them were involved. >> i think the lord had some intervention in this and put us down the right path. so, that's just my little evangelizing to you, for what it's worth. late at night, a man stopped his car on a residential street. within seconds, he was dead. what did he see? and why did he stop? an asthma inhaler found nearby and tiny acrylic fibers answered those questions when there were no eyewitnesses who could. six gunshots fired in rapid succession shattered the early-morning calm of rockford, illinois. [ shots ]

[ ringing ] >> 911. >> yeah, i just wanted to call and report that somebody fired gunshots over at the auburn manor. >> police responded to the area, where they saw a car sitting in the middle of the roadway. >> it was a maroon chrysler. the lights were on. the car was still running. behind the wheel was a middle-aged man who had been shot repeatedly in the head and chest. the car was still in reverse, an indication the man saw something, stopped, then drove backwards to investigate. >> it was apparent from his position in the car and the seatbelt on that he had no time to react to the force that was used against him. >> he was dead before he could put the car in park. when police ran the license plate, they got some shocking information. >> the car had been registered to kevin rice and then did a

double take and then realized, my god, it's kevin. >> kevin rice was one of their own, a rockford police officer, a 14-year veteran with a spotless record. theo glover was his partner. >> i got a call from our commander, and he says, "yeah, kevin has been shot." so, i said, okay, i'm getting ready. where are you? i'm going to get dressed and be there, and he stopped. he said, "theo, kevin's dead." at that point, you know, i sort of -- >> the scene was strangely quiet. officers were kind of huddled together. some were grief-stricken, some were just silently assessing the evidence. >> i remember one officer, he was just crying the whole time while he was trying to find evidence in the grass. and he was just like, well, you

know, what else was i going to do? you know, our job now is to solve a crime that had just been committed. >> 38-year-old kevin rice was the father of three children. the youngest was only 2 months old. he and his wife, ardine, had been married for 15 years. >> a day doesn't go by when i don't wake up in the morning and think about him and i don't go to bed at night thinking about him. little kevin is always asking, when is my daddy going to come back from heaven? >> ardine rice told police that kevin got a phone call just after midnight. it was from the man who was laying carpet in their new house, the one they were moving into the very next morning. >> apparently, there was a problem with the carpet. i don't know what the problem was. so kevin left to go over to the new house to check out what the problem was.

>> the carpet layer told police kevin stopped by, told them what he wanted done and left. >> he was gone for about an hour. and when he was driving down the street where he was staying at the time, that's when he encountered his attackers. >> shell casings at the scene indicated he had been shot with .380-caliber weapon. the witness reported seeing a man in a dark, hooded sweatshirt running away from the area. police had to consider the possibility that the phone call from the carpet layer might have been a setup. >> pretty short order. there was a grim determination on the part of the officers to go about the business of finding out who had done this to kevin. e way to get your fiber. try phillips fiber good gummies. they're delicious, and a good source of fiber to help support regularity. wife: mmmm husband: these are good! marge: the tasty side of fiber. from phillips.

♪ thousands of residents in rockford, illinois, turned out for the funeral service of detective kevin rice, the city's first slain police officer in 20 years. >> it was really something special to see, the hundreds of police cars, thousands of people

lined the streets, and it was quite a tribute, but we also realized why they were doing this tribute, because kevin was shot and killed trying to protect his community. >> kevin was a servant. he was a servant to god, to his family, to the department, to the city. >> it was just so unbelievable that so many people could come out for my husband and acknowledged what a good person he was. ♪ no matter what's going on >> it was just a hard thing to cope with. so, try to stay strong, but his memory stays alive in my heart. >> once kevin was laid to rest, his fellow officers went to work to find his killer. >> there was three goals here --

identify who killed kevin rice, arrest him and convict him. >> since kevin rice spent the last seven years on the force investigating crimes that involved gang activity, this was a potential lead. >> my first thought was maybe it was some type of a gang banger who was out there trying to, you know, become a leader type of thing. >> people don't enjoy having police officers interfere with their criminal activity. if they want to sell drugs or gang bang, they just don't take too kindly to that, so you just never know what someone might do. >> detectives went through prison records to see if anyone kevin arrested had been recently released. meanwhile, in a search of the crime scene, police found some potential clues. in a nearby backyard, they came across a key ring with two keys on it. a few feet away was an asthma inhaler. >> we now had another piece to

the puzzle and we were becoming more excited about, you know, we were really on to something here. maybe this is going to lead us in a direction that we really needed to go. >> these items were dusted for prints, but none were found. in an odd turn of events, police recognized the keys. they were from the auburn manor apartments located about two blocks from the shooting. >> because of so many problems that were there, the management at auburn manor had given us a set of keys, and if we needed to respond to that building, we would be able to open the outer doors to let ourselves in. >> next to the apartment building, police noticed a dark blue, hooded sweatshirt on the ground. >> we knew that the witness who was awakened by the gunshots saw the figure wearing a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt. and this was abandoned fairly close.

