00:00:05
[narrator] Shortly after
daybreak in Vancouver, British
Columbia,
00:00:08
a fire was set to the contents
00:00:12
of a garbage dumpster. No one
saw the arsonist or the fire as
it burned for
00:00:17
hours in the deserted parking
lot. But there was more than
garbage in the bin and
00:00:23
it would take sophisticated
science to identify the evidence
in the ashes.
00:00:30
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00:00:40
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00:00:54
When Milton Diaz walked towards
the dumpster to empty some
trash, he noticed
00:01:00
that the bin was warm. When he
looked inside, he noticed a
small charred figure
00:01:04
in the corner so badly burned it
was beyond recognition.
00:01:09
- I know something was burned.
But what was it? Was it an
animal or was a person?
00:01:16
If it was a person, it was too
terrible to happen. It was too
out of, you know,
00:01:25
what I can conceive that someone
would do to another human being.
00:01:30
- [narrator] The charred remains
were carefully removed and taken
to the morgue
00:01:35
where the gruesome and difficult
task of identification would
begin.
00:01:40
- Straight away, we knew we
wouldn't have fingerprints and
we knew we wouldn't have
00:01:44
the normal means to identify a
victim because of the condition
of the body.
00:01:51
- [narrator] All that remained
was the equivalent
00:01:54
of 35 lbs. of charcoal-like
material. It was an enormous
challenge
00:01:59
to Vancouver's medical examiner,
Dr. Laurel Grey.
00:02:02
- Well obviously, we didn't have
a whole lot to work with. We had
no idea what the
00:02:07
cause of death was, whether it
was related to the fire or some
other matter.
00:02:13
- [narrator] During the autopsy,
Dr. Grey could not find any
recognizable skin,
00:02:18
but did find a small patch of
hair where the head pressed
against the floor
00:02:22
of the dumpster.
00:02:25
It appeared to be reddish blonde
in color, but the intense heat
destroyed the hair
00:02:31
follicles which could have been
used for DNA testing. X-rays of
the victim's
00:02:37
skull revealed several pieces of
metal, and a fractured skull,
evidence of
00:02:44
gunshot wounds. Bullet fragments
recovered from brain came from a
.22-caliber weapon,
00:02:52
but they were so badly damaged
they could not be used for
ballistic identification.
00:02:58
Police now knew
that it was a homicide case.
00:03:02
- The gunshots had caused
obvious, very severe damage to
the brain. They had
00:03:08
fractured many of the facial
bones. There was a lot of blood
within the facial bones
00:03:15
and the sinuses.
00:03:17
- [narrator] The blood
in the sinus cavities meant
00:03:19
there was active circulation
when the bullets
00:03:22
entered the victim's brain,
indicating that the heart was
beating when
00:03:27
the shots were fired. But the
intense heat altered the
victim's blood chemistry,
00:03:32
making it impossible for any
kind of DNA analysis. An
examination of the victim's
00:03:38
lungs showed no signs of smoke
inhalation, which meant that the
victim was dead
00:03:44
before the fire. The internal
organs revealed that the victim
was an adult
00:03:49
female. To help with the
identification, investigators
called in Dr. Larry Chivers.
00:03:55
He's a forensic odontologist
who was asked to study
00:03:59
the dental remains of the
victim.
00:04:01
- This was a victim of an
inferno, an absolute,
unqualified inferno.
00:04:07
There was virtually nothing
left.
00:04:09
- [narrator] But
when Dr. Chivers looked closer,
00:04:12
he was surprised to see
beneath the charred surface
00:04:16
that the jawbone and teeth were
intact.
00:04:20
- Because they're surrounded by
barriers, there's saliva in the
mouth, the gasses in
00:04:25
the stomach expand and push the
tongue out and the outer muscles
of the face become
00:04:30
quite leathery. And so the one
thing that survives above all
else is the teeth.
