she named him ben after the lost prince. the name sake he never got to meet. that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thank you for joining us. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> i go what are these things, anyway? he says they're these little falcons, and he goes they watch over the dead, jimmy. he goes, they do. >> what if someone asked you to risk your life? >> what if i get shanked? what if i get killed? >> to go undercover. into one of the country's most dangerous prisons. >> once they stepped out the door, i was on my own. >> to help catch a killer. >> she had such a zest for life. >> young girls were being murdered.

>> i can't imagine sending my daughter off to school, and never seeing her again. >> and investigators needed help to get a confession. >> if anybody could pull it off, he'd probably be the one to be able to pull it off. >> but this snitch was different. he was already a convicted felon. if it worked, he could win his freedom. if it didn't, he could lose his life. >> they had your back. >> they had my back. >> at least, you thought. >> that's what i thought. >> hello and welcome to "dateline." jimmy keen was a smooth-talking convict serving a ten-year sentence when he was offered an unusual deal. if he'd help prosecutors pry a confession from a suspected serial killer, including the location of the victim's body, he could walk away a free man. it was dangerous, undercover work, requiring jimmy to spend months behind bars, of a federal prison for the criminally insane.

getting in was the easy part. getting out alive would be much harder. here's lester holt with "the inside man." >> reporter: two enemies who didn't trust each other faced off across a table. one of them, in handcuffs, was a clever con named jimmy keen. the other, a hard-charging prosecutor. >> in court, he called me the john gotti. >> larry beaumont, the prosecutor who had just convicted keen and put him behind bars, suddenly, wanted to talk. a top-secret meeting, no less. what more could he do to jimmy? >> he was the last person i expected to hear from. he was my biggest fear. >> but keen's fears went off the charts when the prosecutor slid an accordion file in his direction. on top was a grizzly photo of a dead girl. >> i flip to the next page.

and here's another young, dead, mutilated girl. and i'm thinking, whoa, wait a second. >> he is probably thinking, at this point, that you're about to charge him with something else. >> yeah, because, you know, it's been pretty rough on him in the initial prosecution. >> jimmy was in the dark. he had no idea the crazy scheme beaumont had in mind. >> and he says, jimmy, he says, listen. he goes, this is something that we have another person on. he has killed many, many young women. and i, personally, think you're the one that can help us with this. >> reporter: this turn out to be an investigation to try and catch a suspected serial killer. beaumont, an outside-the-box thinker, believed this convict, jimmy keen, was the one who could, somehow, crack the case. taking on a unique and deadly mission. >> i realized how serious it was. and i, also, realized the danger of it. >> but what he couldn't know was how such a daring mission would change his world and the person he was, forever.

if this all seems fodder for a hollywood movie, brad pitt would agree. the megastar who was benjamin button, then moneyball's billy bean, considered playing, none other, than jimmy keen. >> brad pitt likes the fact that this guy, jimmy keen, risked his life to try and find what he could find. >> clearly, this guy is one of a kind. charismatic. conceited. courageous. and complicated. from an early age, he had the personality, charm, and cockiness that made him dream that a hollywood star might, one day, want to play him in the movies. his first big brush with fame came on the football field. >> i heard they called you the assassin in football. that was a good thing, i take it? >> yes, i was taught by my dad at a young age. he said, son, if you don't hit that guy first, he is going to hit you and hurt you first. >> superstar athlete and mr.

popularity in high school, jimmy seemed to have it all as a big fish in the river city of kankakee, illinois. a blue-collar town south of chicago. >> jimmy grew up in the shadow of his father, big jim. a giant of a man, who was a cop, fireman, and hero to his son. >> he was my best friend. yeah. he was my backbone, in pretty much everything i did. >> but all of keen's grand potential would be put in peril by a terrible choice he made. as a teenager, he began selling drugs. he started small. peddling bags of marijuana, here, in this kankakee park. then, he expanded to kcocaine. and at the tender age of 17, he moved to chicago, where the business and profits exploded. he was now a big fish, in a bigger pond. lake michigan, to be exact. he was his own in crowd. fast cars and souped up living.

