>> on the surface, everything looks normal with this guy. >> he's a surfer dude, a former eagle scout, a mormon missionary, and a suspected killer. >> did you believe he was capable of doing something like that? >> no. >> tonight, join the hunt as the fbi searches for one of its ten most wanted fugitives. >> when his face was put on tv, a friend called him and he hits the road. he's a ghost. >> then, keep your eyes open, because this guy could be hiding anywhere. >> i don't think i've ever seen anybody like this. >> chris hanson on the trail of the fugitive. >> it reads like a litany of the nation's most notorious criminals. the fbi's ten most wanted list,

has chronicled america's infamous from james earl ray to tud bundy and the centennial bomber. accused murderers, drug traffickers and child parnographers. >> most of these folks have commit more than one very serious crime, rapes and murders, these are very dangerous people. >> ron hoska, who runs the ten most wanted program, is responsible for finding these people. >> 500 criminals have made the list in his 63-year history and 470 cases have been cleared. >> not all those are by arrest. some are in custody, some turned up dead, but 94% clearance rate is a tremendously successful program. but it's the other 6% that keep him and his agents up at night. >> a wiley fugitive who drops

under the horizon can present a significant challenge to us. >> and even amid the top ten list of criminality, the story of one wiley fugitive stands out. you might know him and not even realize it. he could live across town, down the block, or maybe even closer. and if you know where to find him, the fbi could make it worth your while. this fugitive's catch me if you can story, began on the kind of day that makes wintering in phoenix look appealing. it was reporter dave sislack's beat. >> it's a quiet community, low-crime area. when it happened, it was pretty surprising. >> what happened, what surprised and shocked everyone here, happened shortly after 10:00 a.m. on november 29th, 2004, monday after thanksgiving weekend. an armored car made its way to

the multiplex theater to pick up the holiday weekend box office. the driver pulled up in front of the amc and his partner walked quickly into the theater. he picked up the holiday weekend cash from a manager, signed a receipt for the $56,000 and headed back out to the truck. before the courier reached the safety of his fortified vehicle, six gun shots shattered the mall's morning quiet. the gunman snachbed the money bag. a security camera caught a glimpse of him, dropping the bag and picking it up, before he went into the alley, jumped on to a bicycle and raced away. leading keith pal marie bleeding on the pavement. >> 911, what is your emergency? >> shots fired. quite a few. >> the armored truck's driver

who didn't see the shooting called his office and following policy, stayed inside the truck. >> my driver just called and said our guard is down. he's been shot several times. please get somebody there. >> the officer, he's still moving. need an ambulance here fast. >> we'll get some help there first. >> oh, man, he's dying. >> when paramedics arrive moments later, they could do nothing for the man on the ground. keith pal marie's life was cut short and his young wife widowed. his violent death confirmed his mother's worst fears about her son's dangerous job. >> this man, taken my life, my heart, my joy, my reason of living, my son. >> a time zone west in coachela, california, keith's brother derek got a call at work from

his grandmother. >> she was distraught on the phone, crying, hysterically crying. >> she couldn't get it the out. >> yes. she came out and in this room, she told me your brother was shot and killed. >> right here? >> i just fell to my knees, i couldn't hold myself up. >> growing up derek idolized his older brother. >> he taught me how to play baseball, charismatic, loving, caring, very protective. >> the killing that shattered the family was also the beginning of an incredible manhunt. >> we get the call of a shooting at the amc theaters. >> investigator paul daltonal caught the case. >> our detectives went out there and started the investigation. >> there was little for them to start with despite a police rapped response that included helicopters, checkpoints, and dogs. more witnesses had heard than

seen the shooting. >> i was about halfway back from my truck and the shots were fired. >> the few eyewitnesses they could find described seeing a white or hispanic man wearing a dark hoodie, who rode away from the theater on a mountain bike. >> he was like pedaling hard, like too hard just to be getting across the street. >> the killer who vanished on a bicycle, now had the fbi on his trail because armored car theft is a federal offense. for lance licing, the fbi's lead agent, this was more than just another robbery. >> desperation causes people to do crazy things. >> people in phoenix were horrified by the killing. dave sis lack covered the story. >> this was a different kind of event, where a guy who was simply trying to do his job was taken out for no reason. the community was upset and they wanted answers. >> the fbi's search for those

answers would put them on the trail of a most unlikely fugitive. a fugitive who agents would learn began life as that nice boy next door. an athlete, eagle scout and religious missionary, but who grew up, they allege, to be a con-man, gambler, and accused killer, a path that would one day put him on the fbi's most wanted list. coming up, investigators get a huge break when they find the bike the suspected killer used to escape. there's a fingerprint on it and it leads to a photo, a picture that tells a chilling story. >> you can see the smirk on jason's face in that photo. it's an interesting shot. he's [ male announcer ] hear that?

