officers spotted the van and talked to the driver, a man named larry hall. hall said he was looking for a friend s address but the address he gave didn t exist. so officers let hall go. september 20th, 1993. six months after trisha s disappearance, now 15-year-old jessica roach goes missing in georgetown, illinois. investigator gary miller got the call. we all knew that we had something really bad here. we had an abduction. jessica s badly decomposed body was found in an indiana cornfield weeks later. but then, like trisha s jessica s case went cold. there s a lot of times you wonder whether you ll ever solve it, but you know you ll keep going and check everything out and recheck everything. for over a year, miller scoured local police reports and
i tied her up but i can t remember with what. i took her pants off. hall said he raped her and led her off through the woods. i laid her up against a tree and put a belt around her neck and she stopped breathing. hall said he strangled jessica from behind so he didn t have to see her face as she died. and that wasn t all. all of the girls looked alike, hall said. i cannot remember all of them. i picked up several girls in other areas but i can t remember which ones i hurt. several girls in other areas. there were more victims than just jessica roach. hall said he d also been near the campus of indiana wesleyan university where tricia reitler had disappeared. i was over there because i needed to be with somebody. it was a small shopping center.
then, a break. a vehicle reported in a county nearby. the owner? larry hall. he had been involved in stopping some girls. those girls were scared. they ran from him. in the last six months, hall s van was spotted by more than 11 girls in five different towns close by, including those where jessica lived and where her body was found. now, miller contacted the police in hall s hometown to arrange for an interview. he initially said, no. he hadn t been over here. miller had to coax hall to admit being near jessica s house. i said, well, would you remember if you stopped and offered girls a ride and asked them to get in your van? he said he stops and talks to everybody. after a few questions, miller took a gamble. and he put a photo of jessica
of jessica roach. and investigator gary miller had a gut instinct. i really think we re on to something. this guy portrays this weak, timid person, but, you know, i don t think he truly is. miller thought hall was vicious and, as the investigation unfolded, miller also thought he knew how hall abducted jessica roach. when he first seen her, she was riding from toward the house going down this way. hall followed and stopped to talk. jessica got scared and backed away. that s when he opens the door, grabs her and there s a physical confrontation where he overpowers her. put her in his van and left, probably going up this road right past her house. in an interview in the wabash police station, hall surprised investigators by explaining what happened next.
brother to confess. he made me leave the room. he did, in fact, confess on tape to 15 serial murders. larry later retracted again. and while he can t ever seem to stick to one story, he does, sometimes, seem to have regrets. i didn t want to keep living my life the way i was living it. i wanted things to be different, you know, but i guess i didn t really do the right things and change the way my life was going. larry hall refused our request for an interview. he has never been charged with crimes against anyone other than jessica roach. but keene s story has caused officials across the country to take another look at hall. in november of 2010, investigators from the town of the nashville police department interviewed mr. hall at a federal prison in north carolina. in that interview, hall admitted murdering lori depeaze