i can ask god. here in the midwest, several young girls went missing. some were found murdered. others were never found at all. lori depese, 20, appleton, wisconsin. reyna ricin from laporte, indiana. felton, from marion, indiana. michelle dewey, 20, in indianapolis, indiana.

all of these cases went unsolved. officials believed only one man knew what happened. >> we knew he was responsible for several deaths. >> and to get answers, it would take a risky, unusual plan. send a convicted drug dealer under cover into a dangerous prison to befriend an alleged serial killer. >> i'm not a serial killer hunter. i said. so how am i going to do this? >> at stake, answers. >> wondering where she is, what happens. >> peace for grieving families. >> you want to find her and bring her home and you can't. >> and one man's freedom. >> you don't turn around and give out candy and say, you're free to go. i when through hell and back. >> early each day, donna ritler greets her daughter, trisha.

>> i say hello to this picture every morning. i say good morning every morning. i look at that and i can hear her say, hi, mom. >> trisha was very kindhearted. very smart. >> as a child, says father, gary, trisha lit up the room. >> she would sometimes just bound into the room, you know, spread her arms apart, say, ta-da. you know, that type of thing. >> donna and gary brought trisha here to marion, indiana, to attend a small christian college. one spring evening in 11 3, trish sla sha left her dorm room for a walk. on march 29th around 8:00 at night, trisha came here to this shopping sen inping center. she bought a soda and magazine and started walking back to campus, but then she disappeared. >> a little bit after midnight,

it said, do you know where your daughter is? >> trisha lynn was last seen 8:00 monday night. >> trisha's sdisappearance rockd the community and devastated her parents. >> whoever's responsible, they'll never know what they've taken away from us. >> trisha's mother made a desperate appeal to trisha. >> hang in there and know we love you and are doing everything we can to find you. >> despite huge media coverage and their pleas for answers, none ever came. >> it's like she just vanished into thin air. >> trisha was never found. >> young college students, they need to be aware. >> kristen zeller was a junior at iwu when trisha disappeared. >> we were advised to stay in our dorms if you were a girl. >> a week after trisha's disappearance, kristen and her roommate, heather, needed to go to marsh grocery store. >> you thought you'd be safe.

you thought it would be fine. a couple blocks way. >> exactly. it's not far at all. i can see the campus from marsh. so what's going to happen? >> it was getting dark by the time they left the shopping center, walking the same route trisha would likely have taken. >> we were maybe halfway up the road when heather turned to me and said, did you happen to notice that brown van? i said, no. >> then the van passed again, slowly. >> we still weren't alarmed. he came by again. >> a third time. >> yep. really slow this time. looking at us. the hair on back of our necks started to stand up. >> the van pulled right up beside them. how close? show me. >> he was, i mean, his wheels were right on the side of the curve. and this was me. this was heather. and he leaned over, started to say something and at that point we were both like, run. just run. >> the girls called security,

describing a two-tone van driven by a man with mutton chopped side burns. officers spotted the van and questioned the driver, a man named larry hall. hall said he'd been looking for a friend's address but the address he gave didn't exist. so officers let hall go. september 20th, 1993. six months after trisha's disappearance. now 15-year-old jessica roach goes missing in georgetown, illinois. investigator gary miller got the call. >> we all knew that we had something really bad here. we had an abduction. >> jessica's badly decomposed body was found in an indiana cornfield weeks later. but then like trisha's, jessica's case went cold. >> there's a lot of times you wonder whether you'll ever solve it, but you know that you're going to keep going, you're

going to check everything out, you're going to recheck everything. >> for over a year, miller scoured local police reports and then a break. a vehicle reported in a county nearby. the owner, larry hall. >> he had been involved in stopping some girls. those girls were scared. they ran from him. >> in the last six months, hall's van was spotted by more than 11 girls in 5 different towns close by. including those where jessica lived and where her body was found. now, miller contacted the police in hall's hometown to arrange for an interview. >> he initially said, no, you know, he hadn't been over here. >> miller had to coax hall to admit being near jessica's house. >> i said, well, would you remember if, you know, you stopped and offered girls a ride or asked them to get in your van? he said, well, he stops and

talks to everybody. >> after a few questions, miller took a gamble and put a photo of jessica down in front of hall. >> he immediately flichbnched. he turned to his right and put his hand up over his face like he didn't want to see the picture. told me he didn't think he'd ever seen that girl. >> later, a heartbreaking mystery -- >> there's so little that we can do to find her. i just want to bring her home. >> -- and the dangerous plan to solve it.

