Forensic Files (HD) - Season 13, Episode 8 - Constructive Criticism - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] up next a violent thunderstorm provides cover for a brutal murder it was an absolutely brutal crime scene
obviously this was a case of an overkill there are plenty of suspects with clear
motives but they all pass polygraph tests it's not 100 reliable if investigators didn't find
the one tiny clue left at the scene they might never have solved it [Applause] the real estate development business in
texas always seems to be active daryl north a manager for a multi-billion dollar development company
had no shortage of work daryl north was in charge of building budget suites for a company out of las
vegas and he had been in charge of building several in this area daryl had a reputation as a fair-minded
boss who set high standards i asked a subcontractor was daryl hard to work for was he mean
and he said no he was not he said he expected quality work i have seen dad fire numerous subcontractors over the years
my dad had the ability to get his point across very clearly he's very pointed he was
very direct daryl was always punctual so when he didn't come home from work one day
and didn't answer his phone his family was concerned when i got to the job site it was after
11 o'clock at night the lights of his trailer were on and his car was out front and i knew his car hadn't been moved
because it was dry underneath his vehicle where everything else was just was just
drenched the door was padlocked his son knocked on the door but got no answer i climbed up on the rail with a
flashlight trying to shine the flashlight into that dark office see if they had a heart attack or
something had happened mark saw his father on the floor i saw dad laying against the door and
and he was just laying face down you know not moving paramedics and police declared daryl
north dead at the scene he'd been stabbed repeatedly blood was spattered everywhere it was an
absolutely brutal crime scene as would be typical with any case where there's multiple stab wounds there was a
tremendous amount of blood there was blood in two of the three rooms it was obvious a life and death struggle
had taken place there was also a hole punch that was discovered in very close proximity to mr
norris body that was bent that would lead me or any other investigator to believe
that either mr north may have been struck with that hole punch or mr north may have struck
his assailant with that hole punch there was a trail of blood from the filing cabinet to daryl's body
then to a desk on top police found a machete the type used to clear brush from construction sites it was perfectly
clean it actually wasn't blood soaked but we didn't know if it might have been used
and then cleaned off in place there daryl north secretary told police there were normally two machetes in the
trailer there was a second machete that had gone missing police assumed this was the one used in
the attack the extra wounds on the back of the head which almost decapitated him
indicated a tremendous desire to make sure that the person was deceased daryl's wallet was still in his pocket
nothing had been stolen there was no sign of forced entry this and the level of violence indicated
a very personal crime out of the 40 cases that i worked this was the only one that had that type of rage exhibited
daryl hired many contractors so his decisions could either make or break some of them
someone's anger had spiraled out of control but police and daryl's family had no
idea who it was daryl north's autopsy revealed he'd been stabbed 46 times with two different weapons
a clear case of overkill our killers as we define it is wounding a person way beyond what what we require to kill
a person so now we frequently see not just a few wounds but many and it's all indicative of rage
that is going on between the two persons involved in the assault the victim and the assailant
a machete missing from his office was believed to be one of the murder weapons the other was
believed to be a knife it had a single sharp age and a blunt age we could predict that it was a larger
knife some of the wounds were at least inch and a half in width on the body surface
the level of violence limited the family's options in terms of funeral arrangements it was just an
absolute disaster it was awful just absolutely awful and i made my mother promise that she
and my sister would not go up to the funeral home and see the family tried to help investigators
by identifying anyone who might have had a reason to harm daryl i thought it must be a stranger you know
that maybe was robbing him or something i could not in in my wildest imagination you know believe that
someone would do that daryl's secretary told police that everyone left the construction site
early on the day of the murder because of the severe rainstorm she said daryl stayed behind to meet
with a contractor named curtis pope curtis pope was a pool contractor daryl was basically mentoring curtis
into the construction business he stayed approximately 20-25 minutes he left daryl darrell said he was going
to wait out the rain and let the traffic die down before he headed home daryl's wife told police curtis pope
could not be the killer curtis pope had done some repair work on our pool i said
please don't spend your time looking at curtis pope he did not kill daryl please you know spend your
time looking for the person that did pope was distraught over daryl's murder he came through the receiving line
crying and i thought he was so touched by daryl's death and he said i loved daryl he was better to me than my own
