Warren Horinek
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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, check us out at patreon.com slash forensic tales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In the middle of the night, a gunshot fires. Blood sprays everywhere. Looks like a suicide. Or could it be a murder?

Detectives gather the evidence and the experts make their judgment. The blood never lies, or does it? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 104, The Warren Horanek Story.

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.

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You can also help support the show by leaving a positive rating with a review. Now, let's jump right into this week's case. Popular television show dramas like CSI and Dexter have helped to glorify blood spatter analysis. And I get it. I'm one of those people. I'm rewatching the entire series of Dexter for a second time right now.

In these shows, blood patterns at a crime scene tell a story and help lead police detectives to their suspects. Or it helps to prove that an innocent person is, well, innocent. But off screen, blood spatter analysis is a different story. It doesn't always say who's guilty and who's innocent. Not everyone is convinced that blood spatter analysis is credible in the forensic science community.

Some critics argue that some individuals who label themselves as blood spatter experts, well, they aren't really experts at all. After listening to this next case, I'll let you be the judge. Shortly before midnight on March 14th, 1995, a 911 call came into the Fort Worth, Texas police station. The caller identified himself as Warren Horanek.

Warren told 911 that his wife, Bonnie, shot herself in the neck and needed an ambulance right away. William Sweeney, a Fort Worth firefighter and paramedic, and a few others were the first to arrive on the scene. When Sweeney and his unit arrived at the house, they were surprised that Warren wasn't outside waiting for them. Instead, they had to knock on the front door, wait several minutes for him to answer it.

Once Sweeney and his team got inside the residence, they noticed that Warren was only wearing underwear and a blood-soaked t-shirt. Behind him was the couple's barking dog. Once Warren got control of the barking dog, he led the first responders to a bedroom in the back of the house. Paramedic Sweeney found Bonnie lying on a bed with one of her arms dangling off the side with a single gunshot wound.

Then he saw a small .38 caliber revolver and shotgun on the bed next to her. He immediately tried to feel for a pulse on her neck to see if she was still alive. But when he tried to find her carotid pulse, he couldn't. A blue pillowcase had been wrapped so tightly around Bonnie's neck that he couldn't get his fingers underneath it. Sweeney then felt for a pulse on her wrist and realized they were too late.

Bonnie was dead from a single gunshot wound. Minutes later, Warren ran into the bedroom where Bonnie's body was and tried performing CPR on his wife. He was frantic and desperate to see if he could do anything to save her. But before being able to help, the firefighters pulled him off and broke the news that there was absolutely nothing they could do. Bonnie was already dead.

and if he continued to try to perform CPR, he would only contaminate the scene. Sweeney and his unit decided it was best to get Warren out of the bedroom and put him somewhere else in the house. Not only did they need to calm him down, but they also needed to separate him so that the Fort Worth detectives could figure out exactly what happened. Officer Kevin Bach was the first officer to arrive on the scene.

When Officer Bach first spoke to Warren, he told him that someone had broken into the house and shot his wife. But he had no idea who this person was. He said he wasn't able to get a good look at the guy. Now, this is a different story than what he told 911. Warren told first responders his wife shot herself on the phone with paramedics. Now he's telling police detectives that someone else is responsible.

Besides only wearing underwear and a bloody t-shirt, Officer Bach also noticed that Warren appeared to be disoriented and intoxicated, like he had been drinking earlier that night. Heavily drinking. Every question that the officers had needed to be repeated over and over again before Warren could answer them. He was also slurring and swaying while officers tried to speak with him.

When detectives searched the bedroom where Bonnie was shot, they found a revolver and a shotgun lying on top of the bed. The revolver was relatively close to Bonnie's body, but it wasn't in her hand, like it usually is in cases of suicide. It was also strange for the revolver and shotgun to be lying on the bed if, in fact, someone broke into the house and shot Bonnie, like Warren had said. That would mean that whoever did this left the murder weapon behind.

After opening the revolver's cylinder, the detectives found one spent round and live rounds in the other four chambers. This discovery suggested to the police that the revolver was the gun used to kill Bonnie. The bullet's path was clear. After the bullet went through Bonnie, it passed through the mattress, box spring, carpet, and carpet pad. Although the bullet's path was clear, the police never found the shell.

