Skeleton Stories - Season 1, Episode 2 - Betrayed - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: A grieving mother's conviction. They said they didn't have evidence that he
had murdered my daughter. But I just had a cold feeling he did. NARRATOR: And a skeleton that's not giving up its secrets.
There was no evidence of blunt force trauma, sharp force trauma, or a bullet. Can't prove the cause of death.
There's nothing to go on. NARRATOR: Can Dr. Murad tell if this young woman was murdered?
Then, Dr. Murray goes head-to-head with a ruthless band of killers bent on hiding their victim's identity.
The torso was burned. There was no head, no arms, and lower limbs. NARRATOR: Are the murderer's tracks covered too
well for justice to be served? [MUSIC PLAYING] [BABY CRYING] It's a hot summer morning in rural Northern California.
A team of volunteer firemen is preparing to dig a trench along a remote stretch of highway.
It's a routine measure to help limit the spread of forest fires. But this routine task is about to be cut short by a disturbing
find. [MUSIC PLAYING] What is that? It's not normal. You see that? There. Looks like a hand.
NARRATOR: Shocked, the fire crew immediately radios the local police department.
MARC ADAMS: I walk over to the side of the road and can see a blue comforter. [CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]
There is a large amount of insect activity. NARRATOR: A close look confirms the worst.
It's a human body, ravaged by California's summer sun and scavenging insects. TOM HOAGLAND: At that point, we couldn't determine
if it was male or female. Subject was wrapped in a comforter. Subject was obviously in the later stages of decomposition.
NARRATOR: A lonely road, an unidentified corpse, with virtually no clothes, investigators
rushed the body to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy. TOM HOAGLAND: The medical examiner could not give us
a cause of death, and they couldn't help us identify the decedent. NARRATOR: Without that information,
this case will go unsolved. But Sgt. Hoagland knows one man who might be able to help.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Dr. Turhon Murad, Senior Forensic Anthropologist at Chico State University.
TURHON MURAD: I deal with bones. Bones talk to me. It's a challenge to try to learn as much as I can
about the person from bones. [MUSIC PLAYING] Molina, let's see how much work we're in for,
what we're going to have to do. The case arrived here from El Dorado County. Before we did anything, we wanted to show what
we were getting ourselves into. She's very badly decomposed. NARRATOR: Decomposition is nature's way
of disposing of the body. Typically, 60% of a human's body weight is lost in the first six days of decomposition,
depending on temperature and location. [MUSIC PLAYING] Dr. Murad can tell from what flesh remains that this
is the body of a woman. But her identity and cause of death are a complete mystery.
And by the circumstances of her discovery, it is a mystery with disturbing implications.
TURHON MURAD: This lady was found beside the road, in the nude. How could she have died in the nude beside the road?
That's not natural. [SCREAMING] NARRATOR: He surveys the body for clues to her identity,
but his initial inspection is disappointing. TURHON MURAD: I don't see any tattoos
or anything that is obvious for us to get her identified. NARRATOR: Then, Dr. Murad finds something surprising.
TURHON MURAD: It was a huge blister on her-- on her right thumb. NARRATOR: It's an incredibly lucky break.
While skin covering the remaining fingers has completely broken down, the pus and fluid
that formed the blister has slowed the rate of decay on the outer layer of the thumb.
And the blister holds what could be a vital clue to the woman's identity. TOM HOAGLAND: Dr. Murad noticed that there
was a thumbprint on the right thumb that was usable. NARRATOR: Though there is enough skin for a print,
the finger itself is too decomposed to be useful. In order to generate a print, Dr. Murad
offers up his own finger. TURHON MURAD: I cut off the loose skin from around the thumb, slipped it over my rubber gloved hand.
NARRATOR: The ingenious method produces a near-perfect thumbprint. TURHON MURAD: I got two cards out.
And I ran about 20 fingerprints. Now, it's a very important fingerprint to have in California because the thumb
print is the one that is collected by DMV when you get your license. This is a good print.
[BLOWS] OK, would you mark that right thumb and the case number on it, please? I said, well, here.
Go find out who she is. NARRATOR: With a fresh print in hand, investigators rushed to the California Department
of Justice Forensic Crime Lab, where they could search a statewide driver's license database.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Four hours later, they find a match. [MUSIC PLAYING] The identity of the victim came back to a Janata Jackson.
NARRATOR: Janai Jackson, a 21-year-old woman who lived in Sacramento, with her husband, Jason Scharf, and
their four-month-old daughter. Her mother, Sylvia, had not talked to Janai in a few weeks.
SYLVIA JACKSON: I figured her and Jason must've went to visit the parents, or went out of town or something.
And I figured she'd call me later. NARRATOR: But the call from her daughter would never come.
