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It was an unusually warm day in November nineteen ninety three.
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Farmer was working his field in rural Indiana. Everything was normal,
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mourning machinery, the same routine he'd followed countless times before.
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He was just about to climb into his combine and
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get started when November eighth turned into a very different
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kind of day. After a while, he noticed a dark
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shape between the rows of corn. At first, he figured
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it was just trash bag or some junk that had
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blown into the field. He climbed down from the combine
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and walked over to move it out of the way.
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That was when he realized he was looking at human
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remains in an advanced state of decomposition. The farmer called
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police right away when sheriff's deputies arrived. One possibility came
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to mind almost immediately. In Georgetown, Illinois, a missing fifteen
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year old girl named Jessica Roach had been the subject
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of an ongoing search for nearly a month and a half.
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She had disappeared on September twentieth, nineteen ninety three, while
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riding her bike not far from home. The field in
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Indiana was about fifty miles from Georgetown. In that area,
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murders and disappearances were rare, but everything seemed to point
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to the body belonging to her. As the remains were recovered,
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it became clear the body had been badly damaged, most
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likely by farm equipment. Then another horrifying detail surfaced. The
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head was missing. The remains were sent to the state's
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chief medical examiner. At first, he wasn't sure it was Jessica.
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The decomposition was too severe, but authorities in Georgetown had
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little doubt. Investigators began searching for anything that could help
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confirm who the victim was. Then an old piece of
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paper unexpectedly made all the difference. When Jessica was in
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elementary school, officers had visited as part of a child
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safety program and finger printed the students. Her mother had
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kept that card. When the print was sent to the
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examiner in Indiana, he was able to compare it to
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the only usable fingerprint recovered from the body. After that,
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there was no more doubt. It was Jessica Roach. She
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was just fifteen years old. Her life ended where her
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killer left her body in a cornfield near Perrysville, Indiana.
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After the identification was made official, the investigation was handed
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to lead investigator Gary Miller, At that point, he had
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no idea this case would become one of the longest
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and darkest of his life, or that Jessica's murder was
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tied to something far more disturbing than anyone realized. In
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that moment, Miller had Jessica's remains, but almost nothing else
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to work with. The strongest lead came from witnesses. Several
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people said they had seen a two tone Dodge van
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with out of state plates driving around the area in
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the days before Jessica disappeared, and again on the day
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she went missing. Later, another witness came forward from Indiana.
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He had seen a van matching that exact description parked
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on the side of the road near the same cornfield
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where Jessica's body was later found. There wasn't much information
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about the driver, a white man, short, heavy set, and
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that was it. That was where the trail ended, and
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that's where it stayed until the following spring. On March
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twenty ninth, nineteen ninety four, in Marionne, Indiana, two schoolgirls
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were walking home after class. As they passed Indiana University,
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a strange man in a two tone Dodge van started
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creeping alongside them. At first, the girls didn't think much
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of it. They assumed the driver was just looking for
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a place to park or trying to figure out where
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to turn. But after several blocks, the van was still
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right there. That was when they realized he wasn't just
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passing by, he was following them. The girls got nervous
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and started walking faster. The driver sped up too, and
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pulled in closer. Then the driver's side window rolled down.
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That was all it took. The girls bolted. Fortunately home
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was close. They ran inside, out of breath and panicked,
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and immediately told one of their fathers what had happened.
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He didn't waste any time. He jumped into his truck
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and went looking for the van. A few streets later,
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he spotted it. He managed to get the license plate number,
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then tried to follow the vehicle, but the driver suddenly
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cut down an alley and disappeared. That still wasn't the
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end of it. The father gave the plate number to
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police and reported the incident. By that evening, authorities in
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Marion already put out an alert for the two tone van.
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Later that same night, patrol officers spotted the vehicle. They
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approached it carefully, weapons ready, because the driver was already
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being considered a possible suspect in an attempted abduction. When
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they reached the driver's door, they found a stunned thirty
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one year old man inside, Larry Hall. After Hall was
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taken into custody, officers searched the van first. They were
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just making sure there wasn't another victim inside. There wasn't.
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What they did find immediately raised alarms and quickly caught
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the attention of detectives in both Indiana and Illinois. In
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the back of the van was what investigators described as
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a rape kit, a large hunting knife, a ski mask,
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duct tape, rope belts, rags, condoms, and two cans of
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starting fluid. But the most disturbing items weren't even the tools.
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They were the papers. Attached to the inside wall of
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the van was a missing person flier for a young
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woman named Trisha Rietler. She had vanished exactly one year
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earlier while walking back to her dorm at Indiana Wesleyan
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University in Marion. No one had seen her since. Also
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inside the van were adult magazines with Trisha Writler's name
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written on them, university branded items and school supplies, and
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in the magazine cutouts women had been depicted with ropes
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around their necks, blood at their mouths, and their eyes
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crossed out as if unconscious or dead. Police were stunned
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at that point. They weren't even sure what charge they
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could legally hold Hall on. In the end, he was
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booked into County jail over a registration issue tied to
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the license plate. During questioning, when detectives brought up Trisha's
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disas appearance, Hall suddenly confessed to killing her and said
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he had buried the body himself. He even pointed them
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to the place where he claimed she was buried, but
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when police went there they found nothing. Without direct evidence
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linking him to the crime, Hall had to be released.
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At the time, police did not view him as a killer.
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They viewed him as a strange man with an unhealthy
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obsession with the case of a missing young woman. Oh
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who was Larry Hall. At that point, he still wasn't
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officially considered a suspect in Tricia's case, but after everything
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found in his van, police began looking much more seriously
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into who he was. Larry Hall and his twin brother,
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Gary were born on December eleventh, nineteen sixty two. The
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pregnancy had been difficult, and from the beginning, Larry's life
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had not started the way it did for most children.
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His childhood wasn't normal either. Their father worked as a
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cemetery caretaker. He didn't just maintain the grounds. He dug
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graves and buried the dead. It was grim, physically demanding work,
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and over time he drank more and more. He grew harsh, withdrawn,
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and increasingly antisocial. Their mother wasn't much of a source
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of stability either. People described her as hot tempered, self centered,
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and extremely lazy. The family lived right on cemetery grounds.
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The house itself was old but beautiful, with a large
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yard and woods nearby. But outside the windows stretched row
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after row of graves, thousands of graves. The atmosphere was
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always heavy, almost gothic. The brothers grew up literally surrounded
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by death. Maybe it was their father, maybe it was
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the place. Maybe it was both. But from a young age,
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the Hall brothers were known for strange and provocative behavior.
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Friends later said they liked cruel, childish pranks. They would
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leave a wallet full of money in the road, attached
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to a string. When someone bent down to pick it up,
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they would yank it away. But some of what they
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did was much darker than that. One time they dressed
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a mannequin to look like a corpse and dumped it
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by the roadside. Drivers would call police, and while officers
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were out looking for the body, the brothers would move
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it somewhere else and start the whole thing over again.
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The only truly serious incident from their childhood involved the
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broken storefront windows of several local businesses. A witness recognized
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a friend of theirs, and that boy later told police
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the Hall brothers had been involved too. First glance, the
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broken windows might have looked like nothing more than a
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teenage stunt, but later many people would remember the way
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it played out as the first real warning sign. When
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police brought the brothers in for questioning, they denied everything calmly, confidently,
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and without cracking. They blamed their friend and held that
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line as long as they could. Only after a long,
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tough interview did they finally admit what they had done.
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Years later, officers would say that even at that age,
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both brothers were calmer under questioning than many adult criminals
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they had seen. Their parents, as expected, rushed to defend them.
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Their mother and father insisted their sons could never have
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done such a thing and claimed the other boy was
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the only one responsible. The judge didn't buy it. The
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brothers were ordered to pay five hundred dollars for the damage,
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and on the surface, that seemed to be the end
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of it. For a long time after that, the Hall
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brothers mostly stayed off police radar until the investigations into
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the disappearances of Jessica and Tricia began. According to classmates,
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both brothers kept to themselves, but they were very different people.
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Larry was quiet, shy, and withdrawn. He hated attention and
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often became the target of ridicule because of his strange,
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almost mechanical voice. If he had to, he could handle
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himself in a fight, but overall he tried to avoid conflict.
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He was awkward with people and seemed completely unable to
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form close relationships. Gary was the exact opposite, confident, athletic, charismatic.
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He made friends easily. He had no trouble with women.
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Where Larry seemed lost, Gary seemed comfortable. People who knew
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Larry said he never really had a girlfriend. He wanted
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what everyone else wanted, a normal relationship, real closeness. He
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just didn't seem to know how to get there. But
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with cars he felt completely at ease. One of their
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father's friends made decent money restoring and working on old cars,
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and he let the brothers spend time in his shop.
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They turned ordinary cars into race cars. Larry especially became
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deeply absorbed in it. Before long, that was how people
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in the area knew them, the guys who were always
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around cars. While other teenagers were living ordinary lives. Larry
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disappeared into metal engines and tools. For him, it became
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a substitute for everything he didn't have. Connection, intimacy, the
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sense that he mattered to someone. At the time, no
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one had any idea where that would eventually lead. The
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family never had much money. Sometimes they didn't even have
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enough gas for the old cars the brothers worked on
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late into the night, but that didn't stop them from
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chasing speed. Racing and the road cars were one of
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the only steady sources of joy in their lives. Around
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the time the twins were finishing high school, the family's
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life fell apart for good. Their father lost his job
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at the cemetery. Church officials had looked the other way
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for a long time, even through his drinking, as long
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as he was still doing the job. That changed when
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they learned he had started burying people in the wrong graves.
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Because the house came with the position, the family had
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to move out immediately. They relocated to the Wabash area
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to a filthy little house that looked more like a
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shack than a real home. Gary refused to stay under
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those conditions. He moved in with a woman who later
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became his first wife. Larry stayed behind with his parents,
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in poverty, disorder and the same suffocating atmosphere that had
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hung over the family for years. To avoid people as
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much as possible, he took a job as a night janitor.
