Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Teen barista girl Samantha Koenig falls victim to sick serial killer

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Teen barista girl Samantha Koenig falls victim to sick serial killer · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace. I want to ask for
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Speaker 1: her captors. If they please send my daughter home, I
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Speaker 1: If you don't have to go through the police, I
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Speaker 1: will meet you. I will give you whatever you want.
1:50
Speaker 1: Just please bring my daughter back. If you guys have
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Speaker 1: any questions for me, I'll take them. I don't have
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Speaker 1: any new information. The police hasn't been to give me
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Speaker 1: with the ongoing investigation. I just need her home. Every
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Speaker 1: day she's gone, We're the odds are against us, and
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Speaker 1: I need the whole community to come together and find
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Speaker 1: my daughter. Go door to door, every neighborhood, and anything suspicious,
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Speaker 1: no matter how small you think it is, called the police.
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Speaker 1: Call me. I will investigate it. Just please help find
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Speaker 1: my daughter. Not good. I don't think any of us
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Speaker 1: are holding up in this. I don't know if my
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Speaker 1: daughter's being fed, taken care of, if she's still alive,
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Speaker 1: if she's getting any sleep. I don't think any of
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Speaker 1: us are. A father's desperate plea to help find his
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Speaker 1: missing daughter. What happened to Samantha Sammy Koenick? She vanishes
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Speaker 1: on a Wednesday night from her coffee stand. They're in Anchorage,
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Speaker 1: but then clos circuit TV footage turns up showing an
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Speaker 1: armed man forcing her to leave the coffee shop. Joining
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Speaker 1: me right now, Special guest retired FBI Special Agent Bobby Chicone.
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Speaker 1: You can find him at Bobby Checone dot com. Director
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Speaker 1: of the Cold Case Research Institute, Cheryl McCullum, judge lawyer
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Speaker 1: anchor Ashley Wilcott you can find her at Ashley Wilcot
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Speaker 1: dot com and Joining me now Crime online dot com.
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Speaker 1: Investigative reporter Robin Olinsky, author of Beautiful Life, The CSI
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Speaker 1: behind the Casey Anthony Trial. Robin, I want to take
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Speaker 1: it at the beginning. What do we know about her disappearance? First,
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Speaker 1: tell me about the coffee stand where she worked. Well, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: this is a let's a bright blue you see it.
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Speaker 1: It's very small, you can see it from the road,
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Speaker 1: and it's called the Common Grounds Espresso coffee Stand. You
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Speaker 1: can pull up in your car and order whatever you need,
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Speaker 1: and the people who work there inside see you through
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Speaker 1: a window, almost like the old fashioned ice cream stands
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Speaker 1: where you would take your children, and the window slides
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Speaker 1: open and then you order that way, there's no actual
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Speaker 1: door where someone walks in. Your transaction is done through
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Speaker 1: a window. And she was working there part time, and
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Speaker 1: on this particular night that she goes missing, this was
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Speaker 1: a shift where she was closing this little coffee stand.
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Speaker 1: Joining me now special guests retired FBI agent who worked
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Speaker 1: on the case, Bobby. She can't describe the area for me, Bobby.
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Speaker 1: I mean it's often been said, if you want to
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Speaker 1: get lost, moved to Alaska. Well, you know, Anchorage is
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Speaker 1: consider a big city, but by some of our standards,
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Speaker 1: and myself included who lived in New York and now
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Speaker 1: lives in la Anchorage is kind of a small town.
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Speaker 1: And the area, particularly where the common Grounds coffee shop,
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Speaker 1: I would consider it. I would describe it as somewhat suburban.
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Speaker 1: It had stores, it had places. The parking lot where
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Speaker 1: the common Grounds was located was in the parking lot
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Speaker 1: of a health club, so you did have people coming
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Speaker 1: and going. However, of course, in February in Alaska, there
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Speaker 1: was about fifteen feet of snow that was bulldozed from
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Speaker 1: the parking lot and piled up around that parking lot.
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Speaker 1: So anyone driving by on that road, the main road
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Speaker 1: that runs by the coffee shop or the kiosk. The
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Speaker 1: coffee kiosk or Samantha was working would not have actually
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Speaker 1: seen that because of the high piles of snow in
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Speaker 1: February and Anchorage. To Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold
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Speaker 1: Case Research Institute, you like me, well, I'll speak for myself.
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Speaker 1: Grew up in the middle of nothing, Okay, as I
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Speaker 1: described it many many times. As far as you can see,
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Speaker 1: you see nothing but trees and soybeans, and so you know,
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Speaker 1: the fact that a crime would occur in a place
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Speaker 1: like that is even more unusual. You've got a low population.
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Speaker 1: But Bobby to CON's right, Anchorage is a big city
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Speaker 1: compared to many others. But still there are miles, thousands
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Speaker 1: of miles of pristine territory surrounding Anchorage. Cheryl McCollum, There's
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Speaker 1: tons of places to hide. There's tons of places to
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Speaker 1: hide a body, There's absolutely no question. But those of
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Speaker 1: us that have been to the last guy can tell you, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: Anchorage is a big city. But you can also stay
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Speaker 1: very lost if you want to. You can go and
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Speaker 1: not interact with other people or really see other people
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Speaker 1: for that matter. I'm taking a look at the area
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Speaker 1: and what Robin Lensky's reporting is absolutely correct. They're huge,
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Speaker 1: huge walls of snow and ice all surrounding the coffee
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Speaker 1: shop where someone had bulldozed the parking lot so people
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Speaker 1: could actually get in. The mystery surrounding the disappearance of
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Speaker 1: barista Samantha Konig only deepened and all of the coffee
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Speaker 1: stands cash disappeared along with and she is gorgeous. Samantha Konig.
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Speaker 1: The father is desperate and finally leverages everything he's got
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Speaker 1: to increase the reward Listen as daybreak so for Anchorage,
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Speaker 1: Samantha's dad calls the local police to report his only
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Speaker 1: daughter missing. One of our officers contacted the owner of
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Speaker 1: common Grounds coffee shop and she was able to show
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Speaker 1: them video. A man came to the little kiosk window
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Speaker 1: at eight o'clock. Samantha made a coffee drink for him,
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Speaker 1: turned back around, and then you can tell she's shocked.
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Speaker 1: You see her body language change. She goes from someone
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Speaker 1: who's just serving someone a coffee to being very nervous
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Speaker 1: and very concerned. Samantha turns out the lights and you
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Speaker 1: can see the individual jumping in through the window. You
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Speaker 1: can tell she's sort of going along with them because
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Speaker 1: he thinks that he's going to rob the place. It
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Speaker 1: just didn't come across to her and that she was
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Speaker 1: in danger until he starts walking her out of Samantha.
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Speaker 1: The individual leave the coffee stand and then disappear from
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Speaker 1: the line of sight from the camera. The next day,
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Speaker 1: her dad was raising hell about this, trying to figure
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Speaker 1: out where his daughter went. Use this area as a
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Speaker 1: meeting place because this is where my daughter was taken from.
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Speaker 1: People were just literally like, whose basement is she in?
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Speaker 1: Whose door do we have to go knock down to
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Speaker 1: find her? There wasn't any narrative for people to understand
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Speaker 1: what happened. Very upsetting. We knew she had to be
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Speaker 1: here somewhere. We had people who were donating money, thousands
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Speaker 1: of dollars. We had t shirts made, pens made, we
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Speaker 1: had people who were putting flyers throughout the state of Alaska.
