05x17 - Journey to Justice

[bunniefuu]

-Just after dark on a warm summer

evening, five children were walking home along this road.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a pickup truck

headed towards them.

[honking]

[screaming]

-Three of the children were hit.

One was k*lled.

The driver sped away.

Investigators called on state-of-the-art science

to reconstruct the crime in hopes of learning how

the accident happened and the identity of the driver.

-Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is one

of America's most popular resort towns.

The beach and sunny weather bring

in almost million tourists each year.

And the city is also home to and /

million full-time residents.

The Walker family settled into this working class

neighborhood, one they believed was

safe from crime and v*olence.

The Walkers youngest child, six-year-old Nicole,

loved the neighborhood because of the large number of children

who all played together.

-She didn't like to smile.

She used to tell people, I don't know how to smile.

You'd tickle her and say, see, you can smile.

It'd always be a cockeyed smile.

Her glasses would always be cockeyed.

So I used to call her my kooky cockeyed little one.

-Just after dark on June , ,

Nicole Walker was walking home with four

other neighborhood children.

It was just after a rainstorm, and they were walking along

the side of this road where there are no sidewalks.

When they got to the front of this apartment building,

there was a large puddle of water left from the rainstorm.

Michelle and Gina Vitello were walking with Nicole that night.

They were years old at the time.

-I'm walking in the street, and there's a big puddle,

so we wanted to go through it so that we

don't have to be in the street.

And Nicole didn't want to walk through it because she didn't

want to get sick because she had no shoes on.

So Michelle picked her up, and we

started walking through the puddle.

-As we were walking in this puddle,

I had Nicole in my hands.

Everybody was telling me to watch out.

And that was about all I remember.

-And I see this car, this big-- a bunch

of lights just coming straight at us.

And I just yell, watch out!

-By the time they saw the vehicle, it was too late.

Nicole Walker and Michelle Vitello were both hit.

-I went over to check on Nicole, and I seen blood coming out

of her mouth and her ears, and I--

I knew she wasn't going to make it.

-One of the kids ran to Nicole's home.

SUZANNE WALKER: There was the knock at the door,

and it was Joel.

There was no color in his face, and his eyes

were so bugged out of his head.

He was just-- you could see the terror, the fright, just

saying, the girls were all hit.

The girls were all hit.

-The children were rushed to the hospital.

Michelle suffered a broken leg, two

broken wrists, and a lacerated liver.

Nine-year-old Brooke Mansey suffered a fractured shoulder

and facial injuries that required a dozen stitches.

Six-year-old Nicole died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

-Some internal surgeons came in, and the conclusion was, no,

she-- that she doesn't have a chance.

And I begged and pleaded even for % chance,

and they told me, no. There's no chance.

-Nicole died of severe trauma to the head

and massive internal injuries.

A witness said it was a man driving a green pickup truck

with a white camper top which sped away quickly, ran

this red light, and disappeared.

MICHELLE VITELLO: I VITELLO: was just

wondering why-- how can somebody, like, just hit people

and just keep going without even caring, like,

what was going to happen to them and just left

us-- just left us to die and-- it's

just a-- just-- scary feeling.

I didn't know if they were ever going to find them or what.

-Investigators were hoping that science could identify

the pickup truck and the driver.

-How could you hit five little kids and keep on going?

-Suzanne Walker was grief-stricken and angry

over the death of her daughter Nicole.

-How could you do that?

How could anybody hit kids and keep on going?

Just to know you laid them flat out in the middle of a road

and by-- you had to know.

-Detective Bruce Babcock, a member of an elite team

of accident reconstructionists, was called to the scene.

Just before the accident, witnesses

said a green truck swerved off the road, knocking

over some trash cans, then stopped in a nearby cul de sac.

A few minutes later, the truck started up again,

heading back out of the neighborhood

on the same road on Southwest rd Avenue.

As it approached the apartment building,

it veered off the road into the puddle,

hitting three of the five children,

k*lling six-year-old Nicole Walker.

Witnesses said the truck picked up

speed after fleeing the accident.

Bruce Babcock took detailed measurements

of the accident scene and photographs.

DET.

BRUCE BABCOCK: When we got to the scene,

the grill piece has been found, uh, in the puddle

by a citizen, who later gave it to one

of the initially responding deputies.

Uh, there was also a piece of clothing that, uh, from Nicole

that we found in the puddle itself.

-The grill was unique.

It had come from special edition

Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck.

Babcock also found pieces of plastic

from the front turn signal lens of the truck.

Forensic chemist Bruce Ayala hoped that Nicole's clothing

would contain vital evidence.

BRUCE AYALA: The first area of interest in my analysis

was to examine the victim's clothing,

because many times in hit and run accidents

where pedestrians are involved, there

is paint transferred from the front end of the vehicle

to the victim's clothing.

-Ayala did find paint on Nicole's clothing.

Under a microscope, he discovered that the chips

actually contained six different layers of paint,

but the outer layer of paint was blue and not green,

as the witnesses had indicated.

