Forensic Files - Season 3, Episode 1 - Without a Trace - (In HD) | Forensic Files

[music playing] The patient, Chad Shelton, is a 74 centimeter long White male infant.
NARRATOR: When an 11-month-old baby died under mysterious circumstances, the autopsy samples
provided few clues, but the pathologist noticed something suspicious. The liver is diffusely yellow, showing
early signs of necrosis, which is highly unusual for a child of his age. NARRATOR: He had never seen anything like it.
Tissue samples will be sent to the lab for further testing. [music playing] NARRATOR: Sally and Bruce Shelton
lived in the quiet Midwestern town of Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha had many of the benefits of life
in a large city with little of the crime and violence of other cities its size. The Sheltons had been married for about two years.
Sally worked for an insurance company, Bruce was a television repairman. Most of their free time was spent
with their 11-month-old son, Chad, whom they adored. He was a big, full baby, big hands, big feet like his daddy.
He looked a lot like his daddy. But yet, he had some features of his mama. Never sick.
He was a real healthy baby, and a very sweet little baby. NARRATOR: On Sunday morning, September 10, 1978,
Sally and Bruce had a full day planned, shopping, running errands, and cleaning the carpets in their home.
TOMAS GUILLEN: They had already been cleaning the house and preparing it for some new furniture.
They had money, but they were trying to buy a piece at a time, just like any family starting off.
So that day, they were going to a-- the-- a furniture store to get new lamps to spiffy up the apartment.
NARRATOR: After furniture shopping, they visited Sally's sister at a small family gathering.
GROUP: (SINGING) Happy birthday-- NARRATOR: Attended a birthday party, and stopped for tacos at a drive-thru Mexican restaurant.
Later that night, 11-month-old Chad became ill. He was pale, lethargic, and had vomiting so severe his parents
said his entire body shook. He was rushed to the Emmanuel Medical Center. LYNDA DIETRICH: This is little Chad.
NARRATOR: Lynda Dietrich was the nurse on duty. Within hours, Chad was bleeding from every orifice.
I was terribly alarmed. He looked like he was dying in front of me, like he was just going to die in front of me.
NARRATOR: Doctors ordered a full range of blood tests. Chad's platelet count was 19,000,
far below the norm of 140,000, and a blood sugar level of 11, an indication of serious liver failure.
Blood was coming out of the corner of his eyes, the corner of his nose, corner of his mouth,
every pore had little bitty blood just-- just barely seeping out all over him. It was horrible to see something like that.
NARRATOR: Early the next morning, Chad Shelton's heart rate dropped to 46 beats per minute,
then dropped even further. Doctors and nurses work feverishly to revive him without success.
Just 48 hours after being admitted to the hospital, Chad Shelton died. DOROTHY SHELTON: It was terrible.
Really pretty baby. That baby just started life, and God took him. NARRATOR: A few hours later, another patient
was admitted to the hospital with the same symptoms. This time, it was a 25-year-old truck driver.
LYNDA DIETRICH: Something is terribly, terribly wrong here. These are two healthy people, and now, we have a little baby
that's dead, and we have a 25-year-old man that's dying, and we don't know what's wrong with them.
NARRATOR: Whatever had killed Chad Shelton, doctors now feared it was spreading.
25-year-old Duane Johnson was painting the exterior of his house when he first started to feel sick.
He had a headache, muscle pain, chills, diarrhea, and vomiting. He also developed a severe nosebleed.
He was taken by ambulance to Emmanuel Medical Center, the same hospital that treated Chad Shelton.
He was very sick, and he was obviously bleeding into many cutaneous surfaces, i.e., his skin,
and probably bleeding and oozing into many internal organs. NARRATOR: A few hours later, Duane Johnson died.
It was Lynda Dietrich, Chad Shelton's nurse, who first discovered an alarming coincidence.
Duane Johnson was Chad Shelton's uncle. My God, what is going on here? What is killing these people?
What do we have here? Do we have an infectious disease? Is this a new type of virus?
Is this one that we didn't understand? Was anybody else going to catch it? NARRATOR: Soon, there were more cases.
Chad's parents, Bruce and Sally, also had some vomiting. Duane Johnson's daughter, Sherry, was also sick and was
admitted to the hospital. Health officials held an emergency meeting to identify the cause of the mysterious outbreak,
and they called in the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Renate Kimbrough was the CDC toxicologist
assigned to the investigation. She knew from the autopsy results that whatever killed these two individuals
did so without leaving a trace, and affected only the liver. The people didn't have fever.
Normally, if you have a very rapid onset of an infectious disease, you usually have fever, often, very high, and these people
didn't have that. NARRATOR: Health officials frantically searching for clues. Was it a chemical in the shampoo Chad's
parents used on their carpets? Or was it the Mexican food from the drive-in restaurant?
Chad's mother said the tacos didn't taste right. Duane Johnson had been painting his house.
Was it something in the paint or the fumes? During the course of their investigation,
health officials discovered that Chad Shelton and Duane Johnson were together one day about a week before they died.
