01x04 - No Ride Home

[bunniefuu]

[insects chirring]

[bird squawking]

[woman 1] I'm still hurt.

I'm still mad.

And... no trust.

I lost that.

I always tell my grandkids
and great-grandkids,

always watch your back and... [sniffles]

...don't be...

don't think everybody's your friend,
you know? [sniffles]

[whispers] Yeah.

[theme music plays]

[woman 1] I had raised all five of my kids
in Kansas.

I had two boys and three girls,
and Lonzo is the baby.

Growing up, he was...

upset because half the time
when the kids went somewhere,

he couldn't go
because he was the youngest one.

[wind chimes tinkling]

This is Alonzo's jacket.

He used to wear it all the time.

I wear this jacket and...

I just put it on,

just 'cause I know it's his.

It makes me feel good,
you know, comf--

You know, like he's around me.

[woman 2] He was definitely her baby.

He was her heart.

He was her youngest boy,

and they had a really strong,
tight relationship.

And this is him
when he was three years old.

Karate. He loved to do karate,
'cause he was in a karate thing.

[camera shutter clicks]

[woman 3] He was always a kind,
little, sweet, shy but playful kid.

He was a loving person.

A fun person.

And he got along with everybody.

[man 1]
As a young man, when he was growing up,

he was polite to everybody.

It was nice to see that,
growing up as a young man like that.

He was a neat freak. Clean.

Had to have, like,

his shorts and pants creased up.

[man 2] His favorite color was red,

so he was pretty much
either in red or black.

Always wore boots and a beanie.

Always had a beanie on,
and he kept it down, you know,

right above-- right above his eyelids,

so you could barely see his eyeballs.

[man 3] We grew up in Topeka, Kansas.

I actually left there when I was 18,

and, uh, Alonzo moved to Gardner, Kansas
with my mom.

Topeka is more urban, more urban sprawl.

-Gardner is a lot slower.
-[children chattering]

It's more... suburbia.

When we were younger,
I would, you know, tease him

and punch him and,
you know, try to make him hard, you know.

And, uh, try to make him grow up too fast.

And my mom used to get on us about--
get on me about that.

And, you know, "Leave him alone,"
you know?

Like, you gotta be hard, you know?

You gotta be tough out here.
You can't be weak, you know?

People take advantage of you.

[Maria] His nickname is Zo.

There's him with a football.

He loves that football.

He was... always messing up my hair.

I used to get so mad.
I miss that, you know?

I miss that a lot, but, uh...

[insects chirring]

[Maria] That day...

he said that he's going to a party.

And I said,
"What party are you talking about?"

He goes,
"This guy's leaving to the service

and we're all gonna go out there."

And I go, "Well, who's 'we'?"

The person who came for him was Justin.

[man 4] I'm not really sure
how I learned of the party.

I don't recall that it was something
that was planned out weeks in advance.

That's-- That's not really
how our group was. It was more of...

"Hey, heard this is going on.
The hell with it. Let's just go."

[man 5]
All I know is somebody called and said,

you know, "Come out to this party.
A bunch of us are going out. Um...

You guys wanna come out here?"

It was kinda just get on the phone,
see who's all going out there,

and we headed out that-- that night.

[Daniel] Lonzo, I don't remember him going
to like a ton of parties that we went to.

I mean, we were all a little bit younger
than Lonzo.

He was about 22 years old,
you know, somewhere in that range.

Trey, his little brother,
was really good friends with my brother.

We used to play football,
basketball, sports.

[Tyler] It was probably at football,
the first time I met him.

We used to get together every Sunday,
and, uh,

that's when I knew
that he was an intense person.

[Justin]
Zo was a beast when it came to football.

But he'd go from knocking your ass
in the dirt playing football,

to literally, you guys could just sit down
and just chat.

I mean, he was just the easiest guy
in the world to get along with.

I remember before we left Zo's house,

him fixing his socks.

He always wore two pair of socks,
but he had...

like, rolled it down
to tie his boot a little tighter.

[Maria] A week before that,
Alonzo was out there playing basketball

and he hurt his ankle,
you know, so he was kinda limping.

He had blue jeans on,

a t-shirt, a sweater,

and he had that skull hat.

And he said, "I'll see you later, Mama."
I said, "Okay, see you later."

