is going to disappear unless it's at the bottom of the lake or somehow destroyed in the fire. it's going to follow you even if you think you have destroyed it. up next, a woman is murdered in broad daylight. >> this is the monitor jumping out of the bushes and grabbing you and killing you. >> cell phone records and search dogs provided some leads. >> they were able to track a scent close to the trail. >> but if not for some crafty police work and the chance encounter, the entire investigation could have gone up in smoke. >> we have an individual that's still out, walking about, who can do this again. >> i don't know how much scarier it can get. during her lunch break in concord, california, kathy went

for a walk as she often did along a jogging trail near her office. >> that was something that she just kind of did on her own as her own kind of meditation throughout the day. i know that sometimes she would use that opportunity to, you know, make some personal phone calls. >> kathy was an executive secretary, married with children. on this day she spoke with her husband who was in europe on a business trip. >> her husband reported that suddenly she made a loud -- a groan or a gasp and the phone went dead. >> kathy's husband knew immediately something was wrong and called her co-workers and asked them to look for her. >> they couldn't find her. they came back, and they called the police, and the police got there within minutes. >> about 20 minutes later, a police officer saw what looked

like streaks of blood. >> the blood was like somebody had taken a paintbrush with red paint and simply had drawn lines on the ground like dripping blood on the concrete. >> the officer followed the blood down an embankment of a herbally wooded area where he found kathy lawyeric barely alive in a pool of blood. >> you recognized with the way her clothes were arrange and disheveled that she most likely had been sexually assaulted and she needed medical attention. >> kathy was rushed to the hospital, but she died en route. >> kathy had several major lacerations on her head. we believed to be the weapon was found near kathy's body. the weapon was a fence post, 2, 2 1/2 feet long, we believe. >> although kathy was using her cell phone when the attack

occurred, the gfters couldn't find it anywhere near he body. when police check heard cell phone records, they discovered that someone had used her cellphone after the murder. >> one of the calls was a juan sanchez. >> investigators tracked 33-year-old want sanchez to his residence and there they found kathy's cell phone in his possession. but sanchez claimed he found the phone on the jogging path. >> he explained to us that he was riding his bike on the canal trail and he found the cell phone. he decided to use it for his personal use. >> sanchez showed police exactly where he found the phone. remarkably it was just 50 feet from kathy's body. >> there was only one individual in our mind who could have had that cell phone and that would have been the individual who

attacked kathy. >> but sanchez denied he was the killer and denied seeing the blood on the trail near the cell phone. investigators knew right away this would not be a routine murder investigation. >> this was shocking. we're talking about a woman close to her office going for a walk on a trail frequented by many people in broad daylight, and to have this kind of thing happen to her would be like being struck by lightning. hey, razor. check this out. listen up, thunder dragons, it's time to get a hotel. we can save big on killer hotels with priceline express deals. somewhere with a fitness center? hey you know what man, these guys aint no dragons. they're cool. these deals are legit. yeah, we're cool. she's cool. we're cool. i'm cool. hey, isn't that razor's old lady? not anymore. priceline savings without the bidding.

family, friends, and even police were stunned by the sheer audacity of kathy loric's murder. >> for this attack to have occurred on a beautiful sunny day around a lot of people who could have realistically could have been around at the time the attack occurred was pretty brazen. >> an encampment of a dozen homeless people just about a quarter mile meant that random attack was a real possibility. >> there had been concerns about

transient and homeless people on the trail previously and a lot of folks just felt it wasn't safe to go out on that trail. >> but that wasn't the only possibility. >> there are numerous access and exit points to this trail either by the public roadways, by individuals using adjacent fields, and access gates. >> the murder weapon was a broken piece of metal fencing. >> this perpetrator actually broke off a piece of metal fence post and it appears that they waited for her to return from her walk and then dragged her off the trail. >> there was blood, but no prints on the murder weapon. kathy's autopsy confirmed that she'd been sexually assaulted. the dna profile from kathy loric's rape kit didn't match any in the statewide dna database of known criminal offenders. it didn't match juan sanchez,