The grill left at the scene matched the pattern injury

on the back of six-year-old Nicole Walker,

and the head injury on the back of her head

indicated that Nicole's head most likely

hit the hood portion of the truck.

Investigators now changed the description of the truck

and notified the public to be on the lookout for a blue

Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck with possible front end damage.

KENNETH PADOWITZ: And in essence, there was a man hunt

in an attempt to look for this vehicle,

because the investigators knew that if they found

this vehicle, there was a great likelihood that they would be

able to determine who was the driver of this truck

and responsible for Nicole's death.

-News reports of the hit and run accident

outraged the community.

Detectives searched all over Florida

for the blue Silverado pickup truck.

Three weeks went by, then an anonymous caller told police

that a blue Silverado pickup truck was in a driveway

about miles from the accident scene.

KENNETH PADOWITZ: This deputy arrived at the home,

got out of his vehicle, and noticed

as he was walking towards the front door

that there was a truck-- a blue Silverado pickup truck-- that

was surrounded by other vehicles.

-A washing machine had been placed in front of the truck,

obscuring its front end.

The truck did not have the white camper top witnesses described.

The front grill was intact, although it was not

the original one, and the front turn signal lens was broken.

In addition, the tires did not match

tire impressions from the accident scene.

The truck was registered to a Kathryn Pierce, whose husband,

-year-old Ken Pierce, had a prior history of driving while

under the influence of alcohol.

One of the victims thought the driver was a man,

but couldn't identify Ken Pierce as the driver of the vehicle.

-The truck was just speeding at us.

All I can remember is a bright light.

Just bright lights coming straight at us.

It was-- I was so confused about the whole--

just the whole thing.

Just not even remember getting hit or nothing.

It's just weird.

Weird thing.

-Investigators faced two difficult tasks, first,

trying to prove that this was the truck involved

in the accident, and second, to figure

out who was driving the truck.

KENNETH PADOWITZ: The problem for us was developing

the evidence that was going to be needed to show who,

in fact, was the driver of this truck, who veered off

that roadway and hit Nicole Rae Walker that night

and veered back on and didn't stop.

That was going to be the challenge.

-It was now three weeks after the hit and run death of Nicole

Rae Walker, and police had the truck

they believed was involved in the accident.

But there were problems with making a definitive match.

If this was the truck in the accident,

it had been altered some time after the accident

with different tires, repairs to the front grill,

and the truck did not have the white camper

top witnesses clearly recalled seeing.

There were no fingerprints inside the compartment

of the truck, which was extremely unusual.

It appeared that the inside compartment

had been wiped clean.

District Attorney Ken Padowitz kept a picture of Nicole Walker

on his desk, a sign of his determination to find out what

exactly happened on the night of the accident.

So he turned to a new state-of-the-art scientific

tool, forensic examination, which can create

a virtual rendering of an accident.

-The best way to understand the concept of forensic animation

or reconstruction would be to understand that what we're

trying to do is visualize the opinions of other experts.

-All of the information gathered at the crash site

by accident reconstructionist Bruce Babcock

was taken into account, the horizontal

and vertical measurements of , feet of roadway,

the eyewitness accounts, the weather conditions,

and the injuries sustained by the victims.

The mechanical specifications of the Chevrolet Silverado

were also programmed into the computer.

They also calculated the approximate tire pressure

and the height and weight of their suspect,

Ken Pierce, who was foot inches tall and pounds.

All would affect the height of the truck

as it traveled down the street before striking the children.

The speed was uncertain, so they estimated the truck was

traveling miles per hour, the posted

speed limit on that road.

Michelle Vitello was carrying six-year-old Nicole Walker

on her right hip at the time of impact.

When the animators programmed this information,

they made a startling discovery.

The front grill of Kenneth Pierce's truck

would have struck Nicole Walker in the back

at the exact same place and at the same degree

angle reported by the forensic pathologist

at Nicole's autopsy.

JACK SUCHOCKI: We then took an angle of Nicole's spine

to the vertical, the height of Nicole

from the roadway or the ground.

And suddenly, it was at that point we discovered that we

could match these bruising marks and contusions

to actual elements on the front of the truck, a real revelation

to us, and certainly something that

could become very crucial in the case.

-When the animation was complete,

it consisted of three different views, an overhead perspective,

providing a bird's eye view of what happened; another

from inside the vehicle, which would have been

the view of the alleged driver, Kenneth Pierce.

From this vantage point, you can see that Nicole's head would

have hit the front hood of the truck,

causing her fatal head injury.

The third view, a so-called chase view,

was from behind the truck.

For further proof, investigators turned to the paint chip found

on Nicole's shirt at the time of the accident.

The paint chip was blue, but there

were five other layers of paint underneath.

Forensic chemist Bruce Ayala ground the paint sample

in a pestle, then analyzed it using infrared spectroscopy,

which uses infrared light to identify the chemical makeup.

