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NARRATOR: A homemade bomb
ripped through a rural home, and investigators had no
idea who was responsible.
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The device was made with common
items found in any store, but a tiny battery number and
the label inside a computer
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uncovered a bizarre
tale of revenge. [theme music] The tiny town of
Fair Haven, Vermont
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is about as far
removed from big city life as any place
in the country. Violence was
virtually unheard of,
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but even so, locals used to
joke that Sheila Rockwell and her 17-year-old
son, Chris Marquis
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lived in the safest
place in town, about 100 feet away
from the police station. But all of that changed one
March afternoon in 1998.
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SHEILA ROCKWELL: There
was a knock on the door. It was the UPS man. [knocking] And he had handed me a package.
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-Hi, I have a
package for delivery. -And I looked at the
package, and the package
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had said, um,
Samantha Brown on it. Well, it didn't
ring a bell to me, because I don't know who
any Samantha Brown was.
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So I brought it into Chris. SHEILA ROCKWELL (VOICEOVER):
You got a package here.
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NARRATOR: Chris was sitting
at his desk in his bedroom, and he didn't know a
Samantha Brown, either.
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He opened the box. Inside was a smaller
box, wrapped with string. He cut the string, and
there was an explosion.
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[explosion] [coughing] SHEILA ROCKWELL:
And I did realize that I was hit, because
my fingers were gone.
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I tried crawling to Chris
because he was moaning. And that's when I realized
that my knee wasn't there
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and that I couldn't get to him. NARRATOR: Chief Ray
Viger heard the explosion and ran over to investigate.
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CHIEF RAYMOND VIGER: I walked
down this little corridor to, uh, into the living
room, and then
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we could see some stuff coming
out of the hallway there, and young Chris was
laying right there
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in the hallway, half in
the room and half out. [sirens] NARRATOR: Both Sheila and Chris
were rushed to the hospital.
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PAUL VAN DE GRAFF: A large piece
of the shrapnel, in this case, went towards
Christopher Marquis' leg
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and essentially blew a
large hole in his thigh and severed his femoral
artery, and he bled to death.
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SHEILA ROCKWELL: I kept
asking, where is Chris? Where is Chris? How is Chris doing?
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And Dr.Hartman came in, and
he put his hand on mine, and he said, "Sheila,
Chris didn't make it."
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And I can remember just
letting out a scream, and then they had, you
know, put me under.
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[explosion] NARRATOR: The shrapnel
found at the bomb scene indicated it was a pipe
bomb, the favorite device
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of amateur bombers. Tiny brass hex nuts had
been wrapped around the bomb to make it even more deadly.
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PAUL VAN DE GRAFF: It's
a terrible circumstance of violent crime that
somebody's just--
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hooks up with the wrong
person at the wrong time and becomes the victim of this
kind of outrageous activity.
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NARRATOR: The return
address on the package said Samantha Brown
from Bucyrus, Ohio.
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When police checked
the name and address, they found both were fictitious. Chris Marquis was a 17-year-old
high school dropout, a loner.
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Because of an eye condition,
he was slowly going blind. He spent most of
his time indoors,
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and he had few friends. Yet, someone clearly
wanted to kill him. But who? As police looked
into his background,
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they found Chris
had a secret life-- something his family
knew nothing about. As police combed through the
wreckage of Chris Marquis'
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bedroom, they had one
question-- who wanted him dead? The package were
shipped from Ohio
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and was addressed to the The CB
Shack in care of Chris Marquis. It was a small business
Chris ran out of his home,
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selling Citizens band radios
and parts through the internet. SHEILA ROCKWELL: Well, it
wasn't really a business.
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It was mainly local people. You know, friends of his that
he would fix their radio,
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or people would hear
him on the radio, probably bragging and telling
them how he could fix radios,
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you know. And it was pretty
much the locals. NARRATOR: But investigators soon
discovered that Chris Marquis
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didn't always treat
his customers fairly. PAUL VAN DE GRAFF: I think it's
fair to say that Christopher
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Marquis was not completely
honest in all of his business dealings with other people
prior to his murder.
