00:00:00
I don't go undercover every day. That's what made me nervous. They had a secret plan. Were you armed? Yes. And you were wearing a wire? Yes. To solve a
00:00:12
baffling case. A college student on a Friday night out who vanished. She was a very shy girl,
00:00:19
but she was something special. The possible suspects? Just about everyone. The friend,
00:00:26
the boyfriend, the mysterious older man, even her mom. I was shocked that they even suspected me.
00:00:35
So why were police at a dead end? Enter this guy. He sees things other cops don't see.
00:00:42
Phenomenal. They call him the evidence whisperer. He's about to crack this case before your eyes.
00:00:49
The answer was in the details. It was right there. And you won't believe how. You walk out of there
00:00:55
thinking I spooked him. It worked. I hoped. I wasn't quite sure. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.
00:01:08
Here's Josh Mankiewicz with The Night Lindsay Disappeared. Sometimes the facts are as clear as the Southern California sky, but other times you have to know
00:01:25
where to look to see the truth. This man has made a career of noticing what others do not.
00:01:34
What's his reputation? A meticulous investigator. Just pours over the volumes of evidence
00:01:40
and finds things that other investigators did not find. The evidence whisperer. Correct.
00:01:45
So that night I went out dancing. Does this man act guilty? Sometimes I didn't lose anything.
00:01:50
Does he know more than he's saying? I mean, I didn't know anything was going on.
00:01:55
All right, I just said, where's Lindsay, okay? What about this man? Can you believe the story he's telling?
00:02:01
I was supposed to pick her up twice, and she was so out of character, she didn't show up on either day.
00:02:07
The evidence whisperer wasn't present at either of those interviews. But watching them helped him solve the mystery of what happened to a vivacious young woman
00:02:17
and bring answers to the mother who loved her. I was always proud of her. She was a real fighter.
00:02:24
Lindsay Eklund arrived on July 22, 1980. She was the youngest of three. Maybe that fighting spirit isn't visible in her photos,
00:02:33
but her mother, Nancy, says it was always there. Lindsay had a passion for animals.
00:02:39
She helped out in her spare time at a local shelter. Kim Davidson, who worked at Lindsay's middle school,
00:02:45
remembers young Lindsay also had a sense of compassion. I was standing outside. I was freezing cold,
00:02:51
and I didn't bring a jacket that day. and I felt these little hands up on my shoulder
00:02:55
and a sweater come up around me and I turned around and it was Lindsay and she said, I just can't stand sitting here watching you shiver
00:03:02
and just wrapped me up in her sweater. She just melted me. And Lindsay gave back in other ways.
00:03:08
Her mother says Lindsay would lie about her age so she could give blood. Remarkable in itself because Lindsay struggled with her own disabilities.
00:03:17
Her left arm was paralyzed. Her left leg impaired. Did she ever talk about how she became disabled?
00:03:23
She had brought it up to me and said that she was in a car accident and that she was thrown in when she was a little girl.
00:03:29
But very, very, just like matter of fact, didn't, you know, not poor me or not feel sorry for me or anything like that.
00:03:36
But growing up, Lindsay needed so much care. Her mother, Nancy, was with Lindsay like her shadow.
00:03:43
Somebody had to be with her 24 hours a day. And that was you? Yes. It was her and I alone.
00:03:50
She was my only purpose in my life was to make her as normal as she could be. By the time Kim met Lindsay, Lindsay's dad and brothers had moved away.
00:04:02
Kim remembers a very tight family unit of just two. How close were Lindsay and Nancy?
00:04:08
Unbelievably, extremely. But as Lindsay reached adolescence, that started changing.
00:04:14
Like a lot of teens, she wanted her own identity. she changed the spelling of her name from this to this.
00:04:22
By high school, there were girlfriends, even some boyfriends. And by the time she was 20, after so many years of mom and daughter
00:04:30
being each other's best friends and confidants, Lindsay began to keep some things in her life to herself,
00:04:37
like where she was really headed one night in February 2001. Does it make any sense that she would lie to you about what she was going to do that night?
00:04:47
I've never known her to lie to me, but you don't know what you don't know. It was a Friday night. Lindsay was in college part-time and working, but still living at home.
00:04:58
She told her mom that instead of their usual Friday night dinner, she was staying the night with a girlfriend named Andrea, someone Nancy had never met.
