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Part Two of Polly Klaas; Americas Child

• Lynn & Matt

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TRIGGER WARNING- Has to do with a child and sexual assault.

In part 2 of our Polly Klaas coverage, we will find out who it was who came in to Polly's home on the evening of October 1st of 1993, and took 12 year old Polly out of it.  We will discuss the trial, and the after math, and find out how Polly's case saved another 12 year old girl, who found herself in an eerily similar, horrific situation.

This is Polly Klass Part 2



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Speaker 1

Welcome to Everything Scary. My name is Lynn and I'm here with my co-host local celebrity, sorry, sorry, international celebrity. Thank you, matt McClain.

Speaker 2

Hello, hello.

Speaker 1

Every Tuesday we release a new episode, mostly true crime, but we've also been known to cover a pandemic, a haunting, a super mad, super strong chimpanzee. We'll cover anything and everything scary. Please rate us five stars and join us on Instagram at Everything Scary Pod. Here we go.

Speaker 2

And we're back.

Speaker 1

Okay, hi.

Speaker 2

Hello, welcome, part numero dos.

Speaker 1

So today's episode is going to be a continuation of the Poly Class story. If you haven't listened to part one yet. I would strongly recommend going back and listening to it.

Speaker 2

Or you're going to be incredibly lost, you're going to be very confused. They are going to kill it.

Speaker 1

So I'm sure a lot of you know this awful story but again, I do have to give big trigger warnings because there's kids stuff involved. If you can't listen to it, that's completely understandable. You shouldn't have to. But before diving into this horrificness of this case, if you haven't heard the whole story about the scammer that I'm referring to in this episode and last one, you can go back to my Instagram or the beginning of last episode. We explain it. But I just wanted to give a couple more really nice five star reviews.

Speaker 2

Positive reviews yes.

Speaker 1

So this is a huge thank you to EM2166, M2166, M2166.

Speaker 2

I don't know. What is that Italian? What kind of name is that M2166. No, I think that's Dutch. Oh, it is Okay.

Speaker 1

So M2166 writes a new favorite. I'm a fan of true crime, but I also love the banter between the two of you. You guys have me laughing throughout the episodes, but also do a great job researching and narrating each case you cover. Keep it up and don't listen to the haters.

Speaker 2

Thank you, thanks, anne. I would like to thank you for the nice comment about my research, the time it paid off about time somebody sees and recognizes me for researching the shit out of some of these cases.

Speaker 1

This one here, so I like to do two in episodes. So this one's from Miguel J Rosales, nice, and this kind of covers the way I feel too. So they wrote listen with a bunch of explanation points. I am not the type to ever write reviews. However, I am reading negative comments on this podcast and I have to say I almost didn't download this one. Thank God I didn't listen to the comments, because this is by far my favorite crime podcast on Apple. They're funny and the episodes are amazing. Keep going.

Speaker 2

Suck it haters Thanks. Miguel.

Speaker 1

Yeah, thanks Miguel.

Speaker 2

Sticking up for us.

Speaker 1

So let's get back to the second half of Pauly's story. When we last left off, 12-year-old Pauly Klass had been taken from her own bedroom during a sleepover with her two girlfriends, Jillian and Kate. Well, her mother and sister slept in a bedroom just feet away.

Speaker 2

Mom is on a sleeping pill. Yes which I hate, must have been the most strongest sleeping pill in the world.

Speaker 1

You know what? I don't suffer from migraines, but I know that people that do it's like horrific, so like to be able to just knock yourself out during that pain. I think is like the only thing you can do really.

Speaker 2

Yeah, maybe she took an extra one and knocked herself out with a pain. I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1

I don't know. I've known some people that say that their migraines get so bad that they have to sit in a dark room. They can't even function.

Speaker 2

I know when I lie and tell people I have a migraine, I do say it is unbearable.

Speaker 1

It's bad.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I do go on and on about the pain. Okay, I'll note that for the next time you're like can't make your recording, I can't, sorry, I'd love to. I have a migraine, the light hurts.

