03x01 - Captured on Camera

[bunniefuu]

Woman: please, someone help!

Help! Help!

Narrator: late at night,

A young woman abducted from a city street...

You ultimately think, "this is gonna be

One of those stories with a bad ending."

Narrator: her family is terrified.

I wish I would've been there to help my daughter.

We believed that we would find a body...

Her body.

Narrator: but this horrific ordeal

Is different than most.

It's been caught on camera...

Oh, gosh. He's just dragging her.

We were hoping that we could identify who this person was.

Narrator: ...leaving police to solve this crime...

We need that other camera.

...one piece of video at a time.

Show us your hands.

This case wouldn't have been solved

Without the cctv footage.

♪♪

--Captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

Narrator: november 2, 2014,

Philadelphia, 9:40 at night,

Recycling worker dwayne fletcher is walking home...

[ Woman screaming ]

...when he hears a commotion.

[ Screaming continues ]

He goes to help.

But whoever it was has vanished.

Police department?

I-i just heard a woman scream.

And I think she might be in trouble.

Police respond immediately.

So uniformed officers that are gonna arrive at the scene

Are gonna take an initial report,

Try and get an idea as to what happened.

One off 18, code 11, stand by.

Luckily, there are clues,

Starting with the shattered remains of a car window.

Giles: the broken glass is very significant

Because that confirmed

To investigators what mr. Fletcher had told them,

That an apparent struggle took place.

Next to it, something even more useful --

A cell phone,

Which means police can track its owner.

There's a lot of ways that a police officer

Can take a phone

And figure out who it belongs to.

The easiest, take a look at it.

Is there someone who they speak with all the time?

Simply call that person up.

Say, "we found this phone.

And we're trying to figure out who it belongs to."

Narrator: on this phone, one name crops up

Again and again.

Police dial the number.

Whoever picks up will provide the first lead in this case.

Hi, this is officer jackson,

Philadelphia p.d.

Can you tell us who's the owner of this phone?

The man confirms he's stefan,

The live-in boyfriend of the phone's owner,



Carlesha freeland-gaither.

When's the last time that you saw her?

He says he hasn't seen her since that morning.

Police will want to speak to stefan a.s.a.p.

But first, they must speak to a relative.

The phone's address book provides one...

[ Telephone rings ]

...carlesha's grandmother, ana.

Hello?

Mulero: it's hard to even put in words.

It's like you freeze.

You don't know what to think.

What's going on?

Who do you talk to? Where do you go?

Narrator: ana lives in washington, d.c.,



But she doesn't delay.

I got custody of carlesha when carlesha was 3 years old.

And so she came to live with me and my family.

I got to do many things that I didn't do

With my sons like comb her hair

And dress her up and go out,

Somebody to hang with me in the mall.

So having her around was always a joy to me.

Narrator: detectives contact area hospitals,

Jails, and morgues.

But there's no sign of the missing woman anywhere.

There is a glimmer of hope.

Investigators spot two security cameras

That could hold the secret to carlesha's disappearance.

The first camera is on an apartment building

In front of where the witness heard the scream.

The second is on a business around the corner

Where the scream came from.

A surveillance camera is not gonna put any

Preconceived notions into the situation.

It's literally, you know, black and white,

Showing you exactly what happened.

Narrator: these two cameras may have seen it all

And hold the secret to carlesha's disappearance.

But it's the middle of the night.

Police won't even be able to ask for the footage

Until the morning.

Police don't wait for daybreak

To ask for help from the f.b.i.

Special agent percy giles gets the call at 3:00 a.m.

I happen to be sleeping. I got the call.

I got the phone call from my command center

Saying that detectives wanted to speak to an agent

As soon as possible.

Narrator: the fbi also dispatches

More than 40 agents to the neighborhood.

When you're investigating a missing person,

You go to where that person was last seen,

Going door to door,

Talking to everybody, looking for any clues,

Anything to push you in the right direction.

Narrator: but when day breaks,

The fbi realizes no one they spoke to saw anything.

While fbi agents continue

Their search for leads...

...police phone carlesha's boyfriend, stefan,

And bring him in for questioning.

In instances like this, it's a person that knows,

Has intimate relationship with the victim.

