How I Caught the Killer Season 4 Episode 5
How I Caught the Killer Season 4 Episode 5
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TVTranscript
00:00When a murder is discovered, there was blood everywhere and it was just also a very disrespectful,
00:20tasteless way to leave this victim.
00:24Sunil Barsak was lying on the floor and she had a plastic bag over her face.
00:30Lives are torn apart.
00:37We're more likely to die at the hands of somebody that's very close to us than a complete stranger.
00:45It's up to the police to track down the killer.
00:47The way you can really spot a good homicide investigator is they're not looking around,
00:53they're looking down.
00:55Initially nothing seemed disturbed, but upon closer examination, we found a lot of evidence.
01:01Meet the murder detectives who reveal how they caught the killer.
01:06Good cop, bad cop is a tactic and it's a good tactic to use, but it's not the most effective
01:12because you want to keep the people talking to you.
01:14You want to hear what they have to say.
01:17He kept repeatedly telling us, oh, you got to help me find the killer.
01:20And I was thinking to myself, I'm looking at the killer right now.
01:36You think about the case even though you're really not supposed to, but you can't help
01:39but do it.
01:40I think that's human nature.
01:41My name is Joe Espino and I am a homicide investigator for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
01:48Department assigned to the Homicide Bureau.
01:50I have since retired.
01:53I look at a dead body and all I see is evidence because whatever your religious beliefs are,
01:59they're gone.
02:00And what you have left is evidence.
02:04And hopefully this body, the remains of what this person was, will give us the answers
02:11that we're seeking.
02:14You can't get emotionally attached to these cases.
02:17I don't discuss these cases with my family.
02:19You have to distance yourself.
02:21You can't help but sometimes think about it on your off time.
02:40My name is Bob Kinney.
02:42I'm a retired homicide investigator for Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
02:48When we received the phone call, I was just getting into bed, which means I had worked
02:53a full shift and had been up for a number of hours.
02:58I got home late, around 7, 38 o'clock, took my tie off, took my coat off, had dinner and
03:05the phone rang at 9.15 at night and it was the homicide desk.
03:09They were calling me to advise me that Bob and I had picked up a murder.
03:15I put my tie back on, I put my coat back on and I left to the city of Palmdale to begin
03:20my investigation of this murder.
03:27The way this case arose is that a female ran into the Palmdale Sheriff's Station hysterical
03:33and she had blood on her.
03:35She identified herself as Lorraine Austin and she told the deputies at the station that
03:39her friend had been murdered.
03:45Every homicide cop has an investigative plan and they're walking through the steps as far
03:50as making sure everything is set up before they arrive there.
03:55When I arrived at this location, it was 10.40 at night and the area was already secure.
04:02They gave me the story that they knew from our witness that had showed up.
04:07Lorraine observed that her friend, Lanell Barsak, and the friend's boyfriend, Louis
04:13Bernier, were arguing very heavily because Louis had found out that Lanell was having
04:17an affair.
04:18The argument got so heated that Lorraine decided she would leave the house and let the couple
04:23cool down.
04:25When she came back, she found her friend in the garage, dead, and then she heard something
04:32upstairs.
04:33As she's exiting the location, she turns around and she looks up the stairs and she sees Louis.
04:39Louis is right there.
04:40And she runs out the front door, Louis chases her, and she manages to get out the door,
04:45get to her car, which is parked right in front, leave the location, Louis is in his truck
04:51chasing her.
04:52And eventually, she loses Louis and she drives to the Palmdale Sheriff's Station.
05:00The population of Palmdale is 135,000 people and it lies in the area of Palmdale.
05:08And it lies in the northern part of Los Angeles County.
05:12This area is a desert area and it's known as the Antelope Valley.
05:19These are people that were up and coming, more suburban in nature.
05:24They don't experience high crime rates and certainly not murders.
05:30When we first walked into the house, it was a living room that had a lot of boxes with
05:37very large TVs, but not a lot of furniture.
05:41So as we walked through here, nothing looked disturbed.
05:43Everything looked fine.
