Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Killers Amongst Us: Teen barista Samantha Koenig kidnapped at gunpoint (Part 1)

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Killers Amongst Us: Teen barista Samantha Koenig kidnapped at gunpoint (Part 1) · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:04
Speaker 1: Hi, guys, Nancy Grace here, Welcome back to Killers amongst Us,
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Speaker 1: a production of iHeartMedia and Crime Online. Today we start
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Speaker 1: with the mystery of Samantha Koenick, a beautiful, young Alaska
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Speaker 1: barista who seemingly vanishes from her local coffee shop. Joining
0:22
Speaker 1: us to help crack the case. Investigative reporter Casey grow
0:27
Speaker 1: from Alaska and FBI special agent Bobby Chicon, who's actually
0:32
Speaker 1: in on the FBI investigation, joining us to analyze the
0:36
Speaker 1: clues left behind. Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case
0:40
Speaker 1: Research Institute, and doctor Bethany Marshall, renowned La psychoanalysts. Of course,
0:46
Speaker 1: it all starts with Samantha's dad and his heart breaking Please.
0:52
Speaker 1: I want to ask for her captors, if they please
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Speaker 1: send my daughter home. I will give you anything in
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Speaker 1: this world. To call me anonymously. You don't have to
1:02
Speaker 1: go through the police. I will meet you. I will
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Speaker 1: give you whatever you want. Just please bring my daughter back.
1:09
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace Killers amongst Us, I just need her home.
1:18
Speaker 1: Every day she's gone were the odds are against us,
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Speaker 1: and I need the whole community to come together and
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Speaker 1: find my daughter. Go door to door every neighborhood, and
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Speaker 1: anything suspicious, no matter how small you think it is,
1:33
Speaker 1: call the police, call me. I will investigate it. Just
1:37
Speaker 1: please help find my daughter. Not good. I don't think
1:43
Speaker 1: any of us are holding up in this. I don't
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Speaker 1: know if my daughter's being fed, taken care of, if
1:48
Speaker 1: she's still alive, if she's getting any sleep. I don't
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Speaker 1: think any of us are. She is one of the
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Speaker 1: sweetest girls you'll ever know. She's got the biggest heart.
2:01
Speaker 1: She is funny, she's sarcastic. I mean, she's every girl
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Speaker 1: that knows her calls her her best friend. I mean
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Speaker 1: people on the internet are slandering my daughter's name, saying
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Speaker 1: she's a prostitute, a drug addict, and all sorts of crap.
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Speaker 1: And she is the further the scene from that that
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Speaker 1: doesn't sound like someone every person she meets calls their
2:23
Speaker 1: best friend. And I won't put up with it anymore.
2:25
Speaker 1: And the people watching this that are putting that on TV,
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna send it to the cyber unit of the
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Speaker 1: Anchor's police department and you will be prosecuted for slandering
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Speaker 1: my daughter's name. You are hearing a heart broken father.
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Speaker 1: It's the father of Samantha Koenig. That's her dad, James Knig, begging,
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Speaker 1: begging for help, and as his daughter is missing and
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Speaker 1: the cold, the icy snow of Alaska, internet trolls creep
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Speaker 1: into the scenario, slandering her. Nothing could have been further
3:00
Speaker 1: from the truth. Were they jealous? Because Samantha Koenig absolutely
3:05
Speaker 1: beautiful with long hair and big blue eyes. She was
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Speaker 1: just a teen girl, a teen girl at that time
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Speaker 1: working a night job at a coffee shop, A teen
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Speaker 1: barista goes missing, her dad begging for help. To Casey
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Speaker 1: grow joining us from Alaska Public Media, what do you
3:33
Speaker 1: remember about that night when Samantha goes missing. I was
3:38
Speaker 1: in the newsroom and you know, just got an email
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Speaker 1: press release from the Anchorage Police Department with a picture
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Speaker 1: of this eighteen year old girl that had gone missing.
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Speaker 1: And we get those occasionally. It's a pretty standard news
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Speaker 1: release from the police department that someone might be missing,
4:00
Speaker 1: their families looking for them. Unfortunately, sort of bring your own,
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Speaker 1: you know, thoughts into that about like what this person's
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Speaker 1: life might be like or who they are, and frankly,
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Speaker 1: sometimes you see you know, information and especialties like this
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Speaker 1: person might be homeless or something like that, and you
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Speaker 1: might think about it a little differently. I guess that's
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Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And this was an eighteen year old
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Speaker 1: girl who looked like a normal barista who would have
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Speaker 1: worked at any coffee stand in Anchorage, and they were
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Speaker 1: saying that she had not come home after you know,
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Speaker 1: working her shift at one of these coffee stands, and
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Speaker 1: it just kind of seemed like a different type of
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Speaker 1: victim for that sort of a case. I remember getting
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Speaker 1: that email, seeing the picture and thinking that it wasn't
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Speaker 1: kind of just somebody that wandered off that maybe had
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Speaker 1: had mental problems and they couldn't find them, or had
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Speaker 1: been living on the street and they couldn't find them.
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Speaker 1: It was that night, what happened when she went home
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Speaker 1: from work. Honestly, like that night did not trigger any
5:03
Speaker 1: kind of big red flags. It just seemed slightly different
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Speaker 1: than maybe the average you know, missing person flyer that
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Speaker 1: goes out. At first, when Samantha or Sammy Conan goes missing,
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Speaker 1: nobody knew what to think exactly. She had been working
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Speaker 1: a night shift at a local coffee shop. That was
5:30
Speaker 1: her job, and she loved it and people loved her.
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Speaker 1: Her photo quickly went out on the internet. She's really
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Speaker 1: stunning and quirky at the same time. To doctor Bethany Marshall,
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Speaker 1: la psychoanalyst, I understand why at first everybody knew something
5:50
Speaker 1: wasn't quite right. She was a brilliant girl, made great grades,
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Speaker 1: had a wicked sense of humor, hilarious. She had regulars
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Speaker 1: that would go through the coffee shop drive through every
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Speaker 1: single day just to say hello to her. She had
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Speaker 1: a tight group of friends. Of course, she had a boyfriend.
6:11
Speaker 1: Of course, she had an ex. She had a loving father,
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Speaker 1: as you heard him, heartbroking in the search for her.
6:17
Speaker 1: But imagine that wild, cold terrain when you look at
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Speaker 1: the coffee shop it's situated. Actually, I want Robin Walinski,
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Speaker 1: crime online dot Com investigative reporter and author of Beautiful
6:32
Speaker 1: Life CSI, behind the Casey Anthony Trial, describe it for me, Robin,
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Speaker 1: the coffee shop, where it sits and how it looks. Well,
6:39
Speaker 1: it's in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, and it's you notice it
6:43
Speaker 1: because it's you know, this bright blue paint and it's
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Speaker 1: called Common Grounds Espresso. Everybody goes there for their cup
6:50
Speaker 1: of joe, and people would go there in all kind
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Speaker 1: of weather, Hey, it's Alaska, you know, so what if
6:55
Speaker 1: it's called out, So what if it's snowing? And Samantha
6:58
Speaker 1: definitely had her wrecks at this coffee stand where people
7:02
Speaker 1: was really frequented a lot by the locals in town.
