every woman's fear becomes all too real for one southern california woman when an office party takes a violent turn investigators must sort out conflicting accounts unlocking the one clue that turns out to be the key to the truth in a portland oregon suburb a two-year-old toddler is found dead in his bed his death is ruled accidental but one investigator remains unconvinced using forensic experiments she is able to reveal the answer that otherwise would be hidden solving crimes may begin with intuition but applied science provides investigators with irrefutable proof when criminals go to great lengths to mask their crimes investigators must step up to the challenge and remain undaunted [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] in this episode some of the names have been changed the city of long beach california is on the cutting edge of the hottest trends and the hippest night spots but sometimes the lure of the glittering lights and living life on the fast track leads to danger [Music] 4 a.m on a warm july night in 1999 patricia white staggered from an apartment she was both disheveled and disoriented just come back in okay she was wearing her business suit and a t-shirt that wasn't hers a man named lorenzo theol frantically tried to get her to come back into his apartment but she wasn't coming back she was desperately trying to call 911 hello hello hello ma'am i need help i don't know where i am hello when she finally got through to the long beach police dispatch she was confused and dazed and unable to tell police where she was or how she got there okay what happened to you the dispatcher sent a team of officers to the scene the dispatcher kept her on the phone hoping she recognized landmarks that might be a clue to we're wearing okay can you see them yeah [Music] when the officers approached they immediately sensed that patricia was not acting right can i talk to you for a minute she was frightened and completely disoriented you okay patricia told him that she woke up in a strange apartment and wasn't wearing any clothes she remembered leaving a restaurant the night before but then she blacked out and didn't know how she got to this location it was really salty the officers suspected she was under the influence of either alcohol or drugs do you live here no okay have you been drinking anything patricia said she had had two drinks nearly six hours earlier [Music] [Music] as a precaution they checked him for weapons he was not armed he told them that patricia was his girlfriend and they had been out the night before you guys out drinking tonight having a good time he said she was very drunk so he brought her back to his apartment where she passed out in his bed he told them that they had not had sex that night patricia told police that she and fial worked together and that in fact he was her boss she was still too confused to provide any further details the officers concerned about her state of mind and her lack of memory decided to take her downtown to test her for alcohol almost four years because of the conflicting stories and the fact that patricia said she didn't remember anything and woke up naked in a strange bed police asked fial to accompany them to the police station to make a statement and provide blood samples he cooperated fully after taking a breathalyzer test at the police station patricia was taken to the hospital [Music] her blood alcohol level was a .01 eight times below the legal limit while patricia had no memory of a sexual encounter under the circumstances police were suspicious she was sent to the sexual assault examination room for further testing patricia didn't really tell me too much one of the responding officers gave the details to long beach detective catherine kriskovic a member of the sexual assault unit and then she doesn't remember anything after that eventually when i got her to calm down she told me that she remembers getting in the car did she appear to be under the influence detective kriskovic grew more suspicious when she learned that patricia said she was given an opened drink and she pointed out to you guys she was given a drink of what she said tasted like a very salty substance when she had initially asked for water and she spit it out and again asked for water took a gulp from the water bottle and again it tasted salty but she in fact swallowed this gulp she does not remember anything after that point until she woke up naked in a bed this all indicated to me with my training and experience that this possibly could be ghb ghb or gamma hydroxybutyrate is commonly known as a date rape drug it has been on the scene in california since the 1980s ghb is a fluffy white substance resembling powder when mixed with water it dissolves and is unnoticeable the drug usually takes effect in as little as 15 minutes leaving a victim comatose or unable to move blanking out their memory for up to four to six hours as much as you can ghb is completely undetectable in the system after 12 hours detective kriskovic and sexual assault nurse examiner melinda waddell had to move fast they looked for further physical evidence of the effects of this powerful substance at the time that i was speaking to her she was still in a state of confusion at times a little disoriented she was very cooperative and and wanting to help even though she was having a very hard time with the fact that she couldn't remember certain things and was taking it hard in the sense that she wouldn't be able to provide us information to assist us with our with our investigation detective kriskovic urged patricia to try and piece together what had happened