(tense music)
- [Narrator] Every suspect accused of a crime
has the right to remain silent.
Many agree to be interrogated anyway,
but they can stop the interview at any moment,
making it a race against time.
Justice hangs in the balance.
(tense music)
- [Matthews] On the morning of October 3rd,
I got the call from a deputy out in the field.
He said that there was a sexual assault on an elderly woman
and that she was at the hospital at the time.
His initial words were
that she was covered with bruises head to toe.
(ominous music)
- [Hunter] She had been severely beaten
from the top of her head, basically to her feet.
Bruises on her face, two black eyes.
Bruises on her shoulders, everywhere.
- It was clear that she was in a lot of pain
and had been brutally attacked.
- There was some concern
whether she was gonna make it or not.
- We need to figure out who did this to her.
(birds chirping) (train rattling)
(gentle music)
- [Jim] I came to church in Gravette
and met Susan almost 20 years ago.
She was the door greeter when you came into church.
She had strong religious faith and Christian faith,
so she let you know that right up front.
Susan was very independent.
She lived by herself in a little cabin
and she burned wood for the winter to keep warm.
She enjoyed volunteering her time for Care and Share,
an organization in Gravette
that helped people in the community.
I remember seeing her sorting through
piles and piles of clothes
that people would come up and donate.
She was a woman that looks for the good in everything.
(birds chirping)
(ominous music)
- [Matthews] We were very fortunate
that she was able to provide lots of clues
that I was then able to give to other detectives
on what to look for at the house.
As far as like, an attack and a rape goes,
it's probably up there with
the most brutal that I've seen in my career.
(ominous music)
- [Hunter] It was a pretty rural, remote area.
I could see that the residence sat 75 yards,
to a 100 yards off the road.
So immediately, I kind of had the gut feeling
that it was somebody that she had known
or somebody that she had at least
had some type of encounter with previously.
I saw equipment outside.
I saw some scaffolding, paint, a stain,
and it looked like to me somebody was recently
or currently working on the house.
When we opened the door and looked inside,
it was a crime scene investigator's nightmare.
I could immediately tell that this attack
took place over the entire house,
upstairs and downstairs.
There was water everywhere.
There was also an oily substance.
We took fingerprints.
The entry door was critical, bed frame, sink, bathtub,
all areas where fingerprints are conducive to being left.
There was blood.
You have to swab that
because you know that that contains DNA.
You're really under a clock, because at that point in time,
we still had a violent offender out there
and we needed to get that person,
whoever it was, off the streets.
(tense music)
I'm relaying to them what I'm seeing at the residence.
I said, "Try to find out who's been working on her house."
- [Hunter] Red flags go up.
I thought that Eric was probably gonna be our guy.
Obviously, we had to vet that out.
Called dispatch, ran the name,
immediately was notified that he was a sex offender.
Elderly victim, lives alone.
A sex offender working on her house.
Deadly combination.
So the next thing was to try to find out, where was he at?
What is his alibi?
(tense music)
- [Matthews] He said he was home all night.
They found that he had a surveillance system on his home
and it showed a camera view at the front door,
any exits or anything.
One of our cyber crimes detectives
was able to download and view all of that footage
and ultimately was able to
see that he never left his home.
(tense music)
- [Hunter] Once we talked to Eric,
we were able to kinda rule him out.
But he brought us onto a coworker of his
named Alan Rickman.
- [Matthews] He was able to tell them
that Alan worked for him at the log cabin.
And he described that Alan had been
at work in the morning of the attack,
that he did act kind of off
and he appeared to have some kind of injury on his arm
that he was trying to hide all day.
- So again, red flags that came forward,
like, okay, now we need to move away from Eric
and we need to start focusing on Rickman.
(suspenseful music)
(tense music)
I went in and took a look at him
and I could immediately see scratches
all over his hands and on his arms.
But he had scratches on his legs
and things that he could not explain away.
We placed him in custody
and basically asked at that point in time
for permission, consent to searching his vehicle.
- And we found items in the car that were very concerning.
There was women's underwear,
some of those underwear contained blood.
There was pornographic magazines.
They found like, a bottle of oil, cooking oil.
- There was also a portable DVD player
that we located that had this oily substance on it.
- So at this point, you know,
it's very suspicious what is found in the vehicle.
- We seized the car
and brought it back to the sheriff's office
and then took Mr. Rickman to the Benton County Jail.
(tense music)
(ominous music)
- [Matthews] My thought was, this is our guy.
All hands on deck, let's get this done.
(dramatic music)
(tense music)
- [Jim] Susan Hazard,
her strength comes from her faith in God.
I know that she was standing on that faith
the morning that I seen her in the emergency room.
She looked up at me
and her face was all bruised and beat up.
And I just remember, just going over to her
and laying my head on beside her head.
I didn't know what else to do, but to pray.
I just prayed for her.
When you have a group of people
that you are a pastor over,
you feel responsible for them.
It would be the same thing if something happened to
one of your family members.
(somber music)
(eerie music)
Every question I ask can be answered with,
"I wanna speak to an attorney,"
and that's going to stop things.
So I want him to know I'm not judging him
one way or the other.
That I just want to understand.
- Yeah, like--
In the back of my mind, I'm thinking,
he's bringing this into play
because he is trying to explain
another reason why those items are there.
I took it as an opening.
Let's go ahead and let's talk about what happened.
(tense music)
(ominous music)
(clock ticking)
What immediately went through my mind
when he requested a lawyer was, I blew it.
I felt frustrated because,
I'm not gonna get him to tell me
what happened and to give me the answers.
