00:00:00
[Music]
00:00:04
up next
00:00:05
a wealthy businessman is killed by an
00:00:08
intruder
00:00:13
investigators find a wide conspiracy
00:00:16
the murder had been planned out other
00:00:19
people not only knew about it but had
00:00:21
been asked to participate
00:00:23
friends turn on friends i didn't do
00:00:25
anything
00:00:26
it didn't seem to be sinking in with him
00:00:28
how deep he was involved
00:00:30
but to get the killer one piece of
00:00:32
evidence had
00:00:33
to be identified all these high school
00:00:36
kids had been involved
00:00:37
and perhaps one of them did
00:00:47
just after midnight in saint cloud
00:00:50
minnesota
00:00:51
seventeen-year-old jason mclennan
00:00:53
returned home from a night out with a
00:00:56
friend
00:00:58
he took a shower downstairs
00:01:01
but before he went to bed he went up to
00:01:03
the kitchen to get something to eat
00:01:06
in the foyer near the front door he saw
00:01:10
his father lying on the floor bleeding
00:01:14
i need help my dad's just been shot i
00:01:15
just came home and he's on the ground i
00:01:17
don't know
00:01:18
is he inside the house oh yeah he's on
00:01:20
the ground do you know who did this to
00:01:22
him no i just came home
00:01:24
when paramedics arrived they found
00:01:26
jason's father 53 year old
00:01:28
ken mclennan dead at the base of the
00:01:31
stairs
00:01:33
he had been shot to death it looked like
00:01:36
ken mclennan
00:01:37
came down the stairs and encountered an
00:01:39
intruder
00:01:41
when you come down dressed in only a
00:01:43
bathrobe
00:01:44
you don't expect that someone's going to
00:01:45
be waiting for you with a loaded rifle
00:01:48
there was wounds to the temple to the
00:01:50
forehead to the throat
00:01:52
the chest area to the right hand and
00:01:55
one in the back as well the attack was
00:01:58
so fast and so unexpected
00:02:00
mclennan had little time to react
00:02:04
he grabbed the end of the gun he
00:02:06
actually reached up
00:02:07
and the gun actually had contact with
00:02:09
his hand
00:02:10
the shot goes through the hand there
00:02:13
were at least six shots perhaps seven
00:02:15
that were fired every single one hit ken
00:02:18
mclennan
00:02:19
the killer took the time to pick up the
00:02:22
shell casings
00:02:23
all except one there was one spent 22
00:02:27
shell casing left on the hardwood floor
00:02:29
near the body
00:02:30
the motive appeared to be robbery we
00:02:33
discovered that ken's wallet along with
00:02:35
some cash and identification cards
00:02:37
and also some foreign currency and ken's
00:02:39
watch we're missing from the residence
00:02:41
ken mclennan was a widower as a vice
00:02:44
president in charge of international
00:02:46
sales of a crafts company
00:02:48
he often traveled and had just returned
00:02:50
from an overseas trip
00:02:52
he made a good living his value was over
00:02:56
a million dollars in terms of
00:02:58
life insurance and actual assets the
00:03:00
mclennan family was of some wealth
00:03:03
and so we explored that as a motive for
00:03:06
his murder who might
00:03:07
gain from his death as the sun rose the
00:03:10
next morning
00:03:12
police found some important evidence
00:03:14
outside
00:03:15
in the fresh snow some shoe impressions
00:03:19
from the backyard leading straight to
00:03:22
the front door
00:03:24
police were convinced that these prints
00:03:27
belonged
00:03:28
to the killer
00:03:32
at ken mclennan's autopsy the medical
00:03:35
examiner recovered seven
00:03:36
22-caliber slugs from his body
00:03:40
those slugs were telling they were four
00:03:43
different kinds of ammunition raising
00:03:45
the possibility that there was more than
00:03:47
one
00:03:48
shooter or the killer wanted to make it
00:03:52
look like there was more than one
00:03:54
shooter
00:03:55
typically burglars don't want to
00:03:56
confront the homeowner or any other
00:03:59
persons inside
00:04:00
they want to get in and get out to be
00:04:01
very uncharacteristic in my opinion
00:04:04
for someone to shoot
00:04:07
someone that many times since the
00:04:10
victim's 17-year-old son jason
00:04:12
found his father's body investigators
00:04:15
had no choice but to consider
00:04:17
him a suspect we seized the clothing
