Forensic Files (HD) - Season 13, Episode 16 - Unmasked - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] up next a predator terrorizes a texas town i said i have family i have a son just
please don't rape me he started to choke me i couldn't breathe i was just gasping
for air until he finally stopped no one knew what he'd do next we had a huge problem
that this guy wasn't going to stop when police find him the dna evidence exonerates him he was
smart enough to outwit the investigators i knew he he was just evil and i never knew that there was evil
people on this earth like that [Music] it was 9 p.m in texas city texas and 19 year old stevie green was waiting
for a friend to drive her home from work but the friend never showed up i'm in a ticked off mood because he left me
hanging christmas was coming around the corner i've thought about taking a taxi but
then i was like no i want to save the money so we can have a better christmas so stevie
decided to walk home which was about a mile away suddenly she heard someone running up
behind her the footsteps just stopped the knife was in my back i didn't want to die i was willing to do
anything that this man was gonna ask me to do he said he'd stab her if she didn't
take off her clothes as he raped me i just kept thinking in my head saying the lord's prayer the more i said
it the more angry he got afterwards still holding the knife he told her to get up they told me to
turn around and have my back to him and when i stood up something in me just told me to run and
i grabbed my shoe and i booked into the middle of the street screaming at the top of my lungs
stevie was traumatized in shock but lucky to be alive it was very difficult for stevie to look
at him and get a good description other than some general build general height and things of that
nature the whole time he kept telling me don't look at my face don't look at my face
stevie described her assailant as an african-american wearing a hooded sweatshirt
that concealed his face but nothing more it was somewhat shocking that it did happen at 9 15
at night walking home on a street that i've walked my kids have walked and i would trust them to this day to
walk down that street no clues to the rapist identity were left at the scene however a rape test kit produced his dna
profile unfortunately that dna profile did not match any of the dna profiles in the
statewide database of known criminal offenders police checked files for known sexual
offenders living near the crime scene one stood out kenneth ray johnson had just moved to
texas city after serving 25 years for rape he was really a good suspect because he was new to the area
he didn't want to cooperate at first but then he did he had several alibis if i'm not mistaken
johnson denied any involvement since he was on parole he was wearing an ankle bracelet that tracked his movement
using gps technology it showed johnson was at home at the time of the rape and his dna did not match the dna of the
rapist he was not in the location on the date where stevie green was sexually assaulted
i never questioned that he would be found i knew that he was going to pay for what he did one way or another
but would he be caught before he could strike again with no one in custody for stevie
green's rape investigators feared he would strike again as the investigation went into the fifth
week and we heard nothing more about any suspects being arrested or charged or identified
it became an idea that maybe this was going to be an unsolved crime then five weeks later fifteen-year-old
vanessa rocha and her sixteen-year-old boyfriend were in a secluded area of goddard park in downtown texas city
we went out there on many occasions and never had anything to worry about a man walked rapidly toward the young
couple we looked up and we saw a man standing there with a devil mask on with a gun
he told my boyfriend to turn not to look at him the man held a gun to vanessa's boyfriend and ordered her
to undress he was calling me every name in the book cussing me out calling me a [ __ ] you know a [ __ ] just
whatever i was making him mad because i kept opening my eyes at one point he started to choke me i
couldn't breathe i was just gasping for air until he finally stopped after the sexual assault he told
vanessa's boyfriend to remove all of his clothes i was terrified i really thought he was going to kill us
i don't even know how to explain it you can't explain something like that he demanded the keys to the couple's car
then made his getaway and he told us not to get up until we heard him start the car
unfortunately because of the mask neither of the teenagers was able to provide a detailed description
he was covered up from head to toe what caught my attention was his mask that he
was wearing it was the devil when we're teenagers we don't think anything's gonna happen to
us until it happens the assault was similar to the stevie green case except vanessa roach's case was more brazen
i have never read about or talked to anyone that had worked a case where two people were abducted and
totally controlled stripped down in front of each other with a girl being sexually assaulted
it very seldom do you have an attack take place with a witness present attackers in most sexual assaults don't
want any other witnesses a rape test kit collected biological evidence and the result showed it was the same
perpetrator in both cases the next morning investigators found the teenager's car
just a few blocks from where vanessa was assaulted we realized he didn't keep the car long
and at that point we really started focusing in that he did live in that area and
that was his area of comfort where he was acting from just to give him an easy route to get
home wherever that was unfortunately police found no foreign fingerprints or other trace evidence
inside the car the very next night two women were walking home from a nightclub around 2
