48 Hours - To Hell and Back

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

17-year-old Jacque Marris reveals details about her abduction and how she and Tamara Brooks, another teenage victim, survived a harrowing 12-hour kidnapping on Aug. 1, 2002. They were strangers when their ordeal began, but it was only by working together that they found a way to survive. "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 8/27/2003. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays and stream on demand on Paramount+.

Yeah, there's no way. There's no way it wasn't going down without a fight. Because that would just be stupid of me. You know, how can you not fight for your life? It was a carefree night out. When it began, these two teenage girls had never met. When it was over, they shared an unbreakable bond of survival. Kidnapped at gunpoint, terrorized, during a summer of fear.

summer of fear. The latest highly publicized child of kidnapping in California this year. We're pleading for our lives. Please don't kill me. Please don't shoot. Peter Van Sant has their personal story. Do you realize today just how close to death you were? Split second decisions, facing the fear, daring to fight back.

Because your intent at that moment is to do what? To kill him. Time was running out. He was hunting for the place to kill them and bury them. This is the real deal. We have to take action. 48 hours investigates. If you don't open a zero by three, I'm going to kill both of you right now.

One, two. To hell and back. I've been kissed by the sun each morning. Just soaking up the day. We do have the breaking news to tell you about the two girls who were kidnapped this morning at gunpoint. have been found safe. This world is a beautiful place. In this case, the latest highly publicized child

of kidnapping in California this year. I have been blessed. Thank you. It's a welcome home party unlike any other. Just days earlier, Tamara Brooks and Jackie Maris spent a night in hell, kidnapped, abused, terrorized, but they somehow made it back. I was alive, had my life back, and the bad guy was dead.

We'll never have to deal with this suspect again. The girl's triumph, says Sheriff Carl Sparks, gives every mother and father something to hold on to. It gave them some hope that just because somebody takes one of their children, it doesn't have to be four days later in a grave. in a grave. Do you realize today just how close to death you were? Yeah. Every second.

Every second of what we went through was a chance for him to kill us, but he didn't for some reason. So, yeah, I know how close I was to death. Jackie's incredible story of survival begins here on Quartz Hill, a popular hangout overlooking the city of Palmdale, California. It's after midnight, and Jackie is nearing her curfew, enjoying the view with Frank Milera. It's fun, you know.

It's something different to do, you know. It keeps you out of trouble, I guess you could say. Or you thought. That's what I thought, yeah. At Quartz Hill, they talk, listen to music. Then, out of nowhere, Frank feels cold metal against his head. Okay, this is serious, you know. Something in my head.

He has a gun. He has a gun. A gun gets your attention pretty fast. Holding that gun with his finger on the trigger is Roy Dean Ratliff, a fugitive wanted for rape. He demands money and orders Frank and Jackie to put their heads down. They smell alcohol on his breath and hear duct tape unwinding. One second, he was calm and then out of nowhere, he just starts getting mad. Freaking out.

Yeah. He was like, you think I'll kill you? I was like, yeah, man, I think you'll kill me? And he was like, you think I'll kill you? And I was like, yeah, you'll kill me, man. You got the gun, you'll kill me. He made me put my head to the back of the seat rest and started taping my head and then putting tape all the way around my arms,

taping my lip, taping my eyes. I was like, you know, he's going to duct tape me and then shoot me. Ratliff starts wrapping up Jackie, but the tape runs out. Blindfolded and hobbled, she's led to a Bronco park nearby. So he picked me up and he placed me in the back. And that's when I saw Tamara's legs and they weren't moving and I didn't know like if it was some dead body or What you know lying still in the back seat is Tamara Brooks a 16-year-old honor student the two girls have never met

When the Bronco disappears Frank manages to free himself and calls for help on his cell phone and I see this other guy and I'm like who's this you know what happened to him. And he has duct tape on him, and I'm just like, oh, man. This happened to him, too. I heard him undoing the duct tape. The other guy is Eric Brown. He was on Quartz Hill with his friend Tamara. He told me he was going to kill me, but he didn't want to. He actually just wanted to tie me up. He just wanted the truck. Ratliff carjacked Eric's Bronco, with Tamara held hostage. I just turned 18 today. Asked up about two hours ago. I was brought up that when you take a girl out,

you see that she gets home. And how was I going to take her home, you know? Oh, what if something does happen to her? I would never be able to live with myself, ever. What police don't realize is Ratliff is just a few miles from Quartz Hill. He pulls over, and Jackie can see the lights from nearby homes through a crack in her blindfold. in her blindfold.

