the vet's #1 choice. >> i go -- "what are these things anyway?" he says, "they're these little falcons." and he goes, "they watch over the dead, jimmy," he goes, "they do." >> reporter: what if someone asked you to risk your life? >> what if i get shanked? what if i get killed? >> reporter: to go undercover into one of the country's most dangerous prisons. >> once they stepped out the door, i was on my own. >> reporter: to help catch a killer? >> she had such a zest for life. >> reporter: young girls were being murdered. >> i can't imagine sending my daughter off to school and never seeing her again. >> reporter: and investigators needed help to get a confession. >> if anybody could pull it off, he would probably be the one to be able to pull it off.

>> reporter: if it worked, he could win his freedom. if it didn't, he could lose his life. >> they had your back? >> they had my back. >> at least you thought. >> that's what i thought. >> reporter: "the inside man." welcome to "date line." everyone. i'm lester holt. why would anyone volunteer to spend time behind bars in a prison for the criminally insane? it was a chance to escape a ten-year sentence and walking out of prison a freeman. before he would be sprung he had a job to do and that special and especially dangerous prison. getting it it turns out, was the easy part. getting out alive was much harder. >> reporter: two enemies who didn't trust each other faced off across a table. one of them in handcuffs was a clever con named jimmy keene.

the other, a hard-charging prosecutor. >> in court, he called me the john gotti of kankakee. >> reporter: the prisoner was worried sick. the prosecutor, who had just convicted keene and put him behind bars, suddenly wanted to talk. a top-secret meeting, no less. what more could he do to jimmy? >> he was the last person i expected to hear from. he was my biggest fear. >> reporter: but keene's fears went off the charts when the prosecutor, larry beaumont, slid an accordion file in his direction. on top was a grisly photo of a dead girl. >> and i flip to the next page, and here's another young, dead, mutilated girl. and i'm thinking whoa, wait a second. >> he's probably thinking at this point that you're about to charge him with something else. >> yeah, because, you know, i had been pretty rough on him in the initial prosecution. >> reporter: jimmy was in the dark. he had no idea the crazy scheme beaumont had in mind. >> he says, jimmy "listen." he goes, "this is something that

we have another person on. he has killed many, many young women. and i personally think you're the one that can help us with this." >> reporter: this turned out to be an investigation to try and catch a suspected serial killer. beaumont, an outside-the-box thinker, believed this convict, jimmy keene, was the one who could somehow crack the case, taking on a unique and deadly mission. >> i realized how serious it was. i realized the danger of it. >> reporter: but what he couldn't know was how such a daring mission would change his world and the person he was forever. if this all seems fodder for a hollywood movie, brad pitt would agree. the mega-star who was benjamin button, then moneyball's billy beene was interested in playing none other than jimmy keene. >> brad pitt likes the fact that this guy jimmy keene risked his life to try and find what he could find. >> reporter: clearly, this guy

is one of a kind. charismatic, conceited, courageous and complicated. from an early age, he had the personality, charm and cockiness that made him dream that a hollywood star might, one day, want to play him in the movies. his first big brush with fame came on the football field. >> i heard they called you "the assassin" in football. that was a good thing, i take it. >> yes. i was taught by my dad at a young age. he said, son, "if you don't hit that guy first, he's gonna hit you and hurt you first." >> reporter: a superstar athlete and mr. popularity in high school, jimmy seemed to have it all as a big fish in the river city of kankakee, illinois, a blue-collar town south of chicago. >> i was most valuable player. i was captain of the team every year i played. >> reporter: jimmy grew up in the shadow of his father, "big jim," a giant of a man who was a cop, fireman and hero to his son. >> he's my best friend.

