Original subtitles

Now we have an old truck, it's got the panic button on it, you can push it.

And that panic button is not for someone attacking you,

no the panic button is "I can't find my car!"

[crowd laughs]

And so I start walking up and down, following the honk.

Now, if you see me at Walmart...

...just smile and wave and say...

..."That's our pastor."

[crowd laughs]

You gotta love him 'cause the bible says so.

[laughing]

[Chris Clyatt] Yeah, it's kinda weird to drive by.

You know, it's kinda force of habit just to look,

and go, "Oh, there's Calvary Chapel."

So that's where the building is

and it used to have the sign right here.

It brings up some bittersweet emotions.

You know, we had good memories here

and, uh, there were a lotta great people at this church.

And they really, uh, worked hard to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

I remember people having problems finding it,

looking for a traditional church building with a steeple.

This was an old grocery store.

We forget...

...how faithful the lord has been in the past.

And we forget the promise of God's word

which tells us that nothing can separate us from his love.

[Clyatt] You know, we had a lotta good times here.

But then you think about all the events that happened.

And it kind of gives you that little sick feeling in your stomach.

[Detective Nesli Suhi-Moore] You and James are literally the only people

that can provide answers that we need.

[James Flanders] We know you guys are the only ones--

[Tanya Flanders] I don't understand!

I don't understand why this...

[Detective Suhi-Moore] At this point, we're just looking for help.

What kinda things are you talking about?

[Tanya] This whole thing just has blown us out of the water.

I'm still stunned by it.

[opening theme playing]

You're thinking: "I'm gonna find life,

I'm gonna find meaning, I'm gonna find purpose,

I'm gonna find satisfaction, I'm gonna find peace.

I'm gonna find all of these things

through what I get, what I achieve, what I accomplish."

Where's the emphasis?

[repeated] I.

And Jesus is saying, "You know what? You're missing out."

[Karen Glisson] James was my pastor.

We shopped around for a long time for churches,

and the very first time we went in there we never left.

He was just, um...

[clicks tongue] he was an incredible young man.

You were just instantly drawn to him.

And you wanted all the knowledge that he had in his head,

you wanted it all too.

Romans 8:28,

We know that all things work together for the good for them that love the Lord

for those who've been called according to his purpose.

We know that, but then when it comes to our own lives

we forget it, don't we?

[Clyatt] He was less of a preacher and more of a teacher.

And he really broke it down.

Like he would take uh, a verse

and you'd read, like, three words and he'd go, "Okay, stop."

Page by page, sentence by sentence.

It would take him a... a month to do a chapter.

He was my mentor. He was my teacher.

He was my connection to God.

Hi.

[Clyatt] He wasn't just straight-laced.

It was kind of cool to see James

riff on the guitar every once in awhile.

[Glisson] Tanya is James' wife.

They had a little two man group.

I play the cajon conga.

And I sing.

[Clyatt] She'd kinda liked being behind the scenes.

Being the support for James.

They made a great couple.

They were kind of... They had that good balance with them.

You're comin' in at the wrong spot.

The right spot feels wrong.

The wrong spot is feeling right for you but it is wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I'm not nervous, I'm just excited.

[giggles] Very excited!

[Glisson] Well, I remember when Marie first came to the church.

She was cute as a button.

She had the greatest little smile.

And she could wear the most precious little hairdos.

And always smiling, always smiling.

[Rose Bridges] My sister, Marie...

God, she was gorgeous...

...inside and out.

She would tell... everybody how beautiful they were.

Even when she didn't believe that she was beautiful herself.

So we all grew up in Angeles city, Philippines.

And I would never change that for the world.

It was just a simpler life there.

We came to the United States due to a volcano erupting.

How many people can say that?

[Bridges] Her journey, her story, was different.

We had lost touch for a little bit.

But she always wrote, she was really good about that.

And she had issues.

But she was getting her stuff together.

We don't stray too far away from each other.

Like, we need our family.

No matter how crazy, family's family.

[Dennis Barber] When she started working with my wife,

she was like a... another part of our family.

Marie was goin' down a kinda dark path.

She had an episode.

She had got out of her car,

I guess just totally frustrated with herself.

Just walking down the road contemplating life.

And this lady stops by and picks her up,

and takes her to church.

[Glisson] She really wanted to find a church family.

And she did.

I remember her showing me one of James' sermons.

As believers, we get all wacky.

We've got this little mountain in front of us,

we forget there is a bigger mountain behind us

that God took us through and we're okay.

[Bridges] God helped her get through a lot

of whatever demons she was facing.

Feeling loved and giving that love in return.

It's a time of getting our focus back where it needs to be.

It's a time of helping us not to forget...

