01x10 - Insect Clues

[bunniefuu]

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Between and , transients, hitchhikers,

and prostitutes we'rechoked, sexually molested,

and left for dead in thedesert mountains of California.

The only witnesses, the insects of the desert.

And they also turned out to be extremely

important pieces of evidence.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The women whohad been choked unconscious

and sexually molested were all dumped and left

for dead in the high desert mountains

near San Diego, California.

Not all of the victims died.

And those who survived, alldescribed the same scenario.

JEFF DUSEK: Several of them hadtheir pants undone and pulled

down, bras were moved up exposing their breasts.

One lady had a nipple ring removed.

So we thought there had beensome sort of sexual activity.

But because they were unconscious,

we had no proof of it.

NARRATOR: Betty Bass was one of the victims.

BETTY BASS: Nice seeing you too, love.

Bye bye.

NARRATOR: She's had ahistory of mental problems

and is currently homeless.

But she can vividly recallthe night, eight years ago,

when she accepted a ride from a stranger.

After leaving this motel on El Cajon Boulevard,

she looked for a ride goingtowards Ramona, California.

A man in a silver car pulled up and offered

to take her part way.

-I can take you as far as El Centro.

-Good enough.

He had a clean car, so I thought,

you know he was a prettygood guy, a pretty nice guy.

I just thought he was OK.

NARRATOR: As they drove over the mountains,

the driver said he needed to pull off

the highway to take a bathroom break.

When the driver walked around the car,

he asked Betty to grabsomething from the back seat.

As she did, he wrapped his armaround her neck and choked her.

The last thing she rememberswas losing consciousness.

When she woke up, she walkedup this hill looking for help.

BETTY BASS: So I walkedand I walked and I walked.

Well, I finally crawled over this fence.

I crawled to the other side of the street.

Some family came by andput me in their motor home

and aid me up a little bit.

And then they took me to the hospital.

-The scene of the attack is right here

in the dirt, right by this little knoll.

The car tire tracks stoppedback here a few feet.

And then you could seefootprints up into this area.

Her clothing-- some of her clothing was found here.

[photo click]

NARRATOR: Police photographed the shoe and tire prints

and also recovered twoMarlboro cigarette butts.

On Betty Bass' shirt, detectives noticed

a tiny red carpet fiber.

This attack sounded identical to another

in the same vicinity just one month earlier.

Two young girls were hitchhiking together

at a restaurant near the interstate highway.

A silver, compact automobile pulled up.

And a middle-aged man offered them a ride.

-Where you girls going?-We're heading to Tucson.

[horns honking]

-I'll take you as far as El Centro.

-Great.

-Sounds good to me.

-Hop in.

NARRATOR: It was a ride they'll never forget.

[scream] [music playing]

DISPATCHER [ON PHONE]: This

-It was my friend.

He strangled her.

-Do you have any idea who he is?

-Uh-uh.

A guy who picked us up hitchhiking.

NARRATOR: This girl was fortunate.

She survived her attack.

And her friend, whom she feared was dead,

was later found in thedesert, frightened but alive.

The victims all provided a similar description

of their attacker.

JEFF DUSEK: He was about early 's, short hair,

blondish-grayish color, glasses.

That's how they all described him.

Obviously these were people who are

going to take a rides from anyone.

But many of them told us that they

felt comfortable getting in the car with him.

NARRATOR: And there were other similarities

with all of these att*cks.

ROGER BOHREN: The things he said to these women,

it was almost like he had a script.

It was almost the same type of scenario.

I can only take you miles.

I'm only going to El Centro.

JEFF DUSEK: The type ofpeople he was victimizing

were the vulnerable people in society.

Some people who were having mental problems,

drug addicts, street people, hitchhikers.

NARRATOR: Police had adescription of the suspect,

some tire tracks, and shoeprint evidence but little else.

A sexual predator was loose inthe mountains of California.

San Diego's El Cajon Boulevard,where prostitutes, runaways,

and transients have congregated for years.

The reason, location.

It's close to a highway entranceramp convenient for hitchhikers

looking for a ride.

And it was here where many ofthe victims were picked up.

JEFF DUSEK: We had a series of live victims.

