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This program is about unsolved mysteries.

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Whenever possible, the actual family members and police

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officials have participated in recreating the events.

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What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.

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Ralph Siggler was a double agent for the United States,

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who for ten years fed the Soviet KGB misleading information

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exposed Russian spies.

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In April of 1976, he was found dead in a Maryland motel room.

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His family says he was murdered.

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Against his family's wishes, Robert Argenti asked Maria Armstrong

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to come live with him in Mesa, Arizona,

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despite her history of mental illness.

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Five months later, Robert Argenti was dead,

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and Maria Armstrong had vanished.

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We will also tell you the inspirational story of a 14-year-old boy

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who survived the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp at Dahal,

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thanks to an American GI who gave him food and the will to live.

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Steve Ross is now an American citizen,

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a happy family and counselor to disadvantaged children.

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You would like to say thank you to the unknown, kind-hearted GI

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who so dramatically turned his life around 45 years ago.

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The Navajo Nation, 25,000 square miles of their stark, beautiful land,

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lies nestled in the north-central section of Arizona.

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The landscape is dotted with tiny government housing settlements.

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On November 9, 1988, one of the settlements, Bitter Springs, had a man.

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The Navajo Nation,

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which was the largest city in the country,

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was the largest city in the country,

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and on November 9, 1988, one of the settlements, Bitter Springs,

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had a mysterious visitor.

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A dark-haired girl who none of the townspeople had ever seen before

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wandered through the streets of Bitter Springs.

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She called herself simply sandy and mystified everyone with her behavior.

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She carried on an animated conversation with herself

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and walked into several homes uninvited.

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She was secretive and seemed to be hiding from something or someone.

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She asked, can you dye my hair?

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I said, what for?

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Cut my hair, blonde so I can change my identity.

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As evening approached, the girl asked one family

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if she could leave a pickup truck behind their house.

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My niece told me that the sandy wanted to park her vehicle there for about a week.

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Immediately I said, well, why don't she park it up front?

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But she said that she wanted to really park her vehicle

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where it was hidden from the road.

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I didn't get really suspicious until I asked my niece if she knew sandy,

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and she said no.

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I just had a funny feeling that things were not all right.

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After two days, the dark-haired girl abruptly left the settlement.

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None of the residents ever saw her again.

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Within a week, the people of Bitter Springs

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would learn the truth about their mysterious visitor.

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Her real name was Maria Armstrong,

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and her brief sojourn in the Navajo settlement

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was a climax to a tragic love story, one that began nearly 10 years ago.

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Maria Armstrong grew up in a small suburban city in southern New Jersey.

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She was a sweet-tempered, attractive girl

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who had always had her choice of boyfriends.

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One of the young men who quoted Maria was Robert Argenti, nicknamed Ron.

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He had graduated high school at 17 with honors

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and immediately joined the National Guard.

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He was outgoing and athletic,

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yet he had always been fascinated by the introverted Maria.

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Maria was, she was, um, she was like innocent,

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and she was beautiful.

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She had long, almost black hair, um, really gorgeous,

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and I think that's what my brother was attracted to her,

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because she was so unusual-looking.

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She was sweet, she was kind to people.

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She, um, she was your friend.

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In 1984, Ron Argenti joined his family in Arizona.

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Ron settled in the city of Mesa

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and got a job as a mechanic at McDonnell Douglas, building helicopters.

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Back in New Jersey, Maria had begun to behave strangely,

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frequently slipping into a world of delusion and paranoia.

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Her parents feared she was using drugs

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and put her in both state and private mental hospitals.

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Finally in 1984, Maria was diagnosed

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with suffering from paranoid schizophrenia,

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a physical disease of the brain

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which most commonly strikes as victims in their teens and twenties.

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It is an illness over which the patient has no control.

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Schizophrenics often cannot tell the difference

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between the real world and the delusions at play.

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There is no known cure for schizophrenia,

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but the symptoms can sometimes be controlled with medication.

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Hey, Ron, how you doing?

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Ron and Jetty never forgot the beautiful Maria.

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He urged her to move to Arizona and live with her,

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so she could start over with a clean slate.

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He seemed to think that she was fine

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and that all he wanted to do was get her away from New Jersey

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and get her away from the drugs

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and get her away from the bad influences back there and help her.

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Help her to re-establish her life out here.

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In June of 1988, Maria finally came to Arizona.

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Despite his family's objections, Maria moved in with Ron.

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We were concerned because we did hear that she was in a mental institution

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and we knew she was on drugs back east.

