Mpy south georgia,
The pioneering thrift family is known to everyone.
- Back then about everybody that lived
On swamp road was kin.
- Oh, it was so wonderful.
- The values of the thrift family
Are family sticking together in good times and bad times.
[faith] so when a 24-year-old member
Of the clan disappears...
- Somebody that grew up in the swamp is not
Just gonna go out there and get lost and never come back.
[faith] investigators are faced with a daunting backdrop.
- The okefenokee swamp is 438,000 acres.
That is a huge area to try and cover.
[faith] and soon find their missing persons case
Is just as murky.
- There's a lotta rumors.
- A drug deal gone bad.
- So he tied him up and then fed him to a gator.
- But there was absolutely nothing physical
That I could put my hands on as evidence.
[faith] an 18-year saga unravels
This tight-knit family.
- Everything my mama suffered through,
I believe it drove her crazy.
[faith] and reveals...
- I asked him, "did you kill terry rouse?"
[faith] a killer relationship.
- He was ballsy enough to tell law enforcement,
"well, do you have a body?"
[dramatic music]
- A little bit of crazy,
A little bit of loud,
And a whole lot of love.
That saying applies to many families,
But it's especially fitting
For the thrifts of southern georgia.
Part of a trailblazing swamp family,
Sarah thrift, raises her three sons,
The rouse boys, and youngest daughter
With the love and support of her extended family.
But when one of those sons, terry,
Up and vanishes one spring day in 1991,
The entire thrift clan is soon bogged down
In a swampy decades-long family drama
That tests even the strongest of bonds.
[tense music]
[upbeat music]
- Waycross is known for the okefenokee swamp,
Full of wildlife, gators, bears, snakes.
- The thrifts in this part of georgia
Were known for pioneering the okefenokee swamp.
Our family was very early settlers.
- My grandpa and his brothers went through the depression.
They used to come in here and log the swamp
With mules and wagons.
- The values of the thrift family
Are neighbor helping neighbor,
Family sticking together in good times and bad times,
And just leaning on each other when they needed a hand.
[faith] home for the thrift family
Is on swamp road in the northwest corner
Of this 684-square-mile-long wetland.
- Back then, about everybody
That lived on swamp road was kin.
My mom was sarah thrift.
So we had a very, very close family coming up.
Big family.
I mean, it wasn't just the immediate family.
I mean, it was extended family too.
- Oh, it was so wonderful.
We would go to my grandparents' house,
Which was conveniently across the street
From where we lived.
We'd do fish fries,
And all the aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters,
Would come and gather and cook big meals.
- You're seeing a family that gets along.
- It was just, it was great.
It was really great.
[faith] in 1965, at just 16 years old,
Sarah thrift has the first
Of what will soon be four children.
[shannon] jerry, he's the oldest.
Terry.
- Got a camera on there, everybody.
- Is the middle.
And then I'm the youngest son.
And then we also have a little sister called angel.
[laughing]
- My mom was close with all her boys.
She was young,
So they were her sons,
But they were her little buddies too, you know?
[faith] the swamp is not only the family's lifeblood,
It's also the boys' childhood playground.
And as they grow up,
They learn about all of its wonder
And all of its dangers.
- We stayed in the swamp a lot
'cause we liked to hunt and fish.
We run wild and got home at dark, you know?
If we're out there in the canoes or boats,
You know, gators, they come up to the boat.
But all you have to do is just take your paddle or whatever
And just tap 'em on the head
And they go on about their business.
[water whooshing]
The closest cousins that we had was craig and larry jr.
'cause we lived right there side by side together,
You know, and growed up together.
[woman] there's uncle larry,
Terry, grandpa, and craig.
- Terry and craig were first cousins
And they were like brothers.
- After they got on up in the teenager years, you know,
They was kind of unseparable, you know?
They both were kinda scrappy,
Liked to have a good time and cut up and joke and drink.
[faith] and fight.
Lots of fighting.
[upbeat rock music]
- Terry was wild, funny.
