>> here, in the midwest, several young girls went missing. some were found murdered. others were never found at all. laura dpies, 20, in appleton, wisconsin, reyna risen, wendy felton, 16, from indiana, michelle dewey, 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 undercover 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, answer. >> wondering where she is and what happened. >> the grieving families. >> you want to find her, bring her home and you can't. >> and one man's freedom. >> they don't just give out candy and say you're free to go. i went through hell and back. >> early each day, donna reitler greets her daughter, patricia. >> 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. >> patricia was very

kindhearted. very smart. >> as a child, her father, gary, says that patricia lit up the room. >> she would just bound into the room, spread her arms apart, and say tada, that type of thing. >> donna and gary brought patricia here to marion, indiana, to attend this small christian college. one spring evening in 1993, patricia left her dorm room for a walk. on march 23, patricia reitler came here to the shopping center. she bought a soda and a magazine and started to walk back to campus. but then she disappeared. >> phone call came a little bit after midnight. and the voice on the other side of the phone said do you know where your daughter is? >> 19-year-old patricia lin reitler was last seen among night. >> patricia's disappearance rocked the community and

devastated her parents. >> whoever is responsible, we'll never know. what they have taken away from us. >> patricia's mother made a desperate appeal on the jerry springer show. >> and 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 is like she just went missing, into thin air. >> patricia was never found. >> young college students need to be aware. >> kristin zellar was a junior when patricia disappear. >> we were advised to stay in our dorms. >> but a week after the disappearance, kristin and her roommate, heather, needed to go to the grocery store. >> you thought you would be fine, a couple of blocks away. >> exactly, it is not far, i can see the campus. so you know, what is going to happen? >> it was getting dark by the time they left the shopping

center walking the same route patricia would likely have taken. >> we were maybe half way up the road when heather turned to me and said did you happen to notice that brown van? and i said no. >> then the van passed again slowly. >> we still were not alarmed. it came by again a third time, yes, really slow this time. looking at us. the hair on the back of our neck 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 curb. and this was me, heather, and he leaned over and started to say something, and at that point, we were both like, just run. >> the girls called security describing a two-tone van driven by a man with mutton-chop side burns, officers spotted the van and questioned the driver, a man named larry hall.

hall said he had 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 patricia'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 patricia's jessica's case went cold. >> there are times you thought you would never solve it. but then you keep going and re-check everything. >> for over a year, miller looked through 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 five 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 stopped girls and 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 flinched and

put his hand up over his face, like he didn't want to see the picture. told me he never saw that girl. >> later, a heartbreaking mystery. >> there is so little we can do to find her. i just want to bring her home. >> and the dangerous plan to solve it. of getting something "new."

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well, which one are you and which one is 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 had not had 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 the 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 a lot of the misfits, what was known as the stinky crowd. >> they both hung out with the civil war reenactors. >> i was able to travel around and meet them at the battle field, go on tours. it was a lot of fun. >> larry was hooked. even growing mutton chops from his hairline to his jowl. although the reenactments 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 keane grew up 135 miles away in kankakee, illinois. he didn't know larry hall and he had no idea that their worlds would some day collide. >> for jimmy keane, life couldn't have been more different. while hall was an awkward outsider, jimmy keane was a

star. especially under the lights on friday nights. >> we would come out here, the lights would be on, the whole stadium would be just completely full and the crowd would be roaring. and it was just a very euphoric, unbelievable high. the friday night games were the b biggest rush i have ever had in my life. >> a gifted athlete, he lettered in two sports, studied martial arts and inspired fear in everyone he faced. >> did you like having people terrified of you just a little bit? >> well, in that kind of sport, sure. that is why they called me the assassin, and the reason that was my nickname, i put somebody out every game i played. >> keane was not just the hometown hero, he was his dad's

name sake. >> my dad sat over here in the corner, if i made a great play, he would say you did good, son. >> how long would he sit in the stands? >> every game, he never never missed a practice, a game. my dad was my back bone. >> keane was a legend. >> there was no doubt, everybody had posters of me, everybody knew who i was with the sports ability. so yeah, i was the most popular guy around. there was no question, i was voted the 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 just 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 keane's own account he was pulling in around a million dollars a year. he was addicted. not to the drugs, but the money. >> it is hard to walk away from that kind of money, especially to a 20-year-old. >> so he didn't. and that single decision would change the rest of jimmy keane's life. and bring him face to face with an alleged serial killer. and this park is the inside of your body. see, the special psyllium fiber in metamucil actually gels. and that gelling helps to lower some cholesterol. metamucil. 3 amazing benefits in 1 super fiber.

