00:00:05
people on television and in movies
00:00:07
attract attention everywhere they go but
00:00:10
not all of the attention is welcome
00:00:13
tragically a television reporter in
00:00:16
michigan was killed outside her home
00:00:18
after she received numerous threatening
00:00:21
letters
00:00:23
a document examiner a criminal profiler
00:00:26
and the police dog all found evidence
00:00:29
pointing to the same suspect
00:00:32
but the most persuasive evidence
00:00:35
came from the dog
00:00:39
[Music]
00:00:46
[Music]
00:01:04
diane newton king found everything she
00:01:07
was looking for in battle creek michigan
00:01:10
we must do all in our power to support
00:01:13
our men and women now fighting in the
00:01:14
middle east knowing that she was a news
00:01:16
reporter for the local television
00:01:18
station at a nice home was married and
00:01:21
had two beautiful children
00:01:23
diane newton king was the kind of woman
00:01:25
when she walked into a room eyes turned
00:01:27
to look at her not only because the way
00:01:29
she looked with her attractive native
00:01:31
american looks but she was a type of
00:01:34
woman who always had a smile on her face
00:01:36
was very animated and people's eyes were
00:01:38
just naturally drawn toward her
00:01:40
three and a half years in a japanese
00:01:42
prisoner of war camp diane had a
00:01:44
reputation as a tough aggressive
00:01:47
reporter she would push
00:01:50
i mean to get a story she would push
00:01:53
and sometimes maybe she'd push hard
00:01:56
although diane caught the viewer's
00:01:58
attention it wasn't always in the way
00:02:00
she wanted
00:02:03
she started receiving harassing phone
00:02:05
calls and letters from an obsessed fan
00:02:08
it was a man who identified himself as a
00:02:11
person who wanted to get an industry and
00:02:13
wanted to go to lunch with her and
00:02:15
wanted to meet her and he began
00:02:16
pestering her sometimes calling as much
00:02:19
as
00:02:20
once a day station executives hired an
00:02:23
additional security guard and screened
00:02:25
all of diane's calls
00:02:28
diane's husband brad a former policeman
00:02:31
took precautions of his own
00:02:33
they put in security lights automatic
00:02:35
lights that would come on when someone
00:02:37
would come into the yard the sister gave
00:02:39
them a doberman pinscher
00:02:41
that was used as a watchdog
00:02:43
but the harassment continued
00:02:46
including this letter sent to her home
00:02:49
the words created by letters cut from
00:02:51
magazine said
00:02:53
you should have gone to lunch with me
00:02:56
that's when things begin to get
00:02:58
very scary
00:03:00
is when they found the first letter in
00:03:02
her mailbox because before no one knew
00:03:05
where she lived
00:03:08
diane gave the letter to local police
00:03:11
i have never found one case where a
00:03:13
stranger
00:03:15
cut letters out and put it on a sheet of
00:03:17
paper you see it on tv
00:03:19
you see it in the movies but you don't
00:03:22
see that in real life
00:03:24
a few weeks later
00:03:26
someone broke into the king's home while
00:03:28
the family was away but nothing was
00:03:30
stolen
00:03:32
these bizarre incidents culminated in
00:03:35
tragedy one saturday afternoon in 1991.
