04x08 - The Disappearance of Chyenne Kircher Part 2

[bunniefuu]

Hi, guys. I hope you guys
like my new hair.

- Chyenne Kircher, a missing 14
year old girl from East Dubuque.

Family had found
a note inside of the car.

- The note was confirmed to
be written by Chyenne.

- We found a YouTube video where
this man comes into the room.

I think we all strongly
believed was her stepdad.

- I thought there was
a sexual relationship.

- I didn't believe him.

- We really believed he was
just screwing with us.

- And he walks us up

this steep wooded embankment
behind the house.

We filmed everything.

- All these leads,
all the things

that we ran down as a team.

- What happened?

In the FBI
we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings,

t*rror1st takedowns.

We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.
- Freeze!

- FBI.
- FBI!

But they
don't know the half of it.

What really goes down?

We save that for each other,

when we're talking
agent to agent.

This is FBI True.

- Cheyenne Kircher goes missing.


East Dubuque, Illinois.

We have dozens of these types
of cases throughout the year

where children run away.

Dubuque, Iowa is a large city
across the river

from East Dubuque.

- We had covered all the leads,
talked to all of our contacts

that Cheyenne had made online.

And so now we were
kind of pivoting

and looking at everyone that was
in close proximity to her.

- Lori Lyons, her mother,
passed her polygraph.

The older brother, Colorado,
passed his polygraph.

- The polygrapher is
interviewing Terry.

And then what do you
get, a phone call?

- A text message.

It's actually to get up here
and then about probably

five or 10 seconds later, now.

- Generally, walking into an
interview,

doing the types of cases
I did up until that point,

I would have all my
notes prepared.

I would have topics to discuss.
I had none.

I was mainly a financial crimes
investigator at that point.

I'd worked a few bank robberies
and a couple of other things

and the reason I got selected, I
think, was because I had always

expressed an interest in
working missing people.

So walking into that room
and not knowing anything

that was going to transpire

was a very nerve
wracking feeling for me.

I remember being extremely
nervous about it.

And I decided walking in,
that I couldn't be prepared.

I'm just going to let him talk
and then go from there.

- And our interview
room is set up.

It's recorded.
We have an observation room.

So there's a ton of us jammed
in the observation room.

And Terry kind of lays out
what happened with it

and how it went down.

- After all these interviews,
all these leads,

all the things that
we ran down as a team,

to all of a sudden just
have that, like, here it is.

And I said, well I need more
details. What happened?

- So his version of events were
that she was running outside

and that she said, chase me.
Chase me up the hill.

So he proceeded to
chase her up the hill.

At that point he fell down,

slipped and fell somehow
while he was chasing her,

and that she turned around and
started laughing at him,

that somehow something must have
snapped in him, that he didn't

like her laughing,
and the next thing he knew,

he had blacked out
and he's standing above her.

- It's all coming in so fast
that I'm still trying

to process what's real, what's
truthful,

what's not at this point.

So in my mind, I'm
thinking, good...

It's terrible that something
bad has happened,

but he is confessing to being
responsible for her death.

So it's a good thing.

As for the blackout,
I didn't believe it.

- We hear that
blackout story a lot

when it comes to confessions.

You know, somebody will say, I
blacked out when this happened.

It wasn't the truthful
story at first,

but it was the truth
he was prepared to give

at that moment with Wayne.

- So, Casey, what are you
thinking?

You guys are in
the observation room.

- Right. Totally freaking out.
I mean, not expecting this.

- I don't know how exactly it
all came to be, but somehow

he felt as though he could tell
me his deepest, darkest secret.

- Why confess now? Was it the
fear he knew he was busted?

- I think it was based on,
a lot on the rapport

that Wayne had built with him.

I could tell that he
really liked Wayne.

He really trusted him.

And that's really part of
being able to interview people

and get them to tell us their
secrets, or confess,

building rapport with them
and making them feel safe enough

and not judged.

- So you never had a m*rder
confession before obviously,

because you worked
financial crimes

and this was your first
m*rder confession.

- That's right.
And what a confession it was.

- Me not ever having had
somebody tell me something

like that before, I was very
hurried to try to get to

where is she and would
you take us there?

Because in my mind,
we have our person.

We need to find her too.
Where is she?

- I believed that Terry Abbas
k*lled Chyenne at that point,

but I knew we needed to keep
getting more details.

