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The Game (Full Documentary) 72 Hours_ True Crime _ Dark Crimes · History Dark

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: A lonely man prepares for a romantic evening. His date
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: is on her way. She, too, is looking forward to tonight.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: They've talked about it and planned for it together. This
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: is the night they've both been waiting for, a chance
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: to fulfill their fantasies.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Hi. How are you doing?
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: But the man is about to learn that their fantasies
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: are worlds apart. In true crime, investigation and conviction may
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: take years. But every detective knows that the crucial clue
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: is always there, somewhere in the first 72 hours. Houston, 1995.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Jal Namir is being robbed by two women. They work
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: together like pros. They seem to have done this before.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: But tonight, they've made a big mistake. They've brought along
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: a rookie to guard their victim. He polishes off the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: knockout drink meant for Jal and passes out cold. Jal
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: calls the police before the women have a chance to
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: cover their tracks.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: The first time I was called into the case was
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: during a period where we didn't know who these two
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: women were, but we knew the M.O., we knew what
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: they were doing.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Dan Rizzo, Harris County, Texas prosecutor, a man who thinks
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: he's jailed every kind of criminal, until now.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: In this case, it was a series of robberies that
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: were being committed against men who mistakenly thought that they
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: were going on a date with one or two women.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: There have been six reported attacks over the last several weeks.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: all following a similar pattern.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: In the telecommunication dating service, they would look for a
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: category that was more kinky, thinking that if they robbed
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: those people, those people would be less likely to report
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: their crime to the police. They also seemed to go
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: after foreign men, people that were less sophisticated with our
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: culture and people that would be easier to locate and
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: to victimize.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: But Jal Namir is the first victim to raise the
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: alarm in time for police to pursue the women. Police
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: check Jal's phone records and discover that several calls were
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: made to his home from a pay phone at a
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Houston hotel.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: They went and talked to employees of that location and
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: someone from the hotel said, yeah, they were in such
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: and such room.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: The women are arrested. They're identified as Rose Turford and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Carolyn Stevens, and they're charged with aggravated robbery. Because of
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: their use of firearms and threats of violence, bail for
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: both is set high at half a million dollars. The
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: women secure a bail bond and are released. Nancy Smith
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: works for a bail bond company that's responsible for guaranteeing
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the bail, making sure the women stay in Houston and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: attend their trials. She lays down strict conditions to ensure
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: they don't leave town.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: The conditions that we put on them is that the
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: girls had to report to me every day by phone.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Twice a week they had to come to the bond office,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: sit down with me, check in. Part of the agreement
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: was that Rose and Carolyn could have no communication whatsoever.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: While Smith keeps track of Rose and Carolyn, Rizzo begins
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: to investigate the women's backgrounds. He needs to build a
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: case to prosecute them for the string of crimes police
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: allege they have committed. He starts with Rose Turford.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: She was living in a very nice upper middle class
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: neighborhood in what appeared to be a beautiful home and
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: didn't appear to have any criminal background that we could
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: find any place.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Carolyn's life has been lived equally far from the world
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: of crime.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Carolyn Stevens likewise had no criminal background. Her father was
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: a minister. A very nice family, from what I understand,
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: although Carolyn had a history of mental distress.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Rizzo wonders, what would make these two seemingly normal women
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: commit such crimes? Within 72 hours of their arrest, Rizzo
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: gets a major break in the case.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: We had done a search warrant at a location where
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: they had a storage shed. we found thousands and thousands
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: of pages of letters that were written from a person
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: by the name of Avery, Orlando Avery.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Every piece of these bizarre communications is addressed to Carolyn Stevens.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: And these are not like any correspondence Rezo has ever
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: seen before. They are written in code, a seemingly random
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: pattern of squares and lines. But when properly connected, they
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: form individual letters.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: We had to put them into some kind of an
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: order We then had to make copies of each one
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: so that we could draw in the lines to try
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: and tell what, in fact, was being said in the letter.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Rizzo's staff works on the huge task of decoding the letters.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Buried among the piles of paper, Rizzo makes another discovery.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: A sheaf of yellow legal-sized pages covered in Rose Turford's handwriting.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: To his astonishment, he begins reading what appears to be
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: a diary. Rose begins her story by describing a shattered
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: marriage and her move from Canada to Houston, her search
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: to make a new life and new friends. I met
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Carolyn Stevens while working at the hospital. She's quiet and reserved,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and we became friends quickly. She told me she also
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: worked for a private investigator named Mr.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Avery.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: In February or March 94, Carolyn became a regular in
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: my house. She was great with my daughter, Lindsay. and
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: quickly became part of the family. When she needed a
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: place to live, I invited her to move in. As
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Rezo reads on, the tone of Rose's diary takes a
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: much darker turn. In May 94, Carolyn disappeared for several days.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: She returned with two gunshot wounds. She said they were
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: a punishment by Avery for blowing her part of an
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: important investigation. Rezo wonders, what kind of man would do this?
