Home Invaders | TRIPLE EPISODE | The FBI Files

in Las Vegas an ex-con is back to his old ways big money cons low-level burglary and vile to salts local police tracking but he's gone the FBI joins the case and the violence escalates to capture the desperate fugitive authorities need to anticipate his next move thank you [Music] women are most often assaulted by someone they know but sometimes a stranger attacks near Las Vegas in December of 2000 a young woman became the latest victim of a violent sex offender before authorities could locate him he would add murder to his list of crimes I'm Jim calstrom former head of the FBI's New York office FBI agents tracked the am fugitive across the country and as they closed in the gunman was determined to avoid capture at any cost [Music] Las Vegas Nevada beneath the bright lights are thousands of workers keeping the town running and criminals ready to take whatever they can early on the morning of December 11 2000 in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson the 17 year old waitress was on her way to work [Music] in a parking lot a man offered her a ride to work who's going nowhere she declined oh let's go get it [Music] hurry up [Music] his gun stopped before crying out [Music] all right he drove her to a secluded area where he sexually assaulted her but as soon as she could she took her only chance he fled running to a nearby restaurant to call 911 [Music] Henderson Police took the call you need an ambulance ma'am the girl gave a description of her attacker and his Vietnam [Music] [Applause] did he have any weapons [Music] the patrol officer headed to the restaurant to interview the young woman and take her to a nearby Medical Center in route he spotted a red sports car that matched the description given by the victim [Music] when the officer approached [Music] the driver sped away as they neared the city and busier streets the suspect's driving became more erratic [Music] the officer decided the risk to civilians was too great [Music] police now had the vehicles license Henderson PD ran the tags and traced the vehicle to a Las Vegas address thank you Las Vegas detective Barry Jensen contacted the owner who explained he had given the car to his daughter to use the owner said he and his daughter Rachel Mills would meet detective Jensen at her apartment she had just gotten off work from a local casino when the detective arrived he told them about the car eluding police reported sexual assault Rachel said that her husband had the car that morning he had dropped her off at work at 5am she had not seen him since she hoped there had been some mistake she knew that he'd been arrested for sexual assault in the past she knew that he had been in prison but she didn't believe any of that was true or she didn't want to believe that any of that was true Rachel had noticed their car had been parked across the lot detective Jensen asked her to check the apartment and see if her husband had returned [Music] he and her father check out the car looking around the apartment she realized that her husband had taken most of his belong [Music] it appeared as if he had left her people [Music] the father owned the car but since Rachel and her husband were the regular drivers only they could consent to a search [Music] his stuff is gone all the stuff he keeps on the dresser the photos the I don't know everything seems It's Gone could you give me your verbal consent to search the car without getting a search warrant oh okay no shaken by what was happening Rachel gave Jensen permission to search the vehicle the detective believed the placement of the car far from the apartment was telling in my opinion it was hidden in the parking lot I think he knew the police were going to find his apartment if his car wasn't parked right out front I think he felt that he had more time he was creating more distance between law enforcement and himself inside the car Jensen noticed that the few personal effects matched what the assault victim described pointing more suspicion toward Rachel's husband she said he didn't have a regular job but beyond that Rachel and her father were unable to give the detective much more information all they were able to tell us was that he loved to play Blackjack and craps they had no idea where he was getting the money to do that Jensen called for Crime Scene technicians to process the car in case there was unseen evidence inside it's gonna be about 15 minutes before the tow truck to get here he had to tell Rachel that her husband was a strong suspect in the assault of a 17 year old girl and his request she gave Jensen a photo of her husband mag for Mansour if Mansour was the assailant Jensen hoped the victim could ID him based on the photo [Music] at the police station detective Jensen interviewed the young woman she identified mag for Mansour as her attacker Nevada police charged him with kidnapping and sexual assault Jensen found that Mansour had an extensive rap sheet he'd been arrested several times for sexual related offenses sexual assault open and gross lewdness he'd also been arrested for burglaries credit card fraud and weapons violations while in prison Mansour had been diagnosed with a severe personality disorder that bordered on sociopathic he was a sophisticated con artist he could make people do things that they wouldn't normally do he was a serial rapist and a career Criminal for several days police had no good leads on the case [Music] then Jensen got a tip from a new Ally sexual assault Jensen mansoor's father he'd been digging around talking to family friends and he knew that monster was a big Gambler at one of the local hotels and he felt that he would have a room there I found that he did have a room that was comped because he was a large money player since hotel security had cameras in the hallways the detective asked them to watch and call police if anyone entered mansoor's room [Music] they weren't set up to make an arrest or to grab monster or I didn't feel comfortable asking them to because I believe that he was dangerous um that night the security officer spotted a man entering mansour's wound he immediately contacted Las Vegas Police yeah the Social Security he turned to the hotel detectives were on their way but the man exited the room less than a minute after he went in and casually Slipped Away when the vice squad detectives arrived they checked his room we found a suitcase and some family pictures nothing else that would help her further our investigation they searched the entire Hotel Casino [Music] but there was no sign of Mansour they realized in order to find him they needed more resources and turned the case over to special agent Scott Bakken and detective Brian Dunaway of the Las Vegas FBI's criminal apprehension team a multi-agency squad responsible for tracking down fugitives in the Las Vegas area [Music] the squad's first step was to distribute informational sheets about Mansoor to area hotels [Music] when we have someone that we're looking for and we believe that he's gone to a hotel or something we have a system called Trax Trax which is a uh it's a fancy fax machine it allows us to send Digital Color digital photos to large groups of people simultaneously to alert them those people that don't have tracks alerts we went to old-fashioned police work we were knocking on doors and delivering these things and conducting interviews and making sure that everyone knew about him looking for this guy right here he comes under a few different aliases investigators check registers for known aliases of Mansour they found nothing these two gentlemen are from the FBI but some security Personnel recognize Mansour as a suspect in a string of room burglaries plaguing the Vegas Strip [Music] they described his frequent cons they said Mansour prayed on tourists mostly those of Middle Eastern or Asian origin okay thank you he would often pose as a translator or as a tour guide and he would do this in order to gain the confidence of people that were in town who had money after gaining their confidence he would use this information to usually enter their rooms because he was able to contact the hotel staff and impose as these people when the tourists returned to their rooms they found them ransacked over several days Mansour had stolen more than a quarter of a million dollars in cash we have been completely robbed everything is good [Music] agent Bakken believed the suspect would use the money to flee Nevada we obtained an unlawful flight to avoid prosecution warrant which is a federal warrant charging him with fleeing one state going to another to avoid the prosecution for the underlying charge which was sexual assault with the federal warrant it allowed us to engage other FBI offices around the country in searching for Mansour they tried to narrow the scope of the Nationwide search by reviewing any piece of information they could find regarding the suspect we were able to gather ins records immigration records that type of stuff and we found that he had been in their custody for for a great deal of time and uh and he was here citing some sort of religious persecution and then we were able to pull in the records from New Jersey and the the other places that he had been at we found that he had been involved in gambling fraud generally property crimes types of things mansoor's wife gave them long distance phone records which showed many calls to casinos around the country we began developing a profile of them as as a gambler and once we did that we focused our our investigation on the gambling establishments one of the gambling communities they notified was New Orleans casinos there should look out for it on the morning of January 9 2001 29 days after the Las Vegas sexual assault and kidnapping a man in an obvious wig appeared at the New Orleans Airport paying cash he booked a flight to Las Vegas under the name Francis Gabriel in the middle of the transaction he changed his destination to Los Angeles [Music] ticket agents are trained to spot suspicious activity please yes she notified airport police [Music] the wig cash and odd behavior was enough probable cause for the undercover officer to question the man thank you [Music] he followed him outside then asked to see his identification ticket foreign New Orleans authorities would learn the identical the carjacker and join the hunt for an elusive initiative I ran up on the roof in January 2001 Las Vegas authorities hunted fugitive mag-4 Mansour suspected of robbery kidnapping and sexual assault a month later the New Orleans airport a man in a disguise assaulted a police officer then escaped in a carjacked pickup truck undercover Jefferson Parish police signed to the airport reported the incident and an APB for the truck and its driver went out to police in nearby parishes 30 minutes later the Saint Charles Parish Deputy spotted the pickup truck 10 miles from the airport he called in the plates confirming it was the stolen truck but the deputy knew there was construction ahead so he did not pursue at high speed [Music] the truck entered the road construction zone but the driver was not going to stop and swerved toward a highway all right [Music] the Saint Charles Parish Deputy arrived seconds later [Music] [Applause] seeing the worker down he called for an ambulance then went to check the truck the carjacker was gone [Music] at the airport police searched a piece of luggage The Fugitive had dropped since it was left unattended on Airport property Lieutenant Glenn Toca did not need a warrant we found some identification with a photograph of the suspect an Italian passport when we checked