Original subtitles

NARRATOR: This program is about unsolved mysteries.

Whenever possible, the actual family members

and police officials have participated

in recreating the events.

What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.

ROBERT STACK: Tonight, on "Unsolved Mysteries,"

A poignant saga of Amelia Earhart.

53 years ago she vanished in the South Pacific

during around-the-world flight.

But eyewitness accounts suggest that Amelia

Earhart may have survived and been

captured by the Japanese Navy.

In Woodstock, Illinois, Colleen Ritter and Rick Church

were typical high school sweethearts

until their romance went sour.

Now, Colleen's parents are dead, and Rick Church

has disappeared.

Using an electronic store as a front, FBI agents in Florida

go undercover to capture the kingpins

of a South American drug ring, a real life story of Miami Vice.

Also, we will present a follow up to our story

about a popular 16-year-old girl who mysteriously vanished

from Au Sable Forks, New York.

Last year she was apparently in Los Angeles at a concert

for the musical group, New Kids on the Block,

and may even have been captured on film in their rock video.

Perhaps you can help find Lari Lynn Nixon.

[theme music]

Two years ago, we examined.

The strange disappearance of a 16-year-old girl.

Tonight, an update on her case and an urgent appeal

from her family and members of the teenage recording group,

New Kids on the Block.

Kari Lynn Nixon was an above average student,

and well-known and liked in the small community

of Au Sable Forks, New York.

At around 10:00 PM on June 22, 1987,

Kari was returning home after running

an errand for her father.

A few minutes later and only 700 feet from her doorstep

Kari Lynn Nixon disappeared.

KATHY NIXON: My immediate reaction was terror,

and it's been a nightmare ever since.

ROBERT STACK: Was Kari's disappearance

a result of foul play or had she simply run away?

RICHARD SYPEK: Kari wrote some letters to a friend,

and in these letters, she indicated

she would like to live in Hawaii, move to Florida,

possibly California and, in fact,

leave the town of Au Sable Forks when she turned 18.

CAPT. LEU: My theory on this case

is Kari Lynn Nixon was abducted.

Her father gave her $20 for groceries.

She went to Thomas' Store for her father, left Thomas' Store

with the bag of groceries.

If she was a runaway, she would have done none of those things.

She would have been dressed better.

She would have taken money with her that she had in her bedroom

after we searched her bedroom.

She is a victim of a kidnapping.

ROBERT STACK: Authorities investigated dozens

of reported sightings of Kari, but were

unable to confirm her identity.

CAPT. LEU: Nothing has been found, not one thing.

She's walked off the face of the earth

as far as we're concerned.

As the years in the investigation dragged on,

Kari's parents began to give up hope

of ever finding their daughter.

But all that changed in March of this year

when they saw a videotape of a concert

given by the popular singing group, New Kids on the Block.

On June 5Th, 1989, the group filmed

their Hanging Tough live concert in Los Angeles, California.

Among the crowd of teenage fans, Kathy and Gary Nixon

saw a familiar face.

KATHY NIXON: We couldn't believe how much that girl

looked like our daughter.

So we just kept rewinding it and going over,

and over, and over, and we just couldn't

believe it, because we never really had

any hope that she was alive.

And then there was this girl that looked so much like her.

I'm not 100% convinced, but it looks like our Kari.

Upon viewing the tape, I picked the girl out immediately

the first time it ran through.

It was obvious to me that this girl did look like Kari Nixon,

and it appeared to be her.

ROBERT STACK: This detailed enhanced photograph

was made from the videotape and compared

with a picture of Kelly taken shortly before she disappeared.

RICHARD SYPEK: There's obviously many similarities.

The hair length, the hair color, the shape of her face,

the chin the mouth, and it displayed a multiple

of earrings in the right ear in which

Kari Nixon has four earrings in her right ear

and two on her left.

So the photo enhanced finished product

further convinced the Nixons that this

could be their daughter.