the man who found kathy's cell phone either. >> hello didn't have any trouble answering our questions and he volunteered to take a test which he passed. >> police rounded up everyone who was around the trail at or around the time of the murder. some were homeless people. others were joggers and bikers. about a half dozen of them told a story that was remarkably consistent. >> they'd seen a male standing at the fence line talking about the little fishes in the canal and drawing this to the attention of people walking by and this person seemed like they were out of place. he was a white male, maybe 6 feet tall, maybe early 30s, kind of heavyset, not muscular but maybe a little bit overweight,

brownish blond hair and dishe l dishevel disheveled. some of the people described him as possibility trance yenlts or homeless. >> two of these potential witnesses were sent to a police sketch ar it gill samora. >> i asked them if they saw him again would they recognize him. they said yes. then i know i can draw the sketch. >> with each witness samora tried to induce a state of deep relaxation and then had them describe what they saw. eve eventually these two drawings emerged from witnesses who had never spoken with each other. except for the sunglasses, the sketches were virtually identical. >> they were two independent witnesses and they did not know each other. i think these witnesses both saw the same person. >> then police got a huge break. investigators using canine teams

identified a potential lead. >> they were able to track a scent trail to a residential area in concord that was close to the trail. >> a man in this neighborhood had a criminal history. he also looked similar to the composite drawings. his name was mark fisher. he was known to be violent, violent to his relatives, violent to police officers and to other public officials. >> witnesses in the park were shown a photo lineup which included fisher's picture. >> at least three of the witnesses were positive that the photo of mr. fisher was the subject they had seen on the trail. >> but when investigators went to mr. fisher's house, they got some shocking news. >> the police were met by a relative who told them, you haven't heard? my brother, mr. fisher, just killed himself, jumped off the golden gate bridge, committed

suicide. >> mark fisher killed himself less than 24 hours after kathy's murder. >> this person now kills himself a day after this type of crime. there are no coincidences like that. you know, it just doesn't happen in my experience. >> it was our belief that after the assault that he felt remorse, that he felt guilt, and he just couldn't live with what he had done. >> a search of fisher's room seemed to confirm his role in the murder. >> we found a pair of sunglasses similar to the type of sunglasses seen in the sketch. >> they seized some clothing that appeared to have bloodstains on it and notice thad a newspaper in the house was open to an article about the murder and a picture of the suspect's sketch was there as well. >> the circumstantial evidence clearly pointed to mark fisher as the killer. but would the forensic evidence

agree?

>> they seized some clothing but would the forensic evidence

police were certain mark fisher was the man who sexually assaulted and murdered kathy

loric along the jog trail. police and tracker dogs sniffed his track right to the door. his picture was chosen from the lineup and it appears he committed suicide just as police were about to arrest him. after forrer's suicide, scientists took a dna sample in the morgue and compared fisher's dna profile to the biological evidence from kathy loric's rape test kit. shockingly it didn't match. >> we strongly believe that mark fisher was responsible for kathy's death. all of a sudden he's not. what that means is we have an individual out walking about who can do this again. >> it basically meant we had to start at ground zero and do this over again. >> with a killer on the loose, investigators instituted a dna dragnet of all the homeless men in the area who had a violent history. >> we began contacting everybody

who used the trail, all the transients who used the trail. >> a total of 42-d na profiles were tested against the killer's dna. >> this was actually, in fact, the most referenced samples that i had ever tested, that the laboratory had ever tested. >> but there were no hits. then nine days after the murder investigators got a potential break. a mountain biker called police to say he recognized the man in the composite sketch, he'd seen him on the jogging tray on the day of kathy's murder. he said the man asked him for a cigarette and they had a short chat, although he didn't know his name. >> the mountain biker smoked one cigarette and this other man who he was talking to smoked two cigarettes. >> investigators asked the mountain biker to show them where this happened.

