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[music playing] NARRATOR: A killer
tried to remove all evidence of the crime. But in the process, created
entirely new forensic evidence
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that almost had
investigators stumped, until scientists
tried a technique that had never been used
in a criminal case.
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And in doing so, made
forensic history. [theme music] Farmersville, Texas is the
epitome of small town America.
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At one time, it was the onion
capital of the state, a place where old fashioned
values endure.
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VIKKI PICKETT: And we still
have people who will actually tell me, we lock our doors,
this is Farmersville.
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NARRATOR: 20-year-old Rachelle
Tolleson was born here, grew up here, and
it's where she chose
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to raise her six-month-old
daughter, Avery. MARK O'NEIL: She
was a happy person.
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She had her troubled times, just
like any other teenager does. She was a great mom.
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She was a very dedicated mom. NARRATOR: Rachelle was going
through an unpleasant divorce,
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and lived alone
with her daughter, close to the center of town. Around 7:30 in the morning,
on a warm spring day in 2004,
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Rachelle's mother
stopped by to visit. Inside she found Avery
on the bed, alone.
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But she couldn't find Rachelle. -I started calling,
calling her name. She didn't answer.
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(CRYING) I started looking in
the closets and under her bed. And I-- I couldn't find her.
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NARRATOR: There were signs
that something had happened. The bed was moved, and the
headboard had fallen forward.
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A night stand was pushed
away from the wall. But Rachelle's purse and
her car were still there.
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On the kitchen floor
was a possible clue. It was Rachelle's
divorce petition. And on it, a large shoe
print, as if someone
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had stomped on it. GREGORY DAVIS: Because it
would indicate that someone, other than Rachelle,
was in that home
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the night that she disappeared. NARRATOR: Rachelle's mother
called her soon-to-be
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ex-son-in-law, Andrew Tolleson,
to brief him on the situation. -I said, Andrew, we
can find Rachelle.
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We can't find her anywhere. He said, he couldn't
leave work right now. NARRATOR: Police questioned as
many of the town's residents
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as they could, and
organized a search party to look in every
field and pasture. TIM WYATT: The search was huge.
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There was just an
immediate reaction all over the place,
ATVs, four wheel drive vehicles,
horseback, on foot.
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It was a phenomenal response. NARRATOR: For five
days the search continued, with no trace
of Rachelle anywhere.
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-I honestly believe that there
was a lot of people that maybe didn't know Rachelle very
well that were thinking,
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oh, well, she just ran off. PAM O'NEIL: I just, I know her. She just would
never leave Avery.
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She wouldn't leave her
alone for a second. I mean, that was--
that was her oxygen.
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She loved her so much. NARRATOR: Then a man, hiking
on state land about 10 miles
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from Rachelle's home,
discovered the charred remains of a young female. Dental records confirmed the
victim was Rachelle Tolleson.
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GREGORY DAVIS: About 100 feet
away from where the body was located, there was
a pit, an open area,
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where they found several logs. They found an area that
appeared to have been burned in.
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VIKKI PICKETT: I had spent
many hours with her mother. And to have to go back and
tell her, we found her body,
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but you can't see her. You can't identify
your daughter. You can't touch her
and tell her goodbye.
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That was hard. -I don't know, my
heart just stopped. And I just, I
couldn't believe it.
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I needed proof. I don't-- I don't
know what else to say. NARRATOR: The investigation
would be difficult.
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The killer burned Rachelle's
body to destroy any evidence. But police certainly
knew where to start,
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with Rachelle's estranged
husband, Andrew Tolleson. -People do things
they shouldn't do.
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And we suffer because of that. NARRATOR: Most of
Farmersville, Texas turned out for Rachelle Tolleson's
funeral service
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at the First Baptist Church. It was difficult for them to
understand how Rachelle could
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have been abducted from her
home in the middle of the night and no one heard it.
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TIM WYATT: There are no
strangers in Farmersville. Her house was three blocks
from the police station,
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two blocks from the town square. I don't think the
police believed that was a stranger
crime, either.
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Clearly everybody felt that
she whoever had taken her. That she knew them. -Generally speaking,
in a small community
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it is going to be someone
within, at least, that person's social circle. Even if they're
not close friends,
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it's someone who
knows the victim. NARRATOR: The autopsy revealed
Rochelle had been sexually
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assaulted, stabbed,
and strangled to death. VIKKI PICKETT: I was horrified. I'm also a mother
and a grandmother.
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Just knowing that one
human being could do that to another human
being is horrifying.
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GREGORY DAVIS: The circumstances
of this case were horrific. You had a young mother, a
totally innocent victim, who
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is kidnapped in the
middle the night. Is brutally raped, choked
to death, and stabbed.
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And then her body is taken
out to a remote location and disposed of,
just like trash.
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NARRATOR: To investigators,
the one person with a possible motive was her
estranged husband, Andrew--
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especially since the
divorce wasn't his idea. MARK O'NEIL: Rachelle just
grew up a little faster
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than Andrew did, in the time
that they were together. -Andrew, stop! MARK O'NEIL: And I think
it just split them up.
