enjoying his golden years in the southwest.
[Skip] He ended up bein' stationed in Arizona,
and he fell in love with it out there.
[Jeff] He kept his circle very small.
He was close with his brother and his family,
and was living his life.
[Narrator] But a comfortable retirement
would be upended by a devastating fire.
The calls reported sounds of an explosion
and a house that was fully engulfed in flames.
The owner of the house is missing.
The investigators find large, open, empty safes inside.
I knew something wasn't right.
[Narrator] As the investigation unfolds,
the search for a missing person will escalate to
the hunt for a killer...
There had been a considerable amount of blood.
We were treating it as a homicide investigation.
[Narrator] Culminating in a nationwide manhunt
for a pair of dangerous fugitives
who will stop at nothing for freedom.
[Van] There's a Bonnie and Clyde on the run.
Their violent tendencies could come through,
especially in desperation.
Both of them showed this greed.
She didn't necessarily want to see him killed, but...
We all know how it ended.
She was so blinded by this fantasy
that he was presenting to her.
His character came shining through full bright beacon,
like a lighthouse of evil.
[music]
[Narrator] With its warm weather and breathtaking scenery,
Tucson, Arizona ranks as one of the Southwest's
most popular places to call home.
Really, what draws people to Tucson
is a sense of community.
Affordability, fun things to do, and the climate that we have.
It allows you to be active year-round.
[Narrator] On April 16th, 2019,
a dark cloud looms over that community
when residents of one quiet neighborhood
are jolted awake at 4 a.m.
[booming]
[music]
They all awoke to the sounds of this explosion and this fire.
[music]
[Narrator] Within seconds,
Tucson dispatchers receive a flurry of calls.
[Josh] The calls reported a house
that was fully engulfed in flames.
The neighbors who called in were scared.
So, the fire department responded immediately.
It was important to get this fire put out
as quickly as possible.
Not only so that they could get inside the residence
to determine if anybody needed medical help,
but also to prevent that fire from spreading
to other houses in the neighborhood.
[Narrator] By daylight,
firefighters are finally able to extinguish the blaze.
But the home is destroyed.
[Josh] By the time they got it put out,
there were portions of the roof that had caved in.
Portions of walls that had come down.
The home was a complete loss.
And so Tucson Police Department arrived on scene.
[Chad] The first thing that they're gonna collectively do
between both of the field public safety resources
is look for victims,
which they didn't find that night.
[Josh] The owner of the house is missing.
Where's the, the homeowner?
[Narrator] Detectives don't have to wait long for the answer.
Later on, on that same day, April 16th,
William "Skip" Bligh called Tucson police
to request a check welfare on his brother, Frank.
Every Sunday, either he'd call me or I'd called him.
And that last Sunday that I called him,
which was April 7th, there's no answer.
And I called Monday, no answer.
Wednesday I called, no answer.
And I'm sitting there, I said,
"This is not like him at all. Something's not right here."
So I called the police department
[Josh] The police ultimately responded out to the house,
and it was at that point the police realized,
"Oh this is the same house where that house fire
and explosion had occurred earlier on."
The important part of the conversation with William
at that point in time,
was to obtain as much information
about Frank as possible to assist us in locating him.
[music]
[Narrator] Originally from Connecticut,
72-year-old Frank Bligh had called Arizona home
for more than four decades.
He graduated in '66, and he joined the Air Force.
He spent two tours of duty in Vietnam.
He was a helicopter and jet mechanic,
and he ended up bein' stationed in Tucson, Arizona.
And he fell in love with it out there.
[Narrator] After retiring from active duty,
Frank bought a home in Tucson
and worked in the aviation industry.
So he joined the Air Force Reserves,
loved that.
He went flyin' all over the world.
He got a job workin' for Grumman Northrup,
and they were workin' on,
it was either the stealth fighters,
stealth bomber, one or the other.
It was all top secret.
[Narrator] In his spare time,
the deserts and
long stretches of highway outside Tucson
afforded Frank the opportunity
to practice his two favorite hobbies.
My brother was a very avid gun collector.
He had quite an extensive collection of guns.
Also, my brother had motorcycles.
He had Harleys. He had dirt bikes.
There, there was times when I used to go out and visit him,
we'd go ridin' together.
In fact, he rode with a bunch of guys from Tucson
up to Sturgis, South Dakota.
My brother used to go on these trips all the time
because he wasn't married.
