[Dominique] We were just excited to be in the sun
and be in anywhere around the water.
That's where we were most comfortable and most happy.
[Cory] Two tourists befriended Max.
These two men kind of got closer and closer
and right away, I'm thinking, "Oh, no."
[Yvonne] It was more than just a jet ski accident.
Those two men know what happened to my son.
[Victoria] I hear her car pull up.
She had, like, an old Volkswagen Rabbit hatchback.
[Jordan] All of her friends are sitting there.
10 minutes later, she's still not up in the apartment.
She was just gone.
[Jordan] To just be grabbed and disappear without a trace...
I mean, it's the stuff of nightmares.
[reporter] The inviting ocean and sandy beaches of Aruba
has proven dangerous for an American more than once recently.
And it was definitely not what we closed our eyes and dreamt it to be.
[Glenn] I received this phone call from Yvonne
and she said, "I can't find Max."
That's when I knew. He's not coming home with us.
[reporter] A local family devastated by...
It ended up being just a bigger part of the nightmare.
It just didn't stop. It just kept going.
Having worked cases involving kids that have gone missing or abducted,
I thought, to myself, "I know where this is going."
[reporter] The world knows about Natalee Holloway,
the Alabama teenager who disappeared in southern Aruba,
but another young teen from Brighton, Michigan,
also vanished without a trace from the island.
His name was Max DeVries.
[Yvonne] Max was really...
He was really smart. He was real adventurous.
Everybody liked him. He had a lot of friends.
Max was my older brother. He's two years older than me.
He was definitely...
I would say, one of the popular kids.
Everybody liked him and...
kind of gravitated towards him.
Oh, I tell you, that kid.
He was...
He was not shy. He was an extrovert.
He was a good-looking guy.
He was articulate. He was funny.
[Yvonne] To the point of it was hard to discipline him
because he had a really good sense of humor.
[narrator] Max DeVries grows up in Brighton, Michigan,
a safe and affluent suburb of Detroit.
[Yvonne] He loved the water.
He was great with it.
We had a sailboat when I was younger,
so we spent a lot of time on the sailboat.
Anything in the water was...
something that we all enjoyed together.
[Yvonne] It was more than I could have ever dreamt.
My marriage and my family life, we were very blessed.
My dad, he was...
probably one of the most genuine loving people that I've ever met.
And he made sure to make all kinds of memories with us because...
I think he knew he didn't have that long to be with us either.
[narrator] November, 2002.
The DeVries family's idyllic life takes a turn,
when Max's father, George, dies suddenly from a heart attack.
[Dominique] And it was definitely weird growing up after that
because nobody can really relate to what you just went through.
So...
It was really hard and lonely for a long time.
It still is.
[narrator] May, 2004.
Yvonne takes 14-year-old Max and 12-year-old Dominique to Aruba.
It's a much-needed opportunity for the family to heal from George's tragic death.
I think a lot of it was just to spend time as a family,
like, to do something together since my dad had passed away.
We were just excited to be in the sun
and be in anywhere around the water.
That's where we were most comfortable
and most happy.
[Yvonne] We brought our, I call her, Auntie Pat,
there to help me keep an eye on the kids.
So she came as a good support...
and another set of eyes.
And, you know, we were just doing the beachy thing.
Basically, just doing...
nothing but staying at the resort.
[narrator] A few days into their trip, Max is playing pool
when he's befriended by a fellow American guest in his mid-thirties.
There was an age difference, but, you know, they were just playing pool.
We're on vacation.
[narrator] The man introduces Yvonne to his adoptive father.
The father, I would say, was in his fifties
and I thought that he would have something in common to speak with Auntie Pat.
They said that they were on vacation there,
celebrating their adoption date.
And the next day...
we went parasailing.
We all did that together.
We came back...
and then they had asked to take Max on the jet ski.
So the son went jet skiing with Max the first day.
They came back and then we ended up going to dinner.
[narrator] The following day, the DeVries family is relaxing by the hotel pool.
[Yvonne] The father came with a book and a towel and then
he asked Max, "Would you like to go jet skiing again?"
And I said no, he'd already went jet skiing.
And he said, "Well, no. I'd like to, you know,
pay for Max to go on the jet ski."
Max was, "I want to go!"
You know, he's very excited to go again.
So I did tell him he could go.
