The Forensic Files Duo
Recapping, updating and sometimes correcting the ORIGINAL True Crime TV show, Forensic Files. One host has been watching True Crime shows since she was (way too) young and the other host thought he was starting a podcast about The X Files, so he is learning everything about true crime for the first time.
The Forensic Files Duo
Caren Campano's Episode - "The House that Roared"
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In 1992 wife and mother of 3, Caren Campano disappeared from her Oklahoma City home after a loud argument with her husband. A large blood stain, a weak alibi, 'reverse paternity' dna testing and the use of luminol to expose blood spatter all lead to solving this case. "The House That Roared" is episode 3 in season 1 of Forensic Files. Listen now for an episode recap, review, update and any corrections!
Sources:
Forensic Files | Wikipedia | CSI | Reddit | Facebook | PubMed | NIJ | Society for Science | Oklahoman | Newsbreak | BAMFI case | Missing Kids | Reddit | BIA
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For more information on the Bureau of Indian Affairs case, visit https://www.bia.gov/bia. To submit case information or tips you can do so one of three ways: Text BIAMMU and Your Tip to 847411, Call in Tips to 1-833-560-2065 or Email OJS_MMU@bia.gov.
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My dogs are not okay, and they won't come upstairs to sleep. And I just see Toby like staring at the staircase and I'm like, oh gosh, I'm about to be in one of these podcasts as like the podcaster that randomly went missing because the ghost upstairs, I swear to Jesus didn't know.
SPEAKER_04Stuck him into a portal to the other side. Wait, that house is old though, right? It's old.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you do you remember what I told you about the upstairs, right? In the bait in the in the attic?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_03So, like, I think it was like two years ago, I was having like really weird dreams where it was that, what do you call that, where you're like, you know, you're waking up in your dream and you know sleep sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis. I've never had that before, and it would happen two or three times a week. And so long story short, my friend Rachel sent me over this like medium years ago prior to this happening, and she was like, it was right when my grandma passed, and I was like, okay, I'll give this a shot. Turns out she ends up now someone that I see on a regular basis, like once every two or three months, and she's turned into like a life coach. But as this was happening, I was like, I'm gonna see Elena. And she immediately on the phone was like, Where are you? She's like, Are you you're not in New York? And I was like, No, I'm not. I'm actually in Michigan. And she's like, All I'm seeing right now is energy above you that's not that's not light, it's dark. I just gotta go spot. I was like, This is the reason why I'm calling you, because I'm having sleep paralysis dreams. And she's like, Yeah, you have to cleanse your room or whatever, like you have to do something because I'm just seeing dark energy above you. Fast forward to a week later, my parents need me to get down their suitcases from upstairs in the attic. And I'm going upstairs, grab the suitcase, and then I see that my parents' house is not insulated with like that pink shit. What is it? Oh yeah, yeah. It's insulated insulation.
SPEAKER_04It's called insulation.
SPEAKER_03Right. Um, I thought it was called asbestos. Is that wrong?
SPEAKER_04No, you don't want asbestos, that'll kill you. That's what they they used to use asbestos. You don't want asbestos.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's insulated with old Detroit free press newspapers. I'm talking from 1913. The whole roof of the house is insulated with like old Detroit newspapers. It's it's crazy. And so then I call Elena and I was like, so I don't know if this is what's causing this, and she's like, You gotta take it out. Take it all out.
SPEAKER_05Full body goosebumps.
SPEAKER_03Some of the front covers of the Tro Detroit Free Press, like back in like the 20s and 30s, is wild. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_05So is it still like that, or do you guys take it out?
SPEAKER_03No, we didn't take it out, so I'm sure there's a bad spirit here. Three, two.
SPEAKER_05Hi D. Hi D. Where in the world are you now, Drew? My world traveler.
SPEAKER_03I think this is the first time that like I can consistently, for two episodes in a row, say that I'm recording from the same place I recorded last time, which um is Michigan.
SPEAKER_04I actually, though, I did Yeah, I was gonna say, but you haven't been in Michigan since the last episode.
SPEAKER_03I did go to Florida for two weeks. I did go to Florida.
SPEAKER_05Okay, and you also have plans to move back to New York already.
SPEAKER_03Plans to go back to the Big Apple um in about a week, and then we're just gonna pick up right where we left off almost a year ago. I have not been in the city for almost a year. Are you still? Isn't that crazy? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Wow, the life of a dancer.
SPEAKER_03I know. It's been crazy. It's been a lot of fun, but it's time to hit the hit the pavement running hard until the next thing, you know? How are you? What's going on with you?
SPEAKER_05I'm good. I'm good, you know, mommin.
SPEAKER_03Moming hard.
SPEAKER_05There's like nothing quite new or exciting in this world. Um I'm trying to actually think, and it makes me sad when I'm going through a roll of decks of what I've done. Oh, well, I went about almost two weeks without going to the pediatrician, so that's my highlight.
SPEAKER_03Pediatrician is like for medicine, right?
SPEAKER_05For kids, yeah.
SPEAKER_03For kids.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. There's one pediatrician in the office, and I cannot stand when I go there and get him because he's one of those guys that knows he looks good, you know?
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_05And you know what? When you're taking your kids to the pediatrician and they're sick, you are also in survival mode. So that is the last person you want to see as someone that is remotely attractive.
SPEAKER_04Because it's kind of like when a camera's on your face, you're just like, oh my god, yeah, I am I look like a monster. Stop looking at me.
