Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 8 - Cold Case Twist - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 1985, El Dorado, California-- a woman is discovered brutally murdered.
MELISSA O'CONNELL: This was a really horrible crime that happened to this woman.
And there was clear evidence she fought like hell to survive. Ultimately was stabbed and very violently killed.
NANCY GRACE: Investigators are shocked by the victim's condition. This was a devastating crime scene.
She had been stabbed 29 times. NANCY GRACE: Police hunt for the killer, but soon the investigation grinds to a halt.
They didn't have any evidence to charge anybody with this offense. So the case did go cold.
NANCY GRACE: Years later, a man's convicted of the murder, but later proven innocent.
He said, "I have been telling people since it happened that I didn't do it and no one believed me."
If he didn't do it, somebody else did. That's the bottom line. Jane Hylton was a victim of a horrific, violent murder.
And somebody killed her. And that was the next question to answer. This is the story of Jane Hylton's savage murder,
how the investigation goes wrong, and how groundbreaking forensic technology frees a man
wrongly convicted of murder. I'm Nancy Grace. And this is "Bloodline Detectives."
[THEME MUSIC] July 7, 1985, El Dorado Hills, California-- a bloody body discovered in the early morning hours.
Connie Dahl and Ricky Davis were boyfriend and girlfriend. They went to a party.
They came back late. When they came back late, they saw Jane Hylton's daughter outside of the house.
She was anxious about going into the house because her mother hadn't wanted her to go out
and she was afraid her mother would be angry with her. Ricky and Connie basically said, well,
you can tell your mom that you were out with us and come in the house with us. And so all three of them entered the home.
The three of them proceeded upstairs. Ricky and Connie showed autumn which room she was staying in, because it was her first night there.
They took her into that room. And when they exited the room, Ricky noticed smears of blood
on the wall in the hallway. He then noticed that his mom's master bedroom door was closed,
which he thought was odd, because his mom and her boyfriend had left that morning to go camping.
Ricky then opened the door, went to turn on the lights. LINDA STARK: Ultimately saw her stabbed body in the bedroom
where she was staying. He picked up a poker of some kind to arm himself, to be prepared in case he encountered
anybody while he was looking around to see what he could see. i didn't know if the person was still in the house.
I didn't know if-- I didn't know what to know. I didn't know what to think. So yes, I was scared.
MELISSA O'CONNELL: Connie screamed at the sight of the body. And Autumn then reacted to that scream and came in.
And then she herself became hysterical at the sight. Ricky told Connie to call 911.
Connie couldn't even get it out when she attempted to call 911. So Ricky had to get on the phone and report what had happened.
NANCY GRACE: 3:38 AM, the police arrive on the scene. What they find is horrifying.
MELISSA O'CONNELL: This was a devastating crime scene. Jane was found kind of laying on her side,
her knees kind of curled up. Her hands were stuck in a position up towards her chest.
She was gripping hairs at the time that they discovered her body. She had bruises to her face, her nose, a cut inside her lip.
She had been stabbed 29 times on her chest, her back. She also exhibited defensive wounds to her arms,
indicating how hard she fought her attacker at the time. She even had cuts on her hands.
The crime scene was mainly in the master bedroom. There were a lot of signs to indicate that she
had been attacked in there. There was blood spatter on a end table next to the bed.
There was blood spatter on the wall above where her head was. And there was blood on the floor and also on the bed
where Jane's body was found. LINDA STARK: Jane had broken a nail in the course of the struggle.
VERN PIERSON: The evidence at the scene, as well as the forensic evaluation, determined that this was
a horrific, violent struggle that she was in, that she fought for her life, it appeared to be for some period of time,
and ultimately was stabbed and very violently killed. This is a crucial time for local sheriffs.
They found a bloody victim dead, clearly her murder extremely violent. But what else can they learn?
Since they think the victim fought back and fought back hard, what else on the scene
could yield valuable clues? Law enforcement took a video of the crime scene. And there were crime scene investigators
who came in and started collecting evidence, assessing the body, collecting things from the body
that might have been helpful. They gathered her clothing. They found her broken fingernail which they gathered.
