Forensic Files - Season 9, Episode 12 - The Financial Downfall - Full Episode | Forensic Files

for the first time in american judicial history a trial was held on the edge of a cliff
overlooking the pacific ocean for three days a judge and jury heard the forensic evidence interpreted very
differently by the prosecution and by the defense [Music] was the death of a beautiful young woman
an accident or was it cold-blooded murder [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] big sur california 90 miles of high
windswept cliffs sparkling ocean water and some of the most spectacular coastlines in north america
[Music] sightseers come from all over the world just to enjoy the magnificent scenery
but you have to be careful it can be dangerous you won't get a few months in the summer
going by without someone falling and seriously being hurt or killed three tourists from san diego were
walking along the cliffside overlooked known as seal beach the couple started walking towards their
car their friend stayed behind to enjoy the spectacular view just a little longer
when the couple turned around she was gone they rushed to the cliff's edge and they were horrified to discover that
she had apparently fallen some 500 feet down the cliff they ran to a store nearby for help
rescue workers found the woman at the bottom of the cliff she was dead there was no way she could have survived
the 500-foot drop unfortunately accidents here do happen everybody wants to climb out and get
that picture of the ocean behind them so they're out on the edge on the precipice
and things happen one of the fellas said people fall off the cliff like logs out
here the victim was 20 year old donna hartman it was absolutely horrible when you know that
one of the almost phobias that this young woman had was heights and she dies in this manner it's
particularly a horrible event she recently separated from her husband and had been living and traveling with
her friends virginia and b.j mcginnis donna was a wonderful young lady but she was challenged her iq was probably 85 or
90 somewhere in there she was wonderful and friendly and thoughtful her husband was in the navy
at the scene the mcginnis has told investigators that donna was wearing high-heeled shoes
which might have caused her to lose her footing as she stood at the edge of the cliff
[Music] in the photographs taken by the mcguinnesses shortly before the fall donna was wearing high-heeled shoes
the autopsy of donna hartman was routine the autopsy on our victim was not a true
forensic autopsy it was an autopsy and it did show cause of death but it was not in the greater
detail that you would want had you suspected foul play from the get-go the cause of death was a basal skull
fracture a massive blow to the back of the head consistent with someone falling 500 feet
to their death but donna's family in louisville kentucky had questions about what
happened so they hired a civil attorney named steve keaney to help them get answers
i wish the coroner had done a better job i don't know what california standards are but you would think that california
would be closer to the cutting edge this was far behind the cutting edge and those responsibilities made it very
difficult to show with any certainty to the insurance company or to a court or anyone else exactly what the cause of
death here was what troubled keaney with the photographs taken of donna shortly before her death
they told a story that was much different from the mcginnis's account [Music] local authorities took no photographs at
the scene of donna hartman's fatal fall because rescue workers believed it was an accident
so investigators asked donna's traveling companions virginia and b.j mcginnis for
a copy of the photos they took that day they're using a disc camera which has a rigid film
on a circle so we know the sequence of the photographs where they were taken early in the sequence
donna appears happy and alert but photos taken later show something different the later photographs show a person
who's docile who looks exhausted her hands are down her face face facial muscles are slack
and she just doesn't and the eyes are somewhat droopy uh appears as if she is either intoxicated or stoned
the next photo in the sequence shows b.j mcginnis and donna standing at the edge
of the cliff the victim's eyes quite appropriately are looking at the waters below mr
mcginnis is behind the victim the victim is a few feet from the edge of the of the
cliff mr mcginnis left hand is on the victim's left shoulder investigators thought bj's position was
extremely suspicious the only reason he's looking to the right is you know we would speculate to look for
vehicles look see if anyone can see and that's the last photograph taken of her life it's almost as though she's in
motion then and the husband's hands up against donna's shoulder and the last four pictures were even
more unusual i think those four photos are surveillance pictures i think that was
virginia mcginnis looking through the viewfinder of her camera to make sure nobody saw what they did they're not
photographs that taurus is going to take and and particularly the fact that the sequence
[Music] to this day i don't understand why they were taken there's a shot looking down the cliff
where donna fell then three panoramic views one to the left another to the right
and the last behind them now if she has slipped and fallen then who's taking sightseeing
photographs i mean who cares about a camera let's see if we can save her that film says they saw her when she
fell off the cliff and they kept taking pictures investigators now suspected that b.j
mcginnis deliberately pushed donna over the cliff to her death but what was the motive