so, certainly, it was a good possibility that it might be involved. >> the sweatshirt was given to forensic analyst mary wong. since the killer used a .38-caliber handgun, there was the potential of gunshot residue on the sleeves. >> when a weapon is discharged, a cloud of gas is formed and then these particles are then deposited on any surface in the vicinity of the discharge. >> wong processed the sleeves and cuffs with a stub sampler, an aluminum disk with a carbon tape adhesive surface. the sample was bombarded with electrons, and the x-rays revealed three chemical elements -- lead, antimony and barium. >> if those three elements are present, then that leads me to believe that that particle is actually a prime of gunshot residue particle. [ shots ]

>> this meant kevin rice's killer was wearing this sweatshirt. was it possible that the killer lived in the auburn manor apartments? >> the decision was made by the supervisors to send those keys out with teams of detectives to see, or at least rule out, if those keys went to any of the apartment buildings. >> rockford police. >> investigators tried the keys in dozens of apartment doors, a tedious, time-consuming process, with no success. >> the apartment complex, i think it's four or five buildings or six buildings, you know, there's a lot of apartments. that's why they set out with four sets of keys and teams of detectives. >> they were beginning to wonder whether this was a dead end until they got to the bottom floor, and finally got a hit. >> they were surprised, you know, to the point they were

saying, oh, my god, you know, this key works at this particular apartment here. >> the man inside the apartment was 46-year-old calvin powell, and he was well known to police. >> he's a colorful character. he's got several minor arrests, i believe there are some felonies for drugs or for, you know, property crimes. >> powell insisted he had nothing to do with rice's murder, but he could offer no alibi. he told investigators that 19-year-old william buck sometimes slept in his apartment and said that buck owned a weapon. >> what he told us was that in the past, buck had assaulted him with a .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun. we knew that was the caliber or size of the weapon that was used to shoot and kill kevin rice. >> and there was another coincidence. the asthma inhaler found near the crime scene was traced by

its lot number to william buck's doctor. >> william buck was a patient at this clinic and actually had been prescribed the precise type of inhaler that we found, an inhaler used for asthma. >> a background check of william buck also revealed he was no stranger to violent crime. i've got a big date, but my sinuses are acting up. it's time for advil cold and sinus. [ male announcer ] truth is that won't relieve all your symptoms. new alka seltzer plus-d relieves more symptoms than any other behind the counter liquid gel. oh what a relief it is. 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. side effects include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss

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19-year-old william buck was now the prime suspect in detective kevin rice's murder. a background check revealed some chilling information. he had just been released from a juvenile detention center after serving six years for a murder he committed when he was 12 years old. >> there was no rhyme or reason to that killing. he was outside a tavern on the west side of rockford, saw this man at the curb drinking a beer and went up to him and shot him and then fled the scene. >> people were wondering, you know, how is it that he could have been released? you know, why did this happen? >> when questioned by police, william buck denied any involvement in officer rice's murder. he implicated his friend, 19-year-old vincent holmes, as

the man who killed kevin rice. >> vincent holmes was a street kid, late teens. he was friends with william buck, hung out at the auburn manor apartment complex. really had a flat affect, borderline functioning intellectually. just a street kid with really no purpose in life. >> not surprisingly, when holmes was questioned, he pointed the finger at william buck. this created a problem. could forensics prove who pulled the trigger? several residents at the auburn manor apartments saw william buck and vincent holmes together on the night of the murder. they were outside the apartment drinking. the residents were able to identify the clothes each man was wearing. and with a search warrant, that clothing was retrieved from their respective apartments and

sent to forensic analyst mary wong. she conducted the same tests she used on the hooded sweatshirt. no gunshot residue was found on either man's clothing. so, the hooded sweatshirt and the shirts from both men were sent to skip palonik, one of the country's premier experts in trace evidence analysis. >> in terms of physical evidence, microscopic evidence, this was the only evidence available. and so, it assumed great importance in the case as the investigation proceeded. >> his job was to determine which man was wearing the sweatshirt. >> whenever two objects come into contact, there is always a transfer of material. anybody who's ever worn a new sweatshirt knows, especially if you take a dark sweatshirt on a white shirt, it sheds horribly.

