Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

HEATHER: Rockville is a maximum security facility.

You got a very tall fence with razor wire,

rows and rows of razor wire.

There are towers, and there's a guard that's armed

that drives around the perimeter.

♪♪

WILLARD: There's around about 1,200 inmates there.

Whether it was because it was all women,

they just didn't cause any problems.

[heavy breathing, indistinct chatter]

HEATHER: August the 4th, 2008,

an ordinary day.

You just kind of wake up.

And everybody has their own routine.

[faint shouting]

WILLARD: They run at least three visual body counts

a day.

You had to be on your bunk and show skin for the count.

[indistinct chatter]

We got counted, and then the count ran over...

not abnormal.

And they counted us again.

And that's when you, you know... you really start to think

what is going on that they can't count,

or where would somebody be?

OFFICER [over radio]: The count was bad.

We had two bad counts to verify all the empty beds.

WILLARD: At 4:00, they had one missing.

Very, very unusual.

OFFICER [over radio]: Try to verify

where the offenders are, where they should be.

The sergeants, the... the bigwigs,

they come in, start counting,

stomping around, huffy, puffy.

Um, they were... they were mad.

OFFICER [over radio]: Go up to room I.

Check around Pender's bed area

and see if perhaps she might be hiding in a locker.

Then about a half an hour goes by.

And you can just, like, hear the whispers across the dorm.

PERSON: Thank you. We're out of here.

OFFICER [over radio]: We're unable to locate her

on the facility grounds.

Somebody said, Sarah's not in her bed.

And I just... [chuckles, sighs]

Got a little twinge of excitement in my stomach.

And I said, she did it.

She got out of here.

WILLARD: Sarah Pender just vanished.

You know, we gotta get her back.

She's already killed two people.

Who knows what she's gonna do next?

Tonight a convicted killer is on the loose.

REPORTER 1: A woman escaped

from the Rockville Correctional Facility.

REPORTER 2: A Marion County jury

convicted Sarah Pender in the year 2000

in a double murder.

REPORTER 1: Along with her then boyfriend Richard Hull,

she helped kill a man and a woman

and then stashed their bodies in a dumpster.

She has a Charles Manson-like ability to manipulate people

in committing crimes.

PERSON: She looks like a sweet little innocent girl.

But within, there's a deep, evil demon.

Hi.

My name is Sarah Pender.

[laughs]

-INTERVIEWER: Hang on. -OK. Wait a minute.

My name is Sarah Pender.

People have called me a manip...

people have called me all sorts of names.

They've said that I'm a manipulator,

that I'm psychologically...

I'm a psychopath.

[somber music]

Stop looking at me.

This is gonna be it. People call me a...

[whispering] Manipulator, pathological.

♪♪

[dramatic music]

♪♪

Every inmate thinks about escaping prison,

especially when you have a lot of time.

♪♪

I was sent to prison for 110 years

for two murders that I did not commit.

♪♪

I knew that I was going to die in prison.

♪♪

And then one day, I thought,

I bet I can get out of here.

[tense music]

I knew that I would need help.

Even if I made it past the guards or through the fence,

I would need someone there to pick me up.

♪♪

So I definitely needed, um, a partner to help me out.

And then I found one.

Once the gate was open, I remember

walking across the pavement and it being so hot.

I was so excited.

I was never going back.

♪♪

This is what I've been waiting for,

so don't flake out now.

♪♪

I remember looking and seeing cows in the pasture,

driving through small towns, looking at all the buildings

and small structures,

wondering what all those little people

were doing in their little lives

and how they had no idea what was happening.

I felt completely refreshed.

And I remember hitting the dashboard and just...

[imitates banging] And I was like, I'm free!

[phone ringing]

BONNIE: I was down in Florida.

And I get a phone call.

And it was Sarah.

And then it dawned on me, well, normally when she

would call me from prison, the operator comes on,

and that didn't come on.

And it was Sarah's voice.

And I was like, well, where are you calling me from?

I'm on a cell phone, and I'm on the road.

And that just threw me for a total loop.

I was standing there with my mouth open like,

did she just tell me she walked out of prison?

♪♪

ROLAND: I'm living out on the West Coast.

[phone rings]

The phone rings, and it's Bonnie, uh, Sarah's mom.