There was a lampshade that had been slashed by a knife. So presumably, whoever attacked Jane had also,
in the course of a struggle, slashed the lamp shade. What's amazing is this is back in 1985.
The idea of DNA profiling or connecting a piece of crime scene evidence to a particular individual,
that didn't hit the United States yet. In fact, it was going on in England at the time.
The fact that law enforcement still collected the evidence that they did based on the technology
available at the time really was critical. LINDA STARK: There was a spot of blood that was taken
at the front of the house. NANCY GRACE: Outside the house, detectives begin to question
people that live there. MELISSA O'CONNELL: They separated Ricky, Connie, and Autumn and talked to them
separate from each other. All three of them relatively told the same story. LINDA STARK: They had come home.
Autumn was waiting outside. They had gone in. They had found the body. And they had no idea what had happened.
MELISSA O'CONNELL: As Ricky and Connie were explaining where they were, they did note
things outside the crime scene. Ricky's car was actually parked up on a curb facing the wrong direction.
He had an odor of alcohol about him, a stale odor of alcohol. And they did touch the hood of his car.
And it was described to be warm. So all of those signs indicated that Connie and Ricky had
just come home from a party. Law enforcement that night, after talking to all three
of them, of course, they surveilled the entire home. And they discovered that Ricky had been
growing marijuana in the house. And so he was arrested that night for growing marijuana,
which was pretty significant because when he was brought into custody, as they typically do, they examine the body
and they note any scars, tattoos, and didn't note anything by way of injuries or anything
to suggest that he might have been involved in this crime. When I got to the county jail, they stripped me.
They looked for injuries, typical booking. They're trying to figure out who would commit such a crime.
And I think in many instances, the first thing, based on experience, that law enforcement looks at
is you try to look for connections in terms of who would do this? And in many cases, it would be somebody that she knows.
NANCY GRACE: The victim, Jane Hylton, is a well-known figure in the community. And police arrest Ricky Davis, who was present at the scene.
But can police link him to the murder? That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." July 1985, El Dorado County Sheriffs
investigating the gruesome murder of Jane Hylton, found stabbed dead. Jane died as a result of having suffered
several stabbing injuries. And she died as a result of blood loss. She was friendly with the grandmother of Ricky, which
is why she was staying there. She worked for my grandmother's real estate office.
Apparently she was scared to death of something. She wanted a safe place for her daughter and her to stay.
And my grandmother offered the house, said my mom's going to be away camping. NANCY GRACE: The autopsy on Jane's body
reveals the true horror of the attack. LINDA STARK: Jane had been stabbed something like 29 times.
So she was extensively wounded. And there was on her left shoulder a bite mark that all who were looking at it saw the bruising
and what looked like a breaking of the skin from what looked like a human bite mark.
They certainly would have looked for fingerprints. They would have looked for any blood analysis
that they might be able to do, either typing or DNA analysis. There was the possibility of DNA analysis,
but it was not very well developed. And very few agencies were able to use DNA analysis in 1985.
NANCY GRACE: Hoping to identify a suspect and a motive, investigators began interviewing those closest to Jane,
including her daughter, Autumn, and ex-husband, Archie. They immediately started thinking about her husband
from whom she had separated because of allegations of abuse. MELISSA O'CONNELL: Even Autumn had been asked at some point,
do you think Archie's capable of doing this? And she thought maybe. And so he seemed like a serious suspect to be considered.
He was arrested on suspicion of murder. And I believe his response was something like,
who is it I supposedly killed? NANCY GRACE: But after questioning Archie Hylton,
police are satisfied he did not kill his ex-wife. Archie did cooperate with the investigation
and provided blood samples and hair samples for comparison. He was ruled out as having contributed to whatever
was found at the scene. NANCY GRACE: After Mr. Hylton cleared of committing the crime, police receive
a call from Connie Dahl. So the day after Jane's murder, Ricky was still incarcerated for the marijuana.
