Original subtitles

[Wayne] People get kidnapped.

People get taken against their will.

That is not that uncommon,

but for it to happen to a couple

like the Van Oostens,

who have never wronged anyone is a terrible feeling.

How does something like this happen, especially in our little town?

You could see footage of two people on a mattress

in a room that had no windows or doors.

-[FEDS speaking] -[suspect speaking]

When they said, "Do you know anybody you can think of that would do this?"

[suspect speaking]

Never would have thought.

There was definitely an understanding that kidnappings don't end well.

[police siren wailing]

[Wayne] The level of depravity they're subjected to,

it's unlike anything I've ever seen,

and I hope I never seen anything like it again.

I'm Special Agent Wayne Jackowski.

I'm Special Agent Andy Kehren.

[intense music playing]

[narrator] This is FEDS.

[police siren wailing]

[dramatic music playing]

[Amy] I grew up on a farm outside of Erie.

It's very quiet, peaceful.

My brother and I were able to

run and do what kids do

when there's a wide open space.

Erie is a small rural town in central Illinois,

about two hours west of Chicago.

Farms just about everywhere that you look.

Everybody knows everybody.

It really is a great place to live.

My parents own their own businesses for many years.

My mom, Connie, had a flooring store.

My dad, Larry, owned his own pest control business.

They were very respected in the community.

Both businesses really thrived.

When I got pregnant with my daughter,

I took over the flooring store.

My brother, Jeff wasn't really interested

in taking over the pest control business

because he had a heart for farming.

So, my dad sold his business.

We didn't know how much he sold the business for,

but it was enough to have investments

to live on and retire.

They were able to do a little bit of traveling

and get very active in their church,

teaching Sunday school,

helping out with different community groups.

When my brother Jeff and I started having our own kids,

they really stepped into action,

helped whenever they could.

They were always there,

just giving us whatever we needed.

We were blessed to have such great parents.

[Amy] The day that it happened,

I was between my house and the school

to pick up my daughter.

My brother called

and he was telling me,

"Mom and dad were abducted."

And I thought that somebody is pranking you

or that's not funny.

It's not a funny joke.

But he kept telling me, "No, they told me that..."

We have a friend who is in the local police department

that called my brother and he said,

"They've got your mom on camera

and we think that she has been kidnapped."

It was complete disbelief.

I could barely breathe.

There was a lot of chaos in my head

of how could this be?

I had to get off the phone with my brother

because the police was calling me,

asking me to meet them.

[police siren wailing]

I'm Sheriff John Booker,

but at the time, I was service lieutenant

for the Whiteside County Sheriff's Office.

When we got the phone call of a possible kidnaping

at the bank, I thought,

"There's no way a kidnaping happened

in the Whiteside County."

We don't have crimes like that that happen.

That's in the bigger areas.

But the bank has video that runs the whole time,

so when we arrived, we were able to find out

that Connie Van Oosten had came into the bank

and asked the teller

for a large amount of money, $350,000.

But then she gave a note to the teller

saying her and her husband were held at gunpoint

against their will and they needed help.

She had a church bulletin in her purse

and that's what she wrote the note on.

I can't even imagine being under that sort of duress

and even having the frame of mind

to think of doing something like that.

[John] The bank personnel tried to talk Connie

into staying at the bank.

But Connie told the bank people if she didn't leave,

that she was afraid her husband would be killed.

The bank agreed to write the check

and give that to Connie because they didn't want

anything to happen to her or her husband.

You can see Connie leave the bank,

walk down the sidewalk.

The bank personnel started making phone calls

to the police authorities

to try and get some help.

Through the video, we were able to see

the car parked down the road,

Connie gets inside the vehicle before it takes off.

We can't see license plate.

We have no idea where this vehicle traveled to.

[Amy] There was a little bit of relief

knowing that she was still alive

at that moment, fear, obviously,

that we didn't know where my dad was.

Were they separated?

Was he even still with us?

[intense music playing]

[John] You always wanna check out the residence

of the victims of crimes

to see what might have been going on at their house.

