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Helle Crafts' 1986
murder may be one of the Dr. Lee's greatest work. Richard Crafts was accused of killing his wife, and suspected of getting
rid of her body by feeding her into a wood chipper. According to the legal standard at the time, the police didn't have a
murder case without a body. But Dr.Lee and his team searched the woods and the river bank, and even dragged the river.
They found 56 bone chips, 2,660 hairs, a nail with pink nail polish, and a tooth. The remains weighed just 31 grams (1
oz.) — but it was enough to convict Richard Crafts of murder. Helle Crafts 於 1986 年的謀殺案可能是李博士的重大工作之一。Richard Crafts 被控告殺了他太太，並且被猜測以輸送她進入碎木機的方式丟棄了她的屍體。根據當時的法律準則，警方在沒有屍體的情況下無法確立謀殺案。但是李博士和他的工作小組搜尋了森林與河岸，甚至在河中撈物，他們找到了 56 個骨頭碎片，2,660 根頭髮，一片有粉紅色指甲油的指甲，及一顆牙齒。這些殘骸只重 31克（1盎司）－ 但足以宣判 Richard Crafts有謀殺罪。 The following was the interview with Dr.Lee. （以下是和李博士的訪談。） You've
been involved in a lot of cases, one of the more interesting is the case of the wood chipper murder in Newtown,
Connecticut. Helle Crafts, a flight attendant, disappeared in 1986. Her husband, Richard Crafts, claimed that they'd had
an argument and she'd left and never came back. He actually filed a missing person report, and he might have gotten away
with murder if it hadn't been for the fact that a snowplow driver had seen someone down by the river one night running a
wood chipper. The police investigated and found tiny fragments of bone, cloth, hair, a letter, and other remains. Then
they located evidence that Craft had rented a wood chipper from another town. It was the first time in the state's history
that a man was convicted of murder without the body being found. I know you were part of that investigation, and that must
have been pretty challenging, but what has been your most challenging case ? Some people say it must be O. J. Simpson, and I tell them that's the least challenging. Other people say
the wood chipper murder, and yes, that case looks pretty challenging because the victim vanished. We went through snow
inch by inch in the winter and we only found fifty-six little tiny bone chips because the victim's body went through a
large commercial wood chipper. It blew everything into the river. But we were able to put them together. Not every case is
difficult. If you handle it correctly, people can look at it later and say, "Ah, that was easy." If you handle
it incorrectly, an easy case later becomes difficult.
But
with the wood chipper case, you were facing a precedent in that state of going to trial without a body. Yes, but we have another case that was even better than that. With the wood chipper case, at least we
found some hair and bone chips. The other case happened a couple of years ago in a massage parlor. A young lady, 16 years
old, went to perform a service and was supposed to return around 2:00 that afternoon. By 4:00, she hadn't come back.
Finally the manager called the place where she was supposed to go and they said that she'd already left. So the police
were called to this location, where she was last seen. They got a search warrant but didn't find anything. (The story continues next time.) |