Speaker 1: This series is inspired by true events. The stories you're
Speaker 1: about to hear are fictional, and so are the characters
Speaker 1: who are played by actors.
Speaker 2: Principal Palumbo here, remember Valentine's Day is Friday, and today's
Speaker 2: the last day of carnation sales one dollar a carnation,
Speaker 2: and the proceeds go to help fund the concert choir's
Speaker 2: trip to Nationals.
Speaker 1: After Charlotte Murphy's murder at the ice cream shop, it
Speaker 1: was nice to have a distraction like Valentine's Day, even
Speaker 1: though it could be pretty stressful. At Mount Pine High School,
Speaker 1: a person's popularity can be basically measured by how many
Speaker 1: carnations they get on Valentine's Day.
Speaker 3: Valentine's Day was all about the carnation.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen eighty six, sixteen year old Lauren Collins
Speaker 1: is a junior like us. She's the stereotypical varsity cheerleader. Today,
Speaker 1: Lauren live in Houston and is the manager at a
Speaker 1: high end hotel and spa.
Speaker 3: It was not only about who I'm buying carnations for,
Speaker 3: but who was buying carnations for me? And the colors
Speaker 3: set it all white for friendship, pink for a secret
Speaker 3: crush and red for love.
Speaker 1: Of course, this Valentine's Day, I'm wondering how many carnations
Speaker 1: all get from my new boyfriend Ethan.
Speaker 4: Today.
Speaker 1: He's a fifty two year old divorce attorney, and of
Speaker 1: course he's divorced.
Speaker 5: My clan was to make it a very romantic Valentine's
Speaker 5: Day for Nancy. But man, we had no idea it
Speaker 5: would be a bloody Valentine.
Speaker 4: I'm Nancy Clark.
Speaker 1: This is The Murder Years, episode five, Victoria.
Speaker 6: Finally, it was Friday, Valentine's Day. Flowers were going to
Speaker 6: be coming to our homeroom class.
Speaker 1: Tatiana and I were always in the same homeroom, so
Speaker 1: we got to experience the carnations thing together every year.
Speaker 4: I checked my diary. Of course, I wrote it down.
Speaker 6: I got six white ones and one red one from
Speaker 6: my boyfriend.
Speaker 4: I was pissed he only got me one.
Speaker 1: I got five white carnations and ten red ones. Ethan
Speaker 1: did good. But Lauren, the cheerleader, well, Lauren cleaned up.
Speaker 3: I got something like thirty carnations. It was kind of crazy.
Speaker 3: We carried the flowers around all day and everyone took
Speaker 3: note of who got the most. You know, sure, I
Speaker 3: know It sounds dumb now, but it was very important then.
Speaker 1: The plan for that night is Ethan and I are
Speaker 1: double dating with Tatiana and her boyfriend. We all go
Speaker 1: to China Buffet, then to the Valentine's dance at school.
Speaker 1: At the end of the night, Ethan and I have
Speaker 1: a pretty good makeout session in his car while Tatiana
Speaker 1: and her date are still dancing, and then Ethan drops
Speaker 1: me and Tatiana off at her house for a sleepover.
Speaker 1: We're way too hyper asleep, so we're up for hours
Speaker 1: talking about dinner and the dance, and then.
Speaker 4: We hear something.
Speaker 1: It sounds like screams, blood curling, screams.
Speaker 7: Nine one one, what's your emergency?
Speaker 8: Oh my god, my daughter she's gone.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, my daughter is gone.
Speaker 1: It's around two am when Mount Pine police arrive at
Speaker 1: the Blue and White ranch house on Allendale Lane, three
Speaker 1: doors down from Tatiana's house. We're outside watching everything. On
Speaker 1: the front we see Dorothy Brown and her fourteen year
Speaker 1: old son, Donnie. Dorothy is sobbing while Donnie nervously swings
Speaker 1: a baseball bat and paces the lawn.
Speaker 9: I arrived at a very chaotic.
Speaker 1: Scene back in nineteen eighty six. Detective Marcia Thompson is
Speaker 1: a four year veteran of Mount PINEPDE. Today she's an
Speaker 1: investigator in the Prosecutor's office. She told me she would
Speaker 1: only talk to me if she could find her notes
Speaker 1: and review them first.
Speaker 4: Thankfully she did so.
Speaker 10: Yes, I was first informed that thirteen year old Victoria
Speaker 10: Brown was missing, and as we know, every second counts
Speaker 10: when there's an abduction.
