48 Hours - 48 Hours: NCIS: A Sailor's Honor

Episode Date: May 30, 2018

When a young Navy officer vanished without a trace along with $8,600 from a supply ship during the Vietnam War, he was classified a deserter. His sister believed he was murdered. Can NCIS agents solve a cold case nearly four decades old?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Arlington National Cemetery is a really sacred place. It serves the purpose of honoring our nation's veterans. Every headstone at Arlington has an incredible story. Andrew Munns, his story is definitely one we shouldn't forget. Andy Munns was my big brother. He loved his country and he was proud to serve in the Navy in 1968. and he was proud to serve in the Navy in 1968.

Warno! 1968 was an incredibly tumultuous year for our country, to say the least. We were headlong into a really unpopular war in Vietnam. Warno! Warno! And there were massive protests on the street. Andy Munns was a patriot at a time when it was not popular to be a patriot. And he joined the Navy for all the right reasons to serve his country. Munns was a 24-year-old Navy officer serving aboard the USS Kakapon in the US

Naval Base, Suffolk Bay in the Philippines. Its job was to refuel the aircraft carriers and the destroyers. Andy was the dispersing officer so he had the payroll and to make sure that everybody got their money. It was not a huge crew, but they had to work really hard. On January 17, 1968, Munns failed to show up to Muster, which is the morning roll call. The crew searched for him, but he had disappeared and so had $8,600 from the safe that he was in charge of. Munns was never heard from again. This young man just wanted to serve his country.

And within three weeks of reporting aboard that ship, he disappeared. And he was labeled a deserter and a thief. He would never have taken that money. So something else happened. The Navy investigated Munns's disappearance for six months, and that was it. When somebody is a deserter, there is no honor as recognized by the Navy.

They're a deserter. You don't get much lower than that. When those white-gloved hands hand the family member that folded flag, you often see them pull it in close to their chest. It's that important of a symbol and you're denied all of that. The Navy or the military shuts you out. I knew that something bad had happened. Somebody killed my brother.

My mother never got a flag. All service people get when they lose a son. She never had that closure. Mary Lou, Munza's sister, made it her mission to find out what happened to her brother. I knew I had to give it my best shot. But we had no way of getting the Navy to open a new investigation. Until one day I got a phone call, but I almost didn't answer. But it was Pete Hughes from the Cold Case Squad from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Pete said, why should we open an investigation? Why do you think your brother was murdered? And he let me talk. She had explained to me certain things she had done on her own, and just hearing that just screamed she needed assistance. While there's a statute of limitations on crimes, there's no statute of limitations self-imposed on agents to solving a crime. There's no statute of limitations self-imposed on agents to solving a crime. So where others may see an end, NCIS agents don't accept that, and it will continue to drive forward. There's no evidence. There's no crime scene. There's no witnesses. This case was the unsolvable.

But one thing about Pete and I, we had a good track record for solving the unsolvable. Munz's story was such a fascinating tale, it actually inspired one of the early episodes of NCIS, the TV show. He was our dispersing officer. He was declared a deserter 30 days later and he received a dishonorable discharge. Dishonorable? Something happened on that ship that night. We knew there was a killer that lurked on that ship. Worst case, he's now somewhere in the United States. The NCIS mission is global. We're on aircraft carriers, we're in foreign ports.

We watch after each other, we take care of each other. NCIS deal with every type of crime. Cyber, fraud, murder. General crimes, counterintelligence, counterterrorism. Every crime is a tragedy. It involves sisters, brothers, husbands. That's the only way to find the truth. We live in dangerous times.

And we're never going to give up. NCIS. The cases they can't forget. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn. And it harboured a deep, dark scandal.

There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse

and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder,

wherever you get your podcasts. As a family, we rarely talked about Andy. We barely talked about Andy. Every time we talked about him, we got angry at the Navy. We got angry that he was called a deserter. And it was a lot less painful just not to go there. There were five of us in our family. Andy was the middle child. He was the one that everybody liked. He loved being in the Navy.

One of the things that I remember is going to church with him, and he wore his dress whites. And I just remember being so proud of him sitting next to him at church in this beautiful uniform. He looked great. He had gotten onto the Cacopon in December 26th of 1967. It was his first tour of duty and this was his first ship. And he was very excited and proud to be on the ocean finally. Just three weeks after Munns had boarded ship, he went missing.

