00:00:05
NARRATOR: Two men were murdered
while sleeping in their bed. One night later, an
arson fire destroyed
00:00:14
a family planning clinic. Investigators wondered whether
some shards of glass, paint
00:00:21
chips, and a chicken
feather could link what appeared to be two
separate crimes.
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[music playing] On the morning of July
1, 1999, Oscar Matson called his son Gary.
00:01:03
No one answered the phone. But there was an unusual message
on the answering machine.
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Hi everybody, this is Gary. We came down with something
pretty bad, pretty suddenly,
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and we're going to have to go
back to a-- to a specialist friend of ours in the Bay Area.
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We'll see you guys
in about a week. OK.
Bye. -It clearly wasn't Gary's voice. And at that point, I
became very concerned.
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NARRATOR: Family members
drove out to Gary's home. BRIAN MATSON: We came up to
the house, and called loudly.
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Nobody answered. We walked in and saw a foot
sticking up on the bed. And at that point, we
realized what had happened.
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NARRATOR: Gary and his
partner Windfield Mauder had been shot to death
in their loft bed
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with a 22 caliber pistol. -It was just a
tremendous shock when I-- I don't know if I
was ever in denial.
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It was instant depression. NARRATOR: The trail of
empty cartridge cases and the location of
the blood spatter
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told investigators where
the shooter had stood. TOM VASQUEZ: The shooter
walked towards the loft.
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I think the people
in the loft got up to see what was going on. And then they
started being shot.
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And the shooter got
closer to the loft and then basically
finished them off. -It was overkill, basically.
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Each of them being
shot multiple times like that, It was like somebody
was trying to send a signal
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to us or had something
that they wanted to say about how they
killed these people.
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NARRATOR: The killer then
recorded a new message on the telephone
answering machine
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saying the two men
were away on a trip. The autopsy revealed
Gary and Winfield were killed between
midnight and 4:00 AM.
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Winfield's car was
missing from their home along with Gary's credit
card and driver's license.
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Gary's family didn't believe
the murder was a random act. BRIAN MATSON: We
felt very strongly
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early on that it
was a hate crime. That they were murdered
because they were gay.
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Because they both were
active in gay rights issues. So we just had a strong feeling.
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We just knew it
was a hate crime. I did, anyway. -You know, everybody was
looking over their shoulder,
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you know, wondering
what was going on, if they would be next. I think the fact that
someone goes into your home
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and shoots you to
death in your bed disturbed everybody
in this community. NARRATOR: Gary Matson
and Winfield Mauder
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had lived together
for 16 years and owned a landscaping and
nursery business. They had no known enemies.
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Six days after the murders,
police found Winfield's car on a deserted road
about 100 miles away.
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Gary Matson's driver's
license and credit card were not inside. Investigators asked the bank
when the credit card was
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last used, and they
got a surprise. The card had been used
after Gary's murder to purchase some
gun-related equipment.
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TOM VASQUEZ: They had
purchased almost $2,000 in reloading equipment,
amateur reloading equipment.
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And the person that
had made the purchase had requested that it be
sent to a PO box in city.
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-That is really dumb. Criminals do dumb things. And you have to wonder whether
they have a-- some kind
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of subconscious
urge to be caught. NARRATOR: Investigators
set up surveillance hoping the killer would
walk into their trap.
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When Winfield Mauder and
Gary Matson were murdered, the only items missing
from their home
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were Matson's driver's
license and credit card. Immediately after the
murders, Matson's credit card
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was in use. MICHAEL BARTRAM: They
used the victim's credit cards within hours
of the murders.
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The murders were
probably committed around 3:00 in the
morning on July 1. And that same day,
in the afternoon,
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they spent about
$1,000 in a shoe store. And they stopped at
several other stores
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and used the credit card. NARRATOR: And the
credit card was also used to purchase some
gun-related equipment.
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The person using the card had
the items shipped to a post office box in a town about
a two-hour drive away.
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Police head straight
to the address where the items
had been shipped. Sure enough, they
saw two men carrying
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boxes out of their car. They were identified as
32-year-old Matthew Williams and his 29-year-old
brother, Tyler.
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Inside the car, detectives
found Gary Matson's credit card and
driver's license.
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In the brothers' home, police
found several newspaper articles about an arson
spree that occurred two weeks
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before Gary and
Winfield's murder. Three synagogues burned
on the same night. All were arson.
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And at each one, hate literature
littered the crime scenes. CHRISTOPHER HOPKINS:
The fliers were
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found kind of
randomly dispersed. Thrown throughout the synagogue
and also on the outside
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as well. And it almost in
a random fashion. NARRATOR: Police found
similar literature
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in the boys' apartment. -Thousands of pages
of hate literature, anti-Semitic literature,
racist literature.
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White supremacist-- all kinds
of white supremacist stuff. NARRATOR: Gas chromatography
identified the chemical makeup
00:07:25
of the accelerant
used in the arsons. In the boys' possession
was a book on arson
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which recommended the
same chemical mixture. A second book described
the best techniques
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for breaking and entering. CHRISTOPHER HOPKINS: It
describes the best times to break in, between the
hours of 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM.
