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Narrator: the m*rder of a prominent businessman

In colorado

Was particularly difficult to solve

Since the K*llers left virtually no forensic evidence

At the scene.

But information gathered from a small-town diner,

An endocrinologist, and a forensic botanist

Took a bite out of the chief suspect's alibi.

At an elevation of , feet, steamboat springs, colorado,

Boasts one of the largest ski mountains in north america.

Lifetime resident gerry boggs

Found the splendor of the small-town ski resort

Inescapable.

The family business, boggs hardware,

Had been on main street for years.

Gerry was the kind of person

That everybody thought he was their best friend.

He was a great guy. People loved him.

He was kind, generous.

You could trust him with your life.

Narrator: on october , ,

Boggs didn't show up for work as he usually did.

Gerry's brother went to his home

And found him dead inside the back door.

He had been sh*t to death.

Nearby was a plastic bag and a bloody shovel.

Kitchen: it appeared that he had been ambushed.

Someone was hitting him in the head with a shovel

Far enough to hit the overhead beam.

Narrator: boggs often kept his doors unlocked,

But there were no valuables missing.

Investigators could find no foot impressions,

Foreign hairs, or fibers.

We didn't have any direct evidence.

We didn't have any fingerprints, any dna,

Anything that directly connected anyone to the crime scene.

Narrator: a neighbor reported

Seeing two suspicious-looking men

Near boggs' home on the day of the m*rder.

And police had another suspect --

Gerry boggs' ex-wife, jill coit.

The two got married

When jill became pregnant with gerry's baby.

Prier-lewis: I don't think he was in love with her.

I think that she tricked him into getting married.

Narrator: the marriage lasted for only seven days.

Gerry had the marriage annulled

When he learned that jill hadn't gotten a divorce

From her previous husband.

Prier-lewis: I couldn't figure out

What in the world he was doing with this woman,

Because in one hour,

I could tell that she was just off-the-wall,

Absolutely the strangest person, and not at all suited for gerry.

Narrator: after the annulment, the two barely spoke.

Prier-lewis: and she would come to steamboat,

And she would call up people that gerry knew,

Talk about the child and how gerry had thrown them out,

And he was a horrible person.

Narrator: when questioned,

Jill said she had an alibi for the night of gerry's m*rder.

She said she was camping at the poudre national park

Miles away.

Her new boyfriend, michael backus,

Corroborated her alibi.

Investigators were left to wonder --

Who k*lled gerry boggs and why?

Narrator: the autopsy revealed

That gerry boggs had been beaten with a shovel

And sh*t three times in the chest with a -caliber p*stol.

Investigators closely analyzed the shovel for clues.

Kitchen: the shovel itself was very old.

The wood was very porous.

Our lab people concluded

That whoever was using it was probably wearing gloves.

So there were bloody handprints on it,

And you could see where fingers had been,

But there was no ridge detail

With which to make an identification.

Narrator: in addition

To the head injuries and b*llet wounds,

There were some other injuries that experts couldn't explain.

Based on body temperature and rigor mortis,

Methods that are crude and sometimes inaccurate,

The medical examiner estimated

That boggs d*ed sometime the night before his body was found.

Police had two leads.

A neighbor reported seeing two men near boggs' home

Earlier in the afternoon on the day boggs was k*lled.

Boggs' ex-wife, jill coit, was also a suspect.

She and boggs had been fighting over a $, loan

Boggs made to jill's bed-and-breakfast hotel

During their brief marriage.

Prier-lewis: it was an embarrassment, too, you know?

You live in a small town. You know all these people.

You get married. You've never been married before.

You get married, and all of a sudden,

You've got this can of worms to deal with that was just so much.

It was just horrible for him.

I'm sure at times

He probably just wanted to crawl under the rug.

Narrator: jill had an alibi for the night of the m*rder.

Investigators wanted to make sure boggs was k*lled at night

And not earlier in the day.

For a better estimate of the time of death,

Dr. Dobersen decided to analyze

The undigested food in boggs' stomach.

Dr. Dobersen: so if we could find out where he ate

And at what time he ate,

We could really narrow down the time of death.

Narrator: in retracing boggs' steps on the day of the m*rder,

Investigators learned

That gerry opened the hardware store at :,

As he did every morning.

He worked for a while,

Then walked two doors down to the shack for breakfast.

There, he ordered the same meal he always did --

Eggs, toast, and hashed brown potatoes.

Usual?

Dr. Bock: the folks in the café said,

"Oh, yeah, he stopped by here and had his usual."

Narrator: to see if breakfast was boggs' last meal,

Investigators turned to scientists

At the university of colorado.

Dr. Bock: we've done the same thing with woolly mammoths

Frozen in the ice in siberia and alaska --

Identified what plants they were eating.

Narrator: david norris,

An endocrinologist at the university of colorado,

And his colleague, forensic botanist jane bock,

Were asked to examine boggs' stomach contents.

Basically, humans consume

Between and different types of plants in their diet.

