00:00:04
up next a young woman makes a desperate
00:00:06
plea for help she was very shooked up
00:00:09
before vanishing without a trace we knew
00:00:11
then something rotten had happened
00:00:13
police think they've solved the case
00:00:15
until it takes a turn no one expected it
00:00:18
was just hard for a lot of people to
00:00:20
believe
00:00:21
i almost got sick it was the ultimate
00:00:24
betrayal oh my god he was a monster in
00:00:27
disguise she got murdered for obeying
00:00:29
the law
00:00:41
customers at the men's club in charlotte
00:00:43
north carolina could occasionally get a
00:00:46
little raucous
00:00:47
but the employees were trained to handle
00:00:50
those situations
00:00:53
[Music]
00:00:55
26 year old kim medlen worked there as a
00:00:58
waitress
00:00:59
the money was good
00:01:01
she knew how to handle people she could
00:01:03
defuse the situation very quickly
00:01:07
she was beautiful but she was smart
00:01:08
about it
00:01:13
late one night as kim drove home from
00:01:15
work
00:01:16
she encountered a road rage incident
00:01:19
with an angry motorist
00:01:21
they started passing her driving closely
00:01:23
behind her blowing the horn at her
00:01:25
things like that
00:01:27
kim was afraid these men had followed
00:01:29
her from work
00:01:30
so she went to the police for help
00:01:33
she was very shook up it took a while
00:01:35
for the
00:01:36
police officer to calm her down
00:01:38
she also told them that
00:01:41
hey i traveled this road
00:01:43
these nights and i'm along here about
00:01:46
this time the captain placed a radio
00:01:49
broadcast to the other officers that
00:01:51
were working on his shift to be on the
00:01:53
lookout for this red jeep and to look
00:01:56
out for her if they saw her on the
00:01:58
roadway
00:01:59
unfortunately this didn't help
00:02:05
two weeks later police found kim's
00:02:07
abandoned jeep on the side of the road
00:02:10
the engine was running
00:02:12
and the lights were on
00:02:14
everything was working condition we knew
00:02:16
then there was something something
00:02:18
rotten had happened
00:02:20
kim's purse sender money were still in
00:02:23
the jeep but strangely her driver's
00:02:26
license was missing there was certainly
00:02:28
no logical explanation as to why miss
00:02:31
meddling had left her vehicle the first
00:02:33
thing we attempted to do
00:02:35
was to determine if in fact a crime had
00:02:38
occurred
00:02:39
the next day
00:02:40
a search team found
00:02:42
kim's body a mile and a half from her
00:02:45
car hidden
00:02:47
under some debris
00:02:49
we watched the news and
00:02:51
my wife looked at me and she says
00:02:53
i've seen enough it's her
00:02:57
so we turned off the tv and unplugged
00:02:59
all the phones
00:03:00
and just went to bed
00:03:04
this was not a robbery her wedding band
00:03:07
wedding ring it was a necklace still in
00:03:09
place around her neck
00:03:11
those items that would have potential
00:03:13
value were still present on her
00:03:17
the autopsy revealed kim had been beaten
00:03:20
kicked and strangled
00:03:22
but there were no signs of sexual
00:03:24
assault
00:03:26
there were several blows on the back of
00:03:28
her head and neck and her back area that
00:03:30
would have been consistent with blunt
00:03:32
force trauma
00:03:34
our theory is that she was knocked down
00:03:36
from behind she was stomped on her back
00:03:39
and she was had something pressed up
00:03:42
against the front of her neck
00:03:44
and there was evidence that kim's wrists
00:03:46
had been bound
00:03:47
but the bindings were missing typically
00:03:50
if the killer takes the time to tie them
00:03:52
restrain them tape them i've seen duct
00:03:54
tape different things i've never seen it
00:03:56
removed
00:03:58
it was very unusual
00:04:00
and the murder took place on a deserted
00:04:03
road outside of town
00:04:05
by this time
00:04:07
the killer could be long gone
00:04:14
to find kim medlen's killer
00:04:16
investigators needed to retrace her
00:04:18
steps in the hours before her murder
00:04:22
kim left her job at the men's club
00:04:25
around 2 a.m
00:04:26
her cell phone records indicated she
00:04:28
called her husband bridger at 2 15 while
00:04:31
driving home
00:04:33