Narrator: stefan swears the relationship was good

And insists he was at home with his cousin

When carlesha vanished.

As for carlesha...

Stefan says that last night,

She'd gone to a party at her friend's house.

Police contact carlesha's friend...

Hi! How's it going?

...who confirms that carlesha came over around 3:00 p.m.

I'm glad I'm passionate about it.

Carlesha has always been popular.

Definitely, yeah.

She was a very caring,

Fun-loving, giving person.

-Cheers. -Cheers.

She would always tell me, when she was younger,

That one day, she was gonna grow up

And be the president of the united states

Because she wanted to help people.

Narrator: by all accounts, she had fun.

If there was anything on her mind,

She didn't show it.

Giles: we found out that carlesha left around 9:00.

Bye, see you.

And she walked to get on the bus to go home.

The journey should've taken no more than 15 minutes,

Maybe 20 minutes if the bus was running late.

Narrator: but no one ever saw her again.

And as the night turns to day without any word,

The family is in agony.

I had a lot of questions. I wanted to know, first of all,

Who would do it, why?

I was very concerned.

Agent. Hey, how's it going?

First thing in the morning,

Agents track down that security footage

That overlooks the corner

Where the abduction took place.

The first available is from the camera

Where the witness was when he heard the screams.

The camera looks straight down green street,

Where carlesha got off the bus,

Just a few feet from where the witness heard screaming.

That's when police get their first glimpse

Of what happened to carlesha.

Those who saw it will never forget it.

Whoa.

Narrator: investigators hunting for missing nursing assistant

Carlesha freeland-gaither have their first lead --

Footage from a camera that points directly at the bus stop

Where carlesha would've gotten off.

They did everything to provide detectives

With that camera footage.

Okay, the incident happened at approximately 9:41.

Can you take it back a few minutes before that?

Narrator: at first,

They're watching an empty street.

Then, a pair of headlights.

Giles: there's a bus that stops at the stop sign,

Continues to go down the road.

Narrator: presumably, this is the bus carlesha was on.

It's hard to tell if anyone got off

Until 6 seconds later.

A figure appears and starts to cross the road.

This could be carlesha.

Then, something strange --

Another figure appears and approaches carlesha.

The two appear to shake hands

And disappear around the corner.

It doesn't look at all like an abduction.

Can you play it again?

From the size and build,

The second person looks like a male.

Giles: appears to be wearing dark clothing,

Jacket, hooded sweatshirt.

Narrator: but it's hard to tell if it's carlesha he's following.

Can you pause it here?

Zoom in.

And this time, he's sure.

Skinny jeans, light top,

Short denim jacket, that's our girl.

But who is the man behind her?

And is he somehow involved in her disappearance?

He rewinds the footage.

This time, he can see for sure

That carlesha's trying to get away.

Cheplak: the suspect approaches our victim,

And the victim initially walks away.

That's an indication that the victim

Didn't want to interact with the suspect.

Narrator: but why?

Is he a complete stranger,

Or is there some backstory?

Cheplak: now, whether they knew each other

And they were fighting,

At this point in time, it's hard to say.

Narrator: and what agent giles notices next

Only deepens the mystery.

Carlesha turns to face the man and takes his hand.

Then, they disappear behind a building.

Whoa. Okay.

The male appears to lunge.

But whether he tripped or was pushing her,

It's too soon to tell.

Police must figure out

Who the man in the footage is.

And it's obvious who they must start with --

Carlesha's boyfriend, stefan.

But stefan swore that he was at home the entire evening,

Playing video games with his cousin.

It's an easy story to check.

Yeah, giles.

Did the boyfriend's alibi check out?

Okay.

Stefan's cousin confirms

He was with stefan at 9:40 p.m. That night.

Stefan is put aside as a suspect.

Agent giles wonders, "if the man in the footage

Isn't carlesha's boyfriend, stefan...

...who is he?"

There's another camera that could tell them.

It points right down west coulter street,

Around the corner where the couple disappeared.

Giles here.

We need the other camera from around the corner --

The west coulter angle.

Can you track that business down?

But they have not yet been able

To reach the owner of the business

The second camera belongs to.

Here. Take these.

