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The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Each week, The Murder Book will present unsolved cases, missing persons, notorious crimes, controversial cases, and serial killers, exploring details of the crime scenes and the murderer's childhood. Some episodes are translated into Spanish as well. The podcast is produced and hosted by Kiara Coyle.
The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Tragedy in Petaluma: The Kidnapping of Polly Klaas Part XII
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This episode opens with the tense car ride as Agent Taylor and Meese transport Richard Davis down Highway 101, trying to pry out essential details despite his deceptive responses. Davis recalls critical moments, and through his evasive tales, the investigators begin to piece together the night of Polly's abduction.
Experience the emotional weight of the discovery of Polly Klaas's body, guided by the lead of Davis, Taylor, and Freyer. We take you through the challenging field operation, with officers battling ethical dilemmas and the darkness as they search through knee-high grass. When the devastating news reaches Polly's family, the profound personal impact on everyone involved, from investigators to loved ones, highlights the human side of the pursuit of justice. The bonds formed among law enforcement and the immense emotional toll they endure are explored, offering a rare glimpse into the heart-wrenching reality of their work.
Finally, we delve into the meticulous forensic examination led by Tony Maxwell. Discover the painstaking process of collecting evidence while preserving dignity and respect for the victim. Despite the pressure from higher-ups and the media, the team works under white tents to protect the scene and gather crucial evidence. Detailed autopsy reports, dental comparisons, and ALS scanning reveal vital insights, though a definitive cause of death remains undetermined. Through this episode, we bring you closer to understanding the dedication and humanity of those who work tirelessly to bring justice to Polly Klaas.
Welcome to the Murder Book. I'm your host, kim of Tragedy in Petaluma the Kidnapping and Murder of Pauly Klass. Let's begin Now. It's later in the evening, it's around 5.30 pm, and me and Taylor wrapped up the interview. They loaded Davis into an unloaded car a marked car, I should say and Agent Taylor slid behind the wheel. Meese climbed into the back seat with Davis and they pulled out of the Mendocino Sheriff's Office and drove south on the 101. Sheriff's office and drove south on the 101. Taylor was driving with his left hand on the steering wheel and he had his right hand holding a tape recorder and he was aiming the microphone at davis and he was asking questions um, me, uh.
Speaker 1The one that was sitting in the back said well, ask him. So you didn't know this girl from before, richard? And he said no, nah. And he said we talked about getting in the house. Let's go back into smoking this joint. And so he says so, tell me more about this joint. And he said well, it got a bus. I got a bus of it. He said do you remember getting in the house? And he said well, I'm pretty sure I think I went through the window, so you remember where the window was. And he said up front, I guess and this could not have been possible, by the way, there's a window that doesn't open in the front Says do you ever go around the back of her house? And he said I don't remember.
Speaker 1So, as he had it in the interview room, davis provided vague answers peppered with classic deceptive markers and me said did you get any dinner yet? He said no. He said well, I'll tell you this after we get done. I think, uh, you know we're. We're getting hungry, larry, are you hungry? And taylor said yeah. He says so let's just stop and get a burger or something. We'll go through the drive-thru. And David said yeah, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1So after a long pause, mies tried again to establish some connection, some reason that explains why this guy chose Polly, and he asked him again. He said so, you didn't know this girl before then. Huh, he said no, davis wanted to smoke, so they allowed him to smoke in the car and so he light up his cigarette and then they keep asking him questions. They said so, you said something about a kitchen knife. You thought you got it in the house and he said yeah, kitchen knife. You thought you got it in the house and he said yeah, so you remember picking up the knife in the house. He said no, not really. So what make you think you got it there? He said because I didn't take one with me. I have been on parole.
Speaker 1So they asked him you remember where you threw your sweatshirt out of the car that night? Remember where you threw your sweatshirt out of the car that night? And he said driving down the freeway like this and shoving it out the window. So why did you do that? He said just trying to get rid of everything. So he said why did you do with the stuff you tied a poly up with? And he said I guess I threw it out the window too.
