that some day it'll come about. >> if it had not been for the proper collection and preservation, it doesn't matter how much someone does 13, 14 years later in an investigation, if you don't have the evidence, you don't have a case. it's usually easy to figure out how a criminal enters a crime scene, but in this case, it was far from clear. it looked like the killer vanl vanished in thin air, and perhaps he had. getting into medical school, it's the hope and dream of thousands of students who apply each year, then pray they'll be accepted. michael andrade was one of those hopefuls. >> he really wanted to be a doctor. he really wanted to help people.

just recently, my mom told me, she used to tell him, don't worry, michael, all your hard work's going to pay off, because he worked really hard at school. >> in 2005, michael was a premed student at st. mary's university in san antonio, texas. he decided not to live in the dorms, so he rented an apartment a few miles from campus. >> he actually chose that apartment because it seemed more family-oriented than the other apartments. he said that was the one he felt safer in. >> one morning in february of that year, workmen smelled smoke coming from michael's apartment. >> they noticed that the windows were coated with soot. and when they went to the door, it was unlocked. >> and as soon as they opened the front door, smoke came billowing out. >> they were forced out because of the smoke, and when they went back in, they found mr. andrade laying on the bed. >> michael andrade had been

strangled to death. >> his body was somewhat burned but very little compared to if the fire would have taken over. he was found with one of his arms, his right arm, in fact, back behind him, about belt high. it appeared he had been at some point tied up with his hands behind him. >> there were no signs of forced entry, but electronic equipment was missing. >> there was a entertainment center that had speakers hanging off the front of it which appear to have been connected to something, and that item was missing. >> on the computer desk was a perfect, you know, demarcation of where a computer would have sat. >> this meant that the computer had been stolen after the fire started, and the fire was set in three different locations. >> arson investigators gave information from the beginning that the fire probably was not started with an accelerant. it wasn't gasoline, it wasn't

lighter fluid, anything that would create big flame-type -- a big flame-type fire. >> a winged back chair placed in between the kitchen and dining area was the site of one fire. the foot of the bed was another. and the third fire started on the floor of the bedroom closet. >> i have watched a lot of forensic shows, and i knew that that seemed like a coverup. that when there's three points of fire, one person's not going to -- the person who's obviously passed away was not the person who set it, that there was obviously going to be someone trying to cover up whatever evidence was in the apartment. >> michael had been wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt, an indication he might have known the perpetrator and willingly let him or her inside. >> he knew them and was comfortable enough around them to be just in his underwear. if it was somebody that he didn't know, everyone was certain that he would have put on more clothing before he answered the door.

>> with no forensic evidence, investigators hope that the stolen items might lead to the identity of the killer. >> there was always a chance that something would happen, something would break later, someone would brag about the crime, someone would come across the stolen material or stolen property and bring that back and we could track it back that way. >> or maybe there was evidence in the apartment that they couldn't yet see.

at michael andrade's autopsy, the medical examiner confirmed what investigators already suspected. >> she did find that he had been murdered before the fire was set because there was no smoke in his lungs. >> the deposit of soot across the body indicated that he had actually died in that face-down position, because the soot deposition was much more prominent across the back of the body. >> the cause of death was strangulation with a piece of cloth ripped from the bed sheet. and dr. dana also found fiberglass insulation on the body. this was unusual since there was very little structural damage caused by the fire.

>> the material deposited was there alone. there's a possibility that it had been deposited by the perpetrator when the deceased was strangled. it's unusual you would see just the insulation material without this other debris, such as wood, burned wood, nails, screws that have come out, and even fixtures out of the ceiling. >> in their search for suspects, investigators couldn't find anyone who had a motive to kill michael andrade. >> he never had no enemies. i never seen him mad at anybody, upset about anything. that's a person you don't even think anybody would have anything against him. so i had no idea. >> investigators discovered one person who was apparently angry with him, his longtime girlfriend, a fellow student, 22-year-old lilly mesias. >> i do remember quite a few fights between the two of them

