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to solve the murder investigators needed to find the fatal bullet but where was it
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could the laws of physics solve the mystery if not a killer would walk free [Music]
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world war ii in the skies over europe american airmen fought a deadly and dangerous war
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for every 100 airmen who flew missions over europe 70 never came back one of the highest casualty rates in the
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history of warfare [Music] walter joachim was one of the fortunate ones he was in the eighth air force in world
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war ii was a waste gunner and a b-17 and survived 34 missions over nazi hill territory
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joachim risked his life and almost lost it countless times but only his family and fellow veterans
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knew it he never talked about it so i didn't know what he did in the military
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kind of surprised me because he's such a conservative fellow you just can't
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imagine him being behind a machine gun in an airplane seventy-six-year-old yokum a widower and
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retired accountant lived by himself on the outskirts of boulder county colorado on a fall day in 1993 his housekeeper
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noticed something was wrong she went and knocked on the door got no answer she said that's very usual for
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him because he's a you know pretty punctual guy um you know was never late was always there
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when she was supposed to show up she went around the back of the house and decided to knock on the back door
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and notice that there was a broken window and she got concerned at that point and
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decided to notify the police [Music] investigators from the boulder sheriff's
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office discovered walter yokum dead at the bottom of the stairs he had been fatally shot through the
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neck i don't think i slept for a couple of days it's hard to imagine somebody that you
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know has just been violently murdered outside detectives noticed several clear foot impressions in the mud
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crime scene technicians took plaster casts for future comparison there was a particularly good set of
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footprints that were cast from that and they were a lug soul type of a boot kind of a work boot kind of a soul
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[Music] the point of entry was through a broken bedroom window on the ground floor
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there were muddy footprints leading to the foyer at the stairwell detectives found
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gunshot residue as you can see the pattern of the gunpowder on the wall left an outline where the barrel the end
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of the barrel was it demonstrated exactly where the the shooter was standing at the time that he killed mr
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yokum there was an empty gun holster upstairs on the dining room floor we called
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the son who said did he have any guns and what were they and he says oh yeah his my dad had his 45 which he kept from
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world war ii he says everybody kept their guns when they left the army this was a distinctive gun it was a cult
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semi-automatic used by many world war ii servicemen soldiers routinely scraped off the gun
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serial numbers after the war but joachim's gun was missing so too was his credit card and some cash
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adding to the mystery was the awkward position of walter yokham's body he was lying on his back with his arms
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extended and his knees in the air someone had come and moved him after rigor morris had set in because he
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was nearly face up with both arms somewhat in the air and gravity just doesn't allow you to do that
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this meant the killer was inside the house at least three hours maybe longer our working theory in the beginning was
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that this was a burglary was interrupted and what was really bad about that is that
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burglaries are one of the hardest crimes to solve the most bizarre clue was found near
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joachim's foot it was the foil wrapper of a reese's peanut butter cup there was an empty bag of peanut butter
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cups in the refrigerator i would have to say that all we knew about the killer was that he wore
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boots and he enjoyed reese's peanut butter cup that's a cold-blooded killer
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someone that can do that um just having just murdered somebody then go through refrigerator and see what
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there is to eat and then stand there and look at him while you're eating some of his candy
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[Music] clues from the crime scene indicated walter yokum most likely heard an intruder grabbed his gun and was heading
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down the steps when the intruder shot him at the beginning of the investigation there's an autopsy and
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at that point we discovered that the bullet's not in the victim's body so
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it's like for the next task for those of us going back out to the scene is we gotta find this
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bullet this was a problem without the bullet investigators would know nothing about
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the murder weapon and would have no ballistic evidence once they identified a suspect
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so everything suggested there was one shot fired and it went through the victim and out somebody went on the roof
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looked around couldn't find a bullet we looked in the gutter couldn't find a
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bullet how are we going to find this bullet because if it exited the house you've
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got literally acres and acres and acres of places that bullet could be and it's
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it's a bullet that big to find it investigators turned to the science department at the university of colorado
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once it enters the atmosphere then it's not likely to change its configuration
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although it might be tumbling so the three things you need to know are the initial
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velocity the initial angle with respect to the horizontal and the amount of air resistance that