Speaker 1: People in town know the Brown family. Sadly, they're no
Speaker 1: strangers to tragedy. Dorothy's husband died in a horrible car
Speaker 1: accident six years before and now this.
Speaker 10: So because we had a missing girl, we cordoned off
Speaker 10: the area until the canine unit from the county arrived.
Speaker 10: I tried to talk to Dorothy outside. She was hysterical, understandably,
Speaker 10: so she told me everything was normal up until then.
Speaker 10: She got home from work. She worked at Ridgemont nursing Home.
Speaker 10: She made dinner and a heart shaped pink duncan Heine's
Speaker 10: cake for the kids. Around seven point thirty, Victoria came
Speaker 10: home from her friend's house.
Speaker 9: She was in a good mood.
Speaker 10: She didn't have dinner because she had already eaten at
Speaker 10: her friends, but she did have a lot of cake,
Speaker 10: which then turned into a belly ache, so she went
Speaker 10: to her room and fell asleep. Donnie got home around nineish,
Speaker 10: ate cake and played Autari until around eleven pm, then
Speaker 10: he went to bed. Dorothy said she got up from
Speaker 10: bed at one forty five to get a drink, and
Speaker 10: when she she got close to Victoria's room, she noticed
Speaker 10: the door was open and cold air was blowing into
Speaker 10: the hallway. She went into her room and Victoria was gone.
Speaker 10: I asked if she heard anything prior to realizing Victoria
Speaker 10: was missing, and she said no. She thought she heard
Speaker 10: a male voice earlier, and she thought she heard some commotion,
Speaker 10: but she was half asleep and thought she was dreaming.
Speaker 10: She says she's a pretty heavy sleeper. Donnie fell asleep
Speaker 10: listening to his walk man, so he didn't hear anything.
Speaker 1: About fifteen minutes after Detective Thompson speaks with Dorothy, the
Speaker 1: canine unit arrives, led by Officer Dixon, an expert with dogs.
Speaker 11: When Me and Copper arrived, we learned a young girl
Speaker 11: was missing.
Speaker 4: In nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: Canine Officer Charles Dixon is on his third dog, Copper.
Speaker 11: One of the things that makes it, So we're easy
Speaker 11: for a canine to follow. A scent is the adrenaline
Speaker 11: rush accentuates, So why don't you start the doll on
Speaker 11: a particular scent. He'll follow that sent until he either
Speaker 11: finds it or losing. Window was opening the girl's bedroom,
Speaker 11: and the police believed she was taking out that window.
Speaker 11: So that's where we start. Right away, Copper tractor sent
Speaker 11: from that window, and I followed.
Speaker 4: Officer Dixon says.
Speaker 1: Copper led him to the bottom of the muddy hill
Speaker 1: about fifty yards behind Victoria's house. There they find her
Speaker 1: partially clothed, beaten body.
Speaker 11: Oh, it was a very upsetting site. I mean, of course,
Speaker 11: the worst case scenario, I'd hope Copper would help us
Speaker 11: find Victoria alive, or you know, at least lead us
Speaker 11: to a suspect. Of the two of them. Victoria's adrenaline
Speaker 11: was stronger than the suspects, and unfortunately we were just
Speaker 11: too late. We set word back to Detective Thompson that
Speaker 11: we found the victim again.
Speaker 4: Detective Marcia Thompson.
Speaker 10: I mean, it was just awful news. And her body
Speaker 10: was found so close to her house and with her
Speaker 10: mother and brother right there. When I told Dorothy the
Speaker 10: tragic news. She was in shock and insisted on seeing
Speaker 10: her daughter with her own eyes. I tried to talk
Speaker 10: her out of it, but she demanded to see her.
Speaker 9: So we walked.
Speaker 10: Down the hill, and I mean you could see her
Speaker 10: body in the distance.
Speaker 12: God.
Speaker 10: When we got there, the officer proved back the sheet
Speaker 10: and Dorothy collapsed. She fainted. Thankfully, there were paramedics on
Speaker 10: scene to help her.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe Tatiana and I are right there
Speaker 1: watching this tragedy full of before our own eyes.
Speaker 6: I could not believe my sweet neighbor had been murdered.
Speaker 6: She was such a nice, nice girl. My babysat her
Speaker 6: a few times when her mom would run to the store. Honestly,
Speaker 6: this one just about broke me.
