08x35 - Grounds for Indictment

[bunniefuu]

[g*nshots]

NARRATOR: It was a drive-by sh**ting that

left one man dead, and another seriously wounded.

[g*nsh*t]

A witness said the perpetrator was driving a red Jeep.

There were thousands of vehicles just like it,

but it was nothing more than a handful of dirt that

made one stand out from all the others.

[theme music]

[theme music]

[theme music]

Front Royal, Virginia is an area steeped in Civil w*r history,

and the nearby Shenandoah River makes this a popular

destination for outdoor enthusiasts

from hundreds of miles away.

AL SIBERT: Very laid back community.

It's mainly mountainous, rural.

Hunting and fishing is the main things to do in our area.

NARRATOR: On the night of September , ,

there was a terrible rainstorm.

A motorist driving by the Low Water Bridge

saw two men on the ground, bleeding, next to a truck.

He immediately called police.

Both men had suffered serious g*nsh*t wounds.

The man on the driver's side of the truck, -year-old Joe

Kowalewski, was still alive, but just barely.

AL SIBERT: Yeah, he was dire straights.

Barely clinging to life.

I mean, he was, he was really injured bad.

NARRATOR: The other victim, -year-old Ty Lathon,

was dead.

Lathon was no stranger to law enforcement.

-Always been in trouble.

I've actually charged him with robbery before,

and flew to Atlanta and picked him up.

SHARON PHILLIPS: Even if he got i trouble,

it doesn't make him bad.

To me it doesn't.

Everybody makes mistakes in life.

But Ty was a very loving person, and it's so sad

that a young life has been taken.

NARRATOR: Police found two empty gauge shotgun shells

on the ground nearby, along with three cellular telephones.

AL SIBERT: Everybody has a cellphone.

But very few people have multiple cell phones.

So therefore, there was possible drug

involvement in the aspect of this crime.

NARRATOR: Investigators found drug

paraphernalia in the victim's car.

And there were circular tire tracks nearby,

a possible indication the men had been ambushed.

WALTER HIBBARD: Since it was a cold, rainy, dark night,

we didn't think someone was just down there, enjoying

the beauty of the river, and the woods in that area.

NARRATOR: The inclement weather made

gathering evidence almost impossible.

JAY CORNETT: We had nothing.

We had nothing but a truck, raining,

blood all over the place, and a couple shotgun shell casings,

and uh, one dead body.

So it was a reality check real quick.

NARRATOR: Joe Kowalewski was in a coma for several days.

When he finally regained consciousness,

he said very little about the incident,

except that the sh**t was driving a red Jeep.

JOSEPH KOWALEWSKI: I saw it coming around to the right side

of my truck, and it fish tail stopped.

I heard two loud bangs.

Sounded like explosions.

AL SIBERT: He thought it was, it was the police.

He thought it was a flashbang, a distraction device.

-I remember falling to the ground,

and uh, just immediate numbness and paralyzing feeling,

and couldn't breathe.

NARRATOR: Investigators hoped that forensic evidence could

help find the driver of the mysterious red Jeep.

Investigators found two shotgun shells

at the scene of a double sh**ting that

wounded Joe Kowalewski and k*lled his coworker, Ty Lathon.

Jay Mason, a firearms expert with the Virginia Division

of Forensic Science, examined the evidence.

-I was asked to make any determination I could

as to the number of sh*ts that were fired,

and direction and angle which they were fired from.

NARRATOR: From the evidence, Mason

concluded that at least four sh*ts

were fired during the attack.

Mason also wanted to determine how far away

the sh**t was from his victims.

So he fired the same type of shotgun shells at varying

distances to analyze the dispersion of the pellets,

then compared them to the shotgun holes

in the victims' truck.

-There is a rule of thumb that we can use,

which states that we expect to find an inch diameter

pattern for every three feet or yard of distance

after the first yard.

NARRATOR: There was a two inch wide pellet pattern

on the passenger door of the truck,

indicating the k*ller was between six and nine feet away.

The trajectory revealed the g*n was pointed upwards.

-This would be consistent with someone firing

from a vehicle pulled up alongside the victim's vehicle,

and firing from the window of the vehicle.

