tv Forensic Files CNN February 12, 2014 12:00am-12:31am PST
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on a stifling hot night in oklahoma, gary elwood went to bed early. his girlfriend, janet haynes, stayed up for a while and went to bed later. just after midnight, they heard a noise coming from the living room. gary went to investigate. >> she heard him scream for help. she heard noises. she heard sounds of a struggle. this, of course, brought her to fully awake almost instantaneously. >> janet ran to help, but without her glasses, couldn't see clearly. >> she was able to tell us that he was wearing gloves and had underwear on. >> the assailant chased janet back into the bedroom, where she was assaulted. >> he would try, over the course of that attack, to knock her unconscious, to suffocate her to a point where she would lose consciousness. >> she began to say, "you don't have to kill me." he says, "yes, i do." i think pretty much, she managed to just talk him out of that possibility. >> after several hours, the
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attacker left. that's when janet discovered gary's lifeless body. now in a state of shock, she managed to call police. >> she was asking me, "is he dead? is he dead? i know he's dead. he's dead." >> gary elwood had been stabbed to death. police found his body near the front door. he was only 27 years old. >> gary was evidently surprised in the dining area of the house, which was in the front. i noticed a crack in the sheetrock on the wall that was obviously done by the force of being driven into the wall. it was almost an outline of his body where he had crashed into the wall. >> gary was divorced, a successful businessman, with no known enemies. >> he was first-class guy. smart, intelligent, knew exactly where he was going, the things that were important in life.
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cared a lot about people. >> gary and janet had been dating for only a short time, so she didn't know whether gary knew his killer. >> her eyesight had some limitations, and the darkness of the room contributed a great deal to that, even though she'd spent a significant amount of time with him in the room. >> she said the attacker was in his early 20s, had blond hair, was just under 6'0" tall and had a scraggly beard. police across oklahoma were looking for a man who fit this description. but some members of the police department began to question janet's story. >> we always questioned how a guy that may be carrying his clothes and stripped down to his underwear carrying a knife and blood over him, you know, where is he going to go and how is he going to get away without somebody noticing him?
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into hit home in the middle of the night. the motive didn't appear to be robbery. nothing of value was missing. and the victim's girlfriend, janet haynes, survived the attack. >> what i found fascinating about that was the fact he did not resort to physical violence toward the victim. he was simply trying to subdue her. he didn't beat her. he didn't use profanity toward her. he didn't attempt to stab her, even though he could have very easily done that. >> investigators started to question whether janet haynes might have known the perpetrator, or perhaps the perpetrator knew her. >> we thought it was possible that it could have been an ex-boyfriend or at least someone who had either tried to date her or something like that. it was almost like he's trying to remove the object between him and the girl.
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>> yet another unusual detail was janet's description of the killer. she said he was wearing only his up next, a woman fears for investigators decided to try it. >> their reaction was, whoo, because they were amazed at what it was revealing. from that scene, it got the nickname locally here of whoo juice. it was such a weird feeling to be watching what's going on. we realized what great potential this luminol has. >> the luminol was further proof that everything janet told investigators was true.
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>> all of a sudden, you start seeing footprints appearing in the dark. it's almost like you're walking in the footsteps of the person. and the hair stands up on the back of your neck. because at that moment, you're seeing the actual direction that this assailant had walked. >> and investigators found other evidence to corroborate janet's story. the screen in the dining room window had been cut, the likely point of entry. under the master bedroom window, in the soft dirt, were some bare footprints from an individual with a size 11 foot. and investigators discovered a faint fabric impression in the dirt underneath the window. >> it's a pretty good detective work, i think. you could tell that they see a buttocks imprint on the ground beneath the window that looked as though that person had spent quite a lot of time under that window. >> from that window, the killer had a clear sight line into the bathroom.
