Original subtitles

[music playing]

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: This is Walpole State Prison, 30 miles south

of Boston, Massachusetts, a stone fortress, housing

all manner of dangerous criminals,

a place where violence is an everyday fact of life.

Hey, Logan, I want this place sealed off.

Nobody goes in or out.

Hey, notify the state police.

ROBERT STACK: On the morning of November 26, 1973,

an inmate was found, stabbed to death in his cell.

The victim was Walpole's most famous

prisoner and perhaps the most notorious criminal

of his time--

Albert DeSalvo, the Boston strangler.

Eight years earlier, DeSalvo had confessed

to murdering 13 women during an 18-month siege that

had terrorized all of Boston.

But many people who knew DeSalvo, including

some members of the police department,

thought the confession was bogus.

In fact, DeSalvo was murdered the night

before he was to meet with his former psychiatrist

and a reporter to finally reveal, he claimed,

the truth about the strangling.

For those most intimately involved

with the investigation, DeSalvo's death

added another layer of mystery to an ongoing controversy.

Was Albert DeSalvo the Boston Strangler?

I was quite sure that he was not, and could not have been,

30 years ago.

His homicide, just before he was going to talk to me,

convinced me even more.

And now that I've had an opportunity to review the tapes

of his interrogation and confession,

I am even more convinced that he was not,

and probably could not have been, the Boston Strangler.

Most people today assume that Albert DeSalvo

was the Boston Strangler.

Yet few know that he was never convicted

in court, only in the press.

Tonight, in addition to Dr. Ames Robey,

you'll meet Effley Bailey, DeSalvo's defense attorney,

and George Nassar, a prison inmate who some believe

was the real Boston Strangler.

Join me for this fascinating investigation, as well as

these other intriguing mysteries.

Also, we'll take you to Czechoslovakia

for a remarkable saga of selfless heroism.

When an American bomber crash landed near her village

during World War II, 17-year-old Helen Elas

risked her life to shelter and protect

the crew from the Nazis.

Now Helen needs your help to find

the American airmen that she came to regard as family.

On May 3, 1991, 19-year-old Kevin Wheel

of Hawaiian Gardens, California, was

gunned down, the innocent victim of a gang-related shooting.

Ever since, his mother and father

have waged a lonely, personal crusade to track

down their son's killers.

Perhaps someone watching tonight has vital information that will

bring their quest to an end.

[theme music]

In the early 1960s, Boston was a city gripped with fear.

Between June of 1962 and November of 1963,

10 women were found murdered in their apartments.

The first was Anna Slesers, age 55; next, Helen Blake, 65;

and on the same day, Nina Nichols 68.

Then came Ida Irga, 75; Jane Sullivan, 67; Sophie Clark,

age 20; Patricia Bissette, 23; Beverly Samans, 23;

Evelyn Corbin, 58; and Joann Graff, 23 years old.

Four women in their early 20s, six women 55 years of age

or older, 10 women with almost nothing in common

except the manner in which they died,

strangled to death in their own apartments.

For the public, every night was an exercise in terror.

The police were frustrated.

No one seemed to have any answers.

There are stories of women rushing out to dog pounds

to buy every available stray mutt for protection.

Locksmiths reported a run on their businesses.

People were obviously quite clearly frightened

by whatever was out there.

ROBERT STACK: The police speculated

that the killer was a rabid woman hater who

chose his victims at random.

On January 4, 1964, 19-year-old Mary Sullivan

was found strangled to death in her bedroom.

She would be the 11th and last acknowledged victim

of the Boston Strangler.

10 months later, few people noticed when a man named

Albert DeSalvo was arrested on unrelated sexual assault

charges.

No one imagined that this itinerant handyman would one

day become a household name.

Although he was married and had two children,

32-year-old Albert DeSalvo had an extensive history

of sexual offenses.

He also had a propensity for collecting nicknames.

Long before the Boston Strangler,

DeSalvo was dubbed the Measuring Man.

Good morning. Wow, your neighbors were right.

You really are beautiful.

My name is Jack Johnson.

