Original subtitles

Y 'all look so good.

Yeah.

Which one are you going to get? The chocolate.

We'll have a strawberry and a chocolate, please.

There wasn't anything unusual about Steffi Bryan.

In fact, she wasn't much different than the thousands of 14 -year -old girls in

Northern California.

Thank you.

Thank you. Bye -bye.

Steffi was your daughter or your niece or your next -door neighbor's kid.

But that's what gave the story legs.

And for the last half of 1955, she was all anyone in the Bay Area could talk

about.

But why this girl above all others, you ask?

Why Stephanie Bryan?

Because on April 28, 1955,

Steffi vanished.

Nowadays, when you hear Berkeley, California, you think hippies and

But back when I was covering the Stephanie Bryant case, it was leave it

Beaverland, as far as the eye could see, right up to the front door of the

Bryant house.

The family had moved to California from Massachusetts two years before this all

happened.

He was a doctor, and she was a doctor's wife.

They were proper New Englanders, which meant order and punctuality.

The first sign that something is not right is that Stephanie, the rule

the very good daughter, she doesn't show up at home on time.

Stephanie's mom knows that she gets out of school at 3 .15.

Children, have either of you seen Stephanie?

So when she didn't come home by 4,

Mom thought immediately, this is not right.

Hi, good afternoon. This is Mary Bryan.

Yes, I'm calling to inquire about my daughter Stephanie.

I'm just wondering if she's left school yet.

Hi, Janice. Hi.

Yes, this is Mary Bryan.

Yes, she's not home yet. I'm a little concerned.

Yes, Meredith. Hi, this is Mary Bryan calling. I'm calling to see if Stephanie

came home with your daughter today.

One friend was this girl, Marianne Stewart, and in fact, Marianne had been

Stephanie after school.

Marianne Stewart was able to say, we went to the library, she checked out

books, and then we went to the donut shop.

And from there, we started to walk home.

But they went separate ways once they got to that wooded path.

So she's getting more and more anxious.

Doctor and Mrs. Bryan, my name is Detective Hutchins. This is my partner.

We understand that your daughter went missing this afternoon.

At 5 .30 that afternoon, the father comes home, and he calls the police.

What was Stephanie wearing the last time she was seen?

She was wearing a blue cardigan, a turquoise skirt.

She was carrying a red purse and saddle shoes.

Is there a photo of her or something that I could take a look at?

Stephanie was 14.

She was the oldest of five.

She was very focused, very quiet, very studious.

Now, the first thing that cops tell worried parents is don't worry.

Little Bobby or Sally is going to come walking through that door any minute.

Brian, is there a telephone that I could use?

Certainly. Right this way.

But there was something about this one.

Maybe it was Steffi's good girl status.

Maybe it was just the look in Mrs. Bryan's eyes.

It was different back then.

Us guys on the crime beat had to hold down the bench at the precinct for hours

just waiting for a headline to roll in.

Burglary PD.

APB, all cars, Stephanie Bryan.

At 9 p .m., they put out an APB. Brown eyes, brown hair.

And at that point, the media becomes aware of what's going on. Last seen, the

tennis club of the Claremont Hotel.

The news media loves nothing more than a story about a young girl in distress.

Saddle shoes, 5 '2".

Back in 1955, there were four major newspapers in the Bay Area. And, of

they were all competing with one another for the scoop on the case.

With a missing persons case, they need the media.

Because they needed to get it out there right away.

And the tips started coming in.

Sheriff's Department, where did you say you saw this happen?

A Navy lieutenant said he saw a man driving very erratically.

And in the back, he sees this young girl, and he saw the man turn around and

her. White male, brown hair.

But it's a very general description of the car. No license plate, nothing to

really point them towards any individual.

The police take into consideration that the Bryans have a decent amount of

money. You know, he's a well -off doctor.

So their first thought is ransom.

They wiretap the home and await the

call.

32 hours after Stephanie goes missing, a phone call does in fact come in. And

the person on the other end says that he wants $5 ,000

for the safe return of Stephanie.

Yes.

Yes. The caller said, I want you to drop the money in West Oakland. No cops.

Okay. I'll be there.

So, Dr. Brian makes a beeline for the spot, cash in hand.

Now everyone, I mean everyone, knows you don't try and handle things yourself,

no matter what the guy on the phone says.

Are you her father?

