paper was light gold in medieval times i want tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong in pennsylvania a missing person's case quickly turns into a homicide investigation only a piece of rope can link a suspect to the murder detectives in washington state discover a family brutally murdered to expose the killer forensic examiners look to the victim's own blood [Music] a 13 year old boy in phoenix arizona vanishes without a trace with no body and little physical evidence investigators struggle to make their case when juveniles commit murder homicide detectives enter a realm of twisted logic they turn to forensic examiners to follow the evidence not the excuses when promising lives become wasted youth [Music] in this episode some of the names have been changed cambria county lies in the rural northeastern highlands of pennsylvania it's a small tight-knit community that experiences few violent crimes but on november 6th 1997 ronald klutz discovered that his son was missing [Music] he told police that his 15 year old son micah pollock never returned home from school that day he said he and his son were very close and it was unlike micah to take off and not check in mr klotz explained that micah had come to live with him the previous spring he had moved to pennsylvania from ohio where he had been living with his mother micah seemed happy in his new home and was enjoying making new friends ronald klotz's ex-wife said she hadn't heard from micah in some time though teenage boys often run away from home detective greg batcher of the pennsylvania state police soon learned it was unlikely that this was the case with micah as we began to talk to his friends they said he wouldn't do that they said that he was not the kind of person who just up and leave he had no reason to up and leave and that that's when the suspicion began [Music] investigators learned that the missing teenager had recently begun dating a girl from school when questioned the girl told police that on the day micah disappeared he told her he was going hunting with 16 year old andrew callahan that surprised her andrew callahan was her ex-boyfriend and he seemed to resent micah she explained that when she and andrew broke up she began seeing micah but andrew was possessive and had even threatened micah on a few occasions andrew couldn't seem to let go [Music] he was very jealous uh very uh demanding of her and it just according to her that he was just you know watching her all the time he did not want her to be with someone else she wasn't sure if micah had actually gone on the hunting trip with andrew that day [Music] several days passed with no word from the teenager [Music] police friends and neighbors organized a search of the area surrounding micah's home but their efforts turned up no clues to the missing boys whereabouts desperate for a lead police set up a roadblock nearby and questioned passing motorists [Music] though it seemed like a long shot the effort paid off a man recognized a photograph of micah [Music] he was in the area a few days before and while pulled over in his vehicle he had seen micah with another teenager they were heading toward an abandoned strip mine the boy with micah carried a shotgun over his shoulder he thought the other teenager could have been andrew callahan the next day police and forensic technicians followed up on the lead they traveled to the strip mines where the motorist had seen the two teenagers a few days earlier recent heavy rains made searching the area for clues a challenge but soon after the search began investigators found something that seemed out of place it was a trash can in relatively good condition technicians found several red droplets on the can they tested positive for blood [Music] investigators preserved the murky rain water from inside the can for further testing [Music] a search of the surrounding area failed to yield any additional clues all of the evidence was forwarded to forensic examiners at the pennsylvania state police crime lab criminalist bruce tackett first needed to determine if the blood stains on the trash can had originated from an animal or a human using a chemical that reacts to proteins in human blood by turning pink tackett concluded the blood was human [Music] but to generate a genetic profile from the evidence tackett would need additional samples the remaining stains were too degraded for a more comprehensive analysis [Music] though there was a chance that blood was present within the liquid contents of the trashcan he realized that the rainwater had likely diluted it [Music] the only way to extract remaining blood proteins would be to first remove the water from the sample takit poured the liquid into a pan and then placed it in an evaporation chamber [Music] in this dry environment with an air current passing over the sample the liquid was slowly removed and the solids became more concentrated [Music] after most of the water had evaporated takit tested the sample to see if there was any blood protein in the residue he couldn't detect any but he did find a potentially valuable piece of trace evidence [Music] a single strand of human hair though there was no way to confirm whose hair it was police feared it had originated from micah pollock investigators returned to the area around the strip mines where they found the trash can this time they brought a cadaver dog