Forensic Files - Season 10, Episode 26 - Cop Out - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[music playing] NARRATOR: The murder of a young college student baffled investigators, until evidence
suggested he knew his attacker. Three tiny hairs and some microscopic skin cells
uncovered a trail of lies, deceit, and retaliation. [theme music] NARRATOR: During the school year,
more than 27,000 students from all over the world call the University of Missouri home.
JOSH HINKLE: It is largely a college town. A lot of students live here. So it's usually pretty quiet.
No big crimes. There have only been about 80 to 90 murders in the past 25 years.
NARRATOR: One of those murders occurred in June of 2004. A group of college students found a body on the grass
in between two apartment buildings near campus. MORLEY SWINGLE: The body was naked,
except for a pair of blue running shorts. And it was apparent to these college students,
even from a distance, that there was a lot of blood around the neck, and that the person was dead.
NARRATOR: At first, police thought it might be an accident. JEFF NICHOLS: This individual could
have been jumping from one rooftop to the next. And being a college town, we see all kinds of crazy things
that happen here. And a stunt like that would not be out of the norm. MORLEY SWINGLE: They got up, though, and looked at the roof,
and saw there was not blood on the edge of the roof. They looked at the air conditioning unit
and saw there wasn't any blood there. And they rather quickly ruled out that idea,
that it would have been a fall. NARRATOR: But a closer inspection revealed the throat wound looked more
like it was made by a knife or some other sharp object. And the blood evidence indicated the murder took place
in the spot where the body was found, and not elsewhere. The victim was identified as 22-year-old Jesse Valencia,
a pre-law major at the university. He worked part-time as a clerk at a local motel.
-I just fell apart. I wouldn't talk to anybody, and I just sat and cried all night long and about all day.
JEFF NICHOLS: What I know about Jesse is, he was a great guy. He socialized quite a bit.
He didn't have any real enemies that anyone knew of. -He was very carefree, and he had a lot of friends.
And I think he really valued those friendships a lot. NARRATOR: But Jesse had a reputation
for defending what he believed in. And he seldom backed down. -All of Jesse's friends were in agreement
that he was a confrontational kind of person. He wanted to be a lawyer someday. He actually liked arguments.
He was flamboyant. NARRATOR: Investigators learned that on the night before the murder, Jesse Valencia worked at the motel,
went to a party, and then headed home. MORLEY SWINGLE: He had been drinking that night.
His blood alcohol level in his body showed he was still under the influence of alcohol
at the time he was killed. NARRATOR: Investigators wondered why Jesse was outside in bare feet and wearing only shorts that night.
Jesse lived alone in an apartment a block from where he was murdered. Investigators found the door to his apartment ajar.
But there was no sign of foul play or a struggle. Under a pile of clothes, they found
a possible clue, a used condom. Was it possible that the condom contained biological evidence of the killer?
Jesse Valencia's autopsy provided a lot of information. Based on rigor mortis and insect activity,
the medical examiner estimated Jesse was killed some time before dawn. The murder weapon was a serrated knife
that cut the arteries and his neck. VALERIE RAO: There was something unique to the blade.
We were very fortunate we were able to see some of those features. For example, there was an interrupted parallel pattern
that, to me, suggested there was something serrated about the blade. NARRATOR: The autopsy revealed no defensive wounds,
which is unusual in a knife attack. -Usually, if someone sees someone coming at them
with a knife, the hands will go up. As your attacker is slashing with the knife,
you're putting your hands up. And you find characteristic defense wounds to the hands.
There were no wounds, whatsoever, to the hands. NARRATOR: And the medical examiner found out why.
VALERIE RAO: So on the surface of the windpipe, he had areas of hemorrhage that we see, also, when somebody is
deprived of oxygen or in strangulation type deaths. MORLEY SWINGLE: She also said she found
petechiae hemorrhaging in the eyes, which is consistent with somebody being choked,
or somebody having compression put to their neck. NARRATOR: This meant that Jesse was
unconscious before he was killed. DNA testing of the condom found in Jesse's apartment
showed it contained biological material from two different people. One was Jesse's.
The other was, obviously, Jesse's sexual partner. An individual police wanted to identify.
