has the jury reached a verdict? we, the jury, find the defendant -- i was totally swept off my feet. >> they had a lovely, lucky life. once an actress, she had met the man of her dreams, a charismatic son from a legendary family. three children in an enchanted country home. >> it is kind of like one of these fairy tale stories. >> and then it was gone. splendor turned to terror. >> immediately we're hit from behind. he just points the gun at my forehead. >> ambushed by men in masks, her husband kidnapped and it would be up to her to save him.

>> i told him how much i loved him and that i would do anything to get him back. >> who were these men, what did they want? an awful cat and mouse game begins, cryptic messages, haunting questions. >> where was my husband? how was he being treated? was he even alive? >> tonight she relives a dramatic race against the clock, in a way you've never seen before. >> the hardest thing i've ever had to do. >> an actress in the role of her life. could she bring him back from the shadows? >> i don't think anything could have prepared me for what i saw. >> "the desperate hours." i'm ann curry. it happens to thousands of families every year, but we rarely hear about it. most victims are too afraid to speak about the deadly and growing criminal enterprise of kidnap for ransom. but the woman you're about to meet not only found the courage to speak up, she fought back after someone kidnapped her husband.

and now she reveals what happens, step by step, in dramatic detail. here's keith morrison. honestly, i was living my dreams and then some. >> it was a perfect morning, a brilliant sunny day in june in a place that felt like paradise. >> i would be packing the lunches, the kids getting dressed. >> they'd pile into the jeep for the short drive to school. fernando, the eldest, would ride the 4-wheeler ahead of them. in the car they would sing with the little ones, just like always. ♪ no idea what was waiting, what was about to happen here in paradise. she, the woman who went through it, the one you're about to meet is jayne, j-a-y-n-e, a detail

that will matter later. and she must have been a beautiful baby. >> here i am. >> this baby, in fact, this is her first tv commercial at 7 months, for the red cross. >> it is a happy day at mcdonald's. >> and there she is in a mcdonald's commercial when she was a high school student in silver spring, maryland. >> my whole life i worked as an actress and did a lot of television commercials, bit roles in movies and soap operas. i don't care if i get wrinkles. >> i always put on sunscreen. >> what is that, spf 20? >> that's jayne on the big screen, beside bette midler in the movie "stella." >> she had pat robins real interested for a while. >> acting skills, they would become, as you shall see, life or death crucial. but then we can't know the future, can we? not when life seems perfect and safe and strong. >> well, it's kind of like one of these fairy tale stories. >> or at least it was then. it was 1992, she was 25 and it

was unexpected, unanticipated like some bizarre lottery of life. jayne was at a pay phone, in a washington, d.c., suburb. she just happened to lock eyes with a divorced art dealer named eduardo valseca. eduardo, who she would find out, was one of the nine children of jose garcia valseca, mexican newspaper baron who 50 years ago ruled a publishing empire. would be the equivalent in the united states of who? >> william randolph hearst. an article published in "newsweek" in 1950 said that he actually had a larger readership at that point in time than hearst did. >> that's when garcia valseca ran his papers from a luxury pullman train car, the one which decades later eduardo owned. though when he invited this beautiful woman he just met to mexico for a train ride, she had no idea that the train was his. >> we were walking toward it, and then this man comes out with a white jacket, white gloves,

black bow tie with a silver tray. i mean, i was completely speechless. >> she soon discovered the train car was about all eduardo had of family fortune. the rest, along with the newspaper empire, had long since withered away. but jayne fell for a man, not money. and what eduardo lacked in fortune, he replaced with laughter and passion and a huge enveloping personality. jayne was in love. and soon married and swept off to mexico to a fresh place for a new life, new roots, new family, and that famous name, valseca. one thing the legacy did afford them was the chance to live pretty much anywhere they wanted to. and eduardo suggested a town in northcentral mexico called san miguel de allende, 450 years old. rich obviously in history, but also in culture and art, a place so desirable and so lovely that

almost 10% of the population is composed of people who moved here from some other country. she rubbed shoulders here with other expatriate americans and canadians and europeans and fell hard for mexico. here, far away from the notorious crime of mexico city. >> we didn't feel threatened. i would say san miguel de allende, perhaps even now, is probably statistically is as safe or safer than many of our u.s. towns and small cities. >> and here they built a business in real estate, buying up old places, tidying them up, selling them again, and, of course, having children. >> it had been a big dream of mine to live in the country. and to have a big organic garden and fruit trees and horses and lots of animals for the kids to play with. >> it was luck when this place came up, or what felt like luck before that terrible morning.

it was a rundown 1,000-acre ranch and it was in foreclosure. they bought it, for, well, it was embarrassingly cheap. >> it was a great deal. but at the time, it was a pile of rocks literally. there was no road going out here. it was a dirt road that was almost impassable unless you had a jeep. >> right. >> and we started building little by little. every little bit of money that we made, everything that we could manage to save, we started putting into the ranch. we started with the infrastructure. we fenced it in. we started putting in the roads. and then we started saving money for a house for ourselves. >> they even found and restored a magnificent old fountain that once sat in the long-lost valseca estate, and no surprise, part of their building plan involved that stately old railroad car. >> one of the marvelous parts about ending up with this piece of property is it just happened that the railroad track went right through it. >> jayne was behind their home movie camera as the car was towed to its new home on the

ranch. and happy here, they built a real ranch house among the mesquite trees, and surrounded it with fine big gates and outbuildings. a garden for her, a riding ring and fine spanish horses for him. and for three growing children, a magic place, happy and secure. fernando, emiliano, and baby nayah. the children were the heart of it, really. they would do anything for the children. so jayne told eduardo about an education system called waldorf schools, not then available in san miguel. >> he said, well, let's bring the school to mexico. so we formed a parent group, and got moving on founding a school. >> they donated land, part of the ranch, recruited other families, built the school. >> we started with a couple of classrooms, actually they were originally going to be stables for horses, and we converted them into classrooms.

>> and now every morning the quarter mile commute down their own quiet country lane to school had become a family ritual. >> we would go out the door, get in the jeep and the morning routine was singing all the way to school, which was really the only routine we had. >> fernando had a pet donkey then, rode it to school, that or a 4-wheeler, always out ahead. >> we would follow along and the kids loved to sing the same songs. they never tired of singing the same ones every morning. ♪ >> so now, it was that perfect morning, june 2007, they bumped and sang, noisy and happy down the dusty road. and, of course, they did not understand how could they, that this was the last moment of pure innocence any of them would ever know. coming up -- >> we immediately were hit from behind. >> a violent awakening. >> he just points the gun at my forehead. >> as terror invades paradise.

