Original subtitles

- I'd come to this project with many

of the same assumptions that you have,

concerning the Jersey double murders

and the guilt of Jim Suerd.

His characterization is a troubled young man,

responsible for a spree of horrific,

ritualistic homicides in the Pine Barrens.

The question in my mind was why?

Why would a man commit such crimes?

After reviewing hours of archived footage

generated by Steven Avkast and Locus Wheeler,

the hosts of "Fact or Fiction",

I've been forced to change my perspective.

The question now for me is what?

What really happened that night

and is Jim Suerd truly responsible?

Ironically, in the course of this project,

Jim Suerd has died in prison under mysterious causes.

His death will forever shroud the reconciliation

of this case.

As they said on "Fact or Fiction", "You decide."

911, what is your emergency?

My name is Jim Suerd.

I just hitchhiked here from...

from the middle of pine barrens

and I can't seem to get,

I can't seem to find the people

that I was in the Pine Barrens with,

and I was camping with them last night doing a project

Are you lost?

I'm not lost.

I'm just trying, I can't find the people

who drove me here and,

You know I looked around for them

and I went back to the site where we had parked

and they're not at the van

and they're nowhere to be found

like I don't know where they are.

Their vehicle is still there?

The vehicle's still there and I had to

hitchhike to this payphone.

How far are you from the vehicle right now?

I'm about five five,

somewhere you know five, 10 miles from it I don't know.

Okay, Jim.

We'll send someone out.

Yeah it would be a good idea,

I got a really bad feeling about it.

You might want to send somebody out quickly,

I have a bad feeling-

- WBRK time it is five o'clock.

It's time for that afternoon drive that you love so much.

Hey, guess who made missing reports?

It's those hosts from "Fact or Fiction".

Missing. Ha

Bob, you know those guys gonna be showing up sometime

in the next day saying, "Surprise did you miss us?"

Let's go to the phones and we'll ask you.

Do you miss them?

- We have found bodies.

At this time we don't know who they are,

or how many we have found.

We cannot assume at this time that it is

the "Fact or Fiction" crew.

At this time, we have arrested Jim Suerd

for the murders of Rein Clackin and Locus Wheeler.

- Behind me is a house where Jim Suerd

resided until his arrest nearly seven months ago.

Inside, amongst his dirty laundry, blood evidence was found,

linking him to the grisly "Fact or Fiction" murders.

Today, Jim's own life hangs in the balance

as jurors decide his fate.

I had heard of the "Fact or Fiction" murders.

They were big news for a period of one year,

and then like so many things in today's fast-paced world,

were forgotten.

I was intrigued by how this case, this story,

was so well documented.

How, in spite of the remote location of the murders,

and the rural nature of the people prosecuting Jim,

that these were murders of a high tech age.

I was intrigued by the fact that the four individuals

were indeed children of a digital age.

Mostly though, I wondered why the man named Jim Suerd

would commit such horrendous acts of violence.

- This is Johnny- - And Locus.

- And we are live in the Pine Barrens where tonight

we are doing a first-ever, internet broadcast, cable,

ham radio, broadcast all live, all real

and we are doing it with the help of a psychic

and a sound man

who has the ability to record sounds from other worlds,

otherworldly sounds.

- Yeah, that's right, Steven.

We're here in the Pine Barrens southern New Jersey

live and direct, coming right at you

in your living room, first-ever web

simulcast cable-cast and everybody

is on the edge of their seat and I know you are,

because I am and I'm sure Steven is too.

- A little later we're gonna be showing you the campsite,

but right now we're gonna do a little recapping,

and you're gonna see some tape of the history of the legend

of the Pine Barrens and the Jersey Devil.

- They actually lived their show, "Fact or Fiction".

Here's this real eerie circumstances that come to play

And they were actually the victims of it.

- He had the opportunity.

It appears as if he had the motive.

He did lure those people up there in a in a veil of secrecy.

I would say yeah he fits the profile.

Who was Jim Suerd?

The answer proved more difficult than I imagined.

His mother had died four months before the murders,

His father, five years before.

The only two people that I was able to speak with

that knew him personally were his landlady,

Joyce Dryer and a childhood psychologist

named Dr. Dale Orstall.

- I was sort of a father figure to him, I feel.

Sort of a surrogate father, if you will.

He didn't talk a whole lot about his family life

but one of the things I know

is that his father left them when he was very young,

ran off with another woman.

He had few friends if any.

Very reclusive.

- I remember him being quite a loner.

He seemed to stay in his room quite a bit

when he wasn't at work.

And the computer seemed to be a highlight

in his in his life.

- With the advent of the Internet,

of course he got into that years after I was seeing him.

It wasn't even available I don't think at the time.

It opened up a whole new world

for a guy like Jim.

- Often he would be on the internet with people

and as we know the horrible situation

that has come up because of the internet fiasco,

with him being blamed for these murders.

The internet was the first of two interests

that would attach him to the "Fact or Fiction"

television show.

The second interest was a bit more obscure.

- Jim had this fascination for magic.

I mean a true fascination,

I mean he like I told you he was very reclusive

so I believe he must have spent countless hours

in his room alone

working on tricks.

And he used to come in and start the sessions and he had to

show me a new trick and often

was a simple card trick but very quickly he

built skills and became very proficient at magic.

The internet and magic,

both interests generally considered harmless.

Both interests that could have a sinister edge to them.

Either way, it was a combination that virtually

sealed his fate in meeting Steven Avkast and Locus Wheeler,

The hosts of "Fact or Fiction".

- Welcome to "Fact or Fiction".

Welcome to "Fact or Fiction".

Yes we are rolling.

We are on we are ready to go.

Locus you joker, you knew it all along that we were on,

didn't you?

- Yeah welcome to our new show,

well actually it's not a new show, it's got a new name.

Thanks to everybody out there who helped us come up

with this great name,

"Fact or Fiction"

- That's right.

"Fact or Fiction" was one of those fluke successes

that no television producer would ever predict.