SPEAKER_03You like immediately like take your hair out of the beanie and you try to like rat it out and make it look like a little bit.
SPEAKER_04No, I am putting the beanie more and more over my head.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's so funny.
SPEAKER_04It's so funny too because Blake knows, and I'm like, oh my god, they they put they made the appointment with him, and he's just like, Oh, you're gonna go put some lipstick on?
SPEAKER_03I love Blake.
SPEAKER_04I know. He's just a very secure man.
SPEAKER_03I love that. I love that.
SPEAKER_05Anyway, so what is our drink today from Grandpa's Little Black Book?
SPEAKER_03Okay, this drink, this is not the drink that I wanted to pick, but Danielle insisted. All of our listeners will understand why I don't like this drink later on in the episode, but it is called the Sidecar. It is one ounce of brandy, one ounce of triple sec, and an eighth ounce of lemon juice in the glass, and you put it on a mixer and strain it in to a regular glass, and you drink it. And you oh, and you frost it with powdered sugar. I can't say the words. No, I can't. We can do it. To frost rim, rub a piece of lemon around the edge lightly, then invert glass into dish of powdered sugar so moistened edge will have particles of sugar adhering to it. Okay, I did it. I did it. This is like ASMR, like doing podcasts in the editing. I do not even want to hear me say that word. I'm gonna have you edit this part because I can't. These microphones pick up all the noises in the mouths and moistened edge. Ew, stop it! Anyways, it's a sidecar and it's a really good drink. And funny story is about grandpa's little black book.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03My mom just told me that no one on my mom's side knew who had the little black book.
SPEAKER_04I was wondering if this was gonna come up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and now my aunts and uncles have been listening to the podcast and they're like, wait, what? And called my mom, and my mom's like, she tried to cover it up and it didn't go over well. And so now the cat's out of the bag. My mom has my grandpa's little black book, and we are using it on our podcast. So here we are.
SPEAKER_04A family secret has just been exposed.
SPEAKER_03A family secret has been exposed to the Forensic Files Duo podcast.
SPEAKER_04Oh no.
SPEAKER_03Hi everyone! Welcome to the Forensic Files Duo Podcast, where we recap, review, and provide updates on the cases featured on the true crime TV show Forensic Files. I'm Drew, and I know nothing about true crime.
SPEAKER_05And I'm Danielle, and I know way more than I'd like to know, but my anxious brain thinks by knowing more I'm safer, it might be a lie, but I hope I never have to find out.
SPEAKER_03So here we are. We've been best friends for 20, oh gosh, every time I see that number, 20 years. And it all started when we joined the forensics team in high school that no one else outside of Michigan seems to know about because it had nothing to do with forensic science.
SPEAKER_05Right. So it was a competitive speech team for drama kids, and we were in the duo category. In our first episode, we learned that the word forensics comes from ancient Greece and means speaking for judgment. So here we are, speaking for judgment.
SPEAKER_03But this time we're forensicing about forensic science.
SPEAKER_05Now, for our regular disclaimer, we understand that we will be discussing a lot of sensitive topics. So although we may laugh at times, please remember that we are laughing at ourselves and ourselves only. We are not making light of what the victims and their families have gone through and may continue to be going through.
SPEAKER_03And in an effort to use the public's overall interest in the show Forensic Files and leverage the power of digital media, once the episode coverage is over, we will highlight two missing person cases. A case that's currently on the BAA's Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Database, and another on the Black and Missing Foundation's website.
SPEAKER_05Today's episode is listed on Wikipedia as season one, episode three, called The House That Roared. This episode first aired on October 10th, 1996, and it covers the 1992 murder of Karen Campano in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_03Do we have any insight on this city in 1992 though?
SPEAKER_05We do.
SPEAKER_03Of course.
SPEAKER_05So this case takes place in 1992, but I think when anyone 30 and up hears Oklahoma City, they think about the Oklahoma City bombing.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_05But we are about three years before that ever happens. However, I did find a meme on Reddit that someone posted about moving from rural Oklahoma to urban Oklahoma in the 90s. So the expectation image was the city from the cartoon Hey Arnold. And the reality image was from that adult cartoon show King of the Hill. Love it. So the characters in the King of the Hill picture are having a beer in their yard with their neighbors. So there was a commenter saying, like, oh, you have to go up to the old Northeast cities if you want anything like Hey Arnold. Then this whole debate started about where Hey Arnold is based off of. So I got way too interested. I don't know how we got here. But what was so funny because another commenter also said, I moved here when I was 11 in 1993 from the central coast in California. Oklahoma at the time was distinctly its own thing. This was before the internet. Oklahomans were behind on fashion and trends, but it was also far less preoccupied with those things. They go on to say, Now everyone feels too busy to care about anything, and all the changes make a lot of the areas and things feel like a bootlegged version of other cities. Listen, these are not my opinions. Just you know sharing insight from a local. So there you go. Oklahoma City in the early 90s.
SPEAKER_03Not a bootleg version of another city. That's iconic of a sentence to like to come up with. So this episode opens, and we're told it's the summer of 1992 in Oklahoma City. We see a black and white reenactment scene that's being shot from outside of a house, and we can hear a couple having a very loud and very intense argument.
SPEAKER_01Peter then says, On a hot summer evening in 1992, neighbors heard the familiar sound of an argument coming from the Campano residence.
