00:00:05
NARRATOR: Residents
of Noel, Missouri, were stunned to learn that
their local bank had been robbed
00:00:12
and its president was missing. Investigators the searched
a three-state area for possible clues.
00:00:20
On the bank of the
lake outside of town, a fisherman found a
used piece of tape.
00:00:26
Had he thrown it away,
all hopes of solving the case would have vanished. [theme music]
00:01:01
Because of its spelling,
the town of Noel, Missouri, is known as the Christmas City.
00:01:07
And one October
morning, Christmas came early for someone in town. A bank employee
arriving for work
00:01:16
found the front door unlocked
and the vault wide open. CHIEF RICHARDSON: A
bank robbery in Noel
00:01:22
was just the last thing that
people would be thinking about. It's nothing like you
would see a large city.
00:01:30
NARRATOR: Bank officials
discovered more than $71,000 was missing. The robbers also
managed to haul away
00:01:38
over $4,000 in wrapped coins. On the floor of the
bank, police found two spent .45 caliber shell
casings left when the robber
00:01:48
shot the lens of
the security camera. The area was dusted
for fingerprints but none were found.
00:01:57
F. LADELL FARLEY: It was pretty
obvious the perpetrators had been careful, either wearing
gloves or just very careful
00:02:03
not to leave or touch any
portion of the bank that would leave a good fingerprint.
00:02:10
NARRATOR: Only three employees
could open the vault. One was Dan Short,
the bank president.
00:02:16
GERALD ELKINS: He was the one
that had the access to both the bank front
door and the vault.
00:02:21
It just be an obvious conclusion
in some people's minds that he might have had
something to do with it.
00:02:27
NARRATOR: 51-year-old Dan Short
was well-liked and respected, but he had recently experienced
some personal problems.
00:02:35
F. LADELL FARLEY:
Dan Short's wife had left some 16 months prior
to the time of the crime.
00:02:41
He did seem to be
restless and uneasy. Unsatisfied with way his
life was going at that time,
00:02:53
perhaps drinking too much. NARRATOR: Investigators
couldn't locate Dan Short. And his pickup truck was
missing from his home.
00:03:03
CHIEF RICHARDSON: There
was an area where it looked like that the
contents of his pickup
00:03:07
had just been swept
out onto the ground. NARRATOR: It appeared
he had left in a hurry.
00:03:14
A wastebasket was overturned,
dresser drawers were left open, and Dan's glasses were
still on the bureau.
00:03:21
LOU KEELING: That would appear
that there had been a struggle, because he never went
anywhere without his glasses.
00:03:27
NARRATOR: And there was
another sign that Short may not have been a willing participant.
00:03:32
As president, Dan Short was
aware of a hidden compartment in the bank vault that held
an additional $100,000,
00:03:41
but it hadn't been touched. Police and volunteers
searched the area for clues. -We checked every ravine,
every canyon, all the woods
00:03:53
and buildings, and everything
that was out there. NARRATOR: A few
hours later, police
00:03:58
found Dan Short's truck
two miles outside of town. Loose coins were
scattered around it.
00:04:05
CHIEF RICHARDSON: We now
have to wonder, well, how did he get somewhere else? There has to be
a second vehicle.
00:04:11
There has to be
some other people who have removed him from there. NARRATOR: Investigators
had no money, no witnesses,
00:04:20
no forensic evidence,
and no sign of Dan Short, meaning the perpetrators
were either smart or lucky.
00:04:32
It didn't take long for news
of the bank robbery to spread, since Noel only had
about 1,000 residents.
00:04:40
GERALD ELKINS:
Everybody was shocked. That's all you could hear
talked about at the cafes.
00:04:44
People were bunched
up in little groups along the street
talking about it. NARRATOR: Five days after the
robbery, a fisherman on Grand
00:04:53
Lake, 21 miles
outside of town, saw a body floating in the water. It was Dan Short,
the bank president.
00:05:05
He had been tied to a
chair with duct tape, a cement block and
a chain hoist had
00:05:11
been attached to weigh it down. But it wasn't enough to
overcome the buoyancy caused by the body gases.
00:05:19
-We now have the
ultimate of crimes. We have the taking
of human life. Mr. Short would have
gladly given all
00:05:25
the money in the bank, and
traded it for his life. But these individuals were
not content with that.
