00:00:12
sometime during a neighborhood christmas
00:00:14
party in 1989
00:00:16
five-year-old melissa brannon
00:00:18
disappeared
00:00:19
she really did we had a great time but
00:00:21
it's late
00:00:23
melissa will you go get the coats
00:00:25
none of the adults or other children at
00:00:27
the party saw where she went or noticed
00:00:29
anything unusual
00:00:33
it took science to see what witnesses
00:00:35
did not
00:00:40
[Music]
00:00:50
so
00:00:51
[Music]
00:01:04
tammy brannan and her five-year-old
00:01:06
daughter melissa had moved from texas
00:01:08
into this suburban apartment complex in
00:01:10
lorton virginia
00:01:12
tammy was a single mother recently
00:01:14
divorced working as an accountant and
00:01:16
beginning a new phase in her life
00:01:20
tammy is
00:01:21
a very good mother she's a very sweet
00:01:23
very caring person kept to herself more
00:01:26
or less you know she wasn't
00:01:29
what i would call extremely outgoing
00:01:31
although she did participate in just
00:01:33
about everything
00:01:34
one of the attractive features of the
00:01:36
apartment complex was the active social
00:01:39
program for the residents every friday
00:01:42
night was some sort of social gathering
00:01:44
in the clubhouse and during the holidays
00:01:47
there were special events
00:01:49
the night of december 3rd at the
00:01:51
christmas party
00:01:52
that's something that they they
00:01:53
basically did uh for almost every
00:01:55
holiday people looked forward to it uh
00:01:58
they always had a nice layout within the
00:02:00
clubhouse and people
00:02:02
spent time getting to know their
00:02:03
neighbors
00:02:05
tammy brannan and her daughter melissa
00:02:07
both attended that christmas party in
00:02:10
1989.
00:02:11
altogether about 200 residents of the
00:02:13
complex were there
00:02:15
everybody was very upbeat
00:02:18
having a very good time the children
00:02:19
played with each other all through the
00:02:21
night going around and snatching all the
00:02:23
food and having a good time
00:02:29
[Music]
00:02:32
when it was time to leave tammy asked
00:02:35
melissa to get their coats
00:02:41
[Music]
00:02:44
shortly after handing the coat to her
00:02:46
mother
00:02:47
melissa
00:02:48
disappeared merry christmas
00:02:59
where's melissa she was just here
00:03:01
tammy looked for her daughter throughout
00:03:03
the clubhouse
00:03:05
[Music]
00:03:16
in a utility room off the lobby marked
00:03:19
private a full length window leading to
00:03:22
the outside was wide open
00:03:25
the window faced a wooded area behind
00:03:28
the apartment complex
00:03:30
it's possibility that somebody could
00:03:31
have went out that window and not been
00:03:33
seen by anybody outside
00:03:35
and it's in an area where it's secluded
00:03:37
to the inside party goers wouldn't have
00:03:39
seen anybody exiting to that window also
00:03:42
fairfax county police searched the
00:03:44
entire area and questioned everyone who
00:03:46
attended the party
00:03:48
it was very cold out that night it was
00:03:50
pretty imperative that we try to locate
00:03:52
as quickly as possible
00:03:53
it's hard to imagine a young child
00:03:55
with a dress on and a small coat
00:03:58
surviving temperature that night
00:04:02
although no one at the party noticed
00:04:04
anything unusual
00:04:05
police feared that melissa had been
00:04:08
abducted
00:04:09
tammy brennan pleaded for her daughter's
00:04:12
safe return during a televised news
00:04:14
conference
00:04:15
the person who took melissa
00:04:18
i beg you to please call somebody
00:04:20
anybody
00:04:21
and tell us where she is
00:04:23
no matter what happened she saw that i
00:04:25
have please bring it back to me
00:04:29
[Music]
00:04:32
if you can hear mommy
00:04:34
and get to a telephone
00:04:36
call our number like i talked to you
00:04:39
or call me
00:04:41
we love you we miss you very much
00:04:44
please come back to us mommy's waiting
00:04:50
all the way down to
00:04:51
davis
00:04:53
police could find no trace of
00:04:55
