All language subtitles for 2020-我12歲，你介意嗎？(Caught in the Net)-EP1-Monster in the Woods-E

I think our predator was waiting for the
right moment.

The text message was sent at 628, and
it said, I think I almost got kidnapped.

OMFG.

She feels like she's getting away.

We had digital evidence.

We were dealing with a real monster.

9-1-1.

Yeah, I'm fairly certain we just found a
body along the mountain bike trail.

Okay.

Is it a male or a female?

Female.

Okay.

Is she on the trail?

No, she's off of the trail, touched back
into the woods.

Her clothes are all taken off.

Okay, and you don't believe she's
breathing?

I don't believe so, no.

It was almost midnight when I finally
arrived at the scene.

As I was walking down
this dark path, with just

a little flashlight
shining in front of you.

It just seemed like this dark wooded
horror movie.

Forensic lab was already on scene.

What I had learned from the
first responders is that there

was a loose dog in the area
which the witnesses saw first.

And the dog actually led them to the body.

When I saw the body, it became obvious it
was a younger teenager.

Female.

Female.

Female.

Female.

Female.

Female.

Female.

Put all of that aside, and you only think
about what you need to do.

I could actually see shoe tread marks on
her cheek and on her neck.

She had been stomped to death.

I do not understand that kind of rage.

With the inspection of the
crime scene, we realized that

we did not have a wallet or
any identification or a phone.

Now, this is a teenage girl.

We know she had a phone.

Why would they take her phone?

Obviously, something with that phone was
so important.

People may not realize it,
but everything we do leaves a

trail of digital breadcrumbs
for investigators to follow.

Every time you use a cell phone,
every time you use GPS, every time you

search the internet, all day, every day,
we are all leaving a trail of digital

evidence of where we've been and what
we've been doing.

When I first became a detective,
digital forensics was in its infancy.

Now, digital clues are as vital to an
investigation as a fingerprint or a DNA sample.

You may not be able
to see them right away,

but they are there,
just waiting to be found.

The village of Armada is just this quaint
little town in the middle of farmland.

Crime just doesn't happen.

And people trust each other.

In most murders, the victim knows her
attacker.

And so, it was very important for us to
know who was close to her.

Who's her boyfriend, her parents, siblings,
anyone who could have been her enemy.

And so, our first task was to figure out
who this girl was.

5.30 that afternoon, my daughter,
April, decided to take our dog,

Penny, out for a walk.

April was 14 years old, just loved
animals.

Her and Penny were just inseparable.

She wanted to be a vet when she grew up.

April was naturally shy, probably got that
from me.

When I was born, I was born with a
condition called cerebral ataxia,

which affects my balance and my speech as
well.

And all through school, I was made fun of.

I was really busy that evening,
and I didn't realize that April was gone

as long as she was until I actually
glanced at the time.

I started to get a bit
worried, and that's when I

started texting her just
to find out where she was.

She never replied to any of the messages.

I was just getting very worried.

It was starting to get dark.

I'm driving around.

My phone rings, and it's April's
boyfriend, Austin.

April started dating Austin when she was,
like, 14 years old, and Austin was 15.

Austin told me that
there was police activity in

the trail, and asked him
to come over right away.

The chief of police told us that I believe
he said they found a body.

My husband had asked him
if there was a dog found as

well, and Chief Howard pretty
much implied that there was.

When investigators got to the scene,
they found April's dog, Penny.

And the next day, of course, the dog was
reunited with its family.

What's all this now?

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

That's a nice one.

Oh, yeah.

A littler.

She's about five there, I think.

Aw.

Yep.

April is our niece.

She was such a cute little girl.

So we were watching TV, and the phone
rang.

Don answered.

I heard him say, wait, wait, talk slower.

And I said, who is it?

He goes, it's Jennifer.

Something about April.

She told me, uh, April's missing.

And they found a body, and they think it's
her.

And I said, no.

That cannot be true.

That can't be.

I just couldn't stop crying.

Took a long time before it really sunk in.

April's gone.

Yeah.

It was, uh, very difficult.

