07x28 - Elephant Tracks

[bunniefuu]

Narrator: from the evidence

Found at the scene of a double homicide,

Police suspected there might have been two perpetrators...

Until they noticed a clue --

A small shard of glass

On the bottom of one of the victim's shoes,

Which brought the whole crime into focus.

In december , a mail carrier in toledo, ohio,

Noticed mail piling up outside the home

Of gertrude thompson and edward kowalzck.

Neighbors said they hadn't seen the elderly couple

For the last few days.

-Year-old gertrude -- trudy to her friends --

And -year-old edward

Had been living together for the past several years.

No one could see inside the house,

Since the windows were covered with plastic,

Cardboard, and aluminum foil in an effort to preserve heat.

Not knowing what else to do, neighbors called police.

Scott: when I first went in,

I observed a lot of what appeared to be

Personal effects of the residents there,

Like boxes packed up.

It appeared to me someone might have been preparing

To move out of the house.

Narrator: but in the disarray,

Detectives found trudy thompson and ed kowalzck

Dead on the living room floor.

They had been dead for several days.

And it was no ordinary m*rder.

Scott: it was just so violent.

You could see the bludgeoning, cut marks, stabs.

One of the worst crime scenes

I've ever seen as a police officer.

Narrator: an autopsy revealed that trudy and ed

Had d*ed of blunt-force injuries to the head.

Other evidence suggested that the assailant

Had wanted information from the victims.

Just slight wounds, puncture wounds

Where this person probably was saying,

"Where's the money? Where's the money?"

And just t*rture to make a person talk.

Dr. Barnett: there was a great deal of chaos there.

In fact, it appeared as though

This was almost a frenzy type of m*rder.

The perpetrator or perpetrators

Grabbed anything that was available to them in the house

And used it as an instrument.

Braun: we always assumed

There was at least two people that were involved.

And that's just because it was a double homicide

With two bodies right next to each other,

And they weren't k*lled with firearms.

They were k*lled slowly with hand weapons.

Narrator: detectives noticed

That there had been no forced entry into the house.

Scott: that tells me

That possibly the person that committed this crime

Probably knew the victims and probably was let in.

Narrator: ed and trudy not only lived together,

They were business partners.

They owned several properties

That they rented to lower-income residents

And college students.

When a tenant moved out,

The couple usually kept items left behind,

Never throwing them away.

This made it hard to know what, if anything, was missing.

We were finding money hidden in books and in wallets

That were still in their package,

And in places where they would hide things

That no one would think to look.

Narrator: family members told police that a necklace

Trudy thompson wore around her neck every day was missing.

It was a gold elephant pendant,

A gift her father had given her years earlier

As a child in austria.

The pendant was supposed to bring good luck.

Braun: the police knew pretty quickly

How important that was.

If you could track a piece of stolen property

Back through a chain of owners, you can learn, eventually,

Who had taken it from gertrude thompson.

Narrator: so police put a photograph of the pendant

On the front page of the local newspaper,

The [span tts:fontstyle="italic"]toledo blade.[/Span]

No one responded.

And none of the secondhand jewelry dealers in town

Had seen it either.

In gathering information about the couple,

Ed's daughter, denise kowalzck,

Said that trudy was a tough businesswoman.

Kowalzck: I felt that trudy could be bossy and domineering.

I think she was probably argumentative

With her tenants...

And my father.

Narrator: family members suspected

That the motive wasn't robbery,

But it was some sort of business disagreement.

Kowalzck: a tenant that was really, really mad at them --

Mostly her.

It's not totally unreal that this would happen,

Because of the people they rented to.

[ Answering machine beeps ]

Narrator: that information, along with a message

On the couple's telephone answering machine,

Would identify just that -- one of the couple's tenants --

Someone police called "the perfect suspect."

Narrator: when landlords trudy thompson and ed kowalzck

Were found m*rder*d in their home,

Police and forensic scientists sorted through

The physical evidence at the crime scene

For possible clues.

Forensic pathologist dr. Diane barnett

First wanted to identify the m*rder w*apon.

Dr. Barnett: she had long, linear impressions --

Tool marks on the skull.

She had a very characteristic b*ating pattern

That had been left

On the outer table of the calvarium.

And she also had suggestions of a corner of something,

Like a divot type of impression.

Narrator: dr. Barnett was able to match those wounds

To a rectangular-base lamp at the m*rder scene.

Forensic anthropologist julie saul matched

Another head wound to a brass lamp found near the bodies.

Looking at the lamp base, with the beading near the edge

And the tool marks on the bone,

I could tell them

That this was consistent with having made that mark,

And it was very likely that it could have made that mark.

Narrator: none of these items, however, contained fingerprints.

The coroner determined trudy and ed

Had fought off their attacker or attackers,

Since they had defensive cut wounds on their hands

That could have been made by a Kn*fe.

And a tiny clue on the bottom of ed kowalzck's shoes

Answered an important question.

It was a tiny piece of glass

Embedded in the bottom of his galoshes.

