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I am from Jefferson Township, New Jersey.

It's my hometown where I've made the best friends

that I've ever had in my life.

1988, this terrible thing happened

a mile from where I grew up

to a kid that I played basketball with.

There was this explosion of violence

that nobody saw coming.

That just hasn't ever made sense to me.

A mother and son from New Jersy

are dead tonight.

This was brutal.

This was much more than typical murder.

Tommy was my age.

Same socioeconomic background.

We all grew up with the same rules.

Great kid, wrestler, baseball player, good student.

And his mom?

Super, super lady.

Such a small town with such a tragic event.

It was just all everybody wanted to talk about.

We prayed for Tom. We prayed for Betty Ann.

We prayed for the family that was left.

We prayed for ourselves.

The rumor mill's running wild

because people want answers.

Morris County Police

are broadening their investigation

to determine if it was linked to a local satanic cult.

We had a lotta things

that pointed toward the devil made him do it.

Is that possible?

Everybody was buying in

that this was a Satanic murder.

"To the greatest demons of hell,

I'd like to make a solemn exchange with you."

When you make a pact with a deity...

...there has to be a sacrifice.

This meeting in Morris County

was set up to make people aware

that Satanism exists.

People in the community were looking for something to blame.

I just could not believe what's going on.

You can call it the boogeyman. You can call it the devil.

The devil doing it.

It's not really a satisfying explanation.

What was going on with this family?

What's being hidden here?

Parents were terrified that their kids could be next

or that they could be next.

It's one of those moments that you question your faith.

How can this happen?

The whole room got cold.

The question was, was I talking to Satan or Tom?

It's horrifying. It's scary. It's fascinating.

It's mysterious. It's insane.

You know, Satan comes in many disguises.

And he knows everybody's weaknesses

and he knows how to manipulate them.

What he did, I don't know, but I know he played a part in it.

It wasn't God.

The suburbs in the 1980s

was the ideal place and time to be a kid.

No phones, no social media.

Just bikes, friends, and freedom.

The world felt safe and magical.

A perfect little bubble.

But beneath that innocence,

there was this thing,

this malevolence creeping in the shadows.

No one knew where or when it would strike,

but when it did, it was shocking,

and it shattered everything we thought was real.

I'm Eli Roth, and I've spent decades writing

and directing horror movies.

They entertain,

but they also tap into real fears we all have

about the darkness around us.

I've been inspired by true stories.

They conjured images in my mind

that were even scarier than any ghost story I could make up.

And it's these kinds of stories

that haunt a whole community for decades,

just like what happened in Jefferson, New Jersey,

one cold, snowy night in 1988.

I was a police officer

for Jefferson Township in the '80s.

20-something years old.

And I was really just becoming an adult, really.

Came from a family of police officers.

My dad was a police officer in Jefferson Township, also,

and spent most of my childhood

around police and police families.

I always looked up to my father and, you know,

respected him and wanted to follow in the path that he took.

I knew the police life,

and I understood it and just always found it interesting,

you know, dangerous, risky.

And I kind of enjoyed that, you know...

the adrenaline, and something I really liked to do.

Usually on a Saturday night, you'll get a call about a party

or a bar fight or something.

Officer McConley.

The dispatch said, "Oh, we got a call

that a guy couldn't find his wife."

And it was kind of a weird call.

You know, to me, it sounds like, alright,

does she have a boyfriend?

Like, you know, like,

"What do you mean, you can't find your wife?"

Copy that.

I was young, so I was aggressive.

You know, I got there quick.

It was cold and it was snowing.

And I remember a lotta snow on the ground.

When I pulled up, there was a yard

that went up kinda like a hill to the front door.

There was a group of people down by the road,

and one of the kids I played football with,

Stuart Kennedy, was in the yard with some people.

He was my age.

Yeah, we graduated together and everything,

and he was distraught.

And I got out of the car and I said, "What's up, Stuart?"

