By Jane Stone
Dateline NBC Producer

Rome, Georgia, may only be a 90-minute drive northwest from Atlanta, but it is indeed a different world. Long gone is the bustle and anonymity of the big city. In its place is Rome, the archetypal small town, a town that seems to have managed to remain more tightly knit than most in this mobile age. Everyone really seems to know everyone else. That's why the murder of Thad Reynolds, one of Rome's own, put the entire community into something resembling a collective depression.

Thad was a popular manager at the Frito Lay company. He was also a deacon at the Hollywood Baptist Church. In a town where they brag there are only two seasons - "football season" and "almost football season" - Thad was the ultimate insider. He played for the team at Coosa High. His wife Michelle was the homecoming queen at Pepperell, the cross-town rival. It was like a match made in high-school heaven, Thad's sister Beverly told me. "He was the football player, she was the cheerleader. They had it all."

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Video: Preview the report

I started covering this unlikely small-town murder almost six years ago, not long after Thad's brutal killing. That took place just before dawn at his office at the Frito Lay warehouse on July 5, 2004. By the time I arrived in Rome, the District Attorney had charged Thad's best friend, Richard (Scotty) Harper, and Thad's wife, Michelle, with his murder. The DA was seeking the death penalty for both of them.

For Rome it was shock after shock. The murder of a hometown boy followed by the accusation that the killers were his wife and best friend.

The first report I did on the case aired on Dateline in July 2006, and no one I talked to could make sense of the crime as I prepared that initial story. I had long conversations with the friends of Michelle and Scotty. Those long conversations could be boiled down to this: the friends' bewilderment about what had taken place.

The two couples - Thad and Michelle and Scotty and his wife - were the closest of friends. They celebrated their birthdays, attended sports events and, of course, worshiped together every Sunday morning at the same Baptist church. Their children - seven little girls between the two families - were also the best of friends.

Michelle, for her part, seemed to be happily home-schooling her four little girls while running teen groups at Hollywood Baptist. While she and Thad had married, divorced and then remarried, their story had been celebrated in the local newspaper as a triumph over relationship adversity.
Scotty helped run the computer system at the local hospital, served as the volunteer family pastor at Hollywood Baptist, and was married with three little girls. He, like Thad and Michelle, lived in a house right next door to his parents. He was a well-liked local guy who served in the Air Force before returning to Rome to settle down and raise a family. What could possibly prompt him to drive to the Frito Lay warehouse before dawn and stab his best friend 19 times?

As the facts emerged the most salient seemed to be this: the initiation of a torrid, extra-marital affair between Scotty and Michelle a few weeks before Thad's murder.

Sad, but nothing extraordinary, even in a small town. Extra-marital affairs often lead to divorce, but not very often to brutal murders. That was what people couldn't understand.

In our latest Dateline story on the murder, we get the answers through lengthy and separate interviews with Scotty and Michelle in their high security prisons. For the first time in the 16 years I have been doing legal affairs reporting for Dateline, I had two people tell me in excruciating detail how a violent crime came to pass and their roles in it.

It was a murder that fractured two seemingly all-American families and appears to have had a lasting impact on every citizen in Rome, Georgia, the small town where everyone knows each other and this kind of thing isn't supposed to happen.

"Secrets of the Homecoming Queen" aired Dateline Friday, May 21 at 9pm/8 C. The
full video of the two-hour Dateline report will not be available on
Dateline.msnbc.com. Click here to read a transcript.

Related links
After being divorced five years, Michelle and Thad Reynolds reconciled
and remarried on Aug 3, 1997--almost a decade after their first
exchange of wedding vows. The same day they were remarried at Hollywood
Baptist Church, the Rome News-Tribune ran a feature about their journey
back to one another. Click to read more from the Rome News-Tribune.
 
Faith, Fatherhood, Friendship: Thad Reynolds Remembered.
This
past January--at the conclusion of the criminal cases of Scott Harper
and Michelle Reynolds--the Rome News-Tribune published a tribute to
Thad Reynolds and the impact he had on his family and the Rome, GA
community.  Also included, is a slideshow of images.
Click here to read more from the Rome News-Tribune.

