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one summer's evening a woman left a bar in anchorage alaska and staggered into the street
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she was drunk she was defenseless and soon she was dead the killer left this unusual clue at the
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crime scene it was evidence that could be visualized with a simple tube of glue [Music]
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[Applause] [Music] [Music] august 8 1996 was a beautiful summer morning in anchorage alaska
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but on this day workers entering a downtown office building saw something different
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the first time i've ever experienced anything like this i never want to experience it again this
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is horrible it was a body laying near a wooded area and she didn't appear to be breathing
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the woman's checked jacket and clothing were strewn over a 30-foot area a clear indication of a life-and-death
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struggle it was an extended assault it wasn't he just hit her in the face once
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there were multiple blows to her head and her upper chest area she had been so badly beaten a visual
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identification would be impossible she didn't match missing persons reports and apparently there had been no
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witnesses anytime you have a witnessless crime you have difficulties you don't have anybody telling you where
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to go where to look who to ask and what to do the victim hadn't been moved or touched
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since she was discovered and the body had been protected from the sunlight because of where the victim was found
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and the circumstances surrounding her death captain bill gifford made an unusual
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decision i made the decision that we would go ahead and try to get clayton prince off
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the body for the last six years gifford had been experimenting with a special technique
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to find hidden fingerprints on human skin super glue fuming is usually done with
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non-porous surfaces like glass or metal in the early 80s a gluing factory in japan
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the employees had noticed that as they were gluing various items together that the vapors which were materializing
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from the glue were turning the fingerprints their actual prints on an item a whitish color
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subsequently they brought the information to the attention of the japanese crime lab and from that with
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various organizational meetings they pass the information on to do it with skin the following
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conditions must be in place no emergency personnel can have handled the body they would wipe prints off and
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also leave their own if the victim is dead for a long period of time decay will destroy any prince
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any precipitation even dew can wash away prints and the temperature must be right if
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it's too hot the prints will melt if it's too cold they'll disintegrate
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[Music] gifford ordered technicians to build a tent around the body using plastic tarp
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and pvc pipe [Music] inside gifford heated a pan of water to increase the humidity in the tent
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[Music] using a heat gun a massive amount of super glue was blown into the airtight
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container around the body gifford's secret technique was to use more super glue than forensic scientists
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usually recommend in this case probably three or four hundred times the amount of what we'd
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normally use on skin and this time we got the right amount the heated glue attaches itself to the
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biological oils left by someone's fingers or hands the glue then hardens on the print and
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can be photographed this isn't a technique that can be redone fortunately in this case it worked
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on the victim's left thigh was a fragment of a palm print from the killer's left hand
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we were ecstatic and this was the second latent print off of human skin that had been
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confirmed so to finally get one quite a milestone the palm print itself was of excellent
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condition i could tell based on the slope of the terrain and the location of the the print
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and injuries that were afflicted to the victim exactly which hand it was because the
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individual had steady themselves by placing their hand on the thigh area while they were conducting whatever
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injuries they were sustaining to the victim above the body on some low hanging branches
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police discovered 35 head hairs which did not come from the victim it appeared the branches became
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entangled in the assailant's hair during the assault police now had the palm print and
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possibly a hair sample from the killer all they needed now was to identify the victim
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and find the suspect when the body of the victim was taken to the morgue in anchorage alaska the
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medical examiner determined that she was an alaska native between 30 and 40 years
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old five foot two inches tall and weighing a hundred pounds he found a bite mark on the woman's
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breast and signs she had been sexually assaulted there were some bloody boot impressions
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on the victim's torso but they weren't clear enough to identify in this particular case the violence
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didn't indicate whether they would be known to one another but what it did tell us is that the
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suspect spent considerable time with the victim both before and after death the toxicology report indicated
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that the victim had a blood alcohol level of .308 over four times the legal limit
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anchorage police checked missing persons reports but found no one resembling their victim
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at the crime scene above the body in some low-hanging branches police found human hair
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the hairs presumably the assailants were analyzed and identified as [ __ ] [ __ ] hairs are from asian races
