11x38 - Blanket of Evidence

[bunniefuu]

Two women, both
m*rder*d in the same state

park, Indiana police feared it
was the work of a serial k*ller

until the forensic
evidence pointed them

into two different directions.

It was just after midnight when
a police officer in Franklin,

Indiana noticed an abandoned
car parked at a stop sign.

The lights were on, but
the engine was turned off.

The car keys and a wallet
were on the front seat.

Generally, if people are going

to leave their vehicles,
they secure them,

or they'll take those
personal items with them.

He was very concerned
that something

did not appear right
with that scene.

The car belonged
to 18-year-old Kelly Eckart.

There were no signs of her
anywhere near the area.

- I went to bed and to sleep.

And all of a sudden, about


I got a phone call.

And it was Franklin
Police telling me

they found Kelly's car.

Kelly wasn't in it.

Naturally, I knew
something was wrong,

because she wouldn't
leave her car.

Mrs.
Sutton told police

that Kelly worked at
the local Walmart,

and had been most
likely on her way home.

- I just thought
the car broke down,

and she walked
somewhere to get help.

I never, in my wildest
dreams, could have thought

or would've thought
that anything

had happened to her bad.

Police noticed a fresh
scratch on the back bumper,

and wondered if someone bumped
the car intentionally as a way

to get Kelly out of the vehicle.

- We're not leaving
any stone unturned.

We hope she's alive.

We hope she just walked
away and she'll come home.

But as law
enforcement officials,

we have to look at worst
case scenarios, too.

For four days,
police and volunteers

searched the area.

And the family held
a candlelight vigil

praying for Kelly's safe return.

- We're stunned.

We're shocked.

We're anxious, but
we're also hopeful.

Then came the news
no parent ever wants to hear.

Two women walking
their dogs found

Kelly's body in a
ravine 40 miles away.

The shoes were not there.

Her jewelry was not there.

The positioning of the body
itself, the way her arms,

and the way her
torso was positioned,

it all indicated she had
just been dumped there.

- I just needed something
to bring me closer.

And so they brought me
the tassel out of her car

from graduation.

And I carried it with me for
a really long time after that.

But I had something of hers
closer, and I needed that.

The forensic pathologist

concluded Kelly Eckart had
been strangled to death.

- There were three objects
tied around her neck.

There was a metal chain,
which was gold colored.

There was a white shoestring
off an athletic-type shoe.

And there was the strap off the
top of a pair of bib overalls.

The autopsy found
evidence Kelly had been

sexually assaulted
and also shot.

- There was a wound on the
right side of the forehead that

looked exactly like a g*nsh*t
wound to the entrance.

But the b*llet
was made of wax, not lead.

The only thing I'm aware of that

would be close would
be a stun g*n, which

is used at the slaughterhouse.

It's use to strike
animals in the head

and stun them before
they're slaughtered.

We think that
he bumped the back of her car

and was able to get her
to stop and get out.

At some point he
immobilized her in some way.

We think that maybe
that's when he shot her.

Or maybe took her at gunpoint
and got her into his car.

On Kelly's
clothing investigators

found white fibers, as well as
green trilobal or triangular

carpet fibers, suggesting she
had been wrapped in something

white and been inside a
car with olive carpet.

Would this information
lead them to the k*ller?

Kelly Eckart was a member of
the National Honor Society

and won an academic
scholarship to college.

She seemed destined
for a bright future.

Her life was just taken.

She was too good of a person
for all this to happen to.

I've investigated
a lot of murders over my career.

This one was very
touching and very heart

wrenching in that it was just a
young girl who's just starting

her life, starting
her college education,

and getting ready to have
a full and a happy life.

And for no good reason, it
was taken away from her.

That hurts.

Kelly's body was found
in a ravine four days she went

missing and investigators wanted
to know when she was k*lled.

Dr. Neal Haskell, a
forensic entomologist,

found fly larvae on the body
from the green bottle blowfly,

a species that lands on a body
almost immediately after death.

Their rates of growth
are fast and consistent,

and provided a vital clue in
determining time of death.

- It acts as a time clock.

By knowing the growth
and development,

we can use it to
calculate backwards.

Dr. Haskell
believed that Kelly

was k*lled on the
night she disappeared.

Since the blowflies
are not active at night,

she could have been k*lled
at any time after darkness

throughout the 26th, into
the 27th, until sunrise.

But she definitely had
to be dead after sunrise.

Police interviewed everyone

who saw Kelly Eckart on
the night she went missing.

According to her employer,
Kelly finished her shift

at the Walmart store a 10:00 PM.

From there, she
met her boyfriend,

Anthony, and his mother.

The three of them shopped
together until 11:15.

And then they each
left in separate cars.

