02x08 - Charred Remains

[bunniefuu]

[narrator] Shortly after daybreak in Vancouver, British Columbia,

a fire was set to the contents

of a garbage dumpster. No one saw the arsonist or the fire as it burned for

hours in the deserted parking lot. But there was more than garbage in the bin and

it would take sophisticated science to identify the evidence in the ashes.

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When Milton Diaz walked towards the dumpster to empty some trash, he noticed

that the bin was warm. When he looked inside, he noticed a small charred figure

in the corner so badly burned it was beyond recognition.

- I know something was burned. But what was it? Was it an animal or was a person?

If it was a person, it was too terrible to happen. It was too out of, you know,

what I can conceive that someone would do to another human being.

- [narrator] The charred remains were carefully removed and taken to the morgue

where the gruesome and difficult task of identification would begin.

- Straight away, we knew we wouldn't have fingerprints and we knew we wouldn't have

the normal means to identify a victim because of the condition of the body.

- [narrator] All that remained was the equivalent

of lbs. of charcoal-like material. It was an enormous challenge

to Vancouver's medical examiner, Dr. Laurel Grey.

- Well obviously, we didn't have a whole lot to work with. We had no idea what the

cause of death was, whether it was related to the fire or some other matter.

- [narrator] During the autopsy, Dr. Grey could not find any recognizable skin,

but did find a small patch of hair where the head pressed against the floor

of the dumpster.

It appeared to be reddish blonde in color, but the intense heat destroyed the hair

follicles which could have been used for DNA testing. X-rays of the victim's

skull revealed several pieces of metal, and a fractured skull, evidence of

g*nsh*t wounds. b*llet fragments recovered from brain came from a .-caliber w*apon,

but they were so badly damaged they could not be used for ballistic identification.

Police now knew that it was a homicide case.

- The g*nshots had caused obvious, very severe damage to the brain. They had

fractured many of the facial bones. There was a lot of blood within the facial bones

and the sinuses.

- [narrator] The blood in the sinus cavities meant

there was active circulation when the b*ll*ts

entered the victim's brain, indicating that the heart was beating when

the sh*ts were fired. But the intense heat altered the victim's blood chemistry,

making it impossible for any kind of DNA analysis. An examination of the victim's

lungs showed no signs of smoke inhalation, which meant that the victim was dead

before the fire. The internal organs revealed that the victim was an adult

female. To help with the identification, investigators called in Dr. Larry Chivers.

He's a forensic odontologist who was asked to study

the dental remains of the victim.

- This was a victim of an inferno, an absolute, unqualified inferno.

There was virtually nothing left.

- [narrator] But when Dr. Chivers looked closer,

he was surprised to see beneath the charred surface

that the jawbone and teeth were intact.

- Because they're surrounded by barriers, there's saliva in the mouth, the gasses in

the stomach expand and push the tongue out and the outer muscles of the face become

quite leathery. And so the one thing that survives above all else is the teeth.

- [narrator] By studying the growth patterns

of the teeth and skull, Dr. Chivers estimated

that the victim was between and years of age. And when Dr. Chivers looked

closely at the x-rays, he discovered an important clue. The victim had an

extremely rare dental condition called mesiodens. It's an extra tooth which never

grew into place on top of the two front teeth inside the gum. The x-rays

also showed a lot of high-quality dental work.

- When you start talking hours past the finding of the body and you don't have an

idea who the suspect is, that stage, we didn't know who the victim was. You start

thinking, "Well, it's gonna be a long haul. It's gonna be a difficult case."

- [narrator] Greg Middleton covered the search

for the identity of the victim and her k*ller

for the Provence Newspaper in Vancouver.

- They told me at the time that they thought there was no hope of solving it.

That there was, they had so little to go on

that they didn't think that they were gonna get anywhere.

- [narrator] Police now had a horrific m*rder

but still couldn't identify the victim or her m*rder*r.

When the police reviewed all recent missing persons reports, one in

particular caught their eye.

It was for a -year old woman named Lynn Breeden. She had blonde hair and was

last seen on the day before the charred remains were discovered. When the dental

records for Lynn Breeden were compared to those from the charred remains, doctors

noticed the same extra tooth above the gum line on top of the front teeth and the

dental work matched the burned victim as well. Dr. Chivers was convinced

that Lynn Breeden was the person burned in the fire.

- There was absolutely no doubt in my mind the minute I saw the mesiodens there and

then obviously the other dental work and they all added up to the fact that this

was the same individual, or the same unfortunate victim.

- [narrator] Lynn Breeden was a part-time model who once posed for Playboy magazine.

She worked here, at a men's club called No. Orange, as a cocktail waitress.

- A lot of her friends were able to tell us about her background. And unfortunately

I think she'd gone the cocaine route in the city of Vancouver and I think she was

well-involved in the use of cocaine.

