00:00:03
[music playing] NARRATOR: When Scott Dunn
arrived at his friend's party, he brought along a new
acquaintance, someone
00:00:16
his friends had
never met before. Scott was a ladies' man,
and while it wasn't unusual
00:00:25
for him to be seeing a number
of women at the same time, his date on this night raised
more than a few eyebrows.
00:00:34
- How are you doing?
- Hey, man. What's happening? Hey, everybody. Man! This is my lady
friend, Shaina.
00:00:42
NARRATOR: Sometime
during the party, Scott became ill, so sick
he was unable to drive home.
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A few days later,
Scott Dunn disappeared and was never seen again. [theme music]
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24-year-old Scott Dunn was
a fun-loving young man who enjoyed life to the fullest.
00:01:29
Scott lived in Lubbock, Texas,
settling there after serving in the US military. He worked for MGM
Electronics in a job
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he loved, installing custom
sound systems in automobiles. The last time friends saw
Scott was on May 13, 1991,
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at a party after work. Scott was a
prankster and decided to add a little excitement
to the festivities.
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His date that night
wasn't a she at all. She was really a
he, a transvestite.
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Before the night was through,
Scott's friends eventually found out and weren't amused.
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Later, while still at the
party, Scott became ill. He was so sick, he
couldn't drive home
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and stayed overnight
on the sofa. The next day, his live-in
girlfriend, Leisha Hamilton,
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drove over to pick him up. He looked like crap. He couldn't hardly walk. I mean, you could tell
he'd been in bed all day.
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He wasn't showered. He wasn't clean. Clothes on all awkwardly. Couldn't get
dressed by himself.
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NARRATOR: After spending
another full day in bed, Scott told Leisha
he finally felt
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well enough to return to work. I woke up that morning. He was in bed with me by then.
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I asked him how he
felt. I asked him did he need a ride
to work because he didn't have his cars there.
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He said no, his friend
was coming for him, and just asked me to
get him a glass of water
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and some sinus
medicine, which I did. Brought it to him,
and then I left. When I came home, he was gone.
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NARRATOR: When Scott's friends
stopped by the apartment to pick him up,
there was no answer.
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No one ever would answered,
so just never heard from him. NARRATOR: Two days
later, Leisha called
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Scott's father in
Pennsylvania to see if he had heard from Scott. And it's a young woman's
voice, and she goes into,
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I don't know if I'm talking
to who I'm talking to, but I assume you're
Scott's father
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because I found the telephone
number on the telephone bill. And I said, well, that's
right, I'm Scott's father,
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but who are you? She said, well, I've
been living with Scott for a couple of months
now, sometime we've
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been together for some time. And I said, well, I don't
really know who you are.
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NARRATOR: Jim Dunn
filed a missing persons report with the
Lubbock Police Department.
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What was he wearing
last when you saw him? NARRATOR: Police
wondered whether Scott
00:04:12
Dunn's personal life held some
clues to his disappearance. When Scott Dunn disappeared
from Lubbock, Texas,
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without a trace, his
friends told police this was out of character. The way Scott was, he would
have called at least and said,
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hey, guys, look, I'm out here
in Mexico, hanging out,
partying, something. NARRATOR: Scott's live-in
girlfriend, Leisha Hamilton,
00:04:43
told police that when
she returned from work, Scott was gone. She also said that a
large piece of carpet
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was missing from
under the sofa. When police searched
the bedroom, they discovered that another
piece of carpet in the bedroom
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had also been removed and
replaced with the carpet from under the sofa. Along the edge were some
rust-colored stains.
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ROY CARPER: The staining
along the edge of that patch in the original carpet was
very evident to anybody
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that's been doing this for any
length of time, it was blood. NARRATOR: When the
carpet patch was lifted,
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police noticed it was held
together with duct tape. On the underpadding was
another large stain, which
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also appeared to be blood. In one spot, it had soaked
through a hole in the padding
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to the cement
floor underneath. And it looked as if
someone had washed blood from the baseboard.
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To find out, investigators
used a chemical called
luminol, which can detect areas
where blood has been cleaned
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up with water and detergents. The luminol revealed a
scene of horrific violence.