When our deputies arrived at the Van Oostens' house,

their son, Jeff, was already on scene at that residence.

Jeff said he's been away for a few days,

so he hasn't talked to his parents in a little while.

The deputies conducted a search of the residence.

They were able to find a window in the basement

that appeared to be broke from the outside in.

They were also able to find confetti

that would come out of a taser.

When tasers deployed,

it shoots out little pieces of paper

and that was around the area as well.

As they looked around, they were able to find

a few spots where drops of blood

had fell on to the carpet.

We are realizing we have a full-blown kidnaping case.

So, we reached out to our federal agency,

the FBI out of Rockford.

My name is Wayne Jackowski.

I'm an FBI Special Agent.

I work at the Rockford Resident Agency,

a smaller satellite office of Chicago.

One of our main roles is to support

the local agencies within a 10-county area.

Most of which is rural,

smaller law enforcement departments

who have limited resources,

when things happen that maybe are not something

that they can handle on their own.

As I remember it that day, I was in the office

the majority of the day.

Ended up arriving at home

and sat down to have dinner with my wife,

and then a call came.

The call is coming from the FBI office in Chicago,

which doesn't give you a good feeling

because you know something bad

has probably happened or is happening

and you're gonna need to deal with it.

When I answered the call,

I was told that the Whiteside County Sheriff's Department

was looking into a matter involving two people

who were believed to be missing

and that they might need assistance.

Once the information is shared,

that Connie Van Oosten had gone into the bank,

that made everything very clear

and very real, very quickly.

With my experience, when someone is kidnaped,

and there is a purpose,

once that purpose is fulfilled,

something bad happens to the people who have been kidnaped.

And knowing that Mrs. Van Oosten

went into the bank and got the money,

to me right away, struck a nerve

because the kidnaper got what they were after,

so time is not on our side.

[John] Talked with the FBI.

No one was convinced we were gonna find

the Van Oostens alive.

[Wayne] So it drives the urgency level way up.

It is incredibly stressful.

I remember getting a knot in my stomach at that point,

thinking, we have to figure this out.

[dramatic music playing]

Whiteside County don't have a lot of resources to draw from,

so we quickly determined that we would need

to bring in as many other agents as we could.

My name is Andy Kehren.

I'm a Special Agent with the FBI.

Not all agents are gonna tell you

that they wanted to be an agent

when they were a kid,

but I was recruited in the FBI by Tom Clancy.

I read... I read these Tom Clancy novels.

I wanted to be in the FBI or the CIA.

I wanted to catch terrorists and bank robbers,

and it was gonna be awesome.

And it just happened to be that my dream came true.

At the time of the case, I was the newest agent

at the FBI in the Rockford office.

I had the worst vehicle that our office had.

I was driving a minivan.

I didn't mind because I was an agent

and I was excited about it.

This was my first kidnaping case,

so I have a million questions

racing through my mind as I'm driving there.

But with all the experience in the office,

those guys had worked kidnappings

and there was definitely an understanding that

they might already be killed. You know what I mean?

Like it might already... It might be too late,

you know, even right now.

It might not be, but it might be.

In fact, it probably is.

And so, we're just trying to get to the bottom of it

as fast as we can,

because if there's any chance,

we only get it if we're fast.

Got to the sheriff's department.

Walking in to the investigations area,

I would describe it best as a little chaotic.

I heard that the FBI had come in,

clinging on to a little bit of hope there,

that if we have the FBI covering this,

that we've got to find something.

[Wayne] As well as the other agents,

people kept coming through the door.

Most were very small town departments,

but they're sending resources from everywhere

to try to pitch in and help.

For all of us to get on the same page quickly

was extremely important.

At that point, generally, the FBI form a command post,

central base of operations were any information

about that case is shared.

There will be whiteboards that will show

what cars are of interest,

persons are of interest.

Early on, everybody is a suspect, I... I'll just put it that way.

You don't know exactly who you're dealing with.

