NARRATOR: In 1988, the
body of a young woman
was discovered in an
Ohio River, under ice.
Most of the evidence
found at the crime
scene hairs, fibers,
and fingerprints
had been washed away.
But the victim's
six-year-old son unwittingly
told investigators
all they needed
to know about the k*ller, and
he did it without saying a word.
The clue was in his jeans.
[theme music playing]
That telephone pole about
half way up through there
walk down through and
we'll pick up just trash
and clean up this road.
NARRATOR: A troop of Boy Scouts
headed to Possum Run Creek one
Saturday morning
in January of 1988.
Their mission was
to pick up aluminum
cans for a recycling project.
[picking up cans]
[WALKING ACROSS BRIDGE OVER
RIVER]
Hey guys, come over here.
Look.
What is that down there?
NARRATOR: In the icy
creek in rural Ohio,
they spotted what appeared
to be a mannequin.
DET.
DAVID E. MESSMORE:
They saw something
just under the ice, submerged.
NARRATOR: It was the
body of a young woman.
Local police took every
possible precaution
to preserve trace
evidence by wrapping
the victim's body in a sheet
before taking it to the morgue.
A check of missing
persons reports
identified the
woman as 32-year-old
Margie Coffey, the single
mother of two young children.
She had been reported
missing 10 days earlier.
JOHN ALLEN, JD: The police
had found her vehicle down
off a Park Avenue east by a
bar, and she was a missing
person by the time
this body was located
over by the Mohegan Park.
NARRATOR: The autopsy revealed
that Margie Coffey had been
strangled with her own scarf.
The coroner estimated
she had been
dumped in the creek
the same day she disappeared.
Margie Raimi was
her maiden name.
She was one of six
children who grew up
in the heartlands of
Ohio, on the outskirts
of a town named Butler.
DON STALLARD: And she was
an outgoing girl, personal.
Well, she was a robust
girl and she loved life.
She worked on the farm
and then she would
help her mother on the farm.
They had a lot of cattle to take
care of and she helped in that.
NARRATOR: Margie grew up in
a loving, religious home,
but in her teenage
years, as most kids do,
she yearned for independence,
began spending most of her time
in Mansfield, a larger
city about 15 miles
Northwest of Butler.
She made friends with
an unsavory crowd.
DET.
DAVID E. MESSMORE: She
got into some activities
that were subject to
prosecution, by the law.
And they were mainly street
crimes, that type of thing
that probably were
very low level,
but that's how we got to
be acquainted with her
during our work on the street.
NARRATOR: Those street crimes
allegedly included prostitution
and illegal drug use.
NARRATOR: Eventually,
Margie rejected that life.
She met a man
named Steve Coffey.
The two married and
had a daughter, Angie.
But the marriage soured and
Margie and Steve divorced.
To support herself
and her daughter,
Margie worked as a waitress.
She also enrolled in college
to study law enforcement.
And during this time, Margie had
another child, out of wedlock,
this time a son, Brandon.
Police investigating
her m*rder wondered
if Margie had returned
to the streets
to support her children?
DON STALLARD: Well, I know
her family helped her some,
but she didn't make a lot of
money, and going to school.
No, she didn't
make a lot of money
by working in a restaurant.
NARRATOR: As police knew from
experience, life on the streets
meant special dangers
and a large pool
of potential suspects.
[swings purse at camera]
Get away!
DET.
DAVID E. MESSMORE: Maybe
there's somebody in her past
that has a reason
to want her dead.
Maybe she's done something
or not paid something.
Maybe some street person
has come to this conclusion
they ought to k*ll her.
NARRATOR: With no
suspects or leads,
police hoped that the rushing
water of Possum Run Creek
had not washed away
evidence, which could
lead them to Margie's k*ller.
NARRATOR: When 32 year old
Margie Coffey was found
strangled in a frozen creek,
police wondered if her past
had finally caught up with her?
DET.
DAVID E. MESSMORE: In her
particular case, since she had
a background of some
activity that was certainly
against the law, we looked
into that possibility,
that she may have slipped back
into the drug environment.
NARRATOR: But friends
said that wasn't the case.
Margie had been focusing
her attention on her family
and her education.
DET.
DAVID E. MESSMORE:
They were just
adamant that they had not seen
her; she hadn't been around.
