00:00:06
they thought the fire would cover their
00:00:08
crime
00:00:09
but one tiny clue no bigger than a
00:00:11
thumbtack remained
00:00:13
and it held all the information needed
00:00:16
to put a trio of cold-blooded killers
00:00:19
behind bars
00:00:24
[Music]
00:00:36
[Music]
00:00:47
[Music]
00:00:49
on a cold january night in 1991 the
00:00:53
camden tennessee fire department got a
00:00:55
call about a house fire outside of town
00:00:58
but by the time the firefighters arrived
00:01:01
the home was completely engulfed in
00:01:04
flames
00:01:05
because it was in a rural area they
00:01:07
didn't even put it out they just let it
00:01:08
burn and they left the scene
00:01:11
the homeowner was named
00:01:13
danny vine
00:01:14
since his truck was gone
00:01:16
firefighters assumed he wasn't in the
00:01:19
house when the fire started the truck
00:01:22
was missing and the trailer but della
00:01:24
thornton his fiancee her car was there
00:01:27
key's in ignition and basically everyone
00:01:29
just thought she pulled up got in
00:01:31
trouble with him and they left
00:01:33
there was virtually nothing left of the
00:01:36
two-bedroom frame home
00:01:38
the house was fairly small 900 square
00:01:41
feet to a thousand square feet max very
00:01:43
small
00:01:44
uh total burnout uh
00:01:47
nothing left but just the uh the plate
00:01:49
that goes around where you nail the
00:01:50
joist and part of the front
00:01:52
porch the next day family members went
00:01:56
through the rubble
00:01:58
tragically dany's brothers found
00:02:01
bones in the debris
00:02:03
the sheriff's department responded law
00:02:05
enforcement responded because
00:02:07
you know you find bones in a in a fire
00:02:09
that definitely
00:02:10
ratchets up the investigation
00:02:13
basically there was nothing left the
00:02:15
bones were basically just powder except
00:02:17
the skull and the teeth
00:02:20
after careful analysis a team of
00:02:22
forensic anthropologists from the
00:02:23
university of tennessee concluded that
00:02:26
the bones were from two people
00:02:30
using dental records they were
00:02:32
identified as danny and his girlfriend
00:02:35
della thornton
00:02:36
it just seemed like i was having a
00:02:38
nightmare i mean it just seemed like it
00:02:40
was a dream that i'd had and that i
00:02:43
would wake up you know
00:02:45
because we live in a small town camden
00:02:48
is a small rural area things like that
00:02:50
just don't happen
00:02:52
27 year old danny vine was a
00:02:54
professional scuba diver
00:02:58
he bought and sold mussel shells used to
00:03:00
make mother of pearl jewelry and to seed
00:03:03
cultured pearls
00:03:05
basically the mussel shell buyer at that
00:03:08
time it was a purely cash business they
00:03:10
would have to keep
00:03:11
five or ten thousand dollars in cash on
00:03:13
their person at all times to buy muscle
00:03:16
shells danny from what i understand
00:03:18
treated everybody right paid a fair
00:03:20
price
00:03:21
if he told you something then that would
00:03:22
be that would be the truth
00:03:24
his fiancee 29 year old della thornton
00:03:27
was a factory worker their wedding date
00:03:30
was only a few months away
00:03:33
della she was a sweet girl she was
00:03:37
soft-spoken
00:03:38
just kind of easy going
00:03:40
pretty blonde with brown eyes they
00:03:43
weren't a good-looking couple
00:03:46
their remains were on the sofa in the
00:03:49
living room
00:03:50
strongly suggesting either murder
00:03:53
or murder suicide
00:03:55
the reason that it's important is
00:03:56
because if your house is burning you're
00:03:58
not going to sit there on the couch and
00:03:59
pop some popcorn and watch it burn while
00:04:01
you're inside of it you're going to make
00:04:03
some kind of an attempt to get out if
00:04:04
you're able to get out if you're not
00:04:06
injured if you're not being bound by
00:04:07
something
00:04:09
investigators also found the remains of
00:04:12
the couple's dog the only thing in the
00:04:14
house that was consistent with a living
