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Serial Killer Documentary - New York’s Most Brutal Serial Killer · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:01
Speaker 1: This program contains dramatizations of real people and events. Some
0:05
Speaker 1: names have been changed. This program is for mature audiences only.
0:11
Speaker 1: It contains graphic images which may be disturbing to some viewers.
0:16
Speaker 1: Viewer discretion is advised. A grizzly double murder in New
0:22
Speaker 1: York leaves family stunned and a psychic afraid for her life.
0:32
Speaker 2: So he knew he was going to keep killing, He
0:36
Speaker 2: might come after me if he found out I worked
0:38
Speaker 2: on it.
0:42
Speaker 1: In Oklahoma, a family trip becomes a nightmare, their children missing.
0:49
Speaker 1: Terrified parents seek the vision of a psychic.
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Speaker 3: I've worked through some cases that this child tore me
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Speaker 3: to shress this little girl just puckman.
1:03
Speaker 1: When klus are scarce and answers elusively, investigators sometimes turned
1:12
Speaker 1: to a psychic witness. Albany, New York, November twenty third,
1:26
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, The day before Thanksgiving, in a rundown
1:34
Speaker 1: section of the business district, Albany resident Oscar Ramsay enters
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Speaker 1: the religious store his family owns. His son Curtis, should
1:43
Speaker 1: be working with longtime employee dedra Upton in the bathroom.
1:51
Speaker 1: A body. He doesn't know who it is or what's wrong.
2:03
Speaker 1: Vagrants often wander into the store. Oscar tells police he
2:09
Speaker 1: thinks one is sick in the bathroom. All ben he
2:19
Speaker 1: Detective Jim Candling is among the first on the scene.
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Speaker 4: Right, this man came to the store and we confronted
2:26
Speaker 4: the an elderly gentleman, and we asked off was going on.
2:29
Speaker 4: He said he was like a confused state. He says,
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Speaker 4: I don't know who he is, but he's in my
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Speaker 4: bathroom back there, and I think he's sick coming out
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Speaker 4: the street or something. Yes, but I went over, God,
2:41
Speaker 4: went into the bathroom, went over the top of the
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Speaker 4: body that was laying there, put my flashlight that and
2:46
Speaker 4: the chief says to me, what's it look like? Jim,
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Speaker 4: I says, he's dead.
2:55
Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: I said, his throats cut from here the air and
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Speaker 4: he said he got a multiple stab wound in his chest.
3:03
Speaker 1: What Oscar doesn't realize is that the body is that
3:06
Speaker 1: of his son, fifty five year old Curtis Ramsay, and
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Speaker 1: he's not the only victim.
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Speaker 4: I looked it around and I said, oh my god,
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Speaker 4: there's another one. It was the woman that worked there also,
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Speaker 4: and she was gonna supply cloudset on her floor and
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Speaker 4: she appeared to have multiple stab wounds and her chest also,
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Speaker 4: and uh, she was only a frail little thing, you know.
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Speaker 1: Really it's sixty two year old store employee dedra Upton,
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Speaker 1: who could've done this?
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Speaker 4: We went up the street there was a woman standing
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Speaker 4: on a corner and I said, did you see anybody
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Speaker 4: go buy you? This is a big guy came running
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Speaker 4: down the street a little while ago, and he was
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Speaker 4: carrying something, but he had stuff wrapped in his hand,
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Speaker 4: bloody stuff. He went up the street of Broadway and
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Speaker 4: he dumped something in a barrel up there and kept
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Speaker 4: on going.
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Speaker 1: She describes him as an African American male, tall and
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Speaker 1: powerfully built, but she didn't get a good look at
4:15
Speaker 1: his face inside the barrel. Among the trash, investigators discover
4:32
Speaker 1: a priest's vestment and a glove, both soaked in what
4:37
Speaker 1: appears to be blood, nearby a trail of blood drops.
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Speaker 4: The assailant evidently cut himself. Also because in standing people
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Speaker 4: a lot of times with a knife, if you come
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Speaker 4: down hard and hit bone, your hand will come off
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Speaker 4: the handle and get down a blade, and that's apparently
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Speaker 4: what he did.
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Speaker 1: Investigators follow the blood trail, but soon it ends. They
5:12
Speaker 1: call for a canine unit. It's a horrific crime, a
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Speaker 1: savage attack by a knife wielding killer, and for what
5:27
Speaker 1: The cash register is open but missing only a few dollars.
5:34
Speaker 1: The canine unit arrives to try to track the killers.
5:48
Speaker 1: The dog follows the scent for several blocks, yet the
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Speaker 1: trail near a furniture outlet store. Detectives talked to employees there,
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Speaker 1: but they didn't see a thing. With no other evidence,
6:17
Speaker 1: investigators check local arrest records for similar crimes, according to
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Speaker 1: District Attorney saw Greenberg, and.
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Speaker 6: They wanted to know who were the recent parole lees.
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Speaker 3: And what were their ms, what was the nature of
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Speaker 3: the crimes they committed.
