Original subtitles

I'm craig melvin and this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered".

- She was an 18-year-old girl and it broke my heart.

It destroyed me.

What do you do? You just keep fighting.

- Heidi allen was sweet, spirited, and super-smart.

- Test tomorrow, no sweat, huh?

- Yeah.

- She took a job here to earn cash for college.

- She wanted to be responsible.

- She was working the early shift on easter Sunday.

That's when she vanished.

- They called from the store; they can't find heidi.

- They noticed somebody wrestling with somebody

In a van.

- The theory became the two brothers did it together.

- Mystery solved? Maybe not.

Years later, during a chance encounter...

- He said to us, "do you really want to know

What happened to her?" - a horrifying story.

- He said, "I grabbed her like this."

- An old case blown wide open.

- I said, "we can't let this go."

- Two women teaming up for the truth.

- If they think I'm going to walk away,

They are mistaken.

- Uncovering an astonishing twist.

- Attached was a photograph of heidi allen.

It had a code name julia roberts.

- A teenager with a secret identity.

Did she also have a secret enemy?

- They are going to want to shut her up permanently.

♪♪

- Hello and welcome to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".

Secrets, we all have them

But some can be more dangerous than others.

In the case of heidi allen, there were two

And they were big.

One had the power to convict

While the other could set someone free.

But would either answer the question

Of what happened to heidi?

Here's dennis murphy with "the informant".

♪♪

- Tonya priest never wanted to be a star witness,

Least of all in a long-ago abduction

And murder investigation.

But after that guy blurted out what he did,

She felt she had to come forward.

- Would you live with it?

Could you live with all of that?

- And she found herself on the phone,

Talking to a district attorney in upstate new york.

- Tonya believed she knew who'd done it;

Who'd done that terrible thing at the convenience store

On an easter Sunday morning many years ago.

That store clerk abducted and never seen again.

- They probably took maybe 60 seconds

To do what they needed to do.

- What tonya reopened was a wound

That had never really healed in oswego county, new york.

- I can't let it go and I won't let it go.

- I will die trying and fighting for her.

- If they think I'm going to walk away,

They are mistaken. I am not.

- Even today, just say the name heidi allen

And a swirl of memories come back,

Some of them fuzzy now.

It was 1994, that missing girl.

The van, was it blue or was it white?

And didn't they get the guy who did it

And send him away?

Tonya was a teenager back then.

- Did you follow it in the news

Or did kids talk about it in school?

- I knew about that they were looking for a van.

That's basically all I knew at that point.

- Here's what's not in dispute

About that snowy easter Sunday morning.

Eighteen-year-old heidi allen, taking the early shift

For a co-worker, opened the convenience store

About 5:45 a.M.

It was a part-time job for her, a way to defray

Some of her freshman college bills.

Lisa buske is heidi's sister.

- She was sassy and energetic and a risk taker.

- Did she like school?

- Oh, she liked school because she was smart.

She didn't have to study. - Really?

- She was one of those.

- She was one of those kids, huh?

- She was one of those.

- So, what was the job at the convenience store about?

- It was close to home and our friends owned it.

You know, so, mom and dad felt safe.

- Before the early birds started showing up

For their newspapers, ciggies,

Maybe a few gallons of gas at the pumps,

Heidi's boyfriend was there with her

To help get things up and running for the day.

- He would take her so that she wasn't alone until people,

You know, like the traffic was picking up,

And then he would go.

- And that's what happened that day.

- Right.

- Richard thibodeau, a regular, lived a few miles down the road

And saw heidi that morning.

- I asked her for two packs of basics cigarettes.

I paid her; I said, "have a nice day."

- A few more cars pulled up to the d&w.

Reporter john o'brien covered the case for syracuse.Com.

- Some customers had come in and didn't realize

She wasn't there.

And so, they'd been there for a while.

They flagged down a deputy and no heidi.

- Heidi's sister lisa woke up that morning to very bad news.

- And my aunt was on the machine and she said,

"lisa, heidi's missing." - missing?

- We saw her the night before when she delivered

Our easter baskets and -- in her usual goofiness.

- It was, uh, shocking that an 18-year-old girl could be --

Just disappear like that on easter morning.

- The convenience store was strung with crime scene tape

By the time heidi's sister arrived.

- I just really felt like I was just watching a movie.

