Original subtitles

[somber music]

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

ROB: There's just such a potential for more victims,

such a potential for unknowns.

And with Arkansas and Oklahoma being--

the border being close proximity to his home,

I mean, there could be missing person from other states.

You just don't know.

I mean, you can assume a lot of things

and sensationalize what that can mean.

Regardless, we had to dig each one of those things up

and turn them over and dig around underneath them

and make sure there wasn't anything else there.

REUBEN: We bring the bulldozer in.

They're pulling up all these tombstones.

And, I mean, I think we had FBI personnel,

like, trying to figure out who they were,

where they belonged to, who their family members were,

just trying to figure out who these people were.

ROB: He found one of them.

He found the same person, but a different headstone,

like it was a newer one.

So this one is an older one.

So this one's singular.

The other one looks like it was a husband and wife,

but the same date and everything.

REUBEN: We ultimately found out that they were just--

let's say somebody died and there was a mistake

in the tombstone, they would just throw that one

out in that field, and then they would correct the problem

and give the person a new tombstone.

♪ ♪

- [sighs]

[whirring]

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

ROB: So the first search we did of Vines' property

was mostly Alma PD and Morgan Nick.

We shift gears to the Melissa Witt case

in regard to Charlie Vines and in regard to our efforts

because we had run so much to ground

on the Morgan Nick case.

With that, there was an area above Charlie Vines' property

where witnesses said he frequented.

It was just across the road.

It was a wooded area.

We had found some canines,

cadaver dogs, and cadaver dogs--

in my organization, there's a widespread opinion--

I think some people have experienced

great cadaver dogs, some not so great.

We found a good team that, incidentally, we tested.

And--because I didn't want to just go into it,

just, "OK, maybe they're good, we'll find out."

So we tested these canines.

♪ ♪

REUBEN: This is an experiment to see what a true indication

of a dog locating a body looks like.

Up until now, we've never seen a true indication,

but we're in a spot where we know

there are actual bodies buried here.

And we're just confirming that the dogs are working.

There's a change in behavior of the dog

that catches the handler's attention,

meaning that there is a body in the area.

So for this dog, her indicator is a bark.

So she just barked, which means she just found--

or smelled the presence of some type of human decomposition.

The other dog is a sit.

So he'll sit in the spot.

♪ ♪

After the dogs hit on the remains

at the Civil War site,

we went to Melissa Witt's dumping site

where her body was dumped.

ROB: The Working Group, you know, Fort Smith PD

and FBI,

went out to the dump site of Melissa Witt.

And this was 27 years later after she had been located.

The test was, was what would we see if we ran the dogs

on this site where decomposition had happened,

what would that even look like?

And it was, admittedly, just a test

to s--out of curiosity.

And what we did was, we had them start at a point

where they wouldn't know if they were even going to cross

a crime scene of any sort.

So the canine and their handlers

did not know anything about what they were doing

at that point other than, you know,

just that we wanted their dogs ran.

♪ ♪

[barking]

♪ ♪

- [chuckles]

ROB: The canines hit at the spot

where Melissa Witt's body was found.

- It's extremely relevant that her--

that the dogs hit in that location

because it had been roughly 20-something years

since her body was there.

ROB: With that, there was an area

above Charlie Vines' property

where witnesses said he frequented.

It was just across the road.

It was a wooded area.

We had them check the area that Charlie Vines frequented,

the property across from his.

♪ ♪

That leads us to say, at least--

at least something was there that decomposed

that the dogs are recognizing.

Could it be a body buried or could it be a body

decomposed there for a period and was moved?

Or could it be some items of the body had decomposition

on it and were there?

- Was her body there at some point?

Was she moved to this location?

Were her clothes there?

It just gives you a greater idea

of potentially what could have happened.

[barking]

♪ ♪

ROB: We subsequently searched the area with metal detectors,

and then, with a backhoe, scraped it down to bedrock

and didn't find anything.

So the thought would be that--

that something was placed there

for a period of time that gave the same decomposition

that a canine would alert on.

We don't have answers, but that's what

that would at least indicate.

♪ ♪

Charlie Vines could have put--

could have put someone there.

An unknown victim that we just aren't aware of.