00:04:16
thing was the puppy from the position of
00:04:18
the puppy was found huddled in the
00:04:19
corner
00:04:20
[Music]
00:04:21
a specially trained arson dog detected
00:04:25
an accelerant
00:04:27
and investigators noticed what's known
00:04:29
as a saddle burn near the front door
00:04:33
a saddleburn is what we refer to as a
00:04:35
burn down and it's where a flammable
00:04:37
liquid
00:04:38
has been poured and it runs in a
00:04:40
downward direction and that's the way
00:04:43
that fire will burn
00:04:45
gas chromatograph mass spectrometry of
00:04:48
the ashes confirmed
00:04:50
gasoline was used to start the fire
00:04:54
investigators estimated that almost 10
00:04:57
gallons had been poured in the home
00:04:59
and on the bodies
00:05:03
the fire took more than just the lives
00:05:05
of danny della and their dog it also
00:05:08
destroyed potential evidence
00:05:15
a forensic anthropologist discovered
00:05:17
that danny vine and della thornton
00:05:20
weren't killed by the house fire
00:05:23
he found
00:05:24
remnants of a bullet in danny's skull
00:05:28
as a blood bullet enters the bone
00:05:30
the
00:05:31
edges of the bullet are peeled off
00:05:34
and it begins to splatter get it
00:05:37
spattering all over the inside of the
00:05:39
skull and you get these little tiny pin
00:05:42
points that are dense and the x-ray
00:05:45
won't go through that that's why they're
00:05:46
white or light on the x-ray film
00:05:49
the bullet was from a 38 caliber
00:05:53
he also found lead fragments in della's
00:05:55
skull the theory at that point is its
00:05:57
murder because it was not a suicide
00:05:59
because there was no 38 caliber pistol
00:06:01
found in the house
00:06:03
there was a 45 danny had but there was
00:06:05
no 38. and so whoever shot him left the
00:06:09
scene
00:06:11
so at that point we
00:06:12
felt sure we had a murder
00:06:15
on a deserted road a few miles from
00:06:17
danny and duller's home
00:06:19
investigators found danny's pickup truck
00:06:22
the trailer was attached
00:06:24
but was empty
00:06:26
dany's friends gave police a possible
00:06:28
motive for the murders they'd seen 2500
00:06:32
worth of muscle shells in dany's trailer
00:06:35
before his death to a muscle diver that
00:06:39
trailer full of shells is a trailer full
00:06:42
of money
00:06:43
we also found tracks where a vehicle had
00:06:45
backed up to the trailer to unload off
00:06:48
of danny's trailer onto another vehicle
00:06:50
and once the truck is located and the
00:06:52
shells are are missing
00:06:54
uh then our theory is that it's that
00:06:56
it's robbery
00:06:58
unfortunately
00:06:59
there were no fingerprints
00:07:02
truck had been wiped down there were
00:07:03
nobody's fingerprints not even danny
00:07:05
vines in that in that truck
00:07:07
danny bought muscle shells from
00:07:09
independent scuba divers then
00:07:12
sold them to companies that made jewelry
00:07:14
or use them to seed cultured pearls
00:07:17
so you can really say that most all the
00:07:20
pearls of the world originate from right
00:07:22
here on the scenic tennessee river
00:07:25
but mussel shell divers had the
00:07:27
reputation of being very tough
00:07:29
characters
00:07:31
you have to be physically tough you've
00:07:33
got to be mentally tough to get down in
00:07:35
that cold water and that dark water in
00:07:37
the bottom of the tennessee river and
00:07:39
fill around with your hands in the mud
00:07:41
and hope that you don't find something
00:07:43
you don't need to
00:07:44
the bottom line is most of these muscle
00:07:46
shell divers some didn't but a lot of
00:07:48
the ones we dealt with in this case
00:07:49
almost all had multiple felony
00:07:51
convictions
00:07:53
since the motive for the murders looked
00:07:55
like robbery investigators contacted
00:07:57
every company that bought shells in the
00:07:59
two weeks following the crime and they
00:08:02
got a break
00:08:04
one company said
00:08:06
they were offered shells that looked
00:08:08
suspicious
00:08:10
they had lost their water weight after
