00:00:04
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: A 30-year-old musician mysteriously goes missing. And a family is left groping for answers.
00:00:22
It just kind of seemed like a dream, that this can't be happening, and this just can't be true.
00:00:29
It just can't be. NARRATOR: Police are clueless until someone cries, murder. [DOG BARKING]
00:00:36
Can Dr. Hinkes help figure out what happened. There wasn't much left of the face,
00:00:42
a lot of pieces that are missing. NARRATOR: Then, a 16-year-old gymnast who disappeared 14 years ago.
00:00:51
A small-time drug dealer on the run. A police investigation, and a stand still. And all Dr. Dirkmaat has to work with is a human skull
00:01:01
that a family dog brings in. We can't see much of anything. The only evidence of trauma was that gunshot to the head.
00:01:13
[VOICE ON RADIO] [PANTING] [GRUNTING] [ELECTRICAL BUZZING] NARRATOR: Police are scouring the hills
00:01:52
surrounding San Diego. They're on the hunt for a dead man. The search began after police received a tip from a woman
00:02:06
named Michelle Richards. She claims that there is a body in these hills, the body
00:02:11
of her boyfriend, Robert Mott. We brought Michelle down here to try to help us locate the body.
00:02:19
She couldn't remember exactly where it was. When I stood on the plateau, I could smell decaying body.
00:02:25
NARRATOR: But the area is expansive. So Sergeant Collier summons additional help to search
00:02:30
the thick brush of the ravines. AL COLLIER: We called the cadaver dogs to help us locate human remains.
00:02:36
NARRATOR: Within minutes, the dogs tracked down most of the scattered body parts.
00:02:43
The body wasn't that far down. It just had been drug a little bit by the coyotes and other animals in that area.
00:02:52
[EAGLE CRY] NARRATOR: As a next step, investigators begin questioning friends and family
00:03:00
about the suspected victim. They quickly learn that Robert mark was a 30-year-old musician
00:03:06
with a gentle soul. SHERRI PARKER: He just wanted to be loved. And he would always say to me, what the world
00:03:13
needs now is love, sweet love. Rob, growing up as the younger brother, we did everything together.
00:03:20
We'd play together. He was always my little brother. Rob was very smart, very talented growing up,
00:03:29
through high school. And he actually graduated with honors with a letter in marching band.
00:03:36
NARRATOR: But high school held its share of difficulties for Rob, as well. This was when he first began showing signs of schizophrenia.
00:03:46
Things changed drastically at that point. Because he went from being the Rob we always knew to hearing voices.
00:03:53
And his way of thinking just changed, and just his behavior. Things were really, really bad for him at that time.
00:04:00
NARRATOR: Sufferers often experience hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized
00:04:05
behavior or thinking. The symptoms can also lead to a range of diminished social abilities.
00:04:12
But over the past 10 years, Rob had been taking medication and had his condition under control.
00:04:19
And recently, things were looking especially positive. A few weeks earlier, he started dating Michelle Richards,
00:04:27
and was excited about this budding romance. When I was told that Robby had met Michelle
00:04:32
and that there was a potential love interest, maybe, for him, my heart went out, because he had
00:04:39
felt so unloved for so long, that this was a really big deal. And I could just feel his excitement.
00:04:46
And I knew that this was going to be a real special to Robby. NARRATOR: But soon after he begins dating Michelle,
00:04:52
Rob goes missing. And Sherri and David's excitement for their brother quickly turns to concern.
00:04:58
Rob and I had made plans for his birthday. And everybody was going to get together,
00:05:01
was going to do something for his birthday. And his birthday came and went. And I didn't hear from Rob, or he didn't call, or anything.
00:05:09
NARRATOR: At first, they try not to read too much into it. But I figured, a couple of days, he'd call me up and say,
00:05:15
hey, sorry, bro, whatever. But never got that phone call. NARRATOR: Days turn into weeks with no word from Rob.
00:05:24
If for some reason he had stopped taking his medication, it's possible Rob could have experienced
00:05:30
a schizophrenic episode. His family soon becomes sick with worry. DAVID MOTT: Each week went by, I was going nuts.
00:05:38
Because I had to find out where my brother was. NARRATOR: Unable to track Rob down himself,
00:05:44
David begins searching for his brother's new girlfriend, Michelle, to see if she knows anything
00:05:49
about Robert's disappearance. Now, she was the last person I know that he was seen with.
00:05:53
So that's who I had to find at the time to get any more information. I had no idea on how to track her down.
