09x03 - Making A k*lling

[bunniefuu]

[phone dialing]

[dispatch speaking]

[man speaking]

[dispatch speaking]

[man speaking]

[dispatch speaking]

[man speaking]

This was a brutal incident.

This lady just was
coming to work,

and we want to find out
why this happened to her.

We have 13 people
in the warehouse.

It's pretty rare to have
this many potential suspects.

This k*ller was still
in the building.

[theme music playing]

Good afternoon, guys.

[narrator] Michelle Mockbee
works in human resources

at science equipment supplie
Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Any time you're with Michelle,
you can't help but smile and laugh,

because she just... she just
had that presence about her.

My cheeks would hurt from
laughing so much when I was with her,

because that was just the
effect she had on everybody.

[Cindy Parker] Michelle
was very outgoing.

She was very friendly, caring.

She was the one that you could hear
laughing from... from a... a distance away.

She had a loud, just
very contagious laugh.

[George] She was very
dedicated to her job, very well liked.

Therma Fisher was a group
of people who were very clos

Everybody knew each
other, it was like a big family.

Hey, there.

Dan, how are you?

Michelle met Dan at work,

Dan was a shipping superviso

I would love that, it's
been such a long day.

- See you in a bit.
- Thanks, babe.

They were friends for awhile, and
Dan always kinda had his eye on her.

They went to a
Christmas party together,

Dan will often talk about th and
say it was the worst date of his life.

He thought it went really bad,

because he didn't think he was you
know, impressing her like he wanted to do

and it turns out he must have
because they went out again,

and next thing you
know, they're, you know...

Not long after,
they got married.

They had two daughters,

Carli and Madelyn.

They were 10 and 7.

They were a close-knit famil
and she was very happily married.

Cheers to a beautiful
evening to ourselves.

[George] Michelle and Dan
always had, like, a date night.

They always made time for
themselves at least once a week.

And my mom would
watch their daughters.

[Dan] Thank you very much.

- Cheers.
- Cheers.

[George] Day after
Memorial Day 2012,

she went in super early
that Tuesday to do payroll,

so she could leave early because she
had plans to spend time with her family.

[narrator] Less
than two hours later,

Boone County emergency
dispatch receives a 911 call.

[phone rings]

[dispatch speaking]

[man speaking]

[dispatch speaking]

[man speaking]

[man speaking]

[narrator] Detective Everett
Stahl is on duty nearby.

[Everett Stahl] When
I get that phone call,

my head is starting to just spin

into "All right, what do we
gotta do? What do we have?"

We are not a community
that has a lot of homicides,

um, so certainly,
this is a big deal.

When I got into the
warehous into the office space,

it was somewhat chaos

because, uh, there
were so many employees.

Hey Dan, we're gonna, uh, need to
get these folks separated right away.

[Stahl] In a perfect world, we
don't want anyone talking to anyone.

Not share stories or share
experiences with each other.

Detective McVay and I walked
upstairs and viewed this crime scene.

That's a lot of blood.

The first thing I see is the
large spot of blood on the floor

outside of the woman's restroom.

I went over and I looked
at Michelle's office door,

and I noticed that there
were pry marks on the door.

It looked like they
were fresh marks.

Michelle's body was
laying face down,

she had her wrists
taped together,

she had a large plastic
bag over her head.

And then. she was
missing her shoes.

Couldn't see her face because
it was covered with the bag.

We couldn't see what had
actually happened to her head, at all.

There was a lot of
blood around her.

This was a brutal incident.

I try not to allow myself
to get emotionally involved

However, there's a
husband without a wife,

there's now kids without a mom,

and so it's really hard to
separate yourself from that.

[cell phone ringing]

[sighs]

[cell phone rings]

Hello?

What?

[narrator] Michelle's husband,
Dan, receives a call from colleagues

informing him of a large police
presence at the warehouse.

[line rings]

[dispatch speaking]

[Dan Mockbee speaking]

[dispatch speaking]

[Dan speaking]

[Dan speaking]

[Dan speaking]

[dispatch speaking]

[Dan speaking]

[Dan speaking]

[dispatch speaking]

[narrator] Investigators begin to
interview the 13 employees on site.

