and this desert doesn't give up its secrets easily. a beautiful young mom abducted from her beachfront home. her husband, horrified. >> my wife made a phone call to me to say that she was held by gunpoint. >> her mother, terrified. >> it's your worst nightmare, imagining what's happening to your child. >> a note with big demands left by mysterious kidnappers who seem to know all, see all. >> they're watching the house? >> they're watching the house. >> and then the victim herself called. >> can you hear me? >> her mom jumping in to work with police would hand over the ransom herself. >> if i didn't drop the money properly, that would be the end for quinn. >> she dropped the cash all

right, but who picked it up? >> and that's where everything went wrong? >> it's where everything went wrong. >> a kidnapping case about to go way off script. >> her story did not make sense. >> what was really going on? >> i'm a cop for 11 years. i blushed when i listened to the tape. >> a story with more twists and turns than the florida roads they raced along, trying to find this missing mom. >> this case was not going to turn out like a lot of people assumed. >> hello and welcome to "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. whenever someone is kidnapped, it triggers a race against time as police often joined by the victim's family begin a search. that's what happened in this story, which begins with a frantic call about a beautiful mother of two young daughters abducted from her home. but as you're about to see, though her family and veteran investigators spent desperate days trying to figure out where she was, they never could have

guessed who had her and why. here's josh mankiewicz. ♪ ♪ >> this is the sheriff's office. >> my wife made a phone call to me a minute ago, said she was held by gunpoint. >> businessman reid gray was odd on the line with the sheriff's office in a panic. he told the 911 operator his wife had just phoned him minutes earlier to say she'd been kidnapped. >> it sounds like a frigging movie, but it's real. >> the call would turn out to be just the beginning of an

unbelievable saga that would baffle investigators and turn this husband's life upside down. the next few days would bring one setback after another. and no one could have predicted how it all would come to an end. it was around 5:00 p.m. september 4th, 2009. reid's wife, quinn, had called him at work and told him she had just been kidnapped right out of their $4 million home. reid couldn't believe what he'd heard. he went to his office parking lot to try and think straight. >> did she tell you where she was at? >> no. there is a note at the house with the gunman's demands. >> the news was as shocking as it was terrifying. quinn, a mom of two young daughters, was a trained nurse who was now raising her children full time. her husband was a self-made man who'd finally hit it big in the health care business. this frightened husband told the 911 operator he didn't know what to do next. >> she said if i call the police, they will shoot me dead. it could be a -- but a gun's a gun, man. >> reid gray took a gamble and did just the opposite of what his wife had told him. soon, multiple law enforcement agencies would be on the case. >> check and make sure that fire rescue is going to be

coordinating with us. >> st. john's county sheriff, david shore. >> all bets are off, there's nothing more important than a victim who's being held against their will and who has been threatened with homicide, so you roll out what you have. >> while reid went to the sheriff's office, a s.w.a.t. team was deployed to his home. they cautiously entered the multimillion-dollar residence. the house sat eerily empty. a photo album opened on a couch, a happy quinn on her wedding day. crime scene techs swept inside and out, looking for fingerprints, tire tracks, any clues to the kidnappers' identities. on the dining room table they found a sheet of yellow paper, the ransom note. it looked to be in quinn gray's handwriting. "dear reid, i need you to read

this and be calm. reid, do not be a hero, this is professional and there are three men holding me right now and they want $50,000 cash. i will be okay if you get them the money." >> what do you know about the victim? >> we knew she was a housewife raising children in one of the prettier parts of our county. >> reid and quinn gray were new to st. john's county, having just moved into their beachfront home in ponte vedra. it's an area known for its world famous golf course and lux homes. >> i don't want to use the term the perfect kidnapping victim, but it fit. >> and her husband made a lot of money. >> her husband made a lot of money. so worst case scenario, we make one wrong move and they kill her. >> on the day quinn was kidnapped, the 37-year-old pta mom had made appointments for her daughters to have haircuts and she was far along in the planning for an upcoming party for one of her daughters' birthdays. now reid gray tried to shield the 8 and 6-year-olds from the

