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sometime during a neighborhood christmas party in 1989 five-year-old melissa brannon
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disappeared she really did we had a great time but it's late melissa will you go get the coats
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none of the adults or other children at the party saw where she went or noticed anything unusual
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it took science to see what witnesses did not [Music] so [Music] tammy brannan and her five-year-old
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daughter melissa had moved from texas into this suburban apartment complex in lorton virginia
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tammy was a single mother recently divorced working as an accountant and beginning a new phase in her life
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tammy is a very good mother she's a very sweet very caring person kept to herself more
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or less you know she wasn't what i would call extremely outgoing although she did participate in just
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about everything one of the attractive features of the apartment complex was the active social
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program for the residents every friday night was some sort of social gathering in the clubhouse and during the holidays
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there were special events the night of december 3rd at the christmas party that's something that they they
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basically did uh for almost every holiday people looked forward to it uh they always had a nice layout within the
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clubhouse and people spent time getting to know their neighbors tammy brannan and her daughter melissa
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both attended that christmas party in 1989. altogether about 200 residents of the
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complex were there everybody was very upbeat having a very good time the children
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played with each other all through the night going around and snatching all the food and having a good time
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[Music] when it was time to leave tammy asked melissa to get their coats [Music]
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shortly after handing the coat to her mother melissa disappeared merry christmas
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where's melissa she was just here tammy looked for her daughter throughout the clubhouse
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[Music] in a utility room off the lobby marked private a full length window leading to
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the outside was wide open the window faced a wooded area behind the apartment complex
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it's possibility that somebody could have went out that window and not been seen by anybody outside
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and it's in an area where it's secluded to the inside party goers wouldn't have
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seen anybody exiting to that window also fairfax county police searched the entire area and questioned everyone who
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attended the party it was very cold out that night it was pretty imperative that we try to locate
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as quickly as possible it's hard to imagine a young child with a dress on and a small coat
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surviving temperature that night although no one at the party noticed anything unusual
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police feared that melissa had been abducted tammy brennan pleaded for her daughter's
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safe return during a televised news conference the person who took melissa i beg you to please call somebody
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anybody and tell us where she is no matter what happened she saw that i have please bring it back to me
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[Music] if you can hear mommy and get to a telephone call our number like i talked to you
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or call me we love you we miss you very much please come back to us mommy's waiting
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all the way down to davis police could find no trace of five-year-old melissa brannan despite
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the help of hundreds of volunteers hundreds of police officers down there we had hundreds of people from the
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military bases we had people volunteering their airplanes their helicopters the search was phenomenal
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it just showed how this case touched so many people yellow ribbons were placed throughout
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the neighborhood a symbol of concern and hope for melissa's safe return police questioned melissa's father who
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was in texas on the night of melissa's disappearance he was immediately ruled out as a
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suspect i also asked that if the person who took my daughter can hear me please let her go
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we love her very much if anyone has any information that may help please contact someone
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who will pass the information on to us thank you [Music] police questioned everyone who lived at
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the apartment complex as well as all of the employees [Music] caleb hughes worked at the apartment as
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a maintenance man and attended the christmas party police interviewed hughes at his home a
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few hours after the party around 2 a.m i'm sergeant garcia from the fairfax police department
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i'd like to ask you a couple questions about the party at the apartment complex
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that you worked at they asked him where he had been since leaving the apartment complex what did
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you do after you left the party i drove straight home i stopped off for a six-pack and i got home about 12 30
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quarter of wine he said he stopped just before he got home near his house well if he got home at 12 30 quarter of the
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one they stopped selling beer in virginia at 12 o'clock so he didn't stop
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for beer he couldn't what'd you do after you got home i did chores laundry stu you know stuff
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like that do you mind if we look around now go ahead during the search police noticed
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something unusual hughes told police he had been doing his laundry but the clothes he was washing
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were the ones he wore to the party did you always wash your sneakers with your clothes mr hughes
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he was also washing his belt and the knife holder said why would you wash all your clothes
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you don't have another pair of blue jeans and why would you wash your sneakers
