00:00:04
up next her death was first ruled an
00:00:07
accident he thought he was going to get
00:00:09
away with it until the autopsy proves
00:00:11
otherwise
00:00:12
fire in this case was used in an attempt
00:00:15
to cover a murder
00:00:17
but who wanted this woman dead and why
00:00:20
greed and money are probably the oldest
00:00:22
motives in the world for a murder
00:00:25
but would he get away with it he thought
00:00:27
he was a pretty smart guy that was the
00:00:29
mistakes he made
00:00:31
[Music]
00:00:39
just after dusk in november of 2000
00:00:42
firefighters in augusta georgia were
00:00:44
dispatched to a mobile home fire on the
00:00:46
south side of town
00:00:48
they're tinder boxes and you're just
00:00:50
talking about a matter of minutes before
00:00:52
the entire mobile home is completely
00:00:55
engulfed
00:00:56
it took 10 minutes for firefighters to
00:00:58
bring the blaze under control
00:01:01
when they did they found the homeowner
00:01:04
edith ann haynes dead in the bathroom
00:01:08
she became overwhelmed by the smoke and
00:01:10
the heat and was unable to you know
00:01:12
escape the fire and died inside
00:01:16
edith ann haynes known to friends as ann
00:01:19
was divorced and was on disability from
00:01:22
her job at the kendall company makers of
00:01:25
surgical dressings
00:01:27
a preliminary investigation indicated
00:01:29
the fire started in a spare bedroom used
00:01:33
as a storage space
00:01:35
officially the cause of the blaze was
00:01:37
ruled undetermined
00:01:40
but it was believed to be an electrical
00:01:42
fire
00:01:43
it was right at the time weather started
00:01:45
getting a little cool and
00:01:47
might have been some heat on and that
00:01:48
might have started the fire
00:01:50
at the autopsy
00:01:52
the medical examiner expected to find
00:01:54
evidence of smoke inhalation
00:01:57
instead he found
00:01:58
no soot or debris
00:02:00
in her trachea
00:02:02
and her hyoid bone in her neck was
00:02:05
broken which usually indicates
00:02:07
strangulation
00:02:09
i've never seen a situation where a bone
00:02:12
in a person's throat has been crushed by
00:02:15
accident unless there's been some
00:02:17
traumatic
00:02:19
car wreck
00:02:20
or some other explanation
00:02:23
the medical examiner also found marks on
00:02:25
the outer part of her neck
00:02:28
they were consistent with fingernail
00:02:30
marks
00:02:31
whatever happened before she died was
00:02:33
very very violent because there was
00:02:35
obvious they were evidence of
00:02:37
blindfolds trauma
00:02:39
the autopsy concluded edith ann haynes
00:02:42
was dead before the fire started
00:02:46
but who wanted her dead and why
00:02:50
ironically until three days earlier
00:02:52
haynes had lived in a larger house about
00:02:54
eight miles away
00:02:56
she was in a financial situation where
00:02:59
she needed to sell her house
00:03:01
steve culberson hayne's nephew
00:03:04
and the administrator of her estate
00:03:06
looked through the rubble to find her
00:03:08
financial records
00:03:10
i felt that there had to be more
00:03:12
evidence there we took everything out of
00:03:14
the cabinets and just searched for stuff
00:03:17
there was no evidence of where her keys
00:03:19
were her wallet
00:03:21
and he
00:03:22
and the investigators found
00:03:24
something suspicious one of those was a
00:03:27
signed contract between
00:03:29
ann haynes and a man by the name of
00:03:32
michael bryant
00:03:33
miss haynes sold her home to mr bryant
00:03:37
and already transferred the deed but for
00:03:39
some reason
00:03:40
hadn't received the proceeds from the
00:03:42
sale
00:03:44
that was a perry mason moment
00:03:46
he was going to pay her a sum of 25 000
00:03:50
she was selling her house to pay her
00:03:52
bills off and eventually retire that was
00:03:54
the whole purpose behind her selling the
00:03:56
house
00:04:01
at first investigators assumed the fire
00:04:03
in edith ann haynes mobile home was
00:04:06
accidental
00:04:07
most likely caused by an electrical
00:04:10
problem
00:04:11
but when the medical examiner ruled miss
00:04:13
haines death a homicide investigators
00:04:16
called in mike lane an expert in the
00:04:19