- Inside the store, not promising.

They'd found heidi's purse, her car keys,

Money undisturbed in the register.

No signs of a struggle and her car was parked in the lot.

- I just remember sitting and just watching.

I didn't know what to do.

- The community made a "find heidi"

Volunteer command center at the old firehouse

While the authorities readied their first news alert.

- We have an 18-year-old girl by the name of heidi allen, uh,

Who lives here in new haven, who was the clerk.

- Someone listening to that bulletin

Was richard thibodeau who, of course, recognized heidi

From the convenience store where he'd shopped earlier.

He turned to his girlfriend theresa and said as much.

- And richard said, "well, my god."

He said, "I was there;

I bought two packs of cigarettes."

So, he picked up the phone and he called.

- Called the sheriff's and set in motion

A sequence of life-changing events

He could not stop.

Other callers that morning offered tips about

A suspicious van in the store.

Reuel todd was undersheriff at the time.

- They noticed somebody driving very erratically,

Wrestling, or struggling with somebody in a van.

- This van, sheriff, did you get a make, model,

Color, anything useful?

- Different color, white, light blue, that type of stuff.

- But in those early hours, in the days before smartphones

And ubiquitous security cameras, nothing was coming together.

Volunteers searched,

The national guard was called out,

But heidi was gone and stayed gone.

- We followed up on every lead.

We had no major people.

- Weeks went by without an arrest,

Without answers.

And then a couple of months passed.

They had brought in a criminal profiler

With the fbi's behavioral science unit,

Someone who would later correctly profile

The oklahoma city bomber.

But in this instance, clint van zandt

Was the agent in the unit who got assigned to

The heidi allen case in upstate new york.

His take, look for someone with a history of violence

And someone obsessed with the case.

- The person who committed this

Is somebody who is really interested.

I mean, the community was interested in the case,

But this is more interested.

- Obsessed? - Could not let it go.

This is somebody who will be saving newspaper articles.

- And there would be many newspaper articles,

Decades of them, in fact.

The case of heidi allen was just getting started.

- Coming up...

- Who'd grab an 18-year-old girl?

- Our theory then, it was probably a sex crime.

- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.

♪♪

Heidi, the teenager behind the convenience store counter

Selling Sunday papers and cigarettes

Had vanished that easter morning.

Sheriff reuel todd...

- So, what was your working theory?

Who'd grab an 18-year-old girl?

- Our theory then, it was probably a sex crime.

- Abducted and after weeks of fruitless searching,

Presumed murdered.

- She's the 18-year-old girl

That had her life taken from her.

She was a good kid with goals.

- But the sheriff's department was pursuing a promising lead.

And it concerned the guy who had bought cigarettes

From heidi that morning, richard thibodeau.

- Did the cops on the phone start to ask questions?

- They sent someone over to the house

And asked me a bunch of questions.

- Investigators, it turned out, were suspicious of him

From the get-go.

They even put him under surveillance.

The reason?

Thibodeau's was the last transaction

Recorded on the register that morning

And richard thibodeau also drove a white van,

One that seemed to match a vehicle described by

A witness at the scene.

- At first it was blue,

It changed to white as time went on.

But he did say, in the end, that van, the thibodeau van,

That was the van.

- The witness reported seeing more than one man.

So, investigators also brought in

Richard's brother gary for questioning.

The brother said he was home asleep that morning

And his girlfriend vouched for him.

But gary thibodeau didn't have a spotless record.

He had an outstanding warrant on a minor drug charge

In neighboring massachusetts.

- They extradited him to massachusetts,

Which was an odd thing on a drug charge.

- In the county jail,

Thibodeau struck up a conversation

With a fellow prisoner.

- Him and gary are sitting in there

Shooting the breeze and they get talking about

Something like all of them do.

He says, yeah, I killed this girl from oswego.

- He gives it up then. - He gives it up.

- Brother gary is eventually said to have told two prisoners

About his involvement in the crime,

That he and heidi used drugs together

And that she feared gary was going to screw her over

In a drug deal.

And with that jailhouse confession,

Investigators now believe they had their case.

The two brothers, drugs, an abduction, and money.

- I was waiting for my school bus to come.

- This is richard thibodeau's stepdaughter amanda.

She was just 11 at the time.

- And police cars came pulling into my driveway.