Don't move.

So Steffi Bryant's parents had gotten a ransom call and hightailed it to the

rendezvous with the money and the cops.

What's your name, son?

What's the matter?

What's your name?

My name's L .C. What were you doing out here?

I don't know.

You don't know? What were you asking that man?

The police have this guy.

He's an 18 -year -old. His name is L .C. Elliott.

And what Elliott tells them is that he's been paid by a white man to get the

ransom money.

And he asked you to ask him?

Yes. How much money? I don't know.

But when the cops searched the area, they came up with nothing.

The whole thing smelled wrong.

Eventually, he just breaks down and says, I don't know anything about

kidnapping, but I read about it, and I thought I could make some money.

I swear, if I had a dime for every scale who tried to work an angle on the cops,

I'd be a rich man.

He was just a bloodsucker that just came out of the woodwork to try and extort

the family.

Four days after Stephanie disappears, a man driving down the road pulls over to

go to the bathroom, and he sees a book.

It's actually Stephanie Bryan's French book.

The book is found on Franklin Canyon Road, which is an hour from where she

disappeared.

This crime scene now has extended well beyond the Bay Area, and it could have

even gone into another state.

And remember, back then there were no computers, no Internet.

The database for these guys was called a filing cabinet.

A search engine? It had four wheels and a V8.

They want to find Stephanie in the absolute worst way. They're doing

they can to generate leads.

Too much time had passed without a real ransom call.

We all knew what that meant.

The motive wasn't money.

It was something worse.

Ah, Thomas.

Peeping Thomas. We meet again.

Look familiar?

14 -year -old little girl. I don't know who she is. I'm getting so tired of

seeing people like you.

Well, back in 1955, they didn't know anything about profiling or criminal

investigative analysis.

There's not a lot more to go on than contacting people that may have had

propensity to do this kind of thing.

They hauled in every creep in the fire.

Flashers and mashers, pervs and jerkers.

Like we bought a ticket to the loser parade.

What happened to her?

I've never seen her before, and I know nothing about this girl.

That came to a dead end as well.

Stephanie's disappearance has been headline news for two and a half months.

The case is essentially cold. It's at a standstill.

Now here's the thing you have to know about working the crime beat.

Just when you think your story is petered out, your next headline can hit.

And it can come from anywhere.

And I mean anywhere.

In a house in Alameda, Georgia Abbott, a 33 -year -old cosmetologist,

goes down into her basement.

And he discovers a red leather purse.

And it's not hers.

The Stephanie Bryan disappearance had been front page news for almost three

months. But the police had nothing.

And then, out of nowhere, they get the mother of all briefs.

In the craziest of places.

Uh,

Mrs. Abbott.

What brought you down here? Please call me Georgia.

Georgia.

The detectives go in, and they try to get the story behind how these items

have ended up in their basement.

Can you tell me why you were in the basement this evening?

Well, I was going down to look for a hat.

For a costume.

Costume? Do you go down there often?

Not often. I'm the head of the Cosmetology Society, and every year we

sort of gala event thing.

Um, Otto, do you remember what the theme was last year for the gala?

Um, I believe it was, um, Old West, Western.

Um, this year it's 1920s themed and I needed a flapper hat.

And do you and your husband have any other areas of storage, move the attic?

Otto's not my husband.

We're not married.

No, uh, Burton's my husband.

Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

Not at all.

Burton Abbott is 27.

He is an accounting student at UC Berkeley.

How long have you been married?

About seven years.

And how long have you been living in the neighborhood?

About five years.

Can you walk me through what happened tonight?

Yeah.

Well...

I was cooking, we were just getting ready for dinner, and my wife, she came

upstairs holding a red purse.

She opened it up, she showed it to us, and inside was an ID card of Stephanie

Bryant.

We recognized the name from the papers.

Did you touch it?

Yes.

I think we all touched the purse.

Myself, Otto, Georgia, my mother.

Your mother?

Yes, my mother, Elsie.

Is she here? I didn't get a chance to speak to her. I know she was here, but

left.

She doesn't really like people intruding in on the house.

And other than you and your husband, has anybody had any access to the basement?

My mother -in -law and, you know, we used it as a polling station for the

election a few months ago.

A polling station?

Yes.

So a lot of the public was down there, and someone could have put it down

Well, that could have been hundreds of people for the cops to check out, and

they would if they were forced to.

