Forensic Files - Season 1, Episode 1 - The Disappearance of Helle Crafts - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] [Music] hi awful weather out there you uh want to go inside the diner no
i don't want anyone to see me like this you're not gonna like these it's what you thought on a dark
rainy day in the fall of 1986 helicrafts learned from a private investigator that her husband was having an affair
is that your husband yes that's richard shortly after this meeting hella crafts disappeared this
is the story of how forensic science solved the puzzle [Music] [Music] i first met helicrafts in the fall of
1986. she came in to see me and was discussing the possibility of a divorce from her husband she was very concerned
about what was happening at that time she was also concerned about potential violence shall we say
by all accounts 39-year-old heller kraft was a caring mother of three young children
in an unhappy marriage she strongly suspected the affair she felt she knew who the individual was
but she really wanted some confirmation so we talked about hiring a detective to
prove that in fact yes he was involved with another woman at that time it was a typical scenario of husband is
never home constantly lying about his whereabouts and she had enough when helicraft hired
detective keith mayo she provided an important lead a long distance number she saw on the phone bills
but didn't recognize i met with her several days after we had caught richard with his girlfriend and there
were many photos of uh affection between the two of them her kissing him and holding his hand and
rubbing his back those types of photos she just broke down she cried for at least five or ten minutes just
sobbing hella and richard kraft had been married for 12 years they both work for the airlines hela as
a flight attendant for pan am richard a pilot for eastern airlines he was also a part-time policeman
i would describe him as he was very cold you know when he looked at you he had a
very cold stare their relationship was not a close one and friends say richard sometimes hit hella dearest
mother here i am again in london i have said to richard i want to be divorced i no longer trust in richard huggs
hella after hella filed for divorce she confided in friends on her flight crew i want to tell you something
i told my lawyer if anything ever happens to me don't think it was an accident it was an
accident and that's an unusual comment to get from a client on november 18 1986 heller returned from a european flight
assignment and was dropped off at home by her best friend it was the last time anyone saw her
a few days later helen missed her next flight assignment she didn't call in so friends called the crafts home
richard said she went to denmark to visit her sick mother later he told a different story that
hella was on vacation with a friend all which proved not to be true and when this all came together one started
talking to the next to the next there was a collective sense of panic in short time
the friends were basically telling me that she had disappeared and that she was not the type of
individual who would do this she had three small children so i called keith mayo i immediately
told diane that i thought we should go over to the newtown police department to report her missing
and they just turned a deaf ear on us so mayo launched his own investigation in this home video the craft's live in
nanny talks about some mysterious dark stains she noticed on the carpet shortly after hella disappeared and the
inside the bedroom door was a spot a black spot yeah how big would you say it was that
how about that big yeah did it look like a stain it looked like it was stained but it
hadn't been there before the fact that there was new carpet in the bed master bedroom and richard
ripped up the carpet and wouldn't give the nanny an explanation as to why also suspicious a large freezer
missing from the garage and credit card receipt showed that richard had rented a commercial
wood chipper right after hella disappeared had something happened to hella inside the
house and was her husband involved police asked richard kraft to take a lie detector test
did you kill your wife no do you know your wife's whereabouts no did you have anyone kill your wife no
showed very little reaction at all there was nothing that either my partner saw or i saw that indicated that he was
lying with helicraft still missing and no leads connecticut state police called in
their secret weapon forensic expert dr henry lee dr henry lee is the director of the
connecticut state police forensics laboratory and one of the world's most respected
forensic experts he accompanied police as they searched the craft's home we start exam some piece of physical
evidence and found some tiny clue on the mattress dr lee discovered five tiny stains so small
they could barely be seen could they hold the key to the disappearance of helicrafts
and orthotolodine solution on the mattress fibers turned blue it was blood a species test proved it
was human blood but was it hellas an antigen test revealed type o positive the same type as hella crafts
and microscopic analysis revealed it was circulation blood and not menstrual if a circulation blood
now which means a blood vessel has to be injured to create such a pattern dr lee studied the angle and intensity
of the blood's impact he concluded the blood hit the mattress at an angle of 10 degrees
