-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com in the 1950s, police searched all over for a man who committed a series of heinous crimes all in the same night. they checked literally thousands of leads, but eventually the case went cold. almost five decades later, advances in computer technology and handwriting analysis proves the old adage that you can run but you can't hide. mile and mile of sand warmed by the sun.

beach beauties everywhere -- >> in the 1950s, life was much simpler. >> ward? >> it was the golden age of television with shows that reflected the innocence of the times. >> beaver, how can you lose money just by counting it? >> every time i look at it, i think of something i need. >> and an automobile was more than just a way to get around. >> the back seat of a car was kind of like what a motel is now to the young people. it gave you a chance to kiss your girlfriend and, you know, be without any interruptions. >> and that's what bob was doing on may 22nd, 1957. he and his date and another couple were parked on a deserted stretch of road near el segundo, california, an area known as lovers' lane.

>> the windows were steamy, as they normally get when you're sitting with your girlfriend, kissing for an hour, or however long it is. >> when bob opened the window for some air, he discovered they weren't alone. >> i saw the gun as the only thing that came through the window. that was my whole life in that millisecond. >> the man, a white male in his early 20s, demanded their money and jewelry. then he ordered the two couples to get out of the car and to remove their clothes. he then tied their hands behind their backs and forced three of them into the back seat of the car. then he sexually assaulted one of the girls. >> he just -- we couldn't stop it. he had the gun.

>> later, he forced all four of them out into the field and lined them up in a row. >> i thought for sure that he would kill the girl because she probably had seen him. but i guess he was going to kill all of us. we stood out there for stark naked for three or four minutes. we just expected to hear the gun start going off. >> but the man drove off in the teens' car without firing a shot. before the teenagers could report what happened, their attacker went through a red light in front of two police officers. >> the car had not been reported stolen at that time. therefore, it was not in the system. so there was no way for those officers to have known that that was a stolen vehicle or it had just been used in that crime. >> the policemen signaled the car to pull over. the driver got out of the car, then started shooting. [ gunshots ]

>> both officers were shot three times. >> the last thing that officer phillips did was he drew his own firearm and fired six rounds in the direction of the fleeing suspect. >> but by the time help arrived, both officers were dead. the stolen car was found a short time later just four blocks away. there were two bullet holes through the back window and one through the trunk. >> how does an officer who has been shot three times point-blank in the back who is dying get up and shoot at a car fleeing down a road and hit it three times? i mean, that is amazing. >> two of the bullets were recovered, but the third couldn't be found. was it possible that before he died, officer phillips hit the assailant? >> you'd look at these photographs and say, he had to have been hit.

the eyes may be the windows to the soul. but in the case of the lexus ls... ...which eyes? eyes that pivot with the road... ...that can see what light misses... ...eyes designed to warn when yours wander...

or ones that can automatically bring the ls to a complete stop. all help make the unseen... ...seen. and make the ls perhaps the most visionary vehicle on the road. this is the pursuit of perfection. then boom... what happened? stress, fun, bad habits kids, now what? let's build a new, smarter bed using the dualair chambers to sense your movement, heartbeat, breathing. introducing the sleep number bed with sleepiqtm technology. it tracks your sleep and tells you how to adjust for a good, better and an awesome night. the difference? try adjusting up or down. you'll know cuz sleep iq™ tells you. only at a sleep number store, mattresses with sleepiq start at just $999.98. know better sleep with sleep number.

[ playing "taps" ] in el segundo, california, two police officers were killed after stopping a car for running a red light.

25-year-old milton curtis had been on the force for only two months. he left behind a wife and two children. >> it was like, what are they doing here? and it was pretty much like he is sleeping. why doesn't he come home and sleep? and she says, he's in heaven. >> the other victim, 29-year-old richard phillips, was also married with three children. his daughter carolyn remembers the promise the police department made to her mother. >> we vow to you that no matter where you are, no matter how much time goes by, we will find you if we ever solve this case. >> police soon discovered that the murder suspect had been driving a car stolen from the teenagers. they had been robbed and assaulted.

dewar described the assailant as a white male in his early 20s, 6 feet tall, 190 pounds with dark blond hair, and an unfamiliar accent. >> he wasn't from this area, and he was soft-spoken, and he was slow, not educated, and he kind of had a drawl. >> howard speaks examined the stolen car for evidence. >> when they called me that there had been two policemen shot and killed, so i knew the importance of the situation, if there was any evidence that i could get, i'd have to get it. >> speaks was initially disappointed with what he found. >> nothing on the rear view mirror. that's usually a good place if you're going to get a fingerprint, if it's been moved, adjusting it, you know, for the driver.

but nothing on the rear view mirror at all. >> but the steering wheel was a different story. speaks found two partial prints on the steering wheel which appeared to be from a left thumb. >> and by putting that area together, the two sides of the thumb put together made the whole thumbprint. >> the likelihood of finding two partial fingerprints that are the same finger is very remote. in my 18 years of doing latent print work, we have not done it since here. >> investigators compared the left thumbprint to every print in their files of known criminal offenders. at the time, those examinations were all done by hand. it took hundreds of hours, but they didn't find one that matched. >> i began to wonder if he was ever going to be identified.

