Rare clue at Minneapolis crime scene points to a barefoot killer
"In Minnesota here, people are not committing crimes a lot of times with the socks and shoes off," said a forensic scientist about footprints left in the victim's blood.
Updated on: August 2, 2026 / 1:05 AM EDT / CBS News
It was a grisly scene when police arrived at a Minneapolis apartment complex on June 13, 1993, to investigate the murder of 35-year-old Jeanie Childs . Her body was found partially under her bed, her bedroom was in disarray, and there was blood spatter across the walls and floor. Childs had been stabbed more than 60 times. As investigators tried to piece together what unfolded, they found a rare clue in the bedroom: bloody, bare footprints.
"That drew my attention right away … I mean, wow," Bart Epstein, a retired forensic scientist, told "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty in "The Footprint," now streaming on Paramount+. "You don't see this at crime scenes in general, bare feet that have stepped in blood," said Epstein.
Investigators knew the footprints had to belong to Childs' killer because she was wearing socks at the time of her death. Those footprints had to have been left there after the perpetrator stepped in her wet blood after the murder. Investigators documented and photographed the footprints.
"So the footprints, beyond being something that would tend to show guilt, also was important to show to clear people who might have been under any suspicion," said retired FBI agent Chris Boeckers, who would later join the investigation.
According to the case file, investigators compared the footprints left at the crime scene to multiple people, including a man named Arthur Gray, whom Childs lived with at the time of her murder. According to police reports, authorities found hairs stuck to Childs' left hand and one of those hairs matched Gray.