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[Music] on a hot summer evening in 1992 neighbors heard the familiar sound of an argument coming from the compano
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residence what I'm I promise according to Christopher compano his wife left the house shortly after
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their argument to calm down Karen campano was never seen again [Music] [Music] Karen keano was just two weeks shy of
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her 43rd birthday when she disappeared she had just come back to Oklahoma City after visiting her three
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children who were living in New York back to the home she shared with her third husband Chris she come back from
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New York and she went to talking about moving back because of her family and uh she's upset Chris and
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Karen campano were married in December of 1987 friends described them as an Odd Couple she was 15 years older than Chris
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and it was her third marriage his first they were introduced to one another by Karen's best friend who also happened to
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be Chris's mother Chris was a Drifter worked construction jobs and spent some time in
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jail for petty theft Karen was the main wage earner working as a bill collector for this
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credit adjustment company in town on the evening of July 1st 1992 Chris and Karen had one of their
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frequent arguments this time over his use of drugs and I was into drugs and and uh she was you know nagging at me
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and trying to get me in drug programs and you know just trying to help it was loud enough for the neighbors to hear I
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could hear a Karen screaming and no please please and don't do that and couldn't make out a lot of what was
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being said just a lot of screaming according to Chris after the argument Karen left the house for a walk headed
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to the Buy For Less convenience store for some personal items a few blocks away Chris left too driving to a local bar
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for a few drinks staying until about midnight the next morning Chris called Karen's office to see if she had
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reported to work her supervisor said she hadn't shown up or even called in Chris
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then phoned the police to report her missing when the police arrived to take Chris's statement they looked around
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briefly and reported seeing no evidence of Foul Play or anything out of place or
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unusual if a person is going to run away or or leave her husband she's not just going to walk
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away and leave everything behind she's going to take the things that mean the
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most to her especially when you're dealing with a woman things of you know toiletries makeup and that kind of thing
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and of course we found all those things intact in the bedroom in the bathroom and it was if she just disappeared off
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the face of the Earth without taking anything with her while the police were there Chris mentioned that the house had
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been burglarized night before while he was out drinking and that some items were missing police asked Chris to sign
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a waiver to allow a search of the house and he agreed to do so and and thought that would be good and even commented
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that he hoped that we found something in the house that would help us with the investigation the first thing I recall
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seeing is is the bed was against the South wall and right next to the bed was a large white trash bag and underneath
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that trash bag I could see a very large brownish colored stain of course the next thing we did was uh went and got
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some Hema sticks which we carried in our vehicle a Hema stick is a chemical strip
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that can immediately tell whether or not blood is present take the dry Hema stick and with your finger just lightly
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smear it on the suspect stain to where some of it's transferred on the Hem stick take a drop of distilled
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water put it on the heem stick flick off the excess water and you have a dark green which is a positive presumptive
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test for the presence of blood the stain on the carpet was indeed blood but was it human and if so whose was it the
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first day we were in the house u i put on a pair of gloves and that spot on that carpet was still moist this piece
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of carpet and the padding was completely soaked with blood it was such a massive
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amount of blood that there was still actual moisture involved there it was not completely dried the carpet was
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removed and delivered to the Oklahoma City Police Department's forensic chemistry lab I went on to do a um
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octone test is a spey determination test to determine as to whether or not that blood came from a human or an animal
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Source it was human blood that was enough to convince me that we weren't dealing with a routine missing person's
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case the police needed more to go on and felt the answers lay inside the compano
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house when police discovered human blood inside the compano bedroom they suspected the blood stain might belong
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to Karen compano they also suspected that Chris knew more about her disappearance than he was admitting she
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left at 7:30 what did you do then under police questioning Chris maintained that he knew nothing about
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his wife's whereabouts but his Alibi was weak the bartender didn't recall seeing
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Chris compano on the night of July 1 and police discovered that Chris had pawned some of Karen's jewelry the
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morning after her disappearance without a body the only thing left for the police to do was run more tests inside
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the house there weren't any visible signs of violence besides the blood stain they found in the bedroom we saw a
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typical little frame house for central Oklahoma City that uh as you went inside looked quite clean quite neat things had
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been cleaned out of it walls looked clean ceiling clean the floor looked clean so there wasn't much to see at all
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so they decided to look for blood which may have been cleaned up or wasn't visible to the naked eye to do so
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investigators used a special chemical solution called luminol an extremely sensitive test which can detect blood
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which has been removed by water or even detergents and bleach luminol is a fluorescence type chemical spray it on a
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substance that contain that may contain blood it reacts with the heem group in the blood itself the iron portions uh
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will uh lumines or flues to do the luminol test investigators needed complete darkness so they waited until
