Original subtitles

[tense music]

♪ ♪

TINA: After he'd shot Beth Dodge,

we were just driving towards Canada border.

And Wilder became different.

He put his arm on the middle console, said,

you're gonna-- "I'm gonna take you to Boston

and let you go."

I didn't know why.

And I just looked at him and I'm just--to myself,

like, okay, I'm not gonna believe this

because it could be a trick.

- No, there was no feeling of anything.

Everything was numb, stifled, and petrified.

Any minute he could change his mind.

♪ ♪

The next thing I know, I'm at the airport.

I don't even remember driving through Boston or anything.

I don't--I only remember the airport.

We walked up to the counter.

Still not looking at anybody.

Just keeping my focus on him.

Give me your ID.

You pay for the ticket.

He's like, "Here's some money.

"You're gonna need this.

Take this $1,000 for whatever you need."

And then he just said goodbye.

That's it. Just bye.

And he left and turned around and walked away.

I was still afraid he's gonna come back and get me.

Always looking over my shoulder like, where is he at?

Being that I was still in the mindset of being controlled,

I was lost.

What'd I--what do I need to do?

So I just sat there waiting, staring off to the darkness

out the window.

♪ ♪

Not until I was in that plane that I know for sure

that I was actually released from him.

I've never been on an airplane,

and what a first introduction

to airlines and airplanes.

I think we stopped in Chicago, went to, like, Texas,

and then to LAX or something.

You know, it was, like, a weird route.

But I slept all the way home.

And I still didn't know anything that's going on,

like the major manhunt for me.

- At the moment, the only new information we have

is that the body found in Victor, New York,

is not the body of our missing Tina Marie Risico.

REPORTER 1: 33-year-old Beth Dodge

of Upstate New York was shot in the back.

REPORTER 2: Police in New York and surrounding states

have now joined the search, but as one federal agent

said today, Wilder moves very fast.

If they don't get him tonight,

he could be anywhere by morning.

TINA: It's, like, 11:00 a.m. I think the plane landed.

[suspenseful music]

I was just glad to be home.

It was warm and sunny in Southern California.

It was April 13 on a Friday.

I got into a cab,

and, uh, the cabbie, he knew who I was.

I didn't realize he did until I happened to lean forward

and put my hands on the-- you know, the front seat,

and I looked down next to him in the passenger seat,

there my face was on the frigging

front of the newspaper.

And that was the first inclination that people

were really looking for me.

My emotion was, oh, boy,

what's gonna happen to me now?

But I had been in the same underwear,

same bra, same clothes for the last amount of days.

And that's all I was concentrating on,

everything was stinky.

And I said, well, you know what?

Let's go down to Hermosa Beach.

Can you take me to the lingerie store, The Tushery?

No one was in the, uh, store at the time I was.

The salespeople there, they were nice girls,

but more infatuated knowing that they had some sort

of true crime celebrity in their store.

- What was it that led her to think it was Risico?

And he gave her money and put her on a plane.

REPORTER: Really?

- And, um, that she didn't wanna call her mother

until she had time to think about it because she felt

after that happened, it would be--

her life wouldn't be her own.

REPORTER: And this is what the--she told the clerk?

- Both the clerks.

REPORTER: And relate that story again.

What did she tell the clerk?

- She said--okay, I guess they don't want me

to make any statement.

No statement? Okay. REPORTER: Thank you.

BARRY: We heard that she had gone

to that clothing store in Hermosa.

We had 15 news stations out in front of the department

waiting for her.

Everybody was all excited,

but we didn't know exactly where she was going.

I thought she would go to her mother's house.

TINA: So after shopping there, I did realize

that if I did go home, I'm just gonna be bombarded

by all these reporters.

So I didn't go home.

And I'm glad I didn't 'cause apparently there was paparazzi

waiting for me to arrive.

I avoided all that.

I went up to my boyfriend Billy's

'cause I'm like, that's it. I wanna see Billy.

I missed him so bad.

And he wasn't home when I got taken up there by the cabbie,

but our friends, uh, Rick and Jerry were there.

RICK: We're in the front yard washing our vehicles.

And all of the sudden, a taxicab pulls up.

She steps out of the cab,

and Jerry and I are, like, we're dumbfounded.

We absolutely didn't expect to see Tina come home.

Didn't expect it.

