Forensic Files - Season 7, Episode 4 - Who's Your Daddy? - Full Episode | Forensic Files

in 1988 the body of a young woman was discovered in an ohio river under ice most of the evidence found at the crime
scene hairs fibers and fingerprints had been washed away but the victim's six-year-old son
unwittingly told investigators all they needed to know about the killer and he did it without saying a word
the clue was in his genes [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a troop of boy scouts headed to possum
run creek one saturday morning in january of 1988 their mission was to pick up aluminum cans for a recycling
project look in the icy creek in rural ohio they spotted what appeared to be a mannequin
they saw something just under the ice submerged it was the body of a young woman
local police took every possible precaution to preserve trace evidence by wrapping the victim's body in a sheet
before taking it to the morgue a check of missing persons reports identified the woman as 32 year old
margie coffey the single mother of two young children she had been reported missing 10 days
earlier the police had found her vehicle down off of park avenue east by a bar and she
was a missing person by the time this body was located in the over by the mohican
park the autopsy revealed that margie coffey had been strangled with her own scarf
the coroner estimated she had been dumped in the creek 10 days earlier the same day she disappeared
margie raymie was her maiden name she was one of six children who grew up in the heartlands of ohio on the
outskirts of a town named butler and she was an outgoing girl personal well she was a robust girl
and she loved life [Music] she worked on the farm and then she would help her mother on
the farm they had a lot of cattle to take care of and she helped in that margie grew up in a loving religious
home but in her teenage years as most kids do she yearned for independence began spending most of her time in
mansfield a larger city about 15 miles northwest of butler she made friends with an unsavory crowd
she got into some activities that were subject to prosecution by the law and they were mainly street crimes that type
of thing that probably were very low level but that's how we got to be acquainted with
her during our work on the street those street crimes allegedly included prostitution and illegal drug use
eventually margie rejected that life she met a man named steve coffey the two married and had a daughter angie
but the marriage soured and margie and steve divorced to support herself and her daughter
margie worked as a waitress she also enrolled in college to study law enforcement
and during this time margie had another child out of wedlock this time a son brandon
police investigating her murder wondered if margie had returned to the streets to
support her children well i know her family helped her some but she didn't make a lot of money and
going to school no she didn't make a lot of money working in a restaurant as police knew from experience
life on the streets meant special dangers and a large pool of potential suspects
get away maybe there's somebody in her past that has a reason to want her dead maybe she's uh done something or not
paid something uh maybe some street person has come to this conclusion they ought to
kill her with no suspects or leads police hoped that the rushing water of possum run creek had not washed away
evidence which could lead them to margie's killer [Music] when 32 year old margie coffey was found
strangled in a frozen creek police wondered if her past had finally caught up with her
in her particular case since she had a background of some activity that was certainly against the law
we looked into into that possibility that she may have slipped back into that drug environment
but friends said that wasn't the case margie had been focusing her attention on her family and her education
they were just adamant that they had not seen her she hadn't been around and to their knowledge she had completely
cleaned up all of her past activities margie was raising taking care of the children on her own and she loved her
children she loved them she really loved them and i feel that margie was a good mother i really do
she had also rediscovered religion i believe she wanted to be a christian lady from all that i could gather from
her that's what she was striving for to do to be better to live better to act better
and forget all about anything in the past police learned that margie had been actively dating since her divorce
among the men she was seeing were two mansfield police officers both of whom were married
one was robert lemon a veteran of the force he indicated us that it had ended sometime before that
probably a year and a half minimum and that he had not had any contact with her and even spoken to her for any
reason the other was lieutenant charles oswalt he too said his relationship with margie
was over lieutenant oswald was very much in love with his wife oftentimes spoke about what they did on
weekends and things like that he was a type of police officer that other police officers i would say would
try to emulate lieutenant oswald furnished a police report indicating he had been on duty
that night on a drug investigation the trail of margie's killer was growing cold
we had no fingerprints we had no weapon we had to explore the other possibilities and those possibilities
really were going to come from her margie coffey was last seen alive at this diner
sitting in a booth with her school books open studying for a class detective david messmore interviewed the
