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an ex-convict was suspected of a brutal double homicide because his driver's
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license was found at the scene in the past this might have been enough for a conviction but a dish of ice cream
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pointed investigators in a different direction [Music] [Music] on the day before thanksgiving in 2003
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a saint petersburg florida shop owner noticed a jeep near his store it had blood and
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it had all kinds of things inside of it had a purse inside of it and the seat belt was hanging out and just a lot of
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things you could tell it wasn't right the right front windshield was shattered
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and we found a purse with contents and identification and money and so forth relating to the
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female passenger the jeep belonged to richard and carla van dusen carla's cell phone was found on the
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front seat just a half mile away neighbors called police to report two dead bodies on the road outside their
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home they were identified as richard and carla van dusen richard was laying face down
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in the dirt of the driveway and carla was laying on her side both had been shot in the head and uh we later learned
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through an autopsy that carla had also been stabbed richard and carla had been married for
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three years they had three grown children from previous marriages my son he said they're dead
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and i said did they have an accident and i said are you sure several times i asked him if he was sure
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and then he told me that they had been found and that they were had been murdered
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and i just i don't even remember after that investigators had two crime scenes the
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jeep and the area where the bodies were found based on the evidence and the location
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of the bodies investigators think that the killer was someone the van duzens knew
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we felt that there probably was a third party involved in the vehicle with them richard van dusen is forced out of the
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car at gunpoint we feel that he's certainly killed outside of the car carla van dusen is shot while seated in
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the car it looked like carla saw what was happening turned her head lifted her left hand and the bullet went through
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the windshield her hand and into her head later the killer cut her seat belt and removed her body from the jeep
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investigators believe the killer then drove the jeep a half mile away and abandoned it
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on the ground near the jeep police found a florida driver's license it belonged to someone named
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henry sullivan we learned that mr sullivan had a comparatively extensive criminal arrest
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record from narcotics to crimes against persons battery and aggravated battery probation violations he had a reasonably
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extensive record when police went to henry sullivan's apartment they found a vintage red 1971 chevrolet
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cheyenne pickup truck parked outside his apartment incredibly the truck belonged to the murder victims
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richard and carla van dusen it had been completely restored it was a classic truck it was a definite eye catcher and
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in fact what i would describe as one of a kind pickup truck when questioned henry sullivan denied
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any involvement in the murders with his driver's license found at the crime scene it looked like an open and
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shut case but it was just the beginning [Music] friends and family couldn't believe that
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richard and carla van dusen were murdered richard was a copy machine sales manager
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whose hobby was collecting antique cars carla was a courtroom reporter on weekends she worked as a clown
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entertaining sick children at local hospitals [Music] they were pretty well known in the
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community they lived in a small beach town outside of st petersburg called tierra verde a very beautiful sugar sand
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beaches the prime suspect was 32 year old henry sullivan he couldn't explain why his driver's
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license was found near the van dusen's abandoned jeep and insisted he was innocent sullivan said you know
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i lose my ids all the time in fact i just lost one you know a couple weeks before you came to
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interview me the driver's license was dusted for fingerprints none were found
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police also looked for fingerprints inside the van duzen's jeep especially on the seat belt
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after having applied ninhydrin to the seatbelt and allowing it to dry completely
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i re-examined that seat belt for the presence of fingerprints and found none but the killer left behind one piece of
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evidence a nine millimeter bullet found on the floor of the victim's jeep when investigators searched henry
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sullivan's apartment they found a nine-millimeter pistol investigators found that sullivan was in
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possession of two nine millimeter pistols and that matched with the murder weapon that investigators had been
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looking for one was inoperable the other nine millimeter handgun was test-fired into a tank of water
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that bullet was microscopically compared to the nine millimeter slug found in the
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van dusen's jeep analyst erika henderson carefully examined the distinctive marks called
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lands and grooves made when each bullet goes through the barrel of the gun when you look down the barrel of a
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firearm you will see the ridges and valleys these ridges and valleys once a bullet
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is fired will be imparted on the bullet so the bullet will also have these ridges and valleys
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the test bullet and the one from the crime scene were turned repeatedly as henderson checked