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For someone like Larry, it was almost ideal, empty buildings, silence,
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no one watching, no one interfering. He quickly built a
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recatation as a reliable worker, so much so that some
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places stopped hiring overnight security. Larry was trusted to lock
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up by himself. He would simply report how many hours
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he had worked, and no one looked too closely at
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when he came or went During the day. He found
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another obsession besides cars, and it came from somewhere no
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one would have expected. In the early nineteen eighties, television
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reports about Civil War reenactments caught his attention. It wasn't
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just the uniforms, the camps, or the weapons that drew
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him in. What grabbed him most was the idea behind
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it all, the chance to create a different identity, a
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different history, a different life. He latched onto that immediately.
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He saved until he could buy his first uniform and
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a replica rifle. Then he pulled Gary into it too.
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Before long, the brothers had joined a local reenactment group
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and were traveling around the country to every event they
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could get into. For Larry, it was a chance to
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become someone else. Not a night janitor, not a beaten
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down man from a poor family, but a soldier with
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his own backstory, a man with a role to play
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and some sense of control. Over time, he started living
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that role outside the re enactments too. In everyday life,
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he dressed like his historical characters. He grew out the
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distinctive mid nineteenth century Side Burns, modeled after Ambrose Burnside.
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In Larry's mind, it was simple. He didn't just want
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to participate. He wanted status inside that world. He wanted
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to become someone important, almost like Burnside himself. But reality
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put limits on that fantasy very quickly. At around five
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foot three with a stocky build, he did not fit
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anyone's image of a general. In the end, the best
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he could do was portray an enlisted soldier in the
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famous Iron Brigade. By the nineteen eighties, the brothers had
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settled into a fixed, repetitive rhythm work during the week
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reenactments on the weekends. Those events usually involved sleeping intents,
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which helped them save money and stay on the road.
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They traveled across the Midwest and the South, moving from
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one small town to the next. Eventually, their re enactment
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00:16:30.039 --> 00:16:33.919
unit became so respected for its authenticity that it was
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invited to appear in historical films. They worked as extras
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on the sets of Glory and Gettysburg. Their unit was
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considered one of the most authentic around, which was why
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they were chosen. Of the two, Gary is the one
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most clearly visible on screen. He can be seen briefly
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in one of the battle scenes in Gettysburg, running uphill
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during the fighting. At the time, no one connected those
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trips to what was happening in the small towns the
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brothers passed through, but later investigators noticed a strange pattern.
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Almost every time the twins traveled to a reenactment, women
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disappeared or turned up dead somewhere nearby. Back then, nobody
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noticed that connection. It would surface much later, when Larry
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Hall's name would be tied not to his hobby but
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to dozens of murders. Investigators began to suspect him in
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but at that point Detective Miller was focused on one
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case only, Jessica Roach. In the six months after Hall's
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arrest in the spring of nineteen ninety four, after the
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strange confession and the equally strange release, Georgetown became uneasy again.
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There were two more attempted abductions involving young women, and
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both times witnesses described essentially the same thing. A white
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man in a two tone van pulled over to the
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side of the road, offered a ride, and then behaved
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in a way that immediately set off alarm bells. When
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police checked the plates, they found the same name attached
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both times. Larry Hall. Miller contacted police in Wabash to
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ask what they knew about him. The first question he
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got in return caught him off guard. Had there been
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any reenactments near Georgetown on the weekend Jessica disappeared. That
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immediately got his attention. Miller started digging deeper. There had
276
00:18:33.640 --> 00:18:37.480
been no Civil War reenactment nearby that weekend, but just
277
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a few miles from Jessica's home, there had been a
278
00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:43.680
Revolutionary War re enactment taking place at the same time,
279
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and although Hall had spent most of his life attending
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Civil War events, he had recently started showing up at
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Revolutionary War re enactments too, especially after Gary began traveling
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less because of his daughter and his new marriage. Miller
283
00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:01.880
spoke with people who had attended that event and with
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00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:06.039
members of Hall's re enactment group. They all said roughly
285
00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:09.440
the same thing. Hall would show up to Revolutionary War
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00:19:09.480 --> 00:19:12.960
events dressed as a Civil War soldier, and he stood
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00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:17.079
out for it. After those conversations, Miller was left with
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00:19:17.279 --> 00:19:22.240
very little sense that these were all just coincidences. He
289
00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:25.279
knew he couldn't wait any longer. He needed to talk
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00:19:25.359 --> 00:19:29.319
to Hall again. This time it had to be different.
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00:19:31.640 --> 00:19:35.319
Almost a year later, on November two, nineteen ninety four,
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Detective Miller went to Wabash to finally speak with Hall
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00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:43.279
in person. Before the trip, he had already spoken with
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00:19:43.359 --> 00:19:47.200
local detectives and they made one thing clear right away.
295
00:19:48.119 --> 00:19:51.559
Hall had a bad reputation in town. There were very
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few active cases against him at the time, aside from
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00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:59.359
a recent stalking allegation involving a local woman. Miller was
298
00:19:59.400 --> 00:20:03.799
also warned learned that Hall was extremely closed off. Push
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00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:06.440
him even a little too hard and he would shut
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00:20:06.519 --> 00:20:10.920
down completely. So from the beginning, Miller planned to handle
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00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:16.640
the interview gently, calm patient, no hard pressure. But once
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00:20:16.680 --> 00:20:20.480
he got there, he ran into an immediate problem. He
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00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:23.319
was told the interview would not take place in a
304
00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:27.119
quiet office, but in an empty conference room at city
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00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:31.000
Hall across the street. For an interview like this, that
306
00:20:31.240 --> 00:20:34.559
was far from ideal. If there was any chance of
307
00:20:34.599 --> 00:20:37.640
getting someone like Hall to open up, it would have
308
00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:41.960
to happen in a more private, controlled setting. But Miller
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00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:46.000
had no choice. This wasn't his town. When Hall walked in,
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00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:49.839
Miller saw someone very different from the man he had expected.
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00:20:50.759 --> 00:20:55.880
Blank eyes, a soft voice, a cramped, guarded posture. He
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00:20:55.920 --> 00:20:59.519
looked like a frightened child caught doing something small and
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00:20:59.640 --> 00:21:03.519
shame but this was not something small. Sitting across from
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00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:06.559
Miller was a man suspected in the abduction and murder
315
00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:10.839
of a fifteen year old girl, and possibly more than that.
316
00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:16.240
And there was something especially dangerous in that mismatch. His shyness,
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00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:21.440
his insecurity, his almost childlike way of carrying himself may
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00:21:21.559 --> 00:21:25.599
have disarmed people for years, including women who never sensed
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00:21:25.720 --> 00:21:28.960
the danger in him. For Miller, there was only one
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00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:34.640
thing that mattered in that moment, Jessica. Everything else came second.
321
00:21:37.079 --> 00:21:41.119
At first, the interview went nowhere. Even though Hall reacted
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00:21:41.160 --> 00:21:45.440
strongly to the photographs of Jessica, he stubbornly denied having
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00:21:45.519 --> 00:21:48.839
anything to do with her death and kept insisting he
324
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had never even been to Georgetown. It seemed like the
325
00:21:52.839 --> 00:21:56.759
interview had hit a wall. Then at one point local
326
00:21:56.799 --> 00:22:00.880
detectives from Wabash stepped in. One of them suggested Hall
327
00:22:01.079 --> 00:22:06.160
tell Miller about his dreams. Unexpectedly, that worked. Hall admitted
328
00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:09.880
that he often had nightmares involving the abduction, assault, and
329
00:22:10.039 --> 00:22:12.960
murder of women. When he was asked to go into
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00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:18.200
more detail, he began describing things with disturbing precision. Then
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Miller asked him to tell the dream about Jessica. All
332
00:22:22.680 --> 00:22:25.519
said he saw her on a rural road near Georgetown.
333
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He stopped and offered her a ride. According to him,
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00:22:29.279 --> 00:22:34.000
she accepted After that, he said, he blacked out. When
335
00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:36.480
he came to he was in the van and both
336
00:22:36.519 --> 00:22:40.599
of them were naked. He assumed some kind of sexual
337
00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:45.119
contact had taken place. Then, according to Hall, he panicked
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00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:47.759
and didn't know what to do. He drove to a
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00:22:47.799 --> 00:22:51.079
corn field, pulled her out of the van, naked, took
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00:22:51.119 --> 00:22:54.759
two belts, put one around her neck, and pulled until
341
00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:58.839
he could no longer hear her screams. Formally, he still
342
00:22:58.960 --> 00:23:02.519
kept calling it a He insisted none of it had
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00:23:02.559 --> 00:23:06.480
really happened. Then he shut down again and refused to
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00:23:06.559 --> 00:23:10.599
say anything more. Miller already had a growing pile of
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00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:15.680
circumstantial evidence, but what he needed was something physical, something
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00:23:15.720 --> 00:23:18.720
real he could put in front of a jury. Just
347
00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:22.359
six months earlier, police had brushed off Hall's statements about
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00:23:22.359 --> 00:23:25.160
Tricia because they had found nothing to back them up,
349
00:23:25.920 --> 00:23:30.079
and now Miller understood the same thing. Confessions alone were
350
00:23:30.119 --> 00:23:34.680
not enough. Armed with that bizarre dream, he kept moving
351
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:37.799
forward and decided to bring in the FBI. The more
352
00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:40.079
he looked at Hall, the more he felt he was
353
00:23:40.119 --> 00:23:43.599
dealing not with a single crime, but with a serial killer.
354
00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:47.480
But legally, he was still boxed in by the limits
355
00:23:47.480 --> 00:23:51.319
of his own case. Because Hall had crossed state lines,
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00:23:51.720 --> 00:23:56.160
the investigation moved beyond a single jurisdiction, and the FBI,
357
00:23:56.599 --> 00:24:00.079
along with the US Attorney's office, agreed to step in
358
00:24:00.079 --> 00:24:04.559
in Miller quickly obtained warrants to search Hall's vans as
359
00:24:04.559 --> 00:24:07.000
well as the house where he lived with his parents.
360
00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:11.920
He planned to continue questioning Hall with an FBI agent present,
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00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:15.960
but that had to wait until a polygraph examiner arrived.
