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On the 24th of February, 1986, police in Talladega, Alabama,
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forced entry into the home of 24-year-old Sherry Weathers. The
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profoundly deaf mother of two had not turned up to
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school for nearly a week, and the reason soon became clear.
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Sherry and her two young children had been strangled to
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death and piled on top of each other in the
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shape of a cross.
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The utter callousness of it, of not only killing them,
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strangling them, but then posing them to be discovered, it's
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an act of a vile human being.
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The horrific scene will forever be etched in the minds
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of the two detectives who worked on the case.
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When you see something like that, you can't help but
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think about your own child. This could happen to my child, too.
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And so now you know you got to do everything
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you possibly do to bring this person to justice.
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The killer was a 31-year-old artist named Daniel Siebert, and
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his macabre masterpiece was far from complete. Two more bodies
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would soon be discovered, but the police had no idea
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where to find him.
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He's in the wind.
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We didn't know where he was, but we knew that
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somebody was going to die until he was caught.
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Daniel Siebert had made his mark as one of the
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world's most evil killers. When 33-year-old Daniel Siebert was sentenced
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to death for the murder of Linda Jarman on 17th
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April 1987, it signalled the end of the killer's cold-blooded career.
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On 19th August, he received a second death sentence for
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the murders of Sherry Weathers and her two children. Officially
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found guilty of five murders, authorities believe that Siebert was
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responsible for many other deaths across the U.S. in the mid-1980s.
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Homicide detective Eugene Jacks was part of the policing team
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who hunted the killer for over six months before his
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dramatic arrest in September 1986.
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He killed Sherry because she was deaf, and she would never...
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amount to anything because she was dead. He killed those
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two little boys because their mother was dead and they
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would never amount to anything because they wouldn't have a mother.
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He killed Linda Jarman to get her car. He says
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he killed Linda Odom because she was a racist. I
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think he just killed people because he liked to kill people.
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In a series of interviews with the killer, Eugene learned
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a lot about just how callous Daniel Siebert could be.
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If you didn't know what kind of monster he really was,
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you could actually like him, but he had no compassion
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for anyone, no feelings for anyone. These people didn't matter
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to him, not at all. He didn't hate them, he
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just didn't have any feelings for them, none whatsoever.
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This killer's story begins in Mattoon, Illinois, a small city
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in America's Midwest.
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Stebert was born in 1954, so these were the post-war
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years in the U.S. The economy was starting to boom.
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We have the idea of the American dream, but I
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think when we look behind closed doors at his family life,
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it was anything but that. There were reports of abuse
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from his father towards his mother.
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And towards him.
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Father was an aggressive man. He mistreated both Danny and
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his mother.
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He was a man who was violent and abusive and controlling.
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And this is the role model of masculinity that Siebert
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grows up with. So I think that there is a
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real sense of shame that Siebert maintains throughout his life.
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And having been victimized, I think that Siebert was always
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trying to turn the tables and be the aggressor.
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Siebert's parents divorced in 1968, just a month before his
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14th birthday. the young man's life began to spiral out
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of control.
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He became addicted to drugs. He had got into prostitution,
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himself acting as a male prostitute.
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I think there were several warning signs in Siebert's childhood
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and adolescence that point towards a very troubled individual. He's
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somebody who could not make relationships work with other people.
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He didn't relate to his peers particularly well. There was
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a feeling of rejection from the family environment. And it's
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this sense of isolation and later the choice to be isolated,
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which is something that's very concerning for me.
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There was nothing about him that could be described as ordered.
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He was like a Catherine wheel, going round and round
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in every single direction, a firework.
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Aged 18 and looking for some stability in his life,
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Siebert enrolled with the military in 1972.
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Siebert's decision to try and join the Marines is a really,
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really interesting part of this case because it's what that
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decision symbolizes. The Marines symbolize this alpha male, this toughness,
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this kind of real American hero-type persona, and I think
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Siebert wanted to try and live up to that.
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Unfortunately.
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He couldn't deal with the order the Marines brought him.
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And quickly, well, within a year, went absent without leave.
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After being dishonorably discharged from the Marines, Siebert was once
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again at a loose end. But the troubled young man
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had a hidden talent that soon began to flourish.
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One thing that Siebert excelled at was as an artist.
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It was the only thing he was good at.
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You can tell by looking at some of his drawings,
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it was just, you know, I think he was expressing
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his fantasies in his drawings. That's how he got started
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with that. He was quite a person. I mean, he
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had an engaging personality. Enjoyable to talk with, really. If
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you didn't know what kind of person he was down deep,
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you would need to actually enjoy sitting and talking with him.
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But life for the charming young artist remained difficult.
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Between 1972 and 1978, He was principally based in Los Angeles,
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and there were a series of offenses, drug offenses, some violence,
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charges of battery. It was a life lived on the edge,
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on the fringes of society and on the fringes of
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the law.
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By January 1979, 24-year-old Siebert was living in Las Vegas.
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He was in a relationship with a male partner. It
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was reportedly an abusive one that ended with him fatally
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stabbing his lover.
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This homicide was a particularly vicious one because Siebert stabbed
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his partner 29 times. Now, for me, that means that
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he has made that decision 29 times to put the
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knife in again. This was somebody who knew what they
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were doing, they knew what they were doing was wrong,
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and they chose to do it anyway.
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Despite the viciousness of the slaying, at his subsequent trial,
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Siebert was charged with manslaughter, not murder.
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Siebert insisted... that it was a matter of self-defense. How
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it can be to stab someone that many times is
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slightly beyond me. But it did seek to throw into
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doubt whether it was a premeditated murder and therefore added
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strength to the argument that it was a crime of passion.
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I think because this was a homosexual relationship, there was
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a tendency for the court to just want to accept
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that narrative and put this case to bed because there
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was still stigma around homosexuality in the U.S.
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At this time.
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And I think that was perhaps what drove this offence
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in the first place, because a lot of violence has
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its roots in shame. I think Siebert was fundamentally ashamed
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of who he was. He never accepted who he was.
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He never felt that society would accept him for his
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true identity. So I think this early offence is so important,
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and the criminal justice system's reaction to it was just
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not good enough.
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Siebert was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but after
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serving just two, he escaped while on work detail in
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December 1981.
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Now, we really do have a lethal weapon waiting to
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go off. While he's on the run, he kidnaps a
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woman at gunpoint in San Francisco, and she only escapes
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by jumping out of the moving car on the Golden
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Gate Bridge. It is a remarkable, remarkable escape, because in
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my own mind, I'm not the slightest doubt that he
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intended to kill her.
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Siebert was recaptured the following day in nearby Oakland and
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returned to prison. An extra year was added to his sentence,
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but in 1985, he was freed on parole on the
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proviso that he would return to court to face charges
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for the abduction and assault he'd committed during his brief escape.
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due to attend court in San Francisco in December 1985,
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Siebert didn't turn up. His next known whereabouts were over
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800 miles away in Tucson, Arizona, where he was found
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hitchhiking and heading east.
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But now Daniel Siebert is not calling himself Daniel Siebert,
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he's calling himself Daniel Spence. He's given a lift by
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a man called Donald Hedron, who is on his way
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to Alabama. Before the journey comes to an end, Donald
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has offered Spence a post as a volunteer at the
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Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, in which Hedron works.
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Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind is a big
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part of the Toledo community. It's actually a community of
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its own, or a family of its own, you might say.
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And he has, superficially at least, the perfect cover.
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Artistic young man, happy to volunteer at an institute for
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those with deafness and blindness.
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Leaving his troubles in California far behind him, Siebert settled
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down in Talladega, Alabama, in January 1986. Working at the AIDB,
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he had a new identity and a new community of friends.
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After he arrived here, people realized that he was an
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accomplished artist, and he was asked to do a mural
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at AIDB, which he did. And that's one of the
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reasons he stayed here for a while, was doing that mural.
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Once again, he hid in plain sight the affable identity
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art volunteer, friend of Donald, welcome in the Institute. And then,
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and it's almost heartbreaking, he meets Sherry Ann Weathers, a
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24-year-old deaf mother of two small boys, and they form
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a relationship.
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A new circle of friends had welcomed 31-year-old Daniel Siebert
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into their lives with open arms, but they had no
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idea they'd allowed a brutal killer into their close-knit community.
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Siebert spent much of his time at the apartment of
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his new girlfriend, 24-year-old Sherry Weathers. By the 24th of February, Sherry,
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a single mother of two, hadn't turned up at the
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school for almost a week. her concerned friends contacted the authorities.
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In February 1986, the police department received a call for
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a welfare check at Sunrise Apartments in Talladega. Police were dispatched.
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Officer Tom Byrman was the first on the scene. When
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he entered Sherry Weathers' apartment, he discovered the bodies of
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Sherry Weathers and the two boys. He immediately backed out,
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locked the door and called for investigations.
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Eugene was joined on the case by an investigator from
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the district attorney's office, Dennis Surrett.
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We arrived at the apartments, and the police department had
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already had the scene roped off, and we met the
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other investigators, went into the apartment, and as you walk
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into the room, there's a bedroom, and then there's a
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living room, and there's a kitchen. And right in the
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center of the living room and the kitchen, you see
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three bodies.
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It's quite horrible. I haven't forgotten it after all these years.
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One of the next door neighbors had heard the two
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little boys playing in a tub. He got them out
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of the vehicle. He strangled the two little boys.
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He actually woke them up because they were in bed asleep.
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He wanted them to know that they were being killed.
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He wanted them to feel that fear.
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And he stacked their bodies on top of the mother.
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It looked like it formed a cross. That's my first impression.
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Sherry Weathers and her two sons, five-year-old Chad and four-year-old Joseph,
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had been strangled to death five days earlier on the
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19th of February. It was a sickening scene, even for
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seasoned detectives, but the team knew they needed to stay
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professional and not let their emotions get in the way
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of their police work.
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You know the minute you walk into that scene, you
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know this is a death penalty case. And you know
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things have to be done differently. Everything has to be perfect.
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Everything has to be exact. Everything has to be documented.
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I's dotted, T's crossed, because you know where this is
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headed to. Because you know a murder of two or
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more is going to be a death penalty case. And
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then the emotional part hits you. You know, this is
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a young mother. This is two young children having their
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lives ahead of them. What kind of person would do this?
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I mean, it mostly hits you. That's the second thing.
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That's the reality is what you got. Then mostly you're hit,
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you know, especially if you have children.
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When you see something like that, you can't help but
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think about your own child. This could happen to my
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child too. It's something that you don't, you just don't
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forget about it.
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Just as the two investigators were getting to grips with
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their Halloween day, some more worrying news came in.
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We're in the middle of processing that scene. We'd been
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there probably, two or three hours, processing the scene for evidence.
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And then we were notified that Linda Jarman, who was
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a friend of Sherry Weathers, she did not show up
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for classes that day.
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She lived in an adjoining apartment, not to this building,
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but to the next building. So Dennis and I went
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00:15:43.379 --> 00:15:47.840
to her apartment, and we discovered her on the bed,
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00:15:47.879 --> 00:15:49.899
in the bedroom, and she'd been strangled.
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33-year-old Linda Jarman, a deaf teacher at the same institute
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00:15:55.629 --> 00:15:59.639
where Sherry was a student, had been murdered in cold blood.
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00:16:00.500 --> 00:16:02.740
He used a sock and just strangled her in her
250
00:16:02.779 --> 00:16:05.539
own bed. Of course, most people don't know what a
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00:16:05.559 --> 00:16:08.179
VCR is these day and times, but back in those days,
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00:16:08.200 --> 00:16:10.929
VCR was worth some money, so he stole her VCR
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00:16:10.970 --> 00:16:12.690
in order to get money to travel further.
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Linda Jarman's cream-colored car was also missing. the team would
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00:16:20.110 --> 00:16:26.029
report their findings to former Talladega County District Attorney Robert Rumsey.
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00:16:27.570 --> 00:16:33.000
The evidence would show that after he strangled Sherry and
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00:16:33.100 --> 00:16:37.399
Chad and Joey, that he went to Linda Jarman's apartment
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00:16:38.059 --> 00:16:40.879
telling her that he had had a fight with Sherry
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00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:44.639
and could he sleep on her couch. When she went
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00:16:44.700 --> 00:16:46.659
back to bed and went to sleep, then he went
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00:16:46.759 --> 00:16:49.960
in and he strangled her to get her car to leave.
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00:16:50.919 --> 00:16:54.570
After speaking to acquaintances and colleagues of Sherry and Linda,
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00:16:54.909 --> 00:16:58.250
the detectives soon had a number one suspect who they
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00:16:58.309 --> 00:17:00.909
discovered had been using a different alias.
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00:17:02.070 --> 00:17:05.019
At that point, we learned the name Daniel Spence from
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00:17:05.039 --> 00:17:08.019
the people at the school. And we start running him
267
00:17:08.059 --> 00:17:10.500
in the computer to see if we find out Daniel Spence,
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00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:12.640
who is he, where is he, everything we could find out.
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00:17:13.509 --> 00:17:17.450
And it's determined that his name is actually Daniel Lee Siebert.