which was their custom she would call
00:04:35
her husband let him know that she was on
00:04:37
her way
00:04:38
bridger medlin told police he went to
00:04:40
sleep right after kim called
00:04:43
but a local police officer contradicted
00:04:46
his story
00:04:47
he claimed he saw bridger's black pickup
00:04:50
truck driving through town around the
00:04:52
time of his wife's abduction
00:04:55
monroe police officer was confident that
00:04:57
he observed mr midland traveled through
00:04:59
monroe at 2 30 in the morning
00:05:02
the concern was that perhaps he wasn't
00:05:03
being completely truthful about where he
00:05:05
was
00:05:07
bridger was outraged
00:05:09
i said something is rotten here
00:05:12
something is wrong
00:05:14
he thought police should spend more time
00:05:17
investigating themselves
00:05:20
kim's street smart the only reason she
00:05:22
pulled over was because of
00:05:25
some
00:05:26
figure of authority
00:05:28
had demanded her to pull over
00:05:32
was it possible that bridger was correct
00:05:34
that a policeman or someone in authority
00:05:37
had pulled kim over
00:05:40
based upon the position of the jeep the
00:05:43
fact that the driver's license appeared
00:05:44
to be missing
00:05:45
one of the investigators early on
00:05:48
believed that this could be a blue light
00:05:50
bandit or perhaps even a police officer
00:05:52
involved in the stop of the vehicle
00:05:55
a blue light bandit is someone who
00:05:57
mounts a police light on his vehicle and
00:06:00
uses it to prey on innocent people
00:06:03
this theory was bolstered by the fact
00:06:06
that kim's driver's side window was down
00:06:09
if you logically looked at it it really
00:06:12
narrowed down the reason she pulled over
00:06:15
and it didn't take long before a witness
00:06:17
came forward to corroborate this theory
00:06:21
a motorist said he was driving behind a
00:06:24
red jeep presumably kim's on the night
00:06:27
of the murder he claimed the woman
00:06:30
driving the jeep did nothing wrong
00:06:32
but a police officer turned his lights
00:06:34
on and pulled her over
00:06:37
he was driving on a revoked driver's
00:06:39
license and so he of course was very
00:06:42
concerned when he saw the patrol car
00:06:43
turn in front of him so he fell back
00:06:45
obviously not wanting to get too close
00:06:47
and draw attention to himself
00:06:49
this explained the bruises on kim's
00:06:52
wrists the possibility that they were
00:06:55
caused by handcuffs
00:06:58
but police needed to find out the
00:07:00
jurisdiction of the police car
00:07:04
so we actually used that same witness
00:07:06
and we did what we called a police car
00:07:08
lineup
00:07:09
the witness identified the police car as
00:07:12
one from the city of monroe
00:07:15
but that police department had a 110-man
00:07:18
force
00:07:19
and it could have been any one of them
00:07:21
since they can use their vehicles while
00:07:24
off-duty
00:07:26
so investigators tried to find some way
00:07:28
to narrow it down and latent evidence
00:07:31
expert ricky navarro looked for clues on
00:07:35
kim medlen's clothing
00:07:37
that's when he noticed a print on her
00:07:40
sweatshirt
00:07:42
at that point in time i could not
00:07:43
determine whether i was looking at a
00:07:46
footwear impression or
00:07:47
some other type of object that left that
00:07:50
impression on the sweatshirt
00:07:52
using alternate light sources and
00:07:54
high-speed cameras navarro concluded he
00:07:58
was looking at the heel of a shoe
00:08:02
it was a type of shoe that was not flat
00:08:06
from toe all the way back to the heel it
00:08:08
had a distinct heel in it
00:08:11
which like some of your hard soul shoes
00:08:13
would have not like your athletic shoes
00:08:15
would have
00:08:16
and there was a distinct v
00:08:18
or chevron pattern across the print
00:08:22
at first
00:08:23
navarro's search yielded no results
00:08:26
the chevron pattern i had not found in
00:08:29
any other footwear manufacturing
00:08:32
companies that i looked at
00:08:34
but with a little more research
00:08:37
navarro discovered the shoe was made by
00:08:39
the theragood company in wisconsin
00:08:42
they made quite a few different styles i
00:08:45
believe approximately 17 different
