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This program is about unsolved mysteries. Whenever possible, the actual family members

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and police officials have participated in recreating the events. What you are about

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to see is not a news broadcast.

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Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries, the poignant saga of Amelia Earhart. Fifty-three years

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ago, she vanished in the South Pacific during a round-the-world flight. But eyewitness accounts

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suggest that Amelia Earhart may have survived and been captured by the Japanese Navy.

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In Woodstock, Illinois, Colleen Ritter and Rick Church were typical high school sweethearts

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until their romance went sour. Now Colleen's parents are dead and Rick Church has disappeared.

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Using an electronic store as a front, FBI agents in Florida go undercover to capture

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the kingpins of a South American drug ring, a real-life story of Miami Vice.

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Also we will present a follow-up to our story about a popular 16-year-old girl who mysteriously

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vanished most stable forks in New York. Last year she was apparently in Los Angeles at

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a concert for the musical group New Kids on the Block and may even have been captured on

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film in their rock video. Perhaps you can help find Carrie Lynn Nixon.

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Two years ago we examined the strange disappearance of a 16-year-old girl.

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Tonight an update on her case and an urgent appeal from her family and members of the

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Teenage Recording Group, New Kids on the Block. Carrie Lynn Nixon was an above-average student

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and well-known and liked in the small community of Osable Forks, New York. At around 10 p.m.

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on June 22, 1987, Carrie was returning home after running an errand for her father. A

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few minutes later and only 700 feet from her doorstep, Carrie Lynn Nixon disappeared.

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My immediate reaction was terror and has been a nightmare ever since.

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Was Carrie's disappearance the result of foul play or had she simply run away?

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Carrie wrote some letters to a friend and in these letters she indicated she would like to live in

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Hawaii, move to Florida, possibly California and in fact leave the town of Osable Forks when she

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turned 18. My theory on this case is Carrie Lynn Nixon was abducted. Her father gave her $20 for

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groceries. She went to Thomas' store for her father, left Thomas' store with the bag of groceries.

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If she was a runaway she would have done none of those things. She would have been dressed better.

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She would have taken money with her that she had in her bedroom after we searched her bedroom.

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She is a victim of a kidnapping.

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Authorities investigated dozens of reported sightings of Carrie but were unable to confirm her identity.

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Nothing has been found, not one thing. She's walked off the face of the earth as far as we're concerned.

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As the years in the investigation dragged on, Carrie's parents began to give up hope of ever

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finding their daughter. But all that changed in March of this year when they saw a videotape of a

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concert given by the popular singing group New Kids in the Block. On June 5th, 1989, the group filmed

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their Hangin' Tough Live concert in Los Angeles, California. Among the crowd of teenage fans,

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Kathy and Gary Nixon saw a familiar face.

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You couldn't believe how much that this girl looked like our daughter.

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So we just kept rewinding it and going over and over and over and we just couldn't believe it because

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we never really had any hope that she was alive and then there's this girl that looks so much like

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her. I'm not 100% convinced but it looks like our Carrie.

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By viewing the tape, I picked the girl out immediately the first time it ran through. It was

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obvious to me that this girl did look like Carrie Nixon and appear to be her.

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This detail-enhanced photograph was made from the videotape and compared with a picture of

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Carrie taken shortly before she disappeared. There's obviously many similarities, the hair length,

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the hair color, the shape of the face, the chin, the mouth, and it displayed a multiple of earrings

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in the right ear in which Carrie Nixon has four earrings in her right ear and two on her left.

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So the photo-enhanced finished product further convinced the Nixons that this could be their

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daughter. Members of the New Kids on the Block did not recognize the girl in the crowd,

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but after hearing Carrie's story wanted to make a personal appeal.

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Well I'd just like to say to Carrie that if you're out there the best thing to do would just be to

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call somebody and you know even if you go to your local police and just just tell them your

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situation that maybe they can help you out. Or if any of you viewers out there who have seen her

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at a New Kids show or just seen her on the street, if you could contact someone you know to let them

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know where she is, if she's alright or anything that would be a big help. We need to find this girl,

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find out who she is, whether it's Carrie or not, just so that if it's not we can go on

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to something else to try and find her. I love you Carrie, and I need to talk to you.