SPEAKER_05This reenactment makes no sense per usual. We see a woman who I'm assuming is reenactment Karen walking out of the house while the man says, Go get out of here, as he follows her out.
SPEAKER_03Right. And he's telling her to get out, but he's taking himself out too, apparently. I'm questioning everything here because why did Karen drop her purse? Did you see her drop her purse?
SPEAKER_05Okay, I had to go back. That was a good catch. I had to rewind. I saw your notes, and I had to go back. I didn't even notice that. So very good catch.
SPEAKER_03Like, will that be evidence or was that an actor's actual mistake? You know what I mean? I'm finding myself like really digging deep here watching these reenactments.
SPEAKER_05So now we learn about Karen. She was just two weeks shy of her 43rd birthday and had just returned back from visiting her three children that still lived in New York.
SPEAKER_03Then we meet Chris, and Chris to me looks vs Sus. Like very sus. I already feel like it's going to be Chris who did it after seeing him for the first time.
SPEAKER_04The fact that you said sus. So Blake does not like get any of these terms whatsoever.
SPEAKER_05Or what are they called? Um what do they call those things? They're um they're not acronyms.
SPEAKER_03What's an acronym?
SPEAKER_05An acronym is letters, but they're like um but like the hip language. See, now I sound like a grandma saying it.
SPEAKER_03I think we both do. Grandma and grandpa here trying to keep up with the kiddos.
SPEAKER_05Just trying to know what's cool. But it was so funny because he's like, Did you hear that the kids are saying sus lately for like suspect? Well, it's so funny because he just doesn't get these things. And one time I was like, I'm just so when I was pregnant, I'm like, I'm just so looking forward to the day I can just get my body snatched. He's like, like taken? I was like, no, I'm not taken. Oh, he's gonna hate this episode.
SPEAKER_04So wait, I have an even better one.
SPEAKER_05He told me about this moment at work that happened, and he's like, Yeah, you know, so like, you know, I'm getting like hot and heavy, but I just, you know, didn't say anything. And I'm like, I would hope you didn't get hot and heavy. I'm like, do you mean heated? You were getting heated? He's like, wait, wait, is that not what it is? I was like, hot and heavy.
SPEAKER_04It's like intimate. When have you used this? When have you used it like that? He's like thinking back in his brain.
SPEAKER_03Like how many times I've used this.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like trying to like reverse, reverse, reverse.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god, Team Blake all the way. Team Blake.
SPEAKER_05Anyways, I was very confused of how they introduced Chris because at first I thought they were saying that he was the father of her children back in New York, but then we see him and he looks like he's like 20 years old. He looks so young.
SPEAKER_03I know, like beyond young. Yeah. And Peter tells us she was 15 years older than Chris. Okay, before I judge, because if this was a man with a younger woman, yeah, most people like wouldn't think anything of it. But I can't imagine this went over well at all when they got married in the 80s. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and you're not wrong, because then Peter tells us.
SPEAKER_01Friends describe them as an odd couple.
SPEAKER_05Okay, Drew, will you tell us who introduced Chris and Karen?
SPEAKER_03Oh, you know, Karen's best friend. Chris's mother.
SPEAKER_05Messy, messy, messy.
SPEAKER_03For you gag. Oh my god. And also photos, Chris doesn't look like the actual Chris who was just interviewed.
SPEAKER_05Not at all. I had the exact same thought.
SPEAKER_03This whole beginning is a mess of information being dissed out to us.
SPEAKER_05So as Peter is telling us about Chris having a troubled past and having been in jail for petty theft, they show him actually walking through what looks like a jail. So immediately I'm thinking there's no way forensic files got him to reenact being in jail and like literally got a jail to participate in shooting this episode. So yeah, I'm thinking he's gotta be currently in jail.
SPEAKER_03We find out that Karen was upset when she got back from New York, saying that she wanted to move back there for family, and I was into drugs and and uh she was you know nagging at me and trying to get me in drug programs and you know, just trying to help.
SPEAKER_05So he has a drug problem, and Karen is financially supporting him, and the way he described her nagging at him, it just sounds more kind of like a mother-son dynamic. So he's nothing healthy about any of that.
SPEAKER_03No, and the neighbors heard them arguing frequently, and we meet one that heard Karen saying, I could hear Karen screaming, and now please, please, and don't do that, and couldn't make out a lot of what was being said, just a lot of screaming.
SPEAKER_05So, according to Chris, Karen left and went to the convenience store for personal items a few blocks away. Curious how he would know that, but I guess forensics files didn't mind leaving that little plot hole wide open for us.
SPEAKER_03Chris left too and went to the local bar for some drinks until about midnight.
SPEAKER_05He then calls her work the next morning to see if she showed up for work, but they tell him no and that she never even called in.
SPEAKER_03So then Chris calls the police to make a missing persons report, and the police look around and don't find anything unusual. But then Johnny Coleman from the Homicide Union pops up and says If a person is going to run away or or leave her husband, uh, she's not just gonna walk away and leave everything behind.
SPEAKER_09She's gonna take the things that mean the most to her, especially when you're dealing with a woman, things of you know, toiletries, makeup, and that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_05Well, how else would a woman make it in this world without a man? And how else would a woman get a man without her lipstick, Drew?
SPEAKER_03Okay. All of a sudden, Chris is like, thank goodness y'all are here, because by the way, my house just so happened to be burglar last night while I was at the bar. Oh my god, everyone's listening. They're like, please tell me they're not gonna do this whole episode in fake accents.