owner of the diner who said that lieutenant oswalt was in the diner the same time as margie
[Music] the two weren't sitting together but they did acknowledge one another how are you
it was a very distressing situation not only did i work with him i knew he was a very good policeman but
i've been friends with him and it was just it was very upsetting to me to think that he might have been
involved in a crime like that when confronted with this information lieutenant oswalt refused to comment
[Music] margie's parents laid their daughter to rest an excruciating task few parents are
prepared for marge's parents mr miserami suffered from that day on there was times that
they would just break down and cry when they would see a picture of margie or when
when mrs ramey would talk to me little did police realize that margie's own son would provide a
tantalizing clue one that would lead them to the killer as the search for margie coffee's killer
continued a mansfield police officer told homicide investigators about a suspicious incident that occurred the
night margie was killed the officer said he saw lieutenant charles oswalt who had been linked
romantically to margie on foot out of uniform and behaving strangely near the police station
and he had a leather jacket on which would be unusual at that time of the night due to
the fact that he was working this officer said what's going on how are you doing and he kind of ignored him
and he continued on walking into the police department through the back way oswalt's behavior cast doubt on his
claim that he was investigating a drug operation that night for him to be nervous and excited in that period of
time was kind of unusual that kind of took the luster or the punch out of his alibi
in the forensics lab margie coffey's clothing would soon tell a story of its own
we had a scarf you had leg warmers you had a heavy coat once the clothing is dry basically it'll
be hung on a hanger just like your clothing would be at home there'll be a piece of paper placed underneath in case
anything naturally falls off and then the article is simply held and scraped with a spatula all the way down to help
lift these articles off and let them fall onto the paper to be collected while most of the trace evidence had
been washed away by the water a very small amount remained recovered a number of hairs and fibers
in particular two fibers red in color the presence of these two fibers about a quarter of an inch in length and no more
than twice the size of a human hair across were all we had to really work with while different fibers may look similar
to the naked eye under a microscope they are very distinctive the foreign fibers on margie's coat and
leg warmers were triangular in shape or trilobal from the side this trilobal shape gives
the appearance of having a stripe running along the side tri-lobal carpet is usually found in
high traffic areas like hotels and automobile interiors since it hides dirt tony tambasco took carpet samples from
every location where margie had been in the days before her murder tabasco thought he found what he was
looking for in the home of margie's parents at margie's parents house we found a floor mat that actually had red
carpet the red carpet fibers in the floor mat look very similar to those that we had recovered from the victim
but under a microscope that carpet was not similar to the fibers on margie's clothes
since lieutenant oswalt was seen in the diner with margie on the night she disappeared
tambasco wanted to examine the police cruiser oswalt had been driving that night
most police vehicles are not carpeted because of heavy use and have rubber flooring instead
but police records revealed that on the night in question lieutenant oswalt was the watch commander and the watch
commander's vehicle was different from the others the unique thing about that particular
cruiser cruiser number 306 was it was a supervisor's car it wasn't your standard
police car that you buy every year with the fleet it was bought at a public auction
the mansfield police had gone to an auction had purchased a chevy caprice classic
a full-size car for their commanders and of course the upper echelon of the police department
have a little nicer vehicle than the guys in the street the carpet in the watch commander's car
was red tabasco took a small sample from the vehicle at first it looks similar to the
carpet in margie's parents house but under a microscope the fibers told a different story and
were similar in all respects to the fibers found on margie's clothing we looked at color you can see the
colors the same we looked at diameter you can see the diameter is consistent we looked at the trilobal design and the
pattern does show that chemical tests revealed that both sets of fibers had been dyed with the same
chemicals but fiber evidence unlike dna or a fingerprint is not definitive the presence of the fibers being
consistent with the fibers in the vehicle is not an identification to the exclusion of all others it's not an
absolute there's no way anyone should to come to court and there's no way anyone
can come to court and testify that that fiber came from that carpet it's just not going to happen
but even more damning evidence against officer oswalt would come from margie's six-year-old son
brandon [Music] the circumstantial evidence in margie coffee's murder all pointed to
lieutenant charles oswalt so did the forensic evidence the two red carpet fibers on margie's clothing were
