Original subtitles

Two evil planes, broken in a piece and five caves. Two evil planes, broken

in a piece and five...

My name is John Walczak. I'm an investigative journalist.

And that kid you hear is me, 11 years old, in the Plaza of the World Trade

Center.

In one year, one month, and 17 days, these towers will rain down in a violent

cascade of glass and steel and concrete, killing a mystery photographer on West

Street, just on the other side of that tower, the North Tower.

300 feet from where I'm standing right now.

His camera will survive.

His final photos, too.

Hidden for decades.

Until one day, I get an email.

This is my grandma.

But don't look at her.

Look at the tables and the chairs.

As we transition to 9-11 and back.

I was born on 9-8-88.

I'll turn 13 on 9-8-0-1.

On 9-11, I'll drag a typewriter downstairs and crank out a news

bulletin.

I'll come of age in the shadow of these towers.

Life will drag me down a jagged path until it spits me out at this spot again

and again.

Child John is a bit confused.

The World Trade Center is the name of the complex made up of seven buildings.

The Twin Towers, the towers.

This is the Marriott.

Remember it. You'll see it again.

Cut in half.

In 2021, I'll do a podcast called Missing on 9-11.

I'll put out a call for unpublished footage, photos, video, audio.

I'll get an email from a firefighter who says his dad, a retired FDNY chief, has

new photos of 9-11 from a previously unknown camera found in the rubble of...

At first, I'll think it's a scam.

This can't be real, right?

But it is.

And now it's on me.

I didn't seek out these photos. They came to me. A man in the dust whose face

I can't see speaking to me through these photos.

In my hands, the final moments of his life.

Who is he?

I need to know.

So I'll dig.

Into the photos.

Into history.

Into a list of suspects.

I'll use clues in each frame to ID the photographer.

What a story.

32 new photos of 9-11, then 32 of the photographer's life.

Hug the family.

Close the loop.

32 frames.

If only it were that easy.

That was an explosion.

That was an explosion.

I walked down the hallway.

I kind of ran down the hallway.

I walked over the window, pulled up a nation blind. I said, Chief, look, a

plane just hit the World Trade Center.

Just get into my uniform, and that's when the alarms went off.

The radio just started to go insane.

I called into the desk, and I'm like, go, go, go, go, go.

I'm hearing it on police radio.

We're under attack.

I just jumped on the highway, and I just started hauling to the location, lights

and sirens.

I was probably going, like, pretty fast, you know? How fast were you going?

I don't know.

The speed limit?

I had a medical bag in my car, and I headed down to West and Vesey at the

command post.

Zoom in.

Here. Stop.

West and Vesey. Vesey. Vesey Street.

West and Vesey. Vesey and West Street.

Vesey? Vesey. Vesey Street.

Did you say Vesey or Vesey?

It depends.

I know. Everybody, it's 50-50. Vesey Street.

Okay, Vesey. Okay.

I feel like I'm not going to win on that. It's like Houston and Houston.

Yeah.

Anyway, the heart of our story.

West and Vesey.

The ground zero of ground zero.

Now, let's look at a few landmarks to guide us as we move forward.

We have the Verizon building.

World Trade Center 6, or WTC6.

The North Pedestrian Bridge, a.k.a. the Vesey Bridge.

Notice the banner on the bridge, QuebecNewYork.com.

And of course, the Marriott.

Here's our key block on Labor Day 2001, and eight days later.

Our photographer hasn't arrived yet, but he will soon.

He has 86 minutes to live.

In that 86 minutes, he'll take 32 photos, 30 of them here.

That's why it's important to This

is

not a grand story of 9-11 it's not Bush or the Pentagon

It's not even New York, Manhattan, or the Trade Center.

It's one intersection and the people who converged on it at a fateful moment.

I heard the throttle going down, like where the guy was really going to give

it all it's got. So you heard, and then in.

You just see it for a second. It's just a shadow.

And bang, into the building, and fire comes out the side.

Couldn't get a picture because I'm driving, you know?

If you're driving a NASCAR, you're not taking pictures at the same time, are

you?

But, you know, that's the way I

drove. I didn't know it was a plane, actually. I just saw a ball of fire.

You can actually feel the heat at street level from 80, 85 stories up.

We always say, when we run into guys at a fire, a second alarm, third alarm, he

goes, ah, see you at the big one.

This was the big one.

This is where our story really starts.

After the second plane strike, at the intersection of West Broadway and Worth,

10 blocks north of the Trade Center.

Frame one.

And two.

What do you notice?

Do you see the clues?

That's building seven. And then one world trade is where six world trade

used to be. So the towers would have been just to the left.

This would have been one of the first clear shots he had looking towards the

tower.

Clue one.

Both towers are on fire.

Both are still standing, so this was taken between 9.03, when the second

plane hit, and 9.59, when the first tower fell, meaning our photographer got

to the Trade Center after 9.03.

By car, which rules out everyone who walked or took public transit.

The photos seem to be taken out of a passenger window, so he's with someone,

ruling out anyone who drove alone.

He's going the wrong way.

Toward disaster.

Who does that?

You see the antenna?

I do, yeah. You see the edge of the window?

Clue five, the antenna.

It's less consistent with a consumer car and more consistent with an emergency

response vehicle.

These are actually the least dramatic of our 32 frames, but in many ways, they're

the most important. So many clues.

Our photographer drives to the Trade Center toward disaster with someone

between 9.03 and 9.59.

Anything else?

The shadows.

So this is frame number one. What can we tell from the lighting from the sun and

from the shadows?

So actually you can tell quite a bit.

This particular building is located at 60 Hudson Street in lower Manhattan.

We had a taller building at 33 Thomas Street.

casting a shadow on the eastern face of this building.

Just based upon that, using some very simple geometry and trigonometry, we

were able to figure out what the sun angle was at the time this photograph

was taken. Plugging all this information in, a sun angle of 33.37 degrees

on September the 11th, 2001 occurred at 9.38 a

.m.

So we know that this photograph was taken at 9.38 a.m.

Clue 7.

The route they take. Down West Broadway to Vesey.

After snapping frame 1, it takes our photographer maybe 5 to 10 minutes to

reach the Trade Center.

He arrives around 9.45.

Only 14 minutes before the first tower falls.

Frame 3.

Taken on West Street.

Look at the top left.

That's the North Bridge, the Vesey Bridge.

Our photographer stands under it, leaning out, taking pictures as debris

rains down.

There's chaos, lots of ambulances, lots of fire trucks, lots of cop cars.

People running out and people injured, and there's plane parts all over the

ground.

And I'm getting a lot of pictures.

The amount of smoke, the amount of fire, the amount of debris falling down was

incredible.

Each tower was a quarter of a mile high.

All of a sudden, there's a piece of debris falling. It comes through the

cloud, and it's going to hit you in a couple of seconds.

It was hitting like bullets.

There was a piece of metal that hit a car, and it went right through the hood.

It was a piece of the plane.

My helmet flies off, and I turn around and I look, and there's my helmet on the

ground with an arm laying next to it.

And I'm like, okay, this is not going to be a good day.

As we were getting closer to West Street, we were coming across more and

more body parts just laying in the street.

And it got to the point, when you got really close to West Street, it almost

looked like an anatomy class.

Let's go back for a minute to clue five.

Who speeds toward disaster?

Journalists. But very few made it to the Trade Center before the towers fell.

Also, obviously, first responders.

Which is why timing is important.

Because we have records of when many of them arrived.

For example, these FDNY company reports.

And we know that anyone who got to the Trade Center before, say, 945, can't be

our photographer.

What compels you to run toward disaster when so many other people run away?

Stupidity.

I don't know what to tell you.

We were trained to run toward the danger, not away from the danger, to

help people. And that's what it was all about.

You go to where the fire is, you go to where the murder is, you go to where the

action is, and you make sure that you're the witness.

Look at that.

Do you see it?

The dot?

Him or her?

Poor bastards.

As gory as this is going to sound, people are coming down like rain.

I mean, you can cut it out if you want, but I saw at least 125 people jump.

Numerous people jumping.

Numerous people jumping.

These poor people who were guilty of nothing but going to work that day.

That's all they did was go to work.

They're standing at smashed glass.

What kind of hell had to be behind them that jumping from the 98th floor

was a better option?

I could not wrap my head around that.

The part we were in had a roof overhang, and they were hitting it.

It was noise of the worst kind. You just knew everyone was a human life.

I know some people will be angry at us for publishing these photos, and that's

okay. I get it.

Should we publish them?

There's no correct answer.

I don't believe in censorship, but I've also sat with survivors.

I've watched their faces contort in pain, remembering people who jumped or

fell.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, those were rough because you had to watch and then you had to hear the

noise.

You know, and it's just a long, long drop.

From our perspective, as people that run to help people, it was totally horrific

for us because we want to help them, and we can't.

That's the hardest part.

Sometimes I get really upset.

My wife says I yell at night when I'm sleeping. I scream once in a while.

It's about people falling.

In the end, our photographer chose to take these images.

