and this is "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
- She was the person you wanted to be.
She emulated everything that was good.
- She just yelled through the door, "I love you!"
And that was the last time we talked to her.
- I said, "Where's Brooke?" And he said,
"We can't find her."
- A college student vanishes.
- I got this chill all through my whole body.
- They asked us, "Well, do you have a crime scene?"
No, we don't. Other than flip-flops in the parking lot.
- We had a community that was scared.
Who's going to be the next victim?
- A thousand miles away-- another student in danger.
- She said, "He's got a knife. He's tryin' to kill me."
- There were guns and there was a girl there
and there was blood.
This is not the first time he's done this.
- One case would help solve the other.
One man behind two mysteries.
- This was dynamite to us. That's the smoking gun.
- You're not gonna believe what we found.
- We'd gotten so close.
I wanna know where she is.
**
- Hello and welcome to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
Nineteen-year-old Brooke Wilberger
had just completed her freshman year
at Brigham Young University and was excited to spend
summer break with family back home in Oregon.
Then, one afternoon, Brooke went missing.
Months of dead-end leads followed,
until investigators received a big break.
But no one anticipated the twisted road
this journey for justice would take.
Here's "Bringing Brooke Home."
**
Some images are eternal.
Timeless. - Hey! Happy day!
One moment, the future seems immeasurable.
The possibilities, endless.
But in an instant, you can be left with
only memories to hold 'til the end of time.
Brooke Wilberger lived as if she had
all the time in the world to grow up,
to marry, to create a close-knit family
like her own parents had.
- We have six children and Brooke is number five.
- Always wanted to have a big family.
- We ended up with one.
- Cammy Wilberger and her husband Greg
raised their children near beautiful Eugene, Oregon.
A family that included Brooke's older brother Bryce
and sister Stephanie.
- Uh, we used to have so much fun dressing her up.
She was kind of our little toy, if you will.
[chuckling]
- "I know! Let's dress up Brooke, right?"
- Yeah. She was just fun.
Little Brooke didn't speak until she was 4,
and even then, could be a bit hard to understand.
But as Brooke grew, her natural talents spoke loudly.
She loved animals and 4H. Played basketball
and ran track. - She was good.
She was better than most of the rest of us
at-at the sports that we played.
- She snowboarded on slopes around Oregon.
And as her little sister Jessica remembers,
took pride in being scrappy on the soccer field.
- She came home from soccer and she kinda had a black eye
and, um, my brother asked what happened
and she kinda laughed and said
"I got in a fight." And he goes,
"No, you didn't, Brooke. You don't get in fights."
And-And she laughed and said, "You're right.
I got hit in soccer practice. But isn't it so cool?"
- Brooke was also an honors student at Elmira High,
who loved to bake, scrapbook,
and see the sights on the West Coast.
- This is my home! Yay!
- She could be seriously silly.
- This is my crib. You know.
- Or stylish, happy to shop for shoes or fashion.
She was reliable. Thoughtful.
Popular and pretty. Inside and out.
- She made people feel better about themselves.
- People wanted to be with her.
- Yeah. - And she was nice.
She was intelligent and beautiful,
but she was also really nice.
- The minute she turned 16, when Dad's rules
allowed her to start dating, she knew she wanted
her childhood friend Justin to be her boyfriend.
And when they graduated from high school,
Brooke decided to follow him
to Brigham Young University in Utah.
- She just really wanted to
experience life outside of our community
and just, you know, kind of branch out.
- The girl who'd grown up saying words a little funny
decided to study speech pathology.
Brooke loved her new friends and BYU, but returned home
her freshman year for Thanksgiving
to spend time with her family. And shop.
- We had gone to Meier & Frank before it became Macy's.
And she had really liked this watch.
And it was kind of a dressy watch.
And she was pretty classy
in the things that she chose to wear.
- So, she sees it in the case and she mentions it to you.
- Yeah. She goes, "I really like that watch, Mom."
- Easy Christmas present. - It was.
- Six months later, in the spring,
her freshman year was history.
Brooke returned home to Oregon.
She had a summer job in Corvallis, about 30 miles
from home, working at the Oak Park Apartments
managed by her sister Stephanie and Stephanie's husband.
And on Monday, May 24, 2004,
she left the house where her sister Jessica
was getting ready for another day of 7th Grade.
- She was kind of in a rush
and she walked out the door and left.
And about 5 minutes later, um, she walked back in
and she just yelled through the door, "I love you!"
And walked out. And that was--
that was the last time we talked to her.
- By 9 A.M., Brooke was at the apartments
and an hour later, hard at work.
- I could see through our apartment
to the back window facing our patio.
And Brooke was bending over filling up a bucket of water.
And that was the last time I saw her.
- At what point did you realize
that she wasn't out there anymore?
- Not until probably 1 o'clock.
I had fixed lunch for my children and for her,
and, uh, she ha-hadn't shown up.
- What starts goin' through your head
when she doesn't come in for lunch?
- It's a large complex. There's over 100 apartments.
And so, I wasn't, like, immediately worried
because I thought she could be cleaning,
you know, laundry rooms somewhere.
I even said something like, "Well, let's take out
the search party," you know, tongue-in-cheek
and took my little kids out with me.
And we started just kind of walking around,
seeing if we could see her
just to tell her that her lunch was ready.
- You're not in a full-blown panic
at this point. - No. No.
- But before long, Stephanie would come upon these.
Near a lamppost Brooke had been cleaning,
her flip-flops were on the pavement.
The little piece of plastic that goes
between your toe was ripped out on one.
And there were muddy toe prints
sliding down the actual sole of the shoe,
so it was clear that she was trying
to keep them-- she was trying to stay put--
stay grounded when she lost her shoes.
- You knew that right then. - Immediately, yeah.
- Still, though, no panic.
No cries for help for a couple of hours.
Until 3:07 P.M., when Stephanie's husband
placed a very calm call to 9-1-1.
Where had Brooke WIlberger gone? Why couldn't anyone find her?
Brooke's mom was about to learn of her daughter's disappearance
in a phone call with one of her sons.
- I said, "Where's Brooke?" And he said, "We don't know."
And I said, "What do you mean, you don't know?"
He goes, "We don't know where she is."
And I said, "Spense, don't tease me.
"What are you talking about?" And he said,
"No, seriously, Mom. We can't find her."
And right then, I just, um...
had this chill go through my whole body.
- Coming up... A whole community
turns out to search for Brooke while the police
start their investigation by focusing on her family.
- We needed to go through, is the family a suspect?
And we had to get that work done.
And we had investigators doing that.
- Stephanie was just grilled about, um, you know,
"Where-where was she? Did you do it?"
**
On a sunny spring day in Corvallis, Oregon,
the clock was ticking.
Nineteen-year-old Brooke Wilberger
had disappeared about 10:30 A.M.
when she worked cleaning lampposts
in the parking lot of the Oak Park Apartments.
Just a block away from the bustling campus
of Oregon State University.
At 1 P.M., her sister Stephanie got worried
when Brooke didn't show up for lunch.
- It just wasn't like her, you know?
She was just always on time.
- By 3:00, Stephanie's husband called police.
Word was spreading among Brooke's five siblings
that their sweet but feisty little sister had disappeared.
When did they call you guys? - It was mid-afternoon sometime.
I think we knew something seriously wrong
when-when the comment was, "We can't find Brooke."
It didn't take anything longer than that.
- Bryce went to pick up his mother,
who was trying not to panic.
A lot of people talk about that maternal feeling
that sometimes you get inside. Did you get a feeling?
- I just kept thinking, you know, "Maybe she met up
"with one of her friends that's going to OSU?
"No, Brooke wouldn't do that. It's not Brooke."
- By late in the afternoon, with Brooke now missing
for hours, cell phones started buzzing.
- I was sitting at my son's t-ball game and I got
a phone call from one of our patrol lieutenants
at the time who said, "Jon, we have a missing girl."
- Captain Jonathan Sassaman and Lieutenant Tim Brewer,
both with the Corvallis PD at the time,
were about to begin a journey
unlike anything they had ever experienced.
- I asked him, uh, "What do you think?
"Is this real?" He had a--
uh, the natural gut instinct that this was not a walk-away.
This was not a runaway. Something bad had happened.
- When Captain Sassaman arrived at the apartments,
he was struck by how few clues he had to work with.
- It is a parking lot with a pair of flip-flops.
And a bucket with soap and some water
under a lamppost. - Also left behind,
Brooke's wallet, purse, cell phone, and car.