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JIM THOMAS: You can
actually see the pattern. You can see where
blood had been. And my initial reaction
was that something
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had occurred in
that apartment. It was stark. Somebody had very
obviously tried to clean the whole
thing up and had
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done a fairly good job of it. JIM DUNN: I just knew
that he was dead. I felt very confident
that he was dead.
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It was probably the
longest day of my life. And it was the most
devastating thing that ever
happen to me.
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NARRATOR: But who would want
to kill Scott Dunn, and why? Dunn had a previous arrest
and conviction for possession
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of cocaine, but the theory
that this was somehow drug
related was inconsistent
with the crime scene.
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If it was a drug
hit, they probably would have left
the person there, wanting everybody
in the world to see,
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so that nobody else
would cross them. And this crime scene
was covered up. And the only reason
it was covered up
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was because it was
trying to be hidden. NARRATOR: Police
also discovered Scott Dunn was leading
a secret life.
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While living with
Leisha Hamilton, he continued to date
numerous other women. He was wild.
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He played the field. He had-- in my opinion,
he had a history of using women for his own purposes.
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In fact, he was
engaged to be married to a young lady
in the Metroplex, while he was living
with Leisha Hamilton.
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NARRATOR: Leisha
Hamilton learned about Scott's engagement
just one month earlier.
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Who's calling? His fiancée? Yeah, I'll be sure to
tell him you called. ROY CARPER: And I
think at the point
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where that telephone call
came is when Leisha realized she had been had by Scott.
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And Leisha herself was a user. And when it became
apparent to her that she, in this situation,
was not the user but was, in
fact,
00:08:05
the usee, she became enraged. NARRATOR: But was that
sufficient motive for Leisha
00:08:11
Hamilton to murder Scott Dunn? And if so, where was the body? Leisha Hamilton continued
to call Jim Dunn from Texas,
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keeping him informed
of the investigation into Scott's disappearance. But she asked for
something in return.
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She wanted Scott's
yellow sports car. Jim Dunn taped those
telephone conversations.
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JIM DUNN (ON PHONE): You
seem to want the car, and I have promised you the
car when this is all over.
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You don't seem
to want to wait. LEISHA HAMILTON (ON
PHONE): Actually, I don't.
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I don't. I don't need it. It is a want right now. The only thing I
want is this car.
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That's the only thing I've
wanted from the start. That's the only
thing I want now.
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NARRATOR: A background
check by Lubbock police revealed that Leisha
Hamilton had a past arrest
00:09:07
in New Mexico
for embezzlement. But if Leisha was involved
in Scott's disappearance,
00:09:13
why had she helped police
by pointing out the missing carpet in their apartment?
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Leisha told Scott's
father that she thought a man named Tim Smith
had something to do
00:09:25
with Scott's disappearance. ROY CARPER: Tim Smith
was a guy that lived in the apartment near Leisha.
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He had been brought
up in a very strict, very religious environment. My theory was that this was
the first real contact he'd
ever
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had with a worldly
woman, and that he became enamored with her and
the way she made him feel.
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And he just fell head over
heels in love with her. NARRATOR: Police
discovered that Smith
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did not show up for work on
the day Scott Dunn
disappeared. Tim Smith? Uh-huh. Lubbock Police Department.
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NARRATOR: When police
visited Tim Smith's apartment to ask
a few questions, they noticed he was
packing to move.
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We're investigating the
disappearance of Scott Dunn. Whatever I can do to help.
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Mind if we take
a look around? Sure, go ahead. NARRATOR: When they walk
back into the living room,
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they noticed that something
that had been sitting on the bookshelf disappeared. Where's the roll of tape?
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What tape? The duct tape, it
was there on the shelf. I don't know what
you're talking about.