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And all arsons were
within that time frame. NARRATOR: And the
third book recommended
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wearing coveralls
to commit crime. Investigators found coveralls
in the brothers' closet
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similar to the ones
the book recommended. Investigators found nothing
in the Williams' home
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that tied them to
the murders of Gary Matson and Winfield Mauder. But they found other
forensic evidence.
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FAYE SPRINGER: I looked at
the suspect's car first. And probably the only
thing that I recovered
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that was of
significance was glass. NARRATOR: The glass
appeared to be safety glass,
00:08:31
the type used in
windows and doors. FAYE SPRINGER: When it
breaks, you actually have hundreds if not thousands
of small particles of glass
00:08:43
that will come back
towards the-- the pushing, breaking of glass. And it will become
embedded in your clothing
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even though you can't see it. NARRATOR: In the trunk of the
car were two black crow bars.
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One had green
paint scrape marks. Could forensic scientists
make any scientific connection
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between the murders, arsons,
and the Williams brothers? THOMAS ANZELMO: It's
hard to describe.
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To see especially the film
footage of the [inaudible] Israel and the flames
pouring out of the structure.
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Initially we looked at
the extremist groups in the Sacramento area. There were several groups such
as Neo-Nazis, skinhead, hate
00:09:39
groups that had in the
past vandalized synagogues and other houses of worship. NARRATOR: As police search
for Gary Matson and Winfield
00:09:50
Mauder's killer, they
inadvertently found evidence linking their murder
suspects to the arson fires set
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to three California
synagogues in the same night. All of the evidence from
Matthew and Tyler Williams' car
00:10:05
and apartment was
sent to criminalist Faye Springer, an expert
in trace evidence.
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She started with
the glass shards found in the suspect's car. FAYE SPRINGER: Glass is
not an organic material.
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So it's just made from silicon
dioxide and sand, basically. And melted. So glass varies a lot
by refractive index.
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And depending on how
it's made and what materials go in to making it-- NARRATOR: Three wavelengths
of visible light
00:10:43
are passed through the glass. The reflection of
that light is measured under the refractive
light index.
00:10:53
Springer compared the
glass in the suspects' car to the broken glass
at the synagogues.
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FAYE SPRINGER: Glass at
the arson at the synagogue was similar to the glass
in the suspect vehicle.
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It was the same
type of glass and it had the same physical properties
and chemical properties.
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NARRATOR: Blue coveralls found
in the Williams brothers' home also contained
glass fragments.
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So did two other objects
found in the brothers' car. -The crowbars were sent
down to my laboratory
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because we suspected that
the synagogue arsonists either used crowbars or bats. Eventually we found
some glass fragments
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that were similar to
glass that was collected. NARRATOR: Microscopic
examination
00:11:45
of the crowbars also
revealed green paint. FAYE SPRINGER: When I
called and asked them,
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you know, where the green paint
came from-- because I knew none of the synagogues
had green paint on them.
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Because I had been all of them. And they said, well, the only
thing that we have is this fire
00:12:01
at this medical clinic
office building. NARRATOR: The medical
office building was actually
00:12:10
an abortion clinic
which had burned the day after Gary and
Winfield's murder. The abortion clinic had
green trim around the doors
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where the arsonist
entered the building. Springer compared these
samples to the paint
00:12:28
on the crowbar using
pyrolysis gas chromatography. FAYE SPRINGER: What it does
is it allows you to look
00:12:36
at the organic
profile of the paint. And with paints, it's
not just one chemical
00:12:43
that goes into making a paint. There's lots of chemicals
that go into a paint. And they give you
kind of a profile
00:12:50
of what that paint looks like. And when we analyze it,
we look at the combination
00:12:56
of all of those
materials together. NARRATOR: The paint
on the crowbar had the same chemical
composition as the paint
00:13:03
from the abortion clinic. CHRISTOPHER HOPKINS: So there
we had a double transfer
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from the medical clinic
going to that crowbar, and that crowbar going
to that synagogue.
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NARRATOR: Forensic proof that
the three synagogue arsons and the abortion clinic
arson were connected.
00:13:28
And forensic scientists got
lucky with some other evidence. Not all of the fire bombs placed
inside the synagogues ignited.
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-Extremely fortuitous
that you would have unburnt material
left at a crime scene.
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NARRATOR: The surviving fire
bombs were plastic containers, a flammable liquid with
homemade wicks made of cloth.
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But in the cloth were
some unusual items, including dog hairs, cat hairs,
and even chicken feathers.
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When Springer went to
the Williams' home, she knew she had something. FAYE SPRINGER: I saw the bird
cages, and I thought, oh man,
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they're gonna have
one bird of every kind that ever walked the Earth. -I got excited very quickly.
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They had three dogs. They had a chicken
coop in the back. NARRATOR: Taking the
chicken samples wasn't easy.
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FAYE SPRINGER: We can just scare
them so they're flapping all over the place, and then
we get the loose feathers.
