Dateline NBC - Missing Mickey

Episode Date: April 15, 2020

In this Dateline classic, when college student Mickey Shunick vanishes, her sister becomes the driving force in a multinational search effort. Josh Mankiewicz reports. Originally aired on NBC on January 29, 2013.Josh catches up with Charlie Shunick and her remarkable and inspiring story in the decade since she led the efforts to find her sister in “After the Verdict: Missing Mickey,” available only by subscription to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts. LINK: https://apple.co/3Ue3uPJ

I remember my knees were shaking, my palms were all clammy. I mean, that was an awful day. It was just so shocking. I mean, who this has happened to? My little sister. Mickey and Charlie, sisters and inseparable, till the night Mickey vanished on a long ride home. This was an extraordinary circumstance. Suddenly, Charlie was everywhere,

relentless in a crusade for her sister. Whatever path I was on before this, it's different now. Where was she, and where would this mystery lead? Oh, my God. Even those closest to him didn't know that he had that secret life. The twist would be heart-stopping and the ending, that would be too. She knew she was fighting for her life and she fought. Because you're about to see that this young woman named Mickey just might help solve her own mystery. You're proud of her? Yeah, it's amazing. Good for Mickey. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.

Josh Mankiewicz has our story. Southern Louisiana, laced with mysterious bayous and twisting waterways, where surprises lurk around every bend. A place that can be as dangerous as it is majestic. It's where all the currents of our story cross. Fear, secrets, loss, but most of all, love and family. Charlene and Michaela Schoenick grew up here near the Gulf Coast in Lafayette. At first, these two barely tolerated one another. And you and your sister, how far apart in age? Two years. So I'm guessing that growing up, you were probably at each other's throats. Yeah,

all the time. You know, it's war between girls until they realize they're friends. But then, these two sisters didn't just become friends. They became best friends. And once I moved out of my parents' house, we got really close. The Schoenick girls had plenty in common. Big smiles, equally big, puffy yellow hair, and nicknames normally reserved for boys. Charlene was known around Lafayette as Charlie.

And Michaela? She never ever went by anything but Mickey. It was always Mickey, no Michaela. Parents Tom, a scientist working in the oil industry, and Nancy, a stay-at-home mom, kept a watchful eye as two very similar-looking girls developed two very different personalities. Charlie was the dominant one. She was always really outgoing, really, you know, just a fireball.

Mickey, on the other hand, had an intriguing, quiet way about her. She seemed to be sort of an enchanted, magical creature. She was sarcastic and kind of shy. Are you recording? Are you doing that right now? Come on. Really quick-witted, really funny. At 21, Mickey lived at home while studying anthropology at the home of the Ragin' Cajuns, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Where'd you see her going? I was pretty sure she was going to end up teaching horseback riding lessons

and, you know, working for an equestrian farm and maybe owning her own someday. And when Mickey wasn't with her animals, you could see her whizzing around town on her bike. Lafayette's a small town. You can get anywhere in that city on a bike in 20 or 30 minutes. Which is why on a late Friday night back in May of 2012, having listened to live music with friends, Mickey planned on riding her bike home. We grew up there. It seemed really safe. Mickey's brother's high school graduation was just hours away, but before calling it a night, she decided to stop off at the home of her friend, Brett Lee Wilson. She's like, it's nice out, you know, I'm tired, but the bike ride's going to be amazing. I'll put in my headphones, I'll bike

home, I'll get a couple hours of sleep, and then I'll do the graduation. I walked her to the door and turned and told her good night and to be safe. That did not at the time seem like an important moment, but it would later be revisited and re-examined again and again. Because somewhere, at some point, after Brettley says she left his house, Mickey Schoenick vanished. That was the last time I saw her. Later that morning, Charlie called Mickey to remind her about their brother Zach's graduation. Her phone wasn't on. I was like, oh, that's kind of weird. You know, I get home, my mom's all mad. She's like, where's Mickey? Mickey's always off doing something. I don't know what she got up to, but she's not here, you know.

So we go to my brother's graduation. And she's not there. She's not there. Now, that's not like her. No. I mean, I remember texting her like, you're an idiot. Where are you? What's going on here?

