The Abduction of Polly Klaas | the FBI Files S1 EP1 | Real Crime

it's Friday night in October of 1993 and in Northern California three junior high school girls are having a slumber party Halloween is around the corner and the girls have been trying on different costumes in preparation for the upcoming holiday within seconds their lives will change [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] October 1st Polly Klass and Jillian Pelham were waiting for another friend outside of Polly's house in Petaluma California [Music] it was around 8:30 when Kate McLean and her mother showed up the three girls were ready for fun it was Friday night there was ice cream in the fridge and they were going to stay up all night long this was going to be a party [Music] no one had any idea of the danger that lurked so close by [Music] the girls kept to Polly's bedroom but they couldn't suppress the noise as easily at about 9:45 Polly's mother Eve Nichol looked in on the girls and asked them to keep it down she was suffering a migraine headache and thought she turned in early Eve's bedroom was right across the hall from the girls and although she had chided them about the noise she was pretty sure it would only take a few minutes for the 12 year olds to get noisy again before going to bed Eve took her prescription pills to block out all distractions and get her fast asleep the party continued on for almost an hour before the nightmare began it was around 10:30 when the intruder entered the room at first Kate and Jillian thought it was a joke then they saw the knife he told them if they screamed he'd slit their throats immediately he tied them up and started asking questions he wanted to know which girl lived there and who else was in the house Polly spoke up the girls were terrified and crying and he assured them that he wasn't going to hurt anyone that he was only there for money but when Polly told him where some cash was hidden in a jewelry box he made no attempt to find it he gagged the girls and took the cases off some pillows to use his goods he made Polly get up and told the others to count to a thousand by the time they were done he said she'd be back then he took Polly Klass and disappeared into the night Petaluma police officers were called to the scene after the girls managed to free themselves and wake Polly's mother they responded in minutes investigators entered Polly's Roman began to look around the bedroom was in disarray and told of the events that had happened just minutes before on the floor were binding materials cut strips of cloth the cords from the Nintendo game had been cut and a strap that was clipped from a purse lay on the floor pillowcases were strewn about what Petaluma police detective Mike me saw wasn't encouraging I remember standing at the doorway to Polly's room and looking at these few bags of evidence that we had been able to collect and thinking that that was just such a pitiful amount and I looked down at the rug and I talked to to my partner Larry Pelt and said let's take the rug he said why and I said I don't know why but let's just take the rug we just don't have enough evidence police were in desperate need of assistance fortunately help was on the way after being contacted by the class family the Federal Bureau of Investigation offered its expertise yes shortly after midnight the FBI appeared at the house of Polly Klass typically the bureau handles kidnappings and with 800 a year to investigate they have plenty of experience because he was familiar with the community and experienced in kidnapping cases special agent ed fryer became the lead investigator but he knew something about this case was different it had all the earmarks of a stranger abduction case because the statements from the two girls were consistent stranger abduction cases are the are the hardest cases to solve in my experience because again there's no connection between the perpetrator of the crime and your victim or the victim's family or somebody even associated to the to the victim it's a random act surprisingly a vast majority of kidnappings involve disgruntled family members and though Polly's parents were separated her father Mark class was immediately cleared of any responsibility abductions involving total strangers are exceedingly rare and leave little for investigators to go on in this case however there were witnesses a police sketch artist was called in from the San Rafael Police Department for two hours Jillian and Kate tried to recall the face of the man who had barged into the bedroom the girls were still terribly upset but they managed to give the artist a pretty good description authorities now had their first idea of what the stranger looked like after 4:00 a.m. the girls were taken to the police station and the FBI called in one of its special forces the evidence response team Tony Maxwell leads the crew in looking at cases across the United States we have found that when somebody is kidnapped especially a young child that they will generally be harmed within the first 24 hours and probably within the first couple of days could even be killed so time is of the essence in that kind of work the investigator needs to move quickly the evidence response team is designed to provide forensic resources at a major crime scene their sole responsibility is to collect evidence and they use the most sophisticated collecting equipment available to do it an electrostatic dust print machine collects tiny hairs and fibers off the floor when a positive charge is passed over a sheet of Mylar any loose debris clings to the mylar and is sent to a lab for careful inspection although the police department had already dusted for fingerprints they had come up with nothing particularly