11x33 - Skirting the Evidence

[bunniefuu]

She won $5,000
at the blackjack table,

then left the casino.

Three hours later,
she was kidnapped.

A single fiber and a
tiny piece of cellophane

were the only clues
to her disappearance.

Tunica, Mississippi,
is the third largest

gambling center in
the United States.

And that's where
Shannon Sanderson

and her second husband,
Robert, loved to go.

On April 19, 1996, Robert and
Shannon planned a gambling trip

to Tunica to celebrate
Robert's 58th birthday.

But at the last minute,
Robert canceled.

He told her that his daughters

from another marriage had come
by and brought him a birthday

cake, and he wanted to spend
a little time with them,

and wanted to delay
their departure

for Tunica, Mississippi.

The couple argued,
but Robert decided to stay home.

Shannon took her children
from a previous marriage

to the babysitter and went
to the casino without him.

And played blackjack,
all night long.

By the end of the evening,
she had won $5,000.

She took $5,000 in cash.

They tried to get her to take
a check, but she wouldn't.

Shannon left
the casino around 3:00 AM.

Then drove to her
babysitter's house

to pick up her three children.

When she got there,
she was att*cked.

Her babysitters
heard the commotion.

They
saw somebody wearing a red ball

cap forcing her into a
maroon Chevrolet Beretta.

And the car took off
before anyone could intervene.

They found a fake
fingernail that had been left

during the struggle, and
a button from the dress

that Shannon had been wearing.

And they, of course,
tagged that as evidence.

One of the neighbors was

able to identify the assailant.

- A neighbor said
it was Shannon's

husband driving the car.

When questioned by
police several hours later,

Shannon's husband, Robert,
denied any involvement.

He said his children stopped
by for small birthday party.

After they left, he went to
bed and was alone all night.

Since there was no one
to corroborate his alibi,

police asked Robert to
take a polygraph test.

ROLESON: His attorney

wouldn't let him take
the polygraph test

and wouldn't let him
give a statement to us,

other than what he had already
told the uniform officers that

made the scene the
night of the kidnapping.

So, that kind of
sent a red flag up.

So, we couldn't eliminate him.

A look into
the couple's marriage

revealed they were having
their fair share of problems.

It was the second
marriage for both,

and there was a 33
year age difference.

We had heard
some reports from some family

members, that perhaps
there was more trouble

than usual with their marriage.

That this argument they
had on his birthday

was not an isolated incident.

That they had been
fighting quite regularly.

If Robert Sanderson
knew anything about his wife's

disappearance, he
wasn't talking.

And police had no
idea where she was.

There were several
witnesses to Shannon

Sanderson's early
morning abduction.

One of them claimed
that the assailant

looked like Shannon's
husband, Robert.

We had a witness
that observed a maroon Beretta,

and she identified the
individual as Robert Sanderson.

And that was the strongest
piece of evidence

that we had at that time.

Robert denied any involvement,

and said he didn't
own a red Beretta.

But Robert was one
of the few people who

knew where Shannon
would be that evening.

And he was also an individual

who had made a lot of money
in the security business,

and would know things
that, you know,

the average citizen on
the street wouldn't know.

Amid rumors that there
was trouble in the marriage,

investigators also uncovered
a possible financial motive.

Prenuptial agreement

had been signed... it was
actually signed post-marriage...

And provided for... I believe,
he would had to have gotten her

an apartment and
paid her $10,000

if they were to
divorce, of something

was to happen to their marriage.

Robert had Shannon
sign this disagreement just two

weeks before her disappearance.

- It was a factor to consider,
and not something that

hits the radar every time the
Memphis Police Department is

investigating a homicide,
or an abduction.

It was something unusual.

Weeks passed, and there

was no word from Shannon
or her kidnapper.

Family and friends
distributed missing posters

throughout town.

And police asked
the public to call

if they have any
information to offer.

And police also questioned
Shannon's ex-husband, Michael.

The two had only been divorced
for a year and a half.

I had no
idea what could have happened.

One of the police told
me I was a suspect.

They questioned me for about
a week straight down there,

at downtown Memphis.

Michael said he had an alibi.

That he was at work at a
chemical company on the night

of the abduction, and
police confirmed his story.

Investigators also discovered
there was another man

in Shannon's life, Brett
Musekamp, who dated Shannon

briefly in between her divorce
and subsequent marriage

to Robert.

Apparently, Musekamp was
angry when Shannon dumped him.

There were some problems

between he and
Shannon Sanderson.

He was calling and harassing.

He was also following
her around in her car.

There was one incident
where he blocked

her car in and frightened her.

Shannon pressed criminal charges

and obtained a restraining
order against him.

Like everyone else in the case,
Musekamp denied any involvement

in Shannon's disappearance.

The former boyfriend's alibi

was his mother... that
he was at home asleep.