They literally died taking them. Who am I to censor them?

One of my most famous pictures is a picture of a hand from the plane.

The hand's on the ground, the cigarette butts around it,

a Hershey bar, and some other debris, just gravel.

But the hand is pointing, and it's severed right about here at the wrist,

and you see the bone.

And it almost doesn't look real, but it's astonishing for people.

And it draws them to the reality of the horror of that day. A lot of people like

to talk. A lot of people like to make comments.

And you can actually say, no, this is what happened.

There are certain things that you see that you'll never forget.

Unfortunately, shooting some poor guy or girl jumping out of a building because

they're on fire or they're going to be on fire or it's too hot, that's real

life.

You know, and people who don't want to accept that, there's a term for that in

Italian.

Go fuck yourself.

We also don't know the value of photos until they run.

Some families spent years trying to find images of loved ones in windows or the

sky, seeking closure, painful closure, but closure.

9-11 has been so sanitized. Clean colors and lines.

A fireball. A blue sky.

A dust cloud.

Roll credits.

No. See it as it was.

As they saw it.

I'll warn you, there are pictures of people falling.

Yeah, no, listen, I've seen it live, so... These

are flagpoles on top of WTC6.

You can also see them in this Daily News photo.

Both images are taken here, the nexus of WTC6 and the North Tower.

In this previously unpublished image, you see the North Tower, WTC6, the

Verizon building, and someone falling onto West Street.

No street is as dangerous as West Street.

As civilians rush out of the Trade Center, they shield themselves with

briefcases, backpacks, even office chairs.

Frame 7.

Clue 8.

Our photographer is using a zoom lens, an SLR camera, not a pocket disposable,

meaning he's likely either a professional or a capable hobbyist.

Before we continue, I need to clarify something.

These photos came to me not in order. I had to guess.

An educated guess, sure, but still a guess.

The first two in the car were easy.

Past that, I did my best.

What would really help are the negatives.

Weston Vesey was the predetermined staging area.

Every truck was where it was supposed to be. Every ambulance was where it was

supposed to be.

The world just fell out from underneath us.

I always had a camera with me, and I figured if I don't make it out of this

thing, at least somebody could find this.

The last picture I took was at 59 minutes after the hour.

I took the photo.

I heard the rumble. I looked up.

Now, you're going to want me to describe it, okay?

A fully loaded locomotive coming down the trackstone, about 100. The jet

aircraft taking off.

Car crash, a building collapse, and metal ripping.

All at the same time.

Like that, almost.

We hear this churning and screeching,

and we hear metal. It's just echoing for lower Manhattan, and that's the Sound

Tower. Collapse.

The next 29 minutes are critical.

That's when the North Tower will collapse.

We're running out of time.

Frame 9.

This is the first frame we know, for sure, was taken after the South Tower

fell. Our photographer runs north on West Street, then hooks left on Vesey.

He turns around and snaps this photo.

Look here.

Engine 15.

And a fire hydrant.

You can also see them in this image, taken later on 9-11.

It's hard to make out, but if you manipulate our photo and zoom in,

there's the Verizon building.

And now, we start to see shadowy figures.

Who's this guy?

We don't know.

Dustman number one.

Frame 9 is less important for what it shows, and more for what it tells us.

Our photographer is alive.

He survived the collapse of the South Tower, so he can't be anyone who died at

or before 959.

Frame 10.

Taken at Westin Vesey, facing south.

There's the North Bridge.

In frame 10, we also have our first identification.

Rabbi Edgar Gluck, a co-founder of Hatzalah, a Jewish EMS organization.

He's now 89 years old.

Tati, Tati, roll the chair left a little bit. Your whole body needs to move over

two inches.

Perfect. The position you're in right now is perfect.

Got it.

So, Rabbi Gluck, can you tell me where you were when the building fell? How

were you protected?

I wasn't.

I wasn't.

I had no protection gear on. I had nothing on.

It's just that I went in to save lives.

You literally couldn't see.

The dust and everything was so thick.

And the building was coming down.

I ended up on Vesey Street and police and started washing out my eyes.

Do you remember seeing a photographer taking that picture?

Do I remember what?

Do you remember a photographer taking that picture?

No. No.

In the middle of running and everything else, I had absolutely no time. I didn't

have time to smile.

I would interject and just say the mere fact that I have seen a photo of my dad,

that we know a timeline and where he physically was. Like he was in between

the Twin Towers when one building was down, the second one wasn't.

And is around to talk about that. I mean, that to me is just amazing and

fascinating. And I thank God for that every day.

Frame 11.

And there we were, we were outside, and there's like four inches of this type of

paper dust.

You want to pull that out and give that to me?

And then you could feel the World Trade Center.

You could smell it.

Pedro.

Paige.

Get the bag out, out of the refrigerator.

So this is a piece of the World Trade Center.

And to me, I could smell it, and it smells.

like the day of the world trade center pedro give me the back i haven't shared

this with too many people but this was the dust that was inside my clothes

inside my car so you want to know what the world trade center was like

this is what it was like and this is what it looked like and this is what it

smelled like that's what the world trade centers were

reduced to

And this is what the people were reduced to.

And if you smell that, and sometimes I smell it and go through it. You want to

smell it?

That's what it smelled like at Ground Zero. It has that smell.

It's like a musty. Yeah. And it's not because of moisture.

And, you know, so we keep it real.

You know.

Oops. Sorry, God.

And if you look in the bag.

You could almost see here. Look at this right here.

I don't want to touch it, but if you look inside deep enough, you can almost

think you see hair follicles.

It's a piece of glass or something. You don't know what.

So that's the World Trade Center. There, Pedro.

Thanks. Let me wash my hands. Excuse me.

Yeah, you should rinse your hands.

Frame 12.

Great, a cop, bending down, facing away, covered in dust, and a dog.

No way we'll ID them, right?

Wrong.

Bob Schnell was a member of the NYPD's Elite Emergency Service Unit, or ESU.

The only reason we found Bob is because of his dog, Atlas, who's kinda 9-11

famous.

When I contacted you, you were able to tell right away that this was you

because of Atlas. Yeah, and I kind of know what I look like.

Even from the back.

Fair. There are people that remember the dog's name and then they won't remember

my name.

It's like the Atlas guy.

Atlas is Handler. That's what I'm referred to.

I'm trying to figure out what I was doing.

It looks like I'm looking at something on the ground.

Am I looking at a body part?

Could be.

Is it part of the plane?

Because there were pieces of the plane spread out throughout the area.

Once that first tower came down, it just turned into total chaos.

It was like something chasing you. Like, I could feel, like, this debris coming.

It was like being chased by a tornado.

Okay, so this is, here's Atlas.

He actually got promoted to detective, too.

He made detective before I did.

He got promoted before me.

You don't recall seeing any still photographer?

No.

No. No.

See, this sergeant now is Tommy Sullivan.

And this guy here, I think he's an ESU cop.

His name is Frank.

He's got an Italian last name. He's very Italian.

Frank. I think it's Masi. M-A-S-S-I.

Frank DeMasi.

D-E, capital M-A-S-I.

On September 11th, I was assigned to the NYPD Emergency Service Unit.

There's an old saying in emergency service, when someone needs help, they

call a cop. And when a cop needs help, he calls emergency service.

Frame 13 gives us five IDs.

Tommy Sullivan, Richie Donangelo, Franco Barbario, Curtis Garvey, seen here

in 9-11 news footage. Look at his left wrist.

Here and here, same guy.

And finally, Frank DeMasi.

This is after the South Tower came down, before the North Tower came down.

About 10 of us.

dove underneath the big emergency service truck for cover.

Everything went pitch black, and there was a deafening silence.

You couldn't hear, you couldn't see, and I was at the point where I couldn't

breathe.

Your mouth was just being filled with glass and debris and soot.

That was the biggest point of the day that I thought I was going to die.

And after about nine minutes, I remember you can start seeing daylight coming

through the cloud.

And we climbed out from under the truck, and we survived the South Tower

collapse.

So you said that you were under this truck for about nine minutes, right?

The South Tower fell at 9.59. That puts it at between 10.08 and 10.28 that this

picture was taken because the other tower fell at 10.28.

Yes, this is definitely in between the two towers falling.

I was nowhere to be found on this intersection as the North Tower was

coming down.

I was running down West Street, running toward the Hudson River.

When you say you're running towards the Hudson, you're on Vesey towards the

Hudson? On... West would have been going. On Vesey. Yeah, I know this can

be because West and... I was running west on Vesey. West on Vesey. Yes. Not

north on west.

That's correct.

That's correct.

Moving on.

Frame 14.

When I first saw this, I recognized the firefighter. Not by name, but I knew I'd

seen him before.

Somewhere. It took me a minute.

Then it clicked.

He was caught on camera before the South Tower fell by New York Daily News

photographer David Hanchu.

Look at his helmet.

Engine 55, number 8934.

Once again, you see the North Tower, the Vesey Bridge, WTC6, and the Verizon

building. But who's the firefighter?