And Sarah had, um... had escaped, and she was gone.

110 years, that's what the... the judge sentenced Sarah to.

Sarah was... was 21 when she was arrested.

She had, uh, her whole life in front of her.

♪♪

Growing up, she's a joyful child,

her and her sister, Jennifer.

We were living in, uh, Greenfield.

It's a small town east of Indianapolis.

She was, uh, kind and considerate,

intelligent.

♪♪

BONNIE: She just amazed me in... in how quickly

that she'd just learn.

It was like she was two grades higher than what she was.

♪♪

ROLAND: Years later, and, uh, you know, now

Sarah graduated from high school.

And we got the news we'd been accepted at Purdue.

It was a joyous time.

[people cheering]

She went straight into biophysics,

biochemistry, trigonometry, and calculus.

♪♪

SARAH: I was lucky that my father was very interested

in my education, because he knew that education was one

of the number one things that would

help create success in life.

♪♪

ROLAND: She hadn't even really got started on her life.

♪♪

And now your daughter's on the run from the law.

Yeah, well, how can this be?

It just doesn't make any sense.

♪♪

JAMIE: I can't believe she's sitting next to me

in this vehicle and we're driving away.

♪♪

Things were just right, from movements

that particular day

to who was on the gate that day.

SARAH: I met Jamie in county jail.

What started as a sexual relationship became

a deep friendship between us.

And now Jamie had already been out of jail

for quite some time.

She already had this free life that she was risking for me.

But I trusted that... that she would be there

whenever I got out.

[engine rumbling]

One of the things that made me fall in love with Jamie

was, she was very defiant.

And I admired her guts.

Jamie was down for anything.

She liked risks, and she liked me.

JAMIE: You know what?

I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you.

I told her, don't look back.

I loved her enough to let her go.

INTERVIEWER: You want her to stay out, free.

Yeah. [bleep] yeah, I do.

INTERVIEWER: You want her to be free forever.

[bleep] yeah, I do.

[chuckles] Run, Sarah, run.

[tense music]

♪♪

REPORTER 1: Now, Sarah Pender is described

as a white female, 5'8",

weighing about 200 pounds,

with brown hair and blue eyes.

REPORTER 2: Police say they are tracking Pender,

and she should be considered dangerous.

Jamie dropped me off at the safe house

and left to get me clean clothes and hair dye,

a new cell phone, my money.

EDWIN: We are gonna use every resource

to hunt her down and find her.

There were a lot out physically looking,

the entire Department of Corrections,

Homeland Security.

We didn't know what she was gonna do.

It's concerning because we don't know where this woman is.

You know, we don't know what she's capable of.

PERSON: I live about seven miles south,

and there's woods all around there,

so that's... that's always been a concern.

WILLARD: We didn't have any evidence of how she got out.

She didn't breach the perimeter.

She didn't go over the fence or anything.

There's only one conclusion...

that she went out through a gate.

To do that, she had to have an accomplice,

a correctional officer.

They reviewed a lot of tapes, and they come up

with a primary suspect, Scott Spitler,

the correctional officer, because he

went out about the time that she had gotten out.

I know this Spitler guy has to be the one that did it.

Said, I want to see him.

I got him in an interview room.

I asked him if he would take a voice stress test.

And he said yes.

It's a lie detector of sorts.

I mean, he was nervous, he's stuttering,

and guilt was pouring out of him.

And he failed it badly, real bad.

And, uh, finally he confessed.

He told us everything about how he helped her get out.

♪♪

SARAH: Planning my escape took several months.

I knew that I would need money once I got out,

so I began to watch and pay attention,

consider, and look for opportunities.

♪♪

I identified Scott Spitler, and I befriended him.

I would pay him to bring in contraband...

cell phones, tobacco, Benadryl.

I sent the money that I made to my friend Jamie.

Jamie held the money aside so that I would have it

whenever I got out.

And at this point, Scott saw an opportunity

to make even more money, um,

because he knew how to get me out.

He asked me for $15,000 in order for him

to drive me to the parking lot.

And I agreed.

[dog barking]

But as time went on, Scott wanted to have sex with me.

♪♪

It's not like I have a choice.

And so I did what I had to do.

♪♪

WILLARD: Scott Spitler told me about utilizing a van

and went through the back gates

and let her out in the front parking lot,

where Jamie, a longtime friend of Sarah's, picked her up.

