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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Where my dad's cabin was, there are not

a lot of people.

You can't just call for help.

The area is very isolated.

It can be very dangerous.

Everything was completely dark and immediately I knew

it was bad.

He came out with a gun.

They didn't know, should I run, should I

not?

Is he going to shoot me?

I even remember thinking I didn't even tell

my parents where I was going today.

My biggest horror was like, who's going to

be next?

July 28th, 2015.

I was 19 years old.

I was just hanging out with some buddies,

Will and King.

Will was like, hey, let's go shoot.

He just got a new .22. We pack

up, get some rounds, get some guns, headed

towards Caliente to Will's dad's cabin.

Caliente, California.

It's a beautiful place, really.

It's about 25 minutes away from Bakersfield.

And it's about 15 miles of rugged terrain

going up to the cabin.

That desert area butts up against mountains where

the trees start, so you have thick forest.

And then it gets into very steep cliffs

and very hazardous terrain.

I'm talking about rocks.

I'm talking about going vertical on rocks.

You need a four-wheel drive.

A normal SUV won't get you up there.

It has to be some type of off

-road vehicle.

They drove to a point where they park

and then they take a quad and they

drive up the rest of the way on

a dirt road to the cabin.

We're just listening to rock music, talking mess.

You know, we get to the cabin.

It's very isolated.

There's trailers, RVs, a full-out shooting range.

Just a full-on man cave, basically.

As they park and they're getting their gear

and everything, they are confronted by a gentleman.

My first thought was like, oh, that has

to be Will's family.

So I was pretty cool at first.

I was like, hey, what's up, dude?

I noticed he didn't say anything.

He was wearing all green.

He had a sawed-off 12-gauge.

He had a bag that sounded like a

bunch of rounds in it.

He also had a pretty long knife sticking

out of his sleeve, like he was ready

to hunt or kill.

He was out in the wild and he

was prepared for it.

He approached us and my buddy Will was

like, what the hell?

What are you doing here?

You're trespassing.

And he's like, there's no one that lives

here.

It's just me.

That's when I knew this is bad.

And from there on, that's when everything went

downhill.

He was definitely saying crazy things.

He told us about the government dropping him

from space in a body bag.

Made him seem unhinged, made him just crazy.

And I kind of started freaking out.

I even remember thinking like, man, I didn't

even tell my parents where I was going

today.

I just took off.

Then he directed them into the cabin with

him at gunpoint.

They didn't know, should I run?

Should I not?

Is he going to shoot me?

Outside the cabin, he specifically told us, you

sit in one corner, you sit in one

corner and you sit in the middle.

We were all scared.

Your body goes into a certain state.

You don't feel nothing.

It's almost like you got to think of

your next move.

I definitely was thinking of my mom, my

dad, my sisters, you know.

Like, damn, like, this is it.

Didn't even say I love you.

That was the rough part.

At that time, I wasn't too religious, but

I saved a prayer.

He had the shotgun in my face.

Finger on the trigger.

And he said, bang, bang, bang.

He's like, I can kill all you guys

right now and get away with it.

Nobody will know.

Which he was completely right.

You know, middle of nowhere, no service.

Yeah, you can definitely get away with it.

It's not uncommon in the rural areas for

people to go out target shooting or hunting.

And people are not going to hear the

gunshots.

And if they do, they may think it's

just completely normal.

He wouldn't even have to bury them because

he could have left them in the elements

and they would have been taken care of

by the wild.

And no trace of them.

Three young men have just disappeared off the

face of the earth.

And no one knows why.

During that time, he was back and forth.

He's going outside, he's grabbing cans of food,

grabbing ammo, grabbing whatever he thinks he needs.

And he would leave us in the room

and we'd kind of just be talking between

each other.

What are we going to do?

My buddy Will was, we're going to try

and take him down.

And I told him, I was like, stop,

dude.

You're going to get us killed.

Do you really want to see one of

our friends get shot or do you really

want to die here?

He even actually has a bag of butane

tanks.

I thought for sure we were going to

die.

I couldn't find my way out.

I couldn't shoot my way out.

I couldn't run my way out.

I was stuck.

There was nothing I could do to get

out of this situation besides talk.

He asked me, can we smoke a cigarette,

you know?

I said, at least you can do for

us.

