And i never would have put that together. ever. but, you know, jim saw it and then we took it to the fbi. the fbi crime lab in virginia, where the foam from marshall s boot and the foam from the kfc would be compared to confirm they matched. it was obvious to the detective that they did. the test really was just a legal routine. no problem. i can remember getting the call from the fbi analyst, because my expectation was she s going to tell us i have a match. and? it was like a needle going through a balloon. there was a problem. she was not willing to say i can t say with any certainty this is from the same shoe because one has phthalates and one doesn t. phthalates? what in the world are those? it was trouble for the case against william marshall. phthalates are substances used in plastic to make them more flexible from
Forestry. according to dale hutchinson, he was responsible for this station. by the year 2003, marshall had been here almost 15 years, lived quietly in this rustic community known as mountain center. people called him bill, respected him, trusted him to keep them safe. he lived right there at the house right behind you. terry quinn made friends with marshall soon after he moved in. he was a very good person. he was very well respected. he fit in real well up here on the mountains. back in torrance, the case detectives had revived after almost 20 years was not fitting together so well. they had hoped that key piece of evidence, the foam, would tie marshall to that long ago crime scene, but the lab wouldn t definitively back it up. without some break, the case would stall again. what to do? well, it was perhaps a long shot, but deputy d.a. john lewin had always figured the alibi marshall got from his old girlfriend, yvonne hargrove, was a little shaky. so he had an idea.
Around his business at 11:00, 11:30 at night. marshall was put under surveillance and followed for a few days. and where did he go? back to the very same kfc where he was prowling the week before. the employees there wouldn t let marshall in, so he drove off, and cops followed. a few miles later, they pulled him over. and after removing him from the car, we found what we felt was the weapon that he had used in our homicide, which was a 7 to 9 inch boning knife in the backpack he had been carrying. there was no usable evidence on that knife, but it was the right size and shape, so it looked, to the cops at least, like they had their man. william marshall was arrested. his knife, clothes and boots found in the car were booked into evidence. under california law, detective lancaster had two days either charge him or release him. he took the case to the d.a., made his best argument. i felt going in we had a good case. you know, maybe a tough case, a
Wallace rushed down to the evidence storage room and searched for the box with william marshall s boots inside and, amazingly after two decades, they were still there in a plastic container intact. and, sure enough, when i pulled them out, one of the boots had the brown leather casing for that part of the boot that was so worn that the foam was missing from the casing. come on. when i was sitting there looking at that shoe, i ve got to tell you, there was a tingle up the back of my neck. wallace thought he had hit the jackpot. the foam from the kfc appeared to match the remaining foam in william marshall s boot, even the color and curvature looked identical. that foam, he thought, must have fallen from marshall s boot right at the scene of the murder. wallace rushed the news to assistant d.a. john lewin. i could have looked at that foam for six years, those shoes,
Everything in plastic bags to containers. if that turned up in the foam on marshall s boots but not in the foam at the crime scene, wouldn t that exclude marshall as a suspect? the detective protested phthalates must have gotten in the boots because they were stored in a plastic container all those years. but to the scientists, facts are facts, those two pieces of foams did not share the same chemical signature. to hear her say one has phthalates and one doesn t, i have to tell you, it was devastating. not your best day. not the best day. because it was the piece we needed to do something more than we had from 1984. without that connection to the boot, i don t think we have a case. coming up, investigators make one last-ditch efforts to talk to their suspect. they track him down here leading a surprising life when dateline continues. dateline continues