00:00:21
Heat. Heat. Hi, it's Stan. Please leave a message. >> It was January 22nd, 1998. It was Stan's
00:00:41
38th birthday. He didn't come to work, and that's not like Stanley. Here's a very diligent
00:00:49
person with a very high-profile job. And he had an appointment that he didn't show up for and didn't call anybody
00:00:54
about. A federal prosecutor was missing and nobody knew where he was. A group of his friends were throwing him
00:01:10
a party at a club in downtown Manhattan. It was his birthday and he didn't come to his own birthday party.
00:01:19
Did he go out? Did he go partying? Did he drink? Was he using drugs? Was he involved in some sex capades?
00:01:29
You know, they were saying no. You know, he's kind of a quiet, mild mattered guy,
00:01:32
like he wouldn't just disappear. He wouldn't just not come to work. One possibility was that he was at home
00:01:41
either ill or or sleeping or passed out. When we arrived at Stanley's apartment,
00:01:48
the superintendent didn't have the key. So, one of the guys followed the building superintendent up the fire
00:01:54
escape, and the superintendent used his elbow to smash in Stanley's kitchen windows.
00:02:02
There was nothing that indicated that Stanley had been there recently. Then, somebody pressed the answering
00:02:09
machine on his telephone. >> Hi, it's Stan. Please leave a message. you know, beep, happy birthday from some
00:02:18
friend or relative. And then the third message was, "This is your credit card company calling to say
00:02:25
there's unusual activity on your card." A couple of beeps after that was even worse.
00:02:36
A person called and she said, "I found your wallet in Bedford Styent in the garbage."
00:02:43
And that was really scary. Bedford Styverson is a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn.
00:02:50
What would his wallet be doing? Bedford Stson. Somebody said, "Maybe he's lying in an
00:02:58
alleyway somewhere bleeding." And somebody else said, "Or maybe." Or he was dead.
00:03:09
>> This is unbelievable. There's got to be something more to the story. As we started to look into it, people were
00:03:15
thinking this is just really way too crazy to be true. This was clearly a serious item in New
00:04:00
York City. A federal prosecutor is missing. He hasn't been heard from for 24 hours.
00:04:06
People are scared. >> There was sort of this hysteria in the apartment with his friends there. You
00:04:14
know, everybody had their theory, you know, of where Stan was and what happened to Stan.
00:04:19
>> Certainly, it was possible to me that he'd been murdered. >> You know, we're sort of trying to come
00:04:24
up with a plan of action when the phone rings. We sort of looked at each other and
00:04:28
we're like, will somebody get it? So I I answer the phone and uh and the voice on the other end of the phone
00:04:36
says, "This is Stan. Who is this?" And so I tell him who I am. I say, "Are you all right?" And he says,
00:04:47
"Yes, I'm all right, but I was kidnapped." And >> we were sort of kind of stunned by that.
00:04:53
You know, he was kidnapped. I mean, who would kidnap a United States attorney? I just ran for it.
00:05:08
I ran across Prospect Park West and went down one of the side streets on my way to 7th Avenue.
00:05:16
There was a pizza place that was open and I and I start saying to the guy behind the counter, "Can I use your
00:05:21
phone? Can I use your phone? I was just kidnapped. Can I use your phone?" I'm a I'm I'm a federal prosecutor, but
00:05:28
but but I made it out, you know. Can I please use your phone? I got to call people. He looked at me like uh I had
00:05:35
three heads. >> And I said, "Stam, where are you?" >> All we got on the phone was, "I'm at a
00:05:46
pizzeria in Brooklyn. Stay where you are. We're coming to get you. Stay where you are."
00:05:54
We piled in cars. I went with one agent. Remember feeling incredibly frustrated because he wasn't zooming through the
00:06:06
red lights. When the agents and detectives picked up Stan in Brooklyn, he was in front of a
00:06:12
pizzeria right where he said he would be. When we drove up and I saw him, he looked almost like a skeleton.
00:06:20
>> He looked exhausted. He was really, really nervous. Um, you know, looked like, um, he'd been up all night.
00:06:29
So, they drove me from Brooklyn to the 9inth precinct in the East Village. And they brought me inside and they put me
00:06:36
in a room and uh, they started questioning him and he started going through his story. And
00:06:42
it wasn't until, you know, hours later that we would start hearing, you know, the details of that evening, you know,
00:06:47
between the drugs and the sex. >> People were like, you know, this doesn't make sense at all.
00:06:59
>> It was a pretty bizarre story um that most people were having trouble embracing.
00:07:04
>> You're kind of rolling your eyes thinking, "Oh my gosh, this is crazy. This is crazy.
00:07:11
The night of January 21st, 1998, I went on a blind date. Didn't work out. An hour later, I got on
00:07:19
the train to come home. It was a freezing cold night. One of those bitterly cold uh winter New York
00:07:33
nights. There was nobody around. It was roughly 11:00. I was walking down 10th Street toward Fifth Avenue in the
00:07:44
village. And as I get toward the corner of 10th Street and Fifth Avenue, from out of
00:07:54
nowhere, I didn't see it. I didn't hear it before. I feel a tug on my elbow. I spin around. There's a big fat
00:08:05
blackbarreled automatic machine gun sticking in my gut. There are two guys behind me. Shove me from behind. They
00:08:12
push me out into the street. Move. Move. Don't say a word. Just get in the car. They put me in the backseat of the car.
00:08:34
I could see the outline of the word Lexus on the dash, so I knew we were in a Lexus. The guy in front of me starts
00:08:43
talking. What's your name? Stanley. Stanley, let me tell you what we're going to do. We're going to take you to
00:08:49
the cash machine and we're going to get your money. And if you with us, we will kill you.
00:08:55
That guy was named Lucky. The toughest thug was called Sen. He was across from me to the right.
00:09:04
And almost by accident, I didn't want to. I looked at him. Our eyes met. And Sen stuck his pistol in my face. And he
00:09:10
screamed at me. He's like, got big eyes. I should kill you for those big eyes. The guy on my right, his name was Ren.
00:09:23
Ren seemed to be more of a henchman. He seemed to be the one who would just do what they told him.
00:09:30
They took me to the cash machine at 23rd Street and 6th Avenue. Lucky goes in to
00:09:35
get money. So, they asked me how much I had in my savings account. And I knew I had to
00:09:41
tell the truth because all they have to do is go put in my PIN number and they can know everything. So, I said
00:09:46
somewhere around $110,000. They heard that number and they were amazed. Well, that's the point where the
00:09:53
plan shifted. They drove towards the Westside Highway and Lucky started explaining to me what
00:10:01
their plan was. He said, "We're going to hold you overnight and tomorrow morning
00:10:07
we're going to take you to a bank and you're going to withdraw $50,000 and if you don't cooperate, we'll kill
00:10:14
you." And then he ordered Ren to blindfold me. So Ren pulls my scarf off and wraps it
00:10:27
wraps it around my eyes, you know, my own scarf, ties it tight. Then he shoved me down on the seat next to him in a
00:10:34
fetal position and they drove. I didn't know where we were going. It was too early to think at that point.
00:10:47
I was just petrified. It was It was the most horrifying moment you can imagine. They decided that they had caught
00:11:01
something that they wanted to keep for a while. That was me. The agents interviewed me with all
00:11:23
deliberate seriousness and they kept me there for hours. >> Stan told a story. you know, he's
00:11:32
kidnapped off the streets at gunpoint, but uh >> I had absolutely no clue that they
00:11:41
didn't find my story credible. Not a clue. You got to keep in mind I'm blindfolded.
00:11:59
What you learn if you're blindfolded is you can pick up a lot with through your sense of hearing.
00:12:07
When we go through the tunnel that's at the bottom of Manhattan, I know we're through that tunnel cuz it sounds
00:12:11
different. And few minutes later, I could hear us going over a bridge. So, I knew we're going somewhere in
00:12:26
Brooklyn or Queens. They pushed me out of the car. I went up couple of steps, through a doorway,
00:12:42
couple steps more, through another doorway, down a long, thin hallway, and then they
00:12:49
shove me up the stairs. And now I'm trapped in somebody's apartment. And I can still see a little bit out the
00:13:00
bottom of my blindfold. I can see two mattresses on the floor. It looks like a place where people just crash.
00:13:11
>> The most obviously terrifying violent member of the gang was sent. Actually, I
00:13:16
could practically feel him close to me at one point, you know, pointing the gun at me and saying, "Stanley, you ever see
00:13:23
one of these guns? All I got to do is pull the trigger and bam, bam, bam, your brains will be all over that wall.
00:13:34
Repeatedly they kept cocking and unccocking the guns so that I could hear it. They demanded my father's address. It
00:13:47
was in my wallet. Lucky told me that if I didn't cooperate with them at the bank
00:13:53
in the morning, he would kill my father, that they would break every bone in my father's body.
00:14:04
It always drove me crazy that they picked him of all people because apparently they thought he was some rich
00:14:11
Wall Street lawyer type. >> Stan was a federal prosecutor. It was a very important job.
00:14:20
He's a person who wants to make an impact on the world and in many ways wants to make the world a better place.
00:14:28
Stanley was certainly not born with a silver spoon. He was the kind of guy who had to work for everything he had.
00:14:36
I grew up lower middle class in Brooklyn. We didn't have a lot of money. I spent all my time out on the streets.
00:14:43
I was a little guy, a little skinny guy. So talking your way out of things was one good skill that you that you needed
00:14:51
to learn. A few minutes later, I could hear the front door of the apartment open and I
00:15:08
could hear a bunch of footsteps. I could hear them talking. Hey D. Hey mystic. What's up? How you doing? How'd
00:15:16
you do out on the street? Mercedes and Mystic come into the apartment. These two teenage girls who
00:15:26
are prostitutes and they're friends of Ren and Sen. So a few minutes after that, Lucky left
00:15:35
the apartment and you know, you got the feeling that people were kind of settling in.
00:15:46
Somebody struck a match and you could smell the marijuana. So then they're smoking pot and you can
00:16:04
hear that there are sexual acts going on and you know this was awful good thing that I was blindfolded cuz I couldn't
00:16:14
see what was happening around me. >> So here is Stan, this sort of reserved US attorney sitting on a mattress while
00:16:21
two people are having sex next to him. Um, and then another couple is having sex across the room. My gosh, this
00:16:27
didn't happen. This guy got lost for 24 hours and he needs a good story. And then, you know, when it was over,
00:16:36
there was a calm in the room. So, Sen asked me, Stanley, what you know, what would you be doing if um if we hadn't
00:16:45
grabbed you on the street? I'd be meeting my friends for a concert because that day was my birthday.
00:16:53
And they heard that and they just burst out laughing. Oh my god, we kidnapped the on his birthday.
00:17:07
Then Sen says, "You know, it's your birthday. You deserve something nice for your birthday. How about a from one of
00:17:13
these girls? These are nice girls." And I said, "No thanks." And then they kept pushing it. Stanley,
00:17:20
you should take it cuz you know what? I think the girls like you. So I said, "You know what? The only reason they
00:17:26
like me is cuz most of my face is covered." Here's a guy who's been kidnapped. You
00:17:34
know, he's sitting there and they're offering him oral sex. A lot I think the more uh seasoned individuals didn't
00:17:42
believe it at all. >> I can't explain it. I just tried to make them not dislike me so that they
00:17:50
wouldn't want to kill me. In the middle of the night, S and Ren were openly discussing what their plans
00:18:00
were with me. And Sen wasn't happy with the plan. And he didn't think it was going to work. It's not going to look
00:18:07
right. It's going to look odd for two black men to be taking this sort of nerdy white
00:18:14
man into the bank and he's, you know, withdrawing all this money. So Lucky comes back at 4 in the morning
00:18:25
and Ren and Sen say, "Look, we got to talk to you." And they go outside the room.
00:18:31
They talk for a couple of minutes and then Lucky pops his head back in the room and he says, "Stanley,
00:18:38
tell me again what you do for a living." And I say, "I'm an assistant US attorney."
00:18:46
and he says, "US, oh no, the FBI is going to be after us." And that's when Lucky told me that they
00:18:58
changed the plan. And he says, "Stanley, look, I got good news for you. We're going to be taking you back. I'm going
00:19:04
to come back here at 7:00 in the morning. We're going to take you back and let you go."
00:19:10
They stayed outside the room at that point talking. So, did I think they might be planning to kill me? Sure.
00:19:17
Until this thing was over, I knew that my life was hanging by a thread the whole time.
00:20:04
In the early morning hours, things got very quiet. There wasn't much activity. And you know, I could feel that dawn had
00:20:13
come. I could hear buses going by. And I also could hear seagulls. And then this guy Lewis shows up and
00:20:38
he's renting the space to them. S and Ren have decided that they want to get out of there. They've got things to
00:20:45
attend to. So they tell Lewis, "Here's our guns. You stay here. You hold these guns. You watch this guy until we get
00:20:53
back." Lewis offered me food. Actually, all of them offered me food at one point or another.
00:21:06
I thought about trying to convince Lewis to let me go cuz there were hours where
00:21:12
the other guys went out. He's there holding the guns. He's with the girls. But he was a volatile, paranoid,
00:21:23
scared kind of guy. And what I was really afraid of is that if I tried to go down that path, if I tried to
00:21:30
convince him to let me go, he'd freak out. I mean, just pull the trigger on that
00:21:38
Tech 9. Multiple bullets are going to come out per second. I'm done. You know, in 25 hours of being
00:21:49
blindfolded and sitting on a mattress, you have a lot of time to think. And what I was thinking was if I don't get
00:21:56
killed, I'm going to gather enough evidence so that these guys get put away and they don't do it to anybody else
00:22:03
again. I had a lot of clues that could help them find these guys. I could actually
00:22:14
see the pattern on the tiles as we went into the building and I tried to memorize the pattern.
00:22:24
I could tell it was a railroad flat in an old tenement building. So I counted the steps of the first landing and I
00:22:29
counted it to the second landing. They tortured me. They threatened to murder me. They threatened to kill my
00:22:35
father. I couldn't possibly allow them to do that to another person ever. I was absolutely devastated by the
00:22:45
thought that anybody would hurt my father. During the interview when Stan was sharing about his dad and his concerns
00:22:54
about his father, you could see a physical change. Now it was becoming emotional.
00:23:05
This is something he was feeling. And for me as an investigator, it's telling me that he's telling me the
00:23:11
truth. You know, we ended up after several hours of talking to him, you know, believing what he said.
00:23:27
Hour after hour goes by and nobody knows where's Lucky. Nobody is telling me why
00:23:35
he didn't come back. Nobody is telling me why they haven't set me free. about 6 or 7:00 Ren and Sen came back.
00:23:55
So there was a period of a few hours when things got lighter and you know they started getting friendly. They
00:24:01
wanted legal advice. >> I think one of them had gotten into some sort of a car accident and uh he had
00:24:06
some injuries from it. He wanted to know Stan's opinion that would he be able to
00:24:09
have a lawsuit >> and he wanted to know how much his case was worth. He had a lumbar problem. He
00:24:14
had to go to a chiropractor once a week. He wanted to know how much he could get
00:24:18
for his case. He had a lawyer, but he had, look, he had me there. He had a chance for a second opinion.
00:24:27
And then there was this whole period where everybody sat around like we were at a dinner party and starts telling
00:24:33
jokes and they kept calling me Steven. And I kept correcting them and said, "My name's not Steven, it's it's Stanley."
00:24:39
And at one point Ren says, "Oh, sorry, Stanley." Uh, our mistake. Steven's the guy we did this to the other night.
00:24:50
And then somewhere around 10:00 at night, Lucky comes back. Comes bursting through the door. Right away, the mood
00:24:57
changed. Lucky was the boss. He's back. They're not going to be joking around anymore. Everybody is dead serious.
00:25:04
Everybody is quiet. And he says, "Come on, let's go." And boom, like with military precision, they marched me out
00:25:11
the door. I started to get very nervous. I started to feel palpitations in my heart. I got
00:25:22
a sweat on the back of my neck and my forehead. I felt a little sick. Lucky stopped at the doorway, turned
00:25:34
back to me, and said, "Stanley, let me ask you something. If you had the chance to put
00:25:41
me away for life, would you do it?" Look, you already told me you know where I live. You know where my father lives.
00:25:53
I don't know who you are. I don't know where we are. and you say you're gonna release me unharmed.
00:26:01
I don't think this has to go any further. So, nobody says a word. Lucky gets out
00:26:08
of the car until a minute later, I hear the trunk opening. And then I heard the sound of duct tape
00:26:17
being pulled off of a roll. And it's that point that I was positive that my life was over. I was sure they
00:26:26
were going to kill me right then and there. Suddenly your whole life flashes in front of you.
00:27:14
You'll never call somebody. You'll never watch a movie. You'll never sit down to
00:27:18
a meal. you'll never meet somebody with the hope of getting married. All those things that make up life
00:27:29
for me in that moment when I heard the duct tape pulling off the roll, that was over. And I and and that was really the
00:27:38
most horrific feeling anybody can imagine. So second later, I heard Lucky applying
00:27:48
the tape to the plastic that was covering the broken window on his car. And then it slowly dawned on me that I
00:27:55
had just made a big mistake. Overnight, somebody had broken into his car, smashed the passenger side window. So,
00:28:04
uh, he was just fixing the plastic. They kept driving and drove for I don't know maybe another 10 or 15 minutes
00:28:16
and then they stopped the car again and the guy to my right says, "Should we give him $20 for a cab?" Of course, it
00:28:28
was $20 of my own money, but that sounded courteous. But they might have been tricking me. I really didn't know.
00:28:38
That same guy opened the door and and they and and he took me outside and I'm still blindfolded and he said,
00:28:46
"Put your hands up." And he says, "You just walk." So I took a step and then another step
00:29:00
and eventually I think I can very gently hear the Lexus pulling away. So I said, "Are you there?"
00:29:13
And nobody answered. And I ripped the blindfold off and I spun around and they were gone.
00:29:26
And that was the happiest moment of my life. It was it was it was it was ecstasy. It was
00:29:33
pure ecstasy. I just ran for it. You know, I recognized that it was Prospect Park. I grew up there. I I was
00:29:44
there all the time. I was rushing to find a business or restaurant, something like that, where I
00:29:50
could go in and make a call. >> And then when the phone call came in, that's when the energy in the room sort
00:29:54
of went from 0 to 60. >> Just stay where you are. Stay where you are. The the precinct was crazy. It was
00:30:03
a buzz with energy. You know, they debriefed him and they started typing up the report and it was
00:30:10
as she was typing it, we were pulling it off. She would get a half a page typed and we would yell, "Print it." She'd
00:30:15
print it and then we would run with it. We had one group of people, you know, running down, you know, Ren and Sen. We
00:30:26
had another group that was looking for Lucky, looking for that Lexus. We had people looking for the prostitutes.
00:30:33
We ran Mercedes, that nickname, through the NYPD database, found a young female who'd been arrested a number of times
00:30:39
for prostitution. >> Our job was to try to see if we could locate Mercedes and interview her.
00:30:53
I'd seen a number of pictures of her from, you know, her wrap sheets. There's these two girls standing in front of
00:30:58
this building. As soon as we walk up, I recognize uh Mercedes right from the pictures.
00:31:06
So, I actually say to her, "Hey, Mercedes, how you doing?" You know, I say, "Hey, listen. We got to talk to you
00:31:10
for a minute." When you do an interview with somebody, what you want to do is you want to
00:31:17
basically elevate the level of threat towards them, which make them feel like they're in a world of trouble. You have
00:31:23
no idea. I said, "You and your friends have basically done one of the worst things you could possibly ever do. you
00:31:29
kidnapped a a US attorney and I said, "I'm an FBI agent." And I said, "And if you ever been in trouble before, you
00:31:35
have no idea what kind of trouble you're going to be in now." >> So, she gave up everything that she
00:31:41
knew. You know, she started rambling off Lucky and Ren and Sad and all of a sudden it was like, "Oh my gosh." You
00:31:47
know, everything that Stan had told us, she she confirmed for us. She said she had felt sorry for Stan and had offered
00:31:53
him oral sex because it was his birthday and she felt bad for him. based on the information that she
00:31:59
provided. Um, we had Ly's cell phone number. Every time he he turned his phone on, we were able to see what cell
00:32:06
tower it was pinging off of. So, we were able to sort of narrow down where he was. So, um, we had agents and
00:32:12
detectives out in Brooklyn. A lot of police work is boring, but when you get to the hunts, there's nothing
00:32:23
like it. Nothing like it. I always love to hunt. The Lexus had a broken window, we were
00:32:39
told, but we also had a plate number. And it was about 9:00 at night when the when the Lexus drove by us. So that's
00:32:47
when uh our heart started beating and we uh gave pursuit. you know, or you believe that they're
00:32:57
all armed and and you know, you have to really be careful at this point because we just don't know what's going to be
00:33:03
the next move on their part. Well, we pull them over. We're on both sides of the car, right? Uh we all have
00:33:12
our guns drawn and we're telling them we want to see their hands. We want to see
00:33:15
all their hands. The pups we pulled out of the car were Lucky and Scent. We cuffed each one of them and we got into
00:33:22
our cars and we all drove back to Manhattan. Ren was picked up by uh a couple of other detectives uh probably
00:33:29
not much later. Criminals have the idea when they come into an interrogation room they're going
00:33:36
to outsmart me. My feeling is if they had brains all that we would be in trouble.
