Up next, a violent
thunderstorm provides cover for
a brutal m*rder.
It was an absolutely brutal
crime scene.
Obviously, this was a case of
an overkill.
There are plenty of
suspects with clear motives, but
they all pass polygraph tests.
It's not 100% reliable.
If investigators
didn't find the one tiny clue
left at the scene, they might
never have solved it.
The real-estate-development
business in Texas always seems
to be active.
Darrell north, a manager for a
multibillion-dollar development
company, had no shortage of
work.
Darrell north was in charge
of building budget suites for a
company out of las Vegas, and he
had been in charge of building
several in this area.
Darrell had a
reputation as a fair-minded boss
who set high standards.
I asked a subcontractor, "was
Darrell hard to work for?
Was he mean?"
And he said, "no, he was not."
He said, "he expected quality
work."
I have seen dad fire numerous
subcontractors over the years.
My dad had the ability to get
his point across very clearly.
He was very pointed.
He was very direct.
Darrell was always
punctual, so when he didn't come
home from work one day and
didn't answer his phone, his
family was concerned.
When I got to the jobsite, it
was after 11:00 at night.
The lights of his trailer were
on, and his car was out front.
And I knew his car hadn't been
moved because it was dry
underneath his vehicle, where
everything else was just
drenched.
The door was padlocked.
His son knocked on the door but
got no answer.
I climbed up on the rail with
a flashlight, trying to shine
the flashlight into that dark
office to see if dad had a heart
attack or something had
happened.
Mark saw his father
on the floor.
And I saw dad laying against
the door, and he was just laying
facedown, not moving.
Paramedics and
police declared Darrell north
dead at the scene.
He'd been stabbed repeatedly.
Blood was spattered everywhere.
It was an absolutely brutal
crime scene.
As would be typical with any
case where there's multiple s*ab
wounds, there was a tremendous
amount of blood.
There was blood in
two of the three rooms.
It was obvious a life-and-death
struggle had taken place.
There was also a hole-punch
that was discovered in very
close proximity to Mr. north's
body, that was bent.
That would lead me or any other
investigator to believe that
either Mr. north may have been
struck with that hole-punch or
Mr. north may have struck his
assailant with that hole-punch.
There was a trail
of blood from the filing
cabinet to Darrell's body, then
to a desk.
On top, police found the
machete... the type used to
clear brush from construction
sites.
It was perfectly clean.
It actually wasn't
blood-soaked, but we didn't know
if it might have been used and
then cleaned off and placed
there.
Darrell north's
secretary told police there were
normally two machetes in the
trailer.
There was a second machete
that had gone missing.
Police assumed this
was the one used in the attack.
The extra wounds on the back
of the head, which almost
decapitated him, indicated a
tremendous desire to make sure
that the person was deceased.
Darrell's wallet
was still in his pocket.
Nothing had been stolen.
There was no sign of forced
entry.
This and the level of v*olence
indicated a very personal crime.
Out of the 40 cases that I
worked, this was the only one
that had that type of rage
exhibited.
Darrell hired many
contractors, so his decisions
could either make or break some
of them.
Someone's anger had spiraled out
of control.
But police and Darrell's family
had no idea who it was.
Darrell north's
autopsy revealed he'd been
stabbed 46 times with two
different weapons... a clear
case of overkill.
"Overkill," as we define it,
is wounding a person way beyond
what would be required to k*ll a
person.
So we frequently see not just a
few wounds, but many, and it's
all indicative of rage that is
going on between the two persons
involved in the as*ault... the
victim and the assailant.
A machete missing
from his office was believed to
be one of the m*rder weapons.
The other was believed to be a
knife.
We had a single sharp edge
and a blunt edge.
We could predict that it was the
larger knife... some of the
wounds were at least an inch,
inch and a half in width on the
body surface.
The level of
v*olence limited the family's
options in terms of funeral
arrangements.
It was just an absolute
disaster.
It was awful.
Just absolutely awful.
And I made my mother promise
that she and my sister would not
go up to the funeral home and
see him.
The family tried to
help investigators by
identifying anyone who might
have had a reason to harm
Darrell.
I thought it must be a
stranger, you know, that maybe
was robbing him or something.
I could not in my wildest
imagination, you know, believe
that someone would do that.
Darrell's secretary
told police that everyone left
the construction site early on
the day of the m*rder because of
the severe rainstorm.
She said Darrell stayed behind
to meet with a contractor named
Curtis pope.
Curtis pope was a pool
contractor.
Darrell was basically mentoring
Curtis into the construction
business.
He stayed approximately 20, 25
minutes.
He left Darrell.
Darrell said he was going to
wait out the rain and let the
traffic die down before he
headed home.
Darrell's wife told
police Curtis pope could not be
the k*ller.
Curtis pope had done some
repair work on our pool.
I said, "please don't spend your
time looking at Curtis pope.
He did not k*ll Darrell.
