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for the first time in american judicial history a trial was held on the edge of a cliff
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overlooking the pacific ocean for three days a judge and jury heard the forensic evidence interpreted very
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differently by the prosecution and by the defense [Music] was the death of a beautiful young woman
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an accident or was it cold-blooded murder [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] big sur california 90 miles of high
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windswept cliffs sparkling ocean water and some of the most spectacular coastlines in north america
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[Music] sightseers come from all over the world just to enjoy the magnificent scenery
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but you have to be careful it can be dangerous you won't get a few months in the summer
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going by without someone falling and seriously being hurt or killed three tourists from san diego were
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walking along the cliffside overlooked known as seal beach the couple started walking towards their
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car their friend stayed behind to enjoy the spectacular view just a little longer
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when the couple turned around she was gone they rushed to the cliff's edge and they were horrified to discover that
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she had apparently fallen some 500 feet down the cliff they ran to a store nearby for help
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rescue workers found the woman at the bottom of the cliff she was dead there was no way she could have survived
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the 500-foot drop unfortunately accidents here do happen everybody wants to climb out and get
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that picture of the ocean behind them so they're out on the edge on the precipice
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and things happen one of the fellas said people fall off the cliff like logs out
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here the victim was 20 year old donna hartman it was absolutely horrible when you know that
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one of the almost phobias that this young woman had was heights and she dies in this manner it's
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particularly a horrible event she recently separated from her husband and had been living and traveling with
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her friends virginia and b.j mcginnis donna was a wonderful young lady but she was challenged her iq was probably 85 or
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90 somewhere in there she was wonderful and friendly and thoughtful her husband was in the navy
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at the scene the mcginnis has told investigators that donna was wearing high-heeled shoes
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which might have caused her to lose her footing as she stood at the edge of the cliff
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[Music] in the photographs taken by the mcguinnesses shortly before the fall donna was wearing high-heeled shoes
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the autopsy of donna hartman was routine the autopsy on our victim was not a true
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forensic autopsy it was an autopsy and it did show cause of death but it was not in the greater
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detail that you would want had you suspected foul play from the get-go the cause of death was a basal skull
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fracture a massive blow to the back of the head consistent with someone falling 500 feet
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to their death but donna's family in louisville kentucky had questions about what
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happened so they hired a civil attorney named steve keaney to help them get answers
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i wish the coroner had done a better job i don't know what california standards
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are but you would think that california would be closer to the cutting edge this
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was far behind the cutting edge and those responsibilities made it very difficult to show with any certainty to
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the insurance company or to a court or anyone else exactly what the cause of death here was
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what troubled keaney with the photographs taken of donna shortly before her death
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they told a story that was much different from the mcginnis's account [Music]
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local authorities took no photographs at the scene of donna hartman's fatal fall
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because rescue workers believed it was an accident so investigators asked donna's traveling
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companions virginia and b.j mcginnis for a copy of the photos they took that day
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they're using a disc camera which has a rigid film on a circle so we know the sequence of
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the photographs where they were taken early in the sequence donna appears happy and alert
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but photos taken later show something different the later photographs show a person
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who's docile who looks exhausted her hands are down her face face facial muscles are slack
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and she just doesn't and the eyes are somewhat droopy uh appears as if she is
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either intoxicated or stoned the next photo in the sequence shows b.j mcginnis and donna standing at the edge
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of the cliff the victim's eyes quite appropriately are looking at the waters below mr
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mcginnis is behind the victim the victim is a few feet from the edge of the of the
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cliff mr mcginnis left hand is on the victim's left shoulder investigators thought bj's position was
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extremely suspicious the only reason he's looking to the right is you know we would speculate to look for
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vehicles look see if anyone can see and that's the last photograph taken of her life it's almost as though she's in
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motion then and the husband's hands up against donna's shoulder and the last four pictures were even
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more unusual i think those four photos are surveillance pictures i think that was
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virginia mcginnis looking through the viewfinder of her camera to make sure nobody saw what they did they're not
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photographs that taurus is going to take and and particularly the fact that the sequence
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[Music] to this day i don't understand why they were taken there's a shot looking down the cliff
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where donna fell then three panoramic views one to the left another to the right
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and the last behind them now if she has slipped and fallen then who's taking sightseeing
