00:00:04
CARRIE MCGONIGLE:
Where is Amber? AMBER MCGONIGLE: Sure! I'm gonna get you! CARRIE MCGONICGLE: Uh-oh.
00:00:12
She's gonna get you. I'm gonna get you! CARRIE MCGONIGLE: She's
coming to get you.
00:00:17
(SINGING) Dah, dah, dun-dun,
doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. Doo, doo, doo. [CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]
00:00:24
[GENTLE MUSIC] Ali was four years old
when Amber went missing, so Ali doesn't have any
recollection of her sister
00:00:33
at all, which makes her sad. CARRIE MCGONIGLE: Ready? Got to get your balance. You know I'm ready.
00:00:39
Come on.
Hey. There you go.
Ready? Come on. Oh, there's you and your sissy. Isn't that cute?
00:00:46
[TENSE MUSIC] ROBERT BENTON (VOICEOVER): Amber
was last seen just before 7:00. We believe that she did
leave the house shortly after
00:00:58
and then walked to school. CARRIE MCGONICGLE: I thought
someone had abducted her.
00:01:04
I never stopped looking for her. I mean, there was only so
much searching you could do,
00:01:08
but I was coming up with
ideas to keep her story alive. ROBERT BENTON: There
were over 1,500 tips that
00:01:15
came into our tip
line and over 500 potential sightings of Amber. CARRIE MCGONICGLE:
I always thought it
00:01:22
was a stranger that took her. Nobody just vanishes
without a trace. It just doesn't happen.
00:01:29
DAVE BROWN (VOICEOVER):
There are posters on every store you walk into. There are bumper stickers,
billboards all over town.
00:01:35
And it was absolutely
a stranger abduction. CARRIE MCGONICGLE: I got a phone
call from one of my volunteers
00:01:42
that said another
girl has gone missing. BILL GORE: As we continued
the search through the night
00:01:48
and the next day,
it was our hope that she had been abducted, and
she was still alive someplace,
00:01:53
and being held. CARRIE MCGONICGLE: Then, of
course, my mindset is going, is it a serial killer?
00:01:59
Or, you know, your mind
just goes crazy after that. [DRAMATIC MUSIC] CARRIE MCGONIGLE: She was
the most beautiful baby ever.
00:02:27
I used to take her to the mall,
and I would come back home, and change her outfit, and
take her back to the mall
00:02:33
just so people would tell
me how beautiful she was. Because she was just like
a perfect little angel.
00:02:39
Oh, there you are. There's how you do it. There's How you do it. Say hi. Are you Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer?
00:02:49
[CHATTER] [CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS] [DRAMATIC MUSIC] I woke up early for
work that morning.
00:02:59
And I went in and woke
Amber up and told her I'd be home from work early. And we could go see a movie
or do something together,
00:03:05
and she said thank you. And I told her I loved her, and
I would see her see her later.
00:03:11
And I left for work. Amber had to be at school
at 7:50 or something. The walk would usually take
her 10 minutes, 15 at the most.
00:03:20
And she walked to
school every day. Amber's stepfather got home and
called me, and that was, like,
00:03:27
4 o'clock when he
got home from work. --and told me that
Amber wasn't home yet and if I knew where she was at.
00:03:33
And at that time, I
called her cell phone, and she didn't pick up. And then Dave called
me back and said
00:03:39
he went to the high school. She didn't make it
to school today. ROBERT BENTON:
February 13, 2009.
00:03:47
Our patrol division responded
to a call of a missing person, a 14-year-old girl, that the
family had reported missing
00:03:54
from Escondido High School. I believe the police were
already there when I got home.
00:04:00
And they asked me
what she was wearing. And I said, probably
jeans and a black hoodie.
00:04:04
And I said something
bad has happened to her. Can we do an AMBER Alert? You know, and he's
like, you can't
00:04:08
do an AMBER Alert
unless there's a vehicle involved that we know of. ROBERT BENTON: Our officer that
took the report realized right
00:04:17
away that although he has
taken many missing persons reports and especially
young juveniles,
00:04:22
this one seemed
different to him. He decided to go to
Escondido High School, and to search the
school, and then
00:04:28
see if he could find
any of the teachers there to confirm whether
she actually made
00:04:32
it to school or not that day. CARRIE MCGONIGLE: The
school called the house and left a message saying
Amber didn't make it to school,
00:04:38
but we weren't home. We were both at work, so
we didn't get that message. I didn't think she had
lost track of time,
00:04:45
because I kept calling
her cell phone. And she wasn't answering,
and it's just not like her.
00:04:50
I knew the second
that she didn't make it to school that
something bad had happened.
00:04:53
[BIRDS CHIRPING] ROBERT BENTON: The officer
talked to some of her friends. They said that she had not
gone to school that day.
00:05:03
And so he had brought in other
patrol officers, as well as a K-9, and they searched
the entire school grounds,
00:05:09
including kind of a rural river
area that's behind the school. They searched that
whole area, and they
00:05:16
didn't discover anything. The officer that took
the initial report marked it as a suspicious
missing which then rose
00:05:24
to the investigation's level. There was obviously
a lapse between when she had left the
house that morning
00:05:33
and never arrived to
school to the time that actually, we got the call
for the missing person report,
00:05:39
which was later that night. When any child goes missing,
timescales are so crucial.