Or possibly something of Melissa Witt's,

whether it be her clothes or something that--that--

that maintained a decomposition scent

or something that caused those dogs to hit.

I mean, it's gonna be hard to determine whether it was

anything of Melissa or another person,

but the belief would be that--

that since Charlie frequented that area,

that was his hilltop--

he was even territorial with his neighbors on that hilltop--

and that a canine cadaver dog hits there,

that--that I would be confident that there was some human flesh

that decomposed on that hill in that spot.

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

- There was a Cambridge brand cigarette with filter

and a sample from a Mountain Dew can.

This was evidence submitted.

The date of the report is 8 of 2000.

But what--

JAY: Is there anything developed off of those?

- Well, that's what's interesting.

♪ ♪

What catches your attention is,

is, you know, it talks about these--

it says a mattress cover,

a mattress fabric E1, E2, LL, LL.

But there's conclusions here.

And here's where it's interesting.

"K2, comma, Charles Vines

"is excluded as being a contributor

to the DNA identified on LL-1, number 1,"

which is the cigarette filter.

JAY: Hmm.

- So doesn't that tell us there's DNA identified?

- Absolutely.

- So a component of saliva was identified on LL-1 1,

which is that cigarette. JAY: Cigarette butt.

ROB: LL-1 13.

- It says no DNA was found on LL-1 13 here,

that Mountain Dew can.

ROB: But it says "A component of saliva was identified

on the Mountain Dew can and the--"

so maybe it was the cigarette

that they were able to get DNA from,

but not the Mountain Dew can.

- That's what it reads like, yeah.

ROB: All right, if these are-- if these are the items found

at her body dump site, then--

and they just weren't tested then,

but they were tested 5 and 2000, that's fine

because we still potentially have

a DNA profile of a suspect.

JAY: Yeah.

ROB: But for the sake of a potential conviction,

it's gonna be essential that we show the origin

and chain of custody from its first being found, this--

this item, L1, number 1.

- Yeah.

ROB: If--if it becomes something that's prosecutable.

Because if it's-- if it's--if it's--

I hate to even say it because I jinx myself

and then later we find it's cigarettes

from some random car or something.

But if it's the cigarette butts that were found in her--

near her body dump site and DNA is on it,

that might be enough to get a prosecutor to initiate

a prosecution on him.

♪ ♪

And so I know in 2000, Charlie Vines was arrested

and there was a big search warrant done on his house.

So I think when they realized he was responsible

for a lot of these in the area, then they ran his DNA

against Melissa Witt case DNA.

That Cambridge LL-1 number 1

is a Cambridge brand cigarette with filter

that I think was found

at the body dump site of Melissa Witt.

It's excluding Charlie Vines as being a contributor to the DNA,

so there's got to be a DNA profile.

And it's a state crime laboratory report,

so that's another priority to find out that individual piece,

what DNA profile it is

because it very well could be our suspect.

I'd hate to go down this DNA path

and go, oh, that turned out to be--

that was found to be the hunter that found the body.

We need to know that so we don't get our hopes up,

and so we also don't spend too much time

wasting on a rabbit hole.

TECHNICIAN: Rob, did they do any

nail scrapings from her back then?

- Yes, and it says they're retained at the crime lab.

PERSON: Were they ever tested?

I don't know if that had been common procedure back then,

but...

- And I saw some nail clippings in evidence.

REUBEN: It said that they clipped them

and then they retained them for evidence.

JAY: I mean, obviously, we gotta assume

some type of struggle ensued.

And--I mean, and today, 2023, that's the first go-to for DNA.

ROB: I think that another good priority would be to find out

where those nail clippings are and--and see

if they've been DNA-tested.

And if they have been, our lab won't take it,

but those private labs that rebuild DNA will.

And the only difference will be,

is there'll be a cost of some sort,

but might get us a suspect profile.

So I agree, that's a good-- a good avenue

to start working on as well.

I think an overall chart of just saying all that

will be helpful to everyone.

Like, OK, here's finally a list of everything,

and we'll kind of start on, like--

the crime scene of the abduction site.

Here's all these items, here's what's been processed.

