In Miami, a university football player and his female friend are found beaten to death. Investigators piece together random fragments from the crime scene, hoping to assemble evidence that will point to the killer. A man is found shot to death in his living room. With no obvious suspect, investigators turn to those closest to the victim and uncover a startling secret. When killers are driven by jealousy and desire, their desperation is evident in both the crime and their efforts to avoid detection. But forensic science can reveal even the slightest mistake to solve crimes of passion.
Sultry Miami Beach, with its hot nights and warm days, is the perfect setting for romance. But when passion is one-sided, jealousy and rage can lead to murder.
On April 16th, 1996, University of Miami student Darren Thomas was returning to the dormitory he shared with star linebacker Marlon Barnes. Thomas saw that the tires of his SUV were flat. He had just loaned the car to his roommate. Annoyed, he wanted to confront him.
When he went into the dorm, Thomas was horrified to find Barnes lying on the floor, covered in blood. He ran next door to call police.
“Miami Dade County Police and fire. Where is your emergency?”
“University of Miami. What building number? Room number?”
A patrol officer and an ambulance were immediately dispatched to the apartment, Unit 332, University of Miami Athletic Dorm. It’s unknown if there’s a subject on the scene. At 1901 Kilo 3105, paramedics entered the scene. Marlon Barnes lay motionless on the floor. He’d been severely beaten about the head and face.
In the bedroom, the officer found another victim.
“There’s a female down.”
Detectives, a young woman, also badly beaten. Despite efforts to revive her, the victim’s vital signs remained weak. Medics needed to get her to a hospital immediately. Crime scene investigators arrived and began to carefully search through the apartment, looking for clues. It was eerily undisturbed, suggesting that robbery was not a motive for the attack. Investigators found splinters of wood and shards of metal near the front door, but the wood pieces did not seem to match any of the furniture in the apartment. It may have come from the murder weapon. They also found fragments of teeth and bone, testaments to the savagery of the attacks.
Investigators interviewed Darren Thomas. He identified the female victim as 22-year-old Timwanika Lumpkins. Unfortunately, she too would not survive. Barnes had borrowed his SUV to attend a party at a Miami nightclub. He was not aware of anyone who would want to attack Barnes or Timwanika. At the Miami Dade Police Department, Detective Thomas Romani worked the case. From his early assessment of the crime scene, Romani knew the victims were caught by surprise.
“We were able to establish that the attack, uh, was with the heavy blunt object, and it took place right at the front door and proceeded into the house, and the majority of the, um, trauma sustained to Barnes occurred when he was on the floor.”
The victims were autopsied in Dade County. The examination revealed that both victims died as a result of blunt trauma. Barnes and Timwanika had been hit with such force that impressions of the murder weapon were left on their bodies. Medical examiner Sam Galino noted the distinctive nature of the victim’s wounds.
“Marlin’s wounds were predominantly clustered around his face. Some of them were T-shaped or L-shaped or had some unusual contours to them that made me think that they were made with some sort of very specific weapon. Timwanika had some pattern injuries, but they were subtle and they were different, indicating that either it was a different weapon, a different aspect of the same weapon, or possibly that the weapon had somehow altered, such as being broken between when she was assaulted and when Marlon was assaulted. But the, the bigger mystery in both of the cases was: was there a specific weapon that we could identify and match to these wounds?”
The task of identifying the murder weapon would fall to the Miami Dade Crime Lab. Thomas Quirk is a firearms and tool mark examiner at the lab. He studied evidence taken from the scene.
“I could tell by looking at the wood that it looked like what’s called a fore-end of a shotgun. That is a part of the shotgun that’s usually held by the left hand when somebody’s firing a shotgun.”
The brutality and rage of the crime suggested the killer knew his victims. The next day, news of the campus tragedy stunned the city. Detectives would have to develop leads on a suspect. Investigators met with the victim’s close friends and teammates. Barnes and Timwanika were popular and well-liked by their peers.
“Barnes, and I saw him at the club, Club Salvations.”
The football players told us that Barnes and Timwanika were seen together. Not all of the football players knew their exact relationship. Timwanika was a friend of Marlon Barnes since they were in high school. Miami Dade police also discovered that Timwanika had an ex-boyfriend, a rap musician named Lebrand Dennis.
“Lebron Dennis was a local of Miami. He had, uh, produced some rap videos, and in fact, that’s how Timwanika and Lebron Dennis met.”
Police were eager to question Timwanika’s ex-boyfriend Lebron Dennis. And they wouldn’t have to wait long for answers. The day after the murder, Dennis and a friend showed up at the police station.
“And her boyfriend, I need you to research through that. See what you can make out of it.”
“Yeah.”