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Music

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Six decades ago Amelia Earhart was one of the most famous women in the world. She had the figure of a

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movie star in the face of an angelic tomboy. The first woman to pilot an aircraft across the

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Atlantic in 1932, Amelia defied labels and definitions. Part all-American girl, part daredevil,

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she was a perfect hero for her time. But she was also ahead of her time, a south of facing yet

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outspoken champion of women's rights. I hope that such equality could be carried out in other fields

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so that men and women may achieve equally in any endeavor they set out.

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On May 20th, 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan prepared for takeoff from

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Oakland, California. Amelia was 39 years old. This flight was designed to be the capstone of her

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brilliant career as an aviator. She was attempting to become the first person, man or woman, to fly

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around the world at his widest point, the equator. Today, 53 years later, new evidence has deepened

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the mystery surrounding Amelia Earhart's last flight. The first leg of Amelia's flight was via

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Burbank to Tucson. From there she went on to New Orleans, Miami, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Brazil.

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Amelia and Fred then crossed the Atlantic landing in Seneca on the African coast.

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They made several short hops across Africa, then headed for Karachi in what is now Pakistan.

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From there to Calcutta, Rangoon, Singapore and two stops in Java, then Australia and finally

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Lé Nugini. Amelia and Fred had flown almost two-thirds of the way around the world and they'd

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done it fairly quickly. They must have been very tired when they got to Lé Nugini. They had two

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days there, they tried to rest up, but after that amount of flying time they must have been exhausted

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and here they were facing the most difficult leg of their flight. From Nugini, Amelia and Fred faced

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a grueling 18 hours in the air. They also had to hit an inconceivably tiny target, Howland Island.

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Howland is just a mile and a half long and a half mile wide. At its highest point, the island is only

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20 feet above sea level, about half the height of a telephone pole. The difficulty factor on a scale

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of 1 to 10, piloting from Lé Nugini to Howland Island in 1937, in that aircraft, make it a 10,

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the most difficult. It would be like flying across the United States and locating the 18th

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green of a golf course in New Jersey. On July 1st, 1937, Amelia Earhart and Fred Nugin prepared to

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leave Nugini. Squalls were predicted along their route. They decided to postpone takeoff. Amelia wired

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her husband that she would not make it back to Oakland on the 4th of July as planned.

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At precisely 10 a.m. on the 2nd of July, Amelia and Fred took off. They planned to cross the

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international dateline and land on Howland Island 18 hours later.

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Though she had the best navigator in the world, set them beside her, Fred Nugin,

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she was responsible for running that airplane. She had to fly the heading. She had to watch the

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weather. She had to watch the fuel flows. She had to watch the mixtures, the carburetor air,

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make sure they weren't getting carburetor ice. She was responsible for the airplane

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maintaining altitude, maintaining trim. All these things were constant. Plus,

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she had to do the radio transmissions. Amelia was not competent where radio was concerned.

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She would never take the time to learn properly. I think it can be honestly said that the radio

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was the Achilles heel of that flight. It may seem incredible now, but in 1937,

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before radar came into use, a battery-powered radio was Amelia's only link with the world.

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Plying the waters around Howland Island, the Coast Guard cutter Atasca stood ready to communicate

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by radio with Amelia as soon as she came within range. With a radio bearing, the Atasca could

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rescue Amelia and Fred at sea should anything go wrong.

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For 16 hours, nothing did. Then Amelia's lack of radio expertise came into play.

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About 17 hours and 14 minutes into the flight, now we're really getting to the critical part.

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She reports that she's approximately 200 miles out, and she wants them to take a radio bearing on

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her, and she whistles into the microphone. Want bearing on 3105, kill a cycle on hour.

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She stopped whistling. Amelia did not whistle long enough to give the Atasca a consistent signal.

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What Amelia failed to understand was that whistling wasn't necessary, simply allowing an

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uninterrupted radio signal to play for 30 seconds would have been enough.

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Please repeat last transmission on 750. I repeat.