where he'd be very upset, either hurt or mad at her. i don't know exactly what would happen. it was just they would have problems and you could tell. >> investigators found a voice mail from lilly to michael left at 8:30 that morning. >> she had left a message on michael's cell phone indicating that they were having problems and that she was done with their relationship. >> was it possible that lilly went to michael's apartment afterwards and there was an altercation? >> at that point, combined with the fact that it seemed like michael may have known the person who did this to him, she was initially a suspect. >> but lilly had an alibi. she was working at her part-time job on the morning of the murder and was eliminated as a suspect. >> she was very forthcoming. she was willing to give us a statement, willing to allow a search of her apartment, willing to allow us a search of her vehicle. >> michael's sister stephanie provided the first solid lead. she said michael complained

about a man he saw around the apartment complex. >> the guy would just talk to him but the guy made him feel very uncomfortable for some reason. he didn't say why. the guy never said anything suspicious to him or anything mean, but he said he always felt a little uncomfortable or a little uneasy around the guy just because his character seemed a little off. >> unfortunately, michael never identified the man, provided a physical description or mentioned where in the complex he lived. >> right at that point, the investigators had merely the crime, the crime scene, and a very large universe of potential suspects with not a whole lot to go on pinpointing a specific person. >> with no other suspects for the murder of michael andrade, investigators appeal to the public for help. four days later, an anonymous tipster called. >> the crimestoppers tip was

amazing in its detail. >> the tipster told police the killer didn't enter andrade's apartment through the front door or even a window. he entered through an attic crawl space. >> the tipster knew that mr. andrade's laptop was missing, knew about the contents of the laptop, which was never public information. >> you really have to question, how would somebody know this kind of information?

investigators got an anonymous tip in the michael andrade murder investigation that the killer entered michael's apartment through a crawl space in the attic. sure enough, investigators found a panel opening to the attic in the ceiling of michael's bedroom closet. when investigators checked it out, they discovered that someone could access other apartments through the crawl space. the insulation was only matted between michael's apartment and apartment number 1002. >> none of the insulation above any of the other apartments had been disturbed. the only apartment that had been

disturbed was michael andrade's apartment. >> the tenant of apartment 1002 was 23-year-old maria solis, a single mother who lived there with her 3-year-old son. when questioned by police, maria claimed she didn't even know michael andrade or where he lived, but investigators didn't believe her, so they took the unusual step of confiscating maria's vacuum cleaner and the clothes in her hamper. investigators found a pair of men's jeans, and on those jeans were tiny glass fibers. the small air pockets within the glass had expanded, creating a distinctive football shape. this was fiberglass insulation that had been in or near a fire. >> the evidence was not destroyed.

it was simply charred. this gave it unique properties, something that i could compare back to with any standards that were found at the scene. >> the charred insulation on these jeans was consistent with the charred insulation found on michael andrade's body. >> the insulation was unique. it was burnt insulation. so, it wasn't a situation where the person could say i'd been working at a construction site, that's how i got this insulation on my clothing. >> wrapped around the spool of the vacuum cleaner, investigators found highly distinctive thread. black polyester fibers were wrapped around cotton fibers, then colored with an unusual combination of dyes. this thread was consistent with thread found around michael's neck. it matched his bed sheet which had been torn and used as a ligature.

>> microscopically, it was the pattern that the threads had that were able to give me that distinguishing or that unique appearance that associated with the bedding material. >> also in maria's apartment, investigators found a video camera and keys to a ford truck. the video contained images of michael andrade's family, proof that the camera was michael's, and the car keys were michael's, too. >> michael andrade's truck was a ford f-150 and these keys were ford keys. went down with the alarm remote on the set of keys and opened up his truck. >> investigators confronted maria solis and wanted to know who owned the men's jeans found in her hamper. after she was threatened with prosecution, maria solis changed her story.