>> all the nightclubs, i would go in and have carte blanche every place i went to. >> were you feeling invincible? >> yeah, there was a certain point i would say there was an invincible feeling. >> did your pop know what you were doing? >> he didn't suspect it, until much, much later. >> it would be a rude awakening for both his dad and jimmy that day in 1996, when jimmy was just relaxing at one of his chicago homes. >> all of a sudden, boom. the hinges come flying into the house. and they all came in, single-file line, pointed at me, freeze! get on the ground. >> he had been caught in a drug sting. spearheaded by that hard-nose federal prosecutor, larry beaumont. >> we scooped him up in an operation that i ran. we called it operation snowplow. >> and in court, beaumont showed

keen no mercy. >> he was coming at you, on all fours, wasn't he? >> he was a bulldog. >> jimmy was convicted and slapped with a ten-year sentence. >> it was a pretty stiff sentence. and i knew he didn't expect to get ten years in that case. >> your father was in the courtroom. >> i knew i had let him down, in probably one of the biggist ways you could let somebody down. >> keen's future was bleak. he faced ten years away from his glamorous life. the fancy cars. the big bucks. but in 1998, just when all hope seemed lost, his old nemesis, beaumont, came to him with an offer of freedom. attached to that accordion file he'd slid across the table. in return, keen would have to agree to risk everything, and become an undercover informant in one of the rough educaest pr in the country. the maximum-security lockup in springfield, missouri. it was a psychiatric prison with

both hardcore killers and the criminally insane. >> these people all have life sentences. they're all in there and they're crazy loons. and they have nothing better to do but to try to hurt you or kill you, just for some fun. >> reporter: if he accepted beaumont's offer, keen's target would be the suspected serial killer. a mysterious man, in a van. >> coming up. every picture tells a story. >> when i put the picture down, he flinched, raised his arm up, and refused to look at the picture. >> when "dateline" continues. he picture. >> when "dateline" continues and your health is key to that. centrum supports your body with vitamin c and zinc to help maintain your immune system today and into the new tomorrow. centrum. we love our new home. there's so much space. we have a guestroom now. but, we have aunts. you're slouching again, ted. expired, expired... expired. thanks, aunt bonnie.

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before jimmy keene's arrest and conviction, his drug business was booming and his personal life, as he tells it, was nonstop fun and games. there were a lot of hot clubs here in the '90s. this was a place you were doing business as well. >> lived, worked, and played here. yeah, it was a good time. >> back then, he had no idea about the danger lurking 150 miles south and a lifestyle away, that would change his life forever. rural, tranquil georgetown, illinois, was where carrie roach and her husband lauren were raising their children. far removed from big-city crime. >> everybody knew who everybody

was. so they were more conscious of what was going on, usually. you could count on somebody to get after your kids, if they needed it. >> in 1993, jessie was a high school sophomore, devoted to home and family. >> jessie was really very much of a homebody. so one ride up the road and back, she was done. and then, she would be watching "gone with the wind." >> reporter: jessie went out for a bike ride. but just minutes later, her sister noticed jessie's beloved bike down on its side, in the middle of the road. >> not on the side of the road, the middle of the road? >> yeah. she would have put the kickstand up. she would have never laid it down. there's the bicycle and i knew something was wrong. >> gary miller was the deputy sheriff dispatched to the scene. >> the more we learned about the family and the girl's background, we just didn't feel that she was staying away, by -- by choice.

>> reporter: the haunting image of a bike tipped over and abandoned terrified all the investigators and, of course, jessie's family. >> i mean, you never lose the hope for them not to come walking in. you know, you still hope that. i mean, we knew she was not just going to walk away. >> after six weeks, jessie's parents' worst fears were realized. her body, beaten and sexually violated, was discovered in a cornfield. >> it can never be easy telling a parent that their child is dead. >> no, it wasn't. but at least we were able to tell them this is her, she's gone. we were able to erase all doubts. >> reporter: gary miller had a murder case to solve, and it was now a federal case. involving prosecutor larry beaumont, as well. since jessie's body, actually, had been found across the illinois state line. for the next year, miller did lots of legwork, but to no