And if we find anything that hasn't--

you know, a spot of blood or something that hasn't,

that'll be priority to get off to the lab and tested.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

JAY: Do--are we saving Travis or do we want to just

dive right headlong into him?

ROB: Yeah, let's just go ahead.

JAY: Travis grew up in the area where Melissa's body is found.

His family runs a Baptist church camp

that is approximately maybe a half-mile

to a mile from where Melissa's body was found

up near Turner Bend.

He has a--he has a lot of connections to that area.

So I'm hoping we can get a map with the--

the Baptist camp.

And there's--

PERSON: Why the Baptist camp?

JAY: Because his family-- he actually--

on one of his arrests in Florida,

he listed that Baptist camp in Franklin County

as his home address.

His family was-- was very connected to that.

I believe they worked there.

There was a tip they got called in to you guys years later.

Someone had passed away that the family

was trying to protect because there was incest.

And once that grandma or mom passed away,

they felt like they could finally talk

about Travis openly.

And so they called in the tip.

They felt Travis was probably involved.

Travis has--has been arrested in Florida, Arizona,

South Carolina, Minnesota,

and was arrested in Colorado

three months after this tip comes in

for a series of things,

several of which were very violent.

South Carolina was a burglary when he was a young man.

Arizona was a rape investigation

that I believe no charges were filed on.

In Minnesota, an attempted murder charge

in which he stabbed a gentleman in the neck

around a liquor store.

He was acquitted by that-- that Minnesota jury.

He was released from the jail in Minneapolis, Minnesota,

on or around October 1, 1994.

And he said he then began to--to hitchhike south.

He ended up in New Orleans. We know that.

He was arrested by the New Orleans PD

either on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day of '94

or January 1, '95, by his own admission.

He can account for having hitchhiked to Kansas City

where he remembered that he requested

a wire transfer from his father,

contacted his dad.

But he can't remember--

he uses the phrase that's always a red flag

when I'm an investigator.

In their documents, he says,

"Next thing I know, I was in New Orleans."

And anytime I hear that phrase,

I'm cuing in to what's being said

because that's usually--

there's usually a lot to unpack when somebody says,

"Next thing I know."

He couldn't recall how he got to New Orleans.

He--he did deny that he ever came through this area,

but he had no details, at least that are documented,

that he could provide to Detective Reese.

Detective Reese noted that-- that he had

very specific memories of a lot of things,

and seemed to have a really good memory

about certain events, but found it noteworthy

that he couldn't recall how he got to New Orleans

and what route he took aside from stopping in Kansas City.

But then, of course, the big break came

in Colorado when-- when he was arrested

by the Boulder County Sheriff's Office

later that year.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

On--on the night in question, the--

the victim had been at a mall in that area.

She was speaking with a group of men.

Two other men came to speak with her.

At that point, one of them would--would be Travis Crouch.

The other gentleman by the name of Coyote.

They struck up a conversation, decided then that they would go

to a local convenience store.

They asked her for a ride.

She took them to a convenience store.

At that convenience store, Coyote leaves.

We later learned that Coyote leaves

because he saw Travis

buying condoms inside that store,

and he knew what was going to happen.

So he--he left that scene.

Travis came back to the car

from the convenience store with--with some beer

and asked her to go driving through the canyon.

So she takes him up, agrees to go drive

up to the canyon with him.

They get up to--

out west of Boulder and get in a pull-off.

And there, he begins to, four separate ways,

sexually assault and rape her in pretty--

it was a pretty bad scene for sure.

After they had parked and Travis had drank some beer

and smoked a cigarette, Travis stated,

"Take your dress off."

The victim told Travis that she was having

her period at this time.

Travis told her to take that thing out,

meaning the tampon.

She stated that he was using an angry voice

and that he would "resort to hurt her if he had to."

Travis moved her to the front of her vehicle

and placed his hands on her shoulder

and laid her on the hood of the vehicle.

♪ ♪

She stated that they had sexual intercourse.

She stated when he was about to finish, he pulled out.

She told me that Travis began to masturbate in front of her,

which was in front of the vehicle.

Travis lit a cigarette.

The victim said that Travis reached into his backpack

and pulled an item out of the backpack.

She said that she thought it was either a knife

or pliers.

