Don't Pick Up the Phone (2022) s01e02 Episode Script

1
[keypad beeping]
[line rings]
[newswoman] And now
to an unbelievable hoax
that police say
many people fell victim to.
[newsman] A caller pretending to be
a police officer was convincing enough
to talk some managers
into sexually abusing fast food employees.
[woman] If I didn't submit to this search,
then I'd be
either arrested or lose my job or both.
Couple police officers telling me
there's a video of what happened here.
I'd never seen anything like it
and I still haven't in 30 years.
[man on phone] Who is this?
[Randal] The caller, of course,
has committed the perfect crime
because he's completely anonymous.
[Buddy] We have a sexual predator
on the loose
- and the phone's still ringing every day.
- [phones ringing]
[phone dialing]
[line rings]
[phone ringing]
[Deborah] My manager came to tell me
that he needed me
back in the office, which
I don't think that's ever happened.
And he was like, "Shut the door." And
The office was tiny, and frighteningly so.
I had no clue what was going on,
but I knew something was seriously wrong.
I felt powerless.
I grew up in South Georgia.
We moved around a lot.
We lived in just
a lot of little, small rural areas.
[Daniel] Deborah is my twin sister.
We went off to college when we were 18
at Georgia Southern in Statesboro,
and we were living in a little trailer,
doing whatever we could to make ends meet.
I mean, it was literally month-to-month.
It was always sketchy.
But, you know,
we had each other there to lean on.
I always wanted to be independent,
have my own money,
and so I got a job at Taco Bell.
I was 19-years-old when I started.
[Daniel] It was three o'clock
in the morning,
and Deborah had come home
from working at Taco Bell,
and just started, like, telling me
about this weird thing
that happened to her at work.
[Deborah] It was a Monday night
in November.
I was working a double shift.
My manager told me
there was a detective on the phone.
The cop said there was a purse
that had been stolen from the lobby,
and that I fit the description
of the person who had taken it.
Which, to me, was shocking
because that's not
something I would have done.
So I had two options that the cop gave me.
It was either have
a law enforcement officer come
and do the search on me there,
or I could just let my manager
go ahead and do it.
I did not even know
what a strip search entailed.
I was very vulnerable.
Very much a rule follower.
[Daniel] None of it made any sense.
And it was, uh
puzzling because she's telling me
that she had to take her clothes off.
[Deborah] Every piece of clothing
I would take off, I would hand to him.
He would read the tag
to the man on the phone,
and then put it in the safe.
The cop on the phone, he sounded very calm
like he knew what he was doing.
He wanted me to do exercises
so that I would sweat
and so that, if you rubbed my skin,
you can have a green residue.
The cop said, "If there was money
that had been hidden on your body,
it would be visible."
Basically rubbed all over my body
just to make sure
there's no green residue.
There was checking of everything.
My mouth, ears, and then my genitals.
I had to bend over
and spread and touch toes.
I don't think there was anywhere
he probably didn't touch.
It got scary to the point
where I was like, "No."
I felt like my body was violated. I mean
She kept saying over and over again
that she was scared,
and if she didn't do this
or if she didn't do that,
then they'd arrest her.
Who am I to question how this goes?
That's not something
that I even have the authority to do.
At the end, my manager, he got angry
and just kind of said, "Fuck you,"
and hung up,
kind of tossed my clothes
to me and walked out.
[phone receiver clicks]
The call lasted for hours,
and it felt like eternity.
Even coming out of the room,
I remember it kind of felt like
nothing was real.
About a day or two later,
I really did realize
that there was actually no one
accusing me of stealing anything,
and there was no actual cop on the phone.
If you'd ask her, she'd say,
"I don't want to talk about it,"
or she'd change the subject.
[Deborah] I think just the whole
embarrassment of it,
I just didn't want to be real, I guess.
And if you say it, it becomes real.
Quit my job after that,
dropped out of school.
I lost my scholarship.
I just couldn't do it. Like, I just
quit for a few years, just took a break.
There was an innocence
and a brightness to Deborah
that was always there.
And then, when this happened,
she went into a really, really dark place
and I still feel
I'm sorry.
[sniffles]
I still feel a lot of guilt
that I didn't do more.