Nobody, it seemed, saw anything.
But someone heard something about 10:30 that morning.
A blood-curdling scream.
The evidence pointed to an abduction.
But investigators started with questions
for the people closest to the victim.
First question-- where was Brooke's boyfriend, Justin?
It turned out, he was serving a 2-year mission
for the Mormon Church 4,000 miles away,
in Venezuela. Next, Brooke's family.
- We needed to go through, is the family a suspect?
And we had to get that work done.
And we had investigators doing that.
- Stephanie was, you know, just grilled
about, um, you know, "Where-where was she?
"Why don't you know where she was?
"And did you do it?" - That had to be awful.
- It is awful. - It-It was-
- It's awful. - It was terrible.
And we had made a decision that we'll-- as a family, even--
we would do anything to get Brooke back.
Whatever the police ask us to do, we will do it.
If they suspect us, that's okay.
We don't care. We wanna find Brooke.
- And soon, a community came together.
Within hours of Brooke's disappearance,
dozens, then hundreds of people showed up.
Many from the Wilberger's church.
Others, concerned citizens and cops.
- I suppose she could be anywhere
and we just have to look everywhere.
- They came in droves that first evening
and every day after, with one goal.
Find Brooke. - By golly,
come hell or high water, we are going to find her.
- But for detectives, the sheer number
of searchers presented a challenge.
- As an investigator responsible for this,
we're looking at, "Is our bad guy here?"
It is not uncommon for people who, uh, you know,
commit the crime to circle right back around,
be present, learn, uh, see what's going on.
- By this time, the FBI had also entered the investigation.
Supervisory Special Agent Joe Boyer's first question?
Had Brooke been taken by someone who lived
at the apartment complex? And could that person
be among the tens of thousands of Oregon State students
who'd soon be leaving town for the summer?
Agent Boyer asked FBI profilers for help.
- They asked us, "Well, do you have a crime scene?"
"No, we don't, other than flip-flops in a parking lot."
Uh, "Do you have any witnesses?" "No, we don't."
"Do you have a vehicle description?"
"No, we don't." "Do you have a body?"
"No, we don't." And they said, "Frankly,
there's very little we can do for you at this point."
- With so little evidence, investigators found themselves
thinking back to another crime.
A crime many here in Corvallis barely recall.
On another day in May nearly 30 years to the day
and 1 mile away from where Brooke disappeared,
a young Oregon State student vanished.
It wasn't until her body was discovered
and her killer caught that people here realized
this town had been visited by one of America's
most notorious serial killers-- Ted Bundy.
Authorities in Corvallis wondered if there was
now another sexual predator bold enough
to abduct a young woman in broad daylight.
- It was a rough day for the sex offenders in our county,
because there was a team who went out
and put their finger on every single one of 'em.
- How many sex offenders are there in this area?
- You know, I think that was something
that was very startling to-to realize,
is how many there actually were.
- When police told Brooke's family
there may be 2,000 sex offenders
in the area, they were horrified.
- When they'd try to-- When they'd get into details,
I just had to lay back on the bed
because I'd become nauseated. You know, just the--
the whole trauma of it was-was just too much.
- It just took a couple days, I think, to sink in
that, you know, something bad had happened
and that she was-- that she was really gone.
- There seemed to be little question.
Brooke was gone and in grave danger.
The family took to the airwaves.
Her father, Greg. - If anyone has seen Brooke
at all, if they could just, please, call in.
- Tips poured in to police hotlines.
- We had dozens and dozens of Brooke Wilberger sightings
in-in practically every state.
Everybody who went out for a walk, you know,
in the-in the following days who saw someone
who just looked out of place called us up.
- Hi, we're searching for this girl
who was abducted. - Yeah. Okay.
- The search expanded daily. At times,
it seemed the whole state of Oregon
was pitching in to find Brooke.
- Well, I have daughters this age.
And, um, I want to help.
- More search teams. Dozens of square miles.
What's the geography like around here?
Where could someone have taken Brooke?
- Limitless. I mean, we're 10 miles from Interstate 5.
We've got a north-south highway
runnin' right through Corvallis.
We've got an east-- east-west highway
runnin' right through Corvallis.
So, literally, you could-- you could drive
5 miles from Corvallis and-and be
in a very remote area. - In the deep woods.
- That's right. - Absolutely.
- But despite the odds, within days,
investigators were hot on someone's trail.
A police search turns up a terrifying checklist
and investigators wonder if it's the lead
they have been waiting for.
Coming up... - Either someone is planning
a very heinous mutilation sexual assault crime
and murder, or it's a fantasy.
**
Nearly a week into the head-spinning hunt
for their daughter and sister-- - Hundreds of volunteers comb--
Brooke Wilberger's family somehow kept
their unfailing optimism afloat.
- Did you think she was alive somewhere?
- Yes. I think we--
That was the-the overwhelming feeling that we felt.
And I think that's why the focus was find Brooke.
It's what-what drove us. We know the statistics,
but this is-- this is our family.
This is Brooke. She's gotta be there.
- And there was reason to hope.
- You heard it first right here on MSNBC.
Elizabeth Smart-- found alive
and, from what we can tell so far,
physically in good shape.
- In that summer of 2004, the story
of Elizabeth Smart was still fresh.
She was the 14-year-old snatched from her bedroom in Utah,
held captive by a deranged street preacher,
then, amazingly, after nine months,
returned to her family alive.
- I would think, you know, maybe someone just has her captive.
And they're- They'll just decide to let her go one day.
- A family friend put the Wilbergers
in touch with Elizabeth Smart's uncle.
- Was it comforting? - It was comforting.
He was very positive and-- because,
of course, of their experience.
And he said, you know, "Mever give up hope.
"Just keep thinking positive."
- She came home. - Right. Right.
And so, you know, I just-- I was like, "I don't know how.
"I don't know the circumstances. But I cannot give up."
- And while the search continued,
what seemed to be a lead emerged.
- That burglary pointed them to this man, Sung Koo Kim.
- The name Sung Koo Kim came to the attention
of investigators less than a week after Brooke vanished.
Kim was a reclusive 30-year-old
with a degree in genetics and cellular biology
who still lived with his parents in this home
80 miles from Corvallis in a suburb of Portland.
He spent much of his time online trading stocks.
Just weeks before, a search of Kim's home had turned up
thousands of pairs of women's underwear,
stolen from college dorms throughout the area.
Burglary charges had been filed
and he would soon be charged with stealing underwear
from a dorm at Oregon State University,
just blocks from where Brooke was abducted.
Police had an investigative theory
based on their experience in other cases.
- When you start making steps to entering other
b-buildings and dormitories and going and stealing
other people's property, being in the underwear--
that's a progression. - Meaning what?
That he could then do something violent?
- There's gonna be a step two.
There's gonna be a step three.
There's gonna be contacting somebody next.
And ultimately, abducting somebody.
- Then, just five days after
Brooke's disappearance, another search.
In a dramatic middle of the night raid
captured on videotape taken by police,
an Oregon State Police SWAT team blew open the front door
of the home Kim shared with his parents.
- This is the Oregon Police. - Fifteen officers
stormed inside to serve a search warrant,
looking for physical evidence. Hair, body fluid,
or more. Evidence of Kim's
possible involvement in Brooke's disappearance.
- Come out of the house with your hands in the air.
- They found no physical evidence,
but what they did discover drew their attention.
On Kim's computer, investigators found
tens of thousands of photos and thousands more videos.
What police termed "a vast collection
of pornographic images" including a small number
of staged scenes depicting tortured,
raped, and mutilated women. Then, there was this.
A document labeled "OSU"
as in "Oregon State University."
It read like a how-to guide for committing a sex crime.
It included a list of supplies.
Hood. Glasses. Video and digital cameras.
- It's more than just a checklist.
Either someone is planning a very heinous mutilation
sexual assault crime and murder,
or it's a fantasy.
But either way, it's extremely important to us
and our investigation and very startling.
- And as detectives dug deeper, they discovered this.
While Kim was stealing underwear from dorms and laundry rooms,
he had also developed a bizarre fetish
for collecting lint from clothes dryers.
In Kim's home, they discovered a bag
of some of that lint labeled with the name
of an Oregon State University swim team member.
Like Brooke Wilberger, she was young,
blonde, blue-eyed, and she used to hang out a lot
with other swimmers in Corvallis
right here at the Oak Park Apartments.
So, I'm imagining red flags are goin' off all over the place
when you start getting this information.