>> the teenager said the assailant had a southern accent. investigators thought he might be from one of the nearby military bases. >> i spent the whole week just going up and down the coast fingerprinting army personnel. >> but that, too, was a dead end. >> i felt that at some point he would be caught. but then over a period of time, too, it was like nothing was being solved. nothing was coming up. everything went cold on it. >> it took another three years before police got their first real break. a homeowner near the murder scene was doing some yard work when he came across part of a handgun. >> he was clearing out his backyard and found the chamber to a handgun and thought, well, maybe it had something to do with the frame he found a year prior. so he went in his garage, looked at it, put it together, and

found it was a match. >> police identified the gun as a nine-shot harrington & richardson .22 caliber revolver. from the serial number, police discovered the gun was purchased by g.d. wilson from a sears store in shreveport, louisiana. >> at the time that they interviewed the person who sold that gun, he told them that he believed the man was from out of town and his accent didn't sound like a louisiana accent. it sounded more southern than that. >> on the same day he bought the gun, a george d. wilson rented a room in the ymca just across the street from the sears store. >> we actually went into the room where this george wilson had checked in, and from the window of this room you could see the sears store. and it was just kind of -- for us, it was kind of overwhelming being in there and seeing that

and trying to figure out what was going on in this man's mind when he was there. >> george wilson listed his home address in miami, florida. >> the address turned out to be a rock quarry. there was nothing there. >> for approximately four years, they checked every person with that name in the united states. >> all were dead ends. it soon became clear that george wilson was not his real name. hi. say "hi" rudy. [ barks ] [ chuckles ] i'd do anything to keep this guy happy and healthy. that's why i'm so excited about these new milk-bone brushing chews. whoa, i'm not the only one. it's a brilliant new way to take care of his teeth. clinically proven as effective as brushing. ok, here you go. have you ever seen a dog brush his own teeth? the twist and nub design cleans all the way down to the gum line, even reaching the back teeth. they taste like a treat, but they clean like a toothbrush. nothing says you care like a milk-bone brushing chew. [ barks ]

nothing says you care like a milk-bone brushing chew. we'll be here at lifelock doing our thing: you do your share spontaneous moments thing, alerting you in ways your bank alone can't. get lifelock protection and live life free.

female announcer: it's sleep train's interest free for 3 event. get three years interest-free financing on beautyrest black, stearns & foster, serta icomfort; even tempur-pedic. plus, get free delivery, and sleep train's 100-day low price guarantee. you'll never find an interest rate lower than sleep train's interest free for 3 event, on now. ♪ sleep train ♪ ♪ your ticket to a better night's sleep ♪

for years, police in california searched unsuccessfully for the man who robbed four teenagers, stole their car, then killed two police officers. despite several promising leads, investigators were never able to identify a suspect. >> clues in that case that were taken from the time of the incident all through the '70s, '80s, '90s, clues of other people that may have been involved, anybody arrested in a lovers' lane with a gun, anybody that fit the m.o. of this crime, it was considered a clue. >> then in september of 2002, nearly five decades later, a woman called the el segundo police department with an almost unbelievable story. she said that her uncle had once bragged about killing the two

police officers back in the 1950s. >> this call kind of rejuvenated everything with hope. >> when police confronted the man, he denied it. his prints were compared to the killer's thumbprint left in the stolen car and did not match. but this dead end piqued the interest of a new generation of fingerprint experts. dale falicon and don kier decided to take a fresh look at the thumbprint lifted from the stolen car. they now had computer technology not available in 1957. so they digitally enhanced the killer's thumbprint, which made the images easier to see than the original inked fingerprint. >> sometimes there's areas that are not clear that could be smudged, there could be artifacts in there that are not clear.

so the computer may count that or read that as a particular characteristic. >> the digital copy of the killer's print was then loaded into iafis, the fbi's database of all known criminal offenders from every state in the country. 47 million sets of fingerprints were compared, and one seemed to match. >> we stood hovering over his computer screen, looking at all the ridge structure and the information there, and everything coincided. my words were, "oh, my god." >> the print belonged to gerald mason, who was now 70 years old, living in columbia, south carolina. he had been arrested for burglary in 1956, a year before the murders. officials in south carolina had only gotten around to submitting their fingerprints to the nationwide database just two months earlier.

