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CNN Presents

CNN PRESENTS: To Catch a Serial Killer

Aired January 26, 2013 - 20:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Here in the Midwest, several young girls went missing. Some were found murdered. Others were never found at all. Laurie Depies, 20, in Appleton, Wisconsin. Rayna Rison, 16, from La Porte, Indiana. Wendy Felton, 16, from Marion, Indiana. Michelle Dewey, 20, in Indianapolis, Indiana. All of these cases went unsolved. Officials believed only one man knew what happened.

LARRY BEAUMONT, FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: We knew he was responsible for several deaths.

BALDWIN: And to get answers, it would take a risky, unusual plan, send a convicted drug dealer undercover into a dangerous prison to befriend an alleged serial killer.

JAMES KEENE, CONVICTED DRUG DEALER: I'm not a serial killer hunter, I said, so how am I going to do this?

BALDWIN: At stake, answers.

GARRY REITLER, FATHER OF TRICIA: Wondering where she is, wondering what happened.

BALDWIN: Peace for grieving families.

DONNA REITLER, MOTHER OF TRICIA: You want to find her and you want to bring her home and you can't.

BALDWIN: And one man's freedom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (KEENE?): You don't just turn around and give out candy and say, you're free to go. I went through hell and back.

BALDWIN: Early each day, Donna Reitler greets her daughter Tricia.

D. REITLER: I say hello to this picture every morning. I say good morning every morning. I look at that and I can hear her say, hi, mom.

G. REITLER: Tricia was very kindhearted, very smart.

BALDWIN: As a child, says father Garry, Tricia lit up the room.

G. REITLER: She would sometimes just bound into the room, you know, spread her arms apart and say, ta-da, you know, that type of thing. BALDWIN: Donna and Garry brought Tricia here, Marion, Indiana, to attend this small Christian college. One spring evening in 1993 Tricia left her dorm room for a walk.

(on camera): On March 29th around 8:00 at night, Tricia Reitler came here to this shopping center. She bought a soda and a magazine and started walking back to campus, but then she disappeared.

G. REITLER: A phone call came a little bit after midnight and the voice on the other side of the phone said, do you know where your daughter is?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 19-year-old Tricia Lynn Reitler was last seen about 8:00 Monday night.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Tricia's disappearance rocked the community and devastated her parents.

D. REITLER: Who's ever responsible will never know what they've taken away from us.

BALDWIN: Tricia's mother made a desperate appeal to Tricia on "The Jerry Springer Show."

D. REITLER: Hang in there and know that we love you and we're doing everything we can to find you.

BALDWIN: Despite huge media coverage and their pleas for answers, none ever came.

D. REITLER: It's like she just vanished into thin air.

BALDWIN: Tricia was never found.

KRISTEN ZOELLER, STALKED BY HALL: Young college students, they need to be aware.

BALDWIN: Kristen Zoeller was a junior at IWU when Tricia disappeared.

ZOELLER: We were advised to stay in our dorms if you were a girl.

BALDWIN: But a week after Tricia's disappearance, Kristen and her roommate Heather needed to go to Marsh grocery store.

(on camera): You thought you'd be safe. You thought it'd be fine. It's a couple of blocks away.

ZOELLER: Yes, exactly. It's not far at all. I can see the campus from Marsh. So, you know, what's going to happen?

BALDWIN (voice-over): It was getting dark by the time they left the shopping center, walking the same route Tricia likely would have taken.

ZOELLER: We were maybe halfway up the road when Heather turned to me and said, did you happen to notice that brown van? And I said no. BALDWIN: Then the van passed again slowly.

ZOELLER: We still weren't alarmed. He came by again...

BALDWIN (on camera): A third time.

ZOELLER: A third time. Yes, really slow this time. Looking at us. The hair on the back of our necks started to stand up.

BALDWIN (voice-over): The van pulled right up beside them.

(on camera): How close? Show me.

ZOELLER: He was -- I mean, his wheels were on the side of the curb. And this was me, this was Heather. And he leaned over, started to say something. And at that point we're both like, run, just run.