[narrator] The jet ski ride is only supposed to last about 45 minutes.
Over an hour passes and Max and the older man haven't returned.
[Yvonne] So I went down to the beach
and they were already looking through their binoculars for them in the water and...
I think at that point, I could just tell.
[dog barking]
[Dominique] Even before I knew anything happened,
I was just like, "Something's not right."
And...
everything changed after that.
[narrator] With no sign of either of them,
a search and rescue team is dispatched.
The father came back on the recovery boat and Max did not.
It was, just, definitely an instant feeling...
when I saw...
the father off the boat that I was never gonna see my son again.
[narrator] A desperate Yvonne asks him point-blank, "What happened?"
He said that they went to the sandbar.
The sandbar, I think, was about six miles away.
They got off the jet skis, turned them off.
When they went to leave, they did not start again.
So Max tied up the jet skis...
to keep them together.
"We were holding on. I heard a thump
and then I saw Max floating away."
And that was the last he saw of Max.
[narrator] As a stunned Yvonne tries to process the nightmare
that has descended on her family...
the Aruban police bring in the older man for questioning.
[Yvonne] He had scratches all over his neck, his arms.
And right away...
being a girl, I've been in many fights.
Those were scratch marks and I knew that they were.
[narrator] A horrified realization dawns on Yvonne.
She believes the older man was in a fight.
But was it with Max?
The mommy instinct was just kicking in.
I had asked them if they could check underneath his nails...
if they could do a lie detector test.
And they said, "No. This is not America.
We do not do things like that."
I didn't even know what to think of or how to act.
Like, how do you even get help?
Who do you even begin to ask?
You're kind of, like, just stunned and lost.
[narrator] The Aruban authorities launch a vast air and sea search
for 14-year-old Max.
[Yvonne] They said it was the biggest water search they'd done at that point
in Aruba.
I was definitely hopeful that they were going to find him right away,
but after a couple of hours, I was like...
I don't know.
And then, definitely, that next day, it was like...
"It's not gonna happen."
[Yvonne] And it was definitely not what we closed our eyes and dreamt it to be,
a healing celebration.
It ended up being just a bigger part of the nightmare.
It didn't stop. It just kept going.
And then the Aruban police deemed that he was lost at sea...
that...
he was a terrible accident and they gave up the search.
It was just surreal. You...
Just kind of going through the motions to get back home and...
it was a silent plane ride.
A silent plane ride. Nobody could say anything.
Being above, like, that entire body of water and thinking...
"He could be out there somewhere and we're leaving."
But...
there wasn't anything else we could do.
[narrator] Back home from Aruba without Max,
a grief-stricken Yvonne DeVries and her daughter, Dominique,
go through the motions of their new reality.
I remember when I got back to school...
it was like...
everybody knew this big thing that had just happened, but...
I didn't want to talk about it to anybody
and nobody wanted to ask me how I was doing.
They just... It was a lot stares.
I mean, what do you do? Start looking for help?
Lila Lazarus joins us with an incredible story of heartache and hope.
I was an anchor and health reporter in Detroit
for several decades.
And I was doing a story, a health story, at a mall
and I noticed a woman and her beautiful daughter sort of watching me.
So, at some point, she came up...
and introduced herself to me and said, "I think I have a story for you."
This is a story about appreciating what you have
because you never know how instantly it can all disappear.
I felt so bad for her.
I mean, when does lightning strike twice?
To lose your husband and then to lose your 14-year-old son.
[Lila reporting] Two years ago,
two days before their 13th anniversary, the father, George...
Oh, yeah. We can't wait to show your girlfriend someday.
-[Yvonne laughing] -He's got seeds in his hair.
[Lila reporting] ...dies of a heart attack.
Now Yvonne was trying to hold that perfect family together on her own.
Yvonne's life was her family. That was clear to me.
When I saw her home, when I saw her family photo albums, it was clear.
Family was everything to her, her husband and her two kids.
And to lose that structure, for her, was like losing her own life.
Instantly I knew, "I want to help this woman. What can I do?"
A lot of people wanted to help,
but they just didn't even know how to help.
I needed help from somebody to see more than just
a mother's intuition... and that was really a struggle,
trying to find someone to help guide me.
[narrator] Yvonne is told by lawyers that any investigation
would be complicated by maritime law
and the fact that the incident took place outside the USA.