- From our perspective, every red flag went off.
That we had to spend some energy looking at Sung Koo Kim.
- The media pounced. - Any comment about being
a person of interest in the case in Corvallis?
- No comment. Thank you.
- Sung Koo Kim's life was examined from every angle.
Newspaper headlines blared his new nickname,
"The Panty Thief."
And soon, Brooke Wilberger's family heard news reports
that Kim, on the day of Brooke's disappearance,
had purchased cinder blocks.
- My thought was maybe, if he were the person
and if he took Brooke, then he might've tied her
to bricks and dropped her in a river.
- Those reports about Kim buying bricks
were never substantiated. His besieged family
attempted to clear his name any way they could.
Despite all the suspicion, was it possible
that Sung Koo Kim really was innocent?
Coming up... New information about
the person of interest in Brooke's disappearance.
- You put all three of those together,
that's an ironclad alibi.
- Where would the investigation lead?
**
Welcome back to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow.
Several days after Brooke Wilberger vanished,
police stormed the home of Sung Koo Kim.
Kim had been caught stealing thousands of pairs
of women's underwear from local college dorms.
One, just blocks from where Brooke disappeared.
He also possessed what appeared to be
a secret checklist for committing sex crimes.
But could detectives connect Kim to Brooke's kidnapping?
Back now to "Bringing Brooke Home."
Nearly two weeks after Brooke Wilberger
disappeared while working outside
these apartments in Corvallis, Oregon.
- Search teams spent a tough day surveying
acres of land around-- - The search was winding down.
The official end would soon come.
Members of Brooke's family expressed their gratitude.
- You've given up so much, um, to help.
And I was thinking yesterday, Brooke will be saying,
"They didn't even know me!"
And while detectives were still busy
looking at Sung Koo Kim as a person of interest,
at least one of Brooke's siblings
took one look and thought "No way."
- We never once for a second thought
he had anything to do with it.
I personally didn't because I just kept thinking
she could get away from him. You know?
He just- He didn't look very threatening to me.
- And soon, more reasons surfaced to cast doubt
on the idea that Kim was involved
in Brooke's disappearance. He offers an alibi.
- Well, offering an alibi and us being able
to validate that alibi are two different things.
- But Kim's alibi for the day of Brooke's disappearance
consisted of not just one, but three pieces of evidence.
Put together, they show that Kim could not
have been in Corvallis at 10:30 A.M.
when the kidnapping occurred.
First, these records show an online purchase
of 500 shares of stock with Ameritrade
executed on Kim's computer, 75 miles
from the crime scene at 11:14 A.M. Pacific.
Next, a witness came forward saying Kim answered
a phone call at the family home at 12:10 P.M.
And finally, there was a videotape showing
Kim and his father entering an electronics store
in Portland at 12:42 P.M.
and a receipt showing a purchase
at the same store at 1:11 P.M.
- You put all three of those together--
that's an ironclad alibi.
- Steven Sherlag was one of Kim's attorneys.
- Prosecutors should look at that and say,
"This is a case we simply can't charge.
We've got the wrong guy." - Did they say that?
- They didn't, in fact. They went public,
naming Sung Koo Kim as a person of interest
in the Wilberger abduction. - Investigators insist
it was a lead they had to follow.
- When it came to Sung Koo Kim, there were moments
where we were challenging each other with
"How much time do we spend here versus spend it over there?"
- Looking for someone else. - And we didn't wanna
chase the red herring with 100% of our resources.
It was the healthiest thing for the investigation.
It made sure nothing fell through the cracks.
- Any comment about being a person of interest--
- It took months, but authorities
officially cleared Kim. Kim's family filed a lawsuit
claiming excessive use of force
in that nighttime SWAT raid.
The State of Oregon, without admitting any wrongdoing,
eventually settled with the family,
paying them more than $330,000.
- There was a lot of pressure to try and save
this young woman. Uh, undoubtedly, the officers
were-were hoping that they could find her
and hoping they could find her alive.
Uh, but they really didn't have many facts here.
And the search was done in a very aggressive,
I think, quite radical fashion.
- Kim was eventually convicted of burglary
and other charges in connection with his panty stealing
and served 7 years of an 11-year prison sentence.
He was released in 2012.
The summer of 2004 wore on, and investigators
in the Wilberger case seemed to be back at square one.
Members of the FBI and the Corvallis Police Department
worked hard, but leads were wearing thin.
The weeks turn into a month, two months, three months.
How frustrating is it to not have more of a lead?
- The-- It was, uh, extraordinarily stressful.
You had a community looking for answers.
You had a community that was scared.
Was there somebody else out there?
Who's going to be the next victim?
And we have got a family in tremendous pain
and they are hurting. And they are doing
everything they can to support us.
To encourage us. To inspire the investigators
to-to not give up. - In what sense?
- They didn't turn. They never became an adversary.
They were a partner with us and it was incredible.
- But the Wilbergers were feeling the strain as well.
And in September, three months after Brooke's disappearance,
it was time to return to school.
- Jessica was heading into 8th grade.
- I always thought about it. You know, there were days
I would get up in the morning and just be like,
"Ugh, I don't wanna do this today."
But you just kinda-- I would, you know,
put a smile on my face and I'd go to school
and just worry about school.
- Their mother Cammy would do the same,
returning to her job as a 3rd grade teacher.
How did you go back to school?
How did you walk in the classroom
and teach little 3rd graders? - You know what?
I wasn't sure if I could do it, but it actually became
very therapeutic because when I walked through
that school door, I was Mrs. Wilberger.
And it gives you opportunity to love little children
and to be concerned about their needs.
And so, it was really a good therapy for me.
It kept my mind busy on other things.
- The Wilbergers didn't know it, but before the holidays
would arrive in 2004, there would finally
be a legitimate break in the case
of the abduction of their daughter, Brooke.
Coming up... Halfway across the country,
a college student runs screaming from a kidnapper.
- I told her, "Get in the car."
That I wouldn't let anybody hurt her.
- A lot of people didn't stop. - No, nobody stopped.
- Would one woman's quick thinking help bring Brooke home?
**
Six months after Brooke Wilberger's disappearance,
police in Corvallis, Oregon were frustrated.
Her family's hopes were fading. Slim, yet steadfast.
What was that Thanksgiving like around that table?
- We still had a good time. Just because we love each other
and we still were pretty hopeful.
I think when we get together, for myself,
it brings a lot of joy and a lot of-of comfort.
And so, even though we missed Brooke, there was--
there was just comfort in being together.
- Police announced the reward had been doubled,
hoping more money would loosen lips
and shake out new leads. But even investigators
felt trapped, as if it were "Groundhog Day."
- We don't have a suspect. We don't have any clear leads.
- Every press conference, simply another chance
to make the same plea. "Help us find Brooke."
- The investigation had kind of gotten to a point
where they were still pluggin' away,
following up on tips, still talking to people,
still turnin' over rocks, still searching.
And we were, at that point,
just hopin' for somethin' to break.
- Just waiting. - It was difficult.
- And then, that very week,
the last week of November 2004,
it happened.
Nearly 14,000 miles away in New Mexico,
a place aptly known as The Land of Enchantment,
the break that they had been praying for.
In Albuquerque in one of the city's
tougher neighborhoods,
a waitress named Dara Finks was driving her SUV
down the street with her three daughters
just after dusk when they saw a young woman.
- We were sitting at the light
and the girl comes runnin' across the street
and my daughter in the front seat
says that she doesn't have any clothes on.
- That's kinda weird. - Yeah.
- You see a-a naked woman running across the street.
- And we're watchin' her run into the restaurant.
My daughter was ready to jump out the car.
- And I'm like, "No, no, no. Wait.
"We'll go over there
"and, you know, see what's goin' on.
- It was clear, Dara says, the young woman was in trouble,
frantically trying to get help from someone
inside the restaurant across the street.
- No one helped her.
Because we pulled around there
and my daughter got out of the car
and met her at the door
and brought her over to the car.
- To your car. - And that's when she said,
"He's got a knife. He's trying to kill me."
- The woman said she'd been kidnapped but had escaped.
- I told her, "Get in the car. Lock the door."
That I wouldn't let anybody hurt her.
- How scared were you, Dara?
- My tire iron's underneath the front seat of my car.
My kids are in the car.
I'm not gonna let anybody hurt us.
- But then, the young woman saw something
back out in the street that made her scream.
He was back.
The man who'd kidnapped her was looking for her.
