Forensic Files - Season 10, Episode 30 - Material Witness - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: A teenage girl went missing after an evening of horseback riding. Some tiny bits of metal, wood, and some weathered green paint
revealed the girl's path on the night she disappeared. And they also painted a portrait of the person she was with.
[theme music] NARRATOR: Between school, sports, a part-time job, and homework, 16-year-old Tracy Parker
didn't have a lot of spare time. Yet, she devoted every free minute she had to her first and only real love, riding.
-We had actually been riding our entire lives. My dad actually brought the first pony
we ever had home when, I think, I was four years old. So horses and animals very much a part of our lives.
NARRATOR: Tracy's neighbors, Wayne and Sharon Frye, often allowed her to ride their horses.
And in return, Tracy cleaned their stalls. But after one visit, Tracy disappeared
and was never seen again. SHANNON PARKER: My mother knew that Tracy was going there to go riding.
And she had anticipated her to be coming home. So obviously, that was where she started to make her calls,
to the Frye residence to see if they had seen Tracy. NARRATOR: The Frye's told Tracy's parents
they were out to dinner that night. And when they returned home, Tracy wasn't there.
But they noticed that Tracy's favorite horse was sweating, an indication it had been ridden.
And the riding equipment had been used and put away. -Everything seemed to be in order at their house.
And then my mom continued to make calls from that point on. NARRATOR: Tracy's parents called police to report her missing.
-When a teenager shows up not coming home, disappeared for less than 24 hours, without any other evidence indicating otherwise,
the normal response is to treat it as a run away and begin the investigation in that manner.
NARRATOR: Friends, neighbors, police and volunteers searched the entire area looking for any signs of her.
But they found nothing. Five days later, searchers found Tracy's clothing in the woods,
about two miles from her home. -The clothes were all crumbled and commingled with each other,
and just thrown off of the road into the brush. SHANNON PARKER: The condition of the clothing was very bad.
There was a lot of blood on the clothes when they were found. And the fact that it was pretty much all of her clothing
just really made everyone's heart sink and-- and-- really, I think, left a very sickening feeling over the whole family.
It was a-- a difficult day. NARRATOR: Nearby, searchers found a red towel and an orange blanket, both soaked with blood.
Since this was before widespread use of DNA testing, serology identified the blood as type O.
The same blood type as Tracy's. The Frye's home was Tracy's last known location,
so police searched their home and stables and made a surprising discovery. DOUGLAS HUDSON: I discovered some blood spots
inside the door to the basement, and I though this is very suspicious. NARRATOR: It was clear that this was blood spatter.
DOUGLAS HUDSON: It wasn't a smear. It wasn't a drip. It had been thrown there through some type of force.
NARRATOR: When questioned, the Frye's said the blood was the result of an accident.
An explanation police found almost too convenient. DOUGLAS HUDSON: I talked to Wayne Frye about that
and asked him if he'd injured himself or anything. He'd had an injury on his thumb.
NARRATOR: The Frye's home was beginning to look like a crime scene, although Tracy's family still
held out hope that she might be alive. -Please bring her home. That's all I want to say.
NARRATOR: 16-year-old Tracy Parker had been riding horses at her next door neighbors home before she
mysteriously disappeared. Her bloody clothes and a blanket were discovered just a few miles away.
-Locating the clothes was really putting things into a perspective that we really
didn't want to have to face. NARRATOR: The red towel found with Tracy's clothes was even more telling.
Police discovered that the towel belonged to Tracy's next door neighbors, the Fryes.
They had used it to cover the window in their garage. SHANNON PARKER: They just seemed very, kind of, unmotivated
and a little bit like two burnouts. I just thought they were kind of odd people.
They didn't seem particularly dangerous or there wasn't any reason to feel afraid of them, I guess.
-The Frye residence became very high on my list as a potential crime scene. NARRATOR: Also suspicious, investigators found blood
on the basement door of the Frye's home. -And certainly at that point, suspected
