Forensic Files - Season 2, Episode 4 - Sex, Lies and DNA - (In HD) | Forensic Files

[Music] While Earl Mars was vacationing in California, he learned his wife had been
reported missing from their home in Arizona. >> What? Mom's missing? What happened? The search for Ruby Mars
involved dozens of police investigators, forensic scientists, DNA testing, and even the Coast Guard.
>> I'm heading home. >> The results of that investigation surprised everyone, especially Earl
Mars. [Music] [Music] [Applause] Ruby and Earl Mars were partners in both business and in marriage. They had been
married for over 20 years and were the parents of three grown children. The Morrises were both accountants and
operated their own accounting and tax preparation firm. >> They had had it for years and years and
uh they built it up, you know, together from scratch and it was doing very well.
>> Their business made them millionaires and they raised their three children in
this luxurious mountain home just outside of Phoenix. On June 4th, 1989, Earl Morris headed to California to see
his oldest daughter, Donna Kay, perform in a concert. She was a country singer with a promising career.
>> Ruby decided not to join her husband on that trip, planning instead to go shopping with her other daughter, Cindy,
for some furniture for her new home. But Ruby didn't show up on Sunday morning at Cindy's home for the planned
shopping trip. So Cindy drove out to her parents' home. >> That's totally unlike her mom. I mean,
her mother kept every, you know, uh, date that she ever had with her. And unless she called her and canceled and
she didn't do this. Ruby Mars wasn't home. The burglar alarm was turned off. Ruby's pocketbook was missing, but her
car was still there. Although it wasn't parked in its usual spot, Ruby Mars was a neat, meticulous person, and her
daughter noticed right away that things were out of place. A faucet was dripping
in the bathtub. Dirty clothes were piled high inside the washing machine and hadn't been washed. A carpet shampoo
cleaner was left out. But the most troubling discovery was that a 22 caliber pistol usually kept in a closet
was missing. Cindy Mars immediately called the police. >> And that's really all I expected it to
be was another missing person's case that this person would be found in a couple of hours.
>> When Earl Morris heard the news of his wife's disappearance, he told family members that he would head straight home
from California. If Cindy Morris was right and something happened to her mother, investigators
hope to find some clues to her whereabouts inside the Mars home. It took Earl Mars longer than
anticipated to drive home from California, but when he arrived, the police were anxious to speak with him.
>> "So, have you ever had any fights?" Earl Morris told police that their relationship was basically a good one
with occasional arguments, but nothing out of the ordinary. >> She ever done anything at all like this
before? I mean, left and >> Yeah, she's done it before, but she usually calls, you know, or gets mad or
something. >> Mars also confirmed that the 22 caliber pistol the couple owned was not in the
closet where he last saw it. We were going in several different directions with this that the possibility of that
she was missing, possibility of a suicide, possibility of a homicide. >> The car broke down.
>> Earl Morris told police that his car broke down on the drive home from California and that he rented a car to
complete the trip. But Detective Lugan Bule noticed something suspicious when he looked inside the trunk of the rental
car. Attached to Earl's suitcase was an airline luggage tag for a recent flight from San Diego to Phoenix. A search of
the passenger list from that flight did not include the name of Earl Mars, although there was a G. Norris listed.
Police put together a group of photographs, including one of Earl Mars, and showed it to the airline crew
members to see if anyone recalled seeing Earl on that flight. One of the flight attendants remembered him distinctly
because of the poor quality of his toupé. Faced with this inconsistency, detectives decided to search the Mars
home further to see if there was any evidence of foul play which might have been overlooked during their first
visit. >> So what we did is we called in uh our ID text to give us a hand and uh we asked
them to do luminol. When luminol is sprayed onto an area, a black light is used. The luminol will actually glow
when it comes into contact with the blood enzymes. Forensic detectives began their search in the master bedroom,
spraying luminol on the headboard of the bed. An area instantly turned blue. It was a very fine mist pattern, one they
immediately recognized. To me, upon looking at it, you could determine because of the distribution, the shape,
and the size of the droplets that it was high velocity from gunshot. >> Only a bullet produces a fine mist of
blood similar to that found on the headboard. A beating or stabbing produces a much different blood spatter
pattern. On the surface of the mattress, they found tiny blood stains, and they also found blood inside the mattress
itself. Next, investigators sprayed Luminol in the bathroom. >> The entire shower stall lit up basically
with the luminol. Luminol tests also revealed blood on the cement patio outside the master bedroom as well as on
the master bedroom carpet. >> We noticed that the whole bedroom floor, which was carpeted, uh started to glow.
>> And we knew that uh from what we were seeing that we did have a violent crime
scene. Maybe not a death, but somebody had suffered some pretty good injuries at that point.
>> But detectives had no idea to whom the blood belonged. To find out, scientists