00:04:34
- [narrator] By studying
the growth patterns
00:04:36
of the teeth and skull,
Dr. Chivers estimated
00:04:40
that the victim was between 24
and 30 years of age. And when
Dr. Chivers looked
00:04:46
closely at the x-rays, he
discovered an important clue.
The victim had an
00:04:51
extremely rare dental condition
called mesiodens. It's an extra
tooth which never
00:04:59
grew into place on top of the
two front teeth inside the gum.
The x-rays
00:05:04
also showed a lot
of high-quality dental work.
00:05:09
- When you start talking 48
hours past the finding of the
body and you don't have an
00:05:13
idea who the suspect is, that
stage, we didn't know who the
victim was. You start
00:05:18
thinking, "Well, it's gonna be a
long haul. It's gonna be a
difficult case."
00:05:22
- [narrator] Greg Middleton
covered the search
00:05:24
for the identity
of the victim and her killer
00:05:27
for the Provence Newspaper in
Vancouver.
00:05:30
- They told me at the time that
they thought there was no hope
of solving it.
00:05:33
That there was,
they had so little to go on
00:05:37
that they didn't think that they
were gonna get anywhere.
00:05:42
- [narrator] Police now had
a horrific murder
00:05:45
but still couldn't identify the
victim or her murderer.
00:05:55
When the police reviewed all
recent missing persons reports,
one in
00:05:58
particular caught their eye.
00:06:02
It was for a 30-year old woman
named Lynn Breeden. She had
blonde hair and was
00:06:07
last seen on the day before the
charred remains were discovered.
When the dental
00:06:13
records for Lynn Breeden were
compared to those from the
charred remains, doctors
00:06:17
noticed the same extra tooth
above the gum line on top of the
front teeth and the
00:06:23
dental work matched the burned
victim as well. Dr. Chivers was
convinced
00:06:29
that Lynn Breeden was the person
burned in the fire.
00:06:34
- There was absolutely no doubt
in my mind the minute I saw the
mesiodens there and
00:06:38
then obviously the other dental
work and they all added up to
the fact that this
00:06:41
was the same individual,
or the same unfortunate victim.
00:06:45
- [narrator] Lynn Breeden was a
part-time model who once posed
for Playboy magazine.
00:06:50
She worked here, at a men's club
called No. 5 Orange, as a
cocktail waitress.
00:06:56
- A lot of her friends were able
to tell us about her background.
And unfortunately
00:07:00
I think she'd gone the cocaine
route in the city of Vancouver
and I think she was
00:07:04
well-involved in the use of
cocaine.
00:07:06
- [narrator] Lynn Breeden was
last seen late Friday night
00:07:10
walking along Robson Street in
Vancouver. Police learned that
Breeden's
00:07:15
former boyfriend lived on Robson
Street in this apartment
building.
00:07:20
His name was Chris Peycook
and he was well-known to police.
00:07:24
- He was a local drug
trafficker, was certainly one of
the last persons
00:07:29
to be seen with her.
00:07:33
- [narrator] During police
questioning, Peycook admitted he
was
00:07:37
with Lynn Breeden for most of
the night on the Friday in
question.
00:07:42
He said she stopped by his
apartment. They had a few
drinks,
00:07:46
talked for a while, and ended up
having sex. Afterwards they went
00:07:53
to Celebrities Night Club and
later to a small after hours
club.
00:07:58
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00:08:10
Peycook said Lynn was behaving
badly, flirting with other men.
And after
00:08:14
an entire evening of it, he
became angry.
00:08:17
- [Peycook] We're leaving, come
on.
00:08:18
- I...I don't want to--
- Back off!
00:08:20
- [Lynn] I don't wanna leave!
- No, we're leaving.
00:08:23
I get you high and you're going
home with these guys? I don't
think so.
00:08:24
I said back off! We're leaving.
00:08:26
- I'm not leaving this club.
I'm havin' a great time!
00:08:29
- You're such trash.
- I'm having a good time.
00:08:30
- No.
- Fine.
00:08:34
- [narrator] He left the club
without her and said that was
the last he saw of her.