SARAH: I saw Scott as a means to an end.

Before I got out of the van, I said, Scott, I love you,

and I will text you later.

And Scott said, you better.

♪♪

WILLARD: She never called.

And I told him, I said, it looks pretty obvious

that you... you got took.

She had the ability to bring people in to her.

Uh, I've... I've never seen an inmate like that before.

REPORTER: 41-year-old Scott Spitler...

he is now in jail, facing seven charges,

including assisting a criminal,

official misconduct, and sexual misconduct.

EDWIN: I have no idea what he was thinking,

if he was manipulated.

She should be considered dangerous.

[helicopter rotors whirring]

♪♪

WILLARD: When we got Jamie's name out of Spitler,

immediately we go to the visitation records.

We saw Jamie Long's name everywhere.

♪♪

We looked to see how many times she'd been there,

what her last visit was, what her address was.

[siren wailing]

So we got an emergency response team

to Jamie's house.

[indistinct police radio chatter]

So we had a very brief, uh, interview with Jamie,

and she didn't give up any information.

[phone beeping]

SARAH: I looked at my phone.

Jamie texted me.

An officer had talked to her.

She was afraid to come to the house

because she didn't want to lead them to me.

I needed my money to move on.

I don't know what to do. What do I do? What do I do?

[siren wailing]

WILLARD: Yeah, and, you know, we didn't waste any time.

And the commissioner called US Marshals task force.

♪♪

She was gonna get caught.

You're gonna come back.

And nobody's gonna care about you anymore.

♪♪

REPORTER: Sarah Pender was the first inmate

to ever escape from this prison,

and they hope she's the last.

RYAN: Over my three years working with US Marshals,

I caught hundreds of murderers...

not dozens, hundreds.

We're professionals.

♪♪

Every 24 hours, I'd get a phone call.

I was accustomed to getting the next bad guy

or the next bad girl.

Typically we catch them pretty quick.

Department of Corrections, they said

that we had a female break out.

It wasn't like, oh, this is an interesting case.

I mean, she escaped from prison.

I don't get that, like, emotional towards it.

It's just another fucking fugitive.

REPORTER: She was driven outside the gates

by correctional officer Scott Spitler.

But also, it wasn't that she robbed a bank.

She killed two people and put them in a dumpster.

She's a risk to the public.

Would she kill again?

Probably.

Would she want to go back?

Probably not.

It's... it's a pretty high-level, dangerous situation.

♪♪

There's no better thrill than the hunting of mankind,

you know, the intellectual being who can think,

who's trying to out think you.

Now, is that thrilling?

You better fucking believe it's thrilling.

♪♪

REPORTER: 29-year-old Sarah Pender is still

on the run after breaking out

of the Rockville Correctional Facility.

She's certainly a dangerous individual,

uh, has the ability and the capability of killing.

The news came on, and they said

that Sarah Pender had escaped.

My heart sank.

REPORTER: In nearly eight years...

PEGGY: The first time I met Sarah

was in the Marion County jail.

She was coming in there for a double murder.

So I'm thinking some crazy-looking lady

is gonna come in.

And she came in, and she was just a normal person.

She was young.

She was really nervous.

And I helped her, you know, get settled in.

She was like a daughter.

She's a good person that... she didn't do anything

that she's accused of.

[dramatic music]

She wouldn't hurt anybody.

♪♪

Oh, Lord.

She wouldn't hurt a fly.

No.

♪♪

She called me.

I just knew in my heart that I had to help her.

Whatever I could do, I had to help her.

♪♪

SARAH: When I got into Peggy's car,

I think that the first thing that she said to me was...

Oh, my God, I can't believe you're out.

SARAH: I knew that she would help me

get the money from Jamie to do whatever I needed to do.

♪♪

RYAN: When the Department of Corrections

shared with me that Jamie Long had helped her,

you know that's a hell of a lead.

Grab your gear or radios or tac vest.

I need to talk to her.

♪♪

Jamie was more scared than I was.

So she decided to deliver the money

undercover at a McDonald's.

♪♪

It was a risk.

But without that, I knew that I was in trouble.

♪♪

Even though the police were on Jamie's tail,

we had already committed that far.

