03x01 - Blood Mountain

[bunniefuu]

[dramatic music]

♪♪ ♪♪

DAVID: So here's the thing
about the National Forest.

If you enjoy isolating
yourself from the real world,

a criminal has that
same opportunity.

- You don't expect to encounter
a monster on a hiking trail.

REPORTER: In northeast
Georgia, a search continues

for a missing 24-year-old hiker.

HAROLD: It is impossible
to commit a crime

without leaving evidence.

- There's not much chance
that she's still alive.

- And I realized that I
was a potential victim.

- He is acting out hunting
scenes from a movie.

COMMENTER 1: Young women
being set loose in the forest

and then hunted
down and m*rder*d.

[g*nf*re]

- Everybody was looking for him.

RESPONDER: Emergency 911.

- At some point, there
will be more victims.

COMMENTER 2: I got a
really weird feeling.

This is a human skull.

[camera shutter clicking]

- It's the stuff of nightmares.

- One of the most vile murderers

I've ever dealt with.

[moose calling]

NARRATOR: Secrets in the wild.

Beautiful, yet
treacherous places.

These are the stories
of the investigators

who solve crimes
in the wilderness.

♪♪ ♪♪

[birds chirping]

JEFF: We're at the foothills
of the Appalachian Mountains.

It's steep, it's rugged,
and it's mountainous.

Lots of lakes, streams.

Lots of hiking, lots of camping.

♪♪ ♪♪

JOHN: The mountains
of north Georgia

offer a lot of
opportunities for the people

who live and come to this area.

♪♪ ♪♪

- It's managed to be more
remote and more pristine,

like its natural
state, than other parts

of the National Forest.

So backup or law enforcement
assistance may be hours away.

- People do let their
guard down some up here,

but they should
remember that sometimes,

bad things happen
in good places.

♪♪ ♪♪

[crow cawing]

FRIEND: The first day I
met Meredith, I remembered,

because she had a very
unique and smart personality.

You felt connected to her from
the first time you met her.

There's a lot of questions
and a lot of whys

that we'll never
know the answer to.

You never really know when you
might not see someone again.

♪♪ ♪♪

KIMBERLY: On January 2, 2008,

the Union County
Sheriff's Office

got a call of a missing hiker
that was up on Blood Mountain.

Her name was Meredith Emerson.

[ominous music]

♪♪ ♪♪

The call came in
from her roommate...

Saying that Meredith had left
a note that she went hiking,

and never came home.

JULIA: She left me a
note that just said,

"Gone hiking, took Ella."

Um, and that was normal.

She would normally
just take her dog.

She loved to do, and
take her dog hiking.

KIMBERLY: She got
a little worried.

Meredith did not
come home overnight.

And that's when she
made the phone call

to Union County for us
to go up there and check.

CLAY: Her boyfriend located
her car in the parking lot

of the Byron Herbert
Reece connector trail.

He had left a yellow
sticky note on it,

telling her to stay there,

that they were looking for her.

♪♪ ♪♪

JEFF: As a patrolman,
we would get

these missing hiker
cases all over the state.

Somebody overestimated how fast
they could get from point A

to point B and popped out on
a different part of the trail,

not where they left their car.

So nobody really
got overly worried

initially on this case.

KIMBERLY: When we
arrived at the trailhead,

Meredith's friends
were already there.

They started putting
search teams together

to go out and search the woods.

TRACY: Blood
Mountain is a part of

the Chattahoochee-Oconee
National Forest

in very close proximity
to the Appalachian Trail.

[tense music]

Atlanta is not very far away,
but you'll find yourself

in a totally
different area where

it's very rugged and remote.

JEFF: If you get off the
road itself, there's nothing.

[laughs] It's wilderness.

There's no houses, there's
no neighborhoods to speak of.

MITCHELL: From the parking lot

at Byron Herbert
Reece Memorial Trail

to the peak, round trip, is
a little over four miles.

People come there to get
away, to let their guard down,

which makes them a little
bit more vulnerable.

CLAY: The fact that you
have somebody hiking on

a heavily-used trail in
the middle of the day

just vanish, is
extremely unheard of.

- As time went on, we
became a little bit

more concerned that maybe some
foul play might be involved.