Speaker 1: Dorothy, Donnie, and Victoria's grandparents are eventually escorted to the
Speaker 1: police station.
Speaker 10: I had to refresh my memory with the police reports
Speaker 10: about what happened next. Once the family left the scene,
Speaker 10: I entered the house. I'll read you some of it,
Speaker 10: it says. I walked in the front door. There appeared
Speaker 10: to be no signs of forced entry. The living room
Speaker 10: looked undisturbed. To the right was the kitchen, which also
Speaker 10: looked undisturbed. On the table, there was a heart shaped
Speaker 10: cake that I said, I love you, but most of
Speaker 10: the cake had been eaten. Yeah, that cake hurt my heart. Anyway,
Speaker 10: I'll keep reading.
Speaker 9: I made my.
Speaker 10: Way to Victoria's bedroom and it was cold because the
Speaker 10: window was wide open.
Speaker 9: It was February.
Speaker 10: Victoria's room was a typical preteen girls room, posters of
Speaker 10: Michael J. Fox from Teen Wolf, The Goonies, and Whitney Houston.
Speaker 10: I remember when I walked closer to her bed, I
Speaker 10: saw blood droplets which led to the open window, and
Speaker 10: the drapes had been pulled down. That made me think
Speaker 10: that Victoria was fighting her abductor as she was being
Speaker 10: taken out of the house. I wasn't sure how the
Speaker 10: perpetrator got in, but I was pretty sure how they left.
Speaker 10: Hoped we'd be able to get some usable prints from
Speaker 10: the window sill.
Speaker 1: At the station, Victoria's family sits in one of the
Speaker 1: interview rooms waiting for Detective Thompson to arrive.
Speaker 10: Asking the family to talk about it with me so
Speaker 10: soon after seemed cruel, but we couldn't waste any time,
Speaker 10: so I asked, could they think of anyone who would
Speaker 10: have wanted who may have wanted to hurt Victoria. Dorothy
Speaker 10: and the grandparents said no, absolutely not. They couldn't think
Speaker 10: of a soul who would want to hurt Victoria. They
Speaker 10: said she was the most wonderful girl. She was kind
Speaker 10: a good student, and she loved animals. But then fourteen
Speaker 10: year old Donnie spoke, I can play the audio tape
Speaker 10: part of his interview for you.
Speaker 12: Yeah, Victoria told me someone was giving her a weird feeling.
Speaker 12: She says she didn't like being alone with him. She
Speaker 12: said it was someone in our family.
Speaker 1: Thirteen year old Victoria Brown was abducted from her bedroom
Speaker 1: in her own house, beaten, sexually assaulted, and murdered. Her mom, Dorothy,
Speaker 1: her fourteen year old brother, Donnie, and their grandparents are
Speaker 1: at the Mount Pine Police station talking with Detective Marcia Thompson.
Speaker 1: And Donnie just dropped a bomb. Here's more of his
Speaker 1: audio taped interview.
Speaker 12: My sister told me that she had a strange feeling
Speaker 12: being around. Someone asked for who, and she just looked down.
Speaker 12: I asked her what that meant. Said she didn't like
Speaker 12: the way this man looked at her, touched her. It
Speaker 12: made her feel weird. She said, he gave her the
Speaker 12: creeps and she didn't want to be along with him.
Speaker 12: I asked her again who she was talking about. She
Speaker 12: said it was uncle Martin.
Speaker 10: Well, everyone started talking at once. Dorothy was yelling at Donnie.
Speaker 10: Why didn't he ever say anything? The grandparents insisted there
Speaker 10: was no way Martin would do anything to a young girl.
Speaker 10: I had to call in another detective to help me
Speaker 10: calm things down.
Speaker 1: Martin Brown is Dorothy's brother in law, her late husband's brother.
Speaker 1: He works at the Junior High School as a security guard.
Speaker 1: That's where Victoria went to school. Around five am, police
Speaker 1: go to Martin Brown's home and ask him to come
Speaker 1: down to the station and he does, here's Martin.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 13: When the officers came to my door, I was getting
Speaker 13: ready to go to bed. They told me my niece
Speaker 13: was found dead and I was like, what, Victoria's dead.
Speaker 13: But it wasn't just that they were notifying me. They
Speaker 13: wanted me to come to the station with them. I
Speaker 13: had no idea why. I thought maybe they thought I
Speaker 13: could help find the killer. It was also hard to
Speaker 13: process Victoria is dead and they want to talk to
Speaker 13: me about it.