[Justin] It came time to leave,
and we just started divvying up,

you know, who was riding with who.

Zo approached me and asked me if I--
who was riding with me,

and I said, "Nobody yet."

And he asked if he could jump in.
Like, "Yeah, come on, man. Let's do it."

[slow rock music plays]

[Justin] The party was in La Cygne.

I had never heard of La Cygne
prior to that night.

It was roughly an hour,

maybe even a little bit more.

[Daniel] There's really not much to it.

It's a little, tiny, tiny Kansas town.
Um...

I think they got, like, one gas station.
No real grocery store, nothing like that.

There ain't nothing down there.
Ain't houses everywhere,

ain't people everywhere.
You're in the middle of the country.

-[train horn blaring]
-[crossing bell clanging]

[slow rock music continues]

[engine stops]

-[country music playing nearby]
-[people chattering]

[Justin] When we got to the party,

the first thing I remember is the--
the long driveway going up to the house.

It's, uh, your normal country driveway,
next to a creek.

There was a few people standing
out and around the house.

Zo immediately screamed out,
"Who wants a beer?"

That was how we initiated contact
with everybody at the party,

was him yelling out, "Who wants a beer?"

-[overlapping chatter]
-[country music continues]

Everybody at the party, I would say,
was maybe 16 to 21 at the absolute most.

Everybody was playing flip cup or--
or something like that.

You had people kind of off to one side
who were dancing.

You had guys inside playing cards.

Other drinking games going on.

Zo wanted to get in on it.

[chuckles] It was--
It was hilarious to watch.

Zo was having-- Zo was having a blast.

[country music continues]

[Daniel] When I got to the party,
Alonzo was already there.

I'd say there was about, you know,


I can remember six or eight people
that were from Gardner,

from our group of friends that were there,
but a lot of the people I didn't know.

[Tyler] Was a lot of people at that party,

and there was a tight group of people
that were there,

people that I didn't know.

It was more of a country... type thing,

and we're-- we're not so much that,
so, I mean, it was different that way.

A lot more of the cowboys and stuff.

[music continues, muted]

But it was a good time, music was going,
and I seen Alonzo off the bat.

He came up.
He was in a great mood that night.

And it was a little off
'cause Alonzo's more of a quiet person

and that night he seemed more outgoing,

and Alonzo was enjoying himself
a lot more that evening.

It was-- It was fun.

[Daniel]
I seen Lonzo, he was in the kitchen.

I sat down with him for a little while.
We had a couple of drinks.

I brought a little bottle of Jäger,
and we took a couple sh*ts together.

Then I walked away
to talk to somebody real quick,

and when I turned around...

I don't know who it was,
but him and another guy

just were getting into it
and were face-to-face with each other.

[man] Get your f*ckin' hands off my woman!

[Daniel] Started seeming like
they were gonna get serious,

so I stepped in between them,

pulled Lonzo to the side,
moved this guy to the side,

tried to break it up.

[Justin] There was some people
at the party who had, you know,

problems with-- with people's skin color.

[Tyler]
Our group didn't really think about race,

so it never really got brought up.

But Alonzo probably was the only black man
that was there.

[Daniel]
Alonzo, he didn't sweat nothing like that.

He didn't let that worry him at all.
That wasn't gonna ruin his good time.

I think I was only there
about an hour and a half.

We got a call about going to another party

and it happened quick when Nicky
was like, "Oh, let's go, let's go."

That was my ride, so we had to take off.

I do remember saying bye to Lonzo,

and I remember, you know,
shaking his hand,

and that was really it.

[Tyler] I left shortly after.
I didn't stay long.

I was there maybe 45 minutes to an hour.

We just, you know, shook hands,
did the hug, and then that was it,

and said, "Have a good night, Alonzo."

And that was pretty early.
I'd say it was about 11 o'clock or so.

I figured Justin was gonna
give him a ride home

and didn't really think nothing of it.

[Justin] I smoked my last cigarette,

so I went to snatch a cigarette
from Alonzo.

And he was also out,

and said, "Well, if you're gonna go
get some smokes, grab me a pack too."

Then I left to go get us cigarettes.

Out of the driveway,

I should have gone left, and went right.