00:05:47
The first hour is known
as the golden hour, and that's because
that is when we've
00:05:52
got the most chance of finding
that child alive and well. And actually, many
children go missing,
00:05:57
and they're usually found
within that time frame. But then, as the first
24 hours ticks by,
00:06:03
the first 48 hours,
and so on and so on, the chances of finding them
and finding them alive and well
00:06:11
just diminish by the minute. ROBERT BENTON (VOICEOVER):
We accessed all her emails.
00:06:16
We accessed all her cell
phone texts that we could get, her voicemail, as well
as her internet history.
00:06:22
And what we found was
that she liked to read. She had a couple close friends. She was not making
contacts on the internet
00:06:31
that we could find. And the websites
that she visited were all about animals and
learning more about animals.
00:06:38
[GENTLE MUSIC] "God made animals because
they are nice and cute. I like horses and cats."
00:06:47
WOMAN: Oh, little baby! [LAUGHTER] CARRIE MCGONIGLE:
"And if I found $1, I would buy one tadpole.
00:06:53
And I will watch the first
one turn into a frog. When I grow up, I want to be
a marine biologist because I
00:07:02
want to work at SeaWorld." In eighth grade, the
agricultural teachers came to the junior high
school, and Amber was hooked.
00:07:12
She was-- from that day on, she
came home and she's like, Mom, I'm gonna raise a lamb.
00:07:15
And I get to go to a fair,
and I get to show this lamb. And you know, she was
just so excited about it.
00:07:21
ROBERT BENTON: The
school had a program that-- they could
purchase livestock sheep that she could
raise through a Future
00:07:27
Farmers program. I made her write me a
letter telling me how she was gonna take care of this animal.
00:07:33
And I wasn't gonna be
responsible for doing anything. She would make sure
she had it covered
00:07:37
and that she would do
a good job raising it. And she had named it Nanette. Well, it was the
last day to turn
00:07:45
in the deposit for the lamb. ROBERT BENTON: In talking
to the family and Carrie in particular, she knew that
Amber would never run away.
00:07:53
She knew how excited
she was to get the lamb and that the only thing that
would stop her from getting it
00:07:58
would be somebody taking her. [TENSE MUSIC] Our officers started handing
out flyers that very next day.
00:08:11
The one thing that we always try
to reiterate to the community is that if you see somebody that
you think is a missing person,
00:08:19
report it immediately. We had two people step
forward, two parents, one that said that they had seen
Amber on that Friday walking
00:08:29
to school, and then a second
mother who actually had taken Amber to school on
multiple occasions
00:08:37
was driving her
daughter to school. And that morning on February
13th, it was kind of a drizzly,
00:08:43
rainy day. And so she felt bad that
Amber was walking in the rain. When she stopped
to pick Amber up,
00:08:50
her daughter said,
oh, Mom, it looks like she's talking to a boy. We should leave her alone.
00:08:56
So they continued on to school. I just went in this
room, and I started going through all
of her stuff, trying
00:09:03
to see if there was a boy, just
looking for any kind of clue, you know, going through
all of her stuff,
00:09:08
just trying to figure
out if she had taken off. Although I knew in my heart she
wouldn't take off, but I just--
00:09:13
you know, everything goes
through your mind at that time. And you just don't know.
00:09:19
We did get several
more phone calls from people who thought
that they had seen her
00:09:24
not only in downtown
Escondido, but also in the area of her house,
up in the area that
00:09:30
was called The Caves. It was kind of a rock area. We went and we investigated
all those sightings,
00:09:38
and we were never
able to confirm that she was in downtown
or in those cave areas.
00:09:43
[TENSE MUSIC] CARRIE MCGONIGLE:
Two male detectives and one female police
officer came to the house
00:09:51
to interview us. And they asked why so many
people were at my house. And I said, they're
all looking for Amber.
00:09:58
And we sat in the living room. And it was myself, and the
three officers, and Dave.
00:10:04
ROBERT BENTON: So
what we did learn was that there was some
friction between Amber
00:10:08
and her stepfather, Dave Cave,
regarding the amount of time that she would spend in
her bedroom with the door
00:10:14
closed reading books. He thought that she should
socialize more with the family and she should be more
part of the family unit.
00:10:23
Amber was your typical,
you know, teenager. And so yeah, they had a lot of-- they had a lot of disagreements.
00:10:28
There was always tension
between them as a stepdad and a teenage daughter. We sat in the living room.
00:10:35
And they had me walk
through my day at work, and what I did at
work, and what time
00:10:40
I clocked in and clocked out,
and what time I went to lunch. And I told them all that.
00:10:43
And then it was Dave's turn. I know that Amber
got up that morning and asked Dave for the
check for the lamb.
00:10:50
And then, when he came
down to leave for work, he put the check on the
edge of the couch, said,
00:10:56
there you go, and
he went to work. Dave was like, oh, I went
to the personal trainer
00:11:02
and then I came home. And they were like, which
way did you come home? And he couldn't remember
which way he came home.
