Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / Lori Poland - Surviving Abduction

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Lori Poland - Surviving Abduction · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

0:07
Speaker 1: On August twenty second, nineteen eighty three, a young three
0:11
Speaker 1: year old girl vanished from a Colorado neighborhood after a
0:14
Speaker 1: stranger in an orange vehicle stopped beside her and offered
0:18
Speaker 1: her candy. As her terrified parents pleaded on television and
0:23
Speaker 1: police raced to identify the man who had taken her,
0:26
Speaker 1: the little girl ended up miles away in the Colorado Foothills,
0:30
Speaker 1: discarded and trapped in the bottom of a remote outhouse pit,
0:36
Speaker 1: with no food, clean water, or way to escape. Thankfully,
0:41
Speaker 1: though against all odds, she would be found alive. But
0:46
Speaker 1: her rescue was only the beginning of a case that
0:49
Speaker 1: would spark outrage amongst civilians and exposed troubling weaknesses in
0:53
Speaker 1: the justice system. This is the story of both the
0:58
Speaker 1: kidnapping and the s of Lorie Poland.
1:03
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
1:07
Speaker 2: and Grim.
1:08
Speaker 1: A true crime podcasting the following more audience listeners.
1:41
Speaker 2: Hear the bubbles.
1:43
Speaker 1: I do hear the bubbles, although I just realized my
1:45
Speaker 1: headphones are still plugged into my laptop and not the soundboard.
1:48
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I gotta get my shit together here, No kidding,
1:52
Speaker 1: what an amateur. Am I hey, just out here just
1:55
Speaker 1: going rogue? Apparently it is the.
1:58
Speaker 2: Morning, but I'm drinking a Bubbly Just clarify, yeah.
2:01
Speaker 1: Not an alcoholic. I got my coffee. I mean there's
2:03
Speaker 1: there's shit. We got sugar and caffeine, min natural sugar,
2:07
Speaker 1: natural shit.
2:07
Speaker 2: I was like, how much sugar's in a Bubbly? I
2:09
Speaker 2: didn't think they had much sugar in the zero.
2:11
Speaker 1: Well there's got to okay, we got some natural flavors
2:14
Speaker 1: and caffeine. Like, yeah, there's no sugar in it. Yeah,
2:17
Speaker 1: fair enough. Sorry.
2:19
Speaker 2: I was like, am I starting my day with fifty
2:20
Speaker 2: grounds of sugar? Shit?
2:22
Speaker 1: Clearly I need to drink more of my coffee because
2:24
Speaker 1: I'm out to lunch this morning.
2:26
Speaker 2: I feel like lately, my like ultimate treat is like
2:31
Speaker 2: a can of coke or a vanilla coke. Oh my gosh,
2:35
Speaker 2: but in that can is literally like I think it's
2:37
Speaker 2: like forty to fifty grams of sugar. So I don't like,
2:40
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna I gotta check myself because I don't
2:43
Speaker 2: want to be one of those people that needs one
2:45
Speaker 2: of those every day.
2:46
Speaker 1: You know, gotta check yourself before you wreck yourself exactly.
2:49
Speaker 2: Because It's unreal how much sugar is in a can
2:51
Speaker 2: of pull.
2:52
Speaker 1: It's unreal how much like processed junk in chemicals is
2:56
Speaker 1: in food in general nowadays. In all honesty, I actually
2:59
Speaker 1: was watching this video, this little Instagram reel talking about
3:04
Speaker 1: how like it's interesting that humans can consume so many
3:07
Speaker 1: things that are basically poison to every other planet animal
3:11
Speaker 1: on this planet. And it's like, is that really what
3:14
Speaker 1: we're actually good at? Is it not our intelligence? Is
3:17
Speaker 1: it our immunity to things? Like I'm drinking poison, It
3:22
Speaker 1: could be poisoned to many animals, but yet it just
3:25
Speaker 1: gets me ready for my day.
3:27
Speaker 2: Shit, you know when you put it like that, right, Yeah,
3:31
Speaker 2: it's odd.
3:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, humans are weird.
3:34
Speaker 2: Well actually, okay, my friend had just shared this thing
3:37
Speaker 2: on Instagram about this. I didn't look into it really,
3:41
Speaker 2: but this kid, a teenager who had died or something
3:44
Speaker 2: because in the matter or manner or whatever, of two hours,
3:48
Speaker 2: he consumed two energy drinks, a latte and a pop
3:54
Speaker 2: so it was like four hundred milligram milligrams of caffeine geez,
4:00
Speaker 2: which is an adult can consume that in a day apparently,
4:03
Speaker 2: but a teenager shouldn't consume more than a hundred An
4:06
Speaker 2: adult shouldn't probably not, but I think their bodies could
4:09
Speaker 2: handle it. Yeah, And so this kid died or something
4:13
Speaker 2: and I don't know, so I need it, I need
4:14
Speaker 2: I need to look into that a little bit more.
4:16
Speaker 2: But frick, that's like scary.
4:18
Speaker 1: It is scary. The things humans put themselves through is absurd,
4:22
Speaker 1: especially when you have the availability to actually, like you
4:25
Speaker 1: can eat healthy, you know what I mean.
4:27
Speaker 2: Oh shit, sorry, I'm like laughing. I thought you were
4:30
Speaker 2: a sawing over to Patreon, and I'm like, I don't
4:34
Speaker 2: know if that works.
4:36
Speaker 1: What I'm just talking like, you can eat healthy, you
4:39
Speaker 1: don't have to, you know, go and have an energy drink,
4:42
Speaker 1: you can have a coffee, you can have tea, you know,
4:45
Speaker 1: drink more water. I mean, I understand you treat yourself
4:48
Speaker 1: or whatever. But and if you're gonna treat yourself, you
4:51
Speaker 1: can go ahead and sign up over on our Patreon.
4:53
Speaker 2: Is okay, it was coming.
4:55
Speaker 1: No, it wasn't. But as soon as you said that,
4:57
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, well I'm gonna make it. But yeah,
5:00
Speaker 1: so today we have to give a big shout out
5:02
Speaker 1: and thank you to Yazelle Santos, who signed up on Patreon.
5:06
Speaker 1: They getting behind the scenes, they're getting ads freaking free
5:09
Speaker 1: over there, so they're doing all that cool stuff and yeah,
5:12
Speaker 1: you could be too if you want to sign up
5:13
Speaker 1: feel free.
5:14
Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, and they had the chance to name our
5:16
Speaker 2: new chickens, which is pretty cool.
5:17
Speaker 1: Yes, which you've got to solidify that name and end
5:20
Speaker 1: the pole.
5:21
Speaker 2: Yeah I do. Yeah, I think I haven't checked today,
5:24
Speaker 2: but I think that it was solidified what the names were.
5:26
Speaker 1: As pretty a landslide winner for both the chickens.
5:30
Speaker 2: So okay, I'll announce, I'll hold up the little chicken
5:34
Speaker 2: with their new name.
5:35
Speaker 1: There you go, perfect, perfect, I like that. But if
5:38
Speaker 1: you're ready, I think we should get right into this episode. Okay, yeah,
5:41
Speaker 1: let's do it. Well. I am going to start by
5:43
Speaker 1: saying that this does involve the assault of a child,
5:48
Speaker 1: a three year old child. Sexual assault of a child,
5:53
Speaker 1: So if that is something that you don't want to
5:56
Speaker 1: hear about, here's your warning.
5:58
Speaker 2: Now, okay to the warning.
6:00
Speaker 1: With that being said, it is also a survivor case,
6:04
Speaker 1: so there may be some pretty brutal things, but there
6:08
Speaker 1: is also some light at the end of that tunnel,
6:10
Speaker 1: So let's get into it. On Monday, August twenty second,
6:14
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, the temperature in Sheridan, Colorado, USA reached
6:18
Speaker 1: eighty six degrees fahrenheit, which is thirty degree celsius. Three
6:22
Speaker 1: year old Laurie Poland had eaten lunch and gone back
6:25
Speaker 1: outside with her five year old brother and other children
6:28
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, and of course they were playing. On
6:30
Speaker 1: that hot summer day, her father, Richard Poland, had taken
6:34
Speaker 1: the day off work and was painting the outside of
6:36
Speaker 1: the family home. Laurie was actually enjoying the summer heat,
6:39
Speaker 1: and that day her mother had come home for lunch
6:42
Speaker 1: and then went to return to work. However, before she left,
6:45
Speaker 1: she and her brother had managed to talk to their
6:47
Speaker 1: father and convince him into giving them a popsicle. It
6:51
Speaker 1: was a moment of picturesque nineteen eighties family, happy life.
