Unseen - The Girl in the Hole: The Disturbing Story of Lori Poland | UNSEEN

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

“Do you want candy?” -- On a warm afternoon in August 1983, Richard Poland goes inside his home to get popsicles for his 3 year old daughter, but as he watches her from the window, a car suddenly stops in front of the home and Lori is snatched off their yard. As the cops desperately try to track the ‘candyman’ who took Lori away, the neighbourhood kids join the investigation, and the little girl herself struggles to survive 10 feet underground, trapped in a cesspool far away. External footage from: Denver Report: 9 News (NBC KUSA), CBS 4: Lori Poland Association (CBS Denver), ENDCAN (Dan Gommer, Lori Poland), Walk Talk Listen: Episode 78 (Maurice Bloem), Lori Poland Task Force (Megyn Kelly Today), Louder Than Silence: Episode 1 (ENDCAN). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The transcript you're about to hear, like every single police statement presented in this video, has never been released to the public before, making this the first and only documentary about the true crime case of Lori Poland, most commonly known as the girl in the hole. Is there anything about the car that's the same as the one that Lori got into? The black thing? What about the black thing? I don't know. It's ugly and he took her pants off in front of everyone. I know, but focus on the car, Brenda.

Did this be the car that took Lori? It is the car that took Lori. Are you sure? Yeah. Britta, it's really important that you're sure. Isn't it the same car that took Lori? Yes, I'm sure. Kidnapped, abused, and left for dead,

three-year-old Lori Poland was taken in broad daylight. With no evidence in sight, the police had to turn to the neighborhood children and their parents to gather any information that could lead to the capture of the case. kidnapper and bring Lori back home. Just bring her back and not hurt her, please. Trapped 10 feet underground.

The little girl was left to fend for herself, but her resilience defied any and all expectations, proving that even at such a young age, she was already a true survivor. I only know how to survive, and I will continue to survive. In the small town of Sheridan, Colorado, a tight-knit community where everyone knows each other.

Three-year-old Lori Poland was playing in her parents' front yard with her five-year-old brother. It was a sunny day, right around noon, and many people were out and about, enjoying the weather. Her father took the day off to paint their house, but it was very hot outside, and the children asked him if they could have a popsicle. There were lots of neighbors around,

and Lori was with her brother, so Richard Poland, her father, left them alone for a minute to go get them some. Inside, he could still see them through the window until he turned his back and reached for the fridge. Seconds later, my dad came back outside, like just a moment later. He looked at the curb. He looked at my brother.

He looked at the curb again. My pants were on the sidewalk. Richard, frantic about the situation, started to look around his property and went to his neighbors for help. Some reported a car stopping briefly in front of the house, but leaving just as quickly. And nobody noticed anything suspicious about Lori's whereabouts. Distraught, Richard didn't waste any more time and called the police.

911, what's your emergency? The search for Lori became an immediate concern for the entire community. The police started a massive manhunt going door to door in the neighborhood, interviewing anyone who had seen something. Word of the missing girl quickly spread, and the town came together to help in the search efforts. Flyers were posted all over town, and volunteers joined the search parties, scouring the nearby woods.

The family was devastated, and Diane Poland, Lori's mother, made an emotional plea to the kidnapper, begging for the safe return of her daughter. A desperate plea from the mother of Lori Poland. Just bring her back. It was the prototypal abduction. Before stranger danger, before Amber Alerts, before social media, there was almost no prevention being done by the government

in regard to kidnapping and child abuse in 1983. So in 1983, it was more of a crime to cause harm to an animal than it was to a child. So you had a larger sentence if you heard, an animal or killed an animal than if he did a small child. This is how it all happened. From Lori's perspective, the kidnapper parked in front of the house in a hurry and opened his passenger door.

