Cody McCasland, 7 years old, suffers from a gene mutation which caused deformities in his lower spine. He has no knee joints nor tibia. On prosthetics, he's now living a happy and exciting life… giving back and charming everyone from Ellen to Oprah.

Watch the report here.

Here are links to organizations related to Cody:
Help Team Cody Give Back
Jeff Gordon Foundation
Challenged Athletes Foundation

By Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline Correspondent

The guy reminded me of my grandfather. Same western shirt, same cowboy boots, same Brylcreem in his hair. Except that I never saw my grandfather cry.

Now, this fellow wasn't blubbering, but he'd choke up every so often and a tear would form, which he'd dab away with some Kleenex wadded up in his fist. And I just sat there and did nothing. Normally, when someone starts crying in the middle of a conversation, your urge is to get out of your chair and put your arm around them, or at least tell them how sorry you are. But this was television, so I just soldiered on.

He was talking about his daughter, who'd been killed by her husband. And sadly, he was one of six straight interviews I'd done for Dateline in which the person sitting across from me was crying. We cover a lot of murder cases at Dateline, and in each case, the person I was interviewing was telling me about the worst thing that had ever happened to them; the sister, the best friend, the wife taken from them suddenly and through violence.

Television is pretty good at showcasing emotion, and there was a time when getting someone to cry on-camera was hugely desirable. "Did she squirt?" one high-profile TV doctor used to ask his producers after they returned from an interview. I suppose there are still people who seek out the tears, but I'm not one of them.

One disclaimer here: Whenever people I'm interviewing start to cry, I almost always ask them if they'd like to take a minute to compose themselves, and sometimes they do. The problem comes when virtually the entire subject you're discussing is so wrenching that tears start flowing every 15 seconds, which makes stopping and starting a poor option, and may actually prolong the interview and thus, your subject's agony as well. So in those situations, I just go on and ask the next question.

The problem with doing that is that to ignore someone else's tears, you have to shut off part of yourself, that part that makes you want to reach out to an adult so shattered by the memories you're provoking that they start to cry. And whenever I do that, I always wonder if that part of me will automatically turn back on when the interview is concluded. So far, it always has. If I sense someday that it hasn't, I'll be facing a tough choice about continuing in this line of work, which has paid my rent for 34 years.

All of that brings me to Tom Richardson, convicted in court of murdering his wife Juanita by pushing or throwing her off a cliff on the shores of Lake Superior, 140 feet to her death.

Richardson gave me an interview not long after his conviction, and under Dateline's lights, we went back over the details of the day Juanita died. At different times in the interview, he would suddenly start to sob, his voice cracking. Seconds later, he'd be composed again, speaking in that flat Michigan accent that made him sound like a homicidal Sonny Bono.

I never saw any actual tears, which made me wonder -- just as Park Rangers at the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore wondered when Tom first reported that his wife was missing. One minute, they reported, he was sobbing with his head in his hands; the next, he was perfectly composed. Add to that the three different stories he told police in the first 12 hours after Juanita's death and you have grounds for the suspicion that put Richardson at the center of a murder investigation, and eventually led to his conviction. He is asking for a new trial.

I'd love to cover some stories in which I don't have to ask anyone if they'd like to take a break and dry their tears.  I can ask. But I'm sure not counting on it.

Click here for the whole story of what happened at Pictured Rocks.

By Dan Slepian, Dateline Producer

The email arrived on a Sunday morning, at 4:50 a.m.

I'm writing to you about a 25-year-old cold case from 1981 in which a woman named Barbara L. Winn was shot in the chest with a .38 Special after a violent fight.

A woman named Patty Bruce was writing about her sister-in-law, Barbara Winn, whose death in 1981 had been ruled a suicide.

The e-mail claimed Barbara had not killed herself, but that Barbara was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Aaron "Bubbie" Foster. The e-mail revealed that Foster was currently a free man, working for the St. Paul Police Department.

We receive many e-mails alleging miscarriages of justice, but there was something about this one.

There was a sense of desperation and frustration, the sense that over the years there were cries for justice, but they had fallen on deaf ears. More than anything, it seemed this family simply wanted someone to listen.

The e-mail plea ended with this:

We want justice! We are convinced that both personal politics and a web of corruption have played a role in the miscarriage of justice concerning Barbara.
We wanted to hear their whole story, from the beginning.

So we set up a camera in a quiet place in Patty's house and left it there for a couple of months. We invited anyone in Barbara's family to speak privately to the camera whenever they wanted, about anything they wished. I spent dozens of hours screening those tapes, hearing those private words. To be sure, the raw emotion is heart wrenching: anger, frustration, bitterness.

Watch Barbara Winn's son, Tyronne, sing a song for his mother.

My own research began with the day of Barbara's death. Her kids recalled that nightmarish May night back in 1981 as though it was yesterday. They all remember hearing their mother and her boyfriend, "Bubbie" Foster, arguing. There was the sound of glass breaking, and then a gunshot. The three of them ran to her room, they said, and saw Foster running out.