- [narrator] Lynn Breeden was last seen late Friday night

walking along Robson Street in Vancouver. Police learned that Breeden's

former boyfriend lived on Robson Street in this apartment building.

His name was Chris Peycook and he was well-known to police.

- He was a local drug trafficker, was certainly one of the last persons

to be seen with her.

- [narrator] During police questioning, Peycook admitted he was

with Lynn Breeden for most of the night on the Friday in question.

He said she stopped by his apartment. They had a few drinks,

talked for a while, and ended up having sex. Afterwards they went

to Celebrities Night Club and later to a small after hours club.

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Peycook said Lynn was behaving badly, flirting with other men. And after

an entire evening of it, he became angry.

- [Peycook] We're leaving, come on.

- I...I don't want to-- - Back off!

- [Lynn] I don't wanna leave! - No, we're leaving.

I get you high and you're going home with these guys? I don't think so.

I said back off! We're leaving.

- I'm not leaving this club. I'm havin' a great time!

- You're such trash. - I'm having a good time.

- No. - Fine.

- [narrator] He left the club without her and said that was the last he saw of her.

- In that case, it was a dead end. Yes, he looked really good to begin with, but when

we confirmed, his alibi and his story, yes, it turned out to be a dead end as far

as that, he was concerned.

- [narrator] But detectives received an interesting tip from the manager

of Lynn Breeden's bank. A woman had posed as Lynn Breeden attempting to withdraw

all of the funds from her account.

- I got up to the counter and I asked to help her and she signed a withdrawal slip

for like $,, basically what Lynn had in her account, and it wasn't Lynn.

- [narrator] Security photographs showed the impostor looking out the window,

possibly at an accomplice standing outside but glare from the sun hid the identity

of whomever was outside. The woman left the bank quickly

when her identity was questioned.

- We went to our fraud squad and said, "Do you know this person?" And we did all the

investigative things in case this was a chronic fraud suspect and somehow, someway

we could come up with a name through that avenue of investigation.

That didn't give us an answer.

- [narrator] Police launched an all-out effort

to find the woman who posed as Lynn Breeden.

It was their only lead to the m*rder*r.

The local newspaper published a photograph

of the woman who posed as Lynn Breeden at the bank and asked anyone who knew her to

come forward. Within hours, an anonymous tip identified the woman in the photograph

as Tanya Forrester.

- Given that information, we went to her, told her what we was dealing with, and

asked her for cooperation and why she was in there taking the...attempting to take

the money from the victim's account.

- [narrator] Tanya Forrester told police that she was given Lynn Breeden's wallet

and identification by a man named Chris Cruz who told her it was stolen.

Together they agreed to clean out her bank account before it was reported missing.

- She was unaware, at the time, that was the victim of a homicide's bank account.

- [narrator] Chris Cruz was an unusual character.

He was a model and actor, a student at the University of British Columbia

who was planning to attend medical school.

Chris Cruz also went by the name of Tony Devins, the stage name he used as a

stripper and professional escort. He reportedly had a healthy appetite for

cocaine. Cruz told police that he had been out on the night of Breeden's m*rder.

First, at the Love Affair Night Club and later at the same after hours club that

Lynn Breeden and her boyfriend attended. Cruz said he only stayed for minutes

before leaving in a taxi cab to see a girlfriend. The next day he said a friend

offered him the contents of Lynn Breeden's purse, telling Cruz it had been stolen.

- We asked him, "Can we search your car?" He said yes we could. We asked him what

kind of a car it was and he gave his description, gray Oldsmobile. We asked

him where it was and he said, "It was not running very well. It's out at my

grandmother's place in Surrey."

- [narrator] But Cruz didn't know that he had been under police surveillance.

They knew he had driven his car to police headquarters for questioning

and parked it right down the street.

- Initially, you think, "Why is he lying?" So the car must be playing a part

um, in the lie.

So, we locked that up and that was secured overnight.

- [narrator] When photographic experts reprocessed the bank photograph

to remove the window glare from the sun, police could see the individual

standing outside when Tanya Forrester

attempted to withdraw Lynn Breeden's money. It was Chris Cruz. And

when forensic detectives inspected Cruz's car, they found blood on the outside of

the car and even more on the inside.

- Inside the trunk, I think he was basically living out of the vehicle for

time. It was his own clothing but there was evidence there that you could only

hope for in any homicide case.

- [narrator] Police also found a .-caliber r*fle,

a five-gallon gasoline container in the trunk,

and the suit jacket Cruz was seen wearing at the after hours club. Inside

the pocket, police found a Playboy bunny pendant stained with blood. It was similar

to one Lynn Breeden wore in this photograph. Many items inside the car were

covered with blood. The spare tire, clothing, a photo album, and the tire iron

found in the backseat. In spite of all the evidence, police had a serious problem.

They had no way of knowing to whom the blood in the car belonged.

- Our difficulty in this case is what was is it we were going to compare it to.

