Forensic Files - Season 10, Episode 28 - Elemental Clue - Full Episode | Forensic Files

two women from the same town killed in the same way suggested a serial killer was on the loose
there were unusual metal fragments on both victims and investigators needed to find out what they were
in order to stop a killer [Music] uh the spirit of washington was traveling from seattle along the shores of lake
washington when it stopped unexpectedly because of some work being done on the tracks ahead
ladies and gentlemen we are slowing down when the passengers looked outside they saw more than just pretty scenery
witnesses who were on the dinner train saw what appeared to them to be a human body laying in the bottom of
this creek local authorities secured the site and found the remains of a middle-aged woman
wearing a nightgown and slippers a blue jacket was thrown nearby along with an empty pack of cigarettes
unfortunately there were no fingerprints dna or any other forensic evidence on the cigarette pack
the medical pathologist who performed this autopsy was not able to determine a cause of death the
medical examiner's ultimate autopsy didn't show any obvious signs of homicidal violence yet it was
clear from the circumstances that she was the victim of a homicide after a review of missing persons
reports police identified the victim as 53-year-old arlene jensen who lived alone and worked as a seamstress
her son reported her missing five weeks earlier when she failed to show up for work
he found the door a jar her purse and her keys were on the end table and her car was in its stall
there was no sign of forced entry or any disturbance but there were signs that someone other
than arlene had been there she was a very neat housekeeper and there were ashes spilled all around the
ash tray on the coffee table that's something she just never did there was various blankets comforters on
top of the bed i looked at those and then i pulled them back and i noticed that in the area of the upper left hand
side of it on the pillow and on the sheet underneath that there was some blood stains which i tested and they
were indeed positive for blood the comforter didn't have any blood but the sheets underneath dead
this meant someone pulled the comforter over the sheet after the blood was dry which would have been about 30 minutes
later on the bathroom floor were some used towels and two cigarette butts were in
the toilet with the seat and lid left up all these clues told a story some man had been in her home some man
had used the toilet and flipped his cigarette butts into the toilet and failed to flush before he left someone
has been there for a while long enough to smoke at least one cigarette possibly even two they've had time to have blood
dry they've been there for at least 30 minutes and then they've washed their hands or attempted to wash their hands
and clean something up and the cigarette butts were the same brand as the empty package found near the
victim's body if arlene had been abducted from her apartment the motive certainly wasn't robbery
her purse which she always kept on a chair where she sat and watched television was there her wallet was there the keys
to her car were there forensic scientists found another important clue in arlene's bed
tiny bits of metal most no bigger than a fraction of an inch these are metal fragments which weren't
just one type even visually some were silver colors some were brass colored some were copper colored so it's quite a
large mixture of materials something you normally don't see investigators found those same metal
shavings on arlene's body it gives you a significant tie between the body recovery scene and what you would
believe to be the actual location of occurrence on arlene's jacket were several beige nylon fibers
they were triangular in shape the kind used in cars [Music] this suggested that arlene's body had
been inside a car with beige upholstery apparently the killer had left plenty of clues
the metal fragments found on arlene jensen's body and in her apartment were sent to the forensics lab for testing
under a microscope scientists could see that the fragments were different shapes and sizes
the surfaces were corrugated and the composition of the metal varied from piece to piece they were made of
various types of steel for his grades of steel with his crates of brass the unique shapes and the fact some were
hollow were a clear indication of their origin what that means to me is that's a piece
of metal which is projected through the air and when it's projected through the air metal molten metal projected through
is cooling very very rapidly and with the air currents as it goes through the air it dries to a
soccer ball round shape so investigators knew the killer was probably a machinist
someone who worked with metal at high heat on a lathe arlene jensen was a seamstress and there
were no metal fragments like these in her workplace the next clue came from an unlikely
source almost 40 miles away campers in a national park outside of seattle found a decomposed body of a young woman
partially buried in a shallow grave a leopard-skinned jacket was on the ground nearby
through dental records the victim was identified as 29 year old stephanie dietrich
an administrative assistant who was reported missing several weeks earlier she was last seen
at a fourth of july party stephanie was at her residence on july 4th and there were people firing fireworks around the
area it sounds like she was having a good time with the neighbors stephanie told friend she planned to go
camping but no one knew if she went alone or with others we were still thinking she was going to