I'm from the Cambridge Modeling Agency over in Cambridge.

Oh, you must have the wrong apartment.

From your looks, I think I've got the right doll right here.

ROBERT STACK: Under the pretense of recruiting fashion models,

DeSalvo would talk his way into houses.

He would measure women for clothing and then fondle them.

Here's the contract I was talking to you about.

And I'm going to need to take some measurements for the gown.

ROBERT STACK: DeSalvo's escapades would

eventually catch up with him.

In March of 1961, he was arrested and sent

to a state correctional facility for one year.

Soon after DeSalvo's release, police

began receiving complaints about a sex offender whom they came

to call the Green Man, a maintenance worker who smooth

talked his way into women's apartments

and then assaulted them.

Good morning.

How are you?

Fine, how are you?

Good, the, uh, superintendent told me to take

a look at your plumbing.

She would let him in.

He would make an overture to her.

If the overture were repelled, he would leave.

But a surprising number of times,

he wasn't, according to him.

And he ended up making love with the woman.

Later, his assaults became much more aggressive.

And eventually these were the charges

that he was arrested for, for sexually assaulting four women.

ROBERT STACK: DeSalvo was arrested

for committing unnatural acts.

He was remanded to Bridgewater State Mental Hospital.

Dr. Ames Robey was the medical director.

I, um, I see here that you've been charged

with a series of molestations.

Well, molestation may be too strong a word.

Well, how do you mean?

Well, I mean, all the women I was with,

they had a very good time.

Well, some of them didn't enjoy it.

That is, after all, why you're here.

Yeah, well, they-- they enjoyed it at the time.

Well, the first thing that was so obvious about Albert

was his incredible need to be somebody important.

How many women would you say you

introduced yourself to with your measuring

and repair work schemes?

Uh, 600.

600?

Uh, well, um, probably more, actually, uh, over 1,000.

And how many of them enjoyed their experience with you?

All of them.

You're confident of that?

Yeah, I am.

He would brag about almost anything.

He gave the feeling, although he didn't say so at that time,

that he sort of wanted to be as well known as,

in quotes, "the Boston Strangler."

ROBERT STACK: Albert DeSalvo was about to get his wish.

Three months later, George Nassar, a fellow inmate

at Bridgewater, engaged his attorney, F. Lee Bailey,

in an odd conversation about the Boston Strangler

Listen.

Um, there's one other thing I'd like to ask you.

Go ahead.

If a man was the strangler, the guy who killed all

those women, would it be possible

for him to publish his story and make some money with it?

You mean before or after this man is tried for the crime?

Before.

It's perfectly possible to publish.

He asked me whether or not it would be possible for someone

who had done the stranglings to write a book

and provide money for his family.

And my off-hand answer was, sure.

But you might go to the electric chair as a consequence.

Later on, I was asked to go down and see this fellow,

Albert DeSalvo, by my client.

Albert, specifically, what do you want me to do for you?

I got a wife.

I got a-- a two-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter.

And, um, I know I'm going to be locked up for--

for the rest of my life.

I just hope it's in a hospital.

BAILEY: I was a little incredulous because everybody

develops a profile.

You're looking for a monster, somebody,

you know, jowls are dripping.

And it just didn't seem to fit.

There are obvious problems, uh,

about confessing to a crime in print

when there hasn't been a trial.

BAILEY: He wanted to be able to tell his story.

He said, I would like to find out why I am like this.

Maybe people could give me tests or something.

And I would like to take care of my family if I could.

Those are the things I would like.

Now you tell me what's possible.

Before we even consider that, I need

to know what that story is.

I need details.

All right, well, as George probably told you,

I'm the one they're looking for, the one that did

all the stranglings, all 13.

I thought there were only 11.

There were two that the cops didn't know about, that they

haven't tagged me with yet. - OK.

BAILEY: I had no way of knowing whether or not he was telling

the truth, fantasizing because he was crazy, or had

read a lot of things in the newspapers

and wanted to be famous.

ACTOR AS BAILEY: Let's move on to Sophie Clark.

