Trail of a Killer | Forensic Files | S14 E15 | FULL EPISODE | Forensic Files

[Music] up next a woman is murdered in broad daylight this is the monster jumping out of the
bushes and grabbing you and killing you cell phone records and search dogs provided some leaves
they were able to track a scent trail to a residential area that was very close to the canal trail
but if not for some crafty police work and a chance encounter the entire investigation could have gone up in
smoke we have an individual that's still out talking about who can do this again
i don't know how much scarier can get during her lunch break in concord california
kathy loreck went for a walk as she often did along a jogging trail near her office
that was something that she just kind of did on her own as her own kind of a meditation throughout the day
i know that sometimes she would use that opportunity to uh you know make some personal phone calls
kathy was an executive secretary married with children on this day she spoke with her husband
who was in europe on a business trip her husband reported that suddenly she made a loud uh a groan or a gasp
and the phone went dead kathy's husband knew immediately something was wrong and called her co-workers and asked them
to look for her they couldn't find her they came back and they called the police and the police
got there within minutes about 20 minutes later a police officer saw what looked like
streaks of blood the blood was like somebody taken a paint brush with red paint and simply drawn lines on
the ground like you see somebody just dripping paint and drying with a paintbrush on a
concrete the officer followed the blood trail down an embankment to a heavily wooded area where he found
kathy lauric barely alive in a pool of blood he recognized that with the way her
clothes were arranged and disheveled that she'd most likely been sexually assaulted
and that she needed immediate medical attention kathy was rushed to the hospital but she
died on route kathy had several major lacerations on her head what we believe to be the weapon was
found um near kathy's body the weapon was a fence post was approximately two to two and a half feet
long from what i leave [Music] detective finney came onto the phone and told me that
my mom had died next thing i remember i kind of lost control and i think i yelled at uh
detective finney for a little bit although kathy was using her cell phone when the
attack occurred investigators couldn't find it anywhere in the area near her body
when police checked her cell phone records they discovered someone had used her cell phone after
her murder one of the numbers called when a person told us that a subject juan sanchez had called them
investigators tracked 23-year-old juan sanchez to his residence and there they found kathy's cell phone
in his possession but sanchez claimed he found the phone on the jogging path he explained to us that he was riding
his bike on the canal trail and while he was riding his bike he found the cell phone
he decided to use it for his personal use sanchez showed police exactly where he found the
phone remarkably it was just 50 feet from kathy's body there was only one individual in our
minds who could have had that cell phone and that would have been the individual
who attacked kathy but sanchez denied he was the killer and denied seeing the blood on the trail
near the cell phone investigators knew right away this would not be a routine murder investigation
this was shocking we're talking about a woman close to her office going for a walk on a trail frequented
by many people in broad daylight and have this kind of thing happen to her it would be like being struck by
lightning family friends and even police were stunned by the sheer audacity of kathy lauric's
murder i was shocked that something like that happened because i've never seen any sign of anything
like this going on you know i still want to walk you know i don't want to be intimidated to stop and
change my routine for this attack to occur on a beautiful sunny day with a lot of people who realistically
could have been around the incident at the time it occurred it's pretty brazen and you know pretty bold on the part of
the suspect an encampment of several dozen homeless people just a quarter mile from the trail meant
a random attack was a real possibility there'd been concerns about transients and homeless people on that
trail previously and a lot of folks felt it just wasn't safe to go out on that trail
but that wasn't the only possibility there are numerous access and exit points to this canal trail
either by the public roadways by individuals using adjacent fields and access gaze
the murder weapon was a broken piece of metal fencing this perpetrator actually broke off a
piece of metal fence post and it appears that they waited for her to return from her walk and then dragged
her off the trail there was blood but no prince on the murder weapon kathy's autopsy confirmed that she'd
been sexually assaulted the dna profile from kathy loryx rape kit didn't match any in
the statewide dna database of known criminal offenders it didn't match juan sanchez the man who
found kathy's cell phone either he appeared to be very truthful to us he didn't have any trouble answering our
questions and he volunteered to take a voice stress analyzer test which he took and and passed it was very
disheartening to find out that the cell phone didn't lead to any place in particular
in a search for suspects police rounded up everyone who was on or near the trail
at the time of the murder some were homeless people others were joggers and bikers
about a half dozen of them told a story that was remarkably consistent they had seen a male standing at the
