tv Dateline NBC NBC October 17, 2011 3:05am-4:00am EDT
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he would bring 60 or so different folks. >> and give me a sense for the kind of money they'd drop here? >> they'd spend sometimes 3, 400,000 a year maybe. >> he was a good customer? >> good customer, yes. >> roger had a knack of combining business and pleasure. if he was the host, jimmy was the master of ceremonies. roger had the cash, jimmy had the cachet to show the guests how to plunge head first into everything this island paradise had to offer. with money no object, they had these down to a science. bring in guests by plane and boat, let the sun sets do the rest. in december, 2006, jimmy, taylor
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and her mom candace were back there for a two week vacation. they would spend new years together, an especially important day for taylor. >> my birthday is new years. we had like a band come. we were all like partying. it was a lot of fun, craw fishing every day. >> roger provided everything for his guests on those spanish key holidays. the best food and drink, champagne and filet mignon. his guests didn't spend a dime. also sent over three of his power boats to the bahamas, including this 38 footer. jimmy skippered this which roger bought before christmas for $200,000. before roger bought the boat, it had been used in a movie version of a classic florida tv show. >> the 38 foot donz ee that jim was piloting and captaining had been used on the filming of miami vice. >> this is the one used in one of the night scenes in the 2006
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miami vice movie. when the vacation was over, jimmy's family flew home, while he skippered roger's new boat back to florida. this is home video of jimmy leaving the bahamas on the morning of january 12, 2006, saying good-bye to friends at the dock. >> see you in a day. >> love you! be safe! >> behind jimmy was roger's son chris, followed by brian pratz in a three boat caravan. jimmy, 54, the experienced captain, insisted on safety in numbers. his sister-in-law teresa. >> that's jim, he would have taken care of them. they were younger, being the son of a friend of his, it was very important that he would be the father figure and making sure they got back safe. >> the three boats headed west, stopping at grand key for lunch and gas. jimmy topped off with more than
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enough gas to make the trip to florida. around noon, the three headed into open waters, and jimmy was in a zone. >> he had made that run dozens of times. >> i would say jim had made that run in the hundreds of times. >> but later that afternoon came news that the perfect vacation had turned into a nightmare at sea. back in florida, jimmy's brother got a call from jimmy's wife. >> candace called and said jim was missing and that the boys, meaning brian and chris had lost sight of him. >> missing. lost sight of him. it must be a mistake, jimmy's family thought. >> going to have a tough time of that. let's see how that goes. >> when word reached jimmy's best friend roger, he didn't believe jimmy could just vanish, his fate unknown. he vowed at that moment he would do everything he could to find him. while an ocean search was about to begin, jimmy's friends
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were convinced he'd be back, with a great story to tell. >> they're saying he probably is drinking and waiting for someone to find him. >> when lost at sea continues. women everywhere are joining the revolution against scrubbing on their hands and knees. they're using new resolve easy clean to deep clean their carpets. its upright brush with activating trigger removes three times more dirt than vacuuming alone. it's just one, two, three easy steps for beautifully clean carpets. resolve easy clean. don't just vacuum clean. resolve clean. take toast. spread with i can't believe it's not butter! add jacques. he's french. oui. ♪ oui like. [ male announcer ] fresh butter taste with 70% less saturated fat than butter. [ kim ] you can have it all.
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and the bahamas, where the gulf stream currents swirl north, jimmy trindade and his 38 foot power boat were lost. >> i didn't believe it. didn't think much of it at all. >> some of jimmy's friends who had made the trip with him many times weren't too concerned. >> jim knew how to ran boats. he was not prone to mishaps. had something happened to the boat, they would find jim. >> you figured he would have a story to share. >> yeah. >> it was chris gamblin who radioed the coast guard to say jimmy was missing. the coast guard put out an alert, and geared up for a search and rescue operation. paul alber met them when they
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pulled into a marina. by then they were three hours overdue. >> what did they say happened? >> the smallest boat had a mechanical issue, they had to slow down and take care of it. >> brian was in the smallest boat, jimmy was in the biggest and fastest a few miles ahead. >> they radioed saying we have a problem, we need to stop, and he indicated to them he would wait for them, but when they tried to reestablish contact after they cleared up their breakdown, they were unable to contact him. >> so they told you that they never talked to him again or saw him again. >> that's correct. >> they said they were in a hurry to get to jimmy's house where his family kept vigil. after looking at their boats, alber let the young men go. >> his brother patrick. >> we suggested they come to candace's house. we need to talk to them. >> chris and brian tried to reassure jimmy's daughter taylor, saying jimmy the experienced boater was probably
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taking it easy, waiting for help. >> actually joking about it, saying he probably ran out of gas and that he's looking for them, drinking his rum on the boat, waiting for someone to find him. >> but chris's father roger was taking his best friend's disappearance very seriously. roger, a man used to getting no matter what the cost immediately lined up private search planes and boats to look for jimmy. but there was a problem. president george bush and air force one were in the county that day. >> at that time, there was a no fly zone called. >> when hours left waiting, roger immediately got a plane in the air. but then darkness turned blue seas to black. the coast guard also launched a falcon jet with infrared nice vision to comb the waters. around midnight, it spotted something about 40 miles off the coast of florida. >> got him. he's at 10:00. >> got it.
