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01:59And it's jet skiers who made a discovery around 3 p.m. one November afternoon, a large, overly-stuffed duffel bag washed up on the shoreline.
02:11They thought maybe it was money or drugs or something of that nature.
02:23But as they got closer to it, they could smell a foulness coming from it.
02:30They didn't open it.
02:33It was actually a small lock on the duffel bag that would prevent somebody from opening it.
02:38They could see that there was insect activity on and around the duffel bag.
02:43The fact that the bag was surrounded by flies and other insect activity leads us to believe that there is more in that bag than just maybe luggage.
03:03It could be remains.
03:04Blowflies and other insects, they can smell decomposing flesh from miles away.
03:12Once that odor is exposed to air, it does not take them long to find the body.
03:17Having those flies swarm that bag is a key indication that there is something that we need to look more into.
03:25They could see fluids coming out of the duffel bag, some very unpleasant things.
03:36So they knew enough to call the sheriff's office.
03:45We're on a trail right now, and this is the way we actually went to recover the bag.
03:51When they got close to the duffel bag and opened it, they were able to see that there was a body of a female inside.
04:05It was found right over here in the duffel bag, washed on the shore.
04:17It was a little chill in the air, a little overcast.
04:21Yeah, this reminds me a lot of exactly what it was like that day.
04:30Faced with a suspicious death, police quickly cordoned off the shoreline.
04:38It is a process of documenting the scene, collecting evidence from the scene.
04:45At that time, it was a sheriff's office assisting as well with their crime scene unit.
04:51Especially in large bodies of water, you never know where the body exactly came from.
05:02So when you're trying to secure the scene, you don't know what you're securing because you don't know what's involved versus what isn't.
05:11It's always better to be safe and sorry and to tape off as much area as you can and thoroughly examine all of those areas.
05:22A body in the water, it adds a level of complexity to the case, makes it that much more challenging to investigate.
05:34Typically, when a body is discovered, the medical examiner or forensic pathologist is called out to the scene.
05:44That body is then placed in a body bag, usually on some type of a clean white sheet.
05:51That sheet is also taken to the morgue with the body and it is examined for trace evidence.
05:56Oftentimes, the hands are also wrapped in baggies to preserve any evidence that may be there in order to help solve the case.
06:07When we got the body to the morgue and opened the duffel bag, she was crammed in there.
06:13She was in that bag in the fetal position, so her knees were up close to her chest, and she was clothed only with a bra.
06:23She had nothing else on.
06:30Whenever you find a young woman, especially who is nude and she's deceased, I think immediately this raises the question of,
06:38is there some kind of sexual component?
06:43Police needed to establish whether the victim was alive or dead when she entered the water.
06:52One of the techniques that we use is we actually float the lungs.
06:55If the lungs float in a pail of water, then there is no water in the lungs.
07:00If they don't float, then they are water laden.
07:04There was no water in the lungs, and so we know that she was already dead before she was tossed into the water.
07:13She was strangled, and we can tell that because we look for things like petechiae in the eyes, petechiae around the eyelids.
07:24Petechiae are very small punctate hemorrhages that appear because of pressure, and that pressure occurs because of tightening around the neck.
07:31She was also duct taped around her entire face.
07:36Her wrists were duct tied.
07:38I think as a psychologist, when you have somebody's face covered up, you always wonder why, if there is a sense of wanting to kind of, you know, cover this person up.
07:49Maybe they knew her.
07:50Maybe there's a sense of shame.
07:52And, of course, there's also the obvious question, how did she die?
07:55And if this is the way that she died, if this person actually covered her face up to asphyxiate her, that really does suggest a very sadistic way of murdering somebody.
08:08It is a very personal way to murder somebody.
08:10You are putting your hands on that person, and you are watching that person's eyes, and you can see their expression as you do that.
08:18And it does take several minutes for that person to suffocate, and you are wrapping that tape.
08:25So it is a very gruesome and brutal and really sadistic way to kill somebody.
