Serial Killer Documentary - How A Fake $20 Bill Led Agents To A North Carolina Serial Killer

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In Charlotte, North Carolina, in April of 1983, an armored
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truck drove up to a local bank to make its
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daily deposit The courier was delivering the day's receipts from
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an area mall.
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Good morning, ma'am.
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Hi, Jack. Good morning.
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Big deposit today, huh? Absolutely.
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Thank you very much.
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All right, there you go. Thank you.
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See you tomorrow.
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See you tomorrow.
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Most banks in the US use automatic counters calibrated to
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reject any bills that are an odd size or paper thickness.
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The machine rejected one of the notes. A worn looking
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$ 20 bill. Suspecting it may be counterfeit, the clerk contacted
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the nearest office of the Secret Service Although it is
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known for providing protection to the president, the Secret Service
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was originally founded to investigate counterfeit currency. An agent was
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dispatched to the bank to try and determine where the
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bill came from. The Secret Service canvassed the mall to
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determine if any of the retailers could identify the passers.
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Agents interviewed employees throughout the mall where the bill had been.
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Passed.
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The cashiers couldn't recall who had passed the fake bill.
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Special Agent Dennis Foose worked the case.
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In many cases, counterfeit bills will be received by a merchant,
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not detected as counterfeit, go into the till and might
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be given back to the next customer in the form
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of change. So it's not uncommon for someone to innocently
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pick up a counterfeit bill and then even pass it
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on to another merchant.
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The Secret Service sent the counterfeit $ 20 note to their
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forensics lab in Washington, D.C. Lorelei Pagano is a counterfeit specialist.
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It is her job to analyze the counterfeit notes.
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They're examined for information about the paper, the printing process,
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the inks, any simulation of security features, any investigative information
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that we can give back to the field to help
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them stop the counterfeiting.
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The examiner focused her attention on the style of printing.
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The counterfeit bill was flat and slick. The printing process
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of the US Mint creates raised areas on the bill
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where the ink is applied. The US Treasury has a
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series of safeguards to discourage counterfeiting. In the 1980s, the
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paper they printed on was embedded with red and blue fibers.
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This counterfeiter had printed red and blue lines on the
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bills to simulate the look of the paper. Comparing the
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bill to previously passed notes, The technician noticed these defects
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were similar to others she had seen.
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We associate notes together by determining if there's significant individuality
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of two portions of a note that allows us to
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define that they're coming from the same counterfeiting operation. And
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in that sense, we then create families of counterfeits.
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This family of counterfeit bills began appearing in the early
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1980s and were cataloged under Circular 7215. This was the 7,215th
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run of counterfeit bills in US history. Agents telexed a
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notice to branch offices around the country. Since 1980, the
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Secret Service had recovered more than a thousand variations of
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circular 7215. The counterfeit bills had been passed for the
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most part in shopping malls. Because of this, they dubbed
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their suspect the Mall Passer. The agents had very little
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information about their suspect. They didn't know if he was
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working alone or if he was part of a counterfeit ring.
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All they knew for certain was that his fake $ 20
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bills had defrauded the US out of thousands of dollars.
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Thank you. You too. Greg Mertz, a former homicide detective,
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had been with the Secret Service only a year and
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a half when he began investigating the case.
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The counterfeit money he produced was a fairly good quality note.
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I mean, it passed.
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If that's your standard or your barometer as to how
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good a counterfeit bill is, can it pass on the
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general public? The majority of the bills did pass.
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For years, the Secret Service struggled to find a lead.
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Thousands of dollars in counterfeit 20s with the same telltale
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flaws had turned up in malls all across the country.
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Secret Service agent Jane Vazares worked the case.
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A particular area would be hit by this note and
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you would see that there was a 20 passed in
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a bookstore and then a 20 passed in a stationary
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store and then maybe 20 passed, you know, in a
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small area, but not large numbers. And it was over
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a long span of time and it was over a
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large geographic area of this country. And that was peculiar.
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To the agents, the passer's odd behavior made it seem
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as if his counterfeiting was hiding something else. Then they
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got a break. A clerk in Burnside, Minnesota, took in
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a $ 20 bill that didn't feel right to her. She
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suspected it was fake. The clerk observed the passer as
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he got into his car and drove away. She later
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gave the Secret Service their first description of the suspect.
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She also described his car as a white Ford, but
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was unable to read the license plate. The Secret Service
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distributed a sketch based on the clerk's description to shopping
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malls all across America.
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We established that he had visited every state east of
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the Mississippi River and many states west of the Mississippi
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River and would hit malls, shopping malls, generally during weekends
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or busy periods. Holiday weekends were a favorite.
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The mall passer always made small purchases. He would buy
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a pair of socks, a book, or a single greeted card.
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He passed his bills 120 at a time, collecting his
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change and moving on. He never went for the big score.
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He was patient and methodical. The Secret Service was puzzled
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by the mall passers' mobility. He would drop a bill
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in Florida and the very same day a dozen fake
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20s would appear 500 miles away. They weren't certain whether
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his fake bills were in circulation or whether he was
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in fact passing them. If he was, they thought he
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might be someone who traveled for a living.
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We started with a notion that because of the distances
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that the passes occurred from each other, that one possibility
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might be that the notes were being passed by a pilot.
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One of the mall passers counterfeit bills turned up at
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a parking lot near an airport in Washington, DC. The
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secret service got a description of the passer from the
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parking lot attendant. A similar note had been passed in
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that lot exactly one year before. The next day agents
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showed a composite drawing of their suspect to a ground
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crew who identified him as a pilot. Airline officials provided
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a picture.
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I laid the composite next to the photograph of their
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pilot and got a little excited because it appeared that
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the composite drawing could have been traced from that very picture.