That glass came from a broken light bulb,

Leading investigators to believe that ed entered the room

Sometime after the att*ck started.

Most likely, he walked in from outside,

Since his coat was found at the front door.

In a search for suspects, the first clue came

From the couple's telephone answering machine.

Braun: on the tape was complaints from various tenants,

Because gertrude thompson and ed kowalzck were landlords,

Were people calling in, leaving them messages.

Narrator: but only one tenant had called numerous times.

His name was ethan walls.

When questioned, walls told police

That he stopped by ed and trudy's home

To make his rent payment,

Noticed the overflowing mailbox, knocked on the door,

And when there was no answer,

He said he left his rent check there and went home.

Walls: I put it in their mailbox.

There was a lot of mail in the box.

I didn't think anything of it.

Two, three more days went by.

I left a note for them to contact me.

No one ever got in touch with me.

Narrator: walls then admitted

He went back to ed and trudy's house,

Retrieved his rent money, and spent it.

These two admissions placed walls at the scene twice

Around the time the murders took place.

Braun: and all of a sudden,

Ethan's telling them this very bizarre story

About dropping off a check

And then coming back and picking it up.

Narrator: in addition, an informant called police

To say she had seen ethan walls

At the home of a well-known drug dealer

Around the time of the murders.

She also said walls' shirt was spattered with blood.

Based on the blood spatter on the ceilings, on the walls,

The condition of the victims' bodies,

You knew the guy that did this

Had to have gotten covered in blood.

Narrator: walls vehemently denied the informant's story.

This is a lie from -- where did it come from?

Who put you up to saying what you said,

Which is -- it's not true.

Totally fabricated.

Narrator: in examining the blood spatter at the crime scene,

Detectives noticed a significant clue --

The blood spatter was in two different shapes,

And told two different stories.

In one area, the spots were elongated

And radiated from where the beatings took place.

Cousino: blood that comes from an angle

Is longer and more oval,

Usually with a little tail at the end of it.

The longer and more oval the spatter is,

The greater the angle that it came from.

Narrator: in another area, away from the bodies,

There were several blood spots that were perfect circles,

Including two on the inside of a broken ceramic vase

And one on a piece of paper in the desk drawer.

Cousino: the blood that was on these items

Was dripped straight down, as if from right above.

So from that, we were able to determine that this blood

Most likely did not come from these two victims

And was therefore most likely the suspect's blood.

Narrator: the blood was consistent

With someone standing still but bleeding,

And the blood dripping down on the items below.

Police confiscated every Kn*fe

They could find in ethan walls' home,

Testing them for human blood

To see if any were used in the murders.

None of them tested positive for human blood.

They also compared all of walls' shoes

To a bloody foot impression found at the crime scene.

None matched.

But since the perpetrator left blood at the crime scene,

Investigators had a definitive way

To tell if the blood belonged to walls.

Braun: you know, dna --

I mean, one drop of blood looks the same.

Your blood looks just identical to mine.

It's those little scientists

Who can differentiate between one drop and another.

Narrator: the result surprised everyone,

Especially ethan walls.

Walls: they arrested me, like, five months after the dna.

That's the part that I still, right now, today,

Don't understand.

Narrator: toledo police had a suspect

In the m*rder of two elderly landlords --

One of their tenants, ethan walls,

Who swore he was innocent.

Walls had been to the couple's house

Around the time of the murders,

And an informant claimed she saw walls at a drug party

With blood on his shirt around the same time.

Walls gave police a blood sample so they could compare it

To blood found at the m*rder scene.

Investigators believed the k*ller cut himself

While swinging a crystal lamp to b*at the victims.

We surmised that that was probably how he held the lamp

As he hit them with the heavy, metal base of the lamp.

And when that crystal broke in his hand,

That's probably how he cut himself.

Narrator: forensic scientists analyzed the dna

Of all the blood at the m*rder scene.

On the crystal lamp there was a mixture of blood

From three people -- the two victims and the k*ller's.

Dna analyst angela lineen

Compared ethan walls' blood to the mixture.

If it matched, two numbered markers, or bands,

Would match those found in the mixture.

Lineen: ethan walls' pattern was an and a .

The mixture also had an , but it did not have a ,

So he can automatically be excluded

As contributing to the mixture of that specimen.

Narrator: but prosecutors always suspected

That there may have been more than one perpetrator,

And based on the informant's testimony,

That walls was one of the two.

Walls was arrested and charged with the m*rder

Of trudy thompson and ed kowalzck.

Walls: the day I was arrested, last thing I said to them,

"Please don't stop looking for the k*ller,

"Because while you're focusing on me,

Somebody is getting away with it."

That was the very last thing I said

As they put them cuffs on me -- "don't stop looking."

Narrator: ethan walls knew

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

He was consumed with anger and frustration.

Walls: it's like if you down in a well,

And you hollering at the top of your voice.

Can't nobody hear you. You know what I mean?

"I'm innocent, man."

You -- can't nobody hear you, though.

