Forensic Files - Season 10, Episode 16 - Deadly Valentine - Full Episode | Forensic Files

a beautiful home an affluent woman a vicious murder while her husband mourned investigators
searched for clues a greetings card an exotic dancer and an operating room schedule showed investigators a side of
medicine they hadn't seen before so [Music] it was valentine's day 2001 and susan hamilton had a busy day
planned her husband dr john hamilton was an obstetrician susan ran his medical clinic
susan hamilton was the proverbial trophy wife by all accounts she was a star and he was indeed a very fortunate man
to have her [Music] but susan never left the house that day dr hamilton was performing surgery all
morning when he finished he stopped home on his way to his office to give susan some flowers for valentine's day
[Music] once there he found the back door wide open upstairs in the master bathroom was his
wife unconscious dr hamilton tried to revive her but it was too late in this case the attacker was in
complete control it's unfortunate but i don't think mrs hamilton really stood a chance
the killer apparently escaped through the hamilton's back door none of the neighbors saw anyone leaving
the home we were suspicious of the fact that maybe a burglar could have came in and
possibly attacked this woman trying to steal some jewelry or trying to steal some of the valuables
from that home and she possibly surprised them this was a prominent part of oklahoma city
bigger homes wealthier people affluent folks you know the kind that go to the country club
and police had another possible lead as an obstetrician gynecologist dr hamilton performed abortions at his own
clinic the one his wife susan ran dr and mrs hamilton had been targeted by anti-abortion protesters they'd even
made up wanted posters i believe wanted for murder john hamilton you know that sort of thing
and both dr hamilton and his wife were unapologetic about their work here in the bible belt that's not
something that citizens typically embrace we know it goes on it does happen but to be openly doing something
like that and have a clinic that does those kind of procedures didn't sit well with a lot of people
at the police station dr hamilton was grief stricken [Music] please help me please
please [Music] investigators hoped forensic evidence at the scene could tell them more
susan and john hamilton had been married for 15 years the second marriage for both everyone
loved dr hamilton his wife beautiful woman wore her age incredibly well country club set absolutely she looked
like she would hang out with that kind of affluent crowd everyone said they were just wonderful people and very much
in love at susan's autopsy the medical examiner found no signs of sexual assault
she had been strangled with some neckties then the perpetrator drove her head onto
the floor many times death was caused by repeated blows to her head with a blunt object
the wound her forehead or the left side of her head was was substantial and massive
i think that weapon has to be a weapon of opportunity it has to be something that was in that
environment that was accessible to that person in a search for suspects investigators learned that an
anti-abortion group planned a demonstration in front of the hamilton's home we were able to determine that the house
had been picketed as well as a permit to picket that residence had been attained within a
month of the time of this homicide at the crime scene investigators found no evidence of a
break-in but they did find a potential clue on the kitchen counter they found the valentine's day card john
purchased for his wife and the card read we are important loving caring people together
my life would be incomplete without you i love you john the card susan gave to her husband had
an entirely different message one of the captions she had written herself said obviously i bought this
card before last monday then as you open the card and begin to read the inside of it she had
written i bought this card two weeks ago so they don't seem as appropriate now i
love you sign susan hamilton police wanted to know what had happened two weeks earlier
dr hamilton said they had a fight about money but investigators found evidence there
was more to it than that there was accusations that he was having an affair with one of his clients who
was a topless dancer and this came from phone calls that susan hamilton had gotten a hold of
susan discovered her husband called the dancer more than 60 times this was nuclear
in her eyes and she even moved out for a for a night uh went to stay with her friend dr
hamilton had been to her club she had done a table dance for him for about a hundred dollars
possibly on more than one occasion dr hamilton denied the two were having an affair but with so many calls
susan was skeptical it was not even the fact that he had done it that he had actually been chasing this
girl a little bit what was important was that susan hamilton believed he had done it
one week before the valentine's day murder susan hamilton had made dr hamilton write a letter to this dancer
refusing to be her doctor any further and the media had their own suspicions about dr hamilton
it started when reporters heard the tape of dr hamilton's 9-1-1 call no listen i'm a doctor i've been trying cpr please
