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for the first time in american judicial
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history
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a trial was held on the edge of a cliff
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overlooking the pacific ocean
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for three days a judge and jury heard
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the forensic evidence interpreted very
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differently by the prosecution and by
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the defense
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[Music]
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was the death of a beautiful young woman
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an accident
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or was it cold-blooded murder
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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big sur california 90 miles of high
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windswept cliffs sparkling ocean water
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and some of the most spectacular
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coastlines in north america
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[Music]
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sightseers come from all over the world
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just to enjoy the magnificent scenery
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but you have to be careful it can be
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dangerous
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you won't get a few months in the summer
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going by without someone falling and
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seriously being hurt or killed
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three tourists from san diego were
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walking along the cliffside overlooked
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known as seal beach
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the couple started walking towards their
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car
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their friend stayed behind to enjoy the
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spectacular view just a little longer
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when the couple turned around
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she was gone
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they rushed to the cliff's edge
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and they were horrified to discover that
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she had apparently fallen some 500 feet
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down the cliff
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they ran to a store nearby for help
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rescue workers found the woman at the
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bottom of the cliff
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she was dead
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there was no way she could have survived
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the 500-foot drop
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unfortunately
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accidents here do happen
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everybody wants to climb out and get
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that picture of the ocean behind them so
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they're out on the edge on the precipice
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and
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things happen one of the fellas said
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people fall off the cliff like logs out
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here
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the victim was 20 year old donna hartman
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it was absolutely horrible
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when you know that
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one of the almost phobias that this
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young woman had was heights
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and she dies in this manner it's
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particularly a horrible event
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she recently separated from her husband
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and had been living and traveling with
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her friends virginia and b.j mcginnis
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donna was a wonderful young lady but she
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was challenged her iq was probably 85 or
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90 somewhere in there
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she was wonderful and friendly and
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thoughtful her husband was in the navy
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at the scene
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the mcginnis has told investigators that
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donna was wearing high-heeled shoes
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which might have caused her to lose her
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footing as she stood at the edge of the
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cliff
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[Music]
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in the photographs taken by the
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mcguinnesses shortly before the fall
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donna was wearing high-heeled shoes
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the autopsy of donna hartman was routine
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the autopsy on our victim was not a true
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forensic autopsy
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it was an autopsy and it did show cause
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of death but it was not in the greater
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detail that you would want had you
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suspected foul play from the get-go
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the cause of death was a basal skull
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fracture a massive blow to the back of
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the head
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consistent with someone falling 500 feet
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to their death
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but donna's family in louisville
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kentucky had questions about what
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happened so they hired a civil attorney
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named steve keaney to help them get
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answers
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i wish the coroner had done a better job
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i don't know what california standards
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are but you would think that california
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would be closer to the cutting edge this
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was far behind the cutting edge
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and
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those responsibilities made it very
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difficult to show with any certainty to
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the insurance company or to a court or
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anyone else exactly what the cause of
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death here was
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what troubled keaney
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with the photographs taken of donna
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shortly before her death
