00:00:06
when a young woman walked outside her
00:00:08
home to investigate a strange noise
00:00:12
she was abducted at gunpoint
00:00:14
but the victim knew something about
00:00:16
forensic evidence
00:00:18
and she was determined to prove she had
00:00:20
been inside the assailant's truck
00:00:24
the clue she left behind and her
00:00:27
recollection of detail led police
00:00:30
straight to the criminal's front door
00:00:33
[Music]
00:00:42
[Music]
00:01:02
jackson township is just north of canton
00:01:05
ohio home to the pro football hall of
00:01:07
fame
00:01:08
[Music]
00:01:11
it's an upscale bedroom community
00:01:15
much of the area is undeveloped
00:01:18
especially along the old erie canal
00:01:22
we have even areas where there's cows
00:01:24
and we get calls for cows and
00:01:27
livestock in the roadway
00:01:32
the mckernon family lived just two
00:01:35
blocks from the canal
00:01:38
eighteen-year-old stephanie mckernan
00:01:41
shared the home with her husband jamie
00:01:43
and his 18 year old sister whom we'll
00:01:46
call megan
00:01:48
[Music]
00:01:51
on saturday night may 6 2000
00:01:54
stephanie and megan were outside
00:01:57
when two men in a pickup truck stopped
00:01:59
to talk
00:02:09
asked us both we were single and how old
00:02:12
we were and we both said that we were
00:02:14
not available
00:02:16
the men were polite and when rebuffed
00:02:19
drove off
00:02:24
a few hours later after the women
00:02:26
returned home
00:02:28
they heard a noise outside
00:02:32
megan grabbed a flashlight stephanie
00:02:34
picked up a can of spray paint and both
00:02:36
went outside to investigate
00:02:43
[Music]
00:02:48
hey girl
00:02:50
they were met by a man with a rifle
00:02:55
he claimed to be a police officer and
00:02:57
ordered the girls to get into his truck
00:03:00
and we were like no so we put the gun in
00:03:02
both of our faces numerous times and
00:03:04
asked us do you want to die do you want
00:03:05
to die do you want to die you want to
00:03:07
die
00:03:09
in the scuffle the assailant hit
00:03:10
stephanie with his rifle
00:03:14
[Music]
00:03:15
megan hit the man in the face with the
00:03:17
flashlight
00:03:18
[Music]
00:03:29
he then grabbed megan dragged her down a
00:03:32
hill to his pickup truck and drove off
00:03:44
when stephanie regained consciousness
00:03:46
she called police
00:03:49
[Music]
00:03:53
[Applause]
00:03:54
[Music]
00:04:07
[Music]
00:04:11
when police arrived stephanie was
00:04:14
hysterical and she was unable to provide
00:04:16
much detail about the crime
00:04:20
police were skeptical since the mckernan
00:04:22
boys had numerous prior run-ins with
00:04:25
police
00:04:26
they're always running their motorcycles
00:04:28
through the yards up and down the street
00:04:29
they're always having a party they're
00:04:30
always doing something we're always down
00:04:32
here for something there's got to
00:04:33
definitely be more to this than what's
00:04:35
than what we know
00:04:38
but there was evidence at the scene to
00:04:40
corroborate stephanie's story
00:04:42
[Music]
00:04:45
officers found megan's sweatshirt and
00:04:47
sandals
00:04:48
along with the cover for the scope of a
00:04:51
rifle
00:04:53
[Music]
00:04:56
there were shoe prints leading in the
00:04:58
direction the assailant was headed
00:05:01
[Music]
00:05:03
at the bottom of the driveway police
00:05:06
found tire impressions
00:05:08
and near the road was a purple glove and
00:05:12
an ice scraper
00:05:14
my concern was i knew megan i knew her
00:05:16
family i feared for the worst i feared
00:05:19
that we were going to find her floating
00:05:20
somewhere and if we didn't act fast
00:05:22
that you know my fears might become a
00:05:24
reality
00:05:26
over the next few hours
00:05:28
megan's family and the police searched
