Up next,
detectives are still haunted
by what they saw.
To see
this amount of destruction
that had taken place
inside this residence...
it kinda has stuck with me
throughout all these years.
Just a completely
horrifying case.
Hearing about that,
it just makes your gut hurt.
The case
crisscrosses the country.
The case
crisscrosses the country.
We were doing the math,
and I thought, "You know,
how far is it from Ohio
to Bakersfield and back? Oh.
After that many miles, a
lot can happen to a car.
The FBI, they just said,
"Can you look at this radiator
and tell us
where the car has been
based on the insects?"
And what scientists find
puts a mass m*rder*r
behind bars.
Yes, it was certainly
good and evil,
bad against good,
good winning out.
Their faith
was a central part of life
for the Harper family
of Bakersfield, California.
Each Sunday,
the family would attend
church services two times,
church services two times,
once in the morning, and again
later in the evening.
But the service on
the July 4th weekend of 2003
promised to be special.
On Sunday July 6th,
the entire family
attended church services
in the morning.
Joanie Harper presented
her youngest child,
the 6-week-old infant Marshall,
to the congregation
for the very first time.
So, it was
a joyous occasion to them,
because Marshall
was brought out to church,
and this is his...
his first experience.
But none of
the Harpers showed up
for the evening service.
No one thought anything of it.
They thought maybe the family
just needed some rest.
After two days
passed with no word,
a friend who was
very close to the family
went to the house
to check on them.
A short time later,
she made a frantic call to 911.
Police arrived to find
the Harper family dead
in the residence.
It's very rare
that you have a mass m*rder
involving family members,
let alone three of them
being children,
babies, in essence.
When you go
to these crime scenes,
you do relate to your own
personal life, it's,
"Man, I have kids
that are this age."
"Man, I have kids
that are this age."
And so that is something that
kinda weighs heavily on you.
The deceased were
the family matriarch
Earnestine, 70 years old.
Her daughter Joanie,
was the mother
of the three child victims,
the youngest of which, Marshall,
was only six weeks old.
Who kills a baby? I mean,
let alone the other two kids.
Baby can't talk.
Baby's never gonna be
an eye witness.
The only thr*at the baby
could potentially have
is maybe crying for hours.
Is maybe crying for hours.
You can't even think about it.
It just...
It's too painful,
really, to even imagine.
Spent 22-caliber shell casings
were scattered across the scene.
A Kn*fe, apparently missing
from the kitchen,
was thought to be
the other m*rder w*apon.
You could see
the spot in the Kn*fe block
where the Kn*fe was.
We looked for it in dishes,
the dirty dishes,
in the cabinets,
and it was never found.
At first, it seemed
the children's mother,
Joanie Harper,
could have been
the primary target.
We know for a fact
she was sh*t five times.
We know for a fact
she was sh*t five times.
As we turned her a little bit,
on her back
she had five s*ab wounds.
So, anybody that gets stabbed
after they've been m*rder*d,
you've gotta look at,
somebody may have had
a personal issue,
vendetta, grudge.
The apparent entry point
into the Harper house,
which was loaded
with security features,
was a sliding glass door,
and there was no evidence
it had been forced open.
But what kind of robber
goes into a house
full of people?
Goes into a house
full of people?
If the intruder was there
to rob the house,
why would they wait until
five people
are inside the house?
And then they don't take
anything at all.
So it was pretty clear early on
that it was not a burglary.
This was potentially
what we would call
a staged crime scene.
Where the criminal knows,
"Hey, if I don't do something
to cover my tracks
and make this look like
a burglary or a robbery,
or what have you,
then the focus is immediately
gonna be on me."
The only member of the family
to escape harm
was Vincent Brothers,
to escape harm
was Vincent Brothers,
Joanie's husband
and the children's father.
He was out of town.
First person we would
have been trying to contact
would have been
Vincent Brothers.
We'd be contacting him
for a number of reasons.
One - have you heard about
your family? What do you know?
Who are potential threats,
who are potential enemies?
Are you okay?
