All language subtitles for [SubtitleTools.com] Watch A Body in the Basement Season 1 Episode 3- Murder On Repeat full HD on SFlix Free

[dramatic music playing]

[ticking]

[plinking]

[ticking continues]

[phone ringing]

[phone continues ringing]

[ringing continues]

-[plinking continues]
-[ticking continues]

[Christy Sanger] I moved
to Rockford, Illinois

in the beginning
of October of 1994,

and it was a wonderful place

to live for
a short period of time.

I had a great job,

I met great people,

and that was when
I first met Barbara.

[Corina Curry] Barbara Purcell
was an occupational therapist,

that was her profession,

and that kind of carried over

into her personality.

She just had

a very caring personality.

She was a very kind person.

[Sheldon Bird] Barbara
is my younger sister.

In our family, uh,

Barbara was always
called Lorrie.

My first memory of Lorrie,

I was looking at her
in a crib,

the sun was shining
down on her,

and she had
this red curly hair,

and, even at that age,

I, I just looked at her
and I thought,

"My God, she looks
like an angel!" [chuckles]

She was just a smart girl.

And she was also very strong.

We were very proud of her

for what she had accomplished
in her life.

[Christy] Barbara and I
worked together

at Rockford Memorial Hospital.

The thing that I remember
most clearly about Barbara,

before I had really
became friendly with her,

is her walking down
the hospital hallways
in her white coat.

She had beautiful
long red hair,

and she was always
looking down,

she was always
lost in her thoughts.

Uh, she was a very,
very private person.

She appeared to have
an extremely hard

protective shell covering her.

But when I broke
through that outer shell,

I discovered that
she was the most

loving, caring,
sensitive person

probably that I had ever met.

[gentle music playing]

Before she started her career
as an occupational therapist,

Barbara was a waitress
in a restaurant

in Oklahoma
when she met Willard.

My understanding was that
Willard travelled around
fixing printing presses.

But he frequently visited
the restaurant where
Lorrie was a waitress

and eventually
they became a couple,

got married
and moved to Rockford.

Willard and Barbara
had been married
for several years.

He had a good job.
Um, Willard worked
for a long time

in another community
for a manufacturing company.

He was quiet.
Willard was always
very polite.

And he would
answer your question,

but he was always
on the outskirts,

just in his own world,
in his own thoughts, separate.

But seeing them together,

there were things
that I could understand

that had brought
them together.

In many ways
they were very similar.

They were both very private.
They were both
very protective.

They both loved nature
and their outdoor space

and being in their home,
away from other people.

[suspenseful music playing]

[medical equipment beeping]

My memory of June 6th, 2001,

it was a very sad day.

Barbara had not
shown up for work,

which was not
her personality at all.

If, for some reason,
she could not fulfill
an obligation,

she let you know.

At that point, I knew
that there was

something wrong.

[phone ringing]

-[car door closing]
-[phone continues ringing]

[indistinct radio chatter]

-[doorbell rings]
-[phone ringing]

[doorbell rings]

[phone ringing]

[indistinct radio
chatter continues]

[phone ringing]

I was a sergeant

with the Winnebago County
Sheriff's Office

and Supervisor
in the Detective Bureau.

Initially our deputies
were dispatched to the house

for what we call
a welfare check.

It was in rural
Winnebago County

and it's a ranch-style home.

From the front,
it looks like a single level,

but as you go
around to the back,

it's an exposed basement,

so it looks like
a two-story home

and in front of the house,
it looked fairly normal.

There was no telltale signs

that there was any
problems inside.

There was a storm door
on the outside.

You could see
that the inner door

to the home
wasn't shut completely.

[indistinct radio
chatter continues]

[phone ringing]

[Det. Kurt Ditzler]
They discovered a white female
who was deceased.

Part of her body
was in the landing area
in the basement,

and her legs
were kinda up the stairway

towards the main level
of the home.

Rocco Wagner,
I was the lead detective

assigned to the case.