[Stahl] It's pretty rare
to have this many people

in one place that
are, you know...

And... And I don't like
to use the word suspect,

but the fact that they were
all there when it happened,

you know, there's no other
terminology to use, really.

We asked each person to let
us see the bottom of their shoes,

give their fingerprints,
and a DNA sample.

There was quite a bit of blood,

so we knew that we needed
to really look each person over.

There was a lot to
learn on our side

to try to determine
if we had a stranger

that would come in and do this,

or if this might be someone
that was still in the building.

[narrator] Investigators interview
operations manage Ed Yuska,

who found Michelle's
body and called 911.

Ed, so, uh, we're gonna
be recording you, all right?

Tell me what you
did this morning.

When Ed gets up
out of the elevator,

and walks to his office,
he passes the blood spot,

and he sees this blood spot and he's
like, "Well, that's... that's kinda weird."

[Ed Yuska speaking]

[Stahl] The simple matter that he's
one of the people that found the body,

that was enough to have us put
Ed on a list as a possible suspect.

Outside of the woman's bathroom,
where the large blood spot i

as they spray that Blue Sta

on the carpet
down the hallway...

We actually see blood trailing
from the site of the initial as*ault,

down to the end of the hallway
that enters into the mezzanine.

This looks like
it's been cleaned.

[Stahl] The motion of those marks
look as if someone had been takin

a rag and were trying to
wipe things up off the floor.

Someone has tried
to clean this up,

and then, at some point, they gave
up because the blood spot was so big.

[Jon Heck] When
Michelle was found,

in her bag were punch cards
with blood spatter on 'em.

Because there was blood
spatter on the time cards,

they could not have been in the
bag at the time that she was m*rder*d.

Someone consciously picked
them up and put them in there.

[Stahl] If I were a strange
and I k*lled someone,

I would just disappear.

And so the fact that there
was an effort to move her

and pick up all of her items

her bag that had
time cards in it...

This was an effort
to hide this crime.

This looks like this might be
someone that was still in the building.

[narrator] Detective
Stahl scans the building

for any sign of
surveillanc cameras.

The problem was that Thermo Fisher
did not have cameras on the inside.

We noticed that there were
cameras on the outside of the building.

What we didn't know at the time,

was that those cameras
belonged to a... a company that

is housed inside
the same building.

We wanted to see
those camera angles

to see who was coming
and who was going,

so we can... we can be
able to put a timestamp

on what time people got there,
what vehicle they were driving.

Okay, let's see what we got.

[Stahl] The camera views
we had, captured the one sid

the car traffic, the one
way in, one way out,

and on the other side it
captures car traffic and foot traffic,

one way in and one way out.

So there's... So, you know,
essentially there's two driveways

but they're both
covered by cameras.

Colleagues say Michelle
drives a black Kia.

[Stahl] It would stand
to reason for us that

when we're watching
the camera footage,

that we've... we've captured the
person who committed this crime

entering the facility.

Queue it up at 5:30
AM, let's start there.

There!

You see Michelle

pull into the
parking lot at 5:53.

Okay, let's see who else arrives

up until the 911 call was made.

[narrator] Detective's switc
to a wider camera angle

on the other side
of the building.

Rewind.

[Stahl] We see that on
the other side of the building.

With the other company, um, that
there are people leaving that building,

walking up into the woods.

We need to find out who those
guys are and what they were doin'.

[Stahl] I'm in there
viewin' the video,

Detective McVay is viewing i

And so we asked the deputy to run
down there and take a look at, like,

where were these people goin

What we found out
was that company,

specifically, has
a lot of chemicals.

So they're not allowed
to smoke near the building.

So they had a designated smoking
area, ' outside of the parking lot.

Up into the woods.

We were seeing people disappear
into the woods so they could smoke.

We felt comfortable that
these people entering the woods

are not necessarily someone
that we need to be concerned with.

[narrator] In the lobby, detectives
learn this isn't the first time

Michelle's office
has been broken into.

We found out that there had been a
previous attempt on Michelle's office.

And after that attempt, they stopped
keeping petty cash inside the office.

They put a new lock on the door.

