NARRATOR: When Scott Dunn arrived at his friend's party,
he brought along a new acquaintance, someone
his friends had never met before.
Scott was a ladies' man.
And while it wasn't unusual for him to be seeing
a number of women at the same time, his date on this night
raised more than a few eyebrows.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
-Hey, everybody.
This is my lady friend, Shana.
-You ain't kidding, man.
NARRATOR: Sometime during the party,
Scott became ill, so sick he was unable to drive home.
A few days later, Scott Dunn disappeared
and was never seen again.
[THEME MUSIC]
NARRATOR: -year-old Scott Dunn was a fun-loving young man,
who enjoyed life to the fullest.
Scott lived in Lubbock, Texas, settling there
after serving in the US military.
He worked for MGM Electronics in a job
he loved, installing custom sound systems in automobiles.
The last time friends saw Scott was on May , at a party
after work.
Scott was a prankster and decided
to add a little excitement to the festivities.
His date that night wasn't a she at all.
She was really a he, a tr*nsv*stite.
Before the night was through, Scott's friends
eventually found out and weren't amused.
Later, while still at the party, Scott became ill.
He was so sick he couldn't drive home
and stayed overnight on the sofa.
The next day, his live-in girlfriend, Leisha Hamilton,
drove over to pick him up.
-He looked like crap.
He couldn't hardly walk.
I mean, you could tell he'd been in bed all day.
He wasn't showered.
He wasn't clean, clothes on all awkwardly,
couldn't get dressed by myself.
NARRATOR: After spending another full day in bed,
Scott told Leisha he finally felt
well enough to return to work.
-I woke up that morning.
He was in bed with me by then.
I asked him how he felt.
I asked him did he need a ride to work,
because he didn't have this cars there.
He said, no, his friend was coming for him
and just asked me to get him a glass of water
and some sinus medicine, which I did, brought it to him.
And then I left.
When I came home, he was gone.
NARRATOR: When Scott's friend stopped by the apartment
to pick him up, there was no answer.
-No one ever would answer, so I just never heard from him.
NARRATOR: Two days later, Leisha called Scott's father
in Pennsylvania, to see if he had heard from Scott.
-And it's a young woman's voice.
And she goes into, I don't know if I'm
talking to who I'm talking to.
But I assume you're Scott's father, because I found
the telephone number on the telephone bill.
And I said, well, that's right.
I'm Scott's father.
But who are you?
She said, well, I've been living with Scott for a couple months
now, and we've been together for some time.
And I said, well, I don't really know who you are.
NARRATOR: Jim Dunn filed a missing person's report
with the Lubbock Police Department.
-What was he wearing last when you saw him?
NARRATOR: Police wondered whether Scott Dunn's
personal life held some clues to his disappearance.
When Scott Dunn disappeared from Lubbock, Texas without a trace,
his friends told police this was out of character.
-The way Scott was, he would have called at least and said,
hey, guys.
Look, I'm out here in Mexico hanging out, partying,
something.
NARRATOR: Scott's live-in girlfriend
Leisha Hamilton told police that when she returned from work,
Scott was gone.
She also said that a large piece of carpet
was missing from under the sofa.
When police searched the bedroom,
they discovered that another piece of carpet in the bedroom
had also been removed and replaced with the carpet
from under the sofa.
Along the edge were some rust-colored stains.
-The staining along the edge of that patch
in the original carpet was very evident to anybody that
has been doing this for any length of time.
It was blood.
NARRATOR: When the carpet patch was lifted,
police noticed it was held together with duct tape.
On the underpadding was another large stain
which also appeared to be blood.
In one spot, it had soaked through a hole in the padding
to the cement floor underneath.
And it looked as if someone had washed
blood from the baseboard.
To find out, investigators used a chemical called Luminol,
which can detect areas where blood has been cleaned
up with the water and detergents.
The Luminol revealed a scene of horrific v*olence.
-You can actually see the pattern.
You can see where blood had been.
And my initial reaction was that something
had occurred in that apartment.
-It was startling.
Somebody had very obviously tried to clean the whole thing
up and had done a fairly good job of it.
JIM DUNN: I just knew that he was dead, felt very confident
that he was dead.
It was probably the longest day of my life.
And it was the most devastating thing
that had ever happened to me.
NARRATOR: But who would want to k*ll Scott Dunn and why?
Dunn had a previous arrest and conviction
for Possession of Cocaine.
But the theory that this was somehow drug-related
was inconsistent with the crime scene.
-If it was a drug hit, they probably
would have left the person here, wanting everybody in the world,
say that nobody else would cross them.
And this crime scene was covered up.
And the only reason it was covered up
was because it was trying to be hidden.
NARRATOR: Police also discovered Scott
Dunn was leading a secret life.
While living with Leisha Hamilton,
he continued to date numerous other women.
-He was wild.
He played the field.
In my opinion, he had a history of using
women for his own purposes.
In fact, he was engaged to be married to a young lady
in the Metroplex, while he was living with Leisha Hamilton.
