00:00:07
NARRATOR: There
were very few clues discovered with the woman's
body in the Alaskan wilderness.
00:00:13
But the sheet covering her
body looked very different from the bedding sold
in department stores.
00:00:21
Was it possible that the fabric
could tell a story, one that could lead police to
the woman's killer?
00:00:30
Was it po[theme music]he fabric
could tell a story, one that When 36-year-old Judy Burgin
walked into her favorite bar
00:01:01
at the Samovar Inn,
in Anchorage, Alaska, it was apparent that
something was terribly wrong.
00:01:09
SHARON ILLSLEY: The bartender,
who had known Judy for years, said that when Judyt
somcame in that night, uh,ng.
00:01:14
Judy looked as bad as
she'd every seen her. NARRATOR: Judy came
from an affluent and
00:01:20
politically-connected
family, and was something of a free-spirit, working
as a cook on a fishing boat.
00:01:27
But Judy told the bartender
that she was tired of life in Alaska, and
wanted to move away.
00:01:33
DALLAS MASSIE: Judy
was upset, distraught. At that time, she had a
large amount of money,
00:01:38
and a ticket to Hawaii, and
was planning to go to Hawaii. SHARON ILLSLEY: Judy showed
her an airline ticket,
00:01:44
andand a substantial sumand
was plof money, and saidwaii. she was going to
straighten up her life.
00:01:49
NARRATOR: Later, a man
approached Judy at the bar. The two shared some
drinks, and witnesses
00:01:54
said Judy left with the man,
and went to his hotel room. DALLAS MASSIE: Witnesses
indicated that Judy had gone
00:02:01
upstairs with that person,
allegedly, possibly to do use drugs that day.
indicated that Judy had gone
00:02:09
NARRATOR: Later, she returned
to the bar, said her goodbyes, and left in a cab. Two weeks passed, and no
one had heard from her,
00:02:21
so Judy's family
contacted police. PEGGY BURGIN: She would
call and just check in,
00:02:27
and, hi, mom, how are you doing?
contacted police. And I knew she was around, and
I knew that she didn't have
00:02:32
anything to complain
about at the time. And And so, when the calls and
I knestopped upcoming, have
00:02:38
then I thought
something had happened. ANARRATOR: Police interviewedd
I employees and customersve
00:02:43
of the Samovar Inn,
where Judy was last seen. In particular, they
wanted to interview
00:02:50
the man Judy left with. But no one at the bar
knew who the man was. the He paid cash forth.
is room, did not
00:02:58
register under his real name,
and hadn't been in the bar before or since. -All avenues were
basically slammed
00:03:07
shut, for one reason or another. We were never able to
determine who this person was.
00:03:12
shutNARRATOR: Judy had beenther.
living in Anchorage with her boyfriend, Carl
Brown, a commercial fisherman.
00:03:18
He told Judy's family that
she was fed up with Alaska, and just moved out. PEGGY BURGIN: He said, she
told me she's going to Hawaii.
00:03:26
So, I haven't seen her, don't
know anything about her. So, that was all. DALLAS MASSIE: He just said
their relationship had come
00:03:33
to its end, and she
just walked off-- with no explanation for
why she would walk off.
00:03:38
NARRATOR: Police checked
with the airlines, and discovered that Judy
didn't take a flight to Hawaii,
00:03:44
or anywhere else. Four months would pass before
police and Judy's family would finally learn
where she had gone.
00:03:58
Four months after Judy
Burgin's disappearance, several hikers along Grey's
Creek-- about 200 miles north
00:04:06
of Anchorage, Alaska--
saw what appeared to be a bundle of clothing. SHARON ILLSLEY: It was
wrapped in a sheet,
00:04:13
but they ran over
and got their mother. Their mothers came over and
discovered that there was
00:04:19
indeed, what appeared to
be a human remains-- mostly skeletonized remains-- of a
human body out in the woods.
