hollywood super star. i'm michelle turner. thanks for watching. gnt. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com an unidentified woman was found dead, and police wanted answers. but everything they needed was in the dirt at the crime scene. and it told the story from the beginning to the tragic end. as the sun rose on the farmlands outside delano, california, a farm worker saw something he never expected. that his farm had become a crime scene. >> the scene indicated what was a very violent crime. there was obviously strong evidence initially to indicate

there was a sexual assault. >> the victim was a young teenaged girl. she was nude and had been beaten and stabbed to death. >> no one would have been around to hear any screams and it was the kind of place where there wouldn't have been just someone driving by, certainly on a dirt road off of the main road. >> she had no identification and she didn't match any missing person's reports. police found a pair of jeans near her body. in the pocket was a key chain with the initial "f." and there was some broken jewelry. >> in the clothing up around her neck, there are pieces of a gold link chain.

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he had ever been on cecil avenue which is hard to do if you're in delano any length of time. it's the main drag. >> when police looked at his truck, they didn't see a spare tire like one that left prints at the crime scene. and there was no blood inside the vehicle or any other signs of violence.

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all for $14.99 a month. to nbcuniversal's coveragens of the biggest loser olympic winter games ever, with the most coverage of the most events on every device. and the most hours of streaming video on the nbc sports live extra app, including the x1 platform from xfinity. comcast was honored to bring every minute of every medal of nbcuniversal's coverage to every screen. so what's next? rio 2016. welcome to what's next. comcast nbcuniversal. the prime suspect in florence hildreth's murder was rodney berryman, a 24-year-old drifter with a criminal history.

he denied any involvement in the crime. >> he had not been in the delano area very long. he had come from los angeles. he was staying with ms. hildreth's cousin and residing at that residence and had a relationship with one of her female cousins. >> at first, investigators found no evidence in berryman's truck that could place the vehicle at the scene. but under the front seat was a clue that could have easily been overlooked. investigators found several links to a gold piece of jewelry which was sent to supervising criminalist greg laskowski. >> i received some individual links that looked like cut horseshoes or crimped horseshoes. they weren't heavy, so it was

cheap jewelry, some kind of brass type jewelry. >> to make the chain, the manufacturer would have cut each link with a tiny tool. then attach it to the end by crimping the edges back together. under a microscope, laskowski saw the highly distinctive marks from the tool used to cut these links. >> i'm looking for striations that run across the length of the cut surfaces. >> the striations are different on each tool. they're created when the tool is made and by normal wear and tear. >> laskowski compared the striations on the links from rodney berryman's truck to the links on the jewelry found with florence hildreth's body. at 50 times magnification, the results were clear. >> i have links from the victim's body, they have markings on them that are of the same type, made by the same tool that made the markings that made up the necklace.

it certainly indicates that the suspect would have some explaining to do. >> but if rodney berryman was the killer, what happened to the spare tire? when investigators searched further, they found one in berryman's backyard leaning up against the house. they confiscated the tire and greg laskowski made an impression in material similar to the soil at the crime scene. he also took an impression of the side walls. the comparison was remarkably clear. the impressions forming the letters "v," "s" and "d" at the crime scene were identical to the letters on the side of rodney berryman's spare tire. and numerous scratches on the tire known as accidental markings matched in both samples as well. rodney berryman was not told about this evidence.

during his formal interrogation, he was asked if anyone else ever drove his truck. he said, "absolutely not." >> when rodney berryman says that no one ever, under any circumstances, drives his vehicle, well, that points pretty strongly towards him being in the vehicle. >> he was making negative -- what we call negative statements. he was lying to me. and when somebody does that, you let them keep going with that because the more they lie, the deeper they dig their hole. >> berryman looked like he had been in a fight. >> i did recall seeing a scratch on his face, and i asked him when he got that scratch. and he stated that he had gotten it during a basketball game with a friend of his. >> and investigators noticed he was wearing a brand-new pair of brooks brand athletic shoes similar to the impressions found at the crime scene.

and on those shoes was even more evidence. >> when i was talking to him, i had just looked down at his shoes. and i seen some spots on them that looked like blood. why, naturally, i am very pleased with this. >> once again, greg liskowski made impressions of berryman's sneakers in the same material he used for the tire. again, the impressions were clear. the size, make and model were identical to the impressions at the crime scene. the accidental characteristics were also identical. and the blood? this was before dna testing. so analysts turned to a process called electropherisis. this showed the blood on berryman's sneakers was almost surely florence hildreth's. >> it was consistent with having

come from 0.068% of the african-american population, and miss hildreth was included within that group. so for pre-dna testing-type evidence, it was pretty strong. pretty strong indicator that it was her blood. >> rodney berryman unwittingly left a generous array of evidence at the crime scene which enabled investigators to charge him for florence's murder within 24 hours of the crime. wn 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 in vision or hearing.

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he was a violent individual, was characterized as a sociopath with anti-personality disorder, an individual who basically believes they have the right to do whatever they want, and they don't have to follow any rules, so they can do whatever they want at any point in time even if it harms another person. >> one last bit of evidence sealed the case against rodney berryman. he denied florence was ever in his truck. but a thumbprint was found on the passenger side dashboard. it matched florence's print. >> that was another one of the things that really ensnared him. he denied that she had ever been in the vehicle, and yet her thumbprint was that.

that can't have been there if she wasn't in the truck. >> police believe that when florence walked home that night, she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. rodney saw her walking home. they knew one another casually, and rodney offered her a ride. >> come on in. i'll give you a ride. >> when she got into his truck, she left her thumbprint on the dashboard. instead of taking her home, rodney drove 12 miles away to a deserted farm. >> get out of my car. >> i'm not getting out of the car. >> the evidence clearly shows a confrontation. when berryman dragged her from the truck, her necklace broke, leaving several links under the driver's seat. after the sexual salt, berryman stabbed florence to death, and

drops of blood fell onto his sneakers. during this time, a witness saw his truck in the vicinity and later reported it to police. the next morning berryman removed the spare tire from his truck but left it in the backyard. not realizing its forensic importance. the distinctive tire impression, shoes, the necklace, the fingerprint and blood evidence left little doubt as to the perpetrator. >> she was young, a good student with her whole future ahead of her. and a loss of someone like that with their whole life ahead of them and a lot to accomplish, any loss of human life is tragic, but that's a

particularly tragic situation. >> she took a ride from a person that she thought she knew that she thought she could trust, and he turned on her, you know. he turned on her. it was awful. >> rodney berryman was convicted of first-degree murder. he now sits on death row in san quentin prison. >> various items of forensic evidence essentially created a web that mr. berryman became ensnared in. forensic evidence was so strong that the jury convicted very quickly, and there really was just no way to explain away all the different forensic evidence. >> the amount of evidence and the quality of that evidence, i think that's what made it easy for the jury to come to the conclusion that mr. berryman was guilty and deserved the highest penalty. >> if it wasn't for the crime lab on the other side taking what we found during that almost 24-hour period where we were running to find this guy, i

don't know that we would have been successful in the prosecution. >> i still have to say that at that time and at that place, the scientific and forensic work that was done was excellent. and it was correct. the medical examiner ruled the death an accident. but a forensic detective disagreed. the final resolution took three long years and raised questions about the accuracy of an autopsy. paterson, new jersey, is an industrial suburb outside new york city which has its share of violent crime. one of the town's most unusual cases happened in 1980. >> i would personally rank it as being one of the most interesting, challenging cases i ever had. >> 29-year-old frankie pullian