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Speaker 1: Robin Willinski, You're absolutely right. It really stands out because
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Speaker 1: of that bright blue. And when I think coffee shop,
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Speaker 1: you know, Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Restrot's Institute,
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Speaker 1: this is significant. It's subtle, but an important distinction. When
7:21
Speaker 1: I think coffee shop, I think of like Starbucks or
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Speaker 1: you know, all the independence that you go in and
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Speaker 1: you sit down and you've got WiFi and everybody's chill axing.
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Speaker 1: Not me, of course, because I'm riding like a bat
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Speaker 1: out of hell everywhere in my car. But that's what
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Speaker 1: I think of coffee shop. This was a very different.
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Speaker 1: It was a standalone drive around, little structure and a
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Speaker 1: parking a lot. Cheryl, And why is that subtle but
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Speaker 1: an important difference. Well, the structure means that there's not
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Speaker 1: thirty people inside as witnesses. She's in there basically by herself.
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Speaker 1: It's just a drive up, so it's only hurry. You're
8:02
Speaker 1: not going to have a lot of witnesses like you
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Speaker 1: would at a starbuck. You're right, and it reminds me
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Speaker 1: so much. In law school, I worked three jobs and
8:11
Speaker 1: one of them was working at a sandwich shop, mostly
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Speaker 1: at night. And it was on the very tail end
8:17
Speaker 1: of a large strip mall. It's called Z's Sandwich Shop.
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Speaker 1: It's not even there anymore, on the very edge where
8:25
Speaker 1: cars could drive up to the window or they could
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Speaker 1: come in as well, and it would be ten o'clock
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Speaker 1: at night. Everything else would be closed. It would be
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Speaker 1: pitch dark outside, and that is what I am imagining
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Speaker 1: it was like that night. Bobby Chicone, special Agent FBI.
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Speaker 1: Do you think that's an accurate description of where Samantha
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Speaker 1: was that night? Yes? I do. I mean this was
8:49
Speaker 1: what I call a kiosk. It was people that are
8:52
Speaker 1: old enough to remember photo maps, which is where you
8:54
Speaker 1: used to drive up and drop your film off to
8:56
Speaker 1: get I'm sorry they did not have a photo out
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Speaker 1: out in the middle of no where I grew up.
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Speaker 1: We had to go twenty minutes to get to a
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Speaker 1: gas station. This is a small drive up coffee stand.
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Speaker 1: It's not even a shop. It's and it's something that
9:13
Speaker 1: you know, the big difference between this and a coffee
9:16
Speaker 1: shop would be if you walked into any Starbucks or
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Speaker 1: any type of coffee shop, there's usually other customers standing
9:21
Speaker 1: around waiting for coffee. And this is something where there's
9:25
Speaker 1: an individual in a car driving up to an individual
9:28
Speaker 1: in a little booth to make your coffee. So it's
9:30
Speaker 1: a it's not a place where you have a lot
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Speaker 1: of other people mulling around or standing around. Once you
9:35
Speaker 1: get your coffee, you're gone because you're in your car.
9:37
Speaker 1: And so, um, it's not a place where you, you know,
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Speaker 1: talk to the briefe, so you mingle with people. Um,
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Speaker 1: it's very um. In and out, it's very quick, it's
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Speaker 1: very transient. Um. That's the kind of transactions that take place.
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Speaker 1: You know, you you triggered something in my mind, just
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Speaker 1: Sam when you said you get your coffee and you
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Speaker 1: take off. You know what, most people probably didn't even
9:58
Speaker 1: look back in the rear view mirror. They're looking forward.
10:01
Speaker 1: They're looking turn left, turn right. You got your coffee,
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Speaker 1: the car, the car smells awesome, and you're on your way.
10:07
Speaker 1: You know what, Let's go and hear it from the
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Speaker 1: horse's mouth. Joining me from Alaska is Casey Grove with
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Speaker 1: the Alaska Public Media, Casey, what's the shop? Life? And guys,
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Speaker 1: the reason we're asking this, hear me this is this
10:21
Speaker 1: is critical to every investigation. And when you are a
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Speaker 1: crime scene investigator or a prosecutor, or a lawman or
10:28
Speaker 1: a law person like myself, you see and you take
10:33
Speaker 1: in a million facts at once, the temperature, the setting,
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Speaker 1: the weather outside, rainy, doc, the parking lot, who could
10:43
Speaker 1: have been there, who would have seen her? A million
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Speaker 1: things go through your mind all at once, and imagine
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Speaker 1: yourself as a crime scene investigator, and you're you hear
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Speaker 1: this girl is missing, Like Casey just told us. It
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Speaker 1: comes across an email. This girl's missing. She's beautiful. He
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Speaker 1: sees the picture, He sees the email and thanks. Hm.
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Speaker 1: When you go and you go to this parking lot,
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Speaker 1: I wish you could see it the way I see it.
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Speaker 1: You immediately are taking in a million facts and this
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Speaker 1: is one of them. Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media, tell
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Speaker 1: me about the coffee shop. It's very significant. It's kind
11:22
Speaker 1: of this interesting thing about Anchorage. I think it's actually
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Speaker 1: been written about that we have more of these little
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Speaker 1: coffee huts than sort of most places they're kiosk people
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Speaker 1: call them. They're they're outdoors. We have a pretty strong
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Speaker 1: car culture here because it's winter for a lot of
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Speaker 1: the year, and so you know, you kind of need
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Speaker 1: a good car to get around. And one thing that
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Speaker 1: people do when they're driving around their cars and still
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Speaker 1: stop and get coffee at a hut, like a latte
11:53
Speaker 1: or something like that. And so some of them are
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Speaker 1: you know, actual structure is attached to a building, or
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Speaker 1: they're just like a little hut sitting in a parking lot.
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Speaker 1: This particular one common Grounds was sort of a teal
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Speaker 1: They have a couple of these little huts in town
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Speaker 1: and they're they're kind of teal colored, you know, small
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Speaker 1: little hut where maybe two two people would work inside
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Speaker 1: making coffee and serving it out of windows on each side.