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Nightfall they began their chemical dragn net in the bedroom where they discovered the stain on the carpet a few
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days earlier first they took photographs of the room the way it looked to the naked eye then they sprayed the luminol
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the results were astonishing there were some instances in that house where it glowed so brightly that you could
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actually see the person standing next to you there was so much blood in there the
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luminol told a horrific tale blood had been everywhere on the walls the ceiling on the doors it looked like a blood bath
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had occurred there something from a horror movie even more telling was the blood spatter which is the placement of
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the stains where they were located the size of the drops and the trails of blood all told a story someone had been
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beaten in the bedroom with a blunt object they were in uh two Trails what we refer to as castoff Trails so if if
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you had an object for example in your hand uh and that object was blood covered and if you were swinging that
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object overhead the centrifugal force of pulling the blood down to the end of the
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object will cast the blood in the direction the object is being swung and in this case it's going to the
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[Music] ceiling there are two distinct trails and uh you can tell that uh there's at
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least two Swings with a blood covered object luminol was then applied to the rest of the house and even to the
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outside steps and walkways at one point there's a swipe of blood that was on the
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kitchen door leading into the util room that would have been about head level if
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you were carrying a body and had to turn the body sideways to get it through a normal door and then at that point it
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appeared the body was laid down on the ground and then drug from the utility room down the back steps and you could
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see pulled luminescence on each step and then drag marks that were luminescent all the way down the walkway until you
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got to the point that you were at the driveway and at that point they disappeared
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very very dramatic presentation the house was telling its Story one of an apparently gruesome attack but there
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were still unanswered questions where was the body and the weapon and was the blood Karen
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campanos police still couldn't prove a murder had been committed although the police knew
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someone was violently attacked inside the compano residence they couldn't be
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sure a homicide had been committed was there enough blood in the compano house to prove that someone was dead and was
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that someone Caren campano the investigators uh at a later time decided that we'd go back and try to do a
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measurement test to see how much blood had to been let out on that carpet to make that size of a stain police made
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sure their test was as accurate as possible they used a piece of the original carpet as well as a weight to
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simulate a human head next they poured human blood around the weight until they created a stain measuring 887 Square in
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the same size stain they originally discovered statistically one could say that between 1300 and 1400 cc's of blood
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would create that would create that stain that's more more than 40% of the blood volume of a woman Karen Ceno's
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size no one could survive with that amount of blood loss so at that point it became pretty apparent to me that if
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this lady was missing and if this lady was dead that this lady probably was killed right there the authorities now
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knew a homicide had been committed in the house and that someone had died in the bedroom in a pool of blood but was
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the victim Karen compano police didn't have a sample of Karen Cano's blood to
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compare to the blood stain if Karen's mother and father were still living it
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would have been a simple matter to examine their DNA since Karen would have received half of her DNA from her mother
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and half from her father but Karen's father was deceased the Oklahoma City Police
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Department asked the FBI to get involved to see if there was any way they could figure out whether the blood found in
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the house belonged to Karen campano the police obtained blood samples from Karen's mother her two sisters her three
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children and one of her ex-husbands and so in this particular case the object of
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the examination was to see if this DNA from the blood stain of Unknown Origin was matching at least half of the DNA
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was matching to the relatives from Karen campano Hal Deadman of the FBI's DNA
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analysis unit conducted what is called rflp analysis analyzing pieces of DNA from four different chromosomes this is
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the DNA profile of Karen cmo's mother and next to it on either side are two of
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her daughters Karen cmo's sisters both daughters share half of their DNA with
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their mother this Lane shows a DNA sample from one of Karen compano ex-husbands the next Lane shows a sample
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from his son whose mother was was Karen compano the Father and Son both share the upper band the son would have
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received the lower band from his mother which matches the band from his grandmother Karen's mother the next Auto
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rad compares the family member's DNA to the unknown blood stain found in the
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compano home the top marker matches the genetic profile from the first of Karen compano children and the markers from
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the blood stain also matched the bands from Karen compan two other children from another marriage results were were
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fairly straightforward um they were totally consistent with the blood coming from
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Karen compano 8 months after The Disappearance of Karen compano police concluded that Christopher compano
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murdered his wife and was arrested all of the evidence pointed towards Chris compano the forensic evidence the
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argument neighbors heard on the night of Karen's disappearance Chris's lack of an
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alibi for the entire evening and the fact that he pawned some of her things the prosecution believed that Karen
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campano never left her house for a walk as her husband had suggested neighbors heard Karen and
