Forensic Files - Season 4, Episode 5 - Innocence Lost - Full Episode | Forensic Files

sometime during a neighborhood christmas party in 1989 five-year-old melissa brannon
disappeared she really did we had a great time but it's late melissa will you go get the coats
none of the adults or other children at the party saw where she went or noticed anything unusual
it took science to see what witnesses did not [Music] so [Music] tammy brannan and her five-year-old
daughter melissa had moved from texas into this suburban apartment complex in lorton virginia
tammy was a single mother recently divorced working as an accountant and beginning a new phase in her life
tammy is a very good mother she's a very sweet very caring person kept to herself more
or less you know she wasn't what i would call extremely outgoing although she did participate in just
about everything one of the attractive features of the apartment complex was the active social
program for the residents every friday night was some sort of social gathering in the clubhouse and during the holidays
there were special events the night of december 3rd at the christmas party that's something that they they
basically did uh for almost every holiday people looked forward to it uh they always had a nice layout within the
clubhouse and people spent time getting to know their neighbors tammy brannan and her daughter melissa
both attended that christmas party in 1989. altogether about 200 residents of the
complex were there everybody was very upbeat having a very good time the children
played with each other all through the night going around and snatching all the food and having a good time
[Music] when it was time to leave tammy asked melissa to get their coats [Music]
shortly after handing the coat to her mother melissa disappeared merry christmas
where's melissa she was just here tammy looked for her daughter throughout the clubhouse
[Music] in a utility room off the lobby marked private a full length window leading to
the outside was wide open the window faced a wooded area behind the apartment complex
it's possibility that somebody could have went out that window and not been seen by anybody outside
and it's in an area where it's secluded to the inside party goers wouldn't have seen anybody exiting to that window also
fairfax county police searched the entire area and questioned everyone who attended the party
it was very cold out that night it was pretty imperative that we try to locate as quickly as possible
it's hard to imagine a young child with a dress on and a small coat surviving temperature that night
although no one at the party noticed anything unusual police feared that melissa had been
abducted tammy brennan pleaded for her daughter's safe return during a televised news
conference the person who took melissa i beg you to please call somebody anybody
and tell us where she is no matter what happened she saw that i have please bring it back to me
[Music] if you can hear mommy and get to a telephone call our number like i talked to you
or call me we love you we miss you very much please come back to us mommy's waiting
all the way down to davis police could find no trace of five-year-old melissa brannan despite
the help of hundreds of volunteers hundreds of police officers down there we had hundreds of people from the
military bases we had people volunteering their airplanes their helicopters the search was phenomenal
it just showed how this case touched so many people yellow ribbons were placed throughout
the neighborhood a symbol of concern and hope for melissa's safe return police questioned melissa's father who
was in texas on the night of melissa's disappearance he was immediately ruled out as a
suspect i also asked that if the person who took my daughter can hear me please let her go
we love her very much if anyone has any information that may help please contact someone
who will pass the information on to us thank you [Music] police questioned everyone who lived at
the apartment complex as well as all of the employees [Music] caleb hughes worked at the apartment as
a maintenance man and attended the christmas party police interviewed hughes at his home a
few hours after the party around 2 a.m i'm sergeant garcia from the fairfax police department
i'd like to ask you a couple questions about the party at the apartment complex that you worked at
they asked him where he had been since leaving the apartment complex what did you do after you left the party
i drove straight home i stopped off for a six-pack and i got home about 12 30 quarter of wine he said he stopped just
before he got home near his house well if he got home at 12 30 quarter of the one they stopped selling beer in
virginia at 12 o'clock so he didn't stop for beer he couldn't what'd you do after you got home
i did chores laundry stu you know stuff like that do you mind if we look around now go ahead
during the search police noticed something unusual hughes told police he had been doing his
laundry but the clothes he was washing were the ones he wore to the party did you always wash your sneakers with your
clothes mr hughes he was also washing his belt and the knife holder said why would you wash all your clothes
you don't have another pair of blue jeans and why would you wash your sneakers caleb had no response
the side a few sneakers had been shaved away although the sneakers had been washed
tests showed traces of human protein possibly blood deep in the fibers caleb hughes wasn't cooperating either
hughes told police he did not speak to melissa brennan at the christmas party but several witnesses contradicted him