6:56
Speaker 1: Mom's home from work, children in their outside playing, dads
6:59
Speaker 1: painting the outside of the house, and the kids convinced dad,
7:02
Speaker 1: you know what a sweet treat might be nice for
7:04
Speaker 1: the day like this. Now, as the kids played outside,
7:07
Speaker 1: there was nothing unusual about leaving them there for a
7:09
Speaker 1: few moments, you know, alone in the neighborhood to continue playing.
7:13
Speaker 1: Other parents were nearby, children were playing up and down
7:16
Speaker 1: the street, and workers from a business across the road
7:19
Speaker 1: were actually outside on their lunch break. One of them
7:22
Speaker 1: was sitting in his pickup eating a sandwich. Richard could
7:25
Speaker 1: still see his children through the window when he went
7:27
Speaker 1: inside to grab that popsicle for his kids. He had
7:30
Speaker 1: only turned away just long enough to walk inside, then
7:34
Speaker 1: reach into the freezer to grab them. Then, in that moment,
7:38
Speaker 1: at about twelve forty five PM, an orange car stopped
7:43
Speaker 1: in the street. The passenger door was already open as
7:46
Speaker 1: the car came to a stop, and the man behind
7:48
Speaker 1: the wheel leaned over and asked whether Laurie liked candy. Now,
7:54
Speaker 1: Laurie was, of course three years old, so like anyone
7:57
Speaker 1: that age, she simply said yes. And of course he
8:00
Speaker 1: told her that if she got in his car she
8:04
Speaker 1: can go get some with him. So she approached the car,
8:07
Speaker 1: and then the man also told her she needed to
8:10
Speaker 1: remove her pants first, so she did and then climbed inside.
8:16
Speaker 1: Within moments, the car was driving away. Richard then came
8:20
Speaker 1: back outside with the popsicles and immediately realized something was wrong.
8:25
Speaker 1: Laurie's brother was still there, but Laurie was gone, and
8:29
Speaker 1: her pants were laying near the curb. Richard began searching
8:33
Speaker 1: around the property, calling her name, hoping that she wandered
8:36
Speaker 1: only a short distance away. But as he was doing so,
8:39
Speaker 1: some other children who had been outside began running towards
8:43
Speaker 1: his home, and three of them were yelling for him
8:45
Speaker 1: to call the police. So the police recalled, and they
8:50
Speaker 1: were now dealing with an abduction that had happened in
8:52
Speaker 1: the middle of the day, with several people close enough
8:56
Speaker 1: to have seen it in pieces.
8:58
Speaker 2: What the actual shit that is terrifying.
9:02
Speaker 1: It is now? One of the strongest witnesses was Marvin Edler,
9:07
Speaker 1: a painter working across the street. Marvin told Sheridan Police
9:11
Speaker 1: Sergeant Flores that he had watched Lori get into a
9:14
Speaker 1: vehicle that had stopped in front of the neighbor Paul
9:16
Speaker 1: Weaver's home. Briefly, he described it as tannish brown in color,
9:20
Speaker 1: possibly orange. It was a Datson with large block letters
9:24
Speaker 1: spelling dats in along the lower side of the car. Now,
9:27
Speaker 1: Paul Weaver had seen that same vehicle out front his home.
9:31
Speaker 1: His description was similar, but more specific in places. He
9:35
Speaker 1: said it was an orange Datson with a black vinyl
9:37
Speaker 1: top and black lettering along the bottom. More importantly, Paul
9:42
Speaker 1: had tried to read the license plates on the car
9:45
Speaker 1: as it left. Though he didn't get all of them,
9:48
Speaker 1: he did tell Sergeant Flores that the first three letters
9:51
Speaker 1: were a d V and then the numbers that followed.
9:55
Speaker 1: He believed one of the numbers may have been a two,
9:58
Speaker 1: but as officers canvas the area, another disturbing report surfaced.
10:03
Speaker 1: A man named Michael R. Fisher said that his children
10:07
Speaker 1: had encountered a suspicious man about a week earlier. According
10:11
Speaker 1: to him, the man had followed the children home from
10:13
Speaker 1: school and offered them candy if they would remove their pants. Gosh,
10:18
Speaker 1: so this guy was just like waiting a literal predator.
10:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, And honestly, it seems like it happened so
10:27
Speaker 2: fast that no one, like even nowadays, I feel like
10:30
Speaker 2: if something like this happened, no one would even have
10:32
Speaker 2: time to register that something bad was happening before it
10:36
Speaker 2: already had happened.
10:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think they had time. I think they
10:40
Speaker 1: registered something bad was happening, likely as the door was
10:44
Speaker 1: closing or about to drive off, that sort of thing,
10:47
Speaker 1: because he only had time to look at the license
10:50
Speaker 1: plate and remember three numbers. That's all he had time
10:52
Speaker 1: to do. Even one of the other guys, you know,
10:55
Speaker 1: he couldn't really remember the color of the cart, was
10:57
Speaker 1: it brownish or orange? So it would have been in
10:59
Speaker 1: a blink of an eye. So you're one hundred percent right.
11:01
Speaker 1: It happened so fast. Yeah. Now, Michael went to the school,
11:07
Speaker 1: the one where his kids were going with the man
11:10
Speaker 1: who followed them there, and he saw a man with
11:12
Speaker 1: shoulder length hair and a beard, and he confronted him,
11:15
Speaker 1: and then he tried to follow the man as he
11:17
Speaker 1: ran towards Bear Creek, but Michael eventually unfortunately lost him.
11:22
Speaker 1: He described the man as roughly five foot eight inches tall,
11:25
Speaker 1: about one hundred and fifty five pounds, with dirty, dishwater
11:28
Speaker 1: brown hair, which is probably the funniest description for a
11:31
Speaker 1: hair color I've ever heard in my life. The whole
11:34
Speaker 1: scenario left everyone involved terrified, and by the afternoon, Laurie's
11:38
Speaker 1: disappearance was already on TV. The public was told that
11:41
Speaker 1: she was only three years old and she had been
11:43
Speaker 1: taken at around twelve forty five PM while playing near
11:46
Speaker 1: her home. She was described as wearing a red T
11:49
Speaker 1: shirt with her hair and pigtails and her pants had
11:52
Speaker 1: been left behind. Richard, who is Laurie's dad, and Diane,
11:55
Speaker 1: who is Laurie's mother, had also turned to the news
11:58
Speaker 1: cameras almost immediately. They had no Amber alert system at
12:02
Speaker 1: the time, there was no social media and no instant
12:04
Speaker 1: way to push Laurie's photograph across the country. TV was
12:08
Speaker 1: one of the fastest ways they had to reach whoever
12:10
Speaker 1: might have seen the car or their daughter, so Diane
12:14
Speaker 1: pleaded with whoever had Laurie to please bring her back
12:17
Speaker 1: and not hurt her daughter. She called Laurie her baby
12:20
Speaker 1: and said that she loved her and wanted her home.
12:24
Speaker 1: By the morning of Tuesday, August twenty third, nineteen eighty three,
12:28
Speaker 1: three year old Laurie had been missing for almost a
12:31
Speaker 1: full day. Sheridan police had spent the previous afternoon and
12:35
Speaker 1: evening interviewing witnesses, searching the neighborhood, and following whatever information
12:40
Speaker 1: came in. The strongest lead remained the vehicle seen near
12:44
Speaker 1: Laurie's home just before she disappeared, and the partial plate
12:47
Speaker 1: became a focus, and so did the fact that Laurie
12:51
Speaker 1: might not have been the first child approached by this
12:54
Speaker 1: suspicious man in the area. The report of the five
12:57
Speaker 1: foot eight, one hundred and fifty five pound man with dirty,
13:00
Speaker 1: dishwater brown hair gave police a disturbing possibility to consider
13:05
Speaker 1: that they had a predator on the loose, the fact that,
13:08
Speaker 1: rather than being a completely isolated encounter, it seems that
13:12
Speaker 1: Laurie's disappearance could be connected to a man who had
13:15
Speaker 1: already been approaching children. So in August twenty third, the
13:19
Speaker 1: FBI joined the investigation, working alongside local authorities as police
13:24
Speaker 1: continued searching for Lourie and tried to identify the orange
13:28
Speaker 1: dotson and one of the most important developments came from
13:33
Speaker 1: a woman identified as Juanita Zappa see After news coverage
13:38
Speaker 1: of Laurie's disappearance, Juanita reportedly recognized the description of the
13:42
Speaker 1: vehicle from an earlier encounter outside her daughter's home on
13:45
Speaker 1: Spotswood Street in Denver. A man in a similar vehicle
13:49
Speaker 1: had allegedly been bothering her granddaughter, and because of that,
13:53
Speaker 1: her son in law had taken the liberty of writing
13:55
Speaker 1: down the vehicle's license plate, and that plate number was
13:59
Speaker 1: ADS six to seven, and when investigators ran the plate,
14:05
Speaker 1: it led them to a nineteen seventy two Dotson owned
14:08
Speaker 1: by a young man named Robert. Paul threat good.