00:05:30
the streets and parking lots of jackson
00:05:33
county
00:05:35
but she was nowhere to be found
00:05:42
eighteen-year-old megan mckernan was
00:05:45
kidnapped at gunpoint from the backyard
00:05:47
of her home
00:05:49
evidence left at the scene showed signs
00:05:52
of a struggle but revealed little about
00:05:54
the kidnapper's identity
00:05:57
this was obviously someone that megan
00:05:58
had no knowledge of that they were not
00:06:00
familiar with and that this was actually
00:06:01
a legitimate thing that had happened to
00:06:02
megan
00:06:05
while investigators interviewed megan's
00:06:07
family and friends a police officer kept
00:06:10
watch at the crime scene
00:06:12
[Music]
00:06:14
suddenly
00:06:15
the officer saw a woman running towards
00:06:17
him
00:06:19
it was megan mckernan
00:06:21
her first words was i have been raped
00:06:24
although battered megan was fortunate to
00:06:27
have survived her two-hour ordeal
00:06:31
an hour before we're looking for her in
00:06:32
a ditch so to see her come running
00:06:34
towards me was
00:06:36
[Music]
00:06:37
definitely a happy moment
00:06:40
police rushed megan to a nearby hospital
00:06:43
which had a special unit to treat rape
00:06:46
victims and preserve crucial forensic
00:06:49
evidence
00:06:51
nurses carefully collected and
00:06:53
documented all of the evidence they
00:06:54
could find and also preserved her
00:06:57
blood-stained clothing
00:07:01
police photographed scratches on megan's
00:07:03
face and other injuries including cuts
00:07:06
and scrapes to her back and arms
00:07:09
she did what she needed to do to get
00:07:10
through the situation and that is the
00:07:13
success in itself is to make it out
00:07:15
alive
00:07:17
megan told police the assailant drove
00:07:20
her to boyd's corner a remote location
00:07:23
about five miles from her home
00:07:26
and assaulted her in his truck
00:07:29
i was trying to push him off of me but
00:07:31
he had my hands above my head with one
00:07:33
arm and then he was holding like himself
00:07:35
up on the seat with the other
00:07:39
he said he'd like to have a girl like me
00:07:41
like to get
00:07:42
married to a girl like me that i am so
00:07:44
pretty and that he is so sorry for
00:07:46
beating me up
00:07:52
megan pleaded with the man to let her
00:07:54
walk home
00:07:55
he told me that he wouldn't let me walk
00:07:57
because i didn't have no shoes on and it
00:07:58
was pretty far distance from my house
00:08:03
instead
00:08:04
he offered to drive her
00:08:06
she actually gave him better directions
00:08:08
to get her back home there were two ways
00:08:10
to get there and she actually talked to
00:08:12
him about don't go this way go this way
00:08:15
it's faster
00:08:21
he dropped her off a block from her home
00:08:26
macon was able to recall many important
00:08:29
details about her assailant and his
00:08:32
truck
00:08:34
she said the truck was a chevy s10 blue
00:08:38
with a dark cap
00:08:41
there was an air freshener with the
00:08:43
tweety bird cartoon character hanging
00:08:45
from the rear view mirror
00:08:48
the interior was muddy with holes in the
00:08:50
bench seat
00:08:53
megan remembered grabbing the truck
00:08:54
frame in a desperate attempt to resist
00:08:56
her attacker
00:08:58
she definitely wanted to leave some type
00:09:00
of sign or some type of calling card if
00:09:02
you will that this that she was there
00:09:04
that this had taken place just in case
00:09:05
she didn't make it out alive she also
00:09:08
said the back end of the truck may have
00:09:10
been dented
00:09:11
because when we went down the boyd's
00:09:13
corner and he turned around he backed up
00:09:15
the guard round he hit the guardrail
00:09:16
pretty hard
00:09:18
megan described her assailant as a