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So we were kind of concerned about it,

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but they were holding hands, kissing.

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They were like a couple.

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For the first few weeks, Maria seemed happy and macy.

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She blossomed under Ron's loving attention.

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Soon after Maria arrived,

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Ron began working the graveyard shift,

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so Maria was often alone at night.

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Before long, she began pacing, having imaginary conversations,

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and sadly, once again, exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia.

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Somebody in the apartment complex where they lived,

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Maria had me friends with,

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and Ron found out that this person was supplying drugs to Maria.

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Maria's behavior became increasingly erratic.

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Her paranoia ran rampant.

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Time and time again, she accused Ron of plotting against her.

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Maria.

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Maria.

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Maria, calm down. Listen.

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She's got to leave me alone!

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They told me about you!

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Okay!

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Alright!

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Ron told his sisters that Maria often attacked him physically.

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Ron said Maria once hit him so hard, she ruptured his eardrum.

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She wasn't going to the psychiatrist. She had canceled her appointments.

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She wasn't taking her medication. She said that it kept her up at night.

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Well, she was already up all the time at night. She never slept anyway.

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I would talk to Ron on the phone, and I would tell him,

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Ronnie, you have to do something.

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You have to get rid of her. Send her home.

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I don't want to do that. I want to help her, he would say.

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I said, but you can't help her. It's obvious you can't help her.

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She needs more than you to help her.

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She needs psychiatric care.

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And then he would get really mad.

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Okay, I know.

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Who are you talking to?

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By Tuesday, November 8th, Ron had finally reached the end of his patience.

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Who are you talking to?

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Roxanne.

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Hi, Roxanne!

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Yeah.

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I called him, and he said, the neighbors are complaining.

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The management wants to kick me out, and I want to get her out of here.

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She is. She's going back soon. She's going back soon.

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And she's there in the room, listening to all this.

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The next morning, Wednesday, Maria Armstrong slowly drove into the Navajo settlement

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of Bitter Springs, 260 miles north of Mesa.

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She was calling herself Sam, trying to sell the pickup she was driving.

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First thing she said to me, she said, she's going to buy me a truck.

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And I said, no, I'm not.

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You know where I could get a painted?

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And she wanted to know where's Nair's town so you can get her truck repainted it.

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I just told her I have no idea.

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The nearest place you can get a truck repainted is about 30 miles up north.

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You can go down the highway here and make a right hand turn.

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I just thought maybe she was hiding from her boyfriend or something like that,

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because she said she left her boyfriend someplace.

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Thanks.

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You bet.

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I thought she was going to leave right away, but she never did.

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The following morning, around 10 AM, the Arizona Highway Patrol

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responded to a complaint in Bitter Springs.

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Maria had left her pickup truck marked behind a house there,

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and the owner feared that the truck was stolen.

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The officer ran a computer check on the truck's license plate.

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He found it was registered to Robert Argenti and arranged a habit towed to a nearby town.

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After searching several locations, the officer got a lead.

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The mysterious girl was hiding in a nearby house.

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Come on out.

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I see you behind the bed.

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Come on out, or I'm going to come in and I'm going to drag you out.

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Where are you taking me?

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I'm not going to take you anywhere.

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I just want to find out what's going on.

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Let's go out here and talk.

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Okay.

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I've been getting word from around here that you're going around introducing yourself as Sandy.

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What's the matter?

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I'm just going to go out and talk to you.

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I've been told that you're going around introducing yourself as Sandy.

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What's that all about?

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I just never liked my name.

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Sandy sounds a lot friendlier.

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Do you have authorization to have the truck?

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Yes.

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Who gave it to you?

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Well, Ron. Robert.

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When did he give it to you?

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Well, he realized he was too sick to go to work,

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and he let me have the truck to come up here.

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Listen, I need to get some cigarettes.

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Can I go now?

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Okay, well, I don't have anything on you right now,

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but something is going on.

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Just watch yourself.

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I did feel suspicious even after I let her go,

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but I couldn't get a finger on it.

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I just had the feeling that she had either done something,

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was doing something, or was going to do something.

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Stand by earlier, and this is, you know, sort of messing with that.

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Four days later on Monday,

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a maintenance man at Ron Argenti's apartment complex

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asked the manager to come with him to Ron's apartment.

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On Monday, November 14th,

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I noticed a stack of old newspapers in front of Ron's apartment.

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We went up, got the manager,

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and then we entered the apartment.

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Okay, thanks. We'll go in.

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Hello, maintenance.

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When I first hit the door, the door just flung wide open.