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Speaker 1: These people need to give my daughter back so we
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Speaker 1: can get back with our lives. I will do anything,
8:32
Speaker 1: take me to Ashley Willcott, judge lawyer, anchor, Ashley dot
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Speaker 1: com boy and Ashley So yeah, So this is one
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Speaker 1: that you know, it just doesn't make sense as apparent.
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Speaker 1: You're like, what the heck happened? Yeah, there are all
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Speaker 1: these areas that anybody could you know. It is desolate.
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Speaker 1: That's just the best word for Alaska and these surroundings.
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Speaker 1: But somebody had to know something. What happened? Who was
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Speaker 1: she with? But then a stunning twist to the disappear
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Speaker 1: years of Samantha Konig. Good evening, everyone, The massive search
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Speaker 1: for missing barista Samantha Konig is over, but it's not
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Speaker 1: the news family and friends we're hoping for, which police
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Speaker 1: announced today they found a body they believed to be
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Speaker 1: Samantha Konigs in matt Nuska Lake out in the Valley
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Speaker 1: Channel tuesdays. Lamb was There's investigators dove into the fringe
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Speaker 1: and waters this evening, and he now joins us live
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Speaker 1: from the common Ground's coffee stand where Samantha was abducted
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Speaker 1: more than two months ago. Jason Maria, the place that
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Speaker 1: became so well known as the headquarters in the search
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Speaker 1: for Samantha Konig, has tonight become a makeshift memorial. You
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Speaker 1: can see all the flowers that people have left behind
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Speaker 1: in memory of Samantha. As news of her death spreads
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Speaker 1: across town tonight. At matt Nuska Lake Monday afternoon, a
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Speaker 1: worst case scenario showed up just outside Kevin Sturgeon's house.
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Speaker 1: I just thought people were ice fish, and that's all
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Speaker 1: I thought. I had no idea intentions on what was
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Speaker 1: going on. Rumors of a horrible development in the Samantha
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Speaker 1: Konig abduction became a lot more suspicious out in the
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Speaker 1: at Nuska Valley. Kevin says, snowmachine started showing up, just
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Speaker 1: riding back and forth and hereon Jansaw's like, just that's
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Speaker 1: all I've been hearing until I came out and I
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Speaker 1: just seen a bunch of people. And all it took
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Speaker 1: was the Anchorage Police Department Monday to make it official.
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Speaker 1: Police say Konig likely died within hours of her abduction
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Speaker 1: back in February. Divers remained at matt Newsca Lake into
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Speaker 1: Monday night after scrambling several APD, FBI, and State trooper
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Speaker 1: units earlier in the day when information was hard to
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Speaker 1: come by. We have information that's led us out here
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Speaker 1: and we're actively following him up straight out to retired
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Speaker 1: FBI Special Agent Bobby Chicone, you can find him at
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Speaker 1: Bobby Chaco dot com. Bobby, you helped pull Samantha Konig
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Speaker 1: out of that icy water. And here's the thing I
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Speaker 1: don't get, Bobby. She couldn't have fallen in the water.
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Speaker 1: She couldn't have been really thrown into the water because
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Speaker 1: it's covered with feet of ice. In fact, vehicles I'm
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Speaker 1: looking at the video right now, drive out on it,
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Speaker 1: full on vehicles, Drive out into the middle of the
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Speaker 1: river and start cutting into the ice to pull her
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Speaker 1: body up. So you can't just throw her overboard or
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Speaker 1: she can't just fall into the water. First, Let's start
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Speaker 1: with you getting her body out. Bobby che Comb, when
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Speaker 1: did you first find out you were heading out to
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Speaker 1: a body of water to drill down in the eyes
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Speaker 1: to look for a dead body. I found out on Friday,
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Speaker 1: March thirtieth, twenty twelve, when I got a call from
11:35
Speaker 1: my boss from the FBI laboratory in Chronicle, Virginia that
11:38
Speaker 1: we had a mission that we needed to carry out
11:40
Speaker 1: and my team was based in Los Angeles and we
11:43
Speaker 1: needed to fly up to anguage immediately to participate in
11:46
Speaker 1: a body recovery. They sent me some information on the lake,
11:51
Speaker 1: told me that it was frozen with about three to
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Speaker 1: four feet of solid ice on top. And so we
11:56
Speaker 1: knew right away that we would have to prepare for
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Speaker 1: such a job and conditions. And so the very next day, Saturday,
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Speaker 1: the thirty first of March, I was assembled my team
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Speaker 1: at our warehouse in Los Angeles. We packed our gear
12:08
Speaker 1: and shipped it up. We flew up there on the
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Speaker 1: first of April Sunday. We were briefed by the FBI
12:14
Speaker 1: in Alaska and the Alaska the Anchorage PD on the case.
12:19
Speaker 1: And Monday morning, the April second, we drove up to
12:22
Speaker 1: the lake, which is about forty miles north of Anchorage,
12:24
Speaker 1: and we conducted the search. The lake is a very
12:28
Speaker 1: popular fishing lake. People do ice fishing, so they go
12:31
Speaker 1: out on this lake. They kind of set up one
12:34
Speaker 1: of these small tents. They even I think some of
12:36
Speaker 1: them have small fires to keep warm inside these tents.
12:39
Speaker 1: They drill a circular hole about eight to ten inches
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Speaker 1: in diameter, and then they drop a fishing line in
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Speaker 1: and they do ice fishing. I'm actually in trance with
12:48
Speaker 1: what you're saying. If you've noticed, I haven't interrupted once,
12:50
Speaker 1: which is amazing. Okay, go ahead. So we went out
12:52
Speaker 1: to a particular part of the lake where we were
12:54
Speaker 1: told to search. We cut our own hole in the
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Speaker 1: ice and put down some sonar equipment to look around
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Speaker 1: for what might be what we might be looking for,
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Speaker 1: which was a body. Now we were told that the
13:08
Speaker 1: body may have been um disposed of in a particular way,
13:12
Speaker 1: and our sonar did indicate, you know, um, that that
13:16
Speaker 1: was consistent what we were being told. Okay, wait right
13:18
Speaker 1: right right right there, right there. Sonar. To Cheryl McCollum,
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Speaker 1: director of the Cold Case Research Institute, it's basically like
13:26
Speaker 1: a sonogram. I started to say X ray, but it's
13:28
Speaker 1: like a sonogram for water divers use. It used to
13:33
Speaker 1: use side scan sonar, where you go along the side
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Speaker 1: of a river or a body of water and look
13:38
Speaker 1: out into the middle. But in this case, Cheryl, I
13:41
Speaker 1: guess they had to do something very different with the
13:43
Speaker 1: ice covering it. But what's your experience with sonar and
13:46
Speaker 1: bodies of water, Cheryl, Well, with the underwater or sonar,
13:49
Speaker 1: what you're going to look for is the pattern where
13:52
Speaker 1: the image comes back and shows you are you looking
13:55
Speaker 1: at a body, are you possibly looking at a car tire,
13:57
Speaker 1: or you possibly looking at other jung or debris. So
14:01
Speaker 1: that you know where to serves like you don't want
14:03
Speaker 1: to spend your time looking, you know, at trees and
14:06
Speaker 1: logs that might be under the water when you're looking
14:08
Speaker 1: for something so specific. And what you know Agent Jacom
14:12
Speaker 1: is talking about is such an unbelievable recovery mission because
14:17
Speaker 1: of the ice. And again it tells you an awful
14:20
Speaker 1: lot about this perpetrator. What the purp would have to
14:22
Speaker 1: go through to get her body into that body of
14:25
Speaker 1: water through three or four feet of ice so thick
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Speaker 1: and so resistant that you can drive big cars out
14:34
Speaker 1: onto it, and as she will coop. Can you imagine
14:38
Speaker 1: her dad, who is just leveraged everything he's got to
14:42
Speaker 1: offer over forty thousand dollars reward when he finds out
14:46
Speaker 1: they're heading out to dig down under the ice for
14:50
Speaker 1: his daughter. No, I can't imagine at all. We especially
14:52
Speaker 1: those of us who have kids, You just can't imagine
14:55
Speaker 1: that anything that horrific would happen. And you have to
14:58
Speaker 1: have hope, right something happens, you can't locate your child.