avail. >> every day you get up, were you thinking about this case? >> oh, every day. >> what have i missed? >> exactly. >> i know this case really shook him, from the beginning. and he would check any and all leads that involve young girls, and kind of run them down. >> reporter: then, in late 1994, miller's persistence finally paid off. a man in a van had been reported chasing two teenaged girls in jessie's hometown of georgetown. miller traced the fan to a man named larry hall, from wabash, indiana. a three-hour drive from georgetown. >> your heart starting to pick up a little now? >> oh, yeah, i'm thinking this has got to be checked out. >> miller learned that hall was a civil war reenactor. a pretend soldier who traveled the u.s. to fight fantasy battles. miller, immediately, drove to wabash to interview hall, who wasn't saying much. so, miller showed him a photo of jessie roach. >> when i put the picture down, he flinched, raised his arm up, and turned in his chair and

refused to look at the picture. >> convinced larry hall was hiding something, miller became obsessed with making a case against him. days later, back in illinois, miller turned up a huge lead. he found witnesses, who vividly remembered hall from a revolutionary war reenactment in the georgetown area, the very weekend before jessie was abducted. to them, hall stood out for his bushy, mutten chop sideburns. but also, for playing a soldier who was fighting the wrong war. >> he was wearing a civil war uniform, and he had a civil war hat. >> at a revolutionary war reenactment. >> exactly. >> reporter: armed with this new information, deputy sheriff miller returned to wabash for a second crack at hall. this time, he pressed his suspect harder. stressing that hall's fellow reenactors had seen him near georgetown. >> he came along, to the point

where he said, well, you know, i go to so many reenactments. i could've been there and, you know, i just don't remember because i -- i go to a lot of them. >> he's giving you a little more ground. >> right. yeah. >> miller sees the opening and kept at it. finally, he said, hall came clean and confessed that he abducted, sexually violated, and strangled jessie roach to death. >> how much detail did he give you about the killing of jessica roach? >> very good detail. what he actually did and what took place. >> not only that, miller says larry hall confessed to other killings, including a coed from indiana wesslyian university. >> deputy sheriff miller didn't know much about tricia so he called on indiana local police that had been handling that case. but when detectives arrive, hall was suddenly telling a much

different story. he denied confessing to any killing, including jessie's and trisha's. he claimed it was all a misunderstanding about disturbing dreams he had. >> he takes us out to a location where, in my dreams, i strangled her here and left her lay here. we searched the woods, searched the area, and never really found anything. >> the indiana cops who were familiar with hall were not at all surprised by his actions. some, like jk, thought hall might be a wannabe. a pretender who gets his kicks confessing to crimes he didn't commit. >> is it possible he is simply obsessed with these cases but not involved? >> there's no doubt in my mind that he does follow these cases. that he does read and is attracted to cases, all over the country. you know, so the question does come, you know, is he a wannabe? >> deputy sheriff miller and prosecutor beaumont, however, felt certain they had a real killer on their hands.

a serial killer, with a unique mo. he would drive, cross country, to reenactments where he'd play fantasy soldier. then, prey on young women and kill, for real. >> the fbi started discovering girls that were, in fact, missing at these various areas, at the time larry hall would have been there. >> reporter: but the only case for which prosecutors had sufficient evidence was jessie roach's. larry hall was reacted, in connection with her death. even though he denied making that confession to miller. hall went on trial in 1995. >> as a prosecutor, what's the best card you're holding? >> we had his statement. his confession. said he did it. >> beaumont called deputy sheriff miller to the stand to testify that hall had, indeed, admitted that he abducted and killed jessie, after he spotted her with her bicycle. >> she was walking her bike, at that point. >> miller testified that, in his confession, hall gave him a detail that only the killer

would know. that jessie was not riding her bike, but walking it. a safety precaution the roaches insisted she follow when she was on their narrow road. >> that was never in the press, that she was walking her bike that day. >> right. >> when you heard that, did that give more credence to the story? >> oh, yes. >> oh, yeah. that just sealed it for me. i knew. i knew that he was the one. >> reporter: a jury, unanimously, agreed. it took just three hours to convict larry hall. but prosecutor beaumont believed this was just the tip of the iceberg. he felt certain hall was a serial killer. and now, he had to find a way to prove it. so, he began investigating trisha wrightler's abduction. a case that wasn't his, for a family he didn't even know. >> i can't imagine sending my daughter off to school, and never seeing her again. >> and he came up with an outside-the-box scheme to get hall, which would risk the life of that charismatic convict he had just put away for dealing

drugs. jimmy keene. >> what happens when i got to deal with all these crazy killers and stuff? you know, what if i get shanked? what if i get killed? i mean, am i going to survive this? >> jimmy's get-out-of-jail-free card comes with a hefty price. >> coming up. >> they had your back. >> at least you thought. >> that's what i thought. >> when "dateline" continues. t >> when "dateline" continues find your keys.

