Unseen - The Kidnapping That Turned a Father into a Manhunter | The Case Of Adam Walsh | UNSEEN

Episode Date: July 6, 2024

“One day, I kissed my 6 year old son goodbye, and never saw him again”-- John Walsh never wanted to be a man hunter. In 1981, he was forced to look for his missing son only to find him dead. When 47 year old Ed Smart appeared on national TV pleading for the return of his 14 year old daughter, John took the weight of the investigation through America’s Most Wanted. This is what you haven’t seen on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you remember the first time? You have to tell? Once you get into, ain't nothing to you. He's got to, enjoying a couple of topics, smokey-saving. Once you get into the habit,

we do it more and more. How many kind of someone I never killed. I got to kill child. We'd appreciate anyone with any information about him or have seen him or think they saw him to please call the Hollywood police. You ain't no patent. There ain't no pet.

The person's a killer, ain't it? I don't make a difference with you. So don't go to these little killings. It's not a different what you kill with him. We've searched and searched for Adam, and we haven't found a body, so everybody thinks he's alive. We do too. I just wish it had a happier end-ding.

You couldn't get Adam alive. You couldn't get Adam back when he was missing, in spite of everything you did, But I believe you saved Elizabeth Slate. Elizabeth, if you're out there, we're doing everything we possibly can to help you. We love you. We want you to come home safely to us. I remember waking up to the voice saying,

I have a knife at your neck, don't make a sound. Get up and come with me. I opened my eyes. Standing above me was this dark shadow of a man. As he was taking me out through my house, he had whispered to me, if you scream, if you yell, I'll kill your family or I'll kill you. The next thing I remember after going to sleep was Mary Catherine coming around the bed to Lois's side and saying, mom, somebody's taking Elizabeth. As I went from room to room checking, it became more and more of a reality that, no, she was not here. I came down the steps.

She was not there. And it really erupted when Lois came down the stairs and turned on the lights in our kitchen and saw the screen cut. Mary Catherine had come down and said, you're not going to find her if it's taken her. And you just can't even imagine what was Elizabeth going through.

Lois was yelling, call 911, and that was the first thing that happened. The latest on a developing story, and it involves every parent's worst nightmare. Authorities in Salt Lake City, Utah say 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was taken from her bedroom in the middle of the night. Elizabeth, if you're out there, we're doing everything we possibly can to help you. We love you. We want you to come home safely to us. Joining us this morning from Salt Lake City, Elizabeth Smart's father, Edward Smart, anything new, anything hopeful.

I'm unaware of any new, you know, really conclusive leads. The police are telling us, don't get in the way of it. Come on, guys. If you can't do it, we should be able to go out and do it. This was not going to turn out good. And every homicide investigator I've known throughout this country felt exactly the same way. One of the things about the Elizabeth's Mark case that bothers me the most and makes me sick to my stomach. After eight months, FBI was ready to close down the case. Salt Lake City Police, they believe that she was probably dead in the desert.

We were looking for a body at that point. I absolutely know that Elizabeth is still alive. To go, John, you're the court of last resort. You're the guy who catches the impossible catches. Remember one thing. Elizabeth is the missing child. Elizabeth is the victim. This girl needed somebody to save her. Back in 1981, I had the American dream,

the beautiful wife, the house in the suburbs, and a beautiful six-year-old son. And one day I went to work, kissed my son goodbye, and never saw him again. She took him to the store that day in 1981 video games were brand new. So two boys, about 12, 13 years old, were playing after after.

Adam was mesmerized by that, asked his mom, can I stay here and watch him? Ravei said, Adam, I'll be in the lamp department two hours over, and he said, Mommy, I know where that is. And 10 minutes later, she returned, and he was gone. We've searched and searched for Adam, and we haven't found a body. So everybody thinks he's alive. We do, too. And we feel that since you people have searched so hard, the best thing we can do now,

is get these flyers in everybody's hands because the police are so frustrated. Nobody's really come forth. And the clues that we have, really, we haven't come up with anything substantial. He's our only child, a beautiful little boy, and we just want him back more than anything. Two weeks later, they received devastating news. Adam had been murdered. We think we gave it our best, our best effort to bring him.

back. I just wish it. I had a happier I thinking. I was at my most darkest point, and I'd gotten all kinds of advice from rabbis and Protestant ministers and Catholic priests. None of it worked for me. I really felt there was no God, no higher power. And I went to go get Adams remains. I called up the Broward County Medical Examiner and said, look, I need to bury this little boy. I need to honor him. I need to have somewhere to go and honor him. I got in his office and I said I want Adam's remains and I want him tomorrow and I want to bury that little boy and he said you can't have his remains. You can't take him back. It's evidence in a capital murder and until the capital murder is solved you'll never get Adams remains.

And he says look you mounted the largest search effort for a missing child. You use your business contacts, the airlines, you did things that were never done. Why don't you make a difference? You can do that. He said, look at all the people who help you. He said, if you're thinking about suicide, and I said, it's an option for me. And I said, you have no right to tell me not to kill myself. I have no business. I can't speak to my wife. My whole life is disimmigrated. He said, you'd be a coward. I said, I'm not a coward. He says, I know you're not a cow. You're a fighter. He said, so get back in the ring. Fight for that little boy. Make sure that that little boy didn't die in vain.

