Forensic Files Season 11, Episode 25 - Shell Game - Full Episode | Forensic Files

they thought the fire would cover their crime but one tiny clue no bigger than a
thumbtack remained and it held all the information needed to put a trio of cold-blooded killers
behind bars [Music] [Music] [Music] on a cold january night in 1991 the camden tennessee fire department got a
call about a house fire outside of town but by the time the firefighters arrived
the home was completely engulfed in flames because it was in a rural area they didn't even put it out they just let it
burn and they left the scene the homeowner was named danny vine since his truck was gone
firefighters assumed he wasn't in the house when the fire started the truck was missing and the trailer but della
thornton his fiancee her car was there key's in ignition and basically everyone just thought she pulled up got in
trouble with him and they left there was virtually nothing left of the two-bedroom frame home
the house was fairly small 900 square feet to a thousand square feet max very small
uh total burnout uh nothing left but just the uh the plate that goes around where you nail the
joist and part of the front porch the next day family members went through the rubble
tragically dany's brothers found bones in the debris the sheriff's department responded law
enforcement responded because you know you find bones in a in a fire that definitely
ratchets up the investigation basically there was nothing left the bones were basically just powder except
the skull and the teeth after careful analysis a team of forensic anthropologists from the
university of tennessee concluded that the bones were from two people using dental records they were
identified as danny and his girlfriend della thornton it just seemed like i was having a
nightmare i mean it just seemed like it was a dream that i'd had and that i would wake up you know
because we live in a small town camden is a small rural area things like that just don't happen
27 year old danny vine was a professional scuba diver he bought and sold mussel shells used to
make mother of pearl jewelry and to seed cultured pearls basically the mussel shell buyer at that
time it was a purely cash business they would have to keep five or ten thousand dollars in cash on
their person at all times to buy muscle shells danny from what i understand treated everybody right paid a fair
price if he told you something then that would be that would be the truth his fiancee 29 year old della thornton
was a factory worker their wedding date was only a few months away della she was a sweet girl she was
soft-spoken just kind of easy going pretty blonde with brown eyes they weren't a good-looking couple
their remains were on the sofa in the living room strongly suggesting either murder
or murder suicide the reason that it's important is because if your house is burning you're
not going to sit there on the couch and pop some popcorn and watch it burn while
you're inside of it you're going to make some kind of an attempt to get out if you're able to get out if you're not
injured if you're not being bound by something investigators also found the remains of
the couple's dog the only thing in the house that was consistent with a living thing was the puppy from the position of
the puppy was found huddled in the corner [Music] a specially trained arson dog detected
an accelerant and investigators noticed what's known as a saddle burn near the front door
a saddleburn is what we refer to as a burn down and it's where a flammable liquid
has been poured and it runs in a downward direction and that's the way that fire will burn
gas chromatograph mass spectrometry of the ashes confirmed gasoline was used to start the fire
investigators estimated that almost 10 gallons had been poured in the home and on the bodies
the fire took more than just the lives of danny della and their dog it also destroyed potential evidence
a forensic anthropologist discovered that danny vine and della thornton weren't killed by the house fire
he found remnants of a bullet in danny's skull as a blood bullet enters the bone
the edges of the bullet are peeled off and it begins to splatter get it spattering all over the inside of the
skull and you get these little tiny pin points that are dense and the x-ray won't go through that that's why they're
white or light on the x-ray film the bullet was from a 38 caliber he also found lead fragments in della's
skull the theory at that point is its murder because it was not a suicide because there was no 38 caliber pistol
found in the house there was a 45 danny had but there was no 38. and so whoever shot him left the
scene so at that point we felt sure we had a murder on a deserted road a few miles from
danny and duller's home investigators found danny's pickup truck the trailer was attached
but was empty dany's friends gave police a possible motive for the murders they'd seen 2500
worth of muscle shells in dany's trailer before his death to a muscle diver that
trailer full of shells is a trailer full of money we also found tracks where a vehicle had
backed up to the trailer to unload off of danny's trailer onto another vehicle and once the truck is located and the
shells are are missing uh then our theory is that it's that it's robbery unfortunately
there were no fingerprints truck had been wiped down there were nobody's fingerprints not even danny
vines in that in that truck danny bought muscle shells from independent scuba divers then
sold them to companies that made jewelry or use them to seed cultured pearls so you can really say that most all the