So even at the graduation, you're still thinking, you're a moron, not something's wrong. Yeah. Like, darn it, Mickey. But by late afternoon, that started to change. My mom texts me, hey, have you heard from Mickey? You know, what's going on? If she'd had some plan to run off with somebody or alone, you'd have known about it. Oh yeah. Mickey and I talk about everything, so.

And in that instant, irritation turned to fear. Nancy started calling all the hospitals, as Charlie turned to Bret Lee Wilson, the last person to have seen Mickey. Charlie told Brett Lee her sister never made it home that morning. So Brett Lee tells you. Well, he's confused. He says, oh, no, well, she left my house and said she had to go home for Zach's graduation. That's when I freaked out and started crying and I couldn't process anything. From the start up you could tell that this was an extraordinary circumstance. Major Kelly Gibson and Detective Steve Bajot are with the Lafayette Police Department. This was not somebody who was just going to vanish.

No. She'd never done that before. She'd always let her family know where she was going to be. The Schoenick family took to the streets in search of Mickey, and they'd be joined by legions of people from the Lafayette community. It was just unbelievable to see. We still have hope. What we want to do is find him. So we've got that. That's what we're trying to do. When we come back, police have some questions for everyone,

including that friend who was the last person to see her before she vanished. I remember yelling, no, I didn't do anything to her. No. And a flickering, fleeting clue. Was this Mickey? There is not a single name that we came up with that could have someone who could be responsible for this. No one could think of even one person. What did you know any enemies? Everyone I know liked her.

No one ever said anything bad about her. No obvious suspects. No real evidence of foul play. A beautiful girl gone without a trace. There was very little physical evidence that we had to follow. The last message that she received on her cell phone was around 1.46 in the morning on May 19th. But after that, there has been no activity. I mean, that in and of itself sounds kind of ominous.

Yes. It's a truism of police work that the last person to see a victim alive is the first focus of the investigation. So police brought in Mickey's friend, Brett Lee Wilson, for questioning. At first it was just, help us eliminate you. And then it transitioned into, you know, mistakes happen. You can tell us if there was a mistake. And that segued into, you loved her, didn't you? I mean, you know, pretty girl, loved you, you spurned her. You know, maybe you should just let us know now. Wilson insisted he had nothing to do with his good friend's disappearance. I remember yelling that repeatedly.

No, no, we were just friends. No, I didn't do anything to her. No, that was the last time I saw her. It was unrelenting. You guys took this pretty seriously. Absolutely. We could take nothing for granted. As the investigation gathered steam,

several hundred friends and neighbors of the Schoenick family came together to scour the streets of Lafayette. It was a really small city with a lot of people in it. Everyone knew a Schoenick. Someone knew someone who knew us, and it just kind of set, it was like wildfire, you know. Everyone got involved. The whole community was there. Just, just, you couldn't believe the outpouring.

Just overwhelming. People who knew her or people who just felt your pain? Both. Both, yeah. Soon, more than 1,800 people from in and around Lafayette were filtering through a makeshift search headquarters set up on the University of Louisiana campus. It was amazing.

There would just be people coming in covered in rashes and poison ivy and bug bites and dirt in their hair. And they've been climbing up trees and digging through brush. Looking for a girl they had never met. Yeah. Social media played a big part in this. Facebook is like the number one way we reached anyone. And leading the charge was Charlie.

She talked to everybody. She did radio interviews at midnight. We've divided the city into quadrants. Got up at three in the morning and went over to a TV station. We're searching every day. It was always the same thing. We've got to find Mickey. We've got to bring Mickey home. We just want her back. The 24-year-old, five-foot-two, sometimes blonde, sometimes redhead, had become the tip of the spear in a multi-state, multi-national search effort. Charlie had had all the missing posters translated into Spanish, and people went and flooded all the border towns and the border crossings. I was telling the social media team what to say and what they shouldn't say and how they should phrase things and telling the headquarter coordinators where to put bottles of water and

the sandwiches and stuff. Doesn't leave you a lot of time to worry about your sister. Maybe that was the idea. That's just what happened. What was this doing to Charlie? Man, she stood up. She turned out to have a spine of steel, that kid. I felt like everyone was depending on me to stay positive and you know do the rock i think it was tougher on you than you're letting on you have to put up barriers otherwise you can't function a week went by and then a major breakthrough, coming from a security camera that had captured this haunting image.