ROBERT STACK: Members of the New Kids on the Block

did not recognize the girl in the crowd,

but after hearing Kari's story, wanted

to make a personal appeal.

JONATHAN KNIGHT: Well, I'd just like

to say to Kari that if you're out there, the best thing to do

would just be to call somebody.

And even if you go to your local police

and just tell them your situation,

then maybe they can help you out.

JORDAN KNIGHT: Or if any of you viewers

out there who have seen her at a New Kids show

or just seen her on the street, if you could contact someone,

you know, to let them know where she is,

or if she's all right, or anything, that

would be a big help.

KATHY NIXON: We need to find this girl to find out who she

is, whether it's Kari or not.

Just so that if it's not, we can go on to something else

to try and find her.

I love you, Kari, and I need to talk to you.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: Six decades ago, Amelia Earhart,

was one of the most famous women in the world.

She had the figure of a movie star

and the face of an angelic tomboy.

The first woman to pilot an aircraft

across the Atlantic in 1932, Amelia

defied labels and definitions.

Part All-American girl, part daredevil, she

was perfect hero for her time.

But she was also ahead of her time.

A self-effacing, yet outspoken champion of women's rights.

A pilot's a pilot.

I hope that such equality could be carried out in other fields

so that men and women may achieve equally

in any endeavor they set out.

ROBERT STACK: On May 20th, 1937, Amelia Earhart

and her navigator, Fred Noonan, prepared for takeoff

from Oakland, California.

Amelia was 39 years old.

This flight was designed to be the capstone

of her brilliant career as an aviator.

She was attempting to become the first person, man or woman,

to fly around the world at its widest point, the Equator.

Today, 53 years later, new evidence

has deepened the mystery surrounding

Amelia Earhart's last flight.

The first leg of this slide was via Burbank to Tucson.

From there, she went on to New Orleans, Miami, Puerto

Rico, Venezuela, and Brazil.

Amelia and Fred then crossed the Atlantic landing in Senegal

on the African Coast.

They made several short hops across Africa,

then headed for Karachi in what is now Pakistan.

From there to Calcutta, Rangoon, Singapore and two

stops in Java, then Australia, and finally Lae, New Guinea.

FRED GOERNER: Amelia and Fred had flown almost 2/3 of the way

around the world, and they'd done it fairly quickly.

They must have been very tired when they got to New Guinea.

They had two days there.

They tried to rest up.

But after that amount of flying time,

they must have been exhausted and here they

were facing the most difficult leg of their flight.

ROBERT STACK: From New Guinea, Amelia and Fred faced

a grueling 18 hours in the air.

They also had to hit the inconceivably

tiny target of Howland Island.

Howland is just a mile and a half long and a half mile wide.

At its highest point, the island is

only 20 feet above sea level, about half

the height of a telephone pole.

The

Difficulty factor on a scale of 1 to 10

piloting from Lae New Guinea to Howland Island in 1937

and that aircraft, make it a 10, the most difficult.

It would be like flying across the United States

and locating the 18th green of a golf course in New Jersey.

ROBERT STACK: On July 1st, 1937, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan

prepared to leave New Guinea.

Squalls were predicted along their route.

They decided to postpone takeoff.

Amelia wired her husband that she

would not make it back to Oakland

on the 4th of July as planned.

At precisely 10 AM on the 2nd of July, Amelia and Fred took off.

They planned to cross the International

Date Line and land on Howland Island 18 hours later.

ELGEN LONG: Though she had the best navigator in the world

sitting beside her, Fred Noonan, she was responsible for running

that airplane.

She had to fly the heading, she had to watch the weather,

she had to watch the fuel flow.

She had the watch the mixtures, the carburetor air,

make sure they weren't getting carburetor ice.

She was responsible for the airplane maintaining

altitude and maintaining trim.

All these things were constant, plus she had

to do the radio transmissions.

FRED GOERNER: Amelia was not competent

where radio was concerned.

She would never take the time to learn properly.