It's now been 12 hours since carlesha vanished.

And her distraught family cannot bear

To sit by and do nothing.

Somebody must've seen something, right?

Carlesha's grandfather makes missing posters.

And the family takes to the streets.

You know, you feel bad.

But you're trying to use the energy,

You know, rather than sitting there.

You at least feel like you're doing something.

I just felt like I wish

I would've been there to help my daughter.

I just wanted her home.

Mulero: I did not sleep.

And eating, for me, was a problem, too.

I knew carlesha, wherever she is,

She's gonna reach out somehow.

I don't know how, but she's gonna find a way

To get in touch with me and say, "grandmom, I'm alive."

Narrator: but the hours go by and still no lead.

Agent giles has an idea.

He shares the footage with carlesha's family.

Maybe they can help to identify the man

She is seen talking to.

Do you recognize him?

And ana thinks she does.

We went to jasha once

And carlesha wanted to go get something to eat.

And when she came back, this young man was with her.

I just thought they had met.

You know how kids meet, and they were friends.

And the next thing I know,

Couple weeks later...

I got a knock on the door, and it was this young man.

Good afternoon. Is carlesha home?

Narrator: this unexpected visit

Unsettled carlesha's grandmother.

He gave me the creeps. I just disliked his looks.

I disliked his demeanor.

He came to my house twice,

Wanting to find out where she was.

I asked him to leave his number,

And I would share his number with her.

Thanks very much.

Narrator: but ana was bluffing

And never gave carlesha the man's number.

Now she fears the young man has returned with a vengeance.

Mulero: and then, I assumed that because

They're all friends on social media,

That he had tracked her down.

Narrator: ana tells agent giles that the young man's name

Is brandon.

And she still has his number.

Two hours later, investigators bring brandon in.

With stefan out of the way,

He's rapidly become their number one suspect.

We wanted to see what he had to say.

He told us that he hadn't been in contact with her in years.

Narrator: and he agrees to take a lie detector to prove it.

Cheplak: it is often a good indicator

As to whether or not someone is being truthful.

It's gonna measure your heart rate.

It's gonna measure certain changes in your breathing.

Someone might be giving you 95% of the truth.

And the 5% that they leave out is the incriminating factor.

Narrator: the polygraph doesn't pick up any sign of deception.

Brandon is off the hook for now.

And the case is back to square one.



With the case treading water,

Investigators get a break.

They've tracked down the camera

That may have seen the crime.

And the footage is ready for the agents to view.

As more time goes on, the likelihood of that person,

You know, being found or rescued safely,

Goes down very quickly.

Narrator: the video comes in,

And no one who views it will ever forget what it shows.

Narrator: 18 hours after nursing assistant

Carlesha freeland-gaither disappeared,

Philadelphia police

And fbi agents are about to see some footage

That will stun even the most hardened veterans.

The first camera showed carlesha

And a mystery man shaking hands

And disappearing down west coulter street.

Now police sit down to look at the footage

From the west coulter street camera.

Let's see what we got here.

They queue the footage to 9:39 p.m.,

Just before carlesha's bus arrived.

At 9:39 and 24 seconds,

It continues down green street.



A man emerges from the bottom left of frame.

There's no mistaking it.

It's the same man seen approaching carlesha

In the footage.

He walks up the street and heads towards the intersection.

It's grainy. So it's hard to make out.

Narrator: carlesha is now visible, too.

The mystery man follows her.

Cheplak: you can actually see the individual walk away.

He follows her across the street

And confronts her again.

Narrator: the other camera was ambiguous.

This view is not.

Horrified agents watch carlesha being abducted

Before their eyes,

Dragged away by the mystery man.

It's no less horrifying in replay.

Cheplak: they start to struggle. He grabs her.

And now he's literally dragging her down the street.

You can tell that she's trying to get away from him.

Narrator: that's when police notice

Carlesha do something clever.

Carlesha has her phone in her hand

As she is being dragged down the street.

And then, it's on the ground.

-That's her cell phone. -Yeah, yeah.

Narrator: in the middle of her abduction,

She had the presence of mind to leave behind a clue.

Once the man has her down,

Carlesha makes a desperate attempt to escape.

