and here he was hoping the man he turned in wouldn t be too mad at him. do you ever feel almost guilty for having turned in an ex-friend? yeah. i feel guilty about that. there s like the loyalty. why do you think he did it? i asked him, well, why did do you it? and then he said, because he was a loser. small, shy, alone, russell jordan became a victim. he never had the chance to grow up to be a man. and who thought about him, even once? his family, of course. and sally. this is sean and jeff taten. and russell jordan. leafing through her yearbook, sally upton realizes none of her friends wrote a single departing word about russell jordan. nobody ever mentioned him to in the yearbook. there were, however, two pages devoted to a fictitious killing.
a tip led police to sean viehweg. he pleaded no contest for cutting the brakes. he was sentenced to community service. do you think sean viehweg was trying to kill you or just frighten you? i could have easily been killed. and the tipster who fingered viehweg back then? jeff taten. you spent a lot of your life worrying about this guy. i probably did. i probably did. and yet, says jeff, he was not the only one who knew those stories about the cats, the brake lines, about russell jordan s killing. we had a big group of friends, and i know i wasn t the only person that he ever mentioned this to. taten told police this boy, chris fisher, another young kid that viehweg took in during high school, may have even more information about the killing. so we wanted to talk to chris fisher, find out what his involvement is. i explained to him that we re here to speak to him about the murder of russell jordan.
this is sean and jeff taten. and russell jordan. leafing through her yearbook, sally upton realizes none of her friends wrote a single departing word about russell jordan. nobody ever mentioned him to in the yearbook. there were, however, two pages devoted to a fictitious killing. the school play that year was a murder arranged. and in her mind now, says sally, it s clear why sean viehweg suddenly took such an interest in her shortly after russell s killing. the los gatos police s theory was that he was probably keeping close tabs on me. i was probably his biggest threat at the time. i should have made a stink. i don t remember sean before russell and yet he kept a pretty close eye on me afterwards. kind of a creepy thought. so why is it important now? somebody needs to say russell was a nice person. taten still has only the
and he kept on throwing rocks and stuff on him to stop him and he just wouldn t stop. do you worry that sean viehweg may come after you for the fact that you told the truth? i just hope i did the right thing, but i mean, i just hope he sees it that way, too. it was odd, this part of our conversation. taten, the whistle-blower, told us about an erratic, bullying boy he remembered from high school. and here he was hoping the man he turned in wouldn t be too mad at him. do you ever feel almost guilty for having turned in an ex-friend? yeah. i feel guilty about that. there s like the loyalty. why do you think he did it? i asked him, well, why did do you it? and then he said, because he was a loser. small, shy, alone, russell jordan became a victim. he never had the chance to grow up to be a man. and who thought about him, even once? his family, of course. and sally.
russell fought off. what investigators did not know was that across the mountains from los gatos, in the town of santa cruz, there was a man who could answer all these questions. though he lived but 20 miles away, this key witness didn t hear a word about the discovery of the mysterious bones. until the day jeff taten saw an article in the paper. it was a story of russell jordan s bones in the newspaper. after 21 years, it was like a punch in the chest. jeff taten, the old classmate, the man who barely remembered russell existed, saw his face and suddenly knew who had killed him. and i knew right away that this was just something that, you know, i knew everything about. and just thinking, oh, my god, all this was real. because taten had been haunted by a high school story that was so chilling, so gruesome, he just couldn t accept that it was true.