I think it can be honestly said that the radio was the Achilles

heel of that flight.

ROBERT STACK: It may seem incredible now,

but in 1937 before radar came into use,

a battery-powered radio was Amelia's

only link with the world.

Plying the waters around Howland Island, the Coast Guard Cutter,

Itasca stood ready to communicate

by radio with Amelia as soon as she came within range.

With a radio bearing, the Itasca could

rescue Amelia and Fred at sea should anything go wrong.

For 16 hours, nothing did.

Then Amelia's lack of radio expertise came into play.

ELGEN LONG: About 17 hours and 14 minutes into the flight,

now we're really getting to the critical part.

She reports that she's approximately 200 miles out,

and she wants them to take a radio bearing on her,

and she whistles into the microphone.

[inaudible] bearing on 3105 kilocycles on [inaudible].

(WHISTLES)

She stopped whistling.

ROBERT STACK: Amelia did not whistle long enough to give

the Itasca a consistent signal.

What Amelia failed to understand was that whistling

wasn't necessary.

Simply allowing an uninterrupted radio signal to play for 30

seconds would have been enough.

Please repeat last transmission on 7 5 0 0.

ROBERT STACK: 19 hours into the flight

and one hour behind schedule, Amelia and Fred

calculated that they should be directly above Howland Island

where they had also established clear radio contact.

Looking down, they saw only ocean.

Fred, I don't Howland Island.

I don't know where it is.

We should be right on top of it.

It's not on my side.

I don't see it here either.

ROBERT STACK: Something was badly wrong.

Only once had Amelia indicated that she

could hear the Itasca even though they

could hear her perfectly.

Again, all Amelia had to do was open her radio line

to let a signal play so the Itasca could take a bearing

and find out how far off course she was.

Instead, Amelia stopped her radio transmissions.

She had overused the radio and drained her battery

on a flight the year before.

She was reluctant simply to let the transmitter run.

ELGEN LONG: They know they've missed

the island, gone passed it, but they don't know which side.

They have no way of knowing.

They have to take a radio bearing.

So Amelia does the only thing she can.

20 hours and 13 minutes into the flight, Amelia

sends her last message.

Her voice is talking very rapidly and very tense.

We will repeat message.

We will repeat this message on 6210.

ROBERT STACK: In her final radio message,

Amelia said she was switching frequencies to 6210 kilocycles.

The Itasca could not reach her on that frequency.

They assumed that a Amelia, once again unfamiliar with emergency

radio procedure, had turned her radio

dial to the wrong setting.

Frantically, the Itasca tried other frequencies with no luck.

Earhart, this is the Itasca.

Come in, over.

We have an emergency.

Notify all the ships in the area Amelia Earhart's plane

maybe going down. We may be losing her.

ELGEN LONG: That was the last verified transmission

ever heard from Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan.

They must have ran out of fuel, and within a minute or two

from 1,000 feet, would have had to ditch

the airplane into the ocean.

ROBERT STACK: Immediately, a search effort began,

the largest ever mounted to look for a single plane.

10 ships, 65 airplanes, and 4,000 men

cover this 250,000 square mile area around Howland Island.

The search continued for 16 days.

Experts agree that Amelia's plane with its empty gas tanks

would have floated for five to eight hours.

On the plane, Amelia and Fred had life preservers

and a two-person inflatable life raft

equipped with emergency supplies so they could

have been afloat for days.

Experts believe Amelia went down somewhere near Howland Island,

but incredibly, unconfirmed sightings

have placed Amelia and Fred 2,500

miles West Northwest of Howland on Saipan

in the Mariana Islands.

On When Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappeared,

Saipan was an important military headquarters for the Japanese.

Intent on expanding its empire, Japan was about to attack China

and had begun to build up military operations

on key islands of the South Pacific.

July, 1944.

Seven years after Amelia Earhart's plane vanished,

the island of Saipan was now controlled by American Forces.

Sergeant Thomas Devine was a member of the 244th Army Unit.