send something quick she's not breathing no she's not breathing i don't get pulsed please okay and if you listen to
it over and over again it sounds strange the things he's saying the order in which he says them he's gonna you know
it just it sounds weird so the local tv station kw tv sent the tape to a company specializing
in computer voice stress analysis the test charted the micro tremors in dr hamilton's voice
it showed no excessive blood flow impacting dr hamilton's voice on this i'm very confident that this
doctor is not stressed to the degree that i would think he would be under those circumstances
which makes me feel very confident that he rehearsed this before he made his call the
analysis couldn't say yes he did or no he didn't but it certainly gave an insight into um
maybe there was something more to the story that we didn't know and homicide investigators started to
question dr hamilton's unusual behavior captured on videotape just after the murder
he seemed to be out of control with emotions one way or another he would get upset and start moving back and forth
he would start crying he'd stop and that was one of the concerns that i had it was almost like he was acting
but dr hamilton had an alibi for the time of the murder he was in surgery all morning with plenty of witnesses
obviously a doctor couldn't be in two places at the same time or could he she was strangled she was found naked
topless dancers abortions you start hearing all that mixed together it made for a lot of talk in this town
to analyze the forensic evidence from susan hamilton's murder homicide investigators asked bloodspatter expert
ross gardner for his opinion this case is like many in the sense that what the suspect says
ultimately is going to be tested against the crime scene when emergency workers arrived dr
hamilton was covered in his wife's blood dr hamilton's presence in the crime scene the fact that he's bloody is
completely expected he's come home he's found his wife dead he's cradled her he's taken action
but not all the blood on dr hamilton's shirt could be explained away dr hamilton's claims presented some
major contradictions i don't expect to find spatter the spatter i observed were present on
the front of his shirt below his neck on both sleeves at the cuff and he suggested that he his arms and
his body had been in close proximity to a spatter event on dr hamilton's shoes were tiny blood
droplets almost invisible to the naked eye these were suspicious not only the shape
but the angle at which the blood landed on the shoes there were some coming down on the toe
from above 40 50 degrees there was no possible way that someone had lifted mrs hamilton's head dropped her head down
created additional spatter and somehow dr hamilton's shoes were exposed to that that you couldn't explain it from that
the blood on dr hamilton's shoes was the result of medium velocity impact spatter
the kind caused as a result of a beating tom bevel a blood spatter expert hired by dr hamilton agreed with gardner's
assessment the spatter places the shoe within an area capable of receiving spatter and the spatter is being
generated by some impact into a blood source which in this case is mrs hamilton and blood spatter found four inches up
inside his right shirt cuff was most telling it was direct spatter meaning the blood landed directly on the
shirt for spatter to get up inside the cuff meant it had to be traveling at some
speed for it to get on the inside the blood has to be coming at an angle capable of uh
missing the wrist and the edge of the cuff and the outside and going on the inside of it
uh that puts very limited positions with which that could have occurred the only way that that could
have happened is from somebody using their hand to either hold a weapon or something like
that and beat beat susan hamilton and blood and the blood droplets come spewing off that and
be driven up in that angle scientists performed dna testing on each and every blood stain on dr hamilton's
shirt and shoes it was all susan's blood luminol tests revealed even more of susan's blood on the inside of dr
hamilton's car there was blood found on the steering wheel there was blood found on the seat
the driver's side left edge of the seat and also some hair and tissue found on the
floor of the vehicle on the driver's side investigators discovered what may have
been the murder weapon the hamilton's maid said that a marble figurine from the bathroom
was missing and communication records indicated dr hamilton was not in the hospital in
between his two operations on the morning of the murder he started getting pages from that
hospital to get there now because that second patient had already been put under
anesthesiology the blood spatter evidence proved he was home dr john hamilton was arrested and
charged with murder well can you leave the door open i mean it's just i mean i feel like i'm in a
cage i'm sorry so i i tried to explain to you that i know by the whole purpose of you being here okay
the stage was set for one of the most publicized trials in oklahoma history interest to this case was the stature of
john and susan hamilton and the murder occurring on valentine's day valentine's day is a day for love
this wasn't a very loving scene that i saw that day so what really happened between dr john
