12x11 - A Cinderella Story

[bunniefuu]

A massive hurricane
forced the evacuation

of North Carolina's Outer Banks.

Some of the evacuees
were suspects in a m*rder

investigation, and police had to
find some way to get them back.

The Outer Banks
of North Carolina

is one of America's favorite
getaway destinations.

Nearly seven million people
visit these beaches every year.

The beaches are very nice,

lots of good restaurants...
Real family-oriented place.

In 1993, Janet
Siclari came to Nags Head, North

Carolina, for a week's
vacation, along with her brother

Robert and several friends.

Janet was 35 years
old and had recently

broken up with her boyfriend.

Janet had a
previous 10-year relationship

with someone.

It just never was
totally right for her.

It had to be perfect.

And she never found
the Mr. Perfect

that she was looking for.

On their last evening in town,

Janet went to dinner
with her two girlfriends.

Later, they went to
a nearby nightclub.

The girls decided

that they wanted to get home.

They were tired, and
they wanted to pack up.

Janet was still having
fun and was partying,

so they left her with the
car, because she was going

to be basically by
herself and they

knew that she would
be easier to drive

back while they walked together.

At dawn the next morning,

a sanitation worker found
Janet's body on the beach,

just 10 yards from the
front of her hotel.

She was
only wearing a blue denim top

with no clothing
below the waist,

and she was clutching a
pair of white denim shorts

to her neck area.

A r*pe test kit proved Janet

had been sexually assaulted.

Next to Janet's body was a pair
of men's size-nine tennis shoes

with gray socks inside.

It was very
odd that there was this r*pe

and m*rder on the
beach, and this pair

of shoes within 30
feet of the body.

This was just sort of
a bizarre fact to me.

And we had always
been suspicious

that they were connected.

It's just too coincidental.

Police decided not
to release the cause of death

to the media so if a suspect
knew how she was k*lled,

there would be only
one way he'd know that.

Janet had been sharing a hotel
room with her brother, Robert.

He told police Janet got back
around 2:30 in the morning.

Robert was asleep

when he heard her
come in the room.

She came in, he said,
lit a cigarette,

put her purse down,
and said something

like, I'm just going to go
out and smoke this cigarette.

And walked right out the door.

Robert said he was
barely awake, but thought

Janet might have
been with friends.

He thought
that he heard some voices

outside the door,
some whispering,

and thought that perhaps
Janet was with someone else.

He wasn't real clear on
this ever in his statements.

Unfortunately,
none of the hotel employees

saw Janet enter or
leave the hotel.

That room was at the end

of a hall that faced the ocean.

And right outside their door was
a doorway and a set of stairs

that led out and down to the
deck and right to the ocean.

So she didn't have to go
back through the lobby

to get out of the hotel
to go to the ocean.

Police now had to
search for witnesses, anyone

who might have been in the
general area around 3 o'clock

in the morning.

And in a vacation community,
that wouldn't be easy.

No one, neither family
nor investigators,

could make sense of
Janet Siclari's m*rder.

This was a horrific crime.

This was a stranger
sexual as*ault and m*rder.

And if there is any other crime
that's more horrific than that,

I don't know what it is.

- Things like this
don't happen to people

who live their life
honestly and decently.

They just don't.

Carolinian was
a relatively large hotel that

went north and south
for some 100 feet.

It would have been a sound
barrier that would have

prevented anything, probably,
that had occurred on the beach,

except some wild
firework-type sound

or a g*nsh*t to have been heard.

Police attempted to retrace

Janet's steps on the
day of her m*rder.

According to her
two girlfriends,

Janet spent time
in the afternoon

with the hotel's
bartender, Read Powell,

and they immediately hit it off.

They were talking to each other.

Janet was flirting a little
bit, I think, with Read.

He was quiet and
he was shy, which

was probably very
attractive to Janet.

Later that evening,
Janet and her friends

ran into Read at
the Port O'Call Bar.

Read was there with
his girlfriend,

but he had gotten into a fight.

While Read
was at the Port O'Call,

he saw his girlfriend dancing
with another gentleman

and got a little bit
upset about that,

and there was a slight
altercation as a result.

When Janet's friends
went back to the hotel,

Janet stayed behind
to talk to Read.

They left the bar at closing
time, around 2:00 AM.

So he stated that
he was going to take a cab.

And at that point, Janet told
him there was no sense in that,

that she would give them a
ride since she was going right

by his house to go
back to the hotel.

When questioned, Read Powell

told police that after Janet
dropped him off at home,

he got the keys to his car and
went looking for his girlfriend

to patch things up.

His girlfriend was an employee

of the Carolinian, and they had
apartments there for employees.

The Carolinian was also

where Janet Siclari was staying.

Read drove
to the Carolinian Hotel,

and while waiting there for his
girlfriend in the parking lot,

he observed Janet arrive at the
hotel and go inside by herself.

Read said he didn't
speak with Janet at the time.

