Forensic Files (HD) - Season 13, Episode 5 - Double Cross - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] up next this is a story of my life as a defenseless woman in the navy a naval officer alleges a cover-up and
threatens to go public very soon i'll have enough evidence send to the media and then something will be done but
before that can happen she's murdered some say by the man she named as her rapist
and i start suspecting that something is miss that this may be all the setup can forensic science separate fact
from fiction the videotape is startling it is scary she is foretelling her own death
after a long stressful day working as an air traffic controller at one of the largest naval jet bases in
the world elise mcdessey went to dinner with her husband at an italian restaurant in
virginia beach virginia eddie mcdessey worked in the computer business he did a lot of contract work and some
of it was for the us navy and that is when he met elise mcdessey sometime after 9 00 pm when the couple
returned home from dinner someone was waiting for them [Music] when eddie regained consciousness his
hands were bound behind his back he saw his wife tied to the bed and the man raping and stabbing her somehow eddie
managed to free his hands grabbed the handgun he kept in the nightstand and shot the assailant
then he called 911 but the intruder wasn't dead the assailant leaped up a bunch towards
him with a knife and that he shot the individual again when paramedics arrived elise was barely alive her dress had
been pulled up and her pantyhose had been ripped she had multiple stab wounds to the
chest and her throat had been cut ear to ear she's trying to talk they absolutely
believe she was trying to communicate and could never get their words out and before anybody could
really give her any significant help she died on the way to hospital the assailant was identified by his
driver's license as 37 year old quincy brown he was laying with his legs pinned underneath him
laying on his back and he had three gunshot wounds to the chest brown was one of elise's co-workers at
the oceana naval air base quincy brown military man worked at the same command where
elise worked so it wasn't a random crime something happened to bring co-workers into the
same room and neither one of them left alive elise's husband eddie was treated for his head injury and
released as incredible as eddie's story seemed evidence at the scene appeared to support it the entranceway
floor was littered with takeaway containers of leftover food from the restaurant
electrical cords used to tie eddie's hands were on the bedroom floor underneath the
intruder's right hand was the knife used in elise's murder and eddie gave police a videotape that elise
made before her death it contained some shocking allegations against her superiors in the navy
allegations that perhaps the navy didn't want to be made public [Music] elise and eddie mcdessey had been
married for only five years at the time of elise's murder they lived in an apartment off the
military base and had no children at least enjoyed being in the navy she was looking forward to her future as an
air traffic controller tough job and especially for females and she would have been good at it if she
had had more time quincy brown the man found shot to death in the mcdessie's bedroom
had no history of violence once he had been in the navy for over 19 years he was married he had a
child he did not have any kind of criminal background quincy brown worked with the
lease at the naval air base everybody that we talked to that knew quincy brown that didn't go with his
character at all it seemed to be completely conflict of his character but the facts were undeniable a rape
test kit on elise mcdessey showed signs of sexual intercourse and the biological evidence
matched quincy brown's dna a knife covered with elise's blood was found underneath brown's body
but what drove brown to murder eddie mcdessey thought he knew why he said his wife made a videotape before
her murder and he gave it to the authorities sexual harassment sexual assault and rape this is a story
of my life as a defenseless woman in the navy the videotape elise mcdessey made is more perplexing to me than anything
i've run into in 20 years of covering crime it is startling it is scary you see a woman who is speaking from the
grave elise described a tale of horror she alleged sexual abuse covered up at the highest
levels of the navy three weeks later i have to try my best to avoid his sexual embarrassment
got raped in the women's bathroom and eagan threatened me and told me you can't prove anything
keep your mouth shut or else you and your husband can't get hurt it's a confession of sorts like a dyer it's
almost a video diary of all these terrible things happening to her i've made a list of names
and placed it in a safe deposit box in my name only police used a court order to get elise's journal
quincy brown had been named in her journal as one of those attackers police listed all five men who she
claimed raped her while on duty at this point we knew we needed to get the naval criminal investigative service
ncis involved because obviously now we had two of their members dead the ncis questioned the
four other men elise accused in her journal they all denied the allegations she had accused
four of the best guys i've ever known the best guys i've ever worked with family men really decent respectable
guys nancy simpson was elise's friend as well as one of her supervisors i knew that it was a bunch of crap elise never
told me that she had been sexually harassed at work if that had happened she certainly would have told me it
would have never been covered up but eddie mcdessey was outraged to him the evidence was clear eddie believes
