00:00:06
NARRATOR: A teenage
girl went missing after an evening of
horseback riding. Some tiny bits of metal, wood,
and some weathered green paint
00:00:15
revealed the girl's path on
the night she disappeared. And they also painted a portrait
of the person she was with.
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[theme music] NARRATOR: Between school,
sports, a part-time job, and homework,
16-year-old Tracy Parker
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didn't have a lot of spare time. Yet, she devoted
every free minute she had to her first and
only real love, riding.
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-We had actually been
riding our entire lives. My dad actually
brought the first pony
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we ever had home when, I
think, I was four years old. So horses and animals very
much a part of our lives.
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NARRATOR: Tracy's neighbors,
Wayne and Sharon Frye, often allowed her to
ride their horses.
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And in return, Tracy
cleaned their stalls. But after one visit,
Tracy disappeared
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and was never seen again. SHANNON PARKER: My
mother knew that Tracy was going there to go riding.
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And she had anticipated
her to be coming home. So obviously, that was where
she started to make her calls,
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to the Frye residence to
see if they had seen Tracy. NARRATOR: The Frye's
told Tracy's parents
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they were out to
dinner that night. And when they returned
home, Tracy wasn't there.
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But they noticed that Tracy's
favorite horse was sweating, an indication it
had been ridden.
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And the riding equipment
had been used and put away. -Everything seemed to be
in order at their house.
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And then my mom continued to
make calls from that point on. NARRATOR: Tracy's parents called
police to report her missing.
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-When a teenager shows
up not coming home, disappeared for
less than 24 hours, without any other evidence
indicating otherwise,
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the normal response is
to treat it as a run away and begin the
investigation in that manner.
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NARRATOR: Friends, neighbors,
police and volunteers searched the entire area
looking for any signs of her.
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But they found nothing. Five days later, searchers found
Tracy's clothing in the woods,
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about two miles from her home. -The clothes were all crumbled
and commingled with each other,
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and just thrown off of
the road into the brush. SHANNON PARKER: The condition
of the clothing was very bad.
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There was a lot of blood on the
clothes when they were found. And the fact that it was
pretty much all of her clothing
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just really made
everyone's heart sink and-- and-- really,
I think, left a very sickening feeling
over the whole family.
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It was a-- a difficult day. NARRATOR: Nearby,
searchers found a red towel and an orange blanket,
both soaked with blood.
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Since this was before
widespread use of DNA testing, serology identified
the blood as type O.
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The same blood type as Tracy's. The Frye's home was Tracy's
last known location,
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so police searched
their home and stables and made a surprising discovery. DOUGLAS HUDSON: I
discovered some blood spots
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inside the door to
the basement, and I though this is very suspicious. NARRATOR: It was clear that
this was blood spatter.
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DOUGLAS HUDSON:
It wasn't a smear. It wasn't a drip. It had been thrown there
through some type of force.
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NARRATOR: When
questioned, the Frye's said the blood was the
result of an accident.
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An explanation police found
almost too convenient. DOUGLAS HUDSON: I talked
to Wayne Frye about that
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and asked him if he'd
injured himself or anything. He'd had an injury on his thumb.
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NARRATOR: The Frye's home was
beginning to look like a crime scene, although
Tracy's family still
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held out hope that
she might be alive. -Please bring her home. That's all I want to say.
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NARRATOR: 16-year-old Tracy
Parker had been riding horses at her next door
neighbors home before she
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mysteriously disappeared. Her bloody clothes
and a blanket were discovered just
a few miles away.
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-Locating the clothes
was really putting things into a perspective
that we really
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didn't want to have to face. NARRATOR: The red towel
found with Tracy's clothes was even more telling.
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Police discovered that
the towel belonged to Tracy's next door
neighbors, the Fryes.
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They had used it to cover
the window in their garage. SHANNON PARKER: They just seemed
very, kind of, unmotivated
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and a little bit
like two burnouts. I just thought they
were kind of odd people.
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They didn't seem
particularly dangerous or there wasn't any reason to
feel afraid of them, I guess.
