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Cases That Were Cold... Until a Tip Came In The FBI Files · FBI Files

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: In the mid-1990s, a gang of professional bank robbers raided
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: cities across seven states. Disguises and speed protected their identity
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: from cameras and the police. They stole hundreds of thousands
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: of dollars, always leaving a bomb to terrorize their victims.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: With no minutes and little evidence, the FBI had to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: find the bandits before someone got killed.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Across the Midwest, a band of armed robbers struck banks
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: at the rate of nearly one per month. They attacked
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: with lightning precision and lethal force. They were in and
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: out in five minutes. I'm Jim Kallstrom, former head of
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: the FBI's New York office. The stakes were raised when
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: the FBI discovered the robbers had an agenda beyond personal wealth.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: To stop these violent extremists, the FBI need to capture
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: their terrorist leaders.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: In 1994, the citizens of Ames, Iowa enjoyed the peaceful
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: life provided by a small college town. Many newcomers had
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: moved to Ames because of the area's low crime rate.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: On January 25th at 1030 in the morning, two men
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: entered a bank in town. Right, this is a robbery.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Everybody down on the floor. Down, down, down on the ground.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Down, get on the floor. They wore ski masks and
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: held semi-automatic pistols. They ordered everyone to the floor. The
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: teller managed to set off a silent alarm without being seen.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: The FBI office in nearby Des Moines was alerted to
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the robbery in progress. The agency had primary investigative jurisdiction
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: in crimes involving federally insured money. Agents immediately responded, but
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: they were 30 miles away from the bank. The bandits
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: quickly emptied the cash drawers.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: Don't look at me.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: Face the ground.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: One of them pulled out what appeared to be a bomb.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: He warned that no one should move for five minutes
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: or it would explode. The employees and customers evacuated as
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: soon as they could. The local police cordoned off the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: bank as explosive experts worked inside. The bomb proved to
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: be a diversion. Two road flares bound with duct tape.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: The employees described how one of the gunmen leaped over
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the counter to grab the money. They grabbed thousands in
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: cash and were in and out of the bank in
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: less than five minutes. Agents interviewed the witnesses. They said
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the gunmen sometimes used Spanish when talking to each other.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: The security camera provided photographs of the robber. Ski masks
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: effectively hid the faces of the assailants. But investigators had
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: images of their disguises and their weapons. Nine millimeter semi-automatics.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Because the perpetrators wore gloves, they did not leave any fingerprints.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Detectives used electrostatic tape to recover a footprint from the counter.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: The precautions taken by the bandits had effectively obscured their identities.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Special Agent Ken Moore of the Des Moines, Iowa, FBI
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: field office was immediately concerned that they were dealing with
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: dangerous professionals.
• 4:57
  Speaker 6: Now, most bank robbers try to enter banks as quietly
• 5:00
  Speaker 6: as possible, go up to one teller counter and proceed
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: to rob the bank, and then leave as quietly as
• 5:06
  Speaker 6: they can. These individuals came in very violently, fast.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Agent Moore wanted to apprehend the suspects as quickly as
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: he could. But the FBI had nothing of value to
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: lead to their identity. Several weeks later, a communique came
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: into the Des Moines office. It alerted area FBI of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a February 15th bank robbery in Davenport, Iowa. Agents contacted
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the Davenport office to see if the incident might be related.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: The agent described two gunmen wearing ski masks and black
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: overcoats that had invaded a Davenport bank. The thieves used
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the same Spanish phrases as the Des Moines bandits. They
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: also hopped over the counter to empty the cash drawers.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: There was one significant difference. This time, the bandits left
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: a real explosive, a pipe bomb instead of a fake. Fortunately,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the detonator was missing. Disarming it had slowed down the investigation.
• 6:28
  Speaker 6: What that device does is it requires more manpower that
• 6:34
  Speaker 6: could be out conducting an active investigation. Instead, they're at
• 6:38
  Speaker 6: the bank making sure things are safe.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Investigators believed that the similarities between the incidents were more
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: than coincidental.
• 6:49
  Speaker 6: After the Davenport bank robbery, we realized that the same
• 6:52
  Speaker 6: individuals were responsible for both bank robberies. This was our
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: first connection to possible serial bank robbers.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: In the next four months, Cincinnati, Green Bay, and Kansas
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: City suffered similar crimes.
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: There appeared to be a pattern of their robberies. There
• 7:17
  Speaker 6: appeared to be two regions where they were robbing banks,
• 7:20
  Speaker 6: the Midwest region as well as the Ohio region. We
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: were trying to logically connect those two regions and why
• 7:27
  Speaker 6: banks were being robbed that way.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: The robberies occurred between 10 and 11 in the morning
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: when banks were less populated. Each time, the bandits were
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: out in less than five minutes, always leaving an inert
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: bomb as they fled. The wide geographic spread of targets
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: made their next moves impossible to predict. The FBI needed
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: to find some evidence that would lead to the suspects.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: On June 8th, 1994, the bandits hit a bank in Springdale, Ohio.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: They drove away with over $ 11, 000.
• 8:02
  Speaker 7: The bystanders saw them use a brown Chevrolet.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: As their getaway car. On June 17th, a security guard
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: became suspicious of a car on his employer's lot. It
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: had been sitting for a week without anyone claiming it.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: He saw a police scanner. He also spotted a pager
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: next to a stained $ 20 bill. A Springdale officer came
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: out to check the car. He began a search to
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: ascertain the vehicle's ownership.
• 8:40
  Speaker 7: What do you mean?
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: He made an effort to force open the glove compartment.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: The grenade tumbled out. The hand grenade turned out to
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: be another inert explosive, but its presence linked the car
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: to the bank robbery. Agents used the car's serial numbers
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: to track down the dealership where it had been sold.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: They talked to the salesman who had handled the deal
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: The sale had been made less than two weeks earlier,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: but he couldn't give a description of the buyer. The
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: dead ends left investigators feeling the pressure.
• 9:26
  Speaker 6: We were becoming frustrated because the escalation of violence seemed
• 9:31
  Speaker 6: to have been increasing. They were more brazen, were brandishing firearms,
• 9:38
  Speaker 6: scaring bank employees. They were scaring customers. leaving behind booby traps.
• 9:47
  Speaker 6: So we were very frustrated and we were concerned.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: On December 27th, the bandits finished 1994 with their 12th
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: robbery in as many months. They hit a bank outside St. Louis.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: This time, there were four gunmen.
• 10:03
  Speaker 6: Now we were concerned over possible takeovers of banks, possible
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: entry into the bank vault. With four people, there's a
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: lot more they can do.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Bystanders of the St. Louis robbery saw the bandits put
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: on their ski masks before entering the building. A teller
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: got a glimpse of one of them inside the bank.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: These witnesses helped FBI artists make composite sketches of the suspects.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: The FBI distributed the drawings to other agencies and the media.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: They hoped it might bring someone forward who might know
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: something more. The television and news reports generated hundreds of
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: calls into the FBI offices. Agents followed up on all
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: credible tips, but none provided any lead value. The assailants
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: communicated with the media as well. They sent letters and
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: cartoons to newspapers. The correspondents ridiculed federal agents and their
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: attempts to catch them. In one letter, the gang dubbed
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: themselves the Midwestern Bank Bandits. The bandits sent another message
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: to authorities in one of their getaway cars. An investigator
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: searched a vehicle used in a robbery near St. Louis.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: On the front seat, the gang had left a newspaper
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: clipping about Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, In less
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: than two years, the bandits had hit at least 15
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: banks across the Midwest. By the end of August 1995,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: agents from seven states and FBI headquarters gathered in Louisville, Kentucky.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: All the officers were now working together to identify and
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: apprehend the suspects. All information and leads were to be
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: channeled through a single office, then distributed to.
• 12:22
  Speaker 8: The others.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Special Agent Moore and DeMore served as the point man.
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: The meeting also resulted in all case agents going back
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: to their office, reviewing all files to see if there's
• 12:39
  Speaker 6: anything they may have missed or anything of lead value
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: that might assist us. in identifying the suspects.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Supervisory Special Agent David Welker found a phone tip that
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: came into his Cincinnati office after a June 1994 robbery.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: The informant had named two men as the leaders of
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the Midwestern bank bandits, Peter Langan and Richard Guthrie.
• 13:02
  Speaker 9: Well, you determine at the time that they had criminal backgrounds,
• 13:06
  Speaker 9: that as we set out our leads, that they had
• 13:10
  Speaker 9: been arrested in Georgia for the robbery of a pizza hut.
• 13:14
  Speaker 9: And then we found also at the time that the U.S.
• 13:18
  Speaker 9: Secret Service had looked at Langen as a result of
• 13:23
  Speaker 9: threats made to the president.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: At the arrest, police seized semi-automatic guns and grenades, weapons
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: similar to those used by the bank bandits. The suspects
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: served a brief prison sentence before being released. Agent Welker
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: was able to pull their mug shots. He compared the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: photographs with the artist's sketches made after the St. Louis robberies.
• 13:52
  Speaker 9: And they were so close then that it was phenomenal.
• 13:59
  Speaker 9: It appeared that the composite artist used these photographs to
• 14:03
  Speaker 9: draw the composite drawings. That's how close they were.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Agents now had names for the gunmen.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: In pursuing them.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the FBI was about to uncover a far more deadly
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: plot than bank robbery. In 1995, the FBI hunted the
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Midwestern bank bandits. The day before Thanksgiving, the four gunmen
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: struck another bank in St. Louis, their 21st robbery. Their
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: disguise included ATF hats. The same caps worn by federal
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. They
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: also left their signature pipe bomb. None of these explosive
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: devices had gone off. They had either been inert or
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: lacking detonators. By now, agents knew how to defuse the
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: bombs themselves. They weren't going to let the ruse slow
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the investigation down anymore. Supervisory Special Agent David Welker of
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the Cincinnati office had names for two of the bandits.
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  Speaker 1: But Peter Langan and Richard Guthrie were living underground, surfacing
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: only when they struck another band.
• 15:34
  Speaker 9: Clearly, we've identified the right people. We're trying to develop
• 15:38
  Speaker 9: as much information about these people and their contacts as possible.
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  Speaker 9: But the best part about it is we have leads
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  Speaker 9: to follow.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: In the intervening months, the informant who had provided the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: names had moved from Ohio. Special Agent Ed Woods of
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the Cincinnati FBI field office tracked the informant to Georgia
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: where he lived with his new wife and child.
• 16:10
  Speaker 10: This fella had been an associate of Langan and Guthrie
• 16:14
  Speaker 10: in the past, had removed himself from that lifestyle and
• 16:17
  Speaker 10: was starting a new life for himself. And I think
• 16:20
  Speaker 10: he was ready to put all that behind him. So
• 16:23
  Speaker 10: when I interviewed him, he cooperated fully.
• 16:26
  Speaker 11: I need to ask you a few questions.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: The informant had met Langan in 1991 at a white
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: supremacist rally.
• 16:32
  Speaker 12: The Bible says, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife
• 16:37
  Speaker 12: and the black people.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: They shared similar beliefs about race and government. A year later,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Langan proclaimed his intention to form the Aryan Republican Army.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: It was going to start a revolution against Washington and
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: its federal agencies like the FBI and ATF. Langen had
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: been inspired by The Order, an established terrorist group. The
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Order had financed their racist agenda by robbing $ 4 million
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: from banks and armored cars. That evening, Langen introduced Guthrie
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: as his compatriot. Two months before the first bank robbery,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: they asked the informant to become a member of the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Aryan army. Well, I've got some stuff here. He declined
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: to join the new gang. But he did agree to
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: pitch in.
• 17:46
  Speaker 10: What we got from this cooperating witness was the scope
• 17:49
  Speaker 10: of their activities, the surgical planning for their bank robbery activities,
• 17:55
  Speaker 10: the fact that now we learned for the first time
• 17:58
  Speaker 10: that their activities aren't just bank robbery and criminal matters.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: It relates to white supremacy. The informant helped Langdon case
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the bank in Springdale, Ohio. But before that June 1994 robbery,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the informant had a change of heart and cut himself
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: off from the bandits. He had participated enough to be
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: charged as an accomplice. The FBI promised not to prosecute
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: him if he assisted. They were ready to make a
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: deal to capture Langan and Guthrie.