Narrator: as prosecutors were preparing to try ethan walls,

Their star witness, the informant,

Made a startling confession to prosecutor tim braun.

She now said she had lied about ethan walls.

Braun: we never were given a good explanation

As to what her reasons were, other than she saying,

"I lied about the man and this isn't right,

And I'm not going to testify against him."

We can't necessarily control all the pressures

That come onto a witness, and she flipped.

That's the only way to describe it.

She flipped completely, degrees the other way.

Narrator: braun had no choice

But to dismiss the charges against ethan walls.

Braun: the day you dismiss a death-penalty case

When you're a prosecutor, it's a bad, bad day.

Because everything you've been working on

For a long period of time

Has just blown up in your face.

Walls: I was confident that I would go home.

That never, ever wavered in my mind.

I knew I was going home.

Narrator: for the victims' families, it reopened the fear.

Kowalzck: that there was maybe someone out there

That might be really sick and evil,

That they could do something to someone else.

Narrator: and for police, it was back to square one.

Scott: it was very frustrating,

Because we had two elderly people

m*rder*d brutally in our community.

We felt we had some good evidence --

Blood and the missing pendant.

If we could nail that down,

We definitely would have a person

That we could totally concentrate on.

Narrator: for the next two years,

Police made no further progress.

All detectives talk about the -hour rule --

If a case isn't solved within three days,

The chances of it getting solved go way, way down.

And that's true.

And this was not solved within three days.

But...they kept going.

Narrator: for two years

After the murders of trudy thompson and ed kowalzck,

Investigators pursued various leads in the case

With no success.

But in july of , their luck changed.

The daughter of pawnshop owner annette chiaverini

Decided to help her mother clean up

Some of the old newspapers and magazines

That had collected over the years.

My mother's more than eccentric.

She believes in

"Not throwing anything away" type of an attitude.

She's a collector.

Narrator: but annette wanted something to read that afternoon

To pass the time.

Chiaverini: she reaches in

The middle of a stack of newspapers

And pulls a newspaper out.

Sure enough, she opens it up

And she starts to read this article

That was there for the toledo police department

About a double homicide.

Narrator: it was the -year-old newspaper article

About the m*rder of trudy thompson and ed kowalzck.

When she looked at the victims' photographs,

She noticed something familiar --

The gold elephant pendant around trudy thompson's neck.

She calls me on the phone and starts screaming about,

"Where's this elephant pendant? Where is it?"

I said, "mom, it's in the safe."

Narrator: mrs. Chiaverini had been unable to sell the pendant.

It looked identical to the one

Trudy thompson was wearing in the newspaper photograph.

That's one in a million, I would say,

For her to keep a newspaper like that.

Narrator: fortunately, mrs. Chiaverini kept

All her old pawn tickets.

The one for the pendant was dated december , ,

Around the time of the couple's m*rder,

And it identified gordy candii as the seller.

Candii said he was only a messenger,

That it was james jordan

Who had asked him to pawn the necklace for him.

Jordan had been working as a handyman for trudy thompson

At the time of her m*rder.

A background check indicated that jordan was arrested

Just a few weeks after the murders for another robbery

And was currently serving

A -year prison sentence in texas.

When questioned,

Jordan denied he k*lled the elderly couple.

Scientists swabbed the inside of his cheek

For a sample of his dna, which was then compared

To the blood drops at the crime scene.

Lineen: we concluded that james jordan

Was the person that left blood at the crime scene.

James jordan was charged

With k*lling gertrude thompson and edward kowalzck.

Oh, it's you.

Prosecutors believe the motive was robbery,

To steal money from the rent payments to use for dr*gs.

They think jordan first tortured and k*lled trudy,

Cutting his hand with the broken lamp

And leaving blood drops in the living room.

[ Thump ]

When ed walked in later from outside,

Jordan k*lled him, too.

As he was looking for money,

Blood from his hand dripped into the desk drawer.

Before leaving, jordan took trudy's elephant pendant,

Then asked a friend to pawn it for him.

The pendant fetched all of $.

That $ transaction led to jordan's capture.

Braun: he had to cash in that pendant.

And but for that reckless act,

We never would have linked him back.

Narrator: in court, jordan represented himself

And tried to explain why his blood was found in trudy's desk.

He explained the drops of blood inside her desk

As being "that's where she used to keep her band-aids."

Sometime when he was moving furniture or doing something,

He must have shed a drop of blood

While he was looking for a band-aid.

Narrator: but jordan couldn't explain

His blood drops inside the broken vase,

And he said he had trudy's elephant pendant

Because she gave it to him

As payment for his handyman services.

But the jury did not believe his story.

Woman: we find the defendant guilty of aggravated m*rder.

Narrator: james jordan was convicted

Of two counts of aggravated m*rder

And was sentenced to death.

The case was solved

Thanks to the pawnshop owner who never threw anything away,

And the forensic scientists' ability to re-create the crime

Based on the physical evidence.

The police work, combined with luck,

And the scientific evidence --

A little bit of both, a little bit of everything --

It all goes together.