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Although investigators could prove that robert huffman's red truck was the vehicle that killed rafael garcia, they still needed to prove to a jury that huffman was driving the vehicle. to do that, investigators had to tie huffman's whereabouts on the night of the fatal crash to rafael garcia's. rafael's friend said she dropped him off at home around 10:00 p.m., but rafael didn't go inside. instead, he started walking back towards highway 281, presumably headed to the country store a short distance away. patrons of a local bar indicated that huffman was there drinking that night and left the ba...

House, and in the back shed we saw a '95 maroon dodge truck that was missing the passenger side turn signal light. >> apparently, huffman owned a second pickup truck, a 1995 dodge ram. interestingly, the 1995 model was similar to his red 2000 model, so much so that the headlamps on both trucks were dimensionally identical. >> the length, the width, the depth, all those features, the mounting points, they are all in the same location. we took a 2000 model year truck, we removed the headlamp module, and we inserted a 1995 headlamp module, and the two fit perfectly. >> but even with this evidence...

Unbelievably, martinez discovered that the paint chips did come from huffman's truck. they fit perfectly. >> a physical fit is the only for sure thing in forensic science. its probabilities are astronomical. there were no statistics that can calculate or duplicate the odds of tearing any two pieces identical. it is the only thing that's in forensics that is the for sure thing and, in fact, better than dna. >> here's this paint chip that plugs in perfectly. that's hitting the home run in the bottom of the ninth, based loaded. >> but investigators still wondered, if huffman's vehicle hit rafael ...

This time from a police officer 1,000 miles away in sumner county, tennessee. he noticed a red pickup truck with texas plates in the parking lot of a seedy motel. a man matching huffman's description was registered in the motel under a different name. >> he gave the name of robert hokam, which later he admitted to the authorities was not really his true name. so, initially, they had him detained for providing a false name. >> huffman denied any involvement in the hit-and-run death of rafael garcia and, once again, claimed he hit a deer. when police looked at his vehicle they noticed that the p...

Perfectly. >> in february of 2006, robert huffman was tried and convicted of failure to stop and render aid after an accident. because of his previous drunk driving offenses, he was sentenced to the maximum, 20 years in prison. >> he never confessed, never showed any remorse, and was rather indignant about the fact that he was being tried for this offense. >> investigators say that without the science, this case, like most hit-and-run accidents, would probably have gone unsolved. >> to be able to establish a physical match is a rare find. to be able to actually solve a case and to obtain a con...