If it worked, he could win his freedom. If it didnt, he could lose his life. They had your back. They had my back. At least you thought. Thats what i thought. The inside man. Welcome to dateline, everyone. Im lester holt. So why on earth would anyone volunteer to spend months behind the bars of a federal prison for the criminally insane . What if it was a convicts one chance for escaping a tenyear sentence and walking out of prison a free man . Before he would be sprung, he had a job do in that specially dangerous prison. Getting in was the easy part. Getting out alive was much harder. Two enemies who didnt trust each other faced off across a table. One of them in handcuffs, was a clever con named jimmy keen. The other a hardcharging prosecutor. In court he called me the giant of the prisoner was worried sick. The prosecutor who had just convicted keen and put him behind bars suddenly wanted to talk, a topsecret meeting no less. Whatmore could he do to jimmy . He was the last person i expected to hear from. He was my biggest fear. Keens fears went off the chart when the prosecutor slid an accordion file in his direction. On top was a grisly photo of a dead girl. I flipped to the next page and here is another young, dead mutilated girl. Im thinking, whoa, wait a second. He is probably thinking at this point that youre about to charge him with something else. Yeah, because i had been pretty rough on him in the initial prosecution. Jimmy was in the dark. He had no idea that crazy scheme the prosecutor had in mind. He says, jimmy, listen, this is something that we have another person on. He has killed many, many young women and i personally think youre the one that can help us with this. This turned out to be an investigation to try to catch a suspected serial killer. Beaumont, an outside the box thinker, believed this convict, jimmy keen was the one that could somehow crack the case. Taking on a unique and deadly mission. I realized how serious it was and i also realized the danger of it. But what he couldnt know is how such a Daring Mission would change his world and the person he was forever. If this all seems fodder for a hollywood movie, brad pitt would agree. The megastar who was benjamin button is interested in playing none other than than jimmy keen. Brad pitt likes that he risked his life to try to find what he could find. Clearly this guy is one of a kind, charismatic, conceded, courageous and complicated. From an early age, he had the personality, charm and cockiness that made him dream that a Hollywood Star might one day want to play him in the movies. His first big brush with fame came on the football field. I heard they called you the assassin in football. That was a good thing i take it . Yes. I was taught by my dad at a young age, son, if you do hit that kid first, hes going to hit you and hurt you first. A superstar athlete and mr. Popularity in high school, jimmy seemed to have it all as a big fish in the river city of kankeekee. I was most valuable player, i was captain of the Team Every Year i played. Jimmy grew up in the shadow of his father, big jim who was a cop, fireman and hero to his son. He was by best friend. All of keens grand potential could be put in payroll by a terrible choice he made as a teenager, he began selling drugs. He started small, pedaling bags of marijuana here in this park. Then he expanded to cocaine and at the tender age of 17, he moved to chicago where the business and profits exploded. He was now a big fish in a bigger pond. Lake michigan to be exact. He was his own incrowd. Fast cars, faster women and souped up living. All the hot spots. All the big nightclubs, all the owners i was in tight with. I would come in there and have kark blanch. Were you feeling invincible. Yeah. There was a certain point where i would say there was an invincible feeling. Did your pop know . Did he suspect . He didnt suspect it until much, much later. It would be a rude awakening to both his dad and jimmy that day in 1996 when jimmy was just relaxing at one of his chicago homes. All of a sudden, the whole door blew off the hinges and come flying into the house. All of these d. A. , fbi and locals came in in single file line with automatic weapons pointed at me, freeds, get on the ground. Get on the ground. He had been caught in a drug sting, spearheaded by that hardnosed federal prosecutor, Larry Beaumont. We scooped him up in an operation i ran, we called it operation snowplow. And in court, beaumont showed keen no mercy. He was coming at you on all fours, wasnt he . He was a bulldog. Jimmy was convicted and slapped with a tenyear sentence. It was pretty stiff sentence. I knew he didnt expect to get ten years in that case. Your father was in the courtroom. Right. I knew i had let him down in probably one of the biggest ways you could let somebody down. Keens future was bleak. He faced ten years away from his glamorous life, fast fancy women, big cars. The big bucks. When all hope seemed lost, his old nem nis beaumont came to him with an offer of freedom. Attached to that accordion file he slid across the table. In return, keene would have to risk everything and being an underground informant in springfield, missouri. It was a psychiatric prison with both hardcore killers and the criminally insane. These people all have life sentences. Theyre all in there in their crazy moons and they have Nothing Better to do but to try to hurt you or kill you just for some fun. If he accepted beaumonts offer, keenes target would be the suspected serial killer, the mysterious man in a van. Coming up every picture tells a story. When i put the picture down, he flinched, raised his arm up and refused to look at the picture. When the inside man continues. [ female announcer ] you never know what messes youll run into while dusting. Compared to a dry duster, a can of pledge picks up more dust and cleans 100 of messes. Pledge multi surface. Dusts better. Cleans more. Pledge multi surface. 