A bicyclist heading down a dark, deserted street in the direction of Mickey's home on the night she disappeared. Police called you to come in and look at that video. Was that Mickey? Yes. You could see the big, blonde afro that, you know, we're look at that video. Was that Mickey? Yes. You could see the big blonde afro that, you know, we're very well known for. It was her mannerisms. It was her bike. What was that like to see her? It was exciting. It proves that she got at least this far. So now we have a place where we can start from instead of searching the whole city. Police came to believe that whatever happened to Mickey Schoenick probably happened right around here, on this lonely stretch of road that was part of her normal route home.

Now, police saw Mickey on security cameras during the early part of her journey, but not on the cameras that she would have passed later on. The only problem was that a detailed and extensive search of this area turned up nothing. But there was something else detectives saw on that security video. Something much more ominous. Here, just after Mickey cycles out of frame, someone in a white pickup truck drives into frame, following Mickey at an uncomfortably close distance. Now, for the first time, police felt they had evidence someone else was involved. Charlie knew that if Mickey had been abducted, it wouldn't have happened

without a fight. If someone took her and she was conscious, they're hurting, they have broken ribs, they have a broken arm, broken nose. I kept saying that, look for someone who's beat up around the office, around your neighborhood, because they might be responsible for this. It would have been totally in character for her to fight back. But the clue in that video would prove as frustrating to detectives as it was fascinating. There's got to be a lot of white pickup trucks in Louisiana. There are indeed.

Within Lafayette Parish and the surrounding parishes, there's over 3,000. Coming up, a giant turn in the case. Stephen Bajot turned to me and said, okay, I don't want you to freak out or anything, but I think we found her bike. Where was it? What had happened? I was thinking, who did this? When Dateline continues. A blonde on a bicycle, a white truck pursuing her. Now investigators were pursuing that truck, and it wouldn't be easy. Here on the Gulf Coast, white Chevy pickups are as common as hot sauce. Definitely didn't narrow down the search. It was probably one of the more popular vehicles in the area. Definitely kept us busy. Those images did prove one thing conclusively. They were taken after Brett Lee Wilson says he last saw Mickey,

proving he was telling the truth. Mickey had left his house alive and well when he said she did. That was a big deal because Bretley was cleared. It proved that someone we didn't know probably took her. As the relentlessly hot Louisiana summer days slowly came and went, Charlie Schoenig proved to be equally relentless, continuing her appeals to the public, determined to find her sister Miki. Nothing else really seemed very important at the time either, aside from what we were

doing, so. All the other things in your life kind of just fade away. Yeah. Yeah. But by week two, the fear of the unknown began to take its toll on the Schoenig family, which was now forced to reexamine just what it was they were hoping had happened to Mickey. I thought, you know, so someone saw this cute little girl riding her bike down the street and hit her on purpose, and they have her and are doing what God knows what with, but. But she's still alive. Yeah, that's what we were thinking, absolutely. As for Mickey's

mom, Nancy, hers was a hope only a mother could feel. Anybody who spends any time with her is not going to want to hurt her. Because if you spend a few minutes with her, you like her and you love her, and you don't want to hurt her. Without Mickey, your mom was having a very tough time. Yeah. Yeah, I don't... It's just, I feel so bad for my mom, you know?

She always said that if she ever lost one of us, she would not be able to go on in life. But yeah, it was pretty hard on her. It was just so shocking. I mean, who this has happened to? And then, eight days after Mickey vanished, the investigation took a huge leap forward. Stephen Bajot turned to me and said, OK, I don't want to shoot you to freak out or anything,

but I think we found her bike. Two fishermen had found Mickey's bike east of Lafayette in a body of water called Whiskey Bay, just under the interstate. It was covered in mud and, you know, dried water from being in the swamp. How far away from where she disappeared was the bicycle found? 25 miles. That's not a good sign. No, it's not. Now police had hard physical evidence with which to build a theory of the crime. What could you tell from looking at the bicycle? That there was significant damage to the back tire. It looked like it had been impacted. Somebody had rammed her. That's what it looked

like. Scary? Yeah, I almost passed out, actually. I, like, had to brace myself up against the table. And so I was thinking, okay, this was a malicious act, and who did this? Police immediately began the sober task of searching for Mickey in the several thousand acres of Louisiana's largest swampland. We focused a lot of manpower and efforts into the search of this area. We had individuals on airboats like we're on now, ATVs. We had officers on horseback. Just amazing search efforts. Is that where you sort of began to think,

we're probably no longer looking for somebody who's alive? Right. It was more of a recovery effort at that point. But several days of searching turned up nothing. Meanwhile, investigators appealed for help in identifying the owner of a white Chevrolet Z71 pickup. That vehicle should be able to be spotted by the public. We got a lot of tips, well over a thousand tips from the tips line alone that we had. Tips saying there's a white pickup here. Women calling on their boyfriends or husbands saying he's kind of deviant.