And we also had dead victims out there

who we thought were part of the pattern.

We had what we thought wasa pretty consistent pattern,

common footprints, commontire tracks, the same type

of victims being victimized, andcertainly the same area where

there were being picked up and dumped.

NARRATOR: When detectives werecalled to Sheep's Head Mountain

on July , , they feared another

in the series of choke and dump cases.

This time, the victim was deadand nude from the waist down.

ROGER BOHREN: She was foundlaying on the road here.

This was more dug out at the time.

The graders come in here every so often.

And she was more in the ditch type of thing.

NARRATOR: The victim had beendead for quite some time.

Her skin was brown and blistered from the sun.

Her legs and feet were covered with blood.

It appeared the victim was alivebefore falling into the ditch

because impressions of her arms flailing

were found in the dirt.

Detectives noticed a bloodtrail and her bare footprints

leading almost a mile up the mountain.

At the top of the mountain, detectives

found a pair of shoes, some clothing,

two sets of footprints, and signs of a struggle.

The footprints leddetectives to a parking area

where they noticed a tire track.

It looked as if a car had turned around

before leaving the scene.

The victim's bare footprintsled from the clearing

into the brush.

ROGER BOHREN: Somehow shegets herself out of this area

and then comes back up, and then finds

her way down the main road.

NARRATOR: On the body, investigators

discovered some tiny clues.

Hundreds of live, worm-like creatures.

They were carefully collected and preserved,

then taken to theforensics lab for analysis.

Was it possible these tiny insects could tell

forensic scientists somethingabout the victim's last moments

alive or even when she was k*lled?

The autopsy revealed thatthe victim had probably

been choked, but strangulationwasn't the cause of death.

JOHN EISELE, MD: The cause of death

was actually alaceration of the vag*na.

The mechanism would have been blood

loss from that laceration.

NARRATOR: The victim wasidentified as Sandra Swick,

a -year-old transient from Florida.

Swick's body was found in thesame general vicinity as many

of the other choked and dumped victims.

All were found the same distancefrom the interstate highway,

usually near a V in the roadwhere the attacker could

park without being seen by others.

Detectives still didn't have a suspect.

But three months after Swick's m*rder,

detectives got an unexpected break.

While patrolling in the mountains,

Sheriff's Deputy, Larry Daley noticed a car

driving out of a deserted side.

--As I cam around the bend here,I could see the car coming out.

NARRATOR: Daley turned onto the side road

and saw a woman lying in the dirt

unconscious but still alive.

LARRY DALEY: I saw the victimlying on the ground, pants down

passed her knees, hershirt pulled up to her neck

as if someone had choked her.

NARRATOR: Daley immediately called for an ambulance

and put out a description of the car

he saw driving from the scene.

After three years of frustration,

could this be the breakinvestigators were hoping for?

After finding the body of an unconscious woman

in the desert, Sheriff's Deputy, Larry Daley

rushed to his vehicle and called for help.

LARRY DALEY: I also called outthe description of the vehicle

that I saw coming down the road towards me.

NARRATOR: A short time later,this silver Honda was stopped

by an officer who heard the call.

FRANK KLIMKO: What I wanted to see

was I wanted to see a monster.

I wanted to see this monstrousman, maybe someone with three

arms, who came out and was abducting

women and strangling them.

NARRATOR: The driver was-year-old Ronald Porter,

an automotive mechanic witha history of sexual offenses.

The woman found unconscious inthe desert survived her attack

and was able to identify Porter as her attacker.

Porter confessed to the attack but would not

admit to any of the other att*cks

over the past three years.

Investigators believe Porter was responsible.

And they also suspected that Porter had m*rder*d

Sandra Swick three months earlier.

To find out if all thesecrimes were the work of one

individual, San Diego authorities

sought help from the FBI and their unit which

specializes in studying serial murders.

LARRY ANKROM: Another offender would choose

to abduct the same type of victim,

bring her to the same type of location,

do the same types of acts withthem in the same locations,

in the almost exact locations,it became pretty evident to us

that the probabilitiesfavored it being one person

NARRATOR: Larry Ankromidentified the remote desert

dump sites as the signatureelement of all of the crimes.