00:03:40
diane's husband brad came home
00:03:43
and found diane lying in the driveway
00:03:46
dead of an apparent gunshot wound to the
00:03:48
chest
00:03:50
their two children were still inside the
00:03:52
car alive but frightened
00:03:56
the police were concerned that they may
00:03:59
have been partially responsible
00:04:02
one of the detectives called that night
00:04:04
to the murder scene his first reaction
00:04:06
was oh my god we've screwed up
00:04:09
he was worried that the letter had
00:04:11
languished on his desk for a couple of
00:04:12
months and he hadn't really done any
00:04:14
serious investigation on it
00:04:16
there were several clues in that letter
00:04:18
but not the kind police expected
00:04:23
[Music]
00:04:26
diane king's murder was front-page news
00:04:28
in the small town of battle creek
00:04:30
[Music]
00:04:32
investigators hoped to find some clues
00:04:35
during the autopsy
00:04:37
and it revealed
00:04:38
something telling
00:04:42
diane king had been shot not once but
00:04:45
twice with a 22 caliber rifle the angle
00:04:48
of the shot to the chest was
00:04:50
slightly downward that is as it passed
00:04:52
from front to back it passed slightly
00:04:54
downward indicating that the weapon
00:04:56
was slightly above her when fired
00:05:00
the second shot followed a completely
00:05:02
different trajectory the second one was
00:05:04
most unusual
00:05:06
this wound entered
00:05:08
just above the pubic bone and passed
00:05:11
very sharply upward that is it passed
00:05:14
through some of the intestines through
00:05:16
the left lung and i recovered that
00:05:18
bullet next to the left collarbone
00:05:22
apparently
00:05:23
the killer fired once from above and
00:05:25
then he moved closer and lower before he
00:05:29
fired again he or she would have to be
00:05:32
either kneeling or perhaps prone on the
00:05:34
ground holding the weapon essentially
00:05:37
parallel or almost parallel to the
00:05:38
ground
00:05:40
at the crime scene
00:05:42
investigators identified the possible
00:05:44
location of the shooter
00:05:47
in the hay loft of the barn next to the
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driveway
00:05:50
was a single 22-caliber shell casing i
00:05:54
kind of said goosebumps up my back to
00:05:55
know that we were that close perhaps to
00:05:58
whoever had committed this crime and we
00:06:00
were standing right in the same place
00:06:02
that he had stood probably within the
00:06:04
hour
00:06:07
with police personnel helping to
00:06:09
recreate the crime
00:06:11
investigators used a laser to confirm
00:06:14
this was the sniper's nest
00:06:17
we knew what the angle of the trajectory
00:06:20
in the body was from the autopsy
00:06:22
and
00:06:24
we tried to determine if that was
00:06:25
consistent with having been shot from
00:06:27
the loft of the barn
00:06:29
and by directing the laser beam from the
00:06:32
loft to where the victim stood
00:06:34
we were able to see that
00:06:36
that angle was consistent
00:06:39
next michigan state trooper gary lyle
00:06:42
and his tracking dog travis tried to
00:06:44
pick up the killer scent the shell
00:06:47
casing of any weapon
00:06:49
ejects to the right was fired
00:06:52
so i moved to the left side of the shell
00:06:54
casing
00:06:55
and travis indicated that he had a track
00:06:58
at that point and we started from that
00:06:59
point
00:07:00
[Music]
00:07:01
dogs can track someone by his scent
00:07:04
which is unique a combination of dead
00:07:06
skin cells that fall plus perspiration
00:07:11
the adrenaline flows their heart pumps
00:07:13
faster they sweat they get excited it's
00:07:15
a whole different odor than a person
00:07:17
that's uh say confused
00:07:19
or a person that's lost
00:07:22
travis followed the scent from the
00:07:24
sniper's nest in the barn across a small
00:07:26
foot bridge over a creek and then took a
00:07:29
sharp left turn
00:07:31
travis brought the track up to here this
00:07:34
is where travis got really excited
00:07:36
here they found the exposed end of a
00:07:39
22-caliber remington scoremaster 511
00:07:43
rifle that had been jammed into the mud
00:07:46
in the water nearby were seven spent
00:07:49
shell cartridges
00:07:51
everybody was pretty excited because
00:07:53
they knew that probably wasn't the
00:07:55
