Forensic Files (HD) - Season 13, Episode 3 - Shoot to Thrill - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] up next a wealthy businessman is killed by an intruder investigators find a wide conspiracy
the murder had been planned out other people not only knew about it but had been asked to participate
friends turn on friends i didn't do anything it didn't seem to be sinking in with him
how deep he was involved but to get the killer one piece of evidence had to be identified all these high school
kids had been involved and perhaps one of them did just after midnight in saint cloud
minnesota seventeen-year-old jason mclennan returned home from a night out with a
friend he took a shower downstairs but before he went to bed he went up to the kitchen to get something to eat
in the foyer near the front door he saw his father lying on the floor bleeding i need help my dad's just been shot i
just came home and he's on the ground i don't know is he inside the house oh yeah he's on
the ground do you know who did this to him no i just came home when paramedics arrived they found
jason's father 53 year old ken mclennan dead at the base of the stairs he had been shot to death it looked like
ken mclennan came down the stairs and encountered an intruder when you come down dressed in only a
bathrobe you don't expect that someone's going to be waiting for you with a loaded rifle
there was wounds to the temple to the forehead to the throat the chest area to the right hand and
one in the back as well the attack was so fast and so unexpected mclennan had little time to react
he grabbed the end of the gun he actually reached up and the gun actually had contact with
his hand the shot goes through the hand there were at least six shots perhaps seven
that were fired every single one hit ken mclennan the killer took the time to pick up the
shell casings all except one there was one spent 22 shell casing left on the hardwood floor
near the body the motive appeared to be robbery we discovered that ken's wallet along with
some cash and identification cards and also some foreign currency and ken's watch we're missing from the residence
ken mclennan was a widower as a vice president in charge of international sales of a crafts company
he often traveled and had just returned from an overseas trip he made a good living his value was over
a million dollars in terms of life insurance and actual assets the mclennan family was of some wealth
and so we explored that as a motive for his murder who might gain from his death as the sun rose the
next morning police found some important evidence outside in the fresh snow some shoe impressions
from the backyard leading straight to the front door police were convinced that these prints
belonged to the killer at ken mclennan's autopsy the medical examiner recovered seven
22-caliber slugs from his body those slugs were telling they were four different kinds of ammunition raising
the possibility that there was more than one shooter or the killer wanted to make it
look like there was more than one shooter typically burglars don't want to confront the homeowner or any other
persons inside they want to get in and get out to be very uncharacteristic in my opinion
for someone to shoot someone that many times since the victim's 17-year-old son jason
found his father's body investigators had no choice but to consider him a suspect we seized the clothing
that jason was wearing when we first made contact with him that clothing had no apparent
blood on it we also conducted a gunshot residue test on jason early that morning
and those results came back negative that he did not have gunshot residue on his hands
[Music] another potential suspect was ken's fiance a swiss businesswoman of lisandra
lautens she had been living with jason and ken during the time that they were in
florida and the fact that she existed in the fact that she lived in their household
was a subject of stress between the father and son but their wedding plans were on hold we
did obtain emails from his fiancee which indicated there was some trouble in their relationship
at the time that ken was killed yet she was still listed as beneficiary of one of ken's life insurance policies
and that policy was valued at a hundred thousand dollars but alessandra was in switzerland at the
time of the murder and was written off as a suspect police turned their attention to the
shoe impressions found outside of the crime scene in the snow the victim's son jason said two sets of
prints belonged to him and a friend since he wasn't allowed to smoke in the house
jason and his friend went outside their shoes were sent to sue gross for comparison
with photos from the scene i will ink the bottom of the shoe and press the clear acetate transparency
against it and then i will compare this transparency to the photograph that was submitted
these transparencies confirmed the two sets of impressions on the left side of the
house belonged to the teenagers the third set of prints on the opposite side of the house were
different that set of footprints that led around the home up to the front door and there was no
set leaving the front door that third set of footprints around the other side of the house became
the focus of the investigation the impressions were run through a computer program
called soulmate which can identify the make and model of any shoe or boot impression they were able to
indicate that with certainty it was a new york lugs brand shoe that had made that
impression further checking revealed there were a number of stores in saint cloud
minnesota that carried the lugs boots a brand popular in the world of hip-hop then police got a tip from an unlikely
source i received a call from the father of a female student from tech high school he stated that his
