Forensic Files (1996–…): Season 7, Episode 12 - Vow of Silence - full transcript
[music playing]
NARRATOR: On
Memorial Day weekend
in 1984, [cannon firing]
someone placed
a body in a cardboard box and
slid it down an embankment.
The cause of death was homicide,
but investigators had no idea
when the murder occurred.
But science uncovered
an important detail of
the victim's last night alive.
Would it be enough to
identify the killer?
[music playing]
On a Sunday morning a fisherman
enjoying the Juniata River
in central Pennsylvania
saw a large cardboard box
at the river's edge.
Inside was a garbage bag.
WILLIAM J. LINK: He pulled back
a piece of plastic a little bit
and discovered that it
was the part of a person.
Didn't know male, female.
NARRATOR: The torso was
later identified as female.
The rest was a mystery.
R. SCOTT CRAMER:
There was no indicator
as to how she met her death.
NARRATOR: Above the
box on the side of a,
hill the underbrush had been
tamped down, indicating the box
had slid down the embankment
from the road above.
JERRY A. PHILPOTT: The
box had been slid down
after the dew had settled,
and had been wiped off
by the passage of
the box, and that
was important to developing
a timeline in this case.
NARRATOR: Investigators noticed
a grease-stained puncture hole
in the box.
And in the grease was
small pieces of Styrofoam.
WILLIAM J. LINK: Whoever
pulled that out of the trunk,
when they were lifting it out,
caught the box on the latch.
That's what I believe
that was from.
NARRATOR: Someone had
gone to great lengths
to conceal the victim's
identity by removing
the head, arms, and legs.
To do this, the killer
needed time and privacy.
SKIP GOCHENOUR: The part
that didn't make sense to me
about that was if someone could
make a person's head, arms,
and legs disappear from
that day until this day,
they could easily make the
rest of the body disappear.
So there was some reason for
the body to be discovered.
NARRATOR: The body had
three large moles and a scar
on the abdomen.
Blue jeans and a belt
with a zodiac buckle
were the only other keys
to the victim's identity.
At the autopsy, the
pathologist found evidence
of insect activity, which was
sent to a forensic entomologist
for analysis.
An entomologist is an expert
in the study of insects.
He identified the eggs as
those of the blue bottle fly
and the black blow
fly, both common
in many areas of
the United States.
The weather conditions
around the time the body was
discovered and the stage of
the egg and larvae development
allow the entomologist to
provide a rough estimate
of the time of death.
R. SCOTT CRAMER: Was roughly
two days prior to our finding
the torso.
NARRATOR: This meant
that the victim
died sometime late Friday night
or early Saturday morning.
The autopsy was not able to
identify the cause of death.
The pathologist found semen
present during the autopsy,
but there was no
evidence of rape,
and there was no way
to identify the man,
since this was
before DNA testing.
Police knew that in order to
identify possible suspects,
they first had to
identify the victim.
WILLIAM J. LINK: We said
from the very beginning,
if we find out who she is,
we'll find out who killed her.
NARRATOR: Missing persons
reports were checked,
but no one fit the
description of the torso.
Seven months later,
she was buried,
still unidentified,
in an unmarked grave,
and soon forgotten.
One year later, a telephone
call changed that.
One year after Jane Doe, the
unidentified murder victim
was buried in a pauper's
grave in Pennsylvania,
police received what at first
was a routine telephone call.
A woman told police that her
ex-sister-in-law, Edna Posey,
had been missing for a year.
She was able to
provide police with a
detailed physical description.
WILLIAM J. LINK: She started
explaining how Edna would say,
oh, I can't wear a bikini
because of my moles.
NARRATOR: This sounded
strikingly similar
to the birth marks
found on the body--
their Jane Doe--
of a year earlier.
The caller also said
Edna Posey always wore
a belt with a zodiac buckle.
Edna Posey was a
31-year-old single mother
of an 11-year-old boy, Randy.
And she was no stranger
to the seedy side
of life in the nearby
city of Harrisburg.
R. SCOTT CRAMER: She
was what generally
be perceived as a tramp.
Unstable relationships,
short-term.
Problems with alcohol,
and not having
a stable home environment for
Randy, among other things.
WILLIAM J. LINK:
Edna was not your-- I
shouldn't say nicest person,
but was sort of wild.
