The Lake Erie Murders

This man is a serial rapist,

And he vows that he will rape and kill again.

You kill somebody, and then you go home

And do what?

Williams: You just let it go.

Narrator: Eastern michigan in the spring of '92

Is in the grip of fear.

Callahan: People were on edge. They were upset.

You know, the disbelief of how this could have happened.

Narrator: Four teenage girls have disappeared...

I remember saying, "what do you mean abducted?"

What does that mean?

Narrator:...From a 20-mile area.

Jansson: No one could disappear that clean.

Cyndi!

For lack of any other term, she just vanished.

Narrator: Local police, along with the fbi...

We orchestrated a huge search, and it all came up negative.

Narrator:...Race against time to find them...

We just couldn't see the pattern that fit.

Narrator:...Before another family loses their child.

Narrator: Just inland from the shores of lake erie

On the outskirts of detroit,

Lies the idyllic township of township of milford.

Everyone knows their neighbors.

Doors are left unlocked,

And the crime rate has always been low.

That's what drew alana hoeft and her five children here.

Hoeft: Milford was very nice.

There were fun things like parades,

Fourth of July, memorial day.

It was a good place to raise your kids.

Narrator: After a tough break up and custody battle,

Alana is now a single mom who works 80 hours a week

To give her kids the best life she can.

She wouldn't have coped without the help of her oldest,

15-year-old cynthia, known as cyndi.

Hoeft: She was a pretty girl. She liked gymnastics.

She was part of the marching band.

She was smart. She was fun.

She was very capable.

You didn't have to ask cyndi.

Okay, won't be long.

Cyndi just jumped in where she saw it was needed.

Narrator: But cyndi is growing up,

And for six months now has been dating

16-year-old luke. Good to see you.

Hoeft: Luke was all pro in the sports program

At high school, and she being a cheerleader,

The two kids really kicked it off.

She obviously had a great deal of interest in him.

They had good times together.

Cyndi and luke asked if they could go out.

Mom. Yep?

They were gonna get a pop and go to the park.

I'll take good care of her. I promise.

And I figured, "yeah, well, okay."

I warned them that they needed to keep an eye about

Themselves and be aware, be careful,

Because I almost don't want to let you go.

So they should have been fine.

It isn't the way it panned out.

Narrator: An hour after the young couple leave,

The milford county dispatch receives a call.

This is where homegrown detective tom callahan

Enters the story.

Callahan: This young person is very upset, very confused.

They couldn't get all of the details out of them

Because they were a little bit disjointed.

But it was short pieces of fragmented statements

About some kind of a robbery.

We actually started checking businesses in town

That fit the description of that type of a store

That may have been robbed.

At each one, they knew nothing about what was going on.

Narrator: Detectives arrive at a local restaurant

To interview the young man who made the call.

He took her.

I ran after them. I was screaming at them.

I was screaming for her.

Callahan: He was pretty disheveled,

Very scattered in his delivery

Of piecing together what happened.

Our friend, we -- we drove to central -- a-a-a robbery.

Narrator: Slowly, the distraught teen shares

His terrifying story.

It all began around 7:30 p.M. In central park.

Less than a mile from cyndi's home.

Cyndi and luke decided to go into the park.

They sat there and talked for a while.

Worst 20-yard throw since the campus invented...

And at some point, they'd heard voices.

So they ducked down. They just didn't want

To have any rumors about what was going on,

What they were doing in the park.

it's like grand central station.

Freeze! Stay as you are.

And don't move

- Oh, please, mister. - Quiet!

I'm not going to hurt you.

I just need the car.

Callahan: He said, "I just did a robbery,

And I need your car to get out of town.

I'm not going to hurt you."

So get out.

Okay.

He made sure that they understood

That he meant business.

Just take the car and leave us alone.

What? Come on.

And they should do what he said.

So they were pretty shaken up.

Stop.

I'm going to tie you both to this tree and drive away.

Comply, and I won't hurt you.

Sit.

Callahan: He explained he was going to tie them both up,

And then he was gonna take their car and leave.

He had secured luke with these thick, plastic wire ties.

He's telling them he's not going to hurt them

And they're gonna both be tied up together.

You're coming with me.

But you said you were going to...

I lied.

No!

No! No! Cyndi! No!

Cyndi! Cyndi!

Callahan: He said he was able to snap

One of those plastic ties and free himself.

Cyndi! Cyndi!

Callahan: He went up and down,

Just running and calling her name.

Luke: Cyndi!

Cyndi!

Help! Help! I got to call the cops.

Callahan: Eventually he went to the restaurant

Where he called the police.

So then I, uh, ran here to call you guys.

I saw some inconsistencies in some of the things

That luke talked about

In the sequence of events that happened that night.

You have to find her.

Simultaneously the officers that already verified

That no businesses had been robbed

And no one called back.

Here, just here. He tied me to this tree.

He actually took us to the location

Where he was tied to the tree with those plastic ties.

He put my hands -- I broke out.

He took her that way, through those trees.

I couldn't find them.

These things were industrial quality,

And they're like restraints that police use,

But these were more of a commercial type of plastic tie.

They were very strong. How did those things get broken?

How did he get free?

And trying to duplicate that was very difficult.

So was this particular one had a weak spot?

Was it the adrenaline? Was it who knows what?

But they were broken.

Narrator: And in the woods, investigators find more evidence

That seems to corroborate luke's story.

Callahan: There was one set of boot tracks in the mud

That led away with a smaller set of tracks.

And it appears that that was the offender's

Boot impressions along with cyndi's.

Narrator: When the boot marks don't match luke's sneakers,

He is cleared...For now.

All the evidence seems to point to a calculated assault.

Callahan: So we knew that this was actually a ruse.

It was an abduction.

Narrator: The clock is now ticking to find cyndi

Before she is hurt or worse.

The moment detective callahan appears is the start

Of an endless nightmare for cyndi's mother.

Hoeft: He came to the door, and I let him in, and he said,

"do you have a daughter named cynthia jones?"

And I said yes.

And he said, "well, she has been abducted."

I remember looking at him saying,

"what do you mean abducted? What does that mean?"

And I reached up, and I touched him on his chest,

Almost like I just wanted him to back away from me.

That's how the whole thing started, was that night.

Narrator: With every minute crucial to her possible

Recovery, local police quickly get back up

From federal law enforcement.

Mcdonough: We opened it as a kidnapping case

And orchestrated large search with fbi agents,

With milford police department,

Oakland county sheriff's department.

Callahan: State police offered to bring a helicopter in,

Which they did, and they conducted

An aerial search of the entire area.

We covered a lot more acreage on horseback,

And then the surrounding officers on foot

Fanned out from there.

She was just an all-around good american girl.

We were all scared

That something terrible happened to her.