00:05:08
And then a young man named Chris came to the door to pick Lindsay up. She introduces you to this guy, Chris.
00:05:15
did chris say hello to you uh-huh was he polite he had good manners but nancy says something
00:05:22
felt wrong i had a feeling about him what feeling i don't know but you put it aside
00:05:29
of course nancy was used to things feeling wrong she'd spent so many years worrying about lindsey
00:05:36
it was a struggle to let go but she did the last thing i said to her was remember your seat belt
00:05:44
and she looks over her shoulder and she says, back at you, mom, love you. It's the last thing she said to me.
00:05:51
Nancy locked up the house and went to bed. The next day Lindsay was supposed to call after she was done tutoring two girls from the neighborhood But when the call never came Nancy drove over and found out Lindsay never showed up at her job
00:06:06
All of a sudden, my daughter is not where she's supposed to be. She had taught these little girls like for four months about.
00:06:13
And you have no way of reaching her. I had no way. Nancy Eklund was frantic. I started calling hospitals.
00:06:20
I called the morgue. I mean, that's how desperate I was. see if there was a Jane Doe in the morgue.
00:06:26
There was no Jane Doe. And there was no Lindsay Eklund. Most people who disappear like that,
00:06:33
they come back within a couple of days. If not 24 hours, yes. Is that what you thought was going to happen?
00:06:38
I think we did. Corrine Loomis was a detective with the Placentia Police Department.
00:06:44
You had no unidentified bodies. We had no unidentified bodies. You checked the ER.
00:06:49
We checked everything. We checked everybody. We checked everything. there was just no sign it was just as if she vanished.
00:06:57
Coming up, Lindsay had a secret that she'd kept from just about everyone. When's the last time you saw Lindsay?
00:07:04
A week ago. No, I don't think so. When the night Lindsay disappeared continues. Her daughter was missing.
00:07:25
Nancy Eklund began handing out flyers and counting the days without Lindsay, ticking them off on little post-it notes.
00:07:34
She also went to talk with Detective Corrine Loomis of the Placentia Police Department.
00:07:39
Nancy wanted Corrine to know about her Lindsay, how Nancy always knew where she was, how they were best friends.
00:07:46
It was a speech Corrine Loomis had heard before. It's typical with a lot of parents or family members when they report a missing person.
00:07:55
Sometimes they give you the idea that it's an idyllic family life because I think there's a fear that if they don't paint a very rosy picture of this person,
00:08:05
we're not going to be sympathetic and look for them. That you're not going to work hard.
00:08:07
We're not going to work hard. And I think there was a little bit of that with Nancy.
00:08:12
Placentia PD was working the case. They brought in the usual suspects, like the boyfriend.
00:08:19
When you guys were dating, she hasn't been dating anyone else to your college. His name is Matthew Ramirez.
00:08:25
He was at college with Lindsay. They'd been on and off a bit, but then... When I went to her house Thursday, you know, she was like, I want to break up.
00:08:33
As can happen with young romance, what was off was soon back on. Lindsay and Matt were back together in time for the weekend.
00:08:42
But not in time to make plans for that Friday night. Then in came the last person known to have seen her, Chris McCamus, 21 years old, out
00:09:01
of school. He told the cops he was unemployed. Lindsay had met him through friends about four months prior.
00:09:09
And it turned out he never drove Lindsay to Andrea's house for a sleepover. Chris said that was a lie Lindsey made up for her mother.
00:09:18
The real plan was to go clubbing all night in San Diego. She says don't tell my mom that we're going to San Diego because my mom won't let us
00:09:27
go or won't let me go or something like that. And definitely don't tell her that we're clubbing.
00:09:32
Chris told police that when their night of clubbing went bust, they headed home earlier
00:09:36
than expected. He dropped off the other girls, he said, and then headed to Lindsey's house.
00:09:42
Chris said it was after 4 a.m. when he finally got back here to Lindsay's neighborhood.
00:09:47
And he said that Lindsay was worried that her mom might hear his truck pull up at that hour.
00:09:52
So Chris said Lindsay asked to be dropped off not at her house, but here at the corner, about 50 yards away.
00:09:57
That sounded strange to police, until they heard from Lindsay's friends that at other times, she had asked to be dropped off right here.