ROBERT STACK: Two days later, Bailey

returned to Bridgewater, armed with a tape recorder

and a list of questions.

With DeSalvo's consent, Bailey had

struck a rather unorthodox deal with the Boston police.

They provided him with details only the strangler would know.

In return, Bailey was guaranteed that the tapes would

never be admissible in court.

I remember that, um, I went to the dresser to get,

you know, like, a stocking or something

to wrap around her neck.

And I knocked a pack of cigarettes on the floor.

ACTOR AS DESALVO (ON TAPE): I knocked a pack of cigarettes

on the floor.

And, uh, I left them there when I left.

Oh, this guy has got to be it.

ROBERT STACK: Later, Bailey met with the officers

assigned to the case.

John Donovan was then chief of homicide.

I think we've got to follow up in every way--

more questions, more details, more everything.

JOHN DONOVAN: We heard him answer correctly the question

that I had given Mr. Bailey.

And we liked what we heard.

His description of the crime scenes,

It was just so accurate that that impressed me very much.

We have to proceed with caution.

ROBERT STACK: However, when Dr. Ames Robey heard the tape,

he was anything but impressed.

He was convinced there was another explanation

for DeSalvo's knowledge of the crime scenes.

Can we get a transcript?

AMES ROBEY: Albert indicated to us

that he had gone to the various sites

that the newspapers had named after the police tapes

and the like were off the doors in the apartments,

just to sort of be there and see what it was like.

I'm fascinated, you know.

I-- I just want to be there, walk

around, get a feeling for it.

ROBERT STACK: Dr. Robey says that during the course

of his sessions with DeSalvo, he discovered that DeSalvo

had a photographic memory.

Perhaps DeSalvo had visited the victims' apartments,

or perhaps he was merely repeating what someone

else had described for him.

As police began to suspect DeSalvo,

Robey began to believe that DeSalvo's friend, George

Nassar, was somehow involved.

AMES ROBEY: I first began to wonder

about something going on when no other inmates would

come near them.

And they would immediately stop talking

if any one of the guards or staff

came anywhere near where they could hear.

But on this ward, they would have extensive conversations.

About what, of course, we didn't know.

ROBERT STACK: For 30 years, people

have speculated about George Nassar

and his possible involvement in the killings.

Nassar, a career criminal, is currently

imprisoned for shooting and killing a gas station attendant

shortly after the strangler claimed his final victim.

Tonight, for the first time, Nassar

has agreed to discuss his role in the case

and his relationship with Albert DeSalvo.

With Albert DeSalvo, I was simply an associate.

I've done the same thing with many, many prisoners.

People come to me and ask me for advice.

I give it to them.

If it's worthy of me assisting them,

I assist them, for my reasons, because I

feel it's a worthy thing to do.

ROBERT STACK: By order of the Massachusetts attorney general,

news of DeSalvo's confession was kept under wraps.

Privately, the authorities raised the number of strangler

victims from 11 to 13.

But within the police department,

there was a split over whether DeSalvo

was, in fact, the killer.

I really couldn't break it down, percentage-wise.

Probably a little more than 50% believe

DeSalvo was the strangler.

And a little less than 50% believed

he was not the strangler.

ROBERT STACK: Inevitably, someone

leaked the story of the confession to the local papers,

and a media circus ensued.

OK, now listen up.

I don't want you to be frightened.

Be

ROBERT STACK: In response to the news coverage,

two women came forward--

one a survivor of a possible strangler attack, the other

a neighbor of one of the victims.

On March 20, 1965, they were brought

to Bridgewater to see if they recognized any of the inmates.

Do you see somebody?

Which one?

The gentleman all the way in the back, right next

to the guard.

Next to the guard?

Yes, next to the guard.

Are you sure?

ROBERT STACK: Surprisingly, the one familiar face

did not belong to Albert DeSalvo, but to George Nassar.

George Nassar would fit the profile

of the Boston Strangler.

We found nothing that would rule him out, not even one iota.

I do not kill women.

I've never conceived of it.

I wouldn't conceive of it.