This is Paul Quinn, 55 engine.

He was the chauffeur.

He was right under the building. I don't know how he survived.

You know, like the guy that walks between the raindrops?

This guy was right there and he survived.

He was a mess though.

One more thing about Paul Quinn, maybe.

On December 23rd, 2001, I visited Ground Zero.

That's me.

Is this Quinn?

You can see a five on his helmet.

It kind of looks like him.

I tried to find him today, but I failed.

He's kind of a ghost.

So I still don't know if I ran into him 25 years ago.

Now, what about the other guy, White Helmet Man?

Wait, you misspelled it.

What does it mean to you 25 years later to see this picture?

It means what I say to everybody that asks me.

People that meet me and find out that I was there ask me what it feels like to

be a hero.

I said, I don't know.

And they said, why?

I said, because I'm not a hero.

I don't think that I really deserve any extra recognition for being there. The

recognition I have is that I'm sitting here 25 years later talking to you and I

have a beautiful wife and two children.

Michelle was getting ready to plan my funeral.

when I got home and knocked on the door.

Do you remember somebody taking your picture? I don't.

I don't.

Frame 15.

We haven't ID'd this guy.

You can kind of read the last name.

O-R-E? O-R-E, yeah.

Maybe a T?

Yeah, it looks like a T.

Interesting.

Only one firefighter who died had a last name that ended with those letters.

John August Santor of Ladder 5.

They certainly look alike, but many of these guys do.

I reached out to Santor's family.

They said, unfortunately, it isn't him.

So, who is it?

Frame 16.

Is that the same guy?

It's hard to tell.

which highlights something important about our 32 frames.

We haven't ID'd everyone.

There's no way to ID everyone unless we publish them.

Frame 17, taken on Vesey Street, in front of the American Express building.

My name is Rob Saragusa, and I was a member of Engine Company 55 on September

11th.

After the first collapse, there were guys walking around like zombies.

That's when I saw John.

And he came walking out of the rubble, covered in that white ash and dust from

the Trade Center.

He was kind of in shock.

He was the chauffeur of 24 Engine that day, so he was out in the street when

the building came down.

So I kind of just grabbed him. I put him in the first ambulance, and that was the

last I saw of him for that day.

Do you remember the photo being taken?

No. I don't remember anybody taking this picture.

Do you remember somebody taking this picture?

No, not at all.

Somebody had actually sent me this photo.

I think it was left on my coat rack in an envelope where we keep our gear.

No name was ever put on it or anything. It was just dressed to me.

And that was it.

The first time I saw this photo was I was in front of the firehouse. A car

pulls up.

The driver calls my name. Never saw that person before in my life.

He says, I have this picture.

He hands it to me.

Okay, thank you. And he took off.

The weirdest thing.

Never saw the guy again.

No idea how he knew me.

Crazy.

Do you remember how long after the attacks?

Couldn't be that long.

Had to be maybe two weeks tops.

The origin story of our camera, of our photos, is murky.

Our source, John Calderon, got them roughly a year after 9-11.

But who found the camera?

Who developed the photos?

Why did they anonymously send one to Saragusa?

Why did they toss it to a Trondo, say, more or less, hey, it's you, and speed

off? We'll get back to that later.

For now, our photographer is, once again, moving closer to the towers.

Wait, sorry, tower, singular. Only one still stands, the North Tower, but not

for long.

Frame 18, taken under the Vesey Bridge, looking north, which is why you see blue

sky and sunlight.

A momentary pause, and then our photographer turns and keeps walking

into danger.

A decision that'll end his life.

Frame 19.

A man in a suit passes by our photographer, staring right at him.

Suit man.

Likely a civilian.

One of thousands who evacuated.

He's a key witness.

If anyone can describe our photographer, it's him.

But a quarter century later, how are we supposed to find him?

Dark suit.

Tie. Black bag.

Blue pen.

That's it. No real clues.

which is frustrating.

I actually found another photo of him, taken a short time later.

Look at the details.

Same tie, bag, pen, suit, face, same guy.

What's different is that his glasses are gone, we can see that he's holding a

yellow flashlight, and most importantly, he's covered in dust.

The flashlight is interesting.

Why is he carrying it in broad daylight?

Where did it come from?

And look at the dust.

In frame 19, taken earlier, he's clean.

It seems that Suitman was inside the North Tower when the South Tower fell.

He's likely one of the final civilians to escape the North Tower.

I search for anyone matching his description, and find none.

What about Silver Suitman?

A first responder in some kind of protective gear.

But there were hundreds, if not thousands, of first responders at or

near the Trade Center on 9-11.

And we can't see his face.

I need some help.

Hello? Hey, Glenn, it's John Walczak. How are you?

Good. How are you doing? Good.

So there's a guy in a silver suit with a Scott tank, and I'm curious if you can

tell whether or not he's NYPD or FDNY.

That looks like a two-piece suit. That was one piece.

His hands are exposed.

And also, that air pack, that was when inside the suit.

So this is a little bit different.

So Silver Suit Man is not a cop.

Maybe he's a firefighter?

I decide to visit the New York City Fire Museum.

Thankfully, so far, everybody we've identified survived, but I don't know

who this is.

Somebody with a Scott pack.

So that looks like Port Authority fire, right? That's... I know who that is.

I know who that is.

That's... That's the old roommate here.

That's Patso Versage.

He's a Port Authority ESU. He died of 9-11 illness in 2014.

He was my college roommate. We were fraternity buddies.

I can show you a picture of him.

Patrick Versage.

Right before he died, our homecoming.

And this, I'll show you.

That's him.

He talked down two jumpers on the Bayonne Bridge in one day. But that's

him.

Here's Silver Suit Man, and here's Patrick in news video.

Amazingly, despite being photographed walking toward the North Tower minutes

before it fell, he survived, at first.

Thirteen years later, he died from 9-11-related illnesses.

I reach out to his family.

His wife, Carolyn, agrees that Silver Suit Man is likely Patrick.

Now, one final thing.

Look at the truck.

Ladder 3.

There were hundreds of vehicles at the site on September 11th. Out of all the

vehicles that survived, what immediately caught your eye about Ladder 3?

It was enigmatic. I couldn't figure it out, actually.

I needed to walk around it to take it in.

And then I...

saw it as what you're seeing now.

The front cab is decapitated.

The ladder is distorted.

It's almost weeping.

And it seemed like a powerful surrogate for

everyone associated with emergency rescue that day.

I had asked the museum, Stephanie, and she said that, unfortunately, there are

no images of Ladder 3 between the fall of the South and the North Tower.

What would something like that mean?

Since all of the 11 firefighters associated with this truck perished,

having a photograph of the rig parked nearby would be a very poignant prelude.

Nobody going into that tower that morning probably thought on their way up

that it was going to collapse on them.

Ah. Oh, wow.

This is a previously unpublished photo from an unknown camera that was found in

the pile that the images have surfaced 24 years later.

Wow.

That's amazing.

Look at it. And the bladder is absolutely pristine.

So this is after the fall of the South Tower. South Tower, because of the

debris that's on the street. Absolutely.

That's just remarkable.

Moving on, our photographer crosses under the Vesey Bridge.

As the North Tower burns above, he stands here.

Frame 20.

I don't know who any of these people are.

Like Suitman, they appear to be some of the final civilians to escape the North

Tower, or maybe the Marriott.

A minute or two later, these three people are photographed further north on

West Street by Bill Biggert, the only journalist killed while covering 9-11.

As of production, his estate hasn't allowed us to use the photo.

But since he took it with a digital camera, we have an important clue,

metadata.

Biggert snaps his photo at exactly 10-21-27, six minutes and 58 seconds

before the North Tower falls.

Incredibly, the same trio was photographed again, this time by Mike

Coppola, a volunteer firefighter and EMT with a camera, seen here in this footage

taken by CBS News cameraman Mark Laganga.

Why is this trio photographed three times by three people in a matter of

minutes? Likely because, at this point, there are so few other civilians in this

area. They stand out.

And then even they leave.

Frame 21.

A lone man in a white shirt stands in the rubble in extreme danger with what

appears to be a news camera filming the chaos.

How am I supposed to ID this guy?

The key, it turns out, is his footage.

I pore over hundreds of hours of video.

My eyes are bleary. My brain is fried.

I need Dramamine.

And then I see him, his reflection in a window.

First question, can you tell us your name and can you spell it? Mark Laganga,

L-A-G-A-N-G-A.

The same guy who filmed Mike Coppola.

The most stunning thing to me is how calm

he was.

How do you stand under a burning tower and the rubble of a collapsed 110-story

building and just kind of keep your cool and keep shooting?

I don't know.

Is he generally a calm guy?

He is a very calm guy.

Yes. When you're shooting, you kind of have a filter between you and what's

happening. Everything you see is through one little tiny, tiny black-and-white

screen.

So when we see your video, we're seeing it in color, but in real time, you're

seeing it in black and white. Yeah, and it's two-dimensional.