15:02
Speaker 1: You have to hope and pray everything's fine. So to
15:04
Speaker 1: get the kind of news I can't even imagine what
15:08
Speaker 1: that would do to you. No, No, I can't either.
15:11
Speaker 1: I mean, Asha, you know me, when I go to
15:13
Speaker 1: the school to spy on the children at playground, if
15:15
Speaker 1: I don't see him out there, I just assume they've
15:17
Speaker 1: been kidnapped. Right, So I can't even imagine what this
15:21
Speaker 1: dad he sees the video surveillance of his daughter being
15:25
Speaker 1: taken out of the coffee stand by a guy with
15:30
Speaker 1: a gun. Then we start searching, We start searching. We
15:35
Speaker 1: find out she had taken out a t R, a
15:38
Speaker 1: protective order against an ex Robi Willinski. What was that
15:41
Speaker 1: about the protective order? Well, Nancy, someone was obviously stalking her,
15:45
Speaker 1: or upsetting her, or following her, and she went and
15:48
Speaker 1: filed all the paperwork, which as you know, is very lengthy,
15:53
Speaker 1: and you go before a judge and you say so
15:55
Speaker 1: and such John Smith is following me and harassing me,
15:58
Speaker 1: possibly text messages or phone calls or showing up at
16:02
Speaker 1: your place of business. And so here she is out
16:05
Speaker 1: in the middle, as the lower forty eight would call,
16:07
Speaker 1: out of nowhere and Anchorage, Alaska, on the outskirts of town,
16:12
Speaker 1: in the middle of a parking lot at ten o'clock
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Speaker 1: at night, in a coffee stand that to drive through.
16:17
Speaker 1: So Bobby to come before I get your back on
16:20
Speaker 1: drilling down into the ice. It could be anybody. It
16:24
Speaker 1: could be the ex boyfriend or perp that had been
16:28
Speaker 1: allegedly following her that she had to go get a
16:30
Speaker 1: protective order about. It could be a boss. It could
16:34
Speaker 1: be a current boyfriend. It could be some creepy perv
16:38
Speaker 1: that drives through her coffee stand every day to like
16:43
Speaker 1: try to touch her hand when she gives him change,
16:45
Speaker 1: try to make conversation with her. It could be literally
16:50
Speaker 1: anybody that has fled the Lower forty eight and landed
16:54
Speaker 1: in Anchorage. So, Bobby, you've got a wide range of
16:59
Speaker 1: potential purps. Let me get you back on that day
17:02
Speaker 1: you're in LA you get a call from your boss
17:05
Speaker 1: in Quantico. You got to go to Anchorage on a
17:08
Speaker 1: recovery mission. You take off, when you see that body
17:13
Speaker 1: of water, that lake, what do you think, Well, the
17:16
Speaker 1: first thing you think of is how remote it is.
17:18
Speaker 1: I mean, there's maybe a sprinkling of houses in the area,
17:23
Speaker 1: but there's certainly no town and there's no infrastructure. You
17:26
Speaker 1: can you know, we drove about an hour north of Anchorage.
17:29
Speaker 1: Well wait a minute, you're just telling me what a
17:32
Speaker 1: big big city Anchorage is Yeah, this was about forty
17:35
Speaker 1: miles outside of Anchorage. I mean you anyone that would
17:39
Speaker 1: go there to do this on purpose was looking for
17:42
Speaker 1: a place that was a little bit outside of town,
17:44
Speaker 1: a little remote. You know, it's not heavily populated. I'm
17:48
Speaker 1: glad you're telling me that, Bobby, and I'll tell you why,
17:51
Speaker 1: because when people refer to my home the south Land
17:56
Speaker 1: is the middle of nothing. You know. I get where
17:59
Speaker 1: they're coming from. I do, but it's a little hurtful
18:02
Speaker 1: when you refer to somebody's home as nothing, the middle
18:05
Speaker 1: of nothing, And I don't mean it that way. What
18:08
Speaker 1: I'm talking about is it's remote as it as far
18:11
Speaker 1: as it relates to a crime scene, less witnesses, it
18:15
Speaker 1: lowers the possibility of who the purp is. Guys with
18:19
Speaker 1: me is Special Agent Bobby Chicone, who was sent on
18:25
Speaker 1: a mission to find the body of Samantha Konk. I'm
18:29
Speaker 1: more worried every day drags on. I don't know what
18:33
Speaker 1: the people that have her want, and whatever they want,
18:36
Speaker 1: they have it, just bring her home. The money is
18:38
Speaker 1: sitting in a bank account. I am not running around
18:41
Speaker 1: town spending it on lavish gifts. I am having to
18:44
Speaker 1: resort to some of the funds to keep my home
18:47
Speaker 1: running so Samantha has a home to come to by
18:50
Speaker 1: no means by using that money for personal gain. Is
18:53
Speaker 1: in a bank account, and it's specifically for paying or
18:56
Speaker 1: reward or ransom or however it comes about. The bank
18:59
Speaker 1: account has to be my name. I can't put it
19:01
Speaker 1: in her name because she can't sign on it. It
19:03
Speaker 1: is totally separate from my personal account. It is set
19:06
Speaker 1: up to hold her funds. If I need the funds,
19:09
Speaker 1: I can get to them. But again, the majority of
19:12
Speaker 1: the money is there. Majority of the money in there
19:14
Speaker 1: came from my family and has been specified us as
19:17
Speaker 1: you need, as well as from the community. I mean
19:19
Speaker 1: a large sum of the money came from the community
19:22
Speaker 1: as well. It has been told to me to use
19:24
Speaker 1: it as I need you to keep the home and
19:26
Speaker 1: whatever running as well. So I am not working right now.
19:29
Speaker 1: I cannot go back to work until I get Samantha home,
19:31
Speaker 1: and even after that it's going to be sometime so
19:34
Speaker 1: we can get her fixed up and get her head
19:36
Speaker 1: right again. I'm really getting tired of the money being
19:39
Speaker 1: the focus. People are losing focus as why we're looking
19:42
Speaker 1: for Samantha, It's not about the money. I could care
19:45
Speaker 1: less about the money, and obviously, thirty seven, thirty eight
19:48
Speaker 1: days down the road, it must not be about the money.
19:51
Speaker 1: But I really wish people would stay focused on my
19:54
Speaker 1: goal and the community's goal that's backing us up and
19:57
Speaker 1: all bes hi Nancy Grace here, Have you ever gooped
20:12
Speaker 1: crime stories with Nancy Grace? To Samantha's father, James Koenig.