I don't know how many, um, but they just came

Shooting right in and stopped quickly.

- Both brothers were arrested and charged with kidnapping

In the first degree.

- A major break in the heidi allen case.

- What's the motive, sheriff?

What's the theory that goes with them in their van

And being at the convenience store?

- Do you know what the motive is?

Opportunity.

They stopped in there to get the cigarettes

And that was the opportunity.

- Abduct this young cute girl, huh?

- Appears to me.

- There would be two separate trials for the brothers,

Two separate juries to decide their fates.

And in the summer of 1995, the first of the two,

Gary, went on trial.

Joe fahey, now a retired judge, was gary's defense attorney.

He says the case was forensically

And circumstantially light.

- There was no indication that gary had ever been

Near the d&w that morning.

- Gary testified that he was home asleep that morning

And the jailhouse snitches who got him indicted

Were flat out lying.

He figured they must have been angling for favors

From the prosecution.

- The only thing they really had --

Had to contend with were the, uh,

The two guys from massachusetts.

They said that gary kind of boasted about

They were looking for me but they'll never find her.

- But they were statements a jury apparently believed.

It took just four hours to render a verdict.

- How do you find the defendant as to count number one,

Kidnapping in the first degree?

- Guilty.

- Brother richard, owner of the van,

The one who bought the cigarettes

And placed himself at the store,

Went on trial a few weeks later.

His stepdaughter amanda was certain

He'd be found guilty as well.

- It didn't make sense for them not to find him guilty

Because they found uncle gary guilty.

And they were saying that uncle gary did it with him.

- Richard was, without a doubt, heidi's last customer.

And witnesses testified

They'd seen a van like his at the scene.

Richard's van, however, showed no trace of blood

Or anything connected to heidi.

This time the jury deliberated eight hours and...

- We find him not guilty.

- Two trials, two opposite results.

- So, here's the strange thing about the two brothers,

It seems, sheriff.

You've got richard who's acquitted

And yet he is the one that says, yeah, I was in the shop.

And his brother who doesn't put himself

In the-in the shop is the one who's--

Who goes down for it.

But don't they have to be in -- in cahoots together

For this to make sense?

- I would say so but it still doesn't matter.

And that's what happens with different juries.

- Do you believe good arrest, good conviction?

- Absolutely.

- Heidi's family wasn't quite sure

What to make of the two trials.

Heidi's first cousin is missy searles.

- It was confusing to have basically the same evidence,

Just different jury,

And then you end up with two different verdicts.

- And there was something that always bothered cousin missy

About the trial.

The jailhouse informants testified that

It was a drug deal gone bad.

- It didn't make sense.

- And she wasn't a drug user herself.

She didn't participate in that.

- Clint van zandt, the fbi profiler,

Was also left scratching his head.

His profile predicted the person responsible

Would be an obsessive stalker type.

- Did you think you maybe missed something

In your evaluation?

- The thibodeau brothers did not add up to my profile,

So I was trying to figure out what I missed.

You know?

Was it something that I didn't know about

That I didn't have a handle on?

- The years went by.

A fading sign at the center of town

Was the lingering reminder

That once there'd been a girl named heidi allen

Whose life was taken from her.

- Heidi allen has been huge in everyone's mind for years.

I mean, because she's never been found.

- And there was a lingering feeling in the town

Amongst some people that just maybe

There was more to the story.

- I didn't know what to do. It broke my heart.

It destroyed me.

- Was there more to the story?

One woman is about to hear a tale

That could change everything.

Coming up...

A chance encounter and the shock of a lifetime.

- He said to us, "do you really want to know

What happened to her?"

- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.

♪♪

It was an odd conclusion to the heidi allen case,

One brother convicted, the other brother,

The one who admitted to be at the store, acquitted.

And even though richard thibodeau

Was found not guilty, in some peoples' minds

He'd simply had a lucky day in court.

Stepdaughter amanda...

- Growing up, we were known as the kidnapper's kids.

We were known as the murderer's kids.

We weren't treated nicely.

- For the allen family, it was an unsatisfying result.

They still didn't know what had happened to heidi

And her body had never been found.

- She's out there somewhere and somebody knows.

- That's right.

And some day we're going to know.

You can't give up hope on your missing loved one.

- Even after the dust settled, the case stayed in the news

For years to come.

