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8 Million Flyers. 4,000 Volunteers. One Girl Who Vanished Without a Trace · FBI Files

0:03
Speaker 1: It's Friday night in October of 1993, and in Northern California,
0:09
Speaker 1: three junior high school girls are having a slumber party.
0:15
Speaker 1: Halloween is around the corner, and the girls have been
0:18
Speaker 1: trying on different costumes in preparation for the upcoming holiday.
0:23
Speaker 1: Within seconds, their lives will change forever. October 1st. Polly
1:08
Speaker 1: Klass and Jillian Pelham were waiting for another friend outside
1:10
Speaker 1: of Polly's house in Petaluma, California. It was around 8.30
1:26
Speaker 1: when Kate McLean and her mother showed up. The three
1:33
Speaker 1: girls were ready for fun. It was Friday night. There
1:36
Speaker 1: was ice cream in the fridge, and they were going
1:38
Speaker 1: to stay up all night long. This was going to
1:43
Speaker 1: be a party. No one had any idea of the
1:56
Speaker 1: danger that lurked so close by. The girls kept to
2:12
Speaker 1: Polly's bedroom, but they couldn't suppress the noise as easily.
2:20
Speaker 1: At about 9.45, Polly's mother, Eve Nickel, looked in on
2:23
Speaker 1: the girls and asked them to keep it down. She
2:29
Speaker 1: was suffering a migraine headache and thought she'd turn in early.
2:37
Speaker 1: Eve's bedroom was right across the hall from the girls,
2:40
Speaker 1: and although she had chided them about the noise, she
2:42
Speaker 1: was pretty sure it would only take a few minutes
2:44
Speaker 1: for the 12-year-olds to get noisy again. Before going to bed,
2:53
Speaker 1: Eve took her prescription pills to block out all distractions
2:56
Speaker 1: and get her fast to sleep. The party continued on
3:04
Speaker 1: for almost an hour before the nightmare began. It was
3:16
Speaker 1: around 10.30 when the intruder entered the room At first
3:21
Speaker 1: Kate and Jillian thought it was a joke Then they
3:25
Speaker 1: saw the knife He told them if they screamed he'd
3:28
Speaker 1: slit their throats Immediately he tied them up and started
3:36
Speaker 1: asking questions He wanted to know which girl lived there
3:40
Speaker 1: and who else was in the house. Polly spoke up.
3:47
Speaker 1: The girls were terrified and crying. And he assured them
3:51
Speaker 1: that he wasn't going to hurt anyone, that he was
3:53
Speaker 1: only there for money. But when Polly told him where
4:00
Speaker 1: some cash was hidden in a jewelry box, he made
4:03
Speaker 1: no attempt to find it. He gagged the girls and
4:07
Speaker 1: took the cases off some pillows to use as hoods.
4:17
Speaker 1: He made Polly get up and told the others to
4:19
Speaker 1: count to a thousand. By the time they were done,
4:21
Speaker 1: he said she'd be back. Then he took Polly class
4:30
Speaker 1: and disappeared into the night. Petaluma police officers were called
4:40
Speaker 1: to the scene after the girls managed to free themselves
4:42
Speaker 1: and wake Polly's mother. They responded in minutes. Investigators entered
4:50
Speaker 1: Polly's room and began to look around. The bedroom was
4:55
Speaker 1: in disarray and told of the events that had happened
4:58
Speaker 1: just minutes before. On the floor were binding materials, cut
5:03
Speaker 1: strips of cloth. The cords from the Nintendo game had
5:08
Speaker 1: been cut, and a strap that was clipped from a
5:11
Speaker 1: purse lay on the floor. Pillowcases were strewn about.
5:17
Speaker 2: I know.
5:27
Speaker 1: What Petaluma Police Detective Mike Meese saw wasn't encouraging.
5:33
Speaker 3: I remember standing at the doorway to Polly's room and
5:35
Speaker 3: looking at these few bags of evidence that we had
5:37
Speaker 3: been able to collect and thinking that that was just
5:40
Speaker 3: such a pitiful amount. And I looked down at the
5:43
Speaker 3: rug and I talked to my partner, Larry Pelton, and said,
5:46
Speaker 3: let's take the rug. And he said, why? And I said,
5:49
Speaker 3: I don't know why, but let's just take the rug.
5:50
Speaker 3: We just don't have enough evidence.
5:55
Speaker 1: Police were in desperate need of assistance. Fortunately, help was
5:59
Speaker 1: on the way. After being contacted by the Klass family,
6:03
Speaker 1: the Federal Bureau of Investigation offered its expertise. Shortly after midnight,
6:12
Speaker 1: the FBI appeared at the House of Poly Class. Typically,
6:18
Speaker 1: the Bureau handles kidnappings, and with 800 a year to investigate,
6:22
Speaker 1: they have plenty of experience. Because he was familiar with
6:27
Speaker 1: the community and experienced in kidnapping cases, Special Agent Ed
6:32
Speaker 1: Fryer became the lead investigator. But he knew something about
6:36
Speaker 1: this case was different.
6:38
Speaker 4: It had all the earmarks of a stranger abduction case
6:42
Speaker 4: because the statements from the two girls were consistent. Stranger
6:46
Speaker 4: abduction cases are the hardest cases to solve, in my experience, because, again,
6:51
Speaker 4: there's no connection between the perpetrator of the crime and
6:55
Speaker 4: your victim or the victim's family or somebody even associated
7:00
Speaker 4: to the to the victim. It's a random act.
7:05
Speaker 1: Surprisingly, a vast majority of kidnappings involved disgruntled family members.
7:10
Speaker 1: And though Polly's parents were separated, her father, Mark Klass,
7:13
Speaker 1: was immediately cleared of any responsibility. Abductions involving total strangers
7:20
Speaker 1: are exceedingly rare and leave little for investigators to go on.
