14x01 - Purebread m*rder

[bunniefuu]

Up next, a young woman is

m*rder*d after years
of domestic abuse.

He's b*at her
before, he's sh*t at her.

But the ex-boyfriend
isn't the only suspect.

People will
report the crime just

to steer suspicion
away from them.

It's a crime
where things aren't always

what they seem.

There were hamburger buns thrown

all over the bathroom floor.

Even as a
youngster, Christina Sanoubane

had dreams of working
in the news business.

Christina
just want to be a journalist.

She said, mom, I cannot
be a doctor for you,

or mom, I cannot be
a lawyer for you.

But her plans were stalled

by an unexpected pregnancy in
her senior year in high school.

- She'd made some bad choices
with the people she associated

with it, and the kinds of
things she did for recreation,

including a fair amount
of drug use, it appeared.

Christina dropped out
of high school, had the baby,

and moved in with Jacob Hadley,
the father of her child.

Unfortunately, that didn't
appear to work out either.

Jacob
regularly knocked her around.

She was seen with bruises,
and was very open about it.

Somebody would ask her why she,
why, where she got that bruise

and she'd say,
oh, Jacob b*at me.

No matter
what, how he treat her,

she just cannot be
apart from Jacob.

I don't know why.

I ask her, can you leave him?

No, mom.
Um, I can't.

I love him very much.

In 1999, Jacob
sh*t Christina in the face

with a pellet g*n and spent
three days behind bars.

- She actually had a
diary where she described

some of her struggles and her
desire to start out fresh,

and to make a good life
for her and her young son.

He criticizes me.

He puts me down and
physically abuses me.

After three years,
I'm just starting

to realize that I was
the only one in love.

Finally, Christina
and the baby moved out

into a duplex apartment
a few miles away.

Four days after Christina
moved, one of her friends

stopped by to see
how she was doing.

He rang the bell, but
there was no answer.

The door was locked.

When he looked through
a screened window,

he saw Christina's two-year-old
son, alone and crying.

- Be he thought he heard the
child say, "Mommy's dead".

And the prompted
him into action.

He removed the screen,
climbed inside, and found

Christina semi-clothed,
face-down,

in a bathtub full of water.

He rushed outside and asked the
next door neighbor to call 911.

Christina was
pronounced dead at the scene.

- The child possibly witnessed
his own mother's m*rder

and that's, that's
horrifying to me.

Investigators found evidence

that the initial att*ck
took place in the kitchen.

The victim's sandals

were found squarely in
the middle of the kitchen.

It was almost as though she
was struck with such force,

that it knocked her
right out of her sandals.

- Our crime scene
investigators found

a metal collar that could
have belonged on a frying pan

handle.

She was hit with such force

that it knocked her teeth out.

Christina had been
stabbed to death with a Kn*fe,

but no Kn*fe was
found at the scene.

At first, I, I got mad at God.

Why he let her die this way?

Why you take her away
from me this way?

To investigators, it was

clear the k*ller had
tried to hide his tracks.

- Well, looked like
the person that

k*lled her had tried to
wash away some evidence.

While cleaning up, however, he

tracked the bloody footprints
all over the bathroom

floor, into the
kitchen, and back.

- It was a curious thing why
he, why he was barefoot.

I, I mean, we
just really weren't sure.

And there was something else

extremely unusual
in the bathroom.

There were hamburger

been thrown all over
the bathroom floor.

It looked like a bag
of hamburger buns

had just been opened
and tossed around.

But they
couldn't find the wrapper

anywhere in the apartment.

- You have to wonder what goes
through a person's mind that

kills someone and then
leaves a child behind to,

to sit there in that
bloody crime scene.

Christina's
ex-boyfriend,

Jacob, was the prime suspect.

- Jacob certainly
had, had motive.

Uh, he was separated
from his child.

And, and they had separated,
they had a rocky past.

- Jacob did this.

Everybody thought, in my family
thought that Jacob did it.

The crime scene showed signs

that Christina Sanoubane
knew her k*ller.

