that we employed and the development of at least one key piece of forensic evidence was literally 21st century technology in the 20th century. >> all homes have a history, which includes the memories, hopes, and dreams of all who have lived there. but this home, in a quiet, upscale neighborhood in suburban new york, held something more. in a steel drum, stored in a crawl space, was a secret that someone had hoped would last a lifetime. september 2, 1999, was moving day for the cohen family in jericho, new york.

before leaving that day, ronald cohen noticed that the sanitation workers hadn't picked up all of his trash. a note on the large steel drum said it wasn't removed because of its weight. cohen had no idea what was inside since it had been in a crawl space in his home since the day he moved in nine years earlier. when he broke the seal, cohen was overcome by a terrible stench. inside he saw what appeared to be a human hand and a lady's shoe. local police transported the drum to the nassau county morgue, where all of its contents were carefully removed for forensic examination. inside were the mummified remains of a young woman. there were also some plastic pellets, a green plastic flower stem with leaves, and a woman's

pocketbook, which was submerged in a mysterious brownish-green liquid at the bottom of the drum. the liquid had virtually destroyed the contents of the pocketbook which might have identified the victim. the cause of death appeared to be blunt force trauma to the head. >> what was most noteworthy to the body in the cause of death was there were ten different injuries called lacerations to the back and upper part of the head. there were multiple fractures to the skull. the skull was broken into small pieces. there also was bloodstaining to these areas of injuries, indicating they had occurred while she was alive. >> but who was this murdered woman? the medical examiner determined that the woman was either white or hispanic, between 20 and 30 years of age. she stood approximately five feet tall. she also had some unusual dental work. >> it didn't appear to be dental

work that was performed in the united states. it led me to believe it was from a south american country. >> when the doctor x-rayed the body, he made a shocking discovery -- a 17-inch fetus, a close to full-term baby boy, three pieces of jewelry removed from the body, two rings, and a locket that was inscribed to patrice, love uncle phil. the first discovery would come from the barrel itself. there were several coded numbers on the drum. one was as good as a fingerprint. it led to a chemical company in linden, new jersey. company records indicated that the drum was manufactured in 1965. now, 34 years later, it shows up as someone's makeshift coffin. that's keeping you from the healthcare you deserve..

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a 55-gallon steel drum, concealed in a crawl space of a suburban new york home, revealed shocking evidence of a homicide.

the most recent owner said it had been in the crawl space since the day he moved in in 1990. the owner before that told police the same thing and said it never occurred to him to open the container since there were chemical labels on the side. the woman's purse found in the liquid at the bottom of the drum contained some papers and an address book. the pages were illegible since the liquid had reduced the paper to little more than pulp. they were all sent to a forensic document examiner for analysis. >> it was so heavily and thickly encrusted with a brownish-yellow slime. it was like a jelly-like substance and it coated everything. and when i touched the evidence with my gloves on, i could see it just came right off on my hands. >> the items had to be placed in a forensic drying cabinet for several days to draw out the moisture.

when dry, they could be examined with a video spectral compartor, or vsc, which combines digital engineering with a full range of infrared light sources, in order to visualize writing that is not discernible with the naked eye. this technology can show where alterations have been made on a check with the various light sources. under an infrared luminescence setting, the different ink will glow. magnification can also detect when official documents have been altered. two pages of a legal contract appear the same. but under ultraviolet light, it reveals that one of the pages was added later. indented impressions left behind become visible with oblique, or side lighting. light from behind, or transmitted light, can show what's written under correction fluid.

after the pages from the barrel were dry, the results were disappointing. the liquid had removed the ink from the pages. but after hours of meticulous and delicate work under infrared camera filters, the document examiner started to see some names and addresses in the address book. but the information in the address book was 30 years old. and when investigators dialed the telephone numbers, the individuals had long since moved. facing an apparent dead end, investigators turned their attention to the family who owned the home in the 1960s, the time frame in which the steel drum had been manufactured. the owner in those years was a man named howard elkins, who is now retired and living in boca raton, florida. >> and we have people in the neighborhood who were long-term residents who said he was involved in a plastic company in manhattan.