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Speaker 1: There's no inside seating or anything like that. It's not
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Speaker 1: uncommon for people to walk up or bike up, but
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Speaker 1: for the most part, it's you drive up. It's a
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Speaker 1: little drive through coffee hut kind of situation. Well, Casey,
12:33
Speaker 1: let me follow up on that. Of course, there's a
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Speaker 1: lot of coffee huts, as you call them. I've never
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Speaker 1: heard them call that, Casey, but whatever, I'm going with
12:42
Speaker 1: it because you know what, it does kind of look
12:44
Speaker 1: like a hut. I guess there are a lot of
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Speaker 1: coffee huts in Alaska. It's freezing and when you say teal,
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Speaker 1: that's really underplying it. This kiosk, it looks like an outhouse. Okay,
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Speaker 1: big enough for maybe four or five people on side
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Speaker 1: to stand. It's so bright against that Alaska snow. And
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Speaker 1: as I recall that night, all the snow, it looked
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Speaker 1: like the parking lot had been freshly clean, because the
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Speaker 1: snow was in drifts that were like ten or twelve
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Speaker 1: feet high all the way around the edges of that
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Speaker 1: parking lot. Why is that significant to me? Because anybody
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Speaker 1: on the other side of that snowdrift can't see what's
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Speaker 1: happening at the coffee stand the night this girl, this
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Speaker 1: team barista just seemingly disappears into thin air, which leads
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Speaker 1: me to my next question, Casey Grove, on the other
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Speaker 1: side of that snowdrift, what was around the coffee shop
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Speaker 1: where there are other stores like what I was describing
13:48
Speaker 1: earlier where I worked through law school, there were stores
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Speaker 1: next to me. It was like a big l shape
13:53
Speaker 1: and I was at the tip of the l but
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Speaker 1: everything was closed at the time I was working, so
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Speaker 1: no one would have seen anything. I was like a
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Speaker 1: sitting duck. So what was around her, Casey Grave. There
14:05
Speaker 1: really aren't any stores right nearby. There's an athletic club
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Speaker 1: that has since changed hands, but there's a There was
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Speaker 1: a large building on one side of this hut, across
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Speaker 1: a pretty big parking lot, like a parking lot big
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Speaker 1: enough for you know, a bunch of people to go
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Speaker 1: to an athletic club. And then on the direct opposite
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Speaker 1: side it had a giant snow burn piled up because
14:31
Speaker 1: of all the snow that had been falling an anchorage
14:33
Speaker 1: that winter. Across from that a pretty busy road that
14:39
Speaker 1: no one driving on that road would be able to
14:40
Speaker 1: see the hut because of all the snow. And then
14:45
Speaker 1: across that road more large parking lots and like box stores,
14:51
Speaker 1: like like a home depot and a loaves I think
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Speaker 1: are all right there. So not a very big trafficked
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Speaker 1: area exactly, just sort of a spot to pull off
15:03
Speaker 1: that road and get a cup of coffee. You know
15:05
Speaker 1: all of that that you're telling me, Casey Grove, Alaska
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Speaker 1: public media is significant, Cheryl McCollum. You were with me
15:12
Speaker 1: and all the many many years I tried felonies. And
15:15
Speaker 1: you know, when you get a great witness on the
15:17
Speaker 1: stand and they talk but you're not getting exactly what
15:20
Speaker 1: you want, you just have to keep after them. And
15:24
Speaker 1: you know, I would find myself getting closer and closer
15:26
Speaker 1: and closer physically to the witness until I thought I
15:30
Speaker 1: was just going to have to crawl into the witness
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Speaker 1: stand and sit on them and say, listen, this is
15:34
Speaker 1: what I'm asking right right, Casey, let me ask you.
15:40
Speaker 1: I'm talking also about in additional, what was a round
15:43
Speaker 1: or what was the weather at that time in Alaska.
15:47
Speaker 1: It's when I say it snows a lot, I mean
15:51
Speaker 1: that there's snow piled up everywhere. There are plow trucks
15:56
Speaker 1: trying to remove it from the streets constantly. Every morning
15:59
Speaker 1: you get up in snowy winter, every morning you get
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Speaker 1: up and have to clean your car off, and there
16:03
Speaker 1: could be six inches of snow piled up or a foot,
16:09
Speaker 1: you know, and that's sometimes can be like day after
16:12
Speaker 1: day after day. In this particular case, it was snowing
16:16
Speaker 1: that morning, you know, making it hard to drive to
16:19
Speaker 1: see while you were driving you know, definitely was very
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Speaker 1: characteristic of that winter. It's not always like that, but
16:27
Speaker 1: definitely that winter there was a lot of you know,
16:31
Speaker 1: pushing snow around by trucks and just sort of dealing
16:36
Speaker 1: with this constant sort of driving through snow, standing around
16:41
Speaker 1: in the parking lot out there and just getting covered
16:43
Speaker 1: in snow, trying to write in your notebook and talking
16:46
Speaker 1: to people. Yeah, I'm trying to think it to doctor
16:48
Speaker 1: Bethany Marshall, renowned La psychoanalyst, about Samantha, about Samantha conecting
16:55
Speaker 1: girl working at night, great grades, wicked, funny, living with
17:01
Speaker 1: her dad. It has a pretty cool guy. And I'm
17:05
Speaker 1: thinking about being in that coffee kiosk, light at night,
17:09
Speaker 1: surrounded by snow and dark, and could nathy. When I
17:15
Speaker 1: take a look at this kiosk, I have picture of
17:17
Speaker 1: it in my mind. I have a similar coffee kiosk
17:21
Speaker 1: near my house. It is bathed in sunlight, and when
17:25
Speaker 1: the sun goes down, it's bathed in the light of
17:29
Speaker 1: street lamps, and there are businesses all around, and any
17:32
Speaker 1: young person in that kiosk is within eyesight or vision
17:37
Speaker 1: of at least a dozen people at all times. This
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Speaker 1: kiosk that Samantha Konik was in. It could be like
17:44
Speaker 1: one of those ski chalets at the top of the
17:47
Speaker 1: Swiss Alps, nothing around but howling wind and drifts of snow,
17:53
Speaker 1: and you might think, well, hey, there's a freeway right
17:56
Speaker 1: next to it. Not really, because there's a huge snow
17:59
Speaker 1: drift between ski chalais or I'm sorry, the Jordan's Lip,
18:03
Speaker 1: the coffee chalais and the freeway, so no one could
18:07
Speaker 1: see this young woman anthy Have you seen her photos?
18:11
Speaker 1: She is so full of life, She's absolutely gorgeous. She
18:16
Speaker 1: wants to work. I know so many young people who
18:19
Speaker 1: do not want to get a job. They graduate from
18:21
Speaker 1: high school, they lolligang, they dragged their feet before going
18:25
Speaker 1: to college, or they graduate from college and they feel
18:29
Speaker 1: so special and entitled. They don't feel ready to enter
18:32
Speaker 1: the job market. Yet, not only is she working late
18:36
Speaker 1: at night, she's sharing a truck with her boyfriend, she's
18:40
Speaker 1: sharing resources, she is beloved by her family, and every
18:46
Speaker 1: photograph of her, she's looking straight at that camera as
18:50
Speaker 1: if to say, I own the world, I am somebody,
18:54
Speaker 1: I am going somewhere. This is not a young woman
18:57
Speaker 1: marginalized by society out in a lonely, yea, because she
19:00
Speaker 1: had nothing going on. So this is the girl had
19:03
Speaker 1: a lot. This is a problem for cities in towns
19:07
Speaker 1: in Alaska is that you just if you're in a
19:10
Speaker 1: place where it snows a lot, you just have to
19:12
Speaker 1: figure out ways to deal with that. So this parking
19:15
Speaker 1: lot where this hut was, they needed to scrape that
19:18
Speaker 1: snow up into a big pile, you know, over the
19:21
Speaker 1: entire winter, and sometimes you have to truck it out,
19:23
Speaker 1: but in this case, they have sort of pushed it
19:25
Speaker 1: up into a big berm that was taller than the
19:28
Speaker 1: hut itself. So you know, if the hut is eight
19:33
Speaker 1: or ten or twelve feet tall, depending on what sort
19:36
Speaker 1: of a little foundation it's on, if you were driving
19:39
Speaker 1: by on the road right next to it, within about
19:43
Speaker 1: one hundred feet fifty feet away, you could not see
19:46
Speaker 1: over this giant berm that was at least, you know,
19:50
Speaker 1: twenty feet tall. So to give it some perspective, I mean,
19:54
Speaker 1: it's a little house. You're at the same level as it.