And, to their knowledge,
she completely cleaned up
all of her past activities.
DON STALLARD: Margie was raising
and taking care of the children
on her own, and she
loved her children.
She loved them.
She really loved them.
And I feel that Margie
was a good mother.
I really do.
NARRATOR: She had also
rediscovered religion.
DON STALLARD: I believe she
wanted to be a Christian lady.
From all that I
could gather from her
that's what she was
striving for, to be better,
to live better, to act better,
and forget all about anything
in the past.
NARRATOR: Police learned
that Margie had been actively
dating since her divorce.
Among the men she was
seeing were to Mansfield
police officers, both
of whom were married.
One was Robert Lemon,
a veteran of the force.
DET.
DAVID E. MESSMORE:
He indicated to us
that it had ended some time
before that, probably a year
and a half minimum,
and that he had not
had any contact
with her or had even
spoken to her for any reason.
NARRATOR: The other
was Lieutenant
Charles Oswalt. He, too, said
his relationship with Margie
was over.
LT.JOHN WENDLING: Lieutenant
Oswalt was very much in love
with his wife.
Often times spoke about what
they did on weekends and things
like that.
He was a type of police
officer that other police
officers, I would say,
would try to emulate.
NARRATOR: Lieutenant Oswalt
furnished a police report
indicating he had been
on duty that night
on a drug investigation.
NARRATOR: The trail of Margie's
k*ller was growing cold.
ANTHONY TAMBASCO: We
had no fingerprints.
We had no w*apon.
We had to explore the
other possibilities,
and those possibilities, really,
were going to come from her.
NARRATOR: Margie Coffey was
last seen alive at this diner,
sitting in a booth,
with her school books
open, studying for a class.
Detective David Messmore
interviewed the owner
of the diner, who
said that Lieutenant
Oswalt was in the diner
the same time as Margie.
NARRATOR: The two weren't
sitting together but they
did acknowledge one another.
[LIEUTENANT OSWALT WALKS UP TO
MARGIE AND TAPS HER ARM]
[margie looks up at him]
Hi.
How are you?
DET.
DAVID E. MESSMORE: It was a
very distressing situation.
Not only did I work
with him, I knew
he was a very good policeman,
but I've been friends with him.
And it was just-- it was
very upsetting to me,
to think that he might have been
involved in a crime like that.
NARRATOR: When confronted
with this information,
Lieutenant Oswalt
refused to comment.
[church bells ringing]
NARRATOR: Margie's parents
laid their daughter
to rest, an excruciating task
few parents are prepared for.
DON STALLARD: Margie's
parents, Mr. and Mrs. Raimi,
suffered from that day on.
There was times that they would
just break down and cry when
they would see a
picture of Margie
or when Mrs. Raimi
would talk to me.
NARRATOR: Little did police
realize that Margie's own son
would provide a
tantalizing clue, one that
would lead them to the k*ller.
NARRATOR: As the search
for Margie Coffey's k*ller
continued, a Mansfield
police officer
told homicide investigators
about a suspicious incident
that occurred the night
Margie was k*lled.
The officer said he saw
Lieutenant Charles Oswalt, who
had been linked romantically
to Margie, on foot, out
of uniform, and
behaving strangely
near the police station.
LT.JOHN WENDLING: And he
had a leather jacket on,
which would be
unusual at that time
of the night due to the
fact that he was working.
DET.
DAVID E. MESSMORE: This
officer said, what's going on?
How you doing?
And he, kind of, ignored him.
Then he continued on walking
into the police department,
through the back way.
NARRATOR: Oswalt's behavior
cast doubt on his claim
that he was investigating a
drug operation that night.
JOHN ALLEN, JD: For
him to be nervous
and excited, in that period
of time, was kind of unusual.
That, kind of, took the luster
or the punch out of his alibi.
NARRATOR: In the forensics lab,
Margie Coffey's clothing would
soon tell a story of its own.
ANTHONY TAMBASCO: We had the
scarf, you had leg warmers,
you had a heavy coat.
Once the clothing is
dry, basically, it'll
be hung on a hanger, just like
your clothing would be at home.
There'll be a piece of paper
placed underneath in case
anything naturally falls off.
And then the article is
simply held and scraped
with a spatula,
all the way down,
to help lift these articles
off and let them fall
into the paper to be collected.