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Carolyn would show up at work with things on her
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: arms and her legs, and by things we're talking about
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: bruises and scrapes and cuts. And initially, Carolyn told her,
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: told Rose Turford and others, that she hurt herself while
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: she was working doing landscaping. Eventually, she said that she
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: was being forced into some sort of servitude by a
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: person by the name of Avery.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Rose records increasingly painful punishments inflicted on Carolyn. Suddenly... Rose
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: herself comes to the attention of the mysterious Mr. Avery.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: He sent me a note at that time outlining that
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: if I wanted to help Carolyn it was okay, as
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: long as I kept him and his identity secret. I
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: had no intention of getting Carolyn in more trouble by
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: going to the police. I understood we had to play
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: by Avery's rules. Rizzo is now looking for a third
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: person linked to the crimes. He needs to question Rose
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and Carolyn to find out more about the obviously dangerous
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Orlando Avery. But three weeks after the women are released
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: on bail, Rose and Carolyn fail to appear for their
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: weekly meetings with Nancy Smith.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I first called Carolyn's house. And I was informed by
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: her parents that they didn't know where she was. So
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I turned around and called Rose's family. And I'm told
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: the same thing.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: The women have vanished. The bond company needs Nancy Smith
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: to find them, and fast. Well, I'm working for.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Somebody that's going to lose a half a million dollars
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: piece on two people. And that's not petty cash.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And the police are about to discover they have a
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: completely different kind of investigation on their hands. Rose Turford
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: and Carolyn Stevens are wanted for a series of violent
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: robberies in Houston, Texas. Now they've vanished. The only clue
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to the women's disappearance is a chilling note found on
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Rose's bed. I have come to repossess my girls. Signed,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Orlando Avery. Nancy Smith tries to track the women, scrambling
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: to secure their half-million-dollar bail bonds. Dan Rizzo The prosecutor
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: on the case joins the search for the missing women,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: now fugitives from the law.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: There were sightings of them all around Canada, so we
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: thought that they were up in Canada where Rose Turford
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: was from.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Rose reports in her diary that Avery is an international criminal.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Now it appears he has spirited the women out of
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the country. As Rizzo scours the diary for clues to
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: a connection in Canada, he uncovers more proof of Avery's
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: disturbing control over Carolyn. She began returning from meetings with
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Avery covered with strange tattoos. They could be removed by
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: harsh scouring. And Avery instructed the women that the markings
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: had to be completely gone within a certain time, or
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: he would punish Carolyn again more severely. One night, Rose
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: finally came face to face with her nightmare. I saw Avery.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I was in shock. He just calmly looked at me
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: and then turned away. From then on, Rose knew Avery
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: was watching them closely. Avery made a point of driving
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: by the house in his limo frequently. He wouldn't stop
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: or say anything. He would just put his window down
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: so that I could see it was him while he passed.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Rizzo realizes that Avery had the women in his grasp
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: long before he kidnapped them, and he controlled their every move.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: It was always Carolyn who was communicating with him in person,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: would receive a letter for Rose, and it was always
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: directed at Rose, telling her what to do.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: In case the women tried to escape, Carolyn revealed that
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Avery had forced her to install surveillance devices in Rose's house.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Rose's diary details an increasingly disturbing triangle between Carolyn, Avery,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: and her. Avery's escalating punishment of Carolyn becomes remorseless. I
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: ask Carolyn to look up at me, and when she does, pain, fear,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: and confusion are the emotions. My eyes don't leave hers
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: as I tell her I'll make everything better. Her tears
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: are my response as she whispers, I hope so. But
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Rose is helpless to protect either Carolyn or herself from
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Avery's reach. When she does try to pull away, he
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: demonstrates his power over their lives by snatching Rose's daughter
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Lindsay from the family's backyard. About an hour later, Avery
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: came back with Lindsay. He said I can't stop him
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: from taking any of the girls anytime. He was glad
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I was smart enough not to call the police because
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: if I did, I wouldn't see the girls again. Rose
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: makes it frighteningly clear that her life too has fallen
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: totally under Avery's demonic control. It's at this point in
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the diary that Rizzo learns how Avery forced the women
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: into crime. Rose writes that he was no longer satisfied
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: with just controlling them mentally and physically. Now he wanted money.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: And this meant he had a new task in mind
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: for Rose and Carolyn. Avery called his new task the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: heist game. He sent Rose and Carolyn to a hotel
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: in Las Vegas. where they were instructed to begin the
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: game by robbing a hotel guest. A man approached. He
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: was already pretty drunk and made me aware that he
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: was interested in having sex with me. He talked about money,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: but I told him I wasn't a prostitute. I was
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: just looking for a good time. He had a fantasy
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: of being with two women, so we played along. But
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: we really messed up. Carolyn accidentally hurt herself with the
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: stun gun we brought. Thank God that guy was so
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: drunk that he passed out. He didn't even realize he
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: was being robbed. Avery said we were pitiful and had
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: a lot to learn. Avery took charge and decided to
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: fine tune the heist game. He directed Rose to use
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a telecompanion's phone dating service. She was to concentrate on
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: men looking for action in three categories, exotic adventure, fantasy fulfillment,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: and three's not a crowd. It was Rose's job to
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: set up dates with the right men.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: Rose Turford would talk to them about whether they had