Jesse's cellphone records showed he had a number of conversations with a fellow student, Ed
McDevitt, on the night he was killed. -The cell phone records of both Jesse Valencia and Ed McDevitt
confirmed that he and McDevitt had had a phone call about 3:13 AM. So obviously, Ed McDevitt becomes
one of the potential suspects. NARRATOR: McDevitt admitted the two had been lovers.
And said, the last time he was intimate with Jesse was two nights before the murder.
DNA testing confirmed that McDevitt's DNA matched the biological evidence on the condom in Jesse's apartment.
-So obvious, at that point, Ed McDevitt can't be ruled out as a suspect. NARRATOR: McDevitt insisted he didn't kill Jesse,
and claimed he was at home with his roommate at the time of the murder. The roommate corroborated McDevitt's claim.
But evidence under Jesse's fingernails undercut that alibi. -As I started examining the shavings and clippings,
I noticed that two fingernails appeared to have some reddish-blackish stains on them.
NARRATOR: These cells were subjected to DNA testing. The results were surprising.
-I noticed that the profile from the right hand was characteristic of a mixture of possibly three individuals.
NARRATOR: The first source was Jesse, himself, which was expected. The second, was from Ed McDevitt.
He claimed this DNA, like the condom, resulted from their sexual encounter two nights before the murder.
-Maybe this DNA was from just not washing his hands as often as he should have. NARRATOR: To solve the case, investigators
would need to identify the source of the third DNA sample. One of Jesse's friends, Andy Schermerhorn,
had information that would help. MORLEY SWINGLE: Their relationship was a little unusual for mid-America to understand.
They were friends who would sometimes have sex. They had known each other for several months,
and they had had sex about five times. But Andy was quick to tell me, we weren't boyfriends.
NARRATOR: Andy said he was in Jesse's apartment several months earlier and witness a bizarre incident.
MORLEY SWINGLE: engaged in sexual activity in Jesse's bed. And a knock came to the door.
Jesse got up and went to the door opened it, and it was a police officer, in uniform.
The officer came in with a flashlight. He shined the flashlight around the apartment,
and then he said, uh, keep doing what you're doing. And Andy Schermerhorn said, I was standing up in bed, naked,
holding a sheet up. And Jesse said, no. He's cool. He's cool. -He's cool. NARRATOR: It was clear that Jesse knew the police officer
and invited him to join them. MORLEY SWINGLE: Then the officer got up real quickly.
Turned on a lamp and said to Andy Schermerhorn, this has got to remain a secret.
The officer went to the door. And Jessie said to the office, when will I see you again?
And the officer made some comment, you'll see me when you see me, or something like that.
It wasn't clear to Andy Schermerhorn that Jesse would never know when this officer would show up.
And the officer left. NARRATOR: Needless to say, investigators wanted to know the identity of this mysterious police officer.
Was it possible he had information about the murder? One of Jesse Valencia's lovers told investigators
that Jesse was also involved with a police officer. Jesse's family confirmed the relationship.
But Jesse never told them the officer's name. LINDA VALENCIA: Whenever I talked to Jesse,
he would tell me that the guy was just practically stalking him. That's the word Jesse used.
He said he practically stalks me everywhere I go. NARRATOR: Apparently this police officer hadn't given Jesse
his real name, or any other information about himself. -It was like, the cop wanted to know everything about Jesse.
But he didn't want Jesse to know anything about him. And he would just tell him, oh, I
just live nearby, or whatever. And that's when Jesse started getting suspicious, and started
telling me, he said, you know, I'm beginning to wonder about this guy. NARRATOR: Andy Schermerhorn claimed
he had a sexual encounter with both Jesse and the police officer. He said the man was young, in his 20's,
Hispanic with dark hair, and slightly built. Investigators asked Andy to come to police headquarters
to look at some photographs. As they were leading him to the conference room, something unexpected happened.
-As Andy Schermerhorn was going down the hallway to look at the photographs of the person he thought
was the killer, he saw the killer coming at him in the hallway. He recognized him as the person he
had seen having sex with Jesse Valencia. -That's him? -Yes. MORLEY SWINGLE: It scared him to death.
NARRATOR: The man was 28-year-old Steven Rios, a three year veteran of the department.