He could be a good guy or a bad guy.
- He loved watching wrestling.
He loved to fight.
Just barroom brawl, you know?
- He was known for not wanting to back down.
I mean if somebody wanted to tussle, I mean,
Terry, he would oblige you with a fight.
[upbeat rock music]
- Craig, he is 6'9".
He is a huge, impressive man.
- If somebody was after one
Or one was into it with somebody,
The other one, craig or terry,
They always had each other's back.
[upbeat rock music]
[faith] after graduating high school,
The cousins stay at home to work for craig's dad, larry sr.,
Sarah thrift's brother, at his business thrift concrete.
- They was with each other all the time
'cause they worked together
In the concrete business pouring concrete,
And hung out together on the weekends too.
Two peas in a pod more or less, yeah.
- Craig and terry were inseparable.
It seemed you couldn't see one without the other.
But that all changed.
On Saturday morning, may 11th, 1991,
Just one day before mother's day,
The matriarch of the rouse family, sarah,
Receives a call she'll never forget
Because it's a call that will soon change her life forever.
[tense music]
- I was at home that morning.
My mom called me and said that she had got a call
From the state troopers saying that terry's car
Was at the swamp park entrance, sitting there,
And that if we didn't go get the car,
That they was going to have it towed in.
[tense music]
- When terry's two brothers arrive at the swamp,
The georgia state trooper is already gone.
All that remains
Is their middle brother's 1979 blue thunderbird
And a whole lot of questions.
- I walked to the car
And the car was just sitting there
With both windows rolled down.
I opened the door and got in and the car was switched on.
And we went to crank it up,
But it wouldn't crank up.
And then we realized it didn't have no gas in it
And we had to go back and get a can of gas,
Come back and pour in it.
And then we finally got it started.
[engine starts up]
And whenever I backed the car up,
I could tell where the grass from the motor
To where the tail pipe run down the car,
That all the grass was already dead.
So I knew then something wasn't right
'cause the car had sat there and idled in that position
'til it ran outta gas.
[tense music]
So me and my brother,
We rode the railroad tracks looking for any sign of terry
Or any tracks or anything like that.
And didn't see nothing.
[train rumbling]
It wouldn't been nothing unusual, you know,
For terry to spend the night with a girl.
Or he might be at a grandparent's house
Or he might be at my house
Or he might be at jerry's house.
But at that point in time,
He wasn't at none of these places.
[faith] jerry and shannon checked the other obvious place
Their brother may be.
[sarah] hi, craig!
Turn around.
- Normally he would go by and pick craig up
In the morning for work
'cause craig didn't have a driver's license
For years and years because of his duis that he had.
Craig and his wife, rhonda,
Said that terry never showed up that morning.
Even the babysitter that was there at the time said
That terry didn't show up at that time to pick him up.
Something wasn't right with the situation.
It wasn't like terry to ever miss a day of work.
[tense music]
We gathered back up at mama's house, you know,
And, yeah, she was pretty well freaked out.
She could get freaked out pretty easy.
Like I say, she was pretty well high strung.
- My mama knew that something bad had happened to terry
Because he wouldn't just get up and leave like that.
That was not his mo.
She was thinking the worst.
[dramatic music]
- We were looking for buzzards
Because buzzards always come to something that's dead.
- There were rumors that terry had owed
Around $100,000 for drugs.
- I mean, I've seen her.
She'll pull that gun on people.
People were scared to death of her
'cause she was
Crazy.
- Whoever he had crossed made him disappear.
[dramatic music]
- After a night out partying,
Terry rouse's blue thunderbird is found abandoned
A few miles from his home
At an entrance to the okefenokee swamp.
He hasn't shown up to work
And family and friends have not heard from him.
His mom and sister think back to the evening before
When terry stopped by sarah thrift's home
To grab a jacket.
- Me and my mama were asleep.
I remember mama saying that the doorbell was ringing.
So I got up with mama to go see who it was and it was terry.