BALDWIN (voice-over): The girls called security, describing a two- tone van driven by a man with mutton chop sideburns. Officers spotted the van and questioned the driver, a man named Larry Hall.

Hall said he had been looking for a friend's address, but the address he gave didn't exist. So officers let Hall go.

September 20, 1993, six months after Tricia's disappearance, now 15- year-old Jessica Roach goes missing in Georgetown, Illinois. Investigator Gary Miller got the call.

GARY MILLER, INVESTIGATOR: We all knew that we had something really bad here. We had an abduction.

BALDWIN: Jessica's badly decomposed body was found in an Indiana cornfield weeks later. But then like Tricia's, Jessica's case went cold.

MILLER: There's a lot of times you wonder whether you'll ever solve it, but you know that you're going to keep going, you're going to check everything out, you're going to recheck everything.

BALDWIN: For over a year, Miller scoured local police reports, and then a break. A vehicle reported in a county nearby. The owner, Larry Hall.

MILLER: He had been involved in stopping some girls, those girls were scared. They ran from him.

BALDWIN: In the last six months, Hall's van was spotted by more than 11 girls in five different towns close by, including those where Jessica lived and where her body was found.

Now Miller contacted the police in Hall's hometown to arrange for an interview.

MILLER: He initially said, no, he hadn't been over here.

BALDWIN: Miller had to coax Hall to admit being near Jessica's house. MILLER: I said, well, would you remember if you stopped and offered girls a ride or asked them to get in your van? He said, well, he stops and talks to everybody.

BALDWIN: After a few questions, Miller took a gamble and put a photo of Jessica down in front of Hall.

MILLER: He immediately flinched. He turned to his right and put his hand up over his face like he didn't want to see the picture. Told me he didn't think he had ever seen that girl.

BALDWIN: Later, a heartbreaking mystery.

D. REITLER: There's so little that we can do to find her. I just want to bring her home.

BALDWIN: And the dangerous plan to solve it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Larry Hall and his brother, Gary, had always been a little different.

(on camera): Look at you two little boys. Which one are you? And which one is Larry?

GARY HALL, BROTHER OF LARRY: This would be me.

BALDWIN: Gary and Larry.

(voice-over): In a rare recorded interview obtained by CNN, Larry Hall recounts a tough start.

LARRY HALL, SUSPECTED SERIAL KILLER: I know when I was born my mother told me that I was blue. That I hadn't got enough oxygen to me or something.

BALDWIN: Identical twin sons growing up hard. In the Hall home there was little money and lots of problems. Author Hillel Levin interviewed Larry Hall.

HILLEL LEVIN, AUTHOR: It was a very cluttered household. They were raised with dysfunction.

BALDWIN: Neighbors say their mother was domineering. Their father drank and sometimes turned violent. He worked at the local cemetery.

(on camera): What was it like growing up next to a cemetery? Was it creepy?

G. HALL: No, not at all, not for me. You know, at 12 years of age, Larry and I started working at the cemetery.

BALDWIN (voice-over): As he grew older, Larry had problems fitting in at school. G. HALL: He was always the backward twin. I was the more dominant outgoing twin. He hung out with what my wife and I and a lot of fellow classmates called "the misfits" or the "stinky" crowd.

BALDWIN: Still, the boys were best friends and as young men Gary and Larry developed a unusual new hobby as Civil War re-enactors.

L. HALL: I met a lot of new friends during that time period. And I was able to travel around and meet them at the battlefields and go on tours and stuff. It was a lot of fun.

BALDWIN: Larry was hooked, even growing the mutton chops from his hairline to his jowl. Though the re-enactment helped Larry make friends, he still struggled with women.

(on camera): What was Larry like around young women growing up?

G. HALL: Very awkward, quiet, backward.

BALDWIN: Did he ever talk to you about urges, he reportedly says he had urges about women?

G. HALL: Oh, my, gosh. It was absolutely -- it was out of bounds. I had no idea.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Jimmy Keene grew up 135 miles away in Kankakee, Illinois. He didn't know Larry Hall and he had no idea that their worlds would some day collide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is third down and five at the 25 yard line.