There was no forced entry,
and nothing was stolen.

I don't believe

robbery was ever an issue.

It was about something else.

Could have been about dr*gs.

It could've been
about rejection.

It could've been about anything.

But, but it wasn't robbery.

At the autopsy,
the medical examiner

found evidence Christina
had been sexually assaulted.

Her, uh, throat had been cut.

At autopsy, it revealed that,
uh, her trachea have been,

uh, totally severed.

- When a Kn*fe is
use on a victim,

that's very much, uh,
up close and personal.

- There's no, uh, toxicology
screening test done

on Christina, and
this was because Dr.

Ellers could not get any blood.

An x-ray
showed a metal

pellet lodged in
Christina's face.

A stark reminder of the time
her ex-boyfriend, Jacob Hadley,

sh*t her with a pellet g*n
just 18 months earlier.

They would
had a fight all the time.

And who's going to
k*ll her, except Jacob?

- The most dangerous time
for a domestic abuse victim

is shortly after
she tries to make

a clean break from her abuser.

And she had just done
this in a big way.

She'd moved away.

Investigators interrogated

Christina's ex-boyfriend, Jacob,
immediately after her m*rder.

He said that on the
night of the m*rder,

he was a half-hour away.

Jacob produced
two very credible witnesses

to testify that he had
been drinking with them.

As a matter of fact,
they were members

of the University of
Iowa women's track team.

But the medical examiner

estimated the time of
death could have been

any time between


And not all of Jacob's time
could be accounted for.

The evidence at the crime scene
indicated the perpetrator was

probably someone Christina knew.

Other evidence suggested it
was someone who lived close by.

For example, the k*ller
wasn't wearing shoes.

- When you have a
barefoot print in blood,

it's obviously someone
that's close to the scene.

And whether it's someone
that lives in the residence,

or someone close
by, people generally

don't run around barefoot
as a, a matter of course.

And inside the bathroom,

investigators found a
possible explanation

for why the hamburger
buns where there.

- They found the clip
to the hamburger buns

on the floor in the bathroom.

So it appeared that
the hamburger buns

had been opened in the bathroom.

But they never found the
bag that the hamburger

buns came in.

- We surmised that the k*ller
may have used the wrapper

to wrap the Kn*fe in so that,
uh, as he carried the Kn*fe out

of the apartment, it
wouldn't drip blood anywhere.

This was yet another clue

that the k*ller lived nearby.

Not only did he have bare
feet, but he was concerned

about leaving a
blood trail, possibly

one leading straight
to his door.

This pointed towards two
men who hadn't previously

been thought of as suspects.

The man who claimed he found
Christina's body, 32-year-old

Todd Hale, and Christina's
next door neighbor,

Carlos Robinson, who
had called 9-1-1.

Both men knew one another, since
they both helped Christina move

into her apartment
three days earlier.

Investigators had been
suspicious of Todd Hale's claim

that he'd been able to
enter Christina's apartment

through a small window opening
without disturbing the items

on the entertainment
center inside.

- We thought for Todd to
get in through that window,

he would have to,
maybe, have an acrobat's

physique, which he did not.

- Todd, they had felt, might
have been a suspect because

of the way he entered
the apartment.

He wasn't invited in.

He opened the window,
removed the screen,

and snaked himself in
through this small opening.

So they asked him to
do it again while they watched.

We'd now allowed
him to demonstrate how he was

able to climb
through that window

and around the
entertainment center,

and he was able to
do that, even wearing

some steel-toed work boots.

Hale got inside
again, without touching any

of the items on the
entertainment center.

It was a little bit

amazing watching him do that.

It was like watching
a burglar in action.

Next, police asked
Christina's neighbor, Carlos

Robinson, to provide
a routine statement

and he willingly complied.

- Investigator
described him as being

very helpful, very cooperative.

When the police left the room,

of course, they keep
their eye on him.

He got down and began praying.

He was on his knees praying.

And that doesn't happen
very often, I don't think.

Investigators had three suspects

in the m*rder of
Christina Sanoubane.

