All language subtitles for FBI.True.S04E07.720p.WEB.h264-EDITH_eng

- Hi everybody! I hope you all
are having a great,

powerful and majestic day.

- A missing 14 year old girl
from East Dubuque, Illinois.

- I gotta go, go, go.

- Family had found a note
inside of the car.

The note said, don't look for
me. I don't want to be found.

- I believed she was
100% a runaway.

- I get bored, you know.
But no, nobody cares.

- She had not left
with her cell phone.

She didn't have shoes.
She didn't have any money.

- This isn't adding up.

- I definitely thought
someone else was involved.

- I'm supposed to be video
connecting with a friend.

- The people she
had been online with

had a sexual undertone to them.

- He's a nice dude.
He's a nice dude.

- We found a YouTube video where
this man comes into the room.

She stops him and she
whispers something in his ear.

- Immediately
I thought of grooming

or that there was
a sexual relationship.

- Get away. Help!

- Her very best friend
broke down into tears.

Where is she?

In the FBI
we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings,

terrorist takedowns.

We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.
- Freeze!

- FBI.
- FBI!

But they
don't know the half of it.

What really goes down?

We save that for each other,

when we're talking
agent to agent.

This is FBI True.

- Kim, we haven't seen
each other in years

since we were in DC.

And Wayne and Casey,
it's really nice meeting you.

Cindy Coppola is
a 23-year veteran of the FBI.

She worked on cases that
included organized crime

and terrorism, and took part
in multinational investigations

into drug trafficking
and money laundering.

- How did you all get together?

- The first time I met Wayne was
working this particular case.

It was the Chyenne Kircher case.

Casey Folks has been
part of the Jo Daviess County

sheriff's office for 29 years,

investigating everything from
fraud to crimes against childrn

to murder.

- So, Wayne, you get
a call to join this team.

- So my supervisor
approached me.

He forwarded me the email chain
and as I read through it,

I thought no,
this is a real case

involving a missing teen.

And yes, I want to
be part of that.

Wayne Jackowski was
an accountant who joined the FI

to investigate financial crime.

He's been with the Rockford,
Illinois resident agency

for 14 years,
investigating bank robberies,

human trafficking and murder.

- I was working violent
crimes against children

on the squad in Chicago.

Wayne gave me a call
to tell me about the case

that he had been asked to
provide some assistance.

The daughter of an FBI agent,

Kim Castro spent her
first decade in the bureau

working international terroris,

before joining the violent
crimes against children

task force for FBI Chicago.

- Chyenne Kircher was missing 14
year old girl

from East Dubuque, Illinois
which is on the other side

of Illinois from Chicago.

That happened in
October of 2011.

And the local police department
had started to investigate it.

I helped out a little bit
initially on the case.

Family had found
a note inside of the car.

- What was her home life like?

- So there was Chyenne
who lived in the house,

her younger brother,
her older brother.

There was Terry Abbas,
who was her stepdad,

and then Laura Lyons was her mom

and Steve Staver
was Laura's boyfriend.

Was the family dynamic.

- Right, so wait a minute.
Let me get this straight.

The husband and she has
a boyfriend at the same time?

- Yes, correct.
- And they know each other.

They all live together.
- They're all living together.

- Interesting.
- Very interesting.

- Complicated.
- Nontraditional.

- Nontraditional, okay, okay.

- When I first got this call to
go over and help East Dubuque,

and when the uniform officer
and I go up to the house

to ask some questions and just
try to get some information,

the smell was so overbearing.

And it was a situation where I
could see where a young child

like Chyenne would
maybe want to take off.

- Want to run away.
- Yeah.

- What did you guys do with
the note? Did we examine it?

Did the FBI examine that?

- No, actually
East Dubuque sent that down

to the state police lab
and they examined it.

The note read, Mom and Dad,

you haven't done nothing wrong,

but by the time you get this
letter, I will be gone.

Don't worry about me.
I will always love you.

You won't find me because
I don't want to be found.

So at last I say goodbye.
Love, Chy.

- And they determined it
was her handwriting?

- Yes, they did.

- That was written
not under duress.

- Correct. Not under duress.

- Somebody who's so outgoing
and so creative

and wants to be
friends with everybody,

I just don't understand
what would push a child

to run away and
tell their parents,

"I love you, you
did nothing wrong."

- We have dozens of these types
of cases throughout the year

where children run away.

Dubuque, Iowa is a large city
across the river

from East Dubuque.

So they thought maybe she just
went over there with a friend,

you know, went to hang out,
get away from whatever problem

she might be facing.

And so over at the sheriff's
office we reached out

a few times to check on,
you guys need any help?

They were confident in
what they were doing.

They were following
up on some leads.

But over the next 18
months, it went cold.

And so my chief deputy

formed this team to
go a little bit deeper.

It was called the Critical
Incident Response Team.

