Missing: Dead or Alive? (2023) s01e03 Episode Script

1
[Vicki] Hey, Heidi. I just wanted
to update you on what we got out here.
There's a white male in his sixties.
His name's David Taylor.
[dark music playing]
His truck was parked out here
along the interstate.
Highway patrol came and towed the vehicle,
but, oddly,
all of his belongings was still inside.
It's like he just disappeared.
And the really weird part is
he just won the lottery.
[dark music continues]
[man] The front of the car
was probably around here.
[officer] Was the keys in it?
So the key was laying
on, like, the actual transmission pump.
The wallet was laying,
like, almost too perfect.
Like, his suitcase was perfectly packed.
Everything was folded in the bag.
[Vicki] You never saw
his cell phone in the truck?
- No.
- [Vicki] No lottery ticket?
- Wow, this is just so weird.
- [man] So
[Vicki] He won the lottery.
Like, where is he?
[ominous music playing]
[reporter] We begin this morning
with breaking news
on a missing persons case
out of Richland County.
After a major six-week operation
between local, state, and federal agents,
police say they have found
missing ten-year-old Amirah Watson.
She had been taken
by her mother Tynesha Brooks
in a custody dispute with her father.
- [Mansoor on phone] We're just so happy.
- Right.
Like you see in the movies,
just run up in slow motion. I mean
[Molly laughs] I'm so glad.
[Mansoor] You know what?
If you don't mind,
we're gonna give you guys updates
on how things are going
[Molly] Absolutely.
We truly do want to keep in touch with you
and we want to hear updates.
[sweet music playing]
[Mansoor] Come on, girl.
It was kind of early,
and a detective called me.
She let me know, "We found 'em."
At one point
I didn't think I would ever see
my daughter again.
She's home now.
[sighs] I'm gonna keep it that way.
[Amirah] My dad, he's my number one.
He's the only person
I really have in my life
that really cares about me.
That tries to make me happy and feel safe.
He's everything.
I wouldn't know
what I would do without him.
You know, he's my hero.
[reporter] Amirah was discovered
by US Marshals
at a family member's home
in Atlanta, Georgia,
alongside her mother who was arrested.
Mansoor Watson says
he does not wish to press charges
and is just glad to have her home.
[J.P.] When you're working a case
that really bothers you,
you want to be the one
that finds that person.
You want to be there
to look them in the eye
and let them know
that someone was looking for them.
But you don't always
get a chance to do that.
I've learned now
that it's enough just to know
that someone is safe.
Because it doesn't always end well.
- [Heidi] Nice to meet you.
- [officer] Nice to meet you.
- [Vicki] So, this is the guy, right? Okay.
- It is. Correct.
[Vicki] If you can start at the beginning
of how you even found out about this
and catch us up to date.
[officer] My missing guy
is David Mark Taylor. He goes by Dave.
[menacing music playing]
[officer] His family,
they're from the woods in Barnwell.
Dave does remodeling houses-type work.
Over the weekend he supposedly bought
a lottery ticket. A scratch-off card.
You can't see the barcode,
but it was supposedly a $10,000 ticket.
So, Monday, he was supposed
to cash the ticket,
but his daughter reached out to me
yesterday and told me
they haven't seen her dad
or heard from him since Monday.
He's trustworthy. Married for a long time.
Not at all the type of guy
that just can leave his wife.
- [Vicki] What's her name?
- [Matt] Cathy.
She said that he called her
probably before three o'clock,
but he didn't say anything.
And all she heard was what she thought
was papers ruffling.
That was the last phone call
that came from him.
- [Vicki] So he left on
- [woman on phone] Monday morning.
Okay. He was happy. He was fine.
Just coming to Columbia
to cash the ticket?
[woman] Yes. He was fine.
[Vicki] And no medical issues
like high blood pressure, diabetes?
[woman] No.
Anything that would make you
suspicious of anything,
or anything like that at all?
[Cathy] I've been married for 32 years
and I know my husband.
