08x16 - Private Thoughts

[bunniefuu]

Narrator: when firefighters found an entire family dead

Inside their home, it looked like a m*rder-su1c1de.

But there were several inconsistent clues

In the rubble.

Could ballistics, a time card,

And some secret audio tapes unravel the mystery?

[ Siren wails ]

Just before daybreak on august , ,

Firefighters in vinton, virginia,

Were called to a house fire on virginia avenue.

When the fire was extinguished,

Rescuers found the bodies of all four members

Of the hodges family.

-Year-old blaine hodges,

His -year-old wife, teresa,

And their daughters --

-Year-old winter and -year-old anah.

Lugar: I think it's hard enough to lose one family member,

But once you lose four,

The numbness and the grief that comes over you is unbearable.

Narrator: teresa hodges was on the sofa downstairs.

She had been strangled to death.

An empty diesel-fuel can lay nearby.

Upstairs, the two little girls were in bed.

Both had been shot to death.

Blaine hodges was dead from a g*nsh*t wound

In the master bedroom.

A .-Caliber p*stol was on the floor by his side.

Keesee: it looked like blaine hodges

Had k*lled his wife and two young daughters

And then set the home on fire

And got in bed and k*lled himself.

Narrator: blaine hodges had recently had

Some difficult times.

He had been fired from his job at the post office

For allegedly stealing $,.

Keesee: he had been convicted of an embezzlement charge

And was on the verge of going off to jail

For a short period of time.

So, when we found that out,

That would fit into the motivating factor

That he maybe wanted to, um... k*ll his family

And take his own life.

Narrator: blaine was about to begin serving

A six-month prison sentence for that crime.

He had also been ordered to make restitution of $,,

A sum he apparently did not have.

Was it possible that the prospect of jail

And the large financial payment caused hodges to snap?

At the autopsy,

The medical examiner, dr. William massello,

Made a startling discovery.

Blaine hodges didn't have any soot in his lungs

Or breathing passages,

Which would've been present had he set the fire

Before k*lling himself.

And blaine's body revealed even more telling information.

Mr. Hodges showed signs of what we call decay,

Which were more consistent with his having been dead

For many, many hours or even days,

When compared to the others.

Keesee: and I thought at first that he was just pulling my leg

Because I've known him so long.

Then when he said, "barry, I'm serious."

Narrator: there was no way

Blaine hodges could've k*lled his family

If he was already dead.

That would be apparent to anybody that has eyesight.

That forensic determination from the autopsy

Enabled the police to know,

"We don't have a m*rder-su1c1de."

The girls couldn't have shot themselves

Through the head twice.

Teresa could not have strangled herself and set herself on fire.

Narrator: in order to buy time,

Police did not reveal any of these forensic details

To the media or to family members.

They had stated that there had been a fire

And that they had died in the fire.

Basically, it was just that we didn't know very much

At this point in time.

Narrator: police hoped this minor deception

Would give them time to find the real k*ller.

Narrator: police were investigating

A suspicious house fire

That had first appeared to be a m*rder-su1c1de.

The forensic evidence revealed someone from outside the home

m*rder*d all four members of the hodges family

Before setting the fire.

The evidence also revealed

That teresa hodges had struggled with the k*ller.

Patches of her hair were still on the staircase.

The fire had started near her body.

Since teresa's stepbrother had problems with the law,

Police wondered whether the crime was some sort of payback.

Lugar: the reason they got the idea from that

Is because one of her father's children

From a separate marriage, who teresa was not raised with,

He happened to be in prison, and he was an ex-d.e.a. Informant.

So that is a very --

That's where the drug relation came into play.

Narrator: and police had another lead.

An elderly woman reported seeing a red pickup truck

Leaving the hodges' driveway shortly before the fire.

Police interviewed all of the hodges' relatives

As well as the man who spent more time at the hodges' home

Than anyone else --

Blaine's best friend and former high-school track coach,

Earl bramblett.

Leach: everyone that the police came in contact with said,

"If you want to know what's going on in that house

"Or what has gone on in that house, go find earl bramblett.

"He is the closest friend of the family.

"He is always over there.

He is always doing things with blaine."

Narrator: bramblett told police

That he went fishing with the hodges the day before the fire,

And that he had no idea

Who would've wanted to harm the family.

But bramblett said something revealing about blaine hodges

During the interrogation.

Keesee: he called him an s.o.b.

And said, "this sorry s.o.b. Had a beautiful family.

He did them and did himself."

Narrator: newspapers reported only that the family died

In a house fire

And said nothing about a m*rder-su1c1de.

When he said that, suspicion turned.