08:38Knowing they were now dealing with a murder, detectives searched for any clues that might lead them to the killer.
08:45We were concerned that she was in the salt water for any length of time, really.
08:52You know, you lose DNA evidence, you lose any evidence of a sexual assault.
09:01Within the bag, there was at least one paper towel.
09:06Once it was allowed to be dried out, you could see very clearly that it had a very distinctive pattern on it.
09:15There was also what looked to be a Clorox-type wipe.
09:21Every time you need one, you just pull the next one.
09:23It was one of those types.
09:25We noticed that she was also missing one earring.
09:29She had one gold hoop in and then one that was not in.
09:32It had a bit of a distinctive design to it.
09:37It was not so normal that it would be just any earring.
09:41It could have very well been matched to another had it been found.
09:45So the thought was that perhaps that earring had come off of her ear someplace where the murder occurred,
09:53or maybe even in the vehicle that transported her.
09:58A lot of possibilities.
09:59Finding the Clorox wipes and discovering that she might be missing an earring was very crucial.
10:10It was a starting point for investigators.
10:13But one big question remained.
10:16Who was the unidentified victim?
10:18In Pensacola, police are investigating a gruesome discovery.
10:30A duffel bag has washed ashore, containing a woman who's been bound with tape and strangled.
10:37It's very common for killers to dispose of a body close to an area where they live, whether they work.
10:46And also, if it's water, oftentimes a place they're familiar with that's in water.
10:50And so here we have this duffel bag that's washed up very close to a local naval base,
10:55which I think immediately gives investigators a clue.
10:58Could this be somebody who is actually working or affiliated with this location?
11:03For this case, with her being off of the Gulf of Mexico, a salt water that is high on crustaceans,
11:14eventually, crustaceans could have found their way into the bag, thus eating some of the remains,
11:21causing more trauma to the body that was not already there.
11:23Her remains were found to not have a lot of animal activity.
11:29That leads us to believe that the body was not in the water for an extended period of time
11:34because the aquatic life did not have time to access the bag.
11:41Now police must urgently find out who the victim is.
11:44They started by reviewing missing person reports, recently filed in the county.
12:14As the detective on duty, I was alerted to a suspicious call that our patrol officers had gone to.
12:34The call was from Sylvia Watkins, who hadn't seen her 25-year-old sister Samira,
12:40a mother of one, for several days.
12:44She hadn't been seen or heard from.
12:46It was very unusual.
12:48She didn't show up to see her child.
12:50It was around Halloween time, so she wasn't there to take them trick-or-treating.
12:55We decided that we should go ahead and start looking into her disappearance.
13:02Samira Watkins was working as a shift supervisor for a local restaurant.
13:06She was also going to school at night for a dental hygienist.
13:13It was very much out of the ordinary for Samira not to have any contact with her family.
13:17They were very close-knit.
13:19So the fact that no one had heard from Samira for some time was very alarming.
13:28Police started putting together a timeline of Samira's last movements.
13:32Samira's sister reported that Samira had gotten off from work around 9 p.m.
13:40and drove all the way to roughly the downtown area of Pensacola, where they all lived.
13:46She was responsible.
13:48She didn't disappear without notice.
13:51She had a good job.
13:52We reached out to her employer, and they had also expressed concern because she had not showed up for her shift.
14:00We talked to the school and found out that she also had not shown up to her classes.
14:06We knew what her car looked like.
14:08That vehicle was nowhere to be found.
14:13All these things are continuing to build concern about her well-being.
14:18The sudden disappearance of Samira and her car prompted police to take a closer look at those who knew her.
14:30After looking into Samira's life, we discovered that her son's father had been very abusive, and he had been arrested for it.
14:41She was involved with him for about three years.
14:45It was just an incredibly horrible relationship for her.
14:47He, in fact, as a matter of fact, ends up going to prison for domestic abuse when he kidnaps her and will let her go for days.
14:56That was an incident that occurred here in Pensacola.