And he was standing under the carport and he said,
"I'm going, I'm gonna ride out on the swamp.
I'm gonna go out there to a party."
And I remember mama telling terry,
"well, son, don't get in no trouble."
And terry's response back to her, says,
"well, mama, you know I'm gonna fight.
I love it."
[dramatic music]
So my mama believed that he'd got into a fight at that party
And that killed him.
- The party was at a house
That belonged to a friend of ours, shane carter.
[angel] she thought that maybe they
Didn't kill him intentionally.
Maybe they were all drunk, got in a fight,
And maybe he got hit too hard on the head.
And then they're all drunk and saying,
"hey, we got this dead body.
What do we do with it?"
[dramatic music]
[faith] if terry was injured at the party
And is still alive,
The rouses think he's likely struggling somewhere
Near where his car was found by the trooper,
At the entrance to swamp park,
Just a few miles down the road from their house.
- So larry, craig, me, my mom,
A few more of our cousins,
We had all gathered up and all went to the swamp park.
[dramatic music]]
Been out there looking and didn't see nothing.
And so after the first day went by,
We knew something was wrong then by terry not coming back
Or nothing being found of him.
You know, it was just like he vanished.
[faith] on Sunday morning,
36 hours after the family last saw terry,
Sarah thrift files a missing persons report.
She also tells law enforcement
That terry's two registered guns
And a knife with his initials on it are all missing.
- I wanted to try and do what I could
Because it does affect me.
Terry was like me.
His mother was a thrift.
Terry was my cousin.
So I was assigned to help investigate this case
Because I had the trust to be able to go
And talk to a lot of them.
And because of my relationship,
I was kinda tasked with being the liaison.
[faith] detectives search the area
Where the car was abandoned,
In addition to looking through the thunderbird,
But they find nothing.
No trace of terry in the woods.
No blood in the area where the vehicle was found.
No evidence of any kind of struggle.
And, frankly, that doesn't surprise them one bit,
At least at this point.
[dramatic music]
- You have to remember, at the time, terry was an adult.
Who's he missing to?
He's missing to his mom,
But he could have gone off with someone,
Just chose not to come to work that morning.
There was a litany of things that could have taken place
As to why he was missing or where he was at.
[faith] but with every passing hour without terry
And no word from him,
His family's concerns magnify.
And after 72 hours with no explanation
As to why he vanished,
Law enforcement also now feels something may be amiss.
At the end of day three,
They conduct a grid search of the swamp.
[gentle guitar music]
- One of the problems that we had was the area was so large.
The okefenokee swamp is 438,000 acres,
And that is a huge area to try and cover.
And a lot of it's inaccessible.
You can't drive in it.
The only way you can get in there is either by boat,
Walk in on foot,
Or fly over it.
[faith] the ware county sheriff's office
Leads two days of dusk-to-dawn search parties in the swamp.
- Exhaustive searches, canines, helicopters,
All those resources were brought to bear
And nothing was found,
Nothing surfaced.
- There's bears, there's panthers, and alligators
And you can get bit by a snake or something like that
And possibly die and not make it outta the woods.
But you never hear of anybody ever get killed by one.
You ain't saying you couldn't,
But somebody that grew up in the swamp
Is not just gonna go out there and never come back.
- So at some point you have to look at another answer
As to what happened to terry rouse.
[faith] five days after he was last seen,
With help from his family,
Investigators check terry's bank account records,
But don't see any atm withdrawals
Or any transactions at all.
So they begin interviewing everyone
At the party terry attended
The night before his disappearance.
- Terry was there.
Craig was there.
Rhonda was there.
- Craig and rhonda did not stay all night.
They left pretty early,
Probably somewhere between 10:00 pm and midnight
That night.
There had been a couple fights that night at the party,
But terry was not involved in those fights.
[tense music]
Several persons stated during their interviews
That at possibly around 4:00 in the morning,
Terry was still there at the house
In front of the residence, sitting in his vehicle.
