Worst Ex Ever (2024) s01e01 Episode Script
Dating the Devil
[tense music playing]
- [producer] I'm setting up.
- [woman] Okay.
- [producer] Okay. Rolling.
- [woman] Okay.
- [producer 2] Yeah, just watch your step.
- [woman] Okay.
It's this way?
[producer 2] Yeah.
So Angie, you mentioned
wanting to listen to the 911 call.
Yes.
[producer 2] You can hit play
where it is right now.
[line ringing]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
[tense music builds, fades]
[Angie] Tuesday night, my mom
had just called me and said,
"Justine just called me."
"She said she needs to go to the hospital,
and she doesn't sound right."
[Angie speaking on phone]
I ran up to her front door,
and her doors are never locked,
and they were locked.
[knocking at door]
[Angie speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
[knocking at door]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking, panicked]
So I go around to the back door
and I hear
[choked scream]
[Angie speaking]
After the first time she screamed,
I hear bang, bang, bang.
And I'm thinking it's her
like, hitting the walls,
like, wanting me to hurry up.
And then I'm trying to get the door open.
I can't get it open.
I'm trying to kick it open,
and then she screamed again.
And then I hear bang, bang, bang, again.
I mean, the most god-awful scream
you've ever heard in your life.
[Angie on phone]
[sobs] So I I gotta run around
to the other side of the house
and see if
I can break in the front somewhere.
[Angie on phone]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
And all of a sudden,
her the garage door's open,
and I'm like, what is?
What the hell? Like, how did I miss that?
[Angie on phone]
So I start to sprint into her house.
And Ben Foster comes out. And I went
[dispatcher speaking]
[Ben speaking]
[Angie speaking]
He says, "Why don't you
go in there and get her,
and I'll get the car ready,
and we'll take her to the hospital."
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
And I go running in there and as soon as
I get inside the door, there's Justine.
[sobbing]
[Angie on phone]
Oh! It was so awful.
And she was not moving.
[Angie on phone]
[glitchy audio]
[siren wailing]
[tense music playing]
[dispatcher speaking]
[police officer] Copy.
I was working for
the Grants Pass police department,
and I was assigned as the criminal
investigations division lieutenant.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[Jeff] Call came in at seven o'clock.
We had officers get in their cars
and immediately start heading that way.
[officer] Hello?
[Angie] Come in.
Back here, please. Back here!
[officer] Who's all in the house?
- Just her now.
- [officer] Okay. Is she okay?
[Angie] She had ropes around her throat.
[officer] Just go and stand right here
for me. What's her name?
[Angie] Justine.
[officer] Go ahead and send in medical.
[Angie sobs]
[Jeff] I've been in law enforcement
for over 33 years and, um
I've seen very few scenes
as horrific and terrible as this one was.
Um, it was obvious that Justine had really
been tortured and hurt badly.
[officer] Approximately
30-year-old female, naked.
She's been severely, uh,
beaten about the face.
[man] I'm currently assigned to
the investigations division as a detective
for the Grants Pass Police Department.
[officer] Let's be very careful
with evidence, please.
[man] The victim, Justine, she was
unconscious. She wasn't responding.
She was transported
to a hospital on Medford.
[Angie] What is that crazy guy's name
that Justine was seeing?
[sobbing]
- Benjamin what?
- [officer] Okay, slow down a little.
[Angie] Benjamin Obadiah Foster.
[Jeff] Right off the bat
we did have a suspect.
He was identified as, uh, Ben Foster.
[officer] Are they boyfriend-girlfriend?
[Angie] Yes.
[officer] How long have they been dating?
[Angie sniffles] A couple months.
[officer] What was he wearing?
Well, he just has a little weird ponytail.
I saw that.
I know it's him
because I just met him a few days ago.
[Robert] It was painted pretty quickly
by Angela.
Ben had been arrested in Las Vegas
for assaulting an ex-girlfriend.
[officer] The name
was the name she gave me
because they've looked him up.
She has all that rap sheet
out of Clark County.
That was the one
that I name scanned, Benjamin Foster.
- [officer 2] Good.
- [man] We learned that
Benjamin Foster was involved
in multiple incidents in Las Vegas
and had a lot of similarities
to what occurred here in Grants Pass.
[tense music playing]
[Jeff] Grants Pass is a small town.
Generally, we're dealing with
a lot of nuisance crimes, a lot of thefts,
a lot of the lower level crimes.
- [helicopter whirring]
- [siren wailing]
[Warren] This type of incident,
it shouldn't
be happening in Grants Pass, Oregon.
I was really, really worried.
We were concerned about our community.
We know we have to
get this man into custody.
What if he does it to somebody else?
[music increases, fades]
[tense music playing]
[woman] At one point, I did think that
Ben could have been the one for me.
It's hard to pinpoint
the emotions that you feel when,
you know, you love someone and,
unfortunately,
this person could have killed you.
[wistful music playing]
[jazzy music playing]
[Amber] I met Ben in the summer of 2012.
We were both working at a day club
at a Las Vegas strip hotel.
He was a barback and I was a server.
He was cute, tall, athletic.
Ice blue eyes, dark hair.
He was very smart, and I think that
that's what attracted me to him initially.
I don't know if I was exactly looking
for a relationship,
but eventually that's what it turned into.
We dated probably for about a year
before we actually moved in together.
Ben could be very, very sweet.
He would leave notes like,
"Hey, I hope you have
a good day today. I love you."
We had a normal relationship.
We would go on dinner dates,
go to Disneyland,
you know,
hang out with all of our friends.
But Ben was just not very comfortable
around people.
He's a very, like, lone wolf
kind of person, very closed off.
I think Ben might have had
a little bit of a jealousy streak.
[keyboard clacking]
I was helping my ex, uh,
stay in the country, who was foreign.
And Ben got really, really upset
that I was continuing to help this person.
[tense music playing]
He kind of started
hastily, like, questioning.
Like, not yelling,
but kind of in a more intense tone
than what you would normally speak
to someone in.
And was just obviously visibly upset.
I just didn't understand
why he was so upset.
My ex was actually in a relationship
with another person, was engaged.
In hindsight,
I think that Ben had been set off by that
because of what he had been doing himself.
It wasn't until later that I found out
Ben was actually seeing
his ex-girlfriend behind my back.
[music fades]
Ben came from Oregon,
so he is very outdoorsy.
He had a very intense passion for guns
and knives and martial arts.
He would get new knives every week.
New guns.
We would go to gun shows every weekend.
It was an obsession.
He had this weird, like, practice knife
that he used to mess around
and pretend to, like, slit my throat.
In a very playful manner kind of thing.
At the time,
it didn't seem to be anything alarming.
But now it just, it kind of seems very odd
seeing how everything played out.
[tense music playing]
One afternoon, Ben and I had gotten into
some kind of bickering match.
I just remember him being, like, really
fidgety and shifty and very on edge.
Me being the person that I am
and trying to push his buttons,
I told him that I threw away
a brand-new gun that he just bought.
[ominous music playing]
And then he pushed me down, and he hit me.
Slapped me. A pretty hard open-hand slap.
He was in a blind rage.
You could see it in his eyes.
Ben was definitely not
the same person that I was in love with.
It was a stranger.
I was just very shocked.
I was very scared.
I immediately just booked it.
I grabbed my keys, and I left.
I decided to call the police.
After I gave the police my statement,
they accompanied me back to the house.
[siren wails]
Then they handcuffed him
and put him in jail.
[dramatic sting]
[tense music playing]
Within a few months of Ben's arrest,
he was let out of jail.
He had gone from my boyfriend
to my ex-boyfriend,
and unbeknownst to me,
he had started stalking me.
[thunder cracks]
It was a super rainy fall afternoon.
I was going to watch some football games
with some of my friends,
but I needed to go home and get a jacket.
I pull up to the house
that Ben and I shared,
and he was outside of his car.
He was yelling. He was screaming.
He was banging his fist on my car,
telling me to unlock the door,
telling me to come out of the car.
I asked him to leave.
Ben angrily got in his car,
and he sped off,
and I wait a little bit,
maybe about 15 minutes,
and then I proceeded to go into the house.
And as soon as I get to the closet,
Ben grabs me by the hair,
and he pulls me down to the ground.
I had no idea Ben had gotten to the condo.
I'm just kind of like a rag doll
at this point.
He's dragging me on the floor.
He goes to slice my face.
I put my hand up,
and he almost slices this pinky
all the way off.
I'm bleeding all over myself,
and I am just thinking that this is
probably going to be the day that I die.
[thunder rumbling]
He takes me into the garage,
and he pins me down,
and he is just all-out whaling on me
at this point.
And then he gets up.
And when he gets up, I know that that's
my only chance to try to get away.
So I get up as fast as I can.
I hit the garage door.
And I just army crawl
out of the garage into the rain.
I'm covered in blood,
and I I run to the leasing office.
They called police.
Once the police get there,
they go to the house to talk to Ben.
[suspenseful music playing]
And at this point,
Ben cleaned everything up.
He cut his own face,
told the police that I cut his face
and that I instigated the incident.
That's when they came back
to the leasing office,
and they put me in handcuffs.
[indistinct police radio chatter]
The police never wanted to listen
to my side of the story.
I could not understand
how me covered in my own blood
with defensive wounds all over me,
how they could put me in handcuffs
and try to take me to jail.
[pensive music playing]
Honestly, it's the worst
one of the worst days of my life.
After escaping with my life,
I had to spend 18 hours in jail.
The officers did not look up Ben's record
and did not know
that Ben had been arrested
for attacking me prior to that.
But the judge did a little bit of digging,
and she made the DA look into
the previous incident report
when he had gone to jail for attacking me
and ended up ruling and dismissing
the domestic charges against me.
After I get out of jail,
I come home,
and he had stolen all of my belongings
[suspenseful music playing]
I have no clothes, absolutely no clothes,
not even underwear.
All of my personal things
like my birth certificate,
my social security card.
He literally took everything.
[tense music playing]
Come, baby. Come, baby girl. Come.
Come, come, come, come. Come. Good girl.
Her name's Maya.
She's a little shih tzu
with a cute, little sassy personality.
[pensive music playing]
Ben loved my dog.
