Forensic Files - Season 3, Episode 2 - Knot for Everyone - (In HD) | Forensic Files

[music playing] NARRATOR: Sometime after midnight in July of 1986, Stephanie Brown took some friends home who lived
in an unfamiliar part of town. Make sure you go I-5 North. Don't go south and get lost.
NARRATOR: To get back to her apartment, Brown was told to take Interstate 5 North, a major thoroughfare in California.
I-5 North? OK. NARRATOR: Despite the directions, Stephanie Brown made the wrong turn.
Bye, bye. NARRATOR: It took both science and psychology to discover what happened next.
[music playing] A fisherman walking down this trail in a remote mountain area outside of Sacramento, California
discovered the semi-nude body of a young woman lying face down in a flooded irrigation ditch.
Around her neck, a band of purple discoloration, the sign of ligature strangulation.
It's a very isolated, desolate area next to a cornfield, and there were no houses or lights or civilization
anywhere around. It's a very lonely spot to have been driven to. And certainly, she was conscious during the drive.
We don't know how long he toyed with her, we don't know how long he assaulted her, how long
it was before she was killed. NARRATOR: The autopsy found traces of semen, but the samples were too badly degraded for DNA testing.
The victim was identified as 19-year-old Stephanie Brown, who worked as a teller in a Sacramento bank.
Stephanie was a very sensitive, loving, caring daughter who wouldn't hurt anybody.
Monday after work, she came by and did laundry. She called a couple of friends on the phone.
And then, when she was through, she came over and gave us a kiss goodbye. And I just remember her walking out the family room,
out the door waving, you know, her hair in a ponytail, waving, bye, mom, I love you.
NARRATOR: When police learned that Stephanie's hair was long and in a ponytail the day before she died,
they realized that her killer had cut it. Ray Biondi headed Sacramento's homicide unit.
First thought came to my mind is we're dealing with somebody with a very perverse fetish,
cutting hair. And I had never seen this before in hundreds of other murder investigations.
Did this person cut the hair and take it away as a trophy or a souvenir? We didn't really know.
NARRATOR: Brown's car was found 20 miles away on Interstate 5 and was headed in the opposite direction from her apartment.
The car was full of gas and operational. Brown was probably lost and may have stopped
to ask someone for directions. Just one month later, there was another incident along Interstate 5.
26-year-old Charmaine Sabrah and her mother had been out to dinner and were heading home
when their car broke down along a deserted stretch of Interstate 5. A man in a dark sports car stopped and offered to help.
Ladies having trouble with your car? - Yes. - Yeah. I heard a noise, so I pulled over.
Now, the car won't start. I'll be happy to give you a ride, but I can only take one.
This is only a two-seater. CHARMAINE SABRAH: I'll be back as soon as I can. NARRATOR: That was the last time her mother saw her.
In the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains outside of Sacramento, California, a hunter
discovered the badly decomposed remains of a White female. The remains had been scattered by animals,
but investigators recovered the skull, torso, and some clothing, which included a purple skirt, dark blouse, and a pair of alligator heel shoes.
The clothes were similar to those worn by Charmaine Sabrah, who disappeared without a trace after accepting a ride three
months earlier on Interstate 5. Dental x-rays confirmed that the remains were those of Charmaine Sabrah.
The cause of death was strangulation. The side seam from Charmaine's blouse was cut and used as a ligature around her neck,
along with a piece of yellow nylon cord. Her pantyhose had been cut in two places
and tied around her wrists. There were cuts made to the victim's slip and the shoulder
straps of her bra. Criminalist Jim Streeter analyzed the clothing from the crime scene.
I've never seen clothes cutting like that. I've never seen any cutting like that.
Talking with other investigators, they've never seen any types of cutting like this.
Cuttings would be for some function in any other case that we had seen, but in this particular case,
it was so unusual that it became his calling card. The initial cutting is what he uses to arouse himself
initially sexually and then enables him to complete and perform the rest of the-- of the offense.
NARRATOR: Like Stephanie Brown, Charmaine Sabrah's body was found over 50 miles away from where her car
broke down on Interstate 5. Charmaine's mother was not able to provide a detailed description of the driver
since she did not see him clearly. All she could say was that he was a White male in his 40s
with a large nose and pale skin. It's hard to imagine that he would take Charmaine planning
to kill her knowing that he left his mother-- her mother as a witness behind. That makes no sense to me.
NARRATOR: Bruce Henderson described the sophistication of this serial killer in his book, "Trace Evidence."
And he was very good at confounding the police. This killer didn't leave behind easy clues.
And he took his victims great distances, and he left clean crime scenes, meaning no fingerprints
or anything that could connect him to the crime or to the victim. NARRATOR: Two weeks later, police
were called to another homicide 35 miles southeast of Sacramento. She was hogtied with her own tank top,
a victim of ligature strangulation, wherein her arms were bent up behind her back, and then the tank top