• 18:43
  Speaker 9: Once we determined that they had broken off other white
• 18:47
  Speaker 9: supremacist organizations to form their own, it certainly ratcheted the
• 18:52
  Speaker 9: investigation up just another notch.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Agent Welker suspected it was only a matter of time
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: before the Midwestern bank bandits turned their racial prejudice into violence.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: The gang was back in Cincinnati hitting another bank in
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: December 1995. During their escape, one of the bandits bumped
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: into a teenager. The gunman demanded her purse. She refused
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: to comply. Only the sound of approaching sirens prevented the
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: young woman from being seriously hurt. Betting that the bandits
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: were still in the area, Agent Welker brought the informant
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to Cincinnati. Upon arriving, the informant agreed to reenter the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: white supremacist movement. Agents instructed him to page the FBI
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: when he made contact with the suspects. But investigators became
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: frustrated when more than a week passed without any results.
• 20:03
  Speaker 9: Since he's been here for a week and a half
• 20:05
  Speaker 9: and has provided no information at all and has arranged
• 20:09
  Speaker 9: no meeting, has virtually done nothing, I was more than
• 20:14
  Speaker 9: skeptical as to what this cooperating witness could do for us.
• 20:20
  Speaker 9: And I was prepared to send him home because of
• 20:29
  Speaker 9: my disbelief at the time.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: At 2.30 in the morning of January 17, 1996, the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: informant paged the FBI. The call roused investigators from sleep
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to a secret meeting. The informant claimed to have found Guthrie.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: He was finishing dinner with a friend when Guthrie unexpectedly
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: showed up. The informant invented a reason for being in
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Cincinnati and engaged the suspect in small talk.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Get him in, I can talk to you outside.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Jerry, come on. Guthrie invited him out to his van
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: to continue the conversation in private. While they sat in
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: the parking lot, the suspect asked his old friend to
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: reconsider joining the gang. Guthrie showed off an assault rifle
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and a bag of armor-piercing bullets. The informant provided a
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: partial license plate number and description of Guthrie's van. Agents
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: still doubted his credibility.
• 21:54
  Speaker 9: So I had Agent Woods arrange to have the cooperating
• 21:58
  Speaker 9: witness in the FBI office at 4 o'clock on Sunday afternoon.
• 22:04
  Speaker 9: I didn't want him to know why he was there.
• 22:06
  Speaker 9: I just wanted him to be there. And then I
• 22:09
  Speaker 9: arranged for my division's polygraph examiner to be there, and
• 22:13
  Speaker 9: I wanted a polygraph of him. I wanted to make
• 22:15
  Speaker 9: sure that what he was telling us was true.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: The informant agreed to take a lie detector test. The
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: examiner determined that the young man had been deceptive in
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: his answers during the test.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: I'm telling the truth.
• 22:33
  Speaker 13: Listen.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: The piece of paper there, this polygraph doesn't lie. He
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: insisted he was telling the truth.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Make a quick phone call.
• 22:40
  Speaker 8: Please, let me make one phone call.
• 22:41
  Speaker 14: I can prove it.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: I can prove it.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: One phone call.
• 22:44
  Speaker 15: Yes, come on.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: To prove it, he placed a call to the friend
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: with whom he had had dinner.
• 22:51
  Speaker 11: Hey, what's going on, man?
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Good, man.
• 22:53
  Speaker 16: Yeah.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: The speakerphone allowed the agents to hear everything. Without prompting,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the friend immediately asked about his time with Guthrie.
• 23:08
  Speaker 9: So now we had to make a decision, and the
• 23:10
  Speaker 9: decision is do we believe the polygraph or do we
• 23:12
  Speaker 9: believe the phone call? I think at the time, I
• 23:18
  Speaker 9: think the decision we made was the right one, and
• 23:20
  Speaker 9: that is we have to believe the phone call. It
• 23:23
  Speaker 9: was an unprovoked response by the friend.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: The informant arranged to meet Guthrie on Monday at their
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: mutual friend's apartment. FBI agents assembled an arrest team. They
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: staked out the location, ready to capture the suspect when
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: he arrived. The informant waited inside the apartment. The friend
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: did not know why the meeting had been arranged. Guthrie
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: had promised to come sometime between 4 and 5 p.m.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: 5 o'clock came and went, without the white supremacist arriving.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: The informant knew that more than his credibility was at stake.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: So was his cooperation agreement. If the FBI believed he
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: had deceived them, they would turn him over to prosecutors
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: for bank robbery. At 5.20, there was still no sign
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: of Guthrie. It looked like the suspect would not show up. Outside,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the arrest team grew impatient.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Hey, what's up?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's here. It was Guthrie on the phone. He
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: said they could meet at a nearby pizza restaurant in
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: 30 minutes. The informant needed to get word to the
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: arrest team. He told his buddy he was going out
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: for cigarettes. The informant told the agents about the call.
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: They alerted the SWAT team to the new location.
• 25:31
  Speaker 8: Several cars set out for the pizza parlor.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: The agents could not help but wonder if this was
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: the location or just another diversion. Along the way, traffic
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: separated the arrest team. One agent was passing a convenience
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: store parking lot when he spotted Guthrie. He turned around
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: and radioed to the others that the suspect had been sighted.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Guthrie got into his van and started driving. The agent
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: stayed on the van's tail, hoping the rest of the
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: team would catch up. He was alone, following a suspect
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: considered highly dangerous. But he was determined not to let
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Richard Guthrie get away. In January 1996, the FBI pursued
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Richard Guthrie. The suspect was wanted for 22 bank robberies.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: An agent separated from the arrest team had spotted the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: suspect at a Cincinnati parking lot and began tailing his van.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: He reported by radio his progress to the others. Guthrie
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: noticed that he was being followed. An informant had reported
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: that he was armed with automatic weapons and armor-piercing bullets.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: The suspect tried to lose his tail. The arrest team
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: caught up with the lone agent and joined the chase.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Guthrie couldn't shake them. He unwittingly turned into a cul-de-sac. Trapped,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: he abandoned his van. Agent Ed Wood sprinted right behind him.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: He caught up to the gunman.
• 28:11
  Speaker 10: It was almost as if it was in slow motion,
• 28:15
  Speaker 10: like you could almost read his mind, what he's thinking.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: He's thinking, I believe, is this it?
• 28:21
  Speaker 10: Is this the last standoff of this white supremacist? And
• 28:25
  Speaker 10: quite frankly, what I expected him to do was to
• 28:28
  Speaker 10: turn and start firing.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Guthrie came to a riverbank. He had no escape. Agents
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: boxed him in.
• 28:36
  Speaker 9: I've been in law enforcement for over 20 years, and
• 28:39
  Speaker 9: I've never.
• 28:48
  Speaker 9: Seen a look on a face like Guthrie's at the time.
• 28:52
  Speaker 9: And Guthrie, as he was looking at us, he was
• 28:56
  Speaker 9: deciding whether he wanted to die right then. He was
• 29:00
  Speaker 9: deciding whether he wanted to pull a gun and take
• 29:03
  Speaker 9: on everybody who was standing there.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: The suspect chose to live. He submitted to arrest.
• 29:22
  Speaker 9: Catching him, it was a huge relief. And catching him
• 29:27
  Speaker 9: to where there was no violence attached to the arrest
• 29:30
  Speaker 9: was even a greater relief.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Once in custody, Guthrie began talking.
• 29:39
  Speaker 7: Thanks, Randall.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: He told investigators how he stayed in touch with the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: other primary suspect, Peter Langan. The friends used coded voicemails
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: to contact one another. He handed over his pager and
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: pin number. How about this one right here? He claimed
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: his next meeting with Langan was to be in Indianapolis.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Guthrie's lawyer made an agreement with the FBI. For later
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: consideration in sentencing, they could take the suspect with them
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to use as bait. Under the arrangement, the accompanying agents
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: weren't allowed to question Guthrie about his crimes. Agent Welker
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: sought another way to ply information from the bandit's leader.
• 30:26
  Speaker 9: I assigned two agents to guard them. One agent is
• 30:30
  Speaker 9: a former Harrier pilot in the Marine Corps and the
• 30:33
  Speaker 9: other is our principal firearms instructor. And of course over
• 30:36
  Speaker 9: a two day period there was a lot of discussion
• 30:39
  Speaker 9: going on. I was well aware that Guthrie had an
• 30:43
  Speaker 9: interest in flying and he had a keen interest in weapons.
• 30:46
  Speaker 10: During the trip.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: The agents engaged Guthrie in long conversations about common interests.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: The congenial strategy worked. The assailant warmed up to his
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: accompanying agents and began volunteering information on the robberies. Guthrie
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: admitted that he had lied to investigators. His rendezvous was
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: really supposed to take place in Columbus, Ohio, not Indianapolis,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: where the investigators had taken him. He gave them the
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: address of a safe house. He told them Langan was
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: heavily armed. He would not come out without a fight.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: An FBI arrest team assembled the next morning in Columbus.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Langan's van was parked next to the duplex Guthrie had described.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: The plan was to wait until the suspect exited his
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: home and got into his van. Then as he pulled out,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: FBI cars would box him in. This would contain him
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: and prevent a vehicular pursuit. All escape avenues were blocked off.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: At 9.30 a.m., Langan left the duplex carrying a canvas bag.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Agents suspected this held an assault weapon. He got into
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: his van, but failed to start the engine. The arrest
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: team waited for the word.
• 32:58
  Speaker 9: Once he was observed getting into the van, the adrenaline
• 33:02
  Speaker 9: for everyone there was flowing. Everyone knew something was going
• 33:07
  Speaker 9: to happen.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: The suspect sat motionless. Agents didn't know if he was
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: planning something. He seemed as if he anticipated the arrest. Finally,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: the signal went out to move in. Let's take him,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: let's take him. In what agents thought was a suicide move,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Langan had decided to put up a fight. On January 18th, 1996,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: the suspected leader of 22 bank robberies decided to shoot
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: it out with an FBI SWAT team. Supervisory Special Agent
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: David Welker of the Cincinnati office led the arrest team.
• 33:54
  Speaker 9: Someone who's going to pull a gun on 20 or
• 33:56
  Speaker 9: more FBI agents is one nasty dude. He's one nasty criminal.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Peter Langan was one gun against many. SWAT team bullets
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: pummeled the van. It was over within moments, but not
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: before 50 rounds had been fired. Langan survived and surrendered.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Despite the hail of bullets, he suffered only minor injuries
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: to the face and back. After two years of pursuit,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the leaders of the Midwestern Bank Bandits were now in custody.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Two other accomplices remained at large. The van was filled
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: with semi-automatic guns, ammunition, and grenades. Inside the canvas bag,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Agents found a nine millimeter semi-automatic pistol. It was the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: same make of weapon that the bank bandits used. Evidence
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: inside the duplex confirmed the bandits were more than a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: gang of thieves. The house contained an armory big enough
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: to equip a small cadre of terrorists. Agents found ski masks,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: FBI hats, police uniforms, and false IDs from nearly every
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: state of the union. Books and literature detailed the gang's
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: creed of militant hate.
• 35:33
  Speaker 9: I'm Commander Pedro.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Investigators discovered a tape among the propaganda.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: What do you know?
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: It targeted young white males for recruitment into the Aryan
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Republican Army.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: Today, We are preparing to take over.
• 35:53
  Speaker 7: The USA.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Tomorrow, the world.
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: Please have a seat.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: A Columbus bank teller had briefly glimpsed the face of
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: one of the bandits 17 months earlier. Detectives gave her
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a photo lineup, hoping she could remember enough to make
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: an ID. Despite the intervening months, she picked out Langan
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: from the array of similar looking men. While Langan refused
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: to cooperate, Guthrie agreed to tell all he knew. Agents
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: debriefed him 10 hours a day for 10 straight days.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: How many accomplices did you have? He could recall all
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: the places, times, and dates. It took 99 pages to
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: detail the 22 robberies.
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: Scott and John, okay.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: But when it came to his at-large accomplices, Guthrie only
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: knew their first names. The bank bandits had been assembled
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: like an underground terrorist cell. Personal information on others was
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: kept to a minimum to prevent capture. Guthrie could only
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: offer that the man he knew only as Scott was
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: involved in music. The man he knew as Kevin was
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the nephew of a police officer. Both lived in the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia area. The scanned information was forwarded to Pennsylvania. Special
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Agent Joe Hendrickson of the Philadelphia FBI field office was
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: initially overwhelmed by the request.
• 37:31
  Speaker 11: There was no hope of finding these people with that information.
• 37:35
  Speaker 11: I sat back and had a cup of coffee, and
• 37:37
  Speaker 11: then I said, well, I'll go contact the Philadelphia Police Department.
• 37:41
  Speaker 11: And there's a possibility that maybe their personnel records indicate nephews.