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you know, life was so good for so long for us, that it was almost like living in a fantasy. it was almost like on a daily basis, pinch me, is this real. >> it was june 2007, a bright sunny morning, two weeks before summer vacation. minutes before the terror. eduardo and jayne valseca and their three children arrived at the country school not far from their ranch house outside san miguel de allende in mexico. >> as we pulled into the parking lot, i noticed there was a small compact car in the far corner of the parking lot. and there was a man at the wheel, who had a fisherman's cap, khaki color, on, and glasses. a prospective parent perhaps for next year's class? jayne walked the children to

their classrooms. she stopped at the school office. >> and asked the administrator if she knew who the gentleman was or if he needed help. she looked over and looked across the parking lot and said, i don't know who he is. he must be waiting for someone. >> eduardo was behind the wheel of the jeep listening to the radio. the stranger's car was beyond it at the back of the lot. >> as i walked to the jeep, where my husband was, i looked across and made eye contact with him and actually smiled. and he smiled back. >> eduardo put the jeep in gear, pulled away, the strange car fell in behind them. >> a pickup truck comes out of nowhere. it catches up to us and the man driving turns and looks at us. and the look was really scary. >> you saw him? >> we both got a really creepy feeling, just the way the man looked at us. >> now that strange car and the pickup truck raced to positions beside and in front of the jeep. >> eduardo said, something is definitely not right. what is this guy doing? >> and then in moments it was obvious.

jayne and eduardo were being chased, herded like cattle into a chute with no escape. >> in the distance we see the compact car that has raced up our interior road, cut in front. >> here she relived it, the horrified moment as the car in front of them suddenly stopped and eduardo slammed on his brakes. >> we immediately were hit from behind. at that point, a split of a second and there was a man coming out of the passenger side of the car, coming at eduardo and he's got a hammer in one hand and a handgun in the next. >> the masked man shattered the window, landed a hard blow to eduardo's head that sent blood gushing down his face. >> the first thing i started thinking of was my children. are my children going to lose their parents right now? >> a second attacker ran at jayne, yanked open her door, pulled her from the jeep, she screamed, kicked at him, grabbed the fence beside her. the barbed wire sliced through her finger. her attacker forced her down. >> while laying on the ground, he just points the gun at my forehead and tells me in spanish to get up. the first thing i said to him

was, please don't kill me, i have three children. >> then they hustled jayne and eduardo into a waiting suv. unseen accomplices snapped pillow cases over their heads and tightly bound their hands and feet. >> eduardo was hysterical. i don't think he was completely hearing me. he probably had a concussion. >> the suv sped away. jayne tried to comfort eduardo. one of the abductors threatened more pain. >> he kept yelling at him, shut up you [ bleep ] or i'll give you another one. you could tell he was trying to disguise his voice. >> within minutes, word of the attack got back to the school. the teacher rushed to the now abandoned jeep. >> i went with my partner and the left window was all broken and blood was in the ground. and i had that feeling there was a kidnapping. >> in the suv under the gagging pillow case, jayne struggled to breathe. she reached out for eduardo. >> i felt blood all down his arm. >> then she felt the blood pouring from her own slashed finger.

she tried to memorize each bump and turn as the suv veered on the highway toward san miguel. then minutes later, pulled over, stopped. someone yanked eduardo from the suv. he screamed. >> i hear the doors of that vehicle open. and after i hear them shut, i can no longer hear my husband's muffled screams. then i hear what sounds like the engine of that car revving as if it is pulling away. >> jayne managed to lift the pillow case hood just in time to see eduardo vanish. >> i am able to make out the type of car that it is, more or less, and i memorized the license plates. >> just as quickly, she realized she was alone. they had all left. >> i was bound, so i threw myself over the seat, ended up on the floor, pulled myself up, opened the door, and literally hopped as if i was in a sack race to the highway in flip-flops. >> an elderly man stopped to help. he had a machete but no cell phone to call police.

frantically jayne tried to flag down passing cars. he hit the accelerator, not the brake. >> i'm begging them to please stop and help me. but i imagine i looked pretty scary to see a woman bleeding, desperate, bound in duct tape next to a guy with a machete. >> then in sheer desperation, jayne stepped in front of an oncoming bus -- >> he was coming this way. i jumped in front. and i just put my hands up like this. and i hoped he stopped. >> but no cell phone on the bus either. now the bus driver flagged down a taxi and the taxi driver called the police. >> all of this information is going from me to the taxi driver, the taxi driver to the dispatcher, the dispatcher to the police and the police to the dispatcher and the whole way around. it was like playing telephone. >> was there still time for the police to seal off the town, save her husband? >> i thought because i had this description and the plates, i thought for sure that they would just -- the police would run out in every direction, seal off san miguel and we would have him, end of story. but it didn't go that way.

>> no, it didn't. jayne says the police tried one escape highway, no other. and no eduardo. he had been kidnapped. >> these people carried this whole operation out with such precision and such surprising professionalism, which seems a strange word to even use. >> how long did it take? >> seconds. they were cool as cucumbers. >> but that was just the first clue. on the ground beside the suv in which the kidnappers abandoned jayne was another. inside an envelope, addressed to jayne. >> the first thing that went through my mind was, well, i realized they spelled my name correctly. my name is jayne, spelled with a "y," so it was really scary to see on the envelope they had actually spelled my name right. >> nobody spells your name right. >> no. >> and inside the envelope? >> the ransom note says -- senora, go home, open this e-mail, with this password and

we have eduardo, eduardo is with us. wait for our message to arrive. >> it was then she understood. the kidnappers had been watching them, stalking them, researching every small detail. >> it immediately made me realize i needed to be very careful and very smart about the choices i was about to make. my husband's life was on the line. >> coming up, what would she tell her children? >> the hardest thing i've ever had to do. >> and to whom would she turn for help? >> i thought this is what you're sending me to deal with this? >> when "the desperate hours" continues.

jayne valseca sat in the dirt by the highway, on the outskirts of san miguel de allende. a cop helped her strip away the duct tape around her hands and feet as he told her that her husband's kidnappers had escaped. she tried to staunch the blood from her injured finger gashed on that barbed wire fence, and tap down on the terror that grabbed at her throat, because she knew what had happened to others. >> my husband was kidnapped in 2001. >> this woman had already told her horrifying story. >> and every time that we tell them that we don't have the money, so they cut a finger and they send us the finger. >> but that was mexico city, one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, where jayne had heard that thousands are snatched every year, wealthy and poor,

from mansions, the backs of taxis, taco stands. >> the kidnapping situation in mexico is outrageous. >> this woman, anna maria salazar, had been reporting for years on tv, the breakdown of law and order, the mess in police forces. >> you don't have a criminal justice system that has the ability to go after all these people. but the other problem is corruption. there is corrupt cops at the federal level. there is corrupt cops at the state level. and there is corrupt cops at the municipal level. people just don't trust their cops. >> which is why, she says, so many kidnappings go unreported, making it impossible to know just how many thousands take place in mexico. but this was safe little san miguel, where eduardo had always said -- >> do you think anybody's going to come out here in the country? that's not going to happen. >> but it had happened, and all she could think of was finding help fast.

>> i'm sitting there in the dirt, in need of stitches and i at that point i have two cell phones going. >> but why wouldn't the police just take over? well, no, not in mexico. jayne herself, in this supremely vulnerable moment, would have to decide which police, if any, she could trust to get her husband back. >> you can allow the local or state police to handle the situation. you can go to the mexican equivalent of the fbi, which is the afi or afi as they're called here and let them handle it on a federal level, or you can go to a private consultant that you have to pay out of your own pocket and they will negotiate it privately. >> you don't know what to do when someone is saying, hey, i'm selling you back your daughter. >> jayne had heard about other kidnappings like the one seven years earlier when kidnappers snatched this man's 25-year-old daughter and in minutes, he had to make the impossible decision.

