Forensic Files (1996–2011): Season 14, Episode 11 - Water Logged - full transcript

The bodies of a woman and her two daughters are found floating in Tampa Bay, Florida. Police discover a handwritten note in their car and hope it will solve the triple murder.

NARRATOR: Up next.

Three women are in Florida
on their first real vacation.

MIKE DEESON: These women,
who were here by themselves,

thought this is great.

We're seeing Tampa Bay .

NARRATOR: The evidence
suggests they took a boat ride

and then disappeared.

But there was little
else to go on.

MIKE DEESON: -There are
hundreds, if not thousands,

of miles to look over to
find a piece of evidence.

SARAH DEUBEL:
-Hairs , fibers, any



fingerprints would
have been washed away.

NARRATOR: But a
public billboard turns

citizens into investigators.

TERESA STUBBS: -I thought it was
an excellent idea, brilliant.

NARRATOR: On a warm June
morning in Tampa, Florida,

authorities
discovered the bodies

of three women
floating in Tampa Bay.

MIKE DEESON: They knew
that there was foul play

because the women were tied
up and had bricks around them.

NARRATOR: The victims had
their mouths taped shut,

were naked from the
waist down, and had

been bound with yellow rope.
JO ANN STEFFEY: It was horrible.

It was terrible.

It was beyond
comprehension to think



anyone could do what
was done to those girls.

NARRATOR: The first question
facing investigators was

the identity of
these three women.

SARAH DEUBEL: There's no ID,
so we weren't able to identify

who these individuals
were, where they came from,

and who they might
have had contact

with prior to this event.

NARRATOR: Although each victim
was tied to a 30 pound concrete

block, decomposition
created gases

that lifted both the bodies and
concrete blocks to the surface.

GLEN MOORE: The water
temperature was hot.

Had this occurred in much
colder temperatures, much

colder water, one
cinder block might

have held them
under the surface.

You'd have to do a lot of study
on that to figure that out.

NARRATOR: The medical examiner
estimated the bodies had been

in the water for at
least three days.

To pinpoint where the
victims were put in the water

investigators asked the
University of South Florida

to analyze the currents
for that time period.

GLEN MOORE: And they felt
they were probably thrown in

out in the center of
the bay somewhere.

It wasn't off of a bridge.

It was not off of any shoreline.

NARRATOR: After a media
outlets picked up the story,

the manager of a local
hotel called the police.

He said a woman and
her two daughters

checked into his hotel
three days earlier.

He said he hadn't
seen them after that,

but their belongings
were still there.

GLEN MOORE: None of the personal
belongings working that's

what they were all
the same as they

have been for a couple days.

DOUGLAS CROW: There
was no evidence

that anyone had
been in the room.

The beds were never ruffled,
the towels where never wet.

Everything was in
the same place.

NARRATOR: The room
was registered

to Joan Rogers and
her two daughters.

Police contacted Joan's husband,
Hal Rogers, a dairy farmer

in Ohio.

HAL ROGERS: The Sheriff
got a hold of me,

and we had to get dental
records to identify them.

NARRATOR: Dental records
confirmed that the victims were

36-year-old Joan
Rogers, 17-year-old

Michelle, and
14-year-old Kristi.

The autopsy confirmed
everyone's worst fears.

Water was found in the victim's
lungs, which meant they were

thrown into the ocean while
they were still alive.

To investigators this
wasn't just murder.

It was an execution.

MIKE DEESON: The horror
of that resonated

through the Tampa Bay Area.

People wanted to know
what kind of animal

would do something like that.

GLEN MOORE: I think he left
there as uncovered because he

wanted each one of
them to see what

was happening to the other one.

I think he wanted to see the
fear that was in their eyes

as he was doing what he was
doing with them, which is

about as perverted
as you can get.

NARRATOR: But who wanted
the murder three tourists

and dump their
bodies in Tampa Bay?

When Joan Rogers
and her daughters

drove to Florida for a
week of sight seeing,

Joan's husband, Hal, the girl's
father, decided to stay behind.

GLEN MOORE: He had a dairy farm
he was running at the time.