I have great respect and regard for women,

beginning with my mother, who brought me up that way.

We had people from all over the country

with different theories, wanting to get a piece of the action.

George Nassar was eliminated as the strangler.

I don't think he had the profile of the strangler.

George Nassar used a gun.

All right, Albert, I want you to imagine a calendar.

ROBERT STACK: Albert DeSalvo remained

the state's prime and only suspect,

even though there was no physical evidence that linked

him to any of the killings.

On the advice of F. Lee Bailey, DeSalvo underwent hypnosis.

You tear that off.

Then you do it with each sheet, back farther and farther.

We had him hypnotized and age regressed right

through one of the homicides.

And the things that developed in the presence

of a very bright medical hypnotist

were of great interest.

I didn't want to hurt her.

I had to--

I had to hurt her to help her.

ROBERT STACK: This recreation was

based upon F. Lee Bailey's recollections

of the hypnosis session.

Albert, when you were strangling that woman, who

were you really trying to hurt?

I don't know.

I think you do know, Albert.

My mother.

Yes, Albert, tell me how you really feel about her.

I love her.

No, Albert, no, you don't.

Yes, I do.

She took care of me.

Albert--

I love her.

Tell me how you really feel about her.

- I love her! - Albert!

- I love her! - Albert.

[shouting]

It's all right, Albert.

It's all right.

I love her.

You can sleep.

The session seemed to reveal that DeSalvo had had

strained relationships with every significant woman

in his life.

We found an involvement of his wife,

who he married in Germany, his daughter,

who had a physical disability that troubled him greatly,

his mother, for whom he had a love-hate relationship.

And it was just the beginning.

The answers were almost implied

in the question, which at least from my training

is something you don't do.

ROBERT STACK: Ames Robey observed the session

and came to a remarkably different conclusion.

I was not at all convinced that anything

had been uncovered and was a little surprised later when

Mr. Bailey announced that what had occurred under hypnosis

was definitive evidence.

Albert, even with the crimes he was charged with,

he was considered gentle, polite,

his sexual proclivities, his general attitude.

He was not angry and hostile.

And he presented as a rather likable individual

so that for all of these reasons,

as well as his being married and others,

he just simply didn't fit.

Once you were inside the apartment, what did you see?

ROBERT STACK: In the summer of 1965,

the Massachusetts attorney general's office

conducted their own series of interrogations,

which once again were not admissible in court.

The transcripts of those interviews were never released.

Recently, however, author Susan Kelly

managed to obtain a copy while researching

her book about the stranglings, called "Deadly Charade."

When you read the transcript of those interrogations,

and you come to a point where Albert gives

an incorrect answer to a question,

he is guided to give the correct answer.

And Albert, who was a smart guy, caught on very quickly.

I, uh, I remember there were two chairs.

I remember I took the chairs out.

And I remember laying them down on their back.

Where did you get the chairs, from the dining room?

Yeah, from the dining room.

The principal reason I think the transcripts or the tapes

of Albert's confession were never made public

is simply that whoever read them or heard them would have

reacted to them the same as I did, which was simply to say,

this man was not the Boston Strangler.

He didn't kill anyone.

They had the right guy, beyond question.

No one has ever come up with anything

meaningful to contradict that.

The question was, how could we try him as the strangler

and close the file in the public mind?

ROBERT STACK: F. Lee Bailey struck a deal with the state.

On January 10, 1967, Albert DeSalvo went on trial, but not

for any of the stranglings.

Instead, he was tried for sexual assault

and other crimes in connection with the Green Man case.

In return, the state agreed not to press for the death penalty.

This session of the court--

That's all we wanted.

Nobody ever wanted Albert on the street, including Albert.

And to ask not to be executed so that he could be studied

seemed to me a reasonable objective.

I never heard a cogent word of argument

from any of the authorities.

They didn't want to kill him, either.

ROBERT STACK: After less than four hours of deliberation,

the jury reached its verdict.

"On all counts of breaking and entering,

and on all counts of unnatural acts,

the jury finds the defendant guilty."