Instead, the call Sylvia gets is a mother's worst nightmare. News that her daughter has been found dead,
wrapped in a blanket on the roadside. SYLVIA JACKSON: Janai was a very loving, kind-hearted person,
sharing, very smart. As a little girl, she was sweet, very quiet. Playful, very playful.
She would do anything she could to help you, if she could. NARRATOR: And investigators are perplexed when they learned
that Janai's husband, Jason, had not reported her missing, even though she hadn't
been home for over two weeks. TOM HOAGLAND: So our next step was to contact him, see if he could shed
some light on the disappearance of his wife. Then we found out that he had relocated
to Southern California. NARRATOR: The fact that Jason moved away days after his wife disappeared further fuels
investigators' suspicions. So do Sylvia Jackson's statements to police about her son-in-law.
SYLVIA JACKSON: He seemed to be a very jealous and controlling person. I felt that he could not be trusted.
I just felt that he was going to do something to her. It's just this like you feel a cold chill.
NARRATOR: When investigators eventually track Jason down, he tells them that his wife had run away, abandoning
him and their infant daughter. His claims that the couple was on the outs is confirmed by interviews with family and friends.
TOM HOAGLAND: During the last several months of their marriage, things had become violent.
She had threatened to leave him several times. NARRATOR: The more they learn, the more
Jason's story doesn't add up. SYLVIA JACKSON: One of her friends had told me that every time she packed her stuff
to leave, he would unpack her stuff, and try to hold her and keep her with him. NARRATOR: After a week and a half of investigation,
all police have is circumstantial evidence. But they are so convinced that Jason
had something to do with his wife's death that they arrest him. However, their suspicions alone are simply
not enough for the DA's office. TOM HOAGLAND: About five days after his arrest, the district attorney felt there wasn't
enough evidence to prosecute. He was released. NARRATOR: A suspicious picture has emerged.
But without more physical evidence, investigators can go no further with the case.
SYLVIA JACKSON: They said they had to get evidence, hard evidence, before they can prove that he
actually murdered my daughter. NARRATOR: Now, it's up to Dr. Murad to prove or disprove the investigators' theory.
TURHON MURAD: Homicide is just standing out there, glaring at you. It had to be a homicide.
NARRATOR: The only way he can do that is by scrutinizing Janai's bones. But there's a problem.
Her bones are hidden beneath layers of decomposing tissue, skin, muscle, and organs.
TURHON MURAD: I'm not a pathologist. I'm an anthropologist, and I do bones. I do not do soft tissue.
NARRATOR: Simply cutting away the flesh could chip, mark, and damage her bones. Dr. Murad needs to de-flesh Janai very gently.
And he comes up with a solution that is morbidly efficient. He buries her. TURHON MURAD: We wrapped her in a clean, white sheet.
Then wrapped her in wire netting that was zip-locked with electrical zip ties so that animals couldn't dig into her remains.
We buried her in a very shallow grave at a cemetery, and just let nature take its course.
NARRATOR: After death, bacteria that live in the intestines are no longer held in check by the immune system
and begin eating away at the body's organs and tissue. Underground, the process is accelerated
by larvae from beetles and other subterranean insects. It is gentle, but slow. Dr. Murad estimates it will take six weeks for Janai's
body to be ready for his exam. Only then will Dr. Murad be able to seek the evidence that
can bring justice to Janai. [MUSIC PLAYING] Coming up, Janai is exhumed. But her bones aren't telling Dr. Murad what he wants to know.
TURHON MURAD: It had to be a homicide. But how in the hell did she die? NARRATOR: And later, can Dr. Murad
determine whether this good man met a bad end? He would give you his last dollar if you needed it.
That's the type of person he was. That's next, on "Skeleton Stories." [MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Dr. Turhon Murad of Chico State University has buried the body of murder victim, Janai Jackson.
For six weeks, bacteria and insects have been digesting her muscles and organs, while leaving
her bones untouched. They are bones that could hold the evidence needed to charge
Janai's killer with murder. Police believe that killer is Janai's own husband, Jason Scharf.
SYLVIA JACKSON: They said they didn't have evidence that he had murdered my daughter.
But I just had that cold feeling he did. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: It's the moment of truth.
After patiently waiting six weeks, Dr. Murad prepares to exhume Janai's body. The method is successful.
The natural process was extremely gentle on Janai's bones. TURHON MURAD: When we recovered them, they were in great shape.
We didn't lose a single bone. NARRATOR: Now, with the bones completely de-fleshed,
Dr. Murad sets his sight on the case's all important question. How was Janai murdered?