15:00He had gotten out of prison not too long before Samira went missing.
15:07There is now that possibility.
15:12Could that have been what happened to Samira?
15:14Could the father of her child, having gotten out of prison, could he have done something to her?
15:20Some of the main things we were doing was looking at his criminal history, trying to pull together all the cases, anything that would show us that he had those violent tendencies.
15:41We're looking at his probation status.
15:44Is he on probation or on parole, where he's checking in?
15:49Where does he live now?
15:51What address did he give?
15:52And once he was out of prison, you usually give an address looking at that.
15:59It didn't take detectives long to track him down.
16:02Samira's ex-boyfriend, his alibi was that when he got out of prison, he began to work doing overnight cleaning.
16:14Him and his crew, they would go into offices, things like that, and they would clean all throughout the night.
16:24Samira's ex-boyfriend had a solid alibi.
16:27We were able to determine that he'd worked in different office buildings, and we were able to confirm that he was there through his co-workers.
16:37Investigators hit a dead end.
16:39But soon, another name came to their attention, a man known as Ricky Littleton.
16:47So when I interviewed Samira's sister, she kept talking about this boyfriend of Samira's, and she kept calling him Ricky.
16:54She didn't know his last name, but she knew he was in the military.
16:58And she had explained to me that Samira and Ricky had been seeing each other, that the relationship had turned sexual at some point, and that Samira was pregnant.
17:12And she had said that the baby was this guy Ricky's.
17:16She told her sister, I'm going to go meet with Ricky, and we're going to talk about our future, and specifically the fact that Samira was pregnant.
17:33Samira just happened to meet Littleton when she was going on to the Naval Air Station in the earlier part of the summer of 2009.
17:41They met at the front gate.
17:42There was a little bit of flirting exchanged back and forth.
17:46Littleton was a very handsome young man, was obviously in the military and responsible.
17:51And certainly this was someone that Samira could see building a relationship with.
17:58She has found somebody who is the exact opposite of her abusive partner, or her ex-partner.
18:05This is somebody who is not only in the military, who has a stable career, has no black marks on his record.
18:11He's a police officer in the military.
18:13So I would imagine that when she first met him, it must have been so exciting.
18:22Detectives asked Samira's new boyfriend, Ricky, to help with their inquiries.
18:26There's a couple of things that were odd with Ricky.
18:32When I called him to ask him to come to talk to me, he actually, when I said, hey, Ricky, he corrected me and said, no, this is Zach.
18:40Well, it was the same guy.
18:42So right off the bat, I'm finding out that he's using a fake name while dealing with Samira and her family.
18:48Not only had Zach been calling himself Ricky, he was also married with a child of his own.
18:58Initially, he wouldn't admit to being even intimate with her.
19:12And he goes on to say that the reason why is because he was accused of adultery several months back.
19:20And the military really frowns on that.
19:23So he was really scared that he was going to get in trouble.
19:26In the military, you can be dishonorably discharged for having an affair.
19:31And he knows this.
19:33His wife has been stationed out of state.
19:37And so he is basically living a double life.
19:39It was a red flag that he showed very little concern.
19:42He seemed more put off or annoyed that he had to be here.
19:49As opposed to somebody that would at least say, hey, I really hate to hear that this young lady is missing.
19:54Maybe I can do something to help.
19:56It's more like, hey, I need to get out of here.
19:58I got to get back to work.
20:02He mentioned that the last time he had seen Samira was the Wednesday before she was reported missing.
20:08I know from talking to her sister that now the day of her disappearance, she indeed was leaving to go to Zachary Lilton's apartment.
20:21When I reviewed the first interview, he tried to distance himself from any sort of relationship or contact with her.
20:34When I reviewed the second interview, he seemed to be a little more forthcoming as far as his relationship with her, his sexual relationship with her, and the fact that he knew she was pregnant.
20:46He also was using terms in the past tense, so that was a little unusual.
20:55Despite their suspicions, police still didn't have anything concrete against Littleton.