Some young people, like tonya priest,

Never really forgot.

- Nothing like that had ever happened in our area before.

So, yeah, it-it stood out.

- A full decade rolled by.

Tonya was now in her mid-twenties.

And one day while visiting a friend named vicki,

The tv was on.

Up popped a story about the heidi allen case,

An anniversary report.

- When the news flashed about heidi, I said to her,

"I wonder what happened to heidi."

And she said, "yeah, me, too."

- It wasn't really a question, just an out loud thought.

But someone in the room decided to answer.

It was the friend's boyfriend, a guy nicknamed thumper.

- He said to us, "do you really want to know

What happened to her?"

And we were like, okay, yeah.

- And this next version of that easter morning

Is one that needs close attention because

It didn't involve the thibodeau brothers at all,

But put thumper himself and two young buddies

At the epicenter of heidi's abduction.

- He said that we pulled in right up by the doors

With the vehicle running and they left the back doors open.

And he said, "I grabbed her like this."

He said, "we dragged her out of the store."

And then he laughed.

He said, "and when we hit that van,

We hit that van hard with her."

- Could he be serious?

- I mean, is this a guy just kind of flexing his biceps

For the girls? - No.

The more we didn't believe him, the angrier he became.

I said, "okay, well, how did the white van get involved?"

He said, "we just got lucky.

One showed up before we did."

And I said, "thumper, there's an innocent man in prison."

He said, "not my problem."

- So, did she run to the police then and there?

Scream out to anyone who'd listen?

It wasn't that simple.

Tonya, why didn't you go to the sheriff's office

At that point and say I've got a story to tell you?

- Well, he lived a mile down the road from my house.

- Tonya says she was paralyzed by fear of thumper.

- I went home and cried. I didn't know what to do.

- But she never forgot about that chilling conversation.

She tried to cut off contact with her friend vicki

And the boyfriend.

And eventually, tonya moved out of state.

- She was an 18-year-old girl. It broke my heart.

It-it destroyed me.

- The turning point came in 2010, three years later.

That's when tonya learned some sickening news.

In a domestic dispute,

Thumper had shot and killed her former friend.

- Did you then think he was capable of

Having done that thing to heidi?

- Oh, of course. - A domestic.

- Of course.

- Thumper, real name james steen, was convicted

And sentenced to life in prison.

Tonya says that conviction and a tragedy in her own life,

The death of her husband, galvanized her

To finally speak up.

She picked up the phone and called the county prosecutor,

A guy she once knew.

- This is tonya from high school.

- This is tonya from high school.

- Greg oakes had risen through the ranks

To become oswego county district attorney,

Now running that same office that had gotten

The gary thibodeau conviction years earlier.

And, of course, he remembered the case of the missing girl.

- I was home for easter

And I remember that being on the news.

- So, when tonya priest called him with a story that

Implicated three new suspects in heidi allen's abduction,

He listened carefully.

- The d.A. Flew tonya up to new york

To hear more details.

And together they discussed how to verify her story.

And there was one detail that seemed promising.

In the story told by thumper that day,

He said they had taken heidi in the van

To the home of a young woman named jennifer wescott.

- He screamed, "if you don't believe me,

Go ask jennifer."

- What we wanted to do was try to follow up

To see if there was any truth to that.

- Jennifer wescott was a girl tonya knew from high school.

The d.A. Encouraged her to get in touch by facebook.

They exchanged telephone numbers

And then it was time for a phone call.

- They plugged into my phone and taped the whole conversation.

- It had been years since they last spoke.

Tonya made small talk at first

And then eased into the story that she'd heard,

The murder of heidi all those years ago.

- Jennifer didn't deny a thing

But she wasn't saying much either.

- I had to keep throwing stuff at her

And finally she would bite.

- It sounded as though jennifer had real information,

Had just delivered the d.A. The evidential goods.

- Tonya had just one more question.

Had jennifer ever considered going to the police?

- So, at first, I felt sorry for her.

Then the more I talked to her on the phone

And the more I realized she had no remorse...

- Based on the conversation that takes place,

We had concerns that

Maybe there was some truth to tonya's claim.

- Twenty years, 20 easters had come and gone

Since heidi's disappearance.

And now with tonya's story, everything old was new again.

- Coming up...