KIMBERLY: This was getting

a lot bigger than
what we expected.

And that's when we
called in the GBI.

CLAY: GBI stands for Georgia
Bureau of Investigation,

created to assist
local law enforcement.

JEFF: We get requested
by the chief of police,

the sheriff, the
district attorneys,

Superior Court judges.

The more rural areas
have limited resources.

They tend to lean on the GBI
more than the urban areas.

VERNON: GBI brings in a
level of specialization

and can concentrate with
the sheriff's department

on conducting the investigation

into Meredith Emerson's
disappearance.

[spider legs clicking]

[bear breathing heavily]

[wind chimes clanging]

JOHN: My name is John Cagle.

I was the Special
Agent in charge

of the GBI Regional Office.

The Union County
Sheriff's Office called me

about 9:00 on the
night of January 2.

We knew it was going to take
us all to go to Blood Mountain

and get this thing organized.

[ominous music]

♪♪ ♪♪

The GBI has been requested
to join in this effort.

We have GBI agents on site here,

as well as other law
enforcement personnel

from many different agencies.

CLAY: John is a
true mountain man.

He's one of the best GBI
agents I ever worked with.

JOHN: The motto that
I tried to live by

was never get too close.

Never let it get personal.

And I was able to maintain that

until the Meredith Emerson case.

REPORTER: Friends of Meredith
Emerson sent this picture

to us showing
Emerson and her dog.

They hope it will help
authorities find her.

The search for Emerson is
taking place on Blood Mountain

in Union County right now.

- Meredith's roommate got
a lot of media contacts

and sent the world
to Blood Mountain.

JULIA: The one thing we
know, if Meredith is there,

then her dog is there.

And, um... and just wouldn't
leave her side for anything.

So, uh, we're hopeful
that if they're out there,

that they're together.

JOHN: So they prepared
some posters with a picture

of Meredith that
she was missing.

So they got the word
out fairly quickly, too,

to their friends and
their network of friends.

FRIEND: I went to
school with Meredith.

Been best friends with Meredith

for about six years now.

So, you know, knowing her,

everything's going to end up OK

and we're just going to be
out here for her until it is.

JOHN: We do something
called victimology

to find out just
as much as we could

about Meredith Hope Emerson...

her habits, who she hung out
with, what she liked to do.

She was 24 years old

and graduated from the
University of Georgia.

And then she adopted
her dog, Ella.

Meredith was not
the kind of person

that would just disappear.

As soon as she didn't come home,

then everybody's radar went up.

JULIA: Growing up in Colorado
and being an experienced hiker

that, um, that we
are, we are hopeful,

um, but of course, we're
also, you know, scared.

- The more we found out
about her and her abilities,

this is probably
not an injured hiker

or somebody who got
lost on the trail.

REPORTER: Family and friends
have been gathering here,

and of course, are
staying in close contact

with the law
enforcement authorities.

JOHN: In a missing
persons case,

you always want to
talk with the boyfriend

or the husband or wife.

Were they troubled?
Were they mad?

Were they upset about something?

[ominous music]

The Union County
Sheriff's Office

actually thought that
the boyfriend might

be involved in the
disappearance of Meredith.

- She's alone wherever she is,

and it's probably
very silent there.

It's probably very cold there.

CLAY: He was very
dry, unemotional.

So our Spidey senses
definitely went up.

♪♪ ♪♪

He found her car.

He knew where to look.

That was strange,
in and of itself.

Things started stacking
against him pretty quickly.

JOHN: He told us
they had plans

and they talked that morning

and the plans changed,
and Meredith decided

just to take Ella and go hiking.

CLAY: When you're dealing
with somebody missing

that you think something
may have happened to,

90% of all cases

tends to go toward
someone that you know,

someone that knows you.

♪♪ ♪♪

JOHN: He said he
was with friends

in metro Atlanta that day.

We confirmed that
with those friends.

We also accessed
his phone records,

which showed that his phone
was in metro Atlanta all day.

It was very clear that
he was nowhere near

Blood Mountain on January 1.

REPORTER: In
northeast Georgia,

a search continues in the woods

for a missing 24-year-old hiker.

- Meredith!