He invited the FBI.

He invited state police,

other local law enforcement
agencies to join it.

I'm going to be real honest,

our relationship with the
Rockford FBI office

over the years wasn't the best.

And so I wasn't 100% sure what
Wayne was bringing to the table.

Being in a small RA.

To me, a lot of what we do is
help our local partners,

more so than making a ton
of big cases on our own.

A lot of times
a small department,

a small sheriff's department
has limited resources,

but if we partner up, we can
accomplish something greater

together than
working separately.

- We initially started
to investigate it

by re-examining all of
East Dubuque's reports.

We went up to her school. We
interviewed the superintendent.

We cleared out her locker,
we took all of her textbooks,

all of her notebooks
and everything.

We turned over these to the
East Dubuque police department

for them to go through
everything

to find out if there's
any notes in there,

if there's any writings
where she might be passwords.

I mean, anything we could find.

We turned them over
to them and said please

just look through em
and see what you can find.

- Interviewed friends, people
in the general neighborhood

just to see if
anybody had seen her

around the time
she went missing,

just to see if anybody
knew something we didn't.

- Wayne called me up and asked
if I could assist him.

- So did you think
she was a runaway?

- I thought there
was a possibility

that she was a runaway,
but I definitely thought

someone else was involved.

She had been missing for about
a year and a half at that point.

The question was how
could a 14 year old

sustain themselves
for that long?

Where would they go

and how would they
be able to live?

She had not left
with her cell phone.

She didn't have shoes.
She didn't have her coat.

She didn't have any money.

Reviewing the police reports

and kind of following up on
some of those interviews,

Chyenne didn't have
a strong support system.

She was a kid that was bullied
at school, made fun of.

She really craved attention.

She was a gamer and had a very
strong social media presence.

- Okay everybody.
I'm on Xbox 360 right now.

Mainly
she was on Facebook.

She was also posting
videos on YouTube

and she was on another site,

one that we got interested
in called Chat Tango,

where she was conversing
with some people online

through that app as well.

- I'm kind of like going back
and forth between the Xbox 360

because I'm supposed to be
video connecting with a friend.

And I am kind of like going
back and forth here to here.

So if I don't reply to you
in no time, then okay!

So today is
midnight hour.

You can't send!

- So the theory was that
she had met up with someone

and was living with them.

- So, Wayne, what does the FBI
then offer in the way of help?

- Mainly in the way
of electronics.

Things need to be
forensically examined,

somebody needed to go
through and get the contents

of her cell phone or
her computer to see

who she might have been
communicating with.

And if any of that led to
something that may involve

going across state lines, things
that we could assist with.

- And this is where
the FBI's help was tremendous

because we don't have
those capabilities.

- We started quickly
identifying the people

she had been online with.

At least one or two of them
had a sexual undertone to them.

Which was inappropriate
because she's a child.

- If she did meet
someone online,

who was she in contact with?

Did she meet anyone in person?
- Her life's kind of tough.

She probably met
somebody online.

These are people she
was talking to online

for quite a period of time.

- But I do have my friend
talking on the other line.

His name is Master BC.

He's a nice dude.
He's a nice dude.

Shut up, Braden.
And his real name's Braden.

We're all good.
We're all good.

And by the way, Braden,
you're kind of on video

when I was talking to you.
Just so that you know.

Don't ask!

- Makes sense she's with
one of these people.

So we focused in on finding
those individuals quickly

and they were all
pretty much out of state.

Kim was really good and
instrumental in getting leads

out to our other offices.

Find these people
and see if Chyenne Kircher

is with any of
these people.

So three stick out in my mind.

One was in Florida.
I'll call him a younger man.

He's around 18 or 19 years old

that we had law
enforcement officers

locate and interview him
and he confirmed

he communicated with her online
and that he may have sent some

inappropriate photos to her
and asked for some in return,

but that he never met
up with her in person.

Another lead was sent to Texas.

And we had that person
interviewed, nothing there.

Another one was in Alaska.

So that was by far the furthest
reaching lead that we sent out.

I remember being very
excited for that lead.

Some type of sexual offense
in their criminal history,

which led us to believe it
might be the type of person

that could lure
a young girl away.

So we felt that to be
a very strong lead.

And did it pan out?

- It didn't.
- Shoot.

- Each lead that
would get covered,

you'd get the report
back from the agent

or they'd call you
and say she's not there.

Just was frustrating.

We kind of always went
back to this runaway note.

The note was confirmed
to be written by Chyenne,

and she was not under
duress when she wrote it.

- I believed she
was 100% a runaway,

had no reason
to think otherwise.

- I get bored, you know.

But no, nobody cares.

So if you all have
a problem with me being gone,

I don't
give a flying flute, okay?

- We interviewed most of her
friends and by and large,

most of them
don't know where she is.