05:44There was no blood.
05:45There was nothing that would indicate that a crime had occurred here.
05:48And once we left the living room and walked here into the family room, same thing.
05:51Everything looked fine.
05:52At this point, we didn't have a search warrant, so we were not able to examine in detail the
05:57location for any evidence.
06:00We did notice one thing and that was there was an exorbitant amount of cleaning products.
06:06There were bottles and containers and rags all along this kitchen area.
06:11But again, we didn't see any blood, didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
06:15The first sign that anything was wrong was here in this laundry room.
06:19We noticed that there was some blood, a little bit of blood, not too much on the floor here.
06:24And there were bloody towels on the washer and dryer as well as on the floor.
06:30Convinced Lanelle had suffered a violent attack, the detectives continued through the house
06:35to the garage where they found the car.
06:40As we walked around the BMW, we noticed that there was an area rug in the back seat.
06:45As we came around the corner, I noticed that our victim was on the garage floor.
06:52The scene was just as witness Lorene Austin had described,
06:55and detectives were able to identify the victim.
07:01The victim was Lanelle Barsock.
07:04She was a young, attractive, successful African American lady.
07:11She was an ambitious woman.
07:12She was working as a licensed vocational nurse at a hospital in the Los Angeles area.
07:19She also did per diem or worked as a traveler nurse, which means she went from hospital to hospital.
07:27She had worked very hard to buy her own house.
07:31She was really trying to make it in the world.
07:36She had purchased this house a year before her murder.
07:39Beautiful home. It's large and it was fairly new.
07:43And she lived here with her boyfriend, Louis Bonier.
07:49She had career ambitions too because she had planned to use this house
07:52for a 24-hour nursing care facility for older patients that would live there.
08:02She was on the passenger side of the car, and she was on her back.
08:07She was on the floor, and she had a black plastic bag over her head.
08:13This is indicative of somebody that does not want to look at the face
08:17of somebody they know after they've committed a murder.
08:22The psychology behind covering someone's face when you've murdered them
08:27really stems with the shame that comes with the fact that you don't want to look at this person in the eye
08:33after doing what you've done.
08:38She had on these gray sweatpants, and she had on a bra and a blouse that had been pulled up.
08:47I thought that was kind of odd, but upon looking a little closer,
08:50it appeared that she had been dragged.
08:52As a result of dragging her, her upper garments had been pulled up,
08:56and they were around her neck.
08:59There was a substantial amount of blood.
09:01It looked like whoever did this was attempting to load her body into a vehicle,
09:06but just gave up.
09:09Well, we could not examine the body because that's the job of the core investigators,
09:13so we didn't touch the body at all.
09:15Because of the amount of blood, it was obvious that she suffered from some sort of blunt force trauma.
09:19But what caused that, we wouldn't know, not until the core investigator came
09:23and did a preliminary examination of the body.
09:27As they turned their attention to tracking down Linnell's boyfriend,
09:31detectives discovered more about him.
09:38As soon as police looked up Lewis, they found that he had a history of stalking,
09:46a history of stalking, of jealousy.
09:51There were many stories and a report of domestic disturbance,
09:55although there was no violence reported at Linnell's home between her and her boyfriend.
10:03As Linnell's friend had reported seeing Lewis at the scene,
10:06detectives needed to track him down, fast.
10:11We wanted to find him and we wanted to interview him
10:15and figure out exactly what his involvement was in this event.
10:35Just hours after Linnell was killed, Palmdale detectives believed they had a murder scene
10:40and a prime suspect.
10:42All thanks to the quick thinking of the victim's best friend, Lorraine.
10:48Lorraine Austin was our witness. She was our key witness.
10:52Upon finding her friend murdered in this house,
10:55she was chased as she drove to the Palmdale Sheriff's Station by Lewis Bonier.
10:59And about halfway before she got there, he pulled away
11:03and she was able to successfully get to the station and report what had happened to her friend.
11:08Lorraine waited at the station until detectives were able to speak with her
11:12at 6am the following morning.