• 37:47
  Speaker 11: But I was in much doubt that that type of
• 37:51
  Speaker 11: record existed because I know that in my outfit, I
• 37:55
  Speaker 11: did not list nieces and nephews in my personnel file.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia had 7,000 police officers, any one of which could
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: be Kevin's uncle. The search began at the intelligence division
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: of the police department. An officer knew immediately who the
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: FBI was looking for. The division had been keeping tabs
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: on white supremacists in the area. Intelligence officers had kept
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: them under surveillance for over a year. Officers often spotted
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: them meeting on a farm belonging to Mark Thomas.
• 38:37
  Speaker 11: Over the years, The Philadelphia Police Department had been taking down.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Tags at various rallies and so forth.
• 38:46
  Speaker 11: And at some point in time, they took down a tag,
• 38:49
  Speaker 11: ran the tag, and it came out to Kevin McCarthy.
• 38:53
  Speaker 11: And then they said, you know, we've got a lieutenant.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Here that has that name.
• 38:59
  Speaker 11: They contacted him, and lo and behold, they found out
• 39:02
  Speaker 11: that Kevin McCarthy was attending Aryan Nation rallies.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Hendrickson put a surveillance squad on Kevin McCarthy. They observed
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: him repeatedly visiting a recording studio in Philadelphia. Agents noted
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the license numbers of the cars outside the business. They
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: ran the plates for all the people going in and out.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: One of the vehicles belonged to a man named Scott Stedeford.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: He managed the studio and also played drums in McCarthy's band.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: From his amateur photo, Guthrie confirmed that this was the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Scott he had worked Using that same photo, a witness
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: also recognized Stediford as the getaway driver in the Des
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Moines robbery. An arrest warrant was sent to Philadelphia. The
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: studio presented too many risks for officers to invade and force.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Agents could not be sure who was inside and what
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: weapons might be hidden. They didn't want another shootout.
• 40:16
  Speaker 18: We're writing it for my mom, actually, and these are
• 40:18
  Speaker 18: the lyrics I.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Came up two undercover agents posed as father and daughter.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: The female agent asked Stediford about the cost of studio time.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: She claimed she wanted to record a song for her mother.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: As Stediford considered a quote, the undercover agents confirmed that
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: he was alone and unarmed.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: The agents drew on him.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: They placed him under arrest. The FBI did not have
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: an arrest warrant for Kevin McCarthy. They feared that he
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: would run once he heard about Stediford's capture.
• 41:03
  Speaker 11: What we ended up doing was we brought his uncle,
• 41:08
  Speaker 11: the Philadelphia police officer, with us. We felt that with
• 41:12
  Speaker 11: his blood relative, the law enforcement presence, and the total
• 41:17
  Speaker 11: set of circumstances that we hoped that he would somehow
• 41:22
  Speaker 11: be convinced that the thing.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: To do would be to cooperate. The uncle entered the
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: basement bedroom. He disarmed his sleeping nephew. The agent woke
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: the young man. He began explaining that it was in
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: McCarthy's best interest to cooperate with the FBI. Only suspicion
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: tied the young man to the crimes. The agent needed
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: a confession. He showed McCarthy the 99 page admission made
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: by Guthrie.
• 42:06
  Speaker 11: And when he saw this report, describing every bank robbery,
• 42:10
  Speaker 11: what they did, where they went. He realized that we
• 42:15
  Speaker 11: had all the information. He just didn't realize that we
• 42:18
  Speaker 11: had no evidence.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: The young man was overwhelmed. He voluntarily turned over the
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: weapon and clothing he used in the robberies. When he
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: began to confess, his uncle stopped him and advised him
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: to get a lawyer.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Thank you, John.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: With all the suspects now in custody, agents considered their
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: investigation wrapped up. On July 3rd, 1996, Richard Guthrie pleaded
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: guilty to 19 bank robberies. He agreed to testify against
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: his accomplices. With his cooperation, prosecutors considered their case airtight.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Nine days later, the cooperating witness hang yourself in a
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: jail cell. The suicide devastated the government's case.
• 43:16
  Speaker 10: Now, that created a major problem for the prosecution because
• 43:21
  Speaker 10: since Guthrie could no longer be cross-examined, his information couldn't
• 43:25
  Speaker 10: be used directly against Langen.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: If the other bank bandits were going to be convicted,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: the FBI had to find someone else who could corroborate
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Guthrie's confessions. In 1996, the legal case against the Midwestern
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: bank bandits was on the verge of collapse. The chief
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: cooperating witness had killed himself. Without his testimony, the evidence
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: against his captured co-defendants was slim. Special Agent Joe Hendrickson
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: spearheaded the investigation in Philadelphia.
• 44:04
  Speaker 11: These bank robbers were very, very good. Evidence that they
• 44:09
  Speaker 11: left behind at every robbery was zero. They were fully masked,
• 44:14
  Speaker 11: fully gloved. Their weapons were untraceable.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Hendrickson helped convince Kevin McCarthy to plead guilty and turn
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: state's witness. But prosecutors needed more than one cooperating felon
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: to convict the others. Investigators focused on the man who
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: had steered suspects into the Aryan Republican Army. Mark Thomas
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: had turned Scott Stediford and Kevin McCarthy into outlaws. Thomas
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: edited a newsletter and web page for white supremacists. His
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: literature and videos had swayed many young men into racist
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: and anti-government organizations.
• 44:57
  Speaker 11: And we felt that even though he was not personally
• 44:59
  Speaker 11: involved in these crimes, that he had caused these crimes
• 45:04
  Speaker 11: to come about. And therefore he was responsible. And based
• 45:10
  Speaker 11: on conspiracy laws, we felt that it was quite possible
• 45:15
  Speaker 11: to go after him for conspiring to commit bank robbery.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: The FBI made weekly contact with Thomas at his Pennsylvania farm.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: They wanted to know about his activities, but more importantly,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: they wanted to keep pressure on him. They made it
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: clear that they suspected him and weren't going away. Kevin
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: McCarthy told investigators that he and Scott Stediford had stayed
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: at Thomas' home. He acted like a father figure to
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: them and warned them of the coming race war. He
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: brought the young men to live in Elohim City, a
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: white separatist compound in Oklahoma. During the summer of 1994,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Thomas invited them to join the Aryan Republican Army. In mid-October,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Scott stood up for the group. He participated in his
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: first bank robbery two weeks later. On November 13th, Thomas
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: drove Kevin McCarthy to Arkansas for an introduction to Langdon
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: and Guthrie. The teenager heard them boast of successfully robbing
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: banks throughout the Midwest.
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: The 17-year-old joined up.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Agents also learned from McCarthy that Thomas took $ 100 in
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: stolen money for the start of an Aryan war chest.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Over the months of contact, agents caught Thomas in several
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: lies about his activities. They took what they had to U.S. prosecutors.
• 47:20
  Speaker 11: The United States Attorney's Office decided that based on the
• 47:26
  Speaker 11: cooperating witnesses' testimony, we were going to arrest him. Even
• 47:31
  Speaker 11: though it was a very slim case, it was a
• 47:33
  Speaker 11: close call, as the United States Attorney's Office would say,
• 47:36
  Speaker 11: but we're going to put out an arrest.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Warrant for him. Thomas heard that the FBI was going
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: to pick him up on a charge of conspiracy. He
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: agreed to surrender after calling the media to witness the event.
• 47:51
  Speaker 9: He told the press.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Their presence prevented his assassination. Thomas pleaded not guilty at
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: his arraignment hearing on February 4th, 1997. He asked to
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: meet with the FBI the next day. That's where Mark
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Thomas caved. He signed a seven-page plea agreement that corroborated
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy's confession. The government's case was now solid.
• 48:22
  Speaker 11: This was the biggest surprise of anyone's involved in the case.
• 48:27
  Speaker 11: The idea that the head of the movement after one
• 48:30
  Speaker 11: day in prison would decide to completely cooperate was just unfathomable.
• 48:36
  Speaker 11: But apparently our pressure over the six months of continually
• 48:40
  Speaker 11: talking to him and then the one night in prison
• 48:43
  Speaker 11: was enough for him to decide that he had been
• 48:46
  Speaker 11: completely wrong in his ideals and that he wanted to,
• 48:51
  Speaker 11: as he said, get right with God.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Mark Thomas was sentenced to nine and a half years
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: in prison. Peter Langan was convicted on bank robbery and
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: gun charges. He received life without parole. Kevin McCarthy got
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: five years. His testimony helped convict Scott Stediford on two
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: counts of armed bank robbery. The court sentenced Steadiford to
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: 29 and a half years. In America, extremist groups enjoy
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: the freedom to maintain their beliefs. They are constitutionally protected
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: until they cross the legal line. If they engage in
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: outlaw activities, They will find the FBI on a mission
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: to stop.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: Them.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Southern Ohio's rural counties are perfect for outdoor recreation. But
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: the calm of this quiet community was shattered in 1989
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: when a sniper gunned down an outdoorsman without reason. It
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: was only the first in a string of random, terrifying murders.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Hiding in the distance behind a high-powered rifle, A madman
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: was hunting humans along Ohio's county roads.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Starting in the spring of 1989, a madman prowled the
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: woods and fields of rural Ohio. He was a hunter.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: A high-powered rifle was his weapon of choice. Joggers and
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: fishermen were his quarry. The hunter roamed far, struck at random,
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: and left no clues. He was as elusive as he
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: was lethal. Investigators knew he had to be stopped, but
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: no one knew how. I'm Jim Kallstrom, former director of
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: the FBI's New York office. Most murderers have a connection
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: to their victims and a motive for their crime, but
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: not a serial killer. His victims are randomly chosen to
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: fulfill an uncontrollable need to kill. Often he leads an
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: ordinary life, his family and friends unaware of his homicidal passions.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: But serial killers establish profiles as distinct as fingerprints, and
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: when a match is made, it is only a matter
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: of time before they are caught.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: The rural counties of Southern Ohio are hilly, rocky, and
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: wide open. A quiet place for coal miners, factory workers,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: and farmers. The kind of place where people leave doors
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: unlocked and where violent crime is almost unheard of. On
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: April 1st, 1989, 35-year-old Donald Welling did what he frequently
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: did on Saturdays. He went jogging along the back roads
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: of Tuscarawas County. His quiet morning run ended with a
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: single shot. The rifle bullet ripped through Welling's heart, killing
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: him instantly. Local authorities could find no motive and not
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: a shred of evidence. The rifle was never found. November 10th, 1990,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: another Saturday morning, 19 months later. 21-year-old Jamie Paxton of Bannock, Ohio,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: rose early to go bow hunting. Leaving his crossbow in
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: the car, he took a walk through the tall grass
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: off State Route 9. Paxton was alone and unarmed. He
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: didn't notice the red pickup truck that stopped a short
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: distance away. The gunman was quiet and careful. Jamie Paxton
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: was shot three times by a high-powered rifle. There were
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: no witnesses. The killing horrified a quiet community that considered
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: murder to be a problem for big cities. Hunting accidents
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: are not uncommon in southern Ohio, but Belmont County Sheriff
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Tom McCourt knew right away that this wasn't a hunting accident.
• 54:33
  Speaker 19: When we saw more than one wound, we knew that
• 54:35
  Speaker 19: it could not be an accident, that an accidental death,
• 54:39
  Speaker 19: a hunting accident, is called a one-shot. Plus, we saw
• 54:42
  Speaker 19: it was a bullet wound instead of something from an arrow,
• 54:46
  Speaker 19: and gun season was not in yet.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Sheriff Tom McCourt's jurisdiction is large geographically, but the community
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: is closely knit. There, people work hard, and everyone seems
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: to know everyone. McCourt even knew Jamie Paxton. What he
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: didn't know was who killed him. The gunman had left
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: no clues. We checked the area for spent money.
• 55:14
  Speaker 19: Empty cartridge cases, for tire tracks, for anything in that
• 55:19
  Speaker 19: area of where we thought the shot came from. We
• 55:22
  Speaker 19: also checked the area around the body looking for the
• 55:28
  Speaker 19: spent projectiles that had passed through the body. We even
• 55:31
  Speaker 19: took metal detectors in looking for the projectiles. At that
• 55:35
  Speaker 19: time we were unable to find anything.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Right over there by the marina and After interviewing Jamie
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: Paxton's friends, family, and acquaintances, they were unable to find
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: anyone with a motive to kill him. Everyone in the
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: area knew Jamie Paxton.
• 55:55
  Speaker 19: No one that we knew of or was able, even
• 55:57
  Speaker 19: to this day, have ever found anyone who disliked a
• 56:00
  Speaker 19: young man.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Sheriff McCourt had an apparently random killing of a popular
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: young man with no history of trouble. A seemingly unsolvable
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: murder with no physical evidence and no witnesses. Not even
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: a plausible theory about what happened.