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okay. >> we get the call from the coast guard they had identified the boat and they were sending a marine boat or cruiser to intercept it. >> and you're thinking at that point good news. >> i think great, good news. if they found the boat, my thought is they found my brother. >> do you guys see any people? >> then another call, more good news. >> got a call later in the morning that the infrared showed perhaps someone was on the deck, but not moving around. we're thinking maybe he is sleeping on the deck. >> perhaps it would turn out to be another sailor story to laugh about over a beer. then at 5:00 a.m. the phone rang again. >> it was a woman coast guard on the phone that said we boarded the boat and i need to report to you there's no one on board. >> your heart hit the sink. >> what do you mean there's no one on board?
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how could that be? then the second thought was he's gone. how can i live life without my brother? >> what did your mom say to you? >> she said tay, they found dad's boat, but he wasn't on it. and i didn't know what to think. i just started crying. >> but jimmy's best friend roger was not about to give up hope. his private search would turn into an obsession. one that would eventually force him to choose between his best friend and his family. that search would begin with jimmy's boat, what searchers found and did not find was disturbing. >> looked like if i had wiped everything down, made it nice and
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the early morning call hit jimmy trindade's family like a lightning boat. the coast guard found the boat doing small circles off the coast of florida. but when the coast guard boarded the boat, jimmy was no where to be found. >> do you guys see any people? >> no. i didn't see any people. >> once the boat was found and your father was not on it, what did you think happened? >> i was in such shock, i didn't know what to think. i thought about all of the scenarios and figured something bad had to have happened. >> the coast guard had boats and planes searching the water for any signs of jimmy. but roger gamblin, jimmy's best friend thought more should be done. it had been 18 hours since anyone had heard from jimmy. so once again, roger sent out private search planes. three this time, as well as a helicopter and boats.
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fred, one of jimmy's friend, flew one of the search planes. >> between the volunteers and the coast guard, there was a virtual armada looking for jimmy. >> yes. a lot of resources out there. >> at his house, roger brought in guys to set up computer programs to track winds, tides, weather conditions. walls were plastered with nautical maps. >> when i got there, he has a war room set up. >> a war room. >> looks like he was manning for a maiming or search party, find this guy. >> jimmy's disappearance was big news in south florida. reporter jan tugwood covered the story for the palm beach post. >> i thought this is a guy who is desperate to fiend his best friend, and he talked to me and cried several times. he was distraught. >> and there was good reason to be distraught. roger learned that coast guard searchers that bored the boat had ominous reports about what
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they had found. >> from almost the moment you pulled up to that boat, you thought something was wrong here. >> something was off. >> out of place. >> something was definitely off. it was. >> there was something odd that struck coast guardsmen about the boat. >> my first reaction was this is a clean boat. >> too clean they thought for a boat that had been out at sea for so long. it didn't have sea spray or even footprints on the deck. >> did it appear somebody scrubbed this boat down? >> looked like if i had a boat, washed it on the trailer, wiped it down, made it nice and clean and set it in the ocean. that's what it looked like to me. >> for those that boarded the boat, the donzi wasn't giving up many clues about what happened to jimmy trindade. >> were there any signs of a struggle? >> not that i saw. >> any blood that you could determine? >> not that i saw. >> jimmy's disappearance was the
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subject of much debate. could it have been pirates? drug smugglers? or maybe just an accident, maybe jimmy fell overboard? for a guy that spent most of his life on the water, the accident scenario didn't make sense. the conclusion most came around to was that he was a victim of high play. >> a local boater disappeared on the high seas. >> in the weeks following, chris appeared on a local news report. >> come this way. >> and roger getting national exposure on gres a van sus tren's show. >> he has been working around the clock searching for jim. you believe it is foul play? >> i feel 100% certain it is foul play involved. >> on a local news report, roger speculated who might have been involved in jimmy's disapeerps. >> you realize there's possible
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drug smugglers and unsavory people out there. >> drug smugglers? jimmy trindade, a successful business man, had no history of drug use or smuggling. why would anyone think that. but one federal agent that knew a lot about drug smuggling on the high seas was about to uncover a link that might explain what happened to jimmy trindade. >> jimmy trindade's 38 foot donzi was sabotaged. >> sabotaged. >> when "lost at sea" continues. this team of guinea pigs to row this tiny boat. guinea pig: row...row. they generate electricity, which lets me surf the web all day. guinea pig: row...row. took me 6 months to train each one, 8 months to get the guinea pig: row...row. little chubby one to yell row! guinea pig: row...row. that's kind of strange. guinea pig: row...row. such a simple word... row. anncr: there's an easier way to save. get online. go to geico.com. get a quote. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.