When I arrived,
I could see that

she had, uh, blood
on the back of her head,

so some type of, uh,
blunt force trauma.

And there was blood spatter
on the walls and the stairs.

My name is Margie O'Connor

and I was the lead prosecutor
on the case.

Her injuries to her head
were consistent

with an object
such as a flashlight,

and then they found
a flashlight in the home

that actually
had her DNA on it.

[Det. Ditzler] It seemed
to be a pretty violent scene.

It was a finished basement,

carpeted, the walls
were finished.

They had it set up
as an office area.

There was a broken window.

And there was a display case

coffee table
with a glass top
and some drawers in it,

and the drawers
were pulled out
and they were empty,

so it looked like
maybe something
had been taken.

It also appeared
that she could have been
the victim of a sexual assault

because her undergarments
were removed

and her dress was pulled up.

There appeared
to have been a struggle.

The type of force
that was evident
showed how violent it was

and how she
fought for her life.

[radio chatter continues]

Dad called me up and he said
that Lorrie was murdered.

And I just remember saying,

"Why not me?"

And he said that
he had said the same thing

when he was told.

I think either one of us
would have just traded places,

no problem.

[Christy] I received
the call on that day

from another mutual friend,
with details

that Barbara had been found

dead at the bottom
of the stairs

in their basement.

And words cannot describe...

how I felt.

I felt sadness,

I felt anger.

I felt a lot of anger.

How could this happen
to such a great person?

So, at any homicide scene,
you do a search of the house

and then you do a grid search,

meaning sections,
so you cover everything

on the property
where the crime was committed,

adjacent properties,
possible escape routes.

And during that grid search
we found tire tracks...

about 75 yards
in a wooded area
west of the house.

[Det. Ditzler]
When we found the tire tracks,
they were able to do

what's called
the plaster cast,

where plaster
is put into the impression

and then it's allowed
to harden

and then it's pulled up
and sent to the crime lab.

After that, we started doing
a neighborhood check,
neighborhood canvas,

just to see if we could
find out from neighbors

if they knew anything,
saw anything suspicious,

or anything that might
aid us in our investigation.

So, of course, you look
at the spouse first
in something like this,

and you wanna
eliminate that person
or put him into it.

So we attempted to locate him
at his brother's house,
couldn't find him,

at work, couldn't find him.

We put an attempt-to-locate
out on him to the squads.

But we kept an open mind
and checked other things.

We checked any sex offenders
released recently in the area.

We checked area burglaries,

suspicious vehicle stops,
car stops, things like that.

But something was off with it.

As far as, uh,
physical evidence
at the scene,

and the pieces there
just didn't fit together.

Something just didn't
make sense.

[eerie music playing]

[clock ticking]

[keys jingling]

[exhales]

[phone ringing]

We presume that
Barbara was murdered

after she got home from work

the night before
she was found dead.

We think someone
was in the house,
in the kitchen,

and when she walked in,
he came up behind her

and hit her the first time
near the top of the stairs.

[screaming]

Then two more times
as she was falling
down the stairs.

[Det. Ditzler]
We had a blood-spatter expert

on the Rockford
Police Department.

He could tell from looking at
the different spatter patterns

that, uh, it appeared
to be a minimum of

three different

actions of striking.

So we were pretty confident
then that we had a pretty
violent confrontation

that took place
in the stairway.

We interviewed the housekeeper
and she said that

some of Barbara's jewelry
was missing

and the wedding ring was gone.

There was also some coins
missing from the basement den.

They were in
a glass coffee table,
which was in disarray.

So the way the,
the homicide scene laid out,

it appeared that
a burglary had occurred

as well as a sexual assault

but it--
Generally, you don't do both.

It's, it's, a burglar
is in the house
to steal things,

somebody comes in, they run.

They don't confront the person
and then turn into a rapist.

It just didn't make sense.

She was on the bottom
of the stairs,

face down, head down,

with her garments pulled down,

that's not a position
for a sexual assault to occur.