270
00:17:18.309 --> 00:17:21.430
Once we developed him as a suspect and got his
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00:17:21.470 --> 00:17:25.200
true identity, we put a nationwide pickup out on Danny
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00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:29.180
Siebert and Linda Jarman's car. He quickly became the prime
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00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:34.480
suspect because Daniel Spence wasn't here and Linda Jarman's car
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00:17:34.529 --> 00:17:34.920
was gone.
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00:17:37.029 --> 00:17:40.730
As the duo headed to Siebert's apartment building, they soon
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00:17:40.769 --> 00:17:43.789
discovered there was another potential victim.
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00:17:44.809 --> 00:17:49.420
So we go knocking on the door, and there's no
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00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:52.839
answer at the door. A neighbor comes out and says,
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00:17:52.900 --> 00:17:55.420
why are you here? I said, we're looking to see Mr. Siebert.
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00:17:56.099 --> 00:17:57.880
He said, well, he's not here. He said, but I
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00:17:57.880 --> 00:18:01.559
got to tell you, my girlfriend's missing. Well, who's your girlfriend?
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00:18:01.700 --> 00:18:04.680
It's Linda Odom. How long has she been missing? Oh,
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00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:08.099
two days. I hadn't seen her. She hadn't been home. Well,
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00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:10.660
do you know if she's ever connected with this guy here, Mr.
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00:18:10.779 --> 00:18:11.180
Siebert?
286
00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:14.049
Yeah, they're kind of friends. Well, you need to go
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00:18:14.069 --> 00:18:15.309
to the police department and file a report.
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00:18:16.529 --> 00:18:20.210
In the space of 24 hours, four people had been
289
00:18:20.289 --> 00:18:25.170
found dead and another was missing. The investigators needed to
290
00:18:25.250 --> 00:18:30.380
find Daniel Siebert fast, and they soon had word from
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00:18:30.460 --> 00:18:32.440
authorities over 350 miles north of Talladega.
292
00:18:36.049 --> 00:18:40.970
We received information from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, that they had located
293
00:18:41.269 --> 00:18:45.730
Linda Jarman's car right off the interstate in Elizabethtown. That's
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00:18:45.750 --> 00:18:48.329
when Dennis and I left here to go there to
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00:18:48.450 --> 00:18:51.470
process the car for fingerprints and physical evidence.
296
00:18:52.250 --> 00:18:54.289
And so they take us to the scene, and we
297
00:18:54.329 --> 00:18:56.430
go up an embankment from where the car was, and
298
00:18:56.450 --> 00:19:00.190
we find a campsite. We uncover a campsite. And Eugene
299
00:19:00.309 --> 00:19:03.539
and I, we find identification to the boys. We found
300
00:19:03.619 --> 00:19:07.160
information on Shea Weathers and Linda Jarman all at that campsite.
301
00:19:07.220 --> 00:19:09.779
So we're fairly certain at this time we're on the
302
00:19:09.819 --> 00:19:10.339
right trail.
303
00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:15.980
It was a huge breakthrough that confirmed Daniel Siebert was
304
00:19:16.059 --> 00:19:16.720
their man.
305
00:19:17.640 --> 00:19:20.799
We got Daniel Siebert's fingerprints out of the car. Plus,
306
00:19:21.259 --> 00:19:23.920
other evidence we knew that tied to him, the type
307
00:19:23.940 --> 00:19:26.180
of cigarettes he smoked and the type of chewing gum
308
00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:30.269
that he chewed. We recovered photographs of women and children,
309
00:19:30.869 --> 00:19:32.569
women's cosmetics.
310
00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:37.740
There were also some quite chilling items at this campsite.
311
00:19:37.789 --> 00:19:41.069
There were photos of the Weathers family. There were drawings
312
00:19:41.470 --> 00:19:44.430
of the Weathers family. And I think this emphasis on
313
00:19:44.470 --> 00:19:48.549
those victims is so significant in this case. This young
314
00:19:48.589 --> 00:19:51.289
mother and her two children seem to have quite a
315
00:19:51.329 --> 00:19:54.670
lot of importance for Siebert because I think that he
316
00:19:54.750 --> 00:19:58.390
didn't feel they deserved to be alive. These boys were happy.
317
00:19:58.759 --> 00:20:01.339
They were loved and cared for by their mother. I
318
00:20:01.359 --> 00:20:04.119
think he felt a real sense of envy and resentment
319
00:20:04.160 --> 00:20:06.900
towards them. It was something that he wanted to relive.
320
00:20:07.309 --> 00:20:10.190
and I think those three murders of Sherry Wellers and
321
00:20:10.210 --> 00:20:13.049
her two children were the murders he was most proud of.
322
00:20:14.230 --> 00:20:18.960
Despite being sure Siebert was responsible for at least four murders,
323
00:20:19.339 --> 00:20:22.220
the dangerous killer remained undetected.
324
00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:28.880
Dennis and Eugene, both of them are excellent processors. They go,
325
00:20:28.900 --> 00:20:33.349
and they're in Kentucky for quite a while, so they
326
00:20:33.369 --> 00:20:37.440
were up there several days, and he's In the wind,
327
00:20:37.650 --> 00:20:40.190
we didn't know where he was, but we knew that
328
00:20:40.230 --> 00:20:42.849
somebody was going to die until he was caught.
329
00:20:43.769 --> 00:20:47.730
In Linda's car, Eugene and Dennis had recovered an address
330
00:20:47.769 --> 00:20:53.150
book belonging to 31-year-old Siebert, which would eventually prove to
331
00:20:53.210 --> 00:20:54.599
be an important find.
332
00:20:55.539 --> 00:21:00.039
I had one investigator. Her main job, I'd say, in
333
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:04.799
this investigation was to stay in contact with non-associates of Siebert.
334
00:21:06.019 --> 00:21:09.539
She had built a rapport with the girlfriend of Siebert's
335
00:21:09.619 --> 00:21:12.309
out there, and she promised that if she heard from him,
336
00:21:12.349 --> 00:21:13.089
she would call.
337
00:21:14.390 --> 00:21:18.329
With every day that passed, the investigators knew Siebert could
338
00:21:18.390 --> 00:21:20.549
strike again at any moment.
339
00:21:21.549 --> 00:21:23.730
Each day when you went to work, the first thing
340
00:21:23.750 --> 00:21:26.779
you did was start checking tips and leads on the
341
00:21:26.819 --> 00:21:29.279
possibility of where Siebert was. There wasn't a day that
342
00:21:29.319 --> 00:21:32.000
went by that you didn't do something on the Siebert case.
343
00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:36.009
I don't know how many miles that we put on
344
00:21:36.069 --> 00:21:39.880
cars going from here to there to check out leads
345
00:21:39.960 --> 00:21:43.299
or information on Siebert or some of his friends or this, that,
346
00:21:43.319 --> 00:21:46.039
and the other. I mean, Lord, there's no telling.
347
00:21:46.839 --> 00:21:50.920
As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, Siebert's
348
00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:56.329
location remained a mystery. The investigators desperately searched in vain.
349
00:21:56.970 --> 00:22:01.990
But in reality, he was over 900 miles from Talladega, Alabama,
350
00:22:02.390 --> 00:22:07.019
in New Jersey. and was about to claim another victim,
351
00:22:07.039 --> 00:22:10.200
57-year-old tour guide Beatrice McDougall.
352
00:22:11.609 --> 00:22:17.789
Daniel Siebert was in Atlantic City, staying in a hotel.
353
00:22:18.529 --> 00:22:23.789
On March 8th of 1986, walks by a room of Mrs.
354
00:22:23.869 --> 00:22:29.190
McDougall that was a tour guide. She was fixing up
355
00:22:29.230 --> 00:22:32.170
for reception for a hospitality.
356
00:22:31.369 --> 00:22:34.730
Room, He would have deduced fairly quickly that she's a
357
00:22:34.769 --> 00:22:37.670
tall guy, so she's likely to have some cash on her.
358
00:22:38.490 --> 00:22:42.210
Siebert was determined to get his hands on Beatrice's money
359
00:22:42.589 --> 00:22:44.269
by any means necessary.
360
00:22:45.130 --> 00:22:49.269
And he goes in there and kills her. We don't
361
00:22:49.890 --> 00:22:52.880
know at that point that it's Siebert, but he's off
362
00:22:52.930 --> 00:22:54.680
and in the wind, and we ain't got a clue
363
00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:56.180
where he is after that.
364
00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:58.299
He just drops off the radar.
365
00:22:59.579 --> 00:23:04.059
Siebert had stabbed Beatrice twice in the stomach and strangled
366
00:23:04.119 --> 00:23:07.019
her to death in an opportunistic attack.
367
00:23:08.269 --> 00:23:11.369
I think that there is just no regard for the
368
00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:14.750
rights or the feelings of other people. It's all about him.
369
00:23:15.170 --> 00:23:17.589
He needs money at this point in time because he's
370
00:23:17.769 --> 00:23:21.210
on the run. He also wants to kill any potential
371
00:23:21.250 --> 00:23:24.230
witness to this crime, this crime of theft, so her
372
00:23:24.289 --> 00:23:26.450
life was just not considered valuable by him.
373
00:23:27.829 --> 00:23:33.210
As Siebert remained undetected, the bad news continued for investigators
374
00:23:33.309 --> 00:23:38.779
in Alabama. On the 30th of March, 1986, another victim
375
00:23:38.819 --> 00:23:42.099
of the 31-year-old artist would be discovered.
376
00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:46.079
We're all actually at the DA's office working on another case,
377
00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:50.319
and we recall that we've got a body. And just
378
00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:54.069
outside of Talladega, there's a little cemetery on the left-hand
379
00:23:54.170 --> 00:23:57.839
side of Alabama Highway 21. And there we find a
380
00:23:58.140 --> 00:24:01.049
skeletonized body. No question, it had been there for a
381
00:24:01.049 --> 00:24:04.210
long time. Decomposition had already come and gone. And we
382
00:24:04.250 --> 00:24:06.809
sift through everything. She's not buried or anything. She's been
383
00:24:06.849 --> 00:24:09.190
laid on top of the ground. We know it's a female,
384
00:24:09.329 --> 00:24:11.509
and that's all we know. And we sift through the
385
00:24:11.529 --> 00:24:14.690
pine straw and everything, looking for all the bones, the teeth,
386
00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:16.579
and this, that, and the other that we could find
387
00:24:16.599 --> 00:24:20.500
to identify. And ultimately, she was identified as Linda Odom,
388
00:24:20.859 --> 00:24:24.079
the girl that was missing from the next-door neighbor, Seabrook.
389
00:24:25.019 --> 00:24:30.660
The timeline suggested that 32-year-old cocktail waitress Linda Odom was
390
00:24:30.740 --> 00:24:38.000
Siebert's first victim. Siebert strangled Linda on the 19th of February, 1986,
391
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.109
meaning he killed five people on that one day.
392
00:24:42.450 --> 00:24:47.069
Linda's body was taken to Siebert's apartment, and he disposes
393
00:24:47.289 --> 00:24:50.470
of the body by lowering it in sheets out of
394
00:24:50.490 --> 00:24:54.359
the window, and then taking it to a nearby cemetery
395
00:24:54.519 --> 00:24:58.329
to dispose of it. And interestingly, Siebert said that when
396
00:24:58.369 --> 00:25:02.410
he was disposing of Linda's body, he started punching her.
397
00:25:02.430 --> 00:25:05.329
I mean, she was obviously dead at this point in time,
398
00:25:05.670 --> 00:25:08.039
but I think that was something that enhanced his feelings
399
00:25:08.099 --> 00:25:11.420
of control over this victim. And I think that that
400
00:25:11.460 --> 00:25:14.299
sense of rage as well that he expresses at this
401
00:25:14.359 --> 00:25:17.039
point in time, the way that he's seeing this community,
402
00:25:17.079 --> 00:25:20.259
this community who are so welcoming, who are so inclusive,
403
00:25:20.319 --> 00:25:23.440
who are loving towards one another, this is something that
404
00:25:23.519 --> 00:25:26.220
he feels he was entitled to when he was younger,
405
00:25:26.279 --> 00:25:29.119
something that he never had. And these people don't deserve it,
406
00:25:29.289 --> 00:25:31.990
according to him. So I think that's what's underlying all
407
00:25:32.009 --> 00:25:32.809
of this behavior.
408
00:25:32.829 --> 00:25:37.670
This is a young girl. She didn't deserve what happened
409
00:25:37.690 --> 00:25:42.680
to her. but she just dumped in the cemetery. That
410
00:25:42.700 --> 00:25:44.720
kind of hurts your heart that somebody is so cruel
411
00:25:44.759 --> 00:25:45.839
to do something like that.
412
00:25:46.859 --> 00:25:50.519
What the detectives in Alabama didn't know is that by now,
413
00:25:50.900 --> 00:25:55.019
Siebert was in prison in New Jersey, serving 61 days
414
00:25:55.299 --> 00:25:59.519
for assaulting a woman. When he was arrested for the altercation,
415
00:25:59.839 --> 00:26:04.140
he used a stolen Social Security card of murdered 5-year-old
416
00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:08.690
Chad Weathers as identification. This meant that no one had
417
00:26:08.730 --> 00:26:12.230
made the link between Siebert and any of the murders.