Short on production value, talent and execution,

It maintained a following of youth probably more amused

by its Kitsch value than anything else.

Steven Avkast, the creator of "Fact or Fiction"

is remembered.

- Steven, I always got bad bad vibes about Steven,

you know he always came in here with this,

you know attitude that you know,

all he was doing is making a little cable show.

I mean, nobody ever goes anywhere with this stuff.

But he had this idea

he was destined for stardom and was gonna be rich, you know

millions of dollars and you know he basically

had that that big you know

director stereotype that you think of,

you know, you think of the big

Hollywood directors and I mean he really

just had to put it in perspective.

Steven's longtime friend, Locus Wheeler,

was the co-host of the show.

Their pairing was like oil and water.

- Locus, I think,

he and Steven would have problems

getting along sometimes but I think

Locus, he knew what he was doing.

I mean with this he knew it was just a little

cable show and I think he was just in it for the fun.

Somehow, Steven, a misguided egomaniac and Locus,

a sardonic slacker,

managed to keep turning out shows

for the better part of 1995.

The ideas were slim.

However, they did latch onto one idea that intrigued many.

- We're also doing something new.

We are on IRC tonight.

And we have joined- - IRC is in the house.

- You can say that, I'm saying it's swingin'.

- Well I'll have to say one idea they came up with,

it was actually, well at first it was pretty cool

but it got to be pretty freaky too.

They came up with this idea,

you know how most TV shows will have like call ins.

Where people call in the phone and talk,

well they tie this into the internet

through IRC chat, except, so people could like, you know

ask questions on the show, but they rigged up

some sort of text-to-speech converter so

like whatever they typed in was actually said

on the show like it was a voice.

It was this idea that provided the impetus

for what would ironically give Steven the fame he so craved.

By the fall of 1995, the one-joke television show

was losing popularity.

By November, the show was about to self-destruct.

Everybody had this sense.

- Once again, Steven in his delinquency and procrastination

has made it so we are too late to find the snow angel.

At this desperate time,

Steven turned to viewer suggestions,

one of which would take hold in his mind.

It provided the seedling with which Steven hoped

to rebuild the show's popularity.

- You know we had a call we have an IRC come in

and it's real eerie voice, I mean it drove me nuts.

I almost couldn't stand this after a while because just

hearing this voice like

"Hello, why don't you do a piece on-"

Why don't you do a show

about the Jersey Devil?

Steven's idea was to do a first-ever

live broadcast of "Fact or Fiction".

It would be broadcast simultaneously

to cable television and the Internet.

The promotion's began immediately.

And with ratings dropping in an ever-increasing speed,

the concept was implemented immediately.

- This Jersey Devil cablecast,

I mean I for one, I knew it wasn't gonna work.

I mean these guys couldn't even make

a halfway decent TV Show.

Suddenly they want to jump into doing you know

big time live from the Pine Barrens

and have radio and Internet and this and that and,

I knew it was gonna be fiasco.

I didn't really think was gonna end up like it did but,

I knew it wasn't gonna look pretty.

Since the show was going to air

from a remote location,

Steven hastily looked for people who might be able to help.

A former employer of his, Sam woods, was approached.

This is the room of Sam woods.

I used to cut his grass.

He's a filmmaker

and he used to do soap operas and

we're gonna ask him if he wants to direct the show

Because I think he'd be perfect and he's a name

and that could really be good for us.

So I've had to talk to Locus and try to

convince him about it, but he's going for it,

well here they come so, I'm going to turn it down.

- Steven- - That's right.

- And I'm Locus. - Locus.

- Nice to meet you.

- Well they say that up to up to 50,000 people

could possibly be watching at any time,

but they don't know exactly how many

but we're selling lots of T-shirts.

So that's a good sign I think.

Anyway we have this idea we want

to taking this like direction

where it's gonna become much bigger

and it'll be really cool if you

could you know help us out; if you could direct the show.

I know that you used to direct lots of soap operas.

- Network soaps.

Right, right.

This union of cable access show

and former Network soap director never made sense to anyone.

Though it was later discovered that Steven

was paying Sam out of his own pocket

in an act of desperation to save "Fact or Fiction".

We're in business yeah, yeah this is cool.

Sam Woods, a once successful

television soap director

became one of the people I would question

about these events.

In stark contrast to his work,

meeting him was another road sign

on my travel into a surreal world.

- Well, this devil hunt thing never appealed to me.

We're getting into a pretty flaky area there, you know?

I think the kids were they were asking for it with that one.

Not the kind of not the kind of work I do,

you know what I mean?

Not what I do.

For the internet end, Jay McDowell was enlisted.

- Well, they came to me with a seedling idea

they said you know

we wanna, we want to use some

of this technology you've been using for teleconferencing

for video conferencing and we want to, you know,

we want to turn this into a broadcast thing.

They had heard some talk about it

they had seen some sites that were trying to

do some stuff like that, so they wanted something

like that they wanted to do it

a live, a live thing rather than like, you know,

streaming cam video.

They wanted to actually broadcast and compress it all live.

So they basically just came to me with that seedling

of an idea and I had to figure out, you know,

the technical aspects of how to make it happen,

and make it real and

you know, kind of the packaging for it

what it was really gonna be in the final product.

Steven and Locus decided

that they needed additional help

at the actual location.

They searched vaguely for a sound man and a guide

and on December 7th, 1995, worlds collided.

- Okay, we're at Rein's and we've come today

to meet him in hopes that he'll be able to help us

out on our trip to the Pine Barrens.

Basically Rein is an audio whiz

and supposebly he's been able to document,

supposedly he's been able to document

you know paranormal occurrences on tape.

So that's what we're gonna see today.

We're also going to be meeting Jim,

who does some psychic things

and we'll see, you know.

Hopefully these guys will fit the bill

and we'll be able to go down to

the Pine Barrens with them, you know.

Could use the extra help.

Is that good?

Yeah you got enough?

I hope this damn mic works.

You ready?

Okay.