14:12
Speaker 2: For these people, Like they're being quite observant here.
14:15
Speaker 1: Exactly, which is awesome, amazing, especially considering like it's not
14:20
Speaker 1: that it was like, oh my god, they're they're observant
14:21
Speaker 1: for the time, but it's it was a much more
14:23
Speaker 1: trusting time. People were outside, you know, playing and there
14:27
Speaker 1: was communities that were much closer. So the fact that
14:30
Speaker 1: they're that nuanced in their description and being that on
14:35
Speaker 1: top of watching things is incredible. Yeah, So good for them.
14:39
Speaker 2: I'm impressed.
14:41
Speaker 1: So police went to Robert's resident on August twenty third,
14:45
Speaker 1: and they began questioning him while also also turning their
14:48
Speaker 1: attention to his Dotson associated with that license plate number.
14:52
Speaker 1: Investigators also brought Paul Weaver near Robert's residence so he
14:56
Speaker 1: could take a look at the vehicle firsthand. Now, Paul
14:59
Speaker 1: Weaver was one of the witnesses where Laurie disappeared. The
15:01
Speaker 1: car was right outside his house. Paul was also the
15:05
Speaker 1: one who had described that license plate, but he didn't
15:07
Speaker 1: get the full plate. Now, Paul's reaction when he saw
15:11
Speaker 1: Robert's car was immediate. Paul identified it as the very
15:15
Speaker 1: vehicle that he had seen right then and there. Sheridan
15:18
Speaker 1: Police Chief Joe Stevenson also asked Robert for permission to
15:22
Speaker 1: look inside the Dotson, and Robert agreed. Detective Gliddon entered
15:28
Speaker 1: the vehicle, looking specifically for Lori or any clothes or
15:31
Speaker 1: anything that might belong to her. Investigators also obtained photographs
15:36
Speaker 1: and searched Robert's resident as well. Now, even with all
15:40
Speaker 1: the suspicions surrounding Robert and the Dotson, the search didn't
15:43
Speaker 1: answer the most urgent question of where Laurie was. Robert
15:48
Speaker 1: was then taken to the County District Attorney's office, where
15:51
Speaker 1: he arrived at approximately two twenty five pm. However, he
15:55
Speaker 1: was not under arrest. He was working with police vau entarily. Now.
16:02
Speaker 1: There he met Charles Grant Junior, a polygraph examiner working
16:06
Speaker 1: for the district's attorney. Robert was advised of all his
16:10
Speaker 1: rights and indicated that he understood them, and then agreed
16:14
Speaker 1: both to speak with Grant and even undergo a polygraph examination.
16:20
Speaker 1: He also signed written consent allowing investigators to search his
16:23
Speaker 1: home and his DATS and car. The car was subsequently
16:27
Speaker 1: towed by Sheridan police and taken to the County Crime
16:31
Speaker 1: Lab for thorough examination. The questioning continued for much the afternoon,
16:36
Speaker 1: and the polygraph examination was completed at approximately six point
16:40
Speaker 1: twenty four pm, after which Grant continued speaking with Robert
16:43
Speaker 1: for another forty five minutes to an hour. Now Throughout
16:47
Speaker 1: the process, Robert denied having anything to do with Laurie's disappearance,
16:51
Speaker 1: and before leaving, he even agreed to return the following
16:53
Speaker 1: day for additional questioning. Despite matching the witness's description connecting
16:59
Speaker 1: it to the full life Jason's plate and car description
17:02
Speaker 1: that they had been given. Investigators searched both the car
17:05
Speaker 1: and residence and questioned Robert for hours, but they came
17:08
Speaker 1: up empty handed. They still didn't know where Laurie had
17:11
Speaker 1: been or what happened to her after she disappeared, and
17:15
Speaker 1: without enough evidence at the stage to keep Robert in custody.
17:18
Speaker 1: In fact, he wasn't even in custody. He was allowed
17:21
Speaker 1: to walk free. News photographers were of course waiting for
17:25
Speaker 1: him outside, and cameras captured him covering his head with
17:28
Speaker 1: a sports coat and then hurried towards a vehicle waiting
17:31
Speaker 1: for him. Police began keeping Robert under close surveillance afterwards,
17:36
Speaker 1: watching his residence and following his movements while wider searches
17:40
Speaker 1: for Laurie continued, and the answer for what they were
17:44
Speaker 1: after came roughly twenty miles west of Denver, in the
17:48
Speaker 1: foothills near Interstate number seventy. It seems Laurie had been
17:54
Speaker 1: taken into the mountains on the afternoon of August twenty second,
17:57
Speaker 1: far from the Sheridan neighborhood where police, relatives and volunteers
18:01
Speaker 1: were searching for her, and what happened during the drive
18:04
Speaker 1: is difficult to reconstruct completely. Laurie herself had been very
18:08
Speaker 1: careful about explaining that in later years, so she was
18:12
Speaker 1: only three years old at the time, and as an adult,
18:15
Speaker 1: she explained that her memories of the kidnapping came only
18:18
Speaker 1: in fragments, almost like individual photographs, rather than a continuous sequence.
18:24
Speaker 1: Other parts of what she knows came from interviews conducted
18:26
Speaker 1: with herself as a child, and clinical records and information
18:30
Speaker 1: she learned as she grew older. Laurie did remember pieces
18:34
Speaker 1: of that journey too, though she remembered being inside the
18:37
Speaker 1: car and eventually being taken away from the city and
18:40
Speaker 1: into the mountains. Then at some point the man who
18:44
Speaker 1: had taken her sexually abused her. Laurie was raped by
18:48
Speaker 1: the man, and afterwards she was brought to an isolated
18:51
Speaker 1: outhouse in the foothills near the chief Hosa exit from
18:55
Speaker 1: Interstate seventy in the Genessa area of Denver. Theouse was
19:00
Speaker 1: built over a deep waste pit. Laurie was then dangled
19:03
Speaker 1: through the opening of that outhouse pit and dropped inside,
19:07
Speaker 1: essentially being discarded, leaving her trapped about six to eight
19:13
Speaker 1: feet down below the ground with no practical way of
19:16
Speaker 1: climbing out. Now, of course, I don't believe I need
19:20
Speaker 1: to get too descriptive in what the contents of that
19:22
Speaker 1: pit contained, but there was in fact plenty of human waste, liquid,
19:26
Speaker 1: and debris down there. Now, Laurie, even though she was
19:29
Speaker 1: only three, managed to find pieces of wood and other
19:33
Speaker 1: material and debris to use them to create something that
19:36
Speaker 1: she could kind of climb up on and sit on,
19:39
Speaker 1: rather than remaining completely immersed in the filth. Even then,
19:44
Speaker 1: portions of her body still remained exposed to the contents
19:46
Speaker 1: of that pit for long periods. The chemicals inside and
19:50
Speaker 1: the waist would eventually begin to affect her legs severely
19:54
Speaker 1: with discoloration eventually extending upwards towards her thighs, pelvis, and
19:59
Speaker 1: her leg even began to turn black. Now, there is
20:03
Speaker 1: something that is extremely sad in the irony of this
20:06
Speaker 1: entire situation, and it shows just how innocent Laurie really was. See,
20:12
Speaker 1: she had only recently been potty trained, and as she
20:16
Speaker 1: sat there inside the pit for hours, she worried about
20:19
Speaker 1: going to the bathroom because she thought her mother might
20:22
Speaker 1: be upset with her.
20:24
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this is breaking my heart.
20:28
Speaker 1: The situation surrounding her was beyond anything any three year
20:32
Speaker 1: old could reasonably even begin to understand. Yet part of
20:35
Speaker 1: her was thinking of trying to remain with ordinary rules,
20:39
Speaker 1: things that she's learned at home, and not really comprehending
20:43
Speaker 1: the situation. There was, of course, also no food and
20:47
Speaker 1: no clean water inside that pit. Laurie was trapped isolated
20:51
Speaker 1: and began suffering physically from the effects of the pit,
20:54
Speaker 1: and the longer she sat there, the worse it got.