3d white brilliancele with the toothpaste and boost. M crest after brushing, our exclusive boost. Polishes your smile and whitens with 3x the stain lifting ingredient. For a smile that dazzles. Only from crest 3d white. Several years before jimmy keenes arrest and conviction, his drug business was booming and his personal life, as he tells it, was nonstop fun and games. Lot of hot clubs here in the 90s. This was a place you were doing business as well . I worked and played right here, yes. And it was a good time. Back then, he had no idea about the danger lurking 150 miles south and a lifestyle away that would change his life forever. Rural tranquil georgetown, illinois, is where terry roach and her husband lawyer were raising their 15yearold daughter jessie and two other children, far removed from bigcity crime. Everybody knew who everybody was, so they were more conscious of what was going on usually. You could count on somebody to get after your kids if they needed it. In 1993, jessie was a high school sophomore, devoted to home and family. Jessie was really very much of a home body, so one bike ride up the road and back, she was done. Yeah. Then she would be watching gone with the wind. One monday in september, jessie went out for a bike ride, but just minutes later, her sister noticed jessies beloved bike down on its side in the middle of the road. On the side of the road, middle of road. Yeah. She would have put the kick stand down and bicycle down. I knew something was wrong. Deputy sheriff gary miller was dispatched to the scene. The more we learned about the family and the girls background, we just didnt feel that she was staying away by choice. The haunting image of a bike tipped over and abandoned terrified all the investigators and of course jessies family. I mean, you never lose the hope for them not to walking in. You still hope that. We knew she wasnt going to just walk away. After six weeks, jessies parents worst fears were realized. Her body beaten and sexually violated was discovered in a corn field. It could never be easy telling a parent that their child is dead. No, it wasnt. But at least we were able to tell them this is her, shes gone. We were able to erase all doubts. Gary miller had a murder case to solve and it was now a federal case involving prosecutor Larry Beaumont as well since jessies body actually had been found across the Illinois State line. For the next year, miller did lots of legwork but to no avail. Everyday you get up, are you thinking about this case . Oh, everyday. What have i missed . Exactly. I know this case really shook him from the beginning and he would check any and all leads that would involve young girls and kind of run them down. Then, in late 1994, millers persistence finally paid off. A man in a van had been reported chasing two teenage girls in jessies hometown of georgetown. Miller traced the van to a man named larry hall from wabash, indiana, a threehour drive from georgetown. Your heart beat starting to pick up. Oh, yeah. Im thinking, this has to be checked out. Miller learned that hall was a gung h o civil war reenactor. He traveled the midwest to fight fantasy battles. Miller immediately drove to wabash to interview hall who wasnt saying much. So miller showed him a photo of jessie roach. When i put the picture down, he flinched, raised his arm up and turned in its chair and refused to look at the picture. Convinced larry hall was hiding something, miller became obsessed with making a case against him. Days later, back in illinois, miller turned up a huge lead. He found witnesses who vividly remembered hall from a revolutionary war reenactment in the georgetown area the very weekend before jessie was abducted. To them, hall stood out for his bushy mutten chop side burns, but also for playing a soldier who was fighting the wrong war. He was wearing a civil war uniform and he had a civil war hat. At a revolutionary war reenactment. Exactly. Armed with this new information, Deputy Sheriff miller returned to wabash for a second strike at hall. Stressing that halls reenactors had southeastern him near georgetown. He came along to the point where he said, well, you know i go to so many reenactments i could have been there because i go to a lot of them. Hes giving more ground. Yeah. Miller sees the opening and kept at it. Finally he says hall came clean and obsessed that he abducted, sexually violated and strangelated jessie roach to death. How much detail did he give you . Very good detail. What he actually did and what took place. Not only that, miller says larry hall confessed to other killings, including