00:00:05
- [Vivica] Observing the signs. - [Darren] He adopts
this posture again, and he looked down.
00:00:10
The emotion's
beginning to swell. - [Robyn] His heart is probably
beating out of his chest.
00:00:16
- [Vivica] Detecting
changing stories. - This is where now we're
not your buddies no more.
00:00:22
This is BS,
what you've been telling us. - [Vivica] Spotting
when to hold back.
00:00:26
- [Robyn] She's not paying
any attention to him. She's letting him know that
I have no time for you.
00:00:30
- [Vivica] And when to close in. - [Detective Surleak]
You didn't do anything,
but she was in your car.
00:00:34
She never got out of your car. - I'm Vivica A. Fox. As an award-winning actress,
I know how to play a part
00:00:44
and convince audiences
that I'm someone else. I can spot the signs when
someone is playing a role
00:00:49
and not being honest. We'll expose the lies
and uncover the shocking truth on our journey to discover
00:00:57
the secrets of
the interrogation room. [Dr Ross] Whatever tactic
that's in your playbook,
00:01:04
you can pull it out and play it. - This is
a life and death situation. (dramatic theme music)
00:01:17
(tense music) - [Vivica]
Jacksonville, Florida. Head chef Lee Rodarte is helping police
with a missing persons case.
00:01:26
One of his staff,
21-year-old Savannah Gold, didn't show up for work
and has disappeared.
00:01:31
But her car has been found, abandoned in the restaurant
parking lot. Three days earlier
on August 2, 2017,
00:01:41
worried Sharon Gold called 911
to report her daughter missing. (tense music) - [911 Operator]
What's her name?
00:02:25
(soft tense music) - Although Savannah
had never arrived for her shift at Bonefish Grill,
00:02:36
at this stage, she'd only
been missing for two hours. - [Ciolino] The fact is is that
there's so many missing people
00:02:44
in the United States. Any large city
has that problem. So unless it's a young child
00:02:51
or a really old person who
has maybe dementia or some physical problems
that's missing,
00:02:57
the police are not gonna respond
to a healthy 21-year-old who's just missing
for a couple of hours.
00:03:05
- [Vivica] But even though
she had only been missing
for a short while, it was a text message
00:03:09
that Savannah
had sent to her father that alarmed the Gold family. - [Daniel] Totally
out of character for her.
00:03:35
And there's
a few real red flags. For me, that is saying that something unusual
has happened here
00:03:44
and more likely than not,
she is at risk. - [Vivica] Even more concerning was that one of
Savannah's car tires
00:03:53
was found slashed where it
was located at Bonefish Grill. Jacksonville police detectives
are assigned to the case.
00:04:03
- [Ciolino] Missing person cases
are difficult because the person's missing. You don't know where they're at.
00:04:08
First thing you do is
try and track their phone, call their known acquaintances,
00:04:11
friends, et cetera,
where they work at. That'll tell us what's been
going on in Savannah's life
00:04:16
the previous 48, 72 hours,
or a week or so. These are all things you
have to check out quickly,
00:04:21
because time is of essence, and if somebody's missing,
they're in extreme danger
00:04:27
if they did not leave
on their own accord. - [Vivica] Because her car
was found
00:04:33
in the Bonefish Grill
parking lot, police interviewed
Savannah's work colleagues.
00:04:38
They're hoping that
someone saw something in the minutes before
her shift was due to start.
00:04:44
- [Daniel] If you put this
into context, the police will be going out and speaking to everyone
that knows Savannah,
00:04:51
to try to establish
if they know where she's been, if they've had communication
00:04:55
and almost trying to
build a timeline on where Savannah has been and when was the last time
she was seen or heard from.
00:05:03
(tense music) - [Detective Reeves]
How'd it look tonight?
- [Employee 1] We were busy.
00:05:31
- [Vivica] But none of the
worried wait staff at Bonefish can offer anything new.
00:05:36
Nor can their boss,
head chef, Lee Rodarte, even though he has made himself
available to the police
00:05:41
for an interview. (tense music) - [Ciolino] You're still trying
to locate this young girl,
00:06:24
and that is really
the main focus. We have no idea what happened after she left
that parking lot.