they had found the place where Tracy had last been. NARRATOR: But in a huge setback for investigators,
an antibody test revealed that the blood was from one of the Frye's dogs. DOUGLAS HUDSON: He had two rather large dogs
and one of them had injured the tip of it's tail. That it was possible that the blood that was on the wall
had come from the tip of the dog's tail. NARRATOR: Nevertheless, police continued
to focus on Wayne and Sharon Frye. They said they were out to dinner with friends on the night Tracy disappeared.
But a check of their telephone records indicated someone used their home phone at 7:44 PM.
Brian Lord, the Frye's handyman, called his girlfriend to say he was running a little late.
IONE S. GEORGE: Brian Lord and his girlfriend had just had a baby. There was a family get together going on.
It was their first real dinner party, and he was expected at home. NARRATOR: Tracy Parker made a telephone call from the house
15 minutes later to one of her friends. IONE S. GEORGE: We know that Tracy made a phone call to one
of her girlfriends at about 8 o'clock. The friend was unavailable to talk and Tracy said, well, call me back.
NARRATOR: During questioning, Brian Lord said he didn't see Tracy Parker that night.
He claimed he left the Frye's home shortly after calling his girlfriend. SHANNON PARKER: My sister had actually said to me,
you know that guy that works on the house up there where I ride the horse says you're really cute.
She goes, anyhow, I don't hang out with him. He's given me a ride home before. That was nice.
NARRATOR: In the forensics lab, scientists found some rare and unusual evidence on Tracy's bloody clothing.
Tiny pieces of metal. JOHN A. BROWN: When we looked at the metal shavings, we could see that there were tool marks on them
and that they had these characteristic little curled-up shapes of metal turnings, as opposed to some other process.
NARRATOR: They appeared to be shavings from a metal lathe, a machine that grinds and cuts metal.
Investigators used X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy, or XRF, to determine the chemical composition
of the shavings. EDWARD SUZUKI: They were comprised primarily of aluminum, but they had a large number of other elements
present. So these were aluminum alloys. NARRATOR: Metal isn't an item commonly found on clothing.
-It would be extremely rare. Not everybody is wandering around with aluminum shavings
on their clothing. NARRATOR: But investigators couldn't find similar aluminum shavings anywhere in the Frye's home, in their stables,
or anywhere else on their property. As the investigation continued, a search team
made the discovery everyone had been dreading. One month after she disappeared, Tracy Parker's partially
clothed body was found in a field about three miles from her home. SHANNON PARKER: I felt like my childhood
ended the day Tracy died. All of a sudden, I-- I had to be an adult and had adult problems and responsibilities,
and things that went along with, you know, being part of something like this. So I feel that I lost my childhood in a sense.
NARRATOR: The autopsy revealed the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
She had apparently been murdered around the time she disappeared. The autopsy also found evidence she
had been sexually assaulted. Investigators found those same aluminum metal shavings
on Tracy's body, along with chips of very old weathered green paint. -From that point, law enforcement
began looking for a construction site, or really a woodworking shop to match up to
where did all of these small wood shavings come from? Where did all the metal shavings come from?
And so they went out really looking for any connection to a woodworking or a small base construction shop.
NARRATOR: Investigators knew if they found the source of both the green paint and the aluminum shavings,
they would find the killer of 16-year-old Tracy Parker. Records show that Tracy Parker used her neighbor's telephone
to call a friend around 8:00 PM on the night she disappeared. Brian Lord, the handyman, used the same phone
to call his girlfriend 15 minutes earlier, although he claimed he didn't see Tracy that night.
Lord said he stopped by his brother's workshop on his way home. When police searched the shop, they found nothing suspicious.
-Nothing jumped out at us right away. It appears that nothing really happened in the workshop.
NARRATOR: Brian Lord allowed police to search his pickup truck, and examine the clothes he said
he was wearing the night Tracy disappeared. Investigators found no forensic evidence.
But neighbors told police they saw Lord washing his truck with a hose that night.