news that their mom's life was in danger. he picked up his girls from school and took them to a friend's house. while he waited at the sheriff's office. reid was still in his shirt and tie from work, and he was an emotional wreck. >> just freaking out. >> he shared more details about quinn's brief, frantic calls to him hours earlier. >> she said there was somebody with a gun pointed to her head. >> on that call she said there were three kidnappers and they were albanian. the $50,000 ransom was to pay back money reid had borrowed from a loan shark, but reid gray insisted he didn't owe money to anyone. >> i probably make a little over $1.3 million this year. 50 grand doesn't mean much. >> why ask for only $50,000 from a man who was making more than a million dollars a year? reid didn't know and neither did investigators. at this point there was only one goal, quinn's safe return. >> it was very disconcerting to realize that we had a housewife and mother of two small children in whatever she was going through, it wasn't good. >> and there was something else that wasn't good. this investigation was starting with no witnesses, no clues to

the kidnappers' identities and, more important, no answers to the question where was quinn gray? >> coming up -- quinn appears on the phone, calling her husband with frantic instructions. >> get in the car with the money. just get in the car with it. please, reid! >> would he be able to get the cash and find his wife in time? when "ransom" continues. copd makes it hard to breathe.

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at the sheriff's office near his expensive home in ponte vedra, florida, a wealthy community about 20 miles south of jacksonville. his wife, quinn, was kidnapped just a few hours earlier. the ransom, $50,000. >> i'm not going to be able to work, sleep, eat, breathe, until this is resolved. >> one thing you have to understand is that in the modern day marketplace of crime, kidnapping for ransom is practically an antique. here's why. it's not difficult to abduct a family member of a rich person, but things like improved technical surveillance, cooperation between law enforcement agencies, even caller i.d. now make it just about impossible to pick up ransom money and escape undetected. as a result, the kind of kidnapping you see in the movies pretty much exists only in hollywood. but for reid gray this was frightening, nerve-racking reality.

>> no prior trouble with any kind of phone calls in the middle of the night, strange noises around the house, anything like that, right? >> no. >> married for almost nine years, reid told investigators his relationship with quinn was better than ever and that the couple was even thinking about having another child. >> she's just an amazing friend. she's active in taking the girls to dance, taking the girls to all their after-school programs. >> she was a wonderful daughter, yes. >> quinn's name, gail sikes. >> that's very difficult for a mother to say who has four daughters. but she was absolutely the sweetest of all the children. >> that night reid called his mother-in-law with the devastating news. >> i was just completely in shock. as a mother, that's your worst nightmare. imagining what's happening to your child. >> what do you think quinn is going through at that point? >> being tortured, tied up, fearing for her life, fearing that she would never see her children again. >> while quinn's mom waited for news at her georgia home, reid

stayed at the sheriff's office until about 2:00 a.m. he then returned to his house while his kids stayed with friends. early the next morning, saturday, about 16 hours after quinn's kidnapping, reid sent a text to his wife's phone. "haven't slept all night. please tell me you're all right." but there was no reply. about two hours later reid, who was now with investigators, finally got a call. it was quinn, and reid became emotional. >> what do i need to do? >> they'll call you back. i don't know. they'll call you back, okay? >> all right, i love you. she said they'll call me back in a few minutes. >> investigators wired up the phone so they could record all the calls. sheriff shore was surprised to hear quinn's voice. >> historically, the kidnappers don't let the victims communicate. >> and in this case it was quinn's voice on the phone. >> yes. >> the advantage of that for the kidnappers is you don't ever hear their voice. >> that's true. >> the sheriff rolled out his

mobile command unit to a secluded area near quinn and reid's home. from inside he started directing the more than 100 law enforcement personnel who were working this case. they waited for the next contact from the kidnappers. and then, about 45 minutes after that last call, reid's phone rang again. the cell reception was poor, but quinn gave reid a location for a money drop. >> just get in the car with the money and go down and take a left on -- >> i've got to write this down. >> just go. just do it now, please. reid. take a left -- >> butler boulevard, hello? >> the conversation abruptly ended and quinn sounded angry. it was easy to imagine the tremendous stress she must be under. reid was growing increasingly worried for his wife's safety. >> she goes you got the cops, they're going to kill me.

>> remain calm. she's probably going to call back again. >> the first time she was screaming, crying, help. >> she's making this urgent. or they're making this urgent. >> reid stayed at the sheriff's office as surveillance teams scrambled to get in place at butler boulevard. investigators also needed more time to get $50,000 cash together for the ransom. but only 30 minutes later, another call came in. >> hello? >> it was quinn again, instructing reid to head to a different location. he was now to go to a chick-fil-a restaurant. >> take the convertible top down and just wait in the chick-fil-a parking lot. >> i want to see you. i want to exchange you for the money. i am not giving them money without you. hello? >> now investigators rushed to get teams in undercover cars in place at the chick-fil-a. but they needed more time. so they told reid to play dumb on quinn's next call and say he didn't know which chick-fil-a restaurant to go to. >> which site are you at? >> you're supposed to be at the chick-fil-a. >> which chick-fil-a? >> by avenues mall. >> you said on south side.

