Forensic Files - Season 6, Episode 11 - Photo Finish - Full Episode | Forensic Files

breathtaking beaches and beautiful bodies explain why southern california is often the first choice for motion
picture and still photographers in 1995 linda sobek a busy model with a growing reputation
vanished on her way to a photo shoot linda's photographic images helped launch her career
and would also solve the mystery of her disappearance [Music] [Applause] [Music]
[Applause] hermosa beach california is just 15 miles south of downtown los angeles
the sun surf and sand attract the young and beautiful linda sobek a 27 year old blonde model
and actress lived right off the boardwalk she was a cheerleader for the los angeles raiders football team and was a
popular bikini lingerie and calendar model she also aspired to be an actress at five foot three 103 pounds and 24
inch waist she was too short and athletic for high fashion work but her good looks and well-toned body
brought many assignments on thursday morning november 16 1995 linda was paged for a last-minute photo
shoot linda grabbed some clothes left a message with her mother that she'd call later
and headed off she was never seen or heard from again hey don't worry you know linda's got
things to do she's out working she probably just took off and was doing something and mom kept saying no no i
know something else is wrong later that day linda had an audition for the married
with children television series but she failed to show up anyone that knew linda knew there's no
way she would ever have missed that interview or that audition and that really was a signal to her parents to
start an intensive search the family had been distributing numerous flyers i think like 53 000
flyers with a 20 000 reward i had one of her address books and i just started making phone calls to all
of the girls apparently linda had broken some of her own rules about modeling assignments no
one knew where she was or the name of the photographer since she took this assignment outside
of her modeling agency they had no information either two days later in a trash bin
a worker in the angelus national forest found some pictures of a beautiful woman
he took them home because they were so well done he went home he had the pictures in his
in his backpack and he forgot about it until monday night and he was watching television and he
saw the tv coverage of the sobek investigation when the man realized the photos were of
the model reported missing he immediately called police two years earlier just a short distance
away the skeletal remains of another blonde model twenty-year-old kimberly pandelios were
discovered like linda kim had been called at the last minute for a modeling assignment with an
unknown photographer her murder was never solved but the thought that linda was somewhere
in the angelus national forest was daunting it's an area approximately a thousand square miles about the size of
the state of rhode island [Music] as the days passed investigators suspected foul play
[Music] a few days after linda sobek's disappearance charles rathbun a commercial freelance
photographer called police with some information [Music] he said he was with linda at a denny's
restaurant on the morning of her disappearance [Music] he said they discussed her portfolio and
after the meeting rathbun said the two went their separate ways linda's car was found in the parking lot
of the restaurant tests on the vehicle found no evidence of foul play but police were starting to get
suspicious among the items found in the trash bin and angelus national forest along with
linda's photographs and date book was a rental agreement for a lexus sports utility vehicle
the name on the document was charles rathbun rathbun said the rental agreement probably got mixed up with linda's
portfolio during their meeting [Music] rathbun shot photographs of the lexus later that day for auto week magazine
and he returned the car the next day even though the lexus had been washed thoroughly inside and out police found a
number of clues in the back seat was a suspicious red stain a phenolphthalein test revealed the
stain was blood further tests showed it was human blood [Music] in the cargo area was a car cover which
tested positive not only for blood but traces of human saliva with no other leads
investigators wanted to know if the lexus had been in the angelus national forest where linda's photographs were
discovered basically we put vaseline on a tire roll it across poster board and then
use magnetic fingerprint powder to enhance that tire track that's on the poster board
and it essentially makes a tire print on this board that's indicative of the tire
tread that might have been left back at a particular scene but finding a tire impression in a
forest covering over a thousand square miles wouldn't be easy not surprisingly charles rathbun was interrogated again
and this time he changed his story rathbun now said he hired linda to model for him in the photo shoot with the
lexus sports utility vehicle rathbun and sobek drove to el mirage a dry lake bed about two hours north of
hermosa beach [Music] linda's assignment was to drive the vehicle in tight circles while rathbun
took photographs can you show me do you think i got a feel for it aren't you no you want me
all right yes i'll take a second [Music] rathbun demonstrated the maneuver while
linda stood by and watched [Music] rathbun said he lost control of the vehicle and accidentally hit linda
