Forensic Files - Season 8, Episode 18 - Hair of the Dog - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] with no forensic evidence found at a murder scene investigators were baffled
but they suspected that the victim's dog had witnessed the crime if she had forensic scientists needed
some way to find out what the dog had seen [Music] [Music] north liberty iowa is such a small town
it doesn't take much effort to know your neighbors but one resident the town's people
seldom saw was 28 year old john hebel john was somewhat of a recluse john kind of
stayed to himself it wasn't unusual if we didn't see him for a month he'd be doing things at his home or
repairing things or out with his friends at one point in time in john's life he was a
narcotics user and very possibly also a narcotics dealer in february of 1999 john's mother was
really worried she hadn't heard from her son in over two months we'd been trying to reach my son
and that he wasn't answering and we were afraid something was wrong so she called the local sheriff who
found john's van parked in his driveway but no one answered the door they smelt an odor coming from inside
the trailer he described that odor as being the owner of death the officers forced their way through
the trailer door and found hebel dead slumped in a chair the body appeared to be in a position of
someone who had been watching tv and had laid their head down on their arm on their pillow and gone to sleep the body
was completely covered i had a blanket over the entire body over the head over all the body
he had been shot twice in the back of the head with the 22-caliber pistol the advanced date of decomposition
revealed the murder happened weeks earlier [Music] there were no signs of forced entry
and the trailer doors were locked that indicated to us that someone actually left the residence and took the
time to use a key to bolt that door shut again keeping other individuals from being able to easily
access and enter the trailer in the home police found a small amount of marijuana
and some drug paraphernalia john didn't deserve to have this happen to him he may not have been the perfect
person in the world he may not have had the best lifestyle in the world but i could almost guarantee you would
give you the shirt off his back but john's prized collection of guns was missing
including a uniquely customized gold cup 45 semi-automatic pistol this colt gold cup was described to me
from one of john's friends is you would have to pry that gun away from his cold dead fingers
he was able to take guns apart and work on them repair them customize them put fancy gold on them things like that
it sounded as if john had been killed for the gun collection and another one of john's prized
possessions was missing his three-year-old husky keisha [Music] oh he loved his dog his dog was his life
she was his baby she had a lot of hamburgers a lot of pizza hot dogs things like that i think she ate mostly
people food she was very spoiled [Music] police soon learned that a dog matching
keisha's description was found a month earlier wandering aimlessly several miles away
she was just standing in the middle of the street days looking around like where am i what
am i doing here john's parents identified keisha the evidence suggested she had been
driven there and dropped off keisha was found during january when the roads are typically dirty and muddy that
keisha's condition was was pretty clean the crime scene showed that the dog's leash which normally was kept inside the
trailer next to the door was actually in the victim's van it suggested the victim's van had been used to transport
the dog and dispose of the dog this was just one unusual detail in an investigation that was to become even
more bizarre an autopsy on 28 year old john heppel revealed he had been killed long before
his body was found but the medical examiner was unable to determine exactly when he was killed
without an idea as to when the time of death is it obviously becomes very much more difficult to determine who are
suspects and who are people that you can rule out hebel's dog kisha was found on january
22nd hebel's telephone answering machine had messages not yet listened to the earliest unheard message was left that
same day january 22nd john would not use the answering machine to screen his telephone calls
if someone called john one to talk to him so therefore we knew that january 22nd 23rd
john was dead with this information authorities questioned john's friends and family
we had three primary suspects in this case mike harding andrew rich and sharon snyder
the first suspect mike harting was a friend of john hebels a witness recalled seeing harding's truck parked near
hebel's home around the time of the murder mike harding was good friends with john
we knew that john and and mike had some narcotics business together but harding had an alibi for the time of
the murder and he passed the polygraph test [Music] the next two suspects andrew rich and
sharon schneider were friends of john's who lived about an 18-hour drive away in
grey bull wyoming [Music] we learned from a good friend who saw andrew rich and john heppel together on
january 18th of 1999 that in fact andrew rich had been at the trailer house of john hebel
but andy said john was alive and well when he and sharon left to return home police searched the couple's apartment
and found marijuana methamphetamine and several 22-caliber bullets the same caliber used to kill hebel