7:26
Speaker 1: In this case, however, there were witnesses. Was his hair
7:30
Speaker 1: long or short? A police sketch artist was called in
7:33
Speaker 1: from the San Rafael Police Department. For two hours, Jillian
7:39
Speaker 1: and Kate tried to recall the face of the man
7:41
Speaker 1: who had barged into the bedroom. The girls were still
7:44
Speaker 1: terribly upset, but they managed to give the artist a
7:47
Speaker 1: pretty good description. Authorities now had their first idea of
7:54
Speaker 1: what the stranger looked like. His nose and mouth. After
7:57
Speaker 1: 4 a.m., the girls were taken to the police station,
8:01
Speaker 1: and the FBI called in one of its special forces,
8:06
Speaker 1: the Evidence Response Team. Tony Maxwell leads the crew.
8:14
Speaker 5: In looking at cases across the United States, we have
8:16
Speaker 5: found that when somebody is kidnapped, especially a young child,
8:21
Speaker 5: that they will generally be harmed within the first 24 hours.
8:26
Speaker 5: and probably within the first couple of days could even
8:29
Speaker 5: be killed. So time is of the essence. In that
8:33
Speaker 5: kind of work, the investigator needs to move quickly.
8:38
Speaker 1: The evidence response team is designed to provide forensic resources
8:41
Speaker 1: at a major crime scene. Their sole responsibility is to
8:46
Speaker 1: collect evidence. And they use the most sophisticated collecting equipment
8:52
Speaker 1: available to do it. An electrostatic dust print machine collects
8:59
Speaker 1: tiny hairs and fibers off the floor when a positive
9:02
Speaker 1: charge is passed over a sheet of mylar. Any loose
9:08
Speaker 1: debris clings to the mylar and is sent to a
9:10
Speaker 1: lab for careful inspection. Although the police department had already
9:19
Speaker 1: dusted for fingerprints, they had come up with nothing particularly promising.
9:26
Speaker 1: but they didn't have access to the same equipment as
9:28
Speaker 1: the FBI. The alternate light source was a new method
9:34
Speaker 1: that employed a unique fluorescent powder, which when combined with
9:38
Speaker 1: a distinct ultraviolet light and amber colored goggles, could illuminate
9:42
Speaker 1: many things that otherwise would remain hidden. The team found
9:51
Speaker 1: four dozen fingerprints the police were unable to see using
9:54
Speaker 1: conventional equipment. but even those were of no use. They
10:00
Speaker 1: were attributed to family and friends. After hours of meticulous searching,
10:08
Speaker 1: something finally turned up.
10:11
Speaker 4: A pump.
10:20
Speaker 1: That at the outset seemed like the first real piece
10:22
Speaker 1: of forensic evidence left behind at the scene.
10:26
Speaker 5: That palm print was found on the bed, on a
10:30
Speaker 5: crossbar of a bed, where he apparently put his hand
10:36
Speaker 5: up for just a second to lean on it, perhaps
10:39
Speaker 5: to support himself as he was grabbing something. And with
10:43
Speaker 5: the alternate light source and the fluorescent fingerprint work that
10:46
Speaker 5: we did, we were able to see it, collect it,
10:50
Speaker 5: and then gather that for the laboratory.
10:56
Speaker 1: At that time, the FBI's fingerprint database, APHIS, didn't contain
11:00
Speaker 1: palm prints, only fingerprints. But even a palm print won't
11:05
Speaker 1: catch a suspect. It will only identify one once he's captured.
11:13
Speaker 1: FBI Special Agent Mark Mershon explains.
11:15
Speaker 4: Very good.
11:16
Speaker 6: People often think that when you have a fingerprint or
11:19
Speaker 6: a palm print that you quickly establish the identity of
11:24
Speaker 6: a criminal. The truth of the matter is, in most instances,
11:28
Speaker 6: you have to identify a suspect, have fingerprints for that
11:31
Speaker 6: suspect in order to compare with a latent fingerprint.
11:39
Speaker 1: The hunt for the suspect prompted authorities to cover Polly's
11:42
Speaker 1: neighborhood inch by inch. By dawn, more than 100 agents
11:48
Speaker 1: and officers had begun a 24-hour search for Polly and
11:50
Speaker 1: her abductor. Helicopters and bloodhounds had been called out, and
11:57
Speaker 1: an all-points bulletin was issued by local authorities and the FBI. Systematically,
12:03
Speaker 1: the authorities searched every house in the neighborhood. Agents went
12:09
Speaker 1: to Polly's school to talk with teachers and students in
12:12
Speaker 1: the hopes that somebody might have some useful information. Investigators
12:21
Speaker 1: canvassed the neighborhood in pairs, asking if anyone had seen
12:24
Speaker 1: anything suspicious that night. One by one, they interviewed all
12:30
Speaker 1: of Polly's neighbors. Several people recalled seeing a stranger around
12:36
Speaker 1: the neighborhood that fit the description given by the girls.
12:43
Speaker 1: Thomas Georges and his friends were on their way to
12:46
Speaker 1: the video store at around nine o'clock that night when
12:49
Speaker 1: he noticed a stranger standing in the shadows in front
12:51
Speaker 1: of Polly's house. Thomas knew everyone in his neighborhood, but
12:57
Speaker 1: he had never seen this man before. Returning home a
13:03
Speaker 1: few minutes later, the boys saw that the stranger was
13:06
Speaker 1: still there. The description Thomas gave to the authorities matched
13:14
Speaker 1: the suspect they were looking for. Sean Bush was playing
13:25
Speaker 1: video games with some friends who lived in a small
13:27
Speaker 1: rental cottage directly behind Polly's house. It was about 10.30
13:36
Speaker 1: when Sean happened to glance out the window. He was
13:44
Speaker 1: surprised to see a strange man on the back porch
13:46
Speaker 1: of Polly's house. He appeared to be going for the
13:52
Speaker 1: back door. His description of the man also fit that
13:57
Speaker 1: of the suspect. There were others who saw the suspicious
14:03
Speaker 1: man that night, but unfortunately none of them alerted the authorities.