21:02But I didn't have sufficient evidence to be able to arrest him or do anything further, so I had to let him go.
21:07In Florida, police investigating the disappearance of mother of one, Samira Watkins, are waiting to identify the body of a woman washed up in a duffel bag on the Pensacola shoreline.
21:23This body that was found in a duffel bag was identified by using fingerprints.
21:28Some of the challenges when a body has been in water, in particular, are things like identifying that person.
21:41However, we can often get fingerprints, even if bodies have been in water for some time, because we can infuse that finger with other water to puff it up, if you will, and actually obtain that fingerprint.
21:54Another technique that we often use is something called de-gloving, and that's where the skin actually slips off of the hand.
22:02We put on a gloved hand, and we put that skin over our glove, and then we can actually roll that person's fingerprint onto a fingerprint identification card and hopefully get an ID that way.
22:16At the time of our autopsy, only one gold earring was found.
22:20There was an impression in the other ear, but the earring was not there.
22:23Samira's family represented to us that she wore a gold pair of earrings all the time.
22:30They were a very unique set of gold earrings.
22:34Together with DNA and physical evidence found at the scene, the body was confirmed to be that of missing young mom, Samira Watkins.
22:42When we found out that it was definitely Samira in the bag, we knew that she was very close to the family.
22:53They all lived in a house together.
22:55Her young child stayed there with her, so we knew that telling the family was going to be very difficult and very emotional.
23:02With Samira no longer a missing person, but the center of a homicide case, detectives focused their investigation on her boyfriend, Zach Littleton.
23:13When Samira told Zach she was pregnant, he was not supportive, didn't want anything to do with co-parenting with her.
23:25In fact, he didn't believe it was his.
23:28He said that he always used protection, and he asked her to have an abortion.
23:34And his wife was soon to arrive here in Pensacola as well.
23:40The other thing that also focused our attention on Zachary Littleton was the fact that he was in the military.
23:46And having extramarital affairs is against the code of contact for the military, so that certainly raised some concerns.
23:53It's very, very clear he has no intention of having any kind of long-term relationship with her
23:58by the fact that he uses a false name when he introduces himself.
24:02So this is somebody who's used to deception and deceiving women.
24:08Once the body was identified to be Samira Watkins, obviously the investigation at that point sort of ramps up.
24:16Now we are pretty certain that this is, in fact, Zachary Littleton's doing.
24:22Now detectives had to find evidence to support their suspicions.
24:26At that point in time, in 2009, the cell phone technology analysis was pretty new.
24:35So at that point, law enforcement reached out to NCIS because they had some newer technology,
24:41and they were able to analyze Samira and Zachary's cell phones.
24:45Samira's cell phone showed that shortly after she left her home and left her child with her sister,
24:54you can see her travels using mapping and the cell tower hits.
24:59And you can see her leaving and going really across town to a tower that is located basically adjacent to Zachary Littleton's apartment.
25:10When Zachary Littleton was initially interviewed, he mentioned to law enforcement that he had two different cell phones.
25:22He had one with an area code of 843 that he never let Samira have.
25:27He also had another number that started with a 777,
25:31and that was the primary phone that he communicated with Samira.
25:34Detectives also discovered an unidentified phone number on Samira's cell phone.
25:45There is a brand new phone number that Samira is calling at that time.
25:50There ended up being 47 calls in that nine-day period to this, what I would call a mystery phone number.
25:58Equally concerning was the fact that that number all of a sudden just went cold.
26:07It really implied that whoever owns that number knew something happened to Samira,
26:13and she wasn't going to be able to answer the phone, even if they called.
26:18Once they got the cell phone records for this unknown number,
26:22it turned out to be a track phone or a prepaid phone.
26:24So it's rather difficult sometimes to get information on those phones.
26:32But we did get lucky, and we did discover that this particular phone number was registered to a Zach Littleton.
26:45So I learned a lot of things from Zach's friends and co-workers.