Fort Worth detectives searched the house up and down, looking for clues of a forced entry or break-in to support Warren's intruder theory. But they didn't find anything. After checking all the doors and windows for signs of a break-in, nothing turned up. If someone did break into the home, they did so without leaving a trace of evidence behind. Several officers tried speaking with Warren throughout the first few hours of the investigation.

They wanted to get as much information as they could, but the officers weren't getting anywhere with him. He was completely wasted. So if the Fort Worth detectives wanted to solve Bonnie's murder, they would have to do it without her husband's help. Dr. Gary Sisler, the deputy medical examiner for Toronto County, performed Bonnie's autopsy.

He found that the bullet's entry wound on her chest was consistent with a close contact gunshot. These gunshot wounds are typically identified by signs of burns to the skin or singeing of hair. Dr. Sisler didn't find any evidence of a struggle, and he didn't find any defensive wounds on Bonnie's hands or arms.

which could suggest that number one, Bonnie committed suicide because if someone commits suicide, you aren't going to find defensive wounds. Or number two, her attacker caught her off guard and she didn't have a chance to put up a fight. When someone puts up a fight, you'll see defensive wounds like scratches or bruises to the victim's arms, fingers, or even their forearms.

But the medical examiner in Bonnie's case didn't see any of that. So maybe this was a suicide. The bullet entered Bonnie's body through her chest. The medical examiner determined that Bonnie had been shot with a .38 caliber weapon, not the shotgun that was also lying on the bed. Once the bullet broke the skin, it hit her sternum, deflected it, and sent it to go through her heart.

Then, the bullet traveled through her liver, one of her lungs, and soft tissue between her ribs. This bullet wreaked havoc on Bonnie's insides. If she didn't die instantly, she would have within just a few seconds of that bullet ripping through her heart. The medical examiner noted Bonnie's blood alcohol level in the autopsy report.

He recorded her blood alcohol at 0.13, which is relatively high. People with a 0.13 blood alcohol level can experience blurred vision, anxiety, and severely impaired judgment and coordination. In cases of suicide, it's not uncommon for people to become intoxicated before pulling the trigger. Alcohol is also associated with violent methods of suicide, especially gun violence.

Dr. Sisler didn't find any evidence that anyone strangled Bonnie. Even though a pillowcase was found wrapped around her neck, it wasn't used to strangle her. Warren's initial story to the police was that he was the one who used the pillowcase to try and stop the bleeding because he believed Bonnie had shot herself in the neck.

So even though Warren wrapped the pillowcase tightly around her neck in an attempt to try and stop the bleeding, it didn't cause any damage or injury. At the end of the autopsy, Dr. Gary Sisler determined Bonnie's cause of death to be a laceration of the heart and lung due to a single gunshot wound. But he couldn't determine whether her death was a suicide or homicide.

So he left the manner of death as undetermined. But Dr. Schlisseler still wrote that he did think that Bonnie committed suicide in his official report. There just wasn't enough evidence to say beyond a reasonable doubt and to make it official. He noted, quote, both the location and proximity of the gunshot wound, along with the absence of defensive wounds, are suggested of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, end quote.

Because Dr. Sisler couldn't decide on the manner of death, Bonnie's case remained open. Over the next several months, the Fort Worth Police Department continued investigating Bonnie's death. Detectives pieced together a timeline of events on the night of Bonnie's death. Employment records confirmed that Bonnie worked at her office until around 7.15 p.m. on the evening of March 14th.

She worked as a labor and employment lawyer at Jackson and Walker's Fort Worth office. At around 7.34 p.m., she arrived at a TGI Friday's restaurant in town. Restaurant receipts confirm that Warren, her husband, got to the restaurant a little before she did and ordered a Coors Light beer at 7.01 p.m.

Between 7.34 p.m. when Bonnie got there and 11.09 p.m., Bonnie and Warren were together at TGI Fridays having drinks. And when I say having drinks, they were having lots of drinks.

During the evening, receipt records show that the bartender served Warren beers at 7.01, 7.26, 7.50, 8.22, 8.46, 9.08, 9.24, 9.50, and 11.04 p.m. In case you lost track, that's a total of nine beers.

The bartender also served drinks to Bonnie. According to the same restaurant receipt records, the bartender served Bonnie white wine at 734, 822, 858, 935, and 1021 p.m. for a total of five glasses. These restaurant records show why and how Bonnie had a blood alcohol level of 0.13 at the time of her death.