00:05:34
NARRATOR: The medical examiner
found water in Short's lungs, meaning he was alive when
thrown into the lake.
00:05:42
-The general consensus was
that the people who committed this crime were just really,
really cruel, ugly bad people.
00:05:52
NARRATOR: The taped used
to bind Short to the chair was sent to the
FBI for analysis.
00:05:58
Robert Webb used heat to
carefully separate each piece. Next, all of the
pieces were tested
00:06:08
to see if they came
from the same roll. ROBERT WEBB: The infrared
spectrophotometer
00:06:13
tells the chemical
composition of the sticky glue in the duct tape, the fibers,
and the plastic backing.
00:06:24
It tells me what kind of
material it's made up of. NARRATOR: Tests revealed
every piece of tape
00:06:31
was the same brand. The next step was like a puzzle,
as Webb tried to piece together
00:06:39
the entire 60-yard
roll using what is known as end match analysis. ROBERT WEBB: The
pieces of duct tape
00:06:47
were torn off the roll in all
kinds of different lengths, from a very short six,
seven inches long, to two
00:06:56
and three feet long or more. Starting from the very first
piece of tape that was torn off
00:07:02
the roll, I was able to
tell the first piece of tape came from the left wrist. The second piece of tape
came from the right risks.
00:07:12
The third piece
came from the mouth. Then longer pieces of tape
were torn off and wrapped
00:07:19
around his chest,
around his forearms, around his legs and thighs. I was able to read
full pieces of tape,
00:07:30
and tell where every piece was
applied, and in what order, so that he had no
chance of getting away.
00:07:37
NARRATOR: But there
was one piece missing. ROBERT WEBB: One
piece of duct tape separated from all these other
pieces when it was in the lake
00:07:49
and floated away. NARRATOR: Investigators wondered
where this piece of tape got to, and why it was
missing from the chair.
00:08:02
News of Dan Short's murder
generated numerous calls from concerned citizens. Someone reported seeing
a brown van parked
00:08:12
on the bridge over Grand Lake on
the night of the bank robbery. Another caller overheard
two brothers, Joe
00:08:20
and Shannon Agofsky,
talking about money. GERALD ELKINS: From what I've
heard of Shannon Agofsky,
00:08:26
his bragging about being
the richest teenager in the county or
something like that--
00:08:31
-In fact, they owned
.45 caliber firearms. They allowed the FBI agent
to test fire those guns,
00:08:39
and the casings were matched
with the casings in the bank, and were found not
to be the guns.
00:08:46
NARRATOR: The Agofsky's
family members said, the boys were home on the
night of the robbery.
00:08:50
F. LADELL FARLEY:
They were eliminated after being interviewed,
and seemed cooperative,
00:08:54
and had plausible alibis. NARRATOR: Police also learned
that two convicted felons,
00:09:01
Billy Ray Hankins and
Larry Wayne Hankins were living in Noel at the time,
but they both had solid alibis.
00:09:08
F. LADELL FARLEY: They
had robbed several banks. And had never abducted
anyone in the process,
00:09:15
but robbed banks, and
all kind of stuff. But their mother testified
for them as an alibi.
00:09:21
NARRATOR: Police
also questioned Dan Short's estranged wife, Joyce. CHIEF RICHARDSON: Anytime
you have an estranged family
00:09:29
like this, and one
of the individuals ends up missing or
harmed, you know, one of the people you have
to look at is his wife.
00:09:37
NARRATOR: Joyce said she
knew nothing about the crime and willingly agreed to
take a polygraph test.
00:09:43
She passed. Two different
television programs profiled the case asking
viewers with information
00:09:50
to contact police. Gerald Elkins played
the role of Dan Short in the
televised recreations.
00:10:00
GERALD ELKINS: They actually
held me over the bridge, and every time they
started holding me over,
00:10:04
I grabbed the railing. And they said, Gerald, you
have to let go the railing, and we want you to act scared.