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in the hours after the murder of the armored car courier, they were trying to piece together what happened. they had only the vaguest description of their suspect.

a white or hispanic male of average build and average height on a mountain bike. >> we were covering hundreds of tips about a guy on a bicycle. >> fbi agent lance was working the case with phoenix homicide detective paul dalton. their crime scene was a mess, strewn with blood, fragments of six high velocity bullets and broken glass from a ticket counter window shattered by the only round that missed keith palomares. >> the body was right here. >> did he even see it coming? >> i don't think so. >> did he even see it coming? >> i don't think so. >> we could guess. his gun was in his holster. >> he never got it out. >> never got it out. >> the witnesses out hire didn't -- out here didn't hear a single demand for money. it was immediately gun shots. >> bam, bam, bam, bam. >> their first break, a huge one, came the afternoon of the robbery. a police helicopter pilot spied an abandoned bicycle in a drainage area about a half mile

east of the theater. he alerted searchers below. >> the detective that was there immediately called our crime scene people and before they moved it, let's swab it for dna. let's print it real quick. >> as the crime lab processed the bicycle, officers interviewed workers and shoppers in the mall. what they heard made them think the robbery had been some time in the planning. >> and we started talking to those people and they said well, yeah. there was their silver bmw with this guy watching for a couple weeks. >> but what could be the connection between the driver of the expensive sports car and their suspect on the bicycle dressed like a day laborer? the answer came the next day with the match to a fingerprint lifted off that abandoned bicycle. >> i got a name. jason derek brown. and wii like, okay, well, who is he? >> who, indeed. his name was in the national crime information center computer because of an arrest

four years earlier, for stealing golf clubs from a north carolina sporting goods store. after the fingerprint had given investigators brown's name, another federal computer spit out the next clue. >> we got the name of jason brown. we started to rook into everything. we ran with the bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms, ran through their databases and got purchases by him and that pinged on the recent purchase up in salt lake. >> atf records indicated that a jason brown bought a handgun just a few weeks earlier in utah. it was almost midnight the day after the shooting when salt lake city-based fbi agents located firearms instructor clark aposhian. >> he had this little 3 series bmw, very nice-looking car. laid back. that southern california surfer type. >> reporter: he made room for brown in a class. >> he was very cocky. he was very arrogant. >> reporter: after some instruction using a glock 9-millimeter, brown took and passed the concealed carry test.

aposhian fingerprinted and photographed him as required by utah law. then the student told the instructor he wanted to buy a handgun. the firearms expert tried to direct him to an easy to use small-caliber weapon. >> he wanted something bigger. he said, what's the most powerful? he was insistent he wanted the .45. >> reporter: brown bought a glock .45. and he proved just as particular about the ammo he wanted. >> he chose some of our very high-pressure, or very powerful ammunition. >> reporter: before the fbi agents left the gun shop, they downloaded the photo taken for brown's permit and send it to the task force in phoenix. >> you can see the smirk on jason's face in that photo. it's an interesting shot. i mean, he's purchasing the instrument he's going to use to kill this guard. and you can see his attitude about it. >> reporter: they now had a name, a face, and a vehicle for their lead suspect. the vehicle, that silver bmw,

led them to revisit a report of a suspicious person putting a mountain bike in a bmw at a motel about a mile south of the crime scene shortly before the murder. when phoenix police detectives got there, they learned that jason brown, using a salt lake city address, had stayed in room 261. forensic experts found little inside the room. but officers collected this surveillance video showing brown in the motel lobby the day of the killing. >> a tip to the hotel that corroborated some of that jason brown information, and then it just blossomed from there. >> reporter: now leads were pouring in. brown's cell phone records were subpoenaed, from cell towers cops triangulated his trail in the hours after the robbery. >> he goes to a 24 hour fitness near the area, goes in with a bag. he comes out, looks like he changes clothes, leaves the bag there for a while. comes back and gets it in a little bit. >> reporter: those telltale cell tower hits indicated that by early evening on the day of the