The man offered her some candy, and she, being only three years old, was easily lured by the treat. When he pulls up, he asks if I like candy. And like any sugar-loving three-year-old, I'm like, dude, yeah. He forced her to take her pants off, snatched her, and was gone in a moment's notice. The kidnapper was well aware of the danger he had placed to. himself in by committing such a brazen crime in a well-populated area. You know, the middle of the summer, it was the middle of the day, you know, just a really

bold move. He knew that he had to put as much distance as possible between himself and the town in order to evade the police. This led him to drive recklessly, careening down mountain roads and twisting through the forested countryside. He took me to the mountains in Colorado, about 20 miles west of Denver. And then he took me up to Chief Hose. exit up by 70. Finally, he arrived at an old, abandoned outhouse, set back deep into the woods.

She didn't know it yet, but this was to be Lori's prison for the foreseeable future, but not before the kidnapper had his way with her. He proceeded to severely abuse me and do a lot of pretty horrific things to me. Out of respect for Lori, who was only a toddler at the time, we won't cover any more of the assault, as it is extremely graphic. When he was done, her kidnapper lived. She lifted her up and with a cruel and heartless gesture, dropped her down the outhouse's ten-foot-deep toilet right into the latrine pit. There was no way for her to see, but she could feel something was wrong with her foot after crashing down at the bottom. There, she was trapped in the dark, surrounded by filth and chemical-laced ice-cold water.

The sound of the door slamming shut echoed in her mind as she started to cry in fear and pain. She had just been left to die underground. Lori was taken while she was playing outside her home. Without reliance on Amber alerts or the internet, the parents turned to mainstream media to try and locate their daughter. On the first day of her disappearance, both Diane and Richard appeared on TV. They shared their story, expressing their concerns,

and pleading for anyone with information to come forward. Luckily, many neighbors contacted the police. One eyewitness, Paul Weaver, was particularly observant, recalling crucial details about the car involved in Laurie's kidnapping. I saw an orange dats in sedan with black letters and strips at the bottom. I was double parked in front of my house, and about two minutes later, the street saying that Lori was in that car. As I left off, I noticed the first part of the license plate number was ADV,

followed by three numbers. On the same day, another witness, Michael R. Fisher also came forward with important information. His children reportedly had a concerning encounter with a suspicious man a week prior. This came up a week before and said a man who'd followed them home from school. I was trying to give them candy, but they agreed to take their pants off. So I drove over to their school and I saw a man with shoulder-length hair and a beard. I got out of the car and said, Hey, You, and he took off running towards Bear Creek. I tried to follow him, but I lost him after a while.

It was about 5-8, 155 pounds, and his hair was dirty, like dishwater brown. With the description of the car and details regarding the kidnapper's physical appearance, the police were in a good position to find the culprit. There was still hope the little girl was alive, but on that matter, they had nothing, absolutely zero information regarding her location, nor anything that could lead them there. What happened on August 22, 1983,

completely stopped the entire community of Colorado. Down the hole, Lori somehow knew there was something wrong with the water. In total darkness, she could only rely on her sense of touch and smell to tell apart her surroundings, but these two were enough for her to understand. understand that she should stay as far away as she could from the sludge. There was some sort of mound of wood and rubble over the murky water,

so she stuck to it, flattening it with her arms, turning it into a kind of seat. It is at this moment that Lori recalled a memory of her mom for a second. And I had just turned three, and I had just gotten potty trained, and I had to go to the bathroom, and I was so worried that I was going to let my mom down. Lori's worries may seem trivial now, but what she didn't know was that right above her head, years of untreated methane gas and hydrogen sulfide had accumulated in the upper layer of the pit. If she were to stand up, even for a minute, she would probably pass out, fall down the mound, and drown in the water. And the same was true for the underlying sludge.

