Forensic Files (HD) - Season 13, Episode 32 - All that Glitters is Gold - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] up next a bullet riddled car a missing driver and no witnesses it would seem she was still
alive when she was removed from the car who would do such a thing like this on a
public roadway was it an ambush or a random attack this is my defensive little girl who i'd
been shot at it was a head scratcher from the get-go some tiny evidence provides the answer
it was on her skin on her jacket you can't get rid of this stuff [Music] in southern california like elsewhere in
the united states virtually everyone celebrates independence day some celebrate a little too much
that's what police thought when they found a deserted car around four o'clock in the morning with
the engine still running off route 118 just north of los angeles a lot of people thought that maybe somebody was
drunk and they had abandoned their car alongside the road but a closer look revealed something
more serious we had several bullets that had went through the windshield into the vehicle and two additional
bullets that had went through the side of the vehicle a woman's shoe was inside the car
another was outside blood was on the steering wheel the driver's seat and floorboard
police fanned out all over the area there was no blood trail no victim it was highly unusual for us to have a
violent crime scene like that where the victim was missing the car was a rental and had been leased that day to megan
barroso a 20 year old college student who lived nearby her purse was covered in blood
her cell phone was inside it looked as if she had tried to use her phone to call for help
she had gone to a fourth of july party with her best friend and some other young people i believe in
the beach area according to friends megan left the party alone at 2 45 a.m a little more than an hour before her
car was found police checked local hospitals but no one matching megan's description had
checked in we didn't know if this person was either dead or alive at that point there was a significant amount of blood
in the car not enough to suggest that the person was in fact dead my daughter was out there somewhere and
i was hoping that i would get a call from her any any day in a minute no call came
[Music] investigators found five shell casings at the end of the exit ramp and another about 200 feet away
our forensic people were able to tell us that most likely was an ak-47 type rifle an
assault rifle knowing that megan had been assaulted with this ak-47 again yes just send shields of
of agony through my mind investigators also noticed a fresh scrape along the driver's side
of the car it looked as if megan's car had been sideswiped then investigators got a huge break
they learned that megan's rental car was one of the first to be equipped with an
event data recorder the event data recorder is a huge step forward in traffic safety
it's like the black box in an aircraft that gives us an opportunity to better understand how crashes happen
the recorder a small on-board computer is always on in the event of a crash it automatically
saves the previous five seconds of information when megan's car hit the median it
activated the data recorder it revealed that five seconds earlier megan's car was at a complete stop i think he
started shooting at her she was probably ducking um but at some point she realized i
better get out of there the recorder showed megan floored the accelerator she went to 100 open throttle she jammed
that gas pedal to the floor and she tried to get out of there blood inside the car showed megan was
wounded and possibly still alive but where was she we knew he had a body somewhere
we just couldn't find her as police searched for twenty-year-old megan barroso they tried to reconstruct
her activities on the night of her disappearance her friend said she left a fourth of
july party at 2 45 in the morning and was alone her abandoned car was found at the
bottom of an exit ramp off a deserted stretch of highway about an hour later we found that megan
didn't have any boyfriend problems she didn't have anyone that was upset with her in fact it was the opposite
everybody liked megan [Music] someone had fired multiple shots into megan's car with what investigators believed was an
ak-47 assault rifle to recreate the shooting analysts used lasers to determine where the shooter
was standing we use a laser beam because it's a nice straight light beam that we can just project
through a number of holes and it makes a good display it allows us to see where the bullet is passed through what
it's interacted with the laser analysis showed the shooter stood 60 feet away from megan's car when
he started firing and he closed the distance with each shot one shot hit the hood three hit the
windshield another hit the driver's side door investigators concluded the shot fired
through the passenger side door happened somewhere else it came in from a completely different direction it
couldn't have been part of the same series of gunfire without a dramatic change in the position of the
shooter this gunshot along with the sideswipe on megan's car led analysts to conclude this
altercation happen on the highway with the laser information and event data recorder investigators
put together this animation of what they thought happened it was clear someone tried to
force megan off the highway by side swiping her car then megan's attacker moved to the