>> you need to go. >> i want to know you're going to be there. let me talk to them right now. >> but once again the call was abruptly cut off. quinn sounded frantic. was it possible she had a gun to her head? investigators tried to trace the calls but they were all so short that an exact location couldn't be pinpointed. and according to detective howard cole reid gray was becoming unhinged. >> he was scared and he was a nervous wreck. he was worried for himself. he was worried for her. he was worried for his family. >> but before reid left for the chick-fil-a he got yet another call. there was a problem at the money drop point. >> they spotted three fed cars near chick-fil-a. so i don't know where i'm going now. you need to wait for more instructions. >> were the sheriff's undercover team spotted at the chick-fil-a? is that whatuinn meant by fed cars?

a few minutes later on reid's cell phone came ominous text fruinn. "i know you want me dead." reid texted back "i don't know if that's quinn. i have your $50,000. stop -- with me, just give me my wife." there was no reply. investigators brought reid back to his house and parked in the driveway. they set up a mini command center in the house, using a recorder to tape all incoming calls, and that's when something happened that no one expected. >> we sent the detectives to that home and we didn't do it surreptitiously. because we hadn't thought about it. >> and they walked in the front door? >> they walked in the -- they pulled in in an unmarked vehicle.

and the minute they pulled in we received a text from the victim. >> reid got another text on his cell phone. "wait for instructions, you've -- up twice already. you involved other people." whose ford is in the driveway? the ford was an unmarked sheriff's vehicle. >> they're watching the house? >> they're watching the house. >> fearing they were being watched by the kidnappers, the sheriff ordered all his personnel to go covert and get out of sight. >> we were watching ourselves to see if they were watching us. >> the kidnappers, they have got you looking over your own shoulder. >> yes, that's exactly right. >> what does that say to you, that these guys were playing by their own set of rules? >> it was probably one of the earliest indications to me that this case was not going to turn out like a lot of people assumed. we all want to know about the new thing.

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it was saturday afternoon. quinn gray, wife and mother of two, had been missing for almost 24 hours after two attempted money drops failed. the local sheriff called in the fbi. almost 150 people were now working to find quinn gray. the agent in charge of the fbi's jacksonville office is james casey. he says the kidnappers appeared to be deactivating quinn's cell phone after each of the calls they made to reid. >> somebody in the scheme was smart enough to take the battery out of the cell phone because we were able to through some technical capabilities and determine that that phone was not only off but had no power to it at certain times. >> meaning you can't trace it? >> meaning you can't trace it.

>> while there was no pinpointing an exact address where quinn's calls were originating, technicians were tracing pings when the phone was in use. those are the electronic connections made when a phone hits a particular cell tower, and that gave investigators a general idea where quinn might have been held. fbi agent tony k was selected as the lead crisis negotiator for the bureau. >> we're tracking the phone and we're thinking we've got some leads. >> agents felt they were making progress, but then suddenly the phone was also pinging farther away. the kidnappers and quinn might have been on the move. sheriff's detective howard cole was sent in pursuit. >> it was believed that quinn gray's cell phone was being tracked to an area west of orlando. >> but something had gone wrong. before tracing the calls, investigators had to get a judge's approval. and in the rush to fill out the proper paperwork, someone made a

small, but critical error. >> when they actually went to get the order signed by a judge, what was typed into the actual affidavit and order, the numbers were transposed. >> so somebody put the wrong phone number in? >> human error. >> so the phone you were following wasn't quinn's phone? >> correct. >> how long did you follow that other phone? >> all day saturday. >> and suddenly what investigators thought were solid leads from quinn's cell phone simply vanished. >> when you realized you guys were following the wrong cell phone, what? >> my hair was on fire. my hair was on fire. i thought how can something like this happen? so we were really back to square one, who were we looking for? we had no idea. >> the rest of saturday went by with no word from quinn or the kidnappers. meanwhile, quinn's mom, gail sikes, left her georgia home and headed to her daughter's house in ponte vedra, florida.