Vincent Brothers was
located in North Carolina,
visiting family
over the 4th of July break
on a long-planned trip.
And upon hearing what happened
to his family,
he was all but speechless.
I just want to say thank
you, Father in Heaven,
for picking Earnestine Harper
to be our mother.
Any m*rder shocks a community.
But the m*rder
of an entire family
including three young children
made for a blow still felt
in Bakersfield, California.
What I remember most
is four white caskets,
two with the adults,
two with the older children,
because baby Marshall was
buried in his mother's casket
because baby Marshall was
buried in his mother's casket
and she was cradling him.
And the thing that I'll never
forget is the photos,
especially of
these little children,
on top of the caskets.
You just can't get those
images out of your brain.
Earnestine Harper
was a well-known
community activist.
Her daughter Joanie was
a local school supervisor
who moonlighted as a referee
for Division One
women's college basketball.
This mother-daughter pair
lived together and raised
Joanie's children together.
My mother and my sister Joanie
My mother and my sister Joanie
were very close,
yeah, very close.
My mother loved us
all equally and as much,
but of course, because Joanie
lived with her
for so long, for so many years,
that just made them
inseparable, really.
Joanie's husband
Vincent Brothers
was also a local educator.
Joanie worked at one
of the elementary schools.
Vincent also was
an assistant principal
at the same school.
The kids really took to them
and really enjoyed
spending time with them.
And really enjoyed
spending time with them.
Vincent Brothers
was well-thought-of,
almost pillar of the community.
Very well-respected.
Parents liked him.
Other educators liked him.
Vincent Brothers
was on a long-planned trip
to visit relatives on
the other side of the county.
Records show that Vincent flew
from Bakersfield
to Columbus, Ohio, four days
before the murders.
And then he and his brother
rented a car
to visit their mother
in North Carolina.
That's where police told him
what happened to his wife
and children.
What happened to his wife
and children.
The interview
with Vincent Brothers
was extremely, uh, difficult.
I mean, I've been through
this process before
with other victims or families.
We try to be
as disarming as possible.
As for Vincent being a suspect,
credit card purchases
are tracked,
and there were records
showing him in Ohio
and there were records
showing him in Ohio
and in North Carolina.
We had detectives
go to Columbus.
We found his credit card
under the name
of Vincent Brothers
had been used at two stores.
And we tracked down
both credit cards,
and sure enough,
had signed Vincent Brothers
on the receipt.
So if the Harpers
were targeted for m*rder,
and Vincent Brothers
wasn't the k*ller,
who would do this?
Was this a crime of opportunity?
In my mind, I'd ruled that out,
but we still had to have
somebody look at it
with some depth.
But we still had to have
somebody look at it
with some depth.
We looked at any similar
crimes in the neighborhood.
Any similar crimes in the
Southern California region,
where you're having
that many people wiped out.
You know,
it's not a random k*lling.
This is not a spree k*lling
or a thrill k*ll.
This is a mass m*rder
of five people
in one instance.
In the search for suspects,
detectives found
a surprise possibility.
It turned out the Harper
matriarch Earnestine
was very high-profile on some
divisive community issues,
was very high-profile on some
divisive community issues,
and might have made some
potentially violent enemies.
Earnestine Harper worked with
some unsavory characters
at times,
and they thought that that
could be what was happening.
Bakersfield police,
they increased patrols
just in that area
because they did not know
what they were dealing with.
And people were scared.
Most people who
knew Earnestine Harper agreed
this woman was a force
to be reckoned with.
My mother was involved with
fighting for those
who were treated unjustly
in the criminal system,
in the judicial system.
In fact, she was very active
in the 1996 exoneration
of a young Black man
named Offord Rollins
who was wrongly convicted
of m*rder.
The girl that he was
supposed to have m*rder*d
The girl that he was
supposed to have m*rder*d
was Hispanic.
And so my mother helping him,
him getting off,
not being tried again,
they speculated,
"Could this have been someone
who did not like her
as a result of Offord Rollins
being released?"
But something didn't add up.
If the k*ller was a stranger
with a grudge,
how did he get into a house
loaded with home security?
