00:00:06
the murder of a prominent businessman in
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colorado was particularly difficult to
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solve since the killers left virtually
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no forensic evidence at the scene
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but information gathered from a small
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town diner an endocrinologist and the
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forensic botanist took a bite out of the
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chief suspect's alibi
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[Music]
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[Music]
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[Music]
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at an elevation of seven thousand feet
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steamboat springs colorado boasts one of
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the largest ski mountains in north
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america
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lifetime resident jerry boggs found the
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splendor of the small town ski resort
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inescapable
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the family business boggs hardware had
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been on main street for 63 years
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jerry was the kind of person that
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everybody thought he was their best
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friend he was a great guy people loved
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him he was kind generous you could trust
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him with your life
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on october 22 1993 boggs didn't show up
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for work as he usually did
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jerry's brother went to his home
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and found him dead
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inside the back door
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he had been shot to death
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nearby was a plastic bag and a bloody
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shovel
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so it appeared that he had been ambushed
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someone was hitting him in the head with
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a shovel
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far enough to hit the overhead beam
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boggs often kept his doors unlocked
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but there were no valuables missing
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investigators could find no foot
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impressions foreign hairs or fibers
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we didn't have any direct evidence we
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didn't have any
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fingerprints any dna anything that
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directly connected anyone to the crime
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scene
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a neighbor reported seeing two
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suspicious looking men near boggs home
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on the day of the murder
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and police had another suspect
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jerry bogg's ex-wife jill coyte
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the two got married when jill became
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pregnant with jerry's baby
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i don't think he was in love with her i
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think that she tricked him
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and
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into getting married
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the marriage lasted for only seven days
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jerry had the marriage annulled when he
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learned that jill hadn't gotten a
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divorce from her previous husband
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i couldn't figure out what in the world
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he was doing with this woman because in
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one hour i could tell that she was just
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off the wall
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absolutely the strangest person and not
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at all suited for jerry
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after the annulment the two barely spoke
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and she would come to steamboat and she
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would call up people that jerry knew
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talk about the child and how jerry had
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thrown them out and he was a horrible
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person
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when questioned jill said she had an
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alibi for the night of jerry's murder
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she said she was camping at the poodra
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national park 150 miles away
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her new boyfriend michael backus
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corroborated her alibi
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investigators were left to wonder
00:03:51
who killed jerry boggs
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and why
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[Music]
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the autopsy revealed that jerry boggs
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had been beaten with a shovel and shot
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three times in the chest with a 25
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caliber pistol
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investigators closely analyzed the
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shovel for clues
00:04:16
the shovel itself was very old the wood
00:04:19
was very porous our lab people
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concluded that whoever was using it was
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probably wearing gloves so there were
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bloody hand prints on it and you could
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see where fingers had been but there was
