officials believed only one man knew what happened. we knew he was responsible for several deaths. and to get answers, it would take a risky, unusual plan. send a convicted drug dealer undercover into a dangerous prison to befriend an alleged serial killer. i m not a serial killer hunter, i said, so how am i going to do this? at stake? answers. wondering where she is and what happened. the grieving families. you want to find her, bring her home and you can t. and one man s freedom. they don t just give out candy and say you re free to go. i went through hell and back. early each day, donna reitler greets her daughter tricia. i say good morning every morning to this picture. i say good morning every
i had a van. hall said he raped and strangled a girl here, too. and then he identified his victim by pointing to trisha s picture. trisha s disappearance had remained a mystery for 18 months. we were just kind of sitting on the sidelines waiting for information to come in. with little evidence and local police insisting on another suspect, trisha s parents, gary and donna still suffered. with each thing that came in the urgency was great. and the heartache was great, too. anticipation and the hope. hall s confession met the reitler s might at least find their daughter. and that gary miller had found the killer of jessica roach. but the next day, hall changed his story. as i was talking to him he said, i was just telling you about my dreams. that didn t really happen. he said, it was just my dreams.
morning. i look at that and i can hear her say hi, mom! tricia was very kind-hearted and very smart. as a child, says father, garry, tricia lit up the room. she would just bound into the room, spread her arms apart and say ta-da! that type of thing. donna and garry brought tricia here to marion, indiana, to attend this small christian college. one spring evening in 1993, tricia left her dorm room for a walk. on march 29th around 8:00 at night, tricia reitler came here to this shopping center. she bought a soda and a magazine and started walking back to campus. but then, she disappeared. phone call came a little bit after midnight and the voice on the other side of the phone said, do you know where your daughter is? 19-year-old tricia lynn reitler was seen at 8:00 on monday night. trisha s disappearance rocked
during larry s trial, his twin brother, gary, tried to provide him an alibi. still, federal prosecutor larry beaumont, got hall convicted of kidnapping jessica roach. in the federal system, if you re guilty of a kidnapping and that kidnapping resulted in a death, then under the sentencing guidelines, it s a mandatory life term. the jessica roach case was over. but the disappearance of tricia reitler remained unsolved. and her parents, garry reitler and donna, could not stop looking. we walked the sides of the roads. the riverbeds. we looked under the culverts. you know? we ended up going to crack houses because somebody had a lead. if you see something on the side of the road, a garbage bag, whatever, it s like could that be her? it was such a horrendous crime to lose your daughter and never find out what the heck happened to her. larry beaumont kept looking too.
not for the families of the alleged victims of larry hall. for years, there was no progress and no relief for people like donna and garry reitler. as a parent, there s the part that you flutter down and that you want to find her and bring her home and you can t. i mean, we ve done pretty much physically everything that we can to find her. and there s somebody out there that holds that one answer for us. beaumont, too, felt he had done all he could and that the pursuit of larry hall was over. there wasn t going to be no further prosecution from the federal perspective. he s already serving life imprisonment. he wasn t going anywhere. i mean, you know, he was done. once again, larry hall had slipped off the radar. and it easily could have remained that way, except for jimmy keene. first, keene s story of strange redemption was featured in a playboy article and then a book written by keene and hillel