Forensic Files Season 11, Episode 15 - Nice Threads - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] a christian missionary was murdered in her apartment the perpetrator left little evidence
behind but a new computer program found clues on a bloody sheet and the case made forensic history
[Music] [Music] kirkland washington an upscale suburb of seattle which has some of the best educated citizens in
the united states over 95 percent have either a high school or college diploma 27 year old dawn fairing fit right in
don was very much interested in foreign languages and she was an exchange student paris first and learning french
and then went to vienna austria and learned german dawn was an accomplished violinist and
dancer who had recently returned from japan where she was doing christian missionary work
she was living in this apartment building in kirkland for just two weeks when her neighbor a local fireman
noticed her front door was left open and decided to investigate so he grabbed his portable phone knocked
on the door called out to see if anyone was there and when he didn't receive a response he
entered into the unit in the kitchen there were freshly baked cookies in the bedroom
he found his neighbor dawn fairing on the floor yes you covered it no i i just checked the body to see um so she
was okay dawn was pronounced dead at the scene it was totally denial for me i couldn't
believe that it was happening i mean there's no motive she has no no enemies whatsoever i don't think she knew
anybody i don't think she even knew the people across the hall she had not as yet
said anything to any of us about these other people the other people in the condo
the autopsy revealed a fist-sized bruise on the back of dawn's head she had also been sexually assaulted and
strangled to death with the bed sheet it appeared to us that the attack was quick it didn't look like the suspect
spent much time in the crime scene and again that night no one heard her saw anything
and there's units above and below and across from her and people were home at the time the one thing that the
investigators knew immediately when they entered the scene was that whomever it was that did this
was a smoke they knew this from the ashes on the mattress and the burn mark on the table
where he put the cigarette out he didn't leave the cigarette butt behind it means one of two things either he had
a cigarette in his mouth when he went in or after he realized what he's done he said to himself oh god what am i gonna
do now and it was then that he left the cigarette and thought about what he might do to try and cover it up or clean
it up or abandon it there was also a blood stain on the fitted sheet tests showed the blood was dawn fairings
investigators didn't find any foreign fingerprints or shoe impressions at the scene none of the neighbors saw or heard
anything suspicious and nothing had been stolen from the apartment from a prosecutorial perspective most of
the time you get killed for a reason somebody knows you whether it's legitimate reason or not
and most of the time it's not but there's always a reason almost always a reason
in this case there was none don ferring led a very low risk lifestyle she was involved in a romantic
relationship and again her her main priorities in her life at that time was her christian
faith her family and her studies to be a missionary so there were a number of times when i think we all individually
and collectively looked at one another and said what the hell are we going to do now
the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in dawn fairing's kitchen provided an insight into her last
moments alive grocery receipts identified the store where dawn purchased the ingredients
and they showed that dawn was in the store at 9 45 pm investigators couldn't find anyone who
had seen her between the time she left the store and when her body was discovered the following morning
don fairing was an innocent victim doing the most all-american of events which was making cookies for her mother for
mother's day in the privacy of our own home it could have happened to your daughter or son could have happened to
anyone just happened to be our daughter [Music] a background check revealed dawn was a
very private person who did not date drink or use drugs she had been in town for only two weeks
one of the interesting things that you learn when you do this kind of work the medical examiner and their observations
that they make of a person and the remarkable observation that he made about dawn fairing was that she was so
modest that she didn't even have pierced ears investigators checked the whereabouts of
all registered sex offenders in the area and each of them had an alibi the registered sex offender who lived in
this neighborhood actually had a history of abusing children and not grown women and
not to suggest that never the two shall meet but most often you have one target group or another if you're a sex
offender we had a number of potential leads we had at that time a serial killer investigation
and that part of the county was underway the green river serial killer attacked dozens of women in the pacific northwest
but those murders differed from this one since the green river victims weren't killed in their homes
investigators were fairly certain that dawn's killer lived somewhere nearby we initially looked at everyone in the
building there was nothing that really stood out people had alibis they were pretty much accounted for and
when we ran the criminal history checks on those persons we didn't come back with
anything of concern and it also appeared that the killer knew dawn lived alone if it had been someone who just followed
her home from the grocery store or off the street they're taking a huge chance by entering into someone's residence and
and gambling that they're there alone although dawn had been sexually assaulted the medical examiner could find no