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janet told investigators she took a shower before she went to bed. to investigators, this told a story. >> the perpetrator in this particular case was a window peeper. window peepers look for victims of opportunity. and once he discovered that there was, in fact, a woman inside that residence, that's where he decided to commit his crime that particular night. >> because the killer entered the house wearing only his underwear and a pair of gloves, fbi profilers believed his target was janet, not gary. and he must have believed she was alone. >> it was our opinion that he wanted to rape her. that's the reason, the primary motive for entering that residence to begin with. >> hazelwood believes the perpetrator had never killed before. >> in this particular case, we felt it was panic stabbing. he had not expected to encounter
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gary at that particular point. >> the fbi created an entire profile of the person they believe perpetrated this crime. >> we estimated his age to be between, i believe, 22 and 27. his education, we said he had graduated from high school. he lived within walking distance of where the crime had been committed. >> hazelwood predicted that the killer would be so traumatized that his weight would fluctuate, and he would look for a legitimate reason to leave the area. >> this was a frightening experience for this person, because in our opinion, he'd never killed before, and he did not intend to kill when he went into that residence. >> but if the killer had left town, how would police find him? this is the age of knowing] what you're made of. why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? talk to your doctor about viagra. ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain; it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure.
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police believed that gary elwood's killer was someone who lived near the crime scene, was a window peeper in his early to mid 20s, and would leave the area after the crime. inside the crime scene, investigators found some foot impressions in blood. one had plenty of ridge detail. >> your feet and your hands have unique fingerprints. dermal patterns are unique as are your hands. >> all police needed now was a suspect.
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>> i went from door to door, have you lived here? how long have you lived here? who do you know in the neighborhood? who do you associate with in the neighborhood? >> they found one promising lead, 18-year-old bill winters, who lived two blocks away from the crime scene. >> his parents had moved out of state and left him alone in that house. he wasn't a big guy. he would have been just the right size to get through the hole in the screen. >> as the profile predicted, shortly after the murder, winters left town to live with his parents in missouri. during police questioning, winters denied any involvement in gary elwood's murder and willingly provided a print of his right foot. it did not match the bloody print found in the victim's home. three years passed. then an inmate at the local jail contacted police about his
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former roommate, bob johnson. >> someone who came forward and claimed that their roommate at that time in '86, johnson, had come home bloodied and said that he had killed somebody. >> johnson's mugshot looked remarkably like the composite drawing of the suspect. he didn't fit the fbi profile, but his background made him a likely suspect. >> his ex-wife told the investigators that mr. johnson had a significant drug problem, and he was conducting those burglaries to help support that habit. >> janet haynes identified johnson in a photo lineup. >> so i'm sure at that point, edmond investigators clearly thought they had their man. >> by this time, dna testing was standard practice. so johnson's dna was compared to semen from janet haynes' rape test kit.
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and his footprints were compared to the bloody footprints at the crime scene. >> it was just a matter of days that we got those results back, and conclusively excluded him as a suspect of this homicide. it was not his footprint. it was not his dna type that was left behind. >> the case went cold again. investigators never gave up, but they were running out of ideas. three years later, on a hunch, they revisited the scene of the crime, not even sure what they were looking for. >> we were just looking around, because it had sat there for several years, vacant. >> was there anything they missed? something they hadn't thought of? and then he found a potential clue. >> right on the floor in the kitchen area is the bra.