that it was found to have been a stolen passport which the suspect had obviously placed his photograph on police also found a list of stolen credit card numbers players cards from casinos throughout the United States [Music] and multiple Social Security numbers because of possible Interstate fraud Jefferson Parish police called the New Orleans FBI they forwarded the photo and name used on the stolen passport to special agent Sandra Zuli we immediately started running that name through our system to try to identify photographs of anyone that used that name the photo of fugitive mag for Mansour wanted out of Las Vegas matched the one on the passport calling Vegas to learn more details Zully confirmed it was him [Music] despite the best efforts of the emergency personnel the highway worker died of his injuries authorities began their search for Mansour at the truck and worked out here from there Jenna Toca joined the search near the Mississippi River [Music] in about a mile radius surge plus the state police helped us on the perimeters that were doing the search we had a helicopter op plus we had uh tracking dogs in the location the area's landscape made it difficult there are buildings tug boats wharves it's a working area and there's a lot of abandoned warehouses there uh derelict barges up on the ground and everything they searched for more than 24 hours checking every conceivable hiding place we are theorized that he had either gone into the river and drowned all that he had made his way out of the uh security envelope still authorities had to assume that Mansour was alive they hope to determine where the fugitive had been while in New Orleans perhaps he would go back there they reviewed Airline passenger lists and surveillance tapes to reconstruct the fugitive's movements the day before he had come down from Connecticut into New Orleans and we were able to track him to some local casinos that he was at that night and then the next day he was supposed to be flying out and that's when he was confronted by the officer mansoor's Behavior pattern was clear we felt that eventually he would show up at a casino and that's why we focused on the casino security departments to make sure they were alerted to look for him on in in possibly a disguise mag four Ahmad authorities also broadcast his photo and the Alias is he used hoping the public could help find him anyone with information was asked to call a dedicated tip line police immediately began receiving sightings one came from a motorist who thought he had seen Mansour the night the highway worker was killed the motorist said that night he'd been driving behind a taxi on a Road near the airport you saw a man come out of the woods and hail the taxi it looked like Mansour [Music] police could not find the taxi driver and the trail went cold we were receiving numerous reports of of individuals who they felt looked like like this individual walking down the road uh sitting at a bar at a casino when all of these were checked out yet none of the sightings led to men's sewer the next lead came from officers patrolling the nearby Mississippi River shortly after The Disappearance we received the call of a body that they located floating at the bank of the river and we knew that in the fall from the Las Vegas division that we had dental records of Mag full mansu who had dental work done while in prison so we obtained the dental records and had a comparison done the records did not match mansour's whereabouts were still unknown and now that he was wanted for killing a man he'd be more desperate than ever to avoid wanted on a charge of sexual assault and kidnapping fugitive mag four Mansour disappeared from Las Vegas [Music] weeks later he resurfaced New Orleans where he carjacked his truck and killed the highway worker [Music] Not only was he moving quickly across jurisdictions he was also using multiple identities according to FBI special agent Sandra Zuli meg4 mansoy utilized so many different aliases we determined that he was stealing identification cards on a regular basis while he was staying in a casino area the players cards that we located in the luggage were determined to be stolen from casinos some of those players cards were from casinos in Atlantic City to follow up on I'm Louisiana agents contacted the FBI's Newark field office [Music] special agent Joseph Fury checked on a casino players card Mansour used under the name Yasser Hamid [Music] I called the hotel casino and talked to the senior vice president in charge of security and he advised me that Mr Hamid had in fact been a player at their casino and on January 3rd of 2001 had played and won approximately fifty thousand dollars that was six days before the airport incident in New Orleans but considering mansour's lavish gambling lifestyle the money probably would not last long if he was desperate for money we thought he might come back to Atlantic City to gamble again agent Fury learned a New Jersey phone number had been found in mansour's luggage we didn't know the reason he had the number whether or not he had ever called the number or who was on the receiving end of that call okay authorities traced the number to a house in the Atlantic City suburb of Brigantine and set up surveillance on it they knew the house belonged to a local cab driver but little else agents watched on the slim chance the house might be connected to Mansour other teams of Agents also searched the gambling community we distributed wanted posters to all of the hotel casinos in Atlantic City as well as Atlantic City police department and New Jersey State Police someone somewhere was bound to run into the elusive killer yet months went by with no sign of him [Music] then at an Atlantic City hotel on the night of May 4th 2001. a vacationing Pennsylvania state trooper and his wife returned to their room and discovered they weren't alone I'm not worried about that the trooper recognized Mansoor from wanted posters he knew the man had killed before but for some reason Mansour left without harming the couple taking any money [Music] state trooper notified the hotel about men's and asked them to call the FBI mansur had emerged from hiding now with a gun again a threat to anyone who ran across him yes thank you bye are you okay as the case progressed I knew he was a desperate man living a life of luxury which he didn't earn and he was desperate to avoid law enforcement contact two days later at 6 30 in the morning a casino ATM alerted hotel security of someone attempting to use a stolen credit card to obtain a cash advance give me a second I need to show you something real quick check this guy out here on the ATM machine here why don't you go check that out one of the hotel security officers confronted the card holder calmly explained the card belonged to him he claimed he had reported it stolen but founded again that morning and forgot to cancel the hold on it asked for identification the man handed the security officer an Indian passport that had been obviously altered when the security officer tried to bring the man in for questioning he pulled a gun then fled though the officer didn't know it yet the man he was trying to take into custody was mag four mans sewer the suspect jumped into a nearby taxi and forced the driver to help him Escape [Music] hotel security called the incident into Atlantic City Police several units mobilized to find the carjacked taxi [Music] Mansoor was one step ahead when he got distracted the driver took a chance [Music] minutes later Witnesses outside the Taj Mahal casino saw A well-dressed man leave a taxi idling at the curb and disappear inside Fielding the calls about the incidents Atlantic City police believed Mansoor must be involved authorities immediately responded to the Taj Mahal Witnesses descriptions match The Fugitive and detectives found an altered Indian passport the one from the ATM incident the photo was of mag4 Mansour the cab driver stated that Mansour told him he would shoot and kill him as well as any police officer who stopped him and he would not go back to jail that point we kind of stepped up the investigation knowing that it wasn't a one-time incident it was an individual who was on a crime spree and seemed to be on a downward spiral mag for Mansour had eluded authorities for months now as agents surrounded the massive Taj Mahal casino they hoped they finally had him cornered the FBI sought mag for Mansour for kidnapping sexual assault carjacking and second-degree murder he had eluded them in Las Vegas and New Orleans in May of 2001 he surfaced in Atlantic City hoping finally to stop him FBI special agent Joseph Fury organized a search of the hotel casino Mansour was seen entering we established a command post at the Taj Mahal with Atlantic City Police Department the New Jersey State Police as well as security Personnel from the Taj Mahal in an effort to locate Mansour thinking that he may be in the hotel somewhere but Mansour wouldn't be easy to find the 1200 room Hotel boasts a 135 000 square foot casino and is often filled with thousands of guests and in service areas there are dozens of hallways with plenty of offices and storage rooms to hide in vestigators had to clear each one clear coming out authorities feared Mansour had escaped again they broadened the search area New Jersey State Police and Atlantic City police canvassed the entire hotel casino as well as every Hotel Casino in Atlantic City they found nothing somehow Mansour had Slipped Away [Music] investigators requested security tapes from all Atlantic City hotel casins hoping to find a lead after reviewing hundreds of hours of tapes they finally spotted Mansour [Music] he was getting out of a cab checking the Taxi's identification number State Police learned it was owned by an independent operator living outside of Atlantic City in Brigantine I asked what the cab driver's name was in the location where they were going and they told me a name which came back to the individual who I had been surveilling in anticipation of Mansour returning to the Atlantic City area authorities returned to the Brigantine house with a search warrant and a SWAT team [Music] the SWAT team moved into position [Music] to get the cab driver out of the house an agent called inside posing as a dispatcher he told the driver that one of his regular fares needed a ride we felt that if Mansour was inside it might be a hostage type situation [Music] the driver emerged alone and they pulled him away so they could talk to him safely [Music] the driver said no one else was in the house but the arrest team had to be sure all clear it was another disappointment okay [Music] authorities returned to the state police barracks to interview the cab driver he said he had driven Mansoor around the Atlantic City area several times in recent years they had become friends but now he was more than willing to cooperate he immediately told us that Mansoor had been at his house that morning had pulled a gun on him and had ordered him to drive him towards Philadelphia which was approximately an hour drive from Atlantic City he actually drove Mansour into Philadelphia and dropped him off the driver hadn't called police because Mansour knew where he lived and he was afraid he would come back to get him [Music] Fury notified the FBI's Philadelphia field office that Mansour might be there [Music] I then drove from Atlantic City to Philadelphia with pictures of Mansour and assisted the Philadelphia division [Applause] sir FBI the agents went to a bus station near where Mansour was dropped off looking for anyone who had seen him no we showed the picture to several counter