Hands a cigarette.

We're just talking.

He's telling us crazy things.

He talked about him knowing the devil, that,

you know, the devil brought him back to

life.

His last marriage, how it wasn't good.

Talking about how he respects us.

He even told us one time, he was

like, you guys are my friends.

I love you guys.

It was a roller coaster of emotion.

I'm going to kill you guys no matter

what.

But we were talking, talking, trying to get

out of it.

It felt like torture.

But in those few hours, we kind of

started to figure him out.

He was just on foot, breaking into those

cabins out there, taking whatever he could.

He was kind of just living freely out

there.

I mean, there's nobody around.

There's nothing out there.

I think he was more mad that he

ran into us, if anything, you know?

We kind of calmed him down to a

point where we came up with a deal.

Like, hey, you take all of our stuff.

You take our guns.

You take our side by side.

You know, we'll just walk back and you'll

be free.

They told him, please just go.

And we won't say anything.

He's like, you're just messing with me.

You're just lying.

You're just doing this to survive.

Which we were.

We all stuck to, like, a certain game

plan.

Like, we're all on the same page on

manipulating, on making this deal.

He's like, I respect you guys.

That's why I'm going to let you guys

live.

As crazy as it sounds, I shook his

hand.

The suspect took the all-terrain vehicle and

drove away in it.

That's when we ran out that cabin.

It was just like a rush of getting

the hell out of here.

Didn't even look back.

Just ran.

Ran straight to the riverbed.

In that riverbed, there's a bunch of shrubs.

There's a bunch of things that can hide

us.

And it would take us back to where

we needed to be.

There's no cellular service in those areas, so

they had to make their way to safety

before they could even make contact with law

enforcement.

We're traumatized.

Any little thing, any wind, we're looking behind

us.

We started to realize, like, we're not making

any way.

The sun's already dropping.

That riverbed is taking too long.

So we got back onto the main road.

And as we were walking down the main

road, that's when we heard him coming back

towards us.

He changed his mind.

He was going to come kill us.

We're walking down the dirt road, and we

hear the side-by-side.

He was coming back to kill us.

He did not want them going and reporting

this particular incident.

They were actively being hunted down by him.

He was mobile.

They're on foot.

We all dove face first, and as we

dove, we were capable of just rolling over

and kind of hiding ourselves from the main

road.

We laid there for a good five minutes

until we didn't hear that engine no more.

And that's when we got back up and

started hiking that trail again.

There's no doubt in my mind that he

would have eliminated those young men.

Keaton was sick.

I'm pretty sure he was dehydrated.

Dehydrated, scared, not a good mixture.

And we had to walk miles.

If you're not equipped in the mountains, it

can not only be scary, it can be

deadly.

There is coyotes.

There's mountain lions.

There's a very high population of poisonous rattlesnakes.

It can be very dangerous.

We're seeing some headlights.

I thought that he was coming back to

kill us.

Our first reaction was to hide again.

But as we got closer, we heard a

voice.

What are you guys doing?

Where's the cyber side?

And that's when we knew it was Will's

dad.

That's when I kind of felt like a

breath of fresh air.

I'm gonna make it home.

You could tell by our faces, something happened.

And that's when my buddy Will hysterically started

saying, we got held hostage, shotgun to our

head by a crazy man.

And he took everything.

That was the only way we were gonna

survive.

Will's dad takes a deep breath and is

just like, what?

And he's like, yeah, we got stuck up.

It was a quiet ride.

I didn't speak.

I was just thinking of, what just happened?

I should be dead.

Thank God they escaped and reported to law

enforcement.

In 2015, I was a senior deputy.

For the Kern County Sheriff's Department.

I had a dual role as a detective

and also as a SWAT team sniper.

We have a special operations group team that

is primarily SWAT team members that do special

missions.

We realized how lucky these three young men

were and the manhunt really started.

At some point, the kidnapper tried to get

out of the area with that vehicle and

managed to get it stuck.

He got it stuck in a very, very

remote area to where it was completely inoperable

and he fled on foot from that vehicle.

The SWAT team tried to follow the tracks

as far as they could and based on

the terrain and everything, they lost the tracks.

The three young men did a drawing to

give us a general idea of what the

guy might look like.

We knew he had darker skin, black hair,

he wore glasses and kind of wore clothing

that looked like he might have been a

hiker, but that's about it.

