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a young couple went camping in the woods but only one of them came out alive the survivor told two different versions
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of what happened so it took forensic psychiatry ballistics and korean war history to
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discover what really happened in the deep forests of oregon [Music] [Music] [Music]
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the area surrounding majestic mount hood in oregon is a sportsman's paradise
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mountain streams ideal for fishing and boating and deep forests filled with game
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kandra and giulio torres chose this area for a weekend camping trip they were young giulio was 21 kandra
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just 16. it was pretty much love at first sight my father wanted us to get married when
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i was uh 15 because he want could see that the relationship was heating up the trip celebrated their first wedding
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anniversary and they brought kandra's dog rusty along although they loved to fish they weren't
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catching anything so they asked one of the other fishermen who was there for a little advice
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when he saw me he lit up which was not i didn't think anything of it i was very young attractive and i was
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used to turning heads the fisherman tom brown told them about a good fishing spot nearby that had
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recently been stocked with fish and we looked at each other and it sounded like fun we had had no luck
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fishing for two days and we were ready to catch some fish the fishing site was several miles away
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and by the time they got there it was dark so they set up camp to get some rest [Music]
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three days later kendra went to the local sheriff's office and called her mother with some terrible news
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she says julia's dead it was a terrible accident will you come and get me kandra said that the three of them had
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gone fishing and later did some hunting they sighted a deer giulio handed tom his rifle so tom could
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take the first shot but the rifle went off accidentally killing giulio instantly
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kandra screamed her dog instinctively attacked tom and tom shot her dog rusty in self-defense
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and then he panicked because he had a prior record was known to the police and that no one would believe him
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[Music] so tom had no desire to explain the incident to police and gave kandra the
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choice between staying with him or heading back to town i had no way of getting down i couldn't
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even drive i didn't have a license i didn't know how to drive a stick confused and in shock
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kandra stayed with brown but after two days they reconsidered and decided to notify the authorities
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he told them that there'd been a shooting and it was an accident and she backed up his story
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he then cooperated and took them to where the body was helped them recover the rifle
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to prove his story tom took a lie detector test and passed police ruled giulio's death an accident
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the sheriff's department was very supportive of tom brown i think that they believed the stories
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and that they wanted to keep an innocent man from being locked behind bars but a few days later
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kandra changed her story kandra torres originally told investigators she had witnessed her
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husband's death and that it was an accidental shooting everybody was saying it was an accident
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that knew anything about it no one was saying anything other than that but kendra's mother had doubts about the
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story i know how she loved the dog and i know how she loved him but it was just like it was coming out of a stereo
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you know being replayed or something i don't know it wasn't like really her
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but when kandra went back to the home she shared with giulio everything changed and when she went inside the apartment
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she fell apart she said mom and daddy don't hate me don't hate me and i said i could never hate you
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and then she said she didn't know it wasn't she didn't know if it was an
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accident or not that she did not seem shot and uh and i said my god canada don't you
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realize that man murdered your husband in this version kandra said she was alone making breakfast at the campsite
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when she heard a shot tom brown came running from the woods kendra said she ran to see what had
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happened to julio and then i heard another shot and i looked next to me and my dog was jerking
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he had been shot in the head and i looked at him with total surprise and i said you shot my dog and he smiled
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a big smile and said i shot your husband too at that second my life flashed before me
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i was 16 years old and i was gonna die there was no one that could help me my dog that i'd had from childhood
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was dead my husband whom i loved he's telling me he's dead and i'm up in the mountains with a murderer i'm
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next obviously whatever he wants with me he's going to do and then he's going to kill me and i
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knew that i was going to die [Music] he then took her deep into the woods after hiking for about four hours we
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stopped to rest at the river and uh that was the first time that he write me kandra said brown assaulted her
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repeatedly over the next several days she said the one thing she feels that saved her life
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was reading aloud from the bible then will i go to the altar of god to guide my joy and my delight his heart had been
