06x02 - Missing Pearl

[bunniefuu]

Narrator: during the fall and winter of ,

Police searched all over new england

For a woman who had disappeared from her home in maine.

Police were not sure whether she had run away

Or had met with foul play.

One year later,

Investigators found a clue--

A clue that had been right under their noses

From the very beginning.

Narrator: portland, maine:

The largest city in the state,

And at one time, its capital.

It's a deep-water port on casco bay,

An inlet to the atlantic ocean...

Which explains its role as a major fishing center.

Pearl smith worked as a fish packer.

Every day,

She boxed crates of fish for shipment around the country.

It was hard work,

With little pay.

After work,

She was a frequent customer at a bar near the docks.

She was a regular there,

As was bill bruns,

A man years her senior.

Bruns was a trucker.

His job was hauling fish from maine to montreal.

The two had a lot in common.

They liked to drink,

And they were unlucky in love.

Pearl had been divorced times,

And bill's third marriage had just ended.

They fell in love

And were married in the summer of .

Their relationship appeared to be close.

They met for lunch each day at this restaurant on the docks.

But on august , ,

Pearl's daughter called police to report her mother missing.

She said pearl failed to show up for a family gathering

She had been looking forward to.

Woman: my mother was very loving and very caring--

Everybody's best friend.

Um...

Gosh, like I said,

She'd give her shirt off her back for anybody,

You know, and she was always there when you needed her.

She never let you down.

Narrator: south portland detective linda barker

Was assigned to the investigation.

At the bruns' home, she noticed that none of pearl's clothing,

Jewelry, and personal items were missing.

And her prized possession--

A black cadillac with vanity plates reading

"Pearl b,"

Was still in the garage.

Pearl really loved her cadillac,

And she very rarely went anywhere without it.

And that was one of the things that elaine was very concerned about--

That her mother left but left her cadillac behind.

The car being left behind in the garage

Said to me that my mother never left the home.

If my mother had left the home, she would have been in the car.

So my daughter lives out of town and I have a few friends...

Narrator: bill bruns told police that he and pearl had an argument,

And afterwards he left for chinese food.

When he returned home,

Pearl was gone.

But he said he wasn't worried,

Since she would occasionally leave with no explanation.

Barker: it was not unusual for pearl to leave home

For , , , even days at a time.

She would go and stay with friends in old orchard or with family members.

So, yeah, it had happened in the past, and it was not unusual.

Narrator: but with her car still in the garage,

How did she leave?

Police called the airlines, bus, and taxi services,

And there was no evidence that pearl bruns had left town.

Bill bruns told police that his wife probably ran off with another man,

And the police chief agreed.

Woodward: chief schwartz did not believe

That my mother was a missing person.

He believed that she was a drunk

Who may have possibly ran off with another man.

He knew my stepfather bill bruns personally,

And he believed that bill was not the type of person

That would do anything to hurt anybody.

And he had made such a statement

To christine young, the reporter, at one time.

He said, "ah, she was an alcoholic.

"She'd been married or times.

She probably ran off with one of her ex-husbands."

I said, "what about her current husband? Could he be involved?"

He goes, "nah, I've known him for years. Couldn't be him."

Narrator: days passed...

And then weeks,

And pearl bruns' family feared

They would never see her again.

Narrator: in the port city of portland, maine,

Police continued their search for -year-old pearl bruns.

Oh, yeah. How about the phone bill?

Prosecutors were suspicious of pearl's husband,

Since he hadn't reported her missing.

Man: mr. Bruns' behavior in this case was peculiar.

If you came home one day and found your wife was gone

Without any explanation, what would you do?

What would any of us do?

Narrator: bruns did nothing.

It was pearl's daughter from a previous marriage

Who called police.

I knew that my mother would have been in contact with me,

So there was no doubt in my mind

That my mother was no longer alive.

My mother was the type of person that would have gone to great lengths

Just to be able to contact me or my daughter.

Narrator: pearl's suitcase was found partially packed on her bed,

With high-velocity impact blood spatter on it

Consistent with a striking blow to the head.

The blood that was on the suitcase...

There was a high-velocity blood spatter,

Low velocity, but also smears of blood on the suitcase,

Indicating that the blood came

Either from cast-off of some kind

Or possibly during a struggle,

Somebody struck with a w*apon of some kind.

Narrator: in the days before her disappearance,

Pearl bruns spent an increasing amount of time

In her favorite bar.

She told friends that she and bill were fighting,

Mostly about money,

And that she was depressed.

[Telephone rings]

May I help you?

Narrator: once news of pearl's disappearance hit the local media,

Tips poured into the police.

One of pearl's friends said

He thought he saw her walking along the docks late at night.

But none of the tips panned out.

The case stalled...

Until weeks later,

When a hiker on the appalachian trail

Miles away in new hampshire

Found pearl bruns' purse.