NARRATOR: The ballistic evidence suggested that the skid marks

neared the victims' truck were most

likely those of the k*ller.

But analyzing tire impressions was impossible,

because the parking area was mostly gravel.

Police also recovered three cellphones

at the scene of the m*rder.

One was Joe Kowalewski's.

The other belonged to the dead victim, Ty Lathon.

JAY CORNETT: Assumption, on our part,

was that the one that was found on the ground

on the passenger's side possibly could have been the suspect's

cellphone, maybe dropped by accident.

NARRATOR: Cell phone records revealed that the third phone

belonged to Julie Grubbs who was a friend of both victims.

She lived in Annandale, Virginia,

about an hour's drive away.

-I knew that she was heavily into dr*gs.

I had heard that she was into different ways

of obtaining money, different things.

So I-- my opinion of her was not high at all.

NARRATOR: And investigators found something else.

A second cell phone registered to Julie Grubbs

was used to call Ty Lathon times

in the hours leading up to the sh**ting.

-It doesn't strike you as odd, as the phone calls

being made to somebody in Annandale.

What strikes you as odd is the sheer amount of the phone

calls, and the time allotment leading up to the m*rder.

NARRATOR: The last call was just minutes before the m*rder.

AL SIBERT: When all of a sudden his calls stop at : PM,

then there's obviously some incident that happened

at : p.m. that he did not make any more phone calls.

NARRATOR: Investigators were about to interview Julie Grubbs

when they developed another lead.

Ty Lathon had told friends that he was involved in drug

trafficking with a Sheriff's deputy, Kevin Kinsey, who

was a supervisor at the work release center

where Lathon was living.

SHARON PHILLIPS: He told me that a cop was letting him

deal dr*gs from the work release.

Excuse my language, but they'd have,

uh, prostitutes come up in there.

All kinds of stuff.

-We're dealing with like, two investigations

at the same time, because Kevin Kinsey did know Tyree Lathon.

And then, now you have the possibility, or the theory,

or was Kevin Kinsey involved in the sh**ting, himself?

NARRATOR: With the allegation that a Sheriff's deputy might

somehow be involved, the FBI was brought

in to assist the investigation.

Although Joe Kowalewski survived the sh**ting

that k*lled his friend Ty Lathon,

Kowalewski wasn't immediately forthcoming in his interviews

with police.

Kowalewski was also suspicious of law enforcement,

since he knew Ty Lathon was involved in drug trafficking

with a Sheriff's deputy.

JOSEPH KOWALEWSKI: The k*ller was

still out there on the loose.

I was defenseless in the hospital.

I couldn't get away.

So anybody that walked through that door

with a g*n, 'cause, uh-- easily could have finished me off.

So, yes I was very scared, nervous,

frightened, defenseless.

NARRATOR: Kowalewski said he went with Ty

to the Low Water Bridge to buy dr*gs.

Then a red Jeep approached, and someone inside opened fire.

But he never saw the sh**t's face.

But the Sheriff's deputy, Kevin Kinsey, didn't own a red Jeep.

Kinsey had been implicated in dealing in illegal dr*gs

with the dead victim, Ty Lathon.

Their other suspect, Julie Grubbs,

didn't own a red Jeep, either.

But when police visited Julie Grubbs' apartment,

they noticed a red Jeep in the parking lot.

A check of motor vehicles revealed the Jeep belonged

to Julie's boyfriend, Lewis Felts.

Felts was allegedly involved in dealing in illegal dr*gs.

And both knew Ty Lathon and Joe Kowalewski.

-The times that I'd seen him, you

know, strung out, five day binges of smoking and crack

and, um, you know, just sitting there, curled up in a ball,

shaking, talking about how much life hurts,

literally talking about how much of a rush

it would be to k*ll somebody.

NARRATOR: During the surveillance

of Felts' red Jeep, investigators

saw Felts walk towards his vehicle

with some cleaning materials.

AL SIBERT: If he had been given an opportunity,

he could have washed away any blood or DNA evidence that

had been transferred from the homicide scene to the Jeep.

And it doesn't take much to wash them things away.

So ultimately, we had to act.

