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there was a break-in and the murder what do you mean what happened in the room it looked like an execution my first
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thought was this was a hit until a closer look at the forensic evidence revealed the truth that was
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definitely a stage scene [Music] [Music] one of the best defense lawyers in san antonio texas was leslie vaughan
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leslie was a workaholic if you know anything about guys who tried to to reach that uh status of perfectionism uh
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leslie was a was a perfectionist he really was not surprisingly as a defense attorney
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vaughn's practice also included problem clients he did have clients involved in the drug
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trade he did have clients that were identified themselves with different like organized crime groups
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on the night of november 10 1998 leslie's wife was working the night shift as a nurse at the local hospital
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leslie and his two sons were home that night around 1 30 a.m 16 year old brian said he heard a loud
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bang coming from his father's bedroom when he tried to get in he discovered the door was locked
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he hears some more alarming noises in the nature of gurgling or breathing he can't get into his dad's room
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and that concerns him in a panic brian called 911 [Music] after the call brian took his 11 year
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old brother to his neighbor's house he indicated there might have been maybe somebody in the house and that's
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that's why he was getting his brother out to make sure that his brother didn't
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get hurt when paramedics arrived they broke down the bedroom door and found leslie vaughan dead
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there was a single gunshot wound to his head there was a large limestone rock on the
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bedroom floor and a broken window the killer's apparent point of entry the french doors opened to a balcony and
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one of the doors had a very large gaping hole in it someone had thrown a rock through the doors
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and the size of the breakout in the glass could accommodate a grown person walking in and out to that opening
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so right off the bat i was i was pretty sure that we were dealing with the murder scene
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there was a spent shell casing on the floor and the spent bullet was found in the
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pillow under vaughan's head the bullet had six grooves with a right twist which would commonly indicate a
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smith and wesson's semi-automatic nine-millimeter handgun but the motive for the murder
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was unclear the television was on there was a remote control still intact there was
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no indications of drawers open where somebody ransacked was searching for something uh whether it be jewelry money
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so there was no indications at all of a burglary leslie vaughn was just 44 years old
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my first thought was this was a hit just a day earlier a federal prosecutor overheard vaughn say he feared he would
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be targeted for violence that's sometimes the risk you take when you lose a case for a client who happens
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to be a drug dealer what went through my mind is is that rumors were that maybe it was a client a
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disgruntled client somebody who's mad at him homicide detective alfred damiani broke
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the news to leslie's wife madeline i've made lots of those notifications
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and after the initial gasp in shock then it's how how did it happen and she never asked
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she never ever asked that and they found another surprise on the 911 [Music] at leslie vaughan's funeral
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prosecutors and law enforcement came together with drug dealers and felons to mourn his death you had these grown men
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that by society status they are thugs but they were actually reduced to tears because leslie vaughn was in that box
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about to be put in the ground in a search for the killer the vaughn family told police they were getting
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harassing telephone calls in the weeks leading up to the murder the family had been receiving calls that
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you'd pick the phone up nobody would say anything they were basically just just
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dead air unfortunately phone records couldn't determine the origin of the calls
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for investigators their first task was to eliminate the victim's wife madeleine as a possible
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suspect hospital records confirmed she was working on the night of the murder and
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had never left the premises madeleine was she was grieving she was stunned she was in shock she was all the
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things that you would expect her to be and remember i showed you the pictures of leslie and marlon and they look real
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happy did that look like a picture of somebody knocking each other out i mean that's what i saw
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on the night of the murder as a matter of routine police swabbed brian vaughn's
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hands for gunshot residue since he was in the house when the crime occurred these are the small microscopic
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particles that are left behind when a gun is fired if a person fired a weapon within a 24-hour period it is very
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likely that i will be able to find gunshot residue but under the scanning electron
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microscope magnified up to 10 000 times the tests on brian's hands were negative
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[Music] investigators suspected the killer somehow climbed up to a second floor balcony
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broke through the french doors and then shot vaughn in the head with a nine millimeter gun
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the balcony was about 15 feet from the ground this is a balcony without access to the
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ground level there's no there's no stairway there's no other way to access this
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balcony except through those doors i think someone could have scaled that balcony
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i would say that someone who did that would have to be pretty fit in pretty good shape i don't think it would have
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been an easy thing to do necessarily but it could be done but when investigators looked at the