That's a 365 day a year job.

But even though his family
didn't return home as planned,

Hal Rogers waited three
days to contact police.

STEPHEN G. PORTER: He
seemed somewhat cold to me.

Very cold.

Here's a person who's just
lost his entire family.

Not just one, but three people.

And there was no emotion.

NARRATOR: Hal told
police he didn't

have time to be emotional.

He had a farm to run.

HAL ROGERS: I just did what
I needed to do to function

and didn't worry
about nothing else.

NARRATOR: Investigators
tracked Hal's whereabouts

for the day of the murders.

Fortunately for Hal, he didn't
like to cook for himself,

so we ate his meals at
the local restaurants.

And numerous witnesses
provided his alibi.

HAL ROGERS: The
people here knew it,

because I'd been to
breakfast that morning

and that evening for dinner.

So, you know, it's an
almost impossibility.

NARRATOR: At the autopsies,
the medical examiner

discovered the
seawater had eliminated

crucial forensic evidence.

SARAH DEUBEL: When the
body is being submerged

in the water for
the length of time

that they were, any trace
evidence, hairs, fibers,

any fingerprints
would have been washed

away, essentially, by the water.

NARRATOR: It was impossible
to say for certain

if the victims had been
sexually assaulted.

GLEN MOORE: We had nothing to go
on, as far as forensic evidence

to amount to anything.

Police were on the lookout
for Joan Rogers' car.

And they found it.

At a public boat launch.

It was one mile away
from the Rogers' hotel.

25 miles away from where
their bodies were recovered

inside the car, were
two handwritten notes.

One on one, were
directions to the hotel.

The other, on hotel
stationary, contained

directions to the boat launch.

The writing samples were
sent to a forensic document

examiner for analysis.

TERESA STUBBS: The handwriting
that appeared on the Days Inn

letterhead was written
by Joan Rogers.

And we knew that because
we received quite a bit

of her handwriting
for comparison.

NARRATOR: The handwriting
on the other note,

the one with directions to the
Rogers' hotel, was distinctive.

TERESA STUBBS: I determined that
the handwriting on the brochure

was not written by the mother
or either of her daughters.

NARRATOR: In the word Courtney,
part of the hotel's address,

the T was capitalized in
the middle of the word.

TERESA STUBBS: This is unusual,
not only because it's a capital

letter, but because of the
spatial quality of the small R

to the tall T. And the
letter Y was written in a way

that Teresa Stubbs
had never seen before.

TERESA STUBBS: The letter
Y was written four times,

and each time it was
written differently.

Just a slight variation,
but different.

That was important.

MIKE DEESON: So they're
working it really hard.

We got to find who
wrote this note.

We do that, we find the killer.

NARRATOR: Besides
the handwriting,

the note held one other clue.

Next to the directions
to the both launch,

Joan Rogers had written
the phrase blue with W H T.

GLEN MOORE: We just
surmised it was--

they were meeting something
that was blue and white.

If you're going to a
boat ramp, what might you

be meeting that would
be blue and white?

It'd be a boat.

NARRATOR: But there were no
boats docked at the launch.

It's an area where anyone,
residents or even tourists,

can put their boats into the
water for a day of boating.

Then police got a break.

A tipster told them
about a local man,

who was running an unlicensed
business from this boat launch,

offering tourists sunset
cruises on the bay.

His name was Jason Wilcox, and
he owned a blue and white boat.

A background check revealed
Wilcox had a criminal record

and had served time
for aggravated assault.

He lived just five miles
from the boat launch.

GLEN MOORE: On his property
where his boat was he

had some concrete blocks.

NARRATOR: Wilcox denied any
involvement in the murders.

But without any
physical evidence

to tie him to the
Rogers women, it

would be difficult
to get a court

order for his
handwriting sample.

GLEN MOORE: You can
find the suspect.

You can even find the
one you think did it,

but now proving it as
a whole other ballgame.

NARRATOR: Two weeks
before the murders

of Joan Rogers and
her two daughters.