00:10:06
Chris said he then drove home and police even found a photo from a bank ATM of what looked like Chris's truck heading north
00:10:16
on the right street at the right time to the cops, Chris's story added up and that was when police learned Matthew and Chris
00:10:26
were not the only men in Lindsay's life there was someone else who both Matthew and Chris had mentioned to investigators
00:10:34
an older man who drove Lindsay around. No one knew his name. They had heard Lindsay refer to him as her friend.
00:10:43
All anybody knows him by, knows him by. As her friend. Yeah. Nancy had no idea Lindsay was friends with any older man.
00:10:54
She was about to find out. Two days after Lindsay vanishes, you get a phone call.
00:10:59
Yes. You're pretty much at your wits end at this point. And the phone rings and it's a guy named Marty.
00:11:04
Did you know a Marty? No. As far as you know, did Lindsay know a Marty? No. Marty told Nancy that he'd gone to pick up Lindsay at school, but she wasn't there.
00:11:14
He said he had money of Lindsay's that she needed for tuition. None of that made any sense to Nancy.
00:11:21
After Lindsay goes missing, Nancy, her mother, gets a phone call from a guy named Marty.
00:11:27
Marty Rossler. And what does Marty Rossler say to her? Marty says that he's befriended Lindsay.
00:11:35
He's a friend of Lindsay's, and he's concerned because he hadn't heard from her.
00:11:39
What did you learn about Marty Rossler? Marty Rossler was not Marty Rossler. Marty Rossler was really Marty Pregenzer.
00:11:47
He did not have a criminal record. What he did have was a relationship with Lindsay that he hadn't told his wife about.
00:11:54
He told police he often pick Lindsay up and give her rides but that was about it Marty was 58 And she was 20 And she was 20 And they were boyfriend and girlfriend
00:12:06
Don't think so. There you go. So police brought in Marty. Over two days, they recorded those interviews.
00:12:14
At times on video and sometimes just on audio tape. When's the last time you saw Lindsay?
00:12:21
A week ago. No. No, I don't think so. Absolutely. No, absolutely not. Marty said that he had last seen Lindsay the day that she went to San Diego on that Friday.
00:12:33
Did you believe him? We really didn't believe him. They didn't believe him because of a tip they'd received.
00:12:40
a clerk at a local clothing store had called to say she'd seen Lindsay and a much older man who
00:12:46
matched Marty's description together at her store after the day Lindsay went missing.
00:12:54
I flat wasn't there on that day, okay? I have been in that store, right? And like I said,
00:12:59
I'm like you. I mean, I'm easily, you know, identified, okay? I mean, probably every place
00:13:05
I've been with her would know that I was in there with her, okay? It was a very long, very long interview.
00:13:11
Friendly? No, no. I remember drilling down on him because I really thought that he might know where Lindsay was.
00:13:20
You're a parent? Yes. Okay. How many kids do you have? Two. If you had a child gone for eight days, okay, vanished, vaporized in thin air,
00:13:33
would your heart not be broken? Oh, absolutely. Do you not feel some compassion for Nancy?
00:13:42
Unbelievable. I think this is a nice girl, and this family's had their share of hardships,
00:13:48
and this is just, you know, I feel so helpless. I don't think you are helpless. I think you can help us.
00:13:56
Marty insisted he couldn't, that he didn't know what had happened to Lindsay. Detectives weren't buying.
00:14:02
Have you harmed Lindsay? No. No. No. Never been touched. Either by accident? No.
00:14:10
Accidents happen? Never touched them. Okay? No. Never touched them. Okay. This girl is...
00:14:17
Have you put her someplace where she's left? No. No. Police searched Marty's home and found nothing.
00:14:23
No proof that Marty had anything to do with Lindsay's disappearance. So they moved on to a new suspect.
00:14:30
Someone closer to Lindsay than anyone else on earth. Coming up... I was shocked that they even suspected me.
00:14:40
Lindsay's own mother. Were investigators ruling her out or roping her in? I don't know what this is all about.
00:14:48
When Dateline continues. Nancy and Lindsay had been together all Lindsay's life.
00:15:04
Now alone, Nancy waited, ticking off the days. In the dark, about where her daughter was and about the pace of the investigation.
00:15:12
Police were not keeping her in the loop. So Nancy was delighted when they called to say they were coming to visit.