00:10:09
And I said, well, that
won't be any problem, because I was scared. NARRATOR: The programs
generated hundreds of tips,
00:10:17
but none proved helpful. Investigators needed
forensic evidence, because without it, the
trail of the killers
00:10:26
was turning cold fast. With so little crime
in Noel, Missouri, the discovery of Dan
Short's body in Grand Lake
00:10:39
took almost everyone
in town by surprise. ROWDY FOREMAN: My little boy
came home from school one day
00:10:45
and said, dad, they've got
the bridge blocked off. There's cops everywhere. And so I look outside,
and sure enough, they
00:10:51
had the bridge blocked
off investigating. And I stood out on
the deck of my porch,
00:10:57
and watched all the activities. NARRATOR: When
police left the area, Rowdy Foreman did a little
investigating of his own.
00:11:09
ROWDY FOREMAN: Curiosity
got the best of me. We went back down
to the shoreline.
00:11:14
We walked from east
to west of the bank. We come to this one
single dock, fishing dock,
00:11:25
and there was a strand of
duct tape, which appeared to be turned halfway inside out.
00:11:33
NARRATOR: Was this the
missing piece of duct tape investigators were looking for?
00:11:39
Foreman knew not to touch
the tape with his fingers, so he placed it into
a bag with a stick.
00:11:45
F. LADELL FARLEY: When Mr.
Foreman walked into my office that day with that
piece of tape,
00:11:51
it was too good to be true. -First words that came out
of his mouth, oh, my god.
00:11:59
F. LADELL FARLEY: There were
two, if not three latent fingerprints in this
greasy, rusty residue.
00:12:05
-The gentleman, he said, Jesus! Jesus, can't believe it! NARRATOR: Investigators
analyzed the tape
00:12:13
to see if it was the
one missing piece. ROBERT WEBB: I was conclusively
able to match that piece
00:12:22
of duct tape by end-matching
to the reconstructed roll of duct tape associated
with the chair,
00:12:30
and the chain, and
the cinder block. NARRATOR: This was crucial,
because without proof the tape
00:12:36
was from the same roll, the
fingerprints meant nothing. FBI fingerprint
examiner, Russell Davey
00:12:45
could tell how the prints
were left on the tape. RUSSELL DAVEY: By
grabbing the tape
00:12:51
and pulling away from
the roll, as can be seen, by tearing it away. And then, there would be prints
present on the end of the tape.
00:13:09
NARRATOR: The fingerprints we're
compared to those in the FBI database of past
criminal offenders,
00:13:15
and there was no match. Several months later, there
were rumors that two brothers,
00:13:21
18-year-old Shannon Agofsky and
his 23-year-old brother, Joe , we're spending large
amounts of money despite
00:13:28
the fact that they
were unemployed. Both had been suspects early
on in the investigation,
00:13:33
but had been cleared. RICHARD MONROE: Joseph
Agofsky paid for a trip to Disneyland for his honeymoon.
00:13:40
He paid for a wedding ring. He paid to have a
chainsaw souped up. -Something in in the
neighborhood of $45,000
00:13:51
by both brothers a
after the months-- or during the months following
their robbery and murder.
00:13:58
NARRATOR: And the witness
identified the chain hoist found with Dan Short's
body as the one
00:14:04
he left at the Agofsky's home. F. LADELL FARLEY:
So the chain hoist led us back to the Adofskys.
00:14:10
At that point, we focused
on the two brothers believing that they
at least had knowledge
00:14:17
of who the perpetrators were. Or they were, in fact,
involved themselves. At that point, we didn't
know which might be the case.
00:14:26
NARRATOR: And there was
another coincidence. The Agofsky's mother
owned a brown van
00:14:31
similar to the one a witness
saw on the Grand Lake bridge on the night of the murder.
00:14:38
And another man told police
that he saw the Agofskys wiping their bullets
clean before loading
00:14:44
them into their guns. This occurred several
days before the robbery. MICHAEL JONES: And their
explanation for doing so
00:14:52
was that if they ever got caught
doing whatever they were going to do with the firearms
and the ammunition,
00:14:59
they wouldn't find
fingerprints of theirs. NARRATOR: Was it possible that
a pair of robbers careful enough
00:15:06
to remove their fingerprints
from bullet casings were careless enough to leave
them on the piece of tape?
00:15:18
The prime suspects in the bank
robbery and murder of Dan Short were two brothers, Joe
and Shannon Agofsky.