in fiall's apartment i woke up in a room and in a bed and i i didn't have any clothes on i was naked she remembered waking up in a strange bed was there without his shirt on embarrassed that she had no clothes on she told him to leave [Music] he told her she didn't need to be upset and that a minute ago she had a different attitude [Music] and i didn't know this only frightened patricia further still dazed patricia found a t-shirt that wasn't hers and eventually located the business suit she had worn the night before see i was calling i i couldn't get through she collected her belongings and left she then called 911 nurse melinda waddell you can't always judge what type of emotional state any any person is going to be in after an attack or an episode like this patricia white was shaking she was tearful she was confused about what happened to her i need you to get a urine sample nurse waddell began a forensic examination she asked for a urine sample this would determine if ghb was in her system the sample would be sent to the lab to check for the substance she then conducted a full body examination she asked patricia to remove her clothing [Music] as we're collecting evidence we have no idea what the significance of any piece of evidence is going to be until later in the investigation and at the same time the forensic nurse will examine her entire body and we're looking for scratches bruises bite marks anything in her hair anywhere on her clothing any piece of evidence that could help put the story together of what happened to her after we examine her entire body we also use a special lamp called a wood slam and that's an ultraviolet light then we scan her body if there's any dried secretions or substances on her body that will fluoresce positive we can see it with this light and then we collect a sample and we did have a positive sample on patricia samples melinda waddell discovered dried semen on patricia's body vaginal and anal swabs also indicated the presence of seminal fluid she proceeded with a pelvic exam using a culpascope a microscope fitted with a 35 millimeter camera so that pictures can be taken of the internal tissue [Music] patricia's case we found some abrasions on her cervix normally the cervix does not have any type of injury or abrasions on it even with their story of non-consensual intercourse it's very difficult to cause any type of self-inflicted injury on on the face of the cervix so it's a significant finding when we do see it during consensual sex most women's bodies experience a natural arousal response making it difficult to injure the cervix during intercourse the bruising on patricia's cervix indicated she was not a willing participant internal abrasions and hemorrhaging also indicated forcible sodomy the conclusion that we can draw whenever we find an abrasion or a tear or a bruise that there was some type of injury created and that's from blunt force trauma we can't say what caused that injury but that something was inserted and created an injury we also can't really testify to the fact whether it was consensual or non-consensual unless injury was severe and then we could say that was extremely painful and who would consent to that type of force the hours of speculation that we've talked about nurse melinda waddell concluded patricia white was raped that i already gave you patricia's worst fears were now confirmed and she was determined to find out how and why it happened after a long night of questions long beach investigators had at least one answer patricia white had been raped she remembered little more than waking up naked in her boss lorenzo feyal's bed because she blacked out and couldn't remember how she got there detective catherine kriskovic suspected she was given the date rape drug ghb while she awaited the toxicology findings detective kriskovic wanted to hear fiall's version of events an officer went to the car dealership where he worked as the sales manager come have a seat if you like can you tell me what happened yesterday with miss white [Music] the officer asked fial about the events of the evening after we got off work right we're just going to celebrate we had a lot of food [Music] he said that it was his birthday and they had gone out to celebrate at a restaurant [Music] patricia had parked her car at a friend's house and rode to the restaurant with some other co-workers said that it was quite a party with lots of food and liquor he said that patricia drank too much and was acting a little crazy she was definitely coming on to fia she uh she had way more to drink than she she normally does so theo claimed she was so drunk he offered to drive instead of have her drive i thought this information matched his earlier statement but then his story changed that was one of the weird things about her he admitted that he actually did sleep with patricia but said that it was consensual worried about losing his job and trying to keep their relationship a secret was the reason he lied to police caused her to dial 9-1-1 or call the police he claimed they had been seeing each other for a couple of months and had had sex on more than one occasion and just started yelling detective kriskovic contacted several of the people who attended the party that night with long beach all of them corroborated stories they said that patricia was drunk and came on to him the case was shaping up to be patricia white's word against lorenzo feals [Music] detective kriskovic looked up theol's record [Music] she discovered that he had three prior convictions for robbery cocaine possession and spousal abuse that proved nothing though he had a