Forensic Files - Season 8, Episode 22 - Bound for Jail - Full Episode | Forensic Files

a woman jogging along a deserted footpath in central michigan disappeared when investigators find her body clues
at the scene point to a killer with professional training it took almost 20 years before an old
hat and a chip of stainless steel no longer than a fingernail brought the killer to justice
[Music] [Music] on a beautiful summer day in 1986 muriel kirby started her day as she
always did by meeting her daughter jeanette for breakfast well to me it was a very special routine just talking over
what had been going on and what was on her mind or my mind um it was a very special
almost a friendship breakfast but this morning was different from the others jeanette didn't show up and she never
called or left a message she's either ill or she's overslept because it's not like her not to make an
appointment or to call and say i can't be there today jeanette's employer said she hadn't
shown up for work and she wasn't at her home either her mother immediately notified police
the 35 year old divorcee with no children wasn't known for leaving town without notifying friends and family
as night fell the sky was dark with rain clouds and during the night there were severe
thunderstorms the worst in years the night that her family realized she was missing and started searching for
her there was a torrential downpour i knew in my heart that jeanette was somewhere in that storm and she needed
help jeanette was an avid walker and she often explored the secluded trails of nearby riverbend park an undeveloped
public space of more than 500 acres riverbend park is very large it's not what you would think of as a city park
manicured and small in size it's a gorgeous part the huge trees with the canopy absorb all sound
you could touch off a cannon in there and you wouldn't hear it the day after jeanette disappeared
police found her car at the park a parking ticket indicated the car had been there since the day before
a day-long search of the park turned up nothing the search continued into the night
i remember praying dear god let her be all right i i knew that it was wrong something was
definitely wrong jeanette was too close to this family she would never let us worry
when dawn broke the next day police found jeanette's body in an isolated ravine just a half mile from her car
there were clear signs of a struggle clothing was strewn about the area jeanette's broken headphones from her
tape player were found yards away from her body from the physical evidence at the scene
the struggle took place on the walking trail itself however the body was dragged to a lower area by the drag
marks left in the plant material and the dirt but investigators found something unusual at the scene
jeanette's hands were bound behind her back with a plastic tie consumers used ties like this for
binding electric cables but police recognize these as the same type of ties they use called
flex cuffs police cuffs seen here on the left have a metal tab inserted into the plastic
head consumer ties seen on the right have plastic tabs that metal tab acts as like a ratcheting
device and that's what makes flex cuffs different from normal household ties it's not something that you can readily
go and buy at home depot or anywhere else investigators now had a potential pool
of suspects fellow police officers was the unthinkable possible that one of their own had killed
jeanette kirby [Music] the rain that fell the night of jeanette kirby's murder made things difficult for
investigators [Music] rain is probably one of the worst enemies when you have a body found
exposed to the elements because it will destroy a lot of the evidence [Music] police could find no footprints to or
from the scene there were no tire or bicycle impressions in the area at the autopsy the medical examiner
found no signs of sexual assault the cause of death was three knife wounds in her chest
in a search for suspects investigators routinely question relatives and friends jeanette's ex-husband was in florida at
the time of the murder so he wasn't a suspect investigators discovered that jeanette
dated casually but none of the men she dated had a motive to kill her it appeared her murder was a random
killing the hardest type to solve we don't have an eyewitness we don't have a murder weapon we have no dna
evidence but the way jeanette's clothing had been cut gave investigators a clue there's this drive here this seeking of
sexual stimulation and rather than just obtaining that through contact with the victim in this case it had to be
obtained through a particular set of behaviors involving the victim's clothing her jersey had been cut up the middle
and her sweatpants had been sliced apart in squares a methodical time-consuming process
you start to get a picture of a person a very evil person who is very angry specifically with women
and is most likely a predator of women you know i can't i can hardly handle it now thinking of
what that person what that dear lovable jenna went through and then he just tossed her aside
away from the path where he killed her the only thing the killer left at the crime scene
were the flex cuffs they were the same brand used by the local police but the tennessee-based company that
made the cuffs had some very bad news virtually every police force in the country used these same flex cuffs there
were hundreds of thousands of them in existence all of them identical at the crime scene
no one saw a policeman in or near riverbend park around the time of the murder even policemen who are in the general