five-year-old melissa brannan despite
00:04:57
the help of hundreds of volunteers
00:05:00
hundreds of police officers down there
00:05:02
we had hundreds of people from the
00:05:04
military bases
00:05:05
we had people volunteering their
00:05:07
airplanes their helicopters
00:05:09
the search was phenomenal
00:05:11
it just showed how this case touched so
00:05:13
many people
00:05:15
yellow ribbons were placed throughout
00:05:17
the neighborhood a symbol of concern and
00:05:19
hope for melissa's safe return
00:05:23
police questioned melissa's father who
00:05:25
was in texas on the night of melissa's
00:05:28
disappearance
00:05:29
he was immediately ruled out as a
00:05:31
suspect i also asked
00:05:33
that if the person who took my daughter
00:05:35
can hear me
00:05:37
please let her go
00:05:40
we love her very much
00:05:45
if anyone has any information that may
00:05:47
help please contact someone
00:05:50
who will pass the information on to us
00:05:54
thank you
00:05:55
[Music]
00:05:56
police questioned everyone who lived at
00:05:59
the apartment complex as well as all of
00:06:01
the employees
00:06:04
[Music]
00:06:06
caleb hughes worked at the apartment as
00:06:09
a maintenance man and attended the
00:06:11
christmas party
00:06:15
police interviewed hughes at his home a
00:06:17
few hours after the party around 2 a.m
00:06:23
i'm sergeant garcia from the fairfax
00:06:25
police department
00:06:27
i'd like to ask you a couple questions
00:06:28
about the party at the apartment complex
00:06:30
that you worked at
00:06:32
they asked him where he had been since
00:06:34
leaving the apartment complex what did
00:06:36
you do after you left the party
00:06:38
i drove straight home i stopped off for
00:06:40
a six-pack and i got home about 12 30
00:06:43
quarter of wine he said he stopped just
00:06:45
before he got home near his house well
00:06:47
if he got home at 12 30 quarter of the
00:06:49
one they stopped selling beer in
00:06:50
virginia at 12 o'clock so he didn't stop
00:06:53
for beer he couldn't
00:06:55
what'd you do after you got home
00:06:58
i did chores laundry stu you know stuff
00:07:00
like that
00:07:01
do you mind if we look around
00:07:03
now go ahead
00:07:13
during the search police noticed
00:07:15
something unusual
00:07:17
hughes told police he had been doing his
00:07:19
laundry but the clothes he was washing
00:07:21
were the ones he wore to the party did
00:07:24
you always wash your sneakers with your
00:07:25
clothes mr hughes
00:07:28
he was also washing his belt and the
00:07:31
knife holder
00:07:34
said why would you wash all your clothes
00:07:36
you don't have another pair of blue
00:07:37
jeans and why would you wash your
00:07:38
sneakers
00:07:40
caleb had no response
00:07:42
the side a few sneakers had been shaved
00:07:45
away
00:07:45
although the sneakers had been washed
00:07:48
tests showed traces of human protein
00:07:51
possibly blood deep in the fibers
00:07:54
caleb hughes wasn't cooperating either
00:07:57
hughes told police he did not speak to
00:07:59
melissa brennan at the christmas party
00:08:01
but several witnesses contradicted him
00:08:05
[Music]
00:08:06
did you have something to eat said caleb
00:08:08
i think you know more i think you took
00:08:10
melissa out of that party and all caleb
00:08:11
would do is just sit there and finally
00:08:13
caleb said prove it
00:08:15
look me straight in the face and no
00:08:17
emotion at all
00:08:18
and that's what investigators set out to
00:08:20
do
00:08:25
weeks passed and still there were no
00:08:27
signs of five-year-old melissa brannan
00:08:31
the community of lorton virginia held a
00:08:33
candlelight vigil at the brannan's
00:08:35
apartment complex
00:08:37
just a few feet from the clubhouse where
00:08:39
melissa was abducted
00:08:42
bumper stickers yellow ribbons and
00:08:44
flyers with melissa's picture were
00:08:47
everywhere
00:08:48
it was all anybody talked about
00:08:51
because this wasn't one girl in one
00:08:53
family this was
00:08:54
any child all of our families
00:08:58