20:57
Speaker 1: Her feet and legs being exposed to the bacteria filled
21:00
Speaker 1: liquid in the bottom of the pit for extended periods
21:03
Speaker 1: caused swelling and problems with circulation. She cried out and
21:07
Speaker 1: called but the outhouse and was. It was just in
21:09
Speaker 1: a remote area. There was no guarantee anyone would even
21:12
Speaker 1: come close enough to hear her screams. Then soon one
21:16
Speaker 1: day became two, and then three. Yet she still remained
21:21
Speaker 1: in the bottom of that outhouse pit while the search
21:24
Speaker 1: taking place was miles away, and it continued with no results. Meanwhile,
21:29
Speaker 1: she's just abandoned in the mountains. Police meanwhile focused on
21:35
Speaker 1: Robert and the Poland family was living through horrors Publicly,
21:40
Speaker 1: Laurie's photograph and description continued circulating through TV coverage as
21:44
Speaker 1: her parents waited for any sort of information to roll in. Then,
21:48
Speaker 1: on Thursday, August twenty fifth, three days after Laurie went missing,
21:53
Speaker 1: two visitors from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Stephen and Cynthia Galin, were
21:58
Speaker 1: in the mountains of West Enver on a bird watching trip.
22:02
Speaker 1: According to the statements they later gave authorities, they'd been
22:05
Speaker 1: on Stapleton Drive since about eight am that morning, watching
22:08
Speaker 1: birds as they moved through the area. Now, eventually Cynthia
22:12
Speaker 1: needed to use a restroom and the couple stopped in
22:14
Speaker 1: a remote picnic area where there were two outhouses. Cynthia
22:18
Speaker 1: went inside one of them, and as she was preparing
22:21
Speaker 1: to leave, she heard something that made her stop. Stephen,
22:25
Speaker 1: who was outside, heard it too, and the couple began
22:27
Speaker 1: searching around the picnic area and checking both the outhouses,
22:30
Speaker 1: trying to determine where this sound was coming from. As
22:34
Speaker 1: they listened, the voice became unmistakably that of a young child.
22:39
Speaker 1: The girl had been calling out, actually specifically for her mother,
22:43
Speaker 1: saying that she needed something to drink, and she was saying, quote,
22:47
Speaker 1: I want some kool aid end quote. The Gallins initially
22:52
Speaker 1: went back to their vehicle to get a flashlight. Then
22:55
Speaker 1: when they returned to the outhouses, they began to slowly
22:57
Speaker 1: realize the voice was not coming from somewhere in the
23:00
Speaker 1: surrounding woods. It was coming from beneath them. Stephen shawn
23:05
Speaker 1: the flashlight down through the opening in that outhouse and
23:08
Speaker 1: saw a little girl in the bottom of the pit.
23:11
Speaker 1: Shocked at what he was seeing, he simply asked her
23:14
Speaker 1: what she was doing down there, and her answer was
23:18
Speaker 1: startling in its simplicity. She responded and said, I live here.
23:24
Speaker 2: Holy frick, this is just hard to comprehend all of
23:29
Speaker 2: this that's happening right now.
23:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Stephen asked her if she wanted to come out,
23:34
Speaker 1: and Laurie of course answered yes. At that point, the
23:37
Speaker 1: gall Ins did not know that the child below them
23:40
Speaker 1: was the three year old who disappeared, and it was
23:43
Speaker 1: dominating the news all over for the last previous days,
23:46
Speaker 1: but their immediate concern was getting her help, so emergency
23:51
Speaker 1: services were contacted and authorities began converging on the remote site.
23:55
Speaker 1: By approximately ten forty five am, police had blocked the
23:59
Speaker 1: only road leading to the area, but responding officers didn't
24:03
Speaker 1: still yet know that this girl in the pit was
24:05
Speaker 1: Lorie Poland. Firefighters from Highland Rescue Team were among those
24:10
Speaker 1: called to the scene, and rescuer Steve Baker was the
24:13
Speaker 1: one who went down into the pit to reach Lourie,
24:17
Speaker 1: and he later remembered finding her laying at the bottom
24:20
Speaker 1: on sticks and debris that she had built up as
24:22
Speaker 1: a quasi little platform. Then when he picked her up,
24:27
Speaker 1: Lurie grabbed onto him and held on tightly. She did
24:30
Speaker 1: not want to let go, and when Laurie was brought up,
24:34
Speaker 1: she was quickly placed in an ambulance. One member of
24:38
Speaker 1: the rescue team who accompanied her during the ambulance ride
24:40
Speaker 1: remembered their conversation revolving mostly around food Laurie talked to
24:45
Speaker 1: him about burritos and tacos, and was communicating well enough
24:49
Speaker 1: that the rescuers could actually carry on conversations with her.
24:53
Speaker 1: She was clearly cold, clearly very hungry, and even upset
24:56
Speaker 1: by what happened, but still the paramedics were happy to
25:00
Speaker 1: see that she was in good shape enough at the
25:02
Speaker 1: very least have these conversations, and from there it didn't
25:06
Speaker 1: take long for the police to put the pieces together.
25:09
Speaker 1: This was Laurie Poland and she had been found alive.
25:14
Speaker 1: She was taken by the ambulance to Saint Anthony's Central
25:16
Speaker 1: Hospital in Denver, and there were news cameras capturing Richard
25:20
Speaker 1: and Diane being reunited with their daughter, holding on to
25:24
Speaker 1: the little girl they had spent the last three days
25:27
Speaker 1: pleading for someone to bring home.
25:30
Speaker 2: Now.
25:30
Speaker 1: The rescue, of course, did not mean that Laurie had
25:32
Speaker 1: escaped those days unharmed. She'd been subject to sexual assault
25:36
Speaker 1: and rape before being left and dropped into this pit.
25:40
Speaker 1: She had also gone without proper food or clean water,
25:42
Speaker 1: and spent days exposed to the conditions at the bottom
25:46
Speaker 1: of this outhouse. She required medical treatment and medical observation
25:50
Speaker 1: after her rescue. Some doctors even believed that her legs
25:54
Speaker 1: may need to be amputated. There were even some reports
25:58
Speaker 1: that several of her organs were beginning to fail, so
26:01
Speaker 1: getting her the right treatment was critical.
26:04
Speaker 2: Now.
26:04
Speaker 1: While Laurie was being taken to the hospital and being treated,
26:08
Speaker 1: the isolated picnic area that she was found in became
26:11
Speaker 1: a crime scene. Jefferson County authorities, shared in police, and
26:16
Speaker 1: the FBI were all involved. As reporters were kept back,
26:20
Speaker 1: officers searched the surrounding areas, and helicopters flew overhead looking
26:23
Speaker 1: for anything that might help explain how Laurie had ended
26:27
Speaker 1: up there. Investigators examined the ground around the outhouse for
26:31
Speaker 1: evidence and made plaster casts of tire tracks and footprints
26:34
Speaker 1: found in the dirt. But all the while, the simple
26:38
Speaker 1: fact that Laurie was found out here at all was
26:41
Speaker 1: on everyone's mind. The Gallins had been in the mountains
26:45
Speaker 1: to watch birds, and they'd stopped because Cynthia needed to
26:48
Speaker 1: use a bathroom. Had they chosen another location or simply
26:52
Speaker 1: continued driving, Laurie's cries might have gone unheard, and that
26:57
Speaker 1: outhouse may have become her whom for investigators. However, finding
27:03
Speaker 1: Laurie alive changed the case in an even more important way, because,
27:07
Speaker 1: despite being only three years old, she could communicate, but
27:12
Speaker 1: anything police did with her now had to account for
27:15
Speaker 1: her age to avoid influencing what she would tell them.
27:21
Speaker 1: On Saturday, August twenty seventh, nineteen eighty three, two days
27:25
Speaker 1: after Lauria was rescued, Sheridan Police Chief Joe Stevenson and
27:30
Speaker 1: another investigator went to the hospital to conduct an identification procedure.