And his mother vouched for him,
and it all seemed credible.

Hoping for a lead, police

decided to track Shannon's
movements on the night

of her abduction,
beginning with the Sam's

Town Casino in
Tunica, Mississippi.

And once again, Robert
Sanderson became

the focus of the investigation.

An assistant Casino
manager was sure he'd

seen them together that night.

He remembered
Shannon Sanderson and Robert

Sanderson fighting,
and he even went so far

as to recall Shannon
Sanderson crouched over

in the corner of the
Casino, and indicating

that she was afraid
of Robert Sanderson.

The Casino manager also

claimed that Robert
Sanderson asked

him to help provide an alibi.

- He remembers Robert Sanderson
coming back down the casino

after Shannon
Sanderson's abduction,

and talking to Mr.
Burchfield, and saying,

you know, I wasn't
down here that night.

A month after
Shannon's disappearance,

a man found the
remains of a body

in a deserted farmhouse


Dental records confirmed that
it was Shannon Sanderson.

Shannon was shot
behind her ear, basically... one

shot, which k*lled
her, of course.

She... prior to
that, she had been

struck numerous
times in the face.

Her jaw was broken.

I believe a tooth
was knocked loose

and another tooth cracked.

Shannon's $5,000 was missing,

and so was her jewelry.

Leading some to suspect
the motive was robbery.


Sanderson was

found m*rder*d in a
deserted farmhouse



Shannon left behind
three young children

from her first marriage.

At the time, they were just
three, five, and seven years

old.

I tell them
that she's a good person.

She's a loving mom.

She cared about them very,
very much, and to this day,

you know, she still
cares about them.

She'll care about them until
the rest of their lives.

The prime suspect in the m*rder

was the second
husband, Robert, who

was unable to
provide a solid alibi

for the night of her m*rder.

A casino employee recalled
seeing Robert at the Casino

that night with Shannon.

A review of the casino's
security cameras

revealed Shannon
Sanderson was there,

but no sign of her
husband, Robert.

We were able to determine

that this particular night
there was no altercation,

and that Robert
wasn't at Sam's Town,

because we were able to go back
and look at who she was with

and where she... when she
left, if anyone was with her.

And of course,
Robert wasn't there.

The investigation
into Shannon's m*rder

had been dragging on for weeks.

During that time,
police received

numerous calls about the case.

One of them came from a
woman named Sharon Powers.

- She called the Memphis
Police Department,

and she said, my husband,
Gerald Lee Powers,

was at Sam's Town
Casino the night

that this woman was abducted,
he was driving a maroon Beretta,

and he was wearing
a red baseball cap.

That's all she told the police.

A background check
revealed 41-year-old Gerald

Powers was an
unemployed construction

worker with a criminal past.

Gerald Lee Powers had

a horrible criminal history
of terrorizing women.

One in which he jumped in a car
of a woman that he didn't know,

held her at knife
point, threatened her.

Somehow, miraculously, she
was able to drive and escape.

And there was another case where
he broke into a woman's home,

beat her with a skillet,
stole money from her,

and stole jewelry from her.

Powers had served
seven years in prison

for the last as*ault.

And police couldn't speak to
him about Shannon's m*rder,

because he had disappeared.

Police finally caught
him a month later

at the Mexican border attempting
to re-enter the United States.

They pulled him over,

Powers come out with a knife,
the border agent drew his g*n,

Powers decided he wasn't gonna
take a knife to a g*n fight,

and gave up.

Powers was
driving a red Beretta,

the same kind of car witnesses
saw at Shannon's kidnapping.

But Powers claimed
he had an alibi

for the night of
Shannon's m*rder.

- We weren't still sure that
he had an involvement in it.

He had told the officers that
he went to visit a sick friend.

That friend, who lived


in Clarksdale,
corroborated his alibi.

But in Power's
trunk investigators

found pieces of
a fake fingernail

with pink nail polish,
similar to the fingernail

found at the crime scene.

So investigators
took the unusual step

of exhuming Shannon's body.

- We needed to make
sure that these were

her fingernails that
had been recovered.

Just as they suspected,

Shannon did have fake nails
glued onto real fingernails,

and they were sent to the
forensic lab for comparison.

- We were sent a number of
artificial fingernails.

One from the abduction site.

One from the victim at autopsy.

One from the suspect's
trunk of his vehicle.

Under a microscope,
the nail found at the abduction

site matched the fake
nails from Shannon's body.

Unfortunately, the nail
found in Gerald Power's trunk

was a different shape and
painted a different color

than Shannon Sanderson's nails.

- The fingernail from
the subject's trunk

differed from the fingernails
associated with the victim.

- When we found out the nails
didn't match, we were shocked.

- You know, everybody just,
well, it's gonna match,

it's gonna match.

It's gotta match, but it didn't.