• 56:18
  Speaker 19: I think that's about it.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: After her son's death, Jean Paxton's grief impelled her to action.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: She began composing letters to a local paper, the Martin's
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Ferry Times Leader, designed to draw out the killer.
• 56:40
  Speaker 16: There was just every time I would sit down to
• 56:42
  Speaker 16: write a letter, I would say a prayer. And I
• 56:45
  Speaker 16: would say, please, God, just give me the words to
• 56:47
  Speaker 16: get to the person that killed my son.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: The letters were at once stern and passionate. To the
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: murderer of my son Jamie, she wrote, would it be
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: easier for you if I wrote words of hate? I
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: can't because I don't feel hate. I feel deep sorrow
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: at losing my son. You took a light from my
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: life last November and left me with many days of darkness.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: Have you thought of your own death? It'll happen. Unless
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: you confess your sin and ask for God's forgiveness, you
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: will face the fire and fury of hell at your
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: own death. If the killer were reading Gene Paxton's letters,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: he seemed unaffected by them. On November 28th, 1990, just
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: 18 days after Paxton's murder, 30-year-old Kevin Loring was on
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: a hunting trip in Muskegon County, Ohio, some 40 miles
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: from where Jamie Paxton was killed. While his friends finished
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: eating lunch, Kevin decided to get a head start. Walking
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: across a field in search of game, Loring himself became prey,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: unknowingly moving into the sights of the gunman. Loring was
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: killed by a single gunshot wound to the head. The
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: killer had taken care to commit his murders in different
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: counties to slow an investigation that would have to take
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: place over hundreds of rural miles. The result? Investigators in
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Muskegum County were unaware of the other sniper victims in
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: nearby counties. They decided that Loring's death was probably a
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: hunting accident. Jean Paxton never gave up. She kept writing
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: throughout 1991, determined to draw out Jamie's killer.
• 59:18
  Speaker 16: And I always felt if I could get my letters
• 59:22
  Speaker 16: into the hands of the person that killed my son,
• 59:25
  Speaker 16: I felt that I could get a response from them.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: She turned out to be right. I am the murderer
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: of Jamie Paxton, the type written letter read. Jamie Paxton
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: was a complete stranger to me. I never saw him
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: before in my life, and he never said a word
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: to me that Saturday. Paxton was killed because of an
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: irresistible compulsion that has taken over my life. I knew
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: when I left my house that day that someone would
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: die by my hand. I just didn't know who or where.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: I'm an average looking person with a family, a job,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: and home, just like yourself. Something in my head causes
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: me to turn into a merciless killer with no conscience.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: The letter arrived at the Martin's Ferry Times Leader a
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: few days before the one year anniversary of Jamie's death.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: The letter described the Paxton murder in chilling detail. I
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: was very drunk, and a voice in my head said,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: do it. I stopped my car behind Jamie's and got out.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: Jamie started walking very slowly down the hill toward the road.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: I raised my rifle to my shoulder and lined him
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: up in the sights. I took at least five seconds
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: to take careful aim. My first shot was off a
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: little bit and hit him in the right chest. He
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: groaned and went down. I wanted to make sure he
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: was finished, so I fired a second shot aimed halfway
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: between his hip and shoulder while he was prone on
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: the ground. I jerked the shot and hit him in
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: the knee. He never moved again. Five minutes after I
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: shot Paxton, I was drinking a beer and it blacked
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: out all thoughts of what I had just done out
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: of my mind. I thought no more of shooting Paxton
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: than shooting a bottle at the dump. I know you
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: hate my guts and rightfully so. I think about Jamie
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: every hour of the day, as I'm sure you do.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: For Sheriff McCourt, the letter was a beginning. evidence that
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: might lead to a murderer. But he needed more. The
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: typewriter used to write the letter, a gonding. While investigators searched,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: the killer continued his own Saturday, March 14th, 1992. Claude
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: Hawkins got off his midnight shift at the Pittsburgh Blade
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: and Glass Company about sunup. It was a good time
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: to fish, and Hawkins went straight to a favorite spot
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: on the river below Wills Creek Dam. Hawkins had a
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: wife and four children. Another outdoorsman had been killed while alone,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: but this one took place on federal property. The FBI
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: stepped in. The FBI joined the hunt for the roadside
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: sniper who just killed his latest victim on federal property.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Investigators from the three counties involved, along with the FBI
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: and the Ohio Division of Wildlife, formed a task force.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: It didn't take long to realize how few clues they had.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: In each case, the killer had no contact with the victim,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: no rifling of pockets, no robbery. Shell casings had been
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: carefully removed and the victim's cars were untouched. Special Agent
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Harry Trombitis was stationed at the FBI's Columbus, Ohio, field office.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 14: What we did know is that Mr. Hawkins died from
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 14: a gunshot, and usually you would find some type of
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 14: a shell casing in the area, and I remember looking
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 14: very hard, metal detectors and hands and knees for any
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 14: shell casings in that, and none were ever found. And
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 14: so that was something that, you know, if in fact
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 14: we had somebody who was evidence-conscious enough to pick up
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 14: the shell casing after they shot and killed somebody. We
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 14: were dealing with a different brand of person here.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: The multi-jurisdictional task force concluded that the death of Kevin Loring,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: first ruled accidental, was actually a homicide. Reviewing the four murders,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: the investigative team saw plenty in common. Outdoorsmen, hunters, fishermen, joggers,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: alone in a rural setting, all shot with a high-powered rifle.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: All but one of the murders occurred on a weekend,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: and the killer was careful enough to leave no evidence.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: it was more clear than ever that a single individual
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: was responsible. The task force was on the trail of
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: a serial killer. As they began to mobilize, the killer
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: struck again.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 9: I know we can capture this person.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: I know we can. Ten days after the task force meeting,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: on April 5, 1992, 44-year-old steelworker Gary Brett left his
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: home in neighboring West Virginia to go pond fishing in
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: Noble County. Bradley's wife and three children would never see
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: him alive again. The task force had another murder. The
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: road sniper had to be stopped. The task force wanted
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: to learn more about the personality of the sniper. They
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: asked the FBI to draw up a psychological profile of
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: the serial killer. Such an outline would be invaluable in
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: tracking him down. Major Dane Shryock of the Coshocton County
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office headed the task force.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 13: Right after we had initially made an assessment that maybe
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 13: these things might be linked, the Columbus FBI office set
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 13: up a meeting to have The behavioral science unit come
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 13: to Columbus, Ohio, and actually sit down and talk with
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 13: the investigators of these five counties of the homicides.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: The FBI's behavioral science unit in Quantico, Virginia, can accurately
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: sketch personality profiles of individuals from sparse clues. Larry Ancrum
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: is a member of the behavioral science unit assigned to
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: the road sniper case. He studied all the available evidence,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: the investigative reports of the five murders. and especially the
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: letter that the killer had written to Jean Paxton.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 20: Then I came back to Quantico and reviewed these cases
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 20: more in detail and I came out with a formal profile.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 20: We were probably looking for a white male, we were
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 20: looking for someone that was intelligent, someone who was an
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 20: outdoorsman himself, someone that wouldn't look out of place in
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 20: the woods, someone that was probably responding to some significant
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 20: event in his life that was going wrong at that
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 20: particular time. One of the things that was apparent, that
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 20: it was a sniper-type mentality here that we were dealing with,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 20: someone that didn't want confrontation, someone that was doing things
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 20: from afar. And this is something that we see many
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 20: times with our arsonists. We ought to be looking at
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 20: some different types of activities that he might be involved in,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 20: such as nuisance types of offenses, shooting out windows, shooting
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 20: out tires of cars, cruelty to animals, arson fires.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: Ankrum believed that the violence was triggered by stress and
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: fueled by alcohol. The task force now had a psychological
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: sketch of the roadside sniper. And they had his letter.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: FBI forensic scientists studied the letter intensely. They found distinguishing
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: features in the typeface. If they could find the typewriter
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: it was written on, it would be easy to link
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: the confessional letter to the owner and thus link the
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: murder to the murderer. They had to hurry. The sniper
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: was still out there. On July 21st, 1992, two hunters
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: in a state park in Muskegon County came face to
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: face with the killer. As they moved through the brush,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: one of them noticed something terrifying. A nearby figure with
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: a gun pointed right at them. They called out to
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: him and the man scurried away to a red pickup truck.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: It happened too quickly for the hunters to get a
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: good look at the man or the vehicle's tag numbers. Bewildered,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: they called local police who alerted the task force. Throughout 1992,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: desperate to catch a man still ready to kill, the
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: task force investigated and cleared more than 100 suspects. By
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: August 1992, after three years, the investigation had hit a
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: dead end. the task force was badly in need of
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: information and decided to go public.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: It is in the opinion of this multi-agency task force
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: that these homicides.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: They held a press conference and issued a press release
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: detailing the FBI profile of the man they wanted and
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: asking anyone with information to come forward.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 13: The FBI made a press release And it was done
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 13: at one time to mass, and it got everybody, 6
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 13: o'clock news, I mean, everybody was showing this case. And
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 13: the phone started ringing instantly.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: One of those calls received at task force headquarters on
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: August 26, 1992, sparked a lead. The man on the
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: phone was named Richard Frye. He said he thought the
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: task force should know about a high school friend of
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: his named Thomas Dillon. Investigators had a name and someone
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: willing to talk. A task force member arranged to meet
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: Richard Fry at a rest stop on Route 77. Tom Dillon.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: I went to high school with him. There, Fry talked
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: about his old friend, Tom Dillon. They used to drive
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: around rural Ohio, shooting at road signs and small animals.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: But Fry eventually found Dylan too eccentric and violent for
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: his taste. Obsessed with serial killers like Ted Bundy, Dylan
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: had taken to killing family pets and cattle and setting
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: random fires.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 7: Fry got married and for most of the 1980s forgot
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 7: about his strange friend.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: But in 1989, Fry ran into Thomas Dillon at a
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: gun show in Cleveland.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 19: Tom?
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 7: Thomas?
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Dillon invited him to ride along with him again, just
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: like in the old days. Old friendships die hard, and
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: Richard Fry again found himself driving the back roads of
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: rural Ohio, drinking beer and shooting road signs.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 7: Nothing.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: But Dylan had deteriorated, Fry discovered. Dylan asked whether Fry
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: thought Dylan had ever killed anyone. We've known each other
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: for a long time. Twenty-something years, I guess.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 16: Yeah.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Do you think I could ever kill anybody?