Warren and Bonnie paid for their drinks at 11.09 p.m., and the bartender closed their tab at 11.25 p.m. When the police sat down and spoke with the TGI Friday's bartender, she told investigators that everything seemed normal between the couple. The only conversation that she remembered overhearing was Bonnie telling Warren about one of her upcoming business trips.

She remembered hearing Warren sound a little disappointed that Bonnie would be away, but she said he didn't seem angry or upset. He just sounded like a husband who was sad that his wife was going to be away for some time on a business trip. So other than that, the bartender told the police that everything seemed fine between them. There was no clues that Bonnie would end up shot to death later that night.

One of Bonnie's co-workers, Mike Malone, came forward and told the police that he and his family were at the same TGI Friday's restaurant that same night having dinner. He told detectives that he saw Bonnie at the bar around 9.45 p.m. He stopped to say hello because he knew Bonnie was scheduled to speak at a seminar that he helped plan.

But when he went up to say hello to Bonnie, he said that Warren reached out and grabbed him by the tie. Kind of odd considering that they had never met before. During their conversation, their brief conversation, Mike Malone said that Warren was clearly drunk and kept introducing himself over and over again. Even though he said Warren was obviously intoxicated, obviously he was drunk, he told the police that Bonnie didn't appear to be drunk.

Yes, she seemed embarrassed about the whole encounter and how drunk her husband was, but that was pretty much it. So all the police know is that Warren and Bonnie went out that night for drinks. That's it. No one at the restaurant saw anything out of the ordinary. No one saw them fighting. And everyone said that things seemed to be fine between the couple.

So if the police were supposed to believe Bonnie's death was a suicide, then they had to ask themselves, why would Bonnie go home that night and shoot herself? According to Bonnie's friends and co-workers, she wasn't suicidal. People described her as a well-liked and respected person. As an employment lawyer, she led a busy and organized life. She didn't lead the kind of life that leads to suicide.

Molly Mercer, a legal secretary who worked very closely with Bonnie, told authorities that she was with Bonnie at the office until 7.15 p.m. that night. She said that Bonnie seemed very busy. She also said that she sure didn't act like someone who was planning to kill themselves. That very night, she was busy working on her to-do list. She was making travel plans for an upcoming business trip.

She was writing letters to clients, organizing meetings and depositions. She was a busy lady for someone planning to commit suicide just a few hours later. So was there anything in Bonnie's life that could suggest maybe she was depressed?

If there was, the police didn't find anything. They knew Bonnie was well-liked at work. She made over $100,000 a year in her salary. She was getting ready to speak at a legal seminar. And the law firm that she worked at described her as a rising star. Authorities called in Dr. Cathal Grant, a board-certified forensic pathologist and psychiatrist.

They called in Dr. Grant to find out if he could uncover anything about Bonnie's life that might suggest she was suicidal. So Dr. Grant performed what is known as a psychological autopsy on Bonnie. Based on his examination, he found that, quote, it appeared very unlikely that this individual would be the sort of person to kill herself, end quote.

He interviewed Bonnie's father, ex-husband, dozens of friends and coworkers. He also looked at her medical records and bank statements. Everything Dr. Grant found suggested that Bonnie was making plans for the future. She was a hard worker who came from a good family and was optimistic.

She didn't have a history of mental illness. She wasn't taking any medications at the time. So based on the totality of the evidence and what he could uncover, he didn't believe Bonnie committed suicide. But all of this was very circumstantial evidence.

which isn't enough for Fort Worth detectives or the Fort Worth District Attorney's Office to pursue criminal charges against Warren or anyone else in Bonnie's murder. And eventually, detectives ran out of tips in the case. So when the tips ran out, they decided to go with their gut. Suicide. Mike Parrish, an assistant DA in Fort Worth, agreed with the detectives.

After reading the autopsy report, speaking with detectives and the medical examiner, he agreed with the suicide finding and he decided not to pursue any charges in the case. But Bonnie's family disagreed, especially her parents, Bob and Barbara Arnett. They didn't believe that their daughter would commit suicide. Simply put, she just had too much to live for.

She landed a new job at a major law firm. She was making a six-figure salary. She was well-liked and respected by both co-workers and friends. Nothing about Bonnie's life screamed suicide. And if she didn't commit suicide, it was obvious what happened. Their son-in-law must have killed her. As soon as Bob and Barbara learned that the Fort Worth Prosecution's Office wouldn't be filing charges against Warren...