00:34:03
My end goal is to solicit the truth. I want to know the truth. If I have to cry or laugh in an
00:34:17
interrogation room to get the truth, I'll do that. If I have to be their friend,
00:34:27
I'll do that. The first interview I conduct is with the defendant, Lucky. He kept saying, "I didn't do anything
00:34:44
wrong. and I know my rights. And he says, "I'm having a lot of trouble remembering
00:34:51
even what's going on the last few days." He said, "I had a very, very bad time. It really screwed up my mind."
00:34:59
I said, "Well, why don't you tell me about your bad time?" So, he went on to tell me how two male
00:35:08
blacks came over to him, approached him, pulled out guns, and forced him into his
00:35:13
car. And uh while they were driving him around, they uh brought him to different
00:35:20
banks and gave him an ATM card and they made him withdraw money. I said, "You got to be kidding me." I said, "That's
00:35:27
horrible." Randos told him to go back to Brooklyn uh to an apartment they had over in
00:35:36
Brooklyn. and he went back to the apartment and he said, "My sole objective here was to calm Stanley
00:35:44
down." He said, "I could see he looked a little bit nervous." He said, "I really liked Stanley. I I
00:35:51
thought he was a nice fell and I felt really bad about him." He said that Ren and S were bad guys and
00:35:58
that uh they were more than willing to kill this guy and he insisted that they had to let him go. I tell you, it
00:36:05
brought tears to my eyes that he was such a concerning human being and he was so concerned about Stanley.
00:36:14
Once I had that, I I had really more than I needed. Lewis walked into the precinct and
00:36:25
surrendered. >> Said to the death sergeant, "I understand you're looking for me." And
00:36:30
told him who he was. Right away, Lewis didn't strike me as being very intelligent.
00:36:36
And I said to him, Lewis, I got lucky. I got Ren, I got sent. I got Mercedes. I said, "And they're all saying, you're
00:36:48
the ring leader. You're the guy that set this up for Stanley." I said, "Don't say
00:36:53
a word." I said, "Before anything, I want to know, are you going to be on my team or their team?" and he looked at me
00:37:01
and said, "I want to be on your team." I said, "You got it." And he said, "I didn't do anything." He
00:37:12
said, "It was my apartment." He said, "All I did was sit with Stanley." He said, "I had nothing to do with the
00:37:20
kidnapping, right? And I really shouldn't even be here. If criminals had brains, we'd be out of
00:37:26
business. It's 12 or 15 hours later. Now we've got everybody wrapped up. Now we have
00:37:38
everybody in a big holding cell. I'm on the other side of the squad room and I got my foot up on the desk and I'm
00:37:48
smoking a cigarette and I hear I'm looking around. I I look across the room and it's Lewis
00:37:58
and he's got his face in between the bars. So I go walking across the room. I said, "What's the matter?" Says, "I want
00:38:06
to know. Am I still on your team?" I said, "Yes, you are." And with that, I fell right to the floor.
00:38:19
When they picked him on the street, they had no idea that this mildmannered man was going to turn out to be an amazing
00:38:24
amazing witness. >> He truly had to have a survival instinct in order to get through an ordeal like
00:38:30
that. >> Oh, he was great. He was the best. >> He was able to joke with him. He was
00:38:36
respectful. He was polite. >> The things that Stan remembered, the evidence that he gave us was critical in
00:38:42
solving this case. Absolutely critical. They eventually all decided to plead guilty.
00:39:01
The girls got shorter sentences and the men got substantial time. I personally believe they got what they
00:39:22
deserved. There was no doubt about it. We have the right to be able to go from point A to point B without being
00:39:30
accosted by people with guns and dragged off and held somewhere against your will.
00:39:47
Looking back, the post kidnapping part of my life is really better than the prekidnapping
00:39:54
part of my life. I think I learned some important lessons. These days, I live life more fully. A
00:40:04
year after it happened, I >> Wave. Very good. got myself a dog, which I'd wanted for a long time.
00:40:12
It's a little silly, but I went out and bought myself a little Cabrio convertible.
00:40:19
Just recently, uh, God finally blessed me and had me meet somebody who I fell in love with and I managed to get
00:40:27
married, which was, you know, one of the happiest moments of my life. And so in many ways this kidnapping
00:40:40
was a wakeup call to me. It made me realize how precious life is. [ __ ] Factory.
00:41:53
Yeah, there's no way. There's no way I wasn't going down without a fight because that would just be stupid of me,
00:42:01
you know? How can you not fight for your life? >> It was a carefree night out. When it
00:42:06
began, these two teenage girls had never met. When it was over, they shared an unbreakable bond of survival.
00:42:16
Kidnapped at gunpoint, terrorized during a summer of fear. >> The latest highly publicized child
00:42:23
kidnapping in California this year. >> We're pleading for our lives. Please don't kill me. Please don't shoot.
00:42:31
Peter Vans has their personal story. >> Do you realize today just how close to death you were?
00:42:39
>> Split-second decisions, facing the fear, daring to fight back. >> Because your intent at that moment is to
00:42:46
do what? >> To kill him. >> Time was running out. >> He was hunting for the kids to kill them
00:42:53
and bury him. >> This is the real deal. We have to take action. >> 48 hours investigates. If you don't open
00:42:59
the door by three, I'm going to kill both of you right now. One, two. To hell and back.
00:43:28
Welcome to 48 Hours Investigates. I'm Leslie Stall. Police have called this case a blueprint for survival. In a
00:43:36
summer that was filled with terrifying child kidnappings, the daring escape of Tamara Brooks and Jackie Maris delivered
00:43:43
hope. They took extraordinary chances to survive. And tonight, Jackie reveals harrowing details about the decisions
00:43:50
they made that bought them time, hour by hour. Peter Vans reports on the dramatic
00:43:57
events that changed the lives of two teenagers who found out they are braver than they knew.
00:44:13
I've been kissed by the sun each morning just soaking up the day. >> We do have breaking news to tell you
00:44:23
about the two girls who were kidnapped this morning at gunpoint have been found safe.
00:44:32
>> This case the latest highly publicized child kidnapping in California this year. I have been blessed.
00:44:42
Thank you. >> It's a welcome home party unlike any other. Just days earlier, Tamara Brooks
00:44:50
and Jackie Marris spent a night in hell, kidnapped, abused, terrorized. But they
00:44:57
somehow made it back. >> I was alive. I had my life back. And the bad guy was dead.
00:45:06
will never have to deal with this suspect again. >> The girl's triumph, says Sheriff Carl
00:45:13
Sparks, gives every mother and father something to hold on to. >> It gave them some hope that just because
00:45:22
somebody takes one of their children, it doesn't have to be 4 days later in a grave.
00:45:37
Do you realize today just how close to death you were? >> Yeah. Every second every second of what
00:45:46
we went through was a chance for him to kill us, but he didn't for some reason. So yeah, I know how close I was to
00:45:56
death. Jackie's incredible story of survival begins here on Quartz Hill, a popular
00:46:08
hangout overlooking the city of Palmdale, California. It's after midnight and Jackie is nearing her
00:46:14
curfew, enjoying the view with Frank Mo. It's >> It's fun, you know. It's It's something
00:46:21
different to do, you know. It keeps you out of trouble, I guess you could say. >> Or you thought.
00:46:25
>> That's what I thought. Yeah. At Quartz Hill, they talk, listen to music, then out of nowhere, Frank feels
00:46:36
cold metal against his head. >> Okay, this is serious. You know, it's something in my head. He has a gun. He
00:46:42
has a gun. A gun gets your attention pretty fast. >> Holding that gun with his finger on the
00:46:48
trigger is Roy Dean Ratliff, a fugitive wanted for rape. He demands money and orders Frank and Jackie to put their
00:46:56
heads down. They smell alcohol on his breath and hear duct tape unwinding. >> One second he was calm and then out of
00:47:05
nowhere he just starts getting mad, >> freaking out. >> Yeah. He was like, "You think I'll kill
00:47:11
you?" I was like, "Yeah, man. I think you'll kill me." And he was like, "You think I'll kill you?" And I was like,
00:47:15
"Yeah, you'll kill me, man. You got the gun. You'll kill me." He made me put my head to the back of the seat rest and
00:47:20
started taping my head and then putting tape all the way around my arms, taping my lip, taping my eyes. I was like, you
00:47:25
know, he's going to duct tape me and then shoot me. >> Ratliff starts wrapping up Jackie, but
00:47:31
the tape runs out. Blindfolded and hobbled, she's led to a Bronco parked nearby.
00:47:37
>> So, he picked me up and he placed me in the back. And that's when I saw Tamara's
00:47:41
legs and they weren't moving, and I didn't know like if it was some dead body or what, you know? Lying still in
00:47:51
the back seat is Tamara Brooks, a 16-year-old honor student. The two girls have never met.
00:47:59
When the Bronco disappears, Frank manages to free himself and calls for help on his cell phone.
00:48:06
>> And I see this other guy and I'm like, who's this? You know, what happened to
00:48:09
him? And he has duct tape on him and I'm just like, oh man, this happened to him,
00:48:15
too. >> I heard him undoing the duct tape. The other guy is Eric Brown. He was on
00:48:21
Quartz Hill with his friend Tam. >> Told me he was going to kill me and but he didn't want to. He actually just
00:48:28
wanted to tie me up. He just wanted the truck. >> Ratliff carjacked Eric's Bronco with
00:48:33
Tamara held hostage. >> I just turned 18 today as of about 2 hours ago. >> I was brought up that when you take a
00:48:43
girl out, you see that she gets home and how was I going to take her home? you know, oh what if something does happen
00:48:48
to her? I will never be able to live on myself ever. >> What police don't realize is Ratliff is
00:48:56
just a few miles from Quartz Hill. He pulls over and Jackie can see the lights from nearby homes through a crack in her
00:49:04
blindfold. >> The houses had to be like maybe 15 ft from us and like some of the lights were
00:49:09
on and like you could hear like dogs barking and like people, you know, >> without warning. Ratliff sexually
00:49:16
assaults her. >> Imagine your worst nightmare. >> Did you say anything to him? >> And no one in these houses that were
00:49:37
nearby, nobody noticed. Nobody heard anything. >> That doesn't surprise me because they
00:49:42
were so close to him. But >> and this is where he attacked Jackie. >> That's what we think. That's what we
00:49:56
think. Now, this whole thing took place inside the car. >> Detective Fred McNut retraces the route
00:50:01
Ratliff took that night. >> Why would this man pull over on a pretty busy street right next to a residential
00:50:08
neighborhood to do this sexual assault? He just played it out that way for his own excitement. Maybe some kind of sick
00:50:14
excitement he got on on being on the edge this way. Found in the Bronco were restraints that were used to hold the
00:50:21
girls. And here's the tape that was used. >> Ratliff also carries two guns, ammunition, and sexual paraphernalia.
00:50:30
>> Viagra. He had quite a few packages of Viagra. This is just a scaled photograph
00:50:35
of the rope, and that was described to us as being used around one of the girls necks.
00:50:41
After the assault, he promises to take the girls back to Quartz Hill. >> I could see out of the bottom of my duct
00:50:48
tape that was on my eyes. And so I saw like some of the signs. >> And he wasn't taking you back to the top
00:50:53
of the hill. >> No. >> They drive 30 minutes or more in the dead of night. When they finally stop,
00:51:02
they are allowed to remove their blindfolds. The scene is surreal. Dozens of windmills reflected in the moonlight.
00:51:10
>> He would become very caring and compassionate and then seconds later he might be holding a gun saying, "I'll
00:51:17
kill you if you don't do this." >> After another brutal rape, Ratliff carefully tucks his shirt around the
00:51:24
girls to protect them from the chilly night air. At one point, Jackie's door is left open
00:51:33
a crack. It's a chance for her to escape. But she refuses to leave Tamara behind.
00:51:40
>> I didn't know what he was going to do to Tamara. I didn't know if he would hurt
00:51:44
her more than he already had. >> How do you explain that bond that had formed between you and Tamara and the
00:51:52
fact that you felt protective of her, this total stranger in the back seat with you. It's like I had known her like
00:52:00
like for a long time, but I had just met her and I barely even knew her name. >> Later, Jackie whispers a song to the
00:52:10
stranger who is now a friend, trying to calm her during the long black night. >> What are the words to that song?
00:52:18
>> Do you remember? When we're lying in the quiet and no words have be a beautiful
00:52:34
>> They start driving again. Silently, Jackie grabs Tamara's hand. They dare not speak, so Jackie spells out words on
00:52:43
Tamara's palm, one letter at a time. What did you write to her? >> Do you remember?
00:52:50
>> Yeah. I need a plan. >> What did she write back? I >> think she wrote knife. >> Knife? Where was there a knife?
00:52:55
>> Eric had a knife. A bowing knife in a holster. >> Eric Brown, Tamara's friend, kept a
00:53:01
Bowie knife in his Bronco. The girls realize they have no choice. Jackie would use that knife the first chance
00:53:10
she got. There's no way I wasn't going down without a fight because that would just be stupid of me. You know, how can
00:53:17
you not fight for your life? Lying across the back seat, her hands tied, Jackie Maris watches one mile
00:54:01
bleed into the next. There is rope around her neck, binding her to Tamara Brooks. It is hour five of unrelenting
00:54:10
terror. I asked him if he was going to kill us and he said no. >> He is Roy Dean Ratliff, the fugitive
00:54:21
who's now in control of their lives. Just after daybreak, they pull onto a remote dirt road in the Mojave Desert,
00:54:31
130 m from where they were abducted. >> What's going through your mind? >> Just basically what now?
00:54:38
Jackie watches Ratliff load and fire two guns into the empty canyon. >> I just thought that was it.
00:54:46
>> You thought your time had come. >> Mhm. And that we had to do something by then or, you know, never.
00:54:53
>> Ratantliff then turns his attention to that Bowie knife in the car. He runs his
00:54:59
fingers over the 8- in blade, but before he has a chance to use it, a night of heavy drinking takes its toll. Ratliff
00:55:08
drifts off to sleep. >> This is the time. This is the time to do whatever we're going to do to try to get
00:55:14
away. >> Jackie and Tamara struggle to get free from the rope and duct tape that binds
00:55:19
them. >> You chewed it off. >> No, I licked it off. If you lick duct tape, it's not adhesive anymore and it
00:55:24
just it just comes off. >> They know Ratliff has a gun in his lap. If they run, he can easily shoot them.
00:55:32
Jackie sees the knife on the console. There's a bottle of whiskey on the front seat.
00:55:38
Both are weapons for anyone desperate enough to use them. >> We didn't talk. It was just like,
00:55:46
>> I'm going to stab. >> You're going to hit him with the whiskey bottle. >> You're going to hit because your intent
00:55:52
at that moment is to do what? >> To kill him. To let him pay for what he did and what we thought he was going to do.
00:56:08
Back at Courtz Hill where the girls were abducted, police don't yet know it's Roy
00:56:12
Ratliff they are looking for. >> I don't know. I came up. >> Frank Mo lives every detail of the
00:56:18
night. >> I remember the voice and I remember the way he would talk and the gun. You can't get the gun out of my
00:56:26
head. >> Police learned the suspect ambushed Eric Brown and Tamara Brooks first. Eric was
00:56:32
gagged and taped to this pole when another car arrived. >> I was blindfolded. I just heard them.
00:56:39
>> I heard uh the car come up. Frank Mo and Jackie Maris were in that car. Eric couldn't warn them. Now two girls are
00:56:48
missing and two boys are left to pray. >> I don't know what it's like to be Jackie's mom and dad and not know where
00:56:55
your kids's at, you know? That was really hard. >> Jackie's mom, Naen Dyer. >> Go ahead. No, it's it's all right.
00:57:16
>> She's only 17. I mean, all the things she graduates and and just a lot you think about,
00:57:24
>> all the things she'd miss. Police ask Naen to describe Jackie. She tells them about her daughter's brown
00:57:34
eyes and her trademark smile. Jackie is the oldest of three children. High energy and high-spirited, a determined
00:57:43
student, cheerleader, and surfer. 500 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers. Last summer, Naen
00:57:51
watched news reports about other girls who disappeared. Danielle Vanam, Samantha Renan, Elizabeth Smart. So, she
00:58:01
sat her children down and gave them this advice. >> If someone takes you against your will,
00:58:06
you know, the odds are you're not coming home, you know, so you need to do whatever it
00:58:10
is you need to do in order to get home. I mean, if you got to fight to the end, that's what you got to do.
00:58:16
I knew with Jackie. I knew she'd fight. She doesn't give up. She's got too much life in her. There's
00:58:22
too much she wants to do. 130 m away in the Mojave Desert, Jackie remembers her mother's advice. She'll do
00:58:34
whatever it takes to come home. Even if that means finding the courage to stab a
00:58:40
man. >> I'm so scared. And what if he wakes up? What's going to happen to us? Is God
00:58:46
ever going to forgive us for this? >> Inch by inch, the girls painstakingly get hold of the knife and whiskey
00:58:53
bottle. Jackie hesitates, not sure she can stab him until Ratliff's eyes flicker.
00:59:00
>> I thought he was waking up and so I just did it real fast and then he actually
00:59:04
woke up. Tamara smashed him in the face and then since his door was open, that little crack, he like fell over. So we
00:59:10
kicked him out. I threw the knife at him and Tamar threw the whiskey bottle at him. He was bleeding so much.
00:59:17
>> Bleeding from a stab wound to the neck. They lock the doors, roll up the windows, and just as Jackie takes the
00:59:25
wheel to speed away. She makes a horrifying discovery. >> The key is not here. The key is not
00:59:30
here. The key is not here. >> Ratliff still has the key. >> We didn't know what to do.
00:59:34
>> And both guns. >> I'm going to count to three. And if you don't open the door by 3, I'm going to
00:59:40
kill both of you right now. One. Two. And at this point, we were pleading for our lives. Please don't kill me. Please
00:59:47
don't shoot. Don't do it. What's guy going to think of you? You promised. And right before he got to three, he
00:59:59
collapsed. That was definitely by God. >> So, he's collapsed. Did you get out of
01:00:05
the car? >> No. cuz he's outside the car. >> Ratliff lies motionless. Then, like a scene from a horror movie,
01:00:20
he suddenly staggers to his feet and starts shooting over the car. >> What's the look on his face?
01:00:27
>> A look of intent to kill. Like that's all that he was going to do. No negotiating.
01:00:35
There wasn't anything. We couldn't go back. We couldn't take back what we had just done. And now we were going to
01:00:40
suffer for what we tried to do to him. On a desolate stretch of the Mojave Desert, Jackie Marris and Tamara Brooks
01:01:17
are living on the very edge of death. >> We can't do anything but plead for him not to kill us.
01:01:26
It is hour nine in the grip of a violent, desperate, wounded man. 130 m away, police are leading a massive
01:01:40
effort to find the girls. >> Find her. That's what you got to do. >> It's 10:00 the morning of August 1st,
01:01:46
2002. >> A number of family and friends are gathering here at the sheriff sub station.
01:01:51
>> I just hope she comes back safe. Freeway billboards flash a description of the stolen Bronco.
01:01:58
>> The vehicle has raised large tires. >> News reports are constant. >> They're on the lookout for this Ford
01:02:03
Bronco. >> The signs are part of a new warning system called Amber Alert, designed to
01:02:09
quickly notify the public when children are abducted. >> A license plate number of 1 a.
01:02:15
>> Police know too well that many children are killed within hours of being kidnapped.
01:02:21
When you first heard two teenage girls kidnapped, what's going through your mind?
01:02:28
>> Uh, that we're actually probably not going to be looking for the two girls cuz he's going to dump them.
01:02:34
>> Carl Sparks was then sheriff of Kern County, a sprawling desert county about 100 miles north of LA. When a crime
01:02:43
involves children, Sheriff Sparks gets emotional. If this sucker is in Kern County, he is not getting away from us.
01:02:56
>> Sparks doesn't know it yet, but in fact, Ratliff is in Kern County on a remote desert road.
01:03:04
>> Open the door. >> Ratliff's in a frenzy of pain and anger. >> Open the door. I'm going to kill the
01:03:12
both of you. bleeding profusely from the knife wound in his neck. >> The whole time he was like frantic, you
01:03:18
know, let me in or did I'm going to kill you. >> The girls are locked inside the Bronco.
01:03:26
>> We were in the worst position you could ever think of. You had just tried to kill someone and he's not dead and he
01:03:32
has a gun pointed at you through a car window. >> Why do you think he didn't pull that
01:03:38
trigger? >> I don't know. We started talking to him about God and if he was to kill us, if
01:03:44
God would ever forgive him for what he he was about to do. >> How important was that conversation at that moment?
01:03:54
>> Real important. After we started mentioning God and stuff, he like he calmed down a little bit and he was
01:04:00
silent for like a couple moments. With Ratliff still armed, the girls have no choice but to let him back in the
01:04:09
Bronco. They have managed against all odds to buy themselves a few more minutes of
01:04:16
life. >> Something was watching over someone, something. I don't know. As the search intensifies, a distraught
01:04:28
woman walks into this sheriff's station, hands over a photo, and says, "This may
01:04:33
be the man you're looking for. His name is Roy Dean Ratliff." The woman with this crucial new lead is Ratliff's wife.
01:04:41
>> She's a mother. She cared. She cared about those those girls. >> Kevin Seymour is a psychologist and
01:04:47
friend of the Ratliff family. >> He uh was very kind to my children. Ratliff, a Native American, is the
01:04:54
father of two. >> This is a picture that was taken last year at his birthday party. This is the
01:04:59
Roy that we knew, that smiling face. >> This is the picture here that the public
01:05:04
is most familiar with. What goes through your mind today when you look at that photograph.