00:08:11
several days out of the water the
00:08:12
mussels would open up a little bit let
00:08:14
all the water drain out and the shells
00:08:16
are sold by the pound and so they're not
00:08:18
worth anywhere near as much once the
00:08:20
water gets out
00:08:22
and the shells were damaged as if they
00:08:24
had already been through a shaker a
00:08:27
machine that separates them according to
00:08:29
size
00:08:30
if a bunch of shells shows up at another
00:08:34
shell buyers camp with chips and marks
00:08:36
and things on it which indicates it's
00:08:38
already been through a shaker then that
00:08:40
is going to be an indicator that either
00:08:42
the shells are stolen
00:08:44
well pretty much the shells are stolen
00:08:47
investigators learned that the person
00:08:49
who sold these damaged shells was the
00:08:52
wife of a local shell diver
00:08:54
gary bruce
00:08:56
gary and his two brothers jerry lee and
00:08:59
robert all had prior arrests for
00:09:02
numerous crimes
00:09:05
they often skirted the law through
00:09:07
intimidation i remember during an
00:09:09
interview with a witness
00:09:12
in an
00:09:13
undisclosed location
00:09:15
they blew up a building located behind
00:09:17
where the interview was being conducted
00:09:19
just to let the witness know i can get
00:09:21
to you anytime i want to
00:09:23
well one brother j.c bruce had
00:09:26
been convicted of rape attempted murder
00:09:28
where he had raped a young girl and
00:09:30
strangled her he thought she was dead
00:09:31
luckily she survived to testify against
00:09:34
him he was out of prison at the time
00:09:35
this happened he had been pardoned by
00:09:37
the governor a number of years earlier
00:09:40
when police interviewed the bruce
00:09:42
brothers they denied any involvement in
00:09:44
the murders and claimed they were
00:09:46
elsewhere
00:09:47
they all came in and their mother
00:09:49
kathleen bruce came in and provided an
00:09:51
alibi so they were all on her property
00:09:53
at a shed outside shooting pool at a
00:09:55
pool table all night
00:09:58
for the moment at least the case
00:10:00
appeared to be a dead end
00:10:04
[Music]
00:10:09
police were convinced that the three
00:10:11
bruce brothers had something to do with
00:10:13
danny vine and della thornton's murder
00:10:15
but they faced a sizable hurdle
00:10:18
the bruce brothers claimed to have an
00:10:20
alibi that they were with their mother
00:10:22
that night
00:10:24
so police dug a little deeper and
00:10:27
gradually
00:10:29
that alibi started to crack they
00:10:32
interviewed this woman who says no i was
00:10:34
at the bruce trailer that night with
00:10:36
kathleen bruce and none of the bruces
00:10:38
were there
00:10:41
according to a local businessman the
00:10:43
bruce brothers were at a gas station
00:10:45
that night just hours before the fire at
00:10:48
danny vines home
00:10:50
the bruises pulled up and took out two
00:10:52
five gallon gas containers and filled
00:10:54
those up with gasoline one of the
00:10:56
brothers told the store owner that
00:10:58
there's going to be a hot time in camden
00:11:00
tonight
00:11:03
and
00:11:04
again we felt like that that was
00:11:06
involving the fire
00:11:08
but this information alone
00:11:10
wasn't enough
00:11:12
we had an alibi that wouldn't hold up
00:11:13
but we still couldn't put them on the
00:11:15
scene at the time we've got a lot of
00:11:17
rumor a lot of innuendo we've got people
00:11:20
that are saying that they're in one
00:11:21
place but they're really someplace else
00:11:24
so investigators turned to the only hard
00:11:26
evidence they had
00:11:28
the burned remains of the victims
00:11:32
and here the forensic anthropologist
00:11:34
provided some useful information
00:11:39
burn patterns
00:11:40
indicated the danny vine fell forward on
00:11:44
the sofa after he was shot
00:11:47
this was a lucky break in this
00:11:49
investigation because
00:11:52
it just happens that where the bullet
00:11:54
was was the least burned part of the
00:11:56
body the intensity of the fire was not