passenger side and fired into her backseat as megan drove off the exit ramp her attacker must have sped in front of
her blocked her path and started shooting there were four shots she floored the accelerator
a fifth shot went through the side door and hit megan the blood evidence shows megan tried to
reach for her cell phone possibly to call police her car hit the median the assailant apparently dragged her
into another vehicle and drove away you have to assume that the person who carried out this crime
was very very bold very much a risk taker there were questions about who would do
such a thing like this on a public roadway and 118 is a very public roadway the blood inside the car meant megan was
wounded but was probably still alive when she was abducted at that point i i realized that my
daughter was in horrible trouble that this is was not you know not a good situation and
this was a real big bad thing that was happening the sheriff's department along with
other law enforcement agencies offered a reward for information leading to an arrest
but three long weeks passed with no leads on megan's abduction a simi valley resident called police
with some information he said he found a homemade videotape in his roommate's trash
showing sexual acts so horrifying he knew it needed to be reported to police lo and behold here's this guy raping
these women the man said he had no doubt the rapist on the tape was his roommate 30 year old vincent
sanchez an electrician who worked in the local film industry the tape showed sanchez raping numerous
women on camera it was quite horrifying to actually see a woman being raped and sexually
assaulted when investigators asked sanchez's roommate whether anyone in the house
owned an assault rifle he said he did i'm sitting on the bed and he tells me well yeah the gun's
right here it's underneath the bed and as soon as i looked at it the hair on the back of my neck stood up
it was an ak-47 detectives also found something near the trash outside the house i excused myself from
the interview to take a phone call and i walked outside the residence and over by some trash cans i saw
a garment of clothing on the ground and walked up to it and i saw that it was a green jacket it
was a green gap jacket with an orange line it was fairly distinctive and he saw what he believed to be a
bullet hole on the side it was the same color jacket megan barroso wore on the night she was abducted
was it possible megan was still alive just days after investigators found megan barroso's green jacket in the
trash outside a simi valley home a search team with a cadaver dog discovered some skeletal remains in a ravine
10 miles from the abduction site dental records confirmed it was megan barroso i was devastated oh you know i mean
i'm thinking this is wrong i'm drowning now you know this is this this is it was absolutely terrible oh
you know it was like the lights are out now you know this is bad the medical examiner recovered bullet
fragments and determined that megan died from a single gunshot wound to her abdomen
but there was not forensic evidence who conclusively say that she had been sexually assaulted it
looked as if megan was still alive when she was left in the ravine she was in a fetal
position with one arm bent be under her head like he'd in a sleeping position that wouldn't be a position that a body
would land in then the medical examiner noticed something unusual red glitter what they call pixie dust
in megan's hair and on her clothing and it was red glitter in essence megan's green
jacket was found outside the home of vincent sanchez a part-time electrician who came to police attention when his
roommate found a homemade videotape of sanchez sexually assaulting several women
when police studied the videotape in detail they discovered the women were the victims
of the simi valley rapist 15 unsolved rapes police had been trying to solve for the past five years the perpetrator
would break into the home of the victims primarily in the evening some of the victims were young teenage girls
15 16 years old with parents sleeping in another room within the household when questioned by
police sanchez admitted he was the simi valley rapist but denied having anything to do with megan
barroso's murder very hesitant to answer didn't want to talk anymore said he didn't know her didn't know what
i was talking about had nothing to do with that investigators search sanchez's pickup
truck for possible clues it was clear the truck had been thoroughly washed and cleaned
but tape lifts of the upholstery found something very difficult to get rid of tiny specks of red glitter
investigators also found red glitter in the green jacket found outside sanchez's home they even found
one microscopic speck on the ak-47 rifle sanchez's roommate turned over to police
to find out if all this glitter was from the same source investigators sent it to edwin
jones a forensic scientist with one of the largest collections of glitter in the world
with close to 1 000 specimens i have an unusual hobby of collecting micro things
and i've been collecting glitter for many years before this case i've been collecting glitter since this case
under a microscope jones discovered that this red glitter was a hexagon shape approximately 250 microns
jones knew immediately that this was unlike any of the red glitter samples he'd ever seen
i found out that the glitter had one layer of aluminum for reflection so literally the particle was
asymmetrical meaning that it's not the same on both sides it's red on one side and silver in the