BALDWIN: For Jimmy Keene, life couldn't have been more different. While Hall was an awkward outsider, Jimmy Keene was a star, especially under the lights on Friday nights.

KEENE: We would come out here. The lights would be on. The whole stadium would just be completely full and the crowd would be roaring. And it was just a very euphoric, unbelievable high. The Friday night games were the biggest rush I've ever had in my life.

BALDWIN: A gifted athlete, he lettered in two sports, studied martial arts, and inspired fear in everyone he faced.

(on camera): Do you like having people terrified of you just a little bit?

KEENE: Well, in that kind of sport, sure, you have to. That's why they called me "The Assassin."

BALDWIN: You were "The Assassin."

KEENE: Yes, my nickname was "The Assassin." And the reason my name was "The Assassin" is because I put somebody out of every game I've ever played.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Keene wasn't just the hometown hero, he was his father's namesake.

KEENE: My dad generally sat up here in the corner over here. If I made a spectacular play he would always give me the "you did good, son."

BALDWIN (on camera): How often was he sitting in the stands?

KEENE: Every single game of my life, never ever missed a game, he never even missed my practices.

BALDWIN: Did that mean a lot to you?

KEENE: Absolutely. My dad was -- he was my backbone.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Keene was as popular as he was athletic.

(on camera): You're a legend?

KEENE: Yes, I mean, there was no doubt. I mean, they had posters of me all over town. I mean, everybody knew who I was with my sports ability. So, yes, I was the most popular guy around. There was no question. I was voted the "most popular" guy in school.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Jimmy seemed to have everything, except enough money to keep up with the rich kids at school. And he only saw one way to get it. He started selling drugs and quickly learned, he was good at it.

KEENE: You're making decent money, you don't think, is this a wrong thing that you're doing. So I kept growing into it and growing into it and by the time I was 20 years old, I mean, I was sitting on top of an empire.

BALDWIN: By Keene's own account, he was pulling in around $1 million a year. He was addicted, not to the drugs, but the money.

KEENE: It's hard to walk away from that kind of money, especially a 20 year old.

BALDWIN: So, he didn't. And that single decision would change the rest of Jimmy Keene's life, and bring him face-to-face with an alleged serial killer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN (on camera): Your license plate, "Extra HP"?

KEENE: "Extra HP."

BALDWIN (voice-over): By the early '90s, Jimmy Keene was on top of the world. His booming business afforded him a lavish lifestyle with large homes, souped-up Corvettes, and an endless supply of women.

KEENE: I would have 30 or 40 keg parties with volleyball nets, live bands. We'd have literally a thousand people or more sometimes. I mean, these were gigantic, huge parties. BALDWIN (on camera): You were the guy women wanted to be with and guys wanted to be best friends with.

KEENE: Something like that.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Back then, he owned this 6,000-square foot home.

KEENE: Right behind that is a golf course.

BALDWIN: He says he didn't stash the drugs here.

KEENE: This is a walk-in closet.

BALDWIN: But there was always a place to hide his fortunes.

KEENE: This was a hidden trap door that you could open and when you open it, you have another hidden closet back in here. You can see my old safe is still here. This was pretty much just my Fort Knox room.

BALDWIN: For 15 years, Keene's empire remained hidden and growing. But as he lived the high life, his father fell on hard times, nearing the brink of financial ruin.

KEENE: My dad, to me, was Superman. And to see him in such a hurt way really killed me.

BALDWIN: So jimmy used his drug fortune to bail his father out, then continued to support him.

KEENE: Even though it was coming from something wrong I felt I did something very right to make his world right.

BALDWIN: But the money never seemed to be enough. And Keene couldn't stop watching his back. By the fall of 1996, the pressure of life in the fast lane was catching up.

KEENE: I had woke up in the middle of the night and I was laying there wide awake and I said, you know, I am tired of running like this. I said, I really just want this all to end.

BALDWIN: And it was all about to end, but not the way Keene had planned. Just two weeks later...

KEENE: I heard the front door rattle and I thought it was just the wind. It was in November. And next thank you know, boom, the whole door just blew off the hinges and then they came flying in, in a straight file line with their guns drawn and their black uniforms. Move, we'll blow your head off, we'll do this, just move one time.