By Jack Cloherty, Dateline NBC National Producer

In 30 years of covering crime, cops and courts, I've never heard a story so evil: a 22-year-old woman is abducted and taken to a "party" where she is humiliated, abused, gang raped and strangled. At least two dozen of her so-called friends are at this "party," but no one intervenes on her behalf. Her naked and battered body is dumped in a snowdrift off the interstate, and for 25 long years, no one goes to the police. That's the thumbnail sketch of Janet Chandler's murder, and it is so gruesome it makes you want to stop believing in the decency of human beings.

But on the flip side of this horror is one of the most affirming stories about the human spirit that I've ever covered: a college professor and a group of students at Janet Chandler's old college make a documentary about her case, and spark a new police investigation. A tenacious cold case team works more than two years to track down the killers, and cracks the decades-old conspiracy of silence. Then Assistant Michigan Attorney General Donna Pendergast and the prosecution stepped up to put on a bullet-proof court case, and by late 2007, six people had been convicted of Janet Chandler's 1979 murder. There is a measure of justice for Janet today, but only because dozens of people worked in harmony for years to to win that justice.

For the students and the cold case team, the Janet Chandler investigation was a life-changing experience. And correspondent Victoria Corderi and I agree that covering their work has deeply affected us as well. We both stand in awe of the dignity of Jim and Glenna Chandler, who bore their overwhelming grief with the help of their deep faith, and their own personal courage. We were impressed by the determination and creativity of former Hope College professor David Schock, who helped turn a class project into a major prosecution.

The inspiration to do the documentary came to him when a former Holland police detective gave a guest lecture to his class. Schock asked him if there was "one that got away," a case the cop wished they had solved. He answered, "Janet Chandler."

That sent Schock and his students off on a journey that ended with six people being convicted of Chandler's murder. Now Schock has devoted himself full-time to telling cold case stories, in the hopes of tracking down more killers. We have posted a link to his site: delayedjustice.com.

There were others besides Schock and his students who were critical to making a new investigation a reality. Holland Chief of Police John Kruithoff and retired Detective Jim Fairbanks both pushed hard to get the Chandler case back on the front burner. And we would be remiss if we did not heap some well-deserved praise on the cold case team itself, made up of detectives from the Michigan State Police and the Holland City Police. They traveled to 19 states and worked for more than two years to break the Janet Chandler case.

When progress was slow, the team resisted the easy way out. They could have pulled the plug on this case and moved on to something a little easier, but they didn't. They kept "turning over rocks," as Lt. John Slenk said. The smart and skillful interrogations conducted by Det. Geoff Flohr played a big role in bringing the killers to justice, and you can see more of Flohr in action on this site.

We in the press cover many, many stories where we are compelled to report that "the system" didn't work. Here is a case where it worked in a spectacular, if belated, fashion. Victoria Corderi and I would like to thank all of the people who helped us bring this story to Dateline, especially our colleagues at WOOD-TV-8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

This story is a story we won't forget. It showed us the face of evil, and the power of faith.

Click here to read the full story, see the video, and get Web-exclusive content.

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.

During an interview with Australian police, American Gabe Watson told investigators how his wife, Tina, died while they were scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef. Watch the video below to see video from his police interview.

Australian police divers spent three days diving over the wreck of the Yongala, attempting to reenact the circumstances of Tina's Watson drowning and test her husband's story. Watch the video below to see what happened.

What do you think could have happened?

Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

Every once in a while a story finds you. Such is the case with the hour-long investigation we'll bring you on Friday night, May 2.  

I think it's one of the most unique and interesting stories we've done this year and it came to us in an equally unique and interesting way. It was a tip from a Texas-based cameraman that got the ball rolling. In the past, Izzy Cardoza had done some work for NBC News and so he felt comfortable calling NBC after he says a so-called producer/reality show host didn't pay him for a project Izzy and his crew shot.

Izzy, as it turned out had kept all the tapes as collateral and when the producer/host never came up with a promised certified check, Izzy and his crew walked off the job with the tapes.

Guess who has the tapes now?

That's right, Dateline. And they not only make for compelling television, they allowed us to track down a group of contestants who say they were duped into believing they were going to appear worldwide on a reality show. The group was told that the winner would get $50,000 and the possibility of a big time modeling contract.