You know, we were--we were

treating her with kid gloves, you know?

We didn't--we didn't wanna shake her up at all.

We just let her talk.

And she was kind of just in a different, uh, space.

TINA: At Billy's house, it was peaceful.

I was able to take a shower, change my clothes.

And then they said, we should take you to the police station.

- She kind of just resigned herself.

Said, "Yeah, I guess we do have to go," you know?

Well, she knew it was inevitable.

DIANE: Billy had contacted me, and I can't remember

whether it was the day before or that morning.

And he asked if I could go to Torrance Police Department

with him as kind of moral support, right?

To be interviewed by detectives.

I was just sitting there waiting for him.

And I remember Ricky McCarter walking in with Tina.

And it was just--

There are no words to describe it.

I didn't say anything to her because she was obviously

whisked away immediately.

TINA: At the police station

with all the FBI and police people,

it was, like, 3:00 our time, maybe?

Someone comes rushing in the room.

We just got word, you know, like,

talking amongst ourselves,

you know the cops, how they say.

And then they look to me and told me what happened.

♪ ♪

DUNCAN: Christopher Wilder is

in Beth Dodge's Pontiac Firebird.

And he is heading for the Canadian border

about 10 or 12 miles north, the little town of Colebrook.

Where he goes into the Getty service station.

And then two troopers are driving back

from having lunch, I think.

Wilder looks at them passing, two cops,

and it's that remarkable moment where they say,

you know, this is the guy that everyone's looking for.

The cops wheel into the service station.

One gets out first while his mate is covering him.

Goes to the car.

He and Wilder start fighting.

Then a gun goes off.

[gunshot] [sirens wailing]

[suspenseful music]

REPORTER: What was the scene like when you arrived?

- There was an unidentified subject

in a--in a gold-colored Camaro, uh, slumped over the seat,

and Trooper Jellison was sitting in his seat.

- It was something very unusual for a small town

like Colebrook, something like this to happen.

PETER JENNINGS: A nationwide manhunt is over.

Christopher Wilder, who has been on the FBI's wanted list

for more than a week, shot and killed himself

in Colebrook, New Hampshire,

just 5 miles from the Canadian border.

REPORTER: Spotted by state troopers, Wilder shot himself,

but the bullet passed through his body

and wounded a police officer.

Wilder then fired again, this time killing himself.

♪ ♪

- Relief.

What went through my mind was relief.

Yeah, relief.

I can't live my life by what-ifs,

but what if he was still alive today?

I wouldn't be sitting in this chair today.

DAWN: I learned in the hospital--

I was still in the hospital.

I was sleeping, and I woke up with, you know,

a t--a terror, right?

And, um, I remember they're like,

it's okay, it's okay, he's-- you know, he died.

And I'm like, you know, no he-- you know, did he really?

Is it true?

- Christopher Wilder's awful odyssey appears to be over

and remains unexplained.

- So there was, like, this immediate relief of,

okay, you really are safe.

- Wilder had a long history of sex crimes

in Florida and Australia.

DAWN: I was super, super relieved, too,

that he couldn't hurt anybody else.

And even as young as I was, I was glad

that I would not ever have to face him again, like, in court.

- We are gratified that the killings will stop.

However, our investigations to locate the missing women

will continue.

TIM: The phone rang, and he said, "This is the FBI.

Is Mr. Kenyon there, right?"

And I was like, yeah, hold on.

So I hand him the phone.

And I remember that feeling, that I remember the shriek

my mom let out when it--

and my dad, you know, he told her.

BILL: With him dying, I think my parents

felt as though that was--

that was the only person

that was going to let them know where Beth was.

REPORTER: But local police aren't giving up.

Miami detectives hope to find out information

from 16-year-old Tina Marie Risico.

Risico spent more than a week traveling with Wilder.

- I don't know that she's going to be able to tell us anything,

but I wouldn't rest comfortably

till I had had the chance to speak with her.

- I think it was around the same time, um,

of learning about him, you know, being dead.

It kind of, um, solidified the feelings that there was--

and I don't wanna use this in her detriment,

but a relationship, but I was glad

that she was also a survivor.

- Only hours after Wilder died,

a suspected accomplice turned up.

A teenaged woman walking into police headquarters

in Torrance, California.

She had been seen with Wilder recently in New York.