00:06:00
I was just kind of going crazy trying to find her. And I went over to his friend's house in San Bernardino.
00:06:05
And she just happened to be there. I kind of lucked out on how I came across her.
00:06:12
DAVID MOTT REENACTOR: Michelle, Where's Robby at? I don't know, you're his brother.
00:06:16
Where is he? DAVID MOTT REENACTOR: You're his girlfriend! NARRATOR: In their initial conversation,
00:06:20
Michelle is evasive. And David senses she knows more than she's letting on. At this time I go, well, then, we need to go
00:06:27
to the authorities with this. So I got her in the car. And I drove right over to a police station.
00:06:38
NARRATOR: Police quickly realized that Michelle does in fact know a lot about Rob's disappearance.
00:06:43
Shockingly, she tells the investigators that she was with him the night he disappeared and actually
00:06:49
witnessed his murder. According to Michelle, the trouble started when she and Rob were at a party two weeks earlier.
00:06:56
He was going down to the party for Michelle. He wanted to impress her, and wanted to be with her,
00:07:00
and maybe be shown off to her friends, and probably thought he was just going down there for a good time.
00:07:06
They'd come home and go on with their life. I'm sure that there was not anything
00:07:11
else in his mind other than the excitement of being with her. NARRATOR: She tells police that, at first, everyone
00:07:18
was having a good time. But then Rob got into a fight with a group of guys who were high on drugs.
00:07:24
They started beating Rob up and then threw him into the trunk of their car. She told us that they basically
00:07:29
forced her to go with them as they drove up into the hills of Poway. And then she was forced to sit there
00:07:35
and watch as they tortured him and eventually killed him. NARRATOR: Michelle explains that they
00:07:40
left Rob's body on the ground, threw her back in the car, and drove her home. Michelle adds that she hadn't come forward
00:07:47
sooner because her abductors threatened to kill her if she did. But before investigators can move any further,
00:07:55
they must first determine if these remains are indeed Robert Mott. DAVID MOTT REENACTOR: So I offered to drive on down there
00:08:01
tonight and be there in the morning. And I'll identify the body for you. I had to know whether it was him or not.
00:08:09
And that's when Ron said that, because of the conditions of the weather, and being out in a remote field
00:08:15
with the wildlife, and the animals, and the coyotes, that there wasn't nothing to identify.
00:08:20
It was just skeleton remains at the time. NARRATOR: Investigators send the remains to the San Diego
00:08:26
medical examiner's office. Though animals have chewed off most of the fingers, one remaining fingerprint confirms the body's identity.
00:08:38
This is Robert Mott. I didn't want to believe it. but it had been so long at this point,
00:08:45
I knew something was really, really wrong. But I didn't know it would result in that, it was that bad.
00:08:55
It just kind of seemed like a dream, that this can't be happening, this can't be true.
00:09:00
It just can't be. NARRATOR: Michelle Richards provides investigators with the names of three
00:09:08
men she claims killed Rob. But in order to convict the suspects, investigators need more than just Michelle's account
00:09:17
of what happened. To build a case, they need to know exactly how Robert Mott died.
00:09:26
They turned to the one person they think may be able to help, forensic anthropologist Dr. Madeleine Hinkes.
00:09:33
MADELEINE HINKES: I'm doing it for the victim. Because I'm the person that can tell
00:09:36
the victim's story, figuring out who they are, what happened to them. NARRATOR: The bones are immediately sent to Dr.
00:09:46
Hinkes's lab at Mesa College. It's a man named Robert Mott. And I don't know much about him yet.
00:09:55
But I think we'll probably get to know him pretty well. NARRATOR: As soon as Dr. Hinkes gets a look at the skull,
00:10:02
she realizes that it may hold the answer to the investigators' most pressing question,
00:10:07
how did Robert Mott die? MADELEINE HINKES: There wasn't much left of the face. All the the facial bones have been broken.
00:10:17
There's a lot of pieces that are missing. NARRATOR: In fact, the skull is so badly damaged that Dr. Hinkes can't possibly reconstruct it.
00:10:26
Instead, she must try to solve this mystery by analyzing over 100 pieces of bone fragment.
00:10:32
MADELEINE HINKES: The big step, figure out what happened to him. NARRATOR: As Dr. Hinkes examines the individual fragments
00:10:37
more closely, she is shocked at what she finds. MADELEINE HINKES: Based on the few fragments that I had,
00:10:44
some of them were bones that are very deep inside the face. And in order to break those, you've got to break everything
00:10:50
on the outside first. NARRATOR: Coming up, with Rob's skull smashed to bits, Dr. Hinkes is not sure she will be able to determine exactly
00:11:01
what caused Robert's death. MADELEINE HINKES: The best I could say was he's had some fairly severe trauma to his face.