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 11: Tom, you know, like you said.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: We go way back.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 17: I mean.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: He discussed how to get away with random killings. including
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: the tactic of killing in different counties to thwart investigators.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: Kill them in separate counties, you know. They never connected.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 11: And being at random, they'd have no clues whatsoever.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: Dry said that when he read the press release, he
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: immediately thought of Tom Dillon. He gave a description of Dillon,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: including the vehicle he drove. A red pickup truck, just
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: like the one spotted by the hunters. Lieutenant Walt Wilson
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: of the Tuscaroras County Sheriff's Office was a task force member.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: His job was to follow up on leads and tips
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: which were coming much more frequently as press coverage of
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: the case increased. He decided Tom Dillon fit the FBI
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: profile and needed to be investigated.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 15: I began to follow up on the information that Mr.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 15: Fry had given us. I went to Tom Dillon's workplace
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 15: in the city of Canton.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: Dillon had been employed for a dozen years as a
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: draftsman at the Canton, Ohio Water Works. Wilson obtained Thomas
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: Dillon's work schedule to compare Dillon's days off with the
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: dates and times of the murders. The purpose was to
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: eliminate Dillon as a suspect, but he couldn't. He found
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: that Dillon didn't work weekends when most of the incidents occurred,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: but that didn't prove much. However, two weekdays Dillon took
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: off from work caught Wilson's attention. July 21st, 1992, the
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: day the hunters saw a man point a rifle at them,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: and November 28th, 1990, the day Kevin Loring was killed.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: Dillon could be the one. As the other members of
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: the task force followed up on hundreds of leads, Detective
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Wilson began surveillance on Thomas Dillon. Maybe Dillon would return
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: to a crime scene or lead investigators to more clues.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: The surveillance began in October 1992. Detective Wilson followed Tom
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: Dillon on his weekend excursions, driving the back roads of
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: southern Ohio.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 15: Typically, a day would start around 7 in the morning.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 15: on Tom's days off, the weekends usually, and he would
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 15: leave his home, and sometimes he would stop at a
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 15: convenience store and buy some beer, and then he would
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 15: go south of his home into other counties, just driving
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 15: all the back remote roadways.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: On October 10, 1992, while tailing Dillon, Wilson briefly lost
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: track of the suspect's vehicle. As Wilson crept around a corner,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: he came face-to-face with Thomas Dillon. his cover possibly blown,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: his case in jeopardy, Wilson had to think fast.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 15: I waved at him and he waved at me and
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 15: we kept on going. He stopped at the end of
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 15: the drive to see if I was going to stay
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 15: there or not.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: Wilson couldn't risk being identified. He let Dylan drive away.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 15: My big concern was I hope he doesn't stop and
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 15: ask me what I'm doing on that property because I
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 15: had all of my gear laying in the car with me,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 15: and I didn't want him to see my radios and
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 15: my gear that I had with me.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: A few days later, Larry Oler of Barnhill, Ohio, was
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: hunting about 150 yards off a road in Tuscarawas County.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: He heard a car stop. Through the trees he saw
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: a stocky white male. The man lifted a rifle. Oler
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: was unhurt and watched in terror as the truck sped away.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: Although Oler's description of his assailant resembled Dillon, he was
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: unable to make a positive identification. The task force realized
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: that Thomas Dillon was their most likely suspect. Surveillance of
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: him would have to be beefed up. Throughout October and
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: November of 1992, the FBI coordinated a massive air and
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: ground surveillance. Dylan was observed shooting road signs and busting
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: car windows with rocks, exactly the sort of petty vandalism
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: outlined in the FBI profile. But if they arrested Dylan
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: for vandalism, they might never gather enough evidence to arrest
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: him for the murders. It is difficult to tail someone
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: on an empty rural road in broad daylight. The stakes
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: were high. If Dillon tried another shooting and the FBI
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: weren't in the right spot, they could have another murder.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: If they crowded Dillon too much, they might be found
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: out and Dillon would slip into hiding. The ground surveillance
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: had to be well off of Dillon. Agent Trombitis and
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: Captain Shryock relied on the air surveillance as their eyes
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: and ears. They would move in if something happened. One day,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: the surveillance team faced its worst fear. Trombitis and Shryock
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: were far behind Dillon when the air surveillance called out
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: an alert. Up ahead of Dillon, on the road, was
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: the classic profile of a road sniper victim. A jogger,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: female this time, alone, in a rural setting. If Thomas
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: Dillon were indeed the gunman, This jogger may be irresistible bait.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: Trembitis and Shryock got nervous, hoping for the best they
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: sped forward. Dillon continued too, right toward the jogger. Driving
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: at top speed, Trembitis and Shryock frantically called to the
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: agents in the plane. Where is he? Is he stopping?
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: The airplane reported back Dylan is approaching her. There is
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: no one nearby. The agent's car hurtled forward. A call
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: from the air. Dylan is pulling up alongside the jogger.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: The agents held their breath. He passed her without answer.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: The feeling of relief lasted only moments. The airplane radioed
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: that Dylan had taken a right turn onto a smaller road.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: The aerial unit stayed on him, instructing Trumbitas and Shryock
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: where to turn. Then a second right turn. Could he
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: be circling back? They called to the airplane as the
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: jogger still there. Dylan continued to make right turns until
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: he was back on the road the jogger had been on.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: His U-turn justified the agent's fear. He was going back
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: for her. Where is the jogger? Trumbitas yelled into his radio.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: Cannot see the jogger, came the reply. But the agents
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: knew she had to be somewhere ahead of Dylan. If
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: he came upon her again, they were sure he would
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: kill her. The air unit called in that Dylan had
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: stopped his truck and had gotten out. He had something
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: shiny in his hands. Would he kill her right under
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: their noses? The jogger couldn't be seen from the air,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: but that didn't mean she wasn't there. The agents in
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: the car heard shots and feared that Dylan had struck
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: again while under their surveillance. But the airplane radioed that
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: Dylan was shooting a stop sign. The jogger had turned
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: off the road. She was safe, unaware of her close
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: encounter with Thomas Dillon. The cat-and-mouse game with Thomas Dillon
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: began to wear on the task force members.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 14: A lot of pressure.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 13: I mean, you're wondering whether this guy today is going
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 13: to go out and kill somebody, and you aren't going
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 13: to be able to stop it, and you know that
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 13: he's probably the one that is responsible for killing other people.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 13: You're working 14, 16 hours a day, you're living out
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 13: of a car, you're drinking coffee like policemen, you know,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 13: and you aren't eating right, and the stress is just tremendous.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: But the net continued to tighten around the suspect. The murderer,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: in his letter to the newspaper, had admitted being bothered
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: by the Paxton murder and visiting his grave. Investigators returned
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: video footage of Jamie Paxton's grave recorded November 10th, 1991,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: the first anniversary of Jamie's murder. Many people paid their
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: respects that day, but curiosity rather than respect was the
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: agenda of one visitor photographed, Thomas Dillon. Investigators immediately recognized
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: the man they had been tailing. Surely he was the sniper,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: but to earn a conviction they needed direct incriminating evidence.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: After the second anniversary of Jamie Paxton's death in 1992,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: surveillance observed Dillon entering the Times Leader building. He bought
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: a copy of the previous day's paper full of the
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: details of the Paxton memorial service. The FBI had good
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence on Thomas Dillon, but they still lacked physical evidence,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: a bullet, a gun, or a typewriter to link him
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: with just one of the victims. Hunting season was fast approaching.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: Dylan was still out roaming the rural roads, drunk, armed, deadly.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: The communities of Southern Ohio had been terrorized for three years.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: The people feared going outside but tried to live normal lives.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: Dylan had to be taken off the streets. The task
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: force knew Dylan had been in trouble in the past
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: for illegally owning a silencer and was forbidden to possess firearms.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: a stipulation he clearly violated during his vandalism sprees. The
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: task force had little choice. Before he could kill again,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: they would arrest Thomas Dillon. But the plan wasn't just
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: to arrest him on a weapons violation, but to convince
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: him he was caught red-handed and get him to confess
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: to murder. Lacking ballistic evidence and holding only a relatively
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: minor weapons charge on Dillon, the FBI badly needed to
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: elicit a confession. Trumbitus had a plan.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 14: Since we knew what his routine was through the surveillances
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 14: and that, where he left his residence and he would
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 14: go to this dairy mart every day before he left
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 14: and went on his three, four hundred mile drives, we
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 14: would try to make the approach at the dairy mart
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 14: and what we had was an office building right across
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 14: from the dairy mart where we we took over the
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 14: basement of that building. Detective Wilson and I did, was
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 14: we went down into the basement where we were going
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 14: to conduct the interview, and we put up along the
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 14: walls of the whole room maps of the areas that
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 14: he drove in, crime scene photographs, newspaper articles. We wanted
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 14: to make that setting just irresistible to him.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 7: Then we're just going to piece by piece start laying
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 7: this out in front of him.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 20: And see what kind of reaction we'd get from him.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 14: It would be overwhelming, and it would put him in
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 14: the best frame of mind for us to be able
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 14: to sit down and interview him and get a confession.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: On November 27, 1992, the plan went into effect. Their
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: entire case so far rested on getting a confession.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 14: The idea was for when he came out of the
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 14: dairy mart, we were going to approach him, identify ourselves
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 14: and basically request that he follow us voluntarily over to
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 14: this room where we wanted to share some information with
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 14: him and show him some things that we knew that
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 14: would interest him.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: If Dillon refused, Trombitis would raise his right hand to
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: signal ATF agents who are responsible for making arrests in
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: weapons cases to cuff Dillon.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 14: And I can just remember his reaction. I mean, his
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 14: jaw just for about five seconds, and then he composed himself,
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 14: and he said, I want to talk to my attorney first.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: That was the cue. Trombitis gave the signal, and the
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: ATF agent stepped in and arrested Thomas Dillon. Dillon didn't
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: realize it, but it was a bitter defeat for the FBI.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: Trombitis thought he'd blown it. despite all the evidence he'd gathered,
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: despite his certainty that they had the rogue sniper. He
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: feared that he would see a five-time murderer quickly released
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: on a minor weapons charge. At the very time of
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: Dylan's arrest, other task force members were executing a search
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: warrant on Dylan's house. Finally, the FBI felt they would
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: come away with the physical evidence desperately needed to link him,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: once and for all, to the murders. But they didn't.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: To their surprise, the search turned up nothing more incriminating
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: than some area maps marked with arson and vandalism sites.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: Dylan was refusing to talk. They were holding him, but
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: there was nothing they could do with him.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 14: It was pretty much over when he said he wanted
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 14: to talk to his attorney, so... We went back to
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 14: the restaurant, and we were going to have a cup
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 14: of coffee, and all of a sudden, we got the
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 14: word that he wanted to talk to us. And so
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 14: Walt and I jumped into our car, and we made
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 14: a beeline to Stark County Jail.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: Trombitis and Wilson confronted Dillon with one piece of evidence
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: after another. Photographs, videotapes, newspaper clippings, showing his link to
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: the murders.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 14: I would pull out one piece at a time and
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 14: show him. And just as we had suspected, he just
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 14: was keenly interested in the information that we had, the
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 14: surveillance pictures, the crime scene photos, you know, just the animal,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 14: you know, the shots of the animals that we had
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 14: along the roadways and that. You could just see that
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 14: he was just fascinated by that.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: Fascinated but not talkative, Dylan said it would serve no
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: purpose to admit anything now. Another dead end for the FBI.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: Dillon's attorney is arguing that he should be spared jail
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: time on the weapons charge. Now, unless something turned up
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: on him very quickly, Thomas Dillon would have to be released.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 15: Thank the various representatives of the media for showing up today.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: The task force was now fighting the clock. Desperate for
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: physical evidence, they held another press conference, appealing to the
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: public for any information about guns they may have bought
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: or sold with Thomas Dillon. Haven't had any contact with Mr.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 10: Dillon.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, task force member Jerry Wade of the Ohio Division
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: of Wildlife was following up on a tip. A witness
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: steered Wade to a spot where he'd seen Thomas Dillon
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: firing his rifle a couple of years back. Wade hoped
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: that would lead him to some ballistic evidence to link
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: Dillon to one of the killings.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 21: This individual that brought it to our attention that he'd
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 21: seen Thomas Lee Dillon shoot this deer with a rifle
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 21: thought the rifle might be one of them that was used.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 21: And if we could locate some physical evidence, the shell
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 21: casings per se, and if we could get those and
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 21: match them to the murderer's We could put that rifle
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 21: in Thomas Lee Dillon's hand prior to the murders, which
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 21: would really give us a lot stronger case as far
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 21: as him possessing the rifle prior to the murders.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: The chances of finding small shells in such a wide
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: area were slim, and it had been two years since
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: the rifle had been fired. Determined, Wade patiently combed inch
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: by inch through a grassy field where the anonymous witness
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: said he saw Dylan shoot the deer. Beginning at the
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: tree described by the witness, Wade searched the area in
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: a circular pattern by hand and with a metal detector,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: carefully marking off the territory. Music Miraculously, Wade hit the jackpot.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: He found two rifle shell casings later identified as coming
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: from the same gun that killed Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. Finally,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: a physical link to the murders.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 5: I felt like celebrating. It was just unbelievable that I
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 5: found them because after the time and the The length
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 5: of time that had been since the shooting and the incident,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 5: and the individual wasn't sure the location of the tree exactly.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 5: The scene had changed since he had been there. They
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 5: had removed a fence row and pushed out the area.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 5: So I felt very, very much fortunate to find him,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 5: and I felt like a celebration at the time. It
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 5: was just like, you know, it was a gift handed
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 5: to you.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the publicity from the press conference asking the public
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: for help was about to bear fruit. On December 4th,
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: Captain Shryock was manning the phones at task force headquarters.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: A man named Al Cope was on the phone. He
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: said he bought a weapon from someone who may have
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: been Thomas Dillon at a gun show the previous spring.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 10: The date?
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: April 5th, the same day Gary Bradley was murdered. The
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: rifle was sent to the FBI laboratory in Washington for
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: ballistics testing. Special Agent Paul Schrecker is a ballistics expert
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: for the FBI.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 12: As the bullet passes down the barrel of the weapon,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 12: that bullet by coming in direct contact with the interior
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 12: of the barrel of the weapon, picks up the microscopic imperfections,
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 12: the microscopic features of that barrel. So that bullet is
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 12: marked with the fingerprint of that barrel.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: Fragments of bullets taken from the bodies of victims Claude
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: Hawkins and Gary Bradley were examined at FBI labs.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 12: A bullet fragment may still be of value for comparison.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 12: Even though a bullet may fragment, may break up as
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 12: a result of striking a victim, and maybe only fragments
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 12: are ever recovered, those fragments are still marked. They still
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 12: bear the impressions of the inside of the barrel of
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 12: the weapon. And those fragments can still be used to
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 12: make a positive association or an identification. When the weapon
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 12: was submitted to our laboratory, the weapon was test fired,
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 12: and the test fired bullets from this weapon were then
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 12: compared to the bullet fragments taken from the victims.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: Al Cope's gun was test fired, and the bullets examined
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: for characteristics they may have in common with the bullet
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: fragments taken from Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. The conclusion?