he was my backbone in pretty much everything i did. >> reporter: but all keene's grand potential would be put in peril by a terrible choice he made. as a teenager, he began selling drugs. he started small, peddling bags of marijuana here in this kankakee park. then he expanded to cocaine and, at the tender age of 17, he moved to chicago, where the business and profits exploded. he was now a big fish in a bigger pond, lake michigan, to be exact. he was his own in crowd. fast cars. faster women. and suped-up living. >> all the hot stops, all the big nightclubs, all the owners i was in tight with. i would come in there and have carte blanche in every place that i went to. >> were you feeling invincible? >> yeah, there was a certain point where i would say there was an invincible feeling. >> did your pop know what you were doing? did he suspect? >> he didn't suspect it until much, much later. >> reporter: it would be a rude awakening for both his dad and

jimmy the day in 1996, when jimmy was just relaxing at one of his chicago homes. >> all of a sudden, ka-boom. the whole door just blew off the hinges and come flying into the house. and all of these dea, fbi and locals all came in, in single file line. with their automatic weapons pointed at me. "freeze, get on the ground, get on the ground." >> reporter: he had been caught in a drug sting, spearheaded by that hard-nosed federal prosecutor, larry beaumont. >> we scooped him up in an operation that i ran called, we called it "operation snow plow." >> reporter: and in court, beaumont showed keene no mercy. >> he was coming at you on all fours, though, wasn't he? >> oh, yeah. he was. he was a bulldog. >> reporter: jimmy was convicted and slapped with a 10-year sentence. >> it was a pretty stiff sentence. and i knew he didn't expect to get 10 years in that case. >> your father was in the courtroom. >> right. i knew i'd let him down in probably one of the biggest ways you can let somebody down.

>> reporter: keene's future was bleak. he faced 10 years away from his glamorous life, the fast women, the fancy cars, the big bucks. but in 1998, just when all hope seemed lost, his old nemesis, beaumont, came to him with an offer of freedom attached to that accordion file he'd slid across the table. in return, keene would have to agree to risk everything and become an undercover informant in one of the roughest prisons in the country, the maximum security lock-up in springfield, missouri. it was a psychiatric prison with both hard-core killers and the criminally insane. >> these people all have life sentences. they're all in there, and they're crazy loons, and they have nothing better to do but to try to hurt you or kill you just for some fun. >> reporter: if he accepted beaumont's offer, keene's target would be the suspected serial killer. a mysterious man-in-a-van.

coming up every picture tells a story. >> when i put the picture

>> reporter: several years before jimmy keene's arrest and conviction, his drug business was booming and his personal life, as he tells it, was non-stop fun and games. >> there were a lot of hot clubs here. in the '90s. this was the place you were doing business, as well? >> lived, worked and played right here, yes. it was a good time. >> reporter: back then, he had no idea about the danger lurking 150 miles south -- and a lifestyle away -- that would

change his life forever. rural, tranquil georgetown, illinois, was where terry roach and her husband, loren, were raising their 15-year-old daughter jessie and two other children, far removed from big-city crime. >> everybody knew who everybody was. so they were more conscious of what was going on, usually. you could count on somebody to get after your kids, if they needed it. [ laughter ] >> reporter: in 1993, jessie was a high school sophomore, devoted to home and family. >> jessie was really a very much of a homebody. so one bike ride up the road and back, she was done. and then she would be watching "gone with the wind." >> reporter: one monday in september, jessie went out for a bike ride. but just minutes later, her sister noticed jessie's beloved bike down on its side, in the middle of the road. >> not on the side of the road, middle of the road. >> yeah. she would have put the kickstand down and stood the bicycle up. she would never lay the bicycle down. and i immediately went down there, and there's the bicycle. and it's like -- i knew somethin' was wrong.

>> reporter: deputy sheriff gary miller was dispatched to the scene. >> the more we learned about the family and -- and the girl's background, we just didn't feel that she was staying away -- by choice. >> reporter: the haunting image of a bike, tipped over and abandoned, terrified all the investigators and, of course, jessie's family. >> i mean, you never lose the hope for them not to come walking in. you still hope that. i mean, we knew she was not just gonna walk away. >> reporter: after six weeks, jessie's parents' worst fears were realized. her body, beaten and sexually violated, was discovered in a cornfield. >> it can never be easy telling -- telling a parent that their child is dead. >> no, it wasn't. but at least we were able to tell them, "this is her, she's gone." we were able to erase all doubts. >> reporter: gary miller had a murder case to solve -- and it was now a federal case involving