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CHIEF RAYMOND VIGER:
Chris Marquis made enemies by not living up
to the agreements
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that he had made with
individuals on purchasing and selling of CB sets and
other various equipment.
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NARRATOR: Customers told
police that Chris would promise to send one model of radio, but
after he received payment would
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ship another lower priced radio. JOHN HERSH: Obviously a
number of these individuals
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were upset over this, and
therefore it was necessary for the investigation to locate
and interview these individuals
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in order to determine if
that anger grows to the level where they would do
such a violet crime.
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[phone ringing] NARRATOR: With
hundreds of customers, investigators now had
hundreds of suspects.
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Investigators discovered
that the packages was shipped by the United Parcel Service
from Mansfield, Ohio.
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The name and town on the return
address were both fictitious. At the crime scene,
investigators
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sifted through the debris
looking for evidence. DAVID ALBRITTEN: An extensive
search was required.
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We were meticulously going
through every room, where any piece of evidence that we're
looking for-- a wire, a tool,
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a hex nut-- we were
taking sweepings and going room to room. NARRATOR: Bomb experts say bombs
are unique-- that each bomber
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has a signature style,
and the bomb that killed Chris Marquis had a
signature all its own.
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PAUL VAN DE GRAFF:
One of the things that we knew from
the murder scene was that small brass hex
nuts had been included
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in the bomb that
killed Chris Marquis. So the FBI and ATF
agents in the search were looking for hex nuts that
might be physically consistent
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with the hex nuts in the bomb. NARRATOR: Investigators also
found pieces of Styrofoam used
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to pack the bomb, a piece of
the battery used to detonate it, and they were able to identify
the chemical makeup of the gun
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powder used in the explosion. But all of these items were
available in any hardware store
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or gun shop. The bombing death of Chris
Marquis made the national news. DAVID ALBRITTEN:
The witness realized
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that he had information that was
important to law enforcement. It was at that point that the
cooperating witness contacted
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law enforcement to relay
his information that he had. NARRATOR: The informant
told investigators
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that a long-distance truck
driver in Indiana, Christopher Dean, had purchased a
CB radio from someone
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through the internet
and was angry about it. JOHN HERSH: This
witness informed the FBI
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that he was present in a
discussion with Mr. Dean when he spoke of his problems
with the sale of a CB radio
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and a young man in Vermont. PAUL VAN DE GRAFF:
There was information that he'd said he was going to
come to Vermont and, you know,
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beat up Mr. Marquis. NARRATOR: When questioned, Dean
confirmed he had purchased a CB
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radio from Chris
Marquis for $400 and had been sent a
cheaper model instead. JOHN HERSH: Mr. Dean
was very angered.
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At one time, his wife actually
called Christopher Marquis and indicated that her
husband was quite upset
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and may be traveling to
Vermont, and that, uh, he would not be very
happy if he did.
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SHEILA ROCKWELL: There
was a lot of phone calls. And a lot of times, I
would answer the phone,
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and he asked for my son. And Chris would
say, I'm not here. You know, he'd
give me the motion
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he didn't want to
answer the phone call. NARRATOR: Sheila admitted her
son didn't return Dean's money.
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But Dean denied
sending the bomb. He had no prior criminal
record, and he lived in Indiana.
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The package had been
shipped from Ohio. BRADLEY STETLER:
He was described as a very hard working
person, reliable, honest--
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had a very loving family. He had plenty of
friends and neighbors who trusted him, who thought
he was a generous, regular guy.
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NARRATOR: Investigators wondered
whether forensic evidence in Dean's home would
contradict his story.
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SHEILA ROCKWELL: I
can't really believe that somebody would do this. Chris was my pride and joy.
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He was my youngest child. They say that you
have to forgive. And because of my religion, I
believe I do have to forgive.
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But I don't think
I've come to that yet. NARRATOR: Armed with a
warrant, investigators
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searched Christopher Dean's
home-- their prime suspect in the bombing death
of Chris Marquis.
