Put on a real murder in Hollywood

65438+1At 9: 4 0 on May 9, 1997, officers Thomas Smyer and John Sack of the Los Angeles Police Department were patrolling an area where drug addicts and dealers were rampant.

There was a real murder in Hollywood. The emergency phone rang suddenly. There is a case that they need to investigate immediately. The crime took place in a two-story apartment where a body was found.

As soon as police officers Smale and Sack entered the crime scene, they smelled blood. They noticed that the glass window in front of the house was broken. Everything seems normal except the broken glass on the ground.

Smale and Shaq then walked up the steps, and another scene upstairs shocked them. A blood stain extends from the top of the stairs to the bedroom, and the scene is no less than the bloody picture in the horror movie.

Blood dripped from the ceiling and all over the floor along the wall. A huge porcelain sculpture was smashed to the ground, and glass fragments were scattered all over the room. They found a pair of shoe prints similar to professional sports shoes on the ground.

A man was lying on the ground, face down, bloody, with his feet on the bed and lying in a pool of blood. The blood in the house has spread to another bedroom, bathroom, walk-in closet and even kitchen ... there is blood in every room upstairs.

Such a complicated scene made the police handling the case spend a day on-site investigation.

Officer Smyer said that in his 10 police career, he had never encountered such a violent case. "It can be seen that the struggle between the victim and the murderer was fierce at that time. Now that I think about it, I still have a chilling feeling. " Officer Smyer recalled: "You must speak for the victims, reassemble with the evidence at hand and restore the facts."

Portrait of the deceased

After investigation, the police found that the name of the deceased was Roland Caster. Born in Switzerland, Roland is a successful photographer. In order to cooperate with top models and actors, he finally came to Los Angeles.

After coming to Los Angeles, Roland worked and lived in an old video studio. Roland soon had his own circle of friends, including models, photographers and filmmakers.

Like many other people in Hollywood's Fast Track, Roland is also infected with drugs. Working all night and nightlife became his daily life.

While the police investigated Roland's life background, forensic evidence brought a lot of enlightenment to investigators.

Roland's apartment is surrounded by a fence 15 feet high, and there are two dogs in the backyard. There is a lot of blood on the fence of Roland's apartment. Investigators' later analysis of the blood showed that the blood on the fence was consistent with the blood left on the door. The killer probably broke in through the window and escaped through the door. This enabled the investigators to trace the murderer's criminal motive.

Investigators collected blood evidence one by one, and a pair of bloody shoe prints left at the scene caught their attention. Later, the investigators found blood on the sleeve of a jacket in the closet; There is also blood in the bathroom sink, which seems to indicate that the killer tried to wash the scene.

At the same time, the police also found an abandoned sanitary napkin with blood in a trash can. The police also found two knives at the kitchen scene. Investigators also found cash, several pistols and a suspicious backpack under Roland's mattress.

In Roland's apartment, the police found more than 70 bloodstains. Criminologists need several weeks to collect all the evidence.

There are many suspects.

The autopsy was conducted two days after Roland's body was found. Forensic appraisers found that his head was hit by a blunt instrument, and there were 13 serrated knife wounds on his head and left shoulder.

Among them, 10 stabbed his neck, and 2 stabbed his vein. The deepest blade is 1.5 inch. Roland was also stabbed in the chest, back, shoulders and arms. These wounds seem to have been left by Roland in the process of fighting the murderer.

During the autopsy, the forensic doctor found that Roland was still holding a hairpin in his hand.

Because Roland has many friends and complicated interpersonal relationships, there are many suspects on the police list. Before Roland was killed, four people had been to his residence-his girlfriend, two friends and a man named Brandon.

After the police questioned four suspects and collected DNA samples, the two women told investigators that they saw a black man jumping over the fence with a pair of shoes in his hand, wearing a green T-shirt and a white hat. The police showed the two women many similar black photos, and they chose the man who jumped over the railing, that is Brandon.

The police then obtained a search warrant and searched Brandon's residence. In his home, the investigators did find a green T-shirt and a white hat.

The following week, the police followed Brandon and found that he wore the wrong shoes that night and went to work barefoot the next day. This detail reminds the police of the bloody footprints found at Roland's murder scene.