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and rechecked the markings i just worked the evidence so i try to have tunnel vision because i
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don't want anybody ever to come around and say you know you have a biased opinion
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but the result showed that henry sullivan's gun was not the murder weapon [Music]
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crime scene analysts then turned their attention to the vandusen's classic red
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pickup truck found behind henry sullivan's apartment as they examined the vehicle
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there was another bizarre incident in this already unusual investigation we are approached by
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a white male subject who identifies himself as william de parvin who announces himself to us as
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the owner of the truck and said that he had purchased it the day previous deparvine lived in the same apartment
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building as henry sullivan and he said he bought the truck from the vandusens just the day before
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he said the vandusens placed an ad for the truck in the local newspaper deparvine went to look at the truck
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bought it and said the vanduzans later delivered it to his apartment he said he paid them sixty five hundred
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dollars for it and when they left he never saw them again his approach to us was very up front and
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forward he was quite conversational and he wasn't didn't appear to be defensive
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or belligerent or anything of the sort most of deparvine's story could be corroborated but there were several
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discrepancies what's he doing with a bill of sale for 6 500 when when van dusen's telling a co-worker the day
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before he's he's found a buyer for thirteen five now that just tells us something not
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right here deparvine said the vandusens left his apartment around 5 30. but carla van dusen called her mother at
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6 37 p.m with information that contradicted that the night that they were killed i got a
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phone call from carla and and she was very excited she said yeah i'm in the car i'm i'm driving behind
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rick and the guy that bought the truck because he knows where to get the paperwork done tonight
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although carla never mentioned the buyer's name the call placed the buyer presumably to
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parvine in the pickup truck with richard van dusen an hour after deparvine said they left his apartment
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it just kind of went through my mind as to what is the hurry you know that you have
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to go out at night to to get this paperwork done deparvine denied he was the man in the
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pickup truck with richard van dusen [Music] a background check revealed this wasn't deparvine's first brush with
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the law we found that mr department had an extensive felony arrest record and that
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he had just been released from prison and was on probation deparven had just served nine years on a
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weapons possession charge and henry sullivan was still a suspect we still have the henry sullivan angle
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and also we don't lose sight of the fact that there may be an unknown perpetrator
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involved in this crime there may be something else completely unrelated to the sale of the pickup involved
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based on dna testing and blood spatter analysis investigators believe richard van dusen
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was pulled from his jeep and shot outside the vehicle his wife carla was sitting in the
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passenger seat and was shot through the windshield but on the steering wheel investigators found blood which did not
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come from carla or richard the samples that were tested from the steering wheel were consistent with
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being human blood those samples were tested to develop a dna profile perhaps the killer nicked his hand while
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cutting the seat belt to remove carla's body and the blood dripped onto the steering wheel while he drove the jeep
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to the dump site investigators asked their initial suspect henry sullivan for a dna sample
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testing showed it was not his blood in the car sullivan wasn't involved in crime so the
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mystery was how did his card get there and investigators soon had another theory
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for how it got there henry sullivan had a brother who was stopped for a traffic violation on the
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night of the murders he told police that night that his name was henry we have another person using
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henry sullivan's name and date of birth could he be the killer and the one that's dropped the driver's license at
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the at the scene where the vehicle was found justin sullivan had a warrant in existence for his
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arrest wholly unrelated to any of the matters pertaining to this case in an attempt to evade that
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he gave his brother's name our curiosity was peaked to the point that we thought perhaps justin sullivan
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was using henry's identification in it and it could have conceivably been that justin
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dropped the id card at the scene of the crime but like his brother justin denied any involvement in
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the murders he said he had an alibi that he was with friends at a nightclub which
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they corroborated then investigators asked their third suspect william deparvine for a dna
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sample he said no we don't have any probable cause at this point in time in the investigation to
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indicate that mr parvin is involved in the murder therefore we don't have enough information to draw a search
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warrant without a warrant police couldn't get a genetic sample directly from deparvine but
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there were other ways we were looking for him to either eat something drink something and discard it
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chew gum and discard it or even spit so that we could swab that up a team of detectives was assigned to
