Forensic Files - Season 8, Episode 2 - The Music Case - Full Episode | Forensic Files

a twelve-year-old girl is murdered in her own home and the case stalls when investigators
find little forensic evidence at the crime scene but scientists also know that criminals
unknowingly take evidence with them as they leave a crime scene and in this case
the killer left with the genetic fingerprint of his victim [Music] [Music] [Music]
in between two of minnesota's ten thousand lakes is the small town of wasika a quiet community with virtually
no violent crime not far from the shores of loon lake was the home of connie larson and her
three daughters they're all like five and four years apart but they are very close you they were
never apart and they just adored each other callie was definitely the baby of the family
and she was daddy's little girl twelve-year-old kelly joe was in the seventh grade and loved gymnastics
she was good i think because she just loved it and she put a lot of energy into it it was a wonderful place for her
to be and with her energy and spirit she just she just really did well in gymnastics
after school on april 20th 1999 kelly joe got off her school bus and walked down this path towards home
just as she always did kelly joe was the first one home that day her mother and sister were expected
later the rule of the family was everyone needed to be home and no visitors at five o'clock because
that's when i arrived home and then we had our family time sixteen-year-old jamie was the next
family member to arrive home when she opened the door she saw evidence of a burglary and something
far worse jamie immediately called her mother at work and then police i realized that there was something
wrong and she wasn't telling me coming around the corner and looking up the stairs was a difficult sight for
everybody i mean there were 30-year investigators that were having a difficult time with that
but it's just looking at who would do something like this upstairs kelly joe was dead
the fatal stab wound was uh in the uh left chest area severed the or cut the ascending aorta and she bled to
death internally still hard for me to think that she's gone i mean that means dead
dead that just it just can't be i've got two kids of my own if somebody if this occurred to one of my children i
don't know what i would do and i can't even imagine kelly joe's school books were near the
front door an indication she may have surprised the intruder the point of entry was the basement door
some cash silver certificates and the girl's cd collection of music were missing
forensic scientists found blood on the stairs which was collected for analysis despite the clutter
investigators also looked for fingerprints you kind of tend to focus on the areas
where you're pretty sure that the perpetrator was and then you focus on areas where
drawers were tossed and stuff has been you know taken out moved around there weren't too many surfaces left in that
house that did not have some kind of fingerprint powder residue investigators vacuumed the carpeted
floors for possible trace evidence they were convinced that the killer had left behind enough
forensic evidence to catch him we had a lot of fingerprints there were hundreds of hairs
in those vacuumings i initially thought that we were in good shape a forensic case is like a puzzle and you
are trying to find different pieces of the puzzle that fit to give you the picture as to what happened in the case
[Music] kelly joe larson's death set a sad precedent for waseca minnesota the small town had never had a homicide
in its history it destroys the safety factor of everybody in this town everybody well i think a lot more people
started locking their doors which sounds a little flippant but that's the reaction
forensic scientists thought the blood on the steps near cali joe's body may have
been the killers but forensic tests revealed it was cali joe's next investigators hoped the killer left
his fingerprints in the home but this was another dead end when all the dust had settled so to
speak all of the latent prints that we had taken out of the house were identified to
family members and friends there were no unknowns left one of the fingerprints found on the
bathroom sink was initially difficult to identify but later it was identified as cali joe
larson's fingerprint over time peterson would come to easily recognize cali joe's unique pattern
she had a loop pattern but it had another loop that was over the first loop and kind of came to a point on the other
end that's unique you don't see that very often the only other physical evidence from
the crime scene were two foreign hairs one found on cali joe's body the other on the carpet
but until you know whose hairs to compare them to you've got nothing and the hairs didn't have any root
material so they couldn't be sent for nuclear dna testing a neighbor reported seeing an unfamiliar
man near the larson home around the time of the murder this is the composite sketch of the man
another neighbor saw a black pickup truck in the area [Music] police searched their records for
individuals matching this general description who also had a past history of burglary and sex offenses
they found 12 potential suspects we call them the dirty dozen and because we had 12 suspects that we could
not exclude from the investigation either you know by alibi or for whatever reason
