knew was being on the side of jesus was being part of god's story in human history. two women from the same town killed in the same way suggested a serial killer was on the loose. there were unusual metal fragments on both victims. and investigators needed to find out what they were in order to stop a killer. the spirit of washington was traveling from seattle along the shores of lake washington when it stopped unexpectedly because of some work being done on the tracks ahead. >> ladies and gentlemen, we are slowing down. >> when the passengers looked outside, they saw more than just pretty scenery.

>> witnesses who were on the dinner train saw what appeared to them to be a human body laying in the bottom of this creek. >> local authorities secured the site and found the remains of a middle-aged woman wearing nightgown and slippers. a blue jacket was thrown nearby along with an empty pack of cigarettes. unfortunately, there were no fingerprints, dna or any other forensic evidence on the cigarette pack. >> the medical pathologist who performed this autopsy was not able to determine a cause of death. >> the medical examiner's ultimate autopsy didn't show any obvious signs of homicidal violence. yet it was clear from the circumstances that she was the victim of a homicide. >> after a review of missing persons reports, police identified the victim as 53-year-old arlene jensen who lived alone and worked as a seamstress.

her son reported her missing five weeks earlier when she failed to show up for work. >> he found the door ajar. her purse and her keys were on the end table and her car was in its stall. >> there was no sign of forced entry or any disturbance. but there were signs that someone other than arlene had been there. >> she was a very neat housekeeper. and there were ashes spilled all around the ashtray on the coffee table. that's something she just never did. >> there was various blankets, i looked at those. then i pulled them back. and i noticed in the area on the upper left-hand side on the pillow and on the sheet underneath that, they were blood stains and i tested that and they were indeed positive for blood. >> the comforter didn't have any blood but the sheets underneath did. this meant someone pulled the comforter over the sheet after the blood was dry, which would

have been about 30 minutes later. on the bathroom floor were some used towels and two cigarette butts were in the toilet with the seat and lid left up. all these clues told a story. >> some man had been in her home, some man had used the toilet and flipped his cigarette butts into the toilet and failed to flush before he left. >> someone has been there for a while, long enough to smoke at least one cigarette, possibly even two. they've had time to have blood dry, been there for at least 30 minutes, and then they have washed their hands or attempted to wash their hands and clean something up. >> the cigarette butts were the same brand as the empty package found near the victim's body. if arlene had been abducted from her apartment, the motive certainly wasn't robbery. >> her purse, which she always kept on a chair where she sat and watched television, was there.

her wallet was there, the keys to her car were there. >> forensic scientists found another important clue on arlene's bed. tiny bits of metal, most no bigger than a fraction of an inch. >> these are metal fragments which weren't just one type, even visually. some were silver color, some were brass color, some were copper colored. it was quite a large mixture of materials. something you normally don't see. >> investigators found those same metal shavings on arlene's body. >> gives you a significant tie between the body recovery scene and what you would believe to be the actual location of occurrence. >> on arlene's jacket were several beige nylon fibers. they were triangular in shape. the kind used in cars. this suggested that arlene's body had been inside a car with beige upholstery.

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the metal fragments found on arlene jensen's body and in her apartment were sent to the forensics lab for testing. under a microscope, scientists could see that the fragments were different shapes and sizes. the surfaces were corrugated and the composition of the metal varied from piece to piece. >> they were made of various types of steel, various grades of steel, various grades of brass. >> the unique shapes and the fact some were hollow were a clear indication of their origin. >> what that means to me is it's a piece of metal projected through the air. when it's projected through the air, metal, molten metal, when projected through the air is cooling very, very rapidly. with the air current as it goes through the air it dries to a soccer ball round shape. >> so investigators knew the killer was probably a machinist, someone who worked with metal at high heat on a lathe.

arlene jensen was a seamstress and there were no metal fragments like these in her workplace. the next clue came from an unlikely source almost 40 miles away. campers in a national park outside of seattle found a decomposed body of a young woman partially buried in a shallow grave. a leopard skin jacket was on the ground nearby. through dental records, the victim was identified as 29-year-old stephanie dittrick, an administrative assistant who was reported missing several weeks earlier. she was last seen at a fourth of july party. >> stephanie was at her residence on july 4th and there were people firing fireworks around the area and sounds like she was having a good time with the neighbors. >> stephanie told friends she planned to go camping, but no one knew if she went alone or with others.

