Forensic Files | The Killing Room | FULL EPISODE | HD | True Crime Procedure Investigation Drama | Forensic Files

[music playing] NARRATOR: When Scott Dunn arrived at his friend's party, he brought along a new acquaintance, someone
his friends had never met before. Scott was a ladies' man, and while it wasn't unusual
for him to be seeing a number of women at the same time, his date on this night raised more than a few eyebrows.
- How are you doing? - Hey, man. What's happening? Hey, everybody. Man! This is my lady friend, Shaina.
NARRATOR: Sometime during the party, Scott became ill, so sick he was unable to drive home.
A few days later, Scott Dunn disappeared and was never seen again. [theme music]
24-year-old Scott Dunn was a fun-loving young man who enjoyed life to the fullest.
Scott lived in Lubbock, Texas, settling there after serving in the US military. He worked for MGM Electronics in a job
he loved, installing custom sound systems in automobiles. The last time friends saw Scott was on May 13, 1991,
at a party after work. Scott was a prankster and decided to add a little excitement to the festivities.
His date that night wasn't a she at all. She was really a he, a transvestite. Before the night was through, Scott's friends eventually
found out and weren't amused. Later, while still at the party, Scott became ill.
He was so sick, he couldn't drive home and stayed overnight on the sofa. The next day, his live-in girlfriend, Leisha Hamilton,
drove over to pick him up. He looked like crap. He couldn't hardly walk. I mean, you could tell he'd been in bed all day.
He wasn't showered. He wasn't clean. Clothes on all awkwardly. Couldn't get dressed by himself.
NARRATOR: After spending another full day in bed, Scott told Leisha he finally felt
well enough to return to work. I woke up that morning. He was in bed with me by then.
I asked him how he felt. I asked him did he need a ride to work because he didn't have his cars there.
He said no, his friend was coming for him, and just asked me to get him a glass of water
and some sinus medicine, which I did. Brought it to him, and then I left. When I came home, he was gone.
NARRATOR: When Scott's friends stopped by the apartment to pick him up, there was no answer.
No one ever would answered, so just never heard from him. NARRATOR: Two days later, Leisha called
Scott's father in Pennsylvania to see if he had heard from Scott. And it's a young woman's voice, and she goes into,
I don't know if I'm talking to who I'm talking to, but I assume you're Scott's father
because I found the telephone number on the telephone bill. And I said, well, that's right, I'm Scott's father,
but who are you? She said, well, I've been living with Scott for a couple of months now, sometime we've
been together for some time. And I said, well, I don't really know who you are. NARRATOR: Jim Dunn filed a missing
persons report with the Lubbock Police Department. What was he wearing last when you saw him?
NARRATOR: Police wondered whether Scott Dunn's personal life held some clues to his disappearance.
When Scott Dunn disappeared from Lubbock, Texas, without a trace, his friends told police
this was out of character. The way Scott was, he would have called at least and said,
hey, guys, look, I'm out here in Mexico, hanging out, partying, something. NARRATOR: Scott's live-in girlfriend, Leisha Hamilton,
told police that when she returned from work, Scott was gone. She also said that a large piece of carpet
was missing from under the sofa. When police searched the bedroom, they discovered that another piece of carpet in the bedroom
had also been removed and replaced with the carpet from under the sofa. Along the edge were some rust-colored stains.
ROY CARPER: The staining along the edge of that patch in the original carpet was very evident to anybody
that's been doing this for any length of time, it was blood. NARRATOR: When the carpet patch was lifted,
police noticed it was held together with duct tape. On the underpadding was another large stain, which
also appeared to be blood. In one spot, it had soaked through a hole in the padding
to the cement floor underneath. And it looked as if someone had washed blood from the baseboard.
To find out, investigators used a chemical called luminol, which can detect areas where blood has been cleaned
up with water and detergents. The luminol revealed a scene of horrific violence.
JIM THOMAS: You can actually see the pattern. You can see where blood had been. And my initial reaction was that something
had occurred in that apartment. It was stark. Somebody had very obviously tried to clean the whole thing up and had
done a fairly good job of it. JIM DUNN: I just knew that he was dead. I felt very confident that he was dead.
It was probably the longest day of my life. And it was the most devastating thing that ever happen to me.
NARRATOR: But who would want to kill Scott Dunn, and why? Dunn had a previous arrest and conviction for possession
of cocaine, but the theory that this was somehow drug related was inconsistent with the crime scene.
If it was a drug hit, they probably would have left the person there, wanting everybody in the world to see,
so that nobody else would cross them. And this crime scene was covered up. And the only reason it was covered up
was because it was trying to be hidden. NARRATOR: Police also discovered Scott Dunn was leading a secret life.
While living with Leisha Hamilton, he continued to date numerous other women. He was wild.
He played the field. He had-- in my opinion, he had a history of using women for his own purposes.
In fact, he was engaged to be married to a young lady in the Metroplex, while he was living with Leisha Hamilton.
NARRATOR: Leisha Hamilton learned about Scott's engagement just one month earlier.
Who's calling? His fiancée? Yeah, I'll be sure to tell him you called. ROY CARPER: And I think at the point
where that telephone call came is when Leisha realized she had been had by Scott.