killing her [Music] according to rathbun he panicked put linda's body in the vehicle drove to
a deserted location in the angelus national forest and buried the body somewhere there
he was very vague he kept saying i can't remember he would break into tears and say i'm not sure i'm not sure i don't
know where she is exactly but i can take you there alexa showed no signs of exterior damage
consistent with an accident investigators thought linda might still be alive and pressed rathbun to lead
them to her grave but the search was unsuccessful he's leading him on a wild goose chase
he knew exactly where she was and he was trying to stall to buy more time hoping
that linda's body would be decomposed by the time we did find it investigators pushed rathbun yet again
for information this time touring the forest in a helicopter after a number of failed attempts
rathbun finally led them to linda's body she was buried next to a tree in a shallow two-foot grave
the left tire impression of the lexus was found in the soft sand nearby she surprisingly was perfectly preserved
for a nine-day burial i was i was not optimistic that we would have a lot of soft tissue left to diagnose exactly
what happened and i was i was surprised a forensic archaeologist was brought in to retain anything of evidentiary value
the autopsy would reveal the true cause of death whether it was an accident or homicide
linda sobek's autopsy revealed an enormous amount of information about her death
except for blood above her right ear her body showed no external signs of an automobile injury
her blood alcohol level was .13 well above the state limit for intoxication she died not from an automobile accident
as charles rathbun claimed but by asphyxiation [Music] she struggled against it it caused a
hemorrhage in the lungs as well as all in the neck and the eyes which is typical for somebody who's being
asphyxiated against their will so she was aware awake struggling for her life at that time
asphyxiation is the most common mechanism used in homicidal sexual assault and there were other injuries
bruises a twisted wrist and ligature marks on her ankles that showed that her legs had been
forcibly spread apart and and held in that position she struggled against those restraints
because there were abrasions up and down her legs indicating a struggle and the body appeared to have been
washed she was not wearing makeup and it appeared that her clothing had been changed before burial
i call this a girl thing but i was very troubled with the position of her clothing
the position of her zipper was such that it was all the way up to her neck and this concerned me because i don't
think that's a natural position most women wear clothing sort of in the in the mid chest
region and this was an unnatural position there was also evidence of forcible sodomy
a look into charles rathman's past revealed a man with a mercurial personality which had cost him a number
of freelance projects he could be very personal and charming he could lose his temper and
almost go ballistic throw things around a photo shoot he could talk to models and be very personable
and polite to them and then go behind the camera and say very derogatory things about them
a few years earlier in columbus ohio charles rathbun was arrested and charged with the rape of a married co-worker
rathbun claimed the encounter was consensual and he was acquitted the search of rathbun's home
revealed a collection of over 200 guns of particular interest was a 45 caliber semi-automatic pistol
the gun was examined for the presence of blood due to the the hypothesis that the sexual assault
expert had that this was used in the sexual assault of the victim in doing so you initially examined the
weapon with just regular room lighting and no blood was observed but when i tested the
gun chemically or i used presumptive blood tests and examination of the gun i did detect a positive presumptive test
for blood on the breach face surface of that weapon well we found a lot of evidence from his
house and from talking to his friends that he did have a dislike for blondes and that he did have
a dislike for some women in particular that he had referred to linda as a little [ __ ] and being difficult to work
with charles rathbun was arrested and charged with first degree murder and sodomy with
a foreign object rathman continued to maintain that linda's death was an accident
he said linda was drinking that day and after striking her accidentally with the
lexus she began kicking and screaming while trying to subdue linda rathbun accidentally suffocated her
almost ludicrous to think that she would drink while on a photo shoot especially
when you think that she had an interview with a television program scheduled for
later that evening that she would compromise herself then rathbun delivered a bombshell
he claimed his sexual encounter with linda that day wasn't forced at all that it was consensual
and he claimed to have nude photographs to prove it charles rathbun claimed that linda sobek
willingly engaged in sex with him before the automobile accident and had taken photographs of linda that day which
would prove it [Music] the defendant told his brother that there were some photographs in the
desert that would prove his innocence and prove that linda consented to sexual relations with him
drew him a map of where to find these rolls of film and that the defendant's brother robert rathbun and his
girlfriend drove out up into the mountains and were able to find these five rolls of film in
