Forensic Files - Season 6, Episode 14 - Treads and Threads - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] the surf and sand of central florida make this a popular vacation spot but the area lost some of its luster in
1995 when a serial killer set up shop after the fourth body was discovered police knew an important detail about
the killer he had an unusual dog with an unusual drug habit [Music] [Applause] [Music]
[Applause] [Music] tampa florida is known not only as a tourist destination but it also has more
thunderstorms than any other location in the united states the name tampa is derived from the
colusa native american word meaning lightning along with the tourism there's prostitution
on october 20th 1995 a pizza delivery driver discovered the nude body of a white woman in nearby
clearwater 42 year old wendy evans was a crack cocaine addict recently released from a
mental health clinic she was last seen hitchhiking in an area frequented by prostitutes
wendy had been beaten and strangled but there were no signs of sexual assault the body had been dumped meaning she had
been killed elsewhere not surprisingly a thunderstorm washed away possible evidence
all the small artifacts that we would ordinarily hope to find on someone with clothing on
we were doubtful we were going to get too much so we were going to have to use anything
and everything at our disposal from from microscopic examination to the use of light energy to try to luminesce
microscopic materials that our eyes could not see investigators used a luma light to
examine the body this device uses high intensity light higher than sunlight which causes
man-made fibers to glow or luminesce we felt it very important to use the light source the luma light in this case
because of its power to search even though it was daytime and even though it was outdoors to do a
search of that area in search of the victim's body for potential evidence the lumalite revealed several tiny
fibers on wendy evans's body which were taken to the lab for analysis the lumalite also revealed a few strands
of dog hair and about seven feet from where the body had been dumped was another potential clue
a possible result of the rain a tire impression using dental plaster which hardens
quickly into a flexible mold police made a cast of the impression which was photographed for analysis
[Music] the tread patterns were clear meaning it was from a relatively new tire which had a small stone lodged in
the tread just one month later police had another dumped body [Music] two teenagers found the nude body of
peggy darnell a forty-year-old clearwater prostitute in the woods near a highway
she had been dead for at least a week maybe longer her body was decomposed to the point
that no significant evidence was recovered police believed the murders were committed by the same perpetrator
and they quickly searched for other similar crimes in their cold case files they discovered another unsolved case
sixteen months earlier ladonna gene stellar's nude and decomposed body was discovered in a
vacant lot in downtown clearwater the cause of death like the other cases was strangulation
ladonna was a former model a waitress at a local sports bar and had previous arrests for
prostitution she was a single mother of two children police suspected they had a serial
killer at work one that was one step ahead of their investigation in his mind he felt that he had denied
us the physical evidence that would have tied him to a crime scene the bodies had been taken to remote
areas they had been stripped of their clothing they had been moved from the original
crime scene all of these things he had done to prevent us from catching him from
finding evidence that would lead to him investigators fearful the killer would strike again
we're racing against time [Music] in the fall of 1995 police in clearwater florida had three murdered women
their nude bodies dumped in deserted locations [Music] with the passage of time between these
three murders police knew they were dealing with a killer who lived in the area and not a tourist
serial killers tend to hunt for victims close to where they work or live although the victims were nude
the killer left behind some clues scientists analyzed the fibers found on wendy evans's body
fiber specialist jerry cerino discovered that most were nylon but a few were made
of polyester all were triangular or trilobal in shape and all were dyed with the same chemical
pink but this positive news didn't come in time to save another life on january 18 1996
there was a fourth victim 27 year old cindy pugh who had recently moved to clearwater from maine was
beaten strangled to death and her body dumped in an industrial area near a dumpster
again alumalite was brought to the scene and again it revealed the pink fibers i can say that these fibers from the two
different cases could have originated from or could have shared a common source i think after all the examinations that
i conducted that the fibers in these cases were very solid evidence another unusual piece of evidence was
what looked to be a piece of cigarette paper on cindy pugh's body the little piece of paper that was found
