00:00:05
9-1-1 did you please fire medical
00:00:07
an anonymous telephone call told police
00:00:10
where they could find the body of a
00:00:12
missing nine-year-old girl
00:00:16
the recording of that call had too much
00:00:19
static and background noise for voice
00:00:21
identification until forensic scientists
00:00:24
worked their magic
00:00:27
which led investigators to a factory a
00:00:29
supermarket and straight to the front
00:00:32
door of a suspect
00:00:35
[Music]
00:00:42
[Music]
00:01:01
on the friday before easter in 1996
00:01:04
nine-year-old jessica knott spent the
00:01:06
day playing reading and drawing
00:01:09
the kids were home from school i spent
00:01:12
the day packing up clothes and getting
00:01:14
ready for a trip that we had planned to
00:01:16
make to my husband's parents house to
00:01:19
spend the easter weekend with them
00:01:22
eventually jessica wanted to go outside
00:01:24
to play and wait for her father to come
00:01:26
home
00:01:27
she said i'd like to go downstairs
00:01:30
and wait for dad
00:01:32
because my husband was out shopping for
00:01:34
easter goodies
00:01:36
i said fine you know don't go anywhere
00:01:38
else a couple of hours later
00:01:42
kevin not walked in the front door but
00:01:44
without jessica
00:01:46
and it was starting to get dark
00:01:49
and he said where's jessica i said
00:01:51
didn't you see her she was she said she
00:01:53
was right out front he said no
00:01:57
kevin and peggy not searched everywhere
00:02:00
one neighbor said she saw jessica
00:02:02
sitting outside reading a few hours
00:02:04
earlier but hadn't seen her since
00:02:07
police were notified of jessica's
00:02:09
disappearance they instituted a
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parameter search of the area
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[Music]
00:02:15
but their first real lead was an
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anonymous telephone call saying that
00:02:20
jessica could be found not far from her
00:02:23
home on montgomery road
00:02:26
i have a message jessica from los alamos
00:02:29
the call originated from a pay phone at
00:02:32
a gas station on montgomery road
00:02:39
[Applause]
00:02:42
no one was there when police arrived
00:02:47
crime scene investigator deanna tominski
00:02:49
was called to the area
00:02:51
while i was in route to the mobile gas
00:02:53
station they called me and informed me
00:02:55
they had found a body of a juvenile
00:02:58
female
00:02:59
the body was in a dark isolated area
00:03:03
near a water system pomp house
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a quarter mile from where the telephone
00:03:07
call was made
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she was partially covered with a dark
00:03:11
plastic garbage bag
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and there were a couple of magazines a
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mirror around her
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it was jessica knott
00:03:24
i think it was detective rodriguez i was
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sitting on the sofa in my living room
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and he came in he's and i just knew he
00:03:33
said i found your daughter
00:03:34
and i knew that she was gone at that
00:03:38
point so
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[Music]
00:03:46
that was uh
00:03:50
that was the worst night of my life
00:03:55
it was like
00:03:56
a nightmare
00:03:58
for any parent
00:04:01
you know i still
00:04:03
have a hard time accepting it
00:04:06
deanna tominski searched the area for
00:04:09
possible forensic evidence
00:04:12
jessica's clothing was intact except for
00:04:15
one missing shoe
00:04:18
it appeared that she'd been placed there
00:04:20
that she was not killed there
00:04:22
because there were items underneath her
00:04:24
as well as on top of her and there was a
00:04:27
drag mark in the sand that corresponded
00:04:30
with her left shoulder
00:04:32
there was a tire impression nearby
00:04:35
