Forensic Files - Season 7, Episode 32 - Sleight of Hand - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] in 1981 police found a partial Print near a door knob at a crime scene but without a suspect police had
no way to compare the print to the 1 million prints on file 17 years later new forensic
technology changed that breathing New Life into what was a very old crime [Music]
[Music] [Applause] [Music] Charles Whitty was one of this country's outstanding architects in the early
1900s he was the first to design poured concrete structures he designed and built all the
train stations clear across the United States Albuquerque is one of his most famous and the next most famous I guess
would be El trar at the rim of the Grand Canyon which he built in 1902 eltar is a hotel and resort overlooking
the Grand Canyon Whitt's design was eclectic a combination of the Swiss Chalet and
Norway Villa Styles Charles had four children but his oldest daughter Enid identified with her
father's free spirit and creativity more than the others she was very stately very pretty woman slender tall beautiful
hair a big white smile with her flashing teeth Enid shunned family pressure to attend college and instead headed to
Vaudeville at age 17 she began her career as a Marian Morgan dancer she was also a singer performing
with the San Francisco Opera Enid never married but she loved children as she grew older she eventually found work as
a governance but by the 1950s she retired and moved into a family home on simmeron street in Los
Angeles she never owned a car but was a fixture in the neighborhood riding on her bicycle stopping to talk and
sometimes play with the neighborhood children she would relate to them a lot more so than she would to
adults she had kind of a almost a childlike quality about her the neighbors all called her the bicycle
lady and uh everybody spoke highly of her she was pleasant she would talk to people even into her 80s she still rode
her bicycle through the neighborhood but as she Grew Older something changed she was quite concerned about uh
Intruders breaking into her house to the point where she had built kind of a Jerry rigged alarm system out of wires
and threads and cans to alert her if anybody tried to come in a window or a door on March 13th
1981 one of the neighbors noticed Enid's front door was open inside the doorway was
blot paramedics found 86-year-old Enid Whitty in her upstairs bedroom dead from multiple stab wounds Frank Bolan was the
first detective on the scene the lady being of a small frame there just no way that I could believe that she offered
much resistance uh there was no need for uh the amount of injuries you that this
woman was subjected to the bedroom was ransacked the motive appeared to be robbery several of the drawers were open
a lot of the items were pulled out there was blood on various items in and out of
drawers Bolen also noticed blood drops leading down the left hand side of the stairs person leaving these blood drops
was in fact leaving the area of the body going downstairs and going to the front
door at the front door was a blood smear and print leading to area of the doorknob of the
door investigators hoped that the fingerprints and the blood drops would lead to the
[Music] killer the entire neighborhood including the children were shocked and saddened
by the murder of 86-year-old Enid Whitty despite her cheerful disposition her friends knew she was particularly
fearful of crime whether it be a premonition uh whether just a coincidence uh but uh there was
something that um that did trouble her a lot she had always lived a very kind life that had never bothered anybody
this was just not fair that someone so dear and sweet would have to end her days this way it was just was not fair I
mean to be mutilated like she was inside the home was a wealth the forensic evidence which told the story
of what happened during Enid's last moments alive we believed that the person had
come up on the front porch open a window on the front porch had crawled in the open window stepped on the dusty piano
had left the footprint a knife surfaced at some point we worked our way upstairs
where she was in the bedroom it was just it's always very s the victim was severely cut um and stabbed in different
parts of her body she had a defensive wound on the outside of her right wrist which to me showed that when the
defendant was trying to stab her she was putting up her arm in defense and he got
her wrist and at some point the suspect was also injured it's not uncommon when a
knife is used that the attacker slides um because the blood is slippery they'll slide over the blade and cut themselves
it appeared the suspect walked back down the stairs bleeding from his left hand the forensic evidence revealed that the
killer left through the front door and stole Enid's beloved bicycle from the front porch to make his getaway it's
especially sad to see someone all those years lived in their house and not to be
even safe in their own home Michelle kler was assigned to collect the blood drops from the home
she started with the grand piano because it was dry and Flaky I used a clean disposable scalpel and just collected it
into a clean piece of white paper and made it into a Bendle and closed it so it could breathe and put it in a coin
envelope Kesler used a different technique on the blood stains on the front door well in those days we used
claw squares dampen with water and disposable tweezers or clean the tweezers in between with
alcohol fingerprint specialist lifted three partial prints from a window a fourth print was discovered on an