SPEAKER_05Well, this then gives the police the opportunity to write up a search warrant, and Chris seems more than willing to just let them search the house.
SPEAKER_03He even comments that he hopes they find something that will help them find Karen.
SPEAKER_05Detective Johnny said the first thing he sees is the bed against the south wall. And I'm just not sure what in the feng shui that has to do with anything, but he also sees a trash bag on the floor, picks it up, and sees a dark brown stain on the carpet that appears to be blood.
SPEAKER_03There's so much there that it was still moist. Why must we use the word moist? I hate that word so much, but thank you for letting us know that it was still wet. Wet. What let's just say wet. Let's just use that word instead. Let's just say that, please.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Alright. Johnny then uses hemistics to test the substance.
SPEAKER_03The amount of times he says hemistics in one sentence.
SPEAKER_09Take the dry hemistick, and with your finger just lightly smear it on the suspect's stain to where some of it's transferred onto the hemostick. Take a drop of distilled water, put it on the hemostick, flick off the excess water, and you have a dark green, which is a positive presumptive test for the presence of blood.
SPEAKER_03Are we going to have a true crime class on these sticks?
SPEAKER_05No, because they're just these little sticks that are used to detect blood. They're often used at doctors' offices if there's like blood and urine for UTIs and such, so nothing too groundbreaking.
SPEAKER_03Well, boom, bam, bop, it's blood.
SPEAKER_05It's blood. But what is groundbreaking is Joyce Gilchrist, our forensics chemist, and I love seeing a female chemist in the 90s. Go Joyce! Yes, yes. Yes. Okay, so she tells us.
SPEAKER_07I went on to do an um octalone test, it's a species determination test to determine as to whether or not that blood came from a human or an animal source.
SPEAKER_05Once it's confirmed that it's human blood and not animal blood, I'm not sure what they thought. That it would just be like a puddle of animal blood coincidentally next to a missing woman's bed, but Detective Johnny says it was enough to convince him that they are not dealing with a routine missing person's case. I guess that's what it takes. Okay, noted.
SPEAKER_03We then see another shot of Chris. Every time he comes across the screen, I still get the shivers and he just creeps me out.
SPEAKER_05I know. Chris is brought in for more questioning, and investigators are pretty sure that he knows more about Karen's whereabouts, but of course he denies knowing anything.
SPEAKER_03But his alibi sucks. The bartender doesn't remember him being at the bar, and and he pawned some of her things the morning after she went missing.
SPEAKER_05That does just not look good for Chris. We're told that they have nothing else to go on at this point besides running more tests in the house. And although there are no obvious signs of a struggle, besides a huge puddle of human blood, okay, they decide to look if there is any evidence that blood has been cleaned up in the house.
SPEAKER_03There is human blood and evidence showing Chris pawned her things. Like, why can't the police do anything besides continue to look in the house? To me, that's enough evidence right there that they already have. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_05I mean, it's definitely not over like a court of law.
SPEAKER_03Damn.
SPEAKER_05First, they need to determine how much blood is in that carpet and if that is a large enough amount of blood to prove that a human being couldn't survive that amount of blood loss. But I'm not even sure if they had that technology available at that time to, you know, measure something like that. And then the bartender not being able to remember Chris being there isn't really evidence that he wasn't there. And him being an addict could explain him pawning things.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I didn't think of that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so even if someone genuinely went missing, you know, like he isn't he is an addict. So I'm I'm sure this wasn't the first time he's done something like that. If he has a drug problem that's been this ongoing issue. So at this point, it's a lot of circumstantial stuff that wouldn't prove it was him beyond a reasonable doubt.
SPEAKER_03I guess, yeah. I didn't really think about that. I just was like, come on, the day after she went missing, he pawned all of her stuff.
SPEAKER_04Oh, good.
SPEAKER_03It doesn't there's a huge frickin' blood stain on the carpet. Ugh. Well, to determine if blood has been previously cleaned up, there is a chemical used called luminol. And I am here for Joyce and how she tells us about this luminol. I think she's going to be the hero on this because she is on it.
SPEAKER_07Luminol is a fluorescence type chemical. Spray it on a substance that contain that may contain blood, it reacts with the heme group in the blood itself. The iron portions uh will uh luminesce or fluoresce.
SPEAKER_05Now it's time for true crime class.
SPEAKER_03I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. Okay, go ahead.
SPEAKER_05This is important because if you follow true crime cases, luminol is super well known. So when I found out this information about it, I was even surprised. If you Google luminol false positives, you will find that there are quite a few chemicals that will give false positives. So in this case, the way that they use luminol, it's pretty accurate for their investigation and they used it correctly. But when we get to that part and we see what lights up, there's no way that like Chris is. Dragging a pile of turnips or horseradish throughout the house. Um, so yeah. You know, like he's like popping bleach a champagne for you know, no. Um, so, anyways, luminol does seem to have been accurately used in this investigation, but on crime sceneinvestigator.net, George Shiro from the Louisiana Police Crime Lab, he tells us about potential problems using luminol. He states that because it has several drawbacks as a presumptive test for blood, spraying luminol at a crime scene should be an investigator's last resort for detecting blood. The problems with luminol include the fact that it will give false reactions. Luminol will react with copper ions, copper compounds, iron compounds, and cobalt ions. You got it true?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, duh. I know what cobalt ions is and copper compounds. Deal with them every day. So because I don't either.