The crew searched his quarters and they found everything there. His contact lenses, his clothes, everything but Munns. Megan Rose is a former national correspondent for Stars and Stripes and has reported extensively on the military. The very first theory that they looked at was that Munns, who had access to the safe, took the money. Eighty-six hundred dollars could take you far away from an unpopular war. Munns would not have to have gone far to get away.

Just out the gate of the naval base is Olongapo, known as Sin City in the Philippines. Where sailors and soldiers on leave could find girls, booze, and all kinds of debauchery. They would go AWOL, they would desert, they would sometimes be victims of foul play. It just didn't make sense. The postcard that we got maybe five days before he disappeared started out, hi the world is small and beautiful. I've seen more and done more in three months

than most people do in a year. He was happy, he was planning on the future. Almost 30 years later, Mary Lou got her hands on the original investigative file. Something in me just said, it's time. This is it. I have never tried myself personally to restore his honor. She started digging and was shocked to find there was $51,000 left in the safe.

I thought, for heaven's sakes, Andy was a smart person. And if he was dumb enough to desert, he was going to be at least smart enough to take more than $8,600. The NCIS and the judge advocate had both interviewed a lot of the same people. And from the very beginning, there were people who in their testimony had made up reasons why Andy might have deserted. Mary Lou starts going through the file. She finds these witness statements that are rather suspicious to her.

So now for the first time, Mary Lou has names. She now knows the men who served with her brother. One of the names that she finds is Michael Lebrun. Michael Lebrun worked with Munns in the payroll office. Not only did he have access to the safe, he knew the combination. In 1997, I finally called one of the investigators from the original investigation,

Ray McGady, and I said, Mr. McGady, in 1968, you investigated the disappearance of my brother. And he said, Andy Munns. And he knew his name and he said this is the case that haunted me all my life. And he said I knew something bad had happened and I couldn't prove it. It was Ray McGady who really pushed to make it a real NCIS case. Ray McGady had gotten his son,

who was now an NCIS agent, to get the file and get it on the right desk. So January 1998 was the big turning point. At that time, I supervised the Cold Case Homicide Program. I learned a lot about Andy Munns through Mary Lou. Andy wasn't a thief. Andy was really just short of an altar boy. Pete told me about the case, and then I started reading the case myself,

the witness statements, and what was being said about Andy Munns made absolutely zero sense. What was at stake here in the Andy Munns case was his honor. All I want to do here is clear Andy's name. I want Andy's honor restored. And Pete said, it's not all I want to do. I want to catch a murderer. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly?

Introducing The Best Idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products.

Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. It's just The Best Idea Yet. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals.

However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marcia Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases. And this one belongs right at the top of the list.

She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. One of the most challenging cases that we can get in NCIS is a missing person case where you have no evidence, no crime scene.

Essentially, we have no case. From the suspicious statements to the postcard to Munns' altar boy-like background, the agents were convinced Munns had been murdered aboard the Kakapon. Now, they just had to prove it. The ship that Andy Munns was assigned to was turned into scrap metal in 1972, so we had no physical evidence. We're working off a series of interviews that were conducted in 1968. That's what we were operated on. So what we do in NCIS and Cold Case is we start comparing witness statements. Where we were fortunate, several of the crew members were still alive.

We're kind of focused on a couple different crew members assigned to the ship in 1968 that we had concerns about because of what they had said about Andy Mons. And then looking at the different ones, I isolated Michael LeBron. Remember, LeBron had access to the ship's safe, but it's what the agents learned he'd initially told investigators that now made them suspicious. LeBron, in his statement, said Andy had gone scuba diving and maybe had drowned, which was a red flag, a major red flag. So we're led to believe that Andy Munns is going to go diving in Subic Bay,

scuba diving, between midnight and 6 a.m. That's not going to happen. It was time to make a major move in this case. And that major move was, let's have a conversation with Michael LeBrun. He had done a complete review on Michael LeBrun's background. LeBrun had attended law school. People on the ship described him as a genius. One of the things that we noticed, people who have committed crimes so horrendous as a murder, sometimes they just can't get their life together. It starts spiraling downwards and they can't pull it back. So in the case of Michael Lebrun, here's a guy, law school, borderline genius, he's selling modular homes. And so therefore, we felt like he just couldn't get his life back together. But was he their killer?