27:35
Speaker 1: Laurie was sitting there on her mother, Diane's lap, when
27:38
Speaker 1: officers began showing her photographs. But rather than simply placing
27:42
Speaker 1: a photograph of the suspect, Robert in front of her
27:46
Speaker 1: and asking whether this was the man or not, police
27:49
Speaker 1: included other photographs, much like you would expect from a
27:53
Speaker 1: photo lineup. However, these were people who had nothing to
27:57
Speaker 1: do with the abduction. Among them were investigators. There was
28:01
Speaker 1: a reserve police officer, a police janitor, and even Chief
28:06
Speaker 1: Stevenson himself. The intention was to see whether Laurie would
28:10
Speaker 1: distinguish anyone on her own, rather than simply agreeing with
28:14
Speaker 1: an adult's suggestion that this is the bad man.
28:18
Speaker 2: Right.
28:19
Speaker 1: No, they're putting friendly faces in there. People. She's seen
28:22
Speaker 1: people she doesn't know amongst this predator.
28:26
Speaker 2: So they're doing this, they're really thinking about this and
28:29
Speaker 2: doing this well exactly.
28:31
Speaker 1: For most of the photographs, Laurie showed not much of
28:34
Speaker 1: a meaningful reaction, recognizing, you know, the chief, for example,
28:37
Speaker 1: things like that. But when she reached the photograph of
28:40
Speaker 1: Robert Turret, that changed. Chief Stevenson said, Laurie's face expression
28:46
Speaker 1: changed dramatically. She pointed to Robert's photo and identified him
28:50
Speaker 1: as the man who had put her in that hole
28:52
Speaker 1: by saying, quote, Mommy, that's him. That's the bad man
28:56
Speaker 1: who put me in the hole. End quote. Doctor Richard Krugman,
29:02
Speaker 1: a child abuse specialist who later reviewed video of Lourie's identification,
29:07
Speaker 1: described her response as firm and said her body language
29:11
Speaker 1: changed when she saw the photo of Robert. But police
29:14
Speaker 1: did not rely on that single photo identification, though they
29:18
Speaker 1: wanted to be sure, so Laurie was also shown Robert
29:21
Speaker 1: through both photographic and videotaped identification procedures, and she picked
29:26
Speaker 1: Robert in both the lineups. The fact that she was
29:30
Speaker 1: only three, however, meant prosecutors could not assume that everything
29:34
Speaker 1: she said or every identification she made would automatically be
29:38
Speaker 1: admitted in court, a judge would eventually have to consider
29:42
Speaker 1: whether her statements were sufficiently reliable. Meanwhile, investigators continued examining
29:49
Speaker 1: Robert's vehicle for any physical evidence. Now, during the search,
29:52
Speaker 1: a hare was recovered from the car that investigators believed
29:56
Speaker 1: might have come from Laurie. Now, forensic testing in nineteen
30:00
Speaker 1: eighty three could not provide anything resembling the certainty that
30:04
Speaker 1: modern DNA analysis can. So examination unfortunately did not conclusively
30:09
Speaker 1: establish that the hare belonged to Laurie. It only pointed
30:13
Speaker 1: to the fact that it potentially could belong to Laurie. Now,
30:18
Speaker 1: Robert continued denying any responsibility. He continued to say that
30:21
Speaker 1: he had not abducted Lourie, that he did not know
30:24
Speaker 1: what had happened to her. But that denial now stood
30:27
Speaker 1: against a growing collection of circumstantial and eyewitness evidence, most
30:31
Speaker 1: importantly the identification made by Laurie herself. So authority soon
30:37
Speaker 1: moved to formally hold Robert, and they arrested him and
30:40
Speaker 1: placed him in jail on a two hundred and fifty
30:43
Speaker 1: thousand dollars bond, and his first court appearance drew intense
30:47
Speaker 1: attention security around him. Became unusually heavy as public anger
30:52
Speaker 1: over the crime grew. Armed deputies were stationed around the
30:56
Speaker 1: courthouse and spectators entering the courtroom were sir arched. Robert
31:01
Speaker 1: initially appeared in court without an attorney, and when Judge
31:04
Speaker 1: Robert Kelly asked whether he wanted the court to appoint one,
31:08
Speaker 1: Robert said yes. So public defenders Pat Vance and Craig
31:12
Speaker 1: Truman were assigned and the judge ordered the parties to
31:15
Speaker 1: return when the formal charges would be addressed. Now, even
31:20
Speaker 1: at this early stage, prosecutors understood that the case was
31:23
Speaker 1: not a simple one. It was not very straightforward as
31:28
Speaker 1: far as the evidence goes. It was all circumstantial. Sure
31:32
Speaker 1: they might have a license plate from a previous incident
31:34
Speaker 1: where he was seen around kids. Sure you have other
31:37
Speaker 1: people who have partial license plates or an orange Datson
31:41
Speaker 1: described seeing where Laurie was abducted, But there's no evidence
31:45
Speaker 1: that it was in fact even Robert. Maybe it was
31:49
Speaker 1: his car, but maybe a friend borrowed it. Who's to say,
31:53
Speaker 1: so it's all circumstantial. The most direct identification of the
31:57
Speaker 1: man was from Laurie, a three year old. District Attorney
32:02
Speaker 1: Bob Gallagher openly acknowledged the problem here whether Lori's statements
32:06
Speaker 1: could be used would be subject to the scrutiny by
32:09
Speaker 1: the judge, who would have to determine whether they were
32:12
Speaker 1: credible enough and legally admissible in court. Now, Robert ultimately
32:18
Speaker 1: faced a series of serious charges from Laurie's abduction, and
32:23
Speaker 1: on September twelfth, nineteen eighty three, prosecutors filed the formal
32:28
Speaker 1: charges against Robert, attempted first degree murder, two counts of
32:32
Speaker 1: second degree kidnapping, child abuse, sexual assault on a child,
32:36
Speaker 1: and a crime of violence charge. The defense meanwhile began
32:40
Speaker 1: challenging the way investigators had developed the case against Robert,
32:43
Speaker 1: including the searches of his property and the statements he
32:46
Speaker 1: made while being questioned. If you recall, officers did not
32:51
Speaker 1: simply arrest Robert the moment they found his orange dots
32:54
Speaker 1: and vehicle. Instead, they spoke with him. They sought permission
32:58
Speaker 1: to search his property. Chief Joe Stevenson asked whether investigators
33:02
Speaker 1: could look inside his vehicle, and Robert consented. Detective Gliddon
33:08
Speaker 1: searched the dats for Laurie for anything belonging to her,
33:12
Speaker 1: and Robert subsequently signed written forms authorizing more extensive searches
33:16
Speaker 1: for both his home and his car, and the vehicle
33:19
Speaker 1: was even taken to the county crime lab, and so
33:22
Speaker 1: the defense sought to prevent prosecutors from using any evidence
33:27
Speaker 1: that was obtained during those searches. The questioning of the
33:31
Speaker 1: District Attorney's office also came under scrutiny too. Robert had
33:34
Speaker 1: arrived there at approximately two to twenty five pm on
33:37
Speaker 1: August twenty three and was advised of his rights before
33:39
Speaker 1: agreeing to speak with a polygraph examiner, Charles Grant Junior.
33:44
Speaker 1: He then underwent the examination, which ended at approximately six
33:47
Speaker 1: twenty four pm, and Grant continued speaking with him afterwards.
33:51
Speaker 1: Robert was ultimately allowed to leave and agreed to return
33:54
Speaker 1: the following day, and the prosecution maintained that he had
33:57
Speaker 1: cooperated voluntarily, while the defense challenged portions of this encounter
34:02
Speaker 1: and the evidence that followed it, saying they could not
34:05
Speaker 1: legally use it now. The disputes between these two sides
34:09
Speaker 1: eventually moved beyond the trial court. The prosecution brought an
34:14
Speaker 1: intellectuory appeal, meaning that an evidentiary issue was taken to
34:19
Speaker 1: a higher court before the criminal trial itself was completed,
34:23
Speaker 1: forcing the courts to examine whether investigators acted lawfully while
34:27
Speaker 1: building the case. So essentially there is a legal case
34:31
Speaker 1: before his legal case to see if all those pieces
34:36
Speaker 1: of evidence in the searches and the inquiries and all
34:39
Speaker 1: that could be used in the actual trial.
34:44
Speaker 2: This does seem really tough. Hey, it is, like, I
34:48
Speaker 2: don't understand how Like it's hard to understand that they're
34:53
Speaker 2: not finding anything that's just so easily to make him guilty.
34:57
Speaker 1: You know, right, But the biggest thing they have is
35:00
Speaker 1: you know, Laurie identifying it.
35:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the mag it is, but the fact of
35:04
Speaker 2: her age, so that's really tough.