Not that many people would likely know

that they have that kind of money available,

so there are important people who need to be interviewed,

such as their children.

The FBI explained that

we're gonna have to do a tough thing

and interview the Van Oostens' daughter, Amy,

son, Jeff,

and ask them questions

that they're probably not gonna like.

[intense music playing]

The interviews were tough to go through,

but it had to be done.

More interrogation was done to Jeff than Amy,

because of Jeff was away for a few days

and, he was at the house before the deputies.

Knowing that Mrs. Van Oosten

went into the bank and obtained $350,000,

money seemed to be the motivation.

[John] Our detectives were asking Jeff

tough financial questions,

"Did you borrow money from your parents?

Were you into financial trouble?"

At that time, I was like, whatever you have to ask me,

ask me and I will tell you

as truthfully as I can what is going on.

They asked me some questions about how I had just flown in

from Washington getting back from a business trip,

and how when I got the call,

my initial reaction was to

get up right away and come here to the house.

They asked me some questions about my finances and how I...

You know, how I was financially,

and got down to...

Well, basically,

if I wanted money from my parents,

I would ask them and they would give it to me, so...

The investigators that conducted the interviews

did not believe Amy or Jeff had any involvement

in Larry and Connie's disappearance.

[Jeff] That's kinda when everything ended,

as far as the questioning.

The thought of me

ever doing something like that to my parents would just...

It makes you sick to your stomach.

But you've got to think about the bigger picture here

and if they have to ask a question,

they're doing their job, whatever.

Let's just keep moving.

[police siren wailing]

[Wayne] It's getting frustrating.

You're hoping the light bulb's gonna go on

and somebody is gonna be a clear cut suspect,

and that didn't happen.

But it's a constant process.

What's the next lead that needs to be handled?

Based on video surveillance outside of the bank,

we're able to determine that the vehicle

that Mrs. Van Oosten was driven away in,

it's an older, like early 1990s Chevy Caprice,

and that's a rarer vehicle.

There aren't a lot of those left on the road,

especially in small town America.

But when we put the vehicle in our computer system,

nothing showed up.

[Wayne] So for a case like this,

if people who are missing and in danger,

the FBI has the ability to set up a tip line.

So, any person that believes they may have information,

can call the number 1-800-CALL-FBI

and it goes in to our national call center in West Virginia.

So, the video, it was distributed to the media

and information started coming in the command post

through the FBI tip line from anyone who thought

they saw a similar vehicle.

I didn't like sitting in the command post.

I didn't like it.

I felt like I was sitting on my hands.

But then we got this lead.

Somebody says that they saw the vehicle

in one of the bigger towns in this area, Geneseo.

I finally got the chance to chase down this lead.

I took it and I was excited to get out of the command post,

and I didn't intend to go back unless I was told to.

[laughs]

[Andy] Geneseo, which is a small Midwest town

with a handful of gas stations

and a grocery store.

We went there, we did the interview.

The person told us the car was heading northbound,

and so I just started heading down that road

and there was a hospital right by the road, I was like, "Oh, perfect."

The hospital might have security footage,

but we didn't see the car.

There was pressure.

There was pressure on us to perform.

[Wayne] In the back of your mind,

you know the clock is not your friend.

But as an FBI agent, we don't give up,

especially not for something like this.

Early on, we're trying to process

a lot of information very quickly.

You have to sit back down in the command post

with the people you've been working it with

and see if we missed something,

because it is easy to do.

We started to go back over what we currently knew

and what the details were surrounding those things,

which included Mrs. Van Oosten's visit into the bank.

We started to reexamine that trip back inside the bank

in a greater detail.

Mrs. Van Oosten went inside the bank,

approached the teller counter and asked for a $350,000.

But then the question was asked,

what form of money did she get it?

Was it a wire transfer?

Was it a check? What was it?

And we're told it was specifically a cashier's check.

The bells go off at that point.

My question was immediately asked,

well, who was the check made out to?

Because somebody needs to cash it at some point,

because if they can't, all of this is for nothing.