Her ex-boyfriend, Jacob Hadley,
who had previous arrests

for physical v*olence
against Christina.

He's b*at her before.

He sh*t at her.

He's b*at her several
times, that she

has restraining
orders against him.

The other two included
the man who found Christina's

body, and Christina's next door
neighbor, who called 9-1-1.

- Sometimes people will
report the crime just

to steer suspicion
away from them.

But investigators
needed forensic evidence

to compare to these
suspects, and were

fortunate to find some
footprints at the scene.

You
can't see the prints, really,

with the naked eye, un...,
unless you're really looking.

And I'm sure that the suspect
never realized that he had left

so many prints
behind in his haste

to collect the physical
evidence that he

thought might be damning.

- These barefoot prints,
which contain ridge detail,

can be identified belonging
to a specific person,

just as a fingerprint would.

So Jacob Hadley,
Todd Hale, and Carlos Robinson

were asked to
provide their prints.

- We brought Jacob,
Todd, and the neighbor

down to the
Identification Bureau

and took footprints
from all three of them.

Todd was very cooperative.

We inked his feet.

He walked down the
one side of the paper.

We re-inked and he walked down
the other side of the paper.

Todd Hale's
footprints didn't match.

- Jacob was the same way.

Very cooperative.

Jacob Hadley's
footprints didn't match either.

- Well, then there was Carlos.

And it, it, it struck me odd,
as I, I inked Carlos' feet

and asked him to step down from
the chair onto the, the paper,

and he was reluctant to do that.

Carlos walk down
one side of the paper,

and then walked over the
footprints he'd just made.

Something's just not
right here, you know?

It, It wasn't hard instructions
to, to understand and follow.

It's almost like he was
trying to obliterate

his, his known footprints.

Finally,
technicians got usable prints,

and they were compared
to the bloody footprints

- in Christina's bathroom.
- This is our guy.

We've got him.

This, this is the guy who
left the footprints there

and, and they were shocked.

They, they just, are you sure?
Are you sure?

And I said, yeah,
we're all sure.

It's, it's his footprint.

Carlos' palm print
was also a perfect match

to the bloody palm print on
Christina's bathroom sink.

And Carlos' DNA matched the DNA
from Christina's r*pe test kit.

When faced with this
incriminating evidence,

Carlos made a
startling confession.

He now claimed he'd had a
consensual sexual relationship

with Christina in the couple
of days he'd known her.

He also claimed he found
Christina's body several hours

before Todd Hale did,
but said he got scared

and ran home instead
of calling police.

He insisted, however,
he wasn't the k*ller.

- His story for not calling 9-1-1
was that he was a black man,

and he was scared that he
would be framed for the m*rder.

The medical examiner
estimated Christina Sanoubane

was m*rder*d between


Robinson was alone with his
children during this time.

- Carlos' wife was, uh, gone on
the night this m*rder occurred.

She was gone to visit a, a
relative in a neighboring city.

But the
investigators needed proof

that Carlos Robinson was the
k*ller after all, and not

just a neighbor
who found her body

and hadn't reported the crime.

SANDEN: People often

look for somebody
that has a motive.

And what we were trying to prove
to the jury is that a person

who barely knew the victim
for four days had k*lled her,

and that the ex-boyfriend, who
was abusive to her, didn't.

Then investigators
discovered either another piece

of evidence, or a complication.

In looking at the
crime scene evidence,

scientists noticed something
in the hamburger buns.

At first, when
we looked at the bun, we,

we just really couldn't
understand what we were seeing.

One of
them was mis-shaped.

We did use some
light at oblique angles,

and, uh, some ultraviolet light.

This was also used when we, uh,
took photographs of the bun.

The indentations
strongly resembled a right toe,

the ball of a foot, and bits
of the second and third toes.

- It was obvious that
this was somebody's foot.

And it looked like
there were ridge details

in the soft bread
that resembled prints.

If these were footprints
that matched Carlos Robinson,

prosecutors had an
open and shut case.

