It starts with a burning camp fire log but it’s not what it seems. We are then informed by the narrator that a killer was actually trying to burn evidence with the fire and eventually leading to a new forensic science technique being born.
This episode takes place is Farmersville, Texas; a small town, which was once known as the onion capital of Texas.
Investigator Vikki Pickett informs us that Farmersville residents don’t look their doors because they feel safe in their little town.
This episode will revolve around Rachelle Tolleson. She was born and raised in Farmersville and decided it would be a good place to raise her 6 month year old daughter named Avery. She and Avery lived alone in a house in the center of Farmersville. Her father Mark O’Neil describes her as a “happy person” and goes on to describe her daughter as a great dedicated mother despite going through an unpleasant divorce.
Around 7:30 in the morning of a warm spring day, Rachelle’s mother, Pam O’Neil, decided to visit her daughter. Inside, she found her granddaughter alone crying with Rachelle nowhere to be found. Pam then searched everywhere in her daughter’s home but couldn’t find her. However, she did notice the bed was moved and the head board was moved forward and a night stand was also moved. However, Rachelle’s purse and her car were still there.
On the kitchen floor there were a bunch of paper documents thrown around. They were then identified as Rachelle’s divorce papers with a shoe print stomped on to one of the sheets. The divorce was Rachelle’s idea. Assistant district attorney, Gregory Davis, says the print was a sign that there was someone with Rachelle before she disappeared. Rachelle’s mother, Pam, then called her soon-to-be ex son-in-law, Andrew Tolleson, informing him that Rachelle was missing. Andrew, however, said he couldn’t leave work.
The police organized a search party and questioned several people about the disappearance. Tim Wyatt, a newspaper reporter informs of that the search range was huge. Horseback, on foot, ATVs were some of the ways that people searched Farmersville’s outskirts. The search went on for 5 days but Rachelle was never found. Rachelle’s father, Mark, says that her daughter was perhaps not very well known and thought maybe Rachelle ran off. Mother Pam, however, thought Rachelle would never do such a thing. Rachelle loved her daughter too much to do that.
Later on, a man hiking in a disserted state park found the charred remains of a female body. With dental records, it was confirmed to be Rachelle…Few feet away; there was a pit with burned logs, suggesting the body may have been burned that way and in order to destroy evidence. Investigator Pickett knew mother Pam for several years but couldn’t tell her that she couldn’t see her daughter’s body. Autopsy results showed that Rachelle was sexually assaulted, stabbed and strangled. She may have been kidnapped by someone in her social circle. Andrew is the top suspect but had an alibi. He was at a alcoholic bon-fire party with friends and was driven home later but didn’t leave his home until the next morning to go to work. Connections between the bon-fire and the crime scene were made. Geography professor, Henri Grissino-Mayer, discovered that the muskeetwood in the crime scene and the party did not match but used a new forensic science technique to test 11 logs, 8 from the scene and 3 from the bon-fire and found that the wood grew near a factory and thus had titanium traces in it and had the exact same chemical make up and identical levels of titanium, thus, an exact match.
Party goers of the bon-fire party said that Andrew had nothing to do with the bon-fire itself. Instead, the wood was connected to Moises Mendoza, a repairman and an acquaintance with both Rachelle and Andrew. He had quite a criminal record. Mother Pam points out that Moises went to school with Rachelle. He even had several classes with her throughout her school years. Friends said Moises expressed interest in dating Rachelle after she broke up with Andrew.
At that time, Moises was out on bail. He had committed two aggravated robberies and failed to abduct young women of Dallas. In Moises’s home, he had a pair of boots which were covered in soot and smelled like gasoline. The boots and the shoe print found on Rachelle’s divorce papers matched. In the home, there were a pair of pants that also had traces of soot. Traces of blood were found on them. They matched Rachelle Tolleson. With the new evidence, investigators started question Moises. He confessed to the killing and said he thought that it was all a dream but realized it wasn’t. It was later discovered that Moises was drinking and angry after getting rejected by two women at the bon-fire party. He then saw Andrew alone and realized that Rachelle was probably at home, alone. He drove to Rachelle’s home and found her there and abducted her and killed her by stabbing and raping her.
3 months after the death, Moises was convicted for the killing of Rachelle Tolleson. He got the death penalty.
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