00:08:42
- In that case, it was a dead
end. Yes, he looked really good
to begin with, but when
00:08:49
we confirmed, his alibi and his
story, yes, it turned out to be
a dead end as far
00:08:55
as that, he was concerned.
00:08:57
- [narrator] But detectives
received an interesting tip from
the manager
00:09:02
of Lynn Breeden's bank. A woman
had posed as Lynn Breeden
attempting to withdraw
00:09:07
all of the funds from her
account.
00:09:11
- I got up to the counter and I
asked to help her and she signed
a withdrawal slip
00:09:16
for like $4,000, basically what
Lynn had in her account, and it
wasn't Lynn.
00:09:23
- [narrator] Security
photographs showed the impostor
looking out the window,
00:09:27
possibly at an accomplice
standing outside but glare from
the sun hid the identity
00:09:34
of whomever was outside.
The woman left the bank quickly
00:09:38
when her identity was
questioned.
00:09:40
- We went to our fraud squad and
said, "Do you know this person?"
And we did all the
00:09:45
investigative things in case
this was a chronic fraud suspect
and somehow, someway
00:09:49
we could come up with a name
through that avenue of
investigation.
00:09:52
That didn't give us an answer.
00:09:54
- [narrator] Police launched
an all-out effort
00:09:57
to find the woman
who posed as Lynn Breeden.
00:10:01
It was their only lead to the
murderer.
00:10:06
The local newspaper published a
photograph
00:10:09
of the woman who posed as Lynn
Breeden at the bank and asked
anyone who knew her to
00:10:14
come forward. Within hours, an
anonymous tip identified the
woman in the photograph
00:10:21
as Tanya Forrester.
00:10:24
- Given that information, we
went to her, told her what we
was dealing with, and
00:10:31
asked her for cooperation and
why she was in there taking
the...attempting to take
00:10:35
the money from the victim's
account.
00:10:38
- [narrator] Tanya Forrester
told police that she was given
Lynn Breeden's wallet
00:10:42
and identification by a man
named Chris Cruz who told her it
was stolen.
00:10:49
Together they agreed to clean
out her bank account before it
was reported missing.
00:10:53
- She was unaware, at the time,
that was the victim of a
homicide's bank account.
00:10:59
- [narrator] Chris Cruz was
an unusual character.
00:11:02
He was a model and actor, a
student at the University of
British Columbia
00:11:06
who was planning to attend
medical school.
00:11:10
Chris Cruz also went by the name
of Tony Devins, the stage name
he used as a
00:11:16
stripper and professional
escort. He reportedly had a
healthy appetite for
00:11:21
cocaine. Cruz told police that
he had been out on the night of
Breeden's murder.
00:11:27
First, at the Love Affair Night
Club and later at the same after
hours club that
00:11:34
Lynn Breeden and her boyfriend
attended. Cruz said he only
stayed for 20 minutes
00:11:38
before leaving in a taxi cab to
see a girlfriend. The next day
he said a friend
00:11:44
offered him the contents of Lynn
Breeden's purse, telling Cruz it
had been stolen.
00:11:50
- We asked him, "Can we search
your car?" He said yes we could.
We asked him what
00:11:56
kind of a car it was and he gave
his description, gray
Oldsmobile. We asked
00:12:01
him where it was and he said,
"It was not running very well.
It's out at my
00:12:05
grandmother's place in Surrey."
00:12:08
- [narrator] But Cruz didn't
know that he had been under
police surveillance.
00:12:11
They knew he had driven his car
to police headquarters for
questioning
00:12:15
and parked it right down the
street.
00:12:19
- Initially, you think, "Why is
he lying?" So the car must be
playing a part
00:12:21
um, in the lie.
00:12:25
So, we locked that up
and that was secured overnight.