00:04:20
that jason was wearing
00:04:22
when we first made contact with him that
00:04:25
clothing had no apparent
00:04:26
blood on it we also conducted a gunshot
00:04:29
residue test on jason early that morning
00:04:31
and those results came back negative
00:04:33
that he did not have gunshot residue on
00:04:35
his hands
00:04:36
[Music]
00:04:37
another potential suspect was ken's
00:04:39
fiance
00:04:40
a swiss businesswoman of lisandra
00:04:44
lautens she had been living with jason
00:04:48
and ken
00:04:48
during the time that they were in
00:04:50
florida and the fact that she existed in
00:04:52
the fact that she lived in their
00:04:53
household
00:04:54
was a subject of stress between the
00:04:57
father and son
00:04:58
but their wedding plans were on hold we
00:05:01
did obtain emails
00:05:03
from his fiancee which indicated there
00:05:07
was some trouble in their relationship
00:05:09
at the time that ken was killed
00:05:11
yet she was still listed as beneficiary
00:05:14
of one of ken's life insurance policies
00:05:17
and that policy was valued at a hundred
00:05:20
thousand dollars
00:05:21
but alessandra was in switzerland at the
00:05:24
time of the murder and was written off
00:05:26
as a suspect
00:05:27
police turned their attention to the
00:05:30
shoe impressions found outside of the
00:05:32
crime scene in the snow
00:05:34
the victim's son jason said two sets of
00:05:37
prints belonged to him
00:05:38
and a friend since he wasn't allowed to
00:05:41
smoke in the house
00:05:42
jason and his friend went outside
00:05:46
their shoes were sent to sue gross for
00:05:48
comparison
00:05:49
with photos from the scene i will ink
00:05:52
the bottom of the shoe
00:05:54
and press the clear acetate transparency
00:05:57
against
00:05:57
it and then i will compare this
00:05:59
transparency
00:06:00
to the photograph that was submitted
00:06:03
these transparencies confirmed the two
00:06:06
sets of
00:06:07
impressions on the left side of the
00:06:09
house belonged
00:06:10
to the teenagers the third set of prints
00:06:13
on the
00:06:14
opposite side of the house were
00:06:16
different
00:06:17
that set of footprints that led around
00:06:20
the home
00:06:20
up to the front door and there was no
00:06:23
set leaving the front door
00:06:25
that third set of footprints around the
00:06:27
other side of the house became
00:06:28
the focus of the investigation the
00:06:31
impressions were run through a computer
00:06:33
program
00:06:34
called soulmate which can identify the
00:06:37
make and model of any shoe or
00:06:39
boot impression they were able to
00:06:41
indicate
00:06:42
that with certainty it was a new york
00:06:45
lugs brand shoe that had made that
00:06:47
impression
00:06:49
further checking revealed there were a
00:06:52
number of stores in saint cloud
00:06:53
minnesota that carried
00:06:55
the lugs boots a brand popular in the
00:06:57
world of hip-hop
00:07:00
then police got a tip from an unlikely
00:07:03
source
00:07:04
i received a call from the father of a
00:07:07
female student
00:07:08
from tech high school he stated that his
00:07:10
daughter
00:07:11
was very upset over details that she had
00:07:13
learned
00:07:14
while she was at school that day about
00:07:16
this murder
00:07:17
it was the story of a wide-ranging
00:07:21
conspiracy she was crying hysterically
00:07:24
and stated she was very fearful for what
00:07:26
she was about to tell us
00:07:31
as police investigated the murder of ken
00:07:33
mclennan
00:07:35
they heard rumors that his relationship
00:07:37
with his 17 year old son jason
00:07:39
wasn't a good one according to friends
00:07:44
ken all but abandoned jason's mother
00:07:47
as she lay dying of cancer and jason
00:07:51
deeply resented it regardless of the
00:07:54
relationship
00:07:55
between ken and his wife if the woman's
00:07:59
dying
00:08:00
it just looks bad if you take off and go
00:08:02
to another continent and don't come back
00:08:04
for weeks
00:08:06
leaving jason who might have been 12
00:08:08
years old to take care of his dying
00:08:10
mother
00:08:10
it appeared that things changed for him
00:08:13
that he became more troubled
00:08:15
started to have more trouble in school
00:08:18
after his wife's death