investigators discovered that the mcginnis had taken out a 35 000 life insurance policy on donna hartman just
one day before her death the insurance agent said that virginia mcginnis asked him a curious question
she turned to him on the way out of the door and said this is applicable to an accidental death isn't it
it was i don't deal with too many claims for life insurance but that doesn't sound appropriate to me almost as a
matter of fact the beneficiary was virginia mcginnis's son who was in prison he was listed as donna's fiancee even
though he and donna were already married to other people the mcginnesses filed a claim to collect
on the life insurance policy just one day after donna's death [Music] virginia plopped the insurance policy
down on the desk of the agent he looked up and said you're kidding she's dead well it's a pretty incredible story but
you know in the end you have to pause surely somebody somewhere bought a life insurance policy and had the bad luck to
have the deceased die the next day it's not proof but it sure stinks investigators wanted to know why donna
hartman looked so alert and vivacious in pictures taken earlier on the day she died but later on that day she seemed
drowsy and disoriented the circumstances that we had indicated a homicide not an accidental death and our job was
to prove it or disprove it we had virtually no evidence donna's autopsy was fairly routine
and the toxicology tests were routine as well i would characterize the autopsy as
meaning minimal professional standards if i had to object it would be that it appeared that the possibility that
foul play was really not taken into account so that extra measure perhaps was not done
in this case the doctor who performed the autopsy was not a forensic pathologist but he did
something virtually unheard of at the time for reasons not entirely clear he kept a vial of donna's blood in
refrigerated storage and two years after her death it was sent to the forensic lab for testing
a sample was placed in a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer which broke the blood down into its chemical
components traces of a mil-triptyline a common antidepressant known as elevil were
clearly present in donna's blood in someone who'd never taken the drug before i believe even one pill could cause them
to be very drowsy dizzy possibly disoriented but how did ellaville get into her system
the presence of ellaville in the victim's body was crucial because she had no prescription for it mr
mcginnis had prescription for it moreover the effects of aloeville are evidenced by her behavior as seen in the
photographs dizziness disorientation sluggishness the dose of elevil is determinative a tiny dose may have
little or no effect a large dose can be so disorienting that you're drowsy you may even fall asleep standing on your
feet at the very least you won't be alert investigators discovered donna and the
mcguinnesses had lunch about two hours before she died the waiter who served them said that
donna ordered a soft drink it's it's anyone's guess but if i had to to speculate i would say that at that
point they put the olive oil in her coke but it's speculation but there was no way to prove it
so investigators turned to another set of pictures the ones taken during donna's autopsy
they were analyzed by forensic pathologist dr barbara weekley jones she noticed two things which were barely
mentioned in the original autopsy wounds on the back of donna's hands but not on her palms
and her fingernails were broken she's up like this and she's grabbing hold of the edge the nails will break
off well the same you should have then abrasions on the palm or surface of your hands
as you're going down and she did not have that all of her injuries are on the back of the hands
why would someone who slid down a cliff have bruises on the backs of her hands but virtually
no marks on her palms dr weakly jones said it was impossible to be sure but that she had a theory
i think that she was pushed off the cliff and didn't make it and her hands were stomped on in order to get her to
continue her fall off the cliff but the injuries on her hands were more consistent with a struggle or that
scenario than than a simple fall off the cliff this was a harrowing possibility it
meant that while donna was hanging onto the cliff's edge one or both of the mcguinnesses sent her
to a certain death there was no what we call pattern injury to help determine as to what she was
struck with she could have been struck with a fist for all i know or she could have been struck with an instrument
these were the wounds of someone who was fending off an attack and then died as opposed to somebody who flopped down a
cliff and had some things break along the way but were the mcguinnesses capable of cold-blooded murder
and if they were could it be proven to find out investigators did a background check and
were shocked by what they found virginia mcginnis was no stranger to deaths that looked like accidents
in previous years virginia mcginnis had received payment from various insurance companies for
other deaths and several suspicious accidents she had been involved in tragedy after tragedy
residences had burned down relatives and loved ones had died in her care every house she'd lived in burned
to the ground and her daughter her second husband and probably others all died under
mysterious circumstances they all had incredible accidents with all the upheaval in her life there
seemed to be one constant virginia made sure all of her husbands and children had life insurance
you know jay leno says that what he loves is stupid criminals one thing about criminals is they're not
holding a job every one of her life insurance policies was for the same amount 35 000
because the face amount of the policies were so low insurance companies didn't question the