01:05:09
>> This is the two sides of this man. This is a man who was a was a good man when
01:05:15
he wasn't drinking, but alcohol was real poison for this guy. Ratliff had been in and out of
01:05:21
prison since he was a teenager for nonviolent crimes. Seymour says Ratliff was always trying to turn things around.
01:05:30
>> He once worked as a gardener at this child care center and said it was the best job he ever had.
01:05:37
>> The children at at the childcare center loved him and for him when he drank he
01:05:41
became violent and he felt unable to control that. This guy had no ability to control himself.
01:05:50
Bull. Just absolute bull. Ratliff is on the move again. Back on the highway. He can't stop the bleeding of his neck.
01:06:04
He kept telling me to look watch his neck and tell him when to wipe because the blood it was bleeding real bad still
01:06:11
and the blood would just like pour down and I'd tell him to wipe so he'd wipe. >> If he's worried police are looking for
01:06:17
him, he doesn't show it. Jackie remembers him listening to a song about suicide.
01:06:24
>> He was talking about, "You think I care if I die right here? Well, I don't. I
01:06:28
don't care. Now, the car that they are looking for statewide is a 1984 white Ford Bronco.
01:06:40
The license plate number one AI >> Milton Walters, a highway worker, hears reports about the abduction all morning.
01:06:48
At just about 11:00 a.m., Walters can't believe his eyes. He sees a white Bronco
01:06:54
coming his way on Highway 178. I looked right at him, right through the passenger side window and he kind of had
01:07:02
like a like a crappy little smile on his face and kind of nodded at me as he went
01:07:06
by. I was panicking and I didn't have a pen. I'm going like this. So, I grabbed my
01:07:12
key and I scratched one a I Z then six 92. >> Walters calls police on his cell phone.
01:07:23
Helicopters and planes race to the area. >> But in this vast desert, they can't find
01:07:29
the Bronco. >> I know the area real well, and there's so many roads that this guy could have
01:07:35
taken. >> 11:30 a.m. Kern County Animal Control Officer Bonnie Hernandez is also on
01:07:42
Highway 178. >> Listening to her police scanner when she spots something white in the distance.
01:07:50
was right about here on on the rise when I saw him and he was going into the trees.
01:07:57
>> And in my mind, I'm thinking, "Good Lord, if if he gets down in there in those trees, even even the airship may
01:08:05
not be able to see him." >> Bonnie knows every second matters, but she's afraid to radio for help.
01:08:13
Everybody has a scanner in a in this type of an area and they know exactly where you're at and where you're going
01:08:19
and who you're after. >> Worried that Ratliff may have a scanner, >> Bonnie tears out to the nearest town to
01:08:28
alert authorities 30 m away. >> How fast were you driving on the highway, would you guess?
01:08:35
>> 110 literally. Back in the Bronco, >> he had us put towels over our heads and
01:08:42
we're on the floor. >> Jackie and Tamara can feel that they've gone off road and they like everyone looking for them
01:08:52
have a sickening suspicion why. >> They were excess baggage that he needed to get rid of. He was hunting for a
01:09:00
place to kill them and bury him. And he had stopped that Bronco cuz he had found
01:09:06
the place where he wanted to do it. He he he just said, "You you guys better hope the cops aren't down there." Like
01:09:13
if they were that he was going to kill us. And then all of a sudden, Tam was like,
01:09:20
"Do you hear that?" And I was like, "What?" And she's like, "Listen." And she's like, "It's a helicopter.
01:09:45
On August 1st, as morning gave way to the midday heat of the Mojave Desert, Tamara Brooks and Jackie Marris knew
01:09:53
they were running out of time. The girls had been abducted, assaulted, and repeatedly threatened they'd be killed
01:10:00
by the gunman holding them hostage. Roy Dean Ratliff was a fugitive from justice, a career criminal wanted for
01:10:07
rape, who had vowed he would never go back to prison. Tamara and Jackie tried everything they could think of to fight
01:10:15
back, even stabbing Ratliff and badly wounding him. Now they were at the mercy of a desperate man they had made even
01:10:24
angrier. With police hot on the trail, Peter Vans picks up the story. Bronco. Great job.
01:10:40
>> 12 hours of terror are about to end. The next few minutes will determine life
01:10:47
and death for everyone in that Bronco. >> We're in the right direction. >> All of a sudden, we hear this um
01:10:54
helicopter overhead and it keeps circling around and Tam's like, "Do you hear that?
01:11:01
But for Jackie and Tamara, the sound of the rescue helicopter is actually frightening.
01:11:07
>> Oh no, the cops are here. You know, get out of here. We don't want you here right now.
01:11:11
>> Roy Ratliff has said he will kill the girls if the police show up. >> So, we were hoping that the helicopter
01:11:18
would go away and like like it did, but then it came back and when the sound came back, it was lower. It kept getting
01:11:26
lower and lower and lower. We need to know how to get in there. >> By the time we get right into here, it's
01:11:33
continuous, continuous talk from the chopper. >> Kern County deputies James Stratton and
01:11:40
Larry Thatcher follow the helicopter to an isolated stretch of land in the Mojave Desert called White Blanket.
01:11:47
>> As I got out of the vehicle, he was looking straight at me through the open passenger side window. attempting to
01:11:54
make contact with the suspect >> here for the first time. They come face to face with Roy Dean Ratliff.
01:12:02
>> This is real. This is the real deal. We have to take action. >> I drew my weapon. I yelled at him to get
01:12:09
his hands where I could see him. He hollered back at me. No way. >> All he had on his face was desperation,
01:12:18
terror, and contempt. I'm not getting away. You're not going to catch me. >> Roy Ratliff presses down on the gas
01:12:29
>> hard. He actually went airborne across here. Hit this road down here off through the brush.
01:12:36
>> He just turned to the left real fast. When he turned, the Bronco almost slipped and then he got stuck up on this
01:12:41
rock. >> The deputies show us just how they close in on the Bronco. >> I started running down the hill. James
01:12:50
started running down the hill. How quickly is all of this happening? >> Seconds.
01:12:55
He was watching our distance as we're closing, thinking he's going to get the vehicle off and can escape.
01:13:00
>> So, where are the girls at this point? >> Don't know. Have no idea. >> What the deputies don't realize is that
01:13:06
Jackie and Tamara are still in the Bronco lying in the back seat. >> We've had no report from the chopper
01:13:12
that they've seen them. I don't know if the girls have already been dumped someplace, if the girls are dead. Uh, I
01:13:18
just don't know. You saw the police outside the windows. >> Yeah, their guns and stuff. Yeah.
01:13:23
>> Did they see you? >> Not at that point. >> Vehicle stuck in the dirt. >> As we got closer, I think he realized
01:13:31
that he wasn't leaving. That's when he leaned over out of his seat, went behind the passenger seat, and started digging
01:13:37
for the gun. >> He jumps in the back of the seat, and he has his gun in his hand. I thought he
01:13:43
was going to kill me right then cuz his gun was loaded, and he had it right by my head.
01:13:52
Roy Ratliff is trapped. He has nowhere to go and nothing to lose. >> He was shouting out at the cops. I have
01:14:00
the girls. You better not shoot or else they're going to die. >> With just about 6 ft separating the cops
01:14:06
from Ratliff, the two deputies are putting their lives on the line. >> I come around here just like this to the
01:14:13
back end of the Bronco. He has no idea that I'm behind him. Within seconds, Ratliff pulls the trigger.
01:14:22
>> He shot the first shot out the window and then the cops retaliated back. They
01:14:26
shot back. >> Suddenly, Jackie and Tamara are in the midst of a deadly gun battle.
01:14:36
>> The bullets are just flying everywhere. We're screaming for our lives. The car
01:14:40
is just like moving back and forth, back and forth. As you're firing these shots, are you
01:14:47
thinking to yourself, "What about the girls?" >> The only thing I see is him and that
01:14:51
revolver he's holding. >> When I heard the shot, Ratliff went back. At that time, I began shooting,
01:14:58
approaching the vehicle and approaching Ratliff. >> Once I made sure of my target, I lined
01:15:08
up my sight straight on him and I squeezed the trigger. The glass looked like it fell like
01:15:17
raindrops. And he looked at me with the sense of you got me. >> Suspect is down.
01:15:30
>> A bullet fired by Larry Thatcher brings Roy Dean Ratliff's trail of terror to a
01:15:36
dead end. He was on top of me and like he his body just like it had no life in it anymore. It was
01:15:48
just dead weight. When I was finished firing then I can see Bronco rocking. Definitely can hear some screaming. I
01:16:01
said somebody's alive. Like a newborn baby. Mom and dad, you want to hear your child screaming because when you hear
01:16:10
that, you know they're alive. >> You know that's life. >> That's life. >> I like looked at him and like his eyes
01:16:21
were open and the blood was just on his face and everywhere. And then I just I pushed them off of me and I ran out.
01:16:35
Tamara was right behind me. We gave each other a big hug and we just were crying
01:16:39
our eyes out and just thanking God that we were still alive. >> 17 bullets hit that white Bronco during
01:16:49
several seconds of intense smoky gunplay. It is nothing short of a miracle that Jackie and Tamara got out
01:16:57
alive. One of the strongest feelings I've ever had in my life was when those girls came out of that vehicle and I
01:17:04
knew they weren't injured. It was I mean happiness, relief, uh everything. >> We have both victims.
01:17:12
They're okay. >> All this time they're saying thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I
01:17:20
told those girls, you're going home tonight. This guy is not going to hurt you anymore. We don't have to
01:17:26
rehabilitate this son of a [ __ ] >> In just minutes, news of the amazing rescue hits home. The relief is
01:17:37
overwhelming. >> Okay. Okay, girls. I'm going to give you an update. >> Give me two seconds.
01:17:41
>> Okay. According to the Kern County Sheriff, the girls are unheard. According to the Kern County Sheriff,
01:17:47
the girls are unheard >> and the suspect is down. I just hugged her, kissed her.
01:18:02
>> That was the moment you'd waited all those hours for. >> You know, she was okay.
01:18:09
>> It's over. You know, we were spared. >> You're just so happy. It is like unescribable feeling of like just relief
01:18:20
just like life actually existed again. At 12:55, around that hour, freedom was given back to the two girls.
01:18:32
Justice was served. We do have breaking news to tell you about the two girls who were kidnapped
01:18:56
this morning. >> Okay. Okay, girls. I'm going to give you an update. Okay. According to the Kern
01:19:00
County Sheriff, the girls are unheard. >> It's been just over a year since Jackie
01:19:05
and Tamara were freed from their nightmare. >> How's life today? How How are things
01:19:10
with you? >> They're good. I guess. Yeah, they're pretty good. But everything I don't know. I try to keep
01:19:16
myself like real busy so I don't ever get a chance to think about it. >> Do you find after the all of this that
01:19:23
total strangers care about you now and are interested in you? >> That's the weirdest thing cuz I got
01:19:28
stuff from like every state. This one's one from Iowa. This one's from Castaic. This is for a year free of martial arts.
01:19:38
Crocheted blanket. Got some bracelets here. Neat. Some are letters from rape survivors. Others are inspired by her
01:19:46
courage. >> I prayed for you often over the 10 hours that you were held. I'm so happy that
01:19:50
you're safe. I will keep you in my prayers. >> And now fans throwing out the ceremonial
01:19:57
first pitch. JACKIE MARIS AND TAMARA BROOKS. >> PUBLICLY, Jackie and Tamara are new
01:20:04
symbols of survival. Tamara and Jackie join us today in the call to stop violence against women.
01:20:11
>> Gutsy, smart, and strong. >> Privately, what happened in the Bronco can never be erased.
01:20:27
>> Does this get to you a little bit when you think about it? >> Yes. Now you try not to think about it.
01:20:39
Are you happy today? >> Yeah. >> Have you talked to anybody yet? Have you had any counseling over this? Have you
01:20:47
talked it over with anybody? >> Oh, like professional wise? No. >> Are you are you giving that any thought?
01:20:55
>> Yeah, that's a healthy thing to do. It's not >> Yeah, I know. I know. I just don't have
01:20:58
a lot of time right now. Like when I do have time, I'll go. trying to impress the room.
01:21:04
>> She also has family and friends to lean on. >> But sometimes out of the blue,
01:21:14
the tears come. >> You fought back big time. >> Yeah. Does that help? >> Huh? If I wouldn't have done it, I would have
01:21:37
regretted it forever. Even if things did turn out the way they did, I still would have rather
01:21:50
fought back. Police believe fighting back is a key reason Jackie and Tamara are still
01:22:02
alive. >> The girls bought precious time. >> They are the ones who got away. >> Thank you.
01:22:43
Hey. Hey. Hey. It's like ghosts. You just see the ghosts of them everywhere. If you close your eyes, can you still
01:23:40
see it? All of it. The focus of the case is Michelle Renee. She was living with her uh her daughter
01:23:58
Bria. They were living um in a kind of a secluded house. >> Does it feel like 22 years?
01:24:07
Sometimes it does. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. Sometimes it feels like it was last week.
01:24:13
>> I asked the FBI to take Michelle back to the house to help reconstruct probably
01:24:18
the most traumatic night of her life. >> We came in the door. I put the groceries
01:24:25
away. Went in the kitchen. >> Michelle was a single mom. She was a bank manager. Somebody who worked hard
01:24:31
to gain a job of position of trust and respect. It had been such a long day and I was just excited to be home with Bria.
01:24:40
We were on the couch. It was just the two of us. >> I was sitting here. She was right beside
01:24:45
me and we were playing Game Boy. >> A group of individuals put Michelle under surveillance knowing she was a
01:24:52
bank manager. and they devised a plan >> and we just heard this huge the the sound just the biggest noise from behind
01:25:04
us and we I turned to look and just saw three people. They were all lined up one
01:25:10
right after the other just rushing in running in the door at like squat style and they had their guns and they were
01:25:17
all in black and I just screamed super loud. My daughter screamed super loud. At that point, my daughter took off this
01:25:26
way, but two of them came to me, put guns in my face. One guy grabbed me back of my head, forced me down in front of
01:25:36
the couch that was right here. >> They bind her up with duct tape. They put her seven-year-old on the ground and
01:25:43
bind her up with duct tape. And uh they tell them that uh if they don't cooperate, they're going to be killed.
01:25:48
They're going to be shot. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. They let me turn around and see my daughter laying face
01:25:58
down on the floor right here by the door. Um, face down with her hands tied and her feet tied.
01:26:07
Um, right there on the ground, I heard my daughter say, "Are you going to kill my
01:26:15
mommy? And are you going to kill me?" And they said, "No, not if your mommy does everything that we tell her to do."
01:26:22
>> They said, "You're going to rob the bank for us or we will kill you and your daughter will be first.
01:27:19
The only monsters that had ever scared Michelle Rene's 7-year-old daughter Bria were makeelieve. But on November 20th,
01:27:28
2000, just a day before three masked men broke in. >> She calls me, "Mom, there's somebody
01:27:34
outside the window." I looked out there. I didn't see anything. I didn't see anybody. I just brushed it off.
01:27:41
>> Michelle had chocked it up to her child's imagination, but this time was different.
01:27:46
>> She saw them looking through the window. They were there the night before. The same men now held Michelle and Bria
01:27:55
at gunpoint in the living room. The gunman said they'd been following the 35year-old bank manager for months.
01:28:04
It was very much that mind control thing that they were doing that we know everything about you.
01:28:11
>> Michelle would recount the events inside the house for investigators. >> And we're going to be here all night
01:28:17
with you to make sure you know exactly what you're going to do or you will die. >> Throughout the night, the ring leader
01:28:24
gave specific instructions about how he wanted Michelle to rob her own bank the next morning.
01:28:30
>> We're going to go over this again. and this is what you're going to do. When Brinks gets there, you're going to get
01:28:35
Brinks's money. >> As she huddled with Bria on the couch, now duct taped, Michelle could hear him
01:28:41
talking to a woman on a two-way radio. >> Money one to Money Two were >> That's what they called each other.
01:28:46
>> Yeah, they called each other money one to Money Two. >> Money one was the ring leader. Around
01:28:52
11, the voice on the walkie-talkie got his attention. >> Car coming up the driveway of the
01:28:57
roommates's there. >> It was their roommate, Kimbra. And they put the gun right here in her face,
01:29:04
right up her nose, and said, "Don't make using use this." I pushed the guy's hand
01:29:09
out of her face and said, "Don't do this. Don't hurt her." And he just pointed it right at me and said, "Don't
01:29:16
ever touch me again." >> Michelle realized this might be the last night she ever spent with her daughter.
01:29:24
>> It was almost morning. I just rubbed her hair so she could try to get some sleep.
01:29:30
Wondering if that was going to be the last time I was going to get to touch her hair and see her sleep was pretty
01:29:36
tough. >> In the morning, the nightmare would continue. >> It was like 6:00 a.m. He said, "Get up.
01:29:44
It's time to get ready for work." >> I got dressed and started doing my hair when he came in and stopped me
01:29:51
and said, "We need to put the dynamite on you now." Michelle, her roommate Kimbra, and Bria would all be strapped
01:29:59
with dynamite. Then, Money One showed Michelle what looked like a doorbell. This is a detonation device.
01:30:06
>> One false move. I push this button. >> You will disintegrate. Your daughter will go first.
01:30:11
>> And they sat me right here and said, "Now, we're going to take your daughter."
01:30:15
>> The gunman put Bria in her bedroom closet. I was just telling her I'd be right
01:30:20
back, that everything's going to be fine. >> Be brave, Mommy. That was the last thing
01:30:29
she said when before I walked out to go to the bank. >> Did you feel brave? >> No.
01:30:34
>> As two of the gunmen stayed in the house, Money One handed Michelle a briefcase stuffed with a duffel bag
01:30:40
before he crouched in the back of her jeep. With dynamite on her back and a gun to her side, she drove to work.
01:30:48
>> So, you pull up into your spot. What does he tell you before you get out of the car?
01:30:52
>> Don't Don't this up. And the Brinks truck came at 8:50. I believe right around 8:50 was the drop right over
01:31:01
here. >> That's when Michelle grabbed her briefcase and headed to the vault. I brought my teller in the vault with me
01:31:09
and said, "I'm getting ready to clear out this vault or my daughter and I are going to die. This is what's happened
01:31:16
all night." >> And you whispered to her, "I have dynamite on my back." >> Yeah. I whispered I pulled my shirt up
01:31:21
and then you just opened up the duffel bag and started shoveling in money. >> I did. My heart was racing. My Am I fast
01:31:27
enough? Michelle's colleagues would alert the authorities, but not before she walked out with $360,000.
01:31:37
>> Just get to the Jeep, hurl it in the Jeep, and go >> and just do what's next.
01:31:42
>> Money one directed Michelle to get out a few blocks later >> and that I would find my Jeep down the
01:31:48
street. >> She found her car and raced home. I don't know if Bria's going to be there.
01:31:54
I don't know if she's going to be alive when I get there. And I went to open the
01:31:58
door and I was just screaming and hello, hello. It was eerily silent >> and I just heard Bria and I remember
01:32:09
screaming, "We're back here. We're back here." >> Bria was still in the closet right where
01:32:14
Michelle left her. >> What was that like to hear and see her? >> Oh my gosh. She was alive. I did it. We
01:32:22
did it. We didn't die. probably the happiest moment of my life. But then I could still see the panic on her face.
01:32:30
>> The dynamite's still on me. >> Before leaving, the gunman had ripped the dynamite off of Kimbra and Bria, so
01:32:37
they cut it off of Michelle's back before running to the nearest neighbor. >> I opened the gates, went down the hill
01:32:44
real fast, helped them up to the house. >> Rick Brown lived up a steep hill. >> I called 911 right away.
01:32:53
>> Sheriff, can I help you? >> Yes. Uh, some neighbors of ours were held hostage. I need somebody out here
01:32:58
right away. >> Soon, the place was crawling with investigators from the FBI, San Diego
01:33:03
Sheriff's Department, and the bomb squad. >> This is the dynamite that was taken off
01:33:08
of um Michelle. >> San Diego prosecutor Tom Manning would lead the task force investigating the
01:33:15
case. They quickly figured out the dynamite was fake. They realize that it actually is two
01:33:22
painted dowels or broomstick handles. >> But as you can see from a distance in the lighting, plus it's on your back
01:33:29
with the stress of the situation, you're not going to take a chance that it isn't
01:33:32
real. >> But during the very real 14 hours they were held hostage. Michelle had held on
01:33:39
to any detail that might help identify the attackers. Remembering details is just sort of this
01:33:46
part of my DNA about people. That was kind of my superpower. >> Details like money one's eyes.
01:33:53
>> When I turned the light on to go to the bathroom and I saw his eyes in there, I
01:33:57
I said that those eyes were at my desk. Those eyes were at my desk today. Oh my god.
01:34:04
>> Michelle says it was a man with whom she'd had an odd encounter at the bank hours before being taken hostage. and he
01:34:12
sat at my desk for a really long time asking sort of the same questions over and over. And then a woman walked in and
01:34:19
said, "Chris, we need to get going." And they got up and left. The man had handed
01:34:25
Michelle his business card. >> And the name on the business card was Christopher Butler.
01:34:42
Central. >> After hours of police questioning, Michelle and Bria were sent to a hotel.
