Up next, it looked
like a joyride, but it was
something much worse.
She was gonna jump out of the
back of the truck while it was
moving.
We just thought it was a
crazy drunk person, you know,
just... Partying.
The evidence suggests foul play.
All we knew was that there
was a woman who was in distress
in this truck.
But was this an
accident or m*rder?
His story was inconsistent
with reality.
The bull pen bar in
the northern California town of
guerneville was becoming a
hangout for 32-year-old
Michelle Johnson.
The one-time aspiring model had
fallen on tough times.
After the breakup of her 10-year
marriage, Michelle and her two
young children were forced to
live with her parents, and that
wasn't working out.
There was some strain between
Michelle and her mom and the
stepfather, Paul.
They didn't see eye-to-eye on a
lot of things.
So Michelle moved
out and got her own apartment.
To celebrate, Michelle went to
the bull pen bar, where she was
supposed to meet her friends.
Michelle stayed for about 25
minutes, talked briefly to some
bar patrons, and had three
drinks.
We could see that she seemed
to be acting appropriately.
She seemed to be having a good
time.
Then she left by
herself at 12:54 A.M.
Michelle's friends, who were in
Michelle's apartment building,
left to meet her at the bar.
But as they walked outside, they
saw something unusual.
It was a red pickup truck with a
woman in the back of the truck
flailing her arms.
All we knew was that there
was a woman who was in distress
in this truck.
Michelle's friends
went to the bar, learned that
Michelle had already left, and
went back to Michelle's
apartment.
That's when they saw the red
truck again, this time with no
one in the back.
Further down the road, they
found Michelle's jacket, some
jewelry, a bloodstain, and a
tooth.
There was a watch found that
had been broken and had stopped
at like 1:24 in the morning,
which matched up with the
witness statements that they saw
this lady screaming in the
back of the truck sometime
shortly after 1:00.
We were hoping for the best,
but, I mean, when you hear
something like that, then you
can't help but think the worst.
Her friends now
wondered whether it might have
been Michelle in the back of
that truck.
Straddling the tailgate,
flailing her arms, like,
screaming...
And at the time, we just thought
it was a crazy drunk person, you
know, partying, doing something
hey probably shouldn't be doing,
'cause it was dangerous.
She was trying to get out of
the truck to the point of she
was gonna jump out of the back
of the truck while it was
moving.
Unfortunately,
Michelle's friends couldn't
remember anything about the
truck except that it was red.
At least we had a type of
vehicle and a color, but, again,
there are a lot of red trucks
out there, so it was a lot of
different rabbit trails to
follow up on.
Police canvassed area hospitals.
No one matching Michelle's
description had been admitted.
Law-enforcement volunteers and
family members searched the area
looking for Michelle, but were
unsuccessful.
As time progressed and we
realized that we weren't finding
her, she wasn't showing up at
the hospitals, that this was
more likely a kidnapping
scenario.
Tests showed the
blood on the highway was the
same blood type as Michelle's,
but DNA testing would take
several weeks.
There was a pool of blood,
and leading away from that pool
of blood were drag marks in
blood, which indicates that
whoever was bleeding was drug
away.
We got an opinion that, if
she didn't get immediate medical
attention based on what we saw
at the crime scene, that she was
probably going to die.
Now it was a race
against time, and police soon
found a likely suspect very
close to home.
My sister was very bright and
bubbly and lit up a room when
she walked in it.
She was always smiling.
She always wanted to be friends
with everyone, be around
everyone, make everyone happy.
As police searched
for Michelle Johnson, they
worked under the theory that
she'd been kidnapped.
Michelle's friends told police
they saw a red truck drive by
with a woman in the back and
they now assumed it was
Michelle.
Red trucks are very common.
It never ceases to amaze me when
you get a car and a description
and a color and then you start
looking for it and you realize,
"wow, they're everywhere."
But one was
close-by.
Michelle's stepfather,
Paul Doyle, often drove a red
truck.
One of Paul's friends had a
red truck, so they came to talk
to Paul about his friend and
about him and about where they
were that night.
The owner of the
truck, Sean Phillips, told
police that Paul often used his
truck and that he had his own
set of keys.
And Paul had a possible motive.
Michelle's mother had once taken
out a restraining order against
him.
Michelle hated him, and she
wasn't shy about letting him
know it.
We knew that there were some
type of dynamics, you know, some
negativity involved in the
relationship between Michelle
and Paul.
During his
interrogation, Paul told
investigators something they
found strange.
He said he was shopping at a
supermarket near the bull pen
bar the night Michelle went
missing and that he'd seen her.
He said that he was with
Michelle's mom at about
midnight, 12:30, and they
actually saw Michelle walking
through the parking lot, and
because of the strained
relationship, they didn't make
contact with her or try to talk
to her.
This took place
less than an hour before her
leather jacket and tooth were
found on the side of the road.
Paul could have dropped mom
off and come back to do
something to her.
Any number of things could have
happened.
Paul denied any
involvement and passed a
polygraph.
The owner of the truck,
Sean Phillips, also had an alibi
for the night of Michelle's
disappearance.