Please spend your time looking
for the person that did."
Pope was distraught
over Darrell's m*rder.
He came through the receiving
line crying, and I thought he
was so touched by Darrell's
death.
And he said, "I loved Darrell.
He was better to me than my own
father."
Pope was 40 years
old, married, with a young
daughter.
He did, however, have a police
record consisting of arrests for
petty theft.
Since he was the last-known
person to see Darrell alive, he
was automatically considered a
suspect.
Pope agreed to take a polygraph
examination... And passed.
It's not likely that somebody
could come in and intentionally
be untruthful and still pass a
polygraph test.
The next suspect
was Bob Johnson, a roofing
contractor.
Darrell fired Johnson just two
weeks before his m*rder.
He was upset that he wasn't
going to continue to work there
because, according to him,
Darrell had promised him
continued work.
Darrell's family
never met Johnson, but they'd
heard of him.
Darrell had mentioned that he
had had some problems with him.
He usually didn't bring his
problems home, and so since it
was something that he had shared
with me, I thought it was
probably serious.
Incredibly, just
two days after Darrell's m*rder,
Johnson called asking to get his
job back.
The superintendent felt like
it was odd that Bob Johnson was
calling there, "when can I come
to work" after the fact... after
Darrell's been m*rder*d, because
his belief was that Darrell
didn't want him there.
Johnson said that
on the day of the m*rder, he was
with his child in a Dallas
hospital.
This was verified, but he still
had time to commit the m*rder.
The alibi wasn't sufficient
enough in my mind to totally
exclude him.
But like
Curtis pope, he, too, passed a
polygraph examination.
The polygraph is just a tool.
It's not 100% reliable.
That's why it's not admissible
in a court.
If it hadn't have rained,
maybe we could have gotten
fingerprints, but you can't
focus on what we could have had.
You got to find what you do
have.
Investigators
needed forensic evidence to
solve this crime, and hoped to
find some of it at the scene.
Darrell north's
m*rder was so violent that
forensic tests were needed to
make sense of what happened.
We had numerous types of
bloodstains.
They included passive blood
drops.
We had smears, transfers, and,
frankly, there was so much blood
that you'd be hard-pressed to
try to classify some of it as to
how it got there.
We took many samples.
We took 23 samples of blood from
various different parts of that
crime scene.
They first had to
determine if all the blood had
come from Darrell north.
When the assailant is
wielding a knife and he stabs a
victim, oftentimes that knife
blade hits bone and it stops.
And oftentimes the k*ller's
hand continues its movement and
it slides down the blade and can
cut the assailant.
The other clue they
looked for was shoe prints.
With so much blood, both the
k*ller and the victim would have
stepped in it.
Crime-scene technician
Jim varnon found several shoe
prints and tried to enhance
them with a special dye.
Amido black works because it
stains proteins, and it's
applied to a protein stain, in
this case, a bloodstain.
A footwear impression in blood
or fingerprints, latent prints,
in blood can be enhanced with
this substance.
In several of the
enhanced prints, analysts could
clearly see the word "Justin," a
well-known brand of Texas-made
boots.
We knew that these footwear
impressions in blood that had
the pattern of a Justin heel was
most likely going to be from our
assailant, because it did not
match the only other bleeder at
that crime scene, which was our
victim.
Unfortunately, these boots
weren't unique.
How common are they?
You're probably not from here if
you don't have a pair.
And it was
impossible to tell the size of
the boot from the print.
In a Justin boot heel, it is
possible that you're going to
have one physical size that
would overlap into several
different boot sizes so that
you're not going to be able to
tell the precise size of the
boot by looking at the size of
the heel.
Nevertheless,
investigators asked both
suspects, Bob Johnson and pool
contractor Curtis pope, if they
owned a pair of Justin-brand
boots.
Bob Johnson owned a pair, but
the heel of his boots was larger
than those at the scene.
Curtis pope also owned a pair of
Justin-brand boots, which
appeared to be new, and
willingly turned them over to
investigators.
In this case, my result was
inconclusive.
I could not eliminate or
identify the boot as having made
that mark.
When investigators
talked with pope about his
boots, they noticed something
they hadn't seen before... some
bruising under his eye.
He had some darkness under
his left eye.
There was no cut, but it was a
slight bruising.
A background check
revealed pope's business was
faltering.
He had a reputation of just
not being very good at what he
did, as far as the construction
of these swimming pools.
Pope's business
records indicated he was deeply
in debt, wasn't able to pay his
suppliers, and the only big
client he had left was
Darrell north.
If Darrell fired pope during
their meeting, it would have
been the end of pope's company.
Pope's finances were in
terrible shape.
He was on the fine edge of
disaster all the time.
With a warrant,
investigators searched pope's
home computer and found
something suspicious.
Someone on that computer had
visited a website on how to beat
a polygraph and had, in fact,
paid money to download a book on
how to beat it.