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native americans would be included in this category [ __ ] hairs tend to have very dark
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pigmentation the hairs almost look black visually and they tend to be very straight
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the hairs were very long between 18 and 20 inches and they were highly unusual this is one of the most distinctive hair
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samples that i've ever seen the long hairs had been bleached and because [ __ ] hairs are so dark in
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color this type of chemical treatment has a distinct effect when they add bleach to it it pulls some
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of the pigment out and if it's incomplete the hair almost looks orangish police were now looking for a native
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velasque male with long black hair down to his waist with an uneven orange tint we didn't know who the assailant was we
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had no idea what that person was going to do whether this was going to be a series of crimes
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and for the first week or so we certainly had concerns that we had a person or persons capable of committing
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such a heinous crime walking around our community without us able to identify who that person was
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since the victim had a high alcohol content at the time of her death police canvassed bars in downtown
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anchorage many of which are popular with the native community many of the bars have extensive video
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surveillance systems for liability purposes this way bar owners can prove they haven't served anyone who is visibly
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intoxicated bar owners decide whether they want to have these videotaped systems or not and
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then they install them their own so there's no mandate for it they do this on a voluntary basis
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police collected the surveillance tapes from every downtown bar that had a video
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system and looked through the hours of footage one videotape was from an outside
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surveillance camera taken on the night of the murder fortunately the picture was relatively
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clear for a night scene why [Music] even at nine or ten o'clock at night the sun is still shining in alaska since
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it's so far north this is why alaska is called the land of the midnight sun on this one tape was a clear image of a
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woman wearing a checked jacket like the one found at the crime scene she was walking down the street
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arm-in-arm with a man with long black hair i would say the video image of the individual was fair it wasn't real clear
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but it was fair enough that we could felt comfortable go out and begin searching for the person who was enough
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that we could get an idea of who he might be the trick now was to find out the individual's
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identity anchorage police uncovered this video surveillance image thought to be their
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victim and the killer taken on the night of the murder the videotape was from a surveillance
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system at a bar in downtown anchorage called the avenue the bar had nine tiny video surveillance
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cameras in operation at all times almost every square foot of the bar and the entrance and exit are all covered
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the bar owner john patty says the surveillance is not a luxury it's a necessity
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video surveillance gives me another body it gives you the opportunity to have maybe a couple fewer employees and yet
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you can monitor you know seven or eight different locations within the bar when police showed the surveillance
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picture to john patty he could not identify the man in the image but he knew the woman her name
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was martha hansen everyone called her marty she was a regular customer since i've been here i've known her but
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just as a customer a tiny little girl you know never caused a problem a background check revealed martha
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hansen was a 48 year old divorced mother of six children and was unemployed she was just very trusting very open with
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people and it didn't matter who you were to reach out to you i think that was
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probably what the downfall was here she'd been gone for two days before her children reported her missing which is
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why police had not connected her to their victim pat t said that on the night of the
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murder martha hansen was in his bar and was denied service the bartender's first
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engagement with her that bartending determined that she was too intoxicated to be in here
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so we asked her to leave and then she left martha was inside for less than five minutes
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patrons remembered her but did not remember seeing the man in the surveillance image
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it appeared that the man never entered the bar so there was no clear shot of his face
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the best images unfortunately were martha hansen and the suspect walking away from the bar so we have the back of
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the subject as opposed to the front the image showed martha and the man walking arm and arm which suggested the
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two knew one another we're canvassing the area again going back to the businesses going back to the
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retailers going back to people saying do you know who this person is when police put the photograph in the
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local newspaper a concerned citizen called with some information [Music] she said that a week after the murder of
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martha hansen one of her friends blurted out that he'd killed someone when she asked him how
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he held up his hands indicating that he'd either hit or strangled his victim
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or both her initial instinct was he's just bragging he's intoxicated he couldn't do
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something like this the man's name was evans lee curtis with hair so long it fell almost to his
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waist curtis was unemployed with no prior arrest evans curtis fit the photo that we received from the
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videotape to a t curtis had left his pants in this woman's bedroom they appeared to be similar to those in
