00:00:06
a young couple went camping in the woods
00:00:09
but only one of them came out alive
00:00:13
the survivor told two different versions
00:00:15
of what happened
00:00:17
so it took forensic psychiatry
00:00:19
ballistics and korean war history to
00:00:22
discover
00:00:23
what really happened in the deep forests
00:00:26
of oregon
00:00:30
[Music]
00:00:37
[Music]
00:00:54
[Music]
00:00:56
the area surrounding majestic mount hood
00:00:58
in oregon is a sportsman's paradise
00:01:04
mountain streams ideal for fishing and
00:01:07
boating and deep forests filled with
00:01:10
game
00:01:12
kandra and giulio torres chose this area
00:01:15
for a weekend camping trip
00:01:18
they were young giulio was 21 kandra
00:01:22
just 16.
00:01:25
it was pretty much love at first sight
00:01:29
my father wanted us to get married when
00:01:32
i was uh
00:01:33
15
00:01:35
because
00:01:36
he want could see that the relationship
00:01:38
was heating up
00:01:40
the trip celebrated their first wedding
00:01:42
anniversary and they brought kandra's
00:01:45
dog rusty along
00:01:47
although they loved to fish they weren't
00:01:49
catching anything so they asked one of
00:01:51
the other fishermen who was there for a
00:01:53
little advice
00:01:55
when he saw me he lit up
00:01:57
which was not i didn't think anything of
00:02:00
it i was very young attractive and i was
00:02:03
used to turning heads
00:02:07
the fisherman tom brown told them about
00:02:10
a good fishing spot nearby that had
00:02:12
recently been stocked with fish
00:02:15
and we looked at each other and it
00:02:17
sounded like fun we had had no luck
00:02:18
fishing for two days and we were ready
00:02:20
to catch some fish
00:02:22
the fishing site was several miles away
00:02:25
and by the time they got there it was
00:02:27
dark so they set up camp to get some
00:02:30
rest
00:02:30
[Music]
00:02:34
three days later kendra went to the
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local sheriff's office and called her
00:02:39
mother with some terrible news
00:02:43
she says julia's dead it was a terrible
00:02:45
accident will you come and get me
00:02:48
kandra said that the three of them had
00:02:50
gone fishing and later did some hunting
00:02:56
they sighted a deer
00:02:58
giulio handed tom his rifle so tom could
00:03:00
take the first shot but the rifle went
00:03:03
off accidentally
00:03:05
killing giulio instantly
00:03:08
kandra screamed her dog instinctively
00:03:11
attacked tom and tom
00:03:13
shot her dog rusty in self-defense
00:03:16
and then he panicked
00:03:18
because he had a prior record
00:03:21
was known to the police
00:03:23
and that no one would believe him
00:03:25
[Music]
00:03:26
so tom had no desire to explain the
00:03:29
incident to police and gave kandra the
00:03:32
choice between staying with him
00:03:35
or heading back to town
00:03:37
i had no way of getting down i couldn't
00:03:39
even drive
00:03:40
i didn't have a license i didn't know
00:03:42
how to drive a stick
00:03:44
confused and in shock
00:03:46
kandra stayed with brown
00:03:49
but after two days they reconsidered and
00:03:51
decided to notify the authorities
00:03:55
he told them that there'd been a
00:03:57
shooting and it was an accident
00:04:00
and she backed up his story
00:04:03
he then cooperated and
00:04:06
took them to where the body was
00:04:09
helped them recover the rifle
00:04:11
to prove his story
00:04:13
tom took a lie detector test and passed
00:04:17
police ruled giulio's death an accident
00:04:21
the sheriff's department
00:04:23
was very supportive of
00:04:26
tom brown
00:04:27
i think that they believed the stories
00:04:30
and that they wanted to keep an innocent
00:04:31
man
00:04:32
from being locked behind bars
00:04:35
but a few days later
00:04:37
kandra changed her story
00:04:44
kandra torres originally told
00:04:46