14:11
Speaker 1: As Petaluma Police Chief Patrick Parks explains, time was working
14:16
Speaker 1: against them.
14:17
Speaker 7: In stranger abduction cases of small children, there is no
14:22
Speaker 7: more critical factor than time. Time is absolutely of the essence.
14:26
Speaker 7: And for that reason, you have to get out as
14:29
Speaker 7: many resources you can. You have to put out the
14:31
Speaker 7: word as far and wide as you can. You have
14:35
Speaker 7: to involve as many agencies as you can. Get them focused.
14:40
Speaker 7: Get their efforts channeled. And hopefully, hopefully, bring about a
14:45
Speaker 7: successful resolution.
14:49
Speaker 1: While officers continued to comb the neighborhoods, FBI investigators began
14:53
Speaker 1: executing the standard operating procedure in cases like these. After
14:59
Speaker 1: eliminating family and friends as suspects, they focused on ex-cons
15:03
Speaker 1: who were registered as sexual offenders throughout Sonoma County. Gradually,
15:10
Speaker 1: they branched out to surrounding counties, carefully questioning and investigating
15:14
Speaker 1: each registrant. But nothing turned up.
15:20
Speaker 6: This is a hard case to believe.
15:21
Speaker 4: That even happened. There's three girls that are in a
15:24
Speaker 4: slumber party. They're playing games in their bedroom, in their home,
15:29
Speaker 4: in a typical community, in a typical city. And somebody
15:39
Speaker 4: can walk into your home, the sanctity of the home,
15:43
Speaker 4: the security of your home, and take your daughter. It's... It's...
15:52
Speaker 4: if it wasn't impossible, it was inconceivable.
15:56
Speaker 1: The following day, the search for poly class had escalated
15:59
Speaker 1: into the largest manhunt in the nation. A massive community
16:03
Speaker 1: volunteer network was formed to assist authorities. While hundreds of
16:09
Speaker 1: citizens searched, others passed out flyers, trying to cover the
16:13
Speaker 1: entire city as quickly as possible. Back at the FBI's
16:24
Speaker 1: Trace Evidence Lab in Washington, D.C., forensic expert Chris Allen
16:28
Speaker 1: was carefully surveying the items collected from Polly's house.
16:35
Speaker 2: I noticed that in untying the pieces of bindings, the
16:40
Speaker 2: thin nylon strips of bindings that were used to tie
16:43
Speaker 2: up Polly's girlfriends, that they had jagged edges to them.
16:47
Speaker 2: And I was able to line them up perfectly so
16:50
Speaker 2: that I was able to determine that These all came
16:52
Speaker 2: from one piece of cloth originally, and it was a
16:56
Speaker 2: piece of cloth like a lady's nightgown or a slip material.
17:01
Speaker 1: Other pieces of evidence found in Polly's room were not
17:04
Speaker 1: so easy to classify. Tiny fibers collected with the electrostatic
17:11
Speaker 1: dust print machine proved to be a challenge to identify.
17:16
Speaker 1: After painstaking examination and comparisons, Alan concluded that they had
17:21
Speaker 1: come from the interior carpet of an automobile. Eliminating the
17:26
Speaker 1: cars that could be accounted for at Polly's house, Alan
17:29
Speaker 1: suspected that these carpet fibers were most likely from the
17:32
Speaker 1: kidnapper's car. One more item Alan found was a little
17:42
Speaker 1: more personal to the suspect.
17:45
Speaker 2: I found in the vacuuming of the area rug that
17:48
Speaker 2: was in Polly's bedroom that she was playing on with
17:50
Speaker 2: her girlfriends, a dark brown forcibly removed head hair. And
17:55
Speaker 2: I say forcibly removed because it had a three or
17:58
Speaker 2: four millimeter root sheet on it, actually skin material that
18:02
Speaker 2: comes out of the scalp when the hair is forcibly
18:05
Speaker 2: pulled or yanked out.
18:07
Speaker 1: If Polly had pulled a hair out of the suspect's head,
18:10
Speaker 1: it was evident that she didn't go without a struggle.
18:14
Speaker 1: But even a hair with DNA evidence couldn't bring investigators
18:17
Speaker 1: any closer to finding a suspect. The palm print lifted
18:25
Speaker 1: from the bedpost was sent to Michael J. Smith, a
18:27
Speaker 1: fingerprint specialist with the FBI. Examining the print under laser light,
18:34
Speaker 1: Smith determined that the print had enough ridge detail to photograph.
18:40
Speaker 1: but the light emitted from the laser turned the print
18:42
Speaker 1: orange and Smith needed to capture a black print on
18:45
Speaker 1: a white background. He instructed the photographer to reverse the
18:53
Speaker 1: color so that the finished print would appear the way
18:55
Speaker 1: it would on a fingerprint card. Now the print was
19:00
Speaker 1: indelible and could be filed until a suspect was apprehended.
19:05
Speaker 1: Investigators had unearthed some solid evidence, but it wasn't enough.
19:10
Speaker 1: Time was running out, and Polly Klass was still out there, somewhere.
19:20
Speaker 1: 48 hours after the abduction of Polly Klass, her father, Mark,
19:23
Speaker 1: got a call. It sounded like Polly. She told her
19:29
Speaker 1: father that she was in a hotel room somewhere, and
19:31
Speaker 1: that her abductor had stepped out for a moment.
19:33
Speaker 2: Then the line went dead.
19:40
Speaker 1: It offered the first glimmer of hope. But unfortunately, since
19:44
Speaker 1: Mark's line wasn't set up for a trace, all authorities
19:47
Speaker 1: could do was wait for another call. Word of the
19:56
Speaker 1: abduction spread rapidly. In two days, 50,000 flyers had been distributed.