I think he liked hanging out with my dog
more than me. [chuckles]
[upbeat music playing]
I think the thing that really locked me in
and really, really attracted him to me
the very most
was the way that he took care of my dog.
- [dog barks]
- [laughs]
[Ben] I'll pass it
when she comes right at me. [laughs]
There's nothing to bite.
[Jaimee] He got her
all kinds of cool gifts,
backpacks, just all kinds of cute stuff.
And he was always really, really kind
to Maya. He loved her so much.
[low-key music playing]
I met Benjamin
when I started doing Krav Maga.
Krav Maga is combative.
Um, it's like a mixed martial arts.
It's not fancy like Kung Fu.
It's more I guess more violent.
Ben came from a really good family.
He was planning to get in law enforcement.
He wasn't on drugs. He barely even drink.
On paper, it seemed like
he was a solid person.
We were friends
for probably around a month.
And that's when it escalated
a little bit further.
But it was never an actual
girlfriend-boyfriend relationship
for a lot of the time
that we were seeing each other.
I wasn't really looking for that,
and he would never admit it,
but I knew
that he was seeing other people.
And I wasn't trying
to force him into anything.
So I'd just see him a few times a week
sometimes, and sometimes I didn't.
But when he did come by,
Ben didn't always seem present.
He's there physically,
but you don't really know
what he's thinking about.
And I felt like he spent a lot of time
thinking of his exes.
Turned out he was [chuckles].
[pensive music playing]
[Amber] In December 2017,
I get a text message from Ben,
and it's a novel of him explaining
that he's been going to therapy,
and one of the steps that he's taken
is trying to make amends
with people that he's hurt
and that he just wanted to be able to have
a face-to-face conversation for closure.
We met at a restaurant.
He was just telling me how sorry he was
and how he wishes that he didn't mess up,
that I was the love of his life,
and it seemed like he was genuinely sorry
about what he did, and it seemed like
he was really trying to make a change.
I almost felt bad for him
and wanted to be there
for him as a friend.
It's kind of like
a Stockholm syndrome kind of thing.
So you in turn start feeling bad for them,
which is a very weird thing to do.
We started speaking on a regular basis
through text again,
and we had begun hanging out again.
[bells jingling]
["We Wish You
a Merry Christmas" tune playing]
It was Christmas Eve,
and he's sitting in my living room.
- [cell phone buzzing]
- I leave my cell phone on the table.
[music distorts]
And I go into the other room to change,
and when I come back,
I don't see Ben on the couch.
[suspenseful music playing]
Ben comes from around the corner
in my kitchen and starts strangling me.
It happened so fast, but I knew that
I had just made a very serious mistake.
He takes me down to the couch
and strangles me until I'm unconscious.
[tense music playing]
When I wake up, he's punching my walls,
and he is walking around.
And I just immediately get up,
and I run out of my back door
and jump off of my first-floor balcony.
I ran to the first car that I saw.
It was a female with a dog in her car,
and she let me in. I had no shoes on.
She was so helpful. She was so amazing.
And she 1000% saved my life.
[dispatcher] 911 emergency.
[Amber] Police, please.
The police come.
This officer literally grabs me
by the shoulders and tells me,
"You cannot see this person anymore."
"This person could've taken you away
from your family right before Christmas."
"Like, there's no apology
that is worth your life."
Ben went to jail again, and the State
ended up pressing charges for me.
[pensive music playing]
There was supposed to be a trial,
but nothing was happening
in any sort of urgency, I'll say.
After that, I was just always
looking over my shoulder
thinking that Ben would be there.
There was always just
this constant state of fear
that the other shoe would drop
and maybe he would be able to finish out
whatever he was trying to do
the last time that he attacked me.
[tense music playing]
[Jaimee] About a year after I met Ben,
he had a series
of really unfortunate events.
And one of them was losing his job.
And then for a while he couldn't pay rent,
so then he ended up essentially moving in.
When he moved in,
we had probably been seeing each other
a little over a year, year and a half.
It was still nothing serious
or anything like that.
It was just
He needed help, and I helped him.
It wasn't too long after that
where things started getting
[dramatic music plays]
a little crazy.
[ambient strings music playing]
It was difficult
because he was always sick,
always depressed, had anxiety.
Couldn't get a job
because he couldn't even get out of bed.
I would question him about like,
"What's your plan?"
"What are you gonna do?"
"I don't mind helping you out,
but I can't carry this forever."
[tense music playing]
One day, I was trying to reason with him.
He came up from behind me
and slammed me on the ground.
It was completely unexpected.
We weren't arguing.
I was so shocked.
That was the first time
he ever put his hands on me.
And then he started getting really weird.
He started saying
people were following him.
He really thought
people were trying to get him.
And I'm getting scared.
The paranoia didn't stop.
It just escalated real fast.
By September, Ben had already attacked me
quite a few times.
I never knew
what was going to happen next.
And every time he would attack me,
it'd be worse the next time
and worse the next time.
Nothing logical made sense to him anymore.
And I didn't know how
I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know how to get away from him
or get him out.
I didn't tell any of my friends
because because I was embarrassed.
I just didn't want them to know
that I was one of those girls
that was with a guy who was beating me.
A lot of the time I would
During the week, I would stay in a hotel
because I was scared of him.
But I couldn't afford the weekends
because they were so expensive.
And I decided to file
a restraining order against Ben.
[music fades]
I met the Las Vegas police around
the corner from where my condo was at.
They tell me, "Okay,
we're going to go serve it."
I said, "Great. What happens
if he doesn't answer the door?"
They said, "Nothing."
"Well, that's my that's my place."
"He moved his belongings to my place,
and I need to get into my place
to get some things
so I can get myself together for work."
"Can't you at least escort me into
my place so I can get my belongings
that I need so I don't get beaten up?"
"Uh-uh. No, we don't do that."
[ominous music playing]
The police did take the restraining order
and go to serve it to Ben,
and as I thought,
he did not answer the door.
And that was that.
They left, and they left the paper
there at the door.
I sat outside of my apartment
for a couple hours,
and I didn't know what to do
or where to go.
I was absolutely scared to go inside
because I had just served him
a restraining order.
But I was so tired. I was so exhausted.
I just didn't know what else to do.
I didn't know where to go.
So I walked into the door.
I went straight to my room
and laid down and passed out.
When I woke up,
he was sitting on top of me.
[suspenseful music playing]
He had one hand
holding both my arms behind my back.
And he started shaving my head
with the clippers.
Shaved my head bald.
[clippers buzzing]
And he said, "No man will ever look at you
or think you're pretty."
If I fought back,
I knew that I wouldn't win.
I knew there was
nothing I could do about it.
He already just buzzed
the whole center of my head. It's gone.
This was a completely different person
that I couldn't reason with anymore.
The best thing that I could possibly do
if I wanted to not get my face smashed
was to just be quiet.
[tense music playing]
For weeks, he kept me there.
I wasn't allowed to go
anywhere out of his sight.
When we slept,
I would either sleep tied up
or he'd be behind me
and have a gun to my head.
He stripped me naked
so I couldn't hide anything
or have anything on me.
I did not have access to my phone.
Three to five days in,
he said, "I'm going to kill you."
And I knew he was.
I could see it in his eyes
that he was gonna kill me.
I was really scared.
[rhythmic percussive music playing]
Things escalated.
He'd attacked me, like,
several times over the next few days.
I would ask him like, "Why are you
doing this to me? Like, why are you"
"I've taken care of you
for the last year, you know,
like, why are you doing this to me?"
And he'd look at me and say, "I have to."
I was like, "Okay."
And then he'd have, like, moments
where he'd just look at me and say,
"I deserve to go to jail for the rest
of my life for what I've done to you."
[dramatic piano music playing]
Eventually, my credit card
was maxed so far that I couldn't order,
you know, any food, and we had no water.
So we had to go to the grocery store.
I'm thinking this could be my chance.
So I just said there's no more food
for Maya. We have no food to eat.
He's like, "Okay,
we need to go to the store."
So we jump in my car.
He makes me drive.
At that moment, I was thinking
maybe I'll be able to get away.
We go to the first grocery store,
and it's right down the road.
It's a small grocery store. I thought
maybe he'd feel more comfortable.
And right when I pulled into
the parking spot,
he said Maya has to go to the bathroom.
I'm gonna let her go. I said, okay.
I was super scared.
I unbuckled my seatbelt,
and I jumped out of the car really quick,
and I ran.
I didn't have my phone.
I didn't have any money.
So I run inside the store,
and I'm frantic,
and I see someone who works there.
I explained the situation.
I said, "Do you have an office or a room
I can lock myself in? I need to hide."
She said, "No, there's no
We don't have any office here."
[tense music playing]
I said, "Okay. He's outside with my dog.
He's walking her right now."
And I said,
"Do you have a back door, anything?"
And she said, "Yeah, we have a back door."
So I ran out the back door.
I ran into this apartment complex,
and I didn't look back.
I just kept running forward.
I didn't know if he was gonna find me,
what was gonna happen.
And there was a guy sitting in his car.
And he was like, "Are you okay?"
And he's just like,
"Do you need a ride to the hospital?"
I was like,
"Yes, take me to the hospital."
[line ringing]
[911 operator] Okay.
[Jaimee] When I got to the hospital,
I was treated for seven broken ribs,
two black eyes,
had bruises all over my body,
lacerations all over my body,
cauliflower ears,
and damage to both my eyes.
The nurse comes into the hospital room
and tells me that
she had to call the cops.
Hi, Jaimee. I'm Officer Casper.
These cops are staying here
to talk to you.
Hi.
[Casper] We need to know the story about
what happened, what brought you here.
We need to know information about him.
We're not the other officers that helped
you out or that you dealt with before.
I mean, I don't know how much to tell you.
Like, I never knew
This has never happened to me before.
I've never
Speaking to the police,
I didn't feel safer.
I felt more scared.
[Casper] We are going to do
everything we can to help you with this,
and to do that,
we need to know who this person is.
[Jaimee] If he gets arrested
[sniffles]
it's not like you can hold him that long.
I didn't think the police would be able
to keep me safe.
If they did arrest him,
I knew he'd be out shortly.
It wouldn't be long
before he came after me again,
and he would find me.
[Jaimee speaking indistinctly]
[Casper] All right, Jaimee,
what's the address there?
[Jaimee] I gave my statement
to the police.