She started to cry and she told Travis,

"Don't hurt me, don't hurt me."

He got behind her.

She stated that at this point, they had anal intercourse.

She also informed me that she tried not to scream

because she was afraid of being hit.

I asked her if she had been struck.

She stated that she had.

Approximately ten minutes later,

he grabbed her head and forced her head back down

to have oral sex.

She stated that while they were having oral sex,

he fell asleep.

She was very scared and she was thinking

that maybe she could try to leave.

However, she felt that Travis awoke

and she got caught, that he would kill her.

She stated that another option that she was thinking

was just to wait and see what would happen

when Travis woke up.

She stated that approximately after this, five minutes,

that his cigarette fell and landed on him

and woke up.

At this point, Travis again grabbed her head

and forced her to give him oral sex.

Again, he fell asleep.

The victim stated that she let him sleep

for a couple of minutes to see if he would awaken again.

She got her coat from the front passenger side

floor of the vehicle and got out of the vehicle.

♪ ♪

He made a mistake.

He drank to the point that he passed out in the seat.

She saw an opportunity to escape, so she did.

She took off back to the main road,

hoping to find a car.

She remembers that the first car drove past

and didn't help her.

Second car did stop, loaded her up.

She said, "Take me to the police, please.

I've been raped."

She was able to provide a description

to the University of Colorado officer

who worked with the Boulder County Sheriff's Office

to figure out where this car was,

what the car looked like.

They started looking for it in the area out west of Boulder.

They find the car.

They get their officers arranged

and they do a felony takedown

because they see a gentleman in the car.

Travis is still in the car when they get to it.

They arrest him on suspicion of sexual assault.

Transport him to the Boulder County Jail.

They're going back and forth initially

about when to interview him.

The initial detective who went to interview him

decided it was more important right that second

to go to the crime scene and thoroughly process it

using things like alternative light sources

and whatnot.

The officers who had arrested him noticed

blood on his hands, which he--

he actually told them would be her menstrual blood.

So they rightly covered his hands in a paper bag

to try to preserve that evidence.

He was--he became, according to reports,

extremely combative.

Once he--the closer he got to the jail,

the more combative he became.

By the time the detective arrived at Boulder County Jail,

the reports read that he had already taken

all the paper off.

And so when that investigator attempted

to collect any evidence from him,

all the blood was already gone from his hands.

Travis was arrested and charged

and ultimately convicted for this rape.

That jury sentenced him to 48 to 64 years

in the Colorado prison.

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

Detective Reese and two others

went to Colorado to interview Travis Crouch.

When they got back, somehow, the local media had learned

that they had gone to Colorado to interview somebody.

At that time, our local media asked for the name

of who they went to interview.

They said that was still a--

I forget the exact verbiage they used--

essentially a person of interest,

so they weren't gonna release that.

Well, they called Colorado

and got the information from Colorado.

So there was a media release on the Travis Crouch interview.

Travis Crouch's mother immediately contacts the media,

said, "No, he was not here, that's not true."

So they run that-- that media link.

The following day or days, a person calls and says,

"I know she was lying.

He absolutely was in this area at that time."

The moral of the story with her was,

she said he was absolutely

in this area around that time, and she had

some very specific details.

She recalled that on Labor Day of 1994,

her dog had puppies.

And at either six or eight weeks of age,

depending on when we asked her,

it was time to start giving those puppies away,

sometime in November.

She's down to one last puppy that had had an injury

and had a--had kind of a deformity and some issues.

She's working at the Turner Bend store,

is what she called it.

And Travis Crouch comes in the store

wanting to get the puppy for his brother.

And she has some very specific memories of this, both back--

back in '97, when she made her statement,

and a few months ago when I interviewed her again,

that he arrived in his mother's brown car.

They had a long conversation about, you know,

did he know who her dad is?

And she did. She knew Roger.

She still knows Roger very well.

She knew he was Travis.

They talked about the fact that her daughter was pregnant

and gonna be giving birth in January of '95.

And that hasn't changed at all.

Some time around November '94, Glenda sees Travis Crouch

in the area of Turner Bend.

The following day or days, a person calls

and says he absolutely was in this area at that time.