418
00:26:13.210 --> 00:26:15.589
So during the time that Siebert was on the run,
419
00:26:15.690 --> 00:26:20.339
he actually used the identities of Sherry Weathers' two boys
420
00:26:21.059 --> 00:26:24.779
to gain new identification. And at this point in time,
421
00:26:24.819 --> 00:26:27.200
it was relatively easy to do that, to use a
422
00:26:27.220 --> 00:26:30.900
child's identity to get a social security number. But I
423
00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:33.470
think that the significance of this is more than just
424
00:26:33.509 --> 00:26:37.730
a practicality. I think there is something much more meaningful
425
00:26:37.769 --> 00:26:42.980
going on here. By possessing these children's names, by presenting
426
00:26:43.019 --> 00:26:46.660
yourself as them, you are owning them, you are possessing them,
427
00:26:46.700 --> 00:26:50.160
they are yours, and it's that extension of control over
428
00:26:50.180 --> 00:26:50.839
your victims.
429
00:26:51.980 --> 00:26:55.609
After serving his time for the assault, Siebert was in
430
00:26:55.690 --> 00:27:01.029
police custody again in June 1986, this time in Virginia.
431
00:27:02.150 --> 00:27:05.450
This young officer stops Siebert, And in the car, he
432
00:27:05.490 --> 00:27:11.609
finds ropes and knives, ladies' belongings, photographs, just all types
433
00:27:11.670 --> 00:27:14.529
of things that just made him very suspicious of this man.
434
00:27:16.789 --> 00:27:19.309
They checked the car, and it was stolen. So he
435
00:27:19.349 --> 00:27:25.059
was arrested for car theft, being in possession of the
436
00:27:25.099 --> 00:27:29.299
stolen car. He was using the identity of Joey Weathers,
437
00:27:29.700 --> 00:27:33.279
using the Social Security card as identification.
438
00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:36.430
He made bond and he was gone.
439
00:27:37.430 --> 00:27:41.730
Seabert was incredibly cunning, incredibly manipulative. I think he was
440
00:27:41.829 --> 00:27:45.309
well aware of the fact that law enforcement wasn't particularly
441
00:27:45.349 --> 00:27:49.359
well joined up in terms of interstate communication and sharing
442
00:27:49.380 --> 00:27:52.299
of information at this time. And I think he truly
443
00:27:52.339 --> 00:27:53.660
did take advantage of that.
444
00:27:54.859 --> 00:27:59.279
In August, Siebert was yet again in another state, Maryland.
445
00:27:59.900 --> 00:28:03.700
He assaulted a woman in Baltimore but wasn't captured by
446
00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:08.750
the police. He then headed back west towards Nashville, Tennessee.
447
00:28:09.309 --> 00:28:13.609
The investigators in Alabama still had no idea where he was,
448
00:28:13.970 --> 00:28:18.329
but a breakthrough was on the horizon. Detectives who'd reached
449
00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:21.809
out to people listed in Siebert's address book had been
450
00:28:21.930 --> 00:28:26.529
contacted by one of his ex-girlfriends in Nevada. She had
451
00:28:26.630 --> 00:28:29.410
news that would finally crack the case.
452
00:28:30.339 --> 00:28:33.019
This lady calls from out there and says that she
453
00:28:33.059 --> 00:28:35.799
had just spoken with Danny Siebert on the phone, and
454
00:28:35.839 --> 00:28:38.099
he told her what time it was where he was at.
455
00:28:39.019 --> 00:28:42.930
And she could hear thunder, and it was raining. So
456
00:28:42.950 --> 00:28:45.069
the investigator came and then told the rest of us
457
00:28:45.589 --> 00:28:48.269
about the call and that it was raining at that
458
00:28:48.369 --> 00:28:49.269
particular time.
459
00:28:50.230 --> 00:28:54.599
With very little information, the investigators tried to trace the
460
00:28:54.690 --> 00:28:56.599
source of Siebert's call.
461
00:28:57.339 --> 00:29:00.039
Said it was not easy to trace telephone calls, but
462
00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:02.900
they told us if we had any idea where he was,
463
00:29:02.920 --> 00:29:04.640
it would make it a lot easier. Otherwise, it could
464
00:29:04.660 --> 00:29:07.640
take three weeks to a month to trace it. I
465
00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:10.799
told the investigator, go call the National Weather Service, find
466
00:29:10.859 --> 00:29:13.309
out where it's raining and that time's all. It was
467
00:29:13.349 --> 00:29:16.549
raining in Tennessee. That was it in that time zone.
468
00:29:17.289 --> 00:29:19.750
We were able to use that information and trace the
469
00:29:19.809 --> 00:29:24.970
telephone call to Hurricane Mills in Tennessee to a little
470
00:29:25.009 --> 00:29:27.490
convenience store restaurant there.
471
00:29:28.609 --> 00:29:33.250
It was a stunning revelation. Detectives could now pinpoint Siebert
472
00:29:33.509 --> 00:29:38.269
to the small community of Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, 70 miles
473
00:29:38.390 --> 00:29:39.789
west of Nashville.
474
00:29:40.740 --> 00:29:44.059
So I called the district attorney, told him we were
475
00:29:44.079 --> 00:29:47.220
going to Tennessee. He said, okay, I'm coming with you.
476
00:29:47.240 --> 00:29:50.359
There's no question we were keyed up because we'd spent
477
00:29:50.519 --> 00:29:53.539
six months and no matter how many trips, not me,
478
00:29:54.180 --> 00:29:57.539
but how many trips with the investigators and stuff had
479
00:29:57.619 --> 00:30:01.009
gone on, running down every little lead that they could
480
00:30:01.049 --> 00:30:05.630
come up with, which really had proved fruitless. But this
481
00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:07.259
is a live hit now.
482
00:30:08.079 --> 00:30:10.880
So we all loaded up in cars, headed to Tennessee.
483
00:30:10.900 --> 00:30:14.500
I called TBI, which is Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. This
484
00:30:14.519 --> 00:30:17.359
is what we've got going on. We kind of traced
485
00:30:17.380 --> 00:30:19.609
to this location, and we're headed that way.
486
00:30:21.180 --> 00:30:24.339
After six and a half months of searching for Siebert,
487
00:30:24.660 --> 00:30:28.079
the anticipation of his arrest was at the forefront of
488
00:30:28.119 --> 00:30:29.539
the detectives' minds.
489
00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:33.460
The journey up there was, it's almost like waiting for
490
00:30:33.500 --> 00:30:37.039
your birthday party. We were all extremely excited.
491
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:40.380
Well, the time we got there was late night, and
492
00:30:40.420 --> 00:30:43.960
we decided not to do anything but send one other
493
00:30:44.019 --> 00:30:47.500
investigator in there to see if they could see anything
494
00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:50.019
to the search first, because you had this service station
495
00:30:50.039 --> 00:30:53.210
where that the call was from, and then you had
496
00:30:53.230 --> 00:30:55.369
a restaurant up here, and then you had another filling
497
00:30:55.390 --> 00:30:58.549
station and a restaurant up here. So one investigator went in,
498
00:30:58.849 --> 00:31:02.380
kind of knew the owner, and said, yeah, he's been
499
00:31:02.410 --> 00:31:05.420
paying some signs for me, and he'll be in here
500
00:31:05.460 --> 00:31:06.660
in the morning to collect his check.
501
00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:11.700
It would be a sleepless night for the arresting officers.
502
00:31:12.539 --> 00:31:16.880
Everybody's upbeat. Everybody's tired, but everybody's upbeat. And I don't
503
00:31:16.900 --> 00:31:19.420
think a single one of us took a nap that night.
504
00:31:19.849 --> 00:31:21.529
out there on the road, because we were just on
505
00:31:21.549 --> 00:31:24.940
the roadway waiting for morning.
506
00:31:26.420 --> 00:31:31.039
The following morning, the 5th of September, 1986, the team
507
00:31:31.099 --> 00:31:35.029
were ready to pounce as dawn broke over Hurricane Mills.
508
00:31:36.069 --> 00:31:38.109
It's hard to describe what it was like sitting there
509
00:31:38.130 --> 00:31:41.029
waiting for him to come around the building, but I'd
510
00:31:41.069 --> 00:31:43.470
always wondered if I'd recognize him when I saw him.
511
00:31:44.549 --> 00:31:46.430
When he rounded the corner of that building, there was
512
00:31:46.470 --> 00:31:49.019
no doubt in my mind, that's him. As soon as
513
00:31:49.059 --> 00:31:51.039
he went in the door, Dennis and I were out
514
00:31:51.079 --> 00:31:56.099
the door. We went in behind him. He wasn't there.
515
00:31:57.079 --> 00:32:00.170
Scared to death. We just looked at the clerk, where
516
00:32:00.210 --> 00:32:02.130
is he? And she pointed to the restroom. And we
517
00:32:02.150 --> 00:32:06.190
went in. And TBI and the captain went in and
518
00:32:06.250 --> 00:32:11.670
arrested him in the men's room. His only question to
519
00:32:11.750 --> 00:32:13.500
us was, how'd y'all find him?
520
00:32:14.440 --> 00:32:16.720
I mean, he's got about six weapons just aimed at him,
521
00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:19.809
and he's caught with his butts down, basically. We seized
522
00:32:19.829 --> 00:32:23.170
his backpack. We found where he'd been staying in a car,
523
00:32:23.650 --> 00:32:26.990
a wrecked-out car behind the station, and he is immediately
524
00:32:27.049 --> 00:32:31.130
taken to the court in Tennessee, and we contacted our
525
00:32:31.170 --> 00:32:34.089
governor and asked her for her plane to fly him back.
526
00:32:35.109 --> 00:32:39.490
Finally, Daniel Siebert was in police custody. He would never
527
00:32:39.549 --> 00:32:40.670
be free again.
528
00:32:41.380 --> 00:32:44.059
I mean, man alive, you can't even imagine the relief
529
00:32:44.099 --> 00:32:47.519
you feel. We've got him. He's not gonna hurt anybody else.
530
00:32:48.380 --> 00:32:50.460
And there again, you're thinking of Sherry, and you're thinking
531
00:32:50.480 --> 00:32:54.160
of the babies, and Linda, and Linda Oden, you're thinking
532
00:32:54.200 --> 00:32:56.390
about them. Okay, we can put everybody to rest now.
533
00:32:56.789 --> 00:32:58.809
And it's the best feeling in the world.
534
00:32:59.730 --> 00:33:02.789
The police had their man, but the job was far
535
00:33:02.849 --> 00:33:07.119
from done. Detectives were certain he was responsible for the
536
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:11.529
murders of five people in the small community. Linda Odom,
537
00:33:11.869 --> 00:33:16.329
Linda Jarman, Sherry Weathers, and her two sons, Chad and Joey.
538
00:33:17.150 --> 00:33:21.289
Investigators had stacks of evidence against Siebert, but they were
539
00:33:21.349 --> 00:33:26.529
hoping an interview with the 32-year-old would uncover even more secrets.
540
00:33:27.789 --> 00:33:31.640
It was tense for me, and I'm sure it was
541
00:33:31.660 --> 00:33:34.960
for the captain, because we were wanting to get a confession.
542
00:33:36.200 --> 00:33:40.029
This was the end of a long, hard journey, and
543
00:33:40.069 --> 00:33:42.210
we wanted him to admit what he had done.
544
00:33:43.549 --> 00:33:47.369
Siebert told Eugene about the five murders he'd committed on
545
00:33:47.410 --> 00:33:51.829
the 19th of February, 1986, and also confessed to the
546
00:33:51.869 --> 00:33:55.710
killing of Beatrice McDougal in Atlantic City on the 8th
547
00:33:55.750 --> 00:34:00.160
of March. He showed no remorse for any of the murders.
548
00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:06.630
He wasn't concerned at all. Showed no emotion whatsoever. Never
549
00:34:06.670 --> 00:34:08.889
shed a tear. You could tell there was no concern
550
00:34:08.989 --> 00:34:11.889
in him about what he had done. And if we
551
00:34:11.929 --> 00:34:14.190
had released him right there, he'd have done it again
552
00:34:14.250 --> 00:34:17.190
in a few days because he had no remorse whatsoever
553
00:34:17.230 --> 00:34:20.650
for what he'd done. I've told people to know how
554
00:34:21.190 --> 00:34:24.369
he felt about his victims. He didn't feel about his victims.
555
00:34:24.769 --> 00:34:26.289
He had no feelings for them one way or the other.
556
00:34:26.889 --> 00:34:29.329
He had no feelings for anyone. I don't know that
557
00:34:29.349 --> 00:34:32.329
he really felt a thing about himself, to be honest
558
00:34:32.349 --> 00:34:34.429
with you. He just, he had no feelings.
559
00:34:35.510 --> 00:34:36.880
I think he was a psychopath.