promising but they didn't have access to the same equipment as the FBI the alternate light source was a new method that employed a unique fluorescent powder which when combined with a distinct ultraviolet light and amber colored goggles could illuminate many things that otherwise would remain hidden the team found four dozen fingerprints the police were unable to see using conventional equipment but even those were of no use they were attributed to family and friends after hours of meticulous searching something finally turned up a palm print that at the outset seemed like the first real piece of forensic evidence left behind at the scene that palm print was found on the bed on a cross bar of a of a bed where he apparently put his hand up for just a second to lean on it perhaps to support himself as he was grabbing something and with the alternate light source and the fluorescent fingerprint work that we did we were able to see it collect it and then gather that for the laboratory at that time the FBI's fingerprint database a ffice didn't contain palm prints only fingerprints but even a palm print won't catch a suspect it will only identify one once he's captured FBI Special Agent Mark Mershon explains people often think that when you have a fingerprint or a palm print that you quickly and quickly established the identity of a criminal the truth of the matter is and in most instances you have to identify a suspect have fingerprints for that suspect in order to compare with a latent fingerprint the hunt for the suspect prompted authorities to cover Polly's neighborhood inch by inch by Dawn more than 100 agents and officers had begun a 24 hour search for Polly and her abductor helicopters and bloodhounds had been called out and an all-points bulletin was issued by local authorities and the FBI systematically the authorities searched every house in the neighborhood agents went to paly school to talk with teachers and students in the hopes that somebody might have some useful information [Music] investigators canvassed the neighborhood in pairs asking if anyone had seen anything suspicious that night one by one they interviewed all of Polly's neighbors several people recalled seeing a stranger around the neighborhood that fit the description given by the girls Thomas George's and his friends were on their way to the video store at around 9 o'clock that night when he noticed a stranger standing in the shadows in front of Polly's house Thomas knew everyone in his neighborhood but he had never seen this man before returning home a few minutes later the boys saw that the stranger was still there the description Thomas gave to the authorities matched the suspect they were looking for [Music] Shawn Bush was playing video games with some friends who lived in a small rental cottage directly behind Polly's house it was about 10:30 when Shawn happened to glance out the window he was surprised to see a strange man on the back porch of Polly's house he appeared to be going for the back door his description of the man also fit that of the suspect there were others who saw the suspicious man that night but unfortunately none of them alerted the authorities as Petaluma police chief Patrick Parks explains the time was working against them in stranger abduction cases of small children there is no more critical factor than time time is absolutely of the essence and for that reason you have to get out as many resources you can you have to put out the word as far as white and white as you can you have to involve as many agencies you as you can get them focused get their efforts channeled and hopefully hopefully bring about a successful resolution while officers continued to comb the neighborhood FBI investigators began executing the standard operating procedure in cases like these after eliminating family and friends as suspects they focused on ex-cons who are registered as sexual offenders throughout Sonoma County gradually they branched out to surrounding counties carefully questioning and investigating each registrant but nothing turned up this is a hard case to believe that it even happened there are three girls or they're in a slumber party they're playing games in their bedroom in their home in a typical community and a typical sit and somebody can walk into your home the sanctity of the home the security of your home and take your daughter is as if it wasn't impossible was it inconceivable the following day the search for Polly Klass had escalated into the largest manhunt in the nation a massive community volunteer network was formed to assist authorities while hundreds of citizens searched others passed out flyers trying to cover the entire city as quickly as possible back at the FBI's trace evidence lab in Washington DC forensic expert Chris Allen was carefully surveying the items collected from Polly's house I noticed that in untying the pieces of bindings of the thin nylon strips of bindings that were used to tie up Polly's girlfriends that they had jagged edges to them and I was able to line them up perfectly so that I was able to determine that these all came from one piece of cloth originally and it was a piece of cloth like a ladies nightgown or a slip material other pieces of evidence found in Polly's room were not so easy to classify tiny fibers collected with the electrostatic dust print machine proved to be a challenge to identify after painstaking examination and comparison Allen concluded that they had come from the interior carpet of an automobile eliminating the cars that could be accounted for at Polly's house Allen suspected that these carpet fibers were most likely from the kidnappers car one more item Alan found was a little more personal to the suspect I found in the vacuuming