Tyronne, who was just 12 years old then, remembers his mother's last words were "Oh Bubbie, that hurt."

I would learn that Foster told police that Barbara had shot herself, and that her dying declaration had been for him to "get rid of the gun." That's why, he says, he took the gun from the house, drove away in Barbara's car, and tossed it out the window. Authorities believed Foster, and ruled Barbara had taken her own life.

Barbara's kids say he was lying, that he murdered their mother and covered it up. They also claim it's Foster's connection to his longtime friend, St. Paul's former police chief Bill Finney, that somehow sheltered Foster from punishment. Serious allegations, to be sure, and ones that Bill Finney adamantly denies.

Getting at the heart of this story was a tall order. It's an old crime, Foster has repeatedly denied he killed Barbara, and he's already been looked at as a suspect.

As we looked into the story, it turned out the authorities in Minnesota had decided to take a second look at the case, too. The current sheriff had asked one of his veteran investigators, Bill Snyder, to reinvestigate it. Not knowing where his investigation would lead, I asked if we could follow Snyder as he looked for new clues and new witnesses. They agreed.

Over many weeks, using a small, handheld camera, I shadowed Snyder as he dug for answers.

But this story became more than an investigation into a nearly 30-year-old cold case.

Watching those private tapes recorded in Patty's house, what struck me the most was the incredible love and respect Barbara Winn's family and friends still have her, all these years later. They are the ones who really tell this story.

A story that began with an email to a stranger.

Click here to read the full transcript, with Web-exclusive video. You can e-mail Dan Slepian at daniel.slepian@nbcuni.com. Click below to go behind the scenes of this Dateline story.

By Vince Sturla, Dateline Producer

I was browsing through a bookstore a few years back when I glimpsed the head-stopping title "On Killing," by Lt. Col David Grossman. I thought, "What the … ?"

I picked it up and read the subtitle: "The Psychological Cost Of Killing In War And Society." The general point was that while killing is often presented as an almost casual act in action movies, more often than not, it's a traumatic, life-transforming experience for a combat troop or police officer -- no matter how just the cause. It makes a great deal of sense, but it was something I hadn't seriously considered before.

Several years later, I came across an academic paper by Lt. Col. Peter Kilner that came to the same conclusion as Grossman's book. In his paper, Kilner cited a study done of Vietnam veterans that indicated the most severely traumatized were the ones who had killed. Few of us can read that and say, "Oh yeah. I know what they're talking about." The vast majority of us – fortunately – have no idea what it's like to take another life. We have no idea of the conflicts that take place in the hearts and minds of combat veterans who killed in war. Most of us are incapable of offering any meaningful advice or words of comfort.

On the flip side, you have returning combat troops who are loathe to broach the subject of killing because they don't want their families to know they've taken a life. That's how we end up with, as Lt. Col Peter Kilner puts it, "The Elephant In The Room, no one is talking about."

Photo: Marine Sgt. Jesse Odom

Because of that code of silence, it took a couple of months of digging before I was able to find the three Iraq combat veterans, profiled in the second half of our report, who were willing to share the intimate details of their wartime killing. What was so interesting is that all three share common characteristics. They are intelligent, even though they struggled in high school; they loved the military for giving their lives structure and a sense of purpose; and they are extremely insightful and articulate. All of them are good writers.

One of them, former Marine Sgt. Jesse Odom, has even written a book about his wartime experiences, "Through Our Eyes." They all conveyed a certain wisdom that few of us, no matter how old we get, could ever obtain.

"Coming Home," a special Dateline on the effect combat killing has on soldiers, airs Dateline NBC on Sunday, May 25 at 7 p.m. ET.

By Cathy Singer, Dateline Producer

I'm thinking a lot about Myanmar these days.  The cyclone that struck that country, also known as Burma, has been devastating.  The images from the aftermath make me heartsick – and while I, like many people around the world, would have paid attention to this disaster because the death and destruction are so vast and shocking and sad, I am especially fixated and upset by the news because I was in Myanmar just a few months ago.  

I went to Southeast Asia on a four-week journey with my sons in December and January and the last country we visited was Myanmar. I loved being in that country, a country that is largely closed to the world. The last time Myanmar was in the news was in August and September, when dissidents and monks led peaceful protests in the country, initially against the increase in the price of fuel, but escalated to protest the military rulers' oppressive control over the country, which has impoverished its people and crushed human rights (but not the human spirit). The government killed protesters, including monks.  It is unclear how many people actually died - the United Nations calculated the death toll at 31. The junta also jailed hundreds - some say thousands - more to slap down and silence the rebellion.

