Original subtitles

[ owl hooting ]

Lemoine: It's always cold.

It's always dreary.

When I think about being out in the elements,

I always think about them.

♪

Them being outside without their coats,

Without their shoes.

They were cold...

♪

...And stood there freezing.

None of it had to happen.

♪

♪

We had so much in common.

♪

And...

♪

We just understood each other so well.

[ sniffles ]

It had to be absolutely horrifying.

That one turns my stomach upside-down.

♪

It's appalling.

It was three innocent people.

♪

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

[ crows cawing ]

Lemoine: The winter of '98, the ponds would freeze over.

It gets pretty cold, especially at night.

That's where you feel it to your bones.

Susan: Joy, thanks again for watching them.

You are a lifesaver. I owe you big time.

Well, don't worry. They're in good hands.

With their favorite auntie. [ both chuckle ]

Right, kids?

My sister susan and I were very close.

Well, I better get going. Don't forget to lock the doors.

I will.

After susan got divorced,

There wasn't really anyone to stay with the kids.

So I babysat for her a lot.

Alright, bye, kids. I love you.

Love you. Bye, mom.

Adrian was in seventh grade at the time.

She was 12 years old.

She had been playing volleyball.

She was very active.

Kyle was just a 9-year-old boy.

He just had a tender soul,

And he cared a lot about people.

When I babysat them, we just stayed in the house

And just did normal things.

Adrian, this snowflake is beautiful.

Hmm. Mine's better.

No, it's not!

Yours doesn't even look like a snowflake.

Let me just rip that one.

Kyle, please don't antagonize your sister.

We always had a good time

And always enjoyed being with each other.

It's so pretty.

♪

[ door opens ]

♪

♪

Joy, I told you to keep the front door locked.

Sorry.

I must have forgotten.

Hey, don't worry. [ scoffs ]

You live in the middle of nowhere.

It's fine. No, it's not fine.

I'm -- I'm sorry. I should have told you.

She said that a guy had come to her door,

Knocked on the door,

And asked to use the restroom.

There was just something creepy about him.

Susan, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

It was weird. Trust me.

There was something off about this guy.

She just told him to go away.

After that, she started locking the doors.

When she told me about it, I didn't think too much of it.

♪

I don't know. Maybe you're right.

I should head out. It's getting pretty late.

I remember she gave me a hug before I left.

♪

I remember that feeling, that touching her.

I don't remember if I told her I loved her.

But I remember the feel of the hug.

♪

♪

[ doorknob rattles ]

Hello?

♪

Is anyone there?

[ doorknob rattles ]

♪

[ floor creaking ]

♪

♪

Who's there?

♪

[ susan screams ]

♪

It was my sister kay's birthday,

And susan and the kids

Were supposed to go over to kay's house on Sunday

To celebrate that with her.

Ooh, that looks good! [ chuckles ]

Hey, tim, it's time for cake!

It was a special event.

Family was always very important to susan.

Kay, shouldn't they have been here by now?

Susan not showing up for dinner that night was huge.

It's not something she did.

Plans may have changed,

But she would have let someone know.

You could always count on her.

No one had had any contact with them.

We were very concerned.

[ telephone dialing ]

[ ringing ]

I tried calling susan and the kids a lot Sunday.

[ ringing continues ]

And it just rang.

No one ever answered.

[ ringing ]

♪

My family and I decided that we needed to go to the house

To see where they were.

♪

When we got to her house, we noticed her bronco was gone.

♪

Susan?

Adrian?

Kyle?

When we first went in,

It was quiet. There were no sounds, no --

No one was around.

♪

The shoes that they wore were there.

I found all their coats that had been there.

♪

Kay?

It was very, very cold out.

You just know something's wrong.

♪

They wouldn't have gone outside without their coats.

♪

Let's check the house.

♪

Finding the shoes and coats is what started to scare me.

It just wasn't right.

Narrator: Alarmed, joy and her family call the police.

Roark: When we were first called to the brouk residence,

It was cold, gray, and ominous.

I guess it gives you a sense of foreboding,

That time of the year in missouri.

♪

Hi. I'm sergeant ralph roark.

This is my partner, detective elms.

Joy: Thanks for getting here so quickly.

Initially, I was not that concerned.

This is not an unusual occurrence for someone to leave

And not let friends or family know that they're gone.

Why don't you show me around?

♪

♪

So, this is the daughter's room?

Yes. Adrian.

She always kept it really clean.

We found two things in adrian's room

That might have been essential evidence.

