Forensic Files (1996–…): Season 7, Episode 19 - Breaking the Mold - full transcript
[somber music]
NARRATOR: In Wichita
Falls, Texas,
police had four unsolved
murders, the worst crime spree
in the small town's history.
For more than a
decade, the killer
successfully alluded police.
[radio chatter]
But a discarded coffee cup, in
a trash bin, solved the mystery.
[crescendoing music]
[theme music]
[somber music]
NARRATOR: On January
19, 1985 Toni Gibbs,
a 23-year-old nurse, disappeared
after working the night shift
at Wichita General Hospital.
[footsteps]
Her car was found abandoned
on a deserted road
not far from the hospital.
There were no foreign
fingerprints or clues inside.
The roller coaster of
emotions that you go through
is just unbelievable.
It's, it's, it's like a horrible
dream that doesn't go away.
NARRATOR: Four weeks later,
a Texas electric worker
found Toni's body in a deserted
field, outside of town,
along US Route 281.
[mysterious music]
100 feet away was an old bus.
[thunderous booms]
Inside was blood, which
matched Toni Gibbs.
It appeared she had
been stabbed in the bus,
then crawled out into the
field looking for help.
JEFF GIBBS: And until this
terrible thing happened,
she had the world by the tail.
She really did.
NARRATOR: Almost immediately,
police had a suspect.
24-year-old Danny
Laughlin was seen
riding his motorcycle
in a field near where
Toni's body was found.
[mysterious music]
Laughlin worked in town
as a male stripper.
When asked to take a
polygraph test, he failed.
He'd gone into one of
the officer's offices.
And then, started
making comments
like he knew about the murder.
He placed himself there.
[suspenseful music]
NARRATOR: Investigators
also learned
that Laughlin knew Toni Gibbs.
He had met her a few weeks
earlier at a local nightclub.
And then, he made some
comments about knowing
where the, where the field
was at, where she was found.
NARRATOR: Semen collected
at Toni's autopsy
was compared to Laughlin's DNA.
The results were inconclusive.
[suspenseful music]
Nevertheless, Danny
Laughlin was charged
with Toni Gibbs' murder.
[swooshing]
With no forensic evidence
linking Laughlin to the crime,
prosecutors presented
their circumstantial case
against him during the trial.
After two days of deliberation,
the jury was deadlocked.
[somber music]
You could not reach a, a
verdict on guilt, innocence.
And so a mistrial was declared.
And it was
subsequently dismissed.
[metal rattling]
NARRATOR: Since only
one of the 12 jurors
believed Laughlin was
guilty, prosecutors
decided not to retry the case.
[echoing boom]
16 months later, there
was another murder.
This time, a 21-year-old
waitress, Tina Kimbrew.
ROBERT KIMBREW: She
was just everything
a daughter's supposed
to be, you know,
a tomboy today and
a debutante tonight.
You know, just perfect.
[mysterious music]
[clanging boom]
NARRATOR: Tina was found dead
on the sofa in her apartment.
[clanging boom]
[thundering]
At the autopsy, tiny fibers
were discovered in her lungs,
an indication she
had been suffocated.
[clanging boom]
Those fibers matched a
pillow from her sofa.
[squeaking]
In this case, there were
no signs of sexual assault.
It's been 16 years.
But it's been 16 days, and
16 hours, and 16 centuries.
You know, it's it's like
Tina's never been here.
And it's like if the phone
rang in 10 minutes, you know,
it could possibly be her.
[mysterious music]
NARRATOR: Neighbors, in
the apartment complex,
said they saw a
man leaving Tina's
apartment about five hours
before her body was discovered.
The man was described
as Caucasian,
6 feet 2 inches tall, with dark
hair, wearing a baseball cap.
Danny Laughlin was not a
suspect, in this case, since he
didn't match the description.
But a few days later, police
got their first break.
A man in Galveston,
Texas-- Faryion Wardrip--
called police to say he had
some important information
about Tina Kimbrew's murder.
[mysterious music]
[zooming]
[zipping]
But what did Wardrip
know about a murder that
took place over 400 miles away?
[crescendoing music]
[mysterious music]
Shortly after Tina
Kimbrew's murder,
Faryion Wardrip-- 400 miles
away in Galveston, Texas--
called police with
some information.
Wardrip was a high
school dropout
who worked at menial
jobs and had a history
of drug and alcohol abuse.