He starts by examining the major bones of her head and torso. These are the bones that most frequently
carry signs of fatal injuries because they protect vital organs-- the brain, heart, and lungs.
[MUSIC PLAYING] But after great scrutiny, he finds no indications of physical trauma.
TURHON MURAD: There is no evidence of blunt force trauma, sharp force trauma, or a bullet.
We can't prove the cause of death. There's nothing to go on. NARRATOR: After six weeks of waiting, an earlier autopsy,
and an examination of her major bones, Dr. Murad is still empty handed, and his options
are running out. TURHON MURAD: It had to be a homicide. But how does someone die with no evidence of blunt force trauma,
sharp force trauma, bullets? She'd been on autopsied. Toxicology comes back clean.
No poison involved. No drugs involved. How in the hell did she die? [BABY CRYING]
NARRATOR: But Dr. Murad knows that there is one method of murder that would leave only the slightest
of signs in the skeleton. That method is manual strangulation. If Janai was choked to death, it may have damaged
a small bone of the neck-- the hyoid. TURHON MURAD: The hyoid is a very important bone to look for in cases of manual strangulation.
NARRATOR: The hyoid bone is a small U-shaped bone suspended between the muscles that
produce the swallowing motion. Its major function is to support the vocal cords.
Thin and fragile, the hyoid is often broken or damaged in cases of strangulation, when extreme pressure
is applied to the neck. TURHON MURAD: Here I have a complete hyoid. And this is the hyoid as it might
appear in an adult individual. It has two cornu-- a right and a left-- and a body.
The hyoid would fit like this, up high, at the top of the larynx. So if someone were strangled, we might
expect the hyoid to be broken. And that's what I was looking for. NARRATOR: But when Murad finds and examines Janai's hyoid,
another problem arises. TURHON MURAD: The hyoid usually fuses at around age 21 to 23.
Well, here she was. The hyoid hadn't fused yet, OK? Here's the body, and here's one of the cornu.
NARRATOR: At birth, the human body contains about 300 soft bones, many of which fuse together during development.
By age 25, most of this fusing is complete, leaving the typical body with 206 separate, calcified bones.
Because Janai was only 21, the three separate sections of her hyoid had not yet joined together.
This means that her un-fused hyoid would simply flex under the pressure of strangulation.
[MUSIC PLAYING] This finding renders it impossible for Dr. Murad to make a conclusion about Janai being strangled.
TURHON MURAD: Because the hyoid hadn't fused yet, I could not suggest that she had died from manual strangulation
because it wasn't broken. NARRATOR: With Dr. Murad unable to prove strangulation,
the investigation remains at square one. There is still no evidence to charge Janai's husband with murder.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Coming up-- Dr. Murad finds a final clue. But is it enough to see justice done?
TURHON MURAD: We know she died, and we know that it was something unusual. And we had to look for anything at all that might point out
what that cause may have been. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: And later, a gunshot and a fire
may add up to murder. But can Dr. Murray make them add up to justice? To me, it doesn't matter who you are or what you did.
You don't deserve to go down like that. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: 21-year-old Janai Jackson is dead,
and police are convinced she was killed by her husband, Jason Scharf. But so far, Dr. Murad's exam hasn't turned up anything
to indicate a cause of death, much less, a means of homicide. Without proof of murder, investigators hands are tied.
And Janai's mother, who also believes her son-in-law is guilty, is losing hope that justice will ever be done.
SYLVIA JACKSON: She had just turned 21 when she got killed. I had never thought I would ever lose Janai.
That was my baby. And then they gonna let this man walk free, and my daughter will never see the light, ever again.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Dr. Murad himself is losing hope, until he discovers a small bone that should be connected
to the base of Janai's skull. It's her left styloid process, one of a pair of long, thin bones that protrude
downward from the skull. TURHON MURAD: Here we have a skull with both styloid processes, the left and the right,
attached, just as they are in most normal individuals. NARRATOR: On Janai's skull, her left styloid process is broken.
Like the hyoid, the styloid process is delicate. But it's deeply shrouded in muscle and ligament,
making it a hard bone to break. It would take a very powerful blow to fracture it.
A hard blow to a sensitive part of the neck. TURHON MURAD: I'm right-handed. I come up and swing, and hit you in the left side of the neck.
Probably broke the styloid process in doing that. Styloid process would have caused some bleeding, probably
some swelling in her neck. NARRATOR: Dr. Murad knows that the swelling from such a blow
could easily lead to asphyxiation. This finding strongly suggests that Janai was struck violently on the side of the neck,
and died because of it. TOM HOAGLAND: He sparked an interest in us, in telling us that it would take a severe blow
to damage the styloid process. NARRATOR: But police still have no hard evidence linking
Jason to his wife's murder. They need a confession. And they hope that Dr. Murad's new discovery
will be the key to getting one. [MUSIC PLAYING] Investigators tracked Jason down again,
this time in Southern California. TOM HOAGLAND: He basically had set up a whole new life.