attendance one who recognized the picture and said that Mansour had purchased a bus ticket to New York yes sir seemed Mansour had gone to Philadelphia only to make his Trail more difficult to follow on May 9 2001. the FBI added mag for Mansour to its 10 most wanted fugitives list this made him a top priority for every FBI agent in the nation according to Task Force member Brian Dunaway him being on the FBI's Most Wanted does a few things it it allocates a great deal more resources to the investigation and it places a 50 000 reward for his capture the following day security at Atlantic City's Taj Mahal Resort reported that a gunman matching mansour's description had robbed the hotel jewelry store of three hundred thousand dollars worth of watches [Music] surveillance video captured the plate number of the limo mans who are used to escape at the Newark field office the FBI questioned the limousine driver he said he had picked Mansour up in New York City earlier that day yeah and Mansour had called for the limit he asked to be picked up on a certain street corner the driver didn't know where he was staying [Music] he said Mansour seemed like any other high-stakes gambler but around 8 o'clock he heard Security in Mars cool then Mansour jumped in and ordered him to speed away [Music] the driver followed orders Mansour had a gun who did have got out of the limousine five blocks from the robbed hotel and hopped into another Camp a white crowned Victoria with New Jersey plates the FBI asked local police to issue an all-points bulletin for White Crown Victoria cabs in Atlantic City that night Police Stopped every taxi matching the description eventually they found the driver who had picked up Mansour ported that he had taken the man to Philadelphia and dropped him off at the airport the FBI learned that only two flights had departed Philadelphia late enough for Mansour to have boarded both were Bound for Las Vegas manifests did not show mansoor's name but he might be flying under an alias they did not know yet [Music] if Mansour were on either flight authorities in Las Vegas would be ready for him [Music] in the pre-dawn hours of May 11 2001 the FBI believed deadly fugitive mag for Mansour might be aboard one of two flights to Las Vegas [Music] New Jersey FBI special agent Joseph Fury kept working as the planes traveled cross-country I contacted the Las Vegas division to advise them that Mansour had committed the armed robbery in Atlantic City and he may in fact be enroute back to Las Vegas the Las Vegas Police Department as well as the FBI were at the airport waiting for both planes to arrive Vegas detective Brian Dunaway had been tracking Mansour from the beginning he knew how dangerous and desperate The Fugitive was everyone that we had talked to everyone that knew anything about him knew that he wasn't going to go back to jail he had made those statements and his actions were just of such desperation that that he wasn't a person that wasn't going to face these charges and his previous incarcerations and the the records that they kept on him there there was just no way he was going back so he he was going to go out in the blaze of glory Mansour frequently used disguises and false IDs to travel but he wasn't on the first flight and the second plane landed agents cleared it too [Music] from the limo driver they'd interviewed they knew he had last stayed in New York City at that point I contacted special agent Ted Miller of the New York division to advise him that Mansour was not on either flight that went to Las Vegas and it would be more likely that he would be in New York City foreign mansour's phone records from Las Vegas agents interviewed mansour's Associates in New York reminding them of the fifty thousand dollar reward eventually they tracked down mansour's regular limo driver in the city in New York it's very hard to get a taxi cab and you have several private limos that will be at your beck and call and this limo driver was willing to drive Mansour because he seemed to have quite a bit of money he said he hadn't seen manso recently but on previous trips he always picked Mansoor up from the same Midtown Hotel [Music] the limo driver was cooperative and was going to take them to an area where he thought Mansour was staying it's approximately six in the morning when agent Miller advised me they had located the hotel FBI agents New York City Police and U.S Marshals headed to the hotel special agent Timothy laterner was part of the arrest team we got a call from Special Agent Miller saying the subject Mansour committed an armed robbery last night at the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City and we believe he retreated to New York and we think we have good leads that he may be at the hotel located at West 47th Street the investigators set up on surveillance outside before the Stakeout they had been briefed on the case and warned of the danger we talked about how he brandished a handgun during several crimes he committed we talked about the armed rape of a 17 year old girl and a murder he Committee in Louisiana so we knew about his propensity to violence several investigators went to check with the front desk the clerk was able to confirm that Mansoor had used one of his aliases to check in he gave the mansour's room number but didn't know if he was there our plan at that time was we were going to make a ruse phone call into the room we believe mansor might be staying it we had an agency outside the room we had agents in the lobby what we decided to do is a wake-up call if he answered or we heard starring in the room we would know he'd be in there or someone would be in there we made several calls we got no response telephonically we heard nothing in the room and Sewer must have gone out they hoped he would return hours later they spotted it [Music] [Applause] he was alone heading back into the hotel this time they wouldn't let him slip away [Music] Mansoor had long vowed not to be taken alive he went for a gun from the time I saw the gun to the time my weapon was fired you're talking about two or three seconds well not a whole lot of time to think about it you have innocent civilians in the lobby missing isn't an option even with three nine millimeter rounds in it Mansour continued to struggle so they took him into custody because of their training the arrest team is unharmed things had to be instinctive things had to be committed to muscle memory and those reactions that occurred that morning were reactions based on excellent training they were the byproduct of great training so um my recommendation to other ages would be receive as much training as you can try and get the get get it to the poverts instinctive the pursuit of Mansour had lasted five months involving more than a dozen law enforcement agencies New York City emergency Personnel tried to stabilize Mansoor but he died and route to the hospital his Rampage was finally over not any one law enforcement agency can handle an investigation of this magnitude by themselves and without the cooperation and efforts of all the law enforcement agencies I don't think Mansour would have been caught without causing harm to someone else [Music] two thieves develop a terrifying pattern combining bank robberies with home invasions and taking families of Bank Executives hostage for years federal agents track them always one step behind even when they're caught the robbers do not quit an ingenious Escape sends the fugitives on another crime speed with the FBI once again on their Trail [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] too often convicted felons learn new techniques and find new partners in prison in 1982 a group of former inmates began a spree of kidnapping and robbery I'm Jim calstrom former head of the FBI's New York office for years the suspects used false names and a network of criminal contacts to elude capture to find them the FBI had to pierce their tight-knit Circle and find new partners of Their Own [Music] on December 28 1982 I'm a Citibank Vice President Steve Thompson and his wife Ellen arrived home from a holiday party unexpectedly A car pulled in behind them when a guy the car and started in our garage they hollered Mr Thompson were federal agents they were on top of us you know with just in a few seconds Ellen Thompson thought perhaps the men had the wrong house I couldn't think of any reason federal agents would be coming to our house and I've heard of mistakes before so I I looked at him and said there must be some mistake here can I see your identification and he pulls out again the one with the obvious wig seemed to be the enforcer the other one was in charge there was obviously one other male involved because somebody drove him to our house and that car left and we never saw that car again the two gunmen forced the couple inside [Music] [Applause] [Music] the leader began interrogating Thompson about the bank where he worked no for the doors he cooperated so the incident could end without anyone getting hurt Thompson answered some questions about the bank's complex security system but he knew the safety of his employees came first and I didn't give him names of actual people that had combinations and stuff I said we'll just have to wait and see who gets there and who has the combinations and stuff because I didn't you know I didn't want to put any individuals in jeopardy I see [Music] hello a man called to speak with a gunman yeah it sounded like they were finalizing plans for a robbery the next day he'll call me back at 6 30. the leader warned Thompson to follow his orders exactly [Music] trying to make a point with me and and he said if anybody sets off the alarms tomorrow if anything goes wrong in the police come says I'm going to kill the police he made the comment at that point he said he said I'm not going back to the penitentiary the gunman held the couple hostage overnight an hour before Dawn they forced the Thompsons to drive them to the bank woman at 9 00 am they waited for employees to arrive she's wearing a black dress floral print they had someone stationed outside as a lookout he's coming in the front door during the robbery one person was in contact with somebody by phone the whole time [Music] and they were able to give him detail as far as how many people were coming to the front door the gunman knew only certain employees had access to the multi-layered security system would be okay ma'am I need to know do you have the combination to the safe no I need you to come with me those without codes or combinations were shoved into a bathroom holding area blonde tall everything will be fine it always takes you know more than one person to access anything they have different layers of security within the Vault and the cash files themselves within the vaults sir I need to know do you have the combination to say okay yes I do I need you to come with me anyone with a code was put to work so that's what he was trying to determine was who was going to be able to access that cash other employees had gotten them close one final combination stood between the robbers and hundreds of thousands of dollars play here he's stupid the robber with the wig was the more threatening one the Richer told no one gets hurt good now get in there and fill them up [Music] within 30 minutes the gunman had hundreds of thousands of dollars in hand did you get it got it come on I need your keys they herded Mr Thompson a manager in with the other hostages he put me in one of the restrooms and he told me and the people at our restroom that said we're going to be here five more minutes nobody stick their head out and they