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Chris arguing that night and the forensic evidence suggests that the argument moved to their
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bedroom where it escalated and turned violent [Music] as Chris stood near the window he struck
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Karen in the head with a blunt object at least three times possibly more producing the castoff blood Trails on
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the ceiling and walls Karen fell to the floor her head striking the bed post where her blood
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was also found as Karen lay bleeding from her massive head injuries Chris left and went to a local bar he needed
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to wait until the neighbors were asleep before removing Karen's body when he returned home he wrapped
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Karen's body in a sheet with a telephone wire and carried her through the house
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luminol test showed that Karen's head brushed against the door leaving a blood
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smear later cleaned with detergent Chris then dropped the body onto the floor and dragged it through the side
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door and out towards the car he probably disposed of her body late that night in a deserted
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location after returning home Chris removed all visible traces of blood both inside and
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out the DNA analysis showed the blood found on the carpet belonged to Karen campano and the medical examiner would
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testify that Karen compano suffered horrendous head injuries during the attack which no one could survive
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prosecutors were confident of a conviction even though they didn't have a body or a murder weapon well I thought
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it was very likely we might never find the body of the victim but just as the preliminary hearing was set to get
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underway everything changed the police found Karen campano this part right here wasn't
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quite so grown up with all this Ivy and she was laying right down there by that large cottonwood tree uh north to south
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and there were some blankets around her there was no Greenery at that time if there had been Greenery at that time
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you'd never know she was there the body lay in a remote area off a major interstate highway until some youngsters
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on dirt bikes stumbled across it all we knew was that we had a female's body out
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there we had no idea who it was of course we were hoping it was Karen but we didn't
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know there was another important find police discovered a piece of a check underneath the body
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although they couldn't determine to whom the check was issued it was from the
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Shell Oil Company and mailed to someone in New York the check was for $83.33 Karen campano was from New York
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and her family had a part interest in a gas station there this was the first definitive piece that we
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had that we knew at that point there was a great possibility that it was caring and of course we wouldn't know for sure
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until they made identification through dental records and DNA Dr Tom glass heads the forensic odontology department
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at the University of Oklahoma with the help of Karen Ceno's dental records and
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an almost complete set of teeth found in the skull of the body Dr glass's task
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was fairly easy what I do in making the comparison then is simply go frame by frame by
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frame of the patients an morm Dental x-ray the x-rays made by the dentist with the frames of the same areas made
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on the skeleton eyes remains she had a very thorough dentist who documented what he had done and that documentation
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allowed the identification in Kieran Capo's case to be very profound and a DNA analysis of the bone marrow
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confirmed it the last doubts had been removed personally I'm glad she was eventually found because of the family
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back in New York I talked to him at length over the phone later on during the investigation
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I met them U they're really great people and I I really had strong feelings for
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them hoping one day she would be found so they could put their own fears to rest and give her a decent burial and
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Christopher compano confessed the remarkable thing about it the autopsy confirmed the prosecution's
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theory of how Karen died and that theory remember was based only on the luminol the blood spatter analysis and the blood
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volume tests the maxilla were fractured the mandibles were fractured the nose was fractured the sinuses were fractured
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the skull was extensively fractured yet the cervical spine was intact and there were only three fractures in the ribs so
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this is not the Hallmark of somebody that's been run over by a car or somebody who's at a train wreck or or
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something like that this is the Hallmark of someone who has sustained a severe beating about the head and face so it
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was obvious that this was an assault police and forensic science had solved a difficult puzzle it all told a story it
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was just more of the pieces of the puzzle coming together even all the way to the end when the body was actually
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found it's like you know we've got most of the puzzle there you know what it is
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even with some missing pieces you know what it is but then what that body found was like that was the very last piece
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that that just fit in there in January of 1994 a year and a half after Karen was
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killed Christopher compano went on trial for his life his defense attorney couldn't refute the forensic findings
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they were just too strong once I had decided to make that leap and embrace the evidence uh then my task became
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easier it was a matter then of of looking at the psychological aspects of the case rather than the hard forensics
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the case I suggested to the judge and jury if it was going to be deliberately planned out and methodical that kind of
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blood wouldn't be there there would been none in the house probably the homicide
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would have occurred elsewhere if it had been a coldblooded killing the jury bought at least part of the argument it
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found compano guilty of manslaughter not the first-degree murder charge the state
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was seeking I feel sorry for it feel sorry for what I did to her can't bring
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her back you know I just got to pay for what I've done Christopher compano was
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sentenced to 1,000 years in prison [Music] oh [Music]