BARRY: There were other jurisdictions involved

where Dawn was from and Beth Dodge was from.

And they insisted that Tina was involved

with Wilder and an accomplice, so they were after her.

TINA: There was mostly men, all in suits

with their badges on their h-- uh, belts.

They started immediately interrogating me.

And without a lawyer present.

Okay, so it goes as follows.

"Tina Marie Risico, aged 16, was interviewed

"to determine the circumstances

"of her abduction by and travel with

"Christopher Bernard Wilder.

"Efforts were, therefore, centered on obtaining

"knowledge and degree of participation in the kidnapping

of Dawn and Beth Dodge."

I really don't wanna read that out loud.

TINA: Talking with them, uh, the FBI, being interrogated,

it was really invasive.

Being that I was still in this fog, I wasn't in reality yet.

It was hard for me to open up about everything

and give every little detail.

"Due to Risico's actions towards Wilder,

"he began to trust her,

"that she would not attempt to escape

because of the punishments that he was giving her."

Yeah.

"Risico noted that as she wanted to escape from him,

"she purposely tried to get him to believe

he could trust her," which I did.

Every little word that was what I said to the women,

why did I--you know, why didn't I go away?

Why didn't I run away in the car?

Why didn't I drive away? Why didn't I do this?

I'm like, why would you?

What would you do, you know?

What would you do?

This is what I did.

And here I am today to tell you about it.

I did something right, I think.

So you tell me, what would you do?

Okay, I'm not gonna talk about that.

- I know, but whatever I've said about her before

and when I said I was sorry, that's all you guys

are gonna get from-- I'm not gonna reread this.

Yeah, it's pretty accurate.

♪ ♪

- During our experience, it wasn't a shared experience.

Like, she very much was with him

and I very much was the victim.

And I know things now, that I know that,

you know, she was there involuntarily,

she was a victim.

But during that experience, it was not at all clear to me.

- I'm agitated.

This is opening up so much for me.

It's just like, I was really, uh, sick and tired

of being asked so many questions over and over again

and wondering what the hell is going on,

realizing, am I in trouble?

You know, it sure felt like it, you know?

And that's when my father came in the view.

REPORTER: How did you find out?

- I--over the news media.

REPORTER: Have you had a chance

to talk with her at all? - No, no.

REPORTER: What's the first thing you're gonna do

when you see that daughter of yours?

- What do you think?

I'm gonna grab her and hug her and kiss her.

Well, I gotta get going. Thank you, guys, okay?

All right.

TINA: My father was never in my life,

and now all of a sudden he's there

with the top criminal lawyer at the time

in the state of California.

A criminal lawyer.

Am I being charged for something?

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

DUNCAN: It's difficult to come to grips with,

the fact that Tina played an active role

in luring Dawn to the car.

She sees Beth Dodge being executed.

She's dropped off by Wilder at Logan Airport.

And she sits there and doesn't call the police?

Flies back to California.

Heads off to do some shopping.

It's very strange behavior.

♪ ♪

- Let me ask you a question first.

Are we not live?

Is anybody live?

Nobody? Great.

BARRY: Captain Popp was my captain at the time,

and he was really in charge of the investigation.

- Well, why don't we start, then?

- He was very adamant that she was a victim, not a suspect.

And contacted the news.

- It is the opinion of Torrance investigators

that Tina Marie Risico has been a victim

throughout the nine days of terror that ended

with her safe return to Torrance.

TINA: I was a child, 16 years old.

Captain Popp and Barry Walsh,

they were the most caring for me.

And all the way through it.

I remember, I was most securely safe with those two.

- Uh, it's easy to sit back and second-guess

when you haven't gone through the ordeal.

Secondly, the terms that you've used

are very, very critical, and the term "luring"

in our investigation, was not used.

- No. Let me put it this way.

She was very quick to realize that if she did not comply

with his wishes, she would, number one, be tortured;

number two, probably be killed.

- Someone asked me yesterday, what's the normal response?

My answer to that is, I know of no normal response.

DIANE: There's all these expectations

on what Tina should have done

without understanding who Tina was as a person.

She had a really dysfunctional childhood.

When you have dysfunctional childhoods,

you become old and wise beyond your years

as a survival mechanism.

[melancholy music]

♪ ♪

TINA: When I was a little girl,

I just observed and learned

what I was being shown at such a young age,

be it drugs, uh, sex, or being abused.

