Forensic Files - Season 7, Episode 14 - A Leg to Stand On - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[music playing] NARRATOR: Police in Phoenix, Arizona, were asked to solve the mystery of a limb found in a dumpster.
From just a small body part, archaeologists, toxicologists, and DNA scientists pieced together enough information
about the victim to lead police to the killer. [theme music playing] On June 8, 1992, a man looking through a garbage dumpster
made a frightening discovery. RICO FRAGOSO: A dumpster diver found a large plastic bag which
he unwrapped, not knowing what was in it, and discovered this severed leg. NARRATOR: There was also a saw.
Phoenix homicide detectives Rico Fragoso and Joseph Petrosino were first on the scene.
JOESPH J. PETROSINO: I think the longer I stay here, the more bizarre the cases become.
-They say, it gets very scary. Since I moved here, there's been a lot of-- of incidents where
cops had to be-- you know, had to be called. NARRATOR: The Waste Management driver, Jesse Pena,
told police he emptied the dumpster just one hour earlier. -Where the dumpster is right now is not where I left it.
So somebody pushed it back. I don't know who it was. -I immediately thought, this guy, meaning the victim,
has been scattered probably through all of dumpsters in the area. And now we're going to need to go out and try to locate
the rest of the body in the other dumpsters. NARRATOR: Detectives searched every dumpster
within a five-mile radius. They were hoping to find more of the body to compare to dental records, fingerprints,
or missing persons reports. They found nothing. Although there wasn't much to autopsy,
the medical examiner could tell it was a leg of a male Caucasian between 30 and 40 years old.
-The presence of scars on the knee are helpful in that this is a person who's had either trauma
or surgery, in this case surgical-type scars. He's had surgical intervention on the knee.
NARRATOR: Initially investigators thought the scars would help identify the victim, until they
learned how common knee surgery had become. -The muscle from the thigh of the leg was analyzed.
And in the screening for the common drugs of abuse, we found significant levels of methamphetamine,
or speed, and trace quantities of its primary metabolite, amphetamine. NARRATOR: A possible indication the incident was drug-related.
And Dr. Keen could tell that the victim was dead before the leg was removed. -The relative absence of blood in the leg
was indicative that the leg had been severed after death, when there was no ongoing active circulation in the body.
This clearly was not a natural disease and did not have the features of an accident
such as an industrial accident. The precise mechanism of death was not apparent with the examination of just the leg,
so we classified the death as a homicidal violence. Manner of death, homicide. NARRATOR: An anthropologist measured the femur, the largest
bone in the body, and estimated the victim was six feet tall. There were no missing persons reports
of a 30 to 40-year-old white male, six feet tall, possibly involved with methamphetamine.
Methamphetamine is an illegal street drug, a stimulant commonly known as speed or crank.
By the mid 1990s, authorities say that the Mexican drug lords were funneling huge amounts of methamphetamine into Arizona.
Methamphetamine overtook cocaine as the number one drug of addiction reported by Arizona drug treatment centers.
With the rise in the use of methamphetamine, there was also a rise in the number of people involved
in manufacturing and distribution. Several days after the discovery of the limb,
investigators got a telephone call about a missing methamphetamine dealer. Police hoped it was the break they were looking for.
Police in Phoenix, Arizona, had a seemingly impossible task-- to find a killer loose in their city
when their only evidence was a severed leg. Forensic tests revealed the individual
was a male Caucasian, six feet tall, between 30 and 40 years old. Not long after these forensic tests were completed,
a woman called police headquarters asking how to fill out a missing person's report.
She said her boyfriend hadn't returned home. -My boyfriend is missing. And he's been missing for a few days now.
How do I go about filling out a missing person's report? He had a pair of sneakers on and a pair of shorts.
-She said it wasn't uncommon for him to leave town, go to Las Vegas, be there for a couple of days.
But he'd always returned. He'd always answered pages and phone messages. And that wasn't happening in this case.
NARRATOR: The woman said her boyfriend was Norman Klas and at first glance, matched the profile.
K Klas was 32 years old, stood six feet tall, had undergone knee surgery, and was a methamphetamine dealer.
-He was a friendly, outgoing, social type of person. He had plenty of friends in the valley.
No one ever said anything derogatory about Norman that I know of or that I recall.
NARRATOR: Although Norman Klas was well liked, he undoubtedly had his share of enemies.
-So I want you to take your time. Look at them thoroughly. And tell us what you think.
We'll be asking you come questions. NARRATOR: Klas's girlfriend Patricia identified the surgical scar and the tennis shoe and sock
as the type Norman usually wore. But investigators wanted to be certain of the identification,
so they suggested DNA testing. -If the leg was thought to have come from Norman Klas,
you know, let's get his parents, and let's do a reverse paternity. NARRATOR: Since half of our DNA comes from our mother and half
from our father, it would have been simple to determine if the limb was Norman's by comparing
his DNA to his parents' DNA. But when detectives learned Klas was adopted, they knew that would be impossible.
Scientists hoped to find some other way to make an identification. In researching Klas's background,
police discovered that he had donated one of his kidneys to his younger sister. On a long shot, police contacted the hospital in Houston, Texas,