the plastic connection rang alarm bells since a plastic leaf and plastic pellets were found in the drum, along with the murdered woman. in the 1960s, howard elkins was part owner of the melrose plastic company in manhattan. the company manufactured plastic plants and trees. as investigators made plans to interview howard elkins in florida, the address book from the drum started to reveal more names and more secrets. oh yea, that's coming down let's get some rocks, man. health can change in a minute. so cvs health is changing healthcare. making it more accessible and affordable, with walk-in medical care, no appointments needed

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he'sthere's a guy out there whose making a name for himself in a sport where your name and maybe a number are what define you. somewhere in that pack is a driver that can intimidate the intimidator. a guy that can take the king 7 and make it 8. heck. maybe even 9. make no mistake about it. they're out there.

i guarantee it. welcome to the nascar xfinity series. the pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together in the search for the identity of the murdered pregnant woman found in the metal drum. the serial numbers on the drum led investigators to a chemical company based in new jersey. >> i went there with a detective from our lab, who had some knowledge of chemicals. we went there, we showed them the pellets, and we showed them the green material. showed them pictures of the barrel. >> the chemical company identified the green liquid in the bottom of the drum as a dye, a halogen green dye used to

color the bases on plastic flowers and trees. but it hadn't been manufactured since 1971. the pellets in the drum were the kind used to make plastic flowers and leaves like the one found with the body. the local newspaper coverage of the unidentified woman in the steel drum led to an anonymous telephone call to the nassau county police. >> he tells us about the drum, where it comes from. he tells us that was the chemicals that they used when they were mixing the bases for these artificial trees. he puts all this together. he puts everything in perspective for us. >> the caller did not know the identity of the dead woman, but said that howard elkins was having an affair in the 1960s with an hispanic woman that worked for him in his plastic factory. >> we now have things to talk to him about other than the fact that there was a barrel found under his house.

>> when police flew to boca raton, florida, to speak with howard elkins, he wasn't entirely cooperative. >> did you ever use this type of a barrel in your business? no. we never had any barrels like that. he lies to us. we knew he was lying to us within five minutes of the interview. i asked him at one point, did you ever have an affair? he kind of surprised us and he said yes. we went into, what was her name? i don't know. can you describe her? it was 30 years ago. i said you can't even describe her? was she tall, was she short, was she fat, was she skinny, was she spanish? i don't remember. >> after 20 minutes of this, i had removed from my briefcase a kit, and i asked him if he would give me permission for me to take a swab from the inside of his mouth for dna purposes to see if he was, in fact, the father of that baby. he told us no. he didn't think he would allow

that. >> the interview was interrupted by a phone call from elkins' wife. elkins asked the police to leave, saying he wanted to speak with her privately. >> i stood up and stood right in front of him. i said we're going to leave right now, mr. elkins. we're going to get a court order. we'll come back with that court order, and i'm going to take your blood and i'm going to match your blood up to the dead baby in that dead girl. and we're going to come back and arrest you for murder and put you in jail for the rest of his life. he nodded his head and opened the door and asked us to leave. >> as police left to get the court order, howard elkins left to go shopping. he purchased a shotgun and some ammunition. howard elkins was found inside a neighbor's garage by police and his own son. a shotgun between his legs, a fatal self-inflicted wound to his head.

the 70-year-old retired plastics executive left no final note of explanation. after his suicide, investigators took a sample of howard elkins blood and sent it to lab corp, a north carolina dna testing facility. >> when we're testing for paternity, we look for shared dna bands between the child, or the fetus, and the alleged father. >> in the case of the fetus found in the drum, there were obstacles to overcome. the tissue samples from the fetus were very badly degraded after 30 years. a technique called polymerase chain reaction, or pcr, allowed scientists to amplify the existing dna, making an analysis possible. >> this is the dna banding pattern from the fetus. this is the dna banding pattern from mr. elkins.

at every region of the dna that we tested, the fetus and mr. elkins have a band in common. mr. elkins could not be excluded with a 99.93% probability of paternity. >> although the crime was solved, one mystery remained. the identity of the woman in the drum.