robbery and murder brown was driving west out of phoenix. his phone logs indicated dozens of calls to family members in california. sure enough, two days later on wednesday bank records showed brown was making a cash deposit in a dana point, california branch. the cops felt they had cracked the case. a grand jury agreed and indicted jason derek brown for the murder of keith palomares. an arrest appeared imminent. >> we're getting close. zeroing in. >> reporter: but even as they seemed to be drawing ever closer to their prey, the fbi and phoenix homicide were also growing increasingly concerned that jason brown was far more cunning, desperate, and dangerous than nearly anyone they had encountered. coming up -- investigators are just minutes away from an arrest. but then -- >> the friend called him. >> and he hits the road. >> he's a ghost. >> when "dateline" continues.

one week after the robbery homicide that killed armored car guard keith palomares, phoenix police detectives and fbi agents believed they were closing in on their suspect, jason derek brown. a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution had been added to state murder charges. >> there are a lot of means to try to track people down. we used every one of them in that case. >> reporter: brown's cell phone logs, credit cards and bank records led investigators to believe their man had gone to ground with family. >> you guys were pretty sure he was in orange county, california. >> we felt like we were getting closer. it's never a sure thing. ever. >> reporter: in fact, seven days after the crime fbi agents were preparing to arrest brown. all their intelligence led them to believe he was hiding with his sister in rancho margarita, california. but that same morning phoenix

police who were unaware of the planned raid called a news conference. they identified brown as the suspect and appealed for tips. dave cieslak covered it for the "arizona republic." >> as a reporter we thought we were performing a service. >> be on the lookout. >> yeah. the mug shot was out. the surfer boy, you know, mug shot that everybody's seen to warn people be on the lookout for a dangerous gunman who just killed a guy in cold blood. >> reporter: just a few hours later police raided brown's sister's house. anyone looking out the window here might have thought a movie was being filmed. fbi agents and police swarm the block and storm the house. s.w.a.t. teams secured the scene. there was no trace of jason brown. brown's sister told the fbi he was gone, they just missed him. agents asked her that most critical question here in southern california. what was he driving? his silver bmw, she said. >> it just was a timing issue, and we missed him by 30 minutes or so.

>> 30 minutes? >> yes. >> when his face was put on tv, a friend called him. i see your face on tv. what's going on? >> and he hits the road. >> he's a ghost. >> reporter: then it turned out that brown's sister lied to fbi agents. he hadn't escaped in that silver bmw. he was driving his cadillac escalade. >> we're used to people lying to us right away. that happens all the time. >> did that in any way hinder the investigation? >> initially on our radios and on our reports, but it didn't take long for the people, you know, quarterbacking that operation to say hey, we're not sure he's in the bmw. let's look for everything. >> reporter: one of brown's credit cards was used to buy gasoline south of orange county the day after the raid on his sister's house. >> we immediately went to the gas stations, reviewed the surveillance tapes and it's the escalade. we're looking for the escalade. >> reporter: brown was at least a day ahead of them as the fbi tracked his escape route with credit card receipts, traffic cameras, and surveillance video. they knew he went through san diego. >> he immediately goes south.

heads towards the u.s.-mexican border. near tijuana. takes some money out of an atm there. he sends the package to his brother, david. >> after san diego what can you tell me about brown's movements? >> he drove north to portland, where he sent another package to david. >> and what was in that package? >> a gun. his brother's 9-millimeter glock that he had stolen from his house previously. sent back more clothing items, camera, some memory cards, several cds. >> any clues? >> a lot of clues to his past life, to who jason is. his ego wall is contained in these disks and in that laptop. >> fbi agents had the family's post office box under surveillance and knew david brown received the shipments. >> why do you think he sent all that stuff to his brother david? >> well, i think he wanted to get rid of everything that associated him with his past life. i think he idolized a couple things in life. the movie "heat."

