00:00:06
at times a perpetrator's dna
00:00:09
is the only clue at a murder scene
00:00:13
but what happens when you don't have a
00:00:15
suspect to compare it to
00:00:18
this case made forensic history when
00:00:21
scientists saw in these genes literally
00:00:24
the killer's physical description
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[Music]
00:00:53
[Music]
00:00:55
in the 1600s baton rouge and louisiana
00:00:58
got its name from french settlers it
00:01:00
means red stick and referred to the pole
00:01:04
marking the hunting area of local indian
00:01:06
tribes
00:01:09
to this day baton rouge is one of the
00:01:11
most racially diverse cities in the
00:01:13
country
00:01:15
pam kinamore knew the town's history
00:01:18
well by birth and by profession
00:01:21
pam operated an antique store
00:01:24
pam loved life
00:01:26
every day
00:01:28
she couldn't wait to do all the things
00:01:30
that she wanted to do she was fun she
00:01:33
was exuberant she was enthused
00:01:36
she was intelligent
00:01:39
shortly before midnight on a friday in
00:01:41
july 2002
00:01:44
pam's husband byron called police to
00:01:46
report his wife missing
00:01:50
he said when he got home
00:01:52
the front door was wide open
00:01:55
his wife's keys were there
00:01:57
but pam was gone
00:02:00
strangely
00:02:01
the bathtub was full of water
00:02:04
it looked like she had been taking a
00:02:06
bath and also there was there was some
00:02:08
blood on
00:02:10
a rug under the bed and the bedroom
00:02:13
that hadn't been there before
00:02:15
forensic testing revealed the blood on
00:02:17
the carpet was pam's
00:02:19
it appeared that she left her keys in
00:02:21
the door inadvertently and an intruder
00:02:24
walked in while pam was in the bathtub
00:02:28
the couple's son was sleeping overnight
00:02:30
at a friend's house and couldn't shed
00:02:32
any light on what had happened
00:02:35
investigators also had to consider
00:02:37
whether pam had simply
00:02:40
run off
00:02:41
but her mother refused even to consider
00:02:43
that possibility
00:02:45
i told him i said i'm sure your next
00:02:47
thought is she might have had a
00:02:48
boyfriend
00:02:50
i said i'd give you my word of honor if
00:02:52
she had a boyfriend
00:02:53
i would have known
00:02:55
and that would be the first name i would
00:02:57
give you
00:02:59
pam never looked at another man byron
00:03:01
was
00:03:02
her sweetheart
00:03:04
pam's family posted missing posters and
00:03:07
billboards all over the city and offered
00:03:10
a 75 000 reward for information as to
00:03:13
her whereabouts
00:03:16
for four days the search continued
00:03:18
pam's body was discovered in the
00:03:20
marshland under the whiskey bay bridge
00:03:23
about 60 miles from her home
00:03:26
there was a telephone cord found near
00:03:28
her body
00:03:29
it's amazing that it was found it was
00:03:31
found by some surveyors
00:03:33
she'd just been dumped at whiskey bay
00:03:36
the coroner's office
00:03:38
took her into custody
00:03:41
the medical examiner discovered pam had
00:03:43
been stabbed to death
00:03:45
she had also
00:03:47
been sexually assaulted
00:03:49
pam
00:03:50
was a beautiful young woman and uh
00:03:53
she had a lot of admirers and i thought
00:03:55
well you know maybe somebody just had a
00:03:57
crush on her
00:03:58
and took her off and i guess we wanted
00:04:00
hope and i never dreamed that she was
00:04:03
murdered
00:04:05
do you know what it's like
00:04:07
to know you'll never have any more
00:04:08
memories
00:04:09
that hold us happy times are gone
00:04:11
forever
00:04:13
so
00:04:14
that's what it's like to lose your job
00:04:18
the medical examiner determined that pam
00:04:21
had been killed on the night she
00:04:23
disappeared
00:04:26
pam's husband byron had an alibi
00:04:29
and it was corroborated by others so he
00:04:32
wasn't considered a suspect
00:04:34
but police got a tip from a potential
00:04:37
eyewitness
00:04:39
he thought he saw pam slumped forward in
00:04:42
a white pickup truck on the night she
00:04:44
