00:00:06
this is the story of two crimes committed in different states 500 miles apart in each case a woman was assaulted late
00:00:17
at night investigators found the same signature elements in both crimes the calling card of this perpetrator was
00:00:29
so unusual it eventually cost him his life [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh
00:01:03
perth amboy new jersey about an hour's drive from the hustle and bustle of new
00:01:08
york city 300 years this riverfront town has been a haven for immigrants seeking a better
00:01:18
life in america [Music] melissa padilla's parents came from puerto rico she and her four brothers
00:01:27
grew up here yeah she was my right hand she was always helping me with them she she was like a second mother to them
00:01:40
they depend on her i remember her often helping me out with my work she was a excellent speller and
00:01:50
my spelling is just something i've never been able to handle it she was always
00:01:54
there when i needed some help with that melissa attended high school in perth amboy but quit in her junior year
00:02:04
and later became pregnant she had three more children in rapid succession and in 1994 was unmarried and
00:02:13
supporting herself and the children with a monthly welfare check she didn't have any technical skills or
00:02:20
something that would demand a high paying job so she would have to suit for minimum wage
00:02:27
[Music] and there was no way that she was going to make it with that melissa was able to scrape by for a
00:02:35
while but then she fell behind on her rent and lost her apartment [Music] melissa and her children then moved into
00:02:44
the gem motel one of several cheap motels located along route 1 a main north-south artery
00:02:51
in avenell new jersey [Music] on the night of august 11 1994 melissa left the children with her
00:02:59
boyfriend and walked to a nearby convenience store for some groceries she went out
00:03:06
at 11 at night because her kids were hungry melissa left the store around 11 30 and
00:03:16
headed back to the motel but she never arrived her boyfriend told police he found her
00:03:26
half-naked body later that night along the highway melissa's mother got the word shortly
00:03:34
after the body was discovered you're not supposed to bury your children that you're gonna die before them
00:03:45
no parents want to bury their children it's hard i was supposed to go before her
00:03:54
most murderers go to great lengths to avoid detection melissa's killer didn't seem to care
00:04:01
committing his crime along a busy highway where he could have been easily seen it was this brazenness
00:04:11
that would eventually be his downfall [Music] when melissa padilla left her hotel room
00:04:21
to buy food for her young children her route took her along a well-traveled highway to a nearby convenience store
00:04:28
melissa never returned her boyfriend told police he found her body in a sewer pipe near the highway
00:04:36
she was naked from the waist down the autopsy revealed that she died as a result of the manual fixation
00:04:44
and assault there were several grocery items near the body as well as melissa's
00:04:50
blood-spattered shorts found about half a block away with the pocket turned out but the most telling evidence came from
00:05:00
melissa's body itself her eyes were battered indicating that she had received
00:05:07
punches from someone who was strong and who subdued her in that way the fact that she was naked and
00:05:17
and that her genital area was mutilated obviously indicated that there was a sexual assault
00:05:23
scrapings from under her fingernails revealed dna that authorities hoped would bring a conviction if they could
00:05:30
only find a suspect melissa's autopsy revealed one other detail something tom capsack had never
00:05:39
seen in his 31 years of prosecuting homicides she had bite marks on her chin and on
00:05:47
her left breast indicating that there was probably some kind of ritualistic element to the
00:05:53
killing the bite mark on the chin was particularly unusual i've done a lot of research and i've
00:06:01
talked to a lot of people bite marks usually occur to the general genital areas to the breast
00:06:08
to the stomach but i have never heard of one that occurred to the chin before armed with this evidence new jersey
00:06:18
police began their search for melissa's killer [Music] the security video from the quick check
00:06:24
store where melissa had bought groceries helped establish the time of the murder
00:06:29
shortly before midnight it also showed the cashier giving her change but no money was found in melissa's
00:06:39
clothing indicating she had also been robbed police also began canvassing the area
00:06:47
looking for eyewitnesses there was a witness that was identified that was interviewed who indicated they
00:06:54
were traveling past the roadway and saw what appeared to be two individuals in some sort of
00:07:00
struggle standing up near the concrete pipes but the witness could provide little
00:07:07
useful information the battering about melissa's face and the bite marks on her breast and chin
00:07:14
led police to theorize that her killer got a perverse pleasure out of assaulting women and might have struck
00:07:21
before just a mile from the murder scene was a prison for convicted sex offenders
00:07:28
a check of prison records showed a number of released prisoners living in the area