20:04
Speaker 1: Community volunteers quickly organized a search command center to work
20:07
Speaker 1: in tandem with the police and FBI It was an
20:13
Speaker 1: unprecedented grassroots effort. A telephone bank was manned 24 hours
20:21
Speaker 1: a day to field calls and tips. A copy of
20:27
Speaker 1: every lead that was phoned in was shared with the
20:30
Speaker 1: FBI and Petaluma police. Before long, the search center had
20:37
Speaker 1: screened 60,000 calls. Out of those, authorities were compelled to
20:42
Speaker 1: follow up on over 12,000 leads. Processing that amount of
20:48
Speaker 1: data would have been virtually impossible without help from an
20:51
Speaker 1: FBI computer processor.
20:54
Speaker 6: The FBI just happened to have the rapid start team.
20:57
Speaker 6: It was a relatively new concept with the FBI where
21:01
Speaker 6: on an investigation with a high volume of information, we
21:05
Speaker 6: would computerize that information and essentially triage the information the
21:10
Speaker 6: value of the investigative leads and make the assignments and
21:13
Speaker 6: track the progress.
21:19
Speaker 1: Even with so many leads, there was one in particular
21:22
Speaker 1: that investigators were anxious to follow up on. When Mark
21:26
Speaker 1: Klass received the first call, the FBI was powerless to
21:29
Speaker 1: do anything about it. The second time she called, they
21:43
Speaker 1: were ready.
21:45
Speaker 4: Hello.
21:47
Speaker 1: Like the previous call, it sounded like Polly.
21:49
Speaker 3: How are you, honey?
21:49
Speaker 1: And she could only talk for a short time before
21:51
Speaker 1: she had to hang up.
21:53
Speaker 5: Where are you?
21:55
Speaker 1: But it was long enough for authorities to make a trace.
21:58
Speaker 2: Polly.
21:59
Speaker 3: Got it.
22:11
Speaker 1: The FBI had traced the call to a house 30
22:14
Speaker 1: miles away. There hadn't been enough time to collect an
22:17
Speaker 1: army of agents. The job would have to be handled
22:21
Speaker 1: by a few.
22:31
Speaker 7: Stay there!
22:37
Speaker 4: Stay there!
22:38
Speaker 1: Don't move!
22:40
Speaker 8: Don't move!
22:42
Speaker 1: But something wasn't right. This was just a normal family home.
22:48
Speaker 1: There was no sign of Polly or her abductor. A
22:56
Speaker 1: terrible realization dawned on the agents. When they sat down
23:00
Speaker 1: with one of the girls in the house, she confessed
23:02
Speaker 1: to making the calls. She admitted that friends from school
23:07
Speaker 1: had dared her to call and impersonate Polly. The entire
23:14
Speaker 1: incident had been a cruel joke.
23:21
Speaker 6: This was the only indication we had after a week's
23:23
Speaker 6: time that Polly just might be alive still, and we
23:27
Speaker 6: all were poised and hopeful that this would yield a
23:30
Speaker 6: solution and her safe recovery.
23:32
Speaker 1: Of course it didn't. In mid-October, Kate and Jillian were
23:38
Speaker 1: brought in to give another description of the man who
23:40
Speaker 1: tied them up. A highly acclaimed forensic artist was flown
23:45
Speaker 1: in to make a second sketch. The artist was known
23:54
Speaker 1: for relaxing witnesses enough to coax an accurate description from them.
24:00
Speaker 1: The girls were less stressed than they had been that
24:03
Speaker 1: night and were able to give her more to work with.
24:08
Speaker 1: The second sketch was much more precise. This sketch looked
24:12
Speaker 1: like a person. New flyers were distributed immediately. There was
24:21
Speaker 1: no time to waste.
24:23
Speaker 6: But if you look back at true stranger abductions, we
24:27
Speaker 6: have this rule of thirds. The children who are abducted,
24:31
Speaker 6: typically one-third are recovered alive, one-third are recovered dead, and
24:36
Speaker 6: one-third are simply never heard from ever again. That's what
24:39
Speaker 6: we faced in this particular investigation. And that, I think,
24:43
Speaker 6: was one of our motivations to keep the sustained effort up.
24:51
Speaker 1: After a reward had been offered for Polly's return, authorities
24:54
Speaker 1: received a call demanding a $ 10, 000 ransom. They traced the
25:01
Speaker 1: call to a Petaluma apartment building. This time a SWAT
25:05
Speaker 1: team showed up in force They were not going to
25:09
Speaker 1: take any chances. Once again, authorities and the family had
25:22
Speaker 1: been fooled. Twenty-year-old James Hurd was arrested for attempted extortion
25:33
Speaker 1: and posing as a kidnapper. It was a crushing blow
25:37
Speaker 1: for everyone.
25:39
Speaker 4: It became very frustrating. It was certainly distracting towards the
25:44
Speaker 4: main thrust of the investigation, but you had to deal
25:46
Speaker 4: with it. There was no way around it. You could not.
25:48
Speaker 6: Ignore those things.
25:50
Speaker 4: It certainly chewed up a lot of time and resource.
25:55
Speaker 1: The family had been especially discouraged. A letter Polly's parents
25:59
Speaker 1: wrote to the kidnapper was published in the October 17th
26:02
Speaker 1: San Francisco Examiner. Whoever you are, wherever you are, Please
26:08
Speaker 1: return Polly to her family. She belongs here. We miss
26:12
Speaker 1: Polly so much. We miss the twinkle in her eye
26:15
Speaker 1: and her sweet humor. We long to see her beautiful
26:17
Speaker 1: smile and hear her musical voice. They also addressed Polly.
26:24
Speaker 1: Our darling, if you can read this, please know that
26:26
Speaker 1: your mommy and daddy love you so much, and we
26:29
Speaker 1: will continue to search for you until we can hold
26:31
Speaker 1: you safely in our loving arms again.
