Original subtitles

[Shannon] We got that by accident.

Benjaman Kyle's own brother, the first time he's seen him

since 1983, "allegedly,"

saying, "When you come home after committing a murder,

you're out of sync with the universe."

[ominous music plays]

[Shannon] The only way to know the truth about Benjaman is we have to go

around knocking on doors and talking to people who knew

Benjaman before he disappeared.

And Benjaman has no idea that we heard his brother

talking to him about murder.

He doesn't know that we're on to him.

We're going to...

my second cousin's house.

I'm a little nervous.

I guess it strikes me as kind of strange that none

of the cousins have tried to contact me.

[knocking noises]

-Hello. -Hi.

-I'm Mike Piggot. -Bill Powell.

Are you a hugger?

No. [laughs]

-Oh, you're a Piggot. -[Benjaman] All right, we can do it for the film.

-No, that's OK. -Oh.

Bill is my second cousin

and my dad's first cousin,

my dad being Bill Piggot.

That's him at an older age.

So this is my house.

I live here with my wife and two kids.

Have a seat.

I only know Bill as a legend.

He was here, and then he was missing.

And then, when asked about later in life,

nobody knew where you were. You were just gone.

And then eventually,

they just kind of made ref -- they -- they --

I don't know if this is morbid or not,

but they just assumed you were dead.

-Because nobody heard from you. -[Benjaman] Yeah, yeah.

We know I was in Colorado until the middle -- middle '80s.

And after that, we don't know what happened.

The only thing we know is that I am not an ax murderer,

because they can't find my fingerprints anywhere

on any crime scenes or anything.

Well, that you didn't get -- you didn't get caught for.

[Benjaman laughs]

Seems peculiar to me that when somebody disappears and they

don't want to be found, and then they show up

and suddenly have amnesia,

you may be running from something.

I wonder if he got in trouble with the law.

Do you really have amnesia, or you're hiding something?

So when he brought up the fingerprints, I'm like,

you know,

"Is there something more? Are you hiding from somebody?"

And now you show up and you're, like,

laughing about fingerprints or whatever.

I'm like, "Maybe, maybe you killed somebody."

[dramatic chord strike]

[theme music plays]

[theme music fades]

♪♪

When we were kids, that was the barber shop and the bunny

would come down and pass out candy.

And the right side was a jewelry store.

Was it? I don't remember.

Is your memory coming back any?

Ah, evidently, it seems to be. I'm remembering stuff here.

[Furman] Down on the corner, they moved in a caboose

and turned it into a bar.

My father was so abusive, and Bill moved out,

and he got an apartment.

And he was only about 14.

When you moved out of the house.

All my life, I've wondered how you paid for an apartment.

I never knew.

-What I'm wondering is how did -this teenager pay

for an apartment on his own?

Where did he get this cash? What was he doing?

So we did some digging.

And after living downtown as a teen,

Benjaman lived with this family, the Richardsons.

And apparently, he lived in a trailer on their property.

And Clayton, their son,

hasn't seen Benjaman since 1976.

[knocking noises]

-[Benjaman] Hi there. -Hi.

[Benjaman] Hey, are you Clay?

Yes, sir. Are you Mr. Powell?

[Benjaman] I guess so.

You sure sound like Mr. Powell.

Come here, buddy.

-Where the hell have you been? -[Benjaman] I don't know.

-I guess I'm back. -[Clay] I got so many questions.

Or do you remember where you lived at and how you met me?

How you met my dad?

Did your dad have a gas station behind

across from the theater? -Yes, he did.

He called it Richardson's Conoco.

But that's the trailer where you lived at.

Huh.

Do you remember the ceiling was so low

and you were so tall?

No. Yeah, no.

That you, uh, you ripped that roof -- raised it?

-Huh. -Do you remember what kind of beer you was drinking

back at the time? -Schlitz.

Yep, that's right.

You never forget the beer you drank.

[both laugh]

Remember why you had to take off?

Got a girl knocked up?

Or was you in trouble or something, or...?

No, I don't -- I don't think -- um...

I don't know.

I get emotional.