Later that night,
I'm released from the hospital,
and a SWAT officer drives me home.
He had called the judge,
and they got a search warrant for my place
to go and arrest Ben.
When we got to my place, I see ambulance,
fire department, news team,
helicopters, drones.
[siren wailing]
They had already bombed the place.
Every All the windows were blown out
with tear gas.
The front door was on the ground
in the front lawn.
Ben came out holding Maya.
One of the officers took her from him
and brought her to me,
and then they put him in the car.
[poignant music playing]
One day, I was just,
you know, sitting on my couch,
hanging out watching TV,
and I see Ben's face
plastered on the news.
[reporter] He's accused of holding
his girlfriend captive, beating her,
burning her with lye,
even shaving her head and tying her up.
He had done some pretty terrible things
to the girl that he was dating after me.
I was very much in disbelief and shock.
I was just thinking about
the fact that he had the
the past that he had.
That he was able to do this
to someone else was just mind-boggling.
But then on the other side of the coin,
it was something that was serious enough
to gain a little bit of traction
to maybe put him in jail for,
you know, a good amount of time.
[reporter] Just last week,
police say Foster
barricaded himself inside for hours.
Ben was charged with battery
domestic violence by strangulation,
kidnapping first degree,
as well as a few other charges,
but I didn't want to go to trial.
I didn't want to show up in
that courtroom. I didn't want to do that.
It wasn't just fear of testifying.
It was having to sit in a room with him
and having to feel that again.
[tense music playing]
The DA and the police all had
more than enough evidence.
They had taken hundreds of pictures of me.
I've given my statement.
They saw what I looked like.
Why do I have to go there
and sit in front of him?
So the DA cut him a deal.
At the end of the day,
if we don't have a willing participant,
a willing victim
that wants to come to court,
and this victim did not want
to come to court,
uh, we have to do what we can
to salvage, uh, a conviction.
[melancholy music playing]
[reporter] He was sentenced to
a maximum 30 months in jail,
but given credit
for two years already served.
[Amber] I find out that he was
let out of jail, and he got time served.
I was always on guard
and on alert and very vigilant
knowing that Ben was out there again.
I mean, now it's starting to develop
into a sort of pattern.
He was showing that he was
growing increasingly more dangerous.
He was 100% going to hurt someone else.
[tense music playing]
[Angie] I do believe Ben Foster is evil.
I don't I don't know how
he ever got turned loose on Oregon
to brutalize my friend like that.
It it was just all so unnecessary.
He should have never been here.
[officer] AMR is getting ready
to transport to the hospital.
They're actually talking about intubation.
She's got severe injuries to the face.
Oh my God, what I walked into here,
I sure didn't expect.
Dear God.
I spoke to police and the detectives,
and then me and my cousin
went straight to the hospital.
[melancholy music playing]
Justine was completely, like, in a coma
and just so beaten, so brutalized.
They didn't think she was gonna make it.
Justine is a very, very dear friend to me.
She's just larger than life.
She's beautiful.
I mean, she's like everybody's
favorite bartender in town.
She's just the most talented human being
I've ever met.
All I wanted was just for her to wake up.
It's all I wanted, you know.
[reporter] In southern Oregon,
a manhunt is underway.
[officer] If you see any hitchhikers,
call 911 and don't pick them up, okay?
[Angie] It really shook up
this little town.
Everyone was just sick about it.
Devastated that Justine was hurt.
Frantically wanting him to be caught.
[reporter] Thirty-six-year-old
Benjamin Obadiah Foster
on the run after allegedly kidnapping
and trying to kill a woman.
[reporter 2] Authorities are warning
he's extremely dangerous.
Ben Foster had been identified
and had fled from the scene
prior to the officers' arrival.
- [man] All right.
- [officer] Come on out.
[officer 2] Who are you?
Are you Ben? That looks like him.
We needed to capture the suspect
so that he didn't victimize anyone else.
[officer 2] I'll confirm who you are.
If you're not the guy, we'll let you go.
[officer] It's not him.
[suspenseful music playing]
[siren wailing]
[Robert] We actually called in more
resources to help this manhunt for Ben.
We had reached out to the US Marshals
as well to assist in this.
And then it was basically every detective
within the Grants Pass Police Department
going through
every open-source piece of information.
Social media, prior addresses
in those open sources trying to find out
a place that he hid.
[slow-paced piano music playing]
[Jeff] We found out that Ben Foster
had grown up in Grants Pass,
had family in the area.
Mom and Dad were very helpful.
[detective] When was the last time
you saw Ben or talked to him?
- [mom] Eight last night.
- [dad] Last night.
[mom] He came in
- [dad] Whirlwind.
- [mom] A whirlwind, yeah.
And just took out boatloads of clothing.
And I'm going,
"Well, are you moving in with Justine?"
[detective] Uh, I'm not gonna
get into great detail,
but Justine is in the hospital.
And she is in,
uh, really, really, really bad shape.
[mom] Oh my God.
[dad] Well, that fits
what happened in Vegas.
[detective] If you guys have contact
with Benjamin,
it is in his best interest
to contact the police and turn himself in
because everybody is looking for him
right now.
[mom] You know what, it wouldn't surprise
me if he didn't try to head back to Vegas.
- [detective] Yeah?
- [mom] Yeah.
You know, something snapped in him.
I don't know what, but [sobs]
it it really breaks our heart.
[tense music playing]
[Jeff] On Thursday, January 26th,
we received a tip
through our narcotics detectives
that Ben Foster was
in the Sunny Valley area.
Sunny Valley is a rural area
with a lot of farms and ranches,
and it's a very forested area out there.
We set up a surveillance in Sunny Valley,
and Ben Foster was observed
outside a residence.
Let's get cover right here.
[indistinct chatter]
We found out the house belonged
to a female named Tina Jones.
So we pre-deployed scout teams
to get at least eyes on the house
with binoculars
Going down.
to see if they could see anything.
[dogs barking in the distance]
It appears that Tina's dogs alerted
to the officers out in the forest.
Ben Foster came out of the residence,
and you can tell that he had some concern
about what the dogs were barking at.
[dogs barking in the distance]
Ben begins doing counter-surveillance.
He climbed up on the roof of Tina's house
with a set of binoculars.
[officer] One of our guys has eyes on
a guy on the trailer with a shaved head.
Then he came down
and started doing ground property checks
and ultimately spots
one of the surveillance guys
that are in the bushes
and then takes off running.
- [officer 2] He went there.
- [officer 3] That way?
[officer 2] Yeah. Up through there.
Straight to your left.
Track him through there.
He wore blue jeans and a camo jacket.
[Robert] A handful of officers
from every agency that were up there
gave chase and then
saw him go down an embankment.
[siren wailing]
[Jeff] He knows where he's going.
[officer] He could be through the freeway.
[Jeff] Easily. Easy.
Unfortunately, we lost
visual contact with him.
Our hearts just dropped because this
dangerous man, we felt, had gotten away.
At the time we served
the search warrant on Tina's residence
- This is Tina.
- Hi, Tina.
She's been read her rights
Tina was identified as a female
that was a friend of Ben Foster's family.
[officer] I'm not trying to make this
inconvenient, but you harbored a fugitive.
[Tina] I didn't know who it was
that he was.
[officer] We have reason to believe
that you harbored him
and helped him tamper with evidence.
[Robert] During the search
of Tina's house
[dogs barking]
we found a small, light travel backpack
that when we opened it
had Ben's wallet in there,
had his ID, a large amount of cash.
It looked like he had
kind of assembled a go bag,
a kit to get ready to like flee
out of state and flee out of the area.
[Robert] A handbag
containing, uh, three cell phones.
We found multiple cell phones,
but every phone was wrapped in tinfoil.
We found a tablet and a laptop
that both had the camera covered.
Everything that had
any kind of electronic communication
was wrapped in tinfoil.
He just exhibited this extreme paranoia
that he was being tracked.
There was a cell phone
found with the go bag.
And when that cell phone was accessed,
uh, we discovered that
dating apps had been accessed.
He may have been using dating apps
potentially to get assistance
in fleeing from the state
or to target potential victims.
And we are back with our national lead
and the race to find a man
who police say may be using dating apps
to lure and then attack women
Our greatest fear is that we were going
to end up with more victims,
and that's the reason why
we got that information out
to the national media,
to let women know to watch out
while Ben Foster was on the loose.
There's a manhunt right now
for a suspect in a brutal kidnapping
who police say may actually be searching
online right now for his next victim.
Thirty-six-year-old
Benjamin Obadiah Foster is accused of
I had gone some peaceful years
not really thinking much about Ben.
And then I see
that there is a manhunt for Ben.
[tense music playing]
I hear the word manhunt and
a little voice inside of my head is like,
"Is it possible
that he would come back here?"
I was consistently glued
to the television.
I just hoped that Ben was not going
to come back to Las Vegas.
[cell phone buzzing]
[Jaimee] And one day I got a phone call
out of the blue from Ben's brother,
and I hadn't spoken to him in over a year,
and he told me that Ben was on the run.
[discordant music playing]
He was crying, and he said, "I'm sorry
that I never believed anything you said."
[somber music playing]
And he told me
[shaky breaths]
"I didn't wanna believe
any of it was true,
but I know that you weren't lying now
because he just did it to somebody else,
and she's really bad. It's really bad."
"And they're looking for him right now,
and he's out. He's on the run."
"I just wanted you to know to be careful
because he might come down there,
you know?"
[tense music playing]
[Jeff] On Sunday the 29th,
our fugitive apprehension teams
continued to search for Ben Foster.
We were trying absolutely
every angle that we could.
[Robert] We had rotating groups of people
that were continuously going
out to Sunny Valley
to keep shaking anything.
And then we moved into Monday.
I remember just trying to talk
with my partners.
Like, what am I missing here?
What what is some other tools,
some other resource that we can have?
[indistinct chatter]
[Robert] I interviewed Tina at the jail
because we were concerned
that she knew where Ben Foster was.
She had told us he'd showed up
the night of the 24th, said,
"I got in a fight with my parents.
Can I stay here?"
And they all go to the same church
in Sunny Valley.
And so she said,
"Yeah, you can stay here."
And allowed him to park the car there.
She said that she didn't really know that
he was on the run from law enforcement.