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photographs i mean who cares about a camera let's see if we can save her that film says they saw her when she
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fell off the cliff and they kept taking pictures investigators now suspected that b.j
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mcginnis deliberately pushed donna over the cliff to her death but what was the motive
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investigators discovered that the mcginnis had taken out a 35 000 life insurance policy on donna hartman just
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one day before her death the insurance agent said that virginia mcginnis asked him a curious question
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she turned to him on the way out of the door and said this is applicable to an accidental death isn't it
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it was i don't deal with too many claims for life insurance but that doesn't
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sound appropriate to me almost as a matter of fact the beneficiary was virginia mcginnis's son who was in
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prison he was listed as donna's fiancee even though he and donna were already married
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to other people the mcginnesses filed a claim to collect on the life insurance policy
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just one day after donna's death [Music] virginia plopped the insurance policy
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down on the desk of the agent he looked up and said you're kidding she's dead
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well it's a pretty incredible story but you know in the end you have to pause
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surely somebody somewhere bought a life insurance policy and had the bad luck to
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have the deceased die the next day it's not proof but it sure stinks investigators wanted to know why donna
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hartman looked so alert and vivacious in pictures taken earlier on the day she died but later on that day she seemed
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drowsy and disoriented the circumstances that we had indicated a homicide not an accidental death and our job was
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to prove it or disprove it we had virtually no evidence donna's autopsy was fairly routine
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and the toxicology tests were routine as well i would characterize the autopsy as
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meaning minimal professional standards if i had to object it would be that it appeared that the possibility that
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foul play was really not taken into account so that extra measure perhaps was not done
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in this case the doctor who performed the autopsy was not a forensic pathologist but he did
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something virtually unheard of at the time for reasons not entirely clear he kept a vial of donna's blood in
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refrigerated storage and two years after her death it was sent to the forensic lab for testing
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a sample was placed in a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer which broke the blood down into its chemical
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components traces of a mil-triptyline a common antidepressant known as elevil were
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clearly present in donna's blood in someone who'd never taken the drug before
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i believe even one pill could cause them to be very drowsy dizzy possibly disoriented but how did ellaville get
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into her system the presence of ellaville in the victim's body was crucial because
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she had no prescription for it mr mcginnis had prescription for it moreover the effects of aloeville are
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evidenced by her behavior as seen in the photographs dizziness disorientation sluggishness the dose of elevil
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is determinative a tiny dose may have little or no effect a large dose can be so disorienting that you're drowsy you
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may even fall asleep standing on your feet at the very least you won't be alert
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investigators discovered donna and the mcguinnesses had lunch about two hours before she died
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the waiter who served them said that donna ordered a soft drink it's it's anyone's guess but if i had to
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to speculate i would say that at that point they put the olive oil in her coke but it's speculation
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but there was no way to prove it so investigators turned to another set of pictures the ones taken during
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donna's autopsy they were analyzed by forensic pathologist dr barbara weekley jones
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she noticed two things which were barely mentioned in the original autopsy wounds on the back of donna's hands but
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not on her palms and her fingernails were broken she's up like this and she's grabbing
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hold of the edge the nails will break off well the same you should have then abrasions on the
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palm or surface of your hands as you're going down and she did not have that all of her injuries are on the
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back of the hands why would someone who slid down a cliff have bruises on the backs of her hands
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but virtually no marks on her palms dr weakly jones said it was impossible to be sure but
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that she had a theory i think that she was pushed off the cliff and didn't make it and her hands
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were stomped on in order to get her to continue her fall off the cliff but the injuries on her hands were
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more consistent with a struggle or that scenario than than a simple fall off the
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cliff this was a harrowing possibility it meant that while donna was hanging onto the
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cliff's edge one or both of the mcguinnesses sent her to a certain death there was no what we call pattern injury
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to help determine as to what she was struck with she could have been struck with a fist for all i know or she could
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have been struck with an instrument these were the wounds of someone who was fending off an attack and then died as
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opposed to somebody who flopped down a cliff and had some things break along the way
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but were the mcguinnesses capable of cold-blooded murder and if they were could it be proven
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to find out investigators did a background check and were shocked by what they found
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virginia mcginnis was no stranger to deaths that looked like accidents in previous years
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virginia mcginnis had received payment from various insurance companies for other deaths and several suspicious