if this could happen
00:09:00
to tammy brannon's daughter this could
00:09:02
happen to anyone's daughter and there
00:09:04
was a desperate outcry to find who would
00:09:07
have taken this child
00:09:09
the remaining suspect was caleb hughes
00:09:12
hughes attended the christmas party but
00:09:15
he denied having anything to do with
00:09:17
melissa's disappearance
00:09:19
forensic scientists began their
00:09:21
investigation with a look inside hugh's
00:09:24
car
00:09:25
the interior of the car was cluttered
00:09:27
with a lot of of debris dirt bags of
00:09:30
books
00:09:32
dog hair i just looked at it and thought
00:09:34
holy mackerel how am i going to be able
00:09:35
to find any type of evidence that will
00:09:37
link melissa to this car
00:09:39
the car was sprayed with the chemical
00:09:41
luminol which fluoresces when it comes
00:09:44
into contact with the hemoglobin
00:09:46
component of blood
00:09:48
luminol revealed blood on the steering
00:09:50
wheel foot pedals and floor mat
00:09:53
the blood was collected for dna analysis
00:09:56
but the results were inconclusive
00:09:59
the car was also searched for trace
00:10:01
evidence specifically hair and fibers
00:10:05
and was sent to special agent doug
00:10:07
dietrich of the fbi for analysis
00:10:11
first thing that i do is look at the
00:10:13
tapings that came from the front seat of
00:10:15
the car
00:10:16
trying to identify what types of
00:10:18
materials are there and if possible
00:10:20
anything that may have come from the
00:10:22
victim if she had been in that car
00:10:24
dietrich discovered quite a bit of
00:10:26
animal hair in the car most of it dog
00:10:29
hair
00:10:30
but three of the hairs from hugh's front
00:10:33
seat were different
00:10:35
they were rabbit hairs
00:10:36
that had been dyed black
00:10:39
the rabbit hairs were microscopically
00:10:41
similar to a german rabbit hair coat
00:10:44
tammy brannon wore to that christmas
00:10:46
party
00:10:47
when tammy brown was leaving the
00:10:49
apartment
00:10:51
she told melissa to get her fur coat
00:10:54
melissa got the fur coat and as a child
00:10:56
will do
00:10:58
she draped that coat across her
00:11:00
shoulders
00:11:02
and of course
00:11:04
those
00:11:05
hairs from that coat certain them
00:11:07
transfer to her
00:11:10
dietrich also discovered blue and red
00:11:12
fibers on hugh's front passenger seat
00:11:15
the red fibers were cotton and extremely
00:11:18
common fiber but the blue fibers were
00:11:21
extremely rare
00:11:22
the 50 blue fibers were man-made and
00:11:25
acrylic they were all the same shape
00:11:27
length and diameter an indication they
00:11:29
were from the same manufacturer
00:11:33
gas chromatography revealed that the
00:11:36
blue fibers were dyed with the same blue
00:11:38
dye
00:11:39
but the chemical composition of the blue
00:11:42
dye was unusual
00:11:44
melissa brannon was wearing a blue
00:11:46
sweater and red plaid skirt on the night
00:11:48
she disappeared the outfit had been a
00:11:51
gift from melissa's grandmother who
00:11:53
could not recall where she bought it all
00:11:56
she could remember was that the sweater
00:11:58
had a picture of big bird on it a
00:12:00
character from the sesame street
00:12:02
television series
00:12:05
prosecutors needed more evidence than
00:12:07
the three rabbit hairs from mrs
00:12:09
brannon's coat found in caleb hughes car
00:12:12
they knew that any good defense attorney
00:12:14
would argue that caleb hughes could have
00:12:16
brushed up against tammy brannon's coat
00:12:18
at the party and transferred those
00:12:20
rabbit hairs onto the seat of his car
00:12:24
doug dietrich was convinced that the
00:12:26
blue fibers held the key to melissa
00:12:29
brannon's disappearance but there was no
00:12:31
way to tell if the fibers were from
00:12:34
melissa's clothing
00:12:37
after work one night doug dietrich
00:12:39
shared his frustration with his wife he
00:12:41
told her he needed to find the
00:12:43
manufacturer of the outfit melissa was
00:12:45
wearing at the christmas party some sort