19:57
Speaker 1: You can't see it because there's so much snow between
20:00
Speaker 1: and you in that little house. I get what you're saying,
20:02
Speaker 1: but if you could just speculate you've been there, you
20:06
Speaker 1: made the measurements, you looked yourself. And I'll go back
20:08
Speaker 1: to Bobby Chicon on this as well. But how far
20:11
Speaker 1: do you believe people could see Samantha. I mean, if
20:15
Speaker 1: you were driving in front of the shop Casey Grove,
20:18
Speaker 1: Alaska public Media say you were driving by and you're
20:21
Speaker 1: at a red light, or just from the street, if
20:25
Speaker 1: you were driving in front of the shop, could you
20:27
Speaker 1: look in and see her? You'd have to be standing
20:29
Speaker 1: right next to it. There's only like a little driveway
20:32
Speaker 1: between the giant snow burm and the hut, and so
20:38
Speaker 1: the only space there is enough space for a car
20:40
Speaker 1: to drive up because they had plowed everything back from that.
20:46
Speaker 1: Samantha Konig just just stunning. And I'm looking at her
20:51
Speaker 1: right now, and you know when some shots her eyes
20:53
Speaker 1: looked blue and some they looked green, no denying. She's gorgeous.
21:00
Speaker 1: And Bobby Chicon, FBI special agent at Bobby Chicon dot com. Bobby,
21:05
Speaker 1: she's like a sitting duck, all right. She's the prize.
21:09
Speaker 1: She's gorgeous, long brown hair almost down to the elbows,
21:15
Speaker 1: and she's alone out there at night in the middle
21:19
Speaker 1: of Anchorage, Alaska, and a coffee Kiosk. So that night,
21:24
Speaker 1: Casey Grove, he gets the email Girl Missing, he sees
21:28
Speaker 1: the picture, he thinks, hmm, what happens next, Bobby. Well,
21:34
Speaker 1: you know, in cases like this, it's it's difficult for
21:37
Speaker 1: investigators because teenagers of that age she was a nineteen eighteen,
21:43
Speaker 1: nineteen years old, can be somewhat impulsive, and when one
21:47
Speaker 1: goes missing, the initial hours you really have to focus
21:51
Speaker 1: on what the person's life was like. Did this person
21:54
Speaker 1: just get moody and decide to have a fight with
21:57
Speaker 1: the boyfriend and decide to just drive away for a
22:00
Speaker 1: few hours to clear their head, things like that. So really,
22:04
Speaker 1: in the first few hours of an investigation like this,
22:06
Speaker 1: you're kind of trying to figure out what the life
22:09
Speaker 1: situation of this person was. Now, as you described Samantha,
22:12
Speaker 1: she was kind of the typical all American teenage girl.
22:16
Speaker 1: I mean, she had one of her first jobs, she
22:18
Speaker 1: was working, she was pretty, she had a boyfriend, she
22:21
Speaker 1: had all the things the trappings of a normal teenage
22:24
Speaker 1: life in America. Now, you're right, she was working at
22:26
Speaker 1: night in a secluded place. So those things kind of
22:30
Speaker 1: increase a risk to a person. And so when you
22:33
Speaker 1: get on a scene like this and you get the
22:35
Speaker 1: initial abduction report, you have to start going, Okay, did
22:39
Speaker 1: this person run away? You start talking to the family,
22:42
Speaker 1: she in a what kind of mood was she in lately?
22:44
Speaker 1: Did she fight with her dad? Did she fight with
22:45
Speaker 1: her boyfriend? And all of those things you have to
22:48
Speaker 1: start looking at in an attempt to determine what really
22:52
Speaker 1: happened here tonight. Well do you Cheryl McCollum, director of
22:55
Speaker 1: the Cold Case Research Institute, I'm with Bobby Chicom. I mean,
22:59
Speaker 1: he is a special agent. But you also have to
23:02
Speaker 1: look at the scene. You have to figure out was
23:06
Speaker 1: there a struggle? Is there money in the cash register?
23:10
Speaker 1: Is there a broken window? Is the door left ajar?
23:12
Speaker 1: Where is her vehicle? What can you find? Or her
23:15
Speaker 1: clothes there? What would you be looking at? Because you're
23:20
Speaker 1: in the middle of Alaska Frontier. You go to this kiosk,
23:24
Speaker 1: you know the girl is missing, It's at night, it's freezing,
23:28
Speaker 1: the wind has blown, snow is everywhere. You can barely see,
23:32
Speaker 1: you know, ten feet in front of you. You're the CSI,
23:36
Speaker 1: you're the crime scene investigator. What do you do? Step
23:40
Speaker 1: by step? Walk me start when you pull in the
23:43
Speaker 1: parking lot. Well, I'm gonna park as far away as
23:45
Speaker 1: I can safely, and i'm gonna root the whole areall.
23:49
Speaker 1: First thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna look for footprints.
23:51
Speaker 1: Did somebody walk up? Did somebody walk away? What direction
23:55
Speaker 1: of the footprints going? Is there one set? Whoa? You
23:58
Speaker 1: know how important that is, Cheryl, that you said that.
24:01
Speaker 1: To this day, people are still talking about were there
24:05
Speaker 1: footprints outside John and A Ramsey's home? And it's a
24:09
Speaker 1: big conundrum. Were there? Where there not? Nobody knows. You're right,
24:13
Speaker 1: you have to look for that in every situation before
24:17
Speaker 1: everybody starts tromping through the scene. Yeah, okay, go ahead,
24:20
Speaker 1: you're gonna get everybody out of there. And you know,
24:22
Speaker 1: you want to know that if it is there one
24:24
Speaker 1: set of footprints, are there two? If there's only one
24:27
Speaker 1: with somebody carried with somebody's througs, So you're looking for everything.
24:32
Speaker 1: I won't know if there's a cigarette, but in the
24:34
Speaker 1: parking lot, I wonner if the street lights are working
24:38
Speaker 1: or if one's been busted. I'm gonna look at that berm.