>> i jumped in my car and i headed south. >> how long is the drive? >> 7 1/2 hours. long drive with that kind of information in your brain. >> at around 2:00 a.m., when gail arrived, she found an unbelievable scene. >> i walked into like a war zone. >> the s.w.a.t. team's hiding inside the house? >> they were everywhere. i was told that they were outside, in the bushes, on the roof. it was unreal. >> early sunday morning, almost 36 hours since quinn gray's abduction, and 12 hours since the last contact from the kidnappers, fbi hostage negotiator tony kravith decided to have quinn's mom send text messages to her daughter's phone, hoping the kidnappers would read them. >> every 20 minutes, every hour, we sent a message. please call me, i love you. let me know that you're safe, i'm very worried about you. >> you want the kidnappers to start thinking of her as a mom who needs to go home to her family and not just a cash register. >> i want the kidnappers to think of quinn gray as a wife, as a daughter, as a mother. >> finally, a text came back about 9:30 a.m. this time to quinn's mom's phone. have the money in a bag. no traceable devices.

no reid whatsoever. if he is anywhere close, she's dead. no cops. be ready to leave at 11:00. the kidnappers had apparently decided they no longer wanted to deal with reid. >> why? because the kidnappers don't trust reid? >> maybe. we didn't know. one of the techs said he had messed it up already. after the failed chick-fil-a drop, another thought was that mom was more controllable. >> so reid gray was no longer at the center of a huge law enforcement effort that was working around the clock to save his wife. >> how did reid feel about that? >> it made him uncomfortable. we didn't understand it. so we moved forward. >> quinn's mother would make the

next money drop. it was an unlikely role for this 62-year-old grandmother, a manager at a walmart and a dog breeder on the side. >> i was very concerned that if i didn't drop the money properly, that that would be the end for quinn. >> what in your background prepared you for what you were going through? >> i guess just being a mother and trying to protect your children. >> despite her nerves, gail sikes was pressed into service. at around 10:30 a.m., the kidnappers instructed quinn's mom to go to mikeler's landing, an area along the beach, and there she would find further instructions in a bathroom. gail left her daughter's house. the money was in a blue bag,

along with a tracking device, courtesy of the fbi. at the location, quinn's mother found the designated bathroom. hidden inside the toilet paper holder was a note. it looked again to be in quinn's handwriting, and gail read it aloud to investigators. >> "so far i'm fine. no harm has been done to me. after you pick up this letter, you are going to drive north toward joe's crab shack. drop the money out of the car and do not look back. anything goes wrong and i'm dead." >> up to this point they didn't want to hurt her, they had no intention of hurting her, but now it says "anything goes wrong i'm dead." >> they're escalating it? >> yes. >> undercover agents converged on joe's crab shack, a local restaurant popular with tourists. >> we've got surveillance units

out, we've got an airplane out. >> you're watching? >> we're watching. >> quinn's mom drove to the crab shack. >> i drove through, came around the corner and there were bushes sitting on like a sidewalk area. i stopped the car, rolled the window down, threw the money toward the bushes. >> did you tell investigators to watch the money carefully? >> absolutely. >> you guys all on to this? >> yeah. >> all right. because i don't want some stranger to come along and pick up that bag. >> the plan is to see who picks up the bag and then, what, follow them back to presumably where quinn is? >> right. we knew at their level they were going to be aware of a tracking device, they knew they were going to be surveilled. so really someone grabbed that bag we were taking them down. >> sharon shore, an fbi agent, monitored the situation from the command center as undercover surveillance teams reported back from what was happening in the parking lot. >> it wasn't too long after she threw the money out that a group

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investigators seem to have caught a big break in quinn gray's abduction when several men in an suv picked up the bag of ransom money. police were tracking the car and were confident this would lead them to quinn. but turns out there were more twists in this story than anyone could have imagined. here again is josh mankiewicz. >> the ransom drop had been made.

sheriff's investigators and fbi agents believed they might be on the verge of breaking the kidnapping case of quinn gray. undercover teams and an fbi plane were following several men in an suv who had just picked up the ransom money from a restaurant parking lot. investigators were hoping the men didn't notice the tracking device in the bag or that the bag only contained $10,000. fbi agent in charge james casey. >> the kidnappers asked for $50,000. >> right. >> you didn't give them $50,000, you gave them ten. >> we gave them less than $50,000. >> and they said don't put a gps tracking device in. >> right. >> and you did. >> right. >> is that standard procedure, to sort of ignore kidnappers when they say that kind of thing? >> look, we're in charge of how this goes, not them. the idea was get the bag to them and find out where they are. >> but then came something no one expected. quinn's mom, gail sikes. >> quinn called and said where's the money, they're going to kill me. where's the money? >> and you said? >> i dropped it. absolutely. >> jesus, quinn, what kind of people are these? i told you, you go to the crab shack and there's a huge parking lot on your right. >> listen to me, hello. >> and for the first time everyone heard the voice of one of the kidnappers.