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admit murder, sexual assaults and murders, to police officers unless, in fact, they probably have done it. so, it was clear, we felt, he was responsible for the tricia reitler disappearance. >> she had such a zest for life. and she'd walk in the room and everybody knew she was there. >> tricia knight lreitler was oy to becoming a family counselor. >> her goal was to be able to put families back together again. >> reporter: then, in march 1993, donna and gary reitler received that late-night phone call every parent dreads. a cop from marion, indiana, was on the line. >> he said do you know where tricia is? in my heart, you know, i knew that something was drastically wrong. >> reporter: tricia had walked to an off-campus supermarket, and never returned to her dorm.

more than 25 years later, her parents are still waiting. >> we have no answers. and somebody out there -- that's what eats at me -- somebody out there has that answer for us. >> reporter: tricia reitler wasn't even prosecutor beaumont's case but he was deeply moved by her parents. >> that was always a horrible crime to me. i mean, i knew about the facts of the case and i knew about the family. i never met them but i read all the newspaper articles and the accounts of them, you know, asking for help. >> beaumont felt certain that suspected serial killer, larry hall, was responsible. not only did hall live 25 minutes from indiana wesleyan. he had been identified chasing two coeds there just a week after tricia went missing. so, in the summer of 1995, a month after convicting hall for jessi roach's murder, beaumont was leading a search for tricia. it was in those same indiana backwoods where hall had told indiana authorities he dreamt he

killed and buried tricia. >> i wanted to feel like i did everything i could, to see if we could find her body. >> reporter: but after two days searching in sweltering heat and humidity, tricia's body didn't turn up. >> we cooperauldn't find anythi. doesn't mean it wasn't there. >> then, beaumont decided to try something completely different. >> i came up with the idea of putting someone in the prison cell with him, to see if we can get him to tell us what he did with tricia reitler. >> did he think you were crazy? >> most people did, yeah. but i was able to convince him to do it anyway. >> enter jimmy keene, the drug dealer beaumont had just convicted and sent to a l low-security prison. >> why did he stick out in your mind? >> because i knew he was kind of a con man. he was smart. >> he said you have been trained in martial arts. you can go into a dangerous environment, where a lot of people can't and you can maintain and protect yourself in an environment like that. >> in return, beaumont offered jimmy freedom. but first, jimmy would have to

exact more than a confession. >> i told him, unless we found the body, he would get no credit. no body, you get nothing. >> jimmy was skeptical. he was a drug dealer, not a criminal profiler. and he knew this was a mission impossible. he said no. but then, fate intervened. jimmy's dad suffered a stroke. weeks later, frail and sickly, he came to visit jimmy. >> my dad was in a wheelchair. now, this is big jim. the guy that had been superman to me, my whole entire life. we cried through the window to each over. and we talked for a while. and he didn't even know about the offer. nobody knew about it. >> jimmy now realized that he had a one-time-only opportunity to fix the mess he'd made for himself. and get out, while his dad was still alive. >> as soon as we were done with the visit, i called my lawyer. i said tell beaumont i'm going to take him up on his offer. >> the mission was on. so, on august 3rd, 1998, federal

marshals escorted jimmy into the psychiatric prison. >> once they stepped out the door, i was on my own. >> jimmy's cover story was that he was a convicted weapons runner, whose 40-year sentence pushed him over the edge and landed him in the psych prison. a psych prison, filled with killers. his one inside contact, the chief psychiatrist, couldn't protect him. nor, could his outside lifeline. a female fbi agent, who visited as his girlfriend to monitor his progress. >> i did have a hotline to her, too. so, if i got caught in a dangerous situation, i could get ahold of her. and the deal was they'd have me out of there within 24 hours. >> they had your back. >> they had my back. >> at least, you thought. >> that's what i thought. >> when keene's mission began, it was all about him. his shot at freedom. he had few feelings, if any, about tricia reitler or her family. all he wanted was to get in and out with tricia's location, and