pearls of the world originate from right here on the scenic tennessee river but mussel shell divers had the
reputation of being very tough characters you have to be physically tough you've
got to be mentally tough to get down in that cold water and that dark water in the bottom of the tennessee river and
fill around with your hands in the mud and hope that you don't find something you don't need to
the bottom line is most of these muscle shell divers some didn't but a lot of the ones we dealt with in this case
almost all had multiple felony convictions since the motive for the murders looked
like robbery investigators contacted every company that bought shells in the two weeks following the crime and they
got a break one company said they were offered shells that looked suspicious they had lost their water weight after
several days out of the water the mussels would open up a little bit let all the water drain out and the shells
are sold by the pound and so they're not worth anywhere near as much once the water gets out
and the shells were damaged as if they had already been through a shaker a machine that separates them according to
size if a bunch of shells shows up at another shell buyers camp with chips and marks
and things on it which indicates it's already been through a shaker then that is going to be an indicator that either
the shells are stolen well pretty much the shells are stolen investigators learned that the person
who sold these damaged shells was the wife of a local shell diver gary bruce gary and his two brothers jerry lee and
robert all had prior arrests for numerous crimes they often skirted the law through
intimidation i remember during an interview with a witness in an undisclosed location
they blew up a building located behind where the interview was being conducted just to let the witness know i can get
to you anytime i want to well one brother j.c bruce had been convicted of rape attempted murder
where he had raped a young girl and strangled her he thought she was dead luckily she survived to testify against
him he was out of prison at the time this happened he had been pardoned by the governor a number of years earlier
when police interviewed the bruce brothers they denied any involvement in the murders and claimed they were
elsewhere they all came in and their mother kathleen bruce came in and provided an
alibi so they were all on her property at a shed outside shooting pool at a pool table all night
for the moment at least the case appeared to be a dead end [Music] police were convinced that the three
bruce brothers had something to do with danny vine and della thornton's murder but they faced a sizable hurdle
the bruce brothers claimed to have an alibi that they were with their mother that night
so police dug a little deeper and gradually that alibi started to crack they interviewed this woman who says no i was
at the bruce trailer that night with kathleen bruce and none of the bruces were there
according to a local businessman the bruce brothers were at a gas station that night just hours before the fire at
danny vines home the bruises pulled up and took out two five gallon gas containers and filled
those up with gasoline one of the brothers told the store owner that there's going to be a hot time in camden
tonight and again we felt like that that was involving the fire but this information alone
wasn't enough we had an alibi that wouldn't hold up but we still couldn't put them on the
scene at the time we've got a lot of rumor a lot of innuendo we've got people that are saying that they're in one
place but they're really someplace else so investigators turned to the only hard
evidence they had the burned remains of the victims and here the forensic anthropologist
provided some useful information burn patterns indicated the danny vine fell forward on
the sofa after he was shot this was a lucky break in this investigation because it just happens that where the bullet
was was the least burned part of the body the intensity of the fire was not as great
on the front of the skull as it was on the back the lead inside the bullet had melted
but the bullet's copper jacket peeled away after hitting the bone and it was not destroyed
copper has a melting point of somewhere near 2000 degrees fahrenheit whereas the
lead core which would have been the center portion of the bullet it had a melting point of somewhere near 600
degrees fahrenheit on the copper jacket of the bullet were rifling characteristics that could
identify the weapon that fired it but the bruce is denied owning a 38-caliber pistol all we have is a
bullet and we don't have a gun to match it back to but then a witness came forward who said
she was at gary bruce's home one day when he was target shooting she says that at some point he stopped
took a pistol out that he had i think it was a revolver a 38 revolver and took a couple shots at a tree over
there the woman took investigators to gary bruce's home and found the tree [Music]
sure enough investigators found a bullet hole [Music] so they cut down the tree to look inside
the puzzle was beginning to take form now and take shape and we felt like that was a crucial
piece of evidence in this case investigators used a hammer and chisel to gain access to the bullet without
damaging it when they finally got to it they saw that it was just as the witness
described a 38-caliber round both the bullet from the tree and from danny vine's skull were sent to
ballistics expert tommy heflin in most firearms a series of spirals that are cut or pressed into the barrel
at a twist either right or left that gives the bullet its rotational spin to give it its accuracy to its target
