Shortly after Thanksgiving in 1987,

an intruder broke into the Tucker residence

in Arlington, Virginia.

It might have been just another statistic,

but the crime committed that night

launched a new era in police investigations.

This is how DNA evidence and psychological profiling helped catch a serial killer and set an innocent man freely.

Everything about her was very gentle.

She was very soft spoken.

She just had this amazing softness about her.

This human quality.

44-year-old Susan Tucker was a publications editor who worked for the United States Forestry Service.

She was spending the Thanksgiving holiday alone since her husband Reggie was out of the country in Wales on a business trip.

Neither of us could put the phone down. We kept saying, I love you. We said this over and over again. I don't know how many times.

But without explanation, telephone calls went unanswered,

and neighbors noticed her bedroom window wide open in the cold November weather,

so they called police.

As they approached the front door, they noticed it was a jar.

Inside, a woman's purse was lying on the foyer floor.

Susan Tucker's badly decomposed body was lying face down on the bed.

She had been dead for four or five days.

Her hands were tied behind her back, her feet were tied, the head hanging over the side of the bed almost.

...