To find out if Gerald
Powers was in Sam's Town Casino

on the night of Shannon
Sanderson's abduction,

investigators asked
casino management

to screen their security
videotapes once again.

- We happened to get lucky,
because cameras that we were

looking at are normally
pointed at table games.

In this incident, we were...
Had some table games that

were getting ready for
table drops... that's

the collection of the
money from the table games

early in the
morning... and a camera

was left out of place,
out of position.

That camera caught a
partial image of a man wearing

white sneakers standing
on a balcony overlooking

the blackjack table where
Shannon Sanderson was playing.

The man went down the escalator,
past Shannon's blackjack table.

At the cashier's window,
Shannon collected her $5,000.

Then, a Casino security
guard escorted her

to the parking lot.

The man followed Shannon out
the door 30 seconds later.

Most of the video
was black and white,

but he did walk past a
color security camera.

The baseball cap was red, and
he looked like Gerald Powers.

I was pretty elated.

It was a lot of work
that we got this guy.

It was, like I said,
hundreds and hundreds

of hours of reviewing time.

Very tedious, and when we
did finally get our guy,

it was a... a celebratory moment.

But prosecutor needed
more evidence against Powers

before walking into court and
trying to get a conviction.

And they didn't have any.

Then, in a surprising twist,
Gerald Powers wife, Sharon,

led police to the
jewelry that had

been stolen from
Shannon Sanderson.

Sharon claimed her
husband, Gerald,

told her where he hid it.

- He told her that he had buried
the jewelry behind the B and W

lounge, in an old
abandoned couch,

and if she needed it for
any purpose, there it was.

Just as Sharon said,
the jewelry was there... wrapped

in tin foil, and
pink Saran wrap.

In Powers' home, investigators
found pink Saran wrap,

similar to the type used
to wrap Shannon's jewelry.

In the forensic lab,
scientist cut tiny slivers

from each sample,
and subjected them

to a process known
as Fourier transform

infrared spectroscopy.

Infrared light is passed
through each sample.

How much each one absorbs
is then plotted on a graph.

Both samples have
the same composition,

and the color of the
cellophane looked the same.

But the human eye can
only differentiate



A microspectrophotometer
can detect thousands,

and that test was definitive.

- It's my conclusion that the
plastic wrap used to contain

Shannon's jewelry, was
consistent with coming

from the plastic roll recovered
from the suspect's residence.

We were ecstatic.

That was very compelling, in our
eyes, and we knew to the jury

that that would be
something very compelling.

Next, investigators did

a thorough search
of Powers' car.

Not
having all the equipment like

they do on "CSI"... vacuum
cleaners and stuff...

He went and purchased
a lint brush,

and he went over the whole car.

On the tape lift, one fiber

stood out... an unusual
black, wool fiber.

I noticed
that the dye was unevenly

distributed across
the wool fiber...

Kind of a mocha brown color in
between, inside the wool fiber

itself.

So it had a... kind of a
unique dye distribution

across the wool fiber.

Fibers from the black
skirt Shannon was wearing when

m*rder*d were compared to this
black fiber from Powers' car.

Under a microscope,
the fibers appeared

to have the same uneven
distribution of dye.

Using a microspectrophotometer,
scientists

found no differences
between the two.

The wool fiber in Powers' car
came from Shannon's skirt.

That
was... that's exciting.

It's the reason most of
us in the FBI are here.

We want to find out the truth,
and in these violent crime

cases, there are no witnesses.

We can settle this legal
argument, whether these two

people came in contact,
and so we find the truth

and present that truth.

And it feels good that we
believe that justice was done.

Prosecutors knew
that Gerald Powers watched

Shannon Sanderson play
blackjack and followed her

to the cashier's window,
where she cashed in her chips

for $5,000 in cash.

Prosecutors believe Powers
followed Shannon for 45 minutes

as she drove to the babysitter's
house to pick up her children.

When she got out of her car
Powers knocked her unconscious.

Then, threw her into the car.

No one knows where he
went, but at some point

he k*lled Shannon with
a .25 caliber p*stol,

stole her casino
winnings and jewelry,

then disposed of her body
in an abandoned farmhouse.

- He knew, at that
time, he was not

gonna let Shannon live, because
of his previous encounters

that he had attempted
to abduct women.

And they had lived
to identify him.

In December of


was convicted of Shannon
Sanderson's m*rder

and was sentenced to death.

And the
forensic proof in this case

was overwhelming and compelling.

And there was a juror
after this was all over,

who told us that
they couldn't help

but get caught up in
the wave of evidence

that we created from
the very first witness

until the very last, and that we
left them no choice but to find

Gerald Lee Powers
guilty as charged.

That fiber and that dress

put her in that car, and that
was the icing on the cake.

It would probably have been
hard to convince 12 people

that he actually committed
the m*rder without that fiber.