Forensic Files - Season 9, Episode 15 - Pinned by the Evidence - Full Episode | Forensic Files

a late night street fight left one man dead and contradictory accounts of what took place
some said the victim was murdered others said it was self-defense it took a member of the wrestling hall
of fame a blood spatter expert and forensic animation to reveal how a world-class athlete lost one of the most
important fights of his life [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] san diego california is a mecca for both
athletes and outdoor enthusiasts and it's where 25 year old dusty harlis settled after his successful college
career as the aau national wrestling champion dusty was a wakeboard salesman which
combined his passion for sports with his personality for sales he had so many friends he knew so many
different groups of people all over san diego and everyone loved him he was just a great person like if
he touched your life you were a lucky person dusty's stomach tomorrow he'll sit on
the can for an hour oh no run five miles come back do a couple hundred push-ups [Music]
just after midnight one saturday night dusty and his girlfriend sky flanders were heading home after an evening on
the town we were just gonna walk to the liquor store to call a cab [Music] skye ran ahead of dusty seeking shelter
from the rain [Music] a man in a car pulled up beside her he said something to the effect
hey baby you want a ride [Music] and i said no i'm with someone like obviously i don't need a ride because
i'm not alone he hadn't seen dusty right away [Music] dusty walked over to investigate
he made a statement of the effect of hey that's my girlfriend you know what's going on here
dusty went around to the driver's side words were exchanged there was an altercation
[Music] by the time it was all over the car sped away leaving dusty lying on the ground
bleeding to death i didn't know there was a weapon involved until then and i mean obviously when i saw
the wound things you know started coming together i was hysterical why did you do this to dusty
[Music] when paramedics arrived dusty had bled to death i just was in total disbelief i
didn't want to hear what he was telling me i didn't want to believe it i didn't want to hear it i was like here lying to
me and i was hitting the wall and freaking out and he had to take me outside i was being
way too loud skye was able to provide the assailant's license plate number two uca167
the car was registered to barbara gensler she told police her son david was using the car but she didn't know
where he was twenty-five-year-old david gensler was a finance student at san diego state
university he matched the general description sky had given to police about six feet tall
thin with glasses three days later gensler turned himself in obviously he knew he stabbed someone but
didn't know the extent of that wound when he learned that this person had died that's when he contacted an
attorney gensler refused to tell police where the car was and he also refused to give them the
clothes he wore that night and the knife what his story is i don't know he's never given us a statement
gensler looked very studious he had the little glasses and there was a tall wanky guy that
he didn't look like someone he would expect to get into a streetball much less kill someone
but several eyewitnesses disagreed [Music] hundreds of friends turned out for dusty
harlis's funeral he was a former wrestling champion and a world-class wakeboarder
his friends went out into the pacific near his home and dropped wreaths of flowers on the water in his memory he
knew so many people in san diego different groups of people in different areas and
he had a lot of friends like a lot of people loved him if you knew dusty you were touched and you were lucky
[Music] the autopsy revealed the cause of dusty's death was a single stab wound to
his aorta the largest artery in the body just one stab wound and it went in four
instances into the body and sliced the the aorta dusty's girlfriend skye flanders didn't
see everything that happened but she was certain david gensler was a killer he looked kind of crazed he looked
like a wild animal really he had like a crazy look in his eyes and got in his car and
left so he didn't say anything [Music] eventually an eyewitness came forward his name was scott davis he said he was
driving by and saw two men fighting and stopped to try to break it up scott davis was a first class petty
officer with the navy who was moonlighting as a bouncer at a local bar and he drove up
just as this was beginning and what he said is as he drove up he saw this beginning of a confrontation
and he saw the defendant take a hard swing and hit dusty on the left side of his head and
that dusty went down on his back that the defendant jumped on top of him straddled him pulled out a knife with
his right hand and stabbed him once in the chest [Music] davis said he fled the scene because
gensler had threatened him too but david gensler's version of events was significantly different
he said dusty harliss instigated the fight by pulling him out of his car and wrestled him face down to the ground
he also said that scott davis the so-called witness was in fact an active participant
gensler insisted davis kicked him repeatedly while dusty had him pinned down but he managed to get a knife out
of his pocket to defend himself he's thinking he's getting his ass kicked and he's in fear of his life and
he just blindly reaches back and stabs him is it likely or unlikely i really can't say
and that is what made the one stab wound into the pretty much the center of the chest of dusting