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accidents she had been involved in tragedy after tragedy residences had burned down
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relatives and loved ones had died in her care every house she'd lived in burned
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to the ground and her daughter her second husband and probably others all died under
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mysterious circumstances they all had incredible accidents with all the upheaval in her life there
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seemed to be one constant virginia made sure all of her husbands and children had life insurance
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you know jay leno says that what he loves is stupid criminals one thing about criminals is they're not
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holding a job every one of her life insurance policies was for the same amount 35 000
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because the face amount of the policies were so low insurance companies didn't question the
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settlement the insurance policy virginia purchased on donna hartman's life was also
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suspicious every single piece of that policy was either forged or faked except for
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the name of the person who would die donna hartman signed the policy and her signature was witnessed by alice cassane
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alice gethane lived next door to the mcguinnesses but she denied signing the insurance forms
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as proof she pointed out her name was misspelled on the document people don't misspell their own names
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when they sign their names so that's a red flag to the document examiner to the
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prosecutor to anyone involved in the case alice cassane's signature did not match
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her known signature samples and it had an unusual backward slant backhand slanting isn't necessarily an
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evidence of forgery but it is evidence of someone trying to change the way they write with a court order investigators
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forced virginia mcginnis to provide a handwriting sample i asked her to write alice cassane's name
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first in her own natural handwriting and then i asked her to write it in a backhand slant because that's how it
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appeared on the question document forensic document examiners concluded virginia mcginnis had signed alice
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cassane's name on the insurance policy it was not any different from her handwriting she merely had changed the
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slant in order to disguise her writing and make it indistinguishable from the rest of the writing on the form
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two years after the murder virginia and b.j mcginnis were arrested and charged with donna hartman's murder
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virginia now claimed she wasn't at the scene of the accident and as proof she
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reminded prosecutors she wasn't in any of the photographs but one of the photographs showed
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the shadow of the photographer was it possible for science to identify the photographer from the silhouette
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we knew what day it was and we knew what time it was because we had the 911 call
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that gave us the position of the sun and with the position of the sun and the distance to the rocks we were able to do
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the old high school pythagorean theorem a squared plus b squared equals c squared the distance between donna and
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the photographer was calculated by analyzing the millimeter of the camera lens by measuring the length and angle of the
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shadow and determining the exact location of the sun at the time the mcginnis has called police
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investigators reached an interesting conclusion the photographer was five feet six
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inches tall the same height as virginia mcginnis and if virginia was the photographer
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why did she take what was perhaps the most incriminating photo of all a photograph of donna just before she was
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pushed over the cliff i think virginia wanted a souvenir i think virginia wanted to revisit the
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death of donna and enjoy it over and over again i think she believed that by having that picture she would have
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something that would arouse in her the same excitement and the same violation of rules that she had felt live on the
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cliff when donna died virginia had apparently picked donna as an ideal victim just as donna was separating from her
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husband virginia befriended her donna was vulnerable and an easy mark for an experienced con artist like
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virginia she was absolutely a perfect victim because she was young relatively uneducated
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unsophisticated far from her home her husband was far away from her impressionable
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she trusted everyone would not ask questions donna fell into a spider web and became
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what i guess you'd call today a target of opportunity 52-year-old b.j mcginnis
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never made it to court he died in prison while awaiting trial [Music] during virginia's trial
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the jury was taken to seal beach for three days court was held high above the beautiful
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pacific ocean on a windswept cliff where donna hartman had fallen to her death the trial lasted for three days
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the longest time a court had been in session at a suspected crime scene in american history
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jurors were asked to examine the cliff to determine for themselves whether virginia's story of an
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accidental fall made sense after a four-day deliberation juror said it didn't
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and virginia was found guilty of first degree murder she was sentenced to life in prison
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if you care enough to listen the forensic evidence spoke loud and clear as well as all the
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other evidence this was murder and that the victim deserved her day in court and she got it
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what it really got down to was putting the facts together in a scientific communicated fashion to a jury
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and they were able to make the decision based upon the totality of the facts without forensic science virginia
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mcginnis today would still be looking for victims she'd probably still be killing she would be burning houses and
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she would be collecting insurance with your premiums [Music] [Music] [Music] you