she now admitted she had a roommate, 25-year-old joe luna. >> she met luna over the internet and seemed to me to be desperate to be in a relationship with a man and latched on to joe luna in what i believe was a very manipulative relationship. >> maria claimed she knew nothing about joe luna's criminal past, that he had served five years in prison for carjacking and aggravated assault on a police officer. and joe luna was wanted for a series of home invasions that bore a marked similarity to the michael andrade case. >> he would break in, cut bed sheets up, tie up the people who were at the house with those strips of bed sheets. >> he terrorized five separate

people, three of whom were families with children. he tied them up. he used weapons. he threatened them. he stole from them. >> brooke envick was a victim of one of those home invasions. >> it's just indescribable. i mean, you feel like your home is where you're safe. >> after the robbery, brooke found forensic evidence the perpetrator had left behind. >> we noticed that two cigarette butts were in the garage. we don't smoke and none of our friends who had been at the house recently smoke. >> dna from the saliva on the cigarette butts matched joe luna. >> police! >> just five days after michael andrade's murder, joe luna was arrested and charged with the crime. >> did you kill your neighbor?

>> i didn't not going to kill nobody, period. i never see myself in a position where i have to do something like that. >> despite his denials, joe luna was facing a possible death sentence.

the forensic evidence painted a vivid picture of joe luna's movements on the morning of michael andrade's murder.

prosecutors believe joe luna spent most of his time inside his girlfriend's apartment since he knew there were warrants out for his arrest on the robbery cases. with nothing to do, he discovered there was an attic and crawl space above the apartment. so, he looked around and discovered there was another apartment just 16 feet away, michael andrade's apartment. prosecutors believe he opened the panel in michael's bedroom closet, and when he didn't hear any sound, dropped in. but michael was sleeping and the noise woke him up. there was a struggle. luna tore the bed sheets, bound

michael's hands behind his back, and strangled him to death, fearing that michael could identify him. to mask the evidence, he set fire to the clothes in michael's closet and returned to his girlfriend's apartment through the crawl space. when he didn't hear the fire alarm sound, he suspected the fire went out, so he returned to michael's apartment to start the fire again. he stole michael's computer, electronic equipment, and his car keys. before leaving, he set the two additional fires. when luna returned to his girlfriend's apartment, he shed fibers from michael's apartment which he tried to remove with his girlfriend's vacuum cleaner. and he put his jeans into the clothes hamper, which had the

burned insulation on them. >> having that forensics evidence in your back pocket as an investigator is just something you can't overcome. when it's on your clothing, there's a real hard hurdle to overcome to say i didn't do it now. >> during her police interrogation, maria solis eventually admitted that luna had confessed. >> he's like, well, i just went into his apartment. and he's like, well, somebody was there when i got there. i'm like, okay. he's like, well, they saw me. he's like, so, i had to do what i had to do. i'm like, what are you talking about? >> what did you think in your mind that he did? >> that he had hurt somebody. that he had done what he did to this boy. i don't like to say the four-letter word. >> i need you to say the word. >> that he had taken this person's life. >> joe luna headed for trial

insisting he was innocent, but the forensic evidence caused him to reconsider. >> the fiber evidence that was found and the fiber evidence that i had looked at was apparently so compelling that the defendant didn't want to continue on with this case, which is quite unusual for a capital murder trial. >> so, luna changed his plea to guilty and admitted what he had done in open court. >> mr. luna, how do you plead to the charges of capital murder? >> guilty. >> he testified that he enjoyed it, that he lived for the adrenaline rush that it gave him to victimize people and to get away with it. i cannot fathom the terror that that young man went through. and really, there could be nothing worse than seeing a joe

luna walk out of your closet. >> in march of 2006, luna asked the jury to give him the death penalty. they willingly obliged. >> there are certain people in our society that have absolutely forfeited their right to live among us by their own actions and by their own decisions. joe luna is one of those people. >> ironically, joe luna tried to cover up his crime by burning the evidence, but he didn't destroy it. instead, he made those tiny glass insulation fibers more distinctive. >> it was actually the last way that i thought they would catch him. that was furthest from my mind it would be in a vacuum. >> you have to have the forensics. you have to have the evidence that can't skip town. you have to have the evidence that can't lie to you.