So, you're scrambling. You're trying to find people to listen.
Yvonne was...
heartbroken, confused...
struggling and then we hear about Natalee Holloway.
[reporter] Mysterious disappearance of an American teenager...
[reporter 2] The promising young student who vanished into thin air
while on a high-school graduation trip.
[reporter 3] Police scour Aruba's beaches for signs of Natalee Holloway.
And I don't mean we just hear about Natalee Holloway.
It's wall-to-wall coverage, 24-7.
I mean, there were weeks where that's all you would here.
It was the open of every newscast.
This weekend marks...
[narrator] As images of Natalee are projected on TV screens
and newspapers around the world,
Max's disappearance a year earlier remains mostly unreported.
And I can't even imagine for Yvonne what that is like,
for her to listen over and over again on the news,
that the universe seems to care about Natalee Holloway.
And they should!
But doesn't anyone care about what happened to Max?
Her hope was just that someone, someone would take an interest
and pick up the ball.
[narrator] In August, 2005, a neighbor throws Yvonne a lifeline,
a local police detective who might be able to help.
I got a call from Yvonne and she asked if she could come meet with me
about her son that went missing in Aruba.
[narrator] Cory Williams is a veteran homicide detective.
When Yvonne calls him, Detective Williams had recently taken on
one of the most notorious homicide cold cases in Detroit history.
In 2005, I became the lead investigator
in the Oakland County child killing case.
This is where the youngster was last seen leaving at 8:30, Wednesday night.
[Cory] The crimes occurred back in 1976 and '77.
During a 13-month period, seven children were abducted off the streets
in the Detroit area...
held for several days and their dead bodies were eventually dumped
on the streets.
And it was the most horrific case
in Detroit history at that time,
involving the deaths of children.
And so, I invited Yvonne over to my house
and she brought some documents she had complied
from Aruba, including police reports,
and we sat and talked about what had happened to her son.
And, right away, having worked cases involving pedophiles
and kids that have gone missing or abducted,
the hair on my neck stood up and I thought,
to myself, "I know where this is going."
[narrator] Detective Williams reviews the statements
the older man made to Aruban police
about what happened to Max when they were on the jet skis.
And, right away, I started noticing glaring discrepancies
in the older gentleman's story to the police
and that's a huge red flag.
The truth is easy to tell over and over, but lies are not.
The first statement that the older man gives,
he said that, at some point, after drifting for a while,
Max let go of his wave-runner and started swimming to shore.
The second statement, three days later,
he says Max just let go of his wave-runner and just floated out to sea.
And he said he tried calling him and he wasn't responding,
but he could see that his eyes were open.
[narrator] Right there, while Yvonne is at his house,
Detective Williams makes a call to run a background check.
[Yvonne] Cory comes back to the kitchen table
and kind of looks at me for a second.
He goes, "Everything that you're feeling is right.
They're bad men."
It showed an arrest in California in 1981 for crimes against children.
After I find the crimes against children arrest,
I then requested a copy of the police report from the arrest...
and, lo and behold...
the victim in the case was his adopted son that he's now travelling with,
which, again, huge red flag.
Why would this boy still be hanging around this man?
[narrator] According to a police record provided by Detective Williams
and then independently verified,
the younger man, who was 14 years old at the time,
claimed that his adoptive father groped him.
Detective Williams has found no record of how that case was adjudicated,
but he has his own theories.
The first thing I thought was, "They're now working together to target young boys,"
and I believe that's exactly what happened with Max.
[narrator] As Detective Williams digs in to the statements
made by the adopted son to the Aruban police,
he discovers more troubling details.
Some of the inconsistencies in the younger man's statement
to the Aruban authorities included...
him telling the Aruban police that his father had never been arrested before.
Well, he was a victim of his father
when the sheriff's office put his father in handcuffs in 1981 for molesting him.
When he's talking with the Aruban police,
volunteers that he's a heterosexual male
and has never had sexual relations with a man or a boy.
He just volunteers that.
[narrator] When Max and the older guest first disappear at sea,
authorities go to the hotel in search of the adopted son.
They were knocking on the son's door with no response.
After they bring the father to shore,
all of a sudden, the son shows up on the shore.
And Yvonne asks him, "Where have you been?
They've been banging on your room all day."
And he says he was drunk, passed out and he didn't hear the door knock.