35:06
Speaker 1: It is now beyond these legal arguments, prosecutors had to
35:11
Speaker 1: consider how their evidence would actually hold up in trial,
35:14
Speaker 1: which comes up to the fact that, you know, she
35:15
Speaker 1: is only three years old. There are weaknesses in their case,
35:19
Speaker 1: and some of the young witnesses they had actually at
35:22
Speaker 1: the scene where Lurie went missing even gave slightly different
35:25
Speaker 1: descriptions of the car and its driver. The hair recovered
35:28
Speaker 1: from Robert's vehicle could not conclusively be identified as Lorie,
35:32
Speaker 1: and evidence collected around the outhouse, for example, those tracks
35:36
Speaker 1: and the tire prints that they were taking impressions of
35:39
Speaker 1: they didn't physically link to Robert either, so they had
35:41
Speaker 1: no physical evidence. Laurie's identification of Robert was extremely important.
35:47
Speaker 1: I can't highlight that enough, but even that presented problems
35:51
Speaker 1: because she's three years old. District Attorney Bob Gallagher explained
35:56
Speaker 1: that a judge would have to decide whether her statements
35:59
Speaker 1: were reliable, and that is the foundation of it all,
36:03
Speaker 1: and if they were excluded. If they were not found
36:07
Speaker 1: to be reliable, prosecutors would lose one of the strongest
36:10
Speaker 1: pieces of evidence connecting Robert directly to the crime, in fact,
36:14
Speaker 1: probably the main piece of evidence in the entire case.
36:18
Speaker 2: Gosh, this is stressing me out now.
36:21
Speaker 1: None of this meant prosecutors believed they had the wrong man.
36:23
Speaker 1: It only meant they were uncertain of how much of
36:26
Speaker 1: their case could be successfully put before a jury. The
36:31
Speaker 1: defense continued challenging the evidence while Robert maintained his innocence,
36:35
Speaker 1: and the case remained tied up in the pre trial proceedings,
36:39
Speaker 1: and by September nineteen eighty four, more than a year
36:41
Speaker 1: had passed since Lorie's abduction and there was still no trial,
36:45
Speaker 1: and rather than continuing towards an uncertain courtroom battle, prosecutors
36:51
Speaker 1: and Robert's attorney eventually began discussing another way to resolve
36:54
Speaker 1: the case. They began negotiating, and they agreed on a
36:59
Speaker 1: plea deal.
37:00
Speaker 3: Ah.
37:02
Speaker 1: The decision was extremely controvers controversial sorry almost immediately and
37:07
Speaker 1: under the agreement, Robert admitted through his attorney, to central
37:12
Speaker 1: acts committed against Lourie, meaning the circumstantial evidence was no
37:17
Speaker 1: longer the only thing telling the story. Robert was as well.
37:22
Speaker 1: For the first time, the denial he had maintained during
37:26
Speaker 1: the investigation was replaced with an admission. Robert acknowledged to
37:33
Speaker 1: telling three year old Laurie to take off her pants
37:36
Speaker 1: and get into his car. He admitted to driving her
37:40
Speaker 1: west from Sheridan towards Chief Josah exit off Interstate seventy,
37:45
Speaker 1: where he raped her. Then he took Lourie to the
37:49
Speaker 1: outhouse and dropped her in the pit beneath it, leaving
37:52
Speaker 1: her there. Now the plea agreement also meant that there
37:56
Speaker 1: would be no lengthy trial, and on September twenty seventh,
38:00
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, Robert appeared for sentencing. Security around the
38:05
Speaker 1: proceedings once again had armed deputies stationed around the courthouse,
38:09
Speaker 1: and spectators were searched when entering the courtroom. When the
38:13
Speaker 1: sentencing was handed down, Robert ultimately received only ten years
38:19
Speaker 1: in prison for his crimes.
38:21
Speaker 2: Holy frig I'm surprised that there isn't like a riot
38:26
Speaker 2: happening after that.
38:28
Speaker 1: I know, that is absurd. That is disgusting.
38:32
Speaker 2: That is ten years fricking disgusting. Because he's kind of
38:35
Speaker 2: young too, so that means that he's gonna get okay. Yeah, no,
38:40
Speaker 2: that's not okay. That is not okay. What the shit?
38:44
Speaker 2: I know.
38:44
Speaker 1: So the fact the fact that it's a concern, they
38:47
Speaker 1: didn't go to trial because they're like, well, I don't
38:49
Speaker 1: know if we can prove it. Well, let's do a
38:51
Speaker 1: plea deal. Will you admit you did it? Okay, I
38:53
Speaker 1: admit I did it. Now'll give me less what Oh gosh,
38:59
Speaker 1: he's just like, yeah, I raped, I kidnapped, raped, and
39:03
Speaker 1: discarded of a human being that was three years old
39:06
Speaker 1: in an outhouse to die.
39:08
Speaker 2: Because he still would have been found guilty in that,
39:12
Speaker 2: you know, if there was like a jury and stuff,
39:14
Speaker 2: he would have been found guilty.
39:16
Speaker 1: If they took Laurie's account, he would have been found guilty.
39:21
Speaker 1: That that was the big thing. If if they said that,
39:24
Speaker 1: you know what, a three year old's account and identifying
39:27
Speaker 1: Robert as being the individual is not something we can
39:31
Speaker 1: take for face value. Who's to say she's not influenced.
39:35
Speaker 1: Who's to say she's got the wrong guy? She doesn't
39:37
Speaker 1: know for sure, she's only three. If they say that,
39:40
Speaker 1: the case is out the window and he'd walk free.
39:43
Speaker 2: So they were worried about taking that risk basically. So,
39:46
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess ten years is better than nothing,
39:50
Speaker 2: but the fact that this monster did this to a
39:54
Speaker 2: little little like a tiny little girl, yeah, and gets
39:58
Speaker 2: ten fucking years.
39:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's disgusting.
40:01
Speaker 2: It's so disgusting. Yeah.
40:03
Speaker 1: Now, the reaction outside the courthouse was immediate. Protesters gathered
40:08
Speaker 1: to condemn the plea bargain and the sentence, arguing that
40:12
Speaker 1: ten years bore little resemblance to the severity of what
40:16
Speaker 1: had happened to Laurie and what he did. The crime
40:19
Speaker 1: had begun with an abduction of a three year old
40:21
Speaker 1: child in broad daylight, continued with rape, and ended with
40:24
Speaker 1: Laurie being placed at the bottom of an isolated outhouse
40:27
Speaker 1: pit without food, clean water, or any means to climb out,
40:30
Speaker 1: and was essentially discarded to die. Her survival had depended
40:35
Speaker 1: only on chance when two bird watchers happened to stop
40:39
Speaker 1: by the right place three days later.
40:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, because, like you said, his intention was that she
40:44
Speaker 2: died in there.
40:45
Speaker 1: Yes, the plea guaranteed that Robert would be convicted and
40:49
Speaker 1: imprisoned instead of forcing prosecutors to do that gamble the
40:52
Speaker 1: roll of the dice, but it also resulted in Robert
40:56
Speaker 1: getting a far too lenient of a sentence. The case
41:00
Speaker 1: had frightened families across Colorado, and the relief surrounding her
41:04
Speaker 1: case and rescue basically was followed by anger as the
41:08
Speaker 1: public learned what was going to be done with him
41:11
Speaker 1: and what had been done to Lauri. After court, Robert
41:16
Speaker 1: was taken to the Arapenhoe County Jail and placed under
41:20
Speaker 1: special protective custody because of threats against him. From there,
41:24
Speaker 1: he entered the Colorado Correctional System to begin serving his sentence.
41:29
Speaker 1: For the Poland family, the criminal case had at least
41:32
Speaker 1: produced an answer the unidentified man and the orange dotson
41:36
Speaker 1: was no longer on an unknown figure, but the sentence
41:40
Speaker 1: didn't provide the clean ending they'd hoped for, but still
41:44
Speaker 1: Laurie was home and Robert was behind bars, and the
41:48
Speaker 1: immediate criminal case was largely over. But the effects of
41:51
Speaker 1: August nineteen eighty three were already becoming something that the
41:55
Speaker 1: Polan family would have to live with long after the
41:59
Speaker 1: courthouse emptied out. See there was a basic assumption behind
42:02
Speaker 1: the sentence that would soon become important. We know Robert
42:07
Speaker 1: had been given ten years, and much of the public
42:10
Speaker 1: ten years meant that he would remain in prison for
42:13
Speaker 1: ten years, But the way Colorado calculated a prisoner's sentence, however,
42:18
Speaker 1: made the reality considerably more complicated. See. Under Colorado's sentencing
42:24
Speaker 1: system at the time, inmates could accumulate credits that reduced
42:30
Speaker 1: the amount of time they were required to serve, and
42:33
Speaker 1: by nineteen ninety Robert had served roughly six years. But
42:38
Speaker 1: state officials were deeply concerned about the possibility of his
42:41
Speaker 1: release coming up, especially since, according to later reports, authorities
42:46
Speaker 1: responsible for evaluating Robert continue to regard him as dangerous
42:50
Speaker 1: and there were legitimate fears that he could commit another
42:55
Speaker 1: sexual offense against a child if he returned to the community.