It was at a family gathering at Duane Johnson's home. The other family members who developed symptoms
were there too. Obviously, water samples were taken, insulation samples were taken, soil samples were taken,
paint scrapings were taken. We took everything that could possibly have had an effect on this family.
NARRATOR: A window air conditioner in Johnson's home was missing its filter and sat beneath a tree
used by roasting birds. Health officials tested the soil for histoplasma capsulatum, a yeast-like fungus caused
by contaminated bird feces. They also discovered that lemonade had been served at the family gathering at the Johnson home.
Everyone who drank the lemonade got sick. The three who did not stayed well. Unfortunately, the lemonade was gone,
and the lemonade picture had been washed. Tests on the tap water, the lemonade mix, and sugar
used to make the lemonade were all negative, and the soil outside the Johnson's home
did not contain the fungus from contaminated bird feces. Sherry Johnson, Duane's daughter,
survived her brush with the mysterious illness thanks to a blood transfusion, but she suffered serious liver damage.
As Dr. Kimbrough continued to analyze the autopsy slides, she was baffled. She had never seen such damage to human liver tissue before.
But when she looked through her pathology textbooks, she noticed a photograph that looked surprisingly similar.
It was liver tissue of an individual who had been poisoned with a cancer-causing agent,
dimethylnitrosamine, or DMN. DMN is a cancer-causing agent given to animals in cancer research.
It was water-soluble, highly toxic, and affects only the liver, and would leave no trace in an autopsy.
Dr. Kimbrough now suspected foul play. She told police to look for some connection
between the family and someone who worked in a cancer research facility. She suspected Chad Shelton and Duane
Johnson had been murdered. Dr. Renate Kimbrough suspected the Chad Shelton and Duane
Johnson had been poisoned with DMN, a compound used to cause cancer in animals. She suspected that the toxin was in the lemonade.
Everyone who consumed lemonade that day either got sick or died. But there was no proof.
The lemonade was gone, and the pitcher washed. Things just don't happen like that to me.
And so I thought, we oughta look. It just didn't fit. NARRATOR: Burchard interviewed the surviving family members,
including Duane Johnson's wife, Sandy, asking if they knew of anyone who held a grudge against their family.
They all said no. On a hunch, Burchard searched the police computer database, entering the name of Duane Johnson, and when he did,
he found a surprise. Three years earlier, when Duane and Sandy Johnson were newlyweds, there was a confrontation
outside their home with an armed assailant. [gun firing] Sandy's brother was wounded in the shoulder.
Another shot went through a front window. Get out of here! Get out! Get out of here!
NARRATOR: The shooter was an old boyfriend of Sandy's, angry with Duane for stealing his girlfriend.
His name was Steven Roy Harper. Steven Harper met Sandy Johnson in high school. Sandy was a popular, pretty, blue-eyed blonde.
Harper was an honor student, quiet and the loner who planned to become a veterinarian.
Sandy Johnson was Harper's first girlfriend. Harper was shy around girls. As a child, he was severely burned
in a house fire which left him with scars, both physical and psychological. He always felt self-conscious about that and he never dated.
So very much, when Sandy comes along, one love, and that's it. NARRATOR: After the attack in 1975,
Harper was arrested, pleaded no contest to the shooting, and was sentenced to up to five years
in the state penitentiary. But Lieutenant Burchard soon discovered that Harper served
only one year of that sentence. After Harper was released from prison, he took a job as a lab technician
at the Eppley Cancer Institute. I thought, well, maybe this isn't so far-fetched.
Maybe I'm really right. And it scared me. NARRATOR: Police obtained a search warrant for Harper's home.
In the garage, they found evidence of animal experiments. A local veterinarian told police that a month before Duane
Johnson and Chad Shelton died, he treated Steven Harper's dog and cat. They both had unexplained bleeding,
and both animals died. And it was exactly what happened to Duane Johnson. And that-- that really convinced me that this was our boy.
NARRATOR: But police had a problem. They had plenty of circumstantial evidence linking Harper to the poisonings,
but they had no scientific proof. DMN is rapidly metabolized in the body and excreted within hours of ingestion,
so there was no trace of it in any of the victims. There was, in effect, no murder weapon.
We had a whole bunch of theories and suppositions and no evidence is where we were at.
We had to some-- in some other way, prove that DMN had been there. NARRATOR: At the University of California at Irvine,
Dr. Ronald Shank, a cancer researcher, had been conducting animal experiments, looking at how cancer-causing agents,
like DMN, altered the DNA. Dimethylnitrosamine attacks the DNA of the liver cell
and it leaves a chemical footprint on the DNA. That footprint will lead to a mutation which causes--
it starts the cancer process. NARRATOR: Dr. Kimbrough asked Ronald Shank if you would try something he had
never done before, to conduct his first human experiment. She sent eight coded samples of liver and kidney tissue
in order to conduct a blind test. One of the samples belonged to Duane Johnson, although Dr. Shank had no idea which one.