vicinity of the park were questioned i know several police officers were investigated
as a result of this homicide they run down all the leads that they get but essentially they run up against a
brick wall because nothing gets them any farther in the investigation they still have a pair of
flex cuffs a full year passed then two by the fourth anniversary of jeanette's murder local police had no new evidence
or leads to pursue they kept saying without evidence we're not sure we're going to be able to
solve this case it was four years after the murder that an incident in leland a tourist town 200
miles away offered new hope a woman there told police that a truck with police style
lights signaled her to pull over on a deserted country road the man from the truck approached her
wearing a police hat but no uniform he ordered her out of her car and into his truck she resisted there was a
struggle he pulled his gun and fired a shot in the air just then another car drove by the man
panicked and fled when the investigators assigned to jeanette kirby's murder heard this news
they took particular notice a man impersonating a police officer in an attempt to abduct a woman
in a deserted area sounded all too familiar police questioned everyone they could
find looking for the owner of an unmarked pickup truck with a police style light bar on the roof
the gas station attendant remembered that vehicle and called the police to say he'd come and got gas there
not only that but the gas station attendant remembered that the man had used a credit card to pay for the gas
his name was david drahin he was a 33 year old factory worker a volunteer fireman and an ex-marine with
no previous record he had been vacationing at his parents cabin in glen haven but he lived in
ingham county in the same town as jeanette kirby [Music] when questioned by police
draeheim denied he was involved in the attempted kidnapping although the victim identified him in a police lineup
on the front seat of his truck police found a hat from the ingham county sheriff's department
the same county where jeanette kirby was murdered so they call the ingham county sheriff's
office and they say do you know this person is he one of your deputies is he someone that you're
aware of is he connected to you in any way he was someone that we knew on a regular
basis trusted him knew him believed him to be a local good guy drayheim worked at a wastewater
treatment plan just a mile from where jeanette kirby was killed inside draeheim's truck were two other
suspicious items a knife and a package of plastic ties similar to police style flex cuffs
the suspect has in his possession a type of ties that could be characterized as flex cuffs although
they're slightly different than the police flex cuffs but he has these plastic fasteners in his possession
draeheim denied any involvement in jeanette's murder they didn't have the magic bullet
they didn't have the tie between him and the flex cuffs they knew that he was found in
possession of something that looked like or were called flex cuffs up north but they didn't know where he got him
there was no evidence tying him to jeanette's murder but david drayheim was convicted for the
attempted kidnapping charge and sentenced to 40 years in prison once again jeannette's case went cold
jeanette's family had remained patient but in 1998 12 years after jeanette's murder her mother could take no more
she was disillusioned and angry that her husband died before they could get justice
janet was his baby you know that was his girl and how could anyone touch her or hurt her he was very angry
and he kept that anger until he died and his wishes so many times were if i could only get hold of him
i know what i would do in desperation mrs kirby contacted the state's highest-ranking law enforcement
official and i finally went to jennifer granholm the attorney general and asked her for help told my story
she said i'm going to send two criminal investigators on the case and those investigators found something
that had been overlooked when david drayheim was arrested on the kidnapping charge
the local police in draeheim's hometown failed to interview all of his friends for some reason a major character was
overlooked and that was david drahan's best friend at the time of the murder he had never
been interviewed that man was mark grieco and he told police an interesting story
a few years before jeanette kirby's murder dray heim and grieco shared a house and both worked together as
security guards at the time grieco owned a used police car which grieco pictured here with the
car in 1984 was refurbishing it's actually physically inside the trunk trying to run the wires up through
the dash and that's when i found the plastic bag stuck in between the inner and outer
fender well of the car it turned out to be the bag of flex house these were police issue flex cuffs that
had been overlooked when the car was sold grieco said he kept one for himself and
gave the rest to draeheim i gave him flex cuffs you know i know i gave him some flex
cuffs way back in you know 80 something when i bought this car and grieco had yet another story
he said he put his flex cuff in the brim of his security guard hat it's a common practice in law
enforcement police naturally asked rico whether he still had his security guard hat i'm
kind of a pack rat sure i kept everything deep in his basement among dozens of boxes of clothing and
souvenirs grieco found that very same hat he wore as a security guard 15 years earlier