“The ex-boyfriend of the girl is murdered. He’s outside. He wants to talk to you.”
“Oh, good. Very good. You come out there with two. Very good.”
Detective Romani was intrigued by what he found out.
“When I met with him, he didn’t have a gangster rough rap type persona, and I didn’t pick up on it—’will get down here and do anything that I can do.’ Lebron was very calm. He was inquisitive as to what occurred. Told me that he didn’t have any information about the case.”
“Had you ever had any problems in your relationship with Tamana? Domestic problems?”
He gave me some background information about his relationship with Timwanika, why they broke up. He, in fact, told me that he did not personally know Marlon Barnes.
“Had you and Tim… Dennis and Timwanika dated for 5 years up until a week ago? About there had been some breakups between them through their 5-year relationship as well.”
But according to Dennis, things were getting better between them.
“Out of your cousin’s house?”
“Yeah.”
“They were in the process of reconciling.”
“Mother in the same place. Seen pictures of this stuff.”
He said he was asleep at his sister’s house the night of the murders. Investigators asked to take photographs of his body. Police wanted to see if Dennis had any marks or scratches, signs of a physical altercation.
“Yes. Thank you. Can you take off your shirt, please?”
But no visible scratches or bruises were found on his body. Dennis also agreed to be fingerprinted. He was acting like a man with nothing to hide. Even though there was nothing glaring, Detective Romani wasn’t convinced.
“When I was told that Lebron Dennis responded to the homicide bureau to speak to me, I—I wasn’t really surprised, but I was apprehensive. Maybe that he was coming forward to be too…”
Forensic Specialist Russ Davis assisted on the case. He brushed the quilt found at the crime scene, collecting any loose fibers.
“The issue became: can we connect the victim through this blanket to our suspect? That’s where the fiber evidence came from. Fibers—associative evidence. Um, fibers are the basic unit of all textiles. Clothing, carpeting, anything like that will shed the fibers—the very small portion which makes up the textile garment—and that’s what can transfer.”
Davis then checked for a match. Those samples are then compared to the known samples from the vehicle in this case.
“Uh, then they are looked at to determine if there in fact was fibers just like the ones found on the blanket found inside the vehicle.”
Fibers from the bloody quilt matched the fibers collected from Pipkin’s truck.
“The report went out dealing with the serological evidence that this quilt had, in fact, been bled on by the victim. The following work on the fiber then said that this material in this swatch of the, uh, quilt, in fact, uh, there were fibers like that found in the suspect’s vehicle. That makes a link between suspect and victim through this quilt.”
“I think we have enough evidence to prove to a Stewart County jury that she’s dated and kind of killed. You know, David?”
The evidence was presented to District Attorney Dan Alsobrook.
“We’re going to have a hard time proving that she’s dead when we don’t have a body. We just got one shot at.”
Alsobrook was apprehensive about taking Pipkin to trial. The obvious challenge of the case was the lack of a body.
“Once we got to trial with this issue of not having a body, end up being, uh, reasonable out for the jury.”
But police were determined to bring Pipkin to justice and ran through the evidence again.
“We’ve got the quilt that has her blood on it. We know that was her blood on the quilt, her blood at the crime scene. And we can put the quilt in his truck. We don’t get two chances to try a murder case.”
“He’s found not guilty. That’s it.”
The DA was unconvinced he could get a conviction.
“And we know that that quilt, a murder case, is, is very difficult to make if it’s totally circumstantial. We know it’s neck, and you’ve got to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that there’s been a homicide and then prove beyond a reasonable doubt who committed the homicide.”
“Left that day. She was had.”
Sheriff Hicks knew June’s body was out there somewhere. Somebody tried to hide it, and to him, the case was not closed. And her watch had been torn from her arm. Two years later, on August 23rd, 1993, a fisherman made a gruesome discovery. The lower half of a female torso surfaced in the Tennessee River. Her family recognized the clothing, and they knew it was June. Kenneth Pipkin was arrested and charged with murder. Police believe that June threatened to expose their relationship. Pipkin killed her to ensure her silence. But with the help of forensic science, June’s story was finally told.
“For a small town murder, probably had as many expert witnesses as I’ve ever had in the case. I had a forensic pathologist that had done the autopsy. You had fiber experts. You had a blood, uh, expert from the TBI. It was a fascinating case to put together as a prosecutor.”
Kenneth Pipkin was found guilty of second-degree murder. He is now serving a 20-year sentence. Some killers go to great lengths to keep their victim’s whereabouts a mystery, leaving no bodies and only traces of the crime. There was a time when justice was scarce for these perpetrators. But today, forensic science arms law enforcement with the necessary weapons to convict, providing a witness where there is none.
