07x18 - A Bitter Pill to Swallow

[bunniefuu]

[music playing]

NARRATOR: In Philadelphia,
a woman's car

was found abandoned on the
side of a busy highway,

still running, but the
driver was missing.

At the scene, police
found several clues.

But was there enough forensic
evidence to solve the mystery?

[theme music]

NARRATOR: Route 476 is
one of several highways

that links Philadelphia
to the suburbs.

Hundreds of thousands
of commuters

travel that road every day.

On June 20th, 1996, at 2
o'clock in the morning,

an off-duty ambulance
crew spotted an abandoned

car along an exit ramp of 476.

The engine was running.

The lights were on.

The radio was blaring.

The driver's door was open,
but no one was inside.

There was a tire iron
found in front of the car.

I found some blood
in front of the car.

I found a stone with blood
on it in front of the car,

and on the guardrail there
appeared to be some blood

splattered next to the car.

We later had an interpretation
done of the blood pattern

in front of the car, and
we learned that it appeared

as though someone
had been laying

on the ground for a brief
time in front of the car.

The crime scene says that this
person was violently att*cked

in a very fast mode, meaning
that they were hit very

quickly, as far as the
v*olence was concerned,

and then they were extricated
from that site very quickly.

This person didn't
stay around long.

NARRATOR: Next to the car
was a tire impression, which

was photographed for analysis.

A forensic expert
then made a cast

of the impression, which was
sent to the state crime lab.

The automobile was
registered to Gail Willard,

but had been driven at night by
her daughter, 22-year-old Aimee

Willard, a star soccer
and lacrosse player

at George Mason
University in Virginia.

Aimee was spending
the summer at home

with her family, who lived
just a few miles from where

the car was discovered.

Aimee told her mother she was
going to Smokey Joe's Bar.

[music playing]

And her friend said
Aimee left the bar

alone at 1:30 in the morning.

She had never been to
Smokey Joe's before.

When she came home, she
very rarely went out

and met people because of the
fact of the time constraints

on when she was home.

When she was home, she
kind of stayed around here,

and we hung out together
and things like that.

NARRATOR: Damage
to the vehicle led

police to think that
Aimee may have been

the victim of a carjacking.

There was an abrasion
on the back bumper

that was not there when
Aimee drove off in the car.

I noticed it because
it was my car,

and I knew everything
about my car.

And I had pointed it
out to the police.

Possibly at that
traffic light, right

where she was going
to turn off the 476

off-ramp onto the
Route 1 on-ramp,

there's a traffic
light right there.

I believe that that's where
he would have bumped her car.

She immediately pulls
over onto the ramp,

gets out of her car to
exchange information.

NARRATOR: The next morning,
about a half mile from where

Aimee's car was
abandoned, police found

a pair of panties and sneakers.

They brought them down
for me to identify them,

and they definitely were
her sneakers and panties.

They definitely were.

The panties weren't
soiled with dirt.

They weren't wet.

They were dry, as
were the shoes.

It appeared to me as though
those items had been brought

back after the rain,
which would have

meant that they were brought
back after her car was found.

NARRATOR: An
indication the abductor

had returned to the scene of the
crime to dispose of the items.

Detectives screened
video surveillance tapes

from stores and bank ATMs
near Smokey Joe's Bar,

but Aimee had not stopped
at any of these locations.

Then an unexpected lead fell
right into investigators' laps.

REPORTER: Aimee
Willard's car was

found abandoned on a Blue Route
off-ramp in Marble Township.

NARRATOR: After Aimee
Willard disappeared,

police appealed
to the community,

asking anyone with
information to come forward.

One of those who responded
was 23-year-old Andrew Kobak,

who said he had been
driving on Route 476

on the night Aimee
disappeared and saw

something suspicious in the
vicinity of Aimee's car.

Police knew Kobak.

Years earlier, he had been
accused of impersonating

a police officer.