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Speaker 1: One parole officer calls in with a good lead. According
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Speaker 1: to New York State Police Senior investigator Richard Gannon.
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Speaker 5: When he heard about the furniture outlet store, put it
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Speaker 5: together that a recent parole ee by the name Alemuel
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Speaker 5: Smith was working there.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, thirty seven years old. Lemuel Smith has spent several
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Speaker 1: years in prison for violent crimes, but now he's out.
7:18
Speaker 1: Smith has been free for several months and so far
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Speaker 1: he stayed clean. Hello, and he's fully cooperative, explaining he
7:33
Speaker 1: was having lunch with two friends at the time of
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Speaker 1: the murders.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was working at the Actually.
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Speaker 1: The friends later confirm his story. Officers check Smith's hands
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Speaker 1: for cuts, anything, all right.
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Speaker 7: They assumed that they had to be quite a gish
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Speaker 7: for it to bleed so much, and they saw nothing,
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Speaker 7: So that kind of took Smith out of the picture.
8:12
Speaker 1: A brutal killer is still out there, but a psychic
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Speaker 1: is about to join the search for him.
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Speaker 2: I saw it and felt it. I knew this man
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Speaker 2: was a killer and would kill more and more. This
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Speaker 2: is why I was happy they let me help them.
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Speaker 1: Together, the cops and the psychic will chase a serial
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Speaker 1: killer who's just getting started. After a gruesome double murder
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Speaker 1: in Albany, police cleared their first suspect, Lemuel Smith, when
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Speaker 1: his alibis corroborated with a killer on the loose. The
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Speaker 1: city's terrified forensic anthropologist and author Dennis Foley.
8:54
Speaker 8: Albany didn't have murders like this. This was horrendous. It
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Speaker 8: was in a religious store. His throat was slashed, almost decapitated,
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Speaker 8: and she had numerous stabunds.
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Speaker 1: Rumors swirl that it was a cult killing. Albany police
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Speaker 1: must uncover the truth. Officers find new witnesses, two local
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Speaker 1: vagrants who say they saw a man running from the store,
9:22
Speaker 1: a man who does not resemble the first suspect. According
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Speaker 1: to senior investigator Richard Gannon.
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Speaker 5: The one person they did see come out at a
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Speaker 5: store was a white man. He was moving quite fast
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Speaker 5: up the street running.
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Speaker 1: The witnesses know the man. He's Freddie Baker, another vagrant,
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Speaker 1: I don't know. He swears he didn't do it.
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Speaker 8: So they gave him a polygraph test when they sobered
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Speaker 8: him up, and he passed the polygrasses. But they also
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Speaker 8: proved conclusively that he was in the store.
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Speaker 1: Baker says he went in that day to buy a
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Speaker 1: card for his mother. He heard something in back.
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Speaker 5: He saw this huge man with the eyes of the
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Speaker 5: devil is the way he described him. And he just
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Speaker 5: turned around and ran out of the store as fast
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Speaker 5: as he could, and he never stopped.
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Speaker 1: The description of the man he saw leads police back
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Speaker 1: to Lemuel Smith about the same time. Lab results come in.
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Speaker 1: The killer's blood is type OH, the same as Smith's.
10:50
Speaker 1: The lab tests also reveal a strange detail. Lama hairs
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Speaker 1: were found at the crime scene. It's a type of
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Speaker 1: hair used in furniture upholstery smith works at a furniture
11:04
Speaker 1: outlet store. Still it's not enough for an arrest. A
11:14
Speaker 1: month after the killings in the religious store, a young
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Speaker 1: woman is found nearby with her throat slashed. District Attorney
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Speaker 1: saw Greenberg.
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Speaker 6: It appeared based upon the throat sledding, is that possibly.
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Speaker 3: There could have been a similarly the same individual may
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Speaker 3: have perpetrated this crime.
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Speaker 1: Once again, few clues left behind what we want. With
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Speaker 1: no leads, Albany's assistant police chief takes a new tack
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Speaker 1: and calls in psychic and Fisher.
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Speaker 8: He is at wits end, so he brings in a psyche.
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Speaker 8: His deputy chief, his sergeants, they're appalled by this. This
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Speaker 8: is so unprofessional, but they'll go along with it because
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Speaker 8: they have nothing to lose.
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Speaker 1: And agrees to accompany detective to the crime scene at
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Speaker 1: the religious store.
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Speaker 2: They were desperate, they didn't know what to do, and
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Speaker 2: I think it's because they didn't know where to go,
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Speaker 2: and they had heard about me and felt that maybe
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Speaker 2: I could help them.
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Speaker 1: The psychic ass that they tell her nothing about the case.
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Speaker 1: All she knows is someone was killed.
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Speaker 2: When I walked in. Oh, it was terrible.
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Speaker 1: She sees the killer.
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Speaker 2: My impression was he came in to sell something. He
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Speaker 2: needed money, and I see the woman to not be
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Speaker 2: willing to do it, and so he went into a
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Speaker 2: fit of anger, dragged her into the back room and
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Speaker 2: stabbed her fifteen times.