They hired a private attorney and private investigator to do their own investigating. Bob and Barbara Arnett never understood what their daughter saw in someone like Warren, so they took the case into their own hands. They hired a private attorney and investigator and started looking into Warren and Bonnie's life together. Besides only being married for three years, the private investigator uncovered a lot of dirt on Warren.

including the fact that Warren was a former Fort Worth police officer himself. And not only was Warren a cop with the Fort Worth Police Department, beginning in 1985, Warren spent nine years with the department. He rose the ranks to become a lieutenant until he was kicked off the force for excessive drinking in 1993.

The same day the department forced him to resign, he got drunk, locked himself in a room, and threatened to kill himself. During this incident, Bonnie called the Fort Worth Police Department to tell his co-workers that he had gotten extremely drunk and was threatening to kill himself. When an officer arrived at the home, he quickly realized that things were serious.

Immediately, he called for additional police assistance to get control of Warren. Officers took him to John Peter Smith Hospital because they believed he posed a danger to himself and others. On his way to the hospital, Warren reportedly told Bonnie that he was humiliated by what had happened and that she would, quote, pay for this.

But drinking wasn't his only problem. According to neighbors, he was also abusive. Those who knew Warren outside of the police department described him as a nice guy when he was sober. But when he drank, he turned into a completely different person. Drunk Warren was mean. He was obnoxious. And at times, he was even violent.

Bonnie's secretary told investigators that Warren would often call Bonnie at work, many times drunk. During these phone conversations, he would threaten her by saying how he could commit murder and get away with it because he was a cop. And then later on it became, he could commit murder and get away with it because he was a former cop. Then there was another incident later that same year, an incident that involved a gun.

After another night of heavy drinking, Warren fired a gun slightly above Bonnie's head while asleep in bed. The bullet missed Bonnie by only about a foot and a half. The private attorney was also suspicious about Warren's story about what happened on the night of Bonnie's death. When Warren called 911, he told the police that his wife shot and killed herself.

But when the officers and first responders arrived at the house, he said that someone broke in and shot her. These are two very different stories. So which is it? Did she shoot and kill herself or did someone break in? Well, according to the family's attorney, these statements were what their case needed.

The Fort Worth District Attorney's Office recused themselves because they said they would not prosecute someone they believed was innocent. In other words, the DA themselves think that Warren is innocent of killing his wife. Even the Fort Worth Police Department said that they wouldn't cooperate in a case where they believe that the person is innocent. But after hearing the private attorney's evidence, the judge agreed.

So, the judge appointed a special prosecutor to handle the case. Under Texas law, quote, any concerned person can bring evidence in front of a grand jury, end quote. Now, this is a very rarely used law that basically allows private citizens, including attorneys, to assemble a grand jury in a case even when the prosecution's office refuses to press charges.

And this is a strategy that seemed to work for Bonnie's family. Because in March of 1996, one year after her death, the grand jury indicted Warren on murder charges. Even after the grand jury indictment, the district attorney's office refused to pursue or act on it. Now, for a prosecution office to refuse to act on an indictment is extremely rare, especially in serious cases like a first-degree murder case.

But this shows how strong this DA office felt about the case. They felt confident about Warren's innocence. So since the DA's office recused themselves, the judge assigned two private attorneys to serve as a special prosecutor. And Warren was arrested and formally charged with Bonnie's murder. At trial, the theories about how Bonnie died were simple and straightforward.

Although Warren told the responding officers that an intruder killed his wife, his defense theory was that Bonnie committed suicide. The special prosecution's theory was that Warren shot and killed Bonnie while sleeping. Dozens of witnesses testified for the prosecution throughout the trial, including Bonnie's co-workers, friends, and neighbors.

Everyone's stories lined up and supported the state's case. Bonnie wasn't suicidal. Warren was a total drunk with a history of abuse. But this murder case wouldn't be left to witnesses. Instead, the case would be left to the forensic evidence. Warren's defense attorneys used Max Courtney, a forensic consultant, as their expert witness.

Max Courtney testified that Warren couldn't have killed his wife because little blood was found outside the immediate vicinity of Bonnie's body. Investigators at the scene conducted luminol testing throughout the bedroom. They didn't find any traces of bloody footprints or handprints where Bonnie was found. If Warren shot and killed his wife, you'd expect to find traces of blood going away from her body.

Blood was smeared on both Bonnie and Warren's faces, which according to the defense's expert, is consistent with Warren performing CPR on his wife. Max Courtney testified that investigators found blood on Bonnie's left palm and on the undersides of her left fingers. He believed that the blood got there while her hand was either on her abdomen or chest.