left and I was pretty sure that you know from hearing the conversations out there that they were going to leave right away no so I probably waited uh you know probably a minute and a half before I came out [Music] [Music] when it appeared the robbers had gone Thompson directed the manager to contact authorities go ahead and call the police it's a corporate bank's just been robbed we need the police here right away the call went out to nearby Oklahoma City Patrol units [Music] following standard procedure Oklahoma City Police also contacted the FBI special agent Mike cycle took the call I shouted to other agents on the squad that we had a bank robbery I gave them the location and gave a little bit of information about what was going on the fact that the robbers were gone and we had a bunch of agents in head for the bank the patrol units arrived first they approached quietly and cleared the bank making sure no gunman was still inside [Music] FBI agents arrived minutes later the Hobbs act enacted in 1946 to protect federally insured depositors makes bank robberies the jurisdiction of the FBI it meant a nationwide police force would investigate the crime and go after the robbers the Thompsons described the ordeal that began in their home that they were for so no one was hurt didn't have anybody hurt it had been a sophisticated well-planned crime with no evidence left behind these robbers must have struck before [Music] but no similar robberies had occurred in the area in the past agents searched the FBI's database to see if any had been committed elsewhere they found a national file of robbery cases that included invasions of Bank employees homes so I pulled that file out and found that there were several offices that had robberies where the pattern was very similar so I started communicating with those offices he hoped to find an agent who had experience with whoever robbed the Oklahoma City Bank and located special agent Steve at the Phoenix FBI cycle described the Oklahoma City home invasion style bank robbery the robbers disguises and their mannerisms how many guys Jenna was immediately named two bank robbers he knew Terry Connor and Joseph Dougherty as having operated that way all those things are are typical of what they had done in the past and so a lot of that once I learned the actual details of what had occurred in Oklahoma City just pointed a finger right at those two witness descriptions from Oklahoma City match the felons because of his knowledge of the pair Chenoweth became the lead case agent he knew that Conor and Dougherty had met in federal prison Terry Connor was the leader in for three Arizona bank robberies each time he and his partner had held Bank employees hostage overnight Joe Dougherty was just a thug from Philadelphia and was a stuck up guy one-on-one you know gun on the right hand maybe a note on the other hand and you know give me what you got across the counter not a very sophisticated Mo at all and certainly didn't have the smarts that Terry Connor had Connor was a smooth talker recruiting accomplices with ease Terry was you know primarily a West Coast guy and uh Terry being from the west coast and being from California we did certainly concentrate our efforts out there in California looking for him agents contacted the Monterey California FBI resident agency they told special agent Harlan freimeyer what they knew about Terry Connor Oklahoma City went on to tell us that uh the suspicion was that he had a girlfriend that lived in Pacific Grove California and they wondered if he might not be heading that direction and asked us to do some work to see if we can work that angle we located Connor's girlfriend's home routine surveillance revealed a possible link to Terry Connor who was last believed to be in Oklahoma City [Music] while doing a spot check on this residence lo and behold there was a vehicle parked out front with Oklahoma license plates on it so I notified the Oklahoma city office and they didn't actually have a record of that vehicle that they could positively tie into Terry Connor at the time but they thought it might have been one that he purchased under an alias I'll tell you what you've ever seen well the girlfriend was away from the house agents spoke with her gardener identifying themselves they told him they were conducting a federal investigation he needed to be truthful and discreet they asked if he had recently seen any men at the residence [Music] he hadn't but recalled over hearing the girlfriend talking about meeting Conor the following week the information I got was specific enough that we knew that on a given day Terry Conner was going to meet somewhere with his girlfriend and so I felt at that point in time that we were very close to Harry Connor agents followed Connor's girlfriend for days learning that she drove several different cars they placed tracking devices on each of them with receivers in FBI cars and airplanes they tracked her whenever she drove but on the day she was to meet Connor the signal faded once we lost the vehicle we were spreading our vehicles out in all sorts of directions trying to locate signal and we had an airplane assistant set day in the airplane uh gave us the signal out on the highway and we picked her up again agents traveled toward the location of the recaptured signal when they spotted the car it was parked in front of a restaurant there was no sign of the girlfriend or Terry Connor or anybody else that was associated with car so we made a plan right then to establish full-time coverage on the car until something happened [Music] SWAT team waited watching for any sign of the suspect [Music] [Music] an FBI agent made sure that if the couple returned for the car they couldn't drive it away we let deer out of her tires so they wouldn't sneak in and sneak out real fast and waited most stakeouts mean long hours with no payoff but the agents had to stick with it and hope that suspected bank robber Terry Connor which surface after a hostage taking in bank robbery in Oklahoma City the FBI developed two suspects Terry Connor and Joseph Dougherty two months later and 1500 miles away in Atascadero California agents staked out a restaurant where Connor's girlfriend had left a car they believed Conor was in the area planning to meet her the long hours of the Stakeout paid off for FBI special agent Harlan freimeyer we just happened to see Terry Conner Drive in a parking lot with his girlfriend and uh it doesn't usually work this way but the photographs we had at Terry Conner was of such quality that it was easy to make instant recognition so we knew that we were about to accomplish our mission [Music] go the suspect was known to carry weapons so a tactical arrest team took the lead [Music] he struck fast giving Terry Connor no opportunity to flee [Music] thank you the girlfriend was questioned and released after investigators determined she was not involved in Connor's crimes [Music] give me left hand agents then discovered an unexpected benefit to deflating the tire of the girlfriend's car by the time we got to the point where we were making our arrest he had already popped the trunk on his car and of course without a search warrant we couldn't have gotten in there if he hadn't popped it for us and so once the arrest was made there we had in plain view the contents of his trunk and that was useful to us because there was a briefcase that we opened and found a substantial amount of money nearly forty thousand dollars in cash for serial numbers matching some of the money stolen during the Oklahoma City robbery [Music] who's also found a large diamond and a Jeweler's receipt for six more [Music] authorities took Connor to the Monterey FBI office where they charged him with the Oklahoma City robbery [Music] in handing over his personal effects during the intake process something of Interest emerged a sales receipt from a Reno Nevada car dealership the buyer was listed as Russell Anderson perhaps an unknown Alias of Conor or Dougherty he had given an address in Santa Maria California my instinctive belief was that that address might well be the address of his partner Dougherty so we put out the word as fast as we could to our counterparts Southern California ask them to get out and check that address the SWAT team immediately went to the residence and prepared to make entry they suspected Dougherty was inside perhaps armed trying to stun anyone in the house [Music] by the time they got there whoever had been occupying that address was gone I fear that possibly they were alerted by Terry Connor in in the bookend process when he was given his phone call word that Conor was arrested but the docket he was not went out to case agent Steve Chenoweth even though we're looking for two we're certainly willing to take one and the fact that we didn't find Joe there was a little disappointing but also the fact that we did find Terry Connor meant that we had solved half of that equation and we just had to up the ante to find Joe Channel with new Joe Dougherty would keep robbing banks using the method taught him by Conor but without Terry Connor controlling him Daugherty was a loose cannon now more dangerous than ever Terry was the brains Terry was the guy that made most of the decisions and now you're putting Joe who is more prone to violence than Terry was basically in a leadership role if he should fly off the handle there might not be anybody there to calm him down for eight months there was no sign of Dougherty anywhere then in Phoenix on the night before the busiest shopping day of the year when banks are stocked up with cash the vice president of a large area Bank returned home with his family from a Thanksgiving dinner with relatives it appeared their home had been burglarized [Music] The Intruders hadn't left [Music] through the night the two robbers held the banker at his family hostage [Music] it looked like Joe Dougherty was leading a new partner and now that he was in charge understand anything could happen settle in and be friends Thanksgiving 1983. they're told no one gets hurt give me the keys two Intruders held a phoenix banker and his family hostage overnight go start the car hours before Dawn Joe dockert and his new partner were ready to rob the bank they would use the Banker's car for transportation and his children for collateral [Music] Dougherty never put down his weapon remember the car in less than two hours they would drive to the bank empty its Vault and escape with two hundred seventy thousand dollars cash being the family frightened but unharmed what's the address The Heist was in the home city of the lead case agent on Dougherty's Trail okay put it out and Steve Chenoweth learned of the crime he believed he knew who had done it my first thought right away is Joe Dougherty but didn't know the answer to that until I started talking to the victims to get an actual physical description wondering if Dougherty was taunting him by striking in his own town Chenoweth headed to the Banker's home to learn more details of a fearful night spent held at gunpoint [Music] most of us don't go through that and to go through it for an entire evening with your two children is a very scary thing and so they were glad it was over and they were certainly glad to see us come Jack can you tell me just a little bit more about the banker described the assailants saying both wore obvious wigs and the bigger one was in charge once I got the information the physical description of the leader fit that of Joe Dougherty right to a t so I knew that we were dealing with Joe but here again we had another individual that he had picked up we didn't know who