He claimed to have met
Tina Kimbrew in a bar
where she worked.
Tina Kimbrew really
was my friend, that she
knew I had a drug problem.
And she knew I had a
lot of other things.
Because I, you know,
shared with her.
[knocking]
Wardrip admitted
he killed Tina.
The reason, Tina reminded
him of his ex-wife,
who ended their marriage
shortly before the murder.
When the rage and all the
violence was occurring,
uh, I saw her eyes.
[clang]
I saw her face.
[clang]
And I screamed, uh, how
much I, I hated her.
What brought about
that anger, as a child,
and what developed it, as an
adult, I really don't know.
He does blame
Gianna, his ex-wife,
for a lot of the things
that had happened to him,
that Gianna didn't
understand him,
that Gianna wouldn't go to work.
He's more reluctant to
place any blame on himself.
[mysterious music]
NARRATOR: Police believe that
Wardrip confessed because he
knew he was spotted
leaving the apartment,
and feared it was only a matter
of time before he was caught.
In any event, Faryion
Wardrip pleaded guilty
to Tina Kimbrew's
murder and was sentenced
to 35 years in prison.
When I was in prison, and, uh,
I got off drugs and alcohol,
and got some clear
thinking going on.
And some of my
emotions had subsided.
That's when I started
making the decisions
that I was going to come
out better than I went in.
NARRATOR: While
in prison, Wardrip
obtained his high school diploma
and discovered Christianity.
OK.
What does that mean?
NARRATOR: Tina's father believed
that Wardrip would spend
all of 35 years in prison.
But he was wrong.
[suspenseful music]
In 13 months, they notified
me that he's up for parole.
And it just, you know, it
just scared me to death.
I mean, it just-- And in my
mind, he was going to get out.
NARRATOR: For 10 years, Robert
Kimbrew used every means
at his disposal to
ensure that Faryion
Wardrip remain behind bars.
[mysterious music]
But despite the wishes
of Tina's family,
Wardrip was released on
parole after serving only
11 years of a 35-year sentence.
ROBERT KIMBREW: You know,
the victims had no rights.
I got to tell
Faryion that, "You've
got total responsibility on
why I can't be a grandfather.
And I hate you for it.
I mean, I hate you
every day for it."
NARRATOR: Wardrip
went to live in Olney,
Texas, a small farming community
just outside of Fort Worth.
There, Wardrip had the
support of his mother,
father, and eight siblings.
He got a job at the Olney
Door & Screen Company
and vowed to start
his life over.
Very nice man, a
fine, upstanding man.
Uh, I'd have trusted
him with my kids.
I still would.
I, I still have that
much respect for him.
NARRATOR: Wardrip
was an active member
of the Hamilton Street
Church of Christ
where he taught Sunday school.
He also remarried.
Back in Wichita Falls,
District Attorney
Barry Macha had other concerns.
[somber music]
There were a number of unsolved
murders in his jurisdiction.
[booming]
Still unsolved was the
murder of Toni Gibbs.
And there were two
other unsolved murders.
A year before Toni
Gibbs' murder,
another nurse,
21-year-old Terry Sims,
had just returned home
from work when someone
knocked on her front door.
[knocking]
[suspenseful music]
And forced his way inside.
BARRY MACHA: She's
trying to ward off
the knife that he's wielding.
And she is fighting so
hard, so ferociously
for her life, that
ties, he cuts a cord,
and ties her hands
behind her back.
[clanging]
NARRATOR: Terry Sims
was sexually assaulted,
then stabbed to death.
[dramatic music]
[gunshots]
She lived probably two to four
minutes after those injuries.
I can't imagine.
I cannot imagine what that young
girl must have thought during
her final moments of her life.
[echoing boom rattle]
[mysterious music]
NARRATOR: On Terry Sims' shoe
was a bloody fingerprint.
And a semen sample was preserved
for future DNA testing.
There had been a few
suspects in the murder,
but nothing definitive.
And a year later, tragedy
struck 21-year-old Ellen Blau
as she walked to her car, around
midnight, after leaving work
at the Subs & Suds restaurant.
At that point, he
just bull-rushed her,
hit her, knocked her,
pushed her back into a car.
Go.
NARRATOR: Ellen was forced
to drive to a deserted field
on the outskirts of town,
where she was strangled.
[clashing boom]
Her body was left on
the grassy embankment.