01:34:53
Michelle called her brother Dave. >> It didn't sound like her. It was someone, you know, heavily traumatized.
01:35:02
>> Dave, who lived 3 hours away, rushed to his sister's aid. What I saw when I opened that door, it
01:35:10
scared the daylights out of me. Are you okay? And she would shake. >> How about Bria?
01:35:15
>> Same thing. >> In the days ahead, Michelle struggled to hold it together for her daughter.
01:35:24
>> She was the strongest person for me. >> While investigators wanted answers, they grilled her about that odd
01:35:33
encounter with Christopher Butler. Why was he in the bank? What was he saying he was there for?
01:35:39
>> He came in to say that he was a potential client and that he wanted to talk about
01:35:47
investments. >> Before Butler handed Michelle his business card, a woman he introduced as
01:35:52
Lisa came in and whisked him away. >> Hey Chris, we need to go. >> It was the same voice Michelle says she
01:35:59
heard later that night on the walkie-talkie. >> I kept saying it over and over. Check my
01:36:05
desk. Check that card. Check my desk. Get that card. I know that it's them. >> Through that card, they started the
01:36:10
investigation. >> The FBI soon discovered Butler was a convicted felon with a history of
01:36:17
robbing banks. >> They figured out where he was staying and then uh the team that I work with
01:36:22
set up surveillance. >> Butler and his fianceé, Lisa Ramirez, lived in a house just a few miles from
01:36:30
the bank. Some of the people in the house were telling the police who was there when they planned it.
01:36:34
>> Within days, detectives identified the two other men. Christopher Huggin. >> There was a big guy maybe maybe 6'4.
01:36:44
He's gang ties. >> And the man who' held a gun to little Bria, a gang member called Bones.
01:36:51
Real name Robert Ortiz. >> Ortiz was a connection who got the guns. On December 1st, they decided to arrest
01:36:59
Butler and Ramirez during a traffic stop. >> In the glove compartment was a uh weapon. It's It's actually a BB gun. If
01:37:09
you look at that in a stressful situation that looks as real as it can get. >> What' they find when they pump the
01:37:14
trunk? >> Plethora of evidence. >> All this. >> All this. They found the uh the black
01:37:19
bag that Michelle described the money being carried in. Uh several pairs of black gloves. and um a
01:37:28
homemade ski mask. >> Oh yeah, look at the eye holes there. >> Yeah, >> but they clearly cut themselves.
01:37:34
>> Michelle's credit cards were all found in the uh trunk of the vehicle. And then
01:37:39
of course the money straps from the bank. >> Also in the trunk, that doorbell detonator.
01:37:46
And there was even more at the house. >> They found all the ingredients uh to make the fake bomb. There were broom
01:37:53
handles which were cut up into small dowels which actually were used in making the the fake dynamite. They also
01:38:01
recovered the the actual spray cans. Ramirez's uh fingerprint was on one of those cans. It was crazy. I've never
01:38:08
seen that much physical evidence left at a crime scene. >> They thought they'd gotten away with it.
01:38:13
>> Yeah. >> One thing investigators didn't find on Butler and Ramirez, any of the bank's
01:38:19
$360,000. But after arresting Huggin that same day, they did recover 93,000 of the cash
01:38:27
that he'd stashed away. Huggin confessed and said that he'd already spent several
01:38:32
grand on a trip to Vegas. The fourth suspect, Robert Ortiz, was on the lamb. When authorities
01:38:41
arrested him three months later in Wisconsin, Ortiz still had $32,000 of the bank's money and gave a full
01:38:49
confession. Did Huggin and Ortiz's confessions corroborate each other? >> Yes, very much so.
01:38:56
>> So, did Huggin and Ortiz's confessions corroborate what Michelle had told investigators?
01:39:02
>> Yes. Almost identical. >> Butler denied everything, even when confronted with direct evidence,
01:39:10
his thumbrint on the fake dynamite sticks. >> And we got fingerprints that are yours
01:39:16
that went to the bank robber. find out that because I wasn't involved in anybody.
01:39:23
>> He tried to protect Lisa. >> Lisa wouldn't have been involved with that. >> But Lisa was about to start talking. She
01:39:30
admitted she was the female voice on the walkie-talkie. >> She even took credit for the idea to use
01:39:40
fake dynamite and kidnap the bank manager. I don't know whose idea that was about
01:39:46
eight months ago. >> Jokingly, mine. >> Lisa said they'd split the money three ways, but that her and Butler's share,
01:39:54
more than $100,000, had been stolen. And to everyone's surprise, she said Michelle was in on the plot.
01:40:05
>> They had told me that Michelle was helping them. walked out of that um thinking, "Okay, Lisa's Lisa is the
01:40:14
mastermind behind all this and um is it possible Michelle's involved?" >> Manning says ultimately he knew Michelle
01:40:23
was innocent. >> The first time I interviewed her, she had Bria with her and I I I saw that
01:40:28
bond and relationship and when she left, I went, "She's not involved in this." >> But that wouldn't be enough in court.
01:40:35
San Diego County Sheriff's Detectives Rudy Zamora, Dale Martin, and Randy Demurs would have to rule Michelle out
01:40:42
as a suspect. >> Every time we pushed a button, she would react in a way a true victim should.
01:40:53
>> They recreated the dynamite packs and strapped them on Kimbra, Michelle, and Bria. She was very upset
01:41:03
>> and Michelle was emotional when asked to revisit the horrific details of the kidnapping.
01:41:10
>> And then they I had to put her in there and they shut the shut the closet. >> She was shaken up. I thought she was
01:41:21
going to have a nervous breakdown. When Michelle did those reenactments, were her story, Kimbra's story, and Bria's
01:41:29
story consistent? >> Yes, completely consistent. >> In fact, investigators couldn't find any
01:41:34
evidence Michelle was involved. Still, they worried. >> She was not our normal victim
01:41:42
>> as they took a deep dive into Michelle's life. >> What did they find out about Michelle's
01:41:47
past? She didn't hide anything, >> including the fact that for years she had worked as a stripper.
01:41:54
I'm not embarrassed or ashamed by any of that. >> Michelle says it was one of the choices
01:41:59
she had to make for survival at a young age. I ran away at 15. I worked really, really hard to get to where I was.
01:42:08
>> With no high school diploma, she had climbed the corporate ladder all the way
01:42:12
to regional vice president before taking the bank manager job to be home more with Bria. And while you were working at
01:42:20
the bank, you were still dancing, still stripping for a while. >> I was for a while. The money was really
01:42:25
great. >> But more worrisome were things that went directly to Michelle's credibility.
01:42:32
>> She falsified resumes, claimed she had various experience, various education,
01:42:37
which she didn't have. >> Bounced a check, filed for bankruptcy. >> Right. >> That doesn't look good.
01:42:42
>> It doesn't look good. And if you're a defense attorney, you're licking your chops.
01:42:46
Oh, the best verdict I ever got in my life. By spring of 2001, the suspects were in
01:43:03
custody awaiting trial for kidnapping and bank robbery charges. But Michelle and Bria were still reeling from that
01:43:11
night of terror. I could still hear them. I could still hear the the sounds. I couldn't get it
01:43:20
to turn off. >> I just wanted to hide. I thought they were going to find us. They were going
01:43:24
to kill us still. >> In June, Michelle decided to move Bria to Alaska to live with her grandmother.
01:43:35
>> I was going to fly her up there and get her to safety. I was going to figure out
01:43:40
what to do from there. After a few days, Michelle says she had an epiphany >> to go back to San Diego and get rid of
01:43:50
everything I could possibly get rid of and drive back to Alaska with a dog. >> Come here.
01:43:57
>> Some cash. >> Can do this on a budget. >> And a camcorder. >> Today is July the 6th.
01:44:03
>> She embarked on a 9-day drive. >> On my way, baby doll. >> To the last frontier.
01:44:10
You had a deadline. >> I had a deadline. Bria's birthday was in 9 days, and I promised her I'd be back
01:44:16
before her birthday party. >> That's when Michelle and Bria say they began to heal.
01:44:25
>> Did you feel safe in Alaska? >> Safer. I could be a kid again. >> Happy birthday to you.
01:44:33
>> By the time they returned to San Diego a year later for the trial, Michelle says
01:44:38
she was ready. There was so much evidence. There was no way I thought that this trial was going
01:44:45
to be anything but slam dunk. >> Butler and Ramirez would be tried first. >> When her case came across your desk,
01:44:55
what did you think at first? >> She's guilty. >> You thought she's guilty? >> Well, yeah.
01:45:02
>> Herb Weston, who represented Lisa Ramirez, had a problem. His client had confessed on camera. There was a female
01:45:10
voice that came all at once all the time. >> If they play that tape, saying that she
01:45:17
wasn't involved would have been difficult. >> Weston proposed a plea deal, hoping to
01:45:22
save Ramirez from a potential life sentence, but the prosecution turned him down.
01:45:28
>> We thought we would definitely get state the key statements in that she was involved. But since Ramirez had also
01:45:35
implicated Butler, the judge ruled her entire statement inadmissible. >> We now can at least argue to the jury
01:45:46
that she wasn't involved. Without her confession, the case against Ramirez relied almost entirely on Michelle.
01:45:56
A fact Manning was keenly aware of during his opening statement to the jury on June 3rd, 2002. You told the jury
01:46:04
that this case was about credibility. >> Right. Michelle's uh background was was
01:46:10
going to be an issue. I knew there were issues, but I believed her. and you thought the jury would believe that,
01:46:16
>> but not if the defense had its way. >> What was your strategy going into trial?
01:46:21
>> My strategy was to beat the hell out of the victim and show all these inconsistencies that
01:46:30
the victim is saying. >> It got very confrontational. >> I was really, really off.
01:46:35
>> That played right into Weston's hand. >> Angry witnesses don't come across as
01:46:40
credible. I was treated like I was the criminal. >> During his cross-examination, Weston
01:46:47
implied Michelle was lying about recognizing Lisa Ramirez's voice on the walkie-talkie.
01:46:53
>> Wait a minute, ma'am. I've looked at all this stuff. Isn't this the first time
01:46:57
you've said that? >> In fact, he pointed out it wasn't in any of the FBI reports.
01:47:04
But Michelle insists she told them. >> I did. I 100% did. And Manning says she identified Lisa's voice to him before
01:47:12
taking the stand. >> Does it bother you that Lisa actually admitted that that was her voice on the
01:47:18
walkie-talkie? The fact is it was Lisa. >> But that's not the issue for me. It made
01:47:24
a great opening to attack her credibility. >> Weston then grilled Michelle about bait
01:47:31
money. The traceable bills banks keep in their vaults to trap bank robbers. You didn't take the bait money.
01:47:38
>> Did not take the debate money. >> Why not? >> They said no funny money. You say that's
01:47:42
suspicious that she must have been in on it. >> Correct. >> Maybe worst of all for Michelle Weston
01:47:48
question her maternal instincts. >> Would a mother run to a place where her daughter was? If she believes that I
01:47:58
have a bomb on my back? >> She wasn't sure whether her daughter was dead or alive. Don't you think it's
01:48:03
possible that she wasn't thinking straight? Sure. But also what could be true is she knew there wasn't a bomb and
01:48:11
so she didn't have to worry about it. >> Did you feel like you were on trial? I 100% felt like I was on trial.
01:48:18
>> I would be sitting in the front row and all I could think about was it's going
01:48:22
to take me maybe 6 seconds to get from this point to the offender. That is how I rape I was
01:48:29
>> day after day listening to this >> listening to this. >> Is it fair to beat up the victim?
01:48:34
>> Absolutely. While Weston hammered on every decision Michelle made that day, the attorney representing Butler went
01:48:41
after everything else. >> What was the worst thing they asked you about my sex life? They were trying to
01:48:47
paint me as somebody that was irresponsible, a selfish, terrible mother that would do anything for money.
01:48:57
>> And they picked apart Michelle's finances. She's in uh financial uh distress and that could be the motive.
01:49:05
>> Isn't it kind of odd that we're talking about motive when we're talking about a
01:49:08
victim? >> It is the defense in the case was to uh make Michelle a uh uh a culprit here.
01:49:16
>> After Michelle's grueling 3-day testimony, it was Christopher Butler's turn. He protected Lisa on the stand, claiming
01:49:25
Michelle was the mastermind and that they'd had an affair. I was shocked. >> It's almost laughable. What was his
01:49:33
story about how the two of you met? From what I understand, we met in a grocery store and that I recruited him. Butler
01:49:41
claimed that he'd gone to Michelle's house that night with Huggin and Ortiz. He said that in the early morning hours
01:49:47
while smoking pot, Michelle brought up the bank robbery idea again and decided they should do it that morning.
01:49:54
>> His evidence of this, his proof of this, >> zero. If any of this were true, he would
01:49:59
have thrown Michelle down in a heartbeat in his interview. >> The jury deliberated for five days
01:50:05
before finding Butler guilty of the bank robbery and Bria and Kimbra's kidnapping, but they hung 9 to3 on the
01:50:14
charges of kidnapping Michelle. >> When we talked to the jurors, you know, we discovered it was one juror who
01:50:20
completely believed Butler, and the other two jurors were unsure. And they found Lisa Ramirez not guilty on all
01:50:29
counts. >> Oh, the best verdict I ever got in my life. >> Mind-boggling. The fact that it was her
01:50:35
idea to do this to a mother and a child and laughing and proud of it. >> How involved do you think she was in
01:50:42
this? >> Very involved. The investigators kept saying she she was the brains of the
01:50:46
outfit. >> So, the brains of the outfit walked, >> right? The second trial would go very
01:50:53
differently with Huggin and Ortiz easily convicted. >> In so many of uh the stories that we
01:51:00
tell, the ending is the conviction. But in your case, in a lot of ways, that's just the beginning.
01:51:21
All righty. Is it working? >> Yes. >> If you close your eyes, can you still see it?
01:51:27
>> Okay. >> All of it. I can still see all of it. >> Even though the men who had terrorized
01:51:36
them were now serving multiple life sentences, Michelle and Bria would never be the
01:51:42
same. There's aspects of that night that are going to be with me for the rest of my
01:51:48
life. >> They were treated for post-traumatic stress disorder for over two years.
01:51:54
>> They had their guns. >> Michelle says dealing with the breakin led to a breakthrough.
01:52:00
It was two choices. Call them monsters and stay angry and blame everything of my life on them. Or I can take this
01:52:08
other road. The best thing I could do for Bria is to be an example. Enjoy the book.
01:52:13
>> Michelle wrote a book >> which was made into a TV movie >> and she and Bria went on speaking tours
01:52:21
to discuss their experience with trauma. >> A lot of people coming out of this would
01:52:26
want to just forget about it, put it behind them. But you and your mom talked openly about it.
01:52:31
>> Yes. And I think it was the best decision for us. >> We're speaking out about our experience.
01:52:37
I was showing people that it's not always the end all be all when something bad happens to you. You can come out of
01:52:45
it stronger. >> 1 2 3 4. >> And by 2011, >> she really turned the corner and started
01:52:51
enjoying her life again. >> The girl who had hidden from everything was a high school senior and competitive
01:52:58
cheerleader. She loved it. It was her absolute passion. >> You're thriving. You're living the
01:53:06
dream. You said you dreamed of this. You were living the dream. >> I was. >> Then suddenly
01:53:13
>> senior year in December, I started feeling a little off. I was dropping things. Showed up at my work at
01:53:21
6:00 dragging her leg going, "Mommy, something's really wrong. Something's wrong. I don't know what's happening."
01:53:27
>> I said, "Mom, I'm really scared." >> They had no idea Bria was in for the fight of her life.
01:53:35
We rushed her to the hospital and they started pricking her leg and she couldn't feel it and her heart rate
01:53:44
started going crazy. >> Oh my gosh. >> By 8:00 p.m. that night, I was paralyzed on my left side. Couldn't talk, couldn't
01:53:52
swallow, blind in my left eye. >> We found abnormalities in the brain is all they could tell me that night. It
01:54:00
almost sounds like there's that same feeling of helplessness that you had the night that you were held hostage
01:54:05
>> completely. >> The next morning, Bria was diagnosed with an acute onset of multiple
01:54:11
scerosis, an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system attacks its own
01:54:17
tissues. >> Based on the scans, she has tumactive MS, which is not only rare in and of
01:54:23
itself, but people Bria's age at 18 rarely get MS. Bria says she was told she might never
01:54:30
walk or talk again. >> Just like that. >> Just like that. >> One, two, three, go.
01:54:36
>> My life just ended again. >> There you go. >> I was 18 trying to go off to college, do
01:54:43
cheer in college, and that was never going to happen for me. >> So much of your healing had been
01:54:51
talking, and now you couldn't talk. >> No, I couldn't talk. >> What is it? Okay. And push.
01:54:58
>> I couldn't feed myself anymore. >> She had to relearn all of that. >> Up good.
01:55:03
>> But it was as if they'd been training for this for years. >> Do you think in some way what happened
01:55:09
to you when you were seven prepared you for battling MS? >> Yes. I think it made me strong enough to
01:55:17
go through what I went through with MS. >> It was here we go again. Here we go again.
01:55:25
Bria would spend six weeks in the hospital, >> two to three times a day of physical
01:55:30
therapy, occupational therapies, speech therapy. >> After she could talk again, she turned
01:55:38
to me and said, "Kidnapping was a piece of cake compared to this. >> Do it again."
01:55:46
>> And just as with the kidnapping, Bria wanted to inspire others. She wrote her
01:55:51
college essay from her hospital room, from her wheelchair. >> It is my hope that my college experience
01:55:57
>> and said, "I'm going to college. I'm going to be the first person in my family to graduate college no matter
01:56:04
what." >> I now know that there is no time to waste. Life can change so suddenly.
01:56:10
>> She chronicled her journey on her Facebook page. >> Bria, what? >> I love you.
01:56:17
She fought tooth and nail every single day for every single step she took. She walked out of the hospital.
01:56:25
>> This time it was Michelle doing the cheerleading. >> Pray for you. >> The rehab started in the hospital, but
01:56:34
the real rehab was Michelle, constantly on her. We're going to do this. >> It's okay. Good job.
01:56:41
>> We were a total team. We just ended up going into full gear. We lived in a house with stairs.
01:56:47
>> Good. That was really good. >> She couldn't do stairs anymore. >> So, once again, you're out of a home
01:56:53
that you've been living in. >> Yeah. And I had to become her full-time caregiver for about a year and a half,
01:56:59
two years and rebuilding our life again despite the odds. >> Three, four, five. Oh, she made it to
01:57:08
college. >> She relapsed three times her first year in college and had to come home, but she
01:57:13
did it. She follows in her mom's footsteps, >> teaching her how to get her foot to stay
01:57:18
on the line. >> I with the tenacity and the never give up philosophy that they have.
01:57:24
>> Lift your knee up. Ready? Go. >> Bria is walking talking proof. So they told you you would never walk again.
01:57:31
>> Yeah, I would never walk again, never see again, never anything like that. >> And
01:57:35
>> I would say I beat the odds >> yet again. >> Yes, exactly. But 20 years after their
01:57:43
world first came crashing down, they'd be faced with the unimaginable once again.
01:57:50
Christopher Butler could be released. It's been over 20 years. What stands out about this case in
01:58:13
hindsight? The victims. >> From the very beginning, the case hit close to home for prosecutor Tom
01:58:23
Manning. >> The fact that there was a a little girl, my daughter was the same age as Bria
01:58:29
when this happened. Nearly 20 years later, in June 2020, Christopher Butler was up for parole.
01:58:38
>> He's the one who lied about me. >> Manning made sure he was at the hearing. >> And you had a plan going in.
01:58:46
>> I did. >> He saw a chance to set the record straight by asking Butler about the
01:58:52
story he'd told on the stand. >> I told Michelle if I felt it was right, I was going to go for it. What' you
01:58:59
think about that? >> Go for it. Ask away. Even though that's risky. >> It's a little risky. This guy could go
01:59:07
to the grave with these lies. >> The risk paid off. Butler recanted his whole story, admitting he and Michelle
01:59:15
never had a relationship. >> How did that feel to hear that? >> It's about time. I wanted everybody who
01:59:25
ever doubted me to read this parole transcript. I want to blast it all over the internet that there was never ever a
01:59:34
chance that I would ever ever have been involved in anything like this ever. Bria says it's a bittersweet victory for
01:59:43
her mom. >> Feels good, but it's a little too late. You can search my mom's name and it can
01:59:49
come up on the internet. You can't take that back. Why has it take him so long to come
01:59:56
clean? And it's probably because he had an opportunity to be free. >> Even though Butler was unequivocal that
02:00:04
Michelle was not involved. >> He still hasn't really taken responsibility. >> He blamed his old flame, Lisa Ramirez.
02:00:14
But Butler said he was sorry for what he'd put his victims through and even said he'd read Michelle's book more than
02:00:21
once. He said some of the passages in your book really got to him. >> Yeah. On the road trip to Alaska, I
02:00:28
really started to think about what it would be like to try to just understand. >> Michelle says that's when she started to
02:00:37
wonder about the people behind the masks. This is someone's son. This is someone's
02:00:45
brother. This is someone's grandson. What happened to them in their life that got them to the point where they thought
02:00:52
the only option was to attack a mother and her daughter? Do you accept Christopher Butler's apology?
02:01:00
>> I do. Yeah. A thousand%. I appreciate him finally being honest after all this time. I hope he keeps
02:01:08
digging deeper. >> Yeah. I forgave him a long time ago and I accept his apology.