Young: but the pocketbook was found

Right near where the body of another m*rder*d woman

Had been found

A year or two before that

In the exact same area.

And that woman's m*rder to this day has never been solved.

All of my mother's identification and everything

Was in the purse.

They described jewelry to me

And stuff that was in the purse that was definitely my mother's.

Narrator: a search of the area uncovered nothing more,

But police now listed the case as a possible homicide.

I was thinking that it might be possible

That my mother's body was somewhere out there also.

It was laying there in open view with her personal belongings--

Driver's license, jewelry, and money inside the pocketbook,

With blood spatter on the outside of the pocketbook.

Somebody wanted us to find that pocketbook.

Narrator: meanwhile, detective barker went back to the bruns home

To question bill bruns further.

When she entered the bruns home,

She noticed something new.

I remarked to bill bruns,

"Gee, bill, you've got new carpet."

And he denied that.

He said, "no, no, this is the same carpet."

And I said, "well, you've had the carpet cleaned."

And he said, "no, I didn't have it cleaned."

He said, "I just sprinkled it with this rug refreshener

And vacuumed it."

And I was really astounded, because it was sparkling clean.

Narrator: neighbors said they saw bill bruns struggling

To get a carpet steam cleaner into his house.

Why would bruns lie to police about shampooing his carpet?

Pearl's daughter confronted her stepfather

With her suspicions.

I sat down with bill one day at the kitchen table,

And I spoke with him, and I told him,

"You know, bill, you're the last one that saw my mother.

You're the only one that would know what happened to her."

And he just kind of sat there and looked at me

And never said a word.

Narrator: police used cadaver dogs

To search the bruns home.

The dogs are trained with a chemical formula

Called "pseudo corpse"

Which mimics the smell of decaying flesh.

Trained dogs will lie down

When they detect the smell of a body.

When dr. Edward david led his dog ray through the home,

The dog headed immediately to the basement.

David: I could tell by the dog's attitude--

By that I mean the position of the tail, the ears--

That the dog was scenting.

And...the dog then circled

Around the crawl space several times.

And then, near the entrance to the crawl space,

The dog lay down.

Narrator: detectives began to excavate the area

Identified by the dog,

Confident that the mystery of pearl bruns' disappearance

Had finally been solved.

But to their astonishment,

They found nothing.

Narrator: after months of searching for pearl bruns,

The only clue to her disappearance

Was her purse, found along a hiking trail

Miles away in new hampshire.

A cadaver dog identified the scent of human remains

In pearl bruns' basement,

But the excavation turned up nothing...

A serious setback for investigators.

Wright: the investigation was a frustrating investigation

Because it was going on for so long.

At some point during these kinds of investigations,

You do reach a conclusion just based on common sense.

Things aren't right.

This lady's dead,

And we've got to prove what happened

And who did it.

Narrator: there was speculation

That pearl's body may have been dumped at sea...

Or somewhere along the highway bill bruns traveled every week on his trucking route.

Young: bill drove refrigerated trucks.

He hauled fish from maine to canada.

In some of our minds,

We thought, "how perfect."

What a perfect way to get rid of a body.

You've got a refrigerated truck.

Just stick it in, you haul it with the fish.

There's plenty of blood anyway.

You've got to remember, too, that with bill's connections

To fishermen on the dock and so on,

That mrs. Bruns could have been taken out to sea

And dumped overboard in somebody's fishing boat.

Narrator: bill bruns continued to maintain

That his wife had run off with an ex-husband,

But one of pearl's friends revealed information

That contradicted that.

She said...

"There's one thing I want you to know," she said.

"If anything should ever happen to me, you tell them that bill did it."

And I said, "pearl, what are you talking about?"

Then I just forgot about it.

Narrator: so police got another warrant to search the bruns' house.

This time, they used a chemical reagent,

Luminol.

When luminol is sprayed on an area

Where blood has been cleaned up with water and detergents,

It glows,

Or fluoresces.

When it was applied inside the bruns' home,

The luminol told a horrifying tale.

Cast-off blood spatter was evident

On the walls and floor.

Bloody footprints led towards the bathroom.

Areas of the rug and linoleum floor

Showed where large amounts of blood had been spilled

And later cleaned up.

On the steps leading down to the basement,

More blood.

Each step indicated that a bloody object

Had been dragged downstairs.

At the bottom of the stairs,

Some feet across,

Was a large bloodstain.

Most alarming was a bloodstain

Found in a - by -foot dirt crawl space.

On the dirt floor

Was the blood pattern of a human body

The same height as pearl bruns.

It was clear that large amounts of blood

Had been spilled and cleaned inside the bruns home,

Contradicting bill's story that his wife had simply left.

You know you're involved.

Narrator: detective harriman confronted bill bruns

With the luminol evidence.

And we asked bill, "what would you think, bill?