a coed from Indiana Wesleyan University in nearby marion, indiana, named Trisha Wright ler. She said he was involved in wright ler. Deputy sheriff miller didnt know much about trisha, so he called on the local Indiana Police who had been handling that case, but when marion detective jk and other indiana cops arrived, hall was suddenly telling a much different story. He denied confessing to any killing, including jessies and trishas. Whats more, he claimed it was all a misunderstanding about disturbing dreams he had. He takes us out to a location where in my dreams i strangled her here and left her lay here. We searched the woods. We searched the area. And never really found anything. The indiana cops, who was familiar with hall, were not at all surprised by his actions. Some of them, like jk, thought hall might be a wanna be, a pretender who gets his kicks from confessing to crimes he didnt commit. Is it possible he simply obsessed with these cases but not involved . Theres no doubt in my mind that he does follow these cases, that he does read and has tracked the two cases all over the country. You know, so the question does come, is he a wanna be . Deputy sheriff miller and prosecutor beaumont, however felt certain they had a real killer on their hands, a serial killer, with a unique m. O. He would drive Cross Country to reenactments where he would play fantasy soldier then prey on young women and kill for real. The fbi started discourting girls that were missing at these various areas at the time larry hall would have been been there. The only case that they had sufficient evidence was jessie roachs. Larry hall was arrested. Hall went on trial in 1995. As a prosecutor, whats the best card youre holding . We had a statement, his confession, said he did it. Beaumont called Deputy Sheriff miller to the stand to testify that hall had indeed admitted that he abducted and killed jessie after he spotted her with her bicycle. She was walking her bike at that point. Miller testified that in his confession hall gave him a detail that only the killer would know. That jessie was not riding her bike but walking it, a safety precaution the roachs insisted she follow when she was on their narrow road. That was never in the press that she was walking her bike that day. Right. When you heard that, did that give more credence to the story . Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. That just sealed it for me. I knew he was the one. A jury unanimously agreed. It took just three hours to convict larry hall. But prosecutor beaumont believed this was just the tip of the iceberg. He felt certain hall was a serial killer and now he had to find a way to prove it. So he began investigating trish ya wrightlers investigation, a case that wasnt his for a family he didnt even know. I cant imagine sending my daughter off to school and never seeing her again. And he came up with an outside the box scheme to get hall, which would risk the life of that charismatic convict he had just put away for dealing drugs, jimmy keene. What happens when i got to deal with all these crazy killers and stuff . What if i get shanked. What if i get killed . I mean, am i going to survive this . Coming up a get out of jail free card with a price they had your back. They had my back. At least you thought. Thats what i thought. People typically dont admit murder, sexual assaults and murders to Police Officers unless, in fact, they probably have done it. So it was clear, we felt, he was responsible for the trish ya wrightler disappearance. She had such a zest for life. She would walk into the room and everybody knew she was there. Trish ya was on her way to becoming a family counselor. Her goal was to put families back together. Then in march 1993, her parents receive that late night phone call every parent dreads. A cop from marion, indiana, was on the line. He said, do you know where tricia is . In my heart i knew that something was drastically wrong. Tricia had walked to an offcampus supermarket and never returned to her dorm. Now nearly 20 years later, her parents are still waiting. You purchase a cemetery plot. Yes. No headstone. No. Not until we find her. And we have no answers. And somebody out there thats what eats at me. Somebody out there has that answer for us. Tricia wrightler wasnt prosecutor beaumonts case. He was deeply moved by her parents. That was a horrible crime to me. I knew about the facts of the case and i knew about the family. I never met them but i read all the newspaper articles and the accounts of them asking for help. Beaumont felt certain that suspected serial killer larry hall was responsible. Not only did hall live 25 minutes from indiana wesleyan, he had been identified chasing two coeds there just a week after tricia went missing. So in the summer of 1995, a month after convicting hall for jessie roachs murder, beaumont was leading a search for tricia. It was in the same indiana backwoods where hall told indiana authorities he dreamt he killed and buried tricia. I wanted to do everything we could to see if we could find her body. After two days searching in heat and humidity, tricias body didnt find out. Then beaumont decided to try something completely different. I came up with the idea of putting somebody in the prison cell