which police photographed then cast with
00:04:38
plaster for future evaluation
00:04:41
the body was carefully removed for an
00:04:43
autopsy along with the plastic garbage
00:04:47
bag in which the body was found
00:04:50
the first thing you try to do is you try
00:04:51
to eliminate people who know her how
00:04:54
could she have gotten away from there
00:04:56
without raising a ruckus you have to
00:04:58
wonder how in the world did it even
00:04:59
happen that no one could see it
00:05:01
so
00:05:02
the first thing to do obviously is to
00:05:04
look at family
00:05:05
when questioned by police neither
00:05:07
jessica's mother peggy nor her husband
00:05:10
kevin were able to provide an alibi for
00:05:12
the time of jessica's disappearance
00:05:16
kevin said he was shopping peggy said
00:05:18
she was inside cleaning her house but
00:05:20
neither could provide any independent
00:05:23
corroboration
00:05:25
in kevin knott's vehicle
00:05:27
police found a roll of garbage bags
00:05:29
which were confiscated for forensic
00:05:31
analysis
00:05:33
and there was something else suspicious
00:05:36
an analysis of the anonymous call to
00:05:38
police revealed the tone of the caller's
00:05:41
voice as sympathetic suggesting
00:05:44
that the caller knew jessica personally
00:05:49
if investigators could identify the
00:05:51
caller
00:05:52
they most likely had their killer
00:05:57
[Applause]
00:06:00
the autopsy of nine-year-old jessica
00:06:02
knott revealed bruising on her neck and
00:06:05
the inside of her mouth indicating
00:06:07
someone had cupped a hand over her mouth
00:06:11
and suffocated her
00:06:13
we couldn't be sure whether it was
00:06:14
strangulation or whether it was
00:06:16
suffocation because of a hand over the
00:06:18
mouth probably a combination of the two
00:06:20
actually
00:06:22
and the contents of her stomach revealed
00:06:24
she had eaten a fast food hamburger
00:06:27
shortly before she was killed
00:06:30
how can you treat a human
00:06:32
life
00:06:34
like a piece of trash i mean literally
00:06:37
he put her in a garbage pick and dumped
00:06:39
her on under a tree i think it was they
00:06:41
found her i mean
00:06:44
that really makes me angry
00:06:46
extremely angry
00:06:49
scott ryland analyzed the bag covering
00:06:52
jessica
00:06:53
he found no fingerprints on it and also
00:06:56
determined that the bag was different
00:06:58
from the type found in jessica's
00:07:00
father's truck
00:07:03
this eliminated kevin not as a possible
00:07:06
suspect
00:07:07
they asked to interview me right off the
00:07:10
bat which i understood and it was pretty
00:07:12
hard
00:07:13
but it had to be done
00:07:15
the trace evidence found on jessica's
00:07:17
body hairs fibers and other materials
00:07:20
were sent to forensic scientist max
00:07:23
houck
00:07:24
he immediately identified important
00:07:27
information about the killer
00:07:30
the foreign hair found on jessica's body
00:07:33
was caucasian
00:07:36
and there were two different types of
00:07:37
fibers both were matte finished very
00:07:40
thick and rough not the type used in
00:07:43
clothing there's a certain look to
00:07:45
carpet fibers and there's a certain look
00:07:47
to automotive fibers and if you look at
00:07:49
enough of them you can eventually get a
00:07:51
hunch if you will that it may be
00:07:54
in fact from an automobile
00:07:56
either the carpeting or maybe the floor
00:07:57
mats
00:07:58
the fibers were from two different
00:08:00
carpets suggesting that jessica had been
00:08:03
in two different locations
00:08:08
and there was another telling piece of
00:08:10
trace evidence
00:08:12
and then there was the overwhelming
00:08:14
number of animal hairs the animal hairs
00:08:16
were distinctive
00:08:18
as to what type of animal they were from
00:08:20
a dog
00:08:21
dogs have what's called a spade shaped
00:08:23
root it also kind of looks like a small
00:08:25
christmas tree
00:08:27
sort of folded up and triangular in
00:08:28
shape
00:08:30
hauck then compared that dog hair to
00:08:33
reference samples from the fbi
00:08:35
laboratory
00:08:36
i knew it wasn't going to be a malamute