was looped over her neck. NARRATOR: Her halter top and socks had been cut in the same non-functional way
as the other victims. Dental records identified the remains as 20-year-old Lora Heedick.
The last time anyone saw her was in an area frequented by prostitutes. Why don't you go with this guy for a little while?
NARRATOR: Lora was with her boyfriend, James Driggers. OK. NARRATOR: They needed money for drugs,
and Driggers told police that Lora agreed to prostitution. MAN: You ready? Yeah.
I know a place to go. MAN: Hop in. NARRATOR: Lora left with a customer in a white car.
Driggers said he never saw her again. But Driggers took a lie detector test and failed.
Is it the boyfriend or is it not the boyfriend? The first people you must eliminate
are those all around the victim. NARRATOR: Police were convinced that the murders
were all related. But if Driggers had a hand in his girlfriend's murder, what was his connection to the other victims?
A serial murderer was on the loose in Central California, at first, abducting women along Interstate 5,
and later, prowling for prostitutes in downtown Sacramento. Police decoys dressed as prostitutes in an attempt
to lure the killer into their trap, and they also posed as a motorists in distress
along Interstate 5. Despite these efforts, the murders continued. On Sunday, June 21, 1987, in the remote woods of Deer Creek,
Amador County, a family on a hiking trip found blood on the trail. The victim was identified as 25-year-old Karen Finch.
She was divorced and the mother of a two-year-old daughter. Her car was found near Interstate 5 fully operational.
Her sandals were still in the car. If she walked barefoot, she hadn't planned to walk far.
RAY BIONDI: There was a piece of-- a fragment of duct tape in her hair, which light bulbs went on at the time, thinking,
this is what happened in the Stephanie Brown case. That's why her hair was cut. NARRATOR: The killer used duct tape to gag his victims
and always cut it off before leaving the scene. he may have known that the sticky side of tape
is a rich source of fingerprints. But this time, something went wrong. Karen Finch probably fought back, and when she did,
the killer used what he had in his hand, the scissors, to stab her. The killer left the scene without removing
all of the tape. Unfortunately, there were no fingerprints on the piece of tape he left behind.
The bodies were found some distance from where he would have been able to park his vehicle.
Some of these distances were too far that he would have carried them. So we're certain that they were made to walk.
They may have had their hands bound at that time. NARRATOR: A few weeks later, police had yet another victim.
The nude, decomposed body of 17-year-old Darcie Frackenpohl was found in a deserted area off Highway 50 near Lake Tahoe.
The cause of death was strangulation. Her blouse was tied around her neck with a wood garrote.
Two pieces of rope were found near her clothing. The rope was made of nylon, and after checking
with several ropes suppliers, police discovered that it was the type of rope used in parachute cords.
Cutting the victim's clothing was important to the killer for some reason, so important
that he did this in all of his murders, so important he would carry a pair of scissors
to every crime to carry out the ritual. I cried for all the victims. It was just so emotional after a year and a half of working
on all this physical evidence, trying to link everyone together and trying to find the person that did this
so that wouldn't happen again can just be overwhelming at times. NARRATOR: The killer was experienced.
He knew exactly what he was doing. And he perfected his technique with every case.
[music playing] The only lead police had in their search for the serial killer was the way in which
he carried out the murders. His signature characteristics included the rope and the clothes cutting.
A few months later, an unrelated incident caught homicide's attention. Deborah Guffey was a street prostitute
in downtown Sacramento who told police an interesting story. MAN: Hey, you working tonight?
Been here waiting for you. MAN: Get in. We'll go for a ride. [music playing] NARRATOR: When he parked the car,
he turned violent, smashing Guffey's head into the dashboard and tried to handcuff her.
Guffey managed to escape. A policeman who was driving nearby saw the altercation
and stopped to investigate. 48-year-old Roger Kibbe was charged with the assault.
He was the manager of a public storage facility, married, and had a daughter from an earlier marriage.
A background check on Roger Kibbe revealed an arrest 30 years earlier at the age of 15
for stealing women's underwear off their clothes lines and cutting it in a random, non-functional way with a pair
of his mother's scissors. Kibbe told police at the time he had a terrible relationship
with his mother. Roger Kibbe was also a parachutist, another coincidence, since parachute rope had been found
at one of the murder sites. Kibbe's brother was a homicide detective in Nevada, another coincidence since police suspected
that the killer knew homicide investigative techniques. Roger Kibbe owned two different cars.
One was similar to the car which picked up Charmaine Sabrah. In the other, police found some rope
with the garrote tied to the ends, a set of handcuffs, and scissors. We knew who our killer was.
It was Roger Kibbe. But we lacked the evidence to actually file any case, any murder charges against him.
NARRATOR: Criminalist Faye Springer is an expert in exchange or trace evidence that can link a suspect or victim to a crime scene.