00:15:19
You look at the boyfriend, Matthew. You look at Marty, the older guy, the relationship nobody knew about.
00:15:26
He denies it. Right. You look at Chris. He says, I dropped her off. I never saw her again.
00:15:31
Right. And you look at Lindsay's mother. We did look at Lindsay's mother. You have to.
00:15:37
So I made my cookies and all this kind of silly stuff that I always do. The cops weren't coming for coffee. They arrived with a search warrant.
00:15:48
I was shocked that they even suspected me. I didn't know what even a search warrant was.
00:15:54
The house Nancy and Lindsay had once shared was torn apart. How much of a suspect was Nancy?
00:16:02
I don't know that Nancy was on the radar for a long time. She was on the radar long enough to be able to set her aside.
00:16:09
After that search, they did just that. They believed this anguished mother had nothing to do with the disappearance of her daughter.
00:16:17
So they took Nancy off the list. They also took off the boyfriend, Matthew. He had an alibi that held up, putting him somewhere else at the time Lindsay went missing.
00:16:27
So that left just two. I haven't seen her since that day. Marty, whom police didn't trust because of his secret relationship with Lindsay
00:16:37
and because he had lied about his identity. And the man who dropped Lindsay off at that corner,
00:16:44
the last person to see her before she vanished, Chris McAmus. Go on in here, grab a seat at the end.
00:16:51
Do you remember current limit? Yeah. April 2002, more than a year after Lindsay went missing, detectives decided to start over.
00:17:01
They brought Chris McCamuss back to see if his story still held up. I really wouldn't like to think that Lindsay has been either abducted or something's happened to her.
00:17:13
Quite well, I'd like to. I'd really rather think that she was friends or anything like that.
00:17:19
Police turned up the heat. Let's cut the bull about an imposter. If I sit down and be nitty-gritty and strip away that I'd like to think,
00:17:26
and in my Pollyanna mind, you know, if all things in a perfect world, then I'd hope she's fall asleep on a beach someplace, okay?
00:17:33
It's a possibility, she said. Right. Police thought Chris seemed oddly calm, talking about a friend who may have been murdered.
00:17:44
Well, if it turns out somebody killed her, what do you think should happen? Find him
00:17:53
I want to find him in the middle of it I never How long does it take to jail Long as it takes I don like what
00:18:07
I don't know. I'm going to go to jail for a while. That's as strong as you could get out of it.
00:18:17
That's as strong as we could get out of him. Not he ought to go to hell or I'd personally electrocute him.
00:18:23
I'd personally electrocute him. He should get the gas chamber. She was my friend.
00:18:27
She wouldn't deserve that. She wouldn't hurt a fly. There was nothing. His lack of emotion was suggestive that perhaps Chris should move to the top of the list.
00:18:37
But it was not evidence. After the interview, Chris McAmus was free to leave. And detectives weren't any closer to learning what happened to Lindsay Eklund.
00:18:46
And neither was Nancy, who remained convinced her daughter would one day just come home.
00:18:52
You thought that one day she would walk back through the door? Yes. She believed it because she wanted to,
00:19:01
and because over the years several people had told her they'd seen Lindsay. They never saw the front of her face.
00:19:08
They always saw the back of her, and I held on to every word they said. Her friend Kim remembers how hard it was on Nancy, thinking Lindsay had just left her.
00:19:18
She went through the period of her being angry at her and thought, okay, maybe she is, maybe she did leave me.
00:19:25
And she threw some of her pictures out and clothes out. She threw Lindsay's stuff away.
00:19:29
She did, I think because she was so angry and thought, how could she do that? How could she leave me?
00:19:34
How could she leave me? It was torture for Nancy, no matter what version of events you believed.
00:19:41
And police still weren't telling her anything. Nancy, during all this time, feels like she's been sort of cut out of the loop.
00:19:50
Yes. Like, you're not telling her anything. Maybe you're not actually working on it.
00:19:56
Right. Whatever you are doing, you're certainly not sharing it with her. Nancy was pretty angry.
00:20:02
We worked this case diligently for a long time. At some point, you hit the wall.
00:20:09
There are nine detectives in Placentia working everything. Drugs, gangs, rapes, murder, and cold cases.
00:20:17
By 2008, it was clear Placentia PD had hit that wall. They would need help on this one.