00:06:31
They're trying to determine
if this girl's alive, and if she is, where is she
so we can recover her.
00:06:37
- So the assumption must be,
at this stage, that she is alive, and possibly
at risk of serious harm.
00:06:45
So this is what we call
a crime in action. This is
a life and death situation.
00:06:55
- It's now three days since Savannah Gold
was last seen or heard from. Although still officially
a missing person's case,
00:07:01
evidence is mounting that Savannah did not disappear
of her own free will. The race is now on
to find her alive.
00:07:12
Coming up... Head Chef Lee Rodarte
changes his story. - I didn't tell you the truth
when we talked at Bonefish.
00:07:20
- [Vivica] And he reveals what he witnessed
the night Savannah disappeared. - Ford pickup, green.
00:07:26
- [Detective Reeves] Okay. - Drove past me and around,
and she got in. - [Vivica] On August 2, 2017,
00:07:40
21-year-old waitress
Savannah Gold was reported missing
when she failed to show up
00:07:45
for her shift at Bonefish Grill and suspicious texts started
coming in from her phone.
00:07:51
Police interviewed
the restaurant staff. Some inconsistencies
have been found in the information provided
by the manager,
00:07:59
28 year old Lee Rodarte. Detectives have taken Rodarte
back to their headquarters
00:08:06
to try to clear things up. (tense music) - [Robyn] At the beginning
of this interview,
00:08:17
you'll notice the detectives leave Lee Rodarte
in the interview room for 90 minutes
00:08:25
before they enter. - This is a great
psychological ploy. He's not interacting
with anyone.
00:08:30
All he's got is
his own thoughts. Am I in trouble? Am I gonna get accused
of doing something?
00:08:37
- [Robyn] His anxiety levels
are going up and up and up. The longer he's waiting,
the more nervous he's getting.
00:08:45
- [Dr Ross] You're also
losing energy. You're getting tired. You're emotionally pitched
to deliver certain utterances
00:08:52
at a certain point in time, so it throws off your timing. - When somebody comes back,
00:08:57
guess what the person
wants to do who's sitting in there
for 90 minutes by themself?
00:09:00
They wanna talk. - [Vivica] Even when
Jacksonville detectives Reeves and Surleak
finally enter the room,
00:09:09
Rodarte is
kept in a holding pattern for a little while longer. - Hey.
- How you doing?
00:09:14
- Good, good. Do you remember me
from the other day? Detective Reeves? - Uh, please.
00:09:24
- [Robyn] While Lee's
left alone with a detective, and she's not paying
any attention to him,
00:09:29
he keeps on looking up at her, and it's definitely
causing him some discomfort.
00:09:35
I believe that the reason
that she's doing it is she's letting him know
that "I have no time for you.
00:09:40
"I'm in a position of
authority over you "and I really don't care
very much about you."
00:09:49
- [Ciolino] And Lee's very
curious about this whole thing. He keeps looking at her
00:09:53
and he's waiting for her
to say something or talk to him. I think Lee's probably going,
"Why isn't she talking to me?
00:09:58
"You know, I'm not a bad guy." - [Vivica] Lead Detective
Reeves returns. The quest to find
Savannah Gold resumes.
00:10:08
- [Detective Reeves] So
let's get just a couple... Just make sure I've got
your basic information.
00:10:13
It's Lee, and tell me how
you pronounce your last name. - Rodar-tee.
- Rodarte. Okay.
00:10:17
And that's R-O-D-A-R-T-E?
- Yeah. - Right. And what's
your approximate weight? - It's been a while
since I weighed myself,
00:10:25
but probably about 163,
something like that. - [Detective Reeves] 163? Okay.
And what color eyes you got?
00:10:29
- Brown.
- Brown? - Hair is?
- Brown. - [Darren] So, in terms of
establishing a baseline,
00:10:38
the officers obviously
need to have that
information with Rodarte in terms of his
personal details -
00:10:42
name, address, date of birth,
cell phone number. If they're trained
in these techniques,
00:10:46
which most American police are, then that's also killing
two birds with one stone
00:10:51
because they need
the information and it's a way to see him
when he's not stressed,
00:10:56
when he's quite relaxed. What's his normal
voice tone like? What's his normal gestures like?