I thought bad thoughts of Bill being gone.

I thought he was dead.

[sniffles]

-We'll do it again. -I'd like that.

[Clay] Yeah.

I like that too, Bill.

He was like my -- like my big brother, and...

then all of a sudden, he wasn't there.

He just vanished.

I was sure happy to see him,

and he seemed to remember a few things,

but he wasn't too sure about why he disappeared.

I just don't know.

When Bill disappeared, sometime before that,

he was doing janitor work at the strip bar,

coming in three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning.

Not the nicest people in the world

goes to those strip bars.

And of course he knew,

just by listening,

about all these not-too-good people.

And then he just disappeared.

And then they found an unidentified body up

by America's river junction, Tippecanoe, Wabash Rivers,

an unidentified body.

And then they also found the body unidentified

in Murdock Park.

So we were concerned that he could have been killed,

and someone killed him.

[rock music plays]

I'm Jimmie Kesterson, and if you can't tell,

I really love tractors.

I'm a former Indiana State Police trooper.

I was with the State Police for 28 years.

[cat purrs]

And my interest was to criminal investigations,

and I worked a lot of investigations during that time.

Back in the mid- to late-'70s was a tough time for Lafayette.

There were four or five major crime families,

and doing most of the -- the major crimes.

It was a lot of burglaries,

car thefts, drug dealers,

prostitution, and there were numerous unsolved homicides.

There were specific taverns and locations where people

connected with crimes would congregate.

If you wanted to go and buy guns, and if you wanted

somebody's arm or leg broken, that's where you'd get it done.

On the missing persons report of William Powell,

if I had to guess on the car why I think it would be ditched

and the license plates taken off,

if they had committed

a crime or had been at the scene of a crime.

But with crimes, you know, burglaries,

rape, those things all have statute of limitation.

Bill would know that the only thing he could still

be tried for is murder.

This is the first time that Benjaman has suggested

that we meet someone who may know him.

I'm very suspicious.

I have to follow every lead right now,

but nothing prepared me for what I was about to hear.

William was coming along this driveway across

there, and I waved at him and he waved back.

And at first, I thought he recognized me.

And he came over and he started chatting with me

and he introduced himself.

So then, I knew he didn't know who I was.

Ila just told me that Benjaman is a hitman.

What I'm trying to figure out is why would he point us

in the direction of a lady who would flat out say

that he is a murderer? Why would you do that?

I'm Ila Solomon.

And what do you want to know about me?

I'm just a housewife.

William Powell, he's friends of my husband.

They used to go fishing.

And Willie Powell has been in this house.

This is the couch that Willie Powell used to sleep on

when he used to come to my house.

In the '90s.

From, yeah, from like '94 to 2000, probably.

I used to cook breakfast for him.

Cornbread waffles.

When I saw him at the cemetery,

he said he doesn't like waffles. [laughs]

I thought, "Oh, my God, I've given you like

over a hundred waffles."

But he didn't remember.

He had a reputation for...

not putting up with any [bleep] from any guys.

If you had a husband or a boyfriend

that would beat you up, you could go to Willie

and he would get rid of him.

Willie never hurt a woman or a child,

but he had a huge reputation for hurting men, huge.

There was a rumor about this girl who was 16-years-old

who got gang raped.

And he took some guys out fishing and they never

came back. Just put it that way.

He had a knife that he kept in his right ankle,

had a gun he kept in his left ankle,

kept a hatchet in his back,

and he would carry a baseball bat from time to time.

I'm surprised you noticed them.

[Alexander] We did some digging to figure out who this lady is,

and she was arrested because -- she went to jail.

[reporter] Solomon says her husband wanted to be eaten by birds

following his death.

So he wanted me to open the door so the birds

from the ravine would come in. But the birds never came in.

They only got as far as the air conditioner.

[reporter] Police got suspicious and entered the house.

They found a body of a deceased person in advanced stage

of decay. It was Gavin's remains.

The coroner determined that Gavin's dead body had been

there for nine months.

Prosecutors did charge her with a Class A misdemeanor

of failure to report a dead body.