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19 hours into the flight, in one hour behind schedule, Amelia and Fred calculated that they

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should be directly above Howland Island, where they had also established clear radio contact.

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Looking down, they saw only ocean. Fred, I don't see Howland Island.

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I don't know where it is. We should be right up top of it. It's not on my side.

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I don't see it here either. Something was badly wrong. Only once had Amelia indicated that she

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could hear the Atasca, even though they could hear her perfectly. Again, all Amelia had to do

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was open her radio line to let a signal play so the Atasca could take a bearing and find out

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how far off course she was. Instead, Amelia stopped her radio transmissions. She had overused the radio

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and drained her battery on a flight the year before, so she was reluctant simply to let the

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transmitter run. They know they've missed the island, gone past it, but they don't know which

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side. They have no way of knowing. They have to take a radio bearing. So, Amelia does the only

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thing she can. 20 hours and 13 minutes into the flight, Amelia sends her last message.

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Her voice is talking very rapidly and very tense.

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We're in 137. We'll repeat message. We will repeat this message on 6210.

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In her final radio message, Amelia said she was switching frequencies to 6210 kilosecels.

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The Atasca could not reach her on that frequency. They assumed that Amelia, once again unfamiliar

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with emergency radial procedure, had turned her radio dial to the wrong setting. Frantically,

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the Atasca tried other frequencies with no luck. This is the Atasca. Come in over.

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We have an emergency. Notify all the ships in the area. Amelia Earhart's plane may be going down.

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We may be losing her. That was the last verified transmission ever heard from Amelia Earhart

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and Fred Ninen. They must have ran out of fuel and within a minute or two from a thousand feet would

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have had to ditch the airplane into the ocean. Immediately a search effort began. The largest

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ever mounted to look for a single plane. Ten ships, 65 airplanes and 4,000 men covered this

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250,000 square mile area around Holland Island. The search continued for 16 days.

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Experts agreed that Amelia's plane with this empty gas tanks would have floated for five to eight

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hours. On the plane, Amelia and Fred had life preservers and a two person inflatable life raft

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to quit with emergency supplies so they could have been afloat for days.

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Experts believe Amelia went down somewhere near Holland Island,

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but incredibly unconfirmed sightings have placed Amelia and Fred 2,500 miles west northwest of

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Holland on Saipan in the Mariana Islands. When Amelia Earhart and Fred Ninen disappeared, Saipan

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was an important military headquarters for the Japanese. Intent on expanding its empire,

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Japan was about to attack China and had begun to build up military operations on key islands in the

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South Pacific. July 1944, seven years after Amelia Earhart's plane vanished, the island of Saipan was

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now controlled by American forces. Sergeant Thomas Devine was a member of the 244th Army Unit.

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I first became aware of matter pertaining to Amelia Earhart. Soon after my arrival on the island,

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Lieutenant Liebig, who was our first lieutenant, had secured a jeep and told me that I was to

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drive into Aslido airfield, which was a short distance away from our Bibouac area.

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Devine and the lieutenant drove along a heavily guarded road. They pulled up in front of a padlocked aircraft hangar.

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I'm sorry, sir, this is a restricted area. Restricted to whom?

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In all due respect, sir, that's none of your concern.

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While he waited, Thomas Devine overheard snatches of conversation from a nearby group of Marines.

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We got Amelia Earhart's plane in that hangar. You guys wouldn't believe when we found him.

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Suddenly, an official in civilian clothes reprimanded the Marines.

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New people want to knock off the chatter here. You understand what's going on. This is a classified

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project. You've come about that damn close to compromising the project right now. I'm telling you,

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I want you to sit down, do your jobs and shut up. You understand?

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As we went back, we dropped the subject because it was just a minor incident at the place.

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Later on that same day, I heard a roar from the airfield. But we didn't pay too much attention

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until suddenly it came overhead, very, very low. And you could see the markings on it. It was not

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a military plane. It was a civilian plane. The marking was very evident, NR16-020. We all looked

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up. We all wondered what in the world was going on. Thomas Devine wrote down the identification

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numbers on the aircraft. They corresponded exactly to the numbers on Amelia Earhart's plane.