biological evidence left by the perpetrator the only possible piece of evidence was the blood stain on dawn's bed
the blood was dawn's but was it possible that the blood held other clues the evidence texts looked at it and reviewed
it and the officer asked what are our chances of identifying somebody with this and in unison they both said slim to
none if the killer had touched the blood it might show his fingerprint but the blood was on a porous bed sheet
another roadblock getting prints on fabric is extremely difficult pretty rare there's only
you know not very many cases documented for that a quick call to the fbi's crime lab
suggested they could try to see if there was a print in the blood stain with a substance called
amido black amito black has long been used on laboratory slides to enhance the contrast
it also reacts positively to the protein and blood with nothing to lose forensic scientist
pat warwick took the fbi suggestion and soaked the bed sheet in the amido black solution
none of us believed in a million years that we were going to get anything out of this because the moment this sheet
went into the amino black solution the first time it it turned completely blue but to the trained eye
something did start to appear we just couldn't believe it you know here we have this section of fabric this
sheet and then we can see easily readily see hand prints fingerprints in blood on the sheet a lot of it is stuff that
was not visible at all even right before we started and it was just covered with
it the partial palm print that emerged didn't look like it could be used for any kind of identification
the fabric was the real problem you have to get in close and look for detail ridge detail friction ridge skin
detail so we look at it with magnification as soon as you get in close all you can see is the weave of the
fabric you can't really see any detail because the weave is interfering with that
that's all you can see the palm print now looked like a dead end and detectives had to face the
possibility that dawn's murder would never be solved but investigators kept digging
and being at the right place at the right time produced results while they were standing outside dawn's
apartment a passerby started asking questions i stood outside of that scene for hours
and i vividly recall standing in the parking lot and watching this big fat slob for lack of a better turn
meandered down the stairs and as he walked by all of the investigators he sort of shouted out hey man do i have to
be concerned about my personal safety around here quote unquote his name was eric hayden
and he lived with his girlfriend in the apartment above dawn fairings the first time the detective spoke with
eric hayden he claimed he'd never seen the person who lived there before the second time they spoke with him he
claimed that he'd seen her but they never had any contact with her at all when questioned about his whereabouts on
the night of the murder hayden claimed he was out drinking with friends until very late that night
and he had no prior arrests for sex-related crimes we felt it was significant because this
is a very unusual thing just to wake up one day in your early 30s and go out and commit a crime
like this that's unusual but something about hayden bothered the investigators eric's hand was shaking he pointed it
out himself and he says wow look at me my hands are shaking this is really making me uh nervous
was a simple conversation with police that nerve-wracking or was there something else
eric hayden a 32 year old mill worker was starting to emerge as the prime suspect in dawn fairing's murder
he lived in the same apartment building and according to other residents hayden behaved suspiciously
there was a female neighbor that described eric hayden as weird and when i asked her what do you mean by
weird she said well on one occasion i saw him down in the parking lot it was raining
he didn't have any shoes on he was smoking a cigarette and he he was watching people come and go
and as i watched him i realized he was paying particular attention to the women and during questioning
hayden initially claimed he was out drinking with friends at the time of the murder later he said
he was drinking alone when his story started changing they consider the fact he admittedly drinks
to the point where he doesn't know what's going on hayden was also a smoker which was significant since the killer
left cigarette ashes behind but the only forensic evidence in this crime was the palm print on dawn's bed sheet
and the print was so poor there was no way to make a comparison desperate for answers
detectives called in forensic investigator eric berg they wanted another opinion on whether
or not something could be done with those sheets since they had reached the limit of what they were able to do
with chemistry berg took a digital photograph of the print on the bed sheet and scanned it into his computer
the problem was immediately apparent the ridge details on the print were obscured by the thread patterns on
the sheet as if a screen had been placed over the print well i want to find out who left this because i think it's my
bad guy i see the outline of a hand but i can't see the details how do i get rid of that screen that's
really the question i'm asking myself when i'm looking at the screen how do i get rid of that then berg had an idea
he needed some way to remove the thread pattern from the image but he needed to find some kind of filter the filter is a
nice word for algorithm it's a mathematical process that can go through an image and do something to it we have
one that i designed that basically seeks out repetitive patterns something that repeats itself
in a predictable way and allows you to remove that without affecting the rest of the image
berg took a sample of the bed sheet's thread pattern and had the computer subtract that pattern from the image
leaving only the palm print and it worked it was beautiful i didn't expect this or
