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that means could you get it up from 400 to 750? a deal is within reach. he's got to figure out -- i think go one more time. they seem to have had it and they don't want to try boehner one more time but i think they're making a big mace take. -- making a big mistake. >> congressman, if he puts down a bill that requires democrats to get it pass, there will be a revolt. >> my frustration is with the democrats because the house republicans, our conscience is clear. in august we passed a bill to extend all of the tax rates. we did deal with the fiscal cliff issues weeks have passed that. it's harry reid and the president that have yet to come up with something. if it was so easy, if they thought they had a solution to it, why didn't on friday they come to the table and actually pass something? the pressure is on them, what can they pass in the senate? >> harold, you know the politics of this but you also know the markets and how they've been reacting and wall street and corporate america more generally. is there new pessimism that we're, a, not going to get a deal and not solve the issue anyway? >> big disappointment. people outside of washington understand clearly. a couple hundred billion over ten years separating both sides. the question becomes can washington still govern itself? two, there's a realization we're in the middle of a small recovery. if we find ourselves not able to resolve this moment, it retards and slows and undermines what we see ourselves doing going forward. finally, for the life of me as someone who sfrd there, it was so distressful to watch both sides yell at each other. i feel sorry for speaker boehner. i've seen sop of your colleagues who are a little unreasonable and i dare say some democrats who are unraeasonable. what does it take to make them come together if they can't come together at this moment as close as they are. >> durable goods is up, the housing market is beginning to come back. the market is poised. but the stock market is going to react. i can't previous district, don't have the knowledge, no one does, as to what exactly is going to happen but chuck is right. the white house should get over its upset with boehner and help bail him out. one question about john boehner and eric cantor and the rest them, if leaders can't count, what can they do. how they went ahead with plan b knowing they didn't have the votes, i mean, that is sort of 101 in politics. >> make them reject one more time. make boehner and the republicans reject one more time. >> there's no real partner here. here's the broader question and it includes the gun debate. what are the president's priorities going to be after the first of the year? congressman, you heard wayne lapierre. does he reflect your views about how to approach any kind of remedy after a massacre like newtown, which is we should talk about everybody but guns? >> my wife and i, we have three kids. if there's something that we can do that will make sure that this never ever, ever, ever happens again, of course i'll support it, but i also -- >> come on, there's no standard likes that. that's why you try things. that's what public policy is about. >> i'm a concealed permit carrier, i have a glock 23, i have a shotgun. there are millions just like me. we're not the problem. i think there's common ground we should be attacking first and foremost is that mental health issue because there are maybe not the laws that we need. maybe there's not the reporting that we need. to say that's already been tackled -- >> has politics changed, harold? is wayne lapierre as you heard him to in sync with the political class on both sides of the aisle today? >> no, he's not in sync with the country. the argument i heard my friend lindsey graham make the argument i have a big gun at home and i'm responsible. it's like saying the speed limit is 55 miles an hour, people should trust me to drive 90. if you don't have magazines that allow you to shoot 40, 50, 100 times, that won't happen. we should all be willing to say for the safety of the country, do i real need a magazine that shoots a hundred round? can i be satisfied with one that shoots six or seven? can that still hunt? we talk about entitlements and tax reform, i think that has to be part of the conversation. i think the majority would say wayne lapierre, you're wrong. >> you've got 35 states that don't cooperate with the fbi on background checks. you've got states now that permit gun, conceal guns in elementary schools, you've got such a patchwork quilt of states permitting guns and access to guns in places where common sense says they shouldn't be but certainly on these magazines. >> why not a bill that says how about federal grants for armed security in schools, address mental health, i mean, it's a conversation about culture as well as some of these gun restrictions because it sounds likes that's not where the administration is headed. >> i don't know how they get it through the house. in 1994 in a democratic-controlled house 216-214 is how the assault weapon ban was in the house, that was democratic controlled house, 258 democrats were in that house of representatives. you you're not going to see anything. maybe the magazine clip. i do think the magazine clip could you see some sort of movement there but this goes back to why the president has to get a deal before thend end ofe year. if the entire year is lost going two months after two months. if it bothers him they didn't get the respect they deserve from boehner, i get it. they're never going to get to guns, to energy, to so much they want to do. they've got to figure to get this done in a long-term way. >> i agree with some merits, armed guard -- >> but not armed teachers. >> when i went to high school in the 80s we had an armed officer. >> you can't go to a meeting in new york without taking your picture and having a security to get in the building. >> then the point is why not try reducing the ability