He wouldn't run away from me.
But if there was a car
that was broke down,
he could have stopped and helped them,
and he could have said,
"Hey, I just won the lottery."
Like, he would be real friendly
and let them know he just won the lottery?
[Cathy] Yes. And then the voicemail.
Just the rattling of that paper.
That That scares me.
So, I'm thinking something happened.
Something not normal happened.
[tense music playing]
[automated voice] First saved
voice message, sent Monday at 2:59 p.m.
- [indistinct rustling on recording]
- You can't really hear nobody.
- You just hear
- [rustling on recording]
You just hear ruffling and scuffling.
[rustling continues]
- [automated voice] End of message.
- [Greg] It's kind of disturbing.
It sounded like running, and it was
in his pocket, and he accidentally dialed.
- I don't know. He wasn't talking.
- Yeah.
[Greg] As far as we know,
nobody was with him,
and he called the guy
he was working for to get directions.
To the lottery place.
[dark music playing]
[woman] He calls Mama all the time.
They check in with each other.
And a couple hours passed.
He should be calling us.
He should be at the lottery place.
And we couldn't get in touch with him.
I called the police, and I was like,
"Mama, something's wrong.
Something is bad wrong."
When he won the lottery,
I knew he was excited.
Um
I can just hear it in my head now,
"Jesse! Jesse! I won! I got that ticket!"
It has never crossed my mind
that he would leave.
[crying softly]
My daddy's a family person.
Family's always number one.
That's all that mattered with my daddy.
I love him so much.
He's ten feet tall and bulletproof.
[ominous music playing]
[phone line ringing]
[on phone] Lottery Security, it's Himani.
This is Investigator Rains
with Richland County Sheriff's Department.
We've got a missing person,
and he had a scratch-off ticket
where he had won $10,000.
His last known whereabouts
is en route to get his ticket cashed.
And, um, how would I go about finding out
if he made it to get the ticket cashed
or if he never made it there?
[Himani] Um, I can look up his name.
[Vicki] His first name is David.
Last name is Taylor.
- Okay.
- Do you know what the ticket is?
[Vicki] I have a picture of it.
[Himani] If you could send me a picture,
we can let you know if he cashed it.
[Vicki] Okay. All right.
- Thank you very much.
- You're welcome.
- [Vicki] All right, bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.
[Matt] I mean, my gut feeling initially is
this whole thing
revolves around that lottery ticket,
- whether cashed or uncashed.
- [Vicki] Right.
I mean, we may
find that ticket in that truck.
[suspenseful music playing]
[officer] I mean,
this guy's got a thousand dollars
worth of tools in his truck.
If it was a robbery,
this would not be here.
[Vicki] Nothing makes sense.
Why would he leave
his truck filled with his tools?
[officer 1] He's got
all this paperwork in here.
[officer 2] So, you got
[officer 1] Personal stuff.
[Vicki] Oh, wow.
[exclaims] No lottery ticket or phone.
[Vicki] One of the things you learn fast
in this job is that everyone has secrets.
They can be small, insignificant things,
but some people can have dark secrets.
So you never know what you'll find.
Secrets can destroy lives.
Secrets can put people in danger.
But it's my job to uncover them,
no matter how painful the truth may be.
[indistinct chatter]
[Vicki] We have
some updates on David Taylor.
We don't know where his phone is,
but we did get his phone records
showing all of his locations
in the hours before his disappearance.
His movements are really strange.
He goes to places, like
I don't even know why
he would go to those places.
At 10:22 a.m. he is by Orangeburg,
headed to Columbia to cash the ticket.
[officer 1] And then at 11:11,
he's coming in at Columbia.
This is the quadrant of the tower
he's hitting on.
At 11:17, he's still coming up 26.
He gets off the interstate
at Lexington hospital
and takes 378 inbound to Gervais.
He's right around downtown.
[Vicki] Maybe he's looking
for the Lottery Commission.
[officer 1] The payment center is there
on 1309 Assembly Street.