02:01:14
But neither Bria nor Michelle want Butler released. He's already been denied parole twice.
02:01:21
The irony isn't lost on Dave. >> All he really did is free everybody else. He's held hostage with his life.
02:01:29
>> In a very weird way, I could breathe. I could exhale finally after all this time. While they don't
02:01:40
believe Butler has changed his ways, they feel very differently about the other two men who held them hostage.
02:01:49
>> They confessed. They take accountability for what they did. And that's a big thing.
02:01:54
>> Are you actually rooting for these guys to succeed at this point? >> Yes. They were younger than what I am
02:02:01
now. If they are doing the work, I want nothing but the best for them. especially Robert Ortiz.
02:02:10
>> Robert Ortiz >> at the sentencing. Robert Ortiz is the only one that turned around and looked
02:02:14
at me and said, "I'm sorry." He mouththed it. >> They wrote to Ortiz back in 2011 and
02:02:22
received a reply 9 years later. >> Out of respect for him, I'm not going to say everything that's in the letter. I
02:02:32
can say that it's beautiful. It's heartfelt. And I can't wait to see where that leads.
02:02:40
>> This is the young man who held a gun to your daughter's head. >> Yes. And she spoke at his parole hearing
02:02:48
in his favor. >> There's my puppy. We're road tripping. >> In the meantime, Michelle has written a
02:02:55
follow-up book. >> So, we're on our way >> about the road trip that changed her point of view.
02:03:01
>> Great morning. Really great morning. >> It is about healing. just called 9 days which is how long I
02:03:08
was on the road to Alaska. >> It is possible to forgive. >> I do believe that through this terrible
02:03:16
tragedy, >> it's possible to see beauty again >> that something beautiful was meant to
02:03:22
come about. >> It has built these people into these incredible human beings. And through it all, they say they
02:03:34
wouldn't change a thing, even the kidnapping. >> So, if you look back at the last 20
02:03:41
years, what is this journey been about? >> Raising a remarkable daughter, it's the
02:03:49
best thing I've ever done in my life is be her mom. >> It seems like both of you look at this
02:03:57
at least a tiny bit as a gift. >> Mhm. Yeah, I wouldn't change it. It gave us a chance to build the bond that we have
02:04:08
today and it's just gotten stronger. Yeah. I can only describe it as evil, something horrible.
02:04:36
>> From 48 hours, this is Train to Kill, the dog trainer, the ays, and the bodyguard.
02:04:42
>> He couldn't control his obsession. >> Who was the hunter and who was the hunted? Follow and listen on the free
02:04:49
Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. My story is evil. Sort of getting a
02:05:16
taste of hell, but it's a story that needs to be told. My name is Victoria, but it's not my
02:05:31
real name. I'm going to take you to a really dark place. I was 19 years old. I was an absolute rocker chick.
02:05:54
That night I was with a few friends. We were gearing up to go out and look at Christmas lights. As I was going home
02:06:03
that evening, I know it was just after midnight. I was pulling into my complex. I noticed my gate was wide open.
02:06:14
It was extremely dark in the parking lot and the lights in over my carport were um
02:06:25
glitching and I thought I had heard the sound of possibly somebody coming through the gate. It was
02:06:38
that D sound of tires going over like a rail. Just the sound. I had taken my dog and um stuck her
02:06:50
inside my jacket and then folded her up real tight cuz it was very cold outside.
02:06:57
And as I got out, I just had the weirdest feeling that I was being watched. And as I got up to the sidewalk, I saw a
02:07:08
shadow go in front of a light. And as I did that, a guy just came up uh and fastly approached me and he kept
02:07:20
saying, "Excuse me, excuse me. I'm lost. Can you help me find where the beach is?" And then a second person comes up.
02:07:34
He had a cigarette in his hand. And I see this in slow motion in my head. I see him flicking it. And I said to
02:07:42
myself, "Watch where it lands." And then bam, I got pounced from the front and from the back.
02:07:55
He slammed a gun to my head and he's just like in my ear, "I'm going to kill you so bad. I'm going to throw you off
02:08:01
the cliffs. I'm going to mutilate you and throw you down the cliffs. And I fought with everything I had in my
02:08:10
soul to not be a missing person or to have a toe tag at the end. Victoria's story is a miraculous tale of
02:08:23
survival. But even nearly 25 years after the attack, it's not over. Which is why
02:08:35
she's not using her real name on camera. I've been referenced as Jane Doe for many years.
02:09:11
I just remembered thinking, I don't have a toe tag. I lived through that night. A warning. Some of the details of
02:09:24
Victoria's ordeal are difficult to hear. With sheer will, Victoria survived a series of terrible events, beginning
02:09:37
with the assault on that Christmas Eve. Her attackers came out of nowhere. One she thought was Hispanic, the other an
02:09:45
intimidating Asian man who, according to Victoria, was the one calling the shots
02:09:50
that night. Bam. I got sandwiched like a bear trap. He gouged me in the eyes as hard as he could and he slammed
02:10:05
a gun to my head. He tells me, "Bitch, you're going to die tonight. I'm going to effing kill you."
02:10:16
And at that moment, my little puppy dog, who was caught in between all this, bit him so hard in the
02:10:26
wrist, and he says, "What the f was that?" They both kind of broke free for a second, I threw my dog in the bushes
02:10:35
as I ran because I didn't want her to get killed. And then my hair got pulled back and
02:10:45
then they both jumped on top of me and just started beating me and he just takes his gun and he slammed it into my
02:10:53
mouth and he takes my hair and he turns me to the side and he says, "Do you see that?" And it was the Hispanic man with
02:11:02
his gun pointed at the windows of my neighbors. And the Asian guy says in my ear,
02:11:14
"The first one, the first one, the first one >> that hears you, they're going to get
02:11:19
their head blown off and you're going to watch the first one." >> So, it's your choice. And
02:11:30
I heard this really loud smack, what I thought to sound like maybe a bowling ball being dropped on
02:11:40
cement. When I came to, the door was opened and they threw me in. And then he asked me where the cliffs
02:12:03
were. Take us to the cliffs. Do we need to go to the cliffs? He's trying to get me to pick out where
02:12:11
I'm going to be thrown to. And as we were going, I I had this flash of my funeral.
02:12:23
So I zoned out of that and I said to myself, there's two guns. Silencers are on them and
02:12:35
nobody knows I'm missing. So it is going to be game on from this point. And I need to think of everything I can
02:12:48
cuz all I have is my mind. That's my only weapon. So I'm like, there are no cliffs around here. I don't
02:12:56
know where there are any cliffs. I ended up pulling over in front of someone's house
02:13:08
and the Asian guy said, "Bitch, take your clothes off." and he took his gun and showed me that it was loaded.
02:13:21
And he put that into my ear and told me not to get any ideas cuz he will have no
02:13:28
problem splattering my brains in this car and proceeded to rape me for the first time.
02:13:40
And then he proceeded to say, "I needed a beach girl for my Christmas present to
02:13:45
myself because I'm going to throw you down. I'm going to make sure the cops see you." He had a specific role for me.
02:13:57
And I felt like my only chance to live was to rewrite that role. just so happens that I have in my wallet
02:14:10
a friend of mine's newborn baby picture that she had mailed me and I remembered saying that I had a a kid I
02:14:22
had a baby and you're going to let me out so I can go and see my son and he says [ __ ] you
02:14:29
think I'm going to let you go after you've identified me and I said you poked my eyeballs out with contacts
02:14:38
in them. I can't see right now and then it got real quiet and I just thought, did they buy that?
02:14:51
Did they buy that? Victoria was desperately trying to gain their sympathy. Yet, the assault continued for
02:14:58
what felt like hours. The two men taking turns raping her at gunpoint in the back
02:15:04
of the car. And when things couldn't get worse, they did. The man in charge became even more sadistic.
02:15:13
And I'm like, "This guy is psychotic. He is an animal." I just remembered thinking
02:15:28
at this point, I would rather die than continue where where I'm at right now. And he rips the door open, rips me out
02:15:37
by my hair. I'm naked. He's got me with a gun to my head. Right here. Right here.
02:15:50
And so I'm on all fours like this. He's telling me, "Bitch, keep your head down.
02:15:53
Keep your head down." Right as he goes to pull the trigger, the other guy throws a jacket on me real
02:16:05
quick and he goes, "What the are you doing, man?" And the friend says, "She's cold, man."
02:16:16
And here I am on the ground going, "Oh my god, the guy has caved. He feels something
02:16:25
for me." And it was that pivotal moment. He comes down to me and he said, "One, two,
02:16:37
by the way, [ __ ] Merry effing Christmas. Run. I just kept thinking, "Evil has crossed my path. I was
02:17:06
kidnapped. I was tortured. And I was left for dead by the grace of God. I knew the right words to say and I
02:17:19
ended up getting away. I was like, "Oh my God, did I really make it? Am I not in a car?
02:17:32
Victoria was suddenly free, running for her life. A family took her in and called 911. But before she went to the
02:17:41
hospital, Victoria returned with investigators to the initial crime scene. They were looking for evidence.
02:17:48
Victoria was looking for something she had left behind. I got out and I'm calling for my dog.
02:17:59
Shasse, chassis. And I didn't hear anything. And I'm like, oh my god, I probably killed her
02:18:06
when I threw her. And I'm crying now because I'm thinking she's dead. And I heard this screech sound. Yip yip y
02:18:22
like this. And I saw her and I'm like, "Shazzy, come here, girl." And I look over and
02:18:30
these officers are at the end of the sidewalk balling and jumping up and down and saying, "She found her. She found
02:18:40
her." It was a perfect moment. We got to the hospital. We went into the waiting room.
02:18:57
You know, it was kind of all confusing because at 12 years old, I didn't understand what was happening and no one
02:19:03
was saying anything and all we knew was just that my sister was hurt. I had red marks going across each one of
02:19:17
my eyes where apparently his nails had gone in and uh cut the backs of my eyes. I had a semi- dislocated shoulder. I had
02:19:34
dislodged part of my hinge in my jaw. Majority of my teeth were extremely loose. I lost a lot of hearing from the
02:19:45
head trauma. I was in so much pain that on a scale from 1 to 10, I would have registered a thousand.
02:19:56
I guess the way you could explain it is it took the air out of my lungs. It was just devastating.
02:20:03
Nothing that any child that age should have to see. She was always the strong one and always
02:20:11
our rock and now she was made into nothing. Now she's the one that needed us. They took me
02:20:24
into hiding at my grandmother's house in Huntington Beach. I wanted a shower. I wanted to be clean.
02:20:35
And I remembered my mom and she just lost it. >> My mom couldn't do it. It was just too
02:20:46
It was too hard for her. So, I took her, you know, but I just had to reassure her. It's okay. I'm going to get you
02:20:53
clean. We're going to make you beautiful, you know. And just if you've ever watched a horror movie and seen
02:21:03
a murder scene in a shower, that is what it looked like. All this stuff was was touching my foot,
02:21:13
my ankles, like something it reminded me of when I was in the beach. That seaweed
02:21:17
would wrap up around your ankles. I was like, "What is that? What is that? What is that?"
02:21:26
She said, "Don't look down. Don't look down." >> As I washed her hair and as I tried to
02:21:35
smooth it out, just chunks of hair came out. And by the time we were done, probably half of her hair was on the
02:21:43
floor of the shower. It had just been held on there by the blood that was in her hair.
02:21:54
That day made me an adult. It was a nightmare and it's still a nightmare and there's
02:22:01
not a day that I don't think about it. My sister's so brave. And she was so strong
02:22:12
and got me through the worst day of my life, which was Christmas Eve. I was assigned Victoria's case on
02:22:27
Christmas Eve of 1990. Well, when the case was first assigned to me, I looked at it and I realized we
02:22:36
really had a problem here. These are two violent offenders. I felt certain that they were going to continue to assault.
02:22:43
And so, I set everything else aside on my desk to work this one. I remember sitting there and them asking me what
02:22:52
was the shape of the brow, what was the face shape, what did their hair look like.
02:23:01
We post the the composite drawings uh through the news media on television. Just about any place we could distribute
02:23:07
the composite drawings we did, hoping we get somebody to to recognize them. But investigators had something else.
02:23:24
DNA. Evidence collected from Victoria's body at the hospital and from the jacket
02:23:30
she was wearing that night yielded profiles for two men. And there was another clue. Something Victoria
02:23:38
remembered her attackers discussing. I know that they were saying, "Show the respect to Sons of Samoa and
02:23:52
and really playing into that as though they were part of that gang." And I saw a smug, self-centered psychopath.
02:24:03
He carved SOS onto my rear end. I know. I've heard of SOS before. They were a really bad gang.
02:24:20
>> I thought that they had uh had screwed up by telling her that and not killing
02:24:24
her. I thought that was a real viable lead. I knew we'd get these guys. I was in a 90% certain range that we get him
02:24:30
real quickly. >> Detective House told me people like this who do heinous acts will slip up one
02:24:40
day. And I'll be there when that day happens. I felt like my whole life was completely
02:25:14
dominated by this attack. And it really beat me down because I thought I survived it. And the realization was
02:25:24
that my journey had just begun. >> They broke her. They broke her spirit. She just was different.
02:25:37
She didn't smile. She didn't laugh. I remember when I would nod off to sleep. I was back in the car again.
02:25:56
I would wake up screaming and I would shake like a seizure. I was in the moment every time I closed
02:26:07
my eyes. So why would I want to close my eyes? I'd have to talk to her and talk to her
02:26:17
to get her to realize you're okay. You're safe. You're safe. Things that set me off would be the break of a car,
02:26:24
a door shutting, the phone ringing, knocks on my door, the news, somebody passed by a window, and I I
02:26:34
heard this this quick move and the shadow. They're coming to get me again. They're coming to get me again.
02:26:43
>> I would double check all the windows and doors for her over and over cuz she was
02:26:49
too terrified. How in the world am I going to get past this? >> This one was at the top of the pile for
02:27:01
a very long time. I thought there was enough information immediately to have these guys in jail in a few weeks. We
02:27:08
worked at Sons of Samoa Angle for about a year. There was nothing. There was no rumors on the street. There was no gang
02:27:14
intel. There was no one matching the descriptions. So, I had to come to the conclusion that it was a false lead.
02:27:20
What didn't we have in this investigation? We did not have a license plate. We did not have fingerprints.
02:27:25
Nobody else saw the bad guys coming or going. What we had was a lot of nothing. But we knew we had to work the DNA.
02:27:34
And in 1990, DNA evidence was just starting to become popular. And so we had this good DNA evidence that would
02:27:41
tie us to somebody. We just didn't have a big enough data bank to make the connection. It was incredibly
02:27:48
frustrating. After the days turned into weeks and turned into months, >> I'd have to tell her, "No, we got
02:27:58
nothing." >> And then years went by. >> Case had gone cold and actually gone to the point to where we weren't actively
02:28:06
doing a lot with it. Knowing that they were still out there made me fear for every single person on
02:28:14
the street in the daytime walking amongst two demons cuz they were out there and nobody knew who they were.
02:28:29
For my sanity and my health, I was going to leave the state and start over fresh.
02:28:40
It was amazing. It felt like the weight of the world lift off my shoulders. Eventually, I made it to where it wasn't
02:28:48
with me every day. I could sleep through a whole night. I was regaining some of my inner peace.
02:28:58
And I think with that, allowing myself to feel again. I had made a phone call to an old friend
02:29:05
and the day he showed up, he never left and then I ended up having twins. It's the highlight of our lives.
02:29:21
In one day, I received a phone call that I waited for for 18 years. >> I said, "Yeah, we got him." We finally
02:29:28
got a DNA hit. This was the best part of the story. >> Yes. Yes. >> To know that one of them was caught.
02:29:37
>> Just to confirm that she could identify him, we arranged to send the photo lineup to her.
02:29:43
>> So the moment I looked at this lineup, I immediately knew. >> And she goes, "Number one, no. Number
02:29:50
two, no. Number three, no. Number four, no. >> Number five was him." That's the face I see every
02:29:58
night when I go to bed before I fall asleep. That's the nightmare I have. I don't have to look at number six.
02:30:04
>> When I saw his face, I said, "You're caught. It's you and I've caught you and you're
02:30:14
going to go down." >> Please welcome from Huntington Beach, California, Joe Sun.
02:30:21
>> The name to the DNA was a man named Joseph Sun. rather than going and hiding and staying
02:30:27
away from the limelight, he was in the MMA >> and now he's in command on the ground.
02:30:33
>> It all came together. That's why he was doing all the wrestling type moves with
02:30:39
me. >> Oh, now he's working the choke. He's got He's no longer arm. >> Joseph's son was in the DNA database
02:30:47
only because he had a conviction after he kicked in the door of a former roommate's car. As part of his plea
02:30:54
deal, Sun had agreed to submit his DNA, and that's what led to the hit in Victoria's case in 2008.
02:31:02
But investigators couldn't believe what else they found. He was an actor with a role in a Hollywood blockbuster, Austin
02:31:12
Powers, International Many. >> I had his movie sitting on my rack. I remember running over to there and just
02:31:24
destroying it because I thought, are you serious? He's in my home. >> So, we're trying to give you your
02:31:36
opportunity to tell us what happened that night. >> I've never done anything like that. I
02:31:41
have no idea what you're talking about. >> Completely denied the crime. Completely
02:31:45
denied any contact with her whatsoever. >> That's nasty. That wasn't me. >> We knew that he was lying to us. I
02:31:50
prefer confession, but sometimes lie is just as good. >> Despite Sun's denials, there was that
02:31:57
DNA. So, in October 2008, he was charged with multiple counts of rape and kidnapping. And then the case was handed
02:32:06
off to another DA, brand new, to the sexual assault unit. It was my first day. Okay. I had been on
02:32:15
the job in sexual assault for maybe half an hour. I just pulled a case down by random and
02:32:27
it's the Joseph Sun case. I cannot believe the horrors that this woman had to go
02:32:36
through. This is my entire case load. I'm never going to survive. This is a case that you have to work
02:32:44
for. You have to fight for to make sure she gets justice. I was glad we had Joseph's son, but I
02:32:52
wanted to find the second suspect. You know he's dangerous. You know he's out there. That was my priority number one.
02:33:13
When I got this case, it kept me up at night. We had identified one of the suspects
02:33:26
who had assaulted Victoria and I knew there was another one out there and that's really where I focused my
02:33:33
initial energy. So, we decided to put Joseph's son's picture out on a bulletin along with the sketch of the second
02:33:40
asalent and we put it out to the media. >> We weren't getting anything. I mean, nothing. And we're going, "Come on, you
02:33:49
know, this somebody has to know this guy." And then a couple of days into it, we get an email from a man who wanted to
02:33:56
be anonymous. He told us he didn't know anything about the crime, but he knew Joseph's son in high school and he knew
02:34:03
one of Joseph's friends and the sketch looked a lot like that friend. It's a couple of months of hard detective work
02:34:12
and they were able to put together a very good profile about who this individual was and where he was living
02:34:19
>> and his name was Santiago Gayan. >> We still need to identify him. We still have DNA evidence for the second
02:34:27
offender, so we need to get his DNA and compare that. >> Two Huntington Beach detectives set up
02:34:33
surveillance outside of his apartment complex. They were there for maybe 30 minutes, and they saw Sante Gaitan
02:34:40
walking out of his apartment, drinking a bottle of sun-kissed soda, and throwing
02:34:45
out the trash. Finishes his last drink from the bottle, and puts it on top of the dumpster. The detectives get out of
02:34:51
the car. They grab the bottle. They bag it. They grab the trash. They take that with them.
02:34:56
>> And what do you know? >> Was a DNA match. >> So Santio Gaiton is arrested. >> That was the best night's sleep of my
02:35:06
life. >> Mr. Gaitan had minimal criminal history. He had moved out of state and essentially had tried to start a new
02:35:15
life for himself. He had a wife. He had a couple of children. He was like anyone
02:35:20
else you might meet. So, we've identified the suspects. Now is when the real work begins. Anytime
02:35:29
you have a case that's 18 years old, you know there's the potential for things to
02:35:32
go wrong. Memories fade, evidence gets lost. So, I wanted to make sure that I dotted my eyes and I crossed my tees.
02:35:41
Let's get ready. Let's get ready for trial. >> But things did go wrong. Very wrong.
02:35:48
Deputy DA Scarbor made a sickening discovery. It had taken police so long to track down the suspects. The statute
02:35:57
of limitations for rape and kidnapping had run out. >> It was like my stomach had hit the
02:36:07
floor. There was the very real likelihood that we were going to have to dismiss the case and they were going to
02:36:13
walk out of the courthouse scot-free. >> Oh my god. I spent the weekend looking for
02:36:22
different ideas and different angles. I reread through the entire case file. And so a light went off. Why don't I
02:36:32
charge torture? There was no other way to describe the defendant's conduct other than they had
02:36:40
tortured her. Because torture carries the possibility of life imprisonment. There is no statute of limitations.
02:36:49
There was still going to be an opportunity to bring Victoria justice. One of my absolute best days,
02:36:57
bar none. Santel Gaitan's attorney ultimately approaches me and says his client is
02:37:06
willing to plead guilty. >> I agreed that a plea deal would be acceptable, but he needed to confess
02:37:13
what he did. He confessed to everything and they gave him 17 years. Son decided that he wanted to go to
02:37:26
trial. He wasn't going to confess to anything. >> Then let's get ready to go. >> An actor from the Austin Powers movies
02:37:33
goes on trial in Orange County this week for charges of a violent rape. >> The trial took place in August of 2011.
