13x34 - Sign of the Crime

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Up next, two brutal
murders put a city on edge.

We're all bothered by it.

It's hard to sleep at night.

Was this the work
of a serial k*ller?

There were multiple
similarities between the two

scenes.

Police have few clues...

These crime scenes primarily
were all debris, basically.

But plenty of motive.

He has obviously a hatred
towards women.

The case went cold
until a lovers' quarrel flew out

of control.

In the early 1990s, Seattle,
Washington, was one of the

fastest-growing cities in the
country.

Renee Powell, a 43-year-old
registered nurse, visited

Seattle on vacation...

And never left.

She bloomed, just like a flower.

She bloomed.

You cannot believe how she
looked and how she talked and

she giggled and she laughed.

But two years after
Renee moved to Seattle, tragedy

struck.

On a cold February night, a fire

broke out in her apartment.

When firefighters extinguished
the Blaze, they found Renee's

body.

The victim was facedown,
arms to the side, legs apart.

An ice pick was found between
her legs.

Most of her clothes had been
torn off.

There were only remnants of a
shirt that she had been wearing.

Renee had been
gagged and bound and appeared to

have been strangled to death
before the fire.

The origin of the fire showed a
possible motive.

It appears that the fire had
been lit between Renee Powell's

legs.

Although there were
no signs of forced entry,

Renee's purse and credit cards
were missing.

And all her electronic equipment
was missing, like her TV and

vcr.

She had recently been doing
laundry, 'cause there was

laundry stacked on a sofa.

You could tell she had recently
put together, or made, a pitcher

of iced tea because there was a
pitcher full of iced tea on the

counter.

And you could see where the ice
cubes had melted from the heat

of the fire.

I picked up the phone, and my
sister's voice was very unusual,

and she said, "she's gone.

She's dead."

I said, "who's dead?"
And she said, "Renee."

I said, "Renee who?"
She said, "Renee is."

I said, "she can't be dead.

I just talked to her."

At the autopsy, the
medical examiner found evidence

that Renee had been sexually
assaulted.

We just couldn't come up with
that person that would be

wanting Renee dead, never was
able to find any person, no

family, no relatives, no past
lovers, no one at work.

Then, a month after

Renee's m*rder, there was
another fire in the same

apartment complex.

Suspecting arson, police used a
helicopter with heat sensors to

see if anyone was hiding nearby,
watching the fire.

It doesn't see objects, per se.

It sees heat signatures or heat
given out by a person.

There were no suspects hiding in
any of the bushes.

When the fire was
extinguished, they found another

female victim... 54-year-old
Barbara Walsh.

The similarities between the
two homicide scenes and the two

women were extensive.

Both Barbara Walsh
and Renee Powell were single,

lived alone, and worked in the
healthcare field.

Both apartments were on the
first floor.

There was evidence that both
women had been doing their

laundry at the time their
attacker entered their

apartment.

Both women had been bound using
undergarments, their own

undergarments.

The bindings also included
electrical cords that had been

cut off from lamps within the
apartment.

The k*ller was
organized, and his crimes

well-planned.

In both units, he took down
the smoke detector before

setting the fire.

And he even took down the
doorbell ringers.

He went out of his way to make
sure that the fire wouldn't be

discovered prematurely.

Both victims had
been stabbed, strangled, and

burglarized.

Both were doing laundry in the
basement before they were

att*cked.

We theorize that she had left
the sliding glass door unlocked

when she went down to the
laundry room to start a load of

laundry.

And when she returned, the
suspect had been in the

apartment.

The similarities
were too blatant to be ignored,

and the conclusion too horrific
to avoid.

The two most gruesome murders
that I've been involved in.

My reaction to seeing the
v*olence and overkill was, "this

individual will k*ll again."

Based on the
evidence, Seattle police

suspected the same man r*ped and
m*rder*d two women in the same

apartment complex.

Residents were demanding
round-the-clock protection.

And that is the saddest thing
that has ever happened to me,

that I can't even feel safe in
my home.

We're all bothered by it.

It's hard to sleep at night,
and, I mean, I'm a positive

person and I hate to, like, now
look at everybody I see walking

down the street as some
suspicious arsonist.

The victims,
Renee Powell and Barbara Walsh,

had no known enemies.

She had this laugh that, if
anybody knew her, they never

forgot her laugh.

A very generous person... you
know, she didn't have a lot, but

she was willing to help anybody.

The nature of the
murders had police checking

every registered sex offender
within a 50-mile radius.

We talked to people for
weeks, trying to find something

that would lead us towards a
k*ller, and came up empty.