of the area rug that was in Polly's bedroom that she was playing on with her girlfriends a dark-brown forcibly removed head hair and I say forcibly removed because it had a three or four millimeter root sheet but actually skin material that comes out of the scalp when the hair is forcefully to pulled or yanked out if Polly had pulled a hair out of the suspects head it was evident that she didn't go without a struggle but even a hair with DNA evidence couldn't bring investigators any closer to finding a suspect the palm print lifted from the bedpost was sent to Michael J Smith a fingerprint specialist with the FBI examining the print under laser light Smith determined that the print had enough Ridge detail to photograph but the light emitted from the laser turned the print orange and Smith needed to capture a black print on a white background he instructed the photographer to reverse the color so that the finished print would appear the way it would on a fingerprint card now the print was indelible and could be filed until a suspect was apprehended investigators had unearthed some solid evidence but it wasn't enough time was running out and Polly Klass was still out there somewhere 48 hours after the abduction of Polly Klass her father Mark got a call Polly it sounded like Polly she told her father that she was in a hotel room somewhere and that her abductor had stepped out for a moment Polly then the line went dead it offered the first glimmer of hope but unfortunately since Mark's line wasn't set up for a trace all authorities could do was wait for another call word of the abduction spread rapidly in two days 50,000 fliers had been distributed community volunteers quickly organized a search command center to work in tandem with the police and FBI it was an unprecedented grassroots effort a telephone Bank was manned 24 hours a day to field calls and tips a copy of every lead that was phoned in was shared with the FBI and Petaluma police before long the search Center had screened 60,000 calls out of those authorities were compelled to follow up on over 12,000 leads processing that amount of data would have been virtually impossible without help from an FBI computer processor the FBI just happened to have the rapid start team it was a relatively new concept with the FBI we're on a high an investigation with a high volume of information we would computerize that information essentially triage the the value of the investigative leads and make the assignments and track the the progress [Music] even with so many leads there was one in particular that investigators were anxious to follow up on when Mark class received the first call the FBI was powerless to do anything about it [Music] the second time she called they were ready like the previous call it sounded like pop and she could only talk for a short time before she had to hang up but it was long enough for authorities to make a trace [Music] [Music] the FBI had traced the call to a house 30 miles away there hadn't been enough time to collect an army of agents the job would have to be handled by a few but something wasn't right this was just a normal family home there was no sign of Polly or her abductor a terrible realization dawned on the agents when they sat down with one of the girls in the house she confessed to making the calls she admitted that friends from school had dared her to call and impersonate Polly the entire incident had been a cruel joke this was the the only indication we had after a week's time that Polly just might be alive still and we all were poised and hopeful that this would yield a solution and her safe recovery of course it didn't in mid-october Kate and Gillian were brought in to give another description of the man who tied them up a highly acclaimed forensic artist was flown in to make a second sketch the artist was known for relaxing witnesses enough to coax an accurate description from them the girls were less stressed and they had been that night and were able to give her more to work with the second sketch was much more precise this sketch looked like a person new fliers were distributed immediately there was no time to waste but if you look back at true stranger abductions we have this rule of thirds the children were abducted typically one-third are recovered alive one-third I recovered dead and one third has simply never heard from ever again that's what we faced in this particular investigation and that I think was one of our motivations to keep the sustained effort up after a reward had been offered the Polly's returned authorities received a call demanding a $10,000 ransom they traced the call to a Petaluma apartment this time a SWAT team showed up in force they were not going to take any chances once again authorities and the family hidden food 20 year-old James Hird was arrested for attempted extortion and posing as a kidnap it was a crushing blow for everyone it became very frustrating it was certainly distracting towards the main thrust of the investigation but you had to deal with it there was no way around it you could not ignore those things that certainly chewed up a lot of time and resource the family had been especially discouraged a letter Polly's parents wrote to the kidnapper was published in the October 17th San Francisco Examiner whoever you are wherever you are please return Polly to her family she belongs here we miss Polly so much we missed the twinkle in her eye and her sweet humor we long to see her beautiful smile and hear her musical voice they also addressed Polly our darling if you can read this please know that your mommy and daddy love you so much and we will continue to search for you until we can hold you safely in our loving arms again I don't think I ever lost