Forensic Files - Season 7, Episode 3 - Reel Danger - Full Episode | Forensic Files

in 1991 this tranquil pond in rural connecticut was the scene of a horrific crime
[Applause] two young boys were beaten thrown into the water and left for dead investigators had little evidence until
they examined the pond itself and found thousands of clues invisible to the naked eye in a simple drop of water
[Music] [Music] uh [Music] waterford a small connecticut town where the water table is so high homes are
built around numerous small ponds and lakes in 1991 two boys we'll call stephen and bobby
decided to spend their afternoon fishing at their favorite spot stenger's pond i told you
sometime later they were approached by three older boys they didn't know without warning one pulled a knife the
other two threw steven and bobby to the ground steven tried to fight back but was hit
on the head with a baseball bat almost knocking him unconscious both boys had their hands and feet bound
with duct tape and their mouths covered [Music] once out in the pond stephen was hit
once again and held underwater so that he would drown bobby was next fortunately he saw the bat coming and
ducked then pretended to be unconscious [Music] after throwing steven and bobby's
fishing rods in the water they took the boy's bicycles and fled [Music] bobby was able to remove the duct tape
from his hands mouth and feet he swam to stephen to try and save him [Music] by the time he got there stephen was
unconscious bobby managed to get him to shore then carried him a quarter mile to the
nearest home deborah chamberlain heard a frantic knocking at her door one had a serious head wound and was not
very coherent and the other was just almost hysterical and so i knew that something awful had happened to the two
boys and um and that would be something that we would sort out over the next couple of minutes but i think the the
duct tape was really almost my first impression because i thought oh my god someone
taped their wrists together [Music] stephen was rushed to the emergency room of lawrence and memorial hospital
dr john urbanetti was stephen's doctor despite the number of people that i've seen with this kind of circumstance he
came as close as i've ever seen anyone come to not surviving as stephen lay in intensive care
doctors questioned whether he would live or die and waterford police had questions of
their own who had tried to murder stephen and bobby and why [Music] waterford police detective donald
mccarthy was assigned to investigate the assault and attempted murder of the two
young boys at stenger's pond thirteen-year-old stephen was fighting for his life
the victim not only of an attempted drowning but of massive head wounds one of the doctors had told one of my
detectives at the time that it was the closest he had ever seen anybody come to drowning and not being dead
he was very lucky the older child was unconscious had he not had his little friend with him he probably would have
drowned i think steven's friend bobby had escaped serious injury i think the remarkable thing is he had
the presence of mind to immediately go to his friend and pull his friend from the water there's no
doubt in our minds if he did not remove that duct tape the older male would have died if he did
not remove him from that body of water when he came to the door the little guy amazingly was quite a bit smaller than
his friend was just literally supporting him completely police went to stinger's pond to collect
evidence but they ran into a major obstacle the crime scene was a body of water the fishing poles the tackle box the
suspects had tried to sanitize the crime scene by throwing those items in the water so
that the police would not recover them making it difficult that the fact that they were submerged in water we would
not normally not have fingerprints available to us the bat used as the weapon was found
floating in a nearby sewer grate but there were no fingerprints and any other possible evidence such as
hairs and fibers had apparently been washed into the water police talked to residents of the
neighborhood closest to stinger's pond to see if they had seen anything unusual susan picardi came forward to say that
earlier on the day of the attack a young teenager she had never seen before came to her door asking for help
yeah i was walking down the street when i began to feel a little light-headed and hungry
may i come in and get something to eat he said he wasn't feeling well he was a diabetic
and was in need of something whether it was sugar or orange juice or a piece of chocolate or
something i immediately felt bad for him and invited him in and have a seat and i'll get you some dirt juice thanks
mrs picardi gave the young man a glass of orange juice a few minutes later he said he was
feeling better thanked her and left because i can call a doctor no no i'm fine thanks
later as mrs picardi was about to take a shower she saw something unusual in her
bathroom mirror and i caught the image of what was going on in my backyard from upstairs and i
saw two other youngsters in the corner of my yard teenagers 16-ish around there a redheaded boy and another
afro-american young man and they were later joined by the young man who just left mrs picardi's home she
gave me orange juice she treated me so nice the boys had a bright green baseball bat
and what looked like rolls of duct tape i automatically panicked and knew whatever they had planned it was not