Springer pored over the thousands of hairs, fibers, and other materials found on the victim's clothing.
She found two carpet fibers on Darcie Frackenpohl's dress. They were blue, triangular in shape, made of nylon,
and were manufactured by the DuPont Company. When she compared the fibers to the carpet
in Roger Kibbe's automobile, she discovered that they were the same color, size,
shape, made of the same polymer, and dyed with the same chemicals. And when Springer looked closer, she saw
something else on the fibers. FAYE SPRINGER: I noticed when I was looking at the fibers
microscopically that there were some contaminants on the surface. It was a football-shaped particle
that turned out later to be identified as a fungal spore. NARRATOR: The same fungal spores were
on the fibers from the floor mat of Kibbe's car. The human hair found on one of the victim's dress
was microscopically similar to hair taken from Roger Kibbe's inner thigh. When Springer turned her attention to the panty hose
used to tie Charmaine Sabrah's wrists, she noticed something which had previously been overlooked.
The benefit of being a woman caramelized and working sexual assault type homicides
is that we know that when the pantyhose come off, they come off inside out. Men just wouldn't know that unless they
actually had pantyhose on. NARRATOR: With the panty hose turned the proper way, Springer discovered several small fibers
on the back of the leg area. When Springer compared those fibers to the fibers on the seat of one of Roger Kibbe's automobiles,
they were microscopically similar. Finally, Springer analyzed the pieces of rope found in Kibbe's
car and in his storage shed. At first glance, it appeared to be identical to the rope found
near Darcie Frackenpohl's body. Both were made of white nylon with six fibers running through the cord and 32 threads per cord.
But Faye Springer noticed something peculiar when she looked at the rope under the microscope.
FAYE SPRINGER: I noticed that there was red paint on the cordage and some black particles.
Later, Kay Maulsby said that she had some cordage from an assault case that Kibbe was involved in.
She brought that out, I looked at it, I noticed the same particles were on that cordage.
This was a very strong link to Roger Kibbe and Darcy Frackenpohl. NARRATOR: But the size of the paint particles
was tiny, about 6 microns, which is 6 millionths of a meter. With the scanning electron microscope,
scientists performed an elemental analysis of the inorganic compounds of the paint.
They found 10 different elements in the paint mixture common in the chemical formulation of red acrylic paint,
but they found two additional elements in the paint which were not, sodium and chlorine.
These were contaminants in the air when the paint was sprayed near the rope. All three pieces of rope had the same red paint
and the same contaminants. The rope found near Darcie Frackenpohl's body, the rope
found in Roger Kibbe's car and in Kibbe's storage shed, all were in the same area when someone was using a can
of red acrylic spray paint. The cordage was basically the coup de grace of people's case.
It was extremely unique. Commonality was the red paint stains on each one of these cords at those
three scenes, which meant Roger Kibbe was at the scenes. I said, he's boxed in, ladies and gentlemen.
We're gonna bury him. He's guilty. NARRATOR: Roger Kibbe was charged with the murder
of Darcie Frackenpohl. On March 18, 1991, he was found guilty of murder in the first degree and was sentenced to 25 years to life.
Kibbe still faces the possibility of murder charges in the other deaths. RAY BIONDI: Roger is in prison for only one murder.
There has to be another trial. These other families need to see some kind of reconciliation
in court. NARRATOR: The police and prosecution were unaware that Kibbe confessed to his wife
shortly after his arrest. And I didn't know that he had murdered anybody until that night the police arranged
for me to get in the back seat of the cruiser with him. And he told me that he had killed five people.
Well, four. Excuse me, four. I cried, he cried. I asked him why. But when you're sobbing--
I mean, we were sobbing. He said he didn't know. JO-ALLYN BROWN: I came away from there just
feeling and overcoming with the thought that this is not enough. This just is not enough.
My daughter's laying there, and so are many, many other girls laying there. And this man, all he can say, what is the big fuss about?
I killed a few girls. The horror that Darcie and the fear that Darcie Frackenpohl must have felt before going,
Stephanie Brown, how-- how frightened she must have been. I'm so sorry. [music playing]

In the mid-1980s, bodies of nude women were found on a remote hill of California. The police got a break when a known prostitute escaped an attacker and was able to identify him and his automobile.

Brief Summary

The episode details the murders of several women by Roger Kibbe and the investigation leading to his capture.

Key points

The Discovery of Stephanie Brown. Stephanie Brown's wrong turn leads to a tragic discovery in a remote area.
The Unusual Cutting Pattern. Investigators uncover a disturbing pattern in the cutting of victims' clothing.
Roger Kibbe's Arrest. Roger Kibbe, a suspect with a chilling past, is arrested for murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This just is not enough.

A mother's anguish over her daughter's murder.

20:30WatchSep 29, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from Forensic Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.