daughter was very upset over details that she had learned while she was at school that day about
this murder it was the story of a wide-ranging conspiracy she was crying hysterically
and stated she was very fearful for what she was about to tell us as police investigated the murder of ken
mclennan they heard rumors that his relationship with his 17 year old son jason wasn't a good one according to friends
ken all but abandoned jason's mother as she lay dying of cancer and jason deeply resented it regardless of the
relationship between ken and his wife if the woman's dying it just looks bad if you take off and go
to another continent and don't come back for weeks leaving jason who might have been 12
years old to take care of his dying mother it appeared that things changed for him
that he became more troubled started to have more trouble in school after his wife's death
ken continued to travel extensively for work there were stories about jason being
left alone for weeks with virtually nothing in the refrigerator and having no money i don't know how
exaggerated these stories are obviously jason didn't starve after ken mclennan's murder police
received a tip from one of jason's fellow high school students at least one other high school student
had been asked to provide a gun a number of high school students knew about this
the informant said that jason asked several people to help him kill his father but all of them declined
they didn't think this was really going to happen others seemed in this stoned world where
nothing was real anyway and oh far out it happened the informant said one friend matt
muller agreed to help by providing the gun in return for money matt was an average
kid who got dazzled by the money dazzled by the possibilities when a rich kid tells you you can be
part of my life you can have a big fancy house a fancy car your life is going to be different if you'll help
me with this he got caught up in it police found a 22-caliber rifle in matt's bedroom
which they confiscated and sent to ballistics there curt moline test-fired mulder's
rifle into a 600-gallon water tank and i shoot in one end and the bullets hit the water and they slow down and
they drop drop to the bottom and then i vacuum those up with hose he took the test-fired bullet and
compared it to slugs recovered from ken mclennan's body the lands and grooves did not match up
a closer examination showed why a boroscope a fiber optic magnifier revealed a series of abnormal scratches
on the inside of the gun barrel the scratches appeared to be fresh and by fresh i mean they were
silvery colored they'd scratched through the bluing which would have been applied at the
factory someone had scratched the inside of the barrel for the purpose of preventing
a ballistic examination so the next step was to compare the spent shell casings from the scene
to the casings from the test firing looking at unique marks made by the firing pin
as it struck the bullet they were identical also inside the barrel was a small drop of blood dna testing proved
the blood was ken mclennan's it made sense based on the suta on the hand that mr mclennan had actually
grabbed the gun before the shot was fired because of that contact with the hand some of his blood then did blow back
into the barrel of the rifle when confronted with this evidence matt muller admitted he was involved
but insisted jason mclennan was the killer he tried to attack me into going and killing him because they
knew he'd be the kind of suspect but i couldn't do it so i told him i was the kind of thing to do with it
and then he's just like okay fine he took the gun for me and he said just go wait out the car
matt said he heard the shots jason came back to the car returned the gun and then he went home
well he told me that pretty much i want to save my house do something and matt knew
something that hadn't been made public four different types of 22 caliber bullets had been used
one of the things they actually discussed was using different kinds of ammunition so that if gunshot residue
was found as part of the investigation it would be tough to track it back to his particular gun
matt claimed jason gave him a thousand dollars for use of the gun yet when confronted with matt's
confession jason denied any involvement in his father's murder i didn't do anything even that's an even
bigger reason for me to not do something like this even though the fact that i loved my dad
even if i didn't love my dad even if i hated his guts i still see tv i still see all that
stuff you won't really get away with anything i'm not an idiot i might not be great at school i
might not pass but i'm not immortal jason stuck to his story but after he got out of the shower he found his father
dead in the foyer he insisted he had no idea who killed him police had two versions of events
surrounding the murder of ken mclennan and they weren't sure which one was true we knew that both of them had reason to
lie to us so we had to do the best we could to prove for certain what really happened versus what they
claimed happened once ken mclennan's murder hit the news some local high school students in saint
cloud minnesota called police saying the victim's son jason had offered them money to help him kill his father
one of the students that we interviewed was present at the mclennan home several
weeks prior to the homicide matt actually stood in the hallway of the residence while jason and this other
student watched and made gun sounds pow pow pow when it was apparent that ken mclendon
would be coming in the house this raised the possibility that there might have been a third person involved in the
murder we were very concerned based on the fact that all these high school kids had been
involved in this involved in planning asked to help that perhaps one of them did