BALDWIN: For Jimmy Keene, it was over.

KEENE: Everything stops and goes in slow motion. You don't even feel like it's real.

BALDWIN: Keene was ultimately dragged to jail. He pleaded guilty, hoping to minimize his sentence. And at first, federal prosecutor Larry Beaumont was willing to negotiate.

BEAUMONT: Initially we tried to what we call "flip" him to see if he would give us other drug dealers at the time. And I think he refused so our reaction was to make sure he gets the maximum penalty.

BALDWIN: Beaumont got his way and Keene got 10 years. It knocked the life out of him and broke his father's heart.

KEENE: Any hopes and dreams he had had for me at that point in life were gone. He was crushed. I mean, he was very crushed.

BALDWIN: Jimmy Keene could not imagine a way out, nor guess that a man he had never met might some day provide him one.

November, 1994, Wabash, Indiana. It had been two weeks since Larry Hall recoiled from a photo of Jessica Roach. And investigator Gary Miller had a gut instinct.

MILLER: I really think we're on to something here. This guy portrays this weak, timid person but, you know, I don't think he truly is.

BALDWIN: Miller thought Hall was vicious, and as the investigation unfolded, Miller also thought he knew how Hall abducted Jessica Roach.

MILLER: When he first seen her, she was riding from toward the house going down this way.

BALDWIN: Hall followed and stopped to talk. Jessica got scared and backed away.

MILLER: That's when he opens the door, grabs her, there's a physical confrontation where he overpowers her, put her in his van, and left, probably going up this road right past her house.

BALDWIN: In an interview in the Wabash police station, Hall surprised investigators by explaining what happened next.

"I tied her up but I can't remember with what. I took her pants off." Hall said he raped her and led her off through the woods. "I laid her up against a tree and put a belt around her neck and she stopped breathing."

Hall said he strangled Jessica from behind so he didn't have to see her face as she died. And that wasn't all. "All of the girls looked alike," Hall said. "I cannot remember all of them. I picked up several girls in other areas but I can't remember which ones I hurt."

"Several girls in other areas." There were more victims than just Jessica Roach. Hall said he'd also been near the campus of Indiana Wesleyan University where Tricia Reitler had disappeared.

"I was over there because I needed to be with somebody. There was a small shopping center. I had a van." Hall said he raped and strangled a girl here, too. Then he identified his victim by pointing to Tricia's picture. Tricia's disappearance had remained a mystery for 18 months. G. REITLER: We were just kind of sitting on the sidelines waiting for information to come in.

BALDWIN: With little evidence and local police insisting on another suspect, Tricia's parents, Garry and Donna, still suffered.

D. REITLER: I know with each thing that came in the urgency was great. And the heartache was great, too. And the anticipation and the hope.

BALDWIN: Hall's confession meant the Reitlers might at least find their daughter. And that Gary Miller had found the killer of Jessica Roach. But the next day, Hall changed his story.

MILLER: As I was talking to him he said, well, I was just telling you about my dreams, that didn't really happen. He said, it was just my dreams. And I said, well, Larry, that's not what you said, you said this had happened and that, you know, you didn't like talking about it because you didn't like the things that you had done but you never mentioned it being a dream.

BALDWIN: But he stuck to his new story. Larry Hall was recanting everything.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon. Here are your headlines.

Thousands of people marched in Washington today in support of new gun control laws. This comes just days after a bill was introduced in Congress that would ban assault rifles, semiautomatic weapons, and high-capacity magazines. Some marchers carried signs featuring the names of victims in last month's Newtown, Connecticut, shooting.

It has already claimed three lives, now this Arctic air system is wreaking havoc as it moves over the Southeast. Snow, freezing rain, and dangerous amounts of ice are causing scenes like this one in Virginia on roads across the country.

This is Kentucky. Icy roads blamed for this 10-vehicle pile-up. A Greyhound bus also sliding off the slick interstate.