We are still looking for Mr. Foster,
and we're concerned
that, uh, he is still up there.
- Not in your house, but somewhere.
- No.
He shouldn't be in the house
because between, um,
Ron and Rick,
they're up there taking care of my dogs.
[Robert] She was concerned about her dogs,
and there was two dogs
that were still at the house.
And she provided the name of Richard Baron
of somebody that she trusted
to take care of her dogs.
My partners communicated with Richard,
said, "Hey, are you okay with
taking care of the dogs?" He says, "Yes."
Uh, explained that
we were unable to locate Ben.
So if there was any concerns
about anything, please call us.
[tense music playing]
We did finally get a tip
that someone had called for a taxi ride
from the Sunny Valley area.
[Robert] A guy who works for a cab company
said that he got a phone call
requesting a ride.
The person that provided the name
for the ride was Richard Baron,
Tina's neighbor.
The cab driver knew
that Richard was an older male,
and per the cab driver, was like,
"This guy did not sound old."
So he declined.
He knew about this manhunt for Ben
and then called us.
Shortly after that, I got a phone call
from Detective Sergeant Hamilton
saying that they were at Richard's house.
[suspenseful percussive music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[officer] Two bodies over here.
Two in there.
We need to get major crimes out.
[Robert] They found Richard deceased,
and then they also found
his caretaker Ronald Griffith.
They were both deceased
in the living room.
[officer] There's blood
there's blood drag marks right there.
[Jeff] They had been killed in a residence
just across from
where Tina's residence was.
We suspect that Ben had broken in
and held them hostage
while he was there hiding.
[dog panting]
[Robert] They had both
violently been beaten.
- [officer] Gas.
- [officer 2] Big time.
The house had
an overpowering odor of gasoline.
Both the bodies were covered
in wood pellets,
and the wood pellet stove was on.
[officer] Looks like he was intending
on them burning.
[officer 2] Yeah.
I had no doubt when they told me that
that it was connected to Ben.
We called cab companies and discovered
that another cab company had picked up
a subject from Richard's house.
[officer] Does that look like the guy?
[cab driver] Didn't have the beard on.
But he was a tall guy.
- [officer] The stature matches?
- [cab driver] Yeah.
[officer] Okay.
They had driven him
back to, uh, the city of Grants Pass.
They even told us that
they had dropped this person off
near the area of Justine's house
where this crime had occurred
and described him as having
a small white dog with him.
[knocking at door]
- [officer] Hello.
- [man] Hey.
[Robert] Justine's neighbor
actually caught, like, a glimpse
of a guy matching Ben's description.
[officer] Someone told you
that our suspect
was in the house on Shane Way?
[man] He said something too
like he was walking a dog?
At, like, ten this morning?
Detectives were able to get some
surveillance video from the neighborhood.
[officer 2] We got photos
of the last time he was seen on video
Carhartt tan-colored jacket, jeans.
Tan Carhartt jacket, blue jeans,
white dog with a blue vest.
- Clean-shaven, trim cut.
- [officer 3] Perfect.
that showed Ben Foster there
with the white dog
just down the street
from Justine's residence.
Copy. Let's go around
and help them out in the front.
We were fairly confident that it was Ben
there hiding at Justine's house.
So we called
Jackson County SWAT team over.
You have shooters on this side.
You got a shooter here.
You need to get three guys
here for front door.
We wanted to prevent him
from being able to slip away
like he was able to do
in the rural area of Sunny Valley.
[reporter] Several law enforcement
agencies, including Grants Pass police,
have blocked off the roadway
all across this community.
[officer 4] Everybody, scoot back.
Go back further please.
Guys, if you can get across
the street, please.
We need to take the door.
We need to open the garage.
We need to start clearing
with technology and with K-9
and knock out this house.
[over speaker] Benjamin Foster,
we have a warrant for your arrest.
Come out with your hands in the air.
For hours, we attempted
announcements into the house
We need bangs front and rear.
deployed chemical munitions
into the house.
[officer 5] Out of the way!
[over speaker] We have a search warrant.
Come out with hands in the air.
[Jeff] But there was no response.
We believed, at that point, that
Ben was actually inside the residence.
So we had to go
and obtain a search warrant
to be able to gain access.
When we had that, uh, the search warrant,
made entry, uh, into the residence.
[Robert] They're set. They're ready.
We're good on you.
Is that it?
They'd sent Jackson County SWAT team
into the house with their K-9 and drones
to search the house.
[officer 6 over radio]
Right and left cabin negative.
[Robert] Primary is clear.
There was no luck. No Ben.
[sheriff] He's gotta be
in there somewhere.
We checked all closets. Didn't see anyone.
[Robert] He's on foot in the area
if he isn't in there.
[officer 5] Yeah.
I felt defeated that I
[exclaims] Maybe I missed something.
What about sending
a small team up with the dog,
throw the K-9 in
underneath the crawlspace?
They started a secondary search
outside the residence.
There's a K-9 back there.
[Jeff] And they found an access area
underneath the home.
[dog barks]
[K-9 officer] I got movement.
I got movement.
The dog indicated
that there was something down there.
[K-9 officer] He's under the house,
looking through the fence.
[officer 4] Get behind armor.
Let's go nice and slow. We got him.
He had hidden himself
underneath the residence.
[officer 5] Let's get some pepper ball
or some sort of munition in that hole.
[officer 4] Pepper ball to be delivered
to the crawlspace now.
[pepper ball shot]
[Robert] At that point,
we put some chemical agents under there.
[indistinct chatter]
They used Jackson County's robot
and sent it in there.
The second they send in the robots
underneath the house, they see bags,
clothing, a sleeping bag.
And then as they're moving through
underneath the space, they see him, Ben.
[officer 6] Hey, he's kneeled down.
He's looking outside.
He starts moving all over the place,
and he manages to stay still long enough
to see that he's got a pistol in his hand.
[officer 6] Guys, watch the vents.
Watch the vents.
One of the robots actually has a speaker
that they can use their negotiator
to talk through.
Never got a response.
[officer on speaker] Benjamin Foster.
[Robert] And then
[gunshot]
[Robert] There was a gunshot.
[tense music playing]
[Robert] One of the robots moves
to get a better position of where he's at.
When they moved over, they saw
that there was apparent injury to him.
[Jeff] As they got in closer,
they were able to see that
he had a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
[officer] Jesus that fucking sound.
[siren wailing]
He was taken to the hospital
where he died shortly after that.
[reporter] A man accused of kidnapping
and torturing a woman in Oregon is dead
after a standoff with authorities.
Police had been searching
for 36-year-old Benjamin Foster
for more than a week.
Investigators say he was using
dating apps to find potential victims
I have a lot of people say to me,
"Oh, he took the easy way out,
and he killed himself." And I'm like,
"He's right where he belongs."
"He's burning in hell."
[poignant music playing]
I was terrified
Justine was going to be a vegetable.
And I thought it was because
I hadn't found that rope soon enough.
I could not believe
she finally woke up [sobs].
[Justine] I wouldn't be alive.
I would not be alive today
if it wasn't for Angie and her mom.
Torture's, like, is an understatement
of what I went through.
I mean, I would have never guessed this
that this would happen to me.
Never in a million years.
I mean, you don't wake up thinking like,
"Somebody's gonna try to kill me today."
Ben and I had been hanging out
probably for about two months total.
It was a very casual relationship.
I never saw any red flags
because he was nothing but nice to me.
But one day Ben came over
to Angie's house,
and he was asking for clean urine
because he had to pass a urinalysis test.
I got very curious because normally when
you're required to take a urinalysis test
it's because you're in trouble
for something with the law.
So I started going on the internet,
and that's when I found out
about his history in Las Vegas.
[glitchy audio]
[siren wailing]
I mean, I was very shocked.
I thought I needed to tell my boss
because, at the end of the day,
you don't want somebody working for you
in the bar industry giving people alcohol
that has a history of,
you know, abusing women.
And he got fired,
ultimately, because of it.
Ben knew I was the reason he got fired.
So I got to the point where I just
I stopped hanging out with him.
Probably like a month after he got fired,
I got home,
and he'd been there all day in my garage.
I just remember sitting on my couch
and him coming out of my garage
and just started beating me.
He said I got him fired.
Ben held me captive
and basically kidnapped me.
It was almost three days.
He just beat me and beat me
and beat me and beat me.
He beat me so bad
that I have traumatic brain damage.
[Angie speaking]
[knocking at door]
[Justine] I remember hearing,
like, some knocking outside.
[Angie speaking]
When Angie found me,
I was like, "Finally, I'm safe."
Because otherwise,
like, I don't think I would have made it.
[Angie] This photo is when Justine,
she had just come out of the hospital.
It was the best best moment ever.
[poignant music playing]
After it happened,
I had nightmares and flashbacks.
And the minute I saw Justine out one day
and saw her okay,
that all just stopped.
It was the weirdest thing ever.
You know what I mean? Just seeing
her whole again, it just stopped.
I never dreamed that
she'd be whole and doing so good again.
It's just so awesome.
I should have known.
She's the strongest,
most talented person I've ever met.
[Justine] It's been a long road,
a very long road.
I had to learn how to re-walk
because my muscles were so atrophied.
I was so skinny.
I just had my teeth done, thank goodness,
because he punched out all my teeth.
So it was just
it was just a lot to deal with.
Like, I'm very lucky to be here.
Sorry. [laughs]
[Amber] In my opinion,
I think that the justice system here
did a great disservice to Justine.
Ben was obviously
getting increasingly more abusive
and increasingly more dangerous.
If they would have taken my story
and Jaimee's story more seriously,
they could have prevented this
from happening to her,
and they could have saved two lives.
[pensive music playing]
[Jaimee] I really think
Ben was really sick.
He was not he was not well at all.
I don't think everyone is like that,
but I do know that they're out there.
So I do pay closer attention
to those things.
[Amber] I have never spoken
to Jaimee or Justine,
but unfortunately,
we share this bond with each other
that only we three can really understand.
I look back on this time in my life
spent with Ben
and instead of, you know,
looking at it as a blemish,
I look at it as a learning experience.
I could move past him and not get myself
into the same kind of relationship.
Now, in my life, I'm happy.
I'm happy,
and I am even happier that I don't
have to look over my shoulder anymore.