00:11:07
NARRATOR: And later, after six weeks of no leads on a homicide, could a jogger's
00:11:12
discovery change everything? When the person went closer, that's when they recognized the clothing.
00:11:18
NARRATOR: When "Skeleton Stories" returns. Police have found the dead body of Robert Mott in the hills
00:11:38
outside San Diego. But now, they need hard evidence that he was murdered. I mean, all we had was Michelle Richards
00:11:48
saying that this happened. You substantiated what you said-- NARRATOR: They are counting on Dr. Madeleine Hinkes
00:11:52
to help them so they can build a case against the suspected murderers. It's a lot of what forensic anthropology is,
00:11:59
speaking for the victims, figuring out what happened to them, and then passing that information
00:12:05
on to law enforcement. NARRATOR: From the breakage pattern of his skull, Dr. Hinkes determines that a blow to Robert's face
00:12:18
must have caused most of the damage. But it looks like he's had some fairly severe trauma to his face.
00:12:27
It's been completely separated from the brain case. A lot of the bones are fragmentary.
00:12:32
NARRATOR: But now, Dr. Hinkes must try to figure out exactly what caused this facial trauma.
00:12:39
It is possible that his skull was crushed by animals preying on his remains or that Robert simply
00:12:45
fell down one of the ravines and landed on his face. And if Dr. Hinkes can't prove otherwise,
00:12:51
investigators will have no case against the suspected murderers. First, Dr. Hinkes addresses the question of scavenging animals.
00:13:00
If there were something really big like elephants nearby, and elephants stepped on your face,
00:13:05
it might cause that much damage. As far as I know, East County doesn't have any elephants.
00:13:11
The other animal damage would just be fairly localized in one area, wouldn't be the entire face that was destroyed,
00:13:18
as was the case for him. NARRATOR: Investigators also hope to rule out an even more plausible claim
00:13:25
from the suspect's defense team. MADELEINE HINKES: There was also the possibility
00:13:30
that he might have just been drunk or disoriented and fell down the hillside and landed on his face.
00:13:37
NARRATOR: But as Dr. Hinkes studies the bones further, she eliminates that theory, as well.
00:13:43
MADELEINE HINKES: If he had fallen on his face, I would expect fewer breaks, maybe broken nose,
00:13:49
maybe a broken jaw, cheekbone. But based on the fragments of bone that I had, it looked like every bone in its face
00:13:56
had been broken, which is way more trauma than just falling down the ravine. NARRATOR: Dr. Hinkes reaches her next conclusion
00:14:05
based on the extreme breakage pattern itself. MADELEINE HINKES: There was so much missing
00:14:10
that the best I could say was that there were probably multiple blows to the face from different angles
00:14:16
in order to break all the bones of the face. NARRATOR: And because every bone is broken,
00:14:21
she concludes that whoever struck Rob in the face had to do so with severe force.
00:14:28
Once you've broken through the outer bones of the face, and if you keep beating him, then you'll get to the more
00:14:34
delicate bones inside the face. I think that's what happened here. NARRATOR: Lastly, Dr. Hinkes also
00:14:41
thinks she knows what weapon the killers might have used to inflict such damage.
00:14:46
Well, he could have died from being struck repeatedly in the face by the rocks. Rocks are certainly consistent with the extensive fracture
00:14:55
pattern, the loss of bone that we're seeing in the face of the remains here. NARRATOR: So far, Dr. Hinkes's conclusions
00:15:03
support everything Michelle Richards has told the investigators. This kind of trauma would suggest that the cause of death
00:15:11
was massive blunt force trauma to his face, which would certainly bring on death.
00:15:17
[PANTING] His airway probably would have been blocked. There would've been extensive bleeding.
00:15:28
NARRATOR: But as the investigation continues, Sergeant Collier starts to wonder about Michelle Richards'
00:15:34
role in Robert Mott's death. Is she really the innocent bystander she claims to be?
00:15:40
But Michelle really became nervous at that point. And there was just something-- and I
00:15:47
don't know how to explain it except doing the job for as long as I did, and with my partner.
00:15:53
And we just noticed that she was acting strange. We really started getting the impression
00:15:57
that Michelle was involved and not just forced to go with them. NARRATOR: Coming up on "Skeleton Stories," investigators
00:16:09
are determined to extract the whole truth from Michelle Richards. We knew that there was more to her story
00:16:15
than what she was telling us. NARRATOR: And later, police called Dr. Dirkmaat to a gruesome site.