We had nothing on this guy.

We didn't know who he was.

We didn't know where he was and we

didn't know what his capability was.

We were worried he was going to hurt

somebody eventually if we didn't find him.

July 30th was a Thursday.

Thursday nights are an easy-going, relaxing night.

We play video games with the kids.

That night, I saw my mother-in-law

calling me and so I answered and she

was kind of hysterical saying that Dave hadn't

checked in that night.

Dave is my father-in-law and he

normally checks in before dark.

My dad's cabin was out in Jawbone Canyon.

He loved it.

He would wake up at 5 o'clock

and hop in his truck and go out

there.

The only reason my mom was not with

him was she was recovering from a surgery,

but he always checked in probably around 6

p.m. Sun would still be up.

He just wanted to let you know that

I'm in for the night and you know,

everything was great.

Cheryl was a bit distraught and wanted to

go out and check to see if he

was okay.

Early 2000s is when he actually purchased the

cabin.

It was absolutely beautiful.

It was a wood, kind of like looking

like a log cabin, you know, and windows

everywhere.

It faced where they had fields.

It faced the pond.

Very isolated.

And of course, that was part of the

charm.

It was very relaxing because we don't have

cell reception.

It let us unplug just from life.

It just gave us a couple days where

really all you did was just enjoy where

you were, like in the moment, like you're

just on vacation when he bought that.

He was looking for a place to just

have his own kind of refuge.

He wanted his own spot where he could

do just what he wanted to do.

Make it his own.

My grandpa grew up gold mining and so

he taught my dad and my dad just

loved it.

We used to joke.

I said, you're the only dentist that has

a dump truck and a dynamite permit.

I just think to myself and laugh like,

my dad is so cool.

Where my dad's cabin was, when you're the

nearest neighbor, you can't just call for help.

I mean, that's really scary.

And here's my dad who's just out there

because that's his retirement.

He loves it.

Cheryl comes over to the house and she's

very upset at this point and wants me

to drive.

So she says, you know the road better.

You know the place better.

Can you drive?

And we'll go from there.

From our house to get to the cabin,

depending on road conditions.

But I have to stay home because I've

got two little kids that are now in

bed.

My mom and Ryan leave about 9.30

and now the time is ticking and I'm

waiting.

I'm kind of doing this vicious cycle of

cell phone calls.

I'm calling my dad's satellite phone, his cell

phone, the house phone.

I'm starting to now get a little panicked

and I'm starting to yell a little louder,

Dad, it's Christy.

Dad, you need to pick up this phone.

On social media, somebody had mentioned something about

some boys getting kidnapped and not a lot

of information about it.

I thought that's somewhat close because the crow

flies.

But crossing that distance would take, especially on

foot, quite a while.

So I didn't think too much of it.

As we pulled up in the headlights, I

could see on the ranch road where it

looked like a car had skidded to a

stop and pushed up dirt in front of

the tires.

My dad was very meticulous about keeping the

roads really nice.

That's not something my dad would ever leave.

If he had done something like that, he

would have got out, raked it flat, and

made it look pretty again.

Immediately I thought that that was odd.

When we approached the cabin, everything was completely

dark and his truck isn't there.

So we think he's not here, and I

asked Cheryl, do you think we should check

the cabin just in case?

And she said yes.

Cheryl was still very frantic, as was I.

I was worried just because everything seemingly looked

fairly normal.

I had packed up my rifle just in

case.

You never know if an animal is an

issue, and on the rare case, there could

be a person.

I grabbed my rifle, had my flashlight.

Cheryl was up on the steps going into

the cabin, and I was hanging back just

a little bit, shining my flashlight, just making

sure there was nothing out of the ordinary.

I noticed that that back window was open,

and it seemed off.

I followed Cheryl in, and it was dark

inside.

I still had my flashlight on, so I

could see a little bit.

And I walked around the corner, and immediately

she screamed, oh no.

And I knew at that moment it was

bad.

Ryan runs into the kitchen, and there was

my dad.

He'd been shot, and I immediately knew he

was dead.

I knew what I was seeing.

I knew what was happening, but I couldn't

quite comprehend it.

Ryan immediately runs to my mom, and he's

like, we have to get out of here.

We were in grave potential danger.