362
00:24:16.759 --> 00:24:20.559
For the moment, the priority was simple, find evidence and
363
00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:25.000
find it fast, and when agents searched Hall's van and
364
00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:28.400
his bedroom, they came across some of the most damaging
365
00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:35.200
evidence in the entire investigation. Investigators still did not have
366
00:24:35.279 --> 00:24:39.000
direct evidence that conclusively tied Hall to the murders of
367
00:24:39.079 --> 00:24:43.119
Jessica and Tricia, but the circumstantial case was becoming harder
368
00:24:43.400 --> 00:24:46.599
and harder to ignore. In his van, they found that
369
00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:48.920
same rape kit against.
370
00:24:52.079 --> 00:25:00.839
Materials. Over the front passengers. They found a prescription that issue.
371
00:25:07.400 --> 00:25:07.640
It was.
372
00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:21.240
He had regions. He conducted instruction, but someone do not
373
00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:24.640
touch carpet and.
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00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:37.000
Made where they were more likely to be alone, about
375
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:39.920
the area near the campus and Marion. He had written
376
00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:43.519
something to this effect, A lot of girls walk alone
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00:25:43.519 --> 00:25:48.359
here often on forty fourth and forty third Streets must
378
00:25:48.359 --> 00:25:51.720
be a dorm nearby that lined up almost exactly with
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00:25:51.839 --> 00:25:55.359
the area where Tricia had last been seen. But the
380
00:25:55.400 --> 00:25:58.920
maps were even more damaging. On a map of Indiana,
381
00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:03.799
Hall had marked two red circles. Those markings matched the
382
00:26:03.880 --> 00:26:08.119
location where Jessica's body had been dumped, and that became
383
00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:12.359
the piece of circumstantial evidence investigators could finally use to
384
00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:18.519
tie him directly to her abduction and death. Once Miller
385
00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:21.400
and the FBI agent had all of those items from
386
00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:25.039
Hall's van in hand, they went back to question him again,
387
00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:30.799
this time specifically about Jessica and Tricia, and this time,
388
00:26:31.160 --> 00:26:35.720
faced with the evidence, Hall started talking again. He told
389
00:26:35.799 --> 00:26:40.160
almost the same story about Jessica's abduction and murder, but
390
00:26:40.319 --> 00:26:44.079
now he added one detail only the real offender should
391
00:26:44.119 --> 00:26:47.920
have known. Hall said with confidence that Jessica had a
392
00:26:47.960 --> 00:26:50.559
ten speed bicycle and that he had put it in
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00:26:50.640 --> 00:26:55.079
his van. That information had never been made public, it
394
00:26:55.119 --> 00:26:58.839
had never appeared in the news. He also confessed to
395
00:26:58.920 --> 00:27:04.079
killing Tricia and again tried to frame it as a dream.
396
00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:07.440
According to Hall, he saw her, spoke to her, pulled
397
00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:10.799
a knife, but still insisted she got into his van
398
00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:15.480
willingly and agreed to intimacy. Then he said he blacked
399
00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:18.960
out again and didn't come to until she was already dead.
400
00:27:19.680 --> 00:27:22.599
After that, he claimed he went home, a shovel and
401
00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:26.880
a saw, returned, dismembered Tricia, and buried her near a
402
00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:30.720
local river. He once again showed investigators where he said
403
00:27:30.839 --> 00:27:34.319
the body was buried, and once again the search turned
404
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:38.960
up nothing. Even without Tricia's body and without direct physical
405
00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:42.519
evidence in her case, the U. S. Attorney's Office, led
406
00:27:42.519 --> 00:27:47.480
by Lawrence Beaumont, decided to move forward with charges. At
407
00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:50.759
that point, they were able to prove sick a Roach
408
00:27:50.799 --> 00:27:57.799
had been abducted and sexually assaulted. Unfortunately, that turned out
409
00:27:57.839 --> 00:28:02.480
to be the last confession Hall gave before trial. The
410
00:28:02.599 --> 00:28:06.480
very next morning, when Miller arrived to transport him to Illinois,
411
00:28:07.319 --> 00:28:10.559
Hall refused to talk. He said it was because of
412
00:28:10.599 --> 00:28:14.039
a conversation he had had with his brother the night before.
413
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:17.599
Miller spent hours driving with him trying to get him
414
00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:20.839
to open up. Hall would discuss only the Civil War
415
00:28:21.079 --> 00:28:25.720
and cars, steering away from anything connected to murder. At
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00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:28.759
the time, Miller had no idea how much damage had
417
00:28:28.799 --> 00:28:32.079
been done during that one night. After Hall's call to
418
00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:35.920
his brother. Years later, Gary Hall said in interviews that
419
00:28:36.039 --> 00:28:38.799
Larry had asked him to pass a message to their
420
00:28:38.839 --> 00:28:42.720
father remove everything from the house and property that police
421
00:28:42.759 --> 00:28:46.799
had not found during the searches. According to Gary, their
422
00:28:46.839 --> 00:28:51.160
father knew exactly what that meant. Over the next several days,
423
00:28:51.480 --> 00:28:56.720
he burned multiple trash bags filled with unknown items. Gary
424
00:28:56.799 --> 00:29:00.079
later said he saw a map in the fire and
425
00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:05.119
showed Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and it was covered
426
00:29:05.160 --> 00:29:09.359
in red dots. But in that moment, neither Miller nor
427
00:29:09.400 --> 00:29:14.119
the FBI knew that possible key evidence, evidence that might
428
00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:18.440
have connected Hall to dozens of other crimes, was perhaps
429
00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:21.960
being destroyed in real time. All they knew was this
430
00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:27.359
What lay ahead would be a long, exhausting fight in court.
431
00:29:29.799 --> 00:29:32.640
When it came time to decide what charge to take
432
00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:37.640
to trial, Beaumont made a difficult but practical decision. Instead
433
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:40.680
of going directly on a murder charge, he charged Hall
434
00:29:40.759 --> 00:29:43.920
with crossing state lines with the intent to have sexual
435
00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:47.559
contact with a minor. That was the case they felt
436
00:29:47.640 --> 00:29:51.160
they could prove most confidently. What followed was a tense
437
00:29:51.240 --> 00:29:56.559
trial in which Beaumont faced and experienced highly capable defense attorney.
438
00:29:57.400 --> 00:30:00.680
Part of the defense argument was that Hall's confession had
439
00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:03.599
either been pressured out of him or were just the
440
00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:07.000
product of a man who liked attention from law enforcement.
441
00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:13.279
But that argument started falling apart almost immediately. Paul knew
442
00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:16.359
details that could not have come out of nowhere. The
443
00:30:16.440 --> 00:30:19.279
type of Jessica's bicycle and the point on the map
444
00:30:19.319 --> 00:30:22.880
that matched where her body had been found. Those were
445
00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:27.160
details only someone directly involved would have known, and in
446
00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:30.440
the end, what hurt him most was his own behavior
447
00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:34.720
in the court room. Before trial, The defense had insisted
448
00:30:34.799 --> 00:30:39.319
Hall was fragile and easily broken under pressure, but the
449
00:30:39.319 --> 00:30:43.599
man the jury saw was not timid or shaken. He
450
00:30:43.759 --> 00:30:49.400
was confident, calculating, and sarcastic. He sparred comfortably with one
451
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:54.400
of the government's strongest prosecutors, made cutting remarks, and firmly
452
00:30:54.440 --> 00:30:59.319
denied he had ever even seen Jessica roach. In that moment,
453
00:31:00.039 --> 00:31:04.279
errors did not see a weak, lost man. They saw
454
00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:08.640
a very skillful liar. The verdict came back quickly, and
455
00:31:08.680 --> 00:31:14.119
the sentence was the harshest available life in prison. Hall
456
00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:18.119
lost his fight for freedom, but in one respect he
457
00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:21.440
still got part of what he wanted. His conduct in
458
00:31:21.519 --> 00:31:25.319
court made a strong impression on the judge. As the result,
459
00:31:25.559 --> 00:31:28.799
Hall was sent not to a standard prison, but to
460
00:31:28.839 --> 00:31:33.640
a federal psychiatric hospital in Missouri for evaluation and classification.
461
00:31:34.559 --> 00:31:39.359
The judge considered him a vulnerable inmate. That decision infuriated
462
00:31:39.400 --> 00:31:44.680
Beaumont and prosecutors in Indiana and Illinois. They were convinced
463
00:31:44.759 --> 00:31:51.200
Hall had killed Tricia and possibly others as well. Once
464
00:31:51.240 --> 00:31:54.519
Hall was behind bars, Beaumont and Miller did not stop
465
00:31:54.599 --> 00:31:57.640
trying to get the truth out of him, especially about
466
00:31:57.799 --> 00:32:02.160
Tricia Reidler. Her case seemed like their best chance because
467
00:32:02.160 --> 00:32:05.920
by then they already had two confessions, but the body
468
00:32:05.960 --> 00:32:09.759
still had not been found, and they still lacked direct evidence.
469
00:32:10.559 --> 00:32:14.559
They could not close the case, And one day, while
470
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:17.839
talking with a colleague in federal service, Beaumont heard the
471
00:32:17.960 --> 00:32:21.319
name of someone who might, at least in theory, be
472
00:32:21.400 --> 00:32:24.680
able to get out of haul what investigators never could.
473
00:32:25.240 --> 00:32:28.839
Jimmy Keen. At one time, Keen had been the star
474
00:32:28.920 --> 00:32:33.640
of his high school football team in a small Illinois town. Later,
475
00:32:33.799 --> 00:32:38.119
using his popularity, looks, and connections, he moved quickly into
476
00:32:38.200 --> 00:32:42.759
drug trafficking nearly two decades. He lived big and confidently
477
00:32:43.279 --> 00:32:48.759
until everything collapsed almost overnight. The house, the cars, the money,
478
00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:52.599
the freedom, all of it was gone. What made it
479
00:32:52.680 --> 00:32:56.119
worse was his father's failing health. There was a real
480
00:32:56.240 --> 00:32:59.160
chance his father would not live long enough to see
481
00:32:59.240 --> 00:33:04.480
him released. So when Keen was unexpectedly called into Beaumont's office,
482
00:33:04.799 --> 00:33:07.000
the same man who had once sent him to prison,
483
00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:12.720
he was stunned by what he heard. Befriend Hall inside
484
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:15.920
the prison hospital, find out where Tricia's body was hidden,
485
00:33:16.119 --> 00:33:20.240
and in return get his freedom. For Keen, it was
486
00:33:20.279 --> 00:33:22.960
a chance to get out early and see his father again.