larry hall and his brother, gary, had always been a little different. >> look at you two little boys. which one are you and which one's larry? >> this would be me. >> gary. and larry. in a rare recorded interview obtained by cnn, larry hall recounts a tough start. >> i know when i was born, my mother told me that i was blue, that i hadn't got enough oxygen to me or something. >> identical twin sons, growing up hard. in the hall home, there was little money and lots of problems. author levin interviewed larry hall. >> it was a very cluttered household. they were raised with dysfunction. >> neighbors say their mother was domineering. their father drank and sometimes turned violent.

he worked at the local cemetery. what was it like growing up next to a cemetery? was it creepy? >> no, not at all. not for me. you know, at 12 years of age, larry and i started working at the cemetery. >> as he grew older, larry had problems fitting in at school. >> he was always the backward twin. i was the more dominant outgoing twin. he hung out with what my wife and i and a lot of fellow classmates called the misfits or the stinky crowd. >> still, the boys were best friends. and as young men, gary and larry developed an unusual new hobby as civil war re-enactors. >> met a tlot of new friends during that time period and i was able to travel around and meet them at the battlefields either on tours and stuff. it was a lot of fun. >> larry was hooked.

even growing mutton chops from his hairline to his jowl. though the re-enactments helped larry make friends, he still struggled with women. what was larry like around young women growing up? >> very awkward. quiet. backward. >> did he ever talk to you about these urges he reportedly says he had urges about women? >> oh my gosh, it was absolutely -- it was out of bounds. i had no idea. >> jimmy keen grew up 135 miles away from kankakee, illinois. he didn't know larry hall, and he had no idea that their worlds would someday collide. >> third down and five at the 25 yard line.

>> for jimmy keen, life couldn't have been more different. while hall was an awkward outsider, jimmy keen was a star. especially under the lights on friday nights. >> we would come out here, the lights would be on. the whole stadium would just be completely full and the crowd would be roaring and it was just a very euphoric, unbelievable high. the friday night games were the biggest rush i've ever had in my life. >> a gifted athlete, he lettered in two sports. studied martial arts and inspired fear in everyone he fa faced. do you like having people terrified of you just a little bit? >> well, in that kind of sport, sure. that's why they called me the assassin. >> you were the assassin. >> yes. my nickname was the assassin. and the reason why name was the

assassin is because i put somebody out at every game i've ever played. >> keen wasn't just the hometown hero. he was his father's namesake. >> my dad generally sat up here in the corner over here. if i made a spectacular play, he would always give me the you did good son. >> how much was he sitting in the stands? >> every game of my life. he never, ever missed a game or my practices. >> does that mean a lot to you? >> absolutely. my dad, he was my backbone. >> keen was as popular as he was athletic. you're a lend. >> yeah, i mean, there's no doubt. they had posters of me all over town. i mean, everybody knew who i was with my sports ability. so, yeah, i was the most popular guy around. there's no question. i was voted most popular guy in school. >> jimmy seemed to have everything. except enough money to keep up with the rich kids at school and he only saw one way to get it. he started selling drugs and

quickly learned he was good at it. >> you're making decent money, you don't think is this a wrong thing that you're doing? so i kept growing into it and growing into it and by the time i was 20 years old, i mean, i was sitting on top of an empire. >> by keen's own account, he was pulling in around $1 million a year. he was addicted. not to the drugs, but the money. >> it's hard to walk away from that kind of money, especially a 20-year-old. >> so he didn't. and that single decision would change the rest of jimmy keen's life. and bring him face to face with an alleged serial killer. anncr: expedia is giving away a trip every day.