...what's really important.

[Barber] She was happy, real happy.

They had a house support system there

that was part of her healing herself.

And then she came by.

She's like, yeah I'm gonna go and I'm gonna live with James and... and Tanya.

[Glisson] They took her in and I thought that was wonderful.

Everybody goes through hard times,

especially when you move to a new community.

and you don't know anybody.

But then...

...James came out one Sunday,

I mean and just stood up on that stage,

and he just said that "We've been wanting to have a baby."

And Marie was the surrogate.

Mean, you wanna talk about some jaws droppin'.

It was just like,

"Here it is, this is today's announcement."

You know, and everybody just about dropped their teeth.

[Bridges] I think a lot of people feel that's odd.

But her and I, at one point,

actually talked about being a surrogate...

...for one of our friends.

It wasn't like "Oh, you would never do that."

I thought they're payin' her bills because she's gonna be a surrogate for them.

In vitro fertilization type thing.

And she's gonna be a nanny so it makes perfect sense.

I figure as long as these people are helpin' Marie out...

...she should be all right.

[Barber] Beautiful child.

But then a couple months later

Marie came to the house for a visit.

Marie was trying to be happy.

But you could tell she was very nervous.

She was so nervous she had hives...

...all over her body.

She kinda put it off, like she didn't really know

but it's not really a big deal.

But it was to us.

And then, a couple of days later...

we got a text message from Marie.

So October 19th, when the mass text was sent...

Who writes like that?

Double-spaced.

Indentation.

As if you were writing a proper, formal, letter.

So that...

...struck me as odd.

We didn't have any inkling that Marie was in trouble.

But my wife texts her back and is like,

"Well, what about the baby?"

Marie always spoke of James,

and if she did speak of Tanya it was after James.

For her to put Tanya... in front of James name,

it made no sense whatsoever.

Something's wrong.

This is not right.

I'm leaving to do something I've always wanted to do.

I just remember that part.

Very vague.

Very vague.

And I had...

...of course, seen her before.

And she seemed fine,

as far as her mental health went.

And I think that if she were to do something like that?

She would at least tell one person.

[Barber] We couldn't get in contact with her after this text message.

We contact Tanya and James.

Say, you know, "What's goin' on with Marie?"

"Oh, we don't know, she left."

My wife contacted everybody, friends, family.

I was riding around.

Goin' to their house.

"Have you seen or heard from Marie?"

[Bill Eddins] It was reported to the sheriff's office

that Marie Carlson was a missing person.

Well, of course, that's a very difficult issue,

whether or not someone is a missing person.

James Flanders expressed to law enforcement that it was not unusual

for Marie to leave and stay gone for even a few days.

- You know. -[Special Agent Austin] Right.

[Glisson] There was talk...

...in the church that Marie had left.

I can't say that it was she was considered missing at that particular time.

[Eddins] What's always important in any investigation

is to speak in detail with the last person

to have contact with the missing person.

James and Tanya were very helpful to us,

in developing the case.

Everybody's looking at me. [laughs]

James Flanders indicated the last day that he saw Marie Carlson

she had been in a bad mood and wanted to be alone.

Tanya decided she would take baby Grace and go to Destin...

...to help with the Christmas shopping.

After that, Marie got in an argument with him,

Later, Tanya decided she wanted to look for Marie.

[Eddins] Marie's truck had been dropped off there on the 18th,

the day after she went missing.

[Bridges] Maybe she did just take off.

It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities

for her to have gone somewhere.

I wanted that. I wanted her just to show up.

You know, and just be like, "Sorry, y'all.

I'm back though."

You know, and just...

You know, and be like, "Hey, don't ever do that to me again.

Don't worry me like that again."

You know? I wanted that, badly.

[Eddins] Investigators did an excellent job

determining her credit card had not been used.

She had not gotten on an airplane and flown anywhere.

She hadn't gone on the bus and gone anywhere.

[Barber] Three days after she went missing,

James and Tanya put all of her items in storage.

And they said, "We've paid it up for so many months."

We're like, "Okay, we'll take over after that,

'cause we don't want her stuff to be abandoned."

So they gave us the key.

All these things that it just seems like she just left behind.

And we just handed all that over to the police.

[police siren wailing]

[Barber] She had no money.

Now, if she'd a sold her truck

and if she'd used her bank account...

Yeah, there's a possibility there, you know.

But who's gonna leave town with nothing, you know?

I mean, doesn't make sense.

I told my wife. I'm like, "You know what?"

I'm like, "Somebody in that church has to know something."

I remember she was telling me about it

and then I was like, "Oh, I wanna see pictures" you know.

Saying she was a surrogate.