NARRATOR: Edna's
wild streak usually
involved men and alcohol.
She would meet men in bars,
quickly move in with them,
and just as quickly move out,
only to repeat the same pattern
again and again.
And she would sometimes
disappear for months at a time
without saying a word to anyone.
Edna was able to admit that
her life was out of control,
and had asked Donald Ruby, her
son Randy's Boy Scout leader,
if Randy could move in with him.
SKIP GOCHENOUR: Donald
Ruby had a Boy Scout troop
that was comprised
largely of boys who
had problems in their lives.
Most of them were in
families with mothers only.
The boys had been
into trouble and
Donald took this group
of boys and formed
his own troop with it.
NARRATOR: Randy moved in
with Donald Ruby and his wife
and lived with them as
if he were their own son.
42-year-old Ruby
worked as a machinist
and had no children of his own.
While many applauded
him for his efforts
with troubled youngsters,
some questioned his motives.
JERRY A. PHILPOTT: Well, it's
in the eye of the beholder.
He did some things
that I would wince
myself, such as the kissing
on the lips and so forth.
I was never that way even
with my own children.
NARRATOR: Edna moved 150
miles away to Virginia,
where she took a job as a
dental technician while trying
to get her life back on track.
This is Edna's coworker, who
asked not to be identified
for fear of her safety.
EDNA'S COWORKER: She
was saving her money
and sometimes in that
particular time period
she met a young soldier in
the Army Band in Virginia.
And they became quite close, and
was going to move in together
and bring Randy down
to be with them.
And police believe that
Donald Ruby was threatened
by the loss of Randy.
JOSEPH A. CURCILLO: The
evidence was that she intended
to take Randy back with her.
We believed and argued
that Donald did not want
to give up Randy as his son.
NARRATOR: Did this mean
that Donald Ruby had
a motive to kill Edna Posey?
Ruby told police that Edna
Posey had come to their home
to visit Randy on
Friday night and planned
to stay for the entire
Memorial Day weekend.
The next day, Ruby and his wife
said they took Edna shopping
and dropped her off downtown.
Yeah.
Actually, just go to the corner.
We'll see you back at
like 5:00, 5:30, right?
EDNA: OK.
Great.
Thanks.
Bye.
NARRATOR: When they returned
later to pick her up,
Edna never showed up.
SKIP GOCHENOUR: Given the
lifestyle that Edna lived
for decades, you
could sell it very
easily that she just
decided to disappear
off the face of the earth.
NARRATOR: But Edna's
son Randy told police
a slightly different story.
He said he last saw his
mother on Friday night
when she kissed him good night.
I love you.
OK.
See you tomorrow.
A short time later,
he said he heard
a loud noise coming
from the bedroom
where his mother was sleeping.
WILLIAM J. LINK: I
think he described it as
if somebody fallen out of bed.
NARRATOR: He said when
he woke up the next day,
his mother was gone.
If the forensic entomologist
was correct in his estimate
of the time of Edna's
death, the noise
Randy heard on Friday night may
have been his mother's murder.
When police searched
Donald Ruby's trunk,
they found the
same type of grease
that was found on the box
holding Edna Posey's torso.
And they discovered
the hole in the box
was the same size and shape as
the trunk latch in Ruby's car.
Prosecutors now believe
the Donald Ruby murdered
Edna Posey on Friday evening.
When Donald Ruby was charged
with the murder of Edna Posey,
police heard some unsettling
news about his life
with Edna's son, Randy.
R. SCOTT CRAMER:
We had testimony
that when they would come
home from camping trips,
he would physically touch
Randy's private parts,
allegedly, to feel for ticks.
So that, yes, there was some
direct evidence of pedophilia.
WILLIAM J. LINK: He
was looking for ticks,
but he would examine
around the crotch
and the rear end
a little bit more
than a parent probably
would explore.
NARRATOR: Prosecutors said that
was evidence of pedophilia,
that Ruby had a sexual
fixation with Randy
and killed Edna to keep her from
regaining custody of her son.
They said that the grease and
Styrofoam evidence on the box
containing Edna's body,
though circumstantial,
tied Ruby to the crime.
Three years after Edna
Posey's disappearance,
Donald Ruby was
convicted of her murder
and sentenced to life in prison.
Edna's family and
friends believed
that a cold-blooded
killer had gotten justice.
