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The Hunt with John Walsh

Search Results Cops: Elby Hars Wanted for Sexual Conduct with Minor; The Hunt for Eugene Palmer. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired July 03, 2016 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[21:00:15] JOHN WALSH, CNN HOST: Back in 1981, I had the American dream, the beautiful wife, the house in the suburbs and a beautiful 6- year-old son. And one day I went to work, kissed my son good-bye and never saw him again.

In two weeks, I became the parent of a murdered child. And I'll always be the parent of a murdered child. I still have the heartache. I still have the rage. I waited years for justice. I know what it's like to be there waiting for some answers.

And over those years, I learned how to do one thing really well and that's how to catch these bastards and bring them back to justice. I've become a man hunter. I'm out there looking for bad guys.

MARTHA CROUT, BLYTHEWOOD, SC: I didn't figure it out until when I was old enough. Some of the stuff, I guess, is like a blank out. Things like sex movies. I couldn't sleep no more. I was scared. I guess I'm afraid that it's in my head, you know. It's nightmare to me. I couldn't handle it no more.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

I was 13 years old, and I was in middle school. I wasn't kind of smart. I could hardly speak some words and stuff like that because I was slow learning.

One of my sisters just was a friend with him, and it will hard. I really didn't know much about him. She met him at a theater, the drive-in theater that he had running.

Sometimes they played like children movies. Then the one they played, the other kind of movies like sex movies and stuff.

Then she brought him here to the house. All of my brothers and sisters got raised in. He was sleeping here, talking to my mom and daddy, and, you know, just like a friend.

WALSH: It never ceased to amaze me how cunning a sexual predator can be. How they can win the trust of their victim, win the trust of the victim's loved ones, and someone along the way doesn't realize that this is a serious, serious nightmare.

CROUT: When I got to know him by a month, Elby took me and my sisters to his house. We were supposed to spend the night with him, get up the next morning to go clean houses out.

We was in the front room, and him is in the back bedroom. He got up. I was there and would come in there.

Elby put a hand over my mouth and pulled me into another room. I was scared. And he forced the way with me. He didn't say nothing. He just threw me on the bed. Then he started raping me.

[21:05:06] And then told me after that, after he raped me, if I say anything, he would kill my family. It was like five, six more times. Every time is at his house.

He told me when I was laying there that I'm his girlfriend, and he'd be my boyfriend. I didn't know better. I didn't know what's good and what's bad, you know. I was kind of happy that I had a boyfriend. It went on for a while until I told the teachers what's going on at school.

RANDY THOMAS, RETIRED INVESTIGATOR, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Elby was an adult and paid her attention. This is sort of a process where they slowly seduce them. They slowly convince them that they love them. This takes place over time.

Once we had Elby's name, we ran his criminal history. That becomes very much an ah-ha moment.

We find that he has a conviction for basically criminal sexual conduct with a child, with a minor. And it turns out, it's his own daughter. She was 7 at the time that the event took place.

WALSH: Elby Hars did only about three months for molesting his own 7- year-old daughter. I believe crimes against children should be three times the punishment for what they are for crimes against adults. I have always believed that.

But this started the path of this guy and sent a message to him, I can get away with it. Time served.

(EXPLETIVE DELETED)

THOMAS: There was probable cause that Martha had been sexually molested by Elby.

We decided we're going to arrest Elby and we're going to arrest Elby when he picks her up from school. So we haul him off to jail.

Eventually, we were asked if we would accept a plea. Got ten years, I believe.

STAN SMITH, MAJOR, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: He did about five of that ten years. So when he was paroled, the daughter Terri would have been 15 or 16 years old. We think that some time in her late teens or early 20s is when she reunited with Elby. Terri made an adult decision to go back and live with the same father who had molested her when she was 7. WALSH: She doesn't know any better. The only thing she was taught by her father, her protector, her champion was a bizarre, perverted behavior.

Can this woman ever have a normal life?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRACIE, COLUMBIA, SC: Terri, just took my shirt off and started taking pictures.

SMITH: When you work sex crimes, you see a lot of unusual things. He's a monster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SMITH: We don't know exactly when they reunited, but we know that Terri Hars decided to go back and live with her natural father, Elby.

The Hars were a truck driving tandem, father and daughter truck driving team. They worked for a truck driving company and they literally drove around the United States making deliveries.

[21:12:07] TRACIE: They traveled from here to California, or anywhere up north on a constant basis. It was a really big truck.

SMITH: You have a father and daughter working and living together. He has a history of molesting her. It was right in line with the bizarre nature of the entire case.

TRACIE: I met her and her dad when I was about 12. We was at the store with my mom. We had ran into them. They were talking. And I realized they lived right down the road from us.