He was a guy, ya know? He did what he wanted.
[Narrator] By 2019,
Frank had settled into his golden years
and enjoyed a weekly social routine.
[Josh] He would go in to breakfast with his friends
the same day of the week every week without fail.
He would go to the same bar.
Meet with the same group of friends,
have one or two beers,
and then he would leave and go home.
[Jeff] He kept his circle very small.
He was close with his brother and his family,
and was living his life.
[music]
[Narrator] But on April 16th, 2019,
concern grows when Frank's home erupts into flames
and the 72 year old is nowhere to be found.
Inside, detectives uncover evidence of arson.
[Chris] Tucson Police concluded that
accelerants were found inside the house.
They had the odor of gasoline.
And that, that led them to conclude that
the fire was deliberately set.
[Jeff] When you are searching a residence
that has been burned,
it creates a number of different challenges.
First and foremost is that fires destroy physical evidence.
It prohibits the responding investigating detectives
to be able to obtain any sort of physical evidence
from the crime scene itself,
such as DNA or fibers or fingerprints.
[Josh] As investigators were walking through the house,
police investigators noted multiple gun safes
that were inside the residence.
They were open, unlocked, and they were empty.
There were no guns inside them.
When the investigators find large, open, empty safes
inside of a house,
it's certainly a suspicious factor
at that point.
They, they would have been concluding that
someone had perhaps deliberately set the fire
after having taken items,
probably valuable items, from inside those safes.
[Josh] It was potential evidence of some kind of theft
or potential robbery,
but the fire damage eradicated
a lot of potential evidence for us.
[music]
The only place that was left intact, so to speak,
was the garage portion of the residence.
[Josh] The information that Skip gave investigators was that
his brother Frank had two cars.
He had an old pickup truck,
and he had a red or maroon passenger car.
And the pickup truck was in the garage
when the fire occurred.
However, the red passenger car was missing.
We need to locate Frank.
[Narrator] Coming up.
A discovery on a remote highway
all but confirms detectives' worst fears.
At that point, we were treating it as a homicide investigation.
There had been a considerable amount of blood in the trunk.
[Narrator] And a disturbing phone call
reveals someone else may be in danger.
[Jada] She called me and she was like, "I've got to leave town."
She was panicked.
I was really concerned that he would just kill her.
[music]
[Narrator] Detectives in Tucson, Arizona
are searching for 72-year-old Frank Bligh
after discovering his house ransacked and set on fire.
At that point, we don't know if Frank has been
the victim of some kind of foul play.
If Frank has had some role in his house burning down.
We know that Frank's missing,
and a vehicle is missing from his residence, as well.
[Narrator] As authorities begin searching for Frank's car,
detectives follow up with Frank's brother,
William "Skip" Bligh, to update him on the situation.
We were in a complete fog in what was goin' on.
My brother's missing. I knew something wasn't right.
[Josh] It was very unusual for Frank to kinda
drop off the radar.
According to Skip, Frank led a very regimented lifestyle.
So he had a very set routine,
and he rarely deviated from that routine.
I told the detectives
that the Cow Pony was his Sunday routine.
[Jeff] Detective Cheek and I spoke to
a bartender at the Cow Pony
whom remembered Frank and knew who he was.
[Josh] The last person that we were able to find
at that point who had seen him, was the folks at the Cow Pony
that saw him leaving on I believe April 7th.
[Narrator] According to the bartender,
Frank was alone that night.
But a few weeks earlier,
someone had joined him for drinks.
[Jeff] Questioning the bartender further,
she remembered a friend of Frank's coming in
that was introduced as Sue.
[Narrator] When detectives run the name by William,
he informs them that Sue is Frank's close friend,
58-year-old Susan Barksdale.
[Chris] Detectives learn that
Susan and Frank were, were longtime friends.
Sue was married to Frank's boss.
I guess that's how he ended up meeting her.
My brother, he got to be very good friends with Sue
and, and the family and the kids and everything.
They called him Uncle Frank.
[Josh] Susan was married previously, and divorced.
After that, Susan had married another male
by the name of Blane Barksdale.
Susan lived in the Show Low area,
and that's a location roughly four hours north of Tucson.
It's comprised of several towns.
One of those is Vernon, Arizona.
[music]
[Jeff] So, Detective Cheek and I interviewed Susan.
Through the course of the interview,
Susan seemed concerned for Frank.