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license plate, extra-hp. >> extra-hp. >> by the early '90s, jimmy keen was on top of the world. his booming business afforded him a lavish lifestyle with large homes, souped up corvettes. and an endless supply of women. >> i would have 30 or 40-k parties with volleyball nets, live bands. we'd have literally 1,000 people or more sometimes. i mean, these were gigantic, huge parties. >> you were the guy women wanted

to be with and guys waned to be best friends with. >> something like that. >> back then, he owned this 6,000 square foot home. >> right behind that is a golf course. >> he says he didn't stash the drugs here. >> this is a walk-in closet. >> but there was always a place to hide his fortunes. >> this was a hidden trap door that you could open. and when you would open it, you have another hidden closet back in here. you can see my old safe is still here. and this was pretty much just my room. >> for 15 years, keen's empire remained hidden and growing. but as he lived the high life, his father fell on hard times. nearing the brink of financial ruin. >> my dad, to me, was superman. and to see him in such a hurt way really killed me. >> so jimmy used his drug fortune to bail his father out.

then continued to support him. >> even though it was coming from something wrong, i felt i did something very right to make his world right. >> but the money never seemed to be enough. and keen couldn't stop watching his back. by the fall of 1996, pressure of life in the fast lane was catching up. >> i had woke up in the middle of the night and i was laying there wide awake. i said, you know, i am tired of running like this. i said, i really just want this all to end. >> and it was all an to end, but not the way keen had planned. just two weeks later -- >> i heard the front door rattle and i thought it was just the wind because it was in november and next thing you know, boom. whole door just blew off the hinges and then they came flying in in a straight-file line with their guns drawn and their black uniforms. move, we'll blow your head off. move, we'll do this. just one time. blah, blah.

>> for jimmy keen, everything is over. >> everything stops. it doesn't feel like it's real. >> keen was ultimately dragged to jail. he pleaded guilty, hoping to minimize his sentence, and at first, federal prosecutor larry beaumont was willing to negotiate. >> initially we tried to what we call flip him to see if he cowell give us other drug dealers at the time, and i think he refused, so our reaction was to make sure he gets the maximum penalty. >> beaumont got his way. and keen got ten years. it knocked the life out of him and broke his father's heart. >> any hopes and dreams he had had for me at that point in life were gone. he was crushed. he was very crushed. >> jimmy keen could not imagine a way out. nor guess that a man he'd never met might someday provide him one.

november, 1994. wabash, indiana. it had been two weeks since larry hall recoiled from a photo of jessica roach. and investigator gary miller had a gut instinct. >> i really think we're on to sting here. this guy portrays this weak, timid person, but, you know, i don't think he truly is. >> miller thought hall was vicious and as the investigation unfolded, miller also thought he knew how hall abducted jessica roach. >> when he first seen her, she was riding from, toward the house, going down this way. >> hall followed and stopped to talk. jessica got scared and backed away. >> that's when he opens the door, grabb es her. there's a physical confrontation where he overpowers her. put her in his van. and left. probably going up this road right past her house.

>> in an interview in the wabash police station, hall surprised investigators by explaining what happened next. "i tied her up, but i can't remember with what. i took her pants off." hall said he raped her and led her off through the woods. i laid her up against a tree and put a belt around her neck and she stopped breathing. hall said he strangled jessica from behind so he didn't have to see her face as she died. and that wasn't all. all of the girls looked alike, hall said. i cannot remember all of them. i picked up several girls in other areas, but i can't remember which ones i hurt. several girls in other areas. there were more victims than just jessica roach. hall said he'd also been near the campus of indiana wesleyan

university, where trisha ritler had disappeared. i was over there because i needed to be with somebody. it was a small shopping center, i had a van. hall said he raped and strangled a girl here, too. then he identified his victim by pointing to trisha's picture. trisha's disappearance had remained a mystery for 18 months. >> we were just kind of sitting on the sidelines waiting for information to come in. >> with little evidence, and local police insisting on another suspect, trisha's parents, gary and donna, still suffered. >> i know with each thing that came in, the urgency was great. and the heartache was great, too. and anticipation and the hope. >> hall's confession meant the ritlers might at last find their daughter and gary miller thad found the killer of jessica roach. but the next day, hall changed his story.