The houses had to be like maybe 15 feet from us. And like some of the lights were on, and like you get here like dogs barking and like people, you know. Without warning, Ratliff sexually assaults her. Imagine your worst nightmare. Did you say anything to him? And no one in these houses that were nearby, nobody noticed, nobody heard anything.

That's a surprise me because we're so close to him. But. And this is where he attended. That's what we think. That's what we think. Now this whole thing took place inside the car. Detective Fred McNutt retraces the route Ratliff took that night. Why would this man pull over on a pretty busy street right next to a residential neighborhood to do this sexual assault? He just played it out that way for his own excitement, maybe some kind of sick excitement he got on being on the edge this way. Found in the Bronco were restraints that were used to hold the

girls and here's the tape that was used. Ratliff also carries two guns, ammunition and sexual paraphernalia. Viagra. He had quite a few packages of Viagra. This is just a scaled photograph of the rope, and that was described to us as being used around one of the girls' necks. After the assault, he promises to take the girls back to Quartz Hill. I can see out of the bottom of my duct tape that was on my eyes, and so I saw some of the signs.

And he wasn't taking you back to the top of the hill. Mm. Yeah. They drive 30 minutes or more in the dead of night. When they finally stop, they are allowed to remove their blindfolds. The scene is surreal. Dozens of windmills reflected in the moonlight. He would become very caring and compassionate, and then seconds later he might be holding a gun,

saying, I'll kill you if you don't do this. After another brutal rape, Ratliff carefully tucks his shirt around the girls to protect them from the chilly night air. At one point, Jackie's door is left open a crack. It's a chance for her to escape, but she refuses to leave Tamara behind. I didn't know what he was going to do to Tamara. I didn't know if he would hurt her more than he already had. How do you explain that bond that had formed between you and? and Tamara and the fact that you felt protective of her,

this total stranger in the back seat with you? It's like I had known her, like, for a long time, but I had just met her, and I barely even knew her name. Later, Jackie whispers a song to the stranger who is now a friend, trying to calm her during the long, black night. What are the words to that song? Do you remember? When we're lying in the quiet and no words have to be said.

I think to myself, I think to myself, this world is a beautiful place. They start driving again. Silently, Jackie grabs Tamara's hand. They dare not speak, so Jackie spells out words on Tamara's palm, one letter at a time. What did you write to her? Do you remember? Yeah, I need a plan. What did she write back?

She wrote a knife. Knife, where was there a knife? Eric had a knife, a bowing knife, and a holster. Eric Brown, Tamara's friend, kept a bowie knife in his bronco. The girls realize they have no choice. Jackie would use that knife the first chance she got. There's no way I wasn't going down without a fight, because that would just be stupid of me.

You know, how can you not fight for your life? not fight for your life. Lying across the back seat, her hands tied, Jackie Maris watches one mile bleed into the next. There is rope around her neck, binding her to Tamara Brooks. It is hour five of unrelenting terror. I asked him if he was going to kill us. And he said no.

He is Roy Dean Ratliff, the fugitive who's now in control of their lives. Just after daybreak, they pull onto a remote dirt road in the Mojave Desert, 130 miles from where they were abducted. What's going through your mind? Just basically what now? Jackie watches Ratliff load and fire two guns into the empty canyon. I just thought that was it. You thought your time would come?