[dial tone]
I think the caller on the phone
absolutely has no regard for humanity
or what people
can feel in a situation.
Definitely a sexual predator, just sick.
He needed to be stopped.
[Buddy] When I started realizing
there was more victims out there,
I felt like it was my duty
to get this stopped,
and I worked tirelessly
and endlessly to make this happen.
This had been going on
for ten years across the United States.
What blew my mind was,
I could not believe that we had
marched forward in this case,
trying to solve it,
and now we're up to 73 cases in 32 states,
- and the phone's still ringing every day.
- [phones ringing]
All the calls tracked back
to Panama City every time.
Every time. Not one time to Texas,
not one time to California.
And none of them ever got solved.
I got a Burger King
in Fargo, North Dakota,
where a manager strip searches
a 17-year-old employee.
In 2002, at the Taco Bell,
a young woman was strip-searched
by her manager
and being accused of stealing items.
This case was bigger than me.
But there's two things
I never wanted to hear.
I never wanted to hear
the word "No," and don't tell me I can't.
As time went on
and we kept making phone calls
and kept asking questions and
we'd just get a little bit further,
and a little bit further.
After I talked to Vic, I knew
they may have a guy that was a suspect.
Maybe he's going to get that
next little piece of information I need.
So, it took me four months of calls.
- [phone dialing]
- [line ringing]
Four months of tedious video.
Finally, we have a picture.
You could actually see
the individual from an overhead video
purchasing the calling card.
It showed us
the individual characteristics,
hair color, height, build.
He's got a braid on the side of his pants.
Braid is police.
He's a cop.
Finally, it's now time to get
off the phones and boots on the ground.
We're going to Panama City to find him.
I fly down to Panama City.
Me and the sun are evil enemies. It's hot.
Panama City, it's a vacation spot.
I think a perfect place in this area
to make these phone calls
because most of the people here
are transient.
They're just here for a few days, a week.
No one cares. No one knows you.
You know, we're searching for a ghost.
Who is this person in the video?
Could be anywhere.
I was looking
at all four Wendy's calls that night.
All four calls happen the same night,
probably a range
from 7:30 at night to 11:30,
somewhere in that vicinity.
Two of the calls
made at Wendy's in Massachusetts
were made from this gas station.
They're both about 90 minutes in length
and one right after the other,
so he was at this gas station
for almost three hours.
I can't believe that phone booth
is that close to the door.
I definitely thought
it'd be a more private area,
away from the business a little bit more.
It's kind of surprising.
I believe it's a power issue.
I mean, he's making phone calls outdoors
with people walking by.
He wanted power over people.
He wanted to know that they were doing
what he was telling them to do.
I think he's a serial sexual predator.
I mean, he made multiple, multiple calls
to instruct somebody
to strip search women and men.
This individual making these calls
is very dangerous.
He hurt a lot of people.
I mean, in ways that we'll never know.
We go into
the Panama City Police Department,
meet up with their detectives,
and we start unwrapping all this stuff
and going over the case.
Get the laptop and going,
and showing them these pictures to see
if they could assist in any way.
Brought up the photo,
and they're all like,
"No, we don't recognize him."
If he was a cop, they'd know him.
And they all looked at it and said,
"No, it's not a cop. It's not a cop."
I'm like, "Then why
is he wearing police pants?"
And they say,
"It's not police pants." I go, "What?"
"That's a corrections uniform.
He's a corrections officer."
But I'm like, "Wait a minute here. What?"
I was shocked that it could be a cop.
I didn't want it to be a cop.
And now I was kind of surprised it wasn't.
No. Absolutely not a cop. Correction.
But we're still looking
in the right direction.
We shrunk the pool of suspects
down from the entire state of Florida,
to law enforcement,
to corrections employees.
Now, I have a better feeling
that we're going to identify him.
While we're trying to find out
where the call was coming from,
I'm reviewing other cases,
but my main goal is to try
to bring some justice for Louise,
her being a victim in this case.
[newswoman] Investigators say
a man claiming to be police
called McDonald's
in Mount Washington in April of 2004.
He told the supervisor that
Louise Ogborn was a suspect in a theft.
He then ordered
the supervisor and her fiancé
to strip search Ogborn
and perform sexual acts.