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within a week of jimmy trindade's disappearance, the coast guard had called off its search, but his best friend, roger gamblin, kept looking. for jimmy's daughter taylor, roger was her best chance. >> we had planes going out every day searching for him, boats. it was really scary because they said the seas were extremely, extremely rough and that if he were in the water, there was no hope for him. >> with the coast guard stepping out of the picture, now the fbi became more active, investigating the possible death of jimmy trindade at sea.
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but roger gamblin wanted to mount his own investigation independent of the fbi. he had set up his war room, and now had a website staffed by what he called the jimmy t recovery team. he also hired three retired fbi agents to help as private investigators. when the coast guard returned roger's 38 foot donzi, he parked it in his driveway, and had his employees take everything off, checking to see what might be missing. obsessed with detail, roger made sure everything was video taped. one of the retired fbi agents did forensics, looking for blood, hair, fiber, prints, anything on what might shed light on what happened. >> the thing with overpower jimmy. >> could be somebody's blood on power. >> the one problem we had with it, we received the boat a week
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later after the incident had taken place, where tons of people had walked on the boat. >> to say the least, this was a compromised environment, if not contaminated? >> i would say beyond compromised. there was nothing there of evidentiary value we could find. >> as the months went by and with no arrests, the fbi investigation seemed to be languishing. jimmy's family had a judge declare him legally dead, and that seemed to be the end of the story. then ten months after jimmy's disappearance, a possible break. a homeland security agent named don guthrie got a call from an informant of his, a former drug smuggler. guthrie spent 30 years on the ocean chasing drug smugglers. he asked we disguise him. >> the smugglers asked me if i was sitting down. i said why. why. he says well, i'm in the bahamas and the word is that jimmy trindade's donzi, 38 foot donzi was sabotaged by somebody
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pouring water in the gas tank and this endeavor was related to a cocaine smuggling venture. >> this was the first time someone had come forward with specific information that drug smugglers were involved in jimmy's disappearance. investigators had found a small baggy of cocaine and some rest due on the boat, but guthrie ruled out that the drugs belonged to jimmy. so if they weren't jimmy's, who did they belong to, and why was the boat sabotagesabotaged. looking for clues, guthrie went back and questioned the coast guard men that boarded the boat. one told guthrie when he checked the gps to find out where jimmy had traveled that night, the gps for the most part had been erased. >> i couldn't determine where exactly the boat left from and get its course and where it was headed. it was strange. something definitely didn't add up. >> there was something else about the boat that didn't add up to the coast guard. >> when we got there, it was
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sitting dead in the water. so i turned the key to see if there was fuel in the boat, and the gauge said water in fuel. >> jay crystal with the coast guard found the boat was empty of fuel but had a lot of water in the tank. that much water would force the engines to run poorly and possibly burn out. as the coast guard infrared camera showed, only two of three engines displayed any heat from running. the third engine had already shut down, causing the boat to go around in circles. but where could the water have come from? rosie curry owns the grand cay marina where he gassed up. >> never had a problem with water in the fuel. >> that never happened. >> that never happened. >> if it didn't come from the marina's fuel supply, it appeared to agent guthrie that the informant's tip was correct. >> there was three to four inches of water in that 320 gallon fuel tank on the 38 foot donzi. it appears that the vessel may
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have been sabotaged at grand cay. >> guthrie concluded as jimmy left grand cay, a drug deal was about to go down at sea, and the participants didn't want jimmy showing up to interrupt. so they sabotaged his boat to slow him down. but agent guthrie believed the sabotage didn't work as planned. >> jimmy may have pulled up on a scene. >> on a drug deal. >> on a drug deal that was occurring, and basically he argued with one of the smugglers and this interview blasted jimmy on the 38 donzi and killed him. >> this information comes from a reliable, confidential informant? >> it comes from a reliable person that basically has a lot to lose by admitting this endeavor, and that's all i'm going to say right now. >> but there was one piece of the puzzle that guthrie had yet to figure out. what was jimmy doing in the middle of a drug deal? what made him stop in the first place. jimmy's brother patrick thought the last two people to see jimmy
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alive might have answers to the questions. >> when way trying to question them as to what happened, it was very obvious and gut feeling in me that we weren't getting the truth. growing suspicion aimed at jimmy's fellow voyagers. >> we were at odds because of lack of truthful answers from the last two people to see my brother. >> when "dateline" continues. [ male announcer ] good news: men use soap. bad news: men use soap that can really dry their skin. fear not, dove men plus care is here.