field of fire investigations
00:04:22
all i wanted him to be able to do was
00:04:24
tell me was this an arson was it not a
00:04:26
northern and if it was
00:04:28
how did it start where did it start you
00:04:31
know tell me as much about the fire as
00:04:33
you can
00:04:34
the first thing he did was to conduct a
00:04:37
room by room search
00:04:39
trying to determine where the fire
00:04:41
started and how it spread
00:04:44
if you have a large area
00:04:46
you can determine
00:04:47
heat flow
00:04:49
and directionality by cutting this wall
00:04:51
stud in two
00:04:53
and when you cut it into looking down on
00:04:55
the top
00:04:56
you can see that the fire came from this
00:04:58
direction and flowed around this point
00:05:01
we have much more degradation right here
00:05:03
than we do on this side
00:05:06
lane then drew a diagram of the floor
00:05:09
plan and charted the burn patterns using
00:05:12
an arrow to point toward the heat source
00:05:17
examining this pattern it indicates the
00:05:19
direction of fire flow
00:05:20
starting at the bottom of this pattern
00:05:23
where we first see charring
00:05:25
and then at the top of this where we see
00:05:27
charring if we drew a line across there
00:05:30
it gives us a direction
00:05:33
from which fire started
00:05:35
then he looked for visible signs of an
00:05:38
accelerant like gasoline which makes the
00:05:41
fire burn faster and hotter
00:05:44
when i pulled up the threshold there was
00:05:46
a slight odor and that's why i cut it
00:05:49
out and put it in a container when i
00:05:52
smell fuels that i've smelled for 40
00:05:55
years i get excited because i believe
00:05:57
they're there
00:05:59
but i don't allow myself
00:06:01
to
00:06:02
go to the point where i say it's
00:06:04
absolutely lane put debris from the fire
00:06:08
into air-tight containers and sent them
00:06:11
to the lab
00:06:12
but the larger questions facing
00:06:15
investigators were who wanted edith ann
00:06:18
haynes dead and why
00:06:21
she didn't have a real big social life
00:06:23
she would occasionally go out with
00:06:25
friends maybe have a drink or two after
00:06:26
work when it's a murderer so off the
00:06:29
wall and
00:06:31
no real logic behind why it had to
00:06:33
happen why you know
00:06:36
the most logical suspect was 31 year old
00:06:39
michael bryant haines co-worker at the
00:06:41
kendall company bryant bought anne's old
00:06:44
home as an investment
00:06:46
so she agreed to sell him this house
00:06:48
where she had spent like 20 years
00:06:50
whatever her whole adult life the deal
00:06:52
was he would pay the mortgages that was
00:06:54
left on it which wasn't much and pay her
00:06:57
25 000 cash and help her out a little
00:07:00
bit with her new plays
00:07:02
when questioned by police
00:07:04
brian said he gave miss haines a 25 000
00:07:08
check
00:07:08
and she signed over the deed to the
00:07:10
house but
00:07:12
investigators found no evidence that
00:07:14
haines cashed the check and no trace of
00:07:17
it was found in the rubble
00:07:19
shockingly
00:07:20
bryant was unwilling to issue another
00:07:23
twenty-five thousand dollar check to ms
00:07:25
hayne's estate we did have to sue him to
00:07:27
get the 25 000. he wasn't going to pay
00:07:29
that
00:07:30
until we come up and did that
00:07:32
brian denied having anything to do with
00:07:34
the arson and murder and he had a solid
00:07:37
alibi
00:07:38
at the time of the fire michael bryant
00:07:41
did have an alibi
00:07:43
he was 20 miles away
00:07:44
at a grill with his wife
00:07:48
and they'd actually gone to a movie
00:07:50
after that
00:07:52
bryant and his wife had the movie ticket
00:07:54
stubs and restaurant receipts to prove
00:07:57
it
00:07:58
his wife verified that this was true and
00:08:01
there was no reason that she was not
00:08:03
being truthful to us
00:08:05
but something bothered investigators
00:08:09
one of brian's coworkers called him that
00:08:12
night after the movie to tell him about
00:08:15
the fire
00:08:17
the call said there was a fire at
00:08:18
edith's house
00:08:20
oh my god
00:08:23
oh my are you serious and michael's
00:08:26
started crying
00:08:30