NARRATOR: Leisha Hamilton learned
about Scott's engagement just one month earlier.
-Who's calling?
His fiance?
Yeah, I'll be sure to tell him you called.
ROY CARPER: And I think at the point
where that telephone call came is when Leisha
realized she'd been had by Scott.
And Leisha herself was a user.
And when it became apparent to her, that she in this situation
was not the user but was in fact the usee, she became enrages.
NARRATOR: But was that sufficient motive
for Leisha Hamilton to m*rder Scott Dunn?
And if so, where was the body?
Leisha Hamilton continued to call Jim Dunn from Texas,
keeping him informed of the investigation
into Scott's disappearance.
but she asked for something in return.
She wanted Scott's yellow sports car.
Jim Dunn taped those telephone conversations.
JIM DUNN (ON RECORDING): You claim to want the car.
And I have promised you the car when this is all over,
but you don't seem to want to wait.
LEISHA HAMILTON (ON RECORDING): Actually, I don't.
I don't need it.
It is a want right now, OK.
The only thing I want is his car.
That's the only thing I wanted from the start.
That's the only thing I want now.
NARRATOR: A background check by Lubbock Police
revealed that Leisha Hamilton had a past arrest
rest in New Mexico for Embezzlement.
But if Leisha was involved in Scott's disappearance,
why had she helped police by pointing out
the missing carpet in their apartment?
Leisha told Scott's father that she thought a man named
Tim Smith had something to do with Scott's disappearance.
ROY CARPER: Tim Smith was a guy that
lived in the apartment near Leisha.
He had been brought up in a very strict,
very religious environment.
My theory was that this was the first real contact
he'd ever had with a worldly woman.
And he became enamored with her and the way she made him feel.
And he just fell head over heels in love with her.
NARRATOR: Police discovered that Smith did not show up for work
on the day Scott Dunn disappeared.
-Tim Smith?
-Uh-huh.
-Lubbock Police Department.
NARRATOR: When police visited Tim Smith's apartment
to ask a few questions, they noticed he was packing to move.
-We're investigating the disappearance of Scott Dunn.
-Uh, whatever I can do to help.
-Mind if we take a look around?
-Sure, go ahead.
NARRATOR: When they walked back into the living room,
they noticed that something that had been
sitting on the bookshelf disappeared.
-Where's the roll of tape?
-What tape?
-The duct tape that was there on the shelf.
-I don't know what you're talking about.
NARRATOR: But behind some books on another shelf,
police found what they were looking for-- the duct tape
that was on the shelf just a few minutes earlier.
ROY CARPER: That was a stroke of luck,
but it's also good investigative work.
I mean, how many times would you walk into a place
where a guy is moving and see a roll of duct tape
and think nothing of it?
NARRATOR: The duct tape was sent to the forensic laboratory
for analysis.
The tape in Smith's apartment looked very similar to the tape
on the carpet patch in Dunn's apartment.
The samples were analyzed using infraspectrophotometry,
where infrared light is passed through the duct tape.
-And the detector will determine how much wavelength of light
is being absorb at different wavelengths.
NARRATOR: The results are then printed out in a chart.
-In the case of Roger Scott Dunn,
the duct tape we separated out into its components--
the fibers that run long in the duct tape,
the backing of the duct tape, and the adhesive
of the duct tape.
As you can see, the infrared spectrum
from the roll of duct tape found at the suspect's house
and the duct tape found at the scene
are consistent in the fiber component, the backing
component, and the adhesive component.
NARRATOR: And the roll of tape held even more clues.
On the side of the roll were green
nylon fibers, triloba, or triangular in shape.
They were the same size and shape
and made of the same polymers and dyed the same color
as the carpet in Scott Dunn's bedroom.
-I feel confident that the fibers on the side
of the duct tape came from the apartment
and that the duct tape underneath the carpet
came from the roll of duct tape.
NARRATOR: But without a body, authorities
were hesitant to conclude homicide.
-A lot of it had to do with the body.
We had no body.
And the District Attorney's office,
at that time, was very apprehensive to try to take
something to trial, where you had no corpus delicti,
is what they say.
NARRATOR: A full year passed, and Jim Dunn
decided to take matters into his own hands.
He heard about a group of international forensic experts
who meet several times a year in Philadelphia
to study unsolved murders.
The group of members is called the Vidocq Society,
named Eugene Francois Vidocq, an th century French detective
considered to be the father of modern criminal investigation.
One of the co-founders of the Vidocq Society, Richard Walter,
agreed to listen to Mr. Dunn's story.
ROY CARPER: Well, after about an hour and a half of me showing
pictures and listening to some tape recordings and things I
had, he looked me straight in the eye and said,
Jim, aren't you tired of being the grieving father.
-And he looked at me.
And he said, I thought I was supposed to be.
And I said, no, you were supposed to be g*dd*mn mad.
Let's go after that bitch.