conducted a DNA test on the blood stain. The results of that test shocked everyone. A deep, dark family secret
would soon be revealed. Police suspected that the blood stain found in the Morris's bedroom belonged
to Ruby Mars, but there was no blood from the body to match the blood in the bedroom. But science can often identify
a blood stain by using DNA testing. By analyzing the DNA from children, for example, scientists can tell whether the
blood stain would have come from a parent. In the case of children, 50% of the DNA from each child will come from
one parent and the other 50% will come from the other parent. So this obligated u inheritance of DNA from the mother to
children is one of the important factors that we are looking for in conducting this analysis. Since children get half
of their DNA from their mother and the other half from their father, a DNA profile of the children and from one of
the parents can give scientists enough genetic information to identify the DNA profile of the other parent, even
without a blood sample. If the DNA profile of the missing parent matches the DNA profile of the blood
stain, scientists will then analyze the DNA from a missing person's siblings to confirm their findings.
When scientists compared Cindy Morris's DNA to the DNA from the blood stain, they found one matching band. They also
found one matching band when comparing the DNA profile of Ruby's brother to the blood stain.
>> It's highly probable that those blood stains came from Ruby Morris. >> But scientists noticed something
peculiar. When they compared Earl Morris's DNA to the DNA profile of his daughter Cindy,
there were no matching bands. Earl Morris was not Cindy's biological father. When they compared Earl Morris's
DNA to his oldest child, Randy, they discovered the same thing. Earl was not Ry's biological father either. Ry's DNA
matched that of his grandfather, his mother's father. When law enforcement authorities in Tennessee learned of
these DNA results, Ruby's father was charged with incest. According to the DNA tests, Ruby's
father had sex with her when she was just 15 years old. >> Well, we had a surprise. We felt that
perhaps the family would be surprised by it and that Earl Morris himself was surprised by it.
>> The Morris children had another family secret to reveal. They admitted that their mother had been depressed recently
since she learned her husband Earl was having an affair with her sister Peggy. In fact, Ruby and her daughter Cindy
once caught the two together at the Phoenix airport when Peggy secretly flew to Phoenix to meet with Earl. Ruby
confronted Earl about the affair, but he reportedly refused to end it. Also looking at uh Peggy, the sister, uh she
had motive and opportunity uh to be involved in this too. U she lived in Louisiana at the time, but we discovered
uh that she had a planned vacation going to San Diego that weekend. We discovered
phone calls that Earl had made to her. Peggy admitted to police that she had planned to meet Earl in San Diego
shortly after Ruby disappeared, but missed her flight. But police knew Earl had been in San Diego, not only because
of the baggage claim tag on his suitcase, but they also found his car in the airport parking lot. The car
appeared to be clean, but when Luminol was applied to the inside of the vehicle, the floor of the passenger side
revealed a huge blood stain. So much blood that the individual it came from would almost certainly be dead. A DNA
analysis of the blood in the car revealed that it matched the blood stain found in the Morris's bedroom, which
scientists concluded belonged to Ruby. We didn't know where the body was. Uh we didn't know if he would transport the
body to San Diego, why would he transport it down there? We had no real clue. >> The clue was here in a San Diego marina.
The Marses owned a boat which was stored there. Marina employees told police that
Earl Mars was at the marina on June 5th and had taken the boat for a ride. When police went to search the boat, they
discovered it was missing. The Coast Guard was asked to help locate the missing boat, and they told police about
a mysterious fire on a boat about the same size, which burned and sank 13 mi offshore from the San Diego marina. This
is actual footage of the fire taken by a television news crew. >> There were no survivors, no people
anywhere inside. The first thing that was unusual was the way it burned. It burned pretty much from the center out.
And normally the fires starting either in the engine room or in the fuel compartment. And uh it just looked very
suspect right from the beginning. So the things that stood out with the fact that
there was like a lantern right in the middle of the boat, right on top of the melted fiberglass, which looked like
somebody had thrown it there and possibly started a fire. Records indicated that Earl Mars rented a small
boat on the morning of June 5th and returned it around 12 noon, about the same time the Coast Guard discovered the
burning boat. It was beginning to appear that the body of Ruby Mars was on that burning boat which sank to the bottom of
the Pacific Ocean. But prosecutors believed that they still had enough evidence to prove Ruby Morris had been
murdered. >> You start building all of those together, then what you have is Ruby
Morris's blood, Ruby Morris's bed, Ruby Morris with a high velocity gunshot wound um that killed her in her bed at
her home. Who was there? Earl Morris. Earl Mars was charged with the murder of his wife, Ruby. But the case was far
from over. Investigators were in for another big surprise. Earl Morris's defense would be a challenge for
forensic science. [Music] >> In 1991, Earl Morris went on trial for the murder of his wife. The prosecution