But I'm not here to talk about politics in Myanmar.  I want to share a bit of what we experienced there so that people will know a little more about the country than the headlines about a repressive government and now a natural disaster with suffering beyond comprehension. While most tourists cancelled their trips to this exotic Buddhist country in the months since the protests last fall, we decided to stick to our initial plans – and I am so glad we did. For a week we were allowed a peek into a country filled with gentle people, half who live as they have for generations in villages without electricity or indoor plumbing.

Our first stop was in the more or less modern city of Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon. It's the country's largest city and former capital with a population of six million. I'm not sure what I expected of Yangon, but what we found was a lovely city with tall leafy trees, wide boulevards, lakes, colonial buildings and the gloriously gilded Shwedagon Pagoda, the most spectacular Buddhist temple we saw in the four countries we toured.

In the center of town, we walked through crowded open-air markets and past men enjoying late-afternoon socializing at outdoor cafes, most of whom wear what we would call skirts. The women also wear long skirts, although they are wrapped and tied slightly differently. Many women (and children) also spread "thanaka" on their faces, a yellowish-white paste made from wood which functions as both make-up and sunscreen, a practice that dates back more than 2,000 years.

We also went to the port of Yangon, which bustled with men carrying heavy loads over their shoulders to and from ships. It was a scene we could have seen a hundred years ago.  Now that city is littered with battered buildings, uprooted trees, a port in shambles and a population shocked by a disaster that will turn the clock back even further in a country already behind its Southeast Asian neighbors.

We traveled down the Irrawaddy River, far north of the Irrawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of the cyclone and where most of the people died, possibly as many as 100,000. Our boat ride took us from Mandalay, in the heart of the country, where we saw people working in rice fields just outside of town and blankets drying in rows along the river bank, to Bagan, where we explored some of the 2200 ancient pagodas and temples by day and then viewed them from a hot-air balloon ride at sunrise. What we thought was early morning haze was actually smoke rising up from fires that families used for cooking.

What captivated us most about Myanmar was the village life we saw. Many people there live in simple fragile wooden structures – each family has its own home but men in the village get together to help each other build the houses. We saw people picking peanuts off branches, which were then ground in a small animal-powered mill to create peanut oil.  We watched clay water jugs formed on a pottery wheel by one woman while another pumped the machine with her leg.  We saw young women carrying buckets as they collected water from a local watering hole for their families and other women walking down the road hauling large bundles of straw hanging from poles over their shoulders. We saw people washing their clothes and bodies along the banks of the Irrawaddy River. We observed men who stand on their dugout canoes paddling with one leg as they look for fish to catch. We watched elderly women roll big fat cheroots, large cigars they love to smoke. We went to five-day markets, open-air affairs that meet every five days, in which people, many of them from hill tribes, can buy and sell produce and fish, eat noodle soup and get haircuts.

Our guide, a man in his 40s and fluent in English, grew up in a primitive village but now lives in Yangon so his sons can get a better education than they could in the countryside. As he took us to the various villages, where the people were friendly and gracious to us, I asked him which life he preferred. I expected him to say he favored city life, but instead he said that he actually would move back to his village, where his parents and siblings still live, if his children's education were not a top priority. What he loves about village life, he said, is that the people there happily help each other, they have plenty of time to spend with their family and friends, and while they have little materially, they don't yearn for more.  They may be poor, he said, but they are not hungry or wanting and, as a result, do not beg.  I found our guide's preference for village life interesting, especially because this wasn't the naïve view of a pampered, idealistic American on vacation, but of a man who has lived in both worlds.

I don't want to overly romanticize the life we saw in Myanmar for I know that what we found so exotic and charming is also the result of an impoverished country lacking in many important basic needs. And now those key deficits -- as well as the government's perplexing response -- are turning a horrendous natural disaster into an even worse calamity for so many gentle people of this fascinating country who are now suffering so very much.

Click here for a photo gallery from Cathy Singer's trip through Myanmar.

Dateline producer Cathy Singer with her sons, Josh and Ben Petuchowski

 

 

 

 

 

By Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline Correspondent

It's been a long road for Cindy Sommer. Her U.S. Marine husband died in February, 2002, and she just got out of jail last week after being convicted by a jury of his murder. Now here's the hitch: she's innocent. Officially.

Cops and prosecutors will tell you, somewhat derisively, that the jails and prisons are just full of innocent men and women, that everyone behind bars comes armed with a story about how they got jobbed by the system. I don't know how often that's true, but it's certainly true for Cindy Sommer.

Her husband dropped dead on the bedroom floor that awful night, and although Cindy tried to do CPR, Todd Sommer died at only 23. The official cause of death was a heart attack.

A year or so later, Naval investigators (NCIS) were about to close the case when they decided to send Todd's tissue samples to a lab for heavy-metals analysis. That lab test came back showing more than a thousand times the amount of arsenic in Todd Sommer's tissues than should have been there.

NCIS began looking at Cindy as a possible murder suspect, because she received a life-insurance payout of $250,000 after her husband died. Never mind that she put more than half the money into a trust for her four kids, never mind that she paid off a number of family debts with what was left over (military families are always scraping to make ends meet). It was what Cindy did with about $5,600 of that money that raised both eyebrows and suspicions. She got breast implants.

