Forensic Files - Season 12, Episode 23 - Disrobed - Full Episode | Forensic Files

up next a man is gunned down just after dawn there was a bullet hole that was straight into the tile
his wife is killed too there were three people in the johnson house two of them did not come out alive
no one thought the couple had any enemies apparently they had quite a few that certainly was a mystery to us i
could describe him as a very cocky arrogant young man and the crime scene told a story
no one wanted to believe the evidence was yelling and screaming this is what happened
[Music] nestled in the picturesque sawtooth mountains of central idaho is the town
of bellevue a town that had not had a homicide in more than 10 years here the johnson family felt safe
alan was a landscaper his wife diane worked as a tax collector alan was an avid hunter he's just a
wonderful guy diane her passion was cooking she was always doing something wonderful in the
kitchen on a september morning in 2003 the serenity of this small town ended abruptly
[Music] when shots were fired in the johnson home 9-1-1 what is your emergency still been
two gunshots okay where's shots coming from the daughter came over here and said that somebody shot her parents
when police got there they found diane johnson shot to death in her bed apparently while she was still sleeping
alan johnson was also dead on the floor next to the bed the shower was still going and i could
see directly into the shower and there was a bullet hole that was straight on chest high straight into the tile
the murder weapon a 264 caliber rifle was on the bedroom floor it was probably one of the most violent
crime scenes that i had ever seen it's sarah the couple's 16-year-old daughter said she was asleep in her
bedroom down the hall when she heard the first shot she immediately got up went through her
parents bedroom door called her mother's name heard a second gun shot and then fled the residence out the
front door to a neighbor's house unfortunately sarah didn't see the assailant at the foot of the victim's bed
investigators found two knives that certainly was a mystery to us we have these two homicides and why are these
knives placed in the manner that they are and what does that mean another knife was found in the bedroom
of the family's 22 year old son matthew he was away at college since the doors to the house were never
locked there was no forced entry nothing was stolen adjacent to the johnson's home was a
guest house the family rented out inside on the bed police found the scope that belonged to the murder weapon
the tenant was 45 year old mel spiegel and he was gone we found out that the murder weapon belonged to mel spiegel
mel spiegel was now the prime suspect sheriff walt femling ordered his deputies to seal off the entire
perimeter and to stop the nearby garbage truck from leaving the area i yelled at one of my deputies to run
over there and stop him from doing what he was doing sir just leave the garbage at this truck
that garbage truck was one house away and almost took this evidence in the trash can outside the johnson's
home was evidence more valuable than anything they found inside alan and diane johnson were gunned down
in the bedroom of their home in the early morning hours their sixteen-year-old daughter was in
the house when the shooting occurred but unharmed in the garbage police found a wealth of
evidence the outside trash can a pink bathrobe inside that bathrobe i found a brown
leather glove a latex glove and 25 caliber ammunition this ammunition did not match the
ammunition used in the murders however it looked like the killer threw the items in the trash before fleeing the
scene the murder weapon a high-powered hunting rifle belonged to the johnson's tenant
mel spiegel who had mysteriously disappeared mel spiegel had rented that guest house
for years was a very close friend of allen and diane he works as an electrician within hours of the murders
investigators found spiegel in boise idaho 150 miles away he said he'd been visiting family members all weekend an
alibi that checked out spiegel claimed his hunting rifle was in his closet when he left for boise i
directly asked mel spiegel who he thought we should be looking at and he's the one that told me about
bruno santos santos was dating the johnson 16 year old daughter sarah bruno santos was a 19
year old illegal immigrant he was a dropout associated in a number of small drug related crimes just kind of a guy
that as a father you wouldn't necessarily aspire your daughter to uh to want to marry because he didn't seem to have
much direction in life then investigators learned about a confrontation between alan johnson and
bruno santos a few days before the murders sarah told her parents she was sleeping
overnight at a girlfriend's house but they later learned she was spending the night with santos
alan johnson was furious and he asked his brother-in-law jim vaivald to go with him to santos's home
i said it's not worth getting in trouble going in there beating up the kid or anything like that you're not going to
accomplish anything alan told santos to stay away from his daughter and took sarah home
diana and i were in the kitchen and i asked her do they love each other and she said well she says that they do and
i said well if they think they love each other you won't be able to keep them away from each other
the johnsons also told santos that if he didn't stay away from their daughter they would file statutory rape charges
against him any kind of arrest whatsoever would have sent bruno back to mexico i just gave him that much more
motive to uh to take care of diane and alan investigators immediately took bruno
santos in for questioning i could describe him as a very cocky arrogant young man somewhat confrontational at
times pretty hard to deal with he told me that he had proposed to sarah or asked her to marry him