And I was like... [blows raspberry]

That's clearly your child.

That is clearly not...

...the child of two white people.

[scoffs]

[Eddins] We discussed the matter and agreed

that it was a very suspicious situation.

And additional investigation needed to be done.

[Eddins] You want to follow the case wherever it takes you.

When we learned that the pregnancy occurred "the old fashioned way"...

...the investigators wanted to make sure that they understood

the true nature of the relationship

between James and Tanya Flanders, and Marie Carlson.

Tanya seemed to be honest about the nature of the relationship

with the baby and the way that the child was conceived.

[Barber] We didn't think it was a polygamist situation.

We thought it may... may have that element.

But we really didn't want to believe it, I guess.

We only found out when we got control of her possessions.

We opened her bible up and on one side of the bible

it said, "Marie", and on the other side it said, "Flanders".

Totally took me by surprise.

I like, "Oh, wait, she thinks she's married to this guy."

[Barber] With Marie, it was almost like she was weightless

when she walked through the room.

The weightless feeling that a bird has when you see it fly?

That's the spirit that Marie had.

She was vulnerable because she was so giving.

So if she ran across somebody that... was a taker.

She would give away anything.

The inner circle...

...consisted of James, Tanya, and anybody who worked back in the office.

They were in charge of everything.

Everything.

They were very, very close.

[Glisson] I'm a member of the baby boomers.

Yeah, we were wild and crazy in the '60s and all that,

but we still had our scruples.

He's supposed to be your example.

He's your Moses.

He's the shepherd and we're the sheep.

It's hurtful.

Very hurtful.

They knew what was going on, I'mma tell you that right now.

You cannot convince me for one second...

...that they didn't know the whole story of what was going on...

...from the get-go.

It was a very suspicious situation.

And it was very suspicious

as it related to James and Tanya.

Our office, and myself, just felt that there was something fish going on.

[phone dialing]

[phone dialing]

[Bridges] Investigators are asking you questions.

Now you're leaving up in the middle of the night, you know, with Grace.

Why would you do that? Why?

[Glisson] I didn't know what to think.

I mean, he was my pastor, he was my teacher.

[Eddins] Once they left, and went to Arizona,

most of the investigation that could be done, had been done at that point.

And we simply did not have enough evidence to proceed forward,

so it kind of had to languish.

[Bridges] This is a little big town. People talk.

And I was, like, somebody has to know something.

Come on! Nobody?

So I was bartending, and overheard a conversation.

They said her name...

... Marie.

By the time I had an opportunity to go back, they were gone.

But I overheard someone sayin', "She's in the backyard."

What's interesting to me is Jesus tells us to love our enemies.

Now, whenever someone is backstabbing me, lying about me, gossiping about me,

trying to tear me down, or whatever, you know what I want to do?

My feelings say choke the life out of them!

[congregation laughing]

Yes, and so that means we have to take control

of our feelings and our emotions,

and say, "Okay, I'm gonna set those things aside right now.

God, what is the loving thing to do?"

[Eddins] The tip came into Crime Stoppers

that the body was buried in the backyard.

James and Tanya had left and were living in Arizona at that time,

so it was determined that the yard should be searched.

Not knowing really killed us.

We had to know where she was. We had to put her at rest.

[Speed] I was the forensic anthropologist in the district,

and the investigator that handles any kind of, um, buried bodies.

My job is the recovery,

and to be able to contribute to giving answers to the family.

In 2012, they obtained a search warrant,

and they went to the Flanders residence with cadaver dogs.

There were multiple questions.

They weren't sure, was she in the backyard, was she in the side yard?

But there's a lot of ways to be able to recognize a clandestine grave.

Is the grass different in this area?

We're taking ground penetrating radar.

There's just this huge level of hope that this is where she is.

[dog barking]

But unfortunately, they did not find Marie.

God! Do you care if I have a cigarette?

Time to take a break 'cause that just, like...

You wanna know why I like livin' in the boondocks?

-[Tanya] Why? -I'll show you why.

-Ready? -[Tanya] Yeah.

[James] Okay, hold on!

-[Tanya laughing] -[James] Whoo!

[shouting] Welcome to the boondocks!

[Eddins] In 2012,

they initially tried to forensically examine the computer,

but were unable to do so.

[Eddins] Four years later, in 2016,

the forensic abilities had developed dramatically.

Law enforcement was able to get into the computer,

providin' a lot of texting with James Flanders from her iPhone.

It wasn't just a situation where it was decided that she was gonna be a surrogate,

and he had sex with her on the one occasion.

There was an ongoing relationship.

We also learned about the geography of the cell phones.

When Marie Carlson's group text went out,

the location of that phone was in James' and Tanya's house.

