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Shortly after daybreak in Vancouver, British Columbia, a fire was set to the contents of a garbage dumpster. No one
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saw the arsonist or the fire as it burned for hours in the deserted parking lot. But there was more than garbage in
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the bin, and it would take sophisticated science to identify the evidence in the
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ashes. [Music] When Milton Diaz walked towards the dumpster to empty some trash, he noticed
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noticed that the bin was warm. When he looked inside, he noticed a small charred figure in the corner. So badly
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burned, it was beyond recognition. >> I know something was burned and and and
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but it What was it? Was it an animal or was a person? If it it was a personal, it was too too terrible to happen. It
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was too out of out of uh you know what I can conceive that someone will do to another
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human being. >> The charred remains were carefully removed and taken to the morg where the
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gruesome and difficult task of identification would begin. Straight away, we knew we wouldn't have
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fingerprints and we knew we wouldn't have the normal um means to identify a victim because of the the condition of
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the body. All that remained was the equivalent of 35 lb of charcoalike material. It was an enormous challenge
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to Vancouver's medical examiner, Dr. Laurel Gray. >> Well, obviously we didn't have a whole
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lot to work with. We had no idea what the cause of death was, whether it was related to the fire or some other uh uh
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matter. >> During the autopsy, Dr. Gray could not find any recognizable skin, but did find
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a small patch of hair where the head pressed against the floor of the dumpster. It appeared to be reddish
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blonde in color, but the intense heat destroyed the hair follicles, which could have been used for DNA testing.
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X-rays of the victim's skull revealed several pieces of metal and a fractured
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skull. Evidence of gunshot wounds. Bullet fragments recovered from the brain came from a 22 caliber weapon, but
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they were so badly damaged they could not be used for ballistic identification. Police now knew that it was a homicide
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case. The gunshots had caused uh obvious very severe damage to the brain. Uh they
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had uh fractured the many of the facial bones. Uh there was a lot of blood in the um uh within the the facial bones
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and the sinuses. >> The blood in the sinus cavities meant there was active circulation when the
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bullets entered the victim's brain, indicating that the heart was beating when the shots were fired. But the
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intense heat altered the victim's blood chemistry, making it impossible for any
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kind of DNA analysis. An examination of the victim's lungs showed no signs of
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smoke inhilation, which meant that the victim was dead before the fire. The internal organs revealed that the victim
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was an adult female. To help with the identification, investigators called in Dr. Larry
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Chvers. He's a forensic odontologist who was asked to study the dental remains of
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the victim. >> This was a a victim of an inferno, an absolute unqualified inferno. There
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was virtually nothing left. >> But when Dr. Chvers looked closer, he was surprised to see beneath the charred
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surface that the jawbone and teeth were intact. >> Because they're surrounded by barriers,
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there's saliva in the mouth. um the gases in the stomach expand and push the
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tongue out and the outer muscles of the face become quite leathery and so the one thing that survives above all else
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is the teeth. By studying the growth patterns of the teeth and skull, Dr. Chvers estimated that the victim was
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between 24 and 30 years of age. And when Dr. Chivers looked closely at the X-rays, he discovered an important clue.
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The victim had an extremely rare dental condition called misodens. It's an extra tooth which never grew
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into place on top of the two front teeth inside the gum. The x-rays also showed a
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lot of high quality dental work. When you start talking 48 hours past the finding of the body and you don't have
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an idea who the suspect is and at that stage we didn't know who the victim was,
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you start thinking, well, it's going to be a long haul and it's going to be a
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difficult case. >> Greg Middleton covered the search for the identity of the victim and her
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killer for the province newspaper in Vancouver. They told me at the time that they thought that there was no hope of
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solving it, that there was they had so little to go on, that they didn't think
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that they were going to get anywhere. >> Police now had a horrific murder, but
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still couldn't identify the victim or her murderer. When the police reviewed all recent
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missing person's reports, one in particular caught their eye. It was for a 30-year-old woman named Lynn Breeden.
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She had blonde hair and was last seen on the day before the charred remains were
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discovered. When the dental records for Lynn Breeden were compared to those from
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the charred remains, doctors noticed the same extra tooth above the gum line on top of the front teeth and the dental
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work matched the burn victim as well. Dr. Chvers was convinced that Lynn Breeden was the person burned in the
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fire. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind the minute I saw the mised ends there and then obviously the other
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dental work and they all added up to the fact that this was the same individual or the same unfortunate victim.
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>> Lynn Breeden was a part-time model who once posed for Playboy magazine. She
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worked here at a men's club called Number Five Orange as a cocktail waitress.
