09x05 - News at 11

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NARRATOR: People on television and in movies

attract attention everywhere they go.

But not all of the attention is welcome.

Tragically, a television reporter in Michigan

was k*lled outside her home after she

received numerous threatening letters.

A document examiner, criminal profiler, and the police dog

all found evidence pointing to the same suspect.

But the most persuasive evidence came from the dog.

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NARRATOR: Diane Newton King found everything

she was looking for in Battle Creek, Michigan.

-We must do all in our power to support our men and women now

fighting in the Middle East, knowing--

NARRATOR: She was a news reporter

for the local television station, had a nice home,

was married, and had two beautiful children.

LOWELL CAUFFIEL: Diane Newton King was the kind of woman

that when she walked into a room,

eyes turned to look at her.

Not only because of the way she looked

with her attractive Native American looks,

but she was type of woman who always had a smile on her face,

was very animated, and people's eyes

were just naturally drawn toward her.

-Three and a half years in a Japanese prisoner of w*r camp--

NARRATOR: Diane had a reputation as

a tough, aggressive reporter.

NANCY GWYNNE: She would push.

I mean, to get a story, she would push.

And sometimes, maybe, she'd push hard.

NARRATOR: Although Diane called the viewer's attention,

it wasn't always in the way she wanted.

She started receiving harassing phone calls

and letters from an obsessed fan.

LOWELL CAUFFIEL: It was a man who identified himself

as a person who want to get an industry

and wanted to go to lunch with her.

Wanted to meet her.

And he began pestering her, sometimes

calling as much as once a day.

NARRATOR: Station executives hired an additional security

guard and screened all of Diane's calls.

Diane's husband Brad, a former policeman,

took precautions of his own.

LOWELL CAUFFIEL: They put in security lights.

a*t*matic lights that would come on when

someone would come into the yard.

The sister gave them a doberman pinscher

that was used as a watchdog.

NARRATOR: But the harassment continued,

including this letter sent to her home.

The words created by letters cut from magazines

said, you should have gone to lunch with me.

NANCY GWYNNE: That's when things began to get very scary,

is when they found the first letter in her mailbox.

Because before, no one knew where she lived.

NARRATOR: Diane gave the letter to local police.

DAVID MINZEY: I have never found one case where a stranger cut

letters out and put it on sheet of paper.

You see on TV.

You see it in the movies.

But you don't see that in real life.

NARRATOR: A few weeks later, someone broke into the King's

home while the family was away, but nothing was stolen.

These bizarre incidents culminated

in tragedy one Saturday afternoon in .

Diane's husband Brad came home and found Diane lying

the driveway, dead of an apparent g*nsh*t

wound to the chest.

Their two children were still inside the car,

alive, but frightened.

The police were concerned that they

may have been partially responsible.

LOWELL CAUFFIEL: One of the detectives

called that night to the m*rder scene,

his first reaction was, oh my god, we've screwed up.

He was worried that the letter had languished

on his desk for a couple months, and they hadn't really

done any serious investigation on it.

NARRATOR: There were several clues in that letter,

but not the kind of police expected.

Diane King's m*rder was front page news

in the small town of Battle Creek.

Investigators hoped to find some clues during the autopsy,

and it revealed something telling.

Diane King had been shot not once,

but twice with a . caliber r*fle.

STEPHEN COHLE: The angle of the shot to the chest

was slightly downward.

That is, as it passed from front to back,

it passed slightly downward, indicating that the w*apon

was slightly above her when fired.

NARRATOR: The second shot followed

a completely different trajectory.

STEPHEN COHLE: The second one was most unusual.

This wound entered just above the pubic bone

and passed very sharply upward.

That is, it passed through some of the intestines,

through the left lung, and I recovered

that b*llet next to the left collarbone.

NARRATOR: Apparently, the k*ller fired once from above

and then he moved closer and lower before he fired again.

STEPHEN COHLE: He or she would have to be either kneeling

or perhaps prone on the ground, holding the w*apon essentially

parallel, or almost parallel to the ground.

NARRATOR: At the crime scene, investigators

identified the possible location of the sh**t.

In the hayloft of the barn next to the driveway

was a single . caliber shell casing.

JIM STADTFELD: It kind of sent goosebumps

on my back to know that we were that close, perhaps,

to whoever had committed this crime.

I mean, we were standing right in the same place

that he had stood probably within the hour.

NARRATOR: With the police personnel helping to recreate

the crime, investigators used a laser

to confirm this was the sn*per's nest.

ROBERT CILWA: We knew the angle of the trajectory in the body

was from the autopsy.

And we tried to determine if that was consistent with having

been shot from the loft of the barn.

And by directing the laser beam from the loft

to where the victim stood, we were

able to say that that angle was consistent.

NARRATOR: Next, Michigan State trooper Gary Lisle

and his tracking dog Travis tried

to pick up the K*llers scent.

GARY LISLE: Shell casing of any w*apon ejects

to the right when it's fired.

So I moved to the left side of the shell casing.

And Travis indicated that he had a track at that point,

and we started from that point.

NARRATOR: Dogs can track someone by his scent, which is unique.