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: Al Cope's gun, sold to him by Thomas Dillon, matched
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: the gun used to kill both Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: The FBI finally had the goods on Thomas Dillon.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 7: Close the door, please.
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: Agent Trombitis visited Dillon in jail and confronted him with
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: the evidence. He and his truck fit the descriptions of
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: a few witnesses. He had been off work when each
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: murder had occurred. He had a history of random violence
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: and gunplay. And the FBI could prove in court that
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: a gun he once owned killed at least two of
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: the victims.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 22: What kind of proof?
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: All the proof we need. But Trumbitas knew Dillon was
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: guilty of all five murders and he wanted closure for
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: the victims' families. He offered Dillon a deal. As leverage,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: Trumbitas reminded Dillon that he faced Ohio's electric chair. Dillon
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: got nervous and he began to negotiate. Thomas Dillon met
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: with the prosecutors in June of 1993. He agreed to
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: admit to five killings if the death penalty were dropped
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: as a possible sentence. On July 9th, Dillon confessed to
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: prosecutors in order to save his life. On July 12th, 1993,
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: a smirking Thomas Dillon walked into the Noble County Courthouse
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: to make his plea.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 3: Mr.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 22: Dillon, at this time, how do you plead to count
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 22: one in the indictment in case number 93, CR4, involving
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 22: the death of the aggravated murder charge involving the death
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 22: of Gary Bradley?
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 12: How do you plead?
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: Guilty. With the families of the victims watching, Dillon confessed
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: to murdering Donald Welling, Kevin Loring, Claude Hawkins, Gary Bradley,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: and Jamie Paxton. He was still smirking and unrepentant as
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: he left court.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 22: At this time of the indictment in case number 93CR4.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: Hello? Jolene.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 7: Tom.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: This is Thomas. Yeah. Dylan's incredibly cavalier attitude was detailed
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: by a local reporter whom Dylan repeatedly called from prison.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: marveling at his own violence, reveling in his celebrity, and
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: laughing off the murders. Except one. He would not discuss
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: the murder of Jamie Paxton. Forget it, all right? Just
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: forget it. Jean Paxton, Jamie's mother, was in court the
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: day Dylan pleaded guilty.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 23: I just want to talk to him about Jamie, the
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 23: kind of person Jamie was.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 16: Jamie was everything Thomas Dylan could never be. Dylan is
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 16: a coward.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 23: He hid behind a gun, and Jamie was not that way.
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 23: Little did I know that on the evening news he
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 23: was watching that, and it made him very angry that
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 23: I had called him a pathetic coward.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 14: We talked to him about remorse and how did you
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 14: feel after these homicides, and the only one that he
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 14: said that it really bothered him about was Jamie Paxton.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 14: He said, I didn't realize the kid was so young.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: Gene Paxton had looked forward to confronting Dylan in court,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: but his guilty plea cost her that opportunity. She asked
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: Sheriff McCourt to arrange a conversation. McCourt agreed. That evening,
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: Jean Paxton's phone rang. She found herself speaking with the
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: murderer of her son.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 16: When I picked up the phone that evening, it was
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 16: just like somebody calling up to sell me something. He said, Mrs. Paxton,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 16: this is Tom Dillon. It was just almost more than
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 16: I could comprehend the tone of his voice, the way
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 16: he came across. Still, the arrogance was there.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: Dylan told Jean Paxton that when she called him a coward,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: she had hurt his feelings.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 16: I really don't think he expected to get what he
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 16: got from me. I think that Thomas Dylan could have
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 16: handled the crying, the screaming, the saying of calling names,
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 16: the cursing. I think he could handle that, but I don't.
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 16: did not lower myself to that level. I talked to
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 16: him as a mother and I really feel that through
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 16: this whole thing, that is what got to Thomas Dillon.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: I understand. After three years, Jean Paxton felt vindicated.
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 16: I felt really good. I walked out on my front
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 16: porch and I just felt like for the first time
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 16: in three years that I was free. I was free
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 16: of Thomas Dillon. I felt that I had defeated him
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 16: by words, and I did it all for Jamie.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: Thomas Dillon made it clear he did not want to
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: go to Lucasville Prison, the toughest in Ohio. So Jean
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: Paxton saw to it with a petition drive that that
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: was exactly where Dillon was sent. In August 1993, Gene
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: Paxton won a $ 25 million wrongful death judgment against any
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: future money Dillon might make. Dillon's wife had been trying
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: to sell his story to Hollywood. Paxton and State Senator
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: Bob Nye passed the Paxton Bill, barring killers or their
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: relatives from profiting from the crime. Thomas Dillon remains in
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: Lucasville Prison. He is eligible for parole in 165 years.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: It's Friday night in October of 1993, and in Northern California,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: three junior high school girls are having a slumber party.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: Halloween is around the corner, and the girls have been
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: trying on different costumes in preparation for the upcoming holiday.
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: Within seconds, their lives will change forever. October 1st. Polly
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: Klass and Jillian Pelham were waiting for another friend outside
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: of Polly's house in Petaluma, California. It was around 8.30
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: when Kate McLean and her mother showed up. The three
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: girls were ready for fun. It was Friday night. There
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: was ice cream in the fridge, and they were going
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: to stay up all night long. This was going to
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: be a party. No one had any idea of the
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: danger that lurked so close by. The girls kept to
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: Polly's bedroom, but they couldn't suppress the noise as easily.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: At about 9.45, Holly's mother, Eve Nickel, looked in on
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: the girls and asked them to keep it down. She
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: was suffering a migraine headache and thought she'd turn in early.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: Eve's bedroom was right across the hall from the girls,
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: and although she had chided them about the noise, she
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: was pretty sure it would only take a few minutes
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: for the 12-year-olds to get noisy again. Before going to bed,
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: Eve took her prescription pills to block out all distractions
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: and get her fast asleep. The party continued on for
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: almost an hour before the nightmare began. It was around
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: 1030 when the intruder entered the room At first, Kate
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: and Jillian thought it was a joke. Then they saw
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: the knife. He told them if they screamed, he'd slit
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: their throats. Immediately, he tied them up and started asking questions.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: He wanted to know which girl lived there and who
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: else was in the house. Polly spoke up. The girls
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: were terrified and crying. and he assured them that he
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to hurt anyone, that he was only there
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: for money. But when Polly told him where some cash
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: was hidden in a jewelry box, he made no attempt
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: to find it. He gagged the girls and took the
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: cases off some pillows to use as hoods. He made
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: Polly get up and told the others to count to
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: a thousand By the time they were done, he said
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: she'd be back. Then he took Polly class and disappeared
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: into the night. Petaluma police officers were called to the
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: scene after the girls managed to free themselves and wake
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: Polly's mother. They responded in minutes. investigators entered Polly's room
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: and began to look around. The bedroom was in disarray
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: and told of the events that had happened just minutes before.
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: On the floor were binding materials, cut strips of cloth.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: The cords from the Nintendo game had been cut, and
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: a strap that was clipped from a purse lay on
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: the floor. Pillowcases were strewn about.
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: What Petaluma Police Detective Mike Meese saw wasn't encouraging.
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 17: I remember standing at the doorway to Polly's room and
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 17: looking at these few bags of evidence that we had
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 17: been able to collect and thinking that that was just
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 17: such a pitiful amount. And I looked down at the
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 17: rug and I talked to my partner, Larry Pelton, and said,
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 17: let's take the rug. And he said, why? And I said,
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 17: I don't know why, but let's just take the rug.
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 17: We just don't have enough evidence.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: Police were in desperate need of assistance. Fortunately, help was
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: on the way. After being contacted by the Klaas family,
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: the Federal Bureau of Investigation offered its expertise. Shortly after midnight,
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: the FBI appeared at the House of Poly Class. Typically,
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: the Bureau handles kidnappings, and with 800 a year to investigate,
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: they have plenty of experience. Because he was familiar with
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: the community and experienced in kidnapping cases, Special Agent Ed
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: Fryer became the lead investigator. But he knew something about
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: this case was different.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 7: It had all the earmarks of a stranger abduction case
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 7: because the statements from the two girls were consistent. Stranger
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 7: abduction cases are the hardest cases to solve, in my experience, because, again,
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 7: there's no connection between the perpetrator of the crime and
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 7: your victim or the victim's family or somebody even associated
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 7: to the to the victim. It's a random act.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: Surprisingly, a vast majority of kidnappings involved disgruntled family members.
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: And though Polly's parents were separated, her father, Mark Klass,
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: was immediately cleared of any responsibility. Abductions involving total strangers
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: are exceedingly rare and leave little for investigators to go on.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: In this case, however, there were witnesses. A police sketch
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: artist was called in from the San Rafael Police Department.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: For two hours, Jillian and Kate tried to recall the
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: face of the man who had barged into the bedroom.
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: The girls were still terribly upset, but they managed to
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: give the artist a pretty good description. Authorities now had
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: their first idea of what the stranger looked like.
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 15: His nose and mouth.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: After 4 a.m., the girls were taken to the police station,
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: and the FBI called in one of its special forces,
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: the Evidence Response Team. Tony Maxwell leads the crew.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 18: In looking at cases across the United States, we have
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 18: found that when somebody is kidnapped, especially a young child,
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 18: that they will generally be harmed within the first 24 hours.
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 18: and probably within the first couple of days could even
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 18: be killed. So time is of the essence. In that
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 18: kind of work, the investigator needs to move quickly.
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: The evidence response team is designed to provide forensic resources
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: at a major crime scene. Their sole responsibility is to
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: collect evidence. And they use the most sophisticated collecting equipment
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: available to do it. An electrostatic dust print machine collects
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: tiny hairs and fibers off the floor when a positive
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: charge is passed over a sheet of mylar. Any loose
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: debris clings to the mylar and is sent to a
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: lab for careful inspection. Although the police department had already
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: dusted for fingerprints, they had come up with nothing particularly promising.
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: but they didn't have access to the same equipment as
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: the FBI. The alternate light source was a new method
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: that employed a unique fluorescent powder, which when combined with
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: a distinct ultraviolet light and amber colored goggles, could illuminate
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: many things that otherwise would remain hidden. The team found
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: four dozen fingerprints the police were unable to see using
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: conventional equipment. But even those were of no use. They
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: were attributed to family and friends. After hours of meticulous searching,
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: something finally turned up. A palm print that at the
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: outset seemed like the first real piece of forensic evidence
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: left behind at the scene.
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 18: That palm print was found on the bed on a
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 18: crossbar of a bed where he apparently put his hand
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 18: up for just a second to lean on it, perhaps
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 18: to support himself as he was grabbing something. And with
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 18: the alternate light source and the fluorescent fingerprint work that
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 18: we did, we were able to see it, collect it,
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 18: and then gather that for the laboratory.
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: At that time, the FBI's fingerprint database, APHIS, didn't contain
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: palm prints, only fingerprints. But even a palm print won't
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: catch a suspect. It will only identify one once he's captured.
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: FBI Special Agent Mark Mershon explains.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 24: People often think that when you have a fingerprint or
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 24: a palm print that you quickly.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: quickly.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 24: Establish the identity of a criminal. The truth of the
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 24: matter is, in most instances, you have to identify a suspect,
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 24: have fingerprints for that suspect, in order to compare with
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 24: a latent fingerprint.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: The hunt for the suspect prompted authorities to cover Polly's
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: neighborhood inch by inch. By dawn, more than 100 agents
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: and officers had begun a 24-hour search for Polly and
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: her abductor. Helicopters and bloodhounds had been called out and
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: an all points bulletin was issued by local authorities and
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: the FBI. Systematically, the authorities searched every house in the neighborhood.
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: Agents went to Polly's school to talk with teachers and
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: students in the hopes that somebody might have some useful information.
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: Investigators canvassed the neighborhood in pairs, asking if anyone had
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: seen anything suspicious that night. One by one, they interviewed
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: all of Polly's neighbors. Several people recalled seeing a stranger
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: around the neighborhood that fit the description given by the girls.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: Thomas Georges and his friends were on their way to
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: the video store at around nine o'clock that night when
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: he noticed a stranger standing in the shadows in front
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: of Polly's house. Thomas knew everyone in his neighborhood, but
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: he had never seen this man before. Returning home a
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: few minutes later, the boys saw that the stranger was
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: still there. The description Thomas gave to the authorities matched
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: the suspect they were looking for. Sean Bush was playing
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: video games with some friends who lived in a small
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: rental cottage directly behind Polly's house. It was about 10.30
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: when Sean happened to glance out the window. He was
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: surprised to see a strange man on the back porch
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: of Polly's house. He appeared to be going for the
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: back door. His description of the man also fit that
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: of the suspect. There were others who saw the suspicious
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: man that night, but unfortunately none of them alerted the authorities.