SPEAKER_04Thank God. The truth comes out.
SPEAKER_03The veil is revealed.
SPEAKER_04I am not someone who's acting like she knows everything because I am Googling everything.
SPEAKER_05Um, but societyforensics.org listed examples. Yeah, because George's paper just listed a bunch of stuff I can't pronounce too. So, anyways, these things are like turnip pulp, parsonet pulp, horseradish pulp, and bleach. Um yeah, as well as copper, steel, black iron, and unfinished edges of drywall.
SPEAKER_03Oh shit. Weird, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So it's not really that like dependable.
SPEAKER_05Right, exactly. So now back to George's article. Studies have shown that luminol will cause the loss of several genetic markers as well. So because it's water-based, it could cause latent, possibly bloody impressions to smear. It could also further dilute an already diluted stain, and this may push the stain beyond the genetic marker analysis detection limits.
SPEAKER_06Whoa.
SPEAKER_05Unfortunately, some crime scene investigators have used aluminol as their first choice for detecting blood, but by doing that in such a reckless manner, it's possible to lose that valuable information from a blood stain. When searching for blood at a crime scene, especially blood that may have been cleaned up, an investigator should first use a high-intensity light to search for any traces of blood. These stains are not easy to eradicate. Diluted blood will often leave a brownish stain like we saw in this case. Uh and, you know, if a person has tried to clean it, the blood also has a tendency to flow into floorboard cracks, into carpet padding.
SPEAKER_06Oh.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, behind baseboards, etc. By conducting a thorough examination with a high-intensity light source, the investigator can usually find those areas. These items can be then removed and collected, then submitted to the crime lab for confirmation. Now, because luminol is so sensitive to dilute blood stains, it is occasionally used to enhance bloody impressions like shoe prints, fingerprints, etc. Luminol is not the best thing to use, though, for this. That's because it's a water base. Better methods for enhancing these bloody impressions, they want you to use either like this rapidly evaporating organic solvents. I have no idea what I'm saying at this point. But the reason why I included this is because all of a sudden I saw such as ortho tolidine.
SPEAKER_03ortho tolidine is back. ortho tolidine! Thank you for coming back.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so that's literally the only reason why I just kept that last paragraph of a mouthful. And then I think they also use um, you know, just that classic fingerprinting. This was interesting though. You know, you've always seen in like movies and stuff that they're putting this white dust on it.
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05So it's called amido black staining technique, which is the fingerprinting technique. It's literally just the starch that's in food like flour.
SPEAKER_03What?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And it creates a contrast so you can see those things. Isn't that cool? No idea.
SPEAKER_03So you why don't they just use flour?
unknownI don't know.
SPEAKER_03It's probably cheaper, to be honest with you. Probably. Just go buy a bag of flour. That's what I would do.
SPEAKER_04Joe shows up to a crime scene with a bag of flour. I can bake you a cake.
SPEAKER_03Bake your cake and find the fingerprints.
SPEAKER_04A man of many talents.
SPEAKER_03Oh, God, I would love to be a detective. I would be terrible. Anyways, back to the episode. And I'm just going to say, but Peter is so dramatic about the fact that police need total darkness to run the luminol test.
SPEAKER_01To do the luminol test, investigators needed complete darkness. So they waited until nightfall.
SPEAKER_05They show photos of the room before they spray the luminol, and then after, and it just lights up everywhere.
SPEAKER_03That first picture of the door after aluminol shows a hell of a lot of blood that was cleaned up. Like that was a jaw drop moment for me because that was that was insane.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Peter uses the word horrific, and he is not wrong. The test shows that blood had been on the floor, the walls, the ceiling. It's all over the house.
SPEAKER_03Then they conclude from the luminol that the weapon used to cause these bloodstains was a blunt object. Like, couldn't it have been, though, a knife or something? I d how can you just automatically assume that it was a like a blunt object?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I know we covered blood stain analysis in episode one and whether you know it's considered reliable evidence today or not, but I think what they're explaining here is is far more of just basic physics. Okay.
SPEAKER_02They were in uh two trails, what we refer to as cast-off trails. So if if you had an object, for example, in your hand, uh and that object was blood covered, and if you were swinging that object overhead, the centrifugal force of pulling the blood down to the end of the object will cast the blood in the direction that the object is being swung. And in this case, it's going to the ceiling.
SPEAKER_05Then we see more blood stains that show up from the luminol, and I mean this with no disrespect, but these pictures reveal such a clear trail of blood that my brain wants to think these photos could not be possibly real.
SPEAKER_03Correct. I thought the same.
SPEAKER_05It feels like these photos that we're seeing should be from like an amateur murder mystery movie.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05How is it possible to just let blood swipe across the door, drag across the entire floor of the entire house?
SPEAKER_03Then dragged down every single stair and even down the walkway to the driveway outside. How on earth have the neighbors heard yelling, which we found out in the beginning of the episode, but they didn't see a whole human body being dragged out to the driveway. What?
SPEAKER_05And then how is this murderer that confident in his cleaning skills to be like, I'll just wow, I'll just wipe that away later. What?
SPEAKER_01The house was telling its story. One of an apparently gruesome attack.
SPEAKER_03Peter then says, Was it Karen Capanos? And police still couldn't prove a murder was committed. Well, Joyce is back, and thank God for this woman. I wish we could have her on every episode.