The d.A. Starts looking into the evidence

Tonya helped gather and...

- When the investigator talked to jennifer wescott,

She explained that, look, my statements to tonya priest

Simply weren't true.

- What will that mean for the case?

When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.

♪♪

Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".

I'm craig melvin.

Two decades after gary thibodeau was convicted of

Kidnapping heidi allen, she still had not been found.

Some close to the case wondered

If the right person was behind bars.

Then a woman called authorities

With a secret she'd been keeping

Involving three new possible suspects.

Investigators were intrigued.

But was any of it true?

Back to dennis murphy with "the informant".

- Greg oakes had grown up

Not far from where heidi allen disappeared.

And now, as district attorney of the county,

He was tentatively giving the case a fresh look.

- When somebody comes forward with a claim

That potentially exonerates a convicted man,

We have to take it seriously.

- Inside the walls

Of the clinton correctional facility

In dannemora, new york,

We met the convict who was the subject

Of all this reconsideration.

It was 2015.

Gary thibodeau was an old 61

With gimpy legs and a bad lung.

- Did you abduct heidi allen?

- No, I did not.

- And then kill her? - No.

Never abducted or killed anyone.

- He says those jailhouse snitches lied,

And their testimony was the only real evidence against him.

- Did you tell those two

They're never going to find the body?

- No.

- You're not doing drugs with heidi there?

- No, no, no.

- Thibodeau had been inside for 21 years.

He'd always proclaimed his innocence

But had long since been resigned

To the way life turned out for him.

- Do you say, "why me?

Why is this thing happening?"

- I have gone through all of them,

Feelings and emotions and thoughts over the years.

But, uh, I kind of believed that, uh,

You are where you are in life

Because that's where you're supposed to be.

Whether it has anything to do with the innocent

And guilty or...

- But yours is more than 20 years now

In the new york state correction system.

- Yeah.

- For a crime you say you didn't commit.

- No, I didn't.

- Back in 2013

When tonya priest stepped forward,

Gary had no idea the case was being given another look.

He had exhausted his appeals.

The other brother, richard,

The one acquitted of heidi's kidnapping,

Says his life has been filled with anxiety.

- I've been afraid for the past 20 years

Of actually going anywhere by myself.

- So, you've really been traumatized

By this whole thing. - Oh, yeah. Yeah.

- And he has also regretted coming forward as the good joe

Who told investigators that he'd been

In the convenience store that morning.

- The worst mistake of your life, richard,

Picking up that phone? - Yeah.

- Calling the cops? - Yes.

They had to convict somebody.

Why us? Because I had a van?

- Are the two brothers self-pitying,

Saying, "why me?"

- They're together as-as-- like one,

Like, why did that happen to us?

- Neither brother was aware that a woman unknown to them

Was banging on the authorities' doors

To get thibodeau's case reopened.

Prosecutor oakes was investigating

And he asked tonya's old friend, the woman on the phone

Who seemed to know more than she should...

- To come down to the station for a talk.

- The investigator asked her

About that recent phone call with tonya,

Omitting the fact that they had it all on tape.

- Well, in fact, she had.

That's when they told her the call was recorded.

- When the investigator talked to jennifer wescott,

You know, she explained that "look, my statements

"to tonya priest simply weren't true.

"I was trying to get her off the phone.

I was trying to appease her."

- The d.A. Tracked down thumper,

A.K.A. James steen, and the other two men.

Each said that the tonya/jennifer story

Was bologna.

Investigators also contacted the jailhouse snitches

From back in the day,

And they stood by their testimony.

More importantly, greg oakes said

They got nothing for testifying.

- So, you-- as you reviewed them,

You found them credible. - I did.

- Why do you believe some people and not others?

- We have to look beyond just do we believe somebody or not.

Is there information that they can provide

That can be backed up by other independent evidence?

- The d.A. Didn't think he could believe

Anything jennifer wescott had to say.

And he came to question tonya's credibility, too.

- I don't believe in tonya priest

And her story.

She said that she had heard these admissions back in 2006.

And I asked her, "why didn't you

Immediately come forward to the police?"

And her response was "I simply didn't believe him."

- And after reviewing all the evidence,

He decided there was no there there.

- I was convinced that they had had the right person.

- What would the motive be

For these two thibodeau brothers?

- Unfortunately, dennis, there's been

No obvious motive for all these years.