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you could expect we knew from the wound it was probably a 38 357 9 millimeter that middle size caliber we knew it
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wasn't the 22 it was too big for that and it was too small for a 45. a bullet from these caliber weapons
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would be traveling at approximately a thousand feet per second but the bullet passed through a human
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body went through the ceiling then the roof shingles it's very difficult to determine how
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much energy is lost as the bullet passes through those three obstacles but in order to determine where the
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bullet falls you need to know the velocity just after it passes through the roof
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to study how much velocity was lost investigators reassembled everything the bullet passed through
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a beef roast was used to simulate the victim's neck behind it was a piece of plaster ceiling
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and behind that a section from the roof when the bullet was fired its speed was tracked with a chronometer
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a device that works very much like a radar gun there was a great deal more energy lost
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by the bullet in passing through the victim and the ceiling in the roof than was originally thought
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the next step was to determine the angle at which the bullet left the house gunshot residue told investigators
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approximately where the killer was standing [Music] they knew where the victim was when he
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was struck and the hole in the roof told them where the bullet exited [Music] investigators used a rod to approximate
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the trajectory which was 68 degrees if the bullet is going almost straight up then the horizontal force due to air
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resistance is small and so you can solve the problem of a bullet going straight up because it's a
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one-dimensional problem and get something that you can work with analytically at a speed of approximately 850 feet per
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second the bullet exited the house at a 68 degree angle with gravity and wind resistance
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factored in scientists predicted the bullet would be fairly close to the house we asked a local
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treasure hunting club to use their metal detectors and we marked off the entire yard and field
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beyond the house with a grid and then we asked people to search this grid for that bullet
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and they found it just 90 feet from the house it was a 38 caliber bullet we were very excited we had our missing
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link we we had the bullet we really believed this this was the boat that killed walter yokum
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unfortunately it was of little value initially i was pretty excited about it but then i was discouraged because the
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bullet was so mangled that it wasn't going to give us any ballistics the base was still relatively intact and
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about maybe a quarter of an inch up the base was intact but other than that it was it was pretty mangled
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now investigators needed to identify some suspects there probably was no prior relationship
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between walter yoakham and the killer so investigators checked police records for anyone arrested for burglary around
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the time of the murder [Music] there was only one james dobson he'd been released from prison on a
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burglary conviction just a few days before joachim's murder and he had a habit of eating at his
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crime scenes he was breaking into houses to steal food fact that he's eating food from the
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house at the scene of these burglaries and you have reese's peanut butter kept wrappers
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on the floor all kind of point to mr dobson it would it's just logical that you go look at
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him but eating candy wouldn't be enough investigators would need much more [Music]
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some of walter joachim's neighbors told investigators about some suspicious looking men in the neighborhood on the
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night of joachim's murder so they asked the neighbors to view a lineup that included their prime suspect
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james dobson your witness look at them and decide if any of them are the guy and
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in this case i believe mr dobson was familiar to the witness but they couldn't say that's the guy
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dobson denied any involvement in joachim's murder and there was no evidence he owned a
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weapon capable of firing a 38-caliber bullet and dobson didn't own boots that matched
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the impressions found at the crime scene so investigators wanted to know if there
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were fingerprints on the peanut butter cup wrapper found next to joachim's body
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processing that wrapper i was not able to obtain any latent prints off of that surface
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in fact there were no foreign prints anywhere in the house in order to identify more potential
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suspects colorado investigators searched police records to identify any unusual criminal activity around the time of
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walter yocum's murder and one incident in particular stood out [Music] two undercover officers noticed a pickup
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truck with north dakota license plates leaving the home of a known drug dealer on the day after joachim was killed
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the truck was registered to kevin doctor so she called bismarck north dakota to ask them about who is this kevin doctor
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guy they said well you know it's funny you should call about him because we just
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arrested him yesterday 29 year old kevin doctor was a career criminal with a history of drugs and
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weapons offenses they said he's a convicted felon so arrested him for possession weapons by a
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previous offender and one thing led to another you know of course the next question is well what
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kind of guns did he have when arrested doctor had a 357 and a world war ii era 45 caliber colt pistol
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like the one missing from walter yokham's holster but that wasn't all when kevin was arrested in addition all