criminal past he wasn't necessarily a rapist but someone was clearly lying detective kriskovic hoped the forensic lab would determine who was telling the truth patricia's urine samples were sent to the la county coroner's office supervising criminalist dan anderson was assigned the case detective kriskovic contacted me directly to analyze this particular urine sample from what they called a credible rape victim because we are the coroner's office and we deal principally with postmortem samples we don't routinely do antimortem or live people's urines or blood samples because we're the only lab in the area that could do a ghb analysis at that particular time i said that they could bring it on over and we'd be willing to help them out anderson proceeded with the ghb testing he obtained two urine samples he needed to compare the original sample from the morning of the assault to one from several days later to act as a control sample the control sample would tell him how much ghb was normal in patricia's body ghb or gamma hydroxybutyrate is a natural substance in your body as a toxicologist you normally won't see it or you will see it at very very low levels so if someone actually took the ghb it'd be a large amount in either in the blood or urine sample both of the urine samples are individually combined with chemicals that separate the ghb from the specimens the isolated ghb samples are then placed in a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer or gcms there it converts them into a gas and measures the levels of ghb in each specimen patricia's normal ghb level was one microgram per milliliter yet the sample taken the morning of the alleged assault showed 424 micrograms per milliliter patricia white had a large amount of ghb in her system [Music] detective kriskovic spoke with patricia again to tell her what fial had said about their relationship but i want to ask you again patricia was stunned when she heard that feal had said that they were dating and had been intimate before she said she had known fiao for nearly seven years but claimed they never had a sexual relationship patricia white talks about that night so i didn't know him it was working relationship he was my boss he was in control of the dealership and he was in control of my paychecks so that's how i knew him again her story contradicted what fiao had said i was the most sober out of everyone so i was the one driving because i had had only two drinks i told him you know the only way that we could that i would go with him is if i would drive and once you arrived at the liquor store what happened they went over the events of that night once again and came out [Music] she said fiau had stopped to get some vodka patricia asked if he'd get her a bottle of water he gave me water and it was horrible tasting it was and then within like five minutes that very short distance that i don't have any memory at all patricia white's memory was hazy she was still confused about exactly what happened that night but what she did know was she had been raped and large amounts of ghb were found in her system even that's fuzzy i don't know how it got there was a mystery and the one person who might provide answers was the last person to see her before she passed out and that was lorenzo fiao [Music] [Applause] [Music] long beach detective catherine kriskovic was trying to sort out exactly what happened to patricia white the night she was assaulted patricia had been raped and large amounts of an illegal substance ghb a date rape drug was found in her system [Music] her last memory was of her boss lorenzo fiao offering her a drink of water that tasted oddly salty she then woke up several hours later naked in his bed what happened yesterday lorenzo feyal says the two were involved in a consensual sexual relationship [Music] but patricia white's internal injuries told a different story [Music] forensic examiners compared the semen samples found inside patricia white's body to dna samples taken from lorenzo feyal earlier in the investigation they matched detective kriskovic had enough evidence to make an arrest lorenzo feyal was arrested and charged with six felony counts including kidnapping rape with the use of drugs and sodomy with the use of drugs [Music] krskovic obtained a search warrant for fiat's personal property if he could be linked to the ghb they'd have an open and shut case i then started to write a search warrant in order for us to go out to the different locations their residents as well as their workplace in an attempt to possibly locate any of the water bottles or or anything maybe inside the residence which would indicate that they might have made it at their home or work location [Applause] during a search of his car they recovered some water bottles and sent them to the lab for further analysis [Applause] the lab conducted tests to determine if the water was tainted with ghb the results were inconclusive this did not deter detective kriskovic with the positive urine test for ghb nurse melinda waddell's findings and the testimony of the victim she felt that the district attorney had a strong case long beach deputy d.a christopher frisco agreed but he knew it would be far from easy whenever you have a situation where the victim and the defendant know each other this almost always lends itself to a defense of consent especially when the defendant's dna was recovered from her in the form of semen i mean if it's really his word against her word then how do you know it's not consensual frisco questioned patricia further and prepared her for the trial he knew the defense would try to discredit her testimony