Forensic Files - Season 10, Episode 25 - Signed, Sealed and Delivered - Full Episode | Forensic Files

a driveby shooting on an Alaskan Highway and a bomb sent through the mail two apparently random acts of
Senseless violence until forensic science discovered an important link [Music] [Music]
[Music] on an October night in 1990 Rob Chamberlain and his friend were driving along Glenn Highway in Anchorage Alaska
headed to a local restaurant as he approached the exit ramp Chamberlain heard a loud
crack he looked back and saw a hole in his rear window then he saw his friend 20-year-old Jeffrey Caine slumped in his
seat and covered in blood the bullet entered the back of his head exited out the front of his head uh death was
instantaneous Kane's parents were called to the scene I couldn't understand why Jeff had to be
the one that was shot maybe I'm just you know like there's other people why not shoot the bed people Jeff was a computer
programmer with no known enemies the driver Rob Chamberlain said he had no idea why they were targeted our first
impression was maybe it was uh a drug deal gone bad and somebody was following this young man and something had
happened we really pressed the issue were you targeted for some apparent reason were you involved in something do you
know do you have any enemies have you been involved in anything that would have led somebody to Target
you not far from the sight of the shooting police found a shell casing on the side of the highway people it
probably came from another vehicle uh that was traveling uh in the same direction as our our victim vehicle the
casing was from a high powered assault style rifle a Heckler and Coke or HK91 police wondered whether the shooting was
intentional or a random act they were concerned that somewhere there was a shooter out there not knowing what had
happened or what led to it they just knew that there was somebody out there who randomly shot a teenage boy on the
road it's kind of scary to think that you could be driving down the road and get shot it was very tense at the time
they knew there was a shooter out there still and somebody who had just killed somebody with little else to go on
police asked the public through local media outlets for any witnesses to come forward I would not think it was a stray
bullet I would think somebody was aiming at that car why that particular car we don't know but no one reported seeing
anything unusual so there wasn't a lot of traffic on on the freeway incoming into
Anchorage at the time so there was nobody else in another vehicle who you know called the police and said wow I
just saw a guy fire a shot out of a vehicle the investigation had barely started and was already stalled it is an
unlimited pool of suspects you know at that particular time we have no idea who would have done this we have no idea why
they targeted that car so it's just wide open at that [Music] time Jeff Kane's family and friends
tried to make sense of the highway shooting that took his life kids driving speeding maybe a car accident but never
ever just sitting in the car and getting shot there something you read about in Los Angeles not
Alaska the shell casing found on the highway LED police to believe that Jeff had been hit with a bullet fired from
another car it looked like the shooter waited until the car exited the highway and
reduced speed before firing the Fatal shot I believe what happened was that the suspects in this case uh were pacing
the victim vehicle until they can get the best shot possible the next morning news of the
shooting appeared in the local newspaper and when 19-year-old George Kerr saw it he felt he had no choice but
to call police can I explain my situation here sure I mean these guys are these guys are friends okay friends
I would say I mean and I usually wouldn't rat out my friends but this is just so severe I got to do it KR said he
and his two friends Rd Chile and Doug gustaffson bought an assault rifle earlier in the day later when they were
driving home a car cut them off on the highway just pissed Rd off so he turns to gon he said shoot that
mother he claimed that gustofson raised the rifle and fired a single shot towards the
car Kerr claimed he didn't know anyone had been hurt until he read the newspaper did he actually aim it like a
rifle uh it was really quick I don't know I was sitting in the back and I was telling them you don't want to do that I
still didn't think he'd do it George Kerr's story of the shooting it's very credible because by that time we had
worked this uh crime scene and the highway all night it was uh very consistent with what we had and he
definitely had information that hadn't been released to the media Kerr claimed he didn't know what Guston did with the
rifle after the shooting investigators weren't entirely convinced that Kerr would testify against his friends in
open court I'll be honest with I never trusted George you know he's one of these that he's going to flip on you
he's going to flip-flop because on the one hand he'd to go oh how terrible this was and this kid didn't deserve to die
to the other turn talking about these are his best friends you know and we would die for each other there wasn't
any proof that all this happened other than what George was saying see what I'm saying so they couldn't just run in and
make an arrest at that time to confirm Kerr's version of events police asked him to wear a hidden
microphone and meet with Chile and gustaffson the meeting took place in a restaurant at the Anchorage