11:16She right away went to the police to seek help. That goes to her character.
11:21They had been together as high school classmates
11:25and she'd known her for 10 years.
11:27She was able to tell us things that were corroborated by other people,
11:31so we knew it was the truth.
11:33For example, she was telling us about how jealous and possessive Lewis was.
11:38This really painted a picture of somebody that they thought was basically good for murder.
11:46As Lorraine didn't know Lewis well,
11:48detectives needed to find out more before they could find him.
11:54All we knew was Lewis and they drove a black Nissan pickup truck,
11:57so we used various databases to identify his last name,
12:00and to get the license plate of his car.
12:02And we used that information, along with other databases, to locate him.
12:08We found him at Bobby Barsock's house in the south-central Los Angeles area,
12:14about 70 miles south of Palmdale.
12:17Bobby Barsock is Lynelle Barsock, our victim. That's her mom.
12:22He was detained and transported to Palmdale so we could interview him later.
12:27Lynelle's mother told police that Lewis worked nearby
12:30and often stayed with her when on a late shift.
12:33But she had no idea why the police were looking for him.
12:37Notifying a next of kin about the death of a family member
12:41is undoubtedly the worst part of the job.
12:44There's no good way to do it.
12:47After Lewis had come outside and he'd gone to bed,
12:50I had to explain to Mrs. Barsock that her daughter was dead,
12:54and that's never pleasant.
12:58She fell apart.
13:00She became hysterical and cried, and she was totally devastated,
13:04as you would rightly expect.
13:10She was a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
13:14very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
13:19While Lynelle's mother digested the news that her daughter had been killed,
13:24detectives started their detailed investigation of the crime scene.
13:31We started looking at the large red rug that was in the back seat of the BMW,
13:36and it's like, how did that get there, and where did this come from?
13:42There was a void right here, seven foot by nine foot void,
13:45where you could tell that there had been something here and removed
13:49because of the discoloration of the carpet.
13:53And just looking at the size of the red rug,
13:55it appeared that that was probably the area rug that had been in the family room.
14:01Then when we looked at the east wall of the family room,
14:04and we noticed that there was minute blood spatter along this lower portion of the wall,
14:11and then there was a sofa right here against the north wall.
14:15And we found an expended shell casing, it was laying on top of the sofa itself.
14:23And we found a fragmented bullet in this area right here.
14:34Another piece of evidence that police found at the crime scene
14:38was what appeared to be a letter written from Lynelle to Lewis.
14:45Joe and I both were looking down before we took the next step,
14:49and there was the letter, and when we looked at it,
14:51it was clearly what we politely refer to as a Dear John letter,
14:56meaning it was a letter from Lynelle that she was actually leaving Lewis.
15:01So this seemed to be a motive for Lewis to have murdered Lynelle
15:06over his jealousy and anger that she would have left him for another man.
15:16When we were in the garage, there was a kind of a smoky colored pitcher,
15:24but it was bloody and there was a fingerprint on it.
15:28Whoever picked this pitcher up, picked it up very gingerly.
15:32And normally, they would pick it up in the cupped hand.
15:35They would grab it and pick it up and move it.
15:38Whoever did this, picked it up like this and made an effort to move it
15:42without leaving any trace of evidence.
15:45But for whatever reason, they forgot to wipe that one print.
15:54The coroner's office arrived and examined the remains.
16:00And we could find a hole in the crown of her head, in the back of her head,
16:05but we didn't know what the injury was from.
16:08And if it was a gunshot wound,
16:10And if it was a gunshot wound,
16:12there should have been a corresponding gunshot wound on the other side of the face.
16:16Neither the coroner investigator nor the homicide investigators could find anything.
16:21It certainly could have been a gunshot wound, but it also could have been a bludgeoning.
16:26And so they really had to rely on an autopsy report to know exactly how she died.
16:34Keen to piece all this information together,
16:37police turned to Louis, who was still under questioning at Palmdale Sheriff's Station.
16:44Louis Spanier was a very quiet and reserved man.