Speaker 10: When Martin Brown arrived, I remember he looked disheveled. In
Speaker 10: my notes, I wrote what he was wearing a light
Speaker 10: blue work shirt, khakis, and work boots. He looked nervous,
Speaker 10: but he also looked confused. I told him what happened Victoria,
Speaker 10: purposefully leaving a lot of details out.
Speaker 9: She got very upset.
Speaker 10: I then wanted to know about his relationship with Victoria.
Speaker 13: I told the detective we had a typical uncle nice relationship.
Speaker 13: I supported her and everything she did. I went to
Speaker 13: all of her soccer games. I stepped into a surrogate
Speaker 13: father role after her dad, my brother died.
Speaker 10: I then told him what Victoria had shared with her
Speaker 10: brother Donnie, that she felt uncomfortable with him.
Speaker 9: I asked him why he thought that would be.
Speaker 13: I had no idea why Victoria would have said that,
Speaker 13: and I was hurt that she felt that way. I'd
Speaker 13: never done anything to a child, any child. I never
Speaker 13: did anything to her. I wouldn't and couldn't. I mean,
Speaker 13: come on, I had a daughter myself around the same age.
Speaker 13: I had no answers for the detective. I did know
Speaker 13: one thing. I didn't kill my niece. I loved her,
Speaker 13: and I told the detective. I worked that night. I
Speaker 13: worked security at the high school Valentine's Day dance, so
Speaker 13: a lot of people saw me there. The dance ended
Speaker 13: around eleven, but I was there until everyone cleaned up
Speaker 13: and left. That was around midnight. Then I went home.
Speaker 13: I told the detective I got home around twelve thirty,
Speaker 13: and my wife could verify that, and the janitorial staff
Speaker 13: could verify how late that I was at the school.
Speaker 13: I didn't do it. I really wanted her to stop
Speaker 13: asking me questions so I could go be with Victoria's
Speaker 13: mom and brother.
Speaker 10: So I had to verify his whereabouts, and I hoped
Speaker 10: for this family's sake.
Speaker 9: It all checked out.
Speaker 1: By Sunday morning, police finished processing the scene. They dust
Speaker 1: for fingerprints and take pictures both inside the house and
Speaker 1: where Victoria's body was found outside, and they find no
Speaker 1: signs of force entry. Tatiana and I never get to
Speaker 1: sleep that night. When police come to her house, we
Speaker 1: tell them what we know, which isn't much actually, just
Speaker 1: that we heard screams sometime before two am, but that
Speaker 1: was it. We didn't see anything at all. I feel
Speaker 1: so bad that was happening so close to us and
Speaker 1: we didn't know. We just didn't know, or we could
Speaker 1: have helped.
Speaker 14: I'm outside the home of an unthinkable crime which took
Speaker 14: place last night. Thirteen year old Victoria Brown was abducted
Speaker 14: from her own home and dragged out of.
Speaker 9: Her bedroom window.
Speaker 14: She was murdered and her body was found only fifty
Speaker 14: yards behind her house. Police have no suspects yet some
Speaker 14: of the families in the neighborhood worry this young girl
Speaker 14: might be the victim of a serial killer who's been
Speaker 14: terrorizing the Midwest for years.
Speaker 10: So, starting back in the late seventies, the Midwest child
Speaker 10: killer murdered four little girls, ranging in ages from.
Speaker 9: Five to eight.
Speaker 10: Now, those victims weren't from Mount Pine. One victim was
Speaker 10: from our state, the others were from neighboring states. Yes,
Speaker 10: some details were similar to what happened in the Brown case.
Speaker 10: The killer would come in the house through an unlocked
Speaker 10: window or door, usually during the summer months, abduct the
Speaker 10: child always girls, and make them away from the house,
Speaker 10: where he would sexually assault them and stab them to death.
Speaker 10: Because there were some similarities, we called the FBI and
Speaker 10: they said they'd send a team. Sure, we thought it
Speaker 10: would be the same killer, or it could be a copycat,
Speaker 10: or there could be no connection. Whatsoever. Personally, I didn't
Speaker 10: think it was the Midwest killer. This case occurred in
Speaker 10: the winter, Victoria was older than the other victims, and
Speaker 10: the Brown House was locked up. No closer to finding
Speaker 10: Victoria Brown's killer.