The fiancé, Walter Nix,
said he thought the man on the phone
was an actual police officer.
The subject had a way of compelling him.
Making them believe
what he was telling them
and convincing them
that they needed to follow his directions.
Most people say they would never believe
someone on the phone is asking them
to conduct a strip search.
However, this hoax caller
must be very good at what he was doing.
This caller, he was the kind of guy
who never raised his voice.
He was very articulate
in how he wanted things done
and how he described
how he wanted things done,
so that if there was any doubt
in their mind, if he gave them a reason,
that sort of removed the doubt,
and they would go ahead
and do what he wanted.
[Connie] The hoax caller,
he sounded like an authority figure,
so he suggested,
you know, maybe blacking out
the window so no one could see in
just to protect them, protect Louise.
[Buddy] He would give
a description of the employee,
what clothes they were wearing.
You think, "How did he know
what the employee looked like?"
[Connie] They think
they're talking to a police officer.
In their mind, there's a police officer
on the other line,
there's also a McDonald's
corporate person on the other line
with the police officer.
So they're thinking,
"This is all legitimate."
So, they keep going, one-by-one,
trying to see how far he can get.
Certainly in this case,
the hoax caller is the criminal,
is the villain, but people
are blaming Donna Summers
and they were blaming
her fiancé, Walter Nix.
Just because we can't find the caller,
don't think for one minute
these two game players
are not getting charged
and not getting dealt with.
Walter Nix and Donna Summers
were the ones that let it happen.
It didn't look good for Nix.
He had some serious charges.
We had him dead to rights,
and there was no way
that he could talk his way out of it.
[Connie] Walter Nix
doesn't have a great case,
and he pleas to sex crimes, he has
to be on the sex offenders registry
and he has to serve five years in prison.
And good afternoon, I'm Lori Lyle.
A Bullitt County man is headed to prison
for following what he thought
was to be police orders
to sexually abuse a teenage girl.
Mr. Nix is truly a good person
who got caught in a unique situation
and made a very bad choice.
[newsman] The judge disagreed
on Nix's good character.
He denied the first plea agreement
for probation only,
but accepted a new deal
including a prison sentence.
[judge] It is absolutely amazing to me
that anyone would commit
these kinds of acts
based on a telephone call.
Nix ended up, after his plea deal,
getting sentenced
to five years in state penitentiary.
Donna Summers, she did a bad thing.
She did it intentionally.
Nobody held a gun to her head
and told her
She did what the caller told her to do.
She ought to have had enough sense
to know not to do that.
She needed to be held accountable
of her actions.
She needed to pay the fiddler here.
Donna Summers also enters a plea,
but hers is an Alford plea,
which means you admit guilt
because there's enough evidence
to convict you,
but you still maintain your innocence
under the eyes of the law.
So she pleads guilty to
a misdemeanor and gets a year probation.
Physically, Donna didn't go to jail,
but Donna got fired by McDonald's.
They terminated her employment,
dropped her like a hot potato.
Her face ended up being
on the six o'clock news
quite a bit over this case.
So, her work career,
she was probably ruined.
I was following the instructions
of what I was told to do by the caller.
It wasn't anything
that I wanted to do intentionally.
I'm not a criminal.
And I have such guilt,
such unprofound guilt about what happened.
It has actually destroyed my life.
It has absolutely destroyed it.
You've got a hoax caller who's calling,
asking them to do criminal things
and they oblige.
I'll never know why you felt like
you needed to be compelled
to do something like that
to another human being,
just because somebody told you
to do it on the phone, as long as I live.
A lot of people that I talked to said,
"Well, hell, I wouldn't do that!"
"Why didn't they hang up the phone?"
[Dr. Burger] I was like everyone.
I was astonished when I first read
about the hoax case
and I probably had the reaction
that most people have,
which is, "How could anybody do that?"
But then I remembered
that's the same reaction people have
when they look at the Milgram study.
[man 1] Let me out of here!
You have no right to keep me here.
Let me out! Let me out of here!
- [man 2] Continue, please.
- Let me out of here!
- [man 2] Go on.
- Let me out!
Stanley Milgram was interested
in the question of why so many people
go along with authority figures,
even when those authority figures
are giving instructions
to do something terribly wrong.