We asked the bank to provide a copy of the check.

Could we see it?

At which point somebody produced a copy of it,

which was very exciting

because the check was made out

to an actual company,

The Store Edge, LLC.

So the knot in my stomach was turning into more

like a jittery excitement

because this is the first thing

that we really feel is a good, solid lead

that we can run down.

[phone ringing]

So as we were looking into the individuals

associated with The Store Edge, LLC,

we're also looking into their background,

things that are related to them, any vehicles.

At that point, we noticed

that there was a older model Chevy Caprice

that could match the description

of the one at the bank,

registered to one of the individuals

tied into the Store Edge, LLC.

That individual's name... was Chad Schipper.

That was a totally new name to us,

but one that we had to run down very quickly.

Can we bring a connection

between he and the Van Oostens?

[John] We reached out to the family

trying to get some information

about Chad Schipper.

[Jeff] When you grow up in a small town,

you know who everybody is,

but it's not him,

you know, it couldn't be possibly be him.

Never.

Never.

I've known him...

since we were in Sunday school together,

you know, little five, six, seven-years-old, probably.

Growing up, he was always a year ahead of me in school,

from elementary to high school.

We didn't run in the same crowd,

but if I saw him, I'd say hi to him

and maybe talk to him a little bit.

He was valedictorian of his class.

Growing up, I don't want to admit that I looked up to him, but I'm like, "Man,

that guy is living the life."

He's intelligent and smart.

You look at somebody like that

and you're like, "Well, you know,

there's somebody that's got their act together."

[Amy] Families went to the same church,

we were in the same youth groups.

He could whip out those Bible verses

in Sunday school like nobody else, you know,

just would have never expected anybody from the community

ever, let alone somebody that we went to church with.

Never.

[Wayne] The next step was, where does Mr. Schipper live?

Where does he work?

Does he have a financial background?

And more importantly,

where could he possibly have the Van Oostens,

if he has them?

[Jeff] Several years prior to this,

I remember having a conversation with my dad.

At that time, dad was an elder at the church

and Chad was an elder at the church.

And Chad was starting out as a financial advisor.

I remember dad, he's like,

"Well, I'll give him a shot because, you know,

we go to the same church."

You should be able to trust somebody like that.

But dad looked at Chad's proposal

and he's like, "This is not a benefit

for me and my finances."

[Amy] They had mentioned that

they had met with him those year...

Two years prior,

so he knew about the money and the investments.

Complete, just, shock.

So as we continue to look into Mr. Schipper,

we determined he would likely know

that they have that kind of money available.

And we determined he had several properties

that he was associated with.

At least two residences were in Geneseo, Illinois.

[Andy] I got a call from the command post saying,

"We think we might have figured out

who the subject is.

We're all heading to some little small town

called Geneseo."

And I was like, perfect, we're already there.

We went to one of the addresses

that was tied to the subject.

It was a big house.

It had, you know, at least a four-car garage.

We're moving around this house.

We were trying to stick to the shadows

of the trees and things like that.

We're trying to find probable cause.

Anything in the premises that suggests

that there's kidnapped people.

But as we looked around the property,

there was no reason to think that they were there.

We'd all had loved to just gone into the house,

but we can't just enter people's residence

unless we have probable cause to go in.

[Andy] Once we figured out we didn't have any

probable cause to think that the victims

are at that address,

at that point, it was a game of surveillance,

where you're gonna, sit and watch,

and wait for anything that would add

to our probable cause.

It was a lull.

There was nothing going on.

Surveillance is boring anyway

and it's especially boring in rural Illinois.

It was frustrating because we knew

that the Van Oostens were good people...

but everyone kinda knows,

like, these rarely have happy endings.

We're just sitting here hoping for something,

some type of probable cause

and we're probably not gonna get it

because it's 1:00 in the morning

in rural Illinois.

[John] It was getting late in the night.

We had all worked all day,

but none of us were ready to quit.

We had deputies at Van Oostens' house,

in case anyone would come back to that residence.