come back i even when i was printing the flyers i remember still thinking she was
going to come back from some camping trip that she was having so much fun that she just didn't want to
come home for investigators were stunned to discover tiny metal fragments on stephanie's body
like the ones found in the arlene jensen case well the first natural thing you know come up in your
brain is oh these two people are connected at 100 times magnification the fragments
looked identical but were they to find out analysts turned to a process known as energy dispersive x-ray
spectrometry the samples were bombarded with electrons this created x-ray frequencies
which were then charted and compared each element has a set of characteristic x-rays iron is different from chromium
and chromium is different from aluminum the fragment samples contained steel and
brass the steel had the exact same combinations of iron manganese and chromium in the brass
copper and zinc were found in identical amounts and all the samples had equal amounts of cerium
part of a compound used to ignite an oxyacetylene torch a common item in machine shops
we examined all of them and could can see the pattern that regardless of where they came from they were basically the
same kind of metal fragments machining fragments this proved that both arlene jensen and
stephanie dietrich were killed by the same man the science is starting to really catch
up to the bad guys now a serial killer was on the loose in the seattle area he had to be stopped
before he could kill again while investigating stephanie dietrich's murder police interviewed the guests at her
fourth of july party the last time she was seen alive they said stephanie spent most of her time talking to a man
they did not know while they didn't know his last name they knew his name was gary they knew
that he bragged about being a drummer in a rock band stephanie's family identified the man as
her oldest and dearest friend gary ackley when interviewed by police actly recalled he was at the party but wasn't
there specifically to be with stephanie one of the things he told us was he had gone there to locate somebody else had
seen stephanie so stop to talk the witnesses said that it seemed a little bit more than that
then police did a background check on 29 year old gary ackley and discovered some alarming information
gary ackley was related to the first murder victim arlene jensen actly lived with arlene's daughter and
they had two children together when questioned by police ackley said he loved his common-law
mother-in-law and was devastated by her murder but family members said that was a lie
well he didn't like her and it was no secret she didn't like him but no one in the family did like him
their relationship can best be described as being acrimonious arlene jensen was concerned about the welfare of her
daughter whom she believed was at least verbally and psychologically being abused by gary ackley
arlene also didn't like the way actley treated her grandchildren when she would express those concerns
particularly in the presence of of gary ackley it became quite apparent that he didn't
want her anywhere around and ackley's fights with arlene were well known to neighbors and family
members they got into a a disagreement during which gary ackley called her at a minimum of [ __ ] and depending on whose
version you believe if she interfered any longer he would kill her she left the house that they rented
making statements something like i'm not going to put up with this and i don't know why you're putting up this either
to her daughter ackley's brand of cigarettes was another interesting coincidence
when he bought cigarettes he bought the cheapest cigarettes he could get his hands on those were basic basic brand
cigarettes that was the kind of cigarette butts that were located in the toilet in
arlington's house there was also a box from basic brand cigarettes located near the dump site where arlene jensen's body
was ultimately recovered some six weeks later but what was most telling to investigators
was gary ackley's profession gary ackley worked as a fabricator he worked in a metal shop
and much of his time he spent on a lathe this was suspicious since metal fragments were found on both stephanie
dietrich's body as well as arlene jensen's with a search warrant investigators found
metal shavings on ackley's jeans in his car and in his workplace when tested with energy dispersive x-ray
spectronomy scientists discovered that the shavings from gary actley were the same as those
found on both murder victims these metal shavings that came from the body of arlene jensen the body of
stephanie dietrich gary ackley's car and the jeans he was wearing all came from the same place
but ackley's lawyer said this proved nothing they claimed it shouldn't be surprising
the metal shavings were the same because ackley knew both victims and could have
transferred those particles weeks earlier so investigators turned to the beige fibers found on the jacket near his
mother-in-law's body there's an infrared spectrophotometer which identifies this this polymer fiber
as a nylon fiber then we also use a micro spectrophotometer which is an instrument for basically identifying and
comparing color of a specific fiber and what he found was that those beige fibers on arlene's
jacket came from the back seat of ackley's car interestingly there were several blue
nylon fibers found inside acne's car that were microscopically similar to the fibers from arlene's jacket
this is called a cross transfer that jacket had been in contact with some area of a car that had carpet