And that we had to do something, but then or, you know, never. Ratliff then turns his attention to that bowie knife in the car. He runs his fingers over the eight-inch blade. But before he has a chance to use it, a night of heavy drinking takes its toll. Ratliff drifts off to sleep. This is the time. This is the time to do whatever we're going to do to try to get away. Jackie and Tamara struggled to get free from the rope and duct tape that binds them.

You chewed it off? No, I licked it off. If you lick duct tape, it's not adhesive anymore, and it just comes off. They know Ratliff has a gun in his lap. If they run, he can easily shoot them. Jackie sees the knife on the console. There's a bottle of whiskey on the front seat. Both are weapons for anyone desperate enough to use them.

We didn't talk. It was just like... I'm going to stab. You're going to hit him with the whiskey bottle. You're going to hit. Because your intent at that moment is to do what? To kill him. To let him pay for what he did.

And what we thought he was going to do. Back at Quartz Hill, where the girls were abducted, police don't yet know it's Roy Ratliff they are looking for. Frank Milero relives every detail of the night. I remember the voice. I remember the way he would talk and the gun. can't get the gun out of my head. Police learned the suspect ambushed Eric Brown

and Tamara Brooks first. Eric was gagged and taped to this pole when another car arrived. I was blindfolded. I just heard him. I heard the car come up. Frank Malero and Jackie Maris were in that car. Eric couldn't warn them. Now two girls are missing

and two boys are left to pray. I don't know what it's like to be Jackie's mom and dad. and not know where your kids at, you know. That was really hard. Jackie's mom, Nadine Dyer. Go ahead, no it's, it's all right. She's only 17. I mean, all the things she graduates.

And it's just a lot you think about. All the things she'd miss. Police asked Nadine to describe Jackie. She tells them about her daughter's brown eyes and her trademark smile. Jackie is the oldest of three children. High energy and high-spirited, a determined student, cheerleader, and surfer.

500 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers. Last summer, Nadine watched news reports about other girls who disappeared. Danielle Van Damme, Samantha Runyon, Elizabeth Smart. So she sat her children down and gave them this advice. If someone takes you against your will, You know, the odds are you're not coming home. You know, so you need to do whatever it is you need to do in order to get home.

I mean, if you've got to fight to the end, that's what you've got to do. I knew with Jackie, I knew she'd fight. She doesn't give up. She's got too much life in her. It's too much she wants to do. 130 miles away in the Mojave Desert, Jackie remembers her mother's advice. She'll do whatever it takes to come home, even if that means finding the courage to stab a man.

I'm so scared, and what if he wakes up? What's going to happen to us? Is God ever going to forgive us for this? Inch by inch, the girls painstakingly get hold of the knife and whiskey bottle. Jackie hesitates, not sure she can stab him until Ratliff's eyes flicker. I thought he was waking up,

and so I just did it real fast, and then he actually woke up, Tamara smashed him in the face, and then since his door was open, That little crack, he like fell over. So we kicked him out. I took the knife at him and tammered through the whiskey bottle at him. He was bleeding so much.

Bleeding from a stab wound to the neck. They lock the doors, roll up the windows, and just as Jackie takes the wheel to speed away, she makes a horrifying discovery. The key's not here, the key's not here, the key's not here. Ratliff still has the key. We didn't know what to do. And both guns.

I'm going to count to three, and if you don't open the door by three, I'm going to kill both of you right now. One, two, and at this point we were pleading for our lives. Please don't kill me. Please don't shoot. Don't do it. What's God going to think of you? You promised.

And right before he got to three, he collapsed. That was definitely by God. So he's collapsed? Did you get out of the car? No. Because he's outside the car. Ratliff lies motionless. Then like a scene from a horror movie,

he suddenly staggers to his feet and start shooting over the car. What's the look on his face? A look of intent to kill. Like, that's all that he was going to do. No negotiating. There wasn't anything. We couldn't go back. We couldn't take back what we had just done.

And now we were going to suffer for what we tried to do to him. On a desolate stretch of the Mojave Desert, Jackie Maris and Tamara Brooks are living on the very edge of death. We can't do anything, but plead for him not to kill us. It is hour nine in the grip of a violent, desperate, wounded man. 130 miles away, police are leading a massive effort to find the girls. Find her, that's what you gotta do.