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DAVID ALBRITTEN: We are looking
everywhere that any place a hex nut could be-- a wooden clothes
pin, thumb tacks, batteries,
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any type of insulating
materials-- as well as taking sweepings from carpet, looking
for powders-- anything that may
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have held any type
of explosive powders. NARRATOR: In Christopher
Dean's basement,
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they found hex nuts similar to
those used in the fatal bond. To find out if
they were the same,
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analysts used a
process known as plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. They took samples from the
hex nuts found with the bomb
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and those found in Dean's house. These samples were dissolved
in a neutral chemical solution,
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which was then vaporized at
extremely high temperatures. Different components,
like zinc and copper,
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will vaporize at different
speeds, all of which is monitored by a computer. Investigators
concluded the hex nuts
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had the same chemical make-up. JOHN HERSH: Identical hex nuts,
from a metallurgical point
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of view, were recovered
from Mr. Dean's residence. They were stored in a container
near his workbench, where we
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alleged the bomb
was constructed. NARRATOR: In the rest of the
house was even more evidence.
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Investigators
found the same type of wiring used in
the bomb's detonator. They found the same type of
pipe used in the fatal bomb
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and the same type of
Styrofoam packing material was discovered in Dean's garage.
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PAUL VAN DE GRAFF: This pipe
bomb used smokeless powder. One of the things
we were looking for
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was powder like that. Now, interestingly
enough, there was no container of powder found.
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NARRATOR: But in the
kitchen, investigators found a small
plastic funnel that looked like it might
contain a clue.
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DAVID ALBRITTEN: That funnel--
we could visibly see that there appeared to have been some
type of power used in that.
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NARRATOR: The
powder was analyzed using a scanning electron
microscope that uses x-rays
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to reveal its
chemical components. That sample was compared to the
powder found at the bomb scene.
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Both samples were
smokeless gun powder. And both had a 17%
concentration of nitroglycerin,
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in addition to the stabilizing
component, nitrocellulose. PAUL VAN DE GRAFF:
The smokeless power
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matched the smokeless
powder from the murder bomb and from the smokeless powder
we found inside his house.
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NARRATOR: But there
was a problem. All of these items in Dean's
home were available at stores
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at every state in the country. There was nothing unique
or unusual about the gun
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powder, the pipe,
or the hex nuts. Investigators knew that
sometimes the tiniest piece
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of evidence is the
most telling, so they return to the bomb scene. Among the thousands
of pieces of debris,
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they found a mangled
nine volt battery. With a magnifying
glass, investigators saw a series of
numbers and letters
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on the side of the
battery-- 3G24G205. A call to the
manufacturer revealed this was a lot number
that identified the day
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and the assembly line on which
the battery was assembled. Inside Christopher Dean's
home, investigators
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found an open pack of the same
brand of nine volt batteries with one missing. The lot numbers on
the unused batteries
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were the same as the one used
to detonate the pipe bomb. PAUL VAN DE GRAFF:
And that lot number
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meant that those batteries
were manufactured at the same day
on the same line. NARRATOR: Just when prosecutors
thought their case against Dean
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would primarily
be circumstantial, a computer forensic expert
found even more evidence
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inside Chris Dean's computer. It was a file Dean thought
he had deleted but hadn't.
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NARRATOR: Prosecutors found
evidence that Christopher Dean ordered a CB radio
from Chris Marquis
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and sent a check for $400. But Marquis sent a
less expensive CB radio than the one Dean ordered.
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JOHN HERSH: The motive for Mr.
Dean's actions in this murder of Christopher Marquis
appears to be, unfortunately,
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his extreme anger over the
fact that Christopher Marquis swindled him out
of a $400 CB radio.
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NARRATOR: There was one last
item in Chris Dean's home investigators needed to
evaluate-- his computer.
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A computer forensic
analysis uncovered evidence that Dean had recently
downloaded information
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on how to build a pipe bomb. JASON STANFORD: If an
investigator were looking for evidence of
searches for pipe bomb
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material on the
internet, it is not difficult to locate, especially
if the computer user himself is
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not savvy in how to
cover his tracks. NARRATOR: And on the hard
drive of his computer,
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there was a copy-- or
template-- of the label used on the box that
held the pipe bomb,
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with the same fictitious
return address that was found on the
pipe bomb package.