[Music] did you have something to eat said caleb i think you know more i think you took
melissa out of that party and all caleb would do is just sit there and finally caleb said prove it
look me straight in the face and no emotion at all and that's what investigators set out to
do weeks passed and still there were no signs of five-year-old melissa brannan the community of lorton virginia held a
candlelight vigil at the brannan's apartment complex just a few feet from the clubhouse where
melissa was abducted bumper stickers yellow ribbons and flyers with melissa's picture were
everywhere it was all anybody talked about because this wasn't one girl in one family this was
any child all of our families if this could happen to tammy brannon's daughter this could
happen to anyone's daughter and there was a desperate outcry to find who would have taken this child
the remaining suspect was caleb hughes hughes attended the christmas party but he denied having anything to do with
melissa's disappearance forensic scientists began their investigation with a look inside hugh's
car the interior of the car was cluttered with a lot of of debris dirt bags of books
dog hair i just looked at it and thought holy mackerel how am i going to be able
to find any type of evidence that will link melissa to this car the car was sprayed with the chemical
luminol which fluoresces when it comes into contact with the hemoglobin component of blood
luminol revealed blood on the steering wheel foot pedals and floor mat the blood was collected for dna analysis
but the results were inconclusive the car was also searched for trace evidence specifically hair and fibers
and was sent to special agent doug dietrich of the fbi for analysis first thing that i do is look at the
tapings that came from the front seat of the car trying to identify what types of
materials are there and if possible anything that may have come from the victim if she had been in that car
dietrich discovered quite a bit of animal hair in the car most of it dog hair but three of the hairs from hugh's front
seat were different they were rabbit hairs that had been dyed black the rabbit hairs were microscopically
similar to a german rabbit hair coat tammy brannon wore to that christmas party when tammy brown was leaving the
apartment she told melissa to get her fur coat melissa got the fur coat and as a child
will do she draped that coat across her shoulders and of course those hairs from that coat certain them
transfer to her dietrich also discovered blue and red fibers on hugh's front passenger seat
the red fibers were cotton and extremely common fiber but the blue fibers were extremely rare
the 50 blue fibers were man-made and acrylic they were all the same shape length and diameter an indication they
were from the same manufacturer gas chromatography revealed that the blue fibers were dyed with the same blue
dye but the chemical composition of the blue dye was unusual melissa brannon was wearing a blue
sweater and red plaid skirt on the night she disappeared the outfit had been a gift from melissa's grandmother who
could not recall where she bought it all she could remember was that the sweater
had a picture of big bird on it a character from the sesame street television series
prosecutors needed more evidence than the three rabbit hairs from mrs brannon's coat found in caleb hughes car
they knew that any good defense attorney would argue that caleb hughes could have
brushed up against tammy brannon's coat at the party and transferred those rabbit hairs onto the seat of his car
doug dietrich was convinced that the blue fibers held the key to melissa brannon's disappearance but there was no
way to tell if the fibers were from melissa's clothing after work one night doug dietrich
shared his frustration with his wife he told her he needed to find the manufacturer of the outfit melissa was
wearing at the christmas party some sort of blue winnie the pooh thing or a sesame street uh outfit with a red plaid
skirt i don't know anything about winnie the pooh but if it's sesame street that's
sold by j.c penney hold on a second [Music] mrs dietrich had kept a number of store
catalogs some going back a few years [Music] red plaid skirt i see that she proceeded
to bring a catalog down from the year before christmas and sure enough on page 11 of that
catalog there was an outfit that looked darn close to what they were describing to me as the one melissa
brandon wore the night of her disappearance when tammy brannon was shown the picture
from the catalog she identified it as the one melissa was wearing at the party the fbi asked jc penny for one of the
outfits in order to analyze the fibers but they were sold out the item was a catalog only item
jcpenney sold all seven thousand garments in a matter of months but jcpenney located a customer in
kentucky who had purchased one of these outfits a year earlier the customer bought the outfit as a present for his
granddaughter but it was the wrong size so it had never been worn the customer sent the outfit to the fbi
for analysis the idea of just being able to find an outfit that that's exactly the same outfit that
a victim wore in a case that's an extremely good stroke of luck when doug dietrich examined the garment
he made a startling discovery when jc penney had this outfit manufactured they wanted to make it
unique instead of using a standard die and there are 10 000 of them pennies decided to create a brand new color
jcpenney specifies a particular color then they'll work with the dye manufacturer to find some combination of
chemicals that will produce exactly that tone in this particular case they went an additional step and made sure that it