he talked about the phrase in that movie. >> guy told me one time, don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around a corner. >> and i think that was part of that plan, that thought process that he idolized. he was just going to cut ties with everything that could ever connect him to jason brown and he was going to start a new identity. >> reporter: after he mailed that package to his brother from portland, brown went off the grid. no phone calls, no atm withdrawals, no credit card use. it was becoming evident to the agents on his trail that jason brown was far more resourceful than their usual demand note bank robber. his ability to fly under their radar led them to a dead end in oregon. but just as brown's west coast trail turned cold, another major lead was uncovered back in phoenix. after jason brown's photograph

was broadcast across arizona, tips began flowing in. investigators were particularly intrigued by a story they heard from an aerospace engineer who had been camping here in the tonto national forest with his young son. >> he called. >> yeah. >> he saw the picture and immediately thought, hey, that was the guy shot my truck. probably don't forget that. >> reporter: the camper told cops about a man who identified himself as jason brown and had been target shooting paper plates in the desert the day before the robbery. he had confronted brown after jason accidentally fired a bullet into the door of his truck, causing $1,300 in damage. >> and jason grabbed a paper plate that he had extra, wrote his name and phone number down on a paper plate and gave it to him saying i'll pay for the -- >> damage to your truck. >> right. >> reporter: brown signed the plate and added his license tag number and the same salt lake city address he had used on his motel registration. when investigators examined the

bullet recovered from the truck, they found it was the same brand and caliber as the rounds that killed keith palomares. with another link between brown and what they believed was the murder weapon, investigators felt they now had an ironclad case. but what good did it do if the suspected murderer of keith palomares remained at large? at a seeming dead end in their investigation, agents had to dig into jason brown's past to find out who he was, how he thought, and what his next move might be. and the more they dug, the more it appeared as if he had been born to run. coming up -- turns out jason brown's father also vanished. >> the apple didn't fall too far from that tree with him and his son. >> do you think there's a possibility that jason is hiding out with his father, john? good morning! wow.

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he became a ghost once. you know, he was aware we were looking for him, and that's when he went off the grid. >> reporter: as the fbi ghostbusters continue their search for jason brown, who had been charged with killing armored guard courier keith palomares, veteran agent lance

found himself perplexed by the behavior in his suspect. >> they risk 20 years of their life to rob a bank. this guy, though, jason, how he grew up, the opportunities he had in life to lead a good life and to be productive in society, i don't think i've ever seen anybody like this. whenever you're hunting a fugitive you get to know them. you go back deep into their family history. >> reporter: investigators believe that somewhere in brown's family history they would uncover some clue to his whereabouts. they discover their unlikely suspect grew up in the sunny affluence of orange county, california. raised on this block in laguna beach, just down the street from his grandparents. an eagle scout and first-rate athlete, brown graduated from laguna beach high school before attending college in idaho. then he served two years as a mormon missionary in france, where he became fluent in the language. and not long after he returned home, he married a fellow missionary in a temple ceremony in los angeles.

he earned a master's degree in business administration. but somewhere on his path to a corporate corner office brown's marriage went south and his life took a sharp turn. as investigators dug deeper into jason brown's past, they found that by the time he had completed his mba he had undergone a fundamental transformation. the eagle scout and former missionary had reinvented himself as a player, a party boy with a taste for speedboats, sports cars, pretty women, and high-stakes gambling. cops concluded that the roots of the mystery could be traced back to childhood and his relationship with his father, john brown. >> his father was described as often going into tijuana to pick up large sums of money and then come back. having some side jobs but always having a large stack of cash. >> his father was a bit of a flimflam guy. >> yes. the apple didn't fall too far from that tree with him and his son. >> he learned from him. absolutely.