So it's a little bit of a shield.

You have a scar

on your head.

Well, the sound partner I was with took a photo of me. There was some debris

when... The building came down.

Frame 22, which is almost identical to frame 21.

It appears our photographer is adjusting camera settings, taking duplicate

photos, trying to get a clear image through haze and smoke.

We also see Mark in frame 23 and 24.

These were taken less than 10 minutes before the North Tower fell. What made

you leave on time?

I didn't know to shoot anything else. It was that straightforward.

There was a moment in your footage where you pan over, and it's right when our

mystery photographer is taking your picture.

Oh, really?

I think in a minute you'll turn a little bit.

But I would imagine it was around...

This moment.

Yeah, there you go. See?

That was it right there.

So roughly this moment, just out of frame, maybe 100 feet away, our

photographer was taking your picture.

Every time I watch this, I try to see if I can spot somebody.

So this is your right at Weston Vesey.

So like even this gentleman, like every person that I see.

What's he carrying?

I saw that earlier too.

It's like a strap.

I thought the same thing.

And then I was like, is it a strap? Is it a tool?

That looks to me like a camera strap.

And that's the way you would hold a still.

You're in the exact right spot at the right moment.

The odds, like, in a few minutes, a minute or two later, when you're closer,

he's photographing you. So the task, that could be him.

It looks like... I'm glad that you said something, because I saw it earlier, and

I was... But I mean, you know, when I'm looking for somebody with a camera,

everything looks like a camera.

In our final frames, as tens of millions of people around the world watch on live

TV, below the fire, the smoke, the quarter-mile-high skyscraper, at the

bottom, on the street, near Weston Vesey.

It's just our photographer and his camera.

Two more photos and the North Tower falls.

my god the whole building oh my god

oh my god

oh my god

oh you gotta be kidding what happened second world trade building went down

the second building went down i never saw anything like this in my entire life

I just look around and I hear crackling sounds.

And there's fire coming out of the ground.

And gas mains are blowing.

I saw the firemen buried in this ash.

I heard people screaming still.

And then afterwards, it was like just a quiet canyon.

I could taste the chalk in the air.

In the eerie dead silence, honestly, we really didn't know what to think at that

point.

The Twin Towers are gone, reduced to nearly 2 million tons of debris.

In there, somewhere, lies our photographer, his camera, too.

Between 9.59 and 10.28 when the towers fall, very few cameramen are nearby.

Mark Leganga of CBS News is one.

Jules Naudet, seen here, is another.

When I start this project, one of my goals is to find as many of them as

possible, in part to see if they have unpublished images that show our mystery

photographer, in part to hear their stories.

During this key 29-minute period, maybe five to ten people with cameras cross

into the danger block, West Street, between Liberty and Vesey.

Some are first responders, including Rich Ratazzi, a firefighter with Ladder

16. I always carry a disposable camera in my pocket, and I would just hold it

out in front of me, and I took pictures as I was walking.

Rich is with firefighter Rob Corotolo and Lieutenant Ray Murphy.

We get under the North Crosswalk.

And we're hearing like a gush of air.

What it was was due to the height of the Marriott, we couldn't see the South

Tower. And it was actually the South Tower collapsing.

And the only way we knew it was that was the whole center of the Marriott

exploded out at us.

Ratazzi circles the World Financial Center, then crosses back to the danger

block.

All you could hear was pass alarms going off, and it was guys in the rubble.

I couldn't find Robin right there.

And when I got to the corner of Western Vesey is when the North Tower started to

collapse. So I couldn't see and I was having a real hard time breathing.

I started throwing up cranberry sauce.

It was all blood.

Ratazzi snaps a few more photos, including this, showing WTC 6.

And this, taken directly in front of it. You can also see the collapsed Vesey

Bridge here.

Banged up and vomiting blood, Rich is taken to a nearby hospital, where he

searches for Rob and Ray.

He can't find them.

Rob and Ray were still unaccounted for.

So your photo actually became an important clue?

Yeah. When we got it developed, Ray was in front of the steel in the street.

So when we went back down to dig, that's where we started.

Both of them were found in that area.

Rob was under a high-rise rig on West Street, and then Ray was underneath the

crosswalk.

I asked Rich, a firefighter and photographer who was in the right spot

at the right time, to look at our 32 frames.

What's incredible about these to me is how close he was.

And even, I mean, you don't see any people. It's not because he wasn't even

trying to photograph people. There are none.

There are none.

I think these are two firemen. Well, that's what I'm curious to see.

He's a fireman. He, you can tell him, but... He doesn't look like a fireman.

Looks like he's wearing a baseball cap.

It's so close to capturing our person.

Our photographer is, like, right over here.

We're right in the same area.

Yeah, you're very close.

At this point, let's review our clues.

What do we know?

Our photographer arrives at the World Trade Center between 9.03 and 9.59 by

car, driven by someone else, toward disaster.

The antenna in frame one is consistent with an emergency response vehicle.

Shadows tell us that he takes it around 9.38 at West Broadway and Worth, putting

him at the Trade Center maybe five minutes later, roughly 9.43.

He follows a north-south route.

uses an SLR film camera with a zoom lens, takes photos near West Invesi,

survives the collapse of the South Tower, and likely dies when the North

Tower falls.

Now, let's condense and reorder our clues, and start looking at suspects.

First, no FDNY or NYPD photographers die, though the NYPD does lose a

videographer, Glenn Pettit, seen here entering the Trade Center.

There are only three serious suspects.

Suspect number one, Bill Biggert.

One of four confirmed rubble camera photographers.

By rubble camera, I mean a camera found in the wreckage of the Trade Center with

photos of the attacks.

I first hear about him in late 2001 when I buy this magazine.

He's the only journalist who dies covering 9-11.

His body and three of his cameras, two film, one digital, are found a few days

later on West Street.

He approaches the Trade Center from the north, survives the collapse of the

South Tower, and dies when the North Tower falls.

He certainly fits our profile.

I reach out to his family.

At first, they're skeptical.

But when they figure out I'm not a scam artist, they're shocked.

Is our camera Bill's?

I speak to his son.

and quickly determined that it can't be.

None of his cameras are missing, and he was never in a car on 9-11.

He walked.

So, he's not our guy.

Still, his family offers to help.

They review more than 300 photos, many never published, looking for our

photographer, who is very close to Bill.

So close, in fact, they photograph some of the same people and scenes within

minutes of each other.

But no luck. No sign of our guy.

There are three more rubble camera photographers.

Number two is, of course, our mystery cameraman.

Number three is an unknown civilian who took photos high in one of the towers.

His images are singular, the only view of 9-11 from above a point of impact.

The FBI developed them from a disposable camera found in his pocket.

I first learned about this in 2003 when I stumbled upon an article by Laura

Sullivan, then with the Baltimore Sun.

For 15 years, I've tried to get the photos from the FBI, which seemingly

can't find them.

As of production, I'm suing the FBI in federal court.

Now, I've thought for years that our mystery cameraman died.

What if I'm wrong?

What if he's alive?

Our fourth rubble photographer is also our second suspect, Richard Smyowskis.

He's never spoken publicly, until now.

Oh, at 9-11, I grabbed a duffel bag, grabbed some cameras, a couple of bricks

of film, and I responded to the lower Manhattan.

Had my camera on my neck, the lens, and I started snapping away.

Like, just click, click, click, click, click, click, click.

Couldn't focus on one thing. There were so many things happening.

And as I was going across the plaza, I photographed body parts.

Terrible sounds.

It was a hand with a ring on it. That was just a hand, and it was gray.

And... What turned out to be was a rib cage.

Just somebody had just this part inside. You could see the ribs.

And then a strange thing, a face.

Not the head or anything, just a face. Like somebody just carved a face off and

laid it on the ground.

Somebody with a little mustache.

That's what I remember. Hand with a ring on it, a rib cage, and a face.

People were jumping out of the buildings.

They were hitting the atrium.

I heard crashing glass.

So I worked my way across the street, and I went into the Winter Garden, they

called it.

I was able to commandeer a security guy to take me up to the roof.

I got up there, and I started photographing people that were in the

windows.

As the smoke cleared, there had to be 30, 40 faces.

And then they were covered in smoke.

And then the smoke would blow away, and you'd see the faces again.

And I said, that's enough. I went back downstairs, went across the street, and

I wound up in World Trade Center 6.

I heard an explosion, and somebody had jumped, and they fell between the North

Tower and the World Trade Center 6.

So I had the glass window, and I put my camera to the glass, and I photographed

the person.

And then what I know now is the building started collapsing.

The ground was shaking, and I fell to the floor. My camera bag dropped.

Remember seeing some lenses and film rolling across?

And I rolled against the wall to protect myself.

Up until the first collapse, I had photographed maybe 10 or 12 rolls of

film, about a dozen rolls.

As I was taking them out of the camera, I was putting them in my duffel bag.

In retrospect, I should have put them in my pocket. I would have had them.

There's only one roll of film that survived was in the camera that they

found in the rubble.