Speaker 1And um miss asked him do you remember tying Polly up? And he said do you remember untying her? And he said yeah. He said when did you untie her? He said when we were driving down the road, highway 116 or whatever. So in relationship to when you met the cops, when did this happen? When did you untie her? And he said before I met them. He said so where was she in the car? And David said passenger seat up front. She was never in the back. He said remember what kind of clothes she was wearing and he just sighed and they said you need to think hard, buddy, and he said nope, I just don't know. He said you don't know and she had a long nightgown on. So he did remember because that's what Polly was wearing. Then they said do you remember what color the nightgown was? And he said red striped. So Miss asked him what he remembered about meeting the deputies that night and Davis recounted the interaction, getting stuck free in the car parking on the roadside for 10 minutes or so.
Discovery of Polly Klaas' Body
Speaker 1Going back for Polly, he parked in front of Dana Jaffe's gate which was closed but unlocked. He got out of the car, walked up the road toward the embankment. David said he called out to Polly who answered that she thought he had left her there. He said she walked out of the woods, got back to his Pinto. He backed down the driveway, turned back onto Pithian Road, pulled onto the two-lane highway. He said he pulled over at a gas station where he asked a female attendant how to get to San Francisco. He followed her directions to the 101, headed north toward Ucaya and as they neared the town of Cloverdale Davis asked for another camel and then another and miss cracked the window. He needed some fresh air because he's not used to, you know, having people smoking in the car. And David told them that they were getting close.
Speaker 1They exited the highway on Dutcher Creek Road, just south of Cloverdale. It's like a rural farming community about 45 minutes north of Petaluma. The two-lane frontage road ran parallel to the 101, and on the east side of Dutcher Creek Road semi-trucks roared up and down the interstate. On the other side, darkness, no streetlights, no buildings, nothing by empty fields. He told them to look for a shed. The headline swept across the roof of a dilapidated building. The shed was an abandoned sawmill.
Speaker 1They pulled over on the side of the road. They squinted into the darkness trying to make out any detail, and David said you want me to get out and show you? And me said well, why don't you hang out tight, just a half a second. And davis told them it's right over to the left by the bush, so keep going. So taylor said right there, straight in front of us, that one? He said yeah, it's a pile. I piled a bunch of brush on top. So they all got out of the car. Davis nodded at a lonely oak tree across the field. Under the tree he said they would find a large sheet of plywood. Under the plywood they would find poly. Davis asked for another smoke and Taylor had worked you know, worked more kidnappings than anyone on this case.
Speaker 1So he had a little bit more experience compared to Mies. And David asked how long are we going to sit here for? Because they decided to stay put and say why don't you? Taylor was thinking in his mind I wish that you would run so that I have to stop you. So he was having these little thoughts already, you know, thinking what David did to Paulie if they were going to find Paulie and the conditions. So that was already working internally on him. And they finally waited for Eddie Freyer and Vail Bellow who finally pull up in an unmarked Plymouth and David Alford was also behind and Freyer's boss has said you know, get ice on the body, you have to confirm it's Polly. So in the meantime Mark and Eve had been already told about the arrest and they go into the Petaluma PD. The media was standing by. So anyone aware of what was happening found it difficult to breathe.
Speaker 1So Freya and Alfred waded into the knee-high grass. Headlights lit the empty field. Their shadows lurked before them. Alfred marked their path with small flags. And they found a sheet of weathered plywood beneath the silhouette of an oak tree. And as Freiar reached down, a series of images flashed through his mind Ligatures, fibers, 12-year-old witnesses, palm print. He lifted a corner of plywood. His eyes didn't need to linger. The smell betrayed what lay beneath, but the body was too far gone by now to determine anything further without forensic tests.