00:08:38
or you know some alaskan husky so i went
00:08:40
to short-haired dogs
00:08:42
black labs
00:08:44
sharpays boston terriers dogs like that
00:08:47
that have very short sleek coats
00:08:50
and then started comparing the
00:08:51
characteristics all the other dogs
00:08:53
dropped out except for sharpay
00:08:57
all of this evidence told investigators
00:08:59
that the killer was caucasian and that
00:09:02
he took jessica in his automobile to a
00:09:05
fast food restaurant
00:09:08
later jessica was in another location
00:09:11
where she came into contact with a
00:09:13
sharpie dog
00:09:17
police then turned their attention
00:09:19
to the anonymous telephone call
00:09:23
the 911 tape obviously a key piece of
00:09:26
evidence everyone was convinced the
00:09:28
person on that tape was the murderer and
00:09:30
we wanted to be able to identify that
00:09:32
voice
00:09:33
the call had been made from a public
00:09:35
telephone at a gas station
00:09:38
and had quite a bit of background noise
00:09:41
and static
00:09:43
[Music]
00:09:44
[Applause]
00:09:46
[Music]
00:09:48
police sent the tape to nasa asking
00:09:52
scientists there to use the same audio
00:09:54
techniques they employ to clean up audio
00:09:57
transmissions from space
00:10:00
after that was complete the tape was
00:10:02
sent to dr harry holine a renowned
00:10:05
forensic audio analyst who literally
00:10:07
wrote the book on forensic audio
00:10:09
analysis
00:10:12
dr holin felt certain he could identify
00:10:15
the voice on the telephone call all he
00:10:17
needed
00:10:18
was a suspect's voice for comparison
00:10:22
the tone of the caller's voice sounded
00:10:24
to investigators as sympathetic as if he
00:10:27
knew jessica personally
00:10:30
on a hunch police played the tape for
00:10:33
jessica's mother and her reaction was
00:10:36
immediate
00:10:38
my first reaction was this voice is very
00:10:41
familiar to me and i think
00:10:44
i had to listen to it a few times
00:10:47
before i realized this
00:10:50
oh it it was like a bell ringing my head
00:10:53
ah that's it it's the guy with the dog
00:10:57
the guy with the dog
00:10:59
was a neighbor
00:11:00
she just couldn't recall his name
00:11:04
[Music]
00:11:08
in their grief
00:11:10
friends and neighbors left lilies and
00:11:12
toy rabbits where jessica knott's body
00:11:14
was found on easter weekend
00:11:17
meanwhile jessica's mother had provided
00:11:19
police with a suspect
00:11:21
she said the man who called police
00:11:23
pointing them to jessica's body sounded
00:11:26
like a neighbor who walked his dog in
00:11:28
the area
00:11:30
police identified the man as 35 year old
00:11:33
james edward crowe who had no prior
00:11:36
arrests
00:11:37
crowe lived with his wife who was a
00:11:39
nurse
00:11:40
he was unemployed and spent quite a bit
00:11:42
of time walking his dog pumpkin
00:11:46
he stayed home and watched the house and
00:11:48
the dog and walked the dog around and
00:11:50
talked to all the kids
00:11:52
now that's not the worst thing in the
00:11:54
world in some
00:11:55
situations but it certainly makes you
00:11:57
wonder
00:11:58
something about him made me feel
00:12:00
uncomfortable but
00:12:01
it's not a thought that i dwelled on
00:12:05
pumpkin was a sharp pay similar to the
00:12:07
breed whose hair was found on jessica's
00:12:09
body
00:12:11
a neighbor had seen crow talking to
00:12:13
jessica outside the apartment building
00:12:15
shortly before she disappeared
00:12:18
crowe admitted talking to her but denied
00:12:21
having anything to do with her
00:12:22
disappearance
00:12:24
investigators searched crowe's vehicle
00:12:28
amid the debris
00:12:29
they found a bag for a kid's meal from a
00:12:32
nearby fast food restaurant
00:12:35
remnants of a fast food hamburger had
00:12:38
been found in jessica's stomach
00:12:41
and crowe had brand new tires on his
00:12:44
truck
00:12:45
police discovered that crowe had
00:12:46
replaced them just after jessica's death
00:12:50
and in crow's apartment police found a
00:12:53
box of black garbage bags the same size
00:12:56
and brand as the bag found with