He and his dad hunted a ridge--

I think they said 100 yards from where her body was found.

That person says his dad let it slip

that Travis was in the area during that time

on one of these hunting trips,

but they, in interviews, always denied

that their son was around.

So Travis' crime history is one of violence

and sexual violence.

So him being connected to that area

makes him a person of interest at minimum,

somebody we really need to look into.

And then with his family operating this church camp,

which, if you drive up Highway 23

and then you turn west on-- on that particular road,

you pass the Baptist Vista Church Camp on your way

to the site where Melissa's body was found.

Combine that with his criminal history,

his knowledge of the area, now we've got a strong witness

saying he's in this area

at the time of her disappearance, roughly.

He's somebody we have to take very seriously at this point.

Kind of the big thing, if we can find,

is, there's a brown Chevy Capri that--

I still haven't found in here exactly how it got landed on

to be searched, but it was searched

by you all and the FBI.

20 pieces of evidence were taken from it,

a lot of really good stuff taken from it.

We're not sure where that stuff is right now.

PERSON: What's the relevance of the Capri to the--

JAY: It was registered to Travis' mom

at the time of the abduction.

ROB: So we gotta find that.

There's another-- PERSON: That's that--

12-year-old talks about a brown car, right?

- [sighs] That's a good question.

BRAD: Yeah, the boys--

I thought he said it was a bigger car,

but he said it was brown.

JAY: It would have been pretty big.

It's a 1977 model,

so that would have been a pretty big car.

ROB: I'm going to read from that Tipton kid's interview.

He said, "I went out and I brought back the wrong book.

"I had to go back and get the other book.

"While I was outside, I heard a girl scream.

"There was a brown car parked with its lights

"about two parking spaces away from the two people.

I got scared and ran back into"--

PERSON: Brown car.

BRAD: Well, that makes a lot of sense

because if you look at the crime scene,

I mean, that's a couple parking spaces

back from her car, so...

♪ ♪

ROB: Yeah, I think--this-- this is a 12-year-old.

It was an older car.

It looked like a Lincoln or a similar type.

PERSON: It's a Capri, man.

JAY: Yeah, absolutely. That's a good fit for a Capri.

And this is just assumption because I can't find

how they got to that car,

would be that they began to follow up

on Travis Crouch tips and probably dug through

and found mom's registration, found that she drove a brown--

she owned a '97 Capri, but I don't have any--

I don't have any supporting documentation for that, so...

We're constantly looking for the car

that Melissa was abducted in.

So when Travis pulls up, Glenda recognized

that he was driving his mom's brown

what we now to be a 1977 Chevrolet Caprice.

And so, if we get him in that car

in this area at that time,

then we need to find that car

and see if there's any evidence in it.

And--and officers at that time did--did just that.

They were able to track that car back.

It had been sold by-- by this time,

but they were able to confirm that in 1994,

it belonged to Travis' mother.

They--they took a team of Arkansas state police,

Fort Smith Police Officers, and FBI--

and actually, they brought in the FBI's

crime scene processors to--

they got consent from the current owner

of that car at the time to--

to process this car.

And they were very thorough.

They did what appears to be, through the report,

outstanding work and pulled--

pulled 20 pieces of evidence out of this car

from front seat to tape lifts to cushions.

Anywhere you might find blood evidence

or DNA evidence, even--

this would have been-- this was 1998

when they did this in February.

So DNA was still pretty-- pretty rudimentary,

but they knew enough to pull it.

They could see where it was going.

The stuff has been processed.

It was sent directly to the FBI lab.

That's why the FBI was involved that day.

The Fort Smith PD was smart and--

and worked their chain of custody

such that the evidence went straight from that scene

into the possession of the FBI and sent

straight to Quantico for processing.

Unfortunately, no blood was found.

No--no physical evidence that could be

found in 1998 was found.

We do think we know where all that evidence is

and we might resubmit it to see if 2023 science finds anything.

I'm not very optimistic about it.

I'm not sure that's gonna end up being the car,

but they--they certainly did their due diligence

in processing it properly, very thoroughly,

and sending it to the best place

they could send it there in Quantico.

[birds singing]

DEPUTY: Like I said, I don't know how old this place is.