She's struggling. She's fighting.

She's kicking. She's trying to get away.

He actually strikes her, at one point in time,

As he forces her into the car.

And you ultimately think,

"This is gonna be one of those stories

That, you know, wind up with a bad ending."

Help! Help!

Narrator: somehow, carlesha manages

To break the rear door window.

[ Screaming ]

Which explains the glass on the sidewalk.

As her assailant shoves carlesha into the backseat,

Another vehicle pulls up and stops.

Suddenly, the second car

Reverses down the street in a hurry.

Agent giles rewinds to see

If this mystery car

Was there before the abduction.

And 2 minutes earlier on the tape,

He finds something far more important.

It's the suspect's car pulling up and parking.

Cheplak: the car quickly comes out of the dark

And pulls into the corner.

Narrator: if investigators can trace this vehicle,

Maybe they can find the victim,

If she's still alive.

Cheplak: there's several clues that this video's gonna show us,

One being at least somewhat

Of a description of the suspect's vehicle.

You're at least able to see a general idea

That it's -- the color of the car,

That it's a four-door.

Narrator: but the license plate is too blurry to read.

All they know is that

It's a late-model gray ford taurus.

It's not much to go on.

There are thousands of them in the area.

With hope of finding carlesha alive quickly running out,

Investigators turn to the media for help.

Giles: in a case like this, where time is of the essence,

We wanted to push this out as quick as possible

To see if anyone knew this person in the video.

Right now, we're reaching out to the public

For any assistance they can give us.

We have an active abduction investigation being conducted.

Narrator: carlesha's family still hold out hope

Of finding her alive

And appeal to the public.

What I want to say to the person that has her

Is please return her.

We just want carlesha returned to us safely.

We love her.

[ Sobbing ] please give me back my baby.

Please give me my child.

Please.

Just come on back.

And whoever has her, send her back home.

That's all we ask.

I'm carlesha's dad. Oh, my god.

That's all I'm asking is, just to release her.

I'm not asking for anything else.

If you want somebody, come get me.

She don't need to go through this.

All we want back is our daughter.

That's all we asking for.

Narrator: they don't know it yet.

But the family has not yet had its last look at carlesha.

Narrator: in philadelphia, 36 hours after

Carlesha freeland-gaither's disappearance,

The video of her abduction has gone viral.

Yeah, this is a.t.f.

A $47,000 reward is announced.

And the fbi tip line starts ringing off the hook.

So we had a team of agents and task-force officers

Reviewing all of the calls coming in.

And then, anything of merit,

They sent it out to the agents that were on the field

To do further interviews or follow up on.

We need to get on this area as soon as possible.

Narrator: of the hundreds of calls that come in,

One stands out...

From a woman in havre de grace, maryland,

About an hour and a half south of philadelphia.

Giles: she saw some broken glass in her property,

And she wanted to see if it was in any way involved

In this particular case.

Narrator: an agent heads out to havre de grace to follow up.

The broken glass does look

Like it's from a smashed car window.

He also discovers an empty potato-chip bag.

And that's not all he finds.

Giles: investigators realized that there was a receipt

From a supermarket in philadelphia.

Narrator: a receipt time-stamped 1:50 p.m.

On november 2nd,

The day carlesha was abducted.

So the agents on the ground immediately called and said,

"Can you go there to see if there's any video there

That could help with this case?"

Narrator: one camera covers the entrance and exit,

One the fruit and vegetable aisle

And another, the checkout.

Investigators start at the camera covering the entrance.

The receipt was time stamped 1:50 p.m.

So they start with footage from a few minutes before.

It's a busy store with a steady stream of shoppers.

At 1:43 p.m., A man appears wearing a black hat,

Dark jacket, and pants,

Just like carlesha's abductor.

The man puts his hand to his face,

Almost as if he doesn't want to be seen.

The agent zooms in,

But it's impossible to i.d. Him from the images.

The second camera picks him up 90 seconds later.

He walks past the fruit and vegetables

Until he disappears top left.

The man is focused on where he's headed

And looks out of place among the other shoppers.

Once again, it's impossible to i.d. Him.

The third camera picks him up 3 minutes later.

He's holding what looks like a bag of potato chips.