even though both bullets had sustained significant damage heflin was able to compare the
striations on both bullets and discovered that the lands and grooves lined up perfectly
it was very high i was 100 certainty it was the same gun we never found the gun but we could prove it was gary bruce's
gun through the circumstantial evidence and it was critical evidence because of it
we were able to determine what gun it came from and who it belonged to thanks to a stray bullet in a tree
the bruce brothers were arrested and charged with two counts of first degree murder
but bringing the brothers to trial wouldn't be easy when carol vine heard the bruce brothers
had been arrested for the murder of her son danny and future daughter-in-law della
she turned pale that's because della told her she'd been approached by jerry lee bruce shortly
before her murder jerry had tried to get her to go out with him during the time that you know
before that not too long before that and she told him no and she said you'll never be half the man that danny is
and so i think that's why he wanted to to shoot her to kill her prosecutors say the primary motive was
robbery this was wintertime too cold for the bruce brothers to dive for shells in the icy tennessee waters
so they decided to steal shells instead on the night of the murder witnesses placed the three bruce
brothers at a local gas station filling plastic containers with gasoline gary bruce told the owner
it was going to be a hot night in camden [Music] [Music] prosecutors believe that the bruce
brothers robbed danny vine of any cash he had on hand and fully intended to kill him
during the robbery della drove up to the house and saw the bruce's truck she knew there was trouble
[Applause] she went inside to help and the bruces shot them both with a 38-caliber pistol
chemical tests prove they poured gasoline throughout the house and set the fire the position of danny's head protected
the copper jacket of the bullet from melting [Music] this tiny fragment tied the bruises to the murder
the brothers drove danny's truck to a deserted location and took dany's muscle shells worth approximately 2 500
they wiped their fingerprints off the truck but they made a huge blunder with the
shells they either didn't know or perhaps didn't care that danny had already put these shells through a
shaker to determine their value when gary bruce's wife tried to sell the shells the buyer knew right away
that the shelves had been stolen the shell business is a multi-million dollar business a lot of people
buy shelves illegally and sometimes they don't question it where they come from it's just uh
uh but they have to have a receipt you you have to get receipts down uh and in this case we were able to
track the receipts down where the bruce and bruce's had sold these shells up in up in perrier tennessee
as the brothers awaited trial gary bruce peeled back part of a chain-link fence in the prison recreation yard and
escaped we had a lot of trouble trying to find him we searched on horseback we searched in the water we run helicopters
we had agents from all kinds of departments everywhere for 14 months gary bruce eluded police
he even made the fbi's 10 most wanted list but thanks to an anonymous tip he was finally apprehended 200 miles
away in nashville tennessee working as a landscaper gary jerry lee and robert bruce were all
tried and convicted of two counts of first-degree murder arson firearms violations and conspiracy to obstruct
justice each was sentenced to life in prison without parole they were doing that to get money
but it took my child the thornton's daughter it took any future grandchildren that we
could have had kathleen bruce the boy's 60-year-old mother was convicted for providing her sons with a
false alibi and was sentenced to eight years in prison i don't think they anticipated all that
they got but the fact is that they got all they deserved a lot of people were were very happy
it lowered the crime rate significantly in benton county in the area in the end the bruce brothers were no
match for the power of forensic science i think that we're very lucky in this case and that mainly people when they
set a house on fire think it's going to destroy everything well it doesn't there's always evidence there
and in this case there was quite a lot of evidence the forensics in this case was
absolutely critical but for the ballistics but for the forensic of cause and origin
for the arson case there would not have been much of a case [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music] [Music] you

They thought the fire would cover their crime. But one tiny clue, no bigger than a thumbtack, remained. It held all the information investigators needed to put a trio of cold-blooded killers behind bars.

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 episode details the murder of Danny Vine and Della Thornton, the investigation, and the arrest of the Bruce brothers for their crimes.

Key points

A Tragic Discovery. Family members find bones in the debris of a house fire, escalating the investigation.
The Forensic Breakthrough. Forensic anthropologists reveal that Danny and Della were murdered before the fire.
The Bruce Brothers Arrested. The Bruce brothers are arrested and charged with murder after a long investigation.
The Power of Forensic Science. Forensic evidence proves crucial in convicting the Bruce brothers of murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

They thought the fire would cover their crime.

The initial belief of the perpetrators.

0:06WatchJan 20, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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