International Airport two undercover policemen sat nearby the recording device was in a car
outside George ker said words to the effect of you know Doug why'd you have to kill that guy and gusterson responded
with words to the effect of well I didn't mean to George and uh absolutely corroborated what Kerr had just told
told the uh told the uh the the detectives but Guston wouldn't say where he hid the
gun nevertheless police arrested Rd chiley and Doug gustofson and charged them with Jeffrey Kane's
murder George Kerr accepted a plea bargain and agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for immunity
without the murder weapon he was their entire case George KR was very important to the prosecution without George CT
would have been very difficult I think to put them at the scene and to actually have an eye witness who witnessed not
only the shooting but what happened before and after but as the trial was about to
begin George Kerr changed his [Music] story police had two men in custody for the shooting death of F Kane based on
information provided by their eyewitness George Kerr Kerr initially said that Doug
Guston fired an assault rifle at Jeff Kane from approximately 10 yards away which killed him
instantly but soon Kerr changed his story it wasn't like the aim thing it was just pointed in the general
direction of the car he now claimed that Guston pointed the gun out the window and fired a shot from 200 yd away which
hit the car I believe that this was done so as to throw a bone to his friends that is to give them uh an out to say
that it wasn't first-degree murder that maybe it was something lesser than that like a criminally negligent homicide or
manslaughter uh basically something to try to appease his friends the shell casing at the scene
indicated the weapon was an HK91 assault rifle receipts from a local gun store supported George Kerr's claim that Doug
gusterson had bought an HK91 the day of the murder Kerr also said that he Chile and
gustofson had been shooting the gun earlier that day and they used a road sign as a
Target investigators found that sign with three bullet holes to test K's story investigators
turned to forensic analyst Robert Shem he test fired an HK91 into a piece of metal the same thickness as the road
sign then using a rubberlike casting substance called microsil he made impressions of the
bullet holes in the road sign and those produced by his test firing of the same type of gun
the castings were compared under a microscope once I removed the rubber I was able to establish that the holes in
the sign were indeed 30 caliber and they possessed the same rifling characteristics as an
HK91 the test prove kurr's claim that the boys were using an HK91 that day but could investigators prove the
shooting was in [Music] intentional the Fatal bullet entered the car through the back window hit the
victim and exited through the passenger side window here investigators got a lucky
break there was tinting film on the Windows of the victim's car had the vehicle not had tinting film The
tempered glass that was on the back window of the vehicle and on the passenger side window would have
shattered and probably been completely lost the tinting film held the glass together as a result The Bullet Hole was
still visible Shem took what was left of the passenger window and made a cardboard template
then recreated The Bullet Hole he placed the template in the victim's passenger side
window and then he conducted a simple test he ran a string from The Bullet Hole in
the back window through the hole in the headrest to the hole in the passenger side
[Music] window what we found was that after stringing the trajectory that the angle
was approximately 47° off the back of the vehicle if the shot had been fired from
200 yd away as George Kerr now claimed the trajectory angle would be approximately
95° but the 47° angle placed the shooter's car very close within 7 to 15 yards away this then put the vehicles in
such a close position that it rendered a very easy shot for Mr guers when he shot
at the victim vehicle at the murder trial George Kurt testified against his two friends but
continued to insist their car was 200 yard away from the victim's car when the shot was
fired because I think it's just not a first murder and you base that on what cuz you shooting at the car not to
kill but the forensic evidence proved they were less than 15 yds away which meant
the shot was intentional based on this evidence the driver Rd Chile was convicted of second degree murder Doug
gustofson the shooter was convicted of first deegree murder both were sentenced to life in
prison since George Kerr had immunity from prosecution he left Alaska soon after the trial
ended but the story didn't and [Music] there about a year after the highway shooting a package was mailed to George
Kerr in care of his family's address in euta Alaska [Music] [Music] since George was out of state his father
decided to open [Music] it 44-year-old David Kerr was killed instantly George's stepmother Michelle
was barely alive every bone in her face was broken her eard drums shattered police questioned her on the
way to the hospital convinced she would not survive there's some police officers
here just repeat what you think happened go ahead well we got a package for George from the state of
Alaska I know it was from Doug how do you know that it was from Doug Michelle cuz George put him in jail okay George