26:33
Speaker 4: I don't think I ever lost hope, so I had
26:38
Speaker 4: Numerous contacts with Mark Klaas, with Eve, with members of
26:44
Speaker 4: the family, and that was a question posed to me
26:49
Speaker 4: many times. And my response was no. We have not
26:56
Speaker 4: lost hope. We will not lose hope.
26:59
Speaker 1: Across the country, people wanted to see Polly brought home.
27:05
Speaker 1: Banners sprang up. and Americans began a candlelight vigil. Thousands
27:13
Speaker 1: donned ribbons of lavender, Polly's favorite color, to show their
27:17
Speaker 1: support of the search.
27:20
Speaker 3: We conducted searches during the day, during the night. We
27:23
Speaker 3: had a 24-hour operation going. We conducted searches on sunny days,
27:28
Speaker 3: on foggy days, rainy days, rainy nights. Whenever the information
27:32
Speaker 3: came in, we reacted to that, because in a case
27:36
Speaker 3: like this, physical evidence is crucial.
27:40
Speaker 1: The search never stopped. The Navy and search and rescue
27:45
Speaker 1: experts joined the thousands of volunteers who were constantly looking.
27:52
Speaker 1: Police and volunteer task forces worked tirelessly. But it would
27:58
Speaker 1: be nearly two months before anything broke. November 28th, 1993.
28:10
Speaker 1: It was two months after Polly Klass was kidnapped that
28:14
Speaker 1: authorities got their first real lead. In Sonoma County, the
28:21
Speaker 1: sheriff's deputy was called out to the house of Dana Jaffe.
28:25
Speaker 1: It sat at the end of a long, winding drive
28:28
Speaker 1: off Pythian Road. Dana had been out inspecting her property
28:37
Speaker 1: when she noticed something unusual and thought it might be
28:40
Speaker 1: of use to investigators. She led the deputy through a
28:47
Speaker 1: densely wooded area to a clearing just a few yards
28:50
Speaker 1: from the long winding drive to her house. Scattered in
28:57
Speaker 1: the woods were a few items that seemed somewhat suspicious.
29:06
Speaker 1: There was a large piece of silk cloth that had
29:08
Speaker 1: been fashioned into what appeared to be a hood. A
29:12
Speaker 1: couple of strips of packing tape were on the ground.
29:20
Speaker 1: A pair of young girls' tights had been tied into
29:23
Speaker 1: a knot, and human hair was entangled in the knot.
29:29
Speaker 1: Other debris surrounded the area. Then Dana recalled the night
29:37
Speaker 1: she'd caught a trespasser on her property not far away.
29:40
Speaker 1: from where they stood. It was nearly two months before.
29:47
Speaker 1: It all started when Dana's babysitter, Shannon Lynch, had left
29:50
Speaker 1: Dana's house and was making her way back down the
29:52
Speaker 1: long driveway. A man was walking down the middle of
29:56
Speaker 1: the private drive. His stranded Pinto was off to the side.
30:01
Speaker 1: He said that he was stuck and insisted that she
30:03
Speaker 1: get out of her car and help. He also wanted
30:08
Speaker 1: to know what was up the drive. But Shannon immediately
30:12
Speaker 1: sensed something wasn't right. She'd later describe him as looking
30:17
Speaker 1: like a wild man. She drove on, leaving him there,
30:24
Speaker 1: determined to get to a phone. Shannon found a payphone
30:32
Speaker 1: about two miles down the road and hurried to call
30:35
Speaker 1: her friend. She was anxious to get a hold of
30:38
Speaker 1: Dana and warn her of the scary man trespassing on
30:41
Speaker 1: her land. Dana didn't waste any time. She grabbed her
30:48
Speaker 1: daughter and a baseball bat and took off down the hill.
30:55
Speaker 1: She saw the car, like Shannon had said, but the
30:58
Speaker 1: strange man was nowhere in sight. She continued down into
31:03
Speaker 1: town and called the police. A few minutes after midnight,
31:12
Speaker 1: two Sonoma County Sheriff's deputies showed up. Dana explained that
31:18
Speaker 1: she didn't really want the intruder arrested for trespassing. She
31:21
Speaker 1: just wanted him off her property. The deputies found the
31:25
Speaker 1: trespasser a little agitated. There was alcohol on his breath,
31:29
Speaker 1: and he was sweating profusely. There were bits of leaves
31:33
Speaker 1: and brush in his hair as if he'd been rolling
31:36
Speaker 1: around on the ground. He told them that he'd been
31:40
Speaker 1: out sightseeing when he realized that he was on private property.
31:44
Speaker 1: When he tried to turn around, He got his car
31:46
Speaker 1: stuck on the side of the drive. He blurted out
31:50
Speaker 1: that he'd been under the car trying to free it,
31:52
Speaker 1: but the deputies didn't believe it. The way his car
31:56
Speaker 1: was trapped, there wasn't enough room for a person to
31:58
Speaker 1: get underneath. The deputies administered some roadside sobriety tests, but
32:06
Speaker 1: he passed them all.
32:07
Speaker 4: That's fine. That's fine.
32:11
Speaker 1: Looking in his car, they found some cans of beer
32:14
Speaker 1: in a plastic bag and a small duffel bag in
32:16
Speaker 1: the back seat. When they asked him if he'd been drinking,
32:22
Speaker 1: he actually opened a beer and began to drink it.
32:24
Speaker 6: They immediately made him pour it out and then told
32:28
Speaker 6: him they wanted.
32:29
Speaker 2: To pat him down.
32:35
Speaker 1: He became extremely upset.
32:36
Speaker 2: Leave me alone.
32:37
Speaker 1: Just keep that stuff away from me, all right? To
32:40
Speaker 1: make him comply, the deputies told him they would be
32:42
Speaker 1: within their rights to run him in on trespassing. After
32:47
Speaker 1: he'd heard this, he calmed down considerably. They searched him
32:52
Speaker 1: carefully and continued questioning him, but could find nothing incriminating.