- She sees him. She pointed at him.
He was sitting at the light.
- The person who had kidnapped her.
- Had kidnapped her.
- It was true.
The man with the knife had come to find her.
Dara called 9-1-1. She described the man.
His red compact car.
Within minutes, police were there.
A lot of people wouldn't have stopped.
A lot of people didn't stop!
- No, nobody stopped.
- There was a lot of traffic.
- They wouldn't even help her in the restaurant!
She was in the restaurant at the counter
talking to someone.
- Who was this young woman?
Blonde. Blue-eyed. Abducted.
On her neck, what she said was a mark
from her kidnapper's knife.
She was a college student.
Not from Oregon, but from Russia.
And the story this 22-year-old told officers
was pretty incredible.
That she was walking home from work down this street
near the University of New Mexico campus.
She noticed a small red car parked near the curb
and a man standing next to it,
but she didn't think much of it.
Walked right past.
A few steps later,
she felt someone grab her from behind
and hold a knife to her throat.
- Inside the car, she was sexually assaulted.
Then, her abductor stopped at these apartments,
tied her up with her own shoelaces,
and went inside.
Incredibly, the woman was able to wriggle free.
Left the shoelaces lying in the parking lot
and ran into the street with no clothes on,
where she was rescued by Dara Finks.
What made you want to help? What made you stop?
- My upbringing? The way we were raised.
I feel God put me here for a reason, to help that girl.
'Cause he knew we would help her.
- It was gutsy as hell.
And I think she's the hero-
Dara is the hero of that night.
- Theresa Whatley was the prosecutor
who handled the case for the Bernalillo County
District Attorney's office.
Had they not been there,
he would've picked her up again.
- Mmm-hmm. He was waiting. He was lurking right there.
I mean, there-- there's no question
what he was waiting for.
- But though the victim was now safe,
her attacker was still on the loose.
The young woman gave an incredibly
detailed description of the man and of his car.
- She described the car seats down to the detail.
She described the tinted windows.
She described the fact the car was two-door.
That it was red.
- And the victim remembered something else.
A small stuffed animal on the car's side window.
[police dispatch chatter]
Enter Albuquerque Police Officer Ed Taylor.
He showed up at the scene
ready to help track down the bad guy.
First stop?
The apartments where the victim escaped
from her kidnapper.
So, you go to the door of the apartment.
Who answers? - It's a female.
We went inside the apartment and right off the bat,
you could tell that she was not gonna be helpful at all.
- Not cooperative? - Not cooperative.
She, um, did tell us she knew him as "Joe."
And he spoke Spanish. And that was about it.
- The name Joe. He spoke Spanish.
Would it be enough to find him?
And four states away, as you're about to see,
would it be enough to help find Brooke?
Police track down a suspect
in the New Mexico kidnapping case
and start to speculate about his MO.
This is not the first time he's done this.
You don't start grabbing people in broad daylight
when you're almost 40.
Was it possible this wasn't his first abduction?
**
On a November night in 2004,
Albuquerque police were on a manhunt.
Just blocks from the University of New Mexico campus,
a man had kidnapped a 22-year-old student
off the street and sexually assaulted her.
But when he carelessly tied her up
and left her in his car in this apartment parking lot,
she had bolted, run naked into traffic,
and thankfully, been rescued by this woman.
- That could be my daughter. She's a human being.
She did not deserve to be runnin' down the road
with no clothes on.
- Now, Albuquerque police officer Ed Taylor
was among those looking for the suspect.
A white male with a shaved head wearing a cap.
Police had learned from a woman who lived in the apartments
where the victim escaped that the man's name was Joe.
That he spoke Spanish. She would say no more.
- I went back to the substation and I spoke to my supervisor.
I told him, "I believe, if I went by myself,
"she will tell me more information."
- Why? Why did you have that feeling?
- I thought I had a connection with her.
So, I returned to the location and I told her.
I said, this is what's goin' on.
This is what happened.
Basically, "God forbid something were to happen to you
"or somebody you know."
And she reluctantly ended up telling me
we might be able to locate the vehicle
behind the restaurant, um, just south of Gibson.
- Riding solo, Officer Taylor followed the woman's directions,
and parked right here on this dead-end street,
was a red two-door Honda
with a stuffed animal stuck to the window.
- So, I waited a little bit and a few minutes later,
I noticed three individuals walking out of that--
- That house. - White house.
And walkin' towards me. I called out to him as Joe.
I said, "Joe." And he acknowledged me.
And as he got closer, "Is this your vehicle?"
He said "Yes." I had him turn around
and I placed him in custody.
- Did you find anything on him?
- I found, um, a glass pipe used to smoke crack cocaine
and a small knife.
- Did he ever ask you why he was under arrest?
- No. Didn't say anything.
I think he knew he was caught.
- Caught was this man, Joel Patrick Courtney.
Soon identified by his victim and booked into jail
on charges of criminal sexual penetration,
kidnapping, and aggravated battery.
Joel Courtney was 38 years old.
He lived in this Albuquerque suburb, Rio Rancho,
in this home with his wife and three young children.
He'd worked as a mechanic and fisherman
and had lived all over the United States.
A fluent Spanish speaker, he'd also lived in Mexico.
But the man who appeared in family photos
as the ever-smiling attentive father
also had a dark side.
Six months before,
his wife had taken out a restraining order against him
reporting he had choked her.
- The first time I saw him, I remember thinking
it was as strong a reaction as I'd had to Richard Ramirez.
- Ramirez, the notorious Night Stalker,
convicted of murdering more than a dozen people
in the 1980s.
He died in 2013 awaiting execution
on California's death row.
Prosecutor Theresa Whatley once crossed paths
with Ramirez in a courtroom.
- He actually made the hair on my arms stand up
because he was so evil.
The only other person who's ever done that to me
is Joel Courtney.
- When you first read the reports about this case,
what went through your mind as a prosecutor?
- That this is not the first time he's done this.
You don't start grabbing people in broad daylight
off the street and grab 'em into your car
when you're almost 40.
That's not the way the criminal mind works.
- The New Mexico prosecutor didn't know yet
how right she was.
And back in Oregon, the Wilberger family
knew nothing yet of these developments
as they faced the holidays,
still hoping Brooke would walk through the door
and take her place on the stairs
for the family's annual Christmas pageant and pictures.
- Okay! Smile, Angels!
- It's exactly what we kept thinking.
This can't happen. This just can't happen.
This is Brooke, you know. She's too full of life.
She's too-- too dynamic and too much a part of us.
I've got to keep hoping.
And I've got to keep thinking positive.
- This is my home! Yay!
- Where was Brooke? Six months had passed.
Was she still alive somehow, somewhere?
Her sister Stephanie was dealing with a lot of guilt.
Brooke was working for her when she disappeared.
- If I was driving somewhere and just reflecting
on-on where we were so far
and I remember thinking, "Gosh, I wonder...
I wonder what it'll be like
when I don't think about this every day.
And what could I have done differently?
Or what if- what if just this little thing had changed?"
- But something was finally about to change.
The quick-thinking that led to Joel Courtney's capture
in New Mexico was about to lead to more questions
and investigators would soon want to know
if this father of three,
now charged in a daring abduction,
could also be the man who took Brooke.
He'd been caught carrying a knife and a crack pipe
hours after a University of New Mexico student
said Courtney abducted her near campus
and sexually assaulted her.
Miraculously, she had escaped.
This is an incredibly brazen crime.
He abducts her in broad daylight?
- 6:45.
It's probably just about dark.
- That's either incredibly stupid or insane.
- No, it's experienced. He knows what he's doing.
He's done it before.
He knows how to make it happen.
He picked his spot really well.
It's a very quiet street. It was dinnertime.
As awful as it sounds, it's a smart move
for what he's trying to do.
- With Joel Courtney safely in custody,
Albuquerque police begin a routine background check
on their suspect.
They found that in addition to New Mexico,
he had lived in several states.
Alaska, Florida, and Oregon.
And a detective noticed that nearly a year before,
in January 2004, in coastal Lincoln County, Oregon,
Courtney had been pulled over by a State Trooper
and charged with driving under the influence.
But Courtney had failed to appear in court,
so a warrant had been issued for his arrest.
And that's when an Albuquerque detective
did something he didn't have to do.
He decided to dig deeper.
Picked up the phone, and made a call to Oregon
that would lead to a long-awaited break in the case
of Brooke Wilberger.
- He calls the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department.