[Vicki] At noon he calls his wife.
They talk for a while,
have a normal conversation.
[officer 1] And then he's over
in Forest Acres.
Then he's over at Meadow Lakes.
He's up by Sparkleberry.
Up by Lake Carolina and then
I mean, he's all over the place.
[officer 2] Look at the times.
Ηe's not spending any time out there.
He's turning around.
So it's not like somebody's
out there going to a house.
[Vicki] Right.
We don't know
why he would be in those areas
because some of them
are, like, heavy crime and drug areas.
[officer 1] Then he's
back downtown at one o'clock.
At 1:30, he's hitting
the tower at Shop Road.
It's like he's riding
the beltway around Columbia.
You get a harder hit right where
he parked the truck at 2:53 p.m.
[Vicki] I-20, by the Broad River exit.
At 14:59 the wife gets, like,
a really odd voicemail.
[indistinct rustling on recording]
[rustling continues]
- [rustling stops]
- [mysterious music playing]
[Vicki] That's the whole message.
Then she started trying to call him back,
and he never answered.
Nobody hears from him ever again.
Like, was he struggling with someone,
and he was trying to call
because he needed help?
And I don't know.
That $10,000 lottery ticket
will be a big incentive for someone.
If he's lost,
and he's, like, a country fellow
[Vicki] Yeah.
If he pulls up to a gas station,
or let's say
the truck stop there at North Main,
and some dude gets in the car and says,
"I can show you.
I need to go downtown anyway."
[Vicki] Forensics found
a receipt in the truck
from the CVS on Harden Street.
All he got was two lighters.
But at that point, anybody could have
gotten in the truck with him.
[tense music playing]
[Kevin] We need to check with them
and see if they have video.
- [Vicki] Right.
- To see if there's anybody with him.
[Vicki] Yeah.
[tense music continues]
[Vicki] The person that we're looking for,
he comes in
and buys two cigarette lighters.
That's what the receipt says.
[woman] Is that him?
[Vicki] No, he has, like, longer hair.
He's a 59-year-old white male.
Is that him?
- We can rewind it and see if that was him.
- [man] Go back.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Vicki] Oh, wow.
That is David Taylor.
Wow, that is good video.
I can see exactly what he's wearing.
Blue jeans and a white T-shirt.
Wow.
He's actually talking to you.
- Isn't that crazy?
- [woman] Didn't he ask for directions?
[man] That is the guy
who asked for directions.
Because I looked it up.
But I forget where he wanted to go.
- [Vicki] To the Lottery Commission?
- [man] That's exactly where.
[Vicki] He has
a winning lottery ticket, so
And then he disappeared.
We can't see where
his truck is parked on your camera.
[man] He's not on the other angle?
[Vicki] Like, anybody's following him,
or anybody get in his vehicle
with him or something?
[man] No.
[Vicki] Where are you going, David?
[dark music playing]
[Heidi] It's so easy
to get caught up in these cases.
[pensive music playing]
We want to do our best
for the people that we're trying to help.
But that can take a heavy toll.
I remember a case of a missing girl.
She was 15 years old.
I spent a lot of time with her mom.
I wanted to take away her pain.
I wanted to find her child
but the ending wasn't good.
And I walked through that pain with her.
That case changed my whole opinion
on missing persons.
Now I feel very protective of my team.
Because this job is
emotionally challenging.
I wish I could protect them
but there's just no way to do that.
- [on phone] Lottery Security, it's Himani.
- Hi, Himani. It's Investigator Rains.
Can you tell me
if that ticket was ever cashed?
- I sent you the picture of it, um
- Mm-hmm.
It was bought in the Goose Creek area.
Okay, we had two $10,000 tickets
of that game.
But it was from Seneca and Spartanburg.
So the one from Goose Creek
has not been cashed.
No, it has not.
Mmm, okay.
[tense music playing]
[Vicki] I spoke
with the Lottery Commission
and they said
the lottery ticket has not been cashed.
There's only two.
- One from Spartanburg and one from Seneca.