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>> license plate extra hp. >> extra hp. by the early '90s, jimmy keene was on top of the world. his booming business afforded him a lavish life-style with large homes, souped up corvettes, and an endless supply of women. >> i would have 30 or 40 keg parties with volleyball nets, live bands, we would have literally a thousand people or more sometimes. these were huge parties. >> you were the guy women wanted to be with, and guys wanted to be best friends with? >> something like that. >> back then he owned this 6,000 square foot home. >> right behind that was 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 would have another hidden closet back in here. you can see my old safe is still here. and this was pretty much just my fort knox room. >> for 15 years, keene'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 keene couldn't stop watching

his back. by the fall of 1996, the 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, and i said you know, i'm tired of running like this. i really just want this all to end. >> and it was all about to end. but not the way keene had planned. just two weeks later? >> i heard the front door rattle. and i thought it was just the wind. it was in november. and next thing you know, boom, the whole door just blew off the hinges. and then they came flying in, in a straight line with their guns drawn and their black uniforms. move, we'll blow your head off, just move one time, rah, rah, rah. >> for jimmy keene, it was over. >> everything is in slow motion, you don't feel like it is even real. >> keene was dragged to jail, he pled guilty, hoping to minimize

his sentence. and at first the prosecutor was willing to negotiate. >> initially, we tried to flip him to see if he would 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 keene 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. i mean, he was very crushed. >> jimmy keene couldn't imagine a way out nor guess that a man he had never met might some day 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 something 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 the house going down this way. >> hall followed and stopped to talk. jessica got scared and backed away. >> that is when he opens the door, grabs her. there is 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 let 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 was not 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 had also been near the campus of indiana wesleyan university, where tricia reitler had 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 tricia's picture. tricia's disappearance had remained a mystery for 18 months. >> we were just kind of sitting on the side lines waiting for information to come in. >> with little evidence and local police insisting on another suspect tricia's parents, gary and donna still suff suffered. >> i know with each thing that came in the urgency was great, and the heartache and the hope. >> that meant that gary miller had found the killer. but the next day, hall changed his story. >> next day when i talked to him he said i was just telling you about my dreams, and it didn't really happen. it was just my dreams. and i said well, larry, you

never said it was a dream, you didn't like the things that you had done but you never mentioned it being a dream. >> but he stuck to his new story, larry hall was recanting everything. you're running a successful business. so we provide it services you can rely on. with centurylink as your trusted it partner, you'll experience reliable uptime for the network and services you depend on. multi-layered security solutions keep your information safe, and secure. and responsive dedicated support meets your needs, and eases your mind. centurylink. your link to what's next. icaused by acid reflux disease, relieving heartburn, relief is at hand. for many, nexium provides 24-hour heartburn relief and may be available for just $18 a month. there is risk of bone fracture and low magnesium levels. side effects may include headache, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. if you have persistent diarrhea, contact your doctor right away.

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. i'm don lemon, here are your headlines this hour, president obama spent the evening pressing his case for military action against syria, the president,

and vice president joe biden attending a dinner for republican senators who are either undecided or actively opposed to the president's decision to strike syria, the house and senate reconvene monday and the president will talk to cnn's wolf blitzer, as well. tune in to that in the "the situation room." and more than 20 children injured on a ride in norwalk, connecticut, police said it appeared that the ride lost control and threw the children to the ground. the owner said that the ride had just been inspected. and in tennis, serena williams winning her 17th grand slam title. the men's final is tomorrow between number one novak djokovic and number two, rafael nadal. those are your headlines this evening, i'm don lemon, keeping