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The Secret Service followed the pilot to see if he
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was passing fake bills. They surveilled him in and out
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of airports. There you go, that's $ 3.
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45.
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When they saw him spending money, they would retrieve the
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bill to see if it was counterfeit.
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They also checked his flight record.
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His assignments had not taken him near any of the
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counterfeit passes. They concluded he could not be the mall passer.
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The investigators hit a dead end.
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When you look at the total dollar amount that this
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individual was passing, it was insignificant compared to the total
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amount of counterfeit pass in the country or the world. However,
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this one individual was beating the Secret Service, year after year,
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for three years straight.
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Investigators observed that the mall passer often traveled Interstate 95
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up and down the eastern United States. He would take
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smaller routes, but he always returned to 95. Agents began
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to suspect that he made his home in the Washington, D.C.
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Area.
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If so, he was right under their noses. In May
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of 1983, as the Memorial Day holiday approached, they anticipated
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his passing would intensify.
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We went out and hit various malls, showing our composite
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and alerting them to the possibility that the mall passer
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might be hitting during that time frame. We not only
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did that in Washington, D.C., but we set up sort
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of a band that would cover these common routes that
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we knew that he took, which extended across to Tennessee.
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The Secret Service contacted thousands of stores up and down
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the East Coast. A report came in from the Knoxville
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office that a phony bill had been passed at a
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shop in Kingsport, Tennessee. The Secret Service confirmed it came
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from the mall passer. If the predictions of his travel
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patterns held true, Knoxville would be next. Agents at the
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local field office were dispatched to cover the newly opened mall.
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Pete Allison, Secret Service.
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They went to every shop, showing clerks a photograph of
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the sketch they had made of the mall passer. Agent
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Pete Allison remembers the manager of one of the shops
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recognized the picture.
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The clerk felt like he would know this person because
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he had been shown this photograph before in Memphis. The
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person victimized him at the historian Memphis. And he told
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me that if this person walked in the store, he
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would recognize them immediately.
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Thank you.
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Incredibly, a few minutes after the agent left, the mall
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passer entered the shop. Agents finally got the break they
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had been waiting for when the clerk reported seeing the passer.
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Suspect spotted outside mall.
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Respond immediately.
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Over.
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All right.
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Allison, I'm on the way. The clerk told agents he
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had seen the suspect enter a bookstore nearby. A security
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officer checked out the bookstore, but the mall passer was
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not there. Then they spotted him coming out of a
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shoe store. Aware he was being followed, he began running
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toward a store that was under construction. Two police officers
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pulled up outside the unfinished area where the mall passer
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had disappeared. The suspect tried to bluff his way past
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the officers by telling them that the police had already
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cleared him to leave. The officers didn't believe him. They
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searched him and found a gun in his front pocket.
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They also found some counterfeit money. It matched the bill
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passed at the shop. After years of searching, they knew
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they finally had the mall passer. They questioned the suspect
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to see if his car was nearby. He continued to
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deny having a car, but again, the agents did not
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believe him.
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If this is the guy who's been driving all over
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the country, there could be all kinds of evidence in
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that car of his other passes.
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Investigators waited until nightfall to check them all for unattended vehicles.
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Only three cars were left in the lot. The mall
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passers' keys fit one of them, a 1971 Chrysler. The
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agent closed the vehicle and sought a search warrant. The
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next morning, the suspect's car was towed to an impound
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garage where police began processing it. The car had been
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equipped with a police siren. Inside the trunk, they found
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more police paraphernalia. What appeared to be stolen license plates
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and a collection of women's underwear. The investigators began to
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suspect that there was more to the mall passer than
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simply passing fake bills. After tracking the mall passer for years,
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The Secret Service finally had him in custody in Knoxville, Tennessee.
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He'd been arrested after passing a fake 20 in a
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local mall. Agents searched the mall passers car. As they did,
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they uncovered disturbing evidence. The car was outfitted with a
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police siren and police lights. Inside, agents recovered a loaded
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semi-automatic pistol. The search turned up thousands of dollars in
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counterfeit currency in small bundles. Each bundle was labeled with
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the name of a different city. An itinerary found above
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the visor listed various dates, cities and aliases used, motels
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and how much money was spent. The counterfeiter had kept
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meticulous records of his travels. In the trunk, they found
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a stack of stolen license plates, some with magnets attached.
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They also found other items that surprised Special Agent Allison.
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These stolen tags with the magnets on them, those were
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fairly normal for a counterfeiter to try to hide his identification,
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to get away. But then the police lights, the police
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badges that we found, the police siren and the spotlight
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in the front of the car, we suspected then that
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we had a police impersonator. But we had no idea why.
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The trunk contained several forged driver's licenses, all of them
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bearing the suspect's picture.
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As we were searching the car, I thought that we
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were looking for counterfeit evidence. And the more we found,
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the more I realized this guy must be into something
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else besides counterfeiting.
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At the Secret Service office, agents interviewed the suspect to
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obtain his personal history. At the time of his arrest,
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he was carrying a North Carolina driver's license in the
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name of Roger Collin Blanchard. When he told them his
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birth date, it was different than the date on his
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driver's license.
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The month was the same, the year was the same,
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but the day was different. So I reasoned then that
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there's something not right here.
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Checking the address on the driver's license, agents found it
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belonged to a motel. The management of the motel said
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they had never heard of a Roger Collin Blanchard. Agent Roberts.
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Agents in Tennessee contacted the Washington D.C. field office. The
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00:19:37.829 --> 00:19:42.789
car's license plates had been stolen, but the vehicle was
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00:19:42.849 --> 00:19:49.849
registered to a James R. Jones of Alexandria, Virginia. Special
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00:19:49.910 --> 00:19:52.890
Agent Greg Mertz discovered that Jones had also registered the
250
00:19:52.930 --> 00:19:58.299
vehicle in Albany, New York. Jones had the same height, weight,
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00:19:58.339 --> 00:19:59.599
and birthdate as Blanchard.