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Speaker 1: And knows exactly where Deirdre Upton was killed.
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Speaker 2: Stab While he was doing this, the owner of the
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Speaker 2: store came in and he tried to stop him, and
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Speaker 2: he was killed two.
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Speaker 8: She said he almost was beheaded, which they didn't really
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Speaker 8: put that in the newspapers.
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Speaker 6: I can see it.
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Speaker 1: Detectives ask about the killer.
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Speaker 2: I feel so sorry, and I said, well, he's about forty,
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Speaker 2: he's black and about six foot.
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Speaker 1: But then a confusing image sometimes and sees two killers.
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Speaker 1: The second assailant is smaller. She sees him committing the
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Speaker 1: same acts with a larger man watching, but the second
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Speaker 1: silent is not always there and doesn't understand exactly what
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Speaker 1: it all means. The procession continues outside and feels the
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Speaker 1: killer or killers fleeing the scene, and knows in which direction.
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Speaker 5: In this direction, I.
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Speaker 2: Walked out of the store in this sort of a
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Speaker 2: semitrans state, and I just pointed and I turned left.
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Speaker 1: The psychic goes right to the place the evidence was found.
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Speaker 2: They're covered with blood.
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Speaker 1: She says, whoever did it through something in the trash barrel,
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Speaker 1: bloody clothes. Then Ann leads detectives along the route they
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Speaker 1: followed before when they found the blood trail.
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Speaker 2: I was in a semi trans not a trance. I
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Speaker 2: was able to walk and still talk to them and
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Speaker 2: answer them, but I started to see so much, feel
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Speaker 2: so much.
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Speaker 1: She senses a building where the suspect lives or works.
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Speaker 2: I said, it's screen. It's around here, I.
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Speaker 1: Know it is. She spots the building, Yes, yes, the
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Speaker 1: furniture outlet store where suspect Lemuel Smith works. Then and
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Speaker 1: gets a different sort of vision of the future.
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Speaker 2: I said, I think you'll catch him, but I feel
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Speaker 2: he's going to kill a woman soon. And don't ever
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Speaker 2: tell anybody I ever worked on this case, because I
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Speaker 2: don't want it to be me.
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Speaker 1: The psychic knows the killer's not finished, but his next
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Speaker 1: victim is impossible to predict. After a double murder in Albany,
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Speaker 1: New York, psychic Anne Fisher has visions that implicate suspect
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Speaker 1: Lemuel Smith, though she also sees a possible second assailant,
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Speaker 1: and she predicts the killer will strike again. Senior investigator
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Speaker 1: Richard Gannon believes Smith is guilty, but he needs proof.
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Speaker 5: Oh, we were all very sure. There was no question
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Speaker 5: in any of our minds. It was just a case
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Speaker 5: of getting that piece of evidence that would tie him up.
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Speaker 1: Police search Smith's locker at the store where he works,
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Speaker 1: collecting hair samples. Lab tests reveal the hair is microscopically
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Speaker 1: similar to victim dedra Upten's, but this is before DNA
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Speaker 1: analysis and no exact match can be made.
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Speaker 5: You have to realize that you might arrest them, but
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Speaker 5: then you have to go to court and you have
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Speaker 5: to try him, and if your evidence is such that
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Speaker 5: the defense attorney's going to knock you out of the box,
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Speaker 5: it's feudal.
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Speaker 1: At the store, officers also spot Smith's paintings.
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Speaker 5: And he left the eyes blank and put foiled paper
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Speaker 5: behind the paintings, and it showed true.
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Speaker 1: It was very vivid, creepy, but certainly not evidence. Six
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Speaker 1: months past with no developments. July twenty second, nineteen seventy seven,
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Speaker 1: in nearby Schenectady, New York, residents discover the body of
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Speaker 1: twenty two year old Janet Tolliver again of violent stabbing,
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Speaker 1: and again no good evidence. One witness reports seeing Lemuel
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Speaker 1: Smith near the victim before her death, but police find
18:08
Speaker 1: nothing solid to tie him to any crime. Then a
18:14
Speaker 1: month later, a local attorney notices something's wrong. His usually
18:20
Speaker 1: reliable secretary has not returned for lunch. He calls her
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Speaker 1: parents right away. The family's worried, but it's only been
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Speaker 1: a few hours, too soon for police to investigate.
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Speaker 5: The family had good friends who were c beers. They
18:45
Speaker 5: arranged to put out a bulletin or notice every fifteen
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Speaker 5: minutes describing her car.
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Speaker 1: Amazingly, the system worksterist who heard the bulletin spots the
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Speaker 1: Secretary's car and contacts police on his CBU. Inside the car,
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Speaker 1: officers find the secretary and Lamuel Smith.
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Speaker 5: He was on the passenger side said to the police
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Speaker 5: that he was with his fiance and they were going
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Speaker 5: into Albany.
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Speaker 1: She's got a different story. He abducted and assaulted her
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Speaker 1: and was forcing her to drive when.
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Speaker 5: They arrested Smith at that point.