you informed. cnn, the most trusted name in news. larry hall had confessed to killing jessica roach, tricia reitler 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 his van. >> and a search of hall's house and van revealed he had 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. among hall's things, investigators found newspaper clippings about roach and reitler, 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, and on the left side of the mouth he had drawn blood. >> hall said it was all just

staged to make a play for attention, to feel important to police. >> i put a bunch of stuff in that van that i drove around with. because i knew that eventually they might search my van and find them. >> during larry's trial, his twin brother, gary, tried to provide him an alibi. still, federal prosecutor larry beaumont got hall convicted of kidnapping jessica roach. >> in the federal system if you're guilty of kidnapping, if that kidnapping resulted in the death then under the sentencing guidelines, it is mandatory life term. >> the jessica roach case was over. but the disappearance of tricia reitler remained unsolved. and her parents, gary and donna could not stop looking. >> we walked the sides of the roads. we walked the river beds, you know, 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 or whatever, it is like could that be her? >> it was just a horrible crime to lose your daughter and never find out what the heck happened to her. >> larry beaumont kept looking too. >> actually made a couple of arrangements to go out and look for the body. >> beaumont called in specialized military and law enforcement units to search. >> we were not able to find her, but 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 somebody to be larry hall's friend, somebody with charisma. somebody on the inside. larry beaumont needed jimmy keene, he had sent both of them to prison. now he hatched a risky plan that would bring them together. keene was ten months into his sentence when beaumont brought

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

body, no early release. keene would have to serve the rest of his ten-year sentence. but beaumont believed keene could do it. >> he is smart, he is articul e articulate. he is not afraid and i knew he wanted to get out. >> for keene, it was a chance to redeem himself and restore his family name. and, from author hillel levin, to get his family name back. >> this was a way for him to do good, to take this bad thing he had done and to somehow turn it inside out and to 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 have nothing better to do than to try to hurt you and kill you, too. >> keene was unsure. but a phone call home put his doubts to rest. keene's stepmother said his father had suffered a stroke.

>> she said he is 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. >> keene 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. ♪

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but for all these symptoms, you also take kaopectate. kaopectate gives you soothing relief for all those symptoms. kaopectate. one and done. . >> driving up to the prison in springfield, missouri, jimmy keene didn't know if he had made the best or worst decision of his life. >> i started to get cold feet. and i looked at the u.s. marshal and i said listen, i said, how do we know beaumont is going to live up to his word? they all told me he would. i said you know, 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 is a very cagey individual. if he senses one thing wrong he goes into his shell like a turtle and you will never get him back out once he is in. >> but keene 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, and as we gently bumped shoulders, i said excuse me, i'm new here, you wouldn't happen to know where the library is, would you? >> hall offered to show him the way. >> and i slapped his shoulder, i said thanks a lot, i appreciate that from a cool guy like you. >> keene watched his every move from his cell across the hall. >> and i walked up and said hey, i'm here, you in this area right here? he said yeah, i'm right there, i

said well that is great. you're right by me, i said listen, i told you you're a cool guy and i'm glad you're by me. and he offered at that time if i wanted to have breakfast with his friends. >> keene was making progress, slowly gaining his trust. but life at springfield was complicated and dangerous. so keene figured out a way to use violence to his advantage. it was a saturday night and hall was in the tv room. mesmerized by an episode of "america's most wanted," about serial killers. suddenly another inmate approached the tv. >> and you could tell this guy had been in for a long time. he was a real big, buff guy. and he just walked up to the tv, looked at everybody in there and decided he would turn the tv channel, and he turned it. and i found it very interesting, larry looked at me and quietly mumbled under his breath and said hey, i was watching that

show. >> keene leaped into action and knocked the guy out. >> and i nailed him with an upper cut and kicked him through three rows of chairs. he was beat up real bad, he had to go to the hospital. and they took me and threw me in the hole. >> it was worth it. and a helped get a breakthrough with hall. >> he looks at me, thinking i'm cool, now that is a compliment. and now he was able to protect me. >> now, keene had hall's trust and had him talking. one night in hall's cell, he told keene the truth about what happened to tricia reitler. but what hall told keene was different from what some investigators believed. it was his story, along with some evidence that created a

road map i wanted to follow to try to figure out what happened to tricia reitler. tricia would have left this supermarket parking lot walking, just a couple of blocks back to campus. somewhere along this road hall told keene he got tricia into his van. when she fought off his advances he said he choked her to keep her quiet. hall told keene he blacked out. when he woke up tricia 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 a week after tricia's disappearance hall wrote, cut out stain carpet.