00:12:58
jessica's body
00:13:00
could they link the garbage bag from the
00:13:03
crime scene to the garbage bags and
00:13:05
crow's apartment
00:13:08
there are a huge number of garbage bags
00:13:10
produced typically on the order of nine
00:13:12
and a half million bags in one month
00:13:14
time
00:13:15
so the question is
00:13:17
how many of those nine million bags
00:13:20
could be like this bag found on jessica
00:13:22
knott's body
00:13:24
to find out
00:13:26
investigators turned to noel roberts
00:13:29
as a quality control expert for the
00:13:31
manufacturer he knows garbage bags
00:13:35
robert said that the number stamped on
00:13:38
the box indicated where the bag had been
00:13:40
made
00:13:41
the bags and crow's apartment had been
00:13:43
made in virginia
00:13:46
the goal of mass production is to
00:13:48
quickly make an identical product over
00:13:50
and over again
00:13:51
but roberts knew that not every trash
00:13:54
bag was truly identical
00:13:57
he invited scott ryland and prosecutor
00:14:00
chris white to the plant to understand
00:14:02
how the manufacturing process worked
00:14:05
how plastic is recycled melted blown
00:14:09
into a huge tube that cools as it
00:14:12
ascends and then made into rolls of thin
00:14:15
sheets that are cut and folded into bags
00:14:19
manufacturers use a variety of materials
00:14:22
to make the bags including scraps
00:14:25
you're taking a random amount of white
00:14:27
plastic bags
00:14:29
of yellow ties that have iron in them
00:14:33
the white plastic bags are very rich in
00:14:35
titanium dioxide
00:14:37
so what you have depending on this
00:14:40
random variation in the scrap that's
00:14:42
being used a change in the concentration
00:14:45
of the iron and the titanium and in fact
00:14:47
it turns out from day to day
00:14:50
to reveal the elements in the plastic
00:14:53
scott ryland focused a high intensity
00:14:56
x-ray beam on samples of the bags found
00:14:59
in crow's apartment
00:15:01
a fluorescent spectrometer reveals the
00:15:04
elements in the plastic and their
00:15:06
relative concentrations
00:15:09
the bag found with jessica was virtually
00:15:12
identical to the bags in crow's
00:15:14
apartment indicating they had been from
00:15:17
the same batch of plastic
00:15:20
another characteristic was visible to
00:15:22
the naked eye
00:15:24
when the plastic is made bits of debris
00:15:27
will get lodged in the machinery this
00:15:29
produces imperfections in the plastic
00:15:32
called dye lines
00:15:35
because the obstructions causing the
00:15:37
lines come and go the pattern on the
00:15:40
bags is unique to a specific window of
00:15:43
time
00:15:44
and it almost gives you a fingerprint
00:15:46
type identification where you can take
00:15:48
one bag and really match it up with the
00:15:51
next bag in a carton and be pretty sure
00:15:54
that it is a consecutive bag and from
00:15:56
the same batch
00:15:58
the dye lines and the bags found in
00:16:01
crow's apartment lined up with the dye
00:16:04
lines in the bag from the crime scene
00:16:06
meaning
00:16:07
all the bags were manufactured within
00:16:10
hours of each other
00:16:13
often the bags are not folded evenly the
00:16:17
amount of overlap in the edges called an
00:16:19
offset varies over time and with each
00:16:22
machine used
00:16:25
the offset in crow's bags and the bag
00:16:27
with jessica's body
00:16:29
also matched
00:16:32
i think most people would say wow we're
00:16:34
not dealing with 32 to 34 potential
00:16:37
boxes but it narrows it down to half
00:16:39
that number it's probably realistically
00:16:41
16 to 17 boxes of bags out there as
00:16:45
potential sources
00:16:47
of the bag found in jessica's body
00:16:49
meaning that there was a 1 in 17 chance
00:16:54
that the garbage bag came from crowe's
00:16:57
apartment
00:16:59
james edward crowe was arrested
00:17:02
and charged with the murder of
00:17:04
nine-year-old jessica knott
00:17:08
[Music]
00:17:10
forensic scientists were able to
00:17:12
determine that the carpet fibers found
00:17:15
on jessica's body were consistent with
00:17:17
the carpet fibers in james crowe's