i didn't expect to be that that clear but details are suddenly just the hdtv analogy that were popping off
the screen that you did not see before i mean you could see formations but you weren't seeing the details and all of a
sudden you were seeing those details and there was a remarkable amount of detail
here we have pretty much half of a hand from the fingers all the way down to the base
of the hand that's in view that is readily visible so we had just a tremendous amount of
information as far as doing a latent print examination or a comparison the digitally enhanced palm print from
dawn fairing's bed sheet was then compared to eric hayden's palm prince pat warwick focused on the ridge
patterns and breaks in the patterns these are unique to each person there was no doubt
the print on dawn fairing's bed sheet was made by eric hayden so we call him and just said you're not
going to believe it it's the guy who lives upstairs you know it's him and and they just were like what you
know where and it was just amazing we're like yeah it matches the card that we have it
matches him eric hayden was arrested and charged with first degree murder prosecutors were convinced
they had an ironclad case but would the judge allow this evidence to be used in court
as eric hayden awaited trial for the murder of dawn fairing prosecutors had to deal with a number of
problems the technology used to reveal the print had never been admitted as evidence in a
criminal trial the standard argument in this particular type of case is that the evil empire the
cops are out there and they're just trying to convict innocent people out here of murder and all kinds of terrible
crimes and they'll stop at nothing to do that including taking computer evidence
manipulating adding information putting stuff in there that would unfairly bias the case against their
client when prosecutors walked into court they had to convince the judge that the only
thing they did to the palm print on the sheet was to enhance it we don't add anything to the evidence
the evidence is what it is we will take away that that is interfering with our ability to identify
subtracting but we're not going to put in a fingerprint ridge or a palm detail or anything that's missing
the judge left it to the jury to decide eric berg brought his computer into the courtroom
and demonstrated the process everybody looked at it and they were just amazed it was readily apparent that it was a
palm print and i remember i was standing back behind the jury looking at them look at eric berg and in the background
was the defense counsel who looked took one look at me and threw his tie over his shoulder and spun around in
the chair and just essentially saying it i'm done and for all practical purposes
eric hayden was done the palm print told the story of what happened to dawn fairing
prosecutors believe eric hayden was drunk when he returned to his apartment on the night of the murder
as he walked up the stairs to his apartment he noticed dawn's door was slightly ajar
she may have left it open because of the heat from baking the cookies the evidence shows
hayden struck dawn on the back of her head knocking her down [Applause] then sexually assaulted her and strangled her
with the bed sheet [Music] as he got up he steadied himself on the mattress placing a partial bloody palm print on
the sheet he smoked a cigarette while trying to compose himself not knowing that the palm print
later enhanced by computer technology clearly placed him at the scene this is the classic example
of of investigators trained investigators walking into a scene and having the good
sense to preserve something whether it's going to turn into a piece of evidence or not doing nothing to contaminate or
screw it up before they get it to the people who do know what can be done with it
eric hayden was convicted and sentenced to 26 years in prison after the trial dawn fairing's friends
and family set up a scholarship in her name for students who wish to do missionary work there's been over 20
thousand dollars that's been working in the world that would not have been there
if it hadn't been for her death the technology used in dawn's case set a legal precedent
and is now used in cases all over the world it was the first time anywhere in the
world that prime laboratory folks were able to identify handprint impressions finger or palm
hand print impressions left in blood on a woven piece of fabric i'm blown away looking back and some 11
years later that people are still referring to this case and using the technology that was used in it we had no
idea at the time how significant this was going to be i don't think god causes things to happen
but he makes use of them and the timing to me is just amazing that this technology had just been found
at the time when it was needed for solving don's case [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
you

A woman was found dead on the bedroom floor of her apartment. The crime scene yielded little of value, and investigators wondered if they would find enough evidence to make a case, much less catch a killer.

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 missionary Dawn Fairing was solved using groundbreaking forensic technology to identify her killer.

Key points

Dawn Fairing's Murder. A Christian missionary is found dead in her apartment, shocking the community.
Forensic Breakthrough. A new computer program reveals crucial evidence in the murder case.
Eric Hayden Arrested. The prime suspect in Dawn Fairing's murder is arrested after palm print evidence links him to the crime.
Legal Precedent Set. The technology used in Dawn's case sets a legal precedent for future forensic investigations.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was totally denial for me, I couldn’t believe that it was happening.

Witness reaction to Dawn's murder.

2:25WatchJan 20, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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