as fast as possible. day one. breakfast in the mess hall. jimmy zeroed in on larry hall. >> i was waiting with my tray. i look over, and there he is, 20, 25 feet away from me. sitting there, all by himself. it felt like a magnet was compelling me to come to him. and finally, i bumped shoulders with him on purpose. >> jimmy explained he was a brand new inmate, needing directions to the library. hall obliged. >> i kind of slapped him on the shoulder and said thanks, a lot. i appreciate that from a cool guy like you. >> after that, they occasionally talked but the next step came when jimmy was invited to join hall's breakfast club. >> which in the prison system, it's a big thing of who you're invited to have your breakfast with. >> keene thought he was making progress. but then, prison politics got in the way. >> i left out of the chow hall one morning. and a few, really big muscular guys came up to me. and they said, hey, the old man wants to talk to you right now. right now, he wants to talk to

you. >> the old man was celebrity mafioso, also known as the odd father, who used to wander around new york city in his bathrobe, pretending to be nuts. >> he goes, hey, boy, what's wrong with you? what's wrong with you? what are you hanging around all them baby killers over there for? he goes you hang with us from now on. he goes you hang around those people, maybe somebody comes up and puts a knife in your back. and he'd be at my cell early in the morning. jimmy, get up. we're going to go play some bocce ball. >> it's all very nice. except, you're trying to get out of prison. >> exactly. >> the chin was taking up jimmy's valuable time, making it harder to even talk to hall. but then, he learned hall's favorite show was "america's most wanted." so, one saturday night, in the tv room, jimmy would make a daring move. putting his body on the line, just to gain larry's trust.

>> coming up. jimmy's new, best friend shares a nightmare. >> it was probably the hardest thing i've ever done in my life. to listen to this kind of stuff and not just rip him apart. >> when "dateline" continues. wouldn't it be nice if there was a place that kept you... ship shape soothed comfortable restocked ...and safe? well, there is, and always has been. walgreens. everyone's place, for healthy and safe. all the way out here just for a blurry photo of me. oh, that's a good one. wait, what's that? that's just the low-battery warning. oh, alright. now it's all, "check out my rv," and, "let's go four-wheeling." maybe there's a little part of me that wanted to be seen. well, progressive helps people save when they bundle their home with their outdoor vehicles. so they've got other things to do now, bigfoot. wait, what'd you just call me? bigfoot? ♪ my name is daryl.

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here's what's happening. covid-19 continues to spread in the united states, as the number of confirmed cases eclipses 5 million. more than 162,000 people have now died from the virus in the u.s. security forces fired tear gas at protestors in beirut, who took to the streets after an explosion killed almost 160 people and destroyed much of the city, earlier this week. following the blast on tuesday, around 5,000 people were injured, and dozens of people are still missing. >> now, back to "dateline."

welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. convicted drug dealer, jimmy keene, was on a mission. after making the deal with the federal prosecutor, he had infiltrated a psychiatric prison. his goal? to get suspected serial killer, larry hall, to admit to the murder of 19-year-old tricia reitler, and reveal the location of her body. if successful, jimmy would be released from a ten-year prison sentence. but, even a hardened inmate, like jimmy, would not be prepared for the horrific story hall was about to share. here, again, is lester holt with "the inside man." >> reporter: by the fall of 1998, after several months in missouri's toughest federal prison, jimmy keene could have won a popularity contest. he charmed everyone, just as beaumont knew he would. he even won over some convicts with his lending library of pornographic magazines.