Plants are easier to distinguish in the stomach

Than animal products.

Dr. Norris: the cell walls themselves remain intact,

And they'll pass entirely through the digestive system.

This makes identification quite easy.

It doesn't make any difference whether the material was frozen,

Whether it was boiled.

It will remain virtually indestructible.

Narrator: dr. Norris

Placed a sample of boggs' stomach contents on a slide.

Under his microscope,

Dr. Norris saw a jumble of irregular hexagons.

He recognized them

As the intact cells of either a potato or apple.

Both have nearly identical cell structures.

To determine which one,

Dr. Norris used potassium iodide,

A test for the presence of starch.

A drop of it is added to the material on the slide,

And if starch is present, it will turn black.

Narrator: under a microscope, the cells turned black,

Which confirmed the presence of starch.

The cells were from potatoes.

Since gerry ate hash browns on the day he was m*rder*d,

The presence of potatoes

Seemed to indicate breakfast was his last meal.

Or was it?

Dr. Norris: in addition to the potato cells,

I also saw cells of onions.

And these are relatively easy to identify

Because of the brick-like shape of the cells

And the way they're put together,

Kind of like looking at a brick wall.

Narrator: the short-order cook at the diner insisted

He never put onions in the eggs or the hashed brown potatoes.

Dr. Bock: so we thought, "well, this is, um -- this is a worry.

Maybe he did have another later meal."

Narrator: another meal

Meant that boggs was k*lled after dinner.

The prime suspect, his ex-wife, jill coit,

Had an airtight alibi for that night.

The only other suspects were the two men seen near boggs' home,

Whom police hadn't yet identified.

Narrator: the mysterious m*rder of gerry boggs

Baffled police in the quiet resort town

Of steamboat springs, colorado.

Investigators found evidence

That boggs grew suspicious of his ex-wife after the annulment,

When he caught her lying about her date of birth.

Boggs hired his friend judy prier-lewis,

A private investigator, to look into jill's background...

And what she uncovered was shocking.

She learned that jill lied about her pregnancy with gerry's baby.

She hadn't been pregnant at all.

She had a hysterectomy years earlier.

Prier-lewis: she claimed to have a child,

And we were all telling him, "there is no child.

It's all just a ruse."

He still believed it.

He just couldn't accept it.

He would come down to our house,

And I would just try everything I knew to convince him

That there really was no baby.

Narrator: jill was a former model and beauty queen

Who had lied to gerry about her background

And the number of times she was married.

Jill lonita billiot ihnen moore coit brodie dirosa metzger

Steely boggs carroll

Had been married nearly a dozen times.

I don't smoke or drink.

I guess my greatest sin is that I get married.

Narrator: jill had married and divorced

Another man after gerry

And was about to walk down the aisle yet again

To her new boyfriend, michael backus.

And what was boggs' reaction?

Prier-lewis: he started laughing.

We just sat and laughed.

He's like, "oh, my god."

Narrator: what wasn't so funny

Was jill's third husband, william coit,

Had been m*rder*d years earlier

With the same caliber w*apon that k*lled gerry boggs.

William coit's m*rder was unsolved.

Kitchen: the circumstances were very similar

In that both gerry boggs and william coit

Were preparing to take her to court.

They were within a week of a court date.

They were within a week of a court date

Where, um, her character was gonna be exposed.

Narrator: and boggs' private investigator found evidence

That jill falsely claimed to be pregnant in other marriages,

Presumably for financial purposes.

Mclimans: mr. Boggs, I think, was at the point

Of disclosing to the world many things about jill coit

That she wanted to remain secret.

And she had taken, I think, a very dramatic step

To ensure that that did not occur.

She'd gotten away with so many things,

And she was proud of it --

That she's been married, you know, or times,

Bigamies out of that.

All these kids she says that she's had, she hasn't.

And she couldn't stand it.

Narrator: jill said she was camping in a state park

On the night of boggs' m*rder.

But in order to completely eliminate her as a suspect,

Investigators needed to be sure boggs was k*lled at night

And not earlier in the day.

Boggs' m*rder presumably happened at night after dinner,

Since onions were discovered in his stomach.

The cooks at the shack insisted

They didn't put onions in boggs' breakfast

On the morning of his death.

One of steamboat's homicide investigators

Decided to take a closer look.

Kitchen: not to be deterred,

He took himself down there and stood in the kitchen

And watched them making breakfast one morning.

Narrator: the cook prepared the same breakfast

Gerry boggs always ate.

True to his word, the cook did not add onions

To the hash browns he threw on the grill.

But while watching the grill,

Homicide investigators saw a flurry of activity

That suddenly explained everything.

Every time the cook turned an omelet

Or scattered an order of hash browns,

Small portions of diced onions from other orders

Would get mixed in.

Kitchen: I believe he photographed the spatula

That was used to flip the eggs,

To grill the hash brown potatoes.

And the edge of the spatula's covered with bits of onion.

Dr. Norris: you don't know

When you're getting the food at the other end

What's going on on the grill.

