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NARRATOR: Are blades of
grass like a fingerprint or a snowflake, each one
different in some way?
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Police in the Bahamas thought
all grass was pretty much the same, until a forensic
botanist showed them
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that some grass is
better than others. [theme music] Just 120 miles off
the coast of Florida
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are the Bahamas, a
group of islands that are one of the world's
premier tourist destinations.
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It's particularly
popular with golfers, since the tropical climate
means they can play year-round.
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But in the fall of 1999,
the weather turned deadly. The islands were battered
by a tropical storm.
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The next morning, the
groundskeeper of the Emerald Golf Course found more than
downed trees and water damage.
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-We found out that there was a
female body on the golf course. She appeared to have
been there overnight.
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And it had been
raining for some time. NARRATOR: The victim's
throat had been slit,
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and a $1 bill had been
carefully placed on her body. CARLSON SHURLAND: To me, that
sent a very profound message.
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Because she was laying
out there naked. Her throat was slashed--
that's very graphic.
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And the only thing that was sort
of sitting there speaking to us was a $1 bill. NARRATOR: A few yards
away, investigators
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found the victim's
clothing, a woman's ring, and a used a condom. -There was the indication that
there was an attempt, at least
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an attempt, for the most
part, of a sexual assault. NARRATOR: Police couldn't
find the murder weapon,
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even though they
searched the entire golf course with a metal detector. The victim was identified as
19-year-old Samantha Forbes.
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A recent high school graduate,
who lived with her family just six miles away
from the golf course.
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-She was loving, kind. She never give me one
hard word one day yet. She was a beautiful person.
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Not a day goes by
that I don't miss her. NARRATOR: Samantha's
mother told investigators
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that Samantha left
home the night before with her friend,
Marjorie Saunders. The two went to a
local nightclub.
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-I took her up
there where I work. She reached there-- the minute
she reached there, a gentleman
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was there saying,
Samantha, how you doing? Would you like to have a drink? And she say, oh, yes, you know.
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And they sit down and they talk. NARRATOR: Marjorie and Samantha
met two men that night.
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Around midnight,
Samantha said she was leaving with them
to go to another bar. MARJORIE SAUNDERS:
She likes to party.
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Samantha likes to party. And she think it was a
little too early to go home. She wanted to go Freeport,
or different discos
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and finish enjoying her night. NARRATOR: Marjorie said
she tried to stop her. -So I said, Samantha, come.
Let me take you back home.
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She said, I'm going. So two guys, they left,
one holding each hand, and took her away.
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NARRATOR: Marjorie
told police she thought the two
men were sailors. If true, this was potentially
bad news for investigators.
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Ships come and go from
the island port quickly, and the sailors could
be long gone by now.
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And on an island where tourism
is the main source of revenue, the pressure to solve
the murder was enormous.
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-A young, attractive,
Bohemian lady laying on a golf course
with her throat slashed.
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Something is definitely
wrong about that. NARRATOR: The brutal
murder of Samantha Forbes
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shocked residents in the
resort town of Freeport in the Bahamas. Marjorie Saunders
was with Samantha
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on the night she was
killed, and blames herself for not doing more
to prevent it.
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MARJORIE SAUNDERS: She caught
a ride with two total strangers that I even didn't know.
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I feel like the whole world
came crashing down on me. And from Samantha's death,
upwards to this day,
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my life hasn't been the same. NARRATOR: The storm
that hit the Bahamas on the night of
Samantha's murder
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complicated the investigation. -We had a watery environment,
because it rained. So certainly,
evidence would be lost
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or destroyed just
simply by the water. NARRATOR: Potential
fingerprints, hair, and clothing fibers, to
the extent they existed,
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were all washed away from
Samantha's body in the storm. And the rains also removed
any biological evidence
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that may have been on
the condom found nearby. When Samantha's
murder was reported
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in the local newspaper,
a bartender on the island called with some
additional information.
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She said, Samantha came into
her bar with the two sailors. And at one point, she got into
an argument with one of them.
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-They exchanged some
harsh words, I understand. NARRATOR: The bartender said
one of Samantha's friends,
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Keith Lotmore, stepped
in to break it up. -It appears that Keith Lotmore,
because he knew Samantha,
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tried to calm her down. And told her not to worry about
that man, to leave him alone
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and not to answer him. And apparently she
stopped arguing with him. NARRATOR: After
the sailors left,
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Lotmore and his
friend, Dominique Moss, joined Samantha for a drink. -Mr. Lotmore knew Samantha.
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There was conversation that
went on and he invited, or she asked for a ride home.
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NARRATOR: And
witnesses saw Samantha leave the bar with both men. -Whenever a victim is
seen leaving with anyone
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and those persons,
or that person, is the last person to
be seen with the victim,
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automatically they will
be a prime suspect. NARRATOR: Lotmore
worked as a barber.