archway leading to the front door they thought it might be a partial uh of a palm
print investigators photographed the footprints using oblique lighting it's when you take a flashlight
and you shine it on an angle on an oblique angle it's kind of like at home when you can't see handprints on your
furniture but you turn on the light and you're looking sideways at there's the [Music]
fingerprints the forensic evidence told police how the crime was committed but the evidence couldn't identify the
killer this was 1981 5 years before DNA was first used in a criminal case police could find no witness to the
crime none of the neighbors had seen anything suspicious detectives then looked to
other areas for leads I was conversing with other detectives and we were comparing notes we were comparing
Prints but as far as a specific suspect we had none comparing the fingerprints in Enid
whitty's home to others arrested for similar crimes in the area wasn't difficult
but comparing them to everyone in the file was impossible you would have to search just
over a million cards if there was a known suspect we can easily pull a card and then do the comparison but without a
known suspect it would be very difficult without a full pattern type and without a fingerprint match the
case remained unsolved all investigators knew was that the killer had tipe B blood and was
left-handed we knew that there was an ongoing investigation that it was quite thorough
and we were a little bit surprised that uh time went by and it didn't result in anything it would take another 16 years
before a new technology gave police their first solid lead [Music] all homicide cops would like to solve
their crimes kind of take it personal you know and uh they usually have put a lot of time and effort into it Enid
whitty's murder case was one of several unsolved cases that languished in Frank bolan's Cold Case file I remember him
telling me that during his 30-year career there was a handful of cases maybe three cases that wanted him that
he wanted to solve before he retired and this was one of them he had the Killer's blood from the
crime scene and some of his fingerprints but little else but in the years since Enid's
murder in 1981 there had been more technological advances in forensic science than in any
other time in history in this age of personal computers it's hard to remember that in
the 1980s very few people had even seen a computer let alone used one large expensive mainframe computers were the
standard with an eye to the Future the FBI and the Lockheed Martin company experimented with using computers to
analyze and compare fingerprints when scanners were developed to capture the prints and the
files could be compressed and formatted the afis was born a this is actually an acronym for automated fingerprint
identification system and it's a computer system and what it does it photographs a Laten print it scans it
and then it'll give us a candidate list usually of 10 people who have similar characteristics to the one that we
entered into the system this new technology revolutionized fingerprint analysis not
only for new cases but for old ones I occasionally revisit a lot of my old cases and ask for a recheck of the
prints so detective Bolan sent the four prins found in Enid whitty's home back to the forensics
lab afis found no match for the three prints taken from the window but the afis had better luck with the partial
palm print the partial print was such a small area that you weren't sure if it was actually from a fingerprint or if it
was from a palm area of the hand in this case the afis determined that the print
was a partial fingerprint and not a palm print and the computer identified 10 individuals whose prints needed to be
examined further we're then able to pull the cards of those candidates and do a comparison and we do a side by-side
comparison using a special magnifying glass the latent print examination identified
the owner of the print Carl Stewart I immediately began a background search and found him to live within a
half mile of the victim he had a length the record within the Wilshire division having been arrested several times for
theft and things of that nature ironically Carl Stewart was sitting in the Los Angeles jail
following an arrest on domestic abuse charges I went and found the spouse that had filed the charges on him I sat down
and I interviewed her through her I had learned that he was a person that didn't
really care for elderly people uh that he had been a burger she also told police that Stuart
targeted seniors in Beverly Hills Culver City and Wilshire near his home and she
said one more thing that Stuart was left-handed on December 26th 1996 detective Bolan and two others
interviewed Carl Stewart I basically started off with asking him about the area he lived and some of his background
of his life then I kind of got into the crime and this lady was hurt to the point where she died okay I didn't I
didn't I didn't do that me I didn't do that you know it no at first Carl Stewart claimed he knew nothing about
the robbery or Enid Whitty then he changed his story I've seen her in the neighborhood
I remember and she would wave at the kids playing when we was little like when you you would see her rideing the
bike she would wave at you and stuff and you know everybody would pretty much weave back at her or something like that
as my partner and I would release some information on bits and pieces of evidence he would rethink his
statement and make it work around the evidence that was obtained and how it got there when told his fingerprint was near