She's just gone.
Don't know where she is.

So there is a point
that we keyed in

on her very best friend,

a person was always
described to us as being

her very best friend,
that they were inseparable.

And this friend had moved,
unfortunately, to Wisconsin,

so several hours away.

But we knew we probably need
to interview that friend.

Quite honestly, I'm hoping
Chyenne's with her.

Thinking if her life's kind
of rough, she ran away.

Maybe the family took her in
and she's in Wisconsin.

And that's why nobody in the
local community has seen her.

So I went up
and interviewed the friend.

I was pretty blunt with her,
I looked at her friend like,

"Where's Chyenne?
She's here, isn't she?"

And immediately the friend
became extremely emotional

and broke down in
tears and very upset.

"She's dead. She's dead."
And my heart sank.

And I said, "What do you mean,
she's dead?"

We're so convinced we're going
to find her alive and well

and that she just ran away.

And now it would seem that was
going to be most definitely

something else,
something far worse.

- Hi guys! I hope you
guys like my new hair.

It's got highlights
as you'll see.

Hi Dad.

I hope everybody
likes this video,

likes my new hair.

I got it done last
Sunday, I think.

Yeah, last Sunday.

- I had no doubt Chyenne
was absolutely a runaway.

And now we have our very best
friend saying,

I think she's dead.

It was a little unnerving.

I said, "What do you mean? Why
do you say she's dead?"

She said,
"She would drive me crazy.

She would communicate with me
via Facebook and text message

and phone call so many times
a day that she drove me nuts.

And I started to
hate her at times

because she had to be in
contact with me that often.

And if I haven't heard from her
by now, she's got to be dead."

It was tough leaving that house.
I felt dejected.

But I knew I needed
to call Casey and Kim

and kind of explain
what we came up with

and where I thought we were.

- I remember exactly
what you said that day.

You said she's dead.

I know she's dead.
- Yeah.

- And we're all very vested
in this at this point

because we've spent so much
time getting to know her

and how she grew up.

And so it does become super
emotional and personal.

- Totally, totally.

- So then what do you turn to?
You go back to family members?

- Yes.

- Who did you look at there?

Who were the family members
you had to look at?

- The mom, Laura Lyons.

We didn't know at that time
if there was motivation,

but you can't rule her out.

Terry Abbas would have
been Laura's husband.

And then Steve Staver, well,
he's the boyfriend

in the whole situation.

So what could possibly
be his motivation

for wanting to do
something to Chyenne?

And Colorado, her older brother.

- Warning, this man
may kill you.

Even though he
was young at the time,

we were told that he
was potentially violent,

that he was
potentially dangerous.

Oww! Stop! That hurt.

- So we wanted to
focus on everyone

until we had a reason
not to focus on them.

- The family up
until that point,

were they concerned
like what happened,

like, did the family
follow up on this?

- Not as often as what we
thought they should have.

And there was not many phone
calls made from the family

asking, initially
asking for updates

or anything along those lines.

Even after the actual
team got involved,

there wasn't a whole lot
of calling from the family.

- Never any sense that
they're frantic.

Or "What have you found out?
What do you know?

What's new today that
you didn't know yesterday?"

Never a whole lot of urgency.

- Did they have any other
family members nearby?

- So there was a grandmother
next door and I thought

that was kind of a key.

During one of the many visits
I made over to the house,

I just happened to wander over
and talked to her.

And said, "Hey, has anybody ever
talked to you

about what's going
on in the house over here?"

And she said, "No,
they really haven't."

I said, "What's going
on over there?

Just kind of a
strange household."

And she said,
"Let me tell you this.

If Terry Abbas was
out of that house

and Chyenne could come back,
she would come home."

- And that's her stepdad?
- That's her stepdad.

- And so I asked her, "What do
you mean by that?"

She said, before Chyenne
went missing, she told me

Terry would peek at her
when she was in the bathroom

and in the bathtub.

And other times she'd barricade
her door to try to keep him out.

- So while you're reviewing
different material,

let's say, online,

did you start then
looking more in-depth

at some of the work that she did
like any of her YouTube videos,

any of her postings
that she was doing?

Actually, we had assigned one
of the task force members

to do specifically that.

And during his
investigation of that,

he found a YouTube
video of Chyenne

where she was sitting in her
room, she was on her bed.

She was, you know, talking to
the camera, interacting with it.

- You know, I'm really bored.

I wonder if I've got
anything to do.

Man...

I know what I can do!

And this man
comes into the room.

All you see is his waist down.

And she gets up and they
kind of come together

and it looks like he goes to
put his hands around her

and she grabs his wrists
and she stops him

and she whispers
something in his ear.

You can hear a man's voice,
but it's very muffled.

It just makes you feel
uncomfortable,

because it appears to
be an adult male,

even though you can't
see who the person is.

