Fatal Friendship | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

a tennessee community is shocked when a beloved elderly woman vanishes as investigators search the mystery of her disappearance deepens [Music] the truth begins to emerge but slowly and in unexpected directions as police and the fbi try to help a troubled small town find their dear friend [Music] [Applause] [Music] in 1992 a woman disappeared from her memphis home when the ransom went uncollected the fbi suspected a desperate amateur and feared the worst i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office as the search for the woman progressed investigators uncovered a web of lies and false accusations designed to hide the real perpetrator memphis tennessee on august 7th 1992 25 miles outside the city in the small town of edes successful land developer alan roberts arrived home from work as usual his wife's car was in the driveway but he was surprised to find the mail there [Music] though his wife doe roberts usually left a note when she went out but there was none no in the kitchen allen spotted doe's asthma medication on the counter she always took the inhaler when she went out he called their closest friends nearby bill yeah bill this is alan have you seen doe today has she been over there no one he spoke to had heard from doug here okay i'll tell you what i'm gonna go around the property for you do me a favor call her out so you can find her okay robert's worried she might have had an asthma attack while working in the garden [Music] he searched the grounds of their farm no sign of dough [Music] he was about to call the police when his telephone rang hello it was a man speaking with an asian accent what do you mean you have though what do you want the caller demanded a 100 000 ransom for doe's safe return not a problem i can take care of it just it'll take me a little time you just let me know what you want me to do and i'll do it okay but he didn't explain where to take the money where do you want me to take it before he hung up hello [Music] stunned alan immediately called the shelby county sheriff's department and told them about his wife's disappearance and the ransom call he received [Music] the team of deputies and sheriff's inspectors responded to the house roberts told them he did not recognize the voice of the caller and did not know anyone who would want to harm dough as the interview continued agents from the fbi's memphis field office arrived ages about 30 miles from both the arkansas and mississippi borders if someone took doe across state lines the fbi would take the lead since transporting a victim state to state is a federal crime roberts explained he last saw his wife that morning on working in they breakfast together as they had every morning for 43 years at 10 allen left to meet a prospective out-of-town buyer for a property he was developing the buyer a man named sam wagner had called the day before making an appointment to see the property at 10 30 that morning robert said he waited for over an hour but sam wagner never showed he spent the rest of the afternoon laying sod at another of his development properties [Music] the investigators needed to check the house for evidence roberts showed them doe's asthma inhaler and said if she suffered a serious attack without it she could die they needed to find her immediately looking for signs of forced entry deputies checked doors and windows nothing appeared suspicious knowing that people sometimes run off voluntarily faking abductions to cover themselves deputies checked doe's bedroom her suitcases and all of her clothing were still there as were her valuables it didn't seem like she left on her own if someone had abducted her one clue suggested it happened outside according to fbi special agent joanne overall alan roberts located mail halfway into the garage and it was not taken into the house he suspected that his wife had gone to the mailbox and never made it back into the house and she had laid the mail down at that point [Music] beginning at the driveway deputies form search lines fanning out in a grid pattern to scour the 150 acre farm for any sign of the 65 year old woman or what happened to her despite the efforts of multiple search teams they found nothing the best chance for a new lead would be additional ransom calls we began monitoring alan roberts phone right after the kidnapping with his consent we placed a recorder on his phone should he get a call from the kidnapper they also installed tracing equipment if the man with the asian accent called again the fbi would be ready later that night the phone rang hello uh yes it was coming from a nearby pay phone no just just don't hurt i'll do whatever you want deputies headed toward the source of the call it sounded like the same man who called earlier he said dough was safe for now and he knew law enforcement was listening robert said the caller ordered him to remove the tape of their conversation and crush it in the driveway they quickly switched it with a blank tape all right at that time no surveillance officers were outside when shelby county deputies arrived at the pay phone it was clear whoever made the call was gone by daybreak investigators expanded their search into the eads community asking friends and neighbors when they last saw dough and if they noticed anything unusual on the day of her disappearance