these bullets along with the slugs from hebel's body were sent to the fbi lab for a neutron activation test
that's where the lead is shaved off of the bullet it's melted down and atoms are counted counted
then compared but the atomic composition of the bullets recovered from john hebel
was not what investigators had hoped for the results showed us that the bullets that we had recovered from
john were not the same bullets that was removed from andy rich's house in grebel
wyoming investigators found smudge marks on the inside windows of rich's jeep similar to those caused by animals when
pressing their noses against the glass [Music] was it possible that rich used his car to transport
hebel's dog across town after the murder police took kisha's nose print in the same way they collect human fingerprints
each dog's nose print is as unique as a fingerprint unfortunately we weren't able to get the
type of smudges or prints actually from the vehicle that would enable us to do that but it certainly was an interesting
element that we pursued for some time after several months with no forensic evidence and very few leads
the investigation into john hebel's murder was starting to turn cold so investigators turned
the hebel's dog for more information as it turns out that dog was going to play a very important part in
solving john's death a year after john hebel's murder police suspected hebel's best friend andy rich
was somehow involved in his death but they had no proof all investigators knew was that rich had
some unusual career aspirations we knew that his lifelong goal was to be a hitman for the mafia we had
interviewed past girlfriends we had interviewed other associates of andy rich and he always
portrayed himself as a tough guy that's that's how andy rich wants to be remembered we were concerned that sharon
snyder the girlfriend of andrew rich had information that she was fearful about telling us the impression was that she
was being guarded out of fear her fear of andrew rich that was a good punching bag for him
he abused me a lot there was a lot of abuse not just physical there was a lot of
verbal abuse police looked into sharon's background to see if she had ever been involved in
illegal activity and they found something sharon snyder was purchasing guns in a
different location she would give those guns to andy rich some of those guns went to john hebel
we had a violation of the federal statute the federal firearms narcotics statute was the wedge that we used to
split andy rich and sharon snyder [Music] sharon told a different story about that
visit with john hebel i honestly couldn't live with myself anymore i had to face up to whatever was going to happen
to me sharon said she dropped andy off at hebel's home about three days before the
murder then left to visit her daughter about an hour's drive away a few days later andy arrived driving
john's van they put some of his guns into their car took john's van to his home and then
drove their car back to wyoming i had no idea that john was dead now i had no idea about that i had wonders of why
he had these guns after a brief stay in wyoming sharon said that andy left alone with the guns
took off in the middle of the night or around four o'clock in the morning and headed to texas he was gone three weeks
it was andy's own stupidity for telling me where he was going we started to learn things from sharon
that we had suspected all along and at that point in time it became really important for us to
find any information that we could that was going to corroborate what sharon had
to say police visited the man andy richt stayed with during that trip to texas he said rich had given him an unusual
gold cup 45-caliber semi-automatic pistol to pay off a drug debt but by this time
a year later he no longer had the gun investigators then located a second man rich visited on that trip who still had
in his possession a box of ammunition richard sold to him inside the box investigators found several short black
and white hairs microscopic analysis confirmed that the hairs were from an animal but there were
no roots attached so nuclear dna testing was impossible but they were able to extract
mitochondrial dna from the hair mitochondrial dna is passed to animals and humans only from the mother
joy halverson a california veterinarian specializes in animal dna it will not be as
unique a profile as i might get from blood or saliva or hair with a root but it will still allow me to say
yes this sample matches the reference dog or it doesn't match the reference dog breeds of dogs and to
some extent cats today are really only a few hundred years old and so they don't differ that much
that you could definitively say for example well that's a dalmatian halverson performed a pcr test which
stands for polymer race chain reaction it's basically like taking one page out of a book
and ignoring the rest of the book and xeroxing that page a million times and now you have that page
in so much quantity that you can see it then the sample was sequenced to get a visual representation of the dna type
when she compared the dna from the hair in the ammunition box to a sample of keisha's hair
she found a haplotype in both sets that was extremely rare occurring only in 1 in 300 dogs
[Music] the chance of having that match just by random was pretty low combined with i'm sure the circumstances
of the case if i were sitting on the jury i would find that to be a compelling piece of evidence
in the case this was forensic proof that rich was in possession of an item stolen from john
