06x29 - Treading Not So Lightly

[bunniefuu]

Narrator: in ,

-Year-old vicky lyons was found in a parking lot,

Unconscious and near death.

There were no witnesses.

No one knew what really happened...

But vicky's mother was determined to find out.

Narrator: west texas is far removed from big cities

Like dallas and houston.

The land is flat and dry...

Dotted with the occasional oil well or cotton field.

At the crossroads of interstate and route

Is a little town called big spring.

Out here, when the local high school marching band

Is invited to the state tournament,

It's front-page news.

That front page belongs to the [span tts:fontstyle="italic"]big spring herald[/span]newspaper,

Which chronicles all the town's activities,

No matter how big or small.

Woman: I worked in circulation department,

And it was very nice.

I knew all the people there. I'd known them for a long time.

Narrator: in ,

Crystal lyons was living in big spring

With her husband bill and -year-old daughter vicky.

Crystal: a very quiet baby.

She didn't like getting her hands dirty or her feet dirty.

If you took her shoes off, she would walk

And take one step, dust off her foot,

Dust off her hands, and take another step.

She was very into being clean. Ha ha ha ha!

Narrator: like all working mothers,

Crystal was often pulled in two directions.

One day, when the babysitter didn't show up,

Crystal's supervisor gave her a tough choice.

Crystal: I told my boss that I didn't have anyone

To take care of vicky that day,

And he told me that if I didn't bother to come in,

I didn't have a job.

Narrator: since crystal had taken vicky into work before,

She decided to do it again.

Man: hi, vicky. How are you today?

Good.

Narrator: her coworkers liked the little girl,

And crystal kept her eye on vicky as best she could.

While crystal was moving papers

To the loading dock for afternoon delivery,

Reverend j.b. Hardemann drove up.

[Man speaking, voice-over]

Narrator: as the delivery vehicles were preparing

To leave the loading dock,

Crystal heard her supervisor tell vicky to go outside

And play in the parking lot.

Crystal: and I was just fixing to tell him, you know,

"I don't feel comfortable about any of this,

So I'm just going to go home and you can make your decision."

Chuck?

Narrator: but before she could say anything,

The supervisor saw vicky lying on the ground, not moving.

Crystal: you could tell, from even the distance

That, you know, she had been hit.

Oh, god!

Narrator: when crystal got there,

Vicky was unconscious and not breathing.

Oh, my god!

Narrator: no one else was there,

And there was no indication what happened.

Where are they? They'll be here.

Narrator: vicky was rushed by ambulance to the odessa hospital,

About an hour away.

Crystal followed in her car.

As if crystal and vicky hadn't already been through enough,

The ambulance broke down along the way.

Crystal: we almost hit it.

We were right behind the ambulance

And we almost hit the ambulance because it just slowed down

To such a point that we had to get out of the way.

Narrator: eventually, the ambulance got to the hospital

And vicky was rushed to intensive care.

Crystal: that's when it really hit me

That her condition was pretty severe,

That she may not make it.

She was mine and bill's...

Only child.

It was hard.

They finally took me and bill in to see vicky.

She was in a coma,

And then she started,

What they thought, throwing up blood.

And so they asked us to leave.

We hadn't even been in there maybe two minutes.

Narrator: as they left the room,

They noticed unusual marks on vicky's face.

I said, "those are tire marks on her face,"

And he said, "yes, they are."

Narrator: crystal had the presence of mind to get her camera

And take pictures of these marks on vicky's face

Before they disappeared.

Had she not taken this important step,

The story that follows might never have happened.

[Equipment beeping]

Narrator: while vicky lay in a coma with her mother by her side,

Police questioned everyone at the newspaper,

But no one had seen the incident.

Police issued an all-points bulletin

For. J.b. Hardemann,

The man seen leaving the parking lot in a hurry

Just minutes before vicky was found.

Narrator: hardemann was a minister, but made his living

Peddling fish from the back of his truck.

Police caught up with him in the nearby town of snyder.

Narrator: snyder police put hardemann in a jail cell,

Where he overheard officers talking on the phone.

Narrator: after almost weeks in a coma,

Vicky regained consciousness.

She suffered severe damage to her skull and one eye.

She could not walk or even speak.

As time went by,

Vicky's condition slowly improved.

One day, crystal took vicky to the newspaper office

To see everyone who had been concerned about her.

When one of the employees leaned into the car to say hello,

Vicky reacted violently.