32:58
Speaker 1: He was just odd. The deputies remained suspicious, but when
33:02
Speaker 1: they ran his license, it checked out. His driving record
33:06
Speaker 1: was clean, and he had passed the sobriety tests. They
33:10
Speaker 1: had held him for about 45 minutes already, and they
33:12
Speaker 1: had no legal means to detain him any further. There
33:19
Speaker 1: was nothing left to do but pull his car out
33:21
Speaker 1: and send him on his way. That had been two
33:31
Speaker 1: months ago. the same night that Polly Klass had been abducted.
33:37
Speaker 1: A hood, bindings, a young girl's pair of tights. It
33:41
Speaker 1: was too much of a coincidence. Putting it all together,
33:45
Speaker 1: the deputy quickly put a call in to the Petaluma
33:48
Speaker 1: Police Department. Within an hour, Detective Mike Meese and Agent
33:53
Speaker 1: Ed Fryer arrived to check it out.
33:58
Speaker 4: I'll never forget the scene.
33:59
Speaker 1: It was a.
34:01
Speaker 4: Late at night then, by this time, Mike Meese and
34:04
Speaker 4: I are standing up on the hillside there on Pythian
34:06
Speaker 4: on the road, and it was beginning to get a
34:09
Speaker 4: little misty and foggy, and the rain started to come down.
34:14
Speaker 4: And we looked at each other, and we knew in
34:19
Speaker 4: our hearts that we had basically uncovered a very critical
34:24
Speaker 4: crime scene, that this was going to lead us to
34:26
Speaker 4: the resolution of this case.
34:32
Speaker 1: After the evidence was collected, investigators immediately began searching the
34:36
Speaker 1: Pythian Road site for any signs of Polly.
34:43
Speaker 5: We spent days searching the mountain with over 300 volunteers.
34:49
Speaker 1: I believe we had 25.
34:50
Speaker 5: To 30 search dogs, and we conducted extensive ground searches
34:57
Speaker 5: for Polly, believing that she was still alive. which was
35:02
Speaker 5: the premise that we were working on.
35:06
Speaker 1: As the search commenced, everything began to snowball. Authorities checked
35:11
Speaker 1: with the Sonoma County Police to get the full report
35:13
Speaker 1: of the incident that happened on Dana Jaffe's property. The
35:17
Speaker 1: man deputies had questioned was Richard Allen Davis. Accessing his
35:22
Speaker 1: criminal record revealed he had recently been paroled from an
35:25
Speaker 1: eight-year sentence for kidnapping.
35:28
Speaker 3: What we learned about Davis initially was in 1976 he
35:32
Speaker 3: had been arrested for robbery and kidnapping and assault with
35:37
Speaker 3: intent to commit rape.
35:38
Speaker 1: We learned in.
35:39
Speaker 3: 1978 he had been arrested for another kidnapping as well
35:43
Speaker 3: as a couple of counts of assault with a deadly weapon.
35:46
Speaker 3: In 1984 he had been arrested for a kidnapping case,
35:51
Speaker 3: assault with a deadly weapon including the use of a firearm.
35:55
Speaker 3: in armed robbery. You start reading these reports and realize,
35:58
Speaker 3: you know, hey.
35:59
Speaker 1: This guy's a bad actor.
36:00
Speaker 3: This is an individual certainly more than capable of being
36:04
Speaker 3: involved in a crime like this.
36:08
Speaker 1: The arrest photo on file matched the girl's description. His
36:12
Speaker 1: mother lived in Petaluma, giving him reason to have been there.
36:17
Speaker 1: The pieces were falling into place. The items discovered near
36:25
Speaker 1: Pythian Road were immediately flown to forensic specialist Chris Allen
36:29
Speaker 1: in Washington. Of the most interest was a strip of
36:33
Speaker 1: cloth that was found in the woods. Allen was quickly
36:40
Speaker 1: able to confirm what detectives had suspected.
36:43
Speaker 2: Essentially what we're trying to do is establish whether or
36:45
Speaker 2: not the cut edges would line up or match. The
36:48
Speaker 2: middle strips represent... the fabric that was found at Polly's bedroom,
36:52
Speaker 2: which were used to bind Polly's girlfriends. Subsequently, on the
36:56
Speaker 2: second submission, we received the cloth that was found at
36:58
Speaker 2: the Pythian Road site.
37:01
Speaker 1: These all fit together like.
37:02
Speaker 2: A puzzle, with the edges and the pieces of fabric
37:06
Speaker 2: matching up end to end.
37:11
Speaker 1: The strips meant more than likely Polly Klass had been
37:14
Speaker 1: out at Dana Jaffe's after her abduction. Without a doubt,
37:19
Speaker 1: Richard Allen Davis had been there too. Though it wasn't
37:24
Speaker 1: enough to arrest Davis for kidnapping, detectives felt if they
37:28
Speaker 1: could just get him in custody, they could quickly gather
37:30
Speaker 1: the evidence they needed to tie him to Polly's disappearance.
37:35
Speaker 4: Everything else fell away, and we focused on what we
37:39
Speaker 4: had with Mr. Davis, what happened out there at Pythian Road,
37:44
Speaker 4: and what we were going.
37:45
Speaker 1: To do next. When investigators discovered Davis had an outstanding
37:53
Speaker 1: warrant for breaking parole and DUI, they decided to bring
37:56
Speaker 1: him in. But he wasn't at home when they arrived.
38:05
Speaker 1: Then a deputy sheriff who was securing a perimeter around
38:08
Speaker 1: the area stopped a van.
38:12
Speaker 8: At the wheel was Richard Allen Davis. When the deputy.
38:23
Speaker 1: Realized who he had, he calmly called it in to
38:25
Speaker 1: the investigators back at the house.
38:27
Speaker 2: Is there a problem, officer?
38:32
Speaker 8: No, sir.
38:33
Speaker 1: Sit tight, okay? Authorities reported to the scene, and Detective
38:46
Speaker 1: Meese approached the van and asked Davis to step out.