prosecutor larry beaumont as well, since jessie's body actually had been found across the illinois state line. for the next year, miller did lots of legwork -- but to no avail. >> every day you get up, are you thinkin' about this case? >> oh, every day. >> "what have -- what have i missed?" >> exactly. >> i know this case really shook him from the beginning. and he would check any and all leads that would involve young girls and kind of run 'em down. >> reporter: then, in late 1994, miller's persistence finally paid off -- a man in a van had been reported chasing two teenage girls in jessie's hometown of georgetown. miller traced the van to a man named larry hall from wabash, indiana, a three-hour's drive from georgetown. >> is your heartbeat starting to pick up a little bit? >> yeah, yeah, yeah. i'm thinking, "this has gotta be checked out." >> reporter: miller learned that hall was a gung-ho civil war re-enacter, a pretend union soldier who traveled the midwest

to fight fantasy battles. miller immediately drove to wabash to interview hall, who wasn't saying much. so miller showed him a photo of jessie roach. >> when i put the picture down he -- he flinched, raised his arm up and turned in his chair and refused to look at the picture. >> reporter: convinced larry hall was hiding something, miller became obsessed with making a case against him. days later, back in illinois, miller turned up a huge lead. he found witnesses who vividly remembered hall from a revolutionary war re-enactment in the georgetown area the very weekend before jessie was abducted. to them, hall stood out for his bushy mutton-chop sideburns. but also for playing a soldier who was fighting the wrong war. >> he was wearing a civil war uniform, and he had a civil war hat. >> at a revolutionary war

re-enanctment. >> exactly. >> reporter: armed with this new information, deputy sheriff miller returned to wabash for a second crack at hall. this time, he pressed his suspect harder, stressing that hall's fellow re-enacters had seen him near georgetown. >> he came along to the point where he said, "well, you know, i go to so many re-enactments, i could have been there and i just don't remember because i go to a lot of them." >> he's giving a little more ground. >> right. yeah. >> reporter: miller seized the opening and kept at it. finally, he said, hall came clean and confessed that he abducted, sexually violated and strangled jessie roach to death. >> how much detail did he give you about the killing of jessica roach? >> very good detail -- what he actually did and what took place. >> reporter: not only that, miller says larry hall confessed to other killings, including a co-ed from indiana wesleyan university in nearby marion, indiana, named tricia reitler. >> he did say he was involved in reitler.

>> reporter: deputy sheriff miller didn't know much about tricia, so he called on the local indiana police who'd been handling that case. but when marion detective jay kay and other indiana cops arrived, hall was suddenly telling a much different story. he denied confessing to any killing --including jessie's and tricia's. what's more, he claimed it was all a misunderstanding about disturbing dreams he had. >> he takes us out to a location where, "in my dreams, i strangled her here and left her to lay here." we searched the woods, we searched the area. and never really found anything. >> reporter: the indiana cops, who were familiar with hall, were not at all surprised by his actions. some of them, like jay kay, thought hall might be a "wannabe" --a pretender who gets his kicks from confessing to crimes he didn't commit. >> is it possible he's simply obsessed with these cases? but -- but not involved? >> there's no doubt in my mind that he does follow these cases,

that he does read and is attracted to cases all over the country. >> so the question does come, you know, is he a wannabe? >> reporter: deputy sheriff miller and prosecutor beaumont, however, felt certain they had a real killer on their hands, a serial killer with a unique m.o. he would drive cross-country to re-enanctments where he'd play fantasy soldier, then prey on young women and kill for real. >> the fbi started discovering girls that were in fact missing at these various areas at the time larry hall would've been there. >> reporter: but the only case for which prosecutors had sufficient evidence was jessie roach's. larry hall was arrested in connection with her death, even though he denied making that confession to miller. hall went on trial in 1995. >> as a prosecutor, what's the best card you're holding? >> we had his statement. his confession. said he did it. >> reporter: beaumont called deputy sheriff miller to the stand to testify that hall had

indeed admitted that he abducted and killed jessie after he spotted her with her bicycle. >> she was walking her bike at that point. >> reporter: miller testified that, in his confession, hall gave him a detail that only the killer would know -- that jessie was not riding her bike but walking it -- a safety precaution the roaches insisted she follow when she was on their narrow road. >> that was never in the press that she was walking her bike that day. >> right. >> when you heard that, did that give more credence to his story? >> that just sealed it for me. i knew. i knew that he was the one. >> reporter: a jury unanimously agreed. it took just three hours to convict larry hall. but prosecutor beaumont believed this was just the tip of the iceberg. he felt certain hall was a serial killer, and now he had to find a way to prove it. so he began investigating tricia reitler's abduction -- a case that wasn't his, for a family he didn't even know.