She had no idea what had happened with Frank,
and didn't know where he was.
We asked when the last time she saw Frank was.
[Narrator] According to Susan,
she had last seen Frank on April 12th.
She said both she and Blane had been in Tucson.
They had seen Frank, they had been at Frank's house.
She and Blane ended up driving back to Vernon,
and she claimed that that was the last time
she'd spoken with him.
[Narrator] Susan promises to contact authorities
if she hears from Frank.
In the meantime,
Tucson police focus their efforts
on finding Frank's car,
and release its description to neighboring communities.
One day later, they get a call from the sheriff's department.
The day after the fire, a Pima County sheriff's deputy
sees a, a vehicle on South Wilmot Road,
about 10 miles away from Frank Bligh's house.
And the vehicle is pulled over on the side of the road,
nobody is inside the vehicle.
[Jeff] When the sheriff's department personnel
ran the license plate...
It returned to Frank,
and they notified us that they had located the vehicle.
That was a huge step forward in the investigation.
[Jeff] Then immediately, personnel from the department
responded to this area
and began a ground search in an attempt to locate Frank.
[Narrator] There's no sign of Frank
in the surrounding dessert.
But when authorities search his car,
they make a harrowing discovery.
[Jeff] The vehicle was fairly clean.
However, in the trunk, there was visual signs of blood.
And there were bags with rags that were soaked in gasoline.
We used a chemical reagent to figure out that there had been
a considerable amount of blood in the trunk at one time.
They were able to collect and figure out
that it was Frank's blood through DNA tests.
The fact that the blood was in Frank's own vehicle
led them to the conclusion that
Frank had been seriously injured.
He had bled,
and then somebody had placed him into the trunk of his own car,
where he had been for at least some period of time after that.
[Josh] Just based on the quantity of blood
that appeared to have been in that trunk,
I believed that Frank had, had died,
that he'd been murdered.
At that point, we were treating it as
a homicide investigation.
[Narrator] Unfortunately,
there is little evidence to suggest who had put him there.
There weren't many leads at this point in time.
[Narrator] Then, one week into the investigation,
the daughter of Frank's close friend
Susan Barksdale reaches out to law enforcement,
claiming to have received an alarming call
from her mother.
She had called me from a random number,
and she was like,
"I got to go. I gotta, I gotta to leave town."
It's like you could hear it in her voice.
She was panicked.
Jada expressed to investigators
that Susan's husband Blane was a danger.
And she was concerned that he hurt Frank.
I believe Blane saw Frank as a threat.
He knew that, you know,
Frank and my mother had been good friends for many years.
[Josh] They would hang out together.
They would go to eat together.
Susan would go out shooting with Frank.
[Narrator] But Jada claims that when her mother married Blane,
he became jealous of her relationship with Frank.
[Jada] Blane had a lot of control over my mom.
And he was very verbally, emotionally,
and eventually physically abusive with my mother.
Anyone who knew my mom knew that
she's very assertive in her opinions and belief.
Just a very strong personality,
and he was able to chip away at her very strong personality
until she was just terrified to have an opinion about anything.
I know that Frank did confront Blane about this abuse,
and, you know, said to, "Keep, keep your hands off Sue."
Blane knew that Frank could help her get on her feet
if she decided to leave him.
[Narrator] Jada tells detectives that she can no longer
get ahold of her mother,
and she believes Blane has taken her hostage.
I was really concerned that he would just kill her.
I believe her life was absolutely in danger.
[Narrator] Authorities immediately attempt to
locate Susan and Blane at their residence.
But they're too late.
They're nowhere to be found.
We did, however, locate some of
Blane's family members up in that area,
and they were able to tell us that Blane had talked about
signing over titles of vehicles to them.
He talked about, "Hey, can you check on our dog?
We're leaving our dog."
That was obviously suspicious to us,
and suspicious to family, as well.
It didn't make any sense
as to why Susan and Blane would be doing this.
By all appearances, it seemed that Susan and Blane were just
walking away from that property, their vehicles, their dog,
and never coming back.
It was clear to us at that point
that Susan and Blane were going on the run.
[music]
[music]]
[Narrator] One week after Frank Bligh's home
erupted into flames,
Frank is presumed dead.
And detectives are searching for his friend Susan Barksdale
and her husband, Blane.
Blane and Susan were nowhere to be found.
In speaking with some of their friends and family,
we learned that they had indicated that
they were leaving town.