However, the district attorney needs more evidence, such as DNA or blood match, to arrest Brandon. However, after comparing all the data in the house with DNA samples, the police ruled out the biggest suspect Brandon.

Forensic personnel analyzed and studied a large amount of data and evidence. After comparing and analyzing thousands of pairs of shoes, criminologists finally determined that the bloody shoe prints were left by a pair of Nike tennis shoes.

Investigators searched all acquaintances who were close to Roland. But no similar Nike shoes were found.

The police conducted a blood test on friends who have a good relationship with Roland, and the blood test results proved that they were all innocent. A fingerprint left at the bottom of the coffee box was confirmed to be Roland's own. Disappointingly, Roland's hairpin in his hand is also his own.

Suspicious backpack

Officer Smyer can only put the clue on the suspicious backpack in Roland's room. There is an envelope in the backpack with a return address addressed to David Minar. The address is box 93204 in Avenir, California. The mailbox postmark is the mailroom of Avenir National Prison.

Minar was released four days before Roland died. He had many criminal records, even dating back to 1969. His charges include armed robbery, theft and assault.

Subsequently, the police contacted the state parole office to try to get Minar's fingerprint information. On June 4th, I got the information about Minar, but it didn't match all the information in the house. The investigation of the case seems to have reached a dead end and no progress has been made.

In July and August, the police conducted a follow-up investigation on Minar. The police later learned that when they were investigating the crime scene, the patrol police were arresting Minar in the neighborhood not far from the crime scene.

At that time, Minar was wearing only a bloody short * * *, covered in knives, and was illegally invading a house. Minar told the police that he had a fight with someone else, and the police then let him go. At that time, the patrol did not enter this information into LAPD database. It was not until the end of July that the police knew about this situation, but they could not find the clothes discarded by Minar.

Fortunately, Minar later stayed in a homeless community in Atlanta. When he applied for food stamps, his relevant data entered the police database. Finally, Minar was arrested by the police. Seeing the policeman, Minar said, "Hey, are you from Hollywood?" Soon, the police questioned him and obtained his DNA sample.

A belated trial

After more than three months, Minar was finally extradited to California. On February 20th of the same year, 12, the police completed an analysis report on Minar's blood samples, which covered four items: napkins in the trash can, jackets in the closet, blood on the front door and railings. Tests show that none of these bloodstains can rule out Minar as a suspect. But Minar denied knowing Roland or invading his house, and denied the facts of the crime.

1 may 2, 9981day, that is, after Roland's death1year, Minar was charged with murder. He also decided to defend himself personally. In court, Minar tried his best to prove his innocence to the jury.

However, the DNA evidence found at the scene of Roland's murder and the backpack with Minar's initials have fully proved that he is the real murderer.

Prosecutor Ham said that Minar was a criminal who had just been released from prison, and he put everything in a backpack. At first, he just wanted to steal something from Roland's residence, but Roland saw him and had a fight. In his panic, Minar forgot his backpack.

In the end, the jury found Minar guilty. He was accused of attempted robbery and burglary. The court sentenced Minar to life imprisonment without bail.

After finding the real murderer, Roland's body was cremated and the ashes were given to his mother in Switzerland.

Footprint recognition

Footprint inspection is a branch of criminal technology, a trace in trace material evidence inspection, and one of the four most common trace "hands and feet guns" in handling cases.

Footprint inspection does not have the huge database support function of fingerprint DNA, but it does not affect its great role in investigation. This is because the appearance rate of footprints in the scene is high, and the extraction rate is also high. Fingerprint identification or DNA identification is a very mature personal identification technology, but due to the limited remaining conditions, the extraction rate is often not high in field investigation. Generally, the probability of obtaining fingerprints in field investigation is only about 14% in China, and the extraction rate of DNA is much lower than that of fingerprints.

In addition, the footprint test can provide the same identification basis. For example, if there are shoe prints on the scene, the police can determine whether the footprints on the scene are left by the same pair of shoes by comparing them with the sample footprints; If there is a red footprint or sock print at the scene, the police can compare it with the sample red footprint or sock print to determine whether the two footprints or sock prints are left by the same person.

Footprint inspection can also provide some very effective analysis conclusions for criminal investigation, such as analyzing the number of criminals and providing the characteristics of the perpetrator's age, height and occupation.

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