00:09:20
stocky blonde man with facial hair about
00:09:23
six feet tall with piercing blue eyes
00:09:26
between his eyes was a crescent-shaped
00:09:28
cut caused when megan struck him with
00:09:31
the flashlight
00:09:34
she kept her eyes open and she looked at
00:09:37
his face and his body so she was able to
00:09:40
just you know describe
00:09:41
portions of the man that
00:09:44
a reasonable
00:09:45
stranger wouldn't know
00:09:48
actually
00:09:49
[Music]
00:09:53
forensic scientists measured and
00:09:55
photographed the shoe and tire
00:09:58
impressions outside the mckernan's home
00:10:02
several of the shoe impressions belonged
00:10:04
to megan's family but
00:10:06
there were a number of unidentified shoe
00:10:09
impressions presumably those of the
00:10:11
assailant
00:10:14
at boyd's corner where the assault took
00:10:17
place
00:10:19
police found more tire impressions and
00:10:22
scuff marks on a guard rail
00:10:27
boyd's corner is an isolated area on an
00:10:31
abandoned road leading to a cul-de-sac
00:10:35
because it was a gathering spot for
00:10:37
teenagers police assumed the assailant
00:10:39
was a local man familiar with the area
00:10:43
the use of a weapon also suggested this
00:10:46
wasn't his first crime
00:10:49
we wanted to make sure that the person
00:10:50
who did this to her wasn't out there
00:10:52
hunting someone else so we wanted to
00:10:54
make sure the community was aware of the
00:10:56
information
00:10:58
police appealed to the community for
00:11:01
help
00:11:02
a newspaper article appeared three days
00:11:04
after megan's assault asking if anyone
00:11:08
recognized the description of the
00:11:10
assailant or his truck
00:11:13
that same day
00:11:15
police received an anonymous telephone
00:11:18
call
00:11:23
[Music]
00:11:25
jackson police department how may i help
00:11:27
you
00:11:28
an anonymous caller told police where
00:11:30
they could find a truck similar to the
00:11:32
one they were looking for in the megan
00:11:34
mckernan assault case
00:11:37
we go to the address that was given to
00:11:38
us by the anonymous caller there's
00:11:41
the suspect vehicle it matches perfectly
00:11:43
it's a blue chevy truck with a black cap
00:11:45
[Music]
00:11:54
the truck was owned by douglas bailey
00:11:57
thomas this is detective green
00:12:00
the police immediately ran into two
00:12:02
problems
00:12:03
bayley didn't match the victim's
00:12:05
physical description
00:12:08
you want to die sat in my chair and he
00:12:11
didn't have the cut on his forehead made
00:12:13
by megan's flashlight
00:12:16
is that your truck in the driveway
00:12:18
yes sir i'll be taking a peek on the way
00:12:21
out
00:12:30
but then
00:12:31
police saw the tweety bird air freshener
00:12:34
the same one megan had described hanging
00:12:37
from the rear view mirror
00:12:39
and behind the front seat was a rifle
00:12:42
similar to the one the girls described
00:12:46
[Music]
00:12:51
criminalists dusted the truck for
00:12:54
fingerprints
00:12:55
they discovered prints on the frame by
00:12:58
the passenger door
00:13:01
by using a special adhesive strip
00:13:04
they lifted those prints for analysis
00:13:09
they were found next to the passenger's
00:13:11
door and were in a smeared condition
00:13:14
which would in my opinion
00:13:16
indicate that that someone had been
00:13:19
forced into the vehicle or attempted to
00:13:22
be forced into the vehicle
00:13:26
floria then compared those prints to
00:13:29
megan's looking specifically for
00:13:31
individual ridge characteristics
00:13:34
no two different people have ever been
00:13:36
found to have the same fingerprints
00:13:38
that's based upon the individual ridge
00:13:41
characteristics the bifurcations
00:13:43
the ridge endings the enclosures the