investigators she had witnessed her
00:04:48
husband's death and that it was an
00:04:50
accidental shooting
00:04:53
everybody was saying it was an accident
00:04:55
that knew anything about it
00:04:57
no one was saying anything other than
00:05:00
that
00:05:01
but kendra's mother had doubts about the
00:05:03
story
00:05:05
i know how she loved the dog and i know
00:05:07
how she loved him but it was just
00:05:12
like it was coming out of a stereo
00:05:16
you know being replayed or something i
00:05:18
don't know it wasn't like really her
00:05:22
but when kandra went back to the home
00:05:24
she shared with giulio
00:05:27
everything changed
00:05:29
and when she went inside the apartment
00:05:31
she fell apart
00:05:33
she said mom and daddy don't hate me
00:05:36
don't hate me
00:05:37
and i said i could never hate you
00:05:40
and then she said she didn't know
00:05:43
it wasn't she didn't know if it was an
00:05:45
accident or not that she did not seem
00:05:47
shot
00:05:49
and uh
00:05:50
and i said my god canada don't you
00:05:53
realize that man murdered your husband
00:05:56
in this version kandra said she was
00:05:59
alone making breakfast at the campsite
00:06:01
when she heard a shot
00:06:04
tom brown came running from the woods
00:06:07
kendra said she ran to see what had
00:06:09
happened to julio
00:06:11
and then i heard another shot
00:06:14
and i looked next to me
00:06:16
and my dog was jerking
00:06:19
he had been shot in the head and i
00:06:21
looked at him with total surprise
00:06:24
and i said you shot my dog and he smiled
00:06:27
a big smile and said i shot your husband
00:06:29
too
00:06:30
at that second my life flashed before me
00:06:33
i was 16 years old and i was gonna die
00:06:35
there was no one that could help me
00:06:38
my dog that i'd had from childhood
00:06:41
was
00:06:43
dead
00:06:43
my husband whom i loved
00:06:47
he's telling me he's dead and i'm
00:06:50
up in the mountains with a murderer i'm
00:06:52
next obviously whatever he wants with me
00:06:55
he's going to do
00:06:56
and then he's going to kill me and i
00:06:58
knew that i was going to die
00:06:59
[Music]
00:07:01
he then took her deep into the woods
00:07:05
after hiking for about four hours we
00:07:07
stopped to rest
00:07:09
at the river
00:07:11
and uh
00:07:12
that was the first time that he write me
00:07:17
kandra said brown assaulted her
00:07:18
repeatedly over the next several days
00:07:23
she said the one thing she feels that
00:07:26
saved her life
00:07:27
was reading aloud from the bible then
00:07:30
will i go to the altar of god to guide
00:07:32
my joy and my delight his heart had been
00:07:35
too touched and he wasn't able to kill
00:07:38
me
00:07:39
so he came to me instead
00:07:42
and he started crying
00:07:44
and he said
00:07:45
i didn't kill your husband on purpose it
00:07:48
was an accident
00:07:50
and
00:07:51
um
00:07:52
[Music]
00:07:54
the reason that i brought you up here
00:07:57
is because
00:07:59
i'm afraid to go back to prison
00:08:02
over the next several days
00:08:04
brown told kandra repeatedly that
00:08:07
giulio's death was an accident
00:08:11
and he agreed
00:08:12
to let her go
00:08:13
but only if she told authorities
00:08:17
that she witnessed the shooting and that
00:08:19
it was an accident
00:08:22
to see if this version was true
00:08:25
kandra took a lie detector test
00:08:27
tom brown had been given a lie detector
00:08:29
test
00:08:30
and his actually said that he was
00:08:32
telling the truth he knew how to pass
00:08:35
the lie detector test
00:08:37
so if if i took a lie detector test then
00:08:40
we'd at least have equal
00:08:43
evidence against him
00:08:46
but she failed
00:08:47
polygraphs do not measure truth
00:08:50
or lie what they measure is emotion and
00:08:54
if you were a 16 year old girl that had
00:08:57
been raped and marched up in the
