Forensic Files - Season 9, Episode 3 - In Harm's Way - Full Episode | Forensic Files

at one time a used tissue was just trash today it's potential dna evidence new scientific discoveries are turning
inconsequential items into vital pieces of forensic information this is how an alert pathologist and a
piece of cartilage made scientific history [Music] [Music] on november 9 1995 dawn broke crisp and
cold over anchorage alaska the temperature was around zero degrees when a policeman on routine patrol
discovered a body in a public park we didn't have anything we had no witnesses nothing but the body as far as evidence
goes no tracks as far as a vehicle or person or footprints anything like that so we
had very very little and we were very concerned about it police took her fingerprints and ran
them through aphis the automated fingerprint identification system which compared them to millions of prints in a
nationwide database the victim was identified as 34-year-old katherine harms a background check indicated catherine
harms known as cat had recently moved to anchorage from juneau the state capitol
where she was employed by the tangus national park service catherine told friend she moved to
anchorage to be closer to her seven-year-old son we not only just barely identified her
but we had no idea where she was living no idea what lifestyle she had except from the background in
in juneau uh we had no idea who would want to hurt her like that catherine harms had been staying with
friends moving from place to place with no steady address in the months prior to her murder
when informed of her death catherine's parents told police about a chilling phone message they received
from her two nights before the murder autopsy revealed the cause of death was a stab wound to the chest
there was no blood around the wound which told the medical examiner her position when attacked
she was probably in a prone position or she was laying on her back at the time she was stabbed
surprisingly she had no defensive wounds an individual who is being attacked with
a knife will attempt to fend off that knife it may cause cuts in the hands or on the forearms and we didn't find any
of those kinds of defensive wounds on the hands or forearms of the decedent she had also been beaten before her
death an indication catherine knew her attacker it was overkill really and subsequently we it looked like a
body that that was done out of anger not just for the purpose of killing her and we suspected that the victim knew
the person who did it because of that investigators learned that catherine's ex-husband was not in alaska when she
was murdered and was ruled out as a suspect two days later the anchorage daily news
printed a story asking anyone with information about the victim to come forward and several did including one person
living over two thousand miles away when news of katherine harm's murder was released to the public
a man called police with some important information he said catherine came over to his apartment a
few nights earlier he said she was high on drugs and spent the night and left the next morning in a
taxi although he didn't know where she lived with this information police called the alaska cap company to
find out where catherine went the cab driver said he picked up the victim and transported her back to the
bernard hotel room 31 where a female came out and took her into room 31. room 31 was occupied by a woman named
maureen malloy who lived there with her two children when interviewed by police malloy said
catherine was a friend who had been staying with her until she found a place of her own
she says oh yes catherine harms was living with her but she was causing a lot of trouble she was using drugs and
actually engaging in prostitution in her room and she had children there and and
marine couldn't have that and so she told her she had to leave malloy said a hotel clerk helped carry
catherine to her car she said catherine was high on drugs but other than that was fine
her skin was clammy and cold but i mean she was she was definitely alive the clerks agreed that the woman was not
stabbed there was no blood on her body she was definitely passed out there was no way she was going to get up and walk
away malloy planned to take catherine to another friend's home but they never got there
at tudor and arctic major intersection several miles away from the spinard hotel catherine harms had gotten up
jumped out of the car and ran away into the night [Music] police searched maureen molloy's hotel
room and found no evidence of a struggle there were no bloody clothes towels sheets or anything else to indicate
someone had been stabbed [Music] all they found were two tiny specks of blood near the floorboard on the living room
wall [Music] dna testing matched the blood to katherine harms but it didn't help the case
she was living in the apartment she could have cut herself and spot a blood got on the wall that way there are lots
of different ways somebody can can bleed so it does not prove that she was beat in that apartment
toxicology tests from katherine harm's autopsy revealed no alcohol or street drugs in her system
but the medical examiner found something very suspicious we found very high levels of flexural in
the gastric contents indicating that she had been given a dose or an overdose of
flux rule in the recent past flexural is a prescription drug used to relieve muscle spasms
but when taken in excess it can have the opposite effect one of the unusual side effects would be
a rigidity of the muscles in a sense as if every muscle in the body was was tensed up or held rigid
this explains why catherine harms was cold and somewhat rigid when the hotel clerk carried her