00:04:26
NARRATOR: Police immediately
sealed off the area. The badly decomposed body
was that of a female,
00:04:33
approximately 5 feet tall,
with short, brown hair. DAVID WALLACE: By re-hydrating
her mummified fingers,
00:04:41
appand we were able toall,
wobtain a fingerprint,. match that fingerprint,
and the body that was found
00:04:46
was identified as Judy Burgin.
wobtain a fingerprint,. PEGGY BURGIN: I really
was not surprised.
00:04:51
I just had a feeling
that it could be her. I guess it was just
a instinct, mother's
00:04:57
instinct, or something. -Any time a body is found
in a manner that Judy was, insit presents a veryg.
difficult case.
00:05:05
At this point we
have no witnesses, we have no concessions,
we have no murder weapon,
00:05:11
we have no knowledge
of how she's there. NARRATOR: The medical
examiner determined
00:05:15
that Judy's death was
clearly a homicide. NSHARON ILLSLEY: Thel
skull had been bashed in,
00:05:22
by what he believed to
be more than one blow. And substantial force was
used, because the entire side
00:05:30
and front of the
skull was caved in. NARRATOR: The body was found in
an extremely isolated location.
00:05:39
There were several
fishing camps in the area, NARRbut most were accessible in
an extremonly by plane.ocation.
00:05:44
DAVID WALLACE: It
was pretty clear that the body had been
killed somewhere else,
00:05:48
brought to the
scene, and purposely laid where it was found. -In this kind of investigation,
it's very difficult.
00:05:54
You have no idea who
killed this person, who left this person
in the wilderness.
00:05:59
And initially, you
don't even have any idea of how long the remains
had been in the wilderness.
00:06:05
NARRATOR: Investigators
were intrigued by the sheets that
covered Judy's body. DAVID WALLACE: The
sheets seemed to be
00:06:11
kind of ordinary, plain sheets. But they had some
orange stitching that made it appear that
they were commercial,
00:06:17
and not something
that you or I might go to our local
department store and buy. NARRATOR: At first,
investigators
00:06:24
assumed the sheets came
from the Samovar Inn, where Judy was last seen. But they weren't the
type used by that hotel.
00:06:34
Large hotels usually
have their sheets washed by outside,
commercial laundries. LTo keep the sheetsy
separate, each hotel
00:06:42
uses a different
color stitching. LTFor example, onesy
shotel chain mightel use blue stitching,
another gold, and so on.
00:06:52
Only one hotel chain used
sheets with orange stitching. DAVID WALLACE: We discover that
these same sheets that Judy's
00:07:01
Onbody was found in wered
sused at the Sheraton Hotel,. here in Anchorage. NARRATOR: This tied Judy
to the Sheraton Hotel.
00:07:09
But no one at the Anchorage
Sheraton recalled seeing her. So, investigators
turned their attention
00:07:17
to another piece of evidence--
a tuft of red carpet fibers found inside the sheet
which covered Judy's body.
00:07:27
DAVID WALLACE: The tuft was red
with some other micro colors kind of blended in with it.
00:07:33
But it's main color was red. k-So, initial investigators
were looking at this, knew immediately when they saw
that tuft, that they'd made
00:07:39
a significant find,
but didn't know what they would be able
to do with it. But, this is not a
fiber of the sort
00:07:45
that we all carry around
on a regular basis. NARRATOR: Most carpets are made
with a single type of fiber
00:07:50
that is the same in terms
of size, shape, and color. But the red carpet
fibers with Judy's body
00:07:58
were completely different.
of size, shape, and color. There was no uniformity in
the shapes of the fibers,
00:08:04
or how the dye had
soaked into them. TDAVID WALLACE: Once youin
put it under a microscope,
00:08:09
there are several
different types of strands, several different
types of colors,
00:08:14
several different types of dyes.
different types of strands, And frankly, the
crime lab did not
00:08:19
severhave the expertise to dyes.
dmake the proper analysis., NARRATOR: Officials in
Alaska sent the sample
00:08:25
to forensic microscopist,
Skip Palenik who recognized it as junk fiber, which is used
in less than 5% of all carpet.
00:08:35
tSKIP PALENIK: Junk fiber
Skirepresents a collectiond it of fibers from a number
of different sources.