24:42
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back if I don't have anything. The
24:44
Speaker 1: next night, I'm gonna go back at the exact same
24:47
Speaker 1: time of day, and then I'm gonna look for watch locations.
24:51
Speaker 1: Where could somebody have parked and watched terms what could
24:55
Speaker 1: they see? So if you have big windows, even in
24:58
Speaker 1: a small kiosk, if she's got illumination in there the
25:02
Speaker 1: life Throne and it's dark outside, you can see her,
25:06
Speaker 1: but she can't see you. So I want to know
25:08
Speaker 1: every single thing that could possibly from that scene. Tell
25:14
Speaker 1: me what happened to her. If her car is there,
25:18
Speaker 1: then are there tire tracks that are fresh, that are
25:21
Speaker 1: leaving out that don't go around where somebody bought coffee.
25:24
Speaker 1: I want to know everything, Nancy. Everything is significant. I'm
25:34
Speaker 1: trying to imagine that night as they are out there
25:38
Speaker 1: trying to make sense of her just disappearing, you know.
25:42
Speaker 1: Robert Willinski, Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter and author
25:45
Speaker 1: of Beautiful Life CSI Behind the Casey Anthony Trial, speaking
25:50
Speaker 1: of CSI Robin that night, did they determine what time
25:58
Speaker 1: her last transaction was? Did they find if money was
26:02
Speaker 1: missing from the register, was the door locked? I mean,
26:06
Speaker 1: what did they find when they first got to the scene.
26:10
Speaker 1: They first got to the scene, Nancy no one was there.
26:13
Speaker 1: There was money missing from the register. I guess they
26:16
Speaker 1: would have to have you go back through those receipts.
26:20
Speaker 1: Did somebody buy a coffee at five o'clock, six o'clock,
26:22
Speaker 1: seven o'clock, eight o'clock at night. You can't imagine that
26:26
Speaker 1: on that night, with all that snow and the terrible weather,
26:30
Speaker 1: that it would have been, you know, as busy as
26:32
Speaker 1: your local Duncan Donuts or Starbucks in a major city.
26:37
Speaker 1: But it would have been very easy to determine when
26:41
Speaker 1: the last transaction was. But it was so despolate and
26:44
Speaker 1: nothing around. And there was that front window where you
26:47
Speaker 1: would greet the customers, where she would greet the customers.
26:51
Speaker 1: And she was, really, Nancy, the perfect person for this job.
26:54
Speaker 1: Think about it when you go to get your coffee.
26:56
Speaker 1: I have a relationship with the people that served me
26:58
Speaker 1: coffee every day and had a relationship with her. It's
27:01
Speaker 1: like your bartender, the person who's making your coffee for you.
27:05
Speaker 1: And so she was the perfect person. And think about this, Nancy.
27:08
Speaker 1: Here's another thing that comes to my mind. You have
27:10
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old right talk about an amazing work ethic.
27:14
Speaker 1: That she would still be there on a freezing cold
27:17
Speaker 1: night with all the snow, and it was her task
27:20
Speaker 1: to lock up that coffee shop, and here she is gone.
27:25
Speaker 1: Casey Grove with Alaska Politan Media. What about the theory
27:30
Speaker 1: that money was missing? Was any money actually stolen? Casey,
27:34
Speaker 1: The only talk at the time, you know, right around
27:38
Speaker 1: the time that she went missing, was whether or not
27:41
Speaker 1: maybe she had stolen the till. And there wasn't anything
27:46
Speaker 1: about Samantha to make people think that at that coffee stand,
27:51
Speaker 1: or at least at one of the common Grounds coffee stands,
27:53
Speaker 1: a girl had stolen the cash register, had stolen the
27:57
Speaker 1: tails from the cash register, be two weeks prior, and
28:02
Speaker 1: and sort of just left, never came back to her job.
28:04
Speaker 1: And so I think there was a rumor at one point,
28:07
Speaker 1: very early on, that maybe Samantha had taken this money
28:11
Speaker 1: or her and her boyfriend had taken it and run off.
28:15
Speaker 1: But then we find out that, you know, her boyfriend
28:17
Speaker 1: went to pick her up, she wasn't there. And in
28:20
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, this case, really, as it unfolded,
28:24
Speaker 1: it went from what could have been a simple missing
28:27
Speaker 1: person's case where the girl just has gone off with
28:31
Speaker 1: her boyfriend and and ran off and it's going to
28:33
Speaker 1: come home safe and sound, to every step of the
28:37
Speaker 1: way getting worse and worse and worse up to the
28:39
Speaker 1: worst possible imagine, worst possible imaginable faith for that victim.
28:44
Speaker 1: You know. But following up on what we're saying, Casey Grove,
28:49
Speaker 1: if money had been missing, who would the likely suspects?
28:54
Speaker 1: But you know, just give me a description of the area.
28:56
Speaker 1: Was it rural? Was it close to the city. This
28:58
Speaker 1: isn't a part of Anchorage, which is the largest city
29:01
Speaker 1: in Alaska. A lot of people would say it's like
29:03
Speaker 1: the only real city in Alaska. So it would not
29:07
Speaker 1: look any different than you know, the mid midtown area
29:12
Speaker 1: of kind of an average size city anywhere in the country.
29:15
Speaker 1: I mean, one side of this busy road to the
29:19
Speaker 1: road is you know, box stores, home depot, that sort
29:23
Speaker 1: of thing. And you know the other side is is
29:27
Speaker 1: mostly residential, single family homes, that kind of thing. Um,
29:31
Speaker 1: it's right in the heart of the city. I mean,
29:32
Speaker 1: it's south of downtown by about twenty blocks. It's a
29:38
Speaker 1: it's in a pretty busy you know, commercial blending into
29:44
Speaker 1: industrial district in the in the city with residential. I mean,
29:48
Speaker 1: it's a it's right in the middle of the city though.
29:53
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about Alaska, it is not
29:56
Speaker 1: anything like rural Alaska and it's not like, you know,
30:01
Speaker 1: the suburbs or anything like that. It's right in Anchorage.
30:04
Speaker 1: Robert Willinski Crime Online dot Com investigative report. This is significant.
30:08
Speaker 1: Was their money missing from the till Nancy? Yes, money
30:12
Speaker 1: was missing from the common grounds expresso. Yeah. That changes
30:16
Speaker 1: things to me, Cheryl McCollum, because now it could be
30:20
Speaker 1: just a robbery gone wrong. But where is she a
30:24
Speaker 1: robbery gone wrong? Tip? Usually in my my mains, they
30:27
Speaker 1: end up shooting and killing somebody, that's how the robbery
30:30
Speaker 1: goes wrong. But she just disappears into thin air. What
30:32
Speaker 1: does it mean to you? And of course, hold on,
30:35
Speaker 1: we don't find that out till the next morning. Is
30:37
Speaker 1: that right, Bobby Chicohn FBI, you were on the case.
30:40
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. Um. One of her co workers
30:42
Speaker 1: who responded to the kioska next morning found it's somewhat disheveled.