Narrator: a background check

Revealed that bramblett had previous brushes with the law.

In , he had been a suspect

In the disappearance of two roanoke girls,

Whose bodies had never been found.

He was also accused of molesting a young girl in .

With a warrant, police search bramblett's home,

Which was nothing more than a room in a nearby motel.

Inside, they found numerous crime novels and textbooks.

Keesee: he had one book in his possession

About forensic science

And the techniques used by forensic science

To do different things.

Narrator: police also found a detective magazine

Featuring an article about a m*rder

Committed with a p*stol with no barrel.

Coincidentally,

The g*n found next to blaine hodges' body had no barrel.

Bramblett owned a pickup truck, but it was white, not red,

Like the one seen leaving the hodges' driveway.

But in the back of bramblett's truck

Were several .-Caliber cartridge shells.

Police then visited bramblett's employer

To see if he was at work on the day of the murders.

On bramblett's time card for that day,

One of the entries had been blacked out.

And police found a pair of bramblett's blue jeans

Soaking in a back-room sink.

Could forensic scientists tell whether any of these items

Were somehow related to the murders?

And if bramblett was involved,

What was his motive?

Narrator: a team of forensic scientists

At the western virginia crime lab

Analyzed the items recovered from their prime suspect's home.

Using a process known as the charcoal-tube method,

Arson investigator tom simpson placed samples

Of earl bramblett's stained blue jeans in a can

And then heated it.

The vapors were trapped in a tube filled with charcoal.

Then, fed into a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer,

A device that can analyze the precise chemical composition

Of a stain.

Even though bramblett's jeans had been submerged in water,

Simpson discovered the stains were diesel fuel,

The same accelerant used to start the hodges' fire.

Diesel fuel is very good to get fire spread quickly.

If something is soaked in diesel fuel,

It may not flare up as quickly, but it will burn much hotter.

Narrator: the blacked-out entry on bramblett's time card

Presented another challenge.

Forensic documents examiner gordon menzies

Used a video spectral comparator with various light sources

In an attempt to see underneath the black ink.

Slowly, the information came into view.

I was able to come up with an original entry

That was ": m,"

Which would've been : in the morning on monday,

According to what I understand about...time clock.

Narrator: : in the morning was only minutes

After neighbors reported the fire at the hodges' home.

Coincidentally, bramblett's workplace

Was only a -minute drive from the hodges' home.

And there was no doubt

About whose writing was on the time card.

Menzies: yes, I concluded

That the handwriting was also earl bramblett's.

One of the first things you notice

With bramblett's handwriting

Is a very outsized, lowercased "k."

It almost looks like a capital "r."

Narrator: forensic handwriting analysis

Also solved another mystery.

In the dumpster behind bramblett's workplace,

Police found a page torn from a desk blotter

With some unusual drawings.

A drawing of stick figures with arrows pointing to the head

And little flames draw around the body of somebody

That looked like laying on the couch,

And little stairsteps drawn

To look like you're going up the stairs

Inside of a building.

Narrator: police believe the arrows represent g*nshots.

The circle around the neck represents the strangulation.

Once again,

This was information only the k*ller would know,

Since it hadn't been released to the public.

The handwriting at the bottom of the page

Was consistent with bramblett's known handwriting samples.

Firearms expert van roberts

Compared the b*ll*ts from the m*rder victims

To the g*n found next to blaine hodges' body.

Even though the g*n had no barrel,

It still had its firing pin.

Under a comparison microscope,

You can see the unique marks made on the shells

From the g*n's firing pin.

The firing-pin marks from the g*n at the crime scene

Matched the spent casings found in bramblett's truck

And the casings found in the hodges' home.

The fbi conducted an elemental analysis

On the b*llet fragments removed from the bodies.

Roberts: when a manufacturer makes b*ll*ts,

Even jacketed b*ll*ts,

Because they have lead in the middle,

They'll make up a pot

Of hundreds of pounds of molten lead

And add certain trace elements to it.

This big pot's that used to make

All these thousands and thousands of b*ll*ts

Is particular to itself

Because of the amount of trace elements they put in it.

Narrator: this analysis of the lead by the fbi

Proved that the b*ll*ts from the victims' bodies

Were made from the same batch of molten metal

As the unused b*ll*ts found in the home of earl bramblett.

But one thing troubled investigators.

Why did the witness identify a red pickup truck

Leaving the hodges' driveway around the time of the fire?

This is what a white pickup truck looks like

Under the sodium-vapor lighting near the hodges' home.

It makes the white truck look like a red truck.

The forensic evidence tied earl bramblett to the murders,

But it was bramblett himself who unwittingly revealed the motive.