Police say Kobak
would turn a siren on,

instruct the driver
to pull over,

and then show the
driver a badge.

Do you know why I
pulled you over, ma'am?

NARRATOR: A motorist turned him
in, but he was never charged.

There's a stop sign back there.

You went right through it.

NARRATOR: Kobak immediately
became a suspect,

since investigators
now thought he

might have done the same
thing with Aimee Willard.

By virtue of placing
himself back at the scene,

it was consistent with
what is oftentimes

a characteristic of
people who commit crimes

that are being investigated.

Out of curiosity or some
other kind of motivation,

they return to the vicinity
of the crime, in essence,

to get a feel for
what's going on.

NARRATOR: Less than 24
hours after Aimee Willard

disappeared, children
playing in a deserted lot

in North Philadelphia discovered
the nude body of a woman.

I sniffed, and I
smelled something.

Then I saw it, and I ran.

NARRATOR: There was a Nike logo
tattooed on her ankle, which

Aimee's parents identified.

That was the hardest
day of the whole thing,

not knowing where she was.

There was more of a relief
when they found her body

in Philadelphia,
that I had her back,

that we could help to find
out what happened to her.

Nobody could bring her back to
life, but at least I had her.

NARRATOR: An autopsy
revealed that the 5 foot 2,


multiple blunt force injuries

to her head and face.

The medical examiner estimated
she died at 7 o'clock

in the morning, about 5
hours after she was abducted.

This is a crime of
momentary passion,

or a crime between two
people that know each other,

but somebody that actually
hunted down, stalked somebody,

committed the m*rder,
the crime, and then

we went to another location
to try to deposit the evidence

and throw the authorities
off the trail.

NARRATOR: The examiner
determined that Aimee

had been sexually assaulted.

DNA evidence from
the r*pe test kit

was sent to the forensics
lab for testing.

We had essentially the genetic
fingerprint of our m*rder*r,

and we just needed to
identify that person.

NARRATOR: The coroner also
described an unusual pattern

on Aimee's upper body,
but police weren't

sure what caused the mark.

Meanwhile, forensic
experts completed

their analysis of
the tire impressions

found at the crime scene.

They were from a Firestone


often found on
small, compact cars.

Andrew Kobak's automobile
did not have those tires,

and a search of his
home turned up nothing.

Kobak was officially
eliminated as a suspect

when his DNA profile
did not match the semen

from the r*pe test kit.

With no other leads, the
k*ller's trail turned cold.

Then, one year after
Aimee Willard's death,


reported an attempted

carjacking to police.

She said it was a man who
had followed her after she

left a local nightclub.

And at the next light, that
car must have made the light,

and I didn't.

And that's where he hit my car.

I just went, and he motioned
for me to pull over.

And I was like, you hit my car.

And he was just like, pull over.

Pull over.

And it turned green, and
I just kept on going.

And my headlights shone
on his license plate,

and that's how I got
his license plate.

NARRATOR: Fortunately,
Patty had memorized

the license plate number.

The vehicle was registered
to 38-year-old Arthur Bomar.


Bomar had been convicted

of second-degree
m*rder in Nevada

and was sentenced
to life in prison.

Unbelievably, he was
released on parole

after serving only 11 years.

Where the mentality was in
all that by the parole board

in the state he came
from, I really don't know.

Let me tell you something.

There are people that cannot
be reformed, and no matter what

you do, they will not change.

And Arthur Bomar is
one of those people.

NARRATOR: Bomar had a


with the law, including several
assaults on young women.

This is a guy who really
hates women and despises them

and wants to punish them
and wants to feel virile

and feels that he deserves this.

This is his way of getting back.

NARRATOR: Investigators learned
that the day Aimee Willard

disappeared, Philadelphia
police pulled Bomar

over for questioning
on an unrelated matter.

He had been stopped roughly
six blocks away from the scene

where her body was
found, so he was someone

that we certainly
wanted to talk to

and we were
attempting to locate.