going to happen at my house so i yelled out the window to them i think you better leave it's obvious
that you're planning something or you're up to trouble or and i'm calling the police so if you know what's good for
you then you better get going susan picardi was able to provide a detailed description of the boy who'd
come to her door mr riccardi told us two things that that stood out one he was wearing eyeglasses and described
those eyeglasses to us the other was he had an unusual shaped scar a u-shaped ray scar on his forearm
since the perpetrators were apparently on foot police checked the neighborhoods nearest
to stengers pond we put officers in that neighborhood and started doing neighborhood canvasses and
that based on the description of the three suspects as a result we were able to identify
the suspect immediately this suspect seventeen-year-old brian davis had the up raised scar described by susan
picardi neighborhood informants identified the two friends davis spent the most time
with one was 17 year old christopher greene the other was an african-american juvenile whom we'll call jason
all three suspects fit the descriptions provided by susan picardi but denied they were involved in the
assault in christopher green's house police found a knife like the one bobby had told them about
in green's basement they found a pair of wet muddy sneakers we inquired of the suspect why are these
things wet he was trying to tell us that it was as a result of walking through mud puddles and things like that as soon
as he said that we started working on a theory that how do we attack this he's coming up with a defense this is how my
clothes got wet i was playing in mud puddles and things like this was the mud on green sneakers from
stenger's pond and if so how could scientists prove it but the answer is police turned to a new
type of forensic science one that had never before been used in a criminal case anywhere in the world
[Music] thirteen-year-old stephen the oldest of the two boys who were assaulted and left
for dead in stenger's pond was in intensive care for a week his condition gradually improved he was
extremely fortunate doctors found no evidence of permanent injury fortunately he'd had an episode that was
short enough so that he suffered no permanent injury to his brain but during the time of recovery he
needed a fair amount of intensive care support police had three suspects in custody
brian davis christopher greene and the juvenile we'll call jason all denied any involvement in the
attacks brian davis and jason had no prior brushes with the law but christopher greene had a long
history of petty offenses and small time violence police took the sneakers from green's
basement but no one was sure if the mud on the soles could be used as evidence we had the shoes
how do we find out now find someone who's going to tell us what to do with this you understand exactly what it is we're
trying to do waterford police spent weeks calling around the country looking for someone
who might be able to help the fbi told them of a scientist at nearby connecticut college
here we are going all over the united states connecticut colleges three minutes or five minutes from our police
station the scientist was dr peter siver a forensic limnologist an expert on microscopic life in
freshwater environments dr siver was asked to find out if the mud on green sneakers came from
stenger's pond he took the mud from the sneakers and added a mixture of sulfuric acid and
potassium dichromate which removed the dirt leaving behind only the life forms that
may have existed in the water it's a world invisible to the naked eye inside that
small drop of water exists literally hundreds of different organisms they come in all different arrays all
different shapes all different colors and it's an entirely different world underneath that one drop of water
and what dr siver found were diatoms microscopic single cell organisms a form of algae
each diatom is housed in an incredibly complex structure made up of silica or glass
i would say that diatoms are pieces of art they're pieces of art because each diatom can make exactly the same
pattern each time it makes a new cell and these patterns are very ornate they're highly artistic in their look
while diatoms may be art they can also be pieces of evidence any body of water has hundreds if not
thousands of species of diatoms the types of diatoms and how many exist of the various species is unique to that
body of water in any given water body you can essentially examine the microscopic organisms and in
effect create a fingerprint for that water body on the sneakers dr cyber found large numbers of one type
of diatom known as unosha shown here unosha are characterized by the crescent shapes of their glass
shells there were three species of unosha on the suspect's sneakers and they were
there in unusually high concentrations and dr siver found one more clue he found what's known as a scaled
chrysophyte scaled crisophytes are related to diatoms but unlike diatoms they can swim
there was only one species of chrysophyte in the mud malamona's codeita shown here magnified two thousand times
when dr cyber analyzed the water samples from stenger's pond he found the same high concentrations of
unosha and the same species of scaled chrysophyte the fingerprint of the water at
stenger's pond was the same as the sample on the sneakers of christopher greene this was the break police had been