[projector whirring]
Milgram created
an artificial situation in a laboratory
working on these obedience studies.
There were three characters involved.
One person was
the experimenter who ran the study,
one person was the real participant,
and the third person was an actor
who was pretending to be a participant.
The teacher was instructed
to give a simple memory test.
If the learner got the wrong answer,
then he was supposed
to get an electric shock,
and the teacher's job was
to deliver electric shock.
Of course,
the shocks were not being delivered
and it was set up so that
the person pretending to be a participant
was always going to be the learner.
[electric buzzing]
The learner did give
a lot of wrong answers on purpose,
so that the teacher was required to give
stronger and stronger electric shocks.
Wrong!
225 volts.
The word is "noise."
[man screaming]
65% of Milgram's participants
continue to deliver what they thought
was extremely painful, and perhaps
even lethal, doses of electric shock.
These people were agonizing every time
they had to press a shock lever.
Yet, despite those internal resistances
that they were experiencing,
the situation was so powerful,
they found themselves, nonetheless,
pressing the levers.
- [man] Who's actually pushing the switch?
- I was.
[man] But why didn't you just stop?
He won't let me. I wanted to stop!
And what's most intriguing about that
is that what that tells all of us
is that under the right circumstances
[phone lines ringing]
any one of us is probably capable
of doing some very disturbing
and maybe some
very uncharacteristic things.
[Allan] In a matter of a few hours, I went
from doing something right for somebody
to facing life in prison,
just because I took this phone call.
I was gullible. I was I believed.
I believed in authority,
and I believed it was a policeman.
And I believed that I was helping somebody
get out of a situation
where she was accused of.
[Randal] I went to the jail
and I met Allan.
He's telling me the story
about an imposter
posing as a police officer over the phone
and getting him
to do these terrible things.
He was charged with some serious offenses,
including rape and kidnapping.
But Allan did not fit any profile
of a rapist or a kidnapper
that I had ever been acquainted with.
I took the case and agreed to handle it
for the family and take it all the way.
[Allan] When I got the job at Hardee's,
I was in my early fifties.
I went in as an assistant manager.
I was pretty much new on the job
at Hardee's, still learning the ropes.
That afternoon,
I was about to get off my shift.
[phone ringing]
The phone rang.
So, I grabbed the phone.
The gentleman said
[man on phone] I'm so-and-so
from the Rapid City Police Department.
I have a complaint that
one of your employees has stolen money
from a customer.
I was thinking, "Wow, one of my employees
stole from a customer?"
I didn't know what to think.
The cop said
[man] Her options were
to go to the police station
and be strip-searched, or she could
be strip-searched at Hardee's.
She agreed that she would rather
be strip-searched at Hardee's
than to go down to the police department.
I'm on the phone, and he starts
telling me the process, you know.
[man] Take off her shoes.
Is there any money in her shoes?
And then, take off her blouse
and check the sleeves.
It was every piece of clothing
that I needed to have her take off
and check to see
if she had any money stashed anywhere.
[Randal] During that time,
the young lady is on the phone
thirteen times with the caller.
She can also hear the caller
as Allan is hearing him
give the directions
as to what the next step is.
[Allan] One time
he wanted her to do jumping jacks
so he could hear her doing it
and know that I was carrying out
the things that he asked me to do.
[Randal] This hoax
went on for 2.5 to 3 hours,
which actually enhanced
the ability of the caller
to groom and condition, and take
the matters as far as he took them.
His voice sounded
very precise, very demanding.
I was just like,
"No, I don't want to be part of this,"
but I felt that I didn't have any choice.
I found no money.
It's like, "Okay, we should be done."
He was saying that now,
I need to search her for drugs.
And I'm thinking, "What? I thought
this was about a strip search for money."
And then,
he continued on with other demands.
[Randal] The caller actually
asked him to do specific things,
which involved touching
intimate areas of her physically.
"Check her crevices for drugs"?
It's like, this is a nightmare.
I knew I needed to end
what was taking place, that I did know.
And about that time, my assistant came in.
And it's like,
"Oh, my God, what did I just do?"
I just got out of there. I went home.
[Randal] Through psychological
manipulation and coercion,
Allan did something he regretted terribly.
[Allan] I started questioning myself,
"Is it a cop? Was it a prank?
