In the winter of 2007, the quiet life of 79-year-old Asian male, Tak Yi, and his wife, Pung Yi, came to a brutal end in their Albuquerque, New Mexico home. On December 4th, the elderly Korean couple was found murdered, having suffered a violent attack that shocked their community. The initial investigation into the double homicide quickly focused on two young men who had been selling magazines door-to-door in the Yi's neighborhood around the time of the killings.
Authorities arrested
23-year-old Travis Rowley and 21-year-old Michael Lee, a pair of traveling salesmen, for the murders. The case against them appeared to solidify when Rowley confessed to being inside the Yi's home during the murders, implicating Lee as well. Rowley recounted details about the crime scene that investigators believed only someone present would know, and he specifically admitted to striking Tak Yi on the head. Based on this confession, both men were charged with two counts of murder and tampering with evidence and were held on a $2 million bond.
However, the case against Rowley and Lee began to unravel as inconsistencies emerged between Rowley's confession and the evidence found at the scene. The defense for the two men maintained their innocence, stating they had an "ironclad" alibi with sales receipts and van records placing them miles away at the time of the murders. A significant breakthrough occurred in mid-2008 when DNA evidence recovered from the crime scene was matched to a man named Clifford Bloomfield, a serial killer.
Faced with the irrefutable DNA evidence, Bloomfield confessed to the murders of Tak and Pung Yi. He revealed that he had entered their home through a sliding glass door and, when confronted by Tak Yi, beat him to death. He also admitted to killing Pung Yi. In light of Bloomfield's confession and the DNA match, Travis Rowley and Michael Lee were exonerated and released from jail, having spent months imprisoned for a crime they did not commit. Bloomfield ultimately pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder, including the deaths of the Yis, and was sentenced to five life terms plus forty-five years in prison. The tragic case of Tak Yi's death concluded not with the conviction of the initial suspects, but with the unmasking of a serial killer through the power of forensic science.