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00:20:01.900 --> 00:20:04.200
I called back down to Knoxville and I said, hey,
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I don't think this guy's name is Roger Collins Blanchard.
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00:20:07.500 --> 00:20:09.059
I think his real name is James R.
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00:20:09.079 --> 00:20:09.460
Jones.
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00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:13.779
And I said, why don't you FedEx his fingerprints up
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and we'll hand carry him to the bureau the next
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00:20:15.480 --> 00:20:18.890
morning and try to get a true identification.
259
00:20:18.329 --> 00:20:23.150
On the guy. A search of the FBI's records uncovered
260
00:20:23.190 --> 00:20:29.950
the mall passer's identity. He was James Mitchell de Bartleaben II,
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00:20:30.089 --> 00:20:34.130
a 44-year-old career criminal. He had been arrested by the
262
00:20:34.170 --> 00:20:36.299
Secret Service years earlier in 1976 for passing counterfeit $ 100 bills.
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00:20:42.630 --> 00:20:45.390
Special Agent Foose pulled up the report and realized the
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00:20:45.430 --> 00:20:50.500
investigating agent still worked in the Secret Service's Washington field office.
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00:20:51.519 --> 00:20:54.440
When Foose showed Special Agent Mike Stevens to Bartleaben's new
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00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:57.279
arrest photo, Stevens recognized him instantly.
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00:20:59.240 --> 00:21:03.690
I knew Foose was working the mall passer case, and
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00:21:03.710 --> 00:21:07.589
then he told me that he had been arrested in Knoxville, Tennessee,
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00:21:08.769 --> 00:21:14.660
as a mall passer. Well, naturally, I got a lump
270
00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:18.079
in my throat, and I said, certainly, I do remember him.
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00:21:18.799 --> 00:21:22.799
I immediately wanted a piece of this new investigation because
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00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:25.599
I knew probably more about him than most people.
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00:21:29.660 --> 00:21:32.079
Stevens briefed Foose on what they found when they first
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00:21:32.140 --> 00:21:42.940
arrested de Bartleman. The morning after DeBartolaben's 1976 arrest, agents
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00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:47.910
obtained a warrant to search his residence. They were looking
276
00:21:47.950 --> 00:21:55.410
for his printing press. On the second floor, they entered
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00:21:55.450 --> 00:21:56.390
a darkened bedroom.
278
00:21:59.069 --> 00:22:01.730
And we hit a light switch to turn the light on.
279
00:22:03.190 --> 00:22:10.869
And immediately, a movie projector came on and projected pornography
280
00:22:11.990 --> 00:22:14.950
on the wall. It frightened us a little bit because
281
00:22:15.009 --> 00:22:17.579
it startled us, because we don't know exactly what we're
282
00:22:17.599 --> 00:22:18.180
getting into.
283
00:22:20.839 --> 00:22:24.980
All around them was amateur pornography. Much of it involved
284
00:22:25.099 --> 00:22:31.490
torture and bondage scenarios. The agents found a stack of
285
00:22:31.630 --> 00:22:34.809
index cards with the names of women, their addresses, and
286
00:22:34.849 --> 00:22:40.609
descriptions of their physical attributes. It appeared the cards included
287
00:22:40.650 --> 00:22:47.089
a crude rating system. Under the pillows, they found a
288
00:22:47.089 --> 00:23:00.529
38 caliber revolver and a nine millimeter automatic pistol. Both
289
00:23:00.609 --> 00:23:06.869
weapons were loaded. Stevens went on to tell the agents
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00:23:06.970 --> 00:23:10.809
that during the 1976 search of de Barthelaben's home, they
291
00:23:10.849 --> 00:23:18.680
discovered the second locked bedroom. Using a sledgehammer, they smashed
292
00:23:18.740 --> 00:23:19.099
the door.
293
00:23:34.099 --> 00:23:37.380
And there was the printing press operation, the 1250 Multilith,
294
00:23:38.609 --> 00:23:42.170
which was a surprise to us because it's very heavy.
295
00:23:43.089 --> 00:23:45.259
And it was a surprise that it was up on
296
00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:49.819
the second floor. Money was screwed all over the floor
297
00:23:49.859 --> 00:23:50.480
of the room.
298
00:23:53.140 --> 00:23:56.430
Stevens told the agents de Bartleaben served only 23 months
299
00:23:56.470 --> 00:24:02.829
for his prior 1976 counterfeiting conviction. Special Agent Stevens always
300
00:24:02.869 --> 00:24:05.910
felt there was more to de Bartleaben than counterfeiting.
301
00:24:07.859 --> 00:24:10.599
We had him arrested now in Knoxville, and he was
302
00:24:10.740 --> 00:24:16.220
using various different aliases. I think, total, I think we
303
00:24:16.259 --> 00:24:19.069
ended up with about 40 different aliases that he used.
304
00:24:20.710 --> 00:24:23.230
Investigators now had to find out what he had been
305
00:24:23.269 --> 00:24:27.430
doing since his release. They set out to learn everything
306
00:24:27.470 --> 00:24:36.460
they could about James Mitchell de Barta-Laban. After a three
307
00:24:36.519 --> 00:24:40.779
year search, Secret Service agents in Tennessee finally apprehended the
308
00:24:40.819 --> 00:24:45.640
mall passer. But they still found no clues as to
309
00:24:45.700 --> 00:24:52.470
where he kept his printing press and supplies. On the
310
00:24:52.509 --> 00:24:55.430
windshield of his car, they noticed a parking sticker for
311
00:24:55.450 --> 00:25:02.099
an apartment complex in Alexandria, Virginia. Agents from the Washington
312
00:25:02.140 --> 00:25:06.710
DC office were dispatched to check out the apartment. It
313
00:25:06.730 --> 00:25:11.309
was only 15 miles from the Secret Service office. Agent
314
00:25:11.349 --> 00:25:12.710
Jane Vazares worked the case.