>> as my old professor once said, there is no such thing as a perfect crime. that's, you can plan, you can calculate, you can try to manipulate the circumstances or the surroundings, but you will always leave a piece of trace evidence behind. love you! >> a 13-year-old girl went missing from her colorado home with little evidence to explain what happened. the investigation dragged on for two long years, until an alert fingerprint examiner found a serious flaw in the system. september 7th, 1991, was like most other days for the church family. diane church got the kids off to school, ran errands, went

grocery shopping and planned to spend a quiet evening with her family. >> the plans for that night originally was to be at home and just do whatever we do, probably read them stories and that kind of stuff that moms do. >> then diane remembered her older sons had a boy scout meeting that night. diane's other children, 5-year-old sage and 13-year-old heather, wanted to stay home. >> heather didn't want to go and hang out with all those crazy boys, and so she asked if she could baby-sit that night, and so, we said sure, fine, whatever. and we took off and went to the cub scout meeting. >> heather had taken babysitting classes, so diane had no qualms about leaving her in charge. [ ringing ] later that night, diane called home to check in. >> i guess it was right before 8:30, and i heard the tv on in the background, and i said, oh, what's going on?

and she said oh, mom i let him stay up a little bit. i'll put him to bed. >> diane and the two boys returned home around 10:00. the house was dark, and for some reason, the front door was unlocked. she assumed heather and sage were asleep. sage was in bed, but heather was not. >> she was so little, and she had such a big fluffy comforter that i just figured she was under her comforter, so i said, go look again. so, he goes and looks again and comes back and goes, no, she's not in there. so i went and looked and she wasn't in there. and then that's when it all fell apart. >> diane and her children searched the house and their five-acre property. they found no sign of heather, so diane called police. >> and they said, well, 98% of

these calls turn out to be runaways. and i just said, oh, well, this is the other 2%. [ sirens ] >> when investigators arrived, they found the property full of friends and relatives. for forensic technicians, this was a potential problem. >> when there's a multitude of people that have been there for a prolonged period of time, pretty much everything and anything that could be touched has been touched. footwear impressions, tire tracks, anything at all that might be more unusual is more difficult to identify. >> there was no apparent sign of forced entry or foul play or even of a struggle. >> the only thing taken or person taken was heather. she was the only thing missing from the scene that we could identify. >> the search continued throughout the night. and still, there was no sign of heather. the next morning, diane church noticed that the screen on her

bedroom window was ascrew. evidence technicians found three fingerprints on the outside of the screen's frame. >> the prints themselves were very fresh. in this particular case on that particular screen, they were very distinct prints. >> but these fingerprints could have been left by anyone. dozens of people had been in and around the house. >> this was a busy household just like many of our households. there were hundreds of prints throughout the house. >> it was a process that would take day, perhaps weeks. and they were no closer to finding heather. >> what happened to heather dawn church became the mystery for this entire region. people were talking about it, people were worried, people were scared.

what's your favorite violin song to play? >> "the devil's dream." >> yeah, that's a good one. i like that one. >> the possible abduction of 13-year-old heather church was unusual for colorado springs, colorado, a community with very little crime. >> i think it heightened all the concern about taking safety

measures with your children and making sure they understood, you know, stranger danger concerns and things like that. >> diane church and her family lived in a sparsely populated area, which meant the kidnapper could have abducted heather without drawing much attention. >> it was this 13-year-old girl who was home, and yet, her brother was left behind. she disappeared and her brother was just still sleeping in his bed. it all was a very suspicious situation right off the bat. >> an fbi profiler agreed. since there was nothing missing from the home and no signs of violence, the profiler suggested heather's abductor might be someone familiar with the family and their routines. >> it's a very high percentage of crimes of that nature that the family members are involved, so you always look at the parents. you always try to check out their alibi or check out their

motive and see if there's any evidence of bad character at all. >> the first suspect on the list was heather's father. at the time, he was separated from diane church and living on his own. >> the fbi wanted to talk to me for about four hours. i had the, like you see in the movie, the good guy/bad guy scenario, fbi agents asking me all these questions that some of them were really hard to imagine. they were very, very personal. things that, how i felt about my daughter. >> but mike church said he had an alibi for the time heather went missing. he attended a support group meeting for divorcees with plenty of witnesses. he left the meeting at 9:30.