"Who would you suspect would do, or cause,

Foul play to your wife?"

He said, "I would suspect the husband."

You've been sitting here, lying...

Narrator: bill bruns continued to maintain his innocence,

But when asked to take a lie detector test, he refused.

Police were not sure what to do next.

They had already excavated the basement floor once

And had come up empty-handed.

For the next months, the investigation stalled

Until police learned of a new forensic tool--

One they hoped would lead them to pearl bruns' body.

Narrator: despite separate searches

And a prior excavation of the bruns' basement,

Police were still convinced

That the basement held the key to pearl bruns' disappearance.

We couldn't give up on the fact that there may be evidence down there,

But to dig this entire basement by hand was virtually impossible.

Narrator: detective harriman then learned about

A new forensic tool called ground-penetrating radar.

He called harding ese,

A local environmental engineering firm

Who had the equipment.

Months after pearl bruns' disappearance,

The bruns' basement was searched with the radar.

Woodward: I'm afraid that they're going to find something,

But I'm also hoping that they will,

So that, you know, it'll be over with.

So we'll have some answers.

Narrator: the technology is normally used

To locate large metal objects buried in open fields.

The g.p.r. Unit sends high-frequency radio waves

Into the ground.

When the signals hit an obstruction--

A buried storage t*nk, for instance--

The signal is reflected back up to the unit.

But looking for a body created problems.

A human body, obviously made up of primarily water, fatty tissues,

Flesh, bone, uh...

In my experiences,

Especially with this particular survey,

Is that the human body apparently did not, uh,

Conduct radio wave energy very well.

Narrator: in the bruns' basement,

The radar detected a consistent reflection

Just feet below the surface.

A preliminary excavation revealed

Rust-colored oxidized sand,

But there was another area that showed no reflection.

Calkin: there was an area of whiteout on the record.

There was nothing to see,

Meaning that something absorbed the energy.

What it was...

We don't know until we dig it up and get a look at it.

Narrator: as bill bruns returned home from work,

Investigators began to excavate his basement once more.

We'd dig just a few shovelfuls,

And it's at that point in time

That I strike the plastic bag

Buried approximately two feet below the surface,

Which turned out to be the head,

Encased in a plastic bag.

Narrator: it was a badly decomposed human body,

Wrapped in two large garbage bags

And tied with rope and tape.

The individual was wearing a wristwatch

With pearl's name engraved on the face

And had pink shoelaces

Like the ones pearl was last seen wearing.

The stench of decomposition was overwhelming,

And police walked upstairs to confront bill bruns

For the last time.

Harriman: bill was sitting upstairs in his home

In the kitchen area.

He was eating a plate of spaghetti for supper

At around : in the evening.

We walked through the door, advised bill,

"You're under arrest, bill, for the m*rder of your wife."

And the detective walks up to him and says,

"Bill, come on. We're going."

And bill says, "why?"

He says, "you're under arrest, bill."

And bruns says, "for what?"

And he says, "m*rder, bill."

Bill says, "m*rder? That's a pretty strong word."

And pat goes, "bill, that's a pretty strong smell."

When they unearthed the body,

You know, you could smell the stench for miles.

And he's upstairs in the house eating spaghetti,

And when they come up to arrest him,

He asked if he could finish his dinner before they took him away.

So it just kind of shows, you know, what a sick individual he was.

Narrator: bill bruns was arrested and charged with m*rder.

X-rays showed fractures to the left side of pearl's face

But the skin was not torn,

An indication that pearl was struck with a fist.

What do you think you're doing?

Getting out of here.

You're not going anyplace.

Narrator: prosecutors believe that on august ,

Bill and pearl argued about money,

And the fight became physical.

He struck her times,

With enough force that the cast-off blood spatter

Landed on pearl's suitcase,

On the wall,

And on the floor.

As she lay on the floor,

Pearl bled to death.

Bill then packed the body into plastic bags

And carried her to the basement.

The luminol revealed the path clearly

And shows where her body lay

As he dug the grave.

The cadaver dog was correct about the body in the basement,

And the location he identified

Was only a few feet away from the actual burial spot.

Police believe that in an attempt to throw off the investigation,

Bill bruns took pearl's purse and left it miles away

On a hiking trail in new hampshire.

Bill bruns pleaded guilty to manslaughter

And was sentenced to years in prison.

Without developments in forensic science

Such as luminol, ground-penetrating radar--

Which were used to great effect in this case--

I think it is highly likely that bill bruns would have gotten away with m*rder.

Narrator: ironically,

During the autopsy on pearl bruns' body,

The pathologist found that she had terminal cancer

And would have lived only another months.

Woodward: if he had just been patient,

My mother would have died of natural causes anyway,

And he wouldn't be sitting in jail now.

I just see it as my mother getting the last laugh on him,

Because, like I said,

If he had just been patient, she would have died on her own.