In bramblett's trash,

Police found a late notice for a storage-locker rental

Near his home.

Keesee: ironically, the name of the place

Was "winter's mini storage,"

Spelled the same way as winter hodges' name.

Narrator: inside were boxes and boxes of audio tapes.

Narrator: and what he said about -year-old winter hodges

Was chilling.

It was very damaging to mr. Bramblett

As far what his motivation factors were with little winter,

The pedophilia implications that he had towards her,

And I won't discuss that garbage here.

Narrator: after nearly two years of investigation,

Roanoke county prosecutors finally had enough evidence

To arrest earl bramblett for the m*rder of the hodges family.

Leach: "it's time. We know it well enough.

Let's go. All the forensics are done."

I think we had basically everything we needed

After about a year and a half to a year and eight months.

Narrator: earl bramblett was ready, too.

I just want this to be fast. Let's get to a trial.

Narrator: that was one of the few times

Bramblett ever spoke in court.

But jurors heard his voice many times on the audiotapes.

At one point, bramblett said he feared blaine hodges

Was out to get him.

Leach: his focus, when you listen to those tapes,

Was that the family was trying to use the oldest daughter

As sexual bait to entrap him in a situation

So he could be prosecuted for that,

And would somehow get blaine hodges out of trouble.

Narrator: leach says

Blaine hodges never tried to reduce his prison term

On the embezzlement conviction by trying to entrap bramblett.

Leach believes

It was all a figment of bramblett's imagination.

Quite frankly, his paranoia fed that to the point

That I think that's a factor -- a huge factor --

In why he committed the crime.

Narrator: on the day of the murders,

Earl bramblett had plans to fishing with the hodges family.

He probably used some ruse

To speak with blaine alone inside the house...

...and then shot blaine...

[ g*nsh*t ]

To make it look like su1c1de.

Bramblett then went outside,

Telling teresa and the girls

That blaine had decided to stay home to do some chores instead,

So bramblett took them fishing alone.

A park ranger said he saw bramblett, teresa,

And the two girls at the lake that day.

When they returned home,

Bramblett may have wanted teresa or one of the girls

To discover blaine's body,

Confirming it as a su1c1de rather than m*rder.

But something went wrong.

Teresa may have found blaine's body

And believed it was m*rder, not su1c1de.

As she came downstairs,

A struggle ensued on the staircase,

Where teresa's hair was left on the railing.

Bramblett strangled teresa to death.

He then went upstairs, retrieved the g*n,

Went into the children's room, and shot them to death.

[ g*nshots ]

Bramblett removed the barrel of the p*stol before planting it

To complicate ballistic testing.

But it raised serious doubts

That a man would commit su1c1de with a p*stol with no barrel.

Bramblett returned to the hodges' home later

With diesel fuel.

He poured the diesel fuel downstairs

To start the house fire,

But it didn't burn the house enough

To prevent forensic analysis.

Leach: had earl bramblett been as good an arsonist

As he was a k*ller,

We would never have prosecuted him.

Narrator: bramblett then drove to work,

Where he made a number of mistakes.

He punched the time clock,

Either from force of habit or greed,

So that he'd be paid for coming in early.

It placed him in the vicinity of the hodges' home

Around the time the fire was reported.

Bramblett tried to remove the diesel-fuel stains

From his blue jeans by soaking them in water,

But forensic testing easily identified them.

Bramblett unwittingly revealed his complicity

By drawing the injuries on stick figures

On a piece of paper at work...

Later matched to bramblett by handwriting analysis.

In addition to the forensic evidence,

Prosecutors also had bramblett's audiotapes.

Any time you can get words coming from a defendant's mouth,

And they are about the subject of the crime,

And here they were about the hodges family,

It can be extremely important.

I think that was very effective with the jury.

Narrator: it took the jury about one hour

To convict earl bramblett of capital m*rder.

It just fit together to the point

That we had people sitting here

Who were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt

That earl did it, and I would assume at this point

That they haven't had a doubt to this day.

So, it was key, the forensic evidence was.

Narrator: bramblett was sentenced to death.

He was ex*cuted on april , ,

In virginia's electric chair.

Roberts: I've heard several people make the statement

That if they're m*rder*d,

They want barry keesee on the case

Because he won't stop until the case is solved.

He's like colombo on tv.

He's a hound dog, a bulldog.

Had it not been for forensic science,

We would not be here today

Talking about earl bramblett being convicted and ex*cuted

For k*lling the hodges family.

It's just that simple.

Forensics, forensics.

Everywhere you look,

Every avenue you look in this case,

Forensics, forensics.

But in this case, it is the forensic files,

No doubt about it.