CLAY: We had hundreds and
hundreds of volunteers

that were scouring the mountain,

looking for any
evidence or clues

that, uh, would
give us a direction.

- We literally just
hit the ground.

SEARCHER: Meredith!

JEFF: There were a number
of civilian searchers

that were out there.

So we try to say, look,
if you find something

you think is important,
don't touch it,

don't pick it up,
hold what you have,

let us come photograph
it, collect it.

REPORTER: But as
48 hours ticked by,

no sign of the
woman, nor her dog.

JOHN: And in this
case, we needed help.

So one thing we always do
in these kinds of cases,

we try to rapidly
set up a tip line,

so that the public can call.

We want to talk to
anybody who saw Meredith

on the trail New Years Day.

- We got to ask the public
who have seen something

or heard something to
get in touch with us.

♪♪ ♪♪

[thunder rumbling]

EYEWITNESS 1: My
father-in-law was looking at

retiring in Georgia,
and he loves to hike.

It was New Year's
morning and I was like,

hey, we should go
hike Blood Mountain.

It's about an hour and
a half from our house.

It was a beautiful morning.
It was nice and sunny.

I would say there's
probably 30 to 40 people

in various places all
throughout the mountain.

[dog barking]

We were not very far in,

maybe 3/4 of a mile
into the trail.

Meredith was jogging
down the mountain.

I wouldn't have even
noticed, because there were

a lot of people on
the trail that day,

except for the fact that

I have these two crazy
dogs that were puppies.

She had a dog, and
my dogs immediately

ran up to her and her dog.

So I was like, I'm sorry, sorry.

And she's like, it's
fine, it's fine.

And after we passed by her,

the next person I
saw was this old guy

in a yellow and black
North Face jacket

walking down the
mountain with his dog.

He intentionally avoided
us off the trail.

That caught my eye a little,
just because everybody

kind of stays on the trail,

and he just went around.

Like, it didn't feel right.

It didn't feel...

it didn't feel normal.

CLAY: Another witness
had seen Meredith Emerson

on January 1 hiking.

And he had also seen a
strange-looking individual

that seemed to be trying
to catch up to her.

The guy he described was
a man in his 50s or 60s.

He was wearing
high-end hiking gear.

He had a police-style baton,

had a bayonet knife on his belt.

What he couldn't shake,
was the fact that

he had duct tape on his shoes.

[ominous music]

♪♪ ♪♪

Somebody that's a very
experienced hiker,

why would you have duct
tape on your shoes?

He didn't give much
credence to it at first.

But when he was coming back
down the trail after hiking,

he noticed two water bottles,

a dog leash,

and the expandable police
baton on the ground.

- A police baton, it
is an expandable baton.

It can go from this
short to this long.

It is used to subdue a
person to get them to comply.

- It's just not normal
to see that on someone

other than a police officer.

CLAY: Some of the reports
that we had gotten,

was that along this
area in these rocks,

they had seen a man
kind of crouching down

behind the rocks,
hiding in this area.

And didn't know exactly
what he was doing.

Right at this switchback is
where he had found the items.

He said that there
was disturbed earth

between this trail
and this trail

where it looked like
somebody had tumbled off

the trail down to the other.

And within that area, he
had found the water bottles,

police-style baton,
and the dog leash,

and the dog treats.

JOHN: And the fact that
that baton had been found

near items we believed
belonged to Meredith,

it just scared us to death.

This trail on January 1, 2008,
had to be a real busy day.

And it had to happen so quickly

with that number of
people on the trail...

I just don't understand how.

There might have been
somebody else coming down

that would have
heard the commotion

and heard her scream.

This had to be the spot.

She's alone,

and it didn't take long.

[ominous music]

♪♪ ♪♪

EYEWITNESS 2: I was
with my husband,

my father, my
stepmother, and a friend.

♪♪ ♪♪

It was cold, so
I started walking

a little faster than my group.

I turned back and I saw that
a man had cut in front of them

and was coming towards me.

As I stepped aside
for him to pass me,

I started talking about his dog.

I was like, wow,
what a beautiful dog.

What's her name?

He said, his name's Dandy,
like a fancy dresser.

Didn't look at him, I
was looking at his dog.

When I saw his face, I was like,

this guy's very creepy.