Speaker 9: We called a press conference.
Speaker 1: That Sunday night. There's a vigil outside the Brown's home.
Speaker 1: I swear the whole town turns out. Even though I
Speaker 1: didn't know Victoria, I mean, she was three years younger
Speaker 1: than me, didn't matter. It felt like we had lost
Speaker 1: one of our own family members.
Speaker 6: My heart broke for missus Brown and Donnie. My mom
Speaker 6: brought dinner over that night. I mean, we didn't know
Speaker 6: what else we could do.
Speaker 8: I wanted to go hug them. Instead, we just hugged
Speaker 8: each other.
Speaker 1: Detective Marsha Thompson is also at the vigil.
Speaker 10: I kept scanning the crowd for anything or any one strange.
Speaker 10: I didn't see anything that piqued my interest or looked suspicious.
Speaker 10: It was so sad that poor, poor family. The next day,
Speaker 10: it was a Monday, the coroner's office called with some
Speaker 10: important information. Victoria's cause of death was strangulation. In my
Speaker 10: notes from that it says I went back and reread
Speaker 10: the interview I conducted, and the interviews the other the
Speaker 10: other officers had conducted. It was then I noticed a
Speaker 10: detail that didn't stand out to me before. It was
Speaker 10: from an officer who attempted to talk to the residents
Speaker 10: of eighteen seventy four Allendale Lane, seven houses down from
Speaker 10: the Browns. The officer's notes stated, I knocked on the door,
Speaker 10: but no one answered. I thought I heard some sounds inside,
Speaker 10: so I knocked again again, no answer. I decided to
Speaker 10: go to that house and try again to talk to
Speaker 10: whoever lived there.
Speaker 9: I knocked on the door.
Speaker 10: The door opened with only a crack, and a man
Speaker 10: with salt and pepper hair was standing in the living room.
Speaker 10: I asked him his name. He asked why. Why, then
Speaker 10: said I'm Frank Hartford.
Speaker 9: I'm Frank Hartford.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen eighty six. Frank Hartford is a middle
Speaker 1: aged truck driver. He's tall and burly, with a raspy
Speaker 1: cigarette voice, a little rough around the edges, is putting
Speaker 1: it nicely.
Speaker 10: I asked him if I could come in and ask
Speaker 10: him some questions, but he told me, in no uncertain terms, no,
Speaker 10: without a search warrant, I couldn't come in.
Speaker 9: Then he abruptly closed the door.
Speaker 10: I don't know how to explain it, but I had
Speaker 10: a feeling. I had a bad feeling about him, so
Speaker 10: I went back to run a Frank Hartford through the system.
Speaker 1: Detective Thompson learns the house on Allendale Lane belonged to
Speaker 1: Frank's mother, who died two years before, and Frank's got
Speaker 1: a criminal record. He had a domestic violence charge, which
Speaker 1: was dropped in an animal cruelty charge for which he
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty. He paid a fine and got probation.
Speaker 10: I did some more digging and learned that Frank Hartford
Speaker 10: had a fifteen year old son named Stephen. I called
Speaker 10: Dorothy Brown, Victoria's mother, to see if she knew anything
Speaker 10: about Frank or Stephen Hartford. Her reaction said everything.
Speaker 1: Mount Pine Police Detective Marcia Thompson is investigating the murder
Speaker 1: of thirteen year old Victoria Brown.
Speaker 10: I called Victoria's mother, Dorothy, to see if she knew
Speaker 10: either Frank or Stephen Hartford who lived down the street,
Speaker 10: and she said yes. Four months prior to her daughter's murder,
Speaker 10: she caught the son, Stephen, breaking into a car and
Speaker 10: she called the police on him. Dorothy asked, you don't
Speaker 10: think he had anything to do with Victoria, do you?
Speaker 10: I told her I was going to investigate some more.
Speaker 10: When I hung up with Dorothy, I dove back into
Speaker 10: our system and there was the car incident. Stephen Hartford
Speaker 10: was arrested by juvenile detectives for breaking and entering in
Speaker 10: a car and stealing the radio. He spent two months
Speaker 10: locked up in juvie and it's on his permanent record.
Speaker 10: He's still on probation. I wondered was there a connection.
Speaker 10: Was Stephen upset with Dorothy for turning him in, but
Speaker 10: to murder.
Speaker 9: Her daughter over it? That seems pretty severe.