20:22
Speaker 1: Mister Koenig, what are the cops telling you tonight? So far?
20:29
Speaker 1: They are saying they have made significant progress, They're starting
20:33
Speaker 1: to get better leads. Other than that, that's about all
20:38
Speaker 1: they're giving me. To Lieutenant Dave Parker from the Anchorsh
20:42
Speaker 1: Police Department. Lieutenant Parker, thank you for being with us.
20:45
Speaker 1: What is your theory as to what happened to Samantha?
20:49
Speaker 1: Right now? We know that Samantha was abducted from that
20:52
Speaker 1: little coffee check, and we know that her abductor came
20:56
Speaker 1: into the coffee check and that he took her out
21:00
Speaker 1: as he will. We're operating on that theory and getting
21:04
Speaker 1: a lot of leads them and things like that that
21:07
Speaker 1: are helping us investigates the case. Well, obviously it is
21:11
Speaker 1: someone that either knows her personally or frequents the coffee shop.
21:16
Speaker 1: To Lieutenant Parker, what time of the day or night
21:19
Speaker 1: did the abduction take place? The abduction took place about
21:22
Speaker 1: eight pm on last Wednesday night. Was it dark? Big pardon?
21:28
Speaker 1: Was it dark at the time? It was dark, but
21:32
Speaker 1: it's a lighted parking lot is to Matt Zarelle. Matt
21:36
Speaker 1: is their surveillance video, And isn't it true that the
21:39
Speaker 1: guy was wearing a hood? Yet Fanti the Instagrallance video
21:43
Speaker 1: the guy once wearing a hood. They believe he was armed.
21:45
Speaker 1: He had something in his hand. They're trying to determine
21:46
Speaker 1: if it was a gun or a night what type
21:48
Speaker 1: of weapon it was. There. You hear me on HLN
21:51
Speaker 1: helping in the search to find Samantha. Koenig joining right now.
21:55
Speaker 1: The man who found Samantha, Bobby Chicon, retired FBI Special
22:00
Speaker 1: Agent Bobby. So you're out there at this body of water.
22:03
Speaker 1: You get out in the middle of the ice, and
22:06
Speaker 1: what happens. So we have an area where we're going
22:08
Speaker 1: to search. We drill the first hole in the ice
22:11
Speaker 1: and drop a sonar down at the bottom that sits
22:14
Speaker 1: on the bottom on a tripod and we take some
22:15
Speaker 1: sonar imaging. That imaging happens to match what we're told
22:20
Speaker 1: about what we're looking for, namely a body. And so,
22:25
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, a sonar imaging is not photographic. It's
22:28
Speaker 1: it's more like a sonogram. It's not very detailed. So
22:33
Speaker 1: the next hole we drill is a small underwater robot
22:36
Speaker 1: with a video camera on it, and we fly that
22:38
Speaker 1: underwater too one of the objects that we're looking at
22:42
Speaker 1: on the sonar to get a video image of it,
22:45
Speaker 1: and so we're able to better prepare the divers before
22:49
Speaker 1: they go in the water. You want to save as
22:50
Speaker 1: much time as you can for the divers because it's
22:53
Speaker 1: a very perilous place to be under that ice, and
22:56
Speaker 1: so you use as much equipment as you can before
22:58
Speaker 1: the divers getting the water. That plus, I was under
23:02
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure to verify whether or not we
23:05
Speaker 1: had human remains at the bottom of the lake, because
23:07
Speaker 1: there was a lot of people back in anchorage waiting
23:09
Speaker 1: to hear if it was confirmed. There was going to
23:12
Speaker 1: be a press conference by the bosses, and so the
23:15
Speaker 1: detectives and the agents running the case were over my
23:18
Speaker 1: shoulder watching all these imaging coming back from the bottom
23:21
Speaker 1: of the lake, and I wanted to be sure as
23:24
Speaker 1: much as I could before I confirmed that we in
23:26
Speaker 1: fact had a body at the bottom of that lake. Bobby,
23:28
Speaker 1: you can I'm just trying to imagine you over this
23:31
Speaker 1: hole you've cut in the ice. What did you send
23:37
Speaker 1: diver a cold water diver down? How did that work? Well?
23:42
Speaker 1: That was the final step. So the underwater robot flew
23:45
Speaker 1: right to a object that the sonar was showing us,
23:48
Speaker 1: and when we turned the video camera on, we saw
23:51
Speaker 1: what we knew was confirmed to be a part of
23:54
Speaker 1: a human body. And so at that point, exactly did
23:57
Speaker 1: you see? We saw a human foot and the part
23:59
Speaker 1: of a leg that was clearly severed from the rest
24:02
Speaker 1: of the body that was on the video. And when
24:05
Speaker 1: you saw that, Bobby, when you saw that, did you
24:08
Speaker 1: know immediately it was a foot? I mean, how could
24:10
Speaker 1: you tell it was a foot? You can tell the
24:12
Speaker 1: video was clear. The body was not that degraded. Yet
24:16
Speaker 1: it was very cold. The water, it's fresh water. The
24:19
Speaker 1: water the more cold it is, and freshwater tends to
24:23
Speaker 1: have more of a less of a degradation effect, more
24:27
Speaker 1: of a an effect. There were keeps with pristine and
24:31
Speaker 1: so when we looked at the video, we knew what
24:33
Speaker 1: we had was probably a human foot and leg severed
24:37
Speaker 1: somewhere around in the area. Did the foot, was it
24:39
Speaker 1: wearing a shoe? Were the clothes attached? No? In fact,
24:44
Speaker 1: we could see at that point other body parts in
24:47
Speaker 1: the immediate area within a couple of feet of that,
24:49
Speaker 1: and no clothing was found seen on any of the
24:52
Speaker 1: body parts. At that point, I ready the divers to
24:54
Speaker 1: get in the water. Were they just floating? Hold on?
24:57
Speaker 1: Were they just floating together where they had the bottom?
25:00
Speaker 1: Were they tied together? They were weighted down with weights,
25:04
Speaker 1: some kind of weights, and all within about a fifteen
25:09
Speaker 1: foot area, and they were in five pieces. I'm just
25:12
Speaker 1: trying to take in what you're saying, Bobby Chicone. So
25:15
Speaker 1: someone killed her, dismembered her body, weighted down the body parts,
25:23
Speaker 1: and dumped them. They were all in about a fifteen
25:27
Speaker 1: foot radius area, which means to me that someone drilled
25:32
Speaker 1: a hold in the ice and dropped the body parts
25:35
Speaker 1: into the hole. It's not as if there was a
25:38
Speaker 1: boat speeding along the water, throwing the parts off as
25:42
Speaker 1: it went. They're all right there together. Bobby Chicone, special
25:48
Speaker 1: agent with the FBI sent there from la arrives to
25:52
Speaker 1: the spot that they have deduced may reveal Samantha Konig's body,
25:58
Speaker 1: drills through the ice, sends down an underwater robot and
26:03
Speaker 1: it spots the body parts. Then what happens, Bobby, Well,
26:08
Speaker 1: then we drill an even bigger hole. I'm big enough
26:11
Speaker 1: to fit my divers, and I ready to divers to
26:13
Speaker 1: go down and retrieve those five objects now that we
26:17
Speaker 1: know are basically five parts of a human body. Oh
26:21
Speaker 1: so waita whoa, wait wait, I'm just trying to just
26:23
Speaker 1: just take this whole thing in because I'm looking right
26:25
Speaker 1: now at video of all of you are masked out
26:29
Speaker 1: on the ice. I've done a lot of cold water diving,
26:33
Speaker 1: but not in temperatures like that, and certainly not to
26:38
Speaker 1: go through a hole in the ice to bring up
26:41
Speaker 1: the remains of a young girl. So what do you
26:45
Speaker 1: say to a diver before you send them down into
26:48
Speaker 1: that icy water. Well, you know, we're very focused, and
26:51
Speaker 1: we try to compartmentalize the emotional aspects of this until
26:55
Speaker 1: the mission is over. So to ready the divers, they
26:59
Speaker 1: are very focus on their equipment because I'm sending them
27:02
Speaker 1: into an area that is hostile to human life, and
27:05
Speaker 1: so they have to remain alive to do their job
27:08
Speaker 1: and that's the ultimate priority. So they're checking their gear.