00:11:03
- [Detective Reeves] I wanted
to talk to you about Savannah. So, I just had a couple of
things that came up
00:11:08
that I wanted to
ask you about specifically that didn't seem to line up
so I wanted to...
00:11:12
- Yes, sir.
- Come down and talk to you. Okay? All right?
- Yep. - [Vivica] With fears
for Savannah's safety
00:11:18
growing by the hour, Lee wants to clear something up
with the police. - I didn't tell you the truth
when we talked at Bonefish.
00:11:27
- Last time I saw her
was Wednesday afternoon. - [Detective Reeves] Okay. - I heard that she has been
00:11:34
basically telling
a lot of people at work that we hooked up a bunch, like, couple days before that,
00:11:43
and that she was going to, like, tell about the whole situation, you know, try to get me fired.
00:11:51
- [Detective Reeves] And why
would that get you fired? - Well I'm a manager and
she's an employee, so...
00:11:56
- Okay, so you guys aren't
supposed to fraternize?
- Yeah. - Okay, I gotcha. - [Ciolino] This is
a critical moment,
00:12:00
because now Lee's
back on his heels and we have him lying, and he knows he's caught lying,
00:12:06
and he tries to
minimize the damage by admitting to lying. So what's everybody
else thinking in there
00:12:12
is, well,
if you lied about that, what else are you lying about? - I met her in the parking lot
at Bonefish.
00:12:19
- When was this?
- Wednesday afternoon. - [Detective Reeves] Okay.
Do you know what time, or about?
00:12:23
- It was about 5:30.
- Okay. - [Detective Surleak] When
did you say you met her,
00:12:27
was she meeting you too or...? Um... - I didn't... I didn't call her. I just drove up there to
see if maybe she was working.
00:12:36
I was gonna, you know,
talk to her. And...
- [Detective Reeves] Did you
know she was working that night?
00:12:42
- I did.
- Okay, you knew she
was working that night? - Yeah.
- [Detective Reeves] Okay.
00:12:45
- So I drove up there
and was hoping to get a chance to talk to her. - [Ciolino] So what's
established with this line
00:12:50
is the meeting's
not pre-planned, he's basically stalking her. He's surveiling,
waiting for her to show up.
00:12:57
He knew her schedule,
he's the manager. He knows when she's working, he knows when
she's gonna be at work.
00:13:02
So he's sitting
in a parking lot and now he's on the hook for it. - I pulled in the parking lot,
00:13:08
she pulled in
a little bit after me. I parked, I was like, "I heard you've been saying
some things about me and you
00:13:17
"continuing to hang out, "and that we're
boyfriend and girlfriend." She asked me, she said,
00:13:23
"Can I come sit in the car "because I just did some heroin
and I'm a little paranoid."
00:13:30
- I said,
"Why are you doing that? "You know,
you're doing really well. "You shouldn't been doing that."
- [Detective Reeves] Okay.
00:13:36
- And so she came
and sat in the car and I explained to her
the situation. I told her that
servers at Bonefish
00:13:43
were coming to me
and telling me that you're telling people
we're having sex and we're boyfriend
and girlfriend.
00:13:50
And I said,
"I would appreciate," you know, "I need you to stop, because for
one, it's jeopardizing my job.
00:13:56
"We agreed to, you know, split." And she said,
"I'm gonna do what I want." - [Daniel]
As the interview progresses,
00:14:06
he continues to build
himself almost up as this a affable, friendly, totally reasonable person.
00:14:15
He's the peacekeeper. I mean, he does it
actually quite subtly, demonizing, bringing her down
in sort of standing
00:14:23
and bringing himself up
in standing as well. So he's talking about
her unacceptable behavior.
00:14:28
He talks about
how she takes drugs. - [Vivica] Rodarte claims
his job was at risk
00:14:36
because Savannah was going
public about their affair. But he was also worried because his girlfriend Chelsea
was getting upset.
00:14:44
- I told her, I said, "The girl that you were out with "told Chelsea "that we were still having sex
00:14:57
"and that you were just
at my house, like, yesterday, "hanging out." And I told her that
she needs to stop.
00:15:07
At that point, I got out and I punctured the hole
in the tire. - [Detective Reeves] Okay.