00:20:25
And who they needed was a guy named Larry. Tell me about Larry. Larry is phenomenal.
00:20:32
Phenomenal because, what, he sees things other cops don't see? Phenomenal because he sees things cops don't see.
00:20:39
I don't know anybody who could have done a better job than Larry. The evidence whisperer was about to listen to what the facts of this case were really saying.
00:20:53
Coming up, was there something that police had missed? You bet. That picture of the truck spotted on the night of the crime?
00:21:02
Something about it just doesn't seem right. And the evidence whisperer is all over it.
00:21:08
When the Night Lindsay Disappeared continues. By 2008, Lindsay Eklund had been missing for seven years.
00:21:27
The case had gone from cold to frozen in time. So Placentia PD decided to outsource the investigation
00:21:35
to the cold case unit at the Orange County DA's office to a guy named Larry Montgomery.
00:21:42
With more than 30 years working homicide, Larry's put away his share of bad guys, not usually by knocking on doors.
00:21:51
Instead, Larry works by looking very closely at the evidence. He doesn't work fast. In fact, Larry is meticulously slow.
00:22:01
And that was just what this cold case needed. Was there anything in the original investigation that struck you as something that you needed to reexamine?
00:22:11
Everything. Everything that had led Placentia police into that wall, trying to decide between two suspects.
00:22:18
I mean, I'm concerned about this girl, okay? You know, and she's missing. Marty, Lindsay's older friend who kept their relationship a secret
00:22:27
and lied about his name. And Chris. In my heart, it seems like she might just go on it.
00:22:34
The last person known to have seen Lindsay when he dropped her off at that corner.
00:22:38
At that point, any idea on your part? Which of those two was a more likely suspect?
00:22:43
No, I don't know until I get into it and see the details. You're no doubt aware that you've got a reputation for believing that, I don't know if God's in the details, but guilt's in the details.
00:22:53
And innocence. Guilty or innocent? Was it Marty or Chris? Larry even considered another possibility.
00:23:02
Could it have been random? Someone who'd seen Lindsay at just the wrong time. So you've got a bad guy just waiting, hoping that a girl drops out of a car at 425 in the morning.
00:23:14
It happens. Yep. And you consider that, but then you weigh it. And you go, is that a good possibility?
00:23:21
Probably not, but still keep an open mind. And so Larry sat down and read through the entire case file, all the witness statements, all the interviews.
00:23:31
He did that for two years. Here we go down this dead house road again. He watched the February 2001 interview that police did with a very unhappy Marty.
00:23:43
Doesn't it strike you as tremendously suspicious that Marty would call after Lindsey disappears,
00:23:50
talk to Lindsey's mother, and give a phony name? If you didn't know the background of Marty, then absolutely.
00:24:00
on the phone, I just gave an identifier, okay? I mean, Marty Ressler, that's what I said,
00:24:05
okay? Right. Which is a lie. Which is a lie. Watching that interview, Larry chalked up Marty's
00:24:12
dishonesty as an attempt to save his marriage. I don't want my wife to be brought into this thing.
00:24:20
Larry also took a closer look at the idea that Marty and Lindsay were together at that clothing
00:24:26
store after she went missing. I flat wasn't there on that day, okay? No one ever found any security video of that, and Larry's learned over the years that well-meaning
00:24:37
people often get dates wrong. And Larry learned a key fact. Marty had actually participated in those early searches for Lindsay.
00:24:47
You eliminated Marty fairly quickly then. Yes. Marty's behavior matched up with that of an innocent person, not with a guilty one.
00:24:56
That's correct. He is actually doing exactly what you would do if you were looking for Lindsay. He was searching.
00:25:01
So Larry Montgomery turned his attention to Chris McAmis. Guilty or innocent? Chris was the last person known to be with Lindsay. He told police he drove straight home after dropping Lindsay off.
00:25:18
And police found that photo of what looked like his truck heading north away from Lindsay's neighborhood, which took him past this ATM camera.
00:25:26
The video from the ATM camera, police at the time saw that as not ironclad proof that Chris was telling the truth, but suggestive that what he said, he actually did.
00:25:40
Correct. But when Larry compared photos of Chris's truck with the photos from the bank, he saw something no one else had noticed.
00:25:49
The paint on the back of the side view mirrors on Chris's truck was white. What about the truck in the photo?
