Forensic Files - Season 12, Episode 4 - Wheel of Misfortune - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: Security cameras tracked a young woman's whereabouts shortly before she disappeared.
An internet search provided some answers, and a cell phone call revealed the others.
[theme music] Experts say that if you're going to gamble, you should know two things, first, the odds of the game
you're playing, and second, that the odds are stacked in the casino's favor. 27-year-old Christie Wilson believed
she could beat those odds in her favorite game, blackjack. Her friends say she was a natural.
PATRICK BOYD: She was very sharp in numbers. She's mathematically a whiz in her head,
and she can just look at things and figure them out real quick, so the odds, percentages.
-She had actually studied on how to play the game, how to become better at the game.
And she was actually a pretty good gambler. NARRATOR: On October 4, 2005, Christie went to the Thunder
Valley Casino in Lincoln, California for a night of blackjack. Two days later, Christie's live-in boyfriend,
Danny Burlando, called police to report her missing. Burlando claimed she never came home from the casino.
-He's as flaky as them come the whole time. His-- his conversations made him just as
innocent as they made him look guilty. NARRATOR: 31-year-old Danny Burlando was an unemployed car
salesman who met Christie just a year earlier at a casino blackjack table. They moved in together shortly after that.
-Christie Wilson's relationship with her boyfriend Daniel Burlando was a, I would say-- describe
it as a tumultuous relationship. -She'd come home and visit, and we found bruises on her.
I didn't find them myself. My wife did and told me about them later on after she left.
And to say the least, I was-- wanted to wring his neck at the time. NARRATOR: Police found Christie's car
in the casino parking lot. A search of her apartment found no signs of a struggle and no evidence she was planning to leave.
-She left behind day-to-day personal effects, toiletry items, clothes, medication
she was taking regularly. She left behind her cat, something very important to her.
So items that if she was to take off and flee the area, perhaps she would take those things with her.
So it was highly suspicious and unusual. NARRATOR: A month before Christie's disappearance,
she and Danny were fighting so loudly that the neighbors called police. DON MURCHISON: The police department was then
unable to determine who was the aggressor. So both of them, at that time, were arrested for domestic violence.
Both of them had suffered injuries. NARRATOR: A check of Burlando's cell phone records
indicated he called Christie's cell phone 78 times during the time she was missing.
GAREN HORST: The fact that he had called her 78 times could be a way for him to create an alibi.
A person might report someone missing, but nonetheless be involved in the commission of their murder
simply to cover their tracks or to appear that they're not involved. NARRATOR: Christy's parents and even police
wondered whether Danny Burlando might have finally gone too far. -Now, to me, this guy stinks.
They've had violence in the past between them. I don't like him. And I really wanted them to look hard into this.
And you have that gut feeling, as both a police officer and as a parent, something really majorly wrong.
NARRATOR: Christie Wilson went missing after a night of casino gambling. Since her stepfather was a local detective,
police officers all over Southern California joined in the search. DON MURCHISON: San Jose Police Department
had coordinated a very large search. Hundreds and hundreds of square miles was searched with vehicles, on foot,
by air, helicopter, airplane. There was an extensive search done both publicly and privately.
NARRATOR: Christie's family was convinced she'd been the victim of foul play at the hands of her live-in boyfriend, Danny Burlando.
-Most murderers probably dump somebody at a fairly short distance to where the crime would happen.
And I was-- felt so strongly that it was Danny. I literally searched his entire complex, close to his house,
and the rivers around it. NARRATOR: Burlando seemed to be the only person with a motive to harm her.
-There's a whole bunch of motives with a boyfriend. She was totally committed to being out of that relationship.
This is, again, why I think it was more of a abused woman, where she's drawn back into a relationship
even though she knows everything is bad for her there. NARRATOR: Burlando had a partial alibi
for the night Christie disappeared. He was having dinner at his parents' house. But there were several hours he couldn't account for.