vacuumed van thoroughly. buy new hacksaw blades, clean all tools. along with his notes was this address. 700 west slocum, where in the woods half way between marion and wabash. and it is possible that somewhere out here that tricia reitler is buried. >> he said so he got some line together, he got a shovel and a lantern and he drove way out in the woods and buried her out in the woods. >> he admitted to you that he buried her in the woods? >> several times he admitted that, yes. i basically made him feel like it was okay to tell me his secret. >> but keene still needed the secret that would set him free. the exact location of tricia's body. weeks later he thought he nailed it when he found hall hovered over a map in the prison workshop. >> it was a map with 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 this is pretty cool, did you make these? he said yeah, i make them. it is really cool, isn't it, jimmy, he goes they watch over the dead. >> falcons, to watch over the dead. and a map marked with dots. it was the information keene thought would surely lead to the exact location of tricia's body. in that moment, did you think it was your ticket to freedom? >> i did, i thought this was it. i got solid confessions from him. we know specific details. we know how he has done it now. >> keene believed he had his answer, that he would soon be free. that he was done forever with hall. so that night at lockdown, keene decided to tell hall what he really thought. >> i told him he was a [ bleep ]

sicko, i told him he was insane, that he was one of the most despicable forms of human life on the planet. he at that point was terrified of me. he said beaumont sent you, didn't he? beaumont sent you, didn't he. >> keene had blown his cover, and he was put in solitary confinement. >> it took some time for us to find out they put him in the hole and he was not able to communicate with us on the outside. >> by then, hall's map disappeared. when keene was let out of prison to face larry beaumont, he didn't know if what he had learned was enough to set him free.

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>> during his months in springfield, jimmy keene got larry hall to provide details about several murders hall was suspected of committing, including tricia reitler's. but keene had not met the original requirements of larry beaumont's deal. >> i told him this myself, made it clear to him if we didn't find the body, no body, no

credit. >> sitting in his prison cell, jimmy keene desperately hoped he had done enough. >> are they going to be fair and give me what is justifiably right on this, or are they just going to say here is six months? it was a crap shoot. >> without a location for reitler's body, beaumont had a decision to make. >> i made him take a polygraph test just to verify what he was telling us, was it true, and he passed. and he did make a legitimate effort to do what we sent him down there to do. >> so beaumont made a plea to the judge to let him become a free man. and keene 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 i went on. it was redemption at its best. >> keene 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. you know, it was more like, look, let's just enjoy each other while we're alive here. >> it was closure for keene, but not for the families of the alleged victims of layrry hall. for years, there was no progress. and no relief for people like donna and reitler. >> as a parent, there is the part that you have let her down. and that you want to find her and bring her home. and you can't. >> i mean, we've done pretty much physically everything that we can to find her. and there is somebody out there that holds that one answer for us. >> beaumont, too, felt he had 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 was already serving life in prison, he wasn't going anywhere. he was done. >> once again, larry hall had slipped off the radar. and it easily could have remained that way, except for jimmy keene. first, keene'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 reopened the focus on larry hall, opened cold cases and put pressure on his twin brother, gary, now, gary stopped defending larry and started talking. >> he is 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 reitler? >> yes. >> rayna 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 requests 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. >> november of 2010, investigators from the police department interviewed mr. hall at a federal prison in north carolina. >> in that interview, hall admitted murdering laurie depies, and provided clues about where to find her body. >> there are multiple agencies looking for her, referencing the unsolved disappearances. >> larry hall may have had more victims than ever imagined. >> we found that it may have been more extensive than we thought, maybe not 20, but 30 to 40 of the victims. >> that leaves 30 or 40 families still waiting for answers, which is why, says levin, it is critical that serial investigations do not stop. two decades after tricia reitler