00:15:15
- She just said,
"Why'd you do that?" I said, "Well, I'm upset,"
you know? I apologized after, I told her
I would get her a new tire.
00:15:24
And she said,
"(bleep) you," you know? "You're a piece of (bleep)." And she said she's gonna
keep talking, you know,
00:15:31
telling the lies and stuff
about me, and everything like that. And I said, "Don't do it again,
00:15:37
"or next time
it's gonna be worse. "It's gonna be your windows."
(tense music)
00:15:44
- [Daniel] This completely
unreasonable threat
that he made to her, that if she carries on telling
people that they're dating,
00:15:49
that he's gonna
put her windows in, he's gonna put a brick
through her car window.
00:15:54
Completely at odds to everything he's trying to
display about himself as being the peacekeeper,
the communicator.
00:16:03
As the officers
are hearing this, these red flags
will be firing off. But actually,
it's really important
00:16:09
for them not to show that
at this stage in the interview. Because if they react,
or they judge him at this point,
00:16:16
then that could shut him down. Good interviewers
will just acknowledge it. "You slashed her tire? Okay."
00:16:22
No judgement whatsoever. Just acknowledge that
that's what he said he's done, almost without probing
too deep with this point,
00:16:28
and then move on and then,
"What did you do then?" Because you've got him talking,
and you've got him talking about
00:16:32
a really, really important
piece of information. - [Vivica] Lee explains that their argument in
the parking lot came to an end,
00:16:42
and then Savannah left him
sitting alone in his car. - She had her phone
in her hand,
00:16:47
she got outta the car and walked towards
the main entrance from San Jose, and I would say an older
model Ford pickup, green...
00:17:00
- [Detective Reeves] Okay. - ...drove past me, and around,
and she got in. - [Detective Surleak] Lee, why
didn't you mention this before,
00:17:07
since we've been
looking for this girl? I mean, don't you think that
information is important?
- I mean, it definitely does.
00:17:14
And I regret, obviously,
not saying anything. - [Vivica] Lee seeing Savannah getting into
a green pickup truck
00:17:20
is new information. Could this be the lead Detectives Reeves
and Surleak need to find Savannah?
00:17:28
- Shopping centers
have nothing but cameras in 'em. They've got 'em on
light posts,
00:17:32
on the edges of the buildings, from the building, shooting out
into the parking lot,
00:17:36
the parking lot shooting in. I mean, everyone in the world's
got a camera going.
00:17:40
And guess what? Well, the police know
one thing for sure, there's no damn green
pickup truck anywhere.
00:17:46
No one got in any pickup truck. - [Vivica] Lee doesn't realize the detectives have already
reviewed the CCTV footage.
00:17:56
They know Savannah doesn't leave in a green pickup truck. In fact, she never set foot
00:18:03
out of Lee Rodarte's car. - [Robyn] In this case, the detective makes sure to
lock Lee into the story
00:18:11
of Savannah
getting out of the car. He knows Savannah
never got out of the car,
00:18:16
but by Lee locking himself
into that story will enable him to come back,
with evidence,
00:18:21
later on in the interview, that he can use
to throw Lee's story off. - [Dr Ross]
So the more you talk,
00:18:28
the more they have
to bounce back and forth on what is factual
or what is correct
00:18:32
and what is not correct. And the more
statements you say that they know are counter
to their knowledge,
00:18:39
or counter to the evidence, the more and more they realize that you are basically lying.
00:18:44
And if you tell one lie, you typically have to
tell another lie to cover up that lie.
00:18:50
And a lot of people,
no matter how bright they are, cannot keep it with
all the lies that they tell.
00:18:57
- Lee Rodarte has been
caught telling multiple lies. He's also admitted to arguing
with Savannah in his car,
00:19:02
and slashing her tire. The detectives are convinced
he knows where Savannah is.
00:19:09
With the life of
a 21-year-old woman at stake, it's time to turn up the heat. (dramatic music)
00:19:16
Coming up... Things get personal
in the interrogation room. - [Detective Surleak] I mean,
I look at that little girl
and I think of my little girl.
00:19:24
My little girl who's her age. (emotionally) That's
who I think about. - [Vivica]
And the floodgates open.