00:13:46
short ridges which we find
00:13:48
in a known fingerprint
00:13:52
megan's fingerprints had the same ridge
00:13:54
characteristics and spacing as the
00:13:56
fingerprints on the truck
00:13:59
those fingerprint impressions were made
00:14:01
by the right index finger the right
00:14:04
middle finger
00:14:05
the right
00:14:06
ring finger and the right little finger
00:14:08
of megan mckernan
00:14:11
with a search warrant
00:14:13
police confiscated a pair of boots from
00:14:15
the bailey home to see if they matched
00:14:17
footwear impressions found at the crime
00:14:20
scene
00:14:21
they can be like a fingerprint insofar
00:14:24
as they can be individualized
00:14:26
uh as having been made by a specific
00:14:28
shoe to the exclusion of all others
00:14:32
[Music]
00:14:33
floria says shoe souls develop tiny cuts
00:14:37
from stepping on objects such as glass
00:14:39
or stones
00:14:41
these accidental characteristics are
00:14:43
unique to each shoe
00:14:49
using fingerprint dusting powder
00:14:52
floria covered the sole
00:14:54
then used a sheet of adhesive tape and a
00:14:57
roller to create a copy of that sole
00:15:03
[Music]
00:15:07
next floria compared the size shape and
00:15:10
accidental characteristics to the
00:15:12
footwear impressions lifted from the
00:15:15
crime scene
00:15:19
they were a match
00:15:23
tires also have accidental
00:15:25
characteristics like footwear
00:15:29
when the tire impressions from the crime
00:15:31
scene were compared to the bailey's
00:15:33
pickup truck tires
00:15:35
they were found to be consistent
00:15:37
[Music]
00:15:41
there was a glove that was left at the
00:15:43
scene
00:15:44
the other match was inside the the
00:15:46
vehicle itself
00:15:48
the truck belonged to douglas bailey
00:15:52
but the shoes did not they belonged to
00:15:55
his 28 year old son craig who had
00:15:58
recently been released from prison after
00:16:00
serving seven years of a 25-year
00:16:03
sentence for burglary
00:16:06
doug bailey wasn't surprised to hear his
00:16:09
son might again be in trouble
00:16:12
[Music]
00:16:13
craig bailey was attending alcohol abuse
00:16:16
recovery meetings at this local
00:16:17
treatment center
00:16:19
they came out to the detectives and said
00:16:21
by the way craig's done at uh
00:16:24
an alcohol recovery service and if you
00:16:26
want to go get him that's where he's at
00:16:29
and that's just where the police found
00:16:32
him
00:16:33
without saying a word he turned around
00:16:35
put his hands behind his back we
00:16:36
handcuffed him and took him out to the
00:16:37
car he never said a word and never
00:16:39
questioned us as to why we were there to
00:16:42
take him into custody to me that was a
00:16:44
sure sign of someone who had committed
00:16:46
the crime or certainly was guilty of
00:16:48
something and it wasn't long before
00:16:52
police discovered that the anonymous
00:16:54
callers were craig's father doug and his
00:16:57
girlfriend
00:17:01
[Music]
00:17:04
suspected 28-year-old craig bailey a
00:17:07
career criminal was the man who
00:17:09
kidnapped and assaulted 18-year-old
00:17:11
megan mckernan
00:17:14
megan's description of her assailant fit
00:17:16
craig bailey perfectly even the crescent
00:17:20
shape cut between his eyes
00:17:22
megan selected craig bailey out of a
00:17:25
photo lineup
00:17:26
of six people
00:17:28
she did not hesitate when she selected
00:17:29
the person that did this crime to her
00:17:33
doug bailey told police that he and
00:17:35
craig were on their way to a movie when
00:17:37
craig stopped to speak with megan and
00:17:39
her sister-in-law stephanie
00:17:46
later that night craig dropped his
00:17:48
father off at home and said he was going
00:17:50
out to meet some friends his father had
00:17:53