The last individual

to see Kelly Eckart
alive is her boyfriend

at the time, Anthony Evans.

We also know that if something
has happened to her, that it's

more likely that
it will be someone

connected to her than not.

He was a suspect.

And they looked at
him for quite a while

and checking everything.

But Anthony said
he didn't see her after that,

and claimed he had an alibi.

That he went to a
local convenience store

on his way home.

- He produced a receipt.

We were able to
go back and track

that information through
witness interviews.

We were not able to have
someone say, yes, specifically I

saw him, but he was able
to produce the receipts.

With no solid clues,
police turned to the public

for help, and they
released the information

that her sneakers were missing.

Her tennis shoes were leather.

I believe they were 7 and


We had actually
obtained an exact copy of them

from a store in Ohio.

We put that out to
the media in order

to see if anyone might
know the whereabouts

or location of those shoes.

Three weeks later,
a tipster called saying,

there was a pair of sneakers in
the bathroom of the Atterbury

Wildlife Preserve,
about 20 miles

from where Kelly's
body was found.

They were consistent with what

Kelly's mother had told us.

They were the same size.

Also, missing from one of the
tennis shoes was a shoelace.

Since the k*ller
used a shoelace as a ligature,

investigators were convinced.

These were Kelly's sneakers.

So they scoured the
wildlife preserve

looking for additional clues.

We figured
that somewhere out in there,

there would be a crime scene.

And was that the m*rder scene?

We didn't know.

The park was
more than 33,000 acres,

and they didn't find anything.

One week later,
investigators were

told that there had
been another m*rder.

- I did receive a phone call from
a state police detective who

informed me that there was a
body of a young woman that had

been found down in the Atterbury
Fish and Wildlife area, which

is the same are we
found Kelly's shoes.

The victim,


had also been
strangled to death.

The cases where
frighteningly similar.

They were both young females.

They both died of
ligature strangulation.

Investigators
could find no connection

between the victims except
for the way they died.

They now had to consider a
chilling prospect, that they

were searching for
a serial k*ller.

Police in Indiana now
had two unsolved murders,

Kelly Eckart and Sharon Myers.

Originally, it looked as
if the two were related.

- They're both within
a 20,25 mile radius.

And you just normally don't have
two young women being k*lled

in that small of a
radius in Indiana

without maybe being connected.

But apparently they weren't.

Sharon Myers co-worker,
Jason Hubbell

was implicated in her
m*rder due to an argument

the two had at work.

Hubbell was later convicted.

There was no evidence
Hubbell had anything

to do with Kelly
Eckart's m*rder.

- Jason Hubbell's DNA did not
match that of the suspect DNA.

So police, once again,
turn to the public for help

in the Kelly Eckart
investigation.

Amazingly, they
got over 800 leads.

Most were dead
ends, but not all.

We had received
a lead concerning a man that

was in a pickup truck with
a camper on it that had been

sitting in the Walmart parking
lot for extended periods

of time during the same time
frame that Kelly went missing.

Kelly Eckart was last seen alive

in the parking lot of
this same Walmart store.

And witnesses said, the man
was there almost every night.

In fact, they said there might
be a connection to Kelly.

They had
seen him walking up to you

a maroon colored car
and walking back.

In fact, they thought he was
going to break into the car.

And it turned out that Kelly's
car was about that color.

And so we were wondering
if it was Kelly's car

that he was actually
looking into.

Investigators set up
surveillance in the parking lot

and tracked the man down.

His name was Jeff Wagner,
a 37-year-old construction

worker in the
middle of a divorce.

Police asked him why he spent
so much time at the Walmart.

- Mr. Wagner said, to watch
women and to meet women.

He would go there quite often,
a couple, three times a week.

Wagner insisted he knew nothing

about Kelly Eckart's
disappearance

and willingly
provided a DNA sample.

- Jeffrey Wagner did
not match the samples

we recovered from Kelly's body.

Then police got another tip

saying that a man named
Scott Overstreet had

information about
Kelly Eckart's m*rder.

- We, in fact, then went
to find Scott Overstreet

and brought him to the
Franklin Police Department.

Scott Overstreet
had no criminal record,

and, at first, claimed
he knew nothing

about Kelly Eckart's m*rder.

But during police questioning,
he changed his story.

Scott said that his brother,
Michael, asked him to drive

his van to the Atterbury
Wildlife Preserve.

While driving there, he
saw an unconscious woman

under a blanket in the
back of Michael's van.

He had told his brother,

don't hurt this young woman.

And his brother replied to
him, don't worry about it.

I'll just get her
lost down here.

Scott said, he
left his brother there

and never saw the woman again.

So led police to the
Wildlife Preserve.

And there they found evidence
that the woman in Michael

Overstreet's van was,
indeed, Kelly Eckart.