The normal things that we would use from an autopsy and the toxicology exhibits

were so badly damaged that the DNA exhibit

from those toxicology exhibits was not possible.

- [narrator] If the police couldn't figure out a way to match the blood

inside Cruz's car to Lynn Breeden, it was entirely possible

that Chris Cruz would walk free.

Police had a lot of circumstantial evidence linking Chris Cruz

to Lynn Breeden. They found blood in his car, on his clothes,

and they found hair and blood on a tire iron found in the backseat.

- It was just incredible how much evidence we had and it would be an absolute shame

if the suspect had been successful, so successful in destroying the body that

none of that evidence could be used in order to tie him to the crime.

- [narrator] The fire not only incinerated Lynn Breeden's body but also any chance

of a DNA profile. Her skin, blood, saliva, and hair follicles, all possible areas

for DNA testing had all been destroyed. Dr. David Suite is a forensic odontologist

who had been following the Breeden m*rder

in the newspapers. He suggested that scientists

try something which had never been attempted before, that they try to harvest

the genetic material from inside Breeden's teeth from the tooth pulp in order to

generate a DNA profile.

- They ran with the idea, released some evidence to me in the forms of some bones

and teeth. I was particularly interested in the impacted wisdom teeth or the teeth

that was still embedded in the jawbone, both the upper jawbone and the lower

jawbone. It was my sense that these teeth were more protected from the fire than the

other tissues and the other teeth because they were deeper in the core of the body

away for the potential heat source.

- [narrator] The pulp was sent to the forensics lab along

with samples of blood collected from Chris Cruz's car.

- I never thought for a second that tooth pulp can be used or any part of the tooth

can be used for DNA testing.

- [narrator] Blood cells were extracted from the tooth pulp and treated

with a special chemical cocktail

and the DNA floated free, a sticky bundle of complex

molecules. Next, the DNA was cut into smaller pieces, marked with a radioactive

dye and placed in separate lanes on electrophoretic gel where it was subjected

to an electric field. The separated fragments are then visualized on x-ray

film called an autoradiogram, which resembles a bar code.

When scientists compared the blood DNA found in Cruz's trunk, on his jacket, and

on the photo album, it matched the DNA profile of Lynn Breeden.

- It was very clear. The match showed that the DNA typing profile from the various

exhibits submitted to me matched that of the DNA typing profile

from the tooth pulp from the victim.

- [narrator] Based on the forensic evidence,

Chris Cruz was charged with the m*rder of Lynn Breeden.

At the After Hours Night Club, Lynn Breeden and her boyfriend, Chris

Peycook got into an argument when she flirted with some other men she met there.

- Back off!

- [narrator] Following the argument, Peycook left the club alone.

Witnesses said Lynn was looking for cocaine that night

and at some point made the acquaintance of Chris Cruz.

There was some evidence that the two already knew one another.

Both were models, frequented the same night spots,

and reportedly shared an appetite for cocaine.

Shortly after daybreak, they left the After Hours Club together

and some sort of disagreement took place, possibly over payment for some

dr*gs Cruz may have provided.

As they drove home that morning, police believe their argument escalated.

Cruz stopped the car and the disagreement turned violent.

- My money. My money, now!

- Aah!

- [narrator] In a rage, Cruz grabbed a tire iron from the trunk

and struck Breeden on the head and face.

[Lynn screaming]

As Lynn Breeden lay near death with a fractured skull, Cruz grabbed his

.-caliber r*fle and shot her three times in the head.

Cruz placed the body into the trunk

and drove to the deserted parking lot where he dumped the body inside a

garbage bin and emptied a five-gallon container of gasoline

he kept in the trunk.

No one saw the fire as it burned for hours shortly after daybreak

on July th, .

- According to the fire department, the fire was probably one gallon of gas away

from a total cremation. And looking at the victim at the time of the discovery, you

would have to believe that it was close to a full cremation.

- [narrator] And without the scientific evidence,

the remains might have gone unidentified and the blood in the car unmatched.

- Absolutely, it made the case. It did the ultimate link up to all this evidence

that we were so happy to find to our victim of the m*rder.

- [narrator] And the case broke new ground for forensic scientists since it was

the first time that DNA evidence from a tooth was used in a criminal case.

Chris Cruz was convicted of second degree m*rder in the death of Lynn Breeden

and sentenced to life in prison.

- Lynn Breeden was a very beautiful girl and a lot of people acknowledged that. In

fact, there were a lot of areas where she could have gone and things that she could

have done as a result of it. Unfortunately, she got caught up in a

little bit of this cocaine problem and the result was that it brought her to the

circumstances that led to her death. Very tragic. Chris Cruz himself, a good-looking

man, a lot going for him. He had attended the university here in town and he was

doing what he could that way, so it was another spoiled life, really

by him being involved in what had taken place here.

Again, as a result of the drug involvement.

If you take away the drug, I don't believe any of this would have happened.