09x29 - The Stake-Out

[bunniefuu]

♪ Glorious things of thee are spoken ♪

♪ Zion, city of our god narrator: the weiner family

Were active members of their local church, where loving your

Neighbor and helping others were more than just words, but a way

Of life.

♪ On the rock of ages founded ♪

Narrator: but not everyone in the weiners' church wished them

Well.

♪ With salvation's walls... Narrator: and forensic

Evidence proved that someone in the congregation had the motive

To k*ll them.

♪ ...at all thy foes

Narrator: on a thursday night in june of , sally weiner

Got a telephone call at her corry, pennsylvania home.

Hello.

Narrator: it was her congressman's office calling to

Say that her husband, harry, who was a vice president of the

Local bank and a civic leader, had just been chosen as corry's

Man of the year.

The caller instructed her not to let on to her husband, as it

Was supposed to be a surprise.

And that she was to meet someone the following day to go over the

Plans for this celebration.

Narrator: the next day, harry weiner got a telephone

Call at the bank.

[ Telephone rings ] harry, it's sally.

I've been kidnapped.

We know it's a tape-recorded call because there's no

Interaction between harry and sally.

He's trying to talk to her, and she's not responding -- she just

Continues to talk.

She had to read that if her husband didn't come up with the

Money, they'd cut off her hands.

She told him in detail that she was being held and these

People were dangerous, and they were gonna k*ll her if he didn't

Provide the money.

Narrator: sally told him there was a bag under his car

With instructions that he was to follow exactly or she would be

k*lled.

The ransom note told harry to fill the gym bag with all of the

Money from his bank's vault and drive to a deserted bridge

Miles outside of town to await further instructions.

Harry immediately contacted the local police and fbi.

They told him to drive to the back of the police station and

Pick up a law enforcement officer.

He got into the car and laid down in the backseat with a

-Gauge shotgun.

Narrator: when harry arrived at the railroad bridge, no one

Was there, so he waited with the sharpsh**ter in the backseat

And with fbi agents hiding in the woods nearby.

You just sit there very quietly, you don't move, and you

Listen, and you listen for any kind of footstep, any kind of

Twig breaking, any kind of noise, hoping that he might

Contact us, but thinking that he's probably within yards

Of us watching with a r*fle.

Narrator: after waiting for several hours, the fbi agents

Told harry to go home and await further word there.

I felt very sorry for him.

He was a very good person.

And he was frustrated, and he was being patient, and he was

Reasonable.

Narrator: the next day at sunrise, the fbi performed a

Grid search of the drop site, and near the railroad underpass

They found a second ransom note attached to a metal rod with a

Crepe-paper flag.

The rods we recognized as being rods that were used in

Filing cabinets -- older filing cabinets -- that slid through

The drawers of the filing cabinets from the front to the

Rear.

Narrator: but the sign wasn't easy to see, which is why

Harry missed it the night before.

The second ransom note told harry to proceed to another

Location several miles from there, where the fbi found a

Third note telling harry to proceed to an abandoned church

Three miles away.

That's where the trail stopped.

He could observe harry traveling through the

Countryside there, and he could also watch for surveillance

Units and police who might be following him.

Narrator: hours had passed from the time sally was

Kidnapped.

With no further word from the kidnappers...

Investigators feared the worst.

Narrator: -year-old sally weiner, the wife of a

Bank vice president, had been kidnapped and held for ransom.

Investigators learned that neither sally nor her husband,

Harry, had any known enemies.

You can count on just a couple fingers the number of

Cases that you see where a bank employee's family member is

Abducted in exchange for financial gain.

It just is not a common crime.

Narrator: police found sally's car near a church not

Far from her husband's bank.

Her car is left in that parking lot.

The windows were up, and the doors are locked.

So there's no sign of a struggle in any respect.

Narrator: all day saturday, which was the day after the

Kidnapping, there was no further communication from the

Kidnappers.

But on sunday, sally's body was discovered by a farmer working

His land a few miles outside of town.

She had been k*lled by a single g*nsh*t wound to the head.

I just -- I remember being in shock.

I felt...

I felt guilty and helpless.

She was ex*cuted.

Narrator: the k*ller used a glaser-type b*llet that exploded

On impact, making it impossible to determine the w*apon's

Caliber.

Sally weiner was k*lled by a g*nsh*t wound to the head which

Produced extensive brain damage.