487
00:33:23.559 --> 00:33:26.640
He agreed immediately. The FBI gave him a new cover
488
00:33:26.759 --> 00:33:29.400
story and a new identity under which he would be
489
00:33:29.440 --> 00:33:34.200
transferred to Springfield. No one inside the facility, except the
490
00:33:34.279 --> 00:33:38.359
chief psychiatrist knew why he was really there. He was
491
00:33:38.400 --> 00:33:41.480
told to move slowly and be careful because Hall was
492
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:45.559
skittish and shut down easily, but Keene's love for his
493
00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:48.559
father and his fear of not seeing him alive again
494
00:33:49.160 --> 00:33:53.720
outweighed every warning. Within hours of arriving at the prison hospital,
495
00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:59.279
Keen walked straight up to Hall and introduced himself. Over
496
00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:03.000
the next several weeks, Keen managed to gain Hall's trust
497
00:34:04.079 --> 00:34:07.680
ate breakfast together almost every day, and after lunch they
498
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:11.719
would meet in the library. Only once Keen felt sure
499
00:34:12.079 --> 00:34:14.719
Hall no longer saw him as a threat, did he
500
00:34:14.840 --> 00:34:20.000
begin carefully steering the conversations toward the past. For months,
501
00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:23.360
Hall refused to admit why he was really in prison.
502
00:34:24.199 --> 00:34:27.599
He claimed it all came down to weapons violations, and
503
00:34:27.639 --> 00:34:30.800
he shut down any time the subject turned to women
504
00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:34.960
or murder. Turning point came after one lie from Keen.
505
00:34:35.599 --> 00:34:39.119
He told Hall that he hated women too, and after
506
00:34:39.159 --> 00:34:43.519
that Hall slowly began to open up. Eventually he told
507
00:34:43.639 --> 00:34:46.960
Keen what he said had happened to Jessica. He got
508
00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:49.280
her into the van, tried to kiss her, but she
509
00:34:49.400 --> 00:34:53.880
refused and began fighting back. Hall then pressed a rag
510
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:57.800
soaked with chloroform to her face, dragged her into the back, and,
511
00:34:58.239 --> 00:35:01.880
according to his own words, intended to have sexual contact
512
00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:05.400
with her. But Jessica started crying and calling for her mother.
513
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:08.719
That sent him into a panic. He tried to find
514
00:35:08.760 --> 00:35:11.599
his way back to Indiana, but kept getting lost and
515
00:35:11.679 --> 00:35:15.559
running into dead ends. Eventually, he turned into a field,
516
00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:18.639
where he said he decided to kill her. He placed
517
00:35:18.639 --> 00:35:21.679
her against a tree and used two belts in a stick,
518
00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:25.159
twisting them around her neck like a tourniquet. When he
519
00:35:25.199 --> 00:35:28.360
spoke about Tricia, he again tried to frame it as
520
00:35:28.360 --> 00:35:32.039
something mutual. He claimed they were just talking at first.
521
00:35:32.400 --> 00:35:34.960
Then he pulled a knife, but she still got into
522
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:37.639
the van on her own. Then when he tried to
523
00:35:37.719 --> 00:35:41.119
kiss her and undress her, she resisted, and after that,
524
00:35:41.400 --> 00:35:44.440
he said, he blacked out again. When he came to
525
00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:47.679
she was already dead. He said her clothes were covered
526
00:35:47.719 --> 00:35:49.800
in blood, so he piled them up in the park
527
00:35:49.840 --> 00:35:52.760
where it happened, and then drove home. What he didn't
528
00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:56.760
realize was that in saying that, he was effectively confirming
529
00:35:57.159 --> 00:36:01.039
the one piece of physical evidence investigators had. One week
530
00:36:01.119 --> 00:36:04.559
after Tricia disappeared, her clothes had in fact been found
531
00:36:04.639 --> 00:36:08.559
in that exact spot. After that, he repeated the same
532
00:36:08.639 --> 00:36:12.480
story again about dismembering her body and burying it in
533
00:36:12.599 --> 00:36:18.840
an unknown location. The day after Hall's confession about Tricia,
534
00:36:19.280 --> 00:36:22.719
Keen decided to keep pushing. As he walked past the
535
00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:26.760
prison workshop, he noticed Hall was inside working without a
536
00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:31.000
guard nearby. Keen stepped in and approached him from behind.
537
00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:34.519
On the table was a map of Indiana and Illinois
538
00:36:34.679 --> 00:36:38.079
covered in red dots. The moment Hall saw him, he
539
00:36:38.159 --> 00:36:41.840
flinched and quickly covered the map. Keen asked what he
540
00:36:41.960 --> 00:36:45.400
was doing. Hall said he was carving falcons out of wood.
541
00:36:45.719 --> 00:36:48.599
He said the falcons guarded the dead and watched over them,
542
00:36:49.079 --> 00:36:51.519
and he added that he was going to send the
543
00:36:51.559 --> 00:36:54.519
carved birds to his brother so Gary could place them
544
00:36:54.559 --> 00:36:58.000
for him. Keen realized he had pushed too far, and
545
00:36:58.079 --> 00:37:00.960
he immediately left to report what he had just seen
546
00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:04.320
and heard to the FBI. Later that same night, he
547
00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:07.199
returned to hall cell and told him directly that he
548
00:37:07.320 --> 00:37:11.840
was a disgusting human being. Hall's eyes widened instantly, then
549
00:37:11.920 --> 00:37:15.760
he started repeating the same line over and over. Beaumont
550
00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:20.199
sent you, Beaumont sent you. Very next day, Keen was
551
00:37:20.239 --> 00:37:25.039
removed from the cell and thrown into solitary confinement, supposedly
552
00:37:25.239 --> 00:37:29.440
for sexually harassing Hall. It took the FBI he several
553
00:37:29.480 --> 00:37:33.079
weeks to get him out. As soon as Keene left Springfield,
554
00:37:33.400 --> 00:37:38.960
Beaumont arranged a polygraph examination, and Keen passed without any trouble.
555
00:37:39.159 --> 00:37:43.440
But later the FBI officially stated that neither the falcons
556
00:37:43.719 --> 00:37:46.960
nor the map were ever found. What happened to them
557
00:37:47.039 --> 00:37:50.719
remains unknown. And so does the true number of women
558
00:37:50.960 --> 00:37:55.960
who may have become victims of Larry Hall. Over the
559
00:37:56.079 --> 00:37:59.960
years that followed, Hall gave several interviews, The last known
560
00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:03.679
on one took place in two thousand ten. In those conversations,
561
00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:08.199
he revealed details that once again gave investigators hope of
562
00:38:08.320 --> 00:38:12.719
solving older cases. In one conversation with his brother Gary,
563
00:38:13.079 --> 00:38:17.239
Larry said he had killed fifteen women across seven states.
564
00:38:18.039 --> 00:38:21.880
He gave details that, according to investigators, only the real
565
00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:25.920
killer should have known. But later, just as he had before,
566
00:38:26.199 --> 00:38:30.159
he walked those statements back and insisted they had only
567
00:38:30.239 --> 00:38:34.239
been dreams. That may be one reason he remains in
568
00:38:34.280 --> 00:38:38.440
the federal psychiatric system to this day, while investigators continue
569
00:38:38.480 --> 00:38:42.719
hoping that one day he will start talking again. Even so,
570
00:38:43.280 --> 00:38:46.199
there has still been no public breakthrough in the dozens
571
00:38:46.280 --> 00:38:50.280
of cases All has allegedly been linked to. According to
572
00:38:50.320 --> 00:38:54.760
figures repeated over the years in investigations and media coverage,
573
00:38:54.880 --> 00:38:58.280
the FBI believes Hall may be connected to at least
574
00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:02.119
forty to fifty murders, yet in most of those cases,
575
00:39:02.480 --> 00:39:06.519
he has never been formally charged. Why that still hasn't
576
00:39:06.559 --> 00:39:11.400
happened remains an open question. Maybe for many agencies. It
577
00:39:11.480 --> 00:39:15.039
is enough that after losing all of his appeals, all
578
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:18.280
will still spend the rest of his life behind bars,
579
00:39:18.599 --> 00:39:22.360
and no new charge would really change that, especially considering
580
00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:26.119
how difficult it was just to bring Jessica's case to trial.
581
00:39:26.400 --> 00:39:29.519
But for the families of the possible victims that it
582
00:39:29.599 --> 00:39:33.119
is not enough, because if Hall really did kill all
583
00:39:33.159 --> 00:39:36.599
of those girls, then he should answer for every crime
584
00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:40.079
that can still be proven in court, not just for
585
00:39:40.119 --> 00:39:44.480
another life sentence, so their families can finally have answers
586
00:39:44.760 --> 00:39:50.559
and something resembling closure. The longer you sit with this story,
587
00:39:50.840 --> 00:39:55.920
the clearer one thing becomes. The darkest. Cases rarely end
588
00:39:56.000 --> 00:39:59.960
when the sentence is handed down, because behind the court records,
589
00:40:00.199 --> 00:40:04.000
the reports and the confessions, there is always something that
590
00:40:04.119 --> 00:40:09.559
can't be resolved on paper. Fear, uncertainty, and years that
591
00:40:09.719 --> 00:40:13.159
no one can ever get back. And maybe that's exactly
592
00:40:13.199 --> 00:40:16.920
why stories like this continue to haunt people decades later.
1
00:00:01.280 --> 00:00:05.160
It was an unusually warm day in November nineteen ninety three.
2
00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:10.119
Farmer was working his field in rural Indiana. Everything was normal,
3
00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:15.000
mourning machinery, the same routine he'd followed countless times before.
4
00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:18.359
He was just about to climb into his combine and
5
00:00:18.440 --> 00:00:21.879
get started when November eighth turned into a very different
6
00:00:22.039 --> 00:00:25.199
kind of day. After a while, he noticed a dark
7
00:00:25.239 --> 00:00:28.719
shape between the rows of corn. At first, he figured
8
00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:32.359
it was just trash bag or some junk that had
9
00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:35.640
blown into the field. He climbed down from the combine
10
00:00:35.719 --> 00:00:37.840
and walked over to move it out of the way.
