00:00:06
there was a break-in
00:00:09
and the murder
00:00:11
what do you mean what happened
00:00:13
in the room
00:00:17
it looked like an execution my first
00:00:19
thought was this was a hit
00:00:22
until a closer look at the forensic
00:00:24
evidence revealed the truth that was
00:00:26
definitely a stage scene
00:00:31
[Music]
00:00:37
[Music]
00:00:56
one of the best defense lawyers in san
00:00:58
antonio texas was leslie vaughan
00:01:02
leslie was a workaholic if you know
00:01:03
anything about guys who tried to to
00:01:06
reach that uh status of perfectionism uh
00:01:08
leslie was a was a perfectionist he
00:01:11
really was
00:01:12
not surprisingly as a defense attorney
00:01:15
vaughn's practice also included
00:01:18
problem clients
00:01:19
he did have clients involved in the drug
00:01:22
trade
00:01:23
he did have clients that were
00:01:25
identified themselves with different
00:01:27
like
00:01:28
organized crime groups
00:01:31
on the night of november 10 1998
00:01:34
leslie's wife was working the night
00:01:36
shift as a nurse at the local hospital
00:01:39
leslie and his two sons were home that
00:01:42
night
00:01:44
around 1 30 a.m
00:01:46
16 year old brian said he heard a loud
00:01:48
bang coming from his father's bedroom
00:01:55
when he tried to get in he discovered
00:01:57
the door was locked
00:02:00
he hears some more alarming noises in
00:02:02
the nature of gurgling or breathing he
00:02:05
can't get into his dad's room
00:02:07
and that concerns him
00:02:09
in a panic brian called 911
00:02:22
[Music]
00:02:33
after the call brian took his 11 year
00:02:35
old brother to his neighbor's house
00:02:38
he indicated there might have been
00:02:40
maybe somebody in the house and that's
00:02:41
that's why he was getting his brother
00:02:43
out to make sure that his brother didn't
00:02:45
get hurt
00:02:46
when paramedics arrived
00:02:48
they broke down the bedroom door and
00:02:51
found leslie vaughan dead
00:02:54
there was a single gunshot wound to his
00:02:57
head
00:02:59
there was a large limestone rock on the
00:03:02
bedroom floor and a broken window the
00:03:05
killer's apparent point of entry
00:03:08
the french doors opened to a balcony and
00:03:11
one of the doors had a very large gaping
00:03:14
hole in it someone had thrown a rock
00:03:16
through the doors
00:03:17
and the size of the breakout in the
00:03:19
glass could accommodate a grown person
00:03:21
walking in and out to that opening
00:03:23
so right off the bat i was i was pretty
00:03:24
sure that we were dealing with the
00:03:25
murder scene
00:03:27
there was a spent shell casing on the
00:03:29
floor
00:03:30
and the spent bullet was found in the
00:03:33
pillow
00:03:34
under vaughan's head
00:03:36
the bullet had six grooves with a right
00:03:38
twist which would commonly indicate a
00:03:40
smith and wesson's semi-automatic
00:03:42
nine-millimeter handgun
00:03:44
but the motive for the murder
00:03:46
was unclear
00:03:48
the television was on
00:03:49
there was a remote control still intact
00:03:51
there was
00:03:52
no indications of drawers open where
00:03:55
somebody ransacked was searching for
00:03:57
something uh whether it be jewelry money
00:04:00
so there was no indications at all of a
00:04:02
burglary
00:04:03
leslie vaughn was just 44 years old
00:04:07
my first thought was this was a hit
00:04:10
just a day earlier a federal prosecutor
00:04:13
overheard vaughn say he feared he would
00:04:15
be targeted for violence
00:04:17
that's sometimes the risk you take when
00:04:19
you lose a case for a client who happens
00:04:21
to be a drug dealer
00:04:24
what went through my mind is is that
00:04:26
rumors were that maybe it was a client a
00:04:28
disgruntled client somebody who's mad at
00:04:30
him
00:04:31
homicide detective alfred damiani broke
00:04:34
the news to leslie's wife madeline
00:04:37
i've made lots of those notifications
00:04:39
and after the initial gasp in shock
00:04:44
then it's how how did it happen
00:04:46
and she never asked
00:04:48
she never ever asked that
00:04:50
and they found another surprise on the
00:04:52
911
00:04:54
[Music]
00:04:59
at leslie vaughan's funeral
00:05:01
prosecutors and law enforcement came
00:05:04
together with drug dealers and felons to
00:05:07
mourn his death you had these grown men
00:05:10
that by society status they are thugs
00:05:13
but they were actually reduced to tears
00:05:14
because leslie vaughn was in that box