00:08:20
ken continued to travel extensively for
00:08:22
work
00:08:23
there were stories about jason being
00:08:25
left alone for
00:08:27
weeks with virtually nothing in the
00:08:29
refrigerator and
00:08:30
having no money i don't know how
00:08:32
exaggerated these stories are
00:08:34
obviously jason didn't starve
00:08:37
after ken mclennan's murder police
00:08:39
received a tip
00:08:40
from one of jason's fellow high school
00:08:42
students
00:08:43
at least one other high school student
00:08:45
had been asked to provide a gun
00:08:47
a number of high school students knew
00:08:49
about this
00:08:51
the informant said that jason asked
00:08:53
several people to help him
00:08:56
kill his father but all of them declined
00:09:00
they didn't think this was really going
00:09:01
to happen others
00:09:03
seemed in this stoned world where
00:09:07
nothing was real anyway and oh far out
00:09:10
it happened
00:09:11
the informant said one friend matt
00:09:15
muller agreed to help by providing the
00:09:17
gun
00:09:18
in return for money matt was an average
00:09:21
kid
00:09:22
who got dazzled by the money dazzled by
00:09:25
the possibilities
00:09:26
when a rich kid tells you you can be
00:09:29
part of my life you can have
00:09:31
a big fancy house a fancy car your life
00:09:33
is going to be different if you'll help
00:09:35
me with this
00:09:36
he got caught up in it police found a
00:09:39
22-caliber rifle in matt's bedroom
00:09:42
which they confiscated and sent to
00:09:44
ballistics
00:09:45
there curt moline test-fired mulder's
00:09:48
rifle
00:09:49
into a 600-gallon water tank
00:09:52
and i shoot in one end and the bullets
00:09:54
hit the water and they slow down and
00:09:55
they drop
00:09:56
drop to the bottom and then i vacuum
00:09:58
those up with hose
00:10:00
he took the test-fired bullet and
00:10:03
compared it to slugs recovered from ken
00:10:05
mclennan's body
00:10:07
the lands and grooves did not match up
00:10:11
a closer examination showed why
00:10:15
a boroscope a fiber optic magnifier
00:10:19
revealed a series of abnormal scratches
00:10:22
on the inside of the gun barrel
00:10:25
the scratches appeared to be
00:10:28
fresh and by fresh i mean they were
00:10:31
silvery colored
00:10:33
they'd scratched through the bluing
00:10:35
which would have been applied at the
00:10:36
factory
00:10:37
someone had scratched the inside of the
00:10:39
barrel for the purpose of preventing
00:10:41
a ballistic examination so the next step
00:10:46
was to compare the spent shell casings
00:10:48
from the scene
00:10:49
to the casings from the test firing
00:10:52
looking
00:10:53
at unique marks made by the firing pin
00:10:56
as it struck the bullet they were
00:10:59
identical
00:11:01
also inside the barrel was a small
00:11:04
drop of blood dna testing proved
00:11:08
the blood was ken mclennan's
00:11:11
it made sense based on the suta on the
00:11:14
hand that mr mclennan had actually
00:11:16
grabbed the gun before the shot was
00:11:18
fired
00:11:19
because of that contact with the hand
00:11:21
some of his blood then did blow back
00:11:23
into the barrel of the rifle
00:11:25
when confronted with this evidence matt
00:11:28
muller admitted he was involved
00:11:30
but insisted jason mclennan
00:11:33
was the killer he tried to attack me
00:11:36
into going and killing him because they
00:11:37
knew he'd be the kind of suspect
00:11:39
but i couldn't do it so i told him i was
00:11:41
the kind of thing to do with it
00:11:42
and then he's just like okay fine he
00:11:45
took the gun for me and he said just go
00:11:46
wait out the car
00:11:48
matt said he heard the shots
00:11:54
jason came back to the car returned the
00:11:57
gun
00:11:58
and then he went home
00:12:07
well he told me that pretty much i want
00:12:11
to save my house
00:12:14
do something and matt knew
00:12:17
something that hadn't been made public
00:12:21
four different types of 22 caliber
00:12:23
bullets had been used
00:12:25
one of the things they actually
00:12:26
discussed was using different kinds of
00:12:28
ammunition so that if gunshot residue
00:12:31
was found as part of the investigation
00:12:33
it would be tough to track it back to
00:12:35
his particular gun
00:12:37