They actually -- after talking to my mom, they gave me $10 for my birthday that day before we had left. And not long after that, they realized exactly how close, that we did live close together. And then I started going there after school.

She paid me off $70 a week, $10 a day to come down there and straighten up a little bit. It wasn't ever really messy. Sometimes we never got done, we'll just around and just talk and keep her company.

And so I have -- when I was growing up, having her around was kind of -- kind of fun to have a girl to go to the movies, or go do our nails or go shopping. She seemed like she was kind of level-headed and sweet and just fun to hang out with at first.

Elby started hanging out eventually a lot more. And then it got to when we was going, he was going with us, and he was going to the movies with us. He was going about everywhere with us after that.

Me, Terri and Elby went to Florida. Spent the whole day at Disney World with all the characters. Spent all day riding the rides. And we did a lot that week.

SMITH: They had known her for two years up until the time, you know, 13, and then I guess they felt the time was right to pursue their goal as sick as it was.

WALSH: It's a process of seduction. It's a seduction of you're vulnerable, and I'm going to get you to participate in the worst things you can imagine. And I'm going to make you feel guilty about it, and I'm going to make you feel like you can't do anything about it and you can't say anything about it.

TRACIE: We were sitting in the living room and just going to hang out watching TV, and then Elby had changed it to a movie, to a porn movie. And I started feeling uncomfortable. And that's when they had to come towards me.

[21:15:13] And Terri had said, well, come to the bedroom so I can show you something. And then I went back down the hall and that's when it all started.

At first she had me sit on the bed. And she's just like, well, we just want to take some pictures of you. And they're just regular -- just pictures. And that's when she came over to me. She said we were going to take off your shirt. Didn't ask. She just did it. And just took my shirt off and started taking pictures.

They had a Polaroid camera because they didn't want to use a regular camera, she said, to go to -- to have to have it developed and then they would see the pictures were there. So she always had a Polaroid.

He was sitting there watching. He was saying, you know, we did spend a lot of money on you. You know, we take you out and we do this. I guess he wanted his payment.

I kind of wish that they would have never done anything for me. They would have never took me nowhere. I wish I never met them.

That's when they both approached me and took off my clothes and laid me on the bed, and told me that that's what was going to happen.

She sat beside me on the bed. Yes, her hands were on me the whole time. Just kept telling me everything was going to be OK and just lay there and not move.

Well, he just did whatever he wanted. She sat there and watched, and just kept rubbing her hands all over me. And after they were done, they just got up and went in the living room and she told me to get dressed.

WALSH: Elby Hars is one of the most despicable fugitives I've ever gone after.

SMITH: They had multiple sexual encounters with Elby Hars. Some alone with Elby Hars. Some in conjunction with Terri Hars. And they were having sex literally with father and daughter. TRACIE: The first time I seen them together, I knew it was wrong. I knew that that a dad and a daughter should not be in the bed together. And sometimes they would actually lay in the bed and the two of them together would have sex. It was very disturbing.

SMITH: Terri indicated that she'd kill anybody that tried to do anything to her own father. She became a predator.

TRACIE: I was scared that before the police got to them that they would get to me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:22:30] TRACIE: It had been about maybe a year, year and a half, Terri had made a comment about she thought that I was pregnant and told me that if I was, then me, her and her dad would -- they'd take me in. We'd go to Florida and have the baby and they'd raise it. It kind of scared me. The way she had said that.

So that's when I went to my mom, and I told her. She was a mom. She had me know that she was there for me, and she did. She stuck by me the whole time.

WALSH: Whatever horrible, devious plan they had for Tracie, thank God she had the courage to go to her mother and say I'm in a world of trouble. I need help.

TRACIE: She took me to the hospital, and they came in the room and said that I was pregnant. I was -- I cried. I was scared. And that's when me and my mom both said that we would get in contact with an adoption agency.

SMITH: When the mother of the 13-year-old had made this report, we secured a search warrant for their residence, for the Hars' residence. The Hars were not present. We later learned they were on a truck driving trip at the time.

We found the pornographic videos. We found a number of them. The scenes that the 13-year-old had described were there exactly in the way they described them. We found a number of sex toys. By that time, we had decided to go ahead and secure arrest warrants.

We had their cellular phone number. And I actually spoke to both Terri and Elby on the phone. We were sure they'd be back in town in a day or so. And then ultimately, we got the call from the attorney that he'd be turning both of them in.

We actually went to the lobby expecting to see both of them there, and it's clear what was taking place when just Terri was there. It was clear that Elby was on the run.

TRACIE: Terri knew that she could get out of jail.