She also comported herself somewhat oddly in the days and weeks after her husband's death; she hooked up with other Marines and went to Tijuana for a wet T-Shirt contest. In a vacuum, that conduct wouldn't have merited more than some eye-rolling and disdain. Against the backdrop of arsenic poisoning, it looked sinister -- as if, as the prosecutor said, she were celebrating. In truth, there was nothing to suggest celebration in her libertine behavior, and none of it should have substituted for evidence of a crime. But all of it came into the courtroom via a lawyer's error, and jurors heard every sordid detail.

What no one listened to, apparently, was that there wasn't a single shred of evidence that Cindy Sommer had bought arsenic, asked anyone about it, handled it, or Googled it. Similarly, prosecutors couldn't find anyone who had heard her say that she had a bad marriage, was going to leave her husband, or wished she were single again.

But there was that test showing arsenic in Todd's tissues. During the trial, defense attorneys attacked the veracity of the test and some chain-of-custody issues, but ultimately the test stood up in court. In doing so, it made all her other behavior seem nefarious, like her inquiries about money immediately after Todd's death, like her short-term affairs, like her new breasts, like her attempts to perform CPR (prosecutors said she was faking it for the 911 tape).

In this country, we're taught, courtesy of all those forensic TV dramas, that when the lab boys say something is true, you can take it to the bank. But this time, on CSI-San Diego, the story ended differently.

It now seems more attention -- maybe a lot more -- should have been paid to that positive-for-arsenic test, because when other, untested samples of Todd Sommer's tissues were found a couple of weeks ago, prosecutors had them analyzed. They found no trace of arsenic. Criminal case over; Cindy set free. Except she spent two years and four months behind bars, away from her kids. She emerged from jail a few days ago having lost pretty much everything; while she's astonishingly chipper, she's about to embody the term "starting over."

Cindy told me that in hindsight, there were some things she'd do differently. I imagine we might soon hear a similar comment from the prosecutors, who somehow went after her without examining all the available evidence.

All of this makes you wonder about all those other people behind bars who insist they're innocent, that in their case, the criminal justice system failed. I was always inclined to disbelieve them – until now.

Click here for "A Trace of Suspicion," a special Dateline featuring Josh Mankiewicz's interviews with Cindy Sommer.

By Hoda Kotb, NBC News

It still hurts. A year has passed and it still hurts. I keep paging through the newspapers and reading bits and pieces, stories of survivors a year later. My heart aches. I am a 1986 Virginia Tech graduate. It may have been 22 years since I graduated, but I feel so close to that campus. It's my school.

I will never forget one year ago, those images, those frantic kids running across my campus, through my drill field, becoming my memories. I searched for people I knew—some teachers, Tri-Delta sorority sisters. I realized that even though I didn't personally know the people who were killed, I did know them. They were brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, they wore maroon and orange and cheered for the Hokies. They were family.

Everyone said this experience would define that campus, but I don't think so. I really don't. I think people are defined by what they do after a tragedy, and the wonderful people of Virginia Tech rose up.

They held hands, helped each other, and they are getting stronger every day. I'll be honest with you: I am sitting in my apartment right now, working on the commencement speech for Virginia Tech. They deserve so much. I hope I am worthy of this honor.

The students of Virginia Tech have overcome so much. They are scarred, but they don't want you to give them "the look." You know the one. When you ask them where they go to school and they proudly say "Virginia Tech." You give them the look of pity. We are  strong. We are Virginia Tech.

On April 16, 2007, Hoda Kotb responded to the shootings with her piece Not at my alma mater

Click here to watch VIDEO of Hoda's recollection.

By Leonor Ayala, Dateline Field Producer

At 8:45 in the morning, I found myself zipping down a lonely, long stretch of road.  State Road 62 in Florida wasn't much to look at in that hour, just lots of open space and farm land (of course this from my city girl's point of view). This led me to second guess myself. Was I going in the right direction?

My mind was racing. I was en route to Hardee Correctional Institution for my very first meeting with a first-degree murderer.

When I thought about stepping inside a prison for the first time, my anxiety wasn't for my personal safety. It wasn't about the pat-down everyone had warned me about, or being a few feet from a convicted killer. It was about getting to the prison on time.

We only had an hour or so to set up our cameras for the interview.  I knew we had lots of camera equipment and gear to get through security, and the prison had a laundry list of do's and don'ts. Being late could make the difference between the interview happening or not. I had to get to the prison by 10:30 a.m.

It was only when I saw a water tower on the side of the road that I realized I was going to make it.  Jason Kent's parents had told me about a week earlier that this was their landmark on their drive to the prison to visit their son. I felt a huge sense of relief.