went missing just a mile from where the
00:04:47
body was discovered
00:04:49
this is a very desolate piece of
00:04:50
interstate very dark not many vehicles
00:04:53
at all we get off this exit ramp it
00:04:55
really leads to nowhere where her body
00:04:57
was found
00:04:59
the witness described the driver as a
00:05:01
young white male
00:05:03
police began to look for a white male in
00:05:05
a white truck as the investigation went
00:05:08
on they
00:05:09
they were pretty focused on a white male
00:05:11
and a white truck
00:05:13
unfortunately there were 35 000 white
00:05:16
pickup trucks registered in the baton
00:05:19
rouge area
00:05:21
it's like a swarming army of white
00:05:23
pickup trucks in louisiana if you put
00:05:25
them in to end it would probably
00:05:27
circumvent the world
00:05:28
[Music]
00:05:31
at pam kinnamore's autopsy
00:05:34
pathologists found biological evidence
00:05:37
that she had been sexually assaulted
00:05:39
and it also contained the dna profile of
00:05:43
her killer
00:05:45
naturally investigators wanted to know
00:05:47
if this perpetrator had been apprehended
00:05:50
before
00:05:51
we had already taken his dna profile
00:05:55
and searched it into the fbi's codis
00:05:58
database which was a national database
00:06:01
of
00:06:03
offenders as well as evidence from other
00:06:05
cases and we knew then that at that
00:06:08
point that he had not been linked
00:06:11
to
00:06:11
any other crimes
00:06:14
but this dna evidence did tell police
00:06:16
something important
00:06:18
the same man who killed pam kinamore
00:06:22
killed two other women
00:06:23
several months earlier
00:06:26
i had never had experience with a serial
00:06:28
killer you know other than seeing it tv
00:06:30
shows so all of a sudden this was
00:06:33
something that baton rouge hadn't hadn't
00:06:35
dealt with before and i hadn't dealt
00:06:37
with before
00:06:38
two months earlier charlotte murray pace
00:06:42
a graduate student at louisiana state
00:06:44
university had been sexually assaulted
00:06:46
and killed in her apartment she was
00:06:49
stabbed
00:06:51
81 times her throat was cut
00:06:53
she was missing part of her ear it was
00:06:55
it was very violent horrible attack
00:06:59
all the people all the women in the
00:07:01
world
00:07:02
he picked
00:07:03
murray
00:07:04
why
00:07:05
i'd give anything to know why and i
00:07:08
don't know if you can know why
00:07:10
because i wonder if
00:07:12
he could articulate why if he knows why
00:07:14
himself
00:07:16
like pam kinamore's case
00:07:18
there were no signs of forced entry this
00:07:21
person was absolutely vicious this
00:07:24
person was absolutely the worst type of
00:07:27
human being you ever want to encounter
00:07:30
also in that same neighborhood
00:07:32
gina greene a nurse was sexually
00:07:35
assaulted and murdered in her home
00:07:39
in all three cases
00:07:41
the common thread was the telephone
00:07:44
either the killer took the victim's
00:07:45
telephone or
00:07:47
used the cords to restrain his victim
00:07:52
this led to speculation
00:07:54
the killer asked his victims for
00:07:56
assistance
00:07:58
everything he touched he took with him
00:08:00
those were his trophies if it didn't
00:08:03
take much for him after he killed it to
00:08:04
wipe down the doorknob he knew
00:08:06
everything he touched
00:08:09
when residents of baton rouge learned a
00:08:11
serial killer was on the loose they took
00:08:13
every possible precaution
00:08:16
at night the streets were all but empty
00:08:20
but it wasn't enough
00:08:22
i can tell you the worst thing that i
00:08:24
can imagine
00:08:25
could happen in fact happen
00:08:28
several months later the killer struck
00:08:31
again
00:08:32
twenty-three-year-old danae kalam
00:08:34
never returned home from visiting her
00:08:37
mother's grave
00:08:39
her body was discovered 26 miles away
00:08:42
from the cemetery she was sexually
00:08:44
assaulted and beaten to death
00:08:47
a witness reported seeing a white male
00:08:50
in a white pickup truck near the
00:08:52