I was exposed to, uh, my mother, uh,

overdosing on heroin twice.

The first time, I remember, uh--

I think I was four or three.

She--I--

I remember trying to wake her up,

and she was foaming at the mouth

and shaking and everything 'cause she was ODing.

Uh, somehow I knew how to call on the phone

to my aunt, my mom's sister.

Yeah, so surviving with my mom was tough.

I was exposed to so much at a young age.

So many sick men.

I had a few family members that had

sexually abused me continually

till about I was seven years old.

From about three to seven.

I have lived so much already by the time I was 16.

It just came natural for me to absorb this, uh,

brutality of being controlled.

JIM: With me, I have Roland Summit,

who's a community psychiatrist

at Harbor UCLA Medical Center in Torrance.

Thank you.

- I think we can say more about Wilder

from what we can see about Wilder

than anything he told her.

I'm assuming that Wilder's excitement,

his rage against women

was stimulated by a woman

pleading for her life, a young woman totally unhinged.

Along came Tina, who had dealt with victimization

from her early childhood,

learning to cope and how to survive it.

I could imagine that she was different from all the others

from the beginning by not acting

as if she hoped to live,

not asking, but finding ways

to be totally compliant on the surface,

but to be calculating underneath.

TINA: Why did I survive and they didn't?

I don't know. That's everyone's question.

I never screamed.

I never retaliated.

I succumbed and, you know, was vulnerable to him.

I don't like playing games, but it was a game.

I'm gonna survive in playing this game.

[suspenseful music]

ROLAND: She, the captive, captivated the captor,

and captivated Wilder into seeing her differently.

Seeing her as somebody who had a life that ought to be saved.

He began to develop a respect for the young woman,

which was not consistent with his need.

Jim Popp and I, we wanted to keep this girl

who had suddenly appeared out of unimaginable chaos

free from further damaging encounters

with a critical world.

♪ ♪

- April 19, 1984.

"A psychiatrist who interviewed Tina Marie Risico last week

"warned Wednesday that should the 16-year-old Torrance girl

"choose or be pushed into the bright light

or public scrutiny, it may destroy her."

[laughs]

"Tina Marie Risico may have suffered

Stockholm syndrome, which makes hostages

identify with their captors."

No, I did not care for him in any way, shape, or form.

People magazine.

Two weeks after I came back that they created this article.

People wanted to know me just to hear what I had to say,

ask me all kind of crazy questions like,

how come you're not dead?

Okay, "What led Tina Marie on a trek?"

What kind of statement is that?

Trek, brainwashed, and accomplice.

Yeah, see, I didn't--that's why I don't wanna see those.

- I'm getting upset... [laughs]

'cause it's just constant.

All of this? I was a child.

I was a minor, and for the media to exploit me, my name?

They handled it all wrong from the get-go.

That's why I didn't live at home.

I moved in with Billy.

My home, Grandma's home,

was just always swarmed with media.

I was looking for Tina Marie-- - She's not here.

REPORTER: You're her mother, aren't you?

- Yeah.

REPORTER: I was wondering if you might be able

to talk at all for a couple minutes?

I know it's a very difficult time for you--

a happy time now.

But, uh, everybody's sort of been following the case

and are anxious to hear how she was so fortunate

as to come through this ordeal.

- I guess when she's ready, she's gonna let you all know.

She usually does things in a big way like that,

so when she's ready, it'll be shown.

REPORTER: Can you just tell me how she's doing?

I mean, is she-- - She's beautiful.

She's great. She's fantastic.

She's doing just fine.

She's in heaven right now having a good time.

She's partying.

REPORTER: Well, good for her. - Yeah, she's partying.

REPORTER: Okay. Thank you very much.

- All right. Bye-bye. REPORTER: Bye-bye.

TINA: When I got back home, I was worried about my mom,

uh, beating my ass for being gone all this time.

But that didn't happen.

She gave me hugs and kisses,

but right back to our disagreements.

My mom and I didn't get along all through my teen years.

- No, never talked about it with them.

At all. None of my family members.

Just didn't.

It wasn't there.

And that's how I liked it.

After coming home, I became very closed off.

It's a protective shield so people couldn't get close to me

'cause everybody wanted a piece of me,

all the media wanted a piece of me.