30:48
Speaker 1: They found a partially made coffee on the counter. They
30:51
Speaker 1: found a note from Samantha asking if she had to
30:54
Speaker 1: work that Saturday, you know, and so clearly that it
30:59
Speaker 1: was the Kiosk was not closed up as as normally
31:04
Speaker 1: as the normal procedure was. So, Bobby Chacon, special Agent FBI,
31:09
Speaker 1: what does that mean to you? Because typically, in my mind,
31:13
Speaker 1: when you say robbery gone wrong, you think someone's committing
31:16
Speaker 1: a robbery and they kill the victim or shoot the victim,
31:19
Speaker 1: and there's the place is ransacked and all the money's gone.
31:24
Speaker 1: But here we have the money gone, but the place
31:28
Speaker 1: isn't ransacked. It's somewhat disheveled, but she's clearly left a
31:32
Speaker 1: note before she's closing up, Hey do you have to
31:34
Speaker 1: work tomorrow? And there's this is intriguing to me. This
31:38
Speaker 1: would be one of the first things I looked at.
31:40
Speaker 1: There's an half made coffee sitting there. It turns out
31:43
Speaker 1: to be an Americano coffee. And what does that say
31:48
Speaker 1: to you, Bobby as you assess the seeing, Well, you're right, Nancy,
31:51
Speaker 1: when when a robbery gone wrong usually results from the
31:54
Speaker 1: resistance of the person being robbed at the point of
31:57
Speaker 1: which they are being robbed. So you would see a struggle,
32:00
Speaker 1: you would see maybe blood, you would see some form
32:03
Speaker 1: of violence that happened at the point of the robbery.
32:06
Speaker 1: When someone is taken from or disappeared from the scene
32:10
Speaker 1: of a robbery, and there isn't that physical evidence to
32:14
Speaker 1: indicate a struggle or some kind of violent interaction. Then
32:17
Speaker 1: you're thinking, why was this person taken away from this location?
32:21
Speaker 1: They clearly if they got what they wanted, if the
32:24
Speaker 1: robbery was successful and they got the money that they
32:26
Speaker 1: were looking for, why would they take that person away?
32:29
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, as an investigator, you have to think, did
32:32
Speaker 1: this person not want a witness left behind to the
32:35
Speaker 1: robbery or something like that? So you start your mind
32:38
Speaker 1: is going in several different directions. But the number one
32:41
Speaker 1: thing is it's not really a robbery gone wrong because
32:44
Speaker 1: that usually results from resistance, which means violence, and there
32:48
Speaker 1: is no real sign of violence within the this coffee
32:52
Speaker 1: Kiosk or Samantha disappeared. So do you Casey Grove with
32:55
Speaker 1: Alaska Public Media, was the coffee shot lot? Was it
32:59
Speaker 1: closed up? Does the door wide open? There was some
33:02
Speaker 1: dispute about whether or not this coffee stand was locked up,
33:05
Speaker 1: or whether the till had been taken, or whether her
33:08
Speaker 1: belongings were still there. There were things actually in that
33:12
Speaker 1: the first couple of days that were misreported about that,
33:17
Speaker 1: and I think that if I remember correctly, it may
33:22
Speaker 1: have been reported early on that all of her belongings
33:26
Speaker 1: had been taken, that maybe she had been, that she
33:30
Speaker 1: had put her coat and everything on and left, and
33:32
Speaker 1: I think later it was reported that she hadn't. And
33:35
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember which one was true, But it
33:38
Speaker 1: was a little bit unclear how the shop had been left,
33:42
Speaker 1: how she had left, or what evidence there was of
33:46
Speaker 1: how she had left. Well, I know this much. The
33:49
Speaker 1: money was gone from the teal. There was no sign
33:51
Speaker 1: of a struggle. But that half made Americano. Sitting there
33:57
Speaker 1: on the cano when the boyfriend drives up to get her,
34:01
Speaker 1: she's not there. So let me ask you this casey,
34:04
Speaker 1: when she goes missing, what type of a search ensued?
34:10
Speaker 1: There were volunteer searches, I think the I think her
34:16
Speaker 1: father was the most active and kind of organizing that.
34:18
Speaker 1: But he had friends that were going around town, putting
34:22
Speaker 1: up flyers all over town. There were actual search parties,
34:29
Speaker 1: you know. I think that initially, and they weren't saying
34:33
Speaker 1: this at the time, but I think initially the police
34:36
Speaker 1: really didn't have much to go on as far as
34:38
Speaker 1: where they were going to even start to look. So
34:44
Speaker 1: it was you know, searching wooded areas, you know, searching
34:50
Speaker 1: parts of town that wouldn't be obvious, you know, just
34:54
Speaker 1: out in the open, but really not not much to
34:58
Speaker 1: go on as far as where to look. So to me,
35:01
Speaker 1: Bobby Chicona, FBI, the first thing I would do is
35:06
Speaker 1: look at boyfriends, ex boyfriends, problems, stalkers. She's there sitting
35:13
Speaker 1: in the middle of a snowdrift at night. Was there
35:19
Speaker 1: a regular that would drive through day after day after
35:23
Speaker 1: day that had become fixated on her? I would try
35:26
Speaker 1: to find out from the till what was the last order?
35:29
Speaker 1: Why was she making that Americano? What time was that?
35:33
Speaker 1: But let's first, we're looking at the crime scene. We're
35:37
Speaker 1: looking at the disappearance. We're looking at the parking lot,
35:39
Speaker 1: we're looking inside the coffee stand. We're taking a look
35:43
Speaker 1: at her, her profile. Who is she now? At the
35:46
Speaker 1: same time, an alternate and contemporaneous investigation is ongoing as
35:53
Speaker 1: to potential suspects. We don't know. For all I know,
35:56
Speaker 1: she's hopped on a train and it's headed to Hollywood
36:00
Speaker 1: to secret fortune. I don't know what's happened. The money's gone,
36:03
Speaker 1: she's gone, no sign of a struggle. So at this point,
36:08
Speaker 1: Bobby Chico, cops have got to be looking at who
36:11
Speaker 1: is in her life. They'll probably even look at her father. Right,
36:15
Speaker 1: nobody is off limits. Who were they looking at, Bobby? Well,
36:19
Speaker 1: that's what you're doing, you're exactly right now. So you're
36:21
Speaker 1: rebuilding this person's life, or you're building this person's life
36:24
Speaker 1: in your own own mind. Because the way these investigations
36:27
Speaker 1: progress is this comes in as a missing person, then
36:29
Speaker 1: it becomes a suspicious missing person before it becomes an abduction.
