00:00:05
a beautiful home
00:00:07
an affluent woman
00:00:09
a vicious murder
00:00:10
while her husband mourned investigators
00:00:13
searched for clues a greetings card
00:00:17
an exotic dancer and an operating room
00:00:20
schedule showed investigators a side of
00:00:23
medicine
00:00:24
they hadn't seen before
00:00:34
so
00:00:44
[Music]
00:00:54
it was valentine's day 2001
00:00:57
and susan hamilton had a busy day
00:00:59
planned
00:01:01
her husband dr john hamilton was an
00:01:03
obstetrician susan ran his medical
00:01:06
clinic
00:01:08
susan hamilton was the proverbial trophy
00:01:11
wife
00:01:12
by all accounts
00:01:14
she was a star
00:01:17
and he was indeed a very fortunate man
00:01:20
to have her
00:01:21
[Music]
00:01:24
but susan never left the house that day
00:01:31
dr hamilton was performing surgery all
00:01:33
morning when he finished he stopped home
00:01:36
on his way to his office to give susan
00:01:38
some flowers for valentine's day
00:01:41
[Music]
00:01:43
once there he found the back door wide
00:01:46
open
00:01:48
upstairs in the master bathroom was his
00:01:51
wife
00:01:52
unconscious
00:01:59
dr hamilton tried to revive her but it
00:02:01
was too late
00:02:03
in this case the attacker was in
00:02:04
complete control
00:02:06
it's unfortunate but i don't think mrs
00:02:08
hamilton really stood a chance
00:02:10
the killer apparently escaped through
00:02:12
the hamilton's back door
00:02:15
none of the neighbors saw anyone leaving
00:02:17
the home
00:02:19
we were suspicious of the fact that
00:02:21
maybe a burglar could have came in and
00:02:24
possibly attacked this woman trying to
00:02:25
steal some jewelry or
00:02:27
trying to steal some of the valuables
00:02:29
from that home
00:02:30
and she possibly surprised them this was
00:02:33
a prominent part of oklahoma city
00:02:36
bigger homes wealthier people
00:02:38
affluent folks you know the kind that go
00:02:40
to the country club
00:02:42
and police had another possible lead
00:02:45
as an obstetrician gynecologist dr
00:02:48
hamilton performed abortions at his own
00:02:50
clinic the one his wife susan ran
00:02:54
dr and mrs hamilton had been targeted by
00:02:58
anti-abortion protesters they'd even
00:03:00
made up wanted posters i believe
00:03:03
wanted for murder john hamilton you know
00:03:06
that sort of thing
00:03:07
and both dr hamilton and his wife were
00:03:10
unapologetic about their work
00:03:12
here in the bible belt that's not
00:03:14
something that citizens typically
00:03:16
embrace we know it goes on it does
00:03:18
happen but to be openly doing something
00:03:21
like that and have a clinic that does
00:03:23
those kind of procedures didn't sit well
00:03:26
with a lot of people
00:03:28
at the police station
00:03:29
dr hamilton was grief stricken
00:03:33
[Music]
00:03:35
please help me
00:03:38
please
00:03:39
please
00:03:40
[Music]
00:03:42
investigators hoped forensic evidence at
00:03:45
the scene
00:03:46
could tell them more
00:03:52
susan and john hamilton had been married
00:03:54
for 15 years
00:03:56
the second marriage for both everyone
00:03:58
loved dr hamilton his wife beautiful
00:04:01
woman wore her age incredibly well
00:04:03
country club set absolutely she looked
00:04:06
like she would hang out with that kind
00:04:07
of affluent crowd everyone said they
00:04:09
were just wonderful people and very much
00:04:11
in love
00:04:12
at susan's autopsy
00:04:14
the medical examiner found no signs of
00:04:17
sexual assault
00:04:18
she had been strangled with some
00:04:20
neckties
00:04:21
then the perpetrator drove her head onto
00:04:24
the floor many times
00:04:27
death was caused by repeated blows to
00:04:29
her head with a blunt object
00:04:32
the wound her forehead or the left side
00:04:34
of her head was was substantial and
00:04:36
massive
00:04:38
i think
00:04:39