[Cory] So I believe that the older man...
took Max out, but that the younger one met him out there somewhere...
so they could do whatever...
and got rid of him.
[narrator] Over a year after her son Max's disappearance in Aruba,
Yvonne DeVries' worst fears are now being realized.
It just took Cory a matter of minutes for him to make that phone call
and found out that the father had charges against him
for child molestation.
Why didn't the Aruban government, you know, do what he just did
and just found that out?
I don't know why the Aruban police dropped the ball on that.
Maybe they just wanted these guys off their island.
Maybe they were thinking about tourism.
Maybe they just wanted to wash their hands of the case
and accepted their statements as they were.
Tourism is their number one industry.
So of course they want this to go away.
Of course they want to say, "He fell off his jet ski. He drowned."
[Cory] After I started finding all these red flags
and reading these inconsistencies and lies by these two men,
I felt this case needs to be investigated by someone in the United States.
[narrator] Detective Williams reaches out to a friend in the FBI.
[Cory] So, I contacted him, told him the story.
He said, "I agree with you 100%, Cory.
They're involved in his disappearance."
It was because of Mr. Williams that they ended up opening up an investigation.
The FBI has jurisdiction anywhere in the world
as long as the victim and the suspect are both Americans.
Police in Aruba say Max DeVries' disappearance was just an accident,
but I have learned the FBI is now stepping in to investigate this case
because there might be much more to this mystery in Aruba.
[Cory] So, the FBI went and interviewed the son
and he denied anything, tried to stick to his story
about how Max was with his father...
and Max drowned in Aruba.
So the FBI agents offered a polygraph the next day...
and, lo and behold, he doesn't show up for the polygraph.
That tells me that he knew he couldn't pass it.
I've seen it many times in my career.
[narrator] Before the FBI gets a chance to pursue their investigation,
they're pulled off the case.
They said they needed every available agent working terrorism
and the case went cold.
It seemed like for a moment, "Yes! There's a spark!"
And then it just seemed to go quiet again.
[narrator] Neither of the two men have been charged
in connection to Max's disappearance.
[Cory] I hope that what we're doing right now
will bring attention to the case
and I'd love to see the FBI get back involved on it.
Yvonne and Dominique want to see justice.
I would like...
an end to this story.
Those two men know what happened to my son.
It was more than just a jet ski accident.
How do you go to bed at night not knowing?
I just can't even imagine.
And it's not right.
[Glenn] I just can't imagine the strength and the willpower
of an individual not knowing.
To this day, she still doesn't have a death certificate.
[Yvonne] I would like everyone to know
that a bright light was taken that day.
There's just so many sad twists and turns about Max and...
so many good things that he could have contributed
that he'll never have the chance to.
[Dominique] So, when you let your mind roll into what could have happened,
what his last moments were...
none of them were good.
He was taken and all because he wanted to experience life
and, unfortunately, he doesn't have that opportunity anymore.
Today marks 30 years since the disappearance of Laurie Depies.
[reporter 2] On August 19th, 1992,
this photo of a beautiful care-free 20 year old
turned into a missing person poster.
[reporter 3] Friends inside of the apartment heard her car pull into the parking lot,
but she never came into the apartment.
I feel like the person who did this had to have known her.
There are some suspects and some of them are more infamous than others.
I mean, there are two serial killers.
[narrator] Born in 1971, Laurie Depies grows up
in the Fox Valley area of Wisconsin.
She was funny. She had this enormous amazing laugh that...
you know, you would turn and kind of just almost start laughing
because of her laugh.
She was kind and sweet. She was a great friend.
She was somebody who was there and listened when you needed that.
It's been hard to find something as authentic since her.
[narrator] In August, 1992, 20-year-old Laurie is living in Appleton, Wisconsin.
She works at a youth-focused gift store in Fox River Mall
with her close friend, Victoria.
She was happy at work.
We loved our job and I think she was just really trying
to get into an adult life for herself at that time.
[narrator] Things were going well in Laurie's love life too.
She recently started dating a young man named Mark Truebenbach.
They were at the three-month part of their relationship
and had just started really expressing their feelings for each other
on a deeper level.
[narrator] For Laurie, Wednesday, August 22nd, begins like any other day.
She arrives at the mall to start her shift around 12 noon.
She goes to work, she takes some breaks.