REUBEN: Uh-huh.

DEPUTY: This could be, you know, way back when.

REUBEN: Yeah.

But it's close enough that--

well, we need to figure out who owned it or whatever, you know?

We received a tip from someone stating that Charlie Ray Vines

had a cabin in that same area

where Melissa Witt's body was found,

and that two local Franklin County sheriff deputies

have been in that area,

found the remains of that cabin.

They actually marked off the distance from that cabin

to Melissa Witt's body

and saw that it was, like, fairly close.

So just follow this trail and it'll take us down

to where we had to turn around at?

DEPUTY: Yeah.

REUBEN: And you said it's about 2 miles from here to there?

- Well, Google Maps shows from drop pin

straight as a crow flies, it's 2.4 miles.

REUBEN: 2.4. OK.

They speculated that there's potential

that Melissa Witt could have been abducted,

taken to that cabin by Charlie Ray Vines,

and then dumped by him on that rock,

or where she was found.

And you don't know

if this area was ever searched or anything,

as far as you know?

- The only place that I know of is just where,

you know, her body was found. REUBEN: OK.

Gotcha.

- Because I remember whenever we was moving from the old jail

to the new jail and we was going through reports,

I don't know where it went since then,

but I remember finding the one-page report

of where her body was found. REUBEN: Yeah.

- Up here. REUBEN: Yeah.

- And it got turned over-- you know,

it even said in there, you know,

"turned over to state police." REUBEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY: And then, from there,

that's all you really got off the report.

And then, you know, that lady got a hold of Curtis.

REUBEN: Uh huh.

- That's whenever we decided to come up here and look for this.

REUBEN: Yeah, yeah. OK.

- Imagine someone putting her body up there

that didn't know this area.

REUBEN: Oh, no. - Yeah. You don't--

REUBEN: No.

- You get off the interstate and go past the Mulberry River,

and then just go, I'll just drive for 20 minutes and then--

REUBEN: Right. - It was someone who knew this.

- I'm like you.

Whoever done it knew the area.

- Yeah. REUBEN: Mm-hmm.

- Do you know if Franklin County ever has--

or just this area ever has old hiking trail maps?

DEPUTY: If they do, it'll be at the Forest Service.

- Because surely Charlie Vines' trail maps

would have overlapped a lot of existing trails.

REUBEN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Yeah.

- And we'll see if any of them overlay any of this.

REUBEN: Right.

[foreboding music]

♪ ♪

- This whole CODIS thing has me baffled.

Like, it's--why-- why is he not, like--

and are we gonna run into legal issues

because his conviction was in '98?

Or does that predate--

ROB: I don't think so--

- Required being-- to be put in CODIS?

- In 1 of '98, the FBI has a...

A lead that they send to Denver Division.

So it gives a little synopsis of the case.

And it says, you know, "Investigation at Fort Smith,

"Arkansas, places Crouch in area

"at the time of Witt's abduction and discovery.

"And he can also be placed in the proximity

of where her body was."

And then it says, "Denver"-- Here's the lead.

"Contact Travis Dale Crouch at the Boulder County

"Sheriff's Department and attempt to consensually

"have hair and blood samples drawn from him.

"If above is successful, contact this person.

"Forward dried blood and hair samples

to Little Rock Division."

There was an attempt to get it in '98.

But it's saying consensual.

Consensually have hair and blood.

JAY: He probably didn't--

what you bet that didn't happen?

- Yeah.

There should be a note in a file somewhere

that says they attempted and he declined.

JAY: Mm-hmm.

ROB: And that's probably why he said at trial

some--something like, "I'm not giving Arkansas that--

that a-hole in Arkansas any DNA or blood."

Whether it's Lanny Reese pissed him off

and he just didn't want to do it,

or he just wasn't gonna do it

because he thought it would link him to something.

JAY: Yeah.

- And here's another thing.

If there's-- someone attempted to do it,

and then years later, it would have been required

to be in CODIS, there might be people who go,

"That's already been done," and assume it's been done.

And then it didn't get done.

- Yeah.

- But Lanny Reese was wanting it.

A lead was sent to collect it.

What were they thinking?