- Our suspect found the
package of hamburger buns

in Christina's kitchen, dumped
the buns out on the floor,

and used the plastic bag
to, uh, carry out the Kn*fe.

The buns were, were
fresh, and the, uh,

barefoot person had also
stepped in these hamburger buns.

But if they
weren't Robinson's prints,

then it raised the possibility
of reasonable doubt,

or the possibility that
Robinson had an accomplice.

- So it was almost like
we had to prove not just

that the defendant
committed this crime,

but that nobody else did either.

Investigators assigned
to Christina Sanoubane's m*rder

found an unusual piece of
evidence at the crime scene.

They had what looked like a
footprint in a hamburger bun

next to Christina's body.

Investigators believed
it was made by the k*ller

as he fled the scene.

In order to verify their
work, Iowa investigators

took the bun and photographs
to Gene Czarnecki,

a certified print examiner
at the DCI Crime Lab

in Des Moines, Iowa.

Czarnecki not only confirmed
this was a right foot

in the soft bread, but found
enough clear ridge detail

to convince him that it was the
footprint of Carlos Robinson.

- I think if the bun was in
a dry or stale condition,

the print may have
not been reproduced.

We were quite fortunate
in that the bun appears

to have been fresh
when he stepped on it.

- I've never seen hamburger
buns at a m*rder scene

before, and for the
suspect to step into it

and leave what looked like a
very identifiable patent print

on the but was,
was really unusual.

This proved that
the only evidence

at the crime scene
was Carlos Robinson's.

Investigators
believe Christina was

a victim of her own
trusting nature.

Carlos was her neighbor.

They'd already met.

So when he knocked on
her door, she let him in.

Hey, Christine.
How you doing?

You want a drink?

Carlos wasn't wearing any shoes,

since he lived next door.

Once inside,
prosecutors believe he

made a sexual advance,
which Christina turned down.

Stop!

Get out!

So Carlos hit Christina

with tremendous force, knocking
out three of her teeth.

He then dragged her
to the bathroom,

where he sexually assaulted her,
and k*lled her with a Kn*fe.

He filled the tub with
water in an attempt

to wash away evidence,
but he grabbed the sink

with his bloody
hand as he got up,

leaving behind a
perfect palm print.

He needed to get rid
of the m*rder w*apon,

so he went to the kitchen,
tracking his bloody footprints.

He grabbed a bag of hamburger
buns, dumped them on the floor,

then put the Kn*fe
inside the bag

so it wouldn't leave a
blood trail when he left.

On his way out, he stepped
on one of the buns,

leaving the one piece
of forensic evidence

he couldn't refute.

Robinson m*rder*d Christina
with her child inside the house.

- That little child was in that
house for, uh, up to 24 hours,

we estimate, um, with his
dead mother in the bathtub.

- I am call him a monster,
and I never forgive him.

Even I die.

'Til the day I die, I'm not
going to forgive him, ever.

Prosecutors believe Carlos

was afraid his wife would end
their marriage when she found

out he had made a sexual
advance toward Christina.

And that's why he
decided to m*rder her.

Robinson was charged
with First Degree m*rder.

Mr. Robinson, I would
you, with respect tho the, uh,

charge, uh, you have a
right to have an attorney,

and to have the
attorney represent you

at all stages of the proceeding.

Robinson was
convicted of Christina's m*rder,

and was sentenced to life
in prison without parole.

- I think one of the things
that comes out of this case,

just be aware of the
people around you,

and... and uh, you... we have to
be pretty vigilant about who we

know, and who we
have contact with.

It was not one little thing

that convicted him.

It was a whole bunch
of little things,

and a big hamburger bun.

- There's certainly a, a
feeling of the victim getting

some justice, but at
the end of the day, um,

you still have a 20-year-old
single mother that

d*ed for no reason other than
someone else's, um, v*olence.

And that... that... that's sad.

- But believe that other
people, parents have a children

got k*lled and m*rder*d, and
they move on in their life.

But me, I don't
know why I can't.

I cannot go work outside.

It hurts me and it
hits me all the time

that, I miss Christina so bad.