315
00:25:14.690 --> 00:25:18.599
We became actively involved in trying to figure out what
316
00:25:18.660 --> 00:25:22.799
activities was he involved in here? Perhaps was this his
317
00:25:22.819 --> 00:25:26.579
home base? Was he actually manufacturing the notes here? Did
318
00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:28.440
he have a stash of counterfeit notes here?
319
00:25:30.420 --> 00:25:33.740
Residents of the apartment building recognized to Bartleaben's picture and
320
00:25:33.779 --> 00:25:38.259
said they knew him as James Jones. The agents learned
321
00:25:38.299 --> 00:25:43.950
which unit was his. They secured a warrant. When Special
322
00:25:43.990 --> 00:25:46.769
Agent Mertz entered the apartment, his hopes sank.
323
00:25:46.789 --> 00:25:55.119
It was a one-bedroom apartment, kitchen living room, you know, small,
324
00:25:55.599 --> 00:25:59.859
maybe 800, 900 square feet total. And we realized immediately
325
00:25:59.940 --> 00:26:03.769
upon walking in that our investigation was going to continue
326
00:26:04.109 --> 00:26:06.289
because we had not discovered the planned operation.
327
00:26:08.269 --> 00:26:13.240
DeBartolaben had learned from his 1976 arrest. He no longer
328
00:26:13.299 --> 00:26:17.819
kept his printing press in his home. The agent searched
329
00:26:17.859 --> 00:26:22.670
the apartment but found nothing unusual, except for a large
330
00:26:22.789 --> 00:26:24.069
quantity of men's socks.
331
00:26:27.650 --> 00:26:33.250
We looked around. We found a number of small bags
332
00:26:33.329 --> 00:26:37.369
with small purchases. You know, maybe a pair of socks,
333
00:26:38.230 --> 00:26:41.089
a book, maybe a map, those kinds of little things.
334
00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:45.470
which was very typical with the kind of behavior that
335
00:26:45.950 --> 00:26:48.710
was exhibited by this individual because he would go in,
336
00:26:48.750 --> 00:26:52.450
of course, and try to buy a very small dollar
337
00:26:53.210 --> 00:26:56.950
item with a 20 to get the maximum amount of
338
00:26:57.009 --> 00:26:57.730
change possible.
339
00:26:59.569 --> 00:27:02.009
The puzzling thing to the agents was that although it
340
00:27:02.049 --> 00:27:04.369
appeared that Bartleaben had no use for any of the
341
00:27:04.450 --> 00:27:08.369
items he bought, he kept them. It seemed as if
342
00:27:08.410 --> 00:27:12.640
they were trophies of his crimes. The Secret Service had
343
00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:15.359
de Bartleaben in custody, but unless they could find his
344
00:27:15.420 --> 00:27:19.369
printing press, they couldn't charge him with manufacturing counterfeit bills.
345
00:27:21.569 --> 00:27:26.710
Here was a three-and-a-half-year investigation that had the attention of
346
00:27:26.769 --> 00:27:30.289
the entire Secret Service, and we were expecting to find
347
00:27:30.309 --> 00:27:32.990
a large amount of counterfeit money. We were expecting to find,
348
00:27:33.089 --> 00:27:35.890
or hoping to find, a printing plant operation with a
349
00:27:35.930 --> 00:27:40.970
printing press and printing plate negatives and plates. And we
350
00:27:41.009 --> 00:27:41.630
found nothing.
351
00:27:43.900 --> 00:27:46.339
The sentence for passing was much lighter than the sentence
352
00:27:46.359 --> 00:27:54.519
for manufacturing. They had to find the press. Agent Mertz
353
00:27:54.539 --> 00:27:55.240
had an idea.
354
00:27:56.700 --> 00:28:00.480
I leafed through every single page of the white pages,
355
00:28:00.589 --> 00:28:04.730
Northern Virginia. It was three inches thick. Looking for any marks,
356
00:28:04.930 --> 00:28:07.829
any names that might be circled, anything of the nature
357
00:28:07.890 --> 00:28:11.119
like that. I then started with the yellow pages. and
358
00:28:11.150 --> 00:28:13.799
went to every single page in the Yellow Pages. When
359
00:28:13.839 --> 00:28:16.779
I got to the M's in the Yellow Pages under
360
00:28:16.859 --> 00:28:19.579
moving and storage, there was a small piece of paper.
361
00:28:19.599 --> 00:28:21.259
American movers and storage.
362
00:28:22.039 --> 00:28:23.589
We both kind of looked at each other, and we
363
00:28:23.609 --> 00:28:26.329
knew that's where it was. He had everything in a
364
00:28:26.390 --> 00:28:27.470
moving storage locker.
365
00:28:30.670 --> 00:28:38.640
They decided to canvas storage facilities in Alexandria, Virginia, starting
366
00:28:38.680 --> 00:28:46.029
with the one nearest to Bartleaben's apartment. I, being somewhat
367
00:28:46.069 --> 00:28:49.210
familiar with that location, knew that there were several storage
368
00:28:49.289 --> 00:28:51.849
units in the area within a few blocks of the apartment.