And Connie was on the phone with Ricky. And while she was talking to him, she discovered that there were bloodstained
towels in the laundry basket. And I believe she was even sitting on one and realized there was bloodstains on them.
And she said to Ricky, what do we do with this. And as she reports it, Ricky said, call the police.
Give them that evidence. And so that's what Connie did. Connie called the investigators and said
I think you should come and pick up this additional evidence that might be related to Jane's murder.
I don't know that law enforcement knew who would be the next likely suspect except the people that were
in the house at the time, which is why I think they had considered Rickie at the time.
Ricky was given a polygraph. And polygraph examinations are not admissible in court
in California. But they are still a significant investigative tool for law enforcement, and certainly were back in 1985.
Ricky was asked direct questions, did you kill Jane Hylton, were you involved in Jane's murder,
to which he responded no. LINDA STARK: When they analyzed the results, they determined that he was being
truthful when he said he was not responsible for having done it. It was clear that he was being honest when,
to them, interpreting the polygraph, that he was not responsible. With Ricky Davis cleared on the polygraph, leads run out.
And the killer remains free. They didn't have any evidence to charge anybody with this offense, not Archie, not
Ricky, not Connie, not Autumn, and not anybody else unnamed so far. They didn't have anybody to hold responsible for this.
So the case did go cold. NANCY GRACE: More than a decade after Jane Hylton is murdered, El Dorado County detectives
reopen the cold case. They push the investigation as hard as they can to prove Ricky Davis is the prime suspect after all.
El Dorado County had two cold case detectives who had reopened Jane Hylton's murder case investigation.
And in examining the work done by the previous detectives, they decided that Ricky was the perpetrator.
LINDA STARK: They felt like the weak link, and I believe that's the word that they used,
the weak link in the case was Connie Dahl. They decided to go find her and talk to her
and see what she had to say now, 14 years later about what had happened that night.
MELISSA O'CONNELL: When the officers go and talk to Connie, she tells law enforcement that it
had been at least 11 years since she had heard from or talked to Ricky. And they said to her, we want to talk
to you about Jane's murder. And the first thing Connie says is, I can close my eyes today
and still see that crime scene. That's how traumatizing it was. And she then proceeded to tell law
enforcement almost verbatim what she told law enforcement back in 1985. And the two detectives said, that's not what happened.
They had decided that they thought Ricky was the perpetrator. And that was based on going back and listening
to an interrogation of Ricky that had been done in the '80s when they found the body, where they interpreted
something he said as implying that Jane had been on the floor. And when the body was found, it was found on the bed.
So they decided that that meant he had actually found her on the floor and dragged her
and put her up on the bed. MELISSA O'CONNELL: The reporter writes the statement in the local paper that said that Connie indicated that when
they found Jane's body, it was in a position, as if somebody placed her in the position in which she slept.
And law enforcement, firmly believing that the crime scene evidence indicated that Jane's body had been on the floor
and then placed on the bed, they saw that as their ticket. Connie knows something because she knows the body was moved.
And that was their way of demonstrating that Connie knew and Connie was involved.
And so they approached Connie not to genuinely get information from her, but to extract from her what they
thought had happened, which was that they wanted her to implicate Ricky. MELISSA O'CONNELL: They, in turn, even threatened her
in the sense of, look, this could be this misdemeanor type thing. Or you can go down for a felony accessory to murder.
They showed her crime scene photos and the crime scene video. When she had gaps in her knowledge
or was inconsistent with their theory of the case, they would either ignore it or they would correct it.
NANCY GRACE: Detectives cannot get Connie Dahl to change her story. Next, they visit Jane Hylton's daughter, Autumn,
and they pressure her for evidence that could incriminate Ricky Davis. MELISSA O'CONNELL: And they went to Autumn
and they say something incredibly cruel at the time, "We're surprised you're not you on the street somewhere
and using drugs," just not kind words to the family of the victim of this brutal murder.