560
00:34:37.559 --> 00:34:40.579
I think he demonstrated every normal, or if you can
561
00:34:40.840 --> 00:34:43.440
use the word normal when applied to a psychopath, every
562
00:34:43.500 --> 00:34:47.800
possible psychopathic tendency. An utter lack of remorse, an utter
563
00:34:47.840 --> 00:34:50.960
lack of conscience, an utter lack of empathy with other people.
564
00:34:51.380 --> 00:34:52.340
They were simply objects.
565
00:34:54.090 --> 00:34:59.130
Siebert also confessed to another murder that predated any of
566
00:34:59.170 --> 00:35:02.849
the other six whilst he was lodging with Donald Hendron
567
00:35:03.150 --> 00:35:03.869
in Alabama.
568
00:35:04.989 --> 00:35:11.239
It's early February 1986. Donald Hendron's asleep. Siebert gets out
569
00:35:11.280 --> 00:35:15.579
of bed and borrows Donald's car and picks up a
570
00:35:15.619 --> 00:35:20.480
girl called Cheryl Evans. She's working as a prostitute in
571
00:35:20.519 --> 00:35:21.619
Birmingham and Alabama.
572
00:35:22.300 --> 00:35:26.809
He kidnapped her, robbed her and killed her and carried
573
00:35:26.849 --> 00:35:30.989
her body to Ohatchee and dumped it in a roadside
574
00:35:31.050 --> 00:35:34.349
garbage dump and then just returned the car like nothing
575
00:35:34.389 --> 00:35:35.130
had happened.
576
00:35:35.539 --> 00:35:39.210
That brought the tally of victims to seven, but Eugene
577
00:35:39.269 --> 00:35:42.670
was certain there were still more. He had uncovered a
578
00:35:42.750 --> 00:35:47.469
telling piece of evidence when searching Siebert's home back in February.
579
00:35:48.429 --> 00:35:51.559
In his apartment, I'd found a road atlas. I'd gone
580
00:35:51.579 --> 00:35:53.739
through the road atlas, and out on the west coast,
581
00:35:53.800 --> 00:35:58.059
he had had X's with zeros, X's and zeros, and
582
00:35:58.079 --> 00:36:01.760
he just had X's. I asked him about those, and
583
00:36:01.800 --> 00:36:03.619
he said every place that there was an X with
584
00:36:03.659 --> 00:36:06.059
a circle around it is where he had killed someone.
585
00:36:06.539 --> 00:36:10.420
And just the Xs were robberies. I contacted each of
586
00:36:10.460 --> 00:36:13.179
these jurisdictions, and sure enough, each place that there was
587
00:36:13.219 --> 00:36:16.719
an X with a circle, they had recovered a body.
588
00:36:17.400 --> 00:36:22.420
This is basically Siebert's commemoration of the murders that he's committed.
589
00:36:22.519 --> 00:36:24.920
I think every time he looked at that map, he
590
00:36:24.940 --> 00:36:28.179
would have felt powerful. He would have felt superior. and
591
00:36:28.429 --> 00:36:30.269
we do often see this in cases.
592
00:36:29.969 --> 00:36:30.829
Of serial killers.
593
00:36:31.809 --> 00:36:35.710
Siebert confessed to killing three sex workers in Nevada and
594
00:36:35.769 --> 00:36:39.610
California in late 1985.
595
00:36:39.610 --> 00:36:42.730
The fact that he's targeted sex workers is really significant
596
00:36:42.750 --> 00:36:46.750
for me because he's preying upon these women's vulnerabilities. He's
597
00:36:46.809 --> 00:36:51.030
well aware that society does not value these individuals as
598
00:36:51.110 --> 00:36:54.690
much as it values others, and therefore he has access
599
00:36:54.730 --> 00:36:57.130
to them, he has the opportunity to harm them.
600
00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:01.530
He was also indicted for the murder of Beatrice McDougal,
601
00:37:01.750 --> 00:37:05.690
but never went to trial for this. Despite admitting to
602
00:37:05.750 --> 00:37:09.829
as many as 13 murders, detectives could only link 10
603
00:37:09.829 --> 00:37:15.280
victims to the 32-year-old. But for his impending trials, Seabird
604
00:37:15.300 --> 00:37:18.460
would only be indicted for the murders of the five
605
00:37:18.719 --> 00:37:21.480
that had been thoroughly investigated in Alabama.
606
00:37:22.400 --> 00:37:27.559
There was five homicides. Linda Jarman was a capital case
607
00:37:27.639 --> 00:37:30.699
because it was murdered during the commission of a robbery
608
00:37:30.760 --> 00:37:35.139
or a theft of getting a car. Sherry Weathers, Chad,
609
00:37:35.239 --> 00:37:38.969
and Joey was a capital case because it was murder
610
00:37:38.989 --> 00:37:41.530
of two or more people pursuant to a common plan
611
00:37:41.550 --> 00:37:45.170
scheme or design. Linda Odom was not a capital case.
612
00:37:46.309 --> 00:37:49.170
He pled guilty to Linda Odom after all of this
613
00:37:49.210 --> 00:37:50.130
was a life sentence.
614
00:37:51.139 --> 00:37:54.739
During three trials over the course of five months between
615
00:37:54.820 --> 00:37:59.570
March and August 1987, Siebert was found guilty of all
616
00:37:59.849 --> 00:38:03.010
five murders and sentenced to death twice.
617
00:38:03.030 --> 00:38:08.769
I've probably tried 30 death penalty cases or more, but
618
00:38:09.250 --> 00:38:12.929
this one, it's just the magnitude of it and what
619
00:38:13.010 --> 00:38:17.900
makes another human being go do something like this. I mean,
620
00:38:17.940 --> 00:38:21.760
you got a woman that's dead that he's, intimate with,
621
00:38:22.489 --> 00:38:25.429
a 4- and 5-year-old who he wakes up from their
622
00:38:25.469 --> 00:38:31.090
sleep to strung, goes to another death woman and kills
623
00:38:31.130 --> 00:38:33.050
her just to get her car to get out.
624
00:38:32.949 --> 00:38:36.550
Of there, I mean, just thinking about it, it'll be
625
00:38:36.590 --> 00:38:38.829
there on the deathbed.
626
00:38:40.329 --> 00:38:44.719
I think the sentences that he received were appropriate. I
627
00:38:44.760 --> 00:38:47.920
think he committed the most serious of crimes, so that
628
00:38:47.960 --> 00:38:51.389
deserves the most serious of sentences. But I think if
629
00:38:51.449 --> 00:38:55.449
we were to ask his victims' families, they're not going
630
00:38:55.489 --> 00:38:58.710
to have their loved ones brought back. I think they
631
00:38:58.750 --> 00:39:02.050
have achieved some sense of justice. But at the same time,
632
00:39:02.090 --> 00:39:04.070
I think they were asking a lot of questions as
633
00:39:04.110 --> 00:39:07.269
to how this man had slipped off the radar of
634
00:39:07.309 --> 00:39:11.949
the authorities. This man had committed a homicide in 1979
635
00:39:11.949 --> 00:39:14.289
and he went on to commit more. So could more
636
00:39:14.329 --> 00:39:15.449
have been done to prevent that?
637
00:39:16.610 --> 00:39:18.170
I think one of the things that always moves me
638
00:39:18.210 --> 00:39:21.500
most about this story is that When he was asked
639
00:39:21.579 --> 00:39:24.559
about the killing of Sherry Ann and the boys, he said,
640
00:39:24.639 --> 00:39:27.809
Sherry didn't have anything to say. Joey didn't have anything
641
00:39:27.849 --> 00:39:30.510
to say. Chad didn't have anything to say. and I
642
00:39:30.550 --> 00:39:34.030
don't have anything to say. If there's anything that could
643
00:39:34.050 --> 00:39:39.440
be more heartless, more utterly revolting, more depraved.
644
00:39:39.039 --> 00:39:41.650
Than that remark, I have yet to hear it.
645
00:39:42.360 --> 00:39:44.260
And this is a man who's stuffed out the life
646
00:39:44.300 --> 00:39:47.420
of a deaf 24-year-old mother and her two children aged
647
00:39:47.460 --> 00:39:48.119
five and four.
648
00:39:48.739 --> 00:39:48.949
It is.
649
00:39:51.139 --> 00:39:52.050
Utterly monstrous.
650
00:39:53.510 --> 00:39:58.789
In August 1987, Daniel Siebert began his death row sentence.
651
00:39:59.730 --> 00:40:03.739
For 18 months, the case had consumed the investigators who
652
00:40:03.780 --> 00:40:07.719
had worked on it. Now they could breathe a sigh
653
00:40:08.179 --> 00:40:08.719
of relief.
654
00:40:10.559 --> 00:40:16.130
I still think about those two little boys. And always will,
655
00:40:16.150 --> 00:40:21.099
I'm sure. I'm sure Dennis and other investigators do too
656
00:40:21.139 --> 00:40:22.440
because they all had children too.
657
00:40:24.599 --> 00:40:26.500
I don't know what it is, but I know he's
658
00:40:26.539 --> 00:40:27.460
a psychotic killer.
659
00:40:27.900 --> 00:40:32.360
And had he not been taken in Tennessee, that's what's
660
00:40:32.420 --> 00:40:36.550
so outstanding about the police work. Had he not been
661
00:40:36.590 --> 00:40:38.829
taken in Tennessee, I don't know whether it would have
662
00:40:38.869 --> 00:40:45.750
been Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nevada, Utah, or California, but somebody else
663
00:40:45.789 --> 00:40:46.329
would have died.
664
00:40:47.820 --> 00:40:48.719
He wasn't through.
665
00:40:49.820 --> 00:40:55.960
After numerous unsuccessful appeals throughout the years, 53-year-old Siebert remained
666
00:40:56.079 --> 00:40:59.079
on death row for almost 21 years.
667
00:40:59.719 --> 00:41:05.909
On April 22nd, 2008, Daniel Siebert died, but not from
668
00:41:05.949 --> 00:41:09.909
lethal injection, from pancreatic cancer, natural causes.
669
00:41:10.309 --> 00:41:12.469
In the end, he escaped the death penalty.
670
00:41:13.610 --> 00:41:15.789
I mean, this was a personal type of crime. This
671
00:41:15.849 --> 00:41:18.340
is not something that You're standing 30 feet away to
672
00:41:18.420 --> 00:41:20.900
shoot somebody. This is someone you put your hands around
673
00:41:20.920 --> 00:41:24.559
their neck and choke the life out of. That's bad.
674
00:41:24.760 --> 00:41:27.059
Think about that. It takes anywhere from two to four
675
00:41:27.099 --> 00:41:30.119
minutes to do that to someone. And you're sitting there,
676
00:41:30.179 --> 00:41:32.039
and you've got your hands around their neck, and you're
677
00:41:32.260 --> 00:41:35.659
taking the life from them. You've got to be enjoying that.
678
00:41:35.739 --> 00:41:36.940
Otherwise, you wouldn't do it that way.
679
00:41:37.780 --> 00:41:40.619
And if you're enjoying something like that, man, you are bad.
680
00:41:41.179 --> 00:41:43.199
And I just wish we had got to look at you.
681
00:41:44.570 --> 00:41:46.510
I think we felt we cheated for that.
682
00:41:48.079 --> 00:41:51.699
Daniel Siebert was linked to at least ten murders and
683
00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:55.840
was convicted of five, but he never tried to justify
684
00:41:55.900 --> 00:41:57.760
his reason for killing people.
685
00:41:58.460 --> 00:42:00.579
For me, what makes Siebert one of the world's most
686
00:42:00.659 --> 00:42:04.099
evil killers is the degree of manipulativeness that he was
687
00:42:04.280 --> 00:42:07.699
able to exercise. He was able to come across as
688
00:42:07.739 --> 00:42:11.769
an individual with feelings, as an individual who cared about others,
689
00:42:12.130 --> 00:42:14.590
but those feelings were not genuine at all.
690
00:42:14.750 --> 00:42:16.170
They were simply a performance.
691
00:42:17.599 --> 00:42:21.320
He was an absolute monster. He was a horrible person.
692
00:42:21.559 --> 00:42:25.820
He really was. And that's what comes to mind any
693
00:42:25.840 --> 00:42:28.920
time anyone mentions his name, is that he.
694
00:42:28.880 --> 00:42:29.480
Was a monster.
695
00:42:31.380 --> 00:42:35.389
Daniel Siebert was a callous killer who felt no remorse.
696
00:42:36.010 --> 00:42:39.489
To choke the life out of two children simply because
697
00:42:39.530 --> 00:42:42.429
he felt they would never amount to much is a
698
00:42:42.510 --> 00:42:46.460
cold-blooded act that cannot be forgiven. We may never know
699
00:42:46.559 --> 00:42:50.489
exactly how many lives he took, but Siebert's death means
700
00:42:50.530 --> 00:42:54.280
he can no longer harm anyone and will forever be
701
00:42:54.360 --> 00:42:58.280
remembered as one of the world's most evil killers.
1
00:00:05.839 --> 00:00:11.140
On the 24th of February, 1986, police in Talladega, Alabama,
2
00:00:11.460 --> 00:00:17.160
forced entry into the home of 24-year-old Sherry Weathers. The
3
00:00:17.219 --> 00:00:20.379
profoundly deaf mother of two had not turned up to
4
00:00:20.440 --> 00:00:24.300
school for nearly a week, and the reason soon became clear.