Speaker 1

Anyways, going to sleep Bye, bye. So many witnesses had noticed the man in Pauly's neighborhood and had given descriptions to the police. But that did not stop the police from being suspicious of the two little girls that were there when Pauly was kidnapped. The same night, on October 1st of 1993, less than half an hour away, a suspicious man with leaves and sticks in his hair had gotten into a white pinto that was stuck on private property and was surrounded by nearly 200 acres of forested land. The owner had helped police get the man unstuck and then had him removed from her property. But nearly two months later that same owner was walking through a wooded area on her property and stumbled upon strange, very out of place items a small child's red tights knotted, an adult large sweatshirt turned inside out and a condom wrapper. She had the police called Deputy Mike McManus to check the scene, and that is exactly where we will pick up now.

Speaker 2

Okay, got the last names right. Did I miss anything? Mcmanus is on the scene.

Speaker 1

McManus is here. He's ready to rock.

Speaker 2

He's probably got a little. No pen to pen, he's just walking around.

Speaker 1

Well, what else are you going to do in the 80s? You don't even have voice notes.

Speaker 2

No, you don't.

Speaker 1

He's like oh, god, damn it, my miniature tiny cassette tape is done.

Speaker 2

He's like God damn it. I wonder if there'll be the day where that landline phone will have a camera in it and I won't have to have a cord attached.

Speaker 1

So once at the scene, officer McManus also located a condom, a plastic six pack holder, a book of matches, and everything was located within a three foot radius. He then went to pull up the incident report that was taken when the police escorted the man off the property back in October. And he was looking at one, richard Allen Davis. He went by Rick, but fuck that, because I don't care what he went by. Yep.

Speaker 2

Three names Guilty.

Speaker 1

So Richard had a rap sheet that was about eight pages long. It included committing a lewd or lascivious act with a minor, Assault with intent to commit a sex crime, kidnap, robbery, assault, first degree assault with great bodily force. The list went on and on. So this officer, Mr McManus, got in touch with a Petaluma PD because at this point Polly story had been on America's Most Wanted. There had been flyers everywhere and Polly had become known as America's child.

Speaker 2

Just like a sweetheart kind of image yes, exactly, everybody wanted her home, right, I guess?

Speaker 1

So everyone just wanted to be found safe, so badly so. Mike McManus spoke with Larry Pelton in Petaluma, who drove to the Sonoma County office to check out what had been found on Dana Jaffee's property, and he took one look at the silk strips and automatically recognized that they were the same ones that came from the bindings on Kate and Jillian. Jeez, richard Allen Davis was 39 years old, didn't look a day over 76.

Speaker 2

I was gonna say in my mind I'm picturing him as way older?

Speaker 1

No, he is, he looks like he fart stuff he is weathered. He is weathered Like his ugliness was showing from the inside out.

Speaker 2

He buys cigarettes and rips the filters off and smokes. And the sweet angel fuck face had just been paroled on June, the 27th of 1993.

Speaker 1

The same year that Polly was taken. But this was absolutely not just his first brush with the law. He had a long history of attacks on women. During one of his incarcerations he had faked an attempted suicide and when they put him in a mental health hospital he broke out. The very next day he beat and assaulted a 32 year old single mother and nurse. He showed up with a sock full of bars of soap to beat her with, and then he ended up beating her over the head with a fire poker, oh my God.

Speaker 1

He also confined a woman to a car and brandished a knife, but this woman went against all of her natural instincts and grabbed the blade of the knife and was able to get it from him and free herself.

Speaker 2

Okay, that's amazing Superhero. Yeah, that's not, even that's amazing.

Speaker 1

So Richard who, I would like to remind you, likes to be called Rick, but fuck him Would say that he felt as if these attacks gave him a glow like a good Oile of Olay, you know, and they helped release tension.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 1

So there's gonna be so many points in this story when you have like these fuck this guy moments.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

They'll just make you angry and angrier. This released tension for him to violently beat women.

Speaker 2

It's like that's his first moment, yeah.