a.m when they were approached by a masked man brandishing a pistol they were both abducted at gunpoint he
took them to a secluded area behind the school in like a little cul-de-sac one suspect taking
two into control and totally humiliating one in front of the other he sexually assaulted one of the women
but not the other again a brutal sexual assault took place very brazen very cocky in the presence
of the witness who was there again a very angry very demeaning a very control freak
type of activity that took place both women described a young black male all they could see was his eyes and
mouth but they noticed something distinctive the assailant had a gold front tooth police
finally had something besides his dna profile that might identify him in the oil refinery town of texas city
texas three rapes within five weeks of each other had some striking similarities
the rapist used masks or clothing to cover his face it appeared he didn't know any of his victims before he attacked
them his rapes all happened within a radius of two miles and most alarming the crime showed an unmistakable
arrogance it indicates a very strong-willed angry cocky arrogant individual who wants to play games with the police
thinks he's better than the system and can beat the system and it's a it's a game for him
a dna test was conducted on rape kits from every similar crime i was able to look
at these three cases and say yes this was the same person that was in the sperm fraction of all these extractions
police had a serial rapist on their hands and worried about what he would do next
we were all concerned about the escalation of these offenses oftentimes a serial rapist will turn
into a serial killer or injure their victims much more severely than he was injuring his
victims so we were very concerned about it the only clue to the rapist identity was a description by a witness that he
had a gold front tooth investigators scoured files for people in the area who fit
this description and one did chad price a 29 year old construction worker chad price was a father married seemed
to be actively participating with his wife and children in different things in the community
he had developed a reputation in the community of being just that bold taunting in your face catch me if you
can type a guy price had never been arrested but had been a suspect in a series of robberies
a year earlier the robberies were unique because the perpetrator would call reporters to
brag about his crimes sometimes he would call and say he was going to rob a building
and sometimes he would call and threaten the lives of the reporters during one particular attack actually
called the police department and started telling them that he was watching them actually investigate the crime the
audacity of the robberies mirrored the audacity of the rapes police brought chad in for questioning
we didn't felt we had enough to get a search warrant for his dna for his blood and that he understood
that name there was nothing concrete to connect him to any of the sexual assaults and he basically denied
everything price also refused to provide his dna detective getchas wanted to get price's
dna legally without him knowing it i have learned from tv shows like forensic files that
you can't obtain a dna sample from a coke can or cigarette butt and it's lawfully
obtained during chad price's interrogation detective getchas offered him a can of soda
we got through with the interview chad he had not finished the mountain dew i had an empty trash liner
in the trash can new and he was going to throw it out i said no don't spill it don't get it
all over there leak out investigators knew they had to drain the soda by making a hole
in the bottom of the can that's probably the best thing to do is to go ahead and
drain the can so that there's no chance that anything that spills out of that can
could possibly affect that dna that's on the mouth of the can then dna testing could begin
the very next day before the dna results were in there was another rape 10 miles away
a 17 year old girl and her 22 year old boyfriend were parked at the dickinson bio boat ramp when they
encountered trouble two people were present girlfriend and a boyfriend and out of nowhere came the assailant
opened the door produced a gun had him removed from the pickup truck and then the terror began
the man sexually assaulted the girl at gunpoint while her boyfriend stood by helplessly
he picked the perfect people just a couple young kids out there uh making out in a desolate area
investigators were convinced this was the work of chad price at the dna lab christie wimsat swabbed
the opening of the mountain dew can with a sterile swab i'm looking for a transfer of saliva or
skin cells from the mouth onto the opening of the can a dna profile was produced
and it matched the dna from all of the rape cases i called texas city police department to let them know that
this was the guy the guy that drank out of this can was the guy that was committing these rapes in that area
on september 12 2000 chad price was arrested and charged with the crimes they cut a
search warrant for a storage shed where price had items they found a duffel bag and in the
duffel bag they found some tremendous evidence that supported all the other evidence in the case
including the dna everything from ski masks to the halloween mask of a devil to a gun when i learned that the dna
test came back that it was him i was excited i was just i was happy i i couldn't wait to come to court to
testify despite the evidence price continued to deny any involvement and he insisted that the
dna test on the soda can was falsified he told me that he was not the rapist that the mountain dew can never touched
his lips so therefore they the police did not have his dna and that he was going to be required to take
another blood sample and that when the results of that blood sample were made available it would show
that it was his dna was not at any of the crime scenes in a shocking development chad price