00:07:34
we then pulled their files to determine what their mo was and whether they were involved in any kind of ritual when they
00:07:40
committed their sex crimes they complied with requests for dna samples they complied with exemplar requests for
00:07:49
hairs they also submitted to polygraph examinations that were conducted by the woodbridge police department
00:07:56
and they all were eliminated as suspects in the crime melissa's boyfriend who had stayed with
00:08:03
her children was also eliminated eventually things started to appear that we we have an unsolved
00:08:10
homicide with no suspect to pursue eight months later 500 miles away in maine there was another assault strikingly
00:08:24
similar to melissa padilla's excuse me sir are you okay this crime was bold and brazen
00:08:36
but the perpetrator made a mistake in choosing his victim she was a state trooper
00:08:48
months after the murder of melissa padilla police still didn't have a suspect
00:08:56
the brutality of the assault led police to believe her killer took pleasure in attacking women and might strike again
00:09:04
eight months later state troopers in maine reported a brazen assault on one of their own
00:09:13
the assault took place on april 3rd 1995 at about 8 30 p.m trooper vicki gardner an 11-year veteran
00:09:20
was off-duty and driving her police cruiser south on interstate 95. [Music] she came across a vehicle
00:09:39
facing the wrong way on the interstate and she stopped to investigate excuse me sir are you okay
00:09:54
gardner discovered that the driver stephen fortin had been drinking would you please get out of the car
00:10:10
since she was off duty she called for another police vehicle to take thornton into custody
00:10:17
when fortin heard this he exploded jordan sucker-punched her ripped her clothes off more less to do
00:10:26
in the process of molesting her he bitter when the backup cruiser arrived he took off in the cruiser
00:10:39
[Music] vicky gardner was unconscious still in the vehicle when she regained consciousness she
00:10:49
opened the passenger door and tried to jump out he was sort of trying to reach out and
00:10:54
grab a hold of her and pull her back in and she swung herself away from him and got away from him
00:11:07
vicky gardner was lucky to be alive i've never seen a woman attack that way damage that badly
00:11:15
we'll live to talk about it after vicky jumped out of the vehicle fortin lost control of the car and
00:11:23
crashed he was later apprehended lieutenant lancaster interviewed him in prison he took no responsibility he
00:11:34
was it was while we spoke although we spoke of the incident it was always somebody else's fault
00:11:40
um he i knew that i was dealing with someone that was evil vicky had scrapes and bruises over her
00:11:49
entire body and her face was severely battered fortin had not only punched and assaulted her he had also left a bizarre
00:12:00
calling card two bite marks one on the outer area of her left breast the other on her chin
00:12:10
who attacks a trooper and sexually molested in her own in her own cruiser you just know from
00:12:18
the facts of this case and the assault and the way in which the assault took place and every aspect
00:12:24
about it you knew that you were dealing with someone who had done something like this before
00:12:31
in fact a check of police records in fortin's home state of new jersey revealed that he had a history of
00:12:38
violence fortin's name was well known to prosecutor capsack he had sent him to
00:12:45
prison for seven years on a manslaughter charge fortin got out after only two and a half
00:12:51
years he had stabbed his brother in the throat in 1983 in the township of carteret
00:12:58
and was pled guilty to that when the new jersey state police heard the news of steve fortin's assault in
00:13:06
maine they naturally wanted to find out if fortin was in new jersey on the night
00:13:11
melissa padilla was killed an interview with thornton's former girlfriend provided the answer
00:13:20
and she told us that in august of 1994 stephen fortin did in fact live in avondale new jersey in fact he lived in
00:13:28
an apartment with her and on the very night in question he assaulted her in the parking lot of a restaurant
00:13:38
and she called the police and he ran that restaurant bud's hut was a short walk from the gem motel where melissa
00:13:46
was living the police report listed the time of the assault on dawn archer as 10
00:13:52
30 p.m an hour before melissa was murdered at last authorities had a suspect melissa's brother got the word
00:14:02
a day after his birthday i didn't consider it a birthday gift but i was glad that
00:14:09
they did fine and i was praying that they would find him before he could ever do that to
00:14:14
someone else they found him but now they had to prove him guilty prosecutors hoped the dna evidence taken
00:14:24
from under melissa's fingernails would incriminate fortin but it didn't when it
00:14:29
was compared to stephen fortin from maine's evidence that we obtained from them
00:14:36
the dna lab could not include him or exclude him as a source with the dna results inconclusive the
00:14:46
bite marks on the two victims seem to be prosecutors best chance of linking fortin to melissa padilla's murder
00:14:56
a plaster impression was therefore made on fortin's teeth the impression along with photographs of