-It was approximately 11:30 at night, when his friend left him at his apartment, to the morning hours
when he first used his cell phone. We don't have anybody with him to corroborate where he was.
NARRATOR: Investigators asked the casino to review their security camera video tapes to see whether Christie was
there on the night she disappeared. -They have approximately 700-plus cameras in the casino,
both on the exterior and interior of the casino, and we actually had her vehicle pulling in the parking lot.
I had her entering the casino, and then we tracked her movement through the entire casino
throughout the six hours that she was there. NARRATOR: The tape showed Christie playing blackjack.
There were no signs that Danny Burlando was in the casino with her. Seated next to Christie at the blackjack table,
however, was a stocky, dark-haired man. GAREN HORST: You can see their interaction together.
You can see when they would win, they would high five. You can see him putting his arm around her
as if he's trying to pick up on her, romancing her in some fashion. NARRATOR: The dealers said Christie was winning early,
but as the night progressed her luck started to change. They also said she was drinking, but not heavily.
-A detective looked at the casino tape, and I believe he counted up to 17 separate sips of what
appeared to be an alcoholic beverage over the course of the night. That doesn't sound like that much.
She had a noticeable change in behavior towards the end of the evening. NARRATOR: Christie was a regular in the casino,
but the employees found her behavior on this night to be out of character. PATRICK BOYD: She was being a real jerk
at the time from what I understand. And by watching-- I could only see her physical action,
couldn't hear her words- and I could see the way her body got rigid and how she would move differently.
-And some of the employees had discussed asking her to leave the casino. NARRATOR: But the man next to Christie intervened.
-The person of interest stepped in and said, hey, she'll be OK. I'll take care of her, whatever.
NARRATOR: Fortunately, the security tapes provided a clue to the man's identity.
-He had actually used his players card at playing a slot machine about 10 minutes before playing cards
with Christie Wilson at the table. -With that players cards, they can build credit and obtain
complimentary items from the casino. -And so by charting that play and that particular slot
machine, they were able to figure out who the individual was. NARRATOR: He was 53-year-old Mario Garcia, an executive
with a health care computer company. -At one level, he didn't seem like a suspicious type.
But when you've been in this business for a while, you just never know. -He got a six-figure income.
He works for a very-- a very large company. He was managing a very large project for that company.
He's married, had two children, was involved with his children. He played soccer and also was a soccer coach.
NARRATOR: The security camera videotape showed that Christie and Garcia both left the casino
at the same time, around 1 o'clock in the morning. The tapes also show Garcia left in his car alone.
But Christie's car never moved. GAREN HORST: She never went to her vehicle. She simply disappears in that parking lot.
NARRATOR: Police now had two suspects in the disappearance of Christie Wilson. The first was her live-in boyfriend, Danny Burlando,
who had no alibi for the early morning hours that Christie went missing. GAREN HORST: His home was searched.
His car was searched. He was scrutinized in great detail. His phone records were analyzed, his whereabouts.
And-- and cell tower locations of use of his phone were analyzed. His computer was searched forensically and analyzed.
NARRATOR: Police couldn't find any evidence linking Burlando to her disappearance.
The other suspect was Mario Garcia, who was playing blackjack with Christie in the casino.
Christie and Garcia left the casino at the same time around 1:00 AM. PATRICK BOYD: It was the most important thing
to find that person on the video. Without finding that information, we would have no clue what happened,
and we'd probably be assuming that all our life, right to our dying day, that Danny was involved.
NARRATOR: A background check revealed Mario Garcia had a shady past. 25 years earlier, he was arrested
for kidnapping an ex-girlfriend. -He drove her to another location, where he raped her in a vehicle.
Then he took her inside, and he raped her again inside. And at one point, he had stuck a gun in her mouth
and pulled the trigger. NARRATOR: Fortunately, the gun wasn't loaded. Incredibly, Garcia was only charged with a misdemeanor
and received probation. Garcia apparently had a problem with girlfriends. He was involved in a suspicious car accident