00:11:06
And then he was like,
I went to a movie. And I'm like, no,
you came by my work. And he's like, oh, yeah.
00:11:11
Then I went to her work. And then I went to a movie. And I was like, you went to a
movie in the middle of the day
00:11:15
instead of going to work?
He's like, yeah. And I'm like,
well, that's weird. And then he goes, I came home
and started doing tax papers.
00:11:20
And I'm like, what do
you mean you came home and started doing tax papers? Then you would have been
home when the school called.
00:11:25
You didn't check the messages? And he's like, no. I didn't check the messages. I'm like, you always
check the messages.
00:11:30
Why didn't you
check the messages? ROBERT BENTON: Even Carrie
said it was a very unusual day.
00:11:35
He never visited her at her
work, and even to the point that she thought,
why is he here?
00:11:41
And she knew it
was February 13th and they would be
celebrating Valentine's Day.
00:11:46
But she even said, this
is very unusual for Dave. So that certainly put
our attention on Dave.
00:11:53
CARRIE MCGONIGLE: And
I'm like, holy crap. Why don't you just
arrest him now? I'm like, Dave, your whole day,
you're just mixing it all up.
00:11:59
He's like, well, I'm just
a little stressed out. And I'm like, no. I mean, you don't remember
anything you're saying.
00:12:04
I'm like, I mean,
if I were them, I would arrest you right now. Like, you know,
this is ridiculous.
00:12:10
[TENSE MUSIC] BRYANNA FOX: There
are a few things that police look for when
they're investigating
00:12:15
a case of a missing child. Is there any
indication that child was abused, traumatized,
running away from those parents?
00:12:23
Did the parents have
any role to play in that child going missing? All of this information can
be gleaned from parents.
00:12:31
And police are obviously
trying to weigh these out delicately, because
there's also a chance
00:12:36
that that child was abducted. And they don't want
to further traumatize the parents by asking these
very difficult questions.
00:12:41
[TENSE MUSIC] CARRIE MCGONIGLE: It
was kind of a blur. We searched all weekend. And my friend brought
over their motor home,
00:12:51
and we put it at the
church near our house and set it up like
a search center, even though we didn't
know what we were doing.
00:12:58
And really, I just spent a
lot of time in Amber's room, crying and praying that
she would come home.
00:13:02
[DRAMATIC MUSIC] Say hi. WOMAN: Happy birthday, Amber. Say hi for the camera. Say hi.
00:13:14
[LAUGHS] Say hi. Say I love you. I don't know. Say I love you. [CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]
00:13:23
CARRIE MCGONIGLE: Amber
was my best friend. We did everything together. Every time I did anything,
I would always ask Amber,
00:13:31
you know, do you
want to do this? And we just always had a good
time, and a lot of laughs,
00:13:37
and just hung out. This was our last trip we took. My mom, and Amber, and I took
it after her eighth grade
00:13:49
graduation. It was actually less than a
year before she went missing. [GENTLE MUSIC]
00:14:05
ROBERT BENTON:
Obviously, we went through the different options. So did she voluntarily
go missing?
00:14:10
Who was this boy that
she was potentially walking with that the
eyewitness had said--
00:14:15
Did she run away
with this person? Did this person take
her or kidnap her? CARRIE MCGONIGLE:
I knew from day one
00:14:23
that she didn't go
with anyone she knew. I knew that she didn't
have a boyfriend somewhere.
00:14:28
I knew in my heart that
a stranger had taken her. I never thought
anything different.
00:14:33
I never thought a family
member or anyone else-- I knew that she had been taken.
00:14:37
I just didn't know by
who, and I didn't know if I would ever find her again. So I'm looking at a map
of Escondido High School.
00:14:46
This is the area
where the witnesses said that they last saw her. And so those two
independent eyewitnesses
00:14:54
putting her so close
to the school, that was our starting point
for the investigation.
00:14:59
And what we found was, there is
a camera system that was right there at the bus parking lot.
00:15:07
So we looked at all the video
of that bus parking lot. And in that, there was
a suspicious red truck
00:15:14
that drove in. It stayed for a
couple of seconds. No one got in it,
no one got out.
00:15:19
You couldn't see it
had tinted windows. We couldn't get
the license plate. We were never able to determine
who owned that red truck
00:15:28
and what that red truck
was doing in that area. In a missing person
investigation,
00:15:35
you always start with the people
closest to the missing person. And so in this case,
that was her mom,
00:15:43
her stepfather, which was Dave. And they ruled out Amber's
dad 'cause he was in LA.
00:15:48
But Dave and myself were
under the eye of them, especially Dave, more
than me, the entire time
00:15:55
because that's how society is. KERRY DAYNES: The majority
of homicide victims know the person who killed them.
00:16:06
And usually, they're very
close to that person. And so of course, suspicion
falls on family and friends
00:16:13
first, particularly family. [TENSE MUSIC] ROBERT BENTON: After
the first week, we knew that we had a much more
serious situation on our hands.