16:50He's a native of Haiti, and he arrived here in 2005.
16:55And he was taking English as a second language classes at a local high school where he met Lanelle,
17:03who at that time was taking her LVN, her licensed vocational nurse classes at that same school.
17:10He had a green card, he was a legal U.S. resident,
17:14and he was working part-time for the city of Hawthorne,
17:17which was pretty close to the victim's mother's home.
17:33As Louis could explain why he was at Lanelle's mother's house,
17:36detectives began by telling him Lanelle had died, to see how he would react.
17:44When you're giving someone bad news, you want to be there to see what their face is doing,
17:49to see what their body is doing, because the initial reaction will tell you a great deal.
18:04How?
18:10And we have somebody who's telling us that too.
18:20She's at the coroner's office. She did not survive her wound.
18:29I'm sorry?
18:31He did.
18:33Oh, my God.
18:37Oh, my God.
18:44Louis did seem visibly upset.
18:48The part that bothered us is he was making crying noises, but we didn't see any tears.
18:53Louis tells police that he couldn't possibly have committed the murder
18:57because he was actually in South Central Los Angeles.
19:02We discovered that Louis had a propensity to water things down and to lie.
19:08We asked him various questions about the relationship with his girlfriend, with Lanelle Barsock.
19:14He said that him and Lanelle were in love with each other, everything was perfect.
19:19And we said, well, Louis, that's not what we're hearing.
19:24We thought it would be your girlfriend's mother.
19:26She said you and her daughter are kind of fighting a little bit.
19:30Kind of fighting a lot, actually.
19:33Uh-huh.
19:36No.
19:38Oh, sure.
19:40But that's not what I asked.
19:42We had heard from Lorraine and the family, the mother of the victim,
19:48that they had a terrible relationship and that it was constant, not violence,
19:54but there was constant controversy going on and they were clashing on a regular basis.
19:59And Louis painted it as though they had a wonderful, lovely life.
20:04That just wasn't the truth.
20:07When police search Louis' car, they find something that they actually don't expect,
20:12which is receipts from the auto parts store showing that, just like he told them,
20:17he was in South Central Los Angeles, an hour and a half away from where the murder took place.
20:22And he had receipts to back it up.
20:26But the problem at that point was we have the receipts, but we don't know if they belong to him.
20:36Sometimes receipts are a day off or an hour off.
20:41We had to confirm that Louis was actually in that store at these particular times.
20:47The only way to prove this story was true was to go to the store Louis claimed he had visited.
20:56We obtained the CCTV.
20:59We actually saw him in the store during the time that he made the purchases.
21:05So Louis was actually in South Central Los Angeles while the murder was going on in Palmdale.
21:10The murder occurred sometime after 2.30.
21:13It would be impossible for Louis to have committed the murder and then be in Los Angeles 20 minutes later
21:21because it takes two hours or so to get from Palmdale to Los Angeles.
21:28Louis wasn't there.
21:30We now had to figure out, okay, if Louis was here, how could the murder have occurred?
21:36Was it somebody completely unrelated to Louis?
21:40Or was Louis working in conjunction with somebody else?
21:44We have to do a little more investigation to make sure that Louis is not involved whatsoever in this event before we let him out.
21:54We began now focusing not on Louis, but on Lorraine Austin because we knew she was lying to us.
22:02There's no way that she saw Louis at the top of the staircase.
22:20In Palmdale, California, detectives investigating Lanelle Barsock's death initially suspected her boyfriend,
22:27but evidence proved he was not there at the time of the murder.
22:30We were present for the autopsy, and the doctor advised us that Lanelle Barsock suffered a single gunshot wound
22:38that entered through the top of her head, through the crown of her head,
22:42and it traveled through her head, and it exited through her left nostril.
22:46The bullet traveled at a 45-degree angle, which would be consistent with someone having been seated when she was shot.
22:53The doctor also confirmed there were no bruises, abrasions, or other injuries.
22:58There were no bruises, abrasions, or scratches to her body, which told us that she was caught by surprise.