He was known for being very ambitious. JOSH HINKLE: Steven Rios seemed like he was well respected in the police force and in the community.
I know he had political aspirations. And what he wanted something bigger. But I also think that Steven Rios
was a very rigid individual. And he played everything by the rules, was very strict.
NARRATOR: Rios was married and had just become a father for the first time. His son was only a few months old.
There had never been any rumors that he was sexually involved with anyone of the same gender.
-We certainly did not want to believe that Stephen Rios could have been, in any way, involved in the murder Jessica Valencia.
NARRATOR: When questioned, Rios denied Schermerhorn's allegations. MORLEY SWINGLE: The detective says, I've
talked to another boy who says he was there when you came by. And he saw you have sex with Jesse Valencia.
And Rios said, what? Sex? And acted real surprised. NARRATOR: Rios said he had an alibi
for the night of the murder. That he was home in bed with his wife. -Steven Rios told me on the phone
that he would never harm Jesse Valencia, and he had nothing to do with his death.
NARRATOR: Just to be sure, Rios provided his DNA to compare to the unidentified cells
found under Jesse's fingernails. It seemed to match. But with DNA from three different people,
it was impossible to tell conclusively. -He said that looking at the DNA under the fingernail,
that there was a 1 in 7,000 chance that you could pluck any person at random off the street
and that they would be a match. That they could have contributed to this sample.
NARRATOR: And even if it was a Rios' DNA under Jesse's fingernails, it didn't prove murder.
Ed McDevitt's DNA was under Jesse's fingernails, too. MORLEY SWINGLE: Medical science can't tell you
how long DNA would stay under somebody's fingernail. You know, common sense tell you, every time you wash your hands
some of it is going to go away. But you can't say, with scientific certainly, how long
is DNA going to stay under somebody's fingernail. NARRATOR: Police wondered if this was the one case
that forensic science wouldn't be able to solve. In the search for Jesse Valencia's killer,
investigators had several suspects, all of whom had an alibi. Then investigators took one last look at Jesse's body
and made a startling discovery. They found a large horizontal bruise along the victim's
chest, the kind caused by a police restraint maneuver known as a shoulder pin. It's a hold in which the officer grabs the offender from behind
and renders him unconscious by cutting off blood flow to the brain. -Some people go out as quickly as five seconds.
And my personal experience, working with my partner in training, he said that when he applied the technique to me
and I tried to get out of it, I became unconscious in about five to six seconds.
NARRATOR: That is, if the hold is done correctly. TODD BURKE: And when I saw the bruising on Mr. Valencia,
on both sides of his chest and on his back, my comment to Mr. Swingle was, that could be consistent with this technique done wrong,
where they were wrestling and fighting. And maybe he was trying-- he was getting out of it,
and it wasn't working. NARRATOR: When investigators examined Steve Rios' police training file, they made a shocking discovery.
Rios took this course and failed. -What happened with Steven Rios' scoring was, he scored below an 80%.
So he was not certified in the Defensive Tactics system. NARRATOR: And on Jessie chest, about where you would put
your arm in this police hold, there was some of the victim's blood. And stuck to it were several hairs.
They appeared to be from an arm or leg. WILLIAM RANDALL: The characteristics we typically
see which limb hairs are curved-like features, long tapering tips. Head hairs are different.
They're longer. They don't necessarily taper at the end. They're often cut or rounded off at the ends.
NARRATOR: Miraculously, three of the hair contained the root, a rich source of DNA.
Scientists performed a PCR DNA test on all three hair roots. All three were from the same person.
The hairs weren't from Jesse Valencia or his friends Andy Schermerhorn or Ed McDevitt.
-Whenever I compared those back to the known reference standards from the individuals in this case,
I was able to eliminate all individuals except for Steven Rios. NARRATOR: This put police officer Steven Rios' arm
around Jesse's chest when he was bleeding. -He said, they match to Steven Rios. And statistically, only 1 in 757.6 trillion people
would match. And Rios matches. NARRATOR: And investigators discovered how Rios and Jesse met.
Police records showed Rios cited Jesse for disorderly conduct at a loud party on campus three months before the murder.
When confronted with the evidence, Rios changed his story. He admitted he and Jessie Valencia became lovers.