And I could see the glass
on the outer door

wasn't broken in
as a burglary would happen.

[Det. Ditzler] Broken glass
was between the threshold

of the storm door
and the exterior door
to the house.

If it would have been
somebody breaking in

using something
to break the window
to get in the house,

the glass would've gone
to the inside of the house,

on the inside of the door.

Where that vehicle was
that left the tire tracks,

it would be hidden
from any neighbors
and hidden from any traffic.

A person hides their vehicle
if it's premeditated
and planned.

So we had a homicide there
and...

it was staged to look like
something else, I thought.

We still had custody
of the house,

and we wanted
to take the computer,

and that was in the basement
where she was found dead,

and, in going to
unhook the computer,

there was a wire going up
to the drop ceiling,

so I got up,
moved the drop ceiling...

And up in the drop ceiling,

I found some
pornographic magazines,

pornographic, uh, tapes
and her life insurance policy,

hidden away with porn.

I, I can't imagine
anything odder than that.

And in the insurance policy,
her husband, Willard Purcell,

was listed
as the beneficiary of it.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[Det. Ditzler] We had a reason
to at least speak

with her husband, Willard,

and a deputy had been driving
on the east side of Rockford

and just so happened
to see Willard Purcell
right in front of him

and made a traffic stop,
and when he did that,

we asked him to detain him

and bring him
to the police station.

He was kind of standoffish
right from the beginning.

I think he made
some comment about,

"What is she saying
about me now?"
or something like that.

[Det. Rocco Wagner]
So myself and Detective Reno
interviewed Mr. Purcell,

and in the interview room,
we first went over
his activities, where he was,

backtracking the days
and particularly that day.

Willard told our detectives
that he had been working,

uh, in Naperville, Illinois,
which is a suburb of Chicago

about 90 miles
east of Rockford,

and that he worked until later
in the day that day,

and when he came home,
he went to his brother's house
where he was staying.

[Det. Wagner]
He was very flippant,
really didn't care

what happened,
what we were there for.

And he said something like,

"What did she say
that I did this time?"

And we finally told him
his wife was dead

and, uh, that we thought
that he was involved.

He became a little more,

I think, concerned about
maybe what kind of trouble
he could be in

and that he was gonna
look like a suspect.

And he kinda
ended the interview

with the detectives
by asking for an attorney.

So we talked to
some of Barbara's coworkers

and she had
some close friends
she confided in them that,

that there were
some marital problems.

[Christy] I had never seen
any signs from Willard

to suggest that he was capable

of something this awful.

But I feel as if
they had reached a point
in their relationship

that there is almost a block
between the two of them.

Some sort of barricade.

You knew that
they were together,

but there wasn't any emotion,

there wasn't any hand holding,

there wasn't any hugging,

and there wasn't
much eye contact.

But I remember them being
comfortable together

with a barrier
between the two.

And then Barbara
started her additional
hand therapy training,

1999 into 2000.

So she started
travelling out of town
to take her classes

and having to stay overnight

and she was spending
more time than usual
away from home.

I think that was the beginning
of the real downhill

and Willard didn't trust her
being away for so long.

[Corina] Police had learned
the relationship
was very volatile

in the months
leading up to her death.

They were fighting

and they were splitting up,

and we learned,

in one of their fights,
that they were fighting over

Barbara getting
her own cell phone

and Willard just being
very upset,

you know, demanding to know,

"Why do you
have a cell phone?"

[Det. Ditzler] We found out
that they were sleeping
in separate bedrooms.

Willard would get
a phone call
on his cell phone,

he would go outside
in the yard,

talk on the phone
and then come back in.

But then she would
get phone calls

and she would leave the house
and she'd be out in the yard

talking on her phone.

They were, I think, suspicious

of one another
of having affairs.

[Det. Wagner]
We did a phone study
on her home phone

and one thing was a number
called to her house...