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 you know where she is buried. >> donna reitler is not as sure. >> yeah, he confessed, he recanted. he confessed, he recanted. without a body, it is 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 fix, he has

gone from football stand out 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 commu ' families and hopes they find their answers. >> there is a

>> three teens demonized. >> that was the first thing that everybody started saying, that it was a ritualistic killing, satanic killing. >> three teens convicted. >> guilty of capital murder. >> their accused ringleader sent to death row. >> i'm in solitary confinement 24 hours a day, seven days a week. >> he deserves to be tortured and punished for the rest of his life for murdering 3-year-old children. >> it was a crime almost too horrible to imagine. three teens worshipping satan, murdering three 8-year-old boys.

that happened right here back in 1993. two of the teens got life in prison. a third was judged to be so evil, that he was sentenced to die. but after spending 18 years behind bars, a dramatic new development. the so-called west memphis three were abruptly granted their freedom. something that would have been very hard to believe when i first met one of them on death row in 2010 between the rain and the overcast skies, it looks very bleak out here. nothing around but farmland and small towns probably for the last 20 miles. penitentiary area. beware of hitchhikers. that suggests that people might actually escape from this place.

but this prison is the supermax of arkansas. the worst of the worst go to this prison. and at the time of his conviction, no one was considered worse than damien echols. a jury of his peers sent him here to be executed. but that happened 17 years earlier. when i first met the cocky teenager who horrified and enraged thousands of people, he was pushing 40. >> hi. >> escorted to our interview handcuff and shackled, the damien echols i see appears frail, lonely, and eager to tell his story. >> you know, people are going to be watching you throughout this interview, and they're going to be judging you. >> right. >> how do you think they're going to judge you? >> i don't know. >> you're either innocent and a

terrible victim of a justice system gone wrong, or you're a terrible, cold blood killer of children. >> i think you'll probably have people who think both. >> with prison officials listening to our every word, i'm allowed to talk to damien for almost two hours. through a thick glass window, i listen as this obviously intelligent and articulate man describes why he believes the justice system failed him. and why there is still one question he never gets used to hearing. >> i'll just ask you the question. did you kill those boys? >> west memphis, arkansas, 1993. a small town, blue collar, steeped in religion. crisscrossed with truck traffic and interstates. just across the mississippi from graceland and beale street in memphis, tennessee.

it's a quiet place most people drive past. but it was home for three 8-year-old boys named stevie branch, christopher byers, and michael moore. >> stevie and michael moore were best buddies. christopher started coming in to be friends i would say about a month or so before they passed away. but it was always stevie and might bel moore. >> on may 5th, 1993, the three boys went to school, came home, and went out to play. stevie branch's mother, pam hobbs, remembers it like it was yesterday. >> we wasn't home probably five or ten minutes when michael moore came over and asked if davy could go ride bikes with him. and i was telling him, not today, son. i'm getting ready for work, and i'm cooking, and all that. and michael just kept begging him please, let me go, let me go. so like a lot of parents do, i gave in and i said okay.

>> do you remember the last thing stevie said to you? >> i love you, mama. and rode off, just as happy as he could be. >> steve branch, christopher byers, and michael moore were all last seen right here on this street. and they were doing what 8-year-old boys would normally do. they were playing, having fun, and riding their bikes back in that direction toward where the woods used to be. but that was the last time they were seen alive. and no one is sure what happened next. they never came home. families and neighbors searched frantically through the night as pam hobbs feared the worst. >> you had to be beside yourself. >> oh, i was. i was going hysterical. my heart was in my stomach, and i knew the worst had taken place. hd "

three little boys missing in west memphis, arkansas. their families frantically searching a wooded area near their homes. pam hobbs and her husband, terry, among them. but pam held little hope for her son stevie branch. >> i told terry, i said, he's dead. i said, i'll never see him alive again, and i was crying. and he said, no, pam, don't say that. it's going to be all right. we're going to find him. >> terry hobbs was right. they did find stevie. but pam was right, too. she'd never see her son alive again. a shoe. two bikes. and stevie branch with his two friends, christopher byers and michael moore.