23:05It appeared that her killer stood behind her and shot her in the back of the head, and she died without even knowing what had happened.
23:14One thing that police routinely do is utilize luminol,
23:19which is a chemical property that attaches to iron in the blood,
23:24and when you use a black light, it literally lights up in this fluorescent purple color,
23:30so police can see where blood was, even if there was an attempt to clean it up,
23:36and there's no longer blood visibly present.
23:39We use luminol in this crime scene because we saw that there was evidence that the murder had occurred in this family room,
23:48but there was no signs of blood other than the blood spatter that we saw along this east wall.
23:59Sure enough, when they sprayed the luminol, there was a void here where the area rug had been,
24:05but the area rug ended right about here in this space of carpet.
24:10When they luminoled it, you could see that there was a path of blood,
24:15and that path continued into the kitchen area, and then into the laundry room.
24:21Linnell certainly died inside and was drugged slowly through the home until she reached her final resting point in the garage.
24:29When the area rug was also sprayed with luminol, it revealed a large concentration of blood.
24:37Our belief was that our victim was seated here watching television when she was shot,
24:44and when she fell, it was a head wound, and head wounds bleed a lot.
24:48She bled extensively onto the area rug, which caused that large concentration of blood.
24:52While police were talking to Loreen, she had a very large purse, and inside the purse, they found two unused bullets.
25:01And at first, police didn't think anything by this. People may have bullets for their own protection.
25:09When we interviewed her, we talked about the bullet, and she said,
25:13oh yeah, I found it while I was leaving the house, and I was like, oh, that's great.
25:17When we interviewed her, we talked about the bullet, and she said,
25:21oh yeah, I found it while I was leaving the house, so I just picked it up and threw it in my purse.
25:27Then we hit her up with the second bullet. We asked her, well, okay, that explains one bullet.
25:32What about that second bullet? And we caught her totally by surprise.
25:38What would you say if I told you that there were two bullets in your purse?
25:42Two?
25:44Two.
25:45I don't know.
25:48I don't know how there's two.
25:51It was becoming very clear there were problems with Loreen's story.
25:55The detectives needed to unpick every part of it and see how the bullets fitted in.
26:03The sergeant that interviewed you earlier, as part of officer safety, you know,
26:07because you have blood on you and you just came from emergency,
26:10he's got to make sure you don't have a gun in there that could shoot him, so he looked at your purse and he saw two bullets.
26:15Yeah, think about it.
26:17That came from the...
26:22And she never answered the question, nor would she answer any of our other questions regarding the second bullet.
26:30In the weeks that followed, detectives pushed Loreen on how she could have seen Lewis in the house.
26:37When we explained to Loreen that it was impossible for Lewis to have been in the house,
26:45she remained adamant. It was him, it was him, it was him.
26:51I can prove Lewis wasn't in the house when you said he was there.
26:55I got pictures of him. He wasn't anywhere near you. He wasn't anywhere near Palmdale.
26:59My point is that I don't know whether or not I saw what I saw.
27:07Detectives knew that Austin was unlikely to be telling the whole truth.
27:11After her interview, they watched as she walked back through the station.
27:16As Loreen is walking away and the next of kin is walking towards us,
27:20we see Loreen hug the next of kin and the next of kin just has her arms down.
27:25As the next of kin approaches us, she says, who is that woman?
27:29And we're like, it was your daughter's best friend.
27:32They went to high school together. They'd known each other for years and years.
27:36And the next of kin says, I've never seen that woman before, ever.
27:41I have no idea who she is.
27:46Now, looking back, is there anything that you want to tell us that's different?
27:52All day, they're making me think that Austin wasn't real.
27:58Convinced Loreen Austin was lying,
28:01detectives sent the bullet parts found at the scene for forensic examination.
28:05When a bullet gets fired through a gun,
28:08there are grooves in the barrel that make the bullet spin.
28:12And as the bullet spins, it leaves impressions on that bullet
28:17from the rifling, the little grooves.
28:20The expended casing gets ejected.
28:23The ejector leaves a little mark.