Earnestine Harper
fortified her house.
Earnestine Harper
fortified her house.
Not only from the exterior
but from the interior as well,
with door braces,
locks on the windows,
thumb locks.
And she always would have
that sliding glass door locked
with a wooden dowel in the trap.
Detectives now took
another look
at Vincent Brothers,
a man some called
a pillar of the community.
It turned out
there were problems
in his marriage
to Joanie Harper.
Vincent Brothers,
he had been married
at least four times.
Twice to Joanie Harper.
Twice to Joanie Harper.
His history with
any relationship with women
was never something
that was a fairytale.
There was nothing good
that came out of these things.
In 1988, he was
convicted of spousal abuse,
and he spent six days in jail.
If Vincent's
marriage was ending,
that created a possible motive.
If he was married to Joanie,
he's financially responsible
for her.
Potentially for alimony, too.
You know he's gonna get it
three times for child support.
You know he's gonna get it
three times for child support.
All three children.
But Vincent had an alibi.
He was seen by many people
in Ohio
during the period
of the murders.
And he said his credit cards
would also back him up.
Detectives went to the sources
of the credit card receipts
which were in Ohio.
They saw that Vincent Brothers
had been at
a Chinese food restaurant.
Vincent Brothers had been at
Walmart in Ohio.
But when they dug
a little deeper,
they saw that Melvin Brothers
they saw that Melvin Brothers
was the one on security camera
at Walmart, not Vincent.
Melvin, Vincent's
brother, lived in Ohio,
and was now confronted
by police.
Videos don't lie.
Clearly showed Melvin.
Melvin eventually admitted
to it,
even though he'd not at first.
This proved Vincent was lying.
But it didn't prove m*rder.
Detectives wondered,
was it possible
Vincent could have driven
from Ohio back to California,
k*lled his family,
and then got himself
k*lled his family,
and then got himself
back to Ohio so it looked like
he never left?
If so, the key would appear
to be his rental car.
We knew
we had to get that rental,
and we had
the FBI seize it for us.
We also reported that there
were only three other renters
other than Vincent,
and we were able
to contact all of them.
These other renters
told detectives of
their respective destinations,
all of which were on
the eastern side of the country.
But for a car
rented only four times,
But for a car
rented only four times,
this one had clocked
an awful lot of miles.
There's 5,400-something-odd
miles unaccounted for.
So we were doing the math
and I thought, "You know,
how far is it from Ohio
to Bakersfield and back? Oh.
It doesn't take 5,000 miles
to get from Ohio
to North Carolina.
Vincent now said
he took the car to Chicago
to see a baseball game with
another of his brothers.
"That's why
there's a lot of miles on it."
"That's why
there's a lot of miles on it."
That wouldn't even be
half the amount of miles
we found on that rental,
which was 5,400 miles.
Investigators
worried that mileage numbers
on a rental car odometer
wasn't nearly enough
to win a m*rder case.
And even the car rental company
admitted their record keeping
on mileage
probably wouldn't withstand
the scrutiny of a m*rder trial.
Still, detectives were convinced
the rental car held the answer.
And they came up with
an unprecedented way to find it.
An unprecedented way to find it.
The most incredible
thing about this case
in terms of forensics,
and this is why
I really remember this case,
is because they thought
out of the box.
Although
Vincent Brothers had been
caught in some lies
concerning his whereabouts
on the day
his family was m*rder*d,
he was adamant
about two things -
he wasn't the k*ller,
and he couldn't be,
because he was
thousands of miles away
when the murders happened.
Investigators were unconvinced
and turned
to Vincent's rental car.
So, then we thought, "Okay.
How do we prove this?
How do we prove
this car was over there?"
Clearly we had
the mileage locked down.
We know he rented it.
Rental receipts.
We know he rented it.
Rental receipts.
But we needed more.
The idea was brought up to
look for bug parts on the car.
And at the time I was thinking,
"Wow, that's kind of
a unique thing."
It wasn't my idea,
I can't take credit for it.