369
00:28:52.450 --> 00:28:55.190
So my function was to visit each of these storage
370
00:28:55.289 --> 00:28:58.549
units and attempt to determine whether this person that we
371
00:28:58.569 --> 00:29:03.930
had now identified as James DeBartolaben had rented any units
372
00:29:03.970 --> 00:29:08.170
in any of these storage units. As it turned out,
373
00:29:08.210 --> 00:29:12.519
the first storage unit that I went to got a hit.
374
00:29:15.569 --> 00:29:17.769
The clerk told the agents she had been waiting for them.
375
00:29:19.670 --> 00:29:21.839
As a matter of fact, her comment to me was,
376
00:29:21.859 --> 00:29:24.119
I was sort of wondering when the police would come
377
00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:25.599
by and ask about this guy.
378
00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:31.019
One of their renters, a man named Jones, was up
379
00:29:31.059 --> 00:29:36.950
to no good, she said. The clerk remembered, one night
380
00:29:36.990 --> 00:29:41.630
Jones left his locker open with the light on. When
381
00:29:41.650 --> 00:29:43.589
she went to shut it off, she saw what she
382
00:29:43.690 --> 00:29:52.619
thought were burglary tools. When shown to Bartleaben's picture, the
383
00:29:52.630 --> 00:30:01.670
clerk identified him as Jones. This man. Investigators believe they
384
00:30:01.710 --> 00:30:07.930
may have found de Bartleaben's printing plant. They obtained a
385
00:30:07.990 --> 00:30:19.720
search warrant and returned to the storage locker. When they
386
00:30:19.799 --> 00:30:22.099
opened it, they were surprised to find that it did
387
00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:28.519
not contain the printing press. Nothing about this investigation was easy.
388
00:30:30.349 --> 00:30:32.829
The very first thing that struck me when we opened
389
00:30:32.849 --> 00:30:35.130
the door was a set of red lights and blue
390
00:30:35.170 --> 00:30:40.450
lights and a siren, all designed with cigarette lighter plugs
391
00:30:40.910 --> 00:30:42.849
to operate off of a car cigarette lighter.
392
00:30:45.470 --> 00:30:47.680
The locker was filled with the same type of items
393
00:30:47.720 --> 00:30:50.740
found in de Bartelaben's car, only on a much bigger scale.
394
00:30:54.220 --> 00:30:57.740
The agents recovered box after box of counterfeit $ 20 bills.
395
00:30:59.730 --> 00:31:01.529
Almost $ 50, 000 worth.
396
00:31:04.289 --> 00:31:07.069
We did find what we were looking for as far
397
00:31:07.130 --> 00:31:10.569
as evidence of counterfeiting. We found counterfeit money. We found
398
00:31:10.630 --> 00:31:16.250
plates and negatives. But we also found items that led
399
00:31:16.289 --> 00:31:19.720
us to believe that we were looking at evidence of
400
00:31:19.819 --> 00:31:20.420
other crimes.
401
00:31:21.849 --> 00:31:26.569
The storage locker contained more phony police badges, fake identity cards,
402
00:31:27.329 --> 00:31:30.230
books on surveillance, and a number of weapons.
403
00:31:31.960 --> 00:31:34.480
It appeared that he was a police impersonator.
404
00:31:35.140 --> 00:31:36.019
The question is, why?
405
00:31:36.099 --> 00:31:38.380
Why was he a police impersonator? We thought he was
406
00:31:38.420 --> 00:31:42.960
just passing counterfeit money. So we started thinking real hard, like,
407
00:31:43.140 --> 00:31:44.009
what do we have here?
408
00:31:46.009 --> 00:31:49.329
As agents confiscated the evidence, they knew counterfeiting was the
409
00:31:49.410 --> 00:31:55.259
least of de Bartleaben's crimes. The disturbing thing was, whatever
410
00:31:55.299 --> 00:32:01.559
he was doing, he was doing it full time. They
411
00:32:01.579 --> 00:32:04.059
took the evidence back to their offices to be processed.
412
00:32:06.900 --> 00:32:09.019
They hoped the boxes held something that would give them
413
00:32:09.140 --> 00:32:13.200
some idea of what he was doing. Special Agent Mertz
414
00:32:13.240 --> 00:32:15.960
began by reading some of the hundreds of de Bartleaben's
415
00:32:16.059 --> 00:32:17.339
notes stored in the boxes.
416
00:32:18.700 --> 00:32:20.940
He was a prolific note writer. He'd get up in
417
00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:22.920
the morning and say, What are the five things I
418
00:32:22.940 --> 00:32:23.559
have to do today?
419
00:32:23.579 --> 00:32:24.420
And he'd write them down.
420
00:32:25.019 --> 00:32:27.700
And so there were little tiny slips of paper, three
421
00:32:27.740 --> 00:32:31.279
by five cards, little post-it notes, you name it.
422
00:32:33.039 --> 00:32:40.269
Late into the night, agents cataloged the evidence. Unfortunately, de
423
00:32:40.309 --> 00:32:43.150
Bartelaben's notes offered no clues as to the whereabouts of
424
00:32:43.190 --> 00:32:48.950
his press. Agent Mertz discovered some audio tapes inside one
425
00:32:48.990 --> 00:32:53.930
of the boxes. he decided to play.
426
00:32:53.750 --> 00:32:53.990
One of them.
427
00:32:56.490 --> 00:32:59.230
I thought, well, maybe since he's such a prolific note writer,
428
00:32:59.269 --> 00:33:01.910
maybe there's something, you know, he's so secretive, maybe there's
429
00:33:01.930 --> 00:33:04.539
something on this tape. So I took the tape and
430
00:33:04.579 --> 00:33:06.440
I just stuck it in my dictaphone player and I
431
00:33:06.460 --> 00:33:16.930
hit play. I was shocked. The Bart Laban's tone in
432
00:33:16.950 --> 00:33:21.990
his voice was very matter of fact, totally calm and control.