Now we go to Egypt where rioting has erupted over a court decision sentencing 21 people to death. At least 30 people were killed in clashes with security forces today. This all happened after the court sentenced 21 people for their role in a post-game soccer riot last year. More than 70 people were killed in that riot.

Those are your headlines this hour. I'm Don Lemon, keeping you informed. CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BALDWIN (voice-over): Larry Hall had confessed to killing Jessica Roach, Tricia Reitler, and two other women. And then he took it all back, claiming it was just his imagination.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (L. HALL?): I did confess to certain policemen that I had dreams that I did things.

BALDWIN: But investigator Gary Miller had other evidence like the witness who drove by this cornfield the night of Jessica's murder.

MILLER: That person testified he was absolutely sure that when he went by here on that night there was a van, there was a guy coming from the cornfield to get in his van.

BALDWIN: And a search of Hall's house and van revealed he had been casing out small college towns and keeping suspicious notes. "Seen joggers and bikers. Many alone. Check colleges, parks. Seen some prospects."

Hall also made lists for the hardware store. "Buy two more plastic tarps. Cover all floor and sides of van." And Hall wrote himself troubling instructions. "No body contact. Buy condoms. Buy two more leather belts. Find one now."

Amongst Hall's things, investigators found newspaper clippings about Roach and Reitler, possessions from other missing girls, and pornographic pictures Hall had altered.

MILLER: In those pictures, he had drawn what looked like a rope or belt around the neck of one of -- on the left side of the mouth he had drawn blood.

BALDWIN: Hall insisted it was all just staged, to make a play for attention, to feel important to police.

L. HALL: I put a bunch of stuff in that van that I drove around with because I knew they'd eventually search my van and find them.

BALDWIN: During Larry's trial, his twin brother, Gary, tried to provide him an alibi. Still, federal prosecutor Larry Beaumont got Hall convicted of kidnapping Jessica Roach.

BEAUMONT: In the federal system, if you're guilty of a kidnapping and that kidnapping resulted in a death, then under the sentencing guidelines it's a mandatory life term.

BALDWIN: The Jessica Roach case was over. But the disappearance of Tricia Reitler remained unsolved. And her parents, Garry and Donna, could not stop looking.

G. REITLER: We walked the sides of the roads. We walked the riverbeds. You know, we looked under the culverts. We ended up going to crack houses because somebody had a lead.

D. REITLER: If you see something on the side of the road, a garbage bag, whatever, it's like, could that be her? BEAUMONT: It was just a horrendous crime to lose your daughter and never find out what the heck happened to her.

BALDWIN: Larry Beaumont kept looking too.

BEAUMONT: I actually made arrangements on a couple of occasions to go out and look for the body.

BALDWIN: Beaumont called in specialized military and law enforcement units to search.

BEAUMONT: But we were not able to find it. So rather than give up, it occurred to me that, obviously, Larry Hall knew.

BALDWIN: Beaumont needed answers and turned to an unlikely source to get them. He needed someone to befriend Larry Hall, someone charismatic, someone on the inside. Larry Beaumont needed Jimmy Keene.

Beaumont had sent both Keene and Hall to prison. Now he hatched a risky plan that would bring them together. Keene was 10 months into his sentence when Beaumont brought him into talk.

KEENE: Scared me. I thought this was some trick.

BALDWIN: Keene watched nervously as Beaumont pushed a folder across the table.

KEENE: And I open it up and the first thing I seen was a picture of a mutilated dead girl. And I flipped the next page and there was a different mutilated dead girl.

BALDWIN: And there was a portrait of Tricia Reitler.

KEENE: At that moment I looked up at Beaumont and he said, Jimmy, we need you to help us with this case.

BALDWIN: Beaumont wanted Keene to go undercover, to transfer from his low security lockup to a dangerous prison, and to befriend alleged serial killer Larry Hall.

KEENE: He says, if you can get solid confessions from him and if you can help us locate the bodies that are still missing, we're willing to completely wash your record.

BALDWIN: Keene's mission? To learn where Tricia Reitler was buried.

BEAUMONT: The purpose of this operation was to find that body.

BALDWIN: Beaumont made it clear, no body, no early release. Keene would have to serve the rest of his 10-year sentence. But Beaumont believed Keene could do it.