SPEAKER_05Seriously, this is the first episode where we are halfway through and we haven't seen any horrific reenactments, have we?
SPEAKER_03Nope, nope.
SPEAKER_05I actually find this episode possibly the least messy one we've seen, which isn't saying much, but now that you have said that, I think it's only because of Joyce.
SPEAKER_03Yep, it's because of Joyce. She just like creates a really warm feeling, and I'm like, I will listen to you on Luminol. I will listen to you. Thank you. She starts telling us about a measurement test. And Danielle, I think this is what you were referring to earlier.
SPEAKER_05Yes, I was writing my notes as I was watching, so when this part came up about the measurement test, the nerd and me got a little too proud of myself. So they go through a lot of science and math to determine if a person could survive this level of blood loss, and it it did make me dizzy.
SPEAKER_03Oh, should we go through it?
SPEAKER_05Yes, let's give it our best shot.
SPEAKER_03Using a piece of the original carpet.
SPEAKER_05And a weight to simulate a human head. They pour human blood around the weight until they create a stain measuring 887 square inches.
SPEAKER_03Which is identical to the original blood stain discovered.
SPEAKER_05Medical examiner Fred tells us 1300 to 1400 cc's of blood would make that stain.
SPEAKER_03But Peter knows us better than we know ourselves and tells us.
SPEAKER_01That's more than 40% of the blood volume of a woman Karen Campano's size. No one could survive with that amount of blood loss.
SPEAKER_05So I tried looking up what techniques are used today to measure the blood volume found at a crime scene.
SPEAKER_03Because that's a lot.
SPEAKER_05That's a lot, yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's a lot to do.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it is a lot to do, and it seems a little archaic, but I did read that there is a way to do this from some spinning machine that can measure the weight of the blood, and through some smart math, they can figure it out. But then I also found articles just as recent as of 2014 that referenced reconstruction like they did here. So not 100% sure what the standard is, but I thought it was interesting that this technique isn't totally outdated.
SPEAKER_03I thought it was such an like old technique to use, but again, like we're watching this from the 90s, and that makes sense to me. But the fact that you just said in 2014, which was 10 years ago, that they still use it, that's crazy. That's crazy. Fred comes back and says, if this lady was missing and this lady was dead, then this lady was probably killed right there. Fred, her name is Karen. We know she's a lady, we know she's a woman. Just use her name. Use her name.
SPEAKER_05Yes, we both have this in our notes. He said it three times in one sentence, and the fact that this got past an entire production team without one person being like I know. Could you say that again but include her name? It sounds so crass, and I understand people who work in this field can become desensitized to these things so that they can probably keep doing their job, but it's on the producers of the show to remember that this is going out to the public and they hold that influence here.
SPEAKER_03Right. At least have the decency and respect to use her name. You know what I mean? Thank you.
SPEAKER_05Right. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03So now they have to match the blood found at the scene to Karen's blood, but they have no sample of her blood. In 1992, they could compare Karen's mother and her father's blood to the blood found since she would have half of each parent's DNA.
SPEAKER_05But unfortunately, her father was deceased, so they asked the FBI to get involved.
SPEAKER_03They get DNA from Karen's mother.
SPEAKER_05Karen's two sisters.
SPEAKER_03Karen's three children.
SPEAKER_05And Karen's ex-husband.
SPEAKER_03Wait, why the ex?
SPEAKER_05This was done to rule out the other half of her kids' DNA.
SPEAKER_03The FBI conducts a test called RFLP analysis. What's an RFLP test? Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism test.
SPEAKER_05This compares variations in DNA sequences between the blood on the carpet and blood samples from Karen's family members. We see the DNA profiles, but it just looks like Morse code.
SPEAKER_03It's a lot of lines comparing lines with other lines. After a lot of attempts to show us how the profiles match.
SPEAKER_00The FBI forensic analysis tells us they were totally consistent with the blood coming from Karen Campano.
SPEAKER_03Now, today they could do this in a much easier way, right?
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah. Today they could probably just take her toothbrush. We've come a really long way in a short period of time.
SPEAKER_03Well, eight months later, police arrest Chris for the murder of his wife.
SPEAKER_05We see footage of Chris walking in what looks like a courthouse, but he is handcuffed to another prisoner. Since when do prisoners have handcuffed buddies?
unknownI know.
SPEAKER_05Did you notice that?
SPEAKER_03I did notice that, and I was like, oh, plot twist, is there gonna be a plot twist? Oh, unfortunately, no. They arrest him even though there is no body, but there's the forensic evidence, the argument neighbors have heard, his lack of an alibi, and the fact that he pawned some of her things. They believe Karen never left the house that night.
SPEAKER_05Then there is the reenactment.
SPEAKER_03Too much, too much.
SPEAKER_05It's too much. The worst part for me though was the audio. They have this muffled hitting noise, and then the sound of blood splatter casting off onto the walls. I get it. They make these reenactments to help piece together all the forensic science for us stupid audience members, but seriously, showing this helps no one and could actually cause more harm.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And the way the actor plops the body on the ground, then drags her. It's horrifying. It reminded me of Psycho. I don't know if you oh yeah, you went with me and my mom to Halloween Horror Nights in Universal Studios.
SPEAKER_05I've been there a couple times.
SPEAKER_03And remember we went on that trampart.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_03And the Bates Motel. Yes. Yeah. And you see him dragging the body out and putting it into the trunk of the car, and then he comes up with a knife. It was like that was that moment for me.