5
00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:28.370
Sherry and her two young children had been strangled to
6
00:00:28.429 --> 00:00:31.149
death and piled on top of each other in the
7
00:00:31.250 --> 00:00:32.590
shape of a cross.
8
00:00:33.500 --> 00:00:37.659
The utter callousness of it, of not only killing them,
9
00:00:37.859 --> 00:00:41.590
strangling them, but then posing them to be discovered, it's
10
00:00:41.630 --> 00:00:44.270
an act of a vile human being.
11
00:00:45.409 --> 00:00:48.909
The horrific scene will forever be etched in the minds
12
00:00:48.969 --> 00:00:51.960
of the two detectives who worked on the case.
13
00:00:53.079 --> 00:00:55.820
When you see something like that, you can't help but
14
00:00:55.859 --> 00:00:59.259
think about your own child. This could happen to my child, too.
15
00:01:00.100 --> 00:01:02.630
And so now you know you got to do everything
16
00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:04.849
you possibly do to bring this person to justice.
17
00:01:06.269 --> 00:01:10.670
The killer was a 31-year-old artist named Daniel Siebert, and
18
00:01:10.709 --> 00:01:15.549
his macabre masterpiece was far from complete. Two more bodies
19
00:01:15.609 --> 00:01:19.239
would soon be discovered, but the police had no idea
20
00:01:19.739 --> 00:01:20.799
where to find him.
21
00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:22.879
He's in the wind.
22
00:01:23.099 --> 00:01:25.640
We didn't know where he was, but we knew that
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somebody was going to die until he was caught.
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Daniel Siebert had made his mark as one of the
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world's most evil killers. When 33-year-old Daniel Siebert was sentenced
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to death for the murder of Linda Jarman on 17th
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April 1987, it signalled the end of the killer's cold-blooded career.
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On 19th August, he received a second death sentence for
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the murders of Sherry Weathers and her two children. Officially
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found guilty of five murders, authorities believe that Siebert was
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responsible for many other deaths across the U.S. in the mid-1980s.
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Homicide detective Eugene Jacks was part of the policing team
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who hunted the killer for over six months before his
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dramatic arrest in September 1986.
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He killed Sherry because she was deaf, and she would never...
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amount to anything because she was dead. He killed those
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two little boys because their mother was dead and they
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would never amount to anything because they wouldn't have a mother.
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He killed Linda Jarman to get her car. He says
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he killed Linda Odom because she was a racist. I
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think he just killed people because he liked to kill people.
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In a series of interviews with the killer, Eugene learned
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a lot about just how callous Daniel Siebert could be.
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If you didn't know what kind of monster he really was,
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you could actually like him, but he had no compassion
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for anyone, no feelings for anyone. These people didn't matter
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to him, not at all. He didn't hate them, he
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just didn't have any feelings for them, none whatsoever.
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This killer's story begins in Mattoon, Illinois, a small city
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in America's Midwest.
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Stebert was born in 1954, so these were the post-war
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years in the U.S. The economy was starting to boom.
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We have the idea of the American dream, but I
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think when we look behind closed doors at his family life,
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it was anything but that. There were reports of abuse
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from his father towards his mother.
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And towards him.
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Father was an aggressive man. He mistreated both Danny and
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his mother.
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He was a man who was violent and abusive and controlling.
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And this is the role model of masculinity that Siebert
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grows up with. So I think that there is a
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real sense of shame that Siebert maintains throughout his life.
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And having been victimized, I think that Siebert was always
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trying to turn the tables and be the aggressor.
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Siebert's parents divorced in 1968, just a month before his
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14th birthday. the young man's life began to spiral out
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of control.
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He became addicted to drugs. He had got into prostitution,
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himself acting as a male prostitute.
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I think there were several warning signs in Siebert's childhood
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00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:02.560
and adolescence that point towards a very troubled individual. He's
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somebody who could not make relationships work with other people.
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He didn't relate to his peers particularly well. There was
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a feeling of rejection from the family environment. And it's
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this sense of isolation and later the choice to be isolated,
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which is something that's very concerning for me.
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There was nothing about him that could be described as ordered.
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He was like a Catherine wheel, going round and round
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in every single direction, a firework.
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Aged 18 and looking for some stability in his life,
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Siebert enrolled with the military in 1972.
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Siebert's decision to try and join the Marines is a really,
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00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:47.740
really interesting part of this case because it's what that
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00:05:47.779 --> 00:05:53.189
decision symbolizes. The Marines symbolize this alpha male, this toughness,
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this kind of real American hero-type persona, and I think
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Siebert wanted to try and live up to that.
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Unfortunately.
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He couldn't deal with the order the Marines brought him.
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And quickly, well, within a year, went absent without leave.
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After being dishonorably discharged from the Marines, Siebert was once
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again at a loose end. But the troubled young man
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had a hidden talent that soon began to flourish.
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One thing that Siebert excelled at was as an artist.
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It was the only thing he was good at.
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You can tell by looking at some of his drawings,
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it was just, you know, I think he was expressing
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his fantasies in his drawings. That's how he got started
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with that. He was quite a person. I mean, he
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had an engaging personality. Enjoyable to talk with, really. If
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you didn't know what kind of person he was down deep,
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you would need to actually enjoy sitting and talking with him.
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But life for the charming young artist remained difficult.
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Between 1972 and 1978, He was principally based in Los Angeles,
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and there were a series of offenses, drug offenses, some violence,
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charges of battery. It was a life lived on the edge,
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on the fringes of society and on the fringes of
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the law.
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By January 1979, 24-year-old Siebert was living in Las Vegas.
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He was in a relationship with a male partner. It
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was reportedly an abusive one that ended with him fatally
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stabbing his lover.
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This homicide was a particularly vicious one because Siebert stabbed
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his partner 29 times. Now, for me, that means that
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he has made that decision 29 times to put the
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knife in again. This was somebody who knew what they
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were doing, they knew what they were doing was wrong,
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and they chose to do it anyway.
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Despite the viciousness of the slaying, at his subsequent trial,
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Siebert was charged with manslaughter, not murder.
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Siebert insisted... that it was a matter of self-defense. How
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it can be to stab someone that many times is
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slightly beyond me. But it did seek to throw into
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doubt whether it was a premeditated murder and therefore added
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strength to the argument that it was a crime of passion.
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I think because this was a homosexual relationship, there was
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a tendency for the court to just want to accept
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that narrative and put this case to bed because there
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was still stigma around homosexuality in the U.S.
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At this time.
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And I think that was perhaps what drove this offence
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in the first place, because a lot of violence has
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its roots in shame. I think Siebert was fundamentally ashamed
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of who he was. He never accepted who he was.
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He never felt that society would accept him for his
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true identity. So I think this early offence is so important,
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and the criminal justice system's reaction to it was just
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not good enough.
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Siebert was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but after
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serving just two, he escaped while on work detail in
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December 1981.
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Now, we really do have a lethal weapon waiting to
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go off. While he's on the run, he kidnaps a
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woman at gunpoint in San Francisco, and she only escapes
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by jumping out of the moving car on the Golden
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Gate Bridge. It is a remarkable, remarkable escape, because in
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my own mind, I'm not the slightest doubt that he
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intended to kill her.
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Siebert was recaptured the following day in nearby Oakland and
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returned to prison. An extra year was added to his sentence,
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but in 1985, he was freed on parole on the
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proviso that he would return to court to face charges
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for the abduction and assault he'd committed during his brief escape.
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due to attend court in San Francisco in December 1985,
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Siebert didn't turn up. His next known whereabouts were over
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800 miles away in Tucson, Arizona, where he was found
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hitchhiking and heading east.
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But now Daniel Siebert is not calling himself Daniel Siebert,
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he's calling himself Daniel Spence. He's given a lift by
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a man called Donald Hedron, who is on his way
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to Alabama. Before the journey comes to an end, Donald
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has offered Spence a post as a volunteer at the
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Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, in which Hedron works.
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Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind is a big
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part of the Toledo community. It's actually a community of
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its own, or a family of its own, you might say.
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And he has, superficially at least, the perfect cover.
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Artistic young man, happy to volunteer at an institute for
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those with deafness and blindness.
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Leaving his troubles in California far behind him, Siebert settled
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down in Talladega, Alabama, in January 1986. Working at the AIDB,
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he had a new identity and a new community of friends.
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After he arrived here, people realized that he was an
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accomplished artist, and he was asked to do a mural
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at AIDB, which he did. And that's one of the
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reasons he stayed here for a while, was doing that mural.
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Once again, he hid in plain sight the affable identity
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art volunteer, friend of Donald, welcome in the Institute. And then,
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and it's almost heartbreaking, he meets Sherry Ann Weathers, a
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24-year-old deaf mother of two small boys, and they form
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a relationship.
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A new circle of friends had welcomed 31-year-old Daniel Siebert
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into their lives with open arms, but they had no
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idea they'd allowed a brutal killer into their close-knit community.
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Siebert spent much of his time at the apartment of
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his new girlfriend, 24-year-old Sherry Weathers. By the 24th of February, Sherry,
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a single mother of two, hadn't turned up at the
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school for almost a week. her concerned friends contacted the authorities.
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In February 1986, the police department received a call for
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a welfare check at Sunrise Apartments in Talladega. Police were dispatched.
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Officer Tom Byrman was the first on the scene. When
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he entered Sherry Weathers' apartment, he discovered the bodies of
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Sherry Weathers and the two boys. He immediately backed out,
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locked the door and called for investigations.
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Eugene was joined on the case by an investigator from
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the district attorney's office, Dennis Surrett.
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We arrived at the apartments, and the police department had
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already had the scene roped off, and we met the
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other investigators, went into the apartment, and as you walk
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into the room, there's a bedroom, and then there's a
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living room, and there's a kitchen. And right in the
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center of the living room and the kitchen, you see
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three bodies.
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It's quite horrible. I haven't forgotten it after all these years.
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One of the next door neighbors had heard the two
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little boys playing in a tub. He got them out
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of the vehicle. He strangled the two little boys.
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He actually woke them up because they were in bed asleep.
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He wanted them to know that they were being killed.
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He wanted them to feel that fear.
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And he stacked their bodies on top of the mother.
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It looked like it formed a cross. That's my first impression.
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Sherry Weathers and her two sons, five-year-old Chad and four-year-old Joseph,
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had been strangled to death five days earlier on the
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19th of February. It was a sickening scene, even for
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seasoned detectives, but the team knew they needed to stay
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professional and not let their emotions get in the way
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of their police work.
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You know the minute you walk into that scene, you
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know this is a death penalty case. And you know
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things have to be done differently. Everything has to be perfect.
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Everything has to be exact. Everything has to be documented.
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I's dotted, T's crossed, because you know where this is
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headed to. Because you know a murder of two or
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more is going to be a death penalty case. And
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then the emotional part hits you. You know, this is
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a young mother. This is two young children having their
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lives ahead of them. What kind of person would do this?
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I mean, it mostly hits you. That's the second thing.
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That's the reality is what you got. Then mostly you're hit,
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you know, especially if you have children.
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When you see something like that, you can't help but
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think about your own child. This could happen to my
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child too. It's something that you don't, you just don't
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forget about it.
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Just as the two investigators were getting to grips with
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their Halloween day, some more worrying news came in.
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We're in the middle of processing that scene. We'd been
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there probably, two or three hours, processing the scene for evidence.
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And then we were notified that Linda Jarman, who was
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a friend of Sherry Weathers, she did not show up
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for classes that day.
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She lived in an adjoining apartment, not to this building,
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but to the next building. So Dennis and I went
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to her apartment, and we discovered her on the bed,
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in the bedroom, and she'd been strangled.
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33-year-old Linda Jarman, a deaf teacher at the same institute
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where Sherry was a student, had been murdered in cold blood.
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He used a sock and just strangled her in her
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own bed. Of course, most people don't know what a
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VCR is these day and times, but back in those days,
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VCR was worth some money, so he stole her VCR
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in order to get money to travel further.
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Linda Jarman's cream-colored car was also missing. the team would
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00:16:20.110 --> 00:16:26.029
report their findings to former Talladega County District Attorney Robert Rumsey.
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The evidence would show that after he strangled Sherry and
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Chad and Joey, that he went to Linda Jarman's apartment
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telling her that he had had a fight with Sherry
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and could he sleep on her couch. When she went
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back to bed and went to sleep, then he went
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in and he strangled her to get her car to leave.
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After speaking to acquaintances and colleagues of Sherry and Linda,
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00:16:54.909 --> 00:16:58.250
the detectives soon had a number one suspect who they
264
00:16:58.309 --> 00:17:00.909
discovered had been using a different alias.
265
00:17:02.070 --> 00:17:05.019
At that point, we learned the name Daniel Spence from
266
00:17:05.039 --> 00:17:08.019
the people at the school. And we start running him
267
00:17:08.059 --> 00:17:10.500
in the computer to see if we find out Daniel Spence,
268
00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:12.640
who is he, where is he, everything we could find out.