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That same evening, Tom saw the plane again. Now it was on fire.

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And I was a guest to see this plane, the so-called Earhart plane, engulfed in flames.

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I saw that plane personally on three occasions that day. The last time the plane was in flames.

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At about the same time, Bob Wallach was one of the Marines stationed on Saipan.

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I was in the first battalion, 29th Marines. We were in the second wave going into Saipan.

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During the daytime, we had nothing to do except look around, souvenir hunting. We're looking through

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some government-looking buildings, brick buildings. We found this safe that was there.

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One of the guys was a demolition person, the noodle, and he thought he could blow the door

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off the safe and we'd have something. We thought it was a millionaire, so...

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But anyway, there was a briefcase that I grabbed. And I thought I had it packed full of money or

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something like that. To my surprise, it was something I didn't expect to see, but it was full

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of Amelia Earhart's papers. Hey, Joe, come take a look at this. What do you got, Wallach?

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Amelia Earhart. What's this stuff doing here? I may have only been 18 years old,

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but I knew I had a piece of history in my hand. This is incredible. Hey, I think you're gonna have

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to turn that stuff in. Yeah. Wallach turned the briefcase and its contents over to a commanding

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officer. He never saw it again. That briefcase is still someplace in this country. I believe that,

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because that officer that I gave it to was a high enough rank that he didn't just take it and throw

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it away. He had something valuable to. I do not believe Amelia Earhart died at sea. I think Amelia

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Earhart survived the downing on an island in the southern... Buddy Brennan has been investigating

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the Amelia Earhart mystery for more than 11 years. In 1987, he interviewed a woman in Saipan who said

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she had witnessed Amelia's death. Unsolved mysteries went to Saipan and interviewed the same woman.

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What follows is exited from both interviews. This woman was brought ashore by the Japanese.

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It was said they had captured two spy people. The Japanese soldiers brought the spies into town.

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Many of us went there to see them.

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I think they want us to strip. The Japanese cars made them take off all their clothes, everything they had on their bodies.

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It was then we could see that one of the spies was a woman.

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I had never known before a woman who wore men's trousers.

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All the things that happened to that woman, the soldiers put her in jail.

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They removed her jewelry from her hands.

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Then the Japanese came and gave her rice. She threw it out.

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When they took her out of the prison, they tied her hands. They blindfolded her.

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I was working on a farm. I saw a Japanese motorcycle.

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The woman was in a little seat on the side of the motorcycle.

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I watched and they took her to this place where a hole had been dug.

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They made her kneel in front of the hole.

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Then they shot her.

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I planted a breadfruit tree near her grave.

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In 1987, Buddy Brennan conducted an excavation of the grave site. He was only allowed to dig for 12 hours.

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We got down to six and a half feet below what they said would have been the surface in 1944.

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Which is the date Ms. Bloss gave us of having witnessed the execution.

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And that's where we retrieved the blindfold.

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Brennan believes this tattered fragment of cloth was a blindfold worn by Amelia Earhart.

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However, no human remains were unearthed.

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What really happened in Saipan? Was Amelia Earhart executed here?

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Was her aircraft burned here on an American airfield? If so, who burned it and why?

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Or did Amelia Earhart and Fred Newman go down with her plane and perish somewhere in the vast South Pacific?

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I am convinced that the most probable end to the Amelia Earhart flight

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ended with them running out of fuel just like they'd said on the radio and just like the official accident investigation report

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indicated from Captain Noyes on the Lexington that they were forced to ditch northwest of Holland Island after their fuel was exhausted

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and they couldn't find Holland Island because of a navigational error.

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Elgin Long believes Amelia Earhart and Fred Newman ran into three problems.

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The United States nautical charts Fred was using had mislocated Holland Island by six miles.

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A faulty compass on their aircraft took them seven miles farther off course.

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Finally wind drifts and related factors pushed them another 22 miles west.

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According to Elgin Long, Amelia and Fred ended up a full 35 miles off course.

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I stick with where the airplane went down. What happened to Amelia? I'm pretty not positive about it.

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We won't know until we locate the airplane.