So we learned that April had a young
boyfriend at that time.

Most murders are committed by a romantic
relationship.

This murder was brutal.

And it seemed personal.

Austin was brought in and interviewed at
length.

Austin told us that he was at a McDonald's
about 30 minutes in the next town over

with his friend.

We just went to McDonald's.

Do you remember what time you went to
McDonald's?

Around five-ish.

It would be around five.

Five.

Did you guys stay there and eat,
or what did you get?

Drive-through.

Drive-through.

No, that's not a problem.

A Wednesday night, did you see April then
at all?

No, last time I saw April was Sunday
night.

Austin showed us his phone, which had this
text message from April.

The timestamp was 6.28 p.m.

He did not respond to that text message
until almost 8 or something.

We found that rather suspicious.

Most teenagers respond immediately,
you know, back and forth.

That's all they do is text.

But you don't call her back.

She leaves you a text message that says,
I think I'm gonna get kidnapped, right?

But you don't call.

You call her one time.

She doesn't answer the phone.

I texted her several times, and the
thing was, I had no signal out there, so...

Austin had also said that he had gotten
into a fight with April and had an

argument over the phone about it,
and he had deleted those messages,

which we also found suspicious.

Certainly, Austin deleting text messages
between him and April was a huge red flag.

That's something that
suspects will do to cover their

tracks to try and hide the
truth from investigators.

So I said, the next thing I gotta go to
bed so I can get up early.

She's like, oh, whatever.

And then, I thought she was being all,
and I flipped out and left.

And I guess...
What day was that?

Sunday.

That was the last time you seen her?

So you guys, the last time you seen her,
you guys were in an argument, basically.

Hmm.

It sucks.

We sent officers to the
McDonald's where Austin said

he was with his friend to
collect the video footage.

We took Austin's phone.

We were confident that we would be able to
retreat.

Anything that would
give us any little clue to

indicate he had anything
to do with her murder.

The more we live our lives
in the digital world, the more

important it becomes for
investigators to follow the data.

If you know where to look,
you can find digital clues that

can tell you everything you
need to know about a person.

A digital trail is almost like a trail of
blood.

We can follow it all the way to the
killer.

All we knew is that April was found around
8.30.

And the only other fact was that April
sent Austin a text around 6.30.

What we needed to do was establish
Austin's whereabouts between 6.

30 and 8.30.

Based on Austin's own statements,
that he had gotten in an argument with

April, that he got this message from April
and never responded to it, and that he had

deleted these texts about
their argument, made

us believe that Austin
was our prime suspect.

We didn't get home from the police station
until about 8.30 the next morning.

About 12 o'clock, the FBI came by.

She ripped out this photograph.

The photograph was of April from the neck
up.

It felt like Van Wallen came to an end.

I just was waiting for the punchline.

It was like, this is a cruel joke.

So the autopsy revealed that April had
died from blunt force trauma to her head,

an asphyxia to her neck.

Footprints were embedded in her skin.

So...

she was stomped to death and choked on her
own blood.

These injuries were so...

vicious, is the word I'm looking for.

It became apparent we were dealing with
some sort of...

monster.

But I can't limit myself to looking for
someone who acts like a monster.

Because the monster only comes out when no
one else is around.

Around the same time, we
obtained the footage from

McDonald's, where April's
boyfriend, Austin, said he was.

This footage was going to
either prove his alibi, or expose

the fact that he was lying to
us from the very beginning.

This is the big moment, and so I click
play.

At 6.31, you can see Austin and his
friend's car pull up.

And sure enough, they're on the video.

Just like he said.

We still had to examine the wealth of data
that we found on Austin's phone.

We looked through everything.

We looked through GPS.

We looked through the phone calls,
text messages, Google searches.

And there was absolutely
nothing on his phone to

indicate he had anything
to do with her murder.

At this point, we were not feeling that
Austin was the murderer.

Within 24 hours of this murder,
we had 60 officers running around.

We realized rather quickly that Armada PD
was way too small for what we needed.

So we decided to expand
to a school administration

building, which had
plenty of room for us.

We set up what we call the command center.