Remember, play it cool.

Play it cool.

Is this gonna blow us this airplane sound?

- Come on.

- Steven, this is Rein.

Right Rein? - Yeah.

- I'm Locus. - Locus?

Locus.

- I'll just turn it off. - So you just taped us?

- Yeah, I guess so, accidentally.

So do you have a surveillance setup

here or something?

- Well, for the time being I did.

I have like plugins, I can plug into the wall and stuff,

if I need to.

At one point this was like a working studio of some sort.

I think maybe Jim has arrived now.

Can you...

- Hi, I'm Rein. - Hey, how are you?

- We pre-determined that we met.

Hold on, hey hey yeah Jim what's up?

- How are you? - Doing pretty good.

- Lotus. - Um, Locus.

- Locus, Locus.

- Hi. - How are you?

I'm Jim.

It was inevitable that the combination

of the internet,

a television show about paranormal happenings,

and similar ages, would draw Jim Suerd to "Fact or Fiction".

- So just to give some, a little background,

you know basically we're going to be doing this

webcast, cablecast in the in search of the Jersey Devil,

the Leeds devil,

down in the Pine Barrens.

And basically why we've gotten you guys together here is

because you have skills regarding audio

and paranormal activity so we're hoping

that you can help us in that way,

and you have these psychic abilities.

- Psychic abilities,

I feel that I can, I can really help out.

I understand what you're trying to do and

I really think that I can help out.

- You can help us find help us find a location.

You can help us tap into whatever we need.

- I can pinpoint that location.

- Jim came to me one day and told me

how excited he was that he had met these

people over the Internet.

It was some show, "Fact or Fiction",

and he was to be their guide in the Pine Barrens

and what really amazed me, I just didn't think

he knew or had any knowledge of the Pine Barrens to be able

to even be a guide.

But he seemed so excited about it.

- Is this, is this good?

- Do you want to hold them up or do you want me to just...

- Just like this.

Don't touch, you can't touch.

Okay.

- Six Spade.

Seven Spade.

Four Spade.

Five Spade

Eight Club.

Eight Diamond.

Come on, man.

- I saw him probably about two or three weeks

before the incident.

I ran into him at a shopping mall.

And he was very excited about his life.

He said he was studying acting.

His magic was coming together.

People were appreciating it.

Combined with the acting, I guess he did a few gigs

on a small level but it was

it was going very very well.

Give him more ashes.

There's something on his arm.

His arm.

1395.

What does this mean?

- I don't know.

Back off, back off.

Are you recording this?

Was Jim psychic?

It was not likely.

The card demonstration,

and the supposed psychic fit, in which numbers appeared

on his arm,

were nothing more than simple tricks

known to any amateur magician.

To Steven and Locus, Rein Clackin and Jim Suerd were perfect

for "Fact or Fiction".

Youthful, eager and strange.

On December 15th 1995,

Steven Avkast, Locus Wheeler,

Rein Clackin and Jim Suerd

headed for the Pine Barrens of New Jersey

to do a live broadcast

in search of the Jersey Devil.

Jim Suerd would be the only one to return.

911, what is your emergency?

My name is Jim Suerd and I just hitchhiked here

from the middle of Pine Barrens.

And I can't seem to get, I can't seem

to find the people that I was in the Pine Barrens with

and I was camping with them last night doing a project.

Are you lost?

I'm not lost, I'm just trying to,

I can't find the people that drove me here.

And you know I looked around for them and I went back

to the site where we had parked

and they're not at the van and they're nowhere

to be found like I don't know where they are.

Their vehicle is still there?

The vehicle is still there.

And I had to hitchhike to this payphone.

How far are you from the vehicle right now?

I'm about five, five, somewhere, you know,

five, 10 miles from it.

I don't know.

Okay Jim, we'll send someone out.

- After Mr. Suerd made the call,

we went to the area that he specified

and did a preliminary look around,

under a missing-persons investigation.

- I mean I just figured that was one of the little stints

to do just to try to get that extra sensationalism.

So I didn't think anything of it at first.

You know I kind of expected them to try something like that.

We have a 187.

Repeat, we have a 187.

This isn't a missing person's report anymore.

912?

We're clear.

Do you need emergency support?

1012

No.

This guy's definitely DOA.

- One body we found approximately 2.5 miles

from the campsite.

The other body, we found approximately three miles

from the campsite.

The body of Steven Avkast was never found.

Large amounts of blood in the snow and a hat

were all that remained of this third victim.

- In any murder investigation,

anybody associated with the victims is a suspect.

Our job is to eliminate suspects based

on the evidence that we sift through and that we gather,

and as we sifted through

and gathered this evidence there was

only one suspect left at the end and that was Mr. Jim Suerd.

Who led everybody to the site?

I did.

You did.

Did anybody else know where you were going

to set up and camp?

Well, I was asked to uh, to find a place to camp.

And I thought that I was doing a good job at it

and Rein continued to provoke me and uh

and then give me a hard time about my ability

to locate the place

that we would camp and ultimately it just

led to an argument and I ran away from the group.

Did you hit him first?

I don't know, I might have pushed him.

Sometimes I can't remember if I, you know.

I ran away from group and I found the spot that I thought

would be good to locate the Jersey Devil.

- After we got the permission from the state

of Pennsylvania to search

Mr. Suerd's residence, we went to his residence

and we did conduct a search

for anything that we felt would help us in this case

and we did find the garments

that Mr. Suerd was wearing that night,

with the blood of the three victims on it.

Interestingly, the garments that Mr. Suerd

was wearing were merely

lying right on his bedroom floor,

along with the other dirty laundry that was there.

Even as Jim was arrested,

the evidence continued to mount against him.

- We could tell that the nature of the blows

with the weapons that were used

were consistent with the size and build of the accused.

In this case it was very clear that the attacker

was using both hands with two weapons and was ambidextrous.

And the suspect in this case is ambidextrous,

which is quite rare.

- He was the only survivor

in the place where nobody else was.