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I think if we can raise our airplane and prove once and for all the solution to the Amelia Earhart mystery

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it will be something very very worthwhile for our heritage. We can't afford to throw our heroes away.

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Many believe that the mystery of Amelia Earhart could be solved simply by a deep-sea diving expedition.

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Perhaps so. Or perhaps Amelia Earhart is destined to remain a legendary figure.

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A hero suspended in time at the apex of an unsolved mystery.

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When we return, the chilling tale of a teenager who apparently embarked on a murderous rampage when his girlfriend broke up with him.

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Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter grew up in Woodstock, Illinois, a small town north of Chicago.

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They married in 1968 and had three children, Colleen, Steve and Matthew.

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The Ritters were a close knit family, strong church goers and community workers.

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When 15-year-old Colleen began a day to childhood friend, Rick Church, it seemed only natural.

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Colleen and Rick were both students at a small Catholic high school.

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At first, their relationship seemed like a typical teenage infatuation.

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Hi, Rick.

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How are you?

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How was school? I first started dating Rick when I was a sophomore. At that point, he was a senior.

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Rick was really good looking. He was involved in sports activities. He was real quiet though.

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He had a lot of friends, but he was real quiet.

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I know. It's not a fun position to be in.

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A year after Colleen and Rick began dating, Rick went away to college.

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But Colleen, the romance, began to cool.

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The waning of young lovers on every day occurs. Fortunately, most teenage hearts mend quickly.

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In the case of Colleen Ritter and Rick Church, however, something went wrong. Very wrong.

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Rick seemed unable to accept the idea that the courtship might be over.

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From his college dorm, he called Colleen nearly every night, upset and on edge.

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No one suspected that Rick Church was coming unhinged.

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Hello? Hey Colleen, it's me. How are you doing?

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Hi Rick, I'm fine. Yeah, what are you doing?

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Oh, I have a math test. I really haven't studied much. I have to go.

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Just call the talk to you for a second. But you never have anything to say.

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That's not true. Look, I'm sorry. I just, I really have to study. I'll have to call you tomorrow.

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Okay, fine. Well, good luck on your math test.

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Rick, I have been doing a lot of thinking.

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In June of 1988, Rick came home from college to find that his parents had separated and his

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girlfriend had reached a decision. So what are you, what are you getting at?

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I think we should see other people.

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Am I good enough for you? At the beginning of that summer, he became very possessive.

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Um, you know, where are you going? Who are you going to be with? You know, that type of thing.

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And then that just like crowded me too much. I couldn't stand that.

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You were calling me all the time.

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I'm really sorry if I inconvenienced you.

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You're too possessive.

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What?

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I found it was really hard breaking up with Rick. I still wanted to be friends. We had known each

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other, you know, practically all our lives. And I did consider him a good friend.

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So I thought maybe this just wasn't, it was like a friendship trying to turn into a romance and it

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just didn't, didn't cut it. You know, it just didn't work. So then I just wanted us to be friends

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once again because he really didn't, he really needed somebody and I wanted to be, you know,

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a friend for him, but I just couldn't be his girlfriend anymore. It was too hard.

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Anyway, um, I went to this ghost.

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Two months later on the night of Saturday, August 20th, Colleen had a friend sleeping

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over as did her brother Matthew. Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter were out with friends and their other son was away.

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Hello?

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Colleen?

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Hi.

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At 11 30 p.m. Rick Church telephoned upset because he wanted one last Saturday night with Colleen.

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He was kind of depressed. He sounded very depressed, very silent, really quiet.

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Like he knew something he didn't want to tell me or something. And he,

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immediately then I said, well, you know, don't talk to me like that. If you're gonna act like this,

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you know, I don't want to talk to you tonight. I'll just talk to you tomorrow then. He said,

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well, fine. He just hung up on me. I don't, I don't know exactly how the fight started,

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but it ended up where he just hung up on me. I don't think there was very, there was anything

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really unusual about that. We had gotten an argument before and he had hung up on me before

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and I had done the same. It wasn't, um, unusual. I don't think in any circumstance, it was just a

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basic fight.

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Music

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Around 5.15 a.m. Rick Church entered the Ritter's House.