first had to convince the jury that a murder had taken place since there was no body.
>> We had to build the case from scratch. We had to prove a corpus delecti that in
fact a murder had occurred without the physical evidence for someone to look at.
>> According to the prosecution, Earl Mars entered the master bedroom early on Saturday morning, June 4th.
He dragged her body into an adjacent bathroom, removed her clothing, and put her into the bathtub to remove the
blood. He then dressed her body in a jogging suit, covered her head wound with a
baseball cap, and carried the body to the garage. Since his car didn't have a trunk, he
had no choice but to place the body into the passenger side of the front seat. Earl then cleaned all of the blood from
inside the house from the headboard, the bathtub, the carpets, all later revealed by the
luminol. Earl began his journey to San Diego, driving nearly 400 m with his wife's
body in the seat next to him. Blood continued to drip from the head wound, falling to the floor beneath the seat,
later discovered by the Luminol test. Earl stopped once for gas, and no one noticed that his passenger was dead.
When Mars arrived in San Diego, he towed his boat to the launch and in broad daylight placed Ruby's body
on the boat along with some of the bloody sheets and the murder weapon. He also took along a lantern and some
gasoline. After renting a smaller boat, he set off to sea, towing the rented boat behind.
13 mi offshore in the Pacific Ocean, Earl Mars prepared the boat for destruction, hoping to bury not only his
wife's body, but all of the remaining evidence of his involvement. After dousing the boat with gasoline, he
stepped into the rental boat, lit the lantern, and threw it onto the deck. He left before being spotted by the
Coast Guard. Sometime after Mars left the scene, a news crew captured these pictures while
the boat was still on fire minutes before it sank. Neither Ruby Morris nor the boat was ever recovered.
During the trial, Earl Mars delivered a surprising defense. He admitted that his
wife was dead and that her body was indeed on the boat that burned and sank. Morris also admitted to setting the fire
and sinking the boat. But Earl Mars insisted he did not kill his wife. He said she committed suicide because of
guilt and depression. Guilt over the fact that her husband wasn't the father of two of their children and depression
about Earl's affair with her sister Peggy. My first thoughts were that I would be blamed for for Ruby committing
suicide. >> After you had those thoughts, did you make any decisions? >> Yes, I did.
>> What decisions did you make? >> Hired back with what she'd done. >> Up until that point in time,
we had circumstantial evidence that she was dead. No one to say, "I saw Ruby Morris's body." No one to say, "I saw
Ruby Morris injured." No one to say, "Yeah, I saw the shooting. I heard the shooting."
>> Earl Morris testified that he discovered his wife with a gunshot wound in her
left temple and that she used the couple's 22 caliber pistol. He said he found her body after the suicide and
feared he would be blamed. So he disposed of the body by sinking the boat, but the forensic evidence proved
otherwise. The blood spatter evidence told forensic detectives that Ruby could not have committed suicide. Earl said
the gunshot wound was in the left side of her head, but Ruby was right-handed. It would have been impossible for a
right-handed individual to shoot herself in the left temple using her right hand,
especially with the long barrel 22 caliber pistol the Marses owned. But the strongest argument came from the blood
spatter evidence on the headboard. The blood patterns revealed two layers of spatter, one on top of the other. This
told forensic experts that there were two shots. >> One shot could not have caused the
distribution of two separate patterns. There were actually two separate patterns going at two different angles
that are not uh you cannot create that in one shot. >> And a person committing suicide does not
shoot twice to the head. The jury saw Earl Morris's lastminute claim of suicide as just one more lie.
He was convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life. He dropped traces of Ruby Morris and that was Ruby Morris
on the floor. That was Ruby Morris in the El Camino. That was Ruby Morris in the bed. That was saying this is what
happened. That was our read on it. So Ruby Morris was actually telling us what happened to her.
No body, no gun, no confession. The science gave us Ruby Morris and gave us the corpus delecta. If it had not
been for the blood in the car and the DNA testing, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to
you today, Earl Morris would be a free man. [Music] I want [Music] you. [Music] [Music]

While Earl Morris was vacationing in California, he learned his wife Ruby Morris had gone missing from their home in Arizona. The results of the investigation surprised everyone...especially Earl Morris. Now in HD.

Brief Summary

Earl Mars was convicted of murdering his wife Ruby after forensic evidence revealed shocking family secrets and inconsistencies in his story.

Key points

The Disappearance of Ruby Mars. Earl Mars learns his wife is missing, triggering a massive investigation.
DNA Reveals Shocking Secrets. DNA tests uncover a dark family secret involving Ruby's father.
Earl's Defense in Court. Earl admits to sinking the boat but claims Ruby committed suicide.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Mom's missing?

Earl learns about his wife's disappearance.

0:18WatchSep 19, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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