Forensic Files (HD) - Season 13, Episode 10 - Window Watcher - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] up next the peeping tom goes one step further and commits an unspeakable crime the scenario here
thankfully is not a scenario we see very often this was someone that was an avid window peeper and been
there before for 20 years he eludes police and even returns to the crime scene the kitchen is the brawl the guy had
made his way back to the scene to relive it eventually he goes one step too far it's one of those aha moments
that you get we assumed it would be a you know 14 year old kid [Music] on a stifling hot night in oklahoma
gary elwood went to bed early [Music] his girlfriend janet haynes stayed up for a while
and went to bed later [Music] just after midnight they heard a noise coming from the living room
gary went to investigate she heard him scream for help she heard noises she heard sounds of a struggle
this of course brought her to fully awake almost instantaneously janet ran to help but without her
glasses couldn't see clearly she was able to tell us that he was wearing gloves and
had underwear on the assailant chased janet back into the bedroom where she was assaulted
he would try over the course of that attack to knock her unconscious to to suffocate her to a point where she
would lose consciousness she ben can say you don't have to kill me he says yes i do
and i think pretty much she managed to just talk him out of that possibility after several hours the attacker left
that's when janet discovered gary's lifeless body now in a state of shock she managed to
call police she was asking me is he dead is he dead i know he's dead he's dead gary elwood had been stabbed
to death police found his body near the front door he was only 27 years old gary was
evidently surprised in the dining area of the house which was in the front i noticed a crack in the sheet rock on
the wall that was obviously done by the force of being driven into the wall it was almost an outline of his body
where he crashed into the wall gary was divorced a successful businessman with no
known enemies he was a first class guy smart intelligent knew exactly where he was going the
things that were important in life cared a lot about people gary and janet had been dating for only a short time
so she didn't know whether gary knew his killer her eyesight had some limitations and
the darkness of the room contributed a great deal to that even though she'd spent a significant amount
of time with him in the room she said the attacker was in his early twenties had blonde hair
was just under six feet tall and had a scraggly beard police across oklahoma were looking for a man
who fit this description but some members of the police department began to question janet's story
we always questioned how a guy that may be carrying his clothes and stripped down his underwear carrying
a knife and blood all over him you know where is he going to go and how is he going to get away without somebody
noticing that first on the scene to a gruesome murder i found out that gary had been
murdered as we were watching the evening news they would ask me is there any possibility that gary was
involved with drugs the answer is absolutely no gary elwood was brutally murdered by
someone who broke into his home in the middle of the night but the motive didn't appear to be robbery
nothing of value was missing and the victim's girlfriend janet haynes survived the attack
what i found fascinating about that was the fact he did not resort to physical violence toward the victim
he was simply trying to subdue her he didn't beat her he didn't use profanity toward her he
didn't attempt to stab her even though he could have very easily done that investigators started to question
whether janet haynes might have known the perpetrator or perhaps the perpetrator knew
her we thought it was possible it could have been an ex-boyfriend or at least someone who had
either trying to date her or something like that it's almost like he's trying to remove
the object between him and the girl yet another unusual detail was janet's description of the killer
she said he was wearing only his underwear and a pair of gloves it just didn't ring
right to any of us we really wanted to just verify that she was being up and up with
us so janet was given two extensive polygraph examinations and she passed both times police look
for evidence to corroborate janet's story at the time luminol was just becoming available so
investigators decided to try it their reaction was woo because they were amazed at what it was revealing at that
time and from that scene it got the nickname locally here wu juice because it was such a weird feeling to be
watching what's going on and we realized what great potential this luminol has the luminol was further
proof that everything janet told investigators was true all sudden you start seeing
footprints appearing in the dark it's almost like you're walking in the footsteps of the person
and the hair stands up on the back of your neck because at that moment you're seeing the actual direction that
this assailant had walked and investigators found other evidence to corroborate janet's story
the screen in the dining room window had been cut the likely point of entry under the master bedroom window in the
soft dirt were some bare footprints from an individual with a size 11 foot and investigators discovered
a faint fabric impression in the dirt underneath the window it's a pretty good detective work i
think if you you could tell that they see a buttocks imprint on the ground beneath the window it looked as
