00:00:05
-Just after dark
on a warm summer evening, five children were
walking home along this road.
00:00:17
Suddenly, out of
nowhere, a pickup truck headed towards them. [honking] [screaming]
00:00:24
-Three of the children were hit. One was killed. The driver sped away. Investigators called on
state-of-the-art science
00:00:33
to reconstruct the crime
in hopes of learning how the accident happened and
the identity of the driver.
00:01:16
-Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, is one of America's most
popular resort towns. The beach and
sunny weather bring
00:01:23
in almost 7 million
tourists each year. And the city is also
home to 1 and 1/2 million full-time residents.
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The Walker family settled
into this working class neighborhood, one
they believed was
00:01:39
safe from crime and violence. The Walkers youngest
child, six-year-old Nicole, loved the neighborhood because
of the large number of children
00:01:48
who all played together. -She didn't like to smile. She used to tell people,
I don't know how to smile.
00:01:54
You'd tickle her and
say, see, you can smile. It'd always be a cockeyed smile. Her glasses would
always be cockeyed.
00:02:00
So I used to call her my
kooky cockeyed little one. -Just after dark
on June 23, 1992,
00:02:07
Nicole Walker was
walking home with four other neighborhood children. It was just after a rainstorm,
and they were walking along
00:02:16
the side of this road where
there are no sidewalks. When they got to the front
of this apartment building,
00:02:23
there was a large puddle of
water left from the rainstorm. Michelle and Gina Vitello were
walking with Nicole that night.
00:02:31
They were 10 years
old at the time. -I'm walking in the street,
and there's a big puddle,
00:02:38
so we wanted to go
through it so that we don't have to be in the street. And Nicole didn't want to walk
through it because she didn't
00:02:44
want to get sick because
she had no shoes on. So Michelle picked
her up, and we started walking
through the puddle.
00:02:50
-As we were walking
in this puddle, I had Nicole in my hands. Everybody was telling
me to watch out.
00:02:59
And that was about
all I remember. -And I see this car,
this big-- a bunch of lights just coming
straight at us.
00:03:08
And I just yell, watch out! -By the time they saw the
vehicle, it was too late. Nicole Walker and Michelle
Vitello were both hit.
00:03:20
-I went over to check on Nicole,
and I seen blood coming out of her mouth and
her ears, and I--
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I knew she wasn't
going to make it. -One of the kids ran
to Nicole's home. SUZANNE WALKER: There was
the knock at the door,
00:03:32
and it was Joel. There was no color in
his face, and his eyes were so bugged out of his head.
00:03:39
He was just-- you could see
the terror, the fright, just saying, the girls were all hit.
00:03:44
The girls were all hit. -The children were
rushed to the hospital. Michelle suffered
a broken leg, two
00:03:52
broken wrists, and
a lacerated liver. Nine-year-old Brooke Mansey
suffered a fractured shoulder
00:03:59
and facial injuries that
required a dozen stitches. Six-year-old Nicole died shortly
after arriving at the hospital.
00:04:09
-Some internal surgeons came
in, and the conclusion was, no, she-- that she
doesn't have a chance.
00:04:16
And I begged and pleaded
even for 1% chance, and they told me, no.
There's no chance.
00:04:24
-Nicole died of severe
trauma to the head and massive internal injuries. A witness said it was a man
driving a green pickup truck
00:04:33
with a white camper top
which sped away quickly, ran this red light, and disappeared.
00:04:40
MICHELLE VITELLO:
I VITELLO: was just wondering why-- how can
somebody, like, just hit people
00:04:45
and just keep going
without even caring, like, what was going to happen
to them and just left
00:04:51
us-- just left us
to die and-- it's just a-- just-- scary feeling. I didn't know if they were ever
going to find them or what.
00:05:03
-Investigators were hoping
that science could identify the pickup truck and the driver.
00:05:15
-How could you hit five
little kids and keep on going? -Suzanne Walker was
grief-stricken and angry
00:05:23
over the death of
her daughter Nicole. -How could you do that? How could anybody hit
kids and keep on going?
00:05:30
Just to know you laid them flat
out in the middle of a road and by-- you had to know.
00:05:36
-Detective Bruce Babcock,
a member of an elite team of accident reconstructionists,
was called to the scene.