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And I think Rachelle just
realized, or felt like, I should say, that she wasn't
going to get anywhere.
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And that it was time to move on. NARRATOR: Andrew had
an alibi for the night of Rachelle's murder.
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He said he was at a
party with friends. One of them drove
him home later. And Andrew said he didn't
leave this home again
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until the next
morning to go to work. GREGORY DAVIS: He was heavily
intoxicated during that night.
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And we had evidence that
confirmed that he had been at his home the entire night,
because of his intoxication.
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NARRATOR: His alibi appeared to
check out, until investigators learned there was
bonfire at that party.
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This was an interesting
coincidence, since Rachelle's body had
been burned in a fire pit.
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So Lieutenant Larry Smart
wanted to know if there was any connection between the
bonfire and the crime scene.
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LT. LARRY SMART: We collected
those logs in order to have the forensic
scientist look at the.
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NARRATOR: Lieutenant Smart
sent the wood samples from the bonfire and
the crime scene fire
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to Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayor,
an associate professor of geography at the
University of Tennessee.
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HENRI GRISSINO-MAYER: I wasn't
too enthusiastic, at first. And I probably came across
as not very enthusiastic.
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So I wasn't overly excited. NARRATOR: By just looking
at, Dr. Grissino-Mayor recognized that the wood from
both locations was mesquite.
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The mesquite tree is extremely
common in desert areas, and often used to grill food.
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It burns slowly and
produces very little smoke. But there really wasn't any
way to tell whether both wood
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samples came from
the same source. There were no
distinctive saw marks. And the tree rings
were virtually useless.
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HENRI GRISSINO-MAYER: This is
a type of wood where it has small vessels all throughout
the ring, and if it does not,
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therefore, have very distinct
rings when you sand them down. -I was really let down.
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I felt like this was such
good evidence for us. NARRATOR: But Dr. Grissino-Mayor
remembered something--
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a new test he had read about. A test that could identify
the chemical fingerprint
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of the wood. HENRI GRISSINO-MAYER:
Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy is
actually very young.
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It hasn't been
around for a while. But now, it's used by the FBI,
it's used in counterterrorism.
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And you learn all
this Dr. Martin. It is an incredible new tool. NARRATOR: He sent the wood to
Dr. Madhavi Martin at the Oak
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Ridge National Laboratory
in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. DR. MARTIN: We just put the
wood underneath the laser beam,
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excited a spark on
the sample surface, called the elements-- hydrogen,
nitrogen, oxygen, carbon--
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and you will see
it, immediately. NARRATOR: The spark
known as a plasma cloud, contains all the chemical
elements from the sample.
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A spectrometer identifies
those elements. Most of the elements
were typical. But one was not.
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DR. MARTIN: This
one had titanium, which really jumped out at me. We saw, consistently, titanium
across the whole spectra.
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NARRATOR: Titanium doesn't
naturally occur in wood. And this suggested that the
mesquite tree was growing
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near an industrial
area, where titanium polluted the groundwater. 11 logs were tested,
eight from the crime scene
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and three from the bonfire. All had the exact
same chemical makeup, and identical
levels of titanium.
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HENRI GRISSINO-MAYER: We were
able to determine that the two sets of wood matched, with about
a 99.99% level of confidence.
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These two sets of wood came from
the same population of trees, if not from the same tree.
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NARRATOR: This was
a forensic first. Never before have
two sets of wood in a criminal case
being found to have
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the exact same
chemical fingerprint. LT. LARRY SMART: 99.9 is
just mind-boggling.
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I was blown away by that. If they had come
back and told us that they're 90% sure that the
wood came from the same tree
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or vicinity, we would have
been excited about that. NARRATOR: Since the wood at the
bonfire was from the same free
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as the wood used in
Rachelle's cremation, this was a remarkable piece
of circumstantial evidence,
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pointing to Andrew
Tolleson as the killer. Or was it? Rachelle Tolleson was
abducted from her home,
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apparently, by someone she knew. And her burned body was found
in a deserted state park.
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Rachelle's estranged husband,
Andrew, was at a bonfire party the night Rachelle was abducted.
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And wood from the
bonfire matched the wood used to
burn Rachelle's body. A 99.9% certainty.
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This evidence as a possible
link between Andrew Tolleson and the scene of
his wife's murder.
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GREGORY DAVIS: Whenever someone
turns up missing, particularly where there's a
divorce involved,
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everyone's going to
be a suspect involving the ex-husband in this case. NARRATOR: But that
conclusion was premature.
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Partygoers told investigators
that Andrew Tolleson had nothing to do
with the bonfire.
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It was someone else who
brought the mesquite firewood to the party. It was 21-year-old
Moises Mendoza,
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an air conditioning repairman. And an acquaintance of
both Rachelle and Andrew. PAM O'NEIL: They went
to school together.
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And as a matter of
fact, I even pulled out pictures of Rachelle's
elementary/middle school.