And all of a sudden
he goes, you know,

I get so pissed off
when I come up here,

because people are not prepared.

He was like, you know,

most people carry cell
phones these days.

Do you have a cell
phone with you?

I was like, well, no.

And he was like,
well, are you alone?

As we got to that point
where the trail split,

my father had caught up to
me and was right behind me.

I was like, well, it
was nice talking to you.

And I didn't really think
anything more about it.

And then days later

when we found out that
Meredith was missing,

everything crashed in

and I realized that I was...

a potential victim.

JOHN: He was hunting
people on New Year's Eve.

Had she been alone,

then he would have had
a victim New Year's Eve.

VERNON: The focus
pretty quickly

became that Meredith
Emerson had been abducted.

[phone ringing]

- Things were changing
very, very rapidly.

EYEWITNESS 1: We literally
were some of the last people

off the mountain that day.

And when we got down there,
almost to the parking lot,

I only saw two cars.

I saw the white Astrovan, and
like a little smaller car.

JOHN: Through our interviews
with some witnesses,

one of them had
taken a photograph.

[camera shutter clicking]
And in the background,

you could see a man
standing by a white van.

CLAY: And in that picture,

he had on a yellow raincoat.

JOHN: We knew we were
on the right track,

because of the consistency
of all those witnesses

that we wanted to find this man.

- Meredith Emerson
has been missing now

for two bitterly cold nights.

We just received
information from authorities

that they have named
a person of interest

in her disappearance.

Authorities are looking for

a 50 to 60-year-old white
man, about 160 pounds.

He had a dark reddish retriever

and was wearing a yellow
jacket and backpack.

They are hoping that they will
be able to find Emerson alive.

- We began to get a
lot of information

coming in through the tip line.

[phone ringing]

CLAY: We were literally
getting thousands of calls.

Some, you could dismiss
relatively quickly,

but some of them wound up
being extremely valuable.

[phone ringing]

JOHN: That's when we
got a very critical call

that just scared everybody.

CLAY: On January 3,

we received a telephone call

from North Carolina authorities.

It was a Special Agent
named Junior Young.

He felt like the case
that we were investigating

was eerily similar to the case
that he had in North Carolina.

- He said the person that we
were looking for in our case

matched the description of a
person they were looking for

in an abduction and m*rder case

in the Pisgah National Forest.

[ominous music]

[birds chirping]

HAROLD: We're overlooking
the Pisgah National Forest

on the Pisgah Ranger
District here.

Primarily, the area here
in Transylvania County.

This was my office.

This is where I worked.

Great views.

Unfortunately, for a few,

this is not such a great place.

♪♪ ♪♪

My name is Harold Young, Jr.

I'm a retired special agent

with the United
States Forest Service.

The Pisgah Ranger District
is comprised of approximately

162,000 acres.

That's just this district alone.

For me as an investigator
with the forest service,

I just primarily focused on
crimes in a National Forest.

On November 6, 2007, I
was working in my office

and the front desk person
at the, uh, visitor center

came back and said there's
a gentleman out here,

would like to talk to you
about his missing parents.

It was Robert Bryant,

the son of John
and Irene Bryant.

He explained to me that
somewhere in the vicinity

of about two weeks, he
had lost contact with them

on October the 21st.

[keyboard clacking]

He was trying to figure
out what location

he needed to focus to
try to find his parents.

[ominous music]

♪♪ ♪♪

MATT: John and Irene Bryant

moved here about the
same time we did.

And we knew 'em for
six, seven years.

And they were directly
across the street.

John was... you know,
I would call him

a self-effacing individual,

an attorney by trade,
and a very smart guy.

But you would never know it.

You would just think he
was just a Joe next door.

Irene Bryant was a veterinarian

most of her working life.

They were a great couple,
easy to get along with.

Easy to like.

♪♪ ♪♪

I believe it was the
love of the mountains

that brought John and Irene
to Western North Carolina.

[ominous music]

♪♪ ♪♪

Folks on our street
started noticing

the newspapers were
piling up on the doorstep.

And we all started getting
a little concerned.

♪♪ ♪♪

The sheriff called
John and Irene's son.

[knocking]

Bob flew up the next day from
Texas and knocked on my door.