The host/producer was a fellow named Gemase Simmons.  He claimed to be a former supermodel, but as our investigation would reveal, that and so many other things he claimed couldn't be confirmed or just weren't true.

As you'll see, Simmons puts the contestants through the kind of grueling physical contests that have become reality show fare, but it's what was going on off-camera that was really bizarre.

We'll show you that, and also what happens when we go looking for Gemase Simmons to ask him what he was really up to.

'Reality Bites' aired on Friday, May 2. Click here to read Gemase Simmons' response after the broadcast.

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 Chris Hansen, Dateline Correspondent

We'd been hearing complaints from senior citizens and government regulators across the country about the tactics some insurance salesmen are using to sell certain investments to retired folks. I'm a long ways off from retiring, but it's an important subject to me because my mom's close to that age and my aunts and uncles are already there. Given the turbulence we've seen on Wall Street, it seems like everyone is re-evaluating or repositioning their investments and would like to have their money in a safe place. And that's what a lot of salesmen are pitching these days.

The investments are called equity-indexed annuities. They may be appropriate for some, but not for everyone. Why are so many people trying to sell these to retired folks? Simple: that's where the money is. Seniors control more than $15 trillion in today's economy and for the salesmen, these annuities pay healthy commissions.

Dateline decided to use hidden cameras to find out what salesmen were really saying or not saying to seniors when peddling these investments. We attended some of those "free lunch" seminars put on for potential clients, classes where salesman are taught the tricks of the trade. We wired some houses in communities where a lot of retired people live, so we could see the one-on-one pitch play out in real time.

What we found in many cases was remarkable. Some salesmen are being trained to scare the elderly into buying certain investments. In our hidden camera homes, we saw that some agents were not disclosing how long the senior's money would be tied up, in some cases longer than the investor would live. We also saw some salesman not disclosing details about surrender penalties that would have to be paid if the senior had an emergency and had to access their money.

In order to carry out this investigation, though, we needed the help of some senior citizens who would invite salesmen over to hear the pitches. In Alabama, we met a 77-year-old semi-retired lawyer named Leon who fit the bill.

But we also needed help in Arizona. I had just seen my aunt Alice at a funeral in Chicago. She had come up from Arizona, where she lives part of the year. We had a nice chat and I expressed my condolences for her husband, my uncle Charlie, who had also recently passed away.

A few weeks later I wondered if Alice might be the perfect choice to help us in our investigation. After consulting my mom, I reached out for Alice who ultimately agreed to be a part of our story. She was perfect because she was exactly the type of person some salesmen seek: retired, widowed and in possession of a retirement nest egg.

She asked the right questions and as you'll see in our story she presents herself pretty darn well on camera. Now if I can only get the rest of my family working on my stories.

Click here for the full story and video of 'Tricks of the Trade.'

Click here to read more of Chris Hansen's behind-the-scenes looks at his investigations.

By Keith Morrison, Dateline Correspondent

A strange thing has happened in recent years to some of law enforcement's signature tools, those pieces of evidence which have sent countless thousands of men and women to prisons all around the world. The agent of change is, of course, that amazingly accurate marker of individuality, DNA.

DNA is now helping police solve crimes which once would have languished in a cold case room forever. But as we have also learned, occasionally to our surprise, DNA has also undone convictions once considered absolutely solid.

Coast to coast, in hundreds of cases, men and women in prison for decades, some even on death row, have been released, their innocence proven beyond any doubt by advances in DNA technology. This has forced sometimes reluctant authorities to reconsider more traditional kinds of evidence that they used to rely on to win convictions.

In turns out, for example, that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Memory studies have revealed that our ability to recall with accuracy something from the past is worryingly bad.  One study showed that the more determined we are that a memory is accurate, the more likely it is that we are wrong! Yet such testimony has put a great many people in prison. And now DNA has freed some of them.

The ability of police (or anyone else, for that matter) to determine the truthfulness of suspects under questioning has also been shown to be quite weak.  Human beings turn out to be very good at lying and not so good at recognizing the lies of others.

One of the most remarkable developments is this: something like 25 percent of inmates freed from death row by DNA evidence confessed!  Yet DNA shows someone else committed the crime. Who in his right mind would ever confess to a murder he didn't commit?  Occasionally they confess over and over again, on tape, on video.  And lo and behold, they didn't do what they admitted to.