That was a major factor in our belief that something untoward had happened to her,

and that, in fact, James Flanders sent out the group text himself.

And when you put it all together,

we had sufficient evidence to seek an arrest warrant,

and I felt that we had sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction.

[dog barking]

Ah! I saw him get arrested on TV.

He was in his camouflage pants, I'll never forget that.

He didn't look like the same James, he didn't look as confident.

And, uh, he wasn't spreadin' the news, you know, he was in the news,

and I liked that.

Yeah, mmm-hmm.

[Clyatt] I remember seein' in the news,

and him bein' walked through in handcuffs, and a prison jumpsuit.

It just looked so strange.

I just remember thinkin' how do things go downhill that fast that here you are,

and why'd you not hit the breaks when things were going bad.

[Eddins] I met with James Flanders to interview him,

and what I observed was a person that was very articulate under great stress.

And I knew then that it was going to be a very difficult case to prosecute.

Cause it was a no body case, even in view of the facts and circumstances we had.

If it went to a trial, he could be a very difficult adversary.

The defense attorney indicated

that he would like to know what would happen if he could give us the body.

At that time, I'd been a trial lawyer for over 40 years,

I've never had a decision that was any more difficult.

We had to consider pleading to manslaughter.

[Bridges] It was hard, it was hard to not know where she was.

I remember I was driving through Arizona,

and I just lost it because I was, like...

... She could be anywhere.

She could be out in this dessert,

this vast nothingness, and we would never find her.

And that's unfortunately why we took the plea.

[Eddins] So as a result of the offer, we agreed

that he would give a statement, and tell the truth about what happened.

[Eddins] And they got into an argument, she grabbed him and he grabbed her.

[woman] You good, sir? All right, let's go to the front then.

[sobbing]

[Speed] They were there in 2012, and unfortunately, they did not find Marie.

I kind of became the lead on scene in the recovery because of my expertise.

When we started the dig, as I was going down,

um, I hit a portion of the blanket.

And then I exposed part of her lower extremity

that was, um, not wrapped in the blanket.

The first thought was kind of a big exhale of... okay, she's here.

He buried her so deep that what is used for locating

a clandestine grave, didn't work.

But having him point out where she was, was the big difference.

It's kinda hard to watch, 'cause it makes you... I mean, it makes me mad.

Oh, okay, so she's here, and you want to have a moment.

You know, it just of makes me kind of infuriated

to watch him get so emotional over something that he did.

That's that feeling that comes up, like, no!

You shouldn't be emotional like this, you did this.

[Bridges] During the court proceedings,

I never felt that much animosity towards somebody.

I wanted to just, like, "Look at me, look at us."

You're looking above and around, look at us!

Look at... look at what you did.

Ugh, I abhor you.

[Bridges] How did people believe you?

Because I see right through your [bleep] !

Now, whenever someone is backstabbing me, lying about me, gossiping about me,

trying to tear me down, or whatever, you know what I want to do?

My feelings say choke the life out of them!

[congregation laughing]

Then you laugh about it.

And so that means we have to take control

of our feelings and our emotions,

and say, "Okay, I'm gonna set those things aside right now.

God, what is the loving thing to do?"

Kill her!

[exhaling]

I wanna... I wanna just choke the stew out of him, just like he talked about!

See how you like it!

Boy, I could say some really foul words right now.

I feel so sorry for Marie's family.

I don't know what I could do for them.

I don't know what in the world I can ever say to them,

'cause they are never gonna have any comfort.

That's not enough. That's not enough time.

I just hope that karma does what she's good at doin' with him.

When that time comes.

[Clyatt] Now, I really don't know what somebody's fully capable of

if a pastor of a church is capable of that.

A pastor should value life, period.

You killed somebody and you buried 'em in your backyard.

How much worse can you be? That... It doesn't get any worse than that.

[Bridges] Tanya has done a great job of raising her.

Now, granted it should have been my sister, or maybe both of them together,

whatever their plans were but she's well taken care of.

[Grace screaming]

[Grace playing] Somewhere in the middle...

[Barber] I want Grace to know that her mother loved her,

and we saw that when she brought her over to see us.

And, uh, I want her to know

that if she ever wants to see her mother, all she has to do is look in the mirror,

and she's always there with her.

Just look in the mirror.

[exhaling]

[crying]

Oh, I love you.

[Bridges] She needed to be known differently.

She was not just a victim.

Not just someone who decided to shack up with, you know, a couple.

I don't want her memory to be that.

She was a wonderful mom, a wonderful sister, a wonderful daughter.

I just know she wants to be remembered in a good light.

'Cause she was light.

Oh.