And he said, "Oh, you might need the first aid kit.

She's bleeding."

We proceeded into the house.

It was a small house. Very small.

And so we went in the front door,

and there was, like, a living room area.

We proceeded straight, and when we took the corner,

there was the steps going down to the basement.

Never expected to come across what I found.

Hello?

Is anybody here?

This is police.

Ma'am?

Blood is like oil.

If you take a quart of oil and you drop it,

it'll keep spreading.

I remember I leaned over her

'cause I didn't know if I was gonna need to do CPR.

That's when I saw that, like...

I remember, like, an eyeball hanging out of the head and all.

It was...

It was pretty, um...

I don't know how to explain it.

It's not something, you know, you'd expect to see. Like...

You know, it's like something out of a horror movie.

Then I saw weights on the floor,

and the weights were off to one end,

so I assumed that her head was bashed in,

which caused her eyeball to explode out of the socket.

And at that point, I knew that she was gone.

I went into, like, my job mode.

I didn't know if somebody had broke

into the house and killed her.

Was it a burglary that went bad? Was it...

I had no idea what it was.

I'm just, "Is there a killer in this house?"

Hello?

The basement was small...

...but then there was kind of like a utility room.

I thought for sure, because the blood

was still coming out, like, slowly,

that whoever did it was... was maybe in the other room.

You know, your blood's pumping.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!

For a second, I didn't know it was Stuart.

So that was close.

Hey.

He was shooken up. Yeah.

Once we realized there was nobody there,

then I went upstairs.

A lotta people in town had police electrons

so they could hear everything

that you talk about on the radios.

So, we were instructed that if it's something major,

call headquarters from the phone.

And then Bruce showed up.

When Bart got on the radio,

you could tell it was obviously something serious.

His voice was excited.

He was calling for the detectives,

calling for the medical examiner,

calling for additional help and resources.

In 1988, I was 31 years old.

At that time, I was a patrolman in Jefferson Township.

Married, no children at the time,

and just enjoying life.

Well, it was a nice town.

I mean, obviously I was familiar with everybody.

I grew up here.

And that's the way the town was back then.

Everybody knew each other.

It was just a normal, good place to live.

There's been other homicides within the town,

but not frequently.

Maybe, you know, once a year or once every two years.

So, this was shocking.

When I arrived at the scene, it was 11:00 at night,

about a dozen people out in the front yard.

As soon as I got out, all kinds of people

are telling me what's going on

and, you know, trying to sort out who was who

and who actually even lived in the house.

When I first entered, I noticed the smell of burnt paper.

There was books scattered about the floor

that had been on fire.

I remember just a lotta confusion, you know,

trying to figure out what was going on.

So, I'm up by the kitchen now,

and this guy comes storming in the house...

Excuse me, sir. It's a closed crime scene.

Officers, this is who did it.

This is my son. I live here.

...and says, "My son did it," like, aggressively.

What's your son's name?

Thomas Sullivan Jr.

How old is your son?

14.

He grabs a photo.

Looked like a school photo of a young boy.

And that kind of threw me back.

I said, "Well, who's that?"

And he said, "That's my son Tommy.

He killed my wife. She's downstairs."

He was excited and upset. Understandably.

I was trying to calm him down.

He was adamant that it was... You know,

Tommy was the one that did it.

But I just couldn't comprehend

that a young boy would be able to do that to his mother.

You know, an eighth grader.

I mean, he looked like... He was a child.

If you looked at the picture, it was a child.

Whatever he did to my wife.

I remember he seemed credible when I first spoke to him.

He did that. Did you see downstairs? It was him.

He was very adamant... "My son did this. Get him.

"Look, he tried to burn the house down," buh-buh-buh.

That's what really threw me off.

I have seen everything. I've seen the circle.

The father made him a suspect... I've seen my wife.

...which I found unusual because...

I don't think a father would want to blame his kid

until he knew.