Speaker 1: Fifteen year old Stephen Hartford is in the same grade
Speaker 1: as Donnie, Victoria's older brother. Donnie and Stephen aren't friends,
Speaker 1: but they ride the same bus to and from school.
Speaker 10: I asked Donnie about Stephen, but he really didn't know
Speaker 10: much about him. He didn't have any information that could
Speaker 10: help us. I knew what I had was thin, but
Speaker 10: it was basically a hunch, but a possible motive. So
Speaker 10: I went to the prosecutor anyway, hoping we could get
Speaker 10: a search warrant for the Hartford home based on the
Speaker 10: position of Victoria's body. We've believed that the perpetrator spent
Speaker 10: some time on his knees, so we were searching for
Speaker 10: a pair of pants with dirt on the knees, and
Speaker 10: of course any clothes with blood.
Speaker 1: Police spend four hours searching the Hartford house but can't
Speaker 1: find anything incriminating. Then in an old beat up freezer
Speaker 1: in the garage they do.
Speaker 10: We found a bag of clothes. There was a sweater
Speaker 10: with what looked like blood particles. There was also a
Speaker 10: pair of jeans with what looked like blood and on
Speaker 10: the knees dried mud or dirt.
Speaker 9: In the bag were socks and tennis shoes.
Speaker 10: Those two had blood on them and the bottom of
Speaker 10: the shoes they were caked in mud. And all those
Speaker 10: clothes we found belonged to Stephen Hartford. In order to
Speaker 10: arrest Stephen Hartford, we needed to know if the blood
Speaker 10: on the clothes was victorious. Now, remember this was before DNA,
Speaker 10: so we would just match the blood type.
Speaker 1: During this time, police units have Stephen Hartford under surveillance.
Speaker 1: They don't want him fleeing or committing another crime.
Speaker 10: Several long days later, the results came back. Victoria's blood
Speaker 10: type matched what was found on Stephen's sweater, jeans, socks,
Speaker 10: and shoes.
Speaker 1: Almost two weeks after Victoria Brown's murder, Stephen Hartford is
Speaker 1: arrested and charged with first degree murder and sexual assault.
Speaker 10: We picked him up as he got off the school bus.
Speaker 10: He had no emotion whatsoever. At the police station. Tried
Speaker 10: to get information from him, but he remained silent. He
Speaker 10: wouldn't cooperate. His dad wasn't helpful either, And bear in
Speaker 10: mind too, he was a juvenile, so we had to
Speaker 10: go through.
Speaker 9: A juvenile process.
Speaker 10: We felt strongly that he should be tried as an adult.
Speaker 10: The prosecutor felt the same way, and so Stephen Hartford
Speaker 10: would be tried as an adult.
Speaker 1: Detective Thompson tells Donnie and his mother, Dorothy, their fifteen
Speaker 1: year old neighbor was arrested for killing Victoria, and they
Speaker 1: have very different reactions. Donnie wants to kill him, and
Speaker 1: Dorothy cries and blames herself.
Speaker 10: Dorothy Brown crumbled. She sobbed and crumbled. She said, if
Speaker 10: she hadn't turned him in for breaking into that car,
Speaker 10: her daughter would still be here.
Speaker 1: When my friends and I learn of Stephen Hartford's arrest, well,
Speaker 1: once again we are stunned. Not only was another young
Speaker 1: girl murdered, this time it was at the hands of
Speaker 1: one of our classmates.
Speaker 6: They were both my neighbors, the Browns and the Hartford's.
Speaker 6: I mean, how was I ever going to feel safe again?
Speaker 12: You know?
Speaker 6: My parents actually took me to a psychologist after Stephen's arrest.
Speaker 4: They were worried about me.
Speaker 1: Six months later, the trial begins. Prosecutor Laura Wells tries
Speaker 1: the case for the state.
Speaker 7: I had no doubt that the right person was on trial,
Speaker 7: furious murder. We had it all. We had motive revenge,
Speaker 7: We had physical evidence, victorious blood on his clothes. And
Speaker 7: we had more. We had doctor Marcus Summers, a geologist
Speaker 7: who specializes in analyzing soil samples.
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Wells gets me the audio tapes of the trial.
Speaker 15: Doctor Summers, do you saw me swear to tell the truth,
Speaker 15: the whole truth, and nothing but the truth will help you?
Speaker 9: God, I do you may be seated.
