09x24 - Northern Exposure

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NARRATOR: There were very few clues

discovered with the woman's body in the Alaskan wilderness.

But the sheet covering her body looked very different

from the bedding sold in department stores.

Was it possible that the fabric could tell a story, one that

could lead police to the woman's k*ller?

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When -year-old Judy Burgin walked into her favorite bar

at the Samovar Inn, in Anchorage, Alaska,

it was apparent that something was terribly wrong.

SHARON ILLSLEY: The bartender, who had known Judy for years,

said that when Judy came in that night, uh,

Judy looked as bad as she'd every seen her.

NARRATOR: Judy came from an affluent and

politically-connected family, and was something

of a free-spirit, working as a cook on a fishing boat.

But Judy told the bartender that she was tired of life

in Alaska, and wanted to move away.

DALLAS MASSIE: Judy was upset, distraught.

At that time, she had a large amount of money,

and a ticket to Hawaii, and was planning to go to Hawaii.

SHARON ILLSLEY: Judy showed her an airline ticket,

and a substantial sum of money, and said

she was going to straighten up her life.

NARRATOR: Later, a man approached Judy at the bar.

The two shared some drinks, and witnesses

said Judy left with the man, and went to his hotel room.

DALLAS MASSIE: Witnesses indicated that Judy had gone

upstairs with that person, allegedly, possibly

to do use dr*gs that day.

NARRATOR: Later, she returned to the bar, said her goodbyes,

and left in a cab.

Two weeks passed, and no one had heard from her,

so Judy's family contacted police.

PEGGY BURGIN: She would call and just check in,

and, hi, mom, how are you doing?

And I knew she was around, and I knew that she didn't have

anything to complain about at the time.

And so, when the calls stopped upcoming,

then I thought something had happened.

NARRATOR: Police interviewed employees and customers

of the Samovar Inn, where Judy was last seen.

In particular, they wanted to interview

the man Judy left with.

But no one at the bar knew who the man was.

He paid cash for is room, did not

register under his real name, and hadn't been in the bar

before or since.

-All avenues were basically slammed

shut, for one reason or another.

We were never able to determine who this person was.

NARRATOR: Judy had been living in Anchorage

with her boyfriend, Carl Brown, a commercial fisherman.

He told Judy's family that she was fed up with Alaska,

and just moved out.

PEGGY BURGIN: He said, she told me she's going to Hawaii.

So, I haven't seen her, don't know anything about her.

So, that was all.

DALLAS MASSIE: He just said their relationship had come

to its end, and she just walked off--

with no explanation for why she would walk off.

NARRATOR: Police checked with the airlines,

and discovered that Judy didn't take a flight to Hawaii,

or anywhere else.

Four months would pass before police and Judy's family

would finally learn where she had gone.

Four months after Judy Burgin's disappearance,

several hikers along Grey's Creek-- about miles north

of Anchorage, Alaska-- saw what appeared

to be a bundle of clothing.

SHARON ILLSLEY: It was wrapped in a sheet,

but they ran over and got their mother.

Their mothers came over and discovered that there was

indeed, what appeared to be a human remains-- mostly

skeletonized remains-- of a human body out in the woods.

NARRATOR: Police immediately sealed off the area.

The badly decomposed body was that of a female,

approximately feet tall, with short, brown hair.

DAVID WALLACE: By re-hydrating her mummified fingers,

and we were able to obtain a fingerprint,

match that fingerprint, and the body that was found

was identified as Judy Burgin.

PEGGY BURGIN: I really was not surprised.

I just had a feeling that it could be her.

I guess it was just a instinct, mother's

instinct, or something.

-Any time a body is found in a manner that Judy was,

it presents a very difficult case.

At this point we have no witnesses,

we have no concessions, we have no m*rder w*apon,

we have no knowledge of how she's there.

NARRATOR: The medical examiner determined

that Judy's death was clearly a homicide.

SHARON ILLSLEY: The skull had been bashed in,

by what he believed to be more than one blow.

And substantial force was used, because the entire side

and front of the skull was caved in.