27:11
Speaker 1: They have help doing that. Defenders are checking their gear.
27:14
Speaker 1: We're doing double and triple checks. The last thing I
27:17
Speaker 1: do is I bring them over an image that we
27:20
Speaker 1: print off from the video camera and from the sonar
27:23
Speaker 1: and show them the approximate distance that the items are
27:26
Speaker 1: from each other and where they are, and so that
27:28
Speaker 1: they're prepared to go down and retrieve these items. They
27:32
Speaker 1: have the necessary equipment, it's functioning properly, and they're going
27:36
Speaker 1: to get in the water. They're going to defend It
27:37
Speaker 1: was about forty feet deep, forty five feet deep, and
27:40
Speaker 1: they're going to execute the recovery. And so they have
27:44
Speaker 1: to be focused on that apart from the emotional aspects
27:48
Speaker 1: of this mission. I already say, Bobby Jacone, retired FBI
27:51
Speaker 1: special Agent, that you have to compartmentalize, and I think
27:55
Speaker 1: you're still doing it because you refer to this girl
27:59
Speaker 1: Somat those severed legs and feet as items. Is that
28:05
Speaker 1: how you deal with it? Well, yeah, I think you're right.
28:08
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly what we do. You know, we
28:11
Speaker 1: never never refer to the victim by name when we're
28:14
Speaker 1: on site. We never refer to the person until afterwards.
28:19
Speaker 1: And and sometimes you just get into the habit of
28:21
Speaker 1: doing that, and that's for many different reasons. Remember, we
28:24
Speaker 1: go to Anchorage and we aid FBI agents check into
28:26
Speaker 1: a local hotel. You know, when Samantha's missing, people start
28:30
Speaker 1: to talk, and so we have out of town reporters,
28:33
Speaker 1: and we have out of town family members that may
28:35
Speaker 1: be staying at the same hotel, things like that. So
28:37
Speaker 1: we have to develop our own kind of code language
28:39
Speaker 1: so that we don't say something that someone else overhears
28:43
Speaker 1: that's either insensitive, that's either perceived as insensitive, or just
28:47
Speaker 1: information about the investigation that we don't want out yet
28:50
Speaker 1: or the investigators in charge don't want out yet. So
28:53
Speaker 1: you do tend to compartmentalize it, both for operational security
28:56
Speaker 1: reasons and for emotional reasons. You know, this was not
28:59
Speaker 1: the first body that we recovered. We'd do a lot
29:03
Speaker 1: of child recoveries of even younger children. So there are
29:07
Speaker 1: ways that we have to deal with it, and we
29:09
Speaker 1: do that, and so compartmentalizing it and looking at it
29:13
Speaker 1: as we call it, the target, we talked about what
29:15
Speaker 1: we're looking for in recovery. But it's best, in my experience,
29:19
Speaker 1: it's best to divorce yourself from that emotion at the
29:22
Speaker 1: time being because we're diving in such dangerous conditions that
29:26
Speaker 1: you have to really focus on staying alive and doing
29:28
Speaker 1: the job, and emotions can cause you to make mistakes
29:32
Speaker 1: that you could be detrimental to that. Missions and volunteers
29:36
Speaker 1: of braiding, sub basing temperatures, and an all out search
29:39
Speaker 1: for eighteen year old Cementaconage. Eighteen year old Samanthaconage was
29:43
Speaker 1: closing up the coffee stand where she worked when cops say,
29:46
Speaker 1: surveillance video, surveillance video, so it's an armed man abducting
29:50
Speaker 1: her and taking her away one terrifying flue. She was
29:54
Speaker 1: last seen on her surveillance camera being maunched away from
29:57
Speaker 1: work by an armed man. Welcome Mac, this is Chris Stories.
30:00
Speaker 1: I'm Nancy Grace. You were hearing me searching for Samantha
30:04
Speaker 1: on HLN with me, Robin Willinski, Ashley Willcot, Cheryl McCollum,
30:08
Speaker 1: and returned. FBI special agent Bobby Chicone, sent to bring
30:13
Speaker 1: Samantha's body up from underneath frozen waters. Bobby, how did you,
30:21
Speaker 1: you send divers down, they come up, what do they
30:25
Speaker 1: hand up her body parts through the icehole? Well, what
30:30
Speaker 1: we do is we take a body bag and underwater
30:32
Speaker 1: body bag. We have special body bags that you'd see
30:34
Speaker 1: at any crime scene, but these are special for underwater.
30:36
Speaker 1: They're made of a material that is special for underwater
30:40
Speaker 1: and so and normally what we would do is we
30:43
Speaker 1: would take down a bag for each body part and
30:45
Speaker 1: they would be bagged separately. However, in this case, the
30:48
Speaker 1: special nature of this case was that we were told,
30:51
Speaker 1: for investigative reasons, that the dismemberment and the fact that
30:55
Speaker 1: it was in five different pieces, was going to be
30:58
Speaker 1: kept a secret. Now, we had some media attention, we
31:01
Speaker 1: had cameras on the lake the edge pointed at us,
31:04
Speaker 1: so they did not want us to bring up the
31:06
Speaker 1: parts separately, and so we put my divers put all
31:09
Speaker 1: five pieces into one body bag, and they brought the
31:12
Speaker 1: body bag up to the surface, and then myself and
31:14
Speaker 1: others helped lift the body bag out of the water
31:18
Speaker 1: and the medical examiner we had them there. Their investigators
31:21
Speaker 1: had set up a pop up shelter near the hole
31:24
Speaker 1: in the ice, and we put we brought the bag
31:27
Speaker 1: into that shelter away from the public's attention, and we
31:31
Speaker 1: were able to open the bag and put it on
31:33
Speaker 1: the table. Open the bag, and then the medical examiner
31:34
Speaker 1: and myself could go through the contents of the bag.
