00:00:12
Sometime during a neighborhood Christmas party in 1989, 5-year-old Melissa Bron disappeared.
00:00:19
>> Loved it. She really did. We had a great time, but it's late. We're, you know,
00:00:23
Melissa, will you go get the coats? None of the adults or other children at the party saw where she went or noticed
00:00:30
anything unusual. It took science to see what witnesses did not. [Music] [Music]
00:01:04
Tammy Brandon and her 5-year-old daughter Melissa had moved from Texas into this suburban apartment complex in
00:01:11
Lorton, Virginia. Tammy was a single mother, recently divorced, working as an accountant and beginning a new phase in
00:01:18
her life. >> Tammy is a very good mother. She's a very sweet, very caring person. Kept to
00:01:25
herself more or less. Uh, you know, she wasn't what I would call extremely outgoing,
00:01:31
although she did participate in just about everything. >> One of the attractive features of the
00:01:37
apartment complex was the active social program for the residents. Every Friday night was some sort of social gathering
00:01:44
in the clubhouse. And during the holidays, there were special events. the night of December 3rd at the Christmas
00:01:51
party. That's something that they they basically did uh for almost every holiday. People looked forward to it. Um
00:01:59
they always had a nice layout within the clubhouse and people spent time getting
00:02:03
to know their neighbors. >> Tammy Brandon and her daughter Melissa both attended that Christmas party in
00:02:10
1989. Altogether about 200 residents of the complex were there. Everybody was very upbeat, having a very good time.
00:02:19
The children played with each other all through the night, going around and snatching all the food and having a good
00:02:25
time. [Music] >> When it was time to leave, Tammy asked Melissa to get their coats.
00:02:37
>> Oh, man. >> Oh, sure. [Music] >> They have packages and everything.
00:02:44
Shortly after handing the coat to her mother, Melissa disappeared. >> Merry Christmas.
00:02:50
>> Merry Christmas to you, too. >> Yeah. I've got to get going here.
00:02:54
>> Yeah, it's going to be late. >> Oh, I know. I got to find >> cleaning up for every Where's um
00:02:59
>> Where's Melissa? She was just here a minute ago. >> Tammy looked for her daughter throughout
00:03:03
the clubhouse. >> Melissa. >> Yeah. Where's Melissa? [Music] In a utility room off the lobby marked
00:03:19
private, a fulllength window leading to the outside was wide open. The window faced a wooded area behind the apartment
00:03:29
complex. It's possibility that somebody could have went out that window and not
00:03:33
been seen by anybody outside. And it's in an area where it's secluded through
00:03:37
the inside. Partygoers wouldn't have seen anybody exiting through that window. Also,
00:03:42
Fairfax County police searched the entire area and questioned everyone who attended the party.
00:03:48
>> It was very cold out that night. It was pretty imperative that we try to locate
00:03:52
as quickly as possible. It was hard to imagine a young child with a dress on and a small coat surviving temperature
00:04:00
that night. Although no one at the party noticed anything unusual, police feared that
00:04:07
Melissa had been abducted. Tammy Brandon pleaded for her daughter's safe return during a televised news
00:04:14
conference. To >> the person who took Melissa, I beg you to please call somebody,
00:04:20
anybody, and tell us where she is. No matter what's happened, she's all that I have. Please bring her back to
00:04:28
me. Melissa, if you can hear mommy and get to a telephone, call our number like I taught you to
00:04:39
call me. We love you. We miss you very much. Please come back to us. Mommy's waiting.
00:04:50
>> All the way down to uh Davis Ford Road. Police could find no trace of 5-year-old
00:04:56
Melissa Bron despite the help of hundreds of volunteers. >> We had hundreds of police officers down
00:05:02
there. We had hundreds of people from the military bases. We had people volunteering their airplanes, their
00:05:08
helicopters. The search was phenomenal. It just showed how this case touched so many people.