[21:25:03] SMITH: Terri Hars had no prior record. Elby understood having done a ten-year sentence, I'm sure he understood that if he got convicted of these charges, he may not get out. TRACIE: In a lot of ways, I felt very angry with Terri. A lot ways. I kind of felt that she had already been through it. She'd already seen how it felt. She already knew how it felt to be done that way. And then why make it -- or help it happen to another little girl?

SMITH: Terri was a victim in, you know, when she was 7 years old. And we know from working these cases, we know from experience, that oftentimes these people that molest children were victims of molestation. And, obviously, it played itself out in just that fashion with regard to Terri. She became a predator.

It was a week-long trial and Terri was convicted of all charges. And she received a ten-year sentence, which is the same sentence her father had received in 1986.

I went to talk to her specifically about the whereabouts of her father. I'll never forget it. She hissed at me. She made a noise like a scene out of "The Exorcist."

What caused him to be that way, I have no answer for that. I have no answer for any of them, as to what causes him to be that way. But he's a monster.

TRACIE: He needs to be behind bars away from any other kids. It seemed like that's all he wants.

SMITH: I feel very certain there are other victims, especially with the nature of their long-distance travel across this country.

CROUT: To me, I wish he was dead, where he quit hurting these kids out here.

TRACIE: If you are going to put your own hands on your own child, then there's no child off limits to you.

WALSH: Elby Jesse Hars has scars on both of his arms. He has deep ties to northeast Florida. He may have gone to Mexico after he fled authorities in April of 2000, and he could still be there today.

If you have seen Elby Hars or have any information as to his whereabouts, please call 1-866-THE-HUNT. Or go online at CNN.com/TheHunt. We'll pass your tip on to the proper authorities and, if requested, will not reveal your name.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was waiting for her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was hiding in the woods, he's a hunter, and he was an expert shot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My sister wasn't scared of him like everybody else was.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:32:24] CLARENCE PALMER, EUGENE'S SON: It's about 35 miles out of New York City in a rural area, where my family originated from.

JOHN PALMER, EUGENE'S SON: The property has been in the family for 125 years.

C. PALMER: The Harrimans bought the land, took the land, flooded it, made a lake and pushed my family down the hill. There is no Harriman State Park.

MICHAEL CRUGER, DETECTIVE, HAVERSTRAW PD: The Palmer Family grew up in the woods. Their property and house butted up against Harriman State Park. They know the woods like the back of their hands.

C. PALMER: There's a graveyard and my entire family is buried there.

J. PALMER: My father would always go into the park, walk, hunt, do whatever he did.

C. PALMER: It was sacred to him. It was home.

KEVIN ROSE, EUGENE PALMER'S FRIEND: Gene was a real good hunter.

C. PALMER: Turkey season, he'd go Turkey hunting. Deer season, he'd go deer hunting. He shoot squirrels, birds, everything.

CRUGER: There was a little problem. You can't hunt on state property. And that was New York State property. All Harriman State Park.

In the '80s, Eugene Palmer threatened the life of a law enforcement officer. It was based on him hunting illegally in Harriman State Park. A lot of people were scared of him. A lot of people were afraid of him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If anybody went up his driveway, he'd come out with a shotgun.

C. PALMER: That's how he was. He's old school. If you pissed him off, he will tell you straight up how he felt.

JOHN WALSH, CNN HOST: It's part of the American myth, and people think of it as predominantly in the west. A healthy suspicion of law and government and authorities and how they regulate the land. But it happens all over America, and it happened right here in Upstate New York.

ROSE: Denise Pannirello was my ex-girlfriend.

In the mid'80s, we were together until the early '90s.

DENISE PANNIRELLO: I went out on a date with him, and it lasted for 12 years.

J. PALMER: I was 17 years old when Clarence and Denise got together. With that going on, I was around Tammy, her sister. So I started dating her. So it's two brothers, two sisters.

[21:35:19] PANNIRELLO: My sister loved him. They got married.

J. PALMER: I wish I never met her because then I never would have fell in love with her, and I never would have married her and she never would have been here.

D. PANNIRELLO: A lot of stuff started happening between my sister and John.

J. PALMER: My wife had a boyfriend and I had a girlfriend. And we kept our private relationships out of our own house. We basically lived -- tried to live as friends for the children.

CRUGER: They'd been involved in domestic disputes in the past. I've -- as a patrol officer, I responded there.

C. PALMER: They were abusive to each other at the end. Physically.

J. PALMER: No, I never hit her.

CRUGER: An order of protection was granted to Tammy against John. John had to stay away from the property.