But right then, those detectives were more interested in the three people in

that house.

What is your relationship with Burton and Georgia Abbott?

Family friend, neighbor.

Georgia actually works at my wife's beauty salon.

Otto Desmond was married.

to Leona Desmond, who owned the beauty parlor where Georgia worked.

And he was an ex -Marine, kind of did a little bit of construction work.

Where were you April 28th?

Do you remember?

Yeah, I was working on a construction job, and I had to run some errands that

day.

I was probably at the beauty parlor because I work every Thursday.

The 28th of April.

The 28th, yeah.

I was headed up to the family cabin for a fishing trip. And where is that?

It's up in Weaverville in Trinity County.

About how long did it take you to get out there?

Well, it was long enough. I mean, it's about 300 miles from here to

So it took a good chunk of the day.

I did stop off for a meal at the Chuckwagon.

And I also stopped off at the Wildwood Inn to get a couple of drinks.

A ride to the cabin?

Mm -hmm.

Burton says that he had gone to a family cabin about six hours away.

Think about it.

The missing girl's purse was found in some weird guy's basement, and he

his solo trip up to his secluded cabin in the woods?

You bet the cops were going to check it out.

They look around the cabin.

There are no signs of Stephanie.

They go to the chuck wagon, and they talk to a waitress. The investigators

presented her with some photographs of him, and she said, oh, yeah, yeah, I

recognize him. You know, I distinctly remember having a conversation with that

guy, and she described kind of what he was wearing, which matched up with what

he said he was wearing on that Thursday evening.

That meant Abbott was at least six hours north of Berkeley when Steffi was

snatched, so that was a no -go.

So, they come back home to the Bay Area.

The cops go back to the Abbott house.

and they turned it inside out.

Mother,

I'd like you downstairs now.

Burton's car really matched fairly closely the description of people that

called in with leads.

A very renowned criminalist, a professor at the University of California named

Paul Kirk, comes and goes over the car with a fine -tooth comb.

Can I get you anything to drink?

Coffee? Tea?

Thank you.

You could tell these people to leave is what you could do. Mother.

I'm heading down to the basement.

And they go down into the basement.

It's half dirt, half pavement.

And they decide to start digging.

Now, we really put a big distance between investigators and the media. But

was no distance here back in 1955.

They were almost elbow to elbow on this investigation.

They find the library book she checked out, the parakeet book.

Her glasses.

That means to them that something horrible happened to Stephanie.

Stephanie Bryan's belongings were found in the basement of a house in Berkeley.

It wasn't a smoking gun, but it might as well have been as far as John Q. Public

was concerned.

For us in the dailies, the smart money was on the man of the house, a guy named

Burton Abbott.

What's it been like seeing your picture in the paper?

Unpleasant, in a word.

To be honest, I don't think that anybody likes being thrown into the limelight,

especially in this fashion.

Burton, did you do it?

As I've told the police and the FBI many times, I did not, no.

At this point, Burton Abbott says, hey, I'm... Completely innocent.

I'm being framed.

I didn't put those items there. I've already told you that other people had

access to my basement.

What would you say to Stephanie Bryan's family?

I'm mourning with them, as are my family. I'm a father myself, and I can't

imagine the horror they must be going through. And we're all praying that

reunited with her family very soon.

If I could be frank, me and my family, we're kind of ready for this media

frenzy, if you will call it, to be over. We're ready to go back to our daily

lives. And so I've agreed to take a polygraph test for the police and do

anything that we can to speed this process along because, frankly, I think

ready to just go back to our private lives.

Thank you, gentlemen. That'll be all.

Is your name Burton Wilbur Abbott?

Yes.

Do you live at 1408 San Jose Avenue?

Yes.

Are you married to Georgia Abbott?

Yes. The polygraph is administered by a Berkeley detective called

Al Riddell.

He was thought of as one of the top polygraph examiners in the country.

What did you do on April 28, 1955?

I went to my wife's parlor, said hello to her about 10 a .m., and then I drove

up to Weaverville, Trinity County.

On my way, I stopped for gas.

They asked, do you have a receipt for the gas? And he says, no, I don't have a

receipt. I paid cash.

My wife says I used the credit card too much, so I can't verify that.

I stopped at Chuck Wagon to have an early dinner.

That's where the waitress had seen him.

