The Murder of John Bruce Dodson

The Murder of John Bruce Dodson

The Crime Committed

Significance of the Soil

• The soil found on Janice's overalls was very mysterious yet it was believable that she had stepped in a bog. This case could not be ruled as an accident because of the two bullets that killed Mr.Dodson. Thus the investigators had to dig deeper. They interviewed those around and coincidentally that was her ex-husband and interestingly enough he had reported a rifle and cartridges that matched the ones found by the victim and on the other side of the fence from the shooter missing.
• With this knowledge they dug even deeper and thought that by analyzing the soil from the bog that Janice claimed that she had stepped in and the pond near Lee's that was in a direct path back to her camp.
• The mud from the man-made pond was so rare that it would be easy to differentiate, making it easy to determine where Janice had been. The soil played an important role because it connected Janice to stealing the rifle from her ex-husband, thus connecting her to the murder because the shells by the body matched those that she had stole.

On October 15,1995 in the Uncompahgre Mountains in Western Colorado, John Dodson was found dead by his wife of 3 months.

An autopsy was performed and concluded that Mr.Dodson had been shot. There were two bullets in his chest ruling that it was no longer an accident.

The Scene of the crime...

Guilty

The End...:)

Collection and Analysis

Outcome

The Weapon of Choice

The investigators worked on the case for three years. They concluded based on the evidence that they had collected that Janice Dodson was the murderer. She was convicted of murder and placed in Colorado's State Prison for women with no chance of parole.

• They took samples of mud from each of those specific areas. They packaged them and sent them to the lab section of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in Denver. There a forensic lab agent and scientist, Jacquelline Battles examined the samples.
• The conclusion was that the mud from Janice's overalls matched the mud sample taken from the man-made pond by Lee's camp. The mud on Janice's overalls did not match the bog that she stated she had encountered.

Evidence

The Couple

Incriminating Evidence

• They found a shell 60 yards from the body and one on the opposite side of the fence where the body was discovered. Lee who was Janice's ex-husband reported a rifle and a box of matching cartridges missing.
• They also found a pair of overalls that Janice was wearing that were covered with mud from the knee down.
• When they returned in later years the investigators found in the pond near her ex-husbands camp a specific type of mud called Bentonite. This mud was brought to the pond and stopped water from seeping out of the bottom. They took samples from a bog near the Dodson's camp, the area around a pond near camp, the man-made pond near Lee's camp, and a dried sample from Janice's overalls.