It's 10 o'clock, the morning of August 3rd, First, 2002. A growing number of family and friends are gathering here at the sheriff's substation. I just don't just get this bag of safe. Freeway billboards flash a description of the stolen bronco. The vehicle has raised large tires. News reports are constant. They're on the lookout for this Ford Bronco.

The signs are part of a new warning system called Amber Alert, designed to quickly notify the public when children are abducted. The license plate number of one A-I-Z. Police know two. too well that many children are killed within hours of being kidnapped. When you first heard two teenage girls kidnapped, what's going through your mind? That we're actually probably not going to be looking for the two girls because he's going to dump them.

Carl Sparks was then Sheriff of Kern County, a sprawling desert county about 100 miles north of L.A. When a crime involves children, Sheriff Sparks, gets emotional. If this sucker is in Kern County, he is not getting away from us. Sparks doesn't know it yet, but in fact, Ratliff is in Kern County. On a remote desert road. Open the f***ing door. Ratliff's in a frenzy of pain and anger.

Open the door, I'm going to kill the both of you. Bleeding profusely from the knife wound in his neck. The whole time he was frantic, you know, let me in and did it. I'm going to kill you. The girls are locked inside the Bronco. We were in the worst position you could ever think of. You had just tried to kill someone and he's not dead and he has a gun pointed at you through a car window.

Why do you think he didn't pull that driver? I don't know. We started talking to him about God and if he was to kill us, if God would ever forgive for what he was about to do. How important was that conversation at that moment? Really important. After we started mentioning God and stuff, he calmed down a little bit,

and he was silent for, like, a couple moments. With Ratliff still armed, the girls have no choice but to let him back in the Bronco. They have managed against all odds to buy themselves a few. more minutes of life. Something was watching over, someone, something. I don't know.

As the search intensifies, a distraught woman walks into this sheriff's station, hands over a photo and says, this may be the man you're looking for. His name is Roy Dean Ratliff. The woman with this crucial new lead is Ratliff's wife. She's a mother. She cared. She cared about those girls. Kevin Seymour is a psychologist and friend of the Ratliff family.

He was very kind to my children. Ratliff, a Native American, is the father of two. This is a picture that was taken last year at his birthday party. This is the Roy that we knew, that smiling face. This is the picture here that the public is most familiar with. What goes through your mind today when you look at that photograph? This is the two sides of this man. This is a man who was a good man when he wasn't drinking.

But alcohol was real poison for this guy. Ratliff had been in and out of prison since he was a teenager for nonviolent crimes. Seymour says Ratliff was always trying to turn things around. He once worked as a gardener at this child care center and said it was the best job he ever had. The children at the child care center loved him. For him when he drank, he became violent. And he felt unable to control that. This guy had no ability to control himself.

Blu-h- just absolute bull-h-hattliff is on the move again. Back on the highway, he can't stop the bleeding of his neck. He kept telling me to watch his neck and tell him when to wipe, because the blood, it was bleeding real bad still, and the blood would just, like, pour down, and I'd tell him to wipe so he'd wipe. If he's worried police are looking for him, he doesn't show it. Jackie remembers him listening to a song about suicide. He was talking about, you think I care if I die right here?

Well, I don't. I don't care. The car that they are looking for statewide is a 1984 white Ford Bronco, the license plate number one A.I.Z. Milton Walters, a highway worker, hears reports about the abduction all morning. At just about 11 a.m., Walters can't believe his eyes. He sees a white Bronco coming his way. on Highway 178.

I looked right at him, right through the passenger side window, and he kind of had like a crappy little smile on his face and kind of nodded at me as he went by. I was panicking. I didn't have a pan, I'm going like this. So I grabbed my key, and I scratched one A-I-Z, and then six, nine, two. Walters calls police on his cell phone. Helicopters and planes race. to the area.