Speaker 1Freya couldn't tell if it was male, female, adult or adolescent. All he knew was that it was human. In this moment he felt so helpless that he tipped back his head, closed his eyes and did something very rare he prayed. Frey wasn't a very religious man, even though he has been raised Catholic and he has not been in mass in years, and he has not been in mass in years, but he said the purest prayer he knew and you know, help, you know, please, lord, help me.
Speaker 1So Freya walked back to the car, told Bello what he had seen 65 days ago. They had started this thing together, together, even after bella was pulled off the case, he had never stopped being a loyal friend and the de facto partner. It has to be her, eddie. It has to be her. This is bella telling this. Prudence would call for a careful answer something about the need to do some forensic tests to confirm the identity. But his boss was demanding an answer because the family was waiting to know. Every cell in his body seemed to tilt in one direction If he was wrong, this would terminate his career. Freya took a deep breath and sighed deeply and said Call the family, tell him, or tell them that we found Polly Klass.
Speaker 1At all this, richard Allen Davis was leaning casually against the cherry, smoking, his face empty of emotion. There was a bellow glare at his face and he even thought you know, I want to kill this guy. He's cuffed in front. I'll just say that he, you know that he tried to reach for a gun and you know, no jury in the world would convict me. You know, all these cops were having they're later on narrating or explaining to doing interviews how they thought, what were those thoughts that were getting in their mind, and I can't blame them for that, mine and I can blame them for that. Now Freyer saw him reaching and understood and he caught Bellows' eyes and basically with his head he said no, because I think he had a feeling, you know what, if he was thinking, those intrusive thoughts were kicking in. So he uttered the words softly enough that no one else could hear and he said it's not worth it, man. He turned to me, st Taylor, and jerked his chin at the man in orange and he said get him out of here.
Speaker 1100 miles south at Danville, a$ac, mark Martian and his wife were hosting a Christmas party and the phone rang. He excused himself to take the call and his face fell. He hung up and pulled his wife aside and he said it's Pat Parks. Davis confessed. He glanced at the guest laughing by his Christmas tree. He looked at his wife. She smiled sadly, knowing what this meant, and she nodded and whispered and said go.
Speaker 1Merchant and Parks had spent two months working in lockstep, and Isaac and a captain pair up on the case as supervisory equals. Such partnerships were often fraught with feds and cops butting heads, but these two have seen a lifelong friendship start to germinate. Merchant was especially grateful that Parks had reached out to him to share the burden of breaking the news to Paulie's parents. In all his years in the Bureau he had never had to do this. Parents, in all his years in the Bureau he had never had to do this.
Search and Recovery of Polly Klaas
Speaker 1If Nicole and Mark Klaas were waiting at the station. They had been told that the suspect was talking. They might finally learn where Paulie was. Before going in to face them, agent Mershon turned to Captain Parks. He said I'm not going to be able to sit there and talk to them. I won't hold out. And Parks nodded solemnly and he said you know he was the kind of leader unafraid to show emotion and he wasn't too madly to cry. So Martian said I need you to minister to them. You're going to lean in and help them, you to minister to them. You're going to lean in and help them. So they all show Mark and Eve into Park's office and told them to sit down. Mark and Eve lean forward, eager to hear the news Park's crew tell. From their expressions they expected the news to be good. And Merchant said I'm sorry but I have the worst possible news to tell you. And he paused a moment to let it sink in and he said Richard Allen Davis has confessed Paulie is dead. The agent and the captain wept with the parents, the parents, in Cloverdale under a rising moon.
Speaker 1Fbi agents, detectives, cops they all converge in this lonesome field From the vantage point of the road. The field was framed by stands of oak on the left of an abandoned sawmill. On the right, in the back of the clearing blackberry bushes, there was a small creek that trickled by a rusty red conical tower which was like a former charcoal kiln. The field was flat, filled with knee-high grass and tangles of berry brambles. Here and there in the grass lay heaps of scrap metal, discarded tires and rotting plywood Dumped. The ERT members had pulled on the white Tyvek suits while stagging at the winery and now they moved through the dark like astronauts, slowly, methodically on spooling crime scene tape across the field.