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as homeland security agent don guthrie started investigating the disappearance of jimmy trindade, he got an earful from the missing man's brother, patrick. jimmy's family had grown increasingly frustrated with jimmy's best friend, roger gamblin. while roger seemed to be doing everything he could to find out what happened to jimmy, patrick felt he should be looking closer to home for answers. >> we were at odds at this point because of the bizarre behavior and lack of truthful answers from the last two people to see my brother, chris gamblin and brian pratts. >> after all, roger and jimmy were the closest of friends. why wouldn't roger press his son and his son's friend for more
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information? >> did you ever go to roger and say look, damn it, let me talk to them? >> i had numerous conversations with roger to that effect but got nowhere. >> patrick's suspicions started the night jimmy disappeared. the coast guard had just called with the news they found the boat, but jimmy was not on it. >> brian and chris were laying on the couch. and i saw chris's head, and he looked up, and when he saw me, he put his head back down, like he was sleeping. >> faking it? >> yes. >> but at this point i couldn't deal with chris. i needed to continue to make sense of what was happening at that moment. >> while earlier in the evening, the two had joked, trying to reassure jimmy's daughter that her father would be okay, now with the latest news, their behavior seemed downright cruel. >> they were joking, saying that he probably fell off and swam to an island, still drinking his rum, which was weird that they were still joking about it. >> and how hurtful was it that
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this young man who had been a part of your life, your entire life. >> yeah. >> was acting this way. >> aside from it being hurtful, it was kind of confusing, like why is he acting like that. >> whatever happened to jimmy trindade on this boat, one thing is for certain. neither jimmy's family nor many of his friends nor federal investigators believe that chris and brian were sharing everything they knew about what had happened. their stories seemed to shift with every telling, and the only one who seemed to believe them was chris's father, roger, the man in charge of the massive search for his best friend, jimmy. the rift between the gamblin and trindade families would turn into a barrage of accusations of betrayal. two families, once so close, were now split along blood lines. chris's attorney, richard lumen. >> it was very painful for roger
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that this man whom he had been so close to like a brother, now his family was suggesting that roger's family had something to do with his death and he didn't like that. >> roger became so defensive about the allegations from jimmy's family, he came up with his own theories. one surprisingly was that jimmy was not dead at all. he floated the story to a local newspaper that jimmy may have engineered his own disappearance. >> is there any chance that your father would have tried to engineer his own disappearance? >> no. he loved my mother so much and loved me so much, and he would never leave us for any reason. >> and then roger attacked jimmy's wife candace, telling a reporter that perhaps she was involved. >> roger was floating stories, saying something like well, you know, his wife was the only one that would benefit from him missing. >> roger had theory after theory after theory, and most of them very bizarre, and i believe the
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reason for that would be to continue to steer people away from what i believe to be true, that brian and chris know more than they've told us. >> agent guthrie dismissed roger's latest theories, and instead went back to carefully check out chris and brian's stories. >> is it fair to say chris gamblin's story didn't hold up? >> that's fair to say. >> for example, how they say they were separated from jimmy. all along, chris said when the boats broke down, he radioed jimmy who said he would wait a few miles ahead. but jimmy's friends says as the most experienced boater and with his best friend's son behind, he would never leave them behind. >> did jimmy trindade strike you as the kind of skipper that would leave young boaters behind with a mechanical problem? >> he was very loyal to roger and he would not have allowed
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those boys to get out of his sight. >> remember, the two told investigators that brian's boat, the smallest one, had mechanical problems. the reason they gave was that an oil reservoir flipped over and stalled brian's boat. but guthrie says just before the trip to the bahamas, roger had that problem repaired. >> he replaced the oil reservoir, put a new strap on that cannister. the way it was situated in the boat between two batteries, it would make the flipping over very unlikely. >> guthrie's suspicions grew even more when chris and brian's story changed about the last radio contact with jimmy. chris said he thought he heard jimmy calling for help. >> he stated that he heard over the radio jimmy calling u.s. coast guard, u.s. coast guard, and they never made contact with him again. >> is there any evidence to support chris gamblin's claim that he heard jimmy trindade call the coast guard on his