One of the sheets from the bed was on the floor.

♪

Wait a minute.

♪

♪

What are these doing here?

Susan's eyeglasses were still at the residence.

Would susan ever leave those at home?

No.

These are her only pair of glasses.

She indicated that susan

Absolutely had to have those glasses to drive,

That she simply would not leave the residence

Without her glasses.

It suggests the possibility that someone has entered the house

Without permission and stolen their vehicle.

Sergeant, do you think...

Somebody could have taken them?

It's a possibility.

By that time, I was concerned myself

That they may have been taken from the home unwillingly.

♪

Lemoine: I knew something was wrong.

Something bad had happened there.

♪

I mentioned the guy coming onto her property.

But I wasn't able to give him a whole lot

Of identifying information

On what the guy looked like, how old he was,

What sort of vehicle.

There was not a lot to go on. No help there.

Joy,

Does your sister have any enemies that you know about,

Anyone that might want to hurt her?

♪

Maybe her ex-husband, bill.

When they asked me if susan had had any problems

With anyone, I mentioned her ex-husband.

Why him?

Well, susan's daughter, adrian, didn't want to see him

After he married someone else.

I imagine he was pretty happy about that.

Susan told me about an incident of violence

Towards susan by her ex-husband.

There's something else you should know.

About six months ago, things between them came to a head.

I didn't see the altercation. I heard about the altercation

When we were talking on the phone.

I think she had bruises,

And her face was messed up afterwards.

The kids saw the altercation.

Obviously, they were upset.

Roark: That piqued our interest.

The ex-husband was and always is a suspect.

If they have a history of violence,

They're not afraid to use violence.

I want you to get a forensics team in here,

And I want to talk to that ex-husband.

Parents sometimes kill children. It's just a fact.

Roark: We interviewed susan's ex-husband.

He was our primary suspect.

So you don't have any idea where your ex-wife is?

I've told you.

I don't know where any of them are.

We did think that possibly

Susan's ex-husband had come to the residence,

Had done something to susan, and had the children.

Well, tell me this.

How would you characterize your relationship

With susan?

You already know the answer to that.

I want to hear it from you.

Roark: Sometimes parents that are separated from their children

Can get extremely distraught.

People can really do stupid things.

Listen to me.

Sergeant, I would never --

Never hurt my children.

And while we're here wasting time,

They could be out somewhere freezing!

Roark: He seemed to be concerned.

Promise me you'll find them.

[ crying ]

Roark: Doesn't mean he wasn't still a suspect.

Sometimes people are good liars.

♪

People get away with killing people every day.

♪

Adrian was such an important person in my life,

My best friend.

We were in seventh grade...

♪

...Our first year of junior high.

[ school bell rings ]

♪

I probably called adrian five or six times each day after school

And was unable to reach her.

So I was pretty scared that something bad had happened.

Megan? Megan?

Ready for tryouts?

Uh, yeah. I'm so excited.

The last conversation adrian and I had,

We were talking about volleyball tryouts.

You have a way better shot at this than me.

I'll try my best.

You'd better.

[ both laugh ]

That's all we had talked about for a week prior

Was the volleyball tryouts,

So I knew she wouldn't have missed them.

[ both laugh ]

♪

Something wasn't right, but...

I didn't think I'd be anything like it was.

♪

If susan and her children

Had been forcibly taken from that residence,

They probably left in that bronco.

So I thought a helicopter search of the immediate area

Was probably the easiest, most fastidious way

To get this done.

♪

Winter actually helped us on this case.

It was much easier to see with the leaves gone.

Just made visibility so much better.

Man: [ on radio ] do you see anything down there?

Man #2: Negative, detective.

Really not seeing anything

In the immediate area of her house.

It was kind of disheartening at that time,

Because I was hoping

That we might be able to see that bronco.

Let's widen the search area.

Copy.

We were probably in an area

1/2 mile or maybe a little further from the residence

When we finally made a discovery.

The pilot looked and said,

"what is that floating in the pond?"

I see it! Let's go in for a closer look.

I had the pilot land the helicopter in a field.

♪

I walked up to the pond, and I found

This 16-gauge #8 shot shell.

Not exactly hunting season.

You got a bag on you?

♪

Alright.

Let's go see what's in that pond.

There was this thin layer of ice

Had actually frozen on the surface of the pond.

As we got closer, I could see that it was a human body.

Oh, god.

♪

The body was floating on its back,

Head out of the water

And the upper part of the shoulders out of the water,

Face toward the sky.

♪

[ shivering ]

I recovered the body.