This crime put the Armada
community on edge as investigators

followed up on leads to
track down Millsap's killer.

Finding April's phone was critically
important.

In addition to just your
text messages and phone

calls, there's all kinds
of social media apps.

There's email.

We need to see if there was any
conversations on there that would give us

a clue of if she was going to meet
somebody.

I knew if they could get in
that phone, then we would have

literally the holy grail of
what happened to April that day.

My name is Stan Brew.

I was a special agent with the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

My sole responsibility
was the forensic analysis

of cell phone records
and cell tower mapping.

I received a call regarding the death of a
young girl.

My presence was requested in order to
locate her cell phone.

So the first step is to get some
information from the cell phone company as

to what type of cell phone it was, the type
of frequency that it is transmitting on.

The last tower that April's
phone interacted with

was the sector that
orients to the northeast.

That area was almost a square mile.

That phone could literally be anywhere
within our search grid.

The technology that we have
access to at ATF transmits on a

frequency very similar to that
of these cell towers in the area.

What we're hoping to do is attract the
cell phone to us.

Then we can narrow down the location of
that device.

I went out to the area of Armada with our
technology, began searching that area.

Hoping we can connect to it before the
battery dies.

As I'm conducting my search,
the software all of a sudden

does give us an indication
that connection has been made.

The device was essentially to my three o
'clock.

I communicated that connection to Michigan
State Police.

And they were able to dispatch a canine
and handler to that area.

He and his dog disappeared within the tree
line.

I tell you, within about 15 minutes, he
came crashing back out, holding that device.

When I got word that they found the phone,
I was like so elated.

April's iPhone was sent to the FBI
Computer Crimes Unit.

For a more detailed analysis.

While the FBI were working on extracting
the data from April's phone, we started to

look into the buzz that was happening on
social media.

The local residents started a Facebook
page called Justice for April Millsap.

We also decided to set up a dedicated tip
line.

After that happened, witnesses started to
come forward.

We received a tip that
April and her dog was

seeing around 615
headed toward the trail.

Then we received a tip from a man who was
with his daughters who saw April on the

path walking her dog with a man on a
motorcycle around 625.

The father of the girls was able to give
us a pretty good description of the bike

and said the colors were blue,
white, and black.

It was here at 628 that April sent that
message to her boyfriend, Austin,

that said, I think I was almost kidnapped.

We also had two women come forward who
said they had seen a man acting very

suspicious in the woods right near where
April was found.

And that was at 640 PM.

Using these tips, we were able to put
together a description of our man on the

motorcycle, which was
a white male in his 30s

with brownish curly
hair and piercing eyes.

We got to find this guy and we got to do
it right now.

It's the first glimpse we've
had of someone who might have

information in the murder
of 14-year-old April Millsap.

Police also released a photo of April's
dog, Penny.

The border collie helped alert two people
walking the trail to the girl's body.

We weren't even home for
the police station five minutes

when there was a news truck
that showed up in the driveway.

I didn't even get the chance to call
April's grandparent.

They got a phone call from a reporter asking
them how they feel about April's demise.

I should have been the one
to tell the grandparents or

the police or somebody
in authority, not a reporter.

There's no way to find out what happened
to your grandchild.

While we were still waiting for the FBI to
extract the data from April's iPhone,

we also had the old school door to door.

We were looking for a white male in his
30s with brown kind of curly hair and

piercing eyes with a motorcycle that was
blue, white, and black.

On July 25th, one of our
troopers spotted a motorcycle that

fit the description at a home
just on the edge of town.

We found that the motorcycle did not
belong to the homeowner, however,

to his friend, a man named James Van
Callis.

So we had officers talk to
James Van Callis and ask

him if he had been in Armada
on the day of the murder.

He admitted that he had gone through
Armada and then went to his brother's.

Van Callis had told us he had arrived at
his brother's house around 6pm,

which is on the other side of Armada and
then had made it home around 8pm.

That was the time period of our murder.

James Van Callis' phone records became
very important.

The search warrant for
James Van Callis' cell provider

gave us the GPS coordinates
or the area of where he was.