It was then I started to really think about what my mission was. I was going to hear Jason Kent's side of the story. Kent, 33, is serving a life sentence for killing his wife's ex-husband. He has been in prison since his arrest in 1999 and this would be the first time he would talk to a national audience about the day he committed murder.

The idea that Jason had gunned down a man in broad daylight eight years ago perplexed me.  His parents, Gene and Carol, were good, upstanding, God-fearing people and their description of Jason just didn't fit that of a killer.  He was by all accounts a conscientious child and a determined student. A devoted Christian and a naval officer.

I arrived late at 11 a.m. with my head abuzz with all of these thoughts. But I quickly went to the task at hand: setting up the shoot. I greeted the prison officers, who were all very cordial and pleasant but are quick to remind me and my crew that, just like any one else, we will have to pass all of their security screenings.  I went first. I was told I'd have to leave my cell phone in my car, along with my keys. Even my pen -- until I argued that I needed it to keep track of the interview. The officers relented.

Then it was the crew's turn. They had arrived at the prison armed with cases and cases of gear. The clock was ticking down to our interview but the guards went through each bag with a fine tooth comb. They asked tough questions about pieces of equipment they thought could double as weapons, in particular our grip gear, which consists of lots of odds-and-ends items like metal hooks.

The crew and I look at each other and puzzled, "How do you really explain grip gear?" Chris Bull, our sound technician, described it as all of the "stuff" we needed to finalize the set.  Nearly two (painful) hours later, we were about to get in when we were told we would all have to go into a back room for a pat down, one-by-one.  It was actually pretty benign, especially after having experience with extensive airport security screenings.

At 12:15 p.m., we arrived at our location. It was the visitation room where prisoners get to spend time with their families. With its tiny chairs and tables and the drab concrete walls, it looked very similar to an elementary school cafeteria. But the loud buzzing and ominous clearance door clanking away in the background served as a reminder you were in a high-security building.

Our interview was scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. and for a minute, a short sense of panic came over me. Normally, it takes two hours to set up a two-camera interview. We had less than 45 minutes. But somehow Fred Schuh, our lead cameraman, got it all done, which even impressed the guards -- who finally understood why we needed all of that "stuff" to make it happen.

At 1 p.m., Keith Morrison arrived and Jason Kent was called from his prison cell. We waited for him to be escorted to us and to tell his side of the story -- the murder that changed the course of his life forever.

The story of Jason Kent's conviction for murder will be told in a very special Dateline airing Friday, March 21 at 9pm ET on NBC.

Click here to read producer Liz Brown blogging on Kent's family's adjusting to 'a new kind of normal'  at what Kent' mother calls 'the Church of the Razor Wire.'

By Liz Brown, Dateline Producer

Carol Kent grew up the daughter of a preacher. Religion has always been her touchstone. That and her love of family. But this devoted Christian doesn't go to church on Sundays anymore.

Carol and her husband have a new Sunday ritual. They still put on their best clothes and pile into their car, minds filled with anticipation for what is ahead. When they arrive, they might chat with their fellow congregants, and nod to the staff as they take their places. But instead of a church, their new Sunday destination is a Florida prison. Their pews are plastic chairs, the congregants are visiting families, and the staff pack guns. Carol calls it the Church of the Razor Wire.

Photo: Jason Kent with his parents Carol and Eugene Kent.

How do you keep your faith when your only child has been convicted of first-degree murder and there is no doubt that he did it? Carol says she and her husband faced a stark choice. "Gene and I both had to decide: Are we going to live," Carol told us in a heartfelt interview, "or are we going to curl up in a ball and die?"  She says they chose life and describes it as "a new kind of normal," which happens to be the title of a book she's written that came out last year

Carol's book got me thinking. Everyone ensnared in this terrible tragedy has had to adapt to "A New Kind of Normal." Whether it's the father of the victim, Doug Miller, who was gunned down in a parking lot by Carol's son in 1999 (he can still barely talk about what happened to his son without breaking down). Whether it's Doug Miller's daughters who lost both their biological dad and their stepfather in that single act of death. Or whether it's Jason Kent himself. Once a bright-eyed Naval lieutenant, he is now an immaculately dressed lifer at Hardee Correctional Institution. What does normal mean for him and does it include accepting responsibility for what he did?

Jason Kent's new kind of normal is a waiting game. He has a tedious daily routine. He helps the prison chaplain. He works in the library. He takes exercise in the yard. But above all the man who wanted to make a difference to the world is now dedicated, he says, to making a difference to his fellow prisoners.

"Recognizing that I can't fix the past," he told us, "what I try to do is try to be a benefit or a blessing or an encouragement to the guys that I come in contact with."

Jason says he mentors and tries to comfort prisoners who are not lifers. Men who will be getting out. Even if he never walks in freedom himself, he says, he will at least have had some kind of impact on the outside world.

But that doesn't mean Jason has given up on the outside world. Jason may have exhausted all his legal appeals, but in April 2006 his lawyer, Reginald Garcia, filed a clemency petition on his behalf with the Governor of Florida, arguing that Jason's sentence should be commuted. It's a longshot. Garcia says that in the last 27 years only 133 commutation applications have been approved.