hamilton and his wife susan in the days and weeks leading up to susan's murder prosecutors learned that dr hamilton was
making financial payments to others without susan's knowledge he had been sliding money to one of his
children by a previous marriage well she found out he lied to her about that and
she absolutely went ballistic about that told him if he ever did it again she'd leave him
there was no question who wore the pants in the family and it was not john she was a very black and white person
you uh you lie to her and and you're done and susan suspected there was more going
on between her husband and the exotic dancer than he admitted my thinking is susan at this point says
you have broken my trust and it's over the stripper actually told me that she really believed that
john hamilton was trying to work up the nerve to ask her out on a date there wasn't any relationship there but
she knows men pretty well and he was trying to work up the courage to to even get to first base
and and he wasn't even off home plate yet on the morning of valentine's day prosecutors believe the couple exchanged
cards and they argued about susan's not-so-veiled message inside i don't believe i ever wanted to get
this from my wife for valentine's day it wasn't one of the more cheerful ones that you want
forcing an exchange of thoughts about one another thoughts that maybe would have been better aired with a
counselor in the room the evidence suggests dr hamilton went to the hospital performed one operation
then returned home possibly with an attempt to reconciliation [Music] prosecutors say the couple argued once
again in anger hamilton took several neckties from his closet and strangled her once unconscious he hit her head on the
floor and struck her with a blunt object [Music] this created the medium velocity blood
spatter found on his shoes and on the inside of his shirt cuff before he could clean up
the hospital paged him for his next surgery so he took his bloody trousers and the
murder weapon and left for the hospital leaving the back door open that's how susan's blood and hair got
inside his car how dr hamilton disposed of the murder weapon and bloody trousers
remains a mystery at the hospital dr hamilton scrubbed up for his second operation washing away
the forensic evidence but he was still wearing the shoes covered with his wife's blood
his ability to perform the operation didn't surprise prosecutors my wife happens to be a surgeon you
revert to something you've done a thousand times i'm not sure i'd wanted to perform a surgery on me
it's disturbing it's it's frightening and creepy when dr hamilton went home he called
9-1-1 but delivered a performance that didn't fool the forensic speech experts dr hamilton probably believed that
performing cpr would cover any blood evidence of the murder but he was wrong he made some major mistakes
knowing what is available through science today way beyond anything i had any knowledge
of how sophisticated science is at dr hamilton's trial in a devastating blow tom bevel the blood spatter expert hired
by the defense testified that he concurred with the prosecution's expert this is dr hamilton's witness there to
help him get off the murder charge it was absolutely a perry mason moment and you could turn and look at the jurors
and see him all go oh in my opinion when you look at this case in its totality in other words look at
all the physical evidence look at all the statements i am certainly well beyond any reasonable doubt that dr hamilton is
the person that has done this john hamilton was found guilty of his wife's murder
and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole we all felt sorry for him because uh you know his
situation but uh to us the uh the evidence was so overwhelming and and it just seemed to show on his face that
he was guilty john will rot in jail john will have to pay for this at a higher level than what
he's already paid meaning going to hell the forensic findings i thought were powerful
that's the glorious thing about this case there was absolutely no doubt in my head
he is the killer he's he's made his own bed that's one of the interesting things
about forensic pathology and forensics it's a study of human nature that's the dark side to it it's really
unfortunate but we could be pretty mean and nasty [Music] [Music] you

An obstetrician returned home from the hospital and found his wife on the bathroom floor. She was covered with blood and not breathing. He tried unsuccessfully to revive her, staining his clothes with her blood in the process, and then he called 911.

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

Dr. John Hamilton was convicted of murdering his wife Susan after forensic evidence revealed his guilt amid marital strife and infidelity accusations.

Key points

A Valentine's Day Tragedy. Susan Hamilton was found murdered on Valentine's Day, shocking her affluent community.
The Investigation Unfolds. Investigators uncover clues that point to a complex motive behind Susan's murder.
The Trial of Dr. Hamilton. John Hamilton's trial reveals overwhelming forensic evidence against him.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I love you, John.

A poignant message from Susan's card.

5:33WatchJan 14, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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