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I walked in, and I saw a pile of clothes on the couch.

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Didn't see anybody in there, and everything was quiet,

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and I walked through the unit looking, yelling,

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anybody here? Who's here?

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Didn't get any answer. Walked straight through the bedroom,

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and nothing.

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Don't say anything back here, they might have skipped out.

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Great.

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Oh, my God.

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What?

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According to the medical examiner report on the autopsy,

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the cause of death was a blunt force trauma to the head region,

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and Mr. Argenti had been dead for several days.

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Looking at this guy, it's definitely going to be a homicide.

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His body had been covered by bedding, pillows, clothing.

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This is someone was trying to hide the discovery of the body.

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Okay, want to come over here?

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Give a shot of this hammer.

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We found, just left of the body, a small hand-sledge hammer.

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We also found that he had been stabbed in the right rib area

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with a wooden-handled knife,

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but the knife wound came after the trauma to the head.

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Based on the evidence and later discussions with family and friends,

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it was our theory that Mr. Argenti had been sleeping in a sitting position on the couch

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because he was afraid of Maria Armstrong,

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and that sometime during, when he was asleep,

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Ms. Armstrong came up and inflicted the blows to his head with the sledge hammer

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and then subsequently stabbed him.

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Then we believed that she covered the body in an attempt to hide the crime.

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She went into the bedroom, changed her clothing,

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and then took the keys to Mr. Argenti's truck

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and then left Mesa and drove up north to the bittersprings.

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The last sighting that we had on Maria was on November 11th of 1988,

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where she was seen hitchhiking on the highway next to bittersprings

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back towards the Flagstaff area.

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I know that if Maria wandered off the track and didn't find shelter,

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I don't think she could live through the elements up there

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because it's very cold in Northern Arizona at that time of year.

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If she was able to hitch a ride and get tied up with somebody,

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then yes, I would say she's probably very much alive and very dangerous.

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There's no predicting what she's going to do.

253
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Up next, Maria Armstrong has been captured.

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Shortly after this courier, the FBI received a call from one of our viewers

255
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with information regarding Armstrong's whereabouts.

256
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We received a telephone call from an unidentified caller

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that Marie Armstrong had been living in the Memphis, Tennessee area

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and that she was going to be at the airport on August 3rd of this year.

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The FBI subsequently went to the airport and were able to identify her

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and they did place her under arrest.

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Armstrong had changed her appearance by dyeing her hair blonde.

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Two weeks later, she was returned to Arizona

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and faced a charge of first-degree murder.

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Next, the story of a 14-year-old boy who survived five years in Nazi concentration camps

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and then was given the will to live by an unknown American GI.

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Now he desperately wants to say thank you to this kind soldier.

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Our next story is about the triumph of one boy's will.

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His will to survive the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp.

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His name was then Schmulich Rosenthal,

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but the day he lives and works in Boston and goes by the name of Steve Ross,

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the mystery here is that at a crucial point in his flight from Germany,

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he was befriended by an unknown American GI

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who gave him food and rekindled his broken spirit.

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Now, 45 years later, he wants to say thank you.

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Perhaps you can help.

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1939, the German invasion of Poland.

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Adolf Hitler's Blitzkrieg brought Poland to its knees in three devastating weeks.

278
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Hitler's vendetta against the Jewish people

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struck with special force against the Jews of Poland.

280
00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:08,000
At an isolated farm outside their home in the city of Lodz,

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Joseph and Baja Rosenthal, a Jewish couple,

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hid their youngest son Schmulich with a Catholic family.

283
00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:19,000
They knew these farm people and they wanted me to go and live there,

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hoping that when the war is over, they can come back and pick me up again.

285
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My mother said, help us, keep my son.

286
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Schmulich is too small to go with us.

287
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I tried to be a big man.

288
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I tried to be like my father, to emulate him.

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But it was hard.

290
00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:52,000
But I didn't cry.

291
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They kissed me and they said, be a good boy, Schmulich.

292
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You have a nice home here.

293
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:05,000
Yeah.

294
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:07,000
That was it.

295
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:09,000
I have never seen them again.

296
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In less than a year, the Nazis had found the nine-year-old child

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and put him in a concentration camp.

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Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, the very names conjure unspeakable cruelty.

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All of the camps where mass exterminations took place were located in Poland

300
00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:41,000
and of the nearly six million Jews murdered, more than 50% were Polish.

301
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:45,000
One and a half million children were among the dead.

302
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Schmulich Rosenthal was one of the few children who survived.