Blood had also run down the palm, thumb, and index finger of her right hand, and almost all the blood on the gun was found on the left side. So when authorities arrived, the gun was soaked in blood. Because no blood was found on the grip, Max Courtney believed that the gun was sitting on Bonnie's chest while the blood was collecting, and that the blood on the gun could explain the gun on her hands.

He concluded his testimony by telling the jury that the angle at which Bonnie was shot wasn't consistent with murder, and it was more consistent with self-infliction. When the police found Bonnie, she was lying flat. Max testified that the angle of the shot would have been difficult for someone else to inflict, plus there were no defensive wounds on Bonnie's body.

Although Max Courtney was a noted expert in bloodstain interpretation, he failed to testify about one key piece of evidence. Warren was seen wearing the bloody shirt when the cops showed up that night. The prosecution's star expert witness was Tom Bevel, a forensic expert specializing in blood spatter and crime scene reconstruction.

Beville has testified in 29 states and six different countries throughout his career. And in a weird, weird twist of fate, Tom Beville was Max Courtney's former instructor. Tom Beville's testimony was vital to the prosecution's case against Warren. Beville spent a lot of time talking about that bloody t-shirt.

Besides being soaked in blood, Bevel testified that there was blood spatter near the top of the collar of the shirt. These marks were visible to the naked eye, but he also said that after examining the t-shirt, he discovered additional blood spatter that wasn't easily visible. The only way you could see this spatter was underneath a microscope.

So using a stereoscopic microscope, Bevel counted more than 100 blood spatters on the upper left shoulder of the t-shirt. According to him, this type of spatter is consistent with a high velocity occurrence like a gunshot. Most of these spatter marks were only measured around one tenth of a millimeter in diameter. Again, highly consistent with high velocity movements.

Beville explained to the jury that discovering these tiny blood spatter marks meant that Warren was close to his wife when she was shot. Beville also ruled out the possibility that performing CPR on Bonnie could have left the microscopic blood spatters on the T-shirt.

According to him, blood spatters in situations where CPR is administered to a person with a gunshot wound to the chest are around 1 mm in diameter or bigger. In this case, the blood spatters were only measured at 1 tenth of a mm in diameter. In some instances, the spots were even smaller.

So he's arguing that if Warren wants to say that he could have gotten these spots on his shirt from performing CPR on his wife, who did have a chest bullet wound, then the drops would have been much, much larger. But they weren't. Then there was the gun's grip. Bevel argued that the gun would have been covered in blood if Bonnie had fired.

After firing the weapon, it would have dropped, and then the gun's grip would have come into contact with the blood on her chest. But the police didn't find any blood on the gun's grip. What about the lack of defensive wounds on Bonnie's hands and arms? If Warren was going to shoot her, why didn't she fight back? According to Tom Bevel and the prosecution, the police didn't find any defensive wounds because Warren shot and killed Bonnie while she was asleep.

Bevel explained the lack of blood throughout the bedroom. Remember, the defense's expert argued that the lack of bloody footprints in the bedroom point towards Warren's innocence, because if he were the shooter, he would have tracked blood around the bedroom and the rest of the house. But Bevel interpreted the lack of blood differently. According to him, you wouldn't expect to find bloody footprints unless the shooter had stood in a pool of blood.

If someone goes into a room where someone is asleep, holds a gun to that person's body, fires, drops the gun, and then backs away, you would only expect to find blowback blood on the shooter's clothing. You wouldn't expect to see bloody footprints, again, unless the shooter is already standing in the blood. So according to the prosecution, the lack of blood isn't really a valid argument for the defense.

Now, another key witness during the trial was Fort Worth Detective James Varnin. After investigating the case, Detective Varnin believed that Bonnie had committed suicide. In his testimony, he pointed to several essential elements of the investigation. Number one, the position of Bonnie's body.

When the police arrived on the scene, Bonnie's body was lying face up on her bed in line with the edge of the bed, a common sleeping position for a lot of people. Detective Varnon testified that in his experience, when someone is about to commit suicide, they get comfortable, like they're going to go to sleep. Number two, Bonnie's eyeglasses.