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the other paraphernalian things like that that were found in the car there was coincidentally or not coincidentally
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a bag of reese's peanut butter cup miniatures the same type that were found at mr joachim's residence it's not a
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scientific thing but to me if i was on a jury i would put a lot of stock in this
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just because it makes sense the 45 caliber pistol had the serial number scraped off of it
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just like walter joachim's gun and it had some ammunition in the clip highly distinctive ammunition
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the base of the bullet was stamped with the letters r-e-m-u-m-c it's a remington
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manufactured ammunition and umc stands for union metallic cartridge i called up remington and the guy
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answers the phone says oh yeah i've worked here 43 years that ammunition was made from 1912 to
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1961. the same type of ammunition was found in walter joachim's house he kept the gun and the bullets
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for almost 50 years it's kind of winning three numbers on a lottery ticket you know
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you can't go down to the hardware store or the gun store and buy that ammunition
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there were 38 caliber bullets in doctors 357 which were subjected to inductively
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coupled plasma emission spectroscopy a bullet from the crime scene was compared to
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the bullet from a cartridge and mr doctor's gun and three bullets from cartridges recovered from
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his truck and they were found to be analytically uh indistinguishable that is they all had the same composition of
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lead having two batches of lead that are similar the fbi uh rated that at about one and two thousand five hundred so as
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far as circumstantial evidence that's pretty good scientists went one step further
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kevin doctor was wearing work boots when he was arrested impressions were made and compared to plaster casts of boot
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prints found outside of joachim's house the cast from the crime scene didn't
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have enough detail to show any accidental characteristics which are marks that result from everyday wear and
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tear the class characteristics the size the tread patterns and the manufacturing
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impressions were there for comparison the overall characteristics on the different
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cast were consistent with what was present on the boots that were submitted so the evidence against kevin doctor was
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mounting he owned boots like the impressions at the crime scene he had the same taste in candy as the
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killer and had no explanation for why he was in possession of walter yocum's gun
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and ammunition [Music] kevin doctor was the prime suspect in the murder of walter yoakham and
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apparently he was a big talker investigators spoke to doctors friends who said doctor bragged about committing
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a robbery in colorado and said his friend 21 year old jason fowler acted as a lookout
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we went to uh jason fowler and said look we've got another person ready to give
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you guys up and you're gonna go down do some hard time in a mainline joint and
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he says well okay i think i'm ready to talk jason fowler told us that he and kevin
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doctor had a drug habit that they supported their drug habit by breaking into homes and stealing items
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fowler told investigators that he and dr case joachim's house since no lights
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were on they assumed no one was home doctor left his boot impressions in the mud as he broke the downstairs bedroom
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window the noise apparently woke walter yokum who grabbed his world war 245 pistol and
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went to see what was going on doctors saw him first and fired one shot killing joachim instantly
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fowler says they left the scene and went to a local bar [Music] after several drinks they decided to
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return to joachim's house to rob it [Music] doctor ate the peanut butter cups as he
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searched for items to steal he moved joachim's body to look through his pockets
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after rigor mortis set in all they took was twenty dollars in cash a credit card and joachim's highly
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distinctive 45 caliber handgun he pulled out a green 45 and he had blood all over his
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fingertips just kind of wiping that off and he pulled the chamber open and there's no bullet he says this
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stupid old man didn't have a bullet in the chamber even he died for nothing this truly was a senseless killing
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um not that there's any killing that makes sense but this one was particularly
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senseless the day after the murder undercover officers saw kevin doctor's truck leave the home of a known drug
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dealer it was the break investigators needed had they not gotten that license plate doing that drug deal
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we probably never would have had that name certainly not as directly as we did kevin doctor pled guilty to
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second-degree murder and was sentenced to 40 years in prison jason fowler pled guilty to burglary and
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was sentenced to 25 years in prison one final note it's easy to see why the neighbors first
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chose james dobson as the man they thought they saw near the crime scene dobson bore
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a striking resemblance to jason fowler everybody that worked on this case are probably
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in my opinion the best there is and so it really didn't surprise me when it went into the solve column because of
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the the caliber of people that worked on it it was just one of those cases of excellent police work
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that and some luck and they'd all fallen together in a case that easily could have gone
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unsolved and so yeah when i got done with that and i looked back on it i was kind of like wow i can't believe we
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actually were able to do that [Music] [Music] [Music] you