- [Heidi] Okay.
[Vicki sighs] I don't know.
It just gets more confusing.
Like, it just gets weirder.
I mean, $10,000 is a lot of money.
I don't know why he would drive
all the way to Columbia
to cash it and then leave Columbia
without ever cashing it.
[Heidi] Just doesn't make sense.
[paper rustling on video]
- [woman] Merry Christmas!
- [man] Merry Christmas, Mom.
- Love you.
- [woman] Love you too!
[man] You gotta get that
out of my face, though.
[both laughing]
[somber music playing]
[Cathy] I've been married today
for about 30 years.
We always been a close family.
We help each other,
and we grow with each other.
There's a lot of love here.
Dave spent a lot of time
with the grandkids.
And made sure
that they all have what they need.
- [Cathy on video] Oh, look at me!
- [David] Hi, I got you with a sad face!
[indistinct chatter on video]
[boy] He means a lot to me.
Everything in the world.
[somber music continues]
We begged and begged
and begged for a treehouse.
It took him forever to say yes,
but he finally did,
and he started working on it
during about halfway through summer,
and we spent basically
two summers in here.
Doing
All we would do is just hang out in here.
We even had, like, a fan. We had a sink.
We had water. We had all that up in here.
And then he won.
He finally got a break.
And then that break
turned into something bad.
[somber music continues]
[Vicki] The first time
I had to give a family bad news,
it affected me horrendously.
It was a mother who lost her son,
and she couldn't stand.
She fell to the floor,
completely distraught.
And I could literally feel
the pain in her voice as she was wailing
and crying for her son.
I think what becomes important
in those moments
is that you know you did everything
you could for that person.
You can't leave any stone unturned
'cause that's the only way to know
in your heart that you've done your best.
But it never gets any easier.
[woman on recording] I was just calling
to report something
that was a little bit weird
and suspicious.
[officer] Okay.
[woman] Um, I'm on
Interstate I-20 heading west,
uh, towards the Broad River Road exit.
There was a person
who crossed on foot all eight lanes
all six lanes of traffic.
And as I got to where they crossed over
there was a white pickup truck.
- [continues indistinctly]
- [officer] Okay. Hang on.
Let me transfer you over to Highway.
Hold on.
[woman on phone] Hello!
[Vicki] Hi, I'm just calling
about a 911 call you made
a couple of days ago.
I understand that
you witnessed a vehicle be parked
on Monday at I-20 and Broad River.
[woman] I saw a truck on the grass.
[Vicki] Okay.
[woman] It was on the other side
of the rail in the grass.
I was coming home from work,
and traffic was slowing down.
I was lookin' up
to see what was happening,
whether it was a wreck.
And I saw a person going across six lanes
of interstate traffic during rush hour.
Why would you have a person crossing
six lanes of interstate traffic?
[Vicki] Was the traffic slowing down
because the guy
was running across the road?
- [woman] Yes, ma'am, that's correct.
- Okay.
Did you see what he was wearing?
[woman] I wouldn't know the person if
they walked up to my car window right now.
It was just one of those things
where it was like,
"This is super, super sketchy."
Okay. Okay. Well, thank you so much.
- [woman] Of course, you're very welcome.
- All right, have a good day.
- [woman] Thank you.
- Bye-bye.
Somebody was getting the hell away from
- [Nina] Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.
- that truck.
You know, as fast as they could.
Run across six lanes of traffic
in the middle of the day
when it's super busy, that's, you know
[Nina] We're now talkin' about
two sides of the highway.
[Vicki] Right.
We've searched
this whole area to the right.
- [Matt] He ran to the left?
- [Heidi] Yeah.
Yes, because there are no lanes
on this side,
so he had to run that way.
[Heidi] Is he even capable
of running across six lanes of traffic
- [Vicki] That's what I was gonna say.
- during that time of the day?
[Nina] Do we know what's on
the other side of the highway?
[Heidi] So up here there's a golf course.
- [Vicki] Yeah.