26:49One thing I learned is that he had a reputation of being a womanizer,
26:54that Samira was not the only girl who he had had a relationship with, even though he was married,
27:01that he had skirted some punishment with the military previously for infidelity.
27:10This was somebody who was willing to break the rules, who was willing to lie.
27:16He was willing to have relationships with women under false pretenses to get what he wanted.
27:25He's somebody who, on the surface, is an upstanding police officer and military guy.
27:32From the very beginning, while Samira sees him as somebody who could be a knight in shining armor in some ways,
27:39he sees her as just another fling.
27:41He tells investigators so many different lies about his alibi,
27:47about his relationship with Samira, about where he was.
27:51I mean, he is obviously somebody who's very comfortable with lying.
27:54And I think this, of course, backfires.
27:58And so all this deception really becomes more damning evidence against him.
28:08They started canvassing the apartment complex where Zachary lived,
28:12and they were able to speak with one of the tenants who mentioned that
28:16they had seen a male and a female arguing close to Zachary Littleton's apartment
28:21the night that Samira went missing.
28:24Coupled with everything else that law enforcement had at that point,
28:28they had enough probable cause to obtain a search warrant to search Zachary Littleton's home.
28:36Officers descended on the apartment,
28:38where they believed the suspect lived at the time Samira went missing.
28:46The original apartment of Zachary Littleton was searched by law enforcement,
28:50but because he had already moved out of it,
28:52there was not anything found that was significant to the investigation.
28:57Furniture was gone, the belongings were picked up and moved.
29:01There were no obvious signs of a struggle or blood or anything of that nature
29:04because he had already moved and the apartment had been cleaned out.
29:07It was a blow for police, desperate to get justice for the victim and her family.
29:17It's a cold-hearted thing to do,
29:19to place somebody in a bag and to throw them in this waterway
29:24like their life wasn't worth anything.
29:28And that is very sad.
29:29Despite a lack of hard evidence linking him to the crime,
29:41police were still convinced Zachary Littleton had killed Samira Watkins
29:45and dumped her body in water near the Pensacola Naval Base.
29:51So I do have a theory on how Samira got placed in the water.
29:56There is a bridge there.
30:01That's the bridge that enters into the Navy base itself.
30:06I don't really think that Littleton used that bridge
30:09to throw her body into the water.
30:12I think that there's too much security on that bridge.
30:15There's cameras.
30:17I think what he actually did use is this bridge over here.
30:20And this bridge would have been a more quaint bridge.
30:26It doesn't have all the traffic on it.
30:29This one barely has the first car going across it.
30:33And I think that that makes better sense also
30:35because I think that this body of water
30:37tends to want to flush things out.
30:40I think that she went into the water there
30:41and that duffel bag made its way through
30:44that short period of distance over to the spot where it was found.
30:53But detectives needed more proof
30:55before they could arrest Littleton for murder.
30:58Could the waters at the crime scene help prove
31:01that Samira's body was dumped
31:03not far from the naval base where Littleton worked?
31:06Any time we find evidence or a body in the water,
31:16we always collect a water sample.
31:18And that way, if we ever need to compare them, we can.
31:21Ideally, what we want to see is that the organisms,
31:25the bacteria, and the water makeup
31:27found within the lungs, sinuses, or around the remains
31:31match that type of water where the remains were found.
31:36In this case, it's believed that Samira's remains
31:39were not dumped too far from shore.
31:49Detectives now turned their attention
31:51to the next address Zachary Littleton had lived at.
31:56What we learned was that Zachary,
31:59when he left that apartment, he moved into a home.
32:03He was looking to bring his wife,
32:06their child, to this home.
32:08So it wasn't an apartment.
32:09It was an actual house.
32:13When law enforcement executed a search warrant
32:15at Zachary Littleton's new home,
32:17they found some Lysol wipes.
32:19They found gray duct tape.
32:23They found paper towels that were consistent
32:25with the pattern of the paper towel
32:27that was found in the duffel bag with Samira's body.
32:30I was tasked to search one of the front rooms of the home.