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Speaker 1: Finally, Smith is off the streets, and finally police discover evidence.
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Speaker 1: A Schenectady detective checking crime scene photos from the janet
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Speaker 1: Tolliver murder notices something.
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Speaker 5: Something that looked like teeth marks were Subsequent to that,
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Speaker 5: we got molds of Lemuel Smith's teeth.
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Speaker 1: A forensic odontologist compares the molds to the bite marks
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Speaker 1: an exact match.
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Speaker 5: As a result, we indicted him.
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Speaker 1: Police first charged Smith with Tolliver's murder. When they book him,
20:37
Speaker 1: they noticed something detectives missed earlier. According to author Dennis Fowley.
20:45
Speaker 8: Initially the detectives who were looking at his hands, they
20:50
Speaker 8: looked at the front of his hands, in the back.
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Speaker 5: Of his hands.
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Speaker 8: They didn't look at the side.
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Speaker 1: Now police see a scar.
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Speaker 8: He had cut himself on the side by his knuckle.
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Speaker 1: Investigators confront Smith on the double murder in the religious store.
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Speaker 1: Actually he now admits he was there, but he's got
21:19
Speaker 1: a bizarre story about that day.
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Speaker 8: Lemuel Smith never admitted to any of these homicides. He
21:27
Speaker 8: said it was done by his brother John, and that
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Speaker 8: he watched and in some cases he's to try to
21:34
Speaker 8: stop the homicides.
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Speaker 6: Actually, it's really interesting.
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Speaker 8: But he watched from afar while his younger brother, the
21:41
Speaker 8: little brother killed John.
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Speaker 2: Actually looks like.
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Speaker 1: Psychic. Anne Fisher saw a second assailant in some of
21:51
Speaker 1: her visions, though he was unclear to her. Police learn
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Speaker 1: a startling fact Smith's brother died when he was a child,
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Speaker 1: his involvement in the killings only in the mind of
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Speaker 1: Lemuel Smith. Investigators believe Smith is displacing blame, and Anne
22:15
Speaker 1: picked up on the killer's dual personality later.
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Speaker 8: There is a picture that Lemuel Smith drew for his
22:23
Speaker 8: defense attorney in which he depicts his self portrait just
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Speaker 8: two people in it, Lemuel and a small brother John.
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Speaker 8: So this is how Lemuel Smith saw himself. He saw
22:35
Speaker 8: himself as two people.
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Speaker 1: Basically, Smith explains why he was in the store, and
22:43
Speaker 1: his story matches Anne's vision.
22:47
Speaker 5: Lemuel Smith did a lot of paintings, and he tried
22:51
Speaker 5: to sell him at the religious shop because the paintings
22:54
Speaker 5: were of a religious nature, but they.
22:58
Speaker 3: Were very stark under somewhat.
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Speaker 1: Police believe. When the owners declined to buy, Smith became
23:05
Speaker 1: enraged and attacked. Lemuel Smith is sentenced to twenty five
23:10
Speaker 1: years to life for each of the religious store murders.
23:15
Speaker 1: He earns ten to twenty years for the attack on
23:17
Speaker 1: the legal secretary, Janet Tolliver's family declines to press charges
23:23
Speaker 1: to avoid the pain of a trial. Smith will never
23:28
Speaker 1: leave prison alive, thanks in part to a psychic.
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Speaker 8: Ann Fisher essentially identified Lemuel Smith. She also provided information
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Speaker 8: about that he would strike again, so she gave the
23:45
Speaker 8: idea of a serial killer.
23:51
Speaker 1: Ann Fisher helped all the need police know they were
23:53
Speaker 1: on the right track to stop a serial killer and
23:57
Speaker 1: put him away forever. In Oklahoma, the killer is the
24:05
Speaker 1: force of nature, and the psychic must somehow connect with
24:09
Speaker 1: a terrified little girl. Nestled in the hills of southern
24:16
Speaker 1: Oklahoma lies the small town of Davis and one of
24:21
Speaker 1: the best swimming holes in the nation, Turner Falls Park.
24:28
Speaker 1: In the summer, families from all over travel to Turner
24:31
Speaker 1: Falls to relax in its cool waters. To get there,
24:38
Speaker 1: cars flash through Honey Creek, normally little more than a trickle.
24:45
Speaker 1: The creek adds charm to a beautiful place. Usually on
24:52
Speaker 1: July eighth, nineteen ninety four, the Saddler family heads to
24:56
Speaker 1: Turner Falls for the weekend. The two kids, Nathan and Wendy,
25:06
Speaker 1: have never been camping before and love it.
25:14
Speaker 5: When all I lost.
25:21
Speaker 1: That night, the Saddlers enjoy their first campfire together. I've
25:27
Speaker 1: had eventually worn out from swimming and hiking, they turn
25:38
Speaker 1: into sleep, but at one am, a violent rainstorm begins
25:45
Speaker 1: to pound the area. At three am, runoff water seeps
25:53
Speaker 1: into the family's tent. The worried mother and father decide
26:02
Speaker 1: to drive into Davis to find a motel. When they
26:19
Speaker 1: approach the crossing at Honey Creek, it's no longer a trickle.