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: As Petaluma Police Chief Patrick Parks explains, time was working
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: against them.
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 4: In stranger abduction cases of small children, there is no
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 4: more critical factor than time. Time is absolutely of the essence.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 4: And for that reason, you have to get out as
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 4: many resources you can. You have to put out the
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 4: word as far and wide as you can. You have
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 4: to involve as many agencies as you can. Get them focused.
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 4: Get their efforts channeled. And hopefully, hopefully, bring about a
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 4: successful resolution.
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: While officers continued to comb the neighborhoods, FBI investigators began
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: executing the standard operating procedure in cases like these. After
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: eliminating family and friends as suspects, they focused on ex-cons
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: who were registered as sexual offenders throughout Sonoma County. Gradually,
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: they branched out to surrounding counties, carefully questioning and investigating
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: each registrant. But nothing turned up.
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 7: This is a hard case to believe.
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: That even happened.
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 7: There's three girls. They're in a slumber party. They're playing
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 7: games in their bedroom, in their home, in a typical community,
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 7: in a typical city. And somebody can walk into your home,
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 7: the sanctity of the home, the security of your home,
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 7: and take your daughter.
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 11: It's... It's... if.
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 7: It wasn't impossible, it was inconceivable.
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: The following day, the search for Poly Class had escalated
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: into the largest manhunt in the nation. A massive community
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: volunteer network was formed to assist authorities. While hundreds of
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: citizens searched, others passed out flyers, trying to cover the
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: entire city as quickly as possible. Back at the FBI's
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: trace evidence lab in Washington, D.C., forensic expert Chris Allen
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: was carefully surveying the items collected from Polly's house.
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 8: I noticed that in untying the pieces of bindings, the
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 8: thin nylon strips of bindings that were used to tie
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 8: up Polly's girlfriends, that they had jagged edges to them.
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 8: And I was able to line them up perfectly so
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 8: that I was able to determine that These all came
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 8: from one piece of cloth originally, and it was a
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 8: piece of cloth like a lady's nightgown or a slip material.
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: Other pieces of evidence found in Polly's room were not
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: so easy to classify. Tiny fibers collected with the electrostatic
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: dust print machine proved to be a challenge to identify.
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: After painstaking examination and comparison, Alan concluded that they had
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: come from the interior carpet of an automobile. Eliminating the
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: cars that could be accounted for at Polly's house, Alan
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: suspected that these carpet fibers were most likely from the
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: kidnapper's car. One more item Alan found was a little
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: more personal to the suspect.
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 8: I found in the vacuuming of the area rug that
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 8: was in Polly's bedroom that she was playing on with
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 8: her girlfriends, a dark brown forcibly removed head hair. And
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 8: I say forcibly removed because it had a three or
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 8: four millimeter root sheet on it, actually skin material that
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 8: comes out of the scalp when the hair is forcibly
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 8: pulled or yanked out.
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: If Polly had pulled a hair out of the suspect's head,
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: it was evident that she didn't go without a struggle.
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: But even a hair with DNA evidence couldn't bring investigators
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: any closer to finding a suspect. The palm print lifted
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: from the bedpost was sent to Michael J. Smith, a
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: fingerprint specialist with the FBI. Examining the print under laser light,
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: Smith determined that the print had enough ridge detail to photograph.
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: But the light emitted from the laser turned the print
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: orange and Smith needed to capture a black print on
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: a white background. He instructed the photographer to reverse the
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: color so that the finished print would appear the way
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: it would on a fingerprint card. Now the print was
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: indelible and could be filed until a suspect was apprehended.
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: Investigators had unearthed some solid evidence, but it wasn't enough.
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: Time was running out, and Polly Klass was still out there, somewhere.
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: 48 hours after the abduction of Polly Klass, her father, Mark,
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: got a call. It sounded like Polly. She told her
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: father that she was in a hotel room somewhere, and
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: that her abductor had stepped out for a moment.
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 15: Then the line went dead.
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: It offered the first glimmer of hope. But unfortunately, since
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: Mark's line wasn't set up for a trace, all authorities
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: could do was wait for another call. Word of the
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: abduction spread rapidly. In two days, 50,000 flyers had been distributed.
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: Community volunteers quickly organized a search command center to work
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: in tandem with the police and FBI. It was an
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: unprecedented grassroots effort. A telephone bank was manned 24 hours
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: a day to field calls and tips. A copy of
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: every lead that was phoned in was shared with the
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: FBI and Petaluma police. Before long, the search center had
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: screened 60,000 calls. Out of those, authorities were compelled to
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: follow up on over 12,000 leads. Processing that amount of
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: data would have been virtually impossible without help from an
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: FBI computer processor.
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 24: The FBI just happened to have the rapid start team.
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 24: It was a relatively new concept with the FBI where
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 24: on an investigation with a high volume of information, we
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 24: would computerize that information and essentially triage the information the
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 24: value of the investigative leads and make the assignments and
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 24: track the progress.
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: Even with so many leads, there was one in particular
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: that investigators were anxious to follow up on. When Mark
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: Klass received the first call, the FBI was powerless to
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: do anything about it. The second time she called, they
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: were ready.
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: Like the previous call, it sounded like Polly. How are you, honey?
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: And she could only talk for a short time before
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: she had to hang up.
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 18: Where are you?
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: But it was long enough for authorities to make a trace.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 19: Polly.
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 23: Got it.
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: The FBI had traced the call to a house 30
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: miles away. There hadn't been enough time to collect an
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: army of agents. The job would have to be handled
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: by a few.
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 3: Stay there! Stay there! Don't move! Don't move!
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: But something wasn't right. This was just a normal family home.
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: There was no sign of Polly or her abductor. A
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: terrible realization dawned on the agents. When they sat down
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: with one of the girls in the house, she confessed
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: to making the calls. She admitted that friends from school
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: had dared her to call and impersonate Polly. The entire
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: incident had been a cruel joke.
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 24: This was the only indication we had after a week's
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 24: time that Polly just might be alive still, and we
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 24: all were poised and hopeful that this would yield a
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 24: solution and her safe recovery.
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: Of course it didn't. In mid-October, Kate and Jillian were
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: brought in to give another description of the man who
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: tied them up. A highly acclaimed forensic artist was flown
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: in to make a second sketch. The artist was known
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: for relaxing witnesses enough to coax an accurate description from them.
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: The girls were less stressed than they had been that
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: night and were able to give her more to work with.
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: The second sketch was much more precise. This sketch looked
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: like a person. New flyers were distributed immediately. There was
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: no time to waste.
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 24: But if you look back at true stranger abductions, we
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 24: have this rule of thirds. The children who are abducted,
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 24: typically one-third are recovered alive, one-third are recovered dead, and
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 24: one-third are simply never heard from ever again. That's what
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 24: we faced in this particular investigation. And that, I think,
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 24: was one of our motivations to keep the sustained effort up.
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: After a reward had been offered for Polly's return, authorities
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: received a call demanding a $ 10, 000 ransom. They traced the
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: call to a Petaluma apartment building. This time a SWAT
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: team showed up in force They were not going to
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: take any chances. Once again, authorities and the family had
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: been fooled. Put your hands behind your back. Don't move.
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 3: Do not move.
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: 20-year-old James Hurd was arrested for attempted extortion and posing
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: as a kidnapper. It was a crushing blow for everyone.
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 7: It became very frustrating. It was certainly distracting towards the
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 7: main thrust of the investigation, but you had to deal
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 7: with it. There was no way around it. You could
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 7: not ignore those things. It certainly chewed up a lot
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 7: of time and resource.
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: The family had been especially discouraged. A letter Polly's parents
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: wrote to the kidnapper was published in the October 17th
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: San Francisco Examiner. Whoever you are, wherever you are, please
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: return Polly to her family. She belongs here. We miss
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: Polly so much. We miss the twinkle in her eye
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: and her sweet humor. We long to see her beautiful
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: smile and hear her musical voice. They also addressed Polly.
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: Our darling, if you can read this, please know that
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: your mommy and daddy love you so much and we
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: will continue to search for you until we can hold
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: you safely in our loving arms again. I don't think
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: I ever lost hope.
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 7: I had numerous contacts with Mark Klaas, with Eve, with
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 7: members of the family. And that was a question posed
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 7: to me many times. And my response was no. We
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 7: have not lost hope. We will not lose hope.
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: Across the country, people wanted to see Polly brought home.
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: Banners sprang up. and Americans began a candlelight vigil. Thousands
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: donned ribbons of lavender, Polly's favorite color, to show their
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: support of the search.
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 17: We conducted searches during the day, during the night. We
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 17: had a 24-hour operation going. We conducted searches on sunny days,
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 17: on foggy days, rainy days, rainy nights. Whenever the information
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 17: came in, we reacted to that, because in a case
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 17: like this, physical evidence is crucial.
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: The search never stopped. The Navy and search and rescue
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: experts joined the thousands of volunteers who were constantly looking.
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: Police and volunteer task forces worked tirelessly. But it would
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: be nearly two months before anything broke. November 28th, 1993.
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: It was two months after Polly Klass was kidnapped that
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: authorities got their first real lead. In Sonoma County, the
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: sheriff's deputy was called out to the house of Dana Jaffe.
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: It sat at the end of a long, winding drive
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: off Pythian Road. Dana had been out inspecting her property
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: when she noticed something unusual and thought it might be
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: of use to investigators. She led the deputy through a
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: densely wooded area to a clearing just a few yards
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: from the long winding drive to her house. Scattered in
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: the woods were a few items that seemed somewhat suspicious.
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: There was a large piece of silk cloth that had
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: been fashioned into what appeared to be a hood. A
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: couple of strips of packing tape were on the ground.
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: A pair of young girls' tights had been tied into
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: a knot, and human hair was entangled in the knot.
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: Other debris surrounded the area. Then Dana recalled the night
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: she'd caught a trespasser on her property not far from
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: where they stood. It was nearly two months before. It
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: all started when Dana's babysitter, Shannon Lynch, had left Dana's
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: house and was making her way back down the long driveway.
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: A man was walking down the middle of the private drive.
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: His stranded Pinto was off to the side. He said
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: that he was stuck and insisted that she get out
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: of her car and help. He also wanted to know
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: what was up the drive. But Shannon immediately sensed something
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't right. She'd later describe him as looking like a
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 1: wild man. She drove on, leaving him there, determined to
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: get to a phone. Shannon found a payphone about two
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: miles down the road and hurried to call her friend.
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: She was anxious to get a hold of Dana and
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: warn her of the scary man trespassing on her land.
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: Dana didn't waste any time. She grabbed her daughter and
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: a baseball bat and took off down the hill. She
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: saw the car, like Shannon had said, but the strange
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: man was nowhere in sight. She continued down into town
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: and called the police. A few minutes after midnight, two
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: Sonoma County Sheriff's deputies showed up. Dana explained that she
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: didn't really want the intruder arrested for trespassing. She just
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: wanted him off her property. The deputies found the trespasser
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: a little agitated. There was alcohol on his breath and
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: he was sweating profusely. There were bits of leaves and
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: brush in his hair as if he'd been rolling around
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: on the ground.
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 3: Make sure you're okay.
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 21: We'll help you get.
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 3: Out of this situation.
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: He told them that he'd been out sightseeing when he
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: realized that he was on private property. When he tried
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: to turn around, he got his car stuck on the
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: side of the drive. He blurted out that he'd been
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: under the car trying to free it, but the deputies
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: didn't believe it. The way his car was trapped, there
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough room for a person to get underneath. The
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: deputies administered some roadside sobriety tests, but he passed them all.
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: Looking in his car, they found some cans of beer
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: in a plastic bag and a small duffel bag in
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: the back seat. When they asked him if he'd been drinking,
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: he actually opened a beer and began to drink it.
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 21: They immediately made him pour it out and then told
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 21: him they wanted to pat him down.
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: He became extremely upset.
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 3: Leave me alone.
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: Just keep that stuff away from me.
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 13: All right?
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: To make him comply, the deputies told him they would
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: be within their rights to run him in on trespassing.
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: After he'd heard this, he calmed down considerably. They searched
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: him carefully and continued questioning him, but could find nothing incriminating.
