13x41 - Palm Saturday

[bunniefuu]

Up next, an
execution-style m*rder

and a sophisticated cover-up.

It was
obvious, right from the start,

that this crime
scene been altered.

An eyewitness sees
two men leaving the scene.

But how much did he really see?

We were scratching

our heads for a little bit.

Someone held a
grudge against the family.

Maybe he was angry enough

to come back and
hurt Bev and Brian.

She was
definitely scared of this guy.

But was that
enough to lead to m*rder?

Eight months
after getting married,

Brian and Beverly Mauck
moved into their dream home

in rural Washington state.

She loved him so much.

And he loved her so much, too.

Yeah.
I mean, it showed in their eyes.


Brian worked

for an air conditioning company.

Beverly, 28, was a secretary
at a car dealership.

A mutual love of sports
brought the two together.

He had been in the same sports

that she had been in.

And they loved showing their
scars off... each of them.

You know?

And where they got this
and where they got that.

And so they were, they
were a wonderful match.

At 5:00 AM on a
November Saturday morning,

a friend arrived at
Brian Mauck's home

to pick him up for
a day of hunting.

He said that the house was dark.

And so he didn't bother
knocking on the door

to see if Brian wanted to go.

He just went hunting by himself.

The friend
called later that morning,

but no one answered.

So he drove back over
to Brian's house.

The front door was locked.

He could see the
television was on

and what looked like a
body lying on the floor.

That's when he called police.

- I
- just remember it was just very,

very bloody.

Blood everywhere.

They found both Beverly

and Brian Mauck
had been m*rder*d.

I broke down.

And, and was screaming.

And I was like, I
have to get out there,

I have to get out there.

I have to see it for myself.

Each of them had
been shot three times at close

range with a .22 caliber p*stol.

There was definitely

an execution-style
element to it.

It looked like they had
been shot and then shot

again to make sure
they were dead.

- I just wanted to go in
and hold my daughter.

But I knew I couldn't
because I knew that it would

destroy police
evidence or possibly.

From the location
of the shell casings,

it appeared that Brian was
shot in the living room.

Beverly, most likely, heard
the sh*ts from the bedroom

and ran out to see
what was going on.

She made a
run for the front door.

And our suspect caught
her at the front door.

And that's where he shot her.

[g*nsh*t

The evidence shows
that the k*ller dragged

Beverly's body next
to her husband's

and covered them both with
a sheet from the bedroom.

This was
essentially a swath of blood

two or three feet across
and 10 to 15 feet long that

leads right to the
victims' bodies.

There were unusual
striations in the blood trail.

We just could not figure out what

caused that particular
pattern when we first saw it.

We were scratching our heads for
a little bit trying to figure

out what caused that
particular blood pattern.

The answer was
found in the kitchen.

Someone had swept the
broom through the blood

and spattered it
up onto the wall.

The k*ller
might have used the brook

to remove his shoe impressions.

He also used a rag to
remove other evidence.

They're trying
to eliminate fingerprints,

like the doorknobs, the light
switches, that sort of thing.

And what they used to do
that with had blood on it

because there was blood
smears on the light switches.

And there was blood
smears on the doorknobs.

The fact the television

was on told
investigators even more.

There was no fast,
I got to get out of here.

There was very deliberate
cleaning up, covering up,

trying to hide
what had happened.

The motive didn't
appear to be robbery.

Brian had a
considerable amount of cash

on his person.

There were g*ns in the
home that were not taken.

There were a number of valuable
items were undisturbed.

And the evidence suggested

Brian opened the door
then turned his back

to Walk towards the living
room when he was shot...

[g*nsh*t

A clear indication
he knew his k*ller.

Brian and Beverly
Mauck were m*rder*d

in their home in the
middle of the night.

Their family said the
couple had no known enemies.

It breaks my
heart she can never be a mother.

She wanted that so bad.

And I know Brian wanted
to be a father so bad.

And they had so much to offer.

They just were two of the
nicest trustworthy people.

Oh.

Their kids would
have been perfect.

The k*ller spent several hours

cleaning the crime scene.

It's a risky
thing to do, of course.

The longer a criminal
stays at the scene,

the greater the risk that
they're going to leave evidence

behind or leave
a tell-tale clue.

And that's
precisely what happened.

The k*ller inadvertently
left clues while cleaning up.

After he covered the bodies
with a sheet, he stepped on it.

The bottoms of his
shoes were clean.

But he created a shoe
impression in the blood

on the floor
underneath the sheet.

It was a zigzag
pattern or a very distinct shoe

mark that you could see
left in the, in the blood.

The fact that the
k*ller spent so much time

at the scene aided
in the discovery.

It's had been dried
for a while, which probably

helped things... at least
preserve the print in the floor

anyway-

A computer
search of the shoe patterns

indicated this was a
Madsen brand work shoe.

The k*ller also left evidence
in the couple's bedroom.