which she said yes bruno and his mother claimed bruno was home asleep on the morning of the
murders but no one else could verify his alibi he was cooperative with us at the time
as we started pushing him a little harder in the interviews his demeanor certainly did change
our first thought was bruno we figured he was angry with diane and allen he decided to get rid of him so
that he and sarah could be together investigators also found evidence that santos defied the johnsons and continued
to see sarah going so far as to have sexual relations with her in her own home we confirmed that by finding semen
stains on sarah's sheets that match bruno so we knew that he had been in the house so he was a prime suspect based on
the fact that this crime truly was committed by someone with knowledge access and opportunity
[Music] the sheriff's got a warrant to search santos's home for evidence we took his clothing we took his shoes
we took his dna took him to the hospital and scrapings of his hands and his hair
and all those issues for dna samples investigators wanted to know just how far bruno santos was willing to go
to continue seeing sarah johnson following the murders of alan and diane johnson
investigators identified bruno santos as the prime suspect in the crime since santos was 19
and sarah johnson was 16 the johnsons repeatedly warned santos not to see their daughter again
but santos refused to try to rule bruno in or out we tested almost every piece of clothing that he was wearing that day
and the following day that we when we arrested him we never found his dna fingerprints or anything in the crime
scene and any of alan or diane's blood or dna on any of his clothing so bruno santos was eliminated as a
suspect with no other possibilities authorities then began to focus on the johnson's daughter
sarah no more what no more kids they learned that sarah was taking antidepressants
and had a stormy relationship with her mother sarah's relatives thought she was being
a normal teenager pushing against authority until they noticed her unusual behavior
after the murders she did not seem to be going through any sort of grief at all she was not
concerned about losing her mom and dad she wanted to see her friends she wanted to get her nails done
i mean it was just really bizarre this led investigators to consider the unthinkable
that sarah johnson acting alone had murdered her own parents i just could not imagine that a 16 year
old girl could do this type of crime and that was probably the hardest thing in my mind is just trying to get through
this idea that a young girl could do something so hate us investigators knew sarah had keys to the
family guest house occupied by their tenant mel spiegel sarah would often clean the guest house
for mail since she would clean the guest house we believe that she would have knowledge that the weapons would have
been in that closet when the sheriff's interviewed sarah initially they noticed inconsistencies
in her story she claimed she was asleep in her bedroom when she heard the first shot
and that her bedroom door was closed we found traces of diane's blood and skull in sarah's room against her wall
which was some probably 30 feet away sarah johnson's door was open also to allow the bone to go inside her bedroom
because the back edge where the hinges are also had blood deposits on it so both of those doors
were open and there's a hall in between we knew that her door had to be open which was inconsistent of what she said
but this was only an inconsistency not evidence of murder this case was going to be very difficult
to prove to a jury there was not one single piece of evidence necessarily that totally committed sarah to this
crime and so we just had to build it piece by piece the piece they thought might prove most
significant was the t-shirt and pajama bottom sarah was wearing on the morning of the
murders police when they first approached her saw no blood on her clothing there was none there because we
luminaled every inch of her pajamas top and bottom nothing analysts now turned to the pink bathrobe
found in the garbage the morning of the murders family members said the robe belonged to
sarah as rod englert examined it with a pro scope a high-powered microscope capable
of 400 times magnification he was shocked to discover no blood spatter on the front of the robe
but then he looked on the back he found hundreds of tiny specks of blood high velocity blood spatter the type
that would be created by a high-powered rifle you get multiple multiple stains that
are very very tiny like little pencil touches numerous even smaller than that that are just layered layer on layer
especially when it's high energy dna testing showed the blood came from both diane
and alan johnson this proved the killer wore the robe backwards the evidence was yelling and screaming
this is what happened it was the only explanation but investigators needed to prove that
sarah wore the robe on the morning of the murders to do that they had to analyze the shirt
she had on that day sarah johnson had a blue cotton t-shirt with green paint smeared onto it so
therefore i'm thinking well let's examine the blue shirt now and see if any of that cotton fiber could have
transferred with the green paint onto the bathroom scientists took samples from the t-shirt
and fibers from inside the bathrobe they used a scanning electron microscope to compare the similarities
they found paint on both the t-shirt and the bathrobe with the same chemical makeup
what i believed happened now there is a evidence transfer from the blue t-shirt deposited onto the
pink bathroom this proved that sarah had worn the robe over the top of her t-shirt finally
investigators analyzed the gloves found in the garbage when you handle an item and you leave