NARRATOR: Police
went to interview

Bomar about the
Aimee Willard case,

but they couldn't find him.

So the search was on.

A year after Aimee
Willard's m*rder,

there had been another attempted
carjacking in Philadelphia.

Information provided by the
victim identified the culprit

as an ex-convict, Arthur Bomar,
but police couldn't find him.

Not long afterwards,
another woman

called police to report
a man trying to break

into her third-floor apartment.

The man was arrested
and identified

himself as Peter Thomas Love.

In his pocket was a set of car
keys to a Honda automobile.

They determined that
there was a Honda nearby.

They ran that tag, and they
learned that that tag belonged

to Arthur Bomar,
assigned to a 1993 Ford

Escort owned by Arthur Bomar.

NARRATOR: Police also discovered
that Peter Thomas Love

was an alias.

He was, in fact, Arthur Bomar.

But why was Bomar's
license plate on a Honda

and not on his 1993 Ford Escort?

The answer was simple.

The car was stolen.

It belonged to Maria Cabuenos,
a 25-year-old woman who had

been missing for three months.

Mary Cabuenos was
a young woman who

lived in the city of
Philadelphia who was

reported missing by her family.

She was supposed to
appear at work one morning

and failed to appear.

NARRATOR: Investigators believe
that Cabuenos was abducted

while driving on Route 476,
the same highway where Aimee

Willard had been att*cked.

Dried blood was found
in the trunk on Maria's

car, which Bomar was driving.

Both bumpers were
slightly scraped,

like Aimee Willard's car.

Bomar immediately
became a suspect

in Maria's disappearance.

Now more than ever,
police believed

he might have been involved
in Aimee Willard's m*rder.

Come with me to prison.

I'll tell you all
what you want to know,

but I don't think it's
fair to put me on TV.

And I'm not being
charged with anything.

His alibi was that he
was present at a birthday

party and not outside the bar
that Aimee was that evening.

He had been with a family.

It was not a family, it was a
young woman that he was seeing.

This woman had a child.

NARRATOR: But Bomar's
fiance contradicted that.

She said Bomar was
at Smokey Joe's Bar

on the night Aimee
Willard disappeared.

Police re-examined the evidence,
looking for any clues that

would tie Bomar to the m*rder.

One year after her
daughter's death,

Gail Willard, who worked
as an emergency room nurse,

asked to see pictures
of Aimee's injuries.

I looked at the picture
of what they were calling

a diamond-shaped
pattern, and I said,

this isn't a
diamond-shaped pattern.

This is a burn.

And it was not a
burn from a flame.

It was either a burn that
her body came in contact

with something that
had the ridges on it,

but it was a burn imprint.

And it was uneven.

NARRATOR: Investigators
immediately search for Bomar's

Ford Escort, the car he was
driving at the time Aimee

disappeared, but
they got bad news.

The car had been involved
in an automobile accident

a few months after
Aimee's disappearance.

So they tracked
the towing company

and asked where that
car was towed to.

They went to a
location and found

a car that was the green Ford
Escort that had been actually

sitting in a field next
to this tow truck company

for almost a year's time.

So there is a potential
piece of great evidence

that has not had the chance
to be forensically analyzed.

NARRATOR: An external
examination of the Escort

showed slight damage
to the front bumper.

At least one of the car's
tires was a Firestone 440


tire which made the impression

found at the crime scene.

Our latent print
examiner in Harrisburg

was able to say that
the tire was not only

consistent in make,
model, size, but also

in wear, which is helpful.

It's another piece
to the puzzle,

so the forensics in our case
were absolutely critical.

NARRATOR: Bomar's car had
been exposed to the elements,

without its roof,
for almost a year,

so it was no surprise that
police could find no trace

of blood inside the car.

In a previous employment,
he had worked in a hospital,

in an operating
room, where he had

learned all of the techniques
of cleaning up blood.

NARRATOR: Until police
took a much closer look.

We literally took
the car apart.

We removed the seats.