00:05:16
about to be put in the ground
00:05:19
in a search for the killer the vaughn
00:05:21
family told police they were getting
00:05:23
harassing telephone calls in the weeks
00:05:25
leading up to the murder
00:05:27
the family had been receiving calls that
00:05:29
you'd pick the phone up nobody would say
00:05:31
anything they were basically just just
00:05:33
dead air
00:05:35
unfortunately phone records couldn't
00:05:37
determine the origin of the calls
00:05:41
for investigators
00:05:42
their first task was to eliminate the
00:05:44
victim's wife madeleine as a possible
00:05:47
suspect
00:05:49
hospital records confirmed she was
00:05:51
working on the night of the murder and
00:05:53
had never left the premises
00:05:56
madeleine was she was grieving she was
00:05:58
stunned she was in shock she was all the
00:06:00
things that you would expect her to be
00:06:03
and remember i showed you the pictures
00:06:04
of leslie and marlon and they look real
00:06:07
happy did that look like a picture of
00:06:08
somebody knocking each other out i mean
00:06:10
that's what i saw
00:06:12
on the night of the murder as a matter
00:06:13
of routine police swabbed brian vaughn's
00:06:16
hands for gunshot residue since he was
00:06:20
in the house when the crime occurred
00:06:22
these are the small microscopic
00:06:24
particles that are left behind when a
00:06:27
gun is fired
00:06:30
if a person fired a weapon
00:06:32
within a 24-hour period it is very
00:06:34
likely that i will be able to find
00:06:36
gunshot residue
00:06:38
but under the scanning electron
00:06:40
microscope magnified up to 10 000 times
00:06:44
the tests on brian's hands were negative
00:06:48
[Music]
00:06:50
investigators suspected the killer
00:06:51
somehow climbed up to a second floor
00:06:54
balcony
00:06:56
broke through the french doors and then
00:06:58
shot vaughn in the head with a nine
00:07:00
millimeter gun
00:07:04
the balcony was about 15 feet from the
00:07:06
ground
00:07:08
this is a balcony without access to the
00:07:10
ground level there's no there's no
00:07:12
stairway
00:07:13
there's no other way to access this
00:07:14
balcony except through those doors
00:07:17
i think someone could have scaled that
00:07:19
balcony
00:07:20
i would say that someone who did that
00:07:21
would have to be pretty fit in pretty
00:07:23
good shape i don't think it would have
00:07:24
been an easy thing to do necessarily but
00:07:26
it could be done
00:07:28
but when investigators looked at the
00:07:30
dirt below the balcony
00:07:32
they couldn't find any evidence of a
00:07:34
ladder or even any foot impressions
00:07:37
despite three days of constant rain
00:07:40
how did this person get up here how did
00:07:42
this person climb up here and get up to
00:07:44
the second floor of this wooden deck
00:07:47
and gain enter to this residence if the
00:07:49
ground had been disturbed by
00:07:51
a heavy footprints or a ladder or some
00:07:54
sort of equipment it should have shown
00:07:55
up in the soil
00:07:57
and investigators felt it would have
00:07:59
been impossible to throw the rock from
00:08:01
the yard
00:08:02
it weighed close to 10 pounds
00:08:05
that person had to be very strong to be
00:08:07
able to throw that rock from the bottom
00:08:08
floor and to make it go right through
00:08:10
that glass we found no evidence that
00:08:13
there was any activity anybody walking
00:08:15
around back there absolutely no evidence
00:08:17
of it
00:08:18
and investigators found another
00:08:21
inconsistency
00:08:23
there was broken glass
00:08:25
all over the bedroom floor
00:08:27
and all over leslie vaughan's body as
00:08:29
well
00:08:30
the rock that was thrown through that
00:08:32
window
00:08:32
didn't even phase him and didn't even
00:08:34
wake him up
00:08:35
the
00:08:36
obvious conclusion that you have to draw
00:08:37
from that is is that the guy was
00:08:39
probably dead already
00:08:42
toxicology tests found no drugs or
00:08:45
alcohol in leslie vaughan's system so
00:08:48
there was no evidence he was unconscious
00:08:50
before he was killed
00:08:52
next investigators sent the rock
00:08:55
to the forensic lab for testing
00:08:58
i talked to a scientist and asked him if
00:09:01
there was a process which he planned to
00:09:03
use to to
00:09:05
attempt to to raise these latent prints
00:09:08
the process is called super glue fuming
00:09:12
heated super glue produces fumes that