269
00:17:13.509 --> 00:17:17.450
And it's determined that his name is actually Daniel Lee Siebert.
270
00:17:18.309 --> 00:17:21.430
Once we developed him as a suspect and got his
271
00:17:21.470 --> 00:17:25.200
true identity, we put a nationwide pickup out on Danny
272
00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:29.180
Siebert and Linda Jarman's car. He quickly became the prime
273
00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:34.480
suspect because Daniel Spence wasn't here and Linda Jarman's car
274
00:17:34.529 --> 00:17:34.920
was gone.
275
00:17:37.029 --> 00:17:40.730
As the duo headed to Siebert's apartment building, they soon
276
00:17:40.769 --> 00:17:43.789
discovered there was another potential victim.
277
00:17:44.809 --> 00:17:49.420
So we go knocking on the door, and there's no
278
00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:52.839
answer at the door. A neighbor comes out and says,
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00:17:52.900 --> 00:17:55.420
why are you here? I said, we're looking to see Mr. Siebert.
280
00:17:56.099 --> 00:17:57.880
He said, well, he's not here. He said, but I
281
00:17:57.880 --> 00:18:01.559
got to tell you, my girlfriend's missing. Well, who's your girlfriend?
282
00:18:01.700 --> 00:18:04.680
It's Linda Odom. How long has she been missing? Oh,
283
00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:08.099
two days. I hadn't seen her. She hadn't been home. Well,
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00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:10.660
do you know if she's ever connected with this guy here, Mr.
285
00:18:10.779 --> 00:18:11.180
Siebert?
286
00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:14.049
Yeah, they're kind of friends. Well, you need to go
287
00:18:14.069 --> 00:18:15.309
to the police department and file a report.
288
00:18:16.529 --> 00:18:20.210
In the space of 24 hours, four people had been
289
00:18:20.289 --> 00:18:25.170
found dead and another was missing. The investigators needed to
290
00:18:25.250 --> 00:18:30.380
find Daniel Siebert fast, and they soon had word from
291
00:18:30.460 --> 00:18:32.440
authorities over 350 miles north of Talladega.
292
00:18:36.049 --> 00:18:40.970
We received information from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, that they had located
293
00:18:41.269 --> 00:18:45.730
Linda Jarman's car right off the interstate in Elizabethtown. That's
294
00:18:45.750 --> 00:18:48.329
when Dennis and I left here to go there to
295
00:18:48.450 --> 00:18:51.470
process the car for fingerprints and physical evidence.
296
00:18:52.250 --> 00:18:54.289
And so they take us to the scene, and we
297
00:18:54.329 --> 00:18:56.430
go up an embankment from where the car was, and
298
00:18:56.450 --> 00:19:00.190
we find a campsite. We uncover a campsite. And Eugene
299
00:19:00.309 --> 00:19:03.539
and I, we find identification to the boys. We found
300
00:19:03.619 --> 00:19:07.160
information on Shea Weathers and Linda Jarman all at that campsite.
301
00:19:07.220 --> 00:19:09.779
So we're fairly certain at this time we're on the
302
00:19:09.819 --> 00:19:10.339
right trail.
303
00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:15.980
It was a huge breakthrough that confirmed Daniel Siebert was
304
00:19:16.059 --> 00:19:16.720
their man.
305
00:19:17.640 --> 00:19:20.799
We got Daniel Siebert's fingerprints out of the car. Plus,
306
00:19:21.259 --> 00:19:23.920
other evidence we knew that tied to him, the type
307
00:19:23.940 --> 00:19:26.180
of cigarettes he smoked and the type of chewing gum
308
00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:30.269
that he chewed. We recovered photographs of women and children,
309
00:19:30.869 --> 00:19:32.569
women's cosmetics.
310
00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:37.740
There were also some quite chilling items at this campsite.
311
00:19:37.789 --> 00:19:41.069
There were photos of the Weathers family. There were drawings
312
00:19:41.470 --> 00:19:44.430
of the Weathers family. And I think this emphasis on
313
00:19:44.470 --> 00:19:48.549
those victims is so significant in this case. This young
314
00:19:48.589 --> 00:19:51.289
mother and her two children seem to have quite a
315
00:19:51.329 --> 00:19:54.670
lot of importance for Siebert because I think that he
316
00:19:54.750 --> 00:19:58.390
didn't feel they deserved to be alive. These boys were happy.
317
00:19:58.759 --> 00:20:01.339
They were loved and cared for by their mother. I
318
00:20:01.359 --> 00:20:04.119
think he felt a real sense of envy and resentment
319
00:20:04.160 --> 00:20:06.900
towards them. It was something that he wanted to relive.
320
00:20:07.309 --> 00:20:10.190
and I think those three murders of Sherry Wellers and
321
00:20:10.210 --> 00:20:13.049
her two children were the murders he was most proud of.
322
00:20:14.230 --> 00:20:18.960
Despite being sure Siebert was responsible for at least four murders,
323
00:20:19.339 --> 00:20:22.220
the dangerous killer remained undetected.
324
00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:28.880
Dennis and Eugene, both of them are excellent processors. They go,
325
00:20:28.900 --> 00:20:33.349
and they're in Kentucky for quite a while, so they
326
00:20:33.369 --> 00:20:37.440
were up there several days, and he's In the wind,
327
00:20:37.650 --> 00:20:40.190
we didn't know where he was, but we knew that
328
00:20:40.230 --> 00:20:42.849
somebody was going to die until he was caught.
329
00:20:43.769 --> 00:20:47.730
In Linda's car, Eugene and Dennis had recovered an address
330
00:20:47.769 --> 00:20:53.150
book belonging to 31-year-old Siebert, which would eventually prove to
331
00:20:53.210 --> 00:20:54.599
be an important find.
332
00:20:55.539 --> 00:21:00.039
I had one investigator. Her main job, I'd say, in
333
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:04.799
this investigation was to stay in contact with non-associates of Siebert.
334
00:21:06.019 --> 00:21:09.539
She had built a rapport with the girlfriend of Siebert's
335
00:21:09.619 --> 00:21:12.309
out there, and she promised that if she heard from him,
336
00:21:12.349 --> 00:21:13.089
she would call.
337
00:21:14.390 --> 00:21:18.329
With every day that passed, the investigators knew Siebert could
338
00:21:18.390 --> 00:21:20.549
strike again at any moment.
339
00:21:21.549 --> 00:21:23.730
Each day when you went to work, the first thing
340
00:21:23.750 --> 00:21:26.779
you did was start checking tips and leads on the
341
00:21:26.819 --> 00:21:29.279
possibility of where Siebert was. There wasn't a day that
342
00:21:29.319 --> 00:21:32.000
went by that you didn't do something on the Siebert case.
343
00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:36.009
I don't know how many miles that we put on
344
00:21:36.069 --> 00:21:39.880
cars going from here to there to check out leads
345
00:21:39.960 --> 00:21:43.299
or information on Siebert or some of his friends or this, that,
346
00:21:43.319 --> 00:21:46.039
and the other. I mean, Lord, there's no telling.
347
00:21:46.839 --> 00:21:50.920
As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, Siebert's
348
00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:56.329
location remained a mystery. The investigators desperately searched in vain.
349
00:21:56.970 --> 00:22:01.990
But in reality, he was over 900 miles from Talladega, Alabama,
350
00:22:02.390 --> 00:22:07.019
in New Jersey. and was about to claim another victim,
351
00:22:07.039 --> 00:22:10.200
57-year-old tour guide Beatrice McDougall.
352
00:22:11.609 --> 00:22:17.789
Daniel Siebert was in Atlantic City, staying in a hotel.
353
00:22:18.529 --> 00:22:23.789
On March 8th of 1986, walks by a room of Mrs.
354
00:22:23.869 --> 00:22:29.190
McDougall that was a tour guide. She was fixing up
355
00:22:29.230 --> 00:22:32.170
for reception for a hospitality.
356
00:22:31.369 --> 00:22:34.730
Room, He would have deduced fairly quickly that she's a
357
00:22:34.769 --> 00:22:37.670
tall guy, so she's likely to have some cash on her.
358
00:22:38.490 --> 00:22:42.210
Siebert was determined to get his hands on Beatrice's money
359
00:22:42.589 --> 00:22:44.269
by any means necessary.
360
00:22:45.130 --> 00:22:49.269
And he goes in there and kills her. We don't
361
00:22:49.890 --> 00:22:52.880
know at that point that it's Siebert, but he's off
362
00:22:52.930 --> 00:22:54.680
and in the wind, and we ain't got a clue
363
00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:56.180
where he is after that.
364
00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:58.299
He just drops off the radar.
365
00:22:59.579 --> 00:23:04.059
Siebert had stabbed Beatrice twice in the stomach and strangled
366
00:23:04.119 --> 00:23:07.019
her to death in an opportunistic attack.
367
00:23:08.269 --> 00:23:11.369
I think that there is just no regard for the
368
00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:14.750
rights or the feelings of other people. It's all about him.
369
00:23:15.170 --> 00:23:17.589
He needs money at this point in time because he's
370
00:23:17.769 --> 00:23:21.210
on the run. He also wants to kill any potential
371
00:23:21.250 --> 00:23:24.230
witness to this crime, this crime of theft, so her
372
00:23:24.289 --> 00:23:26.450
life was just not considered valuable by him.
373
00:23:27.829 --> 00:23:33.210
As Siebert remained undetected, the bad news continued for investigators
374
00:23:33.309 --> 00:23:38.779
in Alabama. On the 30th of March, 1986, another victim
375
00:23:38.819 --> 00:23:42.099
of the 31-year-old artist would be discovered.
376
00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:46.079
We're all actually at the DA's office working on another case,
377
00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:50.319
and we recall that we've got a body. And just
378
00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:54.069
outside of Talladega, there's a little cemetery on the left-hand
379
00:23:54.170 --> 00:23:57.839
side of Alabama Highway 21. And there we find a
380
00:23:58.140 --> 00:24:01.049
skeletonized body. No question, it had been there for a
381
00:24:01.049 --> 00:24:04.210
long time. Decomposition had already come and gone. And we
382
00:24:04.250 --> 00:24:06.809
sift through everything. She's not buried or anything. She's been
383
00:24:06.849 --> 00:24:09.190
laid on top of the ground. We know it's a female,
384
00:24:09.329 --> 00:24:11.509
and that's all we know. And we sift through the
385
00:24:11.529 --> 00:24:14.690
pine straw and everything, looking for all the bones, the teeth,
386
00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:16.579
and this, that, and the other that we could find
387
00:24:16.599 --> 00:24:20.500
to identify. And ultimately, she was identified as Linda Odom,
388
00:24:20.859 --> 00:24:24.079
the girl that was missing from the next-door neighbor, Seabrook.
389
00:24:25.019 --> 00:24:30.660
The timeline suggested that 32-year-old cocktail waitress Linda Odom was
390
00:24:30.740 --> 00:24:38.000
Siebert's first victim. Siebert strangled Linda on the 19th of February, 1986,
391
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.109
meaning he killed five people on that one day.
392
00:24:42.450 --> 00:24:47.069
Linda's body was taken to Siebert's apartment, and he disposes
393
00:24:47.289 --> 00:24:50.470
of the body by lowering it in sheets out of
394
00:24:50.490 --> 00:24:54.359
the window, and then taking it to a nearby cemetery
395
00:24:54.519 --> 00:24:58.329
to dispose of it. And interestingly, Siebert said that when
396
00:24:58.369 --> 00:25:02.410
he was disposing of Linda's body, he started punching her.
397
00:25:02.430 --> 00:25:05.329
I mean, she was obviously dead at this point in time,
398
00:25:05.670 --> 00:25:08.039
but I think that was something that enhanced his feelings
399
00:25:08.099 --> 00:25:11.420
of control over this victim. And I think that that
400
00:25:11.460 --> 00:25:14.299
sense of rage as well that he expresses at this
401
00:25:14.359 --> 00:25:17.039
point in time, the way that he's seeing this community,
402
00:25:17.079 --> 00:25:20.259
this community who are so welcoming, who are so inclusive,
403
00:25:20.319 --> 00:25:23.440
who are loving towards one another, this is something that
404
00:25:23.519 --> 00:25:26.220
he feels he was entitled to when he was younger,
405
00:25:26.279 --> 00:25:29.119
something that he never had. And these people don't deserve it,
406
00:25:29.289 --> 00:25:31.990
according to him. So I think that's what's underlying all
407
00:25:32.009 --> 00:25:32.809
of this behavior.
408
00:25:32.829 --> 00:25:37.670
This is a young girl. She didn't deserve what happened
409
00:25:37.690 --> 00:25:42.680
to her. but she just dumped in the cemetery. That
410
00:25:42.700 --> 00:25:44.720
kind of hurts your heart that somebody is so cruel
411
00:25:44.759 --> 00:25:45.839
to do something like that.