303
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From the time he was nine until he was 14, he was interred at ten different camps.

304
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:01,000
The last one was Dachau in Germany.

305
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It was extremely difficult to survive because there was not enough food.

306
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We got a liter soup for lunch and a liter soup for supper.

307
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And we got one slice of bread that was divided up from one pound of bread for 20 people.

308
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At the best time, we fell apart by working 12 hours, 12 to 14 hours a day.

309
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And with lack of food, you couldn't survive much longer.

310
00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:46,000
So people kept dying constantly.

311
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:51,000
Cleanliness, we never were able to wash up.

312
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:55,000
Now no hot water, I didn't see any hot water for five years.

313
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:57,000
There wasn't such a thing as hot water.

314
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:04,000
There was nothing in there to sleep on except the boards.

315
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:06,000
You slept on the boards, no blankets.

316
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:08,000
You covered yourself with what you had.

317
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:15,000
It was very difficult to understand for me what was really going on.

318
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I had dreams that I was with my family and here I end up in a hell, in a place where it's called hell, life and death, survival of the fittest.

319
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:32,000
As long as you survive today from one day to the next, that's all you were worrying about.

320
00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:35,000
Do I have another day to live?

321
00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:38,000
We all pray to God all the time.

322
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:45,000
In December of 1944, Allied forces turned back the German army at the Battle of the Baury

323
00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:50,000
and one month later made their first significant incursions onto German soil.

324
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:55,000
Nearly five years had passed since young Schmule Krozenfau was first imprisoned.

325
00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:02,000
In April of 1945, Allied troops liberated the concentration camps.

326
00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:08,000
An American GI snapped this photograph of the cheering inmates at Dachau.

327
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:12,000
One of them was 14-year-old Schmulek Rosenthal.

328
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:19,000
Schmulek's older brother had also been captured by the Nazis and he too ended up at Dachau.

329
00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:27,000
The two boys would later discover that their mother, father and six brothers and sisters had all perished in the camps.

330
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:33,000
Before the American troops came, I was 99% dead.

331
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:39,000
It was 1% of life that my heart was ticking in me.

332
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:43,000
I weighed about 60 pounds at that time.

333
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:46,000
I was infested with lies.

334
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:56,000
Two days after we were liberated, we were released from the camp and we were asked to go towards hospitalizations.

335
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:04,000
We walked by a unit that was tanks and there was a soldier sitting on the tank.

336
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:11,000
As I came closer, I could see he was eating with his bayonet into his mouth, putting in with his bayonet.

337
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:22,000
He jumped off the tank and he gave me the can that he was eating from.

338
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:24,000
It's okay, it's okay.

339
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:37,000
I closed it up and I gave it to my brother and I fell down on my knees and I held onto his legs and I kissed his boots, forgiving me the food.

340
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:40,000
Hey, listen, everything's gonna be all right.

341
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:48,000
He put his hand around on me and he wasn't scared that he was gonna get my lies or my diseases or my sicknesses.

342
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:52,000
Mike, throw me some rations, will you?

343
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:54,000
He was a good man.

344
00:22:54,000 --> 00:23:06,000
He looked to me as though he was rough, rough and tough, but yet he knew how to put his arm around me at that time in my life.

345
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,000
When nobody ever done that before.

346
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:13,000
Take this.

347
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:14,000
You keep it.

348
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:15,000
Keep it.

349
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,000
Hold it with you, okay?

350
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:20,000
That soldier gave me a handkerchief.

351
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:27,000
I did not know till later on that this was a flag, the flag of freedom.

352
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:36,000
I felt as though it was a miracle from God that I was reborn.

353
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:40,000
It was starting a new life from here on.

354
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:44,000
Schmulich never let the flag out of his sight.

355
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:52,000
He carried it with him when he came to the United States in 1948 under the auspices of the Committee for the Care of European Children.

356
00:23:55,000 --> 00:24:00,000
Schmulich Americanized his name to Steve Ross, married and had a son and a daughter.

357
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:05,000
His brother Harry also came to the States and has stayed close to Steve and his family.

358
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:13,000
For the past 30 years Steve has been a licensed psychologist counseling disadvantaged teenagers in Boston.

359
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:17,000
He chose his career with the American soldier in mind.

360
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:18,000
For the Latin test.

361
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:23,000
Steve wanted to help other children the way the young GI had helped him.

362
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:26,000
You meet a week from this Saturday, you're going to take another exam.

363
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:28,000
Is that national?

364
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:39,000
If I could ever find this soldier, I would say to him that he is part of my life.