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dirt below the balcony they couldn't find any evidence of a ladder or even any foot impressions
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despite three days of constant rain how did this person get up here how did this person climb up here and get up to
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the second floor of this wooden deck and gain enter to this residence if the ground had been disturbed by
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a heavy footprints or a ladder or some sort of equipment it should have shown up in the soil
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and investigators felt it would have been impossible to throw the rock from the yard
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it weighed close to 10 pounds that person had to be very strong to be able to throw that rock from the bottom
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floor and to make it go right through that glass we found no evidence that there was any activity anybody walking
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around back there absolutely no evidence of it and investigators found another inconsistency
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there was broken glass all over the bedroom floor and all over leslie vaughan's body as
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well the rock that was thrown through that window didn't even phase him and didn't even
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wake him up the obvious conclusion that you have to draw from that is is that the guy was
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probably dead already toxicology tests found no drugs or alcohol in leslie vaughan's system so
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there was no evidence he was unconscious before he was killed next investigators sent the rock
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to the forensic lab for testing i talked to a scientist and asked him if there was a process which he planned to
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use to to attempt to to raise these latent prints the process is called super glue fuming
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heated super glue produces fumes that adhere to a fingerprint and the adhesion is greater than fingerprint powder
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you want to preserve anything that is on that rock as far as laden prints or fingerprints you want to make sure that
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there's no way by using a brush that it's going to come off unfortunately the surface of the rock
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was too jagged the test was unsuccessful then investigators found an inconsistency
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in brian vaughn's story brian called 9-1-1 to report the shooting at 1 46 a.m
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what's your last name is anybody out there but brian took his brother to his
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neighbor's house 20 minutes earlier at 1 24. brian told the floyds that he had
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already placed a 9-1-1 call and that he was going back to the house to wait for the police when i asked both mr and mrs
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floyd what time it was they both told me it was exactly uh 1 24 a.m according to
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uh this this clock that they had in the bedroom brian arrived at the floyd's house at 1
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24 a.m did not call until 1 46. what was brian doing for these 20 minutes there were only three people in the
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house on the night of leslie vaughn's murder the victim and his two sons a background check revealed
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sixteen-year-old brian had a previous arrest he got into an argument with one of the
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security guards there at the bowling alley who actually was an off-duty bear county sheriff's deputy
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and in that altercation he ended up striking this deputy and in fact fleeing like
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evading from the scene and those were pending charges at the time that leslie was
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murdered investigators also learned that brian's car caught on fire three months before
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his father's murder the origin was suspicious there was an emergency call the vehicle
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was totaled and had to be put out there's some question as to whether or not brian was responsible for starting
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that fire or being there when the fire started whether leslie vaughan suspected this or
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not is unclear but he offered to buy brian a used car to replace the one ruined in the fire
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apparently brian wanted a new one a car salesman told police he witnessed a heated argument between the two on the
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afternoon of the murder his academic grades were poor which is the reason why his father wouldn't buy
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him the car in the first place according to brian's younger brother chris the argument continued when they
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got home up until the early evening hours of the night of the murder according to chris brian retaliated by
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threatening to quit his high school basketball team relinquishing any chance of a college scholarship in chris's
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statement he said that it was heated exchange between him and his father in brian
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vaughn's bedroom and that this thing occurred about 11 30 at night investigators dusted the entire bedroom
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for fingerprints and found no foreign prince only those of family members but on the french door with the broken
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window investigators found only one set of prints bryan's to have your own prince
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in your own house is not that significant but given the fact that we have this story about what happens and
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the door is really clean otherwise it's just one more piece to the puzzle investigators found shards of glass in
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the hallway outside the bedroom leading towards the bathroom it was easy to see it was from the killer there's some
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trace evidence some transfer blood and tissue to a wall right next to the door that
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exits the bedroom and that's significant we followed the glass yards to the bathroom and then inside of the bathroom
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we found an additional glass yard and then we found two black hairs in the sink area
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all of the hairs from that bathroom were sent to the forensic lab for analysis these hairs had a very clumped a very
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dense pigmentation pattern they were short they were semi-circular they contained overall characteristics
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that followed and fell into the footsteps of what one would conclude as being a negroid hair
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finally investigators listened to the entire conversation between brian and the 9-1-1 operator on the night of the