- We brought Alan in on an unrelated warrant,
but at some point in time,
if we don't have enough evidence,
enough probable cause to arrest him for Susan's attack,
then yeah, he would've been released from jail
and been back out on the streets.
- So we've got about 48 hours that we can hold him.
So we need to get busy and build that case.
Hopefully before he gets released.
(date clicking)
(ominous music)
There were several items that were found in Alan's car
that we collected.
So we took that up to the hospital to show Susan,
maybe she could identify those items
as coming out of her home.
(ominous music)
- She developed sepsis, which, you know, that's deadly.
I was concerned.
There was a time crunch there.
You're trying to get as much information as you can
before things take a turn.
- [Matthews] She started to go downhill.
At one point, they had to intubate her.
Obviously the biggest change is that
if she does succumb to these injuries
and loses her life because of this attack,
then that is a homicide.
- [Hunter] Stakes are definitely higher.
It's a violent attack
and we all took it a little bit personal.
(tense music)
We knew that there was a gas station
that was near Susan's house.
So we sent a couple of detectives to the gas station
and they were able to find Alan on video
going inside the gas station
just minutes after he would've left Susan Hazard's house.
- At one point, he looks down at his arm
when he's inside the store and he had a gash in his arm.
That is important video
because it shows the same vehicle
that we had searched by consent at Alan's home.
And it corroborates what Susan said
as far as the timeline.
- We felt like at that point in time,
we had our right guy.
But obviously you want to get all the evidence you can.
(tense music)
(train rumbling) (date ticking)
(suspenseful music)
(camera shutter clicking)
- [Matthews] And so detectives found
an electrical cord and a remote for a DVD player,
but no DVD player.
- Also, the instruction manual was still there.
Took that, looked at the model,
realized that this was the same model DVD player
that was in Alan's vehicle.
- [Matthews] For me, that was a pivotal moment.
That was when I knew this is our guy.
This is it.
(tense music) (camera shutter clicking)
- That DVD player, the stuff in the car, you know,
and Susan identifying some of the things belonging to her,
the video evidence that puts him near
the scene of the crime.
And he had scratches and bruising all over his body.
I felt like we had enough probable cause
to make an arrest.
(tense music)
And then just a short time later,
our booking area in the jail called over and said,
"Hey, he's requesting to speak to you again."
That point in time, you jump on that opportunity.
We felt like, even before he said a word, like,
okay, he's ready to talk.
(clock ticking)
Alan's getting upset, emotional.
I feel like he was realizing,
we knew what he had done
and soon, the world was gonna know what he did.
(suspenseful music)
(tense music)
Captain Motsinger came in
to help progress the interview.
Captain Motsinger is a little more forceful with Alan.
I approach things as, you get more with sugar then vinegar,
but that's not always the win.
Sometimes it takes somebody coming in there and being stern.
(dramatic music)
(tense music)
(suspenseful music)
(Alan coughs)
- [Matthews] Alan kept, he was kind of sticking to the,
"I don't know. I don't know, I don't know."
And sometimes then you can get in that loop
and Captain Motsinger has to come in
and he's trying to be a little more firm
and kind of snap back to reality.
"You do know, let's talk about it."
(tense music)
(ominous music)
(eerie music)
- We felt like we had got everything
that we needed to corroborate
with the physical evidence and the story
that Susan had told.
So once the interview was over,
it felt good because you get the who, what,
when, where, how.
- [Officer] Try and stand up for me.
- [Matthews] The why is the one thing
that you rarely get.
And maybe Alan doesn't even know the why
and we don't always know.
(somber music)
- It was a case that shocks the conscience.
It's the most violent,
brutal sexual assault that I've ever worked.
- [Matthews] Solving this case and getting justice
for Susan was so important because,
the magnitude.
This one stands out more because of the victim
and the victim's attitude and the life she led.
(tense music)
- Susan was at the brink of death,
but she has faith in the one that can save her soul.
And that's where her strength comes from, her faith.
(somber music)
- [Susan] I tell everyone, no one can keep you from prayer.
And so I remember the silent prayer that I prayed.
I said, "Jesus, I want to live.
I need to survive."
After they took me to the Gravette hospital,
I got worse and they rushed me to the ICU.
And so I don't remember anything after that.
I don't know what happens to your brain
when you're in a coma, but to me,
I was in East Africa
and I was setting these women free out of this house.
I remember the nurse came into my room after I woke up
and so she asked me, "Do you know where you are?"
And I said, "I'm in East Africa."
It was a long healing process.
Because of the sepsis,
my hands literally died and my feet.
So the doctor said that we need to amputate your hands
or you're gonna die.
A week later or so,
they had to amputate my legs below the knee.
There was never any doubt I was gonna do
what I needed to do
to gradually be able to learn to walk.
(tense music)
(suspenseful music)
- He wanted to plead guilty,
but we felt like it was a rock solid case
and the prosecution wanted to take it to trial
and give Susan her day in court.
And that's exactly what happened.
(suspenseful music)
- [Susan] I have peace about it all.
Now I just go on with the life I have.
I walked in this 5K.
And so I kind of joke about it,
I say, "My goal is to come in last
and I always reach my goal."
But it's just fun.
- [Matthews] I signed up for the same 5K.
So we walked the last mile together
and we even talked about making it an annual event.
So I'm looking forward to that.
- [Susan] When I was growing up, my father forgave others.
And so I learned that from an early age.
And so I knew it was important
and I forgave him as quickly as I could.
When I talk to people,
I end up with the importance of forgiveness.
(emotive piano music)