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at one time a used tissue was just trash today it's potential dna evidence new scientific discoveries are turning
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inconsequential items into vital pieces of forensic information this is how an alert pathologist and a
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piece of cartilage made scientific history [Music] [Music] on november 9 1995 dawn broke crisp and
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cold over anchorage alaska the temperature was around zero degrees when a policeman on routine patrol
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discovered a body in a public park we didn't have anything we had no witnesses
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nothing but the body as far as evidence goes no tracks as far as a vehicle or person
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or footprints anything like that so we had very very little and we were very concerned about it
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police took her fingerprints and ran them through aphis the automated fingerprint identification system which
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compared them to millions of prints in a nationwide database the victim was identified as 34-year-old
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katherine harms a background check indicated catherine harms known as cat had recently moved to
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anchorage from juneau the state capitol where she was employed by the tangus national park service
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catherine told friend she moved to anchorage to be closer to her seven-year-old son
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we not only just barely identified her but we had no idea where she was living no idea what lifestyle she had except
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from the background in in juneau uh we had no idea who would want to hurt her like that
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catherine harms had been staying with friends moving from place to place with no steady address in the months
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prior to her murder when informed of her death catherine's parents told police about a
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chilling phone message they received from her two nights before the murder autopsy revealed the cause of death was
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a stab wound to the chest there was no blood around the wound which told the medical examiner her
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position when attacked she was probably in a prone position or she was laying on her back at the time
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she was stabbed surprisingly she had no defensive wounds an individual who is being attacked with
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a knife will attempt to fend off that knife it may cause cuts in the hands or on the forearms and we didn't find any
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of those kinds of defensive wounds on the hands or forearms of the decedent she had also been beaten before her
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death an indication catherine knew her attacker it was overkill really and subsequently we it looked like a
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body that that was done out of anger not just for the purpose of killing her and we suspected that the victim knew
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the person who did it because of that investigators learned that catherine's
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ex-husband was not in alaska when she was murdered and was ruled out as a suspect
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two days later the anchorage daily news printed a story asking anyone with information about the victim to come
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forward and several did including one person living over two thousand miles away
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when news of katherine harm's murder was released to the public a man called police with some important
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information he said catherine came over to his apartment a few nights earlier he said she was high on drugs and spent
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the night and left the next morning in a taxi although he didn't know where she
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lived with this information police called the alaska cap company to find out where catherine went
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the cab driver said he picked up the victim and transported her back to the bernard hotel room 31
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where a female came out and took her into room 31. room 31 was occupied by a woman named
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maureen malloy who lived there with her two children when interviewed by police malloy said
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catherine was a friend who had been staying with her until she found a place of her own
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she says oh yes catherine harms was living with her but she was causing a lot of trouble she was using drugs and
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actually engaging in prostitution in her room and she had children there and and
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marine couldn't have that and so she told her she had to leave malloy said a hotel clerk helped carry
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catherine to her car she said catherine was high on drugs but other than that was fine
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her skin was clammy and cold but i mean she was she was definitely alive the clerks agreed that the woman was not
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stabbed there was no blood on her body she was definitely passed out there was no way she was going to get up and walk
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away malloy planned to take catherine to another friend's home but they never got there
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at tudor and arctic major intersection several miles away from the spinard hotel catherine harms had gotten up
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jumped out of the car and ran away into the night [Music] police searched maureen molloy's hotel
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room and found no evidence of a struggle there were no bloody clothes towels sheets or anything else to indicate
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someone had been stabbed [Music] all they found were two tiny specks of blood near the floorboard on the living room
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wall [Music] dna testing matched the blood to katherine harms but it didn't help the case
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she was living in the apartment she could have cut herself and spot a blood got on the wall that way there are lots
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of different ways somebody can can bleed so it does not prove that she was beat in that apartment
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toxicology tests from katherine harm's autopsy revealed no alcohol or street
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drugs in her system but the medical examiner found something very suspicious we found very high levels of flexural in
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the gastric contents indicating that she had been given a dose or an overdose of
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flux rule in the recent past flexural is a prescription drug used to relieve muscle spasms