where the transplant had taken place. Cell samples are routinely taken from prospective donors
to make sure the recipient won't reject their organ. Fortunately for investigators, the hospital in Houston
had a policy of keeping its cell samples for 100 years. DNA testing would be possible after all.
This autoradiograph shows the DNA from the leg muscle compared to the cells taken from Norman Klas.
DAVID DUPLISSA: The interpretation of autorads are very simple. You're doing simple pattern comparison.
You're looking at DNA banding patterns, asking the question, are the DNA banding patterns the same?
Are they in the same orientation, in the same location on the autorads? Very simple, very easy to interpret.
The leg, or the muscle tissue from the leg, originated from Norman Klas. -I'd never had a DNA case before, prior
to this, where we had matched up anyone like that. I was very ecstatic when I found this out.
And I notified his family back in Texas. NARRATOR: Now that police had positively identified
the victim, their focus turned to identifying the killer -I was concerned there was someone out
there that had either lost it, and was going to cause a lot more grievance to the Phoenix Police Department.
NARRATOR: Police began questioning Norman's friends to determine his whereabouts on his last day alive.
Norman's girlfriend, Patricia, was the most helpful. -We learned from her that Norman had kind of a colorful past
as a methamphetamine cooker. One of the people that he probably had seen last was his business partner, who was also
a methamphetamine cooker, by the name of Graham King. And the two of had been friends for a long time
but had recently had a falling out had and become arrivals in the drug business.
NARRATOR: Detectives found Norman Klas's car just a block away from King's home.
With a search warrant, detectives wanted to find a safe way to search King's home, which was a fortress.
Two vicious Rottweilers guarded the back yard. Cameras were mounted outside, giving King a 360-degree look
around the entire circumference. Gun ports provided a clear shot to every inch of the property.
The doors and windows were reinforced. -Anything less than a bulldozer wasn't going to get you in in a timely fashion.
And certainly, as a drug manufacturer, that would give him time to dispose of a lot of the evidence.
NARRATOR: Police waited until King walked outside to his car before serving the search warrant.
Once inside the house, investigators uncovered an arsenal. RICO FRAGOSO: He was into weapons, all sorts of weapons--
firearms and crossbows and throwing knives and knives. And everything is hidden inside of the residence,
in nooks and crannies that he specially made for these weapons, in his bed, in the walls,
behind doors. He had every known weapon you can think of, from weapons made 400 years ago to the present time.
NARRATOR: Detectives also found marijuana and methamphetamine. -He probably tasted his product way
more often than he should have. It might have affected his-- his reasoning. NARRATOR: And in the laundry room,
investigators noticed that someone, presumably King, had recently painted the walls and floor.
-You could tell it was fresh paint. The smell was still there of the paint. You could also detect an odor of either Pine-Sol or Clorox,
very strong presence, in the laundry room. NARRATOR: But could investigators find out
if the laundry room had been the scene of violence? Or did they get there too late?
The new paint had covered potential evidence. Or did it? In the laundry room of Graham King's home,
the walls and floor had recently been painted and the room disinfected. Either King was a meticulous housekeeper,
or he had gone to a great deal of trouble to hide something. Determined to find which one it was,
investigators removed the laundry table that was built into the wall. -Eureka. Take a look at this.
NARRATOR: Behind the table were some tiny spots. -We found some spots which we believed to be blood.
We took samples of that. And then we cut out the entire wall. NARRATOR: The spots were evaluated
with the Kastle-Meyer test which reacts with the iron component in blood. That test was positive.
-But despite the flushing and washing attempts, they were still able to find the traces of human blood
and identify the scene as being a scene of considerable bloodletting. NARRATOR: The next step was to determine whose blood.
The DNA from the tiny specks on the wall was compared to the DNA from the muscles in the amputated leg.
They matched. -Wow. I re-- reinforced my belief in the power of RFLP technology and DNA technology at the time.
NARRATOR: Graham King refused to answer questions. But police soon got an unexpected break--
a telephone call from one of King's friends who had suspected King was involved in foul play.
The caller was Troy Killip, who said he was working and Graham King's backyard when Norman Klas
went inside but never came out. Although he wasn't an eyewitness, he was the next best thing-- an ear witness.
This is his audiotaped statement to police. -I heard a bunch of screaming, scuffling.
I heard somebody yell, well kill me, kill me, just [bleep] kill me. Then a man screamed my name.
I heard the gunshot, the full deal. I heard him cutting the man up with an axe. I don't know for a fact, because I can't visualize it.
But I can reconcile with the sounds, the things that I heard, you know, and him never leaving.
NARRATOR: Troy Killip told police he waited for an hour, then knocked on the door to collect his tools.
TROY KILLIP: I'm banging on the front of the house. And he unbars all the doors in there,
all steel doors and stuff. And he comes out the front. And he's just shaking and quaking.
And he was wearing different clothes at the time. He says, come in, come in. And I step in, and I smell nothing
but heavy-duty Pine-Sol cleaner everywhere. I turn around. I walk out. NARRATOR: Killip also said that King
and Klas were involved in a dispute. But it wasn't about drugs. It was about a woman.