[Ken] Ila has some credibility issues with respect

to her mental challenges.

Benjaman was adamant that we needed to go back

and talk to her, and that is very strange.

It's -- it's part of his plan.

"Go talk to this lady, go talk to this lady,"

and then he's gonna use that to discredit you.

[Shannon] "You talked to a crazy lady,

and now you're accusing me of being a hitman."

[Alexander] I think Benjaman's clearly toying with us.

I think Benjaman set us up to meet with someone who's,

you know, could be completely discredited here.

He may have this checkered past,

he may be a hitman,

but we have to find a more reliable source to corroborate

everything that we suspect.

We clearly need a better lead.

[phone line ringing]

-[automated voice] At the tone, please record your message. -[beep]

This is Ken Maxwell calling. We're in the Lafayette area.

[knocking noises]

This is Shannon Evangelista. I spoke to you a while --

[sewing machine ticking]

[Sue] I took care of all the cleaners in Lafayette.

I did all their sewing.

My name is Sue, and Bill Powell used to go

fishing with my uncle.

[laughs]

I know him. Yes.

Yes.

In the '90s,

I met William Powell at a night spot.

He had a switchblade and a gun on.

He wore it -- he wore it on his side, on his right side.

But it didn't bother me.

And we had a real good time that night.

I gave him my number. He was good-looking.

He reminded me of a depressed person.

I never seen him smile,

but he'd had a sexy look.

No smile.

[Ken] So --

He looked in my eyes and I could get lost in his.

[Sue laughs]

That is the truth.

I did.

not saying -- would you remember -- -I slept with him, OK?

Devon Plaza Hotel.

I spent the evening with him there.

I was safe.

[laughs] I was carrying a gun.

And I didn't get that far from it.

But he carried himself like a mobster.

He reminded me of a hitman.

I think he -- he could be violent.

I think he really could.

When you have multiple people

that knew William Powell tell you

"This is a really dangerous person who's very vengeful,

and he's worked as a hitman in the past,"

it's terrifying.

[suspenseful music builds]

Yes, I met him through the cleaners

where I do my sewing. I used to do his fittings.

He had a rough one.

-[Ken] So -- -He was a rough man.

I gotta be careful what I say.

[unidentified woman speaking]

Thank you.

[unidentified woman speaking]

[Ken] You have to educate me. Wrapped up in what?

I don't understand.

[Ken] I understand that.

[unidentified woman speaking]

Yes.

[Shannon] Benjaman Kyle, aka William Powell,

is a highly intelligent person.

He is always thinking 20 steps ahead.

He is manipulative and deceptive.

And if I believe what I've been told by other people,

he's potentially extremely dangerous.

I want a criminal profiler involved.

The plan is we're gonna bring in Chris Voss.

Chris Voss has worked on huge cases for the FBI.

He basically was a hostage negotiator.

My name is Chris Voss. I was an FBI agent.

I was a hostage negotiator.

I've got a 27-year history

dealing with the most dangerous people

in the world while they're lying and actively deceiving

and figuring out how to get them to tell the truth

or when they're telling the truth.

[Shannon] I want to set up a hidden camera.

Under the guise that Chris was a producer...

He'll interview Benjaman.

[clapboard clicks]

I want to get a real handle on what he thinks about Benjaman.

[Chris] There's some pretty standard things people do

when they're deceiving.

And so, for example, in the case of Benjaman,

it's going to be about what he gives away

with his body language and his answers.

A deception is a nervous response about that answer.

And if they're worried about tells, they're lying.

[Eric] This is Chris. Chris, this is Benjaman Kyle.

-Benjaman, how are you? -Hi.

-All right. -Nice to meet you.

We want to bring his true self out as much as possible.

I'm gonna want him -- to make him feel relaxed and welcome,

like he's in a safe environment, like he could be himself.

You wanna drink coffee?

[indistinct]

[Chris] I'm just trying to get him to drop his guard.

I'm trying to see if we can bond a little bit,

if we can find something we can talk about,

if I can catch him off guard.

You prefer to go -- you prefer to be called Benjaman?