It looked like
a fingerprint could have been

on a door jamb in the
southeast bedroom.

But the ridge characteristics

were in a U-shape,
meaning the finger

would've been the upside down.

That would make sense
except this print

was five feet from the floor.

Someone would have to
be standing on a ladder

to leave a print like this.

It just was too high for it to be

placed there by a
finger for a natural

placement of a hand
on that location.

But there was
another possibility.

The ridge detail of palm prints
runs in the opposite direction

of ridge detail on fingerprints.

The fingerprint
that we had from the house

wasn't actually a fingerprint.

But it was a palm print.

- I'm thinking that he left the
bloody palm print on the door

jamb when he was using it to
balance himself when he was

cleaning something else up-
perhaps with a paper towel...

not realizing that his
hand's got blood on it

and it's resting on
the, the door jamb.

Law enforcement
has a separate database

for palm prints called Morpho.

Unfortunately, this one didn't
match any in the database.

In a search for suspects,
police questioned everyone

in the sparsely
populated neighborhood.

A couple across the street,
Daniel and Jennifer Tavares,

said they heard
g*nshots around 7:00 AM.

They thought the
sh*ts were from hunters.

Daniel got up and
looked out the bedroom

window, which faced
the Mauck's house.

He saw a red pickup truck
leaving the Mauck's driveway.

- He said there was
a passenger whom

he didn't get a good look at.

He described a driver,
however, in, in great detail.

A white male, roughly 6'


hair and a ponytail.

The truck turned
around in the cul-de-sac

and sped away.

Neither family nor
neighbors knew anyone

matching the
driver's description.

Police began checking the
hundreds of red pickup trucks

in Pierce County.

Meanwhile, Beverly's mother
pointed to another suspect.

I know she
was afraid of somebody

that he brought into their home.

And... and I think she
shared that with O'Brien.

He was


who lived just a
few houses away.

He had a juvenile arrest.

He was a suspect in
some other crimes.

I think he was a
suspect in a burglary

and a suspect in a theft.

Witnesses said Jeremy
attended a party at the Mauck's

home about six weeks
before the murders.

Flynn was so drunk and
belligerent that Brian

asked him to leave.

The two argued and
almost came to blows.

- Whatever took
place at that party

or afterwards definitely left
an impression on Beverly.

And she was definitely
scared of this guy.

And she was nervous

about this young fellow.

Didn't like to be
alone at the residence

when her husband would be away.

The morning after the
party, the Mauck's discovered

items missing from their home.

And they confronted
Jeremy about it.

A handgun that
belonged to Brian was stolen.

And I believe Beverly's
cellphone or one

of their cellphones
had been taken.

And so I figured maybe

he was angry enough to come
back and hurt Bev and Brian.

But the handgun [g*nsh*t

Wasn't a .22
caliber like the one

used in the murders.

Jeremy didn't own
a red pickup truck.

And three people provided
alibis for Jeremy

for the time of the murders.

He had almost
been completely eliminated

as having anything to
do with this whatsoever.

So police went
back to their only eyewitness

except this time his
story began to change.

In the search for Beverly
and Brian Mauck's k*ller,

police went back to the Mauck's
neighbor, Daniel Tavares,

who described seeing a red
pickup truck outside the crime

scene around the
time of the murders.

His description of the two
men inside was detailed.

The more detail
that a witness can give you...

an eyewitness to someone
who might well be associated

with a crime scene,
the better it is.

But for the detectives,

it was too detailed.

Tavares lived 200 yards
away from the Mauck's house.

And it was still dark outside.

He gave
descriptions of these men.

And I mean, from
hairstyle to how many days

it had since one
of them had shaved,

the collar of their
shirt, the types

of shoes they were wearing.

- He even went so
far as to describe

this person as having
a pock-marked face.

When detectives did
a background check on Daniel

Tavares, they were shocked
by what they found.

Tavares had served 16 years
in prison for manslaughter.

And he'd just been released
four months earlier.

Daniel Tavares, by all accounts,

was the Worst type of
prisoner... argumentative,

combative, assaulting
jail guards.

And somehow gets out
with credit a good time.

Before he was
released from prison,

Tavares met his wife,
Jennifer Freitas,

through a computer dating
service where convicts post

personal ads hoping
to find pen pals.

And that's how Jennifer ends up

developing this
relationship with him.

I think for most of us,
it's incomprehensible

that that's the place
you go to find love.

They communicated through email,

but never met in person
until Tavares was released.

As soon as he gets out,

there he is on a plane
leaving Massachusetts

and coming out to
Washington state.

That was shocking enough, I
think, when we learned that.

Tavares married
Jennifer in Washington state

and had violated the
terms of his parole

by leaving Massachusetts.

Unfortunately, local
police in Washington

had no jurisdiction
to arrest him.

The warrant was limited to,

I believe, states that
adjoin Massachusetts

or the New England area.

So while there was a
warrant for his arrest,

it was limited to that
small geographical area.