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follow deparvine everywhere he went hoping to somehow get his dna sampled when someone's out on foot like in a
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mall we work in pairs of two so therefore if you've got ten people you've really only got a team of five
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following a person and you need at least eight to ten people to follow somebody so that they
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don't know they're being followed deparvine had earned a law degree while
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he was in prison and he was very careful either because he was disciplined or he
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knew he was being followed mr parvin is an intelligent individual he's not your average type of criminal
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he led a very monotonous very bland type of lifestyle he would get up in the morning he would
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go to work he would come back home and stay inside his little apartment and go to sleep
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deparvine was a construction worker and he had no social life to speak of for months the surveillance continued
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with no luck but the deparvine made a mistake during the christmas shopping season
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he stopped at an ice cream store and bought a dessert known as a blizzard my partner at the time and i watched him
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eat the blizzard and felt that the way he was slowly eating the blizzard and taking the spoon and raking it across
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his teeth that that spoon would possibly give us some dna from mr deparvine de parvine discarded the cup in the
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spoon and investigators immediately retrieved the spoon from the trash technology has become incredibly
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sensitive and incredibly powerful and there is the ability to obtain dna from the smallest piece of evidence in a very
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reproducible very reliable manner on the spoon scientists found saliva they extracted dna and compared it to
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the blood found on the steering wheel of the van dusen's jeep the results left no doubt
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the dna profile that was developed from the steering wheel was matched to the dna profile that was
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obtained for william deparvine is known standard [Music] william de parvine was arrested and
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charged with first degree murder yet he continued to maintain his innocence he claimed his neighbor henry
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sullivan was the culprit and that the driver's license proved it a jury would have to decide
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[Music] william de parvine admitted that he was with carla and richard van duzen on the
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night they were murdered deparvine says he bought the couple's truck and after
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he paid for it he never saw them again but prosecutors didn't believe that they say the van dusen's delivered the
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car but deparvine didn't have the money so he asked the vanduzans to follow him
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to his friend's home to get the money [Music] phone records indicate carla called her mother at 6 37 to say
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she was driving behind the man who bought their truck although no one knows why they apparently left the pickup truck at
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one location and all three got into the jeep on their way to get the money [Music]
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as deparvine led the vanduzans to the deserted road they may have realized that there was no
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friend that there was no money and that this was a setup [Music] deparvine used a nine-millimeter weapon
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to order richard out of the jeep and shot him [Music] he shot carla through the windshield the
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bullet passed through her left hand as she tried to protect herself then deparvine cut carla's seatbelt to
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remove her body from the jeep and in doing so accidentally cut his hand his blood dripped under the steering
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wheel as he drove the jeep back to the pickup truck [Music] before he abandoned the jeep he planted
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henry sullivan's driver's license which he may have stolen since sullivan lived
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in the same apartment building as he did to cover his tracks deparvine forged the
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bill of sale for the truck in the amount of five hundred dollars half of what the
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van dozens were asking for it where he disposed of the murder weapon remains a mystery
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he was on a work release when he killed carl and rick i had been told that federal investigators had had
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deemed him to be a psychopath a sociopath and i was told by one of the prosecutors that they did not think
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this whole crime happened because he wanted that truck it happened because he was
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looking for somebody to kill at the trial deparvine insisted he was innocent and took the stand in his own
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defense as soon as mr deparvine took the stand then prosecution turned very aggressive and went after mr
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deparvine and basically started to pull apart all the alibis deparvine told a series of stories
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trying to explain what happened but none of them matched the physical evidence the point where i made up my mind that
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he must be guilty was after i heard his complete testimony and decided that all of the alibis that he
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was coming up with were just beyond belief the jury took three hours to find deparvine guilty
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and he was sentenced to death [Music] in the end some saliva on a plastic spoon and a small nick on his hand told
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investigators how he committed the crime and how he killed two innocent people who were just trying to sell their truck
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and be on their way i was never really into forensic science or even you know gave it any thought
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but since that time has happened i have become hooked on court tv and i've learned a lot about the way the
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law works and about the way forensics uh play into a a case where there's no eyewitness
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especially [Music] [Music] [Music] you