but he was so confident she was a credible witness he encouraged her to take the stand consensual affair it paid off the jury also believed patricia patricia testified that she was driving the vehicle that she was in with lorenzo feyal he had given her a liquid that was clear she drank it it tasted much like ocean water and she spit it out the defense was never able to explain how patricia white got ghb in her body they were never able to explain how it was that patricia white could accurately describe the feeling of being under the influence of ghb and the taste of ghp as tasting salty i think when i woke up based on the evidence investigators pieced together what they believe happened that evening after the party fee all went to the liquor store to buy some vodka and a bottle of water for patricia he then laced the water with ghb and offered it to patricia i asked for my water and i took a big drink of it because i was really thirsty and it just tasted so bad that i spent most of it out no it's salty don't pour it out just drink it here and then my next memory is being in a bed with him throwing back the covers on the bed and me being naked and not being able to move and not being able to see past like a foot and a half on march 27 2000 lorenzo feyal was convicted of four counts of rape and sodomy with a drug and sentenced to 11 years in prison he never admitted to any wrongdoing [Music] no no regrets no remorse no nothing no admission of nothing he actually said to me that it's only three of us that know what actually happened there's him i and god and god would make me pay for this today patricia white works with the rape crisis center in long beach helping to educate law enforcement agencies and schools about the dangers of ghb [Music] the determination of forensic investigators to search for the truth resulted in justice for patricia white but when oregon authorities are confronted with a child's mysterious death they discover that the answers they seek depend on asking the right questions [Music] coquille is located in coastal oregon and sits beneath the three sisters mountain range along the coquille river an ideal place to bring up a child on september 1st 1999 denise carter and her live-in boyfriend stacy brown celebrated denise's birthday over breakfast around 9 15 denise noticed her two and a half year old son mikey had not awakened concerned she asked stacy to check in on the toddler he discovered the boy lying motionless on the bed and he would not wake up sensing something was terribly wrong stacy alerted denise the baby was not breathing [Music] 9-1-1 what is your emergency a dispatcher took the call and immediately sent an ambulance within minutes paramedics and officers from the coquille police department raced to denise's home denise rushed them into the child's room [Music] but mikey was already dead denise and stacy were devastated the circumstances surrounding mikey's death raised suspicions assistant deputy medical examiner chris karcher was called to the scene to investigate denise and stacy said mikey was fine the night before and neither of them noticed anything unusual denise had turned in early stacy had stayed up with mikey [Applause] he said that when he put the child to bed he was fine karcher decided to look through the house in search of an explanation as to why mikey had died the forensic team was already gathering evidence at the location [Music] as karcher entered mikey's room she began to notice something unusual the child's bed was relatively undisturbed the one thing that you did notice was the way he was laying and several of the detectives as the morning progressed would look at look at him and say he looks staged it looks like you know somebody's laid him there and and positioned him and it looked staged another detective on scene thought that the diaper just wasn't right it wasn't wrinkled enough or i can remember thinking that at the time that's not the way my two and a half year old slept when he was two and a half you know he would have been all over the bed karscher also noticed that the bathtub had a small amount of water in it wet towels lay on the floor [Music] crime technicians from the oregon state police lab took samples of some red stains found on the child's bed they conducted a presumptive blood test the results were negative i just want to wait until we get out of here once karsher was satisfied she had fully investigated the home she asked stacy and denise a few additional questions he was trying to comfort her she was crying when i asked the two of them what they thought might have happened to mikey stacy brown told me that it was he probably choked on something stacy claimed mikey would put anything he could get his hands on in his mouth i pulled a rubber band out of his mouth yesterday and i know that we'll have to chris karcher there were still too many unanswered questions [Music] i was concerned that a two and a half year old was dead and we didn't have any reason for him to be dead you're always suspicious at that point he had no health problems he had not been injured in the days before he had eaten well the night before he'd gone to bed like normal the night before and so there was no reason for him to be dead the child's body was transported to bay area hospital for autopsy chris karcher assisted [Music] initially the autopsy did not reveal anything out of the ordinary is there any hemorrhages in the soft tissue yet when they examined the child's airway they discovered a foreign object lodged in his throat [Music] the autopsy was basically unremarkable until we got to his airway and then we