NARRATOR: The body was found in an extremely isolated location.

There were several fishing camps in the area,

but most were accessible only by plane.

DAVID WALLACE: It was pretty clear

that the body had been k*lled somewhere else,

brought to the scene, and purposely

laid where it was found.

-In this kind of investigation, it's very difficult.

You have no idea who k*lled this person, who

left this person in the wilderness.

And initially, you don't even have any idea

of how long the remains had been in the wilderness.

NARRATOR: Investigators were intrigued

by the sheets that covered Judy's body.

DAVID WALLACE: The sheets seemed to be

kind of ordinary, plain sheets.

But they had some orange stitching

that made it appear that they were commercial,

and not something that you or I might

go to our local department store and buy.

NARRATOR: At first, investigators

assumed the sheets came from the Samovar Inn,

where Judy was last seen.

But they weren't the type used by that hotel.

Large hotels usually have their sheets

washed by outside, commercial laundries.

To keep the sheets separate, each hotel

uses a different color stitching.

For example, one hotel chain might

use blue stitching, another gold, and so on.

Only one hotel chain used sheets with orange stitching.

DAVID WALLACE: We discover that these same sheets that Judy's

body was found in were used at the Sheraton Hotel,

here in Anchorage.

NARRATOR: This tied Judy to the Sheraton Hotel.

But no one at the Anchorage Sheraton recalled seeing her.

So, investigators turned their attention

to another piece of evidence-- a tuft of red carpet fibers

found inside the sheet which covered Judy's body.

DAVID WALLACE: The tuft was red with some other micro colors

kind of blended in with it.

But it's main color was red.

-So, initial investigators were looking at this,

knew immediately when they saw that tuft, that they'd made

a significant find, but didn't know what

they would be able to do with it.

But, this is not a fiber of the sort

that we all carry around on a regular basis.

NARRATOR: Most carpets are made with a single type of fiber

that is the same in terms of size, shape, and color.

But the red carpet fibers with Judy's body

were completely different.

There was no uniformity in the shapes of the fibers,

or how the dye had soaked into them.

DAVID WALLACE: Once you put it under a microscope,

there are several different types of strands,

several different types of colors,

several different types of dyes.

And frankly, the crime lab did not

have the expertise to make the proper analysis.

NARRATOR: Officials in Alaska sent the sample

to forensic microscopist, Skip Palenik who recognized it

as junk fiber, which is used in less than % of all carpet.

SKIP PALENIK: Junk fiber represents a collection

of fibers from a number of different sources.

Some of good quality, some of poor quality,

some experimental fibers.

They are all brought together by chance,

by a fiber broker, who's buying this material

from a number of different sources.

NARRATOR: Investigators now knew Judy Burgin had been

with someone who had a connection

to the local Sheraton Hotel, and someone

who had inexpensive red carpet.

Now all they had to do, was find him.

Shortly after Judy Burgin's body was recovered,

family and friends attended a memorial service in her honor.

PEGGY BURGIN: She was a free spirit.

Judy was barely feet tall, and we

probably put-- less than pounds.

But was uh, very agile, very athletic,

and didn't feel that her size forbidded her

from doing anything she wanted to do.

-Judy Burgin was a person who was dearly

loved by a lot of friends and family members.

She was a talented poet.

She was a fisher person, worked all over the state

on various fishing vessels.

She loved to cook, and her friends

had a lot of great things to say about her.

NARRATOR: On the night Judy disappeared, police

found the witness who saw Judy leave

the Samovar Inn, in a taxi.

But police found no evidence of where she went.

-So we get cab records for all the cab companies in town.

No cab driver remembers Judy Burgin,

or taking somebody to this place.

NARRATOR: But the bartender recalled Judy saying

she was going home to pick up something

before taking a flight to Hawaii.

Home was Carl Brown's place.

Carl and Judy had been living together

for about nine months before her disappearance.

Judy told her family that at times,

Carl Brown was physically abusive.

PEGGY BURGIN: I felt that it was a unhealthy relationship.

As the time went on, and things became evident that she wasn't

happy, then I-- I began to feel there

was something going wrong.