-[camera shutter clicking] -We weren't
sure why the person was breaking in,

but we believe that Michell
may have surprised the perso

as they were
breaking into the office.

[narrator] Detectives interview
another early morning employee,

David Dooley.

[Stahl] David Dooley,
who was the janitor.

And his job was to
clean the office space.

David Dooley says,
"I got here, I worked,

and then you guys interviewed
me, and then that was it."

[narrator] Next, they interview
Michelle's co-worker, Doug Tungate.

- Good morning, Doug.
- Hey, Michelle.

[Stahl] He had his coffee
sitting up on the time card.

And as Michelle approaches, um,

he just immediately thought,
"Oh, no, I'm in her way."

[Stahl speaking]

[Tungate speaking]

[Stahl] She said, " That's fine,
no big deal, have a good morning."

- Have a great day!
- Yeah, you too.

[narrator] All 13
employees, tell investigators

they have been on-site
since starting their shifts

and haven't left the buildin

While Michelle's body
is sent to the morgue,

detectives uncover a new lea

[Stahl] We learned in the
interviews that there was one vehicle

in the parking lot that
they didn't recognize.

They were telling me, "Hey, I saw this
weird, whit van that I've never seen."

Whoever had control of this van is
somebody that we need to look into.

I'm Dan Mockbee, I'm the
Shipping Supervisor here.

My wife, Michelle is in there.

Sir.

Grab a seat.

I simply sat down in front of
Dan and I gave him the news.

And there's no easy way
to say it, you just say it.

His reaction was
excruciating to watch.

It was something that
sticks in my mind forever.

How?

Tried to let him
process that information,

but then I knew
I had a job to do.

As we start looking into
the death of any one person

we look at the people who
are closest to that person.

And certainly the husband is
initially considered a suspect.

I asked him for
access to his car,

I asked him for
access to his house.

I asked him for
access to his phone.

And he did not balk.

[narrator] Michelle's sister Jennifer,
is at home checking the morning news.

I notice a story pop
up that said, um...

"as*ault at Florence business,"

is how it was worded at
firs I'm like, "Oh, goodness!"

I knew that's where
Thermo Fisher was.

So obviously a little
bit of panic set in.

But not, like, I wasn't...

I wasn't thinking
anything bad at that point.

I didn't know what to
think, I was just like,

"Oh, gosh, something's going
on where Michelle works."

As I'm scrolling,
the story updated.

And it said, "Possible
homicide at Thermo Fisher."

And soon as I saw that, I
immediately grabbed my phone.

I called Michelle.

First I called her cell number,

I called her office
number, no answer.

[phone ringing]

I called Dan.

'Cause I thought, "Okay, Dan...
Dan'll know what's going on."

Hi, Dan?

And a detective
answered Dan's phone.

You know, I was
thrown back, and I said,

"This is Jennifer, I'm
trying to reach Dan."

All she said was, "Dan
can't talk right now."

She said, "Is this Jennifer?

And I said, "Yes, it is."

And she said,
"Okay, just hang tight,

we actually have someone
on their way to talk to you."

And as soon as she said those
words, I'm, like, "Oh, my gosh."

That's when I realized, "Okay,
this is not good, this is serious."

[doorbell rings]

And I could just tell by the look on
his face what he was gonna tell me.

I said, "Look, I know why
you're here, just tell me.

Tell me what's goin' on.
Tell me what happened."

And first of all he said, "I'm
sorry, but your sister is deceased."

[sobs]

I just remember kind of
collapsing on the steps.

[breath trembling] Um, not really
wrappin' my head around this.

It was completely shocking.

[Cindy] My mom called to tell
me that Michelle was m*rder*d.

Her voice was very calm.

[stuttering] Um, and it was
a shock. It didn't seem real.

At the moment, just immediately,

I just felt like my whole
world had been shattered.

There were so many questions
What happened to her?

How did it happen?
Did she suffer?

Who did this? Who could
possibly do this to Michelle?

Let's get the cadaver dog
in here, search all these cars.

We started to
search each vehicle

that was in the
parking lot at the time.

Cadaver dogs are very useful, they can go
out and locate the scent of the deceased.