the dog signaled to a nearby beaver pond there in a shallow area of the pond searchers found the decomposed body of a young man [Music] the victim had been shot in the back [Applause] his ankles were bound with rope and his clothes severely tattered through dental records the medical examiner confirmed that the week-long search for micah pollock had finally come to a tragic end micah had been killed by a 12-gauge shotgun fired at close range and based on the bruises and abrasions to the body the examiner concluded that the teenager had been killed elsewhere then dragged to the place where his body was found [Music] now investigators turned their focus to finding the boy's killer sixteen-year-old andrew callahan the last person seen with micah pollock was their prime suspect with his father present the teenager refused to answer any questions without an attorney andrew i have no choice but to arrest you though the case against him was largely circumstantial investigators placed callahan under arrest for suspicion of murder anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law detectives secured warrants to search the callahan family's home and vehicles almost immediately they found a clue and as we were going up the driveway you could see something hanging from the back of the vehicle near the bumper as we got closer it was obvious it was a piece of rope hanging from the vehicle it appeared to be the same type of rope found tied around micah's ankles as the team made their way to the residence they discovered more rope on the porch from inside the house they retrieved four shotguns and a bag of hunting clothes that belonged to andrew all of the items were sent to the crime lab for testing ballistics testing on shotgun pellets is nearly impossible [Music] and in this case examiners were unable to demonstrate that the shotguns retrieved from the callahan's home had been used to murder micah pollock but if technicians could identify even a tiny droplet of micah's blood on andrew's hunting clothes police would be one step closer to tying the suspect to the crime but none of the clothing samples tested positive for blood though convinced of andrew callahan's guilt police couldn't seem to find a shred of physical evidence linking him to the crime with the suspect unwilling to cooperate investigators were running out of ways to prove that callahan was a killer police in cambria county pennsylvania struggled to solve the murder of fifteen-year-old micah pollock whose bullet-ridden and tattered body was discovered in a remote pond though all of the circumstantial evidence pointed to sixteen-year-old andrew callahan as the killer pennsylvania state police had little physical evidence to prove it [Music] their last hope for making their case fell to forensic scientists at the pennsylvania state police crime lab examiner bruce tackett looked for consistencies between the rope found tied around the victim's ankles and the samples collected from the suspect's residence when i did the rope comparison this case i determined that the ropes were a clothesline type rope they had a woven or a braided cover over top of a core of fairly coarse man-made fibers i examined all three of those pieces of rope that i had determined that the construction on all of those was exactly the same for proof that all of the samples had originated from the same source tackett needed to examine the construction of the rope's core under a high-powered microscope he found that the fibers that made up the core were all indistinguishable from one another i was able to determine that those ropes were identical in construction and that the fibers used in the construction of those ropes were the same so essentially those three pieces of rope were identical the rope used to bind mica pollock's feet had come from the same source as the rope tied to andrew callahan's car we have all this evidence against you when confronted with the evidence andrew callahan decided to talk he admitted that he had shot micah while the two were hunting [Music] he claimed that when the shooting occurred he was tracking a bird as it flew into some nearby brush he believed his gun was positioned at a downward angle he didn't notice that micah who had been standing some distance away was in his line of fire afraid that police wouldn't believe his story he said he panicked and tried to get rid of the body [Music] looking to corroborate the suspect's story police turned to the evidence for answers from powder burns observed on micah's body the medical examiner concluded that the gun was no more than three feet away when it discharged and the shotgun pellets that entered the victim's back came to rest near his jaw the weapon had been held at an upward angle contradicting callahan's claim that he had been aiming at the ground when micah was shot police believe that callahan went hunting that day with only one target in mind i got another one over there up on the hill there last year and there's this uh the teenager who is now dating his ex-girlfriend pennsylvania state police detective greg batcher believed that after the shooting andrew systematically went about covering up his actions he purchased the garbage can at the store and then returned to the scene at some point in time he also gathered a piece of clothesline from his residence he took these items to the scene back to where the body