00:05:47
Just before the
accident, witnesses said a green truck swerved
off the road, knocking
00:05:52
over some trash cans, then
stopped in a nearby cul de sac. A few minutes later, the
truck started up again,
00:06:04
heading back out
of the neighborhood on the same road on
Southwest 33rd Avenue. As it approached the
apartment building,
00:06:15
it veered off the
road into the puddle, hitting three of
the five children, killing six-year-old
Nicole Walker.
00:06:26
Witnesses said the
truck picked up speed after fleeing
the accident. Bruce Babcock took
detailed measurements
00:06:35
of the accident scene
and photographs. DET. BRUCE BABCOCK: When
we got to the scene,
00:06:41
the grill piece has been
found, uh, in the puddle by a citizen, who
later gave it to one
00:06:49
of the initially
responding deputies. Uh, there was also a piece of
clothing that, uh, from Nicole
00:06:54
that we found in
the puddle itself. -The grill was unique. It had come from
special edition 1980
00:07:02
Chevrolet Silverado
pickup truck. Babcock also found
pieces of plastic from the front turn
signal lens of the truck.
00:07:12
Forensic chemist Bruce Ayala
hoped that Nicole's clothing would contain vital evidence.
00:07:19
BRUCE AYALA: The first area
of interest in my analysis was to examine the
victim's clothing,
00:07:23
because many times in
hit and run accidents where pedestrians
are involved, there
00:07:27
is paint transferred from
the front end of the vehicle to the victim's clothing.
00:07:31
-Ayala did find paint
on Nicole's clothing. Under a microscope, he
discovered that the chips
00:07:38
actually contained six
different layers of paint, but the outer layer of paint
was blue and not green,
00:07:46
as the witnesses had indicated. The grill left at the scene
matched the pattern injury
00:07:52
on the back of
six-year-old Nicole Walker, and the head injury on
the back of her head
00:07:58
indicated that Nicole's
head most likely hit the hood portion
of the truck. Investigators now changed
the description of the truck
00:08:08
and notified the public to be
on the lookout for a blue 1980 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck
with possible front end damage.
00:08:17
KENNETH PADOWITZ: And in
essence, there was a man hunt in an attempt to look
for this vehicle,
00:08:23
because the investigators
knew that if they found this vehicle, there was a great
likelihood that they would be
00:08:29
able to determine who was
the driver of this truck and responsible
for Nicole's death.
00:08:35
-News reports of the
hit and run accident outraged the community. Detectives searched
all over Florida
00:08:43
for the blue Silverado
pickup truck. Three weeks went by, then an
anonymous caller told police
00:08:51
that a blue Silverado pickup
truck was in a driveway about 20 miles from
the accident scene.
00:08:58
KENNETH PADOWITZ: This
deputy arrived at the home, got out of his
vehicle, and noticed
00:09:03
as he was walking
towards the front door that there was a truck-- a blue
Silverado pickup truck-- that
00:09:11
was surrounded by
other vehicles. -A washing machine had been
placed in front of the truck,
00:09:18
obscuring its front end. The truck did not have the white
camper top witnesses described.
00:09:25
The front grill was
intact, although it was not the original one, and the front
turn signal lens was broken.
00:09:34
In addition, the
tires did not match tire impressions from
the accident scene. The truck was registered to a
Kathryn Pierce, whose husband,
00:09:45
52-year-old Ken Pierce, had a
prior history of driving while under the influence of alcohol.
00:09:52
One of the victims thought
the driver was a man, but couldn't identify Ken Pierce
as the driver of the vehicle.
00:09:59
-The truck was just
speeding at us. All I can remember
is a bright light. Just bright lights
coming straight at us.
00:10:08
It was-- I was so
confused about the whole-- just the whole thing. Just not even remember
getting hit or nothing.
00:10:18
It's just weird. Weird thing. -Investigators faced two
difficult tasks, first, trying to prove that this
was the truck involved
00:10:28
in the accident, and
second, to figure out who was driving the truck. KENNETH PADOWITZ: The
problem for us was developing
00:10:36
the evidence that was going
to be needed to show who, in fact, was the driver of
this truck, who veered off
00:10:42
that roadway and hit Nicole
Rae Walker that night and veered back on
and didn't stop.
00:10:49
That was going to
be the challenge. -It was now three weeks after
the hit and run death of Nicole
00:10:57
Rae Walker, and
police had the truck they believed was
involved in the accident.
00:11:03
But there were problems with
making a definitive match. If this was the truck
in the accident,
00:11:09
it had been altered some
time after the accident with different tires,
repairs to the front grill,
00:11:16
and the truck did not
have the white camper top witnesses clearly
recalled seeing.