A b*llet entered in the occipital region, which is the

Rear part of the skull, slightly to the right of the midline, so

That's back here at the base.

The b*llet went in, it fragmented extensively, and it

Produced a lot of damage to various parts of the brain.

Narrator: next, the fbi analyzed the ransom notes.

All were typed with a computer word-processing program, and all

Were printed with the same font.

On one note, the word "exactly" was misspelled.

Investigators got their first real break in the case from a

Police officer who was walking in the shopping center near

Harry weiner's bank.

He noticed a sign in a bookstore window listing the sunday

Newspapers the store carried.

In particular, he noticed the unusual border.

It was a five-pointed star with a "greater than" and "less

Than" sign shown consecutively.

And corporal amin ruminated about it and said, "I know I've

Seen this somewhere."

Narrator: the policeman immediately recognized it as the

Same symbol that was on the first ransom note.

The owner of the store, david copenhefer, said he made

The sign with his computer, and that the border was one he

Mimicked after seeing it on other signs.

Copenhefer was a friend of the weiner family and denied having

Anything to do with sally's m*rder.

They knew each other quite well -- both families were

Members of the presbyterian church.

♪ ...cannot be broken ♪ formed before...

They worshipped together, sang hymns together.

They both sat in pews not far from each other at the church.

Narrator: because of the similarity between the ransom

Note and the sign in his store window, investigators

Confiscated both his home and office computers.

The preliminary search that was conducted by the state

Police and one of our other agents revealed exactly, to me,

What it revealed to them -- initially, nothing.

Narrator: next, investigators wanted to know the approximate

Time of sally's death so they could question copenhefer about

His whereabouts.

A forensic entomologist analyzed the insect activity on sally's

Body and discovered second-stage larvae from the species

Calliphora, a type of blowfly.

By analyzing the outside temperature on the weekend of

Sally's m*rder, dr. Kim estimated that the insect

Activity commenced on the body late on friday afternoon, the

Same day she was kidnapped.

Then the investigators and the prosecution looked at

That and say, "ah-ha.

That must be the time where the body was placed there."

So that's their judgment then.

Narrator: interestingly, copenhefer could not account for

All of his time that day.

But they still needed more forensic evidence to know for

Certain whether he was the k*ller.

Narrator: a background check revealed some startling

Information about david copenhefer.

He had been turned down for a $, business loan by

Harry weiner less than a year earlier.

Copenhefer was now the prime suspect in the kidnapping and

m*rder of harry weiner's wife, sally.

So the fbi put david copenhefer under surveillance and watched

As he took some trash out to the dumpster behind his store.

When the fbi seized it, they found some suspicious items.

They found a used roll of crepe paper, the same make and color

As the paper found with the ransom notes.

The fbi was able to match up the tear from that role of crepe

Paper, which was in the trash at the bookstore, to one of the

Actual flags.

Narrator: they also found bits and pieces of paper.

The fbi painstakingly pieced them together.

And that note actually was a duplicate of one of the notes

That was left at one of the sites that mr. Weiner was

Directed to go to, uh, after the kidnapping of his wife.

Narrator: armed with a search warrant, the fbi found a stack

Of metal file cabinet rods in copenhefer's shed, similar to

The ones found with the ransom notes.

The fbi's forensic metallurgist, william tobin, analyzed the rods

With a scanning electron microscope and discovered some

Unique marks on the side of the rods created as they were

Manufactured.

Individual characteristics that are imparted from the tool

Or die on the workpiece are not the same in hour one of that

Die's life as they would be in hour , , or hour .

Narrator: these marks indicated to mr. Tobin that the

Rods found in copenhefer's home and those found with the ransom

Notes were all made on the same day at virtually the same time.

Something on the order of minutes.

This was one of the best associations I've ever had with

Regard to the fabrication characteristics.

Narrator: police also found glaser-brand amm*nit*on in

Copenhefer's home -- the same type used in sally weiner's

m*rder.

I think that would be extremely unusual to have glaser

amm*nit*on -- glaser-round amm*nit*on in a person's home.

Narrator: and local authorities asked the fbi to

Conduct their own analysis of copenhefer's computers after

The initial search of the hard drives turned up nothing.

A document is not all in one place on a disk drive.

Pieces of it are stored in different sectors of a drive.

When a document is deleted, it's not erased from the hard drive.

Instead, the space occupied by that document is labeled

"Available to reuse, if necessary."