00:08:48
styles
00:08:49
of uniform shoes
00:08:51
many of these shoe styles were worn by
00:08:54
police officers
00:08:55
this particular shoe was 831 style
00:09:00
dash 6114
00:09:02
and that was the only shoe that thor
00:09:05
good put that sole design on at that
00:09:08
time
00:09:08
all the other shoes had a diff
00:09:10
completely different soul design from
00:09:13
that one
00:09:15
navarro measured the print on kim's
00:09:18
sweatshirt and determined that the
00:09:20
killer wore a size eight eight and a
00:09:23
half or nine theragood shoe
00:09:27
the question now
00:09:29
was to find the monroe police officer
00:09:31
wearing them
00:09:37
investigators now suspected that kim
00:09:40
medlen's killer was a monroe policeman
00:09:43
and they no longer believed that her
00:09:45
husband bridger medlin had anything to
00:09:48
do with her murder
00:09:50
they also discovered that bridger was
00:09:53
not driving his pickup truck through
00:09:54
town after midnight as one of the police
00:09:57
officers claimed
00:09:59
that particular intersection was being
00:10:01
videotaped through a atm machine from a
00:10:04
wachovia bank and it actually picked up
00:10:07
the image of my truck coming through
00:10:09
that intersection after 4 am
00:10:12
this was after bridger was notified by
00:10:15
police and was headed to the scene of
00:10:17
kim's abandoned car
00:10:19
that was the first and the strongest
00:10:22
uh
00:10:23
rock solid evidence that i was where i
00:10:25
said it was
00:10:27
investigators were also sure that the
00:10:29
killer war size eight eight and a half
00:10:32
or nine theragood brand shoes
00:10:35
police personnel records showed that
00:10:38
only three members of the monroe police
00:10:40
department wore this make and model of
00:10:43
shoe in that shoe size range
00:10:47
of the three
00:10:48
one was working at the fire department
00:10:50
on the night of kim's murder
00:10:52
he was assigned to sort of a stationary
00:10:54
duty that evening where he couldn't just
00:10:56
get in the car and drive around he had
00:10:57
to sort of be there at the department
00:11:00
the second officer was on duty
00:11:02
responding to a burglary that night and
00:11:04
was in constant radio contact with
00:11:06
headquarters
00:11:08
the third
00:11:09
josh griffin worked that night until 10
00:11:12
pm
00:11:13
then went off duty
00:11:15
off the refill told investigators he had
00:11:18
not seen kim medlen that night he had
00:11:20
not stopped the car he did not see the
00:11:22
jeep in any way shape or form and he
00:11:24
basically said he had gone home and had
00:11:26
gone to bed before
00:11:28
this
00:11:29
jeep before the jeep would have been
00:11:30
discovered
00:11:32
officer griffin was 24 years old he'd
00:11:35
been a member of the police force for
00:11:36
just over a year
00:11:38
when investigators searched griffin's
00:11:40
police car they found nothing suspicious
00:11:44
his car was absolutely almost spotless
00:11:47
which if you knew josh
00:11:49
he was kind of known around the
00:11:50
department of having the dirtiest car in
00:11:52
the fleet
00:11:53
with a warrant police searched griffin's
00:11:55
house
00:11:57
but they couldn't find his pair of
00:11:58
police issued work shoes
00:12:01
mr griffin told me that he had thrown
00:12:04
those shoes away because they were
00:12:06
damaged
00:12:08
on an accident scene investigation
00:12:11
police questioned employees of the men's
00:12:13
club where kim medlen worked to see
00:12:15
whether josh griffin was there on the
00:12:17
night of the murder and perhaps followed
00:12:19
her home
00:12:21
but no one recalled seeing him
00:12:23
but a check of griffin's cell phone
00:12:25
records contradicted his alibi that he
00:12:28
was home sleeping that night
00:12:31
records show that griffin made a cell
00:12:33
phone call around 2 a.m to a tow truck
00:12:36
company
00:12:38
when confronted by his superiors
00:12:41
griffin changed his story
00:12:44
he said he was sitting in his police car
00:12:46
in uniform at baker's intersection in a
00:12:49
restaurant parking lot after his shift
00:12:52
ended
00:12:53
reading a book
00:12:55
he claimed to be sitting in that parking
00:12:56
lot
00:12:57
reading his law book at that restaurant