As testing
continued on the bloodstains on
the floor of the crime scene,
investigators noticed one blood
drop on Darrell north's pants
that they had previously
overlooked.
There was a vertical drop on
the back left pant leg of
Darrell north while he's laying
on the floor.
The shape of the
drop was perfectly round,
meaning that the origin of the
blood was stationary and hit the
fabric at a 90-degree angle.
The significance of such a
drop falling and hitting the
pants perpendicularly while
Mr. north is on the floor is
that it would mean that the
assailant was standing above
him, bleeding on him, after he
has been att*cked.
So it puts a sequencing to the
events.
Max Courtney cut
out the stain and submitted it
for DNA testing.
Investigators found five other
drops of blood at the scene,
perfectly round, in between
Darrell's body and the door.
And I said, "why not let's
just test these five particular
drops of blood that we know or
we feel like didn't come from
- Darrell north?"
- Tests confirmed the
blood was not Darrell north's.
There was only one question that
remained... who left the blood,
one of the two suspects or
someone else?
This tiny drop of
blood on the back of
Darrell north's pants told an
important story.
Since the blood hit Darrell's
pants at a 90-degree angle, it
meant the k*ller was standing
over Darrell's body while he was
bleeding from his own wound, and
he continued to bleed as he left
the scene.
When we observed those
vertical drops of blood leading
away from Mr. north's body, that
was a very significant thing for
us to find, because we knew then
that the k*ller's DNA was going
to be present on that scene.
And there was a
possible explanation for how the
k*ller was injured... the dented
two-hole paper-punch unit found
near Darrell north's body.
Darrell may have used it to
defend himself, causing an
injury... a facial cut or
nosebleed.
To identify the k*ller, DNA
samples were collected from the
two suspects, Bob Johnson and
Curtis pope.
DNA testing revealed it was
Curtis pope's blood at the crime
scene.
If Darrell north had not
taken some steps to defend
himself, causing him to bleed,
this case wouldn't have been
solved.
Would have never dreamed that
firing somebody would cause
somebody to, you know, go
postal.
Darrell's family
couldn't believe that the man
whom Darrell had mentored in
business and treated in many
ways like a son could have done
this.
Not until the day they came
out here to the house and told
me that it was his DNA that had
been identified did I really
believe.
The bruises police
noticed under pope's eye were
probably the result of the
fight.
And I was able to examine his
arms and his hands for injuries.
He didn't have any.
There was no cuts.
On the night of
Darrell north's m*rder, the
Dallas-fort worth area was hit
with a driving rainstorm,
causing flash floods and power
outages.
The storm was so bad, Darrell
sent his construction crew home
early.
But he stayed behind because he
had a 5:00 P.M. appointment with
Curtis pope.
They were going to discuss
quality problems with the
swimming pool pope was
installing at the hotel.
Pope was having financial
problems.
His company was headed towards
bankruptcy, and Darrell north
was his only large client,
although it's unclear whether
Darrell knew this.
Are you firing me?
Yes, I am.
No one knows what
the two men said to each other,
but prosecutors believe
Curtis pope snapped and att*cked
Darrell with a knife.
Sit back down!
Darrell was caught
off guard and struck pope in the
face with a paper punch, causing
the nosebleed.
Pope stabbed Darrell over 40
times.
As he lay dying on the floor, a
drop of blood from pope's nose
fell onto Darrell's pants.
And he continued to bleed as he
left the scene.
Mr. pope might have been able
to come up with an explanation
about how some of the other
drops of blood got in the
trailer on that particular
night, but there's no way he
could have explained away how
his blood was dripped onto
Darrell north's pants.
We knew we had eliminated any
possible innocent explanation
for his blood being at the
scene, and we felt like we had
him.
Curtis pope was
arrested and charged with
first-degree m*rder.
He posted bail, but on the first
day of his trial, pope didn't
show up.
We learned through an
informant that he was headed
toward Canada.
That afternoon,
police in watertown, New York,
just 25 miles from the Canadian
border, stopped a car from
driving the wrong way down a
one-way street.
It was Curtis pope.
He tried to run, but was
arrested at a shopping center.
Curtis pope was returned to
Texas.
He stood trial and was convicted
of first-degree m*rder.
He was sentenced to life in
prison.
There is nothing good about
Curtis pope.
I just think he's a sociopath
and an endangerment to society.
It was an unusually
bloody crime scene, but
Darrell north unwittingly
provided the evidence needed to
convict his k*ller.
He probably bloodied
Curtis pope's nose.
We have always thought Darrell
helped to convict Curtis pope.
The forensic evidence in this
case was absolutely the linchpin
of the entire case.
This case stands out to me
because it is one of the best of
the uses of DNA combined with
bloodstain-pattern analysis
where, working together, the two
show who the blood came from and
provide a scenario by which it
possibly got there.
13x08 - Constructive Criticism
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Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.
Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.