00:16:25
We had yet to determine
the whereabouts of Amber. We have yet to determine
the circumstances
00:16:31
of her being missing. So we reached out to all the
other resources in our county,
00:16:37
including the San Diego
Sheriff's Department, San Diego Police Department. And we have a local
FBI office, and the FBI
00:16:44
sent us over a number of
investigators to assist us. We also contacted
the San Diego Search
00:16:50
and Rescue Team to help search
areas where Amber might be. We had 148 sex offenders
in Escondido at that time.
00:16:59
And we spoke to
each one of those specifically on the AMBER
case, and every one of them
00:17:06
had denied having any
knowledge or any known whereabouts of Amber. I mean, people
just don't vanish off
00:17:14
the face of the Earth,
and Amber had vanished. I mean, after all the
interviews they did, really,
00:17:19
she just vanished. I mean, they had nothing. [TENSE MUSIC] BRYANNA FOX: Missing
persons cases
00:17:29
are incredibly anxiety-inducing
for parents, family members, and the community. Everybody is wondering, is
she OK and able to be found?
00:17:40
Was she abducted and
will be found alive? Or did something
absolutely awful that nobody wants to think
about actually occurred to her?
00:17:47
As time is going on, the idea
that the worst outcome occurred is becoming more and
more of a reality.
00:17:54
So the family is dealing with
both hope, depression, anxiety, all of this cycling
through their minds
00:18:01
over and over again. It's just something that you
wouldn't wish on any family. [TENSE MUSIC]
00:18:09
ROBERT BENTON: Carrie had
called me about six weeks into the investigation and
told me that she had moved out
00:18:15
from the house, away from Dave. That certainly put more
concern about what Dave had done on that February 13th.
00:18:25
At that point, I wasn't
really speaking to Dave. I didn't want anything
to do with him.
00:18:30
And my mind just
started racing, and I thought maybe he did something. ROBERT BENTON: So
we brought Dave
00:18:37
in for multiple polygraphs. The first one was from
our own polygrapher. We followed up based on those
results with an FBI polygrapher
00:18:47
who also did a
polygraph on Dave. He found some of his
statements to be inconsistent.
00:18:54
So you brought him in
for a third polygraph, really settling down on
what Dave did on that very
00:19:00
unusual day, February 13th. A polygraph test is often
called a lie detector test,
00:19:08
but it doesn't
actually detect lies. What it does is it shows up when
somebody is extremely stressed.
00:19:16
So the chances of him
failing a polygraph test, even if he's innocent, are
actually relatively high.
00:19:23
They're only 60%
accurate, at best. And sure enough, the polygraph
results are inconsistent.
00:19:31
Well, inconsistent isn't
a yes or a no, is it? So it's not useful
to the police.
00:19:38
And all the police
really can say is that they don't have
anything firm to link Dave
00:19:43
with Amber's disappearance. ROBERT BENTON: We
eliminated Dave. We had eliminated
the family members.
00:19:52
We had eliminated friends. We interviewed over 500 people
in relation to the case.
00:20:01
So at this point, we
truly believed that it was a stranger abduction. Without knowing who it
was, where do you start?
00:20:08
[GENTLE MUSIC] [TENSE MUSIC] About six months into
the investigation, the tips started
to really wane off.
00:20:20
The interest within the
media had starting to quell. And so at that point,
we were really concerned
00:20:27
that we would never
solve this case and that we'd never determine
what had happened to Amber.
00:20:34
CARRIE MCGONIGLE: I never
stopped looking for her. I mean, there was only so
much searching you could do.
00:20:38
But I was still
coming up with mailers or coming up with ideas
to keep her story alive.
00:20:43
ROBERT BENTON: She
was doing everything. She would hire psychics. She had hired an investigator.
00:20:49
She had been in
contact with dog teams, search teams that came out to
see if they could find Amber.
00:20:55
[TENSE MUSIC] CARRIE MCGONIGLE: We decided on
the one-year anniversary to do a jog-a-thon/walkathon
at the high
00:21:07
school to raise funds to
continue searching for Amber. And it was a
successful walkathon.
00:21:15
Bob Benton came to me and
said, I hate to tell you this, but after a year, we are
nowhere closer than we were
00:21:20
from day one in finding Amber. We're at ground zero. We don't know what
happened to her.
00:21:26
[TENSE MUSIC] ROBERT BENTON: Just after
the one year disappearance of Amber, we learned
of another girl that
00:21:34
went missing in a neighboring
jurisdiction, Rancho Bernardo, just south of ours.
00:21:40
She just suddenly disappeared
while she went for a run. Research shows that the best
predictor of future behavior
00:21:48
is past behavior. And if somebody commited a
crime and got away with it, the odds that, in
their mind, they're
00:21:54
going to be able to
commit another crime and get away with
it actually go up. [TENSE MUSIC]
00:22:05
BILL GORE (VOICEOVER): I
received a phone call late on a Thursday afternoon that a
17-year-old high school student
00:22:12
had gone missing, Chelsea King. She was an avid runner. The girl lived in
Poway, but her car
00:22:18
had been discovered at
Rancho Bernardo Community Park, which is where
a lot of people park
00:22:23
to go running on these trails. DAVE BROWN: Her father
calls the cell phone provider, had the
phone pinged, located
00:22:30
at the Rancho Bernardo Park. We went to the
Rancho Bernardo Park. Her phone, all of her
belongings were in the car.