>> i knew i should go with the police. the problem was which police. one of the gangs was headed by the police who was in charge of the anti-kidnapping group. so with that in mind, i knew i couldn't go with the state police. >> he chose the federal police, who negotiated with the kidnappers, arranged a ransom payment and still in the transfer could not prevent the murder of his daughter. what was jayne to do? she had heard all the stories. sometimes police themselves were involved in kidnappings. >> i knew there was a possibility that, yes, there were people that were perhaps right there with me that i could not trust. >> right. and you know that the experience of well-heeled people had been, go to this private organization, it will take care of you. >> right. >> so as cars whizzed by and the

dirt-caked blood dried on her skin, jayne placed calls all around the world to private companies that specialize in kidnap negotiations. >> they knew all the questions to ask. they said, how many vehicles were involved? what did the note say? can you describe the people? what did their guns look like? >> must be a sophisticated operation, they told jayne. negotiating would be difficult and expensive, at least 2,500 u.s. dollars a day, plus expenses, far more than she could afford. she wondered, could the state police help her? she asked them how successful they'd been solving kidnappings. >> they said, oh, yeah, we have resolved 100%. and i said really? so does that mean you got 100% of the victims back and you caught the bad guys? and they said yes, eventually we've gotten all of them. it really made me feel very uneasy and untrusting because i know that 100% of the parking violations don't get resolved. >> there was only one choice left. the mexican version of the fbi,

the afi or afi, the elite unit of the federal police. which might, at least, get eduardo back alive. so she made the call, went back to the ranch, cleaned up her wounds and braced herself to tell the children. the two youngest would be satisfied temporarily with a story about eduardo being on a business trip. but not fernando, then 12. he had to be told and, anyway, she needed him now. >> it was very, very tough. try explaining to a child that his father just has been stolen for money. the hardest thing i've ever had to do. >> i had never seen my mom like that. she was just -- she looked like if the worst thing happened to her. >> he's grown fast, since his father was kidnapped. even so, for his own safety, we're hiding his face.

>> i asked her was it by criminals or what do you mean taken? and she said he was kidnapped. and that's all she said. and i just stood quiet. i couldn't believe it. >> how did he take it? >> he was devastated. i just said to him, you know, you have to know that i will do everything humanly possible to get your father back, if it takes everything we have, everything i can humanly do. >> fernando was just a boy, but not for much longer. he fled to a special spot, his private place, away from the house. >> i got on my motorcycle, and went up to this rock. it's a pretty big rock and it overlooks our ranch. i just started crying. >> it was later when he learned this was likely the place the kidnappers used to spy on his family. he never went back.

now it was evening. >> i'm hoping i'll get home, like they told me, i'll open the e-mail, there will be a message, and whatever i have access to they can have it all. just give him back. so i'm at that point hoping this is going to be an open and shut deal in less than 24 hours. >> jayne got ready for the arrival of the federal afi agent. the federal police had promised he would move in right away and live on the ranch until he got eduardo back. she felt like she was waiting for the cavalry to arrive. she let hope grow. >> i expected him to roll in in some kind of bulletproof suburban, be big and burly and hopefully a little mature and having done this quite a while. >> and then finally at 3:00 a.m., the afi agent called. could someone come and pick him up in town, he asked. he had come from mexico city, by bus. >> he looked like a high school

or maybe freshman in college student with a backpack, a baseball cap, glasses, tiny. and i thought, what is going on? you mean this is what you're sending me to deal with this? and so the first thing i asked him after shaking his hand was, are you armed? and he said, no. i said, why not, for god sake? >> seasoned criminals had engineered a seamless plan to steal her husband. and all she had on her side was a short, skinny kid with no apparent backup, no car, and no gun. coming up, the kidnappers send a message from the shadows. they have a demand, impossible to meet. >> now i'm thinking they're just going to kill him. [ male announcer ] new starbucks blonde roast

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i'm melissa rehberger. here's what's happening with the latest news. mitt romney with a 15% lead in florida. there are new attacks from newt gingrich. he called romney dishonest. police in florida are looking into whether or not ap arson-induced fire may have led to a deadly accident that killed ten on an interstate there. and oakland, california, officials are picking up the pieces after protesters swarmed through city hall. now back to "the desperate

hours." jayne stared at the kid from afi with what could only be described as dismay. her husband eduardo had been kidnapped. she had gone through the whole horrifying ordeal herself, had scoured the country in a desperate search for someone to help her. she was frantic. it was 3:00 in the morning and now the federal police had sent her an unarmed boy. the young man took one look at jayne, saw her disappointment and then spoke. >> he had a very confident smile on his face, takes off his glasses and hat and says, look, would you really want me arriving in a bulletproof suburban and coming out with a machine gun? how would that look if you're being watched? we could be putting your husband at risk. >> the agent, jayne learned, was older than he looked, was an experienced hostage negotiator. he brought his weapon into jayne's house. it was a laptop computer.

>> he actually selected a place here in the dining room where he would be the only one to see his computer screen. he was in a spot where he could see all the goings-on in the house. >> his name is a federal secret, his face a blank, our interview request went to the highest level. we were denied. we do know he was constantly online, with a team of agents in mexico city, analyzing what clues they had, advising jayne's agent on strategy. not just jayne's agent, of course. >> we have as many as 25 kidnappings at a time. >> still, she might have been reassured by this, a state-of-the-art lab on standby to identify the voices of any kidnappers who might call her. >> translator: we have 2,374 voices related with kidnapping and extortion. >> here in a giant room that looks like nasa, more agents track hundreds of surveillance sites around the country. but on day one, all that expertise coughed up only this

one piece of very bad news. the people who grabbed eduardo, they were almost certainly, said police, part of a fringe marxism political group. one detail was striking from the beginning, left on eduardo's car seat was a brand new hammer. was it the weapon used in the attack or something else? >> i found out it was actually a calling card. and that's not unusual and this group always leaves behind a hammer, which really gave me the creeps. >> jayne's agent considered the evidence and offered a dismal prediction. >> you need to brace yourself and pace yourself because this is not going to be over in 24 hours like you'd like. as a matter of fact, this is not a matter of days or weeks. based on previous experience with this particular group, this is going to be months if you're lucky. >> what was it like to hear that? >> i thought i was going to go crazy. i thought for sure i would have a nervous breakdown right then and there.

>> jayne's 12-year-old fernando looked on, helpless. >> she just had this face. i can't describe it. it was terrible. it looked like a dead person. i was just so scared and i put my bed and my brother's bed together and i slept with him. >> what was it like going to bed that first night? >> there was no going to bed. there was laying down. sleeping, eating, i could drink. that was basically it. i couldn't even eat. how could i sit down and eat when i didn't know where my husband was, if he was eating, if he had had his head cared for. i just couldn't. it was horrible. >> do you remember lying there in bed at night? >> yeah, of course. >> trying to make your mind calm down? >> of course. i just laid there and tossed and turned and i even felt guilty about being able to lay on a bed. i started feeling guilty that i wasn't the one taken, that he was and i wasn't.

and guilty that i had a roof over my head. guilty that i could eat and drink. guilty that i could use a bathroom. guilty that i was laying on clean sheets. you know, where was my husband? what kind of conditions was he in? how was he being treated? was he even alive? how do you sleep? there was no way. >> in historic san miguel, though eduardo was a prominent local citizen, life went on as if nothing had happened. even though he had been a known anti-poverty activist, a panelist on a local tv show. in fact, this is a recording of the very broadcast aired the night before he was taken. this is the host of the show, and the co-owner of the tv station, lucy nunez. today she's the mayor of san miguel. but what was she able to do to free eduardo or find his kidnapper? how often was it reported on the television or radio?

