Page 4 - Daphne Wright News Today

>> 25 miles away, across the border in minnesota, a highway worker found darlenes torso and her severed head encased in plastic. the medical examiner found darlene suffered blunt force trauma to her head. >> it had been tied, cinched around her throat with a piece of cord that was matched by one of our forensic people in pier to a spool of cord hanging on the garage wall in the house that was occupied by daphne wright. >> the medical examiner had two theories as to how darlene was murdered. >> c...

Carpet and a blood-stained sweat shirt. >> it was a sweatshirt that had graphics on it of sign language. we knew right there there was a tie to the deaf community. >> testing proved it was darlenes blood on the sweatshirt, but someone elses dna was found inside the sweatshirt. >> i took cuttings from the inside of the sweatshirt hoping that one of them had transferred enough dna or skin cells inside. to get a full profile. i was fortunate and did get a profile and that matched daphne wright. >> ...

Convinced darlene was trying to steal her ex-girlfriend and wanted to prevent it. she asked darlene to meet her at the pizza restaurant. but once there, she changed her mind and asked darlene to come to her house instead. once there, daphne hit darlene with a heavy object. pushed her down the stairs. then tied a thick plastic bag around her head with cord from her home. she later bought a chainsaw to dismember darlenes body. she left behind the sales receipt, store witnesses, and plenty of foren...

Wright after this incident. >> she said, oh, mom, were friends now, were all made up, and were comfortable with each other, its all okay now. >> but when daphne wright was questioned about darlenes disappearance, the jealousy was still apparent. >> weve had a lot of problems, sally and i. >> did you think sally was cheating on you with darlene? >> yes. i thought so. and sometimes she lied. >> who lied? >> sally. >> okay. >> was darlene the victim of a love triangle gone wrong? daphnes whereabout...

And the only way that she could take care of it was to eliminate her from the picture. >> but investigators still had a problem. they didnt have darlenes body. >> a jury like as body. a jury likes a murder weapon, and you just never know. you get that one skeptical juror who doesnt see the body and theres enough doubt to say not guilty in case like that. >> in the search police checked the dumpster where daphne and her neighbors disposed of the trash. >> by the time the officers got there, the d...

>> yeah, yeah, i did that. >> did you create the name wendy smith? >> yeah, i did. >> a background check revealed daphne wright has been involved in a public altercation with darlene vandergiesen just five days before she disappeared. darlene was having dinner with sally forward who was daphne wrights former lover. >> they had had an argument that the police had to be called to and she had be the escorted off the property. >> daphne wright told the police that she was jealous. she told police th...

The wooden walls of the coal storage room. >> we were able to see small pieces of bone and tissue. >> they compared those samples to the dna they obtained from darlenes tooth and hair brushes. that that day we were met by a couple of detectives and we were escorted upstairs, and when we opened the room -- when they introduce you to the chaplain and the chief of police and all the detectives are in the room and ask you to sit down, you know the news youre going to receive is not good, and it wasn...

Cuts in the concrete floor. >> detectives also made the comment it looks like chainsaw marks. >> law enforcement began the investigation by going to the ace hardware stores in town. >> once there the investigators showed the store owner the lineup including daphnes picture. >> one of the clerks was able to say, yes, i sold the chainsaw to a woman and she was deaf. that matches the description of daphne wright to a tee. >> she came in a note that said tree-cutting machine and he took her to the w...

Worker found darlenes torso and her severed head encased in plastic. the medical examiner found darlene suffered blunt force trauma to her head. >> it had been tied, cinched around her throat with a piece of cord that was matched by one of our forensic people in pier to a spool of cord hanging on the garage wall in the house that was occupied by daphne wright. >> the medical examiner had two theories as to how darlene was murdered. >> cause of death was either this blunt force trauma, the 7-inch...

Human body with a chainsaw takes a lot of gall. takes a lot of spite. in my opinion you really have to dislike somebody to do that to them. >> daphne wright was convicted, but the jury spared her life. instead, shell spend the rest of her life in prison with no possibility of parole. >> one thing that kept coming back was what do we get out of sentencing her to the death penalty. what does she get out of it, what does society get out of it, what do we get out of it? really, we didnt see anything...