It was-- it was that important, that we

could not let him clean that Jeep.

NARRATOR: After confiscating the Jeep,

investigators searched Julie Grubbs' apartment,

and found the cell phone used to call

Ty Lathon on the night of the sh**ting.

They also found $, in cash, marijuana,

PCP, and crystal methamphetamine.

But they didn't find the shotgun used in the sh**ting.

-The shotgun would have been the coup de grace,

but we didn't have it.

NARRATOR: Felts and Grubbs both denied

any involvement in the m*rder.

They claimed they were both in Grubbs' apartment in Annandale,

more than miles away from the crime scene.

But investigators noticed something unusual

on Felts' Jeep-- a lot of dried mud in the wheel wells.

-Here you have a Jeep that supposedly is in Annandale--

you don't have river dirt.

You don't have so much dirt, per se, as you would asphalt,

or concrete.

NARRATOR: To see if this dirt could link it to the m*rder

scene, investigators contacted forensic geologist Dr. Erich

Junger.

ERICH JUNGER: One of the most important things

that we do within forensic science

is try to solve what we call a forensic triad.

And this is where we link the victim,

suspect, and crime scene together.

That triangle, if we can make that work,

is crucial to most of our investigations.

NARRATOR: Dr. Junger says that mineral ratios, erosion,

and other environmental factors can often

distinguish one soil sample from another.

ERICH JUNGER: That makes everything unique.

So that basically, the idea that the soil is dirt is dirt,

no matter where you go, and it doesn't change for miles

around-- dirt is different feet apart from each other.

NARRATOR: First, soil samples were carefully

collected from the Jeep's wheel wells.

Then, they were put through a series of mesh sieves,

to separate the coarse materials from the fine.

Under a microscope, Dr. Junger saw a lot of common material,

like clay and vegetation.

But he also found something else--

a sparkling blue fragment he identified

as azurite and emerald green malachite fragment.

Both were copper-based minerals.

-They're not very strong.

And typically, you can take these particles in your fingers

are just grind them, and they'll fall apart without much trouble

at all.

It told me that there had to be a source for these minerals

nearby, because these are not going

to be transported or miles downstream.

NARRATOR: The m*rder took place at Low Water Bridge,

just a few feet away from the Shenandoah River.

Investigators discovered that just one

mile upstream was a working quarry.

ERICH JUNGER: We've all seen people who've

worn copper bracelets for long periods of time,

and then it turns their skin green underneath.

The same effect is happening.

This is what's happening in the water there.

And once I'd seen that, I knew we had found the source

of the malachite and the azurite.

NARRATOR: Soil samples were collected from the m*rder scene

in the area where police noticed the circular tire

tracks next to Low Water Bridge.

-If we think the suspect came in one direction, left

in a different way, we take samples all along those tracks,

because again, those soils will change.

NARRATOR: The samples from the parking area

were analyzed in the same way as the soil samples

from Lewis Felts' Jeep.

In both samples were the same mineral

components of azurite and malachite.

-Mr. Felts' vehicle was at that crime scene

when the m*rder took place.

-No question, ifs, ands, buts about it.

Not yards up the road, not yards

down the road, down the whatever.

It puts his vehicle right there.

NARRATOR: Dr. Junger believes the minerals from the quarry

got into the Shenandoah River, traveled a mile downstream,

and were washed ashore into the parking lot

at Low Water Bridge around the time of the m*rder.

-He's the man.

You know, he's, he's the know all, tell all god of this,

of forensic geology.

NARRATOR: Now investigators had to prove

who was in the Jeep on the night of the m*rder.

-We were in the position of being able to convict

the vehicle of the homicide, but we were much weaker on proving

who actually pulled the trigger.

NARRATOR: Julie Grubbs and her boyfriend,

Lewis Felts, emerged as the prime suspects

in the double sh**ting at Low Water Bridge.

Witnesses placed Julie Grubbs at her apartment

around the time of the m*rder, but someone using her cell

phone and called Ty Lathon times

in the hours leading up to the m*rder.

-Every time you push that send button, you're hitting a tower,

and that information's being logged in and kept.

NARRATOR: A check of cell tower records

showed that Julie Grubbs' cell phone used many different cell

towers during those calls.