It doesn't look that good for him.

- Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

we will show that on December 15th 1995,

Jim Suerd maliciously and with premeditation

killed Rein Clackin and Locus Wheeler.

We will show, without doubt,

how he planned this well in advance of that day.

We will show, with video shot by the deceased,

that Jim Suerd was, and is, a devious and cunning person.

Using the guise of psychic

to perpetrate these horrible acts.

The proceedings that summer turned out

to be one of the greatest spectacles

of Baroake County history.

The trial attracted a strange assemblage of cult followers,

ritual homicide fanatics and others seeking

to satisfy their morbid curiosities.

Eventually, it became a matter of trying

to keep the tabloid press at bay.

An effort which was not entirely successful.

- When the court case came up,

the media frenzy was hysterical.

I felt like they were, you know,

somebody was watching me like every minute.

They were talking to everybody,

everybody who had the slightest thing to do with the show.

Who knows, they probably even talked

to every single viewer that said they watched the show.

Reporters day in and day out

and police here just taking everything they could;

every videotape, every prop,

and I mean it was ridiculous.

I don't know what they were looking for,

all they were getting was a bunch of bad television.

In an election year,

what the prosecution was looking

for was an open and shut case.

And in the state of New Jersey versus Jim Suerd,

they found it.

Not content to leave any stone unturned

they decided to utilize the very video that

Steven Avkast and Locus Wheeler had shot.

The man, who would later by the press come

to be known as "The killer cutter",

was hired to go through this video.

And put together an incriminating image of Jim Suerd.

- The prosecution contacted me

in early January 1996.

They had a pretty good case against him, it seemed to me

from what I saw.

They had blood evidence, they'd found the blood

and you know this was the only guy there.

And he was the only one that knew where it was.

But they wanted to clinch this case.

They didn't want, they really wanted to get him.

They didn't want there to be any question

that he had done it.

So they came to me with all this videotape,

like 15 hours of videotape.

And this was video that these guys who did this cable show

had shot on location.

I'd never really edited anything like,

I mean I'd never seen anything like this before,

I mean this was like video from the crime scene.

And normally, you know, I've got, you know,

hours and hours of people

talking heads like, you know in some room

somewhere badly shot.

This was badly shot but at least it was

out in the woods, you know.

It was different.

The prosecution's video

was intended to show facts.

Perhaps, not inadvertently, it also created an intimacy

with the murdered three,

that the defense was unhappy with.

- We're stopping to get some gasoline.

They protested it, deeming it an unfair swaying

towards a guilty verdict.

This was not enough reason for the video

to be struck down and so it was used.

The first point demonstrated that Jim was indeed

leading the group into very remote regions

of the Pine Barrens.

Areas where there was no hope for help or aid

from the civilized world.

The following represents excerpts

from the first section of the prosecution video.

Over 54 minutes of video, showing the four wandering deeper

into the pines, was shot.

It is estimated that the four walked for more than two hours

before Jim finally decided upon the location

of their operations.

Hey guys he's starting to go.

Let's get the stuff together.

So what's the deal, Jim?

- Something's come right through here.

When Jim finally found the perfect location,

it was more than three miles

from their van and the nearest access road.

The second point was to make evident a defendant

who had an agenda.

An agenda warped enough to commit these murders.

- I've been contacting the supernatural world

for the last week.

Last couple days I've been

in contact, getting my spiritual self together

for this journey.

We've put ourselves out on and

we are headed in the right direction, I can assure you.

I can feel it.

It's a gut instinct in my body that,

we're going to find the Leeds devil,

and we're going to settle this case,

once and for all.

I feel that I know what I'm doing here and for you

is perfectly authentic.

I have a feeling inside, it's it's a definite feeling,

we are at a place where with the Jersey Devil,

we will encounter the Jersey Devil.

I know we're headed in the right direction.

Repeated phrases such as,

"We're going to settle this thing

"once and for all"

and "I know we're headed in the right direction",

seemed to clearly show Jim's agenda.

It didn't take much to read into these phrases,

and see an individual with a plan that was to be carried out

in the desolate Pine Barrens.

As the prosecution's video progressed,

Jim's personality changed

from a quiet and shy person,

to one that presented the prosecution with an opportunity

to show the violent nature just below the surface.

- Look man,

I'll see you back at camp, man!

I don't know what Jim's doing.

I think he's talking about burning something.

An agenda proven,

and a potential violent streak proven,

the prosecution solidified their first-degree murder case

against Suerd with video taken in the barn.

Video in which the original date

of the trip appeared on Suerd's arm.

The defense attempted to have this also struck

from the records,

claiming the video of Suerd to be that

of a character he was playing.

The prosecution countered by agreeing fully

with this assessment of Suerd and the events in the barn.

Events that had taken place a full two weeks

before the trip;

the best argument for premeditated murder.

The trip began at sunrise.

Steven ran a video camera much of the time,

documenting what should have been amusing

but banal preparation.

Locus, do you wanna do a blurb about?

- Yeah, I'll do it.

Locus.

Yeah but I'm getting light,

the backlight's killing your face.

- What do you mean the backlight's killing my face?

Why don't you adjust it?

What do you mean you can't?

Okay you ready? - Yeah, yeah.

- Okay, we're here at Rein's barn, and we're getting, okay.

Here.

Come on, I'm trying to get at this on camera.

The trip, guided by Jim,

took them into the loneliest

of areas on a lonely cold day.

Here's to you, Steven.

A stop at a gas station

was the last obvious landmark,

before they moved into the unidentifiable roads

of the Pine Barrens.

At a certain point, at Jim's request,

they stopped, parked and started

walking into the woods.

Following the psychic visions of Suerd.

- I understand.

He's gonna do it this is part

of the show we gotta do it in a place he thinks is right.

Because if we're gonna find something

yeah we could fake it, but I don't go for that.

I think we should go for real

and he's off doing his thing that's why we got him here.

We knew this was gonna be it.

We knew, we all talked about.

We knew we were going to be way out here.

