blood spatter analysis, investigators believe richard van dusen was pulled from his jeep and shot outside the vehicle. his wife karla was sitting in the passenger seat and was shot through the windshield. but on the steering wheel, investigators found blood which did not come from karla or richard. the samples that were tested from the steering wheel were consistent with being human blood. those samples were tested to develop a dna profile. perhaps the killer nicked his hand while cutting the seatbelt to remove karla s body, and the blood dripped onto the steering wheel while he drove the jeep to the dump site. investigators asked their initial suspect henry sullivan for a dna sample. testing showed it was not his blood in the car. sullivan wasn t involved in the crime.
weapon that investigators had been looking for. one was inoperable. the other 9 millimeter handgun was test-fired into a tank of water. that bullet was microscopically compared to the 9 millimeter slug found in the van dusens jeep. analyst erica henderson carefully examined the distinctive marks called lands and grooves made when each bullet goes through the barrel of the gun. when you look down the barrel of a firearm, you will see the ridges and valleys. these ridges and valleys, once a bullet is fired, will be imparted on the bullet. so the bullet will also have these ridges and valleys. the test bullet and the one from the crime scene were turned repeatedly as henderson checked and rechecked the markings. but the results showed that henry sullivan s gun was not the murder weapon.
and i said did they have an accident? and i said are you sure? several times, i asked him if he were sure. and then he told me that they had been found and that they had been murdered. and i just i don t even remember after that. investigators had two crime scenes, the jeep and the area where the bodies were found. based on the evidence and the location of the bodies, investigators think that the killer was someone the van dusens knew. we felt that there probably was a third party involved in the vehicle with them. richard van dusen is forced out of the car at gunpoint and we feel he is certainly killed outside of the car. karla van dusen is shot while seated in the car. it looked like karla saw what was happening, turned her head, lifted her left hand, and the bullet went through the
sullivan said, you know, i lose my i.d.s all the time. in fact, i just lost one a couple of weeks before you came to interview me. the driver s license was dusted for fingerprints. none were found. police also looked for fingerprints inside the van dusens jeep, especially on the seatbelt. after having applied ninhydrin to the seatbelt and allowing it to dry completely, i reexamined the seatbelt for the presence of fingerprints and found none. but the killer left behind one piece of evidence. a 9 millimeter bullet found on the floor of the victim s jeep. when investigators searched henry sullivan s apartment, they found a 9 millimeter pistol. investigators found that sullivan was in possession of two 9 millimeter pistols, and that matched with the murder