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What the police believe happened next is based on their investigation and eyewitness accounts.

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Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter were asleep in their ground floor bedroom.

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By 5.25 a.m. they were both dead.

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Music

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Upstairs, 11-year-old Matthew Ritter awoke.

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He was stabbed twice.

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Music

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Howling radically died on time one month.

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Music

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Rick broke into the room. She ran.

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Rick never spoke. He began to stab Colleen.

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Help me! Help me!

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I had a cedar chest and I was like laying on the cedar chest just pretending I was dead so he

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would stop or just trying to do anything so he would stop. I was like playing dead and that

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didn't work. He kept attacking me. I told him I just yelled at I love you just so I thought maybe

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he would stop. I was trying anything at that point.

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Music

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Rick fled when two neighbors came to Colleen's aid.

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Inside the house, young Matthew Ritter had managed to get to the telephone and give his

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address to the 911 operator. The police arrived almost immediately. Went that way, went back inside.

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It's okay, I'm an MTA. Operating under the false impression that Rick had run back into the Ritter

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house. The police concentrated their initial search efforts there. Matthew,

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bloody and in shock, huddled with his friend who was unharmed. Colleen's girlfriend had also

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escaped uninjured. In the downstairs bedroom, they found the bodies of Colleen and Matthew's parents.

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Meanwhile, Rick Church had run the 12 blocks to his home and was hurriedly packing his things.

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Music

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At 5.45 a.m. Rick took his mother's truck and vanished.

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In less than a half hour, had lapsed since a bloody attack on the Ritter family.

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The Woodstock police issued an all-points bulletin.

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This was not a criminal or somebody that's hanging out on the street or anything like that. This was

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a kid who'd gone to school here all his life and knew a lot of people and had a lot of friends and

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went on to college and then all of a sudden, you know, was accused of a crime like this. And I would

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think he'd be totally out of character for something like this. And I really don't know today yet

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what the motive might have been. You know, speculation is the breakup, boyfriend, girlfriend,

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relationship. That's the do something like this. That's really something over that, but

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you know, that's what we have at this point, the reason.

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Music

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At the hospital, police put Colleen Ritter and her brother Matthew under 24-hour

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guard in case Rick Church showed up again. Matthew was treated and released the next day,

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but Colleen was critically injured with more than 20 stab wounds, most of them in the back of her head.

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Some of Colleen's doctors feared she would be permanently blind or suffer irreversible brain

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damage. Two days later, while Colleen was still in intensive care, her parents were buried.

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Music

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The hardest part throughout all of this is,

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I guess, not having my parents there. That's real hard. That's two of your best friends

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and they're gone. So that's hard and not being able to say goodbye because I wasn't at their funeral.

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That was hard. So I did that in my own way and I still am.

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Music

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Music

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Next, the story of a risky undercover operation conducted by the FBI to capture Colombian drug lords.

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Music

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Music

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In South America, the country of Colombia continues to fight for its life in the ugly war against drugs.

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The Colombian drug cartels have taken full credit for making terrorism and political assassination

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a way of life in their country and have made no secret of the fact that they want to increase

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their power in the United States. The cartels, the leaders of the cartels, the members of the

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cartels in South America and their representatives in the United States are particularly vicious.

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There is no premium on human life. These people make the mafia look like Boy Scouts.

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They are totally violent. They will kill almost for the sake of killing.

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Music

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Colombian drug cartels bring in more than five billion dollars a year.

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In an effort to stem the tide of the cartels' influence inside our borders,

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the FBI three years ago mounted one of the riskiest thing operations in United States history.

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Because drug traffickers need above all else, efficient and unbuggable telecommunications,

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the FBI set its trap in an electronic store.

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Music

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The sting operation began in May of 1987 in Miami, Florida. Its center was the unassuming

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RA communications company which sold sophisticated telephone systems and electronic devices.

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The first customers were quick to arrive.

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Music

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That's some information on your sanitary phones.

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Music

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Okay, well we sell and service cellular phones. We also service beepers and sell beepers.

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Where's that you're interested in?

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Music

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The receptionist Sandy and the manager Jay were both highly trained FBI agents.