00:15:03
the bite marks were sent to dr lowe levine a respected forensic odontologist who worked for the new york state police
00:15:12
these are mr forten's teeth they're actually models of them and they're made
00:15:16
the same way as the orthodontist would take models or the dentist takes models to do prosthetic devices if you take a
00:15:23
look at the upper teeth he's got a space between his two middle front ones and the one on the right
00:15:30
is bigger than the one on the left because it's a cap and in fact the biting surface is slightly
00:15:38
wider also from front to back if you look at the models of lower teeth they're very very
00:15:45
straight across the bottom of them he's got almost no wear on the incisal edges
00:15:51
so they leave linear markings rather than rectangles and they're very very straight across he's got the slightly
00:15:59
pointed canine so he doesn't have a whole lot of wear levine compared forton's teeth to the
00:16:06
bite marks on vicki gardner and melissa padilla he found them to be a match leaving nothing to chance prosecutors
00:16:17
also brought in roy hazelwood a former fbi profiler and an expert on criminal behavior
00:16:25
he was interested in my studying the crimes to determine whether or not i could do a linkage analysis
00:16:31
in the two crimes a linkage analysis is an in-depth study of two or more crimes with
00:16:38
the idea of attempting to determine whether or not they were committed by the same person
00:16:44
hazelwood concluded that the same man had indeed committed both crimes the trial of stephen fortin began on
00:16:54
october 31st 2000 a trial with no eyewitnesses circumstantial evidence and inconclusive
00:17:03
dna findings the prosecutor's case rested almost entirely on the opinions of two forensic
00:17:16
experts the murder of melissa padilla and the assault of a maine state trooper were so strikingly similar that this
00:17:24
became a critical part of the prosecution's case at stephen fortin's trial maine state
00:17:32
trooper vicki gardner took the stand to describe how fortin had beaten and sexually assaulted her
00:17:39
then we had to bring in witnesses that brought the two crimes together and they were hazelwood and levine
00:17:48
addressing the jury roy hazelwood explained that some crimes like the murder of melissa padilla and the
00:17:55
assault of trooper gardner have unique patterns of behavior which he called rituals the ritual
00:18:03
are those acts which are unnecessary to the commission of the crime and are carried out to meet the
00:18:09
emotional needs of the offender in this case the need for psychosexual gratification
00:18:16
[Music] hazelwood identified five examples of ritualistic behavior that were common to
00:18:23
both cases bite mark to the chin bite mark to the left breast excessive battering to the upper portion
00:18:33
of the face in both instances injurious anal penetration and manual strangulation from the front
00:18:40
i've never seen that combination of behaviors in any other crime then dr levine explained to the jury
00:18:49
that no two people have teeth patterns that are exactly the same what i basically did was to show
00:18:57
the jurors that people leave bite marks that look different we used to the prosecutors myself and
00:19:05
one of the investigators so that bite marks look different dr levine showed the jury overlays of
00:19:16
steve fortin's teeth we were able to show the jury how the overlays fit over
00:19:22
the life-sized photographs of the bite mark on the victim we did it by animating
00:19:29
the overlay so that it moves across the screen and stops exactly on the bite mark and
00:19:34
it was it was very effective and it was very dramatic and i think it worked very
00:19:38
well new jersey authorities are coming for the jury deliberated stephen fortin's
00:19:44
fate for two days before reaching their verdict guilty in the penalty phase prosecutors asked for the death sentence
00:19:57
and concluded by explaining to the jury why fortin had bitten his victims on the
00:20:04
chin what we finally decided regarding the bite mark to the chin was that stephen fortin was biting the
00:20:11
victim on the chin while he was looking in her eyes and mutilating her genitals and that he was getting a perverse
00:20:20
pleasure out of that on february 26 2001 fortin was sentenced to die by lethal injection
00:20:30
it was justice but i didn't feel like a vengeance that justice should have been served you know
00:20:37
i was i was grateful roy hazelwood and lowell levine were absolutely critical to the case
00:20:44
this case like most murder cases depended on circumstantial evidence on forensic evidence on expert testimony
00:20:55
and the tools those experts have to draw on says hazelwood are growing more and more sophisticated every year
00:21:03
i'm continuously amazed at the strides we've made in investigating crimes and
00:21:09
solving crimes and prosecuting crimes stephen fortin is now in trenton state prison awaiting execution
00:21:18
melissa padilla's sons are living with their father her daughters are being raised by
00:21:25
melissa's mom she was a good mother because she's a good friend she was a wonderful daughter
00:21:39
[Music] she was a good person had a big heart and i'm sorry her kids won't
00:21:58
be able to know that [Music] [Music] so [Music] you