meaning it came from an individual leaning over the bed or kneeling the blood was moving through
the air at medium velocity consistent with an injury caused by a blunt object and there was a six inch blood smear on
the side of the mattress the bathroom towels had been washed recently but dr lee tested them with an
orthotolidene solution the blue areas proved the towels had been soaked with blood
the next issue of course a human body cannot just vanish in the air a body has to be someplace
but there was nobody no weapon and no witnesses police needed more to go on so they look for any unusual events that
might somehow be connected to helicraft's disappearance it led to an important break it snowed
the week of hella's disappearance a snowplow driver reported seeing a wood chipper on a bridge
about 3 30 in the morning a man briefly appeared wearing an orange poncho he saw the same
wood chipper again on river road about an hour later i said well take this man to the location to the
exact location where he saw the wood chipper it was here where the housatonic river
runs into lake zoar police searched the riverbank all they found were a few mounds of wood chips but when
they took a closer look they found a piece of an envelope it was mail addressed to ms heller l crafts
they were just laying there you know and i thought good lord you know we didn't i i didn't even think
too much about uh how the chipper came came into play at that point until we uh until we
started finding a lot of a lot of hair that was when i remarked to my boss you know i said you know if he did what
i think he did it's time for me to retire police spent days sifting through the dirt and debris
along the riverbank in addition to the letter and blonde hair they also discovered a few blue
fibers a gray piece of metal what looked to be some tiny bone fragments and another piece of evidence which just
appeared the sun had melted the snow away from this wall and right against the wall laying right on
top of the leaves a painted fingernail divers explored the bottom of the river and found
pieces of a chainsaw even more unusual the serial number had been scratched off everything was taken to the state police
forensic laboratory in meridian connecticut because any investigation involves so
many specialty area that's why we start calling in 416. by now the story was front page news
around the world richard kraft was a suspect but he maintained his innocence saying
he didn't kill his wife he didn't know her whereabouts and that he had passed a lie detector test
but the forensics might tell a different story when dr lee convened the first meeting
of his forensic team he knew they faced a difficult task they need either that piece of paper for me that
says somebody's dead or occasionally a huge pile of evidence to convince them to identify the individual become a
scientific challenge they began by examining every notch of the chainsaw and found some human hair tissue
and a minute piece of fiber in size it was barely visible with the naked eye on the
cutting edge of the chain the fiber was a bluish green cotton the same color as hella's favorite
cotton night shirt and it matched other blue fibers found at the river but since the serial number was
scratched away it was impossible to tell who owned the chainsaw or was it by using a particular chemical
solution that will eat away the upper layers of the metal that have been altered by
the water or by some physical attempts to alter the serial number it worked the serial number on the chain
saw five nine two one six one six it matched the warranty card sent in by richard b crafts
next forensic experts wanted to find out whose hair was on the chainsaw and at the river every one of the 2660
hairs was examined under a microscope a lot of the hairs had been cut but not cut with a scissors did it
belong to heller crafts so we have to find some no hair to compare basically we use our hair brush there
was a characteristics that that is somewhat unusual for head hair and that's a ridge that was present
in the head hairs they concluded that the hairs found on the chainsaw and at the river were
microscopically similar to the hair from hela's hairbrush next they turned their attention to the
fingernail with the bright red nail polish a chemist compared it to a bottle of hella's
fingernail polish found in her home analyzing the various organic compounds these graphs show that the polish on the
fingernail found at the river is the same as polish taken from the bottle found on hella's nightstand good forensic work
determined that the fingernail polish and the hair were both similar to hellas but they couldn't
prove she was dead i received a phone call from dr lee asking me if i would come and take a
look at these little pieces of what he thought to be bone and wanted me to see if i could
identify them in any way dr lee suspected that the bones found that the river had
gone through the wood chipper crafts had rented so dr lee got the same machine and ran a
test this is actual footage a pig was put through the chipper since their skin and bones are
similar to humans dr lee noticed that the chipper produced a unique signature type of cut
one that matched the cutting pattern on the debris found at the river what i was presented
with was these very very tiny uh literally millimeter size fragments of bone and
in amongst some of these fragments it was possible to see that some of the fragments
