-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com up next, a young boy is the only witness to murder, but he didn't see the man's face. >> whoever came there, came there with a specific purpose to kill. >> the killer did almost everything right. >> the serial number on this weapon was obliterated. >> until he made one small mistake. >> that masking tape was of the same color as the masking tape that was wrapped around the homemade silencer. >> it was a crime that defied a simple explanation. >> the goriest crime scene i've ever witnessed in my 17 years of law enforcement. >> if they had not found the big bag of evidence, this crime may never have been solved.

>> 4-year-old johnny huffman was usually driven to preschool by a family member. on this morning, he ran to school, wearing only his pajamas and a pair of boots. when he got to his classroom an hour late, he was covered in blood and told his teachers some terrible news about his great grandparents. >> i found them on the balcony. [ sirens ] >> police were immediately called to johnny's home. >> i ended up entering into the myers' bedroom, where i found jack and linda myers lying in bed, and both were deceased as a result of gunshot wounds to their heads. some sort of silencer. >> it was quilting material used to make quilts for baby blankets. it had masking tape on one end and some black powder on it. it was shaped in the form of a cone-shaped thing.

>> the murder weapon was a 12-gauge shotgun, and it was apparent that jack was killed before linda. >> because her injuries were not just to her head but also to her hands. so she may have started to wake up and raise her hands because it showed an injury to the hand as well as to her face. >> this raised the possibility that jack myers was the primary target. the motive didn't appear to be robbery. no money or valuables were missing. >> there was a deposit bag in plain view in the kitchen. it was the money from the pizza business that they ran. there was a significant amount of cash in that deposit bag. it hadn't been disturbed, hadn't been taken. >> the medical examiner estimated that the time of death was between 4:00 and 6:00 a.m. police canvassed the area. and one of the neighbors saw a minivan in the myers' driveway as she left for work around 4:30 in the morning. >> she wasn't familiar with either jack or linda having a

minivan. so it struck her as very odd that a minivan would be backing out of the residence at that time of the morning. >> the neighbor could not provide a detailed description of the van or the driver. outside the myers' home, the phone lines had been cut and a basement window had been removed. investigators also found shoe impressions in the dirt. casts were made for later analysis. >> it was a partial print of the shoe. did not find a complete, full impression of the entire shoe. just a partial print. >> 4-year-old johnny was the only other person living in the house. his great-grandparents had custody because his mother was a teenager and too young to care for him. when questioned, johnny told police he didn't hear any loud noises like gunshots during the night, only that he found his great-grandparents in a pool of blood when he woke up.

>> he had taken a kleenex and he tried to wipe the blood. and he reported to us that the blood was just too much and he couldn't do anything about it. >> but johnny was able to tell investigators one important thing. he said some time during the night, he saw a green monster in his bedroom. did this mean that johnny saw the killer? (music) defiance is in our bones. defiance never grows old. citracal maximum. calcium citrate plus d. highly soluble, easily absorbed.

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just before dawn, an unidentified gunman broke into a farmhouse in bradford, ohio, and killed the owners, jack and linda myers. it was clear to investigators that the double homicide had nothing to do with robbery. >> nobody appeared to have ransacked through drawers or closets or anything looking for anything. so it appeared to the investigators that whoever had entered the home had obviously done it because they intended to kill jack and linda myers. >> the couple had been married for seven years and each had children from previous marriages. >> even though my mom met jack at a later time in her life, that was her soul mate, that was

her knight in shining armor. >> investigators knew that the couple ran a pizza shop, but they found no indication they had problems with business associates. however, jack's side businesses raised concerns. >> jack started a car business. he would buy cars, repair them and sell them to people, and a majority of these vehicles would be sold on payments, you know, to help people out. >> not surprisingly, some of these people were unable to make the payments. >> we had learned that if people weren't paying their car payment on time, he had no problem going and seizing that vehicle, repossessing it and taking it back. >> the myers also owned some rental properties and had recently evicted tenants who were behind in their rent. >> and we had to look at that as a motive for the murder. >> when investigators asked family members if there were any relatives who wanted to do jack

and linda harm, they all identified the same person, andrew huffman. >> andrew huffman is the biological father of the 4-year-old little boy that jack and linda have custody of. linda and andrew huffman's relationship was strained from the beginning. >> huffman had refused to pay child support for johnny. >> andrew did not like my mother. she made him very angry, because she would not let him be around johnny. it escalated to just a heated argument, and he threatened to kill her. >> after an exhaustive search, investigators found andrew huffman in another state. >> we were able to put a timeline together. he was placed at his own residence in kentucky. would not give him enough time to get up to greenville, ohio. >> so, huffman was eliminated as a suspect. another family member holding a grudge was jack myers'