38:53
Speaker 1: He informed him that he was under arrest for violation
38:55
Speaker 1: of his parole.
38:58
Speaker 7: One thing I think is important to understand how Richard
39:03
Speaker 7: Allen Davis was taken into custody, because it was such
39:05
Speaker 7: a low-key event, and because Mike Meese went ahead and
39:09
Speaker 7: handcuffed him, he did it in a very professional way,
39:12
Speaker 7: and he started a rapport going with Richard Allen Davis
39:15
Speaker 7: that later was very useful in bringing resolution to the case.
39:23
Speaker 1: It had been two months since Kate and Jillian had
39:25
Speaker 1: seen the man who took poly class, but they had
39:28
Speaker 1: no trouble picking him out of a lineup. Number one,
39:31
Speaker 1: step forward, please. Even without the beard, his was a
39:41
Speaker 1: face they could never forget. Number one, step back, please.
39:45
Speaker 1: Though he'd been arrested for parole violation, Davis was questioned
39:49
Speaker 1: about the kidnapping He vehemently denied any involvement. But authorities
39:55
Speaker 1: let Davis know that if he wanted to talk, the
39:57
Speaker 1: door was open.
40:02
Speaker 3: So I took Davis into the hallway, and I told him,
40:04
Speaker 3: I said, hey, look, what you need to know is
40:06
Speaker 3: we've got all the physical evidence it takes to make
40:08
Speaker 3: this case, and all you're looking at is a kidnapping
40:10
Speaker 3: right now.
40:10
Speaker 1: So if you want to talk.
40:12
Speaker 3: About it, you've got to let me know. And he
40:16
Speaker 3: made a noncommittal response, didn't want to talk. And I
40:20
Speaker 3: remember patting my pockets looking for a business card. Didn't
40:22
Speaker 3: have a business card with me. And I said, you know,
40:25
Speaker 3: I'm going to leave my name and number with those guys,
40:27
Speaker 3: meaning the correctional deputies. And if you ever want to
40:29
Speaker 3: talk about it, you know, give me a call.
40:35
Speaker 1: Back at the FBI latent fingerprint lab, Mike Smith was
40:38
Speaker 1: comparing the palm print found in Polly's bedroom with one
40:41
Speaker 1: that had been taken from Davis since his arrest. This
40:47
Speaker 1: was a crucial piece of evidence. Matching the two prints
40:50
Speaker 1: would undoubtedly link Davis to the abduction. After careful examination,
40:59
Speaker 1: the results were called in to Agent Fryer.
41:02
Speaker 4: I just got a call from FBI laboratory. They matched
41:07
Speaker 4: Davis's palm print to a palm print taken off of
41:11
Speaker 4: Polly's bedroom, or her bed post. It was again one
41:17
Speaker 4: of those moments where I There were butterflies in my stomach.
41:23
Speaker 4: I again realized that this was really very powerful evidence.
41:27
Speaker 4: So I hung up the phone, and again, there was
41:28
Speaker 4: a lot of noise and commotion in the command post.
41:31
Speaker 4: I stood up and I asked everybody, can I have
41:33
Speaker 4: your attention, please? Can I have quiet for a moment?
41:37
Speaker 4: I said, we just got confirmation from our laboratory that
41:41
Speaker 4: we've matched this palm print taken from the bedroom to Davis.
41:45
Speaker 4: We can place them in the bedroom. And it was
41:47
Speaker 4: just a huge cheer from everybody. Papers were flying. It
41:52
Speaker 4: was just great news to everybody.
41:54
Speaker 1: This is it.
41:55
Speaker 7: It's concrete. He was in her bedroom. We can prove it.
41:58
Speaker 7: We had him nailed down.
42:07
Speaker 1: Though news of the matching print had gone public, Davis
42:10
Speaker 1: was being held in isolation and had not heard anything
42:13
Speaker 1: about it. Then one day, a friend of his showed
42:17
Speaker 1: up for a visit. He urged Davis to talk to
42:21
Speaker 1: authorities and tell them where Polly was. But Davis continued
42:26
Speaker 1: to deny responsibility. Then his friend gave him the news
42:32
Speaker 1: the rest of the nation had already heard. It came
42:35
Speaker 1: as a complete surprise. Davis realized it was going to
42:40
Speaker 1: be impossible to explain how his palm print got in
42:42
Speaker 1: Polly's bedroom. There was only one thing he could do.
42:51
Speaker 4: In Davis' mind, he's now got to do something, and
42:56
Speaker 4: that is try to make whatever deal he can make
43:00
Speaker 4: with the authorities because we know that he was in
43:05
Speaker 4: Polly's bedroom. We can put him there.
43:09
Speaker 1: While on his way to the massive search for Polly
43:11
Speaker 1: near Pythian Road, Detective Meese was paged to call the jail.
43:17
Speaker 1: This was the moment everyone had been waiting for. And
43:20
Speaker 1: Meese was anxious about what he might find out.
43:24
Speaker 3: After this wait, Davis comes on the phone, and I
43:27
Speaker 3: recognize the voice.
43:29
Speaker 1: So I know it's him, and he.
43:32
Speaker 3: Says to me, he says, hey, I screwed up, I
43:35
Speaker 3: screwed up big time.
43:39
Speaker 1: Detective Meese and Special Agent Larry Taylor met with Davis
43:42
Speaker 1: in the interrogation room, where Davis related the details of
43:46
Speaker 1: the night of October 1st. Though he was living in
43:52
Speaker 1: something like a halfway house, he had applied for an
43:55
Speaker 1: overnight pass to go visit his mother in Petaluma. Unable
43:59
Speaker 1: to find her house, he had a few beers and
44:02
Speaker 1: walked the streets of Polly's neighborhood. At one point, he
44:06
Speaker 1: was stopped by a man who wanted to sell him
44:08
Speaker 1: some marijuana. He decided to go ahead and buy the joint.
