speaker 1: Yarbo entered and began ransacking the house. When Jeff returned,
- 43:52Speaker 1: Yarbo acted on his sick desires.
- 43:55Speaker 4: He had an opportunity, and he lived out his fantasy
- 43:59Speaker 4: that he would see on screen.
- 44:16Speaker 7: Dr.
- 44:16Speaker 1: Farkas ran into a buzzsaw.
- 44:24Speaker 5: He was getting some kind of emotional high off of this,
- 44:28Speaker 5: and that fed into him. This obviously was someone who
- 44:35Speaker 5: was comfortable with violence, and with the time and the
- 44:39Speaker 5: energy he spent with Jeff, was becoming more comfortable with it.
- 44:45Speaker 5: And that's why I have no doubt in my mind
- 44:46Speaker 5: that he would kill again, given the chance.
- 44:53Speaker 1: Investigators have his fingerprint on the bathroom door and a
- 44:57Speaker 1: drop of Jeff's blood on his work shoe.
- 45:01Speaker 2: All those things tied him to the crime, so much
- 45:06Speaker 2: so that the jury in the four-day trial took only
- 45:11Speaker 2: three hours to find him guilty.
- 45:14Speaker 1: On December 3, 1990, on the one-year anniversary of the murder,
- 45:20Speaker 1: William Yarboe is convicted of robbery, burglary, and first-degree murder.
- 45:27Speaker 1: He gets life with no chance of parole.
- 45:32Speaker 3: I was elated. I was happy that they caught him.
- 45:34Speaker 3: I mean, I'm glad that he's off the streets, that
- 45:37Speaker 3: he can't do this again to anybody else. But my
- 45:41Speaker 3: feeling was... It's not going to bring my son back.
- 45:47Speaker 3: The last time I saw Jeff, I was in Michigan.
- 45:51Speaker 3: He had just got his medical degree from Wayne State.
- 45:56Speaker 3: I flew back to Florida, where my job was, and
- 46:00Speaker 3: I was looking forward to the time that I could
- 46:04Speaker 3: be up in Pittsburgh to see him at Children's Hospital
- 46:07Speaker 3: and see him in his work environment. Never got that chance.
- 46:11Speaker 3: He was murdered. To me, that's a big tragedy in
- 46:15Speaker 3: my life that I did not have the opportunity to
- 46:23Speaker 3: see him work as a doctor.
- 46:26Speaker 1: The Children's Hospital continues to honor Dr. Jeffrey Farkas with
- 46:30Speaker 1: an annual award.
- 46:32Speaker 3: We decided to make an award based on the way
- 46:35Speaker 3: Jeff was, that it would go to the top intern
- 46:39Speaker 3: of the year that showed the most compassion toward patients.
- 46:44Speaker 3: They've kept the award going. It's in Jeff's name, and
- 46:49Speaker 3: it's very, very important. And that makes me feel really good.
- 46:54Speaker 5: I truly do believe in evil and its presence in
- 46:57Speaker 5: the world. But I also believe in good, and Jeff
- 47:00Speaker 5: was one of the good guys. The hardest part about
- 47:02Speaker 5: him being gone is that we can talk about him
- 47:05Speaker 5: and about his memory and the lives he touched, but
- 47:08Speaker 5: think about what he could have accomplished if he hadn't
- 47:10Speaker 5: been taken at such a young age.