12x04 - Wheel of Misfortune

[bunniefuu]

Security cameras
tracked a young woman's

whereabouts shortly
before she disappeared.

An internet search
provided some answers,

and a cell phone call
revealed the others.

Experts say that if
you're going to gamble,

you should know two things,
first, the odds of the game

you're playing, and
second, that the odds are

stacked in the casino's favor.


Wilson believed

she could beat those odds in
her favorite game, blackjack.

Her friends say
she was a natural.

She was very sharp in numbers.

She's mathematically
a whiz in her head,

and she can just look at
things and figure them

out real quick, so
the odds, percentages.

- She had actually studied
on how to play the game,

how to become
better at the game.

And she was actually
a pretty good gambler.

On October 4, 2005,
Christie went to the Thunder

Valley Casino in
Lincoln, California

for a night of blackjack.

Two days later, Christie's
live-in boyfriend,

Danny Burlando, called
police to report her missing.

Burlando claimed she never
came home from the casino.

- He's as flaky as them
come the whole time.

His... his conversations
made him just as

innocent as they
made him look guilty.


Burlando was an unemployed car

salesman who met
Christie just a year

earlier at a casino
blackjack table.

They moved in together
shortly after that.

- Christie Wilson's relationship
with her boyfriend Daniel

Burlando was a, I
would say... describe

it as a tumultuous relationship.

- She'd come home and visit,
and we found bruises on her.

I didn't find them myself.

My wife did and told me about
them later on after she left.

And to say the
least, I was... wanted

to wring his neck at the time.

Police found Christie's car

in the casino parking lot.

A search of her
apartment found no signs

of a struggle and no evidence
she was planning to leave.

- She left behind day-to-day
personal effects,

toiletry items,
clothes, medication

she was taking regularly.

She left behind her cat,
something very important

to her.

So items that if she was to
take off and flee the area,

perhaps she would take
those things with her.

So it was highly
suspicious and unusual.

A month before
Christie's disappearance,

she and Danny were
fighting so loudly

that the neighbors
called police.

The police department was then

unable to determine
who was the aggressor.

So both of them,
at that time, were

arrested for domestic v*olence.

Both of them had
suffered injuries.

A check of
Burlando's cell phone records

indicated he called
Christie's cell phone 78 times

during the time she was missing.

The fact that he
had called her 78 times could

be a way for him
to create an alibi.

A person might report
someone missing,

but nonetheless be involved in
the commission of their m*rder

simply to cover their
tracks or to appear

that they're not involved.

Christy's
parents and even police

wondered whether
Danny Burlando might

have finally gone too far.

- Now, to me, this guy stinks.

They've had v*olence in
the past between them.

I don't like him.

And I really wanted them
to look hard into this.

And you have that gut feeling,
as both a police officer and as

a parent, something
really majorly wrong.

Christie Wilson went missing

after a night of
casino gambling.

Since her stepfather
was a local detective,

police officers all
over Southern California

joined in the search.

San Jose Police Department

had coordinated a
very large search.

Hundreds and hundreds
of square miles

was searched with
vehicles, on foot,

by air, helicopter, airplane.

There was an
extensive search done

both publicly and privately.

Christie's family was convinced

she'd been the
victim of foul play

at the hands of her live-in
boyfriend, Danny Burlando.

- Most murderers
probably dump somebody

at a fairly short distance to
where the crime would happen.

And I was... felt so
strongly that it was Danny.

I literally searched his entire
complex, close to his house,

and the rivers around it.

Burlando seemed
to be the only person

with a motive to harm her.

- There's a whole bunch of
motives with a boyfriend.

She was totally committed to
being out of that relationship.

This is, again, why I think
it was more of a abused woman,

where she's drawn back
into a relationship

even though she knows
everything is bad for her there.

Burlando had a partial alibi

for the night
Christie disappeared.

He was having dinner
at his parents' house.

But there were several hours
he couldn't account for.

- It was approximately 11:30 at
night, when his friend left him

at his apartment,
to the morning hours

when he first used
his cell phone.

We don't have anybody with him
to corroborate where he was.

Investigators asked the casino

to review their
security camera video

tapes to see
whether Christie was

there on the night
she disappeared.

- They have approximately


both on the exterior and
interior of the casino,

and we actually had her vehicle
pulling in the parking lot.

I had her entering the
casino, and then we

tracked her movement
through the entire casino

throughout the six hours
that she was there.

The tape showed
Christie playing blackjack.

There were no signs
that Danny Burlando

was in the casino with her.

Seated next to Christie
at the blackjack table,

however, was a stocky,
dark-haired man.

You can see
their interaction together.

You can see when they would
win, they would high five.

You can see him putting
his arm around her

as if he's trying
to pick up on her,

romancing her in some fashion.

The dealers said
Christie was winning early,

but as the night progressed
her luck started to change.

They also said she was
drinking, but not heavily.

- A detective looked
at the casino tape,

and I believe he counted up
to 17 separate sips of what

appeared to be an
alcoholic beverage

over the course of the night.