>> i can't imagine sending my daughter off to school and never seeing her again. >> reporter: and he came up with an outside-the-box scheme to get hall, which would risk the life of that charismatic convict he had just put away for dealing drug -- jimmy keene. >> what happens when i've gotta deal with all these crazy killers and stuff? what if i get shanked? what if i get killed? i mean, am i gonna survive this? coming up a get out of jail

people typically don't admit murders, sexual assaults and murders, to police officers unless in fact they probably have done it. so it was clear we felt he was responsible for the tricia reitler disapperance. >> she had such a zest for life. and she'd walk in the room, and -- and everybody knew she was there. >> reporter: tricia reitler, a 19-year-old psych major at indiana wesleyan university, was on her way to becoming a family counselor. >> her goal was to be able to put families back together again. >> reporter: then, in march, 1993, donna and garry reitler received that late-night phone call every parent dreads. a cop from marion, indiana was on the line.

>> he said, "do you know where tricia is?" in my heart, you know, i knew that something was drastically wrong. tricia had walked to an off-campus supermarket and never returned to her dorm. now more than 20 year later, her parents are still waiting. >> you purchased a cemetery plot. >> yes. >> no headstone? >> no, not until -- >> no. >> not until we find her. >> and we have no answers. that's what eats at me. somebody out there has that answer for us. >> reporter: tricia reitler wasn't even prosecutor beaumont's case but he was deeply moved by her parents. >> it was always a horrible crime to me. i knew about the facts of the case, and i knew about the family. i never met 'em, but i read all the -- the newspaper articles, and the accounts of them, you know, asking for help. beaumont felt certain that suspected serial killer larry hall was responsible. not only did the hall live 25 minutes from indiana wesleyan, he'd been identified

chasing two co-eds there, just a week after tricia went missing. so in the summer of 1995, a month after convicting hall for jessie roach's murder, beaumont was leading a search for tricia. it was in those same indiana backwoods where hall had told indiana authorities he dreamt he killed and buried tricia. >> i wanted to feel like i did everything i could to see if we could find her body. >> reporter: but after two days searching in sweltering heat and humidity, tricia's body didn't turn up. >> we couldn't find anything. doesn't mean it wasn't there. >> reporter: then, beaumont decided to try something completely different. >> i came up with the idea of putting somebody in the prison cell with him to see if we can get him to tell us what he did with tricia reitler. >> did they all think you were crazy? >> most people did think i was crazy, yeah. but i was able to convince them we should do it anyway. >> reporter: enter jimmy keene, the drug-dealer beaumont had just convicted and sent to a

low-security prison. >> why did he stick out in your mind? >> because i knew he was kind of a con man. he was smart. if anybody could pull it off, he would probably be the one to be able to pull it off. >> he says, "you've been trained in martial arts." he goes, "you can go into a dangerous environment where a lot of people can't. you can maintain and protect yourself in -- in an environment like that." >> reporter: in return, beaumont offered jimmy freedom. but first, jimmy would have to exact more than a confession. >> i told him that, "unless we found the body, he would get no credit. "no body, you get nothing." >> reporter: jimmy was skeptical. he was a drug dealer, not a criminal profiler. and he knew that this was a mission impossible. he said no. but then fate intervened. jimmy's dad suffered a stroke. weeks later, frail and sickly, he came to visit jimmy. >> my dad was in a wheelchair. now, this is "big jim", the guy that had been superman to me whole my entire life. we cried through the window to each other, and we talked for a

while, and he didn't even know about the offer. nobody knew about it. >> reporter: jimmy now realized that he had a one-time-only opportunity to fix the mess he'd made for himself and get out while his dad was still alive. >> as soon as we were done with the visit i called my lawyer and i said, "tell beaumont, i'm gonna take him up on his offer." >> reporter: the mission was on. so on august 3, 1998, federal marshals escorted jimmy into the psychiatric prison. >> once they stepped out the door, i was on my own. >> reporter: jimmy's cover story was that he was a convicted weapons runner whose 40-year sentence pushed him over the edge and landed him in the pysch prison. a psych prison filled with killers. his one inside contact, the chief pyschiatrist, couldn't protect him, nor could his outside lifeline, a female fbi agent who visited as his girlfriend, to monitor his progress. >> i did have a hotline to her, too. so if i got caught in a dangerous situation, i could get ahold of her and the deal was,