and he'd managed to placate the chin and the mob faction, by day. while, circling his prey, suspected serial killer larry hall, with one-on-one bull sessions at night. >> we just talked about a lot of normal things. hung out. made him feel like i was wanting to be his friend. >> reporter: but it wasn't fast enough for keene, who feared someone might recognize him and blow his cover. >> if you went by the fbi's technical terms, i was pretty much staying right on pace. but, from my point of view of being in this place, it was -- it was starting to get very hard. >> reporter: on the outside, the mission mastermind, larry beaumont, could only sit and wait for secondhand news on how this crazy scheme of his was going. >> now, were you pacing the floors waiting for updates during all this? >> i don't know if i paced the floors, but i was eager to get updates. i had information that he was starting to trust him. they were talking. that kind of thing. >> but beaumont had absolutely

no idea that a breakthrough moment had arrived. it was a saturday night. keene and hall were in the prison's tv room, watching "america's most wanted" again. >> and here comes this big prisoner, and he is a big, muscular, buff guy. and he walked over to the tv and turned the channel. and hall looks at me and he goes, real quietly, under his breath, he says, hey, that's not right. i was watching that. i thought, you know what, this is a prime opportunity for me. >> jimmy, a martial arts expert who had continued working out in prison, was ready for this moment. he got up and changed the channel back. >> he jumped up. he's slobbering all over the place. you turn that channel again, i'll rip your damn head off. you don't touch that tv. and he's going on all crazy and stuff. he turns the channel and he sits back down. and i just looked at him and i turned the channel again. i finally threw a particular cuss word at him that i knew was going to throw him off. and as soon as he did, he took a

wild, haymaker swing at me. and i beat him to a pulp. >> afterwards, he staunchly defended jimmy as the retaliator, not the instigator, when prison officials interviewed eyewitnesses about the tv room brawl. >> you're larry hall's new hero. >> yeah. i became his new best friend and hero, too. >> jimmy could sense that his heroics had brought him even closer to hall. and now, he was ready to make a bold move. in the prison library, jimmy had figured out a strategy to draw hall out on tricia reitler. >> i noticed he was reading his hometown newspaper. and that was really important, eventually, for me to start cracking into his psyche. >> even though the goal was tricia's body, jimmy decided to ask about something that was already public knowledge. hall's connection in the roach case.

and read about jessi's case and other stories involving hall. >> she gets that newspaper from that hometown where you're from, and i said all the newspaper stories say that you've killed multiple women. >> that was a big risk, though. >> it all was a big risk. >> and i said, larry, i don't care what you're in here for but be honest with me. that's all. i said just tell me what happened, man. you know, i 'm still going to b your friend no matter what. i said i've had girls do me wrong in my life. i understand how girls can get under your skin and be bothersome to you. >> jimmy pressed hall about jessi roach. at last, hall began to open up. recalling that september day, in 1993. >> he was driving down a back, country road, and he seen her walking her bicycle. >> hall then told jimmy, exactly, how he abducted and killed jessi. >> you must have been revolted. >> oh, god, lester. it was probably the hardest thing i've ever done in my life. to have to sit there and pretend to be his friend. to listen to this kind of stuff and not just rip him apart.

but i knew what the mission involved. i knew what was at stake, for me. i knew what was at stake for the people's families, you know, that were still trying to find their daughters. >> a major transformation was taking place. jimmy was starting to care about more than just himself. and now, he was determined to squeeze the most crucial confession out of larry hall and not just for himself but for the family of tricia reitler. >> i started thinking i don't know where this is going to lead. how long this is going to take, but something's now happening. >> coming up. a disturbing discovery. has jimmy keene solved the mystery of the missing girls? >> i go what are these things, anyway? he says, they watch over the dead, jimmy. he goes, they do. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues wou. but we went to work. building an experience that lets you shop over 17,000 cars from home. creating a coast to coast network to deliver your car as soon as tomorrow.

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employ again. >> i said, you know, the newspapers say that you killed this girl from the college over here. i says, you know, what happened there? >> jimmy couldn't be sure how hall would react. had he been too blunt? too direct? no, it was all clicking. according to jimmy, hall began to open up about tricia and said he drove his van right up to her, that day he saw her outside school. >> he said that he tried to kiss her. and when he did, that she started fighting, very violently. and he said she was a very strong girl, and she fought stronger than anybody had ever fought before. >> and did he admit it? >> he said that he had killed her. and he knew that he had done it again. these were his words. that he knew he had done it again. and he said he went way out in the woods, and he buried her way out in the woods. >> hall gave a general location for tricia's body, near a river in indiana. but jimmy needed more specific information. luckily, i seemed to stumble into it, a few nights later, when he spotted hall inside the