26:25
Speaker 1: Dark water covers the road, no telling how deep it is.
26:32
Speaker 1: Mister Saddler edges along, hoping for the best. Okay, back there, Well,
26:39
Speaker 1: what's about to happen to his young family couldn't get
26:42
Speaker 1: any worse? At Davis, Oklahoma's turner falls. The Saddler family's
26:53
Speaker 1: camping trip turns dangerous when a heavy rainstorm batters the area.
27:00
Speaker 1: To make it to a motel, the family drives toward
27:03
Speaker 1: a creek crossing, but in the darkness, mister Sadler can't
27:08
Speaker 1: see the normally shallow creek is raging. Suddenly, the water
27:14
Speaker 1: lifts the car and pushes it sideways. Slowly, the relentless
27:23
Speaker 1: flood bulldozes the car off the road and into the
27:27
Speaker 1: rushing waters below them. Luckily, a campground worker sees the
27:36
Speaker 1: car swept away and calls Davis police officers assigned to
27:43
Speaker 1: the ranger station race to help. They search the water
27:53
Speaker 1: and spot the family. The cars come to rest in
27:59
Speaker 1: the middle of the creek, which is running hard and
28:04
Speaker 1: rising fast, the water pinning the car doors closed. An
28:11
Speaker 1: officer bravely wades out to get the kids, but with
28:24
Speaker 1: a roar, the water shows the car loose and pushes
28:27
Speaker 1: it one hundred yards downstream. The officers scramble to find
28:32
Speaker 1: another position for rescue. By now other campers arrived to help.
28:48
Speaker 1: They'll do anything, but it's just too much. Mister Sadler
29:04
Speaker 1: manages to crawl out his window and tries to free
29:07
Speaker 1: his family, but the powerful current rips him away and
29:12
Speaker 1: sweeps him downstream. He disappears into the darkness, and then
29:20
Speaker 1: a flood surge tears the car loose again. Those watching
29:25
Speaker 1: are helpless as the rest of the family vanishes. Within minutes,
29:34
Speaker 1: additional police and firefighters arrive. They must reach the family somehow,
29:46
Speaker 1: Davis Police Assistant Chief Daryl McCurtain, it.
29:50
Speaker 9: Was real tough. You're stomping through brush and trees and
29:54
Speaker 9: and rocks and wet rainy weather and middle of the night.
30:00
Speaker 1: The car is no longer visible. The first good news
30:09
Speaker 1: comes when mister Sadler is washed ashore, but he doesn't
30:17
Speaker 1: know where his wife and kids are. The small rescue
30:31
Speaker 1: team fans out downstream looking for any sign of them.
30:34
Speaker 1: According to fire Chief Norman Shiplet.
30:38
Speaker 6: Maybe heard somebody holler around about where blue Hole is,
30:43
Speaker 6: so we went around there and she was on the
30:45
Speaker 6: east bank of the creek.
30:49
Speaker 1: It's missus Sadler, bruised, disoriented.
30:54
Speaker 6: Alone, and then she went to screaming babies were gone.
31:03
Speaker 1: She says. The flood tore them out of her arms.
31:09
Speaker 1: At least the children got out before the car sank.
31:15
Speaker 6: We felt like they was probably alive because they were young,
31:18
Speaker 6: and we figured they would be fighting and try to,
31:20
Speaker 6: you know, stay up on the water or try to
31:23
Speaker 6: get to the side of the creek.
31:27
Speaker 1: E nts rushed the parents to the hospital for treatment
31:33
Speaker 1: while firefighters and police continue hunting for the kids.
31:41
Speaker 9: We'd had a clothing description of the children and just
31:45
Speaker 9: began walking up and down creek banks hoping that they've
31:48
Speaker 9: made it to safety.
31:52
Speaker 1: They searched throughout the night, no sign of the children.
32:02
Speaker 1: By dawn, the rain has stopped, but Honey Creek is
32:07
Speaker 1: still dangerous.
32:12
Speaker 9: The water in the creek was still rise and it
32:14
Speaker 9: was still getting deeper and within a little small creek
32:18
Speaker 9: like that, the water is real swift.
32:20
Speaker 5: And to find his kids.
32:21
Speaker 6: For the Ferman, you need to find his children exactly.
32:23
Speaker 1: The search team is determined to find those kids. Studying
32:28
Speaker 1: the flow of the creek, they plan a methodical drag dat.
32:33
Speaker 9: Our goal was to try to locate the children, so
32:36
Speaker 9: we organize some search parties.
32:39
Speaker 6: We couldn't search the creek out too much. We could
32:41
Speaker 6: just go down side of its first day because it
32:44
Speaker 6: was running too fast.
32:47
Speaker 1: They hope to find the kids on the banks, cold
32:50
Speaker 1: and wet, but alive. The search party swells to nearly
32:55
Speaker 1: one hundred, including civilian volunteers and officers from Navy in counties. Yet,
33:03
Speaker 1: despite their efforts, another night passes with no sighting of
33:07
Speaker 1: the children. On the second day, the number of searches
33:15
Speaker 1: grows to more than two hundred, a huge outpouring for
33:18
Speaker 1: such a small town.