well the thing was that the call didn't
00:08:32
say anything about youth being dead only
00:08:34
that there was a fire
00:08:36
and that told investigators
00:08:39
they were on the right track
00:08:45
an autopsy revealed that edith ann
00:08:48
haynes was beaten and strangled to death
00:08:50
before the fire started in her mobile
00:08:53
home
00:08:55
to find out whether an accelerant was
00:08:57
used to start the fire
00:08:59
samples were collected and sent to the
00:09:01
laboratory there forensic scientist
00:09:05
laurel mason took the contents of the
00:09:07
airtight containers and prepared them
00:09:10
for testing what i need to do is get the
00:09:13
ignitable liquid that was used to
00:09:15
accelerate the fire into a gas form
00:09:18
and i do that by heating the sample up
00:09:21
that gas is then collected or absorbed
00:09:24
onto the charcoal strip
00:09:26
a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer
00:09:29
analyzed the samples and compared them
00:09:31
to a database of over 750 known
00:09:35
reference samples it is like a doctor
00:09:37
looking at an ekg i have to be able to
00:09:40
visually recognize what it is that i'm
00:09:42
looking at the sample that was removed
00:09:45
from the threshold was positive for
00:09:47
gasoline
00:09:48
now
00:09:49
investigators wanted to know who
00:09:53
was the last person inside anne's home
00:09:56
on the day of the fire
00:09:59
interestingly
00:10:01
neighbors saw michael bryant's truck at
00:10:02
ann's home around 3 p.m but the truck
00:10:05
was gone by 5 pm
00:10:08
the fire didn't start
00:10:10
until two hours later michael bryant and
00:10:13
his wife were in the restaurant where he
00:10:15
went and the movie theater was in evans
00:10:18
which is a suburb above augusta another
00:10:21
good 15-20 minutes to get there so he
00:10:23
was you know at least a half hour or
00:10:25
more away from her
00:10:28
when the fire occurred
00:10:30
arson investigator mike lane
00:10:33
knew from experience that there was a
00:10:35
way
00:10:36
that bryant could have killed miss
00:10:38
haynes started the fire and still have
00:10:41
been at the movie two hours later
00:10:44
the light ignition device is something
00:10:46
that an arsonist uh would use uh so that
00:10:49
they can be someplace else when the fire
00:10:52
starts and it may be uh for minutes uh
00:10:56
it could be for hours in all actual it
00:10:59
could be for days the more sophisticated
00:11:01
it is
00:11:02
lane says there are numerous ways to
00:11:05
construct the device
00:11:07
but he won't say how i really don't want
00:11:09
to train folks to uh to be arsonist
00:11:13
as for brian's alibi
00:11:15
investigators had one question
00:11:18
who
00:11:19
keeps a movie receipt
00:11:21
it is inconceivable that someone would
00:11:25
keep
00:11:26
in their records
00:11:27
one movie stub one restaurant receipt
00:11:31
unless they were keeping it for a
00:11:33
specific reason and his reason was that
00:11:35
he wanted to be able to establish an
00:11:36
alibi
00:11:38
scott peebles checked out michael
00:11:40
bryant's background and discovered that
00:11:43
bryant had been married before so
00:11:46
he called brian's ex-wife
00:11:49
we learned from her that he was
00:11:51
fascinated with fire and would
00:11:53
frequently
00:11:54
dabble with pyrotechnics so to speak
00:11:58
she also told peebles that the home they
00:12:01
owned together mysteriously burned to
00:12:04
the ground
00:12:05
before the house burned down insisted
00:12:08
that she go over to her parents and take
00:12:10
the dog with her
00:12:12
she recalled that
00:12:14
she didn't want to go
00:12:16
spend the night at her parents house on
00:12:18
this night brian's ex-wife said
00:12:21
the fire resulted in a substantial
00:12:23
insurance settlement
00:12:25
and even she believed her ex-husband
00:12:28
started it
00:12:29
prior to the fire he had already rented
00:12:31
an apartment
00:12:33
that his ex-wife did not know he had put
00:12:35
into his name brian's car was also
00:12:38
destroyed in that fire
00:12:40
it too was insured strangely
00:12:43
the car's tires were a special model and
00:12:46
valuable miraculously they survived
00:12:50
he removed the tires from his car