Even Jason's own dad admits his son doesn't deserve a "get out of free jail card." He just wonders whether Jason deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life. Because of mandatory sentencing guidelines, the judge at Jason's trial didn't have a choice about sending him to prison for the rest of his life. His parents argue that there is something wrong with our justice system when a man who says he killed someone to protect his family is given the same sentence as a serial killer. But then again who really is the best person to make those kinds of distinctions? A life lost is a life lost. Doug Miller's father has said he would fight any move to release the murderer of his son.

Clemency petitions can take years to be processed and until then Jason will live with his new normal. As will his mother and his father. That means spending more time at the Church of the Razor Wire.

The story of Jason Kent's conviction for murder will be told in a very special Dateline airing Friday, March 21 at 9pm ET on NBC.

Field producer Leonor Ayala blogs about going to the Florida prison to interview Jason Kent.

Elizabeth Shoaf, the brave high school girl who was held hostage for ten days in an underground bunker and managed her own rescue, speaks out in great detail for the first time to "Dateline's" Keith Morrison in "Into the Woods," a very special two-hour Dateline, airing Friday, March 7, at 9pm on NBC. Below she writes about the experience.

By Elizabeth Shoaf

Down in the bunker was hell.   When I first went in, it was very dark and cold. I couldn't see anything and everything looked creepy.  After Vinson turned on the lights, it was even creepier. It looked unreal, almost like I was in a really bad dream.

I saw a bunch of shelves made out of trees and rope, with food on them. Tables were made of coolers and plastic mini tables, along with a strange bedlike thing literally made out of trees, swimming floats and comforters. The toilet was made of a nasty bucket and a broken plastic chair over it with a hole in the middle.  Later on, I noticed more shelves with things like batteries and a lot of electronic stuff that I still don't know what they were. There was also a chimney made out of aluminum that went out to the ground that he would actually use to make fires.

When I was first down there it was chilly. It was always like that at night, but in the mornings when I woke up it was dreadful. It was muggy and hot and I had to sleep in a single person bed with him and me in it and I could never get comfortable. Down there it was very dirty.  No matter where you went in the bunker you would get dirt on you, so you couldn't stay clean.

While I was down there in the bunker I prayed all the time. Of course at first I prayed for him not to kill me. After a few days, when I had the feeling he wasn't going to, I started to pray about my family and for them to somehow know that I was OK.

When I started to try and escape I prayed for God to help me find a way to get out. Also I prayed for God to forgive me for whatever I did because I kind of thought I was being punished. I wanted God to forgive me and help me to get away and take me safely back to my family, boyfriend and friends. I also prayed a lot to God for him to help me to calm down and pretty much stay cool. When Vinson found out on the news that I sent a text message I of course prayed that he wouldn't kill me.  After he left I thanked God so much for everything and I still do a lot.  When I prayed it helped me to calm down more and to have hope. At the moment though, I sort of didn't believe that my prayers were being answered , because every time I prayed nothing would happen until finally the day Vinson left.

Without my family and boyfriend and friends and prayer I wouldn't have made it. I never really prayed a lot. I would only pray every so often whenever I was in need. And now it isn't any different I still pray the same, I also feel the same about God, too. I still worship him and believe in him like I always have.

I think that Vinson, the man that kidnapped me, is just stupid. He isn't crazy because if he was, he would have killed me or done something worse.  He knew what he was doing and he got outsmarted. Not to be snobby, but he thought he could get away with kidnapping and raping me for 10 days and I, 14 years old, outsmarted him -- a 36-year-old man.

He is a sore loser to me and I will never forgive him ever in my life. He doesn't deserve it. He changed sooo much that will never be fixed again.  He took my innocence. He took my trust in people. Now I get depressed. At one moment for a few months, I couldn't sleep. I had panic attacks and I still think about it all the time.  I can just walk around and see something and it will remind me of when I was down there, and sometimes it can make me sad and some times it can even put me into a panic attack. He pretty much scarred me and I will never forgive him for it.

I hope this haunts him the rest of his life. He deserves worse than he is getting and he better be thankful that the cops caught him and not the public. I haven't written him yet and I don't plan on it. I don't care for him and I couldn't care less if he knew about how I feel about what he did to me.

Click to read Elizabeth's mom telling how she first heard her kidnapped daughter was still alive.

For those interested in communicating with the Shoaf family, e-mail shoafs5@gmail.com.

Keith Morrison compared the relative strength of Elizabeth Shoaf and her captor Vinson Filyaw.

Click here for complete coverage of this case.

Elizabeth Shoaf, the brave high school girl who was held hostage for ten days in an underground bunker and managed her own rescue, speaks out in great detail for the first time to "Dateline's" Keith Morrison in "Into the Woods," a very special two-hour Dateline, airing Friday, March 7, at 9pm on NBC. Below, her mother writes about the experience.