33:21
Speaker 6: I've been on that department for twenty years and I'd
33:25
Speaker 6: never seen anything like that, never had to do any rescued,
33:29
Speaker 6: and to that degree.
33:33
Speaker 1: The search now includes the Oklahoma National Guard and the
33:37
Speaker 1: Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
33:42
Speaker 9: That's one of the amazing parts of the case that
33:45
Speaker 9: everybody from different areas could come together and work together.
33:49
Speaker 9: Different organizations were assigned to different task and just the
33:53
Speaker 9: way people communicated, the way we work together. It's remarkable.
33:59
Speaker 1: The flood has there hundreds of items out of the campground,
34:02
Speaker 1: which slows the search.
34:05
Speaker 6: There was so much debris and stuff down the creek.
34:08
Speaker 6: Tents and clothes and ice chests and stuff. It was
34:11
Speaker 6: in the creek and we had to search and go
34:13
Speaker 6: through all of that.
34:19
Speaker 1: Each item could be related to the missing kids.
34:24
Speaker 9: You find a piece of clothing, or you find a
34:27
Speaker 9: kid's doll or anything like that. It just, you know,
34:31
Speaker 9: it kind of gives you some hope that hey, maybe
34:34
Speaker 9: we've found something, and then it turned up to be nothing.
34:39
Speaker 9: But you know, there was false hopes like that. Every day.
34:44
Speaker 1: When the current slows, divers from the National Park Service
34:48
Speaker 1: checked the deeper pools. Halfway through the second day, the
34:56
Speaker 1: divers find the car.
35:00
Speaker 9: You can imagine the car being tumbled down a creek
35:02
Speaker 9: and the force of water banging it against the rocks
35:06
Speaker 9: and everything. It was in pretty bad condition, you know,
35:09
Speaker 9: all the windows were busted out, the top of it
35:12
Speaker 9: caved in.
35:17
Speaker 1: Rescuers find renewed hope in the fact that no bodies
35:21
Speaker 1: are inside the car. As the water recedes, it leaves
35:26
Speaker 1: piles of rush and driftwood. On day three, a more
35:34
Speaker 1: grim discovery.
35:40
Speaker 6: One of the National Guard people that they were cleaning
35:43
Speaker 6: out the creek and approximately two to three miles from
35:46
Speaker 6: where the car went off. He started looking and cause
35:51
Speaker 6: some of the other boys over to help.
36:00
Speaker 1: They've found young Nathan Sadler.
36:08
Speaker 6: I think it depressed them because they found the boy.
36:11
Speaker 6: He was dead.
36:16
Speaker 1: The Saddlers have lost their son. Soon they'll call in
36:22
Speaker 1: a psychic to look for their little girl.
36:26
Speaker 3: And then I got a sense of her fear, how
36:29
Speaker 3: terrified she was. The roaring sound.
36:35
Speaker 5: Tree is breaking.
36:36
Speaker 3: I mean the sound was absolutely definite, unbelievable sense of
36:42
Speaker 3: longness for that child.
36:45
Speaker 1: After the Sadler family has swept away in a flash flood,
36:49
Speaker 1: the parents wash up safe on the creek banks, but
36:52
Speaker 1: their little boy is found dead. His sister, Wendy Sadler,
36:57
Speaker 1: is still out there somewhere. Davi's police assistant, Chief Down
37:04
Speaker 1: McCurtain knows Wendy has a better chance of surviving than
37:08
Speaker 1: our little brother.
37:10
Speaker 9: Being older and being a better swimmer. That might give
37:12
Speaker 9: her a little bit of a chance to make it
37:14
Speaker 9: to safety.
37:15
Speaker 1: Fire Chief Norman Shiplet leads the search.
37:20
Speaker 6: I talked with the parents and the family and told
37:22
Speaker 6: him I wasn't giving up, you know, I was gonna
37:25
Speaker 6: keep hunting for the girl. We kept hoping that maybe
37:28
Speaker 6: we'd find her should be wandering somewhere.
37:33
Speaker 1: But as days pass, hope fades. Discouraged volunteers must return
37:40
Speaker 1: to their regular lives, take.
37:42
Speaker 6: Over there and take over the trees over there. We
37:45
Speaker 6: just ding it down to where there was only like
37:48
Speaker 6: less than ten of us.
37:50
Speaker 1: You're looking, mister and missus Sadler cannot stop until they
37:59
Speaker 1: find Wendy or her body. After a gut wrenching week
38:09
Speaker 1: of not knowing, the distraught mother gets the phone number
38:12
Speaker 1: to a psychic whose helped families find missing kids. Before
38:17
Speaker 1: she calls, doctor Sally Heading in San Francisco, and the.
38:23
Speaker 3: Family was wild with anxiety, and so I believe this
38:29
Speaker 3: is one of the reasons that they did call me
38:31
Speaker 3: in and it's just any lasts effort.
