Murder by Numbers

This is where the common citizen,

just going to the national forest,

they can meet their demise quickly.

There's people out there in the forest that don't do well

in society.

He was on the trail hunting people.

This person knew he was doing.

I think he's just what you call "like the devil."

Cheryl: great.

Man: looks like you could use a little help there.

Captions paid for by discovery communications

narrator: north Carolina's pisgah national forest,

a dense acreage of mile-high peaks, beautiful waterfalls,

and backwoods trails.

It's just a few miles outside asheville, north Carolina,

but it can feel a world away.

Young: it's a vast area, extremely remote, some of it.

It's over a half a million acres just in the pisgah.

It's either uphill or downhill. There's no in between.

It's a pretty big forest,

so you're not really gonna run into people.

It's a pretty remote place. I mean, you can lose yourself.

We have recorded incidents of numerous deaths...

People falling to their deaths off steep rocks.

Especially around the waterfalls, they may fall,

break a leg.

Then they're stuck.

It's very treacherous.

Narrator: so when John and Irene Bryant,

both regular national forest hikers,

go missing, their son, Bob, asks investigators for help.

I was in my office, and they called me and said

that a gentleman wanted to talk to us about his parents,

who were missing.

He had called and couldn't get them on his cellphone.

After three or four different tries,

he thought something was wrong.

He was just desperate. Everybody was desperate.

They're not answering their phones.

My sister's been trying to call, I've been trying to call.

We're getting no response at all.

In seeing his demeanor and his face and hearing

his tone of voice, it was obvious there was a concern.

My parents love to hike.

Um, they don't camp much overnight anymore,

but, you know, they get out every chance they get.

He believed there was a possibility they may be

in the pisgah national forest,

near the asheville area somewhere.

If you got off of the road and didn't know your way back,

you could get lost.

That's the most recent picture I have of him.

It's about a year old.

Young: in one of the photographs that he had provided,

his dad was wearing a yellow parka.

And he said, more than likely,

it's either in the vehicle or he's wearing it.

He always wears that yellow jacket

when they hike in the cold.

Well, we'll start looking for him right away.

We'll be in touch if we find anything.

Narrator: detective young gets the pictures of the bryants.

Out to law enforcement in the area and begins a search.

Investigators get their first clue when they run a check on

the bryants' cellphone records, but it's grim news.

We discovered that, on the 21st of October, 2007,

the bryants cellphone had been used in an attempt to call 911.

Narrator: as expected, the call came from somewhere.

In the pisgah national forest.

It just wasn't strong enough signal

to get through the system to the 911 dispatcher.

So we knew that there was a 911 call from the bryants' phone.

We still didn't know if it was medical or criminal in nature.

Narrator: young starts the search close to the cell tower.

That registered the bryants' 911 call,

and at a nearby trailhead, he finds their car.

Young: the vehicle was parked at the entrance to a small trail...

Kind of a benign trail, not very steep,

an area that's frequented by a lot of visitors.

It looked to me like they had parked, locked it, and left...

Just somebody parked and went hiking.

That was the impression I got.

We did an immediate search of the area.

We just thought medical emergency.

They had found Irene Bryant's body

in a little heavily wooded area.

Narrator: the forest can be dangerous...

But one look, and investigators know this is no accident.

Irene Bryant was beaten to death.

The investigation shifted once we found Ms. Bryant,

obviously to criminal.

Any sign of the husband?

No.

Something's really amiss here.

Where is he? Why is he not nearby?

I was starting to ask a lot of questions.

"Who's involved, and how could they have

perpetrated this crime?"

Narrator: investigators now have a murder.

And a missing-persons case on their hands.

While detectives put the pieces together,

the bryants' family and friends hear the devastating news.

Bob Bryant, it was kind of like he probably knew something

had happened to his parents.

He just didn't know what.

They were happy, outgoing, outdoors people that were doing

what you hope that everyone can do when you're retired,

is be out in the woods and healthy and feeling good.

All you can say about them... They're just good people.

Narrator: but now a hike in the bryants' own backyard.

Has gone terribly wrong.

Police launch an all-out search

for Irene's missing husband, John.

She was found, and he was not, and I'm like, "did he do this?"

Portman: you need to be able to account.

For both of these people.

You wonder, "did he fall? Was it an accident?"

Did he hit his head, and is he wandering around somewhere?"

Finding someone like that in the forest is not an easy task.

We then started focusing on every single person

that we could identify in the national forest,

in that area.

"What did you see? What time did you see that?"

He would've been alone most likely, wearing a yellow jacket.

"Anything unusual... Suspects or suspect?

Did you see Mr. Bryant?"

We've been mostly in the backcountry,

but I don't think we've seen this guy on any of the trails.

Officer: looking for the man in this photo.

He was last seen around this area.

No. I ain't seen him.

I'll keep an eye out for him, though.

Okay. good luck.

Major: well, it's horrible.

You wanted to do something, and it is so frustrating.

You're waiting to see the paper and the computer the next day

to see if they had found anything.

We were still hopeful we could find Mr. Bryant alive,

and so we were just... We were hungry for information

and trying to seek that information.

Narrator: then a call from the bryants' bank.

Gives detectives another lead.

Irene's debit card was used at an atm almost three hours away

from where her body was discovered.

The atm card had been used in Ducktown, Tennessee.

Ducktown's surrounded by nantahala national forest,

so I immediately knew, "we've got something going on here."

That's got to be him.

We could be looking at Irene's killer.

They had the card.

You see them punch in the code.

And the second attempt, he got the code correct.

They kind of kept their face obscured.

They turned and walked away at an angle.

Narrator: the investigator can't see his face,

but there is something he does recognize.

It appeared to be the coat of John Bryant.

Immediately, cold chills kind of went down my spine.

Narrator: investigators in north Carolina.

Have a baffling double mystery to solve.

Irene Bryant has been brutally murdered,

and her husband, John, is missing.

We had a window. We were not sure if Mr. Bryant

was alive or dead, but we were confident that a 911 call

was made, that the start of the process was in this window.

The coat certainly raises red flags.

That's certainly suspicious.

It's hard to believe that a spouse would do that

to somebody, especially at that age.

Now, again, it didn't rule it out.

It wasn't something i was pursuing,

but I didn't close that door.

Narrator: instead of shutting down Irene's bank account,

they use it as a lure.

All right, let us know the second you get

another hit on his card. Of course.

Maybe he'll try to hit the atm again, you know, whatever.

So we kept the account open.

Narrator: law enforcement steps up its search for John Bryant.

They contact the FBI and get Bryant's picture out nationwide.

Young: we were asking for the public, "please call us."

Please call us... anything.

If you were in the national forest that day, call us.

"It's important."

Narrator: and one of those calls leads investigators right back.

To the pisgah national forest.

A tipster says he saw an older man in the forest

acting strange.

Some young people, hikers, they run across this guy,

and he seems weird, and he's walking

with this collapsible police Baton, and they feel like

there's something not quite right about him.

The guy talking about how he can maybe kill somebody

with the Baton if he needs be.

During the autopsy, it was determined that

blunt-force trauma was the result of death of Ms. Bryant.

He said it was a long cylindrical item,

and when asked the question of the m.E.,

"could it have been an extendable Baton?"

"Yes" was the answer.