She hangs out on one break with her boyfriend, Mark.
[narrator] Laurie makes plans to hang out with Victoria
and some other friends that evening.
They agree to meet up at Mark's apartment first.
She and another coworker begin their store-closing duties at nine p.m.
They're having issues with the new cash register system,
so Victoria troubleshoots with Laurie over the phone from Mark's apartment.
A little bit before 10 p.m., she and her friend
that she closed the store with, they walk out of the mall.
They get into cars and they drive off in opposite directions.
[narrator] Laurie arrives at Mark's apartment building in Menasha
around 15 minutes later.
I hear her car pull up.
She had, like, an old Volkswagen Rabbit hatchback
and, just, in those days, they had a very distinctive muffler sound.
I got all excited and I literally leaped over the couch
and I opened up the balcony sliding doors,
like, a couple of inches.
And then I was like, "Ah, she'll be up in a couple of minutes,"
and I shut it.
[narrator] Several minutes pass and, strangely,
Laurie hasn't entered Mark's apartment.
Victoria and Mark investigate.
We both go out on the balcony.
We see her car and begin to start yelling,
you know, "Hey, Laurie?"
[narrator] But there's no sign of Laurie.
Victoria, Mark and his sister Lisa headed down the stairs
and found Laurie's car locked.
There was a cup on top of the car.
[Victoria] It was still, I think, half-full
and cold and slushy.
She was just gone.
There was no evidence of a struggle.
[narrator] Those inside Mark's apartment say
they never heard anything concerning after Laurie's car pulled up.
There was no screaming.
There was not even anybody on a conversation level.
[narrator] Victoria, Mark and his sister frantically search for over an hour.
They thought that perhaps she had gone down the street
to a local convenience store to grab some cigarettes.
So Mark took off that way, while the rest of the group searched the local area.
[narrator] At 11:45 p.m., they contact the Menasha police department
to report Laurie missing.
[Victoria] It took me quite a long time...
to get over the guilt of not opening that door
at that moment and walking out...
onto the balcony 'cause I could have seen something.
[Jordan] It's everybody's worst fear to just be grabbed
and disappear without a trace.
I mean, it's the stuff of nightmares.
This apartment complex parking lot behind me here
is the last place authorities believe Depies was before she disappeared.
[Matt] The apartment complex where Mark lived is
a handful of buildings located literally steps from a fairly-busy street.
It's miraculous that nobody saw anything or heard anything
because she was literally surrounded in every direction
by an apartment or a house that was not far away.
And you have to remember, it's in August.
So some of these windows have to be open, right?
[narrator] Police and volunteers start pounding the pavement immediately,
looking for any sign of Laurie.
I think the effort by law enforcement and the community was...
It was herculean...
and that involved large pedestrian surveys
to the area around Mark's apartment,
canvassing the neighborhood.
They talked to all the people who lived there.
They even brought in civilian air patrols to get aerial photographs
of the entire area surrounding Mark's apartment in Menasha,
including big chunks of the Fox River and Lake Winnebago.
You couldn't walk anywhere and not see one of her missing posters in the window.
[narrator] Despite their best efforts, they find no trace of Laurie.
The only potential piece of evidence is the Styrofoam cup
that was left on the top of her car.
They dusted it for prints and they did find
a print that did not belong to Laurie.
It appeared to be a thumb and based on its size, it was likely male.
They have used that cup to compare to individuals
who they believe may have been involved
and there has never been a single match.
[narrator] Several people submit to polygraphs
in the early days of the investigation,
including Laurie's boyfriend, Mark, and her friend Victoria.
They wanted to make sure I didn't, like, help her run away
or escape from I don't know what.
And, obviously, it came back that that was not the case.
[narrator] The polygraph results yield nothing useful.
So they are cleared of any suspicion.
A few months after Laurie disappears,
a 19-year-old man that Laurie knows through the mall
pops up on law enforcement's radar.
He was enrolled in a facility near the Fox Valley
that worked on trying to rehabilitate trouble youths
and he had graduated out of that
and gotten himself a job at the mall.
On the day that Laurie went missing,
the young man had actually asked her out on a date
and Laurie very politely had turned him down,
letting him know that she's sorry, but she already had a boyfriend.
[narrator] On the night of Laurie's disappearance,
this young man has plans to head to a coworker's place
after finishing his shift at the mall.