[hopeful music playing]
[dramatic strings music playing]
- [producer] I'm setting up.
- [woman] Okay.
- [producer] Okay. Rolling.
- [woman] Okay.
- [producer 2] Yeah, just watch your step.
- [woman] Okay.
It's this way?
[producer 2] Yeah.
So Angie, you mentioned
wanting to listen to the 911 call.
Yes.
[producer 2] You can hit play
where it is right now.
[line ringing]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
[tense music builds, fades]
[Angie] Tuesday night, my mom
had just called me and said,
"Justine just called me."
"She said she needs to go to the hospital,
and she doesn't sound right."
[Angie speaking on phone]
I ran up to her front door,
and her doors are never locked,
and they were locked.
[knocking at door]
[Angie speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
[knocking at door]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking, panicked]
So I go around to the back door
and I hear
[choked scream]
[Angie speaking]
After the first time she screamed,
I hear bang, bang, bang.
And I'm thinking it's her
like, hitting the walls,
like, wanting me to hurry up.
And then I'm trying to get the door open.
I can't get it open.
I'm trying to kick it open,
and then she screamed again.
And then I hear bang, bang, bang, again.
I mean, the most god-awful scream
you've ever heard in your life.
[Angie on phone]
[sobs] So I I gotta run around
to the other side of the house
and see if
I can break in the front somewhere.
[Angie on phone]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
And all of a sudden,
her the garage door's open,
and I'm like, what is?
What the hell? Like, how did I miss that?
[Angie on phone]
So I start to sprint into her house.
And Ben Foster comes out. And I went
[dispatcher speaking]
[Ben speaking]
[Angie speaking]
He says, "Why don't you
go in there and get her,
and I'll get the car ready,
and we'll take her to the hospital."
[dispatcher speaking]
[Angie speaking]
And I go running in there and as soon as
I get inside the door, there's Justine.
[sobbing]
[Angie on phone]
Oh! It was so awful.
And she was not moving.
[Angie on phone]
[glitchy audio]
[siren wailing]
[tense music playing]
[dispatcher speaking]
[police officer] Copy.
I was working for
the Grants Pass police department,
and I was assigned as the criminal
investigations division lieutenant.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[Jeff] Call came in at seven o'clock.
We had officers get in their cars
and immediately start heading that way.
[officer] Hello?
[Angie] Come in.
Back here, please. Back here!
[officer] Who's all in the house?
- Just her now.
- [officer] Okay. Is she okay?
[Angie] She had ropes around her throat.
[officer] Just go and stand right here
for me. What's her name?
[Angie] Justine.
[officer] Go ahead and send in medical.
[Angie sobs]
[Jeff] I've been in law enforcement
for over 33 years and, um
I've seen very few scenes
as horrific and terrible as this one was.
Um, it was obvious that Justine had really
been tortured and hurt badly.
[officer] Approximately
30-year-old female, naked.
She's been severely, uh,
beaten about the face.
[man] I'm currently assigned to
the investigations division as a detective
for the Grants Pass Police Department.
[officer] Let's be very careful
with evidence, please.
[man] The victim, Justine, she was
unconscious. She wasn't responding.
She was transported
to a hospital on Medford.
[Angie] What is that crazy guy's name
that Justine was seeing?
[sobbing]
- Benjamin what?
- [officer] Okay, slow down a little.
[Angie] Benjamin Obadiah Foster.
[Jeff] Right off the bat
we did have a suspect.
He was identified as, uh, Ben Foster.
[officer] Are they boyfriend-girlfriend?
[Angie] Yes.
[officer] How long have they been dating?
[Angie sniffles] A couple months.
[officer] What was he wearing?
Well, he just has a little weird ponytail.
I saw that.
I know it's him
because I just met him a few days ago.
[Robert] It was painted pretty quickly
by Angela.
Ben had been arrested in Las Vegas
for assaulting an ex-girlfriend.
[officer] The name
was the name she gave me
because they've looked him up.
She has all that rap sheet
out of Clark County.
That was the one
that I name scanned, Benjamin Foster.
- [officer 2] Good.
- [man] We learned that
Benjamin Foster was involved
in multiple incidents in Las Vegas
and had a lot of similarities
to what occurred here in Grants Pass.
[tense music playing]
[Jeff] Grants Pass is a small town.
Generally, we're dealing with
a lot of nuisance crimes, a lot of thefts,
a lot of the lower level crimes.
- [helicopter whirring]
- [siren wailing]
[Warren] This type of incident,
it shouldn't
be happening in Grants Pass, Oregon.
I was really, really worried.
We were concerned about our community.
We know we have to
get this man into custody.
What if he does it to somebody else?
[music increases, fades]
[tense music playing]
[woman] At one point, I did think that
Ben could have been the one for me.
It's hard to pinpoint
the emotions that you feel when,
you know, you love someone and,
unfortunately,
this person could have killed you.
[wistful music playing]
[jazzy music playing]
[Amber] I met Ben in the summer of 2012.
We were both working at a day club
at a Las Vegas strip hotel.
He was a barback and I was a server.
He was cute, tall, athletic.
Ice blue eyes, dark hair.
He was very smart, and I think that
that's what attracted me to him initially.
I don't know if I was exactly looking
for a relationship,
but eventually that's what it turned into.
We dated probably for about a year
before we actually moved in together.
Ben could be very, very sweet.
He would leave notes like,
"Hey, I hope you have
a good day today. I love you."
We had a normal relationship.
We would go on dinner dates,
go to Disneyland,
you know,
hang out with all of our friends.
But Ben was just not very comfortable
around people.
He's a very, like, lone wolf
kind of person, very closed off.
I think Ben might have had
a little bit of a jealousy streak.
[keyboard clacking]
I was helping my ex, uh,
stay in the country, who was foreign.
And Ben got really, really upset
that I was continuing to help this person.
[tense music playing]
He kind of started
hastily, like, questioning.
Like, not yelling,
but kind of in a more intense tone
than what you would normally speak
to someone in.
And was just obviously visibly upset.
I just didn't understand
why he was so upset.
My ex was actually in a relationship
with another person, was engaged.
In hindsight,
I think that Ben had been set off by that
because of what he had been doing himself.
It wasn't until later that I found out
Ben was actually seeing
his ex-girlfriend behind my back.
[music fades]
Ben came from Oregon,
so he is very outdoorsy.
He had a very intense passion for guns
and knives and martial arts.
He would get new knives every week.
New guns.
We would go to gun shows every weekend.
It was an obsession.
He had this weird, like, practice knife
that he used to mess around
and pretend to, like, slit my throat.
In a very playful manner kind of thing.
At the time,
it didn't seem to be anything alarming.
But now it just, it kind of seems very odd
seeing how everything played out.
[tense music playing]
One afternoon, Ben and I had gotten into
some kind of bickering match.
I just remember him being, like, really
fidgety and shifty and very on edge.
Me being the person that I am
and trying to push his buttons,
I told him that I threw away
a brand-new gun that he just bought.
[ominous music playing]
And then he pushed me down, and he hit me.
Slapped me. A pretty hard open-hand slap.
He was in a blind rage.
You could see it in his eyes.
Ben was definitely not
the same person that I was in love with.
It was a stranger.
I was just very shocked.
I was very scared.
I immediately just booked it.
I grabbed my keys, and I left.
I decided to call the police.
After I gave the police my statement,
they accompanied me back to the house.
[siren wails]
Then they handcuffed him
and put him in jail.
[dramatic sting]
[tense music playing]
Within a few months of Ben's arrest,
he was let out of jail.
He had gone from my boyfriend
to my ex-boyfriend,
and unbeknownst to me,
he had started stalking me.
[thunder cracks]
It was a super rainy fall afternoon.
I was going to watch some football games
with some of my friends,
but I needed to go home and get a jacket.
I pull up to the house
that Ben and I shared,
and he was outside of his car.
He was yelling. He was screaming.
He was banging his fist on my car,
telling me to unlock the door,
telling me to come out of the car.
I asked him to leave.
Ben angrily got in his car,
and he sped off,
and I wait a little bit,
maybe about 15 minutes,
and then I proceeded to go into the house.
And as soon as I get to the closet,
Ben grabs me by the hair,
and he pulls me down to the ground.
I had no idea Ben had gotten to the condo.
I'm just kind of like a rag doll
at this point.
He's dragging me on the floor.
He goes to slice my face.
I put my hand up,
and he almost slices this pinky
all the way off.
I'm bleeding all over myself,
and I am just thinking that this is
probably going to be the day that I die.
[thunder rumbling]
He takes me into the garage,
and he pins me down,
and he is just all-out whaling on me
at this point.
And then he gets up.
And when he gets up, I know that that's
my only chance to try to get away.
So I get up as fast as I can.
I hit the garage door.
And I just army crawl
out of the garage into the rain.
I'm covered in blood,
and I I run to the leasing office.
They called police.
Once the police get there,
they go to the house to talk to Ben.
[suspenseful music playing]
And at this point,
Ben cleaned everything up.
He cut his own face,
told the police that I cut his face
and that I instigated the incident.
That's when they came back
to the leasing office,
and they put me in handcuffs.
[indistinct police radio chatter]
The police never wanted to listen
to my side of the story.
I could not understand
how me covered in my own blood
with defensive wounds all over me,
how they could put me in handcuffs
and try to take me to jail.
[pensive music playing]
Honestly, it's the worst
one of the worst days of my life.
After escaping with my life,
I had to spend 18 hours in jail.
The officers did not look up Ben's record
and did not know
that Ben had been arrested
for attacking me prior to that.
But the judge did a little bit of digging,
and she made the DA look into
the previous incident report
when he had gone to jail for attacking me
and ended up ruling and dismissing
the domestic charges against me.
After I get out of jail,
I come home,
and he had stolen all of my belongings
[suspenseful music playing]
I have no clothes, absolutely no clothes,
not even underwear.
All of my personal things
like my birth certificate,
my social security card.
He literally took everything.
[tense music playing]
Come, baby. Come, baby girl. Come.
Come, come, come, come. Come. Good girl.
Her name's Maya.
She's a little shih tzu
with a cute, little sassy personality.
[pensive music playing]
Ben loved my dog.
I think he liked hanging out with my dog
more than me. [chuckles]
[upbeat music playing]
I think the thing that really locked me in
and really, really attracted him to me
the very most
was the way that he took care of my dog.