02:37:40
Victoria was essential to this prosecution. I had a job to do. My job was to put away what I considered one of
02:37:47
the biggest monsters ever. >> I was terrified for my sister cuz I knew that she was going to have to see him.
02:37:57
My biggest concern about going in the courtroom was making eye contact. I didn't want him to be able to wink at
02:38:08
me or do anything that would give him the sensation that he was doing something to me again.
02:38:17
So, I didn't allow him eye contact. >> The testimony was heart-wrenching to hear.
02:38:25
>> The jurors were horrified >> and they needed to hear every single detail. There were jurors who had tears in their
02:38:36
eyes. >> There wasn't a dry eye in the whole courtroom. >> Joseph's son did not testify during the
02:38:46
trial. At various times throughout the case, he would attempt to yell out, "That's a lie. They're making this up."
02:38:59
When I was waiting for the jury to make their decision, in my head I thought, was everybody affected? Did they believe
02:39:07
me? Did they see the evidence? DNA is DNA. >> There are no guarantees in a jury trial.
02:39:12
>> What if 99% of them feel one way and one doesn't? >> The jury deliberated for a few hours
02:39:22
before they reached the verdict. He was guilty. Guilty of torture. I just thought, you son of a [ __ ]
02:39:38
Now you're the one who has your hands behind your back. Have a little taste of my life and what you put me through.
02:39:49
Joseph's son was sentenced to seven years to life in prison, which meant that theoretically he would one day be
02:39:56
eligible for parole. But then just one month later, guards made a gruesome discovery.
02:40:06
No one was safe around Joseph's son. No one's safe. In my career, I have dealt with what I
02:40:34
think is some of the worst of the worst that humanity has produced. Joseph's son, I think, deserves a place
02:40:44
at the top of that list. Joseph's son was convicted and sentenced. He was transported to state
02:40:52
prison. Within a very short time of being there, he murdered his cellmate. The fact that the cellmate died of
02:41:06
punches, kicks, and blows It just sounded exactly like the person that I was with that night who did the same
02:41:17
thing to me. >> Under California law, if you're serving a life term in prison and you kill
02:41:25
somebody in prison, that could be a death penalty trigger. And so, it would be possible for them to
02:41:33
file a death penalty case against Joseph's son for this. And if so, Victoria would need to come and testify
02:41:38
at the sentencing to say, "This is the crime he committed against me. He's bad enough a guy to warrant that level of
02:41:45
punishment." Honestly, in the very beginning, I didn't think he deserved to live,
02:41:54
but there was a lot more to it than that that I had to think about. I didn't know
02:41:58
if I had enough energy to do this battle. My understood they wanted to put him to death.
02:42:09
I mean, he killed somebody. They tried to kill me. He's an animal. But I just felt at the end of the day
02:42:20
that I was done. I had a life to live and I wasn't interested anymore. So, prosecutors dropped the death
02:42:36
penalty for Joseph's son's upcoming trial. But Victoria's ordeal was still not over. It's hard to believe, but once
02:42:46
again, she found herself in a fight for her life. I had noticed in May of 2014 that I wasn't feeling that great. I
02:43:05
shared with my husband that and he said, "Get to the doctor immediately." He just had a bad feeling.
02:43:16
I was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. I think you for a minute or so lose your faith
02:43:29
that why is this happening to my sister so many times? Why is she being attacked in different ways?
02:43:40
Why can't she just have a beautiful happy life? Why now does this have to come in?
02:43:47
I needed to get in immediately. and start getting treatment. >> When she got diagnosed, I told her, "I'm
02:43:56
going to shave my head because I didn't want her to go through it alone." And I wanted to make her feel that I
02:44:04
supported her. To shave your head for someone in my heart meant that I'm traveling with you.
02:44:17
It made me feel like I wasn't the only bald person in the room and it made me feel like I had someone
02:44:26
like me there. >> Can you see? I apologize. >> I've managed to bounce back pretty good.
02:44:33
>> Back to your driver. >> I'm in remission and I'm just going to stay in that light
02:44:39
for as long as it allows me to. She has that something in her that allows her to bounce back even when bad
02:44:49
things happen to her. It's quite remarkable of her to do that. I don't know if it's in her DNA or in her karma
02:44:55
or in her personality. The way she was raised, I have no idea. For her to not only survive, but to
02:45:02
survive well and do well is is it's a miracle. It's miraculous stuff. I chose the name Victoria because I find
02:45:16
that it's more rewarding and more healing to be called Victoria because it was a
02:45:24
victory. It was an epic victory. There is happiness after tragedy. It's okay to be happy again. I've had my
02:45:38
kids. We're in a good place. I'm healthy again. And I rock out every chance I get.
02:46:50
When I was a kid, I had a strange fear of being kidnapped. That always scared me.
02:47:02
It always freaked me out that there might be somebody that wanted to take me and I'd never see my family again.
02:47:15
We were headed home from a family vacation in Mexico. Family trips to Mexico have always been wonderful and
02:47:21
we've been going for as long as I can remember. Deini and Tyler were asleep in the back
02:47:27
seat. Um, for some reason Tyler always sits behind his mom and Dein always sits behind me. It's they've done it their
02:47:32
whole life. I don't know why. We were um on the toll road headed north. You could see the lights of San
02:47:41
Diego. A police car turned on their lights, the red and blue lights and siren. And I
02:47:48
looked back, I said, "Crap, Dad. We're getting pulled over. I heard sirens. At the same time, I felt
02:48:00
the truck kind of jerk over to the side. And I asked him, "Were you speeding? What have you done?" He said, "No, I
02:48:07
wasn't speeding." At that point, we were probably a mile and a half as a crow flies from the
02:48:18
border. We were so close to being home. We've been pulled over by police before.
02:48:27
It's never really been a big deal. So, he pulled over. The policeman walked up to the window.
02:48:37
He didn't even get a chance to really talk to him >> and he put a gun straight to my forehead
02:48:43
right here. Told me to get back in the truck. At that same exact second, another car came around and blocked us
02:48:59
in. It happened so incredibly fast. >> So, at that point, there was nowhere we could go. They really trapped us in.
02:49:10
>> I looked in the mirror and could see probably 8 10 guys. >> There were 8 to 10 gunmen. There's men
02:49:17
surrounding our truck. >> They were all dressed the same in a kind of a military type.
02:49:25
>> Very precise in their movements. All the other guys except for that first one um had their faces covered. They
02:49:35
just had this portion of their eyes showing. They all had guns with silencers on
02:49:41
them. They told us to put our heads down and shut up. I remember my brother saying, "Oh, God,
02:49:49
no. Please, no. after being told for I don't know how many times that you're going to die.
02:50:17
Like there's not a lot of other options to think. In the truck, Chris had a radio that is
02:50:26
specifically made for off-road racing. Right before they o were opening the door, I grabbed the mic and I said, "Is
02:50:35
anyone out there? We need help." >> And no one came back on the race radio. >> There was nobody to turn to, nobody to
02:50:46
call, nowhere to go. >> Once they realized that the race radio was there, they ripped it off the mount.
02:50:56
They ripped out the wires. When all this was happening, a guy climbed into the truck on my brother's
02:51:03
side. >> There were guys in the back seat with the kids with guns on them as well.
02:51:12
>> And another man jumped in the driver's seat. >> He tried to reach back behind me and
02:51:19
touch them and pat their legs or rub their legs. And I just kept telling them, "I love you and it's going to be
02:51:25
okay." The whole time I'm doing this, there's this guy with a gun in my side yelling
02:51:32
at me to shut up and keep my head down. This took place in November of 2007. We went down for the Baja 1000. It was
02:51:50
Tyler's It was going to be his 16th birthday. >> Chris and Tyler were working as part of
02:51:59
a pit crew for the Baja 1000. >> Tyler started racing motorcycles when he was five.
02:52:09
He's very adventurous. Ever since my dad would take him, he would jump in a car and help out where he could with
02:52:19
changing tires or handing a driver a water bottle. Anything he could do to spend the day in the dirt.
02:52:32
As a family, we have traveled to Mexico a lot. We would just go and have fun. It was
02:52:43
just you didn't have a care. You just you went down and relaxed on the beach. It was always warm.
02:52:50
Cabo San Lucas is the very south tip of the Baja Peninsula. It's amazing. The day before we came back, we had
02:53:05
stopped along a little spit of beach coming up the peninsula and probably 35 people met up with us in
02:53:15
this deserted beach and we all barbecued and drank beers on the beach and um camped out overnight and that was
02:53:23
probably the most perfect day we've ever had down there. It was awesome. We got up really early in the morning to
02:53:47
drive home. At first, we were caravanning on the way home, and those caravans get a little broken
02:53:55
up. >> And we were pulling a big travel trailer, so we weren't driving nearly as
02:53:58
fast as anybody else. >> The plan was to stop in another city and sleep. >> I'm using the cell phone and calling the
02:54:08
hotel and confirming, "Yes, we're going to check in late. We still want that room. Please hold the room." No problem,
02:54:14
Mrs. Hall. Keep coming. We've got your room. when we get there, the room's gone.
02:54:22
>> I really think that was the turning point. >> I was tired and I was like, you know
02:54:26
what? We're not that far from home. We're just going to keep going home. >> Just go forwards 5 hours and sleep in
02:54:33
our own bed. At the time, it seemed like an okay idea. My dad said, "Please take it all. Leave
02:54:50
us here. Just whatever you want, take it. Leave us here." And the guy took his gun and put it to my dad's forehead and
02:54:58
said, "Shut up." I was so afraid that I was going to watch my dad get shot right there in
02:55:11
front of me 6 in from where I was standing. I could hear Chris breathing really heavily like in through his nose
02:55:20
and kind of shuttering out through his mouth. I could hear Tyler breathing really, really heavily and I never heard
02:55:26
a peep out of Deinia. >> Deborah had to sit up and pretend like everything was okay. I remember her
02:55:36
crying and and hold trying to reach back and hold Tyler's hand. Sorry. Chris is the even killed one in
02:55:51
our family. He kind of sets the tone for things. If he's he turned white gray, he
02:55:59
looked like he was going to be sick. And if he's scared, I'm scared. >> We begged them. Just please let our kids
02:56:07
go. Just let the kids go. We Deborah and I didn't care what happened to us. >> These are my babies. My They don't need
02:56:15
this. Just let them walk away. We're out in the middle of nowhere. My kids are not going to hurt you. They're not going
02:56:20
to call anyone. just let them go and they didn't care. >> They just laughed at us and said, "Shut
02:56:28
up about your kids." >> I think the gunmen were nervous once they discovered it was an entire family
02:56:33
in the truck. And that scared me in itself because the dynamics have changed. They're nervous, too.
02:56:42
>> And then he started driving and the cars followed us. And then they made a righthand turn off
02:56:49
the toll road, but not at an exit or anything and then drove up into the hills. They
02:56:57
said they were going to shoot us that we were going to die. When we were traveling, it was in
02:57:22
November of 2007, we weren't aware of any issues that were happening across the border that would
02:57:28
make us question traveling on the road at night or traveling on the road alone. Mexico has become one of the most
02:57:44
dangerous places once in the number of kidnappings for ransom gangs have killed more than 5,000 people. That's more than
02:57:50
the entire >> I don't see it as the hall's fault at all. These uh criminals took advantage
02:57:55
of the family being pulled over late at night in Mexico when you're uh been traveling all
02:58:08
day by a group that's dressed as law enforcement. It's it's very intimidating. The groups think that um
02:58:15
you do have money or you do have vehicles. You know, at that point it becomes very serious and very
02:58:20
life-threatening. The violence in Mexico has increased dramatically in the last 2 years.
02:58:28
There's a battle going on. San Diego, we had probably 200 murders last year. in Tijuana, which is next to
02:58:38
San Diego, we're talking about thousand murders. We're seeing targeted executions.
02:58:46
Criminal organizations are melting human bodies in acid and they're hanging them
02:58:52
from bridge abutments for everybody to see. Drug cartels in Mexico are getting into kidnapping for ransom and they're
02:59:01
executing anybody who stands in their way. If you're kidnapped, you could expect to get executed.
02:59:15
They drove us onto a dirt road up into the mountains above Tijana. I don't know exactly where I was because
02:59:25
they made us keep our heads down and they stopped. They kept asking us, "Who are you?
02:59:35
What's your name? What do you do for a living? Um, where's the race car? Do you Where's all the money?" My dad told him,
02:59:44
"I'm I'm just a truck driver. I There's no race car. I'm just a truck driver." I
02:59:50
think these people wanted money. I think they thought we were somebody who we weren't.
02:59:58
They were going through the trailer just ransacking everything. >> They dug for money and cell phones.
03:00:12
>> I told them, you know, this is all the cash we have on us. This is our name. We're not anyone. I mean, we're just
03:00:18
somebody's family. I remember them rubbing down my legs to check my pockets and my pants. I
03:00:34
remember somebody grabbing at my neck looking for any jewelry. >> I was absolutely worried about them
03:00:39
being raped. Don't think I've ever felt that helpless in my life. >> You've got 8 to 10 guys with guns. I
03:00:50
just did not want them touching my daughter. I was scared to death of that. >> It was creepy. I didn't want them near
03:00:58
me. And I know my dad didn't like the fact that they were running, you know, grabbing at my legs and my neck and
03:01:05
stuff trying to look for things. And I couldn't imagine having to watch his daughter have that happen.
03:01:13
>> My only thought was to tell her I'm so sorry and and to try and protect her as
03:01:17
best I could. My mom kept asking these guys to please just leave my babies here and take what
03:01:29
they want. Just leave the kids alone. And they were mocking her. She would say, "Please just leave my babies here."
03:01:36
And they would be like, "Oh, please, please just leave my babies here." It was cruel. As a parent
03:01:45
in that situation, I felt like the most horrible person there is because there wasn't anything we could
03:01:54
do to help the kids. Tyler was shaking and crying. He was very, very upset. Um, he had a gun
03:02:08
pointed in his side the entire time we were there. Um, I just kept trying to hold his hand,
03:02:14
tell him that I love him. I mean, I tried to tell him it's going to be okay, but how do you tell somebody it's going
03:02:19
to be okay when they have a gun in their side? Once they realized there was no race car
03:02:25
on the trailer and left the trailer there and took us further up in the mountains.
03:02:37
We got to the top of the mountain. They stopped again. where they took us really dark, like
03:02:47
pitch black, not be able to see your hand in front of your face, pitch black out.
03:02:54
These men pulled my dad and I out of the driver's side and my dad instantly just
03:02:58
wrapped his arms around me and he hugged me and he told me he was sorry and that
03:03:02
he loved me. and they pulled my mom and my brother out of the passenger side. He's still breathing really heavily.
03:03:18
And I looked over and they were putting him into a ditch on his knees pointed away
03:03:25
from me. And there were two men with guns, one on each side and Tyler in the middle.
03:03:39
And I thought, "Oh my god, they're going to shoot my baby. This is it." And I just didn't want to see that
03:03:49
happen. Just stop for just a second. Our friend George had driven down with Chris
03:04:17
and Tyler. The second day we were in Cabo, George said when he woke up that he had had a
03:04:31
bad dream. He dreamt that there were guns and somebody was killed and he just couldn't shake this bad feeling. He
03:04:37
said, "I I just need to leave." In retrospect, I think George had this dream. It was a premonition. We should
03:04:46
have all left. When the hotel gave away our rooms, that was a sign. And we had two signs and we ignored them both. And
03:04:55
now look what happened. When they put Tyler in the ditch, I was physically ill. One of the gunmen placed me in the same
03:05:21
ditch about 8 ft from him and he kind of shoved me down into the dirt and I crawled over to where Tyler was and the
03:05:31
guy yelled something at me and I'm like told me to stop. I'm like, you know what? No, you're throwing us in a ditch.
03:05:39
If he's going to kill us in a ditch, I'm not going to be 8 feet from my baby. They threw a sleeping bag over Tyler and
03:05:48
I and I thought, "They're going to shoot us. This is it. They're putting the sleeping bag on us so that when they
03:05:56
shoot us, they don't get blood on them." Because of how big my dad's truck was, we couldn't see my mom and my brother.
03:06:05
So, we rounded the back of the truck and my brother was laying face down and so was my mom and both of their
03:06:13
bodies were covered with a sleeping bag. And right then and there I I thought they were dead.
03:06:25
The last thing that I remember seeing before they threw the sleeping bag over Tyler and I is Tyler's head.
03:06:37
I crawled over and I just put my hand over his head and kind of held his head and I was whispering him to that I loved
03:06:45
him and I was so very sorry that we got us into this and he was like, "It's okay, Mom. It's okay. I love you. It's
03:06:54
okay." They forced my dad and I down on the ground with my mom and my brother. Deina
03:07:02
and I got over there as close to them as we could. And as Deina got down the ditch, I got down tried to get on top of
03:07:07
her as best I could to cover her body with with my body. >> I could hear my brother crying and I
03:07:17
could feel him shaking. We all just laid there and they threw a pillow on the back of my dad and I's
03:07:23
head. At that point, I really thought this was it. Execution style to the back of the head. All of us laying here. we
03:07:32
were gonna die. I told my brother that I loved him. I told my mom and dad that I loved them.
03:07:47
It was kind of like just wait for it and you know, is this going to hurt? Am I going to know it just happened?
03:07:58
But it it never came. It seemed like a long time and nothing had happened and it it seemed like it
03:08:09
got real quiet and we laid there and the truck drove away and we laid there and they were gone.
03:08:24
They were just gone. And after probably 10 minutes of laying there, my dad got brave enough to stick his head up and
03:08:33
look around and realized there was nobody around. Deborah kept saying, "Keep your head
03:08:42
down. Keep your head down." And I looked around and everybody was gone. And the truck was gone. And
03:08:53
the four of us gave each other a big hug and and I remember Deborah and I telling
03:08:57
the kids, "We're sorry. We're going to get you out of here." We had no cell phone, no nothing. And we had no clue
03:09:02
where we were. No sense of north, south, east, or west. No sense of direction cuz
03:09:06
of the fog. >> Our first reaction was to get up, get out, get away. My mom wanted to find a
03:09:13
place to stay until daylight so we could see what we're doing, where we were going, and everybody else felt, "No, we
03:09:21
need to we need to get out of this situation. What if they come back?" Tyler was sick and we were all just so
03:09:29
cold from being out exposed to that cold fog and air for so long. So, we wrapped
03:09:36
the sleeping bags around Tyler and Chris just said, "Come on, we're walking. We're getting out of here."
03:09:48
And I said, "We got to sit and listen for the ocean." I knew as long as we could find the
03:09:53
ocean, we we could find our way to help and find our way home. And we started walking.
03:09:59
>> We were all in shorts because we had just come from Cabo where it was 90° out.
03:10:05
Um, being the middle of November, in the middle of the night, it was about 48° I
03:10:11
believe. There were cactus, there were trees, there were bushes, there were barb wire fences everywhere.
03:10:20
Rocks were wearing flip-flops and were trying to go down steep goat trail type, no trail terrain. I mean, just not
03:10:28
something that you would ever walk on if you were wearing hiking boots. I mean, it was just bad.
03:10:35
>> We probably walked for down the mountain for 45 minutes to an hour. We saw a light, a
03:10:43
very faint light in the distance and it was a trailer and we could hear dogs barking.
03:10:48
>> Deb said, "There's a house. I see a light and uh she wanted to start walking towards the house and I didn't think it
03:10:54
was a good idea." >> And so my mom started yelling, "Help." Somebody came out and fired two rounds
03:11:01
in our direction. Now we're getting shot at. We ducked and hit the ground just trying
03:11:26
to get as low as possible to get out of any potential line of fire. >> God's supposed to take care of you and
03:11:32
give you only what you're can handle and now we've got some other yahoo shooting
03:11:36
at us. It was crazy. If you don't prepare yourself for the worst, you know, how would how are you
03:11:45
going to get through it when it comes? You're not necessarily always safe when you think you are.
03:11:55
>> In 2001, um my freshman year of high school, there was a school shooting. >> Just getting reports of shots fired at
03:12:04
Santana High School in Santi. We've heard that three students. >> It sounded like fireworks just going
03:12:10
off. I walked into class and I instantly started hearing popping noises. >> See so many ambulances at the school
03:12:24
>> and someone said somebody's got a gun. I heard some shots. >> They're doing a It sound like a shooting
03:12:29
at Santana High School. >> We heard the shots and I saw some kid laying on the ground.
03:12:35
>> She was in the ninth grade when they had the shooting at the high school. 14. I was really close to where the
03:12:42
gunman was. Grabbed my camera, started taking pictures. >> I happened to be in a cooking class. You
03:12:50
could hear screaming and just chaos. >> Everybody was running around. Who is he?
03:12:55
>> I don't know. I tried to do something. >> You have a whole quad full of people.
03:13:01
You know, he fired. He killed a person in the restroom. He shot someone in the back who ran and collapsed.
03:13:10
and died in in my teacher's arms. >> And he is still shooting. He's still shooting.
03:13:15
>> Still shooting. Okay. >> People were running into the classroom saying, "He's got a gun. There's
03:13:20
somebody with a gun." And it the next hallway over from where I was. Um, another freshman was coming out of the
03:13:28
bathroom just shooting. No real target, just shooting. The SWAT team came into the classroom.