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Moss was an electrician. In separate interrogations,
they both told the same story.
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They said they had given
Samantha a ride home. And after dropping her
off, returned to the bar
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to pick up some food. The restaurant
employees confirmed that they did, in fact,
return afterwards.
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-He went into the
restaurant barefoot, I guess looking for the food
that he had ordered earlier
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for himself and had forgotten
to take it away when he left. NARRATOR: Police
inspected Lotmore's car
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and found no blood or any
other evidence of violence. And they also examined the
clothing Lotmore was wearing
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on the night
Samantha was killed. Investigators found no blood
or any signs of a struggle.
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Police then asked Dominique
Moss for his clothes. -When the police went to
retrieve the clothing that he
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was wearing on that
particular morning, he told the police
that he did not know-- he didn't even
remember what he was wearing.
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NARRATOR: So the
clothing appeared to be another dead end. With the help of Samantha's
friend, Marjorie,
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police tracked down the two
sailors who were with Samantha earlier on the night
she was killed.
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They admitted they had argued
with Samantha at the second bar they went to, but said they
left immediately afterwards
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and went back to their ship. Their alibi checked out. NARRATOR: For now, the mystery
surrounding the two sailors
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had been solved. But there were still
more questions to answer. Solving the murder
of Samantha Forbes
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had turned out to be
far more difficult than investigators
ever imagined. The rains had washed away
potential forensic evidence.
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And her body was found on
an exclusive golf course surrounded by large
expensive homes.
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-It was very shocking
to know that something like that had taken
place overnight.
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And the-- the
subdivision is a fairly upscale quiet subdivision. And to learn that something
like that had literally happened
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in their backyards was really
troubling for some residents. NARRATOR: Keith
Lotmore said he gave
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Samantha a ride home that night. But Samantha's family
said she never came home.
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Police found no forensic
evidence or anything suspicious in Lotmore's car
or on his clothing.
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And then, investigators
remembered something. During Samantha's autopsy,
the medical examiner
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noticed some botanical
evidence on her body, most likely from the golf
course where her body was found.
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ELBURT FERFUSON: We had
minute, tiny particles of fragments of grass. And these I would
describe in terms of size
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as less than a millimeter. NARRATOR: And investigators
found the same particles on Lotmore's shoes and socks.
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-On those two items
we discovered, lo and behold, grass particles. NARRATOR: Investigators needed
to know whether there was
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any way to tell if the grass
came from the same location. Under a high-powered microscope,
Ferguson analyzed the grass
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from Lotmore's shoes and
from Samantha's body. He soon realized this
wasn't typical grass.
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It was unusually thin, and had
other unique characteristics. -So when you look at them
under the stereoscope,
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they have a defined
venation, striations on the surface
that were parallel. And seeing those on the various
items of evidence, certainly
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pricked our curiosity. I felt that this was my
only physical evidence, so I needed to have
the grass botanically
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classified and identified. NARRATOR: To do that, Ferguson
asked Dr. Jane Bock, one
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of the world's most
respected forensic botanists, to conduct an analysis. She had a difficult task.
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Worldwide, there
are almost 9,000 different species of grass. In the Bahamas alone,
there are dozens.
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Under a microscope, Dr.
Bock compared grass samples from the crime scene and
from Lotmore's shoes.
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-One of the finest
grasses I've ever seen. It doesn't even approach
a millimeter in diameter.
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It's tiny, fine, fine grass. I've never seen
grass that fine here in Colorado, where I
spend a lot of time.
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Or in Arizona, where I
also spend a lot of time. NARRATOR: Eventually,
Dr. Bock was
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able to identify the grass
as a type of Bermuda grass. But it wasn't the usual
type of Bermuda grass.
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-If you look under
the microscope and you have three or
four kinds of grass, even
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different strains of Bermuda
grass, this one is outstanding. NARRATOR: It was a variety known
as Almond Bermuda, an unusually
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thin grass that thrives
in subtropical climates. DR. JANE BOCK:
Almond Bermuda grass
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is outstanding
because it's so fine. And it responds
well to rain, and it turns green upon being wet.
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And it turns brown in a
hurry if there's a drought. NARRATOR: Investigators thought
this was interesting, but not
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enough to make
their entire case. But then, they learned
something surprising. Almond Bermuda grass is
primarily used on golf courses.
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And of the three golf
courses on the Grand Island of the Bahamas, only one,
the Emerald Golf Course
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where Samantha Forbes'
body had been found, used Almond Bermuda grass. -The groundsman,
the information he
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give us was that this
particular strain of grass was unique to his
tees and fairways,
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and this was his
baby, so to speak. It was unique to him. And no other golf
course would-- would
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have had that particular strain. NARRATOR: The groundskeeper
planted Almond Bermuda grass,
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even though he knew
it wasn't durable and didn't do well on resort
courses with lots of play.