- [dog barks]
- [laughs]
[Ben] I'll pass it
when she comes right at me. [laughs]
There's nothing to bite.
[Jaimee] He got her
all kinds of cool gifts,
backpacks, just all kinds of cute stuff.
And he was always really, really kind
to Maya. He loved her so much.
[low-key music playing]
I met Benjamin
when I started doing Krav Maga.
Krav Maga is combative.
Um, it's like a mixed martial arts.
It's not fancy like Kung Fu.
It's more I guess more violent.
Ben came from a really good family.
He was planning to get in law enforcement.
He wasn't on drugs. He barely even drink.
On paper, it seemed like
he was a solid person.
We were friends
for probably around a month.
And that's when it escalated
a little bit further.
But it was never an actual
girlfriend-boyfriend relationship
for a lot of the time
that we were seeing each other.
I wasn't really looking for that,
and he would never admit it,
but I knew
that he was seeing other people.
And I wasn't trying
to force him into anything.
So I'd just see him a few times a week
sometimes, and sometimes I didn't.
But when he did come by,
Ben didn't always seem present.
He's there physically,
but you don't really know
what he's thinking about.
And I felt like he spent a lot of time
thinking of his exes.
Turned out he was [chuckles].
[pensive music playing]
[Amber] In December 2017,
I get a text message from Ben,
and it's a novel of him explaining
that he's been going to therapy,
and one of the steps that he's taken
is trying to make amends
with people that he's hurt
and that he just wanted to be able to have
a face-to-face conversation for closure.
We met at a restaurant.
He was just telling me how sorry he was
and how he wishes that he didn't mess up,
that I was the love of his life,
and it seemed like he was genuinely sorry
about what he did, and it seemed like
he was really trying to make a change.
I almost felt bad for him
and wanted to be there
for him as a friend.
It's kind of like
a Stockholm syndrome kind of thing.
So you in turn start feeling bad for them,
which is a very weird thing to do.
We started speaking on a regular basis
through text again,
and we had begun hanging out again.
[bells jingling]
["We Wish You
a Merry Christmas" tune playing]
It was Christmas Eve,
and he's sitting in my living room.
- [cell phone buzzing]
- I leave my cell phone on the table.
[music distorts]
And I go into the other room to change,
and when I come back,
I don't see Ben on the couch.
[suspenseful music playing]
Ben comes from around the corner
in my kitchen and starts strangling me.
It happened so fast, but I knew that
I had just made a very serious mistake.
He takes me down to the couch
and strangles me until I'm unconscious.
[tense music playing]
When I wake up, he's punching my walls,
and he is walking around.
And I just immediately get up,
and I run out of my back door
and jump off of my first-floor balcony.
I ran to the first car that I saw.
It was a female with a dog in her car,
and she let me in. I had no shoes on.
She was so helpful. She was so amazing.
And she 1000% saved my life.
[dispatcher] 911 emergency.
[Amber] Police, please.
The police come.
This officer literally grabs me
by the shoulders and tells me,
"You cannot see this person anymore."
"This person could've taken you away
from your family right before Christmas."
"Like, there's no apology
that is worth your life."
Ben went to jail again, and the State
ended up pressing charges for me.
[pensive music playing]
There was supposed to be a trial,
but nothing was happening
in any sort of urgency, I'll say.
After that, I was just always
looking over my shoulder
thinking that Ben would be there.
There was always just
this constant state of fear
that the other shoe would drop
and maybe he would be able to finish out
whatever he was trying to do
the last time that he attacked me.
[tense music playing]
[Jaimee] About a year after I met Ben,
he had a series
of really unfortunate events.
And one of them was losing his job.
And then for a while he couldn't pay rent,
so then he ended up essentially moving in.
When he moved in,
we had probably been seeing each other
a little over a year, year and a half.
It was still nothing serious
or anything like that.
It was just
He needed help, and I helped him.
It wasn't too long after that
where things started getting
[dramatic music plays]
a little crazy.
[ambient strings music playing]
It was difficult
because he was always sick,
always depressed, had anxiety.
Couldn't get a job
because he couldn't even get out of bed.
I would question him about like,
"What's your plan?"
"What are you gonna do?"
"I don't mind helping you out,
but I can't carry this forever."
[tense music playing]
One day, I was trying to reason with him.
He came up from behind me
and slammed me on the ground.
It was completely unexpected.
We weren't arguing.
I was so shocked.
That was the first time
he ever put his hands on me.
And then he started getting really weird.
He started saying
people were following him.
He really thought
people were trying to get him.
And I'm getting scared.
The paranoia didn't stop.
It just escalated real fast.
By September, Ben had already attacked me
quite a few times.
I never knew
what was going to happen next.
And every time he would attack me,
it'd be worse the next time
and worse the next time.
Nothing logical made sense to him anymore.
And I didn't know how
I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know how to get away from him
or get him out.
I didn't tell any of my friends
because because I was embarrassed.
I just didn't want them to know
that I was one of those girls
that was with a guy who was beating me.
A lot of the time I would
During the week, I would stay in a hotel
because I was scared of him.
But I couldn't afford the weekends
because they were so expensive.
And I decided to file
a restraining order against Ben.
[music fades]
I met the Las Vegas police around
the corner from where my condo was at.
They tell me, "Okay,
we're going to go serve it."
I said, "Great. What happens
if he doesn't answer the door?"
They said, "Nothing."
"Well, that's my that's my place."
"He moved his belongings to my place,
and I need to get into my place
to get some things
so I can get myself together for work."
"Can't you at least escort me into
my place so I can get my belongings
that I need so I don't get beaten up?"
"Uh-uh. No, we don't do that."
[ominous music playing]
The police did take the restraining order
and go to serve it to Ben,
and as I thought,
he did not answer the door.
And that was that.
They left, and they left the paper
there at the door.
I sat outside of my apartment
for a couple hours,
and I didn't know what to do
or where to go.
I was absolutely scared to go inside
because I had just served him
a restraining order.
But I was so tired. I was so exhausted.
I just didn't know what else to do.
I didn't know where to go.
So I walked into the door.
I went straight to my room
and laid down and passed out.
When I woke up,
he was sitting on top of me.
[suspenseful music playing]
He had one hand
holding both my arms behind my back.
And he started shaving my head
with the clippers.
Shaved my head bald.
[clippers buzzing]
And he said, "No man will ever look at you
or think you're pretty."
If I fought back,
I knew that I wouldn't win.
I knew there was
nothing I could do about it.
He already just buzzed
the whole center of my head. It's gone.
This was a completely different person
that I couldn't reason with anymore.
The best thing that I could possibly do
if I wanted to not get my face smashed
was to just be quiet.
[tense music playing]
For weeks, he kept me there.
I wasn't allowed to go
anywhere out of his sight.
When we slept,
I would either sleep tied up
or he'd be behind me
and have a gun to my head.
He stripped me naked
so I couldn't hide anything
or have anything on me.
I did not have access to my phone.
Three to five days in,
he said, "I'm going to kill you."
And I knew he was.
I could see it in his eyes
that he was gonna kill me.
I was really scared.
[rhythmic percussive music playing]
Things escalated.
He'd attacked me, like,
several times over the next few days.
I would ask him like, "Why are you
doing this to me? Like, why are you"
"I've taken care of you
for the last year, you know,
like, why are you doing this to me?"
And he'd look at me and say, "I have to."
I was like, "Okay."
And then he'd have, like, moments
where he'd just look at me and say,
"I deserve to go to jail for the rest
of my life for what I've done to you."
[dramatic piano music playing]
Eventually, my credit card
was maxed so far that I couldn't order,
you know, any food, and we had no water.
So we had to go to the grocery store.
I'm thinking this could be my chance.
So I just said there's no more food
for Maya. We have no food to eat.
He's like, "Okay,
we need to go to the store."
So we jump in my car.
He makes me drive.
At that moment, I was thinking
maybe I'll be able to get away.
We go to the first grocery store,
and it's right down the road.
It's a small grocery store. I thought
maybe he'd feel more comfortable.
And right when I pulled into
the parking spot,
he said Maya has to go to the bathroom.
I'm gonna let her go. I said, okay.
I was super scared.
I unbuckled my seatbelt,
and I jumped out of the car really quick,
and I ran.
I didn't have my phone.
I didn't have any money.
So I run inside the store,
and I'm frantic,
and I see someone who works there.
I explained the situation.
I said, "Do you have an office or a room
I can lock myself in? I need to hide."
She said, "No, there's no
We don't have any office here."
[tense music playing]
I said, "Okay. He's outside with my dog.
He's walking her right now."
And I said,
"Do you have a back door, anything?"
And she said, "Yeah, we have a back door."
So I ran out the back door.
I ran into this apartment complex,
and I didn't look back.
I just kept running forward.
I didn't know if he was gonna find me,
what was gonna happen.
And there was a guy sitting in his car.
And he was like, "Are you okay?"
And he's just like,
"Do you need a ride to the hospital?"
I was like,
"Yes, take me to the hospital."
[line ringing]
[911 operator] Okay.
[Jaimee] When I got to the hospital,
I was treated for seven broken ribs,
two black eyes,
had bruises all over my body,
lacerations all over my body,
cauliflower ears,
and damage to both my eyes.
The nurse comes into the hospital room
and tells me that
she had to call the cops.
Hi, Jaimee. I'm Officer Casper.
These cops are staying here
to talk to you.
Hi.
[Casper] We need to know the story about
what happened, what brought you here.
We need to know information about him.
We're not the other officers that helped
you out or that you dealt with before.
I mean, I don't know how much to tell you.
Like, I never knew
This has never happened to me before.
I've never
Speaking to the police,
I didn't feel safer.
I felt more scared.
[Casper] We are going to do
everything we can to help you with this,
and to do that,
we need to know who this person is.
[Jaimee] If he gets arrested
[sniffles]
it's not like you can hold him that long.
I didn't think the police would be able
to keep me safe.
If they did arrest him,
I knew he'd be out shortly.
It wouldn't be long
before he came after me again,
and he would find me.
[Jaimee speaking indistinctly]
[Casper] All right, Jaimee,
what's the address there?
[Jaimee] I gave my statement
to the police.