Speaker 1

Somebody should really just beat him with a sock full of bars of soap.

Speaker 2

Yeah, or the rest of his life, or yeah whatever. Yeah, something hard, yeah, truly.

Investigation and Arrest of Richard Allen

Speaker 1

I really, really dislike the lack of fucking all of it, so I don't really want to mention it because fuck this guy. But it needs to be noted that Richard Allen Davis did have a horrific childhood.

Speaker 2

I mean fuck this guy yeah.

Speaker 1

His parents were both alcoholics. He was horribly abused. One of the forms of punishment that his mother liked to use was to burn his hand on the stove when he did something wrong. And I mean I fucking hate this guy. But let's just try to not, you know, collectively, let's not raise little demons, like let's just maybe love our kids a little bit.

Speaker 2

Interesting take. Yeah, that's a hot take.

Speaker 1

Hot parenting take. You're hearing it here, folks, I like it. Maybe just love your kids, that's it.

Speaker 2

Maybe I don't know, call me crazy, maybe I'm the asshole.

Speaker 1

So, and later on Eve and Mark Paulie's parents would both believe that maybe the things that had turned out the way they did wouldn't have turned out if this guy had been nurtured and loved as a child. That was one of their big stances, but sadly he wasn't. Now he's a full blown monster. So the FBI was actually able to take the silk strips from Dana Jeffery's property and, as if it were a jigsaw puzzle, they were able to perfectly line them up with the strips that were taken off of Jillian and Kate. Amazing, right, and just like that they were able to link the two crime scenes. And that was enough for them to be able to obtain a warrant to have Richard provide samples. But first they had to find him. They were able to narrow down a search to a small reservation that Richard's sister, darlene and her husband his name was also Richard. They were squatting illegally as they were not members of the tribe and the tribal council had been trying for two years to have them removed.

Speaker 2

Oh, my God.

Speaker 1

Right Jesus. They're a great family and, luckily for officers, richard had received a DUI on the 19th of October, which was only 18 days after he'd taken Pauly from her bedroom. He had buzzed off his beard, so it didn't fit the description yet.

Speaker 1

But when he had been pulled over doing 75 miles per hour and 55 zone, he told the officer that he had seen a woman driving a car and he had to speed up to see if she was hot. And when they had him recite the alphabet, he left out the S and V in the alphabet and, in true piece of garbage form, he had not shown up for his court date and that allowed them to have an arrest warrant out from as well. Right, so there's a lot, wow, yeah. So on November 30th, on the reservation, swat had been granted permission by the tribal officers to enter the home and they lay in wait throughout the night waiting for the signal that would be given by two snipers to make entry. Once they got into the home, they soon discovered that Richard was not there. His white pinto was on the property and he had covered it in like brush off to the side, but he was nowhere to be found.

Speaker 1

Just as they were about to leave defeated, an FBI agent that was at the roadblock they had set up radioed in saying that they believed that Richard Allen Davis was in the line waiting to go through the roadblock. He was told to hold him there, and two FBI agents and one local police officer pulled up. They went right up to the window and asked if he was Richard Allen Davis, and the suspect, looking forward, non-blinking, confirmed who he was and was arrested on the spot with his nieces and nephews in the back of the van. Oh Jesus, yeah, just ruining lives every chance he has, wow. So by 7 14 that evening he was in an interrogation room. Ok, so you got to remember these two guys because they're kind of important. They call them the Larry's, so FBI kidnapping expert Larry Taylor and Larry Pelton, who was an expert in interviewing homicide suspects. These were the Larry's and their goal was to get as much out of him as soon as possible before he invoked his rights to an attorney, right as they still had hopes of finding Polly alive.

Speaker 2

I was just going to ask are they kind of operating on the sort of wrestling that's what they have to right? Yeah?

Speaker 1

So Richard, of course, denied having anything to do with Polly's kidnapping, and even made a comment about how this was not his style of crime. He said that he had helped kill people like that in prison, meaning pedophiles, and that those were cowards crimes. The issue with this statement, though, was that no one knew anything more than that she was kidnapped, so for him to know anything more would mean that he would have to be involved.