with him to see if we could get him to tell us. They all think you were crazy. Most people did think i was crazy, yeah. But i was able to convince them that we should do it any way. Enter jimmy keene, the drug dealer beaumont had just convicted and sent to a lowsecurity prison. Why did he stick out in your mind . Because i knew he was kind of a con man. He was smart. If anybody could pull off, he could pull it off. You were trained in martial arts. You could make tan and protect yourself in an environment like that. In return, beaumont offered jimmy freedom, but first jimmy would have to exact more than a confession. I told him, unless we found the body, he would get no credit. No body, you get nothing. Jimmy was skeptical. He was a drug dealer, not a criminal profiler. And he knew this was a mission impossible. He said no. But then, fate intervened. Jimmys dad suffered a stroke. Weeks later, frail and sickly, he came to visit jimmy. My dad was in a wheelchair. Now, this is big jim. The guy that had been superman to me my whole entire life. We cried through the window to each other and we talked for a while and he didnt even know about the offer, nobody knew about it. Jimmy now realized that he had a onetime only opportunity to fix the mess he had made for himself and get out while his dad was still alive. As soon as we were done with the visit, i called my lawyer and i said, tell beaumont im going to take him up on his offer. The mission was on. So on august 3rd, 1998, federal marshals escorted jimmy into the psychiatric prison. Once they stepped out the door, i was on my own. Jimmys cover story was that he was a convicted weapons runner whose 40 year sentence pushed him over the edge and landed him in the psych prison a psych prison filled with killers. His one inside contact the chief psychiatrist couldnt protect him, nor could his outside lifeline, a female fbi agent who visited as his girlfriend to monitor his progress. I did have a hot line to her, too. So if i got caught in a dangerous situation i could get ahold of her. The deal was they had me out of there in 24 hours. They had your back. They had my back. At least you thought. Thats what i thought. When keenes mission began, it was all about him. His shot at freedom. He had few feelings, if any, about tricia wrightler or her family. All he wanted to was to get in and out with her location and as fast as possible. Day one, breakfast in the mess hall. Jimmy zeroed in on larry hall. I was waiting with my tray and i look over, there he is, 20, 25 feet away from me, sitting all by himself. It felt like a magnet was coming me to come to him. And finally i bumped shoulders with him on purpose. Jimmy explained he was a brand new inmate, needing directions to the library. Hall, obliged. I kind of slapped him on the shoulder, said thanks a lot. I appreciate that from a cool guy like you. After that, they occasionally talked. But the next step came when jimmy was invited to join halls breakfast club. Which in the prison system its a big thing of who youre invited to have your breakfast with. Keene thought he was making progress. But then prison politics got in the way. I left out of that chow hall one morning and a few really big muscular guys came up to me and said, hey, the old man wants to talk to you right now. Right now he wants to talk to you. The old man was celebrity mof owe sew, vincent, also known as the odd father who used to wonder around new york city in his bathrobe pretending to be nuts. He goes, hey, boy, whats wrong with you . Whats wrong with you . Why you hanging around with all them baby killers. You hang with us from now on. You hang around them people, maybe somebody comes up and puts a knife in your back. He would be at my cell early in the morning, jimmy, get up. Were going to play bocce ball. What about breakfast . Well get a round of bocce ball in first ch. Youre trying to get out of prison. He was taking up jimmys valuable time. Making it harder to talk to hall. But then he learned halls favorite show was americas most wanted. So one saturday night in the tv room jimmy would make a daring move. Putting his body on the line just to gain larrys trust. Coming up jimmys new best friend shares a nightmare. It was probably the hardest thing ive ever done in my life to listen to this kind of stuff and not just rip him apart. When the inside man continues. Great rates for great rides. Geico motorcycle, see how much you could save. Compared to a dry duster, a can of pledge picks up more dust and cleans 100 of messes. Pledge multi surface. Dusts better. Cleans more. Whose bad breath could make a kitten cry . Dont let it be you. One swish of scope kills millions of bad breath germs freshening your breath. So you can be the guy whose breath doesnt make kittens cry. [ meows ] scope. The freshest fresh, guaranteed. How much dirt can we manufacture . More than you think. Very little. [ doorbell rings ] whats this . Whats that . Swiffer sweeper. [ lee ] i came in under the assumption that it was clean. Ive been living in a fools paradise compared to a dry duster, a can of pledge picks up more dust and cleans 100 of messes. Pledge multi surface. Dusts better. Cleans more. Dont have allergies every night. Just on allergy nights. [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] thats