Wouldn't you be worried

that maybe they abducted your son, too?

Killed the wife and took the son?

A father would protect his child.

None of it made sense to me.

There are several police reports

available from that night,

and one is a write-up from Officer Bart McConley.

In his report,

he recounts a statement from the father of the house,

Tom Sullivan Sr., about his whereabouts that night.

"He advised me that he was sick and went to bed early.

"As he was sleeping, he heard the smoke detector go off.

"He got up to see what was wrong

"and found what he thought were newspapers burning

"on his living room couch.

"After distinguishing the fire, he went to the door

"and saw his automobile rolling down the driveway

"and into the snowbank across the street.

"He then went over to the neighbors

and he had his neighbor call the police."

I was at a party at a friend's house,

which was right across the street from the Sullivans'.

All of a sudden, somebody started rapping

on the door real loud...

And it was Tom Sr. from across the street.

And he's just, like, hyperventilating, sweating.

I mean, the guy's a mess.

And he said that his house was on fire

and he can't find his family.

So they immediately called the cops.

I said, "Well, let's go over there."

Went into the house with him,

and there were books on the floor that were on fire.

We started stamping it all out.

And the books that were on fire were Satanic books

that were set up in a circle in the living room.

It was unnerving, that's for sure.

The younger son comes out of his bedroom.

I mean, that kid was young.

So, I said, "Well, let's check downstairs."

Betty Ann?

Get halfway downstairs,

Tom looks to his left, sees his wife...

Betty Ann!

...and just flipped out.

He ran up, picked the kid up,

and ran across the street to my friend's house.

And I just followed.

He turned to me and said, "Tommy did it."

I was scared shitless.

Scared shitless.

We received a phone call.

We lived probably a mile,

a mile and a half from the scene.

In 1988, I was a detective

and a juvenile officer

for the Township of Jefferson Police Department.

Any kids that got in trouble

usually ended up sitting in front of my desk

or me paying a visit.

I had never heard of Tommy or his brother, Brian,

so they had no history with me as a juvenile officer

or the department.

We started looking at what was going on with this family.

How did this come about?

The family, Betty Ann and Tom Sr.,

to the best of my knowledge,

had never had any contact with the police department.

It wasn't a place, as soon as they gave out the address,

you know who it was, that type of thing.

We had certainly had plenty of those over the years.

I had never had any dealings with this family

at all prior to this and after this.

They weren't on the radar for anything.

Betty Ann was a devout Catholic.

From what we understood, she went to Mass every day.

She made sure that Tommy got to Mass

usually at least once a week on Sunday, and maybe even more.

We have no real idea of why this happened.

We need to facilitate the gathering

of whatever forensic evidence might be available at the scene.

There was still some smoke evident

in the house at the time.

I'm just looking at remnants of a newspaper fire

where somebody balled some newspaper up and lit it.

And then there were the books that were in the circle.

After I got down to the basement,

the first thing I saw was Mrs. Sullivan.

And it was obviously...

You know, she was deceased at that point.

It wasn't even a matter of, you know,

an ambulance to transport her 'cause she may make it.

What we initially took away from it

was the level of violence.

People can get upset, have a fight,

maybe lose their temper, hit someone,

have a weapon and use it,

you know, in the heat of passion or...

But this was brutal.

She was stabbed multiple times about the upper torso

and the face,

and just the saturation of the blood

down in the basement was... kinda sticks in my mind.

And she had to have put up a fight.

She did have wounds to her arms, mostly to her upper torso,

which I'm guessing after she had collapsed

that they continued stabbing her.

These were serious wounds.

The number 47 sticks in my mind.

The ones to the face...

It appeared that there was almost an attempt

to peel the skin off the face.

I was the traffic officer for a while

and handling many accident investigations.

And quite honestly, I can say

I've never even had a motor vehicle accident

that was... the victims were as, you know,

disfigured as what Mrs. Sullivan was.