He was living down there with his young child. Had a fiance. NARRATOR: The investigators' plan is simple--
confront him with Dr. Murad's findings and try to provoke a full confession. But it's a gamble.
If Dr. Murad's theory is wrong, the plan could backfire. Jason would go free, and there would be no justice for Janai.
[MUSIC PLAYING] TURHON MURAD: They now confront him with the fact that they have evidence of a broken
styloid process in the her left side of her neck. Perpetrators don't know what can be found.
And the fact that something-- in this case, so very minor-- might be found, he got a little concerned, I'm certain.
He began to think, my gosh. There's evidence here. NARRATOR: Hearing the forensic evidence laid out step-by-step,
Jason finally breaks his silence. TOM HOAGLAND: He knew that he couldn't go on living like this.
He had told all of his family and friends that she had just left him, and left the baby and everything.
And I don't think too many people were buying that. It was like getting the weight of the world off his shoulders.
NARRATOR: Confronted with Dr. Murad's evidence, no longer able to lie to investigators, Jason confesses
to the murder of his wife. Investigators are now able to piece together what happened to Janai Jackson
during her final moments. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's 10:00 PM on the evening of June 11th, 1997.
Jason Scharf and Janai Jackson are arguing again. Janai tells her husband she's going to leave him.
[ARGUING] Enraged, Jason lashes out. [BABY CRYING] TOM HOAGLAND: At 6' 4", 290 pounds,
he could really throw a blow. He just said, one blow with a clenched fist and she immediately went to the ground.
TURHON MURAD: It only takes an immediate five pound blow, a real chop to the neck, and it could
cause enough swelling for a person to die from asphyxia. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: This is the blow that breaks the styloid process
and causes her throat to swell. [MUSIC PLAYING] TURHON MURAD: If there is enough swelling in the throat,
it could cut off the windpipe, the trachea. And it only takes a few minutes from a lack of oxygen
to the brain for someone to die. I think that that's what happened. She died from asphyxia, as a result of these organs
in her throat being swollen to the degree that she couldn't breathe. [MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Then the grim realization of what he's done sinks in. TOM HOAGLAND: He notices she had stopped breathing,
and basically said that he had freaked out and he didn't know what to do. And then he realized he had to get rid of his wife's body.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: But Jason maintains that what happened was a terrible accident.
On April 5th, 2000, he's convicted of voluntary manslaughter and receives an 11 year sentence.
TURHON MURAD: It wasn't intended, he says. But it was a result of this argument that they had.
Well, it's hard to prove intent. He's now convicted himself, essentially. But it's a manslaughter and not murder.
SYLVIA JACKSON: I think it's unfair that Jason is going to be out of prison in 11 years, walking this earth,
and my daughter will never see the world again. I think he should have life imprisonment for taking a life.
TURHON MURAD: Families have every right to think that their son or daughter is going to grow up and make them
grandparents. They have a whole life to look forward to. And then they're killed for stupid reasons, reasons
that nobody can understand. Someone's life cut short. And not only what the perpetrator
did, and the sadness to the family, but I felt sad because of what I had to do to her
in order to examine her bones. That is, I buried her and I dug her up. OK? But it had to be done.
NARRATOR: Despite the voluntary manslaughter charge, Janai Jackson's mother is grateful.
SYLVIA JACKSON: Once the anthropologist did all his thorough investigation, and tested her and gave out
all the evidence, then they went and picked up Jason and arrested him. [THUNDER]
It brought me satisfaction that he tested her and found out exactly Jason was the one who murdered her.
He eventually got it. TURHON MURAD: That's the only satisfaction sometimes you ever get.
If no one's-- if nobody had been prosecuted, and no perpetrator had been discovered,
I could still take satisfaction in knowing that we helped identify her. She was cared for.
She still thought of. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Coming up-- could Dr. Beth Murray outwit a killer?
We had many other law enforcement officers and agencies that said this couldn't be solved.
The media made comments that this couldn't be solved. We felt like the deck was stacked against us.
NARRATOR: That's next, on "Skeleton Stories." [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUFFLED VOICES] It's Halloween.
And for the late fall, it's unseasonably warm in this Southern West Virginia town.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Early in the afternoon, a couple is taking advantage of the weather, to indulge
in a favorite hobby-- bird watching. [MUSIC PLAYING] But their outing is about to be cut
short by a grisly discovery. Winding through a stretch of brush, they stumbled upon what at first looks like a burnt log.