00:09:15
adhere to a fingerprint and the adhesion
00:09:18
is greater than fingerprint powder
00:09:22
you want to preserve anything that is on
00:09:24
that rock as far as laden prints or
00:09:26
fingerprints you want to make sure that
00:09:28
there's no way by using a brush that
00:09:30
it's going to come off
00:09:32
unfortunately the surface of the rock
00:09:34
was too jagged
00:09:36
the test was unsuccessful
00:09:40
then investigators found
00:09:42
an inconsistency
00:09:44
in brian vaughn's story
00:09:48
brian called 9-1-1 to report the
00:09:50
shooting at 1 46 a.m
00:09:54
what's your last name
00:09:56
is anybody out there
00:10:01
but brian took his brother to his
00:10:03
neighbor's house 20 minutes earlier at 1
00:10:05
24.
00:10:07
brian told the floyds that he had
00:10:09
already placed a 9-1-1 call and that he
00:10:11
was going back to the house to wait for
00:10:12
the police when i asked both mr and mrs
00:10:15
floyd what time it was they both told me
00:10:17
it was exactly
00:10:18
uh 1 24
00:10:20
a.m according to
00:10:22
uh this this clock that they had in the
00:10:24
bedroom
00:10:25
brian arrived at the floyd's house at 1
00:10:28
24 a.m
00:10:30
did not call
00:10:31
until 1 46.
00:10:33
what was brian doing for these 20
00:10:36
minutes
00:10:41
there were only three people in the
00:10:43
house on the night of leslie vaughn's
00:10:44
murder the victim
00:10:46
and his two sons
00:10:48
a background check revealed
00:10:50
sixteen-year-old brian had a previous
00:10:53
arrest
00:10:54
he got into an argument with one of the
00:10:56
security guards there at the bowling
00:10:58
alley who actually was an off-duty bear
00:11:00
county sheriff's deputy
00:11:01
and
00:11:02
in that altercation he ended up striking
00:11:05
this deputy and in fact fleeing like
00:11:07
evading
00:11:08
from the scene and those were pending
00:11:10
charges at the time that leslie was
00:11:12
murdered
00:11:14
investigators also learned that brian's
00:11:17
car caught on fire three months before
00:11:20
his father's murder
00:11:21
the origin was suspicious
00:11:24
there was an emergency call the vehicle
00:11:26
was totaled and had to be put out
00:11:27
there's some question as to whether or
00:11:29
not brian was responsible for starting
00:11:31
that fire or
00:11:32
being there when the fire started
00:11:35
whether leslie vaughan suspected this or
00:11:37
not is unclear
00:11:39
but he offered to buy brian a used car
00:11:42
to replace the one ruined in the fire
00:11:45
apparently brian wanted a new one
00:11:49
a car salesman told police he witnessed
00:11:52
a heated argument between the two on the
00:11:55
afternoon of the murder
00:11:58
his academic grades were poor which is
00:12:00
the reason why his father wouldn't buy
00:12:01
him the car in the first place
00:12:03
according to brian's younger brother
00:12:05
chris the argument continued when they
00:12:07
got home up until the early evening
00:12:10
hours of the night of the murder
00:12:13
according to chris brian retaliated by
00:12:16
threatening to quit his high school
00:12:18
basketball team relinquishing any chance
00:12:21
of a college scholarship in chris's
00:12:24
statement he said that it was heated
00:12:26
exchange
00:12:27
between him and his father in brian
00:12:29
vaughn's bedroom and that this thing
00:12:30
occurred about 11 30 at night
00:12:34
investigators dusted the entire bedroom
00:12:37
for fingerprints
00:12:39
and found no foreign prince only those
00:12:42
of family members
00:12:45
but on the french door with the broken
00:12:47
window investigators found only one set
00:12:50
of prints bryan's
00:12:53
to have your own prince
00:12:55
in your own house is not that
00:12:56
significant but given the fact that we
00:12:58
have this story about what happens and
00:13:01
the door is really clean otherwise it's
00:13:04
just one more piece to the puzzle
00:13:06
investigators found shards of glass in
00:13:09
the hallway outside the bedroom leading
00:13:11
towards the bathroom
00:13:13
it was easy to see
00:13:15
it was from the killer there's some
00:13:17
trace evidence some transfer blood and
00:13:19
tissue
00:13:20
to a wall right next to the door that
00:13:22
exits the bedroom and that's significant
00:13:25
we followed the glass yards to the
00:13:27
bathroom and then inside of the bathroom
00:13:30
we found an additional glass yard
00:13:33
and then we found
00:13:35
two black hairs in the