father pope was 40 years old married with a young daughter he did however have a police record
consisting of arrests for petty theft since he was the last known person to see daryl alive he was
automatically considered a suspect pope agreed to take a polygraph examination and passed it's not likely that somebody
could come in and intentionally be untruthful and still pass the polygraph test the next suspect was bob johnson a
roofing contractor daryl fired johnson just two weeks before his murder he was upset that he wasn't going to
continue to work there because according to him daryl had promised him continued work daryl's family never met
johnson but they'd heard of him daryl had mentioned that he had had some problems with him he usually didn't
bring his problems home and so since it was something that he had shared with me i thought
it was probably serious incredibly just two days after daryl's murder johnson called asking
to get his job back the superintendent felt like it was odd that bob johnson was calling there when
can i come to work after the fact after daryl's been murdered because his belief was is that
daryl didn't want him there johnson said that on the day of the murder he was with his child
in a dallas hospital this was verified but he still had time to commit the murder
the alibi wasn't sufficient enough in my mind to totally exclude him but like curtis
spoke he too passed the polygraph examination the polygraph is just a tool it's not
100 reliable uh it's why it's not admissible in court if it hadn't rained maybe we
could have gotten fingerprints but you can't focus on what we could have had you've got to find what you do have
investigators needed forensic evidence to solve this crime and hope to find some of it at the scene
daryl north's murder was so violent that forensic tests were needed to make sense of what happened
we had numerous types of blood stains they included passive blood drops we had smears
transfers and frankly there was so much blood that you'd be hard-pressed to try to
classify some of it as to how it got there we took many samples we took 23 samples
of blood from various different parts of that crime scene they first had to determine if all the
blood had come from daryl north when the assailant is wielding a knife and he stabs a
victim oftentimes that knife blade hits bone and it stops and oftentimes the killer's hand continues his movement
and it slides down the blade and can cut the assailant the other clue they looked for was shoe
prints with so much blood both the killer and the victim would have stepped in it crime scene
technician jim varnan found several shoe prints and tried to enhance them with a special dye amino black works
because it stains proteins and it's applied to protein stain in this case a blood stain
for wearing pressure in blood or fingerprints latent prints in blood can be enhanced with this
substance in several of the enhanced prints analysts could clearly see the word justin
a well-known brand of texas-made boots we knew that these footwear impressions in blood that had the pattern of a
justin heel was most likely going to be from our assailant because it did not match the only other
bleeder at that crime scene which was our victim unfortunately these boots weren't
unique how common are they you're probably not from here if you don't have a pair
and it was impossible to tell the size of the boot from the print in a justin boot heel it is possible
that you're going to have one physical size that would overlap into several different boot sizes
so that you're not going to be able to tell the precise size of the boot by looking at the size of the hill
nevertheless investigators asked both suspects bob johnson and pool contractor curtis pope if they
owned a pair of justin brand boots bob johnson owned a pair but the heel of his boots was larger
than those at the scene curtis pope also owned a pair of justin brand boots which
appeared to be new and willingly turned them over to investigators in this case my result was inconclusive
i could not eliminate or identify the boot as having made that mark when investigators talked with pope
about his boots they noticed something they hadn't seen before some bruising under his eye
he had some darkness under his left eye there was no cut but it was a slight bruising
a background check revealed pope's business was faltering he had a reputation of just not being
very good at what he did as far as the construction of these swimming pools pope's business records indicated he was
deeply in debt wasn't able to pay his suppliers and the only big client he had left was daryl north
if daryl fired pope during their meeting it would have been the end of pope's company
pope's finances were in terrible shape he was on the fine edge of disaster all the time with a warrant
investigators searched pope's home computer and found something suspicious someone on that computer had visited a
website on how to beat a polygraph and had in fact paid money to download a book
on how to beat it as testing continued on the bloodstains on the floor of the crime scene
investigators noticed one blood drop on daryl north's pants that they had previously overlooked
there was a vertical drop on the back left pant leg of daryl north while he's laying on the
floor the shape of the drop was perfectly round meaning that the origin of the blood was
stationary and hit the fabric at a 90 degree angle the significance of such a drop falling
and hitting the pants perpendicularly while mr north is on the floor is that it would mean that the assailant is