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they told a story that was much
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different from the mcginnis's account
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[Music]
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local authorities took no photographs at
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the scene of donna hartman's fatal fall
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because rescue workers believed it was
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an accident
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so investigators asked donna's traveling
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companions virginia and b.j mcginnis for
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a copy of the photos they took that day
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they're using a disc camera which has a
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rigid film
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on a circle so we know the sequence of
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the photographs where they were taken
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early in the sequence
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donna appears happy and alert
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but photos taken later show something
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different
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the later photographs show a person
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who's docile
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who looks exhausted her hands are down
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her face face facial muscles are slack
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and she just doesn't and the eyes are
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somewhat droopy uh appears as if she is
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either intoxicated or stoned
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the next photo in the sequence shows b.j
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mcginnis and donna standing at the edge
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of the cliff
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the victim's eyes quite appropriately
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are looking at the waters below mr
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mcginnis
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is
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behind the victim the victim is
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a few feet from the edge of the of the
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cliff
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mr mcginnis left hand is on the victim's
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left shoulder
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investigators thought bj's position was
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extremely suspicious the only reason
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he's looking to the right is
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you know we would speculate to look for
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vehicles
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look see if anyone can see
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and that's the last photograph taken of
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her life it's almost as though she's in
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motion then and the husband's hands up
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against donna's shoulder
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and the last four pictures were even
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more unusual
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i think those four photos are
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surveillance pictures i think that was
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virginia mcginnis
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looking through the viewfinder of her
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camera to make sure
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nobody saw what they did they're not
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photographs that taurus is going to take
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and
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and particularly the fact that the
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sequence
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[Music]
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to this day i don't understand why they
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were taken
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there's a shot looking down the cliff
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where donna fell
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then
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three panoramic views
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one to the left
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another to the right
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and the last
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behind them
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now if she has slipped and fallen
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then who's taking sightseeing
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photographs
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i mean
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who cares about a camera let's see if we
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can save her
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that film says they saw her when she
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fell off the cliff
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and they kept taking pictures
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investigators now suspected that b.j
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mcginnis deliberately pushed donna over
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the cliff to her death
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but what was the motive
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investigators discovered that the
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mcginnis had taken out a 35 000 life
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insurance policy on donna hartman just
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one day before her death
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the insurance agent said that virginia
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mcginnis asked him a curious question
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she turned to him on the way out of the
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door and said this is applicable to an
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accidental death isn't it
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it was i don't deal with too many claims
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for life insurance but that doesn't
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sound appropriate to me almost as a
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matter of fact the beneficiary was
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virginia mcginnis's son who was in
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prison
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he was listed as donna's fiancee even
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though he and donna were already married
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to other people
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the mcginnesses filed a claim to collect
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on the life insurance policy
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just one day after donna's death
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[Music]
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virginia plopped the insurance policy
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down on the desk of the agent he looked
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up and said you're kidding she's dead
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well it's a pretty incredible story but
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you know in the end
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you have to pause