He should have been there, where this person lived, by 9:20 at the latest.
He arrived, I believe, closer to, like, 11:30.
[narrator] When he eventually arrives, his behavior makes a few young women
extremely uncomfortable.
They actually ended up leaving
maybe 30 minutes after he arrived.
They didn't want to be around him.
They described him as acting erratic and anxious.
He had grabbed a sheet of paper and began to scribble
cartoon-style drawings all over it.
[narrator] He leaves the drawings at the apartment
and they're subsequently handed over to police.
Investigators show the drawings to some of Laurie's friends,
including Victoria.
And I was just kind of stunned
because one of the images was of a female...
wearing a top and, like, biker shorts
that resembled what she went missing in.
[narrator] An outfit like the one in this police sketch,
but there's another detail of the young man's drawing that stands out.
A person, a male, standing, like, behind her like this
while like this, with, like, a knife in his hand
and then, I believe there was, like, blood dripping from that.
[narrator] The young man's behavior in the days and weeks
after Laurie is reported missing raises red flags.
After she disappears, according to people who were around at the time,
he does not volunteer with any of the searching,
unlike almost all the folks that knew her.
I don't recall seeing him at the mall again.
I don't recall ever seeing him after that.
He was not cooperative in any way, shape or form with law enforcement.
One challenging aspect of the investigation
was that in the time it took
for the story to reach investigators about this person,
he had gotten rid of his car, which, of course,
a car would be one of the main pieces of evidence
you would want to look into.
[narrator] Many feel that the lack of any evidence of a struggle
suggests that Laurie was likely abducted by someone she knew.
The means of being able to pull up, have her get in your car
and have her not make any noise
and there not have to be a struggle,
I really think is something that has to be considered.
Whether he took that rejection not so well
and followed her and asked if he could just talk to her,
she would have gotten into the car
or gotten close to him to talk to him
because she knew him on that level and she probably felt bad.
[narrator] Questions linger about what he could have done with Laurie's body
if he is indeed responsible for her disappearance.
[Jordan] I don't think you could possibly bury somebody in an hour.
As an anthropologist, I've dug more holes
than I really care to think about and it's hard.
He could have definitely disposed of her remains by dumping them somewhere
or he could have had her in the vehicle when he goes over to his friend's house
in an effort to try to establish an alibi.
There's been mentioned, you know, that we have this Fox River
in my community that has a very fast current
and it's really tough for divers to go down there.
So, this apartment where he was supposed to be at was right on that river.
I walk down...
[emotionally] by that river a lot...
and I talk to her.
And I don't go to the river to talk to her as if she's in there.
I go to the river because I'm like,
"It's traveling and hopefully my words reach her."
[narrator] Many years pass with little movement in the case,
until November, 2010, when there's a potential breakthrough.
[reporter] Police in the town of Menasha say
this man, convicted kidnapper Larry Dewayne Hall,
has confessed to abducting and killing Depies.
The 48-year-old is serving a life sentence
at a federal prison in North Carolina.
[reporter 2] According to police, Hall told them
he met Depies at the Fox River Mall where she worked,
followed her later when she drove to her boyfriend's home
in the town of Menasha, abducted and killed her.
Depending on who you ask, Larry Dewayne Hall is either a...
kind of, poser, who wants people to think
that he was involved in killing a whole bunch of people
or he's one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.
He was known for a love of Civil War
and Revolutionary War reenactments
and would travel around the country, participating with a regiment
out of Indiana and it seems that women would go missing
near or around these types of locations.
I had heard his name because of the previous abduction in the area
and so then there were questions like,
"Oh, he was in town that same time?"
[narrator] Larry Dewayne Hall has claimed responsibility for 39 abductions
and dozens of murders.
He's first linked to Laurie's disappearance in 1994,
when his van is searched in connection with the kidnapping
and murder of a 15-year-old Illinois girl named Jessica Roach.
He had, on a piece of paper, something written along the lines of,
"Fox River Mall. Laurie."
It's worth noting that the name Laurie was spelled "Lori,"
where Laurie Depies actually spells her name "Laurie."
[narrator] May, 2011, police search an area in south central Wisconsin,
based on information shared by Larry Dewayne Hall.
[reporter] He told Menasha police
where they would find four bodies, but officers found nothing.
Authorities have found no evidence linking Hall to the Depies case.
