WHEN A WOMAN WAS MURDERED, POLICE NEEDED SOME HIGH-TECH HELP
THE VICTIM
THE TEAM
Dawn Sanchez stood at only 4ft 11in tall and weighed seven stone. Her boyfriend Bernardo Bass was heavy set and tall by comparison, which would have been all the more intimidating when he was verbally and physically abusing her.
In 1991, Dawn, 32, lived in a motel in Los Altos, in the San Francisco Bay area of California, and made her living as a sex worker. Jealous and controlling, Bass would routinely harass the men on her books, even slashing some of their car tyres. Dawn was last seen on 30 August that year, leaving the motel with Bass, but she wasn’t reported missing until the October. Bass was a prime suspect from the start. He lied about being
her boyfriend, claiming he was just a client, but police found love letters from him saying he wanted to marry her and have children together. Then a man called William Alcorn told police he had been with the couple when they’d gotten into an argument. He said all three of them had been in Bass’ 1979 Pontiac Grand Prix when Bass had driven into a disused parking lot, got into the back seat, and shot Dawn to death.
Bass was arrested and charged, but Alcorn refused to testify as he was afraid of Bass, and his videotaped confession was somehow mislaid, although his written statement was still on record. To make matters worse, the Pontiac had been sold, according to Bass’ sister – its whereabouts unknown –and there was no body. Investigators searched Bass’ house and found a compartment inside a closet that had been concreted over. When cadaver dogs indicated the scent of death, drills were used to break up the concrete, but no remains or murder weapon were found. There simply wasn’t enough evidence to charge Bass, and he was released.
ROVER RESCUE
Years passed until, in 2007, cold-case detectives began reinvestigating. When Bass’ sister admitted she had lied about selling her brother’s car because she had also been scared of him, police came to believe that their biggest hope lay underneath that disused parking lot. They strongly felt the car parts had been buried under the concrete, possibly along with the murder weapon and even Dawn’s body. But they did not have the funds to dig up the whole area, and metal detectors weren’t powerful enough as the place was a junkyard.
THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
THE LOCATION
THE EVIDENCE