25-year-old son, gregg. gregg was divorced and going through some financial difficulties. he was missing work due to some drug and alcohol problems. his house was about to be foreclosed, so he asked his father for help. >> he didn't come out and say, no, i'm not helping you. it's like, gregg, stay off the drugs and alcohol, go to work every day, pay your bills and you can save your house. >> and police learned that gregg stood to inherit his father's farmhouse in the event of his death. >> gregg myers denied having any involvement in the murder of his father or stepmother. >> he worked 30 miles away at a local car parts factory and punched in at 5:23 a.m. >> we spent a considerable amount of time at his place of employment, searching a number of dumpsters there, but a search of the dumpsters at that manufacturing plant revealed nothing. >> police obtained a warrant to

search gregg's house but came up empty. >> we were never able to locate a 12-gauge shotgun at his house. we were looking for a 12-gauge slugs, ammunition, any kind of thing. we never found any of those items in his residence. >> they also found that gregg wore shoes two sizes bigger than the shoe impressions found at the crime scene. and police found no green overalls or hunting outfit like the one johnny described seeing on the night of the murders. with no other viable suspects, police were starting to worry that the murders might never be solved. (mother vo) when i was pregnant

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the medical examiner estimated that jack and linda myers were murdered some time between 4:00 and 6:00 a.m. the prime suspect, jack's 25-year-old son, gregg, had an alibi for at least part of that time. he was said he was at work 30 miles away and had a stamped timesheet to prove it. >> i remember specifically, i think 5:23 a.m., he remembered the exact time he supposedly clocked in on that day. other than that, he denied going near his father's house. >> but gregg myers did have a motive. he was in financial trouble, and he would inherit his father's farmhouse in the event of his

death. >> basically, everybody's a suspect. >> i've seen enough stuff that, as far as "law & order" and stuff, court tv, family's always the first suspect. >> there wasn't a significant amount of cash that was going to come to gregg. it was mostly assets that he would receive, and that asset was in the form of property. >> on a hunch, investigators and volunteers searched all known traffic routes between the crime scene and gregg's workplace. >> systematically, we're going to all the bridges and all of the known routes. there's only so many you can take and have gotten there in a reasonable amount of time. >> it took five days to search the 30 miles of roads and bridges, and they had come up empty, but they still had one more place to look. >> the suggestion was made by a deputy and a division of wildlife officer that there was another location that they felt

might have been used, or another bridge that crosses stillwater river. >> and it was there in the shallow portion of the stillwater river that investigators got their first break. >> it was a 12-gauge winchester pump shotgun. it had masking tape around the handle of the barrel. >> that masking tape was of the same color and the same width as the masking tape that was wrapped around the homemade silencer device left at the crime scene. >> also, it had the serial number scratched off. >> my initial impression was we're never going to get these numbers up. and if we do, we might get one or two at best. >> the stillwater river bridge was just nine miles from the crime scene. about a half mile downstream, police discovered a black plastic bag that had floated down the river and become caught in some overhanging branches. >> it only makes sense, if the

guy is going to throw the shotgun in the river, he's going to throw the other forensic evidence in the river. >> inside police found a pair of latex gloves, two spent shotgun shells, a green hunting jumpsuit and quilts material similar to the stuffing for the homemade silencer. >> we also found other items of clothing in addition to a stocking mask that appeared to have been used. >> they also found tennis shoes which were compared to the shoe impressions found at the crime scene. >> examination of the cast taken at the scene in comparison with those with the shoes revealed they were consistent in tread design. >> but the tennis shoes were two sizes smaller than the shoe size of their prime suspect, gregg myers. so, again, there was nothing in the bag that linked gregg myers directly to the murders. >> they were certainly concerned that a murderer could go free unless they did a lot of work to put the case together after that point. >> since the serial number on

the shotgun had been ground off, investigators sent the gun to forensic scientist timothy duerr. he knew that scratch marks usually aren't as deep as the original engraving. >> the serial number may only be a few thousandths of an inch, but the compressed metal goes a lot deeper into the metal. >> to restore the serial number, duerr applied an acid solution which only works at one level and goes no deeper. >> it will actually eat away and you can actually burn past the point of compression. it reacts differently between the compressed and uncompressed metal. compressed being the serial number. >> the acid solution removed the top surface, leaving the bottom, or compressed metal, virtually untouched. >> upon utilizing restoration techniques on this shotgun, i was able to restore five of the eight digits in the serial number. >> those restored were l3145.