Speaker 1They discussed their plans and roles. Tony Maxwell would lead the evidence collection. David Alford would oversee body removal. Frank Doyle would ensure they had all the supplies and equipment that they needed. Investigators at the heart of the search were offered the chance to view the body. This was unorthodox, a break from protocol, but some of these cops and agents needed to see it for closure. Many wept, some prayed, a few declined. Mercer knew that if he looked he would never be able to unsee it. Parks and Andy Masanti, both men of deep Christian faith, chose to be two fewer gawkers. These men would all grieve privately. They would struggle to make sense of it all and find closure. In singular ways. They would compartmentalize the trauma and carry it for decades, unconscious of its weight, until it spilled out years later through the portal of a question.
Speaker 1The 65-day investigation had been a race against time and deteriorating odds. That blistering pace then shifted to meticulous. That blistering pace then shifted to meticulous. Every act, every movement had to be deliberate and precise, fastidiously documented to serve as evidence in a trial To bring the killer to justice. They had to work flawlessly. A single mistake could cause a piece of evidence to be thrown out of court. Time was no longer of the essence, thoroughness was, but there was pressure from above to hurry. A directive shuttled down the chain of command Move the body tonight, get it out of here before the media arrives with the light. And Maxwell said no, no, no, no, we're not doing that because it's too risky. The stakes were too high. Trace evidence will be lost. To do the job right, they have to be able to see. They need a daylight, not flashlights.
Speaker 1But there was something else. Maxwell, whose relatives we're talking about, like his grandfather, had been a sheriff. This grandfather had been shot and killed in a gunfight on New Year's Eve in around 1933, while trying to arrest the fugitive robbers. His grandmother um had taught him to lean on faith and yield to spiritual callings. Maxwell had faith in science and he also believed in angels. Maxwell's father have told him life is somewhere between what you want and what you are capable of doing. What you are capable of doing is what you were meant to be. He had worked on terrorism, bombings, ballistics, bank robberies, weapons of mass destruction. Fate had led him to this night and this field, but something else brought him to his knees in the dark. Besides this small body on a bed of thorns, as Maxwell bent over Polly Klass, he thought of his two young boys at home, how he would want them to be treated with dignity and respect. Rushing and doing sloppy work in the dark would be the anthesis, polly, and doing sloppy work in the dark would be the antitheses. Paulie deserved his finest work.
Speaker 1Maxwell rose and approached Lillian Seelius, who was the supervisory senior agent who oversaw the ERT, and she had always backed them up, and Maxwell told her we're not going to move her tonight. He was told that moving the body wasn't a suggestion, it was an order, and he said well then, fire me, we're not moving her tonight. So Celius agreed to go to bat for them as she picked up her brick-like phone and dialed a higher up, maxwell carefully crossed the field, following Alfred's flags, and sat down next to Polly. He just wanted to keep her company for a little while in the moonlight. It was cold. He knew that Polly was afraid of the dark and hated being alone and he whispered we found you, paulie, we're going to bring you home.
Speaker 1As the first light slid over, you know, over the ridge lines and illuminated the valley, the ERT members zipped up their Tyvek suits and began their clerk work. They condoned or codoned, sorry, condemned off the path that Alfred had flagged as he and Friar had crossed the field, identifying this corridor as potentially contaminated. From here on, everyone would enter the crime scene from a point in the back to avoid trampling trace evidence in the areas where Davis might have walked. Swat team members had guarded the crime scene overnight and now they control access to three concentric perimeters set up around Paulie's body. No one was authorized to enter the innermost circle but Maxwell and Alford. Before anything was touched or moved, they carefully measured and diagrammed the crime scene, triangulating the position of Paulie's body in relation to fixed reference points the road or a tree or the edge of the field. They called the medical examiner's office but told them not to send a van just yet. They had hours of work to do.