one of the so-called dirty dozen was a convicted sex offender donald bloom significant fact about blum was that he
was also a suspect in the kidnapping and murder of 19 year old katie poyer a convenience store cashier in moose lake
minnesota just a few hours drive away these are security camera pictures of that abduction
unfortunately they weren't clear enough to identify the abductor police learned that blum made several
trips to wasika around the time of cali joe's murder he also drove a black pickup truck like
the one seen near larson's home i was being bombarded with so many truths that i didn't want to know
so as i heard more about don blum i i suppose the more fascinated we became with the possibility
that it could be [Music] blum denied any involvement in cali joe's death and said he had an alibi for
the day of the murder as winter approached in wasika hope faded november december was a very bleak time
everybody was very depressed despite more than 30 000 pages of reports and boxes of physical evidence
investigators weren't any closer to solving the crime than the day it occurred and at that point
we had absolutely nothing and i was really becoming concerned whether this case was ever going to be
solved and soon police in wassega were faced with another crime problem there were a rash of home burglaries in
wasika not far from the larsen home and the perpetrator left behind some evidence a shoe impression from an
athletic shoe which had a distinctive zigzag pattern a lot of the burglaries had been
happening on my shifts and it was becoming very personal on a routine patrol near the burglaries
officer moccasin spotted a man walking along the sidewalk as moccasin drove past the man abruptly
changed direction this didn't make a whole lot of sense just it just kind of rolls the rolls the hair up in
the back of my neck so marcus and stopped the man to ask a few questions when he did
he noticed something familiar and marcus and was able to look down and saw the shoe print
in the snow and that looked like the shoe print that they'd been seeing from some of those burglaries
and while patting him down found a large screwdriver and a flashlight in his pocket
burglary tools there's no good reason for this guy to be walking in this neighborhood at eight o'clock at night
with a screwdriver and flashlight in his pocket the man was identified as lorenzo
sanchez an illegal immigrant from mexico in his home police found stolen property
from several burglaries and police couldn't help but wonder whether lorenzo sanchez was also
the man who had killed kelly joe larson not surprisingly with the arrest of lorenzo sanchez the wasika burglaries
stopped in sanchez's home police found items stolen from the burglaries they also found many compact discs but
not the ones stolen from cali joe larson's home in the bottom of sanchez's closet
police found two cd cases on a hunch they were photographed and shown to connie larson
officer came over with a picture of the cd cases and said they saw these and i just want
you to look at them and just tell me if you recognize them and i took the picture and i said yes those are those
are calories sanchez denied the cases were stolen and said they were his i bought those in the store
it had been almost a year since cali joe's murder and investigators hope there may be some forensic evidence on
the cd cases the first problem was that the outside cover was vinyl just getting the
latent fingerprints off off them is slimmed in on to begin with if you do get one getting one that's a
good usable identifiable blatant fingerprint is even slimmer nevertheless the cases were sent to dave peterson for
analysis and i got to the second of the last page of the second cd case i opened it up and
there was a blonde hair laying in between the sleeves now i got a little excited about that
in fact my heart started racing just a hair i'm pardon the pun that hair was sent for dna testing
next peterson wanted to see if there were any fingerprints on the plastic sleeves which hold the individual cds
for that he used a technique called super glue fuming i suspended these two cd cases from a
rod and then fanned out these plastic sleeves that were on the inside and what happens the super glue
fumes as they are emitted from the heat will adhere to the moisture left behind in the latent print
and turn the ridge detail white peterson found only one print on the very last sleeve of the second cd
case the print had a distinctive overlapping loop one peterson immediately recognized
the analysis confirmed that it was cali joe's right ring fingerprint and at that point i called bob bergen
said i think i got something for you i said you got to be me i knew that it was our guy at that point i knew
it was him we weren't finding the suspect's fingerprint on something to put him at the scene
we kind of did this in reverse we found him in possession with something that came from the scene
the blonde hair found in the cd case was further confirmation dna tests showed it belonged to kelly joe
despite the evidence sanchez denied he was involved in the murder all the evidence proved was that sanchez was in
possession of a piece of stolen property you killed cali joe larson but police had one last piece of
evidence the two foreign hairs recovered from the larsen crime scene those hairs along with a hair sample
from lorenzo sanchez were sent to the forensic lab for the newest dna test available