00:16:22
Took off the leaf litter and exposed that gun. NARRATOR: When "Skeleton Stories" continues.
00:16:42
Dr. Hinkes has determined that 30-year-old Robert Mott died from blunt-force trauma to his head.
00:16:50
When questioned, his girlfriend, Michelle Richards, confirms that Robert died after being
00:16:56
smashed in the face with rocks. This is consistent with the injuries forensic anthropologist Dr. Madeleine Hinkes
00:17:03
has found on Robert's skull. But Michelle keeps insisting she was just an innocent bystander.
00:17:10
And police suspect she is not telling the whole story. Sergeant Al Collier brings Michelle in yet
00:17:19
again for further questioning. The only thing we had was we knew people had picked up rocks
00:17:25
and dropped them on Robert's head. And so we just came out with a plan, well, let's see what she does if we tell her
00:17:31
her fingerprint's on the rocks. NARRATOR: The fact is, it is virtually impossible to leave
00:17:36
fingerprints on a rock. Fingerprints can be detected on a vast range of different surfaces, such as metal, glass, or plastics.
00:17:46
But prints on rocks are generally invisible because these surfaces are too porous and jagged.
00:17:52
And I just turn to Michelle and said, you lied to me. Your fingerprints are on the rocks.
00:17:56
AL COLLIER REENACTOR: If you help us, we might be able to help you. I don't want to go to jail.
00:18:00
I really don't want to go to jail. NARRATOR: Their trick pays off. At that point, she broke down and confessed
00:18:04
to helping kill him. NARRATOR: With Michelle's confession and Dr. Hinkes's findings, police can finally replay the events
00:18:12
that led up to Robert's murder. It all began a few weeks earlier when Michelle picked
00:18:24
up Robert to go to a party. AL COLLIER: She knew the people there. They were going to just kind of hang out.
00:18:30
NARRATOR: But shortly after Michelle and Robert arrive, her true intentions become clear.
00:18:36
Robby had money on him. And she'd wanted to get to that money some way. AL COLLIER: She left him in the car.
00:18:41
And she went inside and talked to the people for a while, two people in particular,
00:18:45
James Runyon and Nathan Powell. She told these other guys that he had money. And they all came up with a plan.
00:18:54
I don't know if the plan was to kill him. But the plan was to hurt him and to take his money.
00:19:00
It just went way beyond that. AL COLLIER: James Runyon, the leader of the group, comes in.
00:19:08
And he's yelling at Robert and drags him outside. And with the help from this Nathan Powell,
00:19:14
they start beating on him. And then and juvenile get involved. Michelle was watching.
00:19:21
They take his money from him, which was about $400. NARRATOR: On the ground, Robert tries to fight back.
00:19:29
And he kicked one of the guys that was beating them. And this guy just sees red.
00:19:34
And he goes nuts. NARRATOR: Robert's attackers and Michelle then throw him into the trunk of the car
00:19:46
and drive to a desolate area in the hills. AL COLLIER: When they open the trunk,
00:20:00
they wrap a chain around his neck, and they drag him out, throw him on the ground.
00:20:04
And then they start beating him again. NARRATOR: Bloody and badly beaten, Robert pleads to Michelle for help.
00:20:15
AL COLLIER: He's crying, he's begging, Michelle, why are you doing this? Michelle couldn't stand that.
00:20:20
So she wanted to shut him up. NARRATOR: Michelle tries to lift a large rock. But it's too heavy for her.
00:20:27
So she had James Runyan come over, help pick the boulder up, and then smash his head with it.
00:20:33
NARRATOR: The impact is devastating. Robert's airway is crushed. Clinging to life, he struggles to breathe.
00:20:40
They could still hear him wheezing. DAVID MOTT: He didn't die instantly at that point.
00:20:46
So they picked it up and smashed his head again until he stopped moving. Based on the evidence from the body,
00:20:53
it appeared the person died because of extensive blood loss due to heavy facial trauma.
00:21:00
And I would imagine, based on that the bones are broken, that his was probably cut off.
00:21:07
AL COLLIER: This wasn't a crime of passion. This was just a crime of hatred and torture.