And he gets to a detective and says,
"Hey, what do you know about this case?
This is what he did down in New Mexico."
And he's relaying the circumstances.
And the Lin-- the Lincoln County detective,
having heard about Brooke's case--
- Because everyone here had heard Brooke's case.
- Because everybody knows about it.
Says to him, "You need to call
"Corvallis Police Department."
It's that simple. And he does.
- It was not just police asking questions
about Brooke's case.
So was the suspect's own sister.
- There were some similarities and...
- So, you thought to yourself-- - "Could it be?"
It was unthinkable.
**
- Welcome back to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow.
Detectives investigating Brooke Wilberger's abduction
were running short on leads.
Then, they received a phone call with a fresh one.
Nearly 1,400 miles away,
Joel Courtney was facing charges
in the kidnapping and assault
of another young coed
who looked a lot like Brooke.
Investigators learned that Courtney
also had roots in Oregon.
And soon, his family
would share some dark secrets with them.
Back now, to "Bringing Brooke Home."
**
Joel Patrick Courtney was sitting in jail
in Albuquerque.
It was December 2004.
The married father of three was facing decades in prison
if convicted of kidnapping,
sexual assault, and battery charges.
As investigators began checking out the possible link
to Brooke Wilberger's case, a call went out to her family.
They had waited more than six months for news.
Any news about their daughter's disappearance.
Now, there was a man in custody
who they thought might be able to reunite them
with their daughter, just as Elizabeth Smart
had been returned to her family.
What are you thinking in that-- When you hear this?
- Actually, I had prayed so faithfully all fall
that whoever had done this would make a mistake.
And when I heard the news I thought,
"They made a mistake. They tried it again.
And no one else knew what I'd prayed
because I hadn't told anyone else.
Because it was always "Find Brooke,"
you know, "Help us to find Brooke."
I guess that was a selfish prayer,
you know, to hope whoever had done this
to make a mistake.
And then, I felt like, they made a mistake.
- But if this mistake could help find Brooke,
investigators first had to find out all they could
about this latest possible suspect.
And specifically, they wanted to know more
about that suspect's ties to Oregon.
Detectives quickly determined that Joel Courtney
grew up in Beaverton, a Portland suburb
about 75 miles from where Brooke disappeared.
But that had been 20 years before.
Police also knew he had lived in several different states.
The question was,
had Courtney been anywhere near Corvallis
on the day of the kidnapping?
There was one person who could answer that question
and many more.
Her name? Dina McBride.
She is Joel Courtney's older sister.
She lives in Portland.
- My first thought is,
cute dimpled little blonde-haired mischievous kid,
you know, with a sweet little spirit
and a hilarious laugh.
- Days before Corvallis police got that phone call
from Albuquerque and heard the name Joel Courtney
for the first time,
Dina had received a call herself.
It was from Joel's wife
with word of his arrest in New Mexico.
Dina and her mother took in the news together.
How did your mom react?
- She was horrified.
Um, yeah, there were li-- very few details,
but she felt like the truth needs to come out.
- But the truth was hard to figure out
in those first moments.
The scowling man in the mugshot
was hardly the Joel his sister knew
when he was little.
I remember him coming home from the hospital.
I remember him toddling.
I remember all the classic childhood milestones.
And we were a very, very happy family.
- At some point, did you see a shift?
- When he was probably elevenish,
he started hanging out with some older kids.
I remember my mom kind of backtracking and saying,
"You know, I think that's really when it started."
- "It" was Joel's drug use.
And before long, when Joel became a teenager,
more reason to worry.
- He was starting to dabble in-in-in some Satanism
a little bit and kind of explaining how much power
it gave him and a sense of, you know,
a rush of being in control or whatever.
And yeah, he-he was pretty good
at throwing a punch here or there.
- Scare you? - Yeah. Hurt me. Yeah.
- So, around the same time that he dabbles in Satanism,
he starts becoming physical? - Mmm-hmm.
- But as Joel got older and more violent,
his sister says he was handsome enough,
charming enough, and smart enough
to get away with a lot of bad behavior.
- At some point in time, it was the in thing
to have IQ testing in school.
I remember not being as smart as I had hoped
and hearing that he had a genius-level IQ.
- Genius level? - Mm-hmm.
- Did he study a lot? Did he read books?
- He loved to read books.
But no, he kind of got away with really good grades
with very little effort,
which seemed monumentally unfair to me.
- Joel Courtney's luck would eventually run out.
He had a string of arrests for shoplifting
and other offenses
and was in and out of juvenile detention
until he was 18.
That's when Joel admitted beating
and sexually assaulting a woman he had known in high school.
He blamed the crime on drugs and alcohol
and a judge sentenced Courtney to probation.
He never finished high school and worked various jobs
as a fisherman in Alaska and as a mechanic.
He got married at 23 to Rosie, who was from Mexico.
He and Rosie had three children
and eventually, Courtney seemed to settle down.
Savoring his role as a father
and building a life in that home
in an Albuquerque suburb.
What kind of father was he? - Uh, he changed diapers.
He got up in the middle of the night.
He made lunches.
The kind of dad who was involved
and wanted to be there for his kids.
- But now, at age 38, this seemingly loving father
was facing the trial of his life.
Locked up.
Caught with a crack pipe and a knife.
Charged with kidnapping and sexual assault.
And given his checkered history,
something-- maybe intuition,
maybe the massive media coverage throughout Oregon
of a similar crime- a young, beautiful
female college student snatched off the street
just months before--
something compelled Dina and her family
to ask the question themselves.
The very questions Corvallis police
were just beginning to look at.
- Just the details that we heard about the case
in New Mexico- there were some similarities and--
- So, you thought to yourself-- - "Could it be? No."
I mean, you-you couldn't even say the whole sentence
because it was unthinkable, right?
New clues provide an answer
and break Brooke's case wide open.
- This was dynamite to us.
**
- Time seemed to tick by so slowly
during those long months
when investigators were searching for clues
in the disappearance of Brooke Wilberger.
Minutes... Hours... Days.
But in early December, 2004,
more than six months after she went missing,
it was as if the clock suddenly sped up.
Police in Corvallis, Oregon, were struck by the parallels
between Brooke's abduction
and the crimes Joel Patrick Courtney
was accused of in Albuquerque.
- From our perspective, it's a signature crime.
Right next to the University of New Mexico campus.
Young woman.
You know, attractive.
Uh, broad daylight.
Abduction in a vehicle. Drives away.
So, yeah, we-we were real excited
that we were on the right track at that point.
- By the time police learned Joel Courtney's name,
Joel's sister Dina and her family
had been thinking about the same connection for days.
- We couldn't even say the words out loud.
We actually were up to the late hours of the morning
going back over the calendar thinking,
"Could he have done that?"
- Dina waited, saying nothing.
Until a week later, Corvallis police,
looking for information about her brother, called her.
In that moment, do you know in your heart
that he did something?
- In that moment, I did not know that.
Um, I thought, too many coincidences
to automatically discount it.
Right?
You can't just assume because he's your brother,
somebody that you love, that he couldn't have, right?
- What Dina told police was revealing.
During their first interviews,
she shared some dark family secrets.
When she was a teenager,
her brother Joel had attacked her.
- He would come in in the middle of the night
and put a hand around my neck
and attempt to sexually assault me.
- More than once? - More than once, yeah.
And I have had a great old-fashioned
wind-up alarm clock that met his head.
- Two more Courtney family members would soon come forward
claiming Joel had raped or tried to rape them.
- The further we got into the investigation,
as far as the number of people we interviewed,
the more sexual assaults came to light.
- And more pieces of the puzzle were coming together quickly.
Despite their troubled past,
Dina and Joel had maintained a relationship
over the years.
Joel's sister now showed police these photographs
of Joel and his family,
not at their home in New Mexico,
but visiting Dina's home in the Portland suburbs
in May 2004.
The very month Brooke Wilberger disappeared.
Joel, his wife Rosie and three kids
needed a place to stay.
Joel had gotten a job supervising a cleaning crew.
A job that meant he'd be traveling
all over the state of Oregon.
- We were under the impression they'd be there
for a couple of months.
A lot of the time, it would-- there would be,
you know, he would bow out fairly early on.
"I've gotta go do something for work."
And so, it was mostly Rosie and the kids
with the rest of us.
- So, he was traveling quite a bit?
- That was my understanding, yeah.
- And then, this bombshell.
May 24th, the day Brooke was abducted,
was one of those days when Joel Courtney was traveling.