>> we were still thinking she was going to come back. even when i was printing the flyers, i remember still thinking she was going to come back from some camping trip that she was having so much fun she just didn't want to come home for. >> investigators were stunned to discover tiny metal fragments on stephanie's body, like the ones found in the arlene jensen case. >> the first natural thing you have come up in your brain is, oh, these two people are connected. >> at 100 times magnification the fragments looked identical. but were they? to find out, analysts turned to a process known as energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry. the samples were bombarded with electrons. this created x-ray frequencies which were then charted and compared. >> each element has a set of characteristic x-rays. iron is different from chromium and chromium is different from

aluminum. >> the fragment samples contained steel and brass. the steel had the exact same combinations of iron, manganese and chromium. in the brass, copper and zinc were found in identical amounts. and all the samples had equal amounts of cerium, part of a compound used to ignite an oxyacetylene torch, a common item in machine shops. >> we examined all of them and could see the pattern that regardless of where they came from, they were basically the same kind of metal fragments, machining fragments. >> this proved that both arlene jensen and stephanie dittrick were killed by the same man. >> the science is starting to really catch up to the bad guys now. >> a serial killer was on the loose in the seattle area. he had to be stopped before he could kill again.

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while investigating stephanie dittrick's murder, police interviewed the guests at her 4th of july party, the last

time she was seen alive. they said stephanie spent most of her time talking to a man they did not know. >> while they didn't know his last name, they knew his name was gary. they knew that he bragged about being a drummer in a rock band. >> stephanie's family identified the man as her oldest and dearest friend, gary ackley. when interviewed by police, ackley recalled he was at the party but wasn't there specifically to be with stephanie. >> one of the things he told us was he had gone there to locate somebody else, had seen stephanie, so stopped to talk. the witnesses said it seemed a little bit more than that. >> then police did a background check on 29-year-old gary ackley and discovered some alarming information. gary ackley was related to the first murder victim, arlene jensen. ackley lived with arlene's daughter and they had two children together. when questioned by police, ackley said he loved his common

law mother-in-law and was devastated by her murder. but family members said that was a lie. >> well, he didn't like her. and it was no secret she didn't like him. but no one in the family did like him. >> their relationship can best be described as being acrimonious. arlene jensen was concerned about the welfare of her daughter whom she believed was at least verbally and psychologically being abused by gary ackley. >> arlene also didn't like the way ackley treated her grandchildren. >> when she would express those concerns, particularly in the presence of gary ackley, it became quite apparent that he didn't want her anywhere around. >> and ackley's fights with arlene were well-known to neighbors and family members. >> they got into a disagreement during which gary ackley called her at a minimum a bitch and depending on whose version you

believe a [ bleep ]. >> he said if she interfered any longer, he would kill her. >> she left the house they shared making statements like i'm not going to put up with with this and i don't know why you're putting up with this either, to her daughter. >> ackley's brand of cigarettes was another interesting coincidence. >> when he bought cigarettes, he bought the cheapest cigarettes he could get his hands on. those were basic, b-a-s-i-c, brand cigarettes. that was the kind of cigarette butts located in the toilet of arlene jensen's house. and there was a box of basic brand dumped where arlene jensen's body was found some six weeks later. >> what was most telling to investigators was gary ackley's profession. >> gary ackley worked as a fabricator. he worked in a metal shop and much of his time he spent on a lathe. >> this was suspicious since metal fragments were found on both stephanie dittrick's body as well as arlene jensen's.

with a search warrant, investigators found metal shavings on ackley's jeans, in his car and in his workplace. when tested with energy dispersive x-ray spectronomy, scientists discovered that the shavings from gary ackley were the same as those found on both murder victims. but ackley's lawyer said this proved nothing. they claimed it shouldn't be surprising the metal shavings were the same because ackley knew both victims and could have transferred those particles weeks earlier. so investigators turned to the beige fibers found on the jacket near his mother-in-law's body. >> it was an infrared photospectrometer which identifies this polymer fiber as a nylon fiber. we also used a microspectrophotometer for basically identifying and comparing color of a specific

fiber. >> and what he found was that those beige fibers on arlene's jacket came from the back seat of ackley's car. interestingly, there were several blue nylon fibers found inside ackley's car that were microscopically similar to the fibers from arlene's jacket. this is called a cross-transfer. >> that jacket had been in contact with some area of the car that had carpet fibers that were shedding on to her jacket. his car was in some contact with the blue jacket. >> in fact, the blue jacket fibers were found on only one area of the car's back seat. this was a clear indication that arlene was either unconscious or immobile while she was in her son-in-law's car. >> she didn't move a lot.

yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of movement with the jacket. if you're sitting in the rear seat of a car and you never move, that's where the transfer would be. >> finally, in the national park near where stephanie dittrick's body was found, investigators discovered remnants of a campfire. some of stephanie's personal items were strewn in the grass along with a plastic shopping bag. >> there was a shopping bag from a local grocery store and once it was submitted to the washington state patrol crime laboratory, what we found was a very clear latent fingerprint left by none other than gary ackley. >> the fingerprint, along with the metal fragments and fibers, clearly tied gary ackley to both crime scenes. prosecutors knew why ackley killed his mother-in-law arlene. what they couldn't figure out is why he killed his childhood

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this is good ham, diane. paperless discounts -- give it a rest, flo. all: yeah, flo, give it a rest. prosecutors believe that gary ackley killed arlene jensen out of anger. he wanted revenge for what he believed was her meddling in the way he raised her grandchildren. and the way he treated her

daughter. >> the offensive thing about stereotypes, i think most people would agree, is that they're oftentimes true. but i will say that one stereotype that i think gary ackley is a perfect example of is a domestically violent woman-abusing killer. >> prosecutors believe ackley had access to arlene's apartment key and used it to enter her home late one night after she was in bed. the autopsy results aren't clear about how he killed arlene, but the evidence suggests she was killed while in bed. metal fragments dropped from ackley's clothes on to the sheets, fragments he couldn't see. he stayed in arlene's apartment long enough to smoke two cigarettes and wash his hands. then he hid the blood-stained

sheets with the comforter. the trace evidence shows he put arlene's body into the back seat of his car, creating the fiber cross-transfer. ackley dumped her body a mile away in a field near the railroad tracks unaware he left more metal shavings there. he also left another calling card. an empty pack of his favorite brand of cigarettes, the same brand he left in his mother-in-law's bathroom. but what was the motive for stephanie dittrick's murder? >> by all accounts gary ackley had a big mouth. >> prosecutors think in a moment of weakness, ackley told stephanie that he killed arlene. prosecutors found a witness who

saw ackley and stephanie camping stth -- together on the 4th of july weekend. prosecutors believe ackley killed his childhood friend in order to silence her, burying her body in a shallow grave. again, leaving the tell-tale metal fragments behind. when he disposed of stephanie's personal items, he left his fingerprint on the shopping bag. >> i don't think there's anything i could say that would bother him because someone that can kill their girlfriend's mom and their kids' grandma is untouchable emotionally. so i wouldn't even try. >> a year after the crimes, gary ackley was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. despite the mountains of forensic evidence against him, arlene jensen's daughter julie

refused to believe that ackley killed her mother. so after his conviction, she cemented their common-law relationship by formally marrying him in a prison ceremony. >> i don't know. i've tried to understand that before and all i can make of it is domestic violence in its severest form. the brainwashing, the abuse that just makes that person just not even think for themselves because it's so plain to see. you know. >> two murders, seemingly unrelated, but unmistakably connected by a series of microscopic clues. >> detectives all over this country are solving murder cases that are 20 or 30 or 40 years old based on science that didn't exist seven or eight years ago. so my expectation is that gary ackley, one, was not a very intelligent fellow and two, there was not this blitz of information from the media about

murder investigations that would have ever given him any pause to consider the fact that he was bringing to each of these two crime scenes the most compelling evidence that would be used to convict him. there was a shooting in an upscale neighborhood in oklahoma city. ballistics identified the use of two different guns which meant at least two shooters. these small marks on a shotgun shell, some singed fibers and a crime reconstruction revealed a plot more twisted than anyone could have imagined. to outsiders, it looked as if rob andrew had everything anyone could want. he had a high-paying job with an advertising agency, lots of friends and a growing family whom he described as his source of strength.