found a cellophane that was from a cigarette wrapper that had been inhaled real tightly down in his airway cause of death was asphyxiation and although water was found in his lungs forensic examiners thought it was due to the asphyxiation [Music] yet something still bothered chris karcher she noticed that the printed tax stamp was still intact on the cigarette wrapper the baby's saliva had not dissolved the image this coupled with the other evidence left too many clues unanswered investigator karcher was determined to find out why this baby died in coquille oregon a seemingly healthy two-and-a-half-year-old mikey carter was found dead in his bed assistant deputy medical examiner chris karcher had discovered a cellophane cigarette wrapper lodged in his throat it was determined that the cause of death was asphyxiation but to chris karcher something about the evidence at the crime scene and the cigarette wrapper itself did not add up she decided to perform a simple experiment she placed a cellophane wrapper from an identical pack of cigarettes in an ordinary glass of drinking water one of the things that i started thinking about was how pristine that stamp was on the bottom of that cellophane and i got to wondering if a child was chewing on that would how well would the stamp stay on and so i decided well you know let's let's try and see what it would take to get that stamp off when karcher returned to the beaker of water she found that the stamp remained intact the findings troubled her for days so i thought well that would not represent what saliva might do to a stamp that there surely must be enzymes and such in saliva and that would be the best way to determine so i then put cellophane in my mouth and kept it in my mouth on a short drive one day about a half hour when she got back to her office she examined the wrapper [Music] and when i took it out of my mouth the stamp was almost gone all that told me at the time was that it wasn't in his mouth very long what few places on the piece of cellophane that i had between my teeth it poked holes in the cellophane and what had come from mikey's throat had no holes in it it was the cellophane was all intact as well as the stamp cartier recalled that stacy brown had said the little boy was curious and was always stuffing things in his mouth and chewing on them yet there were no bite marks on the cellophane at the children's advocacy center chris karcher reviewed the case with the coos county child fatality review team over the next several days a team of investigators continued to pour over the facts detectives von edsel of the north bend police department and pete lichty of the coos county sheriff's office joined the investigation the first step was to obviously go over the existing material with a fine-tooth comb try to identify any inconsistencies or any other questions that remain unanswered at the same time we were doing that a profile was being put together on mr brown and mrs carter and the immediate family so we could have a road map on how to proceed with the investigation detective edsel asked stacy and denise to come down to the station to write out what they remembered about the night mikey died when stacy finished his statement he was eager to leave [Music] and wanted to know why denise was taking so long hey when i first met stacey brown my initial observations of him were that he was very guarded and very cautious the more time i spent with mr brown the more he became agitated and the more he became defensive and very guarded denise appeared more cooperative and her statement was a detailed 11 pages [Music] after finishing their statements stacy became angry with denise he was nervous almost paranoid about what she had written in her statement detective lichty remembered stacy's volatile behavior mr brown finished relatively quickly in comparison to mrs carter uh it still it took him quite a bit of time to produce those two and a quarter pages uh because he was giving it quite a bit of thought i noticed that uh he was thinking quite a bit about what he was writing whereas mrs carter was just writing pretty much free thought which was encouraging for us because we thought it would reveal some some details detectives lichthy and edsel reviewed the written statements and found inconsistencies they then ran background checks on both stacy brown's report indicated a long history of violence detective take a look at this brown also had a record of alcohol and drug related offenses menacing here what do you think i think we should contact his probation officer okay let's go they dug deeper into his criminal past i learned that he was currently on probation and actually for menacing a former girlfriend of his where the encounter had evolved into a pretty violent ending where mr brown refused to leave the relationship how long ago was that the probation officer also confirmed that stacy had a drug problem specifically with methamphetamine and marijuana appears to have a short fuse investigators would not let up and met often to go over the case they went over everything looking for anything they might have missed well there is one thing that i'm not sure how important it is but there was standing water that i noticed in the bathtub one crime scene photo particularly disturbed chris karcher it was of the bathtub and a small amount of water because of the shower karscher wasn't sure what it meant but the evidence did not square with denise and stacy's testimony denise had said that no one had taken a bath or shower the evening before investigators now knew they weren't getting the whole story detectives decided to