- Months had gone by

Since tonya first called the d.A.'s office.

Now, she got a phone call.

- I was told that there would be no further investigation.

- What, case closed, we've got the thibodeaus for this thing?

- Yep. Yep. I started crying.

- So, was that it?

Had she given it her best shot, time to go home?

Well, you would think so.

- If they think I'm going to walk away,

They are mistaken. I am not.

- A secret document and a stunning revelation.

Heidi allen was a young woman with an alternate identity.

- Code name julia roberts.

- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.

Tonya priest had gone to the authorities

With an explosive allegation.

She said a man nicknamed "thumper"

Had confessed to her that he and two buddies

Had abducted and murdered heidi allen back in 1994.

And she was devastated

When the prosecutor checked out her story

And ultimately chose not to believe it.

- I was doing it because I was a good person.

And that's how I felt.

- But tonya wouldn't give it up.

She was convinced an innocent man, gary thibodeau,

Was in prison.

She made calls and was eventually put in touch

With a new york federal public defender

Named lisa peebles,

Someone who had ties to the defense lawyers

Who'd worked on thibodeau's failed appeals.

- Tonya felt as though things were amiss

By the time she called our office.

- Lisa, the lawyer,

Listened to that secretly recorded phone call

Between tonya and her childhood pal

And came away with a different take than the d.A.

- That was like jaw dropping.

- What do you hear on that tape?

- A woman confiding it took her a long time

To get the images out of her head.

I heard her say they made her sit in the van.

She also said that she would never go to police.

- Did you believe tonya priest when she came forward?

- I absolutely did.

I said, "we can't let this go."

- Lisa called up her friend john o'brien,

Then a reporter with syracuse.Com.

- She says, uh, you know, you've always told me

To call you when I have a-- a good case,

And I've got one.

- Lisa had a morsel that intrigued the reporter.

- This was the first time in 20 years

That anyone said they knew anything

About what happened to heidi allen.

- One of the early doors the reporter knocked on

Was richard thibodeau's,

The brother who'd been accused back when but acquitted.

- Oh, my god, finally! It was unbelievable.

- Finally, someone comes forward

To help my brother get out of prison.

- I just said, you know, if you have anything

That might help here, I mean, let me know.

He said, "well, I do have these seven boxes

Of documents in my garage." - holy cow!

He's got the whole thing. - Gathering dust.

I said we'd absolutely like to see those right away.

- For two decades, richard had kept

Every scrap of paper related to his trial.

Was there something buried in there

That the other lawyers had missed?

Something that might help his brother?

For lisa and the reporter,

Eagerly digging through those boxes

Was like opening presents at christmas.

- And I thought, what is this stuff?

The whole thing was so bizarre to me.

- There was something buried in the box,

Something forgotten that almost glowed

It turned out to be so important for their quest.

What they fished out was an internal memo

From the oswego county sheriff's office

That put heidi allen in a whole new light.

She wasn't just the bright-faced,

Smart girl selling Sunday papers.

It turned out she had a secret arrangement

With local law enforcement.

- Heidi allen was a confidential informant.

- Telling us who's selling acid on school grounds,

Who's doing dope? - Right.

- She'd been issued a 3x5 informant index card.

It had her name, fingerprints,

Even a secret squirrel informant alias.

- It had a code name, "julia roberts."

It had all of her personal information on this card.

- Saying this woman, code name julia roberts...

- Yep. - Is a drug informant?

- For the county sheriff's office?

- Yes! Yeah.

I was thinking how did this not come out during the trial?

- The discovery of heidi's informant status

Offered up whole new theories about her disappearance.

- That certainly would have opened up the field

To many other possible suspects with motive to harm her.

- It turns out thumper had said as much to tonya.

- He said that that's what happens to rats.

Um, she was a rat,

She was going to turn some big, big guys in.

And that's why they did it.

- As thumper tells it, she's a snitch.

- She's a snitch.

- Lisa peebles immediately got on

With gary thibodeau's trial attorney

From 1995, joe fahey.

He says back when, he did hear rumblings that

Heidi might have been working with the sheriff's office,

But was told there was no file and it simply wasn't true.

- I-I didn't know anything about the card,

I didn't know anything about the "julia roberts."

- So, who did know?