>> as i was talking to him, he said, i was just telling you about my dreams, that didn't really happen. he said, it was just my dreams. i said, larry, that's not what you said. you said this happened and you didn't like talking about it because you didn't like the things you'd done but you never mentioned it being a dream. >> but he stuck to his new story. larry hall was recanting everything. [ male announcer ] campbell's angus beef & dumplings. hearty cheeseburger. creamy thai style chicken with rice. mexican-style chicken tortilla. if you think campbell's 26 new soups sound good, imagine how they taste. m'm! m'm! good! i don't always have time to eat like i should. that's why i like glucerna shakes. they have slowly digestible carbs to help minimize blood sugar spikes. [ male announcer ] glucerna. helping people with diabetes find balance.

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i'm don lemon. here are your headline this hour and a warning. we're about to show graphic images you might find disturbing. these were reportedly shot right after a chemical weapons attack in syria on august 21st. members of the senate intelligence committee who have seen them were assured they are authentic. they show people young and old struggling to breathe and convulsing. we believe it's important to show the videos because some key lawmakers have seen them. senators deciding whether to support president obama's call for a military strike on sere wra. and syria will be the topic when president obama sits down with cnn's wolf blitzer, that's one not to miss. see it monday at 6:00 p.m. eastern, of course, right here on cnn. the u.s. open men's tennis final is set. number one seed novak djokovic and number two seed rafael nadal will square off on monday, rematch of their title showdowns in 2010 and 2011. i'm don lemon.

those are your headlines this hour. keeping you informed. cnn. the most trusted name in news. larry hall had confessed to killing jessica roach, trisha ritler and two other women. and then he took it all back. claiming it was just his imagination. >> i did confess to certain policemen that i had dreams, that i did things. >> but investigator gary miller had other evidence. like the witness who drove by this cornfield the night of jessica's murder. >> that person testified he was absolutely sure that when he went by here on that night, there was a van, there was a guy coming from the cornfield to get in this van. >> and a search of hull's house and van revealed he'd been

casing out small college towns and keeping suspicious notes. seen joggers and bikers, many alone. check colleges, parks. seen some prospects. hall also made lists for the hardware store. buy two more plastic tarps. cover all floor and sides of van and hall wrote himself troubling instructions. no body contact. buy condoms. buy two more leather belts. find one now. amongst hall's things, investigators found newspaper clippings about roach and ritler. possessions from other missing girls, and pornographic pictures hall had altered. >> in those pictures he had drawn what looked like a rope or belt around the neck of one of the people and the left side of the mouth he had drawn blood. >> hall insisted it was all just staged to make a play for

attention. to feel important to police. >> i put a bunch of stuff in the van that i drove around with because i knew that eventually they'd search my van and find them. >> during larry's trial, his twin brother, gary, tried to provide him an alibi. still, the federal prosecutor got hall convicted of kidnapping jessica roach. >> in the federal system, if you're guilty of a kidnapping, if that kidnapping resulted in a death, them under the sentencing guidelines, it's mandatory life term. >> the jessica roach case was over, but the disappearance of trisha ritler remained unsolved and her parents, gary and donna, would not stop looking. >> we walked the sides of the roads. we walked the riverbeds. we looked under the culverts. we ended up going to crack houses because somebody had a lead.