cemetery
00:08:53
just like pam kinamore's case
00:08:57
and the killer
00:08:58
wasn't through
00:09:00
the body of 26 year old carrie yoder a
00:09:04
doctoral student at lsu was found near
00:09:07
the whiskey bay bridge not far from
00:09:10
where pam kinamore's body was discovered
00:09:14
dna tests confirmed
00:09:16
the same man sexually assaulted and
00:09:19
presumably killed
00:09:21
all five women he was very intelligent i
00:09:24
think he was doing a lot of
00:09:26
as i call it surveillance work he was
00:09:28
stalking his victims he knew their
00:09:30
movements methods of movement
00:09:32
and he was gonna be tough to catch
00:09:34
desperate for a lead
00:09:36
police called the fbi in washington d.c
00:09:39
and asked for a criminal investigative
00:09:42
analysis of the crimes we thought this
00:09:44
was more someone who followed women who
00:09:46
watched women from afar and when he
00:09:48
interacted with women
00:09:50
it would be shortly into that
00:09:52
interaction before they felt
00:09:55
uncomfortable with him
00:09:57
the fbi predicted the killer was
00:09:59
anti-social and earned a below average
00:10:02
income
00:10:03
the fbi profile we had folks come in and
00:10:06
that was the whole gist that we were
00:10:08
looking for a white male somewhere 20s
00:10:10
and 30s single white male
00:10:12
although 90 percent of all serial
00:10:15
killers are white
00:10:16
the fbi says they made no prediction
00:10:19
about the race of the baton rouge serial
00:10:21
killer despite the perceptions of local
00:10:24
officials and information carried in the
00:10:26
media
00:10:28
i know that there's been some confusion
00:10:29
about that i know what was written and i
00:10:32
know it was in the paper and it just
00:10:33
simply wasn't there
00:10:35
nevertheless
00:10:36
the local police obtained dna samples
00:10:39
from over 1 000 men most of them white
00:10:42
between the ages of 20 and 40 most had a
00:10:45
history of criminal activity
00:10:48
i just felt like
00:10:50
they needed to find that killer we were
00:10:52
going to have more women killed
00:10:55
but not one of them was a match
00:10:59
that's when molecular biologist dr tony
00:11:02
frudakis called investigators with a
00:11:04
warning that eyewitnesses and behavioral
00:11:07
profiles are not always right
00:11:10
that type of information is oftentimes
00:11:13
faulty wrong sometimes people lie
00:11:15
sometimes they're just flat out mistaken
00:11:17
so dr frudakis made police an offer he
00:11:20
said he'd perform a brand new dna test
00:11:24
and promised he could identify the
00:11:26
killer's physical characteristics
00:11:29
to be honest with you i didn't really
00:11:30
believe i thought right off the bat this
00:11:32
guy must be some quack how can he do
00:11:34
this but he
00:11:35
purported that he can determine the race
00:11:37
of folks from dna and i say there's no
00:11:39
way in the world he can do that this new
00:11:42
test called dna witness
00:11:45
ascertains the exact ancestry of an
00:11:48
individual based on information in their
00:11:50
dna
00:11:52
it's rooted in the fact that all humans
00:11:55
are descended from a common gene pool
00:11:58
so instead of measuring
00:12:00
the pigmentation genes that control
00:12:02
pigmentation of the skin
00:12:04
we can make an indirect inference about
00:12:07
your skin shade through a very precise
00:12:10
knowledge of your ancestral background
00:12:13
so the baton rouge police gave dr
00:12:15
fardakas the go-ahead
00:12:17
the results made forensic history and
00:12:19
changed the course of the investigation
00:12:23
i've never met the guy but i'll tell you
00:12:25
he's onto something
00:12:29
based on statements from two
00:12:31
eyewitnesses baton rouge police were
00:12:33
searching for a white male driving a
00:12:35
white pickup truck in connection with
00:12:38
five unsolved murders
00:12:42
with little to lose
00:12:43
investigators joined forces with the
00:12:45
molecular biologist to perform a new
00:12:48
test on the killer's dna
00:12:51