Oh, my gosh. NARRATOR: But on closer inspection, the couple realized that this is no piece of wood.
It's the charred remains of a human being-- or what's left of one. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Horrified, the birdwatchers quickly cut through the woods to a nearby highway and flag down a passing police patrol.
MIKE CRAFT: It was one of the most gruesome sights I've ever seen. Instantly, we knew it was human.
MELINA SMITH: This body had no head, no arms from below the elbow down. And it was burnt, badly burnt.
JEFF RIEGERT: You're talking about someone who had been set on fire. So you're just looking at a charred lump.
MIKE CRAFT: So we knew that we had a very, very gruesome scene on our hands. And no doubt, a homicide to deal with.
NARRATOR: As with any suspected homicide, Lieutenant Mike Craft and his team of detectives
will be charged with bringing the killers to justice. [MUSIC PLAYING] But the investigation can go no further, until they uncover one
critical piece of information-- the victim's identity. Who is this? [MUSIC PLAYING]
MIKE CRAFT: When you run into a gruesome crime scene like that, you immediately realize that you're
never going to solve the crime if you don't know who the victim is. And identifying a victim that's body
was in that kind of condition was going to be nearly impossible. So it became obvious to us that we
needed a forensic specialist to come on board with us, and help us. NARRATOR: That forensic anthropologist
is Dr. Beth Murray. BETH MURRAY: It's my job to find out who this person was, or the kinds of things that happened to them
that might have caused their death. My job is to figure out who and how. [MUSIC PLAYING]
JEFF RIEGERT: We had nothing. We had a torso. That's all we had. And we knew she would just be invaluable in this case.
NARRATOR: Dr. Murray's first task is to observe the autopsy. BETH MURRAY: I arrive at the morgue,
and the room is filled with people. There were fire marshals. There were investigators, police officers.
The coroner was there, along with the pathologist. And they were waiting for me to arrive there
because they were going to do an autopsy on the torso, once I arrived. NARRATOR: Before the autopsy even begins,
the team makes a key determination from x-rays of the charred remains. [MUSIC PLAYING]
BETH MURRAY: There was clearly a bullet, a projectile, in the chest. The projectile was seen to pierce the aorta.
And that would have probably resulted in the cause of death in this case. NARRATOR: But it's obvious that this body has suffered
far more than a simple gunshot. BETH MURRAY: The torso was burned. There was no head, no arms from mid-forearm down,
and no lower limbs. NARRATOR: These perpetrators have gone to extreme lengths to hide the victim's identity.
[MUSIC PLAYING] They dragged the body to a remote, isolated location. They removed the hands, feet, and head.
And they set the body on fire, to burn away the last traces of humanity. [FIRE SOUNDS]
And Dr. Murray has a good idea why the body is in such a horrific state. BETH MURRAY: When you see these repeated attempts to disfigure
or disguise the identity of a victim, It usually means that once that victim's identity is known,
that's going to link you right back to these perpetrators. NARRATOR: Now she's determined to outwit the killers who so
cruelly mutilated this victim. BETH MURRAY: When you have a situation where someone was
shot, they were burned, they were dismembered, to me, it doesn't matter who you are or what you did.
You don't deserve to go down like that. NARRATOR: To shine a light into the shadows
where the killers are hiding, Dr. Murray is going to have to quickly provide police with the answers
they need. And they need plenty. MIKE CRAFT: I want Beth to give me the very basics.
Do we have a male or female? What race is this individual? How tall are they, an approximate weight.
Because all of these elements are critical to our investigation. NARRATOR: Only after the police have these basics,
known as a biological profile, can they compare the victim to reports of missing persons.
MELINA SMITH: You can't just go out and randomly talk to people, and say, hey, I believe you killed a person.
Having that person IDed is the most important thing. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Despite the grotesque charring of the body's surface,
the killers did not succeed in destroying all traces of their victim. BETH MURRAY: An adult human body is about 70% water.
And most people don't realize that that's like trying to set fire to a swimming pool.
You're going to have to use a lot of accelerant, a lot of chemicals, to try to get that burning process going.
What they didn't realize was it flash-chars the outside, but the inside is not burned.
NARRATOR: A few incisions during the autopsy solved the mystery of the body's gender.
BETH MURRAY: The internal organs were all in place-- heart, lungs, stomach. And that examination revealed a prostate gland
and other internal male organs that made it unquestionable that this torso was that of a male.
NARRATOR: On a piece of remaining skin, Dr. Murray discovers another distinguishing characteristic
the killer has failed to erase. BETH MURRAY: Some very dark, very curly hairs. The kind of hairs that might be expected on the body
of an African-American male. NARRATOR: Next, Dr. Murray focuses on what she knowsw best--
bones-- to try to determine the victim's age, height, and weight. BETH MURRAY: I have to extract the bones from the soft tissue
so I can use them in my measurements. And that involves simply dissecting them out of whatever
soft tissue remains. NARRATOR: She then takes the bones back to her laboratory at the College of Mount St. Joseph.
