Forensic Files - Season 4, Episode 4 - Cement the Case - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] shirley and ed andronowicz were regulars in a neighborhood bar a few blocks from
their home in winnipeg canada on one of their nights out ed decided to leave early shirley wanted to stay there
was a brief argument and ed went home alone it was shirley andronowicz's last night
alive [Music] bye ed and shirley andronowicz had been married for 20 years ed was a
construction worker surely was a housewife [Music] they lived in the fort rouge section of
winnipeg canada with their three teenage daughters [Music] they went out that night together and
just as usual they went out for a good time and i guess a few hours later my dad came home he was tired he didn't
want to be there anymore she just wanted to stay and his friends are there so she stayed with his friends
shirley left the bar around midnight and walked home [Music] i heard her come home that night
she was by herself i don't know if she was drunk but you could tell that she had been drinking
ed and shirley argued again when she came home ed said shirley went for a walk to calm
down but never returned the next morning an employee at a nearby high school discovered a woman's body in the
schoolyard it was a very gruesome scene there was some very senior homicide detectives that were there that were
a little taken aback of uh of what was discovered there they came to the door and i went and got my father
i went upstairs then i got called downstairs and [Music] the the police looked at my father and said
do you want to tell her he just kind of hung his head and kind of nodded and they told me
they told me that you know we found your mother she's been killed shirley adranowicz had been sexually
assaulted beaten and mutilated with bite wounds over much of her body it appeared that she had been strangled
then hit with a large piece of concrete there was the destruction of the facial features
and there was an obvious sexual assault had taken place so this this was a a definite uh
gruesome scene i've been a prosecutor for 23 years and i have never seen any case
with as much brutality to a human body in a written statement ed andronowicz admitted that he argued with his wife
that night but said he had no idea what happened to her after she left their home
homicide investigators bob marshall and ron oliver decided to question ed endranowicz again
to learn more about what happened on the night shirley andronowicz was murdered at one point
he was sort of asked in a in a sort of a helpful sort of a question to him if he
had any idea who may have killed his wife 12 30 in the morning the answer andronowicz gave
was a bombshell he said he was the murderer he actually had some knowledge of some of the aspects of the crime for
example he knew where the body was he knew that it was in behind the grant park high school
i was angry with the with the police i mean they thought it was my dad and i was
angry with people who thought it could even be my father because i knew it wasn't and
not only should they just you know knowing my father know that he could not have done that
but trust my word even though i was only 14. to make absolutely sure police questioned andronowicz again on the
following day and again he confessed ed andronowicz was charged with second-degree murder
ed andronowicz was held in a winnipeg jail after confessing to the murder of his wife
although parts of his confession were inconsistent with the murder scene andronowicz said he had been drinking on
the night of the murder and his memory wasn't entirely clear police began their forensic
investigation by turning to dick monroe a forensic geologist with the winnipeg police department
the murder weapon was a 55 pound concrete block found near the body his trunk was full of concrete particles
that was exciting at the outset because he saw all this concrete but the trick was can you match the concrete to the
block can you put that block in his trunk the process was tedious since there were
hundreds of particles recovered from andronowicz's trunk all very small because the murder weapon was rough
because it was a broken piece of concrete you're looking for like a jigsaw puzzle a piece that would fit
onto it could you get a physical match but monroe was unable to find a match next police sent photographs of the
victim's bite wounds to dr david sweet a forensic odontologist at the bureau of legal dentistry in vancouver
ed andronowicz wore dentures which were also sent for analysis the question that
came up obviously was can artificial teeth in the form of a complete upper and lower denture
actually bite hard enough to remove human tissue dr sweet performed a metric analysis
measuring the width and arch of adranowicz's dentures to see if they were similar to the bite wounds on
shirley andronowicz's body but dr sweet could find few similarities i think at that point we're all leery of
of whether we had the right person or not i know i had a question in my own mind
as to whether we had the right person during shirley andronowicz's autopsy the medical examiner had swabbed the areas
around the bite wounds for possible forensic evidence the swabs were rolled in a moistened
filter paper and the paper turned white a positive presumptive test for the presence of saliva
the next step was to determine the blood type of the saliva we had a new technique at our disposal
called elisa which allowed us to type saliva in the [ __ ] blood typing factors the elisa test
revealed that the perpetrator had type b blood this did not match edidronowicz's blood
type therefore mr andronovich being of blood type a could not have left the b-type
saliva found on the swabs from the breast meaning he did not he could not have been
in my mind the murderer after two months in prison for a murder he confessed to but apparently didn't
commit andronowicz was released feel better today you happy to be outside why had he confessed androna which back
at that time had a terrible problem with alcohol and when the detectives interviewed him
and they asked him such questions as did you have a fight with your wife last night
he responded and said well i might have and then when they went on and pressed him and said well did you hit her he
said i might have memory lapses while drinking are called blackouts and happen because alcohol
interferes with the neurotransmissions that form memory in the brain and when they come out of the blackout
it's the realization the recollection all of a sudden that something bad may well have happened and
it's very common for alcoholics to feel remorse express guilt even imagine that they have done
terrible things during the blackout period now the police investigation had to start
all over again [Music] the murder weapon was a 55-pound piece of concrete the forensic geologist richard monroe
had appeared to be about five years old and looked as if it had once been part of a bumper block used in parking lots
monroe decided to visit the murder scene to survey the area he went around midnight to evaluate the
scene the way it appeared at the time of the murder standing where the body was discovered
monroe wondered what exactly took place if the victim had been strangled and was
unconscious what happened next where did the concrete block come from [Music] then monroe saw it an illuminated area