- Someone actually spoke with terry
As he was leaving the party.
And that was the last confirmed time he was seen by someone.
[faith] the investigators interview many members
Of the large thrift family,
But nothing leads them towards a reason
For terry's disappearance.
As each day passes
And weeks build upon weeks
Without any movement in the investigation,
His large family and especially his strong-willed mother, sarah,
Are crushed by the indefinite uncertainty.
- I saw the grief that they were going through
And it was overwhelming for me,
Being a mother and knowing what that would do to me.
[melancholy music]
- Not knowing is a bad thing.
Me not knowing as a brother's bad.
I couldn't imagine not knowing and being in her shoes.
- My mama's primary focus was finding terry.
[tense music]
She was on a mission.
She was gonna find him alive, dead, it didn't matter.
My mom had flyers made when terry went missing.
- Terry's photo was splattered all over south georgia
And north florida.
[dramatic music]
- That led to a lotta speculation.
That speculation leads
To a lot of folk coming forward,
Saying they have information.
- If you had asked 100 people
What they thought happened to terry,
We, we got 100 different speculations or responses.
[tense music continues]
- The crowd that, that terry was known to run with,
They enjoyed partying, drinking,
Smoking a little marijuana at times.
- There were rumors that there was two males
That came up to waycross at one time
And terry had owed them a lotta money for drugs.
We heard one account where it was an amount
Of like $15,000
And there was another account
That he allegedly had owed some people
Around $100,000 for drugs.
[dramatic music]
- There was two schools of thought.
One was that he had disappeared
To avoid whoever he owed money to or whoever he had crossed.
And the other school of thought was
That whoever he had crossed had made him disappear.
[suspenseful music]
[melancholy music]
- It is been five weeks
Since 24-year-old terry rouse simply disappeared.
There's been no real leads, only speculation,
Including rumors that terry may have been deep in debt
To a drug dealer.
- Drug trade in waycross, especially during that time,
Was a lot of marijuana.
- He'd done drugs but, you know, smoked pot and drank.
But I mean,
He wouldn't never owe nobody thousands of dollars
For any kinda of dope back then.
- You wouldn't think that people would commit a murder
Over a small amount,
Say a misdemeanor amount of marijuana.
But they absolutely would.
That was not uncommon in south georgia.
[tense music]
[faith] the investigators look into the rumors
Of a drug deal gone bad.
But by mid-July,
With no real progress
In the nearly two-months long investigation,
Sarah thrift's children began to see a marked shift
In their mother's behavior.
- Even though while ware county was conducting
Their own investigation,
She was conducting one herself.
- She was pretty clever in a lot of ways.
She tried to do her own detective work.
If the law told her about a lead,
She would also follow up on the lead herself.
- She had like a '91 red thunderbird.
Had a 5.0 liter engine in it, like a mustang.
She's got a police scanner in it.
She has a cb radio in there.
She has her little snub nose .38 loaded
That sat right there between the console and the seat.
She just didn't care.
I mean, I've seen her.
She pulled that gun on people.
People were scared to death of her.
I mean they were,
'cause she was
Crazy.
[faith] but sarah's persistence finally pays off.
In late July of 1991,
Her own hard scrabble,
One-woman investigation unearths a lead.
And it's not what she or anyone else expects.
- Well, mother, she just come out more or less told me,
You know, that terry and rhonda was seeing each other.
I don't know if rhonda had told her.
I don't know how deeply in love.
I just knew that they had been seeing one another
For a while.
I think it might've been a on-and-off-again kinda thing.
And I think it was on at the time of his disappearance.
- Terry and craig are cousins, coworkers, best friends,
And they have been for 24 years.
Yet, despite all of that,
They seem to be sleeping with the same woman,
Craig's wife.
As the detectives question sarah thrift
And pry deeper in terry's past,
They learn about a story
From high school concerning the cousins.
- Terry dated a girl named rhonda
And he dated her for a while.