[phone ringing]

...I think two times
the night of the murder

and then several times
going back a couple of days,

and that phone number
was not registered
to her husband, Willard.

[phone ringing]

We felt it could be

a person trying to set her up,
see if she was home or not.

[phone ringing]

[Det. Ditzler] It would be
a strange coincidence

that these phone calls
were made

at about the same time
Barbara was being attacked.

So that drew our suspicion.

I don't believe
in coincidences.

[phone ringing]

[continues ringing]

[phone ringing]

[phone ringing]

[Det. Ditzler] The night
the murder occurred

there was a series of
two or three phone calls

made to Barbara Purcell,

kind of a short
period of time,

but close to one another

from the same origin phone,

so we tracked that back
to a guy named Willie Brown.

[Det. Wagner] We did
a background check on him.

He had no arrests.
He was not wanted
on any warrants.

And there was no connection
to Barbara Purcell.

We didn't know
why he was calling her.

But his phone
is calling her phone

several times,
six, seven times,

leading up to
the time of the murder.

We picked him up,
brought him to the station
for an interview.

[dramatic music playing]

And his phone
is calling her phone

several times,
six, seven times,

leading up to
the time of the murder.

But Willie Brown
just, uh, said

he didn't know Barbara,

he never called her,

had no reason to call her.

And we showed him the records,

he verified
that was his phone,

and he said
if it's coming
from his phone,

it must be a wrong number.
But it's hard to buy

since he did it six,
seven, eight times,

kept calling the same number.

[phone ringing]

And this was going
on and on, this interview,

him saying he had no idea
what it was,

us saying,
"It's here on paper.

You have to explain
this somehow."

He was racking his brain.

And it took a while,
but then he finally remembered

he was calling some type of ad
in the paper.

And we got the newspaper
and we saw the number.

He had inverted
the last two numbers,

which explained
the whole thing.

So that was a very unfortunate
coincidence for Mr. Brown.

We felt bad about it,
but we had to get the answers.

[Margie O'Connor]
They were able
to eliminate him as a suspect.

Well, I guess,
when I think about that,

I think about,

did one of his calls

cause the person
who murdered her
to panic a little bit?

Did it cause them
to make mistakes?

Because it was clear
that someone had planned this.

Willie Brown was the only
person on our radar
besides, uh, Willard.

And then we found out
that her husband, Willard,

was arrested the week
before of the murder.

[Christy] Barbara was
in the garage in their home.

She was leaving her house

early in the morning.

Willard jumped out
from a hidden location

and tased her with a stun gun.

There was no argument,

it was a complete attack,
a complete ambush.

[suspenseful music playing]

[door creaking]

-[crackling]
-[screams]

[crackling]

After the incident,
she got in her car

and drove to the hospital
and saw a doctor to document

that, in fact, she had
stun gun wounds on her neck.

Willard, as a result
of that, was charged

with a domestic battery
and he was taken to jail.

It probably took him
a day or two to bond out,

and she got
an order of protection
barring him from the house.

I think, prior
to stun gun incident,

it was normal tension,
arguments, suspicion,

but afterwards,
she was terrified of him.

[Det. Ditzler]
She had told coworkers
that she was afraid of him.

And then she confided in them

that she thought
he might have had something

to do with his
first wife's death.

Willard was married
before he married Barbara

and I asked her
about the first wife
and what happened.

Barbara had told me

that Willard's
first wife, Crystal,

had had a tragic accident

and, at the time,
coming from Barbara,

I accepted it as true.

But I remember thinking,
"Well, that's kinda strange.

That's not
a typical way to die."

[eerie music playing]

[Corina] Willard Purcell
and his first wife Crystal,

they used to live on,

in a different neighborhood,

in Rockford,
on Rockford Avenue.

And she was found dead
in a very similar situation
as Barbara was.

The story was
she was doing chores.

She was doing laundry.