DALLAS MASSIE: Carl Brown was known

to be a drug dealer in the Anchorage

area for a substantial amount of time, for at least ,

years.

He dealt in cocaine and heroin.

NARRATOR: Brown said that Judy moved out of his house,

and that he had no idea where she went.

None of Judy's personal items were in his home.

And investigators noticed that the carpeting in his home

was not the same color as the fibers found with Judy's body.

DALLAS MASSIE: The first thing I noticed when I walked into Mr.

Brown's house, was that he-- his house

was carpeted in shag carpet.

However, it was a different color.

The living room and-- and the dining

room area was a orange shag.

NARRATOR: But police discovered a potentially

expl*sive piece of information.

Several years earlier, Carl Brown

worked at the Sheraton Hotel in Anchorage.

DALLAS MASSIE: That piece of information

is significant because Carl Brown now has access

to the sheets that it-- uh, that matched

the sheets with the victim's body.

NARRATOR: But so did numerous other past

and current employees.

At police headquarters, investigators

decided to ask Brown whether he made

any improvements to his home after Judy left.

-OK. Very good.

Um, you also said you didn't make any changes to your house?

-No.

-OK.

Any type of changes at all?

I mean, did you change windows, floors, stuff like that?

-Uh, I put carpet in, in my bedroom.

-Was-- was it the whole house? Or you said just the--

-No.

Just my bedroom, 'cause it was ripped.

I had a chair and a desk, and that'd slide back and forth,

and it had a big tear in it, so it was threadbare.

So I just had really cheap carpet to begin with.

-OK.

All your place pad in?

-Yeah, 'cause it was raggedy.

I mean it-- I don't know how long it'd been there,

but it was pretty gross.

-Do you remember when that happened, Carl?

When you had that carpet changed?

-Yeah, it was before Judy left, 'cause

she picked out the color.

No, I take that back, no it wasn't.

She picked out the color, but I had to do it after she left.

-OK, after she left? -Right, right.

NARRATOR: But having new bedroom carpet wasn't enough evidence

for the local judge to issue a search warrant.

DALLAS MASSIE: We're looking for something, a lead

that we can follow.

And get enough information to get into his house,

and-- and uh-- and possibly search his house

for any possible evidence that might be in there.

We just can't seem to come up with a-- with a break.

NARRATOR: A year of passed, and it looked

like the m*rder of Judy Burgin might go unsolved.

But Sergeant Massie refused to let that happen.

DALLAS MASSIE: It was asking investigators from Anchorage

to drive by Carl's house to see what kind of activity's

going on there.

NARRATOR: Once a week, local police drove by the house.

And then, a year and a half after Judy's death,

they finally got the break they'd been hoping for.

SHARON ILLSLEY: At one point in time,

it was found that the residence was vacant.

NARRATOR: Brown's house was on the market, which meant police

no longer needed a search warrant to look inside.

Was it possible there was some evidence in the vacant house

which would shed new light on Judy Burgin's m*rder?

When Carl Brown put his house up for sale,

Alaska police were free to conduct a thorough search.

DALLAS MASSIE: We're searching for two things.

We're searching for any blood evidence

that might be in there.

We're also searching for, obviously,

red shag carpet fiber that might-- we might use to match

up with the carpet fiber found with the victim.

NARRATOR: Luminol tests on the bedroom walls and ceiling

revealed no traces of blood.

DAVID WALLACE: Of course, we're highly disappointed

when we don't find any blood that we could somehow matched

to either Judy, Carl, or anybody that

might have been related to the case.

-We-- we know up front that the carpet had been changed,

so obviously we're gonna look underneath the existing carpet.

NARRATOR: And when they did, they

made a startling discovery.

Red carpet fibers, like the ones found with Judy's body.

DALLAS MASSIE: So we pull up the new carpet

that had been placed down the year before.

And lo and behold, along the tack strip around the perimeter

of the room, we find remnants in carpet

tufts of red shag carpet.

I was very excited.

NARRATOR: Apparently, the carpet installer

had not vacuumed the floor before putting

down the new carpet.