28:26They're not necessarily seen with the human eye,
28:30but if you have a microscope, you can definitely see the marks.
28:32And they're all unique to every weapon.
28:35The crime lab were able to determine that that bullet was a 9mm bullet,
28:40and it came from a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol.
28:46Next, the lab examined the bullets that Loreen Austin claimed to have picked up.
28:52The bullets that were in her purse, the live bullets, had extraction marks.
28:56Now, you would ask, why would the live bullets have those marks when they didn't get fired?
29:03The bullet was in the weapon at some point,
29:06and then somebody manipulated the slide.
29:10The slide came back, and the bullet was ejected.
29:14Eventually, they advised us that all three bullets
29:18had all been cycled through the same gun.
29:21So, those two live bullets,
29:24So, those two live bullets in her purse
29:28were cycled through the same murder weapon that killed our victim.
29:38Every gun that's purchased at a gun store has to be recorded by the state of California.
29:44I went ahead and ran Loreen Austin's name through their database
29:48to see if she had purchased a handgun.
29:50And it came back no record.
29:52We served a search warrant on the residents that Loreen lived in.
29:57We took with us gundogs,
29:59we took with us the people that come out with metal detectors,
30:03and we didn't find any ballistic evidence.
30:06But what we did find when we did the search warrant
30:09is a black plastic bag in the trunk of her car.
30:13It appeared to be very similar to the black plastic bag
30:16that we had found over Lanelle's head when we found her in the garage murder.
30:22It was sent to the crime lab to be compared.
30:27While detectives waited for the forensic results on the plastic bags,
30:31they re-examined the letter found at the scene.
30:35The deer jaw letter that we found in the kitchen on the floor
30:39was sent to the crime lab for analysis.
30:42When looking at the documents and Loreen's handwriting,
30:44it was easily observable this was not written by Lanelle,
30:48and in fact, it was written by her friend Loreen.
30:53She wrote it, and she left it there.
30:56And that letter was used to frame Louis Bounier.
31:02We did not arrest Loreen Austin immediately
31:06because we had already arrested and filed on somebody
31:11that we believed we knew to be the suspect.
31:14We knew that there would be a question of reasonable doubt.
31:18Police have to gather more evidence.
31:21The bar to make an arrest is probable cause.
31:24The bar for conviction is beyond a reasonable doubt.
31:27So they want to make sure that they have everything
31:31they possibly can get, every I dotted and T crossed,
31:35so when the case goes to trial,
31:37they have all of the evidence they need to secure conviction.
31:41With detectives now sure that Lanelle's boyfriend, Louis Bounier,
31:45was not involved in her murder, they arranged for his release.
31:49On July 23rd, they went to meet him.
31:55I anticipated a lawsuit.
31:58We had kept him in jail for over a month.
32:03When his girlfriend had been brutally murdered,
32:05Louis looked at us, and Louis hugged us.
32:09And he was crying when he hugged us.
32:12And he kept saying over and over,
32:15you don't understand, you don't understand.
32:18He told us that in his country, in Haiti,
32:21once the police arrest you, they throw away the key.
32:24So he was extremely happy and grateful that we went ahead
32:28and actually proved that he was innocent.
32:31If we have an innocent man, we want to prove that he's innocent.
32:33And to me, that was just as important as catching the killer.
32:38With all charges against Louis dropped,
32:41police needed the forensic evidence to prove Lorraine Austin was Lanelle's killer.
32:52When the results of the fingerprints came back,
32:55and it was an exact match to Lorraine,
32:58we knew that she was involved directly in the murder.
33:01She was involved directly in the murder of Lanelle Barsock.
33:05If she hadn't been, there wouldn't have been any reason
33:08for her thumbprint to be in that picture and in that garage.
33:12I got blood all over my hands
33:15because just by me touching it outside of the bag,
33:17I'm sitting there like uncovered.
33:19Did you ever see her face?
33:21No.
33:22You never saw her face?
33:23I couldn't do it.