NARRATOR: Richard Walter was convinced that Leisha Hamilton
held the key to Scott Dunn's disappearance.
Walter sent the crime scene photos to Dr. Richard Sheppard
a forensic pathologist at Scotland Yard in London.
After reviewing the information, Dr. Sheppard
concluded that Scott Dunn had been m*rder*d in the corner
of his bedroom, the result of multiple blunt trauma injuries.
But at the time, under Texas law, without a body,
there was no homicide.
Armed with Dr. Sheppard's forensic analysis,
Richard Walter pleaded the case to the district attorney,
arguing that they had a body part.
-He said, what part of the body is that.
I said, blood is a connective tissue.
He looked, gave me a long look.
And he said, all right, you've got a m*rder.
NARRATOR: Prosecutors brought in their own blood spatter expert,
Tom Bevel, to confirm findings of Dr. Sheppard.
According to Bevel, the blood spatter pattern on the walls
indicated three distinct lines of castoff blood from a w*apon.
TOM BEVEL: For example, if we had three castoff stains that
were going in three directions, that
would be consistent with three blows plus the one
to create the blood in the first place.
So in this case, we'd say, there was a minimum
of four blows that were delivered.
NARRATOR: To find out how much blood Scott Dunn lost
during the as*ault, Bevel conducted
blood saturation test.
By pouring human blood onto a test piece of carpet,
Bevel created the same size stain found in the bedroom,
in this case, square inches.
It took just under two units of blood to create the stain
and soak through to the padding underneath.
-If you take that into consideration with all
the other physical evidence that's there, such as the blood
clean up, the cutting out of the carpet,
the blood spatter, the castoff that's to the wall
and also to the ceiling, with that blood volume,
it certainly is a high suspicion that somebody in fact is dead.
NARRATOR: Authorities were now convinced that Scott Dunn
had been m*rder*d in his bedroom.
Lubbock Police suspected that both Leisha Hamilton and Tim
Smith were somehow involved in Scott Dunn's m*rder.
But they had no evidence linking Leisha to the crime.
And the only link to Smith was the duct tape,
until Richard Walter discovered something
that was previously overlooked.
Walter learned that's several strands of unidentified hair
has been found on the duct tape in Scott Dunn's bedroom.
He suggested the hair be sent for forensic analysis.
At the FBI Lab in Washington, DC,
the hair from the duct tape underneath the carpet
was compared to hair samples from Leisha
Hamilton and Tim Smith.
ROY CARPER: No Scott Dunn hairs were found on that tape.
But both the hairs of Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith
were found on that duct tape holding it in,
which means when that duct tape was put down
and that patch put in place, they were there.
NARRATOR: Five and a half years after Scott Dunn's
disappearance, Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith where
arrested and charged with m*rder.
Prosecutors believe that Leisha's motive was revenge,
that she was angry when she learned
that Scott was engaged to another woman.
-She's hard as rocks, bright, aggressive, words smart,
but has this insatiable appetite for power,
control, crushing people.
She dismisses you.
You don't dismiss her.
-Leisha Hamilton was the absolute instigator,
ringleader.
And she was the Wicked Witch of the West, who contrived,
developed, led, and covered up this whole thing.
NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe that Scott Dunn was m*rder*d
in the early morning hours of May , .
He was asleep in the bed and struck at least four times
with a blunt object.
About two units of Scott's blood was lost in the attack.
As Scott's body was removed from the apartment,
his blood was transferred onto the bedroom door knob.
The location of the body is still unknown.
But the cover-up failed because the water and detergents could
not remove the hemoglobin components of the blood, which
later fluoresced when sprayed with the chemical Luminol.
A piece of carpet from under the sofa in the living room
was used to patch the bloodstained carpet
in the bedroom.
The duct tape used to patch the carpet
together contained strands of hair consistent with hair
samples from both Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith.
And the side of the duct tape picked up
some stray carpet fibers.
The roll was later found in Tim Smith's apartment.
Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith were tried separately,
and both were convicted of m*rder.
Leisha Hamilton was sentenced to years.
Tim Smith received a -year probation.
ROY CARPER: The jury believe that perhaps he
had a great deal to do with disposing of the body.
But they didn't believe he was actually
there when the m*rder took place.
And I think, for that reason, they recommended the judge
impose probation, instead of sentencing him
to a term in the penitentiary, which would be carried out.
NARRATOR: Although the body of Scott Dunn
has never been found, a headstone
waits, and the father still mourns.
-I'm just hopeful, that at some point, somebody will talk
and that we can recover his remains.
And still, we can have a decent burial and a decent ceremony
that we can put him to rest.
And I'd feel totally absolved at that point,
that I'd done everything I could do,
if I could ever reach that point.
I haven't quite reached that yet.
And it still crosses my mind what else I can do.
But at this point, I'm going to let it go and hope
that good Lord or somebody will give us some direction.
And I'll know what that actually means in my life at some point.
[THEME MUSIC]
04x02 - The k*lling Room
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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.