I first became aware of matter pertaining to Amelia Earhart

soon after my arrival on the island.

Lieutenant Liebig who was our First Lieutenant

had secured a jeep and told me that I

was to drive into [inaudible] airfield,

which was a short distance away from our bivouac area.

ROBERT STACK: Devine and the Lieutenant

drove along a heavily guarded road.

They pulled up in front of a padlocked aircraft hangar.

I'm sorry, sir, this is a restricted area.

Restricted to whom?

With all due respect, sir, that's none of your concern.

While he waited, Thomas Devine overheard

snatches of conversation from a nearby group of Marines.

We got Amelia Earhart's plane in that hangar.

You guys wouldn't believe what we found.

ROBERT STACK: Suddenly, an official in civilian clothes

reprimanded the Marines.

You people want to knock off the chatter here?

You understand what's going on?

This is a classified project.

You've come about that damn close to compromising

the project right now.

I'm telling you I want you to sit down, do your jobs,

and shut up, you understand?

THOMAS DEVINE: As we went back, we

dropped the subject, because it was just a minor incident that

took place.

Later on that same day, I heard a roar from the airfield.

But we didn't pay too much attention until suddenly it

came overhead very, very low, and you

could see the markings on it.

It was not a military plane.

It was a civilian plane.

A marking was very evident, NR16020.

We all looked up.

We all wondered what in the world was going on.

ROBERT STACK: Thomas Devine wrote down the identification

numbers on the aircraft.

They corresponded exactly to the numbers

on Amelia Earhart's plane.

That same evening, Thomas saw the plane again.

Now it was on fire.

THOMAS DEVINE: I was aghast to see

this plane, the so-called Earhart plane,

engulfed in flames.

And I saw that plane personally on three occasions that day.

The last time the plane was in flames.

ROBERT STACK: At about the same time,

Bob Wallack was one of the Marines stationed on Saipan.

ROBERT WALLACK: I was in the 1st Battalion 29th Marines.

We were in the second wave going into Saipan.

During the daytime we had nothing to do except look

around, souvenir hunt.

We're looking through some government looking

buildings, brick buildings.

We found this safe that was there.

One of the guys was a demolition person that knew,

and he thought he could blow the door off the safe

and we'd have something.

We thought we'd be millionaires.

But anyway, there was a briefcase that I grabbed,

and I thought I had it packed full of money or something

like that.

To my surprise, it was something I

didn't expect to see when it was full

of Amelia Earhart's papers.

Hey, Joe, come take a look at this.

JOE: What have you got, Wallack?

Amelia Earhart.

What's this stuff doing here?

I may have only been 18 years old,

but I knew I had a piece of history in my hand.

This is incredible.

Yeah, I think you're going to have to turn that stuff in.

Yeah

ROBERT STACK: Wallack turned the briefcase and its contents

over to a commanding officer.

He never saw it again.

ROBERT WALLACK: That briefcase is still

someplace in this country.

I believe that, because that officer that I gave it to

was a high enough rank that he didn't

just take it and throw it away.

He had something valuable, too.

I do not believe Amelia Earhart died

at sea I think Amelia Earhart survived

the downing on an island in--

ROBERT STACK: Buddy Brennan and has

been investigating the Amelia Earhart

mystery for more than 11 years.

In 1987, he interviewed a woman Saipan who said she

had witnessed Amelia's death.

Unsolved mysteries went to Saipan

and interviewed the same woman.

What follows is exuded from both interviews.

NIEVES CABRERA BLAS (TRANSLATOR): The woman was

brought ashore by the Japanese.

It was said they had captured two spy people.

The Japanese soldiers brought the spies into town.

Many of us went there to see them.

[speaking japanese]

FRED NOONAN: I think they want us to strip.

NIEVES CABRERA BLAS (TRANSLATOR):

The Japanese guards made them take off all their clothes,

everything they had on their bodies.

It was then we could see that one of the spies was a woman.

I had never known before a woman who wore men's trousers.