about 500 feet away in the shadows monroe found a piece of concrete about 12 feet away was another piece
both were similar to the murder weapon the killer had been drawn to the area by lighting his only visual cue
[Music] [Music] to prove his theory monroe needed to find out whether the murder weapon and
the pieces in the schoolyard had once been part of the same block [Music] monroe performed a petrographic
examination petrography is the term for identification of minerals [Music] concrete is made of sand cement water
and pieces of stone which is poured into moles to form the bumper blocks as it dries
the mixed design settles into a distinctive pattern which is visually different in each concrete block
when monroe compared the murder weapon to the other concrete pieces found in the schoolyard the mixed design and
position of the stones were identical the fit was almost like a glove when you get
broken aggregates in your your sand and gravel inside your concrete it'll break and it's usually in a regular surface
and you'll have some call class small stones that will break out of the concrete mold
and what you're trying to do is fit that in and it's not just one fit it's a collection of fits
monroe suspected that the murder weapon might contain a fingerprint but lifting a print from a porous
surface like concrete is extremely difficult it's almost like a fingerprint is sitting on top of the better nails so
your laden material which is very very thin is sitting on top of something that is very very tenuous
as a last resort monroe decided to try a technique usually used to find prints on
non-porous surfaces called super glue fuming super glue is made of cyanoacrylate
ester a drop of super glue is placed into a chamber along with the item containing
the print and the chamber is heated for up to six hours by heating the super glue fumes condense
and adhere to biological material such as the oils of a fingerprint under a laser light the biological
material fluoresces producing a clear image of the print monroe followed these steps with the
concrete placing both the super glue and the concrete in a vacuum chamber [Music]
but the color of the concrete is the same as the cyanoacrylate in order to see a print monroe needed to
find a chemical that would attach itself to the cyanoacrylate [Music] after a number of tries monroe finally
found one that worked it was a biological stain known as sudan black [Music] monroe found what he was looking for
the killer's fingerprint but it was badly smudged unfortunately with the circumstances of
the event with the end of it being used as a pile driver and repeat the blows on the victim
there was a certain amount of slippage taking place with a 55 pound block on the on the hands
but the discovery of the related concrete pieces in the school yard was important it revealed that it was a
crime of opportunity and that the perpetrator may have been on foot but a full year passed
and the trail was turning cold one year after the crime local television stations and newspapers
carried stories about the unsolved murder hoping to jog someone's memory or conscience
the media campaign led to the break police were hoping for [Music] one year after the brutal murder of
shirley andronowicz an informant came forward saying that his roommate had returned home on the
night of the murder with stains on his jeans and boots that looked like blood i'm going to take a shot
[Music] they lived in an apartment building across the street from the murder scene
mark jarmon was a 29 year old unemployed construction worker the informant also revealed the german
had burned his clothes a day after the murder samples of german's blood and saliva
were sent to the forensic lab tests revealed that mark german had type b blood the same blood type as the saliva found
on the victim photographs and impressions of jarman's teeth were also sent for analysis
german had a distinctive wear pattern that had ground the biting edge of the upper and lower teeth into a flattened
surface there were also some unusual spaces between the teeth and several chipped
areas had not been restored as a result of some of the testing that i did and the comparison with the
suspect's teeth i was able to determine that his teeth were in fact consistent with causing these marks or another way
to explain that is his teeth could not be excluded in this case as causing those marks
finally police had a shopping list they found in the schoolyard on the night of the murder
it was a big school yard and police weren't sure whether the shopping list had any connection to the murder
on the shopping list was a fingerprint that print belonged to mark jarmon placing him in the schoolyard around the
time of the murder after initially denying he was involved mark german eventually confessed
jarman said he was at the same bar as shirley and ed andronowicz on the night of the murder but he didn't speak to
them [Music] he said he ran into shirley andranowicz later near the high school while she was
out walking [Music] can i see you at the bar before jarman said they talked and had consensual sex
[Music] jarman said he killed shirley andronowicz when she threatened to tell her husband
jarman said he emptied the contents of her purse to make the scene appear to be a robbery
but investigators didn't believe jarman's entire story staff sergeant dan rohn is a blood
spatter expert who studied the crime scene photos and noticed an inconsistency in german story
the distance blood travels from a head wound struck by an object the size and weight of a cement block is 10 to 12
feet [Applause] creating medium velocity impact spatter on the papers found within 10 to 12 feet
of shirley andronovich's body ron discovered medium velocity impact spatter the pictures of the evidence actually
showed that the contents of her purse had been strewn around at some location in a position where
they were exposed to the bloodletting which meant that shirley andronowicz's purse was ransacked before she was
murdered not afterwards mark jarman was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in
prison with no chance of parole for 25 years he took my mother i was 14 years old
it's it's almost half my life you know i've been without her now and you can't i don't know how i'm ever supposed to
forgive somebody for doing such a terrible thing to me [Music] there isn't a punishment severe enough
that we can give this guy for taking something like that from us not a day goes by
when she doesn't come into my mind [Music] i just think about what it would have been like if she was
still here i miss her [Music] so [Music] you

In 1990, Shirley Andronowich's body was found mutilated. Eyewitnesses told police she had a fight with her husband the night before, but forensic evidence proved that he had nothing to do with her death.

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

Shirley Andronowicz was murdered, leading to a wrongful confession and the eventual arrest of Mark Jarman.

Key points

The Last Night. Shirley Andronowicz's last night out ends in tragedy after an argument with Ed.
Confession of a Murderer. Ed Andronowicz confesses to the murder of his wife, but the truth is more complex.
Mark Jarman's Conviction. Mark Jarman is convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was Shirley Andronowicz's last night alive.

0:30WatchNov 4, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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