Later that night,
I'm released from the hospital,
and a SWAT officer drives me home.
He had called the judge,
and they got a search warrant for my place
to go and arrest Ben.
When we got to my place, I see ambulance,
fire department, news team,
helicopters, drones.
[siren wailing]
They had already bombed the place.
Every All the windows were blown out
with tear gas.
The front door was on the ground
in the front lawn.
Ben came out holding Maya.
One of the officers took her from him
and brought her to me,
and then they put him in the car.
[poignant music playing]
One day, I was just,
you know, sitting on my couch,
hanging out watching TV,
and I see Ben's face
plastered on the news.
[reporter] He's accused of holding
his girlfriend captive, beating her,
burning her with lye,
even shaving her head and tying her up.
He had done some pretty terrible things
to the girl that he was dating after me.
I was very much in disbelief and shock.
I was just thinking about
the fact that he had the
the past that he had.
That he was able to do this
to someone else was just mind-boggling.
But then on the other side of the coin,
it was something that was serious enough
to gain a little bit of traction
to maybe put him in jail for,
you know, a good amount of time.
[reporter] Just last week,
police say Foster
barricaded himself inside for hours.
Ben was charged with battery
domestic violence by strangulation,
kidnapping first degree,
as well as a few other charges,
but I didn't want to go to trial.
I didn't want to show up in
that courtroom. I didn't want to do that.
It wasn't just fear of testifying.
It was having to sit in a room with him
and having to feel that again.
[tense music playing]
The DA and the police all had
more than enough evidence.
They had taken hundreds of pictures of me.
I've given my statement.
They saw what I looked like.
Why do I have to go there
and sit in front of him?
So the DA cut him a deal.
At the end of the day,
if we don't have a willing participant,
a willing victim
that wants to come to court,
and this victim did not want
to come to court,
uh, we have to do what we can
to salvage, uh, a conviction.
[melancholy music playing]
[reporter] He was sentenced to
a maximum 30 months in jail,
but given credit
for two years already served.
[Amber] I find out that he was
let out of jail, and he got time served.
I was always on guard
and on alert and very vigilant
knowing that Ben was out there again.
I mean, now it's starting to develop
into a sort of pattern.
He was showing that he was
growing increasingly more dangerous.
He was 100% going to hurt someone else.
[tense music playing]
[Angie] I do believe Ben Foster is evil.
I don't I don't know how
he ever got turned loose on Oregon
to brutalize my friend like that.
It it was just all so unnecessary.
He should have never been here.
[officer] AMR is getting ready
to transport to the hospital.
They're actually talking about intubation.
She's got severe injuries to the face.
Oh my God, what I walked into here,
I sure didn't expect.
Dear God.
I spoke to police and the detectives,
and then me and my cousin
went straight to the hospital.
[melancholy music playing]
Justine was completely, like, in a coma
and just so beaten, so brutalized.
They didn't think she was gonna make it.
Justine is a very, very dear friend to me.
She's just larger than life.
She's beautiful.
I mean, she's like everybody's
favorite bartender in town.
She's just the most talented human being
I've ever met.
All I wanted was just for her to wake up.
It's all I wanted, you know.
[reporter] In southern Oregon,
a manhunt is underway.
[officer] If you see any hitchhikers,
call 911 and don't pick them up, okay?
[Angie] It really shook up
this little town.
Everyone was just sick about it.
Devastated that Justine was hurt.
Frantically wanting him to be caught.
[reporter] Thirty-six-year-old
Benjamin Obadiah Foster
on the run after allegedly kidnapping
and trying to kill a woman.
[reporter 2] Authorities are warning
he's extremely dangerous.
Ben Foster had been identified
and had fled from the scene
prior to the officers' arrival.
- [man] All right.
- [officer] Come on out.
[officer 2] Who are you?
Are you Ben? That looks like him.
We needed to capture the suspect
so that he didn't victimize anyone else.
[officer 2] I'll confirm who you are.
If you're not the guy, we'll let you go.
[officer] It's not him.
[suspenseful music playing]
[siren wailing]
[Robert] We actually called in more
resources to help this manhunt for Ben.
We had reached out to the US Marshals
as well to assist in this.
And then it was basically every detective
within the Grants Pass Police Department
going through
every open-source piece of information.
Social media, prior addresses
in those open sources trying to find out
a place that he hid.
[slow-paced piano music playing]
[Jeff] We found out that Ben Foster
had grown up in Grants Pass,
had family in the area.
Mom and Dad were very helpful.
[detective] When was the last time
you saw Ben or talked to him?
- [mom] Eight last night.
- [dad] Last night.
[mom] He came in
- [dad] Whirlwind.
- [mom] A whirlwind, yeah.
And just took out boatloads of clothing.
And I'm going,
"Well, are you moving in with Justine?"
[detective] Uh, I'm not gonna
get into great detail,
but Justine is in the hospital.
And she is in,
uh, really, really, really bad shape.
[mom] Oh my God.
[dad] Well, that fits
what happened in Vegas.
[detective] If you guys have contact
with Benjamin,
it is in his best interest
to contact the police and turn himself in
because everybody is looking for him
right now.
[mom] You know what, it wouldn't surprise
me if he didn't try to head back to Vegas.
- [detective] Yeah?
- [mom] Yeah.
You know, something snapped in him.
I don't know what, but [sobs]
it it really breaks our heart.
[tense music playing]
[Jeff] On Thursday, January 26th,
we received a tip
through our narcotics detectives
that Ben Foster was
in the Sunny Valley area.
Sunny Valley is a rural area
with a lot of farms and ranches,
and it's a very forested area out there.
We set up a surveillance in Sunny Valley,
and Ben Foster was observed
outside a residence.
Let's get cover right here.
[indistinct chatter]
We found out the house belonged
to a female named Tina Jones.
So we pre-deployed scout teams
to get at least eyes on the house
with binoculars
Going down.
to see if they could see anything.
[dogs barking in the distance]
It appears that Tina's dogs alerted
to the officers out in the forest.
Ben Foster came out of the residence,
and you can tell that he had some concern
about what the dogs were barking at.
[dogs barking in the distance]
Ben begins doing counter-surveillance.
He climbed up on the roof of Tina's house
with a set of binoculars.
[officer] One of our guys has eyes on
a guy on the trailer with a shaved head.
Then he came down
and started doing ground property checks
and ultimately spots
one of the surveillance guys
that are in the bushes
and then takes off running.
- [officer 2] He went there.
- [officer 3] That way?
[officer 2] Yeah. Up through there.
Straight to your left.
Track him through there.
He wore blue jeans and a camo jacket.
[Robert] A handful of officers
from every agency that were up there
gave chase and then
saw him go down an embankment.
[siren wailing]
[Jeff] He knows where he's going.
[officer] He could be through the freeway.
[Jeff] Easily. Easy.
Unfortunately, we lost
visual contact with him.
Our hearts just dropped because this
dangerous man, we felt, had gotten away.
At the time we served
the search warrant on Tina's residence
- This is Tina.
- Hi, Tina.
She's been read her rights
Tina was identified as a female
that was a friend of Ben Foster's family.
[officer] I'm not trying to make this
inconvenient, but you harbored a fugitive.
[Tina] I didn't know who it was
that he was.
[officer] We have reason to believe
that you harbored him
and helped him tamper with evidence.
[Robert] During the search
of Tina's house
[dogs barking]
we found a small, light travel backpack
that when we opened it
had Ben's wallet in there,
had his ID, a large amount of cash.
It looked like he had
kind of assembled a go bag,
a kit to get ready to like flee
out of state and flee out of the area.
[Robert] A handbag
containing, uh, three cell phones.
We found multiple cell phones,
but every phone was wrapped in tinfoil.
We found a tablet and a laptop
that both had the camera covered.
Everything that had
any kind of electronic communication
was wrapped in tinfoil.
He just exhibited this extreme paranoia
that he was being tracked.
There was a cell phone
found with the go bag.
And when that cell phone was accessed,
uh, we discovered that
dating apps had been accessed.
He may have been using dating apps
potentially to get assistance
in fleeing from the state
or to target potential victims.
And we are back with our national lead
and the race to find a man
who police say may be using dating apps
to lure and then attack women
Our greatest fear is that we were going
to end up with more victims,
and that's the reason why
we got that information out
to the national media,
to let women know to watch out
while Ben Foster was on the loose.
There's a manhunt right now
for a suspect in a brutal kidnapping
who police say may actually be searching
online right now for his next victim.
Thirty-six-year-old
Benjamin Obadiah Foster is accused of
I had gone some peaceful years
not really thinking much about Ben.
And then I see
that there is a manhunt for Ben.
[tense music playing]
I hear the word manhunt and
a little voice inside of my head is like,
"Is it possible
that he would come back here?"
I was consistently glued
to the television.
I just hoped that Ben was not going
to come back to Las Vegas.
[cell phone buzzing]
[Jaimee] And one day I got a phone call
out of the blue from Ben's brother,
and I hadn't spoken to him in over a year,
and he told me that Ben was on the run.
[discordant music playing]
He was crying, and he said, "I'm sorry
that I never believed anything you said."
[somber music playing]
And he told me
[shaky breaths]
"I didn't wanna believe
any of it was true,
but I know that you weren't lying now
because he just did it to somebody else,
and she's really bad. It's really bad."
"And they're looking for him right now,
and he's out. He's on the run."
"I just wanted you to know to be careful
because he might come down there,
you know?"
[tense music playing]
[Jeff] On Sunday the 29th,
our fugitive apprehension teams
continued to search for Ben Foster.
We were trying absolutely
every angle that we could.
[Robert] We had rotating groups of people
that were continuously going
out to Sunny Valley
to keep shaking anything.
And then we moved into Monday.
I remember just trying to talk
with my partners.
Like, what am I missing here?
What what is some other tools,
some other resource that we can have?
[indistinct chatter]
[Robert] I interviewed Tina at the jail
because we were concerned
that she knew where Ben Foster was.
She had told us he'd showed up
the night of the 24th, said,
"I got in a fight with my parents.
Can I stay here?"
And they all go to the same church
in Sunny Valley.
And so she said,
"Yeah, you can stay here."
And allowed him to park the car there.
She said that she didn't really know that
he was on the run from law enforcement.
We are still looking for Mr. Foster,
and we're concerned
that, uh, he is still up there.