When you heard that they found your camera, what went through your head?

I said, oh, good. They saved some of my images.

Because that's the first thing I asked. Was it intact?

Was the film destroyed?

And I was like, oh, they saved it. I go, oh, great.

At least I had something to prove I was there.

Because I had nothing else to prove I was there.

Rich's camera is now in the New York City Fire Museum.

They said, it's an old glass case. And I said, let's go check it out.

And then I mentioned it to my wife. I said, you know, everybody in here is,

they're not, they're...

Not alive.

You know, all those chiefs and famous firefighters, famous Dalmatians, you

know. But as I'm looking around, I said, I'm the only one in this museum that's

still alive.

Do you find it painful that the rest of your film wasn't recovered?

Oh, yes, yes. I wish everything was found.

It would have shown a lot more than that last roll I took.

Three of Rich's photos are particularly striking.

He took this on top of the North Bridge, facing south.

This is the danger block, West Street, between Liberty and Vesey.

There's the Marriott.

Rich also took this on top of the Vesey Bridge.

It introduces a new key landmark, the North Tower Portico.

And finally, picture three, taken on the roof of the World Financial Center

across West Street.

You were the only person who got up on the roof and crossed the street with a

camera, and you had a view not only into history, but into what people were going

through that...

nobody else saw.

That's only in your memory now because we don't have those photos.

Are you an artist?

An artist?

We brought a sketch pad and I was wondering if you would be willing to try

to put to paper one or two of the photos that were lost.

I don't know how good I could be with that. I'm mostly like a stick figure

guy.

There was one fellow standing in the building.

His arms were outstretched to the sides.

And he was like this.

Probably because it's not in perspective.

And there were just faces around him.

Between his legs here. Just faces.

I don't know if this is kind of bizarre for me doing this.

There was this...

Had to be 30 people. Just faces.

Some of them were gripped. Their hands were like this.

They were holding on. Remember that?

Should I put eyeballs in here? I don't know what I should do to make them look

like people.

You know?

Like...

That's basically what I photographed.

So there was a fellow through my lens. I saw him in the window, and he's holding

on, crossed like this.

And there's all just faces around him.

He was spread out.

And then he was probably nudged out.

I'm sure there were a lot of people behind these people.

You know, they were probably back there somewhere, maybe suffocating.

But I would imagine there was more trying to get air.

But you could see their faces?

Yeah, you could definitely see the faces. Definitely.

Yes.

Still.

That's one of the major things that I still remember.

That image.

Rich's story and drawing are haunting.

But they also tell us that he can't be our mystery photographer.

Now I have a confession to make.

I've known the name of our photographer from the beginning, the entire time.

Suspect number three, Bobby Crawford.

This is what my source, John Calderon, tells me in 2021.

My father thinks he knows who the camera belonged to.

Firefighter Bobby Crawford, the aide to the safety battalion on 9-11.

Crawford always had a similar camera with him.

The camera was found in the same area as Crawford's body.

Crawford was killed in the second collapse.

So I tracked down Stephen King, Crawford's boss.

Did he have a camera with him on 9-11?

Yes.

Crawford was known to carry an SLR film camera, survived the collapse of the

South Tower, and died when the North Tower fell.

An immediate yes to half our criteria.

But do we even need the clue matrix?

The camera was found near Crawford's body, which more or less solves this,

right? Still, I need to be sure.

I saw the explosion from my office window.

I turned right away to Bobby Crawford, and I said, Bobby, get the car. We're

going in.

Did Bobby take any photos that day while in the car?

No, he was driving.

And it was just the two of you?

Yes.

We first pull in there eight minutes from when I saw it in my window.

That was before the second plane hit, that you arrived?

Oh, yeah. I was in there well before the second plane hit.

That's a definite.

At one point, I'm going up to the third or fourth floor, and I lost my balance.

I'm falling backwards, and I put out my left foot, and something snaps.

I was in excruciating pain.

And I said, Bobby, I got to go downstairs. I can't climb.

And he said, okay, Chief, I'm just going to check out this floor quick, and I'll

be down in a couple of minutes.

So I kind of thought he might go up another flight or something.

I never envisioned him going much higher. Did he get to the 10th floor,

the 30th floor?

I mean, we knew nothing after that. Nobody was able to ever contact him.

I email his son, Mark.

This is what he tells me.

that his dad's body is found in the north tower in a stairwell between

floors 10 and 15.

remember our final photos are taken in front of the north tower less than 10

minutes before it falls is it possible that crawford takes them bolts back into

the tower and runs up 10 to 15 flights of stairs in less than 10 minutes it's

extremely unlikely

I was asking you about Bobby's camera because I was trying to figure if he

could be the photographer.

No, no, he's not the photographer. I know he's not the photographer.

There's no way in earth. Trust me.

At this point, I'm extremely confused.

So few people had an SLR film camera and survived the collapse of the South Tower

and died when the North Tower fell.

And our camera was found near his body?

How is Crawford not our guy?

I've exhausted all suspects, every rubble camera photographer, every

journalist, everyone.

But someone had a camera on 9-11 and took our 32 frames.

So back to zero.

At this point, there's only one thing to do.

Something exhilarating, something glamorous, something cinematic.

Make a spreadsheet.

If our mystery cameraman is not a journalist, he's likely a first

responder. So we list everyone who died on 9-11.

Then we comb through public records and news accounts, ruling out suspects one

by one.

At one point, I get excited.

I read about a man named Joe Levero, a fire dispatcher from Jersey City who

responded on 9-11 as a volunteer.

One of his hobbies?

Photography. But according to news reports, he died when the South Tower

fell, so it can't be him.

I return to the photos, the people in them. The most important is Soup Man.

The best witness.

We need to find him.

And we do.

Amazingly, we do.

I write him a letter. I email him. I call him. He never responds.

So we're on the way to the home of Suitman. We ID'd him. He was a civilian

in the North Tower who got out right before it fell.

I hate door knocking, but he hasn't responded.

So I'm going to try to talk to him in person and ask him if we can do an

interview or if he'll at least look at the photo and see.

What do you think our chances are?

I say it's given how we haven't heard back from him at all.

Seems like signs point to no.

It seems like John is talking to somebody about it.

It's been a few minutes and he hasn't come back out yet.

I don't know.

He called the police. We've got to go.

Go.

I'm just kidding. He didn't call the police. Are you still filming?

I sure am.

No, yeah, totally kidding.

Super friendly guy.

Very, very nice man.

I met him.

I recognize him from the photo. Obviously, he's older, but he was very

friendly, and we have an interview on Wednesday at 4.30 p.m.

My name is Jitendra Mavadiya.

Jitendra was a contractor for the Port Authority.

He oversaw World Trade Center security systems.

At 8.30 a.m. on 9-11, he's at the top of the South Tower, floor 107.

He leaves just in time and makes his way to the North Tower, which is immediately

hit by a plane.

I was trapped in my office because outside in the corridor, everything was

totally dark, totally dusty.

Too much gasoline smell and debris were blocking the doors.

At that time, I left a message on my home phone that looks like I'm

not going to make it.

And let me take care of the people who are here and see what I can do.

Finally, firefighters reach him.

They clear debris and open the door.

Jetendra is free.

Somewhere above him in the North Tower is firefighter Lawrence Virgilio.

Larry has two college degrees.

He's a winemaker, a scuba diver, a rock climber. He trained in classical ballet

and performed in community theater.

With 38 minutes to live, he calls his partner of six years, Abigail Francis,

and leaves a voicemail, shared here publicly for the first time.

It's an intimate year in the North Tower.

what people like Jitendra and Larry hear as they choose to stay to save people.

On

Valentine's

Day 1997, Larry gave this to Abigail.

An EKG.

Dear Abigail, I didn't get you a card for Valentine's Day.

Here's my heart instead.

Love, Larry.

All of a sudden, the entire system went down.

So there's no electric power, there's nothing there, so nothing works.

Jitendra descends a darkened stairwell and enters a desolate lobby.

There was nothing there.

The dust all over the place.

The window glasses were broken.

The revolving doors were not functioning properly or some of them are out.

Was anybody in the lobby?

Maybe a couple of ladies and a couple of men. That's it.

And when I started walking out, at that time, the tower fell.

And then a huge cloud of dust roaring towards me.

You see up in the sky, there's no sun.

All dark, all black.

But then I see a fire truck parked right there and I went under the fire truck

just to shelter myself that if something falls on me. But that didn't help

because there was no oxygen in the air.

For some reason, one firefighter came in under the truck

and shared his mask with me for a couple of seconds or maybe a few times, maybe

one or two times.

But they saved me. By the time the clouds settled down, I look around, he's

not there anymore.

Looks like he just came to save me.

Then I came out of there.

I see two young guys like you.

They had a skateboard with them.

They say, how can I help you, sir?

Can we do anything for you?

So they put me on a skateboard. I say, I don't know how to skate.

Both of them on each side, they hold my hand and they...

Take me far away to their home.

What did their kindness mean to you in that moment?