that guy was as his partner the family described how the parrot acted dockerty and his new partner were more volatile and threatening than he and Connor had been but as before they left agents with no leads six months later I'm 900 miles to the Northwest in Reno Nevada local police called the FBI to another robbed bank once again Heist was preceded by a hostage taking the night before but this time the level of violence had increased there was a bomb they'd strapped it around the bank officer indicating that it was explosives and if he didn't do what he was told to do that they would detonate that and that certainly is enough to put the fear of God into you and and I would certainly do anything that they asked me to do I want to stay with him [Music] determining there were no booby traps a Reno Police bomb specialist freed the terrified Bank officer and sent him out of the Vault to safety [Music] um the expert cut off the power supply though he later determined the device was a fake the bank officer told the FBI that he and his family had been held hostage at gunpoint overnight by two men wearing wigs in business suits gentleman in this picture right here showing a photo of Joseph Dougherty he said it looked like one of the men seen a white sedan with Washington State plates speeding away from the bank after the robbery so agents searched the area they found the vehicle abandoned less than 200 yards from the Reno FBI office it seemed Daugherty was again boldly challenging the FBI check of the plates showed it was registered to a man in Spokane Washington that man said he had recently sold the car to someone who fit the description of Dougherty and a pregnant woman whom the FBI believed to be Dougherty's girlfriend to help find the couple the FBI called on the U.S Marshals experts in Interstate tracking of cars and people United States Marshal Denny Behrend believed the cars talking he used would be the key to finding him as fugitives Joseph Dougherty was very smart he changed cars like some people change socks he would buy cars sell them sell them back to the original owner sell them to use car lot Marshall's painstakingly followed a complex trail of cars and aliases and eventually got a break they discovered a car accident report linking one of daugherty's aliases to an address in Idaho hi there since the house appeared to be abandoned the marshals interviewed Neighbors one woman immediately recognized the robber though she only knew him by his alias she said he had the peculiar habit of shooting pistols in his backyard told the marshals that he his girlfriend and their newborn child had recently moved out okay go ahead of a moving truck rental records in the area Okay Marshals determined Dougherty's girlfriend had rented one under a false name and had driven it to Colorado the rental company gave authorities her destination the house in the mountains outside Denver FBI agents in U.S Marshals watched from the cover of the woods surrounding the house seen [Music] because there was now a baby involved they had to be especially cautious [Music] at one point they observed the girlfriend leaving the house with another man it wasn't dark Marshals could not see if they had the infant with them other Marshals followed the two into town and watched them enter a store without the baby I said go to the car it's parked in the shopping mall parking lot and look inside and see if they left the baby inside the car it's a negative on the kid in the car we're gonna go and it radioed back to me no the baby's not in the car and they didn't have the baby in arms that means one thing the baby's still at the house still at the house with Joseph Dougherty after two years of constantly being minutes too late authorities believed they were finally going to arrest the dangerous robber but in law enforcement things rarely happen exactly as planned two years after Terry Connor and Joseph Dougherty robbed an Oklahoma City Bank Connor had been captured convicted of armed bank robbery and sentenced to 25 years the FBI believed his partner Joseph Dougherty had continued a spree of Hostage taking and bank robbery but that they finally had him cornered in a Colorado house earlier that day they had arrested the fugitive's girlfriend in a male associate the girlfriend confirmed the Dougherty and their infant child were still inside the house [Music] was armed okay you ready the SWAT team fanned out in stations around the house [Music] copy number two number three are you in possession same thing just moving around also watching was U.S Marshal Denny Behrend [Music] Joseph Dougherty stepped out of the house positively identified and with that he took a 357 Magnum and started to fire Into the Woods [Music] but it didn't look like docket he was firing at the agents I just hunker down if you're not in danger don't return fire don't return fire unless you're being threatened the marshals would call the neighbor in Idaho who had said dockety often fired random shots in his backyard they believed he didn't know they were there okay just hold your fire hold your fire let me know if he comes back out again we're going to try him on the phone they still needed to resolve the situation peacefully an FBI negotiator placed a call to the house [Music] negotiary he said I established contact but the person is hung up it was answered by a male but he hung up got it the well-trained snipers had several possible shots at The Fugitive that they held off we had to consider it and of course the safety of the baby we had to consider the safety of other people that might be in the home that we didn't know about they've seen him go past the window several times they see the baby has anybody caught sight of the child anybody seen the child still they had to be ready if Daugherty started firing at them [Music] The Negotiator called the house again [Music] he told The Fugitive that his girlfriend and accomplice had already been arrested and asked Dougherty to consider his child's safety and surrender peacefully [Music] through the window they saw him approaching the door come on on the ground now holy flat down arms out all the way down copy he was arrested without a struggle [Music] once we had the baby out of the house we had the house secured then we began to move through it and we discovered 16 firearms in that house including a 308 tactical assault rifle two of those um all hidden all loaded all charged and ready to go to defend that house balcony was charged and held for trial in Oklahoma almost a year and a half later on June 19 1985 two U.S Marshals were transporting Terry Connor and Joseph Dougherty to an Oklahoma City Courthouse Dockett he was facing the first of four trials this one for the bank robbery and hostage taking in Oklahoma City three years earlier he had subpoenaed his partner Terry Connor as a witness on a rural road and they made their move with smuggled jailhouse Contraband a handcuffed cuffed razor blade [Music] [Music] they had never planned on arriving at the courthouse [Music] they took the Marshall's guns videos pull over and ordered them off the road okay March the Lawman Into the Woods the felons were desperate for freedom and it seemed no one could stop them from Gaining it June 19 1985. bank robbers Terry Connor and Joseph Dougherty escaped the custody of two U.S Marshals while in transit to Dougherty's trial the fugitives handcuffed the marshals to a tree and stole their weapons badges and car they were mobile armed and for now no one knew they were back on the Run stop the truck stop they had a 15-minute Head Start before the marshals managed to free themselves and Report The Escape at the U.S courthouse in Oklahoma City special agent Steve Chenoweth was shocked when he heard the news my initial thought was this can't happen when you put so much time and effort into uh a case like this over a period of years and to have it just kind of disappear in a Flash in a moment's notice it's a real severe letdown Bank surveillance videos captured Conor and Dougherty's next crimes two small-scale bank robberies in St Louis [Music] agents believe they'd needed some quick cash before getting back to their regular routine initially after the escape and after the fact that they had held up both Banks there in in St Louis and had about thirty thousand dollars cash we knew that they were going to be coming back out and striking again at a bank at a bank officer in his family we knew that there was a potential a high potential for kidnapping we knew that the uh the propensity for violence was great two months later police in West Allis Wisconsin received a bank robbery I hope you're at what bank a million dollars taken the largest bank heist in the state's history finding to a bank robbery 107 West National it was by now an all too familiar pattern two gunmen had held the bank president and his wife hostage then again aided by a lookout rob the bank [Music] [Applause] fingerprints placed Connor and Dougherty at the scene local police called the Wisconsin FBI special agent Dan craft was assigned the case [Music] reading witness statements he saw that the fugitives were Bolder than ever no longer even using disguises it did nothing to conceal their identity they didn't do anything to really help by saying their names but Terry Connor didn't mention to the bank president's wife he said the FBI is going to know who we are because of the continuing danger Conor and Dougherty posed both were placed on the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives list media coverage Drew many leaves one call LED agents to a man who might have been the robber's lookout outside the Wisconsin Bank agents issued an APB for the alleged lookout's car Days Later a State Trooper pulled him over and called the FBI going on here once the identified him they took him in there was an active open warrant for him out of St Louis for violating his Federal parole so he arrested him and I brought him downtown to the FBI office first the man refused to answer questions about Conor and Dougherty um so we would talk and this went on for five days but it wasn't a sweating I mean you see on television where it looks like an interrogation and you're getting in somebody's face now it was just two men talking okay finally the craft won him over thinking about it yeah but he was afraid of facing Conor and Dougherty in court let's just talk about it you know and I'd like to cooperate he says but you know I won't testify so you don't have to testify we don't need your testimony you know we've got these guys locked in I just need to know how they think I need to know what they do and how they do it so I can get one step ahead of them the suspect agreed to talk in the hopes of a reduced sentence he told Kraft how Connor and Dougherty chose the banks they robbed how they traveled even how they communicated through Hotel front desks one of them would call up and make a reservation in the name of a former prison wart and the other one would call up and ask if this person had checked in yet and the switchboard operator would then say no uh Mr so-and-so hadn't checked in yet and they'd say well can I leave a message for him so then what the other one would then call back looking for messages and they did this as one of their ways of uh communicating without ever being traced the most important piece of information he gave was the name of another man who had helped Conor and Dougherty rob banks in the past his name was John Harris agents found Harris in Tucson Arizona they saw him making and receiving calls at a certain pay phone getting a warrant they tapped the phone and listened