yeah sure over there no one recalled seeing or hearing from her that day yes sir one neighbor told investigators that at church that week there seemed to be tension between doe and alan but no solid clues emerged word of the kidnapping spread and news stations picked up the story joe burch of wmc-tv in memphis reported on the small community's reaction to doe's disappearance a lot of people felt it must have been someone from the outside who committed this crime because these people worshiped together they went to square dancers together they spent a lot of their time together and their focus was their little community and staying away from downtown memphis and all the danger that might be here so i think the people in the eads community felt like an outsider probably committed this crime but investigators wondered how in a place like eids a stranger wasn't noticed as the investigation's first full day drew to a close special agent overall's concern grew the 24 hours immediately following a kidnapping are critical as more time passes the chances of finding the victim alive diminish rapidly on the second day community members gathered to show their support and offer prayers for doe's safe return [Music] investigators turned their attention to the most likely suspect in a case like this we always look at the family members and relatives people that are closest to the victim first and then work the circle outwards they needed to start with the husband alan roberts it was possible he had harmed dough then used an accomplice to make the ransom calls it is always difficult when family members realize they are suspects authorities had to ask the worried husband to take a polygraph test it was an unexpected request but alan agreed a polygraph measures a subject's physiological reactions while answering questions the subject reviews all of the questions before the test so there are no surprises though commonly called a lie detector test a polygraph does not actually detect lies it only detects whether the subject is exhibiting the characteristics most people exhibit when lying spikes in heart rate perspiration blood pressure and respiration are you convinced that i will only ask you questions that we've gone over before while polygraph results are rarely admissible in court many investigators find they point them in the right direction the examiner asked roberts questions unrelated to the case to establish a baseline for truthful responses then he asked questions about his relationship with doe and the events of the day she disappeared [Music] the examiner then interpreted the graphic output to determine if roberts appeared to be deceptive on the questions about the case in his opinion alan roberts answered all of the questions truthfully allen was sure this was the end of it but agents knew the test results were not always accurate they could not eliminate him yet to check robert's story the fbi wanted to find sam wagner the man he allegedly went to meet on the morning of doe's abduction we thought sam wagner may have come into this area and because of their financial backings and holdings that he may have kidnapped doe roberts for the money that they had because they had a substantial amount of money agents checked fbi databases and nationwide dmv records searching for anyone named sam wagner [Music] in several states fbi agents interviewed men of that name but eliminated each as a suspect alan robert's story became more suspicious when sam wagner became an unknown individual that we couldn't locate and it became more apparent to us that alan roberts could possibly be behind the kidnapping looks like he checks out i don't think he's going if alan did do something to his wife perhaps the couple's phone records and banking statements would reveal a clue there's nothing unusual about any of the phone calls yet investigators uncovered only evidence of a normal life spent in a small town with no sign of contact with anyone suspicious and no record of dough spending money after august 7th no leads were panning out eventually they came to believe dough roberts was dead after approximately two to three weeks of being unable to locate the victim that was more than likely going to end up being a homicide i requested through my supervisor that we bring in shelby county sheriff's department into the investigation to make it a joint investigation if it were a murder it would be prosecuted in state court the team returned to the roberts house the second search of alan roberts property was done more in a forensic frame of mind and we were looking for blood spatterings in the house as well as in the barn again roberts cooperated he would do anything forensics technicians from the fbi and the sheriff's department processed the buildings looking for any evidence of a murder cleanup or disposal of a body they also gathered hairs and carpet fibers from allen's truck to compare to any evidence recovered later the painstaking search lasted two full days alan roberts grew more frustrated that law enforcement had to devote so much time to him as a suspect he was wearing down and the real kidnapper was out there somewhere in 1992 the shelby county sheriff's department and the memphis fbi searched alan roberts farm and its buildings for any sign of his wife's possible murder roberts had passed a polygraph and now none of the items on his property