11
00:00:38.679 --> 00:00:41.320
That was when he realized he was looking at human
12
00:00:41.399 --> 00:00:46.079
remains in an advanced state of decomposition. The farmer called
13
00:00:46.119 --> 00:00:50.560
police right away when sheriff's deputies arrived. One possibility came
14
00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:55.479
to mind almost immediately. In Georgetown, Illinois, a missing fifteen
15
00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:58.840
year old girl named Jessica Roach had been the subject
16
00:00:59.039 --> 00:01:01.759
of an ongoing search for nearly a month and a half.
17
00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:07.000
She had disappeared on September twentieth, nineteen ninety three, while
18
00:01:07.079 --> 00:01:10.359
riding her bike not far from home. The field in
19
00:01:10.359 --> 00:01:14.879
Indiana was about fifty miles from Georgetown. In that area,
20
00:01:15.239 --> 00:01:19.719
murders and disappearances were rare, but everything seemed to point
21
00:01:19.760 --> 00:01:23.359
to the body belonging to her. As the remains were recovered,
22
00:01:23.519 --> 00:01:26.959
it became clear the body had been badly damaged, most
23
00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:32.719
likely by farm equipment. Then another horrifying detail surfaced. The
24
00:01:32.799 --> 00:01:36.159
head was missing. The remains were sent to the state's
25
00:01:36.239 --> 00:01:40.439
chief medical examiner. At first, he wasn't sure it was Jessica.
26
00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:45.400
The decomposition was too severe, but authorities in Georgetown had
27
00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:49.879
little doubt. Investigators began searching for anything that could help
28
00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:54.079
confirm who the victim was. Then an old piece of
29
00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:58.400
paper unexpectedly made all the difference. When Jessica was in
30
00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:01.840
elementary school, officers had visited as part of a child
31
00:02:01.959 --> 00:02:06.040
safety program and finger printed the students. Her mother had
32
00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:08.759
kept that card. When the print was sent to the
33
00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:11.639
examiner in Indiana, he was able to compare it to
34
00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:16.199
the only usable fingerprint recovered from the body. After that,
35
00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:20.120
there was no more doubt. It was Jessica Roach. She
36
00:02:20.240 --> 00:02:23.800
was just fifteen years old. Her life ended where her
37
00:02:23.879 --> 00:02:28.319
killer left her body in a cornfield near Perrysville, Indiana.
38
00:02:29.159 --> 00:02:33.199
After the identification was made official, the investigation was handed
39
00:02:33.199 --> 00:02:37.400
to lead investigator Gary Miller, At that point, he had
40
00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:40.319
no idea this case would become one of the longest
41
00:02:40.599 --> 00:02:45.120
and darkest of his life, or that Jessica's murder was
42
00:02:45.159 --> 00:02:49.520
tied to something far more disturbing than anyone realized. In
43
00:02:49.639 --> 00:02:55.879
that moment, Miller had Jessica's remains, but almost nothing else
44
00:02:55.960 --> 00:03:01.039
to work with. The strongest lead came from witnesses. Several
45
00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:04.080
people said they had seen a two tone Dodge van
46
00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:07.400
with out of state plates driving around the area in
47
00:03:07.439 --> 00:03:11.360
the days before Jessica disappeared, and again on the day
48
00:03:11.479 --> 00:03:16.000
she went missing. Later, another witness came forward from Indiana.
49
00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:20.360
He had seen a van matching that exact description parked
50
00:03:20.360 --> 00:03:23.199
on the side of the road near the same cornfield
51
00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:27.639
where Jessica's body was later found. There wasn't much information
52
00:03:27.759 --> 00:03:32.080
about the driver, a white man, short, heavy set, and
53
00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:35.879
that was it. That was where the trail ended, and
54
00:03:35.960 --> 00:03:41.479
that's where it stayed until the following spring. On March
55
00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:46.439
twenty ninth, nineteen ninety four, in Marionne, Indiana, two schoolgirls
56
00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:51.199
were walking home after class. As they passed Indiana University,
57
00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:54.719
a strange man in a two tone Dodge van started
58
00:03:54.759 --> 00:03:58.479
creeping alongside them. At first, the girls didn't think much
59
00:03:58.479 --> 00:04:01.360
of it. They assumed the driver was just looking for
60
00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:03.800
a place to park or trying to figure out where
61
00:04:03.800 --> 00:04:07.280
to turn. But after several blocks, the van was still
62
00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:11.439
right there. That was when they realized he wasn't just
63
00:04:11.560 --> 00:04:15.719
passing by, he was following them. The girls got nervous
64
00:04:15.719 --> 00:04:18.839
and started walking faster. The driver sped up too, and
65
00:04:18.879 --> 00:04:22.480
pulled in closer. Then the driver's side window rolled down.
66
00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:27.480
That was all it took. The girls bolted. Fortunately home
67
00:04:27.639 --> 00:04:30.879
was close. They ran inside, out of breath and panicked,
68
00:04:31.079 --> 00:04:33.920
and immediately told one of their fathers what had happened.
69
00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:37.360
He didn't waste any time. He jumped into his truck
70
00:04:37.480 --> 00:04:40.680
and went looking for the van. A few streets later,
71
00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:44.600
he spotted it. He managed to get the license plate number,
72
00:04:44.879 --> 00:04:48.000
then tried to follow the vehicle, but the driver suddenly
73
00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:52.000
cut down an alley and disappeared. That still wasn't the
74
00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:54.680
end of it. The father gave the plate number to
75
00:04:54.759 --> 00:04:58.879
police and reported the incident. By that evening, authorities in
76
00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:02.560
Marion already put out an alert for the two tone van.
77
00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:09.560
Later that same night, patrol officers spotted the vehicle. They
78
00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:13.839
approached it carefully, weapons ready, because the driver was already
79
00:05:13.879 --> 00:05:19.000
being considered a possible suspect in an attempted abduction. When
80
00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:22.560
they reached the driver's door, they found a stunned thirty
81
00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:26.800
one year old man inside, Larry Hall. After Hall was
82
00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:31.319
taken into custody, officers searched the van first. They were
83
00:05:31.360 --> 00:05:35.600
just making sure there wasn't another victim inside. There wasn't.
84
00:05:36.439 --> 00:05:40.560
What they did find immediately raised alarms and quickly caught
85
00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:45.000
the attention of detectives in both Indiana and Illinois. In
86
00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:48.199
the back of the van was what investigators described as
87
00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:51.879
a rape kit, a large hunting knife, a ski mask,
88
00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:57.439
duct tape, rope belts, rags, condoms, and two cans of
89
00:05:57.439 --> 00:06:02.319
starting fluid. But the most disturbing items weren't even the tools.
90
00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:05.839
They were the papers. Attached to the inside wall of
91
00:06:05.839 --> 00:06:08.759
the van was a missing person flier for a young
92
00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:13.519
woman named Trisha Rietler. She had vanished exactly one year
93
00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:17.480
earlier while walking back to her dorm at Indiana Wesleyan
94
00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:22.920
University in Marion. No one had seen her since. Also
95
00:06:22.959 --> 00:06:26.560
inside the van were adult magazines with Trisha Writler's name
96
00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:31.160
written on them, university branded items and school supplies, and
97
00:06:31.240 --> 00:06:34.720
in the magazine cutouts women had been depicted with ropes
98
00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:38.920
around their necks, blood at their mouths, and their eyes
99
00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:44.439
crossed out as if unconscious or dead. Police were stunned
100
00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:48.079
at that point. They weren't even sure what charge they
101
00:06:48.120 --> 00:06:51.839
could legally hold Hall on. In the end, he was
102
00:06:51.879 --> 00:06:55.680
booked into County jail over a registration issue tied to
103
00:06:55.720 --> 00:06:59.759
the license plate. During questioning, when detectives brought up Trisha's
104
00:06:59.759 --> 00:07:03.399
disas appearance, Hall suddenly confessed to killing her and said
105
00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:06.439
he had buried the body himself. He even pointed them
106
00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:09.480
to the place where he claimed she was buried, but
107
00:07:09.519 --> 00:07:13.399
when police went there they found nothing. Without direct evidence
108
00:07:13.439 --> 00:07:16.279
linking him to the crime, Hall had to be released.
109
00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:19.240
At the time, police did not view him as a killer.
110
00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:22.360
They viewed him as a strange man with an unhealthy
111
00:07:22.360 --> 00:07:27.680
obsession with the case of a missing young woman. Oh
112
00:07:27.879 --> 00:07:31.959
who was Larry Hall. At that point, he still wasn't
113
00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:36.240
officially considered a suspect in Tricia's case, but after everything
114
00:07:36.319 --> 00:07:40.160
found in his van, police began looking much more seriously
115
00:07:40.480 --> 00:07:43.879
into who he was. Larry Hall and his twin brother,
116
00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:48.800
Gary were born on December eleventh, nineteen sixty two. The
117
00:07:48.879 --> 00:07:52.759
pregnancy had been difficult, and from the beginning, Larry's life
118
00:07:52.759 --> 00:07:55.439
had not started the way it did for most children.
119
00:07:56.279 --> 00:07:59.560
His childhood wasn't normal either. Their father worked as a
120
00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:04.879
cemetery caretaker. He didn't just maintain the grounds. He dug
121
00:08:04.959 --> 00:08:09.519
graves and buried the dead. It was grim, physically demanding work,
122
00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:14.279
and over time he drank more and more. He grew harsh, withdrawn,
123
00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:18.920
and increasingly antisocial. Their mother wasn't much of a source
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of stability either. People described her as hot tempered, self centered,
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and extremely lazy. The family lived right on cemetery grounds.
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The house itself was old but beautiful, with a large
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yard and woods nearby. But outside the windows stretched row
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after row of graves, thousands of graves. The atmosphere was
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always heavy, almost gothic. The brothers grew up literally surrounded
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by death. Maybe it was their father, maybe it was
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the place. Maybe it was both. But from a young age,
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the Hall brothers were known for strange and provocative behavior.
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Friends later said they liked cruel, childish pranks. They would
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leave a wallet full of money in the road, attached
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to a string. When someone bent down to pick it up,
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they would yank it away. But some of what they
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did was much darker than that. One time they dressed
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a mannequin to look like a corpse and dumped it
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by the roadside. Drivers would call police, and while officers
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were out looking for the body, the brothers would move
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it somewhere else and start the whole thing over again.
