00:00:05
the lake was deep the night was dark the collision fatal the only clues were some chips of paint
00:00:15
a tiny piece of foam and the fatal wound was it enough to tell investigators what happened
00:00:26
[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] according to native american legend the great spirit scratched his hand
00:00:57
across the land and in doing so created the finger lakes of upstate new york [Music]
00:01:07
the biggest is cayuga lake long and narrow and it's a popular vacation destination
00:01:13
[Music] a lot of people go there to go swimming picnics barbecue any like major functions birthdays
00:01:21
everyone goes there to the park cayuga lake is crowded in the summer with boating water skiing and other lake
00:01:29
activities around midnight on a friday night harry ewell a local celebrity decided to take
00:01:37
his new boat out on the lake for a ride harry was a well-known stock car race driver who went by the nickname
00:01:46
hurricane harry harry loved the lake he loved to fish he loved to swim he loved everything about the lake
00:01:55
around 2 a.m harry headed for shore in his boat so two of his friends could get out and use
00:02:01
the bathroom [Music] 18 year old nazarene raza stayed on board with harry i was just sitting up there by myself
00:02:13
from what i remember that's where i was that's the best view so i can imagine
00:02:17
that's where i'd be sitting since it was a nice night and the lake was calm
00:02:22
harry didn't tie his boat to the dock so it drifted while he waited for his friends to return
00:02:30
[Music] then they heard a loud noise harry stood up and there was a crash there's blood everywhere i felt like a
00:02:44
big monster or something came out of the water and bit my arm off harry yule was pronounced dead at the
00:02:51
scene he was just 27 years old he died instantly he was probably standing up to to try to figure out what
00:02:58
was coming and then just got just got hit in the dark by this massive object [Music]
00:03:05
harry's passenger nasreen raza was rushed to the hospital after losing an enormous amount of blood
00:03:13
her arm was just about torn off her arm was shredded that doctors had to do just about
00:03:18
everything they could to try and save her arm from being completely amputated no one claimed responsibility for the
00:03:27
crash investigators were certain it was a boat and began the enormous task of searching
00:03:34
for it among the 1200 boats on the lake they did flyovers they rode up and down the lake and the patrol boats looking
00:03:42
for signs there's so many points of entrance at cayuga lake that it was uncertain where
00:03:48
the other boater might have entered or left from and it was really a guessing game at that
00:03:54
point to eliminate the guesswork police brought in a vessel accident reconstructionist to investigate the
00:04:02
crash there's no question that a terrible tragedy had occurred on the lake that
00:04:07
night there's no question that the person who committed it had left the area and had
00:04:13
intention of turning himself in but finding evidence wouldn't be easy the lake was one of the deepest in the
00:04:20
country and the currents were unpredictable everything is continuously moving if
00:04:26
there's any debris in the water it moves it drifts away it may sink to the bottom
00:04:31
the lake leaves no trace it just erases any sign of what happened so you're left
00:04:36
with very little to determine you know where the the perpetrator went where they came from what their speed
00:04:42
was very difficult the investigation of the boating accident that killed harry yule and
00:04:53
severely injured nasreen raza took a number of unusual twists and turns when i first got there and looking at
00:05:00
this boat i was at at all struck of what i was seeing it looked like something had plowed
00:05:06
right through the center of the boat it was like a big v-shaped hole right where
00:05:12
the bomb was supposed to be like something had driven right through it the victim's boat held some important
00:05:19
clues there was evidence that the boat's lights were off when the crash occurred
00:05:26
there was no bow lights activated switch was not activated the anchor light was not in its
00:05:33
stanchion hull and it was plugged with a rubber plug it was quite obvious that the boat that got hit
00:05:39
was not lit that evening there were numerous chop marks along the top side of the boat that actually cut
00:05:47
through the upholstery analysts realized these were from a spinning propeller proof that the boat actually left the
00:05:57
water and flew over the top of harry's boat the suspect vessel as it was traveling
00:06:02
at high rated speed tends to lift out of the water and be a little bit higher on impact it would launch the front of
00:06:09
the suspect vessel at a 45 degree angle up into the air [Music] medical experts believe that the wounds
00:06:17
to nazarene raza were also caused by the propeller investigators found a bullet-shaped hole
00:06:27
in the forward section of harry yule's boat this was created by the engine of the
00:06:34
other boat the bullet that punched through the hull of the boat indicated to us that it was an inboard outboard motor
00:06:41
also that the boat was traveling at a high rate of speed for it to be able to punch its way through the fiberglass and
00:06:47
continue on through and over the top of the other boat other information about the
00:06:52
perpetrator's vote came from an unlikely source harry yule's autopsy the medical examiner found chips of
00:07:03
white paint in harry's wounds which just gives you a picture of how fast and how intense this crash must
00:07:11
have been to leave such evidence in the wounds investigators were also intrigued by
00:07:19