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he'sthere's a guy out there whose making a name for himself in a sport where your name and maybe a number are what define you. somewhere in that pack is a driver that can intimidate the intimidator. a guy that can take the king 7 and make it 8. heck. maybe even 9. make no mistake about it. they're out there. i guarantee it. welcome to the nascar xfinity series.

the small address book that had been submerged in the green liquid in the bottom of the drum was finally starting to tell a story. 30-year-old secrets on blank pages that were now readable with the latest in forensic technology. >> i kept looking through the book and on this page, on the second line, i found the name mr. elkins and the address in manhattan with a phone number. >> on another page, barely readable were the words -- a resident alien number. and the address and telephone number of someone named kathy andrade. investigators were surprised to learn that, after 30 years, she

was still living in the same apartment with the same telephone number. kathy andrade knew immediately the identity of the pregnant young woman in the drum. she was a student in her english class, reyna angelica marroquin, from el salvador. >> this lady almost immediately went to tears. she told us she knew angelica marroquin. she was one of the more lovely people that she ever knew and that she disappeared 30 years ago. >> kathy andrade never knew what happened to her friend, although she feared that she had met with foul play. >> i said, oh, my god. you know, it's hard to believe that these things can happen. >> reyna marroquin came to the united states in 1966 and lived here, in a modest room in a catholic home for single women. she attended classes at the high school of fashion industry and

got a job at the melrose plastic company making artificial flowers. >> she had a beautiful personality. she always talk about her family, and she was in touch with the family, how much she love new york, and her dream was to become an american citizen. >> shortly before she disappeared, reyna told kathy that she was pregnant but she did not tell her who the father was. >> is he going to marry? she said, eventually he will marry me. i never asked who because she never said who he was. >> but reyna told kathy that her boyfriend was married with three other children, and reyna was beginning to question whether he had any intention of leaving his wife and children to marry her. >> so she got very angry, she called the house and was on the phone with his wife. and she told his wife that she was expecting a baby from her husband.

then he call her back and he says, i am going to kill you. i will never forgive you. she was crying. she was terrified. she said, he's going to kill me, he's going to kill me. i said, why? she said, i don't know, i just made a stupid mistake. >> when kathy andrade went to reyna's apartment, she found the door unlocked, but there was no sign of reyna. >> and i waited for about three hours. and when nobody returned and the phone never rang, i got scared. i walk into the police station, and i spoke to the officer. he says, are you a relative of the young lady? i said, no, i'm only a friend. but she's pregnant and about to have a baby. oh, she probably went shopping. >> since kathy andrade didn't know the identity of reyna's lover, there was little more she could tell police. >> about reyna, honestly, i feel sorry because there was a future for her. she paid very dear for that

mistake. >> mr. elkins. >> investigators believe that howard elkins lured reyna to the factory one night, shortly after she told elkins' wife about their affair, and elkins beat her to death. he then took the body to his suburban long island home, probably with the intention of dumping her into the ocean from his boat. he placed the body into a steel drum from work. to make sure it would sink to the bottom of the ocean, he weighted it with plastic pellets. but he miscalculated the weight of the drum after he sealed it. at 350 pounds, it was much too heavy to carry onto his boat. his only alternative was to push it into a crawl space in his

home, and there it remained undisturbed through numerous owners for 34 years. and if trash collectors hadn't refused to pick up the drum, the secret of howard elkins and reyna angelica marroquin might never have been discovered. oscar corral covered the story for "news day." he flew down to el salvador to try to find reyna's family. in san martin, a small village, outside san salvador, he found reyna's 95-year-old mother. >> she came out to the front of the house where there's a porch. i said to her, i'm a reporter from "news day" new york. i told her police had discovered a woman who had been murdered 30 years ago. and when she saw her daughter's picture, she almost fainted. she had to lean on someone who was carrying her. her face fell.

she immediately began to weep. it had been 30 years that this woman waited for an answer. she told me she had dreams about her daughter for 30 years. she told me she had a dream even that her daughter was in a barrel. that haunted her for so long. >> reyna left el salvador because she discovered her husband had a lover who was pregnant with her husband's child. when she fled to new york city, reyna found herself in the same situation, although this time she was the pregnant other woman in a love triangle that had disastrous consequences. >> so she was on both sides of the fence in this case. and in the end, it cost her her life. >> investigators found one last message on a blank piece of paper found in the drum alongside reyna and her unborn child.

a message possibly from reyna herself to howard elkins. it said, don't be mad. i told the truth. dianna green was just 20 years old and pregnant when she was brutally raped and beaten in her apartment. the assault caused the death of her unborn baby. when dianna came out of a coma three weeks later, she told police she knew the identity of her attacker, but was her memory accurate? in 1979, dianna green was in the first year of marriage to kevin green, a 21-year-old marine stationed at the el toro ta