Up next,
the quiet of a country farm
is shattered
by a fatal expl*si*n.
It blew Roberto in pieces.
He caught on fire.
There are thousands
of bits of evidence
and almost as many questions.
They went out to a crime scene
and they collected things
that, quite frankly, didn't
belong there at the scene.
And one more thing
is out of place...
it's found on a sheet of paper
that's blank
but still loaded
with information.
When you see it, it's like,
"Oh, my gosh.
That's what that is.
That's what's happening."
Colusa County, which soaks up
the sun of California's
Central Valley,
is home to some of the richest,
most productive farmland
in North America.
At one time, Colusa County was
supposedly the wealthiest county
in the United States.
A lot of the farms
are big farms.
They're several thousand acres,
and they're passed on
generation to generation.
The Moores were one
of these farming families.
Their 1,800-acre ranch
where they grew mostly rice
had been in the family
for decades.
Another family, the Ayalas,
first-generation immigrants
from Mexico,
worked side-by-side
with the Moores
in the day-to-day operations
of the farm.
It was a good life.
The work for both the Moores
and the Ayalas was hard
but gratifying,
and it paid well.
On the afternoon
of July 16, 2011,
Fabian Ayala,
who was 7 years old at the time,
accompanied his father, Roberto,
while he checked one
of the Moore family rice fields.
We picked up our lunch before,
picked up chicken,
and he let me eat it
on the ride there.
Once we got there, all he had
to do was shut off a pump.
It was a typical day,
a typical chore,
but what happened next
was anything but typical.
There was a massive expl*si*n.
Once he switched the pump,
everything just...
Something so loud, your ears are
just echoing, like, squeaking.
The window shattered,
and I look up
and he's just there
on the ground.
A shocked Fabian
ran to his father,
who was on fire
and missing an arm.
He tried to grab
his father's cellphone,
but the heat was too intense.
He ran for help.
I have no idea
where I was running.
I was just looking for help,
just someone, anyone.
He had to run through mud
that we call "Colusa mud."
It just cakes on your shoes.
You can't get it off.
He literally had to take
his shoes off
and was running barefoot.
After running
for 2 desperate miles,
Fabian was finally
able to get help.
First responders found
Roberto Ayala
dead at the scene
and still on fire.
I was just trying to tell myself
it was a dream the whole time.
The whole...
The whole ride home,
I tried to tell myself
it was a dream, but...
it never went away.
At first,
this looked like an accident.
Roberto had burn holes
in the soles of his feet
and the bottoms of his boots,
a telltale sign
of electrocution.
The electricity's gonna take
its quickest path to ground.
That would not be uncommon
that if it enters his body,
it actually would blow
through the bottom of his feet,
out his boots.
But local detectives
weren't convinced
this was an accident.
This blast was too big.
The damage to the pole
that the electrical box
had been on was enormous.
It had sheared it off down
almost toward the ground.
That is a very, very powerful expl*si*n
where it will send debris
and items for several hundred,
if not thousands of feet.
As for Fabian,
he was lucky to be alive.
His father's truck
acted as a shield.
Those items of metal
are traveling
at thousands of feet per second,
and your body's not
gonna stop it.
His body would not have stopped
any of those items.
They kept asking me
if that's really what happened.
They didn't want to believe it.
Much of this debris
didn't appear to come
from the electrical box,
the water pump,
or any of the equipment
at the scene,
and electrocutions generally
don't result
in explosions like this.
I recall turning to
the detective and saying,
"You have
a homicide investigation,"
and his exact words
were to me is,
"I hope you're wrong,
because that's not
what anybody wanted to hear."
In the case of the
blast that k*lled Roberto Ayala,
some things became
immediately apparent.
We sent off parts
of the recovered items
from the expl*sive device,
and through the A*F labs,
it was identified
as a triple-base
smokeless powder,
and there was also
the presence of gasoline.
The presence
of gunpowder left no doubt...
someone k*lled Roberto
with a b*mb.
There has to be some kind
of personal connection
because of the remoteness
of where this device was placed.
So, somebody would have
had to know Roberto
to have placed this device
and therefore k*ll Roberto
and target him.
The triple-base
smokeless powder in this b*mb
is generally used for firearms
or ordnance used
by the m*llitary.
It's always present in an IED
or an improvised
expl*sive device.
It was a pipe b*mb.
It was a cylindrical piece
of metal
with screwed-in caps
at each end.
Tiny bits of fishing line
were found in the debris
and also what appeared to be
a spring from a rat trap,
something b*mb techs
had seen before.
A technical term would be
victim-actuated,
is what we call it in the EOD
or expl*sive b*mb squad world,
but a booby-trap device.
Whoever made this b*mb
knew what they were doing.
It was very sophisticated.
This was not just,
throw some expl*sives in a pipe
and throw it in there,
or anything like that.
Detectives now made a decision
that would affect the rest
of the investigation.
As far as the public was
concerned, there was no m*rder.