>> reporter: a man of mystery with a criminal record. brown sr. was, like his boy, a gambler and player. he spoiled jason. >> had a silver spoon in his mouth. had money. had nice things. had a father who taught him how to get those nice things maybe without a traditional job. there were other things in his past that lead to us believe he followed the path of his father. >> reporter: agents' suspicions were particularly heightened when they learned that brown's father john vanished in 1994, ten years before his fugitive son disappeared. >> do you think there's a possibility that jason is hiding out with his father, john? >> conspiracy theorists may believe that. i don't. >> reporter: jason's sister and brother declined to talk to "dateline," and investigators say they have been less than cooperative with them as well. fbi agents pressured david brown for information that might help them locate jason. but blood proved thicker than

water. for instance, there was the matter of jason's silver bmw. >> david told us many times, i have no idea where it is. i have no idea where it is. ultimately, david, unbeknownst to us, traveled to las vegas, accessed one of jason's storage units in las vegas, and grabbed the bmw. not just to have it for himself but also to completely clean it out. >> reporter: david brown moved the vehicle to california and had it detailed. when the fbi found out, he was arrested and pleaded guilty to the felony of making a false statement. he got three years probation. >> how important would it have been to you in this investigation to get a good look at that bmw before david sanitized it? >> extremely important. we wanted fingerprints, the dna, the hairs. anything could have been in that vehicle. >> do you think his brother or any other family member knows more than they're letting on? >> i think it's extremely -- >> yes. >> -- difficult for somebody

like jason, anybody, to go this long without ever communicating with friends or family. >> reporter: undeterred, investigators burrowed further, uncovering scam after scam their charming young fugitive had allegedly perpetrated. he excelled at buying things on credit. >> from boats to cars and everything, never paid for it. he walked on the lot and did the initial purchase, and they never saw him again. >> reporter: brown was also suspected of running a string of bogus businesses across the southwest. picture perfect modeling was the name of his texas venture. >> he had a modeling agency in austin, texas. >> yes. where he just conned female coeds from the university of texas to do modeling shoots with him. take $5,000 from them where he would just take the money and run and use it to meet women and move on. >> total scam? >> total scam. right. >> reporter: jason even posed for some modeling photos of himself in austin. but how did a man suspected of

running con games become the violent criminal cops allege he is? >> for jason i think it came down to his greed, his desire for money, his desire to be that millionaire, the life of the party, and how that desire extends to the point where you can kill somebody, that's something i'll never understand. >> reporter: investigators might have been despairing of ever understanding jason brown, but they still had hopes of catching him. and the stakes were high. >> on the surface everything looks normal with this guy. but he is the portrait of a sociopath. and when he runs out of money again, then what happens? >> coming up -- the suspected killer who could easily be the guy next door. think you know your neighbor? she thought so. >> he was generous. he'd help people out. he'd golf with some of the neighbor guys. >> did you believe he was capable of doing something like that? >> no. >> when "dateline" continues. look at 'em.

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jason derek brown, the prime suspect in the killing of armored car courier keith palomares outside a phoenix movie theater, had vanished. six weeks after the crime cops found his getaway vehicle abandoned and vandalized at the portland, oregon international airport. >> what does that indicate to you? >> where that escalade was placed was a message, i believe jason wanted us to receive. and i think he wanted us to think that he was gone, that he took a flight out of that portland international airport and fled the country. >> reporter: in the months after the murder lance leising and other fbi agents interviewed his phoenix friends and neighbors, hoping they might help create a profile that might point them to brown. what they heard was contrary to what they expected. there was a surprising revelation from that camper who was out in the desert with his son when jason brown

accidentally fired a shot into his truck. while on the run, brown mailed him a cashier's check for $1,300 to cover the damage, along with a toys "r" us gift certificate for the young boy. >> jekyll & hyde personality. the personality that's so desperate enough that wants to kill somebody for money and then so charismatic enough that you're his best friend in the bar or you get -- you get a gift certificate to a child because he was scared. >> reporter: investigators also interviewed ellen robinson. she was a realtor who met jason brown while showing him a house on her block a year and a half before the crime. >> and he took a quick lap through the house, and he was really most interested in the garage. and he said yep, i'll take it i'll rent it. >> and why was that? why the garage? >> he said he had a lot of toys to store. >> and what did he tell you he did for a living? >> he was an importer/exporter of golf equipment to asia. in his whole garage he had it full of golf balls and equipment. >> how was he as a neighbor? >> he was kind of like a big kid. he was generous. he'd help people out. he'd golf with some of the neighbor guys. kids would hang out with him. especially my son.