What really just took place?"
I was in a state of shock.
And then the next morning,
I went back down to Hardee's.
And there were two detectives there,
and they charged me with three felonies.
Two kidnapping,
and one second-degree rape.
Like, I couldn't even believe
what was happening.
In my mind,
from an early stage in my investigation,
Allan was a victim as well.
Perhaps the most critical feature
of our case was that there was a camera
that recorded the entirety
of the 2.5, 3-hour strip search.
It was all on video.
The young lady asked at the outset
that Allan cover
"Please cover the camera."
He said, "No, no, no."
He emphatically declined
to hide the events in that room.
No criminal would want a documentation
through video of his conduct.
It is absurd.
The trial is pretty much a blur to me.
The only thing I remember
is me being on the stand,
and then getting to tell the truth.
He was honest, and that's who Allan was.
A jury had to know Allan.
They had to see what's inside.
I was unconscious,
had no clue what they might say.
Just thinking, "Wow, I could spend
the rest of my life in prison."
[Randal] And the judge asked the jury,
"Have you reached a verdict?"
"We the jury find the defendant,
to the charge of rape and kidnapping
not guilty."
[Allan] It's like,
there's people that believed me!
Because I didn't know if there was
ever anybody that would believe me.
Other than my family, of course.
[Randal] The jury can despise
what your client did,
but abide by the evidence
and find him not guilty.
That was the most
illuminating example that I've ever seen
of that capacity,
for a juror to make that distinction.
[Allan] Turned my life upside down.
Personal relationships
All they thought is like,
"How could somebody do this?"
"I don't want to be a part of him."
And even a couple of my friends for life
exited my friendship.
All I would like to say
to that young lady is,
I'm sorry, from the bottom of my heart.
And it's it's just something that
Well, it's something that's been
a dark cloud over me for all my life.
[Randal] And the caller
committed the perfect crime
because he's completely anonymous.
He's 1,000 miles away
or 80 miles away, who knows?
So the police immediately looked
only at the man in front of them.
They were uninterested, disinterested
in attempting to find out
who made the call.
[Victor] We're in Panama City,
and I'm tracking the hoax caller.
We realize he's not a cop,
and he works in the jail.
There's three jails in the area.
We're going.
We're going to the closest one.
Then we're going to the second one.
If we have to,
we're going to the third one.
We hit the first correctional facility,
get into the warden's office,
open up the laptop, thinking,
"Here we go. It's gonna be so easy."
And they look at it and they're like,
"No, I don't know who that is."
They didn't know who the hell he was.
So we pack up
get in the car,
and head to the second one.
We're getting closer.
Somebody will know who he is.
[Chris] I spent the last 32 years
in corrections.
June 30th, I was at work, normal duties.
Chief at the Bay County Jail called
and said that they had some investigators
that had a picture
they wanted us to look at.
"Sure, come on."
[Victor] We go into the second jail,
go through security,
then to the warden's office.
We're with the warden,
one of the security personnel.
I bring up the picture, the warden
and the head of security come over.
[Chris] They showed us
a screenshot of a surveillance shot
from Walmart in Callaway.
It was an overhead shot over the register.
And you could see that,
as soon as we looked at it,
"Holy shit, there's David Stewart."
And I go, "What?"
"David Stewart."
What the fuck?
We identified him.
I didn't know what to say.
[Chris] The cops in the room,
when we identified him, faces lit up
because now they have the missing piece.
That's David Stewart,
so now they know who they're looking for.
I asked the warden, "David Stewart,
does he work this facility?"
And the warden goes,
"Not only does he work facilities"
But, I mean, he's here right now.
You got to be kidding me.
So, not only did he identify him,
he's in the facility as we speak.
I really thought
interviewing might get him.
I wanted the confession.
When we went to the warden, we said,
"We're ready for him. Bring him up."
[Chris] David was a correctional officer.
He was on a second shift, 3:00 to 11:00.
Their main duty is the care, custody,
and control of the inmates,
is to make sure they're safe,
make sure everybody else is safe.
[Victor] The warden comes in,
individual behind them.
It was the absolute identical
picture and video. You couldn't miss it.
White male, about 6 feet tall,
slicked back black hair.
I introduced myself and then I asked him
why would he think that we're down here
speaking with him today.