they'd have me out of there in 24 hours. >> they had your back? >> they had my back. >> at least you thought. >> that's what i thought. >> reporter: when keene's mission began, it was all about him, his shot at freedom. he had few feelings, if any, about tricia reitler or her family. all he wanted was to get in and out, with tricia's location, and as fast as possible. day one, breakfast in the mess hall. jimmy zeroed in on larry hall. >> i was waiting with my tray. and i look over, and there he is 20, 25 feet away from me, sitting there all by himself. it felt like a magnet was compelling me to come to him. and finally, i bumped shoulders with him on purpose. >> reporter: jimmy explained he was a brand new inmate, needing directions to the library. hall obliged. >> i kinda slapped him on the shoulder and i said, "thanks a lot." i said, "i appreciate that from a cool guy like you." >> reporter: after that, they occasionally talked but the next step came when jimmy was invited

to join hall's breakfast club. >> which in the prison system, it's a big thing of who you're invited to have your breakfast with. >> reporter: keene thought he was making progress but then prison politics got in the way. >> i left outta the chow hall one morning and a few really big, muscular guys came up to me and they said, "hey, the old man wants to talk to you right now, right now he wants to talk to you." >> reporter: the old man was celebrity mafioso, vincent "the chin" gigante, also known as the oddfather who used to wander around new york city in his bathrobe, pretending to be nuts. >> he goes, "hey boy, what's wrong with you? what you hangin' round all them baby killers over there for? you hang with us from now on." he goes, "you hang around them people, you know, maybe somebody comes up and puts a knife in your back." you know. he'd be at my cell early in the morning, "jimmy, get up, get up. we're going out and play some bocce ball." i said, "what about breakfast?" "well, we'll go out and get a round of bocce ball in first, then we'll go have breakfast." >> it's all very nice, except you're trying to get out of prison. >> exactly.

>> reporter: "the chin" was taking up jimmy's valuable time, making it harder to even talk to hall. but then he learned hall's favorite show was "america's most wanted." so one saturday night, in the tv room, jimmy would make a daring move, putting his body on the line just to gain larry's trust. coming up jimmy's new best friend shares a nightmare. >> it was probably the hardest thing i've ever done in my life to listen to this kind of stuff and not just rip him apart. >> when "the inside man" continues.

>> reporter: by the fall of 1998, after several months in missouri's toughest federal prison, jimmy keene could have won a popularity contest. he charmed everyone, just as beaumont knew he would. he even won over some convicts with his lending-library of pornographic magazines. and he'd managed to placate "the chin" and the mob faction by day, while circling his prey -- suspected serial killer larry hall -- with one-on-one bull sessions at night. >> we just talked about a lotta normal things, hung out, made him feel like i was wanting to be his friend.

>> reporter: but it wasn't fast enough for keene, who feared someone might soon recognize him and blow his cover. >> if you went by the fbi's technical terms, i was pretty much staying right on pace. but from my point of view being in this place, it was starting to get very hard. >> reporter: on the outside, the mission mastermind -- larry beaumont -- could only sit and wait for second-hand news on how this crazy scheme of his was going. >> now, were you pacing the floors waiting for updates during all this? >> i don't know if i paced the floors but i was eager to get updates. i had information that he was starting to trust him. they were talking, that kind of thing. >> reporter: but beaumont had absolutely no idea that a breakthrough moment had arrived. >> reporter: it was a saturday night. keene and hall were in the prison's tv room, watching "america's most wanted" again. >> and here comes this big prisoner, and he's a big, muscular, buff guy. and he walked over to the tv and he turned the channel.

and hall looks at me and he goes -- real quietly he mumbles under his breath, he says, "hey, that's not right. i was watchin' that." and i thought, "you know what? this is a prime opportunity for me." >> reporter: jimmy, a martial arts expert who'd continued working out in prison, was ready for this moment. he got up and changed the channel back. >> he jumped up, and he's slobberin' all over the place. "you turn that channel again, i'll rip your damn head off. you don't touch that tv, blah-blah-blah." and he turns the channel and he sits back down. and i just looked at him and i turned the channel [ laughter ] again. he jumped up and he starts cussin' at me, and then i finally threw a particular cuss word at him that i knew was gonna set him off, and as soon as i did, he took a wild haymaker swing at me, and i come up with an uppercut and nailed him, kicked him through three rows of chairs and jumped on him, and i beat him to a pulp. >> reporter: hall had a ringside view of saturday night's main event. afterwards, he staunchly defended jimmy as the retaliator, not the instigator, when prison officials interviewed eyewitnesses about the tv-room brawl.