other it was a very unique type of glitter that just as one company had made jones
discovered that this glitter was not a best-selling item only ten thousand bottles had ever been
made investigators learned that during the fourth of july party megan attended the host threw red glitter on everyone
including megan i said do you still have the bottle she said yes i do so we then went and recovered the
remaining portion of the glitter scientists confirmed the glitter in megan barroso's hair
came from megan's friend and it was the same glitter found in sanchez's truck on the ak-47 rifle
on megan's jacket found in sanchez's trash and in megan's own car it was the only
piece of evidence that tied sanchez to everything investigators also searched sanchez's truck for blood
when the tech put luminol on the inside of the vehicle it lit up like a christmas tree dna
testing revealed blood on the passenger seat was megan's there was a horizontal apparent
blood stain right in the area where megan's wound was to her side indicating that she had been sitting
upright in the passenger seat of that truck at one point so she wasn't dead she was sitting forensic tests on the
scrape mark on the side of megan's car matched the paint from sanchez's truck investigators test-fired the ak-47
and compared the bullets to fragments found with megan's body we tied that rifle to the crime scene
and to the body both with the fragments that were taken from the car from the crime scene
certainly that helped to tie the rifle in to mr sanchez and mr sanchez then to the crime scene then police discovered
that sanchez's real target that night wasn't megan barroso at all but someone else
[Music] investigators learned that on the 4th of july vincent sanchez had an argument with a
former girlfriend and he was angry because she hadn't invited him to her family picnic
we theorized he took that at ak-47 he got in his truck and he was probably out looking for his girlfriend
whether he planned to use the weapon on his girlfriend or her family is unclear but along the way
investigators believe sanchez saw megan at an intersection changed his mind and decided to follow
her instead [Music] the evidence shows sanchez tried to get megan to pull over he then fired into megan's back seat
again megan refused to stop sanchez pulled ahead of her cut off her path and started shooting
[Music] megan tried to get away she was hit by the shot through the car door megan may have reached for her phone to
call for help lost control and hit the median barrier sanchez then abducted megan and drove
off [Music] the whole time she shed the distinctive red glitter into his truck onto his rifle and on her
jacket medical experts believe megan was alive when sanchez left her in the canyon ravine
he left her there without her pants and probably took her jacket as a trophy i couldn't get away from the
idea that this this was this had happened to my little girl that beautiful little girl who
always had a smile for me who always gave dad a big hug i miss her hugs to this day i miss her hugs
in october of 2001 sanchez pled guilty to being the semivalley rapist and was sentenced to life in prison he
also pled guilty to megan's murder sanchez claimed he didn't sexually assault megan the defense in this case their
main objective was to save him from a death sentence but given sanchez's past jurors concluded he did sexually assault
megan and sentenced him to death he has no conscience i hate to say he's a an animal because it's just
it's it's too nice of a description for him it was just so amazing all the the detail and the amount of effort that
went into each little piece of the puzzle of the forensic science of it all no one
doubts that sanchez would have claimed more victims but a strange combination of evidence
ranging from laser ballistics to analysis of a car's onboard computer to something
as seemingly insignificant as glitter proved his guilt it was just amazing what the kremlins were able to do and the
experts were able to say to put together a very vivid picture for the jury as to what happened out
there i would say the most compelling science was the blood the blood found in vincent's
vehicle and also the pixie glitter that was amazing that they could put those pieces
of pixie glitter together and show that we had been located in all those different
areas and it was consistent amongst each [Music] other

A bullet-riddled car, a missing driver, and no witnesses. Was this an ambush or a random attack? Had the victim been abducted or was she dead? The answers lay in a unique clue, so tiny it was measured in millionths of a meter.

Brief Summary

Megan Barroso was shot and abducted; forensic evidence linked Vincent Sanchez to her murder.

Key points

Megan Barroso's Mysterious Disappearance. A college student goes missing after a Fourth of July party, leaving behind a bloodied car.
The Shocking Discovery of Evidence. Investigators find a green jacket and an AK-47 linked to the case.
The Forensic Breakthrough. Unique red glitter connects the suspect to the crime scene and the victim.
The Conviction of Vincent Sanchez. Sanchez pleads guilty to multiple charges, including Megan's murder, and is sentenced to death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This was a real big bad thing that was happening.

A realization of the severity of the situation.

8:06WatchMar 5, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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