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[Music] up next a violent thunderstorm provides cover for a brutal murder it was an absolutely brutal crime scene
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obviously this was a case of an overkill there are plenty of suspects with clear
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motives but they all pass polygraph tests it's not 100 reliable if investigators didn't find
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the one tiny clue left at the scene they might never have solved it [Applause] the real estate development business in
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texas always seems to be active daryl north a manager for a multi-billion dollar development company
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had no shortage of work daryl north was in charge of building budget suites for a company out of las
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vegas and he had been in charge of building several in this area daryl had a reputation as a fair-minded
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boss who set high standards i asked a subcontractor was daryl hard to work for was he mean
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and he said no he was not he said he expected quality work i have seen dad fire numerous subcontractors over the years
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my dad had the ability to get his point across very clearly he's very pointed he was
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very direct daryl was always punctual so when he didn't come home from work one day
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and didn't answer his phone his family was concerned when i got to the job site it was after
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11 o'clock at night the lights of his trailer were on and his car was out front
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and i knew his car hadn't been moved because it was dry underneath his vehicle
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where everything else was just was just drenched the door was padlocked his son knocked on the door but got no answer
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i climbed up on the rail with a flashlight trying to shine the flashlight into that dark
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office see if they had a heart attack or something had happened mark saw his father on the floor i saw
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dad laying against the door and and he was just laying face down you know not moving
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paramedics and police declared daryl north dead at the scene he'd been stabbed repeatedly blood
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was spattered everywhere it was an absolutely brutal crime scene as would be typical with any
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case where there's multiple stab wounds there was a tremendous amount of blood
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there was blood in two of the three rooms it was obvious a life and death struggle
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had taken place there was also a hole punch that was discovered in very close proximity to mr
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norris body that was bent that would lead me or any other investigator to believe
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that either mr north may have been struck with that hole punch or mr north may have struck
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his assailant with that hole punch there was a trail of blood from the filing cabinet to daryl's body
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then to a desk on top police found a machete the type used to clear brush from construction sites it was perfectly
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clean it actually wasn't blood soaked but we didn't know if it might have been used
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and then cleaned off in place there daryl north secretary told police there were normally two machetes in the
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trailer there was a second machete that had gone missing police assumed this was the one used in
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the attack the extra wounds on the back of the head which almost decapitated him
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indicated a tremendous desire to make sure that the person was deceased daryl's wallet was still in his pocket
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nothing had been stolen there was no sign of forced entry this and the level of violence indicated
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a very personal crime out of the 40 cases that i worked this was the only one that had that type of rage exhibited
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daryl hired many contractors so his decisions could either make or break some of them
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someone's anger had spiraled out of control but police and daryl's family had no
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idea who it was daryl north's autopsy revealed he'd been stabbed 46 times with two different weapons
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a clear case of overkill our killers as we define it is wounding a person way beyond what what we require to kill
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a person so now we frequently see not just a few wounds but many and it's all indicative of rage
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that is going on between the two persons involved in the assault the victim and the assailant
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a machete missing from his office was believed to be one of the murder weapons the other was
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believed to be a knife it had a single sharp age and a blunt age we could predict that it was a larger
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knife some of the wounds were at least inch and a half in width on the body surface
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the level of violence limited the family's options in terms of funeral arrangements it was just an
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absolute disaster it was awful just absolutely awful and i made my mother promise that she
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and my sister would not go up to the funeral home and see the family tried to help investigators
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by identifying anyone who might have had a reason to harm daryl i thought it must be a stranger you know
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that maybe was robbing him or something i could not in in my wildest imagination you know believe that
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someone would do that daryl's secretary told police that everyone left the construction site
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early on the day of the murder because of the severe rainstorm she said daryl stayed behind to meet
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with a contractor named curtis pope curtis pope was a pool contractor daryl was basically mentoring curtis
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into the construction business he stayed approximately 20-25 minutes he left daryl darrell said he was going
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to wait out the rain and let the traffic die down before he headed home daryl's wife told police curtis pope
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could not be the killer curtis pope had done some repair work on our pool i said