that weapon has to be a weapon of
00:04:41
opportunity
00:04:42
it has to be something that was in that
00:04:45
environment that was accessible to that
00:04:47
person
00:04:48
in a search for suspects
00:04:51
investigators learned that an
00:04:52
anti-abortion group planned a
00:04:54
demonstration in front of the hamilton's
00:04:56
home
00:04:57
we were able to determine that the house
00:04:59
had been picketed
00:05:01
as well as a permit to picket that
00:05:04
residence had been attained within a
00:05:06
month
00:05:07
of the time of this homicide
00:05:09
at the crime scene
00:05:11
investigators found no evidence of a
00:05:13
break-in
00:05:15
but they did find
00:05:17
a potential clue
00:05:19
on the kitchen counter
00:05:21
they found the valentine's day card john
00:05:24
purchased for his wife
00:05:26
and the card read we are important
00:05:28
loving caring people together
00:05:30
my life would be incomplete without you
00:05:33
i love you john
00:05:35
the card susan gave to her husband had
00:05:38
an entirely different message
00:05:41
one of the captions she had written
00:05:43
herself said obviously i bought this
00:05:46
card
00:05:47
before last monday
00:05:48
then as you open the card and begin to
00:05:50
read the inside of it she had
00:05:52
written i bought this card two weeks ago
00:05:55
so they don't seem as appropriate now i
00:05:58
love you
00:05:59
sign susan hamilton
00:06:01
police wanted to know
00:06:03
what had happened
00:06:05
two weeks earlier
00:06:07
dr hamilton said they had a fight about
00:06:09
money
00:06:10
but investigators found evidence there
00:06:12
was more to it than that
00:06:15
there was accusations that he was having
00:06:16
an affair with one of his clients who
00:06:18
was a topless dancer and this came from
00:06:21
phone calls that susan hamilton had
00:06:22
gotten a hold of
00:06:24
susan discovered her husband called the
00:06:26
dancer more than 60 times
00:06:29
this was nuclear
00:06:32
in her eyes
00:06:33
and she even moved out
00:06:36
for a for a night
00:06:38
uh went to stay with her friend dr
00:06:41
hamilton had been to her club
00:06:43
she had done a table dance for him for
00:06:45
about a hundred dollars
00:06:48
possibly on more than one occasion
00:06:50
dr hamilton denied the two were having
00:06:53
an affair but with so many calls
00:06:56
susan was skeptical it was not even the
00:06:59
fact that
00:07:01
he had
00:07:02
done it
00:07:03
that he had actually been chasing this
00:07:06
girl a little bit
00:07:07
what was important was that susan
00:07:10
hamilton believed he had done it
00:07:13
one week before the valentine's day
00:07:15
murder susan hamilton had made dr
00:07:18
hamilton write a letter to this dancer
00:07:21
refusing to be her doctor any further
00:07:24
and the media had their own suspicions
00:07:27
about dr hamilton
00:07:29
it started when reporters heard the tape
00:07:32
of dr hamilton's 9-1-1 call no listen
00:07:35
i'm a doctor i've been trying cpr please
00:07:37
send something quick she's not breathing
00:07:39
no she's not breathing i don't get
00:07:40
pulsed please okay and if you listen to
00:07:41
it over and over again it sounds strange
00:07:44
the things he's saying the order in
00:07:46
which he says them he's gonna you know
00:07:48
it just it sounds weird
00:07:52
so the local tv station kw tv
00:07:56
sent the tape to a company specializing
00:07:58
in computer voice stress analysis
00:08:02
the test charted the micro tremors in dr
00:08:05
hamilton's voice
00:08:07
it showed
00:08:08
no excessive blood flow impacting dr
00:08:12
hamilton's voice
00:08:13
on this i'm very confident that this
00:08:16
doctor is not stressed to the degree
00:08:19
that i would think he would be under
00:08:20
those circumstances
00:08:23
which makes me
00:08:24
feel very confident that he rehearsed
00:08:26
this before he made his call the