The police found her eyeglasses neatly folded on the nightstand next to the bed, which is another common thing for someone to do when committing suicide. Third, the bullet's angle. In Detective Varden's opinion, the wound tracked was consistent with a self-inflicted wound. He believed it would have been incredibly awkward for another person to hold the gun in a position that caused that wound track.

Then finally, the blood spatter. Detective Varnin found no high-velocity blood spatter on Warren's t-shirt. However, Varnin admitted that he did not examine the t-shirt under a microscope, like the prosecution's expert claimed. Although Detective Varnin believed Bonnie killed herself, he also admitted several facts about the case that could point to homicide.

For starters, we know that both Warren and Bonnie drank a lot that night. Both of them were heavily intoxicated. And sometimes, when too much alcohol is involved, bad things happen. Then there was Warren's history of abuse. Warren called Bonnie's work several times during their three-year marriage, threatening to kill her. He often did this after drinking heavily.

So it's not a far stretch to say that if Warren had a little too much to drink that night, then maybe he got abusive or violent towards her. The police didn't find a suicide note. Now, most people tend to believe that everyone leaves a suicide note behind, when in reality, some reports suggest that notes are only found in 20% of suicides.

And if this statistic is accurate, that means only one-fifth of suicides involve suicide notes. Now, what about the gun? I know what you're thinking because I've been thinking the same thing. Whose fingerprints are on the gun? If Bonnie's fingerprints are on it, we've got a suicide. If Warren's fingerprints are on it, it's murder.

Well, when the police tested the gun for fingerprints, it came back empty. They didn't find any fingerprints on the weapon. Not Warren's, not Bonnie's. When the trial came to a close, the jury was stuck on one key piece of testimony. The prosecution's expert witness, Tom Bevel's testimony.

The jury believed him. They thought that the blood spatter he testified to on Warren's t-shirt meant that he was the shooter. So the jury found Warren guilty of Bonnie's murder, and he was sentenced to 30 years behind bars. In 1998, Warren tried to appeal his conviction. The main argument in his appeal was that blood spatter testimony.

He said the evidence that convicted him wasn't factual, and if the evidence isn't factual, his conviction isn't legal. Warren's defense attorney reached out to Anita Zanin, a highly trained blood spatter expert from New York, who's been trained by the person referred to as, quote, the godfather of blood spatter, Herb McDonald.

So to get someone like Anita Zanin to believe in Warren's innocence and agree to work on his appeal is huge. After looking at the t-shirt, Anita Zanin was convinced that the blood spatter on the shirt resulted from Warren performing CPR, not the result of him firing a gun.

Now, this testimony was critical for the defense. If they're going to have a shot at getting Warren's conviction overturned, it rests on Zanin's testimony. But when the appeal went in front of a judge, he denied it. The judge assigned to Warren's case held that the defense didn't meet the burden to establish actual innocence or that the blood spatter testimony presented at trial was false.

For the court to grant Warren a new trial, the defense needed to prove at least one of these points. So on June 11, 1998, the Court of Appeals of Fort Worth denied Warren's appeal for a new trial. Warren is currently serving his 30-year prison sentence at Clarence N. Stevenson Unit in Texas. He won't be eligible for parole until the year 2026.

To this day, Warren maintains his innocence in his wife's murder. Since his criminal trial, his case has received a lot of publicity, including being featured on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. Several nationally recognized blood spatter experts have weighed in on Warren's case over the years. Many believe that the blood spatter resulted from him performing CPR on Bonnie.

These experts believe that the key piece of forensic evidence that convicted Warren and sent him to prison for 30 years is flawed. Warren Horanek's criminal trial is one of a handful of cases decided on blood spatter evidence alone. Most cases involve DNA and fingerprints on top of blood spatter. In the past several years, flawed blood spatter evidence has led to the release of three wrongfully convicted people.

In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences released its findings on one of the most extensive studies done on blood spatter analysis. In their assessment, they wrote, quote, uncertainties associated with blood spatter analysis are erroneous, end quote. They also noted that blood spatter is more subjective than it is scientific. Sorry, Dexter.

To share your thoughts on Warren Horanek's story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales. Do you think the blood spatter evidence presented at trial was flawed? Or do you think Warren is guilty of murdering his wife, Bonnie? To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash Forensic Tales.

After each episode, I release a bonus episode where I share my personal thoughts and opinions about the case. This is where I get the opportunity to say what I think about the blood spatter evidence and whether I think Warren is guilty or not. To check out photos from the case, be sure to head to our website, ForensicTales.com. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday.

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