ask stacey and denise to take lie detector tests they agreed but on the day the test was to be administered denise showed up and told them stacy had changed his mind i don't know then last night he started screaming at me about coming in today he didn't want me to come in yet shortly thereafter stacy showed up at the front desk i need to talk to my wife he had changed his mind again and now agreed to do the polygraph after all detective lincoln excuse me yes mr brown is here denise took the test first we honestly answer the questions about mikey's death yes [Music] the polygraph results on mrs carter proved that she was answering her questions truthfully the reverse was true for mr brown did you put that cigarette cellophane wrapper into mikey's throat no are you stacy not only appeared agitated his involuntary response picked up on the lie detector test revealed deception [Music] stacy became so upset after the test he created a scene at the police headquarters can i i really got to see my wife now now during this time mr brown was outside in the lobby waiting for mrs carter and started to create a scene he started becoming agitated he started to become angry [Music] and he was actually escorted by uniformed officers outside the building because of his aggressive behavior stacy detective lichty told denise privately that stacy had not done well on the polygraph test that has occurred denise was stunned and angry and we have some concerns about your safety as far as you going home with him this evening because of stacy's erratic behavior he suggested she go to the women's crisis center we were concerned that something would happen that evening so we encouraged mrs carter to stay at the coos bay police department until we could make arrangements with coos county women's crisis center and have her placed in a safe home until she felt comfortable in returning or making other suitable arrangements she declined shortly after denise left lichty received a disturbing call is mrs carter okay the pressure of the investigation had pushed stacy brown too far he had threatened and assaulted denise he was arrested for domestic menacing and having been convicted for domestic abuse before he was all too familiar with the procedure it appeared that stacy brown was not the devoted family man he professed to be the night of mikey's death and perhaps he knew more than he was letting on if he did investigators were almost certain to find out [Music] in oregon the coos county sheriff's office was investigating the death of two and a half year old mikey carter who appeared to have choked to death on a cellophane cigarette wrapper [Music] but authorities were beginning to suspect the child's death was not an accident [Music] mikey's mother denise and her boyfriend stacy brown were the only other people in the house at the time of the incident 104 125. stacy brown's behavior was becoming increasingly erratic and it culminated in his arrest for domestic menacing the day after he was picked up detectives lichty and edsel visited denise at the library where she worked mrs carter excuse me she was visibly shaken [Music] and now that stacy was safely in police custody she wanted to get something off her chest sure did you have an affair with us she told them that a few months earlier her ex-husband had spent the night at her house on stacy's birthday stacy had found out about the affair he had discovered some of her ex-husbands personal belongings at denise's house hey when stacy confronted her with them she told him he had stopped by but then she confessed the affair on my birthday stacy became violent when he learned they had been together on his birthday mrs carter told us that this particular issue was a consistent reminder to mr brown that she had been unfaithful to him mr brown consistently barraged her with accusations and usually ending that with how could you have done this on my birthday of all days mikey carter was found dead on denise's birthday [Music] the detectives now had motive it appeared that stacy wanted to get even for her affair and he did it on her birthday detectives confronted stacy brown with denise's story on a hunch they asked him about the unexplained water in the bathtub detective lipke asked mr brown about the standing water in the tub mr brown had a pretty dramatic reversal of what had been reported mr brown suggested that if there were water in mikey's lungs he could account for the presence of that water now up to this point there had been no indication that mikey was anywhere near water during the time before his death finally stacy confessed to murdering two and a half year old mikey carter he told him that he had given mikey a bath mike enraged by denise's infidelity he tried to drown the child unsuccessful in his first attempt he carried the child back to his bed where he jammed the cellophane wrapper down his throat cutting off his airway mr brown admitted that while mike was still breathing he removed a piece of cellophane from the cigarette pack and inserted it into mikey's throat to make it appear that mikey had choked inside i knew that he had done this i just knew he had and i guess at this point i just am thrilled that we went ahead and did it and that that detective etsalon detective looked he did such a dynamite job stacy brown was convicted of first-degree murder and received 25 years to life as long as criminals try to hide their crimes investigators will work to expose them though perpetrators believe they have covered their tracks forensic scientists continue to develop new techniques and use their instincts to bring the guilty to justice