why theres new vicks qlearquil for night. The powerfully effective, take it only when you need it, so you can have a good night allergy medicine. By the fall of 1998, after several months in missouris toughest federal prison, jimmy keene could have won a popularity contest. He charmed everyone just as beaumont knew he would. He even won over some convicts with his Lending Library of pornographic magazines and he managed to placate the chin and the mob faction by day while circling his prey, suspected serial killer larry hall with one on one bull sessions at night. We just talked about a lot of normal things, hung out, made him feel like i was wanting to be his friend. But it wasnt fast enough for keene, who feared someone might recognize him and blow his cover. If you went by the fbis technical terms, i was pretty much staying right on pace, but from my point of view of being in this place, it was starting to get very hard. On the outside, the mission mastermind, Larry Beaumont could only sit and wait for secondhand news on how this crazy scheme of his was going. Now, were you pacing the floors, waiting for updates during all this . I dont know if i paced the floors. But i was eager to get updates. I had information that he was starting to trust him. They were talking, that kind of thing. But beaumont had absolutely no idea that a breakthrough moment had arrived. It was a saturday night. Keene and hall were in the prisons tv room, watching americas most wanted again. And here comes this big prisoner and hes a big, muscular buff guy and walked over to the tv and turned the channel. And hall looks at me and real quietly mumbles under his breath and says, hey, thats not right. I was watching that. I thought, you know what, this is a prime opportunity for me. Jimmy, a martial arts expert who continued working out in prison was ready for this moment. He got up and changed the channel back. He jumped up and he slobbering all over the place, you turn that channel again ill rip your damn head off. You dont touch that tv. He is going on all crazy and stuff and turns the channel and sits back down. I just looked at him and i turned the channel again. He jumps up and starts cussing at me and i through a particular cuss word at him that i knew would send him off. He took a wild hay swing at me, i kicked him through three rows of chairs and beat him to a pupal. Paul had a ring side view of saturday nights main event. Afterwards, he staunchly defended jimmy as the retail ya tor, not the insta gator when prison officials interviewed eyewitnesses about the tv room brawl. Youre larry halls new hero. Yeah. I became his new best friend and hero, too. Jimmy could sense that his heroics brought him even closer to hall, and now he was ready to make a bold move. In the prison library, jimmy had figured out a strategy to draw hall out on tricia reitler. I noticed he was reading his hometown newspaper. That was important for me to start cracking into his psyche. Even though the gull was trishas body, jimmy decided to ask first about something already public knowledge, halls conviction in the jessie roach case. Jimmy fibbed that his mother lived near wabash and read about jessies case. She gets that newspaper from that hometown where youre from and all the newspaper stories say youve killed multiple women. That was a big risk, though. It all was a big risk. Larry, i dont care what youre in here for, but be honest with me. Tell me what happened. Im still going to be your friend no matter what. Ive had girls do my wrong in my life. I understand how girls can get under your skin and how they can be bothersome to you. Jimmy said he pressed hall about jessie roach. At last, hall began to open up, recalling that september day in 1993. He was driving down a back country road and he seen her walking her bicycle. Hall, then told jimmy exactly how he abducted and killed jessie. You must have been revolted. Oh, god, lester e it was probably the hardest thing i did in my life to pretend to this kind of stuff, pretend to be his friend and not just rip him apart. But i knew what the mission involved. I knew what was at stake for me. I knew what was at stake for the peoples families that were still, you know, trying to find their daughters. A major transformation was taking place. Jimmy was starting to care about more than just himself. And now he was determined to squeeze the most crucial confession out of larry hall. And not just for himself. But for the family of tricia reitler. I started thinking i dont know where this is still going to lead, how long this is going to take, but something is now happened. Coming up a disturbing discovery. Has jimmy keene solved the mystery of the missing girls . What are these things any way . They watch over the dead, jimmy. He goes, they do. When the inside man continues. Hey morning hank. For people who dont have allergies every day, just on allergy days. sneeze new qlearquil. The powerfully effective, take it only when you need it, so you can be you again, allergy medicine. Boo haha. All right, see you buddy and introducing qlearquil nighttime, the new allergy medicine for night. Qlearquil, powerful sinus and allergy medicine from the makers of vicks nyquil and dayquil. This is how it feels to