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-The Frye residence became
very high on my list as a potential crime scene. NARRATOR: Also suspicious,
investigators found blood
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on the basement door
of the Frye's home. -And certainly at
that point, suspected
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they had found the place
where Tracy had last been. NARRATOR: But in a huge
setback for investigators,
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an antibody test
revealed that the blood was from one of the Frye's dogs. DOUGLAS HUDSON: He had
two rather large dogs
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and one of them had injured
the tip of it's tail. That it was possible that the
blood that was on the wall
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had come from the tip
of the dog's tail. NARRATOR: Nevertheless,
police continued
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to focus on Wayne
and Sharon Frye. They said they
were out to dinner with friends on the
night Tracy disappeared.
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But a check of their
telephone records indicated someone used
their home phone at 7:44 PM.
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Brian Lord, the Frye's
handyman, called his girlfriend to say he was running
a little late.
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IONE S. GEORGE: Brian
Lord and his girlfriend had just had a baby. There was a family
get together going on.
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It was their first
real dinner party, and he was expected at home. NARRATOR: Tracy Parker made a
telephone call from the house
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15 minutes later to
one of her friends. IONE S. GEORGE: We know that
Tracy made a phone call to one
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of her girlfriends
at about 8 o'clock. The friend was
unavailable to talk and Tracy said,
well, call me back.
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NARRATOR: During
questioning, Brian Lord said he didn't see
Tracy Parker that night.
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He claimed he left
the Frye's home shortly after calling
his girlfriend. SHANNON PARKER: My sister
had actually said to me,
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you know that guy that
works on the house up there where I ride the
horse says you're really cute.
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She goes, anyhow, I
don't hang out with him. He's given me a
ride home before. That was nice.
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NARRATOR: In the
forensics lab, scientists found some rare and
unusual evidence on Tracy's bloody clothing.
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Tiny pieces of metal. JOHN A. BROWN: When we
looked at the metal shavings, we could see that there
were tool marks on them
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and that they had these
characteristic little curled-up shapes of metal turnings, as
opposed to some other process.
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NARRATOR: They appeared to be
shavings from a metal lathe, a machine that grinds
and cuts metal.
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Investigators used X-ray
Fluorescence Spectroscopy, or XRF, to determine
the chemical composition
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of the shavings. EDWARD SUZUKI: They
were comprised primarily of aluminum, but they had a
large number of other elements
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present.
So these were aluminum alloys. NARRATOR: Metal isn't an item
commonly found on clothing.
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-It would be extremely rare. Not everybody is wandering
around with aluminum shavings
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on their clothing. NARRATOR: But investigators
couldn't find similar aluminum shavings anywhere in the
Frye's home, in their stables,
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or anywhere else
on their property. As the investigation
continued, a search team
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made the discovery
everyone had been dreading. One month after she disappeared,
Tracy Parker's partially
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clothed body was
found in a field about three miles from her home. SHANNON PARKER: I
felt like my childhood
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ended the day Tracy died. All of a sudden, I--
I had to be an adult and had adult problems
and responsibilities,
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and things that went
along with, you know, being part of
something like this. So I feel that I lost
my childhood in a sense.
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NARRATOR: The autopsy
revealed the cause of death was blunt force
trauma to the head.
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She had apparently been
murdered around the time she disappeared. The autopsy also
found evidence she
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had been sexually assaulted. Investigators found those
same aluminum metal shavings
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on Tracy's body,
along with chips of very old weathered
green paint. -From that point,
law enforcement
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began looking for a
construction site, or really a woodworking shop
to match up to
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where did all of these small
wood shavings come from? Where did all the metal
shavings come from?
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And so they went out really
looking for any connection to a woodworking or a small
base construction shop.
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NARRATOR: Investigators knew if
they found the source of both the green paint and
the aluminum shavings,
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they would find the killer
of 16-year-old Tracy Parker. Records show that Tracy Parker
used her neighbor's telephone
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to call a friend around 8:00 PM
on the night she disappeared. Brian Lord, the handyman,
used the same phone
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to call his girlfriend 15
minutes earlier, although he claimed he didn't
see Tracy that night.
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Lord said he stopped by
his brother's workshop on his way home. When police searched the shop,
they found nothing suspicious.