So, investigators served a search warrant
on the Barksdale's property in Vernon.
Through the course of that search,
detectives were able to locate some cell phones.
[Josh] We were able to actually access
the content of those cell phones.
[Narrator] When detectives perform a forensic analysis
on the phones,
they uncover a potential clue.
One of the cell phones that belonged to Susan,
there were deleted text messages
that we recovered from that phone.
[Chris] Around the time that Frank's home went up in flames,
Susan had been in contact with a person named Brent.
And so that became immediately significant to us.
They were sent the morning of the fire on April 16th,
and in those text messages,
Susan expressed concern that Brent and Blane had become
separated from each other in Tucson,
where Frank lived.
[Chris] The phone number for Brent was researched
by Tucson Police detectives.
They were able to figure out Brent was Brent Mallard.
[Josh] We learned that Blane was his uncle.
On April 24th, we worked with police in the Avondale area.
That's in the outskirts of Phoenix.
And they were able to locate
an address associated to Brent Mallard.
[Narrator] When detectives meet with Brent,
they're immediately taken off-guard by his appearance.
[Jeff] Detective Cheek and I observed
that he had numerous bandages
over different parts of his body.
He had abrasions on his face,
and the marks on him
and the injuries appeared to be that of burns.
I remember just looking at Detective Cheek
and having a moment.
'Cause...
Burns all over your body are, are...
That's, that's a clue.
[Narrator] Detectives ask Brent
to accompany them to the station for an interview.
[Jeff] We didn't tell Brent initially
what we were talking to him for,
and he was cooperative and calm.
Brent initially stated that he was in fact burned,
but he stated that it was due to a welding accident.
[Josh] But coincidently,
he talked about sustaining these burns
around the same time period
as the fire that occurred at Frank's house.
[Jeff] We didn't believe his story,
and we began to press him even harder in the interview.
For him to just come clean and tell us the truth.
And it was at that point that he admitted that he lied to us.
[Jeff] Brent eventually told Detective Cheek and I
that he was involved in the arson
and lighting the fire at Frank's house.
[Narrator] According to Brent, on April 15th,
his uncle had asked him for a ride to Tucson.
Brent advised that Blane provided a gun as payment,
and gave Brent a Ruger pistol for him to drive to Tucson.
[music] [crickets chirping]
[Josh] He and Blane drove to Tucson.
They went to a house...
And Blane had a garage remote controller,
a clicker that activated the remote control
that had opened the garage at this residence.
Blane had entered the home, and had some gasoline.
Blane took the gasoline and spilt it throughout the house.
[Narrator] Brent tells police, to his shock,
his uncle ordered him to ignite the accelerant.
Blane told Brent that he was going to do it.
And that if he had told anyone, he would be in serious danger.
Brent felt extremely threatened.
Stated he got a rolled up magazine...
[music]
Lit the magazine, and threw it further into the home.
[Josh] The fire flashed back at Brent,
and he ended up sustaining some serious burn injuries
to his hands, and his arms, and his face.
[music]
Brent described running away on foot, and...
He said that Blane took off in a vehicle.
This was huge, because this was the first time
we had anybody directly implicating Blane Barksdale
in the arson fire that occurred at the residence.
[Narrator] Detectives finally have the confession they need.
But the whereabouts of Frank's body is still unclear.
Brent indicated that at no time did he see the homeowner
or know who Frank Bligh was.
Brent said that he had no idea as to where Frank was,
and he said that Blane was very cautious
not to give him details.
[Jeff] It didn't make much sense to a degree of why Brent was,
had involved himself in this particular incident.
However, I think that, you know,
part of Brent wanted to prove himself to Blane.
And also felt that he was a dangerous person
and didn't wanna cross him.
Based upon the descriptions given
and his admitted involvement,
Brent was arrested for arson.
[Narrator] Hoping to learn more abut Blane
and where he might go,
detectives continue interviewing his family members.
[Josh] The same day that we interviewed Brent Mallard,
we interviewed his mother, Thailene, Blane's sister.
[Narrator] Thailene tells detectives that
her brother had a troubled childhood
growing up in Tucson.
[Thailene] He dropped outta school.
He was arrested right before his 18th birthday
for selling drugs,
and stealing and selling, like, ATVs and things.
I believe he got seven years that time for that.
Blane got married right after he got out of prison, I believe.
Had three children, and then went back to prison.