C. PALMER: My father, Eugene Palmer, owned the land that my brother's house was on and then John a piece.

CRUGER: Eugene had a house in the back. John and Tammy and the kids had a house in the front. So John could not come on to the property at all without breaking that order of protection and being arrested, which happened.

C. PALMER: My father sitting back looking at all of this and was, how can you put it, not right to him.

ROSE: If a son can't live on the property, why should she be there? Disrespecting him.

CRUGER: It was almost like a tit-for-tat kind of a thing, I think, going on.

D. PANNIRELLO: Eugene, which this was illegal, turned the lights off on them. They had like the electric connected from each house, and he turned the lights off on my sister and the kids.

J. PALMER: She would come up the driveway and blow the horn to wake them up. She would yell out the window. She would flip him the bird all the time.

CRUGER: It's a bad situation.

D. PANNIRELLO: He just didn't like her. He didn't like her.

JOHN PANNIRELLO, TAMMY'S FATHER: Everything annoyed this man. The dog would bark, it would annoy him. If my daughter threw out the garbage, 2:00, 3:00, 5:00 in the morning, it would bother him. Everything bothered this man. C. PALMER: He was on a broken sleep. He's calling up. She kept me up again and again and again. I'm getting tired of it. The fights over the property with her. He just came to -- how far could you push a guy?

Terry was going to sue him for the land after the restraining order. She says he's out. I'm getting a divorce. This is mine. Get off my property. She had balls.

D. PANNIRELLO: My sister wasn't scared of him like everybody else was. She stood up to him. He didn't like that.

J. PANNIRELLO: She wouldn't leave her house. She said that is her house. She says once she moves out of her house, he would put a lock on it. She would never be able to get back.

C. PALMER: I know she should have left. I wish she did left. I'd still have my father and the kids would still have a mother.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUGER: The trail of blood led to the doorway. Then led around to the backyard.

C. PALMER: She was never nothing but a squatter there, basically.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[21:44:00] C. PALMER: You can't make new land. This land is ours. It's for our family. It's simple.

CRUGER: On the 20th, there was a dispute between Tammy and Eugene on the property.

J. PANNIRELLO: She was outside. He came down. I think he mentioned to her, when are you going to pack your clothes to leave or something like that. And she says, I'm not. And he had this little gun that he had.

J. PALMER: I know for a fact that my father didn't even own a handgun.

D. PANNIRELLO: She saw the gun. He went to punch her in the face, and she picked up a log to defend herself.

C. PALMER: He called the police and said she assaulted me. I want her off my property. Get her out of here. She hit me with a stick.

CRUGER: It takes a few days for a warrant to be signed by a judge and come back to our office and be valid.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

911 OPERATOR: 911, what is your emergency?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard a shot, a lot of screaming, another shot, no more screaming, and another shot.

911 OPERATOR: OK. Three shots. Where did it come from?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it came from the Palmers.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CRUGER: We were over there probably within five minutes, six minutes, not even. There was blood drops. We didn't know what we were looking for.

D. PANNIRELLO: At 8:00, I got a phone call from Eugene's sister saying, Denise, you really -- you have to come up here.

I'm like, for what? I need to get to work. My son is getting ready for school. What's the problem? And she said, something happened to Tammy.

My dad right away, she's gone.

They found her in the backyard. I can't imagine. She was probably so scared.

J. PANNIRELLO: He was waiting for her.

CRUGER: Eugene was hiding in the woods. Tammy had dropped her youngest child off at the bus stop.

J. PANNIRELLO: He ambushed her as she came up the driveway. The first shot, he shot her arm in half. Her arm was -- on the report that we received.

CRUGER: It was almost like hunting a deer. She tried to run away from her father-in-law.

J. PANNIRELLO: She ran to the front door. She couldn't get in. There was blood all over the door. She ran to the side door. Blood all over the side door. She tried to run to the back from what I understand. He fired another shot. He missed.

CRUGER: She ran around to the back yard where she collapsed. And then Eugene stood over her and shot her.

D. PANNIRELLO: She died all by herself.

WALSH: Two children were left without their mother. Is this the way you solve a problem? Is this the way you get someone off your land? Is this the way you get your son's house back, by killing, allegedly killing your daughter-in-law?

CRUGER: Eugene drove across the street to his sister's house. Gave her money to pay the taxes, and said pay the property taxes, give me an hour to get away before you call the police.

C. PALMER: (INAUDIBLE), seen the cop cars, said I've got to go and went up the hill, past our house. CRUGER: If we had gotten a phone call right now from anybody to say, and listen, my uncle left in his green car. He just told us that he killed Tammy and he went west bound, up on Woolgrove Road, we would have had him.