NARRATOR: While most
of the trace evidence
had been washed
away by the water,
a very small amount remained.
ANTHONY TAMBASCO: We recovered
a number of hairs and fibers.
In particular, two
fibers, red in color.
The presence of these two
fibers, about a quarter
of an inch in length, and
no more than twice the size
of a human hair across, were
all we had to really work with.
NARRATOR: While
different fibers may
look similar to the naked
eye, under a microscope
they are very distinctive.
The foreign fibers on
Margie's coat and leg warmers
were triangular in
shape, or trilobal.
From the side,
this trilobal shape
gives the appearance of having
a stripe running along the side.
Trilobal carpet is usually
found in high traffic
areas like hotels and automobile
interiors since it hides dirt.
Tony Tambasco took carpet
samples from every location
where Margie had been in
the days before her m*rder.
Tambasco thought he found what
he was looking for in the home
of Margie's parents.
ANTHONY TAMBASCO: At
Marjorie's parents' house
we found a floor mat that
actually had red carpet.
The red carpet fibers
in the floor mat
looked very similar
to those that we
had recovered from the victim.
NARRATOR: But
under a microscope,
that carpet was not similar to
the fibers on Margie's clothes.
Since Lieutenant Oswalt was
seen in the diner with Margie
on the night she
disappeared, Tambasco
wanted to examine the
police cruiser Oswalt
had been driving that night.
Most police vehicles are not
carpeted because of heavy use
and have rubber
flooring instead.
But police records revealed
that on the night in question,
Lieutenant Oswalt was
the watch commander,
and the watch
commander's vehicle
was different from the others.
ANTHONY TAMBASCO:
The unique thing
about that particular
cruiser, cruiser number 306,
was it was a supervisor's car.
It wasn't your standard
police car that you
buy every year with the fleet.
It was bought at
a public auction.
JOHN ALLEN, JD: The Mansfield
police had gone to an auction
and purchased a Chevy
caprice classic, a full size
car for their commanders.
And, of course, the upper
echelon of police department
had a little nicer vehicle
than the guys in the street.
NARRATOR: The
carpet in the watch
commander his car was red.
Tambasco took a small
sample from the vehicle.
At first, it looked similar to
the carpet in Margie's parent's
house, but under a
microscope, the fibers
told a different story,
and were similar,
in all respects, to the fibers
found on Margie's clothing.
ANTHONY TAMBASCO:
We looked at color,
you can see the
color's the same.
We looked at diameter, you can
see the diameter is consistent.
We looked at the
trilobal design,
and the pattern does show that.
NARRATOR: Chemical
tests revealed
that both sets of
fibers had been
dyed with the same chemicals.
But fiber evidence, unlike
DNA or a fingerprint,
is not definitive.
ANTHONY TAMBASCO: The
presence of the fibers,
being consistent with the
fibers in the vehicle,
is not an identification to
the exclusion of all others.
It's not an absolute.
There's no way anyone should
come to court-- there's no way
anyone can come to court and
testify that, that fiber came
from the carpet.
It's just not going to happen.
NARRATOR: But even more damning
evidence against officer Oswalt
would come from Margie's
six-year-old son, Brandon.
NARRATOR: The circumstantial
evidence in Margie Coffey's
m*rder all pointed to
Lieutenant Charles Oswalt,
so did the forensic evidence.
The two red carpet fibers
on Margie's clothing
were microscopically
similar to the carpet
in Oswalts automobile.
But the question haunting
police was motive.
If Oswalt m*rder*d Margie
Coffey, why did he do it?
After Margie had given birth
to her second child, Brandon,
she told social services
that she couldn't identify
the baby's father,
since the pregnancy
was the result of a r*pe.
But later, when she applied
for financial aid at college,
she was required to
identify Brandon's father
and explain why she wasn't
receiving child support.
JOHN ALLEN, JD: When she
became a Jehovah's Witness,
and they began to
counsel with her,
they found these details out.
They said, look, you can't lie.
You're to tell the truth.
DET.
DAVID E. MESSMORE: And she named
Chuck Oswalt as the father.
NARRATOR: With this news,
prosecutors asked Oswalt
to undergo a paternity test.
It revealed that the likelihood
of Oswalt being Brandon's
father was greater than 99%.