By Madeline Shoaf

After seven sleepless days and nights, we finally got a lead in the case. My family and I were to attend another vigil for Elizabeth at the state capitol. My husband would stay behind just in case there were any phone calls. As I was leaving, I grabbed my cell phone and there was a text message on it. I looked at it and about fell to the ground.It was a message from my daughter. I knew it was from Elizabeth, yet it was the scariest message I ever received. 

Investigators told my husband and me that there were two scenarios. One, it was a prank message from someone who wanted to hurt us; or two, she was just making an excuse to come back home. My husband and I were in disbelief. We could not understand why they kept thinking she was some type of troublemaker and would put us through this heartbreak.
Deputies searched the area where the message said she was, but found nothing. They told us that the phone was bought in Georgia but the message was received within a ten-mile radius. 

The next day, my husband, my family, friends and I started searching again. We knew Elizabeth was close to us, and that made everyone more desperate to search everywhere.

On Friday, the ninth day, I was getting even more desperate to know where my daughter was. I saw the police had an area blocked off near my house and I went to check to see what was going on. The sheriff's captain told us they had a person of interest. They intercepted a message from the phone that Elizabeth used to text message me and another phone in the area. That person who owned the other phone was in custody. This was the first deep breath my husband and I took for nine days.

The person of interest was a man they had been tracking for nearly a year. He lived near the same area Elizabeth had described on the text message.

Early Saturday morning, I was just about to go where the police were, when I saw a truck come up our road. As the truck got closer, we saw it was Captain Thomley. He jumped out of his truck and yelled," We got her and she was safe." I dropped to my knees. My heart was back in place and I ran to him and hugged him. I looked at him and could see tears in his eyes. He told me to get my husband and he would take us to the hospital. 

The whole world seemed brighter when I looked upon her face. My life was whole again and my family complete. She looked at me shyly at first, not knowing what to say. All I could tell her was that she did not need to say anything. I loved her and was the happiest mother alive. She was safe and I would be here for her no matter what. One by one my family members came up to her to give her a hugs, kisses and to tell her they loved her. When she saw her father, she ran into his arms and started to cry all over again. After all the excitement, we went to my parent's house to lie down. This was the first time that any of us had a good sleep for ten days.

Around four in the morning, I received a phone call from the captain at the sheriffs department. When I answered the phone, he yelled out "We caught him; tell Elizabeth she will not have to worry about him anymore." I went to wake Elizabeth up to tell her the good news. All she said was "Thank God." and lay back down to sleep.

Elizabeth and mother Madeline Shoaf

 

Click to read Elizabeth recounting how bunker was 'hell.'

For those interested in communicating with the Shoaf family, e-mail shoafs5@gmail.com.

Keith Morrison compared the relative strength of Elizabeth Shoaf and her captor Vinson Filyaw.

Click here for complete coverage of this case.

A Dateline special on adoption in Guatemala airs on NBC Sunday, Jan. 20 at 7pm ET.

By Benita Noel, Dateline Producer

I felt like I was on a roller coaster. The car, which seemed to have no shock absorbency whatsoever, hit the bumps with a resounding thump - over and over again. I had my hand flat up against the roof to brace myself, but it wasn't much help.  More than once I went sliding across the seat, as did everyone else in the car.

It was March 22, 2007 and our driver was making his way - much too fast it seemed -  along a mostly unpaved, almost comically windy road from Guatemala City to Jalapa, 110 miles away. We'd been warned to avoid drinking too much water or coffee before the trip, and now I knew why. 

At least we were all laughing about it. I was with my field producer, Leonor Ayala, and our crew, cameraman Bob Abrahamsen and soundman Randy Foster. We also had our Guatemalan "fixer" in the car (hired to help us with everything from translating, to directions, to letting us know which areas of the city we shouldn't take our cameras into without security) - and a private investigator.  We were going to Jalapa to videotape the reunion of two young sisters with their family - nearly 5 months after they'd been kidnapped from their home, abused and almost adopted by unsuspecting families in the U.S.

In many ways, the shoot was a producer's nightmare. We'd all gotten up at the crack of dawn, only to wait an hour for everyone to arrive and get organized, and then we'd driven to a fast-food restaurant where we waited another hour for the police we'd be following. Nobody in Guatemala seems to be in much of a rush to do anything. And there wasn't much of a plan. Nobody seemed sure where the reunion would happen, or even if we'd make it to Jalapa on time. We were winging it.

About 15 minutes outside of Jalapa, there was a series of frenzied phone calls between the private investigator, the police and various people at the Jalapa District Attorney's office. There was chaotic confusion; the reunion had already happened, no, it was happening in two minutes. It was happening on the street, no, it was happening in an office inside the building.  Someone had changed their mind - they didn't want us there after all. No, that was a mistake. Go to this corner, no, go that corner.