[Vicky screaming]

It was the first time vicky had spoken since the accident.

Crystal, voice-over: and vicky just started kicking

And screaming, you know,

What little voice could come out.

That was the first sign of a voice, actually.

It was just this...

It wasn't even a clear voice.

It was just more of a screech-type thing.

Narrator: but vicky was not well enough to explain her reaction.

Crystal decided to conduct her own investigation.

Crystal believed the answer to the mystery

Of what happened to vicky

Were those marks on vicky's face--

Marks which hospital employees identified

As tire marks.

Crystal: I just started thinking, you know, "what would the police do?"

Narrator: crystal made a list of all vehicles

She could remember seeing in the newspaper parking lot

Prior to vicky's accident.

Then she needed to find a way

To compare the marks on vicky's face

To the tires of those vehicles.

Crystal rubbed black shoe polish on each tire...

And then pressed plain white paper against it.

She kept careful records

Of which tire impression came from each vehicle.

In all, she took tire impressions

From two vans and a pickup truck.

Then she showed her detective work to the police.

Crystal: I said, "you arrested the wrong person."

I said, "you've harassed a black man

"Who was just a sweet, harmless old man

Who never done anything wrong to anybody."

And I said, "you need to, you know, fix this."

Narrator: the grand jury questioned reverend hardemann,

But did not indict him.

The spot of blood on the truck turned out to be fish blood.

Crystal did not believe reverend hardemann was the one

Who ran over vicky.

But police refused to investigate further,

Saying it was a civil matter, not a criminal one.

At the time,

The newspaper's parking lot was unpaved and bumpy.

It was possible that a driver may have driven over vicky

And mistaken the bump for a pothole.

By the time they got out there, all they had was an empty parking lot.

They didn't really have any eyewitnesses.

In fact, there were no eyewitnesses.

Narrator: and for the next years,

As she nursed vicky back to health,

No one in the small town of big spring

Was willing to help her.

One day, while reading a magazine,

Crystal saw an article about a man

Known as the sherlock holmes of tire marks.

This was the break

That crystal had been praying for.

Narrator: peter mcdonald literally wrote the book

On tire impression evidence.

He was formerly the chief designer

For the firestone tire company.

He also assisted numerous police agencies

And taught at the fbi academy.

After reading the magazine article about mcdonald,

Crystal lyons called him in ohio.

She explained the case as best she could

And told him about the pictures she had taken

Which appeared to show a tire mark.

Luckily for the lyons family,

Mcdonald was no stranger to tire impressions

In human flesh.

My heart went out to her,

With this...

Almost, like, tattoo on her forehead.

With the evidence crystal had gathered,

Mcdonald thought he could help.

Mcdonald: I think it's amazing

That she had the foresight

To make rubbings of suspect tires.

I don't always get that sort of work

From police on a major homicide case.

Narrator: crystal had labeled each of the tire impressions

With the date and its position on the vehicle.

Mcdonald: two of the vehicles I could eliminate very quickly.

One was a big snow-tire-type design.

Another was a passenger design,

But it had major grooves

That were kind of lightning-shaped,

Which was different than the imprint

On vicky's forehead.

Narrator: but the last imprints were interesting.

They were golden sonic s,

A relatively rare tire no longer manufactured.

The imprint on vicky's face looked similar,

But mcdonald wasn't sure that the size matched.

Mcdonald: the same tread pattern appears in--

It's normally about different sizes.

So it's important to me to confirm

That it's not only the same manufacturer,

The same brand,

But that it has exactly the same size.

Narrator: but crystal's photographs

Did not contain a size reference.

How could mcdonald determine the size

Of a tire impression on vicky's face

Taken years earlier?

Another photograph was taken,

This time with a scale reference.

The human skull grows most rapidly

In the first years of life.

But between the ages of and ,

The distance between the eye sockets and mouth

Usually remain the same.

This knowledge helped mcdonald to compare

These two photographs

With a scale of reference.

On vicky's forehead,

Mcdonald saw tiny lines made by tire sipes,

Which are narrow cuts put in the tire to improve traction.

Mcdonald: and they are a forensic scientist's greatest tool

Because I can help determine

The wear of the tire.

Narrator: sipes are made by small metal blades

Placed in the tire mold.

To make the tire stronger,

The blades sometimes have a small indentation,

Creating a raised area of rubber

Called a tie bar.

As the tread wears, the tie bar is exposed

And the tire's imprint changes.