That doesn't sound
like that much.

She had a noticeable
change in behavior

towards the end of the evening.

Christie was
a regular in the casino,

but the employees found
her behavior on this night

to be out of character.

She was being a real jerk

at the time from
what I understand.

And by watching... I could
only see her physical action,

couldn't hear her words-
and I could see the way

her body got rigid and how
she would move differently.

- And some of the
employees had discussed

asking her to leave the casino.

But the man next
to Christie intervened.

- The person of interest stepped
in and said, hey, she'll be OK.

I'll take care of her, whatever.

Fortunately, the security tapes

provided a clue to
the man's identity.

- He had actually
used his players card

at playing a slot machine about


with Christie
Wilson at the table.

- With that players cards, they
can build credit and obtain

complimentary items
from the casino.

- And so by charting that
play and that particular slot

machine, they were
able to figure

out who the individual was.

He was 53-year-old
Mario Garcia, an executive

with a health care
computer company.

- At one level, he didn't
seem like a suspicious type.

But when you've been in
this business for a while,

you just never know.

- He got a six-figure income.

He works for a very...
A very large company.

He was managing a very large
project for that company.

He's married, had two children,
was involved with his children.

He played soccer and
also was a soccer coach.

The security camera videotape

showed that Christie and
Garcia both left the casino

at the same time, around


The tapes also show Garcia
left in his car alone.

But Christie's car never moved.

She never went to her vehicle.

She simply disappears
in that parking lot.

Police now had two suspects

in the disappearance
of Christie Wilson.

The first was her live-in
boyfriend, Danny Burlando,

who had no alibi for
the early morning hours

that Christie went missing.

His home was searched.

His car was searched.

He was scrutinized
in great detail.

His phone records were
analyzed, his whereabouts.

And... and cell tower
locations of use of his phone

were analyzed.

His computer was searched
forensically and analyzed.

Police couldn't
find any evidence

linking Burlando to
her disappearance.

The other suspect
was Mario Garcia,

who was playing blackjack
with Christie in the casino.

Christie and Garcia left
the casino at the same time

around 1:00 AM.

It was the most important thing

to find that person
on the video.

Without finding
that information,

we would have no
clue what happened,

and we'd probably be
assuming that all our life,

right to our dying day,
that Danny was involved.

A background check revealed

Mario Garcia had a shady past.


he was arrested

for kidnapping an ex-girlfriend.

- He drove her to
another location,

where he r*ped her in a vehicle.

Then he took her inside, and
he r*ped her again inside.

And at one point, he had
stuck a g*n in her mouth

and pulled the trigger.

Fortunately,
the g*n wasn't loaded.

Incredibly, Garcia was only
charged with a misdemeanor

and received probation.

Garcia apparently had a
problem with girlfriends.

He was involved in a
suspicious car accident

with another girlfriend
and her mother,

who were both in Garcia's car
when it veered into a river.

There were
reports of people driving by,

seeing a car pull to
the side of the road,

and then speed into the
body of water suspiciously.

Mario Garcia was the sole
survivor of the incident.

His girlfriend, Lynette, washed
ashore about a week later.

Her mother was trapped
in the car and drowned.

When police questioned
Garcia about Christie Wilson's

disappearance, he claimed
he knew nothing about it.

He said they walked to
the parking lot together

and each went their
separate ways.

The security cameras
couldn't confirm this

since they panned across
the lot and weren't fixed.

But Garcia's car had
a unique feature,

which provided a timeline
for when he unlocked his car

and when he drove away.

- The lights on his Toyota
Camry flashed four times.

Four times means that
all four doors were open.

There was a 3
minute and 41 second

gap between the time he got
in, or unlocked the doors,

and he turns on the
headlights to pull out.

During that period
of time, I believe

that she was incapacitated
in some fashion

and probably laid
in the backseat.

Garcia claimed
he drove straight home.

But if that were
true, he drove out

of the parking lot
headed the wrong way.

- The video footage showed
that he had actually

made a right turn out
of the casino, which

was the opposite direction he
had indicated that he had went.

Furthermore, Garcia
claimed he was home in bed

all night until he left for
work the next morning at 8:30.

His wife refused to
speak with police.

But his cell phone
records indicated

he wasn't home at 8:30.

- We were able to find
that he had placed a phone

call to his wife at 7:51 in
the morning on her cell phone.

It hit a cell tower that was
located north of his residence.

Garcia also claimed he got

to work in time for a


But his coworkers recalled he
was late that morning, arriving

closer to 10:00 AM, and that
his face was severely scratched.

- The first words that came
out of his employees' mouths,

some of the words were,
you know, who beat you up?

I hope the other
guy looks worse.

You know, it was very apparent,
immediately in the morning,

that he had injuries.

- It was a significant fact that
he had absolutely no injuries,

observable injuries, on him at
the casino that night before.

Garcia told police the scratch

marks were caused by yard work.

- It didn't seem plausible.