32:34And in there was one of those clear, like, comforter bags
32:39that a comforter comes in with just miscellaneous stuff in it.
32:42And I sort of scooped my hand down and got a handful.
32:47And there was the gold earring that she had been wearing
32:51that matched the earring that was on her.
32:52It was just kind of one of those almost eureka moments
32:58that it was the nail that was going to seal his coffin
33:02because this gold earring was unique
33:04and so important to the investigation.
33:10The discovery of the earring was a major breakthrough
33:13in the case against Littleton.
33:15Every investigator was tasked with little things to follow up on.
33:24We knew that her car was missing.
33:27So the thought was, you know,
33:29if somebody did do something to her,
33:31they had to get rid of her car.
33:33And then after a little while,
33:36her car was discovered at a vacant house
33:38over in an area called Bellevue.
33:42And then they had to get a way back home.
33:44So back then, taxi cabs were still pretty popular.
33:48We didn't have the Uber or the Lyft.
33:50So I went to the local Gala Cab location
33:53and asked if they kept records of their fares
33:57and where they picked them up at,
33:59what phone number they called from,
34:00maybe they had a name.
34:02And sure enough,
34:03there was a person named Zach
34:07who called to get picked up from the Waffle House
34:11that was not too far from where her car was discovered.
34:16I went to that restaurant to look at their video.
34:20They pulled up the date and time
34:22that matched when that taxi cab
34:25had picked up this individual.
34:26And what it showed was Zachary Littleton,
34:31he's holding in his hands a canister of wipes,
34:35the exact kind that you would use to clean up things.
34:39So by seeing the Clorox wipes in his hand,
34:42we figured that that was pretty immediately after the crime.
34:46He was probably wiping the car or steering wheel down
34:48or whatever to remove DNA or fingerprints.
34:50But he walks in and he asks one of the employees
34:55if he could borrow their phone.
34:56They get the phone for him.
34:58And that's when he calls the taxi
35:01right there from the restaurant.
35:04We believe the reason that Zachary Littleton
35:06used the phone inside of the Waffle House
35:08was so that it could not be traced back to him.
35:11Obviously, we know that he had three phones.
35:13And so he could have used any one of those three.
35:15But instead, he decided to go inside
35:17and use a landline phone
35:19that he probably hoped wouldn't be traced.
35:26It was my goal to present this case
35:29before a grand jury
35:30in an effort to seek a first-degree
35:33premeditated murder indictment.
35:34Police in Pensacola
35:42are investigating the murder of a woman
35:45found washed up on the Florida coastline.
35:48Their prime suspect,
35:51married military man Zachary Littleton,
35:53has still not been charged
35:55with killing his pregnant lover,
35:57Samira Watkins.
35:58I think the motive for Zach doing this
36:04was he wanted to be here and play
36:06until his wife got here.
36:09And I think that Samira being pregnant
36:11and now his wife is due
36:13to arrive in Pensacola any day
36:15was his motive to get rid of
36:18at least the baby and Samira.
36:20My belief is that Samira likely
36:27was attacked by Littleton,
36:30that he grabbed her by her throat
36:34and strangled her to death.
36:38He added the tape around her mouth and nose
36:41once she was unconscious
36:43to make sure that she was not going to come back.
36:46The fact that he dumped the body in water
36:52was obviously in an attempt
36:53to try and get rid of the body, number one,
36:56as well as any evidence.
37:02It is likely that Mr. Littleton
37:04put Samira's remains
37:06as well as the other pieces of evidence
37:08in that bag and dumped her in the water
37:10in hopes that she would sink
37:11and none of that evidence would ever be found.
37:14In most cases, though,
37:17bodies, once they start to decompose,
37:20those gases build in their system.
37:22And no matter how they're weighted down,
37:24in most cases, they are going to float.
37:27And that's exactly what happened in this case.
37:31She floated along with all of the evidence
37:33that he had trapped inside the bag.
