Forensic Files - Season 8, Episode 19 - Breaking News - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] she worked behind the scenes in a television newsroom but one day instead of covering the news
she became the news where you live this is nbc 12 news first at 4. the crime scene told a terrible tale of
violence but it would take dna a behavioral profile and a computer to solve the case
[Music] [Music] in july 1994 22 year old hope denise hall and her three-year-old son robert lived in a
suburb of richmond virginia in this apartment complex hope had just graduated from virginia
state university at the top of her class her focus was journalism and she wanted
to work in the highly competitive television news industry her big break came at the nbc affiliate
in richmond she was very eager she was very focused she was very mature for her age hope
really wanted to be an honor reporter and an anchor at the time she was working for us she was editing tape and
so she pretty much gathered the material for the broadcast and put it together hope gained her maturity through
adversity at age nine she was diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer after five years of treatment hope was
cured at the age of 19 hope became pregnant while still in college she and the baby's father shared custody of their
son but decided marriage would have been a mistake i think we realized that we needed a lot
of growing up we had to grow up in order to really take on that whole responsibility of of marriage
and i think that was the bottom line by all accounts hope was a devoted mother and a determined career woman
that's why on the afternoon of july 11 1994 co-workers in the newsroom became alarmed when she did not report to work
calls to hope's home went unanswered we had a crew in the area so we sent them by to find out what might be going
on and did knock on our door they went in and when they got there there was police tape set up around the
apartment complex you could actually smell death if that's something that you can
imagine when you walked in you could see the blood on the door hope was found dead on the bedroom floor
she had been stabbed to death it was one of the worst crime scenes i've ever saw because it was blood
everywhere [Music] hope's apartment door had been locked and showed no sign of forced entry
no valuables were missing there was a bloody handprint near the door but it was too smudged for analysis
[Music] kitchen knives from hope's apartment were used as the murder weapons [Music]
two bent knives were on the kitchen counter a third knife lay on the bed a fourth was on the bathroom sink with
water still running in the kitchen police found a broken blood stained drinking glass
dried blood droplets formed a trail from the kitchen to the bedroom the phone was on the bedroom floor
ripped from the wall hope didn't deserve this no human being deserved this as officers combed the crime scene
they realized one key item was conspicuously absent her child [Music] as police rushed to find the child and
the killer hope's co-workers rushed to put her story on the air a young woman involved in producing the
news was now the central figure in the day's top story [Music] investigators had two mysteries to solve
who killed hope hall and where was her three-year-old son police contacted the baby's father
robert kinney i remember i was at home at my mom's house and i just walked in the door
and a mommy told me that a detective had called kenny told police that their son young
robert was with him in northern virginia about a two hours drive away the child was spending the summer there
police asked kinney to come in for questioning my father rolled down with me i couldn't
feel anything i i i just i was in a zombie-like stage police believed hope knew her killer
because her front door was found locked somebody had a key the only way they could have locked that deadbolt was to
have a key on the outside and lock it we have to find this person no one can stab someone repeatedly and cut their
throat three times and leave them to rot on the floor without them hitting again
this crime was eerily similar to the ones committed by richmond's south side strangler who raped and murdered five
women in their homes that was a case that terrified absolutely terrified the community
people were boarding up windows and just changing their life plans the south side strangler timothy spencer
was executed for those crimes shortly before hope paul's murder spencer's case made history
he was the first person put to death in the united states based on dna evidence timothy spencer's case
brought awareness to law enforcement certainly in this area to what dna can do spencer's case prompted virginia
lawmakers to establish the country's first dna data bank which put the dna profiles of all
convicted felons of virginia's prisons into a computer so many felons have a tendency to commit crimes again
once they are released from the from the system back at hope paul's apartment scientists found unidentified blood
presumably the killers on the broken drinking glass in the kitchen the knife on the bathroom sink also had
the killer's blood testing also found signs of sexual assault from the crime scene evidence
forensic scientists performed a dq alpha and poly marker dna analysis polymarker consisted of five different
areas of the dna dq alpha was a sixth area of the dna so these were just six areas of the dna that we were looking at
for differences between individuals when scientists entered the dna of hope paul's killer into their database