the boys were nude and bound with their own shoelaces. >> i run up there and one look at my ex-husband and i knew it was stevie and i hit the ground screaming, god, no. >> almost immediately, word spread that these murders were the work of the devil. >> that was the first thing everybody started saying, that it was a ritualistic killing, satanic killing. i overheard people saying they'd been trying to let the police know there's been groups of teenagers out there practicing satanic rituals and things like that. >> satanic killing? an idea not so farfetched for the time. this is a community steeped in religion, a church is never far away. and it was a time before the goth look or the notion of a romantic teenage vampire became fashionable. and this was a crime so horrendous it was easy to

believe it was committed by a monster. when you're hearing all of this, what's going through your mind? >> exactly the same thing, that that's what happened. that the devil actually come and got my baby. everybody was a suspect. i would have thought you did it back then. i mean, anybody i looked at i was mad at. i went into a world of my own, and i hated people. >> damien echols tells me he was also in his own world. just beginning, he says, to hear about the three young boys found in west memphis. >> tonight investigators found the children beaten to death. >> do you remember the first time you heard about this murder? >> getting up that morning. i mean, it was everywhere. you couldn't not hear it. it was on every news channel, on every newspaper, they were talking about it on the radio. >> what were you thinking? >> to be honest, not a lot. i didn't pay -- it was something that didn't play a big role in my world. you know? i was -- it was people i didn't

know, a situation i didn't know. >> he would figure it out very quickly. >> police launched a massive search for the killers. >> he may have not have realized it at first, but damien was the prime suspect. >> as soon as they found those bodies they were at my house. >> damien was 18 years old at the time. dirt poor and troubled. he had had run-ins with the law before. what was their demeanor? what were their questions? what did they want to know? >> at first they were really friendly. they came in and they were asking, saying things like maybe you can help us. you know, just listen to what you hear on the street, listen to what people are saying. tell us anything you hear. maybe you can help us crack this case. they also took a picture of me, a polaroid picture. i didn't think anything of it at the time. i found out later that they were taking the picture around town and showing it to different people and already trying to connect me to the crime from that moment. >> so from the very first day they were treating you like a suspect. >> exactly. >> and you didn't know it?

>> exactly. exactly. >> when was the first time someone asked you if you had killed those boys? >> maybe two or three days later. >> police kept their eyes on damien and two other teenage boys. his best friend, jason baldwin, and another, jessie misskelley. there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime scene, but there was something investigators didn't like about them, especially damien. >> damien was kind of a smart ass, and he -- and he was a big reader. >> mara leveritt is a journalist and author of "devil's knot, the true story of the west memphis three." she's known damien and his story for years. >> he would say things to this -- to jerry driver, the juvenile officer that played against driver's own concerns about the occult and satanic

activity in the area. and damien thought that he knew more because he was reading about these things. >> the community was terrified. everyone was talking about an occult killing, witchcraft and devil worship. people were staying inside because they were afraid. >> and they were keeping their children inside because they were afraid. the reputation of the police as protectors was on the line. >> they had to get somebody. >> they were under a lot of pressure to do that. yes. and all of the authorities there. i mean, that's what we pay our authorities to do is protect us. >> three 8-year-old boys murdered. dumped in a gully. a community, stricken with fear of the unknown and police under the gun. for misfits like damien and his two friends, it was the perfect storm for presumption of guilt. ?u+5+5+5+5kk

i came from an extremely, you know, dirt poor family. damien echols grew up here, in

marion, arkansas, a mile or two from west memphis. his best friend jason baldwin lived nearby, and so did a boy named jessie misskelley. when was the last time you talked to jessie? >> i met him at his home on a cold, winter day to learn more about his son. >> everybody loved him. little kids called him uncle jessie. >> 17 years. jessie's father says he had a good heart but his son struggled in school and he didn't make it past the ninth grade. >> at the time he was 17 years old, he came from a family that was a big family. he was a rough kid. he was low functioning in school. he had been in special ed from the time he started school. >> low functioning. >> iq i think at 72 is what he's been measured at.