00:12:59
that was closed
00:13:01
and the motorist asked him to call for a
00:13:02
tow truck because his car broke down
00:13:05
nearby
00:13:07
this put officer griffin on baker's
00:13:09
intersection
00:13:11
just a half hour to 45 minutes before
00:13:14
kim medlen drove by on old charlotte
00:13:17
highway
00:13:19
josh griffin denied any involvement in
00:13:22
kim's murder
00:13:23
but soon
00:13:24
his fellow officers turned against him
00:13:28
apparently
00:13:29
everything started when kim told police
00:13:32
she feared driving home alone at night
00:13:34
along the dark country roads and was
00:13:37
concerned that a customer of the men's
00:13:39
club was following her
00:13:43
in an effort to help police broadcast an
00:13:46
announcement asking officers to keep an
00:13:48
eye out for kim's car to make sure
00:13:51
nothing happened to her
00:13:53
and we know from the investigation after
00:13:55
the fact that mr griffin was in fact out
00:13:58
and listening to that broadcast that
00:13:59
evening
00:14:01
the evidence shows officer josh griffin
00:14:04
took an inappropriate interest in kim
00:14:07
medlen
00:14:08
and investigators learned that griffin
00:14:10
told fellow police officers about it he
00:14:13
saw her jeep running up and down through
00:14:15
town
00:14:16
and would call and with two other
00:14:18
policemen and make comments about the
00:14:21
pretty blond-haired girl in the jeep
00:14:23
uh that she's coming through when he was
00:14:25
trying to figure out a way to meet her
00:14:27
that was really alarming too as i had
00:14:28
other officers that knew about this
00:14:30
pattern of behavior but he'd say
00:14:32
anything didn't come forward and we
00:14:33
could address it correctly
00:14:35
and after kim's murder several women
00:14:38
came forward to say
00:14:39
griffin had been harassing them too
00:14:42
they tell you how sick this guy actually
00:14:44
was this came out in the trial there was
00:14:46
a girl that was being stalked this girl
00:14:48
has an unlisted number
00:14:50
she gets a call that says i know that
00:14:52
you're at home i'm coming to see you
00:14:54
what does she do in a panic
00:14:56
she calls the police she calls 9-1-1
00:14:58
who's working who responds to the call
00:15:01
josh griffin
00:15:03
but for a murder conviction prosecutors
00:15:05
needed more than circumstantial evidence
00:15:08
could they find
00:15:10
anything stronger
00:15:16
prosecutors say that kim medlen's
00:15:18
abduction and murder was the ultimate
00:15:20
betrayal
00:15:22
perpetrated by a police officer hired to
00:15:24
protect and serve
00:15:26
not abuse and suppress
00:15:29
i think it was just hard for a lot of
00:15:31
people to believe that a local guy a
00:15:34
nice young on the surface young man who
00:15:37
was an all-american kid could have
00:15:39
committed a violent crime of this type
00:15:43
on the night of the crime
00:15:45
griffin ended his shift around 10 pm
00:15:49
but instead of going home while still in
00:15:52
uniform he drove his police car to
00:15:55
baker's intersection and parked at ron's
00:15:58
restaurant which was closed
00:16:00
around 2 a.m
00:16:02
a motorist stopped and asked for help
00:16:04
telling griffin he had some car trouble
00:16:07
griffin called for a tow truck using his
00:16:10
personal cell phone
00:16:12
which placed him
00:16:14
near the crime scene
00:16:18
about 30 to 45 minutes later
00:16:21
prosecutors believe griffin saw kim
00:16:24
medlen drive by
00:16:26
and as planned
00:16:27
decided to pull her over for a traffic
00:16:29
violation as a ruse to introduce himself
00:16:36
a witness
00:16:37
saw the policeman pull kim's red jeep
00:16:39
over and saw that kim had done nothing
00:16:42
wrong
00:16:47
prosecutors believe
00:16:49
griffin asked kim for her driver's
00:16:51
license then asked her to join him in
00:16:54
his patrol car while he ran her license
00:16:57
plate number
00:17:00
[Music]
00:17:06
griffin may have made a sexual advance
00:17:09
and kim objected griffin knew then that
00:17:12
he had gone too far
00:17:14
he panicked handcuffed her and drove off
00:17:20
griffin turned off old charlotte highway
00:17:23
and kim knew it was a dead end street
00:17:28
her injuries suggest she jumped from the
00:17:31