The attacker invested lots of time and effort

into finding these remote locations.

Another signature element wasthe type of women he chose.

LARRY ANKROM: He's making anassessment before he decides

he's going to go ahead andask her if she needs a ride.

And when he's made that initial impression, then

once he's decided, yeah,I can control this victim,

then she gets in the car.

And then it becomessomewhat of a game with him

to get her where he wants to go.

NARRATOR: The FBI was convinced that all of these crimes

were, indeed, the work of the same individual.

The next step was for San Diego authorities

to prove that Ronald Portercommitted these crimes.

The carpet fibers in Porter's car

were microscopically similarto the red carpet fiber

found on the blouse of Betty Bass.

Tire tracks found at some of the crime scenes

were similar to the printon the spare Michelin

tire found in the trunk of Porter's car.

And when searching Porter's apartment,

police found shoes and boots with tread marks

consistent with those found at some

of the choke and dump crime scenes.

A walkie-talkie discoveredin Porter's storage

shed belonged to a woman who was choked

and dumped in the desertmountains a few years earlier.

And the blouse, worn by that same victim,

contained a semen stain.

A DNA analysis of Ronald Porter's blood

matched the semen stain from the blouse.

But despite all of this evidence,

prosecutors faced a major legal problem.

By the time police arrested Ronald Porter,

the statute of limitations onmost of these as*ault cases

had run out.

If prosecutors were going to send Porter

to jail for any length of time, it

would have to be for the m*rder of Sandra Swick.

But the Swick m*rder was their weakest case.

Investigators found no semen,no blood, no hair or clothing

fibers, which could link Ronald Porter

to the Swick crime scene.

A tire track found at theSandra Swick attack site

was to faint for analysis.

However, some of the tennis shoeprints found at the Swick crime

scene were similar to a pair of tennis shoes

found in Ronald Porter's apartment.

But Porter's attorney says,a similar tennis shoe print

is inconclusive.

JERRY KOLKEY: But ,, other people

with similar shoes, with similar treads,

could also have made the print.

NARRATOR: And the prosecutionfaced another problem.

They weren't exactly sure whenSandra Swick was m*rder*d.

JOHN EISELE, MD: Time of deathdetermination by a pathologist

is a very inexact science,if it's a science at all.

There are certain changesthe body undergoes.

And we can predict generaltime frames for those.

But there's a lot of differentvariables that affect it.

NARRATOR: If prosecutors wanted to convict

Ronald Porter of m*rder, they needed more.

Could the tiny insects found on Swick's body

tell forensic scientists when Sandra Swick died?

And tie Ronald Porter to her m*rder?

When detectives found SandraSwick's body on Sheep's Head

Mountain, it was badly decomposed.

The hot desert air and sun had taken it's toll.

And hundreds of tiny worm-like creatures

were feeding on her decomposing flesh.

Investigators wondered if thesetiny creatures might offer

some clues about when Sandra Swick died.

Detectives collected about of these creatures

and sent them to thelaboratory of David Faulkner.

He's a forensic entomologist, an expert

on insect activity on dead bodies.

DAVID FAULKNER, MS: They can tell you lots

about where they've been,where the victim's been,

how old the victim is, conditions

of the body following death.

And those are the things that are interesting.

NARRATOR: Faulkner's first task was

to determine the age of these creatures,

or maggots as they're called.

So he preserved some inalcohol at the exact stage

of development as when they were found.

Eventually, the maggots would shrink

and develop a hard shell.

And a week later, emerge as a winged adult.

Once Faulkner had anadult, he could compare it

to the hundreds of different flies, which inhabit

the California Desert whereSwick's body was found.

After hours of study and analysis,

Faulkner identified them.

The flies were Sarcophaga,also known as flesh flies.

DAVID FAULKNER, MS: All thethings this particular group

of flies will do is, they'llfly in very bad weather.

So if it's foggy, or rainy,or overcast they'll be active.

And they'll be searching out a potential host.

Whereas, other flies willprobably settle and wait

until the sun comes out or until it gets warmer.

NARRATOR: Once Faulknerknew they were Sarcophaga,

he could study the exact timeframe of their life cycle.

The preserved specimens werein their third, or final,

stage of larval development.