EDNA'S COWORKER: How could
you do this to another person?
I mean, it wasn't like he
just shot her and you know,
there was no pain
and she just died.
It was the cruel, cruel
way that he killed her.
And it was just almost
unbelievable to me
that you could do that
to another human being.
NARRATOR: From behind
bars, Donald Ruby
maintained his innocence.
He said Edna had
countless low-life lovers,
and any one of them could
have committed the crime.
His lawyers petitioned
the court for a retrial.
They claimed there was no proof
Donald Ruby was a pedophile
and that his rights
were violated when
jurors heard that testimony.
Ruby's defense
attorneys also decided
to have the forensic
evidence re-examined.
So they called Doctor Neal
Haskell, one of the country's
premier forensic entomologists.
Doctor Haskell analyzed
the eggs and larvae
from Edna Posey's body.
Flies lay eggs which develop
into larvae, and then
into flies.
But in reading the
medical examiner's report,
Doctor Haskell noticed
an inconsistency.
At the autopsy, the
medical examiner said
he found eggs but not larvae.
And he noticed something else.
At the original autopsy, the
eggs were scraped from the body
and placed in a Petri dish.
The scrapings also contained
bits of flesh and blood.
This meant that the eggs
had three additional days
to feed on the flesh and develop
before they were analyzed.
NEAL HASKELL: I'm
trying to avoid
saying the copper screwed up.
I'm trying to be
professional and diplomatic.
NARRATOR: Doctor Haskell
analyzed some of the eggs
found on Edna Posey's body.
After three years, they were
so dry they were almost.
They were then placed
in a saline solution
to rehydrate them.
Doctor Haskell believes these
eggs were on Edna's Posey's
body for only a short time,
meaning that Edna Posey was
killed sometime late Saturday
night or early Sunday morning,
not Friday night as the
original entomologist estimated.
NEAL HASKELL: Scientific
entomological evidence
that was presented
in this case clearly
showed that the time when
the death of this individual
had taken place had to
be much shorter than what
the prosecution was alleging.
NARRATOR: The meteorological
evidence also pointed
to early Sunday morning.
When the fisherman found
the body on Sunday morning,
he said there was no
dew or condensation
along the path the box
traveled down the embankment.
And another factor
supporting this time frame
was the autopsy report.
The medical examiner said there
was motile or moving sperm
in Edna's body at the autopsy.
Sperm remains motile
in a deceased person
for only 24 hours after death.
Donald Ruby had an
alibi for all day
Saturday and Saturday night.
After six years in
prison, Donald Ruby
was granted a new trial.
And Ruby's new defense team had
a surprise piece of evidence.
New DNA testing of the semen
found during Edna Posey's
autopsy uncovered a tantalizing
clue about her last night
alive.
Eight years after
Edna Posey's death,
forensic scientists
analyzed the semen
recovered during her autopsy.
This time using
new DNA technology
which wasn't available at
Donald Ruby's first trial.
In a shocking
development, DNA testing
revealed there was semen
from three different men,
and Donald Ruby's DNA
was not among them.
The autopsy notes
revealed that the semen
contained multiple sperm
at the time of the autopsy.
Sperm remain motile in a dead
person for only 24 hours.
SKIP GOCHENOUR: We had
at least three people
by the evidence
who were with her
and had sex with her
less than 24 hours
before her body was discovered.
JERRY A. PHILPOTT: We were able
to exploit that in the trial
by planting the suggestion
that Edna, true to form,
had gotten on the wild
side when she was dropped
off in Middletown by Don.
NARRATOR: At Donald
Ruby's second trial,
his defense was the
same as the first trial.
That he and his wife
dropped Edna off on Saturday
morning to go shopping.
But this time, new
forensic evidence
help bolster his story.
His attorneys implied
that one or more
of the unidentified men who had
sex with her on Saturday night
may have been the killer.
JOSEPH A. CURCILLO:
Oh, that was clearly
the defense insinuation.
The defense clearly
insinuated that somebody
that Edna was picked up by might
have committed this murder.
NARRATOR: The other new
piece of forensic evidence
was Doctor Haskell's
testimony, with his view
that the original time
of death was inaccurate.
He testified that
improper preservation
of the entomological evidence
caused an inaccurate estimation
of the time of death.