out to marine malloy's car without additional evidence the case was turning cold
until police got a break from an unlikely place a woman living two thousand miles away
in seattle washington called police because she had seen the article about the murder in the anchorage newspaper
it was one of a number of items in a package mailed to her from a friend in anchorage she said she had received a
box of cardboard box from marine malloy [Music] inside the box were katherine harm's driver's license
the newspaper article some jewelry a knife and this handwritten note hey woman please burn all the contents of this box
this is very important many lives are on the line this would be a great favor and in all
the world i trust only you the woman from seattle told me she wanted nothing to do with this but
she didn't feel right about it and so she thought she better call the police the knife appeared to be clean
investigators wanted to know whether this was the weapon used to kill katherine harms
[Music] the package of items marine malloy mailed to seattle was sent to the forensic lab for testing
malloy's note asked her friend to destroy all of the contents forensic experts confirmed that
maureen's fingerprints were on the document what we were interested in was the knife
it was a folding buck type knife and we knew from the autopsy that the injuries would be consistent with the
knife to see if the knife blade contained anything of evidentiary value investigators sent it to a forensic tool
mark analyst the microscopic fine marks on each knife blade are random in nature they're a
function of when the last time the knife blade was sharpened the irregularities in a knife blade are going to be
different in this knife even compared to the next knife blade that was made at the factory on the assembly line
robert shem was confident he could find unique marks on the knife but he had nothing to compare it to
then shem learned that the medical examiner dr thompson had done something unusual during the autopsy
instead of documenting the fatal wound by photography dr thompson actually excised the section
of the rib cage where the wound occurred well i believe dr thompson went beyond the call of duty i think it's because as
a younger newer pathologist in the field he's much more progressive and much more
open to new ideas the costal cartilage at the end of one rib clearly showed the stab wound
the costal cartilage is very much like a low density plastic in that it cuts readily and when it cuts it has the
consistency such that it can take the tool marks quite well surprisingly well shem used a substance called microsill a
rubbery material that takes the shape of anything to which it's applied used by toolbox examiners to preserve
the very fine details that you'll see impressed and striated tool marks so what we need is a material that will
flow very well into the tool mark and then harden in a short period of time so that we can do comparisons of these very
fine marks after the microcell hardened shem peeled it from the rib [Music] the question now was whether these marks
were good enough to match the suspected murder weapon to find out shem took the knife and pressed it down
into a hard piece of plastic this transferred the tool marks from the suspected murder weapon to the plastic
surface in this case here it was important to find the exact angle at which the knife
was used and then to replicate that angle into plastic and then do that comparison
the process with the microsill was repeated this time along the newly cut surface of
the plastic block when the mold was peeled away shem wanted to see if it could be
matched to the marks taken from the wound so he placed both of the microsill molds
under a comparison microscope at 50 times magnification he was able to look at them side by side
the tool marks from the wound and marine malloy's knife were identical in this particular case
the identification was pretty compelling plus being a born skeptic i find the concept
of matching a tool that is a knife back to a piece of the human body to be pretty incredible bob shem gave me a
photograph of what he saw in his comparison microscope and that was probably one of the most powerful pieces of
evidence i've ever presented in a courtroom investigators found even more evidence
inside maureen malloy's car they saw a very small smear of dried blood near the ignition switch area of
course that was swabbed and those swabs were sent to the state crime lab for dna
analysis those tests revealed that the blood on the ignition switch in molay's car was in fact catherine harm's blood
and they also found evidence in one of marines jackets inside right puck there was
blood stains that blood turned out to be catherine harm's blood the stains were comparable to the dimensions of the
knife that we seized in the box maureen malloy was arrested and charged with first degree murder
the question haunting prosecutors now was what was the motive [Music] denied any involvement in catherine
harm's murder [Music] there's nothing about a knife in the note i didn't know about any knife
she refused to talk about the knife she wouldn't say she owned it she didn't own it she wouldn't say anything you
could look a lot better than you doing she was baiting you she was [ __ ] with you for days and days and days and
you've got your kids you've got people to think about and you just lost it that's what happened
i mean we're all we're all adults here we can read the writing on the wall that's what's happened louise
now let's just stand tall let's just tell it how it happened let's don't come across like the