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Music

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Music

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Well Sandy, do me a favor, take messages.

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Music

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The drug runners wanted the latest in car phones,

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ship to shore radios, beepers, remote phones and airplane telecommunications devices.

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Music

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We did everything we could to provide them. By so doing of course we knew how they were

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operating, we knew what frequencies they were operating on and it gave us the leg up.

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Music

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The drug traffickers overriding need was for untraceable means of communication.

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The word on the street was RA had the best.

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All the employees at RA who were cooperating fully with the FBI were men the drug runners trusted.

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Music

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I'm gonna talk to the man on the moon right? Now listen, I gotta know the man on the moon's wife

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isn't listening in. Okay, what you want to know is if this phone is tapable right?

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And I'm telling you listen to me now trust me there's no way you can tap into this phone.

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In your experience there's no problem. I'm an expert I just told you this is the top of the line

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state-of-the-art unit. We held ourselves out as being a service component of the drug business.

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We made it attractive for them to remain, talk, converse and that became a place to congregate.

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It took on an aura of a clubhouse type of effect. Our clientele probably six months into the

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operation was entirely drug traffickers. Soon the really major players in the drug underworld began

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to drop into the RA clubhouse. One of them was Columbia National Jesus Penaalveir known by the

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FBI to handle regular shipments of cocaine worth as much as 50 million dollars.

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Jesus came to trust the undercover agents and cooperative parties working in RA communications.

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He bragged that he'd been involved in some violent incidents in Columbia South America,

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talked about his desire to flood the United States with cocaine. He freely discussed with us the

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movement from Columbia South America through the Bahamas and into the United States.

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Inside the clubhouse, Penaalveir felt safe enough to make drug deals using the company phone.

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His conversations were videotaped and monitored by FBI agents.

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Penaalveir's cronies joined him and in the clubhouse it was not uncommon to see as many as

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three different drug traffickers doing business simultaneously into the early morning hours.

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One of those traffickers was cartel operative Julio Marco Cruz.

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Julio Marco Cruz was a customer, a purchaser, someone who was going to receive in excess of

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100 kilos of cocaine. Cruz had arranged to receive his large cocaine shipment

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nearly November on a boat called the tremolo. Through RA's personnel, the FBI discovered

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the tremolo's route in time to alert the United States Coast Guard. On November 19, 1988, the

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tremolo entered U.S. waters and the Coast Guard moved in to intercept the massive shipment of cocaine.

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The crew and your crew had to step to the star side of the boat and come on board.

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Under the tremolo's floorboards, agents discovered over 800 pounds of cocaine,

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their street value nearly 40 million dollars.

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The next day, Cruz showed up at RA Communications accompanied by his bodyguards.

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Amazingly, he seemed to know nothing about the tremolo's capture.

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Jay made a quick decision. To keep his cover intact, he told Cruz about the drug bust on the tremolo.

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Cruz was infuriated, but he never suspected that the man who told him about the bust were in fact

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responsible for it. He continued to use the same telephones he had used before, and the FBI

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continued to gather information. It appeared as if the RA's thing might go on indefinitely,

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but during the fall of 1988, Jesus Peñalver had begun forcing his attentions on Sandy.

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The FBI feared that Sandy and their other agents might be in jeopardy.

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The agents who are involved in undercover activity are exposed to potential danger at any given time.

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And really, we very closely reviewed and evaluated with the FBI headquarters and the other agencies

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who participated that we had accomplished a great deal, and it was the appropriate time

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to bring forward the matters to a prosecuted phase.

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On December 6, 1988, the FBI brought charges against nearly 100 drug traffickers.

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RA communications was shut down.

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We had a significant amount of arrest to undertake. We had a very detailed plan of the 93 people

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indicted throughout the United States. We were able to apprehend 68 some people.

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Next week on Unsolved Mysteries, in 1965, one of the first Black Deputy

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sheriffs in Louisiana was gunned down in cold blood while on duty. 24 years later,

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new leads prompted the FBI to reopen the case.

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For every mystery, there is someone, somewhere who knows the truth. Perhaps it's you.

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you