Speaker 1As expected, the media began to swarm and there were TV trucks parked out beside Highway 101, raising their antennas positioning satellite dishes raising their antennas positioning satellite dishes. Photographers with telephoto lenses scrammed uphill across the freeway. Helicopters thundered overhead, close enough for the investigators to see the cameramen leaning out, bracing their feet on the skids. Charter planes circled and banked to give photographers a better shot. Anticipating this, frank Doyle had brought two white pop-up tents to shield Pauly from the cameras. In adding walls of white tarps, he created a bright little room where Maxwell and Alford could work out of sight of the telephoto lenses.
Speaker 1The field was divided into quadrants that could be systematically searched. White suit searches, searches. They crawl on their hands and knees parting the grass in search of a hair, a drop of blood, a single fiber. The very bramble surrounding Polly were cut and pistacly pulled apart on the examination table in hope of finding evidence that might eliminate any shred of doubt in future jurors' mind, any shred of doubt in future jurors' mind, as media helicopters hovered and overheld the rotor wash, blasted the field and threatened to blow away fragile trace evidence. Someone called the Federal Aviation Administration to close the airspace over the crime scene.
Speaker 1Working discreetly inside the white tent, maxwell moved with equal parts skill and prayer. He thought about how much things have changed since he started this line of work. It was no longer about murders and abstract bodies, it was about people. And at 2.40 pm on Sunday, december 5th, the medical examiner drove a van into the field Arford and another agent solemnly lifted the tiny body shrouded in white plastic and wore it to the van. On a nearby hill. A crowd of citizens watched and wept. Everyone present paused in a spontaneous moment of silence. It hit them all at different times in different ways. Driving home alone in his car, maxwell finally let go. Their interest had blurred through tears. They had finally found Polly, but not the way they had hoped.
Speaker 1The previous night, after breaking the news to Mark and Eve, mark Martian and Pat Parks had driven to Cloverdale, satisfied that the crime scene was secure. The team was well equipped, the engine running smoothly. They had ridden back to Petaluma in silence. At the station they walked toward the back door where Parks paused, turned to motion and held up a key and he said this is my master key to the station house. It will get you in and open any door. Now it's yours.
Forensic Examination of Polly Klaas
Speaker 1Sunday afternoon at the crime scene, the last few agents were rolling up yellow tape. Eddie Freyer was exhausted. 65 days of hope and despair were visible on his face. The search was over, but that would take some time to sink in. He had kept a tight lid on his emotions. Now he walked around the perimeter checking on his guys. Jc Steiner, a fellow SWAT team member and a longtime friend, caught his eyes and he said I'm sorry, friar. Three kind words on court, two months of emotion. The two men embraced and cried. The crime scene cleared out. Just as the light began to fade, freyer and Bellow lingered. It was hard to know what to do now that the search was over and Freyer said we started this together, so let's finish this together. Bellow drove into town on one last mission. He stopped at a local hardware store and loaded his patrol car with poinsettias and, one by one, they placed them in the field encircling the spot where Polly was found, with a perimeter of flowers. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1On Monday morning, 15 people from six agencies gathered at the Sonoma County Medical Examiner's Office. It was an unusually large number for an autopsy, but everyone had a different role to play. Wearing white rubber gloves and a white apron over blue medical scrubs, colonel Tom Siebe began the examination in the morgue as everyone else in Sonoma County was going about their midday routine. They began the process of identifying the body and determining the cause of death. Even for seasoned investigators who have seen some terrible things, this part was hard to witness. Even distilled to only the details essential for the trial, it is horrifying to fathom. What follows is very difficult to read, but I'm going to try to do my best.