00:05:15
>> Yellow ribbons were placed throughout the neighborhood, a symbol of concern
00:05:19
and hope for Melissa's safe return. Police questioned Melissa's father, who
00:05:26
was in Texas on the night of Melissa's disappearance. He was immediately ruled
00:05:31
out as a suspect. >> I also ask that if the person who took my daughter can hear me, please let her
00:05:38
go. We love her very much. If anyone has any information that may help, please contact someone
00:05:50
who will pass the information on to us. Thank you. >> Police questioned everyone who lived at
00:05:59
the apartment complex as well as all of the employees. [Music] >> Caleb Hughes worked at the apartment as
00:06:09
a maintenance man and attended the Christmas party. Police interviewed Hughes at his home a
00:06:17
few hours after the party around 2:00 a.m. Mr. >> Hughes. Kelly views. Yes.
00:06:23
>> I'm Sergeant Garcia from the Fairfax Police Department. I'd >> like to ask you a couple questions about
00:06:29
the party at the apartment complex that you work at. >> They asked him where he had been since
00:06:34
leaving the apartment complex. >> What'd you do after you left the party?
00:06:38
>> I drove straight home. I stopped off for a six-pack and I got home about 12:30
00:06:44
quarter 1. >> He said he stopped just before he got home near his house. Well, if he got
00:06:48
home at 12:304 to 1, they stopped selling beer in Virginia at 12:00. So, he didn't stop for beer. He couldn't.
00:06:55
>> What did you do after you got home? >> I did chores, laundry, you know, stuff
00:07:00
like that. Do >> you mind if we look around? >> No, go ahead. During the search, police noticed
00:07:15
something unusual. Hughes told police he had been doing his laundry, but the clothes he was washing
00:07:21
were the ones he wore to the party. >> Do you always wash your sneakers with
00:07:25
your clothes, Mr. Hughes? >> He was also washing his belt and the knife holder
00:07:34
>> said, "Why would you wash all your clothes? You don't have another pair of
00:07:37
blue jeans. And why would you wash your sneakers? Caleb had no response. The side a few sneakers had been shaved
00:07:45
away. Although the sneakers had been washed, tests showed traces of human protein, possibly blood, deep in the
00:07:53
fibers. Caleb Hughes wasn't cooperating either. Hughes told police he did not speak to
00:07:59
Melissa Brandon at the Christmas party, but several witnesses contradicted him. >> Hello.
00:08:05
>> Hi. Hi. >> Do you have something to eat? >> Said, "Caleb, I think you know more. I
00:08:09
think you took Melissa out of that party." And all Caleb would do is just sit there. And finally, Caleb said,
00:08:13
"Prove it." Looked me straight in the face. Had no emotion at all. And that's
00:08:19
what investigators set out to do. Weeks passed and still there were no signs of 5-year-old Melissa Brandon.
00:08:31
The community of Lorton, Virginia, held a candlelight vigil at the Brandon's
00:08:35
apartment complex just a few feet from the clubhouse where Melissa was abducted.
00:08:42
Bumper stickers, yellow ribbons, and flyers with Melissa's picture were everywhere.
00:08:48
>> It was all anybody talked about because this wasn't one girl in one family. This
00:08:54
was any child, all of our families. If this could happen to Tammy Brandon's daughter, this could happen to anyone's
00:09:03
daughter. And there was a desperate outcry to find who would have taken this child.
00:09:09
>> The remaining suspect was Caleb Hughes. Hughes attended the Christmas party, but
00:09:15
he denied having anything to do with Melissa's disappearance. Forensic scientists began their
00:09:21
investigation with a look inside Hugh's car. The interior of the car, it was
00:09:26
cluttered with a lot of of debris, dirt, bags of books, uh, dog hair. I just looked at it and thought, "Holy
00:09:34
mackerel, how am I going to be able to find any type of evidence that would link Melissa to this car?"
00:09:40
>> The car was sprayed with the chemical luminol, which fluoreses when it comes
00:09:44
into contact with the hemoglobin component of blood. Luminol revealed blood on the steering wheel, foot
00:09:51
pedals, and floor mat. The blood was collected for DNA analysis, but the results were inconclusive.
00:09:59
The car was also searched for trace evidence, specifically hair and fibers and was sent to special agent Doug
00:10:08
Dietrich of the FBI for analysis. >> First thing that I do is look at the the
00:10:13
tapings that came from the front seat of the car. trying to identify what types of materials are there and if possible
00:10:20
anything that may have come from the victim if she had been in that car. >> Dietrich discovered quite a bit of
00:10:27
animal hair in the car. Most of it dog hair, but three of the hairs from Hugh's
00:10:32
front seat were different. They were rabbit hairs that had been dyed black. The rabbit hairs were microscopically
00:10:41
similar to a German rabbit hair coat Tammy Bron wore to that Christmas party. When Tammy Bron was leaving the
00:10:50
apartment, she told Melissa to get her fur coat. Melissa got the fur coat and as a child will do she draped that coat
00:11:00
across her shoulders and of course those hairs from that coat certain transfer to her.
