The Poughkeepsie Tapes

Look at her smile, see, like...

- ...her dimples stick out. - The Lord is my shepherd.

Know what I mean?

I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's...

The story of Cheryl Dempsey and what she became...

...is truly one of the strangest, most disturbing things...

I've ever come across in the history of serial murder.

I've been doing this for close to 25 years now.

I had a tenant in this house here...

...who was a very terrible person.

This is the house where they found the Poughkeepsie tapes.

Before we got our hands on the Poughkeepsie tapes,

...we thought...

Well, we knew there had been some killings...

...and we were aware that some of them appeared...

...as though they were being carried out...

...in an organized fashion,

...but until we got our hands on those tapes,

...we had no idea what we were dealing with.

No idea.

It was my job to watch and log all 2,400 hours...

...of the Poughkeepsie tapes.

In the first month alone,

I couldn't sleep for more than an hour or two at night.

I still have nightmares about them.

I think torturing and murdering turn him on.

And I think these tapes are something...

...of a homemade porn film or a memento...

...that he can savor long after the murder.

He has definitely stalled...

...halfway through many a killing to switch tapes.

I remember one night,

I brought some of the tapes home with me...

...to keep working, and unbeknownst to me,

...my wife watched about half an hour of one of the tapes...

...and it took her a year before she let me touch her again.

That's what's on those tapes.

They found the tapes in this closet.

And down here, you know.

When we searched the yard we found the bodies of two women...

...there, and there.

We found a deep hole here where there was buried...

...a young couple and their 10-month-old baby.

There was a body of a man there,

...and four more women there, there, there, and there.

And it was obvious that they'd all...

...been killed in a horrific manner.

Beside me here is one complete set of the tapes.

And just to give you a sense, from about here,

...to here, are all about Cheryl Dempsey.

When people think of serial killers...

...they think of four or five people.

You know, Ted Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, et cetera.

But what most people don't realize...

...is how many more there are.

At any given time, there are somewhere between...

25 and 50 active serial killers in America alone.

It is really a much bigger problem than most people realize.

There are probably hours and hours of these tapes...

...that nobody's watched except me.

Like, for example, there's over 100 hours...

...of weird balloon stuff on these tapes.

Like this?

Yes.

Like this?

Yes.

Now pop it.

What?

Pop it!

If I've learned one thing...

...from teaching this class, it's this.

After what we're gonna see here today,

...three of you will go home tonight...

...and decide that this is not what you want with your life.

You know, there are some terrible people in this world...

...who do unbelievably terrible things.

So it's important that each of you ask yourself,

...do I really wanna surround myself with these terrible things...

...for the rest of my professional life?

And it's okay if you don't.

I would guess something happened in his life at that time.

He got in a fight, lost a job, got left by his wife,

...something like that, and went out in his car...

...and at some point said,

...the next vulnerable person I see is dead.

Hi.

I like your dolls.

I said, I like your dolls.

What's that one's name?

Susie.

I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.

Well, you're not supposed...

...to have bad manners either.

You know, if I was the Big Bad Wolf...

...there's nothing you can do about it.

You wanna say something to the camera?

Like what?

I don't know.

Maybe you could say, I am,

I am a happy, pretty little girl.

No.

You wanna see what it looks like through the camera?

No.

Here.

On first inspection, it looked like...

...she had been hit in the head with a blunt object.

We found there was a missing girl, Jennifer Gorman,

...eight years old, from Putnam County, about 50 miles away,

...fitting the description, last seen in similar clothes.

I think something bad...

...has happened to my daughter.

I think somebody took her.

- Like who? - I don't know who!

Out of the yard!

There's blood out there, please, do something.

Do something, do something!

- Somebody took her! - If it's a missing person...

- ...we have to wait 24 hours. - No!

There is blood, there is blood out there.

Send the police now!

Obviously, you don't ever get over something like this.

You think the pain will subside, and...

And get better.

But it doesn't.

Not at all.

What kind of a sick bastard rapes a little girl.

She was just a child.

She was barely eight.

I'm so sorry.

This is nothing.

He doesn't even know what he's doing yet.

Hey, having a little car problem?

Yeah, this old thing...

...isn't even worth driving some days.

Could I get a lift into the next town?

Yeah, no problem.

Hop in.

Do you mind if I film this?

I'm making a little movie about my trip.

Knock yourself out.

Look Hon, we're gonna be movie stars.

So what's your name?

Ed.

Ed, I'm Frank, this is Jeanette.

Hi.

If you take this exit up here,

...you can drop me off at the little gas station.

Okay.

It's to the right here,

...just a couple miles off the freeway.

All right.

You from around here?

Not really.

Where are you from?

I think the gas station's right around the bend.

Oh my god!

Oh my god!

A Poughkeepsie couple vanished over the weekend,

...seemingly without a trace.

Family members say they haven't heard...

...from Frank or Jeanette Anderson...

...since they left Pittsburgh last Friday.

Authorities still have no leads...

...as to the couple's whereabouts.

This homicide announces a completely new kind of killer.

There is almost nothing left of the impulsiveness...

...that he displayed with Jennifer Gorman.

Here is a man who's figured out he's good at something.

Imagine what it would take to do this.

From the seat behind her he takes a rag...

...with some sort of chemical agent with his right hand,

...and he places it over her mouth.

And with his left hand holding the camera...

...he's reaching it out and holding it...

...in front of her face like this.

This isn't the kind of thing that just happens.

He must've practiced this motion thoroughly to get it right.

I mean, his car's parked alongside the road.

He knows where the next gas station is,

...he knows it's only a mile or two off the freeway,

...and he knows that it's a desolate area...

...between the freeway and the gas station.

In fact, this station is abandoned,

...and I bet he knows that too.

And he had a ready made excuse for the camera.

This man is what we call a mixed killer.

He plots and hides his crimes in an organized manner,

...but he mutilates and does, well, let's say similar things...

...with the bodies that a disorganized killer would do.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Come on, wake up.

Come on, wake up, I have a surprise for you.