BEAUMONT: He's smart. He's articulate. He's not afraid. And I knew he wanted to get out. BALDWIN: For Keene, it was a chance for redemption, to restore his family name and, says author Hillel Levin, to get his life back on track.

LEVIN: This deal was a way for him to get home and also a way for him to do good, to kind of take this bad thing he had done and to somehow turn it inside out and make it something that would solve a crime.

BALDWIN: But it wouldn't be easy.

(on camera): It's fair to say he was risking his life. He could have been killed.

BEAUMONT: It was dangerous, absolutely.

KEENE: It was highly risky. These people in those types of places haven't got anything better to do but try to hurt you and kill you, too.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Keene was unsure. But a phone call home put his doubts to rest. Keene's stepmother said his father had suffered a stroke.

KEENE: She said, he's in really bad shape. We wish you were here. This is terrible that you're in a spot where you're in right now because we could lose him.

BALDWIN: Keene needed to get home to Kankakee fast and there was only one way to make that happen. He had to face an alleged serial killer first.

KEENE: I decided, you know what? However bizarre or how far out or whatever this mission that Beaumont wants me to go on, I'm going to do it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Driving up to the prison in Springfield, Missouri, Jimmy Keene didn't know if he had made the best or worst decision of his life.

KEENE: I started to get cold feet. And I looked at the U.S. marshal and I said, listen, I said, you know, how do we know Beaumont is going to live up to his word? They all assured me he would. And I said, well, you know, I'm not really sure if I can do this.

BALDWIN: But there was no turning back. And he needed to prepare. Agents had warned him to be careful.

KEENE: We don't want you to approach him for at least six months because he's a very cagey individual. If he senses one thing wrong, he goes into his shell like a turtle and you'll never get him back out once he's in.

BALDWIN: But Keene didn't have time to wait. He needed to get home to his ailing father, so hours after becoming a Springfield inmate, he spotted Larry Hall and made his first move.

KEENE: I made it a point for us to bump shoulders together. And as we gently bumped shoulders together, I turned around and said, oh, excuse me, I said, listen, I said, I'm new here, I said, you wouldn't happen to know where the library is, would you?

BALDWIN: Hall offered to show Keene the way.

KEENE: And I just reached over and I kind of slapped him on the shoulder and I said, thanks a lot, I appreciate that from a cool guy like you.

BALDWIN: Over the next week, Keene watched Hall's every move from his cell across the hall.

KEENE: And I walked up to him and I says, hey, this is where I'm at, I said, are you in this area here, and he goes, yes, I'm right there. You know, and he bugs his eyes out of his head. I said, well, that's great, I said, you're right by me. I said, you know what, I told you you were a cool guy and I'm glad that you're by me and all this and that.

And that's when he basically offered sometime, if I had to ever want to have breakfast with him and his friends.

BALDWIN: Keene was making progress, slowly gaining Hall's trust. But life at Springfield was complicated and dangerous. So Keene figured out a way to use violence to his advantage. It was a Saturday night and Hall was in the TV room, mesmerized by an episode of "America's Most Wanted" about serial killers.

Suddenly another inmate approached the TV.

KEENE: And you could tell this guy had been in for a long time. He was a real big buff guy. And he just walked up to the TV, looked at everybody in there, and he decided he was going to turn the TV channel. And then he turned it.

And I found this very interesting. Larry looked at me and very quietly mumbled under his breath, he goes, hey, I was watching that show.

BALDWIN: Keene leaped into action and knocked the guy out.

KEENE: And I nailed him with an upper cut and then I kicked him through three rows of chairs. He was beat up real bad and had to go to the hospital and they took me and threw me in the hole.

BALDWIN: It was worth it. And it was a breakthrough with Hall.

KEENE: He not only now looked at me as a guy he could look at and say, wow, he thinks I'm cool, coming from him, that's a compliment. And now he's also able to protect me.

BALDWIN: Now, Keene had Hall's trust and had him talking. One night, in Hall's cell, he told Keene the truth about what happened to Tricia Reitler.