It's Bill Powell?

I'm sorry. You prefer William --

you prefer William to Bill? We're being formal here now?

Are you -- are you being formal?

All right, forgive me for joking around about it, then,

I apologize.

Right.

He had a tremendous amount of difficulty

saying that he was William Powell.

There's some real control issues here with him, too.

He's engaging in physical behavior that typically

indicates deception.

It's a variety of tells from where he puts his hand

completely over his face.

At different times, he put his hands out

and completely covered his face with both hands

and then brought it down. This is a defensive move.

He's worried about the answer, and he's buying time

so the brain can spin something up.

I've also reviewed the various interviews,

video footage of Benjaman.

The abuse when I was a kid,

if it's as bad as what my brother was saying it was,

saying it was, that might,

to a large extent, explain the memory amnesia.

He said, "Well, the memory loss is as a result

of my abuse as a child."

And Eric says, "Well, that's 20 years ago."

And he stops dead in his tracks,

realizing that that's a bit of a stretch.

Ugh, crap.

After having been successfully kept all this secret

for a long time,

now he's got -- now he's got to create more

to cover it up.

I mean, if you were to turn the sound off and just watch,

and no context other than body language,

my impression of that interview

was here's a guy who's just seething with anger.

In my view, Benjaman Kyle is a highly manipulative,

highly practiced liar.

He executes his stories in a very focused

and cold-blooded manner,

what some people might refer to as a psychopath.

I'd be stunned if this didn't end up in an arrest of Benjaman

for some crime that's significant enough for him

to want to go into hiding for 20 years.

[Shannon] Under the guise that Chris was a producer,

he interviewed Benjaman, and he came back and said that

he believes that Benjaman quite probably is a psychopath.

But we needed hard evidence.

The missing persons report, I think it's the key for us

to figure out what he was running from.

Our leads from the missing persons report.

Thomas Powell is dead. Don Richardson is dead.

[Bleep] won't talk to us.

William Powell is not being truthful.

That leaves only one person, Charles "Chico" Goetz.

Like, he's literally the only key to unlock any information.

We believe that Benjaman, aka William Powell,

worked for one of the biggest crime families in Lafayette.

And we're starting to fill in the picture of that family.

The bar, that was their headquarters.

And then there were the soldiers who worked

for the boss.

And allegedly, Benjaman was one of them.

This report has so much information with respect

to Powell's activities back in 1976, in Indiana.

[Shannon] At this stage of the game, this is what I know.

I know Benjaman Kyle is really William Powell.

I know that he left in March of 1976.

Why would he do that?

I want to know what really happened.

In looking at this report, a few things show

that William Powell in his 20s is linked to people who are

engaged in criminal activity.

The missing persons report had this really weird section

about a crime boss that broke into Bill's brother's house

to steal a microwave cookbook that Bill left behind.

What's so important about a cookbook?

To me, this is strange.

And also, the report says a red '66 Rambler, no plates on it.

Had been found abandoned on the side road near Oakdale Dam.

William was in the company of Charles "Chico" Goetz.

If Chico fled with Benjaman, he could have been one

of the other soldiers working for the crime boss.

[Ken] He and Chico flee Lafayette in the middle of the night

after taking the license plates off Powell's car

and ditching it up in a rural area.

You only do that if you're running from something.

You're hiding something, probably something criminal

that you did.

The challenge is, how do we bring it to a point

that we can actually prove it?

The answer lies with Chico.

-Hey. -How you doing?

Good, Chico. How are you?

Doing well.

[crew member] Did you do the AudioVerse? Did you put his microphone on?

[crew member #2] He is locked up.

[crew member] We're rolling any time you want.

So, let's kind of start from square one, when you first

ran across Bill Powell.

Well, we both worked

for United Artists Theaters in Lafayette, Indiana.

He was very easy to get along with.

He was really the only friend I had at that time in my life.

And I think it was lonely for him, too.

I seemed to be his only -- only real social outlet, also.

We had a lot of fun.

We were pretty young and dumb and did some stupid things.

But we were both pretty honest folks.