00:08:28
analysis couldn't say
00:08:30
yes he did or no he didn't but it
00:08:32
certainly gave an insight into um
00:08:35
maybe there was something more to the
00:08:37
story that we didn't know
00:08:41
and homicide investigators started to
00:08:43
question dr hamilton's unusual behavior
00:08:47
captured on videotape
00:08:49
just after the murder
00:08:52
he seemed to be
00:08:53
out of control with emotions one way or
00:08:56
another he would get
00:08:58
upset and start moving back and forth
00:09:01
he would start crying he'd stop
00:09:04
and that was one of the concerns that i
00:09:06
had it was almost like he was acting
00:09:09
but dr hamilton had an alibi for the
00:09:11
time of the murder he was in surgery all
00:09:14
morning with plenty of witnesses
00:09:17
obviously a doctor couldn't be in two
00:09:19
places at the same time
00:09:22
or
00:09:23
could he
00:09:27
she was strangled she was found naked
00:09:29
topless dancers abortions you start
00:09:32
hearing all that mixed together it made
00:09:33
for a lot of talk in this town
00:09:36
to analyze the forensic evidence from
00:09:38
susan hamilton's murder homicide
00:09:41
investigators asked bloodspatter expert
00:09:43
ross gardner for his opinion
00:09:46
this case is like many in the sense that
00:09:49
what the suspect says
00:09:51
ultimately is going to be tested against
00:09:53
the crime scene
00:09:55
when emergency workers arrived dr
00:09:58
hamilton was covered in his wife's blood
00:10:01
dr hamilton's presence in the crime
00:10:03
scene the fact that he's bloody is
00:10:04
completely expected
00:10:06
he's come home he's found his wife dead
00:10:08
he's cradled her he's taken action
00:10:11
but not all the blood on dr hamilton's
00:10:14
shirt could be explained away
00:10:17
dr hamilton's claims presented some
00:10:20
major contradictions
00:10:22
i don't expect to find spatter
00:10:24
the spatter i observed were present on
00:10:27
the front of his shirt below his neck
00:10:30
on both sleeves at the
00:10:33
cuff
00:10:34
and he suggested that he his arms and
00:10:38
his body had been in close proximity to
00:10:40
a spatter event
00:10:42
on dr hamilton's shoes were tiny blood
00:10:45
droplets
00:10:47
almost invisible to the naked eye
00:10:50
these were suspicious not only the shape
00:10:53
but the angle at which the blood landed
00:10:56
on the shoes
00:10:58
there were some coming down on the toe
00:10:59
from above 40 50 degrees there was no
00:11:02
possible way that someone had lifted mrs
00:11:04
hamilton's head dropped her head down
00:11:06
created additional spatter and somehow
00:11:08
dr hamilton's shoes were exposed to that
00:11:10
that you couldn't explain it from that
00:11:13
the blood on dr hamilton's shoes was the
00:11:16
result of medium velocity impact spatter
00:11:20
the kind caused as a result of a beating
00:11:25
tom bevel a blood spatter expert hired
00:11:28
by dr hamilton agreed with gardner's
00:11:31
assessment
00:11:32
the spatter places the shoe
00:11:35
within an area capable of receiving
00:11:37
spatter and the spatter is being
00:11:39
generated by some impact into a blood
00:11:42
source which in this case is mrs
00:11:44
hamilton
00:11:45
and blood spatter found four inches up
00:11:48
inside his right shirt cuff
00:11:50
was most telling
00:11:52
it was direct spatter
00:11:55
meaning the blood landed directly on the
00:11:58
shirt
00:11:59
for spatter to get up inside the cuff
00:12:02
meant it had to be traveling at some
00:12:04
speed
00:12:05
for it to get on the inside
00:12:08
the blood has to be coming at an angle
00:12:10
capable of uh
00:12:12
missing the wrist
00:12:13
and the edge of the cuff and the outside
00:12:16
and going on the inside of it
00:12:18
uh that puts very limited
00:12:21
positions with which that could have
00:12:23
occurred the only way that that could
00:12:25