in he was talking to Connor and Dougherty and we hope through a series of wiretaps that we might be able to trace the phone back to a particular area and through investigation in that area maybe locate them agents learned that fugitives were calling from Chicago and we're planning another robbery there special agent George Spinelli of the FBI Chicago Field office distributed photos of the fugitives to area hotels one reported a guest who looked like Joseph Dougherty though that name wasn't on the register as I looked at the register I looked down and I did see an alias that Conor had used in the past at that point I thought possibly we had two top ten fugitives at this hotel case agent Steve Chenoweth immediately flew to Chicago joining the other agents of the hotel the guest who looked like Daugherty appeared to have checked out watch the room Connor might be if he was there they needed to confront him outside his room to avoid a standoff [Music] we were very concerned that it could get violent and especially Conor who had vowed that he would never be taken alive we took extra precautions at that point an arrest team planned the takedown for the parking lot okay all right keep an eye okay eventually the FBI agent spotted someone leaving the room here come here take a look yeah got some activity can't see his face yet Tony it's our guy take them take them out agents called for the SWAT team to make the arrest [Music] so he did not have an opportunity to uh to get away he was grabbed immediately although Joe Dockett he was not seen by agents he'd appeared he was nearby and saw the police activity A call came in to the switchboard asking what was going on and it was a male and asking about uh you know the occupant maybe of a particular room and no doubt my mind it was Dougherty and he was trying to find out what happened agents searched the area but did not find Dougherty the one thing they knew was that he would commit more robberies with a new partner this guy doesn't have any other choice he can't do a robbery by himself he's got to reach out for somebody else the FBI believed he'd call on John Harris and learned Harris had recently flown to San Francisco again they spotted Harris repeatedly using a certain Payphone they ordered another phone tap [Music] about a week later we get a phone call and it was Joe Dougherty Concord he said he was calling from St Louis but FBI technicians couldn't trace the call out of San Francisco and all of a sudden the Stark realization came to us that this guy's not in in St Louis Dougherty is is right there in that area agents realized he himself was surveilling his Lookout to see if he had been followed so what's the plan yeah they hoped he hadn't seen the undercover agents all right all right later believing his Lookout was in the clear Dougherty planned a meeting for the next morning there in San Francisco agents showed up early [Music] Dougherty arrived as promised [Music] and at about that time we had a whole lot of very weary FBI agents pounce on Joseph William Dougherty so ends the The Saga and so into the chase after a nationwide man that lasted more than a year Terry Conner and Joseph Dougherty were tried for their most recent crimes they each received two life sentences plus 139 years without parole they are kept in separate federal prisons their partnership forever terminated the nation's railroads become the conduit of a killer strikes at random then disappears [Music] recurring Clues tell police they face the worst predator of all a ritual serial killer he's cunning deadly and on the move but the authorities are determined to stop him in his tracks [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] thousand miles of train track crossed the United States from California to Kentucky a few living near a railroad felt safe in the summer of 1999 a serial killer rode the rails picking towns and victims at random he left behind a trail of Bloodshed but no trace of where he would turn up next I'm Jim calstrom former head of the FBI's New York office as the number of victims grew the FBI Enlisted the help of a profiler to help predict the Killer's next move [Music] on December 17 1998 in West University placed Texas [Music] a young woman called the police from outside the house of a friend she worked with worried about her she told them that her friend a prominent doctor at a nearby medical school had failed to show up at work that morning according to her colleague this was completely out of character she had not responded to phone calls to the house all day nor had she answered her door [Music] nothing out of the ordinary and that that was yesterday the colleague was sure that something was wrong [Music] I'm just very concerned about it the doors and windows of the house were locked from the outside everything seemed normal the officers found that the garage door was unlocked and inside the door to the house wide open jewelry on the floor suggested a robbery [Music] [Music] the house had been ransacked the officers moved cautiously [Music] an intruder can still be inside the downstairs was clear but a trail of clothes led to the second floor [Music] in the master bedroom they found the doctor foreign she had been brutally murdered 222 let me have a supervisor and a crime scene unit to the scene detective Kenneth Maha responded to the scene [Music] though a 10-year veteran of the department he was surprised by the report of a homicide University plays just a small little sub square miles right in the middle of Houston largely residential and affluent community and the last time we had a murder was in 1985 during a robbery of a pharmacy the brutality of the crime struck the detective what's better was all over the place in the hallway and on the the walls and the door the body was completely covered except for one arm sticking out and uh in her two legs [Music] there was a large butcher knife that was near the body laying on a pillow [Music] investigators also recovered a heavy blood-spattered blunt object nearby both were weapons of opportunity the killer found in the house [Music] police contacted the doctor's husband and learned he had taken the couple's two children out of town to visit relatives Before Christmas they'd been gone for several days sure the victim had work obligations to take care of that wave so she was not able to travel with him take a look at this over here evidence suggested that the killer had taken his time in the house [Music] he tore open Christmas gifts and rummaged through the victim's belongings the contents of her purse were spelled out in her driver's license was clearly left out and displayed it was uh it was quite strange to see it like that [Music] in the kitchen the detective found partially eaten fruit [Music] possibly more evidence the killer had lingered in the house [Music] also found the keys key to the victim's Jeep according to the doctor's husband it was the only scent [Music] in the garage there were no foreign fingerprints at the suspected point of entry but on a workbench investigators found the broken cover of a steering column next to some pry tools the killer must have stolen the victim's Jeep we surmised him that he had to break the steering column of the Jeep to actually Crank It Up and to start it here the murderer made a crucial mistake when I picked up the large piece of the steering column I could visibly see fingerprints on the shiny black plastic [Music] the column cover was bagged for later analysis at the lab at autopsy the medical examiner determined cause of death multiple stab wounds and blunt force trauma to the Head the victim had been sexually assaulted [Music] the gruesome nature of the murder worried detective Maha it just didn't fit the pattern of a random killing it was a Step Beyond investigators knew that Killers like this usually don't strike only once two days later and 200 miles away San Antonio police found an abandoned Jeep in a motel parking lot the plates were traced to West University Place it belonged to the doctor the plastic cover of the steering column was missing inside investigators found a guitar and a meat cleaver the doctor's husband had noted that both items were missing from the house someone had hot wired the Jeep in a hurry we noticed too that the steering column was just an absolute disarray [Music] the jeep was fingerprinted inside and out but technicians found no usable prints at the police department's forensics lab analysts made electronic copies of the fingerprints lifted from the Jeep steering column cover and ran them through an automated matching system and at that time we got a positive match on an individual named Carlos Rodriguez the computer check revealed another name Rafael Resendez Ramirez this was forwarded to the FBI's criminal justice Information Services Division a search of their extensive database revealed dozens of other aliases and more information on resenders extensive record going back more than 20 years and an active warrant on a stolen vehicle charge investigators reviewed the suspect's file from the immigration and naturalization service [Music] and learned Resendez traveled regularly and illegally between the United States and Mexico most recently he had been arrested in California for trespassing on Railroad property with a loaded firearm and was deported to Mexico now it appeared that Raphael resendis was back in Texas his transient lifestyle would make him difficult to find detective Maha searched the suspect's records for a place to start and found the name of the fugitive sister she lived in Albuquerque New Mexico in a pre-arranged phone conference Maha spoke with her at the Albuquerque Police Department she wasn't able to tell me a whole lot about current activity of her brother she did not have much contact with them she did mention that he would sometimes drift through Albuquerque stay with her for a few days and then just disappear detective Maha asked her to call if she heard from her brother and I think there was a little bit of anger and resentment on her part of it being having to be involved with it she really didn't want to be associated with him if indeed he was a real killer as uh as we thought that he was authorities also asked the public for help they distributed wanted posters along the train routes Resendez was known to use [Music] dozens of tips turned up nothing foreign [Music] in March three months after the doctor's murder there was a series of reported sightings and Rail Yards near San Antonio [Music] Resendez had traveled 200 miles west fled before police could respond the suspected killer was still on the Move hopping trains and eluding authorities [Music] thousands of miles of train tracks to choose from Raphael Resendez could be anywhere [Music] five months after the doctor's murder and only 90 miles away in Weimer Texas members of a local church went to check on their pastor he and his wife had not been at church that morning [Music] the couple was found murdered in their own bed foreign er's a small town murder is nearly unheard of Texas Rangers and the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office arrived at the scene [Music] okay after preacher and his wife had been bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer a weapon of opportunity taken from their garage the coroner set time of death at 24 to 36 hours earlier the couple had been murdered late Friday or early Saturday morning invaluables lay in plain sight robbery was clearly not the motive deputies processed the bedroom with luminol a chemical that reacts to the protein and blood and other bodily fluids it revealed the victim's