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please don't spend your time looking at curtis pope he did not kill daryl please you know spend your
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time looking for the person that did pope was distraught over daryl's murder
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he came through the receiving line crying and i thought he was so touched by daryl's death and he said i loved
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daryl he was better to me than my own father pope was 40 years old married with a
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young daughter he did however have a police record consisting of arrests for petty theft since he was the last known
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person to see daryl alive he was automatically considered a suspect pope agreed to take a polygraph
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examination and passed it's not likely that somebody could come in and intentionally be
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untruthful and still pass the polygraph test the next suspect was bob johnson a roofing contractor
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daryl fired johnson just two weeks before his murder he was upset that he wasn't going to
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continue to work there because according to him daryl had promised him continued work daryl's family never met
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johnson but they'd heard of him daryl had mentioned that he had had some problems with him he usually didn't
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bring his problems home and so since it was something that he had shared with me i thought
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it was probably serious incredibly just two days after daryl's murder johnson called asking
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to get his job back the superintendent felt like it was odd that bob johnson was calling there when
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can i come to work after the fact after daryl's been murdered because his belief was is that
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daryl didn't want him there johnson said that on the day of the murder he was with his child
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in a dallas hospital this was verified but he still had time to commit the murder
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the alibi wasn't sufficient enough in my mind to totally exclude him but like curtis
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spoke he too passed the polygraph examination the polygraph is just a tool it's not
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100 reliable uh it's why it's not admissible in court if it hadn't rained maybe we
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could have gotten fingerprints but you can't focus on what we could have had you've got to find what you do have
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investigators needed forensic evidence to solve this crime and hope to find some of it at the scene
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daryl north's murder was so violent that forensic tests were needed to make sense of what happened
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we had numerous types of blood stains they included passive blood drops we had smears
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transfers and frankly there was so much blood that you'd be hard-pressed to try to
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classify some of it as to how it got there we took many samples we took 23 samples
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of blood from various different parts of that crime scene they first had to determine if all the
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blood had come from daryl north when the assailant is wielding a knife and he stabs a
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victim oftentimes that knife blade hits bone and it stops and oftentimes the killer's hand continues his movement
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and it slides down the blade and can cut the assailant the other clue they looked for was shoe
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prints with so much blood both the killer and the victim would have stepped in it crime scene
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technician jim varnan found several shoe prints and tried to enhance them with a special dye amino black works
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because it stains proteins and it's applied to protein stain in this case a blood stain
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for wearing pressure in blood or fingerprints latent prints in blood can be enhanced with this
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substance in several of the enhanced prints analysts could clearly see the word justin
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a well-known brand of texas-made boots we knew that these footwear impressions in blood that had the pattern of a
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justin heel was most likely going to be from our assailant because it did not match the only other
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bleeder at that crime scene which was our victim unfortunately these boots weren't
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unique how common are they you're probably not from here if you don't have a pair
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and it was impossible to tell the size of the boot from the print in a justin boot heel it is possible
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that you're going to have one physical size that would overlap into several different boot sizes
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so that you're not going to be able to tell the precise size of the boot by looking at the size of the hill
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nevertheless investigators asked both suspects bob johnson and pool contractor curtis pope if they
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owned a pair of justin brand boots bob johnson owned a pair but the heel of his boots was larger
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than those at the scene curtis pope also owned a pair of justin brand boots which
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appeared to be new and willingly turned them over to investigators in this case my result was inconclusive
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i could not eliminate or identify the boot as having made that mark when investigators talked with pope
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about his boots they noticed something they hadn't seen before some bruising under his eye
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he had some darkness under his left eye there was no cut but it was a slight bruising
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a background check revealed pope's business was faltering he had a reputation of just not being
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very good at what he did as far as the construction of these swimming pools pope's business records indicated he was
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deeply in debt wasn't able to pay his suppliers and the only big client he had left was daryl north
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if daryl fired pope during their meeting it would have been the end of pope's
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company pope's finances were in terrible shape he was on the fine edge of disaster
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all the time with a warrant investigators searched pope's home computer and found something suspicious