cold-blooded [ __ ] that you look like you are now but uh i know you're not don't tell me i don't care about my kids
without i just care about myself just tell me what happened tell me why you did what you did
they go back and forth and back and forth and it turns out that moy never comes off her story finally
i asked her about the knife and the tool marks on the knife exactly matching the bone in the chest
of my victim and at that time she said she didn't want to talk anymore she wanted to see a lawyer
but prosecutors wondered why malloy would kill katherine harms carrie rundle who was at one time
malloy's roommate told police that maureen had stolen a sizeable gun collection and planned to sell it and
live off of the proceeds she also said that malloy feared catherine would expose her plans to the
police rundle said she saw malloy put the drug flexoril in katherine's food thinking it would relax catherine and
get her to talk maureen malloy thought she was a stitch i believe the violence occurred when she
was trying to get catherine harms to tell her who she had told and what she had told me
i think at a certain point though the violence had been so excessive that marine realized
she couldn't let catherine go the toxicology evidence shows that catherine had been given an excessive
amount of flexural which stiffened her muscles and caused the rigidity described by the hotel clerk
prosecutors believe malloy drove catherine to the park dumped her body then stabbed her to death while she was
unconscious malloy then put the bloody knife in her coat pocket leaving both katherine's dna
and the impression of the murder weapon malloy also left a tiny spot of catherine's blood inside her car
[Music] the forensic evidence proved that it was malloy's knife and no other that left the distinctive tool marks on
katherine's rib i really don't believe that maureen malloy thought that the police
department the crime lab the medical examiner's office would join together to create a team that would solve this
crime i think that marine malloy figured nobody would spend this kind of effort you told him
maureen malloy denied everything and took the stand in her own [Music] i defense there
who killed kathryn hart she claimed that members of the local hells angels motorcycle gang killed
catherine and planted the evidence to frame her and i did not do that to her and they
would do and say anything to discredit me to cover for what they did in that room in closing argument in front of the
jury i took the knife the murder one i took maureen molloy's leather jacket and i pulled out the pocket lining
i took the knife and put it right on top of the area where the crime lab had snipped the two fabric areas and the
knife fit right between those two areas like a glove i argued that the murder weapon was in
her pocket when it had liquid blood on it the forensic science in this case was unique
only once or twice before had scientists been able to match the stab wound to the specific knife with
this type of analysis looking at ribcages and for tulmar comparison is is a pretty rare
examination for the examiner in the laboratory because it's rare that we're going to have the conditions where we
have both the ribs that are cut that have a decent tool mark on them and have a need
to compare a knife to it maureen malloy was found guilty and sentenced to 159 years in prison
i absolutely hate you you worthless piece of flesh if you ever try to get out i will be there as your
constant reminder and i will remind the state of alaska the atrocities that you have committed against my sister
i covered a lot of murder trials and this one stuck with me for a long time because
it just never made any sense and at the end of it i felt that i didn't know the whole story and i clearly
remember the judge at sentencing saying that she did not feel that she could understand
the motive for for the murder jurors later told reporters that the tool mark comparison was exceptionally
compelling knowledge is power forensic science puts power in the hands of the investigators
and it gives them the power to know the difference between what is definitely true and what they only think is true
the forensic science in this case specifically the matching of the tool marks between
the knife blade and the chest sternum bone of the victim is invaluable that made the case
well in this case forensic science was absolutely key again this is a case with no eye witnesses and yet
a prosecutor can go to the jury and say listen ladies and gentlemen witnesses people lie
science doesn't and in this case the scientific evidence was irrefutable [Music]
[Music] [Applause] [Music] you

An Alaskan police officer found a woman's body while on routine patrol of a public park. The victim had been stabbed to death and, during the autopsy, the medical examiner preserved the portion of her rib cage which sustained the fatal wound.

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

Forensic evidence from a knife leads to Maureen Malloy's conviction for the murder of Katherine Harms in Alaska.

Key points

Forensic Breakthroughs. New scientific discoveries turn inconsequential items into vital forensic evidence.
The Discovery of a Body. A policeman discovers a body in a public park, setting off a murder investigation.
Murder Weapon Identified. Forensic experts match a knife to the victim's wounds, leading to a conviction.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I absolutely hate you, you worthless piece of flesh.

A sister's emotional outburst at the sentencing of the murderer.

19:30WatchJan 1, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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