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surely somebody somewhere bought a life
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insurance policy and had the bad luck to
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have the deceased die the next day
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it's not proof but it sure stinks
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investigators wanted to know why donna
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hartman looked so alert and vivacious in
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pictures taken earlier on the day she
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died but later on that day she seemed
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drowsy and disoriented
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the circumstances that we had indicated
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a homicide
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not an accidental death and our job was
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to prove it or disprove it
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we had virtually no evidence
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donna's autopsy was fairly routine
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and the toxicology tests were routine as
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well i would characterize the autopsy as
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meaning minimal professional standards
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if i had to object it would be that
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it appeared that the possibility that
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foul play
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was really not taken into account so
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that extra measure perhaps was not done
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in this case
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the doctor who performed the autopsy was
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not a forensic pathologist but he did
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something virtually unheard of at the
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time
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for reasons not entirely clear
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he kept a vial of donna's blood in
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refrigerated storage and two years after
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her death it was sent to the forensic
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lab for testing
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a sample was placed in a gas
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chromatograph mass spectrometer which
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broke the blood down into its chemical
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components
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traces of a mil-triptyline a common
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antidepressant known as elevil were
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clearly present in donna's blood
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in someone who'd never taken the drug
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before
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i believe even one pill could cause them
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to be very drowsy dizzy possibly
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disoriented but how did ellaville get
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into her system
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the presence of ellaville in the
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victim's body was crucial because
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she had no prescription for it mr
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mcginnis had prescription for it
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moreover the effects of aloeville are
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evidenced by her behavior as seen in the
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photographs dizziness disorientation
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sluggishness the dose of elevil
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is determinative a tiny dose may have
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little or no effect a large dose can be
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so disorienting that you're drowsy you
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may even fall asleep standing on your
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feet
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at the very least you won't be alert
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investigators discovered donna and the
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mcguinnesses had lunch about two hours
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before she died
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the waiter who served them said that
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donna ordered a soft drink
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it's it's anyone's guess but if i had to
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to speculate i would say that at that
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point they put the olive oil in her coke
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but it's speculation
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but there was no way to prove it
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so investigators turned to another set
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of pictures the ones taken during
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donna's autopsy
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they were analyzed by forensic
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pathologist dr barbara weekley jones
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she noticed two things which were barely
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mentioned in the original autopsy
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wounds on the back of donna's hands but
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not on her palms
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and her fingernails were broken
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she's up like this and she's grabbing
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hold of the edge the nails will break
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off well the same
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you should have then abrasions on the
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palm or surface of your hands
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as you're going down and she did not
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have that all of her injuries are on the
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back of the hands
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why would someone who slid down a cliff
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have bruises on the backs of her hands
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but virtually
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no marks on her palms
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dr weakly jones said it was impossible
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to be sure but
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that she had a theory
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i think that she was pushed off the
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cliff and didn't make it and her hands
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were stomped on in order to get her to
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continue her fall off the cliff
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but the injuries on her hands were
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more consistent with a struggle or that
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scenario than than a simple fall off the
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cliff
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this was a harrowing possibility it
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meant
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that while donna was hanging onto the
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cliff's edge one or both of the
00:13:13
mcguinnesses sent her