ROBERT STACK: DeSalvo had been hoping to be institutionalized

at a state mental hospital.

But his insanity defense failed.

In total, Albert DeSalvo was found guilty

on eight criminal counts.

He was sentenced to life in prison.

ACTOR AS JUDGE: --to be imprisoned for the balance

of his natural life.

It was a much more severe sentence

than he would have received normally on the sex charges

of which he'd been convicted.

But he was being sent to prison as the Boston Strangler.

It was that simple.

I think the most difficult part of all of this

was the feeling that whether they had it solved or not,

they had quieted the public's concern.

So theoretically, everyone was happy.

ROBERT STACK: At Walpole State Prison,

DeSalvo was reunited with his old friend, George Nassar.

Once again, questions were raised

regarding Nassar's possible involvement

with the stranglings.

Because Al wasn't tried, this case had become mythical.

The characters were like in a play.

I mean, you can manipulate them.

You can say, well, let's make him the suspect,

or let's say he isn't.

It had become a real media event,

in the sense that it became part of, like, a public fantasy

of what really happened.

It became a continuing mystery when

it should have been resolved.

And I was part of the mystery.

ROBERT STACK: The Boston Strangler continued

to tantalize the public.

Over the next few years, no less than three

books and a Hollywood movie chronicle

the life of Albert DeSalvo.

Outside of prison, he had achieved immortality.

But inside, he feared his notoriety

had made him a marked man.

Finally, after more than six years behind bars,

DeSalvo asked to be transferred to a cell in the prison

infirmary, where he would be isolated

from the other inmates.

On the evening of November 25, 1973,

DeSalvo telephoned his former psychiatrist, Dr. Ames Robey.

[phone ringing]

Hello.

ACTOR AS DESALVO (ON PHONE): Dr. Robey?

Yes?

ACTOR AS DESALVO (ON PHONE): Albert DeSalvo.

Well, Albert, this is quite a surprise.

Is everything all right?

BAILEY: He wanted to talk to me to tell

me the, quote, real story.

Listen.

I think it would be a good idea for you

to come down here tomorrow.

There are some things I need to talk to you about.

Well, can't we just talk here on the phone?

ACTOR AS DESALVO (ON PHONE): No, no, no,

it's nothing I can talk about over the phone.

Listen.

I've got a reporter coming down here at 2 o'clock tomorrow.

I think it would be a good idea for you to come as well.

He didn't say what the real story was.

And I could only hope that this is what I would hear,

but I never heard it.

I want everybody assembled who was

in this infirmary in my office as soon as possible.

ROBERT STACK: The next morning, before DeSalvo could talk

to Dr. Robey and the reporter, he

was found murdered in his cell, stabbed

repeatedly in the chest.

Two theories immediately surfaced among the inmates.

Some believe that DeSalvo was murdered in a drug deal.

Others, including George Nassar, say

DeSalvo was killed in a dispute over cuts

of meat he was allegedly selling on the prison black market.

Obviously, I was not going to go for the interview.

And the assumption I had was somebody found out.

Somebody didn't want that interview happening.

And I think they have said before, dead men tell no tales.

ROBERT STACK: Three inmates were eventually charged

with Albert DeSalvo's murder.

But their trials ended in hung juries,

and no one was ever convicted.

For those who believe that DeSalvo was guilty,

his death was a fitting climax to a brutal reign of terror.

But there lies the rub.

Was Albert DeSalvo in reality the Boston Strangler?

Albert DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler.

We learned that at great and tragic expense to the community

and then wasted him away.

We could have learned a lot from Albert.

We didn't.

I think Albert became the Boston

Strangler because he wanted so much

to be the Boston Strangler.

It was the most important thing in his life.

For somebody who felt all his life

that he was a nobody, all of a sudden,

he could become world renowned.

Not many people are handed a golden opportunity to do that.

Albert was.

ROBERT STACK: In death, as in life,

Albert DeSalvo remains shrouded in mystery.

Shortly after his murder, authorities

came across a collection of poems he had written in prison.