murder weapon because there'd be no
00:07:56
other reason for anyone else to stick
00:07:58
something like that
00:07:59
into a creek bed at that particular time
00:08:03
at the crime lab ballistic experts
00:08:06
test-fired the rifle giving them its
00:08:08
fingerprint
00:08:10
a unique mark on the bottom of each
00:08:12
shell created by the rifle's firing pin
00:08:16
the fire cartridge case that was
00:08:18
recovered from the loft of the barn
00:08:21
and the seven
00:08:22
cartridge cases from the
00:08:25
creek were identified as all having been
00:08:27
extracted
00:08:28
by the firearm in question
00:08:31
but it was impossible to match the
00:08:33
bullets to the rifle
00:08:35
and the reason for that was the
00:08:38
condition of the bullets
00:08:41
they were damaged from
00:08:43
impacting with a with a target the body
00:08:45
in this case
00:08:47
and it made it difficult to make any
00:08:49
positive determination
00:08:53
back at the crime scene
00:08:55
travis wasn't yet finished with his
00:08:57
investigation
00:09:00
after finding the rifle and the shell
00:09:02
casings he jumped the stream and picked
00:09:05
up the killer scent once again it's just
00:09:08
amazing what the dog's sense ability is
00:09:10
and you just wonder how in the world
00:09:12
they can do this and find things that
00:09:14
they find
00:09:16
travis followed the scent into the woods
00:09:18
out into the street then surprisingly
00:09:21
back to the crime scene
00:09:23
[Music]
00:09:26
if travis was correct
00:09:28
the killer was one of the bystanders
00:09:31
watching as police conducted their
00:09:33
investigation
00:09:39
shortly after diane king's funeral her
00:09:41
mother gave police an important piece of
00:09:43
information about the murder
00:09:46
something
00:09:47
brad king failed to mention the original
00:09:50
plan was that diane was going to leave
00:09:52
her two children with her mother and
00:09:54
then come back to be with brad that
00:09:56
weekend so the two of them had some time
00:09:58
together alone but on february 9th and
00:10:01
apparently because one of the children
00:10:02
wasn't feeling too well diane decided to
00:10:05
take the kids with her and make the
00:10:07
two-hour trip back to marshall michigan
00:10:10
we have a victim who gets out of her car
00:10:14
we don't have any evidence that would
00:10:16
suggest that she was afraid of anything
00:10:19
she did not take any kind of defensive
00:10:21
action
00:10:22
and we have an offender who not only is
00:10:25
comfortable in the crime scene he's also
00:10:27
comfortable walking up to the victim and
00:10:30
shooting her again
00:10:32
brad king was a part-time college
00:10:34
professor teaching criminology and he
00:10:36
didn't have a solid alibi
00:10:39
brad told investigators he was out
00:10:41
walking in the woods behind his home and
00:10:44
showed investigators where he'd been
00:10:48
but travis the police dog
00:10:50
identified this same area as the
00:10:54
killer's getaway route
00:10:56
it showed that he would hadn't seen
00:10:58
anybody come his way and run down to the
00:11:00
track where the dog took
00:11:02
and he would have seen anybody commit
00:11:04
that crime coming from the barn
00:11:06
and of course that was never brought up
00:11:08
brad denied owning a 22-caliber rifle
00:11:12
however in his home were 22-caliber
00:11:15
bullets similar but not identical to the
00:11:17
brand used in the murder
00:11:19
there was also a cleaning rod for a
00:11:22
22-caliber rifle we had the two cleaning
00:11:25
ladies
00:11:26
come forward who claimed to have seen
00:11:30
a similar rifle
00:11:32
on the bar in the basement of a
00:11:34
townhouse that the kings rented here in
00:11:36
the city of battle creek
00:11:39
i can recall seeing it every time we was
00:11:41
there
00:11:42
it was a
00:11:44
22 rifle
00:11:47
police found another inconsistency in
00:11:49
the case of the attempted burglary of
00:11:51
the king's home a few weeks before the
00:11:54
murder as everybody knows who watches
00:11:58
any kind of television show that if
00:12:00
you're breaking in to a house the glass
00:12:03
should be on the inside
00:12:04
in this case the glass was on the
00:12:06
outside so whoever broke it had to be
00:12:09
inside at the time that the window was
00:12:11
broken
00:12:14
next investigators turned their
00:12:16