I think what was really happening

in that period, though,

is that we were starting to drink more.

We were sitting over there at Keggers

in Illinois one night.

It had to have been midnight, 1 o'clock in the morning.

And I told him I had a buddy out in Colorado.

"Why don't we go to Colorado?"

And he said, "All right, let's do it."

So, we drove back to Lafayette.

We cleared out my apartment, we cleared out his trailer,

and we were headed to Colorado

when the sun came up that morning.

1976.

Never did.

We, uh, I'm sure the missing persons report was

written up for us leaving for Colorado,

and the cops never caught up with me.

It's not?

[gasps]

[Chico] Wow.

Carroll County.

We must have left it up around my parents' place somewhere.

Yeah, that's close to my parents' house.

I had to have been.

[laughs]

I don't know, I don't know.

I may have helped.

I don't know.

Sounds to me like we may not have been as honest

and uppity up as I thought we were.

[laughs heartily]

That's pretty sneaky, underhanded stuff.

Nothing about this makes sense.

Or passes a sniff test in any way, shape, or form.

I don't blame you for being careful

about what you're saying.

I think you're trying to make sure you don't hurt Bill.

[Chico] My memory might be a little twisted

because I do hold him dear.

I mean,

I think he had a little bit of a wild man buried in him.

He would come up with off-the-wall things

every once in a while.

To me, they were off-the-wall.

Now you're gonna make me say that.

Uh, [stammers.]

Things like some of the places

he would take me in Lafayette there.

There was a piece of the old Wabash and Erie Canal

next to the road.

You have to get over into the woods,

and pretty soon you can find what's left of a ditch.

[Chris] So what are you telling me, though?

[stammering] What's the point?

[Chico] I guess we were drinking, and maybe that's why

my memory is strained.

It was a strained time.

[Chris] The two of you guys, you were troubled.

Yeah, that's a fair thing to say, yeah.

Chico told us that Powell would take him to a place

that he called "the Ditch."

But we also heard from Powell's brother Furman...

And then they found an unidentified body

up by America's river junction, Tippecanoe, Wabash Rivers,

We have two people who don't talk to one another

talking about the same place.

[Shannon] I don't believe Chico.

We realized that the story went a lot deeper

than what he was telling us.

The plan is we're gonna surprise Benjaman with Chico.

We want real reactions.

[Benjaman] Well, I just thought of something.

You used to see their carriages on the street once in a while.

[Chris] Hey, what's happening? Nice to see you.

Oh.

There's a stranger amongst you.

-Oh, hey, I need to get out of that picture, don't I? -I'm used to strangers.

[Chris] Why don't you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves, you two.

I'm Chico Goetz.

-Bill Powell. -Really?

[Chico] I don't believe it. You're...

Benjaman, right? -Yeah.

Nice to meet you.

It has been a very long time.

Hmm.

I'm sorry you don't remember a whole lot of that.

[stuttering] I don't. Um, um...

-[stammers] Yeah. -[laughs]

[Chris] You know, he was an important guy to you.

Yeah, I guess. I don't.

[Chris] You should be happy to see a guy who was important to you.

[Chico] Well.

I didn't remember him. I didn't recognize him.

And it took a while of thinking before I finally realized that,

you know, some of his voice mannerisms

seemed familiar.

[Shannon] Benjaman is terrified that we brought Chico.

When we confronted him, he turns white.

-He's ashen. -He sat there.

Glared.

[Shannon] It was a strange dynamic.

Chico had more like a predatory attitude.

It was like Chico is looking dead on at him,

and Benjaman would not return eye contact.

Like, if they're hiding something, I want to see them

get their story straight.

And then I want to see what they talk about.

[Shannon] A minute, Chico and Benjaman spoke alone without cameras.

It's like he's warning Benjaman,

"This is what we have to say, 'cause this is what they know."

Psychopaths, from a hostage negotiator's perspective,

I know that they're control freaks.

So losing control is going to infuriate them.

Oh, OK.

The minute we would put him in any situation

where he was losing control, the guy that he really is,

the antisocial, angry person would step out.

That's who you saw when we met Chico.