hotwire. Compared to a dry duster, a can of pledge picks up more dust and cleans 100 of messes. Pledge multi surface. Dusts better. Cleans more. Jimmy keenes five months of hell, five months making nice to a killer he despised had finally paid off. Hall had described in gruesome detail how he murdered jessie roach. I opened that door and hes feeling that he can trust me enough now. But jimmy felt he needed to wait a bit before going for the goal line. How did you broach trisha reitler. I had to slowly keep plotting. Days later he thought the time was right. He tried that hometown newspaper employ again. The pneumonia say you killed this girl from the college over here. What happened there . Jimmy couldnt be sure how hall would react. Had he been too blunt, too direct . No. It was all clicking. According to jimmy, hall began to open up about tricia and said he drove his van right up to her that day he saw her outside school. He said that he tried to kiss her and when he did, she started fighting very violently and said she was a very strong girl and fought stronger than anybody had ever fought before. And did he admit it . He said that he had killed her and he knew he had done it again. These are his words that he knew he had done it again and he said he went way out in the woods and buried her way out in the woods. Hall gave a general location for tricias body near a river in indiana. Jimmy needed more specific information. Luckily, he seemed to stumble into it a few nights later when he spotted hall inside the prison wood shop, a restricted area. Theres nobody at the door, no guards or anything and i went in there, and as i came up from behind him, he had all these little different statues lined up, ten, 15 of them maybe. And i couldnt tell what they were at first. As i got closer, i notice head had a big map laid out. He dove on that map and folded that thing up really fast and slid it off to the side of the table. And i go, what are these things any way . Theyre these little falcons and he goes, they watch over the dead, jimmy. They do. And they look like a good size chess piece. Jimmy had a strong feeling that the wood carved falcon and the map were journal keeping via serial killer. That map had little red dots all over it of illinois, indiana, wisconsin. You look down at this map, you could see all of those little spots were burial spots where hes got somebody. All those months of dangerous, painstaking work had paid off, but jimmy had cracked the case. Mission accomplished. Once you see the map, the falcons, you want to tell the fbi about it, right . I did. I went to the hot line i had for the fbi girl. I called. I got a voice recording. So jimmy left a message for his fbi contact to come get him, the map, and the falcons. His freedom and the answers to trish shas parents prayers were now just hours away. I was elated. I felt i wrapped this up. You were expecting the troops to come marching in. Didnt quite work that way. What he couldnt know was his fbi contact didnt get his voice mail. And his one inside contact the chief psychiatrist, was on vacation. Then you got a little full of yourself, didnt you . I did. I went back to my cell. I was happy. I thought you know what, 24 hours they said theyll have me out of here. I got what they need. This is it. I went across to his cell over there. Impulsively, jimmy decided he just couldnt leave prison without giving his fake friend a piece of his mind. The repulsiveness i felt about him throughout the whole time i had to stay being his friend and the december tan and dislike i had for him, that i thought it was good for me to unload on him and tell him what i really thought of him and who he really was. I said, you know, im going to be going home tomorrow, larry. I said youre a crazy killer and i started calling him everything you could think of. With that, jimmy returned to his cell and waited to be released. Youre going home the next day you think and things take another turn. About 5 30 in the morning, i hear some little lady in a white doctor smock come walking in. It was halls psychologist and she was furious that jimmy had blasted her patient, turning him into an erosional rack. Grab him, put him in the hole. They put me in the hole and keep me in there. Im not worried. They told me 24 hours theyll have me out of here. But morn turned into afternoon into evening and the cavalry hadnt arrived. It was hard time at its hardest. You cant see if its day or night because youre in the hole but you can tell what time of day of night it is by what meal is coming through the door slot. Here is breakfast, lunk and dinner. Next thing is breakfast again. Here is coming lunch again. Where are these guys . My thoughts were, they did me wrong. They got what they needed, they got the info and they pulled the rug out from under me. While jimmy was wondering where they were, beaumont was looking for him, too. And we were like, where could he be . Hes in a prison for god sakes. They lost you. Yeah, they lost me. But had they also lost their best chance at finding the body of Larry Beaumont successfully suck informant jimmy keene into the springfield prison in 1998. He just didnt expect to lose him there. Goes off your radar . Yeah, he disappeared. Couple weeks we didnt know what the heck happened. We