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murder brian said his father's bedroom door was locked but he told the operator one small
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detail that only the killer would know i think my dad's been shot i'm calling
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him he's all bleeding [Music] did you go inside the bedroom i can't the door's locked okay so how do you
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know he's bleeding from the mouth area let's start running out in the room okay
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good timing you can't get into the bedroom right i cannot get in the bedroom
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there is no way that brian vaughn would have known that his dad had been shot if the door
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was locked and he could not gain entry the biggest evidence against brian vaughn was brian vaughn
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okay he was his worst evidence investigators suspected that brian used a nine-millimeter gun from his father's
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own collection we believe from talking to his friends and his office manager that he would
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have had a gun in his night side table and on the night of the murder no gun was found there
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we understood that he has had nine millimeter guns in the past as well and leslie was killed with a nine millimeter
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the gun was in this case though never found was never found finally investigators interviewed the only other
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person inside the house at the time of the murder brian's younger brother chris
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we asked chris would brian kill your dad and chris answered i don't know we asked him would brian could brian
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kill your dad i don't know he's very athletic but i don't know if he could would he
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kill your dad i don't know which is an unusual response as opposed to no he wouldn't do
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it no he couldn't do it no he would never do it brian vaughn was arrested and charged
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with his father's murder but would the jury convict on so little evidence three months before leslie vaughn's
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murder prosecutors believe that his son brian may have set fire to his car as a ploy
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to get a new one but his father refused offering to buy him a used car instead apparently they thought about this and
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other issues like his grades in school and how he was jeopardizing his chances for an athletic scholarship to college
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according to chris vaughn the two argued until close to 11 30 on the night of the
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murder prosecutors believe brian waited until his father went to sleep then woke his little brother and took him to
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the neighbor's house he told his neighbors that he heard a noise from his father's bedroom and that
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it might have been a gunshot he said he already called 911 but that was a lie prosecutors believe he used the time to
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return home and shoot his father in the head [Music] to create the illusion this was
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committed by an intruder brian went out on the balcony and threw the rock through the window
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the glass landed on top of his father's body proof that this happened after he
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was dead the evidence suggests brian locked the bedroom door and tracked shards of glass
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through the hallway on his way to the bathroom to clean up where he disposed of the murder weapon
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and his bloody clothing is unknown 22 minutes after taking his brother to the neighbors
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brian finally called 911. the call was full of inconsistencies [Music] in january of 2000
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brian vaughn went on trial for the murder of his father and he was tried as an adult
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i don't think that you can be in your right mind to pull off something as horrendous as that was if you're in your
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right mind that's all i'm going say and that's what i feel you cannot tell
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me that he was in his right mind if he pulled that trigger the defense said an intruder committed
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the murder but the lack of mud on the balcony outside the bedroom made it clear that the shooter came from inside the
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house and brian's fingerprints were the only ones on the broken french door [Music]
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brian also lied about the 9-1-1 call and clearly knew information only the killer would know
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the jury found brian vaughn guilty will the jury assess the punishment of the defendant brian bond
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at confinement for 33 years he'll be eligible for parole in 2017. if leslie von was here he would ask the
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prosecutors to go leaning on his son i believe that our fathers would we could not fathom our children doing
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something as horrendous as that to us period he got a gun he snuck up on his dad
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while his dad was sleeping he put it to his dad's back of his dad's head and he
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blew his brains out basically yeah i think he belongs in the penitentiary she was really a star athlete and this
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this is a kid that probably would have figured out a way to uh you know do well enough in school to
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to graduate from high school and probably would have had a college career plan playing basketball and probably
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would have the time of his life and instead he's spending his life in jail few people can imagine a child killing a
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parent but the evidence at the scene and evidence missing from the scene clearly
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showed what happened this is such an unusual case in that you know forensics played a big role in this uh but but not
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in not not not in the normal sense uh the lack of it uh in in in some ways uh was was kind of compelling
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it is something that he probably just thought of either days before or that night just
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planned it and but he slipped and he wasn't able to cover his tracks he provided all the necessary pieces to
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convict him and in fact he provided evidence that was so strong you could not find him not guilty
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it takes days and weeks of investigation okay it takes lives that you destroy and
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you don't realize that when you're pulling the trigger because once you pull that trigger you can't take that
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bullet back