Another drug case,
and they divorced while he was in prison.
So basically, he kinda grew up in the prison system.
[music]
[Narrator] After his release from prison in 2011,
Thailene says Blane earned an honest living
as a woodworker.
[Thailene] He went to work building cabinets
and things like the crown and that type of thing,
and that was where he met Susan.
I thought that she was great for Blane.
I didn't know what she saw in him,
but I was happy because I thought that maybe
that would settle him down.
I guess I was wrong.
[Narrator] Thailene has no idea where her brother is now,
and she agrees with Jada that Susan is likely in danger.
We continually interviewed friends and family of
Susan Barksdale and Blane Barksdale,
and what family has been able to tell us is that after the fire,
Blane ultimately procured or purchased an RV for cash.
[Narrator] Detectives issue a BOLO for the RV
and alert the US Marshals Service.
[Josh] The US Marshals have more resources in that regard,
because if somebody flees the state of Arizona,
the Marshals can be anywhere,
and they can use a variety of different methods
to locate and track potential fugitives.
[Narrator] On May 23rd,
more than a month after Frank went missing,
authorities get a hit
when Blane and Susan are spotted in New York.
They were pawning items of property in a pawn shop.
Anytime a person goes to a pawn shop,
they have to show a photo ID
if they're going to sell or pawn an item at that pawn shop.
I don't know if Susan realized it,
but when she did that,
it sent up a flag.
And as soon as we conducted a records query on her name,
we were able to determine that that pawn had actually occurred,
where it had occurred,
and surveillance images of Susan actually going into the shop.
[Narrator] Detectives are relieved to learn
Susan is alive.
But whether she is acting of her own accord or not
is still a mystery to law enforcement.
[Zak] We knew they were in the motorhome,
and we pass it on to the New Jersey,
New York deputies out there.
They were able to locate them at a motel parking lot
in the Rochester area late that night.
[Narrator] In the early morning hours of
May 24th, 2019,
authorities set up a perimeter.
They had the State Troopers, the S.W.A.T.,
they had brought everybody out there.
If you take in the criminal history of Blane
with the desperation,
and then mix that with guns that were missing and taken...
You never know what you're gonna get.
[Narrator] Coming up.
Law enforcement have their suspect
in their crosshairs,
but a daring escape
will leave the whole case in jeopardy.
[Van] When you're on the run,
your propensity for violence is very high.
And I had never seen an operation of this magnitude.
[music]
[music]ic]
[Narrator] More than a month into the search for
assumed murder victim Frank Bligh,
authorities in upstate New York
have surrounded a motorhome linked to their primary suspect,
Blane Barksdale, and his wife Susan.
[Josh] We didn't know what Blane was gonna do.
We certainly considered the possibility that
he was armed and dangerous.
When you're on the run and you're fleeing,
your propensity for violence is very high.
[Narrator] At 3:30 a.m.,
authorities cautiously approach the vehicle
and announce their presence.
We just had to wait and be patient 'til Blane came out.
Then moments later, Susan came out.
[Narrator] After more than three weeks on the run,
the Barksdales are taken into custody
and transported to the Monroe County Jail
in Rochester, New York.
When Arizona detectives arrive,
Blane refuses to give a statement...
But Susan appears anxious to talk.
When I first saw Susan, she seemed extremely frightened.
She was crying,
and it sure appeared like she had two black eyes.
It was the first thing that I noticed about her.
Susan claimed that she had been beaten by Blane
throughout their trip across the country.
In addition, she told Detective Cheek and I
some additional information
about the events prior to Frank's disappearance.
Frank had indicated that if anything were to happen to him,
he wanted her to be responsible for his items.
Frank had a large number of his gun safes
throughout his house.
Susan claims that Blane was present
when Frank showed her the combinations.
[Narrator] Susan explains that Blane saw an opportunity
to make some quick cash.
She'd indicated that Blane had been taking guns from Frank
for a period of time.
She'd indicated he was selling some of those guns
to a male in the Show Low area.
[Jada] Blane was also a very opportunistic person,
very manipulative.
He knew that Frank had guns, money.
He saw an opportunity to benefit from Frank.
Susan said that Blane was afraid that Frank was gonna find out
that he had been stealing his guns from him.
[Narrator] According to Susan,
that's when Blane made the decision to kill Frank.
[music]
[Narrator] On April 12th, 2019, four days before the fire,
Susan was visiting with Frank at his home
when Blane arrived,
and a confrontation broke out between the two men.