Speaker 1In order to evaluate the killer's claims, it was necessary to understand the positioning of the clothing and the ligatures, the conditioning of the body and the geometry of its posture, and the autopsy report noted, for example, that the skull had separated from the body and was found in the trees a short distance away. This was believed to be caused by animal activity. The hair had separated from the skull in the process of decomposing. Two knotted ligatures were tangled in it. The first was a ragged-edged piece of cloth, the second was a thin piece of rope. Both were double-knotted, forming a loop with a diameter of 3 inches.
Speaker 1The torso was partially covered by a long-sleeved flannel nightgown. Much of the cotton was stained black, but the white sleeves had retained their visible pattern, which was red stripes, tiny hearts. It was the nightgown that Jillian had packed for the sleepover. The thigh-length garment was pushed up over the hips and gathered under the arms. Examiners noted the disposition of the clothing. Under the nightgown was the hot pink samba top and a white denim miniskirt that Jillian and Kate had described. The samba top had a decorative tie at the waist. The double knot was undone, the white miniskirt was inverted over the torso it was like flipped up, and it was also inside out. At the crime scene, they had sketched the body's position, measuring the angles of its repose. The legs were bare, knees were bent, pointed out, heels 29 inches apart, one hand covered the pelvis.
Speaker 1David Alford and County Medical Examiner Dr Jay Chapman photographed each detail, documenting every step of the three-and-a-half-hour procedure, because nothing can be left to chance or memory. The garments were removed and they were placed on a table for a preliminary exam, because one thing in this case that they have to do is to dry out these garments, and usually it's going to be placed in a storage unit that is going to be locked and sanitized before it's transported to the FBI lab. Now the medical examiner x-rayed the bones with the help of an assistant and an employee from the Bay Area Portable X-ray Company. His name was Tony Maxwell. And then they also have a forensic odontologist, dr Jack Davis, painstakingly examining the skull, the jaw. They used special magnification glasses for that and they also collected a number of hairs to be sent to Chris Allen and the FBI lab.
Speaker 1Mike Stapleton examined the hands because they wanted to determine whether fingerprinting was possible. The tissue was no longer pliable enough to be flattened against a fingerprint card. He could see that the left index finger had a war-type pattern consistent with the victim's non-prints. But this observation was not enough to confirm a positive identification. So Steperton called the FBI lab, which requested the hands to be surgically removed and transported to DC for lab examination. Removed and transported to DC for lab examination.
Speaker 1David Alford loaded a roll of film into a Mamiya 645 camera for close-up photos of the fingertips. These photographs would be essential if attempts to rehydrate the hands in the lab were insufficient to produce an inked print. The medium format SLR camera had some tricky manual settings and the image he saw in the viewfinder didn't look quite right. So this was not good news. So he was sweating a little bit about this. Not good news. So he was sweating a little bit about this because in order to capture the rich detail of the fingerprints, he needed a perfect exposure and an image in sharp focus. So Alfred peered through the viewfinder and frowned, because one of the manual settings was off. The image was too dark. He couldn't tell if the rich, the rich detail was in focus. So, um, he tried to hold his breath to guard against the camera shaking and he heard the shutter click and he wouldn't know until later, when he developed the film, whether he had gotten the shot.
Speaker 1Now the body identification would also hinge on forensic odontology, the study of the teeth. The lower mandible had detached from the skull and was found nearby in the grass. Most of the teeth were still present and they were unique in their shape and their absence of fillings. The upper jaw had permanent canine teeth emerging. On the cause of pushing out the baby teeth, provincial odontologist Dr Davis took the skull and lower jaw to be x-rayed. Took the skull and lower jaw to be x-rayed. Comparing the x-rays to the victim's dental records, he stated that without a doubt he recognized 15 different points of identification, this was the body of Pauli Hanna-Klass. Dr Chapman, the medical examiner, said that no determinate cause of death could positively be made, but stated for the record that the remains were consistent with a victim of strangulation. Further examination by a forensic paleoanthropologist would be needed to determine whether the skeletal remains show evidence of traumatic injury.