Ended up...

getting lost on some gravel roads,
getting my car stuck,

and ended up about 30 minutes...

it would be,
north of where I was supposed to be.

[engine revving]

And, at that point,

I made a phone call to another
buddy of ours that was at the party,

let him know to get ahold of Alonzo
and tell him I got lost.

Um, I could hear Alonzo talking sh*t
in the background

that I got lost
and that I wasn't gonna make it back,

and for my friend Adam
to give Zo a ride home.

[phone ringing]

[Maria] I get this phone call and...

"Is Alonzo home?" and I go,

"Well, he should be home."

So that's when I go look in his room.

His bed's still made up.

He hasn't been in his room at all.

And that's when I start yelling
for Alonzo,

you know, if he's down in the basement.

He wasn't there.

I said, "No, Alonzo's not home.
Where is he at?"

He said, "Well, maybe he spent the night
at somebody's house."

There's no way. He will always come home,
no matter what.

So I said, "Call all these people
and find out where he's at."

[dialing number]

-[line ringing]
-[multiple cell phones ringing]

[Daniel]
The next day when we all woke up,

everybody's phone started going off
because everybody was like,

"Where's Lonzo? Who-- Who seen him last?"

[phones continue ringing]

[Tyler]
I got a phone call that Sunday morning

that just asked if I seen Alonzo,

or if he made it home or not.

I told 'em, "I'm not real sure.
I seen him when I left the party."

[Daniel]
It's not like Lonzo to not come home.

-He would've at least called.
-[line ringing]

[Justin] Somebody called me and said,
"Hey, man, have you talked to Zo?"

I'm like, "No, last time I talked to him
he was still at the party,

and, uh, Adam was gonna give him
a ride home."

But what I've heard is that Adam believed
that he had already left,

or they-- they missed each other.

How it didn't come-- that they didn't
get together at the end of the night,

I'm-- I'm not sure.

I'm Rodney English, Alonzo's best friend.

I'm here at my mom's house.
We're up in North Topeka.

That's where he grew up.

[soft piano music plays]

Played outside all the time.

We used to build ramps
in the middle of the street

with some bricks and some wood,
and we'd just...

jump our bikes.

Played basketball, football, in the yard.

Played King of the Hill.

Climb a little, you know, compost pile.

Hardest guy stands on top,
and you try to knock him off.

Whoever stays on top's the king.

I don't know,
he was just like a brother to me.

[Rodney] I got a call.

His mom asked me if I heard from Lonzo.

I'm like, "No, why?"

"Well, he went to a party last night
and he ain't came home.

And the people
that he went to the party with,

he ain't with them."

That was a sign there that,
okay, something ain't right.

I didn't know his friends.

We met up in Gardner.

We went to go look for him.

Justin showed up to take us
to where the party was at,

'cause we didn't know where to go.
So he rode with me down to La Cygne.

That's the first time
I met Justin and them.

We get to this old farmhouse
that sits off back off this road and...

they say, "Well, the party was here."

So we get out
and start walking around to look.

[Justin] It came up between all of us,
let's go check along the woodline,

make sure he didn't just get drunk
and decide to sleep outside.

And we ended up crossing the street
from the house.

[Rodney] I walked out of the driveway
and across the street

just to, you know,
look on the other side of the road,

and came upon his hat and a boot.

The hat and the boot was right over there,
in between those two poles.

And his other boot we found
right on the side of this creek bank.

They weren't, like, tucked under nothing.
It's like nobody tried to hide them or,

you know,
they coulda threw 'em in the trash can.

It's like somebody was driving
down the road

when they pulled out of the farmhouse,

threw the hat and boot out this way,
and then grabbed another boot

and threw it out
as they was driving down the road.

That's the only theory
I could come up with.

Now, why they would do that,

I have no clue.

Some guy rolled up on a four-wheeler
and, uh...

came from back that way.

That's the guy that told us
we had to leave.

At that point, we knew what was up.

Something's not right.

He's missing. Something's--
Something's totally wrong.

Something happened to my brother.

Sorry, but I gotta get the f*ck
outta here. I mean...

I do not feel safe at all.

The town we were in was definitely
an all-white dominant town,

La Cygne was.

[Daniel] Definitely, you know,
there's some racism involved down there.

It gets worse when you get down in--
you know, go a little more further south.