blood and bodily fluid from an unknown source forensic testing later revealed the woman had been sexually assaulted it appeared that after the murders the killer had lingered at the crime scene he ate in the victim's kitchen and took his time studying their driver's licenses the investigators at the scene were unaware of the West University Place murder but not for long in May 1999 Texas authorities were on the trail of a fugitive Raphael Resendez fingerprints implicated him in the murder of a doctor in West University Place four months later preacher and his wife were found beaten to death in their home in Weimer the couple's red pickup truck was missing probably stolen by the Killer police put out an APB for the vehicle at the Department of Public Safety investigators from the Texas Rangers were troubled by the crime scene the evidence in the house partially eaten food and displayed ID cards suggested a ritualistic killer the Rangers contacted the FBI's Houston field office to get the opinion of a criminal profiler Special Agent Mark Young you have anti-crime saying a lot of messages a lot of forensic evidence and a lot of Behavioral evidence you can pick up not only the forensics the fingerprints the DNA the hairs and fibers and those types of things but you can also get a look into the offender's Behavior the way he commits that crime is unique it's different than any other offender young noted that this killer acted with Extreme Rage but no sign of panic what really struck me behaviorally was this offender unlike a lot of others spent an incredible amount of time in that house going through everything their wallet and purse respectively were opened up and their identification was showing in other words the offender sat there and looked at their photographs did not taking any credit cards not taking any cash profilers can analyze a Killer's behavioral choices in an attempt to reveal details about him in this case after killing the victims the perpetrator kept striking with his weapon but then he covered their bodies this suggested perhaps even he was repelled by the results of his actions displaying the victim's ID cards might be an act of domination as if he wanted details about the lives he had taken one of the Texas Rangers young spoke to had seen something like this before he realized because he had some knowledge of the case in West University that some of the same types of things that happened and he said hey guys uh you know could this be connected not only are we looking at some Mo that seems similar but we're looking at Behavior Uh this uh ritualistic Behavior or what we call sometimes signature of an offender if there was a connection between the two cases the forensics lab would find it one of the advantages we had is that we had forensic evidence in both places we had fingerprints and DNA evidence in the West University case we also had DNA evidence at the Weimer location [Music] DNA analysis revealed that the bodily fluid recovered in both cases matched same man sexually assaulted both women [Music] since the first victim's Jeep had been recovered investigators wondered how the killer got to the second crime scene in both cases the vehicle had been stolen after the crime that would have meant traditionally that somebody had to bring the person there or that they were somebody from close by [Music] young studied the case File of suspect Raphael Resendez there was information already in that fugitive investigation indicating that Resendez got around by train according to the fire there were train tracks 50 yards from the doctor's House in West University Place we turned around and look there's a train track immediately across the street from the Weimer location with the two cases directly connected investigators believed Rafael Resendez was a ritual serial killer the manner that he did these crimes is somewhat evolutionary you don't just wake up one day and and boom get involved in that type of crime it's something that you've uh practiced you've built up to and you've done before and he's not going to stop uh all of a sudden either they feared Resendez was using stolen vehicles and the railroads to find his next victim [Music] at the Houston field office the FBI's Fugitive Squad joined the hunt for resenders special agent Bobby Eckard led the investigation we knew that he had fled the jurisdiction and traveled date and because resendis had likely left Texas they obtained an unlawful flight to avoid prosecution warrant it would allow the FBI to add its Federal resources to the hunt the first thing that we wanted to do is to find out everything that we possibly could about Resendez we knew that he had been arrested over 13 times they immediately started getting all the prison record pin packets so that I could identify not only relatives but Associates determine his patterns all the interviews revealed to us that this was a man who was not well known by anybody his family had not really had a lot of contact with him since he left home at 12 years of age and moved to Acapulco and eventually to Florida it was little to go on criminal profiler Mark Young tried to unlock The Drifters past to predict his next move he forwarded details of both cases to analysts at the FBI's violent criminal apprehension program vicap analysts use sophisticated databases to identify similar unsolved cases immediately they were able to return to me a case in Lexington Kentucky a Hispanic male had assaulted a college student and murdered her boyfriend [Music] late at night in 1997 near the railroad tracks where these two had been walking male was killed by his skull being crushed by Rock female was sexually assaulted she was also physically assaulted pretty severe injuries though dazed by the attack the young woman somehow survived seeing that her boyfriend was dead she made her way to a nearby house where residents called the police she was able to give them an artist depiction of a local artist of the offender young received the sketch from the Lexington Police Department [Music] I compared it and I didn't immediately say wow you know this is him what I felt was kind of an a guarded optimism that this could be the same guy but a sketch isn't proof young needed scientific evidence to be sure he learned that the Lexington Police still had DNA samples from the sexual assault two years earlier and arranged for the samples to be flown to the FBI lab in Washington DC [Music] at the DNA analysis unit examiners began processing the samples examiner Alan giusti we look at 13 different unique DNA regions and we develop an individual profile at each one of those regions I describe it like looking at a person's physical characteristics you can look at one DNA region and it might be the same as another person's and that'd be like saying that two people both have brown eyes well that's very common you look at 13 different DNA regions it's like saying somebody has brown eyes is Left-Handed is six foot three is got red hair the more DNA regions you look at the more complete the picture you get of the person [Music] after mapping the DNA profile of the perpetrator from Lexington juicy contacted the examiners in Texas who had mapped the samples from Weimer and West University Place by comparing the results that I obtained with the results they obtained we were both able to determine that we had a possible common donor in other words the same person was committing these crimes in Texas young forwarded the news to the other investigators I was able to call Lexington PD and I heard a lot of hooping and hollering because they thought it was going to be an unsolved case Lexington Police now had Rafael Resendez as their Prime Suspect authorities across the Southwest canvassed homeless shelters and train yards [Music] they knew resentus was out there somewhere [Music] on May 28th authorities found the preacher's truck abandoned near a train yard in San Antonio [Music] it looked like resenders had returned to the rails finding him would be an overwhelming task for special agent Eckard and her team we had never faced this type of obstacle before there are thousands of tracks there are thousands of trains every day and it was difficult to determine which line that he rode with a massive search area to cover they had to be resourceful [Music] way we handled since we've developed a small wanted poster that we gave to the people that frequently rode the railroads in train yards Across the Nation locals were advised to be on the lookout for Raphael Resendez if they spotted him they should call the FBI Fugitive Squad immediately police they would pull the person off the train and identify them agents and railroad police responded to hundreds of sightings [Music] each time it wasn't presented [Music] the FBI's best lead was the Fugitive sister in New Mexico stayed in contact with her hoping she might hear from him for any reason he's contacting him and if she did hear from him they hope she'd talk I told you the last time we spoke that so far it seemed the only way to track Resendez was to follow a trail of bodies on June 4th 1999 a Fayette County Texas woman stopped by her mother's house to check on her the 73 year old Widow lived alone the house had been ransacked there was no sign of her mother mom as she searched each room her Panic Rose [Music] bedroom she found her mother's body the elderly woman had been bludgeoned to death so we're on the trail of Rafael Resendez linked to four murders in Texas and Kentucky as his notoriety grew the Press dubbed him the railroad killer now an elderly Widow had been murdered in rural Fayette County Texas like the other victims she lived near a railroad the gruesome crime looked like the work of Rafael Resendez according to FBI Special Agent Mark Young when you looked at that real brutal style of murder you felt like yeah okay you dealing with the same guy because she was covered similarly there were jewelry boxes that had been opened up in other rooms things had been opened and gone through and there were items taken it was a familiar and disturbing pattern cash and jewelry had been left behind instead the killer stole Trinkets and personal items as if taking souvenirs fingerprints in the laundry room indicated the killer had broken in through a rear window the print was later matched to Resendez after slaying his victim he was in no rush to leave not only did he go around to all of the rooms take certain items and spend an inordinate amount of time he went and had some fruit and some bread which was a thing that we had seen a number of times I take that to be more of a signature showing that I'm totally on and dominate this individual in their belongings more than a I'm hungry and I need something to eat two distinctive Clues at the Fayette County scene seemed intended as a message to investigators [Music] a newspaper had been placed on the sofa open to an article about the recovery of the preacher's stolen vehicle in a guest bedroom they found a toy train it had been recently unpacked and set up on the bed it seemed the railroad killer was taunting the authorities canine unit followed his scent to the train tracks from there the trail went cold [Music] it's done 24 hours later the next victim was discovered [Music] another gruesome murder near railroad tracks this one 95 miles from Fayette County I got a call in regard to a crime scene in Houston that was being assessed by the Houston Police Department they were noticing some similarities a 26 year old school teacher was found sexually assaulted and bludgeoned to death in her bedroom her driver's license had been removed from her wallet and displayed