you get fibers all over the place. >> under a microscope, palonic discovered the sweatshirt was made up entirely of acrylic fibers. palon i palonic could find no acrylic fibers on holmes' shirt, but he did on william buck's shirt. but were these fibers from the sweatshirt? most clothing isn't dyed with just one color. usually, it takes a combination of colored dyes to get just the right shade. to identify the chemical makeup of the blue fibers, palonik placed them on a plate of silica gel and dipped them into a solvent. >> the solvent mixture travels up the plate and it starts to separate the dyes and show different components. sort of a gratifying moment as a scientist to see each dye separating out. >> the fibers were unusual.

most contain three or four color mixtures. these fibers contained seven. and the colors and the composition were identical in both samples. this meant the blue acrylic fibers on william buck's shirt came from the killer's hooded sweatshirt. >> he was wearing either that shirt, or just by pure dumb luck, he was wearing an absolutely identical shirt to that one. >> finally, investigators swabbed about the neck of the sweatshirt and found microscopic skin cells, possibly from sweat. the dna profile of those cells matched buck's genetic profile. william buck was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. and it was william buck's accomplice, vincent holmes, who revealed why kevin rice stopped his car on that fatal night. i must begin my journey,

which will cause me to miss the end of the game.

the x1 entertainment operating system lets your watch live tv anywhere. can i watch it in butterfly valley? sure. can i watch it in glimmering lake? yep. here, too. what about the dark castle? you call that defense?! come on! [ female announcer ] watch live tv anywhere. the x1 entertainment operating system, only from xfinity. on the night he was murdered, detective kevin rice was preparing to move into a beautiful, new house, one he built largely by himself. >> this was his dream of something he wanted to do. he was really crafty and well versed in that area. so, he was really looking forward to -- or did look

forward to building it himself. >> the furniture was to be moved in the following morning. the carpet was being laid that night. and there was a problem. he got a call at home shortly after 1:00 in the morning from a friend of his who was finishing carpeting the house and informed that there was a problem with the measurements, so, he just threw on some casual clothes, jumped in his car and went to see what the problem was. >> kevin went to his new house, helped fix the problem, then headed home. according to vincent holmes, he and william buck were breaking them.a car when kevin rice saw even though rice was unarmed, he confronted them. william buck was fresh out of prison and had no intention of going back. [ shots ] buck fired six shots. five hit kevin rice. gunshot residue contaminated

buck's sweatshirt. as he ran from the scene, buck dropped his keys and his asthma inhaler, then discarded his sweatshirt, but the unusual acrylic fibers from the sweatshirt still clung to buck's shirt. the gunshot residue on the sweatshirt, the dna from the sweat, the fiber transfer onto his shirt were clear proof william buck fired the gun. >> that was a blessing from god that he was running and he happened to drop something out of his pocket that he didn't realize he had dropped. >> we felt very strongly about the evidence, just how they were able to tie everything together. something as simple as a hair fiber or a drop of sweat on a tag on a sweatshirt, being able

if was a very important part of the entire case. >> william buck was convicted of killing a police officer and sentenced to 68 years in prison. >> in this day and age, tv shows like "csi," jurors have come to expect friendsic evidence. this would have satisfied any one juror who sought that or required that before they could reach a guilty verdict. >> no charges were filed against his accomplice, vincent holmes, who testified for the prosecution. in a case with no eyewitnesses, tiny acrylic fibers and an asthma inhaler told investigators all they needed to know. >> there was so much evidence that they found on that sweatshirt. you kind of marvel at how everything just kind of was able to be put back together. >> we're not in the business of taking sides in a case, unless

the only side we're on is the side of truth. >> kevin would have been very proud. and he just would have been very proud at the way everyone rallied together to get his rallied together to get his family justice. rallied together. to get his family justice. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com dangerous, severe weather from coast to coast this morning. thousands in california evacuated for what could be the worst flooding that state has seen in years. and elsewhere, bitter cold temperatures turning deadly. some cities closing their schools, telling people to stay inside. indra petersons is tracking what is headed your way. breaking news overnight in ukraine. officials accusing russia of an armed invasion. russian gunmen now occupying two airports this morning. we are live with developments overnight. and are airlines cheating you at the