Said, Matt, do you know where
the key is to my dad's house?

I said, no, but
let's go break in.

And Bob knew I think right away

that something bad was
happening, or had happened.

[glass crunching]

The fruit was in the fruit
bowl, had already rotted.

And there was laundry
in the washing machine

that hadn't been laundered.

It was an eerie feeling,
because you were breaking

into someone's house
that hadn't been there

for, you know, a week or more.

We said, this is not good.

♪♪ ♪♪

HAROLD: Robert had found
several photographs of them

in the Pisgah National Forest,

and he explained that
they loved to come up

into the forest and hike.

And he felt like,
based on photographs,

that they frequented the area

near the Pisgah Ranger District.

I suggested he focus on the
area around the fish hatchery

and cut off of that
onto Yellow Gap Road,

which circles back
into Hendersonville

where the Bryants lived.

♪♪ ♪♪

Probably about 45
minutes to an hour later,

Robert returns to my
office and he said,

I found my dad's vehicle,

which kind of sent a few
cold chills down my spine.

So, showed me exactly where the
car is, and in the meantime,

I'm calling a rescue
squad to get them up here

and we'll start a search.

- In the rescue squad,
we have been very active

in years past for
search for lost persons

and rescues of injured
persons on trails.

Pisgah National Forest
is very widespread

with various areas of terrain.

It is very dense in
a lot of locations.

This is Transylvania County,
which means across the valley.

Of course, people
associate us more

with the typical Transylvania
stigma of vampires and bats

and Dracula and all that.

We do have a lot of bats.

[bats chirping, squeaking]

HAROLD: This is our
busiest recreation area

and time of year.

The fall of the year,

this area is just
unbelievably beautiful.

So at the time that
they disappeared,

there would have been
an unbelievable amount

of visitors in the
National Forest.

♪♪ ♪♪

[camera shutter clicking]

I followed Robert up to
where the car was located

in a little parking area
right beside the trail

at Bennett Gap.

You could see all of the dust

that had accumulated on the car,

so obviously, it had
been there a while.

The car was not broken into.

The car was locked.

And there didn't seem to be
anything amiss with the car.

[siren wailing]

BRIAN: We start
getting maps out,

look at where the
vehicle's located,

and we consider that what
we call a point last seen.

And deploy personnel
on various trails

that the lost persons
could have taken.

- I want to be involved,
because this was my...

my neighborhood, my patrol area.

♪♪ ♪♪

Out of the 400 miles
of roads and trails,

Yellow Gap Road was one of
the main roads I patrolled.

And it was an all-out search.

Then after, say eight, 10,
12 hour-day, you go home.

And then you start the process
all over again the next day.

BRIAN: We had
been unsuccessful

in locating anything

related to them
on all the trails.

DAVID: Something's
just not adding up.

We need to change the
focus of this search

and do a much more
methodical search

from a law enforcement
perspective at that point.

[crow cawing]

HAROLD: We're
looking for a body.

We're looking for a
piece of clothing.

We're looking for
a purse, maybe.

We're looking for a wallet
that they may have dropped.

We formalized a plan to
start doing a grid search.

Basically, start
walking through an area,

arms width apart, looking
at everything on the ground

and covering a certain area.

- Did not take very long at all

before we unfortunately
found Ms. Bryant.

[ominous music]

HAROLD: We responded, and
a little bit of frustration

and embarrassment.

The body was found

maybe 150 feet from the car.

[camera shutter clicks]

When I arrived at the scene,

rescue squad members met me here

and they pointed this
direction and said,

we found skeletal
remains down here.

They pointed down
this direction here.

We walked down this
area, keeping in mind,

that particular day,

all the foliage was much
greater than it is now.

At about this point, I
could see skeletal remains

and some clothing items
laying on the ground

just in front of me
here, about 30 feet.

I was confident we had
a criminal investigation

because the proximity
to the car, just...

there was no reason for
that body to be here.

But I immediately...

I'm starting to look
around. And where is John?

[camera shutter clicks]

♪♪ ♪♪

The perpetrator did not
want Irene Bryant found,

at least immediately.