>> no, we never said anything. >> a request, she said, from the federal police. >> they said no comments in the radio station, no comments in the channel because we don't want these people to be afraid or whatever and they could do something to eduardo. so it was like, mouth closed, like everybody was acting that as if nothing was happening. >> everybody perhaps, but jayne, whose need for information was making her crazy. remember, the kidnapper said go home, you'll get an e-mail with our demands. but on day one, there was no e-mail, nor on day two, nor three, nor day four. and then, after five full days and nights of sleepless torture, jayne turned on her computer and read the news. >> we hope that senora has arrived well to her house. for the liberation of eduardo, we are demanding the amount of

8 million u.s. dollars. >> $8 million. send the money, said the e-mail, in u.s. currency, $100 bills. >> i was very upset and really concerned because i thought, how am i ever going to get him back. now i'm thinking that they're just going to kill him because i didn't have that kind of cash. >> but remember what happened to that other woman's husband when she told kidnappers she couldn't meet their demands? >> they cut the finger and they send us the finger. >> wealth is relative, of course, and can often be an illusion. anybody familiar with the idyllic ranch here outside san miguel, anybody who heard about eduardo, scion of the famous publishing empire, might quite reasonably have assumed he was among mexico's super rich, but that would be a mistake. it was the mistake the kidnappers made, a mistake that was about to become jayne's very serious practical problem. >> i didn't have access to anything, really, beyond our --

what was in our checking account. >> the fact of the matter was the valsecas were house poor. they had put everything they had into the rarj. and at recession prices, even if she could sell it, she would get a small fraction of $8 million. there in the dining room, jayne showed the e-mail to her afi agent and realized he was not surprised. >> you know, jayne, you have to realize that this is the way this works. you're going to be learning the ropes here. they're always going to demand a lot more than even they know in the end they hope to get. but this is where we start negotiating. >> the kidnappers set the rules. jayne must respond to their e-mails in the want ad section of a specific newspaper, her first ad they demanded, would go in the animals and pet section and read, buy a chow chow dog, austin, vaccinated with complete pedigree, 8,000 pesos, meaning, of course, $8 million to buy back eduardo.

they started out at $8 million. >> mm-hmm. >> what did you respond? >> it basically went out saying we're very concerned for the puppy's well-being. we don't want any harm to come to him, mixed into the words. and your request is beyond our economic possibilities. >> just that? >> mm-hmm. >> and then what do you do? >> and i waited. >> coming up, at last, word from her husband, harrowing photos and a heart-breaking phone call. >> and i told him how much i loved him and that i would do anything to get him back. and that the money didn't matter. >> what were they doing to the man she loved? when "the desperate hours" continues.

life at jayne and eduardo's ranch was divided now, into the joyous before and the somber after. the kidnapping of eduardo valseca brought with it an unrelieved trauma, soon all the children understood it was no business trip their father had taken. within hours, the word spread, was whispered around the school, around the neighborhood, around the town. jayne, still in shock, tried to keep life normal. even helping her children's teachers at school, as if everything was just the same. >> she was very bad inside because we know her, and she was suffering. but she was trying to be okay with -- in front of the children.

>> jayne and her federal police adviser dutifully placed those bizarre want ads saying they didn't have the $8 million u.s. ransom. and the response? a few weeks into the ordeal, eduardo's kidnappers turned up the pressure. they began including in their untraceable e-mails letters from eduardo himself, and what he wrote in those letters was awful. i'm suffering more than i can manage. they beat me. they tie me up. i'm naked. i haven't eaten. i'm going crazy. i can't handle this torture anymore. >> it was horrible. there was something about seeing his handwriting and the way he described it, it just destroyed me, broke my heart. that was the first time i had to take a tranquilizer. >> but there was more. and it was worse. the letter took an accusing turn. our children are going to know that by not paying money, you left me to die. you left me to die in a frightening way and our children

will know that you did that. >> right. >> i would have gotten you out already if it had been you. >> right. even in the worst possible situation, i knew that some of those things did not come from him, that he was writing what he was told to write. that was very clear to me. >> she was desperate. all she had was a household checking account. they put the cars, the ranch, the savings accounts in eduardo's name. try as she might, she couldn't touch it. >> i felt so helpless. i wanted to do something. i wanted to take him out of that hole and -- >> so she began selling things. first to go, the spanish horses eduardo loved so much, sold for a fraction of their value. >> we had lots of rabbits so i started selling rabbits. i sold sheep. i sold machinery. everything i could sell, i sold. >> all the fire sale prices? >> mm-hmm. >> all of it made hardly a dent. they wanted $8 million, she raised $20,000. in her ad she begged the kidnappers to understand she would never have the millions

they wanted. they retaliated. >> they started saying in their e-mails to me if i didn't come up with the money on a certain date, they were going to start cutting off his fingers. >> when jayne didn't, couldn't pay, the answer was swift. >> it said that i had been fooling around enough, and that eduardo had sent me a package. >> she was horrified. was it his finger? the federal agent, afraid for jayne's safety, sent someone else to follow the kidnappers' directions to the buried package wrapped in plastic and it was not severed fingers. it was a sheath of ious signed by eduardo. with these, wrote the kidnappers, jayne could get a loan for the ransom. >> i was supposed to now use to go to people to hopefully be more successful in raising funds that way. >> oh, she tried.

but local businessmen dismissed the ious as likely forgeries. summer passed. and then october, four months into his captivity, another e-mail with a letter from eduardo. they had injected him with aids tainted blood, he wrote. and then his words turned ugly, like a man she didn't know. who are you really, he wrote. i never thought you could be this cruel and stubborn and such a -- when in the hell are you going to pay. the words, she felt sure, were not his, but the torture, the daily horrors, she could only imagine. thanksgiving approached, the children pulled out old home videos and huddled in their mother's bed. >> for a long time the kids watched it every single day after school. and sometimes when they weren't around, i would go in and just watch the part where he blew me the kiss and said, i love you, again and again. >> i love you.

>> and then the next e-mail arrived and a photo was attached. eduardo, crumpled in a corner, dotted with dried blood. it was november, five months into the ordeal, when the kidnappers seemed to tire of the game. the e-mail, eduardo was going to receive his first gunshot, in his left leg, unless there is a change in the total amount offer to seven figures. it wasn't a bluff. a photo followed, bloody proof. >> i snapped that day. i -- i couldn't cry. i didn't react. >> did you see the photographs of eduardo? >> i told my agent that he needed to start being my filter, that i would not be reading any more letters and i would not look at any photographs if he wanted me to get through this and get through it sane, so that was the deal. >> two weeks later they shot eduardo again, this time in an arm. to make matters worse, the newspaper, her only way of communicating with her husband's tormenters had become suspicious and refused to take more ads. >> i had to communicate what was

happening to the kidnappers because if they didn't let me place at least one last ad, it would look like i had lost interest and i was no longer communicating. i had to now beg the woman on the phone to please allow me to place one more and i would never do it again. >> the negotiation switched to another paper. but then the phone calls began. >> i thought it would be someone disguising their voice and that's what i had been trained for. >> the agent had warned her it might happen, even prepared dialogue for her to memorize and kept this erase board handy so he could prompt her. but it wasn't the kidnappers who got on the phone. >> i was shaking. i didn't know what to do. >> it was eduardo, but the things he said, this could not be the man she loved. but it was. >> and then he started calling me names. you're such a -- how could you do this? it's my money. it was more of the same i had been getting in the letters they had forced him to write. >> she turned to the young federal agent.