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>> A lot of her friends were able to tell us about her background. Unfortunately,
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I think she'd gone u the cocaine route in the city of Vancouver, and I think
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she was well involved in the use of cocaine. >> Lynn Breeden was last seen late Friday
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night walking along Robson Street in Vancouver. Police learned that Breeden's
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former boyfriend lived on Robson Street in this apartment building. His name was
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Chris Pacook and he was well known to police. >> He was a local drug trafficker. was
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certainly um one of the last persons to be seen with her. >> During police questioning, Pacook
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admitted he was with Lynn Breeden for most of the night on the Friday in question. He said she stopped by his
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apartment. They had a few drinks, talked for a while, and ended up having sex. Afterwards, they went to Celebrities
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Nightclub and later to a small after hours club. [Music] >> Pay Cook said Lynn was behaving badly,
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flirting with other men, and after an entire evening of it, he became angry. >> We're leaving.
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back off, man. >> I don't want to leave. >> No, we're leaving. I get too high and
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you're going with these guys. I don't I said back off. >> We're leaving.
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>> I'm not leaving this club. We're having a good time. >> You're such trash.
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>> I'm having a good time. >> He left the club without her and said
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that was the last he saw of her. >> In that case, it was a dead end. Yes. Um
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he looked really good to begin with, but when we confirmed his um alibi and his story, yes, it it turned out to be um a
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dead end as far as that he was concerned. >> But detectives received an interesting
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tip from the manager of Lynn Breeden's bank. A woman had posed as Lynn Breeden
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attempting to withdraw all of the funds from her account. I got up to the counter and I I asked to help her and
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she signed a withdrawal slip like for like $4,000 basically what Lynn had in her account and it wasn't Lynn.
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>> Security photographs showed the impostor looking out the window, possibly at an
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accomplice standing outside, but glare from the sun hid the identity of whomever was outside. The woman left the
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bank quickly when her identity was questioned. >> We went to our fraud squad and said, "Do
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you know this person?" And we did all those investigative things in case this
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was a chronic fraud suspect and somehow some way we could come up with a name through that avenue of investigation.
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That didn't give us an answer. >> Police launched an allout effort to find
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the woman who posed as Lynn Breton. It was their only lead to the murderer. The local newspaper published a
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photograph of the woman who posed as Lynn Breeden at the bank and asked anyone who knew her to come forward.
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Within hours, an anonymous tip identified the woman in the photograph as Tanya Forester. Given that
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information, we went to her, told her what we was dealing with, and asked her for a cooperation and why she was in
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there taking the um or attempting to take the money from the the victim's account.
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>> Tanya Forester told police that she was given Lyn Breeden's wallet and
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identification by a man named Chris Cruz, who told her it was stolen. Together, they agreed to clean out her
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bank account before it was reported missing. She was unaware at the time that that was the um victim of a
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homicide's bank account. >> Chris Cruz was an unusual character. He was a model and actor, a student at the
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University of British Columbia who was planning to attend medical school. But Chris Cruz also went by the name of Tony
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Devans, the stage name he used as a stripper and professional escort. He reportedly had a healthy appetite for
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cocaine. Cruz told police that he had been out on the night of Breeden's murder. First at
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the Love Affair nightclub and later at the same after hours club that Lynn Breeden and her boyfriend attended. Crew
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said he only stayed for 20 minutes before leaving in a taxi cab to see her girlfriend. The next day, he said a
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friend offered him the contents of Lynn Breeden's purse, telling Cruz it had
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been stolen. We asked him, "Can we search your car?" And he said, "Yes, we
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could." We asked him what kind of a car it was, and he gave us the description, "Grey
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Olds's mobile." We asked them where it was, and he said, "Well, it's not running very well. It's
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out at my grandmother's place in Siri." >> But Cruz didn't know that he had been
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under police surveillance. They knew he had driven his car to police headquarters for questioning and parked
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it right down the street. Initially you you you think why is he lying? So the car must be playing a part um in the
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lie. So we looked that up and that was secured overnight when photographic experts
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reprocessed the bank photograph to remove the window glare from the sun. Police could see the individual standing
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outside when Tanya Forester attempted to withdraw Lynn Breeden's money. It was
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Chris Cruz. And when forensic detectives inspected Cruz's car, they found blood
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on the outside of the car and even more on the inside. >> Inside the trunk, uh, I think he was
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basically living out of the vehicle for some time. Uh, there was his own clothing,
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but there was evidence there that, uh, you could only hope for in any homicide case. Police also found a 22 caliber
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rifle, a 5gallon gasoline container in the trunk, and a suit jacket Cruz was seen wearing at the after hours club.
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Inside the pocket, police found a Playboy Bunny pendant stained with blood. It was similar to one Lyn Breeden
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wore in this photograph. Many items inside the car were covered with blood. the spare tire, clothing, a photo album,
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and a tire iron found in the back seat. In spite of all the evidence, police had
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a serious problem. They had no way of knowing to whom the blood in the car belonged.