00:19:31
- [Darren] At some point,
you know, begins to kind of cry,
his eyes water. (Lee sniffles)
00:19:40
(tense music) - Investigators are desperate to locate missing 21-year-old
Savannah Gold alive.
00:19:50
According to Lee Rodarte, she got out of his car
and was then picked up by someone driving
a green pickup truck.
00:19:57
After reviewing CCTV footage, the police know this is a lie. Savannah never
got out of Lee's car.
00:20:10
- [Ciolino] The green
pickup truck lie triggers
the interrogation part. This is where now
we're not your buddies no more.
00:20:17
I'm not your friend. This is BS,
what you've been telling us. And now we've switched from
00:20:23
this is an information gathering
interview type to a confrontational interview,
00:20:30
where it's
you've been lying to us, we think you know a lot more
than you're telling us
00:20:35
and now it's time
we get down to the truth. Now the police, the detectives.
are really heated up.
00:20:42
- [Detective Reeves] So,
where's Savannah right now? - I don't know. - Where would I find her?
- I don't know.
00:20:47
- [Detective Reeves]
That's my prime objective, is to find her.
- Definitely.
00:20:53
- [Detective Reeves] I think
time's running out on her. - I should have said something
to you when I talked.
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:20:58
- I should have said
something on Thursday when it was brought to
everybody's attention.
00:21:02
- So tell me how I go from
nice guy, never met you, you seem like a nice guy. I come up and talk to you again,
00:21:11
and you...
didn't tell me this story. I'm not gonna say the truth, 'cause I think there's holes
in this story, too.
00:21:20
So, where's Savannah?
- I don't know. - [Detective] I need to
know where Savannah is...
00:21:26
- I don't know where she is.
- ...so I can
let her family know. - [Ciolino] Lee has now
figured out,
00:21:29
well, they're not gonna be happy until they figure out
where Savannah is, and I've got a problem.
00:21:35
Psychologically,
it's wearing on him. And this is all over his face, this is all over
his body language.
00:21:41
The detectives know this
and they're keying on it, because he's got nowhere to hide
or run to now.
00:21:46
- [Vivica] Now, after almost
45 minutes of being interviewed, the detectives decide
to switch things up.
00:21:52
For the first time, Detective Surleak speaks up. - [Detective Surleak] I mean I
look at that little girl
and I think of my little girl.
00:22:01
My little girl who's her age. That's who I think about. If that was my little girl,
I couldn't imagine.
00:22:08
I don't care what she said
about you or whatever, but my little girl is that age.
00:22:13
- Maybe... - [Dr Ross] The female detective makes a very emotional appeal. And yes, there is a point
during the interview
00:22:22
where she appears to be in tears and she literally beseeches him,
repeatedly, in hopes that she can
strike a chord
00:22:30
of sympathy or empathy
with him. I thought them working together
was very effective.
00:22:37
Whatever tactic
that's in your playbook, you can pull it out and play it. - You're not telling the truth.
00:22:43
- Maybe something gets outta
hand in the car? - I didn't do anything.
- [Detective] Okay,
you didn't do anything.
00:22:47
But she was in your car.
She never got outta your car. She never got out
of your car, Lee.
00:22:53
- [Detective Reeves]
We're not saying that you did anything.
I'm trying to find her.
00:22:56
I didn't say you did anything.
- I don't know where she is. - [Detective Surleak]
Well, we can prove
00:23:00
that you left with her
in the car. So please, do everybody
a favor and just tell us.
00:23:08
- [Detective Reeves]
Where is she? - [Robyn] The word 'proof'
has a powerful impact.
00:23:14
There's a very definite reaction
that Lee has. His foot's starting to shake, his eyes are blinking faster.
00:23:22
He definitely appears to be
under a lot of stress. His mouth is getting dry,
he needs to have a sip of water.
00:23:28
His heart is probably
beating out of his chest at this point in time. - I know that
she's in that car with you.
00:23:34
I have proof of all of...
- Okay, I'm gonna ask you, Lee. You can tell us now,
if you're being an honest man.
00:23:39
Are you being honest?
- Yes. - [Detective Surleak] Okay,
well let's start being honest.
00:23:44
She never got out of
your back seat, Lee. Video cameras don't lie. - Lee.