-We had witnesses that had him cleaning his pickup truck, which was very unusual for him to do that.
TRAVIS BAKER: He was washing a truck without a shirt on in 57 degree weather. That sort of behavior was hard to explain.
NARRATOR: Naturally, investigators found this suspicious. So they decided to take a much closer look
inside his brother's workshop. The floor looked remarkably clean and appeared to have been covered with some type of oil.
To find out what was beneath it, analysts sprayed the floor with a reagent called leucomalachite green
that reacts with the protein in human blood. Just seconds after it was applied, large areas illuminated.
FEL ABILLE: Which told us that there was quite a bit of blood that was not seen with the human eye.
I was overwhelmed. NARRATOR: When Brian Lord's attorney saw the blood stain, he suggested the blood was from Brian's dog
when she was in heat. -I said, well then, we better look for this dog. And he goes, what do you mean?
Because there's got to be one heck of a dead dog here somewhere. I mean, look how big that spot is.
NARRATOR: Serology tests showed that the blood was human, and was the same blood type as Tracy Parker's.
DOUGLAS HUDSON: The crime lab examination of the blood revealed that it was type O with a particular enzyme, which
limited it to approximately 4% of the population. Turned out that Tracy Parker's blood
was identical in type and that enzyme. NARRATOR: Next, analysts collected everything
they could find in the workshop. Paint chips, metal shavings, wood chips, debris, dust, dirt,
all were sent to the forensic lab. EDWARD SUZUKI: In the history of our crime laboratory,
which has been in existence since the 1970s, this is by far the largest case, as far
as the volume of trace evidence, that has been received. NARRATOR: Among the thousands of pieces of trace
evidence investigators identified wood chips and paint fragments. But the wood chips were so small it was impossible to tell
whether they matched those found on Tracy's body. The white paint chips were difficult to identify,
but the green ones were easier. Colored paint has variables like color pigments, binding agents,
synthetic and organic base materials that can be unique. JOHN A. BROWN: Never in my life have I see green paint that
would have matched this green paint. It was badly weathered and very old, and it showed in the examination I did.
And I've never seen a paint like this before or since. NARRATOR: The green paint chips were subjected
to microscopic infrared elemental analysis. The results were astounding. The green paint chips found on Tracy's body
were identical to the paint of an old piece of fence found in Brian Lord's workshop.
EDWARD SUZUKI: They were similar in their color, texture, layer structure, degree of the weathering, chemical
composition, composition of minor elements, and so forth. NARRATOR: Police checked Brian Lord's work records
and learned that Lord had dismantled this old green fence just a few weeks before Tracy's disappearance,
and carted those pieces away from the work site in his truck. -To me, the green paint chip was the smoking gun
as-- in relationship to Brian Keith Lord. NARRATOR: Finally, investigators tested metal fragments
in Lord's workshop with X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy, or XRF. They were identical in composition, size, and shape
to those found on Tracy's body, on her clothing, and on the orange blanket. And a single strand of human hair on the orange blanket
was microscopically similar to Brian Lord's hair. TIMOTHY A. DRURY: I think Brian Keith Lord was an angry person,
and I don't know why. A vicious, angry person. NARRATOR: Police found no evidence that Wayne and Sharon
Frye had anything to do with Tracy Parker's murder. Brian Lord was arrested. He insisted he was innocent.
But a background check revealed a violent past. One that literally went unpunished.
Forensic evidence linked a 25-year-old handyman, Brian Lord, to Tracy Parker's murder.
When police checked Lord's background, they found something horrifying. Lord had been convicted of murder once before.
-As a child, when he was only, I believe it was 13, walked over to a house of one of his friends
and shot his friend's mother in the back while she was hanging up clothes on the line.
There was no motivation. He killed her. NARRATOR: For that crime, Lord served only six months
in a juvenile detention facility and was released. -When we learned that Brian Lord had killed before,
I think our family felt very cheated. We felt like the system just didn't do its job.