[Justin] Obviously,

that crap comes with the area.

[Rodney] I kind of talked to Justin

and I asked him some questions,
like, "How you take someone to a party

and you don't come home with them?"

Especially as far as we were,
out in the middle of nowhere.

When I left him,
he was having a damn good time.

He was still laughing, joking around.

There was no animosity in the air,
like, that you could feel. Like--

You know what I mean?
There hadn't been a single--

Maybe other than a couple couples bitching
back and forth between each other,

there was no... no issues. Period.

To leave him there,
an hour away from home?

I ain't understand that.

[Maria] I went to the police station.

They said I have to wait 48 hours

to call him missing.

I said, "No, I'm letting you know
he's missing because I know my son.

You know, he comes home.

Something's telling me
that something went wrong at that party."

[soft chiming]

[Demetria] When I got the call
that he didn't come home,

I knew something was wrong.

He wasn't the type that stayed anywhere.

I know something happened to him.

I know somebody did something to him.

I got a call Sunday-- Sunday night
from my mom.

My mom was frantic.

And I was telling her,
"Calm down, what's going on?"

She kept saying,
"Your brother hasn't come home."

Me and my wife got up on that Monday

and drove down to La Cygne.

Got in touch with the owner of the house
where the party was at,

and we find out that the house was empty.

It was something kind of like
a rented house, or something like that.

When we pulled up to the house,

on the right hand side is just all fields.

And then down the back of the house,
there...

there's a small creek back there.

[Cindy] I remember looking in the window

and just trying to visualize,
what was going on here the night before?

'Cause it was empty.

It just didn't look like a place

that would've had a huge party
just the night before.

[Billy] We drove around the highways
and see if we see anything.

We drove through the town.

People in town were looking at us
kind of like,

you know, "Why are you here?"

You can tell.

You can tell when eyes are on you.

After that, we went to the police station

and we had a meeting
with the sheriff there.

[Cindy]
We were trying to make them understand

how serious this was
that he had not shown up.

And I remember their sheriff saying,
"He's gonna show up any time.

He's just probably out doing what kids do,
just walking around."

And I remember my response was,

"How many people do you know that are out
walking around with no shoes on?"

And it had rained.

That's basically what we got,
and then we left there

and we was just kind of depending
on the police department

to do their investigation
and find out what's going on.

[Paul]
I originally received information on it.

I needed to go to this address in La Cygne

because there's been a report
of a missing person.

And I went there.

Alonzo wasn't at the house.

We walked the creek bed that night,

but there was no indication
that he was outside anywhere.

I just reported back negative contact
with Alonzo or anybody around there.

After that,
the case was turned over to the KBI,

and at that point we became
assisting agency as the sheriff's office.

Within a few days
of the reported missing person,

-there was a very extensive search.
-[dog whining]

The KBI,
their evidence recovery team came down,

walked the creek bed,

looking for evidence.

[man] The Monday following the party,

this department was there with, uh,
air scent tracking dogs

and walked the area.

Also, the Kansas Highway Patrol,
uh, supplied a helicopter.

[helicopter flying over]

FBI joined our search team.

[reporter]
The FBI continues to investigate

to find out if Alonzo may have been
the victim of a hate crime.

According to some witnesses at the party,

Alonzo was threatened
and was the target of racial slurs.

[Martin] The Lee's Summit Underwater
Rescue and Dive Team was brought in

on the 12th.

[man] The team was dispatched at noon
on the day of the search.

When we came out here
and did the initial search,

water was three feet high at--

or three feet deep in--
in, uh the deepest part.

We had three guys in the creek

that started from this bridge
and walked down to the "T" right here,

and then we had three people
on either side,

walking and clearing brush
and everything like that all the way down.

But we found nothing to indicate
that a body was in the creek at all.

We told the sheriff we'd come back out
if they wanted us to.

We weren't invited to come back out
and search again, so...

we wrapped it up
and closed our case part of it.

[dogs barking]

[Billy] There was no signs of him.

The cadaver dogs didn't find anything,

the dive team didn't find anything.

So we were at a loss.

I was mad at all those kids
that are from Gardner and went down there.

They know Alonzo.

Why'd you guys leave my son there?

Nobody had no answer.

There was...

hundreds of interviews

conducted both by the KBI and the FBI.