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Mr. Dean attempted to delete the
file, but remnants of the file were still on the
computer's hard drive.
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JASON STANFORD: He probably
thought he covered his tracks and deleted all the files.
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However, because he
printed it, the computer generated a second file on
the system for the printer.
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And that is what was found. DAVID ALBRITTEN: It would be
remarkable for anybody else
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to have made up the exact
name and exact address that was contained on
Christopher Dean's computer.
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PAUL VAN DE GRAFF: And I
characterized this computer label as a computer fingerprint.
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It was conclusive, in my
mind, that somebody had-- that this bomb was
associated with that house,
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that somebody had created
the address label used in this bomb at
the Dean residence.
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NARRATOR: Christopher
Dean was arrested and charged with
first-degree murder. Prosecutors had
plenty of evidence
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to prove Dean chose
violence as a way to resolve his dispute
with Chris Marquis.
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In making the bomb,
Dean unwittingly used a nine volt
battery which identified the date and the factory in
which it was manufactured--
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a battery which matched
the ones found in his home. Logs from Mr. Dean's
trucking company
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indicated he was
in Mansfield, Ohio on the day the fatal
package was sent. JOHN HERSH: We even went
a step further than that.
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The witness at the
UPS facility in Ohio identified Christopher
Dean as the person
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who shipped that box. PAUL VAN DE GRAFF: We were
able to compare the handwriting
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on the UPS receipt with
Mr. Dean's handwriting. And handwriting
experts would say
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that it was the same person. NARRATOR: And Dean had no idea
he was dealing with a teenager.
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PAUL VAN DE GRAFF: They
communicated over the internet and a little bit
over the telephone,
00:18:35
so they'd never met each other. Mr. Dean didn't know what
Mr. Marquis looked like,
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didn't know he was
a 17-year-old boy. NARRATOR: In February of 2000,
Christopher Dean pleaded guilty
00:18:49
to first degree murder and was
sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole.
00:18:59
For Sheila Rockwell, there
was little satisfaction in the sentence. She still bears the scars of
the bomb that killed her son.
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She limps from the shrapnel
that tore through her leg, and her hands will never
recover from the blast.
00:19:17
But mostly, she mourns the
loss of her 17-year-old son. SHEILA ROCKWELL: Why? Why would anybody ever
do this over a CB radio?
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You know, if only I had known--
I would try to, you know, reason with Dean. You know-- pay
him for the radio.
00:19:40
Send him back the radio. Whatever the case may be. But it was just unbelievable
that somebody that crazy
00:19:49
would do something like that. PAUL VAN DE GRAFF:
Sitting here today, I still can't fathom how one
person would be of a mindset
00:20:02
that just because they got
ripped off for a couple hundred bucks, that they would
want to kill somebody
00:20:08
that they've never seen before. NARRATOR: For investigators,
the case proved something
00:20:13
that Christopher Dean
never thought possible. He was convinced that since
he'd never been to Vermont,
00:20:22
and he had never
met Chris Marquis, that no one could tie
him to the fatal bomb.
00:20:28
But he never realized forensic
science would identify him. The materials he used to build
the bomb, the lot numbers
00:20:38
on the batteries, and the
fictitious name and address that was recovered
from his computer
00:20:44
left no doubt that he was the
one who killed Chris Marquis. PAUL VAN DE GRAFF: We had a
lot of evidence in this case,
00:20:53
but the forensic
evidence, to me, was the linchpin
of the prosecution, and we not only had one
piece of forensic evidence,
00:21:01
but we had many, many different
kinds of forensic evidence. SHEILA ROCKWELL: It was just
amazing, the way that they had
00:21:06
pin pointed the paper wrapper,
the Styrofoam, the bomb, everything that
he had, you know,
00:21:16
had put in the bomb--
the hex nuts-- were all right back to
the manufacture. It was unbelievable that
science was that good.
00:21:29
[theme music]