turned out to be right when price was arrested a sample of his blood was collected and
sent to an independent lab for dna testing this time his dna did not match the biological evidence from the victims
i was in disbelief i couldn't believe that we had the wrong person and that all the testing we had done had
been wrong and i wanted to if it wasn't him let's get him out of jail no matter what i thought of him but what
went wrong investigators were determined to find out a dna test conducted by texas law
enforcement indicated chad price was the serial rapist terrorizing texas city texas but his defense
attorney insisted on an independent dna test and when a private lab performed their
test it showed chad price wasn't the rapist i was mortified i was immediately short of breath just trying
to remember what i had done in the case trying to figure out you know what did i do what was switch
what was different prosecutors couldn't believe they had the wrong man the blood sample for the independent lab
had been drawn from price while he was in custody at the galveston county jail a
technician went into the prison checked his identification took his blood then wrote the inmate's name on the vial
containing his blood when samples are taken there is a fingerprint that goes with
the vial of the sample of blood the individual who gave this blood obviously put their fingerprint on this
file so prison officials compared the print on chad price's blood vial to chad price's fingerprint
the expert said that's not chad price's fingerprint on the vial great the next step
whose fingerprint is it the unknown print was run through aphis or the automated
fingerprint identification system and there was a hit the print belonged to 36 year old
derrick perry derek perry was another inmate being detained or held in the galveston county jail on unrelated
charges he was also a not a cell mate but he was in the same pod as chad price and in each pod there must be 50 or 60
inmates two jailhouse informants told prison officials how chad price switched the dna sandals
they admitted to me that they witnessed and have personal knowledge of the conspiracy between
chad price and derek perry to switch armbands for the blood sample chad price had a mindset of someone who really
believed he was smarter than everyone else he had a real sense of power he had a
sense that he could control situations i don't know where that comes from the medical staff
does not look at faces they don't know chad price from derrick perry they call the name chad price instead of
chad price standing up and walking forward to get blood it was derek perry who came forward
another dna test confirmed what investigators had long suspected the dna from their rape cases
was from chad price he was just as brazen in the rapes as he was in his attempt to get away with them
i think chad price believes he can beat anything the system will give him and that that he is smarter than we are
and and just anything is the limit for him you actually had a criminal who thought
he was smart enough to outwit the investigators and play this game with his own dna
on may 24 2001 a jury took just two hours to find chad price guilty of aggravated rape
kidnapping and robbery for the attack on stevie green he was indicted on the other rapes and
the jury was informed of his involvement during the penalty phase they sentenced price
to life in prison plus 60 years he got a life sentence and i found that to be surprising
because i really i really thought he would he might get the death penalty i was just
ecstatic uh knowing that he was going to be there just for life i mean there's no that i can't
even explain the way i felt you know just i don't have to see this man i have to
worry about this man ever coming for me i'd love for him to admit it that was the only thing out of the whole trial
that i think that's why i felt so robbed was because i wanted him to admit it i wanted him to say yes
i did this derek perry who was due to be released from prison the day after he switched wristbands
with price was charged with fabricating evidence and got an additional five years in prison
the galveston county jail has since changed its procedures for drawing blood but the lesson for
investigators and for chad price was that criminals may lie but forensic technology doesn't
without that mountain dew can to link him to these sexual assault cases they might not have ever been able to
get a warrant to get the actual known sample to compare to the sexual assault case so
i would say the dna was was key in this case we take a lot of pride in putting a person like chad
price behind bars it's nice to get someone who is that arrogant and that cocky and that brazen behind
bars as quickly as possible chad price thinks he can beat whatever the system has to present
technology is foolproof given the best circumstances we had those best [Music] circumstances

A serial rapist is on the loose in a Texas town. No one knew where he'd strike next, but the audacity of his attacks and the escalation of violence against his victims made finding him imperative.

Brief Summary

A serial rapist terrorizes Texas City, leading to a complex investigation and eventual capture of Chad Price through DNA evidence.

Key points

A Predator Terrorizes Texas Town. A series of brutal assaults leaves a community in fear as a rapist strikes multiple times.
The Arrest of Chad Price. Chad Price is arrested after a DNA match links him to multiple rapes, but the case takes a shocking turn.
The Role of Forensic Technology. Forensic evidence plays a crucial role in identifying the true perpetrator of the crimes.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I couldn't breathe, I was just gasping for air until he finally stopped.

Stevie's traumatic experience during the assault.

0:13WatchMar 5, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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