04x02 - The k*lling Room

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NARRATOR: When Scott Dunn arrived at his friend's party,

he brought along a new acquaintance, someone

his friends had never met before.

Scott was a ladies' man.

And while it wasn't unusual for him to be seeing

a number of women at the same time, his date on this night

raised more than a few eyebrows.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

-Hey, everybody.

This is my lady friend, Shana.

-You ain't kidding, man.

NARRATOR: Sometime during the party,

Scott became ill, so sick he was unable to drive home.

A few days later, Scott Dunn disappeared

and was never seen again.

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NARRATOR: -year-old Scott Dunn was a fun-loving young man,

who enjoyed life to the fullest.

Scott lived in Lubbock, Texas, settling there

after serving in the US military.

He worked for MGM Electronics in a job

he loved, installing custom sound systems in automobiles.

The last time friends saw Scott was on May , at a party

after work.

Scott was a prankster and decided

to add a little excitement to the festivities.

His date that night wasn't a she at all.

She was really a he, a tr*nsv*stite.

Before the night was through, Scott's friends

eventually found out and weren't amused.

Later, while still at the party, Scott became ill.

He was so sick he couldn't drive home

and stayed overnight on the sofa.

The next day, his live-in girlfriend, Leisha Hamilton,

drove over to pick him up.

-He looked like crap.

He couldn't hardly walk.

I mean, you could tell he'd been in bed all day.

He wasn't showered.

He wasn't clean, clothes on all awkwardly,

couldn't get dressed by myself.

NARRATOR: After spending another full day in bed,

Scott told Leisha he finally felt

well enough to return to work.

-I woke up that morning.

He was in bed with me by then.

I asked him how he felt.

I asked him did he need a ride to work,

because he didn't have this cars there.

He said, no, his friend was coming for him

and just asked me to get him a glass of water

and some sinus medicine, which I did, brought it to him.

And then I left.

When I came home, he was gone.

NARRATOR: When Scott's friend stopped by the apartment

to pick him up, there was no answer.

-No one ever would answer, so I just never heard from him.

NARRATOR: Two days later, Leisha called Scott's father

in Pennsylvania, to see if he had heard from Scott.

-And it's a young woman's voice.

And she goes into, I don't know if I'm

talking to who I'm talking to.

But I assume you're Scott's father, because I found

the telephone number on the telephone bill.

And I said, well, that's right.

I'm Scott's father.

But who are you?

She said, well, I've been living with Scott for a couple months

now, and we've been together for some time.

And I said, well, I don't really know who you are.

NARRATOR: Jim Dunn filed a missing person's report

with the Lubbock Police Department.

-What was he wearing last when you saw him?

NARRATOR: Police wondered whether Scott Dunn's

personal life held some clues to his disappearance.

When Scott Dunn disappeared from Lubbock, Texas without a trace,

his friends told police this was out of character.

-The way Scott was, he would have called at least and said,

hey, guys.

Look, I'm out here in Mexico hanging out, partying,

something.

NARRATOR: Scott's live-in girlfriend

Leisha Hamilton told police that when she returned from work,

Scott was gone.

She also said that a large piece of carpet

was missing from under the sofa.

When police searched the bedroom,

they discovered that another piece of carpet in the bedroom

had also been removed and replaced with the carpet

from under the sofa.

Along the edge were some rust-colored stains.

-The staining along the edge of that patch

in the original carpet was very evident to anybody that

has been doing this for any length of time.

It was blood.

NARRATOR: When the carpet patch was lifted,

police noticed it was held together with duct tape.

On the underpadding was another large stain

which also appeared to be blood.

In one spot, it had soaked through a hole in the padding

to the cement floor underneath.

And it looked as if someone had washed

blood from the baseboard.

To find out, investigators used a chemical called Luminol,

which can detect areas where blood has been cleaned

up with the water and detergents.

The Luminol revealed a scene of horrific v*olence.

-You can actually see the pattern.

You can see where blood had been.

And my initial reaction was that something

had occurred in that apartment.

-It was startling.

Somebody had very obviously tried to clean the whole thing

up and had done a fairly good job of it.

JIM DUNN: I just knew that he was dead, felt very confident

that he was dead.

It was probably the longest day of my life.

And it was the most devastating thing

that had ever happened to me.

NARRATOR: But who would want to k*ll Scott Dunn and why?

Dunn had a previous arrest and conviction

for Possession of Cocaine.

But the theory that this was somehow drug-related

was inconsistent with the crime scene.

-If it was a drug hit, they probably

would have left the person here, wanting everybody in the world,

say that nobody else would cross them.

And this crime scene was covered up.

And the only reason it was covered up

was because it was trying to be hidden.

NARRATOR: Police also discovered Scott

Dunn was leading a secret life.

While living with Leisha Hamilton,

he continued to date numerous other women.

-He was wild.

He played the field.

In my opinion, he had a history of using

women for his own purposes.