Bob, our cameraman, got anxious, frantically trying to pull his camera out of the pile of cases we'd jammed into the back of the car. I told him not to worry, the only thing that really mattered that morning was those poor little girls were finally going to see their mother again. Still, we all wanted to witness the moment.

Somehow, our driver managed to pull over in the right place just in time for Bob to point his camera out the window of the car and focus on a darling little 5-year-old girl running full speed down the sidewalk towards a nervous looking woman waiting around the corner. In an instant, all the stressed commotion subsided. We just watched in silence.

Galicia family reunited

Because we'd stayed a good block away, we couldn't hear anything, but I didn't need to, the tears were already spilling down my face. I could see the girls' mother wiping her eyes, her body shaking as she clung to her daughters and stroked their hair. I could see that the 5-year-old, who was clinging to a doll, had buried her head into her mother's leg, the same way my own daughter sometimes does.

Afterwards, we were invited inside the District Attorney's office to meet the family. The two kidnapped girls, 5-year-old Candida, and 9-year-old Claudia, were seated on a bench alongside their mother Clara, and an older brother, Ceasar. I was immediately struck by these children's smiles - they all have the most infectious grins, and they were beaming.  They waved at us playfully and giggled uncontrollably when Bob (pictured left) made silly faces at them. 

Clara, who is shy and soft spoken, was subdued, but obviously relieved, and immensely grateful.  She repeatedly thanked the private investigator, who had been instrumental in getting her daughters returned, as well as us. She was hoping we'd be able to help find her third kidnapped daughter.  I wished I could promise her we could.

Pictured: Clara Galicia

When I pulled out my digital camera to take some photos, the children were delighted.  I don't speak Spanish but it didn't matter. I showed them how to use it by pointing at the buttons they needed to push, and then let them take turns taking photos. It only took a moment for me to realize how little Candida had survived her traumatic ordeal. She was monopolizing the camera defiantly, bossing her brother and sister around as she took one photo after another.  I knew right then that this tough little cookie will be just fine.

Photo of Benita Noel and Leonor Ayala taken by Candida

Late that night, after we'd spent the day with Candida and her family, and we were bouncing our way back along that nightmarish road to Guatemala City, tears fell down my face again. Candida and her siblings are enchanting, joyful children full of curiosity, eagerness and beautiful spirit. Their parents are lovely, gentle people who despite their modest life and financial limitations, provide their children with an abundance of genuine, nurturing love.  I cried because I was incensed at the kidnappers who'd so brazenly abused this family. I cried because it made me ache inside to see a mother in such agonizing pain, wondering when, or even if, she'll ever see her third kidnapped daughter again.  I cried because I so wished I could help, and yet, had no idea how.

Pictured: Candida, Claudia and Ceasar

UPDATE - Producer Benita Noel responds to comments:
Sadly, I can assure you that these children were indeed kidnapped -- and that they were offered for adoption. When you watch our story on Sunday, you will understand how it happened. By telling the Galicia family's story, we are by no means implying that all adoptions are corrupt. During the course of putting this story together, I was repeatedly touched by the great joy and love that adoptive parents have brought to so many lucky Guatemalan children. I also believe that for the most part, the safeguards that are designed to circumvent crime do work. But, the reality is that unfortunately there are some corrupt operators who have tried to take advantage of the system.  I realize that any discussion about corruption in Guatemalan adoptions is extremely difficult for the thousands of parents in this country who have, or are about to, adopt from Guatemala. I am a mother myself, and I completely understand the inclination to protect those adopted children. Nobody wants to be stigmatized - nobody wants other people to point fingers at their children, or worse, say something to their face, suggesting that because there is some corruption, all adoptions must be tainted. While I was researching this story, many people told me that they wanted to speak up about bad experiences with questionable operators in Guatemala, or unscrupulous agencies here in the U.S., but they were too scared. Some were afraid they would never get their children home if they didn't keep quiet, some were afraid of repercussions from their agencies, and many were afraid of being crucified by other adoptive parents for daring to say anything negative about Guatemalan adoptions.  Recently, one family who has been through one traumatic ordeal after another in the course of trying to adopt was actually threatened by someone in Guatemala who promised their baby would never come home if our story aired.  There is no excuse for that type of manipulative bullying, particularly when you are dealing with innocent children and emotionally vulnerable adoptive parents. That is the reason I believe that whatever the scope may be, corruption needs to be addressed. To this day, the parents of the kidnapped Galicia girls are devastated. The last time I saw Rodolfo Galicia, the father, he was so distraught he had actually been hospitalized because he can barely eat. Clara Galicia actually contemplated suicide before the two girls pictured above were safely returned home.

You can see photos of users' adopted children here, and read their adoption stories here.

Read correspondent Victoria Corderi's blog on the two sides of Guatemalan adoption here.

For more on the positive side of international adoption, see Dateline's story about a Philadelphia family that adopted three sets of twins from Russia.