36:33
Speaker 1: So you have to go through this process of realizing,
36:36
Speaker 1: you're right, did this person just kind of get away
36:39
Speaker 1: for a few hours? Was there something in their life
36:41
Speaker 1: that was causing them anxiety that they needed to get
36:45
Speaker 1: away from friends and family? So you have to look
36:47
Speaker 1: at every possibility because as an investigator, when a person
36:51
Speaker 1: is missing, time is of the essence, and if you
36:54
Speaker 1: go down a wrong path in one of these theories,
36:57
Speaker 1: you're wasting valuable time. So in a way, it's I
37:00
Speaker 1: know it sounds self defeating, but you have to keep
37:03
Speaker 1: every option open because time is so valuable when someone's missing.
37:08
Speaker 1: So if you go down or on path, you lose
37:11
Speaker 1: valuable time. So you're looking at every possibility. So this
37:14
Speaker 1: means that you need more than one person, or you
37:16
Speaker 1: need a team work. In this case, you need to
37:18
Speaker 1: talk to our friends, her family, or co workers, like
37:21
Speaker 1: she's going to school, her former schoolmates, because you know,
37:24
Speaker 1: this is a young woman. She you know, she could
37:26
Speaker 1: still have people that she's family with from high school
37:29
Speaker 1: or from middle school or whatever. You look at social media.
37:32
Speaker 1: You immediately try to get on social media, and you
37:34
Speaker 1: look at all these different things of what's happening in
37:36
Speaker 1: this person's life that could have caused some kind of
37:40
Speaker 1: you know, emotional problem or some kind of issue that
37:43
Speaker 1: made them want to get away. So they're going through
37:46
Speaker 1: all the customers. They're trying to figure out who works
37:49
Speaker 1: in the area, who would pass her every day, who
37:52
Speaker 1: would stop at a red line and just stare over
37:56
Speaker 1: at her. We're looking at every single person in Samantha's life.
38:03
Speaker 1: Take a listen to Lieutenant David Parker, Lieutenant Michelle Beecher.
38:07
Speaker 1: You see the restraining order. You see that there's you know,
38:10
Speaker 1: two months before she is willing to file court paperwork
38:14
Speaker 1: that says that this guy sexually assaulted her or attacked her.
38:17
Speaker 1: I mean that seems like the obvious starting part of course, right,
38:20
Speaker 1: I mean, and that certainly is what the public has
38:23
Speaker 1: focused on. So I just want there's anything else you
38:25
Speaker 1: can do to shed light on whether or not that
38:27
Speaker 1: guy is polite to have been involved, or if he
38:30
Speaker 1: can be ruled out, or if that's still a working
38:32
Speaker 1: progress at this point, that it's still an open part
38:36
Speaker 1: of the investigation, and we want to make sure that
38:39
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody has jumped or not everybody, but many
38:43
Speaker 1: people public jumped to that conclusion and to the point
38:46
Speaker 1: where you know, they could be I understand from some
38:49
Speaker 1: of the news reports that he's complaining that people are
38:51
Speaker 1: accusing him openly that we don't need that kind of thing.
38:55
Speaker 1: That doesn't help this investigation at all. Let the police
38:58
Speaker 1: do their work, let them work through this process. As
39:01
Speaker 1: you know, this is not a one hour TV cop drama.
39:05
Speaker 1: This is real life, and it takes time to work
39:09
Speaker 1: through these things. It takes good forensic work, it takes
39:12
Speaker 1: good interview skills, it takes good piecing together the puzzle,
39:16
Speaker 1: and it ain't like TV. So we have to be
39:19
Speaker 1: really careful. You can't just jump to the conclusion and
39:23
Speaker 1: you know, start accusing this guy and then one day
39:26
Speaker 1: say oh, no, maybe it wasn't him. After all. You
39:29
Speaker 1: can't do that. We need to let the police do
39:32
Speaker 1: their work and make the determination as to what happened
39:36
Speaker 1: and who caused it. Today you are hearing police spokespeople
39:39
Speaker 1: Lieutenant David Parker, a Lieutenant Michelle Butcher at the time,
39:42
Speaker 1: Bobby Chicane. Who's he talking about. He's not talking about
39:45
Speaker 1: the boyfriend. Who is that? Well, apparently there was another
39:48
Speaker 1: individual that Samantha had some type of relationship with that
39:52
Speaker 1: I think the No November of twenty eleven, she filed
39:56
Speaker 1: paperwork for a restraining order. I don't think the restraining
39:59
Speaker 1: order was ever issued by a judge, but I think
40:01
Speaker 1: the paperwork was filed. So, you know, the police are
40:04
Speaker 1: exactly right. This is one of those paths that you
40:06
Speaker 1: go down because it's obvious that she had some kind
40:09
Speaker 1: of adverse relationship with whoever she filed this order against.
40:14
Speaker 1: But you know, you try to rule it out or
40:16
Speaker 1: rule it in, and so like that's the problem that
40:18
Speaker 1: the police are alluding to, that when something like that
40:20
Speaker 1: gets out into the public, a person's life can be
40:22
Speaker 1: altered and public perception of the case can change. You
40:25
Speaker 1: know what Bobby, I appreciate other people's lives getting altered,
40:28
Speaker 1: and I don't want that to happen either. But the
40:31
Speaker 1: reality is the girl is gone. I don't want to
40:34
Speaker 1: hurt anybody's reputation, but the fact that she was looking
40:38
Speaker 1: at a restraining order against someone she thought was harassing
40:41
Speaker 1: her is significant to me. So this guy as a possibility,
40:48
Speaker 1: You've got the boyfriend, of course, is always a possibility,
40:52
Speaker 1: you've got some pervy dude stalk or as a possibility.
40:56
Speaker 1: Of course, she always look at family members. The father
40:59
Speaker 1: a possibility to Bobby Chican, what about the boyfriend? What
41:04
Speaker 1: do we know? Well, we know that um, he was
41:08
Speaker 1: supposed to pick her up after work. She didn't have
41:11
Speaker 1: a car with her. Um, it's it's um. I'm not
41:14
Speaker 1: sure whether they were living together or not, but they
41:16
Speaker 1: she spent a lot of time um at his house.
41:18
Speaker 1: He drove a truck. UM. And we know that he
41:23
Speaker 1: had gotten a text from her that evening, UM saying
41:27
Speaker 1: that she wasn't she had a bad day and she
41:30
Speaker 1: was UM. Uh you know, maybe going away for the weekend. Um.
41:34
Speaker 1: And so um you know typical uh, you know, relationship
41:39
Speaker 1: of people that age. You know, you have your ups
41:40
Speaker 1: and downs, you have your um emotional crises and stuff.
41:44
Speaker 1: But um, there was nothing out of the ordinary about
41:47
Speaker 1: the boyfriend that would make make you think that he
41:50
Speaker 1: would take action like this to doctor Bethany Marshall. Right there,
41:54
Speaker 1: doctor Bethany. The text she had never quote gone away
41:59
Speaker 1: for the week, that had never happened. Now, she's a
42:02
Speaker 1: teen girl working at a coffee shop. Why would she
42:05
Speaker 1: text his mysterious text to a boyfriend not say a
42:09
Speaker 1: word to her father with whom she lived that she
42:13
Speaker 1: was leaving for the weekend. That doesn't make sense to me.
