Today’s blog is a little different in that I spent most of the morning dealing with the news of an old criminal case I was peripherally involved in. Here is the Troopers extended statement.
Baggen murder cold case closed after DNA match
Tuesday, August 11th, 2020 1:50pm
Sitka, Alaska (KINY) - Alaska State Troopers and the Sitka Police Department have announced the closure of the Jessica Baggen murder cold case.
Steve Branch, 66 of Austin, Arkansas, the suspect in the sexual assault and murder of Baggen, killed himself on Aug. 3, after denying to investigators that he had any knowledge of the crime and refusing to provide a DNA sample for comparison to the DNA collected on the scene 24 years ago.
Investigators, after securing a search warrant, collected Branch’s DNA during his autopsy.
On Monday, Aug. 10, the State of Alaska Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory in Anchorage confirmed Branch's DNA matched the suspect DNA found on Jessica and at the scene.
Jessica disappeared in the early morning hours of May 4, 1996. She just turned 17 the day before and was visiting with a friend and her sister at her sister’s residence, when she decided to walk home alone, which was about a mile away. Her parents woke the next morning to find that she never made it back. Jessica’s father reported her missing to Sitka Police Department in the early morning hours of May 5th; he returned to Sitka PD later the same evening to confirm that she still hadn’t returned home nor had any known contact with friends or family.
Sitka PD mobilized the local search and rescue team. They focused their efforts in the wooded area west of the Indian River, between the campus of Sheldon Jackson College and Sawmill Creek Road. Soon a shirt, later identified as the one Jessica was wearing when she was last seen alive, was located. Jessica was found dead less than two hours later; it was May 6. Jessica was left discarded and hastily buried in a hollowed-out area beneath the trunk of a large fallen tree, approximately 70 feet off the bike path which paralleled Sawmill Creek Road. Most of her clothing and belongings were found in the immediate area, as well.
Nine days after Jessica was discovered deceased, a man confessed to her sexual assault and murder. While there was plenty of circumstantial evidence, it was determined months later that none of the physical evidence collected from the crime scene connected the suspect to the actual crime. The man went to trial for Jessica’s sexual assault and murder in early 1997 and was found not guilty on all charges; the hunt for Jessica’s killer, the man with the matching DNA, went on.
Despite years of investigation by Sitka PD, with occasional assistance from the Alaska State Troopers, and a private investigation commissioned by Jessica’s family, the case remained unsolved. More than 100 potential suspects were cleared through DNA comparison and the trail went cold.
In 2007, with the original Sitka police officer that investigated the killing serving as the lieutenant that oversaw the Alaska State Troopers Cold Case Investigation Unit, the investigative efforts into Jessica’s sexual assault and murder were vigorously renewed.
“Every retired officer seems to have that one case that they can’t let go—that just haunts them. This case was mine,” said now-retired Lt. Dave Tugmon. “I walked into the captain’s office with the file and I told him we had to take on Jessica’s case.”
Years of potential leads ended with DNA comparisons clearing suspect after suspect, forcing investigators to pour over the files looking for new angles. In September of 2018, the CCIU and Sitka PD discussed utilizing a new forensic DNA procedure called Genetic Genealogy.
After reviewing the DNA evidence in the case, the State of Alaska Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory determined there was sufficient DNA from evidence collected from the original investigation to generate a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) profile. The suspect DNA was submitted to Parabon Nanolabs a few weeks later.
In February 2019, a SNP-DNA profile was developed and uploaded into public genealogy databases. By the end of the year, after months of genealogical research, a new suspect emerged: Steve Branch. Investigators established that Branch lived in Sitka at the time of Jessica’s murder. The CCIU also learned that in March of 1996, Sitka PD investigated Branch for sexually assaulting another teenaged woman. He was indicted and arrested for the incident in June of 1996, but he was subsequently acquitted after a trial in 1997.
Branch moved from Sitka to Arkansas in 2010 and took up permanent residency. In January 2020, the CCIU reached out to the Arkansas State Police (ASP) and requested assistance. For weeks, ASP unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a discarded DNA sample from Branch. In the Spring of 2020, Sitka PD was able to obtain a discarded DNA sample from a relative of Branch. Kinship DNA analysis completed in May of 2020, determined that Steve Branch was most likely the source of the suspect DNA found on Jessica’s clothing and body.
In early August, investigators from the Alaska Bureau of Investigation traveled to Arkansas. On Aug. 3, 2020, investigators made a preliminary contact with Branch at his residence to question him and obtain a DNA sample in order to positively confirm he was the source of the suspect DNA. Branch denied any involvement in the homicide case and refused to voluntarily provide a DNA sample.
Investigators left the residence to apply for a search warrant, as well as interview other witnesses who also lived in Arkansas. The plan was to secure a DNA sample directly from Branch after getting the search warrant and to take Branch into custody following a positive DNA match. However, approximately a half-hour after the investigators departed, Branch shot himself. The Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office investigated the incident and uncovered overwhelming evidence that Branch took his own life.
“For over 24 years, investigators have vigorously pursued leads in hopes of resolving this incident. What ultimately solved this case was the tireless efforts of two genealogists, one with Parabon and the other with the Alaska Department of Public Safety, Criminal Intelligence Analyst Patty Busby, who finally pointed the investigators in the right direction,” said Inv. Randy McPherron, Cold Case Investigation Unit. With the help of several civic-minded private citizens who voluntarily uploaded their DNA profiles into public genealogy databases like GEDmatch and FTDNA and then authorize their profiles to be accessible to law enforcement, the genealogists were able to piece together a very complex family tree that eventually exposed Branch as Jessica’s killer. I am very grateful to have played a small role in this investigation and to bring closure to Jessica’s family and the community of Sitka.”