>> and he told me, jayne, you've been preparing for this. you can do this. just relax. >> it is like the man you're desperate to have home and who you miss horribly is on the phone with you, you're listening to his voice and you find you're kind of arguing with this voice. >> it was absolutely bizarre. it was -- we were both playing a role. after i answered the immediate questions and got the information that i wanted to make sure that they heard, which was very important to save his life, then i said -- i changed my tone and in came me. and i told him how much i loved him. and how much his kids missed him. and that i would do anything to get him back and that the money didn't matter.

that i'd give everything i could. and then i could hear his tone change completely. and it was the real him. he told me he loved me too and then they hung up on him. >> the phone calls were untraceable. the kidnappers' demands unrelenting, the psychological pressure excruciating. a joyless christmas arrived, new year's. how long before they killed him? coming up, a new demand, a new sign of hope. >> he was instructed to go down a dark alley at a specific spot. >> it was finally time to spring into action. when "the desperate hours" continues. [ sniffs ] i have a cold. [ sniffs ] i took dayquil

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gossipers in the tonier neighborhoods of the lovely san miguel de allende chewed warily on the story that made the rounds. eduardo valseca kidnapped. surely mexico's kidnapping epidemic hadn't spread to this famously safe retreat. no, it must have been some vicious payback, something to do with eduardo himself and even friends like the soon to be mayor, lucy nunez, assumed eduardo was dead. >> oh, yes, i think everybody thought that. >> yeah? >> you're watching the television the people that has been kidnapped in three or four days or maybe in a month or two, but this was two, three, four, five, seven. >> yes, seven months. for most of that time the kidnappers refused to budge from their demand for a ransom of close to $8 million.

and when jayne went into town to beg their friends for loans, money to secure his release, she watched their eyes glaze over. >> friends would say things to me like, oh, jayne, i'm so sorry about eduardo, we liked him so much and speak about him in the past tense as if he were dead. >> even on the playground, classmates told jayne's children to give up hope. >> little kids would go up to my children and say things like, oh, i heard your daddy is dead, that they found him in a plastic bag in the park at juarez. >> and jayne would turn on her computer to find messages from a man barely hanging on. i need you like never before. help me, be compassionate toward me. i can't take it anymore. but now, more than half a year in, suddenly something new. the kidnappers' demands dropped into the mid-six figures. that was money she might be able to borrow from some well-heeled friend. so i started asking people and some people would tell me, yeah, sure, call me on such and such a

date. but then i wouldn't get a -- they wouldn't answer my calls or return my messages. >> lots of people, she discovered, didn't want to get involved. why? >> well, that -- they somehow, by helping me, they would expose themselves to this sort of a thing somehow. >> at the ranch, eduardo's grown children from an earlier marriage, desperate also, did everything they could to help but they didn't have that kind of money. and so they felt very alone in their little family circle as they tried to keep hope going at the ranch. >> i want you to look at the camera and give a message to your daddy because he's going to see this when he gets back. >> that i love him so much and he's the best dad in the whole wide world and i know he's coming back soon. >> and then quite literally in the depths of their despair, something completely unexpected. two individuals who jayne had not approached for loans went to her separately and wrote big checks. both declined jayne's offers of guarantees or collateral.

both had a single condition, that their identities be kept secret. which is how a new flurry of negotiations began with the kidnappers and jayne finally received the e-mail she worked so hard to get. we have a deal, it read. be ready to deliver the money. the final amount, at the request of the family and police, was withheld. a fraction of the original demand, but it had to be in u.s. 100-dollar bills. and it had to be done in secret. in the bank, only the manager knew what jayne was doing. >> i had to go in and count it in a back room, and make sure that everything was all in order. >> then she called on her acting skills, stuffed down her anxiety and walked out of the bank. >> a couple people recognized me. this is a small town. everyone knows you. so i stopped and talked to people and even put the bag down on the floor between my feet as

if it was a yoga bag. i felt like i was stuck in a movie that i couldn't get out of. >> the kidnappers wanted a family member to make the drop. the federal agent said absolutely not. that would only invite a hostage exchange. >> so i went to two of our employees that had been with us for over ten years and they said without hesitation, absolutely. >> the kidnappers agreed to the substitution. jayne drove those employees, two brothers, to mexico city, four hours on country highways and then followed very precise directions. what was about to happen in this great city, were it to happen to someone else, would make a fine plot for a suspense flick in some saturday night cineplex, but this was jayne it was happening to and she could have no idea as she came here with her satchel full of money if she was going to free her husband or walk into a trap. were the kidnappers watching her as she checked the brothers into

the hotel they specified? was she now in danger? she felt an itch in her back as she drove through the gargantuan metropolis. no incident. and returned to san miguel where she put a doctor and psychologist on standby and called a charter service. might need a helicopter and silence. she demanded proof that eduardo was still alive. she got in return a heart-stopping photo. it was him, all right, he must be alive, he was holding that day's newspaper. but the once robust youthful eduardo was now a gaunt emaciated stranger. in their mexico city hotel, the brothers waited with the bag of money, two days, no word. and then finally an e-mail, the men you chose have to leave the hotel at 5:00 p.m. they were to wear summer clothes, even though it was winter, they must mark the letter "t" on their car with duct tape. there could be no weapons, no cell phones.

any hint of the federal police and the deal was off. the two brothers were ordered to a fried chicken place blocks from the hotel. there would be a note taped to the pay phone. they found it. it was directions to the next stop. on it went, and a macabre scavenger hunt from restaurant to convenience store to restaurant, each stop with a note on a pay phone, a map to the next location, for hours they drove the giant city. >> in the final note, on the inside the note said, this is a photograph, make sure that the person that meets you at the next destination has the missing piece. >> it was the proof of life photo with a hole where eduardo's face should be. >> he was instructed to go down a dark alley at a specific spot and meet this person who would have the other piece of the photograph. >> now the brothers understood it was at an end and they followed the kidnappers' directions with absolute precision.

there were eyes on them, they knew it. they pulled up to the end of the alley as they had been ordered. one of the brothers picked up the bag of money, walked down the alley and to the remaining brother's horror, disappeared. there in his cold fear, in his car in the dark, he waited and minutes ticked into hours. it was a trap. his brother was taken. later jayne would learn that a strange car hovered nearby, as if to guard the exchange. it was a police car. coming up -- you've got no employee, you've got no husband, you've got no money. seven months of heartbreak, and now she was out of options. but jayne's world was about to change again with a quiet stranger at the door. when "the desperate hours" continues. the employee of the month is... spark card from capital one. spark cash gives me the most rewards

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at the valseca ranch house in san miguel de allende, jayne and her federal agent huddled around the dining room table and waited. minutes passed, an eternity. the tension in the room became unbearable.

something was wrong. she had driven the couriers to mexico city, she had paid the ransom, put a helicopter on standby. she had done everything they asked her to do, and no phone call, no message, no eduardo. then finally one of the two brothers jayne had sent to drop the ransom made contact. he was still sitting in his car at the mouth of that dark road. he was terrified. his brother had disappeared into the dark, holding on to the sack full of hundred-dollar bills. he hadn't come back. and some kind of police car was hovering around. but whoever was in the car did not behave like police. something was wrong. >> we had his younger brother wait for him at that same spot half the night and we got more and more nervous as every minute ticked by. finally the afi agent told the younger brother of the two who had gotten left behind to please go back to the hotel room and stay by the phone. >> the rest of that night and all the next day jayne, the afi

agent and the young man in the hotel room in mexico city watched the phone, willing it to ring. it did not. >> it took about 24 hours and i got an e-mail. it said, in a cynical way, we have the person you sent with the money, we have counted the money. it's all there. in unmarked bills as we had requested. >> but now, said the kidnappers, now they were holding jayne's employee and would keep holding him so when they released eduardo, he and jayne would have to cough up even more money to get that man back. wait a minute, at that point now you've got no employee, you've got no husband, you've got no money. >> but that wasn't enough for them. these people not only want everything that you have, everything that you can sell, everything that you can get a loan for, they want to wipe you out. they have no problem with that. that's exactly what they want.