So what's one more step?

♪♪

I was hoping that the police had not connected Peggy

to me yet, even if they were following Jamie.

However, I can't just be sitting

in the back of Peggy's car.

[chuckles] And so I climbed into her trunk.

[trunk door slams, engine revs]

♪♪

I remember feeling jumper cables digging into my back.

And it was so hot and stuffy,

but it was what I had to do.

Having that money is essential to the rest of the plan.

I'm driving, and I'm just look... you know,

checking all my mirrors, thinking, oh, my God,

you know, are the police following me?

I could have went back to prison.

I was nervous.

Told Jamie that I'd meet her in the bathroom

at a certain time.

SARAH: I felt the car stop, the engine shut off,

the door open and close.

I walked in, and I looked all around,

you know, scoping out the people

that was in the restaurant.

[baby crying]

I got to the bathroom.

I seen some feet underneath the stall.

♪♪

And I said, Jamie?

♪♪

She said, yeah.

I said, OK, I'm Peggy, you know.

So I went in the next stall beside her.

And she handed me the money underneath the little

partition wall there.

And then when I came out of the bathroom,

went up to the counter.

And then that's when I seen Jamie come out of the bathroom

and leave the McDonald's.

♪♪

SARAH: Jamie went home.

Peggy got in the car,

and we backed out of the parking space.

[engine revs]

PEGGY: So I took her to the Motel 8 on Shadeland.

When I gave Sarah the money,

I think she was a little bit disappointed.

♪♪

Jamie only gave me $350.

I was expecting about $3,500.

Jamie was afraid to bring the full amount.

She was really worried about, you know, getting caught.

♪♪

And now I just had to wait, hoping that she would

give me the rest of the money at a later date.

♪♪

But my gut emotion was fear.

I knew that the possibility was there for her to be arrested.

♪♪

[tense music]

♪♪

RYAN: I went straight to Jamie's house.

And when she came to the door,

you could see that she was concerned.

[door creaks]

I identify myself with the US Marshals.

She was, um, I have nothing to say,

basically, out of the box.

She wasn't cooperative.

I was very open and honest with Jamie.

Hey, Jamie, you know you're in trouble.

And you know you're gonna... you know,

Spitler is already arrested, but it's gonna happen.

You know it's gonna happen.

But she told me... she goes, I don't know where she's at.

She's somewhere on the east side of Indianapolis.

I can call her for you.

Did that surprise me?

It did. But I was rolling with it.

♪♪

[phone ringing]

SARAH: The phone rang, and it was Jamie.

She answered.

I knew something was off immediately.

♪♪

Jamie sounded panicked.

She had a lot more to lose than I did.

RYAN: Now, the conversation was not free-flowing.

Jamie was like, what's up, Sarah?

How you doing?

She said that she needed to meet me in the parking lot

where she dropped me off.

I knew that she hadn't dropped me off in the parking lot,

so I told her, OK, well, I'm already out at the farm.

RYAN: And Sarah was like,

well, I'm waking up at the farmhouse,

and it's nice to have breakfast with the farmer

out in the country.

It was weird stuff.

Right away, I thought, they're playing games.

♪♪

I knew that either the police were there

or they were listening in.

RYAN: But then Sarah hung up.

[phone beeps]

It was very quick.

My profile of her started to form, like,

that she's not stupid; she's very smart

and that she's controlling her communications now

and she's not sloppy with it.

This is gonna be a challenge.

♪♪

It was frustrating because, you know, Jamie here

was still not cooperative.

So how do I get her to cooperate with me?

I want her to really grasp on to, you know, I'm fucked.

She had a husband with her inside, a very old, frail man.

His name was Larry.

You could tell that he was on his last weeks of life.

And she was caring for him.

He had oxygen and medicines everywhere.

But that was good, because I knew

that she was his caregiver.

[respirator hissing]

And I told him, I said, Jamie will get charged.

Understand that.

But I won't lock her up right now

if you can get her to help me.

And he was nervous.

He was like, yeah,

but she's not gonna cooperate with you.

I was like, well, you need to talk

some fucking sense into her.

I mean, she's your caregiver.

I mean, you don't want to lose your caregiver, do you?

He goes, no, and he cried.

And then Jamie had a different tone with me.

♪♪

She was very, very scared.