00:12:30
- [narrator] When photographic
experts reprocessed the bank
photograph
00:12:35
to remove the window glare from
the sun, police could see the
individual
00:12:39
standing outside when Tanya
Forrester
00:12:43
attempted to withdraw Lynn
Breeden's money. It was Chris
Cruz. And
00:12:49
when forensic detectives
inspected Cruz's car, they found
blood on the outside of
00:12:55
the car and even more on the
inside.
00:12:59
- Inside the trunk, I think he
was basically living out of the
vehicle for
00:13:03
time. It was his own clothing
but there was evidence there
that you could only
00:13:09
hope for in any homicide case.
00:13:12
- [narrator] Police also found
a .22-caliber rifle,
00:13:16
a five-gallon gasoline container
in the trunk,
00:13:20
and the suit jacket Cruz was
seen wearing at the after hours
club. Inside
00:13:26
the pocket, police found a
Playboy bunny pendant stained
with blood. It was similar
00:13:32
to one Lynn Breeden wore in this
photograph. Many items inside
the car were
00:13:38
covered with blood. The spare
tire, clothing, a photo album,
and the tire iron
00:13:45
found in the backseat. In spite
of all the evidence, police had
a serious problem.
00:13:53
They had no way of knowing to
whom the blood in the car
belonged.
00:13:58
- Our difficulty in this case is
what was is it we were going to
compare it to.
00:14:02
The normal things that we would
use from an autopsy and the
toxicology exhibits
00:14:06
were so badly damaged that the
DNA exhibit
00:14:09
from those toxicology exhibits
was not possible.
00:14:13
- [narrator] If the police
couldn't figure out a way to
match the blood
00:14:16
inside Cruz's car to Lynn
Breeden, it was entirely
possible
00:14:20
that Chris Cruz would walk free.
00:14:27
Police had a lot of
circumstantial evidence linking
Chris Cruz
00:14:32
to Lynn Breeden. They found
blood in his car, on his
clothes,
00:14:37
and they found hair and blood on
a tire iron found in the
backseat.
00:14:42
- It was just incredible how
much evidence we had and it
would be an absolute shame
00:14:47
if the suspect had been
successful, so successful in
destroying the body that
00:14:52
none of that evidence could be
used in order to tie him to the
crime.
00:14:57
- [narrator] The fire not only
incinerated Lynn Breeden's body
but also any chance
00:15:03
of a DNA profile. Her skin,
blood, saliva, and hair
follicles, all possible areas
00:15:12
for DNA testing had all been
destroyed. Dr. David Suite is a
forensic odontologist
00:15:19
who had been following the
Breeden murder
00:15:22
in the newspapers.
He suggested that scientists
00:15:26
try something which had never
been attempted before, that they
try to harvest
00:15:31
the genetic material from inside
Breeden's teeth from the tooth
pulp in order to
00:15:36
generate a DNA profile.
00:15:40
- They ran with the idea,
released some evidence to me in
the forms of some bones
00:15:46
and teeth. I was particularly
interested in the impacted
wisdom teeth or the teeth
00:15:51
that was still embedded in the
jawbone, both the upper jawbone
and the lower
00:15:55
jawbone. It was my sense that
these teeth were more protected
from the fire than the
00:16:02
other tissues and the other
teeth because they were deeper
in the core of the body
00:16:05
away for the potential heat
source.
00:16:07
- [narrator] The pulp was sent
to the forensics lab along
00:16:11
with samples of blood collected
from Chris Cruz's car.
00:16:15
- I never thought for a second
that tooth pulp can be used or
any part of the tooth
00:16:21
can be used for DNA testing.
00:16:24
- [narrator] Blood cells were
extracted from the tooth pulp
and treated
00:16:27
with a special chemical cocktail
00:16:30
and the DNA floated free,
a sticky bundle of complex
00:16:36
molecules. Next, the DNA was cut
into smaller pieces, marked with
a radioactive
00:16:43
dye and placed in separate lanes
on electrophoretic gel where it
was subjected
00:16:50
to an electric field. The
separated fragments are then
visualized on x-ray
00:16:55
film called an autoradiogram,
which resembles a bar code.