One of them provided a cryptic, enigmatic footnote to the saga

of the Boston Strangler.

ACTOR AS DESALVO: "Here is the story of the strangler,

yet untold, the man who claims he murdered

13 women, young and old.

Today, he sits in a prison cell, deep inside,

only a secret he can tell.

People everywhere are still in doubt.

Is the strangler in prison, or roaming about?"

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: Next, the dramatic story

of a young woman from Czechoslovakia

who saved an American bomber crew

during the Second World War.

[theme music]

The Second World War, one of the darkest chapters in history,

but even the tragedy of war is sometimes

eased by occasional acts of kindness and compassion.

Over the years, "Unsolved Mysteries"

has brought you several stories about survivors searching

for that one special person who offered them comfort

in the midst of the hardship.

We've even solved some of these cases

and shared in the joyful celebration

of friendships which have spanned

more than half a century.

Rarely has a cause for reunion touched as deeply as the story

you are about to see.

Recently, we traveled to the Czech Republic

to film the incredible saga of Helen Elas, a woman who showed

remarkable resilience in the face of overwhelming odds,

whose courage and devotion may have saved the lives

of an American bomber crew.

Helen was born in 1927 in the village

of Kezmarok, Czechoslovakia.

When Helen's mother died, Helen's childhood

became a nightmare.

[speaking czech]

ROBERT STACK: She was treated with contempt by her stepmother

and regularly beaten by her father.

[speaking czech]

I think he blamed me for my mother's death.

To my sister, he was good.

To my brothers, he was good.

Only to me, he just tossed me aside like

I don't belong in the family.

ROBERT STACK: Rejected by her family

and often denied the essentials, Helen

was forced to learn the lessons of survival on her own.

She found work on a nearby farm.

And in exchange, she was given food and clothing.

But the end of each workday meant a return

to the harsh realities of her own home.

Often Helen would escape to the forest, the one place

where she could find solace.

Even the wild animals accepted her presence.

HELEN ELAS: The woods were very important to me

because it was so quiet there.

Nobody yelled at me.

Nobody pushed me around.

I was my own self there.

This was my hiding place.

That's why I loved it there.

And I spent many nights over there, many nights.

ROBERT STACK: One day, while walking in the woods,

Helen discovered a mysterious, hidden entryway.

She was instantly seized with curiosity.

HELEN ELAS: I went inside, and I saw this is a tunnel.

I was surprised.

I didn't know where the tunnel was going to go.

ROBERT STACK: The narrow entrance

gave way to a remarkable network of underground passageways,

perhaps long-forgotten escape routes

for a medieval castle that stood at the outskirts of town.

For Helen, the tunnel soon became like a second home.

Every time I come there, I bring something with me,

like with a blanket, I bring it with me.

And I bring lots of hay, you know.

And that hay keeps you warm from that floor.

And I made it like my own home there, you know.

And nobody knew nothing about this place, nobody.

ROBERT STACK: However, the safe haven Helen

had created for herself could not protect her

from the forces of history that would soon sweep across Europe.

In 1938, Hitler's armies marched into Czechoslovakia.

Within a year, the Second World War would

engulf most of the continent.

By 1943, the medieval castle was a Nazi headquarters.

Helen, then 17, had come to despise the Nazi presence.

More and more, she took refuge in her secret hiding place.

One afternoon, the quiet of the forest

was pierced by the sound of a sputtering airplane engine

almost directly overhead.

[engine sputtering]

HELEN ELAS: I saw a plane.

It was on fire.

And I saw it coming down, down, down.

And I ran.

I ran there.

I ran so fast.

ROBERT STACK: An American bomber had

crash landed in a remote field.

As the crew stumbled from the wreckage,

Helen said she made a decision that would forever

change the course of her life. - [speaking czech]

Hold it. Hold it.

Hold it.

Something about a hiding place.

[speaking czech]

Nazis, there are Nazis all around us.

Come on. Let's go.

Follow the girl.

Follow the girl.

ROBERT STACK: Helen led the men to the one place

where she knew they would be safe.