He told the jury that Edna
Posey died late Saturday night
or early Sunday
morning, not on Friday
night as originally claimed.
Further helping Ruby's
case was Edna's son, Randy.
At the original
trial, Randy said
he heard a loud thump from his
mother's bedroom late on Friday
night.
But eight years later,
Randy, now 21 years old,
recalled nothing about that.
JOSEPH A. CURCILLO:
Randy clearly did
not remember hearing a thump.
We asked him about it.
He said he had no independent
recollection of it,
and thus, we did not have
the thump in the night
to use as testimony.
NARRATOR: The
defense also claimed
that the hole in the
carton carrying Edna's body
could have been made by
thousands of vehicles
with the same type of
hood latch and grease
as was in Ruby's car.
After a nine-day trial and
six hours of deliberation,
the jury found Donald Ruby not
guilty, a verdict which baffled
Edna's friends and family.
EDNA'S COWORKER: Just a total
state of shock they cannot let
that proven again and to
have it thrown out like that
and a murderer
walking the streets,
I think it was a concern to
a lot of people in the area,
especially people who
testified against him.
DONALD RUBY: Just some ducks
along the highway that--
like I said, you learn
to appreciate things
better when you
lose them and you
don't have them for a while.
WILLIAM J. LINK: You
learn through experience
never try to figure out a jury.
Never try to figure out a jury.
And I don't know what
the jury thought,
but they made their
decision, I'll live with it.
NARRATOR: And the case,
while officially closed,
remains open in the
minds of those involved.
R. SCOTT CRAMER: Who should
be scared of Mr. Ruby?
Virtually anyone with children.
I don't propose to be
an expert in pedophilia,
but certainly be my lay
opinion that a leopard
doesn't change its spots.
JERRY A. PHILPOTT: I'm convinced
that Don did not kill Edna.
He might have had reason
to, but he did not do it.
Who did kill her,
I have no clue.
I know it's not Don.
NARRATOR: Donald Ruby left
town soon after the trial,
and no one, not even
his own lawyers,
know where he is today.
NEAL HASKELL: I have
had a letter that he
sent me later that year.
It basically thanked me for
testifying on his behalf
and that he was going
to have a certain place
in his heart for the welfare
of the flies in the future.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: On
Memorial Day weekend
in 1984, [cannon firing]
someone placed
a body in a cardboard box and
slid it down an embankment.
The cause of death was homicide,
but investigators had no idea
when the murder occurred.
But science uncovered
an important detail of
the victim's last night alive.
Would it be enough to
identify the killer?
[music playing]
On a Sunday morning a fisherman
enjoying the Juniata River
in central Pennsylvania
saw a large cardboard box
at the river's edge.
Inside was a garbage bag.
WILLIAM J. LINK: He pulled back
a piece of plastic a little bit
and discovered that it
was the part of a person.
Didn't know male, female.
NARRATOR: The torso was
later identified as female.
The rest was a mystery.
R. SCOTT CRAMER:
There was no indicator
as to how she met her death.
NARRATOR: Above the
box on the side of a,
hill the underbrush had been
tamped down, indicating the box
had slid down the embankment
from the road above.
JERRY A. PHILPOTT: The
box had been slid down
after the dew had settled,
and had been wiped off
by the passage of
the box, and that
was important to developing
a timeline in this case.
NARRATOR: Investigators noticed
a grease-stained puncture hole
in the box.
And in the grease was
small pieces of Styrofoam.
WILLIAM J. LINK: Whoever
pulled that out of the trunk,
when they were lifting it out,
caught the box on the latch.
That's what I believe
that was from.
NARRATOR: Someone had
gone to great lengths
to conceal the victim's
identity by removing
the head, arms, and legs.
To do this, the killer
needed time and privacy.
SKIP GOCHENOUR: The part
that didn't make sense to me
about that was if someone could
make a person's head, arms,
and legs disappear from
that day until this day,
they could easily make the
rest of the body disappear.
So there was some reason for
the body to be discovered.
NARRATOR: The body had
three large moles and a scar
on the abdomen.
Blue jeans and a belt
with a zodiac buckle
were the only other keys
to the victim's identity.
At the autopsy, the
pathologist found evidence
of insect activity, which was
sent to a forensic entomologist
for analysis.
An entomologist is an expert
in the study of insects.