It was definitely a homicide.

At that point, I'm trying to piece everything together.

Mr. Sullivan was inside, along with Mr. Eastman,

one of the neighbors.

So, I'm trying to figure out the time frame of everything

that had happened at this point.

We had everybody accounted for in the family...

Tom Sr., who was the father;

Betty Ann, who was the mother, and she was the victim;

and then Brian Sullivan was also at the house.

We hadn't seen or there was no account of Tommy Jr.

The question became, where is Tommy?

I was the next-door neighbor of Tom.

I could walk and knock on Tommy's door

and it would take me 30 seconds.

Tommy was my age. We grew up together.

We were in the same class

and wrestled on the same team.

Jefferson, it was just like a regular, I guess,

middle-class-type town.

There was a bunch of kids all the same age on that street.

Wait up. So, we would all hang out.

There was this old burnt-out tree

that had, like, 20 Playboys underneath.

We would always ride our bikes there and look at the Playboys.

If the weather wasn't nice,

you'd try to play video games inside.

Yikes. Oh, no.

I remember we had a ColecoVision.

The Sullivans had an Atari.

His mother would bring us up snacks, make, you know...

bring juice or whatnot.

She was always really nice to us.

Thanks, Mom.

Being in the house was just, like, kinda normal.

We would see the mom and the boys at church pretty regularly,

and they were, you know, for the most part, just super quiet.

They were just like every other family on the block.

There wasn't really anything out of the ordinary.

Being on your own is a responsibility

that begins as soon as you leave school.

'80s kids had so much freedom.

Summer breaks and weekends were spent playing all day,

either riding bikes until the streetlights flicked on

or retina burn from an arcade screen.

At some point, someone's mom would scream,

"It's dinnertime," and we'd all go home

and dine on blue-box mac and cheese and burgers.

But underneath that independence was something new.

Everyone looks forward to growing up,

and it's a good feeling to be given more responsibilit.

For many families,

this was the first time that both Mom and Dad

had full-time jobs,

so when you got outta school,

you'd come home to an empty house.

They called us latchkey kids, and, of course, it was fun,

but it made us vulnerable and it made people nervous.

-It's 10:00 p.m. -It's 10:00 p.m.

It's 10:00 p.m.

Do you know where your children are?

That wasn't just a PSA.

It was more of a warning.

'Cause when no one's paying attention, anything can happen.

I'll never forget that night.

What the...

There's police in the backyard.

There was yellow caution tape.

I remember seeing the dogs going around

and sniffing things in the woods and whatnot.

You could see a ton of footprints all over the place,

so people have been trampling all around the snow

in between his house and our house,

and in both backyards and the front lawn and whatnot.

Growing up in the town we grew up in,

I mean, you never really saw... saw any cops.

You're like, "Oh, my God, is everybody okay?

What the hell happened next door?"

The first thing that clicked in my head

was just, "Find Tommy and find out what was going on."

Did a search of the house to make sure Tommy wasn't there.

I remember walking into his bedroom.

The room was fairly dark.

Bed was there.

It was still made, so we knew he didn't go to bed that night.

I have to look under the beds

to see if he's under there.

With all these cuts and everything on this woman,

I'm thinking I'm gonna get stabbed in the fa...

I didn't know, you know? Like...

There was some things referring to some heavy metal.

I did notice some drawings that he had made... ram's skull,

some pentagrams that he had drawn,

just on scrap paper and notebooks

on the covers of the books.

The one that I remember in particular

was one of Satan's face.

You could tell that he was not of a normal mind

of what was going on at that point.

Heavy metal.

Is it harmless for your children

or an invitation to drugs, violence, even suicide?

Every decade has its own unique teenage rebellion.

Pop culture to help them rage against the status quo.

The '80s were no different.

Alienated boys taking comfort in the aggressive sounds

of Ozzy Osbourne, Anthrax, Metallica.