Why didn't they tell me they had found him?

I mean, just tell me they had found him.

You know, why didn't --

why the [bleep] didn't you tell me

that he was bringing -- bringing him in?

Bill was a pretty serious guy, but I could make him laugh,

you know, pretty quick.

-I believe so, yeah, because, uh... -[Eric] OK.

I was, uh...

I was a housekeeper over there.

I would suspect that maybe

he got some wrongdoings with some wrong people,

maybe, or something, you know?

And that he may have cheated somebody

back then you didn't do.

No, I wouldn't say I did, but I can't say I didn't either.

Well...

[Eric] Hmm.

-[Eric] Yeah. -So I really...

[Ken] Here's the Wabash, right?

-Tippecanoe. -Tippecanoe.

OK, I'm sorry. I stand corrected.

If I had a memory, and I don't have a memory.

But I think you do.

My point is, you remember a lot of things. We're

going to go back to that night when you guys left for Colorado,

so we're going to go visit where the car was left.

Trying to find out what really happened back then,

why William Powell ran away in the middle of the night

with his friend Chico Goetz.

Did you ever hear the name Chico Goetz?

I can't say anything.

[Ken] What do you mean? Chico Goetz.

[unidentified woman speaking]

-Be careful. -[unidentified woman speaking]

[Ken] I'm sorry.

I couldn't hear you. I couldn't hear you.

He's not sane?

-He's not a saint. -[unidentified woman] Not a saint.

[Ken] Are you aware of anybody who's been killed?

We can't say.

[Chico] This is the road in the police report.

This is where I remember it.

[Ken] So it's 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning.

And Bill Powell, he wants to dump his car.

Right? And he's gonna pick this road.

Why?

Why?

That's what I'm saying.

-We wanted to get rid of that car. -Chico,

Chico, Chico.

[Chico] I know what it sounds like.

[Ken] Let me tell you something.

It -- it -- it's not kosher, baby.

Give me -- give me a legitimate reason.

All right, I'm gonna sit back as a smart guy.

Give me a legitimate reason

why Bill Powell, at 3 o'clock in the morning,

wants to take a set of [bleep] license plates off a car?

-[Chico] What? -[Ken] Give me the legitimate reason.

You remember a lot of things.

[ominous music plays]

[Ken] OK.

Yep.

Will you guys just let me

take a little walk down the road and back?

[Ken] You looked upset.

'Cause I can't --

[Ken] So you're upset because --

I'm not getting the detail.

[Ken] Look, if you don't remember, you don't remember,

you don't get upset about that.

You're upset about something you do remember.

At some point, the truth will come out on all this.

You want to put yourself in a good position here.

You know?

You know what we're going to do?

We're going to go to the ditch.

You're gonna show us the ditch.

We wouldn't know about that ditch if you didn't tell us.

-That's the ditch. -[Chico] That's the ditch.

So why was it so important

for you to tell us about this ditch?

[Ken] Yeah?

Come on down here.

It sure does. Follow me here.

This is your way of getting it off your chest

that he shared something with you.

You ever hear about any missing persons around this area?

[Chico] You know, there's been some things going on at Purdue.

-Uh-huh. -[Chico] But, uh...

What -- what -- like what?

-[Chico] It seems like one they found murdered somewhere. -Mm-hmm.

[Chico] You know, and she was missing for a while

when they found her body.

[Ken] Chico, Chico.

You understand how serious this is?

[Chico] I understand.

[Ken] If we had to get cadaver dogs.

If we had to dig this place up, right?

And we find something, guess where the FBI

and the police are gonna start?

You.

'Cause you showed us this place.

Why don't you think about that?

You don't want to ever get on that train and know something

and not share it, and then we uncover it.

[Chico] I'm -- that train's not there.

I'm trying to be honest with you guys.

I have done some bad things in my life.

I've never done anything

like rape or murder,

and I'm trying not to hide anything.

[Ken] That's [bleep].

You're lying. This isn't over.

Hello?

[Ken] Thanks for calling back.

We're trying to find people

who might remember William Powell.

[family member speaking]