But in this vast desert, they can't find the Bronco. I know the area real well, and there's so many roads that this guy could have taken. 11.30 a.m. Kern County Animal Control Officer Bonnie Hernandez is also on Highway 178. Listening to her police scanner when she spots something white in the distance. It was right about here on the rise when I saw him when he was. going into the trees. And in my mind, I'm thinking, good Lord, if he gets down in there in those trees,

even the airship may not be able to see him. Bonnie knows every second matters, but she's afraid to radio for help. Everybody has a scanner in this type of an area, and they know exactly where you're at and where you're going and who you're after. Worried that Ratliff may have a scanner, Bonnie tears out to the nearest town to alert authorities 30 miles away.

How fast were you driving on the highway, would you guess? 110, literally. Back in the Bronco, he had his put towels over our heads, and we're on the floor. Jackie and Tamara can feel that they've gone off road. And they, like everyone looking for them, have a sickening suspicion why. They were excess baggage that he needed to get rid of. He was hunting for a place to kill them and bury him, and he had stopped that bronco because he had found the place where he wanted to do it.

He just said, you guys better hope the cops aren't down there, like if they were, that he was going to kill us. And then all of a sudden, Tim was like, do you hear that? And I was like, what? And she's like, listen. And she's like, it's a helicopter. 12 hours of terror are about to end. The next few minutes will determine life and death for everyone in that bronco.

We're in the right direction. All of a sudden we hear this helicopter overhead, and it keeps circling around. And Tamara's like, do you hear that? But for Jackie and Tamara, the sound of the rescue helicopter is actually frightening. Oh, no, the cops are here, you know, get out of here. We don't want you here right now. Roy Ratliff has said he will kill the girls if the police show up. So we were hoping that the helicopter would go away and like it did, but then it came back.

And when the sound came back, it was lower. It kept being lower and lower and lower. By the time we get right into here, it's continuous, continuous talk from the chopper. Kern County deputies James Stratton and Larry Thatcher follow the helicopter to an isolated stretch of land in the Mojave Desert called White Blanket. As I got out of the vehicle, he was looking straight at me through the open passenger side window. Attempty to you make contact with the suspect.

Here, for the first time, they come face to face with Roy Dean Ratliff. This is real. This is the real deal. We have to take action. I drew my weapon. I yelled at him to get his hands where I could see him. He hollered back at me. No fucking way.

All he had on his face was desperation, terror, and contempt. I'm not getting away. You're not going to catch me. Roy Ratliff presses down on the gas. Hard. He actually went airborne across here, hit this road down here, off through the brush. So he just turned to the left real fast. When he turned, the bronco almost slipped, and then he got stuck up on this rock.

The deputies show us just how they close in on the Bronco. I started running down the hill. James started running down the hill. How quickly is all of this happening? Seconds. He was watching our distances we're closing, thinking he's going to get the vehicle off and can escape. So where are the girls at this point?

Don't know. I have no idea. What the deputies don't realize is that Jackie and Tamara are still in the Bronco, lying in the back seat. had no report from the chopper that they've seen them. I don't know if the girls have already been dumped someplace, if the girls are dead, I just don't know. You saw the police outside the windows?

Yeah, they could see him. Did they see you? Not at that point. Vehicle stuck in the dirt. As we got closer, I think he realized that he wasn't leaving. That's when he leaned over out of his seat, went behind the passenger seat, and started digging for the gun. He jumps in the back of the seat and he has his gun in his hand.

And I thought he was going to kill me right then, because his gun was loaded, and he had it right by my head. Roy Ratliff is trapped. He has nowhere to go and nothing to lose. He was shouting out the cops. I have the girls, you better not shoot or else they're going to die. With just about six feet separating the cops from Ratliff,

the two deputies are putting their lives on the line. I come around here just like this, to the back end of the Bronco. He has no idea that I'm behind him. Within seconds, Ratliff pulls the trigger. He shot the first shot out the window, and then the cops retaliated back. They shot back.