with another girlfriend and her mother, who were both in Garcia's car when it veered into a river.
GAREN HORST: There were reports of people driving by, seeing a car pull to the side of the road,
and then speed into the body of water suspiciously. Mario Garcia was the sole survivor of the incident.
His girlfriend, Lynette, washed ashore about a week later. Her mother was trapped in the car and drowned.
NARRATOR: When police questioned Garcia about Christie Wilson's disappearance, he claimed he knew nothing about it.
He said they walked to the parking lot together and each went their separate ways.
The security cameras couldn't confirm this since they panned across the lot and weren't fixed.
But Garcia's car had a unique feature, which provided a timeline for when he unlocked his car
and when he drove away. -The lights on his Toyota Camry flashed four times. Four times means that all four doors were open.
There was a 3 minute and 41 second gap between the time he got in, or unlocked the doors,
and he turns on the headlights to pull out. During that period of time, I believe
that she was incapacitated in some fashion and probably laid in the backseat. NARRATOR: Garcia claimed he drove straight home.
But if that were true, he drove out of the parking lot headed the wrong way. -The video footage showed that he had actually
made a right turn out of the casino, which was the opposite direction he had indicated that he had went.
NARRATOR: Furthermore, Garcia claimed he was home in bed all night until he left for work the next morning at 8:30.
His wife refused to speak with police. But his cell phone records indicated he wasn't home at 8:30.
-We were able to find that he had placed a phone call to his wife at 7:51 in the morning on her cell phone.
It hit a cell tower that was located north of his residence. NARRATOR: Garcia also claimed he got
to work in time for a 9 o'clock appointment. But his coworkers recalled he was late that morning, arriving
closer to 10:00 AM, and that his face was severely scratched. -The first words that came out of his employees' mouths,
some of the words were, you know, who beat you up? I hope the other guy looks worse.
You know, it was very apparent, immediately in the morning, that he had injuries.
-It was a significant fact that he had absolutely no injuries, observable injuries, on him at the casino that night before.
NARRATOR: Garcia told police the scratch marks were caused by yard work. -It didn't seem plausible.
I don't know of too many people that would be up trimming trees between 1:13 in the morning and, say, 8 o'clock in the morning,
when he's supposed to be ready and leaving for a meeting. NARRATOR: Connie Mitchell was asked
to review the photographs of Garcia's injuries. -I'm a specialist in emergency medicine.
And so, as anyone could imagine, we see lots of injuries. NARRATOR: Mitchell was particularly interested
in the location of Garcia's injuries, the four parallel scratch marks on the left side
of his chest and face. -The left side is sort of important here, because if you have a right-handed victim,
you'd be more likely that their right hand would be clawing across the left side in a struggle to get away.
NARRATOR: Christie Wilson was right-handed. And the scratches had a uniform pattern,
whereas an accident creates random scratches. -When you see a distinct geometric pattern,
that like the distinct pattern of the claw marks, don't make sense for a fall from a tree.
NARRATOR: Mitchell was convinced that the scratch marks were caused by another person during a violent struggle.
-Christie left a message for her loved ones, her family, investigators, police, forensic examiners to see.
NARRATOR: Next, forensic experts searched Garcia's home computer and found more incriminating evidence.
-We learned that he had visited a website on forensic toxicology, forensic firearm evidence, and also
a website on date rape drugs. NARRATOR: But if Mario Garcia was responsible for Christie's
disappearance, investigators faced a serious hurdle. Without her body, they couldn't prove she was dead.
-Not only did we not have a body, we had no confession, no witnesses. We didn't know where the murder happened.
We didn't know what the murder weapon was. NARRATOR: The prime suspect in Christie Wilson's disappearance
was Mario Garcia, who was with Christie in the casino earlier on the night she went missing.
Investigators got a warrant to search Garcia's car, but it had already been cleaned inside and out.
The floor mats and the trunk liner were gone. -So that right away was suspicious.
NARRATOR: But cleaning, vacuuming, and even shampooing doesn't remove everything.