42:16
Speaker 1: Right there. To me, that's the first tip off. She
42:18
Speaker 1: didn't take the money. She did not go off on
42:21
Speaker 1: her own. I'm going to go away for the weekend
42:24
Speaker 1: to clear my head. That sounds like a load of bs.
42:27
Speaker 1: That's a technical legal term. But right there, that's wrong.
42:32
Speaker 1: That cup of coffee that half made Americano and that
42:35
Speaker 1: text tell me this is all wrong. See, her regular
42:40
Speaker 1: behavior deviates at this point. We know she loves her parents,
42:45
Speaker 1: she lived with her dad. We know that she shares
42:48
Speaker 1: a vehicle with her boyfriend, and she shares a bank account.
42:52
Speaker 1: So this is a young woman who's highly collaborative, engaged,
42:56
Speaker 1: involved with the people in her life. All of a sudden,
43:00
Speaker 1: now the kiosk is left disheveled, She's not there when
43:05
Speaker 1: her boyfriend comes to pick her up, and there's this
43:08
Speaker 1: strange text saying I am going away for the weekend.
43:13
Speaker 1: I would wonder did her phone fall into the hands
43:17
Speaker 1: of the perpetrator and did that person write the text
43:22
Speaker 1: back to you? Casey Grove, I want to figure out
43:25
Speaker 1: the boyfriend conundrum. What do we know about her boyfriend?
43:29
Speaker 1: Samantha had a boyfriend that was actually picking her up
43:33
Speaker 1: that night, and it was the first person to really
43:36
Speaker 1: note that she was missing. I couldn't tell you how
43:41
Speaker 1: long they had been together. But the next day, as
43:46
Speaker 1: this kind of became an abduction case, like I said,
43:51
Speaker 1: it went from sort of this is a missing person
43:53
Speaker 1: to now we have a reason to believe she's been abducted.
43:56
Speaker 1: He was there in the parking lot just looked ash
44:00
Speaker 1: and I mean he looks, you know, terrible, like he
44:04
Speaker 1: knew something that had happened. He was sort of the
44:07
Speaker 1: first one to know that the night before. As police
44:13
Speaker 1: as FBI are sifting through mounds and mounds of evidence,
44:18
Speaker 1: following every lead, literally looking for a needle in a haystack.
44:23
Speaker 1: It emerges that there is, in fact video surveillance. Listen
44:28
Speaker 1: to NBC Anchorage detectives now say a surveillance capra posting
44:32
Speaker 1: above the entrance to the common grounds espresso hut on
44:34
Speaker 1: Tudor and Fairbanks shows an armed man abducting Coding on
44:38
Speaker 1: Wednesday night. Please say the two left the area on foot,
44:41
Speaker 1: and Coding's family has not heard from her since they
44:44
Speaker 1: left on foot. We know that much, but beyond that,
44:47
Speaker 1: her disappearance became a complete mystery. At that point, when
44:50
Speaker 1: I got off work, I wanted to go get him,
44:52
Speaker 1: get her, and she wasn't. There was It was a mess.
44:55
Speaker 1: Investigators are not yet releasing the surveillance tape. They will
44:58
Speaker 1: only say the abductor was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt
45:01
Speaker 1: and possibly a baseball cap. Bobby, what exactly do we learn?
45:06
Speaker 1: I mean, I get the gist of it. We understand
45:09
Speaker 1: that a guy comes in. He's wearing a ski mask.
45:12
Speaker 1: Apparently he orders a coffee. Samantha makes the coffee and
45:17
Speaker 1: hands it to him. When he apparently what pull There's
45:22
Speaker 1: a scuffle. He pulls out a gun. Samantha tries to
45:25
Speaker 1: get money out of the till what do we think
45:29
Speaker 1: happened inside that chiosk based on the surveillance video alone, well,
45:33
Speaker 1: in the video of what you can see and you
45:35
Speaker 1: can tell at that person's body language. And so Samantha
45:37
Speaker 1: is going about her normal duty of making a coffee.
45:39
Speaker 1: So clearly someone at the window, whoever was at that window,
45:42
Speaker 1: ordered a coffee, and she starts making it, and you
45:44
Speaker 1: see that. But partly through making that coffee, she looks
45:47
Speaker 1: back at the window and you can see her body
45:49
Speaker 1: language immediately change. Her hands go up several times, and
45:52
Speaker 1: you can see her get nervous and and make furtive
45:55
Speaker 1: gestures about which she's supposed to do. And you can
45:58
Speaker 1: you automatically see through our body language that whoever is
46:01
Speaker 1: that that window is threatening her. And so you automatically
46:05
Speaker 1: notice immediately that something is wrong here. This is not
46:08
Speaker 1: the typical transaction. So you see her start to get
46:11
Speaker 1: really nervous, put her hands up several times, trying to
46:13
Speaker 1: comply with whatever that person is telling her to do.
46:16
Speaker 1: To doctor Bethany Marshall, la psycho Willis, I'm just trying
46:19
Speaker 1: to imagine her dad. Can you imagine he's out there
46:23
Speaker 1: in the snow. The next morning, six am, handing out flyers,
46:28
Speaker 1: begging people to help find his daughter, Nancy, so distraught
46:34
Speaker 1: and probably blaming himself as you can imagine, and telling himself,
46:40
Speaker 1: I should have just supported her, I should not have
46:42
Speaker 1: encouraged her to get a job. You know, as parents,
46:45
Speaker 1: we encourage our kids to work right. We want them
46:48
Speaker 1: to own their own lives, to support their lives. So
46:51
Speaker 1: we send them out into the world and we trust
46:54
Speaker 1: that their employers or whoever whoever employs them will keep
46:59
Speaker 1: them safe. But then if something happens, like in this case,
47:05
Speaker 1: the parent blames themselves that this dad, his charge was
47:09
Speaker 1: his daughter to his duty was to protect her, and
47:13
Speaker 1: that got violated by some stranger in the night. And
47:17
Speaker 1: if you look at that surveillance Foo footage Nancy, it's
47:22
Speaker 1: so sad to me because as he's marching her across
47:25
Speaker 1: the parking lot, the perpetrator, it looks like he has
47:28
Speaker 1: one arm around her. I don't know if he has
47:31
Speaker 1: a gun pointed towards her, but I it sim shows
47:35
Speaker 1: up my spine. I thought it's like the sheep to
47:37
Speaker 1: the slaughter. He's just leading her away, and she looks
47:41
Speaker 1: very passive and stooped over, as if she knows there's
47:45
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing she can do to get away. Where is
47:49
Speaker 1: teen girl Samantha Koenig? Where did the guy march her
47:53
Speaker 1: off into the night and the snow and the parking
47:57
Speaker 1: lot until they seemingly just walked off the edge of
48:01
Speaker 1: their surveillance video into what? What can we learn from
48:06
Speaker 1: the surveillance video? Again? A needle in a haystack Nancy
48:14
Speaker 1: Grace signing off goodbye Frank