Forensic Files Season 11, Episode 33 - Skirting the Evidence - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: She won $5,000 at the blackjack table, then left the casino. Three hours later, she was kidnapped.
A single fiber and a tiny piece of cellophane were the only clues to her disappearance.
[theme music] NARRATOR: Tunica, Mississippi, is the third largest gambling center in the United States.
And that's where Shannon Sanderson and her second husband, Robert, loved to go. On April 19, 1996, Robert and Shannon planned a gambling trip
to Tunica to celebrate Robert's 58th birthday. But at the last minute, Robert canceled.
AMY WEIRICH: He told her that his daughters from another marriage had come by and brought him a birthday
cake, and he wanted to spend a little time with them, and wanted to delay their departure
for Tunica, Mississippi. NARRATOR: The couple argued, but Robert decided to stay home.
Shannon took her children from a previous marriage to the babysitter and went to the casino without him.
And played blackjack, all night long. By the end of the evening, she had won $5,000.
SGT. RICHARD DAVID ROLESON: She took $5,000 in cash. They tried to get her to take a check, but she wouldn't.
NARRATOR: Shannon left the casino around 3:00 AM. Then drove to her babysitter's house
to pick up her three children. When she got there, she was attacked. Her babysitters heard the commotion.
SGT. RICHARD DAVID ROLESON: They saw somebody wearing a red ball cap forcing her into a maroon Chevrolet Beretta.
NARRATOR: And the car took off before anyone could intervene. JERRY KITCHEN: They found a fake fingernail that had been left
during the struggle, and a button from the dress that Shannon had been wearing. And they, of course, tagged that as evidence.
NARRATOR: One of the neighbors was able to identify the assailant. -A neighbor said it was Shannon's
husband driving the car. NARRATOR: When questioned by police several hours later,
Shannon's husband, Robert, denied any involvement. He said his children stopped by for small birthday party.
After they left, he went to bed and was alone all night. Since there was no one to corroborate his alibi,
police asked Robert to take a polygraph test. SGT. RICHARD DAVID ROLESON: His attorney
wouldn't let him take the polygraph test and wouldn't let him give a statement to us,
other than what he had already told the uniform officers that made the scene the night of the kidnapping.
So, that kind of sent a red flag up. So, we couldn't eliminate him. NARRATOR: A look into the couple's marriage
revealed they were having their fair share of problems. It was the second marriage for both,
and there was a 33 year age difference. AMY WEIRICH: We had heard some reports from some family
members, that perhaps there was more trouble than usual with their marriage. That this argument they had on his birthday
was not an isolated incident. That they had been fighting quite regularly. NARRATOR: If Robert Sanderson knew anything about his wife's
disappearance, he wasn't talking. And police had no idea where she was. There were several witnesses to Shannon
Sanderson's early morning abduction. One of them claimed that the assailant looked like Shannon's husband, Robert.
JERRY KITCHEN: We had a witness that observed a maroon Beretta, and she identified the individual as Robert Sanderson.
And that was the strongest piece of evidence that we had at that time. NARRATOR: Robert denied any involvement,
and said he didn't own a red Beretta. But Robert was one of the few people who knew where Shannon would be that evening.
AMY WEIRICH: And he was also an individual who had made a lot of money in the security business,
and would know things that, you know, the average citizen on the street wouldn't know.
NARRATOR: Amid rumors that there was trouble in the marriage, investigators also uncovered a possible financial motive.
AMY WEIRICH: Prenuptial agreement had been signed-- it was actually signed post-marriage--
and provided for-- I believe, he would had to have gotten her an apartment and paid her $10,000
if they were to divorce, of something was to happen to their marriage. NARRATOR: Robert had Shannon sign this disagreement just two
weeks before her disappearance. -It was a factor to consider, and not something that
hits the radar every time the Memphis Police Department is investigating a homicide, or an abduction.