The man scans his items

But seems to have trouble

When it comes to paying.

All the time, he keeps his head down.

Agent giles waits for him to look up.

But he never does.

Two minutes later,

The man picks up his shopping bag and leaves.

He used cash.

So police have no way of putting a name to this man.

The area around havre de grace, where the broken glass,

Empty bag, and shopping man's receipt were found,

Now becomes the focus of the search for carlesha.

And investigators are expecting the worst.

It was heavily wooded. It was secluded.

And we came to the conclusion

That if somebody wanted to dispose of a body,

They would dispose of it there.

We immediately deployed the evidence-response team

From the baltimore office of the fbi.

They had dive teams out there looking

In the susquehanna river.

They also had airplanes up,

Helicopters up looking for heat signatures

Because we believed that we would find a body, her body.

I thought he had k*lled her.

Narrator: but all these searches are in vain.

Just when it seems police will never know

What happened to the missing nursing assistant,

There's a major break.

Investigators get word that carlesha's atm card

Was used eight hours after her abduction

At a bank in aberdeen, maryland,

Just 5 miles from where the receipt

And shattered glass were found.

There's no time to waste.

So agent giles dispatches a local fbi agent

To see if there's any footage.

When we first realized that the atm was used,

We were hoping that we could get a good camera angle

That could identify who this person was.

The bank has a surveillance system

That records every customer that withdraws money.

They just need to queue up the video from 6:00 a.m.

The day after the abduction, when the withdrawal was made.

Play it from there.

The image shows a man fitting the description

Of the assailant withdrawing cash.

But the image is too grainy to i.d. Him.

I can't see who that is.

Do you have anything else?

Narrator: the overhead camera's picture quality is clearer.

But his hood conceals the man's face.

Just like the footage from the store,

There's no telling who this is...

Okay. Thank you.

...except that it is the same man.

Agents get another idea.

Perhaps their abductor spent some of this cash nearby.

They start at a convenience store



And pull the video

From just after the atm withdrawal.

It's 6:02 in the morning. So it's been about 8 1/2 hours

Since our victim was abducted.

Sure enough, at 6:02 and 40 seconds,

In walks the same man.

Giles: we saw the same person that we believed to be

In all the other camera angles.

And so we're really excited.

He's buying one bottle of water and one pack of potato chips.

That gave us an indication that he was by himself,

Which wasn't a good thing.

Narrator: they now believe they are on the hunt for a m*rder*r

And now have a clear image of his face.

This picture is released to the media.

It is now 2 1/2 days since carlesha was kidnapped,

And her abduction is national news.

Philadelphia police released new surveillance video

Of a man sought in the abduction of the woman off the street.

The woman was seen struggling on surveillance video

And being forced into a car

In philadelphia's germantown section.

Narrator: 245 miles south, in richmond, virginia,

Lieutenant joey mclaughlin of the sheriff's office

Is unaware that he is about to blow this case wide open.

There was another abduction of a young female,

And it was very similar in style.

We were like, "that's interesting.

Could it be?"

Narrator: one month earlier,

A 16-year-old girl

Was reported missing by her mother.

She was basically bum-rushed, grabbed, and thrown in the car,

In the trunk of the vehicle,

And then, taken down the roadway.

Narrator: two days later,

The teenage girl miraculously escapes.

They were able to recover some foreign dna off her body.

That was sent to the state lab in richmond.

And it was rushed through.

And they came back with a hit --

Delvin barnes.

Narrator: 37-year-old delvin barnes

Has a long history of violence,

Including armed robbery and sexual as*ault.

Cheplak: delvin barnes was a dangerous individual.

He had a lengthy criminal history,

A violent criminal history.

And he had just recently been released from prison.

Narrator: when mclaughlin went to arrest barnes,

The suspect had already vanished.

But his girlfriend was able

To give a description of his car.

It was a ford taurus.

It was early 2000s, I believe.

Narrator: and that is the model that was caught on camera

In philadelphia,

When carlesha was abducted.

But barnes is on the run.

Investigators must find him

Before he slips away for good.

Mclaughlin spots a small, circular blur

On the front windshield of the car

Driven by carlesha's abductor.