another finding there were no marine organisms in harry's wounds this was very revealing
00:07:27
we were able to determine that that vessel had either a very clean boat or more likely that it was based on a
00:07:34
trailer when a boat goes on a trailer a lot of times it's either easy to clean
00:07:38
and people clean them off or all the organisms dry up and they wash off investigators now knew they were looking
00:07:46
for a damaged white boat with a v-shaped hull and an inboard outboard engine they knew its propeller was broken and
00:07:56
it would be kept on a trailer and not docked in the water the sheriff's department released this
00:08:02
information to the media and asked anyone with information to come forward there was a big manhunt the the victim
00:08:09
was a local celebrity it was scary because people didn't know who did this or what happened so it was a very very
00:08:17
publicized incident a day later a caller gave police the location of a damaged boat that looked like
00:08:26
it had been involved in a collision and it had what appeared to be some damage to the bow and some damage to the
00:08:33
one side of the boat and had some fresh like compound marks in the paint on the boat
00:08:39
and looking at the dashboard there was what appeared to be a small drop of blood
00:08:44
near the shift lever near the driver's compartment the boat was impounded and searched
00:08:51
everybody thought the case had been solved we have our bad guy right now the vessel in question is right here we have
00:08:59
it but forensic tests found that the paint on this boat was different from the paint found in harry ewell's wounds and
00:09:08
there was no significant damage to its propeller in addition dna tests showed the blood in the boat
00:09:16
was not hairy ewells or nasarin roses but forensic evidence did not match it up actually excluded it from being the boat
00:09:27
that we were looking for so investigators resumed their search knowing that each day gave the
00:09:34
perpetrator more time to hide incriminating evidence [Music] harry yule the victim of one of the
00:09:45
worst boat crashes in the history of the finger lakes was laid to rest a memorial stock car race was held at
00:09:53
the local track in his honor his passenger in the boat that night nazarene raza survived but her arm will
00:10:02
never function properly i can look at my arm and just see an ugly deformed arm but there's some days
00:10:10
i look at it and i just get this wave of flashback oh my god someone died it could have
00:10:22
been me it just feels so close to death it's creepy police appeal to the public through
00:10:28
newspapers radio and television asking anyone with information about this crash to come forward
00:10:36
finally four days after the accident a man called the sheriff's department with a possible lead
00:10:43
he asked me what information i had and i told him i said i think i was a pastor on the boat to hit the
00:10:50
other boat john ottenshad a construction worker said he was riding in a boat on cayuga
00:11:01
lake and he said the boat hit something although he didn't know what it was [Music]
00:11:13
it's just it was so dark overcast we couldn't we couldn't see anything in
00:11:18
the lake i knew we didn't hit a log i don't think it would take us out of the water as far
00:11:23
as it did so we were all the way out of water so we did know we hit something big
00:11:31
ottenshot claimed they circled back to see what they hit but didn't see anything so they drove their boat to the
00:11:38
launch removed it from the water and drove home [Music] he identified the driver of the boat as
00:11:46
his co-worker floyd wright he said he wanted wright to go to the police with him
00:11:52
but wright refused and he says well i i don't want to lose my job i'm going to lose my job i'm
00:11:57
going to lose my house and says well this guy lost his life he says this is wrong
00:12:04
when police questioned floyd wright he too said he didn't know what they hit
00:12:10
it was a head-on closure it was little we don't know because we didn't see it
00:12:16
i know because i've seen the books i was there right i'm not asking i'm
00:12:21
telling you heard a thud and we turned around and we looked and we didn't see nothing and we
00:12:28
didn't hear nothing and uh so we figured we better get out of the water you know before because we didn't
00:12:35
know what damage we had i find it very difficult to believe that wright could not hear the streams of the
00:12:42
female passenger in mr ewell's boat we have witnesses on shore you know several
00:12:47
hundred feet away who could hear her screams for help wright admitted that he was drinking
00:12:52
that day but insisted he wasn't intoxicated i had probably about five or six beers
00:13:00
for the whole day i went on water matter of fact i had pepsi most of the time with a warrant
00:13:07
police searched wright's property and found the boat in his barn you could see readily see that repairs
00:13:16
had been made to the boat the bondo and the material on the boat was not flush with the original fiberglass
00:13:23
and it had been spray painted areas have been spray painted white if there had been blood or any other
00:13:30
evidence on the boat's hull it had already been removed and repainted the propeller had also been removed
00:13:38
but was still in the barn broken beyond repair that propeller all three times of it showed extensive
00:13:47
damage denting and tearing of the metal there was no blood or human tissue on the propeller nor did investigators
00:13:55
expect to find any since the water would have washed it away but amazingly the propeller had a tiny crack
00:14:06
and inside was a my new piece of what looked like foam it was nothing short of a miracle that
00:14:13
the tiny piece of foam had stuck in the prop when you consider the dynamic forces going on
