Forensic Files - Season 6, Episode 26 - Double Trouble - Full Episode | Forensic Files

this is the story of two crimes committed in different states 500 miles apart in each case a woman was assaulted late
at night investigators found the same signature elements in both crimes the calling card of this perpetrator was
so unusual it eventually cost him his life [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh
perth amboy new jersey about an hour's drive from the hustle and bustle of new york city
300 years this riverfront town has been a haven for immigrants seeking a better life in america
[Music] melissa padilla's parents came from puerto rico she and her four brothers
grew up here yeah she was my right hand she was always helping me with them she she was like a second mother to them
they depend on her i remember her often helping me out with my work she was a excellent speller and
my spelling is just something i've never been able to handle it she was always there when i needed some help with that
melissa attended high school in perth amboy but quit in her junior year and later became pregnant
she had three more children in rapid succession and in 1994 was unmarried and supporting herself and the children with
a monthly welfare check she didn't have any technical skills or something that would demand a high
paying job so she would have to suit for minimum wage [Music] and there was no way that she was going to
make it with that melissa was able to scrape by for a while but then she fell behind on her
rent and lost her apartment [Music] melissa and her children then moved into the gem motel
one of several cheap motels located along route 1 a main north-south artery in avenell new jersey
[Music] on the night of august 11 1994 melissa left the children with her boyfriend and walked to a nearby
convenience store for some groceries she went out at 11 at night because her kids were hungry
melissa left the store around 11 30 and headed back to the motel but she never arrived
her boyfriend told police he found her half-naked body later that night along the highway
melissa's mother got the word shortly after the body was discovered you're not supposed to bury your
children that you're gonna die before them no parents want to bury their children
it's hard i was supposed to go before her most murderers go to great lengths to avoid detection
melissa's killer didn't seem to care committing his crime along a busy highway where he could have been easily
seen it was this brazenness that would eventually be his downfall [Music] when melissa padilla left her hotel room
to buy food for her young children her route took her along a well-traveled highway to a nearby convenience store
melissa never returned her boyfriend told police he found her body in a sewer pipe near the highway
she was naked from the waist down the autopsy revealed that she died as a result of the manual fixation
and assault there were several grocery items near the body as well as melissa's blood-spattered shorts found about half
a block away with the pocket turned out but the most telling evidence came from melissa's body itself
her eyes were battered indicating that she had received punches from someone who was strong and
who subdued her in that way the fact that she was naked and and that her genital area was mutilated
obviously indicated that there was a sexual assault scrapings from under her fingernails
revealed dna that authorities hoped would bring a conviction if they could only find a suspect
melissa's autopsy revealed one other detail something tom capsack had never seen in his 31 years of prosecuting
homicides she had bite marks on her chin and on her left breast indicating that there was probably some
kind of ritualistic element to the killing the bite mark on the chin was particularly unusual
i've done a lot of research and i've talked to a lot of people bite marks usually occur to the general
genital areas to the breast to the stomach but i have never heard of one that occurred to the chin before
armed with this evidence new jersey police began their search for melissa's killer
[Music] the security video from the quick check store where melissa had bought groceries
helped establish the time of the murder shortly before midnight it also showed the cashier giving her
change but no money was found in melissa's clothing indicating she had also been
robbed police also began canvassing the area looking for eyewitnesses there was a witness that was identified
that was interviewed who indicated they were traveling past the roadway and saw what appeared to be two individuals in
some sort of struggle standing up near the concrete pipes but the witness could provide little
useful information the battering about melissa's face and the bite marks on her breast and chin
led police to theorize that her killer got a perverse pleasure out of assaulting women and might have struck
before just a mile from the murder scene was a prison for convicted sex offenders
a check of prison records showed a number of released prisoners living in the area
we then pulled their files to determine what their mo was and whether they were involved in any kind of ritual when they
committed their sex crimes they complied with requests for dna samples they complied with exemplar requests for