>> there was a short time gap from the time he left the workshop to the time he was called at his residence. that gap had to be filled in. >> he also passed a polygraph test. >> one of the detectives did come to my work and he asked to see me. at that time, i said, am i still considered a suspect? and he says, mr. church, yes, you are. and i said, well, i think that you need to look somewhere else. >> diane church was also considered a suspect. >> they gave me a lie detecter test, a horrible thing to go through to go to the police station and be fingerprinted and lie detecter test and all this kind of stuff. >> the only potential evidence at the scene was the fingerprints on the bedroom screen. the prints were compared with those in the database of the colorado state bureau of investigation. there was no match. next, the sheriff's office sent

the prints to the fbi and their automated fingerprint identification system or afis. it's one of the largest fingerprint databases in the world, at the time containing over 45 million prints. >> our impression at that time was that if we submitted those fingerprints to the federal afis system, that we were covering the broadest spectrum that could be accessed. >> again, there was no match. >> as a father, i felt like i should have been there, and i wasn't. so, i went through, i was going through a failed marriage and then i wasn't there as a father for my children, so i blamed a lot of that on myself. why wasn't i there? >> my biggest wish was that somebody had taken her who had

lost a kid of their own, and that was what i clung to.

the investigation into heather church's disappearance dragged on for months, then years. the fingerprints found on the bedroom window screen didn't match any in the state or national databases.

despite this, the family never lost hope. >> i think that's what got me from one day to the next. and then i'd have those days that i would see her up in the mountains somewhere, alone and calling for me. it was agonizing. so, i had to put myself in a right frame of mind, and i tried to get out of those type of situations. >> exactly two years after heather went missing, the family was told that a hiker had found a human skull near pike's peak, just 15 miles from their home. >> the skull was recovered in a pretty remote area of el paso county off of rampart range road, about, over 7 miles from

town, by a hiker in a pretty steep ravine, about a 400-foot ravine. >> the skull was that of a young caucasian female. >> the news came on, and the reporter was holding the skull, and was saying this body has been found, yada, yada, and all the details. and this had happened to me so many times since she went missing. it's amazing how many bodies are found. >> dental records identified the victim. it was heather church. >> at the beginning, i didn't want to hear it. for like 24 hours, i kept on saying, "are you sure?" i must have said that 100 times. >> the autopsy revealed the manner of death was homicide. >> the medical examiner was able to conclude that heather died of blunt force trauma to the right

rear of the head. >> in the area where the skull was found investigators discovered a pair of girl's pajamas, but surprisingly, her mother said they weren't heather's. with no other clues, it looked like the case might go cold again. but before that could happen, the newly elected sheriff of el paso county made the heather church case his first priority. >> and one of his main topics that he wanted to work was the heather dawn church case. and he asked me if i would look into it. >> when lou said he was going to open the case up, i said, i thought to myself, what good is this going to do? you know, what are you going to find out that these other police officers and detectives didn't know? >> detective lou smit turned to the only possible clue to the

killer's identity, the three fingerprints found on the bedroom window screen at the churches' house. at the same time, latent print examiner tom carney took a fresh look at these prints, too. he was new to the el paso county crime laboratory. he came from miami where he learned something not many others knew. the fbi's fingerprint database did not contain the prints of everyone in the united states who was convicted of a crime. >> he knew right away that they had not, all these afises out there had not been searched. to the best of my knowledge only two afis systems had been searched. >> i just assumed that it was a centralized network, and tom carney was the one that really opened our eyes on that. >> generally, the fbi stores only the fingerprints of criminals convicted of major crimes, not those convicted of minor crimes like burglary or

theft. so, carney needed to identify every database that had fingerprints which were not on file with the fbi. >> i just contacted every state and tried to track down every system in every state, including canada and even mexico. >> carney identified 92 fingerprint databases in north america that hadn't been searched for the prints from the heather church case. >> i left a note for our photographic lab saying please make 92 sets of the heather dawn church crime scene latents and i'm going to mail them out, and that's what i did. >> four weeks later, tom carney got a surprise.