- How do you know...
00:23:51
How do you think I know
this information, Lee? I wasn't there,
but a video camera caught it.
00:23:58
I'm glad that you said you
got in the backseat with her. All that lines up. Walking over to her car,
00:24:03
puncturing her tire, everything lines up. You come back to your car
and going back to her car.
00:24:08
Everything lines up. But you know what
doesn't line up? She never gets out of that car.
00:24:13
There is no green truck. And that's not right to her. We're fact finders, Lee. I don't have anything
personal against you.
00:24:21
- No, no, not at all.
I mean it's over. - We're just fact finders.
- Just tell us what happened.
00:24:25
Where is she?
- We're just doing our job. - [Daniel] The strength
the second interviewer has
in this interview
00:24:32
is that she somewhat
teases him with facts. She does introduce it slowly, and she uses it
almost as a rebuttal.
00:24:42
And then she introduces
fact after fact after fact. He can replay that in his mind
like a video
00:24:51
and he knows absolutely
that is true. That strong layer of evidence, continually point out
the facts to him,
00:24:59
contributes massively
to this situational futility. - [Darren] In psychology,
we call it
the law of reversal effect.
00:25:08
The more that
you ask a question, the more likely it is
that someone will respond.
00:25:12
So they just nudge him,
nudging him every time they ask. - [Detective Surleak] Where
did you go with her, Lee?
00:25:18
Be human, you're a human.
You're a man. Where did you go with her? I know you're not
that cruel inside.
00:25:24
Seriously, where
did you go with her? - Maybe you...
- Please. - Maybe you don't know where
she is now. Where did you go?
00:25:32
- Please.
I'm begging you, Lee. Please. Please tell us. Please don't make us
waste any more of our time.
00:25:41
Just tell us. - So what the female
detective does in the interview with Rodarte
00:25:48
is she goes to town
on humanizing Savannah. She'll say she's got a family, she's got a mother.
00:26:00
You know, I know you don't
have kids, but if you did, think about how
you would be feeling.
00:26:05
So she tries to really bring it
into the forefront of his mind. At one point where
she uses the words,
00:26:11
"I'm begging you, please tell me
what you've done with her. "You know you want to be honest.
00:26:15
"We know you're not a bad guy,
you know, "but we just need to know." - That's why I'm so passionate
about this.
00:26:22
This is someone's child. You might not have kids, but dammit, she's someone's kid.
00:26:28
It's not fair to her mom...
- I understand that. - All she wants to know
is where her daughter is,
00:26:32
but I have this man
sitting over here... - [Darren] Some key things
with Rodarte is
00:26:36
he adopts this posture again
and he looks down. So that means he's accessing
his internal feelings more.
00:26:43
The emotion's beginning
to swell, you know? So she is having
a dramatic effect.
00:26:49
I'm sure she had feelings, you know, being a parent,
I'm sure they were genuine.
00:26:55
But in terms of the robustness
of why she did it, I think that was strategy. - [Detective Surleak]
00:27:24
- [Vivica] Finally,
the penny drops for Lee. He realizes that
he's got nowhere to go.
00:27:30
CCTV across the street
from Bonefish Grill proves Savannah
was still in his car
00:27:36
when he drove it
out of the parking lot. Seamlessly,
he changes his story. - [Detective Surleak] Okay.
00:28:13
I wasn't... - He's getting boxed in
in a big way. Now he's put himself
right into it.
00:28:40
- I mean she was upset.
- Yeah? - She tried to slap me. I slapped her. She went to get out.
00:28:57
I grabbed her around her waist and said, "Where you going? "Why are you hitting me?"
00:29:04
And she tried to slap me again. She calmed down... ...and we left. - I mean, we've had
arguments plenty of times
00:29:32
where she says she doesn't care
what happened or anything like that. - [Detective Surleak]
00:30:06
- [Daniel] He's almost building
up that hero role again, taking him back to
where he wants to be,
00:30:11
the person
with the higher values, the hero that
did the right thing in the end.
00:30:17
That, alongside the evidence, proved to be effective. - And at some point, you know,
00:30:25
he begins to kind of cry,
his eyes water. And he hesitates.
It's on the tip of tongue.