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-Nothing jumped out
at us right away. It appears that nothing really
happened in the workshop.
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NARRATOR: Brian
Lord allowed police to search his pickup truck,
and examine the clothes he said
00:10:58
he was wearing the
night Tracy disappeared. Investigators found
no forensic evidence.
00:11:05
But neighbors told police
they saw Lord washing his truck with a
hose that night.
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-We had witnesses that had
him cleaning his pickup truck, which was very unusual
for him to do that.
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TRAVIS BAKER: He was washing
a truck without a shirt on in 57 degree weather. That sort of behavior
was hard to explain.
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NARRATOR: Naturally,
investigators found this suspicious. So they decided to
take a much closer look
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inside his brother's workshop. The floor looked
remarkably clean and appeared to have been
covered with some type of oil.
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To find out what was beneath
it, analysts sprayed the floor with a reagent called
leucomalachite green
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that reacts with the
protein in human blood. Just seconds after
it was applied, large areas illuminated.
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FEL ABILLE: Which told us that
there was quite a bit of blood that was not seen
with the human eye.
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I was overwhelmed. NARRATOR: When Brian Lord's
attorney saw the blood stain, he suggested the blood
was from Brian's dog
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when she was in heat. -I said, well then, we
better look for this dog. And he goes, what do you mean?
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Because there's got to
be one heck of a dead dog here somewhere. I mean, look how
big that spot is.
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NARRATOR: Serology tests showed
that the blood was human, and was the same blood
type as Tracy Parker's.
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DOUGLAS HUDSON: The crime
lab examination of the blood revealed that it was type O
with a particular enzyme, which
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limited it to approximately
4% of the population. Turned out that
Tracy Parker's blood
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was identical in
type and that enzyme. NARRATOR: Next, analysts
collected everything
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they could find in the workshop. Paint chips, metal shavings,
wood chips, debris, dust, dirt,
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all were sent to
the forensic lab. EDWARD SUZUKI: In the history
of our crime laboratory,
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which has been in
existence since the 1970s, this is by far the
largest case, as far
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as the volume of trace evidence,
that has been received. NARRATOR: Among the
thousands of pieces of trace
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evidence investigators
identified wood chips and paint fragments. But the wood chips were so
small it was impossible to tell
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whether they matched those
found on Tracy's body. The white paint chips were
difficult to identify,
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but the green ones were easier. Colored paint has variables like
color pigments, binding agents,
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synthetic and organic base
materials that can be unique. JOHN A. BROWN: Never in my life
have I see green paint that
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would have matched
this green paint. It was badly weathered
and very old, and it showed in the
examination I did.
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And I've never seen a paint
like this before or since. NARRATOR: The green paint
chips were subjected
00:14:10
to microscopic infrared
elemental analysis. The results were astounding. The green paint chips
found on Tracy's body
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were identical to the paint
of an old piece of fence found in Brian Lord's workshop.
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EDWARD SUZUKI: They were similar
in their color, texture, layer structure, degree of
the weathering, chemical
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composition, composition of
minor elements, and so forth. NARRATOR: Police checked
Brian Lord's work records
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and learned that Lord had
dismantled this old green fence just a few weeks before
Tracy's disappearance,
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and carted those pieces
away from the work site in his truck. -To me, the green paint
chip was the smoking gun
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as-- in relationship
to Brian Keith Lord. NARRATOR: Finally, investigators
tested metal fragments
00:15:04
in Lord's workshop
with X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy, or XRF. They were identical in
composition, size, and shape
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to those found on Tracy's
body, on her clothing, and on the orange blanket. And a single strand of human
hair on the orange blanket
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was microscopically similar
to Brian Lord's hair. TIMOTHY A. DRURY: I think Brian
Keith Lord was an angry person,
00:15:33
and I don't know why.
A vicious, angry person. NARRATOR: Police found no
evidence that Wayne and Sharon
00:15:41
Frye had anything to do
with Tracy Parker's murder. Brian Lord was arrested. He insisted he was innocent.
00:15:50
But a background check
revealed a violent past. One that literally
went unpunished.