We were lookin' for anything, any
type of w*apon, any bloody clothing.

Anything that could be
associated with this crime.

[Stahl] And we have a
cadaver dog sniffing around,

and he shows interest.
In the van of the husband.

There was interest
on this box in the back

of Michelle's husband's van

Watching this dog show a little interest
in the back, concerned me quite a bit.

Immediately, my
mind starts sayin',

"Okay, how do I know that
he wasn't there this morning?"

[narrator] Detectives bring Dan
Mockbee in for further questioning.

[Stahl] As I'm interviewing
Dan, I wanted to understand

why Dan wasn't at
work and Michelle was.

Dan explains to
us that, you know,

because Michelle
is in charge of payroll,

She was going into
work early to finish payroll.

He and Michelle
went on a date night,

and so the kids were
at the grandma's house.

He had mentioned that he slept
on the couch and she slept upstairs.

So as a married man, I just
thought, well, "Hey, what's... Why?"

You know, "Why is
this the scenario?"

She had to get up
early in the morning,

and she didn't
want to disturb me.

I'm... I'm...

I'm on vacation this week.

[narrator] Dan agrees
to take a polygraph test.

[Stahl] Dan passed
the polygraph.

No reservations from
our polygraph guy.

And, you know, just the simple
fact that Dan was cooperative.

To us, in theory, that's what
someone who is innocent should do.

What we come to find out is that
Thermo Fisher has a barbecue.

And so, the leftover
food, Dan actually keeps.

Dan puts it in a Styrofoam
cooler, takes it home.

That was the interest
the cadaver dogs showed.

Once we had the polygraph,

once we were given
access to his entire life,

we ruled Dan out.

[narrator] With no employee
having any ties to the murde

the investigation stalls.

[Stahl] We were not able
to locate a m*rder w*apon.

We were not able to locate bloody
clothing, or anything of the sort.

Um, so we were at
a little bit of a loss.

With the fact that there was so
much of Michelle's blood out there,

and then we were not
able to find anything

that contained any of her blood.

Outside of what
was around her body.

[narrator] The hunt for
the mysterious white van

yields an unexpected result

[Stahl] We were contacted
by some patrol deputies,

stating that they had
actually had contact

with the people
who owned that van.

Um, but on a prior date.

[narrator] The owner's of the
van are brought in for questioning.

[Stahl] I was able to say, "These people
are being completely honest with me."

They just were in the wrong
place at the wrong time.

In the days following
Michelle's m*rder,

um, the community
really pulled together.

They started hanging
red ribbons everywhere.

Um, throughout the whole cit

You would see them on trees
on stop signs, on light post

They were everywhere.

Oh, my gosh! Someone
has gone and put red ribbons

all throughout my path home.

And, um, that was very,
extremely heartwarming,

and just to know
people were there...

It helped me cope, for sure

It helped all of us to
cope with what happened.

[narrator] Investigators
continued to study

the surveillance
from Thermo Fisher.

[Huff] I'm looking for an
individual walking outside, a vehicle,

anything that could lead us to
something we could follow up.

Keep playing it, rewinding
it, playing it, rewinding it.

Nothing out of the
ordinary, at that time.

Wait, who's that?

I see the red pickup
truck leave the business.

I stopped, rewind the tape.

And make note of
the time on my timeline

of when that truck left.

Why are they leaving
so early? It's 6:30?

That was a big moment.

I thought, "Whoever's
drivin this red pickup truck,

we needed to
speak to. Right now."

Hey, look at this!

What you got?

The truck leaves at


and through the camera
angle from the other side,

he's seen returning
about 35 minutes later.

Let's find out when it
arrived that morning.

[narrator] The red
Chevrole arrives at 4:42 AM.

This is the first
vehicle to arrive onsite.

[Stahl] It took us a minute to
figure out whose vehicle that was,

but once we see it,

and we discuss it,

we realized this is David
Dooley's truck, and...

We're like, "Well, yesterday,
he said, 'I didn't leave.'"

Now all of a sudden, we have
video evidence that he's left.

This is a huge deal for us.

We look at each
other and we just go...

We're like, "This...
This is what we needed."