♪♪ ♪♪

DAVID: She was in a
state of decomposition,

and it was apparent to us

that she had suffered some
sort of blunt force trauma

to her head.

HAROLD: Up close and personal
in contact with the victim,

overpowering her with
an object to the head.

Maybe something round,

uh, like a piece of
pipe or something

similar to that.

♪♪ ♪♪

BRIAN: And the scene was...

I'm trying to think of
a decent way to say...

had been disturbed by
wildlife in the area.

♪♪ ♪♪

- The collection
of evidence always

revolves around timeliness.

At this point, the leaves
are starting to fall,

so you have even further
camouflage, if you will.

[camera shutter clicks]

So we began to document that
area through photographs

and try to collect as
much evidence as we could.

HAROLD: We started processing
the car for evidence.

Latent fingerprints, fibers,

anything that could
possibly lead to a suspect.

My experience has always been,

especially in m*rder
investigations,

it's the small things
that solve the crimes.

It's not the large things.

I knew that on board
diagnostic tests on cars

could tell mechanics a lot
of things about a vehicle.

I had the Bryants' car towed
to the local Ford dealership,

and they were able to tell me

that the vehicle
was last running

on October the
21st at 1:59 p.m.

Based on that information,
we started having a timeline.

Everything of our investigation

started at 1:59 p.m.

on the 21st of October.

- The working theory is
that they had arrived

back at the vehicle
and met someone

who probably attacked
at least Ms. Bryant,

and then disposed of her
body in that wooded location.

In terms of a working
theory on Mr. Bryant,

I don't know that we
necessarily had one.

Anything could
have been possible.

LEE: I got called in
to secure her remains

and to prevent people
from going beyond

that taped area for the night.

Up until probably 7:00 or
8:00 the next morning...

Her death was on my mind.

And what can I do
to make amends,

to right a wrong?

I try not to take it personal,

but I took it a little personal
that it was under my watch,

and it made me angry.

And I'd like to have five
minutes with him in a room,

whoever did that.

It's something
I'll never forget.

HAROLD: In reference
to what happened

to Robert and the family

after we discovered the body,

I remember when we told
him we'd found the...

a body that we
believed was his mom.

You could tell it's setting in.

"My mom's not coming home."

And we don't know where dad is.

[somber music]

And you could see
tears in his eyes

and he's just reliving
his whole life

with his mom that is no
longer going to be around.

MATT: When they found Irene's
body in the National Forest,

that was a tough day.

I think everyone that knew
Jack and Irene were totally

in disbelief that
this could happen

in our little section of
Western North Carolina,

and the way it did.

You go through a lot
of different scenarios

in your mind.

Why was John not with Irene?

[ominous music]

♪♪ ♪♪

HAROLD: When someone
wants to conceal evidence

of a crime in a area this vast,

it's extremely
difficult to find.

I mean, as far as
you can see here,

this is primarily
National Forest lands.

And where do you look?

It's hard to imagine

doing a crime scene in
this big of an area.

♪♪ ♪♪

Once we found Irene,

I almost became two
investigators in one.

One of me was trying to solve
who did this horrendous crime

to Irene, and the other is,

what have they done or what
are they going to do with John?

Where is John Bryant?

- In this case, there was
pressure to find Mr. Bryant.

There was pressure to
find the individual

or individuals responsible
for committing these crimes.

We had hundreds of
thousands of people

patronize Pisgah National
Forest in Transylvania County.

It could be anyone that came
into the area from anywhere.

And you have to rely on
where they messed up.

[birds chirping]

- We get the phone
records of John Bryant,

and lo and behold, on
the 21st of October,

it shows a 911 call

at 3:59 p.m., I believe it is.

So the call from
John Bryant's phone

made it to the cell
tower, but the cell tower

was unable to forward
it on to the 911 system

because of lack of, uh, signal.

DAVID: Very frustrating,
and very sad

that there was a possibility
we could have helped

or stopped this incident.

♪♪ ♪♪

HAROLD: We knew
from investigations

that cell carriers can
actually triangulate

if there is at least
three towers involved.

They could tell
you almost exactly

where the phone call was made.

That area is approximately
15 to a 20-minute drive

from the site of where
Irene's body was found,

and where the car was found.