finally, after two long years, colorado law enforcement officials got the break they'd been hoping for. they compared the fingerprints from the heather church case with 92 databases not connected to the fbi's afis registry, and their efforts were richly rewarded. >> actually, it was my wife. we were standing at home. and the phone rang and it was the department saying they had just made a match. >> the fingerprints matched

42-year-old robert brown, who had been arrested in both louisiana and california and served time in prison for car theft. >> he had a criminal history in both of those states. nothing for murder, but we knew he was a felon. >> brown's fingerprints didn't make it into the fbi's database, because his offense was comparatively minor. >> when louisiana notified us that they had matched the prints to a subject named robert brown, we immediately went into our files and our databases to find out where robert brown lived and we found that he lived just a quarter mile away from heather church. >> brown worked as a tree farmer and was married with one grown son. colorado officials put brown under surveillance and arrested him walking out of an art supply store. when questioned, brown denied any involvement in heather's murder. >> why are your fingerprints out there, robert? >> my fingerprints weren't out there.

>> i'm guaranteeing you that i ain't lying to you. your fingerprints are there. >> prosecutors believe brown's motive was burglary. [ ringing ] on the night of the crime, heather church was babysitting her brother, sage. her mother called at 8:30 to check on them. after her mother called, heather put her brother to bed, turned out the lights and went to sleep herself. brown arrived at the churches' home some time after 8:30. the house lights were off and there was no car in the garage, so he probably thought no one was home. brown entered the home through a

window into one of the empty bedrooms. he most likely wore gloves, but when he had difficulty removing the screen, he took them off and inadvertently left three prints behind. prosecutors believe heather heard the noise and went to investigate. when brown saw her, he realized heather could identify him, so he struck her in the head with a blunt object, killing her instantly. he carried heather's body out through the front door, which he left unlocked, loaded her into his vehicle and drove to the mountains where he dumped her body in a ravine. to avoid the death penalty, brown pleaded guilty to kidnapping and murder and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

>> just, i think, just a scary prospect to all of us, that people can do these things and at least for a while get away with it. >> had it not been for an alert fingerprint examiner, brown's print might never have been matched. >> the afis systems have to be organized into one central location where all fingerprint files are kept so that you don't have to go through so many different agencies in order to find out the answer some time. >> once in prison, robert brown made a shocking revelation. he admitted that heather church wasn't his first murder victim. he said he killed another colorado springs woman named roseau sperry, who'd been reported missing in 1987. he said he put her body in a trash dumpster. >> the sperry case was a classic

cold case. it was a missing person. wasn't really investigated as a homicide. >> eventually, brown confessed to 48 murders, including one he committed while serving in the u.s. military in south korea. investigators around the country are still trying to corroborate brown's claims. if true, brown may be one of the most prolific serial killers in american history. and he might still be free if it weren't for the local fingerprint databases in louisiana and california and the investigators who knew where to look. >> you just don't know sometime how just a little clue, just a little fingerprint and, will, will lead you right directly to the killer. >> they wouldn't have been able to find brown without those forensics. that fingerprint was the thing

that nailed the nail in the coffin for him. i mean, without that, after over a year, i don't know how that could have, how anything could could have, how anything could have evolved out of that. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com one down, two to go. another winter storm barreling across the country today. schools canceled, flights grounded, millions bracing for more snow, more sleet, and now ice. chad myers is tracking the storm's path for us this morning. crisis mode for chris christie. brand new polling showing his popularity plunging as the investigation into his office heats up. this morning his new defense against these accusations. oh, no! how low will it go? the dow dropping more than 300 points, its biggest one-day decline in seven months. markets this morning