One of our deputies radioed.

[deputy speaking]

[woman speaking]

[deputy speaking]

[woman speaking]

[Wayne] We hear across the radio something

to the effect of, "I saw the car,

this Chevy Caprice,"

which has been a car of interest from earlier on.

That vehicle had been spotted.

[John] The deputy was able to get behind it,

and then attempted to make a traffic stop on it.

[intense music playing]

[deputy speaking]

[woman speaking]

[Wayne] We're listening to the radio traffic.

[deputy speaking]

[Wayne] I'm in a car chase.

I'm chasing the car, now I tried to stop it

and it sped away.

[police siren wailing]

[deputy speaking]

All of a sudden, you get that spark and it's back.

This is the actual car that she was in.

That's good. That's a good lead.

[deputy speaking]

It sounds like, hey, maybe they're onto something now.

Maybe it's Mr. Schipper and he's running,

and there's a reason why he's running.

[deputy speaking]

We had a good lead and there's reason to think

that it will lead to the Van Oostens.

[deputy speaking]

[woman speaking]

We're holding the radio trying to will the officer

to catch him,

"Come on."

[deputy speaking]

[Wayne] Things are happening very quickly.

Every second that you're waiting

for what's gonna happen next...

it's extremely exciting

and incredibly painful at the same time.

[deputy speaking]

[woman speaking]

All of us were hoping that the car chase would end

peacefully, slowly, and that he would just pull over.

And that the Van Oostens would be alive and well

maybe in the back unharmed.

[deputy speaking]

But that's not what happened.

[police siren wailing]

[deputy speaking]

[police siren wailing]

Chad Schipper was the driver of the vehicle.

The deputies ordered him out at gunpoint,

got him on the ground, cuffed him.

[deputy speaking]

[John] The other driver was okay,

only minor injuries, and was able to walk away.

We're all on pins and needles and just waiting

for the next voice to come across the radio to tell us

anything that would help ease our concerns.

Are they with him?

Are they alive?

[deputy] Whiteside 324, can you advise how many injuries?

There was no one else in the vehicle,

but we discovered a shovel,

plastic sheeting, duct tape,

a saw, which all to us indicated he was going

to put someone in this plastic sheeting

and bury them.

They advised Chad with his Miranda warnings

before they started asking questions.

The next bit of radio traffic was Mr. Schipper

is now acknowledging he knows who the Van Oostens are

and he is saying, "I have them"

and provides an actual specific residence address,

which is one we were already aware of.

The address that we were doing surveillance at

was the address that was chirped in over the radio.

Probable cause is established.

We're going into the house.

[intense music playing]

[Andy] Everybody's moving towards the door.

There was breaching equipment available,

but I kicked the door in and it went in,

and so we didn't even need it.

[slams on door]

[Wayne] There's a ladder pretty much right

in the middle of our way,

which doesn't really make sense,

doesn't really seem to serve a purpose.

We pair off and started going room by room.

It's a methodical search, but quickly at the same time.

[Andy] The house was the typical house

you would see that was under construction.

There was saw dust kinda all over.

There was tools all over.

And we go room by room, we're not finding anything.

[Andy] We cleared the upstairs a couple times...

so we went down to the basement.

There was a couple rooms, we cleared those.

[Wayne] We go through the entire house,

we do not find any threat

and more importantly did not find

the Van Oostens

which was extremely disappointing.

Everyone's like, well, they must not be

at this house.

[Wayne] We get done clearing the house,

but then we find something that is extremely odd.

On the floor in one of the rooms was a TV monitor.

We didn't study it at first because we're trying

to clear the house, but looking at it closer,

the TV monitor showed, appeared to be some type

of a surveillance video feed.

[Andy] You could see footage of two people...

on a mattress...

in a room that had no windows or doors.

[Wayne] It could be the Van Oostens.

And we're not sure that they're moving.

We're fearful at that point, they may not be alive.

We circle together and said,

"Where is this video feed coming from?

Could it be somewhere else? Is it here?