And I think he could be responsible for the disappearance of Mickey. I mean, it ran the whole gamut of tips. It's interesting. I mean, you had half the community sort of pulling together to find Mickey and like the other half sort of informing on each other about that case. I don't know about that, but we certainly had a lot of tips coming in. And that's how police received their best lead yet, a story rich in detail involving this man, Rocky McGee.

We received a tip that he was intoxicated and that he had encountered Mickey riding her bicycle. He had struck her with his vehicle and picked up her bike and her body and dumped her in the Whiskey Bay area. 19-year-old Rocky McGee did indeed drive a white pickup truck. He also had a history of drinking and driving. He was involved in a traffic crash that involved alcohol and fatality. In fact, at the time Mickey disappeared, Rocky was about to be tried for DUI manslaughter. To frustrated detectives, all the pieces of the puzzle were coming together.

He had had a prior and was going through a court process at the time, so it would fit and be feasible that he would try and dispose of a bicycle antibody so that she would eliminate the crime completely. Had Mickey Shunick become Rocky McGee's second victim? It seemed to be great information. But in Louisiana, just like its waterways, things in this case seldom were predictable or followed a logical path. If detectives were ready to believe this was simply the work of a drunk driver,

it would soon be proven completely wrong. Coming up, a tantalizing new lead. Even those closest to him didn't know that he had that secret life. And later, a dramatic police interrogation. Could an unsuspecting young fiance help police crack this case? Good morning, guys. The search for Mickey Schoenick had spread over most of the Gulf Coast. It had involved hundreds of people and thousands of police hours. And now a caller to the tip line, claiming that Mickey had been the victim of a drunk driver,

was a game-changer for detectives. If you strike someone and you're intoxicated, that's foul play. So it looked promising. I only spoke to him one time. He denied any involvement. Ultimately, when pressured, he asked for an attorney. For a town on edge and still determined to find Mickey, news quickly leaked that police were questioning a person of interest. And when it did, the name Rocky McGee went viral. It was like all over the news, all over the social media pages and everything. And the next thing you know,

everybody was talking about Rocky McGee. Correct. And it spread like wildfire. The tip line was suddenly full of callers, including one claiming to have firsthand knowledge that not only had Rocky killed Mickey, but he also had an accomplice. This individual came forward and said that Rocky's girlfriend,

she was present when he was drunk and hit her, and that they picked up the bike and the body and disposed of her. Andy Cormier is the girlfriend accused of helping Rocky. She first learned of the accusations against her and her boyfriend from Rocky's mother. His mom comes up to me and she tells me that Rocky has been taken by Lafayette police to be questioned in the Mickey Schooner case. She's hysterical. She's crying. She's confused. And she was like, well, they think you did it too. Like her significant other, Rocky, Andy Cormier found herself grilled like a redfish.

It never happened. It never happened. For days, police worked around the clock investigating McGee's alleged involvement. They processed his white pickup, looking for any DNA that could be traced back to Mickey. We spent a lot of manpower and a lot of time investigating this. I actually thought that we were really going to be blamed

for something we didn't do, and I was praying for somebody to come forward and admit what they said was false. Then, almost as quickly as Rocky McGee surfaced as Mickey's alleged killer, the case around him collapsed when police brought McGee's first accuser back to be questioned again. The original tipster admitted that he had fabricated the story. It turned out that neither Rocky McGee nor his girlfriend Andy had anything to do with Mickey's disappearance. They were, instead, the victims of what turned out to be a hoax.

And so this tip that you got, this was, what, just somebody who had it out for him? I think what it was was it turned out to be someone who just wanted attention. And it ate up a lot of your time. Ate up a lot of our time. And it turned out to be absolutely nothing. Yes, sir. That was probably the negative aspect of the social media. Frustrating. Very.