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caleb had no response the side a few sneakers had been shaved away although the sneakers had been washed
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tests showed traces of human protein possibly blood deep in the fibers caleb hughes wasn't cooperating either
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hughes told police he did not speak to melissa brennan at the christmas party but several witnesses contradicted him
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[Music] did you have something to eat said caleb i think you know more i think you took
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melissa out of that party and all caleb would do is just sit there and finally caleb said prove it
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look me straight in the face and no emotion at all and that's what investigators set out to
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do weeks passed and still there were no signs of five-year-old melissa brannan the community of lorton virginia held a
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candlelight vigil at the brannan's apartment complex just a few feet from the clubhouse where
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melissa was abducted bumper stickers yellow ribbons and flyers with melissa's picture were
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everywhere it was all anybody talked about because this wasn't one girl in one
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family this was any child all of our families if this could happen to tammy brannon's daughter this could
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happen to anyone's daughter and there was a desperate outcry to find who would
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have taken this child the remaining suspect was caleb hughes hughes attended the christmas party but
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he denied having anything to do with melissa's disappearance forensic scientists began their
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investigation with a look inside hugh's car the interior of the car was cluttered
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with a lot of of debris dirt bags of books dog hair i just looked at it and thought
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holy mackerel how am i going to be able to find any type of evidence that will link melissa to this car
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the car was sprayed with the chemical luminol which fluoresces when it comes into contact with the hemoglobin
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component of blood luminol revealed blood on the steering wheel foot pedals and floor mat
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the blood was collected for dna analysis but the results were inconclusive the car was also searched for trace
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evidence specifically hair and fibers and was sent to special agent doug dietrich of the fbi for analysis
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first thing that i do is look at the tapings that came from the front seat of the car
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trying to identify what types of materials are there and if possible anything that may have come from the
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victim if she had been in that car dietrich discovered quite a bit of animal hair in the car most of it dog
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hair but three of the hairs from hugh's front seat were different they were rabbit hairs
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that had been dyed black the rabbit hairs were microscopically similar to a german rabbit hair coat
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tammy brannon wore to that christmas party when tammy brown was leaving the apartment
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she told melissa to get her fur coat melissa got the fur coat and as a child will do
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she draped that coat across her shoulders and of course those hairs from that coat certain them
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transfer to her dietrich also discovered blue and red fibers on hugh's front passenger seat
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the red fibers were cotton and extremely common fiber but the blue fibers were extremely rare
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the 50 blue fibers were man-made and acrylic they were all the same shape length and diameter an indication they
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were from the same manufacturer gas chromatography revealed that the blue fibers were dyed with the same blue
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dye but the chemical composition of the blue dye was unusual melissa brannon was wearing a blue
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sweater and red plaid skirt on the night she disappeared the outfit had been a gift from melissa's grandmother who
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could not recall where she bought it all she could remember was that the sweater
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had a picture of big bird on it a character from the sesame street television series
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prosecutors needed more evidence than the three rabbit hairs from mrs brannon's coat found in caleb hughes car
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they knew that any good defense attorney would argue that caleb hughes could have
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brushed up against tammy brannon's coat at the party and transferred those rabbit hairs onto the seat of his car
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doug dietrich was convinced that the blue fibers held the key to melissa brannon's disappearance but there was no
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way to tell if the fibers were from melissa's clothing after work one night doug dietrich
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shared his frustration with his wife he told her he needed to find the manufacturer of the outfit melissa was
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wearing at the christmas party some sort of blue winnie the pooh thing or a sesame street uh outfit with a red plaid
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skirt i don't know anything about winnie the pooh but if it's sesame street that's
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sold by j.c penney hold on a second [Music] mrs dietrich had kept a number of store
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catalogs some going back a few years [Music] red plaid skirt i see that she proceeded
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to bring a catalog down from the year before christmas and sure enough on page 11 of that
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catalog there was an outfit that looked darn close to what they were describing to me as the one melissa
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brandon wore the night of her disappearance when tammy brannon was shown the picture
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from the catalog she identified it as the one melissa was wearing at the party the fbi asked jc penny for one of the
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outfits in order to analyze the fibers but they were sold out the item was a catalog only item
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jcpenney sold all seven thousand garments in a matter of months but jcpenney located a customer in
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kentucky who had purchased one of these outfits a year earlier the customer bought the outfit as a present for his