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to a certain death
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there was no what we call pattern injury
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to help determine as to what she was
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struck with she could have been struck
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with a fist for all i know or she could
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have been struck with an instrument
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these were the wounds of someone who was
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fending off an attack and then died as
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opposed to somebody who flopped down a
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cliff and had some things break along
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the way
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but were the mcguinnesses
00:13:44
capable of cold-blooded murder
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and if they were
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could it be proven
00:13:51
to find out
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investigators did a background check and
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were shocked by what they found
00:13:57
virginia mcginnis was no stranger to
00:13:59
deaths that looked like accidents
00:14:06
in previous years
00:14:08
virginia mcginnis had received payment
00:14:10
from various insurance companies for
00:14:12
other deaths and several suspicious
00:14:14
accidents she had been involved in
00:14:17
tragedy after tragedy
00:14:19
residences had burned down
00:14:21
relatives and loved ones had died in her
00:14:23
care every house she'd lived in burned
00:14:26
to the ground
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and her daughter
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her second husband
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and probably others all died under
00:14:34
mysterious circumstances
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they all had
00:14:38
incredible accidents
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with all the upheaval in her life there
00:14:44
seemed to be one constant
00:14:46
virginia made sure all of her husbands
00:14:49
and children
00:14:50
had life insurance
00:14:52
you know jay leno says that what he
00:14:54
loves is stupid criminals
00:14:57
one thing about criminals is they're not
00:14:59
holding a job
00:15:01
every one of her life insurance policies
00:15:04
was for the same amount 35 000
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because the face amount of the policies
00:15:09
were so low
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insurance companies didn't question the
00:15:12
settlement
00:15:15
the insurance policy virginia purchased
00:15:17
on donna hartman's life was also
00:15:20
suspicious
00:15:21
every single piece of that policy was
00:15:24
either forged or faked
00:15:26
except for
00:15:28
the name of the person who would die
00:15:31
donna hartman signed the policy and her
00:15:33
signature was witnessed by alice cassane
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alice gethane lived next door to the
00:15:39
mcguinnesses but she denied signing the
00:15:42
insurance forms
00:15:44
as proof
00:15:45
she pointed out her name was misspelled
00:15:47
on the document
00:15:49
people don't misspell their own names
00:15:51
when they sign their names so that's a
00:15:52
red flag to the document examiner to the
00:15:54
prosecutor to anyone involved in the
00:15:56
case
00:15:57
alice cassane's signature did not match
00:16:00
her known signature samples and it had
00:16:03
an unusual backward slant
00:16:06
backhand slanting isn't necessarily an
00:16:09
evidence of forgery but it is evidence
00:16:11
of someone trying to change the way they
00:16:12
write with a court order investigators
00:16:15
forced virginia mcginnis to provide a
00:16:17
handwriting sample
00:16:19
i asked her to write
00:16:21
alice cassane's name
00:16:23
first in her own natural handwriting and
00:16:25
then i asked her to write it in a
00:16:26
backhand slant because that's how it
00:16:28
appeared on the question document
00:16:30
forensic document examiners concluded
00:16:33
virginia mcginnis had signed alice
00:16:35
cassane's name on the insurance policy
00:16:39
it was not any different from her
00:16:41
handwriting she merely had changed the
00:16:44
slant in order to disguise her writing
00:16:47
and make it indistinguishable from the
00:16:49
rest of the writing on the form
00:16:51
two years after the murder virginia and
00:16:54
b.j mcginnis were arrested and charged
00:16:57
with donna hartman's murder
00:16:59
virginia now claimed she wasn't at the
00:17:02
scene of the accident and as proof she
00:17:04
reminded prosecutors she wasn't in any
00:17:07
of the photographs
00:17:09
but one of the photographs showed
00:17:11
the shadow of the photographer
00:17:14
was it possible for science to identify
00:17:17
the photographer from the silhouette
00:17:20
we knew what day it was and we knew what
00:17:22
time it was because we had the 911 call
00:17:25
that gave us the position of the sun
00:17:28
and with the position of the sun and the
00:17:30
distance to the rocks we were able to do
00:17:32
the old high school pythagorean theorem
00:17:35
a squared plus b squared equals c
00:17:37
squared the distance between donna and
00:17:40
the photographer was calculated by
00:17:42
analyzing the millimeter of the camera
00:17:44
lens
00:17:45
by measuring the length and angle of the
00:17:47
shadow and determining the exact
00:17:50
location of the sun at the time the
00:17:52
mcginnis has called police
00:17:54
investigators reached an interesting
00:17:56
conclusion
00:17:58
the photographer was five feet six
00:18:00
inches tall
00:18:02
the same height as virginia mcginnis
00:18:05
and if virginia was the photographer
00:18:08
why did she take what was perhaps
00:18:10
the most incriminating photo of all a
00:18:14
photograph of donna just before she was
00:18:17
pushed over the cliff
00:18:19
i think virginia wanted a souvenir i
00:18:21
think virginia wanted to revisit the
00:18:23
death of donna and enjoy it over and
00:18:25
over again i think she believed that by
00:18:28
having that picture she would have
00:18:30
something that would arouse in her the
00:18:32
same excitement and the same violation
00:18:35
of rules that she had felt live on the
00:18:37
cliff when donna died
00:18:39
virginia had apparently picked donna as
00:18:42
an ideal victim
00:18:44
just as donna was separating from her
00:18:46
husband virginia befriended her
00:18:49
donna was vulnerable and an easy mark
00:18:52
for an experienced con artist like
00:18:54
virginia
00:18:57
she was
00:18:58
absolutely a perfect victim
00:19:01
because
00:19:02
she was
00:19:04
young relatively uneducated
00:19:06
unsophisticated far from her home
00:19:09
her husband was far away from her
00:19:12
impressionable
00:19:13
she trusted everyone
00:19:16
would not ask questions
00:19:19
donna fell into a spider web and became
00:19:23
what i guess you'd call today a target
00:19:24
of opportunity
00:19:27
52-year-old b.j mcginnis
00:19:29
never made it to court
00:19:31
he died in prison while awaiting trial
00:19:35
[Music]
00:19:36
during virginia's trial
00:19:38
the jury was taken to seal beach
00:19:42
for three days
00:19:43
court was held high above the beautiful
00:19:46
pacific ocean on a windswept cliff where
00:19:49
donna hartman had fallen to her death
00:19:52
the trial lasted for three days
00:19:55
the longest time a court had been in
00:19:57
session at a suspected crime scene in
00:20:00
american history
00:20:01
jurors were asked to examine the cliff
00:20:04
to determine for themselves
00:20:06
whether virginia's story of an
00:20:08
accidental fall made sense
00:20:12
after a four-day deliberation
00:20:14
juror said
00:20:16
it didn't
00:20:17
and virginia was found guilty of first
00:20:19
degree murder
00:20:21
she was sentenced to life in prison
00:20:26
if you
00:20:27
care enough to listen
00:20:29
the forensic evidence
00:20:31
spoke loud and clear as well as all the
00:20:34
other evidence this was murder
00:20:36
and that the victim deserved her day in
00:20:39
court and she got it
00:20:40
what it really got down to was putting
00:20:43
the facts together in a scientific
00:20:44
communicated fashion to a jury
00:20:47
and they were able to make the decision
00:20:49
based upon the totality of the facts
00:20:51
without forensic science virginia
00:20:53
mcginnis today would still be looking
00:20:56
for victims she'd probably still be
00:20:58
killing she would be burning houses and
00:21:00
she would be collecting insurance with
00:21:01
your premiums
00:21:03
[Music]
00:21:13
[Music]
00:21:32
[Music]
00:21:41
you