00:21:13
I can't imagine this man being up on a plateau, in a place he doesn't know, surrounded
00:21:19
by four people begging for his life, with no one to help him. I don't understand it, never will,
00:21:27
how any body can torture another human being. I just don't understand how four people
00:21:34
can think that way, unless they were so messed up on drugs. But then, maybe, I'm just excuse-- maybe
00:21:40
that's just the way these-- they're inhumane, I don't know. I don't know. NARRATOR: With Dr. Hinkes's evidence of cause of death,
00:21:54
and Michelle's first-hand account of what happened that day, investigators can now bring the case to trial.
00:22:02
To ensure justice will be served, they turn to Dr. Hinkes again, this time, on the stand in the courtroom.
00:22:12
MADELEINE HINKES: This trial was the first time I testified as an expert witness.
00:22:16
So I wasn't sure what to expect. I made sure to be well-prepared. NARRATOR: Dr. Hinkes reports to the jury
00:22:25
how she determined Rob was brutally murdered. I told the jury that he had suffered blunt trauma
00:22:32
to his face, and emphasized the fact that all the facial bones were broken into pieces, and that that's not something
00:22:40
that could happen accidentally. It's really important for the forensic anthropologist
00:22:46
to come in and say, with the degree of damage done to this person's head, he would have died from it.
00:22:53
MADELEINE HINKES: I could see them nodding their heads when I'm pointed things out
00:22:56
and explaining it to them. NARRATOR: Michelle Richards, Jason Runyon, and Nathan Powell
00:23:05
are convicted of first degree murder. They are given a sentence of 25 years to life.
00:23:11
The juvenile is given a lighter sentence based on his age. I just wish he was here.
00:23:22
I really miss him. Nobody deserves to die like that. Knowing that I could just call him at any time
00:23:36
and say, I love you, just wanted to know, and for him to say, I love you, too. Just knowing that, yeah, I caught the guys who did this.
00:23:46
And they're going to pay for what they did. You can't never bring back a life. Or you can't give me back what I had with my brother,
00:23:53
you know what I'm saying? But, yeah, I was satisfied as I could be. SHERRI PARKER: If it hadn't been for Dr. Hinkes,
00:24:00
the case wouldn't have been closed tight. He didn't deserve to die that way. And whenever you can put people in prison
00:24:07
for doing that to another human being, I think that's worthwhile. We always think about that, what
00:24:13
might this person's life have been like if they had survived? Being able to, in some way, do something about that, and bring
00:24:21
a little bit of justice, it's a good feeling when they have to pay for what they do.
00:24:33
NARRATOR: Coming up, with only a human skull, will Dr. Dirkmaat be able to determine how
00:24:39
this person met his or her end? There was really no indication of a struggle. NARRATOR: That's next on "Skeleton Stories."
00:25:03
[PANTING] On this warm summer day in southern Ohio, a dog spends several hours exploring the nearby woods.
00:25:25
As the sun comes down, he returns home with a trophy from his wanderings, a grisly discovery that horrifies his owner.
00:25:33
It seemed that the local resident lets his dog out. The dog runs a good distance.
00:25:38
When he looked out when the dog had returned to the yard, he was playing with something that the he thought was a ball.
00:25:47
When he went out, he discovered that it appeared to be a human skull. The dog's owner immediately contacts the local police, who
00:25:55
verify that the skull is human. But that's all they can tell. GARY TALLENT: As far as looking at skeletal remains,
00:26:04
it's certainly beyond via expertise. NARRATOR: So detective Tallent calls the one expert
00:26:09
he knows who might be able to solve the mystery of this skull, forensic anthropologist
00:26:15
Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat. When we look at these remains, it's just, what are they telling us?
00:26:23
We're trying to get at the facts. Then, whatever the facts are, then we go with that.
00:26:32
NARRATOR: The detectives delivered the skull to Dr. Dirkmaat's at the Applied Forensic Science Department
00:26:38
of Mercy Hurst College. They are counting on him to provide them with the answers
00:26:43
to two key questions, who is this, and how did he or she die? Right away, Dr. Dirkmaat spots a telltale clue
00:26:53
to the cause of the death, a bullet hole in the skull. We can measure the diameter of that entrance wound
00:27:03
and have a pretty good idea of the caliber of the bullet. It was his belief that the bullet hole to the skull
00:27:09
was consistent with a 9 millimeter sized projectile. It's a pretty good indication that it might be homicide.
00:27:17
NARRATOR: But in order to solve this homicide, detectives first need to know whom this skull belongs to.
00:27:24
There are not many open missing persons cases in this small Ohio community. But police suspected could possibly
00:27:30
belong to a teenage girl who mysteriously disappeared 14 years earlier. Her name was Delia Reynolds.