microscopically similar to the carpet in oswald's automobile [Music] but the question haunting police was
motive if oswald murdered margie coffey why did he do it after margie had given birth to her
second child brandon she told social services that she couldn't identify the baby's father since the pregnancy was
the result of a rape but later when she applied for financial aid at college she was required to
identify brandon's father and explain why she wasn't receiving child support when she became a jehovah's witness and
they began to uh counsel with her they found these details out they said look you can't lie
you tell the truth and she named chuck oswalt as the father with this news prosecutors asked oswald to undergo a
paternity test it revealed that the likelihood of oswalt being brandon's father was
greater than 99 investigators also discovered that oswald had refused to pay for child
support when margie asked possibly because he didn't want his wife to find out about his infidelity
lieutenant oswald was married i had children in fact up until all of this broke his
wife didn't know anything about margie coffee did not know that he had a child by another woman and so i'm sure that
her finding that out certainly was motive for what happened oswalt allegedly offered margie a few
thousand dollars from an insurance settlement which margie refused as insufficient
during charles oswalt's murder trial prosecutors presented one more piece of evidence against him
a woman who would once work for police as a decoy in prostitution investigations charlene dry sawyer
testified that she too had been having an affair with oswalt sawyer claimed that oswalt had not only
told her he murdered margie coffey he also provided details of the crime [Music]
sawyer said that after oswalt and margie saw one another in the diner they went to oswald's police car to talk
they discussed the child's support matter and oswalt's offer of three thousand dollars to end the dispute
no it's not enough with margie's refusal the conversation grew heated and margie
threatened to disclose that oswald was brandon's father i will file a lawsuit and your wife and kids will find out
about this margie slapped him [Music] oswalt responded by strangling her with her own scarf
the forensic evidence reveals that oswald put margie's lifeless body in the back seat of his police car where her
coat and leg warmers picked up the tiny red triangular shaped carpet fibers later
prosecutors say oswalt drove to the bridge over possum run creek and dumped the body into the water in the mistaken
belief that any incriminating evidence would be washed downstream [Music] you know when it's uh
when it waddles and it quacks it's probably a duck and that's the case that we had here
at his trial lieutenant oswalt took the stand in his own defense and denied killing margie
coffey he repeated his claim that he had been working alone that night on a drug
investigation and offered the type police report to prove it but prosecutors contended that the
report was bogus implying that oswalt himself had typed the phony report after the murder to give himself an alibi
[Music] the jury found lieutenant charles oswalt guilty of voluntary manslaughter and
abusing a corpse he was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison to this day oswalt insists he did not kill margie
coffee [Music] he may deny and he may go to the grave denied it i think i think he is guilty now
if i'm wrong god forgive me for residents of mansfield the ultimate betrayal is a policeman who commits murder
i mean it's bad enough to murder someone but then when you supposed to be uh protecting people
and then using the office of authority to kill someone then that's the lowest murder that i can uh thank god
he will never ever ever admit that crime i don't care if they keep him in jail till he dies he will go to he will go to
his grave with that in his in his mind he will never ever and i really believe that
prosecutors say that it was solid police work and some luck that helped seal the
case the presence of these red fibers and that carpet was simply a shot in the dark
a police car in our own backyard a police car in our fleet the uniqueness of that police car being
bought at auction the chance of that one in a million and without the forensic evidence
lieutenant oswald might not have been brought to justice i'd say this was one of the key pieces
of evidence and it would have been more difficult for a jury to have convicted him if not
impossible [Music] [Music] [Music] you

In 1988, the body of a young woman was discovered in an Ohio river. Most of the evidence had been washed away, but the victim's 6-year-old son unwittingly told investigators all they needed to know — without saying a word. The clue was in his genes.

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

The murder of Margie Coffey leads to Lieutenant Oswalt's conviction through forensic evidence and testimony from her son Brandon.

Key points

The Discovery of Margie Coffey. In 1988, the body of Margie Coffey was found in an Ohio river, leading to a complex investigation.
A Troubling Past. Margie's troubled teenage years and her attempts to turn her life around are explored.
The Shocking Revelation. A paternity test reveals Lieutenant Oswalt's connection to Margie's son, raising suspicions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The clue was in his genes.

A young boy's unspoken knowledge leads to the killer.

0:26WatchDec 10, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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