He eventually saw his girlfriend
when she returned to the hotel.

They got into a verbal argument,

and he ended up slapping
her across the face.

That pretty much ended
the conversation.

His girlfriend went
on to her apartment,

and he went back
to his apartment.

When police asked Read
what he was doing while waiting

for his girlfriend, he
made a shocking revelation.

He had gotten
hungry and carried with him

a steak knife and stick of
pepperoni, and sat in the car

as he was waiting for
his girlfriend to return.

This was a valuable
piece of information,

and possibly incriminating.

Janet had been stabbed to
death on the beach that night,

but police didn't release this
information to the public.

Read Powell admitted he was
sitting just 100 yards away

from where Janet was m*rder*d
with a knife in his hand.

Read Powell was a very

prime suspect in
the investigation.

They had had
interactions that day

indicating something more
than just a friendship or just

an acquaintance-type
relationship, so all of this

was very much a
concern of ours and led

us to look at him very closely.

The investigation
of Janet Siclari's m*rder

was just one day old
when Mother Nature

provided an unexpected setback.

Hurricane Emily, a
Category 3 storm,

was bearing down on the Outer
Banks of North Carolina.

The whole island was completely

turned upside down by a
mandatory evacuation caused

by a hurricane that
did significant damage

to the island.

So we lost the
crime scene and we

lost... we thought...
We were worried

that we were losing witnesses.

Approximately 80,000
people evacuated the area.

But the prime suspect, Read
Powell, stayed in town.

There was only one person

that we thought could be a
suspect, and that was Read.

He was the only person that
we had talked to extensively

that week and allowed
into our little circle.

Police searched Read's home

and confiscated
several steak knives.

The steak knives were submitted

to the laboratory to look for
the presence of blood on them.

However, none of them
demonstrated any indications

for the presence of blood.

Investigators also
took a sample of Read's DNA.

At the time, in


wasn't as advanced
as it is today.

The method at the time was to
compare the length and patterns

of autorads, which looked
very much like barcode.

We compared
the DNA profile from it

to the DNA profile
from the vaginal swabs,

and it was very
easy to determine

that it was not a match.

- I think we were all
somewhat surprised

that he was... this
was not a match.

Police discovered
there were 10 other men who

were either in the
vicinity of the m*rder

or had some contact with Janet
the week of her vacation.

All were asked to
provide a DNA sample.

I examined
them and their DNA standards

and compared them to DNA profile
obtained from the sperm cells.

Every single one of them
was eliminated in this case.

It began to look like
the perpetrator had already

left the area, either
because his vacation was

over or because of the
mandatory evacuation.

At that point in my career,

I'd never had a case
of this significance

that we were not able to solve.

So it was extremely frustrating
and extremely heartbreaking.

Months stretched into years,

and the case turned cold.

Of course
there's a lot of frustration

when you're trying to deal
with something like this.

You're thinking that
the more time goes on,

the more that they'll
never find the person.

And you just sort of try to live
with it and say that, you know,

you pray someday it'll
happen, but youi're

thinking, after five years,
it's not going to happen.

But during that period of time,

the FBI developed a
way for every state

to access the DNA profiles
collected in other states.

At the time, not
every state collected

DNA samples from
convicted felons.

But for the majority that did,
this new system was a godsend,

and they called
the database CODIS,

or Combined DNA Indexing System.

So in 1997, almost five years
after Janet Siclari's m*rder,

North Carolina officials
entered the k*ller's DNA profile

into the CODIS system...
And they got a match.

Amazingly, it matched someone
living just an hour away

in the same state
of North Carolina.

This was our first...

What we call first cold hit of
an unsolved m*rder/homicide,

no suspect.

And this was the first cold
hit the state had ever had.

The DNA matched


a commercial fisherman and
convicted sex offender.

One of those convictions
was for an as*ault

on a 12-year-old girl.

Berry claims he was
innocent of that charge.

She wouldn't if she was 14.

I got the paperwork in there.

Or she was 13 going on 14,
or something like that.

But, um, no, it
was all consensual.

She was 12 years old.

She was a kid.

When police
caught up with Berry,

he was in prison for
a parole violation.

Investigators showed him
photographs of Janet Siclari

and asked if he'd ever seen her.

At first he claimed he hadn't,
but in a subsequent interview,

he said he vaguely recalled her.

- I had to have had
sex with Janet.

I mean, that's
obvious from the DNA.

But it would have
been consensual,

and there was no... I wouldn't
have never k*lled nobody.

I'd never k*lled anybody.

For him to say
he had consensual sex with Janet

is untruthful.

It's a lie.

I think the evidence
shows that what happened

was a r*pe and a homicide.

We were dealing
with two crimes here... one

was a r*pe and one was a m*rder.

And while the evidence
of DNA, we felt like,

went very strongly towards
prosecuting a person

for the r*pe of
Janet Siclari, that

wasn't conclusive
evidence of a m*rder.

For more evidence, investigators

had to look at the shoes
found next to Janet's body.