365
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:42,000
He would be part of my family.

366
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:54,000
I would have wanted him to know that what he has done for me that I am you later and that I love people because of him.

367
00:24:55,000 --> 00:25:02,000
I have experienced something in a critical period of my life that I could never forget.

368
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:12,000
And it always is with me that this man was such a compassionate man, a soldier who was taught to kill.

369
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,000
Could do that.

370
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:19,000
Why couldn't we all be more sensitive to each other's needs?

371
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:29,000
Steve thinks that the American soldier belonged to the 191st Army Tank Battalion, which was part of the 20th Armored Division.

372
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:36,000
He was traveling from Dachau towards Munich around the 1st of May in 1945.

373
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:52,000
Next, Ralph Sigler was a career army officer with a wife, a loving daughter and a secret life.

374
00:25:52,000 --> 00:26:00,000
In April of 1976, he was found dead in a Maryland motel room. His family says he was murdered.

375
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:13,000
I think this key will open it, but he guessed the latch will have to break the door down.

376
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:15,000
I'm sure he's in there. Ralph!

377
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:26,000
11 p.m. on the evening of April 13, 1976. In a motel room near Fort Mead in Maryland, an army electronics expert named Ralph Sigler was found dead.

378
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:35,000
The army said that Ralph had electrocuted himself by wrapping wire around both forearms and their official verdict was suicide.

379
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:40,000
Mom, can you take everybody?

380
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,000
Because I want to be alone with dad.

381
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,000
Two weeks later, Ralph Sigler was laid to rest.

382
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:53,000
But during the official viewing of the body, his family discovered telling evidence that the official verdict may have been wrong.

383
00:26:55,000 --> 00:27:03,000
When I looked at him the first time, I didn't believe it was him. His body was so bruised, so mutilated.

384
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,000
So it didn't look like my father at all.

385
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:17,000
I noticed that his nose was broken. I noticed that there was a dent in the top of the head and there was blood.

386
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:28,000
I looked inside his mouth. He was missing his partial plate, the two front teeth, but all the teeth were cracked and jagged as if someone hit him in the mouth.

387
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,000
What are you doing?

388
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:34,000
Mom, he looks lousy. Look at this. Look at his hand.

389
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:44,000
I took off one of his gloves. I saw cuts on the palm. I rolled up the sleeves. I looked at the arms. I found a lot of bruises.

390
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:50,000
From looking at the body and the condition that the body was in, I don't think he committed suicide.

391
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:56,000
I believe that he was beaten to death. I believe he was murdered.

392
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:03,000
Ralph Sigler's life was as unusual as his death, for Ralph Sigler was no ordinary army officer.

393
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:09,000
From 1966 to his death, Sigler was a double agent working for the United States.

394
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:19,000
The idea that Ralph Sigler committed suicide in the way that the Army and the Maryland State Police described is patently and totally absurd.

395
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:24,000
Journalist Joan Susan Trento have co-written a book called Widows.

396
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:29,000
In this book they shed new light on the strange life and death of Ralph Sigler.

397
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:39,000
Sigler was a central figure in an espionage operation run by the FBI and Army Intelligence, whose purpose was to deceive the Soviet KGB and expose Soviet spies.

398
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:44,000
For ten years Ralph Sigler walked a razor's edge in the service of his country.

399
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:51,000
His family believes that this is the reason why his life was brutally cut short. They want to know who was responsible.

400
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:58,000
Ralph Sigler's secret mission began in Mexico City in December of 1966.

401
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:03,000
He had been recruited by Army Intelligence after an exhaustive search.

402
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:08,000
One of the centers for Soviet espionage on the Western Hemisphere was at their Mexican embassy.

403
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,000
One afternoon Sigler calmly walked through the front door.

404
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:18,000
I'd like to speak to the KGB resident.

405
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:31,000
Sigler told KGB officials that he was prepared to deliver stolen documents outlining the latest U.S. developments and missile events.

406
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:41,000
What do you want? I want to come to work for your government.

407
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:45,000
The Soviets took the bait and Ralph Sigler's double life began.

408
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:58,000
For ten years Ralph Sigler contacted his Soviet employers through various clandestine methods, disseminating misleading information given him by his Army superiors.

409
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,000
One of these Army officers was Louis Martel.

410
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:08,000
Ralph was considered a very good double agent by the community. He was a shining star.

411
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:21,000
And in my community I mean those last CFBI and to a degree the CIA as a very valuable asset in a man who was doing a very good job.