they could find no match so investigators looked elsewhere most homicides are committed by people
where there is some level of relationship it can be very close or it can be not very close at all
police spoke with the baby's father robert kinney he had an alibi he was at his home over a two-hour drive away at
the time of the murder even with this alibi kinney voluntarily submitted a blood
sample for dna testing i was you know more than happy to assist them in any way i can to you know
eliminate me so that they can focus on whoever is responsible um so that didn't bother me
but his dna did not match blood found at the crime scene so kinney was cleared relieved
knowing one thing in scientific data proving another is two different things my gut said he did not do this
next investigators looked into hope's lifestyle for possible clues i knew how careful she was
about her own safety i just couldn't believe that she would be anywhere where she'd be at risk
for being murdered we didn't see anything that indicated that she was out running around
or anything else it would make us say oh maybe she ran into somebody in a bar or
something like that that she could have brought home but investigators found two potential
witnesses two neighbors saw a man without a shirt running from hope's apartment building
on the night of her murder they said he had a tattoo on his arm and chest which looked like greek symbols
the brand was of the shape of a horseshoe with a lightning bolt going through which is the emblem of the
omega sapphire [Music] omega sci-fi was a local college fraternity hope's friends and co-workers told
police that this description sounded like a man hope recently dated hope allegedly told friends the man got
abusive when she tried to end their relationship the ex-boyfriend's name was leroy quick
police discovered he too had an omega sci-fi tattoo on his arm and chest both witnesses identified quick in a
police lineup as the man they saw running from hope's apartment police were convinced they had their
killer but they were shocked when they got the results of kwik's dna test [Music]
in the search for hope hall's killer police turned their attention to hope's ex-boyfriend 29 year old leroy quick
witnesses claimed they saw him running from hope's apartment building on the night of the murder
this is nbc 12 news first at 4. police made a break in this case just before sunrise around 6 a.m they
arrested 29 year old leroy d quick iii all of us were surprised because it was someone that she had not even mentioned
to us hope's co-workers told police the couple met that summer quick denied having a key to hope's
apartment he denied being at hope's apartment the night of her murder and he denied any involvement in the crime
it was a roller coaster we felt that everything was about to come to an end we're about to find out
exactly what happened and that wasn't the case [Music] investigators were dumbfounded when they
heard that leroy quick's dna did not match the crime scene evidence i was somewhat surprised we have the
witnesses that identified him coming out of the apartment running without a shirt on
jumping in a car taking off in a brisk motion god help leroy quick if it hadn't been
for the dna because they'd they'd have made a case on him police re-interviewed hundreds of hope's
neighbors friends and family to see if any clue had been missed nothing nothing at all
and believe me when i say we interviewed a lot of people i think i can go on record to say we
practically interview everybody in how commander apartments now nearly a year after her murder
the trail of hope paul's killer grew cold but hope's parents refused to give up they maintained constant contact with
police and wrote to dozens of lawmakers pleading for help in finding their daughter's killer
not just because he had murdered hope but because he was a threat and a menace it was very frustrating for everyone it
was very heartbreaking for her mother and we saw the anguish that her mother was going through
as she tried to find an answer to this after clearing the two most obvious suspects
forensic scientists performed a second more discriminating dna test of the killer's dna
using rflp restriction fragment length polymorphism at the time rflp was the most discriminating dna
test available rflp measured various sections of the killer's dna to determine the lengths
unique to that individual means that there is a much better chance of telling my dna apart from yours
this newer more complete dna profile of hope paul's killer was once again entered into the virginia dna data bank
the computer compares the unidentified dna profile to the dna of 8 000 convicted felons
i'd been working on it for a long time so it had become like my case you know of all the cases that i'd worked on this
was the one that i really wanted to get a hit on two years earlier there had been no match but this time
was different the blood and semen evidence in hope hall's apartment matched that of
shermaine johnson his dna profile was put into the database because of his recent
conviction for two other rapes johnson lived in hope hole's apartment complex and was just 16 years old at the
time of her murder and it was a big eye-opener for me i always thought criminals had scars and
and looked like criminals this guy did not look at all like a criminal this was the data bank's first cold hit
in a homicide case an innocent face like cheraine johnson you would think someone that innocent