00:27:39
And according to friends and family, she was smart, popular, and outgoing. She was also a gifted gymnast, the star
00:27:47
of her high school team. Her baffling disappearance has haunted this town for 14 years, which is why Detective
00:27:56
Schwab is especially eager to know if this skull is Delia. Is it a female? Is it a female that's in a juvenile age range?
00:28:04
Could this be her? NARRATOR: A quick examination of the skull reveals that it might indeed belong to Delia.
00:28:18
There were some indications that it was a young adult, or late teenage years. NARRATOR: First off, the molars are less
00:28:27
worn than those of a typical adult. And three plates of the skull, which fuse at around age 20,
00:28:34
are not fully joined yet. But as Dr. Dirkmaat examines the skull more closely, he realizes it is looking much more like that of a young male.
00:28:47
He can tell, because female skulls are more delicate than males, especially in certain features
00:28:53
like the brow ridge. Coming off the forehead, females don't have much in the way of brow ridges.
00:28:59
So if we compare this female to a male, you can see the development of these bumps
00:29:04
of bone, these brow ridges. So they're very distinctive in the male. NARRATOR: To confirm that this is a male,
00:29:11
Dr. Dirkmaat also looks at the mastoid process, a projection of bone located behind the ear that anchors
00:29:18
the neck muscles to the skull. DENNIS DIRKMAAT: In females, this mastoid process
00:29:23
tends to be fairly small. We compare that to the male, and you can see it's very big,
00:29:29
and it juts out from the side of the skull. So this is a very distinctive male mastoid process.
00:29:37
NARRATOR: Furthermore, based on two distinct characteristics of the skull, it's elongated shape and the wider
00:29:43
nasal openings, Dr. Dirkmaat can also ascertain the race of the victim. We were able to determine that it was likely African-American.
00:29:54
NARRATOR: This skull clearly does not belong to Delia Reynolds, as police said suspected.
00:30:01
[VOICE ON RADIO] DAVID SCHWAB: Once it was determined it wasn't the female juvenile, everything
00:30:09
started to hit dead ends. NARRATOR: Detectives now must figure out if any other missing persons from the area
00:30:14
fit the profile of the skull. GARY TALLENT: We were trying to talk to family members
00:30:20
of missing people to see if we could get some additional information that might help us identify the victim.
00:30:25
NARRATOR: This canvassing yields one clue that might be a real lead, or could be just another red herring.
00:30:33
There is a recent case of a young African-American male who vanished, Dwayne Anderson.
00:30:39
But Wayne's not exactly a missing person. He's a fugitive. Police believe he may be a low-level drug dealer.
00:30:48
And he's wanted for questioning in the shooting death of another man. Well, he was just a young fellow
00:30:54
who was into probably partying. He was no major narcotics dealer. NARRATOR: According to witnesses, six months earlier,
00:31:03
on a March evening in 1998, Wayne Anderson and his best friend, James Fields, were hanging
00:31:09
out in the stairway of the housing development where they lived. DAVID SCHWAB: They're partying.
00:31:15
They're smoking what they would call blunts and getting high. There's some shouting back and forth.
00:31:22
At some point, from what the detectives were able to determine, Wayne produces a weapon.
00:31:29
And this weapon is fired a couple of times. The victim is struck. And he dies of his wounds.
00:31:36
Immediately after the shooting, Wayne flees and is last seen running in the direction
00:31:41
of the basketball courts. NARRATOR: The reason for the shooting remains a mystery.
00:31:48
But there is little question do authorities that Wayne Anderson pulled the trigger.
00:31:54
The county issues a warrant for his arrest. But Wayne has vanished. You go back and check, has anybody seen him recently?
00:32:03
When's the last time anybody heard from him? Has he called anybody from anywhere for money?
00:32:09
Although we looked and used whatever resources we could think of to find him, we did not find Wayne.
00:32:15
So now, you have to try to get it into your head, could it be this person? Somehow, could this person have died?
00:32:22
NARRATOR: But in order to solve this mystery, detectives must first find the rest of the gunshot
00:32:27
victim's remains. Homicide search teams scoured 90 miles of rough terrain, hunting for a headless skeleton.
00:32:38
But they find nothing. Six weeks later, their luck changes. A jogger spots a flash of blue under fallen leaves
00:32:49
while running in the woods. When the person went closer, that's when they recognized the clothing.
00:32:55
They saw the bones and felt that what they had there was the body. NARRATOR: And the body is missing its head.
00:33:04
Now, the county detectives have a skull without a body, and a body without the skull.