As it turns out,

Heidi allen's I.D. Card wasn't locked away

In a sheriff's filing cabinet somewhere.

A deputy actually carried it around with him.

And one day, two years before she disappeared,

He lost it,

Dropped it in the parking lot of the d&w convenience store

Where heidi would one day become a cashier.

The I.D. Was later found.

- It's essentially like outing an undercover officer

Or a protected witness.

- Yes. Yes.

The idea that it's out there, that they believe

She's an informant, is a problem.

- What was important for lisa peebles

About the discovery of the heidi identity card

Was that even though it was in the brother's case file,

It had apparently never been given

To gary thibodeau's defense team.

She argued that was something called a brady violation.

Prosecutors are required to turn over any evidence

That might help the defense.

Lisa filed a motion to have gary's conviction thrown out

And john o'brien broke news,

Writing the first of many heidi stories to come.

- It just took off, and people are devouring it.

- A rock had been kicked over.

The reporter was now getting hundreds of tips and leads.

He even tracked down one of the jailhouse informants

From the trial, robert baldasaro,

And recorded the interview.

The man's story had changed somewhat.

- And a coworker of heidi's said,

In a sworn statement,

That shortly before heidi went missing,

She'd been afraid

Because the sheriff's department wanted her

To nail people for dealing coke.

But heidi's sister lisa was having nothing to do

With the new theories.

- Do you believe that the conviction

Of one of those brothers explains everything,

Or do you think there's more to be told?

- This means that we trust our law enforcement

And we trust our d.A.

- You had confidence in their professionalism then.

- 100%. - And you do-and you do now,

I think you're saying? - Of course, we do.

- The judge, looking at the new evidence,

Decided to hold a hearing.

- You're saying to the court there's new evidence,

Give him a new trial or cut him loose?

- Yes.

I think that there's been a huge injustice

And it's been a huge mistake.

- Are you in a better place now?

- I feel relieved. I finally got somewhere.

- But all of the fervent interest outside the walls

Over the fate of gary thibodeau

Seemed to wash right over the man himself.

- Can you imagine life on the outside now?

- No. No, I-- no.

I'd like to go fishing with a can of beer.

Yeah, that would be nice.

Sitting on the bank fishing, having a can of beer.

- The question that provoked this response.

- Are you out of your ever-loving mind?

- Is heidi...? - Why in god's name

Would we ever do something like that? Why?

- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.

In January 2015,

A judge granted a hearing in the matter

Of gary thibodeau, the man convicted

Of kidnapping heidi allen in 1994.

His brother richard thibodeau

Was also in the court with his family.

Heidi's family was there but not expecting much.

- There's nothing new today. It's just sensationalized.

- The narrow issue with his hearing

Was whether or not prosecutors years ago

Unfairly and illegally failed to turn over

A key document to the defense, that I.D. Card of sorts,

Indicating that heidi had been recruited

As a teenage sheriff's drug informant.

District attorney greg oakes

Argued that the state had, in fact, turned over

The confidential informant records before trial.

- They did receive this information.

They did know about this.

- But beyond the issue

Of who saw what discovery evidence when

Was another layer.

The prosecutor said it didn't really matter.

- Really, your activity was limited to giving

Some high school information to the deputy.

- There was not a contemporaneous investigation

About to do down.

- Around the time of her disappearance,

No investigation that she was involved with.

- So, if heidi wasn't naming names

And turning in drug dealers,

Then, the prosecution argued, there was no foundation

For this new theory that bad guys had killed her

In revenge for being a snitch.

Reuel todd, by then the sheriff,

Vehemently denied the defense innuendo

That the deputies were somehow responsible

For getting heidi killed.

- Did you guys carelessly bust her identity, sheriff?

- Are you out of your ever-loving mind?

- Is heidi... - Why in god's name

Would we ever do something like that

And jeopardize a girl's life or career or anything? Why?

- Accidentally. You know, this resulted

In the girl being vulnerable.

- How did she become vulnerable?

- The sheriff said, yes,

Her I.D. Card was dropped in a parking lot

But was returned to the office right away.

Only the store owner saw it.

But something else was going on in the hearing.

Lisa, the defense attorney,

Was also acting a little like a prosecutor.

She was about to introduce evidence

About those three men identified

As the so-called abductors and killers.