03:13:37
It was a team of three or four men. They had us one by one go out of the classroom.
03:13:42
>> Okay. Where's the shooter? >> He was in the boy's bathroom. >> We know that there is one suspect in
03:13:48
custody. >> The shooter was Andy Williams. He was a fellow freshman. It was a kid that said he was bullied.
03:13:58
>> I didn't know she was okay until I actually saw her. I was never so glad to see her in my life. And she was she was
03:14:07
shaking. She was really scared. >> It was instant crying and hugging and just so happy to see them.
03:14:15
>> I mean, he took two lives and he permanently mentally wounded a lot of people.
03:14:22
>> She went from a little girl that, you know, was innocent to seemed like she grew up to an adult right then and
03:14:30
there. I think the school shooting forced me to grow up a lot faster than most teenagers grow up.
03:14:51
>> We heard some dogs barking and Deb said, "There's dogs. That's there's a house. I
03:14:56
see a light." I'm in flip flops. My mom's in flip-flops. Everybody's in sandals. It's
03:15:04
very slippery. My legs were getting cut up by the brush and we kept falling. >> Tyler absolutely stood up and shared the
03:15:16
burden. He definitely looked after and watched out for his mom and his sister as best he could.
03:15:25
We crossed the toll road, not realizing it was the toll road. got into this housing area and we yelled for help and
03:15:31
we rang bells and we banged on doors and nobody would help us. >> It was around 3:00 in the morning and my
03:15:40
doorbell was ringing. So, I got up and I went through the window. When I opened the curtain, I saw four
03:15:51
people standing there, father, mother, and the two children, teenagers. They looked very scared. something told
03:15:58
me I should open the door and I opened the door >> and she came out and she said, "Get in
03:16:03
here right now." And she pulled us in and she took us into her home and she was a lifesaver. Literally an
03:16:12
amazing woman. She gave me her jacket. Um she said, "What can I do for you?" I said, "Can we use your bathroom when
03:16:19
we're all just do you have water?" And she gave us her water and she said, "You can use my bathroom." She said, "It
03:16:26
doesn't flush, but I'll carry the buckets of water to flush the toilet for you."
03:16:31
>> I noticed they had some scratches on their knees and some on their arms, so I
03:16:38
offered to clean them up and give them some medicine. I offered to call the police so they could get some more help.
03:16:45
>> She said that she was going to call the police and we all said, "No, don't call
03:16:50
the police. The police are who had us. don't call the police. She said, "No, no, this isn't I'm going
03:16:58
to call. I know the men in my department. It's going to be okay." And she called the police department in her
03:17:05
little Colonia and two men came in a pickup truck and they put Deini and I went in front with the driver and put
03:17:15
Chris and Tyler in the back with the other policemen and we did not want to be separated. And my mom told the woman,
03:17:24
"If you don't hear from us in a few hours, please call my dad." So, my grandpa. And the woman said, "You'll be
03:17:32
fine. These they're going to take you home. These police are going to take you home." And she wrote down their their
03:17:37
names, their truck number, the license plate number, every detail about them. And when they were driving us to the
03:17:45
border, they were going away that I've never been to the border. And that I think that made my mom and I both very
03:17:50
nervous. And then the officer that was driving, he shook his head and he looked down and said, "You need to go home.
03:17:58
It's not safe for you in here." And so they rushed us up to the border. And they got out of the car and both of the
03:18:06
officers hugged my entire family and we thanked them as much as we could and they said go.
03:18:22
>> When we walked up to the first customs agent, we told him who we were, what had
03:18:26
happened to us. We were sweaty, bruised, just a mess. >> And we said, "We don't have any ID or
03:18:36
anything. We need a bathroom. We need a phone. We need water." And uh said, "There's a bathroom and phone at
03:18:41
McDonald's across the street." He didn't seem to really care. >> The San Diego Police Department has like
03:18:47
a little satellite trailer thing right at the border. We talked to the police. They
03:18:54
would only take the stolen purses and wallets report. And I said, "Well, what about the brand
03:19:01
new truck that doesn't have 8,000 m on it and the 3-month old camping trailer and oh, I don't know, being kidnapped at
03:19:10
gunpoint by the Mexican police." And they said, "We don't, that's not our issue. We don't care about that. We're
03:19:17
here to take the stolen property report." >> And that was the extent of the police
03:19:21
report they could take. We left. They let us leave. We went to the McDonald's like they told us. We didn't know where
03:19:26
else to go. >> And we called my cousin and um we called him collect and he came to pick us up.
03:19:42
>> The crime that occurred to the family down in Mexico and they reach out to United States law enforcement to assist.
03:19:47
It sometimes becomes very difficult for us cuz we have no authority in Mexico. >> When we were pulled over,
03:19:56
in my heart, I honestly believe that it was the Mexican police or possibly the federalis.
03:20:03
At the time, we were under the impression they were police because they pulled us over like they were police and
03:20:08
they were very well organized. But truly, we didn't know. There have been several reports of
03:20:17
kidnapping cells or the c what we call the criminal element that do use Mexican law enforcement uniforms, also Mexican
03:20:25
military uniforms to further their criminal enterprises. >> At the time, I had no idea who they
03:20:33
were, and I still don't know who these people are. >> The bandits were probably after uh the
03:20:38
expected race car that um they thought was in the trailer. Anybody down in Mexico gets accosted by what
03:20:46
they think are uh law enforcement person or military personnel. Uh and then they're held at gunpoint. They're placed
03:20:53
in a ditch face down and guns held at them at their heads. Uh they're extremely lucky to be alive.
03:21:04
>> I never felt it was over until I was home in my own home. We were just so so glad to be home.
03:21:12
>> I remember getting home just being thrilled to be home, happy to be around our dogs,
03:21:17
but still worried because they had our driver's license. They had our address. They knew who we were.
03:21:27
>> After we got home from Mexico, we had four people sleeping in our bed for a while.
03:21:34
>> Once we did get home as a family, we went to go see a therapist. sleep. Don't
03:21:40
we don't sleep anymore. Couple hours here and a couple hours there. We don't we don't get a peaceful night's sleep.
03:21:47
>> I'd sleep maybe an hour to a night. Pretty much ran on energy drinks. >> Nightmares all the time.
03:21:53
>> I absolutely have nightmares. I honestly think that the men with the guns are in our house and I will wake up
03:22:05
screaming and I don't even know what's happening. Tyler Tyler kind of went into his own
03:22:12
little locked himself away kind of thing. >> Tyler wanted nothing to do with seeing a
03:22:19
therapist. Didn't like it. >> I would like to talk to Tyler about it. He's not comfortable with it.
03:22:24
>> Tyler hates to discuss anything that happened down in Mexico. >> I think that Tyler is trying the hardest
03:22:34
to ignore what happened. if you ignore it, maybe it'll just go away. >> The therapist and my parents both felt
03:22:43
that I should go see a therapist on my own based off the fact that this is not my first traumatic experience.
03:22:52
>> When someone said, "Somebody's got a gun." >> I know exactly what I was wearing and
03:22:57
it's been 8 years and that sticks in my head every day. I think with any traumatic event, your
03:23:05
personality changes. Um, I don't know whether mine was for the good or for the worse.
03:23:11
>> I think that Deina was able to deal with the Mexico incident much better due to
03:23:19
the shooting at Santana. She knows that she can be exposed to something that traumatic and come through. Okay. On the
03:23:26
other side, I think that it's really hard on Chris. I felt responsible for bringing him to
03:23:35
Mexico and I felt like I put him in that situation. Even if I had one gun, there were still
03:23:42
eight to 10 guys with guns. No matter how I look at this in different directions,
03:23:50
the outcome would have been way worse than what it was. >> When he and I do discuss what happened,
03:23:55
I say, "Had you been, you know, Mr. I'm macho dad, you know, rescue my family. They probably would have killed you and
03:24:03
killed us. >> I guess what I did was right because my family's alive and nobody was hurt. But
03:24:08
in my mind, it sure seems like I could have done something different. >> We're all home and we're all together
03:24:13
and we're all safe. And I really credit him with that. I'm at work. This person is obviously,
03:24:29
you know, an official with the State Department calling me. He said, "I regret to inform you that we found
03:24:34
Chris's body in Tijuana." Your first reaction is to go, "Oh my god." They were sure it was Chris because this
03:24:45
man had his driver's license in his pocket. I hadn't talked to him in probably 2 and 1/2 hours.
03:24:54
I had to get a hold of Chris and I called him at home and he was actually meeting with
03:25:00
someone. He said, "I'm in a meeting. Can I call you right back?" Well, absolutely. Call me back. Don't call me
03:25:06
back. I just needed to hear your voice. I called them back. Leave a message. You
03:25:11
have the wrong person. This is not my husband. Please don't call me back. The next day, I get a call from someone
03:25:19
else within the State Department. They left me a voicemail and they said, "Mrs. Hall, we're so sorry for your loss. We'd
03:25:27
really like to help you make arrangements to get your husband's body back across the border." I'm like, "Are
03:25:32
you freaking kidding me with this? Don't they talk to each other?" Third day, I get another call from the
03:25:41
same person. Mrs. Hall, we understand that this is a stressful time. Can we help you make arrangements to get him
03:25:46
back? And I was just by this point I'm not even frustrated anymore and beyond that. And I called and left her a
03:25:55
message. I said, "You know what? I never liked him. Keep him. I don't care what you do with the body." They never called
03:26:00
me back. I think the are getting better. It's getting back to normal. I don't know if
03:26:15
it'll ever be normal. But it's absolutely getting better. Our experience has brought us together.
03:26:27
>> As time goes on, hopefully this will heal itself. We're >> a couple. >> My parents being younger parents are a
03:26:39
lot of fun. I think as a family we're definitely adventurers. We like to get out and see
03:26:49
what there is to see. >> We bought a boat. We all go to the river together. That's our new place to go. I guess we
03:27:00
just had our 25th anniversary. We took our kids to Hawaii for their first time >> and we had a lot of fun.
03:27:10
I don't think there's anything that's going to take the place of Mexico just because
03:27:15
it's such a different world down there. >> Even Tyler still talks about the Happy
03:27:19
Times. Um, still talks about his favorite burrito shop. >> There were so many times
03:27:28
that were good that completely outweigh the bad >> and know we've lost Mexico and we won't
03:27:33
go back and just leave it at that. It's just going to have to be something that was once upon a time for us.
03:28:28
It's so powerful to see how my mom handled this situation. She's amazing, you know, and she's
03:28:36
really, really strong. >> How often do residential kidnappings happen here? >> Very rare. Yeah. Not very often at all.
03:28:47
Shauna Hanley is at her home with her daughter Isabella. her friend came over just to come and
03:28:54
visit with her. >> We talked for about 5 or 10 minutes and the doorbell rang and so I went to the
03:29:01
door and it's these two men. >> These two individuals essentially present themselves to be delivery men of
03:29:07
some sort. Shauna sees them, says, "Look, I have a friend over. Now is not a good time." She goes to close the door
03:29:13
on them. They force themselves in with guns. They started to scream to get the F on
03:29:19
the floor and don't move. They handcuffed me in front like this. >> I was just stunned. I saw that my mom
03:29:28
and her friend were handcuffed. >> I said, "I have valuables. I have jewelry. I have cash. I have precious
03:29:35
metals. I can get you money." Didn't interest them at all. >> I said, "Come with me." And she went and
03:29:42
they came back and asked me and I said, "No." and they just accepted that and left.
03:29:49
>> They put her in the van. >> I'm hooded. They hooded me as soon as I went into the van. It was a van that
03:29:57
didn't have the windows in the back and it was just a rubber mat without seats back there and laid me on the floor.
03:30:05
>> And then they leave. These guys are heading out of town with Sean handling in the back of that van.
03:30:14
One of the guys sat on top of me, you know, so he stayed screaming at me. He had the gun to my head. I was trying to
03:30:21
pay attention to where we were. I could feel when we picked up speed that we had
03:30:25
made a turn. I was like, "Oh no." My heart sunk. I was like, "We're on an interstate or something." And the guy
03:30:34
stripped me. They threatened to assault me sexually. He put a pill in my mouth and he gave me another.
03:30:43
I said, "What are you giving me?" And he said, "Don't worry about that." And so I
03:30:49
guess I started to maybe drift a little. And I started praying. >> So this particular day, I got out of
03:30:58
work. As I was traveling, there was a wreck on the interstate. I got stopped behind a white van. I could kind of see
03:31:04
the the driver of the van was starting to get nervous in the mirror. He was looking at me. He decided to get into
03:31:09
the shoulder and speed off, but it didn't sit right with me. So, I got in behind him. I put my emergency lights
03:31:16
sirens on. Then I hear sirens and I was like, "Yeah, yeah, okay. Thank you, God."
03:31:30
This is where the vehicle exited. It's a dead end onto a dirt road, which had been mud cuz it just rained. Their van
03:31:37
got stuck. That's when they exited the vehicle and kept running. >> The siren stopped and it just sunk
03:31:47
again. And I was like, "What happened? Did I imagine the sirens? What's going on?" And I'm full of anxiety.
03:31:58
>> When you approach the van, you've got your gun drawn. >> Yes, sir. I opened the rear door of the
03:32:02
van, and in the van, what I thought was a mannequin moved. Scared me. Startled me. So I jumped back and I shut the
03:32:08
door. Said, "Oh my god, things aren't always what they seem. I didn't know what was going on with my
03:33:05
mom. There was no one really telling me what was happening. Police say the woman was forcefully
03:33:12
removed from her home in Lafayette >> with her childhood home now a crime scene and her mother Shondaanda Hanley
03:33:19
just abducted by armed intruders. Isabella Cumberland found herself confused amidst a crowd of investigators
03:33:26
and forensic analysts. They wanted to go over the fingerprints on the doors upstairs, my phone, and it just kind of
03:33:33
felt like I was another piece of evidence. >> Isabella, then just 14 years old, was
03:33:39
trying to process the sight of the violent kidnapping she had just witnessed at her family's home in
03:33:44
Lafayette, Louisiana on August 6th, 2017. >> As they're driving away with her, did
03:33:51
you think that was the last time you'd ever see her? >> I thought there was a chance.
03:33:56
Lafayette investigators and Isabella had no idea that about an hour after the kidnapping, just across the state near
03:34:03
Baton Rouge, Chad Martin, an Iberville Parish Sheriff's deputy, had just pulled over a suspicious white van after a
03:34:10
brief pursuit. There were two men inside. When they pulled into this parking spot,
03:34:17
they got stuck in the mud. So, the men jump out and they take off running. And right behind us is the inter coastal
03:34:22
waterway. They jump in and disappear. And when Martin went to clear that vehicle, he discovered Shondaanda Hanley
03:34:34
handcuffed and naked in the back. >> She looked at me and I'll never forget this. She said, "Are you the real police
03:34:40
or are you the one that's going to kill me?" >> And he was like, "You're safe. You're
03:34:45
safe." Just minutes before, Martin was rushing home for Sunday dinner in his squad car after clocking out, unaware of
03:34:53
Shondaanda's kidnapping nearly 60 m away. His biggest worry at that time was his wife's wrath.
03:35:00
>> I heard you were habitually late for dinners. >> I had a tendency >> Uh-huh. >> to be late for everything.
03:35:07
>> Now, he had unwittingly made the rescue of a lifetime. >> What's going through your head? I mean,
03:35:14
you were just trying to pull over a couple of guys who looked a little suspicious.
03:35:18
>> I can't really tell you what was going through my head. Almost like I went into
03:35:21
like robot mode and I was just trying to get this woman help. >> Shondaanda told him a harrowing story
03:35:27
that the kidnappers had drugged her and threatened to rape her and kill her >> if not for Chad Martin.
03:35:36
>> Oh, I would be dead. I can't even imagine. But I know it wasn't going to be quick and swift.
03:35:43
>> Martin relayed the news of Shondaanda's rescue to dispatch and it soon reached
03:35:47
Isabella. >> Whenever they told me that she was safe, I felt this relief. >> Law enforcement began to ask questions.
03:35:56
Who were Shondaa's kidnappers? And why did they abduct her? But for Shondaanda, there was no mystery who was
03:36:03
behind it. She had said that she believed that her husband is the one that had paid them to
03:36:09
kill her. >> Her estranged husband, Michael Hanley. Shondaa says that before the difficult
03:36:18
months leading up to the kidnapping, Michael would have been the last person she could have imagined would harm her.
03:36:24
They had met in 2005 through friends in Lafayette at a time when both were single parents and emerging from failed
03:36:31
marriages. He was really catering and just sweet and compassionate. >> Another thing they had in common, both
03:36:40
were in recovery for addiction. At that time, I had been sober for about 18 years.
03:36:48
>> Oh, wow. >> Michael was newly clean and sober. He had about a year. >> The new couple hit it off and a year
03:36:58
later they were married in Hawaii. Isabella took an immediate liking to Michael.
03:37:04
>> He well was my dad from when I was 2 years old. And so that's how I saw him was really as my dad.
03:37:13
>> In 2007, Michael and Shondaanda found success, channeling their experience in
03:37:18
recovery into a new business. >> We're going to provide care and we're going to meet you where you are.
03:37:23
>> Partnering with a doctor to start a chain of addiction treatment centers. So we wound up opening at one point I think
03:37:30
there were 14 centers throughout the south. >> Eight years later they made a decision.
03:37:36
>> We sold the company. >> How much did y'all make on the sale? >> The two of them, Michael and his
03:37:42
partner, we sold the company for $21.5 million. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> But their life as happy millionaires
03:37:52
didn't last long. Say prosecutors Donald Ket and Kenny Abear. You know, money and
03:37:57
free time with someone with an addictive personality isn't a great combination. >> Shondaanda was seeing that firsthand
03:38:03
with Michael in 2017, less than two years after the sale of their company, when she found a bottle of Adderall with
03:38:10
Michael Hanley's name on it. >> So, what we believed at our treatment center was that
03:38:18
use of something like that amphetamine could open the doors to a world of trouble. So when I found the bottle, it
03:38:26
terrified me. And I can remember telling him, "This could lead to death. This could lead to something devastating."
03:38:35
>> And soon things got even worse when Shondaanda discovered that Michael was seeing another woman.
03:38:41
>> He was having an affair. And all I could think was like, I don't even know who
03:38:46
this man is. >> Shondaa issued an ultimatum. Michael had to go into treatment. But when he
03:38:53
refused to get help, she made a difficult decision. >> I changed the locks and Michael was
03:39:00
locked out of the house and he started to lose his mind at that point. And so after a couple of weeks, he said,
03:39:09
"You're going to regret this." And then that turned into, "I'm telling you, it's going to get
03:39:16
bad." >> The Hanley's life together was falling apart fast. Michael accused Shondaanda
03:39:22
of assaulting him. She was charged but later acquitted by a judge. All while Shondaanda was begging the authorities
03:39:29
to see that she was the one in danger. >> If Michael wasn't apprehended, he was going to kill me.
03:39:53
As Shauna Hanley was recovering in the hospital, investigators were learning the details of her tumultuous past with
03:40:00
Michael Hanley. They knew they had to find him and the kidnappers fast. They started scouring the last place her
03:40:07
abductors had been seen, this canal. There was a fisherman and he reported these two individuals waiting by him in
03:40:16
the water and one of them pointed a gun at him and said, "Be cool." >> But as the kidnappers had been swimming
03:40:24
towards freedom, the canal's unforgiving current had other plans. >> Behind me at the Inter Coastal Canal is
03:40:31
where two bodies were found yesterday. >> They found them floating in the Inter Coastal Canal, drowned, dead. Dead. They
03:40:38
were later identified as Sylvester Bracie and Arsenio Haynes. >> What did you think when you found out
03:40:44
they were dead? >> I thought I'm not going to have to worry about them hurting me. As sad as that
03:40:50
is. >> While investigators suspected Michael Hanley was responsible for the abduction, proving it might have been
03:40:58
difficult with their main witnesses, the kidnappers, dead, but Handley, it seemed, had made it kind of easy for
03:41:05
them. detectives are running the VIN number on the white van. That VIN number leads them to an Enterprise dealership
03:41:12
in Baton Rouge. Said, well, a few days ago, an individual named Lawrence Michael Hanley came in and rented the
03:41:18
van. And then a couple days before that, he went to Barney's Police Depot, which
03:41:24
is a store that carries specifically police issue merchandise. Handley was seen on store surveillance
03:41:31
cameras as he pulls up and purchases handcuffs. Finding evidence allegedly connecting
03:41:38
Hanley to the kidnapping wasn't difficult, but finding him turned out to be the challenge.
03:41:44
>> I'm asking if Michael's been apprehended and they said no. And so they said we
03:41:50
need to like lay low for a little while. >> With a fortune at his fingertips, investigators feared he could be
03:41:57
anywhere. and a danger to Shondaanda once she was released from the hospital. So they came up with a plan of action.
03:42:04
>> We decided on a safe house outside of Lafayette. >> Sid Abear, a former Louisiana sheriff,
03:42:11
was part of the security detail watching Shondaa 24/7. >> We had a Lafayette sheriff's deputy in a
03:42:18
marked unit on premises. No visitors, no package deliveries, nothing until further notice. Even in hiding,
03:42:28
Shondaanda was feeling relief that Michael was finally being recognized as a threat after living in constant fear
03:42:36
prior to the kidnapping. >> The terror that I was in for those 3 months, the kidnapping was nothing
03:42:44
in comparison. The kidnapping was a blessing. What >> the kidnapping is what allowed me to get
03:42:53
to a place where people were willing to support me. >> In the beginning, how many people
03:42:59
believed Shondaanda? >> Not many. >> But Shondaanda had found a fierce ally in Christine Mir, her divorce attorney.