Were they--were they thinking comparing it to--

but we didn't have a DNA profile

until 2000 on that cigarette butt,

so why did they want it so bad?

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

BRAD: How are you, sir?

TECHNICIAN: Good. How are you?

BRAD: Oh, I'm just wonderful.

- So you and I need to go back here.

- OK.

- This is a restricted area, so I can't--

- OK. Yeah, that's fine.

- OK. So if you want--

BRAD: OK. - I've already signed you in.

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

BRAD: What's that mean? TECHNICIAN: Not much.

[indistinct chatter]

♪ ♪

TECHNICIAN: Debris found on body.

JAY: That's his hair.

BRAD: I bet this is the--

JAY: To compare the hair example

to Charlie Vines.

So hair--hair comparisons and trace evidence

to compare to Charlie Vines.

- OK, we got--

- Oh, a cigarette butt?

Yeah, this is apparently from the scene.

- Or LL-1, number 1, Cambridge smoked cigarette butt.

2 and 3, Cambridge cigarette filter butts.

So that'll be LL--

all these should be LL-1 through 13

if they're all in this.

Cigarette butts.

That's not gonna be what all's in here

because on this form, it's attached to this,

which maybe they're all--

maybe that's just for this one single bag--

is all cigarette butts and a Mountain Dew soda can.

But that's probably for just this package alone.

- Probably some of the soil samples.

JAY: That's exactly what that is.

- All the scene stuff.

SPECIALIST: Debris found on body.

- I'd say Crouch-- was he a smoker?

Do we know? ROB: Yes.

He smoked when he raped the girl up in Boulder.

And I think they collected cigarettes

when they arrested him off the ground.

And he was kind of a hobo-ish transient.

So he may have had a particular brand he liked

or he just may have smoked what he could get his hands on.

Well, and that's where you could get excited

about the Travis Crouch incident because he--

he met the girl in Boulder,

talked her into going up into the woods,

and then he isolates her and rapes her.

Here, Melissa's taken and ends up in the woods

in an isolated area.

And the proximity is only 2.8 miles from his--

where his parents were running that camp

to where her body was.

And that is--I mean, that's by the road.

That's not even as the crow flies,

that's the road route,

which is hugely significant in that,

you know, he could be an outlier.

He could have kept her for a while

because he had some isolated area up there

where he could do more if it was him, but,

most likely, if he follows the standard statistic,

he got what he needed gratification-wise

and then murdered her and dumped her.

But if we're looking at this from both behavioral

and statistical likelihoods, I mean, it really--

it lines up with Travis.

And, you know, we talk about Vines

being a possibility because of the cemetery near there.

But where--where Vines' behavior differentiates is,

the four crimes we know he did that he's convicted on,

he somehow knew the people and went into their homes

under the cover of their homes to do his crime

and to murder them, and this would be an outlier.

Still, it could be.

I mean, if he, for some reason, had a moment

where he became opportunistic and did things differently,

but it would be an outlier from him,

whereas it matches up more to Travis or someone else's MO.

But we can think about that all day long.

I think the thing is, is find the evidence,

find the DNA profile.

If our lab has--

if the state lab has a DNA profile from this item

and it hasn't been submitted in the system

or compared to CODIS, it needs to be done.

If it hasn't been done recently, it needs to be done.

We might develop a completely new suspect from this.

If there's cigarettes found along the roadside,

gosh, that could mean anything.

If are cigarettes that were found nearer to the body,

either way, they all have to be tested if they haven't been.

But if this happens to be a cigarette

that was near the body and we have a DNA profile,

we probably need to dig deep into that.

And then in talking with Sergeant Baker

over Travis Crouch,

he found that Travis Crouch has no DNA in CODIS,

and he's been convicted since '98.

It says in--in III that he's not in CODIS,

DNA needs collected.

So he's been making calls and--

to Denver or Colorado Bureau of Investigation

to try and find--

confirm that that's not been done

and then get it done because Crouch could

very easily be suspect in other cases.

It looks like he slipped through the cracks.

BRAD: And on a side note, I got a phone call yesterday

that Travis Crouch is getting paroled today.

ROB: Today he's getting out?

BRAD: I was told yesterday his hearing--

- His hearing is today. BRAD: Yeah.