He was 70 miles away in
San Francisco.
We were later able to
identify him in some
surveillance footage down there
in the city at the time of the
m*rder.
After four days of
searching, police found
Michelle's nude body in a nearby
river, covered in mud.
She had extensive blunt-force
injury of the head.
It was both external bruises and
abrasions and internal bleeding
around the brain and within the
brain.
She also had a number of
fractures involving the jaws...
Both the upper jaw and the lower
jaw.
Despite the severe
head trauma, the autopsy showed
it was not the cause of death.
It was multiple blunt-force
injuries to the head complicated
by drowning.
She had been placed in the water
still living.
Strangest of all,
Michelle's k*ller had cut off
almost all her hair.
It was pretty hacked.
When you see her in the
surveillance video in the bar,
she had beautiful, waist-length
hair, and when we found her, it
had been essentially hacked off.
This raised
disturbing possibilities about
the k*ller and his motivations.
People, especially men that
k*ll women, have been known to
do that to retain a souvenir,
for example.
That type of
behavior is often exhibited by
serial K*llers.
If that were the case, there was
no connection between Michelle
and her k*ller.
During
Michelle Johnson's autopsy, the
medical examiner discovered
something else that could have
been a factor in her death.
She had substantial amounts
of both alcohol and
methamphetamine in her system.
She had substantial enough
amounts so that if she had been
found, say, deceased in her
apartment with no injury, then
those would have been considered
the cause of death.
But Michelle was
m*rder*d before the dr*gs could
k*ll her.
She'd been savagely beaten, and
her tooth and blood on
highway 116 made it clear her
k*ller hit her at least once
while she was on or near the
highway.
She'd suffered severe trauma
to her face.
This was no
vehicular-manslaughter case at
all.
I found no evidence of sexual
as*ault.
I was looking for semen,
spermatozoa, foreign hair,
foreign fibers.
I found nothing.
Shortly after
Michelle Johnson's body was
found, police checked the
motor-vehicle records of people
living in the immediate area.
They were looking for any males
who drove a red pickup truck.
Besides Michelle's stepfather,
who had use of a friend's red
truck, there was another man,
Luke hasler, whose apartment
was within walking distance of
where Michelle's body was found.
Detectives went to his house
to talk to him and take a look
at his truck.
They thought he was a little
nervous, but, quite frankly,
that can be very normal when
homicide detectives show up at
your house and want to talk to
you.
Luke hasler, a
butcher, was 34 years old, never
married, and had no children.
A background check revealed a
restraining order had been
filed by a former girlfriend two
years earlier.
But what stood out most to
police was his membership in a
private club called the
"odd fellows" club.
It was only a block away from
the bull pen bar, and he was
there the night of Michelle's
m*rder.
One of the witnesses said he
left about 12:30, quarter to
midnight.
They saw him walk across the
street to the bull pen bar to
get his truck.
This was about the
same time Michelle left the
bull pen bar.
Investigators asked managers at
the odd fellows club if they
remembered anything unusual
about that night or about
Luke hasler.
They said that Mr. hasler was
very intoxicated, he'd done some
things that people had
characterized as being strange,
he was, on purpose, spilling his
drink, and then, when the
waitresses would come over to
mop up the floor, that he was
peering down their tops.
Hasler was shown
Michelle's picture.
He said he didn't know who she
was and he'd never seen her.
Investigators looked in the bed
of hasler's truck and could find
no blood, although it looked
like someone had recently washed
it, so investigators concocted a
ruse just to see how hasler
would react.
Another detective took a
napkin and a little bottle of
water and kind of rubbed it
along the back of the truck bed,
kind of simulating a DNA test.
At the time, hasler
showed no reaction, but later
he called friends to express his
concerns.
He started making a few phone
calls to his girlfriend and two
other friends at that point and
mentioned in one of the
conversations, you know, "hey,
they took a swab out of the back
of my truck."
So that really is what, I think,
kind of spun him out at that
point.
This was hardly
enough, even for a search
warrant, but then police got a
call from a woman who refused to
identify herself.
She was very distraught.
She only could tell me that she
knew that the person that she
knew as Luke "hafler" was
involved.
She just had a feeling this
person was involved in the
crime.
The woman wouldn't
say how she knew this man or why
she suspected he was involved in
Michelle Johnson's m*rder.
So that was kind of the
breaking point of the case, as
we knew that Luke was involved.
Police, with
nothing to lose, told hasler
about the call, and now he
changed his story.
He indicated that he was
intoxicated.
He said, quote, "hammered."
Hasler said that as
he was driving home, he looked
up and saw someone standing on
the highway.
Luke's story was that he had
accidentally hit her in his
truck, that she was in the
middle of the road when he came
around the corner or something.
Hasler said he put
Michelle in the back of his
truck to take her to the
hospital but Michelle regained
consciousness and fled when he
stopped at a traffic light.
Luke said that she then
jumped out the back of the truck
and that was the last he knew.
This story was
consistent with the eyewitness
accounts.
They claimed they saw someone
who looked like Michelle in the
back of his truck but later she
was gone.
Luke's story could have made
sense.