behind the oils and residues from your skin that contains skin cells and we are oftentimes able to get dna from those
samples scientists swabbed the inside of the gloves and found dna from only one person sarah was the source of the
dna found on the latex glove all the clothing found in the garbage can was then checked for gunshot residue
a gas created by gunfire that can adhere to the shooter we sent the robe we sent
the leather glove and we sent the latex glove to a lab in chicago macron and associates they ultimately found gunshot
residue on all three items but investigators had one final question why wasn't sarah's hair covered in blood
when she went to her neighbor's house to report the murders did she wear some kind of hat if so
where was it sarah did not have any blood on her that we could see with the naked eye
soon they would find out why [Music] investigators learned that sarah johnson disagreed vehemently with her parents
over her relationship with her 19-year-old boyfriend bruno santos sarah's parents threatened to file
statutory rape charges against santos and have him deported unless the two stopped seeing one another
instead prosecutors say sarah turned to violence in october of 2003 sarah johnson was
charged as an adult sarah i have a warrant for your rest for the murder of your parents
diane and alan johnson he's charged with two counts of murder and you're under arrest
okay stand up it was a sad moment because it's a 16 year old that did this it's sad for everybody involved
the trial of a teenaged girl killing her parents was a national sensation there were
three people in the johnson house that morning when alan and diane were murdered two of
them did not come out one person came out alive that person sits right there sarah marie johnson
at trial prosecutors presented voluminous forensic and circumstantial evidence to prove
that sarah murdered her parents she wanted the big rich things in her life she wanted to provide for her
boyfriend they were going to get married and she asked him do you want to live in
a big beautiful home with her parents life insurance and her inheritance she thought she'd be all set and she
could live that happily ever after life that only a 16 year old probably envisions
in a surprise turn of events sarah's boyfriend bruno santos testified for the prosecution
primarily to show he had nothing to do with the murders he did testify that sarah had talked
about hating her dad and about shooting him given the fact that he did not like their relationship
prosecutors believe that sarah chose murder instead of ending her relationship with santos
she knew that the man renting her parents guest house had a hunting rifle so she waited for him to leave for the
weekend and stole it on the morning of the murders sarah put on her bathrobe backwards
the gloves and the shower cap after hearing her father go into the shower she entered the bedroom and fired from
close range at her mother [Music] the blood spatter landed in sarah's room contradicting her story that she was
asleep with her bedroom door closed her father heard the shot he came running into the bedroom
and sarah shot her father in the chest sarah attempted to mislead investigators by placing knives at the foot of her
parents bed to make it appear that the murders were gang-related she flushed the shower cap down the
toilet where plumbers found it several weeks later when it clogged the drain she threw the gloves and bathrobe into
the trash then she ran next door to report her parents murders looking remarkably free of blood spatter
but she left more than enough evidence behind had that garbage container been picked
up you would have lost the robe and you'd lost gloves that had sarah johnson's dna
sarah was just fascinated with crime stories and so we felt that based upon just this exposure from novels from
television that sarah very likely would have understood evidence how to get rid of it and you know that's probably what
led her to do some of the things she did sarah johnson was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to
two life terms without parole she will never be released from prison it was a mixed emotion
i was glad that they found her guilty because in my heart i believe she was but it hurt
to see some family member being in that situation what happened was hard for jurors and
even investigators to believe forensic evidence left no doubt that sarah johnson murdered her parents
without having the robe which contained the leather glove the latex glove and all the blood
i do not believe we would have ever been able to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury
circumstantial evidence is too hard to convict people on circumstantial evidence
alone you need that forensic evidence because this is a for first degree murder charge it makes me wonder
what was going through sarah's head when when she committed this terrible crime of how she could do this
to her to her parents you

The crime scene was especially violent: A husband and wife had been shot to death in their bedroom. Was their 16-year-daughter complicit?

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

Sarah Johnson was convicted of murdering her parents in 2003 after forensic evidence linked her to the crime scene.

Key points

A Shocking Crime Scene. A couple is found murdered in their home, shocking a small town.
The Prime Suspect. Mel Spiegel, the couple's tenant, becomes the prime suspect after the murder weapon is found.
The Unthinkable Accusation. Investigators consider the possibility that Sarah Johnson murdered her own parents.
Trial of the Century. The trial of Sarah Johnson captivates the nation as she faces charges for her parents' murder.
Conviction and Sentencing. Sarah Johnson is convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is what happened.

0:40WatchJan 28, 2022

Tension

80/ 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.