Oh, the things that happened to that woman.

The soldiers put her in jail.

they removed her jewelry from her hands.

Then the Japanese came and gave her rice.

She threw it out.

When they took her out of the prison, they tied her hands,

they blindfolded her.

I was working on the farm.

I saw a Japanese motorcycle.

The woman was in a little seat on the side of the motorcycle.

I watched, and they took her to this place

where a hole had been dug.

They made her kneel in front of the hole.

[speaking japanese]

Then they shot her.

[gunshot]

I planted a breadfruit tree near her grave.

ROBERT STACK: In 1987, Buddy Brennan

conducted an excavation of the gravesite he was only

allowed to dig for 12 hours.

BUDDY BRENNAN: We got down to 6 and 1/2 feet below what they

said would have been the surface in 1944, which

is the date Miss Blas gave us of having witnessed the execution.

And that's where we retrieve the blindfold.

ROBERT STACK: Brennan believes this tattered fragment of cloth

was a blindfold worn by Amelia Earhart.

However, no human remains were unearthed.

What really happened in Saipan?

Was Amelia Earhart executed here?

Was her aircraft burned here on an American airfield?

If so, who burned it and why?

Or did Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan go down with their plane

and perish somewhere in the vast South Pacific?

I am convinced that the most probable end to the Amelia

Earhart flight ended with them running out of fuel just

like they'd said on the radio, and just

like the official accident investigation report

indicated from Captain Noyes on the Lexington

that they were forced to ditch Northwest of Howland Island

after their fuel was exhausted.

And they couldn't find Howland Island because

of a navigational error.

ROBERT STACK: Elgen Long believes

that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan ran into three problems.

The United States nautical charts Fred was using

had mislocated Howland Island by six miles.

A faulty compass on their aircraft

took them seven miles farther off course.

Finally wind drifts and related factors

pushed them another 22 miles west.

According to Elgen Long, Amelia and Fred ended up

a full 35 miles off course.

ELGEN LONG: I stick with where the airplane went down.

What happened to Amelia, I'm really not positive about,

and we won't know until we locate the airplane.

I think if we can raise her airplane, and prove once

and for all the solution to the Amelia Earhart mystery,

it would be something very, very worthwhile for our heritage.

We can't afford to throw our heroes away.

ROBERT STACK: Many believe that the mystery of Amelia Earhart

could be solved simply by a deep sea diving expedition.

Perhaps so.

Or perhaps Amelia Earhart is destined

to remain a legendary figure, a hero

suspended in time at the apex of an unsolved mystery.

When we return, a chilling tale of a teenager who apparently

embarked on a murderous rampage when his girlfriend

broke up with him.

[music playing]

Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter grew up in Woodstock, Illinois,

a small town north of Chicago.

They married in 1968 and had three children,

Colleen, Steve, and Matthew.

The Ritters were a close knit family, strong churchgoers,

and community workers.

When 15-year-old Colleen began to date

a childhood friend, Rick Church, it seemed only natural.

Colleen and Rick were both students at a small Catholic

high school.

At first, the relationship seemed like

a typical teenage infatuation.

Hi, Rick.

Hey, how are you?

Good, how are you?

Good. How was school?

COLLEEN RITTER: I first started dating

Rick when I was a sophomore.

At that point, he was a senior.

Rick was really good looking.

He was involved in sports activities.

He was real quiet, though.

He had a lot of friends, but he was real quiet.

I know, it's not a fun position to be in.

ROBERT STACK: A year after Colleen and Rick began dating,

Rick went away to college.

For Colleen, the romance began to cool.

A waning of young love is an everyday occurrence.

Fortunately, most teenage hearts mend quickly.

In the case of Colleen Ritter and Rick Church,

however, something went wrong, very wrong.

Rick seemed unable to accept the idea that the courtship might

be over.

From his college dorm, he called Colleen nearly

every night upset and on edge.

No one suspected that Rick Church was coming unhinged.