the middle of the desert after months of exposure to the sun and the wind and the rain
robert rathbun found five rolls of film but instead of turning them over to police
he developed the film himself four roles contained g-rated pictures of linda posing at el mirage in two
different outfits in some of the pictures linda's outfit looked disheveled and there was a hole in her thigh-high
stockings raising questions about whether linda posed willingly the fifth roll was water damaged double
exposed and pornographic the fifth roll of film was a series of double exposed pictures
12 images of a dashboard of a vehicle and 11 images which were fairly x-rated and pornographic of female genitalia you
could see no head no face really no body just hands and a couple shots and primarily a
close-up of a female genitalia [Music] the mystery of this was it was clouded by the water damage so we're only seeing
bits and pieces of these various frames or various photographs according to the defense those pictures
indicated that linda sobek had engaged in consensual sexual behavior with the defendant on the day that
they took the pictures in the vehicle and the day she disappeared and died but were the photographs
of linda sobek with the help of the sheriff's photo lab and an aerospace company the pictures
were enhanced the aerospace corporation scanned these images in and assisted me for three days
going over pixel by pixel the significance of what we were seeing in the background you could see some of
the elements of the automobile's dashboard but the logo on the steering wheel was not that of a lexus
it was an oldsmobile prototype rathbun photographed on a previous project the steering wheel on the question
vehicle has an entirely different logo than the lexus it has cruise controls that are in the steering wheel that the
lexus vehicle does not have but were the nude pictures of linda investigators compared the body of the
woman in the photographs to pictures taken during linda's autopsy it was clear that
this was not linda sobak and in no way did it show any type of consensual act the dress was wrong the car seat was
wrong the hands that you see within the pictures have a very masculine appearance and don't appear to be
consistent with our victim you know the list goes on and on and prosecutors did not believe
rathbun's accident scenario they suspected that when rathbun was taking photographs that day for linda it
was a job directon an opportunity [Music] the forensic evidence suggested that rathbun struck her on the right side of
the head twisted linda's arm tied her ankles and sexually assaulted her possibly with his gun
he may have forced her to consume the alcohol the deep bruises on her ankles indicated
linda desperately tried to escape after the assault rathbun caused linda's death by
asphyxiation linda's blood and saliva were found on the car cover in the cargo area
and evidence suggests rathbun washed linda's face and redressed the body in an effort to
conceal what happened he later disposed of linda's personal items in a dumpster but made the mistake of including the
lexus rental agreement in his name [Music] charles rathbun was convicted of first-degree murder and sodomy
and was sentenced to life in prison without parole i think mr rathbun had not emotionally
matured past probably the age of 18 or 19 years old and was able not able to handle rejection by women and acted out
those poor feelings in very inappropriate ways ranging from inappropriate comments to sexual
advances to touchings to actual rapes and finally culminating in linda's murder the forensic evidence in this
case i think was all important those photographs that he introduced to to save him and provide his defense were
in fact what caused his conviction the sobek family believes that robert rathbun should have been charged with
evidence tampering for his role in the discovery of the film robert rathbun admitted on the stand
that he had destroyed the map that his brother had drawn and that had led him to these canisters of film
of its own accord he is admitted to his own guilt prosecutors suspect that charles rathbun also may have been
involved in kimberly pandelios's death kim met an unidentified photographer at a
denny's restaurant on the day she disappeared and her remains were discovered just a
few miles from linda sobeks to date no one has been charged with kim pandelios's murder
[Music] [Music] [Applause] you

Professional photographer Charles Rathbun claims model Linda Sobek died during a consensual sexual encounter gone wrong, but Sobek's corpse and some high tech digital imagery tell a more sinister story.

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

Linda Sobek, a model, vanished in 1995; photographer Charles Rathbun was later convicted of her murder.

Key points

The Disappearance of Linda Sobek. Linda Sobek, a model, vanished on her way to a photo shoot in 1995.
The Discovery of Evidence. A worker found Linda's photographs in a trash bin, leading to a police investigation.
Rathbun's Confession. Charles Rathbun claimed he accidentally killed Linda during a photo shoot.
Autopsy Revelations. Linda's autopsy revealed she died from asphyxiation, not an accident as claimed.
Rathbun's Conviction. Charles Rathbun was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was never seen or heard from again.

The sudden disappearance of Linda Sobek.

2:08WatchNov 18, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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