412
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:29,000
The documents Ralph gave to the Soviets were crafted to deliberately trick them into trying to duplicate inoperative technology.

413
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,000
The roost succeeded time after time.

414
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:41,000
Ralph gave them plans for a missile launcher that was a multi-tube missile launcher and the missile launcher was supposed to launch maybe ten missiles at the same time.

415
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:46,000
Well, when we built it the thing fell over backwards. It would never work and we invested millions in it.

416
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,000
We got the Russians to invest millions in it also and that never did work.

417
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:55,000
So a lot of this is to get the Russians to invest money in operations and time that failed.

418
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:06,000
Sigler also exposed Soviet agents to the FBI. One of the most important of these was Rudolf Herrmann, a Soviet master spy who lived and worked in the United States.

419
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:15,000
According to the Trentos, the FBI was concerned about the Army's internal security and asked Sigler to keep this part of his mission secret. He agreed.

420
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:24,000
1976, San Francisco. Ralph was ordered by Army Intelligence to take a routine polygraph examination.

421
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,000
Is your last name Sigler?

422
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:28,000
Yes, it is.

423
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,000
Please answer with a simple yes or no only.

424
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,000
The results surprise Sigler's sub-years.

425
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:35,000
Yes.

426
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:39,000
Have you ever passed any unauthorized intelligence to the Soviet Union?

427
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:41,000
No.

428
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:57,000
The question or question that showed something was bothering him were questions involved with what he had given to the Soviets that he was not authorized to give.

429
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:08,000
That question in many forms was asked time and time again on every poly and every poly it showed indications of deception.

430
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:19,000
Joe Trento believed Sigler's failure to pass the lie detector test was due to his secret relationship with Rudolf Herrmann, the operation the Army never knew about.

431
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:25,000
Rudolf Herrmann was the number one Soviet spy in America.

432
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:32,000
And this was the great secret that the FBI kept for the Army. They were never told that Ralph Sigler was servicing Herrmann.

433
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:36,000
So when they asked him questions, did you ever have any unauthorized contacts with the Soviets?

434
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:39,000
Ralph would say no, and it would show up as deception.

435
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:44,000
Ralph, of course, saw that the FBI would clear it for the Army, and they never did that.

436
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:49,000
Fort Meade, Maryland, the headquarters of Army Intelligence.

437
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:55,000
Outside of what you already told us, have you passed any other unauthorized information to the Soviets?

438
00:32:55,000 --> 00:33:02,000
Ralph's failure to successfully pass the San Francisco examinations led to more tests. He failed everyone.

439
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:04,000
Have you held any other money from one of your missions?

440
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:05,000
No.

441
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:12,000
The next day, Ralph was scheduled for a hostile interrogation session, a session that would be conducted assuming that he was a traitor.

442
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:13,000
No.

443
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:24,000
24 hours before this interrogation, Ralph called his wife at the dress shop as she was working.

444
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:25,000
Ralph, is that you?

445
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,000
Now listen to me, this is important.

446
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:28,000
Where are you?

447
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:31,000
I want you to hire a respectable lawyer.

448
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:36,000
Ralph sounded distraught as if he was under tremendous pressure.

449
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:43,000
I want you to sue the U.S. Army. I'm dying. I never lied.

450
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:45,000
Then the phone went dead.

451
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:46,000
Ralph?

452
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:51,000
Yossi rushed home and called Army Intelligence.

453
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:57,000
Several hours later, Louis Martel found Ralph dead in his motel room, and the Maryland State Police were called.

454
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:01,000
Sergeant Roger Castle was a trooper in charge of the investigation.

455
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:06,000
As far as the room looked, there did not appear to have been a struggle.

456
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:20,000
There was no indication that Mr. Siggler had suffered any other injuries other than the fact that he had apparently fallen from a height of the chairs, which he had stacked next to the life switch.

457
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:25,000
There was a bleeding from the nose area, and the blood had deposited on the rug.

458
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:32,000
There was no indication of any signs of injury other than the wires which had been attached to his arms.

459
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:38,000
The locks on the door to the room had been double locked from the inside.

460
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:51,000
As a result of our investigation, we found that sometime during that evening, the 13th of April, Ralph Siggler placed two chairs, one larger chair on the bottom, a smaller chair on the top,

461
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:55,000
near a light switch which activated the electrical outlet.

462
00:34:55,000 --> 00:35:06,000
At that time, he apparently took a cord, a lamp cord, cut it off, spliced the wires, and wrapped both wires around his biceps.