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NARRATOR: But behind some
books on another shelf, police
found what they were looking for--
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the duct tape that
was on the shelf just a few minutes earlier. ROY CARPER: That was
a stroke of luck,
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but it's also good
investigative work. I mean, how many times
do you walk into a place
00:11:09
where a guy's moving and
see a roll of duct tape and think nothing of it? NARRATOR: The duct tape was
sent to the forensic
laboratory
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for analysis. The tape in Smith's
apartment looked very similar to the
tape on the carpet patch
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in Dunn's apartment. The samples were analyzed
using infraspectrophotometry,
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where infrared light is
passed through the duct tape. And the detector
will determine
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how much wavelength of
light is being absorbed at different wavelengths. NARRATOR: The results are
then printed out in a chart.
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In the case of
Roger Scott Dunn, the duct tape was separated
out into its components--
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the fibers that run
along in the duct tape, the backing of the duct tape,
and the adhesive of the duct
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tape. As you can see, the
infrared spectrum from the roll of duct tape
found at the suspect's house
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and the duct tape
found at the scene are consistent in
the fibers component, the backing component, and
the adhesive component.
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NARRATOR: And the roll of
tape held even more clues. On the side of the role were
green nylon fibers, trilobal,
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or triangular, in shape. They were the same
size and shape and made of the same
polymers and dyed
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the same color as the carpet
in Scott Dunn's bedroom. I feel confident that
the fibers on the side
00:12:40
of the duct tape came
from the apartment, and that the duct tape
underneath the carpet
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came from the
roll of duct tape. NARRATOR: But without a
body, authorities were hesitant to conclude homicide.
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A lot of it had
to do with the body. We had no body. And the district attorney's
office at that time
00:13:00
was very apprehensive
to try to take something to trial where
you had no corpus delicti is
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what they say. NARRATOR: A full year passed,
and Jim Dunn decided to take matters into his own hands.
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He heard about a group of
international forensic experts who meet several times
a year in Philadelphia
00:13:20
to study unsolved murders. The group of 82 members is
called the Vidocq Society,
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named after Eugene Francois
Vidocq, an 18th century French detective
considered to be
00:13:34
the father of modern
criminal investigation. One of the co-founders of the
Vidocq Society, Richard
Walter,
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agreed to listen to
Mr. Dunn's story. JIM DUNN: Well, after about
an hour and a half of me
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presenting, showing pictures,
and listening to some tape recordings and things I had,
he looked me straight in the
eye
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and said, Jim, aren't you
tired of being the grieving
father? And he looked at
me, and he said,
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I thought I was
supposed to be. And I said, no, you're
supposed to be goddamn mad.
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Let's go after that bitch. NARRATOR: Richard
Walter was convinced that Leisha Hamilton
held the key
00:14:11
to Scott Dunn's disappearance. Walter sent the crime scene
photos to Dr. Richard
Shepherd,
00:14:17
a forensic pathologist at
Scotland Yard in London. After reviewing the
information, Dr. Shepherd
00:14:23
concluded that Scott
Dunn had been murdered in the corner of his
bedroom, the result of
00:14:29
multiple blunt
trauma injuries. But at the time, under
Texas law, without a body,
00:14:36
there was no homicide. Armed with Dr. Shepard's
forensic analysis, Richard Walter pleaded the
case to the district attorney,
00:14:44
arguing that they
had a body part. He said, what part
of the body is that? I said, blood's
connective tissue.
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He said-- he looked--
he gave me a long look and he said, all right,
you got a murder.
00:14:58
NARRATOR: Prosecutors
brought in their own blood spatter expert, Tom
Bevel, to confirm
00:15:03
the findings of Dr. Shepherd. According to Bevel, the blood
spatter pattern on the walls
00:15:09
indicated three distinct
lines of cast-off blood from a weapon. TOM BEVEL: For example, we
had three cast-off stains that
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were going in three
directions that would be consistent with three blows,
plus the one to create
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the blood in the first place. So in this case, we'd say
there was a minimum of four
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blows that was delivered. NARRATOR: To find out
how much blood Scott Dunn lost during the
assault, Bevel conducted
00:15:34
a blood saturation test. By pouring human blood onto
a test piece of carpet, Bevel created the same sized
stain found in the bedroom--
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in this case, 266
square inches. It took just under two units
of blood to create the stain
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and soak through to
the padding underneath. If you take that in
consideration with all
00:15:58
the other physical
evidence in there, such as the blood cleanup,
cutting out of the carpet,
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the blood spatter, the cast
-off that's to the wall and
also to the ceiling, along
with that blood volume,
00:16:09
it certainly is a high
suspicion that somebody, in fact, is dead. NARRATOR: Authorities were now
convinced that Scott Dunn had
00:16:19
been murdered in his bedroom. Lubbock police suspected that
both Leisha Hamilton and Tim
00:16:29
Smith were somehow involved
in Scott Dunn's murder, but they had no evidence
linking Leisha to the crime,
00:16:35
and the only link to
Smith was the duct tape, until Richard Walter
discovered something
00:16:41
that was previously
overlooked. Walter learned that several
strands of unidentified hair
00:16:47
had been found on the duct
tape in Scott Dunn's bedroom. He suggested the hair be
sent for forensic analysis.