In vicky's skin,

Mcdonald found interruptions in the sipes caused

By the exposed tie bar.

He determined the tire had worn down

About / of an inch.

Two of the sonic imprints could now be eliminated,

Since they had very little wear.

But the last imprint showed

The same degree of wear

And matched in size.

Mcdonald believed that the right front tire

Of a newspaper truck driven by an employee

We'll call "bob jones" had run over vicky.

Jones was the man who said hello

To vicky after the accident,

When vicky had reacted violently.

In ,

Crystal lyons filed suit

Against the [span tts:fontstyle="italic"]big spring herald,[/span]

Claiming that jones hadn't taken the proper precautions

While backing his truck out of the parking lot.

The unfortunate accident would mean

A lifetime of neurological difficulties for vicky,

And crystal wanted justice.

Narrator: vicky lyons needed dozens of surgical procedures

Because the accident damaged her hearing,

Vision, and sense of balance,

But she was able to attend school.

They just, um...

Ask me if I'm, like,

Mentally Ret*rded or if I had a stroke.

But I don't mind people asking me

'Cause I'd rather them ask me what happened

Than, like, sit there and stare at me.

There was no way to just...

Do what the doctors had suggested,

Which was put her in a wheelchair and just forget her.

I couldn't do that. She's my child. I love her.

Narrator: crystal lyons says she didn't sue

The [span tts:fontstyle="italic"]big spring herald[/span] just for financial motives.

She wanted them to take responsibility for the accident

That left her daughter permanently disabled.

Crystal: I wanted everybody to know the truth.

And it came down to the point where,

In order for vicky to get the appropriate medical attention

And to stay where she was at and get good medical attention

And have a life,

That money was going to be involved.

Narrator: vicky lyons tries not to think about the accident,

But she remembers it.

Vicky: I remember my mom's boss

Telling me to go play in the parking lot.

And I had some toy dishes with me,

And I went behind this truck.

I was just playing in the sand.

Narrator: on the day of the accident,

The driver of the vehicle, in a rush,

Backed out over vicky in the unpaved, bumpy parking lot...

Apparently, without realizing it.

Vicky: I saw him, like, look in his rear-view mirror...

But before I knew it,

Then...i guess,

Well, I was years old. I didn't know what to do.

Narrator: even before the lawsuit,

Jones suspected he might have been the one

Who ran over vicky.

Apffel: the driver made comment to crystal

That he did not think he did it,

But if he did it, that he was sorry that it happened.

All I can say is...

It's done. It's over with.

I don't like that he did that,

But I'm willing to forgive him

'Cause I'm no person to judge.

So...

And he's got to live with what he's done.

Narrator: the [span tts:fontstyle="italic"]herald[/span]wanted to settle the case.

The newspaper offered to pay $,

Towards the care vicky would need for the rest of her life.

Crystal accepted,

But demanded one more thing--

Minutes in the judge's chambers for her and vicky

To meet with the representative of the [span tts:fontstyle="italic"]herald,[/span]alone.

Crystal: vicky--

I asked her if she had anything to say to him

And she told him, "you destroyed my life."

That was pretty much, well, the end of the lawsuit, right then and there.

Narrator: the [span tts:fontstyle="italic"]big spring herald[/span] did not report the news of this settlement.

The paper now has new owners

And a completely different staff.

Apffel: crystal had the insight to take the photographs.

She had the insight to get the tire imprints.

She had the insight to tear out this piece of paper

In the magazine that had peter mcdonald's name on it.

Without her having done all of that,

Obviously, I don't think any of this would have gotten done.

Narrator: peter mcdonald is more than a forensic specialist.

He's also an artist,

And his paintings and sketches cover the walls of his home.

Some of his works are inspired

By the many cases he has helped to solve.

One is based on the photo of a young girl he never met.

Over the past years,

He has wondered what happened to her.

Mcdonald: in a case like this, you do get emotionally involved.

Narrator: crystal was able to arrange

For the best medical care for vicky,

And vicky has learned to speak and walk again.

Although vicky tries to put the accident in the past,

She lives with its legacy every day.

Vicky: I like getting out, but...

I don't always get out that much

Because I don't like how people make me feel

When I go out somewhere.

Narrator: but vicky is thinking about getting out more.

She's finished high school and is considering college.

Her mother, now divorced,

Is already attending college in denver,

Studying forensic science.

Mcdonald: I really applaud that.

I bet she'll be really good in the section

On how to make imprints.