One year after identifying LeBron, then 54, NCIS tracked him to Kansas, where he settled with his wife after retiring from the Navy. Under a ruse, the agents invited LeBron to a local police station for a routine background check. Never telling LeBron that he was the suspect of a murder investigation. I was there with a special agent with the Kansas Bureau of Investigations. Very quickly, just wanted to explain to Michael that I misled him about the purpose of the interview. It was not to conduct background investigations but to inquire into the disappearance of Andy Munz. Michael LeBrun's response to me was, I never believed you in the first place. Despite being brought in under false pretenses,

LeBron met with MCIS over the course of four days, without a lawyer. And what we need to do now is talk about one thing, right? Truth. Right. Absolutely. It was not an adversarial interview, because I knew I needed him to keep talking.

How are we going to find out what happened? I wish I had the answer. I had to show him those statements that Andy could have gone scuba diving. LeBron could remember everything except what happened to Andy Munns and his disappearance. I cannot tell you what happened. If I tell you what happened, I'm going to be making something up. Over 30 years ago, LeBrun told investigators he believed Munns drowned at sea. But he suddenly came up with a new scenario, one where he might have played a role.

If it did occur, it was an accident, somebody get in my face and I lost my temper and cold costume or hit him with a, what's that that's supposed to be. I don't know. Could have. Now, whether it's you repressed it, or whether you're blowing smoke up our rear end, and I'll tell you, fight front and face, you're full of s***.

You're playing the frickin' game. You're playing me. Michael LeBrun was playing us. But the game he was playing was checkers. Pete and I were playing chess, and we were pretty good at it. And he didn't expect that. He started making tacit admissions. But then he would go back and say, oh, but I really can't remember. It could have happened. I don't remember. That was huge for us because we got him to shift over to where he was ended up saying i could have done it and if i did do it i did it this way there was a confrontation that could have been an

excursion office there was some money missing from the safe money missing from the safe and um if mons had accused me of that then there could have been an altercation i knew michael leBrun was involved. I'm talking with somebody who's either involved with the homicide or conducted the homicide himself. Maybe once he could grab me. When he grabbed you, that's when he slapped. Is he? Truth or lies, LeBrun gave himself a starring role in Munson's murder.

But what happened to the body? You know, you asked me about a possible scenario about how somebody could destroy the body. You could have possibly, you know, could have dumped him into one of the tanks on the well deck. It was a nightmarish vision, as LeBron described the possible hiding place for the body, an oil tank like this.

He says, well, maybe if I did indeed kill Andy, maybe I would put him in one of the oil tanks. They're called muck tanks. He was giving us nuggets of information, and we hoped at the end of the day he would end up coming up and say, all right, this is it, guys. Here's what happened. And he never did. It's just one of my own thoughts. People want to make something up. It's the review guys. It's just one of my own thoughts. People want to make something up. It's a review, guys.

It's the end of my life. The agents felt close to getting a confession, but LeBrun was smart enough to shut down the interview. I'm done. I'm done. Pete called me and said he knew that we had the right person, but he hadn't gotten a confession. It was like he had the power.

He had the power, he had the information, and I realized he's going to be a tough nut to crack. If you want me to admit it, you're barking up the wrong tree then. He did say, I expect you guys to come back. And what he was telling us was, hey, NCIS, go do your homework and come back. We'll talk again. I think he underestimated us and NCIS, was we were really going to do our homework. If this person doesn't confess to the murder, what can we do to maybe pick up other pieces that prove he or she did do it?

Two years into the investigation, the agents had developed a theory that Munns caught LeBron stealing money from the ship's safe and was killed for his silence. But what happened to the body? One of the things he had considered, well, I can throw it overboard, but then the body's going to surface. He says, then I thought, well, maybe if I did indeed kill Andy, maybe I would put him in one of the oil tanks. Without a crime scene or

any physical evidence linking LeBron to murder, the NCIS agents knew that they had to prove that theory. So we needed to live that murder through Andy Munn's eyes best we could. There was one last sister ship class of the USS Cacapon, the USS Toluga, mothballed in Susan Bay, California. It's a graveyard for ships that have been decommissioned. In January of 2000, the agents, along with Munns' sister, visited the USS Toluga and documented their search on video. Just like the Cacapon decades earlier, the Toluga was set to be destroyed. With any destruction of the Toluga

meant we didn't have anything left that we could compare to with the USS Kakapa. It was a lucky break, but you make your own luck in this business. So this was as close as we were going to get to being on Andy's ship. It was a really eerie feeling walking the holes of that ship.