00:11:59
as great
00:12:00
on the front of the skull as it was on
00:12:02
the back
00:12:03
the lead inside the bullet had melted
00:12:06
but the bullet's copper jacket peeled
00:12:09
away after hitting the bone
00:12:11
and it was not destroyed
00:12:13
copper has a melting point of somewhere
00:12:15
near 2000 degrees fahrenheit whereas the
00:12:18
lead core which would have been the
00:12:20
center portion of the bullet it had a
00:12:22
melting point of somewhere near 600
00:12:24
degrees fahrenheit
00:12:26
on the copper jacket of the bullet were
00:12:28
rifling characteristics that could
00:12:30
identify the weapon that fired it
00:12:32
but the bruce is denied owning a
00:12:34
38-caliber pistol all we have is a
00:12:37
bullet and we don't have a gun to match
00:12:39
it back to
00:12:41
but then a witness came forward who said
00:12:44
she was at gary bruce's home one day
00:12:46
when he was target shooting
00:12:48
she says that at some point he stopped
00:12:51
took a pistol out that he had i think it
00:12:53
was a revolver a 38 revolver
00:12:58
and took a couple shots at a tree over
00:13:00
there
00:13:02
the woman took investigators to gary
00:13:04
bruce's home and found the tree
00:13:08
[Music]
00:13:09
sure enough
00:13:11
investigators found a bullet hole
00:13:13
[Music]
00:13:16
so they cut down the tree
00:13:18
to look inside
00:13:20
the puzzle was beginning to take form
00:13:22
now and take shape
00:13:24
and we felt like that was a crucial
00:13:26
piece of evidence
00:13:28
in this case
00:13:33
investigators used a hammer and chisel
00:13:36
to gain access to the bullet without
00:13:38
damaging it
00:13:40
when they finally got to it
00:13:42
they saw that it was just as the witness
00:13:44
described
00:13:46
a 38-caliber round
00:13:50
both the bullet from the tree and from
00:13:53
danny vine's skull were sent to
00:13:55
ballistics expert
00:13:57
tommy heflin
00:13:59
in most firearms a series of spirals
00:14:02
that are cut or pressed into the barrel
00:14:04
at a twist either right or left that
00:14:06
gives the bullet its rotational spin to
00:14:08
give it its accuracy to its target
00:14:11
even though both bullets had sustained
00:14:13
significant damage
00:14:15
heflin was able to compare the
00:14:17
striations on both bullets
00:14:20
and discovered that the lands and
00:14:22
grooves
00:14:23
lined up perfectly
00:14:27
it was very high i was 100 certainty it
00:14:29
was the same gun we never found the gun
00:14:32
but we could prove it was gary bruce's
00:14:34
gun through the circumstantial evidence
00:14:36
and it was critical evidence
00:14:38
because of it
00:14:41
we were able to
00:14:43
determine what gun it came from
00:14:45
and who it belonged to
00:14:48
thanks to a stray bullet in a tree
00:14:51
the bruce brothers were arrested and
00:14:53
charged with two counts of first degree
00:14:56
murder
00:14:58
but bringing the brothers to trial
00:15:00
wouldn't be easy
00:15:05
when carol vine heard the bruce brothers
00:15:08
had been arrested for the murder of her
00:15:09
son danny and future daughter-in-law
00:15:12
della
00:15:13
she turned pale
00:15:16
that's because della told her she'd been
00:15:18
approached by jerry lee bruce shortly
00:15:21
before her murder
00:15:23
jerry had tried to get her to go out
00:15:25
with him during the time that you know
00:15:27
before that not too long before that
00:15:30
and she told him no and she said you'll
00:15:33
never be half the man that danny is
00:15:35
and so i think that's why he wanted to
00:15:40
to shoot her
00:15:42
to kill her
00:15:44
prosecutors say the primary motive was
00:15:47
robbery
00:15:49
this was wintertime
00:15:51
too cold for the bruce brothers to dive
00:15:54
for shells in the icy tennessee waters
00:15:57
so they decided to steal shells instead
00:16:04
on the night of the murder
00:16:06
witnesses placed the three bruce
00:16:08
brothers at a local gas station filling
00:16:10
plastic containers with gasoline
00:16:14
gary bruce told the owner
00:16:16
it was going to be
