sketches of suspects, none of them alike, many suggested by psychics. at the state crime lab, larry peterson was sifting through thousands of fibers, nylon, rayon, acrylic, acetate. is it like looking for a needle in a haystack? like looking for multiple needles in multiple haystacks. then in january of 1981, a breakthrough. peterson realized they were seeing one green carpet fiber with a unique shape. this is a cross-section of that fiber magnified many times. this particular fiber had two very, very large lobes and one short lobe. the lobes are the three ends of the boomerang shape. the shape was the most distinctive part of the fiber. he showed me a slide taken from another carpet. this is a single tuft from the carpet. cut in cross-section.
the number of known dead now 15. the unsolved murders of so many children had become front page news around the nation and the world. this is the reward the city announced a $100,000 reward, soon to grow to $500,000. the task force was swamped with sketches of suspects, none of them alike, many suggested by psychics. at the state crime lab, larry peterson was sifting through thousands of fibers, nylon, rayon, acrylic, acetate. is it like looking for a needle in a haystack? like looking for multiple needles in multiple haystacks. then in january of 1981, a breakthrough. peterson realized they were seeing one green carpet fiber
we literally would walk through wooded areas chaperoned and we would walk for a period of time until about an hour before nightfall. but now a new twist in the murders. patrick baltazar, the 20th victim, would be the last child to turn up in a wooded area. a day or two later an official would tell reporters fibers and dog hairs were being collected from the victims clothing. the next child to die would be found in a river wearing nothing but underpants. fewer clues now for larry peterson. we re talking maybe a dozen or dozens of fibers as opposed to hundreds or potentially a thousand fibers. the 13-year-old victim was found beneath this bridge over the south river in atlanta s suburbs. a driver crossing that bridge earlier in the week saw a man leaning over the railing.
this is an actual piece of that carpet which fbi s harold dedman said was quite rare. it s got an unusual carpet fiber. it was manufactured a limited amount of time. it was a ten-year-old carpet. on jimmy payne, the other victim, dedman found yellow rayon fibers stuck to his cotton shorts, fibers consistent with the blanket under wayne s bed. i personally took the cutting from the yellow blanket that was under the bed. this evidence slide contains the yellow blanket fibers that dedman clipped that night, magnified by our own video camera. but when larry peterson had returned that june for a second search a couple weeks later there was no yellow blanket to be found that i could find. there are a lot of things in your case that disappeared. uh-huh. had a lot of disappearances. uh-huh. yellow blanket
under the bed. this evidence slide contains the yellow blanket fibers that he clipped that night magnified by our own video camera. but when larry peterson had returned that june for a second search a couple weeks later there was no yellow blanket to be found, that i could find. there are a lot of things many your case that disappeared. a lot of disappearances. yellow blanket. yes. disappeared. in the first place that was never a yellow blanket. there were fibers of a yellow blanket. there were fibers alleged to have come from a yellow blanket. nobody has been able to produce a ideal low blanket because, quite simply, and i m just being very blunt with you, there was no yellow blanket. or maybe you got rid of it in between the first time they searched and when they came back. seems like to me if i was a police officer, i would have confiscated the blanket too. it doesn t make sense. the prosecution was allowed to bring in ten other deaths.