Speaker 16: So my expertise is in glacier movements, how the earth
Speaker 16: was formed, and how that.
Speaker 11: Soil is unique.
Speaker 16: My colleagues and I can usually tell within a few
Speaker 16: inches exactly where soil came from and the sample of
Speaker 16: the source where the victim's body was found matched the
Speaker 16: sample that we found on the pants of the defendant
Speaker 16: in matched in color, mineralogy, and grain size, and after testing,
Speaker 16: we concluded that there was a less than one percent
Speaker 16: chance that this sample came from any other site within
Speaker 16: one hundred miles.
Speaker 1: Pathologist Michael Tappt, who performed the autopsy, also testifies Victoria.
Speaker 15: Was manually strangled with direct pressure to the neck with
Speaker 15: the fingers of a person's right hand. It would have
Speaker 15: taken approximately three to seven minutes for Victoria to die.
Speaker 1: Stephen Hartford never takes the stand, but his father, Frank
Speaker 1: Hartford does. He testifies that his son was not capable
Speaker 1: of sexually assaulting and murdering Victoria Brown. He says his
Speaker 1: son was home during the time of the crime and
Speaker 1: he has no idea how Stephen's clothes ended up with
Speaker 1: blood and mud on them in a bag in the
Speaker 1: garage freezer.
Speaker 7: His defense was shit, he had no good sense.
Speaker 1: After an eight day trial and only three hours of deliberations,
Speaker 1: the jury comes back with a verdict of guilty. Stephen
Speaker 1: Hartford is sentenced to life without parole.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Jerry for your service.
Speaker 12: Today fort is a jury.
Speaker 8: The trial was over, but it wasn't getting any easier.
Speaker 8: Losing our friends and classmates like we were. It was
Speaker 8: getting harder and harder to live and feel safe in
Speaker 8: Mount Pine.
Speaker 1: Although Stephen Hartford would be spending his life behind bars
Speaker 1: and he couldn't hurt anyone else in Mount Pine. It
Speaker 1: was all for what? For revenge because Victoria's mom turned
Speaker 1: him in.
Speaker 4: Was that really the reason he murdered Victoria?
Speaker 1: Unfortunately we may never know, and I'm more convinced than
Speaker 1: ever that we're cursed. It's actually baked into our soil.
Speaker 1: Next time on The Murder Years.
Speaker 5: He was the coolest, just a real kind person.
Speaker 1: A popular teacher is murdered in his own home.
Speaker 6: No one who knew him would ever want to hurt him.
Speaker 4: Except for one person, and I swear in.
Speaker 9: That moment his face changed right before our eyes.
Speaker 1: The Murder Years is a production of AYR Media and
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia Executive producer Eliza Rosen for AYR Media co executive
Speaker 1: producer Paulina Williams. Written by Leah Rothman, directed by Michael Celtisch.
Speaker 1: Original concept developed in partnership with Anne, Margaret Johns and
Speaker 1: Greg Spring. Casting by Eisenberg Beans Casting Senior Associate Producer,
Speaker 1: Eric Newman, Associate producer Jill Pushesnik. Editing and sound design
Speaker 1: by Tristan Bankston, mastering by Cameron Taggie, Audio engineering by
Speaker 1: Matt Jacobson. Studio engineering by Jay Brannan. Legal counsel for
Speaker 1: a y R Media, Gianni Douglas, Executive producer for iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: Maya Howard. Performances for this episode by Gabrielle Carteris as
Speaker 1: Nancy Clark, Kelly Deadman as Tatiana, Borla Cassidy as Melanie Mari,
Speaker 1: Silda Garcia as Carla, April Adams as Prosecutor Wells, Carolyn
Speaker 1: Jania as nine one one caller Desiree Rodriguez is nine
Speaker 1: one one operator, James B. Kennedy as Ethan Rooney, James B.
Speaker 1: Kennedy as Young Principal Colombo, James Donahower as Pathologist Michael Taft,
Speaker 1: Jesse H. Hendricks as Lauren Collins, Joe Pachico as Martin Brown,
Speaker 1: Steve Felice as Lance Simpson, Tom Virtue as Officer Dixon,
Speaker 1: Tyler Hopkins is doctor Marcus Summers, Tyler Hopkins as Judge,
Speaker 1: Udonna Daniels as Reporter Number two Zachmas, Donnie Brown, Tudi
Speaker 1: Roach as Detective Thompson. Additional voices by Alex Salem,