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too touched and he wasn't able to kill me so he came to me instead and he started crying
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and he said i didn't kill your husband on purpose it was an accident and um [Music]
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the reason that i brought you up here is because i'm afraid to go back to prison
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over the next several days brown told kandra repeatedly that giulio's death was an accident
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and he agreed to let her go but only if she told authorities that she witnessed the shooting and that
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it was an accident to see if this version was true kandra took a lie detector test
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tom brown had been given a lie detector test and his actually said that he was telling the truth he knew how to pass
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the lie detector test so if if i took a lie detector test then we'd at least have equal
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evidence against him but she failed polygraphs do not measure truth or lie what they measure is emotion and
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if you were a 16 year old girl that had been raped and marched up in the mountain and god saved you brought you
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down out of that mountain you're emotional you're talking about your husband that you loved that was shot by
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this murderer would you be emotional i think so with nowhere else to turn investigators looked more closely at the
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physical evidence the dog's wound would tell whether he was shot frontally as tom brown claimed
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or from behind which was kandra's version unfortunately the dog's body had not
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been autopsied and he was buried in a mass grave for animals the bullet that killed giulio entered
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his cheek and passed nearly horizontally through his upper vertebrae trajectories could vary depending on
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terrain and a whole variety of other factors of how the gun was held whether the person receiving it
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was standing uphill or downhill a trajectory analysis wasn't enough to tell whether the shooting was an
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accident or intentional but they couldn't understand how tom brown passed his polygraph
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we believed her but she'd flunked a polygraph we didn't believe him but he'd
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passed and so what do you do well what are our other options so prosecutors asked a forensic
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psychiatrist how kandra could have failed her polygraph and his discovery changed the course of the investigation
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at first kendra torres said she watched in horror as her husband was killed in a
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freak hunting accident later she claimed that tom brown murdered her husband while she was back
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at the campsite to find out which version was correct forensic psychiatrist dr joseph tree
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levin interviewed kandra for several hours i concluded that she didn't have any
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mental disorder she was under some stress because she'd had a stressful experience but that was
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all but why did kandra initially vouch for tom brown the man she now says killed her husband
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frankly at first i didn't know what to make about it i remembered the stories
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of what happened to the prisoners of war in the korean war and where they were isolated often
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brutalized often for fear of their life and after a long period of time some of them would accept the
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point of view of their captor and then testify against their own country and they call it at the time
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brainwashing today it's known as the stockholm syndrome named for the hostages held in
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a stockholm bank robbery who sympathized with their captors even while their lives were threatened
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experts say this occurs to hostages when four things happen a traumatic shock isolation
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indoctrination and the promise of a reward the shooting of the dog gives a very visual and powerful
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demonstration of the dangerousness of the man that was her captor that brings it home
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and then being uh assaulted physically pretty powerful stuff you know it's stressful almost as
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you can get for kandra the cascade mountains provided the isolation and brown indoctrinated her by repeatedly telling
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her that the shooting was an accident her reward was survival escape from repeated rape and the fear she may have
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been responsible for her husband's murder the reward in kandra torres case wasn't just coming
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out of the woods alive the reward was that then she wouldn't feel guilty about being an instrument of
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her husband's death kandra didn't just accept brown's story of an accidental shooting
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she actually believed it i had nobody with me but a murderer do i really want to believe he's a murderer
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because believing that is terrifying do i really want to think that my husband died so that someone could rape
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me and kidnap me for me denial was the best way to survive we all tell ourselves little lies and
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sometimes big lies to make ourselves feel more comfortable and certainly when our survival is at stake
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i mean you can change your perception of things this made her polygraph test useless
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she doesn't know in her own mind what is truth and what is fiction how can she possibly
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react properly to a polygraph examination it's not a piece of equipment that's
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going to tell the future it's not going to tell the past unless you know what it