00:25:58
The truck in the photo had a dark spot in that area, which means whatever mirrors were there, if there were mirrors there, they were black.
00:26:04
So it's not the same truck. That's right, it's not. Suddenly, Chris's alibi had a big hole in it.
00:26:11
Larry moved on to Chris's history with women. Two ex-girlfriends talked to police about how Chris would become unhinged by rejection, or what he called disrespect.
00:26:22
Larry heard about how Chris had once crushed a pet crab with a hammer right in front of one of his girlfriends
00:26:28
because he thought the crab had killed one of his fish. This is a guy with some significant anger issues.
00:26:36
It certainly appears that way. She told me it was from a car accident. Larry listened to Chris' interviews
00:26:41
and caught him talking some of the time about Lindsay in the past tense. Hand was pretty much stuck like this.
00:26:49
Okay. Then Larry found something in the paperwork from Placentia PD that proved Chris McCamus had lied to the police early on
00:26:59
about his whereabouts on Saturday, February 17th, the day Lindsay didn't come home.
00:27:06
Chris had told the cops he stayed close to home, but Larry checked Chris's credit card statement.
00:27:13
There was one entry on February 17th, and it turns out it was Santa Clarita, which is 50 miles north of where Chris lived.
00:27:22
Why would Chris be in Santa Clarita? Well, that's what I wanted to know. Digging through the reports, Larry found information about Chris's dad,
00:27:33
that he was in construction, and that in 2000 and 2001, he had a job site in Santa Clarita.
00:27:41
You can't tell now, but back in 2001, this was a major construction site. Now, Chris had told police that he did not work for his dad that winter, that he was on unemployment.
00:27:52
But Larry saw some big cash deposits going into Chris's bank account in addition to his unemployment checks.
00:27:58
So he thought that Chris might have been working for his dad off the books. And Larry came up here to ask around.
00:28:05
And they told you that it was Chris's father's construction company? Chris's father did some of the tractor work at that site.
00:28:12
And Chris worked there? And Chris was one of the tractor drivers that the superintendent said was there every day.
00:28:17
Is this where you thought to yourself, that's where Lindsay Eklund is? I thought chances are excellent that if I killed Lindsay and I was in Chris McAmos' situation
00:28:29
and I had use of a tractor out in the middle of nowhere, I might use that tractor to dig a hole to put her in.
00:28:36
Now, all the evidence Whisperer had to do was prove it. Coming up an undercover operation Were you armed Yes And you were wearing a wire Yes Could she help them get the proof they need
00:28:56
His color in his face went white. When Dateline continues. It was October of 2010, nine years after her daughter disappeared.
00:29:20
Nancy Eklund was still waiting and doing what she could. She was now at 3,535 days without Lindsay.
00:29:29
She didn't know it, but a few miles away, Larry Montgomery was tightening the noose around Chris McAmos.
00:29:38
Larry had recruited a motorcycle cop from a nearby town to go undercover. They needed a police officer who looked like a college student and didn't have the mannerisms of a police officer.
00:29:50
Officer Spring Sandelli fit the bill. How were you dressed? Jeans on and just a little shirt, something that a college student would wear, but something that I would also appeal to a guy.
00:30:03
Were you armed? Yes. And you were wearing a wire? Yes. Hi, are you Chris? Yes. Hi, my name is Nicole Anderson.
00:30:13
I'm from Fullerton College Torch Magazine. Officer Sendeli was posing as a student reporter, complete with a phony press pass.
00:30:22
She knocked on Chris's front door. Chris had talked to a student reporter from Lindsay's College in the past about the case.
00:30:30
You used your real name? No, I used a fake name. I told him who I was. Well, we just received word at the Torch Magazine that remains have been found that they believe belonged to Lindsay.
00:30:42
So I guess they're doing DNA testing right now. And in the meantime, I'm supposed to go contact friends, family to get their initial reaction for a story.
00:30:52
Okay. When I told him that the police believe that they found Lindsay's remains, his demeanor changed.
00:30:57
How? Quite drastically, actually. I could see that his color in his face went white.
00:31:03
The police had not found Lindsay's remains. That was a lie. Police do it all the time, and it's legal.
00:31:10
In fact, Larry had tried to find Lindsay up at the construction location where Chris had worked, and he'd gotten some interest from cadaver dogs, but nothing more.