[intense music]
NARRATOR: The assailant
drove her car back to town
and left it on the dark street.
Ellen's body was
found days later,
so badly decomposed by the
heat she could be identified
only through dental records.
It was impossible to determine
whether she had been raped.
For 14 years, these three
murders had gone unsolved.
So Barry Macha asked his lead
investigator, John Little,
to take a fresh look
at these cold cases.
For Little, finding the
killer was personal.
JOHN LITTLE: I knew Toni Gibbs.
My wife knew Toni Gibbs.
And I actually went
out, with my brother,
and helped search for her.
On a hunch, Macha
asked the forensics lab
to compare the DNA of
the semen recovered
from Toni Gibbs and Terry Sims.
BARRY MACHA: We
received word that they
were, in fact, the semen
from the same perpetrator.
And so we knew then that, um,
we had, uh, a serial murderer.
NARRATOR: No one
made this connection.
Because these three cases
had been investigated
by three different
law enforcement
agencies with little
communication between them.
[mysterious music]
NARRATOR: At least now,
John Little knew he was
looking for only one killer.
But after 11 years, he
knew it wouldn't be easy.
[intense music]
When John Little looked through
the case files of the three
unsolved murders in
Wichita Falls, Texas,
he made an
interesting discovery.
When Faryion Wardrip was in
custody for Tina Kimbrew's
murder, a policeman
asked him if he
knew Ellen Blau, who
had been murdered
just a few months earlier.
Wardrip said yes.
But that lead was never pursued.
They could have come
up with a suspect, uh,
as me being a suspect, if
the, if they would have
just, I don't know, maybe
paid them a little bit more
attention.
NARRATOR: And Little found
more evidence linking Wardrip.
Ellen Blau's best
friend, Jannie Ball,
lived just down the
hall from Wardrip.
And the coincidences
didn't stop there.
JOHN LITTLE: Ms. Ball was a
block down from where Terry
Sims was killed on Bell Street.
So, I mean, when I
saw that in the file,
and knowing there was
two different agencies
investigating this, and knowing
that they probably didn't put
it together, well,
it, it really snapped
together for me at that point.
[somber music]
NARRATOR: Little also
learned that Wardrip
was a janitor at the same
hospital as Toni Gibbs
at the time of her murder.
JOHN LITTLE: That made
a connection to her.
He'd worked with her.
Now she's another victim.
And her car was abandoned
in the same neighborhood
where Wardrip lived.
NARRATOR: So he decided to
go to Olney, Texas hoping
to collect Wardrip's
DNA since police
had semen from the murders.
Wardrip had been living
there since his release
from prison in 1996.
[echoing clang]
Little spent weeks staking
out the factory, where Wardrip
worked, hoping to
collect anything that
would reveal his DNA profile.
If we were to get a
sample from Mr. Wardrip,
I wanted it to be a situation
where he did, in fact, abandon
any interest in
the item so that,
uh, there wouldn't be any
search and seizure problems.
[intense music]
NARRATOR: From
across the street,
Little watched as
Wardrip took a coffee
break after working a forklift.
JOHN LITTLE: He set the
cup up on top of the car.
I mean, at that
point, I had to hold
myself back from just running
across street and snatching it.
NARRATOR: Little noticed
that Wardrip threw his paper
cup into a nearby trash barrel.
Little seized the opportunity.
JOHN LITTLE: I walked up to him.
And I did have a big wad
of tobacco in my mouth.
And I said, "Do you have
a spit cup or something?"
And he pointed over
to the trash barrel.
And he said, "Sure,
help yourself."
NARRATOR: Little
looked into the barrel
and saw not one used
coffee cup, but many.
[mysterious music]
Not knowing which one
was Wardrip's cup,
Little had to act fast.
JOHN LITTLE: It seemed like
an eternity looking into it.
He was standing right
over my shoulder.
There was still some coffee
in the bottom of his cup.
And it had cheese cracker
crumbs on the drinking rim.
[echoing boom]
And I'd seen him eating
the cheese crackers.
And I said, this has
got to be the cup.
NARRATOR: The cup
was immediately
sent to the forensic
lab for DNA testing.
Manager Judy Floyd examined
the cup for skin cells.
She noticed the cracker
crumbs were still on the cup
and felt sure she
could retrieve DNA.
I swabbed the cup, with
a sterile cotton swab,
in order to pick up
epithelial cells.
And then, it was this
swab that I actually
used for the extraction of DNA.