Wasn't into exposing myself.

PAUL: She was understandably distant from everybody.

I think anyone that went through something like that

would be closed off.

TINA: People would be afraid around me

with just how to act, how to talk.

Constant, uh, tippy-toeing around me.

PAUL: She just was very defensive about, you know,

who she was and what she was gonna reveal to people.

I could just tell, she's-- she's been through too much

and she's not gonna talk about anything right now.

- I, unfortunately, um, was one of the people who

judged her when she got back.

I just remember just kind of looking at her and, you know,

having some empathy for what she went through,

but also having so many questions.

I said, you seem like you're okay.

She got, like, obviously upset.

She was screaming. She goes, "I was tied down,

I was electrocuted, I was raped!"

She said that.

And I wish I can go back to that day

and just hug her and say, you know,

"Thank God you're back," you know?

And "You got friends in us, and if you need anything,

let us know."

That's what should have happened.

ROLAND: Tina was--was a victim

of destructive publicity at that time.

Her name was rife,

and she was under a burning magnifying glass.

The collective memory of society toward that story

is still a very ambivalent one.

- I did a lot of suppressing with, you know,

cocaine and drugs.

So I guess I wasn't loving myself.

I threw all kinds of elaborate parties.

And that's how I got through it.

Support system of my friends, closest friends, and drugs.

- A young woman allegedly left for dead by Christopher Wilder

is out of the hospital tonight.

16-year-old Dawnette Sue Wilt,

recovering from three stab wounds,

was released this morning and flew home

to Indiana with her parents.

DAWN: Um, when I first got home,

for those first couple of weeks,

everybody wanted to make sure that somebody

was overseeing me, but I don't think anybody--

and why would they be--

were equipped to help me through--

you know, there just wasn't the awareness.

And I was 16-year-old girl that suffered a ton of trauma.

It's like, okay, you're back home.

Life resumes itself.

I was back in school within weeks of what happened to me.

That car came back, and that was my car, and I drove it.

I very much did not want to be defined by that incident.

I didn't want people to feel sorry for me.

And then it catches up with you.

I didn't go away to school

because I couldn't even sleep by myself.

I think I realized that I had PTSD, like, when I was 40.

I started having panic attacks.

There are triggers that just come up, right?

That will, you know, cause a memory.

I think it's just all stored in there.

REPORTER: The end to Wilder's murder spree

came too late for the family and friends of Beth Dodge,

described as a wonderful mother,

a Sunday school teacher, and a hard worker.

STEPHANIE: I'm not typically an angry person,

but when I hear the name Tina Marie,

I get angry, I guess.

All I've got is what has been reported.

And I understand, you know, Tina

was in a traumatic experience, and she lived through it.

But she's been quiet for a long time.

She's never really said her piece of it.

[suspenseful music]

REPORTER: Now the friends and family of Beth Dodge

have the difficult task of telling

her four-year-old daughter why Mommy is never coming back.

STEPHANIE: I honestly don't know

if it was a show or an article

throughout the years that shed a little bit of light,

but I'm under the impression that Tina's job for him

was to approach the other women for the time that he had her.

I guess, really, I would just ask for the truth.

And I could deal with it any-- any way that it was.

- I was in the car the whole time.

It's--I mean, I didn't expect him to kill her.

I thought he would just take her car, you know?

I didn't-- that was a shock for me.

It was just fast. Boom-boom-boom-boom.

He approached her with the gun, pushed her in the car,

took it over, and immediately follow.

Yeah, it was very horrific.

I hope I give her closure.

I'm sorry your mom's not here.

You have to live your life without your mother.

And I guess because I'm so, uh, monotone about this,

is because I had to be so suppressed at the time

with him, that still today, I'm still

in that frame of mind when I have to talk about it

'cause it's--I'm still trapped,

compartmentalized in that moment

of his Jedi mindfuck on me.

[serene music]

♪ ♪

- It made me very independent.

I was an only child for the most part, and my mom was gone.

Um...

my dad turned to alcohol after that.

So he was a great dad, uh,

in that he always took care of me,

you know, cooked dinner and all that.

But at night when he would come home from work,

he'd stay there, and he would just drink

until he went to bed.

And, um, so I had to grow up.

It was just me.

You know, it's not just his immediate victims

that he affected.