433
00:33:22.450 --> 00:33:26.109
and this woman is screaming, begging to be killed. I
434
00:33:26.150 --> 00:33:28.490
listened to two or three minutes. I stopped the tape,
435
00:33:28.559 --> 00:33:30.359
and I just sat there and listened. I'm going, what
436
00:33:30.380 --> 00:33:31.200
did I just hear?
437
00:33:36.500 --> 00:33:39.720
Later that day, Mertz played the tape for the other agents.
438
00:33:42.200 --> 00:33:46.619
You could hear a woman screaming, crying, pleading for him
439
00:33:47.180 --> 00:33:57.259
to stop. It was extremely unsettling. Just, I can't find
440
00:33:57.319 --> 00:34:00.500
words to adequately describe how terrible it was.
441
00:34:02.619 --> 00:34:07.089
The agents knew there was more to the case. They
442
00:34:07.109 --> 00:34:09.989
could only speculate as to the terror that Bart Laban
443
00:34:10.030 --> 00:34:20.239
inflicted on these women. The Secret Service was sifting through
444
00:34:20.300 --> 00:34:23.239
evidence found in a storage locker rented to James Mitchell
445
00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:30.150
de Bartolaba. They had caught him passing fake bills, which
446
00:34:30.190 --> 00:34:36.309
they suspected he had printed himself. They still had not
447
00:34:36.369 --> 00:34:39.239
found his press, but had uncovered a chilling audio tape
448
00:34:39.260 --> 00:34:44.280
in which a woman was begging to be killed. Evidence
449
00:34:44.300 --> 00:34:51.869
de Bartolaba was involved in something far more sinister. Desperate
450
00:34:51.909 --> 00:34:54.650
to find out exactly what de Bartleaben was involved in,
451
00:34:55.469 --> 00:35:00.170
agents continued to pour over the evidence. They recovered hundreds
452
00:35:00.210 --> 00:35:04.389
of receipts from the storage locker, a few of them
453
00:35:04.449 --> 00:35:09.329
from other storage facilities. Special Agent Greg Mertz found a
454
00:35:09.409 --> 00:35:10.590
telling piece of evidence.
455
00:35:12.369 --> 00:35:14.570
One of the significant things that I found was a
456
00:35:14.610 --> 00:35:17.739
postal money order receipt made out to a moving and
457
00:35:17.760 --> 00:35:19.739
storage facility in Manassas, Virginia.
458
00:35:21.320 --> 00:35:23.510
The manager of the facility said she was leasing a
459
00:35:23.550 --> 00:35:26.630
locker to a J.R. Jones who worked for an electronics company.
460
00:35:28.090 --> 00:35:34.030
Jones was one of DeBartolaben's aliases. Special Agent Mike Stevens
461
00:35:34.090 --> 00:35:35.340
again obtained a search warrant.
462
00:35:37.219 --> 00:35:40.159
We found the storage unit and took the lock off
463
00:35:40.219 --> 00:35:44.659
it and opened it up. And as I recall, the
464
00:35:44.719 --> 00:35:48.170
Manassas storage unit was what we would call the mother load.
465
00:35:50.409 --> 00:35:53.329
Agents opened the locker to find at last the Bartleaben's
466
00:35:53.409 --> 00:36:03.730
printing plant. A multi-lith 1250 offset press. Weighing almost 500 pounds,
467
00:36:04.010 --> 00:36:07.809
it was partly dismantled and surrounded by nearly a quarter
468
00:36:07.829 --> 00:36:12.489
of a million dollars in fake $ 20 bills. Inside the locker,
469
00:36:12.869 --> 00:36:19.619
agents found a small arsenal of handguns and knives. The
470
00:36:19.639 --> 00:36:22.800
search also turned up with the agents called kits. They
471
00:36:22.840 --> 00:36:26.820
consisted of medical tape, pieces of rope, and lubricating jelly.
472
00:36:29.400 --> 00:36:35.010
As they looked farther, agents made a disturbing discovery. Photographs
473
00:36:35.050 --> 00:36:42.329
of women in sexually compromising positions. Hundreds of photographs. Some
474
00:36:42.369 --> 00:36:44.829
of the women had ligature marks on their wrists and
475
00:36:44.909 --> 00:36:47.809
tape residue around their eyes indicating they had been tied
476
00:36:47.909 --> 00:36:48.969
up and blindfolded.
477
00:36:51.239 --> 00:36:55.500
We became very alarmed when we saw the police equipment
478
00:36:55.920 --> 00:37:02.969
and the pornography, which included photographs, not professionally done, but photographs,
479
00:37:03.050 --> 00:37:09.869
home photographs, if you will, of naked women. And there
480
00:37:09.889 --> 00:37:14.190
was a lot of it. And from the photographs, I mean,
481
00:37:14.349 --> 00:37:19.130
you really couldn't tell if these were willing partners or not.
482
00:37:20.829 --> 00:37:22.989
But when you put the whole thing together, the entire
483
00:37:23.090 --> 00:37:26.179
context of what you found, it did not give you
484
00:37:26.199 --> 00:37:26.780
a good feeling.
485
00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:33.139
The locker's contents were moved to the Washington field office.
486
00:37:37.619 --> 00:37:41.699
The storage units had yielded 144 boxes of potential evidence.
487
00:37:44.010 --> 00:37:49.860
We had literally a mountain full of material. We had 30,
488
00:37:49.860 --> 00:37:54.820
40 roadmaps, and some of them would have an X
489
00:37:55.019 --> 00:37:59.079
marked somewhere on the map, almost like a treasure map.