But before she can examine them closely, she must macerate-- or clean-- the bones.
BETH MURRAY: Processing them with heat and different chemical solutions in order
to remove all the flesh. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: The next day, Dr. Murray is ready to begin her biological profile from the few bones
available. BETH MURRAY: OK. Wow, that really processed up well. OK, I will measure the humerus.
Do you want to record the numbers for me? NARRATOR: The humerus, the upper arm bone,
offers clues about a person's height. BETH MURRAY: Its proportion tells me something about how tall the rest of that person's body was.
NARRATOR: The length of this humerus indicates an overall height of less than six feet.
Next, Dr. Murray tackles the victim's age. Here, an essential benchmark is found in the pelvis, which
is worn down in a predictable way, by year after year of constant walking. BETH MURRAY: And so, I can look at the face
of his pubic symphysis and compare it to models of individuals of known age. And it should give me some ballpark as to how old he
might have been when he died. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Despite the killer's drastic efforts
to disfigure the corpse, they couldn't conceal their victim's profile from Dr. Murray.
Just three days after taking on the case, she gives detectives a general description.
BETH MURRAY: I can tell from the bones that I removed from the torso that this man
was probably African-American. He was probably somewhere in the range of 30 to 50 when he died.
And he stood about 5'6" to 5'10". [MUSIC PLAYING] MIKE CRAFT: We do search for missing persons
that match the characteristics that Beth provided us with. Then we released that information in case somebody
has a loved one or a friend that's missing, that meets those characteristics. NARRATOR: Dr. Murray's description of the dead man
quickly strikes a nerve in one of the local, inner city neighborhoods. JEFF RIEGERT: Once the word got out,
then the street started talking to us. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Coming up, police discover who the victim is.
And Dr. Murray digs deeper in the evidence to pinpoint exactly what happened to him.
BETH MURRAY: You could see the unburned bones. That helped establish the sequence.
The burning came before the dismemberment. NARRATOR: When "Skeleton Stories" returns.
[MUSIC PLAYING] When a charred and headless human body is discovered in a field in southern West Virginia,
it seems at first like an unsolvable crime. MIKE CRAFT: We had many other law enforcement officers and agencies that
said this couldn't be solved. The media made comments that this couldn't be solved.
We felt like the deck was stacked against us. NARRATOR: Within days of taking on the case,
forensic anthropologist Dr. Beth Murray has provided investigators with a profile of the victim.
BETH MURRAY: Hopefully, knowing the man's age, his sex, his ethnicity, his stature, will let them narrow
the missing persons out there. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: When police make the victim's profile public,
they begin to hear the same name again and again. MIKE CRAFT: The old saying is, that area
of town, the streets talk. And they really do talk, if you'll take the time and listen to what they have to say.
NARRATOR: The name is Brandon Richards, a 35-year-old African-American man and alleged local drug dealer.
Detectives quickly contact his sister, Cassandra Taylor. CASSANDRA TAYLOR: They discovered
a torso in the field, that they had a suspicion that was my brother. NARRATOR: But the only way to prove for certain
that the torso belongs to Brandon is to compare the DNA from the charred remains
with a sample from his sister. Despite the condition of the corpse, technicians can easily extract DNA from the remaining bone.
MELINA SMITH: Once we believed that the victim was a certain person and we contacted his family members,
they willingly agreed to give us samples of DNA. NARRATOR: When the final results come back from the lab,
Cassandra's worst fear is realized. The charred body is her brother. CASSANDRA TAYLOR: I still really can't believe it
because I didn't see his body or anything after the fact, because of what they did to him.
NARRATOR: As Cassandra and her family grieve, police swing into action. MIKE CRAFT: Now we're ready to move.
And now it's time to find out who's responsible. NARRATOR: Once again, the detectives go to the streets.
This time, to uncover the story of Brandon Richards. JEFF RIEGERT: By getting to know that person,
you're going to find out what happened to that person. We learned all about him.
It's almost like we knew him. CASSANDRA TAYLOR: Everybody knew him in the neighborhood cuz he
just got along with everybody. He was a people person. NARRATOR: As a youngster, Brandon
was good natured and popular. CASSANDRA TAYLOR: And anybody who know him, he was a sweet person.
He would give you his last dollar, if you needed it. That's the type of person he was.
NARRATOR: But in his 20s, Brandon's life took a dark turn. CASSANDRA TAYLOR: He got mixed up in drugs and stuff.