on a table like the other victims she lived near railroad tracks the teacher's car a white Honda sedan had been stolen later DNA analysis confirmed resendis had assaulted the woman now he was killing at a much faster pace one of the concerns we did have is that this guy was going to evolve into what we call a spree killer a lot of times in the past we've had serial killers Ted Bundy for instance that the pressure got so great that they went into a spree mode and that is they began to kill a number of victims with really no cooling off period [Music] with his last two victims killed in a 24-hour period it appeared resenders had made the shift to spree killer 2014 three-step protection on the conductor on June 6th a rail yard worker spotted The Fugitive in Flatonia Texas halfway between Houston and San Antonio called central dispatch running westbound immediately notified local police in the FBI once again resenda Slipped Away okay guys we've got some additional information at the Houston FBI field office operation train stop was created now investigators from more than 30 agencies were assigned exclusively to the case you'll remember we got him special agent Bobby Eckard was part of the operation that was comprised of two basic squads the Gators that were looking into the various homicides developing evidence of crimes then the other side was the Fugitive investigators that their sole purpose was to locate apprehend and arrest Resendez The Fugitive Squad looked for patterns and the suspect's past able to determine that he if he followed the avocado route in Florida he would be involved in the Citrus crops in Kentucky and North Carolina he would pick tobacco after identifying farm work sites and addresses of friends and family [Music] agents would try to eliminate these Comfort zones you go everywhere that you can possibly think of that The Fugitive might show up by going there by law enforcement presence in those places people aren't willing to help out the fugitive anymore but this fugitive was comfortable traveling fast and on his own without any help and his murder spree was not yet over eight days after the school teacher was killed in Houston her car was found 300 miles away near the Mexican border inside was a knife but no sign of where resenders had gone nearby were train tracks giving the killer a clean escape to almost anywhere in 1999 more than 30 law enforcement agencies hunted for Raphael Resendez known as the railroad killer whenever a new crime appeared to be the work of the killer Special Agent Mark Young investigated I was getting hundreds of calls from departments around the country wanting me to listen to their stories about their crimes and and determine whether uh the cases might be linked on June 15th the bodies of a 51 year old woman and her father were discovered in their home in rural Gorham Illinois the local sheriff's office believed resendis was involved in cold Mark Young parent took place as soon as we walked onto the scene we could have been in one of our crime scenes in Texas the double rail tracks were right behind the older man's residence the killer broke in through a back window he used a weapon of opportunity a shotgun he found in the home he stole a few Trinkets and ate the victim's food but this time the killer had added something new a statement scrawled on the wall [Music] a lot of people thought oh God we got some other type of offender here that's making a political statement but young knew better he had reviewed the fugitive's prison file including his correspondence [Music] he had been writing political messages and letters that we were able to view in the past that was even further indication to me that this is the same offender because this now is the rest of his fantasy coming out in his own mind Resendez was a deep political thinker [Music] with authorities knew he was a vicious Predator he was tied up in this chair they believed he got to Gorham on the train and left in the victim's car which was recovered the next day 60 miles south near the Kentucky border police across the country checked cold cases looking for murders resenders might have committed special agent Young investigated one in Hughes Springs Texas in October of 1998 a woman had been beaten to death with an antique flat iron though unsolved the murder had been thoroughly investigated and documented and I felt like there was a good possibility that Resendez was responsible for that case too did you tell me we had blunt force trauma she was an elderly victim she was not sexually assaulted but she was covered in a similar fashion and in looking at his crime scene photography I see where her identification had been placed up as if the offender looked at it happening alone because the Spree killer could be anywhere the FBI placed Raphael resendis on their 10 most wanted fugitives list his mug shots were posted with 30 different aliases special agent Bobby Eckerd hoped it might Shake New Leads free what this does is it raises the awareness of the case The Fugitive status and it also allowed for us to offer up to fifty thousand dollars for the successful apprehension of Resendez news of the resendis case swept through the country unhightened alert agents and police searched hundreds of freight trains and train yards it was as if resenders had disappeared Don Clark then special agent in charge of the Houston field office held press conferences to help spread the word but he was candid about the case's difficulty it's a very complex investigation it's one like many of us have never been involved with before we are dealing with a lot of unknowns here we're dealing with a lot of pieces of information and it's a very difficult investigation for all of the agencies the story-led news broadcasts Nationwide and with eight victims now dead the public was terrified Aid is more than enough many more than enough one is more than enough and that's all that I can assure the public is that law enforcement is working together to try and get this person out of the street The Fugitive was deceptively smart and Incredibly dangerous and move across the country easily and slip across the border it will what we were trying to let people know was this is not some railroad hobo or bum that doesn't have any sense traveling around this is a guy with a good IQ that knew how to evade law enforcement that we needed a lot of assistance in capturing this is a guy that was attacking innocent people in their sleep and it was nobody really safe the reward for the fugitives captured climbed to 125 thousand dollars calls came in from all over the country in late June resenders was spotted at a homeless shelter in Louisville Kentucky but he never stayed in one place for long before the police could arrive he was gone Sergeant Mark Barnard of the Lexington Kentucky Police Department warned the public if I lived near railroad track I'd certainly have it well lit I check and make sure nothing is out of the ordinary I'd know my environment my neighbors I'd check my doors and windows the tips kept coming we had 3178 call command posts from those calls we've generated over 1100 leads in other words things that needed to be done throughout the United States and in Mexico one credible tip was phoned into the Denver field office [Music] the caller reported seeing resend us at a house in Commerce City Colorado [Music] after authorities traced a phone call from the house to the Mexico town where ascendas had family a tactical arrest team responded [Music] and moved in for the capture seven months into the search for Rafael Resendez an arrest team raided a house in Commerce City Colorado [Music] there we go they secured the occupants and searched the house [Music] but Resendez was nowhere to be found and authorities later determined the tip was a case of mistaken identity Texas Rangers and the FBI agents kept in contact with a fugitive sister in New Mexico she assured them that she had not heard from her brother but promised that if he called she would contact them but at the FBI Command Post in Houston the next big lead concerned a relative no one knew about before agents learned resendis had a wife in Mexico special agent Bobby Eckard followed up on the surprising new lead media and a local station got a copy of that interview and showed it aired it locally at that point we brought his wife to Houston for a two-day interview authorities needed to know as much as they could about Resendez [Music] and the places he had stayed she provided us with a lot of information about Resendez and his habits over the last two or three years she advised that he brought her jewelry he brought her figurine sometimes little angel figurines he brought her a guitar I knew that a lot of these items had been stolen from crime scenes and it in fact turned out that these items were linked to the homicides she said resendis had been in Mexico very recently but she hadn't seen him in days she was cooperating because she feared he wasn't safe there in Mexico bounty hunters were after him Resendez was running out of places to hide [Music] on July 10 1999 investigators received a phone page from Albuquerque it was the Fugitive sister she needed to talk to authorities according to Special Agent Mark Young there were relatives in Mexico that were being approached by law enforcement by uh Bounty Hunters by curiosity Seekers It's the best thank you for the page there were people that really didn't care how they got him across you know dead or alive I want the reward money she said her brother had called her she did not want him to be harmed law enforcement told her that we could affect a Safe Surrender for him and we would agree to treat him humanely and get him in custody to resolve this thing on July 12 1999 Rafael resendis agreed to turn himself into a Texas Ranger at a small border crossing respecting his sister's wishes authorities agreed to let him walk across and to take him in with a minimal arrest team one of the most vicious serial killers in the nation's history was taken into custody quietly and without incidents in follow-up interviews with Mark Young resendis would confess to a total of 13 murders four of them not yet connected to him by authorities he could recall in incredible detail crimes that occurred several years before after discussions with him I would contact the jurisdictions that had primary control of the investigations that that he was referring to and we resolved two homicides in Florida Marion County Florida one in Colton California and one homicide in Barrow County uh Georgia the question in everyone's mind was why in the interviews recenters made the sickening claim that he killed to wipe out evil yet among his victims were a doctor a preacher and his wife teacher and elderly people [Music] upstanding citizens well loved by their families [Music] the search for Raphael Resendez took eight months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars [Music] attempted to use an insanity defense to explain his crimes but in May of 2000 he was found guilty of first-degree murder four days later Raphael Resendez was sentenced to death [Music]

Channel: The FBI Files

Views: 700,192

Keywords: Bank heist, Crime analysis, Crime arrests, Crime experts, Crime investigation show, Crime laboratories, Crime law and order, Crime reenactment, Crime witnesses, Crime-solving case studies, Criminal history, Criminal psychology, Detective work, Documentary, FBI agents, FBI operations, Profiling, Sociopath, The FBI Files, Train travel, True crime history

Id: d19Zr6hIx8A

Length: 147min 33sec (8853 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2023