(on camera): But what Hall told Keene was different from what some investigators believed. It was his story, along with some evidence that created a roadmap I wanted to follow to try to figure out what happened to Tricia Reitler.

Tricia would have left this supermarket parking lot, walking just a couple of blocks back to campus.

(voice-over): Somewhere along this road, Hall told Keene he got Tricia into his van, when she fought off his advances, he says he choked her to keep her quiet. Hall told Keene he blacked out and when he woke up, Tricia was naked and lifeless.

Days after her disappearance, investigators found her blood-soaked clothes here, just one block from the supermarket. Hall's own notes indicate what might have happened next.

Exactly one week after Tricia's disappearance, Hall wrote: "Cut out stained carpet. Vacuumed van thoroughly. Buy new hacksaw blades. Clean all tools."

(on camera): Along with his notes was this address, 700 West Slocum, we're in the woods, halfway between Marion and Wabash, and it is possible that somewhere out here that Tricia Reitler is buried.

KEENE: He said, so he got some lime together, he got a shovel, and he got a lantern, and he drove her way out into the woods and he buried her out into the woods.

BALDWIN: He admitted to you that he buried her in the woods?

KEENE: Oh, yes. Several times he has admitted that, yes. I basically made him feel like it was OK to tell me his secret.

BALDWIN (voice-over): But Keene still needed the secret that would set him free: the exact location of Tricia's body. Weeks later, he thought he nailed it when he found Hall hovered over a map in the prison workshop.

KEENE: It was a map with red dots over Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. And he covered it up really fast.

BALDWIN: Lined up at the edge of the map were a dozen wooden falcons.

KEENE: I said, wow, this is pretty cool, did you make these? He says, yes, I make them. And he goes, it's really cool, isn't it, Jim? He goes, they watch over the dead.

BALDWIN: Falcons, to watch over the dead, and a map marked with dots. It was the information Keene thought would surely lead to the exact location of Tricia's body.

(on camera): In that moment did you think, this is my ticket to freedom? KEENE: I did. Because I thought, this is it. I've got solid confessions out of him. We know specific details. We know how he has done it now.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Keene believed he had his answer. That he'd soon be free. That he was done forever with Larry Hall. So that night, at lockdown, Keene decided to tell Hall what he really thought.

KEENE: I told him that he was a (expletive deleted) sicko. I told him that he was insane. I said that you are one of the most despicable forms of human life on this planet. He, at that point, slid away from me and was like really terrified of me all of a sudden. And he says, Beaumont sent you, didn't he? Beaumont sent you, didn't he?

BALDWIN: Keene had blown his cover. And his outburst landed him in solitary confinement.

BEAUMONT: It took some time before we found out that they put Jimmy in the hole and so he was not able to communicate with anybody on the outside.

BALDWIN: By then, Hall's map and the falcons had disappeared. Worst of all, as Keene was let out of Springfield prison to face Larry Beaumont, he didn't know if what he had learned was enough to set him free.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: During his months in Springfield, Jimmy Keene got Larry Hall to provide details about several murders Hall was suspected of committing, including Tricia Reitler's. But Keene had not met the original requirements of Larry Beaumont's deal.

BEAUMONT: I told this myself, made it clear to him, that if we didn't find the body, no body, no credit.

BALDWIN: Sitting in his prison cell, Jimmy Keene desperately hoped he had done enough.

KEENE: Are they going to be fair and give me what's justifiably right on this? Or are they just going to say, here's six months? It was a crap shoot.

BALDWIN: Without a location for Reitler's body, Beaumont had a decision to make.

BEAUMONT: I made arrangements to have him take a polygraph test just to verify what was telling us was the truth, which he passed, and he made a legitimate effort to do what we sent him down there to do.

BALDWIN: So Beaumont urged a federal judge to give Keene credit for time served. Jimmy Keene became a free man and returned home to his aging father.

(on camera): What did you feel like when you were finally released? KEENE: I was happy as could be. It was a very bizarre roller coaster that I went on. It was -- I mean, redemption at its best.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Keene had five more good years to be with his father before Big Jim passed away.