463
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:17,000
He plugged the outlet in to the socket, got on top of the chairs, used a cup of water as a conductor,

464
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:22,000
and turned the light switch on, causing him to be electrocuted.

465
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:32,000
There was no evidence developed to indicate that the death of Ralph Siggler was anything other than suicide.

466
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:37,000
The suicide theory makes no sense because Ralph had no motive for suicide.

467
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:51,000
The Army told us throughout the entire week of the polygraphs that they were giving him there outside of Fort Meade that they over and over and over told him that no matter what he had done, they didn't care.

468
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:56,000
They weren't going to prosecute him, they weren't going to punish him, they weren't going to hurt him in any way.

469
00:35:56,000 --> 00:36:01,000
That the worst that could happen would be the end of the operation, that they would give him letters of immunity.

470
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,000
All they wanted to know was what he had done.

471
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:14,000
The fact of the matter is the experts we talked to about electrocution and electricity told us that the amount of damage caused to Siggler's arms by the presence of the electrical wire wrapped around them

472
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:20,000
couldn't have been made by a 110 volt circuit that you'd find in a normal motel lighting situation as you did at this motel.

473
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:25,000
And in fact it would take a much greater amount of electricity to do this sort of damage.

474
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,000
I'm sorry folks, we're conducting a police investigation, please clear the hallways.

475
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:37,000
The Trentos believe that Ralph Siggler was kidnapped by the KGB, tortured and then murdered. His double life had finally run out.

476
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:43,000
The phone call to Ralph's wife is very interesting and very smart on the Soviets part.

477
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:44,000
Ralph, is that you?

478
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:46,000
They knew Ralph was going to be questioned.

479
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:47,000
Could you call me back when I get home?

480
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:54,000
Standard tradecraft on the part of the KGB would mean that they would take Ralph and put him through their own hostile interrogation.

481
00:36:54,000 --> 00:37:00,000
Probably torture him, the Soviets have a history of using electricity for torture and get the answers they needed.

482
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,000
I want you to sue the US Army.

483
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:06,000
Was he one of their agents or was he really a double agent for the Army?

484
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:12,000
Had he snookered him all these years and Ralph may have been forced to give up those answers.

485
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,000
Had he compromised Rudolf Herman to the Army and to the FBI.

486
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:20,000
That's why the Soviets had every reason in the world to kill Ralph Siggler at this point.

487
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:27,000
My feelings about the theory is that the KGB did not kill Ralph Siggler.

488
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:35,000
In fact, my opinion, strictly my opinion, based on facts, is that Ralph Siggler committed suicide.

489
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:45,000
But based on the evidence she found in the open casket, Ralph's wife is convinced that his death was no suicide.

490
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:54,000
The government told me all the time, if anything happened, we'll be here for you.

491
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:59,000
We're taking care. Why did they lie to me when he died?

492
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:04,000
He wasn't a double agent. I respected national security.

493
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:08,000
So they dealt with me for 11 years.

494
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:14,000
If even something happened, they could have come and tell me the truth.

495
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,000
And I want to know the truth.

496
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:21,000
And I will not rest till I know the truth.

497
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,000
If Ralph Siggler committed suicide, as the authorities believe,

498
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:31,000
why did he use such an unusual and potentially ineffective method?

499
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:36,000
Why is there such a discrepancy between the official verdict of suicide

500
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,000
and the Siggler family's own observations?

501
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:47,000
But if Ralph Siggler was tortured and murdered, then who was responsible?

502
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:54,000
Was Ralph Siggler a traitor or a hero?

503
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:58,000
If he committed suicide because he knew he'd betrayed his country, then he was a traitor.

504
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:03,000
If he was murdered by the KGB as punishment for his disclosure of their secrets,

505
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:05,000
then he was a hero.

506
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:10,000
His family will not rest until they know just who Ralph Siggler really was.

507
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:16,000
When we return the story of one of the heroes who put the notorious night stalker behind bars,

508
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,000
he has disappeared.

509
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:34,000
In the summer of 1985, Los Angeles, California was paralyzed by fear.

510
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,000
For more than six months, a serial killer had terrorized the Sibian

511
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:42,000
that was seemingly no method to his madness or limit to his horrific crimes.

512
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:48,000
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department assigned a 120-member task force to the case.

513
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:52,000
Detectives interviewed thousands of witnesses and checked out all possible leads.

514
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:56,000
But for months, the unknown killer remained at large.

515
00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:00,000
He became known as the Night Stalker, and he killed at least 13 people

516
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,000
before his sadistic spree of kidnapping, rape and murder, came to an end.