00:12:53
and placed them far enough away from the
00:12:55
house where they wouldn't be destroyed
00:12:58
when the house burned down
00:13:00
although this was certainly suspicious
00:13:03
it wasn't proof that bryant had anything
00:13:05
to do with anne haines murder
00:13:07
and he had a lot of friends and a lot of
00:13:09
support you know they just insisted that
00:13:11
there's no way he could have done this
00:13:13
crime because he'd never been in trouble
00:13:14
before
00:13:15
and investigators also discovered bryant
00:13:18
had
00:13:19
fighter training he was on the fire
00:13:21
brigade at the manufacturing plant where
00:13:23
he worked
00:13:25
his training from the fire brigade which
00:13:27
would have taught him how to do
00:13:29
you know what what a delayed ignition
00:13:31
device was how to set fires how to
00:13:35
how arsonists work what to look for in
00:13:37
an arson
00:13:39
throughout the investigation
00:13:41
bryant had willingly answered all
00:13:43
questions by police but when the
00:13:45
questioning got more intense
00:13:47
he stopped cooperating
00:13:50
and at some point he was asked to submit
00:13:52
to a polygraph examination which he
00:13:54
originally agreed to do
00:13:56
but prior to the scheduling of that
00:13:58
examination he backed out
00:14:01
so investigators had no evidence linking
00:14:04
brian to the crime
00:14:06
got away with it once he thought he'd
00:14:08
get away with it again
00:14:12
with very little evidence against
00:14:14
michael bryant for the murder of ann
00:14:16
haynes
00:14:17
investigators got a warrant to search
00:14:19
his home
00:14:21
they seized his computer and analyzed
00:14:24
his hard drive
00:14:26
on it was a wealth of information
00:14:29
when his computer was seized we were
00:14:31
able to see that in the days prior to
00:14:35
the
00:14:36
scheduled polygraph that he didn't take
00:14:38
he was looking at websites on how to
00:14:41
beat a polygraph
00:14:43
and then he didn't take the polygraph
00:14:45
they also searched the storage spaces
00:14:48
when i went into that attic things just
00:14:50
kind of got eerie from there and
00:14:53
basically what i saw was
00:14:56
similar to an altar for what i would
00:14:59
certainly think was satanic worship
00:15:02
with a pentagram candles and
00:15:05
burned items
00:15:07
in the garage
00:15:09
investigators found a coil of detonation
00:15:12
or fuse wire the kind used to construct
00:15:16
a delayed ignition device
00:15:19
most people probably don't have
00:15:21
detonation cord laying around their
00:15:23
house but michael bryant did
00:15:25
a search of brian's financial record
00:15:27
showed he was deeply in debt
00:15:30
he made between 80 and 90 000 a year but
00:15:33
he lived like he made twice that much
00:15:37
this was someone who was kiting checks
00:15:40
between different financial institutions
00:15:42
to get by he may have had this 200 000
00:15:45
home but he was living well outside of
00:15:47
his means and he was in over his head
00:15:49
and with this evidence michael bryant
00:15:51
was arrested and charged with arson and
00:15:54
murder
00:15:55
prosecutors say
00:15:57
the motive was obvious
00:16:00
besides love and money greed and money
00:16:02
are probably the oldest motives in the
00:16:04
world for a murder
00:16:06
michael bryant worked with miss haines
00:16:09
and when she bought the mobile home and
00:16:11
put her old house up for sale bryant
00:16:13
offered to buy it as a rental property
00:16:16
bryant paid off the loans on the house
00:16:19
and had anne sign over the deed
00:16:21
then
00:16:22
he gave haines a check for 25 000
00:16:26
the balance of the purchase price
00:16:29
so he had written a check to ann haynes
00:16:31
for 25 000 asking her
00:16:34
to hold the check not cash it until he
00:16:37
could put the funds in the account
00:16:40
this kept getting delayed continually by
00:16:43
him and on the day of the fire she
00:16:47
indicated that she was going to cash
00:16:49
that check
00:16:50
whether he wanted to or not
00:16:52
she may have realized that bryant had no
00:16:56
intention of paying her since she had
00:16:58
already signed the deed and didn't yet