She would risk severe infection if her wounded legs came into contact with it. But even if the little girl knew better, the mound was very small, and there was no way she could fit her entire body onto it. And so, Lori let her legs hang, with her toes sometimes coming into contact, with the surface of the water. And he left me there. And he left me there to starve for death. He left me there for dead. The following day, the police still had nothing concerning Lori,

but were closing in on the culprit's identity. Investigators coming directly from the FBI joined the local police and started going door to door all around Denver in hopes of finding more information about the mysterious missing letters on the kidnapper's license plate. And, against all odds, they struck gold when they bumped into Juanita Zappa,

a grandmother living in an Egyptian in town. I saw the TV report and I recognized the car. I saw it parked in front of my daughter's house on Spotwood Street in Denver. The driver was bothering my granddaughter while she was playing outside in broad daylight. My son-in-law jotted down the license plate number and I reported it to the Littleton police a month ago. And just in case, I've written down the plate number here.

And right there, they had a match. After running the plate, they associated it with Robert Paul Therritt, a local golf club groundskeeper with no criminal record. They tried to get to him, but the man wasn't home at the time, and the police had no time to waste. So they went for the closest relative they could get their hands on, his mother. My son is a good man now. But when he was a teenager, he had some issues. The police once looked into an accusation of him inappropriately. touching a young boy, but nothing was proven. I also found women's underwear in his room a few years

ago, and he said it was a joke. I think this kind of behavior is common for teens, and it doesn't connect him to the Poland girl in any way. The police didn't let that statement linger. Instead, they went directly to the facts. Robert and his car had been identified in three separate incidents, and in all of them, he offered children candies and asked them to take their pants off, including Lori Poland, these words resonated loudly in the room before Betty Ann continued her statement. I never saw any signs of this kind of behavior from him, but maybe he has, like, a mental problem. I'm trying to think of something I did wrong in raising him that could have caused this. Something happened when he was very young, but I can barely remember. Maybe I failed him in some

way, but I can't recall. An unknown amount of time later, Lori's young mind was starting to fail her. She couldn't discern night from day as minutes lasted like hours, while the pain from her now heavily infected legs kept her awake at all times. The chemicals that were in this toilet made it up into my pelvis. My legs were completely black all the way up to my upper thigh. But as much as the underground seemed depressive to her, it was also her salvation. The biting cold of the latrine was nothing compared to the nighttime temperatures

in the Colorado Mountains. If she had been left in the forest, she wouldn't have lasted more than a night, naked in the cold. But down the pit, she managed to survive four days straight, without food or water. I was starving to death.

Like, that's torture. She couldn't see them, but her legs were almost black with infection, and her time was running out. With only a few hours left to live, Lori tried to reminisce about her mother, but her memory was blurry at best. How long had she been down there?

Days. weeks, months, and suddenly one clear memory came back. She remembered her mother's face, congratulating her for something she did only a few days back, but the recollection slipped from her mind almost as fast as it came in. Now all she could hear was the echo of her own cries, amplified by her buzzing fever and nothing else. Not even the door slamming up top, nor the scream of the disturbed couple who happened to find her, down at the bottom of the pit. I was crying, crying for my mom, and bird watchers happen to be driving by.

Cynthia and Stephen Gawlin, a couple of bird watchers, were heading out to the mountain for a hike. On their way, Cynthia said she needed to go to the bathroom, so her husband turned towards the beaver-hook trailhead, remembering the old camper amenities there. As she walked in, Cynthia heard an unexpected sound. It's hard to imagine the horror she must have felt when she heard the desperate cries of a little girl coming down from the latrine. Cynthia looked down the hole, only to see that. see the reflection of the dim light and the tearful eyes of the child. She was in the bottom of the privy hole.

And so eventually they looked down and they said, what are you doing here? And I told them that I lived there. And so for me, it was my new normal. Like, I just, I literally thought I lived in the bottom of a toilet. Stephen Baker, a volunteer firefighter, was called to the scene. Once he reached the bottom, he was able to locate the girl and check her condition. Despite being trapped in the pit for several days, without food or water, Lori was still conscious, but her legs were in very bad shape.

Stephen gently lifted her out of the mound and secured her onto his harness. When they reached the top, Lori was immediately sent to the hospital. Diane, Lori's overjoyed mother, followed right behind. Once there, the situation was dire, as her mental state went from bad to worse. She was stuck in a disassociative state, suffered insomnia-induced waking nightmares, and she was absolutely terrorized by everyone, even her own parents. Capturing the terror and relief only her parents could feel. But their reunion was cut short as doctors were faced with a difficult decision.