Police remain skeptical because in the past, Cathy,
he has confessed to some crimes
[narrator] Larry Dewayne Hall later recants his confession in Laurie's case.
And that's part of what makes a case against
Larry Dewayne Hall so difficult.
He's known for providing misleading information or incorrect information
and also that he doesn't stick by his story for very long.
Larry is an individual who is documented to be of low IQ.
The idea that he is this criminal mastermind is
just really something that is hard for me to wrap my mind around.
But that doesn't mean that he's not potentially responsible
for Laurie's disappearance.
[narrator] Larry Dewayne Hall isn't the only serial killer on investigator's radar.
Another one of the suspects, in terms of Laurie's disappearance,
is another serial killer, a guy named David Spanbauer.
Around the time that Laurie disappears,
he's actively breaking in to houses in the Appleton area.
[narrator] Two years after Laurie disappeared,
David Spanbauer is arrested after attempting to break into a home.
Days later, he confesses to murdering 12-year-old Cora Jones,
21-year-old Trudi Jeschke, and 10-year-old Ronelle Eichstadt,
but he denies having any involvement in Laurie's disappearance.
So, he was reporting to a parole officer
and on the night Laurie disappeared,
he had actually applied to travel to Minnesota,
which would have taken his route past the area where Laurie disappeared.
[narrator] When news of David Spanbauer's arrest is made public,
a friend of Laurie's who worked at the mall
tells law enforcement that she believes
Spanbauer stalked her years earlier.
The woman is now deceased, but her mother spoke to Dr. Jordan Karsten
and Matt Hiskes for their podcast "Cold Case: Frozen Tundra."
David Spanbauer would come in and ask her about massage oils
and was just generally creepy towards her and he was constantly kind of
visiting this woman at the mall.
And one night, she left the mall
and she saw David Spanbauer and he ran at her.
[Matt] She ran out to her car and saw him coming around the mall in his own vehicle.
He followed her and she frantically drove
and he kept right on her bumper.
She ultimately did make a sudden left turn and lose him,
but she certainly felt she had escaped something major happening that night.
[woman talking]
And it creeped her out enough that she just quit the job and just left the mall.
At the time, she didn't know the guy's name.
She didn't know anything about him.
Later, after David Spanbauer's arrest for three murders,
she saw a picture of him and recognized him as the man
that had been stalking her at the mall.
Laurie's friend then went back to law enforcement.
This, of course, was years after Laurie had gone missing, but...
this young woman was fairly confident
that during the time he had been following her around the mall,
he would have seen her taking her lunch breaks with Laurie.
[narrator] But Laurie's friend and coworker Victoria isn't convinced about this lead.
I don't recall an adult male hanging out in our store.
I don't recall anybody creepily, on a consistent basis,
hanging out in front of the store, on the benches.
And I think David Spanbauer, unfortunately,
was super focused on that one other girl
and took that aggression out on whoever else he abducted...
but I don't think he abducted Laurie.
Although there's always the possibility of somebody
who's never been looked at being involved in any unsolved crime,
the three main suspects in this case really come down to Larry Dewayne Hall,
David Frank Spanbauer or the young man
who Laurie knew at the mall.
Given that the young man she knew is the only one
who may have been able to approach her
and talk to her without her screaming or struggling,
it certainly does cast suspicion on the fact
that he may ultimately be the one involved in the crime.
My opinion, he is the most likely of all the suspects.
He goes on to have a prolific criminal record
and the bulk majority of that criminal record is domestic violence
and it also includes several personal protective orders
that were filed against him by intimate partners.
[narrator] The Wisconsin Department of Justice is
currently the lead agency in Laurie's case.
They declined to comment for this story.
No one has ever been charged in connection with Laurie's disappearance.
If you have any information related to this case,
I cannot encourage you more strongly to reach out to law enforcement.
You can reach out to our podcast
to get that information brought forward.
[Matt] If there is just a tiny little bit of evidence that blew this case open,
it would truly provide some closure for a community,
for family and friends and really an entire region of Wisconsin
that has, for decades, searched in vain for answers.
[emotionally] And I hate that she's not here.
I hate that we could have had and raised kids together...
that were as close as we were.
[tearfully] I hate that I have to keep doing interviews like this...
[sniffs] because there's still no answers.
I just want to just move on.