I don't know of too many people
that would be up trimming trees

between 1:13 in the morning and,
say, 8 o'clock in the morning,

when he's supposed to be ready
and leaving for a meeting.

Connie Mitchell was asked

to review the photographs
of Garcia's injuries.

- I'm a specialist in
emergency medicine.

And so, as anyone could imagine,
we see lots of injuries.

Mitchell was
particularly interested

in the location of
Garcia's injuries,

the four parallel scratch
marks on the left side

of his chest and face.

- The left side is sort
of important here,

because if you have a
right-handed victim,

you'd be more likely that their
right hand would be clawing

across the left side in
a struggle to get away.

Christie
Wilson was right-handed.

And the scratches had
a uniform pattern,

whereas an accident
creates random scratches.

- When you see a distinct
geometric pattern,

that like the distinct
pattern of the claw marks,

don't make sense for
a fall from a tree.

Mitchell was convinced
that the scratch marks were

caused by another person
during a violent struggle.

- Christie left a message for
her loved ones, her family,

investigators, police,
forensic examiners to see.

Next, forensic experts
searched Garcia's home computer

and found more
incriminating evidence.

- We learned that he
had visited a website

on forensic toxicology, forensic
firearm evidence, and also

a website on date r*pe dr*gs.

But if Mario Garcia
was responsible for Christie's

disappearance, investigators
faced a serious hurdle.

Without her body, they
couldn't prove she was dead.

- Not only did we
not have a body,

we had no confession,
no witnesses.

We didn't know where
the m*rder happened.

We didn't know what
the m*rder w*apon was.

The prime suspect in
Christie Wilson's disappearance

was Mario Garcia, who was with
Christie in the casino earlier

on the night she went missing.

Investigators got a warrant
to search Garcia's car,

but it had already been
cleaned inside and out.

The floor mats and the
trunk liner were gone.

- So that right away
was suspicious.

But cleaning,
vacuuming, and even shampooing

doesn't remove everything.

- There was this brownish
discoloration on the seat,

and just looked
like a dirt stain,

a dirty spot on the seat.

A presumptive test
indicated this was blood.

But the stain repellent on the
seats prevented a DNA analysis.

- I could not process it for
DNA typing because there was

an inhibitor present
in the sample.

An inhibitor is
something that prevents

DNA typing from occurring.

Analysts also
found traces of blood

on the fibers of the seam
between the seats and blood

spatter on the
passenger side door.

- Spatter was the
result of some medium

to high-velocity incident
that caused the spatter

to have that kind
of a look to it.

And they made another
discovery, two strands of hair,

one in the trunk and the other
on the passenger side door

handle.

DNA extracted from the
hair in Mario's car

matched the DNA of the hair
on Christie's hairbrush.

- The probability that a random,
unrelated individual would have

the profile found in the
hairs was 1 in 720 quintillion

for Caucasians.

But that wasn't all.

The blood in Garcia's
car was a mixture

of Christie's and
Garcia's, clear evidence

of physical contact
between them.

- His statement to
investigators was

that she never got in his car.

Prosecutors believe this

was a crime of opportunity.

Garcia met Christie at the
blackjack table, befriended

her, and may have slipped a
date r*pe drug into her drink

since casino employees
noticed an abrupt change

in her behavior.

Shortly after 1:00 AM, Christie
and Garcia left the casino.

Garcia unlocked his car, and
for the next 3 minutes and 41

seconds, the
cameras were pointed

in a different direction.

Prosecutors believe that's
when Garcia slammed her head

into the front passenger
door, creating blood spatter

and lodging a hair
under the door handle.

He forced Christie
into the backseat

and drove out of the
casino parking lot

without arousing suspicion.

Garcia drove to an area
somewhere north of his home,

and there was most likely
another altercation.

They scratched and
hit each other,

leaving a mixture of
their blood inside the car

and marks on his face and chest.

Garcia apparently put
Christie's body in the trunk,

and she left a single
strand of hair behind.

Garcia signaled his
general location at 7:51

in the morning when he called
his wife on his cell phone,

proof that he wasn't
home as he had claimed.

Where he left Christie's
body remains a mystery.

- There's so many unsettling
courses of this case.

But that-s that's
one that is still

unresolved and unsettling, is
that the family has continued

to be victimized by their
inability to lay their daughter

to rest, or at least
lay the remains to rest.

- We, the jury, in the
above entitled action

find the defendant, Mario Fabio
Garcia, guilty of the felony

as charged in count
one of the information.

In January of 2007, Mario Garcia

was tried and convicted of
Christie Wilson's m*rder

and was sentenced to


- I am innocent.

I did not k*ll Christie Wilson.

Forensics helped solve the case,

but so did Christie Wilson.

- Christie Wilson, in this
case, was the silent witness.

She was there at trial,
speaking to us of the injuries

that she left on Mario Garcia.

- And I think I said that
in my family remarks

to Mario at the
end of the trial,

that yes, you... you
won, you k*lled her.

But she left the
marks that are going

to put you in jail for
the rest of your life

and save some other woman.