I believed that that
call was probably

made by John Bryant,

who was in the vehicle
with the suspect.

He may have gotten caught
trying to make that call.

My working theory was
that John was abducted,

Irene was k*lled,

probably because the perpetrator

did not want to keep
two people with him.

♪♪ ♪♪

DAVID: I remember
having a feeling

that it was somehow
bigger than anything

we had seen at that point.

BRIAN: And so we know
that we're already

two weeks behind locating
what happened and who did it.

♪♪ ♪♪

[birds chirping]

[soft suspenseful music]

♪♪ ♪♪

HAROLD: We want to talk
to every single person

that was in the National Forest

on the Pisgah Ranger District
in Transylvania County

on October 21.

BRIAN: We were hopeful
that someone in the area

may have seen something
and can provide us

with any information.

Someone acting funny,
acting strange.

We did not have the social media

that we have nowadays back then.

So we had local
media, newspapers,

radio stations, television.

DAVID: We had hundreds and
hundreds of leads called in.

And they ranged from, I
saw a suspicious person,

or I saw this campsite
that had been abandoned

that just didn't
really look right.

And you never know when
that one lead is the one.

[ominous music]

HAROLD: That's where we
started getting reports

of the white van and a older man

with a dog from
numerous individuals.

We interviewed two females

that was at the Pink
Beds Picnic Area

just near the crime scene
on the 21st of October.

They explained having an
encounter with an older man

driving a white van with a
dog that approached them,

and they believe tried
to befriend them,

because they had two dogs.

And he kind of wanted their
dogs to play together.

They described that
something inside them

set off alarms with this person.

The hair on the back of
her neck kind of stood up

like, something's
not right here.

We need to get
away from this guy.

We had another
witness come forward

that said they had observed
this older male in a white van

with a dog say that he
had an extendable baton

and that he knew how to use
that baton to protect himself.

We know that Irene
Bryant was k*lled

as a result of blunt trauma

with something with
a cylindrical shape,

according to the
medical examiner.

So now we've got a
possible m*rder weapon

associated with
older model white van

in the area of the crime scene.

Old man with a dog.

This started to paint
a picture to me.

I'm dealing with somebody
that is here constantly.

He's making the effort to
make some kind of contact

with a potential
victim or victims.

He's confident.

He still has that determination.

"I'm going to commit a crime."

But unfortunately,
for whatever reason,

the Bryants turned
into a victim.

[ominous music]

[birds chirping]

JOHN: We're hopeful that we'll
be able to locate this person,

uh, and interview him
concerning his contact,

uh, with Ms. Emerson
there at the trailhead.

The suspect in North Carolina

was an exact match for the
person that we believed

abducted Meredith Emerson.

CLAY: For somebody to take
somebody from the trail

down the side of a
mountain to a van...

♪♪ ♪♪

With nobody seeing anything,
with nobody hearing anything,

is just absolutely unheard
of to law enforcement.

♪♪ ♪♪

Meredith's phone was shut
off, so we started initially,

looking for electronic trails.

JOHN: The sheriff's office
had contacted Meredith's bank

and asked, had there been
any banking activity.

We asked the bank to let us know

in the event there was any
activity with the ATM card

or anything like that.

CLAY: The bank reported no
activity on her debit card

or her bank accounts at all.

JOHN: We knew that there was
one k*lling in North Carolina,

but we didn't know
where John Bryant was.

That was disturbing.

[siren wailing]

VERNON: If we had a chance of
recovering Meredith Emerson

and saving her life,

we were going to do everything
possible to do that.

- If you can't find
out what happened

within a couple of days, it's
going to go cold quickly.

♪♪ ♪♪

[birds chirping]

[soft music]

HAROLD: Looking
at the obituary

for Irene Woods Bryant that is
dated November the 25th, 2007.

And heartbreaking to me,

is that this one paragraph here,

that Irene is survived
by her husband,

John Davis Bryant.

[somber music]

The Bryants disappeared
on the 21st of October,

and this is the
25th of November,

so we're talking
four weeks plus.

For the family to go
through this service

and know that their
mother is deceased,

yet their father is missing,

but they don't
know where he's at.

♪♪ ♪♪

MATT: I think a lot of people
thought after Irene's body

was found that maybe
there was hope for Jack

and that he had
survived or escaped

or overtaken his assailant.