LINDA STARK: They told her that there was DNA evidence, that she was going to be implicated.
They told her that they believed Ricky had done it and that Ricky was a scumbag and a dirtbag.
And she did not fall for it. Even though they said they had DNA evidence, Autumn continued to say, I don't know what you're talking about.
Why would I stand there and watch this person who I have no relationship with kill my mother?
I have no interest in doing that. I did not do that. That is not what happened. NANCY GRACE: Police continue to pressure
Connie Dahl over the next few years to try and get the answers they want. They told her that she was a mother
and she could potentially lose her children, that they didn't like the story that she was giving because it didn't really
felt like it made a lot of sense, which meant to them it didn't match what they thought the story was.
They suggested to her a narrative that really minimized her involvement in it. And eventually, she said something to the effect of OK,
you tell me exactly what happened, and that's what I'll say. NANCY GRACE: That was, then, the evidence that they needed,
which was that Connie was saying Ricky did it. And she was then offered a deal. MELISSA O'CONNELL: Connie was offered a deal
to plead to manslaughter for her participation because her story had indicated that she was the lookout,
that she was ordered by Ricky to sit out on the front steps to make sure no one came into the home.
And manslaughter had a potential sentence of 3, 6, or 11 years. And that's what was indicated to her,
you could face any one of these things. And that afternoon she pled to manslaughter.
NANCY GRACE: Ricky Davis goes on trial April 2005 in El Dorado County Superior court.
But a mistrial is declared to allow his defense attorney more time to prepare. On July 12, he goes on trial again.
And Connie Dahl takes the stand. MELISSA O'CONNELL: She testified against Ricky, told the jury
the story that had been created in her mind. What I thought was, wow, she really
believes what she's saying. I felt like she really believed what those detectives
convinced her of. The prosecution would present evidence in an effort to corroborate Connie, right?
They knew she was the linchpin. So they had to present any evidence that could potentially corroborate her.
And what they presented was there was a little drop of blood on the front step of the house.
There were several steps leading to the front porch. And then there was a smear of blood by the front doorbell.
And the forensic analysis of those two bloodstains indicated that it was Ricky's blood.
It was Ricky's house. And the defense attorney tried to explain that to the jury,
this was Ricky's house. The closest that a forensic expert could say that that blood could have been deposited
was one to two months before the murder. But there was testimony from one of the original detectives who
said he believed the blood was fresh, even though the DOJ said, I can't place it any closer than a month.
NANCY GRACE: August 2005, Ricky Davis sentenced to life behind bars. Ricky was convicted of second-degree murder
and an enhancement for using a knife, which is a one-year enhancement. So he was sentenced to 16 years to life in state prison.
Ricky went to prison. And after that, he was, of course, entitled to an appeal from his conviction.
His appeal raised a variety of issues about things that had happened at trial. The appellate court affirmed his conviction and sentence
and found that whatever had been raised did not mean that his conviction should be reversed.
NANCY GRACE: Ricky Davis swears he's innocent. And as we see next on "Bloodline Detectives,"
it will take his own determination, a dedicated new team, and the latest forensic technology
to prove him right. 2005, El Dorado California sheriffs charge and convict Ricky Davis for a horrific murder of 55-year-old Jane
Hilton July 1985. Now serving a life sentence, Davis maintains his innocence and fights for freedom.
I'd written over 1,100 letters to everybody you can imagine, every political figure, every law school or law professor.
And I received approximately 1% response. But 99% of the 1% all suggested the Northern
California Innocence Project. LINDA STARK: Mr. Davis wrote to us and said that he was innocent, he had been convicted
of something that he had not done, and he would like our help in trying to demonstrate
that and obtain his freedom. MELISSA O'CONNELL: Every letter that Ricky had written me for almost a decade
always said, "I am innocent." And at that time, though, he didn't know what new evidence
would exist that could support his innocence, because he had presented this alibi defense, they had attacked
the credibility of Connie Dahl. They didn't know what forensics could be tested at this point.