it's brand new technology a lot of these
00:12:53
people are unaware of what it can do we
00:12:56
have to go into the human genome and
00:12:58
screen through large numbers of people
00:13:00
in order to find these
00:13:02
positions of dna so that we can harness
00:13:05
their power and use them for the
00:13:06
purposes we're using them
00:13:09
to test dr frodakis's claims
00:13:12
investigators sent him 20 dna samples
00:13:16
and asked him to identify the race of
00:13:19
each one
00:13:20
he nailed him to a t on everybody even
00:13:23
to the percentages of what black white
00:13:25
indian whatever you had in him so he was
00:13:27
able to do it
00:13:29
when he passed that test
00:13:31
dr frudakis went to work on the killer's
00:13:33
dna
00:13:35
the results
00:13:37
the dna test showed the killer was not a
00:13:40
caucasian
00:13:42
the crime scene dna sample corresponded
00:13:44
to an individual
00:13:46
that was 85 percent sub-saharan african
00:13:49
and 15 native american
00:13:52
at first police couldn't believe it
00:13:54
i remember the phone line just going
00:13:57
silent for a few minutes i guess they
00:13:58
had to digest it kind of threw you off
00:14:00
because you know
00:14:02
traditionally a serial killer is usually
00:14:04
a white male
00:14:06
and when it became a black male it just
00:14:08
just it threw everybody out police now
00:14:11
realized the so-called eyewitnesses were
00:14:14
wrong
00:14:15
and they realized something else
00:14:20
around the same time of pam kinnimore's
00:14:23
murder about 60 miles outside of baton
00:14:25
rouge
00:14:26
someone knocked on the front door of a
00:14:28
woman named diane alexander
00:14:30
and asked to use the phone
00:14:35
when her back was turned the man ripped
00:14:37
the phone cord from the wall and tried
00:14:39
to strangle her
00:14:41
as she fought for her life her son came
00:14:44
home unexpectedly the attacker ran away
00:14:46
still carrying the telephone cord
00:14:49
the phone cord was actually already
00:14:51
sticking out of his vehicle
00:14:53
and her son was able to describe the
00:14:54
vehicle very well and describe the phone
00:14:56
cord sticking out of it
00:14:59
and police remembered finding similar
00:15:01
telephone cord near pam kinamore's body
00:15:06
was it possible that the killer
00:15:09
took diane alexander's telephone cord
00:15:11
with him when he killed
00:15:14
pam kinamore
00:15:16
to find out
00:15:17
forensic experts compared the telephone
00:15:19
cord found with pam kinamore's body to
00:15:22
the ripped piece of cord from diane
00:15:24
alexander's home by performing a
00:15:27
fracture match comparison
00:15:30
although plastic stretches when pulled
00:15:32
the ends usually remain intact
00:15:36
they actually took the remaining cord
00:15:37
from diane alexander's house and were
00:15:40
able to match it to the cord that they
00:15:42
found at pam kennamore's dump site
00:15:45
in a police lineup diane alexander
00:15:48
identified her attacker as 34 year old
00:15:50
derek todd lee he had previous arrests
00:15:53
for burglary stalking women and peeking
00:15:55
into their homes
00:15:58
if lee
00:15:59
was the baton rouge serial killer
00:16:02
diane alexander was fortunate to be
00:16:05
alive
00:16:09
derek todd lee
00:16:10
a manual laborer married with two
00:16:13
children was identified by diane
00:16:16
alexander in a police lineup as the man
00:16:19
who assaulted her in her home
00:16:22
but he denied he was the baton rouge
00:16:25
serial killer
00:16:27
lee's dna sample was sent immediately to
00:16:30
the forensics lab for testing
00:16:32
it matched the biological samples from
00:16:35
all five victims
00:16:38
just a sense of relief joy come over me
00:16:40
you know and it's like
00:16:42
i had to smile i said
00:16:44
we got him
00:16:46
derek todd lee was arrested and charged
00:16:49
with first degree murder
00:16:51
the first thing i would tell him is he's
00:16:53
a coward
00:16:54
he picked on women that he took
00:16:57
advantage of their good nature
00:17:00
after his arrest
00:17:02