testified Michelle thought the bomb had to have come from the two men her stepson put in jail Doug gustaffson and
RD Chile the bomb was not meant to frighten someone to intimidate someone This was meant to kill and it succeeded
killing the wrong person but could the forensic evidence prove it at David Kerr's
autopsy investigators found a tiny metal Post in his chest the kind used in a switch ultimately our crime lab was able
to determine the type of switch that that post would be a part of a manufacturer and to whom did the
manufacturer provide the circuit or the switch Radio Shack well there are lots of Radio Shacks but at least we knew
there were Radio Shacks in Anchorage but both ch ke and Guston were incarcerated at the time how could they
have done it from jail how could they do this how could they do that you know which was all of our qu all of our
questions you know how could somebody do that from jail since prisons routinely record all inmate
conversations investigators found this coded conversation between gustaffson and his sister Peggy it took place
shortly before the bombing yeah now this is to fix your car remember as soon as you find out which
way is on which way is off on the the sliding one glue it in place like I describe right below the surface uhhuh
so that when it's pushed towards the side it's on and when it's pushed towards the center it's off right okay
superficially just sounded like the Doug giving his sister some some help fixing
her car but had too much connected with it to to be just that so as you listen to it over and over again you you know
it became clear that they were talking about Doug was giving Peggy instructions on how to create a circuit for an
improvised explosive device those audio tapes were the Smoking Gun other conversations revealed Peggy didn't have
the technical ability to build the device so she brought in another member of the family their elder brother Craig
who was a mechanic Panic apparently both Peggy and Craig Guston believed their brother was innocent in the highway
shooting death and that George Kerr was responsible to give some idea of the depth of her emotions and her feelings
of Revenge Peggy Guston is 9 months pregnant she is in fact within 3 days of delivering her
second child into the world when she delivers the bomb package to the post office Rock Phelps was in prison with
Doug Guston and RD Chile when the bombing occurred and he knew they wanted Revenge Rd didn't give a [ __ ] who who
got killed as long as a George ker got killed he was wanting to kill George little George is what we called it we
had actually a number of inmates who told us that they had seen a list of names that Raymond chiley had with him
at the jail and that chiley had told them that in fact this was a hit list it was a list of of people that he wanted
to kill and uh they were able to describe the list that the first person on that list was George Kerr other names
on The Hit List included the judge and prosecutor at their trial when Peggy and Craig gustofson
were brought in for questioning and they heard the taped conversations from prison they immediately confessed when
Peggy cooperated Peggy was able to tell us which store she went to to purchase those switches we were able to find
through an old receip uh at that store didn't have Peggy's name on it but it did show a transaction it right during
the time frame that would be very relevant to our case of those types of switches being purchased this bombing
could was totally preventable it never should have happened the Department of Corrections failed Dave and faed K me
their job is to protect the public and not simply house prisoners Michelle Kerr sued the state of Alaska and won more
than $1 million in Damages Peggy and Craig gustaffson were both convicted for their role in Mr
Kerr's murder and will serve a minimum of 22 years in jail Rd Chile and Doug Guston received additional life
sentences they should even have wasted a trial on them they should have took them
out let the family shoot them in the back of the head it's the way I feel about it but that's Alaska Justice you
know we do things a little different up here used to anyway in the end a half dozen families
were destroyed and prosecutors believe there would have been more victims if forensic science hadn't ended chiley and
guston's killing spree you can't just take science by itself and build a case or rare
occasions can you you use a combination of what are people telling you what do you know about this person that person
and you use your science and it all just meshes right together and it builds your
case you but without that you know we'd still be back in the dark ages of of investigating crime
why [Music] [Music]

Brief Summary

A drive-by shooting in Alaska leads to a revenge bombing, revealing a web of crime and forensic investigation.

Key points

The Alaskan Highway Shooting. A drive-by shooting on an Alaskan highway leaves a young man dead, sparking a tense investigation.
George Kerr's Confession. George Kerr confesses to police about his friends' involvement in the shooting, leading to arrests.
The Bombing Incident. A bomb sent to George Kerr's family results in tragedy, raising questions about revenge and justice.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This was meant to kill and it succeeded, killing the wrong person.

Michelle Kerr discusses the intent behind the bombing.

15:44WatchSep 16, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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