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>> it didn't look new, but it wasn't there the last time they were inside the home shortly after the murder. was it possible that this belonged to janet haynes? >> i verified the bra belonged to her. one of the things that is characteristic of a lot of rapists is that they will take a trophy. and one of the trophies that we felt that he took during the time was the female's bra. so i believe that the guy had made his way back to the scene to relive it. >> but if the killer had been back in the neighborhood, it might have been only for a visit. >> this guy has some direct ties to that neighborhood, somehow, some way. he either had relatives in the neighborhood or he had lived there. >> over the next 18 years, police checked dozens of
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suspects from seven different states. none panned out. then, in the spring of 2004, tv viewers in edmond, oklahoma, saw this story. >> scott eggleston says he knew someone had been watching his family for months, even taking photos through a crack in the blinds. >> we assumed it would be a, you know, a 14-year-old kid. >> but it wasn't a kid. it was a grown man. >> the father came around the house and found the suspect dressed completely in black. he had arranged an outfit that was like a turtleneck, where he could pull it up over his face and he had just cut out holes for his eyes and holes for his mouth so he could breathe. >> and the man was barefoot. >> i got a little adrenaline rush, and i said, where are we? i came straight back to the station, pulled out a map, and
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realized that i was directly straight across where gary elwood had been killed almost 18 years ago. >> was this the man who killed gary elwood and sexually assaulted janet haynes almost 20 years earlier? pay my bill. phone: your account is already paid in full. oh, well in that case, back to vacation mode. ♪boots and pants and boots and pants♪ ♪and boots and pants and boots and pants♪ ♪and boots and pants... voice-enabled bill pay. just a tap away on the geico app. ♪ huh, 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. yup, everybody knows that. well, did you know that some owls aren't that wise. don't forget about i'm having brunch with meagan tomorrow.
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to cover his face. >> when police arrested 40-year-old jonathan graham for peeping into the the window of a teenage girl, they suspected he was more than just a voyeur. in his possession were items for a more violent crime. >> a bag was found with several different kinds of knives, three pair of handcuffs, flex cuffs, condoms, sex lubricants, sex toys, lock picking tool, bandanna, black clothing, which in our business, that's a rape kit. >> police now suspected graham was responsible for the murder of gary elwood and the sexual assault of janet haynes, crimes that occurred 18 years earlier in the very same neighborhood. at the time of gary elwood's murder, graham was living with his parents just a couple of blocks from elwood's home.
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and that's where he was living now, after a brief stint in the army. with a warrant, police searched graham's home. on his computer, they found child pornography and pictures of women he'd secretly photographed. investigators took an inked print of graham's feet. >> i remember i was just sitting there thinking about that, just, yeah, yeah, i hope this one works out. >> analyst jim stokes searched for corresponding ridge detail on the crime scene footprint and the one taken from jonathan graham. >> i was able to isolate an area on the right side of the foot about midway down. >> stokes called investigators with the news. >> i was really quite surprised and excited.
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>> finally, graham's dna profile matched the biological sample from janet haynes' rape test kit. the fbi profile had been remarkably accurate in predicting the perpetrator's age, education, and where he lived. graham also admitted he lost weight after the murder and joined the army, where he worked in military intelligence. after he was discharged, he returned to oklahoma. >> i guess that was his best situation, to move back into an area that he was familiar with, the same old neighborhood that he once lived in a decade-plus ago. >> but why would graham return to the same neighborhood where he killed gary elwood decades earlier and commit the same crime of window peeping, knowing that if he got caught, he'd immediately be a suspect in elwood's murder? >> and the answer is simply that he was a window peeper, and he
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was driven to commit those types of crimes. that's what was exciting to him. and i believe that he felt he would not be caught. why? because he was so proficient at what he had been doing over all those years. >> prosecutors believe that graham stood outside gary elwood's home on the night of the crime and watched while janet haynes took a shower. graham thought janet was there alone, since he couldn't see gary from his vantage point. after janet went to bed, prosecutors think graham removed his clothes and shoes outside, then entered the house by cutting the window screen. he made enough noise that he woke gary, who went to investigate. the two fought. then graham stabbed gary to
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death, and for the next few hours, terrorized janet. graham left clear footprints in gary's blood, which later tied him to the scene, along with the dna evidence. facing a possible death sentence, jonathan graham pled guilty to first-degree murder and rape. >> i don't remember much of the incident, other than i pushed him against one of the walls. >> graham had no way of knowing that 20 years later, technology would eventually catch up with him. >> the forensic science behind this investigation is what sealed jonathan graham's guilt, even without ever stepping a foot in court. >> over my career, i've seen some amazing things. and that coupled with good detective work, there's just no end to what we can do. >> we here in science, in
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