HELEN ELAS: I was so scared.

I mean, I was scared.

If Germans would get them, I know

what they would do with them.

I know they would kill them, every one of them.

And nobody would even know that they were killed.

ROBERT STACK: Helen had placed herself squarely in danger,

but she refused to shirk the responsibility

of caring for the men, two of whom were severely injured.

At the local hospital, Helen scoured

the trash in search of discarded bandages and ointments.

HELEN ELAS: I couldn't tell nobody.

I couldn't tell nobody.

I was scared that if I tell somebody,

somebody is going to squeak.

And they are dead.

And I just couldn't allow that to happen.

She's got bandages.

Oh, that's great.

You're an angel, darling.

Get 'em out here.

ROBERT STACK: Helen says that as soon

as the injured men began to recover,

she turned to a greater challenge.

So many men in hiding required plentiful amounts of food.

Helen surreptitiously set aside portions of the harvest

to take to them.

With no money at her disposal, Helen created a clever ruse

to obtain additional food.

[speaking czech]

ROBERT STACK: She charmed A local baker

with a heartbreaking tale of helping a widow

and her 12 hungry children.

HELEN ELAS: The longer I was with them,

I cared for them more and more.

You know, I was doing lots of work,

I mean, carrying all the food so far,

and stealing and everything, cheating and everything,

you know.

And this was not easy for me because I

had never done this before.

But I had to do it for them.

And they were grateful.

You know, you could see their eyes, love for me.

I know that because I felt it about them like this, too.

ROBERT STACK: For several weeks, Helen

managed to keep up her charade.

But her partisan activities did not go unnoticed.

In August of 1943, Helen was apparently

betrayed by her own stepmother.

HELEN ELAS: I saw her on that corner,

talking to those two men.

And I was scared.

I just knew that something is not right.

ROBERT STACK: In desperation, Helen turned to the only place

where she might find a sympathetic ear,

the local Catholic church.

HELEN ELAS: When I went to him, I cried.

I said, somebody has to help me.

I've got no place to go, only to you.

You've got to help me.

You've got to help me.

But you have to show it to me that I can trust you.

And then he told me, he says, I work for the underground.

Trust me.

I said, OK. Prove it to me.

And he says, come tomorrow.

[radio tuning]

ROBERT STACK: Helen says she returned to the church

the next day.

In the privacy of the confessional,

the priest showed her the two-way radio

the underground used to communicate with England.

MAN (ON RADIO): You can trust the priest.

He's with the underground, over.

HELEN ELAS: It was such a relief for me.

And so then I told him how many men and where they are

and how he can find them.

ROBERT STACK: Helen says her decision

to contact the underground had been made just in time.

[speaking czech]

ROBERT STACK: Helen says she was interrogated

and beaten for three days.

HELEN ELAS: They didn't get nothing from me,

just I don't know anything.

I'd rather die myself before I was gonna kill all those men.

That's the way was my feeling.

And I was prepared for it, really.

I was prepared for this, that I was gonna die.

ROBERT STACK: But nothing could have prepared Helen

for the horrors she was about to endure,

a concentration camp in Poland.

[speaking german]

ROBERT STACK: Helen says that she and several other women

were selected as human guinea pigs

in barbaric experiments performed by SS doctors.

Helen was injected with unknown drugs

and medications, which caused her to become violently ill.

MAN: [speaking german]

ROBERT STACK: The living hell lasted

for two excruciating years.

Finally, in 1945, the camp was liberated by the Allies.

Helen was among the survivors.

In 1948, Helen married a fellow Czechoslovakian refugee.

They later emigrated to the United States.

Helen believes the experiments conducted by the SS

left her physically unable to bear children.

However, Helen feels that saving the airmen

was well worth her own personal sacrifice.

In fact, over the years, she has come to regard

the men almost as her sons.

HELEN ELAS: They are to me precious boys, really precious.

They were much older from me, but they were my boys.

I hope to find them, every one of them.

And I would hug them, and I would kiss them.

And I would be very happy, oh.