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no ridge detail with which to make an
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identification
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in addition to the head injuries and
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bullet wounds
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there were some other injuries that
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experts couldn't explain
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based on body temperature and rigor
00:04:47
mortis methods that are crude and
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sometimes inaccurate the medical
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examiner estimated that boggs died
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sometime the night before his body was
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found
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police had two leads
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a neighbor reported seeing two men near
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bogg's home earlier in the afternoon on
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the day boggs was killed
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bogg's ex-wife jill coit was also a
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suspect
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she and boggs had been fighting over a
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100 000 loan boggs made to jill's bed
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and breakfast hotel during their brief
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marriage it was an embarrassment too you
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know you live in a small town you know
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all these people you get married you've
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never been married before you get
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married and all of a sudden
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you've you've got this
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can of worms to deal with that was just
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so much it was just horrible for him i'm
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sure at times he probably just wanted to
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crawl under the rug
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jill had an alibi for the night of the
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murder
00:05:49
investigators wanted to make sure boggs
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was killed at night and not earlier in
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the day
00:05:56
for a better estimate of the time of
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death
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dr doberson decided to analyze the
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undigested food in bog's stomach
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so if we could find out where he ate
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and at what time he ate we could really
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narrow down the time of death
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in retracing boggs steps on the day of
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the murder
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investigators learned the jury opened
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the hardware store at 10 o'clock as he
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did every morning
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he worked for a while then walked two
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doors down to the shack for breakfast
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there he ordered the same meal he always
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did eggs toast and hash brown potatoes
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the folks in the cafe said oh yeah
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he stopped by here and
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had as usual
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to see if breakfast was bogg's last meal
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investigators turned to scientists at
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the university of colorado
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we've done the same thing with wooly
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mammoths frozen in the ice in siberia
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and alaska identified what plants they
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were eating
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david norris an endocrinologist at the
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university of colorado and his colleague
00:07:08
forensic botanist jane bock were asked
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to examine bog stomach contents
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basically humans consume between 50 and
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75 different types of plants in their
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diet
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plants are easier to distinguish in the
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stomach than animal products
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the cell walls themselves remain intact
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and they'll pass entirely through the
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digestive system this makes
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identification quite easy
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it doesn't make any difference whether
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the material was frozen whether it was
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boiled
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it will remain
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virtually indestructible
00:07:45
dr norris placed a sample of bogg's
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stomach contents on a slide
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under his microscope
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dr nara saw a jumble of irregular
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hexagons
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he recognized them as the intact cells
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of either potato or apple
00:08:03
both have nearly identical cell
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structures
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to determine which one
00:08:09
dr norris used potassium iodide
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a test for the presence of starch
00:08:16
a drop of it is added to the material on
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the slide
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and if starch is present it will turn
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black
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under a microscope the cells turned
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black
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which confirmed the presence of starch