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radio for help? >> no. we interviewed individuals that were in the area. we spoke to a florida marine patrol officer that was monitoring the radio traffic. >> he didn't hear anything. >> he did not hear anything. >> coast guard never heard anything. >> coast guard never heard anything from jimmy. >> what's more, if chris and brian heard jimmy calling the coast guard, why didn't they mention it to the first law enforcement officer they met at the dock that night? paul alber. >> did they tell you anything about hearing jimmy trindade radioing the coast guard for help? >> no. it was definitely a detail that they left out when they spoke with me. if i was traveling with a friend and i heard him calling for the coast guard, i would be pretty concerned about that. >> so the odds are. >> probably didn't happen, right. >> guthrie also learned that early on in their investigation, fbi agents had asked chris and brian to take lie detector tests. the fbi would not share those test results with "dateline,"
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but one of roger's private investigators, ross gaffney did. >> we were told there were signs of deception, and while they may not have actually participated in his disappearance that they knew something about his disappearance. >> and one other thing guthrie took a closer look at, just five months before jimmy was lost at sea, chris gamblin was arrested for cocaine and marijuana possession. in a plea agreement, chris served eight days in jail, but his record would show he was never formally convicted of a crime. agent guthrie now had his theory as to why jimmy's boat was sabotaged and who was involved in the drug smuggling. he believed jimmy tried to stop the drug deal that day because his best friend's son, chris gamblin, and his friend, brian pratts, were somehow involved. guthrie called in chris and brian with their lawyers and confronted them with that scenario. >> they posed the theory that
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somehow mr. trindade had come upon the boys involved in a drug deal, and he was killed in their presence. it's a theory, i mean, but there's no evidence to support it. >> chris gamblin and brian pratts denied they were involved in any drug deal at sea, nor witnessed jimmy trindade's murder. >> brian was consistent he knew nothing about how jimmy disappeared, that he had not been involved in jimmy's disappearance, certainly hadn't seen jimmy murdered. >> chris's attorney says the young man would never do anything to put his father's best friend in jeopardy. >> if you're going to do a drug deal, why would you do it with him anywhere around? the whole thing is crazy, just crazy. >> the attorney said even after chris was being treated as a suspect, he still voluntarily submitted to a polygraph and dna testing. roger even hired his own
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polygraph examiner. and those test results obtained by "dateline" showed no deception. chris gamblin and brian pratts have not been charged with any crime. on the two year anniversary of jimmy's disappearance, chris showed up for a jimmy t memorial golf tournament, toasting jimmy with his favorite drink, mount cay rum. >> cheers. >> back at the clubhouse, he later posed with other golfers in front of jimmy's portrait. palm beach post editor, january tu -- jan tuckwood. >> any time you have that, it is going to be a mystery that would last a long time. how strange it would get, we did not know. >> strange would be the word all right, when roger, just like jimmy, vanished. >> are these disappearances related? does roger know where jim is somewhere? >> a whole new round of
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roger gamblin had spent more than two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in his obsession to find out what happened to his best friend, jimmy trindade. but federal investigators and his best friend's family thought roger's son chris knew more than he was saying about jimmy's disappearance. the whole story was doubly hurtful. >> it broke his heart that jim was gone. and it broke his heart that anybody would think his son had anything to do with it. >> and then in june, 2008, two-and-a-half years after jimmy trindade went missing, this strange story got even stranger. roger gamblin didn't show up for work one day, calls to his phone and knocks on his door went
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unanswered. it appeared roger, the wealthy businessman and fixture in the palm beach real estate world had disappeared, along with his wife. palm beach post editor, jan tuckwood. >> so now everybody is speculating are these disappearances related? does roger know where jim is somewhere? i mean, it opens up a whole other pandora's box of speculation. who knows. >> had roger met the same fate as jimmy? or had the two best friends plotted all along to meet later in some tropical paradise. and did roger perhaps take with him the secret of jimmy's disappearance? within days, the answer became clear. roger's disappearance had nothing to do with jimmy's. the fbi was investigating funds missing from his title company, and before he could be arrested, roger took some of the money and ran. >> disappears one day, takes the