matt claimed jason gave him a thousand
00:12:39
dollars for use of the gun
00:12:42
yet when confronted with matt's
00:12:44
confession
00:12:45
jason denied any involvement in his
00:12:48
father's murder
00:12:49
i didn't do anything even that's an even
00:12:52
bigger reason for me to not do something
00:12:53
like this
00:12:54
even though the fact that i loved my dad
00:12:56
even if i didn't love my dad even if i
00:12:58
hated his guts
00:12:59
i still see tv i still see all that
00:13:01
stuff you won't really get away with
00:13:03
anything i'm not an
00:13:03
idiot i might not be great at school i
00:13:06
might not pass but i'm not immortal
00:13:09
jason stuck to his story but after he
00:13:11
got
00:13:12
out of the shower he found his father
00:13:14
dead in the foyer
00:13:16
he insisted he had no idea who killed
00:13:20
him police had two versions of events
00:13:24
surrounding the murder of ken mclennan
00:13:27
and they weren't sure which one was true
00:13:31
we knew that both of them had reason to
00:13:33
lie to us
00:13:34
so we had to do the best we could to
00:13:36
prove for certain
00:13:38
what really happened versus what they
00:13:40
claimed happened
00:13:45
once ken mclennan's murder hit the news
00:13:48
some local high school students in saint
00:13:50
cloud minnesota called police saying
00:13:53
the victim's son jason had offered them
00:13:56
money to help him kill his father
00:14:00
one of the students that we interviewed
00:14:01
was present at the mclennan home several
00:14:02
weeks prior to the homicide
00:14:04
matt actually stood in the hallway of
00:14:06
the residence while jason and this other
00:14:08
student watched
00:14:09
and made gun sounds pow pow pow
00:14:13
when it was apparent that ken mclendon
00:14:14
would be coming in the house this
00:14:16
raised the possibility that there might
00:14:19
have been a third person involved in the
00:14:21
murder
00:14:22
we were very concerned based on the fact
00:14:25
that all these high school kids had been
00:14:26
involved in this
00:14:27
involved in planning asked to help that
00:14:30
perhaps one of them did
00:14:32
the key break happened when a student
00:14:34
offered to lead police to some
00:14:36
incriminating evidence the day after
00:14:39
this murder occurred
00:14:40
the student had confided that he knew
00:14:44
where the bloody clothes were that jason
00:14:47
had been wearing at the time that this
00:14:48
murder had occurred
00:14:50
police found the clothes exactly where
00:14:52
the students said they'd be
00:14:55
buried on property owned by matt
00:14:58
mohler's parents
00:15:00
they found a red plaid shirt a pair of
00:15:02
blue jeans
00:15:03
with one glove in the back pocket a pair
00:15:06
of white socks
00:15:07
they also found some information from
00:15:09
ken mclennan to include his wallet
00:15:11
some business cards from his employer
00:15:13
and some foreign currency
00:15:16
the clothes were jason mclennan's
00:15:19
students had seen him wearing them the
00:15:21
day of the murder
00:15:23
dna testing proved the blood on the
00:15:26
clothes
00:15:27
had come from jason's father
00:15:31
the fact that we could prove beyond a
00:15:32
reasonable doubt that those
00:15:34
jeans were jason mclennan's with his
00:15:36
dad's blood on the bottom of the pant
00:15:38
leg
00:15:38
was an extremely important moment in
00:15:40
this investigation
00:15:43
the bloody glove was even more telling
00:15:46
dna testing on skin
00:15:47
cells showed jason had worn the glove
00:15:51
and scientists found gunshot residue on
00:15:55
the glove
00:15:55
from four different types of 22 caliber
00:15:59
bullets
00:16:01
very important when that test came back
00:16:04
that not only was their gunshot residue
00:16:06
on the glove
00:16:07
but also corroborating what matt muller
00:16:09
had told us about using
00:16:10
different kinds of ammunition this
00:16:13
seemed to prove
00:16:15
jason fired the fatal shots
00:16:18
but prosecutors had one major problem
00:16:21
they still hadn't identified
00:16:24
who made the foot impressions in the
00:16:26
snow the ones
00:16:27
that led to the front door of the crime
00:16:29
scene
00:16:30
we knew that a number of the other high
00:16:32
school students had
00:16:34