- Here he comes. - Let's see what he says.

- Where did you get this guy from anyway?

Psychics R US?

I think this is a pretty good idea.

Us waiting around and then him finding the spot you know

and then taking the stuff over to it.

- Yeah, we still gotta go back to the car

and get stuff, man.

I don't think he even knows that.

Is he volunteering?

I don't think so.

Well, I know he's not carrying too much.

But you know what he said about that.

it's a vibe thing.

Tensions increase as they work further

into the forsaken Pines.

And then a key point in the prosecution video arrives.

Jim, are you a psychic or a psycho?

- Look man!

I'll see you back at camp, man!

Approximately one hour later,

judging from the sun,

a camp is being built.

Discussions are already being had about Suerd.

Suerd is not helping.

He's keeping to himself.

For the next two hours, the video of the group

is a collection of promotions for

future cable shows; the camera frequently left

on between takes.

- This is Locus reporting from the Pine Barrens

and I'm with Rein.

Our sound man.

Gee, Rein I'm pretty parched.

- I sure am, too.

- Wow is that is that mulberry

natural spring water?

- Yes from Mueller's.

- Wow, how about, I wish I could have a

sparkling glass of that.

- Boy I'm telling you and in a gallon jar.

- Jug.

the mood is good.

- Let's do that again.

Jim does not join them, instead staying

in the tent on IRC.

- I don't really feel like I'm being taken very seriously,

by really any of you.

I'm taking you seriously.

We set up here you know.

- I'm doing what, what I do and

I don't appreciate being laughed at.

Well it's just a stress thing.

Look we're gonna be going on in a bit.

You gonna come out for the broadcast?

- I think that I'll probably stay in here.

Stay on IRC.

Okay.

At 10 p.m.

in what will be the last broadcast,

"Fact or Fiction" goes live.

- This is Johnny- - And Locus.

- And we are live in the Pine Barrens

where tonight we are doing a first ever,

internet broadcast, cable-

Jim has been on IRC for two hours and 30 minutes.

A surveillance camera records the camp to VHS tape.

It runs for two hours before shutting off.

At one a.m.

the last tape in the series of 22 tapes shot

by Locus Wheeler and Rein Clackin

reaches its end.

I think this is a way for him

to try and scare us or something.

Man, this thing's still on.

What the hell's going on? - Oh, I must have left it on.

We should change tapes.

Did you change tapes?

Here, I'm gonna change tapes in this.

There is no indication that this is done.

No other footage exists.

The tape show a group of men going through a wide range

of emotions.

Seemingly enjoying their jaunt into the pine barrens.

The tape shows the brooding nature of one man

who does not share in the frivolity.

The tapes do make clear the maladjusted nature of Jim Suerd.

Though Suerd maintained his innocence,

the facts were indisputable.

Four people went into the Pine Barrens, only Jim returned.

Blood of all three was found on on Jim's shirt.

His pushing Rein showed a potential violent streak.

The angle and depth of the cuts

and lacerations matched somebody of his height and weight

and more importantly ambidextrous nature.

The number, which closely matched

the date of the murders appearing through ashes on his arm,

was deemed to

be a good case for premeditated murder.

The tape showing the four walking further

and further into the woods,

virtually guaranteed a seclusion from civilization

that would make the killing easier.

The defense's one victory was

getting the third charge of murder,

the murder of Steven Avkast, dropped.

Though a body is not necessarily needed to prove a murder,

the prosecution had more than enough evidence

with the two bodies that were found.

On July 16th 1996

Jim Suerd was found guilty on two counts

of first degree murder.

He was sentenced to two life terms

to be served consecutively.

- I think the whole trial was a kangaroo court of sorts,

a pig circus.

I mean it's...

the police obviously didn't do their homework.

They're not investigating to the best of their ability,

because there has to be,

there has to be some evidence indicating somebody else

or something else.

- The case they built up against him,

it was all circumstantial.

They didn't have any actual evidence that he did this

but I mean he was the only one there.

They really had no one else to go on.

- I don't consider having the blood of

victims all over your clothes as circumstantial.

I mean that's pretty hard evidence as far as I'm concerned.

You don't get blood

on your clothes from a murder victim, you know,

just out of the air.

I mean, you have to be there conducting those murders

to get that blood on your clothes.

I don't consider that circumstantial in the least.

and I can't explain that I can't explain why

there would be blood on my shirt.

would you agree that it looks bad?

Excuse me?

Would you agree that things

don't look very good for you right now?

I don't, I don't the way that you're telling me

it doesn't look that good for me but I

can't understand where this evidence came from.

The evidence of blood on Jim's shirt

was a strong point for the prosecution.

DNA tests showed

indisputably that it was the blood of the three

that had gone into the woods with Suerd.

As I look at the images of DNA patterns and pools of blood,

I wonder though

if perhaps the jury anxious not to ignore DNA evidence

as it happened in other trials

perhaps looked too closely.

Through the magnifying glass

of the prosecution's microscope, the evidence was solid.

However a macroscopic view begged another question.

Could the master of this orgy of violence have walked

away from his work with merely the equivalent

of 17 eyedrops of blood on his shirt

and nothing else?

- You know, every piece of evidence they would get,

they'd try to tie it somehow, instead of thinking

okay well gee, does this have anything

to do with something else

would always take a piece of evidence and go,

well gee how could Jim have used this?

And it's kind of like, after a while,

it's like building up a house of cards,

after a while, they just kept building up building up

and eventually they had enough built up

to get a case against him.

I wasn't really monitoring their conduct outside

of camp.

I was doing my thing.

what were you doing?

I was on the IRC.

In the tent?

Yeah.

All night?

all night

About what time did you start on IRC?

Probably around 8:30.

- When we interviewed some of the individuals

that Mr. Suerd claimed to have been talking

with on IRC that evening,

and we've looked at their logs as well, too,

their chat logs from their computers,

and we have determined

that there was about a 45 minute gap

between when Mr. Suerd made one comment

to when he made the next comment.