00:17:20
apartment and in his automobile
00:17:26
and the dog hair on jessica's body was
00:17:29
consistent with crow's dog
00:17:32
the garbage bags in crow's home had the
00:17:35
same striations and offset overlaps as
00:17:38
the bag with jessica's body
00:17:42
this meant that crow owned one of the 17
00:17:45
boxes of bags that the bag from the
00:17:47
crime scene could have come from
00:17:51
finally
00:17:52
dr harry hollen compared a sample of
00:17:55
crow's voice to the voice on the
00:17:58
anonymous telephone call
00:18:01
and he came to a conclusion somewhere in
00:18:03
the 90 percent
00:18:04
range that this was in fact the same
00:18:07
voice
00:18:10
based on the forensic evidence
00:18:12
prosecutors believe that crowe used his
00:18:15
dog to start a conversation with jessica
00:18:18
while she waited outside for her father
00:18:21
do you like dogs yeah
00:18:23
do you want to try to take them for a
00:18:24
walk
00:18:25
yes yeah it'd be really fun
00:18:30
from there he coaxed her into his car
00:18:33
with the promise of a fast food
00:18:35
hamburger
00:18:39
afterwards the forensic evidence
00:18:41
suggests crow took her back to his
00:18:43
apartment where she picked up the
00:18:45
apartment carpet fibers and the hairs
00:18:48
from his dog
00:18:49
[Music]
00:18:52
for reasons unknown crow apparently
00:18:55
suffocated jessica in his apartment
00:19:00
he then hid the body in a garbage bag
00:19:03
and placed it in the back of his car
00:19:05
without creating suspicion
00:19:08
after dumping the body in the deserted
00:19:11
location he placed a call to police
00:19:14
probably out of guilt which dr holin
00:19:17
matched with his audio expertise
00:19:23
james crowe maintained his innocence and
00:19:26
his defense attorneys challenged the
00:19:28
forensic evidence
00:19:30
in a separate hearing to determine the
00:19:32
admissibility of this forensic evidence
00:19:34
in the upcoming trial prosecutors had to
00:19:37
prove that the scientific analysis of
00:19:40
the garbage bags met general scientific
00:19:43
standards
00:19:44
in the end the judge said i find it
00:19:46
admissible not only do i find it
00:19:48
admissible i think it's some of the best
00:19:50
forensic testimony that i've ever seen
00:19:52
and the jury is going to be very very
00:19:55
interested in this testimony
00:19:57
well you don't get those kind of
00:19:58
compliments from judges every day
00:20:01
faced with the overwhelming forensic
00:20:03
evidence james crowe decided to plead no
00:20:06
contest to second-degree murder in
00:20:08
exchange for a sentence of 40 years in
00:20:11
prison with no chance for parole
00:20:15
in so doing
00:20:16
crow avoided a possible death sentence
00:20:20
all i can say is the man upstairs is
00:20:22
waiting for him
00:20:26
but possibly the man downstairs too
00:20:39
the family
00:20:40
was spared the ordeal of a trial
00:20:43
but in the courtroom
00:20:45
they showed crow
00:20:46
how much he hurt them when kevin read a
00:20:49
poem he had written
00:20:51
[Music]
00:20:52
dare you to swift justice to meet your
00:20:55
omega to face your guard until israel
00:20:58
the sooner the better
00:21:02
the knots never before realized the
00:21:05
complexity of forensic evidence and the
00:21:07
full measure of its power
00:21:12
with all the dna testing that goes on
00:21:15
and
00:21:17
just all the science scientific
00:21:19
technology that's available today
00:21:22
i think just helps everybody
00:21:25
get closer
00:21:26
to the truth of
00:21:29
crimes it wasn't available like say 20
00:21:33
30 years ago
00:21:34
and
00:21:36
it
00:21:37
pretty much cut to the core of what
00:21:39
happened
00:21:40
the
00:21:41
forensic capabilities of our local
00:21:44
department of law enforcement lab and
00:21:46
the fbi lab
00:21:48
are what made this case possible
00:21:50
in the sense of made it possible for us
00:21:52
to prosecute it successfully if we had
00:21:55
not had the capabilities of those labs i
00:21:58
think james crowe would still be on the
00:22:00
street
00:22:03
[Music]
00:22:09
[Music]
00:22:30
[Music]
00:22:35
you