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He chose it because
it tends to do well on courses that
get a lot of rain. When analyzed, the grass samples
from the Emerald Golf Course,
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Samantha's body, and Keith
Lotmore's shoes were identical. DR. JANE BOCK: I think the
chance that Keith Lotmore could
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have gotten that grass from
somewhere else is slim to none. It wasn't that there was a
single blade and I said, aha!
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I had dozens and
dozens of specimens. And I had, of course,
collected stuff from where Samantha's body was
found and it was a tight fit.
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NARRATOR: When confronted
with the botanical evidence, Keith Lotmore admitted
he was on the golf course
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that night with Samantha Forbes,
but insisted that Dominique Moss was the one who had
raped and killed her.
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Not surprisingly, Moss
denied it and pointed the finger at Lotmore. So police arrested both men
and charged them with murder.
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But they still
weren't sure which man was telling the truth. Grass clippings found on Keith
Lotmore's shoes and socks
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placed him at the
very location where Samantha's body was discovered. When confronted
with this evidence,
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Lotmore admitted there
was more to what happened that night than he
had told them earlier.
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Lotmore said, he helped
Samantha end her argument with the two sailors in the bar.
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Afterwards, he and his
friend, Dominique Moss, joined Samantha for a drink. Lotmore said, Samantha
later accepted a ride home.
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Along the way,
Dominique Moss, who was sitting beside
Samantha, had been making unwanted
advances towards her.
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Moss suggested they stop the
car along the golf course so he and Samantha could go
for a walk on the course alone.
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An idea that Samantha
wanted no part of. As soon as the car
stopped, Samantha got out and made a run for it.
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She ran across the golf
course with Moss in pursuit. Lotmore said he ran
down the fairway
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to try to stop Moss, which
is how he got the grass clippings on his
shoes and socks.
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But Moss had a knife
and he threatened to kill Lotmore
if he intervened. So Lotmore said he backed off.
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Moss sexually
assaulted Samantha. Then killed her with his knife. Afterwards, he left the
$1 bill on her body.
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-Dominique Moss is the
coldest son-of-a-bitch I ever met in my life. -The grass that was found on
Keith Lotmore's tennis shoes
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and socks substantiated
Keith Lotmore's story that, yes, I was there. Yes, I went behind
Dominique Moss
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to try to stop him
from hurting Samantha. But I was not
successful in doing so. NARRATOR: Forensic scientists
analyzed Lotmore's clothing
00:17:38
more carefully and confirmed
there was no blood spatter, grass, or grass stains
on his pants or shirt.
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This confirmed his story
that he wasn't near Samantha during the assault
or the murder.
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DR. JANE BOCK: I found
the grass on Keith's shoes and on his socks. But not on his shorts and not
on his shirt, which indicated
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to the prosecution, and
to the defense both, that, in fact, he
had not raped her.
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And he had probably
not been on the ground and slit her throat, either. -Lotmore was standing.
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He was never kneeling down. NARRATOR: Not surprisingly,
Dominique Moss denied he was the killer
and blamed Lotmore.
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Nevertheless, both men went on
trial for Samantha's murder. And it was Moss'
girlfriend who delivered
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the most damaging testimony. She said she washed
Moss' clothes on the night of the murder.
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And did so for a reason. -Dominique's girlfriend
was very powerful. Her evidence was very powerful
against-- against Dominique.
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She talked about him
coming home drunk. She talked about blood
being on his warm-up suit.
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She talked about him saying
that someone got killed. -She was able to tell
us Dominique Moss
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was acting strangely
when he came home. She was able to tell us
that, in her estimation,
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he was intoxicated. She was able also to tell
us that he said to her, the girl is dead.
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NARRATOR: Dominique Moss
was convicted of the rape and murder of Samantha
Forbes and sentenced
00:19:29
to 25 years in prison. Based on the forensic
evidence, the jury concluded Keith Lotmore was
not an active participant
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in the rape and murder,
although he was present. So the jury convicted
him only of manslaughter.
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And he was sentenced to
three years in prison. Samantha's family
has tried to move on.
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They say they're grateful for
the seemingly insignificant clue, the tiny
grass shavings which
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brought her killer to justice. LILLA FORBES: Though
he killed my baby, but I don't got no hard
feelings against him,
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because the law-- I
believe, the prosecutor did what she's supposed to do. -The strain of grass that was
used on that particular golf
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course was extremely rare. Extremely rare. It is not something
that you see every day.
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-I believe that forensic
evidence was very important in this case, in the sense of
linking victim and-- victim
00:20:43
and suspect together, and at a
specific geographic location. -Fortunately, they
were in an environment
00:20:50
where trace evidence
became available through those minute
particles of grass. That's what stands
out in my mind.
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Grass.
The grass was greener. [theme music]