It was the body of a white female

Probably in her 30s or 40s.

She didn't have on shoes.

No coat.

♪

She had a large incision on her throat.

It's obviously a homicide.

You don't have to be sherlock holmes on this one

To realize that that was going to be susan brouk.

[ both panting ]

That knife wound, it's deep,

But it's not deep enough to kill her.

It looked like susan brouk died from drowning.

Sarge.

I think there's something else out there.

I could see two darker areas,

And I'd probably just describe them as shadows.

I waded out to the first shadow,

Broke the ice up using my hand,

Reach below the surface of the water...

Realized it was a human body.

It was kyle.

The other shadow turned out to be adrian brouk.

♪

It was unnerving

Seeing this mother and her two children lying there.

♪

It was not --

It was very unpleasant.

♪

I was anxious to try to find out

Who the hell was responsible for this.

Clark: Thursday after school, I went home

To change clothes, to do my chores.

♪

-Hey, dad. -Megan...

Sit down, please. I need to tell you something.

What's going on?

My dad, he had me sit down at the kitchen table

And told me that...

♪

...They had found adrian, kyle, and susan.

What? That's great.

I've been so worried. Megan, wait.

I took off running to my bedroom to call her,

'cause I really got a lot of stuff to tell her.

Megan, sit down, please.

♪

Honey...

Adrian's dead.

The whole family is dead.

No. You're lying.

♪

I was in disbelief at first.

I asked my dad why he would say something like that.

And, um...

He --

Just --

Whenever I looked up and seen my dad crying...

♪

[ sniffles ]

...I knew that it was true.

♪

[ crying ]

No.

♪

I'm so sorry.

I was crying.

Completely heartbroken.

♪

[ sobs ]

♪

Roark: I was a police officer for over 30 years.

I've seen multiple murders.

But this one, the way it was committed,

It's unpleasant to think about,

Even for somebody that's seen everything.

The pathologist determined

Susan brouk and both of her children died from drowning.

♪

How horrible is death by drowning?

I can't even imagine. I-I can't imagine.

♪

Narrator: Authorities ask the family for a formal identification.

♪

Lemoine: They needed someone to come and identify them.

Even though they said you know, "adult female"...

♪

..."young female and male," that --

You still try to think --

I don't know what you think, but you try to think it's not them.

You're still in denial.

♪

It's like this sense of dread,

But also, you have that little hope.

"it's not really them."

You want that to be true more than anything.

♪

But I turned around to my sister and said, "it's them."

♪

It was the hardest thing.

I could see the pain on their faces.

It doesn't go away.

♪

[ sobbing ]

♪

I can clearly see it in my mind what they looked like,

The condition, everything.

I may have forgotten a lot of other things,

But that will never go away.

[ sniffles ]

♪

Susan's ex-husband came and met with us.

♪

He was upset.

I didn't think he was faking it.

[ crying ]

So I didn't think he had anything to do

With susan and the kids' murders.

♪

[ crying ] oh, god.

♪

I remember seeing... The kids' dad

Saying goodbye to them and talking to susan.

[ bill crying ]

I remember him saying that he was sorry to her.

♪

Bill.

♪

[ sobbing ]

People do a lot of bad things to people in life.

And so for him to realize

That he may not have treated her like he should have,

It meant a lot.

[ both crying ]

Narrator: But the horror is far from over.

♪

Hey, roark?

Roark: What is it?

There's a report here.

Two local teenagers went missing.

We learned that during the course of the investigation,

That a neighbor of susan brouk's

Had reported two of his nephews,

Jesse carter and mark christeson, missing.

Here's the weird thing.

They lived a mile and a half away from susan's home.

And this corresponded with the time

That susan and her two children had also gone missing.

You're joking.

You think they're connected?

We had serious problems.

There was a possibility

That there was a serial predator in the area

And that more than one abduction had taken place.

So this is even worse than we thought.

Roark: We have two young men

That have been reported missing in the immediate vicinity.

That would have been five people within a 1/2-mile radius,

The same period of time.

♪

Jesse carter and mark christeson may have been

The victims of a homicide and taken to another area

By the people that had already murdered the brouk family.

They too could have been abducted by persons unknown.

♪♪

We were concerned about that.

♪

Morning, sir. I'm sergeant ralph roark.

This is my partner, detective elms.

Are you the parent of either mark christeson

Or jesse carter?

I'm their guardian, for now.

Family trouble. I'm giving them a place to stay.

What's it to you?