And 45 minutes is an awfully long time to not

be responding to other people on the Internet.

- They say the signal dropped out

so you know Jim could have walked away

and I guess that is possible.

- It is possible, yes.

You don't necessarily have

to be a world-class sprint runner,

to cover that amount of ground in 45 minutes.

- In a way I have to raise doubts

of this one guy doing all that to these bodies.

- The murdered pair,

they were darlings of the media.

It was one of the reasons they jumped

on this whole thing so quickly

and had to come up with a conclusion

of what happened was just that:

it was their very own.

- As professionals in law enforcement,

we do not feel the pressure from outside sources,

be it the media or otherwise to conduct our investigations.

We conduct them to the best of our ability at all times.

There were no other suspects to apprehend or to interview

or to consider.

All the evidence pointed that Mr. Suerd was the only suspect

and therefore all we had to do was gather

the evidence to prove Mr. Suerd's guilt.

We did not have to gather evidence to gather other suspects.

On January 2nd, 1997,

an event occurred that forced me

to rethink the making of this documentary,

the very thesis with which I had begun this journey.

Jim Suerd was found dead in his jail cell

of undetermined causes.

On January third, a package arrived at my door which I think

in no way was

coincidental with the death of Jim Suerd.

The acquiring of mysterious video tape has changed the mood

behind the making of this documentary.

Gone is the attempt at pure objectivity

with which we started.

Now we question, who gave us this tape?

And more importantly, what, if any information, does it hold

that was never brought up in the trial?

Going to the authorities with this new tape

is pondered but rejected.

To them the case is closed and with Jim's death,

appeals are a moot point.

Nothing is ruled out.

The tape could be a hoax.

I am conscious of one thing though.

My search for the truth behind the "Fact or Fiction" murders

has in some way become part of the story.

- There was this discussion on the last tape that

they were going to change tapes.

But whether that ever happened or not,

I don't know.

I didn't see any other tapes

and from what I saw of the camera

it was pretty damaged.

So if there was any tape in there,

I doubt that it ever could be played.

- My name is Michele Monarch.

I'm a magnetic media data recovery specialist.

The particular videotape that I was given was mangled almost

beyond recognition.

I digitized sections of this particular video,

placed it into the computer

and am now reconstructing the actual picture frame by frame.

And I have to guide the computer to complete these pictures.

There was some that were easily captured by the computer.

Others were unrecognizable,

and I'm rebuilding them now at this time.

As the tape is reassembled by Shelly,

it becomes apparent that some sections are rather viewable.

- And I'll say, yeah I'm here

while Locus is out hunting for the Jersey Devil.

And I'll be like, "ah, shut up"

Yeah, you can be like, "I don't see him."

No, no, we better not do that because, we've got to deliver

on this show.

This is the big one here.

Okay are we ready there, Rein?

- Right now. - Do you want me

to still be rolling on this stuff, Steven?

Do you want to state that, that whole thing.

I think I kind of could hear you.

I've been rolling the camera just messing

around shooting camp stuff but could you,

what was the deal with-

- I don't care if he hears this or not on camera.

Don't I mean this is never gonna make it

anything but the cutting room floor

as they would say film days.

From what Sam was saying.

Sam, boy even he was-

- All right, there it is.

- I don't want to be like a bitch all night.

I'm going to take a walk out into the woods and do a scout

out of the location.

I also have to go the bathroom.

Get on the trumpet, do the sound.

Newark's doing his thing.

Yeah, I know the airplanes from Newark.

But each we got

we got a little bit from that one machine going, but I want

to see that one reel going

I wanna see you on that trumpet,

I want to see you working for the reason you're out here.

And Locus, come on, 1R 144 double X awaits you.

Do some work, man!

- Sure Steven, anything you say, big guy.

Comin' right at you.

- All right, I'm gonna go here.

I'll be back in about 10 minutes.

- Okay, man. - Okay.

I'll be on that before you get back.

- Hey, do me a favor and switch on the machine will you?

There goes a little tyrant.

Here, come on I got the camera rolling

and do a Steven imitation for me.

Oh no I'm talking about Steven being a pussy I'm not talking

about Jim being a pussy.

Jim's one psycho motherfucker.

- He's scary, man. - Let me get that on camera.

- That thing isn't running, is it?

Of course it's running.

We're supposed to record everything.

Give me a Jim, why don't you do that line that you said

when you were out in the woods?

What did you think when Jim pushed you?

- I was a- - Louder.

- I was a little bit, I don't know, it was weird

and kind of it freaked me out, man.

I didn't really expect him to be violent.

I thought it was like,

see that's what I don't get, man.

He's like totally like

I thought he was like one of those guys like

you know those peace, fucking meditation dudes or something.

I didn't think he did that.

Following these recorded moments,

a large portion of the tape is smashed.

It is a section that Shelley will attempt to restore.

The next section that is immediately viewable,

happens somewhere in the middle of the tape.

Steven!

The first thing that is apparent is that this

is tape shot by Locus and Rein.

Steven is nowhere to be seen.

They are searching for him.

On her third day of restoration,

Shelley makes another discovery.

The anonymous tape is not from one, but two cameras.

Both Rein and Locus took cameras into the forest.

- Hold on a second.

Let me get the light up here.

This is "Fact or Fiction."

We can't find Steven.

Here we are in the Pine Barrens on a trip that he drug us

out here for.

We did a webcast, simulcast, cast cast cable cast

that really was pretty poor if you ask me.

But that doesn't matter at this point because Steven,

our main host, is missing.

Johnny.

Johnny Love is gone.

He's gone and we can't find him.

All I want to do is drink some beer.

at the camp.

See this is for you, Steven.

Even though we don't know where you are,

we just want you to know that we're being really loyal

to this whole "shoot everything".

- Oh, man, come on, now.

In the sixth day of her work,

Shelly puts together a stunning piece of tape.

It is a moment in time that proves so much.

Footprint, I think it goes off this way.