He identified the eggs as
those of the blue bottle fly
and the black blow
fly, both common
in many areas of
the United States.
The weather conditions
around the time the body was
discovered and the stage of
the egg and larvae development
allow the entomologist to
provide a rough estimate
of the time of death.
R. SCOTT CRAMER: Was roughly
two days prior to our finding
the torso.
NARRATOR: This meant
that the victim
died sometime late Friday night
or early Saturday morning.
The autopsy was not able to
identify the cause of death.
The pathologist found semen
present during the autopsy,
but there was no
evidence of rape,
and there was no way
to identify the man,
since this was
before DNA testing.
Police knew that in order to
identify possible suspects,
they first had to
identify the victim.
WILLIAM J. LINK: We said
from the very beginning,
if we find out who she is,
we'll find out who killed her.
NARRATOR: Missing persons
reports were checked,
but no one fit the
description of the torso.
Seven months later,
she was buried,
still unidentified,
in an unmarked grave,
and soon forgotten.
One year later, a telephone
call changed that.
One year after Jane Doe, the
unidentified murder victim
was buried in a pauper's
grave in Pennsylvania,
police received what at first
was a routine telephone call.
A woman told police that her
ex-sister-in-law, Edna Posey,
had been missing for a year.
She was able to
provide police with a
detailed physical description.
WILLIAM J. LINK: She started
explaining how Edna would say,
oh, I can't wear a bikini
because of my moles.
NARRATOR: This sounded
strikingly similar
to the birth marks
found on the body--
their Jane Doe--
of a year earlier.
The caller also said
Edna Posey always wore
a belt with a zodiac buckle.
Edna Posey was a
31-year-old single mother
of an 11-year-old boy, Randy.
And she was no stranger
to the seedy side
of life in the nearby
city of Harrisburg.
R. SCOTT CRAMER: She
was what generally
be perceived as a tramp.
Unstable relationships,
short-term.
Problems with alcohol,
and not having
a stable home environment for
Randy, among other things.
WILLIAM J. LINK:
Edna was not your-- I
shouldn't say nicest person,
but was sort of wild.
NARRATOR: Edna's
wild streak usually
involved men and alcohol.
She would meet men in bars,
quickly move in with them,
and just as quickly move out,
only to repeat the same pattern
again and again.
And she would sometimes
disappear for months at a time
without saying a word to anyone.
Edna was able to admit that
her life was out of control,
and had asked Donald Ruby, her
son Randy's Boy Scout leader,
if Randy could move in with him.
SKIP GOCHENOUR: Donald
Ruby had a Boy Scout troop
that was comprised
largely of boys who
had problems in their lives.
Most of them were in
families with mothers only.
The boys had been
into trouble and
Donald took this group
of boys and formed
his own troop with it.
NARRATOR: Randy moved in
with Donald Ruby and his wife
and lived with them as
if he were their own son.
42-year-old Ruby
worked as a machinist
and had no children of his own.
While many applauded
him for his efforts
with troubled youngsters,
some questioned his motives.
JERRY A. PHILPOTT: Well, it's
in the eye of the beholder.
He did some things
that I would wince
myself, such as the kissing
on the lips and so forth.
I was never that way even
with my own children.
NARRATOR: Edna moved 150
miles away to Virginia,
where she took a job as a
dental technician while trying
to get her life back on track.
This is Edna's coworker, who
asked not to be identified
for fear of her safety.
EDNA'S COWORKER: She
was saving her money
and sometimes in that
particular time period
she met a young soldier in
the Army Band in Virginia.
And they became quite close, and
was going to move in together
and bring Randy down
to be with them.
And police believe that
Donald Ruby was threatened
by the loss of Randy.
JOSEPH A. CURCILLO: The
evidence was that she intended
to take Randy back with her.
We believed and argued
that Donald did not want
to give up Randy as his son.
NARRATOR: Did this mean
that Donald Ruby had
a motive to kill Edna Posey?
Ruby told police that Edna
Posey had come to their home
to visit Randy on
Friday night and planned
to stay for the entire
Memorial Day weekend.
The next day, Ruby and his wife
said they took Edna shopping
and dropped her off downtown.
Yeah.
Actually, just go to the corner.
We'll see you back at
like 5:00, 5:30, right?
EDNA: OK.
Great.
Thanks.
Bye.