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that the shotgun and clothes dumped in the stillwater river belonged to their prime suspect, gregg myers. >> one of the things we suspected was that he probably sought out a firearm through a classified ad, which also means there's no atf paperwork to connect gregg to the firearm. >> on a hunch, investigators subpoenaed gregg's cell phone records and looked for any unusual numbers. >> detectives basically went through those records looking for individual numbers that stand out. >> two numbers belonged to individuals who advertised shotguns for sale in a local newspaper. one seller recalled making a sale that week. >> eugene adams advised detectives at that point, yeah, someone had called his number, came and purchased the shotgun from him. >> adams told investigators that a man who identified himself as gregg myers bought a 12-gauge winchester shotgun. adams identified myers' picture from a photo lineup.

adams also had the serial number of the gun he sold to myers. it matched the serial number of the shotgun found in the stillwater river. but prosecutors needed to find a way to definitively tie gregg myers to the evidence found in the garbage bag. and to do that, scientists looked once more at the pair of latex gloves. most fingerprints are perspiration, and perspiration is 99% water. >> i didn't hold much hope we were going to get any fingerprints, because this bag had already been in water for several days, submerged in water. so the chance for fingerprints was very minimal. >> but just to be sure, they used ultraviolet light both inside and out. >> the light will basically reflect off the surface, and basically, i think the light is actually absorbed by the fingerprint itself. >> amazingly, inside houston found what scientists might call an anomaly but laymen call a

miracle. >> this is the only case i can remember i've ever had a print come up to this quality that had been in the water for three, four, five days. >> it was a partial print of an index finger and it matched gregg myers. it survived, most likely because he touched skin oil first. >> with all the planning that he tried to do to avoid leaving evidence, he ends up leaving a fingerprint inside the glove with the right index finger, which would be his trigger finger. >> lastly police canvassed gun stores in the area and found an invaluable piece of surveillance tape. >> that videotape conclusively showed gregg myers while he was accompanied by his own two small children purchasing the ammunition. >> it was federal brand ammunition, the same used in the murders. >> and that happened just two

days before the crimes were committed. >> gregg myers was arrested and charged with two counts of murder. prosecutors believe gregg bought undersized shoes, overalls to protect his clothing and what he believed to be an untraceable shotgun. he fashioned a homemade silencer, then headed to his father's house around 4:00 in the morning. he staged the scene to make it look like a break-in and left his shoe impressions, evidence he wanted police to find. according to the autopsy, he shot his father first. his stepmother woke up, raised her arm to protect herself, and he shot her, too. gregg then went upstairs to check on johnny, who must have

pretended he was asleep, or else he may have been killed, too. although johnny didn't recognize his uncle's face, he certainly remembered the green overalls. it was gregg's van that the neighbor saw leaving the house around 4:30 in the morning. on his way to work, gregg threw the shotgun into the stillwater river. he put everything else in the garbage bag and threw that into the river as well. the next morning, tragically, 4-year-old johnny woke to find his great-grandparents dead. incredibly, he ran over a mile to his preschool. no one knows how he possibly found it, but he did. when he got there, he described the scene in the only way he could, by simply explaining what

he saw. >> i walked into my grandparents' room and i found them -- >> a jury found gregg myers guilty of two counts of aggravated murder. he was sentenced to two life sentences with no possibility of parole. for all his careful planning, he never realized two things. first, that the police could raise the scratched serial number and tie the shotgun to him. and second, that he left his fingerprint inside the latex glove that tied him to everything in the garbage bag. >> when we found that shotgun, it was just amazing. it was a sense of relief that we had some physical evidence we could get our hands on that i was hoping was going to connect him. >> mr. myers attempted to commit the perfect crime. he planned, he schemed, he purchased.

he had it all thought out. but in the end, it didn't work out in his favor. thankfully, it worked out on the side of justice. up next, her death was first ruled an accident. >> he thought he was going to get away with it. >> until the autopsy proves otherwise. >> fire in this case was used in an attempt to cover a murder. >> but who wanted this woman dead? and why? >> greed and money are probably the oldest motives in the world for a murder. >> but would he get away with it? >> he thought he was a pretty smart guy. that was the mistakes he made. just after dusk in november of 2000, firefighters in augusta, georgia, were dispatched to a mobile home fire on the south side of town.