Speaker 2

So right, ok, yes.

Speaker 1

Right. So Larry Taylor then informed him that they had enough trace evidence on him that they could confidently place him under arrest, and to that Richard responded by saying OK, this is quotes.

Speaker 2

OK.

Speaker 1

Quote didn't kidnap that fucking little broad what? And told them to quote shit or get off the pot and book him?

Speaker 2

Oh my God, he's just a fucking flower, lovely, lovely.

Speaker 1

It's the guy you want to hang around at Christmas, and so they did. He was put on suicide watch and probably just a torture. More than anything, he would be in a room with fluorescent lights that would stay on 24 hours.

Speaker 2

Nice.

Davies' Confession and Investigation Update

Speaker 1

Ah, that sounds like torture. That's good. On December 1st, the palm print that was lifted by my heart, your hero.

Speaker 1

Pony Maxwell would prove to be a match to Richard Allen Davies, but they still didn't have Polly. Two days later, on December 3rd, sergeant Mike Meese an agent Larry Taylor from the interrogation again arrived to the prison to get a fresh set of prints from Richard. And once they were done, sergeant Mike Meese asked if he could speak to Richard privately. And he tried to reason with this fucking dumpster fire of a human being, but of course, being that the scumbag he is, he declined and me said that he would leave his beeper number with someone at the prison. If he changed his mind, he could call him anytime, and so that's what he did. He left the jail and he went back to the private property where they had found all the evidence before, and he had nearly made it the whole way there and he had been on the road for a bad hour when his beeper went off, and it was the Medicino jail and Richard wanted to speak with him.

Speaker 1

Meese, you have to know like this guy probably was just like. Well, I'm going to call him, but I want to be the most fucking obnoxious piece of plot ever. I'm going to wait until he's almost at his destination. That's like an hour and 20 minutes away.

Speaker 1

Beep him. I fucking hate this guy. So, because this is the 80s, this guy has to pull over and find a payphone to find out what's going on right and you have to be like.

Speaker 2

I got a page from this number.

Speaker 1

Yeah, hi Is this Richard. Hi, it sounds like a fucking walking fecal. Matter is that, is that you're rich? Hi, is this the human embodiment?

Speaker 2

of the poop emoji.

Speaker 1

So Richard had said on the phone that he wanted to speak with him but that he had stipulations well, of course. He wanted two packs of cigarettes. He wanted to be put in protective custody because remember pieces of shit like this guy get the shit kicked out of them in jail. He also wanted the death sentence to be taken off the table Because apparently this pathetic coward thought that his existence was worth saving like. Kill this guy. What are we doing?

Speaker 2

Yeah, I don't you know what.

Speaker 1

I'm not one to speak for the death penalty. I don't really. I think it's a case-by-case Situation. I don't really believe in it or not believe in it. But this guy is just taking up tax dollars, money.

Speaker 2

I mean, when you got a rap sheet that long and you pull something like this, I mean you know what you got to be like when you hear the court case, I think you're gonna fully back me on this one.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so he wanted the death to be taken off the table. Meese told him that that would be up to the DA, not him, the district attorney, but he could make the call. And that's when Richard said, and quote I fucked up big time when Meese asked if Polly was still alive, richard said she was not. So the next day, on December 4th, at 3 30 pm, mike Meese and Larry Taylor would formally sit down with Richard Allen Davis. Now, if you recall, richard invoked his rights at the end of the November 30th meeting right.

Speaker 1

But unbeknownst to Richard, when he requested to speak with Sergeant Mike Meese, who wasn't there during the original interrogation. It was just the two. Larry's yeah, he reestablished his communication with interrogators. Meaning so as long as they re-maran dyes to him again. Yeah, he was free to talk. They could listen to whatever he had to say, but he did not know this right so he thought that they were going against his rights.

Speaker 1

So Richard admitted taking Polly, but blamed it on drinking too much. He said that he was offered a joint by some random in a park and he suspected that it was laced with something. Perpetual victim Fuck off.