In fact, he was engaged to be married to a young lady

in the Metroplex, while he was living with Leisha Hamilton.

NARRATOR: Leisha Hamilton learned

about Scott's engagement just one month earlier.

-Who's calling?

His fiance?

Yeah, I'll be sure to tell him you called.

ROY CARPER: And I think at the point

where that telephone call came is when Leisha

realized she'd been had by Scott.

And Leisha herself was a user.

And when it became apparent to her, that she in this situation

was not the user but was in fact the usee, she became enrages.

NARRATOR: But was that sufficient motive

for Leisha Hamilton to m*rder Scott Dunn?

And if so, where was the body?

Leisha Hamilton continued to call Jim Dunn from Texas,

keeping him informed of the investigation

into Scott's disappearance.

but she asked for something in return.

She wanted Scott's yellow sports car.

Jim Dunn taped those telephone conversations.

JIM DUNN (ON RECORDING): You claim to want the car.

And I have promised you the car when this is all over,

but you don't seem to want to wait.

LEISHA HAMILTON (ON RECORDING): Actually, I don't.

I don't need it.

It is a want right now, OK.

The only thing I want is his car.

That's the only thing I wanted from the start.

That's the only thing I want now.

NARRATOR: A background check by Lubbock Police

revealed that Leisha Hamilton had a past arrest

rest in New Mexico for Embezzlement.

But if Leisha was involved in Scott's disappearance,

why had she helped police by pointing out

the missing carpet in their apartment?

Leisha told Scott's father that she thought a man named

Tim Smith had something to do with Scott's disappearance.

ROY CARPER: Tim Smith was a guy that

lived in the apartment near Leisha.

He had been brought up in a very strict,

very religious environment.

My theory was that this was the first real contact

he'd ever had with a worldly woman.

And he became enamored with her and the way she made him feel.

And he just fell head over heels in love with her.

NARRATOR: Police discovered that Smith did not show up for work

on the day Scott Dunn disappeared.

-Tim Smith?

-Uh-huh.

-Lubbock Police Department.

NARRATOR: When police visited Tim Smith's apartment

to ask a few questions, they noticed he was packing to move.

-We're investigating the disappearance of Scott Dunn.

-Uh, whatever I can do to help.

-Mind if we take a look around?

-Sure, go ahead.

NARRATOR: When they walked back into the living room,

they noticed that something that had been

sitting on the bookshelf disappeared.

-Where's the roll of tape?

-What tape?

-The duct tape that was there on the shelf.

-I don't know what you're talking about.

NARRATOR: But behind some books on another shelf,

police found what they were looking for-- the duct tape

that was on the shelf just a few minutes earlier.

ROY CARPER: That was a stroke of luck,

but it's also good investigative work.

I mean, how many times would you walk into a place

where a guy is moving and see a roll of duct tape

and think nothing of it?

NARRATOR: The duct tape was sent to the forensic laboratory

for analysis.

The tape in Smith's apartment looked very similar to the tape

on the carpet patch in Dunn's apartment.

The samples were analyzed using infraspectrophotometry,

where infrared light is passed through the duct tape.

-And the detector will determine how much wavelength of light

is being absorb at different wavelengths.

NARRATOR: The results are then printed out in a chart.

-In the case of Roger Scott Dunn,

the duct tape we separated out into its components--

the fibers that run long in the duct tape,

the backing of the duct tape, and the adhesive

of the duct tape.

As you can see, the infrared spectrum

from the roll of duct tape found at the suspect's house

and the duct tape found at the scene

are consistent in the fiber component, the backing

component, and the adhesive component.

NARRATOR: And the roll of tape held even more clues.

On the side of the roll were green

nylon fibers, triloba, or triangular in shape.

They were the same size and shape

and made of the same polymers and dyed the same color

as the carpet in Scott Dunn's bedroom.

-I feel confident that the fibers on the side

of the duct tape came from the apartment

and that the duct tape underneath the carpet

came from the roll of duct tape.

NARRATOR: But without a body, authorities

were hesitant to conclude homicide.

-A lot of it had to do with the body.

We had no body.

And the District Attorney's office,

at that time, was very apprehensive to try to take

something to trial, where you had no corpus delicti,

is what they say.

NARRATOR: A full year passed, and Jim Dunn

decided to take matters into his own hands.

He heard about a group of international forensic experts

who meet several times a year in Philadelphia

to study unsolved murders.

The group of members is called the Vidocq Society,

named Eugene Francois Vidocq, an th century French detective

considered to be the father of modern criminal investigation.

One of the co-founders of the Vidocq Society, Richard Walter,

agreed to listen to Mr. Dunn's story.

ROY CARPER: Well, after about an hour and a half of me showing

pictures and listening to some tape recordings and things I

had, he looked me straight in the eye and said,

Jim, aren't you tired of being the grieving father.

-And he looked at me.

And he said, I thought I was supposed to be.

And I said, no, you were supposed to be g*dd*mn mad.