That's when his life turned around. He got with the wrong crowd and couldn't get out of it.
NARRATOR: According to friends, Brandon had recently begun working for three childhood friends
who were local drug dealers. And based on information they're gathering, investigators are beginning to suspect
that these supposed friends are the ones who murdered Brandon. MELINA SMITH: We did countless interviews,
but they all pointed in the same direction. NARRATOR: Police obtain a warrant to search
the suspect's apartment. There, they find a vital piece of evidence-- a fragment of a bullet, buried beneath the floor, that matches
the slug pulled out of Brandon's scorched chest during his autopsy. Police immediately take the three suspects
into custody for questioning. JEFF RIEGERT: You've got three suspects. They're separated.
You've got three different stories. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: But getting them to confess
will be close to impossible [MUSIC PLAYING] MELINA SMITH: They don't want you to know
their deepest, darkest secrets. Like, yeah, I smashed that skull in with that axe.
Or yeah, I'm the one that set that body on fire. Or, hey, I'm the one that come back later
and cut those arms off. They don't want to tell you that. NARRATOR: So the police plan to interview them separately,
and convince each one of them that the other two had betrayed him. To do that, they'll need information--
facts about the crime only the perpetrators would know. And that's where forensic anthropologist,
Dr. Beth Murray, comes back into the picture. [MUSIC PLAYING] BETH MURRAY: OK. All right, here.
Let's see. NARRATOR: To determine the order of events surrounding Brandon's murder and mutilation, Dr. Murray first examine the skull
fragments found near the body. BETH MURRAY: Within those burned pieces, I also saw some unburned pieces of skull fragment.
And I began to look at those and question why you would have burned and unburned pieces together
from the same individual. NARRATOR: The unscorched fragments strongly suggest that the skull was at least
partly damaged before the killer set fire to Brandon's body. BETH MURRAY: I assume that the perpetrators attempted
to disfigure or dismantle the skull with a sharp object before they decided to burn it.
NARRATOR: Dr. Murray also confirms that the fire did not char the stumps of tissue where the legs
and arms were chopped off. BETH MURRAY: The entire surface of the torso was completely charred.
But you could see the pink meat on the inside of the cut ends. You could see the unburned bones.
NARRATOR: To Dr. Murray's trained eye, this is another vital clue to what the killers
did to Brandon's body. And in what order. BETH MURRAY: That helped establish the sequence,
that the burning came before the dismemberment. NARRATOR: Dr. Murray believes the killers
made one final effort to hide Brandon's identity-- chopping off his head after the burning.
That's what left behind the burned skull fragments. Now Dr. Murray can offer the police
a solid sequence of events. After being shot and killed, Brandon was brought to the dump site.
First, the killers mutilated his head. Then they set fire to his body. Sometime after that, they returned
and cut off his hands, feet, and what remained of his head. MELINA SMITH: We needed that information when we were
questioning these suspects. And that helped out a great deal in determining who was telling
the truth and who was not. Because we knew what had transpired. NARRATOR: But knowing is not enough.
Police need confessions from these men. And all they have to squeeze them with is Dr. Murray's report.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Coming up, investigators gamble that Dr. Murray's findings will help them close the book on the murder of Brandon Richards.
When "Skeleton Stories" returns. [MUSIC PLAYING] November, 2001. After finding the charred and dismembered body of Brandon
Richards in a local field, detectives are planning to trick the three suspects into turning
on each other by confronting them separately with Dr. Murray's findings. [MUSIC PLAYING]
By closely studying Brandon's corpse, Dr. Murray has figured out exactly what his killers
did to him, and in what order. BETH MURRAY: This is what happened first. This is what happened second.
This is what happened next. And that's what I did in this case. And my ability to sequence those traumatic events
was leverage that law enforcement could use to get these guys to confess. JEFF RIEGERT: We pretty much put our plate out and said,
here's what we've got. Your story is not matching. NARRATOR: Over the next five hours,
the detectives move from suspect to suspect, drawing on details provided by Dr. Murray.
JEFF RIEGERT: That information that she gave us, of the bone fragments, you put that in front of them
and that knocks their story out of the water. MELINA SMITH: So then we know when interviewing the suspects,
who's telling the truth and who isn't. JEFF RIEGERT: But eventually, putting the evidence in front
of their face and saying, what you're telling me is not true, then they break down.
And when they see the evidence, when they see you've got it, when they see that, OK, you've got me,
then honesty starts coming out. BETH MURRAY: I eventually got a phone call from one of the investigators that says they're starting
to turn on one another. NARRATOR: After eight weeks of investigation, police finally obtain what they need--
firsthand confessions. Now Dr. Murray and the investigative team can replay the chain of events that
led directly to Brandon Richards' murder and mutilation. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's October of 2001.