00:33:11
And they're counting on Dr. Dirkmaat to confirm that they belong to the same person.
00:33:16
If we can connect that skull to these remains, we now have a place to go. NARRATOR: Coming up next, Dr. Dirkmaat
00:33:26
combs the site of what appears to be a cold-blooded murder. DENNIS DIRKMAAT: We can't see much of anything.
00:33:30
We took off the leaf litter and exposed that gun. NARRATOR: When "Skeleton Stories" continues.
00:33:50
Police have summoned forensic anthropologist Dennis Dirkmaat to the woods, where a jogger has just
00:33:57
discovered a headless skeleton. They need him to provide them with answers to two
00:34:02
critical questions, do these bones belong to the skull a dog found six weeks earlier?
00:34:08
And are they the remains of Wayne Anderson, an alleged low-level drug dealer wanted in connection
00:34:14
with the murder of his best friend, James Fields? And the remains who were laying
00:34:19
on the ground, covered in leaf litter, covered in some other debris. NARRATOR: Dr. Dirkmaat and his team swing into action.
00:34:31
So what we did was remove vegetation and surface debris from about four or five yards away,
00:34:39
work our way to the body, so that we can see the surface of the ground, as well as any other evidence that's away from the body.
00:34:47
NARRATOR: They do this very slowly by hand to avoid disturbing the skeleton or any possible clues
00:34:53
lying nearby. And so the goal is to not only uncover any evidence that's away from the body, but also, the whole point
00:35:01
is not to disturb any of it and keep it pristine, at least the bones, as to where they're exactly located.
00:35:07
As homicide detectives, we're certainly familiar with taking our time and looking for little pieces
00:35:12
of trace evidence at any scene. Dr. Dirkmaat just took that to the highest degree.
00:35:19
NARRATOR: As the forensic team combs the forest floor, they find their first clue, two plastic baggies
00:35:26
with small amounts of white crystals. This discovery corroborates the investigators'
00:35:32
theory that the headless remains might belong to Wayne Anderson. Our suspect has not been seen since the exact night
00:35:39
that the homicide happened, nobody, no contact. Now, we start to say, this could be our suspect.
00:35:46
We believe we may have found him. NARRATOR: As Dr. Dirkmaat and his team continue to clear the site, they make
00:35:52
another significant discovery. They uncover what appears to be the murder weapon.
00:35:59
We took off the leaf litter. And we saw the gun. It was situated in close proximity to his right hand
00:36:06
and near the body. NARRATOR: It's a 9 millimeter semiautomatic. Because the bullet that killed James Fields was caused by a 9
00:36:15
millimeter, authorities believe this may well be the gun Wayne used to kill James.
00:36:23
But their last find is the most important. Found with the remains at the site, with the post-cranial remains, were
00:36:30
two teeth of the upper jaw. NARRATOR: If the teeth fit into the skull at Dirkmaat's lab,
00:36:36
investigators can be certain they have a match. Dr. Dirkmaat rushes back to see if the teeth fit the skull.
00:36:44
DENNIS DIRKMAAT: And those teeth fit in perfectly with the skull that we had found earlier.
00:36:48
They were missing those teeth. And they fit into the sockets very well. NARRATOR: Police finally have the proof they need.
00:36:57
The skull and the bones do belong to the same person. And when the teeth are compared to Wayne Anderson's dental
00:37:05
records, it's a perfect match. Investigators now know for sure that the skull and the skeleton are Wayne's.
00:37:18
But the last question is still unanswered. Who killed Wayne Anderson? I was told by some old timers when I first came into homicide
00:37:26
that you know two things when you're going to a call, you didn't do it, and your partner didn't
00:37:31
do it because he was with you. Everybody else is a suspect. NARRATOR: Coming up, the evidence
00:37:40
points to a shocking suspect. There were no broken bones of the nose, of the ribs.
00:37:45
There was really no indication of a struggle. NARRATOR: When "Skeleton Stories" continues.
00:38:05
Forensic anthropologist Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat has just confirmed that remains found in the nearby woods
00:38:12
belonged to Wayne Anderson, an alleged small-time drug dealer who shot his best friend to death six months earlier
00:38:20
and then disappeared. Investigators now need to figure out who shot Wayne in the head
00:38:27
and why. Perhaps a relative settled the score, or a friend of the individual, that
00:38:32
had been the victim of the homicide, found him, perhaps, that night, or later. Or was it something completely unrelated?