00:08:39
Some of good quality,
some of poor quality, some experimental fibers. They are all brought
together by chance,
00:08:45
by a fiber broker, who's
buying this material from a number of
different sources.
00:08:50
NARRATOR: Investigators now
knew Judy Burgin had been with someone who
had a connection
00:08:55
NARto the local Sheratonnow
knewHotel, and someoneeen who had inexpensive red carpet.
00:09:03
Now all they had to
do, was find him. who had inexpensive red carpet. Shortly after Judy Burgin's
body was recovered,
00:09:15
wfamily and friends attended a.
memorial service in her honor. PEGGY BURGIN: She
was a free spirit.
00:09:24
Judy was barely 5
feet tall, and we probably put-- less
wthan 100 pounds.. But was uh, very
agile, very athletic,
00:09:35
and didn't feel that
her size forbidded her from doing anything
she wanted to do.
00:09:42
-Judy Burgin was a
person who was dearly loved by a lot of friends
and family members.
00:09:48
She was a talented poet. She was a fisher person,
worked all over the state on various fishing vessels.
00:09:57
She loved to cook,
and her friends had a lot of great
things to say about her. NARRATOR: On the night
Judy disappeared, police
00:10:04
found the witness
who saw Judy leave the Samovar Inn, in a taxi. But police found no
evidence of where she went.
00:10:14
-So we get cab records for
all the cab companies in town. No cab driver
remembers Judy Burgin,
00:10:20
-So or taking somebody for
all the to this place.in town. NARRATOR: But the bartender
rrecalled Judy saying,
00:10:26
she was going home
to pick up something before taking a
flight to Hawaii. Home was Carl Brown's place.
00:10:35
Carl and Judy had
been living together for about nine months
before her disappearance.
00:10:41
Judy told her family
that at times, Carl Brown was
physically abusive. PEGGY BURGIN: I felt that it
was a unhealthy relationship.
00:10:51
As the time went on, and things
became evident that she wasn't PEGGYhappy, then I-- Ihat it
was abegan to feel thereship.
00:10:59
was something going wrong. PEGGDALLAS MASSIE: Carlat it
was abeBrown was knownreship.
00:11:03
to be a drug dealer
in the Anchorage area for a substantial amount
of time, for at least 10,
00:11:06
15 years. He dealt in cocaine and heroin. NARRATOR: Brown said that
Judy moved out of his house,
00:11:15
and that he had no
idea where she went. None of Judy's personal
items were in his home.
00:11:22
And investigators noticed
that the carpeting in his home was not the same color as the
fibers found with Judy's body.
00:11:31
DALLAS MASSIE: The first thing
I noticed when I walked into Mr. was noBrown's house, wass the
fiberthat he-- his house body.
00:11:35
was carpeted in shag carpet. However, it was a
different color. The living room
and-- and the dining
00:11:42
room area was a orange shag.
different color. NARRATOR: But police
discovered a potentially
00:11:47
explosive piece of information. Several years
earlier, Carl Brown exploworked at the Sheratonion.
Hotel in Anchorage.
00:11:58
DALLAS MASSIE: That
piece of information explois significant becauseion.
Carl Brown now has access
00:12:03
to the sheets that
it-- uh, that matched the sheets with
the victim's body. NARRATOR: But so did
numerous other past
00:12:10
and current employees.
the victim's body. At police headquarters,
investigators decided to ask Brown
whether he made
00:12:18
any improvements to his
home after Judy left. -OK.
Very good. Um, you also said you didn't
make any changes to your house?
00:12:26
-No. -OK. Any type of changes at all? I mean, did you change windows,
floors, stuff like that?
00:12:32
-Uh, I put carpet
in, in my bedroom. -Was-- was it the whole house?
Or you said just the--
00:12:38
-No. -Was-- Just my bedroom, house?
'cause it was ripped.- I had a chair and a desk, and
that'd slide back and forth,
00:12:43
and it had a big tear in
it, so it was threadbare. So I just had really cheap
carpet to begin with.
00:12:49
-OK. SoAll your place pad in?ap
carpet to begin with. -Yeah, 'cause it was raggedy.