[woman on TV
speaking indistinctly]

-[dryer buzzes]
-[thumping]

[Christy]
Crystal was found dead

at the bottom of stairs
in the basement.

It was ruled an accident.

And by the way that Barbara

explained the situation
at the time,

I feel she accepted
what she had heard
as being true.

But after the incident

where Willard
used the stun gun
on Barbara's neck,

Barbara started to believe
that he had killed Crystal.

So, in reviewing

the Rockford City report,

talking
to the city detectives,

the similarities
were just over the top.

Coworker had called
because Crystal
hadn't come in to work

and then they
contacted the house.

Nicole, their daughter,
was at the house,

had said she had left for work
and work says she wasn't.

She started looking
around the house

and she went
downstairs and found

Crystal at the bottom
of the stairs

laying face down
just like Barbara was.

It appeared that she probably
tripped down the stairs,

rolled, struck
her head on a pipe
that was on the floor.

[Sheldon] This type
of a circumstance

simply doesn't happen twice.

Almost statistically
impossible

for it to happen like that.

Like, "Oops, another one,"
you know?

[chuckles] Yeah, right,
come on.

[Det. Ditzler]
During the autopsy,
uh, we observed

that she had three
blunt force trauma wounds

to the back of her head,
to the back right side
of her head.

She also had some wounds

on her hands,
the back of her hands,

that could be described,
I guess, as defensive
type wounds.

We were fortunate

during the autopsy that

the pathologist realized

this could be potential
bite mark evidence

and properly photographed
Barbara's hands.

The bleeding indicated that
it happened contemporaneously

the injuries to her head.

And the bite mark
also was indicative that

she was trying
to defend herself

because it was on
the back of her hand

and somehow someone
was able to bite her hand
while trying to attack her.

We consulted
with an odontologist,

who is a dentist who studies
bite mark impressions.

Ultimately, they wanted us
to get impressions

of Willard Purcell's teeth,

and so we had to seek
a court order to do that.

[Det. Ditzler]
Willard said he was at work,

but we did a phone study
on his cell phone

and we found that,
that was hitting a tower

near Naperville
where his work was
earlier in the day,

but later in the day,
when he said
he was still at work,

his cell phone was hitting
towers in the Rockford area.

Once we knew
he was in the Rockford area,

we did a search warrant
on his pickup truck,

and we sent the plaster casts
of the tire tracks
to the crime lab,

along with the tires
from Willard's truck.

And the technician
at the crime lab
was able to determine

that a tire of the same
make and model

as those on Willard's truck
made the tire impressions.

[Margie] Her wedding ring
was missing

and there was
a coin collection missing.

So the police searched
Willard Purcell's truck

after they got
a search warrant

and they found in his truck
a garbage bag

that contained jewelry
and the coin collection,

and they literally
found Barbara Purcell's
wedding ring.

We asked him about
that during an interview

and he said she'd packed
a bunch of stuff for him

when she got
the order of protection,

and that bag of stuff
was amongst the items

that she'd packed for him
and gave to him.

[Det. Wagner] We also obtained
a search warrant

for impressions
of Willard's teeth,

transported him
to the dentist,

and we got those impressions.

When the impressions
came back,
the forensic odontologist

confirmed that the bite marks
on Barbara Purcell's hands

were consistent
with Willard Purcell's teeth.

When this horrific crime
first occurred,

I was frightened.
I was afraid.

I felt that Willard
was dangerous,

and being around
a dangerous person is scary.

And then I remember
when he had been
arrested and charged

that I was relieved
in the moment.

I think it probably gave
people a lot of comfort
that he was gonna be charged.

And I think
there was an element of

people thinking that

maybe he had
gotten away with it

the first time,

and they wanted to make sure

that he didn't
get away with it
the second time.

[Det. Wagner]
Crystal's death was very
suspicious at that time,

so we brought Willard
down to Rockford City

and they did
another interview
with him on that.

But he wouldn't talk to them.