heppel then investigators got another break the man who was given the gold cup pistol said he still had the gun box
inside was a note listing all of the custom alterations made to the pistol as well as the costs
doug van noyk asked me if i thought that was john's handwriting and um i thought it was
but to be sure investigators needed an expert for that they turned to gary licht a
forensic document examiner he compared the note to known samples of hebel's handwriting
the question material was written with somewhat heavy pressure in the known writings
that was also written with that same sort of pressure they were also all hand printed and his known writings also
relied heavily on printing and not cursive he looked for unique features in individual letters in john's known
writings features he then tried to locate in the question document in the creation of other letters such as
a lowercase d i look to see if it's made with one stroke in other words the pen moves down
on the stem back up slightly and counterclockwise motion forms the loop on the lowercase d
based on his comparisons licht was able to draw a definitive conclusion i was able to identify the writer of the
question material as john hebel proof that it was hebel's gun and no other that andy took with him to texas
based on the handwriting analysis and the dog dna andy rich was arrested and charged with
john hebel's murder he was nothing he was a user of people he would manipulate he would use them
um for his own gain he didn't care about anybody didn't care about anybody but himself
in court rich had an interesting response to the forensic evidence against him the forensic evidence showed that andy
rich was in john hebel's home around the time of his murder based on the position of the body
prosecutors believe rich killed hebel after he fell asleep in the living room watching tv
the motive was apparently money rich wanted to sell hebel's gun collection for either cash or drugs
the shooting may have agitated hebel's dog to stop the barking rich put keisha in
hebel's van then drove her several miles away before letting her out in a strange
neighborhood little did he realize that keisha's hair would be found in the stolen box of ammunition
and that canine dna testing would prove it came from hebel's beloved dog andy hated that dog andy could not stand
keisha i don't know why he spared her i have no idea how can you spare an animal and shoot a
human [Music] when rich sold hebel's prized pistol in texas he left the note inside with
handwriting that matched hebble's known handwriting samples the witness testimony and the forensic
testimony piled together just added up like bricks in this case and it was because of the two and putting those two
together that we were able to be able to solve this case in the first place on the day before his murder trial was
to start andy rich made a surprise announcement he said i killed john hebel for his guns
but he never turned around and never addressed the family never apologized for what he had done or
or showed any remorse for what he had done i was somewhat stunned by that i thought that that was the point in
time where he would accept responsibility and do the right thing the parents and family of john hebel
were sitting behind him it was his chance to try to make amends he failed miserably in doing that
even at andrew rich's own admittance john was one of his five best friends in this world
and he's he's so much a piece of trash that he killed one of his best friends rich pleaded guilty to first degree
robbery and voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 35 years in prison in exchange for her cooperation
sharon schneider was charged for drug possession and was sentenced to six months in a halfway house and two and a
half years probation sharon was not a witness to the crime sharon had pieces of the puzzle
that she gave us that we could put together to solve the crime i think it's very interesting how keisha
helped ultimately to be able to solve the crime of the homicide of her master i feel that keisha solved the case
along with the detectives she provided the evidence against andrew rich she got her man
[Music] [Music] [Music] you

With no forensic evidence inside a murder scene, investigators were baffled. But they suspected that the victim's dog had witnessed the crime. If she had, forensic scientists would have to find a way to find out what the dog had seen.

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.

#truecrime #forensicfiles #fullepisodes Click here to watch full episodes from Forensic Files - Season 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gAB0hcY3Z0&list=PLC4mqmKvz1IbdnLKfCt8--pOV0xEpMIP5 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

John Hebel was murdered for his guns; his dog Keisha helped solve the case against Andrew Rich.

Key points

The Mysterious Murder of John Hebel. In a small town, John Hebel's murder leaves investigators puzzled with no forensic evidence.
Keisha, the Key Witness. John's dog, Keisha, becomes a crucial part of the investigation into his murder.
A Shocking Confession. On the eve of his trial, Andrew Rich admits to killing John Hebel for his guns.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

How can you spare an animal and shoot a human?

Questioning Andrew Rich's actions regarding Keisha and John.

19:08WatchDec 16, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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