He had a court date, turns out, over on the Oregon coast
on that drunken driving charge, but he never showed up.
According to court records, he called the courthouse
and said he was going to be late.
And that phone call was made
from the very town where Brooke disappeared.
Right here, in Corvallis.
Joel Courtney then disappeared for about 36 hours
before returning to Dina's home
in the Portland suburbs.
- He walked through the door and announced kind of loudly,
"You'll never believe where I've been."
And I said, "Okay, where were you?"
"I was kidnapped. There were these guys.
There were guns and knifes and we were in the woods
and it was rainy and cold and there was a girl there
and we were hiding and...
Yeah, there was blood and it was awful."
- At the time, Dina chalked it up
to Joel's chronic drug abuse.
He's delusional. - Mmm-hmm.
- You just think he's comin' off some bad drugs.
- Mm-hmm. - You don't call 9-1-1.
- No.
- Dina says she didn't feel like she was in danger
in that moment, so she did not call authorities.
But all those months later, sitting with investigators,
she suddenly realized how crucial
that strange conversation with Joel might've been.
- Just as I was saying it, it occurred to me.
Oh, my word.
Could he have been... Was he talking about that?
- And she remembered, the very next day
after Brooke disappeared,
her brother Joel would visit his doctor in Portland,
complaining of chest pains and anxiety.
But all this information, while damming,
was nothing more than circumstantial evidence
of Joel's potential involvement
in Brooke's disappearance.
Without Brooke or, if she were dead, her body,
detectives had no physical proof
linking Joel to the crime.
Until that is, police learned what Joel was driving
the day Brooke disappeared.
A green Dodge Caravan with Minnesota license plates
supplied by the cleaning company he worked for.
The minute you hear "green minivan
"with a Minnesota plate,"
somebody remembers that that was one of your tips.
- Oh, absolutely.
- Actually, two separate tips pulled from the database
of thousands called into police.
The first at 9:30 A.M.,
just an hour before and 100 yards north
of where Brooke was kidnapped,
a blonde OSU student said
a white male adult in a green minivan
approached her
and opened the back of his van to look for a map.
When she saw a blanket on the floor, she rushed off,
telling the man she was late for class.
Then, a university athletic official
called to report a man in a Dodge Caravan,
possibly green, with Minnesota plates
asking a female student for directions
in the stadium parking lot in close proximity
to where Wilberger was abducted.
The witness was later asked to identify the man
in this photo lineup and picked out Joel Courtney.
- Well, I mean, this was dynamite to us.
This told us this is our guy at the moment.
You know, we needed to focus on him
and find the van.
That's our one piece of physical evidence
that we've gotta get now.
- And that's exactly what the FBI did.
Agent Joe Boyer found the van in Washington state
and had it taken apart piece-by-piece
and shipped to an FBI lab across the country.
- We knew that if we were going to prove
that Joel Courtney was responsible for this,
the best chance we had was to find evidence
of Brooke being in the van.
- The Wilberger family was informed.
They wanted to know the truth,
but were almost afraid to discover more
about Joel Courtney and his crimes.
- I googled him and passed it on to you.
- You Googled him?
- Sure. Yeah.
- What was it like to see his face?
- Uh, you know, I just looked at him
and-and at that point, it was just a numb feeling,
you know. Even then, I didn't feel hatred.
You know, it was just-- I was all about...
getting Brooke back.
I wanna know what you did and where she is.
- But neither the Wilbergers, nor investigators,
nor Courtney's sister could ever have guessed
how they would get the answer
to the question where was Brooke?
As her loved ones continue the search for Brooke,
a jaw-dropping piece of evidence leaves little doubt
about who killed her.
- That's the smoking gun.
That's the nail in the coffin.
**
- In the months after Joel Courtney had emerged
as a suspect
in Brooke Wilberger's disappearance,
Brooke's mom had desperately tried to hold on to the hope
that her daughter was still alive.
But Cammy Wilberger's heart was finally giving in
to what her head was telling her.
- I just had this sick feeling,
even though I would never give up hope.
You know, my-my motherly hope was always there.
I knew deep down
that, you know, she was probably gone.
- And it would be another mom in another state
who would move the story forward.
Joel Courtney had already been interviewed by the FBI,
but refused to answer any questions.
And when shown her photo, he denied ever seeing Brooke.
But when confronted by his own mother,
Courtney came perilously close to a confession.
- She actually asked him point-blank,
"Joel, did you do this?" And, um, he said,
"It's not really what it seems like
and-and I'll never be held accountable for this."
- He said that to your mother? - Mmm-hmm.
- "They'll never hold me accountable for this."
- Mmm-hmm. - Why would he say that?
- Because I don't think that he feels the need
to be held accountable for the things that he does.
- Power? - Yeah, power.
And doesn't have to play by the same rules
that other people have to.
- The rules.
To investigators, it did seem like
Joel Courtney thought he was playing a game.
The inmate whose sister said
he had above-average intelligence
knew that without physical evidence
or Brooke's body, it would be nearly impossible
for investigators to charge him with murder.
By the spring of 2005,
FBI scientists were working feverishly,
examining every inch of that green minivan
Joel once drove, hunting for DNA evidence.
On the day marking the first anniversary
of Brooke's abduction,
her family and police
dutifully held a news conference.
Privately, the family had held the secret for months
that police had a strong suspect
and that Brooke was likely no longer alive.
Yet in public, they held fast.
- You still have that hope, though.
You don't give that up.
- One year after Brooke Wilberger disappeared,
her tattered pictures still posted
on street signs in Corvallis.
- But as local stations played the story
of a grim anniversary,
some real news was about to break.
- We were heading back to Eugene
and we got a call.
And they said, "How far out of town are you?"
And we said, "Well, not too far."
They said, "Could you come back?"
- Unbelievably, that very day,
on the one-year anniversary of Brooke's disappearance,
FBI supervisory special agent Joe Boyer had received
a long-awaited call from the lab.
- They told me that you're not gonna believe what we found.
And I said, "Well, what is that?"
They said, "We found Joel Courtney's DNA
"in the van."
And I said, "Well, that's good,
but that doesn't quite get us there."
And they said, "We also found Brooke Wilberger's DNA
"in the carpet in the van."
- It was the physical evidence they'd been waiting for.
Beneath the back seat in the minivan's carpet,
analysts had found material consistent with
a mixture of male and female DNA
belonging to Joel Courtney and Brooke Wilberger.
What happens here at Corvallis police headquarters,
when you find that out?
- It was sort of an amazing day.
That's the smoking gun.
That's the nail in the coffin.
- The Wilbergers return to Corvallis
to get the news themselves.
- And they said, "We got a DNA confirmation
"that Brooke's DNA and his DNA were in the van together."
- Did you break down?
- No, you know, you just--
you get up for certain things.
You're-- You just steel yourself for that
and it was like, "Yes," you know?
And then, um-- and then, I--
Of course, I sobbed the whole way home.
- The DNA evidence had revealed details
no mother should ever have to hear
and no witness had yet disclosed.
- It was the nature of the DNA evidence
which told an even bigger story.
- Benton County, Oregon District Attorney John Haroldson.
- The DNA evidence was in the form of bodily fluids
which were co-mingled.
That told us a story in terms of
what had occurred in that van.
- The co-mingled DNA indicated Brooke had been raped.
So, Joel Courtney was charged with that crime
in addition to kidnapping and murder.
So, you've got him in Corvallis.
You've got him near the point of abduction.
You've got evidence that she was in his van.
That he assaulted her in that van.
The only thing you don't have is Brooke Wilberger.
- Yes.
- You charge him with the death penalty.
- Correct. I believe it was justified
by the evidence we had before us.
- News of the indictment had not leaked out yet.
As Joel Courtney sat in a New Mexico courtroom
for a hearing on that case,
he was served with the Oregon charges.
- They came to court, they gave it to me,
I gave it to the defense attorney
who gave it to Courtney in the jury box
with other, um, inmates.
Um, and he starts laughing
when he's reading death penalty, death penalty.
And he's laughing. - He's laughing?
- He's laughing and he's showing it off
to all of the other inmates,
like this is a badge of honor somehow.
- What does that tell you?
- Oh, that we read him exactly right.
That this is something he's proud of.
I think he felt, at that time,
particularly because he knew in that case
they did not have the body,
that this was just something he could enjoy
because it wasn't really going to affect him
in the long term.
- And from that day forward,
Joel Courtney did everything he could
to delay and disrupt his own case.