Christeson and carter's caretaker,

He didn't express any concern about their wellbeing.

You're not going to be able to put this on camera.

I thought he was a piece of [bleep] but --

I didn't have a very high opinion of him.

Listen, we understand the boys in your custody

Have gone missing.

Guess you'd call it missing.

I think they may have taken off.

So you wouldn't say they've been abducted?

Suppose there's a chance.

Aren't you concerned about them?

They're free to come and go as they please.

Typical teenagers.

♪

Christeson and carter's guardian never indicated

That he thought they'd been killed.

He simply thought they had just run away from home.

Do you have any idea where they might be right now?

Nope.

Doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, well, that's for the two of you to figure out.

♪

Thanks for dropping by.

♪

Roark: We really did not get a lot of useful information.

And you're starting to get desperate

In what you're going do.

So, yes, it's absolutely frustrating.

♪

♪

I think this was the very last christmas.

♪

They were very happy.

It was a good christmas.

There's a lot of potential there in their life.

They could've done good things.

They were good kids.

♪

[ telephone ringing ]

♪

Listen up.

Only real lead we have right now is susan brouk's truck,

So I want you to run her plates through the system.

Anything comes up, I want to hear about it.

I was wanting to determine if the 1984 bronco

Had been stopped anywhere in the united states

And checked by any police department.

♪

Sergeant.

You got something?

You're not going to believe this.

Looks like we got a hit. In fact, two hits.

We discover that the bronco had been stopped

By police in shamrock, texas.

And the gallup, new mexico, police department

Had also had contact with that vehicle.

These routine traffic stops?

Mark christeson and jesse carter

Were both physically present in the vehicle.

We learned that they had a couple shotguns.

One of them was an operable 16-gauge shotgun.

Not exactly hunting season.

These two missing boys became our prime suspects.

♪

We had no idea where to start looking for them.

They were headed west and southwest,

So it was a real good possibility

That they were headed to california.

Alright. Let's put out an apb, see what we find.

♪

Our department provided photographs

Of carter and christeson,

Asked them to be on the lookout for these two individuals

On the off-chance that they might show up.

You know, california's a big state.

We hope for a lucky break

Female reporter: Jesse carter

And his 18-year-old friend mark christeson

Ran away Sunday from their vichy, missouri, home

And are still on the run.

The missing teenage boys are suspected

Of killing 36-year-old susan brouk

And her two children,

12-year-old adrian and 9-year-old kyle.

I don't think that clip ever gets easier.

As soon as I seen their pictures on the tv,

I remember telling my dad

That they rode the school bus with us.

They didn't have a lot of friends.

Mark was kind of creepy-looking.

Jesse was a little odd,

Maybe something not quite right.

Other than see them on the school bus,

I don't think that adrian ever interacted

With either one of them.

I had not a clue why they'd done what they'd done.

I wanted to know why they killed my best friend

And her family. Absolutely.

♪

♪

Going to need to come up with something quick.

I know. This is taking too long.

We're running out of steam here. [ telephone rings ]

Hello?

Sergeant, someone's. On the phone for you.

Roark: The detective phoned from riverside county, california.

This detective had inadvertently met christeson and carter

In a convenience store.

You met them? In person?

♪

What's the chances of that? 1 in 1,000?

Yeah, I felt really lucky.

Alright. Listen to me, detective.

The owner of that truck was found murdered.

And we're not exactly sure what's going on with those boys.

But they may be involved in a triple homicide,

And we believe they're armed.

There was a fear and concern

That they very well might kill somebody else.

Detective, be careful.

Roark: The riverside county sheriff's department

Was able to locate carter and christeson.

♪

It's absolutely important that you show overwhelming force

When arresting violent people.

By the grace of god, they didn't kill a police officer.

Carter and christeson surrendered

To the riverside county sheriff's office

Without incident.

Female reporter: The suspects are back in missouri

After being arrested in california.

Security was extreme as the teenage boys

Were brought to jefferson city to the cole county jail.

♪

Roark: We didn't have any physical evidence.

It was extremely important to me

To try to get a confession to the murders.

Alright, mark.

Tell me what happened.

My impression of christeson was that he was relatively cocky.

We decided to go on a little road trip.

♪

I know you killed the brouk family.

I want the truth.

A confession makes it much easier

For a capital murder conviction.

And I want a lawyer.

He invoked his right to an attorney.

♪

At that point in time, I no longer have legal authority

To talk to him, so the interview was terminated.

♪

I was angry,

But honestly, there's nothing I could do about it.