>> and what does that mean? how does he compare to a normal student? >> well, if the normal student is 100, then a 72 in our state, i believe that a 70 is the cutoff for mental retardation. legally. so he was just above that. and he had been in special ed until he'd finally dropped out in high school when he was 16, a year earlier than this. >> jessie knew damien echols and jason baldwin but not well. they lived in a neighborhood close by. what was your world? what was your day like? what was your life like? >> poor, white trash. and i think that's one of the things that made it so easy for them to put this off on us, because we were ex-spendable. our lives didn't matter. >> whether that was true or not, the police were struggling to solve a crime with very few leads. what kind of pressure are police under at the time? >> business was suffering. people were not going out. life was not going on as normal.

>> and they weren't getting crucial information from the state crime lab. three weeks after the murders, a police inspector pleaded for answers about the young victims. time of death. cause of death. were the kids sodomized? we need information from the crime lab desperately, the inspector says. our hands are tied. police had all these theories, but what did jessie misskelley do for them in terms of confirming what they were suspecting? >> he gave them something they could run with. he gave them something that they could use. >> almost exactly one month after the murders, jessie misskelley told police he saw what happened in a tape-recorded statement. >> where did you go? we went up to robin hood. >> what occurred while you were there? >> when i was there, i saw damien hit this one boy real bad and then he started screwing him

and stuff. >> jessie said he watched damien echols and jason baldwin tie up the 8-year-olds, beat them, cut them, and sodomize them. >> so you saw damien strike chris byers in the head. what did he hit him with? >> with his fist. >> his confession gave police the break they needed so badly. but with that statement, he sealed his own fate, and that of damien echols and jason baldwin. his confession itself was full of contradictions and inconsistencies. but once it was out, almost no one would believe jessie would have admitted to doing something he hadn't done. in this so-called confession, he got a lot of the key points wrong. that the evidence could not back up. >> and the police knew it. >> and they ran with this confession?

>> and so did the prosecutors. >> despite the inconsistencies, jessie's statement still seemed so convincing at the time that even his own father briefly believed he was guilty. >> when they first had him in court, i heard the evidence, you know, and everything. i somehow, i thought he'd done it. >> i had never heard you say that about -- you were sitting in the courtroom. >> i was sitting in -- >> you were hearing what they were saying about it. >> yeah. >> and you actually thought -- >> i actually thought he was guilty until i talked to him. >> that must have been a terrible thing for a father to think. >> it was. i guarantee you. >> but things were about to get even worse. for jessie, sr., his son and the other two boys accused in the murders.

♪ you still have marks on your wrist from the handcuffs. >> i have permanent scars on my ankles where they've put them on so tight that i bleed sometimes.

>> damien echols bears the marks of a man who spent nearly half his life on arkansas's death row. >> it's kind of hard to sit here and try to have a normal discussion with your family whenever they can look down and see you're bleeding through your socks. >> but even more painful, he says, is the question he's had to answer for the past 18 years. how often has someone asked you, did you kill those children? >> every single time i've done an interview i've been asked that. >> damien lives in 24-hour lockdown. he's been convicted of murdering stevie branch, christopher byers and michael moore, all 8-year-olds, all found naked and bound in a gully on may 6th, 1993. >> it's hard. like i said, it doesn't get any easier, and you would think i'd be used to this by now, but you don't get used to this. and it does continue to get worse as time goes by.

>> but it's a question he's had to answer ever since that day in 1993, when 17-year-old jessie misskelley confessed to witnessing this most heinous of crimes. >> damien hollered. said, hey, the little boys came up there. then they tied them up, tied their hands up, they started screwing them and stuff, cutting them and stuff. >> did you actually rape any of these boys? >> no. >> did you actually kill any of these boys? >> no. >> did you see any of the boys actually killed? >> yes. >> he was a vulnerable kid who was in a high pressure situation for a very long time. and he started off saying, i don't know anything about it.