[Chris] Frank's guns had been stolen,
and Frank confronted Blane about that.
She says that Blane and Frank
were, were having a discussion or an argument.
Frank left to walk down the hall.
And once Blane walked down the hall after Frank,
she had heard a loud thud,
and she figured something bad had happened.
She said she didn't see what happened.
[Josh] She came around a corner,
she described seeing Frank on the ground,
bleeding from his head,
and Blane standing over him.
And that's when she learned that Frank had been killed by Blane.
[music]
[Josh] Susan told us
that Blane forced her to clean up the blood,
and threatened to come after Susan's family
if Susan did not help him clean this evidence up.
One point, Blane moved Frank's body,
but Susan claimed she didn't know where.
Susan described driving her car back from Tucson to Vernon,
and she said that Blane drove Frank's car.
At one point in time,
she lost track of where Blane was.
And then he later arrived at their property up in Vernon.
Susan denied that she had any involvement after that point,
besides cleaning up.
[Chris] Susan says that she was a victim of Blane
and was doing what Blane directed her to do.
Susan felt threatened.
[Narrator] Despite her willingness
to cooperate with law enforcement,
authorities charge Susan with multiple crimes,
including first degree murder, first degree burglary,
arson, felony criminal damage, and theft.
[Jeff] Susan was able to confirm much of the evidence,
and our suspicions of, of everything.
What Susan couldn't confirm
was the location of Frank's remains.
[Narrator] Blane faces the same charges as Susan.
And in late August of 2019,
the couple is extradited back to Arizona.
A subcontractor or a third party vendor
was responsible for
the transportation of Blane and Susan.
This guard company was driving
Blane and Susan through South Utah
when Blane claimed that he had to use the restroom.
Blane was able to slip his handcuffs
in front of his person,
grab ahold of the guard.
The guards were not armed at the time of this offense.
There was no weapons readily available to them.
Blane was able to force both guards into
the holding area of the vehicle.
He had both of them remove their shirts,
which were uniform shirts.
Blane and Susan put these shirts on.
He detained them, locked them up inside the transport van.
They kidnapped the guards. They drove quite a distance.
[Josh] At some point, Blane and Susan left the guards locked in
this transport vehicle,
and they'd left with unknown individuals
in this red truck.
I was in complete disbelief.
I've done this job for a number of years,
and I've never had anything even remotely like this
happen on any of my cases that I've investigated.
[Van] We believed that Susan was an accomplice at this point,
that Blane was the one that was kinda the mastermind of
how they were gonna be able to get away
at that point when they kidnapped the guards.
[Josh] They were going on the run,
and they were gonna try to put as much distance
between themselves and investigators as possible.
And at that point, the chase was on.
[music]
[music][music]
[Narrator] In August of 2019,
Blane Barksdale and his wife Susan
have escaped after being extradited for
the murder of Frank Bligh.
Authorities from Utah to Arizona
are desperately searching for the fugitives
after receiving reports
they've been spotted in a red truck.
They've gained access to this red GMC pickup truck
that became famous overnight in Arizona.
Every billboard over all the interstates
and the highways,
DPS had already put up, you know,
"Look out for that vehicle."
The media had really picked up on that.
There's a Bonnie and Clyde on the run.
[Josh] Obviously, Blane's actions indicated that
he was a threat and that he was dangerous.
Additionally, what's important to remember is that we have,
still, dozens and dozens of firearms
that are unaccounted for.
We didn't know if Blane had hidden those firearms somewhere
where he might retain access to them.
[Van] We believed that from Blane in Utah,
they came down into kinda northeast Arizona.
And that's where the Marshals, and our task force,
and all of our partners really kinda picked up the pieces
and started the, the hunt.
[Narrator] As the manhunt intensifies,
authorities work to track down the couple's known contacts.
In her earlier conversation with detectives,
Susan had dropped a possible tip.
Susan stated that Blane sold a number of Frank's guns
to a man in Show Low, Arizona and identified him.
We responded to his residence and interviewed him.
He was in possession of, of a large number of guns,
but he purchased those guns not from Blane,
but from Susan.
[Van] Blane has a pretty checkered criminal history.
He has a past.
But how was he able to turn this lady
you know, who lived a,
a very normal life for all these decades now
into being something else?
[Jeff] Both of them were committing criminal acts.