was lying [Music] but when micah pollock's body wouldn't fit in the garbage can he used rope to drag the body some 400 feet behind his car until he reached a remote spot sixteen-year-old andrew callahan was tried as an adult he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentence to life without parole [Music] police believe that irrational jealousy drove andrew callahan to murder his rival but sometimes investigators can find no motive at all a suburb of seattle the woodbridge section of bellevue washington is a quiet neighborhood one that is unfamiliar with brutal crime on january 5th 1997 a morning 9-1-1 call brought bellevue police to a secluded park a passerby had discovered the lifeless body of a young woman a rope fastened tightly around the victim's neck made it clear she had been murdered police began searching for any form of identification to tell them who this victim was lying near the body they found a checkbook the account was in the name of karen white and it listed a san diego address bellevue police searched through records looking for a karen white who matched the victim's description homicide detective jeff gomes found a potential match a 20 year old woman with that name and physical description listed a previous address just a few blocks from the park where the body was found after confirming it was the same karen white that had been found murdered detective gomes had the grim task of making the notification as a detective one of the most difficult tasks you have is notifying nicks of kin of a death in their family i don't enjoy it it's very difficult to do several hours after the body was recovered detectives went to the white home though several cars were parked in the driveway the house was dark no one appeared to be home detectives discovered an unlocked door fearing that someone could be in danger one of the officers entered the property the house was eerily silent it appeared the residents had been robbed after finding no one downstairs the detective proceeded to the upper floors as he approached a bedroom he noticed blood stains on the outside of the door when he looked inside he discovered the lifeless body of a teenage girl [Music] she had been viciously beaten and stabbed to death he yelled for his partner to call in for backup [Music] next he followed a trail of blood that led down the hall into another room there he found another grisly scene a middle-aged couple lay dead their skulls had been crushed and they'd been stabbed repeatedly the victims were later identified as 17-year-old janet white and her parents regina and walter white they were the immediate family of the young woman found murdered in the park just hours earlier forensic technicians began searching for clues to help them reconstruct what happened all of the victims had been savagely beaten with a blunt object and then stabbed dozens of times in the face and neck police photographed and swabbed dozens of blood stains the only real clues to the killer's identity were bloody boot prints found on the carpet and one on the back of walter white's shirt though the triple murder at the white residence appeared to be the result of a robbery gone bad that didn't explain the murder of karen white just a few blocks away just the area around the water tower the the picnic area and stuff they look like there's some activity of people being up there but we don't know if it's related to the crime or not there's not a whole bunch in a community that witnessed few homicides police were convinced that finding an entire family murdered in one day was more than a coincidence [Music] the main question was are these scenes connected was that the same suspect acting in both scenes was it a one-time incident where a person killed this family and or was it a serial killer despite the lingering questions police were faced with the reality that at least one brutal killer was on the loose in the city of bellevue [Music] and until they could identify a suspect or an apparent motive police were powerless to stop him from killing again while searching for answers in the strangulation murder of 20 year old karen white bellevue washington police made a shocking discovery a few blocks away from where her body was found detectives discovered that her parents regina and walter white and her 17-year-old sister janet had been brutally beaten and stabbed to death in their home police focused their investigation on karen's murder believing that her killer was responsible for the other three homicides through interviews investigators learned that before karen moved to san diego to become a volunteer in the americorps program she associated with a tightly knit group of teenagers who were part of a movement referred to as goth young teenagers dressing all in black painting their faces white dyeing their hair they sometimes pretend to be vampires with the fang teeth and and they dress the part witches they pretend to be witches police learned that one of those friends had seen karen the night before her body was discovered the friend had stopped by the white residence karen had come back to bellevue for a few days to visit her family that night karen wanted to run out and do some last-minute errands before returning to san diego the following day [Music] after being dropped off at home a few hours later karen said she still had one more errand to run she wanted