00:14:18
trace evidence expert ron stanbro analyzed the material under a microscope i did not have very much sample to work
00:14:26
with but it was more than enough for the analysis that we were required to do under high magnification
00:14:34
different types of foam exhibit noticeably different structures as a result one kind of foam can be
00:14:41
distinguished from another the foam from the propeller looked very similar to the foam padding from the
00:14:49
seat in harry yule's boat so stanbro went a step further using a process known as fourier
00:14:58
transform infrared it's shining a infrared light through that substance and the molecules within
00:15:06
that substance are stretching and vibrating and then we're measuring the absorbance
00:15:11
of that infrared light in that sample this provided a chemical fingerprint of the polyurethane in both samples
00:15:21
they were indistinguishable one from the other so we could conclude from that that they're made up of the same
00:15:26
substance and therefore they could have common origin but this wasn't conclusive
00:15:33
so stanbro compared the paint chips from harry's body to the paint on floyd's
00:15:38
boat they were heated to 800 degrees centigrade and vaporized so that their chemical components could be measured by
00:15:47
a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer again the chemical composition of both samples
00:15:56
was identical i would never go so far as to say that they were a perfect match i would say
00:16:01
that they were indistinguishable which would tell me then that these paint chips from the body could have common
00:16:06
origin prosecutors now had enough forensic evidence to link floyd wright's boat to
00:16:13
the hit and run accident based on the forensic evidence prosecutors say they know what happened
00:16:24
on the night of the fatal accident after taking a ride around the lake harry yule stopped at the dock to let
00:16:33
two of his passengers use the bathroom [Music] for reasons unknown harry didn't tie up his boat so it
00:16:45
drifted into the boating lane without its running lights on [Music] floyd wright and john ottenshot admitted
00:16:58
they were drinking but claim they weren't intoxicated they said they didn't see harry's boat
00:17:04
because its lights weren't on [Music] the propeller tore through nasreen's arm
00:17:17
and the boat's upholstery [Music] the hull struck harry in the head killing him instantly and leaving paint
00:17:26
chips on his body some think floyd turned around to see what he hit and not only saw the damage
00:17:35
but also heard nasreen screams floyd wright and john ottenshot deny this wright took his boat out of the water
00:17:44
and stored it in his barn so he could begin to make repairs he always claimed he didn't know he hit
00:17:51
harry yule's boat they knew exactly what they had hit they absolutely knew there's no way that you
00:17:57
could hit a full-size boat and not know that you've hit something significant or
00:18:02
think that you've hit a log or driftwood it's ridiculous they would have had their lights on
00:18:08
on that boat we would have seen it i can guarantee it that we would have seen it
00:18:14
there was no way to know what floyd wright's blood alcohol level was that night
00:18:20
in new york state this severely limited the prosecutor's case you have to show that the accident was
00:18:27
causally related to the drinking there has to be that close connection new york requires
00:18:32
it so just the fact that he had a few drinks throughout the course of the day doesn't necessarily mean that is the
00:18:38
cause of the death you have to you have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that that's that's the connection being
00:18:44
intoxicated should it be a way out of being held responsible the fact that he was able to run
00:18:52
from the scene and he wasn't charged with anything related to intoxication just makes me question whether our laws
00:19:00
have a loophole in allowing someone to leave the scene of a crime so that they can't be charged with being drunk at
00:19:06
that time coincidentally wright's automobile driver's license was suspended at the
00:19:13
time due to an arrest for driving while intoxicated [Music] floyd wright was charged with tampering
00:19:21
with physical evidence and failing to report an accident he pled not guilty at the trial
00:19:28
but was convicted and sentenced to the maximum of four years in prison and that's like the issue with me you
00:19:35
hit me and you didn't help me just left me there to bleed to death that bothers me
00:19:41
a lot and the thing is physically yeah i'm hurt but i hate to like live with the fact that i have to
00:19:48
like hate someone my whole life that's not a good feeling for me feels like a heavy part in your chest
00:19:54
feel something like that for someone is not good i don't like to feel that but i
00:19:59
do in return for his testimony at the grand jury john ottenshad was given immunity from
00:20:07
prosecution he now admits that he and floyd were intoxicated i'll say legally
00:20:17
we were probably drunk we got a dwi if i got pulled over on the way home or we got pulled over on the way home
00:20:26
probably definitely it was the paint chips the accident reconstruction and particularly
00:20:34
the tiny piece of foam trapped in the crack of the propeller that proved the case
00:20:40
the most damaging part of the evidence was that piece of foam that had stayed on floyd wright's boat from harry's boat
00:20:48
told everybody that that was the boat that that hit and killed harry it's amazing what science can do
00:20:54
it's amazing otherwise it would have been he said she said you know but it's amazing what science can do
00:21:03
[Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] you