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the surveillance image when police analyzed those pants they discovered they were spattered with
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blood evans lee curtis was interrogated by police but he denied any involvement in
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martha hansen's murder so having your own rights in mind that we talked about
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do you want to talk to us about this police had the surveillance image the hairs and the palm print of the killer
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the question now was whether the forensic evidence would match evans lee curtis league curtis said he had nothing to do
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with the murder of martha hansen he claimed the man in the video image was someone else that he certainly wasn't
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the only man in anchorage with long hair but his long hair was distinctive it had the same unusual orange color as
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the hairs found at the crime scene the suspect's hair was also chemically treated was very long in length and the
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chemical treatment was irregular along the length the same as what i found in the in the hairs from the scene
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investigators wanted something more conclusive they wanted to know if the partial palm
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print found on martha hanson's thigh belonged to curtis police took impressions of his hands
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focusing more on his palms than his fingertips investigators were looking for the
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distinctive crease between the index and middle fingers they found on martha hansen's thigh
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when compared there was no mistaking it the print on the body was from evans lee
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curtis that presents him with a serious problem and that problem is how does he explain
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why his palm print is on a dead woman the print evidence while significant was subject to defense attack
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the super glue fuming process was so unusual investigators were concerned whether it
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would be allowed as evidence so they conducted dna testing of the blood found on curtis's pants
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when the blood on the pants was compared to dna from martha hansen's blood dna
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it was a match we have no idea why he left his pants behind but we're glad he
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did [Music] but perhaps the most damning clue was found on the boots curtis was wearing at the time of
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his arrest they were given to forensic analyst jim wolfe [Music] in a crevice on the boot soul
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created by simple wear and tear he found what looked to be a small pocket of blood
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what really caught my eye what was on the victim's body appeared to be a heel
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impression was some possible blood stains on the heel of the boot actually inside a heel that was or inside a hole
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that was worn into the heel wolf swabbed the area extracting the blood the dna from the shoe was compared to
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martha hansen's dna it matched prosecutor david wallace had one of the best cases of his career
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in this case it was forensically solid mr curtis would have had a lot of explaining to do how all of these pieces
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of the puzzle were not him when i had multiple experts going to take the stand and say it was in fact mr curtis that
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killed martha hansen police discovered that curtis knew martha hansen's daughter and had
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actually met martha at a dinner party a few weeks before her murder she had trusted evans she had apparently
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been an acquaintance with him he had been invited over to the house a couple of times and
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i guess she had actually had fed him [Music] prosecutors believe that when martha
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left the avenue bar she just happened to run into curtis recognizing one another they walked down
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the street arm and arm possibly on their way to another night spot but instead curtis took martha to a secluded area
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and made a sexual advance when she rejected him curtis attacked her in the ensuing fight
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curtis caught some of his hair in a tree branch hair which had a distinct orange
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bleaching curtis got blood on his pants the most unusual piece of forensic evidence was his partial palm print
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on martha's left thigh and when he stepped on martha's torso her blood became embedded in the sole of
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his boot since he left the body under the trees protected from the sunlight and excessive moisture the conditions were
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perfect to preserve the print for hours after she died providing one final clue in a mosaic of
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evidence that ultimately identified evans lee curtis not aware of any other case in alaska
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where a palm print fingerprint or any type of print has been lifted from a deceased person
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when faced with the overwhelming amount of forensic evidence evans lee curtis decided to plead guilty
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is a brutal the appearance of the victim's face is shocking evans lee curtis was sentenced
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to 99 years in prison his conviction a combination of old-fashioned police work high-tech forensic science
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and a little bit of luck the video tape evidence in conjunction with the palm prints and
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other evidence at the scene were just over and above what we could have hoped for
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with what we have in technology give something a shot and that doesn't work modify it give
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something else a shot but there's untold things out there that will eventually be employed
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where we will be making identifications that people today would think impossible
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forensic technology is extremely important in many many cases whether it's homicide to simple thefts
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because if you don't have a confession if you don't have an eyewitness to the
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crime you have nothing so with forensic evidence we are able to circumstantially piece together a puzzle
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that may never have been pieced together before [Music] so [Music] [Music] you