was a die that nobody else had access to so that they could trademark this sweater from the color point of view
they called their new color plum navy number 887 jc penney patented that signature die
and used it only once when they produced the 7 000 big bird sweaters when diedrick compared the fibers from
the duplicate sweater to those found in hughes automobile they were the same with several hundred million people in
the country and only seven thousand sweaters the probability of that particular sweater being located in
individual cars very small you can just work out the ratios of the two there's no question in my mind that
that melissa brandon had been in the front seat of cal hughes car and where she went from there well i guess that's
a mystery right now a mystery police were desperately trying to solve the search for melissa brannan's body
continued for almost a year statistics show that children abducted by strangers are usually murdered within
three hours of the abduction the prime suspect caleb hughes was asked to take a polygraph test
are you the one who abducted melissa no right now can you take me to melissa's body
no the results of his polygraph examination indicated deception as soon as he realized that i knew
that he had failed that test he didn't want anything to do with that that room didn't want anything to do
with me and pretty much bolted out of there but there was a problem in the state of
virginia prosecutors must be able to prove where a homicide occurred since the blood in caleb hughes
automobile could not be identified as melissa's prosecutors could not reach the threshold of homicide
they could only prove kidnapping which carried a maximum sentence of only 10 years
but prosecutors were convinced that the blue and red fibers in caleb hughes car indicated more than kidnapping
the last tammy brennan saw her daughter she was wearing the pink nylon coat winter coat
over top of this big bird outfit if the child remained in that winter coat in the automobile
you wouldn't have the collection and the population of blue acrylic fibers that are found on the scene
because they'd be inside the nylon coat they weren't prosecutors believe that hughes removed
melissa's ski jacket in the car an indication that hughes committed a sex act hughes had the child's coat off in the
automobile and it seems to me the inference that flow from that all legitimate inferences
of an intent to the file while melissa was waiting for her mother to say her goodbyes at the christmas
party prosecutors believe that she left for a moment to get a drink from the water fountain in the hallway near the
utility room this is where hughes abducted her [Music] hughes took melissa through the window
in the utility room and fled in his car hughes removed melissa's ski jacket in the car causing the transfer of the blue
and red fibers onto the front seat also in the car there were three rabbit hairs from tammy brannon's coat the one
melissa handed her mother seconds before she was abducted where hughes took melissa brennan and
left her body remains a mystery hughes tracked blood onto his foot pedals and floor mat from his sneakers
luminol revealed blood on the car's steering wheel as well when hughes arrived home
he immediately washed his clothes in order to remove trace evidence he also scraped away the blood stain
from the sides of his sneakers before washing them along with his clothes but he didn't remove evidence that he
couldn't see the tiny fibers from melissa's clothing left on the passenger seat of his car
caleb hughes was arrested and charged not with kidnapping but with the abduction of melissa brennan with intent
to defile her he was found guilty and sentenced to 50 years in prison without parole
the maximum sentence caleb hughes has never confessed to the crime and the search for melissa's body
continues to this day each piece of evidence no matter how small whether it's a car
or whether it's a strand of dna all have a story to tell where they've been who they've been with
how long they've been around and this is the type of information that that i look at and that i decipher and
try to determine what value it has so one piece of evidence is can be significant when you add multiple pieces
of this puzzle and you never get the whole puzzle you only get pieces but you don't need the whole puzzle to see what
that picture is going to say and in this case 50 fibers blue acrylic 10 cotton black rabbit hairs to me it's
overwhelming evidence [Music] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] you

Sometime during a neighborhood Christmas party, five-year-old Melissa Brannen disappeared. Investigators turned to forensic science to help them see what the witnesses missed.

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

The episode covers the 1989 abduction of Melissa Brannan and the forensic investigation that led to Caleb Hughes' conviction.

Key points

The Disappearance of Melissa Brannon. Five-year-old Melissa Brannon vanished during a Christmas party in 1989, sparking a massive search.
Tammy's Heartfelt Plea. Tammy Brannan begs for her daughter's safe return during a televised news conference.
Caleb Hughes: The Prime Suspect. Caleb Hughes, a maintenance worker, becomes the prime suspect in Melissa's disappearance.
The Search for Evidence. Forensic scientists uncover crucial evidence linking Hughes to Melissa's abduction.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Please come back to us, mommy's waiting.

Tammy Brannan's plea during a news conference.

4:29WatchNov 4, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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