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NARRATOR: The hair from
the Williams' dog and cat as well as the chicken
feathers were microscopically
00:14:41
consistent with the hair and
feather evidence contained in the wick of the fire bomb.
00:14:48
And the chemical makeup
of the light blue paint on the Williams family tool shed
matched the blue paint found
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on one of the
synagogue fire bombs. -There was just too
many coincidences. The-- the feathers, the
dogs, the same kind of paint.
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I had a lot of confidence that
these materials were going to show that the bottles
came from that location.
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NARRATOR: With the synagogue and
abortion clinic arson solved, there were still two
remaining questions.
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Did the Williams brothers
kill Gary and Winfield, and was there forensic
evidence to prove it?
00:15:36
After the two Williams brothers
were linked to the four California arson fires,
investigators still
00:15:42
needed to solve
the murders of Gary Matson and Winfield Mauder. THOMAS ANZELMO:
What we wanted to do
00:15:49
was to see if forensically we
could get evidence that would, at a later time, lead us
and help us prove which
00:15:58
individuals
committed the crimes. NARRATOR: Detectives
searched a small cottage behind the Williams
brothers' parents' home
00:16:06
and found guns and a book on
how to make a homemade silencer. A 22-caliber pistol in
the brothers' possession
00:16:16
had the same homemade silencer. -This had some gray tape or
duct tape on the end of it
00:16:25
that had had a small
hole on the end of that. And you could actually visually
see light through the hole.
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On the end of the tape
was a tiny speck of blood, which was sent to the
lab for DNA analysis.
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One of the victims was within
a couple feet of the victim when it was fired to
put that small droplet
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on the end of that
piece of tape. NARRATOR: Mark Fisher
processed the Williams' gun.
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MARK FISHER: The process was a
Mark II 22 caliber pistol which I developed three latent
impression-- impressions,
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and ultimately
identified all three as being made by James Tyler
Williams, the younger brother.
00:17:19
NARRATOR: But was this the gun
used to kill Winfield and Gary? -When a cartridge is
discharged, the cartridge case
00:17:28
itself expands. And it picks up an impression
in the chamber of the gun. NARRATOR: Firearms experts test
fired the 22 caliber pistol
00:17:36
and compared those
spent cartridges with those found in Gary
and Winfield's home.
00:17:44
-Based on this comparison, I was
able to conclude that the Mark II pistol had-- was, in fact,
the one that had been used
00:17:51
to fire the components
at the scene. NARRATOR: Finally, the DNA
testing of the blood found
00:17:58
on the end of that
pistol confirmed the blood was Winfield Mauder's. The Williams brothers lived
only a few miles from the home
00:18:09
Gary and Winfield shared. Prosecutors believe the
Williams brothers targeted the couple because
they were gay.
00:18:17
Matthew Williams
knew Winfield Mauder because they had
worked together briefly at the local farmer's market.
00:18:25
Investigators also discovered
the brothers were heavily influenced by groups that
express contempt for gays,
00:18:33
Jews, minorities,
and abortion rights. BRIAN MATSON: They
are absolutely a part of that extremist
Christian movement that
00:18:44
strongly believes that
homosexuals are evil and a scourge of the earth. NARRATOR: On September
8, 2001, the Williams
00:18:54
brothers pled guilty to arson. While awaiting trial, Matthew
Williams committed suicide.
00:19:01
BRIAN MATSON: It's just fine
with me that he killed himself. It's fine with me. Except for the fact
that it would have been
00:19:07
nice to have him
stand up in court and let the world see what
kind of a person he was.
00:19:17
-Although they did
kill two individuals and cause millions of
dollars worth of destruction,
00:19:22
they failed to ignite
this so-called revolution, this uprising against--
against certain institutions.
00:19:31
NARRATOR: His younger
brother Tyler pled guilty to arson and first
degree murder and was
00:19:36
sentenced to life in prison. Every year, on the anniversary
of Winfield and Gary's death,
00:19:45
there's a celebration
of life and diversity in Redding, California. -Today, in memory of Gary and
Winfield, I ask all of you
00:19:56
to be teaching respect
for people's differences. NARRATOR: This was a case
where the forensic evidence
00:20:04
identified a trail. Glass from the arsons gets
trapped in the perpetrator's clothing, then transferred
to his car seat.
00:20:17
Paint from the abortion clinic
and glass from the synagogue is transferred onto
the two crowbars
00:20:24
found in the suspects' trunk. A chicken feather,
dog, and cat hairs cling to a shirt worn
by the perpetrator.
00:20:39
A shirt that's later
cut into pieces to make the wick
in the fire bomb-- all identified by forensic
scientists who often see
00:20:54
evidence that to
others looks like dirt. -Whether it be the paint
chips or the glass fragments
00:21:00
or the dog hairs or
the chicken feathers, each one is an
independent action. And so then it becomes
very significant
00:21:10
when you have multiple
independent actions all associated to the same place. -It's great for us, because
it-- it gives us the assurance
00:21:20
that we've got the
right people and helps us prove the case
at the same time. -While it's made my job
easier, it's made it harder
00:21:30
for criminals to get
away with their acts. Even smart ones. [music playing]