What about all the thousands of cases in which DNA is simply not available?  We know -- in part because of the new science -- that confessions are not always true, that 'hunches' which sometimes drive investigations can't necessarily be relied on, that lies slip by uncaught, witnesses err, and certainty is hard to come by.

Which brings us to the strange case of Barry Beach, imprisoned for a quarter century now for a murder he once confessed to.

The characters in the story could hardly be more remarkable. Beach himself has established an unusually impressive record while in prison.  His defenders at Centurion Ministries worked with tireless zeal to free him, convinced absolutely of his innocence.

His accuser was a man whose own career reached the mountain top of influence, prestige and credibility in American politics, and he was impassioned in his belief that the right man was in prison.

A very special 2-hour Dateline, 'The Killing at Poplar River,' will air on NBC Friday, April 4, at 9 p.m. ET.

A special Dateline on the murder of American businessman Adam Anhang, "The Pink Skirt Murder," airs on NBC Friday, March 14, at 10pm ET. Click here for the full story with video.

By Sara James, Dateline Correspondent

I only wish I had met Abe Anhang under different circumstances.  I only wish I had met his son, Adam, at all.

Abe Anhang is both razor sharp and resolute, a man crackling with integrity and brimming with love for his family. Adam Anhang was also known for his quick wit and equally ready smile, a magnet of a man. The kind of guy who would figure out the puzzle more quickly than you, but happily turn around and show you how he did it -- that uncommon blend of a brilliant mind and a gentle, generous spirit.

Like father, like son.  

But these days, Abe has no opportunity to see his own qualities reflected in his son, nor those uniquely Adam's own.  Abe has no opportunity to witness Adam's continued rise through the business stratosphere.  These days, Abe's sole mission is a brutal, solitary and devastating one, to answer the most terrible of questions: who took his beloved son's life?  What happened on that night in that darkened street near the Pink Skirt Restaurant in San Juan, Puerto Rico? 

Given that Adam was a man with thousands of friends and seemingly not an enemy in the world, it is a baffling, vexing, daunting question.  But Adam wanted to answer every question, even the hardest ones. And so does Abe.

Like father, like son.

In life, we do whatever we can for our children.  We love them, raise them, guide them.  We watch with pride as they step forward on their own, we long to be there if they stumble or falter.  But sometimes,  the only thing a father can do for a son is to find out what happened to him, and why.  

Adam was a man who stood up for his friends and for his family. The kind of man you could count on.  Just like his dad.  This gentle man has a fierce, innate determination honed by loss.  To meet him is to know that he will go the distance, surmount any obstacle, and never end his quest until his questions are answered.

Like father, like son. 

Producer John Block's blogged on meeting the Anhang family. 

Click here for the full story with video.

A special Dateline on the murder of American businessman Adam Anhang, "The Pink Skirt Murder," airs on NBC Friday, March 14, at 10pm ET. Click here for the full story with video.

By John Block, Dateline Producer

I have been tracking Adam Anhang's case for over a year and a half, along with the rest of the Dateline NBC team. In the course of it, I have come to know, like, and respect Adam's family as well as Adam himself. It may seem strange hearing that I feel as if I know and care about someone who has passed on, but I feel as if I do -- at least a little bit.

I've been introduced to him through his family's recollections as well as those of his many friends. I admire very much the kindness that he showed to them all, as well as many of his other strengths.

The family was initially very wary about telling their story to a television audience. They were, and continue to be, in a lot of pain. And like most of us, they are very private people. I think that they finally agreed to be part of our report because they hope it will somehow lead to more answers.

I think also it was a way to highlight some of Adam's substance.

From the beginning, however, I explained that our first priorty was to serve Dateline report and not them. I was not their producer. I told them that our agenda was to tell the story as best we could. All questions related to Adam and the murder were fair game, and we would track the facts wherever they would lead. To the family's credit, they did not back down.

Prior to the broadcast of any report, we screen it -- sometimes several times -- for various news executives. At the conclusion of the first screening of this report, I got a number of 'atta boys -- "good job," "compelling story." Certainly, that is music to this producer's ears. In this case, however, I nearly burst into tears. At that moment, I was just feeling especially bad for the Anhang family.

Dateline correspondent Sara James blogged about the similarities between Adam Anhang and his murdered son Abe.