and beat you up and treat you like you are the criminal all along. >> no one, not even the seasoned federal afi agent, predicted the kidnappers would take the money and the man who delivered it. that agent was by now practically a member of the family. he befriended the employees chosen to go to mexico city with the money. he had been the cool one who kept jayne going through her months of crisis. but now, he left the room, stunned. >> my stepson came into the house shortly after, and when he came in, he passed a back hallway that goes to the laundry room where he found our afi agent crying in the back alley. we had never seen him do that. he had always been very professional, very detached from emotions as much as he could be, and just completely dealing with what was at task, but even he had befriended these two men who

had worked for us. >> they had failed. the kidnappers had every dollar, it took jayne seven months to gather and now they kidnapped jayne's employee. but they hadn't released eduardo. had they killed him after all? if not, where was he? the kidnappers promised eduardo's release 48 hours after the drop. there was no word, no call, nothing to suggest the kidnappers had or would make good on their claim. and here at the ranch, there was a family to care for. life had to go on. two days after the ransom drop in a sad distracted ceremony, they prepared a cake to mark fernando's 13th birthday. >> i blew the candles out and i remember thinking i wish for my dad to come back. >> something like routine resumed. routine in limbo on auto pilot. there were small teeth to brush, bedtime stories to read, breakfast to prepare. it was the morning after fernando's birthday wish, she was in the kitchen. >> and as i'm clearing the

dishes, someone walked by, it was very quick and it was someone who looked very thin and frail and very, very old and had a baseball cap, florescent yellow baseball cap on, dark clothing. >> she knew the kidnappers had been watching the house. was the stranger one of them? coming up -- >> i'm fumbling for the keys to open the front door to see who this person is, and as i am trying to get the door open, i look up. i don't think anything could have prepared me for what i saw. >> when "the desperate hours" crest 3d white was recognized by marie claire as one of the 25 beauty products that will change your life because it whitens by removing up to 80% of surface stains. see how it can change your life. crest 3d white. life opens up when you do.

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it was her 16th winter in mexico. eduardo had been gone 7 1/2 months. she had sold what she could, sent the money, played her hand and still didn't know, had they murdered the love of her life after all? had they left her a single mother?

was everything happy and pure now gone? it was morning in the kitchen. jayne stared out the back door of the ranch house in san miguel. and that's when she saw it, there was a skeleton out there, a walking dead man. it took a moment to register. it was eduardo, all but unrecognizable, suddenly old man, emaciated, skin and bones. she opened the door. >> i pulled him into me and put my arms around him, and he just felt so cold. it was literally as if he was already dead and i just started kissing him all over his cheeks. he could barely talk. he just whispered and told me, i love you so much. >> it was as if his freedom had come at the last possible moment before death. earlier jayne had put doctors and a psychologist on standby for just such a moment as this. he refused them. and there by the door, as she held him in her arms, he begged her for her special banana

pancakes. >> he said, when i was trying to dream about what it would be like coming back if i ever was able to, i could always see you standing there at the stove and see you from the back, cooking my food. and i couldn't make them fast enough. he just couldn't eat them fast enough. i had to tell him to slow down. i was afraid he was going to actually harm himself. he could not eat quick enough and then after he finished the entire batch that would have fed four under normal circumstances, he said, now i want yogurt and nuts and granola and fruit, and after that i want the eggs. the list kept going on and on. i said, wait a minute. what do you want first? let's prioritize. >> jayne tried to cushion the children from the shock of what they were about to see. >> i brought him his bandanna and his hat and sweater to try to cover up his bones. >> it was the morning after fernando made his wish over his birthday cake for this very

thing to happen. >> i just ran and gave him a hug and he didn't have any meat on him, at all. it was just like if i was grabbing his carcass. >> and there he stayed, as the old eduardo crept back into that cadaverous body, surrounded by his children, his plates of food and the woman who fought for him every minute of those months, who cried for him, who saved his life, always jayne. >> he followed me around a lot. he wouldn't let me out of his sight, not even to use the restroom. he wanted to follow me everywhere. >> and here he is now restored. >> i hadn't seen myself in a mirror for 7 1/2 months. >> eduardo garcia valseca uses an expression when he talks about life after captivity. i'm living extra hours. but in those first hours of freedom he found it hard to stand. he could barely walk. he had lost half his body weight, weighed barely 80 pounds

and could not believe how truly awful he looked. >> the first time i saw myself, against the mirror, and i lifted my t-shirt, i pulled it back on immediately. i couldn't believe i looked like pure bones and skin. i just -- it was too much. >> of course, given what he'd been through, he probably shouldn't have survived at all. the doctor who finally examined him noted late stage severe starvation, liver damage, concussion, three broken ribs and severe stomach infections. but though the kidnappers told him they injected him with tainted blood, he did not have hiv or aids. he hobbled around, bent and brittle, had to be supported up or down the stairs. >> it is like they sucked the life out of me. they just took everything away from me. >> dead in a way, alive but dead. >> exactly. exactly. >> and yet, within those first

hours and days of freedom -- >> he was already laughing and it was as if drip by drip life was coming back into this skeleton. >> kind of like the first day of the rest of your life. >> completely. >> and then she would see a cloud on his face or sense the torment in his dreams at night. he would suddenly be haunted again. >> he would wake up repeatedly all night and just reach over and touch me just to make sure that it was really true, that i was there, and that he wasn't dreaming. >> at night she would hear him stirring and he would fall out of bed. >> i didn't remember that i was sleeping on a bed. and still i have these flashbacks of i'm not sure if i'm dreaming, and is this true that i'm out, or is this a reflection of my thoughts? >> and then morning would come, and with it the living nightmare. it wasn't over, the kidnappers still held their employee, still threatening the whole family

with death. and eduardo needed to tell jayne, as he's about to tell us, the real and shocking story. coming up, more than seven months in hell, exactly what he had endured. this is unbelievable. how do you keep your sanity? when "the desperate hours" continues. [ woman ] my boyfriend and i were going on vacation, so i used my citi thank you card to pick up some accessories. a new belt. some nylons. and what girl wouldn't need new shoes? we talked about getting a diamond. but with all the thank you points i've been earning... ♪ ...i flew us to the rock i really had in mind. ♪ [ male announcer ] the citi thank you card. earn points you can use for travel on any airline, with no blackout dates.

eduardo valseca is a charming and outgoing man. >> happy new year! do you have a message for us in the year 2000? >> with a ready laugh and a zest for life. how, we wondered, given what you're about to hear, is that still possible? he calls it the box. so this is exactly the same size. >> exactly. >> to get a sense of his bizarre prison cell, we built a replica. this is a precise copy of the miserable container in which eduardo was held for 7 1/2 months. here is where the air goes in. here's where it is pumped out. you know, i don't know -- i wouldn't fit in this thing. >> no, no.