00:31:21
Just down the street from Chris's house, Detective Bryce Angel of Placentia PD, who'd been assigned to work with Larry, was listening and keeping an eye on the action.
00:31:32
So you're watching him while this interview happens on his front doorstep? Yeah, I was sitting, you know, 10 houses down watching the reporter,
00:31:39
or the undercover police officer. Once she left the area, we were in business. What happened?
00:31:45
Later that night, he was seen coming out of his house and going into the garage.
00:31:51
Lights go on, and we're talking like 3 o'clock in the morning. It was clearly a sign of somebody who couldn't sleep.
00:31:56
Detectives were sure that they had rattled their suspect. The next day, they trailed Chris when he left his house.
00:32:02
and at some point it became apparent that he knew that we were following him. They broke off surveillance and brought Chris in.
00:32:14
Larry had read all about Chris McAmus and he'd looked at tape of every time Chris had been in for an interview.
00:32:23
Today, he and Chris were going to meet for the first time. I have been investigating this case for about two years now as a cold case investigator.
00:32:32
Larry had a plan to get Chris to talk without asking for a lawyer. You probably want to know what's going on, what's happening, why you're sitting here.
00:32:40
Larry promised to fill him in on the case in detail, thinking Chris would want to know if the cops had the goods.
00:32:47
And then, maybe, he'd have something to say. Since you're under arrest, I do have to advise you of your rights, which I will do in a moment.
00:32:53
After that, what I'd like to do is I'd like to explain to you everything. Larry read Chris his rights.
00:32:58
And then before Chris could really respond, Larry laid out his case. He said he knew Chris had never dropped Lindsay off that night.
00:33:07
Because the ATM photo that at first fooled investigators actually proved Chris wasn't there.
00:33:14
It wasn't your truck. But for years, it was thought of that it was your truck. It's not.
00:33:19
Matter of fact, your truck did not go by that night. It wasn't there. He told Chris about the credit card statement and how he found someone who remembered Chris
00:33:29
working on the job site. All of a sudden big red flags You know you are working You are up there when you said you were not But he said you guys don work on Saturday Lindsay disappeared on a Saturday morning None of your credit
00:33:46
card usage up there is on any weekend. All of it's on weekdays except for the day Lindsay
00:33:53
disappeared. So you're not up there working that day. He told Chris the lie about Lindsay
00:33:57
being found. We went and recently got DNA from mother and dad of Lindsay and had that
00:34:03
checked against the body and it's Lindsay. So now we've got Lindsay up there right in the area
00:34:09
where you were right at the time when you did not drop her off and we have enough to prove the crime.
00:34:16
And knowing about Chris's anger issues with previous girlfriends, Larry summoned up a little
00:34:22
empathy to draw Chris in. I know that you have that ability to be angry but I don't know what
00:34:30
what would cause her to get you that angry, or what she could have done. Chris didn't say much until a little body language revealed
00:34:39
that Larry was on the right track. Was it a premeditated thing? I didn't think it was.
00:34:47
So what did she do? Larry finished talking. He was hoping Chris would give it up.
00:34:57
I think I need a lawyer to talk to you about this with me. Well, it's up to you.
00:35:07
The Supreme Court has made it pretty clear. If someone declares that they want an attorney,
00:35:12
the interview is supposed to stop until one can be hired or provided. But in this case, Larry was walking a line,
00:35:21
believing that asking for a lawyer isn't the same as wondering if you need one. Corrine Loomis was watching from another room.
00:35:29
That's about as close as you can get to the I want a lawyer line without actually crossing it.
00:35:34
Saying that I want it. Right. Were you holding your breath when he said that? Yes. This was a make or break interview.
00:35:39
If he didn't confess, he was going to walk again. Coming up. I knew that was the moment of truth.
00:35:49
Years of mystery come down to one chance. Nobody likes to be labeled a monster. only you have the other side of the story.
00:35:57
What kind of story would he tell when The Night Lindsay Disappeared continues? I need to know what occurred so I do the right thing
00:36:16
because something happened there. Larry Montgomery spoke for 45 minutes. he'd given Chris McAmas everything he had.
00:36:25
Take a look on your credit card usage. The photo, the job site. How well did you know Lindsey?
00:36:31
This is not a very convenient time right now, so... Okay. The phony story about finding the body.