-There was this brownish discoloration on the seat, and just looked like a dirt stain,
a dirty spot on the seat. NARRATOR: A presumptive test indicated this was blood.
But the stain repellent on the seats prevented a DNA analysis. -I could not process it for DNA typing because there was
an inhibitor present in the sample. An inhibitor is something that prevents DNA typing from occurring.
NARRATOR: Analysts also found traces of blood on the fibers of the seam between the seats and blood
spatter on the passenger side door. -Spatter was the result of some medium to high-velocity incident that caused the spatter
to have that kind of a look to it. NARRATOR: And they made another discovery, two strands of hair,
one in the trunk and the other on the passenger side door handle. DNA extracted from the hair in Mario's car
matched the DNA of the hair on Christie's hairbrush. -The probability that a random, unrelated individual would have
the profile found in the hairs was 1 in 720 quintillion for Caucasians. NARRATOR: But that wasn't all.
The blood in Garcia's car was a mixture of Christie's and Garcia's, clear evidence
of physical contact between them. -His statement to investigators was that she never got in his car.
NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe this was a crime of opportunity. Garcia met Christie at the blackjack table, befriended
her, and may have slipped a date rape drug into her drink since casino employees noticed an abrupt change
in her behavior. Shortly after 1:00 AM, Christie and Garcia left the casino. Garcia unlocked his car, and for the next 3 minutes and 41
seconds, the cameras were pointed in a different direction. Prosecutors believe that's when Garcia slammed her head
into the front passenger door, creating blood spatter and lodging a hair under the door handle.
He forced Christie into the backseat and drove out of the casino parking lot without arousing suspicion.
Garcia drove to an area somewhere north of his home, and there was most likely another altercation.
They scratched and hit each other, leaving a mixture of their blood inside the car
and marks on his face and chest. Garcia apparently put Christie's body in the trunk,
and she left a single strand of hair behind. Garcia signaled his general location at 7:51
in the morning when he called his wife on his cell phone, proof that he wasn't home as he had claimed.
Where he left Christie's body remains a mystery. -There's so many unsettling courses of this case.
But that-s that's one that is still unresolved and unsettling, is that the family has continued
to be victimized by their inability to lay their daughter to rest, or at least lay the remains to rest.
-We, the jury, in the above entitled action find the defendant, Mario Fabio Garcia, guilty of the felony
as charged in count one of the information. NARRATOR: In January of 2007, Mario Garcia
was tried and convicted of Christie Wilson's murder and was sentenced to 59 years in prison.
-I am innocent. I did not kill Christie Wilson. NARRATOR: Forensics helped solve the case,
but so did Christie Wilson. -Christie Wilson, in this case, was the silent witness.
She was there at trial, speaking to us of the injuries that she left on Mario Garcia.
-And I think I said that in my family remarks to Mario at the end of the trial, that yes, you-- you won, you killed her.
But she left the marks that are going to put you in jail for the rest of your life
and save some other woman. [theme music]

Security cameras in a casino tracked a young woman's movements until shortly before she disappeared. She was never seen again, but through the evidence she left behind, she was able to tell investigators what happened to her and who was responsible.

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

Christie Wilson disappeared after a casino night; Mario Garcia was convicted of her murder based on forensic evidence.

Key points

Christie Wilson's Disappearance. 27-year-old Christie Wilson vanished after a night of gambling, raising suspicions about her boyfriend.
The Search for Christie. An extensive search was launched after Christie went missing, involving multiple police departments.
Mario Garcia's Shady Past. Investigators discover Mario Garcia's troubling history, including a past kidnapping charge.
Forensic Evidence Links Garcia. DNA evidence found in Garcia's car matched Christie, strengthening the case against him.
Garcia's Conviction. Mario Garcia was convicted of Christie's murder and sentenced to 59 years in prison.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was a natural.

Describing Christie's gambling skills.

1:04WatchJan 27, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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