31:37
Speaker 1: When you open the bag, what did you see? I
31:40
Speaker 1: saw two human legs, a human torso, a human head,
31:46
Speaker 1: and two human arms that were tied together. So those
31:49
Speaker 1: were the five pieces. Each leg was separate, the torso
31:52
Speaker 1: was separate, the two arms were actually tied together, and
31:54
Speaker 1: the head was separate. You know, I'm pausing right now
31:56
Speaker 1: because I was trying to take in what you're saying,
32:00
Speaker 1: and you're in a pop up. I'm looking at it,
32:02
Speaker 1: a white tent out on frozen frozen water there outside
32:09
Speaker 1: of Anchorage, Alaska. And you open the bag, and that
32:14
Speaker 1: is when you see the severed body parts. Did you
32:17
Speaker 1: know immediately it was Samantha Koenig? Yes, how well, first
32:24
Speaker 1: of all her, when I held her head in my hands,
32:27
Speaker 1: I could tell it was her. When I turned head
32:29
Speaker 1: over and looked at her face, I made a facial recognition.
32:32
Speaker 1: And also we had been told that her eyelids had
32:38
Speaker 1: been sown open, and so I could still see that
32:42
Speaker 1: her eyelids in fact, had been sown open. I'm sorry,
32:44
Speaker 1: what did you just say? I did not know this
32:47
Speaker 1: what so previously we were told that a ransom demand
32:51
Speaker 1: had been made for this individual, and the individual had
32:54
Speaker 1: taken a picture of the person, and the person was
32:57
Speaker 1: already deceased, and to make the to make the person
33:00
Speaker 1: look alive and the photographs, the person had shown the
33:03
Speaker 1: person's eyelids open and then took the photograph, put makeup on,
33:07
Speaker 1: and then and then took the photograph and then sent
33:10
Speaker 1: the photograph with a ransom demand. The person had already
33:14
Speaker 1: been deceased obviously when the photograph was taken, but they
33:16
Speaker 1: were trying to hide the fact that the person was deceased.
33:19
Speaker 1: Robin Malinsky, Crime online dot Com investigative reporter, Is that true? Unfortunately,
33:24
Speaker 1: it is true that she was already dead and whoever
33:30
Speaker 1: did this to her, you know, really takes your breath away. Yes,
33:34
Speaker 1: in fact, showed her eyelids open so she would look alive,
33:37
Speaker 1: and actually took makeup like you would use on your
33:40
Speaker 1: face before you do a TV program. That's powder kind
33:44
Speaker 1: of makeup with a sponge and put it on her
33:47
Speaker 1: face to give her color, you know. Ashley Willcott I've
33:50
Speaker 1: cried a lot of murder cases. I've investigated a lot
33:53
Speaker 1: of murder cases, and they only times that I have
33:59
Speaker 1: heard of this type of staging is from serial killers.
34:04
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy would take his victims and redress them and
34:09
Speaker 1: bathe them, and dress them and fix their hair and
34:12
Speaker 1: put on makeup on them. BTK would redress his victims
34:20
Speaker 1: and take photos of them. I'm just trying to take
34:26
Speaker 1: in what kind of a mind would do this to Samantha. Koenig, Well,
34:31
Speaker 1: I think that that's something a rational person just can
34:34
Speaker 1: never understand. It's a sociopath, an antisocial behavior person who
34:39
Speaker 1: does this, and he described himself as having I don't
34:43
Speaker 1: know if people want to say that strike that. I'm
34:44
Speaker 1: so sorry. Anyways, the nisocial sociopath personality does this. It
34:50
Speaker 1: is not normal brain functioning. A rational person cannot understand
34:55
Speaker 1: how anyone can possibly do this to a human body.
35:00
Speaker 1: Then a tip new surveillance footage captured by a neighboring
35:05
Speaker 1: business from the night of Samantha's abduction. We're able to
35:08
Speaker 1: determine that Samantha walked to a white pickup truck and
35:11
Speaker 1: then the truck drives away. They could estimate about the
35:14
Speaker 1: year that it was built, it was like a ninety
35:16
Speaker 1: nine through two thousand and seven Chevalley pickup truck with white.
35:20
Speaker 1: So at that point it's a matter of trying to
35:22
Speaker 1: track down how many of those vehicles are in the
35:24
Speaker 1: Anchorage Bowl, and there were several thousand of them. Due
35:28
Speaker 1: to the growing scope of the case, local authorities contact
35:31
Speaker 1: the FBI Field office. When you bring manpower, we bring expertise, profilers.
35:36
Speaker 1: You know, these are things that sometimes a local police
35:39
Speaker 1: department might not have. The FBI assigns Joelene Goden as
35:42
Speaker 1: the lead investigator. Jolene's pretty well known as someone who's
35:45
Speaker 1: a top agent, and one thing Jolene excels at is
35:48
Speaker 1: she can delve into somebody's history with the best of it.
35:51
Speaker 1: We're reviewing social media, we're reviewing phone wreckers. We're really
35:54
Speaker 1: looking at anything we possibly can to determine is this
35:57
Speaker 1: a personal thing with Samantha as a person that took her,
35:59
Speaker 1: somebody that knew her, or is this truly a stranger abduction.
36:03
Speaker 1: Then two and a half weeks after Samantha's abduction, there's
36:08
Speaker 1: a chilling turn in the case. Her boyfriend just goes
36:10
Speaker 1: sheet white. He's got his phone and there's a text
36:13
Speaker 1: from her phone. Basically it says Connor's Park underneath Albert Pick,
36:18
Speaker 1: Ain't she purty? Authority's race to Connor's Lake Park, just
36:22
Speaker 1: five miles southwest of downtown Anchorage, not knowing what's waiting
36:26
Speaker 1: for them. When you enter that park, there's a bulletin
36:28
Speaker 1: board and tact was a zip block bag that had
36:32
Speaker 1: what ultimately was a photograph of Samantha and a ransom
36:35
Speaker 1: note the fact that there was a ransom note really
36:37
Speaker 1: ratchets upon the tension because, Okay, she's alive, and what
36:41
Speaker 1: are we going to do to get her back? You're
36:43
Speaker 1: hearing our friends at Oxygen and joining me an FBI agent,
36:46
Speaker 1: a special agent that worked the case, Bobby Chicone. Bobby,
36:52
Speaker 1: when you told me her eyes were sewn open when
36:55
Speaker 1: you recovered her body, it was almost more than I
36:59
Speaker 1: could take him. And you're telling me that in this
37:02
Speaker 1: photo that was texted to her boyfriend, her eyes were
37:06
Speaker 1: open and she appeared to be alive. Yeah, I mean
37:08
Speaker 1: I think that was the intent. I think part of
37:11
Speaker 1: the investigation was sending that photograph than to our forensic
37:15
Speaker 1: photographer unit at the FBI laboratory in Quantico where they were. Um,
37:20
Speaker 1: you know, they took a closer look at it, and
37:22
Speaker 1: I don't know the determination of that, but normally they
37:25
Speaker 1: would be able to tell whether or not the person
37:28
Speaker 1: was alive. I think he may have even staged a
37:30
Speaker 1: newspaper from that particular day in the photograph to even
37:35
Speaker 1: more verify that she was alive on a certain date.
37:38
Speaker 1: So I don't know how long it took to get
37:40
Speaker 1: that photograph to our forensic photographer unit to look at
37:43
Speaker 1: closely and do what they could. I think it was
37:45
Speaker 1: a polaroid that makes it harder to look at sou
37:48
Speaker 1: but yeah, they would. They were probably really trying to
37:51
Speaker 1: determine whether or not the photograph was legitimate and in fact,
37:55
Speaker 1: whether the person depicted in the photograph was actually alive
37:58
Speaker 1: when the photograph was taken. Except for the abduction of
38:01
Speaker 1: eighteen year old Samantha, Comic authorities still have no clues
38:04
Speaker 1: or any evidence connecting Israel Keys to her disappearance, until
38:08
Speaker 1: a text message sent from Samantha's phone directs investigators to
38:12
Speaker 1: their biggest clue yet, a ransom note with a picture
38:15
Speaker 1: of the missing girl in the photograph. Samantha was bound
38:19
Speaker 1: tape on her mouth, but it was obviously intentionally made fuzzier.