on the breast of one of the the victims if we would have got there maybe half an
hour later it was ready to blow off it was barely sticking to the skin the cigarette paper
contained saliva enough to get a dna profile but was the dna from the killer dog hairs were also found at the scene
the dog hairs were sent to the fbi and identified as those of a pug the pug is a toy-sized dog with a very
low tolerance to heat making them somewhat uncommon in states like florida investigators sent photographs of the
tire impression found near wendy evans body to peter mcdonald a forensic analyst who literally wrote the book on
the identification of tire he recognized the tire immediately i received the photographs
and this was just amazing to me it was a tire that i had designed when i was at firestone
we had no idea that he was the designer of the tire we were looking for so that was just a very lucky break for
us also the tire was a firestone radial atx last manufactured in 1992 these were after-market replacement
tires used on small pickup trucks and sports utility vehicles police researched sales records on how
many of these tires were shipped and sold in florida and they got a break the atx was not a best-selling model
and only one dealership in the entire state of florida had sold the atx tires in the last 12 months
tire tracks can be a very valuable bit of evidence at a crime scene one set was purchased by a woman living
in clearwater just a few miles from where the bodies were discovered and she also owned
a dog [Music] florida investigators were on the hunt for a serial killer known to be driving
a vehicle with firestone radial atx tires police discovered that a woman living in the area terry
joe howard purchased a pair of firestone radial atx tires a few months before the
murders began terry joe lived with a boyfriend 41 year old james randall we went to their belcher road address at
night and we had a detective sneak up on the vehicle and identify the tires on the vehicle as
being the firestone radial atx tires that peter mcdonald said they were terry joe was a recovering drug addict
and a former prostitute james randall was a construction worker terry joe also had a dog
a pug that she would walk in the neighborhood local prostitutes identified randall as
a regular customer police surveillance teams followed randall for days and followed him into a
car dealership driving the vehicle with the firestone radial atx tires not wanting to give away anything the
officer following stayed in the background and the dealer took the two tires off and replaced them
then the detective called me all excited he said pete we've got the two rear tires
but investigators needed all four tires to get a proper match so police devised a ruse
posing as an employee from the tire dealership a police detective told randall that his
new tires were defective but if he brought his car in right away he'd receive four brand new tires for
free as a gift for his inconvenience that same afternoon terry joe howard showed up with james randall and gave
her four brand new tires that the sheriff's office had purchased and the new tires placed on randall's vehicle
were marked we marked them in a certain way so that if those tires showed up at one of our
crime scenes in the future we would know for sure that they were at the tires from james
randall's truck peter mcdonald studied the four original tires from randall's vehicle
tires have a feature called sipes small cuts in the tread that grabbed the road in an effort to prevent
hydroplaning the molding process creates marks in these sites marks that can distinguish one tire from
another the sipes from james randall's tire matched those from the crime scene photos
and so did one other distinguishing feature i found that the right rear tire as chance would have it
was the best photograph tire and there was a stone that was held in the groove in exactly the same location
that was recorded at the crime scene the stone being held in the tire allowed for a positive identification
but police wanted as much evidence as they could gather and they wanted to examine the hair of
the pug owned by terry jo howard two female detectives knocked on terry joe's door saying they had a new dog
grooming service and offered to wash her dog free as a promotion terry joe accepted before
what do you think come on in great terry joe howard let the detectives in the house
and they washed the dog and at that time they were able to pull dog hairs onto clean white towels
and use them to compare the dog hairs from cindy pugh's body scientists discovered that the hair from
terry joe's pug was microscopically similar to the pug hairs found on two of the victims
a background check on james randall revealed some startling information in violation of his parole
randall fled the state of massachusetts after serving six years in prison for twice raping his first wife
james randall has been identified as a sexual sadist and that is a person who has to inflict pain on his sexual
partner in order to obtain sexual gratification for himself terry jo howard described randall the
same way he got really mad at me and i sat down in the chair and he was yelling at me and he