mason was married, had children and grandchildren. he owned a number of gas stations, and had not been arrested for any other crimes in the years since the murders. >> now we've got a real suspect. but we were still a little bit apprehensive. okay. it's a fingerprint. it's an old fingerprint. what else do we have? >> one of the robbery victims, bob dewar, was brought in for a photographic lineup. but couldn't identify mason as the man who stole the car. so police needed to look further. >> they needed something more. and "what more" was me. >> the man who bought the murder weapon in 1956 and rented a room at a ymca in shreveport, louisiana, had printed his name on the register. paul edholme, a forensic document examiner, was asked to compare gerald mason's handwriting to the signature of george wilson on the ymca

register. almost immediately, edholme noticed that some letters seemed to jump off the page. >> first was the capital "g," because we had "g" in george and "g" in gerald. and as far as the height relationship, as far as the width of the letter, as far as the slant, the amount of strokes it took to form the letter, each one of those was consistent, and that was very important. >> there were other similarities in the letter "d" and "s," "o," "n." and there was something more. >> what i noted in mr. mason's handwriting was from 1957, at that time he was 23 years old, until 1999, his handwriting did not change one iota. it was exactly the same. >> edholme was convinced that

gerald mason signed the ymca register with the alias george d. wilson. nearly five decades after the crime, mason was arrested and charged with murder. >> when we introduced ourselves and told him we were homicide investigators, he was a little bit irritated and it was almost like you're here for that? that happened so long ago. i can't believe you're here bothering me with that, you know, 45, 46 years later.

based on the forensic in pursuit of all things awesome, amazing, and that's epic, bro, we've forgotten just how good good is. good is setting a personal best before going for a world record. good is swinging to get on base before swinging for a home run. [ crowd cheering ] good is choosing not to overshoot the moon, but to land right on it and do some experiments. ♪ so start your day off good with a coffee that's good cup after cup.

maxwell house. ♪ good to the last drop maxwell house. what's your favorite kind of cheerios? honey nut. but... chocolate is my other favorite... oh yeah, and frosted! what's your most favorite of all? hmm...the kind i have with you. me too. mayo? corn dogs? you are so outta here! aah! [ female announcer ] the complete balanced nutrition of great-tasting ensure. 24 vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, and 9 grams of protein. [ bottle ] ensure®. nutrition in charge™. [ bottle ] ensure®. they're the days to take care of business.. when possibilities become reality. with centurylink as your trusted partner, our visionary cloud infrastructure and global broadband network free you to focus on what matters. with custom communications solutions and responsive, dedicated support, we constantly evolve to meet your needs. every day of the week.

centurylink® your link to what's next.

based on the forensic evidence, prosecutors believe gerald mason bought the gun in louisiana, then checked into a ymca using the alias george d. wilson. mason was a drifter when he went to california in 1957. he may have been drinking near the hawthorne airport when he saw bob dewar's car parked in the lovers' lane. he robbed the teenagers, committed a sexual assault, then stole the car at gunpoint. while fleeing the scene, mason went through a traffic light and was stopped by two police officers.

the officers didn't know the car was stolen. mason got out of the car so the officers wouldn't see the stolen goods on the backseat. and when officer philips turned away, he fired three shots into his back. then, three more through the windshield, killing officer curtis. while speeding away, officer philips fired three shots with world-class precision. one went through the trunk, hitting mason in the back. when gerald mason was arrested, investigators asked him to remove his shirt. sure enough, he had a bullet wound on his back, proof that officer philips got him. >> the very last thing he did in life was to mark forever the man who killed him and his partner. and that's pretty compelling. because it's almost as if

someone is speaking to you from the grave telling you, ladies and gentlemen, i told you who it is. i pointed him out with my gunfire. >> that was never reported. as far as i know, to the media. i said, why didn't you tell us? because we didn't want anybody to know about it. we didn't want him to go and get plastic surgery or to, you know, whatever. and it's amazing. >> the gun was traced to shreveport, louisiana. the handwriting was gerald mason's, as was the thumbprint on the steering wheel of the car. >> i didn't realize i ran a red light. and i got out of the car, walked back to their car. my feelings were that what i had done was going to cause me to go to death row. so when the officer turned away from me, i shot both officers.

>> to avoid a public trial, gerald mason pleaded guilty to the murder of the two police officers and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. >> he only admitted the crime because it was in his best interest to do so. so that his family, his wife, his grandchildren, would not hear how he raped a teenager. he traded the lives of two on-duty police officers to avoid capture. >> it is impossible to express to so many people how sorry i am about that night. i do not understand why i did this. it is contrary to everything. it does not fit in my life. it is not the person i know. i detest these crimes. >> what people would say about him being at 24 years old and committing these crimes and then living a life crime-free.

it doesn't matter. he's a thief. he's a rapist and he's a murderer. he just got old. that's all there is to it. >> all the scientific, forensic evidence, we're going to see a lot more cold cases being solved based on the advancements in technology. in the aftermath of a fatal fire, one question remained. was it an accident or was it arson? it took the physics of a burning cigarette, the chemical composition of a flame, and a computer-simulated fire to determine how the fire started and who was responsible. for 25 years ed and rosalie camiolo lived in an affluent suburb outside of philadelphia.