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: a house, you know, talk about their car, and basically
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: in a very subtle way try and discern whether or
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: not they were working, whether or not they had any property,
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: some type of property that would be worth stealing.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Rizzo finds lists in Rose's diary that reveal the women
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: quickly collected a detailed roster of candidates for robbery. In
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: very little time, they had lined up 20 potential victims.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: They had their height and their weight. They had their
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: physical build, all the different things that would help them
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: to determine whether or not this would be the perfect
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: one to go after next.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Rizzo realizes that with Avery as the mastermind behind Rose
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and Carolyn's robberies, He's the most dangerous of the three.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: It means that in order to find the women and
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: put an end to their crime spree, police must capture
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Orlando Avery.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: We used every law enforcement agency that we could muster
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: up help from. The FBI Interpol actually assisted us. We
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: had descriptions, we had approximate ages, we had some other identifiers.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: We had potential areas where he may have lived or
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: owned property. The quicker that we found them, the better,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: because we figured at some point we were gonna end
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: up with potentially somebody dead.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Police have now been on the trail of Rose Turford
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and Carolyn Stevens for almost six months. The two women
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: are wanted for a series of robberies and are believed
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: to be on the run in Canada with their abductor,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Orlando Avery. But in all of the sightings of the women,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: there is never any mention of a man with them.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: For Rizzo, the picture of Avery controlling the women from
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: a distance just doesn't add up.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: For myself, it just seems so far-fetched that somebody, some
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: international criminal, would be communicating with them through thousands of
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: pages in this block print code to try and tell
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: them to do things which didn't make any sense.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: If Orlando Avery isn't pulling the strings, then what's really
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: going on? The answer could be near. Nancy Smith is
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: starting to close in on Rose and Carolyn.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: I went to Canada twice after we had exhausted all
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: of everything from here. We went to Montreal and the
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: girls had been seen there.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: By now, the pair are notorious.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: There was a media circus for looking for Thelma and Louise,
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: as they dubbed them.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Their faces are broadcast on American television. Newspapers and magazines
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: on both sides of the border pick up the story.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: We were back home maybe two or three days, if
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: that much, and we got a phone call from a
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: gentleman saying, I think I have somebody you're looking for. Well,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: we'd already heard this so many times. You're like, okay,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: just tell me what you have.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: In Toronto... The operator of a phone sex line recognizes
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Rose as the woman who handles the S & M calls.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: After six months on the run, the pair are arrested
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: without incident.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: They laughed about it the whole time. I mean, for
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: somebody that knew they were fixing to have to come
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: back to Houston, Texas and face all these charges, They
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: just laughed.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Give us a kiss, girls.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Come on, just a little kiss.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Rose and Carolyn are brought back to Texas to stand
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: trial for armed robbery. While in prison, both women insist
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that Avery visits and continues to threaten them. But Nancy
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Smith isn't convinced.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: If you've ever been in our jail here to visit anybody,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: you know you have to have ID. And they run
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: you to see if you're wanted anywhere. and nobody by
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: that name ever came.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Both Nancy Smith and Dan Rizzo now uncover the astonishing
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: truth about the devilish Orlando Avery.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: There wasn't an Orlando Avery. He didn't exist.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Rizzo doesn't believe either woman was ever really in danger,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: no matter how much Rose's diary claims that she feared
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: for her life. Rizzo believes the entire story was a
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: fantasy created by Rose and Carolyn. What had started out
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: as a friendship between the two women grew into something dark, violent,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: and sexual.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: What I did find out was that they were both
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: In it together, there was no one person who was
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: the stronger and the other being the weaker. Carolyn physically
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: was being the one abused by Rose. However, she also
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: was manipulating Rose in this twisted relationship they had.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Rizzo now understands that it was Carolyn who wrote the letters.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: She was the one setting the rules. She and Rose
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: expanded their sexual fantasies to acts of crime. fueling the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: excitement they enjoyed in playing their dominant and submissive roles.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: It's the power, it's the control, and it's the violence.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: They enjoyed all of it. It was something that they
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: really were having fun with.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Carolyn finally gives up the Avery fantasy. She admits that
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: she created him. She is offered a plea agreement and
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: chooses to make a deal. In exchange for pleading guilty
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: to aggravated robbery... Carolyn is sentenced to 10 years in prison.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: After Carolyn pled guilty, I said, why were you doing this?
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know that there was no Avery. Why
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: were you doing this? And she said, she just kind
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: of looked up real quietly and said, it was the game.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: It's a game that Rose Turford can't quit. She refuses
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: to let go of the Avery fantasy. At her trial,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: she still insists that he is dangerously real. She maintains
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: her innocence, but is found guilty. Rose is sentenced to
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: 30 years in prison for playing the game and losing.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: The stories on 72 Hours are true. The detectives and
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: forensic scientists are the ones who actually worked on the case.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: The names of the victims are fictitious. The names of
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the convicted are real. Thank you.