- All I have to do is say,

Hey, there's this new evidence,

And had it been available, it would have created

A reasonable doubt for a jury to acquit him.

- The attorney called other witnesses who, like tonya,

Had heard stories about these three men killing heidi

And disposing of her body.

- And that girl from the phone call,

Jennifer wescott, she changed her story again

Telling authorities on tape that she did know what happened.

- And then the men themselves.

First, there was thumper, real name james steen,

Doing life for murder.

- I have nothing I can tell you, ma'am,

About-- that'll save that man over there.

Nothing.

- He claimed not to know about heidi's abduction.

Nor did potential suspect number two,

His buddy roger breckenridge,

Another guy with a record.

And then there was the third guy from tonya's story.

His name was michael bohrer.

He lived a mile from the convenience store

And had heidi make him a sandwich

Most days she was working.

What made bohrer stand out among the three

Was his admitted obsession with the heidi allen case.

He had told investigators as much months earlier.

- Turns out he had a shoebox full of old news clippings

He'd kept for two decades.

In court, bohrer's testimony was not videoed,

But he admitted years back he'd been a drug dealer.

And he became very emotional.

- He started crying when it came to questions

Concerning his obsession with the case.

And he kept driving by the sign that says "where is heidi?"

And he thought about her six times a day.

- Strange.

And remember that profile drawn up by the fbi agent

Clint van zandt, the contributor to msnbc?

Back then he had predicted

Heidi had been killed by someone

Who would later appear to be obsessed with the case.

- It's going to be someone who knew the victim.

It's somebody who will follow this crime very closely,

Who will gather newspaper clippings, articles.

- And there was something else the fbi profiler had predicted.

- What I suggested was this is so bold;

They're going to have other type of offenses

In their background.

You may see stalking;

You may see other type of kidnappings.

- Holy cow, he just profiled michael bohrer.

- The attorney tracked down this woman, katherine schmidt,

Who says she was attacked by bohrer

Years before heidi's abduction.

She told us he tried to push her into a car.

- He had me in a choke hold

And was dragging me backwards with his hand over my mouth.

And, I mean, I couldn't breathe.

- She managed to run away with minor injuries.

Bohrer pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment.

But the judge wouldn't allow katherine schmidt

To testify at this hearing,

Ruling her story about michael bohrer was not relevant.

- He is absolutely very curious.

I think he's mentally unstable.

- Or he knows what happened to heidi

And he feels remorse all these years later.

- I don't believe that's the case.

- So, the judge took it all under consideration,

Dismissed the hearing,

And said he'd have a ruling in due time

On whether thibodeau should get a new trial.

Weeks went by, then months.

- It's given me a reason to live now.

- And when it finally came,

The ruling was dropped with little fanfare,

Just an entry in the docket.

The judge ruled first,

There had been no so-called brady violation,

No proof that the state did not handle the documents

Related to heidi's drug informant status.

And he agreed with the d.A.

That it wasn't legally relevant anyway.

- It's all speculation, it's irrelevant,

It's hearsay.

- And as for those alternative suspects put on by the defense,

Interesting, but in his opinion,

Too speculative and remote to warrant

Overturning the jury's verdict.

None of the three has been charged

With anything related to the heidi allen case.

- I can't let it go.

And I won't let it go.

- Lisa peebles, and most of all gary thibodeau

And his family lost that day.

- As long as gary is alive,

I'm just going to keep on fighting for him.

- Like I said, I think...

- And she did.

In August 2017, new york state's highest court

Agreed to one more review of the case.

- I hope gary lives to see the day.

- But in June 2018, the court of appeals

Rejected thibodeau's request for a new trial.

His lawyer petitioned the court to reconsider.

Gary thibodeau was awaiting the decision

When on August 12, 2018, he died in prison.

His decades-old battle to clear his name

Had finally come to an end.

Now, all these years later, the two families,

The thibodeaus and the allens,

Are left with the same questions.

What did happen to heidi?

And will we ever find a shallow grave?

- I think eventually--

Eventually someone's got to talk.

- Eventually it's going to happen.

Someone is going to say something.

- I might not know on this side of heaven;

I might have to wait.

But I will die trying and fighting for her.

- She went to work early on an easter Sunday morning

And was never seen again.

- That's all for this edition

Of "dateline: Secrets uncovered".

I'm craig melvin, thank you for watching.