Investigators also discovered
that Oswalt had refused
to pay for child support
when Margie asked, possibly,
because he didn't
want his wife to find
out about his infidelity.
JOHN ALLEN, JD:
Lieutenant Oswalt what
was married and had children.
In fact, up until
all of this broke,
his wife didn't know
anything about Margie
Coffey, did not know that he
had a child by another woman.
And so, I'm sure that her
finding that out certainly
was motive for what happened.
NARRATOR: Oswalt allegedly
offered Margie a few thousand
dollars from an insurance
settlement, which Margie
refused, as insufficient.
During Charles
Oswalts m*rder trial,
prosecutors presented one more
piece of evidence against him.
A woman, who had once
worked for police as a Decoy
in prostitution investigations,
Charlene Dry Sawyer,
testified that she too had been
having an affair with Oswalt.
Sawyer claimed, that
Oswalt had not only
told her he m*rder*d
Margie Coffey,
he also provided
details of the crime.
NARRATOR: Sawyer said, that
after Oswalt and Margie saw
one another in the diner, they
went to Oswalts police car
to talk.
They discussed the child
support matter and Oswalts offer
of $3,000 to end the dispute.
Take the 3,000
bucks and get out.
No, it's not enough!
NARRATOR: With Margie's
refusal, the conversation
grew heated and
Margie threatened
to disclose that Oswalt
was Brandon's father.
I will file a law suit
and your wife and kids
will find out about this.
Slut!
[margie hits oswalt]
NARRATOR: Margie slapped him.
[slapping]
NARRATOR: Oswalt
responded by strangling
her with her own scarf.
NARRATOR: The forensic evidence
reveals that Oswalt put
Margie's lifeless body in the
back seat of his police car,
where her coat and
leg warmers picked up
the tiny, red, triangular
shaped carpet fibers.
NARRATOR: Later, prosecutors
say Oswalt drove to the bridge
over Possum Run Creek and
dumped the body into the water,
in the mistaken belief that
any incriminating evidence
would be washed downstream.
[OSWALT DRAGS MARGIE'S
BODY OUT OF THE
CAR AND DUMPS HER IN THE RIVER]
[splash]
LT.JOHN WENDLING: You
know, when it's yellow,
and it waddles, and it
quacks it's probably a duck.
And that's the case
that we had here.
NARRATOR: At his trial,
Lieutenant Oswalt
took the stand in
his own defense
and denied k*lling
Margie Coffey.
He repeated his claim, that
he had been working alone
that night on a
drug investigation
and offered the typed
police report to prove it.
But prosecutors contended
that the report was bogus,
implying that
Oswalt, himself, had
typed the phony report,
after the m*rder,
to give himself an alibi.
The jury found
Lieutenant Charles
Oswalt guilty of
voluntary manslaughter
and abusing a corpse.
He was sentenced to 10
to 25 years in prison.
To this day, Oswalt insists
he did not k*ll Margie Coffey.
DON STALLARD: He
may deny it, and he
may go to the grave denying it.
I think-- I think, he's guilty.
Now, if I'm wrong,
God, forgive me.
NARRATOR: For
residents of Mansfield,
the ultimate betrayal is a
policeman who commits m*rder.
DON STALLARD: I mean, it's
bad enough to m*rder someone,
but then when you supposed to
be protecting people and then
using the office of
authority to k*ll someone,
then that's the lowest
m*rder that I can think of.
LT.JOHN WENDLING: He will never,
ever, ever admit that crime.
I don't care if they keep
him in jail till he dies,
he will go to his grave
with that in his mind.
He will never, ever-- and
I really believe that.
NARRATOR: Prosecutors
say that it
was solid police work and some
luck that helps seal the case.
ANTHONY TAMBASCO: The
presence of these red fibers
in that carpet must be
simply a shot in the dark.
A police car in
our own backyard,
a police car in our fleet.
The uniqueness of
that police car
being bought at
auction, the chance
of that, one in a million.
NARRATOR: And without
the forensic evidence,
Lieutenant Oswalt might not
have been brought to justice.
JOHN ALLEN, JD: I'd say, this
was one of the key pieces
of evidence, and
it would have been
more difficult for a
jury to have convicted
him if not impossible.
07x04 - Who's Your Daddy
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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.