PARENT 1: We want to find our daughter.

PARENT 2: I don't think I'm ever gonna

find anybody to replace her.

PARENT 3: I just wanted to know where, when,

why he chose her.

STEPHANIE: It's so many more people

for such a long period of time.

REPORTER 1: Delta Flight 1187, a nonstop flight from Boston

carrying the body of reputed mass murderer Chris Wilder,

landed about 7:00 tonight

at West Palm Beach International.

Minutes later, a casket wrapped

in a cardboard shipping box

was carted out onto a Delta air cargo loading dock

and placed into a waiting hearse.

REPORTER 2: Christopher Wilder's death on Friday

came just hours after his brother made a private appeal

for his surrender.

REPORTER 2: With permission from the Wilder family,

authorities kept the body at the medical examiner's

for several hours.

Here, a plaster cast of Wilder's jaw was made,

and a series of photos were taken of the body.

- Well, there are several investigations still going on.

The plaster cast, the photographs

may assist the locals in either pinning Wilder to it

or, uh, excluding him from being a suspect.

- For a lot of detectives, Wilder is the white whale case

of their careers.

The one they couldn't stop.

There were the women that we know that he killed,

and then there are others who keep appearing.

REPORTER: 17-year-old Mary Opitz

vanished in January of 1981.

18-year-old Mary Hare disappeared

from the same mall in February of that year.

Another disappearance happened in March of this year,

19-year-old Melody Gay.

DUNCAN: Wilder is probably responsible

for upwards of 14 murders across two countries

over a period of 20 years.

In Australia, he might be responsible

for the Wanda Beach Murders,

one of the most notorious crimes

in Australian history.

REPORTER: Police search Wanda Beach

after two teenage girls are found murdered.

15-year-old friends Marianne Schmidt

and Christine Sharrock had taken their brothers

and sisters for a day out.

The pair was last spotted with an unknown teenage boy.

DUNCAN: A good-looking young bloke, late teens, early 20s.

Sandy blonde hair.

At the time, Christopher Wilder was almost 20.

REPORTER: They were seen to disappear with that youth

into the sand dunes.

DUNCAN: They'd been sexually assaulted

then stabbed to death.

It was an utterly horrific crime.

And that Wanda Beach murder prompted, at that point,

the biggest manhunt in Australian history.

They have semen samples and blood samples

they believe belong to the killer.

- Sadly, when they went looking for it, when DNA came in,

it had been misfiled and no one's

ever been able to find it.

So that one bit of evidence

that could prove that Christopher Wilder

was the killer or wasn't the killer is missing.

The case still remains unsolved.

You just have to wonder how many other people

may be Wilder victims.

REPORTER: The end of Wilder's bloody cross-country odyssey

has not closed the case.

The FBI is examining the car in which Wilder shot himself.

The most significant find may be this briefcase

containing bloodstained tape, a knife,

gun holster, passport, $4,900,

as well as photographs of several unidentified women,

the kind Wilder reportedly enticed

with promises of modeling jobs.

TIM: He had Beth's keys, he had all her personal stuff.

I mean, the reality sunk in that,

you know, probably never gonna find out

where she's at unless someone else had information.

[somber music]

- My parents, they were trying to hang on to something

that would find Beth.

- We're just going on the theory that possibly, uh,

liking Beth so much, as he did, that he really didn't harm her.

BILL: When my mom passed away--

and she passed away pretty young, 59--

she died of a broken heart.

♪ ♪

TIM: A lot of reasons to be hateful

towards Christopher Wilder, right?

But if I ever feel really angry about him,

is what he took from our family was the chance

to be a family, right?

With my kids.

So.

♪ ♪

JOHN: It's sad--we never found Rosario Gonzalez

or Elizabeth Kenyon's body.

The poor families have to live with it.

And there's no doubt in my mind

that he killed other girls.

You gotta figure this is not all he did.

But I don't know what else more we could have done.

You wanna be able to feel like you did all you could do.

JOHN: Well, I do. Yes, I do.

And I'm not saying that--

I'd tell you, you know?

You gotta be able to live with yourself, you know?

TINA: I have two regrets: getting in the car

and taking Dawn.

It was a choice.

It wasn't mine, but it was a choice,

and I have to live with that.

DAWN: While it would not have happened to me

if it were not for her, I think she was a victim

and did what she felt like she needed to do

to, you know, stay alive.