Somebody could be out here right now.

We jumped into the vehicle, and I thought,

what if somebody climbed in here while we

were inside?

I said, Cheryl, make sure there's nobody hiding

in the back right now.

Everything's good.

We start going down the county road, and

a lot of that's a blur.

We were both hysterical.

It took us about a half hour to

get back to a cell signal, and we

stop, and Cheryl calls 911, and from their

dispatch does their thing.

At this point in time, our homicide detectives

were working the scene, collecting evidence.

What we did learn early on is that

his vehicle was missing from the residence.

Daybreak the next day, we did locate his

vehicle run off of a remote road, stuck

in very similar fashion to the ATV, and

outside of Mr. Markowitz's vehicle, we were able

to locate a shoe track on the ground

outside of the driver's side door.

Those boot marks were very, very similar in

pattern and size to the boot marks that

we located and were initially tracking at the

cabin where the three young adults were held

against their will.

That was a very significant escalation in the

case.

We suspected this was the same person that

had eluded us the first time.

I was really concerned that he's out there

free, running around.

We're in the span of two days, and

we know this person has not only kidnapped

and held people against their will and threatened

them at gunpoint, he's now murdered an innocent

person.

When you have someone who has no qualms

about taking a life from a complete stranger,

that means he has no problems taking another

life if they happen to cross him, so

this is a person who needs to be

stopped.

That makes this an all-hands-on-deck

investigation.

We dispatched special weapons and tactics team members

to Mr. Markowitz's cabin, and we began tactical

operations in that area.

For man tracking, it's not the same as

search and rescue.

Search and rescue, you're looking for someone who

wants to be found.

When you're man tracking, they already got eyes

on you, they already got distance on you.

Our whole SWAT team was split up into

two 10-man groups.

Each team had a couple snipers.

We had off-road vehicles.

We had the helicopter flying.

The plan was is hopefully find the tracks

up ahead further so that then we could

gain ground on the person.

Find this person as fast as possible.

We realized that he probably knew what we

were doing because he was circling around.

He knows we know what he did, so

he used every trick that he knew to

evade us.

It appeared that this person not only knew

the area, but he was leading caches around

for him to come back to so he

could move back and forth and resupply, which

tells us that he's thinking ahead.

Every little thing can be a clue.

It's not just footprints, candy wrapper, cigarette butt,

broken branches.

It can be clues.

We found a water bottle and some supplies

that were abandoned.

The bottle had been used.

It wasn't fresh.

It wasn't sealed, so we thought maybe we

could get a DNA hit on it.

It was delivered to the labs.

They did get a positive hit, and that's

where we first identify the stranger that we've

been tracking this whole time.

The suspect was Benjamin Peter Ashley.

Several years back, he was arrested for breaking

into houses and burglarizing the house, and so

he was in our system.

So we had a picture.

We had a name, age, all of that.

He was from the L.A. area, and

he was a drifter.

He just kind of did his own thing,

and he was very familiar with the area

and was an avid hiker.

Dealing with somebody that we think may know

this terrain puts us even on more high

alert.

This was a mountain man, very capable of

eluding us.

He was very, he was acclimated to that

type of terrain.

He was acclimated to that type of weather.

We were in his element, not ours.

And when you're in the other person's element,

they have an advantage.

On the morning of August 1, 2015, we

continued tracking.

As we came across structures and trailers and

residences that appeared maybe unsecured, and there was

nobody obviously there, we would search those to

ensure that this person wasn't there.

Now, this is a small team, because we

were a tracking team.

This was not the typical SWAT call-out.

We find the track again on a dirt

road, and we start following it.

And the tracks go into a field and

towards a house.

I tried the door, and it's unlocked.

I let my team leader know, hey, we

got an unlocked door, and we make a

game plan.

I will go first.

And I didn't see anything out of place

that just didn't feel right.

I take two more steps, and...

And then I feel the bones in both

my arms break at the same time.

And next thing I know, I'm looking at

the ceiling.

I'm laying on my back, and I see

that there's blood on both my arms.

And I call out that I'm hit.

And all hell breaks loose.

Benjamin Ashley was shooting at my team, and

my team was backing out of the house

to get away from the gunfire.

I can't fight back.

Both my arms are down.

I can't get up.

And so I was kind of like,