fence line looking into the canal and talking about the little fishes in the canal
and drawing this the attention of people that were walking by and this person seemed like they were
out of place he was a white male maybe six feet tall maybe early 30s a kind of heavy set not muscular but
maybe a little bit overweight brownish blonde hair and disheveled some of the people described him as possibly
transcender homeless two of these potential witnesses were sent to police sketch artist
gil zamora i asked him the question if you saw him again would you recognize him they say yes
then i i know that i can draw the sketch with each witness zamora tried to induce
a state of deep relaxation and then had them describe what they saw i asked them to kind of tell me what
they were doing right before they met the person and then kind of go through the entire
process of the meeting or the event and then up until police get involved eventually these two drawings emerged
from witnesses who had never spoken with each other except for the sunglasses the sketches
were virtually identical they were two independent witnesses and they did not know each other i think
these witnesses both saw the same person then police got a huge break investigators using k-9 teams
identified a potential lead they were able to track a scent trail to a residential area in concord
that was very close to the the canal trail a background check revealed a man living in this neighborhood had a
criminal history he also looked similar to the composite drawings his name was mark fisher he was known to
be violent violent to his relatives violent to police officers and to other public
officials witnesses in the park were shown a photo lineup which included fisher's picture at least
three of the witnesses were positive that the photo of mr fisher was the subject
they had seen on the trail but when investigators went to fisher's house they got some shocking news the police
were met by a relative who told them you haven't heard my brother mr fischer just killed himself jumped off the
golden gate bridge committed suicide mark fisher killed himself less than 24 hours
after kathy's murder this person now kills himself a day after this type of crime
there are no coincidences like that you know it just doesn't happen in my experience
it was our belief that after the assault that he felt remorse that he felt guilt
and he just couldn't live with what he had done a search of fisher's room seemed to confirm his role in the murder
we found a pair of sunglasses similar to the type of sunglasses seen in the sketch they seized some
clothing that appeared to have blood stains on it and noticed that a newspaper in the house was open to an article
about the murder and a picture of the suspect's sketch was there as well the circumstantial evidence clearly
pointed to mark fisher as the killer but would the forensic evidence agree [Music]
police were certain mark fisher was the man who sexually assaulted and murdered kathy lorick along the jogging
trail police sniffer dogs tracked the killer's trail right to his front door several eyewitnesses chose his picture
from a photo lineup and it appeared he committed suicide just as police were about to arrest him
after fischer's suicide scientists took a dna sample in the morgue and compared fischer's dna profile to
the biological evidence from kathy lorich's rape test kit shockingly it didn't match
we strongly believe that mark fisher was responsible for kathy's death all of a sudden he's not what that means
to us is that we have an individual that's still out walking about who can do this again
that this individual is free it basically put us back to ground zero and we had to start over
again with a killer still on the loose investigators instituted a dna dragnet of all the homeless men
in the area who had a violent criminal history we began contacting everybody that used
the trail all the transients that we knew a total of 42 dna profiles were tested
against the killer's dna this was actually in fact the most reference samples that i had ever tested that the
laboratory had ever tested but there were no hits then nine days after the murder investigators
got a potential break a mountain biker called police to say he recognized the man in the composite
sketch he'd seen him on the jogging trail on the day of cathy's murder hey dude he said the man asked him for a
cigarette and they had a short chat although he didn't know his name mountain biker smoked one cigarette and
this other man who he was talking to smoke two cigarettes investigators asked the mountain biker
to show them where this happened it was within maybe 200 yards of the crime scene
and he pointed right to the ground and said those are the cigarettes that we were smoking
but nine days had passed and analysts were skeptical about getting dna certainly if it's been
sitting outside if it's been exposed to uv light or rain or mud or dirt the longer it's
been sitting out in the elements the harder it would be to develop a dna profile
but the cyclist did provide an important piece of information he said the man told him he worked as a
telemarketer in nearby walnut creek a background check revealed there was only one telemarketing firm in walnut
creek the manager immediately told me that you're looking for robert frazier he'd gotten into some trouble he had
committed some robberies he had spent time in prison he had committed some very violent assaults in
prison and out on the street he was a drifter may have spent time in the chicago area in indiana as well
as well as contra costa county in california frazier's co-worker said he looked like
the composite sketch however they said he'd quit his job around the time of kathleen lorich's