the odds of that happening are astronomical and the importance to the case cannot be overstated
inside the brim just as he said was a set of police flex cuffs it was the same make and model used in
jeanette kirby's murder but investigators wanted to find some way to tell whether these two sets of cuffs were
scientifically related after years of searching for jeanette kirby's killer investigators finally had a break
they discovered a police flex cuff similar to the one used in the murder to learn more about how these flex cuffs
are made michigan investigators went to monterey mexico the only factory in the world that makes this brand of flex
cuffs this is the video shot by those investigators since the cuffs were all made with the
same plastic its chemical makeup provided no basis for comparison but the stainless steel tabs in the flex
cuffs were another matter a carbide saw cuts the tabs from large spools of steel
the cut marks at the end of each tab are distinctive it is a very fast process and just is
continually cutting for hours at a time well during that process the blade starts to wear a little bit
and while it's wearing the the marks that it's leaving on the metal tabs are are changing
the flex cuffs used in jeanette kirby's murder and the flex cuffs provided by mark grico were analyzed by scott
marrier of the michigan state police using a soldering iron he carefully removed the tab from each cuff for
comparison after all these years the case came down to some tiny slivers of stainless steel there was a time when
i was looking at this metal tab thinking what this the entire case rests on the identification of these metal tabs
using a comparison microscope mario placed each tab on a putty platform then compared the two side by side
he was looking for signature marks made by the saw that cuffed the tabs marrier soon discovered that the marks
were strikingly similar they ran down the length of each tab almost like both sides of a zipper
[Music] quality of the identification was so good that it would not surprise me at
all if these two metal tabs had been produced uh consecutively it was an absolutely perfect match
so perfect that it took everyone's breath away now prosecutors and investigators had a
piece of evidence that was a piece of scientific evidence that put david drayheim at the scene of the crime
on june 12 2002 david drayheim went on trial for jeanette kirby's murder prosecutors believe
drayheim left his job at the water treatment facility around 4 30 on the day of the murder and drove to river
bend park less than a mile away prosecutors say dray heim was a predator and when he saw jeanette kirby
he was prepared he probably allowed her to jog or fast walk past the point where he was
hiding and attacked her from behind immediately grabbed her hands behind her back
and flexcuffed her now she was immobilized and isolated jeanette kirby was murdered and her
clothes cut in meticulous detail jeanette kirby was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time
there's no other link between the two of them that could have been me that could have
been any woman i know and those moments that she spent before she died had to have been terrifying
at the trial a surprise witness came forward saying that drayheim had flex cuffed her years
earlier he brought my other arm behind me and i was tied you know i was strapped you know
it was just strapped i couldn't go anywhere and it was dre heim's wife who provided
the most unusual bit of testimony she told jurors he routinely jogged with a small packet of flex cuffs in a bag he
wore around his waist why on earth would he need that equipment with him when he went out on a
daily jog the only reason was either it was there because it was part of the daily fantasy
that he carried with him in his head or it was there because he was hoping if some opportunity came up it would be
there when he needed it david drayheim was found guilty of jeanette kirby's murder and was
sentenced to 60 years in prison in addition to the 40 years he was already serving
forensic science solved the case which might have gone unsolved had it not been for the persistence of jeanette kirby's
mother and the man who never threw anything away the science doesn't age the tool marks
that are left on those metal tabs will be there forever they'll never change thankfully
forensic science did solve it for us and we could we can rest we can rest in peace knowing that her
case has been solved because of forensic science [Music] [Music] [Music] you

A woman is found dead in a ravine, but crucial crime scene evidence had been washed away by severe thunderstorms. Twice, the trail turned cold. Almost 20 years later, an old hat and a chip of stainless steel brought the killer to justice.

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 Jeanette Kirby in 1986 was solved through forensic evidence linking David Drayheim to the crime after years of investigation.

Key points

The Disappearance of Jeanette Kirby. Jeanette Kirby vanished during a jog, leading to a 20-year search for justice.
Breakthrough in the Case. A surprising discovery of flex cuffs leads to a renewed investigation.
David Drayheim Convicted. David Drayheim is found guilty of Jeanette Kirby's murder, sentenced to 60 years.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The odds of that happening are astronomical.

Finding the same hat with flex cuffs after 15 years.

15:29WatchDec 16, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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