412
00:25:46.859 --> 00:25:50.519
What the detectives in Alabama didn't know is that by now,
413
00:25:50.900 --> 00:25:55.019
Siebert was in prison in New Jersey, serving 61 days
414
00:25:55.299 --> 00:25:59.519
for assaulting a woman. When he was arrested for the altercation,
415
00:25:59.839 --> 00:26:04.140
he used a stolen Social Security card of murdered 5-year-old
416
00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:08.690
Chad Weathers as identification. This meant that no one had
417
00:26:08.730 --> 00:26:12.230
made the link between Siebert and any of the murders.
418
00:26:13.210 --> 00:26:15.589
So during the time that Siebert was on the run,
419
00:26:15.690 --> 00:26:20.339
he actually used the identities of Sherry Weathers' two boys
420
00:26:21.059 --> 00:26:24.779
to gain new identification. And at this point in time,
421
00:26:24.819 --> 00:26:27.200
it was relatively easy to do that, to use a
422
00:26:27.220 --> 00:26:30.900
child's identity to get a social security number. But I
423
00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:33.470
think that the significance of this is more than just
424
00:26:33.509 --> 00:26:37.730
a practicality. I think there is something much more meaningful
425
00:26:37.769 --> 00:26:42.980
going on here. By possessing these children's names, by presenting
426
00:26:43.019 --> 00:26:46.660
yourself as them, you are owning them, you are possessing them,
427
00:26:46.700 --> 00:26:50.160
they are yours, and it's that extension of control over
428
00:26:50.180 --> 00:26:50.839
your victims.
429
00:26:51.980 --> 00:26:55.609
After serving his time for the assault, Siebert was in
430
00:26:55.690 --> 00:27:01.029
police custody again in June 1986, this time in Virginia.
431
00:27:02.150 --> 00:27:05.450
This young officer stops Siebert, And in the car, he
432
00:27:05.490 --> 00:27:11.609
finds ropes and knives, ladies' belongings, photographs, just all types
433
00:27:11.670 --> 00:27:14.529
of things that just made him very suspicious of this man.
434
00:27:16.789 --> 00:27:19.309
They checked the car, and it was stolen. So he
435
00:27:19.349 --> 00:27:25.059
was arrested for car theft, being in possession of the
436
00:27:25.099 --> 00:27:29.299
stolen car. He was using the identity of Joey Weathers,
437
00:27:29.700 --> 00:27:33.279
using the Social Security card as identification.
438
00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:36.430
He made bond and he was gone.
439
00:27:37.430 --> 00:27:41.730
Seabert was incredibly cunning, incredibly manipulative. I think he was
440
00:27:41.829 --> 00:27:45.309
well aware of the fact that law enforcement wasn't particularly
441
00:27:45.349 --> 00:27:49.359
well joined up in terms of interstate communication and sharing
442
00:27:49.380 --> 00:27:52.299
of information at this time. And I think he truly
443
00:27:52.339 --> 00:27:53.660
did take advantage of that.
444
00:27:54.859 --> 00:27:59.279
In August, Siebert was yet again in another state, Maryland.
445
00:27:59.900 --> 00:28:03.700
He assaulted a woman in Baltimore but wasn't captured by
446
00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:08.750
the police. He then headed back west towards Nashville, Tennessee.
447
00:28:09.309 --> 00:28:13.609
The investigators in Alabama still had no idea where he was,
448
00:28:13.970 --> 00:28:18.329
but a breakthrough was on the horizon. Detectives who'd reached
449
00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:21.809
out to people listed in Siebert's address book had been
450
00:28:21.930 --> 00:28:26.529
contacted by one of his ex-girlfriends in Nevada. She had
451
00:28:26.630 --> 00:28:29.410
news that would finally crack the case.
452
00:28:30.339 --> 00:28:33.019
This lady calls from out there and says that she
453
00:28:33.059 --> 00:28:35.799
had just spoken with Danny Siebert on the phone, and
454
00:28:35.839 --> 00:28:38.099
he told her what time it was where he was at.
455
00:28:39.019 --> 00:28:42.930
And she could hear thunder, and it was raining. So
456
00:28:42.950 --> 00:28:45.069
the investigator came and then told the rest of us
457
00:28:45.589 --> 00:28:48.269
about the call and that it was raining at that
458
00:28:48.369 --> 00:28:49.269
particular time.
459
00:28:50.230 --> 00:28:54.599
With very little information, the investigators tried to trace the
460
00:28:54.690 --> 00:28:56.599
source of Siebert's call.
461
00:28:57.339 --> 00:29:00.039
Said it was not easy to trace telephone calls, but
462
00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:02.900
they told us if we had any idea where he was,
463
00:29:02.920 --> 00:29:04.640
it would make it a lot easier. Otherwise, it could
464
00:29:04.660 --> 00:29:07.640
take three weeks to a month to trace it. I
465
00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:10.799
told the investigator, go call the National Weather Service, find
466
00:29:10.859 --> 00:29:13.309
out where it's raining and that time's all. It was
467
00:29:13.349 --> 00:29:16.549
raining in Tennessee. That was it in that time zone.
468
00:29:17.289 --> 00:29:19.750
We were able to use that information and trace the
469
00:29:19.809 --> 00:29:24.970
telephone call to Hurricane Mills in Tennessee to a little
470
00:29:25.009 --> 00:29:27.490
convenience store restaurant there.
471
00:29:28.609 --> 00:29:33.250
It was a stunning revelation. Detectives could now pinpoint Siebert
472
00:29:33.509 --> 00:29:38.269
to the small community of Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, 70 miles
473
00:29:38.390 --> 00:29:39.789
west of Nashville.
474
00:29:40.740 --> 00:29:44.059
So I called the district attorney, told him we were
475
00:29:44.079 --> 00:29:47.220
going to Tennessee. He said, okay, I'm coming with you.
476
00:29:47.240 --> 00:29:50.359
There's no question we were keyed up because we'd spent
477
00:29:50.519 --> 00:29:53.539
six months and no matter how many trips, not me,
478
00:29:54.180 --> 00:29:57.539
but how many trips with the investigators and stuff had
479
00:29:57.619 --> 00:30:01.009
gone on, running down every little lead that they could
480
00:30:01.049 --> 00:30:05.630
come up with, which really had proved fruitless. But this
481
00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:07.259
is a live hit now.
482
00:30:08.079 --> 00:30:10.880
So we all loaded up in cars, headed to Tennessee.
483
00:30:10.900 --> 00:30:14.500
I called TBI, which is Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. This
484
00:30:14.519 --> 00:30:17.359
is what we've got going on. We kind of traced
485
00:30:17.380 --> 00:30:19.609
to this location, and we're headed that way.
486
00:30:21.180 --> 00:30:24.339
After six and a half months of searching for Siebert,
487
00:30:24.660 --> 00:30:28.079
the anticipation of his arrest was at the forefront of
488
00:30:28.119 --> 00:30:29.539
the detectives' minds.
489
00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:33.460
The journey up there was, it's almost like waiting for
490
00:30:33.500 --> 00:30:37.039
your birthday party. We were all extremely excited.
491
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:40.380
Well, the time we got there was late night, and
492
00:30:40.420 --> 00:30:43.960
we decided not to do anything but send one other
493
00:30:44.019 --> 00:30:47.500
investigator in there to see if they could see anything
494
00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:50.019
to the search first, because you had this service station
495
00:30:50.039 --> 00:30:53.210
where that the call was from, and then you had
496
00:30:53.230 --> 00:30:55.369
a restaurant up here, and then you had another filling
497
00:30:55.390 --> 00:30:58.549
station and a restaurant up here. So one investigator went in,
498
00:30:58.849 --> 00:31:02.380
kind of knew the owner, and said, yeah, he's been
499
00:31:02.410 --> 00:31:05.420
paying some signs for me, and he'll be in here
500
00:31:05.460 --> 00:31:06.660
in the morning to collect his check.
501
00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:11.700
It would be a sleepless night for the arresting officers.
502
00:31:12.539 --> 00:31:16.880
Everybody's upbeat. Everybody's tired, but everybody's upbeat. And I don't
503
00:31:16.900 --> 00:31:19.420
think a single one of us took a nap that night.
504
00:31:19.849 --> 00:31:21.529
out there on the road, because we were just on
505
00:31:21.549 --> 00:31:24.940
the roadway waiting for morning.
506
00:31:26.420 --> 00:31:31.039
The following morning, the 5th of September, 1986, the team
507
00:31:31.099 --> 00:31:35.029
were ready to pounce as dawn broke over Hurricane Mills.
508
00:31:36.069 --> 00:31:38.109
It's hard to describe what it was like sitting there
509
00:31:38.130 --> 00:31:41.029
waiting for him to come around the building, but I'd
510
00:31:41.069 --> 00:31:43.470
always wondered if I'd recognize him when I saw him.
511
00:31:44.549 --> 00:31:46.430
When he rounded the corner of that building, there was
512
00:31:46.470 --> 00:31:49.019
no doubt in my mind, that's him. As soon as
513
00:31:49.059 --> 00:31:51.039
he went in the door, Dennis and I were out
514
00:31:51.079 --> 00:31:56.099
the door. We went in behind him. He wasn't there.
515
00:31:57.079 --> 00:32:00.170
Scared to death. We just looked at the clerk, where
516
00:32:00.210 --> 00:32:02.130
is he? And she pointed to the restroom. And we
517
00:32:02.150 --> 00:32:06.190
went in. And TBI and the captain went in and
518
00:32:06.250 --> 00:32:11.670
arrested him in the men's room. His only question to
519
00:32:11.750 --> 00:32:13.500
us was, how'd y'all find him?
520
00:32:14.440 --> 00:32:16.720
I mean, he's got about six weapons just aimed at him,
521
00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:19.809
and he's caught with his butts down, basically. We seized
522
00:32:19.829 --> 00:32:23.170
his backpack. We found where he'd been staying in a car,
523
00:32:23.650 --> 00:32:26.990
a wrecked-out car behind the station, and he is immediately
524
00:32:27.049 --> 00:32:31.130
taken to the court in Tennessee, and we contacted our
525
00:32:31.170 --> 00:32:34.089
governor and asked her for her plane to fly him back.
526
00:32:35.109 --> 00:32:39.490
Finally, Daniel Siebert was in police custody. He would never
527
00:32:39.549 --> 00:32:40.670
be free again.
528
00:32:41.380 --> 00:32:44.059
I mean, man alive, you can't even imagine the relief
529
00:32:44.099 --> 00:32:47.519
you feel. We've got him. He's not gonna hurt anybody else.
530
00:32:48.380 --> 00:32:50.460
And there again, you're thinking of Sherry, and you're thinking
531
00:32:50.480 --> 00:32:54.160
of the babies, and Linda, and Linda Oden, you're thinking
532
00:32:54.200 --> 00:32:56.390
about them. Okay, we can put everybody to rest now.
533
00:32:56.789 --> 00:32:58.809
And it's the best feeling in the world.
534
00:32:59.730 --> 00:33:02.789
The police had their man, but the job was far
535
00:33:02.849 --> 00:33:07.119
from done. Detectives were certain he was responsible for the
536
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:11.529
murders of five people in the small community. Linda Odom,
537
00:33:11.869 --> 00:33:16.329
Linda Jarman, Sherry Weathers, and her two sons, Chad and Joey.
538
00:33:17.150 --> 00:33:21.289
Investigators had stacks of evidence against Siebert, but they were
539
00:33:21.349 --> 00:33:26.529
hoping an interview with the 32-year-old would uncover even more secrets.
540
00:33:27.789 --> 00:33:31.640
It was tense for me, and I'm sure it was
541
00:33:31.660 --> 00:33:34.960
for the captain, because we were wanting to get a confession.
542
00:33:36.200 --> 00:33:40.029
This was the end of a long, hard journey, and
543
00:33:40.069 --> 00:33:42.210
we wanted him to admit what he had done.
544
00:33:43.549 --> 00:33:47.369
Siebert told Eugene about the five murders he'd committed on
545
00:33:47.410 --> 00:33:51.829
the 19th of February, 1986, and also confessed to the
546
00:33:51.869 --> 00:33:55.710
killing of Beatrice McDougal in Atlantic City on the 8th
547
00:33:55.750 --> 00:34:00.160
of March. He showed no remorse for any of the murders.
548
00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:06.630
He wasn't concerned at all. Showed no emotion whatsoever. Never
549
00:34:06.670 --> 00:34:08.889
shed a tear. You could tell there was no concern
550
00:34:08.989 --> 00:34:11.889
in him about what he had done. And if we
551
00:34:11.929 --> 00:34:14.190
had released him right there, he'd have done it again
552
00:34:14.250 --> 00:34:17.190
in a few days because he had no remorse whatsoever
553
00:34:17.230 --> 00:34:20.650
for what he'd done. I've told people to know how
554
00:34:21.190 --> 00:34:24.369
he felt about his victims. He didn't feel about his victims.
555
00:34:24.769 --> 00:34:26.289
He had no feelings for them one way or the other.
556
00:34:26.889 --> 00:34:29.329
He had no feelings for anyone. I don't know that
557
00:34:29.349 --> 00:34:32.329
he really felt a thing about himself, to be honest
558
00:34:32.349 --> 00:34:34.429
with you. He just, he had no feelings.