"I hit someone in a car, and
there's blood," and that's just
pretty normal.
But investigators
needed more evidence if they
were going to bring Luke hasler
to justice.
There were lots of
unanswered questions about what
happened to Michelle Johnson.
Luke hasler said he'd accidently
hit her with his truck, but the
autopsy didn't support his
story.
One would expect to find
fractures... fractures of the
arms, legs, maybe pelvis.
She had none of those.
The second type of injury would
be abrasion.
A convenient term for that is
"road rash."
Think about friction as somebody
simply slides down the road
unprotected.
She had no abrasion.
The massive amount of injury
that could occur when you're hit
by a vehicle is totally
different than what we see here.
Michelle's autopsy
did show a massive blow to the
mouth, either with a fist or
some foreign object.
There were no tool marks.
Could this kind of beating have
involved fists alone, a gloved
fist?
Sure.
Impact against another object?
Yes, but, again, there was no
pattern.
But hasler had no
marks on his hands.
With a warrant, investigators
searched inside hasler's house
but found no traces of blood, no
traces of Michelle's hair, or
her clothing.
They also searched inside his
truck.
We spent, essentially, three
days ripping the inside of that
truck out to look at it more
closely to try to find any kind
of forensic evidence we could to
tie Michelle with being in that
truck.
It was beginning to
look like either Michelle was
never inside hasler's truck or
hasler had washed the truck so
well that there was no forensic
evidence.
But investigators kept looking
and, after several days, found
something significant...
A tiny stain on the bottom of
the seatbelt buckle, almost
invisible to the naked eye.
Tests showed it was human blood.
They also found blood on another
item under the front seat.
On the jumper cables... this
was a set of 12-foot-long jumper
cables... I found traces of
blood along the entire length of
the jumper cables, including the
clamps on the end.
DNA tests
identified where the blood came
from.
All genetic markers that we
tested for the evidence
samples... the blood samples
from the car... and from
Michelle Johnson all matched.
This left only one
explanation... Michelle was
inside hasler's truck and
bleeding.
It totally contradicted
Luke's story.
She was inside the truck with
Luke, and that it was her in
Luke's truck.
And he had said that he only put
her in the back of the truck.
Police believe Michelle, high on
methamphetamine and legally
drunk, was walking home from the
bull pen bar.
Luke hasler, also drunk, was
driving home at the exact same
time and saw her.
It appears he stopped his truck
and probably made a sexual
proposition.
Why don't you just leave me
alone, you jerk!
An altercation ensued.
Hasler, who outweighed Michelle
by more than 100 pounds, simply
threw her in the back of the
truck and took off.
A few minutes later, Michelle's
friends saw her in the back of
the truck, although they didn't
recognize her.
Two miles down the road, hasler
stopped the truck and got out.
Michelle jumped out of the truck
bed and, preparing for a fight,
tore off her jacket.
But she was no match for hasler.
He hit her in the mouth, knocked
her tooth out, and she lost
consciousness.
He bundled her into the front
seat, where she bled over the
seatbelt, the floorboards, and
the jumper cables.
Hasler then made a u-turn and
headed to his house.
On his way there, Michelle's
friends saw hasler's truck
again, but this time Michelle
was in the cab of the truck, and
they didn't see her.
In an attempt to conceal her
identity, hasler stripped off
her clothes, cut off her hair,
and then threw her into the
river, where she drowned.
The next day, hasler washed the
truck... both inside and out...
But still left some crucial
evidence behind.
We just don't know what would
have happened had they not
crossed paths, you know?
I wish that, you know, she would
have stayed in the bar.
I wish that her friends would
have come to get her.
I just keep re-seeing that
image in my head of her going
down, screaming, and us not
realizing it was even her.
That was when she was alive.
We could have done something
then, you know, but we didn't
know.
At his trial,
hasler again changed his story.
He said he was so drunk he might
have put Michelle inside his
truck.
He also explained why he cut her
hair.
Mr. hasler said at his trial
that the reason he cut off
Michelle's hair was because he
vomited in it and he didn't want
his DNA to be detected on her
body.
But the jury didn't
believe Michelle's death was an
accident, and Luke hasler was
convicted of first-degree m*rder
and sentenced to life without
the possibility of parole.
His version of what happened
almost seemed plausible until
the evidence showed it was all a
lie.
A lot of people are either
k*lled or seriously injured in
car accidents, so there's a lot
of data about what type of
injuries those cause.
Those were nowhere like
Michelle's injuries, so the
medical examiner's report was
critical to say, "no, this was
not a car accident."
We knew they had him, but
without evidence, they couldn't
have put him away.
They couldn't have found him
guilty.
A lot of what forensics does
is to corroborate or disprove
stories.
We answer questions by looking
at physical evidence, and we're
able to say "that story fits" or
"that story doesn't fit with
what we're seeing here."
The forensic evidence gave us
a cause of death, and it also
told us some things that
couldn't have happened.
The defendant, on the other
hand, insisted on an injury
pattern that was not reflected
on the body.
His story was inconsistent with
reality, so that made it pretty
straightforward.
13x24 - As Fault
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Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.
Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.