[narrator] Investigators head
straight to interview David Dooley,

and his wife Janet.

[Stahl] We arrive
at the apartment.

I was gonna
interview David's wife.

- [Dooley] Hey.
- [Stahl] Mind if we talk to you for a chat real quick?

We wanted David

to be interviewed by Detective
McVay again, because...

He had knowledge of
what he said the day prior.

[McVay speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

[McVay speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

[McVay speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

[McVay speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

[McVay speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

[McVay speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

[McVay speaking]

- [Dooley speaking]
- [McVay speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

[McVay speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

[narrator] Detective Stahl
interviews Janet Dooley.

She also works for
Thermo Fisher as a janitor,

but was not at work on
the day of the m*rder.

[McVay speaking]

[J. Dooley speaking]

[McVay speaking]

[J. Dooley speaking]

[McVay speaking]

[J. Dooley speaking]

[McVay speaking]

I asked Janet Dooley. I said,
"When David left for work that day,

when is the first time
that you saw him?

When is the very next
time you saw him?"

And she says to me...

"After you guys let him leave."

So she tells me he
didn't come home.

We finished our interviews,
and he and I compare notes.

We know that now
we've got an issue

with their consistency
of their stories,

and that... that they're
not on the same page.

[narrator] Investigators
take David and Janet

to the station for
further questioning.

David sticks to his story.

[Dooley speaking]

[officer speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

[officer speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

[officer speaking]

[Dooley speaking]

And then, while...

we are interviewing David,
in the other interview room,

another investigator
is interviewing Janet.

[J. Dooley speaking]

[officer speaking]

[J. Dooley speaking]

[officer speaking]

[Stahl] And now Janet says,
"Oh yeah, Dave came home."

So now her story has changed

It's so inconsistent
that we are...

You know, we're
just dumbfounded.

We weren't really sure if Janet
had something to do with it,

if she had information that would
help us with the investigation.

She certainly didn't
help David's cause.

[narrator] While the
Dooley are questioned,

investigators search their home.

We found this closet where
there was a lot of shoes,

coats, and stuff like that.

David Dooley was OCD about
the way his shoes were in the closet.

And we noticed that there was a
hole where there was a pair of shoes,

but there was
no shoes to fill it.

And so, that's something
that stuck out to us.

[narrator] Detectives looked deeper
into David and Janet's relationship.

[officer speaking]

[J. Dooley speaking]

[officer speaking]

[J. Dooley speaking]

[officer speaking]

[J. Dooley speaking]

[officer speaking]

[J. Dooley speaking]

When we really focused on David
Dooley and the type of person that he was,

we realized that he had a
history of v*olence against women

that he was close with.

[narrator] The autopsy reveals Michelle
had sustain fatal blows to the head.

But detectives are yet to
identify the m*rder weapo

We start looking at
the trauma to the head.

And that's when the idea of the
tape g*n started really to take hold.

There's tape g*ns
all over this place.

And, Ed had mentioned to
us that a tape g*n was missing.

So, we ask for a
similar type tape g*n.

And they provide that to us

And the shapes of the tape g*n
resemble the marks on her head.

And so, now we feel like the tape g*n
might actually be the m*rder w*apon.

But it's missing.

[narrator] Detectives also receive the
DNA testing results from the crime scene

The bag that was
over Michelle's head

had a couple of
DNA samples on it.

But it was not enough to where
someone in forensics could step in

and have an expert say, "That
was definitely David Dooley's DNA."

We don't have that
smoking g*n type DNA,

the kind of DNA that is a
one trillion-to-one match.

And so, that was
very frustrating,

to not be able to have
that DNA available to us.

[narrator] Without
a suspect in cuffs,

Michelle's family
becomes fearful.

There were nights
when the police...

There would be sheriffs
sitting outside of our houses.

Um, you know, just to comfort us

and to make sure that we
knew that... that we were safe.

Everybody was worried that there was
a m*rder*r out there somewhere who...

you know, wondering
maybe, "Could I be next?"

[narrator] Detective Stahl
rewatches the surveillance footage,

cross-checking it with
David and Janet's time card

and cell phone records.