attention to the threatening letter
00:12:18
mailed to diane's home
00:12:21
statistically only one percent of all
00:12:23
threatening letters have cut out pieces
00:12:27
one of the most telling aspects of this
00:12:29
crime and that was one where the letters
00:12:32
were cut out of a magazine and pasted
00:12:35
onto a blank sheet of paper
00:12:37
i have in my career never
00:12:40
seen
00:12:41
a letter like that where it wasn't
00:12:43
somebody emotionally close to the victim
00:12:48
a perpetrator uses cut out letters when
00:12:51
the victim would be able to identify his
00:12:53
handwriting
00:12:56
unfortunately by the time the letter was
00:12:58
sent to the fbi for analysis there was
00:13:01
no hope of finding any fingerprints
00:13:04
the
00:13:05
anonymous
00:13:07
note
00:13:08
had been processed by the originating
00:13:10
agency with a powder
00:13:12
and in my opinion that's not the correct
00:13:14
process to use and it's very difficult
00:13:16
once it's been processed with a powder
00:13:19
to do any other chemical process on the
00:13:21
document
00:13:22
i had the office of brad king at western
00:13:25
michigan university
00:13:27
searched with a search warrant an item
00:13:29
seized i wanted scissors razor blades
00:13:32
tape paste anything paper anything that
00:13:36
we might be able to link through
00:13:38
forensic science to bradford king we
00:13:41
were unable to do that
00:13:43
in terms of motive police found evidence
00:13:46
of spousal abuse sexual affairs and
00:13:49
dianne's overall dissatisfaction with
00:13:51
her husband's lifestyle
00:13:54
she came in
00:13:55
one morning
00:13:57
and she
00:13:58
she
00:13:59
was crying and she had bruises she
00:14:01
showed me the bruises and this was right
00:14:04
around christmas time
00:14:06
and she said that her and brad had been
00:14:08
in a fight
00:14:09
brad's a very different individual i
00:14:11
think he can have people like him real
00:14:13
quick and also have him turned off real
00:14:15
quick
00:14:16
just by his mood
00:14:19
and friends say
00:14:20
diane wanted brad to get a full-time job
00:14:24
well brad had the perfect setup he was
00:14:27
working part-time as an instructor at
00:14:28
western michigan university i think she
00:14:30
was pushing that issue so much that he
00:14:32
feared that he was not going to
00:14:36
be able to continue his lifestyle he had
00:14:37
at the university
00:14:39
his wife was responsible for taking care
00:14:42
of the kids and getting the money and i
00:14:43
think she was angry at him because he
00:14:46
wasn't
00:14:47
carrying his
00:14:48
load he was known to order him around
00:14:51
and to yell at him and i think it just
00:14:53
reached a a
00:14:55
a crisis point
00:14:57
with him
00:14:58
and he lashed out at her in this very
00:15:01
passive aggressive manner
00:15:03
by murdering her
00:15:05
brad's alleged sexual affairs were with
00:15:08
students from the college where he
00:15:09
taught
00:15:10
he was not faithful to his wife he had
00:15:13
an affair with a student in one of his
00:15:15
classes in an affair with another woman
00:15:17
that he had met in battle creek he was
00:15:19
known to be trying to procure women
00:15:22
girlfriends
00:15:24
sometimes at the fraternity house
00:15:27
that he used to hang out at uh with
00:15:28
younger fraternity members
00:15:31
it was not a picture of fidelity by any
00:15:33
stretch of the magical nation
00:15:37
one year after his wife's death bradford
00:15:40
king was arrested and charged with
00:15:42
murder
00:15:44
the prosecutor and investigators in this
00:15:46
case were worried that because the
00:15:49
suspect was a former police officer and
00:15:52
a criminal injustice instructor at a
00:15:54
major university was going to spring
00:15:56
something on them that was playing some
00:15:58
kind of mind game with them kind of a
00:16:00
forensic cat and mouse game
00:16:03
and sure enough
00:16:04
a new piece of evidence surfaced
00:16:06
threatening the prosecutor's case
00:16:09
[Applause]
00:16:09
[Music]
00:16:14
just as bradford king was about to go on
00:16:16
trial for the murder of his wife diane
00:16:19
prosecutors were dealt a serious setback
00:16:24
a man moving into the king's
00:16:26
neighborhood said he found a remington
00:16:28
511 scoremaster rifle in his attic
00:16:32