I stopped at the Wildwood Inn to have a drink. I said hello to the owner.

Then I got to the cabin and I went to bed.

He tells investigators that he spent the night at the cabin.

Tell us your route home.

I took the zigzaggiest route you ever did see.

Route 36 to 999 East.

Highway 40 over the Carquinez Bridge.

Then I took a shortcut along Franklin and Canyon Road.

Stephanie Bryan's French book was found on Franklin Canyon Road Do you know

Stephanie Bryan?

No Did you abduct Stephanie Bryan?

No Did you kill Stephanie Bryan?

No

I don't see any fluctuation.

The results are inconclusive.

Nothing shows that Burton's lying.

The polygraph didn't pan out like they were hoping it would, and that left them

with two options they didn't like.

A, Burton was their guy but had somehow beaten the test.

B, Burton wasn't their guy, and they were back to square one.

Sir.

Then... They get an anonymous note.

The note says, it's not Burton.

Who you really need to look at are Georgia and Otto.

I'm here to tell you the truth is stranger than fiction.

The idea of that pair framing Burton for murder wasn't so crazy.

So the detectives went to talk to the person who had avoided them from the

beginning.

The one who might know all there was to know about Georgia, Otto, and Burton.

Any information that you can provide.

for us that we'd really uh perhaps you should ask her georgia yes and maybe

georgia and otto yes perhaps why do you bring up their names

well they do seem awfully close elsie said

georgia jumps from man to man she's unfaithful to my son again remember that

what burton is saying is that Somebody is framing me, and the implication is

that Otto could be one of those people.

Investigators recall that they thought Georgia and Otto seemed a little cozy.

And so, you know, spinning that theory out, they have to be open to the

possibility. Thanks again. Did Otto frame Burton so that he could have

Otto's neighbor came forward and she said she had heard screaming from his

garage the day that Stephanie went missing.

Not only that, she said she had a hoe and she had a shovel that were missing

from her garage.

Sit him down.

What's your relationship with Georgia Abbott?

You've been sleeping with her.

No. I don't know what you're talking about.

Otto denied the affair and the rumors from his neighbor.

But what do you think a guy's going to say when he's put in a spot like that?

Where were you April 28th when Stephanie Bryant disappeared?

That day, Otto's wife was working at the beauty parlor.

I see that.

He went into the beauty parlor and there was a woman there that had a parking

ticket.

And he volunteers to take her parking ticket to the parking bureau and pay it.

They checks out.

That puts him in Alameda when Stephanie disappears.

So he basically has an ironclad alibi.

Were Georgia and Otto having an affair?

Who knows? That line of questioning stopped right there.

And that's when one of us, a reporter, I mean, a real hard case named Ed

Montgomery, played a hunch.

Between the car, Franklin Canyon Road, Stephanie's stuff in the basement, and

Abbott's timely trip north, Montgomery decided there had to be answers up at

that cabin.

There was no way in his mind that there wasn't something up there that the cops

missed.

Montgomery and a photographer went down to Burton Abbott's cabin site and looked

around.

They looked and they looked and the day was ending.

So Montgomery, being the smart, resourceful reporter that he was,

went and found some bloodhounds.

The dogs hit.

at a location that's way up on a steep hill.

But as they get closer, they see a little saddle shoe sticking out of the

A cabin in the woods, an intrepid reporter, and a pack of bloodhounds.

Three hours later, we were staring at a body, and the cops were swarming.

They find Stephanie's body within 330 -some feet to the cabin where

Burton says he was that Thursday.

They're able to tell from insect larva that she was killed shortly after her

abduction. There had been some very severe blunt force trauma to her head.

They saw that her underpants had been around her throat.

I have to admit, even for veteran reporters, the details were nightmarish.

So they arrest him.

But he's still pretty cool and he's calm and he's collected.

Now the prosecutor knows that he's under a time crunch.

It sounds from the outset like he had a good case, but when you go to court,

that evidence has to rise to a certain level, or a jury of people would say,

this is more than circumstantial.

So he knows he's going to need forensic evidence, because if he doesn't,

Burton's going to walk.

November 7th, 1955.

The trial started, and it was going to be huge.

Hacks from all over the country showed up.

And just when we thought the circus couldn't get any bigger, the main

arrived to take center ring.