33:25The crime lab got the trash bag that was found over a victim's face
33:30and compared that to the trash bag that we found in the trunk of Lorraine's car.
33:36Next time you take out a plastic bag, if it's a dark color,
33:39hold it up to a bright light and you'll see different striations.
33:43There's very distinctive marks, almost like a fingerprint, on the actual bag.
33:49Plastic bags matched.
33:51Exactly.
33:53They were able to prove that the two bags came from the same roll.
33:57They came from the same production run.
34:06We found out by researching that Lorraine Austin had purchased a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol
34:13on February the 18th of 2010, which is four months before the murder.
34:18There's a lag time.
34:20It takes a while for the paperwork that she signed
34:23to get entered into the great AFS system, automated firearm system,
34:28to actually tell us what's going on.
34:32When I checked in June, there was no record of her purchase.
34:35The record was there now.
34:37And so we were able to prove that she had purchased the same type of gun
34:41that was used to murder Lynelle Barsak.
34:45Even though police had so much that was forensically linking Lorraine to Lynelle's murder,
34:52they really didn't feel comfortable making an arrest until they understood why.
34:57She killed your friend.
34:59I did not kill my friend.
35:01I had no reason to kill my friend.
35:03I loved my friend.
35:05Why would this woman kill this other woman?
35:08We had no idea as to why this had occurred.
35:23Lorraine Austin was now the prime suspect for the murder of Lynelle Barsak.
35:28But detectives needed to work out why she may have wanted her friend dead.
35:36Lorraine Austin was a very unhappy person.
35:39And she had odd personal demons and issues that she was working through.
35:45She was living rent-free at her mom's house.
35:48She was in debt.
35:49She had numerous financial difficulties.
35:54Lorraine Austin did not have a steady job.
35:58She had no income coming in.
36:00She made money on the side doing hair, which she would do on Craigslist periodically.
36:12When we had originally interviewed Lorraine,
36:14she had told us that she and the victim had gone to high school together.
36:19They had known each other for over 10 years.
36:22When we went down to that high school, there were no records of the suspect.
36:28She had lied about everything.
36:31We found our motives by examining the phone records of Lorraine Austin.
36:37She hadn't gone to high school with the victim.
36:40She hadn't known the victim for 10 years.
36:43Instead, she had known him for about a month,
36:45and they met on a website called Craigslist in Women Seeking Women,
36:50and they were having sex together.
36:53Lynelle Barsak's got everything going for her.
36:55She's got the great job.
36:57She works a lot of overtime.
36:59She's got a beautiful home.
37:01And now, Lorraine Austin's got a chance to be part of that world,
37:04to get out of her world and join Lynelle Barsak's world.
37:10This was going to be her ticket out of a poor living existence
37:17into a great living existence.
37:21As detectives continued to delve into Lorraine Austin's background,
37:25phone records revealed Lorraine had received a breakup text from Lynelle
37:29just five days before her murder.
37:33The victim had told the suspect, Lorraine,
37:38that, hey, we can't have sex anymore.
37:40I'm going to get together with my boyfriend,
37:42and I'm only going to sleep with him,
37:44but you can still come over and do my hair, right?
37:47That drove Lorraine Austin to become very upset
37:51and lash out with anger.
37:53After police found that they had enough evidence and motive
37:58to make a strong case against Lorraine Austin,
38:01they decided to enact their arrest,
38:03but it seemed like it was already too late.
38:05Lorraine was not home when police went to make the arrest,
38:08and it actually appeared that she had fled the country.
38:12She was nowhere to be found.
38:18In June 2011, detectives took an unusual step
38:22and featured the case on television show America's Most Wanted.
38:26Five months later, the move paid off.
38:30It wasn't until November the 28th of 2011
38:34that we got our tip that did pan out.
38:36Police received a tip that led to them understanding
38:40that she was located in Belize.
38:53In January of 2012, police arrested Lorraine Austin
38:56and escorted her out of Belize in custody of the FBI.
39:01We grabbed an early morning flight to Houston,
39:04and we were at the airport,
39:06and she was walked off of the plane.