And inside, they
found a huge surprise.

The prime suspect in
Janet Siclari's m*rder

was Thomas Jabin Berry.

He admitted he was in
Nags Head at the time,

but he claimed any contact he
had with Janet was consensual.

I had sex with
a lot of people on the beach.

I wouldn't have had any idea,
you know, if we met that way,

and then just started
walking and talking

and one thing led to another.

I've had that happen
several times in my life.

As a matter of fact, my first
wife and I met that way.

But a look at Berry's background

revealed his sexual history
was far from innocent.

There were approximately a dozen

other victims of sexual
as*ault by Mr. Berry.

We found one instant
where he actually

r*ped a young lady on the beach.

As for the night of the m*rder,

Berry admitted he was on dr*gs.

I think
Berry had been on the beach

that night somewhere, partying,
drinking, and doing crack.

He admitted in his statements
that he... that period of time,

he was high on crack a lot.

To Janet Siclari's
friends and family,

the possibility of her having
sex with a complete stranger

was totally out of character.

She wasn't one to have

a casual fling or an
affair with someone.

She was looking for something
really sturdy in her life,

at 35 years old, a
nice, good relationship.

But prosecutors didn't have

to convince Janet's friends.

They had to convince a jury.

In an attempt to find something
besides the DNA that tied Berry

to the m*rder, detectives turned
to the only other evidence

at the crime scene...
The tennis shoes.

Berry denied the shoes were his.

The only way we could think

to do that was to find someone
who could do shoe impressions,

to see if there was a way
to say... like a fingerprint,

except with a foot and a shoe.

Investigators
contacted Robert Kennedy,

a forensic expert with the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

He had an international
reputation

for using barefoot
impressions, particularly

on the inside of
shoes, as evidence.

I became involved

with the barefoot
research back in 1989.

And as a result of a serial
k*ller back in New Brunswick,

we needed to see if the
suspect's barefoot impression

would match the impressions
found inside of the shoe.

Kennedy soon established a
database of these impressions

and did a detailed study
of how they're made.

When somebody
wears a pair of shoes,

the foot generates a
large amount of heat

inside the shoes, so
the foot will sweat.

The weight-bearing
area of the foot

will cause indentation on
the insole of the shoe.

So you have a combination
of slight indentations,

sweat... dirty, darkened
marks inside of the shoe.

These marks are
unique to an individual's feet

and therefore provide a
potential basis for comparison.

Kennedy got inked
impressions on the bottoms

of Thomas Berry's bare feet.

Then he cut out the insoles of
the shoes from the crime scene

and photographed the surfaces.

The images were
overlaid for comparison.

There was no dissimilarities

between the impression that
Thomas Berry would make

and the Spalding
running shoe, so I

was able to form a conclusion
that Thomas Berry was

the likely wearer of the
Spalding running shoes.

To law enforcement,
this placed Berry

at the crime scene
with the body.

We always were
convinced they were connected

and that the shoes
went with this crime,

and that they all pointed to
Thomas Berry as our suspect.

Prosecutors believed
Janet gave Read Powell a ride

home from the bar,
then went to her hotel.

They believe her brother was
mistaken when he said he heard

voices coming from
outside the room.

Janet went back outside
to smoke a cigarette.

By tragic coincidence, Janet ran
into Thomas Jabin Berry, a man

with a history of
sexual v*olence.

He was also high on dr*gs.

Prosecutors believe
he used a knife

to force Janet to have sex.

Then he stabbed her to death
so she couldn't identify him.

Some in law enforcement
think Berry left his shoes

on the beach so his shoe
impressions wouldn't lead

investigators back to his aunt's
house near the hotel, where

they think Berry
spent the night.

In the end, Thomas Jabin Berry

was the one who did himself in.

If he had not violated the
conditions of his parole,

his sample would never have been
available for us to analyze.

During Berry's m*rder trial,

prosecutors learned
an unfortunate

piece of information.

He was back in the
holding cell during the trial

and he made a
comment to a jailer,

they'll never
sentence me to death.

And the jailer said, what
are you talking about?

He said, well, there's
somebody on the jury.

She's good friends with my mama.

She watched me grow up.

The jury
convicted Thomas Jabin Berry

of r*pe and first-degree m*rder.

But this particular
juror was the only one

to vote against
the death penalty,

so Berry was sentenced
to life in prison

with no possibility of parole.

Despite the forensic evidence,
Berry still says he's innocent.

- I've been trying
unsuccessfully, filing appeals

and trying to get back in court,
and I figured it couldn't hurt,

you know?

It may generate some publicity
and help me in some way.

- I say, you're a liar.

There's no question about it.

Because of all the types of
scientific evidence out there,

this evidence is irrefutable,
that Thomas Berry encountered

Janet Siclari on the
night of August 28.

There's no question about it.

That, we proved
beyond all doubt,

instead of beyond
a reasonable doubt.

And if Mr. Berry says
that, he's a liar.