>> you're larry hall's new hero. >> yeah, i became his new best friend and hero too. >> reporter: jimmy could sense that his heroics had brought him even closer to hall, and now, he was ready to make a bold move. in the prison library, jimmy had figured out a strategy to draw hall out on tricia reitler. >> i noticed he was reading his hometown newspaper, and that was really important eventually for me to start cracking into his psyche. >> reporter: even though the goal was tricia's body, jimmy decided to ask first about something already public knowledge -- hall's conviction in the jessie roach case. jimmy fibbed that his mother lived near wabash and read about jessie's case and other stories involving hall. >> she gets that newspaper from that hometown where you're from. and i said, "and all the newspaper stories say that you've killed multiple women." >> that was a big risk, though. >> it all was a big risk. and i said, "larry, look, larry, i don't care what you're in here for. but be honest with me. that's all. just tell me what happened,

man." i said, "you know, i'm still gonna be your friend no matter what." and i said, you know, "i've had girls do me wrong in my life. i understand how girls can get under your skin and how they can be bothersome to you." >> reporter: jimmy said he pressed hall about jessie roach. at last, hall began to open up, recalling that september day in 1993. >> and he was driving down a back-country road and he seen her walking her bicycle. >> reporter: hall then told jimmy exactly how he abducted and killed jessie. >> you must have been revolted. >> oh, god, lester, it was probably the hardest thing i've ever done in my life to have to sit there and pretend to be his friend, to listen to this kinda stuff, and not just rip him apart. but i knew what the mission involved. i knew what was at stake for me. i knew what was at stake for the people's families, you know, that were still trying to find their daughters. >> reporter: a major transformation was taking place -- jimmy was starting to care about more than just himself. and now he was determined to squeeze the most crucial

confession out of larry hall -- and not just for himself, but for the family of tricia reitler. >> i started thinking, "i don't know where this is still gonna lead, how long this is gonna take. but something's now happening." coming up a disturbing discovery. has jimmy solved the mystery of the missing gi

- you can collect rainwater to shower with but there are easier ways to go green. like taking shorter showers, which conserves water and lowers your bill. you'll sing long ballads in the rain and short ditties in the shower. ♪ the more you know ♪

>> reporter: jimmy keene's five months of hell, five months making nice to a killer he despised had finally paid off, hall had described in gruesome detail how he murdered jessie roach. >> i've opened that door, and he's feeling that he can trust me enough now. >> reporter: but jimmy felt he needed to wait a bit before going for the goal-line. >> how did you broach trish reitler? >> i had to slowly keep prodding because i didn't want him to think i was piling on. >> reporter: so he carefully plotted his next move. days later, he thought the time was right. he tried that hometown newspaper ploy again. >> i said, "you know, the newspapers say that you killed this girl from the college over here." i says, "you know, what happened there?" >> reporter: jimmy couldn't be sure how hall would react. had he been too blunt, too direct? no, it was all clicking.

according to jimmy, hall began to open up about tricia, and said he drove his van right up to her that day he saw her outside school. >> he said that he tried to kiss her and when he did that she started fighting very violently. and he said she was a very strong girl. and she fought stronger than anybody had ever fought before. >> did he admit it? >> he said that "he had killed her and he knew he had done it again," and these are his words, that "he knew he had done it again." and he said he went way out in the woods and he buried her way out in the woods. >> reporter: hall gave a general location for tricia's body, near a river in indiana, but jimmy needed more specific information. luckily, he seemed to stumble into it a few nights later, when he spotted hall inside the prison woodshop, a restricted area. >> there's nobody at the door, no guards or anything, and i went in there. and as i came up from behind him, he had all these little different statues lined up, 10, 15 of 'em maybe.