But the saying, once burned, twice shy, was a luxury detectives couldn't afford. So when two new tips came in about another owner of a white pickup truck who'd been acting suspiciously, Detective Bajot rolled up his sleeves once again. In both tips, they came in a week apart and they were independent of themselves. And who were they telling you to look at? Brandon Scott Laverne. Brandon Scott Laverne was a 33-year-old mechanic who worked on oil rigs just offshore. Tell me what the two tips said. The first tip that came in was from an acquaintance that had close knowledge of him that said that he was acting suspiciously. The first tip that came in was from an acquaintance that had close knowledge of him that said that he was acting suspiciously. The tipster also said that on the weekend Mickey

went missing, Laverne traveled to New Orleans and came back with some serious stab wounds on his upper body. He was telling them that he had been robbed and mugged in New Orleans while he was down there. What they found suspicious was that he had no reason to go to New Orleans that weekend, and his story just didn't make sense. And it wasn't just what the tipster was saying that interested Detective Bajot. It was also who the tipster was. The tipster that called in was the future father-in-law of Mr. Laverne. And that second tip only tightened the net around Laverne. It came from an employee of a Lafayette car dealership who said that soon after Mickey vanished,

Laverne came in looking to buy a white pickup. The second tip said that Brandon Laverne had gone in to purchase a vehicle, was acting suspiciously, and said that he had owned a white Z71 that was stolen and that he's here to buy another one. In what way was he behaving suspiciously? During the time that he was purchasing the truck, on the news, they showed a story about Mickey,

and he got really suspicious and really nervous, they said. It was visibly nervous. Detectives also learned that the soon-to-be-married Brandon Laverne lived in the little town of Church Point, Louisiana, 40 minutes outside Lafayette. He was funny. I mean, he really was. That's where Laverne got to know his friend, Candy McDaniels. When we first met, I was like, man, he's a great guy. He's got a great job. He's good-looking. He's a perfect guy. I was like, I've got to find one of my girlfriends who's single and see if they would hit it off. But the more detectives delved into Brandon Scott Laverne's past, the more they realized just how much wasn't known to those around him.

And even those closest to him didn't know that he had that secret life. And that would include his fiancée. He used me. Oh, my God. Why were police questioning her? Candy McDaniels counted Brandon Scott Laverne as one of her good friends. I mean, he was that good of a guy, in my opinion, that I would want to set one of my friends up with him. He may have seemed like a catch to her, but police now felt they almost had him on the hook for the murder of Mickey Schoenick. For one thing, detectives determined that the story Laverne had allegedly told his future father-in-law about being stabbed in a mugging at a gas station wasn't holding up. Any evidence that he reported that mugging to police?

The Jefferson Parish detectives responded to the scene, interviewed the gas station attendant, and reviewed the video surveillance and his truck, and he was nowhere near that site. And as detectives looked deeper into Laverne's past, they found themselves heading down a rabbit hole into a very dark place. We found out that he had girlfriends all over the place, that he more or less thrived on the game of seducing women. What's more, detectives say, Laverne had an addiction to prostitutes,

something his fiancée didn't know. He would leave her residence and contact sexual escorts. You found that out by checking his cell phone records? Correct. So this was a guy who sort of had a life that he didn't show anybody else. Exactly. But this seemingly normal, everyday guy, detectives learned, was also a registered sex offender,

having been convicted of sexual battery back in 2000. That was definitely an attention-getter. As provocative as all this was, there was nothing connecting Laverne to Mickey Shunick's disappearance. So Detective Bajot turned his attention to Laverne's white Chevy pickup and to that other tip coming from the local car dealer. The tipster had said that his truck was stolen out of Texas. Insurance records indicated where in Texas

Laverne said his truck had been stolen. When Bajot called the sheriff there, he learned the truck had been found, abandoned, and badly burned. We went and recovered and brought it back to Louisiana as evidence. And what's in there? There was absolutely nothing left. You couldn't even tell the color of the paint. So if Mickey was ever in that truck, you couldn't tell?