44:14
Speaker 1: In Davis's own words, he got really buzzed and went
44:17
Speaker 1: to the store for more beer. He soon found himself
44:21
Speaker 1: wandering the neighborhood aimlessly. He wasn't sure where he was
44:26
Speaker 1: or what he was doing. But Davis had come to
44:31
Speaker 1: the neighborhood prepared. He'd brought a bag packed with bindings
44:36
Speaker 1: and tape. Forensic experts were able to determine that he
44:41
Speaker 1: had cut the strips with a pair of scissors, a
44:43
Speaker 1: fact which implies intent. Then Davis said he randomly picked
44:52
Speaker 1: a house on the street and crawled into an open window.
44:58
Speaker 1: He remembered hearing TV voices and said he may have
45:01
Speaker 1: picked up a knife in the kitchen. He said he
45:04
Speaker 1: didn't remember anything after that. He claimed the next thing
45:10
Speaker 1: he knew he was driving in his car and was
45:12
Speaker 1: surprised to find a young girl sitting next to him.
45:17
Speaker 1: She was complaining that her hands were tingling. According to Davis,
45:20
Speaker 1: he adjusted the straps for her and drove around wondering
45:23
Speaker 1: what he had done and what he should do next.
45:31
Speaker 1: Then he drove off the side of the road and
45:33
Speaker 1: got the car stuck. Once he realized he was stuck
45:54
Speaker 1: for good, he says he got Polly out of the
45:56
Speaker 1: car and carried her up a steep embankment about 30
45:59
Speaker 1: yards away.
45:59
Speaker 2: Get out of the car!
46:06
Speaker 1: He planned to leave her in the darkness until he
46:07
Speaker 1: could figure out a way to free the car. The
46:27
Speaker 1: rest of Davis' story about what happened at Pythian Road
46:29
Speaker 1: matched the witnesses' accounts. At the time of the incident,
46:35
Speaker 1: the bulletin about Polly's abduction was just going out over
46:38
Speaker 1: police radios. But the deputies were tuned to a different
46:43
Speaker 1: frequency and would not have heard it even if they
46:45
Speaker 1: had been in their cars. They ran his license, but
46:49
Speaker 1: the equipment they had at that time was only able
46:52
Speaker 1: to give a cursory printout of Davis' driving records. It
46:55
Speaker 1: couldn't generate his criminal record. They found nothing they could
47:00
Speaker 1: hold him on. Davis recalled how the deputies pulled his
47:07
Speaker 1: car out and escorted him to the main highway. But
47:11
Speaker 1: he claims that he waited for 15 or 30 minutes
47:14
Speaker 1: and returned to the site to find Polly. Then he
47:21
Speaker 1: just drove around.
47:22
Speaker 7: At some point.
47:25
Speaker 1: He realized he had to get rid of her. At
47:31
Speaker 1: long last, authorities had found out what they'd been desperate
47:34
Speaker 1: to know. Polly Klass was dead, and Richard Allen Davis
47:39
Speaker 1: was the man responsible. Davis agreed to take them to
47:47
Speaker 1: the site in a deserted area of Cloverdale where he
47:49
Speaker 1: had left the body. It was night, but inspectors felt
47:54
Speaker 1: the need to confirm Davis' story couldn't wait until daybreak.
48:02
Speaker 1: He led them to a field near an abandoned lumber mill.
48:08
Speaker 1: Out in the field, under some boards, investigators found the
48:12
Speaker 1: body of Polly Glass. It was an odd feeling.
48:25
Speaker 4: You're in the presence of somebody like Davis, and just
48:29
Speaker 4: a few yards away is what's left of a very beautiful,
48:33
Speaker 4: innocent 12-year-old.
48:35
Speaker 5: The Poly Class case was special because people cared. Because
48:39
Speaker 5: the whole community stepped forward and said, this is the
48:43
Speaker 5: last child you're going to take, and that this is
48:46
Speaker 5: our child, and that we are going to go out
48:49
Speaker 5: and look for her until we find her.
48:55
Speaker 1: The case wouldn't come to trial until 1996. But after
49:02
Speaker 1: 10 weeks in the courtroom, a jury found Davis guilty
49:05
Speaker 1: on 10 counts, including kidnapping, robbery, burglary, murder, and attempting
49:11
Speaker 1: to commit a lewd act on a child. The latter
49:15
Speaker 1: charge Davis continued to deny during the entire trial. Investigators
49:20
Speaker 1: strongly believe that despite Davis' testimony, Polly was already dead
49:25
Speaker 1: at the time deputies helped him with his car. He
49:28
Speaker 1: was sentenced to death and continues to sit on death
49:31
Speaker 1: row at San Quentin Prison. Polyclass left behind a legacy
49:40
Speaker 1: to save other lives. The way missing persons cases are
49:44
Speaker 1: handled has changed forever since the investigation. Law enforcement databases
49:51
Speaker 1: are linked to different agencies providing vital information to multiple jurisdictions.
49:57
Speaker 1: Missing persons bulletins are now sent out over all police channels.
50:02
Speaker 1: At routine pullovers and traffic stops, officers can access not
50:05
Speaker 1: only driving histories but criminal records as well. Implementation of
50:11
Speaker 1: the three strikes you're out legislation was a direct result
50:14
Speaker 1: of the case. As was the push to expedite the
50:18
Speaker 1: appeals process in murder cases. And a foundation established in
50:26
Speaker 1: Polly's name aids the search for missing children.
50:35
Speaker 7: Involvement of the FBI was critical to bringing resolution to
50:41
Speaker 7: this case. Had they not come in and gotten involved
50:44
Speaker 7: early on, it's doubtful we would ever have had resolution
50:47
Speaker 7: or certainly that it would have been as quickly as
50:49
Speaker 7: it was, even though it seemed like a long time.
50:52
Speaker 1: The unique partnership that was formed between local police and
50:56
Speaker 1: the FBI set a precedent that continues to this day.