Publicly, they were investigating
a fatal industrial accident.
The public
is not informed about it.
The manner in which
this occurred,
or what we were finding
for our evidence
was not released to the public.
The first question was,
who would want to k*ll
Roberto Ayala,
a hard-working father of three?
It was just like, "Why?"
He never had problems
with anybody
and there was no one to think,
who did it, you know?
There was, like, no one that
I thought hated him enough
or he hated someone enough
where that was even
to be thought about.
As detectives started
asking questions,
they soon learned
there was a lot of tension
at the Moore family ranch.
Well, any time
there's a family-owned
and operated business,
there's obviously going to be
some backstories
associated with them,
and this was one particular case
where there was plenty.
Two cousins who helped
run the farm,
Paul and Peter Moore,
were not exactly friendly.
The cousins, Paul and Peter,
grew up together as young kids.
They played together.
They fished together.
They duck-hunted together,
but they started parting
as they got older.
Suspicion soon fell
squarely on Peter Moore.
Peter had a reputation
around town
of being a little bit
of a hothead.
There were reports
that Peter had had
some kind of altercation
with Roberto.
He was a loudmouth.
He was a hothead.
He was angry.
He had a big mouth.
He threatened lots of people.
A few months
before Roberto's m*rder,
family members said Peter
even threatened
to harm his own father.
Peter was apparently
so difficult
that his cousin Paul told him
he no longer stood to inherit
any part of the family farm.
Paul told him that his dad, Gus,
had cut him out of the will
and had put Roberto in
in place of Pete,
which meant Pete wasn't going
to get any of the money.
Mind you, this is a ranch worth
about $18-$20 million back then.
And that looked to
everyone like a good reason
for Peter to k*ll Roberto Ayala.
I think the motive was,
ultimately would come down
to money or lack thereof
or fear of lack thereof.
Years of tension
within the Moore family
had Peter Moore convinced
he'd been cut out
of his family's
multi-million-dollar
farming business.
Even worse, he thought he'd been
removed in favor of someone
who wasn't even family, longtime
farm foreman Roberto Ayala.
When they were looking into it,
once they realized
they had a homicide, was,
who would want Roberto dead?
And Pete Moore is the first one
that came to the forefront
because Pete Moore had
made threats against Roberto.
His cousin, Paul, had stated
to Colusa County
sheriff's office
that he believed that Peter
would be responsible for this.
Detectives got a search
warrant for Peter's house
and found what looked like
a direct link to the b*mb...
a YouTube search showing
how a rat trap could be used
to trigger
an improvised expl*sive device.
This video was
on Peter's son's computer
and a lot of other people's
as well.
Worldwide, it had been viewed
more than a million times.
A rat-trap spring device
was even used
for b*mb-tech training.
In my time as a b*mb tech,
we would make devices for
our partners to try to defeat.
Oftentimes, I would use
a rat trap in them.
The family computers
showed no other searches
on b*mb-making,
and Peter's financial records
revealed no recent purchases
for any of the materials
used in the b*mb.
What we never found
was anything that indicated
that there were any kind of
manufacturing of pipe bombs.
All eyes were still on Peter,
but no evidence tied him
to Roberto's m*rder.
Then, almost a month later,
there was an unexpected development.
The first letter that was sent
was in a sealed envelope
with more stamps
than was necessary to mail it.
We were able to track
where it was mailed from,
which happened to be Sacramento.
The letter,
marked "The Ayala case,"
was sent
to the Colusa County Sheriff.
There was all the typical
red flags that you look at
when items of mail are sent
that are suspicious.
The thing that stood out
the most was that
there was no handwriting
on them.
It was little labels that you
would make on a label-maker.
Whoever wrote the letter
knew Roberto Ayala's death
was no accident.
I remember telling
everybody there,
"Whoever sent this to us
either did this on their own
or was involved in it."
The letter was tested
for DNA and fingerprints,
but nothing was found.
Since the text was in labels,
handwriting analysis
was impossible.
Three days later,
another letter arrived.
It had the same excess postage,
the same labels used
for the text, but this time,
the writer included a detailed
drawing of the pipe b*mb.
Everything was precise,
even down to the threads
on the cap were drawn on.
The drawing matched up
to what analysts already knew
about the b*mb
and also answered still open
questions about how it was made.
But why did this person
contact investigators?
They believed the writer
couldn't resist
bragging about his work.
The bomber thinks
that they can't catch them.
They're proud of what they did,
in the sense that,
"Look what I built."
They want people to know that.
It's the weirdest thing
that I've ever experienced.
Up to this point,
the letter-writer
and presumed bomber
had been meticulous,
but with the second letter,
it looked like
he'd finally slipped up.
Multiple forensic exams
were done on the letters.
One of the things that was found
underneath one of the labels
on one of the letters
was a leg hair.
Obviously, leg hairs
are interesting to us
because oftentimes,
hairs can contain DNA.
No DNA was recovered.
