Transcripts for CNN Forensic Files 20150809 06:14:30 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
preventable. it never should have happened. the department of corrections failed dave and failed me. their job is to protect the public and not simply house prisoners. michelle kerr sued the state of alaska and won more than $11 million in damages. peggy and craig gustafson both were convicted for their role in mr. kerr s murder and will serve a minimum of 22 years in jail. r.d. cheely and doug gustafson received additional life sentences. in the end, a half dozen families were destroyed and prosecutors believe there would have been more victims if forensic science hadn t ended cheely and gustafson s killing spree. you can t just take science by itself and build a case, or rare occasions can you. you use a combination of what are people telling you, what do you know about this person, that
go oh, how terrible this was, and this kid didn t deserve to die. on the other, turn talking about these are his best friends, you know, and we would die for each other. there wasn t any proof that all this happened other than what george was saying. see what i m saying? so they couldn t just run in and make an arrest at that time. to confirm kerr s version of events, police asked him to wear a hidden microphone and meet with cheely and gustafson. the meeting took place in a restaurant at the anchorage international airport. two undercover policemen sat nearby. the recording device was in a car outside. george kerr said words to the effect of, you know, doug, why did you have to kill that guy? and gustafson responded with words to the effect of, well, i didn t mean to, george, and absolutely corroborated what kerr had just told the
well, there are lots of radio shacks, but at least we knew there were radio shacks in anchorage. but both cheely and gustafson were incarcerated at the time. how could they have done it from jail? how could they do this? how could they do that? which was all of our questions. you know, how could somebody do that from jail. since prisons routinely record all inmate conversations, investigators found this coded conversation between gustafson and his sister peggy. it took place shortly before the bombing. yeah, now this is to fix your car, remember? as soon as you find out which way is on and which way is off on the sliding one, glue it in place like i describe, right below the surface. uh-huh. so that when it s pushed towards the side, it s on. and when it s pushed towards the center, it s off. right. okay? superficially, it just sounded like doug giving his
were pacing the victim vehicle until they could get the best shot possible. the next morning, news of the shooting appeared in the local newspaper. and when 19-year-old george kerr saw it, he felt he had no choice but to call police. can i explain my situation here? sure. these guys are these guys are friends, okay friends, i would say. and i usually wouldn t rat out my friends, but this is just so severe, i got to do it. kerr said he and his two friends, r.d. cheely and doug gustafson, bought an assault rifle earlier in the day. later, when they were driving home, a car cut them off on the highway. just pissed r.d. off. so he turned to gustafson and said shoot that mother [ bleep ]. he claimed gustafson raised the rifle and fired a single