a week after dusty's death police found gensler's car parked in a neighborhood on the other side of the city
we were able to get dna from the steering wheel from the gear shift from the turn signal and that dna that blood
came back and matched that of the victim dusty harless this tied gensler to the killing
a short time later after hearing about the incident in the media one of gensler's friends turned over a knife
which she said belonged to gensler it was consistent with the size of the wound it was basically a four inch
single bladed knife and it was consistent with the depth of the wound and other dimensions of the wound
and the friend also turned over a bloody shirt tests revealed the blood on the shirt
was that of the victim dusty harless the blood was on the front of the shirt inconsistent with gensler's version of
the incident had gensler been underneath dusty on his stomach when he stabbed him
dusty's blood would have been on the back of gensler's shirt not the front the fact that the majority of the blood
is the front it seems a more likely theory that it was a front face-to-face confrontation based on the facts of the
case based on the eyewitnesses based on the periphery witnesses after the fact i felt we had a murder
case here i couldn't believe it actually i actually took another man's life i only thought i got the guy in the
shoulder i didn't know i didn't know he's gonna die david gensler was convicted of
second-degree murder in the death of dusty harless he was sentenced to 20 years to life in
prison which in california means life and people don't get parole when they have
indeterminate sentences like that while in prison gensler continued to maintain he had
acted in self-defense and he hoped that one day he would get a second chance to prove
his innocence david genzler couldn't understand how a jury concluded he beat a national
wrestling champion then stabbed him in the chest without provocation gensler appealed his conviction arguing
he was denied his choice of counsel the defendant's initial attorney jerry blank
was ruled not to be able to represent him because of some technical issues the court of appeals said that
that denied mr gensler his right to the council of his choice and reverse it on that ground
in preparing for the second trial gensler's new defense team found something in dusty hollis's background
that made gensler's claim of self-defense more believable numerous witnesses came forward to say
dusty hollis had a reputation for starting fights they brought some people in that said my
son was a street brawler i don't know how they found him but they did find some people that weren't really
in you know a dusty fan in addition toxicology tests showed dusty was legally intoxicated at the time of his
death with a .12 blood alcohol level there were also traces of marijuana in his system
and the defense team discovered that sky flanders originally gave police a completely different version of events
from what she testified to at trial [Music] sky flanders is interesting she told
police a few hours later that she saw dusty when some kind of a wrestling hole holding gensler and throwing him
but then she didn't see a lot else until she saw him bleeding later she changed that story on the
stand in the first trial and and testified that it was gensler who was the complete aggressor
coming out after skye also admitted that dusty instigated more than his share of fights
sky flanders did admit that she had committed perjury that she had in fact seen dusty harless
in one brawl that she had witnessed after she had been insulted in a bar he'd taken the guy out and beaten him
beating the bad down in the alley and that she had heard about several other fights where he was always
pretty much the winner and he was a good fighter apparently it was now coming out that i
had not been completely truthful on my original testimonies and the reason i had said that is because i didn't want
to feed the defense any information that they would use against dusty in the case
from the beginning david gensler described in specific detail how dusty held him to the ground
to see if this was possible the defense consulted ned blass a two-time national collegiate wrestling
champion and member of the wrestling hall of fame blast said that gensler's description
was consistent with the classic technique every wrestler is taught and i'm taking the position of
mr gensler mr harlis over here and i'm probably not wanting to fight as i back up he'll attack my arm
turn me up i'm going to go to my face because i don't want to land on the back of my head
drives my head down and keeps me positioned i can't get up he pulls my head back i realized i have
a knife in my belt i'm taking the knife out plenty of room to take it loose and stab
wherever i can stab prosecutors scoffed at this notion as did dusty's family david ginsler
would have us believe that he was laying face down on the ground and dusty was sitting on his back
and that david ginsler actually stabbed dusty like this up over the back of his head
and stabbed him in the chest while he was sitting on his back i mean there's just so many things that don't wash here
but if genzler was telling the truth why was the blood all over the front of his shirt and not the back
david gensler spent six years in prison for the murder of wrestler dusty harless
but he eagerly awaited his new trial his hopes were raised when dusty's girlfriend sky flanders changed her
story and now admitted that dusty had been in several previous fights with others
while they were out as both sides prepared for the second trial they each had very different