00:11:10
>> Dietrich also discovered blue and red fibers on Hugh's front passenger seat.
00:11:15
The red fibers were cotton, an extremely common fiber, but the blue fibers were extremely rare. The 50 blue fibers were
00:11:24
man-made and acrylic. They were all the same shape, length, and diameter, an indication they were from the same
00:11:31
manufacturer. Gas chromatography revealed that the blue fibers were dyed with the same blue
00:11:38
dye, but the chemical composition of the blue dye was unusual. >> Melissa Brandon was wearing a blue
00:11:46
sweater and red plaid skirt on the night she disappeared. The outfit had been a gift from Melissa's grandmother, who
00:11:53
could not recall where she bought it. All she could remember was that the sweater had a picture of Big Bird on it,
00:12:00
a character from the Sesame Street television series. Prosecutors needed more evidence than
00:12:07
the three rabbit hairs from Mrs. Brandon's coat found in Caleb Hughes car. They knew that any good defense
00:12:14
attorney would argue that Caleb Hughes could have brushed up against Tammy Brandon's coat at the party and
00:12:20
transferred those rabbit hairs onto the seat of his car. Doug Dietrich was convinced that the blue fibers held the
00:12:28
key to Melissa Brandon's disappearance, but there was no way to tell if the fibers were from Melissa's clothing.
00:12:37
After work one night, Doug Dietrich shared his frustration with his wife. He told her he needed to find the
00:12:43
manufacturer of the outfit Melissa was wearing at the Christmas party. >> Some sort of blue Winnie the Pooh thing
00:12:49
or a Sesame Street uh outfit with a red plaid skirt. >> I don't know anything about Winnie the
00:12:55
Pooh. But if it's Sesame Street, that's sold by J C Penney. Hold on a second.
00:13:03
>> Mrs. Dietrich had kept a number of store cataloges, some going back a few years.
00:13:11
red plaid skirt. >> I see that. >> She proceeded to bring a catalog down
00:13:15
from the year before Christmas. And sure enough, on page 11 of that catalog, there was an outfit that looked darn
00:13:23
close to what they were describing to me as the one Melissa Brandon wore the night of her disappearance.
00:13:29
>> When Tammy Brandon was shown the picture from the catalog, she identified it as
00:13:34
the one Melissa was wearing at the party. The FBI asked JC Penney for one of the
00:13:41
outfits in order to analyze the fibers, but they were sold out. The item was a catalogon item. JC Penney sold all 7,000
00:13:52
garments in a matter of months. But JC Penney located a customer in Kentucky who had purchased one of these outfits a
00:13:59
year earlier. The customer bought the outfit as a present for his granddaughter, but it was the wrong
00:14:05
size, so it had never been worn. The customer sent the outfit to the FBI for analysis.
00:14:12
>> The idea of just being able to find an outfit that that's exactly the same
00:14:17
outfit that a victim wore in a case. That's an extremely good stroke of luck.
00:14:24
When Doug Dietrich examined the garment, he made a startling discovery. When JC Penney had this outfit manufactured,
00:14:33
they wanted to make it unique. Instead of using a standard dye, and there are 10,000 of them, Penny's decided to
00:14:41
create a brand new color. JC Penney specifies a particular color. Then they'll work with the dye
00:14:48
manufacturer to find some combination of chemicals that will produce exactly that
00:14:53
tone. In this particular case, they went an additional step and made sure that it
00:14:58
was a dye that nobody else had access to so that they could trademark this sweater from its color point of view.
00:15:04
They called their new color plum navy number 887. JC Penney patented that signature dye
00:15:12
and used it only once when they produced the 7,000 Big Bird sweaters. When Dedricch compared the fibers from
00:15:21
the duplicate sweater to those found in Hugh's automobile, they were the same.