And let me tell you, he was a showstopper. Burton Abbott has no

consistent with the fact that he's facing the charge of homicide with the

possibility of a death sentence. He's completely detached from that. In court,

he's glib and charming. He was laughing and joking to the media, to the defense,

to anybody there.

the DA was unimpressed with Abbott's shenanigans and went right after him and

his alibi.

Ferdinand Abbott said on Thursday, the day of Stephanie's disappearance, he

for Trinity County sometime shortly after 10 o 'clock in the morning. So he

couldn't have abducted Stephanie.

And the waitress at the chuck wagon had said she'd seen him Thursday night.

But the bartender at the Wildwood Inn remembered it differently.

Was it Thursday or Friday?

Friday.

The bartender said he wasn't here on Thursday night. They verified that he

there the following day, but they said, no, he wasn't here on Thursday night.

Tough day for Abbott, ain't it, fellas?

Not so cocky anymore, is he? You got that right.

It was a good opening move for the DA. Show Abbott's a liar about one thing,

chances are he's a liar about everything.

It's effective, but it's not foolproof. And that's where the prosecution's e

-witness came in.

So finally the prosecution brings out their secret weapon.

Forensic expert Paul Kirk.

You gotta remember, this was before Perry Mason and the defenders and shows

made us all feel that we knew our way around the inside of a courtroom.

Most of us had never seen anyone like Paul Kirk.

Paul Kirk was a nationally renowned criminologist.

He was a professor at University of California, Berkeley.

He had developed several techniques in the area of forensic evidence.

Professor Kirk, can you tell us the significance of the fiber

that you found in Burton Abbott's car?

I can not only tell you, I can show you.

I've brought along some samples.

Paul says that he was able to recover fibers from Burton's car,

that ultimately he was able to match to the fibers in Stephanie's sweater.

He also said he found hairs that matched the hairs of Stephanie.

What was the significance of the dirt that you found on his boots?

What we were able to do, what we were able to look at in a laboratory, is the

difference between, say, the dirt found on the lawn outside this courthouse and

a lawn found a few miles away in someone's backyard.

Paul was able to say that the dirt on Burton's boots matched the

dirt nine inches down into Stephanie's grave.

The evidence don't lie, boys. The evidence don't lie.

And once the DA had stacked up his case brick by brick, he did what DAs do best.

He told the jury a story.

On April 28, 1955,

Stephanie Bryant was walking home from school.

He grabbed her and

hit her so he could get control of her.

He then put her in his car.

He had an instrument that he used to inflict the blunt force trauma.

And then once he was finished with her, he then put her in the trunk of his car

and then drove up to Trinity.

And

buries her

300 feet from his cabin.

And then on his way home, Abbott discards a French book.

And then arriving home, you know, he's got some of her other possessions and he

buries a couple of them underneath his house.

Six days of deliberations and no verdict.

We all knew what that meant.

Those 12 jurors couldn't agree.

And every hour that passed, it got more likely that Abbott would walk.

Then finally, on the seventh day, we got word that the jury was back.

We, the jury, find the defendant, Burton W. Abbott, guilty of felony violation

of Section 209 of the Penal Code.

The jury comes back, and they find him guilty, and he is sentenced to death.

The verdict sent shockwaves through Berkeley and beyond.

A death sentence was justice in the eyes of the law.

But it was cold comfort to the Bryans, who would never be made

whole again.

I can understand her parents wanting, at the very least, a reason.

Why do it?

Why kill our girl?

But Burton would never give it to them.

Because he never even acknowledged that he did it.

Why don't you come out and admit your guilt and throw yourself on the mercy of

the governor?

Not really, anyway.

I can't admit it.

Think of what it would do to my mother.

But get this.

Eventually it came out in the papers that Elsie had made herself so scarce

because she had been keeping a secret of her own.

She, in fact, had found that purse down in the basement two months earlier,

before the local election.

And she was silent as a mouse about that.

I guess there's just no limit to the love between a boy and his mother.

A pretty girl is like

a melody.

It's been a lot of years and I've covered a lot of stories.

It's easy to get hardened about things, but not about Steffi Bryan.

I don't know if it was that I was young and idealistic, or that this town was,

or just that Steffi Bryan.

A beautiful 14 -year -old girl was destroyed by a monster.

But I suppose it's not important why we remember Steffi Bryan, just that we do.

A pretty girl is just like a pretty...