00:38:38
Was it a drug deal gone bad? NARRATOR: Again, investigators turned to Dr. Dirkmaat
00:38:44
for clues that might solve this mystery, as well. Dr. Dirkmaat's first step is to see if he can find
00:38:57
any evidence of a struggle. The only evidence of trauma was that gunshot to the head.
00:39:04
There were no broken bones of the nose, of the ribs, or anything else. So there was really no indication of a struggle.
00:39:12
NARRATOR: Dr. Dirkmaat then considers the positioning of the remains, especially in relation to the gun found
00:39:18
beneath Wayne's thigh bone, which leaves him to completely rethink how Wayne died.
00:39:24
The remains, as they're situated on the ground, as we map those out, give a pretty good idea
00:39:29
that the individual had been sitting with his legs up a bit. If one were sitting on the ground
00:39:35
and you shoot yourself in the head, you sort of go limp, and you have an expectation of where your limbs would fall,
00:39:42
where your arms would fall. If he held the gun to the side of his head, was sitting up with his knees up,
00:39:49
the shot occurred, and then the body goes limp. And the hand goes to the side of the body.
00:39:54
It would fall out of the hand. And this was all consistent with what we'd found in the field.
00:39:59
NARRATOR: This leads doctor Dirkmaat to a startling discovery. From the orientation of the shot,
00:40:05
it gives us a hint that we're dealing with a suicide. NARRATOR: The final confirmation that Wayne committed suicide
00:40:11
is inside the gun itself. When Wayne's 9 millimeter gun was found, there was a spent casing still in the chamber.
00:40:20
Normally, semiautomatics like Wayne's pistol use the recoil from the force of the shot
00:40:27
to discharge the spent casing and load a fresh bullet. This is called cycling. But it only works if the gun is firmly
00:40:36
held in the shooter's hand. So if you have somebody that fires a weapon into their own head, there's what's sometimes referred
00:40:43
to as a limp wrist type of situation where, because the bullet enters the head so quickly,
00:40:48
the hand goes limp. There's not enough force left to support that weapon or counter the recoil to the weapon.
00:40:55
And as a result, the weapon doesn't always cycle properly. NARRATOR: At last, based on Dr. Dirkmaat's findings,
00:41:01
detectives can finally close the books on the six-month-old disappearance of fugitive Wayne Anderson.
00:41:13
In March of 1998, Wayne is hanging out with his best friend, James, and his girlfriend.
00:41:18
There were other people in the building that heard them in there. Best we can determine, it appears that they
00:41:22
were simply getting high. They were drinking beer. Reportedly, they were smoking marijuana.
00:41:29
And they continued to joke around. There was reportedly no arguments taking place, nothing that was antagonistic
00:41:35
between the two of them. NARRATOR: At some point, Wayne Anderson reportedly becomes reckless with his 9 millimeter handgun.
00:41:43
Whether or not he means to fire the gun, detectives believe he most likely has no intention of killing his best friend, James.
00:41:51
[SCREAMING] Somebody call 911! NARRATOR: But that's just what he does in a single, fatal shot.
00:42:00
Come on! Get up! Wayne! GARY TALLENT: It is very likely that, at that point, Wayne ran down the hillside.
00:42:12
DAVID SCHWAB: It appears that he sat down under a moment of huge distress and probably
00:42:17
guilt, everything else. He makes a decision. He fires a weapon into his head. NARRATOR: The bullet enters Wayne's head, creating
00:42:27
a single hole near the temple. The bullet rips through the brain tissue, causing a hemorrhage which immediately
00:42:34
cuts off the brain's oxygen supply and kills Wayne instantly. Thanks to Dennis Dirkmaat and his team,
00:42:41
the detectives cleared two cases, the shooting of James Fields, and the mystery of Wayne Anderson's own death.
00:42:49
GARY TALLENT: We found, with the assistance of Dr. Dirkmaat, a tremendous amount of physical evidence
00:42:54
that helped us to piece these two deaths together. As far as it went with Dr. Dirkmaat,
00:42:59
I was always fascinated with the work that his unit does. I was very appreciative and honored to have
00:43:04
been able to have worked cases where he was involved. It was just amazing. NARRATOR: For Dr. Dirkmaat, every case is critical.
00:43:11
And the key to success is remaining focused and objective. Every case is different.
00:43:16
Every case involves different individuals, whether they're good, bad, or indifferent.
00:43:21
That plays no part in our decision as to how we approach the scenes and what types
00:43:26
of information that we collect. It's what's expected of us from law enforcement.
00:43:30
And that's what they get from us.