And then after they broke up, it wasn't too long,
Just a couple of months maybe,
Her and craig started seeing each other.
But it's usually that guy rule that, you know,
You don't date another guy's ex or whatever, you know?
But anyhow, in this case, you know, it did happen.
Terry never let on to me
That he was upset about their breakup.
Then next thing you know,
Her and craig are gonna have a child together.
[dramatic music]
- When they got married,
I just remember terry being upset about that.
But yet still, terry and craig were still close.
- You know, we still hung out together.
We worked together.
We partied together.
- So I'm assuming at some point,
Terry and rhonda picked back up where they left off,
You know, while she was still married to craig.
[tense music]
- Detectives and family members are now forced
To ask themselves a very difficult question.
Did craig find out about the affair?
And did his anger break their blood bond,
Leading to the unthinkable?
- It is inconceivable, more or less, yes.
Definitely inconceivable.
Craig, he don't seem like the psychopathic killer.
That's the last thing on your mind.
- Hard to believe that craig
Could have done anything to terry, as close as they were.
- I never seen craig show any jealousy at all towards terry
Or anything to do with terry and rhonda.
Terry would spend the night with them, you know?
He'd stay over, you know, spend the weekends there.
- Our family was so close knit.
My mama, you know,
She didn't look at craig as just a nephew.
Craig was like one of her boys
Because they were around each other so much.
So in her mind, there was no way of even beginning
To even contemplate that craig had been part
Of something to do with terry.
- Terry's family considers craig's involvement
An impossibility, but for investigators
Who haven't had a single lead in two months,
It's the only possibility they've got.
Knowing that both terry and craig
Love to fight over most anything,
They now have to consider,
Is it possible that when it comes
To something craig cares the most about,
Did he take it too far?
- It's not accepted
In any society to mess with another man's wife.
- Someone discovering an affair
Would absolutely give someone a motive.
And that would absolutely concern law enforcement.
- So it leads you to wonder, okay,
When did craig find this out?
[faith] detectives ask craig and rhonda thrift
To come to the ware county sheriff's office
To answer some questions.
When they arrive, they're interviewed separately.
- According to rhonda,
She had been involved in an affair with terry
For approximately eight months prior to his disappearance.
- She said craig knew that they had been intimate
Before he married her.
They were boyfriend and girlfriend,
But she did not think he knew terry and rhonda
Were having an affair.
And rhonda stated that she did not see terry that morning.
The last time she saw terry was at the party.
- When rhonda was asked to take a polygraph, she said yes.
[faith] with his wife's lie detector test scheduled
For later that evening,
Investigators sit down with craig
And get right to the point.
- He was initially interviewed
By chief deputy arney herrin.
- Craig denied knowing about the affair.
- He basically said that he would punch him in the face
Or he would tune him up a little bit
For what happened between him and rhonda.
And then that he would turn right around
And forgive him and love him
Because he was his first cousin and his best friend.
[faith] next, investigators press craig
About the morning after the party
When terry would typically roll by
In his thunderbird to pick craig up
For their jobs at thrift concrete
Where both men worked for craig's dad, larry.
- Craig's statement was that he never picked him up.
So craig left from his house,
Which was a very short distance
To where the thrift concrete company was located,
Maybe a mile from that location.
And so when craig was there when other people came to work,
They asked him, where's terry?
And, of course, he told them that he never saw terry.
He didn't know what terry did after the party.
[dramatic music]]
- Jealousy is an age-old motive for murder.
The problem is investigators don't have a murder
And craig certainly isn't confessing to one.
But before they let craig go,
Detectives throw one last question at him.
- Craig was asked to take a polygraph test.
And he made a very
Flippant statement.
And that would be,
"do you have a body?
If you don't have a body, I'm not taking a test."
[dramatic music]
This is your first cousin.
He's missing.
You work with him each and every day.
Not only are you coworkers,
But you're best of friends
And now you're not willing to cooperate with law enforcement
When they're trying to exclude you as a suspect
So that they can move on
In trying to determine what happened.