The results were charted onto a computer graph.

BRUCE AYALA: They were six different layers of paint.

There was blue metallic present, blue non-metallic,

gray body filler.

Then there was a blue metallic factory paint, a white factory

primer, and a black factory primer.

Uh, subsequently, when we examined the suspect's vehicle,

we found that all six of those layers

were present on his vehicle.

-And, finally, the plastic particles found at the crime

scene were the same in color and materials

as the broken turn signal on Pierce's truck.

Although there were no fingerprints found

in the compartment of the truck, Kenneth Pierce's is

partial thumb print was found on a can

on the floor of the vehicle.

-year-old Kenneth Pierce was arrested and charged

with vehicular homicide in the death of Nicole Walker.

[honking]

[screaming]

-The forensic animation showed clearly

that the driver would have known he had hit

the children at the time of the accident.

Before the trial, Ken Pierce's neighbor Terry Jones

came forward and told police that Pierce admitted driving

the truck on the night of the accident.

DET.

BRUCE BABCOCK: Mr. Jones told us that Ken Pierce had contacted

him and requested that, uh, he come over and help fix

the damage to the front of the vehicle.

Uh, he also, uh, uh, received a camper top

that had been taken off the vehicle.

Uh, the camper top was worth about $,

and Mr. pierce gave it to him for the work

that he did on the car.

-Kenneth Pierce had a number of prior arrests and convictions.

KENNETH PADOWITZ: It should be somewhat

significant to-- to find out that, in addition to arrests

and convictions for felonies and misdemeanors in Mr. Pierce's

life, he had two prior hit and run convictions.

-At the trial, prosecutors wanted

to introduce the forensic animation to show the jury

their version of what happened on the night of the accident.

Defense lawyers claimed that the animation was nothing more

than speculation and would prejudice the jury.

Prosecutors said the animation was

a factual account of the accident.

The judge ruled that the forensic animation

was admissible.

It showed that the blue Silverado truck traveling north

on rd Avenue drove off the road

and struck some trash cans.

After the vehicle stopped briefly in the cul de sac,

it then turned around and headed south on rd Avenue.

As it approached the intersection of Griffin Avenue

in front of the apartment building,

the drug veered off the road into the puddle

and hit the children.

[honking]

[screaming]

The front grill of the truck struck six-year-old Nicole

Walker in the back at a degree angle,

leaving this deep bruise at the moment of impact.

The truck made a right turn onto Griffin Avenue and sped off.

The computer animation constructed exactly to scale

shows that it was a truck the same height

as the Chevrolet Silverado that was involved in the accident.

DET.

BRUCE BABCOCK: There was, uh, no reason for him

not to have known that it was, in fact, children

that he struck.

In fact, witnesses said that he accelerated from the scene

as he fled.

-Every single one of those jurors

had their eyes glued to that television screen.

And I can say, as I studied them and watched

them view that computer animation,

that I had every single moment of their attention captured

for that brief period of time.

-At the moment of impact, paint chips

were also deposited on Nicole's clothing, paint chips which

were later matched to Mr. Pierce's truck.

-And about front end damage to a

Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck.

He hired Terry Jones.

He hired Terry Jones to fix the front of that truck.

-In addition to the scientific evidence,

jurors heard testimony that Ken Pierce made efforts

to conceal damage to the truck after the accident

and confided to one person that he was driving the truck.

Just weeks after what would have been Nicole Walker's

seventh birthday, jurors delivered a verdict.

JUROR: The defendant is guilty of vehicular homicide,

leaving the scene of an accident with death

as charged in the information.

So say we all--

-Because of Mr. Pierce's prior convictions,

he was sentenced to years in prison.

SUZANNE WALKER: I'm very glad about that.

This man had seven priors in the state of Florida.

He never once ever admitted to what he did.

He's got so many priors back to .

And I'm sorry.

I don't want this man in our society.

-This case was the first time forensic animation had been

admitted into evidence in a Florida court

and only the third time in the United States.

-Trial lawyers, whether they be criminal, prosecutors,

or defense attorneys, or civil lawyers,

now have an opportunity to use dynamic new form of evidence

to educate jurors about issues that are before them

in courts all over this country.

-But for the victims, Kenneth Pierce's behavior that night

still raises questions for which there are few answers.

SUZANNE WALKER: Why didn't you stop?

Why didn't you stop?

Why did you just hit kids, plow into them,

leave them there to die in a puddle, and just keep on going?

Just, you know, that's the biggest thing.

Why?

Why not just stop?

-Well, this case involved the death of a little girl.

And I became determined to ensure

that justice was done for her.

And Nicole Rae Walker's family blew up, uh, a photograph

of their daughter and had a tear painted on her cheek.

And they presented Detective Babcock and myself

with a copy of this picture, and I have that picture

in my office, and it sits there.

And I view it every day because that photograph reminds me

that justice can still be had in the criminal justice system.

And the day that I don't feel that way anymore

is the day that I'm going to take down her picture.