Forensic Files (HD) - Season 13, Episode 37 - Hundreds of Reasons - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] up next a restaurant robbery goes wrong there was no reason for this to happen stephen
this was a vicious vicious attack and the evidence is contradictory there was somebody else bleeding at the scene
of the crime that blood and the partial fingerprint were all investigators had i wasn't holding my
breath for any real results until the money trail provides investigators with a vital clue
[Music] jennifer holmes remembers super bowl sunday 2001 for one reason it was the day she
first met her husband they were both at the same super bowl party and i saw him sitting
there with the perfect hair and his leather jacket perfect smile so he stood there and he
was like hi i'm steven it's like hi i'm jen a year later the two were married and 29 year old stephen became a father
to jennifer's young son they also had plans to have children of their own as far as his career he was
i noticed this about him he was always happiest when he was working in a restaurant steven was an
assistant manager of a steakhouse in st petersburg florida he often worked long hours
and some nights were longer than others he called me at 10 18 and said i'm just letting you know
i'm gonna be later tonight because we had a late party and i just closed up i just let her let
everyone out and lock the door around midnight an exterminator entered the restaurant with his own
key that's when he saw the bloody footprints and he saw and found mr holm's lifeless body stephen holmes had been
stabbed to death i've never seen a crime scene this horrific it was a pretty pretty bad
scene in a clear case of overkill stephen was stabbed more than 40 times when you think of a
murder you sometimes think okay somebody is shot or maybe they're stabbed i mean
this was a vicious vicious attack it was almost decapitated it's not something that should happen to
my son it's what no you can't believe you just can't believe that it's happening
robbery appeared to be the motive about eight thousand dollars was missing from the safe in the manager's office
this was much more than usual because the restaurant had been promoting 100 gift certificates as christmas presents
that evening it's at a restaurant during the month of december generally speaking a fairly
busy time of the year so we'd all piece together that that's what the motive was
the exterminator who found the body was the first and most obvious suspect but was quickly written
off due to his demeanor how he looked and not have any signs of violence or blood on his person
they could see that he was nowhere near involved in this case fortunately for police the restaurant
had several surveillance cameras when we saw the camera was present in the hallway
our initial reaction was that we may very well have not only the attack on video
but at least a starting point of what how the suspect was built and his race but there was an immediate
setback all the cameras were hooked to a single video recorder and it was gone the entire vcr was
the cords were actually cut and removed from the office there were no signs of forced entry
was it possible that a customer hid in the restaurant until closing time in preparation for the robbery
there's no reason to believe that the criminal might not have gone back to the restroom
and hid in the bathroom until after they closed you know close the stall hit on top of the toilet that sort of
thing if the killer was a customer that meant dozens if not hundreds of potential suspects
[Music] friends family and co-workers had difficulty understanding why stephen holmes had been murdered
the restaurant had never been robbed before and was located in a low crime area robberies usually
don't result in this type of repeated violence very rarely in armed robberies does the
victim sustain this many injuries steven's best friend and co-worker wilson santil was among the first to
offer his condolences i heard whaling i came inside and it was wilson in the living room crying
my wife consoled him and uh you know grabbed and grabbed his shoulders and just said you know think about steven's
smile and you know he would forgive whoever did this and i think he started wailing more the day
after stephen holm's murder a man working across the street from the crime scene contacted police
this individual indicated that a white pickup truck with a horizontal stripe along the side
of it raced out of the durango's parking lot prior to the police arriving the witness said this happened at about
11 o'clock just after the time police believe stephen was killed the description was so detailed
i mean a loud muffler stripes on the side um you know a small pickup white i mean
it was it was a very clear description of what type of a vehicle it was for two days police officers stopped
dozens of trucks that fit the description checking the interiors for blood and the
drivers for any fresh wounds then they got a devastating setback the witness now
said he made the whole thing up he was trying to score points with his girlfriend is what it basically boiled
down to he might have been a brick short too that's a week's worth of work and it's
down the tubes and it's it's very disappointing as family and friends mourned stephen holmes police wondered
who would want him dead nobody who knew him as far as i was concerned at that time
could have hurt him especially like that we'd interviewed a lot of his friends a
lot of family members some co-workers you could not find a single person that would say anything bad about him
defensive wound showed steven fought his attacker to the end he had over 24 defensive wounds i
believe and 20 wounds to his neck and his face it was obvious it was a very big struggle
part of the struggle started inside the kitchen area and it made its way down that small