00:08:30
the cells were from potatoes
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since jerry ate hash browns on the day
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he was murdered the presence of potatoes
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seemed to indicate breakfast was his
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last meal
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or was it
00:08:45
in addition to the potato cells i also
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saw cells of onions
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and these are relatively easy to
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identify because of the brick-like shape
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of the cells and the way they're put
00:08:56
together kind of like looking at a brick
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wall
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the short-order cook at the diner
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insisted he never put onions in the eggs
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or the hash brown potatoes
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so we thought well
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this is um
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this is a worry maybe uh he did have
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another
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later meal
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another meal meant that boggs was killed
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after dinner
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the prime suspect his ex-wife jill coyte
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had an air-tight alibi for that night
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the only other suspects were the two men
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seen near bogg's home whom police hadn't
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yet identified
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[Music]
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the mysterious murder of jerry boggs
00:09:43
baffled police in the quiet resort town
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of steamboat springs colorado
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investigators found evidence that boggs
00:09:51
grew suspicious of his ex-wife after the
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annulment when he caught her lying about
00:09:57
her date of birth
00:09:59
boggs hired his friend judy pryor lewis
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a private investigator to look into
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jill's background
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and what she uncovered was shocking
00:10:10
she learned that jill lied about her
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pregnancy with jerry's baby she hadn't
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been pregnant at all she had a
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hysterectomy years earlier
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she claimed to have a child and we were
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all telling him there is no child
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it's it's all just a
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a ruse
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he he still believed it he just couldn't
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accept it he would come down to our
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house and i would just
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try every
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thing i knew to convince him that there
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really was no baby
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[Music]
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jill was a former model and beauty queen
00:10:44
who had lied to jerry about her
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background and the number of times she
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was married
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jill lunita billiat einen moore coit
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brodie
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derosa metzger steely boggs carol had
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been married
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nearly a dozen times
00:11:00
i don't smoke or drink i guess my
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greatest sin is that i get married
00:11:04
jill had married and divorced another
00:11:06
man after jerry and was about to walk
00:11:09
down the aisle yet again to her new
00:11:11
boyfriend michael backus
00:11:15
and what was bogg's reaction
00:11:17
he started laughing we just sat and
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laughed
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he's like oh my god
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what wasn't so funny
00:11:25
was jill's third husband william coyte
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had been murdered 20 years earlier with
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the same caliber weapon that killed
00:11:33
jerry boggs
00:11:34
william coyte's murder was unsolved
00:11:38
the circumstances were very similar in
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that both jerry boggs and william coyte
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were preparing to take her to court
00:11:45
they were within a week of a court date
00:11:48
there was
00:11:49
within a week of a court date where
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her character was going to be exposed
00:11:54
and boggs private investigator found
00:11:56
evidence that jill falsely claimed to be
00:11:59
pregnant in other marriages presumably
00:12:02
for financial purposes
00:12:05
mr boggs i think was at the point of
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disclosing to the world many things
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about jill coyte that she wanted to
00:12:12
remain secret and she had taken i think
00:12:14
very a very dramatic step to ensure that
00:12:17
that did not occur she'd gotten away
00:12:19
with so many things and she was proud of
00:12:21
it
00:12:22
that she's been married you know 10 or
00:12:24
11 times six bigamies out of that
00:12:26
all these kids she says she's had she
00:12:28
hasn't and she couldn't stand it
00:12:32
jill said she was camping in a state
00:12:34
park on the night of boggs murder
00:12:37
but in order to completely eliminate her
00:12:39
as a suspect
00:12:41
investigators needed to be sure boggs
00:12:43
was killed at night and not earlier in
00:12:46
the day
00:12:48
bogg's murder presumably happened at
00:12:51
night after dinner since onions were
00:12:53
discovered in his stomach
00:12:56
the cooks at the shack insisted they
00:12:58
didn't put onions in bog's breakfast on
00:13:00
the morning of his death
00:13:03
one of steamboat's homicide
00:13:04
investigators decided to take a closer
00:13:08
look
00:13:09
not to be deterred
00:13:10
he took himself down there
00:13:12
and
00:13:13
stood in the kitchen and watched them
00:13:16
making breakfast one morning
00:13:18
the cook prepared the same breakfast