We then opened the case and began our investigation. Ricky Davis has a new legal aid defense team.
Their first move? To convince the court the evidence from his original murder trial should be tested again.
It's a legal fight they win. RICKY DAVIS: It was a bloody, messy crime scene. And there was all kinds of physical evidence
that could potentially have been and currently be DNA tested, and that that evidence could, in fact, provide more information
about the crime scene. MELISSA O'CONNELL: So the first thing we did was contacted the Sheriff's Department to find out what
evidence do you still have? And they had everything. In all of Connie Dahl's interrogations,
there was only one piece of physical evidence that could corroborate her. And that she said, "I bit Jane during the attack."
And that's what we focused on. So we approached it with the DA and said, look, if that bite mark comes back to Connie Dahl,
we're done. That's it. But if it doesn't come back to Connie Dahl, then that is strong evidence that Ricky and Connie were
not involved in this murder. LINDA STARK: And so they took the evidence that needed
to be tested to that crime lab. And there was a crime analyst there named Angel Shaw.
And she very carefully and meticulously examined all the evidence, and in particular
looked at the nightgown. When you have a criminalist, particularly one that's a DNA criminalist, they're going to map that piece of evidence
out. They're going to look really inch-by-inch, perhaps grid-by-grid, and start looking, whether it's using
various different light sources, taking cuttings from that item, looking to see if there's any trace evidence,
looking to see if there's any bodily fluids, and then from there making a determination of is there
a potential here of some DNA? MELISSA O'CONNELL: She does what's called an amylase overlay, and amylase being an enzyme that's
found in high concentrations in saliva and some other bodily fluids. Amylase eats up starch.
And it then clears. It forms this white clearing wherever it is. And she did this on various parts of the nightgown,
the entire upper quadrants of the nightgown, because that's where Jane would have been bit through.
We all watched the crime scene video together and tried to identify pieces of evidence
that the lab should test next. And we landed on several items that could be tested now.
And the fingernail scrapings from under Jane's left and right hand fingernails was significant again.
NANCY GRACE: Ricky Davis's defense team has the evidence from his first murder trial
and conviction tested again. They hope to prove their client's innocence. When that evidence is analyzed, the results
prove far more surprising than anyone could ever expect, next on "Bloodline Detectives."
2005, an El Dorado California jury convicts Ricky Davis for the brutal murder a 55-year-old Jane
Hylton 20 years earlier. MELISSA O'CONNELL: She found clearing in two locations, opposite shoulders, opposite sides.
And DNA tested them and found Jane's DNA on one side and on the other side found a mixture
of Jane's DNA and an unknown male DNA profile. LINDA STARK: So Angel took swabs from the fingernail,
tested those swabs, and also found an unknown male profile. And that profile, in fact, was the same profile
that matched the profile she found at the point of the bite mark. So we now have redundant DNA.
We have DNA at the bite mark, DNA at the fingernail, the fingernail scraping, which was not Ricky and not Connie,
as she claimed she was the one that bit. No, her DNA doesn't show up there, not Autumn,
but an unknown male profile at both the place where she'd been bitten and under the fingernails.
When we got those results back, we were like, Ricky is innocent. Ricky and Connie were not involved in this crime.
Connie's testimony was completely false. I mean, we saw the red flags in Connie's interrogations.
But you don't know until you know, right? We felt, wow, how does that unknown male DNA profile happen
to get in the area where there's amylase clearing and it's right where she was bit during the attack on her life?
That's the genetic profile of the killer. And it's not Ricky. NANCY GRACE: Ricky Davis's lawyers
push the district attorney to exonerate their client. We were at this point interested
in getting the district attorney to perhaps agree with us that what we already had was enough to say
Ricky did not do this crime. That is very interesting, but it doesn't necessarily
prove that Ricky didn't do it. In other words, Ricky could have committed this murder with somebody else.
MELISSA O'CONNELL: Is there a way that this DNA could have innocently been transferred there?