tested positive for blood yet no other suspects emerged and investigators had developed circumstantial evidence that implicated roberts although several witnesses had seen roberts that day his confirmed alibi only accounted for about five hours authorities knew that left plenty of time to get rid of a body also some members of the eads community gave statements claiming alan roberts had acted in a suspicious manner following doe's disappearance according to special agent joanne overall people within the community felt he did not openly grieve for the loss of his wife he was socializing shortly after her kidnapping that both him and his wife were members of a square dancing group and within a couple of weeks allen was back at the square dancing group with various partners news anchor joe birch observed robert's lack of emotion during media coverage when somebody's wife disappears you'd expect to see a level of emotion and we just didn't see it from alan roberts he was just kind of calm cool and collected and very direct and there wasn't a lot of uh teary-eyed emotional appeals that we see a lot in in kidnapping cases investigators kept watching roberts as he tried to carry on with his life struggling with the frustration of not knowing where his wife was and being the only suspect in her disappearance yet they saw nothing that led them to doe roberts [Music] in september the man with the asian accent resurfaced now saying alan was involved hello the kidnapper began calling people in the eads community stating that doe roberts was still alive many of the phone calls indicated allen was part of the scheme to kidnap his wife it was extremely frustrating because he never gave specific points to drop money several of the people who talked to the kidnapper had caller ids on their phones so agents traced the calls to phone booths on a well-traveled road we would go to the phone booths immediately and of course the individual who was making the phone call was already gone other people had already used the phone we would check the phones for possible fingerprints and there was just never any evidence to tie an individual to that phone each of the calls were made within a few miles of the robert's house a significant risk in a small community buzzing about the case this boldness suggested that the caller was an insider familiar enough to be inconspicuous in public and that he considered himself beyond the reach of investigators desperate for something solid alan roberts took things into his own hands offering a reward for doe's safe return and announcing he disconnected the fbi's recording and tracing equipment from his phone so the kidnapper could call freely on october 8 1992 two months after doe disappeared the kidnapper called alan roberts again [Music] he told him to drive to a pay phone at a country store a mile away now hurried to the store once again he was on his own with no corroborating witness to prove what was happening [Music] the phone was already ringing when he arrived he hoped finally this would be his chance to get his wife back hello two months after someone abducted 65 year old doe roberts the kidnapper ordered her husband alan roberts to a pay phone hello the man with the asian accent said doe was alive and still with him he asked roberts for the name of an intermediary someone alan trusted that the kidnapper could contact robert suggested charles lord a leading church member and friend of the family the caller said he would be in touch about where to bring the ransom money charles lord the man roberts picked to be his intermediary was a civil servant and treasurer of the local church he made a public appeal to the kidnapper on alan roberts behalf asking the man to call him and finally give specific instructions for a ransom drop they all wanted to get dough back more calls from the kidnapper came to charles lord and others in the community but still no details for an exchange in november 1992 charles lord called investigators to his home special agent joanne overall hoped they finally had a direct link to the kidnapper charles lord stated that late in the evening he heard a car out on his cove he walked down to the mailbox and there was a letter placed in his mailbox which was a kidnapping ransom letter investigators were glad to have physical [Music] evidence fingerprints hairs of fibers on the letter might provide a link to the kidnapper [Music] but by the time they got to it they found the evidence tainted [Music] charles lord took this letter and showed it to several people before we were called in and obtained the letter so there was quite a few fingerprints on the letter before we got it lab examiners check all of the prints determining they belong to lord and the people he let handle the letter nothing to lead them to the kidnapper the message was no help either the ransom had been lowered but still no instructions for a drop it seemed the kidnapper was playing games with them in case he contacted lord again agents set a trap our office set up surveillance on his mailbox using a hidden camera which was literally placed in a birdhouse close to the mailbox if the kidnapper dropped off another note they'd have him on tape agents also installed wiretap and recording devices on lord's telephone they still had no real evidence against alan roberts but a new suspect was developing charles lord began taking