- Even though he's not
being 100% truthful,

he is giving us
some key information.

- I mean, this is only like,
the halfway point, okay?

Now we've got more work to do.

This isn't going to go away
until we find out where she is.

- We needed him to show
us where her body was.

- I was immediately wanting
to put him in a vehicle.

Like, are you willing to show
us where she is right now?

And he said, yeah, you've got
to drive me, but I will take you

to the exact spot,
and I'm ike. let's go.

- And so we take him down
to the booking room.

And 'cause I arrested him for
the m*rder of Chyenne Kircher.

We drove over to East Dubuque.
We pull in. We cuffed him.

We filmed everything.

And he walks us up this steep

wooded embankment
behind the house.

We walk past this
depression in the ground

because he takes us up in there,
and I asked him,

I said, is that the grave?
Is that where Chyenne is?

Is it right here?

And I asked him, I said, Terry,
how far down did you bury her?

I didn't believe him.

I'm thinking she's two feet
down,

three feet down,
but she's not five feet.

And there's no way
that this happened.

That he dug the hole
the same day as the m*rder.

But that's what he told us.

- And then we took him
back to the jail

and put him back in
the custody of the jail,

and that's when we
called FBI forensics.

We called state police forensics
to start excavating the scene

and working up on search
warrants and all that stuff

that we're going to need

to do what we needed to do
to bring her home.

We need just to recover
her remains

and bring some
closure for everyone.

- With the excavation,
it's very meticulous.

I mean, they're just taking
layer by layer, and all the dirt

is getting sifted,
and every little nugget

is being looked at and examined.

It became very frustrating
because we had a lot of people

out there working around
the clock to try to find her.

And we're not finding anything.

And usually we would
find something by now.

- This isn't adding up as far as
what his initial confession was,

digging the hole that
same day as the m*rder.

- We believe that we have
the right location.

But we really don't know.

- What if he's lying
about the location?

We really believed that he
was just screwing with us.

- Terry Abbas, who was Chyenne's
stepdad, has been in lockup.

Wayne and I go bustin' tail
over to the sheriff's office.

We pull him out of
the holding cell.

- Just based on the information
that our ERT team had said,

usually people are not buried
so deep in the ground.

So was he being truthful,
was he not being truthful?

- And this dirt is clay.

And it's hard and it's
just it's compacted.

He confessed that he
had actually dug the hole

the day before he k*lled her.

- That's what he said?
- That's what he said.

I don't think really any
of us believed that.

It would have taken
a lot longer than a day.

And then I think
later that evening,

we came upon like
a slipper or a shoe

and were able to
identify that it was hers.

- How long did it take?
- About three days.

- Took about three days.

And so now, again, the
meticulous nature of the dig

has picked up again.

And they're exposing
the body inch by inch.

It was a total
of five feet down.

Once we finally expose
the body, she's face down.

He just, after he k*lled her,

he just dumped her in

and then he just put
the dirt back on top of her.

- So, Kim, what do you
think was his motive?

- He was molesting her.

He was afraid that
she was going to

report it in the physical or
they would actually find

physical evidence
or maybe she was pregnant.

- It was a matter of time
and then he's been outed

and he can't afford
to let that happen.

So, the only way for him to make
sure it doesn't happen

is to silence her
and to do it permanently

so he doesn't have
to worry about that anymore.

And so the note was maybe one
of the very first steps

that he took
with this whole thing.

We asked Terry about that.

And his explanation was that he
and Chyenne created that note

as a prank to be
played on her mother.

- When this all went bad
and she ended up dead,

he remembered he had that note

that would come in handy
for a time like this.

- Is this the hardest
case you ever worked?

- It probably is.

It's one of those things where
it's rewarding

that we were able
to get closure for the family

and the community and get
justice for Chyenne.

But it will forever
be overshadowed

by the terrible thing that
Terry Abbas did to her.

- I mean, it's a child,

and she was abused
and taken advantage of.

So it was very emotional.

And this kind of defines

why I was an FBI agent.

- I've been on the job
now 29 years,

and when this team
came together,

egos were checked at the door.

It didn't matter if
you were FBI, county cop,

state police, local detective,
it didn't matter.

We all put our heads together
and forged ahead.

You catch the bad guy,
you put him away,

you give the family closure,

and you do what you
took the oath to do.