Hundreds.

And there were some polygraphs done.

So we ran it down that way.

Every other day,
we were meeting with investigators,

giving them, you know, what we knew,
who was there, phone numbers.

And it was just a constant barrage
of law enforcement.

They kept telling us
that he likely just got drunk,

took his shoes off,
and decided to walk home.

Total bullshit. And that's what
we kept trying to tell them.

A: that's out of his character in general,

and B: his ankle's messed up.

Why is he gonna just...

take off his boots,

and then truck
I don't know how many miles home?

[Billy] With that many days gone by,
we know he's not walking down the highway,

we know he's not staying
at somebody's house.

We couldn't say what it was,
but we knew something happened.

[Maria] They didn't want my family
to go looking for him.

We want to go out there,
to the farmhouse and search.

The sheriffs told us no.

They say that they looking for him.

[Billy] We were calling Linn County
Sheriffs, Police Department daily.

I mean, daily.

I mean, probably for three weeks straight.

He'd said, you know,
"You need to slow down the phone calls.

Just stop calling. Let us contact you.

We're working on things."

[insects chirring]

[Maria] A month later,

that's when they let my family
go down there.

They gave them the okay

to go down and search for my son.

[Billy] From a Linn County standpoint,
they didn't have anything on this case,

so, of course, they were like,
"Yeah, have your search.

Have at it. Go ahead."

Family were reaching out to friends,

asking anybody, you know,
"We're gonna do a search in La Cygne."

A lot of people heard about it,
and a lot of people wanted to participate.

And, you know, honestly,
we don't know what we was looking for.

But we just wanted to find something
that was a representation of my brother,

or what could have happened, or anything.

[Edward] We all split up.

I was gonna go along the creek bank
on the east side of the house

and follow that creek bank.

There was a white shed
that's not there now.

[stammers] And we had always said
somebody needs to search that shed.

That's where we were actually headed,
toward that.

We were digging, you know,
where we could, through all the brush

and we got down there,

and I looked up and I said, "Oh crap.

There he is. There's Zo."

And I radioed and said,
"We've got him. We've got Zo."

[Billy] I got a call from my uncle
on the walkie-talkie,

saying, "Billy, we found him.

Just-- Just follow the--
follow the creek."

So I kept running all the way
through this mud area out here.

When I seen him, I ran down there,

you know, kind of slid down onto the,
uh, the embankment.

My uncle stopped me and says,

"Don't touch him. Don't go over there."

And I was trying
to make my way over there.

It was-- It was just-- It was a mess.

You know, it was a mess, so...

You see him laying there and you...

think back all the times
that you seen him walking around,

having fun.

And you-- And you see
this young man just laying there.

His life's just gone.

Lucky his mom didn't come

and help search.

'Cause I don't think
my sister coulda took that day.

[sobs softly]

He was 23 years old.

He was 23 when he--
when I last saw him.

After we found him,
it was KBI, FBI, I mean, helicopters.

It was-- It was crazy.

It was just like, boom.

[helicopter blades thumping]

[reporter] Family members found the body
of Alonzo Brooks

in a creek just 200 meters from this...

[Billy] We all went down to town,

and that's where
the press conference was at.

We just really wanted to find him.
We just really wanted to find him,

and bring some kind of light to
that he's not just missing,

that there may have been
some foul play into it.

Beginning the examination, what I had
was a decomposing body in the body bag.

-[camera shutter clicking]
-The body was clothed.

It had some personal items,
including a ring.

The examination internally
and the examination of the clothing

does give me a fair degree of confidence

that I don't have penetrating injuries
as a cause of death.

No evidence of any acute bone fracture.

No evidence of a sharp force injury,
nor a g*nsh*t.

Could he have drowned? Yes.

But there are no specific anatomic signs
to make a determination of drowning.

Could he be strangled? Certainly.
The soft tissues of the neck are gone.

They've been damaged
by animals and insects.

So, there's nothing there

that allows me to make the determination
that he was or was not strangled.

There's no broken bone,

there's no penetration of bone.
If he's been beaten,

it has not left anything identifiable.

Mr. Brooks d*ed.

I do not know the circumstances
of his death.

I do not know the cause of his death.

Whether there was an accident

or whether there was
a purposeful involvement in his death.