A brave high school girl was held hostage for ten days in an underground bunker and managed her own rescue (click here for more information). Below, one of the police officers writes about being inside the investigation while 14-year-old Elizabeth Shoaf was still missing.

By Captain David Thomley, Kershaw County Sheriff's Department

When I was asked to write this blog I was not sure how to start.  You have now seen her story and there is no way for me to relay the sheer terror that Lizzie and her family endured.

I have been in law enforcement for 19 years now. As a young patrol officer, I have dealt with family members being killed in automobile accidents, taking reports for assaults, and arresting suspects for every crime imaginable. I have witnessed firsthand how this affects the lives of the family members of all involved, not to mention the victims. 

One of the first lessons I was taught after becoming a criminal investigator is to follow the facts, keep an open mind, and don't get emotionally involved in the case. Over the years I have done my best to abide by these seemingly simple rules, even though at times it was very difficult. 

In this case, when I first met the victim's mother, I immediately saw the pain, concern, and frustration in her eyes. As the days went on, it only grew and my role as a protector, and a parent began to take its toll on these "simple rules." 

Looking back at this case I can only think of a small poster that hangs in most offices and cubicles everywhere I go. It's of a bird with a half-eaten frog coming out of its mouth.  The frog has grabbed the throat of the bird with the caption "never give up."

This family and this brave and courageous child never gave up, and neither did we.  Even after 10 days in captivity, living in a hell that mere words can not adequately describe,  underground, alone and afraid, and being violated in a way that no one should ever be exposed to, she never gave up. 

Not only was she very brave, she was also very smart and did several things that greatly improved her chances of survival.

• When she was walking home from the bus stop a man approached her and lead her into the woods.  She had the wherewithal to drop her shoes on the trail hoping it would lead us to her. 
• She was repeatedly told she would die and explosives were hung around her neck every time he would leave her. She was chained so that she could not runaway while he slept. Yet, she never gave up. She would talk with him about things that interested him, which in his eyes, made her a person, not just a captive. She began to gain his trust.
• Eventually she was allowed to leave the bunker with him. While she was out she would pull out strands of her hair and lay them on branches hoping search dogs might pick up her scent.
• Elizabeth did such a good job of gaining his trust she was able to get his cell phone, to "play games." That is how she was able to send text messages to her mother. 
• Even though she had no idea if her text messages were getting through, Elizabeth kept thinking and kept trying over and over to get the messages out.
• She was the captive but he became the victim of a reverse Stockholm syndrome.  Elizabeth pretended to care about him as a person. He fell in love with her and began to think that he would have a life with her.
• She paid close attention to her surroundings and to the dangers Vinson Filyaw said he'd planted around the bunker. The morning that she was found as officers from every direction was approaching her in the bunker all she was concerned about was letting us know that he had explosives hid around the bunker.  After she was taken to the hospital instead of worrying about her own well being, she continued to give us information.  She wanted us to know that he had taken a gun with him, and that he still had explosives with him, as well as night vision.  Her concern was for the safety of those officers still searching for Filyaw.

One of the most pleasurable moments in this ordeal was reuniting her with her family.  The joy in her eyes, that she was free and alive and back with her family, was unimaginable.  To see her mother hug her neck and not let go was an emotional experience that I had not fully understood until now.

If I could use one word to describe her it would be courageous.

The first court hearing after he was captured she was in the courtroom to face him. She has attended each and every hearing that was scheduled.  She was able to look him in the eye each and every time with the conviction that she won, she beat the odds and survived.

Many people ask the question, what did Lizzie do right during this entire horrifying ordeal?

The answer is she did everything right, she did what she had to do to survive, and survive she did. No one case that I have ever been involved with has affected me as this case has, and there are many other officers that would echo my sentiments.

A brave high school girl was held hostage for ten days in an underground bunker and managed her own rescue (click here for more information). Below, one of the police officers writes about being inside the investigation while 14-year-old Elizabeth Shoaf was still missing.

By Lt. Eric Tisdale, Kershaw County Sheriff's Department

Where do you start?  Who do you talk to? What assets do you devote to the investigation? Where do I look?  What happened?  Where was she last seen?  What was her state of mind?  What are the facts?

