purse with contents and identification and money and so forth relating to the female passenger. the jeep belonged to richard and karla van dusen. karla s cell phone was found on the front seat. just a half mile away, neighbors called police to report two dead bodies on the road outside their home. they were identified as richard and karla van dusen. richard was laying facedown in the dirt of the driveway, and karla was laying on her side. both had been shot in the head. and we later learned through an autopsy that karla had also been stabbed. richard and karla had been married for three years. they had three grown children from previous marriages. my son, he said, they re dead. and i said did they have an accident?
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 imported 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.
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 seat belt. after having applied ninhydrin to the seat belt and allowing it to dry completely, i reexamined the seat belt 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 weapon that investigators had
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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 seat belt to remove karla s body, and the blood dripped on to 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. so the mystery was how did his car get there? and investigators soon had