murder police visited frasier's last known address and found his ex-girlfriend she said frazier left
town and she hadn't seen him since i think he left town but frazier's girlfriend had a parting
gift for police frazier's toothbrush they hoped it would be the forensic answer they were looking
for [Music] police now had a suspect in the sexual assault and murder of kathy lorick
robert frazier but he'd left the area shortly after the murder and they had no idea where he'd gone
investigators had cigarette butts that they thought were used by frasier while on the jogging trail the day of
the murder but they'd been exposed to the elements for nine days before police recovered them i really
felt that if that could happen to this victim that could happen to anyone so i felt that i really wanted to do my
best in working hard on this case to help catch this individual fortunately for the scientists it hadn't
rained on the cigarette butts and they were able to generate a dna profile and compare it
to kathy's rape test kit the person who had smoked the cigarettes was kathy's killer
scientists then compared the dna on the cigarettes to the dna on frasier's toothbrush
unfortunately the toothbrush actually contained dna from at least three individuals male and
female dna once i was able to actually see that within that mixture fraser's dna was on
there you know of course i was excited perhaps most important scientists also discovered
frasier's dna from skin cells on the bloody fence post found near kathy's body finding robert's
dna on that fence post which was the murder weapon was very important it showed that robert
was the one responsible for kathy's death the dna evidence established a credible
eyewitness who saw the murderer in person on the day of the crime at the location of the
crime scene but where was robert frazier well you know murder investigations typically don't proceed in a linear
fashion police subsequently entered mr frazier's name into the national criminal offender
database known as ncic and discovered that he was being held on a criminal charge in
the state of indiana he was actually arrested for some sort of traffic infraction
and it was learned that he was on probation and that his probation officer was looking for him california police
immediately flew to indiana to question frazier he seemed to be very cooperative not
nervous at all like you would expect somebody in that circumstance he talked about being
religious of some sort in in some sort of way frazier admitted he heard about kathy lauric's murder on
television you've ever seen her picture on tv yeah what does she look like you remember
but frazier slipped revealing a piece of information only the killer would know she had long hair it looked like it was
brown [Music] i don't know how did you know she had freckles because i could see it on the tv it's
got a 43 inch screen i'm wearing makeup you can see it on the picture yeah yes you can as you can
it wasn't until investigators told frazier they found his dna on the murder weapon
and on kathy lorich's rape test kit that frazier changed his story the only thing robert was able to come
up with is well maybe he was down there in the tree line area where kathy's body
was found previously and that he had urinated in the area and that would be the only way
prosecutors believe kathy was walking along the jogging path talking to her husband on her cell phone
when frazier first saw her prosecutors think frazier chose kathy as his victim because
he saw no one nearby in either direction then he struck her with a piece of a metal fence post
[Music] he quickly dragged her from the jogging trail down the ravine where he sexually
assaulted her afterwards he struck her several more times in the head and left her for dead
thanks to the incredible accuracy of the eyewitness accounts a superb composite drawing and
the chance meeting with the cyclist frazier left plenty of forensic evidence behind
i still don't understand why it happened there really hasn't been a why he never showed any remorse
and that that's a real sense of frustration and anger that you know that this person just didn't
care about another human being and you wonder how anybody could be that way robert frazier was tried and convicted
of first degree murder and rape he was sentenced to death in my opinion he's the lowest person in
that you can be he is a he doesn't deserve to breathe another breath in this life he doesn't
he took so much away from us and he needs to pay i think robert ward fraser for a lack of
a better term is a monster i don't know how he became a monster and frankly i it doesn't matter to me how he became a
monster and the dna is what solved this crime if this crime had happened 30 years ago robert frazier would have
gotten away with it

In 2003, Kathy Lorick was murdered on a Concord, California jogging trail in the middle of the day while talking to her husband on her mobile phone.

Brief Summary

Kathy Lauric was murdered in Concord, California; Robert Frazier was identified and convicted as her killer.

Key points

Kathy Lauric's Murder. A woman is murdered in broad daylight, shocking the community.
Suspect's Suicide. Mark Fisher kills himself just as police were about to arrest him.
DNA Evidence Leads to Arrest. Robert Frazier's DNA links him to the murder, but he has fled.
Trial and Conviction. Robert Frazier is tried and convicted of first-degree murder and rape.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I still want to walk, you know?

A witness reflects on the attack's impact.

5:07WatchMar 13, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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