00:11:21
There were no fingerprints
inside the compartment of the truck, which
was extremely unusual.
00:11:28
It appeared that the
inside compartment had been wiped clean. District Attorney Ken Padowitz
kept a picture of Nicole Walker
00:11:37
on his desk, a sign of his
determination to find out what exactly happened on the
night of the accident.
00:11:45
So he turned to a new
state-of-the-art scientific tool, forensic examination,
which can create
00:11:52
a virtual rendering
of an accident. -The best way to understand the
concept of forensic animation
00:11:59
or reconstruction would be
to understand that what we're trying to do is visualize the
opinions of other experts.
00:12:06
-All of the information
gathered at the crash site by accident reconstructionist
Bruce Babcock
00:12:12
was taken into
account, the horizontal and vertical measurements
of 2,000 feet of roadway,
00:12:18
the eyewitness accounts,
the weather conditions, and the injuries
sustained by the victims.
00:12:26
The mechanical specifications
of the 1980 Chevrolet Silverado were also programmed
into the computer.
00:12:34
They also calculated the
approximate tire pressure and the height and
weight of their suspect,
00:12:40
Ken Pierce, who was 5 foot 11
inches tall and 210 pounds. All would affect the
height of the truck
00:12:49
as it traveled down the street
before striking the children. The speed was uncertain, so
they estimated the truck was
00:12:58
traveling 30 miles
per hour, the posted speed limit on that road. Michelle Vitello was carrying
six-year-old Nicole Walker
00:13:07
on her right hip at
the time of impact. When the animators
programmed this information,
00:13:14
they made a startling discovery. The front grill of
Kenneth Pierce's truck would have struck Nicole
Walker in the back
00:13:23
at the exact same place
and at the same 22 degree angle reported by the
forensic pathologist
00:13:30
at Nicole's autopsy. JACK SUCHOCKI: We then took
an angle of Nicole's spine to the vertical,
the height of Nicole
00:13:37
from the roadway or the ground. And suddenly, it was at that
point we discovered that we
00:13:42
could match these bruising
marks and contusions to actual elements on the front
of the truck, a real revelation
00:13:48
to us, and certainly
something that could become very
crucial in the case. -When the animation
was complete,
00:13:55
it consisted of three different
views, an overhead perspective, providing a bird's eye view
of what happened; another
00:14:04
from inside the vehicle,
which would have been the view of the alleged
driver, Kenneth Pierce.
00:14:10
From this vantage point, you
can see that Nicole's head would have hit the front
hood of the truck,
00:14:16
causing her fatal head injury. The third view, a
so-called chase view, was from behind the truck.
00:14:26
For further proof, investigators
turned to the paint chip found on Nicole's shirt at the
time of the accident.
00:14:34
The paint chip was
blue, but there were five other layers
of paint underneath. Forensic chemist Bruce Ayala
ground the paint sample
00:14:44
in a pestle, then analyzed it
using infrared spectroscopy, which uses infrared light to
identify the chemical makeup.
00:14:54
The results were charted
onto a computer graph. BRUCE AYALA: They were six
different layers of paint.
00:15:00
There was blue metallic
present, blue non-metallic, gray body filler. Then there was a blue metallic
factory paint, a white factory
00:15:08
primer, and a black
factory primer. Uh, subsequently, when we
examined the suspect's vehicle,
00:15:15
we found that all
six of those layers were present on his vehicle. -And, finally, the plastic
particles found at the crime
00:15:22
scene were the same
in color and materials as the broken turn
signal on Pierce's truck.
00:15:30
Although there were
no fingerprints found in the compartment of the
truck, Kenneth Pierce's is
00:15:35
partial thumb print
was found on a can on the floor of the vehicle. 52-year-old Kenneth Pierce
was arrested and charged
00:15:46
with vehicular homicide in
the death of Nicole Walker. [honking] [screaming] -The forensic animation
showed clearly
00:16:05
that the driver would
have known he had hit the children at the
time of the accident.
00:16:10
Before the trial, Ken
Pierce's neighbor Terry Jones came forward and told police
that Pierce admitted driving
00:16:19
the truck on the
night of the accident. DET. BRUCE BABCOCK: Mr. Jones told
us that Ken Pierce had contacted
00:16:26
him and requested that, uh,
he come over and help fix the damage to the
front of the vehicle.
00:16:33
Uh, he also, uh, uh,
received a camper top that had been taken
off the vehicle. Uh, the camper top
was worth about $500,
00:16:43
and Mr. pierce gave
it to him for the work that he did on the car. -Kenneth Pierce had a number of
prior arrests and convictions.