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: He was just odd. The deputies remained suspicious, but when
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: they ran his license and checked out, His driving record
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: was clean and he had passed the sobriety tests. They
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 1: had held him for about 45 minutes already and they
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: had no legal means to detain him any further.
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 24: There was nothing left to do but pull his car
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 24: out and send him on his way.
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 5: That had been two months ago.
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: The same night that Polly Klass had been abducted.
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 23: Nothing good, that's for.
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: A hood, bindings, a young girl's pair of tights. It
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: was too much of a coincidence. Putting it all together,
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: the deputy quickly put a call in to the Petaluma
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: Police Department. Within an hour, Detective Mike Meese and Agent
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: Ed Fryer arrived to check it out.
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 7: I'll never forget the scene. It was... Late at night then,
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 7: by this time, Mike Meese and I are standing up
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 7: on the hillside there on Pythian on the road, and
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 7: it was beginning to get a little misty and foggy,
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 7: and the rain started to come down. And we looked
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 7: at each other, and we knew in our hearts that
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 7: we had basically uncovered a very critical crime scene, that
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 7: this was going to lead us to the resolution of
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 7: this case.
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: After the evidence was collected, investigators immediately began searching the
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 1: Pythian Road site for any signs of Polly.
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 18: We spent days searching the mountain with over 300 volunteers.
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 18: I believe we had 25 to 30 search dogs, and
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 18: we conducted extensive ground searches for Polly, believing that she
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 18: was still alive. which was the premise that we were
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 18: working on.
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: As the search commenced, everything began to snowball. Authorities checked
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: with the Sonoma County Police to get the full report
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: of the incident that happened on Dana Jaffe's property. The
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: man deputies had questioned was Richard Allen Davis. Accessing his
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 1: criminal record revealed he had recently been paroled from an
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: eight-year sentence for kidnapping.
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 17: What we learned about Davis initially was in 1976 he
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 17: had been arrested for robbery and kidnapping and assault with intent.
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: To commit rape.
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 17: I learned in 1978 he had been arrested for another kidnapping,
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 17: as well as a couple of counts of assault with
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 17: a deadly weapon. In 1984, he had been arrested for
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 17: a kidnapping case, assault with a deadly weapon, including the
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 17: use of a firearm. in armed robbery. You start reading
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 17: these reports and realize, you know, hey, this guy's a
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 17: bad actor. This is an individual certainly more than capable
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 17: of being involved in a crime like this.
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: The arrest photo on file matched the girl's description. His
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: mother lived in Petaluma, giving him reason to have been there.
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: The pieces were falling into place. The items discovered near
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: Pythian Road were immediately flown to forensic specialist Chris Allen
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: in Washington. Of the most interest was a strip of
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: cloth that was found in the woods. Allen was quickly
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: able to confirm what detectives had suspected.
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 8: Essentially what we're trying to do is establish whether or
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 8: not the cut edges would line up or match. The
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 8: middle strips represent the fabric that was found at Polly's bedroom,
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 8: which were used to bind Polly's girlfriends. Subsequently, on the
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 8: second submission, we received the cloth that was found at
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 8: the Pythian Road site. These all fit together like a puzzle,
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 8: with the edges and the pieces of fabric matching up
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 8: end to end.
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: The strips meant more than likely Polly Klass had been
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: out at Dana Jaffe's after her abduction. Without a doubt,
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 1: Richard Allen Davis had been there too. Though it wasn't
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: enough to arrest Davis for kidnapping, detectives felt if they
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: could just get him in custody, they could quickly gather
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: the evidence they needed to tie him to Polly's disappearance.
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 7: Everything else fell away, and we focused on what we
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 7: had with Mr. Davis, what happened out there at Pythian Road,
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 7: and what we were going to do next.
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: When investigators discovered Davis had an outstanding warrant for breaking
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 1: parole and DUI, they decided to bring him in. But
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: he wasn't at home when they arrived. Then a deputy
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: sheriff who was securing a perimeter around the area stopped
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: a van. At the wheel was Richard Allen Davis. When
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: the deputy realized who he had, he calmly called it
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 1: in to the investigators back at the house.
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 15: Is there a problem, officer?
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 10: No, sir.
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 9: Sit tight, okay?
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 1: Authorities reported to the scene, and Detective Meese approached the
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: van and asked Davis to step out. He informed him
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: that he was under arrest for violation of his parole.
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 4: One thing I think is important to understand how Richard
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 4: Allen Davis was taken into custody, because it was such
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 4: a low-key event, and because Mike Meese went ahead and
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 4: handcuffed him, he did it in a very professional way,
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 4: and he started a rapport going with Richard Allen Davis
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 4: that later was very useful in bringing resolution to the case.
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: It had been two months since Kate and Jillian had
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: seen the man who took poly class, but they had
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: no trouble picking him out of a lineup. Number one,
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: step forward, please. Even without the beard, his was a
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: face they could never forget.
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 9: Number one, step back, please.
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: Though he'd been arrested for parole violation, Davis was questioned
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: about the kidnapping. He vehemently denied any involvement. But authorities
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: let Davis know that if he wanted to talk, the
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: door was open.
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 17: So I took Davis into the hallway and I told him,
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 17: I said, hey, look, what you need to know is
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 17: we've got all the physical evidence it takes to make
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 17: this case. And all you're looking at is a kidnapping
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 17: right now. So if you want to talk about it,
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 17: you've got to let me know. And he made a
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 17: noncommittal response, didn't want to talk. And I remember patting
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 17: my pockets looking for a business card. Didn't have a
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 17: business card with me. And I said, you know, I'm
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 17: going to leave my name and number with those guys,
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 17: meaning the correctional deputies. And if you ever want to
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 17: talk about it, you know, give me a call.
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: Back at the FBI latent fingerprint lab, Mike Smith was
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: comparing the palm print found in Polly's bedroom with one
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 1: that had been taken from Davis since his arrest. This
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: was a crucial piece of evidence. Matching the two prints
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 1: would undoubtedly link Davis to the abduction. After careful examination,
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: the results were called in to Agent Fryer.
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 7: I just got a call from FBI laboratory. They matched
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 7: Davis's palm print to a palm print taken off of
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 7: Polly's bedroom, or her bed post. It was again one
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 7: of those moments where I There were butterflies in my stomach.
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 7: I again realized that this was really very powerful evidence.
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 7: So I hung up the phone and again there was
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 7: a lot of noise and commotion in the command post.
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 7: I stood up and I asked everybody, can I have
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 7: your attention please? Can I have quiet for a moment?
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 7: I said, we just got confirmation from our laboratory that
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 7: we've matched this palm print taken from the bedroom to Davis.
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 7: We can place them in the bedroom. There was just
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 7: a huge cheer from everybody. Papers were flying. It was
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 7: just great news to everybody.
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: This is it.
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 4: It's concrete. He was in her bedroom. We can prove it.
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 4: We had him nailed down.
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: Though news of the matching print had gone public, Davis
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: was being held in isolation and had not heard anything
• 2:24:23
  Speaker 1: about it. Then one day, a friend of his showed
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: up for a visit. He urged Davis to talk to
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: authorities and tell them where Polly was. But Davis continued
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: to deny responsibility. Then his friend gave him the news
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 1: the rest of the nation had already heard. It came
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: as a complete surprise. Davis realized it was going to
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: be impossible to explain how his palm print got in
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: Polly's bedroom. There was only one thing he could do.
• 2:25:01
  Speaker 7: In Davis' mind, he's now got to do something, and
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 7: that is try to make whatever deal he can make
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 7: with the authorities because we know that he was in
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 7: Polly's bedroom.
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: We can put him there. While on his way to
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 1: the massive search for Polly near Pythian Road, Detective Meese
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: was paged to call the jail. This was the moment
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: everyone had been waiting for. And Meese was anxious about
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: what he might find out.
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 17: After this wait, Davis comes on the phone, and I
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 17: recognize the voice.
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: So I know it's him, and.
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 17: He says to me, he says, hey, I screwed up,
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 17: I screwed up big time.
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: Detective Meese and Special Agent Larry Taylor met with Davis
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: in the interrogation room, where Davis related the details of
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: the night of October 1st. Though he was living in
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: something like a halfway house, he had applied for an
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: overnight pass to go visit his mother in Petaluma. Unable
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: to find her house, he had a few beers and
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 1: walked the streets of Polly's neighborhood. At one point, he
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: was stopped by a man who wanted to sell him
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: some marijuana. He decided to go ahead and buy the joint.
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 1: In Davis's own words, he got really buzzed and went
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: to the store for more beer. He soon found himself
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: wandering the neighborhood aimlessly. He wasn't sure where he was
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: or what he was doing. But Davis had come to
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood prepared. He'd brought a bag packed with bindings
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 1: and tape. Forensic experts were able to determine that he
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: had cut the strips with a pair of scissors, a
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: fact which implies intent. Then Davis said he randomly picked
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: a house on the street and crawled into an open window.
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 1: He remembered hearing TV voices and said he may have
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: picked up a knife from the kitchen. He said he
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 1: didn't remember anything after that. He claimed the next thing
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: he knew he was driving in his car and was
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 1: surprised to find a young girl sitting next to him.
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: She was complaining that her hands were tingling. According to Davis,
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: he adjusted the straps for her and drove around wondering
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: what he had done and what he should do next.
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: Then he drove off the side of the road and
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: got the car stuck. Once he realized he was stuck
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: for good, he says he got Polly out of the
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: car and carried her up a steep embankment about 30
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: yards away.
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 3: Get out of the car!
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: He planned to leave her in the darkness until he
• 2:28:18
  Speaker 1: could figure out a way to free the car. Get
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: out of the car! The rest of Davis' story about
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: what happened at Pythian Road matched the witnesses' accounts. At
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: the time of the incident, the bulletin about Polly's abduction
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 1: was just going out over police radios. But the deputies
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: were tuned to a different frequency and would not have
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: heard it even if they had been in their cars.
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: They ran his license, but the equipment they had at
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 1: that time was only able to give a cursory printout
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: of Davis' driving records. it couldn't generate his criminal record.
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: They found nothing they could hold him on. Davis recalled
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: how the deputies pulled his car out and escorted him
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: to the main highway. But he claims that he waited
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: for 15 or 30 minutes and returned to the site
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: to find Polly. Then he just drove around. At some point,
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: he realized he had to get rid of her. At
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: long last, authorities had found out what they'd been desperate
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: to know. Polly Klass was dead, and Richard Allen Davis
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: was the man responsible. Davis agreed to take them to
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 1: the site in a deserted area of Cloverdale where he
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: had left the body. It was night, but inspectors felt
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: the need to confirm Davis's story couldn't wait until daybreak.
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: He led them to a field near an abandoned lumber mill.
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: Out in the field under some boards, investigators found the
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: body of Polly Klass. It was an odd feeling.
• 2:30:35
  Speaker 7: You're in the presence of somebody like Davis, and just
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 7: a few yards away is what's left of a very beautiful,
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 7: innocent 12-year-old.
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 18: The poly class case was special because people cared. Because
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 18: the whole community stepped forward and said, this is the
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 18: last child you're going to take. And that this is
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 18: our child, and that we are going to go out
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 18: and look for her until we find her.
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: The case wouldn't come to trial until 1996. But after
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: 10 weeks in the courtroom, a jury found Davis guilty
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: on 10 counts, including kidnapping, robbery, burglary, murder, and attempting
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 1: to commit a lewd act on a child. The latter
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 1: charge Davis continued to deny during the entire trial. Investigators
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: strongly believe that despite Davis's testimony, Polly was already dead
• 2:31:35
  Speaker 1: at the time deputies helped him with his car. He
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 1: was sentenced to death and continues to sit on death
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: row at San Quentin Prison. Polly Klass left behind a
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 1: legacy to save other lives. The way missing persons cases
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: are handled has changed forever since the investigation. Law enforcement
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 1: databases are linked to different agencies providing vital information to
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: multiple jurisdictions. Missing persons bulletins are now sent out over
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: all police channels. At routine pullovers and traffic stops, officers
• 2:32:15
  Speaker 1: can access not only driving histories but criminal records as well.
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: Implementation of the three strikes you're out legislation was a
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 1: direct result of the case. as was the push to
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 1: expedite the appeals process in murder cases. And a foundation
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 1: established in Polly's name aids the search for missing children.
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 4: Involvement of the FBI was critical to bringing resolution to
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 4: this case. Had they not come in and gotten involved
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 4: early on, It's doubtful we would ever have had resolution,
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 4: or certainly that it would have been as quickly as
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 4: it was, even though it seemed like a long time.
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: The unique partnership that was formed between local police and
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: the FBI set a precedent that continues to this day.
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 3: You