though that person had spent quite a lot of time under that window from that window the killer had a clear
sight line into the bathroom janet told investigators she took a shower before she went
to bed to investigators this told a story perpetrator in this particular case was a window peeper
window peepers looked for victims of opportunity and once he discovered that there was in
fact a woman inside that residence that's where he decided to commit his crime that
particular night because the killer entered the house wearing only his underwear and a pair of gloves fbi
profilers believed his target was janet not gary and he must have believed she was alone it was our opinion that
the target in this crime the primary target in this crime was janet he wanted to rape her that's
the reason the primary motive for entering that residence to begin with hazelwood believes the perpetrator had
never killed before in this particular case we felt it was panic stabbing he had not expected to encounter gary at
that particular point the fbi created an entire profile of the person they believe
perpetrated this crime we estimated his age to be between i believe 22 and 27. his education we said he had graduated
from high school he lived within walking distance of where the crime had been committed
hazelwood predicted that the killer would be so traumatized that his weight would fluctuate and he
would look for a legitimate reason to leave the area this was a frightening experience for this
person because in our opinion he'd never killed before and that he and he did not intend to
kill when he went into that residence but if the killer had left town how would police find him
police believed that gary elwood's killer was someone who lived near the crime scene was a
window peeper in his early to mid-20s and would leave the area after the crime inside the crime scene
investigators found some foot impressions in blood one had plenty of ridge detail your feet
and your hands have unique fingerprints the dermal patterns on your feet are unique to you
just as your fingerprints are unique to you on your hands all police needed now was a suspect i went from door to door
have you lived here how long have you lived here who you know in the neighborhood
who you associate with the neighborhood they found one promising lead 18 year old bill
winters who lived two blocks away from the crime scene his parents had moved out of state and
left him alone in that house he wasn't a big guy he would have been just the right size to
get through the hole in the screen as the profile predicted shortly after the murder
winters left town to live with his parents in missouri during police questioning winters denied
any involvement in gary elwood's murder and willingly provided a print of his right foot
it did not match the bloody print found in the victim's home i was extremely frustrated not only is
all the weight on your shoulders because this is your unsolved case but it also weighs on the police department
too it's just something that you can't afford to let go of three years passed then an inmate at the
local jail contacted police about his former roommate bob johnson someone who came forward and
claimed that their roommate at that time in 86 johnson had come home bloodied and said
that he had killed somebody johnson's mug shot looked remarkably like the composite drawing of the
suspect he didn't fit the fbi profile but his background made him a likely suspect
his ex-wife told the investigators that mr johnson had a significant drug problem and he
was conducting those burglaries to help support that habit janet haynes identified johnson in a
photo lineup she put the finger on johnson so i'm sure at that point edmund investigators
clearly thought they had their man by this time dna testing was standard practice
so johnson's dna was compared to semen from janet haynes rape test kit and his footprints were compared to the
bloody footprints at the crime scene it was just a matter of days that we got those results back
and conclusively excluded him as a suspect of this homicide he it was not his footprint
it was not his dna type that was left behind the case went cold again investigators never gave up but they
were running out of ideas three years later on a hunch they revisited the scene of the crime
not even sure what they were looking for we go back into the house and we're just
looking around because it sat there for several years vacant was there anything they missed
something they hadn't thought of and then they found a potential clue right on the
floor in the kitchen area is the bra it didn't look new but it wasn't there the last time
they were inside the home shortly after the murder was it possible that this belonged to janet haynes
i verified the bra belonged to her one of the things that is characteristic of a lot of rapists is that they will
take a trophy and one of the the trophies that we felt that he took during time was the
female's bra so i believe that the guy had made his way back to the scene to relive
it but if the killer had been back in the neighborhood it might have been only for a visit this
guy had some direct ties to the neighborhood somehow some way either relatives in the
neighborhood or he had lived there over the next 18 years police checked dozens of
suspects from seven different states none panned out then in the spring of 2004 tv viewers in edmond oklahoma
saw this story scott eggleston says he knew someone had been watching his family for months