And he said, "I have no idea."
I mean, he's only in there 30 seconds
and he's already very uncomfortable.
And I'm like, "Game time,"
because I knew we have him.
I said, "We know you made
the hoax phone calls to Massachusetts
and other communities
throughout the United States."
And at that point,
he started to sweat, shake.
You think, "Okay, good."
Then he said, "Was anybody hurt?"
And after that, he goes,
"Thank God, it's over."
At that moment, when he made
those statements, I thought I had the guy.
Without question.
I said, "We have you on video
purchasing calling cards."
He said, "Well, I didn't make the calls,
I didn't make the calls."
He denied buying any cards.
He won't admit it,
and he pleads the Fifth.
So we stopped the interview,
didn't say another word.
When I heard the extent
of how big this was,
I couldn't believe how long
had it gone on without him getting caught.
You know, we're still
in surprise and shock at this.
[Victor] It's too late to do
surveillance on David Stewart.
We knew at this point, we wouldn't
be able to catch him in the act.
I needed a confession,
and he didn't give it to me.
This investigation is hanging by a thread.
I needed more evidence.
So, now we go back
to Panama City detective's office
and we say, "Okay, what's the next step?
What are we going to do?"
I decide we need to do
a search warrant on his house.
[Chris] David Stewart lived in Fountain,
twenty-five miles north
of the heart of Panama City.
Fountain is a lot of dirt roads,
people living in mobile homes.
Just want to be left alone,
mind their own business,
and don't want anybody coming down there.
[Victor] He lives deep
into the woody area,
and he has a trailer
and there's a small shed on the property.
David still had no idea
they're going to search the house until
he opened the door.
Panama City detectives
do a full search of the property
[camera shutter clicks]
and found numerous police magazines.
He put in applications
for numerous police jobs
throughout the area.
We also found diaries.
He was obviously, at one point,
a part-time police officer
at some county or local department,
and he'd put stuff like,
"Monday April 21st, rode with Brock.
Chased someone doing 125 miles an hour."
"Wednesday, April, 30th,
chased sergeant, 140 miles an hour."
He was obsessed
with being a police officer.
You could tell that excited him.
You know, it just doesn't help my case.
I need to get the smoking gun.
They searched all the grounds.
Outside, sheds
and then, boom.
Found a calling card.
The key piece of evidence
was a prepaid calling card.
My hope is,
can we tie him to Mount Washington?
Can we tie him to Massachusetts?
Is this the card?
You know, that would be, like,
the icing on the cake.
My job at this point
is to convince the DA of charges.
Well, I want him to get charged
with some type of sexual assault
because I think it fit
the elements of the crime.
He directed somebody
to sexual assault these victims.
The DA just thought it was a hoax call.
Although sick, incredibly demeaning,
the DA thought it would be too hard
to convict David Stewart of a sex crime,
since it was just a hoax call
and he physically wasn't there.
He was on the phone.
Ten years, this individual's
making these calls.
I find him,
and nobody wants to charge him.
It's fucking unbelievable.
Then, I call Buddy Stump,
Mount Washington.
I received a phone call from Vic,
and I said, "What's going on down there?"
I'm 650 miles away. "Is he in jail?"
Vic says, "Well, I don't think
I've got enough to charge this guy yet."
And I went, "What the hell,
you can't charge him? He's at home."
"He knows that
he's being looked at by the police,
and you're telling me
this guy could skip out,
and we could lose him?"
I thought, "I have worked my ass off
on this case for over three months,
and we get him ID'd
and he's gonna walk away?"
So I said,
"We got to put an end to this shit,"
and I went as hard as I could go
to get a warrant.
And we met with the county attorney,
the commonwealth attorney,
and a district judge,
and the judge issued
a warrant to arrest David Stewart.
I called my wife on the phone.
I said, "Honey, have my bags packed."
"I'm heading for Panama City, Florida."
His ass is mine. I'm gonna bring him home.
We're gonna have
a little justice around here
for all the hell he's put us through.
I mean, what the hell can go wrong?
[Steve] Well, the police think
every case is a slam dunk.
The police's version of what happened
is almost never what actually happened.
Do I think my client,
David Stewart, is innocent?
I know for a fact he's not guilty.