Enid's front door steuart said he had once been inside her home briefly but had nothing to do with her
murder did district attorney Hayden Zaki would make the decision on whether to take this case to trial the crime
happened on March 11th of 1981 when I was Stone High School and uh I thought to myself boy this is an old case um you
know are we still going to have witnesses available for instance uh did we preserve all the evidence
properly even with the print zachi knew it wasn't enough to convict Stewart for Enid's murder all he had is a a
fingerprint I mean I guess in theory we could have prosecuted with only a fingerprint but I mean he could have
explained the fingerprint away pretty easily all of the other evidence had been in the police property room for the
16 years since the murder but one important piece was not the coroner's reference sample of
Enid's blood was missing it would take another forensic breakthrough not available in 1981
to solve that problem and bring Carl Stewart to [Music] Justice and Carl Stewart was taken to
the dispensary at the county jail and blood was drawn that blood was labeled and given to me for uh typing
purposes investigators wanted to make sure that it was Carl Stewart's blood inside Enid whitty's home
to do that scientists needed a sample of Stewart's blood as well as Enid Whitty but the Swatch of Enid's blood
taken at her autopsy was missing from the evidence file so what we did in lie of the Corner's blood Swatch we used
Enid whitty's pajama top that was what we were hoping would serve as her reference blood sample cuz it was
heavily Blood Stained small dried samples of that pajama top were placed in sterile water
water dissolves the stain and it also causes any cells that are present for example white blood cells which contain
DNA to lice they break open spilling of their contents including the DNA out into the
water The Next Step was to clean the DNA I had to pass it through uh something called a centricon tube it's basically a
filter and what it does is it accomplishes two things it cleans the DNA and it also concentrates it into a
smaller volume of of water the DNA is then replicated multiple times into a workable sample
through a polymerase Chain Reaction or PCR six genetic markers were typed and illuminated by a blue color attached in
the PCR process I had one stain that actually matched the genetic profile of Enid whittles SE on the remaining items
I believe there were eight other blood stains from throughout the residence that matched Carl Stewart's genetic
profile the evidence finally proved that Carl Stewart left the blood trail inside
Enid whitty's home Carl Franklin Stewart left his blood at that crime scene it's
his blood what's the defense going to do on May 17th 1999 Hayden zachi presented presented
the forensic evidence of Enid whitty's murder to a jury Zachy believes that Carl Stewart
first noticed Ena during one of her bicycle rides through the neighborhood later Stuart broke into
Enid's home through her front window leaving his footprint on the dusty piano underneath the motive was robbery
[Music] upstairs Enid confronted Stuart a fight ensued causing the defensive wounds to
Enid's arms and hands during the encounter Stuart cut his left hand which left the trail of
blood down the left hand side of the steps Stuart left his partial Print near the front door as he left the
scene a print originally thought to be a palm print but later identified as a partial fingerprint by the automated
fingerprint identification system we knew he got our man we knew that Carl Franklin stur was in that house because
he left a fingerprint and he left blood so that's how we knew we had our man it took the jury just 2 hours to
find Carl Stewart guilty of first deegree Murder She certainly didn't deserve to
die as she did he was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole this was the first homicide
investigation assigned to Frank Bolan despite taking 17 years he refused to give up he will give 110% to every
investigation that he participates in sometimes he's a little bit of a pain but you know it's all for a good cause
and uh um I I enjoy working with him I can't say it's a happy thing but I did take a person off the street
that was responsible for horrendous vicious crime and I would say that the world uh elderly people females whoever
in general is a little bit safer today because this person is behind bars so many disappointments so many cases that
gone unsolved that you couldn't do you couldn't do anything with and then Along Comes new
technology I think it is so wonderful to think that after all these years that they would go back when they got better
equipment and uh new technological things and try to solve these unsolved crimes and put these people where they
belong I think it's marvelous [Music] w [Music] [Music]

Brief Summary

Enid Whitty's murder was solved 17 years later using advanced forensic technology, leading to Carl Stewart's conviction.

Key points

The Murder of Enid Whitty. Enid Whitty, an 86-year-old beloved neighbor, was found murdered in her home in 1981.
Technological Breakthrough in Forensics. New forensic technology in 1996 finally leads to a breakthrough in the cold case.
Carl Stewart's Conviction. After years of investigation, Carl Stewart was found guilty of Enid's murder in 1999.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It took the jury just 2 hours to find Carl Stewart guilty of first-degree murder.

The quick verdict in a long-unsolved case.

20:50WatchSep 16, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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