But what stood out
most to police was the

remarkable similarity of the two
cases.

Both victims were bound and
sexually assaulted, although DNA

evidence was recovered from only
one of them.

Both lived on the first floor
and were doing laundry before

they were att*cked.

Both had electronic items stolen
from their apartments.

And there were other
similarities that detectives

identified as the k*ller's
signature.

The signature consists of
five parts, which would involve

binding the victim; Stabbing the
victim; Disposing of their body;

setting fires, or arson; And
then taking souvenirs.

Since much of the
evidence was destroyed in the

fire, police turned to the
public for help, and within

days, they got more than 600
tips.

One, in particular, logged as
"number 316," caught their

attention.

We had an individual that
lived nearby... a short

distance, about 3 miles away...
That was brought to us from a

domestic-v*olence advocate at
the nearby court.


Gary Dolan had a history of

minor offenses, but he'd never
served jail time.

It was his own sister who
reported him to police.

She was alarmed by hundreds of
incredibly lurid poems he'd

written and shown her.

Most of his writings were
angry writings.

The one, in particular, dealt
with forcing a kind lady to have

sex with him after he had
strangled her.

Sex with him after he had
strangled her.

Some poems talked about sexual
activity with older women,

sexual activity with dead
people.

Police certainly knew that
they were working with someone

who was very sick.

Gary Dolan was
unemployed and had no alibi for

either m*rder.

He also refused to take a
polygraph test, and he wouldn't

provide a DNA sample.

So police had to find another
way to get it.

We knew he smoked.

We knew we could get DNA from
the cigarette butt.

But we couldn't take the
cigarette butt from him unless

he abandoned it.

Sheriffs followed
Gary until they saw him outside

smoking a cigarette.

They questioned him at length,
hoping he'd cast the butt aside

when he was finished, which to
their relief, he finally did.

That butt was sent for testing,
and the results provided yet

another setback.

The DNA profile from the
cigarette butt did not match the

DNA profile from the crime
scene.

So Gary Dolan was
eliminated as a suspect, and for

the next two years, the trail of
the k*ller turned cold.

Two years, we've beat our
head against the wall, trying to

find the k*ller.

Investigators often
request a psychological profile

of a serial k*ller, in the
belief this insight will help in

efforts to apprehend him.

In these two murders, the
victims were bound, sexually

assaulted, their bodies placed
in a position that would shock

investigators, and then both
scenes were set on fire.

These elements were unusual.

These women were substitutes.

They became targets and victims
because he's taken his revenge

feelings, his hatred of some
female in his life, in acting

out against them.

So he's replaced the person
that's been in his life with

these victims.

For two years,
investigators searched for the

k*ller with no success.

Then investigators got a new

lead from an unusual source... a
woman incarcerated in the local

prison.

I mean, this tip is just too
much to not handle right away.

And we go up, and we talk to
her.

Her name was Princess gray.

She was in jail, awaiting trial
for assaulting her boyfriend,

Robert Parker, when he had the
audacity to leave her for

another woman.

She had assaulted the new
girlfriend.

And then later when they were in
court on that, she had also

assaulted Robert in the
courtroom.

And so she was now in jail on
those assaults.

Princess gray said
her ex-boyfriend, Robert Parker,

was the man who m*rder*d
Renee Powell and Barbara Walsh.

It was the kind of tale police
had heard hundreds of times

before.

Princess gray did have reason
to lie.

She was the jilted woman.

But gray said she
and Robert lived just 150 yards

away from the apartment complex
where Renee Powell and

Barbara Walsh were m*rder*d.

The pepper would
throw off the scent of any

police sniffer dogs in the area.

She said she still had the items
Parker took from the crime

scenes.

In the couple's apartment,
investigators found the items

stolen from Renee Powell and
Barbara Walsh's apartments...

Tvs, vcrs, coats, and other
items identified by the victims'

relatives.

When questioned by police,


any involvement in the murders.

There were no fingerprints,
there were no eyewitnesses, he

never admitted to being in those
apartments.

But a background
check revealed past brushes with

the law.

At the time of the murders,
Robert was making his money by

selling dr*gs on the street and
pawning property and selling

property, most likely stolen
property that he got in drug

trade and stuff.

But then
Princess gray recanted her

story.

Apparently, she and
Robert Parker had reconciled

their differences.

Princess gray now claimed they
found these items in the trash.

She claims that he was in the
apartment all night, that she

had gone out and found the
property by some garbage cans or

a dumpster.