00:15:26
>> With several hundred million people in the country and only 7,000 sweaters, the
00:15:30
probability of that particular sweater being located in individual car is very small. It you can just work out the
00:15:38
ratios of the two. >> There's no question to my mind that that Melissa Brandon had been in the front
00:15:43
seat of Cal Hughes's car. and where she went from there. Well, I guess that's a
00:15:48
mystery right now. A mystery police were desperately trying to solve. The search for Melissa Brandon's body
00:16:00
continued for almost a year. Statistics show that children abducted by strangers
00:16:06
are usually murdered within 3 hours of the abduction. The prime suspect, Caleb Hughes, was asked to take a polygraph
00:16:14
test. >> Are you the one who abducted Melissa? >> No. >> Right now, can you take me to Melissa's
00:16:22
body? >> No. >> The results of his polygraph examination indicated deception.
00:16:29
>> As soon as he realized that I knew that he had failed that test, he didn't
00:16:36
want anything to do with that that room. Didn't want anything to do with me. and
00:16:40
pretty much bolted out of there. >> But there was a problem in the state of
00:16:44
Virginia. Prosecutors must be able to prove where a homicide occurred. Since the blood in Caleb Hugh's automobile
00:16:53
could not be identified as Melissa's, prosecutors could not reach the threshold of homicide. They could only
00:17:01
prove kidnapping, which carried a maximum sentence of only 10 years. But prosecutors were convinced that the blue
00:17:09
and red fibers in Caleb Hugh's car indicated more than kidnapping. The last Tammy Brandon saw her daughter,
00:17:19
she was wearing the pink nylon coat, winter coat over top of this big bird outfit.
00:17:26
If the child remained in that winter coat in the automobile, you wouldn't have the collection and the
00:17:33
population of blue acrylic fibers that are found on the seat because they'd be
00:17:38
inside the nylon coat. They weren't. >> Prosecutors believe that Hughes removed
00:17:45
Melissa's ski jacket in the car, an indication that Hughes committed a sex act.
00:17:52
Hughes had the child's coat off in the automobile and it seems to me the inferences that flow from that are
00:18:00
legitimate inferences of an intent to defilet. While Melissa was waiting for her mother
00:18:11
to say her goodbyes at the Christmas party, >> prosecutors believe that she left for a
00:18:16
moment to get a drink from the water fountain in the hallway near the utility room.
00:18:23
This is where Hughes abducted her. [Music] Hughes took Melissa through the window
00:18:38
in the utility room and fled in his car. Hughes removed Melissa's ski jacket in
00:18:45
the car, causing the transfer of the blue and red fibers onto the front seat. Also in the car, there were three rabbit
00:18:53
hairs from Tammy Brandon's coat, the one Melissa handed her mother seconds before
00:18:57
she was abducted. Where Hughes took Melissa Bron and left her body remains a mystery.
00:19:07
Hughes tracked blood onto his foot pedals and floor mat from his sneakers. Luminol revealed blood on the car's
00:19:15
steering wheel as well. When Hughes arrived home, he immediately washed his clothes in order to remove
00:19:29
trace evidence. He also scraped away the blood stains from the sides of his sneakers before
00:19:39
washing them along with his clothes. But he didn't remove evidence that he couldn't see. the tiny fibers from
00:19:47
Melissa's clothing left on the passenger seat of his car. Caleb Hughes was arrested and charged
00:19:56
not with kidnapping, but with the abduction of Melissa Bron with intent to defile her. He was found guilty and
00:20:05
sentenced to 50 years in prison without parole, the maximum sentence. Caleb Hughes has never confessed to the crime,
00:20:15
and the search for Melissa's body continues to this day. Each piece of evidence, no matter how small, whether
00:20:22
it's a a car, or whether it's a strand of DNA, all have a story to tell. Where
00:20:29
they've been, who they've been with, how long they've been around. And this is
00:20:33
the type of information that that I look at and that I decipher and try to determine what value it has. So, one
00:20:41
piece of evidence is can be significant when you add multiple pieces of of this puzzle. And you never get the whole
00:20:48
puzzle. You only get pieces, but you don't need the whole puzzle to see what
00:20:52
that picture's going to say. And in this case, 50 fibers, blue acrylic, 10 cotton, black rabbit hairs. To me, it's
00:21:01
overwhelming evidence. [Music] Why? [Music] Heat. [Music]