DALLAS MASSIE: They were probably a little lazy,

and they just didn't clean up their mess,

and sweep up the old, existing carpet fibers.

NARRATOR: The fibers were sent to the forensics lab

for analysis.

Skip Palenik found seven different types

of synthetic fibers in the sample.

SKIP PALENIK: You see round fibers.

Some round fibers are thicker than other round fibers.

We see seven distinct types of fibers in this case, which

corresponded in every single instance,

to fibers that were found in the other tuft.

NARRATOR: Next, Palenik conducted

what is called a hot-stage analysis.

Synthetic fibers will melt at different temperatures,

usually in the range of to degrees Fahrenheit.

SKIP PALENIK: Any polyester fiber

will melt at a-- at a specific temperature, which

is one of the physical features that

characterizes that particular fiber.

And even two fibers, which appear in always identical,

the different melting points are from different sources.

NARRATOR: When placed on the hot-stage,

the fibers from Judy's body, and those from Carl Brown's

bedroom both melt at the exact same temperature.

SKIP PALENIK: In every case, they

were identical to one another.

Of course, for every corresponding fiber,

there was a corresponding melting

point that was the same.

NARRATOR: Even the dyes were identical.

In both samples, one of the junk fibers

was thicker than the rest.

As a result, the dye did not go all the way through it,

and is evident in both samples.

This is called ring dying, a ring

of dye around the outside of the fiber.

For investigators, there was no doubt that the tufted carpet

found with Judy Burgin had come from Carl Brown's house.

-It was almost overkill, in a way.

We had so many pieces of evidence

that we could use this case, that show that these fibers

were identical in every way that could be measured.

SHARON ILLSLEY: We refer to it as a carpet fingerprint,

because it's essentially the same kind of evidence.

It's very hard to explain away.

NARRATOR: Carl Brown was arrested,

and charged with Judy Burgin's m*rder.

Prosecutors believed that Judy grew

tired of the physical abuse in her relationship

with Carl Brown, and decided to leave for Alaska,

fly to Hawaii, and start a new life.

After she left the Samovar Inn, she

went home to pick up her things.

When Brown learned Judy was leaving,

he responded with v*olence.

-Sorry to tell you this, but I'm leaving.

-What are you talking about?

NARRATOR: The autopsy revealed he

beat her to death with a blunt object.

Then, he wrapped her body in the bedsheet

he had taken from the Sheraton Hotel.

A sheet which contained the signature stitching.

He didn't see the tuft of carpet which clung to the sheet,

with fibers so unique they could only

have come from his bedroom.

Brown dumped Judy's body miles away,

in the Alaskan wilderness.

Interestingly, it was just a short distance

from where he went fishing each year.

Prosecutors believe Brown removed his bedroom carpet

to get rid of the blood evidence left by the m*rder.

SHARON ILLSLEY: I've seen a lot of evidence in my career.

And forensic evidence is something

that you don't have as often as the public thinks,

but when you have a piece of forensic evidence like this,

it is extremely powerful evidence.

NARRATOR: Carl Brown denied k*lling Judy,

and blamed her death on dr*gs.

DAVID WALLACE: One of the defense tactics

was that the victim died of a drug overdose,

and the skull crushing was a result

of a moose stomping on her head.

As a lifelong Alaskan, I have never

heard of such a thing happening, period.

After

NARRATOR: A -week trial, Carl Brown

was convicted of st degree m*rder,

and sentenced to years in prison.

All because of orange stitching on a bedsheet,

and some cheap, red carpet that hadn't

been dyed all the way through.

PEGGY BURGIN: There was no doubt in anyone's mind--

after having that evidence produced-- that it was a-- it

was an actual fact, and they found him guilty.

And they-- they had a reason to find him guilty.

-Essentially Carl Brown had left his fingerprint

on Judy Burgin's remains.

Unbeknownst to him, but fortunately for us

the investigation uncovered it.

-The fiber evidence was the only physical, direct link

from the body, and Carl Brown.

It was the single most important piece of evidence

that the jury heard during his trial.

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