And said he lied to protect his family. But he continued to deny killing him. -Anybody's heart would go out to the wife of Stephen Rios,
because, in a course of about 48 hours, she found out, number one, her husband's having an affair.
Number two, he's having it with a man. And number three, it's quite likely he killed this man to keep him quiet about the affair.
So for her life and was devastated in a very short period of time. NARRATOR: And a closer look at Rios' activities on the night
of the murder revealed a 45 minute time frame for which Rios couldn't account. And prosecutors think they know the motive.
Jesse told his family he had been involved with a police officer, but just learned he was married and had a child.
And he planned to end their relationship. -He thought, you know, it's not right.
If he's married, I don't want anything to do with him. And, um, he told me he was going to confront him.
And he says, well, I am going to forget about it. He said, I've been trying to avoid him,
but he just keeps following me around. JOSH HINKLE: Steven Rios was hiding it from his family
and from the police force and from his friends. Jesse Valencia thought that he could maybe pretend like he was
threatening Steven Rios to tell the police about Steven Rios having this affair, to tell the police chief.
But I don't think Jesse Valencia ever realized how much danger he was in. [knocking]
NARRATOR: On the night of the murder, prosecutors believe Steven Rios stopped by Jesse's apartment
after his shift ended. Jesse told him the relationship was over. Rios got angry.
Jesse threatened to tell Rios' superiors if he didn't leave him alone. NARRATOR: What are you talking about, we're done?
-Listen to me. I don't want to have to go to your supervisor. -You're going to stand here and threaten me?
NARRATOR: And then he went outside, hoping to end the confrontation. -Don't threaten me.
NARRATOR: Rios didn't want the affair do end. And certainly didn't want his family or co-workers
to find out. So things turned violent. Rios used a police hold to render Jesse unconscious.
It worked, but it left the bruises. In the struggle, there was a DNA cross-transfer.
Jesse scratched Rios and picked up skin cells. Rios left his arm hairs on Jesse's chest.
When Jesse was unconscious, Rios used his knife to kill him. He left, thinking his secret was safe.
If might have been, had it not been for the forensic evidence. -Jurors want to see that.
They want to see fingerprints. They want to see DNA evidence. They want to see, you know, something more than just
listening to witnesses talk about the evidence. They want to see objective evidence on the case.
JEFF NICHOLS: Without a doubt, this is the worst case in our department's history.
And I think any department would agree, no matter how large or how small it is, to have something
like this is devastating. NARRATOR: The weapon used in the murder, the serrated knife,
has never been recovered. BAILIFF: Case number 167984, State versus Rios. NARRATOR: Steven Rios was tried and convicted
of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. He still maintains his innocence.
-You think a police officer is someone who is hired to serve and protect community.
You never expect them to be on the opposite end and be a killer. -In this trial, in closing argument,
I quoted the comedy skit by the comedian Richard Pryor. And in that skit, a woman comes home unexpectedly
and she catches her husband in bed with another man. And the husband looks up and says,
who are going to believe, me or your lying eyes? Steven Rios is saying to you, 1 in 757 trillion?
Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes? And the jury, obviously, agreed with me
that the scientific evidence in this case proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was the killer.
[theme music]

A college student was found dead, and the evidence suggested he knew his killer. Three hairs and some microscopic cells helped police to unravel a web of lies, and find the motive for murder.

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

The murder of Jesse Valencia leads to police officer Steven Rios's conviction through forensic evidence and a hidden relationship.

Key points

The Murder of Jesse Valencia. A young college student is found dead, leading to a complex investigation.
The Discovery of Evidence. Investigators uncover a trail of lies and deceit surrounding Jesse's murder.
The Shocking Revelation. DNA evidence links a police officer to the murder of Jesse Valencia.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I just fell apart.

Jesse's friend reflecting on the aftermath of the murder.

2:27WatchJan 14, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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