A combination of dead skin cells that fall, plus perspiration.

KEN LICKLIDER: The adrenaline flows.

Their heart pumps faster.

They sweat. They get excited.

It's a whole different odor than a person that's, say, confused,

or a person that's lost.

NARRATOR: Travis followed the scent from the sn*per's nest

in the barn, across a small foot bridge, over a creek,

and then took a sharp left turn.

GARY LISLE: Travis brought the track up to here.

And this is where Travis got real excited.

NARRATOR: Here, they found the exposed end of a . caliber

Remington scoremaster r*fle that

had been jammed into the mud.

In the water nearby were seven spent shell cartridges.

JIM STADTFELD: Everyone was pretty excited

because they knew that probably was the m*rder w*apon.

Because there'd be no other reason for anyone else

to stick something like that into a creek

bed at that particular time.

NARRATOR: At the crime lab, ballistic experts test

fired the r*fle, giving them it's fingerprint, a unique mark

on the bottom of each shell created

by the r*fle's firing pin.

ROBERT CILWA: The fired cartridge case

that was recovered from the loft of the barn and the seven

cartridge cases from the creek were identified as all having

been extracted by the firearm in question.

NARRATOR: But it was impossible to match

the b*ll*ts to the r*fle.

ROBERT CILWA: And the reason for that

was the condition of the b*ll*ts.

They were damaged from impacting with the target,

the body in this case.

And it made it difficult to make any positive determination.

NARRATOR: Back at the crime scene,

Travis wasn't yet finished with his investigation.

After finding the r*fle and the shell casings,

he jumped the stream and picked up

the k*ller's scent once again.

GARY LISLE: It's just amazing, what the dog's sensibility is.

And you just wonder how in the world

they can do this, and find things that they find.

NARRATOR: Travis followed the scent into the woods,

out into the street, then surprisingly, back

to the crime scene.

If Travis was correct, the k*ller

was one of the bystanders watching

as police conducted their investigation.

Shortly after Diane King's funeral,

her mother gave police an important piece

of information about the m*rder.

Something Brad King failed to mention.

LOWELL CAUFFIEL: The original plan

was that Diane and was going to leave her two children

with her mother, and then come back

to be with Brad that weekend so the two of them

had some time together alone.

But on February , and apparently because one

of the children wasn't feeling too well,

Diane decided to take the kids with her

and make the two hour trip back to Marshall, Michigan.

DAVID MINZEY: We have a victim who gets out of her car.

We don't have any evidence that would suggest

that she was afraid of anything.

She did not take any kind of defensive action.

And we have an offender who not only is

comfortable at the crime scene, he's

also comfortable walking up to the victim,

and sh**ting her again.

NARRATOR: Brad King was a part time college professor teaching

criminology, and he didn't have a solid alibi.

Brad told investigators he was out

walking in the woods behind his home

and showed investigators where he'd been.

But Travis, the police dog, identified this same area

as the k*ller's get away route.

GERALD WOODS: He showed that he would have to have seen anybody

come his way and run down the track where the dog took.

And he would have seen anybody commit

that crime coming from the barn.

And of course, that was never brought up.

NARRATOR: Brad denied owning a . caliber r*fle.

However, in his home were . caliber b*ll*ts similar,

but not identical, to the brand used in the m*rder.

There was also a cleaning rod for a . caliber r*fle.

JON SAHLI: We had the two cleaning ladies come forward,

who claimed to have seen a similar r*fle on the bar

of the basement of a townhouse that the Kings rented

here in the city of Battle Creek.

-I can recall seeing it every time we was there.

It was a . r*fle.

NARRATOR: Police found another inconsistency

in the case of the attempted burglary of the King's home

a few weeks before the m*rder.

DAVID MINZEY: As everybody knows,

who watches any kind of television show,

that if you're breaking in to a house,

the glass should be on the inside.

In this case, the glass was on the outside.

So whoever broke it had to be inside at the time

that the window was broken.

NARRATOR: Next, investigators turn their attention

to the threatening letter mailed to Diane's home.

Statistically, only % of all threatening letters

have cut out pieces.

DAVID MINZEY: One the most telling aspects of this crime.

And that was one where the letters were cut out

of a magazine and pasted onto a blank sheet of paper.

I have, in my career, never seen a letter

like that where it wasn't somebody

emotionally close to the victim.

NARRATOR: A perpetrator uses cut out

letters when the victim would be able to identify

his handwriting.

Unfortunately, by the time the letter was sent to the FBI

for analysis, and there was no hope

of finding any fingerprints.

-The anonymous note had been processed

by the originating agency with a powder.

And in my opinion, that's not the correct process to use.

And it's very difficult, once it's been processed

with the powder, to do any other chemical

process on the document.

-I had the office of Brad King at Western Michigan University

searched with a search warrant and items seized.

I wanted scissors, razor blades, tape, paste, anything paper,

anything that we might be able to link to forensic science

to Bradford King.

We were unable to do that.

NARRATOR: In terms of motive, police

found evidence of spousal abuse, sexual affairs, and Diane's

overall dissatisfaction with her husband's lifestyle.

NANCY GWYNNE: She came in one morning, and she was crying,

and she had bruises.

