Forensic Files - Season 2, Episode 8 - Charred Remains - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[narrator] Shortly after daybreak in Vancouver, British Columbia, a fire was set to the contents
of a garbage dumpster. No one saw the arsonist or the fire as it burned for hours in the deserted parking lot. But there was more than garbage in the bin and
it would take sophisticated science to identify the evidence in the ashes. b b When Milton Diaz walked towards the dumpster to empty some trash, he noticed
that the bin was warm. When he looked inside, he noticed a small charred figure in the corner so badly burned it was beyond recognition.
- I know something was burned. But what was it? Was it an animal or was a person?
If it was a person, it was too terrible to happen. It was too out of, you know, what I can conceive that someone would do to another human being.
- [narrator] The charred remains were carefully removed and taken to the morgue where the gruesome and difficult task of identification would begin.
- Straight away, we knew we wouldn't have fingerprints and we knew we wouldn't have
the normal means to identify a victim because of the condition of the body. - [narrator] All that remained was the equivalent
of 35 lbs. of charcoal-like material. It was an enormous challenge to Vancouver's medical examiner, Dr. Laurel Grey.
- Well obviously, we didn't have a whole lot to work with. We had no idea what the
cause of death was, whether it was related to the fire or some other matter. - [narrator] During the autopsy, Dr. Grey could not find any recognizable skin,
but did find a small patch of hair where the head pressed against the floor of the dumpster.
It appeared to be reddish blonde in color, but the intense heat destroyed the hair
follicles which could have been used for DNA testing. X-rays of the victim's skull revealed several pieces of metal, and a fractured skull, evidence of
gunshot wounds. Bullet fragments recovered from brain came from a .22-caliber weapon,
but they were so badly damaged they could not be used for ballistic identification.
Police now knew that it was a homicide case. - The gunshots had caused obvious, very severe damage to the brain. They had
fractured many of the facial bones. There was a lot of blood within the facial bones
and the sinuses. - [narrator] The blood in the sinus cavities meant there was active circulation when the bullets
entered the victim's brain, indicating that the heart was beating when the shots were fired. But the intense heat altered the victim's blood chemistry,
making it impossible for any kind of DNA analysis. An examination of the victim's
lungs showed no signs of smoke inhalation, which meant that the victim was dead before the fire. The internal organs revealed that the victim was an adult
female. To help with the identification, investigators called in Dr. Larry Chivers.
He's a forensic odontologist who was asked to study the dental remains of the victim.
- This was a victim of an inferno, an absolute, unqualified inferno. There was virtually nothing left.
- [narrator] But when Dr. Chivers looked closer, he was surprised to see beneath the charred surface
that the jawbone and teeth were intact. - Because they're surrounded by barriers, there's saliva in the mouth, the gasses in
the stomach expand and push the tongue out and the outer muscles of the face become
quite leathery. And so the one thing that survives above all else is the teeth. - [narrator] By studying the growth patterns
of the teeth and skull, Dr. Chivers estimated that the victim was between 24 and 30 years of age. And when Dr. Chivers looked
closely at the x-rays, he discovered an important clue. The victim had an extremely rare dental condition called mesiodens. It's an extra tooth which never
grew into place on top of the two front teeth inside the gum. The x-rays also showed a lot of high-quality dental work.
- When you start talking 48 hours past the finding of the body and you don't have an
idea who the suspect is, that stage, we didn't know who the victim was. You start
thinking, "Well, it's gonna be a long haul. It's gonna be a difficult case." - [narrator] Greg Middleton covered the search
for the identity of the victim and her killer for the Provence Newspaper in Vancouver.
- They told me at the time that they thought there was no hope of solving it. That there was, they had so little to go on
that they didn't think that they were gonna get anywhere. - [narrator] Police now had a horrific murder
but still couldn't identify the victim or her murderer. When the police reviewed all recent missing persons reports, one in
particular caught their eye. It was for a 30-year old woman named Lynn Breeden. She had blonde hair and was
last seen on the day before the charred remains were discovered. When the dental
records for Lynn Breeden were compared to those from the charred remains, doctors
noticed the same extra tooth above the gum line on top of the front teeth and the
dental work matched the burned victim as well. Dr. Chivers was convinced that Lynn Breeden was the person burned in the fire.
- There was absolutely no doubt in my mind the minute I saw the mesiodens there and
then obviously the other dental work and they all added up to the fact that this
was the same individual, or the same unfortunate victim. - [narrator] Lynn Breeden was a part-time model who once posed for Playboy magazine.
She worked here, at a men's club called No. 5 Orange, as a cocktail waitress. - A lot of her friends were able to tell us about her background. And unfortunately
I think she'd gone the cocaine route in the city of Vancouver and I think she was
well-involved in the use of cocaine. - [narrator] Lynn Breeden was last seen late Friday night
walking along Robson Street in Vancouver. Police learned that Breeden's former boyfriend lived on Robson Street in this apartment building.
His name was Chris Peycook and he was well-known to police. - He was a local drug trafficker, was certainly one of the last persons