that quincy brown went there to shut her up and to make her stop talking about what was going on in the
base eddie's also said that quincy was part of a larger conspiracy involving higher navy forces to keep her
quiet as proof eddie pointed out that elise had recently been demoted at the navy base eddie claims
in retaliation for her sexual harassment claims eddie says they really slowed down her
training reassigned her because of it he said that she was the victim not only of the harassers but
of the same superiors that she'd confided in then investigators noticed small inconsistencies in eddie's story
according to quincy brown's cell phone records he called the mcdessey's apartment
at 9 36 on the night of the murders which was after eddie claimed they were assaulted at the door of their apartment
the call lasted two minutes and 10 seconds out of the ordinary that somebody's gonna call and then come over
and and rape someone and kill him the knife found under quincy brown's hand the one used to kill elise mcdessie
didn't contain brown's fingerprints and the shirt didn't have elise's blood once he gets
none of elise's blood on his body how in the world could he have done this and not had any of elise's blood on him
and on the night before her murder elise magdesi bought the gun used to kill quincy brown in a sporting goods store
in virginia then i start suspecting something is miss this may be all set up but who wanted both
elise mcdesi and quincy brown dead and why in this video journal made shortly before her death
elise magdesi claimed she had been raped and sexually assaulted by five co-workers at the oceana naval air
base on the tape she claimed she reported these incidents to her superiors and had been ignored so she threatened
to go public very soon i won't have enough evidence descend in the medium and then something
will be done but the navy denied elise mcdessey ever filed one single claim let alone five
i was her superior and my immediate superior was a very tough female tougher than me
there was no word of this nothing was ever reported to any of us and either one of us would have
acted immediately one of the men elise named in her journal was quincy brown the man found shot to
death in her apartment elise's husband eddie claimed brown knocked him unconscious and murdered
elise to stop her from going public with these allegations investigators weren't so sure
to find the truth investigators started with the only hard evidence they had the crime scene we wanted fresh eyes
somebody to really tell us something that we weren't able to see virginia beach police contacted ross
gardner a nationally recognized crime scene analyst this was a very complex crime scene and
it wasn't until we got a lot of the dna information back that we were able to make sense of it
but certain aspects of the crime scene analysis certainly supported eddie's statement but then gardner looked more
closely at the crime scene photos and noticed that they contradicted eddie's story
the autopsy showed that the first shot penetrated quincy's heart this creates arterial spurts
high pressure ejections of blood from the body and they are easily identified because
the blood is ejecting out a stream it breaks up into larger masses and so what we see in an arterial spur are very
large elliptical shaped stains eddy said when he saw his wife being attacked he grabbed a gun from the nightstand and
shot quincy brown as he rushed towards him yet the blood spatter evidence and the
crime scene photos showed that quincy brown was facing in the opposite direction there is no
evidence whatsoever that suggests that quincy was ever standing when that wound was ejecting blood or
that he was ever facing back towards the nightstand avoiding the arterial spurts on the carpet tell us
that quincy was in this kneeling position at the time of the first shot and that his physical position never
altered other than to lay back investigators now had a theory that eddie mcdessey was involved
in an elaborate scheme first he convinced his wife to make the videotape and written journal
accusing her five co-workers of rape and sexual assault their plan was to file a lawsuit against the navy
eddie mcdessey told several people that this sexual harassment with his wife in the navy would be
bigger than tail hook referring to another civil suit in which someone collected a lot of money from
from the navy and elise was a willing participant in the scheme it was obvious that they had a plan
in action it would appear that there may have been some partnership between eddie and elise as far as setting this
thing up they planned to prove their case by luring one of the men she named in her
journal quincy brown to their apartment to have unprotected sex with her and then claim
it was yet another rape only this time they'd have dna evidence to prove it quincy did not force his way into that
apartment he came there willingly he had sex with elise willingly investigators believe
eddie planned to kill quincy after the sexual act was complete in order to silence him it's not clear
whether elise was aware of this or not elise and eddie bought the gun in hampton virginia the night before
this event occurred i don't know if elise had planned that quincy would die i don't know but why did eddie
kill his wife eddie mcdessey had taken out a half a million dollar life insurance
policy on his wife this was less than 30 days prior to the incident that's a lot of money to have in a life
insurance policy for a sailor who has no family fortune is not earning but a low rate in the
navy not making much money this plus an additional 200 thousand dollars from her navy life insurance