Homicide investigators
learned of a similar crime

involving a 24-year-old
Canadian tourist and a man

in a blue and white boat.

MIKE DEESON: She's a
tourist, and he offers her

a ride on the bay,
she goes wow great.

NARRATOR: Once they
were out on the water

where no one could
see them, the man

said he'd kill her if she
didn't have sex with him.

He also told her there were
sharks in the water in case

she was thinking of
trying to swim to shore.

MIKE DEESON: She says please,
please don't do anything to me.

I'm a virgin.

She said he got very
excited about it.

He rapes her.

And he told her
before he raped her,

it's not worth getting
murdered over a sexual assault.

And he apparently had
ropes on the boat,

just as he did with
the Rogers' family.

NARRATOR: Afterwards, the
man got physically ill.

MIKE DEESON: Was
it a matter of he

was so excited that he was
physiologically overcome?

Or was it that he,
psychologically,

was so appalled by his
act that he got sick?

I'm not a psychologist
or a physiologist,

but certainly that's
bizarre behavior.

NARRATOR: Inexplicably,
the man waited until dark,

drew close to shore, and
allowed the young woman

to swim to safety.

Investigators were
fairly certain it

was the same man who
murdered the Rogers family.

DOUGLAS CROW: The parallels
were pretty eerie.

NARRATOR: Unfortunately, the
victim took a shower before she

went to police headquarters
to report the, crime,

so no DNA was recovered.

But her description of
the man enabled police

to create this
composite sketch, which

was distributed to
the local media.

The victim said Jason Wilcox was
not the man who assaulted her,

and Wilcox was also
eliminated as a suspect

in the Rogers case.

GLEN MOORE: In the end, he
was given a polygraph test

and was cleared on all that.

And actually had some alibi
to where he was at the time.

The composite sketch
prompted hundreds of leads.

All of which had
to be followed up.

The description of a
blue and white boat

also generated plenty of hits.

GLEN MOORE: We had close to
800 men that were called in.

A lot of the had to do
a blue and white boats.

So that was a big, big job to
eliminate all these persons

of interest that
were called into us.

NARRATOR: After those leads
turned out to be dead ends,

investigators tried
something else.

They used five area billboards
to display the sample of what

they believed was the
killers handwriting.

MIKE DEESON: That was
an unusual tactic,

and I believe they did
it just because they

had no place else to go.

NARRATOR: That's when Jo Ann
Steffey saw the billboard

on the side of a
Tampa highway, and she

recognized the handwriting.

It looked like the handwriting
of a contractor she knew,

Oba Chandler.

JO ANN STEFFEY: When I first
initially met Mr. Chandler,

he came across as-- as
not telling the truth,

and he wouldn't
look you in the eye.

He just seemed shifty.

NARRATOR: Jo Ann rushed home and
found the handwritten receipt

for some work Chandler
had done for her.

JO ANN STEFFEY: As
I was looking at it,

my knees actually buckled.

I nearly fell from the
sheer shock of the proof

now, to me, that this-- this
was the man they'd been looking

for all its time,
and I knew there

was no turning
back at this point.

That I had to get
everything to the police.

NARRATOR: Oba Chandler's
handwritten receipt

was compared to the handwritten
note found in Joan Rogers' car.

TERESA STUBBS: It
was like oh my god.

This is it.

I immediately saw the
capital T repeatedly

throughout his writing.

My heart started racing.

I found all the Y's
and the variations

that were on the brochure .

Within minutes, I knew
I'd found the writer.

NARRATOR: Oba Chandler
was 43 years old

and ran a construction business.

He was married and
had eight children

by seven different women.

He also had a criminal
record dating back

to is teens that included
two sexual assaults.

But what was most telling
was where Chandler lived.

STEPHEN G. PORTER: Oba
Chandler's residence

was on a canal that was probably
within a half mile, a mile,

of where the boat ramp where
the victim's vehicle was found.

NARRATOR: Investigators
tracked down ship

to shore phone records,
which are recorded

for all boats making
calls while on the water.

STEPHEN G. PORTER: These records
actually put Oba Chandler out

on the water, not only
on the day of the rape,

but also on the day
of the homicide.