490
00:37:59.860 --> 00:38:05.519
We had women's clothing, women's underwear. We had women's little
491
00:38:05.800 --> 00:38:10.090
trinkets of jewelry. We had the police equipment. We had
492
00:38:10.250 --> 00:38:15.469
multiple license plates from various states that obviously had been stolen.
493
00:38:17.800 --> 00:38:24.199
Agents also recovered a number of women's driver's licenses and
494
00:38:24.239 --> 00:38:28.280
nearly a hundred pairs of women's underwear. Some of them knew,
495
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:34.980
some looked worn. The Secret Service was organized to combat counterfeiting.
496
00:38:35.559 --> 00:38:37.920
They were not equipped to investigate the type of evidence
497
00:38:37.940 --> 00:38:38.679
they were finding.
498
00:38:39.920 --> 00:38:43.530
The Secret Service as part of the Treasury Department for
499
00:38:43.570 --> 00:38:48.369
the most part, our criminal investigations are financial investigations.
500
00:38:50.090 --> 00:38:54.530
Secret Service agent Jane Vazares contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
501
00:38:56.269 --> 00:39:01.010
They indicated that you really don't have anything at this point.
502
00:39:01.070 --> 00:39:02.989
I mean, you don't have any evidence. I mean, if
503
00:39:03.030 --> 00:39:05.429
you came to us and said, you know, here, this
504
00:39:05.489 --> 00:39:09.179
was used in a homicide, well, maybe, or a kidnap case,
505
00:39:09.949 --> 00:39:12.130
Maybe they could do something with it, but we just
506
00:39:12.170 --> 00:39:15.820
had our suspicion, and we had this mountain of material.
507
00:39:17.300 --> 00:39:20.760
Because the Secret Service could not specifically identify any victims,
508
00:39:21.260 --> 00:39:26.289
the FBI could not pursue the case. The Secret Service
509
00:39:26.349 --> 00:39:29.969
knew if they didn't investigate this case, no one else could.
510
00:39:31.719 --> 00:39:35.780
It was extremely unusual and awkward because typically you have
511
00:39:35.840 --> 00:39:42.650
a crime and you solve the crime. Here, we believed
512
00:39:42.829 --> 00:39:46.940
we were looking at a lot of evidence, but we
513
00:39:46.980 --> 00:39:50.840
had no clue what the crime was or where the
514
00:39:50.880 --> 00:39:54.880
crime occurred or when the crime occurred. But we all
515
00:39:54.920 --> 00:39:59.750
had very strong convictions that certainly crimes had occurred.
516
00:40:02.389 --> 00:40:05.309
The agents approached the assistant director about having the Secret
517
00:40:05.369 --> 00:40:14.670
Service investigate the case themselves. As they played one of
518
00:40:14.690 --> 00:40:17.900
the tapes, John Simpson, the director of the Secret Service,
519
00:40:17.980 --> 00:40:18.460
walked in.
520
00:40:20.840 --> 00:40:26.320
Upon listening to the tapes, we heard some pretty chilling recordings.
521
00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:32.119
Recordings of women being tortured, of women screaming, of women
522
00:40:33.539 --> 00:40:34.460
begging to be killed.
523
00:40:36.860 --> 00:40:39.199
The director listened for a minute, shocked by what he
524
00:40:39.260 --> 00:40:46.159
heard on the tape. Simpson gave the investigation his full support.
525
00:40:49.250 --> 00:40:50.809
I don't think I'd ever been more proud of my
526
00:40:50.869 --> 00:40:57.070
agency than at that moment when our director supported our
527
00:40:57.110 --> 00:40:59.469
refusal to let this case just fade away.
528
00:41:00.550 --> 00:41:03.199
Give them anything they need. The Secret Service was given
529
00:41:03.320 --> 00:41:06.239
clearance to expand their investigation beyond counterfeiting.
530
00:41:08.880 --> 00:41:13.699
At this point, the investigation took a complete turn. from
531
00:41:13.860 --> 00:41:17.800
our concerns over the counterfeiting to the concerns of these
532
00:41:18.360 --> 00:41:19.099
vicious crimes.
533
00:41:20.960 --> 00:41:23.860
Their first task was to try and understand what they had.
534
00:41:25.239 --> 00:41:27.860
They cataloged each of the more than 10,000 bits of
535
00:41:27.920 --> 00:41:34.789
potential evidence. Receipts, newspaper clippings, photographs, letters, postage stamp marks,
536
00:41:35.289 --> 00:41:37.269
anything that might eventually be a clue.
537
00:41:39.079 --> 00:41:42.420
It didn't take a whole lot of experience to determine
538
00:41:42.440 --> 00:41:46.260
that this person was involved in a multitude of criminal activity.
539
00:41:46.760 --> 00:41:49.090
We didn't know who the victims were. We didn't know
540
00:41:49.130 --> 00:41:54.030
exactly what. But we knew this was not a normal
541
00:41:54.090 --> 00:41:58.150
counterfeit case. We realized that we had a lot of
542
00:41:58.210 --> 00:41:59.610
work in front of us.
543
00:42:01.280 --> 00:42:04.320
Once they had everything at their fingertips, they hoped clues
544
00:42:04.340 --> 00:42:07.780
would emerge as to the extent of de Bartheleven's crimes.
545
00:42:14.699 --> 00:42:17.980
For years, the Secret Service tracked a counterfeiter through over
546
00:42:17.980 --> 00:42:23.840
30 states. When they finally arrested James Mitchell de Bartolaban,
547
00:42:24.320 --> 00:42:26.920
agents found a storage locker that held evidence of more
548
00:42:27.039 --> 00:42:32.260
sinister crimes. They began to piece together the mountain of
549
00:42:32.320 --> 00:42:37.579
evidence found in de Bartolaban's storage lockers. They wanted to
550
00:42:37.659 --> 00:42:43.010
find out exactly what they had. Special Agent Jane Vazera
551
00:42:43.050 --> 00:42:43.869
supervised the effort.