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. The people don't know people.

But the time of crisis, we all are one. We all are human beings.

We are there to help each other.

That means a lot to me.

Jitendra makes his way home.

By ferry or bus, he doesn't remember.

My wife was there before me.

And she was so happy to see me.

I don't want to get debris or anything inside the house.

So with the suit, I took a shower.

And then take the suit out, put it in a laundry machine, then came up.

And I turned on the TV.

And then I broke down.

I lost all my courage.

that what is happening and why did it happen.

This must be after the South Tower fell while I'm walking out

because my clothes are not that dirty. It is clean.

So this photo of you, they found the camera in the rubble.

We think it was a first responder who didn't survive.

Unbelievable.

Do you remember this photo being taken?

No. No idea.

So my work continues.

I'm running out of ideas. And time.

It could take years to manually rule out every first responder.

And regardless, no one seems to fit the profile.

Which is where this guy comes in. Mike Coppola. The volunteer firefighter and

EMT who made it to West Investee before the North Tower fell.

With a camera.

Oh, shit.

That's a new problem.

Fuck.

I might have to key the car. If not, my house is, like, ten blocks away.

You can take a ride with me if you want. It'd be easier.

You'd think I'd be more organized, given my background.

Where the fuck... Yeah, fuck, we gotta run to the house. Shit. You guys can hop

in.

Uh... No, actually, we can sit together.

Next thing you know, I don't know. I don't know.

Oh Fuck I had bins in here shit. I just bought

them too

We're

gonna go back this way, I think I kept all the treats that are stuck in here

See we got here

See, anytime I see a photo like this at this moment, I'm always looking for a

photographer. These are the day off photos, by the way.

Even though 9-11 was the most documented event in human history, there were very

few people where you were.

Oh, yeah.

News or buffs like us. And anybody else was getting kicked out or running the

other way.

The first time I speak to Mike, by phone, and I did not record it.

When I tell him the gist of this film, our 32 frames, my hunt for the

photographer, he stops me.

I know who it is, he says.

Joe Levero.

But we already ruled out Levero. He died when the South Tower fell.

He's literally the last person on our new list of suspects.

But okay, I'll double check.

Confirmation he was killed by the South Tower here from the Associated Press and

here from the Star Ledger.

Wait, bring that back.

Levero hitched a ride with the Jersey City Battalion to take pictures, rushed

across the Hudson River to capture on film, to take pictures, shooting

pictures, photographing fires, taking shots of the Trade Center.

So Levero did go to the Trade Center to shoot photos and was fatally injured

when one of the towers fell. But which tower?

Not a single source says the North Tower, and if the South Tower killed

him, he's not our guy.

I keep digging, and find this.

An interview with FDNY Battalion Chief Ed Henry, from 2001.

Stuff was coming down, falling out of the building, and I was afraid I was

going to get hit with some of it. So I proceeded to an area where there was a

portico, part of the Trade Center.

I got under that so I wouldn't be hit by anything.

The only two people under that were myself and a dispatcher from the Jersey

City Fire Department. He was taking pictures.

I called my aide on my radio.

With that, I heard this noise like a freight train coming.

And the fellow taking pictures started to run, and I started to run.

Within one second, this whole portico collapsed to the floor, pinned me to the

floor. My face was six inches off the floor as rocks and rubble and everything

were rolling past me.

Shortly thereafter, it stopped, and this big cloud of dust where you couldn't see

anything, it was like a fog, permeated the area.

My legs were pinned a little bit, but not too bad. I was able to get them

loose, and I crawled to where I felt cold air on the side of my face.

And I crawled, and I crawled, and I crawled.

Finally, I got out into the open air.

I saw the clear blue sky.

I found the dispatcher from Jersey City. He was lying on the floor on his back,

telling me he thinks he's having a heart attack.

I told him to clear all the dust and debris out of his mouth and lay there

quietly and try to breathe some fresh air and that he would be all right.

Finally, I saw a fireman and I waved to him.

They put us on two backboards and they put us in an ambulance.

And shortly after that, we left.

So Levera was killed by the North Tower.

Chief Henry doesn't name him.

But his description, a Jersey City dispatcher, on site, taking photos,

killed when a tower fell, fits one person, Joe Levero.

This is a strong lead, but I still have a bunch of questions.

When did Levero get to the Trade Center?

How did he get there?

What kind of camera did he use?

Say your name and then spell it.

I'll go first.

You ready?

Go ahead. I'm retired Battalion Chief John Austin.

J-O-H-N.

A-U-S-T-I-N.

I'm Robert Cobb, retired deputy chief, Jersey City Fire Department, C-O-B-B.

As the attacks begin, Joe Levero gets off work.

Meanwhile, the Port Authority issues an urgent call for mutual aid.

They wanted our MSU, our mass service unit, because of the amount of Scott

bottles that they could carry with them. We had close to 400.

bottles full of air on this one truck. When we saw how high up that fire was,

we said, these guys are going to need a ton of air.

That day, when did you first see Joe Libero?

When I arranged to rendezvous with the MSU. I came from the southwest corner of

Jersey City by the Hackensack River, and I was going through downtown, heading

for the Holland Tunnel. So I picked this intersection, Newark.

and Jersey Avenues in downtown Jersey City.

MSU knew I was going to meet up with them. I stopped next to them, and Joe

was already there.

He was waiting, and as soon as I stopped the car by the MSU, he asked me for a

ride. Get in the back. Let's go.

And what did he have with him?

Two bags.

Camera bags.

When Joe would show up to fires, did he always have his camera with him?

Yeah. I never saw him without it.

I don't know.

What kind of cameras did Joe typically have on him?

He always seemed to have a single-lens reflex.

Do you remember, Joe, taking any photos when you were driving to the site?

I was driving, and I was driving. I was in excess of the speed limit, and I

wasn't looking back at what was going on.

How fast did you go through the Holland Tunnel?

When it's empty.

When it's empty. How fast are you going?

About 80, 85 miles an hour. Who was in front, the MSU truck or you?

Me. So you were leading the charge? I was leading the charge.

How many people were in your car and who was in each vehicle?

Buck Weaver was driving the MSU with Captain Charlie Smith in my vehicle.

I was driving. I had Jerry Drennan and I had Joe Lovero in the back seat.

So we flew through the tunnel, headed down, got to West and Vesey.

And how long were you there before the Sal Tower fell?

Not long.

Probably less than 10 minutes.

It was probably like about 9.50 I was there.

We all got out.

Joe Levero grabbed his camera and took off.

before I could give my guys their safety briefing and tell them where we were

going to rendezvous if something went wrong.

And I didn't see Joe again.

Can you describe him to me?

Yeah, it was real, real easy. He was balding, slightly on top.

Yeah. And he was built just like you, but shorter.

So I'm 5'8". He was shorter than you. Exactly. He was 5'6", a couple pounds

overweight, just like me.

He had a little...

A little punch going.

When you stopped and you got out of the car, how quickly did Joe run?

I couldn't have stopped him.

I'm shutting the car off. He's getting out the door.

And then I get out the door.

He's already 25, 35 yards away and going.

Towards the North Tower.

Did Joe say anything to you when he bolted from the car?

Not a word.

Do you remember what he was wearing?

No.

He had the blue T-shirt and blue pants on, and that was it.

Did he have a helmet or anything with him?

Did he have any protective gear?

No.

John starts to make his way to the FDNY command post.

Never got that far. I was walking around the North Tower towards the South Tower

when a body hit, and I was like, What was that? A

body. It was just a red splotch.

I said, where's the bones? Where's the clothes?

Where's the... No, just a red mist when they hit.

I looked up to make sure I wasn't going to get hit with another body.

And the top of the South Tower was already doing that mushroom act.

We hadn't heard it yet.

The sound hadn't reached us when I said, that's it, run away.

Toward the MSU truck.

This is where it parked.

You can see it here as the South Tower collapses, and here.

Butch, your radio call sign that day was 6 Alpha? 6 Alpha, yeah. What was yours?

Battalion 3.

We're trying to contact Battalion 3 at this moment to report North Tower just

collapsed.

Dispatch Battalion 3.

Battalion 3, I read.

When did you realize that Joe was missing?

Oh, as soon as we got to the rendezvous point.

As soon as we got to the rendezvous point, I'm counting heads saying, okay,

I got the two from the MSU. I got myself and Jerry.

Where is Joe Levero?

When I finally got back to my car, there was on the windshield, and I thought it

was a ticket. I said, who would write me a ticket at this thing?

But in actuality, it was a bill from Windows on the World.

It was dated that morning for breakfast.

The corner of it was burned off.

And I picked it up, and I looked at it.

And I said, no, I don't want a souvenir from this place.

And I just put it under the car in the dust, and I drove away.

When did Jersey City first get the call that Joe had been taken to St.

Vincent's?

It was probably close to midnight.

I had heard he was alive when they got him to St.

Vincent's, and he died before they could get him into surgery. He died in the

emergency room.

You have the pictures from that camera?