She showed me the bruises.

And this was right around Christmas time.

And she said that her and Brad had been in a fight.

GERALD WOODS: Brad's a very different individual.

I think he can have people like him real quick,

and also have them turned off real quick, just by his mood.

NARRATOR: And friends say Diane wanted

Brad to get a full time job.

LOWELL CAUFFIEL: Well, Brad had the perfect set up.

He was working part time as an instructor

at Western Michigan University.

But I think she was pushing that issue so much that he feared

that he was not going to be able to continue

this lifestyle that he had at the University.

DAVID MINZEY: His wife was responsible for taking care

of the kids and getting them money.

And I think she was angry at him because he

wasn't carrying his load.

-She was known to order him around and to yell at him.

And I think it just reached a crisis point with him.

And he lashed out at her in this very passive aggressive manner,

by murdering her.

NARRATOR: Brad's alleged sexual affairs

were with students from the college where he taught.

LOWELL CAUFFIEL: He was not faithful to his wife.

He had an affair with a student in one of his classes.

He had an affair with another woman

that he had met in Battle Creek.

He was known to be trying to procure women, girlfriends,

sometimes at the fraternity house they used to hang out at,

with younger fraternity members.

Was not a picture of fidelity by any stretch of imagination.

NARRATOR: One year after his wife's death,

Bradford King was arrested and charged with m*rder.

LOWELL CAUFFIEL: The prosecutor and investors

in this case were worried that because the suspect was

a former police officer and a criminal injustice instructor

at a major university, was going to spring something on them.

That was playing some kind of mind game with them.

Kind of a forensic cat and mouse game.

NARRATOR: And sure enough, of a new piece of evidence

surfaced threatening prosecutor's case.

Just as Bradford King was about to go on trial for the m*rder

of his wife Diane, prosecutors were dealt a serious setback.

A man moving into the King's neighborhood

said he found a Remington scoremaster r*fle in his attic.

It was virtually identical to the alleged m*rder w*apon.

The second r*fle was sent to the forensic lab for testing.

LOWELL CAUFFIEL: The ballistic tests on the second g*n

showed that the shell casing found in the loft

could not have possibly come from the g*n, the second g*n

that was accumulated by police.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe Brad planted this r*fle

in a vacant home nearby to create

reasonable doubt in the jury's mind.

And that it was Brad who made the threatening calls,

sent the threatening letter, and staged the burglary,

making the mistake of breaking the window

from the inside rather than the outside.

On of the day of the m*rder, Diane

planned to take the children to their grandparents'

house to spend the night.

While she was gone, Brad test fired his r*fle

to align the sight and carefully collected

the empty shell casings.

Later, when Diane came home, Brad

was waiting for in the loft.

His second shot at close range after he left the barn.

A clear sign of hatred and anger.

Then Brad realized the children were in the car,

not knowing one of them was sick.

Since he couldn't leave his small children

in the cold for very long, he needed to change plans.

So he quickly disposed of the r*fle near the creek,

threw the empty shells in the water,

then went back to the house to call police.

But Brad left one shell casing behind in the loft.

And this shell casing tied his r*fle to the m*rder.

And he was unaware that a police dog would track his scent

from the sn*per's nest, to the creek, into the woods,

then full circle back to his house.

LOWELL CAUFFIEL: I think he had that foreknowledge that this

was sort of a small town police operation.

And being the criminal injustice-- criminal justice

instructor, and the type of individual

he was, that I felt that he thought

that he could out wit them.

NARRATOR: Many believe the children foiled

his plans to establish a solid alibi.

DAVID MINZEY: I don't believe he anticipated

the children would be there.

I think it's likely that he would have gone someplace else

and had somebody else find his wife.

That would give him an alibi.

NARRATOR: Diane told friends shortly before her death

that she suspected Brad was behind the threatening calls

and letters.

NANCY GWYNNE: And she said, I just think it's Brad.

And she said, I don't know what I'm going to do yet.

NARRATOR: The defense presented only seven witnesses,

arguing that the case against Brad was circumstantial.

-No one will get one the stand and say,

Brad King had a g*n that day.

Brad King held a g*n that day.

He pulled a trigger that day.

Nobody.

JON SAHLI: I was confident in my own mind

that Brad King was guilty.

I just didn't know if I could convince people of that.

NARRATOR: The jury felt the forensic evidence was just as

revealing, if not more so, than any eye witness.

JUROR: We the jury, find Bradford King, count one,

guilty of first degree premeditated m*rder.

NARRATOR: Brad King was sentenced to life in prison

without parole.

ROBERT CILWA: When I'm looking at evidence,

firearms evidence or other types of evidence,

and I can make an identification,

a positive identification that is

helpful to the investigation, it's

a good feeling when that can be done.

JON SAHLI: All of the forensic science

fit together and pointed and in the direction of Brad King

being the m*rder*r of his wife.

JIM STADTFELD: You may assume or may suspect

that a particular person was involved,

but without those scientists to tie them together for you,

you have no case.

KEN LICKLIDER: I don't think we touch what a dog's nose can do.

Every day I see him do things that would just-- you just

stand back and say, how could they?

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