NARRATOR: Floyd then compared
the DNA from the coffee cup
to the DNA from
the semen collected
from two of the victims--
Terry Sims and Toni Gibbs.
When I observed the complete
profile that I had obtained,
from the cells from the cup
that Mr. Wardrip had used,
I could see that his profile was
an exact match to the profiles
from the crime scenes.
NARRATOR: To find out how often
this DNA profile would occur
in the general
population, Judy Floyd
performed what is
called a DQ alpha
test, which is a particular
location on chromosome 6.
Judy Floyd discovered
Wardrip's DQ alpha type
was extremely rare.
JUDY FLOYD: It was a 1.34.
And that is just not
found very frequently
at all in the population.
This particular
typing was rare enough
that combined with all of
the other genetic types
in his profile, that
particular profile
would be expected to occur only
once in the world's population.
NARRATOR: She also
remembers calling
John Little with the news.
And I knew he was jumping
up and down in the air.
I could almost hear his
heels clicking together.
Uh, he was, to say
the least, ecstatic.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, the
Austin, Texas crime lab
was able to lift the bloody
print on Terry Sims' shoe
and compare it to
Wardrip's fingerprints.
JOHN LITTLE: It was so far
down on the third digit,
almost into the palm, that
unless you could really just
sit there and work with
it to get the print
and know where it
was at, you could
do it, take a set of prints
and miss it every time.
NARRATOR: But it was
clearly Wardrip's print.
JOHN LITTLE: And I think it
was powerful piece of evidence.
He had ripped those shoes off of
her and had blood on his hands
when grabbed her shoes
to pull them off.
NARRATOR: Faryion
Wardrip was arrested
and during questioning, revealed
one last piece of information
that police knew nothing about.
[suspenseful music]
After 15 long
years, the families
of Terry Sims, Toni
Gibbs, and Ellen Blau
were within inches of
justice when Faryion Wardrip
was arrested for their murders.
And when he was confronted with
the DNA evidence, he confessed.
I don't think I've ever
sat in a room with somebody
who could have been colder.
NARRATOR: Wardrip didn't realize
he was sitting next to the man
who tracked him.
JOHN LITTLE: I asked him
if he recognized me when,
when I was, uh, from being
down there getting the cup.
And he claims he didn't.
NARRATOR: As the interrogation
was about to end,
Wardrip confessed
to a fifth murder.
FARYION WARDRIP: (ON AUDIO)
But John, there's one more.
I believe that her
name was Debra Taylor.
[suspenseful music]
NARRATOR: Two months
after Toni Gibbs' murder,
Faryion Wardrip told police
he left Wichita Falls
and went to Fort Worth, Texas.
He he met Debra Taylor,
a wife and mother of two,
in a neighborhood bar.
[band music]
Debra had been there
with her husband.
But he was tired and had left
the bar a few hours earlier.
Want a drink?
A few, yes.
NARRATOR: Wardrip
asked her to dance,
then offered to drive her home.
[suspenseful music]
In the parking lot, when
Debra refused his advances,
he killed her.
Wardrip dumped Taylor's body
at a remote construction site.
Workers found it one week later.
Debra's husband, Ken, remained
a suspect for 14 years,
although he was never charged.
PATRICIA SPRINGER: It
just destroyed his life.
His own family
turned against him.
Debra's family
turned against him.
Friends, everyone
believed that Ken Taylor
had killed his wife, Debra.
I think Mr. Wardrip should be
very glad that these guys got
him before I did.
NARRATOR: The new DNA testing
also had another benefit.
It exonerated
Danny Laughlin, who
had been tried for Toni Gibbs'
murder, but not convicted.
[suspenseful music]
Unfortunately, he didn't live
long enough to hear about it.
He was killed,
three years earlier,
in an automobile accident.
On October 4, 1999,
nearly 15 years
after he committed these
crimes, Faryion Wardrip
plead guilty to murder
and was sentenced
to death by lethal injection.
FARYION WARDRIP: I never once
thought I got away with it.
I knew that I had left,
uh, evidence behind.
Detectives looked at all the
evidence that was collected,
all the interviews, and stuff.
And of course, my
name was there in 1986
just like it was in 1999.
And why those, uh,
individuals didn't, uh,
recognize that is, is, uh,
still confusing to me this day.
I really was a serial killer.
Mistakes were made.