00:30:33
And then that's it,
the flood gates are open. - [Detective Reeves] Okay. - She had...
- [Detective Surleak] She had?
00:31:29
- [Detective Reeves] Okay. - [Ciolino] He's hearing
what he needs to hear from an adult authority figure.
00:31:40
"You're not a bad person. "You don't want to
go out remembered "as such a rotten person."
00:31:45
And Lee buys into it,
and what does he say? Well, something happened,
but it was an accident.
00:31:51
Which has probably been said
in a thousand homicides over the years. "Yeah, it was all
a big misunderstanding.
00:31:57
"It was an accident.
I didn't mean to do this." - You thought you had her
up here?
00:32:12
- Okay, you heard a pop sound?
- Yeah, and she just... - And you had both hands
like this, around,
00:32:17
like, around
this part of her neck? Could you feel a pop? - Yeah.
(tense music)
00:32:24
- The investigators
have worked together to finally get an admission. Lee Rodarte killed Savannah Gold
in the back seat of his car.
00:32:32
But this interrogation
is far from over. Once he murdered Savannah, what did Lee do next?
00:32:38
And where is her body? Coming up... The full horror of Savannah's
fate is finally revealed.
00:32:52
- [Vivica] And reality sets in. - [Ciolino]
He's about as remorseful as someone who's
stepped on a cockroach.
00:32:58
(sobbing) (mumbles indistinctly) - [Vivica] After an hour
of intense police interrogation,
00:33:13
Lee Rodarte has
admitted to the murder of 21-year-old Savannah Gold. - Rodarte feared that
his girlfriend would discover
00:33:26
his secret on-and-off
relationship with Savannah. Savannah lost her life simply for telling people
about their affair.
00:33:35
- So one of the nasty realities
of dating violence is intimate partner homicide.
00:33:40
Sometimes resolving conflict
or love triangles can lead to very violent
outcomes, and even death.
00:33:49
And because there's this notion
of jealousy that's involved, that notion of assumed duress,
00:33:54
that in order to
do something about this to resolve the conflict, what does that do
to someone's psyche
00:34:01
to act on behalf of
some pressure from outside? (tense music) - [Darren] For some reason,
00:34:11
she'd become
the center of his world. She'd been going around allegedly telling people
all about him
00:34:15
and making him look bad and that seemed to be
a real massive problem for him. Rather than
turning the other cheek,
00:34:21
as most people probably would, you know, the situation
literally got out of hand
00:34:25
to the extreme. - [Vivica] For Detectives
Reeves and Surleak, the interrogation
is far from over.
00:34:35
Despite Rodarte's confession, they now need him to tell them
where Savannah's body is,
00:34:41
and what state it was in
when he left it. - [Ciolino] The detectives
are working hard.
00:34:47
They're working this thing hard, the sheriff's department
is working hard. There's a lot of resources,
time, effort, money.
00:34:54
Emotional, you know, states
are occurring. Now the really tough questions, the grueling stuff's
gonna happen.
00:35:00
And as Lee sits there, he's gotta really
get down into the weeds and tell them
what happened to her.
00:35:07
Where's her body?
What did I do with that body? This is where it
really gets bad for him,
00:35:12
and it's tough
on the detectives, because they gotta
draw this stuff out, because the case isn't finished
00:35:17
till they recover that body. It really isn't. No matter how terrible, gruesome, horrible it may be,
00:35:24
this is the job. (sniffles) (sighs) - Okay. - Okay. Was she just put in the firepit,
00:36:02
or did you burn her, or what? - Okay. - [Ciolino] You wanna
reach across that table
00:36:27
and strangle this cat. That's what you wanna do. Put him out of his misery. Summary execution.
00:36:33
Forget all this
five years of trial and plea bargain stuff. You have no interest
in being nice.
00:36:39
But the effective method here is be nice, be kind, say whatever you have to say
to get what you need.
00:36:47
And they did that and they
should be commended for it, 'cause it was a great job.
00:36:50
(emotional music) (Lee sobbing) - It's okay.
- No, it's okay. You're doing
the right thing now. You are.