the key break happened when a student offered to lead police to some incriminating evidence the day after
this murder occurred the student had confided that he knew where the bloody clothes were that jason
had been wearing at the time that this murder had occurred police found the clothes exactly where
the students said they'd be buried on property owned by matt mohler's parents they found a red plaid shirt a pair of
blue jeans with one glove in the back pocket a pair of white socks they also found some information from
ken mclennan to include his wallet some business cards from his employer and some foreign currency
the clothes were jason mclennan's students had seen him wearing them the day of the murder
dna testing proved the blood on the clothes had come from jason's father the fact that we could prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that those jeans were jason mclennan's with his dad's blood on the bottom of the pant
leg was an extremely important moment in this investigation the bloody glove was even more telling
dna testing on skin cells showed jason had worn the glove and scientists found gunshot residue on
the glove from four different types of 22 caliber bullets very important when that test came back
that not only was their gunshot residue on the glove but also corroborating what matt muller
had told us about using different kinds of ammunition this seemed to prove jason fired the fatal shots
but prosecutors had one major problem they still hadn't identified who made the foot impressions in the
snow the ones that led to the front door of the crime scene we knew that a number of the other high
school students had discussed this that they had talked about the money they were going to get
that they were going to live the high life and that was why we spent so much time trying to identify that third set
of footprints if another student was involved a defense attorney could raise the
possibility of reasonable doubt we had to be able to explain to the jury where those footprints came from
so prosecutors pressured matt mohler reminding him that a first-degree murder conviction
meant a life sentence he agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a reduced sentence
matt then admitted the shoes were his and turned them over to police after hiding them in his basement
he said he made the shoe prints in an effort to throw off investigators i compared them side by
side looking at their class characteristics and the general tread pattern and the size of the shoe and this shoe
corresponded to the shoe prints at the scene prosecutors believe the motive for the
crime was jason's hatred of his father jason blamed him for abandoning his mother
as she laid dying of cancer jason also wanted his father's money kansas state was worth about 1.5 million
and 1.4 million dollars and jason wanted to reap the benefits on the night of the murder ken mclennan
returned home from his business trip and immediately went to bed jason and matt waited outside until he
was asleep and matt used the third pair of boots to walk to the front of the house leaving a trail they hoped
would trick investigators jason went inside with the 22-caliber rifle matt rang the front doorbell
[Music] when ken mclennan walked downstairs to see who it was jason ambushed him
ken grabbed the rifle barrel but it was too late and jason fired seven shots killing his
father instantly jason and matt ransacked the house to make it look like a robbery
they collected the spent shell casings but unknowingly left one behind matt disposed of jason's blood-spattered
clothes and tried to damage the inside of the rifle barrel to render it useless as evidence
but ken mclennan's blood inside the barrel and the shell casing from the scene were more than enough evidence for the
trial jason mclennan pleaded not guilty and claimed he killed his father in self-defense
the jury didn't buy it jason was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison
matt mohler pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 30 years
sometimes i still wake up in the morning and look out the bars and just go wow you know i still can't believe that i'm
here in prison i still can't believe that the decision i made to put myself here
the boy's plan to murder ken mclennan went off without a hitch but the cover-up couldn't withstand scientific scrutiny
we had a cover-up going on here this was not a matter-of-fact spread-the-moment thing
that this had been planned that it was strategic that they had done the best they could to throw off the
investigation if nothing else when a jury saw this they realized this was not an accident
the forensics in this case was very important we had dna we had ballistics we had blood spatter it's all of those
forensic answers that led us to believe without question that jason had been the
one to pull the trigger and that matt had in fact been involved you

In 2003, St. Cloud teenager Jason MacLennan returned home after a night out with friends and discovered his father Ken's body lying in a pool of blood.

Brief Summary

Jason McLennan plotted to murder his father, Ken, with help from a friend, leading to their convictions.

Key points

A Web of Conspiracy. Investigators uncover a conspiracy involving high school students in the murder plot.
A Wealthy Businessman's Murder. Ken Mclennan, a wealthy businessman, is found dead in his home, shot multiple times.
The Bloody Evidence. Police find incriminating evidence linking Jason Mclennan to his father's murder.
The Verdict. Jason Mclennan is convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Friends turn on friends.

The betrayal among the youth involved in the conspiracy.

0:23WatchMar 5, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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