Kelly's pager was
one of the first items found

there, and then
we started finding

her other jewelry items.

And once we found those, we
knew that that was the scene.

Michael Overstreet
was a factory worker married

with five children with
no prior criminal history.

He had a short enlistment

in the United States Navy.

Was in for about a
month and was discharged

for psychological problems.

During police questioning,

Michael denied everything.

He did not present an alibi.

He just simply said
he didn't do it.

He said, I don't
know who did it,

but I had nothing to do with it.

In Michael Overstreet's home,

police found a .22 caliber
r*fle and several shells.

These were unusual.

The b*llet portion
was made of wax.

The lead portion of the b*llet

had been pulled from the
casing and wax put into those,

plugging it up, and thus
in making a blank shell.

This was
consistent with the wound

on Kelly's Eckart's forehead.

Investigators also
found the white blanket

in Overstreet's home
and took tape samples

of the green carpet in his van.

The green fibers from Michael's
van were made of nylon

and were trilobal in shape.

They were visually
consistent with the fibers

from Kelly Eckart's clothing.

The white fibers
from the blanket

were also similar to the
ones on Kelly's clothing.

By examining the
refractive index,

trace evidence
expert Damon Lettich

measured the amount of light
that passes through the fibers.

And in doing so, he
found even more proof

that Michael Overstreet
was the k*ller.

I concluded
then, after I had completed

my examination, that the fibers
that I had collected from Kelly

Eckart's overalls could
have originated, then,

from the comforter and
the fibers that were taken

from carpet in Overstreet's van.

- When we found out
there was a fiber match,

we were very excited about it.

It linked this
k*ller to this victim

in another way that strengthened
all of the circumstantial case.

Finally, investigators
measured the height

of the bumper on
Michael Overstreet's van

and compared it to the
scratch on Kelly's bumper.

- The damage to the
Kelly Eckart's vehicle

was consistent with
what the bumper

height could be on the van.

Based on the forensic evidence,

prosecutors believe
they know what happened

to 18-year-old Kelly Eckart
on the night of her m*rder.

According to friends,
Michael Overstreet

shopped in the
Walmart store where

Kelly Eckart worked
as a cashier.

On the night of the
m*rder, prosecutors

believe he followed
Kelly home after work.

And the evidence suggests he
bumped the back of Kelly's car,

which prompted her to stop
to inspect the damage.

And that's when
Overstreet fired a wax

b*llet from his
.22 caliber r*fle.

It didn't k*ll her, but
knocked her unconscious.

Michael put Kelly into his
van, then called his brother

asking him to drive his
van to the game preserve.

Once there, Michael walked
Kelly into the woods,

then assaulted her, and
strangled her to death.

For reasons that are unclear,
Overstreet tossed her shoes

in a bathroom at
the game preserve,

which we later found by police.

Days later, police believe
Michael returned to the scene

to move Kelly's body to
a more isolated location.

- We think that he went
back, picked up her body,

and took her out to Brown County
and dumped her over the ravine.

Michael Overstreet
left behind forensic evidence,

however, much of it too
small for the naked eye.

- Forensics were absolutely
critical to this investigation.

It helped us paint a picture
for the jury of exactly

what happened to
Kelly Eckart the night

she was abducted,
r*ped, and m*rder*d.

For prosecutors,
most of their questions

had been answered,
only one remained.

Was is it possible
that Scott Overstreet

was more involved than
he was willing to admit?

Investigators took DNA
samples from both brothers,

and compared them to genetic
material on the victim.

The results pointed to
Michael Overstreet, and not

his brother.

- The chance that somebody
other than Michael Overstreet

contributing a DNA, after
combining all the statistics

from all the tests that we'd
done, was one in four trillion.

Scott Overstreet
was offered immunity in return

for his testimony.

After a five week trial,
Michael Overstreet

was convicted of Kelly's
m*rder and sentenced to death.

We were happy
because we'd done our jobs.

We were happy because
a dangerous criminal

was going to be off the streets.

And we were happy that we'd
gotten justice for Kelly.

- I
- think about the fact

that I'll never see her
walk down the aisle.

I'll never watch
her have children.

Every time I see one of her
friends get married, it hurts.

It's just not fair
that I don't get that.

He took that away from me.

Solid police
work generated the leads.

Family members provided
useful information.

And forensic evidence
cemented the case

in yet another senseless crime.

- As far as forensics, I didn't
know a whole lot about it

before.

They taught us along the way.

We had a lot of good
people work this case that

explained everything
to us along the way.

And they explained it in a
language we could understand,

because we weren't
scientists or whatever.

- It amazes me what we're able
to do now that we couldn't do


couldn't do 20 years ago.

I think that as far as
making our society safer,

we live in a good time as far
as the ability to prove cases.