>> if you see something on the side of the road, a garbage bag, whatever, it's like, could that be her? >> it was just a horrendous crime to lose your daughter, never find out what the heck happened to her. >> larry beaumont kept looking, too. >> i actually made arrangements on a couple occasions to go out and look for the body. >> beaumont called in specialized military and law enforcement units to search. >> so rather than give up, it occurred to me that obviously larry hall knew. >> beaumont needed answers and turned to an unlikely source to get them. he needed someone to befriend larry hall. someone charismatic. someone on the inside. larry beaumont needed jimmy keen. beaumont had sent both keen and hall to prison. now he hashed a risky plan that would bring them together. keen was ten months into his

sentence when beaumont brought him in to talk. >> scared me. i thought this was some trick. >> keen watched nervously as beaumont pushed a folder across the table. >> i open it up. the first thing i seen was a picture of a mutilated dead girl and i flipped the next page and there was a different mutilated dead girl. >> and there was a portrait of trisha ritler. >> at that moment i looked up at beaumont. he said, jimmy, we need you to help us with this case. >> beaumont wanted keep to go undercover to transfer from his low-security lockup to a dangerous prison. and to befriend alleged serial killer larry hall. >> he says, if you can get solid confessions from him and help us locate the bodies that are still missing, we're willing to completely wash your record. >> keen's mission, to learn where trisha ritler was buried. >> purpose of this operation was to find that body. >> beaumont made it clear, no body, no early release.

keen would have to serve the rest of his ten-year sentence. but beaumont believed keen could do it. >> he's smart. he's articulate. he's not afraid. and i knew he wanted to get out. >> for keen, it was a chance for redemption, to restore his family name. and says author, levin, to get his life back on track. >> this deal was a way for him to get home and it was also a way for him to do good. to kind of take this bad thing he had done and to somehow turn it inside out and make it something that would solve a crime. >> but it wouldn't be easy. fair to say he was risking his life. he could have been killed. >> it was dangerous. absolutely. it was highly risky. these people in those type of places haven't got anything better to do but try to hurt you and kill you, too. >> keen was unsure, but a phone call home put his doubts to rest. keen's stepmother said his

father had suffered a stroke. >> she said he's in really bad shape. we wish you were here. this is terrible that you're in a spot where you're in right now because we could lose him. >> keen needed to get home to kankakee fast and there was only one way to make that happen. he had to face an alleged serial killer first. >> i decided, you know what, however bizarre or how far out or whatever this mission that beaumont wants me to go on, i'm going to do it. nascar is about excitement. but tracking all the action and hearing everything from our marketing partners, the media and millions of fans on social media can be a challenge. that's why we partnered with hp to build the new nascar fan and media engagement center. hp's technology helps us turn millions of tweets, posts and stories into real-time business insights that help nascar win with our fans.

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driving up to the prison in springfield, missouri, jimmy keen didn't know if he'd made the best or worst decision of his life. >> i started to get cold feet and i looked at the u.s. marshal, i said listen, i said, how do we know beaumont is going to live up to his word? they all assured me he would. i'm not really sure if i can do this. >> but there was no turning back. and he needed to prepare. agents had warned him to be careful. >> we don't want you to approach him for at least six months because he's a very cagy individual. if he senses one thing wrong, he goes into his shell like a turtle and you'll never get him back out once he's in.

>> but keen didn't have time to wait. he needed to get home to his ailing father. so hours after becoming a springfield inmate, he spotted larry hall and made his first move. >> i made it a point for us to bump shoulders together. as we gently bumped shoulders together, i turned around, excuse me, listen, i'm new here. you wouldn't happen to know where the library is, would you? >> hall offered to show keen the way. >> i just reached over and kind of slapped him on the shoulder and said, thanks a lot, i appreciate that from a cool guy like you. >> over the next week, keen watched hall's every move. from his cell across the hall. >> and i walked to him and i says, hey, this is where i'm at. are you in this area here? he goes, yeah. i'm right there. you know, he bugs his eyes out of his head. i said, that's great. i said, you're right by me. i said, you know what, i told you you're a cool guy and i'm glad you're by me and all this and that. that's when he basically offered sometime if i'd ever want to have breakfast with him and his friends.