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And as weird as
it sounds, he was always in one of her classes. NARRATOR: When Rachelle
and Andrew separated,
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friends said Mendoza expressed
interest in dating her. MARK O'NEIL: I think maybe
Moises wanted to be, uh,
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a little closer friend
to Rachelle than what Rachelle wanted to be with him. NARRATOR: There was no evidence
that the two ever dated.
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But as acquaintances,
they often saw one another at party's and
social gatherings.
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All this seemed innocent
enough, until police looked into Mendoza's past. GREGORY DAVIS:
Moises Mendoza had
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an extensive
criminal background. He had committed two aggravated
robberies, where he had
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attempted to abduct
young women in Dallas, had been unsuccessful. NARRATOR: Mendoza was out on
bail for one of those crimes
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when Rachelle disappeared. A search of his home
turned up a pair of boots. They were covered in soot,
and smelled of gasoline.
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To see whether these boots
matched the print found in Rachelle's home,
investigators sent him
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to forensic analyst
Michael Villarreal. He made test impressions
of the soles. And then did a visual comparison
with the partial print
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from Rachelle's house. MIKE VILLARREAL: Once I notice
that there were similarities
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in the size, shape,
and design, I did take a look for specific
accidental characteristics
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and see if the accidental
characteristics on the shoe were also present in the
partial heel impression.
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NARRATOR: Accidental
characteristics results from how a shoe is worn. They are unique to
each set of shoes.
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In this case, the boot
print on the divorce decree was remarkably clear,
perfect for comparison.
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Cut marks in the heel of
the boot left no doubt. MIKE VILLARREAL: I was able to
determine that the submitted
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shoes, in this case, did
make that partial impression, to the exclusion of all others.
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-What they found was this. It was an exact match. NARRATOR: Police also
tested the pair of soot
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covered jeans from
Mendoza's house. Underneath the soot
were tiny blood stains. The DNA profile of the blood
matched Rachelle Tolleson.
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Homicide investigators
confronted Mendoza with the
forensic evidence. LT. LARRY SMART: It was
like he didn't care.
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He was detached from the whole
situation, had no remorse, was a very cool person.
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GREGORY DAVIS: I'm
convinced of this. In some people, there's
a violent, evil streak
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the controls them. That streak was
in Moises Mendoza. He wanted something that night.
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He was not going to have
anyone say no to him. NARRATOR: On the
night of the crime,
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prosecutors say Moises Mendoza
went to the bonfire party and brought along some
mesquite wood to burn.
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Witnesses said Mendoza was
drinking and was angry. GREGORY DAVIS: He had gotten
crossways with several people
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at the party. He got crossways with
two women at the party, where he threatened
to kill those women.
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He threatened to
cut their heads off. He was making all
sorts of threats. NARRATOR: When Mendoza saw
Andrew Tolleson at the party
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alone, he knew that Rochelle
would be at home alone. -Hi there! Oh, you got me. NARRATOR: He left the
party around 2:00 AM.
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And the evidence suggests he
drove to Rachelle's house. [baby crying]
-Hey. -Hi.
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-How's it going? -Good.
Um-- NARRATOR: It's not clear
what he said to get inside.
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But the evidence indicates
there was a struggle. Rachelle's divorce petition
fell to the floor, which Mendoza
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stepped on with his left boot--
clear proof he was there. Where he took shelter
afterwards is unclear.
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But the forensic
evidence suggests he raped, stabbed, then
strangled her to death.
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DNA testing found Rachelle's
blood on Mendoza's jeans. Later, he used some
of the mesquite wood
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to start the fire in
the deserted state park, in an attempt to incinerate
all evidence of the murder.
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While he may have gotten rid
of some forensic evidence, he unwittingly
created more, which
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provided an unmistakable
forensic link between Mendoza and
the crime scene. GREGORY DAVIS: Forensics could
match it back to the same tree.
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Not to the same grove,
or the same type of tree, but to the same tree. And those are the
types of results
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we expect to see in DNA,
not in trees or vegetables. NARRATOR: Three months
after Rachelle's death,
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Moises Mendoza was
tried and convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to death.
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He actually chose the
death penalty for himself when he decided that
evening to go in that home,
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and to take that young mother,
and to snuff out her life, with absolutely
no regard for her,
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or her child, or her family. MARK O'NEIL: I know it's
probably not right to say this,
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but if it was up to me, he
would have got a lot worse. And when I say a lot worse,
I mean, torture-wise.
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Because I think that the
death penalty is not, uh-- I think it's
too good for him.
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NARRATOR: Rachelle's
parents are now raising their
granddaughter, Avery. And they're grateful that
some enterprising detectives
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searched for a
scientific solution they didn't know existed. And that those scientists
pushed further,
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instead of simply saying,
nothing could be done. The result made
forensic history.
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MARK O'NEIL: It's
unbelievable, the technology nowadays that they can do. And the forensic
testing, it's unreal.
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And I think that it probably
puts a lot of people's minds at ease, knowing that they
can do these types of things.
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-It' just phenomenal
what they can do now. And I have tried to convince
the younger detectives that they
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really need to stay in touch
with the scientists on all the new technology
that's involved here.
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Because that's going to be
the future of law enforcement, is the forensics--
if it's not already.
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[theme music]