00:13:37
sink area
00:13:39
all of the hairs from that bathroom were
00:13:41
sent to the forensic lab for analysis
00:13:45
these hairs had a very clumped a very
00:13:48
dense pigmentation pattern they were
00:13:50
short they were semi-circular
00:13:53
they contained overall characteristics
00:13:56
that followed and fell into the
00:13:58
footsteps of what one would conclude as
00:14:00
being a negroid hair
00:14:02
finally investigators listened to the
00:14:05
entire conversation between brian and
00:14:08
the 9-1-1 operator on the night of the
00:14:11
murder
00:14:13
brian said his father's bedroom door was
00:14:16
locked
00:14:17
but he told the operator one small
00:14:20
detail
00:14:21
that only the killer would know
00:14:23
i think my dad's been shot i'm calling
00:14:25
him
00:14:27
he's all bleeding
00:14:29
[Music]
00:14:30
did you go inside the bedroom i can't
00:14:32
the door's locked okay so how do you
00:14:34
know he's bleeding from the mouth area
00:14:36
let's start running out in the room okay
00:14:38
good timing you can't get into the
00:14:40
bedroom right i cannot get in the
00:14:41
bedroom
00:14:47
there is no way
00:14:48
that brian vaughn would have known
00:14:51
that his dad had been shot if the door
00:14:52
was locked
00:14:54
and he could not gain entry
00:14:56
the biggest evidence against brian
00:14:59
vaughn was brian vaughn
00:15:01
okay he was his worst evidence
00:15:04
investigators suspected that brian used
00:15:07
a nine-millimeter gun from his father's
00:15:09
own collection
00:15:11
we believe from talking to his friends
00:15:14
and his office manager that he would
00:15:16
have had a gun in his night side table
00:15:18
and on the night of the murder no gun
00:15:20
was found there
00:15:21
we understood that he has had nine
00:15:23
millimeter guns in the past as well and
00:15:26
leslie was killed with a nine millimeter
00:15:28
the gun was in this case though never
00:15:30
found was never found
00:15:32
finally
00:15:33
investigators interviewed the only other
00:15:35
person inside the house at the time of
00:15:37
the murder brian's younger brother chris
00:15:41
we asked chris
00:15:43
would brian kill your dad
00:15:45
and chris answered i don't know
00:15:48
we asked him would brian could brian
00:15:51
kill your dad
00:15:52
i don't know he's very athletic
00:15:54
but i don't know if he could would he
00:15:56
kill your dad
00:15:58
i don't know which is an unusual
00:16:00
response as opposed to no he wouldn't do
00:16:02
it no he couldn't do it no he would
00:16:03
never do it
00:16:05
brian vaughn was arrested and charged
00:16:07
with his father's murder
00:16:09
but would the jury convict on so little
00:16:13
evidence
00:16:18
three months before leslie vaughn's
00:16:20
murder
00:16:21
prosecutors believe that his son brian
00:16:24
may have set fire to his car as a ploy
00:16:27
to get a new one
00:16:29
but his father refused offering to buy
00:16:31
him a used car instead
00:16:33
apparently they thought about this and
00:16:36
other issues like his grades in school
00:16:39
and how he was jeopardizing his chances
00:16:41
for an athletic scholarship to college
00:16:45
according to chris vaughn the two argued
00:16:47
until close to 11 30 on the night of the
00:16:50
murder
00:16:52
prosecutors believe
00:16:54
brian waited until his father went to
00:16:56
sleep
00:16:58
then
00:16:59
woke his little brother and took him to
00:17:01
the neighbor's house
00:17:07
he told his neighbors that he heard a
00:17:09
noise from his father's bedroom and that
00:17:11
it might have been a gunshot he said he
00:17:14
already called 911
00:17:18
but that was a lie
00:17:24
prosecutors believe he used the time to
00:17:27
return home
00:17:28
and shoot his father in the head
00:17:34
[Music]
00:17:37
to create the illusion this was
00:17:39
committed by an intruder brian went out
00:17:41
on the balcony
00:17:43
and threw the rock through the window
00:17:47
the glass landed on top of his father's
00:17:50
body proof that this happened after he
00:17:53
was dead
00:17:54
the evidence suggests brian locked the
00:17:57
bedroom door and tracked shards of glass
00:18:00
through the hallway on his way to the
00:18:02
bathroom
00:18:03
to clean up
00:18:05
where he disposed of the murder weapon
00:18:08
and his bloody clothing is unknown
00:18:12
22 minutes after taking his brother to
00:18:15
the neighbors
00:18:16
brian finally called 911.