♪

[ sighs ]

♪

[ cell door shuts, keys jingle ]

There wasn't a clear motive for the murders.

I thought we might have a good chance

Of getting the youngest one, carter, to talk.

He was subdued. He was mousy. He was impressionable.

How did you two end up with susan brouk's truck?

We found it.

Where?

In the woods.

The beginning of the interview,

Jesse carter obviously was lying

And being evasive.

You found her vehicle in the middle of the woods.

♪

Now, we know that isn't the truth jesse.

Tell us what happened to that family.

♪

I can't help you unless you help me.

You're on the hook for three murders.

You're looking at the death penalty.

♪

♪

He was crazy about that lady.

♪

Who was?

Mark.

♪

He said he was in love with her.

Susan brouk?

♪

Based on what carter said,

Christeson was in fact stalking susan.

He, uh...

Over to her house

A couple of times.

Susan: This guy came to the front door,

And there was just something creepy about him.

But she -- she wouldn't let him in.

♪

How'd he feel about that?

He -- he -- he was mad. He was real mad.

So...

♪

W-we went to her house.

W-we -- we broke in.

"all he said, he's going to have his little fun

Knock some crap out of her."

I state, "tell me what you mean by 'having a little fun.'"

Carter replies, "sex."

Who's there?

♪

[ susan screams ]

[ muffled crying ]

Stop screaming!

"I watched the kids, tied them up

And watched them on the living room floor."

[ susan crying ]

Adrian: Please, just let us go!

It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine.

"he had sex with her."

Eventually, uh, he came out

With susan.

That's when...

Adrian, she -- she looked at me.

I know you. Carter: And -- and she said,

"don't we ride the school bus together?"

Shh.

I think that was the catalyst for the murders,

Because at that time, christeson knew

That these people could identify him.

Then what'd you do?

We took off for the pond.

♪

What are you doing?

Carter: First, mark kicked the lady down

And -- and put his boot o-on her head.

He took out his knife,

And -- and -- and he slashed her throat.

[ susan crying ]

And where were the two kids at then?

R-right there beside her.

And they were screaming.

Was she still alive?

Barely. She --

She was barely making noise.

Susan had not died from the laceration to her throat.

She was in fact still alive.

The boy!

The boy was next.

We --

We -- we dragged him to the water.

We drown-- then we drowned him.

And then there was just the little girl left.

Uh, she -- she got loose.

Mark fired -- fired the shotgun.

He did fire a shot at adrian.

He said, "if you don't come back, I'm going to shoot you."

She came back.

♪

And, uh, we drowned her, too.

"in the back of my mind, I was thinking, 'young lady,

I wish you'd have kept running.'"

Susan was forced to lie on the pond bank

And watch her two children die.

♪

It had to be absolutely horrifying for that lady

To have to witness that.

What happened to susan?

[ inhales tearfully ]

She was still kind of moving, um,

Near the water.

And we picked her up, and we threw her in, too.

Christeson was not going to leave anybody alive

As a witness. Um...

I am absolutely not an emotional person, but...

That one turns my stomach upside-down.

♪

Try to imagine what she went through

And what those kids went through.

I-I can't. I'm --

I don't have an explanation for it.

♪

She did have to lay there while her kids were killed.

Sorry.

I'm -- I just need a second. I'm sorry.

Woman: It's okay.

♪

He -- he held -- held her underwater,

Still holding her throat.

Um, she was -- she was squirming, kicking.

He told -- told me, "hold her feet."

Man: What did you do?

I held her feet like he told me to.

♪

The idea of susan having a stalker was...

Just completely out of the blue.

We never thought about it.

I don't think any of the family even considered that.

I think christeson, he was a psychopath.

I think he was broken beyond repair.

He got what he deserved.

♪

I think jesse should have got the death penalty

Right next to mark.

Woman: If you could say anything to jesse, what would you say?

[ chuckles dryly ]

"I hate you, and I wish you were dead."

Pure evil.

There's just no other way to describe mark or jesse

Other than pure evil.

♪

♪

I think it's important to remember my family.

I miss them.

♪

I just, you know, of course I remember them

When they were like that, and it's just hard.

♪

♪

They were very happy. They all have smiles.

It's hard to see.

♪

This is a poem I wrote for adrian

And read at her funeral.

"dear adrian, in our sadness and our grief,

Our nerves are shaking like a leaf.

And if there were phones in heaven,

Yours would be ringing off the wall.

But now I know you're safe from harm...

♪

...Protected by god's strong and loving arms.

Love, megan cox."