517
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:11,000
18 citizens collected rewards for their assistance in solving the Night Stalker case.

518
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:14,000
But one of the largest rewards remains unclaimed.

519
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:18,000
Authorities hope that someone watching tonight can help locate the man

520
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:22,000
whose crucial information helped end the Night Stalker's deadly rampage.

521
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:29,000
On August 26, 1985, an unidentified man called the task force's hotline.

522
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,000
Detective Carrillo, can I help you?

523
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:35,000
Passing information on the Night Stalker.

524
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,000
What kind of information do you have?

525
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:39,000
I know he is.

526
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:43,000
Detectives immediately sensed that the caller's information was legitimate and arranged a meeting.

527
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,000
What about this afternoon at three o'clock?

528
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:47,000
Three o'clock's fine.

529
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:50,000
Alex, thank you for calling. We'll see you at three.

530
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:52,000
Okay, bye.

531
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:59,000
That afternoon, the caller met with detectives, Gil Carrillo and Carlos Avila.

532
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,000
The man identifying himself is Alejandro Espinosa.

533
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,000
The individual that he wished to identify, he knew was Richard.

534
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:11,000
Or by a moniker that he knew on the streets is the Espinao,

535
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:15,000
which translated into English means the Uncombed one.

536
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,000
He tells me about all these burglaries he commits.

537
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:22,000
Alejandro was telling us about burglaries where Richard had told him about

538
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:27,000
that coincided with the murders that we were investigating where there had been a murder burglary.

539
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:30,000
What's he generally do with the property that he takes on the burglaries?

540
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:34,000
He takes it to this fence and I can show you where that's at.

541
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:37,000
I know where the house is at. I don't know where the address is.

542
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:43,000
That information that he had that we had not heard coming from other individuals that we're calling in,

543
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:48,000
and it was information that we knew that perhaps only the suspect himself

544
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:50,000
or associates of the suspect might know.

545
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,000
Alejandro Espinosa told the detectives that on several occasions

546
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:02,000
he had accompanied the man he knew as Richard to a house in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles.

547
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:15,000
According to Espinosa, Richard would enter the house alone and exchange stolen property for cash.

548
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:22,000
Alejandro became suspicious and as he said, it put two and two together.

549
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:30,000
After realizing that a lot of the property that Richard had taken on days that he had talked about doing a recent burglary,

550
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:34,000
Alejandro agreed in the paper that coincidentally there had been another burglary

551
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:41,000
or another homicide that the quote unquote night stalker had been attributed to.

552
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:49,000
He finally realized that his friend whom he knew as Richard was in his opinion the night stalker.

553
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:52,000
Three days after their meeting with Espinosa,

554
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:57,000
a sheriff's detective's made a positive match of a fingerprint taken from one of the night stalker crime scenes

555
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:01,000
with a possible suspect, 25-year-old Richard Ramirez,

556
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:05,000
because Ramirez had a prior arrest record that was a booking photo on file.

557
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:15,000
As soon as we got that booking photo, we then went to Alejandro out on the streets.

558
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:18,000
I showed him a copy of the booking photo.

559
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:20,000
Yeah, that's Richard.

560
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:21,000
You positive?

561
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,000
I'm positive, no doubt, that's him.

562
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:27,000
When Alejandro identified the mugshot that we displayed for him,

563
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:30,000
we knew that we were talking like one of the same person,

564
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:34,000
and that Richard was the man we were in fact looking for.

565
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:41,000
The following morning, Richard Ramirez's photograph appeared on the front page of every major newspaper in Los Angeles.

566
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:51,000
Within hours, Ramirez was chased and captured by a group of angry citizens after he allegedly tried to steal a car.

567
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:58,000
By noon, he was in police custody, and the night stalker's seven-month reign of terror had finally come to an end.

568
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:05,000
On September 20, 1989, nearly five years after his demonic rampage began,

569
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:12,000
Richard Ramirez was convicted on 43 felony charges, including 13 counts of first-degree murder.

570
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:17,000
Six weeks later, Ramirez was sentenced to die in a California gas chamber.

571
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,000
Big deal, death always went with the territories.

572
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:22,000
I'll see you in business, ma'am.

573
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:31,000
Alejandro Espinosa is entitled to $6,388 for the vital information he provided authorities,

574
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,000
but Espinosa has not come forward to claim his reward.

575
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:41,000
Alejandro Espinosa is 26 years old, and according to police, he may have a wife and a young son.

576
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:54,000
Join me next week for another edition of Unsolved Mysteries.

577
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:22,000
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