But the one that was not made
was to quit or to give up.
We never did that.
[theme music]
NARRATOR: In Wichita
Falls, Texas,
police had four unsolved
murders, the worst crime spree
in the small town's history.
For more than a
decade, the killer
successfully alluded police.
[radio chatter]
But a discarded coffee cup, in
a trash bin, solved the mystery.
[crescendoing music]
[theme music]
[somber music]
NARRATOR: On January
19, 1985 Toni Gibbs,
a 23-year-old nurse, disappeared
after working the night shift
at Wichita General Hospital.
[footsteps]
Her car was found abandoned
on a deserted road
not far from the hospital.
There were no foreign
fingerprints or clues inside.
The roller coaster of
emotions that you go through
is just unbelievable.
It's, it's, it's like a horrible
dream that doesn't go away.
NARRATOR: Four weeks later,
a Texas electric worker
found Toni's body in a deserted
field, outside of town,
along US Route 281.
[mysterious music]
100 feet away was an old bus.
[thunderous booms]
Inside was blood, which
matched Toni Gibbs.
It appeared she had
been stabbed in the bus,
then crawled out into the
field looking for help.
JEFF GIBBS: And until this
terrible thing happened,
she had the world by the tail.
She really did.
NARRATOR: Almost immediately,
police had a suspect.
24-year-old Danny
Laughlin was seen
riding his motorcycle
in a field near where
Toni's body was found.
[mysterious music]
Laughlin worked in town
as a male stripper.
When asked to take a
polygraph test, he failed.
He'd gone into one of
the officer's offices.
And then, started
making comments
like he knew about the murder.
He placed himself there.
[suspenseful music]
NARRATOR: Investigators
also learned
that Laughlin knew Toni Gibbs.
He had met her a few weeks
earlier at a local nightclub.
And then, he made some
comments about knowing
where the, where the field
was at, where she was found.
NARRATOR: Semen collected
at Toni's autopsy
was compared to Laughlin's DNA.
The results were inconclusive.
[suspenseful music]
Nevertheless, Danny
Laughlin was charged
with Toni Gibbs' murder.
[swooshing]
With no forensic evidence
linking Laughlin to the crime,
prosecutors presented
their circumstantial case
against him during the trial.
After two days of deliberation,
the jury was deadlocked.
[somber music]
You could not reach a, a
verdict on guilt, innocence.
And so a mistrial was declared.
And it was
subsequently dismissed.
[metal rattling]
NARRATOR: Since only
one of the 12 jurors
believed Laughlin was
guilty, prosecutors
decided not to retry the case.
[echoing boom]
16 months later, there
was another murder.
This time, a 21-year-old
waitress, Tina Kimbrew.
ROBERT KIMBREW: She
was just everything
a daughter's supposed
to be, you know,
a tomboy today and
a debutante tonight.
You know, just perfect.
[mysterious music]
[clanging boom]
NARRATOR: Tina was found dead
on the sofa in her apartment.
[clanging boom]
[thundering]
At the autopsy, tiny fibers
were discovered in her lungs,
an indication she
had been suffocated.
[clanging boom]
Those fibers matched a
pillow from her sofa.
[squeaking]
In this case, there were
no signs of sexual assault.
It's been 16 years.
But it's been 16 days, and
16 hours, and 16 centuries.
You know, it's it's like
Tina's never been here.
And it's like if the phone
rang in 10 minutes, you know,
it could possibly be her.
[mysterious music]
NARRATOR: Neighbors, in
the apartment complex,
said they saw a
man leaving Tina's
apartment about five hours
before her body was discovered.
The man was described
as Caucasian,
6 feet 2 inches tall, with dark
hair, wearing a baseball cap.
Danny Laughlin was not a
suspect, in this case, since he
didn't match the description.
But a few days later, police
got their first break.
A man in Galveston,
Texas-- Faryion Wardrip--
called police to say he had
some important information
about Tina Kimbrew's murder.
[mysterious music]
[zooming]
[zipping]
But what did Wardrip
know about a murder that
took place over 400 miles away?
[crescendoing music]
[mysterious music]
Shortly after Tina
Kimbrew's murder,
Faryion Wardrip-- 400 miles
away in Galveston, Texas--
called police with
some information.
Wardrip was a high
school dropout
who worked at menial
jobs and had a history
of drug and alcohol abuse.
He claimed to have met
Tina Kimbrew in a bar
where she worked.