00:18:20
the call was full of inconsistencies
00:18:25
[Music]
00:18:36
in january of 2000
00:18:38
brian vaughn went on trial for the
00:18:41
murder of his father
00:18:43
and he was tried as an adult
00:18:46
i don't think that you can be in your
00:18:48
right mind to pull off something as
00:18:50
horrendous as that was if you're in your
00:18:53
right mind that's all i'm going say
00:18:55
and that's what i feel you cannot tell
00:18:57
me that he was in his right mind if he
00:18:59
pulled that trigger
00:19:01
the defense said an intruder committed
00:19:04
the murder
00:19:06
but the lack of mud on the balcony
00:19:08
outside the bedroom made it clear
00:19:11
that the shooter came from inside the
00:19:14
house
00:19:15
and brian's fingerprints were the only
00:19:17
ones
00:19:18
on the broken french door
00:19:21
[Music]
00:19:22
brian also lied about the 9-1-1 call and
00:19:25
clearly knew information
00:19:28
only the killer would know
00:19:31
the jury found brian vaughn guilty will
00:19:34
the jury assess the punishment of the
00:19:35
defendant brian bond
00:19:37
at confinement for 33 years
00:19:40
he'll be eligible for parole in 2017.
00:19:46
if leslie von was here he would ask the
00:19:48
prosecutors to go leaning on his son i
00:19:50
believe that our fathers would
00:19:52
we could not fathom our children doing
00:19:54
something as horrendous as that to us
00:19:56
period
00:19:58
he got a gun he snuck up on his dad
00:20:00
while his dad was sleeping he put it to
00:20:02
his dad's back of his dad's head and he
00:20:05
blew his brains out basically yeah i
00:20:07
think he belongs in the penitentiary
00:20:09
she was really a star athlete and this
00:20:12
this is a kid that
00:20:15
probably would have figured out a way to
00:20:17
uh you know do well enough in school to
00:20:18
to graduate from high school and
00:20:20
probably would have had a college career
00:20:22
plan playing basketball and probably
00:20:24
would have the time of his life and
00:20:26
instead he's spending his life in jail
00:20:29
few people can imagine a child killing a
00:20:32
parent
00:20:33
but the evidence at the scene and
00:20:35
evidence missing from the scene clearly
00:20:38
showed what happened
00:20:41
this is such an unusual case in that
00:20:44
you know forensics
00:20:46
played a big role in this uh but but not
00:20:49
in not not not in the normal sense uh
00:20:52
the lack of it uh in in in some ways uh
00:20:56
was was kind of compelling
00:20:58
it is something that he probably just
00:20:59
thought of
00:21:00
either days before
00:21:03
or
00:21:04
that night just
00:21:05
planned it and
00:21:08
but he slipped
00:21:09
and he wasn't able to cover his tracks
00:21:12
he provided all the necessary pieces to
00:21:16
convict him
00:21:17
and in fact he provided evidence that
00:21:19
was so strong you could not
00:21:21
find him not guilty
00:21:23
it takes days and weeks of investigation
00:21:26
okay it takes lives that you destroy and
00:21:29
you don't realize that when you're
00:21:30
pulling the trigger because once you
00:21:31
pull that trigger you can't take that
00:21:32
bullet back