And that's kind of a red flag for law enforcement
That there's something not right with craig.
[eerie music]
- Police in waycross, georgia have just learned
That terry rouse was having an affair
With his old girlfriend, rhonda, who is now married
To terry's best friend and cousin, craig thrift.
Which gets them thinking,
Did craig or rhonda or both have something
To do with terry's disappearance?
- Rhonda was asked to take a polygraph test.
She took it and she passed it.
However, craig was asked to take a polygraph test
And he refused to take that test.
[dramatic music]
Craig is not displaying the actions of an innocent person.
He's not cooperating like you would expect
From a cousin and a best friend.
- And then, within a couple weeks after terry went missing,
Craig goes and files for divorce.
- Craig and rhonda, they remained in contact
With one another.
They had to have some kind of relationship
Because of their kids.
But yeah, their marriage did fall apart.
[dramatic music]
- Craig and rhonda's breakup did add
To the gossip and rumors,
But did it have anything to do
With terry's disappearance and maybe death?
Craig's refusal to help find his cousin drew a line
In the sand for both his side of the family,
The thrifts, who believe he had nothing
To do with terry's disappearance,
And for the rouses,
Who expect everyone in the family
To do what they can to find terry.
- When craig actually refused to take a polygraph,
That really started raising everyone's suspicions
A lot more.
He's got motive, he's got means,
He had the ability.
I mean, everything just added up.
Naturally, family's gonna pick sides.
Yeah, we had cousins on our side
And they had cousins on their side.
[faith] now convinced
Of what she once felt was unimaginable,
Sarah, terry's mother confronts her brother, larry thrift,
And demands answers.
- She approached larry about it on more than one occasion,
But larry stood behind craig and defended craig
To the day he died, you know?
So that created a big problem within the two families.
[dramatic music]
- Our family was so close knit
But it all went to [bleep].
Everybody went their own way.
[faith] not only do they go their own way,
But they keep their mouths shut while doing so.
Investigators who count on people coming forward
In situations like this quickly find their case grinding
To a near halt.
- This investigation, you know,
Did come to basically a slow crawl.
The speculation was always still there,
But in the absence of a body
And the absence of any, you know, true witnesses
Or someone that could corroborate any of
The speculation
Just wasn't there.
[train bell ringing]
[somber music]
- My mom, she done about everything a mother could do
As far as staying on top of the law,
You know, working with them, pushing them.
You know, just doing everything she could
To try to find terry.
She just wanted to be sure for herself
That no stone was ever left unturned.
- I believe that my brother going missing
And everything my mama suffered through,
I believe it drove her crazy.
Her emotions were back and forth.
She could be happy one, one minute,
Crying the next, and then angry the next.
She was a complete different person.
I mean, that forever changed her.
- Yeah, my mom always wished, you know,
That he would just come in the door one day,
You know, hug her and kiss her,
Tell her he's sorry he's been gone,
But he's back now.
It's hard to explain the feeling when a family member dies
Or somebody close to you dies.
You can go, you celebrate their life.
And with terry,
We have never had that.
And without that, I don't think you ever get closure.
[somber music]
- She said, "he's told me many times that he killed terry."
My mouth fell open when she said that.
- She was very scared of him.
- We sifted through close
To 100 dump truck loads of mud.
- I was in shock, you know, finally got him.
Owly, methodically.
Children grow.
Weddings are celebrated.
New babies are born.
Life moves on.
But one terrible thing hasn't changed.
Terry rouse is still missing.
The police investigation has dried up
And the once-close thrift and rouse families
Are now bitterly divided.
Possibly to get away from sarah thrift's dogged accusations,
Craig thrift, along with his father larry,
Leave waycross and move to another county 60 miles away.
Craig eventually remarries.
Two years stretch into three, soon five,
And then a decade passes with no sign of terry
And no hint as to what may have happened to him.
- In April of 2003, my mom declared terry deceased.
Maybe it was so she could have closure,
Some type of closure, see if it would help her in any way.