-Graham King's girlfriend have been involved with Norman Klas. And she might have become pregnant
because of Norman Klas. Graham King found out. And that's what caused, we think, or motivated the murder.
TROY KILLIP: This is a big drug operation, is what it all stems from. MALE SPEAKER: What kind of drugs?
TROY KILLIP: And this guy that got killed was [bleep] this other guy's old lady.
And that's why he got killed. OK? It was methamphetamine. And they manufactured everything right here in Phoenix.
NARRATOR: Graham King was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Despite the results of DNA tests and the medical examiner's
opinion that Norman Klas was dead before his leg was removed, Norman's girlfriend Patricia
refuses to believe Norman is dead, which was evident when we asked her for an interview.
PATRICIA: Norman's not dead. His death was staged. And I just feel like the show is not based on truth.
And therefore I can't in good conscience contribute to it. NARRATOR: Patricia believes Norman faked his own death
to avoid a drug-related confrontation. As prosecutors prepared for the trial, they had another challenge-- persuading
their primary witness to testify. Prosecutors believe that Norman Klas went to Graham King's home
unaware that King was angry with him for his involvement with his girlfriend. -What's going on with you?
Anything? -What are you talking about? NARRATOR: The two argued. GRAHAM KING: What do you think?
I'm going to kill you? [interposing voices] [gunshot] NARRATOR: He placed the body into garbage bags.
Sometime later that night, he dumped the bags in various dumpsters throughout the city.
Although King painted and disinfected the laundry room, the tiny specks of blood on the wall behind the laundry table
proved to be his undoing. -He missed about four square feet of a wall that was able to deliver up enough evidence to positively say this
is where this happened at. We were-- we were incredibly lucky. We did a lot of good police work.
But we had some real lucky things happen that you can't count on in this job. NARRATOR: And King placed one of the limbs
in a dumpster that was completely empty. -Unfortunately for him, the dumpster had been emptied out,
I believe an hour prior to him dumping that one leg in there. Otherwise we'd have never found Norman Klas.
He would still be a missing person. NARRATOR: None of Norman Klas's other body parts
were ever found. This case required a wide variety of forensic techniques. Anthropology determined the victim's height.
Toxicology found the methamphetamine. DNA tests matched tissue cells from the victim which
had been in storage for 10 years. Finally, the Kastle-Meyer test identified what the killer
never saw-- a tiny speck of blood behind a laundry table, which DNA testing confirmed was Klas's.
-It goes from, how are you ever going to prove this case just with a leg, to it's proved with medical and testimonial
certainty. NARRATOR: In the not-to-distant future, DNA tests on a single drop of blood
will be able to identify such things as the victim's gender, their hair and eye color, height, weight, and ethnicity.
Before the trial, prosecutors suffered a setback when their witness, Troy Killip, refused to testify,
saying he feared for his life. TROY KILLIP: I'm not gonna go in no courtroom, no nothing.
No way, no how. These guys made $3.5 million last year. I don't know if this man is gonna
pick up and freak out and come looking for me. He's got the money to do whatever he needs to do.
NARRATOR: So prosecutors reached a plea agreement with Graham King. -I made an accommodation because these people, you know,
had fears of this Graham King. NARRATOR: King agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder,
which carries a sentence of 20 years in a maximum security prison, instead of going to trial
and risking the death penalty. -He got a bargain. He got the deal of a lifetime, 20 years.
He's not going to be that old when he gets out. Certainly not for-- not for somebody that
cooks methamphetamine and kills people. -I'm very concerned with Mr. Graham King being released.
And I think he will be a menace to society. I think it will happen again. -So this is one of the cases that I-- that I do remember.
And-- and whenever I give tours or give DNA talks to-- to college classes and such,
this is the one story that I will always bring up. -The DNA was very critical for this investigation.
Without it, we would never have solved it. NARRATOR: But even now, 10 years later, Norman Klas's girlfriend
still does not accept the forensic results. She continues to believe that Norman faked his own death
and that one day, he will return. [phone ringing] PATRICIA: Hello. Please leave a message at the tone,
and Norman and I will return your call. Thank you for calling. Bye-bye. [beep] [theme music]

The police investigate when a severed leg is discovered in the garbage. Conventional means of identifying the victim are impossible, leading investigators to rely on DNA, forensic anthropology and toxicology to identify the victim.

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

A severed leg leads police to identify murder victim Norman Klas and his killer Graham King through forensic evidence.

Key points

Mysterious Limb Discovery. A severed leg found in a dumpster leads to a complex murder investigation.
Identifying the Victim. Forensic tests reveal the victim's identity, matching a missing meth dealer.
Unexpected Witness. A friend of the suspect hears screams and gunshots, providing crucial evidence.
Plea Deal for the Killer. Graham King pleads guilty to second-degree murder, avoiding a death penalty trial.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I heard somebody yell, well kill me, kill me, just [bleep] kill me.

Troy Killip's account of the sounds he heard during the murder.

14:34WatchDec 10, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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