>> just like the original, the inside surfaces are covered in dark abrasive rug, a single bulb in the ceiling, an electronic eye watching. the box is only slightly wider than our own shoulders, barely long enough to lie down in. this is unbelievable. how do you keep your sanity? >> when i first arrived here, and i repeat myself over and over and over, calm your mind down. >> when he first came here, that was the violent ambush in the jeep outside the school. then the bloody semiconscious hooded ride that followed, a blind hustle into a building, up a stairwell on someone's shoulder, the stripping of all his clothes, the sudden confinement in a box. >> the first minute, that's the only thing i ever saw, just that box. >> then the vicious daily beatings and the rules. rule one, no talking, ever.

communication was by handwritten note. the kidnappers would signal when they wanted to enter the box. >> always twice, always like that. >> that was your signal to do what? >> to put a pillow case over my head, and immediately go like i am right now, put my head against the wall. >> so you would never see their faces? >> never, ever, ever. >> they watched him on the web cam, kept him naked, fed him an occasional piece of fruit or a salad. a small bucket served as his toilet. it was rarely emptied. his kidnappers kept the light burning day and night, blasted the inside of the box with high volume music. ♪ i said, please, just turn off the music, just once, please. they say if we turn off the music, and you are able to hear what we talk about, then we have to kill you. >> how loud was this music? >> very loud, to the point that

i lost 50% of my hearing on the right side. ♪ it was a combination of the loud music and the beating of my head. so, you know, sometimes i went like this after they left the room, i couldn't feel the shape of my head anymore, it was full of bumps. >> the beatings, said eduardo, intensified each time he was ordered to write jayne a new letter, begging her to pay. >> and he would hit me so hard for so long, that i think he only stop when he run out of energy. he would go on and on and on and on. he broke my bones, just kicking me. >> in the days after he was taken from the jeep, he prayed with some confidence that his confinement would be brief. he wrote notes to his captors saying he wasn't the wealthy man they had taken him to be. surely, he thought, they would check and discover that. >> i had nothing but high hopes. i thought this is my last week.

i really believe in my head, this is it. next week, i'm getting out of this box. >> but he didn't get out, not for a minute, not for a second. he secretly marked off the passing days on saved scraps of paper. slowly, he starved. if they gave him a bit of chicken, he would eat the bones as well. an egg, he would eat the shell. and the tortures intensified. the kidnappers sent him notes telling him jayne didn't care about him. had moved another man into the raench to live with her. and in the end those hours of coffin-like solitude, doubts ate at his mind. >> i started feeling mixed feelings. i thought maybe she's feeling that they're going to kill me anyway and they're going to take the little bit of money that we had. >> they forced him to write those accusing letters to jayne, he said. and when she still didn't pay, they gave him a note announcing they would shoot him. >> they came in, they covered my face, they handcuffed me, they put me face down on the floor,

so they put a gun right on my leg and they shot me right there. and the pain is tremendous, like a bomb coming from the inside of your body out. >> then two weeks later, again the announcement in advance. you will be shot. >> and now he shot me in the left arm and right here. and again, he didn't want to shoot the bone, so he went from here, and it came out on the other side. i was not afraid of dying because i couldn't take it anymore. it was just too much suffering and you give up. if i had had a piece of glass or if i had had anything, i would have killed myself. >> coming up -- >> put me against this wall with the handcuffs, and i thought, this is it. he's going to shoot me.

it was hard. >> when "the desperate hours" continues.

i'm melissa rehberger. here's what's happening. gop presidential hopeful rick santorum is in the hospital with his 3-year-old daughter. ten people were killed in a hij pileup in florida earlier this morning. drivers say they were blinded by heavy snoek and fog. officials are investigating if the fire that caused the smoke was set deliberately. now back to "the desperate hours." and so he thought of home, of his wife's banana pancakes. he kept himself going by dreaming of singing with a mariachi band just like he did at his wedding.

he imagined the faces of his children. >> i would hear fernando saying, dad, i miss you. and i would see emiliano so confused. i would miss nayah's beautiful green eyes. >> he was in his box for a total of 225 days. and then, one morning -- >> he put me against this wall where the handcuffs are and i thought, this is it. he's going to shoot me. i was hurt. and then i start hearing the sounds and i didn't know what he was going to do. >> but they didn't shoot him. instead they shaved him and dressed him and took the proof of life photo jayne was about to find in her e-mail. it was about 4:00 a.m., he reckons, when they tied the hood

back on his head, put him in the car and brought him here. they ordered, face the wall. it was a cemetery wall. was he to die? then a voice behind him said, start counting. don't turn around until you hit 200. >> i start counting from 1 to 200 right here. and -- >> did you get all the way to 200? >> yes. absolutely. i was so scared, you know. i didn't want to screw it up. >> and then he turned around and they were gone. you had been in that box all that time and here you are standing all alone in the middle of the night, under the sky. what was that like? >> i felt the wind and the space and i could see the stars and those lights, so far away, the first time in 7 1/2 months that i could feel the wind. and i could move my legs and just move away from the wall and

it felt really like walking on a different planet. >> in a lunch box were two boiled eggs, an apple and a few pesos the kidnappers had given him for the trip home. his legs were so weak he stumbled and fell repeatedly as he hobbled to the nearest highway. he had no idea where he was. >> there was an old man sitting there waiting for the bus for mexico city and i told him where i was going. he told me, this is the right bus. >> which is how early that morning eduardo valseca arrived at his own back door and asked his wife to make banana pancakes. unmitigated joy, and terror. terror? oh, yes. it wasn't over. >> i couldn't even relish in the moment of having my husband back because we were still dealing with these people. >> now, remember, the kidnappers were holding jayne and eduardo's employee, the man who had volunteered to deliver the ransom and for his trouble was

snatched at the drop site. so now a new round of e-mail demands began arriving. >> we started negotiating, like the whole thing all over again. >> but it wasn't quite the same, and thus the terror. the kidnappers promised to kill not just the employee if their demands were not met, they vowed to murder eduardo and jayne and fernando and emiliano and little nayah, all of them. >> we're going to kill each one of you and the little bit of money you have left and you didn't give us is now not going to be enough to bury each one of the members of your family. so you are still terrified, you know. >> i couldn't believe it wasn't over. >> jayne and eduardo traveled to mexico city to be debriefed by senior officials of the federal police. it was here after the meeting when they were suddenly surrounded by men with assault weapons. coming up, spirited away, the entire family forced away from the home they loved.

how close was the danger? >> you never know who was informing these people. they knew everything about the kids. they knew everything about us. >> when "the desperate hours" continues.

in mexico city, eduardo and jayne met with senior officials of the federal police, who had many questions about their ordeal. and who took the kidnappers' new threats very seriously. you must leave now, they were told. here at police headquarters they were suddenly surrounded by a protective ring of men with assault weapons. the police hustled them back to the ranch, allowed 48 hours to prepare. and then the son of one of mexico's great newspaper barons with jayne and his family was escorted out of the land he loved. that kidnapped employee, by the

way, the kidnappers simply released him nearly three months later, no ransom at all. by then, jayne and eduardo and their children had squeezed into what they expected would be a temporary exile, two months or so, at jayne's mother's house in america. why just two months? mostly because federal police assured them they had significant leads. they still insisted they knew the group responsible, a marxist revolution party called the epr. and besides, one of the officials who debriefed eduardo was soon promoted to commissioner of federal police and hadn't he promised personally that he would aggressively chase down the abductors? but two months grew to three, then six. no word. >> i tried to call different times. the higher officials in mexico. they have never answered me back, answered my telephone calls. >> eduardo did wonder sometimes if he would have to be like this man.

>> follow up? what's that? >> remember him? his daughter was killed by kidnappers and afterwards he said the federal police did nothing. so he closed his business and tracked the criminals down himself, and delivered them for trial. >> i know that's not the way it should be. but it was the only way to do it if i wanted to have justice. justice is something in mexico that you won't get if you don't fight for it. >> jayne and eduardo did what they could to fight for it, too. but after two years had gone by, the conclusion seemed inescapable. >> when you get pulled into this whole world, the authorities in mexico basically tell you, look, you're going to be paying ransom. it's as if there's no other option. it's as if they've given up from the beginning so all we can do is hold your hand and help you through the process of coming up with an amount you can pay. you pay it. next. >> next.