an active role in the investigation often stopping by the sheriff's office to check on their progress the deputies became suspicious he seemed too interested their suspicion deepened because of the peculiar nature of the phone calls he claimed he got from the kidnapper charles lord stated he received several phone calls from the kidnapper he did say that he talked with doe roberts which was unusual because none of the other callers talked with doe roberts but agents never got tapes of the calls but every time he received a telephone call it appeared that our equipment didn't work over the next week lord reported another ransom letter and one of those scarves placed in his mailbox agents recovered no evidence from the items but hoped their camera captured images of the kidnapper they had plenty of the regular mail carrier when the tape got to where the kidnapper should appear it went blank when the equipment that was placed at charles lord's residence continued to fail i just thought we had poor equipment eventually it became apparent that somebody was tampering with it [Music] agents suspected the interference came from charles lord then the victim's husband alan roberts reported a strange encounter with lord he said the night before at the edes community center lord summoned him to a private meeting alan was surprised when his friend offered to help get dough back for a price allen roberts told me that charles lord had advised that he had underworld contacts and that there was information available if charles could get some money to pay for it also alan advised at that time that charles lord was wearing a gun it was clear lord was somehow involved but investigators needed more than suspicion they needed evidence on march 4th 1993 seven months after dough disappeared there was another twist in the case memphis news anchor joe burch received a call at his office i've never recorded a telephone conversation before but i decided that i would record this conversation the call set off a trigger in my mind that this could be the same individual who's been making the anonymous calls in the doe roberts case and i tried to get the man to stay on the line for as long as he would stay as birch spoke to the man with the asian accent he tried to elicit details as to who the caller was and what happened to dough when birch tried to set up a ransom drop the caller hung up hello hello i took the tape directly into my boss's office we immediately called the fbi and the shelby county sheriff's department what can you tell us investigators agreed to wmc-tv airing the tape hoping it might flush the kidnapper out the kidnapper called back he was angry they aired the tape and demanded no more coverage but this time joe burch got him to do what no one else had arrange a ransom drop agents and sheriff's inspectors staked out the drop location ready to grab the caller who had eluded them for so long as instructed a reporter from wmc tv drove to the spot with 80 000 in cash everyone waited hoping but the kidnapper never showed she's leaving okay one more disappointment in a frustrating investigation other deputies observed charles lord was home the entire time weeks passed with no movement on the case then in june 1993 the kidnapper arranged another drop he called two of doe's nephews and told them to bring the ransom money to a local motel soon the elusive kidnapper finally would surface in june 1993 investigators working the doe roberts kidnapping staked out an eads tennessee motel special agent joanne overall was part of the surveillance doe robert's nephews received a call from the kidnapper and they tried to make an arranged ransom drop they were told to go to a motel room which they did but they also called the fbi they were waiting to get a phone call or meet with somebody other surveillance deputies had been unable to find suspect charles lord that night as the team at the motel watched a man approached it was lord [Music] he went to the room the nephews had rented charles lord told the nephews of doe roberts that he had received a call from the kidnapper and that he was to show up there and get the money and he would receive a phone call as to where to take the money but the nephews wouldn't give him the cash they said they wanted to deal with a kidnapper directly investigators were sure that was exactly who they were dealing with he is the only individual who had received a telephone call stating that he had talked with doe roberts and now he was meeting with somebody to pick up money but we did not have enough evidence at that time to go forward with an arrest they did however increase their focus on lord to look for a financial motive to the kidnapping the fbi subpoenaed lord's bank records we went through records trying to determine if he had loans out if he what his financial holdings were and it became apparent that charles lord owed a lot of money to several banks in town substantial amounts of money and that he was unable to meet the payments and that he had filed for bankruptcy [Music] that circumstantial evidence allowed investigators to secure a search warrant for lord's house [Music] in late june 1993 they served the warrant which allowed them to look for and seize any financial documents some of the files they recovered revealed lord's criminal past he had embezzled over 150 000 from the memphis depot where he had retired