Speaker 2

I know whenever I'm smoking a joint in the park, anytime I see any sort of near-dwell, I mean especially if they're covered in leaves right, I would say I don't sure. Would you like to hit this yeah?

Speaker 1

can I please get yours alive on my joint? You smelly my dude.

Speaker 2

Excuse me, 35 year old guy who looks like something when they pulled same. Who's saying it in the bunker.

Speaker 1

It's all pepper beard.

Speaker 1

So, so the next thing he said that he recalled was having Paulina's car. He admitted to strangling her when she'd gotten out of the car to go to the bathroom. He denied having sexually assaulted her, which no one believed, but he told them when she was, which was a quarter mile off of highway 101, just outside of Cloberdale, california. She was hidden underneath a piece of plywood. Jesus, that makes me sick to my stomach. So, tony Maxwell, my investigation friend, who's? He preserves the evidence? He's the palm guy Went to the scene.

Speaker 1

New technology, that yeah, yeah so Tony Maxwell went to the scene. He was our FBI evidence specialist who got the palm print from Paulie's room. It was now evening and he refused to move Paulie until the daylight because even the lights, like they had the light shining on her.

Speaker 1

Spotlight or whatever yeah but he said that nothing could actually be daylight and he did not want to miss anything in this case and he wanted to get Paulie the justice that she deserved, and he even told his supervisor that if she was going to insist on him Moving her before they could do a perfect job, then she was gonna have to fire him.

Speaker 2

Wow, I love him. Good for him.

Speaker 1

Paulie's funeral was televised so many people mourned her and it was a rainy, dark day and 5000 people showed up Wow, to her actual memorial. President Bill Clinton even called mark class to offer his condolences. I believe Robin Williams was in attendance Wow, and I didn't include it, but when Nona rider she was from Petaluma, she had come and like involved herself in the search. She even offered like a big Part of the $200,000 might have been from one on a.

Speaker 1

For the trial, the district attorney was Greg Jacobs and the public defender was a guy named Barry Collins. So he was a part of the SFT that stood for serious felonies team and he was known for taking the cases that nobody else wanted, so apparently he liked defending pieces of shit. That's a tough gig, man. Well, you kind of have to also be a little tweaked to want to defend somebody like that, unless you're like a vigilante and you're like I'm gonna fuck this case up. Tank it like why does Barry not have any way?

Polly Class Kidnapper's Trial and Aftermath

Speaker 2

and just Doesn't want anything. I think a lot of those defense attorneys, the public defenders, are like nope, it's the Constitution. Everybody deserves the right to a fair trial, regardless of what they've.

Speaker 1

Yeah, there's nothing kind of people I want to hang out with no, I couldn't know that would be. That'd be like a couple glasses of wine, and then you end up having a big brawl with them. Uncle Barry, it's Christmas, so yeah, so he liked defending this guy, so that's a weird flex, but I guess you know somebody needs to do the job.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that's what you're into.

Speaker 1

That's what you're into, because the evidence against Richard was overwhelming, not to mention he fucking confessed.

Speaker 2

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1

He would try and say his confession was taken unlawfully. But he's a moron and he actually fucked himself on that one. Polly's mother, eve, got on the stand. She described waking to a living nightmare and After she was done she walked out of the courtroom and she never returned because it was way too hard for her.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I don't think you ever can get over that, no, that guilt.

Speaker 1

Of course the trial had to be moved a couple hours away from Petaluma, obviously even though there was nowhere that they could hold it. That would have a jury that didn't know of this case. The world knew who Polly class was and they brought the jury back to Polly's home and to the private road where the evidence was found and then to Cloverdale where her body was found. They worried that when transferring Richard, because he had the right to be part of every part of his trial no, he yeah. So they had to bring him, but they worried that a local vigilante was going to take it upon themselves to take him out and that would be putting the jury at risk.

Speaker 1

Uh but luckily Richard agreed to sit in the car when they went to Polly's house, as long as they agreed to get him a pizza and Pepsi, because apparently for Richard, he was able to sit in the driveway of the family that he destroyed by killing a 12 year old child and still did not have it affect his appetite, because he's a vile, fucking monster.