00:16:50
KENNETH PADOWITZ: It
should be somewhat significant to-- to find out
that, in addition to 20 arrests
00:16:59
and convictions for felonies
and misdemeanors in Mr. Pierce's life, he had two prior
hit and run convictions.
00:17:07
-At the trial,
prosecutors wanted to introduce the forensic
animation to show the jury
00:17:13
their version of what happened
on the night of the accident. Defense lawyers claimed that
the animation was nothing more
00:17:21
than speculation and
would prejudice the jury. Prosecutors said
the animation was
00:17:27
a factual account
of the accident. The judge ruled that
the forensic animation was admissible.
00:17:38
It showed that the blue
Silverado truck traveling north on 33rd Avenue
drove off the road
00:17:45
and struck some trash cans. After the vehicle stopped
briefly in the cul de sac,
00:17:51
it then turned around and
headed south on 33rd Avenue. As it approached the
intersection of Griffin Avenue
00:17:59
in front of the
apartment building, the drug veered off the
road into the puddle
00:18:04
and hit the children. [honking] [screaming] The front grill of the truck
struck six-year-old Nicole
00:18:12
Walker in the back
at a 22 degree angle, leaving this deep bruise
at the moment of impact.
00:18:20
The truck made a right turn onto
Griffin Avenue and sped off. The computer animation
constructed exactly to scale
00:18:28
shows that it was a
truck the same height as the Chevrolet Silverado that
was involved in the accident.
00:18:36
DET. BRUCE BABCOCK: There was,
uh, no reason for him not to have known that
it was, in fact, children
00:18:40
that he struck. In fact, witnesses said that
he accelerated from the scene as he fled.
00:18:45
-Every single one
of those jurors had their eyes glued to
that television screen.
00:18:52
And I can say, as I
studied them and watched them view that
computer animation, that I had every single moment
of their attention captured
00:19:02
for that brief period of time. -At the moment of
impact, paint chips were also deposited on Nicole's
clothing, paint chips which
00:19:12
were later matched to
Mr. Pierce's truck. -And about front
end damage to a 1980 Chevrolet Silverado
pickup truck.
00:19:19
He hired Terry Jones. He hired Terry Jones to fix
the front of that truck. -In addition to the
scientific evidence,
00:19:26
jurors heard testimony that
Ken Pierce made efforts to conceal damage to the
truck after the accident
00:19:33
and confided to one person
that he was driving the truck. Just weeks after what would
have been Nicole Walker's
00:19:41
seventh birthday, jurors
delivered a verdict. JUROR: The defendant is
guilty of vehicular homicide,
00:19:50
leaving the scene of
an accident with death as charged in the information. So say we all--
00:19:57
-Because of Mr. Pierce's
prior convictions, he was sentenced to
40 years in prison.
00:20:03
SUZANNE WALKER: I'm
very glad about that. This man had seven priors
in the state of Florida.
00:20:09
He never once ever
admitted to what he did. He's got so many
priors back to 1952.
00:20:20
And I'm sorry. I don't want this
man in our society. -This case was the first time
forensic animation had been
00:20:28
admitted into evidence
in a Florida court and only the third time
in the United States.
00:20:36
-Trial lawyers, whether they
be criminal, prosecutors, or defense attorneys,
or civil lawyers,
00:20:43
now have an opportunity to use
dynamic new form of evidence to educate jurors about
issues that are before them
00:20:53
in courts all over this country. -But for the victims, Kenneth
Pierce's behavior that night
00:21:01
still raises questions for
which there are few answers. SUZANNE WALKER: Why
didn't you stop?
00:21:09
Why didn't you stop? Why did you just hit
kids, plow into them, leave them there to die in a
puddle, and just keep on going?
00:21:20
Just, you know, that's
the biggest thing. Why? Why not just stop? -Well, this case involved
the death of a little girl.
00:21:29
And I became
determined to ensure that justice was done for her. And Nicole Rae Walker's family
blew up, uh, a photograph
00:21:41
of their daughter and had a
tear painted on her cheek. And they presented
Detective Babcock and myself
00:21:48
with a copy of this picture,
and I have that picture in my office, and it sits there.
00:21:54
And I view it every day because
that photograph reminds me that justice can still be had
in the criminal justice system.
00:22:05
And the day that I don't
feel that way anymore is the day that I'm going
to take down her picture.