00:22:37
And the car was was locked,
and she wasn't there. BILL GORE: Her just
disappearing on her own
00:22:43
was so out of character
for this young lady that we called in our homicide
team that works on, obviously,
00:22:49
homicides and missing persons. So this is where we
believe she started her run. Her car is parked here.
00:22:56
From here, she
travels, goes that way. This is where the
start of the search is.
00:23:03
And the buildings over
there, it's a senior center owned by the city. We took that over and made that
our headquarters and the search
00:23:09
center. [TENSE MUSIC] We started with an
extensive search of the park where we knew she had jogged in
the past and couldn't find her.
00:23:22
CARRIE MCGONIGLE: I got a phone
call from one of my volunteers that said another girl
has gone missing in Poway.
00:23:30
And I went home,
and laid in bed, and watched the news on it. And then I looked at Chelsea.
00:23:35
And I'm like, wow,
she looks a lot like-- not a lot like Amber, but the
light skin, the pale eyes,
00:23:41
and they were a lot alike. Then, of course, my
mind starts going, is it a serial
killer or-- you know,
00:23:47
your mind just goes
crazy after that. [TENSE MUSIC] BILL GORE: As the word spread
throughout the community,
00:24:09
and the police
presence was known, and we got the word out that
we were looking for a missing
00:24:13
17-year-old in the
park, neighbors from all around the
park came out and tried to join in the search.
00:24:21
DAVE BROWN: The first item
of evidence were found, were found by somebody who
lives in the neighborhood.
00:24:25
They're walking on this path,
walking their dog to go out into the open part of the park.
00:24:30
And they come across the
socks and underwear right in the center of the path. They're not wet, and it
had rained hours earlier.
00:24:39
And they thought that
to be significant. When they get to
the search party, they tell the San Diego Police.
00:24:46
BILL GORE: These early
items of evidence that were found on the trail
were presented to the King
00:24:50
family, and they
identified them as most likely belonging to Chelsea. As we continued the
search through the night,
00:24:57
and the next day, and the next
day and nothing turned up, I think it was our hope, maybe,
that she had been abducted,
00:25:04
and she was still alive
someplace and being held. DAVE BROWN: We could see
there was going to be blood
00:25:09
evidence on the underwear. We don't publicize that. That's called a holdback. And we don't want the suspect
to know that we might have
00:25:17
evidence that's gonna
lead us to them, because the suspect
is somewhere. We don't want them fleeing.
00:25:22
We don't want to
destroying evidence, and we certainly don't
want him harming her.
00:25:26
[TENSE MUSIC] So this is one of the
many inlets to the lake. And we had searched all of
this area, line by line,
00:25:41
you know, person-- shoulder to
shoulder, checking for things, and we found nothing.
00:25:45
And then it rained really hard. And then the next day, we
found a shoe and a sports bra
00:25:52
in these bushes here, and
rains were coming through and deposited it. One of the things very
early on was, we have crime
00:26:02
and intelligence analysts. And I think I told the
analysts right away, I want to know
everything that's ever
00:26:07
happened here in a year or two. Give me every crime that's
happened in this park.
00:26:11
And it was within a day or
so I'm given this report, and it shows there was an
attack closer to where the socks
00:26:19
and underwear were
found on that side of the lake of a woman who
was tackled or grabbed,
00:26:23
bear hugged. BILL GORE: There
was a confrontation. She pushed away from--
got away from him.
00:26:29
He was never
identified, and that was another potential victim. This individual
lived in Colorado,
00:26:37
so contact was made
with her in Colorado. And we started looking into the
details of the San Diego Police
00:26:44
Department's investigation
of that confrontation and potential
assault in the park.
00:26:49
[TENSE MUSIC] DAVE BROWN: Chelsea's
family had asked for a tour, and they'd asked a few times.
00:26:59
They wanted the tour of
the items and the area, because it's hard to
visualize that area
00:27:05
and where the items are found. And I took them on that tour
on Sunday morning, midday.
00:27:11
As soon as I got out of
the car, my phone rang. And it was one of
the detectives,
00:27:16
and there was a hit on the
DNA found on the underwear. And that hit was in the
database of sex offenders,
00:27:23
and it gave us a name. And I had to stop the tour. I told them that we've
had a break in the case
00:27:30
and I have to go, because
now we have a name. And that was the exciting part
of, if we're going to save her,
00:27:37
it's gonna happen now. BILL GORE: And they
identified Chelsea's DNA, so we knew it was
Chelsea's underwear.
00:27:43
And second DNA from a previous
sex offender, John Gardner. [TENSE MUSIC] We identified the
house he lived in.
00:27:54
And the main thrust of our
investigation at that time was to find John
Gardner in the hopes
00:27:59
that he might have still
had Chelsea King with him and she was alive. So where was John Gardner?
00:28:05
DAVE BROWN (VOICEOVER)
Before this day is out or the next
few hours, we're going to go to every house
this person's possibly
00:28:10
living in simultaneously
and aggressively. And if she's alive,
we're gonna find her.
