brutally attacking her. reporter: the agents knew they didn t have much time. so they began looking at the image for clues. we started out with several things, and we initially were looking at the road sign here. it really looked to most of us who looked at it like it was highway 203. there was a highway 203 that did run east to west in kansas. and when we got there, the agent from kansas called me and said it s not highway 203. we just drove the whole highway. sign is not there. reporter: cole began a frantic boots on the ground search chris crossing the state along every highway that started with a 2. at the very end of the highway where it teed into anothhighway found the sign. i jumped out of the vehicle on a very busy highway and almost got hit by a car. taking my camera out and taking multiple shots of the area, knowing that would be important later on. reporter: from there, cole called the local sheriff s office who helped identify the