ROBERT STACK: In a moment, a mother's

steadfast search for the gang members who murdered her son.

[theme music]

In recent years, thousands of Americans

have died in gang-related violence, most of them

in large, urban areas.

The numbers are staggering and still growing.

In fact, for young people in a big city or its suburbs,

it has become almost impossible to be a high school student

and not come into contact with someone who belongs to a gang.

This is Teresa Wheel.

On May 3, 1991, her only son, Kevin,

was gunned down by four suspected gang

members in Hawaiian Gardens, California, just south

of Los Angeles.

Ever since, Teresa and her husband

have waged a lonely crusade to find out who killed Kevin

and why.

TERESA WHEEL: Kevin was what you might say a typical teenager.

He loved his music really loud.

He was a little bit on the shy side.

He had a sense of humor you wouldn't believe.

And he always, always had a smile on his face.

ROBERT STACK: But Kevin Wheel was not immune to the reality

of life on the street.

There was significant gang activity at Hawaiian Gardens,

and Kevin knew several gang members.

It was a casual association that would prove fatal.

May 3, 1991, Kevin has spent most of the evening

at a friend's house.

Around 11:30 PM, he was seen driving

south along Norwalk Boulevard, apparently on his way home.

According to eyewitnesses, Kevin was

approaching 221st Street when a vehicle began to follow him.

[tires squealing]

[gunfire]

Kevin was struck twice in the head and three times

in the back.

An hour later, Kevin Wheel was dead.

The investigators immediately suspected that he had been

the victim of a gang shooting.

Some of Kevin's friends were Hawaiian Gardens gang members,

but that doesn't mean that Kevin was a gang member.

He just associated with them.

And I feel the other gang recognized the car that

may have had some of Kevin's friends

in it from time to time who were Hawaiian Gardens gang members.

And they just keyed on the car, and not

the occupants of the vehicle.

I didn't want Kevin's case to be just

another gang-related shooting.

I didn't want it to be another shooting that went unsolved.

I made a promise that I would do everything in my power to catch

these guys who murdered him.

Think we got enough of these things?

Yeah, I hope so.

ROBERT STACK: In the days and weeks after Kevin's murder,

his parents, Teresa and Stan, posted thousands of flyers

around the area where he was shot.

They even managed to pull together

$10,000 in reward money.

TERESA WHEEL: When the investigation first started,

I thought there was so much information at first

that this probably wouldn't be no problem.

And being that Kevin wasn't a gang member, you know,

people would talk.

But I found out that I was really wrong.

Gang shooting investigations are very frustrating.

Within the gang culture, the reason the witnesses are not

coming forward is because they feel that being a snitch

is worse than death itself.

TERESA WHEEL: The hardest part for Stan and I right now is,

I think, dealing with the anger, the anger that our son is dead

and buried in a grave at 19.

There was no rhyme or reason why anybody

would want to shoot Kevin.

He's never been in any fights or disagreements with anybody.

I mean, he was just, you know, a 19-year-old out having fun.

It was just so senseless.

It's so stupid.

It was and still is such a shock that something like this

could happen.

ROBERT STACK: Two weeks from tonight,

join me for a special two-hour season finale.

Here's a sample.

When good things happen to us, is it pure chance?

Or as some people think, are there angels among us?

Just ask Janie Shamo.

In 1976, on a trip to the Painted Desert,

she fell to what should have been her death.

A force she still doesn't fully understand apparently

lifted her up to safety.

Join a woman from Wisconsin as she sets out

to find her missing husband.

He disappeared from a Colorado motel on August 31, 1993.

Some believe he engineered his own disappearance.

But after he was allegedly spotted on an Amtrak train,

disheveled and disoriented, the investigation

took on a new urgency.

For decades, rumors have circulated in the Pacific

Northwest about Bigfoot, the fabled and elusive half

man, half ape.

But recent sightings have lent increased credibility

to the age-old rumors.

Is Bigfoot real?

Meet the eyewitnesses and judge for yourself.

Join me two weeks from tonight for one

of our most intriguing and fascinating episodes.

[theme music]