And he says, I believe in a higher power that you're given this chance to make a choice. Do good, do evil, but it's free will. I still have the heartache. I still have the rage. I know what it's like to be there waiting for some answers. And over those years, I learned how to do one thing really well. And that's how to catch these bastards and bring them back to justice. I've become a manhunter.

I'm out there looking for bad guys. This girl needed somebody to save her. Now we got a late-breaking case we need your help on tonight, and our Tom Morris has the story. We started out the investigation with bad information and nothing much to go on, and it never got any better for us, really, until Ed and John Walsh broadcast that story about Emmanuel.

He certainly had those predator skills. He had a lot to hide. He had a rap sheet a mile long. His ex-wife, Debbie Mitchell, had saw his picture come on the screen, and she just almost started hyperventilating. America's most wanted heart. Brian David Mitchell's ex-wife

calls America's Most Wanted Hotline and says, he goes by the name Emanuel. He's a street preacher. He's a con artist. He's got some psycho girlfriend or wife or whatever she is named Wanda Barcy. While I was married to him, he molested my daughter, which was his stepdaughter, and she's suicidal now.

Bombshell. I think I see that Emmanuel they're looking for, and he's with you ladies. My dispatcher said we got a report of some citizens calling in some suspicious people walking down State Street. A whole bunch of police cars pulled up next to us. Officer Jones was talking to the male individual, my attention was drawn to the female. When I took a closer look at her, I recognized her as possibly resembling Elizabeth. She was visibly shaken. Her heart was pounding so hard you could see it moving her shirt. She kept kind of looking over towards him. He was telling Officer Raspson at the time,

you know how to talk to her, she's my daughter, don't talk to her. At that point I took her aside and said, you know, you look a lot like Elizabeth Smart and I think you are Elizabeth Smart and your family is looking for you and you need to make contact with them, Elizabeth. I'd spent the last nine months being very abused. We told her you're safe now. It's over. All you have to do is say you're Elizabeth Smart. Her eyes welled up with tears. You can tell if you wanted just to physically say it, that she wouldn't. My captors are both right there with those same threats and the same pressures of if you don't do exactly what we've told you, exactly what we've prepared you for.

We're going to kill you. Brian Mitchell's off the side, still kind of talking, It's the turn to be loud. Why didn't she run? She was 14 years old. Why didn't she escape when she could? Well, first of all, this guy broke into her house in the middle of the night and kidnapped her. And told her every single day, if you run or you try to run, I will go back and kill your little sister. I will kill your mother.

You don't have a right to question why this girl didn't run away. What if the policeman didn't believe me? What if they released me back to Mitch? on Barzie, what would they do to me? What would they do in my family? I asked her one last time, for your own peace of mind, for your family, for yourself. Tell us that you're Elizabeth Smart. And she says, thou say it. You've said, Ed, I want you to stop everything right now and come directly down to Sandy Police Department. An officer said, oh, Mr. Smart, come this way. And I went down this hall,

away. As I got to the door, they said, well, we think we may have found Elizabeth. And I stood there, and I looked at this girl. And I just started crying. And finally, I said, Elizabeth, is it you? And she said, yes, Dad, it's really me. And then she started to cry. I was so happy. When I saw him, when he came running over and just grabbed me in his arms, I knew that nobody would ever be able to hurt me ever again. I'll never forget it. I was the one who got tears in my eyes because Ed said, you couldn't get Adam alive. You couldn't get Adam back when he was missing in spite of everything you did.

But I believe you saved Elizabeth's life. She was so thin, she was so frail, she was so fragile. and she said, thank you. She just said, thank you for never given up. And I said, we finally got somebody back, got one back lie to her loving family. Coming back here to the remote mountainside camp that became her prison doesn't phase Elizabeth Smart now.

The young girl who was held captive even faced her tormentor again at his trial in 2010. And when they made eye contact, she knew that Brian David Mitchell, The man she awoke to see in her bedroom that awful night no longer had the power to terrify her. I had moved forward. He was no longer a part of my life.

He no longer could hurt me. He was nothing to me anymore. He had no part in my life. What didn't Brian David Mitchell understand about Elizabeth Smart? But I couldn't be broken. This is Euphoria Calvin Klein, the new Elixir Collection, featuring three perfume intense scents,

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Now to a dramatic turn in the story of John Walsh, you know, he's made a career out of helping police solve crimes on his TV show America's Most Wanted, but there was one case he couldn't crack the murder of his own son, Adam. Now more than a quarter century after the six-year-old disappeared, police in South Florida have declared the case solved. I say to parents of missing children, murdered children to all crime victims in America, don't give up hope. Sometimes you have to stay in there yourself.

Sometimes you're the best and last hope to get justice. We never give up. I've learned over the years. Don't give up. Anything you can do. I think everybody is presented with challenges, some greater than others. I was given a real challenge and I think you stop feeling sorry for yourself. You start thinking about the people that love you and helped you and supported you. And you get back to you.

You saddle up. You live. You saddle up. You literally saddle up and you go in there and you try to make sure that your life has some merit to it. On New Year's Day 2002, 13-year-old Alicia stepped out of her parent home and into a living nightmare. She had agreed to meet a friend she'd been chatting with online for six months. We were having a family dinner and between dinner and dessert as I was clearing the table, Alicia went up to her room. And we called her down for dessert. she was gone. This picture.