Laughing at the tongue-in-cheek slasher films

like "Friday the 13th" or "Nightmare on Elm Street."

It's the one and only Freddy Krueger.

Aah!

When it comes to fashion,

if you couldn't find a pentagram shirt or a band

you liked at the local mall,

you just got out a black marker and did it yourself.

In fact, I remember being around Tommy's age

and I silk-screened an Iron Maiden Eddie

on the back of my "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" shirt.

It was an innocent expression,

a way to feel tough and in control.

Unless it wasn't.

Unless it was something darker.

But how would anyone know?

The main thing at that point was secure the scene.

Hey! Hey, come on, guys!

In the house, we probably had about maybe six people

that didn't belong there that went in.

Outside, we probably had about another seven

or so that didn't belong on the property.

They all knew the Sullivans and they were trying to help.

It was kinda overwhelming trying to control the scene

when you have, you know, a dozen people wandering around.

And it was then at that point

we realized the scene was completely contaminated.

This is the police department.

I got everybody outta there and secured the area.

And that's when we started doing our searching

of the outside area.

The Sullivans' car was out of the driveway

in... kind of perpendicular to the roadway, almost,

maybe a 45-degree angle, stuck in a snowbank.

At that point, the big problem was,

we didn't have really many witnesses,

you know, other than the father.

I was 19-years old, going to college.

Coming back that first winter break,

that was my first time being back home.

I remember just feeling on top of the world.

Chris Eastman, he was a friend of mine.

We used to always have parties at his house.

So, there was one that night.

You know, I knew all my friends were gonna be there,

or a lot of my friends anyway.

And, yeah, so it was just an exciting time to get back

and just connected with everybody.

Parked probably about maybe six or seven houses away.

I remember just getting out of the car

and I was just in a good mental spot.

I remember singing a song, you know.

I know it's a little corny,

but I was just in that good a mood.

I was humming, singing, and as I was doing that,

I noticed up the block somebody come running outside

with something shiny in their hand.

I thought it was a flashlight at first,

but then I realized the way it was moving in the light,

that it was something else.

And I had no idea, but I knew it was metallic.

I kinda stopped

'cause I just thought it was weird

that they were moving so fast.

I couldn't tell how old the person was.

I probably couldn't tell you if it was a guy or a girl.

That's how far away I was and it was dark out.

Hopped in the car, started it, and pulled out right away.

It was like, there was no warm-up or anything like that.

So, I was like, "Wow, this is really weird."

Backed out very aggressively into a snow mound.

We had a lotta snow at that time.

And the car got stuck in the mound.

Couldn't get out. Opened the car door.

They didn't go in the back and try to dig it out, you know.

They didn't even go and look at it, why it was stuck.

Left the door open and ran back up their driveway to the right.

And they went in between the houses

that was directly to the right of them...

...and disappeared.

I went joyriding with my friends in Jefferson

before... before we were, you know,

of age, so I thought that might have been the situation,

where somebody just was trying to joyride

and made a mistake and just kinda just took off

'cause they were scared.

I headed back to Chris' party.

What's up, buddy?

Hey. Hey.

What's up, dude? What's up, dude? How are we doing?

So, I went inside and I told Chris.

I said, "Hey, your neighbor just backed out

and left a car running with the door open

kind of in the middle of the street."

You know, I guess me just passing that piece

of information to him satisfied me, you know?

I was like, "Oh, I kinda did my job.

I let him know that there was something outside

that was a little unusual, and he's not worried about it,

so I'm not gonna worry about it."

I started having a couple beers.

You know, it was just a good time.

I was down there for maybe about 20 minutes.

Then the Jefferson police came.

Detective Hart here. Police.

Most people there at Chris' house

weren't 21 years old, you know, so I was one of the minors.

So I was really worried about being in trouble

for underage drinking.

There was an incident earlier tonight.

But they hit us right away with

"Did anybody see anything next door?"