It was something unusual. NARRATOR: Weeks passed, and there was no word from Shannon or her kidnapper.
Family and friends distributed missing posters throughout town. And police asked the public to call
if they have any information to offer. And police also questioned Shannon's ex-husband, Michael.
The two had only been divorced for a year and a half. MICHAEL HOLLAND: I had no idea what could have happened.
One of the police told me I was a suspect. They questioned me for about a week straight down there,
at downtown Memphis. NARRATOR: Michael said he had an alibi. That he was at work at a chemical company on the night
of the abduction, and police confirmed his story. Investigators also discovered there was another man
in Shannon's life, Brett Musekamp, who dated Shannon briefly in between her divorce and subsequent marriage
to Robert. Apparently, Musekamp was angry when Shannon dumped him. AMY WEIRICH: There were some problems
between he and Shannon Sanderson. He was calling and harassing. He was also following her around in her car.
There was one incident where he blocked her car in and frightened her. NARRATOR: Shannon pressed criminal charges
and obtained a restraining order against him. Like everyone else in the case, Musekamp denied any involvement
in Shannon's disappearance. AMY WEIRICH: The former boyfriend's alibi was his mother-- that he was at home asleep.
And his mother vouched for him, and it all seemed credible. NARRATOR: Hoping for a lead, police
decided to track Shannon's movements on the night of her abduction, beginning with the Sam's
Town Casino in Tunica, Mississippi. And once again, Robert Sanderson became the focus of the investigation.
An assistant Casino manager was sure he'd seen them together that night. AMY WEIRICH: He remembered Shannon Sanderson and Robert
Sanderson fighting, and he even went so far as to recall Shannon Sanderson crouched over
in the corner of the Casino, and indicating that she was afraid of Robert Sanderson.
NARRATOR: The Casino manager also claimed that Robert Sanderson asked him to help provide an alibi.
-He remembers Robert Sanderson coming back down the casino after Shannon Sanderson's abduction,
and talking to Mr. Burchfield, and saying, you know, I wasn't down here that night.
NARRATOR: A month after Shannon's disappearance, a man found the remains of a body
in a deserted farmhouse 40 miles away. Dental records confirmed that it was Shannon Sanderson.
JERRY KITCHEN: Shannon was shot behind her ear, basically-- one shot, which killed her, of course.
She-- prior to that, she had been struck numerous times in the face. Her jaw was broken.
I believe a tooth was knocked loose and another tooth cracked. NARRATOR: Shannon's $5,000 was missing,
and so was her jewelry. Leading some to suspect the motive was robbery. 25-year old Shannon Sanderson was
found murdered in a deserted farmhouse 40 miles away from her home. Shannon left behind three young children
from her first marriage. At the time, they were just three, five, and seven years
old. MICHAEL HOLLAND: I tell them that she's a good person. She's a loving mom. She cared about them very, very much, and to this day,
you know, she still cares about them. She'll care about them until the rest of their lives.
NARRATOR: The prime suspect in the murder was the second husband, Robert, who was unable to provide a solid alibi
for the night of her murder. A casino employee recalled seeing Robert at the Casino
that night with Shannon. A review of the casino's security cameras revealed Shannon Sanderson was there,
but no sign of her husband, Robert. JERRY KITCHEN: We were able to determine that this particular night there was no altercation,
and that Robert wasn't at Sam's Town, because we were able to go back and look at who she was with
and where she-- when she left, if anyone was with her. And of course, Robert wasn't there.
NARRATOR: The investigation into Shannon's murder had been dragging on for weeks.
During that time, police received numerous calls about the case. One of them came from a woman named Sharon Powers.
-She called the Memphis Police Department, and she said, my husband, Gerald Lee Powers,
was at Sam's Town Casino the night that this woman was abducted, he was driving a maroon Beretta,
and he was wearing a red baseball cap. That's all she told the police. NARRATOR: A background check revealed 41-year-old Gerald