00:16:17
a hot night in camden
00:16:20
[Music]
00:16:33
[Music]
00:16:37
prosecutors believe that the bruce
00:16:40
brothers robbed danny vine of any cash
00:16:42
he had on hand and fully intended to
00:16:45
kill him
00:16:48
during the robbery della drove up to the
00:16:51
house and saw the bruce's truck
00:16:54
she knew there was trouble
00:16:55
[Applause]
00:16:57
she went inside to help
00:16:59
and the bruces shot them both with a
00:17:01
38-caliber pistol
00:17:08
chemical tests prove
00:17:10
they poured gasoline throughout the
00:17:12
house and set the fire
00:17:25
the position of danny's head protected
00:17:28
the copper jacket of the bullet from
00:17:30
melting
00:17:32
[Music]
00:17:35
this
00:17:36
tiny fragment
00:17:38
tied the bruises to the murder
00:17:43
the brothers drove danny's truck to a
00:17:45
deserted location and took dany's muscle
00:17:48
shells worth approximately 2 500
00:17:53
they wiped their fingerprints off the
00:17:55
truck
00:17:56
but they made a huge blunder with the
00:17:59
shells they either didn't know or
00:18:02
perhaps didn't care that danny had
00:18:04
already put these shells through a
00:18:06
shaker to determine their value
00:18:10
when gary bruce's wife tried to sell the
00:18:12
shells the buyer knew right away
00:18:15
that the shelves had been stolen
00:18:18
the shell business is a multi-million
00:18:20
dollar business a lot of people
00:18:22
buy shelves
00:18:24
illegally
00:18:26
and sometimes they don't question it
00:18:28
where they come from it's just uh
00:18:30
uh but they have to have a receipt you
00:18:33
you have to get receipts down
00:18:35
uh and in this case we were able to
00:18:37
track the receipts down where
00:18:39
the bruce and bruce's had sold these
00:18:42
shells up in up in perrier tennessee
00:18:46
as the brothers awaited trial gary bruce
00:18:49
peeled back part of a chain-link fence
00:18:51
in the prison recreation yard and
00:18:53
escaped
00:18:55
we had a lot of trouble trying to find
00:18:56
him we searched on horseback we
00:19:00
searched in the water we run helicopters
00:19:02
we had
00:19:03
agents from all kinds of
00:19:07
departments everywhere
00:19:09
for 14 months gary bruce eluded police
00:19:13
he even made the fbi's 10 most wanted
00:19:16
list
00:19:17
but thanks to an anonymous tip
00:19:20
he was finally apprehended 200 miles
00:19:22
away in nashville tennessee working as a
00:19:26
landscaper
00:19:28
gary jerry lee and robert bruce were all
00:19:32
tried and convicted of two counts of
00:19:35
first-degree murder arson firearms
00:19:38
violations and conspiracy to obstruct
00:19:41
justice
00:19:42
each was sentenced to life in prison
00:19:45
without parole
00:19:47
they were doing that to get money
00:19:50
but it took
00:19:52
my child
00:19:57
the
00:19:58
thornton's daughter
00:20:00
it took any future grandchildren that we
00:20:01
could have had
00:20:05
kathleen bruce
00:20:07
the boy's 60-year-old mother was
00:20:09
convicted for providing her sons with a
00:20:12
false alibi
00:20:13
and was sentenced to eight years in
00:20:16
prison
00:20:17
i don't think they anticipated all that
00:20:19
they got but the fact is that
00:20:23
they got all they deserved
00:20:25
a lot of people were were very happy
00:20:28
it lowered the crime rate significantly
00:20:30
in benton county in the area
00:20:33
in the end the bruce brothers were no
00:20:35
match
00:20:36
for the power of forensic science
00:20:40
i think that we're very lucky in this
00:20:41
case and that mainly people when they
00:20:43
set a house on fire think it's going to
00:20:45
destroy everything well it doesn't
00:20:47
there's always evidence there
00:20:49
and in this case there was quite a lot
00:20:51
of evidence
00:20:52
the forensics in this case was
00:20:54
absolutely critical but for the
00:20:56
ballistics
00:20:57
but for the forensic of cause and origin
00:21:00
for the arson case there would not have
00:21:02
been much of a case
00:21:07
[Music]
00:21:15
[Music]
00:21:22
[Music]
00:21:29
[Music]
00:21:35
[Music]
00:21:44
you