KEENE: We both realized once I got out that there is a better world than just always in a constant dash to make money. You know, it was more like, look, let's just enjoy each other while we're alive here, you know?

BALDWIN: It was closure for Keene, but not for the families of the alleged victims of Larry Hall. For years, there was no progress and no relief for people like Donna and Garry Reitler.

D. REITLER: As a parent, there's the part that you flutter down and that you want to find her and you want to bring her home and you can't. I mean, we've done pretty much physically everything that we can to find her. And there's somebody out there that holds that one answer for us.

BALDWIN: Beaumont, too, felt he had done all he could and that the pursuit of Larry Hall was over.

BEAUMONT: There wasn't going to be no further prosecution from the federal perspective. He's already serving life in prison. He wasn't going -- you know, he was done.

BALDWIN: Once again, Larry Hall had slipped off the radar. And it easily could have remained that way, except for Jimmy Keene. First, Keene's story of strange redemption was featured in a Playboy article, and then a book written by Keene and Hillel Levin.

LEVIN: Once we were able to write about what Jimmy went through, then things happened.

BALDWIN: Keene's story refocused attention on Larry Hall, helped re- open cold cases, and put pressure on his twin brother, Gary. Now Gary stopped defending Larry and started talking.

G. HALL: Larry, just like Jimmy Keene calls him, and he is. He's a baby killer.

BALDWIN (on camera): You think your brother is a baby killer.

G. HALL: I don't have no doubt in my mind.

BALDWIN: Do you think your brother killed more than Jessica Roach?

G. HALL: Yes.

BALDWIN: Do you think your brother killed Tricia Reitler?

G. HALL: Yes.

BALDWIN: Rayna Rison? Michelle Dewey? G. HALL: Yes.

BALDWIN (voice-over): As Gary started talking more openly, detectives approached him, asking for help.

G. HALL: I went with the Indianapolis detectives down to try to get my brother to confess. He made me leave the room. He did, in fact, confess on tape to 15 serial murders.

BALDWIN: Larry later retracted, again. And while he can't ever seem to stick to one story, he does, sometimes, seem to have regrets.

L. HALL: I didn't want to keep living my life the way I was living it. I wanted things to be different, you know, but I guess I didn't really do the right things and change the way my life was going.

BALDWIN: Larry Hall refused our request for an interview. He has never been charged with crimes against anyone other than Jessica Roach. But Keene's story has caused officials across the country to take another look at Hall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In November of 2010, investigators from the Town of Menasha Police Department interviewed Mr. Hall at a federal prison in North Carolina.

BALDWIN: In that interview Hall admitted murdering Laurie Depies and provided clues about where to find her body.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are multiple agencies that are looking into him in reference to their unsolved disappearances.

BALDWIN: Larry Hall may have had more victims than ever imagined.

LEVIN: We understand it's even more extensive than we ever thought. Not 20, but maybe 30 to 40, in terms of the victims.

BALDWIN: That leaves 30 or 40 families still awaiting answers, which is why, says Levin, it is critical that serial investigations do not stop.

Two decades after Tricia Reitler vanished, her father Garry now believes Larry Hall knows where to find her.

G. REITLER: I think if Larry knew what we go through on a daily basis, you know, wondering where she is, wondering what happened, I don't think he would have any choice but to confess and let us know where she's buried.

BALDWIN: Donna Reitler is not as sure.

D. REITLER: Yes, he confessed. He recanted. He confessed. He recanted. Without a body, it's just another possibility.

BALDWIN: More than anything else, they just want their daughter back.

D. REITLER: To have a place to lay her to rest, just to be able to sit and just talk to her.

BALDWIN: As for Jimmy Keene, his truth is stranger than fiction. He has gone from football standout to drug dealer to undercover operative. And now to screen star, with his story in development as a Hollywood film.

Still, says Keene, he thinks of the victims' families and hopes they'll find their answers.

KEENE: That's all they can do is keep hoping. There was a glimmer of hope when Jimmy Keene was involved here. Maybe something else will still evolve out of this.

Maybe the things I've done and am still doing will still shine a light and give them hope at some point.

(END VIDEOTAPE)