Facts dictate much of what we do in law enforcement.  Facts are not something you can make or generate. They are to be followed. Facts are something you look for, and that lead you to other facts, which in turn, we hope, lead to the truth.  This is true with any investigation.

So, where do you start?

Fact number one:  Elizabeth Shoaf was last seen just after she got off the bus walking toward her house.  Fact number two:  she did not make it home.  Armed with only these two facts, the investigation begins. 

Who do you talk to? We started by talking to the people that were closest to her including family and friends.  Typically, teenage runaways have a problem with a family member, relative, or boyfriend. By talking to these people we were able to find out that Elizabeth had a good relationship with her parents.  She had no problems at school that would cause her to run away. 

The day Elizabeth disappeared, our bloodhound-tracking unit was called to the scene and began to search the area. While the tracking team was searching, additional patrol units were called in to ride the area roads looking for her or any sign of her. Family members and volunteers began to search the area as well.

The local media was contacted with her information and flyers were distributed. The bloodhounds were unable to pick up Elizabeth's trail. Unfortunately, the scents the dogs found belonged to volunteers helping with the search.

We called in our volunteer helicopter pilot who flew a deputy above rural hunt club roads, four wheeler trails and wooded areas around the house.

We pulled video surveillance tape from local stores and conducted interviews with people who thought they had information about Elizabeth.

With no new facts to follow, our Mounted Patrol was called to the area.  They train monthly in search and rescue as well as event security.  The Mounted unit was broken up into teams and given blocks surrounding the last known place she was seen.  No new clues were found.

Trying to find Elizabeth was just like looking for a needle in a haystack -- so many acres to cover and no facts or clues to guide us.

Finally, we got the big break.

Her mom contacted Sheriff McCaskill to say she had received a text by someone claiming to be Elizabeth. The message?

"Hey mom, its Lizy I'm in a hole in the ground near charm hill its near that dirt road where those big trucks—get the police though because he has bombs hidden."

The text message described an area called "the pit" that was about a mile from Elizabeth's house.  It's part of the Hanson Brick mine that produces clay and is closed to the public.

Rain was coming down in buckets. Three members from the tracking team and their dogs walked the perimeter of the pit looking for any sign of Elizabeth.

The clay was so thick that it built up 6 to 8 inches on the bottom of our boots.  After covering the wood line surrounding the pit for six hours, the search was stopped at 11:00pm.  At least now we had the text message and a location in the message to guide us. This gave us all hope that she was alive and energized us.  Along with excitement came concern.  We now knew she was being held against her will, plus the text message said there were explosives. 

The state law enforcement division sent in a special helicopter equipped with a heat-sensing device. Any sign of movement or body heat could be detected in the 200-plus acre mine site. Next, phone records began to come in, which gave us more facts.

The text message came from a phone belonging to Vincent Filyaw.

Filyaw had an outstanding warrant for criminal sexual conduct. Phone records also led us to Cynthia Hall, Filyaw's girlfriend, who lived in a mobile home near the Hanson mine area. We searched the mobile home and grounds around it.

In a shed out back, a piece of plywood was covering a hole dug into the floor. Was this the one mentioned in the message? Unsure how deep the hole was an officer checked and found no one to be in it.

Investigators interviewed Filyaw's girlfriend throughout most of the night.  She stated that she had hidden Filyaw for several months. She also stated that she had contact with him and that she had dropped food and supplies off in an abandon car across near the mine. Cindy said that she had no idea of where he was; she just knew he was living in a bunker in the woods.

The helicopter flew well into the night, searching the area around Filyaw's house and the pit area. The helicopter detected no human movements in the woods near the mine. With the text message's warning about explosives and a possible hostage situation, we decided a ground search in the daylight would be our best option.

The next morning, only 20 minutes into the search, a radio call came into the command post. An officer could hear a female voice calling for help. The deputies kept talking to her and approached the area with caution. She kept telling officers to be careful he had explosives planted all around the bunker.  On the radio, Capt. Thomley said, "We have her." 

"He is not here, but we have her."

The tracking unit was sent into the bunker area to being the search for the suspect. Vinson Filyaw was captured the day after in an attempted carjacking.

Filyaw was unwilling to give a statement as to the facts of the case.  He only wanted to talk about the original CSC case against him.

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

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

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