[Billy] There's no accident
that could've happened to my brother.

That was intentional.

Very intentional.

His boots and hat was found
off the side of the highway,

far away, you know,
from his body and everything.

That obviously give you some kind of--
Something happened.

Why is his shoes here?

Why is his hat here?

What happened?

[scoffs] There's just foul play
written all over it.

That's all there is to it, there's just
foul play written all over it.

[reporter] The night of the party,

witnesses say there were four men
living at this house.

They've now since been evicted.

But what happened at the party,
and whether it was a hate crime,

is still under investigation.

There's a lot of...

uh, opinions out there,

on the web and on blogs,

and all sorts of different variations
of what could have happened.

[Justin] The different rumors
that were going around,

some of them I guess were feasible,

and the other ones
were just completely asinine.

[Daniel] You know, rumors that...

maybe he did start walking on that--
that highway

and somebody picked him up.

[Justin] We set him up to drug dealers.

Alonzo was chased down the driveway.

After the party, like, he tried to run.

Somebody kept him in the trunk of a car,
tortured-- I mean, you name it.

[Daniel] Lot of that going around,

you know, and the thing is,
that there was so much of it

that some of it actually
could've been true.

[Justin] I remember...

hearing from the police officers
that there were

a couple fights later that night.

I mean, we all know how everybody can get
when you're drinking.

I mean, tempers are short.

[overlapping chatter, muted]

[Cindy] One of the things that I've heard

is that there was a girl there,
a white girl,

and maybe she flirted with him
or maybe he flirted with her.

And they got too friendly,

and...

some of the other guys that were there
at the party didn't like it.

[Billy] If he's the only black kid there,

you're gonna have somebody in there,

or a group of some people,

that's just gonna probably...

wanna do something just because--
just because of his color.

[man] Get your f*ckin' hands off my woman!

[Tyler] I'm sure the "n" word
was getting thrown out that night.

Alonzo would get mad about it,

I do believe.

I think he got his ass b*at
by about four or five people.

That's what I believe,
Alonzo got b*at up, he got jumped.

It definitely would've taken a few guys,
or some type of brutal force of something.

-[soft grunts]
-'Cause Alonzo wouldn't have gave up.

[reporter 1]
The FBI continues to investigate

to find out if Alonzo may have been
the victim of a hate crime.

[reporter 2] Brooks' body was found here
in this ravine in La Cygne, Kansas.

Sheriff Stites says his crew was there
many times before.

His body was absolutely not
where it is now

at the time law enforcement was there.

[Billy] It doesn't make any sense
that a dive team came out,

KBI came out,

that we had cadaver dogs out,

and you'd done all these searches before
and never found him.

But we do a search,

and within 30 minutes, we find him.

[Bill] When we came out here
and did the initial search,

the creek level was so low,
they could actually see the bottom.

We would have found him doing,
you know, this motion here,

just shuffling our-- our bodies
and our feet like this,

just walking through the creek doing this.

If there was a body in here
when we searched it,

he would've been found that night.

[insects chirring]

[Dr. Mitchell] Searches often fail
to find the person you're looking for.

You'll have helicopters and dogs
and police and family

and then all of a sudden they get found.

He could have floated down the creek

when the creek had higher water levels
after a rainstorm.

We've got a clog there
of brushes and branch,

and he's simply trapped in that mess.

[Billy] When we found my brother,

his body did not look like it was bloated,

like he was in the water.

His complexion of his skin
looked normal to me.

He actually looked like he was...

you know,
like he had his color and stuff on,

like he wasn't, you know...

uh, dead.

[Maria] All these item was found
on my son, all of them.

For him supposed to be in that water
for over a month,

it doesn't look like it,
because this stuff is not damaged.

His billfold's still intact.

His bandanna is not even that bad.

Everything's still intact. His papers.

Look at that. Nothing.

This too, the plastic.
Look at that, that's still good.

[voice breaks] This is his video card
to go to the movies,

and it's still intact. Look at that.

That's it, I can't do no more.

[Billy] We believe that the body
had been placed in the creek

after the last search.

When we went down there
to ask Sheriff Stites

that we wanted to do our own search,

I don't know...

who Sheriff Stites talked to,

and let them know that, hey, you know,
the Brooks family are gonna do a search.