of high-capacity magazines? isn't it possible that that could reduce the carnage? >> we tried it for ten years and it didn't work. there are millions -- >> we didn't try it. >> yes, we did. it was limited to ten. >> how do you know what would have happened? you can't prove a negative. >> the reality is there are millions of them out there. this is a second amendment right. i don't think it would necessarily solve the overall problem. i think the mental health is true. as far as arming everybody in schools and teachers, look, i had high school science teachers who can't negotiate a bunson burner for goodness sake. i wouldn't suggest that we necessarily give everybody a gun, it's not for everybody. but how we deal with it in utah is going to be way different than how we deal with it in chicago. >> david, one thing that came out of your interview they've thought was interesting that the nra i didn't think would ever be on, he was calling for forcing states to participate more. if you're the obama administration and you're looking for the nra's help on something, well, forcing states to participate more on the background checks, all of these things that aren't happening, if the nra is going to do that and force these conservative republicans governors to sign legislation that did that, that would be a step. >> andrea, i want to talk about the second term cabinet. chuck hagel did not get a ringing endorsement from senator schumer or -- >> what senator schumer said was really very revealing. if a democratic senator is not going to come to chuck hagel's defense, i think there is serious problems there. >> he did not come to his defense. this is going to be the second consecutive nomination where the president doesn't get his first choice. >> this white house cannot continue to float trial balloons and then not have them shot down. the president can't get what perceived to be rolled by opponents. the problem that chuck hagel has is he's now getting shot at from the left and the right because of his past comments, which he has now retracted and apologized for against gays. >> what is the core message of the state of the union? >> well, you tell me if there's a deal at the end of the year. the president has promised to put guns in his state of the union. which by the way, this has been a club that the white house has threatened over boehner, which is saying, hey, you are know i'm going to win the political argument and the white house is right but at what cost to the economy? ♪ ♪ [ engine revs ] ♪ [ male announcer ] oh what fun it is to ride. get the mercedes-benz on your wish list at the winter event going on now through december 31st. 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[ male announcer ] lease a 2013 e350 for $579 a month let'for an idea.s - a grand idea called america. the idea that if you work hard, if you have a dream, if you work with your neighbors... you can do most anything. this led to other ideas like liberty and rock 'n' roll. to free markets, free enterprise, and free refills. it put a man on the moon and a phone in your pocket. our country's gone through a lot over the centuries and a half. but this idea isn't fragile. when times get tough, it rallies us as one. every day, more people believe in the american idea and when they do, the dream comes true. we're grateful to be a part of it. thanks to everyone for a great discussion here. i hope you have a happy holidays. if you're looking for a last-minute christmas gift for the history buff in your family, our new e book makes a perfect stocking stuffer. harold's got a box of them. it's available on i tunes, we put a link on our web site and it comes with a very handsome set of steak knives as well. no, it doesn't. it doesn't. >> you don't give out guns? >> no, no, that will be fine. that is all for today. we'll be back next week. that is all for today. 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[ male announcer ] just like you, business pro. just like you. go national. go like a pro. properly inflated tires can increase fuel efficiency by three percent. that's about 8 cents a gallon, and that can really add up over the next few years. see, going green can save you green the more you know. what if somebody asked you to risk your life to go undercover to one of the world's dangerous prisons to help catch a killer? >> she had such a zest for life. >> young girls were being murdered. >> i can't imagine sending my daughter off to school and never seeing her again. >> investigators needed help to get a confession. >> if anybody could pull it off, he would probably be the one to pull it off. >> if it worked, he could win his freedom. if it didn't, he could lose his life. they had your back. >> they had my back. >> that's what you thought. >> that's what i thought. >> "the inside man." good evening, i'm lester holt. why would someone agree to spend months behind bars with the criminally insane and come out of prison a freeman? before he could do that, he had a special job to do and that was inside the prison. getting in was the easy part. getting out alive was much harder. two enemies who didn't trust each other faced off across a table. one of them in handcuffs was a clever con named jimmy keane. the other, a hard-charging prosecutor. >> in court he called me the john gardi. >> he suddenly wanted to talk. a top secret meeting no less. what more could he do to jimmy? >> he was the last person i expected to hear from. he was my biggest fear. >> but keane's fears went off the charts when prosecutor larry beaumont slipped an accordion file in his direction. the top document was the photo of a mutilated girl. >> and then there was another photo of another mutilated girl. >> he probably thought you were about to charge him with something else. >> yeah, because they were pretty rough on him in the initial prosecution. >> jimmy was in the dark. he had no idea the crazy scheme beaumont had in mind. >> he said, jimmy, listen. this is something we