It felt very much like a ghost ship. They're dark, they're cold, they smell of oil, all steel, they creak. The deck is just crumbling under our feet. And we went through the cafeteria where it was just like you could imagine ghosts eating there that night. I had to keep reminding myself, this is not the Kakapon. This is not Andy's ship. Michael LeBron had given us information enough that we could walk that ship just like he described, even though he said he couldn't remember. And what we were trying to do was make sure it made sense. We needed to know, as investigators,

what would be acceptable for Michael LeBrun to tell us. That would be believable or not. The agents made their way deep into the ship's oil tank. It was the perfect place to hide a body. Essentially what we did is we conducted a crime scene examination on the sister ship. Why? What do you get from that? Well, when we go back and see Michael LeBron,

we're gonna know every part of that ship. For nearly a year, the agents continued to build their case against LeBron, preparing for round two. You'd think one team, one fight. You didn't think you were fighting your own. And he was a hero. Absolutely. Cost him his life. In the fall of 2000, LeBron once again agreed to meet with NCIS

without a lawyer. Pete and I, we were going to take another shot at Michael LeBron. So our plan was that he could leave at any time. He was free to go. He wasn't under arrest. We did not Mirandize him. We were going to see if we could get him to tell us the truth, one way or the other. And the agents had the perfect plan to do it, taking LeBron back to the scene of the crime. We end up coming up with a great strategy. And part of that is, is we wanted to take pictures from the USS Kakapon cruise book. And so we took pictures out of that and included Michael LeBrun, also included Andy Munns. We had

also taken pictures of his home. We found a picture of his wife. And so we took all these pictures and blew them up and put them in the interview room. Oh, that's all that stuff up there. That's all me. The first thing Michael LeBron, when he looks at the pictures on the wall, he goes, oh, my word, this is my life. That's exactly the response we wanted. Why? Because we didn't want him to say, I can't remember anything, because his entire life was up on the wall. I could point to it.

You recognize some of these pictures? I mean, as far as, this is your ship. These are your crew members. We were going to hit him continually, hit him with the evidence that we'd collected. We went back, and we absolutely reconstructed that burning compartment, and we identified every individual.

What did we do? We wanted to do our homework. Right, I understand. And I'll tell you now, we got an A-plus. I mean, this is it. This is what we've been working for for a long time. A lot of energy and everything just hangs right here with this one interview. It was intense. You did kill anyone, didn't you? You did cause his death, didn't you? There's indications to me that you might have, that you're a pretty selfish, cold SOB. The only issue is, is did it happen in a split second and that you planned out?

So premeditation? Premeditation. Or was it spontaneous? Our plan was to let him know if he had murdered Andy Muntz, and he did not mean to do it, then there's a five-year statute of limitations under the federal U.S. system. He could walk free. He just has to admit to manslaughter. I thought there was no statute of limitations on homicide. It depends on how the act was completed.

Premeditated or not. That's what I need to find out from you. They gave him an out and the out was you can take responsibility for this and nothing happened. He could still preserve his life as he knows it. Take responsibility for the death. We go away. Mary Lou Taylor goes away and he can continue on with his life. Am I hearing that I won't be prosecuted?

That's what you're hearing. Is that what I'm hearing? That's what you're hearing. If it's spontaneous and that's the truth, you will not be prosecuted. That's absolutely right. He was thinking that through. Should I? Should I? Should I go ahead and admit to this? Should I? Should I?

And for the first time, he's totally on his heels. What do you want to live again? Why? Do you want to? I want to live again. I want this to be over. I want the truth out. You can do it. You can do it.

Nearly 33 years after Munns mysteriously vanished, his sister, Mary Lou Taylor, had been brought in to watch the interrogation as agents pressed LeBron for a confession. I was watching this whole thing, but I couldn't hear it. I could see his expression changing, and I was actually praying that he was the right guy. And as I'm praying, Pete came out and said, he's confessing.

My killing of LeBz is a spontaneous act. Okay. I did not intend to kill him. Okay. I had no intention of ever killing Andy Muntz. I could see the eyes were tracking. He was looking down. He's weighing.

He knows he's been caught. Tell us why you killed him. Again, tell us what we already know. Self-preservation. He said, I was in the dispersing office that night on the cacophon. It was late. Andy Munch came in and he caught me in the safe. I was stealing money. And he said, I knew I had to kill him. What happened next stunned the agents. I'm Munch. You grab me. As LeBron reenacted the murder. Am I kicking? Am I fighting? Oh, yeah.