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The only truly serious incident from their childhood involved the
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broken storefront windows of several local businesses. A witness recognized
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a friend of theirs, and that boy later told police
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the Hall brothers had been involved too. First glance, the
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broken windows might have looked like nothing more than a
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teenage stunt, but later many people would remember the way
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it played out as the first real warning sign. When
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police brought the brothers in for questioning, they denied everything calmly, confidently,
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and without cracking. They blamed their friend and held that
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line as long as they could. Only after a long,
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tough interview did they finally admit what they had done.
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Years later, officers would say that even at that age,
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both brothers were calmer under questioning than many adult criminals
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they had seen. Their parents, as expected, rushed to defend them.
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Their mother and father insisted their sons could never have
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done such a thing and claimed the other boy was
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the only one responsible. The judge didn't buy it. The
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brothers were ordered to pay five hundred dollars for the damage,
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and on the surface, that seemed to be the end
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of it. For a long time after that, the Hall
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brothers mostly stayed off police radar until the investigations into
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the disappearances of Jessica and Tricia began. According to classmates,
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both brothers kept to themselves, but they were very different people.
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Larry was quiet, shy, and withdrawn. He hated attention and
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often became the target of ridicule because of his strange,
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almost mechanical voice. If he had to, he could handle
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himself in a fight, but overall he tried to avoid conflict.
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He was awkward with people and seemed completely unable to
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form close relationships. Gary was the exact opposite, confident, athletic, charismatic.
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He made friends easily. He had no trouble with women.
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Where Larry seemed lost, Gary seemed comfortable. People who knew
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Larry said he never really had a girlfriend. He wanted
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what everyone else wanted, a normal relationship, real closeness. He
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just didn't seem to know how to get there. But
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with cars he felt completely at ease. One of their
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father's friends made decent money restoring and working on old cars,
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and he let the brothers spend time in his shop.
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They turned ordinary cars into race cars. Larry especially became
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deeply absorbed in it. Before long, that was how people
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in the area knew them, the guys who were always
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around cars. While other teenagers were living ordinary lives. Larry
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disappeared into metal engines and tools. For him, it became
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a substitute for everything he didn't have. Connection, intimacy, the
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sense that he mattered to someone. At the time, no
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one had any idea where that would eventually lead. The
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family never had much money. Sometimes they didn't even have
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enough gas for the old cars the brothers worked on
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late into the night, but that didn't stop them from
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chasing speed. Racing and the road cars were one of
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the only steady sources of joy in their lives. Around
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the time the twins were finishing high school, the family's
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life fell apart for good. Their father lost his job
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at the cemetery. Church officials had looked the other way
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for a long time, even through his drinking, as long
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as he was still doing the job. That changed when
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they learned he had started burying people in the wrong graves.
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Because the house came with the position, the family had
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to move out immediately. They relocated to the Wabash area
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to a filthy little house that looked more like a
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shack than a real home. Gary refused to stay under
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those conditions. He moved in with a woman who later
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became his first wife. Larry stayed behind with his parents,
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in poverty, disorder and the same suffocating atmosphere that had
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hung over the family for years. To avoid people as
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much as possible, he took a job as a night janitor.
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For someone like Larry, it was almost ideal, empty buildings, silence,
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no one watching, no one interfering. He quickly built a
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recatation as a reliable worker, so much so that some
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places stopped hiring overnight security. Larry was trusted to lock
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up by himself. He would simply report how many hours
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he had worked, and no one looked too closely at
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when he came or went During the day. He found
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another obsession besides cars, and it came from somewhere no
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one would have expected. In the early nineteen eighties, television
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reports about Civil War reenactments caught his attention. It wasn't
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just the uniforms, the camps, or the weapons that drew
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him in. What grabbed him most was the idea behind
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it all, the chance to create a different identity, a
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different history, a different life. He latched onto that immediately.
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He saved until he could buy his first uniform and
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a replica rifle. Then he pulled Gary into it too.
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Before long, the brothers had joined a local reenactment group
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and were traveling around the country to every event they
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could get into. For Larry, it was a chance to
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become someone else. Not a night janitor, not a beaten
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down man from a poor family, but a soldier with
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his own backstory, a man with a role to play
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and some sense of control. Over time, he started living
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that role outside the re enactments too. In everyday life,
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he dressed like his historical characters. He grew out the
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distinctive mid nineteenth century Side Burns, modeled after Ambrose Burnside.
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In Larry's mind, it was simple. He didn't just want
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to participate. He wanted status inside that world. He wanted
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to become someone important, almost like Burnside himself. But reality
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put limits on that fantasy very quickly. At around five
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foot three with a stocky build, he did not fit
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anyone's image of a general. In the end, the best
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he could do was portray an enlisted soldier in the
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famous Iron Brigade. By the nineteen eighties, the brothers had
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settled into a fixed, repetitive rhythm work during the week
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reenactments on the weekends. Those events usually involved sleeping intents,
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which helped them save money and stay on the road.
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They traveled across the Midwest and the South, moving from
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one small town to the next. Eventually, their re enactment
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unit became so respected for its authenticity that it was
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invited to appear in historical films. They worked as extras
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on the sets of Glory and Gettysburg. Their unit was
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considered one of the most authentic around, which was why
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they were chosen. Of the two, Gary is the one
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most clearly visible on screen. He can be seen briefly
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in one of the battle scenes in Gettysburg, running uphill
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during the fighting. At the time, no one connected those
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trips to what was happening in the small towns the
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brothers passed through, but later investigators noticed a strange pattern.
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Almost every time the twins traveled to a reenactment, women
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disappeared or turned up dead somewhere nearby. Back then, nobody
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noticed that connection. It would surface much later, when Larry
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Hall's name would be tied not to his hobby but
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to dozens of murders. Investigators began to suspect him in
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but at that point Detective Miller was focused on one
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case only, Jessica Roach. In the six months after Hall's
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arrest in the spring of nineteen ninety four, after the
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strange confession and the equally strange release, Georgetown became uneasy again.
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There were two more attempted abductions involving young women, and
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both times witnesses described essentially the same thing. A white
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man in a two tone van pulled over to the
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side of the road, offered a ride, and then behaved
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in a way that immediately set off alarm bells. When
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police checked the plates, they found the same name attached
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both times. Larry Hall. Miller contacted police in Wabash to
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ask what they knew about him. The first question he
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got in return caught him off guard. Had there been
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any reenactments near Georgetown on the weekend Jessica disappeared. That
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immediately got his attention. Miller started digging deeper. There had
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been no Civil War reenactment nearby that weekend, but just
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a few miles from Jessica's home, there had been a
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Revolutionary War re enactment taking place at the same time,
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and although Hall had spent most of his life attending
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Civil War events, he had recently started showing up at
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Revolutionary War re enactments too, especially after Gary began traveling
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less because of his daughter and his new marriage. Miller
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spoke with people who had attended that event and with
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members of Hall's re enactment group. They all said roughly
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the same thing. Hall would show up to Revolutionary War
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events dressed as a Civil War soldier, and he stood
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out for it. After those conversations, Miller was left with
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very little sense that these were all just coincidences. He
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knew he couldn't wait any longer. He needed to talk
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to Hall again. This time it had to be different.
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Almost a year later, on November two, nineteen ninety four,
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Detective Miller went to Wabash to finally speak with Hall
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in person. Before the trip, he had already spoken with
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local detectives and they made one thing clear right away.
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Hall had a bad reputation in town. There were very
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few active cases against him at the time, aside from
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a recent stalking allegation involving a local woman. Miller was
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also warned learned that Hall was extremely closed off. Push
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him even a little too hard and he would shut
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down completely. So from the beginning, Miller planned to handle
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the interview gently, calm patient, no hard pressure. But once
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he got there, he ran into an immediate problem. He
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was told the interview would not take place in a
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quiet office, but in an empty conference room at city
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Hall across the street. For an interview like this, that
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was far from ideal. If there was any chance of
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getting someone like Hall to open up, it would have
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to happen in a more private, controlled setting. But Miller
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had no choice. This wasn't his town. When Hall walked in,
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Miller saw someone very different from the man he had expected.
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Blank eyes, a soft voice, a cramped, guarded posture. He
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looked like a frightened child caught doing something small and
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shame but this was not something small. Sitting across from
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Miller was a man suspected in the abduction and murder
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of a fifteen year old girl, and possibly more than that.
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And there was something especially dangerous in that mismatch. His shyness,
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his insecurity, his almost childlike way of carrying himself may
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have disarmed people for years, including women who never sensed
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the danger in him. For Miller, there was only one
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thing that mattered in that moment, Jessica. Everything else came second.
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At first, the interview went nowhere. Even though Hall reacted
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strongly to the photographs of Jessica, he stubbornly denied having
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anything to do with her death and kept insisting he
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had never even been to Georgetown. It seemed like the
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interview had hit a wall. Then at one point local
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detectives from Wabash stepped in. One of them suggested Hall
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tell Miller about his dreams. Unexpectedly, that worked. Hall admitted
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that he often had nightmares involving the abduction, assault, and
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murder of women. When he was asked to go into
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more detail, he began describing things with disturbing precision. Then
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Miller asked him to tell the dream about Jessica. All
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said he saw her on a rural road near Georgetown.
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He stopped and offered her a ride. According to him,
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she accepted After that, he said, he blacked out. When
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he came to he was in the van and both
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of them were naked. He assumed some kind of sexual
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contact had taken place. Then, according to Hall, he panicked
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and didn't know what to do. He drove to a
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corn field, pulled her out of the van, naked, took
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two belts, put one around her neck, and pulled until
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he could no longer hear her screams. Formally, he still
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kept calling it a He insisted none of it had
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really happened. Then he shut down again and refused to
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say anything more. Miller already had a growing pile of
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circumstantial evidence, but what he needed was something physical, something
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real he could put in front of a jury. Just
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six months earlier, police had brushed off Hall's statements about
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Tricia because they had found nothing to back them up,
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and now Miller understood the same thing. Confessions alone were
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not enough. Armed with that bizarre dream, he kept moving
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forward and decided to bring in the FBI. The more
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he looked at Hall, the more he felt he was
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dealing not with a single crime, but with a serial killer.