37:35We discovered on his computer
37:45Google searches
37:46that were to the effect of
37:49how to speed up a body decomposition,
37:52the salt water speed up body composition.
37:55Those two searches
37:57were made
37:58days before Samira went missing.
38:02We have to think that
38:06it was a huge surprise
38:08to Zachary Littleton
38:09when Samira's body
38:11washes up.
38:12I don't think he was anticipating that.
38:15And as, you know,
38:16the bag is open
38:17and they start uncovering
38:18all these clues
38:19and the earring
38:20and those kinds of things,
38:21and investigators began
38:22looking at him more closely
38:24because they've now ruled out
38:25her ex-partner,
38:27I think he does have to scramble around
38:30and start making up things.
38:32And I think what we start seeing is,
38:34you know, again,
38:34some of the lies he's telling
38:35are really end up becoming
38:37the best evidence against him.
38:40And some of these lies
38:41can be so easily disproven.
38:43He really shoots himself in the foot
38:44by a lot of the lies that he tells.
38:50After Samira's car was discovered,
38:53it then got towed back
38:54to a vehicle impound
38:56where it is processed
38:57for any sort of evidence
38:58and DNA.
39:00The steering wheel
39:01was swabbed for DNA
39:03and was later determined
39:05to have Zachary Littleton's
39:07DNA on it.
39:09Zachary Littleton
39:10had told me previously
39:11he had never driven her car.
39:13And his DNA being
39:15on the steering wheel
39:16does tend to show
39:17that he did drive it.
39:20Police now felt
39:22they had enough evidence,
39:23including phone records
39:24and Samira's earring
39:26found at his home
39:27to charge Littleton
39:28with her murder.
39:31It is a good feeling
39:33to know that at that point
39:35that we would be able
39:35to make the arrest.
39:37And I, you know,
39:38I especially felt good
39:40with him knowing
39:41he wasn't going to slide.
39:43He wasn't going to get past this.
39:45Perhaps he may have been
39:46thinking that at that point.
39:47He was in the clear.
39:51There was no reaction.
39:52He was as calm
39:54as he was
39:55in the interview room
39:56at the time of his arrest.
40:00As I was putting
40:00all of the evidence together
40:02in preparation
40:03for the jury trial
40:05of this case,
40:06I felt relatively confident
40:08that in fact,
40:09once I could put
40:10everything together,
40:12it would paint
40:13a clear picture
40:14that Zachary Littleton
40:15was the one
40:16who committed this crime.
40:17The prosecution
40:22also hoped to establish
40:23that more than one life
40:25was taken by Littleton
40:26that day.
40:32In Samira's case,
40:34there was actually
40:34some concern
40:35that she may have been
40:36pregnant at the time
40:37of her death.
40:38Medically,
40:39during the autopsy,
40:40of course,
40:40we always examine
40:41the female uterus.
40:43It was not found
40:44that she was pregnant
40:45at this time.
40:46Samira's body
40:51had been submerged
40:53in water
40:53for at least five days,
40:55and so the medical examiner
40:57was not able
40:58to make a determination
40:59as to whether
41:00there was a fetus.
41:02We did have evidence
41:03from the doctor
41:04that confirmed
41:05Samira's pregnancy
41:06that she was,
41:07in fact, pregnant,
41:07but we could not confirm it
41:09through the autopsy process.
41:15This was very important
41:16because that would affect
41:17the charging process.
41:19Someone could be charged
41:20with two cases of homicide
41:22in that case,
41:24but she was not medically
41:25found to be pregnant.
41:29Littleton was therefore
41:30only charged
41:31with one count of homicide.
41:35After Zachary Littleton
41:36was arrested in this case,
41:38he went for a first appearance
41:39in front of a judge
41:40within 24 hours,
41:41and it was at that point
41:42that his lawyers
41:43entered a plea
41:44of not guilty
41:45on his behalf.
41:54So I was nervous
41:55come trial time
41:56because I could see
41:58the picture here,
42:00the story of what happened.