La Cygne, being a small town,
somebody could tell somebody,

somebody could tell somebody,
and it just goes like wildfire.

And then somebody that had him or whatever
probably just figured,

like, "Hey, it's time,
we can get rid of him right now.

Let 'em find him."

So that's what we believe.

Somebody had placed him there.

Where was he at from April 4th,
all the way to May 1st, when we found him?

Where was he at all that time?

I believe...

my brother could have been
in a meat locker or something.

For the body to not decompose as fast.

That's what I believe.

[Dr. Mitchell]
There's nothing that allows you to know

whether somebody's been frozen.

If you find it immediately upon thawing,

there are some microscopic changes

that might suggest
that that's what's happened.

However, when you have
significant decomposition

that's superimposed upon that,

these signs disappear.

There's no way to prove or disprove
that a body's been frozen.

As far as how long
that body's been in the creek,

it's consistent
with having been there 30 days.

It could easily be shorter.

I also don't know the circumstances
under which he ended up in the creek,

so I can't tell you whether
he placed himself in that environment

or somebody else placed him
in that environment.

We know that most people,

when they k*ll somebody
and dispose of a body,

do so in convenient fashions.

Moving a dead body is not convenient.

To bring that body down there and dump it,
very inconvenient.

You gotta go through brush,

you gotta go an extended period
across a field.

That's highly improbable.

Now, having said that,

if somebody sets their mind to it,

you can take a body and you can move it

and you can dump it somewhere.

They hid my son from me.

They hid my son from all of us. [sniffs]

Sometimes I think about, you know,
if he was...

you know, being jumped or something,

you know, he could've been
calling out for me, you know, as well.

You know, calling out
for his big brother to come and help him.

So, I didn't get that opportunity.

You don't wanna think about him suffering
and being in pain.

I'm sure he was very scared
and didn't know what was happening,

or why it was happening.

I wish I was still there
'cause I woulda grabbed him up.

I woulda grabbed him up
and he wouldn't have been there.

[sniffling]
It's my fault. I should've been there.

He wouldn't have been alone.

[sniffles]
I'd have gone down with him fighting.

I'd trade places with him today.

In a heartbeat.

[sniffles]

[Demetria]
They say time heals all wounds, but...

it doesn't.

What they took from us
was a piece of our heart.

You know, a piece of our soul.

[low murmurs]

[Felicia] Everyone else is going on
with their day, living their life,

and... here we are stuck,

wondering who did it, why.

They could be walking past us.
We don't know. I mean, you know?

It's just always one of those questions
that stays in your mind.

Why, and who did it?

[Billy] He didn't get to have his family,

to get married,

go to work.

You know, we could have
barbecues or something right here,

hear his crazy laugh.

I can't hear that no more.

You know, all that's gone.

[Billy] This is a letter from the, um,
Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

It says, "The KBI was one
of the several law enforcement agencies

who investigated the April 4th death
of Alonzo Brooks.

No evidence or information

gained throughout
the lengthy investigation

indicated that Alonzo Brooks
was the victim of a crime.

For this reason, the investigation
into his death was closed."

My brother...

deserves more than this,
along with his family.

His case needs to stay open.

It shoulda never closed.

It should stay open till it's actually...
closed with results.

There's no results.

If you can find O*ama b*n L*den
way across the dang world,

you could find somebody here
who did something.

[overlapping chatter, muted]

[Tyler] I think there was enough people
at that party that night

that they could've figured something out.

Or there would be more evidence out there
for them to find what happened.

[Daniel] I just don't know how the FBI
didn't get anything out of anybody.

I mean... [scoffs]

...for all the people they probably
put that lie detector test to,

how are you gonna come up with nothing?

Some people lawyered up

and then a lot of people
didn't have to take lie detector tests.

Why are you refusing it
in the first place?

You obviously got something to hide.

All I can say is that
you know who you are.

Think about this being your son.

Think about this being your brother
or your friend.

If you know something, please come out.

Please come out
and just give us a little help.

That's what we're asking for.

[Maria] This was tragic for our family.

I want answers now.

It's been 15 years. It's too long.

That town still hasn't say anything.

And the people and the kids
don't say sh*t. [sniffles]

And...

I still wanna know why.

[theme music playing]