[Stahl] My initial reason for
reviewing all of the footage

was just to say,

"David came in one way and went
out the same way every day for 30 days,

except this one day."

I thought, "Wait a second, I've got
text messages and I've got time cards!"

Then it hit me.

Janet's clocked in and I
never see her coming in.

She wasn't even there.

And I could prove that
through the text messages.

On multiple days, David
was arriving at Thermo Fisher

clocking himself
in, clocking Janet in.

I know that Janet wasn't there,
because her car never arrives.

David was charging the company,

sometimes triple-dipping
for the amount of work.

That proof, that evidence of
stealing time from the company,

was all stored in
Michelle's office.

[narrator] Detectives now believe they
have a clear picture of what happened

the morning of
Michelle's m*rder.

Michelle came to work.

Good morning, Doug.

[Stahl] Uh, she
collected the time cards,

went upstairs to her office...

- Have a great day.
- Hey, you too.

David was not expecting
her to be at work that early.

She caught him
breaking into her office,

and she said something
to him about it.

And he punched her in the face.

That punch to the face would've
knocked her to the ground.

She started bleeding, and
then I just think David panicked.

And so he grabbed the
tape g*n, tapes her hands,

at this point, she's
bleeding a lot,

because there's a
large pool of blood.

So he opens the women's restroom

and pulls the garbage bag

out of the garbage can,
wraps it over her head,

drags her down the hallway...

At some point, he
takes the tape g*n

and he strikes her in
the head a few times.

[thumping]

And it causes severe
damage to her head.

Takes her into the
mezzanine, hides her,

smashes her head
a few more times,

which is why the blood
would've went up onto the wall.

At that point, it
was clean-up time.

He wanted to try to
clean up the scene

so no one would know that
anything happened to Michell

But what happened was,

when he started trying to
clean the blood up on the inside,

it wasn't cleaning up,
because the carpet was so thin.

So then he went to plan B.

Clean myself up, get
rid of the evidence...

run home, dispose
of the stuff somewhere.

And then get back
and just act normal.

We brought him in
for another interview.

We kind of get to a point
where we're at a stalemate.

And we had already
kind of planned this,

but we didn't know when
we were gonna use it.

But that tape g*n that we
had from Thermo Fisher,

that they allowed us to have...

We had it, actually,
in an evidence bag.

[narrator] The tape g*n
is brought into the room,

and positioned on a table
just out of the camera's vie

[McVay speaking]

Detective McVay is
sorting through these files,

and that tape g*n is visible.

[officer speaking]

[McVay speaking]

Immediately, he locked up.

[Dooley speaking]

David Dooley
stopped the interview.

We were pretty confident in
our decision to make the arrest.

[narrator] After four
month of investigation,

David Dooley is arrested for
the m*rder of Michelle Mockbee.

We felt good. We felt
like we had our k*ller.

I was 100% satisfied with it.

We did everything we could.

Each detective did an
outstanding job on this case.

[narrator] Janet Dooley is
not investigated for time fraud,

and is not believed to have
any involvement in the m*rder.

In October 2014,
after a three-week trial,

David Dooley is convicted
of Michelle's m*rder,

with the jury
recommending life in prison.

When they read the charges of m*rder
and tampering with physical evidence

and said, "Guilty," I just
remember crying immediately.

Just huge relief, um, that he
is going to pay for his crime.

[George] We were just
emotionally exhausted.

It was very difficult
to get through, but...

Once, you know... Once the
judge read that verdict of guilty,

it all, you know...
It all was worth it.

What I remember most
about Michelle is her smile,

and her laugh, and
just her being there.

She was always
there for all of us.

If she was here
now, I would tell her,

how much we all miss her,

and our lives are never gonna
be the same without her.

I miss Michelle. Every day.

I think of her every day.

Um, I wish she could
know my kids.

They would love her.

I tell them all about her.

But shortly after Michelle
was m*rder*d,

we had wristbands made
with her name on it.

We sold these, um,
and any profits

that we made went to
the girls' college fund.

[George] We're all
a very close-knit family,

and we're always
talking about Michelle.

Her memory is still
very much alive.

Uh, and we make sure
of that, for sure

Especially for her daughters.