have another person on. he has killed many, many young women, and i personally think you're the one that can help us with this. >> "this" turned out to be an investigation to try and catch a suspected serial killer. beaumont, an outside-the-box thinker, believed this convict, jimmy keane, was the one who could somehow crack the case, taking on a unique and deadly mission. >> i realized how serious it was, and i also realized the danger of it. >> but what he couldn't know is how such a dangerous mission would change his world and the person he was forever. if this all seems fodder for a hollywood movie, brad pitt would agree. the megastar, who was benjamin button, then moneyballs billy bean is interested in playing none other than jimmy keane. >> brad pitt likes the guy that this guy, jimmy keane, risked his life to try to find what he could find. >> clearly this guy is one of a kind, charismatic, con seated, courageous and complicated. from an early age, he had the personality, charm and cockiness that made him dream that a hollywood star might one day want to play him in the movies. his first big brush with fame came on the football field. >> i heard they called you the assassin in football. that was a good thing, i take it? >> yes. i was taught by my dad at a young age. he said, son, if you don't hit that guy first, he's going to hit you and hurt you first. >> a superstar athlete and mr. popularity in high school, jimmy seemed to have it all as a big fish in the river city of kankak kankakee, illinois, a blue collar town south of chicago. >> i was the star player. i was captain every year that i played. >> jimmy grew up in the shadow of his father, big jim, who was a cop and hero to his young son. >> he was my best friend. he was the backbone of pretty much everything i did. >> but he would be put into peril from a terrible choice he made. as a teenager, he began selling drugs. he started small, peddling bags of marijuana. then he expanded to to contaico went to chicago. he was now a big fish in a big pond. lake michigan, to be exact. he was his own "in" crowd. fast women, fast cars and souped-up living. >> all the owners i was in tight with. i would go there and have carte blanche everywhere i went. >> did your pop know? did he suspect? >> he didn't suspect until much, much later. >> it would be a rude awakening for both his dad and jimmy that day in 1996 when jimmy was just relaxing in one of his chicago homes. >> all of a sudden, ka boom, the whole door came blowing off the hinges and came flying into the house. and all these d.a., fbi and locals all came in in a single-file line with their automatic weapons pointing at me, freeze, get on the ground, get on the ground. >> he had been caught in a drug sting, spearheaded by that hard-nosed federal prosecutor, larry beaumont. >> we scooped him up in an operation that i ran. we called it operation snowplow. >> and in court, beaumont showed keane no mercy. >> he was coming at you on all fours, wasn't he? >> oh, god. he was a bulldog. >> jimmy was convicted and slapped with a ten-year sentence. >> it was a pretty stiff sentence, and i knew he didn't expect to get ten years in that case. >> your father was in the courtroom. >> i knew i had let him down in probably one of the biggest ways you could let somebody down. >> keane's future was bleak. he faced ten years away from his glamorous life, the fast women, the fancy cars, the big bucks. but in 1998, just when all hope seemed lost, his old nemesis, beaumont, came to him with a chance for freedom. in return, keane would have to agree to risk everything and become an undercover informant in one of the roughest prisons in the country. the maximum security lockup in springfield, missouri. it was a psychiatric prison with both hard-core killers and the criminally insane. >> these people all have life sentences. they're all in there and they're crazy loons and they have nothing better to do but to try to hurt you or kill you just for some fun. >> if he accepted beaumont's offer, keane's target would be the suspected serial killer, a mysterious man in a van. coming up, every picture tells a story. >> when i put the picture down, he flinched, raised his arm up and refused to look at the picture. >> when "the inside man" continues. prilosec otc wildbery is the same frequent heartburn treatment as prilosec otc. now with a fancy coating that gives you a burst of wildberry flavor. now why make a flavored heartburn pill? 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[ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. we were going through so much of the bargain detergent. and the clothes didn't look as good. but since we switched to tide we use much less. an amazing clean for all three of our full-grown dependent bundles of joy. that's my tide, what's yours? several years before jimmy keane's arrest and conviction, his drug business was booming and his personal life, as he tells it, was nonstop fun and games. there are a lot of hot clubs here in the '90s. this is where you did business as well. >> lived and worked here. it was a good time. >> at the time, he had no idea of the danger lurking 150 miles south and a lifestyle away that would change his life forever. rural, tranquil georgetown, illinois was where terry roach and her husband loren were raising their 2-year-old jesse and other children far away from big city crime. >> everyone knew who everybody was fr was, so they were more conscious. you could count on them to help your kids if they feedneeded it. >> jesse was really more of a homebody, so one drive up the road and back and she was done and then she would be watching "gone with the wind." >> one day in september, jesse went out for a bike ride, but her sister noticed her bike down on its side in the middle of the road. >> not on the side of the road, in the middle of the road. >> yeah. she would stand the kickstand up. she would never lay the bicycle down. i knew something was wrong. >> deputy sheriff