Tina Kimbrew really
was my friend, that she
knew I had a drug problem.
And she knew I had a
lot of other things.
Because I, you know,
shared with her.
[knocking]
Wardrip admitted
he killed Tina.
The reason, Tina reminded
him of his ex-wife,
who ended their marriage
shortly before the murder.
When the rage and all the
violence was occurring,
uh, I saw her eyes.
[clang]
I saw her face.
[clang]
And I screamed, uh, how
much I, I hated her.
What brought about
that anger, as a child,
and what developed it, as an
adult, I really don't know.
He does blame
Gianna, his ex-wife,
for a lot of the things
that had happened to him,
that Gianna didn't
understand him,
that Gianna wouldn't go to work.
He's more reluctant to
place any blame on himself.
[mysterious music]
NARRATOR: Police believe that
Wardrip confessed because he
knew he was spotted
leaving the apartment,
and feared it was only a matter
of time before he was caught.
In any event, Faryion
Wardrip pleaded guilty
to Tina Kimbrew's
murder and was sentenced
to 35 years in prison.
When I was in prison, and, uh,
I got off drugs and alcohol,
and got some clear
thinking going on.
And some of my
emotions had subsided.
That's when I started
making the decisions
that I was going to come
out better than I went in.
NARRATOR: While
in prison, Wardrip
obtained his high school diploma
and discovered Christianity.
OK.
What does that mean?
NARRATOR: Tina's father believed
that Wardrip would spend
all of 35 years in prison.
But he was wrong.
[suspenseful music]
In 13 months, they notified
me that he's up for parole.
And it just, you know, it
just scared me to death.
I mean, it just-- And in my
mind, he was going to get out.
NARRATOR: For 10 years, Robert
Kimbrew used every means
at his disposal to
ensure that Faryion
Wardrip remain behind bars.
[mysterious music]
But despite the wishes
of Tina's family,
Wardrip was released on
parole after serving only
11 years of a 35-year sentence.
ROBERT KIMBREW: You know,
the victims had no rights.
I got to tell
Faryion that, "You've
got total responsibility on
why I can't be a grandfather.
And I hate you for it.
I mean, I hate you
every day for it."
NARRATOR: Wardrip
went to live in Olney,
Texas, a small farming community
just outside of Fort Worth.
There, Wardrip had the
support of his mother,
father, and eight siblings.
He got a job at the Olney
Door & Screen Company
and vowed to start
his life over.
Very nice man, a
fine, upstanding man.
Uh, I'd have trusted
him with my kids.
I still would.
I, I still have that
much respect for him.
NARRATOR: Wardrip
was an active member
of the Hamilton Street
Church of Christ
where he taught Sunday school.
He also remarried.
Back in Wichita Falls,
District Attorney
Barry Macha had other concerns.
[somber music]
There were a number of unsolved
murders in his jurisdiction.
[booming]
Still unsolved was the
murder of Toni Gibbs.
And there were two
other unsolved murders.
A year before Toni
Gibbs' murder,
another nurse,
21-year-old Terry Sims,
had just returned home
from work when someone
knocked on her front door.
[knocking]
[suspenseful music]
And forced his way inside.
BARRY MACHA: She's
trying to ward off
the knife that he's wielding.
And she is fighting so
hard, so ferociously
for her life, that
ties, he cuts a cord,
and ties her hands
behind her back.
[clanging]
NARRATOR: Terry Sims
was sexually assaulted,
then stabbed to death.
[dramatic music]
[gunshots]
She lived probably two to four
minutes after those injuries.
I can't imagine.
I cannot imagine what that young
girl must have thought during
her final moments of her life.
[echoing boom rattle]
[mysterious music]
NARRATOR: On Terry Sims' shoe
was a bloody fingerprint.
And a semen sample was preserved
for future DNA testing.
There had been a few
suspects in the murder,
but nothing definitive.
And a year later, tragedy
struck 21-year-old Ellen Blau
as she walked to her car, around
midnight, after leaving work
at the Subs & Suds restaurant.
At that point, he
just bull-rushed her,
hit her, knocked her,
pushed her back into a car.
Go.
NARRATOR: Ellen was forced
to drive to a deserted field
on the outskirts of town,
where she was strangled.
[clashing boom]
Her body was left on
the grassy embankment.
[intense music]
NARRATOR: The assailant
drove her car back to town
and left it on the dark street.