fibers that were shedding onto her jacket so her jacket was in some location with a brown carpet and his car
was in some contact with a blue jacket in fact the blue jacket fibers were found on
only one area of the car's back seat this was a clear indication that arlene was either unconscious or immobile while
she was in her son-in-law's car she didn't move a lot yeah there wasn't a whole lot of movement with the jacket
so if you're sitting in the rear seat of a car and you never move then that's where the transfer would be
finally in the national park near where stephanie dietrich's body was found investigators discovered remnants of a
campfire some of stephanie's personal items were strewn in the grass along with a plastic shopping bag
there was a shopping bag from a local grocery store and once it was submitted to the washington state patrol crime
laboratory what we found was a very clear latent fingerprint left by none other than gary ackley
the fingerprint along with the metal fragments and fibers clearly tied gary ackley to both crime scenes
prosecutors knew why ackley killed his mother-in-law arlene what they couldn't figure out
is why he killed his childhood friend stephanie he knows he killed arlene jensen
prosecutors believe that gary actley killed arlene jensen out of anger he wanted revenge
for what he believed was her meddling in the way he raised her grandchildren and the way he treated her daughter
the offensive thing about stereotypes i think most people would agree is that they're oftentimes true but i will say
that one stereotype that i think gary ackley is a perfect example of is a domestically
violent woman abusing killer prosecutors believe ackley had access to arlene's apartment
key and used it to enter her home late one night after she was in bed the autopsy results aren't clear about
how he killed arlene but the evidence suggests she was killed while in bed metal fragments dropped from actley's
clothes onto the sheets fragments he couldn't see [Music] he stayed in arlene's apartment long
enough to smoke two cigarettes and wash his hands then he hid the bloodstained sheets with
the comforter the trace evidence shows he put arlene's body into the back seat of his car
creating the fiber cross transfer her jacket fibers were left on the seat and the upholstery fibers clung to her
jacket ackley dumped her body a mile away in a field near the railroad tracks unaware
he left more metal shavings there he also left another calling card an empty pack of his favorite brand of
cigarettes the same brand he left in his mother-in-law's bathroom but what was the motive
for stephanie dietrich's murder by all accounts gary ackley had a big mouth prosecutors think in a moment of
weakness actly told stephanie that he killed arlene prosecutors found a witness who saw
actley and stephanie camping together on the fourth of july weekend prosecutors believe
ackley killed his childhood friend in order to silence her burying her body in a shallow grave
again leaving the tell-tale metal fragments behind when he disposed of stephanie's personal
items he left his fingerprint on the shopping bag i don't think there's anything i could
say that would bother him because someone that can kill their girlfriend's mom and their kid's grandma
is untouchable emotionally so i wouldn't even try a year after the crimes gary ackley was convicted of two counts
of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole despite the mountains of forensic
evidence against him arlene jensen's daughter julie refused to believe that ackley killed her mother
so after his conviction she cemented their common-law relationship by formally marrying him
in a prison ceremony i don't know why julie jensen would marry the man who was convicted of
killing her mother and you'd have to ask her first of all it's nauseating and i i
can't understand her train of thought at all and i don't know i've tried to understand
that before and all i can make of it is domestic violence in its severest form like the brainwashing the abuse
that just makes that person just not even think for themselves because it's so plain to see you know
two murders seemingly unrelated but unmistakably connected by a series of microscopic clues detectives all over
this country are solving murder cases that are 20 or 30 or 40 years old based on science that didn't exist seven or
eight years ago so my expectation is that gary ackley one was not a very intelligent fellow
and two there was just not this blitz of information from the media about murder
investigations that would have ever given him any pause to consider the fact that he was bringing to each of these
two crime scenes the most compelling evidence that would be used to convict him [Music]
[Music] so [Music] you

When two women from the same town were murdered in the same way, police feared a serial killer was on the loose. At first they thought the victims had nothing in common until they found tiny clues linking them to the same man.

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

Gary Ackley was convicted of murdering Arlene Jensen and Stephanie Dietrich, linked by forensic evidence and a troubled relationship.

Key points

Two Murders, One Killer. Investigators discover that two seemingly unrelated murders are connected by microscopic clues.
A Shocking Discovery. Tiny metal fragments found on both victims lead police to a suspect.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The science is starting to really catch up to the bad guys now.

9:11WatchJan 14, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from Forensic Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.