43:01
Speaker 1: Colorado officials wanted to keep him locked up as a result,
43:04
Speaker 1: and Governor Roy Romer even became involved in the effort
43:08
Speaker 1: to keep Robert incarcerated, but the state faced a fundamental problem. However,
43:14
Speaker 1: strongly officials believe Robert remained dangerous, they could not simply
43:19
Speaker 1: extend a criminal sentence beyond what Colorado law allowed. Their
43:24
Speaker 1: hands were tied. The dispute ultimately reached the Colorado Supreme
43:28
Speaker 1: Court in another case, and the court concluded that the
43:32
Speaker 1: applicable Colorado law required those credits to in fact be recognized,
43:36
Speaker 1: and so on December seventh, nineteen ninety, after serving a
43:40
Speaker 1: little more than six years of his ten year sentence,
43:44
Speaker 1: Robert was released from prison. He was approximately only twenty
43:49
Speaker 1: eight years old, and he was free.
43:52
Speaker 2: I am, honestly just like I was just like biting
43:56
Speaker 2: my tongue as you were saying that because I'm but
43:58
Speaker 2: I'm almost speechless here.
44:00
Speaker 1: I feel you. This is beyond disgusting. Whole six years. Gee,
44:06
Speaker 1: he raped a three year old child and left her
44:08
Speaker 1: for dead, and he gets six years behind bars.
44:12
Speaker 2: Even though people are worried about like the public safety
44:17
Speaker 2: with him out and about yeah, not.
44:19
Speaker 1: Even just people worried. Professionals who are actually examining him
44:23
Speaker 1: are saying he's a risk. Wow.
44:27
Speaker 2: I mean, gosh, the thing is that we talk about
44:29
Speaker 2: this so often in these fucking cases, because it's like,
44:33
Speaker 2: who are you protecting?
44:34
Speaker 1: Protecting the predator?
44:36
Speaker 2: Why the hell are we protecting this piece of shit garbage, Like,
44:41
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, he should I don't know. There's a
44:43
Speaker 2: lot I want to say, but I like shouldn't probably
44:46
Speaker 2: say it, but like, I don't think that he should
44:49
Speaker 2: ever see the light of day again.
44:51
Speaker 1: I think he should have served his sentence in the bottom.
44:53
Speaker 2: Of an end, like yeah, I know, Like I don't
44:56
Speaker 2: even think he should be alive really because what he
44:59
Speaker 2: did is is just it's just it's beyond ever getting
45:04
Speaker 2: a second chance in my opinion.
45:05
Speaker 1: Ever, I agree if anyone does any sort of thing
45:09
Speaker 1: like this to a child, if you are a child predator,
45:13
Speaker 1: you do not get a second chance in my opinion. Period.
45:16
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, because the thing is too there was other
45:19
Speaker 2: incidences that he just wasn't successful. Yep, So what the
45:24
Speaker 2: hell is that not something that anyone's looking at. I
45:27
Speaker 2: know that just makes no sense.
45:29
Speaker 1: He has a predatory behavioral exact history.
45:32
Speaker 2: And they think in six years he's just gonna be
45:35
Speaker 2: all fine and dandy and out in the world and
45:37
Speaker 2: just a good citizen.
45:39
Speaker 1: No, they know he's not. They know he's not because
45:44
Speaker 1: they have people saying we've examined him, he's still a risk.
45:47
Speaker 1: Something's gonna happen. But they're saying, oh, well, well, we
45:51
Speaker 1: just got to wait until he does. I guess.
45:53
Speaker 2: Wow, that is not all right now.
45:56
Speaker 1: To top it all off, he also didn't leave prison
45:58
Speaker 1: under the kind of long term suit that many people
46:01
Speaker 1: would assume would follow something like this, especially when it's
46:04
Speaker 1: conviction involving abduction and rape of a three year old child.
46:08
Speaker 1: In fact, at the time, Colorado didn't even have any
46:11
Speaker 1: sort of modern sex offender registration system that we have today.
46:16
Speaker 1: So that's just the cherry on top of it all.
46:18
Speaker 1: But for Laurie and her family, Robert's release meant that
46:21
Speaker 1: the man who admitted to kidnapping her, admitted unspeakable crimes
46:26
Speaker 1: against her, and then abandoned her in an outhouse pit
46:29
Speaker 1: was free outside of a prison. The case had already
46:33
Speaker 1: produced enormous frustrations, but now seeing that sentence end early
46:37
Speaker 1: only intensified the criticism of how Colorado dealt with convicted
46:41
Speaker 1: sex offenders. Now, Robert eventually left Colorado and moved to California,
46:47
Speaker 1: and what happened there became particularly painful for Laurie. In
46:51
Speaker 1: the later years, as she grew older, she learned that
46:55
Speaker 1: Robert went on to sexually offend against another child in
46:59
Speaker 1: California was convicted once again.
47:02
Speaker 2: Holy frick, I just can't even with this case.
47:06
Speaker 1: Laurie has spoken publicly about that later victim and about
47:10
Speaker 1: the anger she feels knowing another child was harmed after
47:14
Speaker 1: Robert had already been convicted for what he did to her.
47:17
Speaker 1: And to top it off, Robert's problems with the criminal
47:19
Speaker 1: justice system didn't end there with that later offense either.
47:23
Speaker 1: In fact, in subsequent years, he reportedly was required to
47:25
Speaker 1: register as a sex offender in California and was in
47:28
Speaker 1: prison twice for failing to comply with registration requirements.
47:32
Speaker 2: So like, he did this again and he got out again. Yeah,
47:35
Speaker 2: basically is what that's saying.
47:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, decades after the kidnapping, California Sex Offender Registry
47:42
Speaker 1: continued to list Robert as a sex offender, although by
47:46
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, which is the most recent update I
47:49
Speaker 1: can find regarding his registration, his whereabouts were listed as unknown.
47:56
Speaker 2: Cool.
47:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, super cool.
47:58
Speaker 2: So this just piece, this is just wandering around somewhere.
48:02
Speaker 1: Probably he's just out there.
48:05
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's unsettling now.
48:08
Speaker 1: His release also contributed to a larger debate in Colorado
48:11
Speaker 1: as well. Within months of him leaving prison in nineteen ninety,
48:15
Speaker 1: legislation was introduced requiring certain convicted sex offenders to register
48:19
Speaker 1: their whereabouts with law enforcements. His case became part of
48:23
Speaker 1: the pressure behind Colorado's movement towards a formal sex offender
48:27
Speaker 1: registration system. After the incident, Laurie and the Poland family
48:32
Speaker 1: were showered with support. Strangers sent gifts and letters, and
48:36
Speaker 1: Laurie was even gifted a trip to Disneyland, But inside
48:40
Speaker 1: the family, there was no way to simply return to
48:43
Speaker 1: life as it had existed before August twenty second. Laurie
48:47
Speaker 1: later described all of them as having been affected by
48:50
Speaker 1: the crime in many different ways, explaining that they were
48:53
Speaker 1: essentially a family of traumatized people trying to support one
48:57
Speaker 1: another while dealing with their own pain. Her brother, she said,
49:02
Speaker 1: carried his own burden. He'd been only five years old
49:05
Speaker 1: when Laurie disappeared, and had been outside when she got
49:09
Speaker 1: into that car. Laurie has spoken about the guilt that
49:12
Speaker 1: he carried afterwards, despite being a young child himself and
49:15
Speaker 1: having no realistic ability to understand or prevent what was happening,
49:20
Speaker 1: but still to some degree he blamed himself. Her parents
49:25
Speaker 1: had endured several days believing their daughter might never come home,
49:29
Speaker 1: while Laurie was growing up with the effects of something
49:31
Speaker 1: that had happened before she was old enough to even
49:33
Speaker 1: understand it. Lloi remembers only pieces of the kidnapping itself.