That's correct. The heat was intense. But Lafayette PD now had Laverne's license plate number. And from that, it turned out out came an extraordinary piece of police work we did a little bit of research and found an image that had been taken from a traffic camera of his truck about eight hours prior to the time that mickey disappeared that traffic camera not only snapped a photo of laverne's plate number but amazingly it also managed to capture what was in the bed of his truck. We were able to see that there's a 4x4 post as well as a white star foam ice chest that's in

the bed of the pickup truck. Bajat then compared the truck in that image to the mysterious one seen following Mickey. When we looked at the footage again on the night that Mickey disappeared, we could clearly see a 4x4 post as well as a white ice chest in the same position that it was on the traffic camera eight hours earlier. Suddenly, after six long weeks, Lafayette PD felt they had their man. That was our aha moment. That was his truck. All roads were now leading to Brandon Laverne, but detectives couldn't with absolute certainty place Laverne behind the wheel of that truck at that moment.

Most important of all, they still had no clue what had become of Mickey. Did you think that Mr. Laverne was aware that you guys were looking at him? No, I don't think he was, and that was part of our thinking, that if he had killed Mickey, we could keep him under surveillance and hopefully he would lead us to a grave site. But Laverne never did. So now investigators raised the stakes. They decided to arrest Laverne and sit him down for some quality time. There is a list of issues, okay, we need to address regarding the disappearance of Mickey Schooner. At first, Laverne denied knowing anything about Mickey. Then, a veteran of the criminal justice system, he asked for his attorney.

You know, nah, bro, you know, that's bulls**t. I didn't have nothing to do with that girl's freaking disappearance. If you're saying all that, dude, no, bro. I don't want an attorney. Man, this is over with. That's when detectives turned to the one person they hoped could break the case. They brought in Laverne's fiancé for questioning. I know you're a little nervous.

You want to know what this is all about? But basically, we just want to know about Brandon. Did he ever get angry or ever push you or hit you or whatever? Not one time. You don't see that at all? I don't. He's never showed that. I've never seen it. I don't even see that in him. I don't. He has been so gentle and kind and compassionate. He's amazing. I would have never said yes to a marriage. As it turned out, police ended up telling her more than she told them. Her reaction would only confirm for investigators just how sinister Laverne was. I'm not sure you know Brandon as well as you think you know him.

Okay. I'd like to. You'd like to? If there's something I don't know, I need to know. It would take the work of two detectives to reveal the rest. I'm a brutally honest person. Brandon is under arrest for first-degree murder. What? Yes.

He is, without a reasonable doubt, the man who kidnapped and murdered Mickey Schiff. You'll have proof? We do. Okay? Oh, my God. Do'll have proof? We do. Okay. Oh, my God. Do you... Oh, my God. I know.

I would not walk in here and tell you this if I did. Okay? I'm not going to keep reading this. Okay, listen to me. Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath because you asked me for proof, okay? It's hard for you to believe because you think you know him real well. Oh, no, no.

I would never be associated with somebody. We know that. We're not accusing you of anything. Listen to me. Oh, my God. Listen to me. Listen, take a deep breath. You want to hear the facts, right?

Yes. What's the proof? Okay, listen. I cannot lay out 100% of it, okay? Not at this point. He used me. Okay. He's good at it.

That's what he does. He is a sociopath. I believe so. He's a manipulator, okay? I don't know. Laverne's fiancé may have been shocked, but detectives weren't. They knew something else. Brandon Laverne's past was far darker than anyone had imagined.

We learned that Brandon's name had come up in a neighboring parish, that he was a suspect of a murder back in 1999. In fact, prosecutors took the case to the grand jury, but it failed to indict, citing insufficient evidence. For detectives, it was the final piece of the puzzle that put this case over the top. For the Shuniks, any lingering hope that Mickey would be found alive was now gone.

Me and my mom shut down after that. We just... And then I got to listen to Charlie through the wall cry all night. I mean, you know, the aching crying. But prosecutors were now struggling with worries of their own. Could they get a conviction without knowing what had happened to the victim? Coming up, heartbreaking new details emerge. She was fighting for her life, and she did what she had to do. Did Mickey help solve her own case?