SPEAKER_05Is this interesting how you can always pull a horror film out of every episode? I think you've been like, this reminded me of this. I'm like scream, and this reminds me of Psycho and da-da-da-da. Yeah, yeah. Seriously though, you were you were on the money with that one. Um, but it gets worse because not only do they want you to believe there's a body in those sheets, they stuck her hair out of the sheets. And you see it as the head hits every single step down the porch outside of the house.
SPEAKER_03So just as prosecutors were gearing up for the preliminary hearing to convict Chris without a body or a murder, Pick Peter drops it on us.
SPEAKER_01But just as the preliminary hearing was set to get underway, everything changed. The police found Karen Campano.
SPEAKER_05The police found Karen.
SPEAKER_03Peter says some youngsters on dirt bikes found her. Is it normal to see the skeletal remains on these shows? Because that was like that was a that was a lot for me.
SPEAKER_05No, no. I was horrified. Again, I was horrified.
SPEAKER_03No. They also found a check under the body. This check is in pretty rough shape, but they can see that it's from her former employer and the amount that it was made out to.
SPEAKER_05Well, then we're back with a forensic odontologist, Dr. Tom Glass. He compared Karen's dental records with the teeth found from the body and a DNA analysis of the bone marrow. They were able to confirm that it was Karen.
SPEAKER_03And just like that, Christopher confesses. And since there's a body, we learned that the autopsy confirmed the prosecution's theory of Karen's murder. Thank God for that luminol.
SPEAKER_10The maxilla were fractured, the mandibles were fractured, the nose was fractured, the sinuses were fractured, the skull was extensively fractured, yet the cervical spine was intact, and there were only three fractures in the ribs. So this is not the hallmark of somebody that's been run over by a car or somebody who's had a train wreck or something like that. This is the hallmark of someone who has sustained a severe beating about the head and face. So it was obvious that this was an assault.
SPEAKER_03Then we meet Detective Joy Nielsen, and she looks too happy for this interview. Do you think?
SPEAKER_05Her smiling was a bit uncomfortable for me, too, but then all I heard was the amount of times men at her police department in the 90s have probably told her to smile more, Joy. And you know what? I just gave her a pass.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I guess you're right. I'll give her I'll yeah, but it it it was a little uncomfortable. In January 1994, Chris went on trial.
SPEAKER_05We hear from his defense attorney who thought he was being clever by reducing his charge from first degree murder to manslaughter due to his mental state, but Chris was still sentenced to 1,000 years in prison.
SPEAKER_03Then they let Chris, Karen's murderer, have the last word in this episode, but we will have none of that here. Any updates or additional info the episode left out?
SPEAKER_05Yes, actually. So from the Oklahoman.com, after the sentencing was read, Karen's sister chased after Chris's relatives outside the courtroom, shouting and pointing her finger at them, and she yelled, He will never get out. I'm going to show up at every parole hearing. You lied about my sister, you lied.
SPEAKER_08Whoa.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So remember his mother, who was originally Karen's best friend?
SPEAKER_03Right. Right.
SPEAKER_05And that's how they met. Yeah. She testified that her son and Karen had a stormy relationship and that the couple frequently argued, but she said that Karen was moody and prone to frequent outbursts of temper. Now, this article also refers to Karen as the slain woman.
SPEAKER_03Ewah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So journalist Charlotte Aiken would be fucking better.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, really.
SPEAKER_05So the article also reveals that the prosecutors had charged Chris with first-degree murder originally. They were also seeking the death penalty.
SPEAKER_06Whoa.
SPEAKER_05When the district judge Tom Smith declared the punishment unacceptable that the jury first presented to him, the jury foreman tried to withdraw from jury service.
SPEAKER_06What?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I never heard of something like this. So apparently the jurors had tried to impose a life sentence without the chance of parole.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_05But the judge ordered the jurors to return a sentence that complied with state law.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god.
SPEAKER_05So Judge Smith refused the foreman's first request, and then the jurors shortly returned back with this sentence of 1,000 years imprisonment. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't understand how that complies with the law, but a thousand years in prison when a human has never lived a thousand years, I don't know. I don't know how that complies with any law for any sense. It makes makes no sense.
SPEAKER_03Like, of course, the judge is gonna say no, you need to comply with state law. Of course. So complying with state law means that you can still give a a person a thousand years in jail, which you you obviously know he's not gonna live. Yeah. What's this what's the difference between just giving him that a life sentence or the life sentence?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, because then they say Chris also had two prior convictions for burglary and concealing stolen property. Apparently, the minimum sentence that the jurors could have imposed was 20 years, but the maximum would have been a life prison term. What? So they could have still given him a I don't know. Just make it make sense.
SPEAKER_03I And he's still in prison.
SPEAKER_05He is still in prison from what I could find. He's 59 years old, still in prison from 59 years old.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Well, what was it? A thousand years. Oh.
SPEAKER_05A thousand years.
SPEAKER_03That's a lot of tick marks on a jail cell.
SPEAKER_05It is a lot of tick marks, yeah. But apparently he isn't in there without the possibility of parole, so he still has those parole hearings. So every I don't know how it works, but every so often he comes up for a parole, and that's what that sister was saying.