He knew that the charges here in New Mexico
of kidnapping and rape would have to be dealt with
before he could ever be sent back to Oregon.
So, he did all he could to turn the proceedings here
into a farce.
That meant he sometimes didn't communicate
with his own legal team.
He even fired one of his own attorneys.
And at other times, he refused to show up
for court appearances.
And then finally, Joel Courtney claimed
he was mentally incompetent to stand trial.
- Once that was brought up, when he came into court,
he would come in all bowed down.
He would shuffle.
He would only look at the floor.
His whole demeanor had changed
because now he wanted to be incompetent
because we couldn't try him.
- Courtney had to be tested by mental health experts
at the state hospital in Las Vegas, New Mexico.
The FBI now worried Courtney might try to flee.
- I was concerned that the entire time,
he would be looking for an opportunity to escape.
He's fluent in Spanish.
I felt that, uh, he was gonna head south
across the border where he'd lived before
and disappear into Mexico
and make it very difficult for us to find him.
- And as the fight over whether or not Courtney
was competent to stand trial dragged on through 2007,
Brooke's mom was struggling.
For her, the mission to find her daughter
was no longer a rescue mission,
but one of recovery.
And her hopes were being threatened by
what many saw as the courtroom shenanigans
of Joel Courtney.
- I can remember one time I was near the edge.
I knew that if they found him mentally incapable that
that was a black hole for us.
Because we would never get Brooke.
He would never come to Oregon.
He would be there forever, you know, playing this game.
- It was nearly a year before a New Mexico judge
finally ruled in January 2007,
nearly three years after Brooke disappeared,
that Joel Courtney was competent to stand trial.
- Well, we were on our way to San Francisco
and we got a phone call.
And he said, "They found him mentally stable."
And we got out of the car, the girls and I,
and did a dance around the car
and it was just like--
I just felt like the world was lifted.
And, um, I didn't realize how close I was,
maybe-- you know.
- Close to what?
- To just brea-- a breaking point,
um, until I felt that being lifted.
And then, it was like, okay, we can do this.
- Later that year, in September 2007,
Joel Courtney would finally plead guilty
to kidnapping and sexually assaulting
that University of New Mexico student
he snatched off the street.
The young woman who somehow escaped.
At his sentencing, another circus.
- It didn't take long for Joel Patrick Courtney
to tell District Judge Kenneth Martinez
exactly what he thinks of him.
- I have no respect for this court.
This is--
You are the rudest person I've ever met.
- The judge sentenced Joel Courtney
to 18 years in prison,
but not before Courtney took a parting shot.
- I would spit in your face if I was close enough.
- Time had finally run out for Joel Courtney.
He would soon be back on his way to Oregon,
where investigators were ready for his head games.
Their goal?
The same as it had been for years.
Find Brooke.
- There was a degree of vigor.
You are not gonna win, Joel Courtney.
We will.
- Coming up...
Brooke's family issues a plea to Joel Courtney
to help them finally find Brooke.
- We just wanted her back.
We just wanted her still.
We just wanted to bring her home.
- Welcome back. Despite years of delays,
Joel Courtney was finally going to answer
for the rape and murder of Brooke Wilberger.
A conviction would give Brooke's family
the justice they'd been denied for so long.
But could it unlock the secret the Wilbergers
were desperate to know?
Once again, here's "Bringing Brooke Home."
- Joel Courtney was finally in an Oregon courtroom,
pleading "not guilty" to murder charges.
It was the spring of 2008, a full four years
after Brooke Wilberger had disappeared.
The man charged with stealing a beautiful 19-year-old
from her loved ones
had also stolen years from their lives.
He'd manipulated the legal system.
Forced delays in New Mexico to avoid returning to Oregon
to face charges.
If he were convicted now, it could mean the death penalty.
Did you think that he deserved to die?
- It didn't matter.
It-It was-- We know the end result.
How did it happen and-and where is she?
And so, it wasn't a feeling of revenge
or a feeling of re-retribution.
It was just, okay, what now?
How do we-we now find her and recover her?
- The family simply needed to know.
Remember, thousands of searchers had covered
dozens of square miles in every direction,
from Oregon's coastal range of mountains
to its rocky coast, without any success.
Joel Courtney had not said a word
to police or prosecutors
since asking for a lawyer years before.
The man who had studied law books in jail
had to know that, despite DNA evidence
linking him to Brooke's rape and murder,
without a body, the prosecution's case
would be much harder to prove.
So, if Courtney knew where to find Brooke,
he was keeping the secret to himself.
DA John Haroldson.
You can't appeal to this man to just
do the right thing, can you?
- Uh, I never saw that as an incentive for him.
Uh, I felt that the incentives
were probably going to be more based
from the perspective of a narcissist.
- Selfish. - Then-- Yes.
What can you do for me versus what can I do for society.
- And so, the prosecutor thought,
what could be more precious to a narcissist
than his own life?
After consulting with the Wilbergers,
the DA offered Courtney a deal--
Admit to Brooke's murder,
reveal the location of her body,
and avoid the death penalty in exchange for
a sentence of life in prison without parole.
- Actually, that was--
you know, that's what we hoped for.
Because the death penalty would draw it out years.
- But you wanted something in return.
- We wanted Brooke.
We wanted to-- her remains.
- Why was that so important to the family?
- We just wanted her back.
We just wanted her still.
I mean, our goal was still really the same.
That we just wanted to bring her home,
clearly not the way that we had hoped.
But I think that it was important to us
to have her back-- Just to get her back.
- So, the prosecutor went to Courtney with the deal.
And true to form, the inmate made everyone wait.
Again. For months.
Until his defense lawyers delivered the word.
- Joel Courtney was not interested.
He did not return a counter offer.
He outright rejected our offer.
- It feels like holding her family hostage
in some ways, you know?
- Courtney's sister Dina watched all this unfold,
knowing a trial would mean she'd have to testify
about the times Joel tried to rape her as a teenager.
About his unexpected visit to her Oregon home
just before Brooke's abduction.
And about his incriminating,
presumably drug-induced statements.
Dina knew her testimony could help put
her own brother on death row.
- My mom and I, actually, talked about this
before she got sick.
We talked about, you know, we've always said
we believe in the death penalty and here it is.
- Your brother. - My brother, her son.
And so, if you believe in it for
some person that you don't know,
does that still hold true if it's your loved one?
And we did a lot of thinking and praying about it
and we came to the conclusion that yeah, we still did.
- Dina says she was ready to testify.
But what she didn't know was that the pressure
was building on her brother to find another way out.
In New Mexico, the courts rejected his appeals
and life in Oregon's jails wasn't pleasant
for a notorious inmate whose alleged crimes against women
were now well-known.
More than once, Courtney was beaten by fellow inmates,
as you can see in this jailhouse video
in which Courtney is being tended to by medical staff
after one particularly brutal beating.
Then, there were new charges of assault
after Courtney threw a fax machine
at a prison doctor who wouldn't give him what he wanted.
- That was the very beginning of the end.
- Why do you say that?
- We knew then he was frustrated.
He was feeling it.
It was getting close.
Because he threw the fax machine
because he couldn't get some anti-anxiety medication.
So, we knew that he was feeling very anxious.
- But still, no sign Joel Courtney was willing
to reveal the location of Brooke's body.
The prosecutor was fed up.
He was ready for a trial.
Still, the judge wasn't quite ready to move on.
He asked both sides to try one last time
to settle the case before trial.
During weeks of tense talks with Joel Courtney's attorneys,
the prosecutor finally discovered the one incentive
that might appeal to Courtney
and give the Wilbergers their daughter back.
Courtney wanted out of Oregon.
He might admit to murder and reveal the location
of Brooke's remains
if he could serve his prison time
near his own family in New Mexico.
The Wilberger family quickly agreed.
Anything, they thought, to get Brooke back.
- We needed to have the approval
of the Oregon governor.
And we needed to have the approval
of the New Mexico governor.
Those were the two final pieces.
- You would think they would give their approval.
- We were becoming extremely concerned
that this process was taking so long
that Joel Courtney was gonna change his mind and walk away
and we desperately needed that approval
and we needed it now.
- But while Oregon's governor signed off on the deal
almost immediately, New Mexico's did not.
Brooke's family couldn't believe it.
- I was frustrated to think that something like that
could stop this whole process that had gone so far.
- So, Brooke's mom decided to make a personal plea
to the governor of New Mexico
to try to get her daughter back.