I do not know.
[dramatic music]
[faith] in 2009, six years after terry
Is legally declared dead and 18 years after he went missing,
The georgia bureau of investigation
Assigns a young detective
To take a fresh new look at his case.
- When you start working an investigation on a person,
You actually feel like you start to know who they are.
So they start becoming a part of your family almost.
And then their family, you feel their emotion,
You feel their hurt and their want for answers.
I started doing little side scribbles.
Well, you know, well, why did they say this?
Or where's this person now?
But there was absolutely nothing physical
That I could put my hands on as evidence.
[faith] detective williams spends three years
Poring over each detail in the case file,
Every statement, every interview,
Every speculation,
But nothing stands out except for one fact.
- So once I eliminate everything else
That I saw in the case file,
It just kinda pointed back to craig.
So that's when I started researching where he was.
I found out that craig was living in camden county
And he was going through a separation
From his current wife at that time, robyn thrift.
I saw that she had filed for a tpo order against craig.
It was a restraining order.
And in the report, it was just talking
About her being afraid of him.
And in my experience,
A mad woman will tell on you.
If there's anything to tell,
A mad woman's gonna tell it.
So I picked up the phone
And I called her and identified myself
And told her I was from ware county
And wanted to talk to her about craig thrift and his cousin.
And she said, "well, what do you wanna know?
You wanna know if he's ever told me
That he's killed his cousin, terry?"
I said, "well, yes ma'am, I do."
And she said, "yes.
He's told me many times that he killed his cousin terry."
[dramatic music]
My mouth fell open when she said that.
[faith] wasting no time, detective williams asked robyn
To come immediately to the gbi office in camden county.
[suspenseful music]
- Robyn told us that craig would make statements to her
When they would have an argument that,
"I'll do away with you like I did my cousin."
She was very scared of him.
- What really struck me was he would be drunk,
That he would cry, and say, "I killed my best friend.
I can't believe I did that."
He told robyn that he killed terry
Because he was sleeping with his wife
And he put him where nobody would ever find him.
[eerie music]
- The information from craig's ex is extraordinary,
Incriminating even.
But will it hold up in court?
As a former prosecutor,
I can tell you definitively,
Absolutely not.
That's because of something called marital privilege.
It's a law
That protects private communications between spouses
So they don't have to testify against each other in court.
But what detectives do finally have
Is a story,
A story of terry's disappearance
That they can now ask former witnesses about.
A story that just might shake loose some old memories.
[dramatic music]
- On the night of the party,
Craig and rhonda had a babysitter,
Christy callahan.
- The babysitter basically had stayed on the couch,
Spent the night there.
She had watched the kids while they were at the party.
- So on the morning of may 11th, 1991,
She was actually at the house.
So we go back and interviewed the babysitter.
During her interview,
She mentioned a fight that she had actually overheard
And saw between craig and rhonda in the house that morning
Before he walked outta the house
To get in the car with terry.
- She remembered seeing terry at the door.
She didn't really pay a whole lotta attention
Because she didn't think there was anything outta the way.
That was normal for terry to come over
To pick up craig to go to work.
- So we have robyn telling us that craig has admitted
To her that he killed terry rouse.
And now we have the babysitter coming forward,
Telling us that she overheard
And saw craig and rhonda's fight
And that she's putting craig and terry together
That morning, leaving to go to work.
[faith] that isn't all detective williams finds.
She finds another kristy,
Someone craig dated after his divorce from rhonda,
And brings her in for an interview.
- Back in 1993,
Kristy dyson had a brief relationship with craig.
And in her interview with me,
She said craig told her that he killed terry
And cut him up with his tools
There at craig's dad's workshop.
She was scared of craig.
He would threaten her by saying
That he would kill her and do things to her,
And he was abusive.
- With all of the information we were able
To amass on craig,
We know that craig's our guy.
There's nobody else involved in this but craig.