00:17:00
When scientists compared the
blood DNA found in Cruz's trunk,
on his jacket, and
00:17:07
on the photo album, it matched
the DNA profile of Lynn Breeden.
00:17:13
- It was very clear. The match
showed that the DNA typing
profile from the various
00:17:17
exhibits submitted to me matched
that of the DNA typing profile
00:17:21
from the tooth pulp from the
victim.
00:17:22
- [narrator] Based
on the forensic evidence,
00:17:25
Chris Cruz was charged
with the murder of Lynn Breeden.
00:17:30
At the After Hours Night Club,
Lynn Breeden and her boyfriend,
Chris
00:17:36
Peycook got into an argument
when she flirted with some other
men she met there.
00:17:41
- Back off!
00:17:43
- [narrator] Following the
argument, Peycook left the club
alone.
00:17:46
Witnesses said Lynn was looking
for cocaine that night
00:17:51
and at some point made the
acquaintance of Chris Cruz.
00:17:56
There was some evidence that the
two already knew one another.
00:18:00
Both were models,
frequented the same night spots,
00:18:04
and reportedly shared
an appetite for cocaine.
00:18:13
Shortly after daybreak, they
left the After Hours Club
together
00:18:17
and some sort of disagreement
took place, possibly over
payment for some
00:18:21
drugs Cruz may have provided.
00:18:29
As they drove home that morning,
police believe their argument
escalated.
00:18:35
Cruz stopped the car and the
disagreement turned violent.
00:18:39
- My money. My money, now!
00:18:42
- Aah!
00:18:45
- [narrator] In a rage, Cruz
grabbed a tire iron from the
trunk
00:18:48
and struck Breeden on the head
and face.
00:18:50
[Lynn screaming]
00:18:54
As Lynn Breeden lay near death
with a fractured skull, Cruz
grabbed his
00:18:58
.22-caliber rifle and shot her
three times in the head.
00:19:03
Cruz placed the body into the
trunk
00:19:06
and drove to the deserted
parking lot where he dumped the
body inside a
00:19:11
garbage bin and emptied a
five-gallon container of
gasoline
00:19:15
he kept in the trunk.
00:19:22
No one saw the fire as it burned
for hours shortly after daybreak
00:19:27
on July 6th, 1991.
00:19:31
- According to the fire
department, the fire was
probably one gallon of gas away
00:19:38
from a total cremation. And
looking at the victim at the
time of the discovery, you
00:19:43
would have to believe that it
was close to a full cremation.
00:19:47
- [narrator] And without
the scientific evidence,
00:19:50
the remains might have gone
unidentified and the blood in
the car unmatched.
00:19:56
- Absolutely, it made the case.
It did the ultimate link up to
all this evidence
00:20:00
that we were so happy to find
to our victim of the murder.
00:20:05
- [narrator] And the case broke
new ground for forensic
scientists since it was
00:20:08
the first time that DNA evidence
from a tooth was used in a
criminal case.
00:20:16
Chris Cruz was convicted of
second degree murder in the
death of Lynn Breeden
00:20:21
and sentenced to life in prison.
00:20:25
- Lynn Breeden was a very
beautiful girl and a lot of
people acknowledged that. In
00:20:29
fact, there were a lot of areas
where she could have gone and
things that she could
00:20:34
have done as a result of it.
Unfortunately, she got caught up
in a
00:20:38
little bit of this cocaine
problem and the result was that
it brought her to the
00:20:44
circumstances that led to her
death. Very tragic. Chris Cruz
himself, a good-looking
00:20:50
man, a lot going for him. He had
attended the university here in
town and he was
00:20:56
doing what he could that way, so
it was another spoiled life,
really
00:20:58
by him being involved
in what had taken place here.
00:21:01
Again, as a result
of the drug involvement.
00:21:05
If you take away the drug, I
don't believe any of this would
have happened.
00:21:08
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00:21:18
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00:21:28
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