And we're missing it."

There's just an overall gut feeling,

we still think they could be here somewhere,

but we need to go back through this house,

go through every closet, go through every cupboard,

see if there is something we missed.

We get down into the basement.

We cleared a second time...

but there's something in the back of my mind

that says, this basement's weird.

Everyone's been in a basement.

And a basement is almost always a rectangle,

but this one's not.

There was a corner of the basement

that was unavailable.

Pushing on this wall, this looks like

it was pretty recently painted and sanded.

We were a short time away from starting

to fight our way through that wall, and then we hear it,

"Wayne, they found something upstairs."

[Wayne] I happened to be looking in a closet

and there was a piece of plywood on the floor.

Something just told me to pick up the piece of plywood

and I picked it up, looked underneath,

and I got the biggest knot on my stomach

from the whole investigation leading up to that moment.

There was a fortified steel hatch.

It was a solid steel door in the floor,

above where that area of the basement would've been.

[Wayne] It has a padlock on it.

A very thick, heavy padlock.

Another agent had his breaching equipment,

which included a set of bolt cutters.

I had the bolt cutters and put it in there,

and I squeezed as hard as I could and I could not do it.

So, what I ended up doing was putting one side

of the bolt cutters against the wall and I grabbed

the other side with both hands and broke it off that way.

Reached down, lifted it up. It was heavy.

Push it open, a dark room underneath.

[Wayne] The ladder that we encountered as soon as we made entry

through the door started making sense now.

[Andy] I'm looking down into this room

and I don't see much because it's dark.

[Wayne] Andy puts his feet into the hole,

starts to shimmy over.

[Andy] I went to my elbows just dangling.

There's no ground for me to reach.

Put his arms over on each side,

to the point he was kinda just dangling.

[Andy] At some point, you have to just let go,

fall through the chasm and land on the other side...

and so I did.

He had his arms on either side,

and all of a sudden his arms came up

and he just plunged into the hole and he's gone.

[ominous music playing]

I just brought my arms up and fell it through the hole.

It was just exactly as you would think.

It was an eight foot ceiling and I landed on the ground.

It was eerie, it was a room

that had no doors or windows.

There was a mattress on the floor,

it had some blankets.

And that's where we found them.

[ominous music playing]

[Connie] When Andy jumped through the hole...

he had a huge smile on his face

and just said, they're fine, they're okay.

[Andy] Larry and Connie were good.

They were very pleased to have been recovered.

They told us it was the FBI,

and, uh, that they were here

to rescue us, and that we were...

we were safe.

So that was a very joyful moment,

but also one of,

is this really happening?

You know, are we actually, after all this, safe?

I don't think we quit smiling

because, you know, they were there.

They did come, they did come to rescue us.

Connie gave me a big hug.

Larry gave me a big hug.

You could hear them upstairs celebrating.

"We found them. We found them. They're okay."

[Wayne] We put the ladder down in through the opening,

and then the Van Oostens came out.

To see them emerge from a makeshift dungeon

and to be okay

was the most rewarding feeling of my career.

It was unbelievable, except it happened.

It never happens except it did.

So, yeah.

[Jeff] When the police let me know that they had found

my parents, I didn't know how to react.

I didn't know how to... Um, how to feel, really.

I've never felt emotions like that in my life.

My brother was calling me saying, we found them.

Ripping into the driveway and pounding on our door.

So we were all able to just hug.

We were told that they were at the hospital in Geneseo.

Obviously, just complete breakdown,

relief, and almost angry

because I wanted to know

what he had done to her, to them.

[man speaking]

[Chad speaking]

[John] He was basically a scammer, a swindler,

and was taking money from family members.

He had no money to cover the investments

that he was supposedly doing.

And that's why he decided to act

because he thought Connie and Larry had

lots of money and could cover the wrongdoings.

[intense music playing]

[Larry] It was about seven o'clock in the morning.

I was sound asleep.

I thought I was dreaming.

I felt a presence in the room...

and I saw this person standing next to the bed

dressed in a black and with a gun.