00:13:21
jerry boggs always ate
00:13:23
true to his word
00:13:25
the cook did not add onions to the hash
00:13:27
browns he threw on the grill
00:13:30
but while watching the grill homicide
00:13:32
investigators saw a flurry of activity
00:13:35
that suddenly explained everything
00:13:40
every time the cook turned an omelet or
00:13:42
scattered an order of hash browns small
00:13:45
portions of diced onions from other
00:13:48
orders would get mixed in
00:13:51
i believe he photographed the
00:13:53
spatula
00:13:55
that was used to flip the eggs
00:13:58
to grill the hash brown potatoes
00:14:00
and the edge of the spatula is covered
00:14:03
with bits of onion
00:14:06
you don't know when you're getting the
00:14:07
food at the other end where this what's
00:14:10
going on on the grill
00:14:12
breakfast had in fact been
00:14:14
jerry boggs last meal
00:14:18
we felt vindicated you know that we felt
00:14:20
very good about that because
00:14:22
we knew they were there
00:14:25
boggs was killed just a few hours after
00:14:28
breakfast
00:14:30
jill coyte did not have an alibi for the
00:14:33
afternoon of boggs death
00:14:35
still
00:14:36
the stomach contents yielded only
00:14:39
circumstantial evidence
00:14:42
we didn't have any direct evidence we
00:14:44
didn't have any
00:14:46
fingerprints any dna anything that
00:14:48
directly connected anyone to the crime
00:14:51
scene
00:14:51
we didn't have anything in the nature of
00:14:54
of a confession in connection with the
00:14:56
case we didn't have smoking gun type of
00:14:59
evidence
00:15:00
armed with a search warrant
00:15:02
police searched jill's car and found
00:15:05
wigs
00:15:06
maps of mexico
00:15:08
and a stun gun
00:15:12
it possible
00:15:13
it was jill coyte in disguise that the
00:15:16
neighbor saw walking in the vicinity of
00:15:19
jerry's home on the afternoon of his
00:15:22
murder
00:15:28
the weapon used in jerry bogg's murder a
00:15:31
25 caliber pistol was not found in jill
00:15:34
coyt's car
00:15:36
but investigators suspected the stun gun
00:15:38
in her trunk may have caused the unusual
00:15:41
marks on boggs face and neck which were
00:15:44
noted during the autopsy
00:15:47
stun gun injuries fall into a category
00:15:49
of injuries called patterned injuries
00:15:52
which means the injuries mirror the
00:15:54
object that caused them so in the case
00:15:57
of a stun gun injury you will have
00:16:00
electrical burns
00:16:01
mimic the distance between the
00:16:03
electrodes that cause them the injuries
00:16:07
lined up identically with the distance
00:16:09
between the electrodes
00:16:12
pigskin most closely resembles human
00:16:15
skin
00:16:16
so dr doberson applied the stun gun to a
00:16:20
live anesthetized pig to see if he could
00:16:23
reproduce the round reddish marks on
00:16:27
jerry bogg's neck and face
00:16:31
the marks were similar
00:16:33
interestingly enough the animal has to
00:16:35
be alive
00:16:37
in order to show the characteristic
00:16:39
injuries
00:16:40
which also means that jerry boggs was
00:16:42
alive at the time that he sustained
00:16:44
those injuries
00:16:46
the forensic evidence was bringing the
00:16:48
crime into focus
00:16:52
the witness who reported seeing two men
00:16:55
near jerry's home on the day of the
00:16:56
murder said jill coyte and her boyfriend
00:16:59
michael backus resembled the men in
00:17:02
height
00:17:03
jill liked to wear disguises and had a
00:17:06
number of disguises
00:17:08
and eventually we even came up with a
00:17:10
photograph that had been taken of her
00:17:13
sometime prior to the homicide where she
00:17:15
was wearing
00:17:16
a beard and a mustache
00:17:19
and jill's alibi disintegrated when
00:17:22
police could find no evidence that she
00:17:24
had signed in and paid the admission fee
00:17:27
to pudra national park on the day of the
00:17:30
murder
00:17:32
jill coyde and michael backus were
00:17:34
arrested and charged with first-degree
00:17:36
murder
00:17:38
at the preliminary hearing
00:17:40
it appeared even jill was impressed with
00:17:43
the forensic evidence against her
00:17:45
i remember presenting all of that in
00:17:47
front of the judge and she was there
00:17:50
at the end i picked up all my materials
00:17:52
and slides and walked out next to her
00:17:55
and she looked at me and said
00:17:58
nice job and then
00:18:01
i i took that as quite a compliment
00:18:04
and there was a surprise witness jill's
00:18:07
son seth testified against her
00:18:11
right after
00:18:12
shane bacchus had committed the murder
00:18:14
she telephoned seth
00:18:16
to let him know
00:18:17
i believe her words to him were
00:18:19
something to the effect of it's over and
00:18:21
it was messy
00:18:23
it did not appear to me that he really
00:18:25
had participated in any meaningful way
00:18:28
that he had been a conspirator in
00:18:30
connection with that
00:18:32
it appeared to me that he had been
00:18:34
very little more than an unwilling
00:18:37
person being provided information by
00:18:39
somebody who was trying to get him to
00:18:42
engage in activity
00:18:45
prosecutors believe that michael backus
00:18:47
and jill coit in disguise
00:18:50
entered jerry's home in the early
00:18:52
afternoon with the intent of murdering
00:18:55
bogs presumably to end their financial
00:18:59
dispute
00:19:00
after having his usual breakfast of eggs
00:19:03
toast and hash browns which had been
00:19:06
unknowingly spiked with onions
00:19:08
boggs left work early that day and
00:19:10
arrived home sometime after 1 pm
00:19:14
when he did
00:19:15
jill and her boyfriend
00:19:17
were waiting
00:19:22
boggs was ambushed at the back door
00:19:24
first with the stun gun then with the
00:19:27
shovel after a suffocation attempt
00:19:29
failed prosecutors believe it was jill
00:19:32
who shot boggs three times with a 25
00:19:35
caliber pistol
00:19:39
the two were careful not to leave
00:19:41
incriminating evidence and their
00:19:43
disguises were almost foolproof
00:19:47
but they never realized forensic science
00:19:51
could identify
00:19:52
the specific items in bog's stomach
00:19:55
which destroyed their flimsy alibi
00:20:00
when news of the crime became public
00:20:03
jill's oldest son william came forward
00:20:06
with his suspicions that his mother had
00:20:09
also killed his father william coyte
00:20:11
senior some 20 years earlier
00:20:15
she's more like a praying mantis
00:20:17
she just devours them and she gets a
00:20:20
hold of them
00:20:22
it took the jury only five hours to find
00:20:24
jill coyte and michael backus guilty of
00:20:27
first degree murder
00:20:29
i think she was more or less motivated
00:20:31
on the money i think she thought that
00:20:33
would make her happy in life
00:20:36
and look where she is so apparently
00:20:38
money can't buy you everything huh
00:20:41
they were both sentenced to life in
00:20:43
prison with no possibility of parole
00:20:47
i believe that joe coyte was aware
00:20:50
that there are methods for determining
00:20:52
time of death i don't think she was
00:20:54
aware that the stomach contents
00:20:57
could be that telling
00:20:59
it
00:21:00
ultimately blew her alibi out of the
00:21:02
water i think she was pretty clever they
00:21:05
were pretty clever in in
00:21:07
wearing uh you know bringing along
00:21:10
clothing and or plastic bags or whatever
00:21:13
they used to camouflage themselves from
00:21:16
from leaving forensic evidence i mean
00:21:20
they
00:21:21
there were no prints
00:21:23
no hairs nothing and so they they were
00:21:26
very cautious about that but
00:21:29
she should have been watching some of
00:21:30
your shows
00:21:33
[Music]
00:21:41
[Music]
00:21:58
[Music]
00:22:07
you