Suddenly, Jackie and Tamara are in the midst of a deadly gun battle. The bullets are just flying everywhere. We're screaming for our lives. The car is just moving back and forth, back and forth. As you're firing these shots, are you thinking yourself. What about the girls? The only thing I see is him and that revolver he's holding. When I heard the shot, Ratliff went back. At that time, I began shooting, approaching the vehicle,

and approaching Ratliff. Once I made sure of my target, I lined up my sight straight on him, and I squeezed the trigger. The glass looked like it fell like ring drops. And he looked at me with the sense of, you got me. by Larry Thatcher brings Roy Dean Ratliff's Trail of Terror to a dead end. He was on top of me and like he, his body just like, it had no life in it anymore. It was just dead weight. When I was finished firing, then I can see. Bronco rocking, definitely can hear some screaming.

I said, somebody's alive. Like a newborn baby, mom and dad, you want to hear your child screaming. Because when you hear that, you know they're alive. You know that's life. That's life. I, like, looked at him and, like, his eyes were open. And then the blood was just on his face and everywhere. And then I just, I pushed them off of me and I ran out.

Tamara was right behind me. We gave each other a big hug and we just were crying our eyes out and just thinking, thanking God that we were still alive. 17 bullets hit that white bronco during several seconds of intense smoky gunplay. It is nothing short of a miracle that Jackie and Tamara got out alive. One of the strongest feelings I've ever had in my life was when those girls came out of that vehicle and I knew they weren't injured. It was, I mean, happiness, relief, everything.

We have both victims. All this time they're saying, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I told those girls, you're going home tonight. This guy is not going to hurt you anymore. We don't have to rehabilitate this son of a bitch. In just minutes, news of the amazing rescue hits home. The relief is overwhelming. Okay, okay, girls, I'm going to give you an update.

Okay, according to the Kern County Sheriff, the girls are unheard. According to the Kern County Sheriff, the girls are unhurt. And the suspect is down. I just hugged her, kissed her. That was the moment you'd waited all those hours for. You know, she was okay. It's over, you know? We were spared.

We were just so happy. It was like, undescribable feeling of, like, just relief, just, like, life actually existed again. At 1255 around that hour, freedom was given back to the two girls. Justice was served. We do have the breaking news to tell you about the two girls who were kidnapped this morning.

Okay, girls, I'm going to give you an update. Okay, according to the Kern County Sheriff, the girls are unheard. It's been just over a year since Jackie and Tamara were freed from their nightmare. How's life today? How are things with you? with you? They're good, I guess.

Yeah, they're pretty good. But everything, I don't know. I try to get myself real busy, so I don't ever get a chance to think about it. Do you find after all of this that total strangers care about you now and are interested in you? That's the weirdest thing, because I got stuff from like every state. This one's the one from Iowa. This one's from Castaic. This is for a year free of martial arts.

crocheted blanket, got some bracelet too, neat. Some are letters from rape survivors. Others are inspired by her courage. I prayed for you often over the 10 hours that you're held. I'm so happy that you're safe. I will keep you in my prayers. And now fans throwing out the ceremonial first pitch, Jackie Maris and Tamara Brooks.

Publicly, Jackie and Tamara are new symbols of survival. Tamara and Jackie join us today in the call to stop violence against women. Gutsy, smart and strong. Privately, what happened in the Bronco can never be erased. Does this get to you a little bit when you think about it? Yes. You try not to think about it? Are you happy today?

Yeah. Have you talked to anybody yet? Have you had any counseling over this? Have you talked it over with them? anybody? Oh, like professional wise? No. Are you, are you given that any thought? Hmm? That's a healthy thing to do. It's not a... I know, I know. I just don't have a lot of time right now, like when I do have time, I'll go. She also has family and friends to lean on, but sometimes out of the blue, the tears come. You fought back big time. Does that help? Huh? If I wouldn't have done. If I wouldn't have

I would have done it, I would have regret it forever. Even if things did turn out that way they did, I still would have rather fought back. Police believe fighting back is a key reason Jackie and Tamara are still alive. Much more than I deserve. The girls bought precious time. They are the ones who got away.

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