Finally, I realized that this is real and I yelled.

And the next thing I knew, he shot a taser at me.

[Connie] The first words that I spoke were,

"Oh, Lord, please help us. Please help us."

And his first words to me were,

"Where's your God now?"

He had me put handcuffs on Larry,

and then he proceeded to handcuff me.

He took duct tape and put it over our eyes

and our mouths, and we were told

to be quiet and not say anything.

[Larry] He took us out to the garage

where there was an old Chevy Caprice parked there

and somehow got us into the trunk.

We rode in that trunk for half an hour or so.

[Connie] He took me out first

and led me to what I thought

was gonna be a small room,

but it turned out to be a closet

and I had to climb down a ladder.

It was a completely sealed room,

concrete walls, so it was very sturdy.

It was designed to make sure that people

could stay there for a period of time.

They had like stack of ramen noodles.

They had a shower and a toilet.

And then on the other side,

they had locking mechanism for handcuffing.

It was very apparent that this was a room made

for locking people against their will.

This was a purposeful plan that he had contemplated,

and thought about, and worked to fruition

over months and years.

[Chad speaking]

I said to him, "Why are you doing this?"

There was no emotion. It was... It was basically,

"I'm gonna keep you until I get all your money,

and then I have to kill you."

[Chad speaking]

[Larry] When he took her to the bank...

I kept going through different scenarios.

What should I have done? What could I have done?

What can I do?

How do I help her?

And just being tied up there

and knowing that there was nothing

I could do to help her,

I'll never forget that, you know, never.

[investigator speaking]

[Chad speaking]

[John] Eventually, he took a guilty plea.

He received 60 years in prison

with no chance of parole.

For the rest of his life,

he will be incarcerated in the state of Illinois.

People get kidnapped,

people get taken against their will.

That is not that uncommon,

but for it to happen to a couple like the Van Oostens

who have never wronged anyone,

the level of depravity, which they're subjected to,

its unlike anything I've ever seen and I hope

I never see anything like it again.

[Connie] Larry never thought

that he protected me...

but he did.

He stood by me the whole time,

and he was there, and did everything

in his power to protect me,

and he's continued to do that.

[Larry] She didn't have to come back.

She could have stayed right there at the bank

and sent the police, but she didn't do it.

She came back on her own free will,

just so they could find me.

She came back to save me.

[Connie] I just felt that I had to do

something because it was our last chance.

I believe God was there saying, write that note.

And she may not want to hear it, but...

[laughs]

...she absolutely is the hero.

[Amy] I don't even know if there are any words

to say how proud I am of them.

Just can't say enough about how strong they are.

I wanna be like them when I grow up someday.

[chuckles]

[dramatic music playing]

[doorbell chimes]

[Larry] We saw God act in real time

in a matter of two and a half, three days,

where he took us from captivity to being saved.

He put those people in those places,

the perfect people at the exact right time

to be able to get us out of there alive.

You know, I joke about it now

and I say, I peaked early.

You know, like, is this what the FBI does?

Like, it really does this?

I'm just glad it was you guys

and you made it wonderful.

-[Larry] Yeah. -[Connie] I mean, all you guys did.

As a new agent, it gave me the utmost

optimism in the career

that I was getting into.

And that's what the FBI is, an incredible group of people

that given the opportunity or the need arises,

we will get together and accomplish whatever

needs to get done for the greater good.

[dramatic music playing]

The criminals we target are the worst of the worst.

They just appear to be completely unstoppable.

One of the biggest cases of my career.

The level of hate was just so horrific.

Nobody was dealing anywhere near as many pills as they were.

Each day that went by the challenge built.

We could start bringing in resources from

all over the country.

[Knocking] FBI!

We risked having more victims.

People are panicking. Time is running out.

Inmates could order violence out on the street.

I had to separate myself so I could do this job

because it's horrifying.

He's in the middle of a field, by himself dead,

and I'm rolling up on a dead body.

This is a lifestyle and you will live it until you're done.