Yeah, would you like to see them?

Yeah, I would. Yeah, absolutely.

He's got some great pictures.

I can just picture him running up to the building and taking these pictures and

telling me.

Because if you'd seen Joe's pictures before these.

He always wanted to run up right to the front of the building, the alpha side of

the building, and take a picture of it.

Yeah.

This is West Broadway in Worth, so it's pretty close.

That's where you call it a bit.

I was probably coming down West Broadway to Vessi.

It's incredible. As a photographer, if these are Joe's photos, and we think

they are, nobody was...

that close.

The closest person was Bill Biggert, who was killed, and he was still further

back. And so these are the closest photos of that moment in time when

nobody else was there. This is it.

And so people talk about, well, 9-11 was the most documented moment in human

history ever.

But... Not like that. Not like this. People were looking from the outside

looking in. Nobody was standing.

20 feet from the half-collapsed hotel with the other tower burning above them.

Everything that I know about Joe Levero and his camera is consistent with these

photos. Oh, yeah, I think.

The South Tower falls at 9.59.

Levero gets to the Trade Center 10 to 15 minutes earlier, roughly 9.44 to 9.49,

within one minute of our estimate of when the photographer arrives.

He rides over in a Jersey City fire vehicle driven by John Austin.

through the Holland Tunnel, then south.

Levero uses an SLR film camera with a zoom lens, survives the collapse of the

south tower, and is killed by the north tower.

So when you look at those first two photos, there's an antenna visible.

An antenna on what?

Down here in the corner?

Let's see real quick.

It's right here.

You see the antenna?

Okay. Okay.

That's an antenna?

An automobile antenna.

Oh, it's too big, isn't it? Well, it looks like it has a little ball on the

end of it, but... It wouldn't be your car, though.

No, it wouldn't, because my car didn't have that antenna. My car had one of

those little ones on the center of the roof in the back. I don't know what the

hell that is. It looks like it's down the block, but I don't know.

Wait, can I... I'm sorry, can I go back to the antenna picture? Yeah. So you're

saying that that's not consistent with your car?

No, because it did have a mast antenna on it, but it was on the right fender,

on the right side.

I apologize.

So describe the antenna and tell me where it was.

Just forward of the windshield on the right front fender.

Well, I think that's consistent with this.

The antenna is just outside the windshield on the right side of the

vehicle on the fender.

Okay, so if the passenger was sitting there, the antenna would be right here.

So if somebody in the back seat got out the window and took a picture in that

direction, yeah, they could have that antenna in there.

Thank you. Sorry. No, no, no, no.

John, you were with Joe on 9-11. He was in your car. What is it like for the two

of you to see each other for the first time?

I got goosebumps when you took them out. They said to me, Joe Levero, as soon as

you took them out and I saw the first shot, just... The first shot with the

antenna on it, I didn't grasp that.

But when it got to the second time, when looking directly up at the building, I

remember Joe taking those pictures.

Not 100%, but... 90 plus percent. There's no doubt in my mind that that

could be him. Absolutely.

He leaves behind, kind of like a legacy, he leaves behind what he was all about.

That's a little bit of history of Joe.

That's what it is. Yeah.

One last thing.

Remember, Joe had two camera bags on 9-11.

He took one with him as he ran toward the towers.

The other, he left in John's car.

John returned it to Joe's brother, Mike.

I was like, he had a camera bag on his shoulder when he left me.

And this one was left in the car.

You know, give it back to whoever.

Were there any pictures on the other camera that you gave to his brother?

I don't know.

Joe Levero is our guy, I think.

But I thought for years it was someone else. Bobby Crawford. I made a mistake.

I don't want to do that again.

I need physical evidence.

The camera.

In 2002, Jack Calderon, my source, put out a call for images of 9-11 to display

in a small memorial on Staten Island.

A firefighter brought him the camera, the negatives, and the photos.

He doesn't remember who.

Someone from Rescue 5.

Probably the person who found it at Ground Zero.

They seem to have a strong connection to Staten Island.

Rescue 5 is on the island.

They, or someone they knew, recognized Robert Siragusa and John Atrando, who

live on the island.

The memorial is on the island.

Jack remembers getting the photos in a distinct green and white envelope,

likely from the now-closed Wallach's Photo Lab on the island.

Staten Island is sometimes called the Forgotten Borough.

274 islanders died on 9-11, but all anyone thinks about is the long-closed

dump.

The island is the heart of our story, and it's where, now, we hunt for the

camera.

This is the National 9-11 Memorial and Museum in Manhattan.

This is the Staten Island 9-11 Memorial.

And this is the World Trade Center Educational Tribute, part of the Snug

Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island.

It's tucked away, hidden in trees, maintained by a dedicated group of FDNY

volunteers.

Well, this is a mortuary, right? When they built it, they built it crooked so

the soul could leave the building.

Yes, this building used to be a morgue for retired sailors, including,

strangely enough, my great-grandfather, Charlie, a merchant marine who served in

World War II.

He retired on these grounds, died in 1964, and was embalmed in this room.

The same room in which some of our 32 frames have been displayed for 23 years.

This is where the camera should be, in this case.

But it's not.

It's gone.

Jack Calderon last remembers seeing it here in 2016 when he retired.

The memorial shut down during COVID and reopened in 2022.

Sometime between 2016 and 22, the camera disappeared.

It's unclear if it was misplaced or stolen.

Everything else is accounted for, including artifacts like this helmet and

this piece of one of the planes.

These are all from that camera? These are all from that camera.

Obviously, he was right under the North Tower.

Just sort of put that there.

Do you guys look to search storage here to see if you could find the camera?

Yeah, we did a thorough search. Went through it twice this morning.

Dug everything out. Nothing.

Finding the camera is our only hope to prove that Joe Levero is our

photographer. We could check the serial number. We might even be able to pull

DNA. Vital clues.

Back in Jersey, Butch makes a surprise call.

Hey, Mike.

Yeah, it's Bobby Cobb.

Bobby Cobb, C-O-B-B, retired deputy chief from Jersey City.

No, no, I'm actually here in New Jersey with Johnny Austin doing a documentary

on 9-11.

Yeah, so I'm actually here with them right now because they... Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, no, yeah, that's fine. That's fine. I just wanted to check with you

just to see.

All right.

He just shut it down right away.

He said, no, he said, you know what?

Leave it alone.

I don't want to talk about it.

I try to reach the Laveros. I write and call and email and text. No response.

A family friend agrees to contact them for us.

The family hasn't said anything to me. So, I mean, I guess by not responding,

they were clear, but not really because imagine if we came out with this and we

had these photos and we didn't contact the family.

Since 2001, the story of Joe Levero has shifted from photographer to emergency

rescue hero, including an unverified account that he died while dismantling

turnstiles in the North Tower to help people escape.

The truth is, we know he took photos.

Everything else is speculation.

I think that we're honoring the wishes of the photographer by publishing the

photos because it was important enough that this was the final act of their

life, that they were a first responder.

And we don't know exactly what they did, but they very likely were helping

people, which makes them a hero.

They also were a photographer, and I don't think that makes them any less of

a hero.

I think as far as what we do with this project,

I mean, it's not what I wanted.

I don't know. I just had this image of...

32 photos of life and like a happy ending, but it was not a happy ending.

When I first learned about Joe, I'm startled to see his birthday.

September 8th, my birthday.

72 hours before the attacks.

I turned 13.

He turned 60.

I want to see him alive at that party, but it's not up to me.

We say never forget, but who chooses what we remember?

Did Joe save lives, or did he take photos?

Why not both?

For one fateful moment, at one intersection, West Invesi, everyone and

everything fused together, a swirling mass of glass and steel and dust and

debris, people who lived and died.

The before and after, the first responder, the photographer, won.

If you have a choice of taking a photo or helping someone, which are you doing?

I'm helping someone.

But photography is important to tell the story, tell their story.

They couldn't tell their story. They're dead.

343 firefighters, dead.

78 cops, they're dead.

They couldn't tell their story. I could tell their story.

In the end, I know more about how Joe Levero died than how he lived.

I can show you photos and maps and landmarks.

I can take you to Weston Vesey.

But I'll never know him.

I hear he was a good cook.

We always made great Italian food.

Yeah, because you remember one particular dish.

Yeah.

It had veal, and it had pasta, and it was like a white cream sauce on

it. And I can't remember the name of it, but, oh, it was to die for.

There's a meme I can't license, but you can look up.

A girl stands in a field, the wind in her hair, the sky blue.

The twin towers behind her.

The world you were born in no longer exists.

That's true of me, but not of people born in the last 25 years.

For them, it never existed.

My niece is 13, the same age I was on 9-11.

I show her my video from the towers.

I tell her of the world that was.

I pray for the world that is.

And the world I hope to come.

9-11 never ended.

We live it every day, no one more so than the people who were there.

We now lost more than 343 firemen that died that day to the cancers. We're

close to 400 now.

We just buried a statin islander this weekend.

Eight firemen from Jersey City in every rank have died.