Mclaughlin: I could see there was

A virginia-state inspection sticker

Right in the middle of the windshield.

This car is definitely from virginia.

Narrator: the ford taurus that delvin barnes bought

Was from virginia.

This can't be a coincidence.

But it's when he sees the footage

From the convenience store,

He knows he's got his guy.

Mclaughlin: we both were like, "this is him.

Let's go ahead and make this happen."

Narrator: with only a few car dealerships

In richmond, virginia,

Lieutenant mclaughlin heads

To one known to have worked with police in the past

And hits pay dirt.

Would you have happened to have seen him?

When the dealer sees a photo of barnes,

He says he remembers him.

And that's not all.

If a person who purchased a car there had bad credit,

They would often put a gps device on that vehicle

To make sure that if they didn't make their payments,

That the car company could find the car and repossess it.

Now, is there any way we can ping this

To find out where the vehicle is now?

Yeah, sure. Just follow me to the office.

Amazingly, the dealership

Is able to pinpoint the exact location of the car --



I think we got him.

Now, all police must do is go get him.

We were extremely nervous for carlesha's safety.

We thought the worst.

[ g*n c*ck ]

Narrator: a detective in virginia is convinced

Delvin barnes snatched carlesha off a philadelphia street.

And he's located his suspect



All right. I think we got him.

Mclaughlin: we almost wanted to get in the car

And just drive up there ourselves.

But we knew that, that would make no sense

Because we were 5 hours away.

So that's why I made the phone call to the a.t.f.

Narrator: less than 15 minutes

From lieutenant mclaughlin's call,

The first a.t.f. Unit arrives at the parking lot.

In a situation where we believe someone has been abducted,

We always prepare for the worst.

Not seeing anything yet.

Alpha team, the suspect's vehicle is a gray ford taurus.

Alpha team, can you check the south end?

Cheplak: searching the parking lot,

I came across a gray ford taurus.

There was a garbage bag hanging over

The rear passenger window.

Narrator: the broken window

Jives with the window glass found at the scene.

This must be the car.

Cheplak: agent ehrlich-ellis had essentially decided

That if that car starts to move, we're taking it.

[ g*n c*ck ]

So when the headlights went on...

He's in the car!

We automatically all sprung into action.

Go! Go! Go!

[ Police sirens blare ]

Hands where I can see them.

Hands! Show us your hands!

He had no idea we were coming.

He had no idea what was going on.

Delvin barnes, where is she?

Once I realized that mr. Barnes was already in custody

And that my team had everything under control,

I approached the vehicle.

I've got movement in the back seat!

Narrator: and that's when they see her.

She's alive! You can sit up.

Come on, sweetie. Come on, sweetie.

I need water and a blanket now!

Freeland-gaither: she asked me, what is your name?"

And I told her, "my name's carlesha.

I'm the one you want."

I was really frightened. I see all these cops.

And, you know, I don't know where, saying,

"Open the doors! Open the doors," you know?

You know, "put your hands up!"

And I'm looking like, "oh, my gosh. What is going on?"

Then, you know, once I realized

That I was being rescued,

I felt at peace, you know,

Just very happy to know I'd be going home,

To know that I'm going to live,

To know that I'm gonna be safe.

It was probably the most rewarding day of my career.

Narrator: an hour later, carlesha is in the hospital.

Mulero: [ voice breaking ] the first thing she said to me was,

"When I looked at the signs

And I kept seeing maryland,

I was wondering how far away

From you I was.

And all I kept thinking...

Was, 'where's my grandmother?'"

Freeland-gaither: I'm still trying to deal with it.

Still, have really bad nightmares.

And, you know, I get scared to be in my house.

I still have to lock the doors,

Make sure all the windows are closed.

And even I know I'm secure, I'm safe,

I still have to lock my bedroom door.

I guess I'm just afraid of something happening

And nobody knows.

That was, like, the best gift that anybody ever gave me,

Was for me to see my daughter alive.

Narrator: delvin barnes pleads guilty to kidnapping

And is sentenced to 35 years in prison.

This case wouldn't have been solved without the cctv footage

And the assistance from the public,

The assistance from the media,

In terms of getting that message out.

Without that, I don't think

I would have been here today.