moving car
00:17:32
[Music]
00:17:37
griffin caught up with her struck her on
00:17:39
the back of the head
00:17:41
stomped on her back
00:17:43
breaking her neck and leaving the
00:17:45
distinctive foot impression
00:17:48
he then
00:17:49
strangled her to death probably with his
00:17:52
police flashlight
00:17:54
before he left
00:17:56
he removed the handcuffs
00:17:58
and covered her body with debris
00:18:03
i still can't imagine what happened and
00:18:06
what transpired in those few minutes the
00:18:09
last few minutes of kim's life
00:18:12
if i had an officer that was doing this
00:18:13
i didn't care who it was
00:18:16
it shouldn't happen
00:18:17
nobody should should suffer and die the
00:18:20
way kim medley did
00:18:22
but to get a conviction prosecutors
00:18:24
needed to prove josh griffin was the
00:18:27
killer with not having any dna
00:18:30
they actually had to build their case
00:18:32
around that footprint
00:18:34
according to personnel records griffin
00:18:37
was the only officer to wear a size
00:18:40
eight and a half clarino style
00:18:42
thera-good shoe
00:18:44
so ricky navarro took a new pair of
00:18:46
these shoes
00:18:47
made an inked impression
00:18:50
and compared it to the shoe print on the
00:18:52
back of kim meddling sweatshirt
00:18:55
navarro believes
00:18:57
it was the only one
00:18:59
that could have created that impression
00:19:02
my job is not necessarily to positively
00:19:04
identify everything that comes in here
00:19:07
my job was to just render an opinion
00:19:10
and at that point in time
00:19:12
it just had to go where it had to go
00:19:15
none of us ever want to believe a police
00:19:17
officer do something like that
00:19:18
especially one that you work with every
00:19:20
day and every night
00:19:21
your life just depended on in february
00:19:24
of 1998
00:19:26
officer josh griffin went on trial for
00:19:29
first degree kidnapping and first degree
00:19:32
murder
00:19:33
he pled not guilty
00:19:35
but the evidence was clear and he was
00:19:38
convicted of both charges
00:19:40
and sentenced to life in prison
00:19:43
[Music]
00:19:44
three years later griffin asked to speak
00:19:47
with investigators
00:19:49
and on tape
00:19:50
he finally confessed
00:19:53
i don't know what his motivation was but
00:19:55
i just know what he said
00:19:58
he admitted stomping on her back he
00:20:01
admitted choking her with a flashlight
00:20:03
he admitted handcuffing her he admitted
00:20:05
cutting her driver's license up into a
00:20:07
million pieces and flushing it down the
00:20:09
toilet
00:20:10
of course he admitted to all the lies
00:20:12
he told me that he actually disposed of
00:20:14
those shoes
00:20:16
right after this happened he said he
00:20:17
threw him in a dumpster behind the local
00:20:19
kmart
00:20:20
because of incidents like this
00:20:23
officials now caution motorists to be
00:20:25
suspicious of any vehicle
00:20:28
with flashing lights
00:20:30
particularly if driving on a dark
00:20:33
deserted road at night
00:20:35
you put a signal on as if you're going
00:20:37
to turn and you wait until you get to a
00:20:39
well-lit area that's a public place
00:20:41
where there are other people i've done
00:20:43
that since
00:20:44
this case and i'm married to a police
00:20:46
officer but i don't take my
00:20:50
safety
00:20:52
for granted and i hope that no one else
00:20:54
does either
00:20:55
in a case without much evidence
00:20:58
a partial shoe impression on a
00:21:00
sweatshirt was all that was needed
00:21:03
without the footwear impression i doubt
00:21:05
we would have obtained the conviction
00:21:07
that we did
00:21:08
i mean in essence that footwear
00:21:10
impression was the signature of the
00:21:11
murder weapon you've got to have
00:21:13
something
00:21:14
or something in this case and one of the
00:21:16
big somethings in this case was her
00:21:18
sweatshirt
00:21:19
with the evidence of her murder on her
00:21:21
back
00:21:22
and of course one of the murder weapons
00:21:24
in this case was
00:21:25
mr griffin's foot
00:21:27
as strange as that may sound the real
00:21:29
clincher was the shoe print that led a
00:21:33
piece of evidence
00:21:35
that that you cannot deny it's there in
00:21:38
black and white
00:21:44
you