And I just kinda raised my hand and opened my mouth.

I saw something.

Do you mind coming with me, please?

Yeah.

They took me down to the police station

'cause they said they wanted to, you know, do some questioning...

You knew something happened,

and that's when I really started to get scared.

I am a lifelong resident of Jefferson Township,

born and raised in the Lake Shawnee section

of the community.

I loved growing up there,

raised my own family there

in the house that I actually grew up in.

So can't get any more hometown than that.

For the last six years now,

I've been the mayor in Jefferson Township.

But in 1988,

I was on the Jefferson Township Police Department,

at that point, about two years.

That night, I was working the midnight shift.

At that point, they were gonna do a search

of the area looking for Tommy Sullivan.

For a lot of reasons, you know, you wanna try to find him.

What happened? Was anybody else there?

I mean, at that point, you don't know.

He was the missing piece of, you know,

anybody at the home at the time,

so, naturally, he's the first suspect.

On foot, he couldn't have gotten too, too far,

but it was imperative to try to find him.

At that time, we were about 30 officers,

which is relatively small in New Jersey.

We had a large area to cover, 42 square miles.

Not a big population.

I think at that time

we were probably running about 18,000 people.

But a wide area, a large area.

My understanding is that my parents talked to the police

and said that Tommy was not in there,

and they were literally just looking.

Like, the police came in, looked around in all the houses

to see if Tommy was there,

and then they went to the next house to see if he was there.

And it was just like kind of a manhunt for Tommy.

As all the investigators start arriving,

I started to become more involved

with the outside search.

It started out where we had to organize in teams.

We didn't wanna damage the scenes any more

than what it was, so we held off

on doing a foot search of the general area.

Initially, took a while to get the K-9 unit there.

You wanna get the K-9 there as quick as possible

so that the scent is still fresh.

You know, another animal comes through or anything

that can distract the dog off that particular scent.

They started at the car

where it was stuck in a snowbank,

and went across the street,

through the neighbor's yard,

and down and across through the woods.

White Rock is kind of a planned community, you know,

houses on one side, houses on the other, and woods behind.

We're walking through the woods just looking for anything,

looking for tracks, looking for...

You know, K-9 will lead you

in different directions and stuff like that.

I was with the handler from the sheriff's department

tracking the dog from White Rock Boulevard.

We ended up all the way out to Schoolhouse Road,

which is a road that runs parallel

with White Rock Boulevard.

Turns out what we were tracking was one of the neighbors

that thought they were being helpful, trying to find Tommy.

When the K-9 search didn't come up with anything,

then we started branching out more

and doing a search of the neighborhood.

A lot of things going on in my mind

about which way to proceed next.

Wintertime, nighttime,

so he's not gonna be hanging around outside.

So, you know, first thing you're worried about

is he trying to break into somebody's home?

He'd be known in the area

'cause the neighbors all knew each other,

so they would know if he tried to their house,

they'd be calling us right away.

At some point, it was decided we needed to

take Brian and his father to the police station.

A gentleman and his son were in a room.

They were, you know, very upset.

I was scared.

I didn't know what was going on,

and I could tell the father was really emotional.

The father was pacing back and forth...

...saying, "I don't know if I'm gonna hug him

or if I'm gonna to kill him.

When they find him, I don't know if I'm gonna

hug him or if I'm gonna kill him."

And that's when I realized something,

you know, really bad happened.

Tom.

They took the father out,

and they left me in the room with the young boy.

And I could hear a lot of commotion through the door,

and I realized that somebody... somebody died.

The boy was sitting there crying.

You know, I went over and, you know, he didn't know me,

I didn't know him.

But, you know, he was crying.

And then, you know, I started crying.

Not sure why. Don't know why.

Maybe I was feeling compassion for the boy.

Maybe I was scared that somebody died

and I'm in the police station and I'm being questioned, um...

It was just a really emotional experience for me.