Amazing. Good for Mickey. When Dateline continues. Three weeks after police arrested Brandon Laverne, the Lafayette District Attorney's Office charged him with Mickey Shunick's murder. For Charlie Shunick, one big question had been answered. I went home and I looked him up and I was like, well, this guy is responsible. Mickey is definitely not alive anymore. And that's probably when we all really started mourning the loss of her. Daniel Landry and Keith Stutes were prosecuting Laverne. What made you so sure about him? I don't know that there was a single event or a single circumstance. It was the mountain of circumstances. Not the least of which was that Laverne had been

a prime suspect in a murder back in 1999. The possibility Laverne had killed before only strengthened Prosecutor Keith Stute's resolve. It was how can we make this case better by the existence of this prior investigation. Each case is case better by the existence of this prior investigation? Each case is made stronger by the existence of the other case. Still, prosecutors knew it wouldn't be easy. This would be a death penalty case, making the bar that much higher. And your classic defense is you're in the middle of the trial, they point at the back door and tell the jury,

how do you know that person is not going to walk in through that door? Is that a reasonable doubt? Well, you can end up with a not guilty just by that fact alone. Our primary concern was to find the body. But Brandon Laverne wasn't cooperating, so prosecutors gathered to make a very tough decision, offer to take the death penalty off the table in exchange for a full confession and the whereabouts of Mickey's body. Did you hate that or were you eager to make that deal? I was eager to make that deal. Finding the body was important, obviously, for the prosecution. But as important for us in this case was finding her to bring her back to her family. My feeling was we want her found. Before I could say a word, she says,

I want the body found. But the DA's office wasn't going to make this easy for Laverne. He would also have to plead guilty to the other murder back in 1999. He had two death penalty cases to think about, not one. You think that swayed him? I think it was a factor, certainly. Just one day after being offered the deal, Laverne accepted. Do you think Brandon Laverne is responsible for any other abductions or any other murders that you don't know about? I think it's quite possible. If he's capable of two, why not three, why not four? Laverne also revealed the whereabouts of Mickey's body. It was here, in this small rural cemetery that police found Mickey,

30 miles from where she'd been abducted. He placed her body here, covered her up with some brush. The coroner's office later determined Mickey had been stabbed multiple times. The fatal wound was a gunshot to the head. It was a very violent death. In his confession, Laverne claimed it was all an accident. He was driving drunk and didn't mean to bump Mickey's bike. He said that what followed was a heated argument that became physical. Mickey pulled out her mace. Laverne pulled his knife. It was very close quarters, the cab of Laverne's think is, we'll never know. But Keith Stutes is certain it did not begin as an accident.

Laverne, he says, was a predator, stalking his prey. It's very clear from the video that he went out of his way to actually follow her. There was also no disputing that before Laverne fired the fatal gunshot, Mickey Shunick fought back hard, stabbing Laverne several times with his own knife. She was way outmatched, and she knew she was fighting for her life, and she fought. She wanted that life.atched and she knew she was fighting for her life and she fought. That was, she wanted that life. Mickey did what she had to do.

You're proud of her. Oh, absolutely. You bet. If she doesn't fight back, he doesn't get stabbed. Yeah. Then he has no wounds for anyone to notice and the tip never comes in about him. I mean, she caught him. Yeah, amazing. Good for Mickey. For Charlie, it had been an excruciating three-month journey. She'd achieved her goal of bringing Mickey home. Now it was time to mourn. Laverne took a lot from your family. What did he take from you?

My entire future, and he rearranged my whole past. I mean, he took that whole life away from me. It's different now. He took my best friend away and my little sister. On a very wet fall afternoon, weeks after Laverne was led away to spend the rest of his life in prison, Mickey's friends and family, who had all worked so hard to find her, gathered to celebrate her life. The community was so involved and we kind of wanted to have like a big memorial which turned into a life celebration. Thank y'all for coming out here. I know Mickey still is feeling the love.

There was food, dancing, and music. There was also, of course, a ceremonial bike ride. Leading the pack, Mickey's mother, Nancy, riding Mickey's now refurbished bicycle. They stopped at the spot where Mickey was abducted. Today at this place we're gathered to place this bike in her honor and as a testament to her strength and courage. And then they released butterflies.

How do you go on from this? I wouldn't have a clue. You just really have to think about that person and say, well, would Mickey really want me to be miserable for the rest of my life? She wouldn't want me to be sad for five minutes, let alone five months almost. You just have to live your life for that person. Four years after finding Mickey, Charlie's spine of steel was tested yet again, this time after learning she had brain cancer.

The good news, it turned out Charlie's tumor was benign, and she's looking forward to a long, bright future, just what Sister Mickey would have wanted. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.