00:12:47
of blue winnie the pooh thing or a
00:12:50
sesame street uh outfit with a red plaid
00:12:53
skirt
00:12:54
i don't know anything about winnie the
00:12:55
pooh but if it's sesame street that's
00:12:57
sold by j.c penney hold on a second
00:13:00
[Music]
00:13:03
mrs dietrich had kept a number of store
00:13:06
catalogs some going back a few years
00:13:09
[Music]
00:13:11
red plaid skirt i see that she proceeded
00:13:13
to bring a catalog down from the year
00:13:15
before christmas
00:13:17
and sure enough on page 11 of that
00:13:19
catalog there was an outfit that
00:13:22
looked darn close to what they were
00:13:24
describing to me as the one melissa
00:13:26
brandon wore the night of her
00:13:27
disappearance
00:13:29
when tammy brannon was shown the picture
00:13:31
from the catalog
00:13:33
she identified it as the one melissa was
00:13:36
wearing at the party
00:13:38
the fbi asked jc penny for one of the
00:13:41
outfits in order to analyze the fibers
00:13:44
but they were sold out
00:13:46
the item was a catalog only item
00:13:49
jcpenney sold all seven thousand
00:13:51
garments in a matter of months
00:13:53
but jcpenney located a customer in
00:13:56
kentucky who had purchased one of these
00:13:58
outfits a year earlier the customer
00:14:01
bought the outfit as a present for his
00:14:03
granddaughter but it was the wrong size
00:14:06
so it had never been worn
00:14:08
the customer sent the outfit to the fbi
00:14:11
for analysis the idea of just being able
00:14:13
to find an outfit
00:14:15
that that's exactly the same outfit that
00:14:18
a victim wore in a case that's an
00:14:20
extremely good
00:14:21
stroke of luck
00:14:24
when doug dietrich examined the garment
00:14:27
he made a startling discovery
00:14:30
when jc penney had this outfit
00:14:31
manufactured they wanted to make it
00:14:34
unique instead of using a standard die
00:14:37
and there are 10 000 of them pennies
00:14:40
decided to create a brand new color
00:14:44
jcpenney specifies a particular color
00:14:46
then they'll work with the dye
00:14:48
manufacturer to find some combination of
00:14:51
chemicals that will produce exactly that
00:14:53
tone in this particular case they went
00:14:56
an additional step and made sure that it
00:14:58
was a die that nobody else had access to
00:15:00
so that they could trademark this
00:15:01
sweater from the color point of view
00:15:04
they called their new color plum navy
00:15:06
number 887
00:15:08
jc penney patented that signature die
00:15:12
and used it only once when they produced
00:15:15
the 7 000 big bird sweaters
00:15:18
when diedrick compared the fibers from
00:15:20
the duplicate sweater to those found in
00:15:22
hughes automobile
00:15:24
they were the same
00:15:26
with several hundred million people in
00:15:28
the country and only seven thousand
00:15:29
sweaters the probability of
00:15:32
that particular sweater being located in
00:15:34
individual cars very small
00:15:37
you can just work out the ratios of the
00:15:39
two there's no question in my mind that
00:15:41
that melissa brandon had been in the
00:15:43
front seat of cal hughes car and where
00:15:45
she went from there well i guess that's
00:15:47
a mystery right now
00:15:50
a mystery
00:15:52
police were desperately trying to solve
00:15:58
the search for melissa brannan's body
00:16:00
continued for almost a year
00:16:03
statistics show that children abducted
00:16:05
by strangers are usually murdered within
00:16:08
three hours of the abduction
00:16:10
the prime suspect caleb hughes was asked
00:16:13
to take a polygraph test
00:16:16
are you the one who abducted melissa
00:16:18
no
00:16:20
right now can you take me to melissa's
00:16:22
body
00:16:23
no
00:16:24
the results of his polygraph examination
00:16:26
indicated deception
00:16:28
as soon as he realized that i knew
00:16:32
that he had failed that test
00:16:35
he didn't want anything to do with that
00:16:37
that room didn't want anything to do
00:16:38
with me
00:16:39
and pretty much bolted out of there but