The search warrant revealed that James Van
Callis is actually in town at 615.

Not only did his cell phone records put
him in the area, the fact that he wanted

to lie about the time he was in Armada
thought it was interesting.

He had a minimal criminal record.

Certainly nothing that showed us that he
had any tendency to be violent.

We were looking for a monster, someone
who fit this profile of a horrible person.

And James Van Callis on the surface
appeared to be just your average Joe guy.

With James Van Callis, it was one tip out
of hundreds.

We were still getting all of these tips
in.

As far as being a suspect was just on the
same level of all these other tips.

We received a tip from a teenage girl in
the village of Armada that she said she

saw a white van driven
by a man and there was a

passenger and they were
acting suspicious to her.

She felt really creepy about it because
they, she thought they pointed at her and

they were slowed down and so, and this was
right around 630.

So she was so creeped
out by this situation that

she grabbed her phone
and took a picture of the van.

That was our first tip
outside of the, the April Circle

that this could possibly
be a stranger in the area.

And so we had to take this very seriously.

And so we had to identify who was in this
van and what they were actually doing.

It was a typical white van, which you see
everywhere.

Unfortunately, the van was so generic.

There was no license plate that you could
see.

You could not see the occupants and there
was nothing unique about the van.

So we put the picture of
the van out to the media

asking the public if
they had any information.

And within an hour, we were flooded,
flooded with tips.

We finally were able to track down the man
who was driving that van.

And we interviewed him and he explained
that he was a builder and he was in the

area showing his passenger which homes he
had built in that area.

And so he had an illegitimate excuse.

And it turns out he had nothing to do with
the murder of April Millsap.

April was in every news flash,
every news story, they would bring it up.

It was constant media coverage.

It seemed like every
10 minutes there had

another bulletin or they
would be another update.

Moments before her
death, April texted her

boyfriend saying, I think
I'm about to be abducted.

That must have been really hard for
Jennifer.

You can't get over something like that.

I don't think she'll ever get over it.

I received a call from the FBI agent that
said that April was running a sports

tracker app on the phone during the time
of our murder.

They were able to extract
the GPS coordinates from

this fitness app and
overlay it on a Google map.

And then animate the movement in the form
of a video.

This was going to give us a first-hand look
of April's movements on the day she died.

At the time, I didn't
realize how important this

one piece of evidence
was going to be to this case.

The first time I ever watched it,
I was just in shock.

There was no question at that point.

There was no guessing.

There was no more theories.

It was right in front of us.

We received a call from Sergeant
MacArthur.

She indicated to us that the FBI had
something spectacular.

This is one of those
times where it's like a

scene out of a movie
where everybody was there.

The lights went down, and then they played
that video.

And all of us were just simply speechless.

In this video, there is a blue arrow that
follows April's path.

And you can see, you can envision her
walking her dog and carefree.

It showed us her direction of travel that
she took when she left her home,

walked through the subdivision,

and entered onto the bike path.

This app showed April's
walking speed at about three

miles an hour, which is
average for walking speed.

At 6.35, you can see that her pace
increases.

And this is right after she sent that text
message.

And she's heading in the opposite
direction.

This is the point when she's trying to get
away.

She's being chased.

She feels like she's getting away.

The sad part about that is that she
wasn't.

I think our predator was waiting for the
right moment.

As I was watching this video, I could see
that jerking moment.

It took a few seconds for me to realize
that this was the attack.

It started to paint a picture of how
violent this attack was.

I could only envision that, you know, she
was trying to fight or get away from him.

That he was, you know, dragging her and
moving her around.

I imagine there was
some sort of fight for the

phone, if she was going
to then call the police.

And then it turned into a fight for her
life.

This app was able to capture the exact
moment that April was murdered.

All of a sudden, the signal is moving west
at about 16 miles an hour.

Indicating whoever took the phone was
driving a motor vehicle.

It heads north through town,
through the streets, heading

eastbound to the area where
we actually found the phone.

That use of technology
was clearly the biggest

piece of circumstantial
evidence that we had.