00:16:00
Forensic evidence linked
a 25-year-old handyman, Brian Lord, to Tracy
Parker's murder.
00:16:08
When police checked
Lord's background, they found something horrifying. Lord had been convicted
of murder once before.
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-As a child, when he was
only, I believe it was 13, walked over to a house
of one of his friends
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and shot his friend's
mother in the back while she was hanging
up clothes on the line.
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There was no motivation. He killed her. NARRATOR: For that crime,
Lord served only six months
00:16:41
in a juvenile detention
facility and was released. -When we learned that Brian
Lord had killed before,
00:16:48
I think our family
felt very cheated. We felt like the system
just didn't do its job.
00:16:53
Why would somebody
spend so little time for such a heinous crime? NARRATOR: Prosecutors
believe Brian Lord had
00:17:01
his eye on Tracy Parker
for quite some time. He frequently worked at the
Frye's homes as a handyman
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while Tracy was there
caring for the horses. On the night of the murder,
the Frye's were out to dinner,
00:17:15
so Lord and Tracy were alone. Phone records show that
Lord called his girlfriend
00:17:22
at 7:44 to say he
was running late. -OK. I'll see you then. NARRATOR: That phone
call ended just 8 minutes
00:17:30
before Tracy called her
friend from the same phone. -We believe very much
that they met together
00:17:37
at least in the
kitchen area when those phone calls were made. Tracy was not seen
after that time.
00:17:44
NARRATOR: Prosecutors
think Lord may have offered Tracy a ride home. Along the way, he stopped
at his brother's workshop.
00:17:57
His brother was out
of town that day. Lord somehow enticed
Tracy inside the workshop.
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-Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. -Well, come here. Right back in here. NARRATOR: There, he may
have propositioned her
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and she refused. -Stop it. NARRATOR: The evidence
suggests Lord struck her on the head with a blunt object
and sexually assaulted her.
00:18:34
Bits of wood, paint,
and metal fragments on the floor clung
to Tracy's clothing.
00:18:42
The weathered green paint
chips were transferred onto the clothes and
blanket from Lord's truck.
00:18:49
Hair from Lord's head
fell onto the blanket too. [door slams] After Lord put Tracy's
body, her clothing,
00:19:02
and the orange blanket
in different locations, he rushed back to the workshop,
washed the back of his truck
00:19:08
with a hose, swept and washed
the floor, then spread motor oil to cover the
blood that had seeped
00:19:16
into the porous concrete. But the cover up didn't work. The pieces of evidence
were too numerous.
00:19:24
The analytical powers of the
investigators were too great. TIMOTHY A. DRURY: It
was very complicated.
00:19:30
It took a very long time
to present each small piece of evidence and have it traced
back to where it was found
00:19:37
and how it linked then
to other-- other pieces of evidence that were
found at other sites.
00:19:43
SHANNON PARKER: You wonder
what is this guy all about? Several times when
we were in court,
00:19:47
he would make little
comments as we would walk by. And he would say to my dad,
well, if I ever get out,
00:19:53
maybe your other
daughter will be next. Just horrible things that make
you have a lot of nightmares.
00:19:59
And I thought, I don't have
to deal with him right now. Maybe at some
point in the future
00:20:04
I will, but right now,
I know where he's at. NARRATOR: Brian Lord
was tried and convicted
00:20:10
of first degree murder
and sentenced to death. A few years later,
Lord's guilty verdict
00:20:18
was overturned on appeal. He was tried and
convicted again in 1999. And this time, sentenced to
life in prison without parole.
00:20:28
-I think the overturning
of capital murder cases is so routine that
it's aggravating,
00:20:34
but it's not a surprise. IONE S. GEORGE: After the
first trial on appeal, I believe it was our
state Supreme Court that
00:20:40
said in the written opinion
that this was the most complex circumstantial trace
evidence case that
00:20:45
had never been
tried in the state. And I'd be willing to wager
that that stands true.
00:20:50
-I'm not so sure as this case
would have been solved had it not been for the
forensic evidence.
00:20:56
It was the forensic evidence
that tied all of the scenes together. And it was the
forensic evidence that
00:21:02
pointed directly at
Brian Keith Lord. [theme music]