00:15:27
There was no forensic
evidence found at the bank, but investigators found
two fingerprints on a piece
00:15:33
of duct tape recovered at the
lake where Short was murdered. When asked, Joe
Agofsky willingly
00:15:41
agreed to provide
his fingerprints. His brother refused. F. LADELL FARLEY:
I had difficulty
00:15:46
in obtaining those of Shannon. I talked to him several
times, and for one reason
00:15:51
or the other, he
couldn't provide them or would not provide
them at that time. -When Joseph Agofsky's prints
were received for comparison,
00:16:00
I compared the latent
prints on the tape from the shoreline with his. And they were very, very close,
but they were not identical.
00:16:13
I said if this Joseph
Agofsky had a brother, it would be interesting
to see his prints,
00:16:20
because they are so close. NARRATOR: With this information,
the FBI requested and received
00:16:27
a court order for
Shannon's fingerprints. RUSSELL DAVEY: There was
more than adequate number
00:16:33
of ridge characteristics for
me come to the conclusion that these prints
from the tape were,
00:16:40
indeed, left by the index and
middle fingers Shannon Agofsky. -A suspect put his mark
on one piece of duct tape.
00:16:53
And that one piece of
duct tape was positively associated with an
entire roll of duct tape
00:16:59
that had been applied
to a deceased person. So the suspect could not deny
he was involved in the case.
00:17:13
NARRATOR: Prosecutors
believe the Agofskys waited until Dan Short's
dinner guest left
00:17:19
that evening, then abducted him. At the bank, Short
opened the vault, but didn't tell them about
the secret compartment,
00:17:33
which held an
additional $100,000. Afterwards, the brothers
abandoned Dan's truck,
00:17:45
then tied him to a chair
they had prepared beforehand with the cinder block and
chains already attached.
00:17:53
The evidence shows the brothers
used all 60 yards of duct tape. And Shannon inadvertently
left his fingerprints
00:18:01
on the piece of
tape used to secure Dan's ankles to the chair. At Grand Lake,
the brothers threw
00:18:19
Dan Short over the
side of the bridge. When they threw
Short into the lake, one of the chair's
spindles broke,
00:18:29
releasing the piece of
duct tape from his ankle. The lake's current carried
this single piece of tape
00:18:37
with Shannon
Agofsky's fingerprints to the shore on the
opposite side of the lake,
00:18:42
where it was
discovered five days later by a citizen volunteer. -The evidence, the duct
tape, the fingerprints
00:18:49
on the duct tape--
sometimes I just wonder what would have
happened if nobody found it.
00:18:58
-It would be kind of
surprising in a way that something that
had been underwater
00:19:05
would have prints
on it that long. -Knowing that Dan Short was
alive before he was thrown
00:19:10
over, and the callousness of
the Agofsky brothers in sending that man to his
death in that manner,
00:19:18
has to stand out as the thing
that I remember to this day. NARRATOR: Three years after the
crime, Joe and Shannon Agofsky
00:19:31
were tried and convicted of
the bank robbery charges. Both were sentenced
to life in prison.
00:19:40
The brothers next court date
was for Dan Short's murder. By all accounts, the jury
was mesmerized by the amount
00:19:50
of information
Robert Webb gleaned from the pieces of duct tape. -I had an opportunity to
take the reconstructed roll
00:19:58
of duct tape, string it all out
in front of the judge and jury and walk down the whole role
of tape, and tell the jury,
00:20:08
and show the jury, the first
piece that was ripped off went on an arm, and so forth.
00:20:15
And tell the story all the
way down the full length of the tape. NARRATOR: Shannon Agofsky was
convicted of Dan Short's murder
00:20:23
and sentenced to an additional
life term in prison. Joe Agofsky's case
ended in a mistrial.
00:20:31
Prosecutors chose not to retry
him, since he was already serving a life sentence
for the robbery.
00:20:38
F. LADELL FARLEY: Without the
forensic evidence in this case, we would probably not have
identified the Agofskys much
00:20:45
less prove the
case against them. -The fact they used duct tape
may, in fact, have been one
00:20:51
of the things they did they
wished they had not done. -It tells me the sequence
of events at the scene.
00:21:00
Even though I wasn't
there, the evidence was. [theme music]