to see a teenager named david anderson who owed her some money the friend decided not to go along police jumped on the lead under questioning david anderson a 17 year old high school student confirmed he and karen white were friends but he said he hadn't seen her since she had come back into town on the night of the murder he stated he was at a friend's house all night he and his friend never left when asked if he owned any boots anderson said he had one pair and retrieved them for the detective but it was clear that the sole pattern on his boots did not resemble the bloody prince recovered from the victim's residence frustrated investigators continued interviewing karen white's friends one believed she had important information she said that on the night of the murders david anderson had been at her apartment hanging out with her roommate [Music] around 10 pm anderson and her roommate 17-year-old alex berani decided to go out she recalled that alex had something stuffed inside the sleeve of his overcoat she thought it was a bat or a club the woman fell asleep a short while later and was unsure what time the two returned to the apartment having caught david anderson in a lie police turned to his friend alex burani for additional information alex was cooperative and even friendly with police [Music] he insisted he and david had been home all night but when detectives confronted him with his roommate statements his demeanor changed homicide detective bob thompson his chin began to quiver he immediately started sweating and he became visibly nervous i at that time decided i think this guy did the murder under persistent questioning alex bereni unraveled the 17 year old confessed to all four murders he said after leaving the apartment he dropped david anderson off at his girlfriend's house and then went to the park alone to meet karen white he planned to tell karen that david would be unable to pay back the money he owed her on his way there he decided he wanted to know what it was like to kill he strangled the young woman fearing that karen had told her parents her plans alex went to her home and bludgeoned and stabbed the family to death alex burani said he had thrown away his boots that had left the prince found at the crime scene he was placed under arrest and charged with the four murders though alex had confessed to the murders investigators knew from experience that they still needed to scientifically corroborate his statements and they were unconvinced that he had acted alone [Music] all of the crime scene photographs from the white's residence were sent to renowned bloodspatter expert ross gardner in georgia gardner looked to reconstruct the triple murder one droplet of blood at a time most of your forensic evidence tells you who was involved in a crime but what happened at the crime and how it happened is sometimes very significant and bloodstained patterns speak to those events that created the blood stains they tell us what happened and how it happened using blood stain patterns observed in the photographs gardner first looked to establish what types of weapons had been used in the murders he recognized two distinct cast off patterns the first type of pattern was consistent with having been caused by sharp force trauma most likely by the blade of a knife the size of the stains are very small and here in particular very similar to what we saw on the scene and the reason being is we have a very thin edge on which the blood can accumulate as it's being cast off [Music] a larger blunt instrument made the second type of blood stain pattern that gardner identified [Music] if we were to observe a cast off that is the result of a club or a bloody hand being swung something like that we're going to see a significantly different kind of cast off we're going to see larger stains greater volume and they're going to develop over a little bit wider area next gardner set out to understand the sequence of events inside the master bedroom his first clue came from the tiny blood stains found on the back of walter white's t-shirt those stains had originated from his wife regina that suggested that she had been the first victim attacked in the couple's bed while her husband lay sleeping beside her [Music] the father had his back to his wife as she was being attacked in the very early stages of the blunt force attack because it was very tiny spatter that impacted on the back of his t-shirt to understand what happened next gardner entered the coordinates of all of the bloodstains found in the room into a computer database then specially designed forensic software was applied to the data the location and pattern of the father's blood found next to the bed suggested he was attacked with a knife as he tried to get up a trail of his blood led from that spot to the foot of the bed where his body finally came to rest there more of the father's blood was found spattered on the walls indicating he came under attack a second time those cast off patterns had been caused by both a knife and a blunt object when we took the combination of all the stains that were found in this corner it really demanded there was really no other explanation but that this spatter event was occurring and the sharp force was occurring from the other side the stains indicated that the attacker stood in front of the victim's head when beating him with a blunt object