But I remember I was just trying to comfort the boy,

and I don't know how long it was,

but they pulled me in for some questioning.

I just remember I needed to focus

and give them every bit of information as best I could,

but it was certainly a tough time for sure.

There was a lot of concern about Brian that night.

Tell me everything you remember tonight.

And then he started talking about it.

And what he related to me was his interaction with Tommy.

Brian Sullivan, age 10,

states that he and his brother Tom

had watched TV in the downstairs family room

from approximately 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p. m.

During this time,

his mother remained upstairs with his father,

who wasn't feeling well.

Did you see that?

Brian, come on. It's time for bed.

Say good night.

Good night, Tom.

At approximately 10:00 p.m.,

he went to his room to go to bed.

Hail Mary, who art in heaven...

He said his prayers.

...On Earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

A short time later, he got up to go to the bathroom.

He got up and came basically face-to-face with Tommy.

He saw his brother Tom,

who appeared all hyped up, shaking, and nervous.

Tom?

Noticed that Tommy was getting cleaned up.

It looked like he had blood on his hands,

bloody towel, that type of thing.

And asked him what had happened.

And Tommy just kind of said, "Don't worry about it.

I just cut myself. It's all taken care of."

Tom then told Brian to go back to bed

and "Don't wake up Daddy."

Brian then states he became scared

and went back to his bedroom to find his stuffed animals.

It wasn't long after that

that the smoke alarm in the house went off,

and that's what kind of sparked the series of events

that led to the discovery of Betty Ann in the basement.

I would say it was maybe 45 minutes to an hour

before I was sent back on patrol.

So, I'm driving and I remember

a lot of things were going through my mind

thinking about what the father told me.

Just didn't feel right to me.

For a father to draw a conclusion that quickly,

to go from knowing nothing to saying,

"Get my son," when you don't even know where your son is.

He was very adamant, "My son did this.

"Look, he tried to burn the house down," buh-buh-buh.

But how do you know that? You were sleeping.

Said that the smoke detector woke him up.

And already in my mind, I'm thinking,

"That brutal murder didn't wake you up

in that little tiny house?"

I found it a little odd.

You never searched your house.

Why are you gonna look at a high school party?

Why wouldn't you look in your house first?

And why did you have teenagers call headquarters?

How did you go from going down the street to the party,

to coming back and knowing that your son did this?

At minimum,

I felt like he knew a lot more than he was telling me.

My shift ended. I didn't go home.

I went to my parents' house,

and I remember I was still in uniform,

and my dad came out and said, "What's going on?"

I was really just becoming an adult, really,

like 20-something years old.

Didn't experience much in life.

And I just kind of told him what happened.

You know, that we found this woman that was,

like, brutally murdered,

and I was trying to process it.

It was terrible.

And it bothered me.

My dad, he was like, "You know, it's terrible,

but imagine what kids in Vietnam saw.

You know, like, they went through a lot worse."

Back then you didn't really discuss

your emotions or anything.

He always taught us to be men.

And so I just buried it. Compartmentalized.

You know, you can't be a cry baby.

Not only did we search the woods

behind the homes across the street,

but we had a condo development

that were just being built at that time,

and you're talking a couple hundred units.

You just don't know what you were going to run into,

if in fact, you found him or, you know, other people with him.

You have to have that little sense of fear

just to get the adrenaline going a little bit,

you know, and to help you do your job better.

So it was pretty intense.

We don't know if we have a teenager

or young boy that is out of his mind

somewhere with a knife doing something,

or we don't know if he hurt himself or...

you know, we don't know much of anything.

Was he gonna hurt neighbors?

What was he gonna do? You know, where was he?

What happened? Was anybody else there?

I mean, at that point, you don't know.

Was there other people involved?

I mean, he could be another homicide victim,

for all we know at that point in time.

Was there a fight?

Did the kid run because he saw something?

Don't know.

He's the missing link.

He's the one that will have answers.