She's like, follow me upstairs.

I went upstairs in her room.

And she gave me a shoe box.

And the shoe box had all the money in there

that Sarah wanted to get.

That was a huge thing to give to me

because right away, that took... you know,

we took off her means.

We got something that she really needed.

♪♪

I mean, she was choked.

Who was she gonna turn to?

I mean, now what?

REPORTER: Deputy Prosecutor Larry Sells

once called Sarah Jo Pender the female Charles Manson.

SARAH: When I was in the hotel,

I changed phones.

I broke the old phone and, uh, started up the new.

PERSON: I don't know what happened in that house.

Like you said, only two people knew.

[scissors snipping]

SARAH: I cut my hair significantly shorter

and dyed it a darker color.

And that's when I started thinking

about all the things that I wish

I had done differently...

[somber music]

All the choices that I made that I regret.

♪♪

[tense music]

♪♪

Once I went off to college,

I did not spend enough time on my studies,

and, um... and so my grades suffered.

Um,

I had... I had failed enough to where I decided not to go back.

♪♪

I felt ashamed that I could not complete college.

I did not have an excuse, because I knew

that I was smart enough.

But despite the fact I was academically talented,

I did not feel a great sense of self-worth from it.

My self-worth really came from making other people happy.

I think that started after my mom left.

♪♪

When Sarah was six, Roland and I

sat there and tried to explain

that I wasn't going to be there.

We were going to divorce.

♪♪

I didn't have anything to offer him at the time.

And so I let him have the children

until I could better myself.

♪♪

ROLAND: Sarah never got in trouble growing up.

But, um, I think it was difficult...

it was very difficult on her.

Um, and there wasn't much of anything

available in the way of any kind of support.

They didn't understand why I wasn't there.

♪♪

My mother leaving created a sense of abandonment.

♪♪

And so by the time I was 20, I was afraid of being alone.

I wanted someone to be there to help me navigate life

and also to love me.

♪♪

That was certainly the case at the time that I met Rick.

♪♪

REPORTER 1: Pender was serving time for a double murder

in Marion County back in 2000.

REPORTER 2: Police came to believe

that 22-year-old Richard Hull was the likely murderer.

REPORTER 3: Hull eventually was sentenced

to 90 years in prison.

Investigators thought she was the brains behind the killing.

♪♪

If I could go back from the very first time

that I met Sarah, I would just leave.

♪♪

I mean, it cost me my family, being with her.

♪♪

So no, yeah, there's... yeah, I would definitely leave.

♪♪

We could always play the what-if game.

What if I would have turned left instead of turning right?

You know, I... I... I could do that all day

and beat myself up all day.

♪♪

But I actually... at one point in time,

I could say that I did love her.

[gentle music]

♪♪

What attracted me to Sarah was her personality that she had.

She was fun.

She... she had a good heart then.

I mean, we... we had a good relationship, I guess.

I mean, it was...

things kind of was a blur and happened so fast.

SARAH: When I met Rick, he was both manly and sensitive.

Rick put his arm around me, and he said,

stick with me, kid, and I'll take care of you.

And it felt so good.

[somber music]

♪♪

Sarah told me, well, I have a boyfriend.

And I said, oh?

I said, where'd the boyfriend come from?

Is he from Purdue, too, and that?

And she goes, no.

She told me his name was Richard Hull.

[tense music]

I said, is he good to you?

She said, yes, Mom, and he loves me,

and he's my protector.

♪♪

SARAH: In the beginning, Rick told me that he

worked at a carpet-cleaning business.

♪♪

It wasn't long after that that I found out that his real job

was dealing drugs.

When she first met me, she knew I was into the,

you know, business, in the drug business.

So it wasn't, like, a huge surprise to her, you know.

I mean, that's what we were out there doing

was having a big old party.

♪♪

SARAH: I was very smitten.

And I felt like it was an adventure.

♪♪

After a few weeks together,

Rick told me that his friend Drew

and Drew's girlfriend, Trish,

were traveling from Nevada

and needed a place to stay for a little while.

Rick made it clear that the less that I knew,

the better off that I was.

They looked like any two normal hippie couple.

♪♪

We found a house on South Maple Street.

We all moved in together.

I had no frame of reference for what might happen.