discussed this that they had talked
00:16:35
about the money they were going to get
00:16:37
that they were going to live the high
00:16:38
life and that was why we spent so much
00:16:40
time trying to identify that third set
00:16:43
of footprints
00:16:44
if another student was involved a
00:16:46
defense attorney could raise the
00:16:48
possibility of reasonable doubt
00:16:51
we had to be able to explain to the jury
00:16:53
where those footprints came from
00:16:55
so prosecutors pressured matt mohler
00:16:58
reminding him
00:16:59
that a first-degree murder conviction
00:17:02
meant a life sentence
00:17:04
he agreed to plead guilty to
00:17:07
second-degree murder
00:17:08
in exchange for a reduced sentence
00:17:12
matt then admitted the shoes were his
00:17:15
and turned them over to police after
00:17:17
hiding them in his basement
00:17:20
he said he made the shoe prints in an
00:17:22
effort to throw off
00:17:23
investigators i compared them side by
00:17:26
side
00:17:26
looking at their class characteristics
00:17:28
and the general tread pattern
00:17:30
and the size of the shoe and this shoe
00:17:33
corresponded to the shoe prints at the
00:17:35
scene
00:17:37
prosecutors believe the motive for the
00:17:40
crime
00:17:41
was jason's hatred of his father
00:17:44
jason blamed him for abandoning his
00:17:47
mother
00:17:48
as she laid dying of cancer jason
00:17:51
also wanted his father's money
00:17:54
kansas state was worth about 1.5 million
00:17:57
and 1.4 million dollars
00:17:59
and jason wanted to reap the benefits
00:18:04
on the night of the murder ken mclennan
00:18:07
returned home from his business trip
00:18:09
and immediately went to bed
00:18:14
jason and matt waited outside until he
00:18:16
was asleep
00:18:29
and matt used the third pair of boots to
00:18:32
walk to the front
00:18:33
of the house leaving a trail they hoped
00:18:36
would trick investigators
00:18:40
jason went inside with the 22-caliber
00:18:43
rifle
00:18:49
matt rang the front doorbell
00:18:52
[Music]
00:18:55
when ken mclennan walked downstairs to
00:18:57
see who it was
00:18:58
jason ambushed him
00:19:05
ken grabbed the rifle barrel but it was
00:19:07
too late
00:19:08
and jason fired seven shots killing his
00:19:11
father
00:19:12
instantly
00:19:23
jason and matt ransacked the house to
00:19:25
make it look like
00:19:26
a robbery
00:19:32
they collected the spent shell casings
00:19:35
but
00:19:36
unknowingly left one behind
00:19:55
matt disposed of jason's blood-spattered
00:19:57
clothes
00:19:58
and tried to damage the inside of the
00:20:01
rifle barrel
00:20:02
to render it useless as evidence
00:20:05
but ken mclennan's blood inside the
00:20:08
barrel
00:20:09
and the shell casing from the scene
00:20:13
were more than enough evidence for the
00:20:15
trial
00:20:16
jason mclennan pleaded not guilty
00:20:20
and claimed he killed his father in
00:20:21
self-defense
00:20:23
the jury didn't buy it jason was
00:20:26
convicted of first degree murder
00:20:29
and sentenced to life in prison
00:20:32
matt mohler pleaded guilty to
00:20:34
second-degree murder
00:20:36
and was sentenced to 30 years
00:20:39
sometimes i still wake up in the morning
00:20:42
and look out the bars and just go wow
00:20:45
you know i still can't believe that i'm
00:20:46
here in prison i still can't believe
00:20:48
that
00:20:49
the decision i made to put myself here
00:20:53
the boy's plan to murder ken mclennan
00:20:56
went off without a hitch but the
00:20:59
cover-up
00:21:00
couldn't withstand scientific scrutiny
00:21:04
we had a cover-up going on here this was
00:21:07
not
00:21:07
a matter-of-fact spread-the-moment thing
00:21:10
that this had been planned
00:21:12
that it was strategic that they had done
00:21:14
the best they could to throw off the
00:21:16
investigation
00:21:17
if nothing else when a jury saw this
00:21:20
they realized this was not an accident
00:21:24
the forensics in this case was very
00:21:25
important we had dna we had ballistics
00:21:27
we had blood spatter it's all of those
00:21:30
forensic answers that led us to believe
00:21:33
without question that jason had been the
00:21:36
one to pull the trigger and that matt
00:21:38
had
00:21:38
in fact been involved
00:21:44
you