hairs they also submitted to polygraph examinations that were conducted by the woodbridge police department
and they all were eliminated as suspects in the crime melissa's boyfriend who had stayed with
her children was also eliminated eventually things started to appear that we we have an unsolved
homicide with no suspect to pursue eight months later 500 miles away in maine there was another assault strikingly
similar to melissa padilla's excuse me sir are you okay this crime was bold and brazen
but the perpetrator made a mistake in choosing his victim she was a state trooper
months after the murder of melissa padilla police still didn't have a suspect the brutality of the assault led police
to believe her killer took pleasure in attacking women and might strike again eight months later state troopers in
maine reported a brazen assault on one of their own the assault took place on april 3rd 1995
at about 8 30 p.m trooper vicki gardner an 11-year veteran was off-duty and driving her police
cruiser south on interstate 95. [Music] she came across a vehicle facing the wrong way
on the interstate and she stopped to investigate excuse me sir are you okay gardner discovered that the driver
stephen fortin had been drinking would you please get out of the car since she was off duty she called for
another police vehicle to take thornton into custody when fortin heard this he exploded
jordan sucker-punched her ripped her clothes off more less to do in the process of molesting her
he bitter when the backup cruiser arrived he took off in the cruiser [Music] vicky gardner was unconscious still in
the vehicle when she regained consciousness she opened the passenger door and tried to
jump out he was sort of trying to reach out and grab a hold of her and pull her back in
and she swung herself away from him and got away from him vicky gardner was lucky to be alive
i've never seen a woman attack that way damage that badly we'll live to talk about it
after vicky jumped out of the vehicle fortin lost control of the car and crashed
he was later apprehended lieutenant lancaster interviewed him in prison he took no responsibility he
was it was while we spoke although we spoke of the incident it was always somebody else's fault
um he i knew that i was dealing with someone that was evil vicky had scrapes and bruises over her
entire body and her face was severely battered fortin had not only punched and assaulted her he had also left a bizarre
calling card two bite marks one on the outer area of her left breast the other on her chin
who attacks a trooper and sexually molested in her own in her own cruiser you just know from
the facts of this case and the assault and the way in which the assault took place and every aspect
about it you knew that you were dealing with someone who had done something like this before
in fact a check of police records in fortin's home state of new jersey revealed that he had a history of
violence fortin's name was well known to prosecutor capsack he had sent him to prison for seven years on a manslaughter
charge fortin got out after only two and a half years he had stabbed his brother in the throat
in 1983 in the township of carteret and was pled guilty to that when the new jersey state police heard
the news of steve fortin's assault in maine they naturally wanted to find out if
fortin was in new jersey on the night melissa padilla was killed an interview with thornton's former
girlfriend provided the answer and she told us that in august of 1994 stephen fortin did in fact live in
avondale new jersey in fact he lived in an apartment with her and on the very night in question
he assaulted her in the parking lot of a restaurant and she called the police and he ran
that restaurant bud's hut was a short walk from the gem motel where melissa was living the police report listed the
time of the assault on dawn archer as 10 30 p.m an hour before melissa was murdered
at last authorities had a suspect melissa's brother got the word a day after his birthday
i didn't consider it a birthday gift but i was glad that they did fine and i was praying that they would find
him before he could ever do that to someone else they found him but now they had to prove him guilty
prosecutors hoped the dna evidence taken from under melissa's fingernails would incriminate fortin but it didn't when it
was compared to stephen fortin from maine's evidence that we obtained from them the dna lab could not
include him or exclude him as a source with the dna results inconclusive the bite marks on the two victims seem to be
prosecutors best chance of linking fortin to melissa padilla's murder a plaster impression was therefore made
on fortin's teeth the impression along with photographs of the bite marks were sent to dr lowe
levine a respected forensic odontologist who worked for the new york state police
these are mr forten's teeth they're actually models of them and they're made the same way as the orthodontist would
take models or the dentist takes models to do prosthetic devices if you take a look at the upper teeth he's got a space
between his two middle front ones and the one on the right is bigger than the one on the left
because it's a cap and in fact the biting surface is slightly wider also from front to back if you look at the
models of lower teeth they're very very straight across the bottom of them he's got almost no wear on the incisal edges