settlement the insurance policy virginia purchased on donna hartman's life was also
suspicious every single piece of that policy was either forged or faked except for
the name of the person who would die donna hartman signed the policy and her signature was witnessed by alice cassane
alice gethane lived next door to the mcguinnesses but she denied signing the insurance forms
as proof she pointed out her name was misspelled on the document people don't misspell their own names
when they sign their names so that's a red flag to the document examiner to the prosecutor to anyone involved in the
case alice cassane's signature did not match her known signature samples and it had
an unusual backward slant backhand slanting isn't necessarily an evidence of forgery but it is evidence
of someone trying to change the way they write with a court order investigators forced virginia mcginnis to provide a
handwriting sample i asked her to write alice cassane's name first in her own natural handwriting and
then i asked her to write it in a backhand slant because that's how it appeared on the question document
forensic document examiners concluded virginia mcginnis had signed alice cassane's name on the insurance policy
it was not any different from her handwriting she merely had changed the slant in order to disguise her writing
and make it indistinguishable from the rest of the writing on the form two years after the murder virginia and
b.j mcginnis were arrested and charged with donna hartman's murder virginia now claimed she wasn't at the
scene of the accident and as proof she reminded prosecutors she wasn't in any of the photographs
but one of the photographs showed the shadow of the photographer was it possible for science to identify
the photographer from the silhouette we knew what day it was and we knew what time it was because we had the 911 call
that gave us the position of the sun and with the position of the sun and the distance to the rocks we were able to do
the old high school pythagorean theorem a squared plus b squared equals c squared the distance between donna and
the photographer was calculated by analyzing the millimeter of the camera lens by measuring the length and angle of the
shadow and determining the exact location of the sun at the time the mcginnis has called police
investigators reached an interesting conclusion the photographer was five feet six
inches tall the same height as virginia mcginnis and if virginia was the photographer
why did she take what was perhaps the most incriminating photo of all a photograph of donna just before she was
pushed over the cliff i think virginia wanted a souvenir i think virginia wanted to revisit the
death of donna and enjoy it over and over again i think she believed that by having that picture she would have
something that would arouse in her the same excitement and the same violation of rules that she had felt live on the
cliff when donna died virginia had apparently picked donna as an ideal victim just as donna was separating from her
husband virginia befriended her donna was vulnerable and an easy mark for an experienced con artist like
virginia she was absolutely a perfect victim because she was young relatively uneducated
unsophisticated far from her home her husband was far away from her impressionable
she trusted everyone would not ask questions donna fell into a spider web and became
what i guess you'd call today a target of opportunity 52-year-old b.j mcginnis never made it to court
he died in prison while awaiting trial [Music] during virginia's trial the jury was taken to seal beach
for three days court was held high above the beautiful pacific ocean on a windswept cliff where
donna hartman had fallen to her death the trial lasted for three days the longest time a court had been in
session at a suspected crime scene in american history jurors were asked to examine the cliff
to determine for themselves whether virginia's story of an accidental fall made sense
after a four-day deliberation juror said it didn't and virginia was found guilty of first
degree murder she was sentenced to life in prison if you care enough to listen the forensic evidence
spoke loud and clear as well as all the other evidence this was murder and that the victim deserved her day in
court and she got it what it really got down to was putting the facts together in a scientific
communicated fashion to a jury and they were able to make the decision based upon the totality of the facts
without forensic science virginia mcginnis today would still be looking for victims she'd probably still be
killing she would be burning houses and she would be collecting insurance with your premiums
[Music] [Music] [Music] you

A beautiful young woman fell to her death from a cliff overlooking the ocean. Initially, investigators thought it was a tragic accident. But after a forensic examination, police had a very different picture of what happened.

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

Virginia McGinnis was convicted of murdering Donna Hartman, who fell from a cliff after suspicious circumstances and insurance policies emerged.

Key points

A Cliffside Trial. For the first time in American history, a trial was held on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Murder or Accident?. The death of Donna Hartman raises questions of foul play versus a tragic accident.
Virginia McGinnis Found Guilty. After a lengthy trial, Virginia McGinnis was convicted of first-degree murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Was it cold-blooded murder?

Questioning the nature of a tragic death.

0:29WatchJan 1, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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