Police in Washington state

could get Tavares's
fingerprints from Massachusetts.

But what they really needed
were his palm prints.

So investigators wanted to get
him into police headquarters

and somehow find a way
to get him to provide

his finger and palm
prints voluntarily.

Fortunately, Tavares didn't
know he was a suspect.

- He was cooperating.

He was bending over backwards.

He was thinking that We
were buying his stories.

Their idea was
to ask Tavares for help

in preparing a composite
sketch of the Mauck's K*llers.

And I just
thought that it would be easier

and safer to get him down here
thinking he was coming down

here voluntarily on his own
to talk to a sketch artist.

As Daniel
Tavares walked into police

headquarters,
Detective Jason Tate

arrived at about the same
time and followed him

into the building.

It had just rained.

And Tavares was
tracking wet shoe prints

onto the floor of
the entrance way.

Detective Tate thought
they looked familiar.

- I needed to get inside
and get somebody out there

before things started
to dry and disappear.

Mary Lou
Hanson-O'Brien rushed

out with her camera.

Because the print was in
water on a rough surface,

it was impossible to
compare fine detail.

But the trends on the shoe
were clear and distinctive.

And it was a unique pattern.

There was not a lot of
detail to the pattern.

Was this the same shoe that

left the single bloody shoe
impression at the crime scene?

- Criminals are not real smart.

I've just seen time and
again that criminals

do stupid things.

Daniel Tavares was
the prime suspect in the murders

of his neighbors, Brian
and Beverly Mauck.

But investigators had no
idea about a possible motive.

- I interviewed a bar
manager who had served

Tavares that night
of the murders.

And he described him
as cocky, and arrogant,

and somebody who was
looking for a fight.

Daniel Tavares
walked into police headquarters

not realizing he was a suspect.

He thought he was
there to provide

a description of the K*llers.

He had no clue.

He, he thought that
he was down here

to talk to a sketch artist.

And he had no clue that we
were onto him at that point.

Tavares admitted he'd
been inside the Mauck's home

several times for social visits.

So police asked if he'd mind
providing his fingerprints

so they could eliminate
his prints from all

the other unknown prints they
found inside the Mauck's home.

So that's
how I presented it to him.

I just said, we need
to be able to eliminate

the prints that aren't
important to us.

Tavares was happy to oblige.

And police took not
only his fingerprints

but also his palm prints.

Then investigators
asked to Tavares

some more pointed
questions about his past.

I said, you k*lled your mother?

I, yeah, I was taken.

I was, I was shocked.

Within minutes,
latent print examiners

matched Tavares's palm print
to the bloody palm print

on the door jamb
at the crime scene.

I could not believe
that I was seeing

that same footwear pattern.

We were just baffled
that, again, Tavares

was, was stupid enough to
have those shoes on his feet,

right now.

Faced with
the forensic evidence,

Daniel Tavares confessed.

He said he had given
Brian Mauck a tattoo

and that Brian owed him $50.

So he went over early
Saturday morning to get it.

- Is someone at the door?

- I'll check it out.
- He said it was early.

Brian was asleep and was

angry Tavares had awakened him.

- Hey, Daniel.

They argued.

Tavares snapped and shot Brian
[g*nsh*t

Three times in the head.

Beverly heard the
sh*ts and tried to escape.

[g*nsh*t

Tavares shot her three times.

Then dragged her
body next to her husband's.

When he went to the
bedroom to grab a sheet

to cover the bodies, he
may have left some blood

on the light switch
in the bedroom.

When he wiped it off, he left a
partial palm print on the door.

He must have been
steadying himself

as he cleaned the plate.

Over the next several
hours, Tavares

used a broom to get
rid of his shoe prints.

But when he stepped onto the
sheet covering the bodies,

his weight created a shoe
impression in the drying blood

on the floor under the sheet, a
shoe impression he wouldn't see

simply by looking at the
top side of the sheet.

Jennifer Tavares later admitted
she was at the crime scene

after the murders.

Jennifer also admitted
she and her husband later

threw the m*rder w*apon
into nearby Puget Sound.

What led up his decision

to k*ll Brian Mauck
remains a mystery.

Tavares claims that it
was because of an insult.

But I don't know
that I buy that.

In February
of 2008, Daniel Tavares

was sentenced to life in
prison without parole.

Jennifer Tavares, who claimed
she only helped her husband

with the cover-up because
she feared for her life,

got one year.

- I can't even
explain why I did it

because I wasn't able
to think straight.

At the time, I was scared
and worried about my family.

Tavares is so stupid

that he wore his same
shoe into his interview

at the police station
with a detective.

- You don't want to rely on
just one little bit of evidence

and, and discount
everything else.

Everything matters.

- This is the first case,
for me, that the rain

actually helped
out a little bit.

- We don't have a clear motive
as to why a m*rder happened.

And I don't think
we'll ever... we're

ever going to know in this case.