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>> Now, our difficulty in this case is what what was it we were going to compare it
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to? The normal things that we would use from an autopsy in the toxicology exhibits were so badly damaged that the
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DNA exhibit from those toxicology exhibits was not possible. >> If the police couldn't figure out a way
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to match the blood inside Cruz's car to Lynn Breeden, it was entirely possible
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that Chris Cruz would walk free. Police had a lot of circumstantial evidence linking Chris Cruz to Lynn
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Breeden. They found blood in his car, on his clothes, and they found hair and blood on a tire iron found in the back
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seat. It was just incredible how much evidence we had. And it would be an absolute shame if uh the suspect had
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been successful, so successful in destroying the body that none of that evidence could be used in order to tie
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him into the crime. >> The fire not only incinerated Lynn Breeden's body, but also any chance of a
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DNA profile. Her skin, blood, saliva, and hair follicles, all possible areas for DNA testing, had all been destroyed.
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Dr. David Suite is a forensic odontologist who had been following the breed and murder in the newspapers. He
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suggested that scientists try something which had never been attempted before. That they try to harvest the genetic
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material from inside Breeden's teeth from the tooth pulp in order to generate
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a DNA profile. >> They ran with the idea uh released some evidence to me in the forms of uh some
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bones and teeth. Um, I was particularly interested in the impacted wisdom teeth or the teeth that were still embedded in
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the jawbone, both the upper jawbone and the lower jawbone. Um, it was my sense that these teeth were more protected
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from the fire than the other tissues and the other teeth because they were deeper
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in the core of the body away from the potential heat source. >> The pulp was sent to the forensics lab
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along with samples of blood collected from Chris Cruz's car. I never thought
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for a second that tooth pulp uh could be used or any uh tooth part of any tooth could be used for uh
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for DNA testing. >> Blood cells were extracted from the tooth pulp and treated with a special
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chemical cocktail and the DNA floated free, a sticky bundle of complex molecules. Next, the DNA was cut into
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smaller pieces marked with a radioactive die and placed in separate lanes on an electrofaretic gel where it was
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subjected to an electric field. The separated fragments are then visualized on X-ray film called an auto radiogram,
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which resembles a barcode. When scientists compared the blood DNA found in Cruz's trunk, on his jacket, and on
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the photo album, it matched the DNA profile of Lynn Breeden. >> It was very clear the match uh showed
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that the DNA typing profile from the various exhibits submitted to me matched that of the DNA typing profile from the
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tooth belt from the victim. Based on the forensic evidence, Chris Cruz was charged with the murder of Lynn Breeden.
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At the After Hours nightclub, Lynn Breeden and her boyfriend Chris Peook got into an argument when she flirted
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with some other men she met there. >> You back off. >> Following the argument, Pook left the
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club alone. Witnesses said Lynn was looking for cocaine that night and at some point made the acquaintance of
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Chris Cruz. There was some evidence that the two already knew one another. Both were models, frequented the same night
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spots, and reportedly shared an appetite for cocaine. [Music] Shortly after daybreak, they left the
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after hours club together and some sort of disagreement took place, possibly over payment for some drugs crews may
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have provided. >> I know. I know. I know. >> As they drove home that morning, police
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believe their argument escalated. You >> did. You know, it's not. >> Crew stopped the car and the
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disagreement turned violent. My money. My money. Now, >> in a rage, Cruz grabbed a tire iron from
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the trunk and struck Breeden on the head and face. As Lynn Breeden lay near death with a
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fractured skull, Cruz grabbed his 22 caliber rifle and shot her three times in the head.
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Cruz placed the body into the trunk and drove to the deserted parking lot where he dumped the body inside a garbage bin
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and emptied a 5gallon container of gasoline he kept in the trunk. [Music] No one saw the fire as it burned for
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hours shortly after daybreak on July 6th, 1991. According to the fire department,
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the fire was probably one gallon of gas away from a total cremation. And looking
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at the victim at the um at the time of the discovery, you you'd have to believe
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that it was close to a full cremation. >> And without the scientific evidence, the
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remains might have gone unidentified and the blood in the car unmatched. >> Absolutely. It made the case. It did the
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ultimate link up to all this evidence that we were so happy to find to our victim, the murder.
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>> And the case broke new ground for forensic scientists since it was the first time that DNA evidence from a
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tooth was used in a criminal case. Chris Cruz was convicted of secondderee murder
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in the death of Lynn Breeden and sentenced to life in prison. Lyn Breeden was a very beautiful girl and a lot of
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people acknowledge that. In fact, there were a lot of areas where she could have
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gone and things that she could have done as a result of it. Unfortunately, she got caught up in a little bit of this
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cocaine problem and the result was that uh it brought her to the circumstances that led to her death. Very tragic.
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Chris Cruz himself uh good-looking man, a lot going for him. He had attended the
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university here in town and he was doing what he could that way. So it was another spoiled life really by him being
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involved in what had taken place here again as a result of the drug involvement. Uh if you take away the
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drug, I don't believe any of this would have happened. [Music] [Music] Good morning.
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[Music] [Music]