which caused his blood to eject into the scene in a radiating pattern but gardner found no blood spatter on the surface of one section of wall [Music] the only explanation for the finding was that there was a second attacker standing in front of that wall [Music] lastly the blood evidence showed that 17-year-old janet rushed to her parents room but then was attacked and then dragged back to her room where she became the final victim gardner's analysis was consistent with alex burani's confession with one major exception he had not acted alone [Music] and investigators believed that alex was protecting his friend david anderson police obtained a warrant to search the vehicle david anderson had driven on the night of the murders they found a length of rope on the front seat forensic examiners concluded that it was the same type of rope used to strangle 20-year-old karen white david anderson was also charged with four counts of murder police believe that david anderson and alex burani murdered karen white at the park motivated by sick curiosity they next set their sights on the victim's entire family based on their complete disregard for human life alex burani and david anderson were tried as adults both received four consecutive life sentences in washington state analysis of the crime scene helped expose a second killer's identity but when police are unable to locate a victim's body proving murder is much more difficult in the late afternoon hours of november 10 1995 rhonda michie entered the phoenix police department to report her child missing she hadn't heard from her 13 year old son brad hansen in nearly 12 hours though brad was a responsible and loving son he seemed to be going through a rebellious phase he's 13 years old he's on a bike in fact brad had been recently grounded and he was supposed to come straight home after school after saying goodbye to him earlier that morning rhonda a single mom went to work [Music] she later learned that there were no classes that day she called brad's pager and contacted several of his friends but the 13 year old never called back and his friends hadn't seen him that day detective sally dillion agreed to look into the case she was optimistic that there would be a quick resolution we thought he'd ran away from home that he was staying with a friend and you know that in a day or two three that he would return home but after several days went by without a word authorities several hundred miles away in california were dispatched to the home of brad hansen's father investigators hoped they would find the boy there but mr hansen had not heard from brad in some time and he was troubled that his son had not checked in [Music] phoenix police distributed photographs and a description of the missing boy throughout the area but no clues to his whereabouts surfaced a search of the desert and mountain areas outside of phoenix also turned up nothing brad hansen seemed to have vanished without a trace police in phoenix arizona continued searching for 13-year-old brad hansen who had been reported missing by his mother [Music] having uncovered no clues to the boy's whereabouts detectives began questioning his classmates brad's girlfriend jennifer said that on the day he disappeared she went over to a friend's house to hang out brad was also supposed to be there but when jennifer arrived at her friend jeremy box house she learned brad was no longer there he had left his favorite ski cap behind then in the kitchen she noticed a hole in the wall [Music] there was also a reddish-brown stain on the floor thirteen-year-old jeremy told her that he and brad had been playing cops and robbers with his stepfather's guns [Music] not knowing that the guns were loaded jeremy said that brad pulled the trigger firing around into the wall the stain on the floor he said was ketchup jeremy told jennifer that after the gun went off brad rushed out of the house afraid that he would get into trouble he didn't know where brad went and he hadn't heard from him since jennifer hadn't heard from him either investigators arranged to interview jeremy bach and his stepfather jeremy told the same story he had relayed to his friend jennifer but when pressed on specific details detective sally dillion sensed that he wasn't telling the entire truth there were parts of it that we had a notion were probably going to be true and other parts that you could tell weren't times when he would make the eye contact and other times when he wouldn't [Music] as investigators struggled to figure out what jeremy was hiding word came in that another classmate wanted to speak with police [Music] in the principal's office at the nearby junior high school police questioned one of the missing boy's friends he believed that jeremy bach had done something to brad hansen [Music] it was well known around school that brad and jennifer were boyfriend and girlfriend [Music] and it was also known that jeremy was extremely jealous he also liked jennifer [Music] and though he and brad were friends jeremy tried to break up the young couple's relationship according to the classmate jeremy had been bragging that he was going to hurt brad [Music] investigators feared jeremy bach had made good on his threat but to prove that a crime had been committed they needed to locate the victim's body to do that they struggled to put themselves inside the mind of a 13-year-old