But it just leaves you
with an uneasy feeling.

Because she's young.
She's 14 years old.

- Did I say you were in this?
No, you weren't.

Get away! Help!
See how abusive?

No, he's not abusive.

- You could hear her
whispering something to him.

But we had to play the video
over and over and over again

to actually understand
what she was saying.

- Do you remember what
she whispered?

There's a level of comfort
that you would see

between two people who
are having a relationship.

There's a lot of touching,
very close contact.

When I first saw it, immediately
I thought of grooming

or that there was
a sexual relationship

between the two of them.

- So we have all these
clues, but who is it?

- The day the video was
discovered,

someone called me in
Chicago and sent it to me.

And watching the video
over and over and over.

I immediately felt

something weird was going on.

I'm doing a live
show, be careful.

Okay.

Listening to a little
bit of his voice,

you could hear after we all
listened to it many, many times.

By the time we all did, we are
all in agreement that

likely based on body type,
clothing, voice, everything

and accessibility,
being in the same house,

that is likely Terry Abbas,
we're all in agreement.

- When we all saw it, I think we
all strongly believed

it was her stepdad.

And as the video goes on,
she kind of jumps on the bed

and there's a little slapping
amongst the two of them

and kind of playful wrestling,

which again, was inappropriate
and just way too comfortable.

The way he touched her,
the way that she touched him.

There was still a level of
comfort between the two of them

that just wasn't realistic

based on the information
that we had known

about their relationship.

That he was the stepfather,
that she was afraid of him,

that he didn't have
a lot of contact with her.

She avoided him.

- Well, going back to what
the grandmother said,

that she would run
away or, you know,

wouldn't want to be around him,
did that confuse you at all?

- Working those types of cases

and knowing the level of secrecy
that usually if an adult

is molesting a child and
especially in the household,

there will be kind of
an agreement of secrecy.

It made sense.

- It was in her bedroom,
in the house,

there seemed to be at least
some other relationship

behind what led up to this.

This definitely wasn't
a one time thing

where all of a sudden let's
be really touchy feely.

- And at that point we learned
before she went missing,

Chyenne had disclosed to friends

that Terry Abbas was
sexually abusing her.

- I told her that she
needed to go to teachers.

She needed to go to
somebody she trusts.

She needed to go tell somebody.
Because I couldn't help her.

- So the East Dubuque
police department opened

an investigation on that.

Chyenne was taken down
to her local CAC.

She was interviewed,
she didn't disclose.

And where we're at,

child victim doesn't disclose,
you don't have a case.

And then the school needed
to set up

a physical for her
and for whatever reason,

Terry Abbas,
who was her stepdad,

was the one who was
supposed to set up

all of this stuff
with the physical,

and he kept dragging his
feet and he wouldn't do it.

- Was he afraid that maybe
she would tell a doctor

or tell somebody or they
would find something?

- Absolutely.
- I totally agree with that.

Because when a child goes in to
have these physicals,

I mean, doctors can ask them,

who knows what a
doctor's going to ask them?

- That's a turning
point for you guys.

Definitely a turning point.
- Where we pivot.

- You pivot.
And what do you do next, then?

- We'd applied for a warrant

to get a GPS tracking
system for his truck,

because one of the things is
we had talked about in theory

was that if he did kill her and
he dumped the body somewhere,

he's going to go back
and maybe revisit the body

because we're starting to shake
the trees a little bit harder.

I fired it up and we're able
to track him a little bit.

And at one point in time,
he's going across

the Julian Dubuque Bridge
and the signal stops dead.

Just shuts off.
Like it ceases to exist, right?

So I'm freaking out because it's
like, okay, we did all this work

and now the GPS system
isn't working.

Did he find it and toss
it in the river?

That's what I thought he did.

What we found out later,
it was still on the truck.

We were able to get it back.
It just turned off.

So what do you do next?

- Line up our polygraph
examinations.

I think at that point the first
round of the three simultaneous

was Laura and Terry Abbas and
Colorado, her older brother.

- Polygraphs are going on.

The polygraph guy texts Wayne
and he says, "Get up here.

Terry Abbas,
he wants to talk to you."

It was "Get up here now."

- So what's going through your
mind when you get the call

and say you need to
go talk to Terry?

- More things than
I could ever recall.

My mind was going
a million miles an hour,

trying to prepare my mind
for anything he might tell me

or any possibility.

I didn't want to
fail the family.

I didn't want to fail Chyenne,

our team or the FBI
for that matter.

The pressure was high

and somehow, some way
I had to deliver.

Next time on FBI True.

- All these leads,

all the things that we
ran down as a team.

- I need more details
of what happened.

I didn't believe him.

And he walks us up this steep
wooded embankment

behind the house.

I mean, this is only
like the halfway point.

We really believed he was
just screwing with us.

This isn't going to go away
until we find out where she is.