But it was something that,
it was brought up,
and we were... I think
a lot of us were thinking,
"That would be cool
if that would work."
Investigators
reached out to Lynn Kimsey,
a PHD at the Bohart Museum
of Entomology,
home to one of the largest
insect collections
home to one of the largest
insect collections
in North America.
She was asked to do something
no entomologist
had apparently ever been
asked to do.
We got a phone call
from the FBI saying,
"Would you be willing
to look at a radiator
to see what insects
are on it?"
and we're going, "Okay,
anything for a weird life."
Kimsey and her team
were given no information
about the case.
All investigators
wanted to know was
what kind of bugs
were in the radiator,
and where did they come from?
We said yes, then they drove up
We said yes, then they drove up
with the radiator
and the air filter assembly,
and we picked over both.
We put them
on a sheet of white paper
to keep everything clean,
and picked them off.
A car driven thousands of miles
picks up a lot of bugs.
Using a dissecting microscope
with up to
Kimsey's team examined
these bits of bugs.
There were fragments
of perhaps 30 or 40.
Most of them were uninformative.
Most of them were uninformative.
They were the kinds of things
like house flies.
So you would get anywhere.
There were about six
that were
actually pretty informative
in terms of putting into
a very specific place.
We had a grasshopper leg
and the sort of upper half
of a wasp,
and fragments of a couple of
what are called true bugs.
These are insects that have
sucking mouth parts.
Because of varied
terrain and varied climate,
Because of varied
terrain and varied climate,
bugs develop characteristics
that allow them to adapt to
the region in which they live.
The team
was easily able to identify
where some of these
bug fragments originated.
We found insects that
could only have been from
the southwestern US.
We couldn't pin 'em down
to a specific state.
But sort of
the Four Corners area,
and then down into
southeastern California.
This was bad news
for Vincent Brothers,
who said from the beginning
who said from the beginning
that he never drove
west of Chicago.
But the case was far from over.
Investigators had to show that
Vincent Brothers, or anyone,
could drive 5,400 miles
in less than 48 hours,
back and forth
from Ohio to California,
and also commit a mass m*rder
during that same time period.
What it came down to is that
if it were to happen,
he would have to drive
an average
of about 70 miles per hour
an average
of about 70 miles per hour
without stopping,
without sleeping.
Investigators concluded
that was exactly what
Vincent Brothers did.
They believe he planned
the murders for months,
and waited for
the July 4th weekend
in the belief that any g*nshots
would be mistaken for fireworks.
After flying from
Bakersfield to Ohio
and making sure he was seen,
he drove the rental car
back to California.
Once inside the house,
he opened fire,
Once inside the house,
he opened fire,
k*lling everyone,
including his infant son.
But now he was on the clock.
He had to get back to Ohio,
and quickly,
to establish his alibi.
He blitzed across the country,
averaging 70 miles an hour.
He would have had to drive
without sleeping
for more than 30 hours
to make it appear
he'd never left Ohio.
Detectives believe he had
a large stash of cash
which allowed him to pay for gas
which allowed him to pay for gas
without leaving
a credit card trail.
He most likely wore a disguise
to avoid being identified later
by surveillance cameras.
But it turns out
Vincent Brothers,
like most everyone else,
didn't think much about bugs.
And those bugs left no
doubt that his rental car
was driven for many
miles west of Chicago.
As far as I know,
nothing like this
has ever been done.
Mostly because the circumstances
were so perfect with this one.
Were so perfect with this one.
Vincent's brother Melvin,
seen in this photograph,
cooperated with
the investigation
and was never charged
in this case.
In 2007, Vincent Brothers
was found guilty
of five counts
of first-degree m*rder.
He now sits on death row
at San Quentin Prison.
All courtesy of investigators
with the imagination
to realize that bug fragments
in a car grill
could solve a m*rder.
Could solve a m*rder.
The science in this case
blows my mind to this day.
Who would have ever thought
that you could talk
to an entomologist
and pinpoint where bugs,
tiny little insects, are found
in the United States,
and that they would even
still be on the car?
It's unbelievable.
I still can't believe it.