We did a door-to-door search, asking people
if they saw anything, heard anything.

We were looking for
surveillance video of a motorcycle

that fit the description
from the actual trail.

The team of investigators uncovered a
security video from a house within that

subdivision just north of where the crime
occurred.

In reviewing that video, you can clearly
see a motorcyclist go past at 6.51 p.m.

That video footage of the
motorcycle on that home

surveillance system matched
James Van Callis' motorcycle.

We looked at the fitness app again.

And that blue arrow
went right by that house at

the exact moment that
this video was captured.

It pulled it all together and we said,
we have footage of our murderer.

Michigan State Police
confirmed they are executing a

search warrant in relationship
to April Millsap's murder.

A search warrant was issued for James Van
Callis' home.

One of the things that was
key in this search warrant was

to get his phone and to get
any computers in the house.

We seized his motorcycle.

This motorcycle appeared to have been
wiped down.

Which is unusual for that type of
motorcycle.

Police have found enough
marijuana in this house to detain

the people who live here for
possible felony drug possession.

We arrested James Van Callis for the
illegal GROW operation.

And it worked to our benefit because it
also kept him from fleeing.

At this point of the investigation,
the one thing we didn't have, which is

always a question for investigators,
is motive.

Honestly, at the time, he did not seem
like a viable suspect.

Just the motive was not there.

So it became imperative that we get into
James Van Callis' phone and computer.

And when the results came back,
I was honestly shocked.

The results we got
from James Van Callis'

phone and from his
computer were disturbing.

We found Google searches
of him asking how to

get a girl who does
not like you to like you.

Do young girls like older men?

How to attract younger women?

He was surreptitiously
taking videos of young

girls at gas stations,
at the local mall.

It just added the creepiness factor to
James Van Callis that we didn't know he had.

With the digital evidence that had been
uncovered during the course of this

investigation, we were finally able to charge
Van Callis with April Millsap's murder.

So we could piece together from all the
evidence that we had.

On July 24th, 2014, April Millsap left
her home with her dog at approximately 5.

30 p .m.

She headed south to the Macomb Orchard
Trail.

At 6.25, April was
approached by James Van

Callis, who tried to
proposition her in some way.

April must have made
her excuses and turned

around to head back
home and rather in a hurry.

It's at this time, at 6.28, that April sent
a text message to her boyfriend, Austin.

He was with his friend at McDonald's at
that time.

And so was busy and then just never looked
at his phone.

He had nothing to do with the murder of
April Millsap.

At 6.35, Van Callis caught up with April
again.

It was at this point that James Van
Callis, using his motorcycle helmet,

struck April in the head.

Dragged her into the wooded area off the
bike path.

He got her on the ground and more than
likely decided that he was going to rape her.

And at which point, I'm
sure she fought him off

and he decided that he
had to actually kill her.

That's when witnesses caught a glimpse of
James Van Callis in the woods.

When fleeing the scene, James grabbed her
phone, dumped her phone prior to going to

his brother's house and arriving around 7
p.m.

Even though James Van Callis got rid of
the physical evidence, the DNA that might

have been on his motorcycle and his
clothes, he could not get rid of the

digital evidence that was outside his
control.

The video surveillance.

The cell phone evidence.

And the actual fitness app on April's
phone.

He had no idea existed.

I'm going to bring the jury in.

Count one.

First degree premeditated murder.

We find an defendant guilty.

On February 8th of 2016, it only took the
jury less than a day to convict James Van

Callis of felony murder, kidnapping,
and attempted rape.

Van Callis was sentenced to life in prison
without any possibility of parole.

When the jury came back with a verdict
that he was guilty on all counts,

the first thing I did was look at
Jennifer.

I wanted to see her reaction.

I didn't care about how James Van Callis
felt.

I wanted to know how her mother felt.

April's passing affected the community
hard.

About a year later, a
woman reached out to me and

said she wanted to create a
memorial garden for April.

It was touching that somebody wanted to
help out and just help heal the community.

I still have April's own...

It means a lot to me that she's there.

I wish she was there in person,
but she's there in spirit.