Speaker 1The state of the composition prevented serological examinations that could verify the presence of seminal fluid in or on the body. In or on the body, however, maxwell had found something while scanning the body and the clothing with the ALS. On the panties, near the left side seam that would have covered the hip, a small stain fluoresced. In the FBI lab hair and fibers expert, chris Allen, heard about the florencin stain and discussed it with a serologist. And Allen asked is it semen? But the serologist said well, you know, all that glitters is not gold, all that fluoresces is not semen.
Speaker 1Fluorescence under the AOS didn't prove that it was semen. Fluorescence under the AOS didn't prove that it was semen. It might be semen, but it could also be another bodily fluid. For example, it could be urine, it could be saliva, it could be vaginal fluid, all of which the fluores under an AOS. Now, as unlikely as it might seem, it could have been a non-human substance like hamburger grease or laundry detergent. So, for example, the brand Tide is very famous for, or was before. I don't know if they have changed the chemical composition of the ingredients, if they have changed the chemical composition of the ingredients, but it used to be famous in the 90s for leaving chemical markers that would lit up under ALS.
Speaker 1Now, once they found the stain on the underwear, maxwell had stepped out of the morgue to call Mike Meese and share that information. He said that the stain had fluoresced under the AOS in a manner consistent with semen. Meese was juggling several urgent tasks when he took the call. He was gathering evidence to deliver to the district attorney's office in preparation for the following day's arraignment. He was gearing up for another interview with Richard Allen Davis in just a few hours, so this information would be useful. The autopsy in the meantime was still underway. As Mike Meese and Larry Taylor began their interview in the Sonoma County Jail, will Davis was being held without bail.
Speaker 1Now, later on, examiners did study the underwears under a microscope and they wouldn't find any sperm because, after you know, 65 days of exposure to nature, proximity to a decomposing body it was possible that bacteria could have digested any sperm If there were any present in the first place. So it wasn't possible to conclude anything with certainty, unfortunately. Now Davis admitted that, cleaning his car after the abduction, he said that he threw away the seat covers and he vacuumed the Pinto three or four times to clean out any good evidence. He was particularly worried about hairs, and he was right to be worried. And Miss said so you took a good look at some of the stuff we found on the hill. And Miss showed him the black man's sweatshirt that they had found on Pinthian Road, and Davis had acknowledged that, yes, that was a sweatshirt.
Speaker 1So now Miss had more findings to share and he said one of the things we found in the examination of Polly's remains is the presence of semen. And Davis asked where, he said on the body, and he said not in her, though. And Mies asked straight up if David had molested her and he said well, I don't think so. I don't think so. A truthful answer from an innocent person would be adamant and specific. No, you know, vague and waffling answers signal deception. And so he said well, we got the presence of semen, or what we believe to be semen, on the body. So Davis continued to deny it. He said if we find semen there or with the semen, you get a DNA reading. And if it comes back to you, he said, well then, hey, I'm guilty of it, that's all there is to it.
Speaker 1So mess kept pressing him on how to get there and Davis saying that he could only tell him what he could remember. And there was a lot he didn't seem to remember. And he blamed it on the joint he had smoked, a joint he claimed was slaked with something that must have fogged his memory and compromised his judgment, that must have fucked his memory and compromised his judgment. And Meese said okay, I'm also aware that you may be afraid that if something like that happened, or I should say if you're the one that was involved in something like that, that might make life a little hard for you when you go back inside. And he said life's going to be hard as it is.
Speaker 1So Meese pressed him again on the semen and at some point he mentioned davis's mother, which seemed to trigger him, and he said I don't give a shit. No more, as far I'm concerned, I'm pushing it out of my mind. Says what, push it out of your mind. You say I don't want to know. So if you were sure he didn't do that other thing and this is me talking he said so if you're sure you didn't do that other thing, why strangle her then? And he said to cover my tracks, I didn't want to go back to prison, I just panic.