And Leisha herself was a user. And when it became apparent to her that she, in this situation, was not the user but was, in fact,
the usee, she became enraged. NARRATOR: But was that sufficient motive for Leisha
Hamilton to murder Scott Dunn? And if so, where was the body? Leisha Hamilton continued to call Jim Dunn from Texas,
keeping him informed of the investigation into Scott's disappearance. But she asked for something in return.
She wanted Scott's yellow sports car. Jim Dunn taped those telephone conversations.
JIM DUNN (ON PHONE): You seem to want the car, and I have promised you the car when this is all over.
You don't seem to want to wait. LEISHA HAMILTON (ON PHONE): Actually, I don't. I don't.
I don't need it. It is a want right now. The only thing I want is this car. That's the only thing I've wanted from the start.
That's the only thing I want now. NARRATOR: A background check by Lubbock police
revealed that Leisha Hamilton had a past arrest in New Mexico for embezzlement. But if Leisha was involved in Scott's disappearance,
why had she helped police by pointing out the missing carpet in their apartment?
Leisha told Scott's father that she thought a man named Tim Smith had something to do
with Scott's disappearance. ROY CARPER: Tim Smith was a guy that lived in the apartment near Leisha.
He had been brought up in a very strict, very religious environment. My theory was that this was the first real contact he'd ever
had with a worldly woman, and that he became enamored with her and the way she made him feel.
And he just fell head over heels in love with her. NARRATOR: Police discovered that Smith
did not show up for work on the day Scott Dunn disappeared. Tim Smith? Uh-huh. Lubbock Police Department.
NARRATOR: When police visited Tim Smith's apartment to ask a few questions, they noticed he was packing to move.
We're investigating the disappearance of Scott Dunn. Whatever I can do to help. Mind if we take a look around?
Sure, go ahead. NARRATOR: When they walk back into the living room, they noticed that something that had been sitting
on the bookshelf disappeared. Where's the roll of tape? What tape? The duct tape, it was there on the shelf.
I don't know what you're talking about. NARRATOR: But behind some books on another shelf, police found
what they were looking for-- the duct tape that was on the shelf just a few minutes earlier.
ROY CARPER: That was a stroke of luck, but it's also good investigative work. I mean, how many times do you walk into a place
where a guy's moving and see a roll of duct tape and think nothing of it? NARRATOR: The duct tape was sent to the forensic laboratory
for analysis. The tape in Smith's apartment looked very similar to the tape on the carpet patch
in Dunn's apartment. The samples were analyzed using infraspectrophotometry, where infrared light is passed through the duct tape.
And the detector will determine how much wavelength of light is being absorbed at different wavelengths.
NARRATOR: The results are then printed out in a chart. In the case of Roger Scott Dunn,
the duct tape was separated out into its components-- the fibers that run along in the duct tape,
the backing of the duct tape, and the adhesive of the duct tape. As you can see, the infrared spectrum
from the roll of duct tape found at the suspect's house and the duct tape found at the scene
are consistent in the fibers component, the backing component, and the adhesive component.
NARRATOR: And the roll of tape held even more clues. On the side of the role were green nylon fibers, trilobal,
or triangular, in shape. They were the same size and shape and made of the same polymers and dyed
the same color as the carpet in Scott Dunn's bedroom. I feel confident that the fibers on the side
of the duct tape came from the apartment, and that the duct tape underneath the carpet
came from the roll of duct tape. NARRATOR: But without a body, authorities were hesitant to conclude homicide.
A lot of it had to do with the body. We had no body. And the district attorney's office at that time
was very apprehensive to try to take something to trial where you had no corpus delicti is
what they say. NARRATOR: A full year passed, and Jim Dunn decided to take matters into his own hands.
He heard about a group of international forensic experts who meet several times a year in Philadelphia
to study unsolved murders. The group of 82 members is called the Vidocq Society,
named after Eugene Francois Vidocq, an 18th century French detective considered to be
the father of modern criminal investigation. One of the co-founders of the Vidocq Society, Richard Walter,
agreed to listen to Mr. Dunn's story. JIM DUNN: Well, after about an hour and a half of me
presenting, showing pictures, and listening to some tape recordings and things I had, he looked me straight in the eye
and said, Jim, aren't you tired of being the grieving father? And he looked at me, and he said,
I thought I was supposed to be. And I said, no, you're supposed to be goddamn mad.
Let's go after that bitch. NARRATOR: Richard Walter was convinced that Leisha Hamilton held the key
to Scott Dunn's disappearance. Walter sent the crime scene photos to Dr. Richard Shepherd,
a forensic pathologist at Scotland Yard in London. After reviewing the information, Dr. Shepherd
concluded that Scott Dunn had been murdered in the corner of his bedroom, the result of
multiple blunt trauma injuries. But at the time, under Texas law, without a body,
there was no homicide. Armed with Dr. Shepard's forensic analysis, Richard Walter pleaded the case to the district attorney,
arguing that they had a body part. He said, what part of the body is that? I said, blood's connective tissue.
He said-- he looked-- he gave me a long look and he said, all right, you got a murder.
NARRATOR: Prosecutors brought in their own blood spatter expert, Tom Bevel, to confirm
the findings of Dr. Shepherd. According to Bevel, the blood spatter pattern on the walls