C. PALMER: That was the last time anyone saw him.

Those helicopters up at that time. There were cop cars everywhere. They had the news cameras there at the time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tonight, police are on the hunt for this man.

C. PALMER: A man told right on live TV that he confessed to the crime.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He said I shot and killed Tammy. I've had enough.

CRUGER: I shot that bitch. I believe that's exactly the word that was used, which is basically a confession to her.

J. PALMER: Once I heard that my wife had been shot, I assumed that my father did it.

CRUGER: We knew who we were looking for. We knew who killed Tammy. It's not a who done it? It's a, where is he?

C. PALMER: He's in that park. 100 percent.

ROSE: He wasn't going to jail for a nobody.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

D. PANNIRELLO: After Eugene murdered my sister, he went down to his sister's house.

CRUGER: And then he got back into his truck and drove up Woolgrove Road.

C. PALMER: Up the hill is the woods. It's the park.

CRUGER: Harriman State Park is 47,000 acres of woods, trails, reservoirs like nature.

C. PALMER: We went into the park looking to get him out because my aunt said he went up the hill. And as the police were doing their homicide investigation, we started walking through the park looking for him, trying to get a visual on him.

CRUGER: Clarence had said that he would come out if he heard Clarence's voice.

C. PALMER: I was leading the way for the police. They didn't know where they were going, what they were looking for, so I brought them with me.

ROSE: They were pretty much asking us for help because me and Clarence knows the mountains very well up there.

CRUGER: We had to follow all leads, and actually they were a lead. They brought us some kind of a lead, whether it was true or not, whether it was accurate. That's what we had so far.

WALSH: The only resource the police have is the alleged murderer's relatives to direct them to where he might have run to. It's a recipe for disaster.

[21:55:05] CRUGER: A day later, we found the truck a quarter mile from the house. A blood hound tracked the trail from the abandoned truck to Beaver Pine Camp Site. One of the roadways into the camp ground, the blood had stopped and gave the sign that the trail ends right here in the middle of a roadway.

He stopped at that area and left from that area. I think a vehicle was waiting.

C. PALMER: The police come to the conclusion that he got picked up by somebody there. He didn't get picked up by anybody. Nobody would hide him.

I think that the dogs were just confused. If they crossed a road, they probably would have picked up his scent but they figured the smell stops here. Where did he go?

CRUGER: You don't know for sure. The blood hound lost the trail on a roadway which makes you think there was a vehicle involved. But we didn't have that vehicle. We didn't have a person. We still had to check the woods.

C. PALMER: They thought he planned this and went in there running around like Rambo, you know. That wasn't it. He left with the clothes on his back. That's where he left and a pair of slippers. He didn't even have shoes on.

CRUGER: Eugene was 73 at the time of the incident. He suffered from diabetes and some heart problems. Certain doctors that we spoke to said that this is not that bad looking at his medical records.

J. PANNIRELLO: This man was in great shape for his age.

C. PALMER: That's totally untrue. He's in that park dead.

D. PANNIRELLO: Clarence sent the cops on a wild goose chase. They said he's in the park. He's very sick. He didn't survive.

C. PALMER: They thought he was going this way and I was taking them that way, and I wasn't. He went into a diabetic coma, I believe, and he died.

I think it was like the fifth day that they brought in cadaver dogs.

CRUGER: Cadaver dogs searched for rotting flesh, human flesh. And we searched acres and acres and acres of property at Harriman State Park, anywhere where he would be. C. PALMER: And they said they did the whole park. He's not here. You're lying. They only did one section that they thought he might be in.

CRUGER: We just can't search the entire Harriman State Park. Where else would we go? Where else? We don't know where else.

WALSH: If Eugene Palmer is still out there, he needs to be caught and held accountable. If his remains are out in those woods, we need to know that, too. He bragged and boasted about what a great hunter he was. Well, now the hunt for Eugene starts again.

Eugene Palmer is a hunter with long ties to Harriman State Park, the Catskills and the Adirondacks. Palmer was a teamster and truck driver for many years. He was also an avid stock car racer.

If you've seen Eugene Palmer or have any information as to his whereabouts, please call 1-866-THE-HUNT, or go online at CNN.com/TheHunt. We'll pass your tip on to the proper authorities and if requested, we will not reveal your name.

C. PALMER: It's not a pretty picture. None of it. Very unsettling. It's hard to talk about and deal with every day.

D. PANNIRELLO: People say it gets easier. It doesn't get easier. It gets harder. My sister deserves justice.

J. PALMER: In a sense, they killed each other, because I assume that my father is dead. And the reason that he would be dead is because he had killed my wife.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)