However, another
potential source of DNA
was lifted from
the back of the stamp.
But investigators hoping
for a breakthrough
were soon dealt another setback.
We got a call
from our DNA examiner,
and he alerted us to the fact
that within the profile itself,
there was what he described
as an anomaly.
Peter Moore was not
officially eliminated
as a suspect in the bombing
m*rder of Roberto Ayala,
so when DNA was recovered
from one of the letters
sent by the bomber,
it was tested against his DNA.
It didn't match...
at least, not exactly.
The analyst said
there were indications
the DNA might have come from
someone in the Moore family.
All eyes now turned
to Paul Moore.
So Paul went from the guy
who was trying to help
the sheriff's office
do the investigation to
a suspect in our investigation.
The DNA was so weak,
it could exclude a suspect
but couldn't definitively
identify one.
But it was enough
for a search warrant.
Five months after the bombing,
detectives search
Paul Moore's property.
Even though they were looking
for b*mb-making materials,
what caught their attention
was a sheet of paper
on a kitchen table,
which was discovered
by accident.
And I like to tell people
that the moon was aligned
right with the stars
and the sun was
in the right position
and the blinds
were pulled just right.
Detectives thought
they might be looking
at a piece of paper
that had been directly
under the paper
on which the b*mb diagram
had been drawn.
Analysts call this
"Indented writing."
So, the indentations simply
are impressed
into the sheet or sheets
below the document
that has the actual ink
or pencil
or whatever type
of writing on it.
The friction created
when two sheets of paper
rub against each other
as something is being written
creates a latent electric charge
on the indentations
in the paper.
A forensic device called
the electrostatic detection
apparatus or "ESDA,"
allows analysts to visualize
this indented writing.
It's a magnetic material
that will fill in
the indentations
so that you can actually
visualize either the diagram,
in this particular case,
or any type of writing.
We have an electrically charged
Corona wire,
which we will run over
the top of the document,
give it a charge,
and then cascade
small glass beads
that have toner applied
to them over the document,
and the electrostatic process
actually makes the toner
on the beads
adhere to the paper,
especially in places
where there are indentations.
And the end product
allows you to visualize
all of those indentations
that are deep enough
to be visualized.
The ESDA process
revealed
a perfectly clear image,
and b*mb techs, who were very
familiar with the b*mb diagram,
recognized it right away.
After we were able to visualize
the indented copy
of the diagram,
it was a match to the diagram.
They were able to literally
pick up that drawing
and compare it to the drawing
that the sheriff's
department had received.
Of course, this did not prove
that Paul Moore made the drawing
or sent it to police,
but evidence
on his property did.
Fishing line chemically
consistent with fishing line
recovered from the b*mb
was found,
as were parts
from the same type of rat traps
used to help detonate the b*mb.
A label-maker consistent with
the labels on the letters
was found in the house.
Ink on the letters matched ink
in Paul's printer.
Even the way the letters
were written pointed to Paul.
Paul and Peter would
text each other back and forth.
Peter never used abbreviations.
He would spell out a word completely.
Paul, on the other hand,
used abbreviations all the time.
There was abbreviations in
both letters that were received,
and so it all just seemed
to fall together.
And the final piece of evidence
left no doubt
who built the b*mb.
There was, I believe,
a total of eight fingerprints
that were picked from the
indented drawing piece of paper
that matched Paul Moore's.
Paul's plan was apparently
not only to k*ll Roberto Ayala,
but to frame his cousin Peter
as the bomber.
He wanted to blame it on Pete
and get Pete out of the picture,
but it's kind of
a chicken way to k*ll somebody.
The evidence shows
that Paul rigged the b*mb
on the irrigation pump,
knowing Roberto would be
the one to shut it off.
Once Roberto flipped the switch,
an electric current
set off the b*mb,
k*lling him instantly
but creating thousands
of pieces of evidence.
Ironically, if Paul had never
sent the b*mb diagram,
he might have
gotten away with m*rder,
but he couldn't resist
bragging about what he'd done.
However, he didn't realize
that he'd left
a nearly invisible copy
of the b*mb diagram
underneath the copy
he'd sent to investigators.
That sealed his fate.
If it wasn't for science,
we wouldn't have known
what had happened.
We would all have been
had left with no leads,
and no one had
ever known nothing.
We wouldn't have known
what really happened.
Years of tension, competition,
and downright greed resulted in
the m*rder of an innocent man.
In 2013, Paul Moore was found
guilty of k*lling Roberto Ayala
and was sentenced
to life in prison,
all on the strength of evidence
he made available
to investigators.
If it wasn't
for the role of forensics,
Paul Moore would
not be in prison.
He wouldn't be convicted.
I didn't have enough if I didn't
have the forensics.
Not even remotely close.
I wouldn't have even filed
the case.
Were it not for forensics,
I think it would have been
very difficult to prove
that this incident was as
a result of a human-placed b*mb.
Were it not for forensics,
I think you would have
a m*rder*r
that still was not in custody.