Speaker 1So Meese asked if he had ever committed any sex crimes. Davis admitted trying to kidnap Frances Mace, who grabbed his knife and escaped after he tried to kidnap her at a BART station and there was a pattern here that might suggest a motive for choosing a 12-year-old victim. Davis had tried to rape grown women and fell repeatedly. So Larry Taylor jumped in and he said what are you going to do if the forensic evidence comes in and the autopsy and all that indicates that she had been raped? What then? And he said tell them, give me the gas, they can gas my ass. So in the meantime, while this is going on, the FBI happened in Washington DC.
Speaker 1The evidence began connecting. They were connected like dots to form a bigger picture, the portrait of a solid case. The silky white bindings had already linked three crime scenes Police rooms, the woods off Pinthian Road, the fjord in Cloverdale. Here in Fivers, examiner, chris Allen, had lined up their matching edges. On November 29th, the day David Alford delivered the new evidence from Pythian, there was no question in Alan's mind that they had been cut from the same piece of cloth. When he flown to Petaluma to help the ERT process, the white pinto Alan had vacuumed the center console and rear passenger floor and he had yielded a number of tiny white fibers. The length and the shape of these fibers indicated that they were created when the cloth was cut, most likely with a pair of scissors. No such matching fibers had been found in Pauli's house. Such fibers were, however, stuck to the packing tape found on the Pithian hillside and these fibers were consistent with the nylon fibers that comprised the silky bindings. The jagged edges of the bindings suggested the nylon had been bunched when cut. Based on the jagged edges and the fibers found in the Pinto, allen deduced that the slip had probably been cut in Davis' car.
Speaker 1Other fibers, red-printed cotton, were scraped from the black man's sweatshirt found in Pinthian Woods. Those fibers had the same microscopic physical and chemical characteristics as the fibers from Gillian's nightgown, which had been removed from the body. During the autopsy, the element of transfer indicated physical contact between the nightgown and the black man's sweatshirt. The scraping of the black sweatshirt also released a brown polyester fiber. That fiber was consistent with fibers vacuumed from the driver's seat of the Pinto. The hair recovered from Cloverdale was examined with an alternate light source. It revealed pink acrylic fibers tangled in the locks. They were consistent with fibers vacuumed from the Pinto's front passenger floor.
Speaker 1There is something called the Lockhart Exchange Principle that says you know, in a crime scene you take something away from the crime scene and you leave something behind in the crime scene. This is something that you learn in forensic science as soon as basically your first day of class. If we look at the locker's strange principle that this transfer could have occurred through contact between the victim's head and the vehicle's floor, well, so a week after Davis' arraignment the ERT members boarded another red-eye flight to DC because now the clothing had been dried in the locker, it was in better condition for transport and in one carry-on bag was a sterile plastic container with Polly's hands In the lab fingerprint specialist Michael Smith studied them. Two fingers on the left hand, the index and the middle finger, retain enough rich detail to compare with the ten-print card for Polly, but the fingers were not in shape to be rolled for fresh prints, he used David Alford's photos, which had turned out to be razor-sharp and perfectly exposed. In comparing these photos to the ink prints that Mark Klaas had provided in the early days of the case, smith declared a positive identification.
Speaker 1When it was time to look under her fingernails for a bit of skin or fiber that could further implicate her killer. This part hit Chris Allen the hardest because he had a son around Polly's age. His child might have poured a glass of milk from a carton with Polly's picture. Most agents and forensic experts possess a solid capacity for compartmentalizing their work. Some they thrust horrible things into view and they develop the ability to put these horrors in a box, leave them at work so they can walk through the front door and be a spouse or a mother or father. Moments like this seep through the box and no matter how long you have done this job, you're still human. Staring at fibers under a microscope was one thing, but these were a little girl's hands, hands that would never hold a diploma, wear a wedding ring or lift a grandchild. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening to the Murder Book. Have a great week.