And so they had concerns about that. Is this really from the crime? And so then what we decided was, well, then
let's get the name of any person that would have come in contact with her body or the evidence
and let's test their DNA. And with the assistance of the DA's office, that's what they did.
They went. We would provide names of any law enforcement officer that we can link to a police report,
if they were mentioned with touching the body, handling the body, the handling the items of evidence.
We gave those names. They obtained a sample from them to compare to the profile.
All of them were eliminated. LINDA STARK: We went to the elected DA of El Dorado County
and presented to him the many reasons why we thought the case needed to be reversed
and that Ricky was innocent. And he expressed concern about the conviction, but remained troubled by the fact
that there was still no identification of who that profile belonged to. And so we then filed a petition challenging
his conviction in court. And we were then going to have to litigate this in El Dorado County Superior Court.
We wrote a habeas petition. And we said, look, the DNA results demonstrate not only
that Connie's testimony was false, which is a legal claim for a habeas petition,
but it also demonstrates Ricky's actually innocent, which I'm not using that in lay terms.
I'm using that in legal terms. We have evidence that suggests that he is actually innocent.
And we filed a habeas stating all of this and asking that his conviction be reversed.
The evidence is stacking up to prove Ricky Davis is innocent. But the question remains, if he didn't do it,
who did murder Jane Hylton one early morning 1985? Can investigators use the same evidence
that could exonerate Ricky Davis to identify her real killer? The question then posed to us, you have Ricky
Davis not on the nightgown. But the question then became, well, who does it belong to?
Is it somebody that Ricky knows? Is it somebody that is completely foreign to him?
So Vern Pierson and I had a number of conversations about, well, we have an obligation.
And we now have this new tool. I mean, remember, this is not long after the Golden State
Killer. So we knew. We knew the power of the technology. And I was like, absolutely.
Why would we not take this next step? Because if he didn't do it, somebody else did.
That's the bottom line. Jane Hylton was a victim of a horrific violent murder. And somebody killed her.
And that was the next question to answer. The profile was uploaded into CODIS and there were no hits.
NANCY GRACE: A CODIS search turns up nothing. So the DNA sample was sent for genealogy testing, utilizing
a new forensic technique. You take that evidence. You send it out to a private laboratory.
And you have them develop this highly-sophisticated, what we call a SNP profile.
And then from there, you use those genealogy sites and you upload it. And you see if you have any potential relatives.
And that's where the science and the investigative aspect becomes a marriage, because you can't do one without the other.
You have to have the science and you have to have the investigative tools to build the trees,
to figure out who it potentially belongs to. Do investigators have forensic evidence that could free
one man and implicate another? We'll see the amazing outcome next on "Bloodline Detectives."
2019, a forensic scientist presents evidence she uncovers to exonerate Ricky Davis in the brutal murder
of Jane Hylton in El Dorado Hills, California, 1985. She went through the entire process of what she did.
I mean, the court, I remember, even saying-- it was the Honorable Judge Kenneth Melikian who presided
over these proceedings. And I remember him saying at the end of the evidentiary hearing,
"I learned a lot more about DNA today than I had ever done," right? She was telling him what the evidence showed her.
She wasn't making conclusions. She wasn't saying this is the profile of the perpetrator.
That was our job. But she was talking the science. And once we had that evidentiary hearing,
we then had some additional oral arguments. And then in 2019, the court issued a written opinion
reversing the conviction, finding that the DNA evidence met the new standard for newly-discovered evidence.
NANCY GRACE: Even though the forensic science used cannot name the perpetrator, they pushed
for Ricky Davis to be released. So we couldn't identify that person. But our position was always that was enough.
We gave you the genetic identity of the true perpetrator. We shouldn't have to give you a name.
That should be enough. It should be enough that you know that Ricky didn't do this.
But the state was going to retry Ricky. And what we learned subsequently, and we didn't know this at the time,
but they were pursuing genetic genealogy investigation to try to identify the source of that profile.