and i couldn't tell what they were at first. and as i got closer i noticed he had a big map laid out. >> and he dove on that map and folded that thing up really fast and slid it off to the side of the table. i go, "what are these things anyway?" he says, "they're these little falcons." and he goes, "they watch over the dead, jimmy," he goes, "they do." >> and they look like? >> a good-size chess piece. >> reporter: jimmy had a strong feeling that hall's wood-carved falcons and the map were journal-keeping by a serial killer. >> that map had little red dots all over it of illinois, indiana, and wisconsin. you'd look down at this map and you could see all of those little spots are burial spots where he's got somebody. >> reporter: all those months of dangerous, painstaking work had paid off. jimmy had cracked the case. mission accomplished. >> once you see the map, the falcons, you wanna tell the fbi about it, right? >> i did. i went to the hotline i had for the fbi girl. i called. i got some type of a voice recording. it was after hours.

>> reporter: so jimmy left a message for his fbi contact to come get him, the map and the falcons. his freedom and the answers to tricia's parents' prayers were now just hours away. >> i was elated. i felt i wrapped this up. >> you're expecting the troops to come marching in. >> expecting the troops to come marching in. and didn't quite work that way. >> reporter: what he couldn't know was his fbi contact didn't get his voicemail, and his one inside contact, the chief psychiatrist, was on vacation. >> then you got a little full of yourself, didn't you? >> i did. i went back to my cell. i was really happy. i thought, "you know what? 24 hours. they said they'll have me outta here. i've got what they need. this is it. so i went across to his cell over there. >> reporter: impulsively, jimmy decided he just couldn't leave prison without giving his fake friend a piece of his mind. >> the repulsiveness i felt about him throughout the whole time i had to stay being his

friend and the disdain and dislike i had for him, that i thought it was good for me to unload on him and tell him what i really thought of him and who he really was. and i said, "you know, i'm gonna be goin' home tomorrow, larry." and i said, "you're a crazy killer." and i started callin' him everything you can think of. >> reporter: with that, jimmy returned to his cell and waited to be released. >> you're goin' home the next day you think. and -- and things take another turn? >> 'bout 5:30 in the morning i hear some little lady in a white doctor's smock come walking in. >> reporter: it was hall's psychologist, and she was furious that jimmy had blasted her patient, turning him into an emotional wreck. >> she told the guards, "grab him. take him and throw him in the hole." so they put me in the hole. and they keep me in there. and i'm not really worried. i'm thinking, ah, so what. the fbi is gonna be here. they told me 24 hours they'd have me out of here. >> reporter: but morning turned into afternoon into evening and the cavalry still hadn't arrived. this was hard time at its hardest.

>> you can't see if it's day or night 'cause you're in the hole. but you can tell what time of day or night it is by what meal's coming through the door slot. well, next thing you know, here's breakfast, lunch and dinner. next thing you know, here's coming breakfast again. here's coming lunch. i'm like, "where are these guys?" my thoughts were they did me wrong. they got what they needed. they got the info, and they pulled the rug out from under me. >> reporter: while jimmy was wondering where they were, beaumont was looking for him, too. >> and we were like where -- where could he be. he's got? -- he's in a prison for -- for god's sakes. >> they lost you. >> yeah. they lost me. >> reporter: but had they also lost their best chance at finding the body of tricia reitler?

>> reporter: larry beaumont successfully snuck informant jimmy keene into the springfield prison in 1998. he just didn't expect to lose him there. >> he goes off your radar. >> yeah, he disappeared. a couple of weeks. we didn't know what the heck happened to him. we were trying to find out. we were kinda getting frantic. >> reporter: two weeks later, only after keene's psychiatrist contact returned from vacation, did they finally find jimmy.