00:08:58
mountain and god saved you brought you
00:09:01
down out of that mountain you're
00:09:03
emotional you're talking about your
00:09:05
husband that you loved that was shot by
00:09:07
this murderer
00:09:09
would you be emotional i think so
00:09:12
with nowhere else to turn
00:09:14
investigators looked more closely at the
00:09:17
physical evidence
00:09:20
the dog's wound would tell whether he
00:09:22
was shot frontally as tom brown claimed
00:09:25
or from behind which was kandra's
00:09:28
version
00:09:30
unfortunately the dog's body had not
00:09:32
been autopsied and he was buried in a
00:09:34
mass grave for animals
00:09:37
the bullet that killed giulio entered
00:09:40
his cheek and passed nearly horizontally
00:09:43
through his upper vertebrae
00:09:46
trajectories could vary depending on
00:09:49
terrain
00:09:51
and a whole
00:09:52
variety of other factors of how the gun
00:09:55
was held whether the person receiving it
00:09:57
was standing uphill or downhill
00:10:00
a trajectory analysis wasn't enough to
00:10:02
tell whether the shooting was an
00:10:04
accident or intentional
00:10:08
but they couldn't understand
00:10:10
how tom brown passed his polygraph
00:10:14
we believed her but she'd flunked a
00:10:15
polygraph we didn't believe him but he'd
00:10:18
passed and so what do you do
00:10:20
well what are our other options
00:10:22
so prosecutors asked a forensic
00:10:23
psychiatrist how kandra could have
00:10:26
failed her polygraph
00:10:27
and his discovery
00:10:29
changed the course of the investigation
00:10:36
at first kendra torres said she watched
00:10:38
in horror as her husband was killed in a
00:10:41
freak hunting accident
00:10:43
later she claimed that tom brown
00:10:45
murdered her husband while she was back
00:10:48
at the campsite
00:10:50
to find out which version was correct
00:10:53
forensic psychiatrist dr joseph tree
00:10:55
levin interviewed kandra for several
00:10:58
hours
00:10:59
i concluded that she didn't have any
00:11:02
mental disorder
00:11:05
she was under some stress because she'd
00:11:07
had a stressful experience but that was
00:11:09
all
00:11:10
but why did kandra initially vouch for
00:11:14
tom brown the man she now says
00:11:17
killed her husband
00:11:19
frankly at first i didn't know what to
00:11:21
make about it i remembered the stories
00:11:24
of what happened to the prisoners of war
00:11:26
in the korean war
00:11:28
and where they were isolated often
00:11:31
brutalized
00:11:32
often for fear of their life
00:11:35
and after a long period of time some of
00:11:37
them would accept the
00:11:40
point of view of their captor
00:11:43
and then
00:11:44
testify
00:11:45
against their own country
00:11:48
and they call it at the time
00:11:49
brainwashing
00:11:51
today it's known as the stockholm
00:11:53
syndrome named for the hostages held in
00:11:56
a stockholm bank robbery who sympathized
00:11:59
with their captors even while their
00:12:02
lives were threatened
00:12:04
experts say this occurs to hostages when
00:12:07
four things happen a traumatic shock
00:12:11
isolation
00:12:12
indoctrination and the promise of a
00:12:15
reward
00:12:17
the shooting of the dog
00:12:19
gives a very visual and powerful
00:12:21
demonstration of the dangerousness of
00:12:23
the man that was her captor
00:12:26
that brings it home
00:12:28
and then being uh
00:12:30
assaulted physically pretty powerful
00:12:33
stuff you know it's stressful almost as
00:12:36
you can get
00:12:38
for kandra the cascade mountains
00:12:40
provided the isolation and brown
00:12:43
indoctrinated her by repeatedly telling
00:12:45
her that the shooting was an accident
00:12:49
her reward was survival escape from
00:12:52
repeated rape and the fear she may have
00:12:55
been responsible for her husband's
00:12:57
murder
00:12:58
the reward
00:13:00
in kandra torres case wasn't just coming