Powers was an unemployed construction worker with a criminal past. AMY WEIRICH: Gerald Lee Powers had
a horrible criminal history of terrorizing women. One in which he jumped in a car of a woman that he didn't know,
held her at knife point, threatened her. Somehow, miraculously, she was able to drive and escape.
And there was another case where he broke into a woman's home, beat her with a skillet, stole money from her,
and stole jewelry from her. NARRATOR: Powers had served seven years in prison for the last assault.
And police couldn't speak to him about Shannon's murder, because he had disappeared.
Police finally caught him a month later at the Mexican border attempting to re-enter the United States.
SGT. RICHARD DAVID ROLESON: They pulled him over, Powers come out with a knife, the border agent drew his gun,
Powers decided he wasn't gonna take a knife to a gun fight, and gave up. NARRATOR: Powers was driving a red Beretta,
the same kind of car witnesses saw at Shannon's kidnapping. But Powers claimed he had an alibi
for the night of Shannon's murder. -We weren't still sure that he had an involvement in it.
He had told the officers that he went to visit a sick friend. NARRATOR: That friend, who lived 50 miles away from the Casino
in Clarksdale, corroborated his alibi. But in Power's trunk investigators found pieces of a fake fingernail
with pink nail polish, similar to the fingernail found at the crime scene. So investigators took the unusual step
of exhuming Shannon's body. -We needed to make sure that these were her fingernails that had been recovered.
NARRATOR: Just as they suspected, Shannon did have fake nails glued onto real fingernails,
and they were sent to the forensic lab for comparison. -We were sent a number of artificial fingernails.
One from the abduction site. One from the victim at autopsy. One from the suspect's trunk of his vehicle.
NARRATOR: Under a microscope, the nail found at the abduction site matched the fake nails from Shannon's body.
Unfortunately, the nail found in Gerald Power's trunk was a different shape and painted a different color
than Shannon Sanderson's nails. -The fingernail from the subject's trunk differed from the fingernails associated with the victim.
-When we found out the nails didn't match, we were shocked. -You know, everybody just, well, it's gonna match,
it's gonna match. It's gotta match, but it didn't. NARRATOR: To find out if Gerald Powers was in Sam's Town Casino
on the night of Shannon Sanderson's abduction, investigators asked casino management
to screen their security videotapes once again. -We happened to get lucky, because cameras that we were
looking at are normally pointed at table games. In this incident, we were-- had some table games that
were getting ready for table drops-- that's the collection of the money from the table games
early in the morning-- and a camera was left out of place, out of position. NARRATOR: That camera caught a partial image of a man wearing
white sneakers standing on a balcony overlooking the blackjack table where Shannon Sanderson was playing.
The man went down the escalator, past Shannon's blackjack table. At the cashier's window, Shannon collected her $5,000.
Then, a Casino security guard escorted her to the parking lot. The man followed Shannon out the door 30 seconds later.
Most of the video was black and white, but he did walk past a color security camera.
The baseball cap was red, and he looked like Gerald Powers. TOM SCOTT: I was pretty elated.
It was a lot of work that we got this guy. It was, like I said, hundreds and hundreds
of hours of reviewing time. Very tedious, and when we did finally get our guy, it was a-- a celebratory moment.
NARRATOR: But prosecutor needed more evidence against Powers before walking into court and trying to get a conviction.
And they didn't have any. Then, in a surprising twist, Gerald Powers wife, Sharon,
led police to the jewelry that had been stolen from Shannon Sanderson. Sharon claimed her husband, Gerald,
told her where he hid it. -He told her that he had buried the jewelry behind the B and W
lounge, in an old abandoned couch, and if she needed it for any purpose, there it was.
NARRATOR: Just as Sharon said, the jewelry was there-- wrapped in tin foil, and pink Saran wrap.
In Powers' home, investigators found pink Saran wrap, similar to the type used to wrap Shannon's jewelry.
In the forensic lab, scientist cut tiny slivers from each sample, and subjected them