39:08She was extradited two days later,
39:11and she came to California.
39:27In 2015, five years after the murder,
39:31Lorraine Austin finally faced trial.
39:36The victim's family was in court.
39:38Lionel Barsock's mom was there every day,
39:41and they were very somber, very quiet, very attentive.
39:44They listened to everything that was presented regarding the case.
39:49Lorraine Austin pled not guilty.
39:57We had a very solid case,
39:59but we never did find the murder weapon.
40:01And even though you don't have to have the murder weapon
40:04in order to get a conviction, it certainly helps.
40:08Our major point at trial, which was raised by her lawyer,
40:13was there was really no motive for her to have murdered Lionel.
40:18It sounded like there was this cooked-up motive by police,
40:22and they tried to portray them as, you know,
40:24having gotten it wrong once before,
40:26and now they're getting it wrong again.
40:28But the jury saw through it,
40:30and they were able to rely on the physical evidence,
40:33the forensics, and the investigative techniques
40:36that detectives had put in place,
40:38and Lorraine Austin was found guilty of Lionel's murder
40:43and was given two life sentences for it.
40:47Lorraine Austin was sentenced to 25 years to life
40:51for the murder of Lionel Barsock.
40:53She was given another 25 years for using a firearm to murder her.
41:01She sat there blankly staring in the front
41:04and showing no emotion at all.
41:07She had a kind of a smirk on her face,
41:11which was common for her when we dealt with her,
41:15but it was unique for somebody being told
41:18that you're going to spend the rest of your life in prison.
41:21To have that kind of a smirk.
41:23Lorraine Austin never confessed.
41:26We never did find the gun, despite our efforts.
41:29No doubt in my mind that it was Lorraine Austin
41:32that pulled the trigger.
41:35Forensics are what took this case from going nowhere
41:39to it proving who the actual killer was.
41:43It's not enough that the detectives work long hours
41:46and sweat bullets and, you know,
41:48and sweat bullets and rarely go home.
41:51It has to do with what evidence are you creating
41:53for the jury to view.
41:56Bob and I did our part,
41:58but the real heroes of this case is the crime lab.
42:01They were able to prove without a doubt
42:03that Lorraine Austin was our murderer.
42:07Justice is kind of funny,
42:09and I have an odd view of justice.
42:11You have to ask yourself,
42:13how do you feel about one of your loved ones
42:16being brutally murdered
42:19and the other person still living
42:22and being in a box?
42:25So I don't feel justice was served.
42:28I think we got the best that the system has to deliver.
42:32I think we got the best that the system offers.
42:38For Lanell's mother,
42:40it had been a long and drawn-out process
42:42to finally get justice.
42:47She was very grief-stricken.
42:51She was not in a good way.
42:55I would be in the same condition
42:57if I was them and I lost a loved one,
42:59and you sympathize with them.
43:01You feel very bad for them.
43:03Particularly in the neighborhood of Palmdale
43:05where this crime took place,
43:07this was shockingly unheard of.
43:12Lanell Barsak was a lovely person
43:14who literally lit up the room
43:16when she came into it.
43:18This is somebody that absolutely did not deserve
43:21what happened to her
43:23and should still be alive today.
43:33Bob and I keep a relationship with the family.
43:36I was able to give them justice.
43:39They knew that the person responsible
43:41for having murdered their loved one
43:42is being held accountable
43:44and paying the price by going to prison.
43:47Lorraine Austin ditched America,
43:50went to Belize with no job,
43:52nobody that she knew,
43:54and she was willing to do all that
43:56to try to escape these charges,
43:58but ultimately failed.
44:01I'll say this.
44:03To anyone that's committed a murder
44:05that has not been held to answer
44:07for this murder yet,
44:09I would say to them,
44:10your time will come.
44:12Whether you're held accountable
44:15in a court of law here in this world
44:17or when you pass and you meet your maker,
44:19you will have to answer for what you've done.
44:21It's just a matter of time.
44:40electronic music plays
45:10electronic music plays