00:13:03
out of the woods alive
00:13:06
the reward was that then she wouldn't
00:13:08
feel guilty about being an instrument of
00:13:10
her husband's death
00:13:12
kandra didn't just accept brown's story
00:13:14
of an accidental shooting
00:13:16
she actually believed it
00:13:19
i had nobody with me but a murderer do i
00:13:23
really want to believe he's a murderer
00:13:24
because believing that is terrifying
00:13:27
do i really want to think that my
00:13:29
husband died so that someone could rape
00:13:31
me and kidnap me for me denial
00:13:34
was the
00:13:36
best way to survive
00:13:39
we all tell ourselves little lies and
00:13:41
sometimes big lies to make ourselves
00:13:43
feel more comfortable and certainly when
00:13:45
our survival is at stake
00:13:48
i mean you can change your perception of
00:13:50
things
00:13:51
this made her polygraph test useless
00:13:55
she doesn't know in her own mind
00:13:58
what is truth and what is fiction how
00:14:00
can
00:14:01
she possibly
00:14:02
react properly to a polygraph
00:14:04
examination
00:14:05
it's not a piece of equipment that's
00:14:07
going to tell the future it's not going
00:14:09
to tell the past unless you know what it
00:14:10
is
00:14:11
can't give you information that you
00:14:13
don't know
00:14:14
there is a reason
00:14:16
and a very good reason
00:14:18
that polygraph examinations are not
00:14:20
admissible in courts of law
00:14:23
with all respect to
00:14:24
polygraph operators and to the science
00:14:26
of polygraphy
00:14:28
in this incident
00:14:30
uh tom brown passed the polygraph
00:14:33
and in this instance mrs torres flunked
00:14:36
the polygraph
00:14:37
i firmly believe that both results are
00:14:40
dead wrong
00:14:42
prosecutors now accepted the idea that
00:14:45
kandra was brainwashed
00:14:48
but how would they prove that giulio had
00:14:50
been murdered
00:14:52
she could testify to what he said she
00:14:54
could testify about what happened to the
00:14:56
dog and so on
00:14:59
but we had a crime committed without an
00:15:02
eyewitness
00:15:04
and this was a
00:15:05
very very
00:15:07
close case
00:15:10
ballistic experts re-examine the
00:15:12
evidence and the level trajectory
00:15:15
if you're handing a gun
00:15:18
there's a lot of weight there
00:15:20
the chances of holding the gun to be
00:15:23
perfectly flat
00:15:26
again very very unlikely because
00:15:29
i would expect it to be
00:15:31
upward
00:15:33
instead of
00:15:36
straight across
00:15:37
the medical examiner found no gunpowder
00:15:40
residue around giulio taurus's entrance
00:15:43
wound
00:15:44
so investigators wanted to find out the
00:15:46
distance between giulio and the gun when
00:15:50
it was
00:15:52
fired a bullet isn't the only thing that
00:15:55
comes out of the rifle when fired
00:15:58
gases and gunpowder do too
00:16:01
brown's rifle a 22 caliber savage model
00:16:04
99 was tested at the oregon state police
00:16:07
lab
00:16:08
it was fired at a target six inches away
00:16:11
and it left a visible pattern
00:16:14
there were other test shots at
00:16:15
increasing distances
00:16:17
[Music]
00:16:19
so then you get to a point where you
00:16:22
have no pattern at all it doesn't show
00:16:24
up at all
00:16:25
and that was
00:16:26
what the d.a was
00:16:28
primarily interested in how far
00:16:31
before you don't have anything
00:16:33
[Music]
00:16:34
the rifle had to be 36 inches away from
00:16:37
the target to leave no trace of
00:16:39
gunpowder
00:16:42
this meant that brown's rifle was at
00:16:44
least three feet away when the trigger
00:16:47
was pulled
00:16:49
to have muzzled to target distance of
00:16:51
three feet
00:16:53
and a level
00:16:55
entry entry and exit wound
00:16:58
how do you contort yourself
00:17:01
to be able to do that
00:17:03
when he's claiming all he was doing is
00:17:05
passing the gun along