were getting frantic. Two weeks later, only after keenes psychiatrist contact returned from vacation did they finally find jimmy. By noon the fbi was there and she kept apologizing. Im really sorry. Something happened with the message. At last, investigators got to search the wood shop and halls cell. But by then, the map and the falcons, items jimmy believed could lead to trisha were gone. What were you thinking telling larry hall you were out of here . And dressing him down . People probably wouldnt understand the mounting pressure that kettle is ready to boil over at any time, you know. It just felt good to unload on the guy. The problem as i see it, youve unloaded on him, he knows youre against him but nobody has that map. Right. Im disappointed i didnt wait another day or two, at least. I should have waited a few more days. I wish i could have done more for them, but i did all i could do. But i feel in my being i did all i could. The people who could benefit the most, trishas parents only learned about the secret operation ten years later in 2008 when the story came out in a Playboy Magazine article. The reitlers have thankful for jimmy courage and the corroborating details he said he got from hall, but theyre furious he blew his cover before finding their daughter. Why would you have been so close . Yes. And then give it up like you did . I try not to dwell on that at all because it eats at me and its very hard to deal with that he was that close. Jessie roachs parents find small consolation in that jessie was the victim who tripped up hall. If something good could possibly come out of losing jessie, its the fact that hes in prison and he will never get released. Hall remains in federal prison with no possibility of parol. In recent years, he actually has made more murder confessions to reporters and investigators. I sincerely believe that there are young girls out there somewhere who are alive today because larry hall is in prison. Do you think he killed before . I think he killed before and i think he could kill again. Jimmy did tell beaumont that hall had killed again but there was no documentation. It was just jimmys word. So to be sure, the prosecutor made him take a Lie Detector Test and jimmy passed with flyifly ing colors. He was telling us the truth. The bottom line is we had further information that larry was responsible for tricia. A grateful beaumont decided to reward him with full credit for his brave undercover work, releasing him from prison and scrubbing his criminal record clean. From his perspective, he expected to get nothing, but from my perspective, of course he spent time in the loonny bin with this guy and gone through this whole process for 15 years, jimmy had been the only one to see those falcons that hall said watched over the dead. The problem is we never got them, though. They disappeared. We dont know what happened to them. Youve never seen the falcons. Ill show you a picture. Thats one of the falcons. Date line took pictures of a falcon when we met larry halls twin brother. He said larry carved the falcon in the wood shop at the springfield prison and then mailed it to their mother. I showed a photo of that picture to both beaumont and jimmy. Its bizarre but its also reassuring to me lester and ill tell you why. Now these falcons backs everything ive said. Its exactly what it would look like. After becoming a free man in 1999, jimmy got to spend five more years with a father he idolized before big jim passed away. And hes kept his nose clean, not wasting his incredible opportunity. He sees the whole experience as something that gave him a Second Chance at life. Hes done well in real estate and cowrote a book with an awe in with the devil. He says hes working on several hollywood problgts. The Academy Award winning producer of the departed owns rights and brad pitt is interested. Ive talked with brad pitt and his people and brad pitt loves the relationship that i had with my father. He loves the fact that this happened in his own hometown. But jimmy is especially proud he says that his book reenergized some cold case investigations, several targeting hall in indiana and wisconsin, at least one near a civil war reenactment site. Investors dug up locations where hall spent time over the years and found articles of Womens Clothing and a belt modified with wooden handles, all sent out for dna testing. But cold case detectives following leads still havent developed enough evidence to bring charges. The walls are closing in on him. There would be no cold case files open if it wasnt for me, none. I did a good deed and i did a lot of good things and thats where i feel the redemption comes in. Ive done something good for the things that i did wrong. Thats all for now. Im lester holt. Thanks for joining us. This sunday on meet the press, can we defeat isis without troops on the ground . I will not commit you and other Ground Forces to finding another ground war in iraq. This notion is just not true. Ill ask Samantha Power and kbar to the u. N. And mike mullen if u. S. Troops will be dragged into battle zblxt also, some americans suddenly saying tax cutting gone too far . Could republicans become the victims of a new anti anti tax fever. How the fight nor the senate could really turn out to be a