42:02I could see that
42:02because I lived it
42:03and I was involved in it,
42:06but you never know
42:06how a jury
42:07is going to see it.
42:11The case of Zachary Littleton
42:12took approximately
42:13three days
42:14to try in front of a jury
42:16in Escambia County.
42:17I believe once
42:19the full picture
42:20was painted for the jury
42:21of the different pieces
42:22of evidence,
42:23again,
42:23the gold earring,
42:24the Waffle House
42:25video surveillance,
42:27the DNA
42:27on the steering wheel,
42:29the neighbor
42:30that saw
42:30the two arguing,
42:32everything put together,
42:34I believe,
42:34painted a clear picture
42:36for the jury
42:37that Zachary Littleton
42:38was guilty
42:39beyond a reasonable doubt.
42:44The defense attorneys
42:45don't go easy on you.
42:47They don't
42:47because it's not
42:48in their best interest
42:50or their clients.
42:51Most of it
42:51was pretty cut and dry,
42:54but they always do
42:56try to find
42:56the weak points.
42:57But the evidence
43:01against Littleton
43:02was overwhelming.
43:07The jury returns
43:08with a verdict
43:08after approximately
43:09three or four hours
43:11of deliberations.
43:14They saw
43:15all the evidence
43:16and they came back
43:18with a guilty verdict.
43:22It was at that point
43:23that I turned around
43:24and looked in the audience
43:25and I saw
43:26Samira's family members
43:28that just wept openly
43:29and then the judge
43:31sentenced Zachary
43:32to life in prison
43:33without parole.
43:41So when I heard
43:42the guilty verdict
43:43for Zach,
43:45it was very satisfying.
43:47But it was also overwhelming.
43:49There was a lot of emotion.
43:51This was a very hard case
43:52to investigate.
43:53It involved a young
43:55successful girl
43:56who was pregnant.
44:03Very sad.
44:04A victim that was
44:06in many ways
44:07had some vulnerabilities
44:08that were exploited
44:09by Littleton.
44:11Being at the front gate,
44:12you're wearing a uniform,
44:14you're a person
44:15of authority.
44:17Could he be looking
44:17for people
44:18that were a little vulnerable?
44:20Absolutely.
44:22He could have been
44:23doing that all along
44:24and that was part of his,
44:25the way he would find women.
44:30And Samira would have been
44:32a prime target for that
44:34in many ways.
44:37It's one thing
44:37to be a police officer.
44:39He may be investigating
44:40crimes on the base.
44:42It's another thing
44:43to try to be
44:43a sophisticated criminal.
44:45criminal.
44:45And he wasn't.
44:46He left so many things
44:48behind.
44:51Part of that was
44:53him, you know,
44:55in that situation,
44:56feeling desperate
44:56and trying to get rid
44:57of everything.
44:58And I think the other part
44:59of it was kind of
45:00just being naive
45:01about the fact that,
45:03you know,
45:04or either overly confident
45:05about the fact that
45:06he can just put all this stuff
45:07in a bag
45:08and dump it.
45:11He wanted to erase
45:13the whole thing
45:14and maybe by packing
45:14this bag,
45:15he kind of fooled himself
45:16into thinking,
45:17this is my way of just
45:18getting rid of everything,
45:19which was the exact opposite
45:21of what happened.
45:22The satisfaction
45:27from proving this case
45:29really goes
45:30for the family members.
45:33Samira was such a young,
45:34beautiful girl
45:35with her whole future
45:36ahead of her.
45:37So to be able to get
45:38some level of justice
45:39for this family
45:41is certainly rewarding.
45:52To be able to get
46:23to be able
46:24to get rid of
46:38how to get rid of
46:38by a single person
46:39at the time
46:40and to get rid
46:40of what happened.
46:41Hope,
46:42after a thirdly
46:43we'll be able
46:44to get rid of
46:45the small invitation
46:45and scare
46:46to the answer
46:48and give or
46:48the
46:50USB
46:51obviously
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