he took us all boating once. >> reporter: mike campbell also lived on the same block as jason brown at the time, and the two were friends. he told the fbi jason owned all the toys a boy could want. >> a bmw. cadillac escalade. he had a jeep rubicon. a special edition boat. two quads. yamaha crotch rocket. and two dirt bikes. >> a lot of motors in one man's garage. >> correct. >> was he a player? >> he had that playboy mentality. i mean, from day one to the end it was, you know, money, money, money, money, money. hey, let's go out. you know, to the clubs and everything. he always paid for it. >> reporter: six months later brown abruptly moved out. he told friends a family member was ill in california. that was it. until a year later, two weeks before the shooting, when jason brown called ellen robinson and

took her up on a standing offer to visit. brown proved to be a considerate houseguest during the ten days he stayed in robinson's spare room. >> he'd leave for the day as if he were going to work. and i remember one day i asked him, are you eating breakfast? get a bagel or something before you leave. and he said no, no, that's not right. i'm not going to eat your food. it's not right. that was it. >> reporter: investigators now believe that brown was parked in the ahwatukee mall staking out the armored truck's pickups during that time. three days before he allegedly robbed and killed keith palomares brown moved out of robinson's house to the motel. ten days after that robinson was stunned when she heard what brown was accused of doing. >> i just happened to have the tv on, and there was his picture. >> jason brown's picture? >> yes. >> and what are they saying about him? >> that he's wanted for murder of an armored car employee. i instantly picked up the phone and i left a message. it went to voicemail.

and i said jason, you've got to fix -- something's wrong here. they think you did this and you've got to come straighten this out. >> did you believe he was capable of doing something like that? >> no. >> how can one person be so kind on one hand and so apparently evil on the other? >> i have no idea. you know, a murderer is not the person i was friends with. >> reporter: but she did remember one strange thing that happened when brown was house-sitting for her a year or so before the crime. >> i went out of town for a couple days. and i left jason in the house by himself. and my cat. and he said my cat would not even go in the same room as him. >> meaning the cat sensed something -- >> yes. >> -- bad about jason brown? >> yes. my cat was smarter than i was, i guess. i thought maybe it was that player thing, you know. he senses he's a player, too. >> reporter: mike campbell happened to work in a restaurant near the movie theater where keith palomares was killed. he knew the shooting victim, who

sometimes picked up cash at campbell's job. >> what went through your mind when you learned it was keith who was the one who was killed? >> shock. man, i just saw him yesterday. now he's dead? and it's like, this can't be happening. >> and your former neighbor is accused of killing him. >> it's a double whammy. you kind of ask yourself, what in the world is going on? >> give me a sense for the information you've gotten from jason brown's friends, how he was acting just before the crime. >> most of them described him as depressed. he was sleeping on people's couches. he didn't have the money to live the lifestyle that he wanted to live. some of his associates described how he was watching shows about crime dramas. and he would talk to them about hey, armored car. that would be the way to go. if they were going to do a robbery armored car would be the one. >> reporter: they were developing a clearer profile of

their suspect but they were not getting any closer to capturing jason brown. inevitably, the manhunt began to wear on investigators. >> we had pressure from our own department to solve this. we have pressure from the victim's family. and then we have pressure we put on ourselves. >> reporter: but that pressure would be ratcheted up even more because jason brown was about to join that most exclusive and notorious of clubs -- the fbi's ten most wanted list. coming up -- is jason brown's life on the run a life in the sun? >> what do you think the odds are that he's wangled his way into some woman's life someplace and he's being supported and she has no idea she's living with an accused killer? >> i think that is the leading theory. [ male announcer ] on vacation, you want more of the things you love. ♪ hello, bacon. get more with breakfast and a two-room suite for rates as low as $115 per night at an embassy suites.

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i always thought that he would be caught within a month or two. then a year went by. then two years went by. then five years went by. the fact that we're sitting here eight years later is staggering. >> in spite of the fbi and phoenix police department's best efforts, jason derek brown remains at large. all things change over time, especially people. fbi and phoenix police forensic artists have tried to determine just how the years may have treated brown. has the california surfer dude grown into a man more closely resembling his father, who disappeared a decade earlier? jason brown's ability to remain at large all this time has convinced his pursuers he remains cunning and disciplined. >> he drops off the radar. >> yes.