have happened is from somebody
00:12:29
using their hand to
00:12:31
either hold a weapon or something like
00:12:33
that and beat
00:12:37
beat susan hamilton and blood and the
00:12:39
blood droplets come spewing off that and
00:12:41
be driven up in that angle
00:12:43
scientists performed dna testing on each
00:12:46
and every blood stain on dr hamilton's
00:12:49
shirt and shoes it was all
00:12:53
susan's blood
00:12:56
luminol tests revealed even more of
00:12:59
susan's blood on the inside of dr
00:13:01
hamilton's car
00:13:03
there was blood found on the steering
00:13:05
wheel
00:13:07
there was blood found on the seat
00:13:09
the driver's side left edge of the seat
00:13:12
and also some hair
00:13:15
and
00:13:17
tissue
00:13:18
found on the
00:13:20
floor of the vehicle on the driver's
00:13:23
side
00:13:24
investigators discovered what may have
00:13:26
been the murder weapon
00:13:29
the hamilton's maid said that a marble
00:13:32
figurine from the bathroom
00:13:34
was missing
00:13:36
and communication records indicated dr
00:13:38
hamilton was not in the hospital in
00:13:41
between his two operations on the
00:13:44
morning of the murder
00:13:45
he started getting pages from that
00:13:47
hospital
00:13:49
to get there now because that second
00:13:51
patient had already been put under
00:13:53
anesthesiology
00:13:54
the blood spatter evidence proved
00:13:57
he was home
00:14:01
dr john hamilton was arrested and
00:14:04
charged with murder
00:14:06
well can you leave the door open i mean
00:14:07
it's just i mean i feel like i'm in a
00:14:09
cage i'm sorry
00:14:12
so i i tried to explain to you that i
00:14:14
know by
00:14:29
the whole purpose of you being here okay
00:14:32
the stage was set for one of the most
00:14:35
publicized trials in oklahoma history
00:14:41
interest to this case was the stature of
00:14:44
john and susan hamilton
00:14:46
and the murder occurring on valentine's
00:14:48
day valentine's day is a day for love
00:14:50
this wasn't a very loving scene that i
00:14:53
saw that day
00:14:55
so what really happened between dr john
00:14:58
hamilton and his wife susan in the days
00:15:01
and weeks leading up to susan's murder
00:15:05
prosecutors learned that dr hamilton was
00:15:08
making financial payments to others
00:15:10
without susan's knowledge
00:15:12
he had been sliding money to one of his
00:15:15
children by a previous marriage well she
00:15:18
found out he lied to her
00:15:20
about that and
00:15:22
she absolutely went ballistic about that
00:15:25
told him
00:15:27
if he ever did it again she'd leave him
00:15:30
there was no question who wore the pants
00:15:32
in the family and it was not john
00:15:35
she was a very black and white person
00:15:38
you uh you lie to her and and you're
00:15:41
done
00:15:43
and susan suspected there was more going
00:15:46
on between her husband and the exotic
00:15:49
dancer than he admitted
00:15:51
my thinking is susan at this point says
00:15:54
you have broken my trust and it's over
00:15:57
the stripper actually told me
00:15:59
that she really believed that
00:16:03
john hamilton was trying to work up the
00:16:05
nerve
00:16:06
to ask her out on a date
00:16:08
there wasn't any relationship there but
00:16:10
she knows men pretty well and he was
00:16:13
trying to work up the courage
00:16:15
to to even get to first base
00:16:17
and and he wasn't even off home plate
00:16:19
yet
00:16:22
on the morning of valentine's day
00:16:25
prosecutors believe the couple exchanged
00:16:27
cards and they argued about susan's
00:16:30
not-so-veiled
00:16:31
message inside
00:16:34
i don't believe i ever wanted to get
00:16:35
this from my wife for valentine's day it
00:16:38
wasn't one of the more cheerful ones
00:16:39
that you want
00:16:41
forcing an exchange of thoughts about
00:16:44
one another
00:16:46
thoughts that maybe
00:16:48
would have been better aired with a