[phone ringing]

Hello.

RICK CHURCH (ON PHONE): Hi, Colleen, it's me.

How you doing?

Hi, Rick, I'm fine.

Yeah?

What are you doing?

COLLEEN (ON PHONE): Oh, I have a math test.

And listen, I really haven't studied much.

I have to go.

I just called to talk to you for a second.

COLLEEN (ON PHONE): But you never have anything to say.

That's not true.

Look, I'm sorry.

I just-- I really have to study.

I'll have to call you tomorrow.

OK, fine.

Well, good luck on your math test.

COLLEEN RITTER: Rick, I have been doing a lot of thinking.

ROBERT STACK: In June of 1988, Rick came home from college

to find that his parents had separated

and his girlfriend had reached a decision.

So what are you getting at?

I think we should see other people.

I'm not good enough for you?

COLLEEN RITTER: At the beginning of that summer,

he became very possessive.

You know, where are you going?

Who are you going to be with?

That type of thing, and that just like crowded me too much.

I couldn't stand that.

You were calling me all the time.

I'm really sorry if I inconvenienced you.

You're too possessive.

What?

COLLEEN RITTER: I found it was really

hard breaking up with Rick.

I still wanted to be friends.

We had known each other practically all our lives.

And I just consider him a good friend.

So I thought maybe this just wasn't-- it was like

a friendship trying to turn into a romance

and it just didn't cut it.

You know, it just didn't work.

So then I just wanted us to be friends once again,

because he really didn't-- he really needed somebody.

And I wanted to be a friend for him.

But I just couldn't be his girlfriend anymore.

It was too hard.

Anyway

ROBERT STACK: Two months later on the night of Saturday,

August 20th, Colleen had a friend sleeping over

as did her brother Matthew.

Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter were out with friends.

Their other son was away.

[phone ringing]

Hello.

RICK CHURCH (ON PHONE): Hi.

Hi.

ROBERT STACK: At 11:30 PM, Rick Church

telephoned upset, because he wanted one last Saturday

night with Colleen.

I was out with some of my girlfriends.

RICK CHURCH (ON PHONE): Where'd you go?

COLLEEN RITTER: He was kind of depressed.

He just sounded very depressed and very silent, really quiet.

Like he knew something he didn't want to tell me or something.

And, uh, immediately then I said,

well, don't talk to me like that.

If you're going to act like this,

I don't want to talk to you tonight.

I'll just talk to tomorrow then.

And he said, well, fine, and just hung up on me.

I don't know exactly how the fight started,

but it ended up where he just hung up on me.

I don't think there was anything really unusual about that.

We had gotten in arguments before,

and he had hung up on me before, and I had done the same.

It wasn't unusual, I don't think, in any circumstance.

It was just a basic fight.

ROBERT STACK: Around 5:15 AM, Rick Church

entered the Ritter's house.

What the police believe happened next

is based on their investigation and eyewitness accounts.

Ray and Ruth Ann Ritter were asleep

in their ground floor bedroom.

By 5:25 AM, they were both dead.

Upstairs 11-year-old Matthew Ritter awoke.

He was stabbed twice.

Colleen frantically dialed 911.

Rick broke into the room.

She ran.

Rick never spoke.

He began to stab Colleen.

Help me!

Help me!

We had a cedar chest, and I was like laying

on the cedar chest just pretending

I was dead, so he would stop.

Or just trying to do anything so he would stop.

I was like playing dead.

And that didn't work.

He kept attacking me.

I told him-- I just yelled out, I love you, just so I

thought maybe he would stop.

I was trying anything at that point.

Help me!

Hey, you, what are you doing?

ROBERT STACK: Rick fled when two neighbors

came to Colleen's aid.

Inside the house, young Matthew Ritter

had managed to get to the telephone

and give his address to the 911 operator.

The police arrived almost immediately.

He went that way.

He went back inside.

It's OK, I'm going to need a [inaudible].