00:37:06
- So you moved her Friday? - [Vivica] Lee Rodarte explains
that while the police
00:37:15
were searching frantically
for Savannah, in the hope
she might be found alive,
00:37:20
he was busy trying to
dispose of her body. First, he burned her body in a fire pit
at the back of his house.
00:37:32
He then dumped her burnt remains in a swampy pond
on the outskirts of town. (tense music)
00:37:45
- [Detective Surleak] - [Lee] - [Detective Reeves] - [Detective Reeves] Okay. - [Vivica] Thinking back to
what sparked this investigation,
00:38:10
the detectives are curious to
know what Lee was thinking when he messaged
Savannah's father and brother.
00:38:17
- Let me ask you, let me ask you one other thing. (sighs) What was up with
the texts to her family?
00:38:29
- I just freaked out.
- Okay. - I got... I got scared. - Sure. Who'd you send the texts to?
00:38:38
- Her dad.
- Okay. Anybody else? - And her brother.
- All right. Give me a few minutes
to get some stuff together.
00:38:46
I'll convey
what you've said to me, okay?
- Thank you. - [Detective Surleak]
Thank you for being honest.
00:38:53
- I do wanna to tell you
thank you for being honest. I know. Give me a few minutes, okay?
00:39:19
- [Vivica] When the interview
is finally over, Lee Rodarte seems physically
and mentally crushed.
00:39:26
- [Ciolino] They leave him. They leave the room
and they go out. And now the Oscar-winning
performance of Lee starts.
00:39:35
He starts hitting himself
in the head. He's crying. He's yelling at himself.
He's cussing.
00:39:39
He is acting for the cameras, and for maybe a judge or a jury who might watch this one day.
00:39:45
He's about as remorseful as someone who's
stepped on a cockroach. This is all acting.
00:39:51
The time to be remorseful is not in the interrogation room
after you confess. I think it was all an act.
00:39:57
I don't believe one word of it.
Alligator tears. Hopefully,
nobody bought that nonsense.
00:40:03
(sobbing) I would've liked to have
been in that interview, 'cause my belief is that
there were no tears.
00:40:16
Because this is a man that cold-bloodedly murdered
the victim over nothing. He has set fire to her.
00:40:28
He has then desecrated her body. And he even has the audacity
to text the victim's family
00:40:36
to make it appear
that she's okay, and to give them hope
that she's still alive.
00:40:43
This is a man has no remorse. I don't think he's got
a remorseful bone in his body.
00:40:51
[Robyn] - Lee Rodarte
was charged with murder in the second, tampering with evidence
00:40:57
and abuse of a dead body. The reason why he was charged
with abuse of a dead body
00:41:02
is his attempt to burn the body
after he killed her. - [Vivica] Although Lee Rodarte
00:41:08
confessed to
strangling Savannah, he would continue to claim
that it was in self-defense.
00:41:14
That had he not
strangled Savannah in the car, she would've harmed him. - [Robyn] Lee filed a motion
to dismiss the charges
00:41:23
based on
the stand your ground laws. The stand your ground law
allows for somebody
00:41:28
to use deadly force
against another person when they believe that
there is an imminent threat
00:41:34
to their own safety. His motion was denied because it was very clear
that Savannah,
00:41:40
and her small, slight frame was of no threat to Lee. - [Vivica]
The coroner's report stated
00:41:47
that no drugs were ever
found in Savannah's body. In the end, Lee Rodarte
entered into a plea deal
00:41:54
to avoid the death penalty, and pled guilty
to second-degree murder. On February 15, 2021,
00:42:02
in Duval County's Circuit Court, he was sentenced to
40 years in jail. (soft tense music)
00:42:19
- [Ciolino] Every cop out there
doing this sort of work, they wanna be able to
tell a victim's family,
00:42:24
"This is what happened." It may be ugly,
it may be terrible, but they deserve
to know what happened
00:42:31
to their 21-year-old daughter. They really do. And I would tell you,
anyone who's ever lost a child,
00:42:38
nothing helps. The fact that you lost a child, there is no closure. You're never gonna
get through that.
00:42:46
But as cops, as professionals and prosecutors, et cetera, you wanna solve the case.
00:42:53
Murder cases have to be solved. There has to be justice
of some sort. Otherwise, what are we doing?
00:43:02
(dramatic theme music)