00:28:16
John Gardner was
located and arrested in the vicinity of the northwest
side of the Regional Park
00:28:22
by a restaurant in that area. --very disappointed that
he did not have Chelsea. Soon as he was
arrested, we had
00:28:32
surveillance on all the three
locations he might live. As soon as they had
handcuffs on him,
00:28:36
I ordered the entry of
all three locations. Let's break into
those three houses and see if she's in there,
see if she's tied up.
00:28:44
She wasn't in any of them. So when we read him
his Miranda rights and asked to talk to him.
00:28:49
He said he wanted an attorney. So at that point, we can't
ask him any questions.
00:28:54
BRYANNA FOX: There's immense
media attention on this case. And all the while, the police
are working as fast as possible
00:29:00
to try to identify all
the circumstances of what this person had
committed and how many
00:29:06
other victims may be out there. [TENSE MUSIC] DAVE BROWN: So once
Gardner was arrested,
00:29:13
we bring him here
to headquarters. He's downstairs. I know I have to take
him very soon to jail.
00:29:19
The second he's in jail,
that's public information. So I had to get the girl in
Colorado who's at a dorm.
00:29:27
I had to get her to
look at six photos and pick him or not pick
him before he lands on TV.
00:29:35
Because if he lands on TV,
then the defense will just say, well, she just
recognized him from TV.
00:29:41
We got a six pack, six photos. Five people aren't Gardner,
but they look like him.
00:29:46
One is. And we took it out to
the girl in Colorado. And we showed it
to her and said,
00:29:50
do you recognize
your attacker here? And she did. She said, that's him. 20 minutes later,
he's on national TV.
00:29:57
I had to get that ID before
he went on TV or it's tainted. He's still in my
office in the interview
00:30:05
room being interviewed. Then we have a serial
attacker, and it even more solidifies I know he's the one.
00:30:13
Chelsea was attacked by him. So this whole time this was
going on, there's a thought,
00:30:19
it could be related
to Amber Dubois. They're not far apart. They're a couple
of off-ramps away.
00:30:25
He brought up, you're
probably gonna try to pin that Amber girl on me, too. We didn't bring her up.
00:30:31
I remember doing
a few interviews, and they asked me if I
thought they were connected.
00:30:35
And I didn't, because
he liked older girls. He liked, you know,
17-year-olds, not 14-year-olds.
00:30:41
[TENSE MUSIC] DAVE BROWN: So the next
morning, on Monday morning, I go to the Escondido Police, meet
with Lieutenant Bob Benton and
00:30:54
his whole team of detectives. And we spent a couple of
hours, and they walked me
00:30:59
through the whole case. And from that moment on,
they joined the team. And so it switched from
the Chelsea King murder
00:31:06
to the John Gardner task force. What emerged quickly was
that John Gardner not only was
00:31:12
a registered sex offender who
spent five years in prison for beating and sexually
assaulting a young 13-year-old,
00:31:20
but he'd also lived
in the Escondido area. When he got arrested, his
previous record came out.
00:31:27
And they saw he had hundreds
of parole violations, and he should have been
back in jail multiple times.
00:31:33
But they don't check, because
he was considered low risk, even though there was
reports of psychologists
00:31:38
saying that he will
attack again, that he's a monster, this and that. ROBERT BENTON: But when
the information came out
00:31:44
about John Gardner
and his background, that enraged the community. It enraged us.
00:31:50
How can this guy be
out on the streets after so many violations
and the crimes that he had
committed previously?
00:31:58
When Amber went
missing, we had actually interviewed John Gardner in
regards to her disappearance.
00:32:03
And he had come up with
the alibi for where he was that day, that he was at work.
00:32:10
DAVE BROWN: So on Tuesday, I was
scheduled to go to the District Attorney's Office for
an issuing conference
00:32:15
because we had a suspect
in jail for murder, and we didn't have a body. BRYANNA FOX: If there's no
body, the defense attorneys
00:32:23
are typically able to establish
reasonable doubt by saying, we don't know what happened.
00:32:29
So for police and prosecutors,
when there's so much reasonable doubt, it's almost
impossible to charge somebody
00:32:35
with homicide successfully. DAVE BROWN: While we were
explaining to the district
00:32:41
attorney, laying
out the evidence, everybody at the table's
phone started vibrating.
00:32:45
And we all were getting a call. They'd found Chelsea. It's with great
sadness this afternoon
00:32:52
that we discovered shortly
after 1 o'clock human remains near the water's edge
in a shallow grave
00:32:59
within the area in
which our search efforts had been concentrated. Although positive identification
has not been made,
00:33:06
there is strong likelihood
that we have found Chelsea. I have just left the home
of Brent and Kelly King,
00:33:13
where I shared this information. It was one of the dive teams
in the water on Lake Hodges
00:33:19
that looked on the shoreline. And they thought
what they saw was some hair on top of some sand
on the side of the shoreline.
00:33:27
And closer examination
pulled back, and it was the body
of a young female. [TENSE MUSIC]
00:33:40
DAVE BROWN: It was sad. It was heartbreaking. There was no possibility
she was alive.