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someone on that computer had visited a website on how to beat a polygraph and had in
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fact paid money to download a book on how to beat it as testing continued on the bloodstains on the floor of the
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crime scene investigators noticed one blood drop on daryl north's pants that they had previously overlooked
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there was a vertical drop on the back left pant leg of daryl north while he's laying on the
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floor the shape of the drop was perfectly round meaning that the origin of the blood was
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stationary and hit the fabric at a 90 degree angle the significance of such a drop falling
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and hitting the pants perpendicularly while mr north is on the floor is that it would mean that the assailant is
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standing above him bleeding on him after he has been attacked so it puts a sequencing
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to the events max courtney cut out the stain and submitted it for dna testing investigators found five other drops of
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blood at the scene perfectly round in between daryl's body and the door and i said why not let's just test these
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five particular drops of blood that we know or we feel like didn't come from
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daryl north tests confirmed the blood was not daryl north's there was only one
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question that remained who left the blood one of the two suspects or someone else
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this tiny drop of blood on the back of daryl north's pants told an important story since the blood
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hit daryl's pants at a 90 degree angle it meant the killer was standing over daryl's
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body while he was bleeding from his own wound and he continued to bleed as he left the scene when we
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observed those vertical drops of blood leading away from mr nor's body that was
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a very significant thing for us to find because we knew then that the killer's dna was going to be present
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on that scene and there was a possible explanation for how the killer was injured the dented
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two-hole paper punch unit found near daryl north's body daryl may have used it to defend himself
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causing an injury of facial cut or nosebleed to identified the killer dna samples
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were collected from the two suspects bob johnson and curtis pope dna testing revealed it was curtis
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pope's blood at the crime scene if daryl north had not taken some steps to defend himself
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causing him to bleed uh this case wouldn't have been solved would have never dreamed that
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you know firing somebody you know would cause somebody to you know go postal daryl's family
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couldn't believe that the man whom daryl had mentored in business and treated in many ways like a son
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could have done this not until the day they came out here to the house and told me
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they that it was his dna that had been identified did i really believe the bruises police noticed under pope's
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eye were probably the result of the fight and i was able to examine his arms and
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his hands for injuries he didn't have any there was no cuts on the night of daryl north's murder the
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dallas fort worth area was hit with a driving rainstorm causing flash floods and power outages
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the storm was so bad daryl sent his construction crew home early but he stayed behind because he had a 5
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pm appointment with curtis pope they were going to discuss quality problems with the swimming pool
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pope was installing at the hotel pope was having financial problems his company was headed towards bankruptcy
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and daryl north was his only large client although it's unclear whether daryl knew
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this [Music] no one knows what the two men said to each other but prosecutors believe curtis pope
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snapped and attacked daryl with a knife daryl was caught off guard and struck pope in the face with the paper punch
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causing the nosebleed pope stabbed daryl over 40 times as he laid dying on the floor a drop of
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blood from pope's nose fell onto daryl's pants and he continued to bleed as he left the
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scene mr pope might have been able to come up with an explanation about how some of
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the other drops of blood got in the trailer on that particular night but there's no way he
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could have explained the way how his blood was dripped onto daryl norris pants we knew we had eliminated any possible
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innocent explanation for his blood being at the scene and we felt like we had him curtis pope
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was arrested and charged with first-degree murder he posted bail but on the first day of
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his trial pope didn't show up we learned through an informant that he was headed toward canada
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that afternoon police in watertown new york just 25 miles from the canadian border stopped a car from
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driving the wrong way down a one-way street it was curtis pope he tried to run but was arrested at a shopping center
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curtis pope was returned to texas he stood trial and was convicted of first degree murder he was sentenced to life
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in prison there is nothing good about curtis pope i just think he's a sociopath
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and an endangerment to society it was an unusually bloody crime scene but daryl north unwittingly
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provided the evidence needed to convict his killer he probably bloodied curtis pope's nose we have
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always thought daryl helped to convict curtis pope the forensic evidence in this case was
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absolutely the linchpin of the entire case this case stands out to me because it is a one of the best of the
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uses of dna combined with blood stain pattern analysis we're working together
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the two show who the blood came from and provide a scenario by which it possibly got there