I have six illnesses from 9-11, by the way.

Migraine headaches, hearing loss, gastric reflux.

Cancer. Thyroid cancer. Cancer.

Lung scars, nodules.

Pulmonary hypertension.

They told us the air was safe, by the way.

The air is safe, guys. You can go in there and do your job.

I have my oxygen in the car if I need it, you know, so.

Apologies. It's okay. I have that at night.

I can't complain about having a cough, you know, when so many other people have

so much worse. It's like, you know.

To be fair, you also have thyroid cancer.

You know what the doctor said? You got the best cancer.

If you're going to get cancer, get thyroid cancer. It's slow growing, and

you can live a long time with it.

When the kids were young, I remember sitting out in the back on the

mound and the kids asking me to play with them, and I used to tell them

that... Daddy can't run around with you because he's fat and out of shape.

The fact of the matter was I couldn't run around with them because I couldn't

breathe because I have three quarters and a bunch of salt in the base of both

of my lungs. But they didn't need to know that at the time. It was easy to

say, Daddy's fat and out of shape. I can't play with you.

You strike me like you have a good sense of humor.

You have to.

That's a coping mechanism because, honestly, after all the years that I've

spent in the field,

and all the things I've seen and the World Trade Center, if you don't laugh

and you don't make jokes, you go crazy.

There have been countless people that I've worked with over the years that

have taken their own lives because they can't deal with the stress.

9-11, I don't turn the TV on.

I've never gone to Manhattan since.

I've had nightmares.

Just weird nightmares.

I had nightmares of the rebar, people stuck on the rebar, just weird stuff,

like decaying bodies on rebar at the World Trade Center.

I was suffering from hallucinations where I would see a black bag on the

floor and it looked like a body.

Or if I was looking at my own feet, it looked like the feet of people. I

recovered, a person I recovered.

I couldn't take a shower and close the shower curtain because I felt like I was

trapped. Few of my friends and colleagues, I heard that they lost their

mind and they end up in a mental institution.

That kind of woke me up.

that I don't want to end up like them.

I have to rebuild my life again.

But then I started analyzing my mind, that why my mental status is like this?

Then I realized it was a survival guilt.

I lost this many people on one day.

As a security consultant, you're not supposed to lose a single life.

But on the same day, I lost like 2,600 people.

Other side of my mind started thinking, what's the major cause of death in the

United States?

Driving.

Then I started thinking, let me teach driving from the root level from 16 year

old and up.

Teach them safe driving technique, make them defensive drivers so that they save

their life and they save others' life also.

So each one of my 16 year old will be one tribute to one lost life in world,

etc.

That's the reason I started this. And when I get my license, I insist that my

license should be stamped on 9-11.

So this driving school, Vision Driving Schools,

First license was issued on 9-11, 2006.

Have you been back to the site since?

Never.

I don't have that kind of courage to do that. But when I see you, when you step

in my office, and I thought to myself, why this guy is chasing me?

How did he get my number? I keep asking my wife also that. How did he get my

number? Why? After 24 years, who searched?

like that and you had a dedication i i make up my mind after looking at you

i don't know what's driving me but maybe your face maybe your eyes

give me confidence let's get it over with man move on with your life

after you left i told my wife

we'll book a hotel there we'll go there

I want to stay overnight there.

Let's see what I feel.

I will go there.

I appreciate it.

Do

you

remember some of this from before?

It was special.

The skyline is not the same.

So when we get in front, I'm going to show you where that photo was taken.

I'll kind of orient you.

Yeah, this is the intersection of West and Vesey.

Yeah, this is where you walk.

So I was there.

yes this is what was uh world trade center six and so you would have been in

the street like right over here i'll take you to

if you're okay with it to the pool right

how

do you feel

But now, I'm open.

This is the fire truck.

How

does

it feel to you to see this in person?

Unbelievable. But I'm so glad I took this decision to come to see all these

things.

I don't know how to feel, but I think once we get out of here, I'll feel much

better than all these last 24 years I was suffering.

I see a lot of anxieties

evaporating. from my body.

And I think that if I wouldn't have seen this, I would have been, next 25

hours, I would be same person.

But now that I see it, I think I can get it over with.

I can even bring my friends, somebody come visit.

I'll bring them here myself.

How does it feel that one day you might be, your picture might be here in the

museum?

Wonderful. I'll be honored.

I will be really, really honored to see that.

Yeah. I feel very honored that you invited us to come today. It means a

lot. It was emotional.

Like I said, without you, I wouldn't have done this.

You're the best of the best. I feel like my own children.

You know what I mean?

Come on.

Give the camera to somebody else. You come on too. Come on.

There's one last thing to do.

I've never met Jack Calderon, my source.

For years, I asked for an interview. He declines.

Finally, right before we leave New York, he invites me to stop by.

I just finished that. Wow.

Are you publishing this?

It's gone. It's sold out already.

Wow. Did 500 copies.

Jack joined the FDNY in 1973.

He's a retired firefighter and talented photographer.

In fact, some of the photos in our intro are his.

You remember your first camera?

I think I still have it.

This is a still camera?

Yeah. Wow.

I know it's not the Zapruder camera, but it kind of gives me the vibes of like

the era of the Zapruder camera.

I asked Jack again about our camera, the mystery camera.

When did he last see it?

2016.

Where are the negatives?

He can't find them. Who gave it to him?

I can tell you it was a guy from Rescue 5. I cannot remember who it was.

And I don't think anyone's going to come forward because I think they were kind

of guilty that they had the camera.

For 25 years, Jack thought he knew who took our 32 frames, Bobby Crawford.

And now I tell him, no, it was Joe.

Lavero's the only one.

How did you come up with him?

That's interesting.

Yeah.

Did you ever consider possibly that it was Levera?

No, I never did.

It never dawned on me.

Jack and Joe were both members of the Gong Club, a volunteer group that

supports Jersey City firefighters.

You knew him personally?

Yeah. I mean, I wasn't a friend with him, but I knew him as an acquaintance.

I think for him, I mean, as a photographer, it's a legacy.

I'm sure he'd rather be here, but it's still...

Yeah. It's a piece of history.

How do you feel that you captured history?

That's a good question. I don't know. I never really thought about it that way.

How do I feel about capturing history?

Glad that I was there.

For all I know, people are going to hear this history and see this history and

just file it under OK and then move on with their lives.

But I hope that's not the case.

And, you know, I know I'm not a hero.

Because they're all dead.

We're talking about generational change from the witness, lived experience

generation to the history generation.

you know 40 50 of our visitors were born after i'm about it maybe a few years

younger than me but people with direct memories you know it's really kind of

30s now and above right and so in 40 years you know i'll be telling people

that we met you guys and i think that's something you have any other questions

for me another beer and with that we

return to new orleans where one day I get a call from Mark Desire with the New

York City office of the chief medical examiner.

Mark has been fighting for 25 years to identify 9-11 victims via DNA.

If we find this camera, do you think you would be able to run DNA tests on it to

possibly identify who the photographer is?

Yes. So the camera was found at ground zero, film still in it, still taken out,

developed, and those pictures were fine, right?

Yep. Yeah, so...

The fact that the film survived leads me to believe there's DNA in there. So this

thing wasn't completely melted or soaked in jet fuel.

So there's a good chance that somewhere on that camera, there's DNA.

This is the only way we can answer definitively who took our 32 frames.

Someone has the camera.

Please return it.

As I script this film, I get a package in the mail from retired NYPD detective

Frank DeMasi.

A piece of glass.

from the World Trade Center, found at Ground Zero.

I want to know more, so I called Dan Sassa, who wrote a book on the Trade

Center. His uncle, Michael E. Roberts, a firefighter, died on 9-11.

I have a piece of window glass from the World Trade Center, some limestone, a

piece of steel, a piece of granite, and some piece of liquefied concrete, molten

or something.

The piece of glass that I have, along with the piece that you shared with me,

is actually a piece from the lobbies of one of the towers.

It has a green tint to it, and that's due to the iron oxide impurities that

they use for that thick glass.

And if you hold it at a specific angle, you can see that green kind of hue.

It's almost like a portal for me to be able to look at it and, like I said,

reflect.

When you look online, I think there is a hunger for actual pieces of the Trade

Center. And, you know, some of that maybe is morbid curiosity, but I think

personally a lot of it is that people, even people who weren't alive, they feel

a sense of loss that even if they don't remember 9-11, even if they never went

to the Trade Center, that we're living through such tumultuous times.

that when we look back, you know, you and I can look back on the 90s and say,

oh, man, that was kind of like the 50s. It was this, for lack of a better

phrase, not that it was perfect, but kind of a golden period compared to what

the last 25 years have been.

Absolutely. It's hard. It's hard to drive by New York City and not see the

skyline the way it was and think back to the way the world was prior to 9-11.

Dan agrees to meet us one winter night.

At Liberty State Park. In Jersey City.

Home of Joe Levero.

Birthplace of my father.

I used to stand here as a child, marveling at the towers.

Now, just empty sky.