Ellen's body was
found days later,
so badly decomposed by the
heat she could be identified
only through dental records.
It was impossible to determine
whether she had been raped.
For 14 years, these three
murders had gone unsolved.
So Barry Macha asked his lead
investigator, John Little,
to take a fresh look
at these cold cases.
For Little, finding the
killer was personal.
JOHN LITTLE: I knew Toni Gibbs.
My wife knew Toni Gibbs.
And I actually went
out, with my brother,
and helped search for her.
On a hunch, Macha
asked the forensics lab
to compare the DNA of
the semen recovered
from Toni Gibbs and Terry Sims.
BARRY MACHA: We
received word that they
were, in fact, the semen
from the same perpetrator.
And so we knew then that, um,
we had, uh, a serial murderer.
NARRATOR: No one
made this connection.
Because these three cases
had been investigated
by three different
law enforcement
agencies with little
communication between them.
[mysterious music]
NARRATOR: At least now,
John Little knew he was
looking for only one killer.
But after 11 years, he
knew it wouldn't be easy.
[intense music]
When John Little looked through
the case files of the three
unsolved murders in
Wichita Falls, Texas,
he made an
interesting discovery.
When Faryion Wardrip was in
custody for Tina Kimbrew's
murder, a policeman
asked him if he
knew Ellen Blau, who
had been murdered
just a few months earlier.
Wardrip said yes.
But that lead was never pursued.
They could have come
up with a suspect, uh,
as me being a suspect, if
the, if they would have
just, I don't know, maybe
paid them a little bit more
attention.
NARRATOR: And Little found
more evidence linking Wardrip.
Ellen Blau's best
friend, Jannie Ball,
lived just down the
hall from Wardrip.
And the coincidences
didn't stop there.
JOHN LITTLE: Ms. Ball was a
block down from where Terry
Sims was killed on Bell Street.
So, I mean, when I
saw that in the file,
and knowing there was
two different agencies
investigating this, and knowing
that they probably didn't put
it together, well,
it, it really snapped
together for me at that point.
[somber music]
NARRATOR: Little also
learned that Wardrip
was a janitor at the same
hospital as Toni Gibbs
at the time of her murder.
JOHN LITTLE: That made
a connection to her.
He'd worked with her.
Now she's another victim.
And her car was abandoned
in the same neighborhood
where Wardrip lived.
NARRATOR: So he decided to
go to Olney, Texas hoping
to collect Wardrip's
DNA since police
had semen from the murders.
Wardrip had been living
there since his release
from prison in 1996.
[echoing clang]
Little spent weeks staking
out the factory, where Wardrip
worked, hoping to
collect anything that
would reveal his DNA profile.
If we were to get a
sample from Mr. Wardrip,
I wanted it to be a situation
where he did, in fact, abandon
any interest in
the item so that,
uh, there wouldn't be any
search and seizure problems.
[intense music]
NARRATOR: From
across the street,
Little watched as
Wardrip took a coffee
break after working a forklift.
JOHN LITTLE: He set the
cup up on top of the car.
I mean, at that
point, I had to hold
myself back from just running
across street and snatching it.
NARRATOR: Little noticed
that Wardrip threw his paper
cup into a nearby trash barrel.
Little seized the opportunity.
JOHN LITTLE: I walked up to him.
And I did have a big wad
of tobacco in my mouth.
And I said, "Do you have
a spit cup or something?"
And he pointed over
to the trash barrel.
And he said, "Sure,
help yourself."
NARRATOR: Little
looked into the barrel
and saw not one used
coffee cup, but many.
[mysterious music]
Not knowing which one
was Wardrip's cup,
Little had to act fast.
JOHN LITTLE: It seemed like
an eternity looking into it.
He was standing right
over my shoulder.
There was still some coffee
in the bottom of his cup.
And it had cheese cracker
crumbs on the drinking rim.
[echoing boom]
And I'd seen him eating
the cheese crackers.
And I said, this has
got to be the cup.
NARRATOR: The cup
was immediately
sent to the forensic
lab for DNA testing.
Manager Judy Floyd examined
the cup for skin cells.
She noticed the cracker
crumbs were still on the cup
and felt sure she
could retrieve DNA.
I swabbed the cup, with
a sterile cotton swab,
in order to pick up
epithelial cells.
And then, it was this
swab that I actually
used for the extraction of DNA.