was a significant payout the seven deadly sins greed is my favorite and this man loved his money and he was
willing to sacrifice innocent people for seven hundred thousand dollars so he could live the good life and he
could pin her murder on quincy brown he's a cold-blooded killer ironically elise helped plan organize
and carry out her own murder the only thing that changed is elise was double-crossed and she was killed in the
process as well eddie's plan was almost too perfect based on the forensic evidence
prosecutors believe that eddie mcdessey was responsible for the murders of both his wife felice
and quincy brown they believe this whole thing started as a sexual harassment scam
against the navy elise magdesi made a videotape and written journal claiming that five men sexually assaulted and
raped her while on duty at the naval air base where she worked despite her claims on the tape the navy
says she never filed any charges against these men facial harassment sexual assault and
rape but eddie and elise needed forensic evidence so they invited one of the men she named
in her journal quincy brown over to their apartment for a sexual threesome elise would have claimed that quincy had
raped her and therefore they would have been able to pursue their sexual harassment claim
on the night of the crime there was no assault outside their apartment when they returned home from dinner
quincy brown called their apartment at 9 36 most likely to confirm their date well
we still want for tonight he said he'll be here in 15 minutes okay investigators believe eddie set the
scene by tying elise to the bed to quincy brown it would appear to be a bondage fantasy for the evening
to the police it would look like a violent assault when quincy arrived he had a condom in
his pocket perhaps he was encouraged not to use it although no one really knows i'm just going to kick back
after the sexual encounter eddie pulled his first double cross of the evening on quincy brown okay i think you're
finished break into my house knocked me out you raped my wife they'd blame him for breaking into the apartment and
raping a lease [Music] it's unclear whether elise knew if quincy would die but she obviously
didn't know eddie would double cross her too eddie staged the scene to make it look like a break-in
assault and the rape murder perpetrated by quincy brown and eddie collects 700 000 in life
insurance and maybe he walks away with a sexual harassment case also he almost got away with it too but in
the end he left too many clues it was obvious that eddie mcdessey was lying to me
about what happened and how things had happened in in that bedroom he told us this happened
this happened this happened and multiple claims by eddie mcdessey were refuted by the forensic evidence
but when it came time to arrest eddie mcdessey he had fled to russia the problem we're having is that he's
now a russian citizen and we don't have an extradition treaty so i can't get him out of russia
for almost a decade eddie mcdessey was on the run reporter mike mather decided to track
him down despite everyone telling him it was useless the state department at the time told me virginia beach police
told me the embassy told me you're wasting your time he's never coming back here
so i said let's go find out send him an email he agreed to meet with me blew to moscow apparently mike mather
caught mcdessey at just the right time he clearly didn't like living in russia how can i
say this they took my money they beat me up they put me in jail because they thought i was an american
spy and here i was without american documents to prove that i'm an american mcdessey chose to return to the united
states and face trial thinking that elise's video taped allegations would provide
the reasonable doubt he needed for acquittal i want to do that because i know i can
prove i'm innocent i know that what has happened to me and all this that happened to me
the american people should know about fourteen years after the double homicide eddie mcdessey went on trial
the forensic evidence was overwhelming we the jury find the defendant guilty of first degree murder of quincy b
brown guilty of first-degree murder of elise and macdessey mcdessey was sentenced to two
consecutive life terms ross explained very very well how the blood spatter evidence
contradicted what that he said it wasn't he said she said it was he said and everyone
else was dead it's never left me that eddie did that and i've never questioned that he was
capable of it not even for a second without the forensic evidence without ross gardner
and the blood spatter analysis of the crime scene to be able to disprove eddie's statement
because all we had was eddie's statement and the crime scene and he had a good story

In 1996, Virginia Beach police arrive at the Makdessi apartment to find Elise Makdessi and her lover Quincy Brown dead.

Brief Summary

Elise McDessie was murdered after alleging rape; her husband Eddie was later convicted of both murders amid evidence of a conspiracy.

Key points

A Naval Officer's Allegations. A naval officer threatens to expose a cover-up, but soon after, she's murdered.
A Shocking Crime Scene. Elise McDessie is found murdered, and her husband Eddie is a key witness.
The Videotape Revelation. Elise's videotape reveals shocking allegations against her superiors in the navy.
Eddie's Double-Cross. Eddie McDessie allegedly orchestrates a plan involving his wife's murder.
Trial and Conviction. Eddie McDessie is found guilty of the murders of both his wife and Quincy Brown.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is a story of my life as a defenseless woman in the navy.

0:05WatchMar 5, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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