00:16:50
counselor in the room
00:16:53
the evidence suggests dr hamilton went
00:16:55
to the hospital performed one operation
00:16:59
then returned home possibly with an
00:17:02
attempt to reconciliation
00:17:07
[Music]
00:17:08
prosecutors say the couple argued once
00:17:11
again
00:17:15
in anger hamilton took several neckties
00:17:17
from his closet and strangled her
00:17:21
once unconscious he hit her head on the
00:17:24
floor and struck her with a blunt object
00:17:27
[Music]
00:17:28
this created the medium velocity blood
00:17:30
spatter found on his shoes and on the
00:17:33
inside of his shirt cuff
00:17:38
before he could clean up
00:17:39
the hospital paged him for his next
00:17:42
surgery
00:17:44
so he took his bloody trousers and the
00:17:46
murder weapon
00:17:48
and left for the hospital leaving the
00:17:51
back door open
00:17:53
that's how susan's blood and hair got
00:17:56
inside his car
00:17:58
how dr hamilton disposed of the murder
00:18:01
weapon and bloody trousers
00:18:03
remains a mystery
00:18:06
at the hospital dr hamilton scrubbed up
00:18:08
for his second operation washing away
00:18:11
the forensic evidence
00:18:13
but he was still wearing the shoes
00:18:16
covered with his wife's blood
00:18:19
his ability to perform the operation
00:18:22
didn't surprise prosecutors
00:18:25
my wife happens to be a surgeon you
00:18:27
revert to something you've done a
00:18:29
thousand times i'm not sure i'd wanted
00:18:32
to perform a surgery on me
00:18:34
it's disturbing it's it's frightening
00:18:36
and creepy
00:18:38
when dr hamilton went home he called
00:18:41
9-1-1 but delivered a performance that
00:18:44
didn't fool the forensic speech experts
00:18:49
dr hamilton probably believed that
00:18:52
performing cpr would cover any blood
00:18:55
evidence of the murder
00:18:57
but he was wrong
00:18:59
he made some major mistakes
00:19:02
knowing what is available through
00:19:04
science today
00:19:06
way beyond anything i had any knowledge
00:19:10
of how sophisticated science is
00:19:13
at dr hamilton's trial
00:19:15
in a devastating blow
00:19:17
tom bevel the blood spatter expert hired
00:19:20
by the defense
00:19:22
testified that he concurred
00:19:25
with the prosecution's expert
00:19:28
this is dr hamilton's witness there to
00:19:29
help him get off the murder charge it
00:19:32
was absolutely a perry mason moment and
00:19:34
you could turn and look at the jurors
00:19:35
and see him all go
00:19:37
oh
00:19:38
in my opinion when you look at this case
00:19:40
in its totality in other words look at
00:19:43
all the physical evidence look at all
00:19:44
the statements
00:19:47
i am certainly well beyond
00:19:50
any reasonable doubt that dr hamilton is
00:19:53
the person that has done this
00:19:56
john hamilton was found guilty of his
00:19:59
wife's murder
00:20:01
and sentenced to life in prison with no
00:20:05
possibility of parole we all felt sorry
00:20:08
for him because uh you know his
00:20:09
situation but uh to us the uh
00:20:13
the evidence was so overwhelming and and
00:20:16
it just seemed to show on his face that
00:20:18
he was guilty
00:20:20
john
00:20:21
will rot in jail
00:20:23
john
00:20:24
will have to pay
00:20:26
for this at a higher level than what
00:20:28
he's already paid
00:20:31
meaning
00:20:33
going to hell
00:20:35
the forensic findings i thought were
00:20:37
powerful
00:20:38
that's the glorious thing about this
00:20:40
case
00:20:41
there was absolutely
00:20:43
no doubt in my head
00:20:45
he is the killer
00:20:47
he's he's made his own bed
00:20:49
that's one of the interesting things
00:20:51
about forensic pathology and forensics
00:20:53
it's a study of human nature
00:20:55
that's the dark side to it it's really
00:20:57
unfortunate but
00:20:59
we could be
00:21:00
pretty mean and nasty
00:21:03
[Music]
00:21:20
[Music]
00:21:41
you