prison wood shop, a restricted area. >> there's no guards in there. and as i came up from behind him, he had all these different statues lined up. 10, 15, of them maybe. i couldn't tell when they were at first. and as i got closer, i noticed he had a big map laid out. he dove on that map and folded that thing up really fast. and slid it off to the side of the table. i go what are these things, anyway? he says, they're these little falcons. they watch over the dead, jimmy. he goes, they do. >> and they look like? >> a good-sized chess piece. >> jimmy had a feeling the hand-carved falcons and the map were journal keepings by a serial killer. >> that map had little red dos s of it all over of indiana, illinois, wisconsin. you can see all those little spots are burial spots where he's got somebody. >> all those months of dangerous, painstaking work, had paid off.

jimmy had cracked the case. mission accomplished. >> once you see the map, the falcons, you want to tell the fbi about it, right? >> i did. i we i went to the hotline i had for the fbi girl. i called. i got some type of a voice recording. it was after hours. >> so jimmy left a message for his fbi contact to come get him, the map, and the falcons. his freedom and the answers to tricia's parents' prayers were now just hours away. >> i was elated. i felt i wrapped this up. >> you're expecting the troops to come marching in. >> expecting the troops to come marching in and didn't quite work that way. >> what he couldn't know was his fbi contact didn't get his voicemail. and his one inside contact, the chief psychiatrist, was on vacation. >> then, you got a little full of yourself, didn't you? >> i did. i went back to my cell. i was really happy. i thought, you know what? 24 hours, they said they'd have me out of here. i have got what they need.

this is it. so i went across to his cell over there. >> impulsively, jimmy decided he just couldn't leave prison without giving his fake friend a piece of his mind. >> the repulsiveness i felt about him throughout the whole time i had to stay being his friend. and the disdain and dislike i had for him, i thought it was good for me to unload on him and tell him what i really thought of him and who he really was. i said, you know, i said i'm going to be going home tomorrow, larry. i said you're a crazy killer. and i started calling him everything you can think of. >> with that, jimmy returned to his cell and waited to be released. >> going home the next day, you think. and things take another turn. >> about 5:30 in the morning, i hear some little lady, in a white doctor's smock, come walking in. >> it was hall's psychologist and she was furious that jimmy had blasted her patient, turning him into an emotional wreck. >> she told the guards, grab him, take him and throw him in the hole.

so they put me in the hole and they keep me in there. i'm not really worried. so what? the fbi's going to be here in 24 hours, they'll get me out of here. >> but morning turned into evening and the cavalry still hadn't arrived. this was hard time, at its hardest. >> you can't see if it's day or night because you're in the hole. but you can tell what time of the day or night it is by what meal's coming through the door slot. well, next thing you know, here's breakfast, lunch, and dinner. next thing you know, here's coming breakfast again. here's coming lunch again. i'm like, where are these guys? my thoughts were they did me wrong. they got what they needed. they got the info and pulled the rug out from under me. >> while jimmy was wondering where they were, beaumont was looking for him, too. >> we were like, where could he be? he's got -- he's in a prison, for god sakes. >> coming up. >> they lost you. >> yeah, they lost me. >> but had they, also, lost their best chance at finding the body of tricia reitler? >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues a gum health concern as well.

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

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

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

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

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

as something that gave him a second chance at life. >> reporter: when we last met with jimmy, he had done well in real estate and co-written a book which tells jimmy's compelling story of redemption. he said he also had several hollywood projects in the works. most notably, the movie version of his book. but jimmy is especially proud that his book reenergized some cold-case investigations. several targeting hall in indiana and wisconsin. at least, one near a civil war reenactment site. investigators dug up locations where hall spent time over the years. and found articles of women's clothing and a belt, modified with wooden handles. all sent out for dna testing. but cold case detectives following fresh leads, still, haven't developed enough evidence to bring charges.

>> i did a good deed. and i did a lot of good things. and that's where i feel the redemption comes in. i've done something good for the things that i did wrong. >> that's all for this >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." i just can't see why someone we knew would want to hurt her. >> how could this happen? how could this happen to someone that we knew? it's been a very long 13 years. homecoming queen hannah hill was just 18 when she disappeared. everybody's sweetheart. >> this doesn't happen to people like her. what, why, where, when? >> and who? was it her boyfriend?