03:43:10
Christine knew all too well what Shondaanda had experienced. The most dangerous case I have ever
03:43:17
heard about, let alone been a part of. >> What made it so dangerous? >> Michael Hanley.
03:43:23
He was constantly stalking her, telling her that he knew where she was, threatening her, threatening her
03:43:31
daughter with harm. Shondaa called the police several times, but felt she wasn't taken seriously.
03:43:38
Christine helped Shondaanda secure a restraining order, but says Michael found creative ways to make it
03:43:43
effectively worthless. >> He disguised his voice. He also used an app that picked up dummy numbers that he
03:43:51
used to contact her. So, there was no proof that it was him that was actually violating the protective order.
03:43:58
>> And he seemed to be tracking Shondaanda's every move. >> He was able to spy on her through her
03:44:04
own laptop computers, her alarm system. He compromised all of that. Nothing was out of balance.
03:44:11
>> Michael's behavior was growing increasingly erratic. Even though he was the one to initially file for divorce in
03:44:18
the spring of 2017, he soon changed his mind. And Shondaanda says now he was demanding they reconcile or she'd pay a
03:44:27
humiliating price. He says, "Some of our private videos are going to go out to people in the community."
03:44:37
>> Intimate videos. >> Intimate videos. >> Shondaanda struggled over this, but knew
03:44:43
she couldn't take him back. >> So, videos went out to hundreds of people in the community, my cousins,
03:44:51
uncles, administration at the school, political friends, neighbors. I sat and cried and was sick to my
03:45:02
stomach. I almost didn't stand up. >> Just when Shondaanda thought she couldn't take anymore, on June 8th,
03:45:09
2017, almost 2 months to the day before the kidnapping, Michael Hanley slipped into her house through the garage.
03:45:18
>> He was enraged. He rire of alcohol. He was He was furious. and he had me pinned up against the wall
03:45:28
and I screamed, "Isabella." Well, he put his hand over my mouth and he pulled out a gun, a 9mm.
03:45:37
>> A gun? >> He pulls out a handgun and he said, "If you scream or anybody comes to
03:45:45
interfere, I will shoot you both. I will kill you both. Do you understand me?" Shondaanda says that after hours saying
03:45:53
anything she could think of to calm him down, she finally convinced Michael to leave.
03:45:59
>> As soon as he walked out of that gate, I ran in the house, bolted the door, and I
03:46:06
started screaming and crying. When Michael left that day after he had attacked me, I was 100% positive he was
03:46:14
going to kill me. >> Police were called once again, but they didn't arrest Michael Hanley. I can see
03:46:20
in your eyes that you're getting emotional. >> Oh, I felt as though I was being told
03:46:27
that that I was lying and that I was making it up. >> This is why women don't report abuse
03:46:35
because they fear they will not be believed. >> How many times had Shondaanda filed a
03:46:41
report against Michael? >> I believe that the actual reports filed were a couple dozen, if not more.
03:46:50
As far as how many times was there an arrest made, there wasn't. Why? A lot of times he was out of state, sometimes the
03:46:57
investigators felt like they didn't have enough evidence to actually go forward and get a warrant for the arrest.
03:47:03
>> After the kidnapping, investigators were confident that this time they had more
03:47:08
than enough evidence to make an arrest. But could they find him in time? >> So somehow Michael is able to track
03:47:15
Shondaanda down to the place that she's seeking refuge. Does Michael Hanley know that the cops
03:47:41
are on to him? Yes, because at some point he tried to charter a private plane and so the pilot essentially said,
03:47:48
"I am not going to be taking you anywhere uh because you're a wanted man." >> The pilot reported it to police, but
03:47:55
Michael was long gone. And as he continued to evade authorities, Shondaanda got a text message from a
03:48:02
strange number claiming that Michael had also been kidnapped, saying in part, "Pay the ransom for your husband and pay
03:48:10
us 500 large or we will send him home in pieces." A day later, friends received a shocking
03:48:17
photo of Michael. He was nude, handcuffed, and seemingly injured. And he's got blood on it,
03:48:24
>> right? It appeared to be from Sha's kidnappers, but investigators knew that couldn't be true.
03:48:30
>> We know that obviously wasn't from them because they're dead at this point. >> So, Michael is behind these messages.
03:48:38
>> On August 11th, 2017, after a 4-day manhunt, detectives finally cornered the multi-millionaire.
03:48:45
Once accustomed to private jets in five-star hotels, he was in this off-ramp motel in Slidell, Louisiana. We
03:48:53
begin with new information on the arrest of a Lafayette kidnapping suspect. As they took an oddly smiling Michael
03:49:00
Hanley into custody, investigators began sifting through the nearly $10,000 in cash, pizza boxes, and illicit drugs,
03:49:09
finding this to-do list. On it were things like burner phone, hair dye, cash. But its final task was even more
03:49:17
ominous, says prosecutor Kenny Abear. said Shondaanda's safe house was just 35 miles away.
03:49:25
>> But on the bottom of that list were the words, "Finish the job." >> And finish the job would mean, in our
03:49:32
opinion, he was going to kill her. >> With Michael Hanley now in jail, Shondaanda and her security team decided
03:49:39
it was finally safe for her to come out of hiding. >> It was time to go home. And that's what
03:49:44
she said. I just want to go home and rebuild my life. But with his track record of evading justice, Isabella was
03:49:52
skeptical that the worst was behind them. >> I remember thinking that it was almost
03:49:58
pointless that he was being arrested. It felt like he had all the power and he was going to keep all the power.
03:50:04
>> Michael Hanley pleaded not guilty to a litany of charges, including conspiracy
03:50:10
to commit seconddegree murder, and prosecutors got to work building their case against him. Anytime you're on our
03:50:17
side of the table, you start thinking, what's the defense going to be? We could not figure out what his defense
03:50:23
was going to be. >> There was no question that she was a victim of a kidnapping.
03:50:27
>> But says Kevin Stockstill, the man who Michael Hanley hired to defend him, the
03:50:32
physical evidence doesn't prove his client played a part in any of it. >> Were the van and the handcuffs enough to
03:50:40
convict him? >> I don't think so. That is because Stock Still says there is an explanation for everything. It
03:50:48
started when Michael hired Sylvester Bracie, not to kidnap his wife, but instead, he claims to move some
03:50:55
furniture. That was the reason Michael rented the van, he says, and made no effort to hide it.
03:51:02
>> Mr. Hanley, you know, goes into the Enterprise uh rental car location with his credit card in one hand and driver's
03:51:10
license in the other. So, you thought you could explain to the jury, "Hey, listen. Nobody who's actually going to
03:51:14
commit this crime is going to go in with their license and ID and buy it themselves."
03:51:18
>> Correct. >> It was all innocent enough. Stock still says until the wouldbe mover went rogue.
03:51:26
Stock still theorizes Sylvester Bracie saw Michael's desperation to get his wife back and decided to use it to his
03:51:33
advantage. That's when he enlisted Arsenio Haynes to help him kidnap Shonda and hold her for ransom. So, you're
03:51:41
thinking the kidnappers could have wanted to extort Michael to get money from him so they would have
03:51:47
kidnapped his wife >> potentially. >> And of course, he did buy the handcuffs, but Stockstill says he only used them to
03:51:55
stage that fake kidnapping photo. >> So, as he's bound and gagged, he's bound with handcuffs. It was just the latest
03:52:04
example according to Stockdale. Hey Shondaanda >> of photos and videos that Michael had
03:52:09
been sending to Shondaanda for months showing him in emotional distress and in one case apparently beaten up in a
03:52:18
misguided attempt to try and win her back. I love you. I love you. >> Because Michael had he had a proclivity
03:52:27
to try and stage these things to to get, you know, sympathy from Shondaanda. But as the defense prepared to argue
03:52:35
that the kidnappers acted on their own, Sha de Hanley made a damning discovery while cleaning out a remote Mississippi
03:52:43
property they owned. >> Shauna starts getting some of her personal belongings. Well, one of the
03:52:48
things that they found was this camera. >> It was a type of camera called Arlo. And
03:52:54
Michael Hanley used it for security. >> When Arlo detects sound and video, Arlo starts recording.
03:53:00
>> That's right. That's right. >> Well, it turns out he accidentally turned the camera on himself.
03:53:08
>> All put together, what did the camera record? >> Yeah, I mean, hundreds of hours. Hundreds of
03:53:16
hours. >> One of the first videos is from 2 months before the kidnapping. Michael is by
03:53:23
himself in a hotel room and is apparently talking to himself. You see him moving around and at some point he
03:53:30
picks the camera up and he puts him in a bag and you hear him say the words, "I'm
03:53:35
going to kill her. I'm going to kill her. Kill her. Kill her." >> Prosecutors believe the her intended to
03:53:45
kill was Shonda and that Michael was even more explicit just days later in a conversation with a friend in the living
03:53:53
room of the Mississippi house. They're having beers and they're discussing the issues that he's having with Shondaanda,
03:54:05
>> right? Yeah. She's not going to and you're not going to. >> The friend later said he didn't recall
03:54:10
hearing what Michael said next. >> That's why she didn't die. >> Michael says that's why she's going to
03:54:17
have to die. So, matter of fact. In yet another clip from just two weeks before the kidnapping, Michael Hanley is
03:54:26
caught with Sylvester Bracie at that property planning how it was the perfect place, prosecutors say, to bring
03:54:32
Shondaanda to torture her and possibly worse. He specifically says it's almost impossible for anyone to get in here. To
03:54:42
which Bracy responds, and it'll be impossible for her to get out. >> You can't break it.
03:54:48
>> I see. They can't break it. So this account >> I mean did you think you had a rockolid
03:54:58
case before that? >> Yes. Well, what did you think after it? >> Uh I thought I must have done something
03:55:03
right in the world. >> Then in a move no one saw coming. >> I just wanted God to give us the truth.
03:55:10
The whole truth and nothing but the truth stop. >> I do. >> Michael Hanley agreed to tell his side
03:55:15
of things. While awaiting trial for the kidnapping of his aranged wife, Shondaanda, Michael
03:55:35
Hanley was held in the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center. But Shondaanda says
03:55:40
even though Michael was behind bars, he continued to harass her. I've received a lot of mail letters
03:55:49
while he's been incarcerated. Had numerous calls. >> Can't they stop him from calling you?
03:55:56
>> I guess not. >> On top of that, Shondaanda lived in fear that Michael just might get out. That's
03:56:03
because at one point, the defense argued that Michael was suffering from mental illness and was not guilty by reason of
03:56:11
insanity. When Michael was sober, he was a fantastic individual, you know, very talented, willing to help people. When
03:56:23
he was found at the hotel in Slidell, I mean, there were drugs there. You know, there's no question that he was using.
03:56:29
Again, I don't know the level of his responsibility, but I think it's a combination of um
03:56:37
substance abuse and some mental illness. For prosecutor Kenny Abear, however, it
03:56:44
was a desperate attempt to get Michael released. >> They did it so that they could get some
03:56:50
psychological professionals on the stand to say he needs to be out of jail and he
03:56:55
needs to go to these mental health facilities. Well, we're talking about mental health
03:57:00
facilities that don't have nearly the security that a jail has. Michael's defense team submitted mental health
03:57:07
records showing that he suffered from bipolar disorder complicated by drug addiction, which they say rendered him
03:57:14
legally insane during the time leading up to the kidnapping. Two court-appointed doctors agreed, but
03:57:21
the judge ruled that Michael was competent to stay in trial and must remain behind bars.
03:57:28
>> Once they initially failed to get him out, they withdrew that plea. >> And what did they change it to? They
03:57:32
just changed it to regular not guilty. >> While Michael Hanley's criminal battle
03:57:37
was heating up, in March 2018, his divorce from Shondaanda became finalized. Shondaa was awarded all of
03:57:45
the assets. There was only one problem. >> There is no money. There's no money. You
03:57:52
know, millions of dollars vanished. >> Michael was a very eccentric person. He was obsessed with the collapse of the
03:58:00
American dollar. So much of their money was in gold bars. >> Shondaanda said she had seen gold before
03:58:07
and knew that there was gold somewhere on that property. I believe people actually went out with metal detectors
03:58:12
to try to figure out if he stashed it somewhere. >> No gold was ever recovered. So there's
03:58:18
all of this money that's unaccounted for, but we know it's got to be out there somewhere.
03:58:24
On top of being left with nothing, Shondaanda says she suddenly found herself responsible for repaying her now
03:58:30
ex-husband's massive debts. How much of a hole did he leave you in? >> 750,000. I can't comprehend how I'm now in a
03:58:41
position where I owe this sort of money. >> Shondaa felt like it was a slap in the
03:58:47
face after enduring so much. But it wasn't all for not. During the settlement negotiations, Shondaanda's
03:58:54
divorce attorney, Christine Mir, had subpoenenaed Michael for a deposition. And surprisingly, he agreed.
03:59:01
>> I mean, that's wild. >> It is. >> I can imagine that someone with the arrogance that Michael Hanley had
03:59:09
insisted that he was going to be testifying, it was going to be fine cuz he is the smartest person in the room.
03:59:14
Shondaanda's divorce attorney and the prosecutors had agreed to cooperate with each other and everyone was interested
03:59:22
in hearing what Michael Hanley had to say. >> It was a risk >> cuz he might go into that deposition and
03:59:28
say stuff that really jeopardizes his criminal case. >> I've never been more nervous in a
03:59:33
deposition than that. >> Do you solve swear the testimony God give us the truth? The whole truth.
03:59:38
Dressed in a striped prison uniform, Michael answered questions for 10 hours over 3 days.
03:59:44
>> I was hanging on every question. >> I bet you were. >> Yeah. >> It was a chaotic and hectic time. I was
03:59:50
living out of hotels. I've been moving from hotel to hotel for several months. >> Michael was asked about his relationship
03:59:56
with Sylvester Bracie and the reason he rented that van. >> I had hired him to move furniture. I
04:00:02
rented the van to make a move to move the furniture. He stuck with his original story.
04:00:10
>> He said that he had hired movers in order to move furniture and they went rogue because they thought he had money.
04:00:17
>> I got a phone call. As soon as I answered the phone, I said, "Hello." They screamed um they screamed, "We've
04:00:25
got your mother wife." And um I just remember cuz it was like I got punched in the head. It's like one of those
04:00:33
moments when you go into a Top Rio. >> But when pressed about the details of how he first met Bracy,
04:00:43
>> I don't recall. Michael claimed he couldn't remember much about the weeks leading up to the kidnapping.
04:00:49
>> I don't remember. I don't know. I don't recall. That's why I'm hesitating. I don't remember. I don't recall. I don't
04:00:56
recall. I don't recall. There are big gaps in my memory. I don't know. I don't know. The reason that I don't recall is
04:01:03
because I was high. I was living like a rockstar. I was on and off medications during this period of time and I was
04:01:08
under the influence of substances. Mental illness is tough, you know. >> But he insisted. Despite the gaps in
04:01:16
memory, there was one thing he knew for certain. >> I would not kidnap my wife. >> He would cry and say that he loved her
04:01:25
so much. >> I don't remember. >> That he was so sorry. It was that type of manipulation. I have uh tremendous
04:01:33
regret. >> During the deposition, Christine pulled that Arlo camera recording in which
04:01:40
prosecutors believe Bracie and Handley were caught talking about the plot to kidnap Shondaanda, the wife Handley
04:01:47
claimed he loved so much. >> I queued up where one of the kidnappers was telling Michael, "And you know, if
04:01:56
she gets out of line, I won't hesitate to kill her. And I said, "What kind of movers tell
04:02:05
that to you?" And his fear was palpable. And he said, "Oh, I don't know, Christine. People tell me all sorts of
04:02:13
things." >> Michael Hanley withered under questioning, poking holes in his own defense with his own words.
04:02:22
>> The civil attorneys provided us with those deposition transcripts shortly after receiving them. And with the trial
04:02:28
date fast approaching, Michael's defense attorney feared the worst. >> We were of the opinion that he ran a
04:02:35
significant risk of of a conviction. >> With the walls closing in and hours before the trial was set to start,
04:02:43
Michael Hanley indicated he was open to a deal. >> He would plead, you know, to seconddegree kidnapping. Um the minimum
04:02:52
sentence would be 15 years. The maximum sentence would be 35 years. Prosecutors Donnie Ket and Kenny Abear
04:02:59
say there was a lot to take into consideration. >> The problem with a jury trial is you you
04:03:04
almost never know. But I also knew that there's Shauna Hanley, there's Isabella,
04:03:09
you've got victims that have to relive that moment if you go to trial. >> Ultimately, the decision to take the
04:03:15
deal or go to trial was sha. I was so scared that if we went to trial that it could work out beautifully for
04:03:26
him because Michael always lands on his feet. Once Michael's out, I'm no longer free.
04:03:50
In July 2021, all Sha de Hanley wanted was for her ex-husband, Michael Hanley, to stay behind bars. So, she agreed to
04:04:00
accept his plea of guilty to secondderee kidnapping. >> I didn't want to take any risks. I would
04:04:08
rather the plea deal than to take the chance and go to trial. Less than a year later, on March 24th,
04:04:15
2022, Shondaanda was in the courtroom to find out what Michael's sentence would be. Isabella was there, too, as was
04:04:24
Michael. >> What was it like to come face to face with him in court? It was so surreal,
04:04:31
you know, and I think honestly for both of us, it was this really strong, powerful emotion that we both felt, but
04:04:40
mine was hatred. >> Hoping to help convince the judge to give Michael the maximum sentence.
04:04:47
Isabella chose to give a victim impact statement. >> What did you say at the hearing? I
04:04:54
really kind of told a story about how difficult it really made my life and how difficult it still makes my life because
04:05:01
I didn't think he knew that it affected me as well as it affected her. >> Shondaanda also had something she wanted
04:05:08
to say to Michael. >> I told him that he wrecked everything and that he destroyed everything and
04:05:14
that how could you like we had like a really we had a good life. We had a good family and we we adored
04:05:24
each other. He was the person I most admired in this world until then. >> Do you think Michael understands his
04:05:35
actions have had an effect on his former wife and stepchild? >> I think that he does.
04:05:40
>> Do you get to sense the guy's sorry? >> I think so. I think he's capable of remorse. Yet, when it was Michael's turn
04:05:47
to speak, instead of a tearful apology, he gave yet another new story. This time, he admitted he did in fact hire
04:05:56
the two men to kidnap Shonda. But he claimed it was all fake and staged so that he could swoop in, save her, and be
04:06:05
the hero. What he really wanted to do was emerge as the white knight who came in and rescued her. It was a way for him
04:06:13
to try to win her back, but he never really intended to hurt her. It was all a big game.
04:06:20
>> In the end, the judge sided with the prosecution and gave Michael Hanley the maximum penalty.
04:06:27
>> A Lafayette man was sentenced today in the 2017 kidnapping case of his aranged
04:06:33
wife. Lawrence Michael Hanley received 35 years in prison for the crime. 35 years
04:06:41
minus five for time served puts him out when he's 79. >> 79. >> Are you okay with that?
04:06:49
>> I'd rather he never get out. >> Are you still afraid even with him behind bars?
04:06:54
>> Oh, yeah. >> That concern is something Isabella shares. >> Do you fear for your safety from Michael
04:07:03
Hanley? >> Yeah, I do. Nothing could stop him. I just see him as a villain, not a good
04:07:11
person. And I'm not sad about it. In my mind, he's changed to a completely different person. So, it doesn't feel
04:07:20
like I've lost my dad. It feels like I've lost a stranger. >> The now 20-year-old college junior
04:07:26
chooses to focus on the valuable lesson that she learned from her mother. >> It's so
04:07:33
powerful to see how my mom handled this situation. She's shown me how she can overcome something so horrible and turn
04:07:42
it into something great and become an even better person out of it. >> Welcome. Welcome to our house. I'm glad
04:07:50
that um you're here. >> Shondaa has found renewed purpose working with others like her.
04:07:54
>> I know the ladies. >> She sold property, took out a loan, and opened two sober living homes dedicated
04:08:00
to helping women get back on their feet. >> We want you to feel comfortable. I want
04:08:04
you to feel like this is a safe place where you can start a new. >> It's been really really rewarding. And
04:08:11
you know, from my experiences that I've had, um the challenges that I've had, I'm able to show them firsthand that we
04:08:19
get up, we keep going, we put one foot in front of the other, and uh we will persevere.
04:08:26
An important part of moving forward for Shondaanda has been recognizing those who stood by her. And while she did
04:08:34
speak on the phone with Chad Martin, that officer who saved her, >> she never got the chance to thank him in
04:08:41
person until now >> when we arranged for them to meet. >> So good to meet you. >> Good to see you again.
04:08:48
>> Yeah, I'm looking at you to see if I can remember. >> I remember. I'm really glad that uh I
04:08:56
was in the right place at the right time to help you. >> Really glad. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Feel like I owe you
04:09:03
everything. I guess my greatest gratitude in you saving my life is that my daughter gets to have her mom and have a
04:09:11
good life. >> Thank you. Give you another hug. >> Wow. 48 hours. To miss it would be a crime.
04:09:30
>> Were you at all prepared for what happened in this case?