several years prior and he had embezzled approximately 70 000 from the church there in eads where he was attending as treasurer of the church lord had access to the parish bank accounts and cash donations despite the find investigators still had no direct evidence of the abduction we had nothing that we could use to charge him with a kidnapping in the murder of doe roberts it was important to obtain a confession from charles lord because we had no body good maybe this will help us out one agent working the case was trained in criminal profiling analyzing lord's actions he offered a behavioral profile to help get the confession he suggested lord was a manipulative pathological liar who believed he was untouchable the agent felt that overwhelming the suspect's ego was the only way to beat him what you guys need to do the plan was to bring lord in for an interview and let him see what he would take to be evidence of a massive investigation against him for months agents created numerous evidence boxes hoping to trump lord's belief he was above the investigation then on august 25 1993 at the fbi's memphis field office investigators met with lord and his attorney got some questions about do you know anything about roberts as charles lord sat in that room during the interview i was watching him look at these boxes realizing that he had been under surveillance for a lot longer than he had anticipated and he became very nervous the fbi's tactics appeared to be working lord eventually admitted to making some of the ransom calls he said he did it to keep the investigation alive for doe's sake but denied any involvement in her abduction sensing that he was ready to crack the investigators offered him a deal charles lord was told by our office as well as the shelby county inspector that if he would take a polygraph and pass a polygraph we would not look at him any further for the doe robert's kidnapping however if he failed the polygraph his attorney and charles lord agreed to a further interview interrogation in reference to the kidnapping he agreed after asking control questions to gauge lord's truthful response levels the polygraph examiner asked about dough including whether lord was involved in her abduction did you harm roberts in the end the examiner believed the polygraph results showed lord being deceptive though the results could not be used in court they meant authorities could continue questioning the suspect with lord's attorney present in the interrogation room fbi agents and inspectors from the shelby county sheriff's department pressed the suspect returning again and again to the polygraph results i've got every piece of evidence i need what i need you to do at first he continued to deny involvement but after several hours the interview tactics wore him down lord said he was ready to tell them what happened he said he needed cash to pay back his loans and cover the money he stole from the church and decided to kidnap doe for ransom on august 6 1992 he called the roberts posing as a property buyer named sam wagner and arranged to meet alan the next day when he knew ellen was waiting at the development property he drove by their house doe was bringing in the mail there's been an accident he knew she would trust him alan's been involved in an accident yeah get in the car and i'll take you to him what happened do you know is he all right lord told investigators he planned to release doe after he got the ransom but she suffered a fatal heart attack in his car he said he panicked and dumped her body in her purse but he would not say where would you be willing to take us to where she is the investigators believed he was lying at least about planning to release dough and perhaps about other details special agent joanne overall knew they had to find the body to check his story they offered a deal charles lord agreed to tell us where doe robert's body was after he had confessed to the kidnapping in exchange for shelby county not pursuing the death penalty lord claimed he dumped her in the wolf river a slow-moving river that runs 90 miles across the southwest corner of the state the wolf river empties into the mississippi at memphis lord said he dumped the remains from a bridge in fayette county 13 miles from the robert's home divers would begin 50 yards upriver searching for the body and purse lieutenant john yancey of the shelby county sheriff's department led the dive in the murky river we had 21 divers involved told the visibility in the river was zero it was total black white and in the dark water several species of venomous snakes adding to the challenge was the fact that the crime took place a year earlier any remains would be scattered and difficult to find fbi agents and sheriff's deputies helped the divers by stretching a rope across the river's width divers held onto the rope and moved across its length searching the river bottom by hand normally you do an arm span arm over arm for a search for a body because it's large but we were looking for contents of the purse at the time to try to make sure that this was actually the scene so we had to bring it down to where we were instead of doing the large arm spins we were having to do what i call this the hand grab that's where you just get the dirt with your hand and that way you're able to find everything on the bottom once the divers reached the other bank the team