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money from his business and is gone. >> the allegation was that roger had stolen $10 million from escrow accounts, it appeared he spent a lot of it paying for bahamian parties, the miami vice boats and the search for jimmy. and when the real estate bubble burst, roger couldn't repay the accounts. they were indicted for mail and wire fraud for mail fraud and conspiracy. they were last seen heading to a private jet to texas. from there, the trail went cold. after awhile, relatives assumed roger that suffered from heart problems had died. >> earlier today, a judge heard from some of the people the gamblins allegedly stole from. >> meanwhile, creditors and homeowners that lost escrow money to roger went to court to get it back. >> it did take a big hit on me and my family. >> for two-and-a-half years, there was no sign of roger and peggy. but that was about to change,
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far away from florida in the colorado rockies. in the mountains outside durango, colorado, a couple named ron and nancy jenner showed up and rented a cabin. they made home improvements, including 12 surveillance cameras and six motion detectors. according to the cabin's owner, they said they were afraid of bears. >> they had so many surveillance cameras around that as soon as you entered the driveway, they knew you were coming and he would be out here to greet you before you could get to the house. >> they got to know some of the locals. nancy was quickly known by the nickname red. ron was too sickly to work, but nancy picked up some odd jobs. >> she worked as a cleaning lady, cleaning cabins here. >> also worked at this convenience store. >> hard working. >> last december, ron jenner went to a durango hospital with
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heart problems. he had a defibrillator. they were wondering why it showed a different name than ron jenner. they googled the name on the device, wondering why a patient would lie about his identity. the name on the device was roger gamblin, and gamblin was a fugitive. two days later, the fbi arrested roger and his wife peggy as he was released from the hospital. >> you can't make this stuff up. >> you can't make that stuff up. >> while the gamblins were under indictment and charged with stealing millions, it is unclear how much of that they still had. roger looked pretty scruffy. the month before they were arrested, peggy asked the landlord if they could pay the rent late. roger and peggy gamblin were sent back to florida and held without bond. now with roger in custody, patrick trindade saw an opportunity. he hoped roger knew more about
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his brother's disappearance and might tell all to avoid possible prison time. >> it gave me a flicker of hope that perhaps we would find out more, rather than him face the rest of his life in prison. he had spent all of this time apparently in my eyes protecting chris. i didn't think he would really stop now. >> breaking news tonight. a once high powered business man accused of fraud and conspiracy died today while in federal custody. >> roger gamblin didn't live long. one month after his arrest, he died in custody from heart failure. his wife peggy pleaded guilty to a charge of not reporting roger's crimes to authorities and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. the case of jimmy's disappearance, while still open, seems dead, too. the lead agent, don guthrie has retired from the department of homeland security. >> how much did it hurt your investigation that you didn't
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get started until ten months after jimmy trindade disappeared? >> oh, it effected it in a huge way. >> do you think had you gotten onto this right away. >> yes. >> we would have suspects in custody? >> i think so. >> for jimmy's daughter taylor, the pain continues in unexpected ways. although she stopped talking to chris gamblin long ago, recently, she received two text messages from him. >> what was the first text? >> stating that he loved my dad and that he promised his dad that he would find out what happened. >> so how did you react to that? >> i just blew it off. >> and literally, just days before this interview, chris texted you again? >> yeah. he asked me if i got the same phone calls he did, and that he heard that jimmy is going to be in the u.s. soon. >> what do you think the purpose of that was? >> i don't know if it was a hurtful text or him trying to cover up something.
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i don't know if it was just on his mind or what was going through his head. >> chris gamblin seems to believe jimmy is still alive, even though he signed an affidavit six months after jimmy's disappearance saying he believed jimmy died at sea. chris declined requests for an interview with "dateline." but in an e-mail wrote that he wanted, quote, to move on, and start over with my life. i do want to pray for healing and reconciliation for everyone. i pray that they find jimmy as well. >> what's been the hardest part of this for you? >> i just want my dad back. i wish he was around. i just graduated last year. he wasn't there for my graduation. it's just hard. >> taylor trindade, now 19, spent a quarter of her life without her father, but she still finds solace in the things that made him happy. the smell of the ocean, the salt spray, and the wind on her face. >> the ocean air remindse
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