>> was anybody following you? >> no, i don't -- certainly not. >> anybody follows you, you know what happens. >> what? i'm sorry? hello? >> when you hear that guy's voice on the phone, that changes everything. >> absolutely. she said early on it was three albanians grabbed her over a loan shark and we've got a male there. >> at last, a solid lead. but everyone, including the fbi's james casey, was perplexed over why the kidnappers were still asking for the money. didn't they have it? >> they pulled into a gas station not far from joe's crab shack after they had done a little bit of driving around. so as we're sitting there watching them, a jacksonville beach police cruiser pulls into the gas station and starts

talking to these young men. >> and you're thinking what? >> we had no idea what was going on. >> trying to keep the kidnapping quiet so as not to tip off the local media, the fbi and sheriff's department had not told the local police about the ransom drop. so a frantic call was made to the jacksonville beach police instructing officers to bring the suspects in. detective howard cole of the sheriff's office rushed to the scene. >> immediately everybody, rightfully so, says these guys are involved, we need to interview these guys and we need to find out what the connection is. >> one man told the detective he was german. >> what's your address in germany? >> hamburg, germany. >> even though they were from germany, could they have had some connection with the albanian men quinn mentioned in her first call to reid? >> we walked back like crossing the parking lot. we saw that blue bag. one of the guys was joking and said yeah for sure there's money inside. that's a lot of money, what are we going to do with it? >> but in an unbelievable stroke of bad luck, it turned out these men were not the kidnappers. >> and it becomes pretty clear

pretty quick that these guys were in the wrong place at the wrong time. >> the men were actually college exchange students. two of them played on the same tennis team. >> they looked at a bag and said, hey, wouldn't it be cool if there was some money in that bag? it was really that simple, that coincidental, and couldn't make it up. >> the college students stumbled onto the bag, picked it up and got scared when they saw cars following them. they then called 911. >> we found a blue bag in a parking lot and there was like a huge amount of money in there and we just want to give it to you guys. >> they came down to jacksonville beach to have some fun. >> and they wound up with more than they expected. >> a lot more. >> it was a chance encounter that had everyone on edge. alhe ml of teyrop attempts, butler boulevard, chick-fil-a and now joe's crab shack had ended in failure.

>> three attempts at a ransom drop. the money never actually changed hands. >> no. >> the kidnappers never actually got the money. >> no, no. >> i turn to the fbi and said what's happening with the money? he said, well, we don't exactly know where the money is right now. i said great. you've gotten my daughter killed. >> the real kidnappers were still looking for their money. and of course it wasn't at the drop location. >> it's tense. and mom's a wreck. mom is getting upset because mom knows she dropped off the money. >> everything went south at that ransom drop. >> and we still didn't know who we were looking for. we were back to square one. >> back to square one, again. >> again. >> you were kind of at the end of your rope? >> absolutely. >> it's not like a tv show, is it? >> no. >> it had been about 43 hours

since quinn disappeared. as the fbi prepared yet another bag of money, the kidnappers called back. it was the same male voice from before, and he was angry about the lack of progress. >> listen, i'm sick and tired of this [ bleep ], okay? i'm sick and tired of it. you've been giving me [ bleep ] left and right. >> reid has been giving you [ bleep ]? >> tuesday morning he's going to go to the bank, he's going to pick up $50,000 and we'll arrange somewhere else to meet. >> more bad news for everyone, it was sunday of that labor day weekend. monday was a holiday. the banks would be closed, guaranteeing that this drama would last for at least another day and night. >> we're all thrown for a loop when we hear this. we didn't want to string this out two more days. >> not wanting to drag this out any longer, investigators decided to try a risky new strategy and told quinn's mom to