- And then what's over here, just woods.
[officer] There's a bunch of meth addicts.
In the past we've been told
that they're dealing meth down there.
[Vicki] So there could be
some people using drugs in the area.
Whoever ran from the truck
could have been going there.
Okay, so one theory is
that he got his car there, got robbed,
and then the person
who robbed him ran across,
who was probably a drug user.
Or the other theory is
he ended up getting his vehicle there.
- Then he ran across to a drug area.
- [Vicki] Right.
He definitely did not do
any sort of drugs, correct?
[Cathy on phone] No, he didn't.
Okay.
Like, you never saw anything
at your house or anything like that?
[Cathy] No, uh-uh.
Um, I got three drug addict kids.
That's why I know that, you know.
[Vicki] Okay.
That he wouldn't touch Yeah.
- Um
- [Cathy] Yeah.
Like, he would be trying to help his kids,
not do the same thing.
[Cathy] Exactly.
Dave was really trying
to help them get into rehab
and get 'em straight
and to get 'em off of stuff, you know.
[Vicki] Okay.
Do you think the kids could be involved
in his disappearance?
[Matt] I mean,
they're all into drugs using,
maybe peddling a little bit
here and there to fund their habit.
You can't say no.
[pensive music playing]
[Greg] My daddy,
he didn't want to be around drugs.
[pensive music continues]
I guess
a lot of people in the family is on it.
My brother Jeff,
he was bipolar schizophrenic.
When he was on drugs
and he was tripping, you know
he said he kept hearing voices.
He done dumped
a bunch of baskets of clothes on the bed,
soaked in gasoline, and lit it up.
He He burnt down the house.
Time we got here, we
there wasn't nothin' we could do about it.
It was
It was a disaster.
Tell you the truth,
it was on my daddy's birthday.
He wasn't very happy about it.
I mean, he drank.
He might have smoked some weed
when he was younger.
But harder drugs, he didn't
he didn't like that.
[Jessica] My mom,
she don't have the slightest clue.
Um, but I knew what Daddy did, you know?
He had fell and hurt himself,
hurt his knee real bad.
And by that time
I was doing heroin and meth and all.
I told my daddy, I said,
"I don't have no pain pills."
"I know you're gonna say no,"
but I said, "I have heroin and meth."
And it was really just a joke, you know?
Um, I was just joking with him.
And, uh, he actually came to my room
ten minutes later and was like,
"Give me some." You know what I'm saying?
So, I knew
right then and there that, you know,
maybe every once in a while he
he was using.
[dramatic music playing]
[Vicki on radio] Our missing person
is David Taylor,
and we think he may have been seen
going to this side of the woods.
- [siren whoops]
- [Vicki] Keep an eye out for his phone,
the lottery ticket, or anything
that might tell us where he's gone.
- This is a commonly-known drug area
- [dog pants]
[Vicki] so be aware.
[dramatic music continues]
[Matt] That's the railroad track,
so he crossed farther back behind us.
[indistinct chatter]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[tense music playing]
[Vicki] This hill was so steep.
[radio crackling]
- [officer 1] You got anything over there?
- [officer 2] Nothing this way.
I ain't see anything.
There's rocks up there. You go up that way
and it's a wall of rock.
[tense music continues]
[officer 1] Yeah!
[officer 2 on radio] Vicky, I think
we might have something over here.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Vicki] Wow. These match the pants
he was last seen wearing.
They're ripped.
They're ripped almost in half.
They're covered in blood.
Any bullet holes? Anything?
- [officer 1] Hang on just a second.
- [officer 2] No lottery ticket.
[Vicki] He must be injured.
We've really gotta find him.
He couldn't have gone far.
You guys look on that side.
We're gonna head down this way.
[officer] Dave!
[Vicki] David, are you in here?
[officer 1] Hello!
- [officer 2] David!
- [officer 1] Anybody down there?
[officer 2] David!
[officer 1] Hello?
David, are you in there?
[voice echoes] David!
[dramatic music playing]