no idea his plan was to return to the
00:17:56
girl's house
00:17:59
despite overwhelming forensic evidence
00:18:01
against him craig bailey refused to
00:18:04
accept a plea bargain and pleaded not
00:18:07
guilty at the preliminary hearing
00:18:10
[Music]
00:18:12
meanwhile investigators worked to
00:18:15
strengthen their case against him
00:18:21
forensic scientist jennifer blank
00:18:24
analyzed megan's rape test kit with a
00:18:26
chemical called brenteman's reagent
00:18:30
if i get a nice bright purple color
00:18:32
change reaction then i know that i
00:18:34
possibly have semen on that swab
00:18:37
[Music]
00:18:39
which is what she found
00:18:43
blink also tested the samples with
00:18:46
theta-based tablets which react when
00:18:49
coming into contact with amylase a
00:18:51
digestive enzyme found in saliva
00:18:54
what a fatabas tablet is is basically a
00:18:57
starch that is chemically connected to a
00:19:00
dye
00:19:01
the test turned deep blue
00:19:04
meaning saliva was present
00:19:06
[Music]
00:19:07
those samples were subjected to a dq
00:19:10
alpha dna test
00:19:14
test strips analyze six specific
00:19:17
locations on the dna strand
00:19:22
craig bailey's dna matched the semen and
00:19:26
saliva samples from the rape test kit
00:19:30
only one person out of 3 000 people
00:19:32
would have the dna profile
00:19:34
that we detected
00:19:36
from the semen on the thigh if all of
00:19:39
those individuals happen to be caucasian
00:19:42
and finally
00:19:44
a blood stain found in the pickup truck
00:19:47
matched megan's dna
00:19:50
there was a literal mountain of evidence
00:19:52
to suggest and to prove that he in fact
00:19:54
did commit the crimes
00:19:56
of felonious assault rape and kidnapping
00:20:00
megan's blood inside the truck and her
00:20:03
fingerprints positioned in a way that
00:20:05
clearly demonstrated she was forced into
00:20:08
the vehicle all proved these points to
00:20:10
the jury
00:20:12
the forensics to this case
00:20:14
put
00:20:15
the icing on the cake
00:20:17
it allowed us to
00:20:19
to conclusively link the suspect to the
00:20:21
scene and to the victim herself
00:20:25
craig bailey was convicted of first
00:20:27
degree kidnapping and rape and two
00:20:29
counts of felonious assault
00:20:31
[Music]
00:20:33
he was sentenced to 46 years in prison
00:20:38
since bayley was on parole when he
00:20:40
committed the crime the judge reinstated
00:20:43
the 18 years remaining on bailey's
00:20:45
previous sentence
00:20:47
he didn't show any anger he didn't show
00:20:49
any remorse he didn't show any
00:20:50
incredulity i believe by the time he
00:20:53
would get out would be
00:20:55
approximately 81 years old
00:20:58
if it wasn't for megan we might not have
00:21:00
had a conviction there could have been a
00:21:03
dynamic attorney in there that would
00:21:05
have um
00:21:07
maybe
00:21:08
confused or
00:21:10
polluted the
00:21:12
the issue of was it you know a real
00:21:14
crime you know these these girls asked
00:21:16
him to come back or
00:21:18
just enough to
00:21:19
put a little bit of reasonable doubt
00:21:21
into the mind of the jury so it was
00:21:23
megan and her articulation and her
00:21:25
conviction and her willingness to
00:21:27
survive and make it through
00:21:29
that
00:21:30
made the case
00:21:32
hey girl
00:21:34
investigators say
00:21:36
everyone can learn from megan mckernan's
00:21:40
quick thinking
00:21:41
and amazing recall
00:21:44
leave pieces and parts of whatever you
00:21:46
can behind rip clothing you know hair
00:21:50
fingernails dig in
00:21:52
have at it don't don't
00:21:54
don't go away and leave us nothing
00:21:58
because what we might find will be just
00:22:00
what's left over of you
00:22:02
[Music]
00:22:10
[Music]
00:22:27
[Music]
00:22:36
you