to a process known as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Infrared light is passed through each sample.
How much each one absorbs is then plotted on a graph. Both samples have the same composition,
and the color of the cellophane looked the same. But the human eye can only differentiate
110 different colors. A microspectrophotometer can detect thousands, and that test was definitive.
-It's my conclusion that the plastic wrap used to contain Shannon's jewelry, was consistent with coming
from the plastic roll recovered from the suspect's residence. AMY WEIRICH: We were ecstatic.
That was very compelling, in our eyes, and we knew to the jury that that would be something very compelling.
NARRATOR: Next, investigators did a thorough search of Powers' car. SGT. RICHARD DAVID ROLESON: Not having all the equipment like
they do on "CSI"-- vacuum cleaners and stuff-- he went and purchased a lint brush,
and he went over the whole car. NARRATOR: On the tape lift, one fiber stood out-- an unusual black, wool fiber.
CHRIS HOPKINS: I noticed that the dye was unevenly distributed across the wool fiber--
kind of a mocha brown color in between, inside the wool fiber itself. So it had a-- kind of a unique dye distribution
across the wool fiber. NARRATOR: Fibers from the black skirt Shannon was wearing when
murdered were compared to this black fiber from Powers' car. Under a microscope, the fibers appeared
to have the same uneven distribution of dye. Using a microspectrophotometer, scientists
found no differences between the two. The wool fiber in Powers' car came from Shannon's skirt.
CHRIS HOPKINS: That was-- that's exciting. It's the reason most of us in the FBI are here.
We want to find out the truth, and in these violent crime cases, there are no witnesses.
We can settle this legal argument, whether these two people came in contact, and so we find the truth
and present that truth. And it feels good that we believe that justice was done.
NARRATOR: Prosecutors knew that Gerald Powers watched Shannon Sanderson play blackjack and followed her
to the cashier's window, where she cashed in her chips for $5,000 in cash. Prosecutors believe Powers followed Shannon for 45 minutes
as she drove to the babysitter's house to pick up her children. When she got out of her car Powers knocked her unconscious.
Then, threw her into the car. No one knows where he went, but at some point he killed Shannon with a .25 caliber pistol,
stole her casino winnings and jewelry, then disposed of her body in an abandoned farmhouse.
-He knew, at that time, he was not gonna let Shannon live, because of his previous encounters
that he had attempted to abduct women. And they had lived to identify him. In December of 1998, Gerald Powers
was convicted of Shannon Sanderson's murder and was sentenced to death. AMY WEIRICH: And the forensic proof in this case
was overwhelming and compelling. And there was a juror after this was all over, who told us that they couldn't help
but get caught up in the wave of evidence that we created from the very first witness
until the very last, and that we left them no choice but to find Gerald Lee Powers guilty as charged.
SGT. RICHARD DAVID ROLESON: That fiber and that dress put her in that car, and that was the icing on the cake.
It would probably have been hard to convince 12 people that he actually committed the murder without that fiber.
[theme music]

A murder trail turned cold, until police got a call from a woman whose husband, Gerald Powers, had a criminal past and a fondness for Chevy Berettas.

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

Shannon Sanderson was kidnapped after winning $5,000; Gerald Powers was later convicted of her murder.

Key points

Shannon's Disappearance. After winning $5,000 at the casino, Shannon was kidnapped on her way to pick up her children.
The Prime Suspect. Shannon's husband Robert becomes the prime suspect after witnesses identify him at the scene.
Gerald Powers Arrested. Gerald Powers, a man with a criminal past, becomes a suspect after his wife reports him.
Forensic Evidence Convicts. Forensic evidence, including a unique fiber, leads to Gerald Powers' conviction for murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She won $5,000 at the blackjack table.

NARRATOR

0:06WatchJan 20, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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