By going through that disk, mathematically, finding the

Proper clusters based upon the known interleaving of the

Drive, you can piece together an entire document <span tts:fontstyle="italic">if</span>the file

Space that that document occupied had not been

Overwritten.

Narrator: when this crime was committed in , there were no

Computer programs that could reassemble documents that had

Been deleted, so al johnson and his team had to do something

That had never been done before -- they had do the

Analysis manually.

It was a painstaking process that took approximately days

To look at two -megabyte hard drives.

A computer is about as secure as a wet paper bag.

It never throws data away.

Narrator: and they found bits and pieces of a document

Copenhefer had deleted called "the plan."

It listed all of the steps necessary to carry out

Sally weiner's kidnapping and m*rder.

We were able to recover % of the m*rder plan back off of

The hard drives.

% Of that had been overwritten or altered to a point where we

Couldn't recover the data.

This evidence was the most damning.

This evidence connected the computer to the man to the notes

To the crime.

Narrator: this document revealed that sally weiner

Wasn't copenhefer's only target.

It looks as if, based on that plan, he planned on k*lling

Harry weiner after retrieving the ransom.

Narrator: prosecutors believe it was david copenhefer who had

Disguised his voice and called sally on thursday night with the

Bogus story that her husband, harry, was chosen as man of the

Year.

He set up a time the next day for the two of them to meet to

Plan the award ceremony.

Then copenhefer placed the ransom notes in the various

Locations outside of town and put one of them in the gym bag

Underneath harry's car.

When sally arrived at what she believed to be the planning

Meeting, she would have recognized copenhefer from

Church.

Hi, sally, how are you?

Narrator: he somehow talked her into his van where he

Overpowered and subdued her.

He then forced her to record the message to her husband, telling

Him she had been kidnapped.

The forensic evidence shows that copenhefer k*lled sally within

A few hours after he abducted her...

[ g*nsh*t ] then dumped her body on the farm

Outside of town.

He returned to his store, placed the call to harry at the bank,

And played sally's tape recording.

Copenhefer was sure harry would follow the instructions to the

Letter.

The computer evidence shows that he planned to k*ll harry at the

Abandoned church when he dropped off the ransom money.

Harry was the one he was mad at for having turned him down on

The loan application.

He wanted revenge on harry as much as he wanted the money.

Narrator: despite warning harry not to call police,

Copenhefer learned that harry did just that because of a

Journalist who had heard about the kidnapping from the police

Scanner.

And I went immediately to the plaza and parked my car, and

There was not a lot of activity.

Narrator: so he walked into david copenhefer's store and

Asked what was going on.

And he looked at me and said, "no, there hasn't been a single

Thing going on.

It's been a very quiet night.

There isn't anything going on."

At the time I was talking to him, I didn't know that he had

k*lled her, so I did not make a connection that here was a

Cold-blooded m*rder*r sitting in front of me.

Narrator: after learning that the police were involved,

Copenhefer most likely stayed in his store instead of going to

The ransom drop site.

And harry didn't see the next ransom note copenhefer left for

Him at the railroad bridge.

Based on the forensic evidence, david copenhefer was arrested

And charged with kidnapping and first-degree m*rder.

One of the things that we did is get a writing sample from

Copenhefer and had him spell "exactly," and he misspelled it

In the writing sample -- it's the same way that it was

Misspelled in his computer.

And again, that's to correlate the fact that he's the one who

Inputted that stuff into the computer versus some external

Source.

Narrator: david copenhefer was tried and eventually

Convicted of first-degree m*rder and was sentenced to life in

Prison.

David copenhefer is the master manipulator.

It's an intellectual game, an intellectual challenge to see

How far he can push the system and what he can get away with.

I think if he were out, he would k*ll again.

And he put a contract on me and harry weiner while the trial was

Going on because we were key witnesses against him.

I don't think that he would stop at anything.

Narrator: despite the overwhelming amount of forensic

Evidence against him, copenhefer continues to maintain his

Innocence.

That's the arrogance of the man, that despite overwhelming

Evidence as to his guilt -- and many defendants do this -- they

Still, still refuse to accept responsibility for the crimes

That they've committed.

And that's the sin -- one of the sins -- of all of this.

This case, in my own opinion, is a landmark case.

It is the beginning, or the genesis, of what computer

Forensics is now.

From this, computer forensics was born.