Why would somebody spend so little time for such a heinous crime? NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe Brian Lord had
his eye on Tracy Parker for quite some time. He frequently worked at the Frye's homes as a handyman
while Tracy was there caring for the horses. On the night of the murder, the Frye's were out to dinner,
so Lord and Tracy were alone. Phone records show that Lord called his girlfriend
at 7:44 to say he was running late. -OK. I'll see you then. NARRATOR: That phone call ended just 8 minutes
before Tracy called her friend from the same phone. -We believe very much that they met together
at least in the kitchen area when those phone calls were made. Tracy was not seen after that time.
NARRATOR: Prosecutors think Lord may have offered Tracy a ride home. Along the way, he stopped at his brother's workshop.
His brother was out of town that day. Lord somehow enticed Tracy inside the workshop.
-Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. -Well, come here. Right back in here. NARRATOR: There, he may have propositioned her
and she refused. -Stop it. NARRATOR: The evidence suggests Lord struck her on the head with a blunt object and sexually assaulted her.
Bits of wood, paint, and metal fragments on the floor clung to Tracy's clothing.
The weathered green paint chips were transferred onto the clothes and blanket from Lord's truck.
Hair from Lord's head fell onto the blanket too. [door slams] After Lord put Tracy's body, her clothing,
and the orange blanket in different locations, he rushed back to the workshop, washed the back of his truck
with a hose, swept and washed the floor, then spread motor oil to cover the blood that had seeped
into the porous concrete. But the cover up didn't work. The pieces of evidence were too numerous.
The analytical powers of the investigators were too great. TIMOTHY A. DRURY: It was very complicated.
It took a very long time to present each small piece of evidence and have it traced back to where it was found
and how it linked then to other-- other pieces of evidence that were found at other sites.
SHANNON PARKER: You wonder what is this guy all about? Several times when we were in court,
he would make little comments as we would walk by. And he would say to my dad, well, if I ever get out,
maybe your other daughter will be next. Just horrible things that make you have a lot of nightmares.
And I thought, I don't have to deal with him right now. Maybe at some point in the future
I will, but right now, I know where he's at. NARRATOR: Brian Lord was tried and convicted
of first degree murder and sentenced to death. A few years later, Lord's guilty verdict
was overturned on appeal. He was tried and convicted again in 1999. And this time, sentenced to life in prison without parole.
-I think the overturning of capital murder cases is so routine that it's aggravating,
but it's not a surprise. IONE S. GEORGE: After the first trial on appeal, I believe it was our state Supreme Court that
said in the written opinion that this was the most complex circumstantial trace evidence case that
had never been tried in the state. And I'd be willing to wager that that stands true.
-I'm not so sure as this case would have been solved had it not been for the forensic evidence.
It was the forensic evidence that tied all of the scenes together. And it was the forensic evidence that
pointed directly at Brian Keith Lord. [theme music]

A teenager went missing after an evening of horseback riding. Her body was found a month later, three miles from her home. The killer unknowingly left trace evidence behind - tiny but unmistakable clues which pointed to him and him alone.

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

Tracy Parker, 16, was murdered; Brian Lord was convicted after forensic evidence linked him to the crime.

Key points

Tracy Parker's Mysterious Disappearance. 16-year-old Tracy Parker goes missing after a horseback riding session, sparking a frantic search.
Blood Evidence Found. Searchers discover Tracy's clothing and blood-soaked items in the woods, raising alarms.
Forensic Breakthroughs. Unique green paint and metal shavings found on Tracy's body lead investigators to Lord.
Suspicion Falls on Brian Lord. Forensic evidence links handyman Brian Lord to Tracy's murder, revealing a violent past.
Brian Lord's Conviction. After a complex trial, Brian Lord is convicted of Tracy's murder and sentenced to life.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Please bring her home.

A plea from Tracy's family for her safe return.

4:31WatchJan 14, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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