now take an aggressive approach whenever she talked with the kidnappers. >> that's a big gamble. >> we tried to take a little more control. we were still being cooperative. we were very clear that we were willing to pay the ransom. >> i did not get the money, nobody has the money. >> you know, i tell you seriously, i think you're lying to me. >> i'm what? >> i think you're lying to me. i think you got it. >> but then something frightening happened. that aggressive approach might have backfired. >> did you hear that? >> what? >> did you hear that round? >> the what? >> did you hear the round i just fired? >> no, my god, i didn't hear the round you just fired. no. >> okay. well listen. your daughter is fine, she just talked to you. keep it up. >> if i heard a round, you let me talk to her again. >> it was completely unexpected. i was in a situation of hopelessness and i figured that i would never see her again and

that was so sad because she would never be able to be a mother again and she would never see her children again. >> was that a gunshot? investigators couldn't hear it. what did it mean? and, was quinn still alive? the moment you realize you're ready to make dinner but your oven isn't. at lowe's, we have more appliances to choose from. so, you'll find the right one, at the right price and we'll deliver it for free. get up to 35% off select appliance special values at lowe's.

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this thing is like... first kid ready here we go by their second kid, every parent is an expert and... ...more likely to choose luvs, than first time parents. live, learn and get luvs returning to our story, there were three attempts to deliver the ransom money to quinn gray's kidnappers, and all

of them had failed. with no money changing hands, it it was sunday afternoon, almost two full days since quinn was abducted. and after a terrible morning when the money drop at the crab shack restaurant turned so disastrous, a text message, apparently from quinn, was sent to her mom's cell phone around 2:00 p.m. "mom, please, no cops. i am so sorry about all of this but they are pissed and i want to see my girls." the fbi's hostage negotiator was tony kravith. >> do you think about the kids in a situation like this? >> absolutely. you can't not. reid made arrangements for them to stay elsewhere so they would be somewhat shielded by this. we're in the business of preserving life. that's what we do. >> do you think quinn, maybe she's not even alive anymore? >> we don't know. we don't know for sure. >> investigators were becoming increasingly worried because they hadn't actually heard quinn's voice since the day

before. then at about 5:25 that evening, another text message came in to quinn's mom's phone. "i do not get access to my phone. have reid check his e-mail, pic of me taken. did he get all of the money?" and in reid's e-mail there was this photo of quinn. >> what can you tell from this photo? >> well, it certainly looked to me as though quinn was very distraught, maybe had been crying. she didn't look like quinn at all, not at all. >> the photo was taken using a cell phone and the background could be anywhere. but investigators got lucky, because there's a little known technology built into that photo, and it offered investigators a huge break. >> they didn't know that a photograph taken on an iphone and e-mailed to somebody else has gps coordinates on it? >> yeah. >> i didn't know that. >> yeah. we were very quickly able to check the photograph and find the gps coordinates in there. we knew exactly where that photograph had been taken. >> investigators rushed to this

location in jacksonville. >> how long after you looked at that photograph did you have agents headed to the scene where it was taken? >> minutes. >> but there was no one there. later that night the kidnappers called back and quinn's mother, again at the urging of the fbi, kept up a tough negotiating stance. >> i want quinn in my car, i'm just warning you. i'm not going to give you the money until you have quinn in the car. >> i'm telling you what to do. >> i'm telling you what i'm going to do. >> did that aggressive approach seem to work? >> i think so. i really think so. >> another ransom drop was planned. >> all right, i talk to her first, i see her and she walks across and gets in my car. >> ma'am, i'm making the decision, not you. >> no, no, i'm sorry, but i am going see my daughter and i'm going to have her in my car. i've got your [ bleep ] money. let me see my daughter and i want her in my car. do you understand?

>> was this at last the end of this ordeal? it was not. because the kidnappers never showed, and quinn's mom returned home. that's when investigators realized they had a new problem. >> deputies in st. johns county are looking for a ponte vedra woman who didn't return home last night. >> the story of quinn gray's disappearance somehow broke on the local news. a story investigators had been trying to keep out of the press. >> this hits the news. you weren't expecting that? >> i wasn't. we'd been pretty fortunate to have this go a couple days without it being on the news. quite frankly, we don't want them to see it either. >> but the kidnappers did see it and they were not happy. quinn's mom received a text. why is she on the news? >> that was one of those, oh, boy. you know, oh, boy. now what are we going to do with this one? >> remember, the kidnappers had threatened quinn's life if police became involved. the fact it was now hard to deny since it was on the news.

so investigators came up with a cover story. the deputies found quinn's abandoned mercedes suv and came to her multimillion-dollar home to make sure she was okay. they had quinn's mom send a text. >> quinn, the police have found your car. they came here and they are now searching for you. call me, as i am now very worried. i love you. mom. >> did the kidnappers seem to buy that? >> yes, they did. >> but that good news would be short-lived as the next call from quinn would send everyone into a panic. >> quinn, quinn, what's wrong? quinn? quinn!