Her heart, lungs, and brain were failing. Her fingers, feet, and toes were turning black. The infection was rapidly spreading, and amputation seemed to be. the only option to save Lori's life. But over the course of only a few days, the child's condition improved dramatically, and, miraculously, she was able to keep both of her legs. When she was better, Lori was finally reunited with her parents for good. Tears streamed down Diane's face. It had been four long agonizing days since her daughter had been taken from her, but against all odds, they were finally together.

But sadly, their ordeal was far from being over. After the police finally, got their hands on Robert Paul Thierrett. They turned to young Lori for information. She was asked to make a detailed statement on events her mind had already began to repress. Dr. Richard Krugman was Laurie's pediatrician at the time at the camp center and shot video of this interview. As you can probably guess, this was not only traumatic, but also very demanding for such a young child. Then, Lori was tasked with identifying her attacker from a row of people. She was rock solid in her identification.

Her body language said, Mommy, that's him, and she sort of reeled back. She was a little scared. Closing in on the trial, Robert's wife provided him with a forged alibi. This led the prosecution to believe that Robert might get away with it if he chose to stick with his non-guilty defense. This forced the judge to take a controversial decision. He offered Robert a diminishing plea deal. He was then sentenced to 10 years in prison. Instead of being charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, and sexual abuse, all charges.

All charges were dropped except sexual abuse. This reduced his sentence from 48 years to only 10 years. And so he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and was released after 6 for good behavior. The public was outraged by the reduced sentence since the impact of these events on Laurie's life had been long-lasting and profound. She experienced a range of psychological and emotional problems, such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD. She also struggled with trust issues and self-esteem problems at her own. steam problems as she grew up, but proper support and care, like counseling and therapy, helped her cope with the trauma and heal from the abuse in the long run. And now that she's an

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Discover the euphoria elixir collection by Calvin Klein. Do you feel like justice was served? For me, it's not really about justice. It's more about being impactful. And every day I wake up and I just try and be impactful and try and be good in the world and prevent people from growing up and causing harm. justice does not help with PTSD.

Justice doesn't stop the nightmares. Justice doesn't actually help the sufferer. And so I think for Lori in her story, her desire to understand the perpetrator, that actually relieves some of the pain. That allows her to develop context that she did not have at three years old and could not have had.

So understanding becomes crucial for her to be free, from the silent suffering that nobody else will ever see or know. Justice is for the witnesses more than it is for the victim. To this day, the ripple effects of what happened continue. But Lori Poland, now a mother of three, has never backed away from a fight, not only for herself, but now for all children who have been abused. Today, she operates her own therapy practice

and works alongside pediatrician Dr. Richard Krugman, who helped her through her own trauma decades ago as the co-founder of the End Child Abuse and Neglect Association, or Endcan. Lori's work with the association has shown her that abuse is often part of a cycle of violence, with victims on both sides, as most sex offenders have a history of being abused in their own childhood. Robert Paul Theritt's past demonstrates this, as he was abused as a child starting at age three, the same age Lori was when he kidnapped her. Imagine, I've sat in a room with 250 sex offenders who showed.

for the first time in their lives, their own lived experience of being harmed, and how that created this anger inside of them to then amplify them causing harm. Again, not to excuse it, not to justify it, but to understand it. Instead of seeking punishment and justice, Lori's mission is to promote healing and understanding, recognizing that every person involved in abuse needs support and care to heal and move forward. Her story is truly a beacon of hope, inspiring others to turn their suffering into strength and to use their experiences to make a positive impact on the world. She wants all victims of abuse and neglect to know that their voices will always be louder than silence.

I've never met a human, no matter how atrocious their crime, that their primary need is not to matter. It's up to us to do the right thing. if we instead of getting angry had some semblance of understanding, not excusing, but understanding that those people matter. Imagine the changes if we ensured that every human felt like they mattered.