counting on one thing that we found is there's always a scientist out there as off the wall as as it may sound or
what you're trying to accomplish we have found is always somebody out there that
will listen to you christopher green brian davis and jason were arrested and charged with assault and attempted
murder but the question now turned to motive why did they attack the two young boys
and was there another intended victim that day forensic scientists found a way to prove
that one of the suspect sneakers had been in the water at stengers pond where the two young boys had been assaulted
and left for dead i think the physical evidence in this case was just overwhelming
and and uh the diatoms and the pond evidence or the aquatic evidence whatever way you want to use it was just
devastating and i think that defense attorneys realize that the forensic analysis showed that when
christopher greene went into the water to strike his victims he got mud on his shoes mud that contained the microscopic
fingerprint of the water in stenger's pond the diatoms in that mud clearly tied him
to the crime scene for me i thought it was unique and unusual because it's something that you
normally don't read about in textbooks even though stephen and bobby's bicycles were stolen after the assault
police and prosecutors do not believe robbery was the motive these three kids i am totally convinced
we're on a mission that day as a result of interviewing the the three after their arrest
they went out to that day to look to kill somebody there's no doubt in my mind can i help you yeah police believe that
susan picardi was originally the intended victim brian davis did not have diabetes as he
claimed but only used it as an excuse to gain entry to her home and i'll get you some great juice thanks
when he rejoined his accomplices in susan's backyard they may have been planning how to get
into the house the real alarm bells went off when i went upstairs and i saw two boys
in the corner of my yard then i sort of all put it together and then i started feeling like i was just set up
fortunately susan picardi saw them in her bathroom mirror and called the police she looks back to that day
and often wonders how close she was to danger a great way to describe it as a sixth
sense the mirror was in the right place the kids were in the right place it was meant to be for me to see them and to
just by their body language understand that something is not right here police determined that christopher
greene the only one of the defendants with a history of violence had instigated the attacks
christopher greene was probably the ring leader for the other two he was the one that brought the bat
he was the one that brought the duct tape he was the one that did the striking on our victims he's the one that
basically directed the other two brian davis and christopher greene were both tried as adults and were sentenced
to a minimum of 18 years in prison their 16 year old accomplice jason was only two weeks shy of his 17th birthday
when he committed the crime as a result he was tried and convicted as a juvenile
and was sentenced to spend time in the facility for young offenders he has since been released
[Music] the microscopic diatom evidence on christopher green sneakers so simple in purpose
so magnificent in design and so potent as evidence for waterford police and for law
enforcement around the world the case set a precedent it's a landmark case it was the first
time that this evidence or evidence of an aquatic environment meaning the diatoms
were used to place a suspect at a crime scene we found that it had never been used
before but was nice about it is they were willing to to take it on and try it and that was the key for us
shortly after this case law enforcement in switzerland solved the murder of a young boy using diatom evidence the boy
had drowned and the species of diatoms in the victim's lungs matched the species of diatoms found on the gas
pedal of the suspect's automobile both cases were solved because a group of connecticut
detectives had a hunch that some mud on the bottom of a shoe might tie a suspect to a crime
i would never say give up being the old-fashioned hard beat in the road cop but you've got to be aware of the
sciences that are there to help you if you don't you're beating yourself a lot of the thoughts that lieutenant
mccarthy came up with we always thought were unusual but nine out of ten times he was right i have to
say 99.8 percent of the time he was right [Music] [Music] [Applause] you

The investigation into a brutal attack on two boys near a pond relies on evidence fished out of the murky water. It was the first case where Diatom evidence was used to place a suspect at the scene of the crime.

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 boys survive a brutal attack at a pond, leading to a groundbreaking forensic investigation using diatom evidence.

Key points

The Attack at Stenger's Pond. In 1991, two boys were brutally attacked while fishing, leading to a dramatic rescue.
Diatoms as Evidence. Forensic scientists used diatoms to link a suspect to the crime scene for the first time.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I think the duct tape was really almost my first impression.

Deborah Chamberlain recalls her initial reaction to the boys' injuries.

3:30WatchDec 10, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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