ten years after clifford and alma merck s murder, investigators in bakersfield, california, were no closer to making an arrest. we don t know who it was or if they were somewhere in the neighborhood still. it was really scary, very scary to think that they re still out there, they re not caught. and i tell you the truth, i really didn t think they were ever going to get caught. shortly after jim christopherson was promoted to homicide detective, he reopened the case looking for any possible evidence that might have been overlooked. when i opened up the case, it was very enlightening first off. i had no idea that the initial investigators had done so much work on it. they had talked to literally hundreds of people and interviewed hundreds of people
officials post pictures of their most-wanted criminals on the town s website, but they needed every trick they could think of to solve the case of clifford and alma merck, a retired couple who lived on the city s south side. they loved to sit out on the front porch and they had big trees out in the front and it was shady in the summertime. one saturday morning, the mercks son, robert, stopped by his parents home for a visit. he immediately noticed something was wrong. he found a door open at the back of the house and entered and immediately detected a foul odor. i backed out of the house and told my wife, i said, something is wrong here. go across the street and call the sheriff s department. jim christopherson was one of the first to arrive at the scene. the entire residence was ransacked, everything turned upside down, chairs turned upside down.
detail. it s like an egg on a teflon frying pan. one can see that one achieves a very true representation of the interior of the barrel, plus the fine detail. he cut away the portion of the barrel imprint destroyed by the screwdriver and then compared the remainder of the cast to the bullets that killed cliff merck. in an incredible turn of events, they were an exact match. this proved that clifford merck s own gun was used in his murder and that the cowan brothers had been in possession of the gun before it had been altered. even with this discovery, it still wasn t enough to prove murder. that was good circumstantial evidence. however, it still did not place them inside the crime scene. but there was one more piece of evidence about to be
most-wanted criminals on the town s website, but they needed every trick they could think of to solve the case of clifford and alma merck, a retired couple who lived on the city s south side. they loved to sit out on the front porch and they had big trees out in the front and it was shady in the summertime. one saturday morning, the mercks son, robert, stopped by his parents home for a visit. he immediately noticed something was wrong. he found a door open at the back of the house and entered and immediately detected a foul odor. i backed out of the house and told my wife, i said, something is wrong here. go across the street and call the sheriff s department. jim christopherson was one of the first to arrive at the scene. the entire residence was ransacked, everything turned upside down, chairs turned upside down.
ten years after clifford and alma merck s murder, investigators in bakersfield, california, were no closer to making an arrest. we don t know who it was or if they were somewhere in the neighborhood still. it was really scary, very scary to think that they re still out there, they re not caught. and i tell you the truth, i really didn t think they were ever going to get caught. shortly after jim christopherson was promoted to homicide detective, he reopened the case looking for any possible evidence that might have been overlooked. when i opened up the case, it was very enlightening first off. i had no idea that the initial investigators had done so much work on it. they had talked to literally hundreds of people and