LINDA STARK: They found that there was another person who was, in fact, responsible for this murder,
and that that was not Ricky. It was completely unexpected. We had no idea that it was going to happen.
It just came out of the blue. It was quite remarkable. NANCY GRACE: The court grants Ricky
Davis freedom, his years in prison finally coming to an end. I got a call from the El Dorado County District
Attorney, Vern Pierson, and he said, can you get to court in a day? We're doing a press conference.
We're letting Ricky out. We were able to link the DNA to a person. First thing he said to me is, "Ricky, we apologize.
We know you're innocent. We're planning on releasing you." And it was good to hear from that side finally.
They handed us a statement declaring Ricky factually innocent. And then he came up the stairs.
And all you saw were all of these family members just rush him and just embrace them and with balloons.
And, I mean, he's got this cart he's pushing. And they just tackle him and hug him
and just can't believe they'd get to hug him after all these years. And he just wanted some good pizza.
And we went to this really amazing, cute restaurant in El Dorado County. And, I mean, I'm always amazed by our client's ability
to pivot in that moment. This is such a significant moment in their lives. And he came out and went and joined everyone for pizza
and sat down and talked to everyone who was sitting there, thanked any student who had ever touched his case,
sat there and shared dessert with his mom. And he'd been wrongly incarcerated for 15 years.
And when we went outside and we were talking to reporters, he had this moment where he just kept looking around.
And he's like, look how beautiful this is. NANCY GRACE: After being behind bars so long,
Ricky Davis adjusting to freedom. At that point, I felt like, OK, I'm starting another chapter in this book, part of my life.
And let's turn the page. LINDA STARK: Rickie now has been exonerated, but he lost a huge chunk of his life.
And he has to rebuild. And that's not easy. NANCY GRACE: Today, investigators believe they have
identified the real killer. But as we present this episode, he is still awaiting trial.
His identity cannot be disclosed. Despite evading police for so long, this case proves you can't run from bloodline detectives and
the power of genetic genealogy. LINDA STARK: DNA was everything to this case. It was the DNA that showed that it wasn't Ricky.
It was the DNA that showed that Connie was lying. I think it was a significant thing,
they said the first in the world to be exonerated through genealogy. I like that, because I feel that the prosecutor uses genealogy
as a tool for their side, but yet we've never had the opportunity until now. Hopefully I set a precedence.
Justice does not always work without flaws, without mistakes. Sometimes there's a desperate search for answers
at the expense of someone else. In the end, justice strives for truth to prevail.
In this case, justice does finally prevail for Ricky Davis, despite 16 long years behind bars,
years he will never get back. The future might be different for the next Ricky Davis.
As forensic science continues to make incredible advances, it also reduces the chances that an innocent person
like Ricky Davis will ever be found guilty. I'm Nancy Grace. Thanks for being with us for "Bloodline Detectives."
[THEME MUSIC]

A woman out for a walk is attacked and sexually assaulted by an unknown assailant. 14 years later, police trace a family tree using genetic genealogy and find the rapist.

A compelling new True Crime series, hosted by preeminent legal analyst and renowned former prosecutor Nancy Grace, that explores the advanced form of familial DNA testing.

Brief Summary

Ricky Davis is exonerated after wrongful conviction for Jane Hylton's murder using DNA evidence and forensic technology.

Key points

The Murder of Jane Hylton. In 1985, Jane Hylton was brutally murdered, sparking a complex investigation.
Cold Case Reopened. More than a decade later, detectives reopen Jane Hylton's cold case.
Ricky Davis Convicted. Ricky Davis is convicted of Jane Hylton's murder but maintains his innocence.
Ricky Davis Exonerated. After 16 years, DNA evidence proves Ricky Davis's innocence in Jane Hylton's murder.
The Power of DNA. DNA evidence reveals the truth behind the murder and Connie's false testimony.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I have been telling people since it happened that I didn't do it.

Ricky Davis claiming his innocence after being convicted.

1:05WatchJun 1, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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