No-Body Murders: Rimmer's Blood, Barnes's Incinerator | The New Detectives | S2 E6

Can investigators prove murder without a body? The New Detectives follows three cases where blood, bones, and science expose killers who thought they erased the crime. Memphis, 1997: Motel clerk Ricky Ellsworth vanishes mid-shift. Blood stains, an unlocked keypad door, and her untouched purse suggest abduction. Detectives home in on ex-boyfriend Michael Rimmer as a witness recalls a man with bloody knuckles and a maroon four-door car backed to the curb. Rimmer disappears, but a routine stop in Johnson County, Indiana recovers the maroon sedan and a trail of receipts mapping his movements. Tests find human blood on the back seat. A reverse paternity DNA test using Ricky’s mother links the car and motel blood to Ricky with a 16 million to one probability. Though her body is never found, Rimmer is convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. Cleveland, 1984: Henry Campbell goes missing after an argument outside an after-hours club run by Clarence Barnes. Rumors point to a shooting but no body turns up. Investigators trace Barnes to a university Animal Resource Center and its industrial incinerator. Surveillance shows him arriving at 3:30 a.m. A painstaking sift through roughly 100 gallons of cremated ash yields human bone fragments, including a mandible, plus melted lead consistent with a .38 bullet. Biological anthropologist Dr. C. Owen Lovejoy and forensic odontologist Dr. Elizabeth Robinson match fragments to Campbell via prior x-rays, clinching identification. Barnes pleads guilty to aggravated murder and receives 15 years to life. Rockville, 1988: Teen Kai Lau returns to find his mother, Lisa Tu, missing. A sleeper sofa is gone, furniture is rearranged, and her college fund is drained. Husband Gregory Tu claims she flew west, but passenger photos show her seat empty. Luma light reveals blood spatter where the sofa once opened as a bed, and debris under Tu’s car hints at off-road disposal. In Las Vegas, Tu applies for work under an alias, saying his wife is dead. With no known sample of Lisa’s DNA, scientists subtract the father’s profile from her son’s, isolating Lisa’s DNA and tying it to the house blood with 98–99 percent accuracy. Tu is convicted of first-degree murder and receives life. Watch how reverse paternity DNA, blood pattern analysis, receipts, video, and anthropology build airtight cases when no body is found. #TheNewDetectives #TrueCrime #ForensicScience #NoBodyMurder #DNAEvidence #ForensicAnthropology #CrimeDocumentary