High performance liquid chromatography separated the various components of the DNA and the computer
charted those components visualized on a graph. DNA from seven of the eight liver samples
was completely normal. One liver sample had DNA that gave us two extra peaks in the liquid chromatography.
Those two extra peaks were identical to what you would see if the individual had been
exposed to dimethylnitrosamine. NARRATOR: The liver sample belonged to Duane Johnson.
That's what Shank and Kimbrough did for us. he proved it beyond a reasonable doubt
that this was the substance used to the exclusion of any other known substance in the world.
NARRATOR: Science provided the murder weapon. Other evidence would provide the full picture of Steven
Harper's deranged mind. [music playing] What are you doing here? I wanna talk to Duane.
No. I wanna talk to Duane. No, Steve. [screams] [gun firing] NARRATOR: When Steven Harper opened fire on the Johnson
family in 1975, he was consumed with both jealousy and rage over Sandy Johnson's rejection.
With Harper in prison for the shooting, his bizarre behavior continued. He mailed these pictures depicting Sandy as a witch
to her home. Initially, Sandy Johnson couldn't believe that her old boyfriend was capable of murder,
which explains why she didn't identify him as a possible suspect. Their unusual relationship was the focus of Thomas
Guillen's book, "Toxic Love." She had painted the former boyfriend, Steven Harper,
as a very peaceful person, as a very loving person, as a very good boyfriend. "He was not prone to violence," quote unquote.
That sort of portrayal. Very puzzling, very perplexing. Why would she do that? I don't know.
NARRATOR: After prison, Harper took a job at the Eppley Cancer Institute. Published reports say it was here where Harper first
learned about the deadly DMN. A newspaper article had been posted on the company's
bulletin board describing how a German chemist killed his wife by putting DMN in her marmalade.
Authorities believe that Harper confiscated DMN from a locked refrigerator in the lab
and experimented at home to find the correct dosage. Harper confided to a friend that he
broke into Sandy and Duane's home on a Thursday night when no one was there. He poured the DMN in a pitcher of lemonade
he found in the refrigerator. [music playing] The following Sunday afternoon, the Johnsons,
Sheltons, and the grandparents all gathered for what would be their last family get together.
Duane had been painting outside and had two large glasses of the lemonade to quench his thirst.
11-month-old Chad had some lemonade in his cup. Sandy's parents did not drink the lemonade
and were drinking coffee instead. Ironically, the presumed target of the sabotage, Sandy Johnson,
didn't like lemonade and drank something else. Duane died because he ingested two full glasses of lemonade,
more than the others. Chad was simply too small for his system to handle the toxin.
Steven Harper was convicted of two counts of first degree murder and three counts of poisoning
with intent to kill. He was sentenced to death in the electric chair. But before that could happen, Harper
committed suicide in his cell. Saddest story that you can ever think of. It was sad enough that a child dies, that people get poisoned,
but you have this plot of murder by cancer, but you have living victims. And his plot to kill with cancer may still come to pass.
NARRATOR: Sherry Johnson was two years old when she ingested the DMN. Although a blood transfusion saved her life,
she suffers chronic liver problems to this day. Bruce Shelton was so distraught over the murder of his son,
Chad, and consumed by the fear that he would develop cancer that he lost his job, descended into a life of alcoholism,
and died homeless at the age of 38. He was buried beside the infant son he mourned.
His wife, Sally, remarried and reportedly refused to have more children for fear she would develop cancer
and not be alive to raise them. That was the most ingenious way to commit the perfect crime, to commit the perfect murder.
Give somebody something that nobody will suspect, where they died years later of cancer.
And you can't detect it. NARRATOR: And without scientific evidence, the case against Steven Harper might never have been proven.
I've spent my whole career trying to find out how chemicals cause cancer and try
to prevent that process. And it bothers me that there would be people out there who would take a chemical like that
and use it to-- to try to cause cancer. It's a-- a very sick thing. [music playing]

Eleven-month-old Chad Shelton was admitted to the hospital with unexplained bleeding and later died. Investigators and scientists frantically searched for a cause when others from the same house fell ill. Now in HD.

Brief Summary

Chad Shelton and Duane Johnson died from suspected poisoning, leading to a murder investigation that revealed a shocking connection to Steven Harper.

Key points

Mysterious Illness Strikes. An 11-month-old baby dies under mysterious circumstances, raising alarms among doctors.
Family Gathering Turns Tragic. A family gathering leads to a mysterious outbreak, claiming lives and leaving others sick.
The Perfect Crime. A chilling method of murder is revealed, using a cancer-causing agent.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was terrible. Really pretty baby.

Dorothy Shelton reflects on her lost grandson.

3:51WatchSep 29, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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