hallway into the doorway of the office and then right there in the office is where the final struggle took place
it appeared steven tried to make it into his office and shut the door there were actually stab marks on the
door there was a large concentration of blood on that door there was a huge amount of blood on the
floor the victim very well may have slipped on his own blood there were dozens of footprints made by
the killer unfortunately there were no clear impressions for comparison it was someone that may have had a pair
of galoshes or boots clean up type boots handy or actually had them on at the time they left the
murder scene but it appeared the killer left evidence as he removed the surveillance equipment
the suspect had to actually step over the victim that he had just killed the vcr was up off up off the counter
area of the desk i believe that the suspect utilized part of that desk to reach up
to get the vcr and cut it cut the cord and take the vcr on the floor underneath that shelf
investigators saw a manila folder when they turned it over they found something we looked at it closer and we actually
noticed the fingerprint in blood myself and mr carlisle looked at each other and said we got him was it possible the
killer accidentally knocked it onto the floor as he was stealing the security system
vcr the folder the fingerprint wasn't face up so the person who as they were leaving
probably wouldn't have known that they had left that essential piece of evidence but it was a
partial print and badly smudged the technician and i were going back and forth and i'm like well i think i can
use it but let's see if we can make it just a little bit better and hand it back to him but enhancing it
would come at a price that would actually destroy the dna profile of the blood that the fingerprint was left
in investigators decided the risk was worth it the print was sprayed with a medo black a chemical dye that
reacts with the proteins in blood he worked on it a little bit more and we decided that was
as good as the print was going to get the result was the partial print of a fingertip
investigators entered the print into the nationwide fingerprint database of known
criminal offenders and the result was bad news i did do a knife search i was not able to come up with
the match that's because the print didn't have enough points of comparison for the computer to process with no
print match and now no dna investigators were no closer to solving this murder it's a situation where you basically uh
take a deep breath and and keep on swimming in an attempt to find steven holmes killer
investigators wanted to make sure they identified every piece of potential evidence in the
restaurant the murder took place in steven's office in the back but investigators noticed
small circular blood drops on the counter near the sink in the kitchen it was obviously close to
the crime scene but far enough away that we were hoping that that was in fact the suspect's
blood blood tests revealed it did not belong to the victim stephen holmes somebody had to be
standing over the table and blood dripped off of onto the tape but if the blood was the perpetrator's
why was it there and why didn't he clean it up these almost perfectly round blood drops
called passive drops were made by someone standing still possibly while washing his hands at the
sink a lot of times in a knife fight like that the knife may slip out of his hand and cut his finger or
something similar to that effect the blood dna was possible evidence but investigators had no one to compare
it to with no sign of forced entry the killer could have been an employee so investigators asked restaurant employees
for dna samples and their fingerprints they also wanted to see if anyone had cuts or bruises
on their hands they say you know what let's bring all the employees in and let's fingerprint everybody
at least if we do that maybe we can rule everybody out with the fingerprint that we've got now but as police were
fingerprinting the employees they didn't notice any with visible injuries authorities are thinking the killer's
probably not here he's probably not an employee it was basically something that had to
be done to further the investigation but i wasn't holding my breath for any real results
nevertheless each employee was fingerprinted carefully this would be the front of the finger
but the print i had was more off to the side so in order to make sure i got the area i needed i had to fully
roll each and every finger of each and every employee and in a shocking development the print
on the manila folder matched the last person anyone expected especially stephen holmes's family
it belonged to wilson santeel stephen's best friend the restaurants maintenance man
and prep cook steven's family couldn't believe it since the two often worked late together
steven would bring in cds specifically that he knew was the type of music that wilson liked so that they could put them
in and it would go through the whole store and they could be listening to that music while they were working
wilson santil went to the ceremonies to honor the deceased he hugged family members cried when it
appeared to be appropriate there was no flight issues there was no obvious signs that we needed to suspect
him of anything but investigators naturally went further comparing santeel's dna to the blood droplets on
the kitchen counter and faucet those six foreign male dna profiles found at the scene did
match the suspect in the case the 51-year-old haitian national was arrested on suspicion of murder do you have
anything to say at all they get a wrong guy that's why they got the wrong guy yes you didn't kill
stephen holm i don't you don't know anything about it steve was my good friend although santil's blood and fingerprint