hope so I had numerous contacts with mark class with Eve with members of the family and that was a question posed to me many times and my response was no we have not lost hope we will not lose hope across the country people wanted to see Polly brought home banners sprang up and Americans began a candlelight vigil thousands donned ribbons of lavender Polly's favorite color to show their support of the search we conducted searches during the day during the night we had a 24-hour operation going we conducted searches sunny days on foggy days rainy days rainy nights whenever the information came in we reacted to that because in a case like this physical evidence is crucial the search never stopped the Navy and search and rescue experts joined the thousands of volunteers who were constantly looking police and volunteer task forces worked tirelessly but it would be nearly two months before anything broke November 28 1993 it was two months after Polly Klass was kidnapped that authorities got their first real lead in Sonoma County the sheriff's deputy was called out to the house of Dana Jaffe it sat at the end of a long winding drive off Cathy and Road Dana had been out inspecting a property when she noticed something unusual and thought it might be of use to investigators she led the deputy through a densely wooded area to a clearing just a few yards from the long winding drive to her house scattered in the woods were a few items that seemed somewhat suspicious there was a large piece of silk cloth that had been fashioned into what appeared to be a hood a couple of strips of packing tape were on the ground a pair of young girls tights had been tied into a knot and human hair was entangled in the knot other debris surrounded the area then Dana recalled the night she'd caught a trespasser on her property not far from where they stood it was nearly two months before it all started when Dana's babysitter Shannon Lynch had left Dana's house and was making her way back down the long driveway a man was walking down the middle of the private drive his stranded Pinto was off to the side he said that he was stuck and insisted that she get out of her car and help he also wanted to know what was up the drive but Shannon immediately sensed something wasn't right she'd later described him as looking like a wild man she drove on leaving him there determined to get to a phone Shannon found a payphone about two miles down the road and hurried to call her friend she was anxious to get ahold of Dana and warn her of the scary man trespassing on her land Dana didn't waste any time she grabbed her daughter and a baseball bat and took off down the hill she saw the car like Shannon had said but the strange man was nowhere in sight she continued down into town and called the police a few minutes after midnight to Sonoma County sheriff's deputies showed up Dana explained that she didn't really want the intruder arrested for trespassing she just wanted him off her property the deputies found the trespasser a little agitated there was alcohol on his breath and he was sweating profusely there were bits of leaves and brush in his hair as if he'd been rolling around on the ground he told him that he'd been out sightseeing when he realized that he was on private property when he tried to turn around he got his car stuck on the side of the drive he blurted out that he'd been under the car trying to free it but the deputies didn't believe it the way his car was trapped there wasn't enough room for a person to get underneath [Music] the deputies administered some roadside sobriety tests but he passed them all [Music] looking in his car they found some cans of beer in a plastic bag and a small duffel bag in the backseat when they asked him if he'd been drinking he actually opened a beer and began to drink it they immediately made him pour it out and then told him they wanted to pat him down he became extremely upset to make him comply the deputies told him they would be within their rights to run him in on trespassing after he'd heard this he calmed down considerably they searched him carefully and continued questioning it but could find nothing incriminating he was just odd the deputies remain suspicious but when they ran his license had checked out his driving record was clean and he had passed the sobriety tests they had held him for about 45 minutes already and they had no legal means to detain him any further there was nothing left to do but pull his car out and send him on his way that had been two months ago the same night that Polly Klass had been abducted a hood bindings a young girls pair of tights it was too much of a coincidence putting it all together the deputy quickly put a call in to the Petaluma Police Department dispatch within an hour Detective Mike Meese and agent edy friar arrived to check it out I'll never forget the scene it was a late at night then by this time Mike niece and I are standing up on the hillside there on Pythian on the road and it was beginning to get a little misty and foggy and the rain started to come down and we looked at each other and we knew we knew in our hearts that we had basically uncovered a very critical crime scene that this was going to lead us to the resolution of this case after the evidence was collected investigators immediately began searching the Pythian road site for any signs of the poppy we spent days searching the mountain with over 300 volunteers I believe we had 25 to 30 search dogs and we conducted extensive ground searches for Polly believing that she was still alive which was the premise that we were working on as the search commenced everything began to snowball authorities checked with the sonoma county police to get the full report of the incident