to be seen with her. - [narrator] During police questioning, Peycook admitted he was
with Lynn Breeden for most of the night on the Friday in question. He said she stopped by his apartment. They had a few drinks,
talked for a while, and ended up having sex. Afterwards they went to Celebrities Night Club and later to a small after hours club.
b Peycook said Lynn was behaving badly, flirting with other men. And after an entire evening of it, he became angry.
- [Peycook] We're leaving, come on. - I...I don't want to-- - Back off! - [Lynn] I don't wanna leave! - No, we're leaving.
I get you high and you're going home with these guys? I don't think so. I said back off! We're leaving.
- I'm not leaving this club. I'm havin' a great time! - You're such trash. - I'm having a good time.
- No. - Fine. - [narrator] He left the club without her and said that was the last he saw of her.
- In that case, it was a dead end. Yes, he looked really good to begin with, but when
we confirmed, his alibi and his story, yes, it turned out to be a dead end as far
as that, he was concerned. - [narrator] But detectives received an interesting tip from the manager
of Lynn Breeden's bank. A woman had posed as Lynn Breeden attempting to withdraw
all of the funds from her account. - I got up to the counter and I asked to help her and she signed a withdrawal slip
for like $4,000, basically what Lynn had in her account, and it wasn't Lynn. - [narrator] Security photographs showed the impostor looking out the window,
possibly at an accomplice standing outside but glare from the sun hid the identity
of whomever was outside. The woman left the bank quickly when her identity was questioned.
- We went to our fraud squad and said, "Do you know this person?" And we did all the
investigative things in case this was a chronic fraud suspect and somehow, someway
we could come up with a name through that avenue of investigation. That didn't give us an answer.
- [narrator] Police launched an all-out effort to find the woman who posed as Lynn Breeden.
It was their only lead to the murderer. The local newspaper published a photograph
of the woman who posed as Lynn Breeden at the bank and asked anyone who knew her to
come forward. Within hours, an anonymous tip identified the woman in the photograph
as Tanya Forrester. - Given that information, we went to her, told her what we was dealing with, and
asked her for cooperation and why she was in there taking the...attempting to take
the money from the victim's account. - [narrator] Tanya Forrester told police that she was given Lynn Breeden's wallet
and identification by a man named Chris Cruz who told her it was stolen. Together they agreed to clean out her bank account before it was reported missing.
- She was unaware, at the time, that was the victim of a homicide's bank account.
- [narrator] Chris Cruz was an unusual character. He was a model and actor, a student at the University of British Columbia
who was planning to attend medical school. Chris Cruz also went by the name of Tony Devins, the stage name he used as a
stripper and professional escort. He reportedly had a healthy appetite for cocaine. Cruz told police that he had been out on the night of Breeden's murder.
First, at the Love Affair Night Club and later at the same after hours club that
Lynn Breeden and her boyfriend attended. Cruz said he only stayed for 20 minutes
before leaving in a taxi cab to see a girlfriend. The next day he said a friend offered him the contents of Lynn Breeden's purse, telling Cruz it had been stolen.
- We asked him, "Can we search your car?" He said yes we could. We asked him what
kind of a car it was and he gave his description, gray Oldsmobile. We asked him where it was and he said, "It was not running very well. It's out at my
grandmother's place in Surrey." - [narrator] But Cruz didn't know that he had been under police surveillance.
They knew he had driven his car to police headquarters for questioning and parked it right down the street.
- Initially, you think, "Why is he lying?" So the car must be playing a part um, in the lie.
So, we locked that up and that was secured overnight. - [narrator] When photographic experts reprocessed the bank photograph
to remove the window glare from the sun, police could see the individual standing outside when Tanya Forrester
attempted to withdraw Lynn Breeden's money. It was Chris Cruz. And when forensic detectives inspected Cruz's car, they found blood on the outside of
the car and even more on the inside. - Inside the trunk, I think he was basically living out of the vehicle for
time. It was his own clothing but there was evidence there that you could only hope for in any homicide case.
- [narrator] Police also found a .22-caliber rifle, a five-gallon gasoline container in the trunk,
and the suit jacket Cruz was seen wearing at the after hours club. Inside the pocket, police found a Playboy bunny pendant stained with blood. It was similar
to one Lynn Breeden wore in this photograph. Many items inside the car were covered with blood. The spare tire, clothing, a photo album, and the tire iron
found in the backseat. In spite of all the evidence, police had a serious problem.
They had no way of knowing to whom the blood in the car belonged. - Our difficulty in this case is what was is it we were going to compare it to.
The normal things that we would use from an autopsy and the toxicology exhibits were so badly damaged that the DNA exhibit
from those toxicology exhibits was not possible. - [narrator] If the police couldn't figure out a way to match the blood
inside Cruz's car to Lynn Breeden, it was entirely possible that Chris Cruz would walk free.
Police had a lot of circumstantial evidence linking Chris Cruz to Lynn Breeden. They found blood in his car, on his clothes,
and they found hair and blood on a tire iron found in the backseat. - It was just incredible how much evidence we had and it would be an absolute shame
if the suspect had been successful, so successful in destroying the body that none of that evidence could be used in order to tie him to the crime.