investigators learned that lee's dna
00:17:05
matched skin cells under the fingernails
00:17:07
of yet another murder victim an lsu
00:17:11
student 21 year old geralyn de soto
00:17:16
prosecutors believe lee followed his
00:17:18
victims so he knew when they would be
00:17:20
home alone
00:17:22
he would knock on the door
00:17:25
asked to use their phone
00:17:27
and once inside
00:17:29
overpower them i don't know how he
00:17:32
picked him out he hasn't talked we do
00:17:35
know that
00:17:36
a black male was spotted
00:17:38
sort of hanging out in a couple of the
00:17:40
neighborhoods but we don't know for sure
00:17:42
that it was him and we like i said we
00:17:44
haven't had the benefit of
00:17:47
his
00:17:48
you know if he's telling us what his
00:17:50
thoughts were
00:17:52
fortunately for investigators
00:17:55
he left crucial dna evidence behind
00:18:00
at lee's trial the sole survivor diane
00:18:04
alexander identified lee
00:18:06
as the man who tried to kill her
00:18:09
and dna from perspiration found on ms
00:18:12
alexander's blouse after the attack
00:18:16
matched lee's dna profile
00:18:19
forensic proof he was the perpetrator
00:18:24
this is the real deal and now this lady
00:18:27
has come to you and face you
00:18:29
it pointed you out
00:18:31
it was devastating
00:18:33
derek todd lee was convicted of first
00:18:36
degree murder
00:18:37
and was sentenced to death
00:18:39
the death penalty is too good for him
00:18:42
they should execute him a little bit at
00:18:43
a time
00:18:45
i mean to do you know rape was not
00:18:47
enough murder was not enough to corner
00:18:49
called it
00:18:51
these murders he said
00:18:53
aren't overkill
00:18:55
some of the victims families are angry
00:18:58
that police relied so heavily on the
00:19:00
eyewitness accounts of a white male in a
00:19:03
white pickup truck and the fact that
00:19:06
most serial killers tend to be white
00:19:09
the profile itself was of course wrong
00:19:12
it was erroneous
00:19:13
but it was also accepted by the task
00:19:16
force as
00:19:17
it was given the force of fact
00:19:19
when what it is is an educated guess i
00:19:22
think they were getting tons of tips
00:19:23
from every direction it wasn't you know
00:19:25
they were getting thousands of tips so i
00:19:28
certainly wouldn't say that you know
00:19:29
they i think they did the best that they
00:19:31
could and they worked very hard
00:19:34
in this case dr tony frudakis made
00:19:37
scientific history
00:19:39
it was the first time this biogeographic
00:19:43
testing was ever used in a criminal case
00:19:47
the technology now has a 99 accuracy
00:19:51
rate and new tests can even predict eye
00:19:54
color with 92 percent accuracy
00:19:57
if it can tell you the race it might be
00:19:59
able to tell you exactly who you're
00:20:00
looking for
00:20:01
but if it tells you the name and the
00:20:03
address and phone number it's time for
00:20:05
me to leave this place it's just dna is
00:20:07
too good then
00:20:09
this new test also shows the limitations
00:20:13
of behavioral profiles
00:20:16
and the fallibility of so-called
00:20:19
eyewitnesses
00:20:20
i don't think it's too
00:20:22
far out there to say that
00:20:24
in the future
00:20:26
there probably will be much less crime
00:20:28
than there is today because people are
00:20:30
going to realize
00:20:32
that when they commit that rape
00:20:35
or they commit that murder they might as
00:20:37
well take their driver's license out of
00:20:39
their wallet
00:20:40
just toss it right there on the ground
00:20:42
because they're going to get that
00:20:43
information anyway if people are going
00:20:44
to commit violent crimes they need to be
00:20:46
accountable and we need to take whatever
00:20:48
means is necessary
00:20:50
to hold them accountable and that just
00:20:52
makes the police the job of a police
00:20:54
officer so easy i think we need to take
00:20:56
advantage of science
00:20:58
as much as we can
00:21:00
when it's for valid reasons
00:21:03
[Music]
00:21:13
[Music]
00:21:32
[Music]
00:21:41
you