Do you see anything over there?

He's been gone for a while.

Do you know what time it is?

It's I think it's late

it's like, 2:45.

- 2:45? - Yeah.

- Rein and Locus were alive

and speaking the time to one another and they were supposed

to be being killed

and they're alive and they're saying the time on the video.

To me that proves that

Jim absolutely was not killing them at that time.

Jim is an innocent man and this was not investigated

in any way shape or form.

It was overlooked.

So many details were overlooked.

Also, if he's an innocent man,

there's a killer on the loose.

Shelly's work slowly gives voices to the dead.

Ghosts caught on video.

I don't know, I feel weird about it.

I feel weird about it.

Why is he acting so weird?

The processing of the tape is quickly

becoming more difficult for Shelley.

Now only bits and pieces tell the story of what happened

in the woods.

On February 5th, Shelley presents a section

of videotape that is nothing short of horrifying.

It intensifies the question of who the killer is.

Oh.

On February 7th, Shelley finds what she thinks

is the same moment in time from Locus's camera.

It cannot however be viewed.

She remains hopeful as she begins the process

of trying to reconstruct a lost video.

- The computer needs me to direct it.

It doesn't know how to reconstruct a circle.

Maybe it would have an opening at the side

and I have to teach it to continue the circle.

I'm a guiding factor.

While Shelley begins the process of attempting

to restore video,

I will attempt to find a truth

within the film I have already shot.

- In sitting there waiting for these video edits to render,

I did wonder about

certain aspects of the case.

Sometimes I wonder, am I doing the right thing?

Did this guy do it?

It seemed to me, from all what I saw,

that you know it was pretty likely

that he did it.

I mean you had the blood evidence and stuff like that,

but then there was the one guy

that they never found his body.

What happened to him?

I mean, could he have done it?

I don't know.

It is an obvious question.

A question I had presented to all the people interviewed.

The tape restoration is showing Locus

and Rein searching for Steven,

which only makes the question more relevant.

What happened to Steven Avkast?

By process of elimination, I proceed.

- We did find some blood

and of course the infamous Johnny hat

that was found.

We were never able to find any more remains

of that person so we don't know if he's dead or alive.

- They never found Steven's body, Johnny,

but they found his hat.

So, I mean, I don't know.

It's just weird that the only thing left of him is

a hat?

- All right I'll be back in about 10 minutes.

Okay man, I'll be on that before you get back

- We don't think that Mr. Avkast

would be able to set up Mr. Suerd

because the amount of blood that we found

Of Mr. Avkast is so great that he would have bled to death

trying to set Mr. Suerd up.

There goes the little tyrant.

Oh whoa, check it out.

Shine that over there.

- Oh wow. - What's that?

- I don't know, man.

- Looks like a light.

Yo, it's Steven's light.

Steven's light.

Yo Steve!

Steven!

In finding that Jim's alibi holds up,

we have to attempt to answer the question raised:

who killed these people?

The likely suspect would appear to be Steven.

As I watch these frames though, I see no recognition

in Locus's face.

I see Locus, a man larger than Steven, turn tail and run.

As does Rein.

Steven Avkast, being the culprit of the horrendous massacre

that took place in the minutes that follow this tape

is impossible to believe.

Along with the amount of blood

that belongs to Steven Avkast,

this makes me believe that he also was murdered

in the Pine Barrens.

I am now also of the belief

that the killer was somehow something more horrendous

than possible to imagine.

What could have killed three healthy men?

What would have left no footprints?

What would have torn the men into 47 pieces,

leaving no evidence of a struggle?

We could tell by what was a left in the infliction

of the wound that it was

a serrated type weapon, that much we know.

- There were no knife fragments or

any evidence of the actual weapon used

other than the cuts themselves.

- Well we're a rural County, we have people

who are not greatly educated.

Rumors and folklore are common.

I put no credence in anything of that nature.

I just go by the facts that the police

are able to ascertain.

- A monster?

Yeah, I think this person's a monster.

I don't believe

fact or fiction.

I don't believe the fiction.

I think this is a person and I'm gonna find out who it is.

I'm gonna reconstruct and do my job

to recover what has been lost, the facts.

It is as though the Jersey Devil

is a monster reborn in a digital age.

Reborn on the Internet.

A demon captured on IRC logs, mangled video,

whispers in the dark.

It is to these that I look.

- It's totally anonymous I mean you can't trace a call.

You don't know if it's man, woman, old, young.

You don't know anything you don't know where it's from.

I mean in one way I don't know

why the cops didn't try to do anything you know

and try to figure out well who made that idea?

Who came up with that suggestion?

Why don't you do a show

about the Jersey Devil?

- We have this show "Fact or Fiction".

It's a paranormal variety show.

You know we have guests come on,

that kind of thing.

Well, things have kind of been a little slow

over at the station so we thought what we would do

is we'd we'd make a little excursion

there was a suggestion, via IRC,

A suggestion via IRC to-

- And also to the mail bag.

- Yeah.

- That guy, D something.

Whatever his name was.

- One thing about IRC that's really hard is that,

it really is hard to trace it because, I mean, it's not like

you know the phone number they're calling from.

I mean this could have been like Shanghai

where they were writing this message from.

You just don't know.

That's part of the beauty and part of the evil of it.

it is amazing to be so near yet so far

from the possibility of knowing who the killer is.

D something.

- We thought what we would do

is we'd we'd make a little excursion.

There was a suggestion, via IRC, to-

- And also from that mail bag.

- Yeah.

- That guy D something, whatever his name was.

- It's just not practical to keep logs to that stuff.

I get so much email, so much,

it would just clog up my system.

I erased it as we went along.

I mean, once a job

once a point got finished I killed the email, got rid of it.

It was it was like a to-do list.

I check it off, I get rid of this stuff.

So, once things weren't pertinent anymore,

I just get rid of them.

So I don't have anything of it really.

I mean there there were like a couple of emails that we had

at the very end there

But there's nothing illuminating there.

