Forensic Files - Season 2, Episode 8 - Charred Remains - (In HD) | Forensic Files

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. [Music] When Milton Diaz walked towards the dumpster to empty some trash, he noticed
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 and and and but it What was it? Was it an animal or
was a person? If it it was a personal, it was too too terrible to happen. It was too
out of out of uh you know what I can conceive that someone will do to another human being.
>> The charred remains were carefully removed and taken to the morg 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 um means to identify a victim because of the the condition of the body. All that remained was the
equivalent of 35 lb of charcoalike material. It was an enormous challenge to Vancouver's medical examiner, Dr.
Laurel Gray. >> 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 uh uh matter.
>> During the autopsy, Dr. Gray 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 the 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 uh obvious very severe damage to the brain. Uh they
had uh fractured the many of the facial bones. Uh there was a lot of blood in the um uh within the the facial bones
and the sinuses. >> 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 inhilation, 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 Chvers. He's a forensic odontologist who was asked to study the dental remains of
the victim. >> This was a a victim of an inferno, an absolute unqualified inferno. There
was virtually nothing left. >> But when Dr. Chvers 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. um the gases 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. By studying the growth
patterns of the teeth and skull, Dr. Chvers 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 misodens. 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 and at that stage we didn't know who the victim was,
you start thinking, well, it's going to be a long haul and it's going to be a difficult case.
>> Greg Middleton covered the search for the identity of the victim and her killer for the province newspaper in
Vancouver. They told me at the time that they thought that 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 going to get anywhere. >> Police now had a horrific murder, but
still couldn't identify the victim or her murderer. When the police reviewed all recent
missing person's 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 burn victim as well. Dr. Chvers 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 mised ends 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.
>> Lynn Breeden was a part-time model who once posed for Playboy magazine. She worked here at a men's club called
Number Five Orange as a cocktail waitress. >> A lot of her friends were able to tell
us about her background. Unfortunately, I think she'd gone u the cocaine route in the city of Vancouver, and I think
she was well involved in the use of cocaine. >> 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 Pacook and he was well known to police.
>> He was a local drug trafficker. was certainly um one of the last persons to be seen with her.
>> During police questioning, Pacook 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 Nightclub and later to a small after hours club.
[Music] >> Pay Cook said Lynn was behaving badly, flirting with other men, and after an
entire evening of it, he became angry. >> We're leaving. back off, man. >> I don't want to leave.
>> No, we're leaving. I get too high and you're going with these guys. I don't I
said back off. >> We're leaving. >> I'm not leaving this club. We're having a good time.
>> You're such trash. >> I'm having a good time. >> 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. Um he looked really good to begin with, but
when we confirmed his um alibi and his story, yes, it it turned out to be um a dead end as far as that he was
concerned. >> 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 I asked to help her and she signed a withdrawal slip like for like $4,000 basically what Lynn had in
her account and it wasn't Lynn. >> 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 those investigative things in case this was a chronic fraud suspect and somehow
some way we could come up with a name through that avenue of investigation. That didn't give us an answer.
>> Police launched an allout effort to find the woman who posed as Lynn Breton. 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 Forester. Given that information, we went to her, told her
what we was dealing with, and asked her for a cooperation and why she was in there taking the um or attempting to
take the money from the the victim's account. >> Tanya Forester told police that she was
given Lyn 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 that was the um victim of a homicide's bank account. >> 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. But
Chris Cruz also went by the name of Tony Devans, 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 nightclub and later at the same after hours club that Lynn
Breeden and her boyfriend attended. Crew said he only stayed for 20 minutes before leaving in a taxi cab to see her
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?" And he said, "Yes, we could."
We asked him what kind of a car it was, and he gave us the description, "Grey Olds's mobile."
We asked them where it was, and he said, "Well, it's not running very well. It's
out at my grandmother's place in Siri." >> 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 you you think why is he lying? So the car must be playing a part um in the
lie. So we looked that up and that was secured overnight when photographic experts
reprocessed the bank photograph to remove the window glare from the sun. Police could see the individual standing
outside when Tanya Forester 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, uh, I think he was basically living out of the vehicle for some time. Uh, there was his own
clothing, but there was evidence there that, uh, you could only hope for in any homicide
case. Police also found a 22 caliber rifle, a 5gallon gasoline container in the trunk, and a 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 Lyn Breeden wore in this photograph. Many items inside the car were covered with blood.
the spare tire, clothing, a photo album, and a tire iron found in the back seat.
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. >> Now, our difficulty in this case is what what was it we were going to compare it
to? The normal things that we would use from an autopsy in the toxicology exhibits were so badly damaged that the
DNA exhibit from those toxicology exhibits was not possible. >> 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 back seat. It was just incredible how much
evidence we had. And it would be an absolute shame if uh the suspect had been successful, so successful in
destroying the body that none of that evidence could be used in order to tie him into the crime.
>> 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 breed and 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 uh released some
evidence to me in the forms of uh some bones and teeth. Um, I was particularly interested in the impacted wisdom teeth
or the teeth that were still embedded in the jawbone, both the upper jawbone and
the lower jawbone. Um, 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 from the potential heat source.
>> 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 uh could be used or any uh tooth part of any tooth could be used for uh
for DNA testing. >> 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 die and placed in separate lanes on an electrofaretic gel where it was
subjected to an electric field. The separated fragments are then visualized on X-ray film called an auto radiogram,
which resembles a barcode. 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 uh showed
that the DNA typing profile from the various exhibits submitted to me matched that of the DNA typing profile from the
tooth belt from the victim. Based on the forensic evidence, Chris Cruz was charged with the murder of Lynn Breeden.
At the After Hours nightclub, Lynn Breeden and her boyfriend Chris Peook got into an argument when she flirted
with some other men she met there. >> You back off. >> Following the argument, Pook 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. [Music] Shortly after daybreak, they left the
after hours club together and some sort of disagreement took place, possibly over payment for some drugs crews may
have provided. >> I know. I know. I know. >> As they drove home that morning, police
believe their argument escalated. You >> did. You know, it's not. >> Crew stopped the car and the
disagreement turned violent. My money. My money. Now, >> in a rage, Cruz grabbed a tire iron from
the trunk and struck Breeden on the head and face. 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 5gallon container of gasoline he kept in the trunk. [Music] 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 um at the time of the discovery, you you'd have to believe that it was close to a full cremation.
>> 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, the murder. >> 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 secondderee murder in the death of Lynn Breeden and sentenced to life in prison. Lyn Breeden
was a very beautiful girl and a lot of people acknowledge 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 uh it brought her to the circumstances that led to her death. Very tragic.
Chris Cruz himself uh 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. Uh if you take away the
drug, I don't believe any of this would have happened. [Music] [Music] Good morning.
[Music] [Music]

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.

Brief Summary

The episode details Lynn Breeden's murder investigation, forensic challenges, and Chris Cruz's eventual conviction.

Key points

The Charred Discovery. Milton Diaz finds a small charred figure in a dumpster, sparking a homicide investigation.
Identification Challenge. Dr. Laurel Gray faces a daunting task to identify the charred remains of a victim.
DNA Breakthrough. Forensic scientists use tooth pulp to extract DNA, a groundbreaking method in criminal cases.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What was it? Was it an animal or was it a person?

Milton Diaz discovers the charred remains in the dumpster.

1:06WatchSep 23, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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