So the other agent in the room with me, he actually demonstrated on him by grabbing his throat, pushing him to the ground. And just boom, boom. No, this can't happen. Leave me alone. I can't have this. I don't recall exactly what I'm saying. I'm just panicked. Michael LeBron was actually reliving the murder. He's struggling. He's kicking.

He's pushing. What stops him from doing that? I'm stronger than he is. Right. And then I beat his head back. I'm stronger than he is. Right. And then I beat his head back. This is a thing of beauty. You've got him on the ropes. What he doesn't realize yet is we've gone from a missing person case to a murder case.

It was a good day for the good guys. You talk to any expert pathologist, it's going to take several minutes to snuff somebody's life out, which means you're forming a thought at that time. The struggle lasted so long. It could have stopped, but it didn't. It only takes a few seconds to form intent. Michael LeBron, within a very short amount of time, just admitted that he killed Andy Munns, and it was premeditated murder, and he didn't even know it. LeBron's confession to premeditated murder changed everything. But the agent said nothing and continued to let him talk.

What the f*** am I going to do? I've got to get rid of this body. He was never remorseful, no emotion about what had happened to Andy Munz. He was thinking, oh, I did this, now what am I going to do covered up? I'm going to do f*** it. I've got this. What am I going to do? Tank. Muck tank. LeBron knew exactly where to dispose of Munz's body.

It was the Kakabon's oil tank that he told agents about in his first interview. Mug tanks. LeBron knew exactly where to dispose of Bunz's body. It was the Kakabons oil tank that he told agents about in his first interview. We mugged tanks. We mugged tanks. They never go in these tanks. He took Andy, and he just dropped his body into the oil. And he can remember seeing the body sinking into the oil. And he took the money he was stealing, and he threw it in there as well. And that was it. That's how he murdered Andy Mons.

We weren't going to just go halfway and stop. So the final part of our plan was we were going to bring Mary Lou Taylor into the room and have him confess to her. Mr. LeBlanc, this is Mary Lou Taylor. I had to stay very calm. When he said that he would be willing to talk to me, at first I went, no, no, I can't do it. And then I thought, this is why I came here. This is everything I've wanted, is to be able to confront this man.

So I did. thing I've wanted is to be able to confront this man. So I did. There's some truths that I've had to face here just even today, and I've come to realize that I was responsible for Andy's death. Agent Grievous takes Taylor's hand. And I'm sorry to you for that. Michael LeBrun knew that he was being videotaped during this whole thing. And at one point, he's looking down and his shoulders are shaking. But then he looked up at me and there were no tears in his eyes.

And I thought, how sorry are you really? As we were getting ready to leave, he said, can I hug you? I'm sorry. Can I give you a hug? Is that OK? No, I'm sorry. No, that's fine. To hear that somebody strangled your brother and put him in an oil tank and then say, sure, I'd be happy to hug you,

that just wasn't going to happen. Under the conditions that we had brought him in, we had to just let him walk away. Remember, LeBron was never under arrest and was told he could confess to a spontaneous act without facing charges. What he didn't realize was his confession had signaled premeditation. Everything would change. But for now, he was free to leave.

He was going home that day. Didn't matter. So we honored what we said we would honor. I bet when he got home, he said to himself, them agents didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday. LeBron's freedom would be short-lived. In spite of their agreement, that confession to premeditated murder changed the nature of the crime

and would allow NCIS to bring their case before a grand jury. In March of 2001, Michael LeBron is indicted for felony murder for the death of Andy Munns. A news magazine captured LeBron's arrest, but he was soon back on the street. A few months later, a lower court ruled that the Naval investigators had overstepped their bounds in that interrogation room with LeBron, and they tossed the confession. So the lower court ultimately decided it was not admissible that we had violated Michael LeBron's rights? We were devastated when we learned that the court had thrown out the confession. And they said he was in custody.

At the time he was interviewed, when we had actually told him, you're not in custody, they said it was an involuntary confession because they felt like Jim was heavy-handed in the interview. Well, we don't need to know what happened. We know what happened. Let's get that out of the way right now.

I knew that these investigators had done their best. I knew they had been honest. I watched them. I was there with them. And I knew how much work they had done and that they had done it right. Did we push the envelope? Absolutely we did. There was no way he was going to confess unless we pushed the envelope.