Like, it's a survival mechanism like we all have.

Yeah.

♪ ♪

- After, uh, redoing our investigation,

the United States Attorney's Office in Buffalo

has declined to prosecute Ms. Risico, uh,

for any of her involvement in the kidnapping

of, uh, Ms. Wilt in Indiana and her transportation

to the Buffalo area.

REPORTER: So is that a final decision on her?

- [scoffs] Um...

Have they had a good life?

Because I truly hope they have.

Um...

I would hope somebody doesn't survive that

and then have to live the rest of their years

in torture because of it.

So...I would just, uh...

I would ask them if they've had a good life

because I hope that somehow,

through it all, they found peace.

DAWN: It has not been an easy ride,

but there's been some incredible joy

and incredible satisfaction.

I have two beautiful children that, you know, I live for.

Um, we have lots of laughs and fun,

and, you know, some days are hard and some days are amazing.

And it is just this journey.

And I don't think that time heals all wounds,

but time certainly helps you, um,

be able to, like, sit here today, right?

♪ ♪

TINA: When I came back, as I mentioned, I was closed off.

I was in a lot of anger.

Hurt my grandma all the time, my closest--

closest person to me, and I wish I could take that back,

but it was because I was dealing with this

internally by myself.

So I was an introvert.

But Lou broke me out of that.

A friend, Bruce Brush, did this for our anniversary.

8-25 is when we got married. I married Lou.

And me in Vegas.

[sentimental music]

Lou was well aware of every detail of my ordeal.

And he was so laid-back, big heart,

that it changed me to become myself,

my true self, finally, at, you know,

32 years old.

I had to become myself then.

JACKIE: Three days a week.

Hi, Tina.

The woman of the hour.

TINA: I turned myself around.

Got sober.

I'm--you know, I'm living my best life now.

Hi, Jackie. - It's okay.

TINA: Hi, Sherry. Hi, Buck.

Look at you, you're all great.

Oh, my God!

Hi, Holly.

[overlapping speech]

Yes, you are.

Hi, baby.

I'm so glad you made it. - Good to see you.

TINA: Likewise. Hi.

- Hi, hello. Tina Marie. TINA: Hi, Ricky.

I have an abundance in my life.

I have lots of loving friends.

They have been there through thick and thin with me,

ups and downs, and I love my friends.

- That you are.

PERSON: So it's nice to officially meet you.

TINA: I may not see them every day of my life,

but that's what good friends are about.

It doesn't have to be like every day.

- Tina, how has this experience been for you?

- Uh, cathartic. Uh...

RICK: Can you spell that?

[laughter]

- Not really.

RICK: No one said there's gonna be big words.

- Cathartic. Uh, uh...

eye-opening, um...

I had forgotten some things or suppressed them,

not really a--same difference.

Uh, and then having to read some things that I forgot

that happened to me that kind of, you know, jarred me.

PERSON: I, for one, was always concerned

that she never talked about it. - Yes.

- And last night, she called me and she told me things that--

- Yeah.

TINA: See, I never talked about it with people

because it's hard to understand.

And you're gonna like, oh, my God, you're out of your mind.

How could that have happened?

How could you say, like, how did that happen?

So I never talked to any of you about it

because I didn't wanna have to explain.

- Do you think that what you went through

as an innocent child helped you survive?

I mean, do you-- do you correlate that?

- Oh, the survivor skills kicked in

because of how Mom brought me up.

♪ ♪

I have been approached for all these years many, many times.

Doing a couple of shows.

And it just only focused on him.

And then it didn't express who I am.

DAWN: I have never watched, listened,

read about anything about this

because, you know, it was my experience, I had it.

But I do remember somebody saying to me that, um,

he had actually did turn around

to see if I was still there and alive.

I love that he knew that.

You know, that he came back for me and I was gone.

And so I think this project in particular

was compelling for me because this really

is a story about survival.

And the other victims and their families

having an opportunity to share who they were as people.

They were much more than what happened to them at the end.

TINA: And I hope after this comes out, that somebody

can find strength from what I've given in my side

of the story, my truth.

I hope they can, uh, gather something from it

and walk away with inspiration.

Don't take shit from nobody.

Only you can dictate who you are.

♪ ♪

[somber music]

♪ ♪