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but when taken in excess it can have the opposite effect one of the unusual side effects would be
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a rigidity of the muscles in a sense as if every muscle in the body was was tensed up or held rigid
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this explains why catherine harms was cold and somewhat rigid when the hotel clerk carried her
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out to marine malloy's car without additional evidence the case was turning cold
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until police got a break from an unlikely place a woman living two thousand miles away
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in seattle washington called police because she had seen the article about the murder in the anchorage newspaper
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it was one of a number of items in a package mailed to her from a friend in anchorage she said she had received a
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box of cardboard box from marine malloy [Music] inside the box were katherine harm's driver's license
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the newspaper article some jewelry a knife and this handwritten note hey woman please burn all the contents of this box
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this is very important many lives are on the line this would be a great favor and in all
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the world i trust only you the woman from seattle told me she wanted nothing to do with this but
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she didn't feel right about it and so she thought she better call the police
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the knife appeared to be clean investigators wanted to know whether this was the weapon used to kill
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katherine harms [Music] the package of items marine malloy mailed to seattle was sent to the forensic lab for testing
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malloy's note asked her friend to destroy all of the contents forensic experts confirmed that
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maureen's fingerprints were on the document what we were interested in was the knife
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it was a folding buck type knife and we knew from the autopsy that the injuries would be consistent with the
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knife to see if the knife blade contained anything of evidentiary value investigators sent it to a forensic tool
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mark analyst the microscopic fine marks on each knife blade are random in nature they're a
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function of when the last time the knife blade was sharpened the irregularities in a knife blade are going to be
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different in this knife even compared to the next knife blade that was made at the factory on the assembly line
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robert shem was confident he could find unique marks on the knife but he had nothing to compare it to
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then shem learned that the medical examiner dr thompson had done something unusual during the autopsy
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instead of documenting the fatal wound by photography dr thompson actually excised the section
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of the rib cage where the wound occurred well i believe dr thompson went beyond the call of duty i think it's because as
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a younger newer pathologist in the field he's much more progressive and much more
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open to new ideas the costal cartilage at the end of one rib clearly showed the stab wound
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the costal cartilage is very much like a low density plastic in that it cuts readily and when it cuts it has the
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consistency such that it can take the tool marks quite well surprisingly well shem used a substance called microsill a
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rubbery material that takes the shape of anything to which it's applied used by toolbox examiners to preserve
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the very fine details that you'll see impressed and striated tool marks so what we need is a material that will
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flow very well into the tool mark and then harden in a short period of time so that we can do comparisons of these very
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fine marks after the microcell hardened shem peeled it from the rib [Music] the question now was whether these marks
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were good enough to match the suspected murder weapon to find out shem took the knife and pressed it down
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into a hard piece of plastic this transferred the tool marks from the suspected murder weapon to the plastic
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surface in this case here it was important to find the exact angle at which the knife
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was used and then to replicate that angle into plastic and then do that comparison
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the process with the microsill was repeated this time along the newly cut surface of
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the plastic block when the mold was peeled away shem wanted to see if it could be
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matched to the marks taken from the wound so he placed both of the microsill molds
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under a comparison microscope at 50 times magnification he was able to look at them side by side
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the tool marks from the wound and marine malloy's knife were identical in this particular case
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the identification was pretty compelling plus being a born skeptic i find the concept
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of matching a tool that is a knife back to a piece of the human body to be pretty incredible bob shem gave me a
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photograph of what he saw in his comparison microscope and that was probably one of the most powerful pieces of
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evidence i've ever presented in a courtroom investigators found even more evidence
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inside maureen malloy's car they saw a very small smear of dried blood near the ignition switch area of
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course that was swabbed and those swabs were sent to the state crime lab for dna
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analysis those tests revealed that the blood on the ignition switch in molay's
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car was in fact catherine harm's blood and they also found evidence in one of
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marines jackets inside right puck there was blood stains that blood turned out to be
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catherine harm's blood the stains were comparable to the dimensions of the knife that we seized in the box
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maureen malloy was arrested and charged with first degree murder the question haunting prosecutors now
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was what was the motive [Music] denied any involvement in catherine harm's murder