>> we arranged an interview with the commissioner of the federal police, the man who debriefed eduardo. the search for the kidnappers is continuing, he said, nonstop. are you close to an arrest in this case? >> translator: it is a systematic job that does not allow us to give advances as to people being captured. we usually speak after the events have taken place. >> the investigation continues? >> translator: it is a permanent investigation with a systematic focus. >> but there was one crucial piece of information the commissioner did pass on to us, the same thing his officers had been telling jayne and eduardo all along. the epr had taken eduardo. >> translator: yes, we do have information, precise information. >> national security prevented him from revealing more than that, he said. >> translator: i asked for proof. how did they know? >> but mexican journalist alejandro jimenez, a specialist

in terror groups and kidnappings said his contacts inside the epr assured him repeatedly they certainly would have taken responsibility for kidnapping eduardo had they done it, but they didn't do it. still, the federal police told jimenez -- >> translator: that i should forget about the case, that it was a closed case, that he paid the ransom, nothing more. >> it was an odd reaction, he said, and to him suspicious. >> translator: our reflexes as mexican journalists is to suspect they're blaming a guerrilla group without showing proof. they're hiding something. police could have been involved, or maybe members of the military, which is what tends to happen in high-impact kidnappings. >> up in their temporary american refuge, jayne and eduardo were feeling a pull to say something, get involved. >> you know what? i think that the moment you cower into a corner and keep your mouth shut, you become a part of the problem. so is that the example i want to give to my kids? >> by now they had been away two years and gradually month by month, the memory of their

terror had come to be mixed with a nostalgia for the life they left behind. which is in part, why jayne and eduardo decided to return, with us, to their beloved ranch, a place to tell their story. it had to be secret, no one could know they were coming, they could only stay a few days. during the time in america, eduardo had become convinced someone close to the family must have passed information to the kidnappers before. what if they did it again? >> because you never know who is informing these people. they knew everything about the kids. they knew everything about us or anybody could be there telling them, you know. here, they're back. >> bodyguards would come along, too. a strange accessory now, given what a free and happy place the ranch used to be. the first night in your old bed, in the house, is that a little

weird getting back into that? >> it was great. really. >> i slept well knowing that we had bodyguards. >> it was just as they left it, their clothes still filled the closets. family portraits decorated their rooms. even the dogs greeted them as if their forced departure had been yesterday. eduardo threw himself back at his old job, mending fences, fixing broken bits, checking on a crop. of course the stables were still empty, his horses gone for ransom. and then an old friend hears eduardo is home and brings his own horses. his first ride since leaving the box. and in these moments, they feel finally like they're home again. >> okay. >> there is a happy reunion at the school jayne helped found.

they lead her around the campus to show off the progress they have made in her absence. >> wow. it looks amazing. >> how painful that absence has been. their trip back to the ranch coincides with eduardo's 61st birthday. jayne hastily organizes a fiesta, only close and trusted friends are invited. party food prepared. the favorite charo suit out of the closet and they, in a magic evening, are transported back into the world they left behind, a world they love. ♪ in those months in the box, eduardo had stayed sane by dreaming of singing again with mariachis. tonight, he does. ♪ >> it was just wonderful.

for jayne and i it was like 100% therapy to go back to the place and feel happy about it, and feel safe about it. it was fantastic. >> was it possible to come back? could they find a way to feel safe? could they have all this again? as we interview jayne about that very possibility, the answer quite suddenly began to reveal itself. coming up, what just happened, just now what happened? >> i just cannot bear it anymore. i want to get far away from here. >> when "the desperate hours" continues. male announcer ] feee a shadow of your former self? c'mon, michael! get in the game! [ male announcer ] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies? lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older. you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. millions of men, forty-five or older, may have low t. so talk to your doctor about low t. hey, michael! [ male announcer ] and step out of the shadows.

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the unease, if that's what it was, that accompanied jayne and eduardo back to their ranch in san miguel had vanished. this was home. they were embraced by friends and colleagues, lulled by the peaceful beauty of this place they built from nothing. and it was tugging hard, come back. and then, what just happened just now what happened? >> eduardo came through the door with the lawyer and told me that now the entire train has been destroyed on the inside, been ransacked. >> it was the pullman car, eduardo's inheritance from his famous father, the train in which he wooed jayne as they fell in love. he brought it to the ranch as a

sort of magic shrine to their love and his past, and now somebody had broken in, smashed it up, a warning, a message? and the police? >> we called them. them said they couldn't come because they have no gasoline. imagine the answer for a police force to say that they cannot go to the ranch because there is no enough gasoline. >> and quite suddenly they knew, it was over. eduardo examined the destruction in the stately old rooms, the broken heirloom and jayne was sucked back into the all too familiar well of fear. to love is a risk, as everybody knows. but jayne unreservedly loved mexico. she fell hard for a man and his country. she romanced its customs, its people, its extraordinary beauty. it was all perfect to her. and now, what she feels is deeper than setback or ordinary loss. to jayne it feels a betrayal, it

is heartbreak. >> i'm just feeling like i'm so overwhelmed with the situation that we're living in in mexico today that i just can't stand it. i just cannot bear it anymore. i want to get far away from here. i have so deceased. i do. we came here -- and i absolutely fell in love with the man of my dreams and the country that he came from. and i embraced it fully. and i chose to have my children here. we chose to live here. there's a sense of celebration and a social life and the weather and the traditions and it just seemed like the perfect place to raise a family. and for many years it was. >> neither one had to say it. their life in mexico, 16 years of paradise, was done. and now, life today is altogether new.

their fine big ranch is for sale, their small rental in america, a far more humble place, but that big discovery matters not at all. it did matter to them that they paid back those anonymous donors who helped buy eduardo's freedom. and mostly it matters to them now that the household celebrates just about everything, especially their own survival. >> if i continue to hold on to this in a negative way, then they just -- the criminals just keep on committing a crime against us every day and i'm not going to let that happen. >> then finally, after two years of waiting for it, the long promised phone call from the head of the federal police, good news from the investigation? well, no. nothing to report at all, said the commissioner. no leads. but, please, he told eduardo, don't talk to the media. the kidnappers are still out there, might be dangerous. advice rejected.

you are potentially setting yourself up as a target, however. >> the best way to fight these criminals is to speak about it, to come up with solutions. but if you keep quiet, like most people do, how are you going to come up with a solution? >> some fellow citizens of san miguel have expressed discomfort about eduardo's outspokenness. eduardo thinks he knows why. >> some people that we know have expressed madness that we shouldn't say anything because it affects tourists. >> it would affect the real estate values in san miguel. let's lift the carpet and sweep the dirt underneath. >> because it is better not to say anything, not to scare anybody away. >> the secrecy lifted a little since eduardo's friend lucy nunez was elected mayor? last month the chief of police reported that in the last four

months there had been two more kidnappings here, in relatively safe san miguel. >> i just want to raise my kids in a place where you can trust the police, where it is the justice system functions. >> a sentiment, they discovered, which is created a whole other kind of immigration from mexico, immigration based on fear. >> i would like to form an organization organizing the people like us who have had to leave mexico and take refuge in the united states. >> do you think you would have much company? >> oh, a lot. >> by thousands. >> it was in the box where eduardo felt it, isolated, starved, beaten, beset by glaring light, deafening noise, the fear of death. it was a revelation, and he hasn't been the same since. >> nothing really matters, material things, nothing. >> it came down finally to her, the woman he saw at the phone booth all those years ago who he wooed on this train car who made

a family, saved his life, who, as he sat crumpled in his box kept him alive and in love. >> love is important. you learn, it changes your life forever, for sure. >> once they go to paradise and it was gone in one violent moment on their own country lane. but did it destroy them? anything but. >> happiness in paradise is not a place. no matter how small the house, no matter where we are, the most important thing is that we're healthy, that we're alive, that we're a family, and that's what we have. what more could i want? for more log to to nbc.com. that's all for