-The cell phone started making phone calls

at : PM on the th, the day of the m*rder.

And they were using Washington, DC, cell site towers.

Around between the to o'clock hour, they

roll over into Fredericksburg towers,

and then ultimately in the Winchester towers,

which is straight down from Fairfax.

So we're actually able to show that that cellphone traveled

west on , and ended up in the Shenandoah Valley that night,

and was used.

NARRATOR: And investigators discovered

that several local residents saw Lewis Felts

in a nearby convenience store earlier that day.

In addition, Ty Lathon's stepmother

was with Ty about two hours before the m*rder,

when he received a cell phone call.

SHARON PHILLIPS: And he said, Lewis, damn it,

I told you I'll meet you at Deer Lake,

and slammed the phone down.

-Felts consistently denied being in Warren County

for a number of years prior to the m*rder.

And so it was vital to our case to be able to put him here

in Warren County, and put him near the crime scene.

And we were able to do that through the cell phone records.

NARRATOR: And investigators discovered

even more forensic evidence.

Mike Kennedy, a friend of Lewis Felts,

came forward with a startling revelation

that he had sold Felts a shotgun three weeks before the m*rder.

Kennedy also said he had several spent shells from that shotgun

still in his possession.

-They might never believe me or whatever,

but I told them that I fired the g*n.

They wanted to know where.

NARRATOR: Investigators recovered

nine shell casings in Kennedy's yard.

When a shotgun fires, the firing pin

leaves a distinctive mark on the shell.

-I like to refer to it as a fingerprint of the firearm,

this impression on back of a shot shell case.

NARRATOR: Firearms expert Jay Mason

compared the shell casings from Michael Kennedy

to the shells found at the crime scene.

He saw double horizontal lines with a slash

on all of the samples.

-The fact that I was able to identify the shot shell

cases all having been fired from the same firearm

put the-- the m*rder w*apon in the hands of the suspect.

NARRATOR: Kennedy wasn't surprised by the match.

-The day after Ty was m*rder*d, I knew in my head

Lewis Felts has something to do with it.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors believed the motive for the sh**ting

may have been old-fashion jealousy.

-The classic love triangle.

There's some evidence that there was

jealousy that had developed by Felts.

He was suspicious that Ty had been with his girlfriend.

NARRATOR: The forensic evidence shows that Lewis Felts called

Ty Lathon while driving towards Front Royal

and asked him to meet at Low Water bridge.

There, he saw Ty Lathon and Joe Kowalewski parked and waiting.

Felts fired into the truck, k*lling Ty Lathon

and wounding Kowalewski.

The trajectory analysis shows that Felts fired from his Jeep.

Two shell casings fell to the ground.

As Felts drove away, the minerals malachite and azurite

lodged in his wheel wells, giving investigators

a precise geological record of his location.

When Felts saw the amount of forensic evidence against him,

he accepted a plea bargain, and pled

guilty to one count of capital m*rder,

and one count of attempted m*rder.

Felts was sentenced to years in prison.

-I think our case showed that Lewis Felts is

a heartless k*ller, and deserved every minute

behind bars that he received.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors say there is no evidence

to suggest that Julie Grubbs was involved in the sh**ting.

Joe Kowalewski is blind in his right eye,

and has limited use of his right arm.

Kevin Kinsey, the Sheriff's deputy implicated

in drug dealing, was later convicted of distribution

of crack cocaine, and sentenced to months in prison.

There was no evidence he was involved in Lathon's m*rder.

-Let me tell you something.

I'll be the first man if Kinsey had anything

to do with the death of Tyree Lathon.

He'd be in jail for it right this second.

I can guarantee you that.

-The science and technology really came into play

in this case in a tremendous way.

We couldn't have completed this prosecution without it.

-Your witnesses will change their story.

Your victims will change story.

Uh, there's just too many other, um, things that can change.

But your physical evidence never changes, period.

It never changes.

And to me, that's one of the key things.

Physical evidence tells it like it is.

Period.

-I've watched this show called "Forensic Files,"

and I've seen it a lot.

And I knew that they can do it.

[theme music]