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granddaughter but it was the wrong size so it had never been worn the customer sent the outfit to the fbi
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for analysis the idea of just being able to find an outfit that that's exactly the same outfit that
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a victim wore in a case that's an extremely good stroke of luck when doug dietrich examined the garment
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he made a startling discovery when jc penney had this outfit manufactured they wanted to make it
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unique instead of using a standard die and there are 10 000 of them pennies decided to create a brand new color
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jcpenney specifies a particular color then they'll work with the dye manufacturer to find some combination of
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chemicals that will produce exactly that tone in this particular case they went an additional step and made sure that it
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was a die that nobody else had access to so that they could trademark this sweater from the color point of view
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they called their new color plum navy number 887 jc penney patented that signature die
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and used it only once when they produced the 7 000 big bird sweaters when diedrick compared the fibers from
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the duplicate sweater to those found in hughes automobile they were the same with several hundred million people in
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the country and only seven thousand sweaters the probability of that particular sweater being located in
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individual cars very small you can just work out the ratios of the two there's no question in my mind that
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that melissa brandon had been in the front seat of cal hughes car and where she went from there well i guess that's
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a mystery right now a mystery police were desperately trying to solve the search for melissa brannan's body
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continued for almost a year statistics show that children abducted by strangers are usually murdered within
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three hours of the abduction the prime suspect caleb hughes was asked to take a polygraph test
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are you the one who abducted melissa no right now can you take me to melissa's
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body no the results of his polygraph examination indicated deception as soon as he realized that i knew
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that he had failed that test he didn't want anything to do with that that room didn't want anything to do
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with me and pretty much bolted out of there but there was a problem in the state of
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virginia prosecutors must be able to prove where a homicide occurred since the blood in caleb hughes
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automobile could not be identified as melissa's prosecutors could not reach the
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threshold of homicide they could only prove kidnapping which carried a maximum sentence of only 10
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years but prosecutors were convinced that the blue and red fibers in caleb hughes car
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indicated more than kidnapping the last tammy brennan saw her daughter she was wearing the pink nylon coat
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winter coat over top of this big bird outfit if the child remained in that winter
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coat in the automobile you wouldn't have the collection and the population of blue acrylic fibers that
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are found on the scene because they'd be inside the nylon coat they weren't
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prosecutors believe that hughes removed melissa's ski jacket in the car an indication that hughes committed a sex
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act hughes had the child's coat off in the automobile and it seems to me the inference that
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flow from that all legitimate inferences of an intent to the file while melissa was waiting for her mother
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to say her goodbyes at the christmas party prosecutors believe that she left for a moment to get a drink from the
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water fountain in the hallway near the utility room this is where hughes abducted her
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[Music] hughes took melissa through the window in the utility room and fled in his car
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hughes removed melissa's ski jacket in the car causing the transfer of the blue
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and red fibers onto the front seat also in the car there were three rabbit hairs from tammy brannon's coat the one
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melissa handed her mother seconds before she was abducted where hughes took melissa brennan and
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left her body remains a mystery hughes tracked blood onto his foot pedals and floor mat from his sneakers
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luminol revealed blood on the car's steering wheel as well when hughes arrived home
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he immediately washed his clothes in order to remove trace evidence he also scraped away the blood stain
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from the sides of his sneakers before washing them along with his clothes but he didn't remove evidence that he
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couldn't see the tiny fibers from melissa's clothing left on the passenger seat of his car
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caleb hughes was arrested and charged not with kidnapping but with the abduction of melissa brennan with intent
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to defile her he was found guilty and sentenced to 50 years in prison without parole
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the maximum sentence caleb hughes has never confessed to the crime and the search for melissa's body
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continues to this day each piece of evidence no matter how small whether it's a car
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or whether it's a strand of dna all have a story to tell where they've been who they've been with
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how long they've been around and this is the type of information that that i look at and that i decipher and
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try to determine what value it has so one piece of evidence is can be significant when you add multiple pieces
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of this puzzle and you never get the whole puzzle you only get pieces but you don't need the whole puzzle to see what
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that picture is going to say and in this case 50 fibers blue acrylic 10 cotton black rabbit hairs to me it's
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overwhelming evidence [Music] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] you