00:12:54
I mean it-- I don't know
how long it'd been there, but it was pretty gross. I-Do you remember whenow
howthat happened, Carl?e,
00:12:59
When you had that
carpet changed? -Yeah, it was before
Judy left, 'cause she picked out the color.
00:13:04
No, I take that
back, no it wasn't. She picked out the color, but
I had to do it after she left.
00:13:09
-OK, after she left?
-Right, right. NARRATOR: But having new bedroom
carpet wasn't enough evidence.
00:13:16
for the local judge to
issue a search warrant. DALLAS MASSIE: We're looking
for something, a lead
00:13:23
that we can follow. And get enough information
to get into his house, and-- and uh-- and
possibly search his house
00:13:29
for any possible evidencen
that might be in there. We just can't seem to come
up with a-- with a break.
00:13:37
NARRATOR: A year of
passed, and it looked like the murder of Judy
Burgin might go unsolved.
00:13:43
But Sergeant Massie
refused to let that happen. DALLAS MASSIE: It was asking
investigators from Anchorage
00:13:49
to drive by Carl's house to
see what kind of activity's going on there. NARRATOR: Once a week, local
police drove by the house.
00:13:59
And then, a year and a
half after Judy's death, Nthey finally got the breakl
pthey'd been hoping for.e.
00:14:05
AnSHARON ILLSLEY: At a
halone point in time,th, it was found that the
residence was vacant.
00:14:10
NARRATOR: Brown's house was on
the market, which meant police no longer needed a search
warrant to look inside.
00:14:17
Was it possible there was some
evidence in the vacant house which would shed new light
on Judy Burgin's murder?
00:14:31
whiWhen Carl Brown putight
ohis house up for sale,? Alaska police were free to
conduct a thorough search.
00:14:37
DALLAS MASSIE: We're
searching for two things. AlaWe're searching fore to
condany blood evidencerch.
00:14:40
that might be in there. We're also searching
for, obviously, red shag carpet fiber that
might-- we might use to match
00:14:48
up with the carpet fiber
found with the victim. NARRATOR: Luminol tests on
the bedroom walls and ceiling
00:14:56
revealed no traces of blood. DAVID WALLACE: Of course,n
thwe're highly disappointedng
00:15:00
when we don't find any blood
that we could somehow matched to either Judy,
Carl, or anybody that
00:15:06
might have been
related to the case. -We-- we know up front that
the carpet had been changed,
00:15:11
so obviously we're gonna look
underneath the existing carpet. NARRATOR: And when
they did, they
00:15:16
made a startling discovery. Red carpet fibers, like the
ones found with Judy's body.
00:15:24
madeDALLAS MASSIE: So wery.
pull up the new carpet Red that had been placedthe
onedown the year before.ody.
00:15:28
And lo and behold, along the
tack strip around the perimeter of the room, we find
remnants in carpet
00:15:37
tufts of red shag carpet. I was very excited.d
remnants in carpet NARRATOR: Apparently,
the carpet installer
00:15:44
had not vacuumed the
floor before putting Ndown the new carpet.
the carpet installer
00:15:48
DALLAS MASSIE: They were
probably a little lazy, Nand they just didn't
clean up their mess,
00:15:53
and sweep up the old,
existing carpet fibers. NARRATOR: The fibers were
sent to the forensics lab
00:15:59
for analysis. NARRSkip Palenik foundere
seseven different typesab of synthetic fibers
in the sample.
00:16:08
SKIP PALENIK: You
see round fibers. Some round fibers are thicker
than other round fibers.
00:16:13
We see seven distinct types
of fibers in this case, which corresponded in every
single instance,
00:16:19
to fibers that were
found in the other tuft. NARRATOR: Next,
Palenik conducted what is called a
hot-stage analysis.
00:16:30
Synthetic fibers will melt
at different temperatures, usually in the range of 210
to 225 degrees Fahrenheit.