NARRATOR: When they returned
later to pick her up,
Edna never showed up.
SKIP GOCHENOUR: Given the
lifestyle that Edna lived
for decades, you
could sell it very
easily that she just
decided to disappear
off the face of the earth.
NARRATOR: But Edna's
son Randy told police
a slightly different story.
He said he last saw his
mother on Friday night
when she kissed him good night.
I love you.
OK.
See you tomorrow.
A short time later,
he said he heard
a loud noise coming
from the bedroom
where his mother was sleeping.
WILLIAM J. LINK: I
think he described it as
if somebody fallen out of bed.
NARRATOR: He said when
he woke up the next day,
his mother was gone.
If the forensic entomologist
was correct in his estimate
of the time of Edna's
death, the noise
Randy heard on Friday night may
have been his mother's murder.
When police searched
Donald Ruby's trunk,
they found the
same type of grease
that was found on the box
holding Edna Posey's torso.
And they discovered
the hole in the box
was the same size and shape as
the trunk latch in Ruby's car.
Prosecutors now believe
the Donald Ruby murdered
Edna Posey on Friday evening.
When Donald Ruby was charged
with the murder of Edna Posey,
police heard some unsettling
news about his life
with Edna's son, Randy.
R. SCOTT CRAMER:
We had testimony
that when they would come
home from camping trips,
he would physically touch
Randy's private parts,
allegedly, to feel for ticks.
So that, yes, there was some
direct evidence of pedophilia.
WILLIAM J. LINK: He
was looking for ticks,
but he would examine
around the crotch
and the rear end
a little bit more
than a parent probably
would explore.
NARRATOR: Prosecutors said that
was evidence of pedophilia,
that Ruby had a sexual
fixation with Randy
and killed Edna to keep her from
regaining custody of her son.
They said that the grease and
Styrofoam evidence on the box
containing Edna's body,
though circumstantial,
tied Ruby to the crime.
Three years after Edna
Posey's disappearance,
Donald Ruby was
convicted of her murder
and sentenced to life in prison.
Edna's family and
friends believed
that a cold-blooded
killer had gotten justice.
EDNA'S COWORKER: How could
you do this to another person?
I mean, it wasn't like he
just shot her and you know,
there was no pain
and she just died.
It was the cruel, cruel
way that he killed her.
And it was just almost
unbelievable to me
that you could do that
to another human being.
NARRATOR: From behind
bars, Donald Ruby
maintained his innocence.
He said Edna had
countless low-life lovers,
and any one of them could
have committed the crime.
His lawyers petitioned
the court for a retrial.
They claimed there was no proof
Donald Ruby was a pedophile
and that his rights
were violated when
jurors heard that testimony.
Ruby's defense
attorneys also decided
to have the forensic
evidence re-examined.
So they called Doctor Neal
Haskell, one of the country's
premier forensic entomologists.
Doctor Haskell analyzed
the eggs and larvae
from Edna Posey's body.
Flies lay eggs which develop
into larvae, and then
into flies.
But in reading the
medical examiner's report,
Doctor Haskell noticed
an inconsistency.
At the autopsy, the
medical examiner said
he found eggs but not larvae.
And he noticed something else.
At the original autopsy, the
eggs were scraped from the body
and placed in a Petri dish.
The scrapings also contained
bits of flesh and blood.
This meant that the eggs
had three additional days
to feed on the flesh and develop
before they were analyzed.
NEAL HASKELL: I'm
trying to avoid
saying the copper screwed up.
I'm trying to be
professional and diplomatic.
NARRATOR: Doctor Haskell
analyzed some of the eggs
found on Edna Posey's body.
After three years, they were
so dry they were almost.
They were then placed
in a saline solution
to rehydrate them.
Doctor Haskell believes these
eggs were on Edna's Posey's
body for only a short time,
meaning that Edna Posey was
killed sometime late Saturday
night or early Sunday morning,
not Friday night as the
original entomologist estimated.
NEAL HASKELL: Scientific
entomological evidence
that was presented
in this case clearly
showed that the time when
the death of this individual
had taken place had to
be much shorter than what
the prosecution was alleging.
NARRATOR: The meteorological
evidence also pointed
to early Sunday morning.
When the fisherman found
the body on Sunday morning,
he said there was no
dew or condensation
along the path the box
traveled down the embankment.