standing above him bleeding on him after he has been attacked so it puts a sequencing
to the events max courtney cut out the stain and submitted it for dna testing investigators found five other drops of
blood at the scene perfectly round in between daryl's body and the door and i said why not let's just test these
five particular drops of blood that we know or we feel like didn't come from daryl north
tests confirmed the blood was not daryl north's there was only one question that remained
who left the blood one of the two suspects or someone else this tiny drop of blood on the back of
daryl north's pants told an important story since the blood hit daryl's pants at a 90 degree angle
it meant the killer was standing over daryl's body while he was bleeding from his own wound
and he continued to bleed as he left the scene when we observed those vertical drops of blood
leading away from mr nor's body that was a very significant thing for us to find because we knew
then that the killer's dna was going to be present on that scene and there was a possible explanation for
how the killer was injured the dented two-hole paper punch unit found near daryl north's body
daryl may have used it to defend himself causing an injury of facial cut or nosebleed
to identified the killer dna samples were collected from the two suspects bob johnson and curtis pope
dna testing revealed it was curtis pope's blood at the crime scene if daryl north had not taken some steps
to defend himself causing him to bleed uh this case wouldn't have been solved would have
never dreamed that you know firing somebody you know would cause somebody to you know go postal daryl's family
couldn't believe that the man whom daryl had mentored in business and treated in many ways like a son
could have done this not until the day they came out here to the house and told me
they that it was his dna that had been identified did i really believe the bruises police noticed under pope's
eye were probably the result of the fight and i was able to examine his arms and
his hands for injuries he didn't have any there was no cuts on the night of daryl north's murder the
dallas fort worth area was hit with a driving rainstorm causing flash floods and power outages
the storm was so bad daryl sent his construction crew home early but he stayed behind because he had a 5
pm appointment with curtis pope they were going to discuss quality problems with the swimming pool
pope was installing at the hotel pope was having financial problems his company was headed towards bankruptcy
and daryl north was his only large client although it's unclear whether daryl knew
this [Music] no one knows what the two men said to each other but prosecutors believe curtis pope
snapped and attacked daryl with a knife daryl was caught off guard and struck pope in the face with the paper punch
causing the nosebleed pope stabbed daryl over 40 times as he laid dying on the floor a drop of
blood from pope's nose fell onto daryl's pants and he continued to bleed as he left the
scene mr pope might have been able to come up with an explanation about how some of
the other drops of blood got in the trailer on that particular night but there's no way he
could have explained the way how his blood was dripped onto daryl norris pants we knew we had eliminated any possible
innocent explanation for his blood being at the scene and we felt like we had him curtis pope
was arrested and charged with first-degree murder he posted bail but on the first day of
his trial pope didn't show up we learned through an informant that he was headed toward canada
that afternoon police in watertown new york just 25 miles from the canadian border stopped a car from
driving the wrong way down a one-way street it was curtis pope he tried to run but was arrested at a shopping center
curtis pope was returned to texas he stood trial and was convicted of first degree murder he was sentenced to life
in prison there is nothing good about curtis pope i just think he's a sociopath and an endangerment to society it was an
unusually bloody crime scene but daryl north unwittingly provided the evidence needed to convict
his killer he probably bloodied curtis pope's nose we have always thought daryl helped to convict curtis pope
the forensic evidence in this case was absolutely the linchpin of the entire case this case
stands out to me because it is a one of the best of the uses of dna combined with
blood stain pattern analysis we're working together the two show who the blood came from
and provide a scenario by which it possibly got there

In 2000, construction manager Darrell North was found dead in his work trailer in Ft. Worth, Texas. When investigators arrived, they found that he had been stabbed 46 times, indicating a personal relationship between the victim and the attacker.

Brief Summary

Daryl North was murdered; Curtis Pope was convicted based on forensic evidence linking him to the crime scene.

Key points

Brutal Murder Uncovered. A violent thunderstorm provides cover for a brutal murder, leaving investigators puzzled.
Curtis Pope Arrested. Curtis Pope, the last person to see Daryl North alive, is arrested for murder.

Episode highlights

Curtis Pope ArrestedCurtis Pope, the last person to see Daryl North alive, is arrested for murder.“Curtis Pope was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.”19:29Mar 5, 2021

Episode quotes

It was an absolutely brutal crime scene.

0:10WatchMar 5, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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