38:37
Speaker 1: Sally contacts Assistant Chief McCurtain to offer her help.
38:43
Speaker 9: When she told me that she was a psyechic and everything,
38:45
Speaker 9: I kind of had doubts. Can you tell me a
38:47
Speaker 9: little bit.
38:48
Speaker 1: More about what He's willing to try anything.
38:52
Speaker 10: Beyond his own personal feelings.
38:55
Speaker 3: Was his desire to find this little girl, a big
39:01
Speaker 3: person to take their personal belief system and set aside
39:06
Speaker 3: because there's something more important than themselves.
39:10
Speaker 1: Nick Curtin tells her no details of the case. Sally
39:14
Speaker 1: fills them in on her own.
39:17
Speaker 9: She described the terrain. She described Norman ship with the
39:21
Speaker 9: fire chief and said I was working closely with him,
39:25
Speaker 9: and described landmarks along the river. It was convincing, But.
39:34
Speaker 1: What about Wendy. Sally breaks the news the girl is dead,
39:41
Speaker 1: but she can't see where her body is. Yes, she
39:46
Speaker 1: promises to call back soon. For now she must focus.
39:54
Speaker 3: I like to be in a very quiet room, so
39:58
Speaker 3: then I'm extremely relaxed and that things will begin to
40:01
Speaker 3: come through.
40:04
Speaker 1: But at first, Wendy's too scared to let her in.
40:09
Speaker 3: I talked to this little girl and I kept getting nothing,
40:12
Speaker 3: and I kept getting nothing. I thought, if this little
40:14
Speaker 3: girl doesn't come to me and help me, I'm not
40:17
Speaker 3: going to know where she is. I didn't have a clue,
40:22
Speaker 3: and I really felt helpless about that. And finally I
40:27
Speaker 3: told her that her mommy couldn't stop crying and that
40:30
Speaker 3: if she could just show me where she was, that
40:33
Speaker 3: they could bury her and that would help them with
40:37
Speaker 3: her pain. And if she would trust me enough to
40:39
Speaker 3: come away from the light, that I promised not to
40:43
Speaker 3: hurt her, and I promised that she could get back
40:46
Speaker 3: to the light, that she would be okay. And the
40:49
Speaker 3: next thing, you know, I got this strong sense of
40:52
Speaker 3: smell of a child that's been playing in a hot day.
40:56
Speaker 3: It's kind of a sweet, musky smell. And then I
41:00
Speaker 3: got a sense of her fear, how terrified she was.
41:04
Speaker 3: The roaring sound, trees breaking, I'm believable sense of illness
41:11
Speaker 3: for that child just broke my heart. I mean, this
41:14
Speaker 3: is this is a baby. It's my granddaughter's age.
41:24
Speaker 1: The girl asks for Sally's help.
41:27
Speaker 3: Before she would show me where she was, she showed
41:31
Speaker 3: me the diamond necklace, the cross her grandmother told her
41:35
Speaker 3: she would have on her sixtieth birthday, and she wants
41:40
Speaker 3: it now. She wants to be buried with it in
41:44
Speaker 3: the casket. And I promised her that I would get
41:48
Speaker 3: that forth.
41:52
Speaker 1: Sally calls missus Sadler and asks if Wendy was promised
41:56
Speaker 1: a necklace with a diamond cross.
42:00
Speaker 3: And the mother completely broke down because she said, yes,
42:03
Speaker 3: that is my mother's cross, and my mother promised that
42:07
Speaker 3: she would give this cross at sixteen. I can't believe
42:15
Speaker 3: you know, this is my little girl at peace. And
42:18
Speaker 3: I said, most definitely. She is so at peace that
42:22
Speaker 3: she didn't want to come away from where she is.
42:26
Speaker 1: Sally reaches out again, telling Wendy the necklace is waiting
42:30
Speaker 1: for her. She just needs the girl's help to find
42:33
Speaker 1: her body.
42:35
Speaker 3: And then she took me by the hand and took
42:38
Speaker 3: me down the river, and she showed me where she was.
42:41
Speaker 10: She is the one who showed me, not me.
42:46
Speaker 3: I saw on the right hand side, going down the
42:49
Speaker 3: river the hull of a wooden boat, and then fifty
42:58
Speaker 3: yards down culvert.
43:02
Speaker 1: The girl points to a place between the blue boat
43:06
Speaker 1: and the culvert. Sally realizes Wendy's pointing out the location
43:11
Speaker 1: of her earthly body. The sadness is overwhelming.
43:17
Speaker 3: This child tore me to shress. This little girl just.
43:24
Speaker 1: Broke my heart. As difficult as it is, Sally perseveres
43:33
Speaker 1: determined to help bring Wendy Sadler home. After a flash
43:39
Speaker 1: flood sweeps away Wendy Sadler, the family calls in psychic
43:43
Speaker 1: Sally heading Sally connects with a little girl who shows
43:48
Speaker 1: her where her body is. The psychic calls Assistant Chief Daryl.