NARRATOR: Floyd then compared
the DNA from the coffee cup
to the DNA from
the semen collected
from two of the victims--
Terry Sims and Toni Gibbs.
When I observed the complete
profile that I had obtained,
from the cells from the cup
that Mr. Wardrip had used,
I could see that his profile was
an exact match to the profiles
from the crime scenes.
NARRATOR: To find out how often
this DNA profile would occur
in the general
population, Judy Floyd
performed what is
called a DQ alpha
test, which is a particular
location on chromosome 6.
Judy Floyd discovered
Wardrip's DQ alpha type
was extremely rare.
JUDY FLOYD: It was a 1.34.
And that is just not
found very frequently
at all in the population.
This particular
typing was rare enough
that combined with all of
the other genetic types
in his profile, that
particular profile
would be expected to occur only
once in the world's population.
NARRATOR: She also
remembers calling
John Little with the news.
And I knew he was jumping
up and down in the air.
I could almost hear his
heels clicking together.
Uh, he was, to say
the least, ecstatic.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, the
Austin, Texas crime lab
was able to lift the bloody
print on Terry Sims' shoe
and compare it to
Wardrip's fingerprints.
JOHN LITTLE: It was so far
down on the third digit,
almost into the palm, that
unless you could really just
sit there and work with
it to get the print
and know where it
was at, you could
do it, take a set of prints
and miss it every time.
NARRATOR: But it was
clearly Wardrip's print.
JOHN LITTLE: And I think it
was powerful piece of evidence.
He had ripped those shoes off of
her and had blood on his hands
when grabbed her shoes
to pull them off.
NARRATOR: Faryion
Wardrip was arrested
and during questioning, revealed
one last piece of information
that police knew nothing about.
[suspenseful music]
After 15 long
years, the families
of Terry Sims, Toni
Gibbs, and Ellen Blau
were within inches of
justice when Faryion Wardrip
was arrested for their murders.
And when he was confronted with
the DNA evidence, he confessed.
I don't think I've ever
sat in a room with somebody
who could have been colder.
NARRATOR: Wardrip didn't realize
he was sitting next to the man
who tracked him.
JOHN LITTLE: I asked him
if he recognized me when,
when I was, uh, from being
down there getting the cup.
And he claims he didn't.
NARRATOR: As the interrogation
was about to end,
Wardrip confessed
to a fifth murder.
FARYION WARDRIP: (ON AUDIO)
But John, there's one more.
I believe that her
name was Debra Taylor.
[suspenseful music]
NARRATOR: Two months
after Toni Gibbs' murder,
Faryion Wardrip told police
he left Wichita Falls
and went to Fort Worth, Texas.
He he met Debra Taylor,
a wife and mother of two,
in a neighborhood bar.
[band music]
Debra had been there
with her husband.
But he was tired and had left
the bar a few hours earlier.
Want a drink?
A few, yes.
NARRATOR: Wardrip
asked her to dance,
then offered to drive her home.
[suspenseful music]
In the parking lot, when
Debra refused his advances,
he killed her.
Wardrip dumped Taylor's body
at a remote construction site.
Workers found it one week later.
Debra's husband, Ken, remained
a suspect for 14 years,
although he was never charged.
PATRICIA SPRINGER: It
just destroyed his life.
His own family
turned against him.
Debra's family
turned against him.
Friends, everyone
believed that Ken Taylor
had killed his wife, Debra.
I think Mr. Wardrip should be
very glad that these guys got
him before I did.
NARRATOR: The new DNA testing
also had another benefit.
It exonerated
Danny Laughlin, who
had been tried for Toni Gibbs'
murder, but not convicted.
[suspenseful music]
Unfortunately, he didn't live
long enough to hear about it.
He was killed,
three years earlier,
in an automobile accident.
On October 4, 1999,
nearly 15 years
after he committed these
crimes, Faryion Wardrip
plead guilty to murder
and was sentenced
to death by lethal injection.
FARYION WARDRIP: I never once
thought I got away with it.
I knew that I had left,
uh, evidence behind.
Detectives looked at all the
evidence that was collected,
all the interviews, and stuff.
And of course, my
name was there in 1986
just like it was in 1999.
And why those, uh,
individuals didn't, uh,
recognize that is, is, uh,
still confusing to me this day.
I really was a serial killer.
Mistakes were made.
But the one that was not made
was to quit or to give up.
We never did that.
[theme music]