And another factor
supporting this time frame
was the autopsy report.
The medical examiner said there
was motile or moving sperm
in Edna's body at the autopsy.
Sperm remains motile
in a deceased person
for only 24 hours after death.
Donald Ruby had an
alibi for all day
Saturday and Saturday night.
After six years in
prison, Donald Ruby
was granted a new trial.
And Ruby's new defense team had
a surprise piece of evidence.
New DNA testing of the semen
found during Edna Posey's
autopsy uncovered a tantalizing
clue about her last night
alive.
Eight years after
Edna Posey's death,
forensic scientists
analyzed the semen
recovered during her autopsy.
This time using
new DNA technology
which wasn't available at
Donald Ruby's first trial.
In a shocking
development, DNA testing
revealed there was semen
from three different men,
and Donald Ruby's DNA
was not among them.
The autopsy notes
revealed that the semen
contained multiple sperm
at the time of the autopsy.
Sperm remain motile in a dead
person for only 24 hours.
SKIP GOCHENOUR: We had
at least three people
by the evidence
who were with her
and had sex with her
less than 24 hours
before her body was discovered.
JERRY A. PHILPOTT: We were able
to exploit that in the trial
by planting the suggestion
that Edna, true to form,
had gotten on the wild
side when she was dropped
off in Middletown by Don.
NARRATOR: At Donald
Ruby's second trial,
his defense was the
same as the first trial.
That he and his wife
dropped Edna off on Saturday
morning to go shopping.
But this time, new
forensic evidence
help bolster his story.
His attorneys implied
that one or more
of the unidentified men who had
sex with her on Saturday night
may have been the killer.
JOSEPH A. CURCILLO:
Oh, that was clearly
the defense insinuation.
The defense clearly
insinuated that somebody
that Edna was picked up by might
have committed this murder.
NARRATOR: The other new
piece of forensic evidence
was Doctor Haskell's
testimony, with his view
that the original time
of death was inaccurate.
He testified that
improper preservation
of the entomological evidence
caused an inaccurate estimation
of the time of death.
He told the jury that Edna
Posey died late Saturday night
or early Sunday
morning, not on Friday
night as originally claimed.
Further helping Ruby's
case was Edna's son, Randy.
At the original
trial, Randy said
he heard a loud thump from his
mother's bedroom late on Friday
night.
But eight years later,
Randy, now 21 years old,
recalled nothing about that.
JOSEPH A. CURCILLO:
Randy clearly did
not remember hearing a thump.
We asked him about it.
He said he had no independent
recollection of it,
and thus, we did not have
the thump in the night
to use as testimony.
NARRATOR: The
defense also claimed
that the hole in the
carton carrying Edna's body
could have been made by
thousands of vehicles
with the same type of
hood latch and grease
as was in Ruby's car.
After a nine-day trial and
six hours of deliberation,
the jury found Donald Ruby not
guilty, a verdict which baffled
Edna's friends and family.
EDNA'S COWORKER: Just a total
state of shock they cannot let
that proven again and to
have it thrown out like that
and a murderer
walking the streets,
I think it was a concern to
a lot of people in the area,
especially people who
testified against him.
DONALD RUBY: Just some ducks
along the highway that--
like I said, you learn
to appreciate things
better when you
lose them and you
don't have them for a while.
WILLIAM J. LINK: You
learn through experience
never try to figure out a jury.
Never try to figure out a jury.
And I don't know what
the jury thought,
but they made their
decision, I'll live with it.
NARRATOR: And the case,
while officially closed,
remains open in the
minds of those involved.
R. SCOTT CRAMER: Who should
be scared of Mr. Ruby?
Virtually anyone with children.
I don't propose to be
an expert in pedophilia,
but certainly be my lay
opinion that a leopard
doesn't change its spots.
JERRY A. PHILPOTT: I'm convinced
that Don did not kill Edna.
He might have had reason
to, but he did not do it.
Who did kill her,
I have no clue.
I know it's not Don.
NARRATOR: Donald Ruby left
town soon after the trial,
and no one, not even
his own lawyers,
know where he is today.
NEAL HASKELL: I have
had a letter that he
sent me later that year.
It basically thanked me for
testifying on his behalf
and that he was going
to have a certain place
in his heart for the welfare
of the flies in the future.
[music playing]