00:33:45
So that's the end of that, so
now it's time to go to work. We're already
exhausted emotionally,
00:33:52
and now she's not alive. So all hope is gone,
but we have a job to do. When Chelsea's remains were
found, I was heartbroken.
00:34:00
I mean, who wouldn't be? It was horrible. My tears and heart
went out to the Kings.
00:34:07
Their case went so fast. It was, what, five days, I
think, from start to finish.
00:34:13
Mine was over a year, and
I still had no answers. [TENSE MUSIC] DAVE BROWN: I get a phone
call to come to this office,
00:34:22
to go to the undersheriff's
office at the time. And I'm brought in the room. And I'm told, go to the jail.
00:34:28
Pick up John Gardner. Don't tell anyone. No one can know you have him. And he's going to
show you a body.
00:34:35
Then take him back to the jail. Then we'll go from there. BILL GORE: The deal that
John Gardner's attorney had
00:34:42
presented to the
district attorney, that he would be willing to show
them where a body was buried,
00:34:49
but we could not
use the fact that he showed us where that body
was buried in prosecuting.
00:34:57
In the Chelsea King case,
we had DNA, location, proximity, all that stuff. There was no doubt in
my mind he would have
00:35:04
been convicted in that case. But we still had the
unknowns, no body in the Amber
00:35:09
Dubois case, so I agreed. DAVE BROWN: So we had
to do it in secret. And we were fearful it could be
an escape attempt, because we
00:35:19
already had enough evidence
on the murder of Chelsea King that he would probably
never see the light of day.
00:35:26
So we were nervous. We drove up this road, Pala
Temecula Road, and then at a at an access road
turnoff to a bad road
00:35:35
is where he told us to go left. And we came up this road. I drove up this road as far
as we could get the car,
00:35:41
and then we walked
the rest of the way. [TENSE MUSIC] We walked down. It was difficult,
because we were sliding
00:35:48
and climbing down the hill. And then eventually,
we got to a spot where I could see a shovel mark.
00:35:55
Even though it had
been a year, the ground here is really tough, and
the shovel mark had held.
00:35:59
And he pointed to that spot. I saw the shovel mark. And so we turned around, backed
up, climbed back out of here,
00:36:07
put him back in the car,
and took him back to jail. [TENSE MUSIC] ROBERT BENTON: My phone
rang, and it was Dave Brown
00:36:17
from the Sheriff's Department. And Dave said, hey, I
think we've got Amber. And I said, what do you mean?
00:36:25
And he said, I think
we've got Amber. And he said, you need to
come up here right now.
00:36:30
DAVE BROWN (VOICEOVER): And then
we began bringing the lab out. We have a very robust
crime lab, field
00:36:35
evidence technicians,
criminalists, forensic archaeologists. And essentially, an army of
people came up here that night
00:36:42
and assembled on the top of
this hill, all pretty much in secret. It was a dark night.
00:36:48
It was foggy. It was cold. And we spent the night exhuming
the remains of Amber Dubois.
00:36:54
[TENSE MUSIC] DAVE BROWN: So this tree
marks the spot on the road. It's sort of the
marker of where to turn
00:37:11
off to go up into the hills
where Amber's grave was. And for the last 11 years,
her family and friends
00:37:17
and just people in general
have decorated the tree with the number of gifts. It'd be seasonal,
different holidays.
00:37:24
You'll see stuffed animals. This is on my drive, my
commute to and from home. So I see it every day, and
I see throughout the year
00:37:31
how it changes. And to this day, they've still
come and decorated the tree. CARRIE MCGONIGLE: Good shot.
00:37:38
Boy, when you're 16,
you're gonna hate this one. [LAUGHS] Amber would have just
turned 27 on October 25th.
00:37:48
And I think by now, she
probably would have a kid, and I'd be a grandma. She definitely would have
finished college and either
00:38:00
been doing something
with horses, because she did have a horse,
or something with animals.
00:38:04
I don't really know what. But she would be in the
animal field for sure. [CHATTER]
00:38:10
[LAUGHTER] [TENSE MUSIC] ROBERT BENTON: So
the next step was, after we found the
remains, we confirmed
00:38:19
that those remains were Amber. --was we had
notified the family. First, we certainly
wouldn't want
00:38:25
them to hear it from any
other source other than us. So it was late on
a Saturday night
00:38:32
that we brought them in to the
Escondido Police Department. And we had myself, a chaplain,
and some other family members
00:38:40
there. And we had told them we
found Amber's remains. CARRIE MCGONIGLE: They
said they identified
00:38:48
her from dental records. And I said, are
you sure it's her? And they're like, yeah,
we're sure it's her.
00:38:53
I don't recall. I mean, when you find out
your daughter's remains have been found, it's a blur.
00:38:59
I can't tell you how I reacted,
because I don't remember. ROBERT BENTON: We
couldn't tell the family
00:39:05
initially that Gardner had
led us to Amber's remains. That was a deal that
Gardner's attorneys
00:39:13
made with the attorney. We had to build a
case against Gardner without using that information.
00:39:23
DAVE BROWN: We went
to all the houses, and we got search
warrants, and we didn't
00:39:27
find the matching shovel. That's the problem with
old cases, is finding that that kind of connection.