>> it was within maybe 200 yards of the crime scene and he point right to the ground and said those are the cigarettes that we were smoking. >> but nine days had passed and analysts were skeptical about getting dna. >> the longer it's been sitting out in the elements, the harder it would be to develop a dna profile. >> but the cyclist did provide an important piece of information. he e sasaid the man told him he worked as a telemarketer in nearby walnut creek. an investigation revealed there was only one telemarketer in walnut creek. >> they said you're looking for robert frazer. he had committed some robberies. he had spent some time in prison p. he had committed some violent assaults in prison and out on the street. >> he was a drifter.

he may have spent time in chicago as well as contra costa, k. >> frazer's co-workers said he looked like the composite sketch, however, he quit around the time of kathy loric's murder. >> police visited frazier's last known address and found his last known girl frepd. she said frazier left town and hadn't seen him in weeks. but frazier's girlfriend had a parting gift for police, frazer's tooth brush. they hoped it would be the forensic answer they were looking for.

police now had a suspect in the sexual assault and murder of kathy loric. robert frazer. but he'd left the area shortly after the murder, and they had no idea where he'd gone. investigators had cigarette butts that they thought were used by frazer while on the day of the jogging trail, but they'd been exposed to the elements for nine days before police recovered them. >> i really felt that if that could happen to this victim, that could happen to anyone, so

i felt that i really wanted to do my best in working hard on this case to help catch the individual. >> fortunately for the scientists, it hadn't rained on the cigarette butts and they were able to generate a dna profile and compare it to kathy's rape test kit. >> the person who had smoked the cigarettes was kathy's killer. scientists compared the dna on the cigarettes to the dna on frazer's tooth brush. >> unfortunately the toothbrush contained dna from at least three individuals. once i was able to see that mixture, i saw frazer's dna. of course, i was excited. >> twhaus most important. scientists also found fradser's dna from his skill cells on the fence post near kathy's body.

>> finding the dna on the fence post was very important. it shopped robert was responsible for kathy's death. >> the dna evidence established a credible eyewitness who saw the murderer in person on the day of the crime at the location of the crime scene. >> but where was robert frazer? >> well, you know, murder investigations typically don't proceed in a linear fashion. police squemtly entered mr. frazer's name into the national criminal offender database known as ncic and discovered that he was being held on a criminal charge in the state of indiana. >> he was actually arrested for some sort of traffic infraction and it learned that he was on probation and that his probation officer was looking for him. >> california police immediately flew to indiana to question frazer. >> he seemed to be very cooperative, not nervous at all

like you'd expect somebody in that circumstance. he talked about being religious in some sort of way. >> frazer admitted he heard about kathy loric's murder on television. >> have you ever seen her picture on tv? >> yeah. >> what does she look like, do you remember? >> but frazer slipped, revealing a piece of information only the killer would know. >> she had long hair. it looked like it was brown with freckles. i don't know. >> how did you know she had freckles. >> because i could see it on the tv. it's got a 43-inch screen. >> she wore makeup. >> you can see it on the picture. yeah, yes, you can. >> it wasn't until investigators told frazer they found his dna on the murder weapon and on kathy loric's rape test kit that

frazer changed his story. >> the only thing robert was able to come up with is maybe he was down there in the tree line area where kathy's body was found previously and he haddure nated in the area and that would have been the only way. >> prosecutors believe that kathy was walking along the jogging path talking to her husband on her cell phone when frazer first saw her. prosecutors think frazer chose kathy as his victim because he saw no one nearby in either direction then he struck her with a piece of a metal fence post. he quickly dragged her from the jogging trail down the ravine where he sexually assaulted her. afterward he struck her several more times in the head and left her for dead. thanks to the incredible

accuracy of the eyewitness accounts, a superb composite drawing, and the chance meeting with a cyclist frazier left plenty of forensic evidence behind. >> he never showed any remorse, and that's a real sense of frustration and anger that, you know, this person just didn't care about another human being, and you wonder how anybody could be that way. >> robert frazer was tried and convicted of first-degree murder and rape. he was sentenced to death. >> in my opinion, he's the lowest person that you can be. he is a -- he doesn't deserve to breathe another breath in this life. he doesn't. he took so much away from us and he needs to pay. >> i think robert ward frazer for lack of a better term is a

monster. i don't know how he became a monster, and, frankly, it doesn't matter how he became a monster. >> and the dna is what solved this crime. if this crime california police had several suspects in the robbery and murder of a retired couple. unfortunately, the friends uc evidence was inconclusive. ten years later, a determined forensic scientist with materials used by dentists found evidence that had previously been overlooked. and in so doing, made scientific history. ♪ bakersfield, california, known for its