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But legally, he was still boxed in by the limits
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of his own case. Because Hall had crossed state lines,
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the investigation moved beyond a single jurisdiction, and the FBI,
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along with the US Attorney's office, agreed to step in
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in Miller quickly obtained warrants to search Hall's vans as
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well as the house where he lived with his parents.
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He planned to continue questioning Hall with an FBI agent present,
361
00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:15.960
but that had to wait until a polygraph examiner arrived.
362
00:24:16.759 --> 00:24:20.559
For the moment, the priority was simple, find evidence and
363
00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:25.000
find it fast, and when agents searched Hall's van and
364
00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:28.400
his bedroom, they came across some of the most damaging
365
00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:35.200
evidence in the entire investigation. Investigators still did not have
366
00:24:35.279 --> 00:24:39.000
direct evidence that conclusively tied Hall to the murders of
367
00:24:39.079 --> 00:24:43.119
Jessica and Tricia, but the circumstantial case was becoming harder
368
00:24:43.400 --> 00:24:46.599
and harder to ignore. In his van, they found that
369
00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:48.920
same rape kit against.
370
00:24:52.079 --> 00:25:00.839
Materials. Over the front passengers. They found a prescription that issue.
371
00:25:07.400 --> 00:25:07.640
It was.
372
00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:21.240
He had regions. He conducted instruction, but someone do not
373
00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:24.640
touch carpet and.
374
00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:37.000
Made where they were more likely to be alone, about
375
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:39.920
the area near the campus and Marion. He had written
376
00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:43.519
something to this effect, A lot of girls walk alone
377
00:25:43.519 --> 00:25:48.359
here often on forty fourth and forty third Streets must
378
00:25:48.359 --> 00:25:51.720
be a dorm nearby that lined up almost exactly with
379
00:25:51.839 --> 00:25:55.359
the area where Tricia had last been seen. But the
380
00:25:55.400 --> 00:25:58.920
maps were even more damaging. On a map of Indiana,
381
00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:03.799
Hall had marked two red circles. Those markings matched the
382
00:26:03.880 --> 00:26:08.119
location where Jessica's body had been dumped, and that became
383
00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:12.359
the piece of circumstantial evidence investigators could finally use to
384
00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:18.519
tie him directly to her abduction and death. Once Miller
385
00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:21.400
and the FBI agent had all of those items from
386
00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:25.039
Hall's van in hand, they went back to question him again,
387
00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:30.799
this time specifically about Jessica and Tricia, and this time,
388
00:26:31.160 --> 00:26:35.720
faced with the evidence, Hall started talking again. He told
389
00:26:35.799 --> 00:26:40.160
almost the same story about Jessica's abduction and murder, but
390
00:26:40.319 --> 00:26:44.079
now he added one detail only the real offender should
391
00:26:44.119 --> 00:26:47.920
have known. Hall said with confidence that Jessica had a
392
00:26:47.960 --> 00:26:50.559
ten speed bicycle and that he had put it in
393
00:26:50.640 --> 00:26:55.079
his van. That information had never been made public, it
394
00:26:55.119 --> 00:26:58.839
had never appeared in the news. He also confessed to
395
00:26:58.920 --> 00:27:04.079
killing Tricia and again tried to frame it as a dream.
396
00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:07.440
According to Hall, he saw her, spoke to her, pulled
397
00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:10.799
a knife, but still insisted she got into his van
398
00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:15.480
willingly and agreed to intimacy. Then he said he blacked
399
00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:18.960
out again and didn't come to until she was already dead.
400
00:27:19.680 --> 00:27:22.599
After that, he claimed he went home, a shovel and
401
00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:26.880
a saw, returned, dismembered Tricia, and buried her near a
402
00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:30.720
local river. He once again showed investigators where he said
403
00:27:30.839 --> 00:27:34.319
the body was buried, and once again the search turned
404
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:38.960
up nothing. Even without Tricia's body and without direct physical
405
00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:42.519
evidence in her case, the U. S. Attorney's Office, led
406
00:27:42.519 --> 00:27:47.480
by Lawrence Beaumont, decided to move forward with charges. At
407
00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:50.759
that point, they were able to prove sick a Roach
408
00:27:50.799 --> 00:27:57.799
had been abducted and sexually assaulted. Unfortunately, that turned out
409
00:27:57.839 --> 00:28:02.480
to be the last confession Hall gave before trial. The
410
00:28:02.599 --> 00:28:06.480
very next morning, when Miller arrived to transport him to Illinois,
411
00:28:07.319 --> 00:28:10.559
Hall refused to talk. He said it was because of
412
00:28:10.599 --> 00:28:14.039
a conversation he had had with his brother the night before.
413
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:17.599
Miller spent hours driving with him trying to get him
414
00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:20.839
to open up. Hall would discuss only the Civil War
415
00:28:21.079 --> 00:28:25.720
and cars, steering away from anything connected to murder. At
416
00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:28.759
the time, Miller had no idea how much damage had
417
00:28:28.799 --> 00:28:32.079
been done during that one night. After Hall's call to
418
00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:35.920
his brother. Years later, Gary Hall said in interviews that
419
00:28:36.039 --> 00:28:38.799
Larry had asked him to pass a message to their
420
00:28:38.839 --> 00:28:42.720
father remove everything from the house and property that police
421
00:28:42.759 --> 00:28:46.799
had not found during the searches. According to Gary, their
422
00:28:46.839 --> 00:28:51.160
father knew exactly what that meant. Over the next several days,
423
00:28:51.480 --> 00:28:56.720
he burned multiple trash bags filled with unknown items. Gary
424
00:28:56.799 --> 00:29:00.079
later said he saw a map in the fire and
425
00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:05.119
showed Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and it was covered
426
00:29:05.160 --> 00:29:09.359
in red dots. But in that moment, neither Miller nor
427
00:29:09.400 --> 00:29:14.119
the FBI knew that possible key evidence, evidence that might
428
00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:18.440
have connected Hall to dozens of other crimes, was perhaps
429
00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:21.960
being destroyed in real time. All they knew was this
430
00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:27.359
What lay ahead would be a long, exhausting fight in court.
431
00:29:29.799 --> 00:29:32.640
When it came time to decide what charge to take
432
00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:37.640
to trial, Beaumont made a difficult but practical decision. Instead
433
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:40.680
of going directly on a murder charge, he charged Hall
434
00:29:40.759 --> 00:29:43.920
with crossing state lines with the intent to have sexual
435
00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:47.559
contact with a minor. That was the case they felt
436
00:29:47.640 --> 00:29:51.160
they could prove most confidently. What followed was a tense
437
00:29:51.240 --> 00:29:56.559
trial in which Beaumont faced and experienced highly capable defense attorney.
438
00:29:57.400 --> 00:30:00.680
Part of the defense argument was that Hall's confession had
439
00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:03.599
either been pressured out of him or were just the
440
00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:07.000
product of a man who liked attention from law enforcement.
441
00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:13.279
But that argument started falling apart almost immediately. Paul knew
442
00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:16.359
details that could not have come out of nowhere. The
443
00:30:16.440 --> 00:30:19.279
type of Jessica's bicycle and the point on the map
444
00:30:19.319 --> 00:30:22.880
that matched where her body had been found. Those were
445
00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:27.160
details only someone directly involved would have known, and in
446
00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:30.440
the end, what hurt him most was his own behavior
447
00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:34.720
in the court room. Before trial, The defense had insisted
448
00:30:34.799 --> 00:30:39.319
Hall was fragile and easily broken under pressure, but the
449
00:30:39.319 --> 00:30:43.599
man the jury saw was not timid or shaken. He
450
00:30:43.759 --> 00:30:49.400
was confident, calculating, and sarcastic. He sparred comfortably with one
451
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:54.400
of the government's strongest prosecutors, made cutting remarks, and firmly
452
00:30:54.440 --> 00:30:59.319
denied he had ever even seen Jessica roach. In that moment,
453
00:31:00.039 --> 00:31:04.279
errors did not see a weak, lost man. They saw
454
00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:08.640
a very skillful liar. The verdict came back quickly, and
455
00:31:08.680 --> 00:31:14.119
the sentence was the harshest available life in prison. Hall
456
00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:18.119
lost his fight for freedom, but in one respect he
457
00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:21.440
still got part of what he wanted. His conduct in
458
00:31:21.519 --> 00:31:25.319
court made a strong impression on the judge. As the result,
459
00:31:25.559 --> 00:31:28.799
Hall was sent not to a standard prison, but to
460
00:31:28.839 --> 00:31:33.640
a federal psychiatric hospital in Missouri for evaluation and classification.
461
00:31:34.559 --> 00:31:39.359
The judge considered him a vulnerable inmate. That decision infuriated
462
00:31:39.400 --> 00:31:44.680
Beaumont and prosecutors in Indiana and Illinois. They were convinced
463
00:31:44.759 --> 00:31:51.200
Hall had killed Tricia and possibly others as well. Once
464
00:31:51.240 --> 00:31:54.519
Hall was behind bars, Beaumont and Miller did not stop
465
00:31:54.599 --> 00:31:57.640
trying to get the truth out of him, especially about
466
00:31:57.799 --> 00:32:02.160
Tricia Reidler. Her case seemed like their best chance because
467
00:32:02.160 --> 00:32:05.920
by then they already had two confessions, but the body
468
00:32:05.960 --> 00:32:09.759
still had not been found, and they still lacked direct evidence.
469
00:32:10.559 --> 00:32:14.559
They could not close the case, And one day, while
470
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:17.839
talking with a colleague in federal service, Beaumont heard the
471
00:32:17.960 --> 00:32:21.319
name of someone who might, at least in theory, be
472
00:32:21.400 --> 00:32:24.680
able to get out of haul what investigators never could.