[Margie] The situation
with Crystal Purcell
was too coincidental

and under the circumstances,
it had deserved another look

to see if, after
all the years that had passed,

if there was anything
that had been missed.

So Attorney O'Connor
got an order to exhume
Crystal's body.

[eerie music playing]

You learn a lot about a case

before it goes to trial

and it seems like every day

there was some big argument

about whether or not
key pieces of evidence
could be entered or not.

And I think one of
the major undertones

was that first wife's death.

[reporter]
County Coroner
Sue Fiduccia says

they pulled the file
of Purcell's first wife

to re-examine the evidence
concerning her death.

That was, what,
12, 13 years ago.

Technology has changed.

[Det. Wagner]
Margie O'Connor got a order

to exhume Crystal's body,

and I was present
for that autopsy.

We were hoping
to find two blows,

which would rule out
an accidental fall.

It was disappointing.
She, of course,
died of blunt force trauma,

just like Barbara,
but it was one blow,

and, at that point,
it's hard to say, is that
from the pipe on the floor?

Is that from
a pipe in your hand?

We were not
able to conclusively prove

that Crystal Purcell died

in any other manner
than an accident.

The judge ruled
that we couldn't
bring out evidence

of the death
of Crystal Purcell

in the trial
of Barbara Purcell.

I do believe
that Willard killed Crystal.

And I only say that now

because of what
happened to Barbara.

[Sheldon]
In my mind, he just nearly
got away with it once before.

He never paid for it
the first time, so

there was nothing to deter him

from doing it again.

[Det. Ditzler] I think
we had very good evidence,

and I think
the evidence clearly
pointed to Willard Purcell,

uh, being the person
who committed the crime.

During the entire trial
he showed no remorse,

showed no concern,
he was sitting there

very flippant
and arrogant, actually.

He thought he had
the case beat the whole time.

[Corina] When Willard Purcell
testified at his own trial,

it was kind of a surprise

because defendants
don't always take the stand

during a trial like this.

But then his story changed.

[Det. Ditzler]
On the stand, he said that

he was at the house when
Barbara came home from work

and she was upset

that he was at the house.

They had a,
a bit of an argument,

but she became enraged,
according to him,

and she came at him
with a flashlight,

uh, and started
swinging it at him.

He took it from her

and he struck her
with the flashlight.

He said he didn't believe
that he hurt her,

but he did say he thought
she was in the stairway

and she would wake up
and call the police,
so he left the house.

Once you say one thing
and then you totally recant
and you say another thing,

and then you ask people,
"No, you should believe

the second thing
that I told you,"

it just leaves them wondering
what really is the truth.

When he changed it
to self-defense,

that puts him in the house.

But with three blows
to the back of the head,

it's obviously
not self-defense.

He needed to make it look
like a stranger

had committed this crime,

and so that's why
I believe he did

as much staging as he did
at the crime scene.

But we now could prove that

he was involved
in a struggle with her

at the time of her death.

[Corina] It didn't really
leave a good impression

on the jurors,

his demeanor
from the stand

and also just the way
that he told his story,

they could kind of see that
he was kind of carrying
this attitude with him.

It was pretty obvious
that the jurors didn't,

didn't believe
what he was saying.

In the end, the jury found him
guilty of first degree murder

and that he had killed
Barbara Purcell.

Willard was sentenced
to prison for life.

And he ended up having cancer

when he was in prison

and became terminally ill.

When you grow up with,
uh, brothers and sisters,

especially if you're
older than they,

you, you expect them
to be around your whole life.

And then, if they're not...

it's like there's a hole there

that, that can
never be filled.

This was a good woman,
living a good life,

and it was all suddenly
taken away from her.

I believe that
if Lorrie were sitting
next to me right now,

whispering in my ear,

she would want people to know,

who could potentially
be in her situation,
to ask for help.

And to ask for help sooner

and to know
that you're not being weak.

She truly...

wanted to help people

not suffer.

Heal, so that they could live

the life of their dreams.

She was such a great friend.