All I knew is that I wanted to be loved and to stay in that...

that loving relationship.

I really had this vision that we would move to the suburbs

and get a small house, a picket fence, a dog,

you know, start living the American dream

just like anyone else.

♪♪

But it was like two different worlds.

I would party with Rick on the weekends

and then sober up on Sunday and go to work on Monday.

While I went to work at a construction company,

Drew and Rick would deal drugs.

♪♪

RICHARD: We actually used to drive around

Indianapolis and throughout Noblesville.

And if you've ever seen that movie.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with Johnny Depp,

when they're carrying around

a... a little suitcase full of drug...

you know, a briefcase full of drugs, that was us.

You know, I used to tell people, man,

we got uppers, downers, inners, outers, and all-arounders.

Whatever you want, it's there, you know.

♪♪

BONNIE: I didn't get good vibes.

I thought, OK, they're... they're dealing drugs.

It frightened me a little.

I just had this tremendous urge to...

put her in the car, take off.

♪♪

And you have that overwhelming feeling...

I need to get her out of here.

But it didn't turn out that way.

♪♪

[siren wails]

REPORTER: The victims, a white man and a woman,

were discovered last night in a dumpster

behind the Teamsters Hall

in the 800 block of South Meridian.

25-year-old Andrew Cataldi...

he and his girlfriend, 26-year-old Tricia Nordman,

had been shot to death.

Investigators knew to search their house

on South Michael street.

Police think that's where the couple died.

REPORTER: Two hours ago,

a US Marshal-led task force

apprehended Indiana's second-most-wanted suspect,

the alleged person who drove the getaway car

for a twice-convicted killer.

Ma'am, anything you want to say about your situation?

Did you drive Sarah Pender from prison?

The marshals arrested 42-year-old Jamie Long

on a charge of aiding an escape.

[tense music]

RYAN: Jamie knew the consequences.

♪♪

That loyalty and obedience is... is... is mind-blowing,

is bizarre.

But she was that madly in love with her.

♪♪

I'm not the first person to say that Sarah Pender

is a manipulator.

There's a common theme.

She gets people to do things that aren't normal.

She gets people to do things that land them in prison.

♪♪

I needed intelligence.

There was one piece of evidence that was given to me

very early on, is, they gave me the phone number

of the phone that she had while she was in prison.

♪♪

I got the cell phone records.

I saw the name Peggy.

She was up there in the top 10.

Peggy's address came back to the house in Indianapolis.

♪♪

You know, you live in a neighborhood all your life,

you know your neighbors.

There was a strange truck parked down the street.

[engine turning over]

And then me and my daughter left.

[dog barking]

And I noticed that truck was following us.

♪♪

Me and my daughter pulled up at my sister's house.

The truck pulled up behind us in the driveway.

And then when I actually got out of the car,

I looked and I seen the street was full of cop cars.

[siren wails] OFFICER: Freeze!

And then the Marshal...

they all had their guns out.

OFFICER: Put your hands up!

PEGGY: I was frightened.

I told my daughter to get in the house.

Don't stop.

And they tried... they yelled at her, told her to stop.

And I told her, no, you get in the house.

-You know what? -That's what they pay me to do.

You can't be a pussy and do this...

OFFICER: Get on the ground!

RYAN: Because you can't handle these people

with soft kid gloves.

You can't.

US Marshal Ryan Harmon,

he just portrayed hisself

to be just, like, a big, bad guy, like, you know,

I'm gonna get your friend no matter what.

♪♪

They went in and searched upstairs and downstairs

looking for Sarah.

They didn't look like they were too happy that they

couldn't find her there.

♪♪

They asked me if I knew where Sarah Pender was.

[indistinct police radio chatter]

I was a nervous wreck 'cause I didn't know...

I didn't know what to say or really do.

♪♪

Peggy was a...

a very wiry, nervous, "oh, shit" kind of a person.

[sighs]

♪♪

RYAN: Which was good. Just do what's right.

♪♪

Wow.

This brings up a lot of memories.

And she did.

♪♪

SARAH: I was laying on the bed,

and I was thinking that I had

to get out of that motel room.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

[knock at door]

My heart dropped to the floor.

Nobody would be knocking on the door.

I don't want to go back to prison.

♪♪

I thought, holy shit.

[dramatic music]

♪♪