49:40
Speaker 1: She's described her memories as flashes or photographs rather than
49:43
Speaker 1: continuous accounts, but the absence of a complete memory didn't
49:47
Speaker 1: mean the trauma was gone. As she grew older, she
49:50
Speaker 1: struggled with anxiety, depression, and a fear of abandonment. She
49:55
Speaker 1: has also described how difficult it has been when people
49:58
Speaker 1: suggest that because she was only three, she was too
50:02
Speaker 1: young to remember what had happened and should therefore be
50:04
Speaker 1: able to move past it all.
50:06
Speaker 2: Wow.
50:07
Speaker 1: The experience eventually created complications and divisions within her family.
50:13
Speaker 1: Lauria said that the family members experienced kidnapping through their
50:15
Speaker 1: own trauma and did not always understand why she needed
50:19
Speaker 1: to move on and began publicly speaking about her trauma.
50:23
Speaker 1: She learned that sometimes remaining quiet was easier than bringing
50:26
Speaker 1: up something that caused pain for everyone around her. As
50:29
Speaker 1: an adult, those tensions contributed to periods of limited contact
50:33
Speaker 1: with members of her family, and ultimately, rather than moving
50:36
Speaker 1: away from the subject completely, Laurie found herself drawn towards
50:41
Speaker 1: work involving people who'd experienced trauma. She has said that
50:46
Speaker 1: by the age of around eight years old, she already
50:49
Speaker 1: knew she wanted to grow up and help people, the
50:52
Speaker 1: same way the professionals who were surrounding her worked with
50:55
Speaker 1: her and helped her. By her early twenties, Laurie had
50:58
Speaker 1: began speaking publicly about what had happened. She discovered that
51:02
Speaker 1: telling the story could be painful, but it could also
51:06
Speaker 1: give her control over something that had shaped much of
51:08
Speaker 1: her childhood. She increasingly rejected the idea that survivors should
51:12
Speaker 1: be expected to remain silent simply because discussing abuse made
51:17
Speaker 1: other people uncomfortable. Then, in two thousand and three, Laurie
51:22
Speaker 1: reached another milestone when she became the first person in
51:25
Speaker 1: her family to graduate from college. She was recognized for
51:29
Speaker 1: her work that she was doing outside school, using her
51:32
Speaker 1: own experiences to help young people understand what had happened
51:36
Speaker 1: to them, and it did not determine the rest of
51:39
Speaker 1: their lives. Laurie eventually became a licensed professional counselor and therapist,
51:45
Speaker 1: building a career around trauma and childhood abuse. Her personal
51:49
Speaker 1: life was not untouched by what she had survived. She
51:52
Speaker 1: has spoken openly about divorce, difficult relationships, and a period
51:57
Speaker 1: when she even began using alcohol to numb some of
52:00
Speaker 1: the feelings she had. Over time, she continued therapy and
52:04
Speaker 1: developed what she describes as a new understanding of survival.
52:08
Speaker 1: Healing did not mean pretending the kidnapping to her never
52:12
Speaker 1: happened at all, but it meant learning how to live
52:16
Speaker 1: with the fact that it had. Her feelings towards Robert
52:21
Speaker 1: also changed. When Laurie was young, she considered actually speaking
52:25
Speaker 1: with him directly meeting him and speaking with him, and
52:29
Speaker 1: even forgiving him. As she grew older, though, and learned
52:33
Speaker 1: more about his history, including the fact that another child
52:36
Speaker 1: had been victimized after his release, she no longer felt
52:40
Speaker 1: any of that desire to meet him. Laurie also made
52:43
Speaker 1: a deliberate choice to continue saying Robert Tourette's name publicly,
52:48
Speaker 1: believing that remaining silent only protects the person who had
52:53
Speaker 1: harmed them. At the same time, she became interested in
52:58
Speaker 1: understanding why some victims of childhood abuse later become abusers themselves,
53:04
Speaker 1: and in doing so, Laurie learned that Robert had reportedly
53:07
Speaker 1: experienced abuse during his own childhood, although she was never
53:11
Speaker 1: viewing that as an excuse for what he did to her.
53:15
Speaker 1: The interest in prevention eventually became part of Lori's professional work.
53:20
Speaker 1: She joined doctor Richard Krugman, the child abuse specialists who
53:24
Speaker 1: had been involved in her case when she was only
53:27
Speaker 1: three years old, and in twenty eighteen they founded the
53:30
Speaker 1: National Foundation to End Child Abuse and Neglect or end CAN.
53:36
Speaker 1: The organization focuses on research, prevention, treatment, and support for
53:41
Speaker 1: people affected by childhood abuse and neglect, and in twenty
53:44
Speaker 1: twenty two, Laurie published her memoir titled I Live Here,
53:49
Speaker 1: Learning to Heal Through Embracing Your Story. Its title, of course,
53:54
Speaker 1: comes directly from her rescue in nineteen eighty three, when
53:57
Speaker 1: she was discovered beneath the outhouse and told Stephen Galland
54:00
Speaker 1: and I Live Here. Writing the memoir was reportedly extremely difficult,
54:06
Speaker 1: and Laurie later compared the experience to returning to that
54:08
Speaker 1: very outhouse as an adult and having to find her
54:12
Speaker 1: way out all over again. Laurie has since remarried, become
54:16
Speaker 1: part of a large, blended family, and continues to work
54:19
Speaker 1: as a therapist and an advocate. She has never suggested
54:23
Speaker 1: that the decades since her kidnapping erased what had happened
54:25
Speaker 1: to her. Instead, much of her adult life has been
54:29
Speaker 1: spent learning how to live with its effects, while using
54:32
Speaker 1: the experience to help other survivors. And that's the story
54:39
Speaker 1: of Laurie Poland.
54:41
Speaker 2: Pooh, incredible woman. Hey, yeah, definitely the badass of the day.
54:46
Speaker 2: Like there's no doubt.
54:47
Speaker 1: There you go. I was just about saying, do you
54:49
Speaker 1: want to name it? And there you go. She's lost
54:52
Speaker 1: the day for sure.
54:52
Speaker 2: Because the thing is, I don't know, you could just
54:55
Speaker 2: let being angry and like hearing how you know that
54:59
Speaker 2: he went on and hurt other people just consume you really. Yeah,
55:03
Speaker 2: but she is obviously very powerful individual and just using
55:10
Speaker 2: her time here to make the world a better place.
55:13
Speaker 1: I agree. I don't think I can say it any
55:15
Speaker 1: better than that you nailed it.
55:16
Speaker 2: Which, yeah, I think honestly, when you go through something
55:20
Speaker 2: that bad and then you're still just making the world
55:22
Speaker 2: a better place later is unreal.
55:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what she was striving to do. Yeah,
55:28
Speaker 1: better herself, better the world, better other people, and not
55:32
Speaker 1: letting Robert's name fade and holding it up and attaching
55:38
Speaker 1: shame to it. Fucking good on her. Absolutely, And she's right.
55:44
Speaker 1: Victims should not have to be embarrassed or keep their
55:48
Speaker 1: story quiet strictly because it makes other people uncomfortable. Yeah,
55:52
Speaker 1: if you don't like the story, if it makes you uncomfortable,
55:55
Speaker 1: you don't have to listen. That's the very reason why
55:59
Speaker 1: we do trigger warnings on episodes, because hey, heads up,
56:02
Speaker 1: we're talking about this. If you don't want to listen.
56:05
Speaker 1: If that makes you uncomfortable, you are free to leave.
56:07
Speaker 1: And I totally get that because it is uncomfortable, but
56:10
Speaker 1: it should not quell the voice of a victim. Their
56:13
Speaker 1: story should still be out there.
56:14
Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, it's totally their choice if they want to
56:17
Speaker 2: talk about it or not, right, And yeah, the fact
56:21
Speaker 2: that she's choosing to is pretty damn powerful in my opinions.
56:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, so badass of the day for sure. Yeah, well,
56:29
Speaker 1: thank you guys for listening to this story. Laurie does
56:32
Speaker 1: a lot of podcast interviews and many things like that
56:36
Speaker 1: she's got her end can company that she works with,
56:40
Speaker 1: and she's got her book. I do suggest you go
56:43
Speaker 1: out there, listen to some of her interviews, read her stuff.
56:46
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things out there she's done, So
56:49
Speaker 1: go invest yourself in her story because it's an incredible story.
56:53
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to leave it at that. Go
56:55
Speaker 1: listen to her, Go help her extend her voice to
56:58
Speaker 1: more of the world. Until next time, stay wicked.
58:00
Speaker 3: Oh oh oh