indeed came from a human under a spectrograph dr harper noticed tiny grooves in the
bones the grooves told the story they were formed by blood vessels inside the top of the skull
something only humans have they also identified skull fragments from the side of the head
and these were the most important from a forensic point of view so if the fracture is beveling outwards
another force came from the inside we know is a whole lot of force so we didn't know if that's what killed
her we didn't know if she was dead before it happened we certainly knew she's dead
afterwards okay so now we know a human being is dead the next question is who dr harper froze
some of the bone fragments with liquid nitrogen then ground them to a fine powder
tests revealed the bones came from an individual with type o positive blood helicraft's blood type
finally dr lee turned his attention to the gray piece of metal believed to be a crown to a tooth but there was no
human remains on that crown so that couldn't be used as a form of identification they needed more
so dr lee asked dr carrasulis himself to go to the river where he searched for five days then
a break i'd been at the crime scene for maybe eight hours i slipped and fell into the brook
and i had a pail and i was picking evidence up and i cleaned my hand off in this pail that i was collecting evidence
in when i came into the tent i put all the contents of the pail down i washed my hand and i looked down
and there was the tooth but was it hella crafts and i was able to match all the years of different x-rays i
imagine it was from 1986 back to 1982 so i had no doubt in my mind that the tooth i found
came from helicraft's mouth finally the forensic team had an actual match and they say helicraft's teeth are in
this pile and they were knocked out of her head violently and we have a human head going through
violent entering the same palace so we said that means helicraft is dead period based on the forensic evidence
richard kraft was arrested and charged in the murder of his wife what happened to hella crafts based on
the forensic evidence a reasonable scenario can be pieced together thanks for the ride on november 18th
hella crafts returned from her flight to germany around 7pm she put the children to bed
around eight the nanny had the night off and wasn't expected home until midnight before going to bed
hella changed into her favorite blue night shirt looked through her mail you know i can't take this anymore why
don't you just get out no don't get out you get out leave me alone then it happened quickly
using a police flashlight the first blow knocked her to the ground the second produced the blood splatter
hitting the mattress at a 10 degree angle while falling her head grazed the side
of the mattress leaving the blood smear he wrapped the body in the bed covers carried her through the house into the
garage and placed the body into a freezer [Music] richard tried to clean up the blood with
some towels which were later washed but traces of blood remained on the towels later discovered by dr lee marie thomas
the nanny arrived home around 2am and went right to bed at daybreak kraft took the children and
the nanny to his sister's house saying their mother had left earlier marie hurry up he then rented the largest
commercial wood chipper he could find and a u-haul truck using his credit card by night time hella's body was
completely frozen crafts transported the remains along with a chainsaw and some wood to the river
the snow plow driver spotted the wood chipper on a bridge around 3 30 in the morning and again
near the river an hour later using his chainsaw crafts dismembered hella's frozen body and put the pieces
through the chipper along with some wood since the body was frozen it produced little if any blood splatter
most of the debris blew into the river only a few pieces fell short landing on the bank
the male hela placed in her night shirt pocket passed through the chipper virtually untouched before leaving
crafts took apart the chainsaw scratched the serial number off and threw the pieces into the river
how close was the brutal murder of helicrafts to the perfect crime boy damn close damn close
if that person truly believes they're not going to be caught and there's no fear or threat to them
they could get by a polygraph test the key solving this case is so called teamwork
assembling good team and work together amazing yeah the human body writes so much of its history in itself
[Music] ah [Music] you

Series premiere. A flight attendant went missing and was never seen again. Police proved her husband guilty of murder without finding the body.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Hella Kraft's disappearance in 1986 led to a forensic investigation revealing her husband's involvement in her murder.

Key points

The Disappearance of Hella Kraft. Hella Kraft vanished after returning from a flight, leading to a frantic search.
Forensic Breakthroughs. Forensic experts uncover crucial evidence linking Richard Kraft to Hella's disappearance.
The Chilling Discovery. A tooth found at the crime scene confirms Hella's fate, leading to Richard's arrest.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

If anything ever happens to me, don't think it was an accident.

4:15WatchMay 20, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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