00:17:01
have the 25 thousand dollars he owed her
00:17:08
prosecutors believe
00:17:10
bryant went to haines mobile home on the
00:17:13
day of the murder to ask her again to
00:17:16
delay cashing his check for the 25 000
00:17:18
dollars
00:17:26
what am i trying to pull no one knows
00:17:27
what took place
00:17:29
but the evidence shows
00:17:31
bryant struck her on the back of the
00:17:33
head
00:17:35
strangled her to death
00:17:37
then
00:17:38
dragged her body into the bathroom
00:17:42
[Music]
00:17:52
[Music]
00:17:53
he took the incriminating evidence
00:17:56
his 25 000 check
00:18:01
the evidence shows he poured gasoline on
00:18:04
hane's body
00:18:06
down the hallway
00:18:08
into the living room
00:18:10
and to the front door
00:18:15
but he couldn't set the house on fire in
00:18:18
broad daylight with his truck outside he
00:18:20
needed time to establish an alibi
00:18:24
he used fuse wire and other household
00:18:27
items to construct some type of delayed
00:18:30
ignition device
00:18:32
then
00:18:33
he left the scene
00:18:39
the evidence shows that brian picked up
00:18:41
his wife
00:18:42
and they drove to a restaurant 20 miles
00:18:44
away for dinner
00:18:45
[Music]
00:18:50
they left at 6 41
00:18:52
then went to a seven o'clock movie
00:18:56
around 7 30
00:18:58
the device bryant set in ann haynes home
00:19:01
started the fire
00:19:02
while he and his wife were in the movie
00:19:05
theater surrounded by witnesses
00:19:08
despite his well-laid plans
00:19:11
michael made one huge mistake
00:19:16
while walking out of the theater his
00:19:18
friend called to tell him that the hanes
00:19:21
mobile home was destroyed in a fire
00:19:24
aren't you kidding me
00:19:28
oh my
00:19:31
oh my art are you serious
00:19:34
michael reacted
00:19:36
inappropriately given the fact the
00:19:39
caller said nothing about anne having
00:19:41
been involved in the fire let alone
00:19:44
killed
00:19:46
he thought he was a pretty smart guy
00:19:48
that was the mistake that he made
00:19:50
because he wasn't quite as smart as he
00:19:52
thought he was
00:19:53
the fire didn't eliminate everything
00:19:57
as in most arsons it actually created
00:20:00
more evidence than it destroyed
00:20:03
essentially she's killed over 25
00:20:05
thousand dollars
00:20:07
in october of 2002
00:20:10
michael bryant went on trial for malice
00:20:13
murder arson and burglary
00:20:16
in this case
00:20:18
it was premeditated it was planned it
00:20:20
was schemed he took the day off work and
00:20:22
he planned this murder
00:20:25
it started out to be just a little small
00:20:27
transaction deal of
00:20:29
a person selling
00:20:31
a house
00:20:32
not going through a real estate agent
00:20:34
you know friends at work and turns out
00:20:37
to be a murderer
00:20:38
just
00:20:39
it still blows my mind every time i
00:20:40
think about it
00:20:42
bryant maintained throughout his trial
00:20:44
that it was impossible for him to have
00:20:46
set the fire
00:20:48
michael bryant's defense was he had an
00:20:50
alibi he wasn't there his mom was away
00:20:52
he had no reason to kill her that it's
00:20:55
it wasn't really a big deal that he owed
00:20:57
her this money
00:20:59
but the jury
00:21:00
didn't believe it michael bryant was
00:21:03
convicted and sentenced to life in
00:21:05
prison plus
00:21:07
40 years
00:21:08
this was one of the most interesting
00:21:10
cases that i ever worked on
00:21:12
when i heard the verdict i was
00:21:14
speechless reached over and hugged my
00:21:15
wife and just shed a few tears i
00:21:19
wanted nothing to say but thank god
00:21:21
thank god they got him
00:21:23
without forensics we would have not
00:21:24
convicted michael bryant
00:21:26
this is a man who did believe he was
00:21:28
smarter than everybody else and he
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thought he could manipulate
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ann haynes he thought he could
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manipulate investigators
00:21:37
and he believed that he was getting away
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with it
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you