so they leave linear markings rather than rectangles and they're very very straight across he's got the slightly
pointed canine so he doesn't have a whole lot of wear levine compared forton's teeth to the
bite marks on vicki gardner and melissa padilla he found them to be a match leaving nothing to chance prosecutors
also brought in roy hazelwood a former fbi profiler and an expert on criminal behavior
he was interested in my studying the crimes to determine whether or not i could do a linkage analysis
in the two crimes a linkage analysis is an in-depth study of two or more crimes with
the idea of attempting to determine whether or not they were committed by the same person
hazelwood concluded that the same man had indeed committed both crimes the trial of stephen fortin began on
october 31st 2000 a trial with no eyewitnesses circumstantial evidence and inconclusive
dna findings the prosecutor's case rested almost entirely on the opinions of two forensic
experts the murder of melissa padilla and the assault of a maine state trooper were so strikingly similar that this
became a critical part of the prosecution's case at stephen fortin's trial maine state
trooper vicki gardner took the stand to describe how fortin had beaten and sexually assaulted her
then we had to bring in witnesses that brought the two crimes together and they were hazelwood and levine
addressing the jury roy hazelwood explained that some crimes like the murder of melissa padilla and the
assault of trooper gardner have unique patterns of behavior which he called rituals the ritual
are those acts which are unnecessary to the commission of the crime and are carried out to meet the
emotional needs of the offender in this case the need for psychosexual gratification
[Music] hazelwood identified five examples of ritualistic behavior that were common to
both cases bite mark to the chin bite mark to the left breast excessive battering to the upper portion
of the face in both instances injurious anal penetration and manual strangulation from the front
i've never seen that combination of behaviors in any other crime then dr levine explained to the jury
that no two people have teeth patterns that are exactly the same what i basically did was to show
the jurors that people leave bite marks that look different we used to the prosecutors myself and
one of the investigators so that bite marks look different dr levine showed the jury overlays of
steve fortin's teeth we were able to show the jury how the overlays fit over the life-sized photographs of the bite
mark on the victim we did it by animating the overlay so that it moves across the
screen and stops exactly on the bite mark and it was it was very effective and it was
very dramatic and i think it worked very well new jersey authorities are coming for
the jury deliberated stephen fortin's fate for two days before reaching their verdict
guilty in the penalty phase prosecutors asked for the death sentence and concluded by explaining to the jury
why fortin had bitten his victims on the chin what we finally decided regarding the
bite mark to the chin was that stephen fortin was biting the victim on the chin while he was looking
in her eyes and mutilating her genitals and that he was getting a perverse pleasure out of that
on february 26 2001 fortin was sentenced to die by lethal injection it was justice but i didn't feel like a
vengeance that justice should have been served you know i was i was grateful roy hazelwood and lowell levine were
absolutely critical to the case this case like most murder cases depended on circumstantial evidence on
forensic evidence on expert testimony and the tools those experts have to draw on says hazelwood are growing more and
more sophisticated every year i'm continuously amazed at the strides we've made in investigating crimes and
solving crimes and prosecuting crimes stephen fortin is now in trenton state prison awaiting execution
melissa padilla's sons are living with their father her daughters are being raised by
melissa's mom she was a good mother because she's a good friend she was a wonderful daughter
[Music] she was a good person had a big heart and i'm sorry her kids won't be able to know that
[Music] [Music] so [Music] you

In 1995, when off-duty Maine State Trooper Vicky Gardner is attacked by Steven Fortin during a routine stop, it triggers a chain of events which jumpstarts a stalled murder case in New Jersey.

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

Two brutal crimes 500 miles apart link a killer through bite marks and forensic evidence.

Key points

The Story of Two Crimes. Two crimes committed 500 miles apart share a chilling connection.
Melissa Padilla's Tragic Night. Melissa leaves for groceries but never returns, leading to a tragic discovery.
The Assault on Trooper Gardner. A state trooper becomes the target of a brazen assault, revealing a pattern.
The Trial of Stephen Fortin. Fortin's trial hinges on circumstantial evidence and expert testimony.
Justice Served. Fortin is sentenced to death, but the family feels mixed emotions about justice.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You're not supposed to bury your children.

A mother reflects on the loss of her daughter.

3:38WatchNov 24, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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