552
00:42:46.070 --> 00:42:49.449
All we wanted to do was to be able to
553
00:42:49.650 --> 00:42:54.789
identify what we had in a coherent manner so that
554
00:42:54.929 --> 00:42:59.869
we could try to coordinate this with the rest of
555
00:42:59.909 --> 00:43:04.219
the law enforcement community to see if it somehow matched.
556
00:43:05.159 --> 00:43:07.280
any of the unsolved cases that they may have had.
557
00:43:08.679 --> 00:43:11.860
One of the aspects of what we did early on
558
00:43:12.119 --> 00:43:17.659
was to try as quickly as we could assess what
559
00:43:17.679 --> 00:43:22.659
we thought he might have committed. And we did that by,
560
00:43:22.699 --> 00:43:25.420
of course, looking at the totality of the evidence we had,
561
00:43:25.539 --> 00:43:29.300
but also he was an incessant note-taker.
562
00:43:30.679 --> 00:43:33.969
Through his meticulous record-taking, including the notes and the receipts
563
00:43:34.010 --> 00:43:36.800
he kept, Agents were able to make a timeline of
564
00:43:36.840 --> 00:43:41.179
de Bartleaben's travels. They also used the notes to better
565
00:43:41.260 --> 00:43:43.619
understand the type of person de Bartleaben was.
566
00:43:45.150 --> 00:43:49.110
He had lots of notes, handwritten notes that he wrote
567
00:43:49.690 --> 00:43:57.179
about himself, about how to make himself appear more presentable.
568
00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:04.719
more attractive to women, how to make himself appear more important,
569
00:44:05.840 --> 00:44:08.929
you know, sitting in a bar, how he should sit,
570
00:44:09.269 --> 00:44:11.590
you know, how he should look, what he should say,
571
00:44:11.789 --> 00:44:13.010
all of those kinds of things.
572
00:44:15.449 --> 00:44:18.869
Special Agent Mertz discovered DeBartolaben made lists of objectives.
573
00:44:21.690 --> 00:44:24.429
He also wrote pages and pages of goals of what
574
00:44:24.469 --> 00:44:27.530
he wanted to do, the type of women he would
575
00:44:27.570 --> 00:44:30.690
like the type of torture he wanted to inflict on women.
576
00:44:32.809 --> 00:44:36.429
DeBartolaben's to-do lists outlined how he would accomplish each thing.
577
00:44:38.800 --> 00:44:41.360
He wrote about equipping his car with a hinged license
578
00:44:41.420 --> 00:44:43.619
plate that could be flipped up or down from inside
579
00:44:43.659 --> 00:44:49.119
the car. Eyebolts on the floor of the vehicle and
580
00:44:49.179 --> 00:44:55.250
in the trunk. He made reminders to install soundproofing, security
581
00:44:55.289 --> 00:45:01.559
buzzers and alarms to his house. He wanted hidden compartments,
582
00:45:01.940 --> 00:45:04.329
a secret area where he could keep women locked up.
583
00:45:05.739 --> 00:45:09.059
DeBartolaben had even outlined the most opportune time to kidnap
584
00:45:09.119 --> 00:45:14.739
a woman. The level of detail was chilling. Some of
585
00:45:14.800 --> 00:45:17.699
his notes were easily understood, while others seemed to have
586
00:45:17.719 --> 00:45:18.860
been written in code.
587
00:45:20.800 --> 00:45:25.929
He had little initials like, you know, KRK, those kinds
588
00:45:25.969 --> 00:45:31.730
of things, which in our minds we thought meant, perhaps, kidnap, rape, kill.
589
00:45:34.889 --> 00:45:37.570
And he had notes to himself about, you know, first
590
00:45:37.590 --> 00:45:41.320
of all, he thought he was very smart and that
591
00:45:41.679 --> 00:45:45.039
cops were stupid and that he would never be caught
592
00:45:45.300 --> 00:45:46.679
because he was smarter than us.
593
00:45:46.699 --> 00:45:51.690
His agents looked over the notes. They feared the photographs
594
00:45:51.769 --> 00:45:54.510
found into Bartleaben's lockers were proof he had acted on
595
00:45:54.550 --> 00:46:00.309
his plans. The agents found hundreds of photographs of nude
596
00:46:00.389 --> 00:46:02.429
women engaged in sadistic sex.
597
00:46:04.309 --> 00:46:07.590
Several of them appeared they had been in some act
598
00:46:07.659 --> 00:46:12.340
of being bound up or had ligature marks. You could
599
00:46:12.380 --> 00:46:14.400
see bright red rings around their wrist.
600
00:46:16.599 --> 00:46:21.800
DeBartolaben appeared to have posed many of his victims. Some
601
00:46:21.840 --> 00:46:23.760
of the pictures appeared as if they had been taken
602
00:46:23.800 --> 00:46:29.039
over a period of days. The victims, all of them women,
603
00:46:29.719 --> 00:46:32.639
seemed to grow more disheveled and hollow-eyed with each shot.
604
00:46:34.719 --> 00:46:37.679
Investigators had no idea what had happened to these women.
605
00:46:40.840 --> 00:46:45.110
On the next FBI files. Open the register, now! As
606
00:46:45.210 --> 00:46:48.449
federal agents learn more about James Mitchell de Barta Laban,
607
00:46:48.949 --> 00:46:53.889
they must confront the horrors he committed and begin a
608
00:46:54.010 --> 00:46:56.030
desperate search for his victims.