00:36:37
And then the interview had suddenly stopped dead. I think I need a lawyer to talk to you about this with me.
00:36:46
Well, it's up to you. And because Chris said, I think I need a lawyer and not, I want a lawyer, Larry thought whatever came next would be admissible in court.
00:36:57
Detective Angel, who'd been letting Larry do the talking, then spoke up. So I knew that was the moment of truth. I had to interject something very quickly.
00:37:06
Chris, nobody likes to be labeled a monster. And in this case, that's the way it's pointing.
00:37:12
only you have the other side of the story nobody is going to be able to speak for you that's why we're here now
00:37:24
that's it it's a reason everything happens i'm sure there was some circumstances that happened that night
00:37:36
or that morning he kind of sighed and he laid out a story all right what happened was and suddenly you realize this is it he's going to give it up
00:37:50
i was sitting next to the detective from the other agency and i reached over and grabbed his arm and
00:37:56
i said he is going to confess it was sad and it was ugly she uh i was going to take her home
00:38:06
She was telling me, why don't I just slip over your place because I don't want to upset
00:38:13
my mom. Makes sense. As Larry had suspected, Chris never dropped off Lindsey at that corner.
00:38:21
I was trying to kiss her and then she elbowed me in the chest and then i went to my um i went to my kitchen in my apartment
00:38:37
and i drank a lot of vodka and then i went back and i tried to do the same thing
00:38:44
she pretended to be asleep and I pulled her pants down and I was totally drunk she got up said oh my god what are you doing
00:39:03
I'm calling the police when I got up and walked to her she tried to knock me out with my phone
00:39:09
my home phone did she just a base yeah she like this to my face okay and being drunk it enraged me it set me on fire and I grabbed her throw her onto my bed
00:39:29
and I got her into a headlock. Okay. And she died. Then what did you do? Then I tried to figure out what I should do
00:39:44
because I couldn't believe how it just happened that way. Quickly, huh? I couldn't believe it.
00:39:50
I thought she was just going to pass out and I ended up killing her. That was it.
00:39:55
Lindsay Eklund had been killed before anyone realized she was even missing. Chris says he then drove up to the work site
00:40:04
and used a skip loader to dig a hole. He held out of Lindsay's body for a few days
00:40:10
and then when no one was around, he buried her. Did it feel any better to finally know?
00:40:17
No, because I was really devastated. There was a relief, but I wasn't any happier because of it.
00:40:25
After the confession, detectives left Chris in the interview room with another detective to watch him.
00:40:32
And Chris simply could not stop talking. Unbelievable. What's that turn? Oh, it's been so long.
00:40:41
You know what feels better? When you finally just say what you were supposed to say.
00:40:48
You know? I know my life is ruined now. You know if I'm going to get the death penalty for this?
00:41:00
You're going to have to ask them those questions. All right. See ya. Then Larry came back.
00:41:08
Always meticulous. He wasn't done. He wanted that final detail. Where approximately was it that you dug the hole in the putter?
00:41:15
Where exactly Chris had left Lindsay. Right up in here. He explained to Chris that even though they'd found her remains, which wasn't true,
00:41:24
the gravesite had shifted over the years from flooding. Which was where the tractor was parked and exactly where you dug the hole.
00:41:33
With the detectives, Chris returned to the site that had become Lindsay's final resting place.
00:41:39
And right where this tree is, I pulled my truck over and parked it. This tree to our left here?
00:41:46
Uh-huh. Right where this tree is. didn't used to exist there when we had construction.
00:41:50
Okay. He wasn't sure of the exact spot. It's over in this vicinity. But it could be way up there or way over here.
00:42:03
It could be from this tree all the way to that brush. That brush over there? Yeah.
00:42:07
It took more than a day of digging to find what was left of Lindsay. First they found a shoe, then a jacket, and a bracelet.
00:42:16
it. That's how Nancy knew they'd found her. The coroner confirmed it using dental records.
00:42:22
The back of my truck was over here. Two years after he confessed, Chris McCamus pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
00:42:31
The machine was over there. His sentence is 15 years to life. You told me that you thought you would let this consume your life too much.
00:42:42
Oh, it does to this day. Well, now it's over. What are you going to do? I don't know.
00:42:52
A new life is opening up to you, and I don't know. I don't have any answers. I just had to get over this.
00:43:06
That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.