indicated three distinct lines of cast-off blood from a weapon. TOM BEVEL: For example, we had three cast-off stains that
were going in three directions that would be consistent with three blows, plus the one to create
the blood in the first place. So in this case, we'd say there was a minimum of four
blows that was delivered. NARRATOR: To find out how much blood Scott Dunn lost during the assault, Bevel conducted
a blood saturation test. By pouring human blood onto a test piece of carpet, Bevel created the same sized stain found in the bedroom--
in this case, 266 square inches. It took just under two units of blood to create the stain
and soak through to the padding underneath. If you take that in consideration with all
the other physical evidence in there, such as the blood cleanup, cutting out of the carpet,
the blood spatter, the cast -off that's to the wall and also to the ceiling, along with that blood volume,
it certainly is a high suspicion that somebody, in fact, is dead. NARRATOR: Authorities were now convinced that Scott Dunn had
been murdered in his bedroom. Lubbock police suspected that both Leisha Hamilton and Tim
Smith were somehow involved in Scott Dunn's murder, but they had no evidence linking Leisha to the crime,
and the only link to Smith was the duct tape, until Richard Walter discovered something
that was previously overlooked. Walter learned that several strands of unidentified hair
had been found on the duct tape in Scott Dunn's bedroom. He suggested the hair be sent for forensic analysis.
At the FBI lab in Washington, DC, the hair from the duct tape underneath the carpet
was compared to hair samples from Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith. ROY CARPER: No Scott Dunn hairs were found on that tape,
but both the hairs of Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith were found on that duct tape, holding it in, which means
that when that duct tape was put down and that patch put in place, they were there.
NARRATOR: 5 and 1/2 years after Scott Dunn's disappearance, Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith were arrested
and charged with murder. Prosecutors believe that Leisha's motive was revenge, that she was angry when she learned that Scott
was engaged to another woman. She's as hard as rocks, bright, aggressive, [inaudible],, smart, but has ths insatiable appetite for power,
control, crushing people. She dismisses you. You don't dismiss her. Leisha Hamilton was the absolute instigator,
ringleader, and she was the Wicked Witch of the West, who contrived, developed, led, and covered up
this whole thing. NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe that Scott Dunn was murdered in the early morning hours of May 16, 1991.
He was asleep in the back and struck at least four times with a blunt object. About two units of Scott's blood was lost in the attack.
As Scott's body was removed from the apartment, his blood was transferred onto the bedroom door knob.
The location of the body is still unknown. The cover-up failed because the water and detergents could not
remove the hemoglobin components of the blood, which, later, fluoresced when sprayed
with the chemical luminol. A piece of carpet from under the sofa in the living room
was used to patch the bloodstained carpet in the bedroom. The duct tape used to patch the carpet
together contained strands of hair consistent with hair samples from both Leisha
Hamilton and Tim Smith. And the side of the duct tape picked up some stray carpet fibers.
The roll was later found in Tim Smith's apartment. Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith were tried separately,
and both were convicted of murder. Leisha Hamilton was sentenced to 20 years. Tim Smith received a 10-year probation.
ROY CARPER: The jury, I think, believed that perhaps he had a great deal to do with disposing of the body,
but they didn't believe he was actually there when the murder took place. And I think for that reason, they recommended the judge
impose probation, instead of sentencing him to a term in the penitentiary, which would be carried out.
NARRATOR: Although the body of Scott Dunn has never been found, a headstone waits.
And the father still mourns. I'm just hopeful that at some point, somebody will talk,
and that we can recover his remains. And still, we can have a decent burial and a decent ceremony
that we can put him to rest. And I'd feel totally absolved at that point. I've done everything that I could do,
if I can ever reach that point. I haven't quite reached that yet, and it still crosses my mind what else I can do.
But at this point, I'm going to let it go and hope that somebody will-- the good Lord or somebody will give us some direction.
I don't what that actually means in my life at some point. [music playing]

Season 4 Episode 2 | Scott Dunn was missing and when the police sprayed his bedroom with luminol, a scene of horrific violence emerged. Now investigators faced a daunting task: to prove Scott Dunn had been murdered with no body, no weapon and no witnesses.

Brief Summary

Scott Dunn disappeared in 1991; Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith were later convicted of his murder.

Key points

The Disappearance of Scott Dunn. Scott Dunn vanished after a party, leaving friends and family searching for answers.
The Shocking Revelation. Scott's date was a transvestite, shocking his friends and raising eyebrows.
The Crime Scene Discovery. Investigators found blood and duct tape in Scott's apartment, indicating foul play.
The Arrests. Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith were arrested and charged with Scott's murder after years of investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I just knew that he was dead.

Jim Dunn's realization about his son Scott's fate.

6:24WatchOct 14, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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