Let's go after that bitch.

NARRATOR: Richard Walter was convinced that Leisha Hamilton

held the key to Scott Dunn's disappearance.

Walter sent the crime scene photos to Dr. Richard Sheppard

a forensic pathologist at Scotland Yard in London.

After reviewing the information, Dr. Sheppard

concluded that Scott Dunn had been m*rder*d in the corner

of his bedroom, the result of multiple blunt trauma injuries.

But at the time, under Texas law, without a body,

there was no homicide.

Armed with Dr. Sheppard's forensic analysis,

Richard Walter pleaded the case to the district attorney,

arguing that they had a body part.

-He said, what part of the body is that.

I said, blood is a connective tissue.

He looked, gave me a long look.

And he said, all right, you've got a m*rder.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors brought in their own blood spatter expert,

Tom Bevel, to confirm findings of Dr. Sheppard.

According to Bevel, the blood spatter pattern on the walls

indicated three distinct lines of castoff blood from a w*apon.

TOM BEVEL: For example, if we had three castoff stains that

were going in three directions, that

would be consistent with three blows plus the one

to create the blood in the first place.

So in this case, we'd say, there was a minimum

of four blows that were delivered.

NARRATOR: To find out how much blood Scott Dunn lost

during the as*ault, Bevel conducted

blood saturation test.

By pouring human blood onto a test piece of carpet,

Bevel created the same size stain found in the bedroom,

in this case, square inches.

It took just under two units of blood to create the stain

and soak through to the padding underneath.

-If you take that into consideration with all

the other physical evidence that's there, such as the blood

clean up, the cutting out of the carpet,

the blood spatter, the castoff that's to the wall

and also to the ceiling, with that blood volume,

it certainly is a high suspicion that somebody in fact is dead.

NARRATOR: Authorities were now convinced that Scott Dunn

had been m*rder*d in his bedroom.

Lubbock Police suspected that both Leisha Hamilton and Tim

Smith were somehow involved in Scott Dunn's m*rder.

But they had no evidence linking Leisha to the crime.

And the only link to Smith was the duct tape,

until Richard Walter discovered something

that was previously overlooked.

Walter learned that's several strands of unidentified hair

has been found on the duct tape in Scott Dunn's bedroom.

He suggested the hair be sent for forensic analysis.

At the FBI Lab in Washington, DC,

the hair from the duct tape underneath the carpet

was compared to hair samples from Leisha

Hamilton and Tim Smith.

ROY CARPER: No Scott Dunn hairs were found on that tape.

But both the hairs of Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith

were found on that duct tape holding it in,

which means when that duct tape was put down

and that patch put in place, they were there.

NARRATOR: Five and a half years after Scott Dunn's

disappearance, Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith where

arrested and charged with m*rder.

Prosecutors believe that Leisha's motive was revenge,

that she was angry when she learned

that Scott was engaged to another woman.

-She's hard as rocks, bright, aggressive, words smart,

but has this insatiable appetite for power,

control, crushing people.

She dismisses you.

You don't dismiss her.

-Leisha Hamilton was the absolute instigator,

ringleader.

And she was the Wicked Witch of the West, who contrived,

developed, led, and covered up this whole thing.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe that Scott Dunn was m*rder*d

in the early morning hours of May , .

He was asleep in the bed and struck at least four times

with a blunt object.

About two units of Scott's blood was lost in the attack.

As Scott's body was removed from the apartment,

his blood was transferred onto the bedroom door knob.

The location of the body is still unknown.

But the cover-up failed because the water and detergents could

not remove the hemoglobin components of the blood, which

later fluoresced when sprayed with the chemical Luminol.

A piece of carpet from under the sofa in the living room

was used to patch the bloodstained carpet

in the bedroom.

The duct tape used to patch the carpet

together contained strands of hair consistent with hair

samples from both Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith.

And the side of the duct tape picked up

some stray carpet fibers.

The roll was later found in Tim Smith's apartment.

Leisha Hamilton and Tim Smith were tried separately,

and both were convicted of m*rder.

Leisha Hamilton was sentenced to years.

Tim Smith received a -year probation.

ROY CARPER: The jury believe that perhaps he

had a great deal to do with disposing of the body.

But they didn't believe he was actually

there when the m*rder took place.

And I think, for that reason, they recommended the judge

impose probation, instead of sentencing him

to a term in the penitentiary, which would be carried out.

NARRATOR: Although the body of Scott Dunn

has never been found, a headstone

waits, and the father still mourns.

-I'm just hopeful, that at some point, somebody will talk

and that we can recover his remains.

And still, we can have a decent burial and a decent ceremony

that we can put him to rest.

And I'd feel totally absolved at that point,

that I'd done everything I could do,

if I could ever reach that point.

I haven't quite reached that yet.

And it still crosses my mind what else I can do.

But at this point, I'm going to let it go and hope

that good Lord or somebody will give us some direction.

And I'll know what that actually means in my life at some point.

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