that happened on dana Jaffee's property the man deputies had questioned was Richard Allen Davis accessing his criminal record revealed he had recently been paroled from an eight-year sentence for kidnapping what we learned about Davis initially was 1976 he had been arrested for robbery and kidnapping and assault with intent to commit rape learned in 1978 he had been arrested for another kidnapping as well as a couple of counts of assault with a deadly weapon 1984 he'd been arrested for kidnapping case salt with a deadly weapon including the use of a firearm and armed robbery you start reading these reports and realize you know hey this guy's a bad actor this is this is an individual certainly more than capable of being involved in a crime like this the arrest photo on file matched the girl's description his mother lived in Petaluma giving him reason to have been there the pieces were falling into place the items discovered near Pythian Road were immediately flown to forensic specialist Chris Allen in Washington of the most interest was a strip of cloth that was found in the woods Allen was quickly able to confirm what detectives had suspected essentially what we're trying to do is establish whether or not the cut edges would line up or match the middle strips represent the fabric that was found at Polly's bedroom which were used to bind Polly's girlfriends subsequently on the second submission we received the cloth that was found at the Pythian Road site he's all fit together like a puzzle law with the edges and the and the pieces of fabric matching up end to end the strip's meant more than likely Polly Klass had been out at Dana Jaffee's after her abduction without a doubt Richard Allen Davis had been there too so it wasn't enough to arrest Davis for kidnapping detectives felt if they could just get him in custody they could quickly gather the evidence they needed to tie him to Polly's disappearance everything else fell away and we focused on what we had with mr. Davis what happened out there Pythian Road and what we were going to do next when investigators discovered Davis had an outstanding warrant for breaking parole and the they decided to bring him out but he wasn't at home when they arrived then a deputy sheriff was securing a perimeter around the area stopped a van at the week was Richard Allen Davis when the deputy realized who we had he calmly called it in to the investigators back at the house your problem officer no sir sit tight okay authorities reported to the scene and detective Meese approached the van and asked Davis to step out step ahead of the band he informed him that he was under arrest for violation of his parole one thing I think it's important to understand how Richard Allen Doris was taken to custody because it was such a low-key event and because Mike Meese went ahead and handcuffed him he did in a very professional way and he started a rapport going with Richard Allen Davis that later was very useful in bringing resolution to the case it had been two months since Kate and Jillian had seen the man who took Polly Klass but they had no trouble picking him out of a lineup [Music] even without the beard his was a face they could never forget though he'd been arrested for parole violation Davis was questioned about the kidnapping he vehemently denied any involvement but authorities let Davis know that if he wanted to talk the door was open so I took Davis into the hallway and I told him I said hey look what you need to know is is we've got all the physical evidence it takes to make this case and all you're looking at is a kidnapping right now so if you want to talk about it and let me know and he made a non-committal response didn't want to talk and I remember Pat in my pockets looking for a business card didn't have a business card with me and I say you know I'm gonna leave my name and number with those guys meaning the correctional deputies and if you ever want to talk about it you know give me a call back at the FBI latent fingerprint lab Mike Smith was comparing the palm print found in Polly's bedroom with one that had been taken from Davis since his arrest this was a crucial piece of evidence matching the two prints would undoubtedly linked Davis to the abduction after careful examination the results were called in to agent fryer I just got a call from FBI laboratory they matched Davis's palm print to a palm print taken off of Polly's bedroom or her bedpost it was again one of those moments were butterflies in my stomach again realized that this was really very powerful evidence so I hung up the phone and again there was a lot of noise and commotion in the command post I stood up and I asked everybody can I have your attention please can I have quiet for a moment I said hmm we just got confirmation from our laboratory that we've matched this palm print taken from the bedroom to Davis we can place him in the bedroom there was just a huge cheer from everybody papers were flying it was just great news to everybody this is it it's concrete he was in her bedroom we can prove it we had him nailed down though news of the matching print had gone public Davis was being held in isolation and had not heard anything about it then one day a friend of his showed up for a visit he urged Davis to talk to authorities and tell them where Polly was but Davis continued to deny responsibility then his friend gave him the news the rest of the nation had already heard it came as a complete surprise Davis realized it was going to be impossible to explain how his palm print got in Polly's bedroom there was only one thing he could do and Davis's mind he's now got to do something and that is try to make whatever deal he can make with the authorities because we we know that it