Narrator: breakfast had, in fact,

Been gerry boggs' last meal.

Dr. Norris: we felt vindicated.

We felt very good about that because we knew they were there.

Narrator: boggs was k*lled just a few hours after breakfast.

Jill coit did not have an alibi

For the afternoon of boggs' death.

Still, the stomach contents

Yielded only circumstantial evidence.

We didn't have any direct evidence.

We didn't have any fingerprints, any dna,

Anything that directly connected anyone to the crime scene.

We didn't have anything in the nature of a confession

In connection with the case.

We didn't have smoking-g*n type of evidence.

Narrator: armed with a search warrant,

Police searched jill's car

And found wigs, maps of mexico, and a stun g*n.

Was it possible it was jill coit in disguise

That the neighbor saw walking in the vicinity of gerry's home

On the afternoon of his m*rder?

Narrator: the w*apon used in gerry boggs' m*rder,

A -caliber p*stol, was not found in jill coit's car.

But investigators suspected the stun g*n in her trunk

May have caused the unusual marks on boggs' face and neck,

Which were noted during the autopsy.

Dr. Dobersen: stun-g*n injuries fall into a category of injuries

Called patterned injuries,

Which means the injuries mirror the object that caused them.

So in the case of a stun-g*n injury,

You will have electrical burns

Mimic the distance between the electrodes that caused them.

The injuries lined up identically

With the distance between the electrodes.

Narrator: pigskin most closely resembles human skin,

So dr. Dobersen applied the stun g*n to a live, anesthetized pig

To see if he could reproduce the round, reddish marks

On gerry boggs' neck and face.

The marks were similar.

Dr. Dobersen: interestingly enough,

The animal has to be alive

In order to show the characteristic injuries,

Which also means that gerry boggs was alive

At the time that he sustained those injuries.

Narrator: the forensic evidence

Was bringing the crime into focus.

The witness who reported seeing two men near gerry's home

On the day of the m*rder

Said jill coit and her boyfriend, michael backus,

Resembled the men in height.

Kitchen: jill liked to wear disguises

And had a number of disguises.

And eventually, we even came up with a photograph

That had been taken of her sometime prior to the homicide,

Where she was wearing a beard and a mustache.

Narrator: and jill's alibi disintegrated

When police could find no evidence that she had signed in

And paid the admission fee to poudre national park

On the day of the m*rder.

Jill coit and michael backus were arrested

And charged with first-degree m*rder.

At the preliminary hearing, it appeared even jill was impressed

With the forensic evidence against her.

Dr. Dobersen: I remember

Presenting all of that in front of the judge,

And she was there.

At the end, I picked up all my materials and slides

And walked out next to her.

And she looked at me and said, "nice job."

And then I took that as quite a compliment.

Narrator: and there was a surprise witness.

Jill's son seth testified against her.

Kitchen: right after she and backus had committed the m*rder,

She telephoned seth to let him know.

I believe her words to him were something to the effect of,

"It's over, and it was messy."

It did not appear to me

That he really had participated in any meaningful way,

That he had been a conspirator in connection with that.

It appeared to me that he had been very little more

Than an unwilling person being provided information

By somebody who was trying to get him to engage in activity.

Narrator: prosecutors believed

That michael backus and jill coit, in disguise,

Entered gerry's home in the early afternoon

With the intent of murdering boggs,

Presumably to end their financial dispute.

After having his usual breakfast of eggs, toast, and hash browns,

Which had been unknowingly spiked with onions,

Boggs left work early that day

And arrived home sometime after : p.m.

When he did, jill and her boyfriend were waiting.

Boggs was ambushed at the back door,

First with a stun g*n, then with the shovel.

After a suffocation attempt failed, prosecutors believe

It was jill who sh*t boggs times with a -caliber p*stol.

The two were careful not to leave incriminating evidence,

And their disguises were almost foolproof.

But they never realized forensic science could identify

The specific items in boggs' stomach,

Which destroyed their flimsy alibi.

When news of the crime became public,

Jill's oldest son, william, came forward

With his suspicions

That his mother had also k*lled his father, william coit sr.,

Some years earlier.

Prier-lewis: she's more like a praying mantis.

She just devours them once she gets ahold of them.

Narrator: it took the jury only five hours

To find jill coit and michael backus guilty

Of first-degree m*rder.

I think she was more or less motivated on the money.

I think she thought that would make her happy in life.

And look where she is.

So apparently, money can't buy you everything, huh?

Narrator: they were both sentenced to life in prison

With no possibility of parole.

Dr. Norris: I believe that jill coit was aware

That there are methods for determining time of death.

I don't think she was aware

That the stomach contents could be that telling.

It, uh, ultimately blew her alibi out of the water.

I think she was pretty clever.

They were pretty clever in wearing, uh --

You know, bringing along clothing or plastic bags

Or whatever they used to camouflage themselves

From leaving forensic evidence.

I mean, they -- there were no prints, no hairs, nothing.

And so they were very cautious about that,

But she should have been watching some of your shows.