Speaker 2

Pizza and Pepsi, first of all. When are you fucking eight years old Like when you child?

Speaker 1

No, you know, this man is just fucking shitting oil Like he's the most disgusting person that's ever lived. I hate him so much Really. Huh, that's weird Interesting. So Greg Jacobs, who was the district attorney, wanted to get him on the sexual assault more than anything. Everything else was kind of open shut. All of his other charges were basically in the bag. They showed the jury pictures of Polly that were found and they suggested that the sexual assault had taken place. At that Mark class, her father, cried out oh Lord, and ran from the courtroom. The jury would deliberate for 20 hours and come back that Richard Allen Davis was guilty on all accounts robbery, kidnapping, murder, false imprisonment with a deadly weapon and intent to perform lewd acts on a child under 14. Well, the majority of the courtroom was focused on the judge as he spoke. A video camera car out. Richard Allen Davis looked directly at Mark class, wink at him, blow him a kiss and then raise both hands and give him two middle fingers.

Speaker 2

Wait hang on.

Speaker 1

The dad.

Speaker 2

So so who gave the wink and the kiss? The bad guy To the dad, to the dad, jesus fuck.

Speaker 1

After would come his sentencing and they would allow all of the women from his past violent crimes to take stand and paint a picture of exactly who this demon was. Polly's maternal grandfather would take the stand and talk about how they were survivors of the Holocaust and the Great Depression, only for later in their life to have their beloved granddaughter taken from them in such a horrific way Wow. And then Richard took the stand, and if there was even a sliver of doubt that this man was the worst kind of evil, I'm here to squash that Because, as he was on the stand, richard would say that the reason he believed. Now Richard said that he blocked out during most of the attack on him.

Speaker 2

Well that joint. Well, of course he hit a joint.

Speaker 1

The reason he believed that he had not sexually assaulted Polly was because when they were on the private road that night he had walked Polly up in embankment. And as he walked her she said to him just don't do me like my dad, implying that Mark had sexually assaulted his daughter, which, of course, what the fuck? It was just a vicious lie that he had said to further hurt this family who had already taken everything. Mark jumped up and said like fuck you Davis or Vernon Hall or something like that. And with that Judge Hastings said well, you've just made my job a lot easier and he upheld the jury's request for Richard to be sentenced to death by lethal injection.

Speaker 2

Nice.

Speaker 1

Because, even though he had asked Sergeant Meese to request the death penalty be taken out the table, but that was the only time he mentioned it, because he forgot to follow up on that, which is part of a good request.

Speaker 1

as a follow up, yes, especially, you know, but sadly in court we did not get around to ridding the earth of this scumbag before 2019. And, as we know, mayor Gavin Newsom put a moratorium on executions in California. And that is not to say that I'm for the death penalty in general, but I just think that we can all agree that the world is going to be a better place when he is no longer breathing. They don't have death penalty in California. They have the moratorium on it, so it's held.

Speaker 2

Interesting.

Speaker 1

Why I?

Speaker 2

don't know, I just think that that's I don't know. California was always like a super fry estate. Really yeah, very Republican.

Speaker 1

Well, no, gavin Newsom said something along the lines of as long as I'm mayor, nobody will wrongfully be put to death, but they've got the fucking Golden State killer over there. They've got a bunch of ones that we could say pretty confidently he definitely yeah. So, following Pauley's death, mark Klass quit his job and dedicated his life to helping parents with missing children.

Speaker 2

Good for him?

Speaker 1

Yeah, he's amazing and you want to know. The saddest thing is that Paulie said to him Daddy, when I'm famous I'm going to take care of you and like in a random about way, she kind of did yeah. And the worst possible way he would work on changing laws, comforting parents and talking to the media when the parents were unable to oh, wow, like a full on, like goes into the moment of crisis with that and he's got a full web page.