would move the rope a foot down river and start over anytime a diver found something he signaled and additional divers came in to mark and extract the item we found a safe that had been taken in a robbery of a cleaners and the money had fallen out of the safe and we found the pennies on the bottom and the dollar bills but we found no contents of any of her purse so i feel like if we'd have found pennies on the bottom we would have found her makeup or a wallet or ids or anything times back to her in 110 degree heat the team continued their search of every square inch on my second day i was on the the bridge and an elderly lady walked up to me and said i want you to do me a favor and i said i'll try to if i can said i want you to find us something today so we can get this over with so we can go ahead and bury dough and get this case over with after three full days they had searched a half mile of the river they believed the body would not have gone farther than that in the lowland waters i went to my boss my chief and i told him i said based on my experience and what we have done she's not in here but if you want us to continue the search we'll research that runs in the mississippi every how you want to do it but i can tell you right now she's not here investigators were convinced lord had lied to them unnecessarily placing the dive team in danger special agent overall confronted lord we took charles lord out to the site and explained to him that these divers were putting their lives in jeopardy and we needed to find the body and it didn't appear that the body was there the suspect had run out of lies now he was ready to tell investigators what really happened to doe roberts after a three-day search of tennessee's wolf river dive leader lieutenant john yancey believed the remains of kidnapping victim doe roberts were not in the river we had searched everywhere possible and just over the years of experience i would have found something by now either some bones some makeup or something i said based on my experiences she's not in here there the divers are she's not there investigators confronted suspect charles lord realizing they would not give up until they got the truth lord admitted doe had not died of a heart attack in his car he said he took her to his house and tied her up in a room above the garage he could never let his neighbor go now he tried to kill her with sleeping pills when that didn't work he smothered her with a pillow lord said he buried her in his backyard compost heap on top of the body he placed a layer of lime then concrete hoping they would hasten decomposition they needed to determine if lord was telling the truth this time to retrieve evidence and give doe's family the closure of knowing what happened the sheriff's department called in forensic anthropologists from the university of tennessee after removing layers of leaves and compost they began the dig shelby county sheriff's lieutenant ronald goodwin supervised the meticulous excavation it's just using brushes and little trials much like uncovering artifacts and it's just it's one spoonful at a time to make sure that you don't miss any evidence and make sure you don't do anything to harm what evidence may be with the body after two hours they pierced a shell of concrete and lime in the space underneath a body the first thing that we came to was a hand the rest of the body was laying flat in the grave site on its back face up it took 17 hours to completely exhume the remains and what investigators found surprised them the skin was intact the body was in such good condition i felt like the many scientific tests that we could run might reveal it's a poisoning cause of death a sexual attack or whatever it appeared that the actions that mr lord had taken such as the lime and so forth on top of the body had worked in reverse and it had preserved the body for us the most chilling detail was the position of the 65 year old woman's hand the only thing that was out of normal position was the hand which was up in front of her face in a defensive position with a finger spread it appeared to investigators she might not have been dead when she was buried maybe she was still alive maybe she was pushing up with her hand over a year after doe roberts disappeared the fbi and alan roberts had their evidence on october 19th 1993 charles lord pled guilty to first degree murder and kidnapping he was sentenced to life plus 25 years doe's husband alan had endured being a suspect for months now with the truth out he could finally lay dough to rest but one challenge remains for alan roberts it's an uneven closure i'm trying to forget about charles lord and i'm praying that god will let me forgive him i'm praying that though is in god's hands right now mr and mrs roberts enjoyed 43 years of marriage before they were torn apart he has faith that one day he will see her again you

Channel: The FBI Files

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Keywords: FBI, FBI Files, FBI Documentary, Documentary, Crime, Crime Documentary, Crime Patrol, True Crime, True crime daily, Unsolved, Crime Stories, Crime Documentaries Full Episodes, Full Episode, unsolved true crime, fbi files full episodes, we got him, mystery, solved, investigation, police, criminal, prison, jail

Id: U3soFyXvh4s

Length: 49min 23sec (2963 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 17 2021