explanations for how dusty's blood got onto gensler's shirt we have a blood spatter
interpretation expert look at it from our crime lab the defense hires a blood spatter
interpretation expert to look at it from their end and not surprising at all their opinions are
diametrically opposed the shirt had a large stain on the right front shoulder since dusty's aorta had been severed
both defense and prosecution experts agreed the blood would have been spurting from the wound in the same
cadence as his heartbeat you now have a victim that is bleeding and spurting with the maximum blood
output that could be under stress 20 to 30 liters of blood per minute are going to be coming out of
this wound either in the body or spurting out the body this meant that the blood flow
wasn't continuous with an aortic wound blood doesn't generally spill out it spurts out or
sprays out because of the pressure under the aorta defense experts believe this would have
given gensler enough time to rotate his torso to face dusty as the blood spurted
from the wound but gensler's attorney had to find some way to show the jury how this could have
happened and for that he turned to the new field of forensic animation forensic animation has a
specific application within the court system and those animations have to be conformed to the rules of the court
and what are expected in terms of rules of evidence there's a videotape made with david
ginsler and i think it was the attorney who played the role of dusty harless and we videotaped that
from an angle that we were going to do the animation from so i could use as reference
to create the animation and create the poses to get as accurate as possible the computer takes several of these key
frames and then calculates the most likely way the bodies would move from one key position to another
it's called pose to pose animation which was developed in the 30s by disney where they would make a pose and then
you draw the next major pose and then you fill in in between later a layer called a texture map was then
created to show the movement of the blood to gensler's shirt we wanted the eye to focus on
this almost in a clinical frame of mind rather than an emotional frame of mind a frame by frame sequence was created
corroborating gensler's story by showing how the blood got on his shirt in august of 2000
six years after dusty harlis's death david gensler went on trial a second time for murder
the defense presented a much different account of the incident than the prosecution did
the defense said gensler innocently offered sky flanders a ride because he thought she was alone
and the toxicology reports prove dusty harlis was intoxicated gensler said dusty pulled him out of the
car and in short order pinned him to the ground and that the witness scott davis helped
dusty by kicking gensler while he was pinned gensler says the fight was two against
one and that he pulled the knife from his pocket stabbed blindly behind him and quickly turned around so that the
blood hit the front of his shirt scott davis admitted leaving the scene of the incident but strongly denies
attacking gensler [Music] this interpretation of the forensic evidence the forensic animation and
testimony of a hall of fame wrestling coach resulted in a very different conclusion
david gensler was found guilty of the much lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter
his sentence was reduced to time served and he was released from prison his life could never be ruined now he's
a free man i don't know what he's doing now but i understand he wanted to become
a lawyer [Music] the case shows the limits of what answers science can provide questions about exactly what happened
the night of dusty hollis death remain most likely the main reason why there was more forensic evidence than second
trial is because there was literally years in between to prepare and to really go ever go through everything
with a fine-tooth comb and to present all evidence that you possibly could i've learned that
in a fight in a physical fight things don't go always according to plan the guy who's supposed to win the fight
ends up losing anything can happen and i think that's what happened in this case
exactly what happened i don't think anybody will really know except possibly the defendant
[Music] [Music] [Music] you

After a street fight took the life of a national wrestling champion, police had to determine if he was killed in cold blood, or in self-defense. A jury decided it was murder, and sentenced the accused to a minimum of twenty years in prison.

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

Dusty Harliss was killed in a street fight, David Gensler's self-defense claim led to a manslaughter conviction after a second trial.

Key points

The Tragic Street Fight. A late night altercation leads to the death of a promising athlete, Dusty Harlis.
Conflicting Accounts. Witnesses provide contradictory statements about the events leading to Dusty's death.
Forensic Animation Reveals Truth. A forensic animation helps clarify how the fatal stabbing occurred during the fight.
The Aftermath of Violence. Dusty's funeral sees hundreds of friends mourning the loss of a beloved athlete.
A Shift in the Trial. New evidence and witness testimonies lead to a reduced charge for David Gensler.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

If you knew Dusty, you were touched and you were lucky.

Reflecting on Dusty's impact on others.

5:34WatchJan 1, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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