00:39:37
ROBERT BENTON: So
what eventually occurred was that there was
a deal between the attorney's
00:39:42
office and John
Gardner's attorneys and facilitated by
the King family. The King family knew that
they had gone for several days
00:39:52
without knowing what
had happened to her. And they could not conceive
how Carrie and the family
00:39:59
had dealt with this
for over a year. CARRIE MCGONIGLE: And so the
Kings and the district attorney
00:40:04
talked. And they said, let's take
the death penalty off. The Dubois family
needs to know what
00:40:09
happened to their daughter. They can't go the
rest of their life not knowing that it was this
monster that killed her.
00:40:17
ROBERT BENTON: And so there was
a deal that this attorney would not seek the death
penalty as long
00:40:22
as John Gardner would confess
to Amber Dubois's killing. CARRIE MCGONIGLE: I
was in tears, I mean,
00:40:29
when I found out. I mean, how would any
parent feel, you know? I mean, they gave me
closure that I needed.
00:40:35
And I got the closure
because they wanted our family to have the answers. DAVE BROWN: He would plead
guilty to two murders
00:40:43
and one assault,
the one on the girl that was the college student. He would plead
guilty to all three
00:40:49
of those, no parole, no appeal,
never to be heard from again. ROBERT BENTON: It
was just tragic
00:40:56
how a 14-year-old girl had been
abducted and killed by somebody in our own community.
00:41:04
And certainly, it's been
hard on our investigators. But I could not put myself
in the shoes of the family
00:41:09
and not knowing what had
happened to their daughter for as long. I'm just so glad that,
at the end of the day,
00:41:15
we've been able to get
closure for the family. BRYANNA FOX: Gardner is
one of the worst types
00:41:22
of offenders we can imagine. He abducted these girls
and murdered them, discarding their bodies
in the way he did,
00:41:29
and then refusing
to tell the families or do anything positive to
help bring them closure, even
00:41:36
when he knew he was
still going to prison, unless he got
something out of it. It's just really despicable, and
that's the exact kind of person
00:41:42
that Gardner was. [TENSE MUSIC] CARRIE MCGONIGLE: So she used
to walk to school that way,
00:41:52
where she'd go past
that old school, you know, and then cross the
street right at the light right
00:41:55
there. And what's sad is I know
that she was in the car, like, when he was at
one of the lights.
00:42:00
And her friends were probably
crossing the street right in front of her. I didn't know what happened
to her until I met with him.
00:42:07
So right before his
sentencing is when I found out all the information. I mean, of course
it hurt to hear it.
00:42:14
But I had the answers
I needed that I waited 13 months to have. It was like I could
breathe, finally.
00:42:23
Right about where I'm standing
is where Amber was taken. And as you can see, there's
nowhere for her to run.
00:42:27
There's fences on both sides,
so she was kind of just stuck here. He was a complete
stranger to Amber.
00:42:35
He had never seen Amber before. He actually thought it
was an older girl that he
00:42:39
was pulling up and taking. He didn't know she was so young. He preferred girls about 16, 17
years old, not a 14-year-old.
00:42:47
So this was unplanned
and just an opportunity. BILL GORE: I probably don't
have the right adjective
00:42:54
to describe him or the
way I feel about him. He's a horrendous individual. When you look at
the crimes that he
00:43:06
committed against poor,
young, unsuspecting women, it's just tragic. [GENTLE MUSIC]
00:43:16
CARRIE MCGONIGLE (VOICEOVER):
After Gardner pled guilty, it was probably, I want to
say, a week or maybe two.
00:43:22
It wasn't very long after
that that I moved back home. David came home. He's like, what are you doing?
00:43:28
And I'm like, oh,
I'm moving back in. He goes, I don't want
you to move back in.
00:43:31
I don't like you. I don't want you here. And I'm like, oh, you'll
learn to love me again.
00:43:37
And he said, I don't
want you in my room. I don't love you. I don't want to be with you.
00:43:41
And in time, he learned
to love me again. [LAUGHS] DAVE BROWN (VOICEOVER):
I thought after 10 years
00:43:49
of not speaking about the
case that it would be fine, but it isn't. These things don't go
away, no matter how
00:43:56
many years you put between you. So it's made me a
little emotional now. It's made me a little
cranky throughout the day.
00:44:03
I've avoided this
on a personal level, because we don't go to these
and walk away unscathed.
00:44:12
CARRIE MCGONIGLE: Without
Amber, there is no Chelsea. And without Chelsea,
there is no Amber.
00:44:17
There just comes a time
when we have to breathe and say, OK, you know what? It's time to live our lives,
and move on, and remember
00:44:25
our daughters, and
mourn the loss of them, but try to live our lives
to the best that we can.
00:44:35
And we're doing that, I think. Hey. So are you going now? Yeah, she's going bye.
00:44:43
CARRIE MCGONICGLE: Bye! Can you say bye? Bye! CARRIE MCGONICGLE:
Give me kisses.
00:44:47
Bye. CARRIE MCGONICGLE: Real kisses. [KISSES] [TENSE MUSIC]