38:23
Speaker 1: So if they took the photograph to her father for
38:26
Speaker 1: him to identify it, he, after looking at it for
38:29
Speaker 1: a long time, said, yes, that's Samantha, but her hair
38:33
Speaker 1: was in a braid, and Samantha never wore her hair
38:37
Speaker 1: that way. In the ransom note, Samantha's kidnapper demands thirty
38:40
Speaker 1: thousand dollars be placed in her bank account. Is really
38:43
Speaker 1: our biggest break because we know that we can still
38:45
Speaker 1: potentially have contact with the person responsible for taking Samantha.
38:48
Speaker 1: Authorities worked with her dad to deposit a portion of
38:51
Speaker 1: the ransom, and then they wait. I told them he's
38:55
Speaker 1: going to use her debit card. If he was going
38:57
Speaker 1: to do something stupid, that was going to be the
38:58
Speaker 1: one thing he did that was stupid. We could find him.
39:01
Speaker 1: They had worked out a deal with the bank so
39:04
Speaker 1: that Anchorage Police Department and the FBI would be notified
39:08
Speaker 1: immediately when her debit card was used for anything. So
39:12
Speaker 1: a few days go by, and at this point we
39:14
Speaker 1: have our first ATM withdrawal from Samantha's account. There were
39:17
Speaker 1: three withdrawals in the city of Anchorage, A five hundred
39:20
Speaker 1: dollars the daily limit in all of the ATM situations
39:24
Speaker 1: where he was using the debit card. As soon as
39:26
Speaker 1: the alerts came, we dispatched law enforcement there as quickly
39:29
Speaker 1: as we could, but there were literally minutes behind him.
39:32
Speaker 1: Then the account went silent, and on March seventh, detectives
39:37
Speaker 1: were kind of shocked because there was a withdrawal from
39:41
Speaker 1: an ATM in Wilcox, Arizona. Then there was another withdrawal
39:46
Speaker 1: in Lordsburg, New Mexico. The next withdrawal was March tenth
39:51
Speaker 1: in Humble, Texas, and then shortly after there was a
39:54
Speaker 1: withdrawal in Shepherd, Texas. Each time this money was withdrawn,
39:59
Speaker 1: it was drawn by a person wearing a mask. Joining
40:03
Speaker 1: me right now, FBI Special Agent Bobby Chicomb. Bobby was
40:06
Speaker 1: something as simple as an ATM withdrawal or a credit
40:11
Speaker 1: card all the way across the country in Texas. What
40:15
Speaker 1: that card was, Samantha Koenigs. Yes, And in fact, now
40:19
Speaker 1: we have a trail. So now we have basically our
40:22
Speaker 1: first big break in the case. We see it used
40:25
Speaker 1: in Anchorage, and then there's a break in time, and
40:28
Speaker 1: then we see it now used again in the southwestern
40:31
Speaker 1: part of the United States. So now we have a
40:34
Speaker 1: trail a suspect that may be traveling. So we have
40:37
Speaker 1: to get on that and assume that this person is
40:39
Speaker 1: moving on the move, and we need to track him
40:42
Speaker 1: and we need to catch up with him. What happens next.
40:44
Speaker 1: There are more ATM withdrawals in the case, and each time,
40:50
Speaker 1: as Jolene said, the authorities are minutes behind and the
40:54
Speaker 1: responding to the ATMs. However, on one of the ATMs,
40:59
Speaker 1: just one is the person using that card was very
41:02
Speaker 1: careful not to be seen, as we know that the
41:04
Speaker 1: ATM's film whenever you put your card in, But each
41:07
Speaker 1: time the person is wearing a hood and you can't
41:10
Speaker 1: see the facial features and you and they're in the
41:13
Speaker 1: picture for a very short period of time, and then
41:15
Speaker 1: you see nothing when they exit. You don't see a
41:17
Speaker 1: vehicle go by or anything except one very conscientious person
41:22
Speaker 1: handalyst that was reviewing the videos of one particular ATM transaction,
41:27
Speaker 1: waits and just before the camera cuts off, a vehicle
41:32
Speaker 1: goes through the film the video. Now, on a hunch,
41:37
Speaker 1: they say this could be the vehicle based on the
41:39
Speaker 1: time of day of the transaction and the location of
41:41
Speaker 1: the transaction, and so they start looking at that particular
41:45
Speaker 1: vehicle on the video and ultimately all points bulletin goes
41:51
Speaker 1: out on that vehicle in that area and is told
41:55
Speaker 1: to all local law enforcement in that area by this
41:58
Speaker 1: time in Texas, and they're on the lookout for this
42:03
Speaker 1: certain kind of vehicle and that's where we are in
42:06
Speaker 1: the case. So you find the vehicle and it turns
42:08
Speaker 1: out to be none other than Israel Keys. Who is
42:14
Speaker 1: Israel Keys? Robin Wilenski, Well, he is a guy who
42:18
Speaker 1: was working in Alaska, and they are able to track
42:23
Speaker 1: down what Bobby just said, the Ford Focus, a white
42:26
Speaker 1: Ford Focus that he was driving, and the Texas police
42:31
Speaker 1: officers pull him over and they say license and registration, sir,
42:35
Speaker 1: And there he is with his face with the Alaska
42:38
Speaker 1: driver's license, and they already realized that they have their man.
42:42
Speaker 1: And then they opened the trunk nancy of that Ford
42:46
Speaker 1: Focus and in the back is Samantha's debit card and
42:52
Speaker 1: some clothes and a gun, and so they believe that
42:56
Speaker 1: he is the man now that abducted her from the
43:00
Speaker 1: coffee shop all those miles away from Anchorage, Alaska. Bobby Coon.
43:05
Speaker 1: Once you start questioning Israel Keys, what do you learn well,
43:09
Speaker 1: the investigative team is questioning him an anchorage, and they
43:14
Speaker 1: learned that they learned a number of things over the
43:18
Speaker 1: course of the first two days to three days of
43:21
Speaker 1: their interrogation, and one they learned that he does admit
43:25
Speaker 1: that he is the person responsible for abducting Samantha. Take
43:29
Speaker 1: a listen to Israel Keys caught on video and the
43:34
Speaker 1: things I've done. And I didn't do them because I
43:40
Speaker 1: don't feel bad about him, and I didn't do them
43:42
Speaker 1: because I felt I had no other choice. I did
43:47
Speaker 1: him for myself. So it's just as good. It's better
43:51
Speaker 1: actually for me to keep them to myself because they're
43:55
Speaker 1: from their mind. And so unless I'm going to get
43:59
Speaker 1: something in return aside from just an ego boost by
44:03
Speaker 1: talking about them, that I'm not going to talk about them.