SPEAKER_03Yep, she's gonna come back.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, she's like, I'll be at every hearing. Well, now for our missing person cases we would like everyone to know about. From the Black and Missing Foundation's website and newsbreak.com is the missing persons case of Elijah Michael Drew. Elijah, a native of Oklahoma City, was reported missing on October 17th, 2022. He is described as a black and African American male, 5'11, and weighs around 130 pounds. He has black hair, brown eyes, and at the time of his disappearance, he was wearing a green and white hat and hoodie, khakis, and white Jordans that were hand painted. He has a tattoo on his left shoulder, a tribal sleeve, feather on his right arm, and a bull rider on his chest. A family member is quoted saying, My mom dropped him off on Monday, October 17th, 2022, near Sheridan and Hudson Avenue in Oklahoma City. He was planning to meet with friends. Three days later, on October 20th, Elijah informed my mom that he was boarding a metro transit bus and would reach out to her later. That was the last communication anyone has had with him. Since then, Elijah's phone has been disconnected and the family's attempts to trace his digital footprints, such as credit card alerts or social media activity, have come up empty. If you or anyone you know has any information regarding Elijah Michael Drew's whereabouts, please contact the Oklahoma City Police at 405-297-1129. It's vital to mention the case number when providing the details. That number is at 2022-0088110. You can also submit information to the Black and Missing Foundation's tipline at blackandmissinginc.com slash tipline.
SPEAKER_03And from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.gov and Reddit's Unsolved Mysteries subreddit is the missing persons case of David Allen Crabtree. April 9th, two days after David came home, he ran away again. That evening David told his family, I love you, and that he was going to bed. It is believed sometime between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. David snuck out of his bedroom window, never to return. Later at around 10 p.m., James decided to go check on his little brother and make sure he was okay. This is where his family realized that David was not in his bed and had left the family home. One of David's sisters later remembered seeing three boys waiting outside of her brother's window that evening. Although they invited her to join them, she refused, to which David told her he would see her tomorrow and left. There have been alleged sightings of David, but this has not been confirmed. He has never been confirmed as seen or heard from again. Although he had a history of running away from April 9, 2000, David would always either return home on his own accord or be seen around town with friends. But sadly there has been no solid indication of his whereabouts since April 2000, and the circumstances of his disappearance are unclear. David has straight brown hair, may have had or began to have grown a mustache, brown eyes, scar on one eyebrow, possibly right eyebrow, scar on upper front center of his head. He had previously sustained an unspecified injury to his clavicle. He is of Cherokee descent. His age today would be thirty-seven. He is listed as 125 pounds, five five, and was last seen wearing a gray shirt and black pants. If you have any information or know someone who does, please submit your tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's website. His case number is one three one eight zero one three. You can also submit information to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation or Oklahoma City at 1-800-522-8017 and give them his case number. Again, that is 131-8013. You can also submit case information or tips to the BIA one of three ways. Text the capital letters B I A M M U and your tip to 847-411. Call antips to 1833-560-2065 or email capital letters at OJS underscore MMU at BIA.gov.
SPEAKER_05We will also post the case information on our Instagram at Forensic Files Podcast. But first, please go and follow at Black and Missing FDN and at MMI Whois Missing. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Episode six.
SPEAKER_05We did episode six. You sound tired. I am so tired. We recorded when Blake is traveling out of town. I got both kids to bed.
SPEAKER_03You nailed it. I did it. Boom bam bop.
SPEAKER_05Boom bam bop. I didn't have a mental breakdown. I've missed you. I feel like I didn't talk to you a lot.
SPEAKER_03Obviously, we're doing this remote, but I feel like every time we get to do this, it just makes my heart happy.
SPEAKER_05Anyone who doesn't know us, I know you and I know this. We have gone a very long time. We've not years. I guess that's true. We probably haven't gone years, but there's probably been close to a year that we didn't talk on like the phone. Right. You know? Right. We might have texted each other, which is crazy because I feel like I still have CU every day. I don't know. It's so weird.
SPEAKER_03But that is true, friendship people, because the best friends that you have are the ones that you don't have to talk to for a long time. And then the moment you pick up that phone, it's like feels like yesterday.
SPEAKER_05So Yep, exactly. If you like our podcast, please drop a review to tell us what you think. But most importantly, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please hit those three little dots on our podcast page. Select follow to subscribe to our podcast, then tap settings and turn on automatic download. And I hope you followed all of that.
SPEAKER_03And if you listen anywhere else, a review and follow would also be great. Anything to help us spread the word, share us on social media, share on Reddit, share everywhere.
SPEAKER_05Everywhere, please. Our next episode will be from season 14, episode 20, and it's called Funeral Services. Don't like the sound of it. Don't like the sound of it.
SPEAKER_03I kinda do. This sounds like a scary movie.
SPEAKER_05It probably is like one, but it's real.
SPEAKER_03Right, it's real. Okay, great. Well, thank you everyone for listening to this episode. And please, please, please, like we said before, please go follow us on all social media handles and give us that like and follow. And we will see you next time.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, until the next one. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Bye. Of course you give me the hardest word.
SPEAKER_04But you're really good at sounding things out.
SPEAKER_03I know, but polymorphism. It's polymorphism. Okay. I feel like we're playing clue in this episode, Mrs. Green and Mr.
SPEAKER_05Glass.
SPEAKER_03Like Mr. Glass and Mr.
SPEAKER_05Deadman. Oh my god. Mr. Deadman.
SPEAKER_03I just feel like we're playing a board game here.
SPEAKER_05I wish we were. I wish we were. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please Jesus Christ. Oh my god. Another one.