>> keen was making progress. slowly gaining hall's trust. but life at springfield was complicated. and dangerous. so keen figured out a way to use violence to his advantage. it was a saturday night and hall was in the tv room mez hsmerizey an episode of "america's most want ee wanted" about serial killers. suddenly another inmate approached the tv. >> you could tell this guy had been in for a long time, a big buff guy. he walked up to the tv, looked at everybody in there and decided he was going to turn the tv channel. hi turned it. i found this very interesting. larry looked at me and very quietly mumbled under his breath, he goes, hey, i was watching that show. >> keen leaped into action and knocked the guy out. >> i nailed him with an upper cut and i kicked him through three rows of hacha chairs. he was beat up bad and had to go to the hospital and they took me

and threw me in the hole. >> it was worth it and it was a breakthrough with hall. >> he not only now looked at me as a guy that he could look at and say, wow, he thinks i'm cool coming from him, that's a compliment, and now he's also able to protect me. >> now keen had hall's trust and had him talking. one night in hall's cell, he told keen the truth about what happened to trisha ritler. but what hall told keen was different from what some investigators believed. it was his story along with some evidence that created a roadmap i wanted to follow to try to figure out what happened to trisha ritler. trisha would have left this supermarket parking lot walking just a couple of blocks back to

campus. somewhere along this road, hall told keen he got trisha into his van. when she fought off his advan advances, he says he choked her to keep her quiet. hall told keen he blacked out and when we woke up, trisha was naked and lifeless. days after her disappearance, investigators found her blood-soaked clothes here. just one block from the supermarket. hall's own notes indicate what might have happened next. exactly one week after trisha's disappearance, hall wrote, cut out stained carpet, vacuumed van thoroughly, buy new hacksaw blades, clean all tools. along with his notes was this address, 700 west slocum, in the

woods halfway between marion and wabash. it's possible that somewhere out here trisha ritler is buried. >> he said he got some lime together, got a shovel, got a lantern and drove her way out to the woods and buried her in the woods. >> he admitted to you he buried her in the woods. >> several times he admitted that. yes. i basically made it feel like it was okay to tell me his secret. >> but keen still needed the secret that would set him free. the exact location of trisha's body. weeks later, he thought he nailed it when he found hall hovered over a map in a prison workshop. >> red dots over indiana, illinois and wisconsin and he covered it up really fast. >> lined up at the edge of the map were a dozen wooden falcons. >> and i said, wow, this is is pretty cool, did you make this? he said, yeah, i make them.

he goes, it's really cool, isn't it, jim? he goes, they watch over the dead. >> falcons to watch over the dead. and a map marked with dots. it was the information keen thought would surely lead to the exact location of trisha's body. that moment, did you think, this is my ticket to freedom? >> i did. because i thought, this is it. i've got solid confessions on him. we know specific details. we know how he's done it now. >> keen believed he had his answer, that he'd soon be free, that he was done forever with larry hall. that night at lockdown, keen decided to tell hall what he really thought. >> i told him that he was a [ bleep ] sicko. i told him that he was insane. i said that you are one of the most despicable forms of human life on this planet. he at that point slid away from me and, was, like really terrified of me all of a sudden. he says, beaumont sent you,

didn't he? beaumont sent you, didn't he? >> keen had blown his cover. and his outburst landed him in solitary confinement. >> it took some time before we found out that they put jimmy in the hole, and so he was not able to communicate with anybody on the outside. >> by then, hall's map and the falcons had disappeared. worst of all, as keen was let out of springfield prison to face larry beaumont, he didn't know if what he'd learned was enough to set him free. exexexexact

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during his months in springfield, jimmy kean got larry hall to provide details about several murders hall was suspected of committing, including tricia ritler's. but kean hadn't met the initial requirements of beaumont's deal. >> i made this clear to him. if we didn't find a body, no body, no credit. >> sitting in his prison cell, jimmy kean desperately hoped he had done enough. >> are they going to be fair and give me what's justifiably right on this, or are they just going to say here's six months?