>> it was monday, three days since quinn gray's kidnapping, and there had been no

communication with the kidnappers since the night before. the fbi's tony kravith switched strategies. >> we had three drops go bad but we wanted to give them a way out. and we wanted to give them a way out. >> what was the way out you offered? >> nobody has been hurt. if they drop you off somewhere, if they just let you go, nobody will know the difference. >> just let her go? >> just let her go. >> monday morning turned into afternoon. quinn's mom seemed to be getting desperate. she sent a text on her own to the kidnappers, without fbi approval. "i am heartbroken, and girls probably no longer have a mother. you have no heart. and i pray that what goes around comes around." >> she was angry. she was tired. she was worried. >> angry at you? >> angry at all of us, i think. we weren't able to bring her daughter home yet. >> throughout the ordeal, reid gray, who was pushed into the

background after the kidnappers said they didn't want to deal with him anymore, had been alternately upset and angry as well. detective howard cole spent some time with quinn's husband. >> i think there was times when he actually wanted to go get the money out of his own bank account and make the money drop. i think there was times when he thought we didn't know what we were doing. >> what was your sense of reid himself? >> seemed like a real decent guy. >> genuinely worried about his wife? >> yes. i mean, he was helpless, he was powerless and he was depending on us to fix it. and i just really was very empathetic. i put myself in his shoes and i thought he dealt with it pretty well, considering the circumstances. >> reid waited at his home. everyone waited as minutes became hours, hoping for some contact. but there was nothing. quinn's mom was so stressed that tony kravith suggested a change of scenery and had her brought to this back courtyard of the fbi's jacksonville headquarters. it was around 6:00 p.m. >> gail picks up the phone. her whole physical being

changed. >> and it was quinn. >> quinn, quinn, what's wrong? >> and she was completely hysterical on the phone, screaming literally. she was screaming at me. >> quinn, quinn! talk to me, please! >> she was completely incoherent at that point. i couldn't even understand what she was saying. >> quinn, did they hurt you? >> tony kravith could only hear one side of the conversation. >> gail's blood drained from her face, her legs start to shake, her knees go weak. nobody can understand what she's saying, and then -- >> quinn, quinn. >> she hangs up. >> you think maybe they were attacking her or killing her then? >> we don't know. but this is the first time that she sounds hysterical, so we don't know now if she's hurt. it sounds like she's very upset. >> while tony kravith tried to calm quinn's mom, somebody else had already heard from quinn. a 911 operator.

>> what's your emergency? >> my name is quinn gray and i was kidnapped. and i'm not sure where i am right now. >> okay, what's happened? >> she was free. >> i need you to take a deep breath, okay? >> i was kidnapped. >> shaken and in tears, quinn said she was just dropped out of a white van and was now standing near a mall shopping center in front of a restaurant. >> somebody is on the way, okay? >> okay, thank you. >> sheriff's deputies headed to quinn's location, while she stayed on the line with 911. >> in a room. i don't know. like a warehouse or something. he tied me to a chair with duct tape and these ties. you have no idea what i just went through. >> i cannot imagine and i'm so sorry for you. >> deputy trent dot was one of the first to find her.

>> she was acting very erratic, was flailing around a lot and was yelling on her cell phone. >> quinn was brought to the fbi's jacksonville office, where her mom and brother-in-law met her. >> and it's not quite the joyful reunion you'd expect? >> as far as being joyful, no. she was hysterical when she saw me for the first time. of course i was hysterical and we ran to each other, embraced each other and cried together. >> an audio recorder in one of the fbi's interview rooms picked up quinn's voice from the hallway. >> you guys almost got me killed. >> quinn was then led alone into that interview room and one of the first things she told the agents there was that she felt her husband didn't really want to save her life. >> i feel like my husband wanted me dead. 100%. >> why is that? >> the man makes a lot of money. let's just say that maybe my life isn't worth him paying it back. i feel that there is a very dark

and sinister side to my husband that i've alwaysensed in a way. >> was there something about reid gray that investigators didn't know? and could he have had anything to do with his own wife's kidnapping? copd makes it hard to breathe.

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