But did we cross the line? We never felt like we crossed the line. Well, once again, Michael LeBrun walks the streets. There's a killer out there. All right. But agents Griebus and Hughes were not giving up. In 2002, they appealed the judge's ruling. We went to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and, once again, was ruled against us based on the same conditions. We lost round two.

Without the confession, there's no case. We played by the rules as we had been taught, and yet somehow we were losing. The fact that Michael LeBrun had not spent a day in jail for murdering my brother, it felt like there was something wrong with that. But I had to be patient. There's always that piece of hope. And NCIS was determined not to let her down.

So in NCIS, we have a motto on cold case. It's to the living we are the truth and to the dead we have respect. And this case exemplifies that motto. That's the essence of what being an agent is. It's that drive to find justice for victims. Unlike on television dramas, we can't resolve cases in 48 minutes. Couldn't you have surprised the thief in the dispersing office and been murdered? No easy thing to do on a ship with 6,000 sold.

It takes much longer. It takes perseverance, tenacity. In some cases, it can take 50 years. It's kind of what drives us. Never quit. Never quit. When the confession was thrown out. By killing Andy Munn. That was the ultimate low. Andy Munn would be forever remembered just as a thief.

Who wants to remember their family member that way? We indicted him. He's arrested. He's walking around free after committing a murder. I wouldn't piss on this guy if he were on fire. When we lost round two, we thought we were done. We're on life support. But NCIS appealed again, and in 2004,

the United States Circuit Court held an extremely rare hearing on the case. They chose to look at five cases, I think, out of 300. They chose to look at five cases, I think, out of 300. And the circuit court said, no, this was a reasonable investigation, a reasonable interrogation, and that we could use the tape. The confession was back in. My killing Andy Munns was not intentional. Now NCIS had to prove it was true. So the investigation begins again.

We have to go back to the USS Toluga. We have to go down into that tank, do a crime scene on it. What was key to us was we got to be able to demonstrate to anybody and everybody, he dumps that body into the oil tanks. Where'd the body go? And NCIS's forensic team had the answer. Experts were able to explain the oil is so caustic, seawater, microorganisms,

they'd simply just eat into the clothing, flesh. The corrosive effect would have essentially disintegrated Munn's body, and it would have been fleshed out to sea. It was evidence that there was no evidence. That was key, because what they were going to say is, show us the body, and by George we did it. The wheels of justice would move slowly for Munn's sister. She would wait two more years before LeBron appeared once again before the same

lower court judge. Essentially, the judge wanted the case to go away. LeBron was offered a plea deal for a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter. Facing a mountain of evidence, he accepted. So I said, I think a plea bargain is our best way to go. In March 2006, LeBron finally goes for his sentencing hearing and he's facing anywhere from probation to ten years behind bars. Michael LeBron on this day admitted to murdering Andrew Munns. I felt like Andy Munns, his honor and the

honor of the Munns's family is restored. The worst the judge could have given him was 10, but he gave him four. Michael LeBrun would only serve three years in prison. I was confused. I was like, where is the fairness here? One very wise older friend said, what we long for is justice. What we get is the law. We got the law. I'm not sure it was justice.

But again, that wasn't my goal. I accomplished my goal. In the summer of 2001, almost 40 years after Munns was killed, the Munns family finally got what they had deserved in 1968. And that was a military funeral with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Over 150 people gathered for Andy's memorial. There were 85 family members came from all over the country. All of the NCIS people who worked on the case came. The director of NCIS came.

I personally had my entire family there, which was very touching. which was very touching. And there was the horse-drawn caisson with the flag, with the full military band. It was one of the most touching and meaningful moments of my life. We really got to honor Andy that day. But the thing that got to me the most was when... This is presented in memory of your brother's honorable service to our country.

He handed me the flag. And when I got up and was hugging my brothers, I said, we got the flag. And my brother Tom said, we got Mom's flag. Every gravestone has a story and now Andy Munns, he had his honor restored. All of the agents that I came in contact with really do care about solving crime. They care about justice. That Andy should not be forgotten just because of the passage of time. I lost Andy in 1968, but through that period, I gained two brothers, and I feel like they are a part of my family. I love you guys. I really do.

You guys are wonderful. They always will be. The disappearance of Officer Munns is the oldest cold case solved by NCIS. It sends a message out that, you know, those who do wrong be looking over your shoulder because somebody carrying a badge is not too far away from you. Just know there are people out there who are watching, who are out there working these type of investigations long after you think it's over, and you never know when we're coming back.