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[Music] there's nothing about a knife in the note i didn't know about any knife
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she refused to talk about the knife she wouldn't say she owned it she didn't
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own it she wouldn't say anything you could look a lot better than you doing she was baiting you she was [ __ ] with
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you for days and days and days and you've got your kids you've got people to think about
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and you just lost it that's what happened i mean we're all we're all adults here
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we can read the writing on the wall that's what's happened louise now let's just stand tall let's just
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tell it how it happened let's don't come across like the cold-blooded [ __ ] that you look like
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you are now but uh i know you're not don't tell me i don't care about my kids
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without i just care about myself just tell me what happened tell me why you did what you did
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they go back and forth and back and forth and it turns out that moy never comes off her story finally
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i asked her about the knife and the tool marks on the knife exactly matching the bone in the chest
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of my victim and at that time she said she didn't want to talk anymore she wanted to see a lawyer
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but prosecutors wondered why malloy would kill katherine harms carrie rundle who was at one time
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malloy's roommate told police that maureen had stolen a sizeable gun collection and planned to sell it and
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live off of the proceeds she also said that malloy feared catherine would expose her plans to the
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police rundle said she saw malloy put the drug flexoril in katherine's food thinking it would relax catherine and
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get her to talk maureen malloy thought she was a stitch i believe the violence occurred when she
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was trying to get catherine harms to tell her who she had told and what she had told me
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i think at a certain point though the violence had been so excessive that marine realized
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she couldn't let catherine go the toxicology evidence shows that catherine had been given an excessive
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amount of flexural which stiffened her muscles and caused the rigidity described by the hotel clerk
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prosecutors believe malloy drove catherine to the park dumped her body then stabbed her to death while she was
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unconscious malloy then put the bloody knife in her coat pocket leaving both katherine's dna
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and the impression of the murder weapon malloy also left a tiny spot of catherine's blood inside her car
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[Music] the forensic evidence proved that it was malloy's knife and no other
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that left the distinctive tool marks on katherine's rib i really don't believe that maureen
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malloy thought that the police department the crime lab the medical examiner's office would join together to
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create a team that would solve this crime i think that marine malloy figured nobody would spend this kind of effort
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you told him maureen malloy denied everything and took the stand in her own [Music]
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i defense there who killed kathryn hart she claimed that members of the local hells angels motorcycle gang killed
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catherine and planted the evidence to frame her and i did not do that to her and they
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would do and say anything to discredit me to cover for what they did in that room in closing argument in front of the
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jury i took the knife the murder one i took maureen molloy's leather jacket and i pulled out the pocket lining
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i took the knife and put it right on top of the area where the crime lab had snipped the two fabric areas and the
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knife fit right between those two areas like a glove i argued that the murder weapon was in
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her pocket when it had liquid blood on it the forensic science in this case was unique
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only once or twice before had scientists been able to match the stab wound to the specific knife with
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this type of analysis looking at ribcages and for tulmar comparison is is a pretty rare
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examination for the examiner in the laboratory because it's rare that we're
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going to have the conditions where we have both the ribs that are cut that have a
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decent tool mark on them and have a need to compare a knife to it maureen malloy was found guilty
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and sentenced to 159 years in prison i absolutely hate you you worthless piece of flesh if you ever
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try to get out i will be there as your constant reminder and i will remind the state of alaska the atrocities that you
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have committed against my sister i covered a lot of murder trials and this one stuck with me for a long time
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because it just never made any sense and at the end of it i felt that i didn't
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know the whole story and i clearly remember the judge at sentencing saying that she did not feel that she could
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understand the motive for for the murder jurors later told reporters that the tool mark comparison was exceptionally
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compelling knowledge is power forensic science puts power in the hands of the investigators
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and it gives them the power to know the difference between what is definitely true and what they only think is true
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the forensic science in this case specifically the matching of the tool marks between
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the knife blade and the chest sternum bone of the victim is invaluable that made the case
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well in this case forensic science was absolutely key again this is a case with no eye witnesses and yet
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a prosecutor can go to the jury and say listen ladies and gentlemen witnesses people lie
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science doesn't and in this case the scientific evidence was irrefutable [Music]
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] you