- More than 20 years after terry rouse was last seen,
The cold case team of the georgia bureau of investigation
Feels they finally solved his case.
Their evidence?
It comes from craig's own mouth
And his claims over the years about killing his cousin.
[dramatic music]
- It was overwhelming the amount of witnesses that we had.
And it wasn't just the amount of witnesses,
It was what they were saying.
Everything was so consistent.
- Craig had made so many statements
To so many unrelated people.
I don't know why the people
That he had made those statements to all those years
Didn't come forward on their own,
Other than it could have been that they were scared of him.
Could have been that they just thought that him saying that
To them was not gonna make a difference.
- After I had all these witness statements,
I took that to a judge and requested a search warrant.
[siren wails]
[faith] on March 27th, 2012,
Investigators from both ware county,
Where the disappearance happened,
And camden county, where craig thrift now lives,
Serve him with a warrant to search his residence.
And just as soon as they enter his home, they find drugs.
- Camden county was able to arrest craig on drug charges.
So he was removed from the property
And that's when we began our search.
You think about 20 years,
What would we expect to find?
Probably not a lot.
- And that's exactly what happens.
Investigators don't find either of terry's guns, his knife,
Or anything that definitively ties craig
To terry's disappearance.
But with craig in jail on the drug charges,
Detective williams and her team make one last push
To search for terry at the concrete company
Where they worked,
Including the work shed where craig is alleged
To have killed terry.
- The sheriff's office and the gbi together
Basically excavated and essentially sifted through,
I believe, somewhere close to 100 dump truck loads of mud.
- We got with the fbi.
They brought in some cadaver dogs as well,
And we searched a large area there.
We just weren't able to locate anything.
[faith] though their search is unsuccessful,
The new witness statements are enough
To get craig thrift indicted in April of 2012.
[dramatic music]
- My theory is terry went to pick up craig
That morning for work.
At some point, they arrive at the shed
And there was a confrontation.
[dramatic music]
I don't know if he snuck up behind terry and hit him,
Killed him, shot him.
[dramatic music]
Disposed or hid his body 'til he could come back
At a later time to put him somewhere
Where nobody would find him.
And I think he took the car down
To the okefenokee swamp park.
- Where terry and craig worked at,
The thrift concrete location was approximately two miles,
Maybe three, from the entrance of the okefenokee swamp park.
So, maybe craig ran back along the railroad tracks,
Back to the work site,
And would've been there before any
Of the other workers showed up.
[somber music]
- I was at work one day
And I received a call from the sheriff's office.
And they was telling me that they had craig arrested
For the murder of terry.
I was kinda like in shock, you know?
Finally got him.
[faith] after the decades of trauma caused
By the absence of her son,
Sarah thrift, at just 64, is a shadow of her former self
When detective williams visits her in a retirement home
To break the news.
- She had a picture of terry beside her bed.
Not her other kids, terry.
We told her that we had arrested craig
For terry's murder.
She was emotional.
[somber music]
She was still wanting answers.
Where was terry?
[dramatic music]
[faith] two years later in 2014,
Craig thrift is put on trial
And is convicted of felony murder.
The court sentences craig to life in prison
With the possibility of parole after seven years.
Today, craig remains incarcerated
In hays state prison in chattooga county, georgia.
[dramatic music]
- My mama, she spent
All of her days doing everything she could,
Following every lead, just looking for terry.
His body's never been recovered.
He's been murdered.
His cousin killed him.
And then when we finally got a conviction,
My mother's health was so bad,
I don't even think she understood when I told her
That craig was convicted for the murder of terry.
But I hope somewhere down inside
That she heard me and understood.
[somber music]
- No one truly knows what craig did to terry rouse
To make him disappear.
But there is no doubt craig's vengeful actions
Towards his once best friend and cousin
Severed a century-long family bond
And deprived a loving mother of her son.
Envy, lust, pride, and wrath,
Four deadly sins as old as the swamp,
Turned craig thrift and terry rouse's family bond
And friendship
Into a killer relationship.