- Not in your house, but somewhere.
- No.
He shouldn't be in the house
because between, um,
Ron and Rick,
they're up there taking care of my dogs.
[Robert] She was concerned about her dogs,
and there was two dogs
that were still at the house.
And she provided the name of Richard Baron
of somebody that she trusted
to take care of her dogs.
My partners communicated with Richard,
said, "Hey, are you okay with
taking care of the dogs?" He says, "Yes."
Uh, explained that
we were unable to locate Ben.
So if there was any concerns
about anything, please call us.
[tense music playing]
We did finally get a tip
that someone had called for a taxi ride
from the Sunny Valley area.
[Robert] A guy who works for a cab company
said that he got a phone call
requesting a ride.
The person that provided the name
for the ride was Richard Baron,
Tina's neighbor.
The cab driver knew
that Richard was an older male,
and per the cab driver, was like,
"This guy did not sound old."
So he declined.
He knew about this manhunt for Ben
and then called us.
Shortly after that, I got a phone call
from Detective Sergeant Hamilton
saying that they were at Richard's house.
[suspenseful percussive music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[officer] Two bodies over here.
Two in there.
We need to get major crimes out.
[Robert] They found Richard deceased,
and then they also found
his caretaker Ronald Griffith.
They were both deceased
in the living room.
[officer] There's blood
there's blood drag marks right there.
[Jeff] They had been killed in a residence
just across from
where Tina's residence was.
We suspect that Ben had broken in
and held them hostage
while he was there hiding.
[dog panting]
[Robert] They had both
violently been beaten.
- [officer] Gas.
- [officer 2] Big time.
The house had
an overpowering odor of gasoline.
Both the bodies were covered
in wood pellets,
and the wood pellet stove was on.
[officer] Looks like he was intending
on them burning.
[officer 2] Yeah.
I had no doubt when they told me that
that it was connected to Ben.
We called cab companies and discovered
that another cab company had picked up
a subject from Richard's house.
[officer] Does that look like the guy?
[cab driver] Didn't have the beard on.
But he was a tall guy.
- [officer] The stature matches?
- [cab driver] Yeah.
[officer] Okay.
They had driven him
back to, uh, the city of Grants Pass.
They even told us that
they had dropped this person off
near the area of Justine's house
where this crime had occurred
and described him as having
a small white dog with him.
[knocking at door]
- [officer] Hello.
- [man] Hey.
[Robert] Justine's neighbor
actually caught, like, a glimpse
of a guy matching Ben's description.
[officer] Someone told you
that our suspect
was in the house on Shane Way?
[man] He said something too
like he was walking a dog?
At, like, ten this morning?
Detectives were able to get some
surveillance video from the neighborhood.
[officer 2] We got photos
of the last time he was seen on video
Carhartt tan-colored jacket, jeans.
Tan Carhartt jacket, blue jeans,
white dog with a blue vest.
- Clean-shaven, trim cut.
- [officer 3] Perfect.
that showed Ben Foster there
with the white dog
just down the street
from Justine's residence.
Copy. Let's go around
and help them out in the front.
We were fairly confident that it was Ben
there hiding at Justine's house.
So we called
Jackson County SWAT team over.
You have shooters on this side.
You got a shooter here.
You need to get three guys
here for front door.
We wanted to prevent him
from being able to slip away
like he was able to do
in the rural area of Sunny Valley.
[reporter] Several law enforcement
agencies, including Grants Pass police,
have blocked off the roadway
all across this community.
[officer 4] Everybody, scoot back.
Go back further please.
Guys, if you can get across
the street, please.
We need to take the door.
We need to open the garage.
We need to start clearing
with technology and with K-9
and knock out this house.
[over speaker] Benjamin Foster,
we have a warrant for your arrest.
Come out with your hands in the air.
For hours, we attempted
announcements into the house
We need bangs front and rear.
deployed chemical munitions
into the house.
[officer 5] Out of the way!
[over speaker] We have a search warrant.
Come out with hands in the air.
[Jeff] But there was no response.
We believed, at that point, that
Ben was actually inside the residence.
So we had to go
and obtain a search warrant
to be able to gain access.
When we had that, uh, the search warrant,
made entry, uh, into the residence.
[Robert] They're set. They're ready.
We're good on you.
Is that it?
They'd sent Jackson County SWAT team
into the house with their K-9 and drones
to search the house.
[officer 6 over radio]
Right and left cabin negative.
[Robert] Primary is clear.
There was no luck. No Ben.
[sheriff] He's gotta be
in there somewhere.
We checked all closets. Didn't see anyone.
[Robert] He's on foot in the area
if he isn't in there.
[officer 5] Yeah.
I felt defeated that I
[exclaims] Maybe I missed something.
What about sending
a small team up with the dog,
throw the K-9 in
underneath the crawlspace?
They started a secondary search
outside the residence.
There's a K-9 back there.
[Jeff] And they found an access area
underneath the home.
[dog barks]
[K-9 officer] I got movement.
I got movement.
The dog indicated
that there was something down there.
[K-9 officer] He's under the house,
looking through the fence.
[officer 4] Get behind armor.
Let's go nice and slow. We got him.
He had hidden himself
underneath the residence.
[officer 5] Let's get some pepper ball
or some sort of munition in that hole.
[officer 4] Pepper ball to be delivered
to the crawlspace now.
[pepper ball shot]
[Robert] At that point,
we put some chemical agents under there.
[indistinct chatter]
They used Jackson County's robot
and sent it in there.
The second they send in the robots
underneath the house, they see bags,
clothing, a sleeping bag.
And then as they're moving through
underneath the space, they see him, Ben.
[officer 6] Hey, he's kneeled down.
He's looking outside.
He starts moving all over the place,
and he manages to stay still long enough
to see that he's got a pistol in his hand.
[officer 6] Guys, watch the vents.
Watch the vents.
One of the robots actually has a speaker
that they can use their negotiator
to talk through.
Never got a response.
[officer on speaker] Benjamin Foster.
[Robert] And then
[gunshot]
[Robert] There was a gunshot.
[tense music playing]
[Robert] One of the robots moves
to get a better position of where he's at.
When they moved over, they saw
that there was apparent injury to him.
[Jeff] As they got in closer,
they were able to see that
he had a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
[officer] Jesus that fucking sound.
[siren wailing]
He was taken to the hospital
where he died shortly after that.
[reporter] A man accused of kidnapping
and torturing a woman in Oregon is dead
after a standoff with authorities.
Police had been searching
for 36-year-old Benjamin Foster
for more than a week.
Investigators say he was using
dating apps to find potential victims
I have a lot of people say to me,
"Oh, he took the easy way out,
and he killed himself." And I'm like,
"He's right where he belongs."
"He's burning in hell."
[poignant music playing]
I was terrified
Justine was going to be a vegetable.
And I thought it was because
I hadn't found that rope soon enough.
I could not believe
she finally woke up [sobs].
[Justine] I wouldn't be alive.
I would not be alive today
if it wasn't for Angie and her mom.
Torture's, like, is an understatement
of what I went through.
I mean, I would have never guessed this
that this would happen to me.
Never in a million years.
I mean, you don't wake up thinking like,
"Somebody's gonna try to kill me today."
Ben and I had been hanging out
probably for about two months total.
It was a very casual relationship.
I never saw any red flags
because he was nothing but nice to me.
But one day Ben came over
to Angie's house,
and he was asking for clean urine
because he had to pass a urinalysis test.
I got very curious because normally when
you're required to take a urinalysis test
it's because you're in trouble
for something with the law.
So I started going on the internet,
and that's when I found out
about his history in Las Vegas.
[glitchy audio]
[siren wailing]
I mean, I was very shocked.
I thought I needed to tell my boss
because, at the end of the day,
you don't want somebody working for you
in the bar industry giving people alcohol
that has a history of,
you know, abusing women.
And he got fired,
ultimately, because of it.
Ben knew I was the reason he got fired.
So I got to the point where I just
I stopped hanging out with him.
Probably like a month after he got fired,
I got home,
and he'd been there all day in my garage.
I just remember sitting on my couch
and him coming out of my garage
and just started beating me.
He said I got him fired.
Ben held me captive
and basically kidnapped me.
It was almost three days.
He just beat me and beat me
and beat me and beat me.
He beat me so bad
that I have traumatic brain damage.
[Angie speaking]
[knocking at door]
[Justine] I remember hearing,
like, some knocking outside.
[Angie speaking]
When Angie found me,
I was like, "Finally, I'm safe."
Because otherwise,
like, I don't think I would have made it.
[Angie] This photo is when Justine,
she had just come out of the hospital.
It was the best best moment ever.
[poignant music playing]
After it happened,
I had nightmares and flashbacks.
And the minute I saw Justine out one day
and saw her okay,
that all just stopped.
It was the weirdest thing ever.
You know what I mean? Just seeing
her whole again, it just stopped.
I never dreamed that
she'd be whole and doing so good again.
It's just so awesome.
I should have known.
She's the strongest,
most talented person I've ever met.
[Justine] It's been a long road,
a very long road.
I had to learn how to re-walk
because my muscles were so atrophied.
I was so skinny.
I just had my teeth done, thank goodness,
because he punched out all my teeth.
So it was just
it was just a lot to deal with.
Like, I'm very lucky to be here.
Sorry. [laughs]
[Amber] In my opinion,
I think that the justice system here
did a great disservice to Justine.
Ben was obviously
getting increasingly more abusive
and increasingly more dangerous.
If they would have taken my story
and Jaimee's story more seriously,
they could have prevented this
from happening to her,
and they could have saved two lives.
[pensive music playing]
[Jaimee] I really think
Ben was really sick.
He was not he was not well at all.
I don't think everyone is like that,
but I do know that they're out there.
So I do pay closer attention
to those things.
[Amber] I have never spoken
to Jaimee or Justine,
but unfortunately,
we share this bond with each other
that only we three can really understand.
I look back on this time in my life
spent with Ben
and instead of, you know,
looking at it as a blemish,
I look at it as a learning experience.
I could move past him and not get myself
into the same kind of relationship.
Now, in my life, I'm happy.
I'm happy,
and I am even happier that I don't
have to look over my shoulder anymore.
[hopeful music playing]
[dramatic strings music playing]