You know, both of them showed this greed
that they needed to have more money,
and they thought it was a good idea to get that money
by selling Frank's guns.
I think all those reasons
are why Susan could bypass and look past the long friendship
that she had with Frank.
She didn't necessarily want to see him killed, I'm sure.
But we all know how it ended.
[Narrator] 16 days into the manhunt,
authorities receive a tip that the couple could be hiding out
in a notorious stretch of northern Arizona.
It's a very rural, rugged, remote area,
and a lot of people will go there
just to hide from the law enforcement.
[Van] We were able to put together information
from a call that we got to this guy that's on probation
that lives in the area,
that happened to be in custody in the past with Blane.
There's a likelihood that Blane and Susan are there.
And so that's when the decision was made,
and it was put together of the plan that
we're gonna go and surround this house.
[Brian] It was a large lot with
a lot of vehicles and outbuildings.
There's no streetlights in this area.
It was a dark night.
[Van] We wanted to make sure that we could make contact
and as safe as possible,
in case Blane, Susan, or this other guy decided,
"we're gonna shoot it out."
[Brian] It was a very tense period of time there.
We were not going to allow them to escape again.
[Narrator] While a helicopter moves into position,
authorities on the ground move in.
[Van] We started making the commands over the loudspeaker,
both by loudspeaker that was down on the ground,
and also we asked the helicopter to put out announcements
and turn on the spotlight.
We wanted Blane and Susan to know that there was nowhere
that they could escape from or that they could go to.
Their only safe option was to come to us.
[Narrator] After several tense minutes,
the homeowner emerges, and Susan follows.
Moments later, Blane Barksdale exits the residence...
With his hands up,
and he's complying with the directives
and the orders of the officers.
As he approached the marshals
that were getting ready to take him into custody,
it was almost like he had a change of mind last minute
and he became very aggressive.
[Van] He started cussing out
the officers who were in front of him.
He dropped his hands close to his waistband.
Blane was pretty agitated, still wasn't compliant.
They used beanbag rounds and they hit Blane.
One of them struck him in the leg,
and kinda took his leg out from under him.
That's when the team goes in there and puts cuffs on him.
[Officer] All right, they've got hands on him now.
[Narrator] With Susan and Blane Barksdale
finally in custody,
authorities push them for intel
on the whereabouts of Frank Bligh's body.
[Chris] Yeah, we were able to
negotiate plea agreements in the case,
so Blane agreed to plead guilty to a second degree murder
with a sentencing range of 19 to 22 years.
And as part of his plea deal,
he had to reveal the whereabouts of Frank Bligh.
He stated that he pushed Frank Bligh's body
out over the edge of a cliff in Salt River Canyon.
[music]
[Narrator] Following an exhaustive search,
Arizona authorities finally recover Frank's remains
on January 4th, 2022.
Everybody said, "Oh, you must have closure now."
You never have closure. You never will.
'Cause you always sit there and say, "Why did this happen?"
[Chris] Blane said he had,
had been kind of out of his mind during that time.
He had been using meth.
He felt terrible about getting himself into trouble,
killing Frank,
and then getting Susan into trouble, as well.
Blane was never blaming Susan for Frank's death,
and was trying to take as much of the blame as, as he could
throughout the process.
So, the relative roles of Blane and Susan were,
were pretty clear.
Blane was more culpable, Blane admits that.
My mother was under extreme duress
during this entire time period.
The only reason my mom went anywhere with that man
was in an effort to protect her family,
because our lives were under threat by Blane.
[Chris] Susan says she's a victim.
She says that Blane made a lot of threats towards her,
and forced her to do things that,
that she didn't wanna do.
Only Susan really knows how, how much of a victim she was,
and, and how willing or
unwilling of a participant she was in Frank's death.
[Narrator] Prosecutors also cut a deal with Susan.
Susan pled guilty to manslaughter,
which is a less serious crime
than second degree murder and first degree murder.
She was sentenced to five years prison.
I believe that Frank was trying to stand up for my mom,
who was being terribly abused, and Blane ended his life for it.
[Josh] None of this would have happened to Frank
if it weren't for Blane,
and none of it would have happened to Frank
if it weren't for Susan.
If those two don't come together,
Frank's still with us today.
[Skip] My brother, I miss our Sunday conversations.
You know, goin' out and seein' him.
He lived the life that he wanted,
which I couldn't ask anything less of anybody.
[music]