Speaker 1

I went to his web page and he was talking about there's a current case where somebody had, like, as a prank, pretended that they went online. It was a Twitter thing and they had said like, oh, I'm fine. And he went into his own detail about getting those calls from who he thought was Paulie and how he felt and how his world just basically shattered.

Speaker 1

But this is kind of a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel, which was on July 2nd of 1994, the year following Paulie's disappearance, a 12 year old girl was taken out of her home at Knife Point in an eerily similar way. Her older sister was watching her and she had a friend over. When the older sister had gone to get pizza, a man had broken in and assaulted the girl. Her name was Katie Romanak. He then fled when he thought that the friend had escaped and gone to get help, when she had actually just managed to hide herself into a closet. But he had taken Katie with him when he fled, he had stolen the older sister's car and when they called 911, they actually called the chief of police, larry Hanson Hanson and said and said we've got a Paulie class kidnapping and Larry Hanson had gone to a seminar about everything that was done wrong and everything that was done right in the Paulie class case.

Speaker 2

Oh, my God, and immediately.

Speaker 1

He notified all agencies and media, got the FBI involved right away. Had a forensic artist sketch, a picture from the sister and the friends perspective, called the Paulie class foundation to have flyers made up. Sent a picture of Katie and the sketch of the kidnapper to the Paulie class foundation.

Speaker 2

Amazing.

Speaker 1

And within hours they had them distributed everywhere. A Walmart shopper saw the flyer and called her neighbor whose son it looked like, and the neighbor called the place and said that her son was named Stephen Reese Cochran. He had just been paroled from jail for arson charges and they were able to compare his prints to the one left in Katie's house and determined that they were a match. After 20 hours Katie was found and taken home and Stephen was sentenced to 106 years in prison.

Speaker 1

Katie would go on to bond with the chief, larry Hanson, and she would actually go on with him and they would teach classes on child abduction and how to educate people more. Wow, on the 20th anniversary of Paulie's kidnapping, Katie attended the remembrance event and she would say that the reason that she is alive today is because of Paulie.

Speaker 1

This man actually had her naked in like a shallow creek and they were like hiding in the mud, like just trying to escape. So Jillian and Kate would both go on to be successful adults. Jillian is a lawyer and after it was finally proven that they had not been lying about what they had witnessed, they had been given some sort of an award for bravery. But it really didn't change the fact that they'd been treated like criminals.

Speaker 2

We had no shit.

Speaker 1

Even her husband, Annie's father, Alan, ended up getting back together after this all happened.

Speaker 2

Oh, that's nice.

Speaker 1

Annie was always afraid to sleep alone, though, and would often ask her mother if she was going to live to become a grownup. Oh, and that's the horrific and sad case of Paulie Klass, america's child.

Speaker 2

I think obviously super sad and tragic, but a lot of bright spots at the end of it.

Speaker 1

Right yeah.

Speaker 2

A lot of heroes in this story.

Speaker 1

Yeah, a lot of heroes.

Speaker 2

I know.

Speaker 1

The sad thing too is that Mark and his girlfriend Violet. They ended up getting married and then they always had planned for more kids and like they ended up not being able to have kids.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

There's a lot of darkness, but a lot of good stuff came from it too.

Fascination With Resilience in Tragedy

Speaker 2

I'm just fascinated at people that go through tragedy and don't just bury themselves into a hole like and just you know, just wallow in their depression.

Speaker 1

I know and to actually not even just not wallow, but like make good things come from. It is really incredible.

Speaker 2

And like, think, like, if you had a kid that was kidnapped watching like even an episode of like Law and Order would trigger you, this guy is going to the house to speak in front of a podium to the press on behalf of a family. I don't think there's anything more triggering.

Speaker 1

Well, the thing is like he knew what he didn't have right. So, it was easy for him to be able to say OK, looking at this family, I can see exactly where they're lacking.

Speaker 2

Here's what you need.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so that's a sad one, guys, so sorry. Hopefully maybe next time we'll have a little bit more levity in our case.

Speaker 2

We'll do one of those really fun true crimes.

Speaker 1

Yay, ok, bye.