ROBERT STACK: Operating under the false impression

that Rick had run back into the Ritter

house, the police concentrated their initial search

efforts there.

Matthew, bloody and in shock, huddled with his friend

who was unharmed.

Colleen's girlfriend had also escaped uninjured.

In the downstairs bedroom they found the bodies of Colleen

and Matthew's parents.

Meanwhile, Rick Church had run the 12 blocks to his home

and was hurriedly packing his things.

At 5:45 AM, Rick took his mother's truck and vanished.

Less than a half hour had elapsed since the bloody attack

on the Ritter family.

The Woodstock Police issued an all points bulletin.

CHIEF PITZMAN: This was not a criminal

or somebody that's hanging out on the streets or anything

like that.

This was a kid that had gone to school here all his life,

and he knew a lot of people, and had a lot of friends.

And went on to college, and then all of a sudden, you know,

was accused of a crime like this.

And I would think it'd be totally out of character

for something like this.

And I really don't know today yet what

the motive might have been.

Speculation is the break up, boyfriend,

girlfriend relationship.

That's-- to do something like this that's really something

over that, but you know, that's what we have

at this point for the reason.

ROBERT STACK: At the hospital, police

put Colleen Ritter and her brother,

Matthew, under 24-hour guard in case

Rick Church showed up again.

Matthew was treated and released the next day.

But Colleen was critically injured

with more than 20 stab wounds, most of them

in the back of her head.

Some of Colleen's doctors feared she would be permanently blind

or suffer irreversible brain damage.

Two days later, while Colleen was still in intensive care,

her parents were buried.

COLLEEN RITTER: The hardest part throughout all of this,

I guess, not having my parents there.

That's real hard.

That's two of your best friends.

And they're gone, so that's hard.

And not being able to say goodbye,

because I wasn't at their funeral, that was hard.

So I did that in my own way.

And I still am.

ROBERT STACK: Next, the story of a risky undercover operation

conducted by the FBI to capture Colombian drug lords.

[music playing]

In South America, the country of Colombia

continues to fight for its life in the ugly war against drugs.

The Colombian drug cartels have taken full credit

for making terrorism and political assassination

a way of life in their country.

And have made no secret of the fact

that they want to increase their power in the United States.

AGENT GAVIN: The cartels, the leaders of the cartels,

the members of the cartels in South America

and their representatives in the United States

are particularly vicious.

There is no premium on human life.

These people make the mafia look like boy scouts.

They are totally violent.

They will kill almost for the sake of killing.

Colombian drug cartels bring in more than $5 billion a year.

In an effort to stem the tide of the cartels influence

inside our borders, the FBI three years ago

mounted one of the riskiest sting operations

in United States history.

Because drug traffickers need above all else, phishing and

unbuggable telecommunications, the FBI set its trap

in an electronics store.

The sting operation began in May of 1987 in Miami, Florida.

Its center was the unassuming RA Communications Company,

which sold sophisticated telephone

systems and electronic devices.

Our first customers were quick to arrive.

I'd like some information on your cellular phones.

OK, well, we sell and service cellular phones.

We also service beepers and sell beepers.

What is it that you're interested in?

ROBERT STACK: The receptionist, Sandy, and the manager,

Jay, were both highly trained FBI agents.

These gentlemen would like to know about our cellular phone

systems.

[speaking spanish]

Sandy, do me a favor, take messages.

OK.

The drug runners wanted the latest car phones,

ship-to-shore radios, beepers, remote phones, and airplane

telecommunications devices.

AGENT GAVIN: We did everything we could to provide them.

By so doing, of course, we knew how they were operating,

what frequencies they were operating on,

and it gave us the leg up.

ROBERT STACK: The drug traffickers

overriding need for untraceable means

of communication, word on the street was RA had the best.

All the employees in RA who were cooperating fully with the FBI

were men the drug runners trusted.

Now listen, this is the important thing, OK?

Talk to me.

I'm going to talk to the man in the moon, right?