The Alaska State Troopers and the Sitka Police Department would also like to thank the Arkansas State Police, Company A, Criminal Investigation Division; the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission; the FBI Little Rock, AR Field Office; the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) in Virginia; and, personnel in the forensic biology section of the Alaska Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, for their assistance with the investigation.
“While nothing will ease the pain or bring Jessica back, I am humbled and proud of the work that many law enforcement professionals did over the years to bring closure to her family and friends. They never forgot about Jessica or the people that loved her,” said Commissioner Amanda Price, Department of Public Safety. “Each cold case represents a victim and a family that is grieving while awaiting justice. Each case, no matter how old, matters to us.”
My Thoughts on Today’s Development In The Jessica Baggen Murder Case
This article has more detailed information than the initial press release. I hope this new development brings some comfort to the Baggen's family, who surely seem to have suffered horribly at the hands of Mr. Branch.
Jessica’s rape and murder was a seismic event in Sitka. The Memorial walk through the park where her body was found was the largest outdoor demonstration of support for a cause or a family that I ever remember in my 45 years here. This was a different kind of crime for us. A stranger rape and murder just does not happen but it did and to a well known and well liked family. All of us took this event personally we couldn’t imagine thinking we lived in a place where such a thing could happen. The impulse to solve the crime was intense. Her body was found close to the Trooper Academy and the top forensic scientists were doing an expert job in processing the scene, and indeed it was science that finally solved the case.
But In all Lt. Tugmon's self congratulations, I would like the Police and the Troopers to recognize that they sat by and ruined the life of Richard Bingham by following through with his prosecution and trial after they coerced a confession out of him, when they surely knew they had the wrong guy after the lab results came back. Bingham, was an unsophisticated, illiterate young alcoholic who went to the police thinking he was going to help them with the investigation. He didn't know anything about the crime that any other person who had followed the news or listened to the gossip knew. He had seen Jessica walking down the street and noticed that she looked "pretty" later they found out that his DNA did not match the foreign DNA martial found on her body and clothes. But there in the Sitka PD interview room without a lawyer and hours of questioning he finally came to the point of saying "Well if you guys say I did it while I was drunk and blacked out, then I must have." They tore apart everything he owned, and found nothing tying him to the crime. He had no significant criminal history, bur they took him to trial for her rape and murder based on his statement where they assured him it would be better for him to “get everything off his chest, and people often do things they wouldn’t normally do when they’re drunk…. if you did this and you were sober you would be a monster, I don’t think you are a monster, Rich? Are you?” And that became “No I’m not a monster, Yes I was drunk around that time, If I did it I must have been blacked out and don’t remember… to finally… well… I must have done it if you guys all say so.” This is how most false confessions go. Get the defendant to buy into a false choice and work on them to choose the most palatable, that you are a good guy who made a mistake under bad circumstances. The interviewer uses their own body language to pressure them, to make the room smaller and keep them answering questions they don’t know really know the answers to. Unsophisticated people think they can help by talking… but your options gets smaller and smaller until you have no other choice but too confess.
Now we all think we are smarter than that. We can't imagine that we wouldn't march out of a police station with righteous indignation if we were accused of something we didn't do. There are great clean confessions that happen every day. But if you are a certain kind of person, it’s not difficult to get a false confession out of you: if you have memory problems, or if police just frighten you because you have problems with authority, maybe you have been abused by a father? You have a shitty upbringing and try a small lie just hoping ro our get out of the room quickly Then if you lie… the interviewer will beat you over the head with that small lie and you may compound it with another because you are tired/ scared/ guilty of some small shit (pot in your coat pocket) or because of neurological problems caused by a lifetime of beatings, or drug and alcohol abuse. Then lets not forger that we are not all dealt the same hand in life. Some people, particularly those with black out periods, and some who feel deep shame, for whatever reason, not being able to read or not being terribly successful in life. Not having a girlfriend or just being a bum and wanting to make it up by helping the police, they will go down that road and offer themselves up rather than forcefully telling an officer, "No. I want to talk to a lawyer now." Police know this. They train on this. They know they need corroborating evidence to take a person to trial. That's why Richard should have put an end to the interview by asking for a lawyer. He should have stopped talking and said, “I want my lawyer right now” as soon as they took him back into the room. If he had Alaska Law Enforcement may have not wasted so much time on taking him to trial and tooting their own horns for catching him and spent more time on the killer of Jessica Baggan who was right under their noses committing another rape before Richard Bingham’s trial.
Luckily Rich Bingham got a great public defender in Galen Paine and the perfect investigator in Susan Phillips and he was acquitted. He moved away, but he was continually harassed and his life was threatened, Where ever he went he was called into the local police station and told he was being watched and was reminded that essentially, they knew he was the guy who "got away with murder." But he didn't. He was innocent.
So, like others, I'm glad for the Baggen family, I hope they have some comfort today. I'm grateful for the scientists and the Genetic Genealogists who finally solved this case. But I'm also happy for Richard Bingham and his family, and hope they can lift their heads a little higher and I would like to hear a little more humility through all of the horn blowing of the Alaska Law Enforcement community today.
Respectfully,
John Straley