473
00:32:25.240 --> 00:32:28.839
Jimmy Keen. At one time, Keen had been the star
474
00:32:28.920 --> 00:32:33.640
of his high school football team in a small Illinois town. Later,
475
00:32:33.799 --> 00:32:38.119
using his popularity, looks, and connections, he moved quickly into
476
00:32:38.200 --> 00:32:42.759
drug trafficking nearly two decades. He lived big and confidently
477
00:32:43.279 --> 00:32:48.759
until everything collapsed almost overnight. The house, the cars, the money,
478
00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:52.599
the freedom, all of it was gone. What made it
479
00:32:52.680 --> 00:32:56.119
worse was his father's failing health. There was a real
480
00:32:56.240 --> 00:32:59.160
chance his father would not live long enough to see
481
00:32:59.240 --> 00:33:04.480
him released. So when Keen was unexpectedly called into Beaumont's office,
482
00:33:04.799 --> 00:33:07.000
the same man who had once sent him to prison,
483
00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:12.720
he was stunned by what he heard. Befriend Hall inside
484
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:15.920
the prison hospital, find out where Tricia's body was hidden,
485
00:33:16.119 --> 00:33:20.240
and in return get his freedom. For Keen, it was
486
00:33:20.279 --> 00:33:22.960
a chance to get out early and see his father again.
487
00:33:23.559 --> 00:33:26.640
He agreed immediately. The FBI gave him a new cover
488
00:33:26.759 --> 00:33:29.400
story and a new identity under which he would be
489
00:33:29.440 --> 00:33:34.200
transferred to Springfield. No one inside the facility, except the
490
00:33:34.279 --> 00:33:38.359
chief psychiatrist knew why he was really there. He was
491
00:33:38.400 --> 00:33:41.480
told to move slowly and be careful because Hall was
492
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:45.559
skittish and shut down easily, but Keene's love for his
493
00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:48.559
father and his fear of not seeing him alive again
494
00:33:49.160 --> 00:33:53.720
outweighed every warning. Within hours of arriving at the prison hospital,
495
00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:59.279
Keen walked straight up to Hall and introduced himself. Over
496
00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:03.000
the next several weeks, Keen managed to gain Hall's trust
497
00:34:04.079 --> 00:34:07.680
ate breakfast together almost every day, and after lunch they
498
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:11.719
would meet in the library. Only once Keen felt sure
499
00:34:12.079 --> 00:34:14.719
Hall no longer saw him as a threat, did he
500
00:34:14.840 --> 00:34:20.000
begin carefully steering the conversations toward the past. For months,
501
00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:23.360
Hall refused to admit why he was really in prison.
502
00:34:24.199 --> 00:34:27.599
He claimed it all came down to weapons violations, and
503
00:34:27.639 --> 00:34:30.800
he shut down any time the subject turned to women
504
00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:34.960
or murder. Turning point came after one lie from Keen.
505
00:34:35.599 --> 00:34:39.119
He told Hall that he hated women too, and after
506
00:34:39.159 --> 00:34:43.519
that Hall slowly began to open up. Eventually he told
507
00:34:43.639 --> 00:34:46.960
Keen what he said had happened to Jessica. He got
508
00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:49.280
her into the van, tried to kiss her, but she
509
00:34:49.400 --> 00:34:53.880
refused and began fighting back. Hall then pressed a rag
510
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:57.800
soaked with chloroform to her face, dragged her into the back, and,
511
00:34:58.239 --> 00:35:01.880
according to his own words, intended to have sexual contact
512
00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:05.400
with her. But Jessica started crying and calling for her mother.
513
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:08.719
That sent him into a panic. He tried to find
514
00:35:08.760 --> 00:35:11.599
his way back to Indiana, but kept getting lost and
515
00:35:11.679 --> 00:35:15.559
running into dead ends. Eventually, he turned into a field,
516
00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:18.639
where he said he decided to kill her. He placed
517
00:35:18.639 --> 00:35:21.679
her against a tree and used two belts in a stick,
518
00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:25.159
twisting them around her neck like a tourniquet. When he
519
00:35:25.199 --> 00:35:28.360
spoke about Tricia, he again tried to frame it as
520
00:35:28.360 --> 00:35:32.039
something mutual. He claimed they were just talking at first.
521
00:35:32.400 --> 00:35:34.960
Then he pulled a knife, but she still got into
522
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:37.639
the van on her own. Then when he tried to
523
00:35:37.719 --> 00:35:41.119
kiss her and undress her, she resisted, and after that,
524
00:35:41.400 --> 00:35:44.440
he said, he blacked out again. When he came to
525
00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:47.679
she was already dead. He said her clothes were covered
526
00:35:47.719 --> 00:35:49.800
in blood, so he piled them up in the park
527
00:35:49.840 --> 00:35:52.760
where it happened, and then drove home. What he didn't
528
00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:56.760
realize was that in saying that, he was effectively confirming
529
00:35:57.159 --> 00:36:01.039
the one piece of physical evidence investigators had. One week
530
00:36:01.119 --> 00:36:04.559
after Tricia disappeared, her clothes had in fact been found
531
00:36:04.639 --> 00:36:08.559
in that exact spot. After that, he repeated the same
532
00:36:08.639 --> 00:36:12.480
story again about dismembering her body and burying it in
533
00:36:12.599 --> 00:36:18.840
an unknown location. The day after Hall's confession about Tricia,
534
00:36:19.280 --> 00:36:22.719
Keen decided to keep pushing. As he walked past the
535
00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:26.760
prison workshop, he noticed Hall was inside working without a
536
00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:31.000
guard nearby. Keen stepped in and approached him from behind.
537
00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:34.519
On the table was a map of Indiana and Illinois
538
00:36:34.679 --> 00:36:38.079
covered in red dots. The moment Hall saw him, he
539
00:36:38.159 --> 00:36:41.840
flinched and quickly covered the map. Keen asked what he
540
00:36:41.960 --> 00:36:45.400
was doing. Hall said he was carving falcons out of wood.
541
00:36:45.719 --> 00:36:48.599
He said the falcons guarded the dead and watched over them,
542
00:36:49.079 --> 00:36:51.519
and he added that he was going to send the
543
00:36:51.559 --> 00:36:54.519
carved birds to his brother so Gary could place them
544
00:36:54.559 --> 00:36:58.000
for him. Keen realized he had pushed too far, and
545
00:36:58.079 --> 00:37:00.960
he immediately left to report what he had just seen
546
00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:04.320
and heard to the FBI. Later that same night, he
547
00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:07.199
returned to hall cell and told him directly that he
548
00:37:07.320 --> 00:37:11.840
was a disgusting human being. Hall's eyes widened instantly, then
549
00:37:11.920 --> 00:37:15.760
he started repeating the same line over and over. Beaumont
550
00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:20.199
sent you, Beaumont sent you. Very next day, Keen was
551
00:37:20.239 --> 00:37:25.039
removed from the cell and thrown into solitary confinement, supposedly
552
00:37:25.239 --> 00:37:29.440
for sexually harassing Hall. It took the FBI he several
553
00:37:29.480 --> 00:37:33.079
weeks to get him out. As soon as Keene left Springfield,
554
00:37:33.400 --> 00:37:38.960
Beaumont arranged a polygraph examination, and Keen passed without any trouble.
555
00:37:39.159 --> 00:37:43.440
But later the FBI officially stated that neither the falcons
556
00:37:43.719 --> 00:37:46.960
nor the map were ever found. What happened to them
557
00:37:47.039 --> 00:37:50.719
remains unknown. And so does the true number of women
558
00:37:50.960 --> 00:37:55.960
who may have become victims of Larry Hall. Over the
559
00:37:56.079 --> 00:37:59.960
years that followed, Hall gave several interviews, The last known
560
00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:03.679
on one took place in two thousand ten. In those conversations,
561
00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:08.199
he revealed details that once again gave investigators hope of
562
00:38:08.320 --> 00:38:12.719
solving older cases. In one conversation with his brother Gary,
563
00:38:13.079 --> 00:38:17.239
Larry said he had killed fifteen women across seven states.
564
00:38:18.039 --> 00:38:21.880
He gave details that, according to investigators, only the real
565
00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:25.920
killer should have known. But later, just as he had before,
566
00:38:26.199 --> 00:38:30.159
he walked those statements back and insisted they had only
567
00:38:30.239 --> 00:38:34.239
been dreams. That may be one reason he remains in
568
00:38:34.280 --> 00:38:38.440
the federal psychiatric system to this day, while investigators continue
569
00:38:38.480 --> 00:38:42.719
hoping that one day he will start talking again. Even so,
570
00:38:43.280 --> 00:38:46.199
there has still been no public breakthrough in the dozens
571
00:38:46.280 --> 00:38:50.280
of cases All has allegedly been linked to. According to
572
00:38:50.320 --> 00:38:54.760
figures repeated over the years in investigations and media coverage,
573
00:38:54.880 --> 00:38:58.280
the FBI believes Hall may be connected to at least
574
00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:02.119
forty to fifty murders, yet in most of those cases,
575
00:39:02.480 --> 00:39:06.519
he has never been formally charged. Why that still hasn't
576
00:39:06.559 --> 00:39:11.400
happened remains an open question. Maybe for many agencies. It
577
00:39:11.480 --> 00:39:15.039
is enough that after losing all of his appeals, all
578
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:18.280
will still spend the rest of his life behind bars,
579
00:39:18.599 --> 00:39:22.360
and no new charge would really change that, especially considering
580
00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:26.119
how difficult it was just to bring Jessica's case to trial.
581
00:39:26.400 --> 00:39:29.519
But for the families of the possible victims that it
582
00:39:29.599 --> 00:39:33.119
is not enough, because if Hall really did kill all
583
00:39:33.159 --> 00:39:36.599
of those girls, then he should answer for every crime
584
00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:40.079
that can still be proven in court, not just for
585
00:39:40.119 --> 00:39:44.480
another life sentence, so their families can finally have answers
586
00:39:44.760 --> 00:39:50.559
and something resembling closure. The longer you sit with this story,
587
00:39:50.840 --> 00:39:55.920
the clearer one thing becomes. The darkest. Cases rarely end
588
00:39:56.000 --> 00:39:59.960
when the sentence is handed down, because behind the court records,
589
00:40:00.199 --> 00:40:04.000
the reports and the confessions, there is always something that
590
00:40:04.119 --> 00:40:09.559
can't be resolved on paper. Fear, uncertainty, and years that
591
00:40:09.719 --> 00:40:13.159
no one can ever get back. And maybe that's exactly
592
00:40:13.199 --> 00:40:16.920
why stories like this continue to haunt people decades later.