00:16:42
there was a problem in the state of
00:16:44
virginia prosecutors must be able to
00:16:47
prove where a homicide occurred
00:16:50
since the blood in caleb hughes
00:16:52
automobile could not be identified as
00:16:55
melissa's
00:16:56
prosecutors could not reach the
00:16:58
threshold of homicide
00:17:00
they could only prove kidnapping which
00:17:02
carried a maximum sentence of only 10
00:17:05
years
00:17:06
but prosecutors were convinced that the
00:17:09
blue and red fibers in caleb hughes car
00:17:12
indicated more than kidnapping
00:17:15
the last tammy brennan saw her daughter
00:17:18
she was wearing the pink nylon coat
00:17:22
winter coat
00:17:23
over top of this big bird outfit
00:17:26
if the child remained in that winter
00:17:28
coat in the automobile
00:17:31
you wouldn't have the collection and the
00:17:33
population of blue acrylic fibers that
00:17:35
are found on the scene
00:17:37
because they'd be inside the nylon coat
00:17:40
they weren't
00:17:42
prosecutors believe that hughes removed
00:17:45
melissa's ski jacket in the car an
00:17:48
indication that hughes committed a sex
00:17:50
act
00:17:52
hughes had the child's coat off in the
00:17:55
automobile
00:17:56
and it seems to me the inference that
00:17:59
flow from that all legitimate inferences
00:18:02
of an intent to the file
00:18:09
while melissa was waiting for her mother
00:18:11
to say her goodbyes at the christmas
00:18:13
party prosecutors believe that she left
00:18:16
for a moment to get a drink from the
00:18:18
water fountain in the hallway near the
00:18:20
utility room
00:18:23
this is where hughes abducted her
00:18:32
[Music]
00:18:36
hughes took melissa through the window
00:18:38
in the utility room and fled in his car
00:18:43
hughes removed melissa's ski jacket in
00:18:45
the car causing the transfer of the blue
00:18:47
and red fibers onto the front seat
00:18:51
also in the car there were three rabbit
00:18:52
hairs from tammy brannon's coat the one
00:18:55
melissa handed her mother seconds before
00:18:57
she was abducted
00:18:59
where hughes took melissa brennan and
00:19:02
left her body
00:19:04
remains a mystery
00:19:07
hughes tracked blood onto his foot
00:19:09
pedals and floor mat from his sneakers
00:19:12
luminol revealed blood on the car's
00:19:14
steering wheel as well
00:19:24
when hughes arrived home
00:19:26
he immediately washed his clothes in
00:19:28
order to remove trace evidence
00:19:34
he also scraped away the blood stain
00:19:36
from the sides of his sneakers before
00:19:39
washing them along with his clothes
00:19:41
but he didn't remove evidence that he
00:19:44
couldn't see
00:19:45
the tiny fibers from melissa's clothing
00:19:48
left on the passenger seat of his car
00:19:53
caleb hughes was arrested and charged
00:19:56
not with kidnapping but with the
00:19:58
abduction of melissa brennan with intent
00:20:01
to defile her
00:20:03
he was found guilty and sentenced to 50
00:20:06
years in prison
00:20:07
without parole
00:20:09
the maximum sentence
00:20:11
caleb hughes has never confessed to the
00:20:14
crime
00:20:15
and the search for melissa's body
00:20:18
continues to this day
00:20:20
each piece of evidence no matter how
00:20:22
small whether it's a car
00:20:24
or whether it's a strand of dna all have
00:20:27
a story to tell
00:20:28
where they've been who they've been with
00:20:30
how long they've been around
00:20:32
and this is the type of information that
00:20:34
that i look at and that i decipher and
00:20:38
try to determine what value it has so
00:20:40
one piece of evidence is can be
00:20:43
significant when you add multiple pieces
00:20:46
of this puzzle and you never get the
00:20:47
whole puzzle you only get pieces but you
00:20:50
don't need the whole puzzle to see what
00:20:52
that picture is going to say and in this
00:20:54
case
00:20:55
50 fibers blue acrylic 10 cotton
00:20:58
black rabbit hairs to me it's
00:21:00
overwhelming evidence
00:21:03
[Music]
00:21:13
[Music]
00:21:24
so
00:21:26
[Applause]
00:21:30
[Music]
00:21:41
you