But as every day went by,

uh, there was just
less and less hope.

HAROLD: I believe that it
is absolutely impossible

to commit a crime
without leaving evidence.

It's your job as an investigator

to find that evidence
and link it to a suspect.

A lot of crimes
that I investigated,

especially people crimes,
are associated with

a sexual drive or money-driven.

I didn't think that John
was a sex-driven incident,

so we figured it was money.

That's why the bank ATM
cards and bank information

is critical to find out,

did somebody take
money from the victim?

- It was determined that
John Bryant's credit card

was used at an ATM in
Ducktown, Tennessee,

over a two-hour drive from where

John and Irene Bryant's
vehicle was located

in Pisgah National Forest.

- $300 was taken from their
account, which at that time,

I believe was the limit
that you could get on an ATM

in one transaction.

The m*rder occurs on the 21st

at about 2:00.

911 call's made right at 3:59.

[keyboard clacking]

The ATM is used
the following day

at about 7:00
p.m. on the 22nd.

It's got to be John, or
it's got to be somebody

using John's card
with John's consent,

or against his will.

DAVID: When we got the
video from the ATM,

we clearly saw a person
who had spent some time

trying to disguise themselves

so that they could not be
identified as they were using

that ATM card.

HAROLD: As you can see, fairly
grainy, not very much detail.

He's clearly aware
there's cameras.

He's using camouflage
of covering his face.

Also of interest in this, you
can see this yellow jacket.

There's duct tape
across the front here.

I have no clue what
that's for or why,

but it's just kind of unusual.

DAVID: Whether it was
Mr. Bryant or whether

it was some other suspect,
at that moment, we...

we couldn't tell.

HAROLD: We were interested in
a height and least a weight,

at least to eliminate him
from being a possibility

of John Bryant doing it.

We took measurements of
the known points that

could be seen in photographs,
such as the post for the porch

that covered the ATM.

5' 10", slender build,
not a heavyset person,

which did not match John
Bryant's descriptive.

After this perpetrator
got the money,

which direction did they
go, which unfortunately,

this surveillance system
was not aimed in a way

that we were able to tell
the direction of travel

after he gained access

to John and Irene
Bryant's bank account.

[suspenseful music]

DAVID: Whoever
our suspect was,

they picked remote locations

both in the forest
and also the ATM usage

in Ducktown, Tennessee.

It's no longer just
Transylvania County.

It's Western North Carolina,

and then Tennessee.

HAROLD: Everybody's job
just became more complicated

by adding all of this
volume of land and roads

and businesses and
homes and forest.

Where could John be?

DAVID: If you
have an individual

who doesn't mind giving up
a few creature comforts,

it's incredibly difficult

to try to track
those folks down.

HAROLD: So I'm two, three,
four weeks into this.

It's almost just
like throwing darts.

Things were slowing down.

We wasn't getting
anywhere that I could tell

with the investigation.

The road was leading nowhere.

DAVID: There was an
incredible amount of pressure

from our community asking me

if it was safe for our residents

to take their family
into the forest.

We need to catch the
person responsible

and bring him to justice.

[clock ticking]

One of our detectives
came to me and said,

hey, Sheriff, you might
want to take a look at this.

It was a news article that had
a photograph of an individual

disguised attempting
to use an ATM card

belonging to a young
lady in Florida.

And I remember
seeing that article

and seeing that photograph
and having chills

run down my back, thinking,

my God, that's just like what
we saw with the Bryants' card.

I think immediately
we all thought,

there's got to be a
connection somehow.

We still had Mr. Bryant
that was missing.

We had female victims,
Forest Service land,

a disguise.

JOHN: As we were
searching for Meredith,

we were contacted by
the Florida authorities,

who were investigating the
disappearance of a female

in the Apalachicola National
Forest near Tallahassee.

Same circumstances. Same MO.

HAROLD: This is a
person that knew

how to target and victimize

people visiting the
National Forest.

DAVID: I think that
was the first time

that that initial thought I had,

that this is somehow
bigger than... than here,

I think that was the first time
that we had something to say,

yes, it is.

[ominous music]

♪♪ ♪♪