00:16:55
At the FBI lab in
Washington, DC, the hair from the duct
tape underneath the carpet
00:17:00
was compared to hair
samples from Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith. ROY CARPER: No Scott Dunn
hairs were found on that tape,
00:17:08
but both the hairs of Leisha
Hamilton and Tim Smith were found on that duct tape,
holding it in, which means
00:17:15
that when that duct
tape was put down and that patch put in
place, they were there.
00:17:19
NARRATOR: 5 and 1/2 years
after Scott Dunn's
disappearance, Leisha Hamilton and
Tim Smith were arrested
00:17:27
and charged with murder. Prosecutors believe that
Leisha's motive was revenge,
00:17:33
that she was angry when
she learned that Scott was engaged to another woman. She's as hard as rocks,
bright, aggressive,
00:17:43
[inaudible],, smart, but has
ths insatiable appetite for
power, control, crushing people.
00:17:56
She dismisses you. You don't dismiss her. Leisha Hamilton was
the absolute instigator,
00:18:02
ringleader, and she
was the Wicked Witch of the West, who contrived,
developed, led, and covered up
00:18:08
this whole thing. NARRATOR: Prosecutors
believe that Scott Dunn was murdered in the early
morning hours of May 16, 1991.
00:18:23
He was asleep in the back and
struck at least four times with a blunt object. About two units of Scott's
blood was lost in the attack.
00:18:45
As Scott's body was
removed from the apartment, his blood was transferred
onto the bedroom door knob.
00:18:54
The location of the
body is still unknown. The cover-up failed because
the water and detergents could
not
00:19:08
remove the hemoglobin
components of the blood, which, later,
fluoresced when sprayed
00:19:13
with the chemical luminol. A piece of carpet from under
the sofa in the living room
00:19:20
was used to patch the
bloodstained carpet in the bedroom. The duct tape used
to patch the carpet
00:19:28
together contained
strands of hair consistent with hair
samples from both Leisha
00:19:35
Hamilton and Tim Smith. And the side of the
duct tape picked up some stray carpet fibers.
00:19:43
The roll was later found
in Tim Smith's apartment. Leisha Hamilton and Tim
Smith were tried separately,
00:19:51
and both were
convicted of murder. Leisha Hamilton was
sentenced to 20 years. Tim Smith received
a 10-year probation.
00:20:03
ROY CARPER: The jury, I think,
believed that perhaps he had a great deal to do
with disposing of the body,
00:20:08
but they didn't believe
he was actually there when the murder took place. And I think for that reason,
they recommended the judge
00:20:13
impose probation,
instead of sentencing him to a term in
the penitentiary, which would be carried out.
00:20:20
NARRATOR: Although
the body of Scott Dunn has never been found,
a headstone waits.
00:20:26
And the father still mourns. I'm just hopeful that at
some point, somebody will
talk,
00:20:33
and that we can
recover his remains. And still, we can have a
decent burial and a decent
ceremony
00:20:40
that we can put him to rest. And I'd feel totally
absolved at that point. I've done everything
that I could do,
00:20:46
if I can ever
reach that point. I haven't quite
reached that yet, and it still crosses my
mind what else I can do.
00:20:53
But at this point, I'm
going to let it go and hope that somebody will-- the good Lord or somebody
will give us some direction.
00:21:00
I don't what that actually
means in my life at some
point. [music playing]