it was virtually identical to the
00:16:34
alleged murder weapon
00:16:38
the second rifle was sent to the
00:16:39
forensic lab for testing
00:16:42
the ballistic tests on the second gun
00:16:44
showed that the shell casing found in
00:16:46
the loft could have not possibly come
00:16:47
from the gun
00:16:49
the second gun that was accumulated by
00:16:51
police
00:16:53
prosecutors believe
00:16:55
brad planted this rifle in a vacant home
00:16:57
nearby to create reasonable doubt in the
00:17:00
jury's mind
00:17:02
and that it was brad who made the
00:17:04
threatening calls sent the threatening
00:17:07
letter and staged the burglary making
00:17:09
the mistake of breaking the window from
00:17:11
the inside rather than the outside
00:17:17
on the day of the murder
00:17:19
diane planned to take the children to
00:17:21
their grandparents house to spend the
00:17:22
night
00:17:25
while she was gone
00:17:26
brad test-fired his rifle to align the
00:17:30
site and carefully collected the empty
00:17:33
shell casings
00:17:35
[Music]
00:17:38
later when diane came home
00:17:41
brad was waiting in the loft
00:17:44
[Music]
00:17:55
his second shot was at close range after
00:17:58
he left the barn
00:18:01
a clear sign of hatred and anger
00:18:04
[Music]
00:18:05
then brad realized the children were in
00:18:07
the car
00:18:08
not knowing one of them was sick
00:18:11
since he couldn't leave his small
00:18:12
children in the cold for very long he
00:18:15
needed to change plans
00:18:17
so he quickly disposed of the rifle near
00:18:20
the creek through the empty shells in
00:18:22
the water then went back to the house to
00:18:24
call police
00:18:27
but brad left one shell casing behind in
00:18:30
the loft
00:18:31
and this shell casing tied his rifle to
00:18:34
the murder
00:18:36
and he was unaware
00:18:38
that a police dog would track his scent
00:18:40
from the sniper's nest to the creek into
00:18:43
the woods then full circle back to his
00:18:46
house
00:18:48
i think he had that foreknowledge that
00:18:50
this was sort of a small town police
00:18:52
operation and being the criminal
00:18:54
injustice criminal justice instructor
00:18:57
and the type of individual he was that i
00:18:59
felt that he thought that he could
00:19:00
outwit them
00:19:02
many believe
00:19:03
the children foiled his plan to
00:19:06
establish a solid alibi
00:19:09
i don't believe he anticipated the
00:19:10
children would be there
00:19:12
i think it's likely that he would have
00:19:14
gone someplace else and had somebody
00:19:17
else find his wife
00:19:19
that would give him an alibi
00:19:22
diane told friend shortly before her
00:19:24
death that she suspected brad was behind
00:19:26
the threatening calls and letters
00:19:29
and she said i just think it's brett and
00:19:32
she said i i don't know what i'm going
00:19:34
to do yet
00:19:36
the defense presented only seven
00:19:38
witnesses arguing that the case against
00:19:40
brad was circumstantial
00:19:43
no one will get understand and say brad
00:19:45
king had a gun that day brad king held
00:19:47
the gun that day he pulled a trigger
00:19:49
that day nobody
00:19:51
i was confident in my own mind that brad
00:19:53
king was guilty
00:19:54
i just didn't know if i could convince
00:19:56
12 people of that
00:20:00
the jury felt the forensic evidence was
00:20:02
just as revealing if not more
00:20:16
brad king was sentenced to life in
00:20:18
prison without parole
00:20:21
when i'm looking at evidence firearms
00:20:23
evidence or other types of evidence
00:20:25
and i can make an identification a
00:20:27
positive identification that is helpful
00:20:30
to the investigation
00:20:32
it's a good feeling when that can be
00:20:34
done
00:20:36
all of the forensic science fit together
00:20:39
and pointed
00:20:40
in the direction of brad king being the
00:20:42
murderer of his wife
00:20:45
you may assume
00:20:46
or may suspect that that a particular
00:20:48
person was involved but without those
00:20:50
sciences to tie them together for you
00:20:53
you have no case
00:20:55
i don't think we touch what a dog's nose
00:20:57
can do
00:20:58
every day i see them do things that
00:21:00
would just
00:21:01
you just stand back and say how could
00:21:05
[Music]
00:21:15
[Music]
00:21:23
so
00:21:26
[Music]
00:21:26
[Applause]
00:21:32
[Music]
00:21:46
you