- [narrator] The fire not only incinerated Lynn Breeden's body but also any chance
of a DNA profile. Her skin, blood, saliva, and hair follicles, all possible areas
for DNA testing had all been destroyed. Dr. David Suite is a forensic odontologist
who had been following the Breeden murder in the newspapers. He suggested that scientists
try something which had never been attempted before, that they try to harvest the genetic material from inside Breeden's teeth from the tooth pulp in order to
generate a DNA profile. - They ran with the idea, released some evidence to me in the forms of some bones
and teeth. I was particularly interested in the impacted wisdom teeth or the teeth
that was still embedded in the jawbone, both the upper jawbone and the lower jawbone. It was my sense that these teeth were more protected from the fire than the
other tissues and the other teeth because they were deeper in the core of the body
away for the potential heat source. - [narrator] The pulp was sent to the forensics lab along
with samples of blood collected from Chris Cruz's car. - I never thought for a second that tooth pulp can be used or any part of the tooth
can be used for DNA testing. - [narrator] Blood cells were extracted from the tooth pulp and treated
with a special chemical cocktail and the DNA floated free, a sticky bundle of complex
molecules. Next, the DNA was cut into smaller pieces, marked with a radioactive dye and placed in separate lanes on electrophoretic gel where it was subjected
to an electric field. The separated fragments are then visualized on x-ray film called an autoradiogram, which resembles a bar code.
When scientists compared the blood DNA found in Cruz's trunk, on his jacket, and
on the photo album, it matched the DNA profile of Lynn Breeden. - It was very clear. The match showed that the DNA typing profile from the various
exhibits submitted to me matched that of the DNA typing profile from the tooth pulp from the victim.
- [narrator] Based on the forensic evidence, Chris Cruz was charged with the murder of Lynn Breeden.
At the After Hours Night Club, Lynn Breeden and her boyfriend, Chris Peycook got into an argument when she flirted with some other men she met there.
- Back off! - [narrator] Following the argument, Peycook left the club alone. Witnesses said Lynn was looking for cocaine that night
and at some point made the acquaintance of Chris Cruz. There was some evidence that the two already knew one another.
Both were models, frequented the same night spots, and reportedly shared an appetite for cocaine.
Shortly after daybreak, they left the After Hours Club together and some sort of disagreement took place, possibly over payment for some
drugs Cruz may have provided. As they drove home that morning, police believe their argument escalated.
Cruz stopped the car and the disagreement turned violent. - My money. My money, now!
- Aah! - [narrator] In a rage, Cruz grabbed a tire iron from the trunk and struck Breeden on the head and face.
[Lynn screaming] As Lynn Breeden lay near death with a fractured skull, Cruz grabbed his
.22-caliber rifle and shot her three times in the head. Cruz placed the body into the trunk
and drove to the deserted parking lot where he dumped the body inside a garbage bin and emptied a five-gallon container of gasoline
he kept in the trunk. No one saw the fire as it burned for hours shortly after daybreak
on July 6th, 1991. - According to the fire department, the fire was probably one gallon of gas away
from a total cremation. And looking at the victim at the time of the discovery, you
would have to believe that it was close to a full cremation. - [narrator] And without the scientific evidence,
the remains might have gone unidentified and the blood in the car unmatched. - Absolutely, it made the case. It did the ultimate link up to all this evidence
that we were so happy to find to our victim of the murder. - [narrator] And the case broke new ground for forensic scientists since it was
the first time that DNA evidence from a tooth was used in a criminal case. Chris Cruz was convicted of second degree murder in the death of Lynn Breeden
and sentenced to life in prison. - Lynn Breeden was a very beautiful girl and a lot of people acknowledged that. In
fact, there were a lot of areas where she could have gone and things that she could
have done as a result of it. Unfortunately, she got caught up in a little bit of this cocaine problem and the result was that it brought her to the
circumstances that led to her death. Very tragic. Chris Cruz himself, a good-looking
man, a lot going for him. He had attended the university here in town and he was
doing what he could that way, so it was another spoiled life, really by him being involved in what had taken place here.
Again, as a result of the drug involvement. If you take away the drug, I don't believe any of this would have happened.
b b b

Shortly after daybreak in Vancouver, British Columbia, a fire was set in a dumpster. No one saw either the arsonist or the fire, and it burned for hours in the deserted parking lot. But there was more than garbage in the container, and it would take sophisticated science to find the evidence in the ashes.

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

Lynn Breeden's murder case reveals forensic breakthroughs and links Chris Cruz to the crime through DNA from her teeth.

Key points

The Charred Discovery. A dumpster fire reveals a charred body, leading to a homicide investigation.
Forensic Breakthrough. Forensic scientists use tooth pulp to extract DNA, linking Chris Cruz to the murder.
Tragic Lives. Lynn Breeden and Chris Cruz's lives intertwined by drugs lead to a tragic outcome.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I know something was burned. But what was it?

Milton Diaz discovers the charred remains in the dumpster.

1:09WatchMay 27, 2021

Tension

80/ 100High tension

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