DAVID FAULKNER, MS: Onceyou have them identified,

you know what stage of development

the most developed ones are.

Then you go backwards and say, OK, this

was the temperature regime at that time.

This is how long this particular insect

takes to develop to this stage.

Therefore, that body was available,

to these insects, for this amount of time.

Usually, that indicates howlong a person's been dead.

NARRATOR: In normal weather conditions,

it takes a week for the baby maggots

to develop to their third stageBut the weather conditions

in the desert are far from normal.

During the week SandraSwick's body was discovered,

the daytime temperatures averaged degrees.

In -degree weather, itwould take only and / days

for the freshly laid maggots to develop

to their third and final stage.

And Faulkner was able to tellinvestigators something else.

The Sarcophaga never deposittheir maggots in the dark.

They only do so in daylight.

-I'm going to Florida.

NARRATOR: This meant thatSandra Swick was still alive

when the sun set onSunday evening, July th.

But she was dead by daybreakon Monday morning, July th.

At the first sign of light, these flesh flies

were attracted to the chemicalscent of Swick's decomposing

flesh and immediately laid they're maggots.

DAVID FAULKNER, MS: The maggots would not

have done as developed ifshe had been alive longer.

If she had been alive Monday afternoon,

Monday evening, there's no way that these flies,

under those temperature conditions,

could have developed to that stage.

NARRATOR: Faulkner'sconclusions provided police

with a scientific timeframe for Swick's m*rder.

Now, detectives couldinvestigate Ronald Porter's

whereabouts during the time of Swick's death.

Porter worked as a mechanic atthis automotive chain store.

When his time sheets were subpoenaed,

they revealed he was not atwork on Sunday, July th.

In addition, Porter provided no alibi

regarding his whereabouts on that day.

JEFF DUSEK: And it matched up.

We had a time period were RonPorter was available to drive

from the north part of the county

down to pick up Sandra Swick andtransport her to East County.

NARRATOR: Based on the insectclues and the similarities

between the Swick m*rder and the other cases,

Ronald Porter was charged inthe m*rder of Sandra Swick.

Prosecutors believe RonaldPorter picked up Swick

as she hitchhiked somewherenear an entrance ramp

to Interstate .

-I'm going to Florida.

-Jump in.

I can take you about miles to El Centro.

-That'd be great.

-How you doing?

-Good.

NARRATOR: As the car traveled East into the mountains,

Porter pulled off the main highway

onto a dark, deserted road.

He may have used some excuse, ashe did in other cases, possibly

the need to take a bathroom break.

As he walked around the back of the car,

he surprised Swick from behind.

Grabbing her around the neck,in a military-type choke hold,

he pulled her from the car and choked

her until she was unconscious.

[choking sounds]

NARRATOR: He threw her to theground, removed her clothes,

and sexually assaulted her with his hand.

He then returned to his car and fled.

[car starting]

Sometime later, Swick regained consciousness.

Dizzy, disoriented, and bleedingheavily from the attack,

Swick walked barefoot downthe dark, deserted road,

walking almost a mile before collapsing.

The blood trail was almost one mile long.

And she bled to death from lacerations

suffered during the as*ault.

JEFF DUSEK: Her death had to be a tough one.

A very difficult, long dyingprocess that she went through.

NARRATOR: And the insect clues were

able to provide detectiveswith the time of death.

Something they were unable todetermine by any other means.

JURY FOREMAN: We find thedefendant, Ronald Elliott

Porter, guilty of the crime of m*rder.

NARRATOR: Ronald Porter was convicted

of second-degree m*rder inthe death of Sandra Swick

and was sentenced to years to life in prison.

Ronald Porter continuesto maintain his innocence.

The insect clues were an important element

in their case against Ronald Porter.

And they told David Faulkner allhe needed to know about Sandra

Swick's brutal attack and m*rder.

DAVID FAULKNER, MS: You get alot of information from them.

Whether a body's been moved,how long the person's been dead.

Or how long the body hasbeen available to insects.

Whether the body has been buried,

whether the person took dr*gs,whether they had been poisoned.

All these different sorts of things

could be in the insects that are collected

or removed from the body.

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