559
00:34:35.510 --> 00:34:36.880
I think he was a psychopath.
560
00:34:37.559 --> 00:34:40.579
I think he demonstrated every normal, or if you can
561
00:34:40.840 --> 00:34:43.440
use the word normal when applied to a psychopath, every
562
00:34:43.500 --> 00:34:47.800
possible psychopathic tendency. An utter lack of remorse, an utter
563
00:34:47.840 --> 00:34:50.960
lack of conscience, an utter lack of empathy with other people.
564
00:34:51.380 --> 00:34:52.340
They were simply objects.
565
00:34:54.090 --> 00:34:59.130
Siebert also confessed to another murder that predated any of
566
00:34:59.170 --> 00:35:02.849
the other six whilst he was lodging with Donald Hendron
567
00:35:03.150 --> 00:35:03.869
in Alabama.
568
00:35:04.989 --> 00:35:11.239
It's early February 1986. Donald Hendron's asleep. Siebert gets out
569
00:35:11.280 --> 00:35:15.579
of bed and borrows Donald's car and picks up a
570
00:35:15.619 --> 00:35:20.480
girl called Cheryl Evans. She's working as a prostitute in
571
00:35:20.519 --> 00:35:21.619
Birmingham and Alabama.
572
00:35:22.300 --> 00:35:26.809
He kidnapped her, robbed her and killed her and carried
573
00:35:26.849 --> 00:35:30.989
her body to Ohatchee and dumped it in a roadside
574
00:35:31.050 --> 00:35:34.349
garbage dump and then just returned the car like nothing
575
00:35:34.389 --> 00:35:35.130
had happened.
576
00:35:35.539 --> 00:35:39.210
That brought the tally of victims to seven, but Eugene
577
00:35:39.269 --> 00:35:42.670
was certain there were still more. He had uncovered a
578
00:35:42.750 --> 00:35:47.469
telling piece of evidence when searching Siebert's home back in February.
579
00:35:48.429 --> 00:35:51.559
In his apartment, I'd found a road atlas. I'd gone
580
00:35:51.579 --> 00:35:53.739
through the road atlas, and out on the west coast,
581
00:35:53.800 --> 00:35:58.059
he had had X's with zeros, X's and zeros, and
582
00:35:58.079 --> 00:36:01.760
he just had X's. I asked him about those, and
583
00:36:01.800 --> 00:36:03.619
he said every place that there was an X with
584
00:36:03.659 --> 00:36:06.059
a circle around it is where he had killed someone.
585
00:36:06.539 --> 00:36:10.420
And just the Xs were robberies. I contacted each of
586
00:36:10.460 --> 00:36:13.179
these jurisdictions, and sure enough, each place that there was
587
00:36:13.219 --> 00:36:16.719
an X with a circle, they had recovered a body.
588
00:36:17.400 --> 00:36:22.420
This is basically Siebert's commemoration of the murders that he's committed.
589
00:36:22.519 --> 00:36:24.920
I think every time he looked at that map, he
590
00:36:24.940 --> 00:36:28.179
would have felt powerful. He would have felt superior. and
591
00:36:28.429 --> 00:36:30.269
we do often see this in cases.
592
00:36:29.969 --> 00:36:30.829
Of serial killers.
593
00:36:31.809 --> 00:36:35.710
Siebert confessed to killing three sex workers in Nevada and
594
00:36:35.769 --> 00:36:39.610
California in late 1985.
595
00:36:39.610 --> 00:36:42.730
The fact that he's targeted sex workers is really significant
596
00:36:42.750 --> 00:36:46.750
for me because he's preying upon these women's vulnerabilities. He's
597
00:36:46.809 --> 00:36:51.030
well aware that society does not value these individuals as
598
00:36:51.110 --> 00:36:54.690
much as it values others, and therefore he has access
599
00:36:54.730 --> 00:36:57.130
to them, he has the opportunity to harm them.
600
00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:01.530
He was also indicted for the murder of Beatrice McDougal,
601
00:37:01.750 --> 00:37:05.690
but never went to trial for this. Despite admitting to
602
00:37:05.750 --> 00:37:09.829
as many as 13 murders, detectives could only link 10
603
00:37:09.829 --> 00:37:15.280
victims to the 32-year-old. But for his impending trials, Seabird
604
00:37:15.300 --> 00:37:18.460
would only be indicted for the murders of the five
605
00:37:18.719 --> 00:37:21.480
that had been thoroughly investigated in Alabama.
606
00:37:22.400 --> 00:37:27.559
There was five homicides. Linda Jarman was a capital case
607
00:37:27.639 --> 00:37:30.699
because it was murdered during the commission of a robbery
608
00:37:30.760 --> 00:37:35.139
or a theft of getting a car. Sherry Weathers, Chad,
609
00:37:35.239 --> 00:37:38.969
and Joey was a capital case because it was murder
610
00:37:38.989 --> 00:37:41.530
of two or more people pursuant to a common plan
611
00:37:41.550 --> 00:37:45.170
scheme or design. Linda Odom was not a capital case.
612
00:37:46.309 --> 00:37:49.170
He pled guilty to Linda Odom after all of this
613
00:37:49.210 --> 00:37:50.130
was a life sentence.
614
00:37:51.139 --> 00:37:54.739
During three trials over the course of five months between
615
00:37:54.820 --> 00:37:59.570
March and August 1987, Siebert was found guilty of all
616
00:37:59.849 --> 00:38:03.010
five murders and sentenced to death twice.
617
00:38:03.030 --> 00:38:08.769
I've probably tried 30 death penalty cases or more, but
618
00:38:09.250 --> 00:38:12.929
this one, it's just the magnitude of it and what
619
00:38:13.010 --> 00:38:17.900
makes another human being go do something like this. I mean,
620
00:38:17.940 --> 00:38:21.760
you got a woman that's dead that he's, intimate with,
621
00:38:22.489 --> 00:38:25.429
a 4- and 5-year-old who he wakes up from their
622
00:38:25.469 --> 00:38:31.090
sleep to strung, goes to another death woman and kills
623
00:38:31.130 --> 00:38:33.050
her just to get her car to get out.
624
00:38:32.949 --> 00:38:36.550
Of there, I mean, just thinking about it, it'll be
625
00:38:36.590 --> 00:38:38.829
there on the deathbed.
626
00:38:40.329 --> 00:38:44.719
I think the sentences that he received were appropriate. I
627
00:38:44.760 --> 00:38:47.920
think he committed the most serious of crimes, so that
628
00:38:47.960 --> 00:38:51.389
deserves the most serious of sentences. But I think if
629
00:38:51.449 --> 00:38:55.449
we were to ask his victims' families, they're not going
630
00:38:55.489 --> 00:38:58.710
to have their loved ones brought back. I think they
631
00:38:58.750 --> 00:39:02.050
have achieved some sense of justice. But at the same time,
632
00:39:02.090 --> 00:39:04.070
I think they were asking a lot of questions as
633
00:39:04.110 --> 00:39:07.269
to how this man had slipped off the radar of
634
00:39:07.309 --> 00:39:11.949
the authorities. This man had committed a homicide in 1979
635
00:39:11.949 --> 00:39:14.289
and he went on to commit more. So could more
636
00:39:14.329 --> 00:39:15.449
have been done to prevent that?
637
00:39:16.610 --> 00:39:18.170
I think one of the things that always moves me
638
00:39:18.210 --> 00:39:21.500
most about this story is that When he was asked
639
00:39:21.579 --> 00:39:24.559
about the killing of Sherry Ann and the boys, he said,
640
00:39:24.639 --> 00:39:27.809
Sherry didn't have anything to say. Joey didn't have anything
641
00:39:27.849 --> 00:39:30.510
to say. Chad didn't have anything to say. and I
642
00:39:30.550 --> 00:39:34.030
don't have anything to say. If there's anything that could
643
00:39:34.050 --> 00:39:39.440
be more heartless, more utterly revolting, more depraved.
644
00:39:39.039 --> 00:39:41.650
Than that remark, I have yet to hear it.
645
00:39:42.360 --> 00:39:44.260
And this is a man who's stuffed out the life
646
00:39:44.300 --> 00:39:47.420
of a deaf 24-year-old mother and her two children aged
647
00:39:47.460 --> 00:39:48.119
five and four.
648
00:39:48.739 --> 00:39:48.949
It is.
649
00:39:51.139 --> 00:39:52.050
Utterly monstrous.
650
00:39:53.510 --> 00:39:58.789
In August 1987, Daniel Siebert began his death row sentence.
651
00:39:59.730 --> 00:40:03.739
For 18 months, the case had consumed the investigators who
652
00:40:03.780 --> 00:40:07.719
had worked on it. Now they could breathe a sigh
653
00:40:08.179 --> 00:40:08.719
of relief.
654
00:40:10.559 --> 00:40:16.130
I still think about those two little boys. And always will,
655
00:40:16.150 --> 00:40:21.099
I'm sure. I'm sure Dennis and other investigators do too
656
00:40:21.139 --> 00:40:22.440
because they all had children too.
657
00:40:24.599 --> 00:40:26.500
I don't know what it is, but I know he's
658
00:40:26.539 --> 00:40:27.460
a psychotic killer.
659
00:40:27.900 --> 00:40:32.360
And had he not been taken in Tennessee, that's what's
660
00:40:32.420 --> 00:40:36.550
so outstanding about the police work. Had he not been
661
00:40:36.590 --> 00:40:38.829
taken in Tennessee, I don't know whether it would have
662
00:40:38.869 --> 00:40:45.750
been Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nevada, Utah, or California, but somebody else
663
00:40:45.789 --> 00:40:46.329
would have died.
664
00:40:47.820 --> 00:40:48.719
He wasn't through.
665
00:40:49.820 --> 00:40:55.960
After numerous unsuccessful appeals throughout the years, 53-year-old Siebert remained
666
00:40:56.079 --> 00:40:59.079
on death row for almost 21 years.
667
00:40:59.719 --> 00:41:05.909
On April 22nd, 2008, Daniel Siebert died, but not from
668
00:41:05.949 --> 00:41:09.909
lethal injection, from pancreatic cancer, natural causes.
669
00:41:10.309 --> 00:41:12.469
In the end, he escaped the death penalty.
670
00:41:13.610 --> 00:41:15.789
I mean, this was a personal type of crime. This
671
00:41:15.849 --> 00:41:18.340
is not something that You're standing 30 feet away to
672
00:41:18.420 --> 00:41:20.900
shoot somebody. This is someone you put your hands around
673
00:41:20.920 --> 00:41:24.559
their neck and choke the life out of. That's bad.
674
00:41:24.760 --> 00:41:27.059
Think about that. It takes anywhere from two to four
675
00:41:27.099 --> 00:41:30.119
minutes to do that to someone. And you're sitting there,
676
00:41:30.179 --> 00:41:32.039
and you've got your hands around their neck, and you're
677
00:41:32.260 --> 00:41:35.659
taking the life from them. You've got to be enjoying that.
678
00:41:35.739 --> 00:41:36.940
Otherwise, you wouldn't do it that way.
679
00:41:37.780 --> 00:41:40.619
And if you're enjoying something like that, man, you are bad.
680
00:41:41.179 --> 00:41:43.199
And I just wish we had got to look at you.
681
00:41:44.570 --> 00:41:46.510
I think we felt we cheated for that.
682
00:41:48.079 --> 00:41:51.699
Daniel Siebert was linked to at least ten murders and
683
00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:55.840
was convicted of five, but he never tried to justify
684
00:41:55.900 --> 00:41:57.760
his reason for killing people.
685
00:41:58.460 --> 00:42:00.579
For me, what makes Siebert one of the world's most
686
00:42:00.659 --> 00:42:04.099
evil killers is the degree of manipulativeness that he was
687
00:42:04.280 --> 00:42:07.699
able to exercise. He was able to come across as
688
00:42:07.739 --> 00:42:11.769
an individual with feelings, as an individual who cared about others,
689
00:42:12.130 --> 00:42:14.590
but those feelings were not genuine at all.
690
00:42:14.750 --> 00:42:16.170
They were simply a performance.
691
00:42:17.599 --> 00:42:21.320
He was an absolute monster. He was a horrible person.
692
00:42:21.559 --> 00:42:25.820
He really was. And that's what comes to mind any
693
00:42:25.840 --> 00:42:28.920
time anyone mentions his name, is that he.
694
00:42:28.880 --> 00:42:29.480
Was a monster.
695
00:42:31.380 --> 00:42:35.389
Daniel Siebert was a callous killer who felt no remorse.
696
00:42:36.010 --> 00:42:39.489
To choke the life out of two children simply because
697
00:42:39.530 --> 00:42:42.429
he felt they would never amount to much is a
698
00:42:42.510 --> 00:42:46.460
cold-blooded act that cannot be forgiven. We may never know
699
00:42:46.559 --> 00:42:50.489
exactly how many lives he took, but Siebert's death means
700
00:42:50.530 --> 00:42:54.280
he can no longer harm anyone and will forever be
701
00:42:54.360 --> 00:42:58.280
remembered as one of the world's most evil killers.