Brandon is a frequent visitor to a shabby duplex where three of his childhood friends run a drug business.
MELINA SMITH: It was quite frequent for him to go there and obtain his supply of drugs,
to go back out on the street and sell. NARRATOR: On October 16th, when Brandon turns his earnings
over to his supplier friends-- [MUSIC PLAYING] --they accuse him of skimming off some
of the profits for himself. The argument quickly turns violent. The three roommates over-power Brandon, tying his hands
and feet with duct tape. As he lies on the kitchen floor, they beat him to show him
they mean business. Then, one of them starts waving a handgun. JEFF RIEGERT: It just escalated to the point
where he was trying scare him with a gun. [MUSIC PLAYING] And then he shot the victim in the chest.
[MUSIC PLAYING] [GUNSHOT] NARRATOR: Brandon dies within seconds, his aorta punctured by the bullet.
The killers leave his body on the floor. JEFF RIEGERT: My suspects tell me that they would actually
walk over him to go make breakfast, for two days, until they finally came to the conclusion,
we need to get rid of it. What are we going to do? MELINA SMITH: How do we get rid of this body?
It wasn't a person anymore. It was a body. NARRATOR: The killers wrap Brandon in a tarp,
load him into a car, and drive to a remote field. [MUFFLED CHATTER] There, they bludgeoned his jaw in hopes
of destroying any dental evidence that could be used in identifying him. They then drench his body in gasoline--
[MUSIC PLAYING] --set it on fire, and leave. JEFF RIEGERT: They come back the next day.
One of them gets out and goes up to the body, and comes running back and says, you can still tell who it is.
They knew. They knew that if they found out who this was, everybody was going to be pointing at them.
They go back and they get additional equipment they need-- trash bags, what they thought they
were going to need to remove the arms, the head, and the legs. MIKE CRAFT: It's barbaric.
I mean, it's not human. What happened in this crime, normal people do not do. [MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Each step took place as Dr. Murray speculated. BETH MURRAY: It's very gratifying
to see that your observations not only made sense to you, but they were accurate.
[MUSIC PLAYING] CASSANDRA TAYLOR: Any time they went to court, I was there, every single time.
It was difficult to hear the things that they did to him. His body laid there for two or three days.
And people walked over his body to buy crack. That was hard for me to hear. MIKE CRAFT: She was at every trial, every hearing.
Even the ones that there was no reason for her to be at. She took off work and she was sitting in the audience.
That was a sister that loved her brother. She didn't always agree with what her brother did,
but she never stopped loving him. [MUSIC PLAYING] CASSANDRA TAYLOR: I would say he had a rough life,
and he got mixed up with the wrong crowd and got mixed up in the drugs. But he was still my mother's son.
He was still my brother. NARRATOR: Two of the suspects plead guilty. The first to tampering with evidence
and gross abuse of a corpse. The second pleads guilty to murder and receives a total sentence of 20 years to life.
The third man is found guilty at trial of tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse.
For detectives and prosecutors, it's a triumph, a victory which they credit in large measure
to Dr. Murray's forensic work. MIKE CRAFT: Beth gives us tools to do our job. And they're critical tools.
And I just can't say enough good things about her passion, her heart, or her ability to do this job.
BETH MURRAY: It came to my understanding that Brandon Richards was a drug dealer.
You know, there might be a tendency on some people's parts to say, oh, well. You know, who cares?
Or even worse, he deserved it. But he was somebody's lost son. [MUSIC PLAYING]

A decomposing corpse reveals crucial clues to a medical examiner. Birdwatchers stumble across a charred, dismembered torso.

This true crime series delves into the case files of the country’s top forensic anthropologists and reveals the secrets trapped deep inside the human body.

Brief Summary

Forensic anthropologist Dr. Turhon Murad investigates Janai Jackson's murder, leading to her husband's confession after uncovering crucial evidence.

Key points

A Grieving Mother's Conviction. A mother believes her daughter's husband is guilty despite lack of evidence.
The Discovery of a Body. Firemen stumble upon a decomposed body while digging a trench.
The Breakthrough in Identification. Dr. Murad uses a unique method to obtain a usable thumbprint.
A Mother's Heartbreak. Sylvia Jackson shares her pain over her daughter's murder and the justice system.
The Styloid Process Discovery. A broken styloid process suggests a violent blow led to Janai's death.
Gruesome Discovery. A couple birdwatching finds charred human remains in the woods.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

How could she have died in the nude beside the road?

Dr. Murad's shocking realization about the victim's condition.

4:35WatchSep 17, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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