- This one was unusual.
I wanted full details.
And I wanted to be sure that I did the right thing.
- Coming up...
- I said that we had gone through a lot already.
- You were appealing to their hearts.
- I was.
- The emotional plea from Brooke's mother
for the deal that would finally solve the mystery--
Where was Brooke?
- So many years had passed
and now that the deal was nearly done
that might allow Brooke Wilberger's family
to bring her body home,
could it all fall apart at the last minute?
Brooke's suspected killer, Joel Courtney,
had agreed to tell investigators
where Brooke's body was
if he could spend the rest of his life
not in an Oregon prison, but in New Mexico.
Oregon's governor was set to sign the agreement,
so it was up to then-New Mexico Governor
Bill Richardson, who hesitated.
- You're talking about a convicted rapist
and a man who's accused of-of a heinous murder.
I imagine you must've thought,
"Well, I don't know if I want this person in our state."
- Well, that's true.
Um, he, uh, was a very bad guy.
And I said to my staff, "Let's be sure of all the facts.
Let's be sure that, uh, we're doin' the right thing."
- Richardson wanted to hear from Brooke's family.
Brooke's mother, Cammy Wilberger called the state capitol
and spoke with a top aide.
Do you remember the exact words that you used in that call?
- I remember that I said that we had
gone through a lot already.
And that we were hoping that this could be the end of it.
And that we would just hope that they would,
you know, consider it.
- You were appealing to their hearts.
- I was.
- How critical was that phone call?
That personal phone call from the Wilberger family
to your office?
- Well, it was absolutely critical.
As long as there's life imprisonment.
As long as the family of Brooke Wilberger
felt that this would bring closure,
I was, uh, comfortable in signing this agreement.
- It was done.
The word police in Corvallis had been waiting for.
- I think we were all kind of on pins and needles
for several days there.
- That call finally comes.
- Yeah, I remember learnin' that the document was signed,
the plea was done.
Now, it's a matter of, we've gotta find a way
to get from him where she actually is.
- What had happened to Brooke?
Her family and investigators
who'd spent more than five years
trying to answer that question would,
in the coming days, get their first details
from her killer, Joel Courtney.
Courtney's lawyers relayed the story to the DA,
who then told Brooke's family.
- I thought everything had been difficult
until that time.
But when he told us the details of the crime,
it was the first time I had heard some of them
and it was just all I could do
to just sit there and just look straight ahead.
And-And I just kept thinking, "You can get through this day.
You can-You can get through this day."
- The story told by Joel Courtney was this.
He said that morning in May,
he was high on cocaine when he drove up to Brooke
in the parking lot in his green van,
asked for help delivering a package,
and when she came closer, he pulled out a knife
and pulled her into the van.
Brooke began screaming as he tore her
out of her flip-flops.
From there, Courtney said he drove west
toward the town of Philomath.
He kept Brooke tied up in the van for hours,
even going through a McDonald's drive thru,
he said, doing more drugs before night fell.
He raped Brooke and when she fought back,
he killed her by bludgeoning her
in the head with a piece of wood
before concealing her body in the forest.
- But to know that she fought.
You know, which didn't surprise us.
Um, it was just a really difficult time.
And very emotional, I think, for all of us as a family.
- And in addition to those details,
Joel Courtney provided
the most critical piece of information.
What Brooke's family and investigators
had been waiting for.
- He drew a-a rough hand-sketched map
that he says depicts where he took her.
- Do you know this location?
- It-It's, um, not too far away.
- Detectives drove from the police department
past the apartment complex
where Brooke was abducted west five miles,
through the small town of Philomath.
Then, five miles further off the highway
onto a logging road shown on the map.
Had you been there?
- Not precisely.
- Close by searching? - Absolutely.
- Ten miles is so close by.
- Yeah, but it may as well be an eternity.
We went up in the woods and we're tryin',
again, to be quiet.
We don't want the world to know.
And we're looking and we're not finding.
And I remember bein' rather frustrated.
- Did you think he lied?
- Well, that certainly crossed our minds that he lied.
- The team called it a night.
But the next day, they went back with more details
supplied by Joel Courtney.
- Okay, it's about 9:40 A.M. on September 19th.
- And with the help of a cadaver dog,
through heavy timber,
just a few hundred yards off that highway--
- Chief Deputy Medical Examiner, uh, came back
and said, "I think we're got-- I think we found her."
- On a hillside, investigators found some clothing,
including a sweatshirt.
And before long, small flags sadly marked several spots
where human remains had been recovered.
One of Oregon's most timeless mysteries
had apparently been solved.
- I certainly can't sit here and tell you
that I wasn't choked up a few times.
Yeah, there were emotional times there.
- But it would take time to identify the remains,
so searchers told the district attorney
about one particular item found on that hillside.
They wanted him to ask Brooke's parents about it.
- He texted me, um, and said,
"Can you describe Brooke's watch?"
- That was the watch that you gave her for Christmas.
- Mm-hmm.
- That beautiful watch Brooke had wanted so badly.
One of the last gifts Cammy would ever buy
for her daughter now signaled the time had come.
- So, I described her watch and he said "We found her."
It was like having the first day and six years
and then the snowball just came down on top of you.
Everything landed on you.
- Brooke's parents then told the rest of the family.
The wait was over.
- When she just said the words "They found Brooke"
it was-- I didn't feel excitement at all.
And it wasn't what I thought I would feel.
I just-- I sat there and I cried and I cried.
That hope of her coming home alive
was-was just kinda torn from me.
- In that moment, I felt such a powerful wave
of emotion and heaviness in my heart.
As a human being, as a parent,
I was just personally really, really struck
at that point with what that really meant for the family.
That the dream
of an Eli-Elizabeth Smart miracle
would be dashed forever.
- The next day, Joel Courtney pleaded guilty
to one count of aggravated murder
and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Do you remember that day?
- I just remember thinking,
"How could you have done that to that precious child?"
I can't imagine holding out for that long
without needing to come forward and say
this is the truth and here is your precious baby.
- After sentencing, most of Brooke's family paid
a brief visit to the site where Brooke's remains were found.
- I could hardly breathe.
And it was wooded and-and shaded
and someone made the comment,
um, that, you know, it was a beautiful, peaceful place.
And I thought it would be,
if your daughter hadn't been murdered here.
- At the Corvallis Library, a number of police agencies
gather at the end of a five-year effort.
- And as the news broke that day,
Brooke's mother stepped to the podium
to say thank you.
Not only to thank those investigators
who'd worked so hard toward this day,
but also, in a moment of incredible grace,
to thank Brooke's killer.
- It might be hard for you to understand,
but at this time we just really feel gratitude.
Um, even to Mr. Courtney that he could see fit
to tell us where he left Brooke.
And for our family, what happens to him,
we are thankful that justice was served
and that he will not have the opportunity for parole.
But now he can go on with what's left of his life.
And we want to strengthen our family
and to go on with our life.
- Did it surprise you to hear Mrs. Wilberger
say thank you to Joel Courtney?
- It didn't surprise me.
They are a giving and caring family.
You can only hate for so long.
At some point, as people,
we have to be able to get beyond that.
- People always throw the word "closure" around.
- Mm-hmm.
When people use that term, they're-they're trying
to be helpful and comforting.
Um, but I think in the death of anyone,
there's no closure.
- It is the end of a horrible ordeal.
One that lasted much longer than it needed to.
For Brooke's killer, Joel Courtney,
a lifetime of solitude
awaits at the Penitentiary of New Mexico.
You have no sympathy for this man.
- No, I think he's an animal.
I hope he feels trapped, caged,
defeated, weak.
He's been beaten at his game.
And like it or not, accountable.
- And many wonder, would Joel Courtney had been caught
if a waitress and mom in New Mexico named Dara Finks
hadn't taken the time to save another woman
from an unknown fate.
What would've happened if Dara hadn't stopped?
- The victim would be dead.
I have no doubt that he would've grabbed her again
and we would never have found her.
- And for Brooke Wilberger's family,
they keep this wristwatch of Brooke's
along with their memories,
knowing that time is healing.
But only to a point.
- I don't think that I could be any years old
and-and have my entire life behind me
and I don't think that I will ever,
um, reflect on what happened to her
and be okay with it. You know?
Time's not gonna make that okay.
- She was the person you wanted to be or be like.
She emulated everything that was good.
That she was my sister.
Uh, and that was-- that's just--
was a really neat thing.
- That's all for this edition of "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow. Thank you for watching.