Now listen, I got to know the man in the moon's wife

isn't listening in. - OK.

You see what I'm saying?

What you want to know is if this phone is tappable, right?

And I'm telling you, listen to me now, trust me,

there's no way you can tap into this phone.

In your experience, there's no--

I'm an expert.

I just told you.

This is the top of the line, state of the art unit.

AGENT MCNALLY: We held ourselves out as being a service

component of the drug business.

We made it attractive for them to remain, talk, converse.

And that became a place to congregate.

It took on an aura of a clubhouse type of effect.

Our clientele probably six months into the operation

was entirely drug traffickers.

ROBERT STACK: Soon the really major

players in the drug underworld began

to drop into the RA clubhouse.

One of them was Colombian national Jesus Penalver,

known by the FBI to handle regular shipments of cocaine

worth as much as $50 million.

AGENT MCNALLY: Jesus came to trust

the undercover agents and cooperative parties

working in RA Communications.

And he bragged that he had been involved

in some violent incidents in Colombia, South America,

talked about his desire to flood the United States with cocaine.

He freely discussed with us the movement

from Colombia, South America through the Bahamas

and into the United States.

ROBERT STACK: Inside the clubhouse

Penalver felt safe enough to make drug

deals using the company phone.

His conversations were videotaped

and monitored by FBI agents.

[speaking spanish]

ROBERT STACK: Penalver's cronies joined him,

and in the clubhouse, it was not uncommon to see

as many as three different drug traffickers

doing business simultaneously into the early morning hours.

One of those traffickers was cartel

operative Julio Marco Cruz.

AGENT MCNALLY: Julio Marco Cruz was a customer, a purchaser,

someone who was going to receive in excess

of 100 kilos of cocaine.

ROBERT STACK: Cruz had arranged to receive

his large cocaine shipment in early November

on a boat called the Tremolo.

Through RA's personnel, the FBI discovered

the Tremolo's route in time to alert

the United States Coast Guard.

November 19th, 1988, the Tremolo entered US waters,

and the Coast Guard moved in to intercept

a massive shipment of cocaine.

Under the Tremolo's floorboards, agents

discovered over 800 pounds of cocaine, their street

value nearly $40 million.

The next day, Cruz showed up at RA Communications

accompanied by his bodyguards.

Amazingly, he seemed to know nothing

about the Tremolo's capture.

Jay made a quick decision to keep his cover intact.

He told Cruz about the drug bust on the Tremolo.

I read it in the paper, bro.

[speaking spanish]

ROBERT STACK: Cruz was infuriated,

but he never suspected that the men who told him about the bust

were, in fact, responsible for it.

He continued to use the same telephones he had used before,

and the FBI continued to gather information.

[speaking spanish]

It appeared as if the RA sting might go on indefinitely.

But during the fall of 1988, Jesus Penalver

had begun forcing his attentions on Sandy.

Nah, working hard.

ROBERT STACK: The FBI feared that Sandy

and their other agents might be in jeopardy.

AGENT MCNALLY: The agents who are involved

in undercover activity are exposed to potential danger

at any given time.

If the circumstances were different, OK?

AGENT MCNALLY: And really, we very closely reviewed

and evaluated with FBI headquarters

and the other agencies who participated,

that we had accomplished a great deal,

and it was the appropriate time to bring forward the matters

to a prosecutor phase.

ROBERT STACK: On December 6th, 1988,

the FBI brought charges against nearly 100 drug traffickers.

RA Communications was shut down.

AGENT MCNALLY: But we had a significant amount

of arrests to undertake.

We had a very detailed plan.

Of the 93 people indicted throughout the United States,

we were able to apprehend 68-some people.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: Next week on "Unsolved Mysteries."

In 1965, one of the first black deputy sheriffs in Louisiana

was gunned down in cold blood while on duty.

24 years later new leads prompted

the FBI to reopen the case.

For every mystery, there is someone,

somewhere who knows the truth.

Perhaps it's you.

[theme music]