- It gets harder and harder

to

stick with your original gut feeling.

Because of the media, you know.

The attention that the whole case is getting,

how one-sided, lopsided the whole thing is.

And you start to think,

maybe, maybe he did do it.

Maybe there's a side of Jim that I don't know that,

that was capable of such an atrocity.

As this journey nears its end,

I begin to fully understand the essence

of what this is about.

The media upon which these events were recorded.

The media that should have been able to provide a truth

more pure than ever before, has somehow become the story.

This has become more than a search for the truth

behind the "Fact or Fiction" murders.

It has become an indictment of truth

and how it is viewed through the lens of the media.

Pretty exciting moment here

because the fact or fiction logo is on screen

which means one thing.

That we are now actually getting our

feed live to the cable company-

- Reality television, the news,

the 60-second clip of truth, have made even the strongest

of doubters wonder.

Are you a psychic or a psycho?

- Look man I'll see you back at camp, man.

Man, why you gotta be so-

- What did you say to him?

Wait what do you mean he's gonna

be where we were at camp?

Where the hell is the camp?

This is the whole fucking thing, where the hell is the camp?

- We can't lose him. - Well, we're losing him.

Go find him, man.

I'm not gonna go anywhere near him,

what a fucking asshole, man.

- Just cut the damn camera already.

- What is the truth?

The editing process, it's like sifting that stuff out

ultimately, I mean not necessarily with these legal videos,

but with a

documentary film, I mean ultimately it's

what the filmmaker perceives as the truth.

I mean, don't you think, that's what you're trying

to do, right?

The mistakes that were discovered on this journey

were stunning.

Shoddy police work and a judgmental video

presented the world with a person guilty

before ever being tried.

I know Jim is not guilty.

I know that the truth is still at large,

potentially closer than anyone can realize.

It is as though the real killer planned a media event

so amazingly cunning

that it could be thought of as scripted.

A kill ready for primetime, so to speak.

Perhaps the demon we call the Jersey Devil

did kill them in the Pine Barrens.

But if so, the Jersey Devil is the electronic image,

the sound,

The communication to the masses,

Somehow twisted into a surrealist electronic world.

I always asked the question last: Do you think Jim did it?

And with the exception of authorities directly accountable

to the answer,

I have felt that the answer given has been,

it doesn't matter.

The truth is what time has made of this event.

It has been good for business.

Often murder is.

So many involved benefited from this event.

The inevitable book deal is being replaced with a career

in the business of image control.

And most of the people interviewed are ready to embrace it.

- I guess a grim irony here, as these post-its can attest,

the fact that when we have some real dead bodies,

then the sharks start circling.

Strange that an incident like that would be a prelude

to a new phase in my career.

- It's interesting, after the court case was over

with all the publicity and everything surrounding it,

you know, I started getting phone calls

for a couple job leads.

I mean, you know, so in one way,

this might have helped me out of here.

How long will it take to process the entire tape?

- It's not my intention to process the whole tape.

I don't need to do that.

It could take hours, it could take days.

I need to process a particular piece of tape

that could potentially reveal a killer.

- Shelley continues to extrapolate information

from a frame

while I will reenact the events of December 15, 1995.

This is one of the stops that the guys made on the way

to the pine barrens.

I know this because

of the extensive documentary footage that they'd

taken taken of this place.

I don't know what good this will do.

I think it's just to keep myself clear on what happened.

You know the order of events.

Strangely the weather is almost identical to the way

it was that day.

I'm now traveling an access route

that I know Steven and Locus had taken

for the Jersey Devil Project.

We're in the midst of the Pine Barrens at this point.

And what I'm hoping to do is see if I can't do a recreation

of the campsite,

perhaps the murder scene.

Hopefully traversing this won't be too big of a problem.

I'm using this video camera just as a matter of convenience.

Using film out here would prove

to be logistically too difficult.

Hopefully we can get you some good footage

and really try demonstrate

the intrepid nature of Steven and Locus.

- I feel with some more work that I will find the killer.

I will see the face of the killer.

- This site is a very close approximation

of the one used by Steven and Locus on

the night of the Jersey Devil episode.

They'd chosen a clearing similar to this one as base camp

for the telecast.

When they ventured onto the Pine Barrens with their cameras,

they would never return alive again.

The documentary footage that they generated

on that evening proves irrevocably,

that Jim Suerd was not responsible for their murders.

That Locus and Rein Clackin were actually alive

at the time they were ostensibly killed.

And that the police case was shoddy at best.

What is the Jersey Devil?

It's a man wandering into the Pine Barrens never

to be seen again.

It's a mangled animal found on one of these access roads.

Or perhaps it's something that rests within our psyche

and we'll never truly understand.

I've been on this project for months now and haven't come

to a clear definition

of what actually happened or who was responsible.

All I know is that it's a mystery

and it may permanently remain so.

What is the Jersey Devil?

I'm now outside of Shelley's studio.

All the media.

All the interviews.

The truth comes down to this one frame.

I've determined that this is no time to be distracted

or set aside in the course

of the events that I've set into motion.

My next step will be going to the Pine Barrens

for a reenactment of the murders of Steven Avkast,

Locus Wheeler and Rein Clackin.

I'm as strong in my resolve as before in proving

that Jim Suerd

was not responsible for these murders.

That he had neither the intellect

nor the logical capacity to carry them through.

I think that the replayment

of our events here

will be quite compelling in the demonstration of

Suerd's innocence.

This site is a close approximation of the one chosen

by Steven Locus as the

site of their "Fact or Fiction" Jersey Devil broadcast.

They'd-

This site is a close approximation of the one chosen

by Steven and Locus as the site

of their "Fact or Fiction" Jersey Devil Broadcast.

They'd chosen a clearing similar to this one, as base camp

and ventured into the pine barrens with their cameras.

This site is a close approximation

of the one chosen by Steven

and Locus as the site of their "Fact or Fiction"

Jersey Devil Broadcast,

They'd chosen a clearing similar

to this one as a base camp.