>> and not one hit, one credit card usage, one video surveillance capture? >> no. >> he's a ghost. >> we have received probably over 5,000, 6,000 tips on people who think they've seen jason. >> 6,000 tips. >> all those tips speak to how easy it might be for brown to hide in plain sight. >> he's good-looking. charming when he wants to be. >> yeah. absolutely. >> what do you think the odds are that he's wangled his way into some woman's life someplace and he's being supported and she has no idea she's living with an accused killer? >> i think that is the leading theory. he has a history of mooching off people, trying to get close with somebody, tell them he's somebody he really isn't, and then draining them for as much as he can possibly drain them for, and then moving on to the next. and that's why i think it's very likely he's using that charm to get close with a woman, tell them he's somebody totally different.

i think that's what he's doing. and then moving on. >> brown was raised in the mormon church and did his two-year mission throughout france. speaks french fluently. >> yes. >> could he be in france? >> he could be anywhere. because he speaks fluent french. he also speaks spanish. and english. and so we've got the world. >> right. >> over the past eight years there have been suspected sightings of jason brown from key west to las vegas to vancouver. in one incident cops detained sean penn's body double, whom they mistook for brown. it was just one of dozens of incidents where individuals have been detained until their fingerprints or other identification could prove they were not the notorious fugitive. the closest thing to a confirmed sighting came in 2008, when someone who knew the fugitive said he thought he recognized brown waiting at a stop sign in salt lake city. but whoever was in the car was long gone by the time agents heard about it. fbi agents believe that even on the run jason brown remained a serious threat to public safety.

he had earned a place among the nation's most dangerous criminals. so in 2007 they put him on the bureau's ten most wanted list. >> why does brown make the list? >> because his crime was a very serious violent crime. because brown is smart. he's capable. he's a person who's fluent in french. he's an avid outdoors person. >> give me a sense for the volume of tips that come in when somebody makes the top ten most wanted list. >> the volume of tips routinely coming in to give a tip or send a tip to the fbi is about 20,000 a month. >> 20,000 a month? >> 20,000 a month. >> reporter: it's not just the desire to be a good citizen that prompts those calls. there's a minimum $100,000 reward for information about top ten fugitives. and the bounty on jason brown was recently doubled to $200,000. the fbi is making it easy to

collect. they put up a dedicated website and a ten most wanted app. >> there are hundreds of thousands of hits on that app. it's been wildly successful. >> reporter: ron hosko, the top ten program director, thinks they'll get their man. >> what is it going to take to apprehend jason derek brown? >> it's going to take some alert citizen who's listening to this show or who is looking at his most wanted app on his smartphone, or at the fbi.gov website saying, i know where that person is and picking up the phone. >> reporter: the family of the man jason brown is alleged to have killed hopes that happens. >> what do you say to jason brown as we sit here tonight? >> ask him why. why and how could he do this to somebody? over money. what brought him to this? he just did not just take my brother's life. he took my mom's, my dad's, my family's life. everything from us. >> what is it like for you every day to know that the man

authorities believe killed your brother remains free? >> to know that he's still out there, that he could still wake up every day, enjoy life, it used to really irritate me. as i got older, i realized i still have anger toward him, but he has to be living in fear. he cannot live a normal life. he has to be looking over his shoulder every time. he has to sleep, go to bed, and know what he did and sleep with what he did. >> the investigators charged with tracking down keith palomares's suspected killer aren't giving up. >> he's been on the lam for eight years. what do you think the realistic chances are that he'll ever be caught? >> i think we have good chances. they eventually get caught. one way, shape, or form. and i'm confident that that will happen. >> one thing i'll guarantee you, we won't stop looking. he'll stay on that list until we catch him or determine he's dead.

>> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm lester holt. thanks for joining u good evening i'm terry mcsweeney. >> and i'm diane dwyer. no b.a.r.t. strike tomorrow. >> kimberly tere has more. >> reporter: about 40 minutes ago the union came downstairs and walked through lobby out here and told us they are disappointed with this decision. they wanted a resolution for the workers and they wanted one tonight. but what this does mean is that b.a.r.t. trains will be running tomorrow and through the week. the governor called a seven-day board of inquiry. and b.a.r.t. and negotiators