>> by noon, the fbi was there. and she kept apologizing. she kept saying, "i'm really sorry," you know, "i mean, something happened with the message." >> reporter: at last, investigators got to search the woodshop and hall's cell. but, by then, the map and the falcons -- items jimmy believed could lead to tricia -- were gone. >> what were you thinking telling larry hall you're outta here and -- and dressing him down? >> you know, people probably wouldn't understand the mounting pressure. that kettle's ready to boil over at any time, you know. and it just felt good to unload on the guy. >> the problem as -- as i see it, you've unloaded on him. he knows you're against him. but nobody has the map. >> right. i'm disappointed i didn't wait another day or two at least. i should've waited a few more days. i wish i could have done more for them. but i did all i could do and i feel in my being that i did all i could do. >> reporter: meantime, the people who would benefit the most from a successful mission -- tricia's parents -- only learned about the secret

operation 10 years later in 2008 when the story came out in a playboy magazine article. the reitlers are thankful for jimmy's courage and the corroborating details he said he got from hall. but they're furious he blew his cover before finding their daughter. >> why would you have been so close, and then give it up like you did? >> i try not to dwell on that at all -- because it eats at me, and it's very hard to deal with that he was that close. >> jessie roach's parents find small consolation in that jessie was the victim who tripped up hall. >> if something good could possibly come out of losing jessie, it's the fact that he's in prison and he will never get released. >> reporter: hall remains in federal prison with no possibility of parole. in recent years, he actually has made more murder confessions to reporters and investigators.

>> i sincerely believe that there are young girls out there somewhere who are alive today because larry hall is in prison. >> do you think he killed before? >> i think he killed before. and i think he would kill again. >> reporter: jimmy did tell beaumont that hall had killed again but there was no documentation -- it was just jimmy's word. so to be sure, the prosecutor made him take a lie detector test. >> reporter: and jimmy passed with flying colors. >> he was tellin' us the truth. so, i mean, the bottom line is we had further information that larry was responsible for tricia. >> reporter: a grateful beaumont decided to reward him with full credit for his brave undercover work, releasing him from prison and scrubbing his criminal record clean. >> from his perspective, he expected to get nothing. but from my perspective, i mean, of course he'd spent time in the loony bin with this guy and gone through this whole process. >> reporter: for 15 years, jimmy

has been the only one to see those falcons that hall said watched over the dead. >> the problem is that we never got 'em, though. they disappeared. so we don't know what happened to 'em. >> and you've never seen the falcons? >> wanna show you a picture. that's one of the falcons. >> reporter: dateline took pictures of a falcon when we met larry hall's twin brother. he said larry carved the falcon in the woodshop at the springfield prison and then mailed it to their mother. i showed a photo of that falcon to both beaumont -- and jimmy. >> what's it like for you to see that after all these years? >> well, it's -- it's definitely bizarre. but it's also reassuring to me, lester, and i'll tell you why. now, these falcons backs everything i've said. that's exactly what it looked like. >> reporter: after becoming a free man in 1999, jimmy got to spend five more years with the father he idolized before "big jim" passed away. and he's kept his nose clean, not wasting his incredible opportunity.

>> he sees the hall experience as something that gave him a second chance at life. >> reporter: he's done well in real estate and co-wrote a book with author hillel levin -- "in with the devil" -- which tells jimmy's compelling story of redemption. he says he's working on several hollywood projects, most notably the movie version of his book. the academy award-winning producer of "the departed" owns film rights, and brad pitt, from springfield, missouri himself, is interested. >> i've talked with brad pitt and his people. and brad pitt loves the relationship that i had with my father. he loves the fact that this happened in his own hometown. >> reporter: but jimmy is especially proud, he says, that his book re-energized some cold-case investigations -- several targeting hall in indiana and wisconsin, at least one near a civil war re-enactment site. investigators dug up locations where hall spent time over the years and found articles of

women's clothing and a belt modified with wooden handles -- all sent out for dna testing. but cold-case detectives, following leads, still haven't developed enough evidence to bring charges. >> the walls are closing in on him. there would be no cold case files open if it wasn't for me. none. i did a good deed, and i did a lotta good things. and that's where i feel the redemption comes in. i've done something good for the things that i did wrong. that's all next at 11 the death toll near 2,000 and climbing after an earthquake in nepal. one victim a well-known silicon valley resident. and a protest in baltimore. the news is next.

>> nbc bay area news starts now. >> right now at 11:00, a second day of rescue operations are under way in nepal. following a massive 7.8 managitude earthquake. thank you for joining us i'm peggy bunker. >> and i'm terry mcstweeny. dozens of aftershorks jolted nepal. within the next hour and a half they say more than 1,900 people have died