and we never heard that. and there was also a report from the first week of the investigation about a green van where a man would get out and go into the woods behind the house. which is where they found the bandanna. he was casing the house. before the murder. that was in their file. in 1987. they knew. once we got the dna results, i mean, a, it was christine morton s blood, and b, that it wasn t michael s blood or skin cells i should say on the bandanna. none of his dna. you know, that was terrific. the dna of this other person was intermingled with christine s dna. it really places the bandanna at the murder scene. so the next step was to work with the texas state crime lab
to stop looking at michael and go after the monster. and we never heard that. and there was also a report from the first week of the investigation about a green van where a man would get out and go into the woods behind the house. which is where they found the bandana. he was casing the house before the murder. that was in their file in 1987. they knew. once we got the dna results, i mean, a, it was christine morton s blood, and b, that it wasn t michael s blood or skin cells, i should say, on the bandana. none of his dna. you know, that was terrific. the dna of this other person was intermingled with christine s dna. it really places the bandana at the murder scene. so the next step was to work with the texas state crime lab to get it entered into the
and we never heard that. and there was also a report from the first week of the investigation about a green van where a man would get out and go into the woods behind the house. which is where they found the bandanna. he was casing the house. before the murder. that was in their file. in 1987. they knew. once we got the dna results, i mean, a, it was christine morton s blood, and b, that it wasn t michael s blood or skin cells, i should say, on the bandanna. none of his dna. you know, that was terrific. the dna of this other person was intermingled with christine s dna. it really places the bandanna at the murder scene. so the next step was to work with the texas state crime lab to get it entered into the database to see if it matched
jurors say, well, he s indicted. the prosecution and the police believe he did it. let s find out how guilty he is. what i had to show the most was scientific fact that he could not have done it. the attorney began his argument at the crime scene itself where the defense claimed the detective who so meticulously went over every piece of evidence collected there failed to come up with anything, not so much as a fingerprint or a fiber to connect ed ates to the crime. you re going to see a lot of what i call hm, well, that s interesting, what about that ? but not one of those makes up beyond a reasonable doubt. wouldn t you think he would have asked that an eyewitness would have remembered a strange 300-pound man lumbering away in broad daylight? the attorney did point out something a young neighbor had seen. a mystery woman inside a green van park behind the victim s home. and there was a green van
story to the d.a., who then told brooke s family. i thought everything had been difficult until that time but when he told us the details of the crime, it was the first time that i heard some of them and it was all i could do to look there and look straight ahead just kept thinking, you can get through this day. you can get through this day. the story told by joel courtney was this. he said that morning in may, he was high on cocaine. when he drove up to brooke in the parking lot in his green van, asked for help delivering a package and when she came closer, he pulled out a knife and pulled her into the van. brooke began screaming as he tore her out of her flip-flops. from there, courtney said he drove west toward the town of philomath. he kept her tied up in the van for hours, even going through a mcdonald s drive through, he said, doing more drugs. before night fell he raped brooke and when she fought back, he killed her by bludgeoning her