00:17:08
with this forensic evidence
00:17:10
tom brown was arrested and charged with
00:17:13
murder
00:17:19
based on the ballistic evidence
00:17:21
prosecutors were convinced that tom
00:17:24
brown murdered julio torres in the
00:17:27
oregon forest
00:17:28
to have his 16 year old wife
00:17:31
all to himself
00:17:34
[Music]
00:17:35
trying the case wouldn't be easy
00:17:38
since kandra told two different stories
00:17:40
to authorities
00:17:42
even if you believe kandra torres a
00:17:44
hundred
00:17:45
she didn't see it
00:17:47
there were still no witnesses to this
00:17:48
incident
00:17:50
and
00:17:51
he cooperated all the way through
00:17:54
but while brown was awaiting trial in
00:17:56
the county jail he admitted the murder
00:17:58
to his cellmate
00:18:01
the basics of it was when i'm going to
00:18:02
beat it
00:18:04
i passed the polygraph that they
00:18:06
wouldn't be able to get a conviction
00:18:07
because i wasn't emotionally stable
00:18:09
enough to hold out in court and then
00:18:11
when i beat it i'm going to
00:18:13
go after these
00:18:14
go after her
00:18:17
and those those two prosecutors but if
00:18:19
they did get a conviction
00:18:21
it wouldn't be a big deal because he'd
00:18:23
get seven years and parole and he'd get
00:18:25
out and he'd kill me and he'd kill my
00:18:27
lawyer
00:18:28
his cellmate turned state's evidence
00:18:31
but prosecutors still felt they needed
00:18:34
the forensic evidence
00:18:36
that evidence was important
00:18:38
but all those kinds of evidence are
00:18:40
always subject to human frailties and
00:18:43
cross-examination and credibility and
00:18:45
bias and so forth and of course the
00:18:49
the powerful nature of forensic evidence
00:18:51
is it's not subject to those things
00:18:53
kandra torres testified in detail about
00:18:56
her ordeal
00:18:58
tom brown told his version and tried to
00:19:01
demonstrate how the alleged accident
00:19:03
took place
00:19:05
he tried to hand off their rifle and it
00:19:07
was just just for you can't you can't do
00:19:10
it
00:19:11
and he stuck to his guns
00:19:13
and i believe stuck to a lie
00:19:15
but it was demonstrated to be that
00:19:18
brown was so confident that he waived
00:19:20
the jury trial
00:19:22
the verdict from the judge
00:19:24
was guilty
00:19:27
he was sentenced to life in prison
00:19:32
bob hamilton is retired now but he
00:19:35
attends brown's parole hearings to make
00:19:38
certain he stays in prison and that
00:19:41
kandra never has to see him again
00:19:45
kandra is remarried as a family and a
00:19:48
new life
00:19:49
she credits forensic psychiatry with
00:19:51
helping her move beyond her horrifying
00:19:55
ordeal
00:19:57
i guess the fact that somebody
00:19:59
explained to her and explained publicly
00:20:02
why
00:20:03
she had
00:20:04
these confused stories but she wasn't
00:20:06
nuts
00:20:08
and there was a logical explanation for
00:20:10
it gave her a great deal of emotional
00:20:14
relief
00:20:15
but it was ballistics and the physics of
00:20:18
gunpowder patterns that provided
00:20:21
conclusive evidence that tom brown was
00:20:24
lying
00:20:27
i thank god for forensics i think that
00:20:29
they solve a lot of crimes and the fact
00:20:31
that
00:20:32
the angle of the of the the shot and the
00:20:35
type of gun that was used and the powder
00:20:37
burns were all proof
00:20:40
that this
00:20:41
you know that it did not happen the way
00:20:44
that he
00:20:45
said it did
00:20:46
so i was very thankful for that evidence
00:20:49
you have five witnesses
00:20:51
to a crime
00:20:52
you're probably going to get five
00:20:54
different scenarios
00:20:57
you do the forensic science you're going
00:20:59
to get one
00:21:01
and that's it
00:21:04
[Music]
00:21:13
[Music]
00:21:22
so
00:21:25
[Music]
00:21:26
[Applause]
00:21:32
[Music]
00:21:41
you