We removed the carpeting.

We did vacuumings
for trace evidence.

We literally took the car apart.

We took the door panel apart,
and behind the door panel

we found some blood.

NARRATOR: Tests
later showed that

the blood found on
the passenger's door

was Aimee Willard's.

But the most shocking
discovery was

something police noticed
underneath the vehicle

as it was being towed.

Look at this.

That's it.

As the sun was shining
down underneath the car,

it was illuminating the oil pan.

And looking at the oil pan,
we were both in agreement

right then and there that that
was the same mark that was

left on Aimee Willard's body.

NARRATOR: The pattern of
X's and O's on the oil pan

was eerily similar to the
marks on Aimee's body.

An expert at the Armed
Forces Institute of Pathology

confirmed that the
pattern on the oil pan

was consistent with the
marks on Aimee's body.

All rapists, and
to a certain degree

serial K*llers, pick their
victims based on a fantasy.

They have a fantasy in
their head of what they--

all violent crime
starts with a fantasy.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors
believe that Aimee

Willard first caught
Arthur Bomar's

attention in Smokey Joe's Bar.

From there, they believe Bomar
followed Aimee out of the bar

and along Route 476
as she drove home.

When Aimee was about
to exit the highway,

prosecutors believe
Bomar bumped her car,

causing her to pull over.

The contact left marks on
the bumpers of both cars.

As she left her vehicle, Bomar
struck her with the tire iron,

causing the blood
spatter on the guardrail,

then dragged her to his car.

Where he took Aimee from
there, no one knows,

but the forensic
evidence clearly

shows that Bomar's Firestone
tire left the tire impression

at the crime scene, and
that Bomar ran over Aimee

with his vehicle,
burning her skin,

leaving the imprint of the
car's oil pan on her torso.

He then left her body
in the deserted lot

and returned to the
scene of the crime

to dispose of Aimee's clothing.

Ironically, Bomar himself
provided the most damning piece

of evidence, the semen
from Aimee's r*pe test kit

matched Arthur
Bomar's DNA profile.

Before Bomar's
m*rder trial, police

found the skeletal remains of
Maria Cabuenos in nearby Bucks

County, Pennsylvania.

When Bomar was arrested, he was
driving Cabuenos's automobile.

Maria's body was found
less than 20 miles

from Arthur Bomar's
residence and 30 miles

from where Aimee was abducted.

Like Aimee, Maria died
from head injuries

caused by a blunt instrument.

I know that he's still clearly
suspected of the disappearance

and m*rder of Maria Cabuenos.

It's been publicly reported.

And authorities look
at other things,

but I can't-- you know, there's
no-- I really shouldn't say

any more than that.

NARRATOR: During the
trial, the defense

argued that Bomar was neglected
as a child and had a low IQ.

Bomar had to be restrained
several times during the trial

because of violent outbursts.

Outside the courthouse, Bomar's
family took their frustrations

out on the media.

Don't get so close.

Well, we'll just talk.
We'll stay away from you.

We'll stay away from you.
-Hey, hey.

What's up?
What's up?

NARRATOR: His step-brother
and his mother

lashed out at news crews
covering the trial.

Ms. Ganges, Ms. Ganges.

Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am.

Don't hit him.

NARRATOR: Arthur
Bomar was convicted

of r*pe and first-degree m*rder
and was sentenced to death.

Bomar's reaction?

When he was convicted
and sentenced to death,

he turned around
and threatened me,

with both fingers in the air,
telling me to [bleep] you,

Mrs. Willard, and your two kids.

He was just a stone-cold
k*ller and a real predator.

I have in my career never
really faced anybody

that I felt was as dangerous,
as remorseless, and as cold

as Arthur Bomar.

He doesn't deserve for anyone
to ever think about him again.

He is just a vile, evil man.

I think in the end,
without the DNA,

without the tire impression, and
without the oil pan impression,

I think we would have been
very hard pressed to have

the success that we did.

[theme music]