killer but you one who didn't have access to a car we really had nothing so we tried to figure out what we could do and the only thing that we came up with is we put him in the trash detectives formulated a plan once a dumpster is put out on the curb it is considered public property in the eyes of the law [Music] two weeks after brad henson was reported missing police returned to the bach residence [Music] after the trash was put on the curb investigators confiscated the can and then replaced it with another one once the trash can was secured in an evidence property room detective dillian contacted forensic examiners at the phoenix police department's crime lab as soon as the lid was opened investigators knew their instincts had been dead on large stains and dried liquid pooled in the bottom tested positive for human blood [Music] and forensic scientist kevin knapp didn't believe anyone could have survived such blood loss without immediate medical attention the dumpster is probably about two feet in diameter and there was probably about an inch deep pool of blood dried blood in the bottom of the dumpster so even without being a medical examiner in my opinion it was an awful lot of blood more than i typically see in a case now examiners needed to verify that the blood found inside the trash can had originated from 13 year old brad hansen but there were no dna samples from brad to use for comparisons [Music] knapp had another option to get the evidence he needed we all get our dna from our parents we get half from our mother and half from our father so you can look at a dna profile from an offspring and determine whether or not the dna pattern from the parents could have formed that child when the dna samples collected from the trash can were compared to the genetic profiles of brad's parents examiners found a match [Music] detectives confronted the 13 year old suspect with their findings [Music] now jeremy bach claimed that while playing cops and robbers his hand accidentally hit the countertop and the gun he was holding discharge sending brad henson flying backwards into the wall he didn't realize that his finger was on the trigger panicked he cleaned up the blood and disposed of the body [Music] for investigators jeremy's story stretched credibility he had said that when brad was hit by the bullet that he flew back and he hit the wall well very seldom does someone fly back that's movies okay that's theatrics normally when somebody gets shot by a bullet they drop so there were things that he was recounting to us that we we did not feel were totally accurate detectives returned to the bach residence with a search warrant they collected the two handguns that jeremy's stepfather kept in the house including the 357 magnum revolver used in the shooting [Music] and though investigators found traces of brad hansen's blood in the kitchen the findings did little to refute jeremy's claim that the shooting was accidental [Music] as long as investigators were unable to locate the victim's body proving murder would be difficult [Music] blood evidence convinced phoenix police that missing 13-year-old brad hansen was dead [Music] though they had been unable to locate his body his classmate jeremy bach claimed that he accidentally shot the boy while they played cops and robbers in a panic he said he disposed of brad's body in the trash but investigators suspected that brad hansen had been murdered out of jealousy now they needed to prove it police turned to forensic examiners for help at the phoenix police department crime lab firearms expert mahesh patel looked for evidence that could prove whether or not the shooting was an accident the scenario that was given to me was that jeremy might have struck the side of the or the edge of the table and might have accidentally discharged the firearm the 357 was constructed with a hammer block which is designed to prevent it from discharging if accidentally dropped or bumped though incriminating that didn't prove that jeremy had intentionally fired the weapon patel needed to determine how much force had to be applied to the trigger in order to fire the weapon what we do is take a set of weights and hang them from from the trigger and keep adding on weight to the end of the trigger till it actually goes off and that will tell us how much force was required for that particular firearm patel determined that ten and a quarter pounds of pressure was required to fire the 357 magnum revolver he concluded that an accidental flinch would not have been enough to cause the gun to fire the analysis indicated that jeremy bach intentionally pulled the trigger [Music] thirteen-year-old jeremy bach was placed under arrest and charged with murder [Music] authorities believe that jeremy invited his friend brad hansen to his house and then confronted him about brad and jennifer's blossoming relationship [Music] driven by a jealous rage jeremy grabbed his stepfather's gun and shot brad jeremy bach the youngest person to be tried as an adult in the state of arizona was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 22 years in prison [Music] brad hansen's body has never been found sometimes juveniles believe that homicide is the answer to their problems when that happens investigators and forensic scientists must focus on the facts which can turn dreams of a promising future into the reality of a wasted youth