00:16:38
SKIP PALENIK: Any
polyester fiber usuwill melt at a-- at a210
specific temperature, which
00:16:42
is one of the
physical features that usuwicharacterizes thata210
speciparticular fiber.which
00:16:46
And even two fibers, which
appear in always identical, the different melting points
are from different sources.
00:16:53
NARRATOR: When placed
on the hot-stage, the fibers from Judy's body,
and those from Carl Brown's
00:16:58
bedroom both melt at the
exact same temperature. SKIP PALENIK: In
every case, they
00:17:05
were identical to one another. Of course, for every
corresponding fiber, there was a
corresponding melting
00:17:10
point that was the same. NARRATOR: Even the
cdyes were identical. In both samples, one
of the junk fibers
00:17:18
was thicker than the rest. As a result, the dye did not
go all the way through it,
00:17:26
and is evident in both samples. This is called
ring dying, a ring and is of dye around theamples.
outside of the fiber.
00:17:38
For investigators, there was
no doubt that the tufted carpet found with Judy Burgin had
come from Carl Brown's house.
00:17:48
-It was almost
overkill, in a way. We had so many
pieces of evidence that we could use this case,
that show that these fibers
00:17:55
were identical in every
way that could be measured. SHARON ILLSLEY: We refer to
it as a carpet fingerprint,
00:17:59
because it's essentially
the same kind of evidence. It's very hard to explain away.
00:18:04
NARRATOR: Carl
Brown was arrested, and charged with
Judy Burgin's murder. Prosecutors believed
that Judy grew
00:18:12
tired of the physical
abuse in her relationship with Carl Brown, and
decided to leave for Alaska,
00:18:18
fly to Hawaii, and
start a new life. After she left the
Samovar Inn, she went home to pick up her things.
00:18:28
When Brown learned
Judy was leaving, he responded with violence. -Sorry to tell you
this, but I'm leaving.
00:18:33
-What are you talking about? NARRATOR: The
autopsy revealed he beat her to death
with a blunt object.
00:18:47
Then, he wrapped her
body in the bedsheet he had taken from
the Sheraton Hotel. A sheet which contained
the signature stitching.
00:18:56
He didn't see the tuft of
carpet which clung to the sheet, Awith fibers so uniqued
the they could onlyhing.
00:19:03
have come from his bedroom. Brown dumped Judy's
body 250 miles away, in the Alaskan wilderness.
00:19:18
Interestingly, it was
just a short distance from where he went
fishing each year.
00:19:24
Prosecutors believe Brown
removed his bedroom carpet to get rid of the blood
evidence left by the murder.
00:19:32
SHARON ILLSLEY: I've seen a
lot of evidence in my career. to getAnd forensicblood
evievidence is somethingder.
00:19:37
that you don't have as
often as the public thinks, but when you have a piece of
forensic evidence like this,
00:19:45
it is extremely
powerful evidence. NARRATOR: Carl Brown
denied killing Judy, and blamed her death on drugs.
powerful evidence.
00:19:52
DAVID WALLACE: One of
the defense tactics and bwas that the victimdrugs.
died of a drug overdose,
00:19:57
and the skull
crushing was a result of a moose stomping on her head. As a lifelong
Alaskan, I have never
00:20:02
of a heard of such a thing head.
happening, period. After NARRATOR: A 5-week
trial, Carl Brown
00:20:08
was convicted of
1st degree murder, Nand sentenced tok
85 years in prison. All because of orange
stitching on a bedsheet,
00:20:19
and some cheap, red
carpet that hadn't been dyed all the way through. PEGGY BURGIN: There was no
doubt in anyone's mind--
00:20:28
after having that evidence
produced-- that it was a-- it was an actual fact, and
they found him guilty.
00:20:38
And they-- they had a
reason to find him guilty. -Essentially Carl Brown
had left his fingerprint
00:20:44
on Judy Burgin's remains. Unbeknownst to him,
but fortunately for us the investigation uncovered it.
00:20:51
-The fiber evidence was the
only physical, direct link tfrom the body, and Carl Brown.
00:20:57
It was the single most
important piece of evidence that the jury heard
during his trial.
00:21:03
It [music playing]most
important piece of evidence