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is can't give you information that you don't know there is a reason and a very good reason
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that polygraph examinations are not admissible in courts of law with all respect to
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polygraph operators and to the science of polygraphy in this incident uh tom brown passed the polygraph
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and in this instance mrs torres flunked the polygraph i firmly believe that both results are
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dead wrong prosecutors now accepted the idea that kandra was brainwashed but how would they prove that giulio had
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been murdered she could testify to what he said she could testify about what happened to the
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dog and so on but we had a crime committed without an eyewitness and this was a very very
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close case ballistic experts re-examine the evidence and the level trajectory if you're handing a gun
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there's a lot of weight there the chances of holding the gun to be perfectly flat
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again very very unlikely because i would expect it to be upward instead of straight across
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the medical examiner found no gunpowder residue around giulio taurus's entrance
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wound so investigators wanted to find out the distance between giulio and the gun when
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it was fired a bullet isn't the only thing that comes out of the rifle when fired
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gases and gunpowder do too brown's rifle a 22 caliber savage model 99 was tested at the oregon state police
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lab it was fired at a target six inches away and it left a visible pattern there were other test shots at
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increasing distances [Music] so then you get to a point where you have no pattern at all it doesn't show
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up at all and that was what the d.a was primarily interested in how far before you don't have anything
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[Music] the rifle had to be 36 inches away from the target to leave no trace of gunpowder
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this meant that brown's rifle was at least three feet away when the trigger was pulled
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to have muzzled to target distance of three feet and a level entry entry and exit wound
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how do you contort yourself to be able to do that when he's claiming all he was doing is
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passing the gun along with this forensic evidence tom brown was arrested and charged with
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murder based on the ballistic evidence prosecutors were convinced that tom brown murdered julio torres in the
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oregon forest to have his 16 year old wife all to himself [Music] trying the case wouldn't be easy
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since kandra told two different stories to authorities even if you believe kandra torres a
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hundred she didn't see it there were still no witnesses to this incident and
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he cooperated all the way through but while brown was awaiting trial in the county jail he admitted the murder
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to his cellmate the basics of it was when i'm going to beat it i passed the polygraph that they
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wouldn't be able to get a conviction because i wasn't emotionally stable
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enough to hold out in court and then when i beat it i'm going to go after these
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go after her and those those two prosecutors but if they did get a conviction it wouldn't be a big deal because he'd
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get seven years and parole and he'd get out and he'd kill me and he'd kill my
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lawyer his cellmate turned state's evidence but prosecutors still felt they needed
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the forensic evidence that evidence was important but all those kinds of evidence are
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always subject to human frailties and cross-examination and credibility and bias and so forth and of course the
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the powerful nature of forensic evidence is it's not subject to those things
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kandra torres testified in detail about her ordeal tom brown told his version and tried to
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demonstrate how the alleged accident took place he tried to hand off their rifle and it
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was just just for you can't you can't do it and he stuck to his guns and i believe stuck to a lie
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but it was demonstrated to be that brown was so confident that he waived the jury trial
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the verdict from the judge was guilty he was sentenced to life in prison bob hamilton is retired now but he
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attends brown's parole hearings to make certain he stays in prison and that kandra never has to see him again
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kandra is remarried as a family and a new life she credits forensic psychiatry with
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helping her move beyond her horrifying ordeal i guess the fact that somebody explained to her and explained publicly
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why she had these confused stories but she wasn't nuts and there was a logical explanation for
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it gave her a great deal of emotional relief but it was ballistics and the physics of
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gunpowder patterns that provided conclusive evidence that tom brown was lying i thank god for forensics i think that
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they solve a lot of crimes and the fact that the angle of the of the the shot and the
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type of gun that was used and the powder burns were all proof that this you know that it did not happen the way
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that he said it did so i was very thankful for that evidence you have five witnesses
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to a crime you're probably going to get five different scenarios you do the forensic science you're going
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to get one and that's it [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] you