it was a crap shoot. >> without a location for ritler's body, beaumont had a decision to make. >> i made arrangements to have him take a polygraph test, just to verify what he was telling us, was it true. which he passed. and he did make a legitimate effort to do what we sent him down there to do. >> so beaumont urged a federal judge to give kean credit for time served. jimmy kean became a free man and returned home to his aging father. what did you feel like when you were finally released? >> i was happy as could be. it was a very bizarre roller coaster that i went on. it was -- i mean, redemption at its best. >> kean had five more good years to be with his father before big jim passed away. >> we both realized once i got out that there is a better world than just always in a constant dash to make money. it was more like look, let's

just enjoy each other while we're alive here. you know? >> it was closure for kean, but not for the families of the alleged victims of larry hall. for years there was no progress and no relief for people like donna and gary ritler. >> as a parent there's the part that you've let her down and that you want to find her and you want to bring her home and you can't. i mean, we've done pretty much everything physically that we can to find her. and there's somebody out there that holds that one answer for us. >> beaumont too felt that he'd done all he could and that the pursuit of larry hall was over. >> there was going to be no further prosecution from the federal perspective. he's already serving life in prison. he was done. >> once again, larry hall had slipped off the radar, and it easily could have remained that way. except for jimmy ken.

first kean's story of strange redemption was featured in a "playboy" article and then a book written by keene and hillel levin. >> once we were able to write about what jimmy went through, then things happened. >> keene's story refocused attention on larry hall, helped reopen cold cases, and put pressure on his twin brother gary. now gary stopped defending larry and started talking. >> larry just like jimmy keene calls him, and he is. he's a baby killer. >> you think your brother is a baby killer? >> i don't have no doubt in my mind. >> do you think your brother killed more than jessica roach? >> yes. >> do you think your brother killed tricia ritler? >> yes. >> rihanna rison? michelle dewey? >> yes. >> as gary started talking more

openly, detectives approached him asking for help. >> i went with the indianapolis detectives down to try to get my brother to confess. he made me leave the room. he did in fact confess on tape to 15 serial murders. >> larry later retracted again. and while he can't ever seem to stick to one story, he does sometimes seem to have regrets. >> i didn't want to keep living my life the way i was living it. i wanted things to be different, you know, but i guess i didn't really do the right things to change the way my life was going. >> larry hall refused our request for an interview. he has never been charged with crimes against anyone other than jessica roach. but keene's story has caused officials across the country to take another look at hall. >> in november of 2010

investigators from the police department interviewed mr. hall at a pripz in north carolina. >> in that interview hall admitted murdering laurie d dde de pughs and provided clues to finding her bod xwrip. >> there's multiple agencies looking into unsolved disappearances. >> larry hall may have had more victims than ever imagined. >> we understand it's even more extensive than we ever thought. not 20 but maybe 30 to 40 in terms of the victims. >> that leaves 30 or 40 families still awaiting answers. which is why, says levin, it is critical that serial investigations do not stop. two decades after tricia ritler vanished her father, gary, now believes larry hall knows where to find her. >> i think if larry knew what we go through on a daily basis, you know, wondering where she is,

wondering what happened, i don't think he would have any choice to confess and let us know where she's buried. >> donna reitler is not as sure. >> yeah, he confessed. he recanted. he confessed. he recanted. without a body it's just another possibility. >> more than anything else they just want their daughter back. >> to have a place to lay her to rest, just to be able to sit and just talk to her. >> as for jimmy keene, his truth is stranger than fiction. he's gone from football standout to drug dealer to undercover operative. and now to screen star. with his story in development as a hollywood film. still, says keene, he thinks of the victims' families and hopes

they'll find their answers. >> it's all they can do, is keep hoping. there was a glimmer of hope when jimmy keene was involved here. maybe something else will still evolve out of this. maybe the things i've done and am still doing will still shine a light and give them hope at a light and give them hope at some point. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com ♪ west memphis police discovered the bodies of three 8-year-old boys in a drainage ditch. >> autopsies showed they died from blows to the head. >> a horrific crime. three young boys murdered. >> at 9:00 that night i knew that i would never see him alive again. >> three teenage boys suspected. >> i wanted to bash their head up against the wall, kick their face in.