44:05
Speaker 1: I don't have any interest in it. My oldly regret
44:08
Speaker 1: is that that I tried to have as much self
44:13
Speaker 1: control as I did. I'm not I'm happy about the
44:19
Speaker 1: life I lived, and you know, as long as I
44:21
Speaker 1: got away with it. But that being said, it was
44:25
Speaker 1: considering that's all I have now, and it be better
44:28
Speaker 1: to have more and more memories. Do you think that's
44:34
Speaker 1: like a part of the memories, part from them. It
44:37
Speaker 1: is now, well, it is now. It's never never was
44:40
Speaker 1: a consideration before. I was more interested in the next plan.
44:46
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our friends at Oxygen as we
44:49
Speaker 1: hear a description of how the FBI got Keys to talk.
44:55
Speaker 1: After presenting Keys with the overwhelming evidence, Prosecutor Frank Russel
45:00
Speaker 1: and Special Agent Joline Goden get him to agree to
45:02
Speaker 1: a full confession, but first he makes a few demands.
45:07
Speaker 1: The mood significantly changed once we first got to hear
45:09
Speaker 1: from his roel Keys. It was clear just how cold
45:13
Speaker 1: and calculating he was. I can give you the rest
45:18
Speaker 1: of the story, like you know everything that happened if
45:21
Speaker 1: I get a cigar. He wanted an Americano when he
45:28
Speaker 1: wanted a peanut butter Snickers bar, and he wanted an
45:30
Speaker 1: opportunity to smoke a cigar, which at the time we
45:33
Speaker 1: thought were pretty silly. But if that's what it was
45:36
Speaker 1: going to take for him to talk with us, we
45:38
Speaker 1: were willing to do that. That was when he began
45:41
Speaker 1: relating details of the kidnapping of Samantha Cone. He had
45:47
Speaker 1: a shed in his driveway and ultimately he puts Samantha
45:50
Speaker 1: in the shed and she's bound in the shed. There
45:54
Speaker 1: he was drinking alcohol and smoking cigars and then turned
46:01
Speaker 1: up the music so that any sounds that we're irregular
46:04
Speaker 1: wouldn't be heard by his girlfriend daughter who were in
46:07
Speaker 1: the house or the neighbors, and he sexually assaulted her
46:11
Speaker 1: through the night. Considering the horrific ordeal Keys claims to
46:15
Speaker 1: have enacted right outside his home, the FBI is shocked
46:18
Speaker 1: to find out that Keys has a living girlfriend and
46:21
Speaker 1: a ten year old daughter. His girlfriend and their child
46:24
Speaker 1: had absolutely no clue about what he was up to him.
46:28
Speaker 1: He indicates of Samantha that his goal is to get
46:30
Speaker 1: money and if he gets money, that he intends to
46:32
Speaker 1: let her go. There was no truth to that. He
46:35
Speaker 1: had no intention of letting her go. And while she's
46:38
Speaker 1: in the shed is when he goes back to the
46:39
Speaker 1: coffee standbill to get her phone, get her debit card,
46:41
Speaker 1: and actually goes to an ATM to see how much
46:44
Speaker 1: money is in her account, and then returns to the
46:46
Speaker 1: shed in the morning. He killed her my strangulation and
46:50
Speaker 1: also he stabbed her. Cheryl McCollum, what about that. Bobby
46:55
Speaker 1: and his fellow FBI did a remarkable job. One of
46:59
Speaker 1: the most alliant things they did when questioning this guy
47:02
Speaker 1: was allowing him to have a cigar. What that did
47:05
Speaker 1: was not only relaxed him, but gave him automatic recall
47:09
Speaker 1: about the murder of Bill and Lorraine Courier. That was genius.
47:13
Speaker 1: But does he ever describe what happened to Samantha. Although
47:18
Speaker 1: Special Agent Golden's team Fierce Keys is telling the truth,
47:21
Speaker 1: they need to know they can take him at his word.
47:24
Speaker 1: They test the waters, asking Keys to direct them to
47:27
Speaker 1: Samantha's body in exchange for another Americano and Snicker's bar.
47:31
Speaker 1: He obliges, continuing his confession with the moments immediately following
47:35
Speaker 1: the murder. The morning after the kidnapping, Israel Keys rolled
47:39
Speaker 1: her body up and stuck it in a box in
47:43
Speaker 1: his shed, and then Wokea's girlfriend up and his child up,
47:47
Speaker 1: went to New Orleans, boarded a cruise ship, and then
47:52
Speaker 1: came back about two to two and a half weeks later.
47:54
Speaker 1: Because of the cold temperatures, she had frozen, and then
47:57
Speaker 1: he thought her out and had to apply makeup to
48:01
Speaker 1: her in order to make her look more lifelike. And
48:05
Speaker 1: also he told detectives he braided her hair, as he
48:09
Speaker 1: had braided his daughter's hair and taken her photograph to
48:12
Speaker 1: be used in the ransom note, not knowing that she
48:15
Speaker 1: never wore her hair that way. After sending the ransom note,
48:18
Speaker 1: he dismembers Samantha's body, and he tried to find a
48:22
Speaker 1: deep lake near the anchorage area, and he had found
48:25
Speaker 1: Mattnuska Lake, and he actually went to where on the
48:28
Speaker 1: map he felt one of the deepest areas was in
48:30
Speaker 1: the lane. A lot of ice fishermen out there, so
48:32
Speaker 1: he used that as a ruse to cut a hole
48:34
Speaker 1: in the ice and ultimately disposed her for body there.
48:37
Speaker 1: So I asked him kind of like his apropos of nothing,
48:39
Speaker 1: I just well, did you catch any fish? And he said, yeah,
48:42
Speaker 1: I got fish. What did you do with him? Because
48:44
Speaker 1: I took him home and ate them. So that really
48:46
Speaker 1: kind of turned my stomach as well, that this guy,
48:48
Speaker 1: would you know, kind of he's disposing of a body,
48:51
Speaker 1: catching fish and going home and serving him to his family.
48:53
Speaker 1: Special Asia Bobby Chicane with us. Now, Bobby, as you
48:57
Speaker 1: look back on the disappearance and the murder of the
49:01
Speaker 1: recovery of Samantha Koenig, what are your thoughts. You know.
49:05
Speaker 1: The feeling that I have, you know obviously is one
49:07
Speaker 1: of you know, sadness overall sadness. This is a young
49:09
Speaker 1: woman who had struggles in her life at times, and
49:11
Speaker 1: really by all accounts that string her life out, was
49:13
Speaker 1: working again and was really on a right path in
49:15
Speaker 1: her life. UM when by the most random of events,
49:19
Speaker 1: UM that the place where she was working was selected
49:22
Speaker 1: because of its location. Um. This had nothing to do
49:24
Speaker 1: with her. The crime did not target her. This was
49:26
Speaker 1: a crime of opportunity by someone who saw the location
49:28
Speaker 1: where she was as an opportunity to do what he
49:30
Speaker 1: was going to do, um, to abduct and murder her
49:33
Speaker 1: because he could do it and not get caught. And
49:36
Speaker 1: So when I look back at this young person's life
49:38
Speaker 1: that's ended by you know, in such a brutal way
49:40
Speaker 1: and by such a monster. Uh, you know, it's one
49:44
Speaker 1: of those things that you it feels you with such
49:46
Speaker 1: such sadness for her, for her family, um, and you know,
49:50
Speaker 1: and knowing that monsters are out there like that walking
49:53
Speaker 1: among us in everyday life, in everyday life. Nancy Grace
49:59
Speaker 1: Crime Stories, Sliding Off, Goodbye Friend,