looking that young would not have committed this type of crime but he did investigators thought they finally had
the break they desperately needed but if sherman johnson was hope's killer why had witnesses identified hope's
ex-boyfriend as the man running from hope's apartment [Music] a computer database identified shermaine
johnson as pope paul's rapist and murderer jermaine johnson's dna was in virginia's
database because of two convictions for rapes that were strikingly similar to hope paul's case
when questioned by police johnson claimed he was innocent he admitted knocking on hope's apartment
door and asking her for a drink of water but johnson said another man opened the
front door with the key pulled out a knife and ordered johnson to leave this was consistent with the
eyewitnesses who saw not charmaine johnson but another man running from hope's apartment later that same night
was it possible chermaine johnson wasn't the killer investigators asked fbi behavioral
profiler mark safric to compare johnson's past criminal behavior to the hope paul case
i mean is he relatively criminally unsophisticated yes that's not uncommon with younger offenders but
my job wasn't to look at germaine i wasn't asked to look at germain i wasn't even asked to consider the offender i
was simply asked to look at behavior safric went to hope hall's apartment to better understand the crime scene
he also examined photos and reports from additional rapes johnson was suspected of committing
suffrage found many behavioral links in all five crimes all of the victims were young and lived
close to shamane johnson's home there is a dynamic that connects all of them contrary to many sexual assaults
where the offender assault contacts and captures and assaults the victim all in the same area here we have a guy who
wants to capture and then subsequently move all of his victims to another location to engage in the sexual assault
in each case johnson used some kind of rules to gain entrance to the victim's home
and once inside threatened the victims with one of their own kitchen knives when he has the option for lots of
different knives even larger more threatening knives butcher knives longer bladed knives he he chooses a shorter
bladed knife he's more comfortable with that type of weapon prosecutors were now convinced that
johnson went to hope's apartment that night asking for a drink of water i hope it's cold enough
once inside there was a struggle the glass fell to the floor johnson grabbed a knife
the trail of blood indicated the attack started in the kitchen then led to the bedroom
johnson returned to the kitchen numerous times for other knives after each was damaged
at some point he picked up the broken pieces of glass cutting his finger and leaving his dna behind
after the murder the evidence shows johnson washed his hands in the bathroom sink but he didn't
remove all of his own blood he was trying to clean up he may have been injured maybe that's why the water
was left running in the bathroom or it may have just been that he was just trying to clean the knife he just didn't
clean up good enough but one nagging question remained if the witnesses were correct in their
identification why was leroy quick running from hope's apartment that night prosecutors don't believe quick had
anything to do with the murder but there is speculation that crick may have gone to hope's apartment that night
used a key to get in and found hope dead then fled fearing he would be blamed and
locked the apartment door behind him quick however denies this regardless germain johnson was tried and
convicted of hope paul's murder and this time was sentenced to death i think the guy is an animal
i don't know whether i want to push the needle but i certainly would like to witness the
pushing of the needle and if nobody else would do it i would certainly do it investigators say
it was the confluence of dna evidence computer technology and the foresight to collect and catalog the dna profiles of
all convicted felons that brought tremaine johnson to justice we interviewed everybody in that
apartment complex and charmaine johnson's name never came up without um the dna data bank without that forensic
evidence i unfortunately i would say that this case would not have been solved we are trying to push international debt
databasing we feel very very strongly that criminals don't stay put they move from city to city state to state
countries to countries and we want to make sure that the clear message is sent out that
no matter where you go no matter what you think you've gotten away with your dna and law enforcement will be waiting
for you [Music] [Music] you

A young TV news producer is raped and murdered in her apartment. Police identify two suspects, but both are cleared of any wrongdoing. The case stalls for more than a year, and then investigators turn to the Commonwealth of Virginia's DNA Databank.

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

Hope Denise Hall was murdered in 1994; DNA evidence led to her killer, Shermaine Johnson, after a lengthy investigation.

Key points

Hope Hall's Tragic Murder. Hope Hall, a promising journalist, was found murdered in her apartment, shocking her community.
DNA Evidence Leads to Justice. Shermaine Johnson's DNA matched evidence from the crime scene, leading to his conviction.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I think the guy is an animal.

Reflecting on the nature of the murderer.

20:22WatchDec 16, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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