were both at the scene police had a problem there was a plausible explanation for his blood to be at the
sink in the kitchen the defense is pretty clear he's a maintenance worker he's a prep cook
people cut themselves all the time and there was no proof santilla's fingerprint was in stephen's
blood it could have been there previously so you find a fingerprint of my client here wilson santil
inside the restaurant what's the big deal needing more investigators looked into a possible
motive why would wilson santeel want to kill a man he called his friend people thought that wilson
was a hard-working guy good family man good father until a background check revealed a secret
past why was your your bloody fingerprint at the scene it's not my i don't have no blood in my sleep
he was your friend yes he's my best friend wilson santilla insisted he had nothing
to do with stephen holm's murder the father of three was active in his church and well liked
by his co-workers he even considered the victim his best friend but a background check revealed santil
had a violent past 20 years earlier santil served four years in prison for aggravated assault
and concealing a weapon and despite working three jobs he had money problems he was paying child support from what i
understand for two different children and the amount when i added up now it's probably the amounts like seven or eight
hundred dollars a month it was quite a large sum of money the forensic evidence clearly pointed to
wilson santeel as the man who killed stephen holmes inside the steak restaurant but investigators wanted to know what
happened to the eight thousand dollars missing from the restaurant safe that's when they learned that
santeel visited a local furniture store the day after the murder the furniture store had
a security camera in the office which showed santeel paying off a twelve hundred dollar debt in cash
with one hundred dollar bills much of the money stolen from the restaurant was in 100
bills from the gift certificates they'd been selling on the night of the murder we know that
there are 100 bills that are stolen the fact that he pays off this debt at this furniture rental company so
quickly after the murder is [Music] it's just bizarre and forensic testing found
a connection between santeel's fingerprint in steven's office and his blood drops near the sink you
had feet print leading to the manager's office and you had shoe prints leading from the office to the kitchen now the
case is coming full circle prosecutors believe wilson santil was desperate for money and believed his
only recourse was to rob the restaurant where he worked as the maintenance man he stopped by
after hours knowing the cash receipts would be in the safe santil probably made some noise in the
kitchen steven walked out of his office to see who was there no [Music] that's when steven saw the knife
steven ran to his office and tried to close the door but santil was still able to get inside
stephen was stabbed more than 40 times and died in his office as santil washed his hands and the knife
his blood possibly from a bloody nose from the fight dropped onto the kitchen counter and
faucet santio took the eight thousand dollars from the safe since he knew the surveillance cameras
had captured the fight he cut the cables and removed the video recorder but as he did he left his partial
fingerprint on the manila folder which fell to the floor upside down centil left the restaurant with the murder
weapon video recorder and his bloody clothes prosecutors believe he returned later
to clean up the blood but his plan fell apart when he saw the exterminator was there
on an unscheduled visit nobody knew he was coming by that night except for stephen i feel that was a
godsend steven's the only person that knows that this guy is showing up and again thank god that
he shows up on that night because that narrows the timeline that preserves the crime scene at that point
and that prevents wilson santil from coming back and cleaning up the crime scene
when steven's family learned that wilson santil murdered their son they were shocked and
angry because it was santil who came to their home hours after stephen's murder to offer
his condolences you know to listen to all the lies and then to know that he came here it's just
you know complete disbelief when we found out later it was him it's a weird feeling that he had the
nerve to come here to our home to see all right it's still hard to comprehend that
wilson santil was tried and convicted of first degree murder he was sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole santil left evidence behind some he might have explained having
worked there as an employee but not all of it i think forensic science is amazing
that's what solved the case it just puts that much more of my faith in the in the system
and i'm just i'm glad that it's progressed to where it has and i hope it continues to
to do so forensic science in this particular case is 110 it's the reason wilson santil is in
prison and without it he would be a free man today

An assistant manager of a Florida steakhouse is stabbed to death. It appears to be a robbery gone wrong, but a bloody fingerprint reveals that he knew his killer.

Brief Summary

Stephen Holmes was murdered by his friend Wilson Santil, who was later convicted based on forensic evidence linking him to the crime.

Key points

A Vicious Attack. Stephen Holmes was brutally murdered in a restaurant robbery gone wrong.
Unexpected Suspect. The investigation leads to a shocking discovery about Stephen's best friend.
The Shocking Truth. Wilson Santil, Stephen's best friend, is revealed as the murderer.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was a pretty pretty bad scene.

Describing the horrific crime scene.

2:07WatchMar 5, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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