came over and he picked me up by my throat and pinned me up against the wall that
was the last thing i remembered until i woke up on the bed and he was on top of me having
intercourse with what i believe he thought was my dead body inside of their apartment
police found more forensic evidence more proof that the murders were committed here
i never felt so betrayed in my whole life and he was a master master manipulator
[Music] when they told me that they thought that jimmy was the one that was killing all the girls
in the area i was so shocked i just started screaming james randall and terry jo howard were
living together during the time police suspected randall was killing clearwater prostitutes
i think he liked the life he lived with me it was a clean good life i don't think
either one of us had ever lived life that good boot in our previously [Music] dinner waiting at home
someone who cared about you someone to go to movies with someone to chat with someone to watch tv
with armed with a search warrant investigators discovered a pink throw rug under the couple's bed
scientific tests found that the main portion of the rug was nylon the fringe was polyester
the fibers were triangular in shape and the dye was the same as those on the victims
because the fibers had so many different characteristics that i could examine and
compare that told me that either these victims came in contact with this particular
rug or with a rug that is composed of the exact same fibers as this particular rug
in searching randall's home police found something unusual small bits of cigarette paper scattered
all over the floor evidence that their dog the pug had an unusual habit terry jo howard's dog
had a nicotine addiction and the dog would normally take cigarette butts out of the
ashtrays and chew them up and spit them out and leave them on the floor of the apartment terry joe was a smoker and
would you know toss out her cigarette butts and the dog would pick them up and chew
on them and so there were at least little flecks of cigarette paper all around remember the cigarette paper found on
cindy pugh's body that contained saliva the dna from that saliva belonged to terry joe howard
proof the cigarette paper had come from inside their apartment we believe that it was one small piece
of a cigarette butt that the dog had chewed up and left behind that was attached to cindy pugh's breast
unbeknownst to gene randle which was a major major piece of physical evidence i believe some of
these murders happened in my home in my bed i know some of them did two of them did
i was over here in west palm visiting my sick and dying mother prosecutors believe that randall would
pick up victims and take them back to the apartment when terry joe was gone [Music]
[Music] on the pink carpet randall acted out his sadistic impulses strangling the women during sex and
killing them [Applause] while there the victims picked up carpet fibers and dog hairs
later found on the bodies with the lumalite the cigarette paper chewed by the dog
with terry joe's dna was found on cindy pew when randall dumped wendy evans body his
truck left the tire impression in the sand terry jo confronted randall about all of
this when she went to see him in prison i just kind of looked and said why not me
huh why not me jimmy and he looked at me and he started crying he didn't want them to hear what
he was about to tell me which was i heard others so that i would not hurt you at the trial
james randall's first wife testified against him her description of randall's sadism
was chilling and told me to lay down and tied my hands up behind my back of my shoelace
i'm at this point it was like i didn't know if i was going to make it out of there or not
james randall was convicted of the murder of wendy ann evans and cynthia gene pugh
and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms i really wanted to see him die for what he's done
life in prison is not good enough for this man he wanted to kill them he knew he was going to kill them
and afterwards when after i did find out i was talking to him didn't seem like it was that big a deal
to him they were just prostitutes they were just drug addicts they were just women
[Music] [Music] you

For 15 months, a serial killer was strangling prostitutes in Florida, then taunting police by leaving the bodies in plain sight. The only clues were a tire impression and some threads.

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

Clearwater's 1995 serial killings investigated, revealing James Randall as the murderer through forensic evidence.

Key points

The Serial Killer's Trail. In 1995, Clearwater, Florida, became the hunting ground for a serial killer targeting women.
A Breakthrough in Evidence. Investigators used a lumalite to reveal crucial evidence on the victims' bodies.
The Unraveling of James Randall. James Randall, a suspected serial killer, was ultimately linked to multiple murders through forensic evidence.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I never felt so betrayed in my whole life.

Terry Joe Howard reflects on her relationship with James Randall.

15:36WatchNov 18, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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