mitochondrial dna is a specialized dna test if you cannot obtain results using nuclear dna analysis you'll fall back on
mitochondrial dna testing mitochondria live outside the cell nucleus [Music] for the test
each hair sample is placed into a vial where it changes form into a liquid the impurities are extracted leaving
only purified dna next millions of copies are made of just the mitochondria portion and then
sequenced when completed dr holland could read the genetic code of the hairs from the crime scene and so
this particular piece of the puzzle suggested that those errors were in fact from mr sanchez
the question was which mr sanchez mitochondrial dna is passed from a mother to her children all of whom will
therefore have the same mitochondrial dna profile in other words the suspect lorenzo sanchez would have
the same mitochondrial dna as his six brothers and sisters [Music] to complicate matters lorenzo's younger
brother miguel also had a police record and was in wasika at the time of the murder
the investigation into kelly joe's murder wasn't over yet [Music] so you know i am innocent of that cause i did not
kill her it doesn't injustice what they're doing with me lorenzo sanchez continued to maintain
his innocence in the murder of cali joe larson even though a cd case with cali joe's fingerprint was discovered in
sanchez's home and two hairs found at the crime scene had the same mitochondrial dna profile
as lorenzo sanchez mitochondrial dna is not positive identification as nuclear dna is
since mitochondrial dna is passed from a mother to her children all of the sanchez siblings would have the same
mitochondrial dna profile [Music] two of lorenzo sanchez's brothers had spent time in wasika a younger brother
miguel and an older half-brother pedro pedro said he had an alibi that he was in mexico on the day of cali joe's
murder which checked out miguel sanchez was in wasika that day but his timesheet showed that he was at
work at the time of cali joe's murder lorenzo was the only sanchez brother with no alibi
his work record showed that he was not at work when the murder occurred with that
lorenzo sanchez was charged with first degree murder he maintained his innocence until his
sister-in-law visited him in prison and the two had a conversation that was taped by prison officials
[Applause] he specifically says in that conversation you know the only thing that they have
to link me is the hair you understand the hair is the only thing they've got and sanchez asks his sister-in-law to
place the blame for cali joe's murder on his half-brother pedro she refused there was some apparently some sibling
rivalry there and his brother pedro had a record which included some violent offenses
when lorenzo sanchez was confronted with the tape of this conversation he had few choices
he eventually pled guilty to first degree murder and was convicted when kelly jo walked into her home and
saw sanchez in the middle of a burglary sanchez silenced the person he thought was the only witness
but there was another witness that day forensic evidence [Music] the microscopic hair sanchez left behind
and cali joe's hair and fingerprint on the cd case told the story at his sentencing
connie larson finally had her chance to speak directly to her daughter's killer when his confession and then in his
statement after asked us to forgive him can you well um you know that's a when you
haven't been in this place it's hard to know what you would do but being in this place
it hasn't been hard for me honestly on that day i put it down two years after the crime
lorenzo sanchez was sentenced to life in prison i know where to start today connie larson works as a social worker
with families who've lived through traumatic events she's also become an advocate for better
databases to track criminals like lorenzo sanchez who often slip through the cracks
kelly joe is never far from her thoughts we talk about her constantly we tell stories about her you read her notes
she is just a part of what we're doing now today without the forensics we had nothing
this case was to live or die by the forensic evidence well it was absolutely critical we would
have not had a case without that forensic evidence lorenzo sanchez would never have been
convicted of the murder of kelly larson without it [Music] [Music] you

In 1999, a 12-year-old was found murdered in her home and it changed the feeling of security residents had in the small town of Waseca, Minnesota. Despite a meticulous search of the home and an exhaustive investigation, police had no suspects.

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

The murder of Kelly Joe Larson led to Lorenzo Sanchez's conviction through forensic evidence linking him to the crime.

Key points

The Murder of Kelly Joe Larson. A twelve-year-old girl is murdered in her home, shocking a quiet community.
The Investigation Begins. Investigators struggle to find evidence as the case stalls.
A Breakthrough in Evidence. Forensic scientists discover crucial evidence linking the suspect to the crime.

Episode highlights

A Breakthrough in EvidenceForensic scientists discover crucial evidence linking the suspect to the crime.“Without the forensics, we had nothing”21:17Dec 16, 2021

Episode quotes

I can't even imagine.

A mother reflects on the loss of her daughter.

3:30WatchDec 16, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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