that he was in Polly's bedroom we can put him while on his way to the massive search for Polly near Pythian Road detective Meese was paged to call the jail this was the moment everyone had been waiting for and Meese was anxious about what he might find out yeah after this wait you know Davis comes on the phone and I recognize the voice yeah so I know it's him and I said he says to me he says hey I screwed up I screwed up big time detective Mason Special Agent Larry Taylor met with Davis in the interrogation room where Davis related the details of the night of October 1st though he was living in something like a halfway house he had applied for an overnight pass to go visit his mother in Petaluma unable to find her house he had a few beers and walked the streets of Polly's neighborhood at one point he was stopped by a man who wanted to sell him some marijuana he decided to go ahead and buy the joint in Davis's own words he got really bust and went to the store for more beer he soon found himself wandering the neighborhood aimlessly he wasn't sure where he was or what he was doing but Davis had come to the neighborhood prepared he brought a bag packed with bindings a tape forensic experts were able to determine that he had cut the strips with a pair of scissors a fact which implies intent then Davis said he randomly picked a house on the street and crawled into an open window he remembered hearing TV voices and said he may have picked up a knife from the kitchen he said he didn't remember anything after that he claimed the next thing he knew he was driving in his car and was surprised to find a young girl sitting next to him she was complaining that her hands were tingling according to Davis he adjusted the straps for her and drove around wondering what he had done and what he should do next then he drove off the side of the road and got the car started [Music] once he realized he was stuck for good he says he got Holley out of the car and carried her up a steep embankment about 30 yards away he planned to leave her in the darkness until he could figure out a way to free the car the rest of Davis's story about what happened at Pythian Road matched the witnesses accounts at the time of the incident the bulletin about Polly's abduction was just going out over police radios but the deputies were tuned to a different frequency and would not have heard it even if they had been in their cars they ran his license but the equipment they had at that time was only able to give a cursory printout of Davis driving record it couldn't generate his criminal record they found nothing they could hold Davis recalled how the deputies pulled his car out and escorted him to the main highway but he claims that he waited for fifteen or thirty minutes and returned to the site to find Polly then he just drove around at some point he realized he had to get rid of her at long last authorities had found out what they'd been desperate to know Polly Klass was dead and Richard Allen Davis was the man responsible Davis agreed to take them to the site in a deserted area of cloverdale where he had left the body it was night but inspectors felt the need to confirm Davis's story couldn't wait until daybreak [Music] he led them to a field near an abandoned lumber mill out in the field under some boards investigators found the body of Polly Klass there was a it was an odd feeling you're in the presence of somebody like Davis and just a few yards away as is what's left of a very beautiful innocent 12 year old the Polly Klass case was special because people cared because the whole community stepped forward and said this is the last child you're going to take and that this is our child and that we are going to go out and look for her until we find her the case wouldn't come to trial until 1996 but after 10 weeks in the courtroom a jury found Davis guilty on 10 counts including kidnapping robbery burglary murder and attempting to commit a lewd act on a child the latter charged Davis continued to deny during the entire trial investigators strongly believe that despite Davis's testimony poly was already dead if the time deputies helped him with his car he was sentenced to death and continues to sit on death row at San Quentin prison Polly Klass left behind a legacy to save other lives the way missing-persons cases are handled has changed forever since the investigation law enforcement databases are linked to different agencies providing vital information to multiple jurisdictions missing-persons bulletins are now sent out over all police channels at routine pullovers and traffic stops officers can access not only driving histories but criminal records as well implementation of the three-strikes-you're-out legislation was a direct result of the case as was the push to expedite the appeals process in murder cases and a foundation established in Polly's name aides the search for missing children involvement of the FBI was critical to bringing resolution to this case had they not come in and gotten involved early on it's doubtful we would ever have had resolution or certainly that it would finish as quickly as it was even though it seemed like a long time the unique partnership that was formed between local police and the FBI set a precedent that continues to this day [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 205,114

Rating: 4.7956576 out of 5

Keywords: real crime, crime documentary, true crime, the fbi files, the fbi files full episodes, the fbi files season 1, 1993, children abduction documentary, fbi documentary 2018, fbi documentary crime, fbi documentary full, Polly Klaas, the fbi files season 1 episode 10

Id: 3KKR8CizHzs

Length: 51min 35sec (3095 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 21 2019