Without
Princess gray, investigators had

no evidence.

It wasn't unexpected, since
her and Parker shared a child,

but damn it, when you have
someone who is providing you

good evidence that directly
connects the k*ller with the

crime scenes, it's a hard nut to
swallow.

He started bringing stuff
in the house.

Princess gray
implicated her boyfriend,

Robert Parker, in the murders of
Renee Powell and Barbara Walsh

but later recanted after the two
had reconciled.

Which version was correct?

She had facts that no one but
the investigators, the victim,

and the suspect, or someone
close to the suspect, would

know.

But investigators
didn't give up.

Princess gray had given them
hours of information all on

tape, countless details of her
life with boyfriend

Robert Parker... some of it
telling.

Robert Parker... some of it
telling.

And gray said something else
about Parker's personal hygiene.

She had mentioned that after
she and Parker had made love, he

frequently would go into their
bathroom, clean up using their

towels, and then just leave the
towels laying about the vanity.

We had found two towels in
Barbara Walsh's bathroom that

were laying on top of her
vanity.

Although the towels
had been in the fire,

investigators wondered if Parker
might have used them after the

sexual as*ault of Barbara Walsh.

To find out, investigators took
a close look at those towels.

The towel was kind of folded
or wadded up, and as we opened

it up and started to examine it,
we found four hairs that were...

If they weren't heat damaged,
they were certainly visually

different from Barbara Walsh's
hairs.

And one of those
hairs had the potential to be a

gold mine of evidence.

The first hair that I glommed
onto was probably the largest

hair.

And it had a root, and it had a
root with some tissue onto it.

Dumb luck kept that towel
from burning up and burning the

pubic hair with it.

Investigators now
had DNA evidence from both crime

scenes... biological evidence
from Renee Powell's r*pe test

kit and a hair from
Barbara Walsh's apartment.

Scientists compared
Robert Parker's DNA to those DNA

samples.

Robert Parker's DNA profile
was compared to the profile

previously generated from the
vaginal swabs.

It was a match.

Robert Parker had
denied ever being in the

victims' apartments, and now the
evidence directly contradicted

him.

We felt damn good.

It was just undescribable relief
to get DNA, which is pristine,

unattackable, scientific
evidence, when up to that point,

you only had the circumstance
and the testimony of someone

like Princess gray.

Two years after the
crimes, 23-year-old

Robert Parker was arrested and
charged with two counts of

m*rder.

Prosecutors believe Parker spent
weeks watching his victims.

With Renee Powell, he waited in
the woods next to her apartment.

When she went to

the laundry room in the
basement, she left her door

open.

He went inside, grabbed a knife
from the kitchen, and hid.

When Renee returned, he
att*cked, binding her arms with

lamp cords from inside the
apartment, then sexually

assaulting and stabbing her to
death.

He grabbed some items of
value... a vcr, a coat...

Dismantled the smoke detector,
then set the fires to destroy

evidence.

The case of Barbara Walsh was
virtually identical.

She, too, was doing

her laundry and had left a door
open while she went downstairs.

Like the first crime, Parker
used materials he found inside

the apartment.

After the sexual as*ault and
m*rder, he used the towels in

the bathroom to clean up before
setting the fire.

In the folded towel, one hair
with the root intact survived

the intense heat, smoke, and
flames... a tiny hair found with

the help of an angry girlfriend
intent on getting revenge.

The towel itself was singed
and burned a little bit, but it

wasn't like it was burned up
completely.

And so the hairs that were
inside this towel were never

exposed to the high, high heat.

Investigators think
the motive for Parker's crimes

was, in part, his anger and
resentment towards his

girlfriend, Princess gray.

I believe that Robert had
been home with Princess and that

there had been some kind of an
argument where he left Princess,

and left angrily.

I assume it's because he had
a lot of pent-up anger to

Princess, who was dominant,
extremely difficult person to

deal with, and I suspected that
contributed to the release of

this sexual deviancy that we see
in the murders.

After a four-month
trial, Robert Parker was

convicted of two counts of
aggravated m*rder and sentenced

to life in prison.

His crimes were planned all the
way down to his attempts to

destroy the evidence, but
science uncovered evidence he

didn't even know existed.

It remains incredibly
unsettling that there could be

other Parkers just walking the
streets among us, and there's

nothing to tip you off.

There are a lot of cases that
would go unsolved if there was

no forensic science around.

You just never know, because
it can be microscopic or it can

be something as big as a
football or something like that.

That's the beauty of forensic
science is, you just don't know

what's going to be the most
important part of your analysis.