And this was just a
very, very great find.

NARRATOR: Chandler denied any
involvement in the murders.

But once he was
in custody, police

brought in one person who
could possibly identify him,

the Canadian tourist
who had been raped

by a man in a blue
and white boat.

DOUGLAS CROW: She
picked his photograph

and reacted visibly as soon
as that photograph was shown.

And she indicated
that she would really

like to see him
live in the lineup

to be absolutely certain.

NARRATOR: This
resulted in another

positive identification.

But just as investigators went
to inspect Chandler's boat,

they discovered he had
sold it, most likely

to get rid of
potential evidence.

Prosecutors knew if they
were going to get a murder

conviction, they'd need more
evidence than just handwriting.

A forensic document examiner
was already convinced it was

Oba Chandler's handwriting
on the brochure

found in Joan Rogers' car.

But investigators wondered
if there was anything else

on the brochure that would
guarantee a conviction.

SARAH DEUBEL: The brochure
was processed with a chemical

called ninhydrin, a
chemical that reacts

with amino acids found
in fingerprint residue.

NARRATOR: Prints, when they
come in contact with ninhydrin,

will turn purple and could
then be photographed.

On the brochure, were
numerous fingerprints

and one palm print.

SARAH DEUBEL: One
of the victimes

was identified as being
the source of some

of those impressions,
but there were also

unidentified prints
on that brochure.

NARRATOR: The best
unidentified print

was a high quality
right palm print.

When Chandler's right palm print
was compared to the palm print

on the brochure found
in the victim's car,

there was no doubt.

GLEN MOORE: That not only
linked our hand writing

to the brochure, but
also a palm print,

and you don't get
much better than that.

NARRATOR: Oba Chandler was
charged with three counts

of kidnapping and
first degree murder.

Investigators believe Chandler
met Joan Rogers at a gas

station where Joan
may have asked

him for directions
to their hotel.

CHANDLER: You know, if you've
got something I can write down

on, I can give you instructions.

JOAN ROGERS: Here, you
can just write it on this.

NARRATOR: Chandler
wrote them on her map,

leaving behind a handwriting
sample and his palm print.

CHANDLER: Here you go.

So you ladies here on vacation?

JOAN ROGERS: Yeah,
we're here from Ohio.

CHANDLER: Really?
You guys like boats?

NARRATOR: And that's when
Chandler may have offered

to give them a sunset
cruise on his boat.

An offer the girls accepted.

Chandler gave Joan directions
to the boat launch,

and when she wrote them, she
also jotted down a vital clue:

blue with WHT.

Later that night, Chandler
took them out on the water

where they were at his mercy.

The women couldn't
swim, so there

was no way they could've
made it to shore safely.

They had no option
but to comply.

They were bound, and gagged,
and presumably sexually assault.

Later, he tied each one of
them to a concrete block

and threw them overboard.

Chandler left an
electronic trail

when he called his
wife on the ship

to shore radio to tell her
his boat had engine trouble

and that he'd be
late for dinner.

Chandler's other
mistake was leaving

his handwriting and
palm print behind.

Oba Chandler was
tried, convicted,

and sentenced to death.

JUDGE: Oba Chandler, you have
not only forfeited your right

to live among us, under the
laws of the state of Florida,

you have forfeited your
right to live at all.

Mr. Chandler, may God
have mercy on your soul.

NARRATOR: The bold decision to
put the handwriting evidence

on billboards for
the entire city

to see made the
difference in this case.

TERESA STUBBS: I thought it was
an excellent idea, brilliant,

because detectives can only
work on leads that they receive,

and when they've exhausted
every possible lead they have,

that's when it becomes necessary
to try something different,

and let the public in.

MIKE DEESON: The investigators
were up against a dead end.

They didn't know
what to do, and they

said what do we have to lose
by putting up this billboard.

And yeah, it was
a gamble, but it

was a gamble that
certainly paid off.

DOUGLAS CROW: I
think the singular

uh break in the case came
with the identification

of the handwriting.

That was his ultimate undoing.