Muffled Cries

Muffled Cries refers to episode 31 of the Season 11 of the television series Forensic Files which was broadcast for the first time on February 14, 2007.

Plot summary
After inspecting storm damage to a home in Tampa, the insurance assessor simply disappeared. Thirty hours later, her body was found in a nearby river. But the killer had been careless, using a murder weapon so unique and leaving behind clues so blatant that police would have no trouble tracking him down.

Katie Froeschle
A 25 year old insurance adjuster who had just graduated from college. After not contacting her friends and family for a weekend, she was reported missing. Her abandoned car was found later.

Katie was found in the Hillsborough River near Jason Funk's home. She had been in there for around 30 hours and had also been sexually assaulted. It is believed that she was murdered before she was put in the river from blunt force trauma.

Jason Funk
Katie arrived at Jason's house to check for damage. Before she left, Jason killed her with a motorcycle muffler. Jason dumped her body into the river behind his house, drove her car to a nearby parking-lot and stole some money and credit cards. In order to hide what he had done, he cleaned the murder weapon and and burnt the blood socked carpet and clothing. But he didn't get rid of all the blood evidence in his home, including on his own sneakers.

Funk had a criminal history which included assaulting women. At the time of the murder, he had been recently fired and was struggling with money leading to greed being a possible motive for the murder.

Jason Funk denies being Katie's murderer including appearing on the show to deny the convictions against him, going as far as saying that if he was home on the day of the murder then he could've prevented Katie's death.

Sentence
Jason pled guilty to murder in order to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for the murder of Katie Froeschle.

DNA
Skin cells were found on the steering wheel of Katie's car. They were tested for DNA which revealed two contributors: Katie and Jason Funk.

Blood was found in Jason Funk's home as well as on his sneakers. The blood was determined to be from Katie.

Pathology
A forensic pathologist determined that a motorcycle muffler was the murder weapon as the mounting bracket exactly matched the injuries to Katie's head.

Fingerprints
A bank statement found in Katie's car was checked for fingerprints. Both Katie's and Jason's fingerprints were found on the envelope.

Credit Card Records
Katie's credit cards were stolen when she was murdered. The police checked to see if they were used after her death to find that there had been four attempts to use them following her death. One of the places has surveillance video which showed a six foot male trying to purchase some items with Katie's card. Of the one successful transaction, it was signed in the name Jason Funk.