43:53
Speaker 3: McCurtain, and I told him that I saw that they
43:57
Speaker 3: had to go down in county. They hadn't gone down
44:00
Speaker 3: south enough.
44:04
Speaker 1: Sally tells him about the landmarks Wendy's spirit pointed out.
44:07
Speaker 10: To her, and I said, this is what you look
44:11
Speaker 10: for on the right hand side, when you see the
44:14
Speaker 10: hull of a wood boat, and then fifty yards down
44:18
Speaker 10: you'll see this concrete culvert in which we right in
44:22
Speaker 10: the middle of those two.
44:24
Speaker 3: That's where she is.
44:28
Speaker 1: Mc curtin decides to take the risk and follow the
44:32
Speaker 1: psychic's directions.
44:35
Speaker 9: I was kind of afraid to admit to anybody that
44:37
Speaker 9: I talked to the psychic. You know, we've been from
44:39
Speaker 9: rural Oklahoma. It's you go out and tell somebody you
44:42
Speaker 9: talk to the psychic. They're probably gonna thank you're crazy.
44:45
Speaker 1: But they'll do anything to find Wendy.
44:48
Speaker 9: We didn't discount it. I mean, we went ahead and
44:51
Speaker 9: followed every lead we had.
44:54
Speaker 1: As the search ramps back up, Oklahoma Governor David Walters
44:58
Speaker 1: flies into help, offering more resources from the state. He
45:05
Speaker 1: holds a press briefing with David's fire chief Norman Schiplet.
45:09
Speaker 6: He was trying to stir up with a little more
45:11
Speaker 6: interest and try to get more people to help search
45:13
Speaker 6: for the little girl. And after they said get in
45:18
Speaker 6: with a smooth search the area here from the air
45:21
Speaker 6: in the helicopter.
45:23
Speaker 1: They head south over the next county. As Sally instructed.
45:28
Speaker 6: We got about eight miles down the river and miss
45:30
Speaker 6: pilot from the highway patrol plane hollered at us and
45:33
Speaker 6: told us that he had spot to something in that
45:35
Speaker 6: curve and wanted us to go check it. At it.
45:39
Speaker 1: The helicopter can get closer.
45:43
Speaker 6: We went down and dipped down low in the helicopter
45:45
Speaker 6: where we could see and you can see it part
45:47
Speaker 6: of the legs.
45:51
Speaker 1: Searchers and air boats rushed to the site to retrieve
45:55
Speaker 1: the body.
45:57
Speaker 3: She was a lovely little cirl just lovely. She touched
46:02
Speaker 3: my very soul.
46:05
Speaker 1: To everyone's amazement. The location has all the landmarks, Sally predicted.
46:11
Speaker 1: Wendy's between a blue boat and a covert.
46:14
Speaker 9: For somebody to describe a blue boat along the edge
46:17
Speaker 9: of the river, and for you to actually see that
46:20
Speaker 9: blue boat, it's just amazing. It just sends chills all
46:25
Speaker 9: over your body, because here's somebody is two thousand miles
46:28
Speaker 9: away and can describe something in detail to you.
46:33
Speaker 1: Sally's other predictions also prove accurate.
46:38
Speaker 9: She described though, that the girl would be partially clothed,
46:41
Speaker 9: that she was going to be partially covered with dirt
46:44
Speaker 9: and debris, and that she'd be laying on her back,
46:50
Speaker 9: and that's how the girl was found.
46:55
Speaker 3: I pray this family is healed. It's a terrible tragedy
46:59
Speaker 3: for any and they have to go through just terrible.
47:03
Speaker 1: Sally knows she herself has lost a child. Mister and
47:16
Speaker 1: Missus Sadler can finally lay their two children to rest.
47:29
Speaker 3: There is in our society the need for conclusion and
47:33
Speaker 3: finality so we can go on. It's not that we're
47:38
Speaker 3: ever going to get over it. You do not get
47:40
Speaker 3: over that, but you learn to go on with your life.
47:51
Speaker 3: I believe that we have the ability to learn lessons
47:54
Speaker 3: from these tragedies and become more than we were before.
48:00
Speaker 3: Reach out and help others, and you become a kinder, nicer,
48:05
Speaker 3: more aware of human being.
48:11
Speaker 1: Assistant Chief Daryl mccurtin thanks Sally for helping them find
48:15
Speaker 1: the kids they searched so long for.
48:19
Speaker 9: If I ever had a large case where there were
48:21
Speaker 9: missing people or anything, I would call a psychic again.
48:26
Speaker 9: And I've still got Sally's business card.
48:29
Speaker 1: Eleven years later, the stories couldn't be more different. A
48:36
Speaker 1: madman on the loose leaving a trail of blood and
48:39
Speaker 1: death behind him, and an unexpected storm wrenching two children
48:44
Speaker 1: from their parents' arms. But both cases left families torn
48:49
Speaker 1: and police willing to do anything to help, including working
48:53
Speaker 1: with gifted psychics to put their amazing abilities to the test.
49:20
Speaker 1: Anything can, anything,