even taking photos through a crack in the blinds we assumed it would be a you know 14 year old kid but it wasn't a
kid it was a grown man the father came around the house and found a suspect dressed completely in black
he had arranged an outfit that was like a turtleneck where he could pull it up over his face and he'd
just cut out holes for his eyes and a hole for his mouth so he could breathe and the man was barefoot
i've got a little adrenaline rush and i said where are we i came straight back to the station
pulled out a map and realized that i was directly straight across where gary had been killed almost 18 years ago
was this the man who killed gary elwood and sexually assaulted janet haynes almost
20 years earlier pulled up his turtleneck to cover his face just started walking when police
arrested 40-year-old jonathan graham for peeping into the window of a teenaged girl
they suspected he was more than just a voyeur in his possession were items for a more
violent crime a bag was found with several different kinds of knives three pair of handcuffs flecks
cuffs condoms sex lubricants sex toys lock picking tool bandana black clothing which in our business
that's a rape kit police now suspected graham was responsible for the murder of gary elwood
and the sexual assault of janet haynes crimes that occurred 18 years earlier in the very same neighborhood
at the time of gary elwood's murder graham was living with his parents just a couple of blocks from elwood's home
and that's where he was living now after a brief stint in the army with a warrant police searched graham's
home on his computer they found child pornography and pictures of women he'd secretly photographed
investigators took an inked print of graham's feet i remember i was just sitting there
thinking about that just just yeah oh i hope this one works out analyst jim stokes searched for
corresponding ridge detail on the crime scene footprint and the one taken from jonathan graham i was able to
isolate an area on the outside of the foot that being it was a right foot impression so it would be the right side
of the foot about midway down stokes called investigators with the news i was really quite surprised and excited
yeah that was a pretty cool day there was a lot of cheering on the phone so i still remember the scream in my ear
finally graham's dna profile matched the biological sample from janet haynes rape test kit
it was like the weight of the world being lifted off your shoulders it was just you can't describe it the fbi profile
had been remarkably accurate in predicting the perpetrator's age education and where he lived
graham also admitted he lost weight after the murder and joined the army where he worked
in military intelligence after he was discharged he returned to oklahoma i guess that was
his best situation to move back into an area that he was familiar with the same old neighborhood
that he once lived in you know a decade plus ago but why would graham return to the same
neighborhood where he killed gary elwood decades earlier and commit the same crime
of window peeping knowing that if he got caught he'd immediately be a suspect in
elwood's murder and the answer is simply that he was a window peeper and he was driven to commit those types of crimes
that's what was exciting to him and i believe that he felt he would not be caught why because he was so proficient
at what he had been doing over all those years prosecutors believe that graham stood
outside gary elwood's home on the night of the crime and watched while janet haynes took a
shower [Music] graham thought janet was there alone since he couldn't see gary from his vantage point
after janet went to bed prosecutors think graham removed his clothes and shoes outside
then entered the house by cutting the window screen he made enough noise that he woke gary
who went to investigate the two fought then graham stabbed gary to death and for the next few hours terrorized
janet graham left clear footprints in gary's blood which later tied him to the scene along
with the dna evidence facing a possible death sentence jonathan graham pled guilty to
first-degree murder and rape i don't remember much of the incident other than i pushed him against the
one of the walls and i i didn't see it until i was told last year i didn't know how many times i
had stabbed him graham had no way of knowing that 20 years later technology would eventually catch up
with him the forensic science behind this investigation is what sealed jonathan graham's guilt
even without ever stepping a foot in court over my career i've seen some amazing things and
that coupled with good detective work there's just no end to what we can do we here in
science in forensics we're here for the truth we're not here for the prosecution we're
not here for the defense we're here for the truth he will spend the rest of his life in
the state penitentiary

In 1986, Gary Dale Larson was stabbed to death in his Edmond, Oklahoma home and then the killer sexually assaulted Larson's girlfriend Janet Haynes.

Brief Summary

Gary Elwood was murdered, and Jonathan Graham was later convicted through DNA evidence.

Key points

The Brutal Murder of Gary Elwood. Gary Elwood was brutally murdered in his home, shocking the community.
DNA Evidence Leads to Arrest. After years of investigation, DNA evidence finally linked Jonathan Graham to the crime.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You don’t have to kill me, he says yes I do.

Janet's desperate plea during the attack.

1:50WatchMar 5, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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