gary miller was dispatched to the scene. >> the more we learned about the family and the girl's background, we just didn't feel that she was staying away by choice. >> the haunting image of a bike tipped over and abandonned terrified all the investigators, and of course jesse's family. >> you never lose the hope they'll come walking in, you still hope that. we knew she was not going to just walk away. >> after six weeks, jesse's parents' worst fears were realed. her body, beaten and sexually violated, was discovered in a cornfield. >> it can never be easy telling a parent that their child is dead. >> no. it wasn't. but at least we were able to tell them this is her, she's gone. we were able to erase all doubts. >> gary miller had a murder case to solve, and it was now a federal case involving prosecutor larry beaumont as well since jesse's body actually had been found across the illinois state line. for the next year, miller did lots of legwork but to no avail. >> every day you get up, are you thinking about this case? >> oh, every day. >> what have i missed? >> exactly. >> i know this case really shook him from the beginning, and he would check any and all leads that would involve young girls and kind of run them down. >> then in late 1994, miller's persistence finally paid off. a man in a van had been reported chasing two teenage girls in jesse's hometown of georgetown. miller traced the van to a man named larry hall from wabash, indiana, a three-hour drive from georgetown. >> is your heartbeat starting to pick up a little bit now? >> oh, yeah. i'm thinking this has to be checked out. >> hall was a gung ho civil reactor, someone who traveled to fight civil battles. miller went to wabash to interview hall, who wasn't saying much. so he showed him a photo of jesse welch. >> when i put the photo down, he winced, turned in his chair and refused to look at the picture. >> convinced larry hall was hiding something, miller became obsessed with making a case against him. days later, back in illinois, miller turned up a huge lead. he found witnesses who vividly remembered hall from a revolutionary war reenactment in the georgetown area the very weekend before jesse was abducted. to them, hall stood out for his bushy mutton chop sideburns but also for playing a soldier who was fighting the wrong war. >> he was wearing a civil war uniform, and he had a civil war hat. >> at a revolutionary war reenactment? >> exactly. >> armed with this new information, deputy sheriff miller returned to wabash for a second crack at hall. this time he pressed his suspect harder, stressing that hall's fellow reenactors had seen him near georgetown. >> he came along to the point where he said, you know, i go to so many reenactments, i could have been there and i just don't remember because i go to a lot of them. >> he was given a little more ground? >> yeah. >> miller seized the opening and kept at it. finally he said hall came clean and confessed that he abducted, sexually violated and strangled jesse roach to death. >> how much detail did he give you about the killing of jessica roach? >> very detailed. what he did and what actually took place. >> not only that, miller said larry hall confessed to other killings, including a co-ed from nearby indiana university in marion, indiana named trisha rattler. >> deputy gary miller didn't know much about trisha, so he called the local police there who had been handling that case. but when mayrion detectives showed up, he started telling another story. he denied any killing, including jessica's and trisha's. what's more, he claimed it was all a misunderstanding about disturbing dreams that he had. >> he takes us out to a location where in my dreams, i strangled her here and left her lay here. we searched the woods, we searched the area and never really found anything. >> the indiana cops who were familiar with hall were not at all surprised by his actions. some of them, like j. k., thought hall might be a wannabe, a pretender who gets his kicks by confessing to crimes he didn't commit. >> is it possible he's obsessed with these cases but not involved? >> there's no doubt in my mind that he does follow these cases, that he does read and is attracted to cases all over the country. so the question does come, is he a wannabe? >> deputy sheriff miller and prosecutor beaumont, however, felt certain they had a real killer on their hands, a serial killer with a unique m.o. he would drive cross country to reenactments where he played fantasy soldier, then prey on young women and kill for real. >> the fbi started discovering girls that were, in fact, missing at these various areas at the time larry hall would have been there. >> but the only case for which prosecutors had sufficient evidence was jesse roach's. larry hall was arrested in connection with her death even though he denied making that confession to miller. hall went on trial in 1995. >> as a prosecutor, what's the best card you're holding? >> we had his statement, his confession, that said he did it. >> beaumont called deputy sheriff miller to the stand to testify that hall had, indeed, admitted that he abducted and killed jesse after he spotted her with her bicycle. >> she was walking her bike at that point. >> miller testified that in his confession, hall gave him a detail that only the killer would know, that jesse was not riding her bike but walking it, a safety precaution the roaches insisted she follow when she was on their narrow road. >> that was never in the press, that she was walking her bike that day. >> right. >> when you heard that, did that give more credence to the story? >> oh, yeah. that sealed it for me. i knew he was the one. >> a jury unanimously agreed. it took just three hours to convict larry hall. but prosecutor beaumont believed this was just the tip of the iceberg. he felt certain hall was a serial killer, and now he had to find a way to prove it. so he began investigating trisha reitler's abduction, a case that wasn't his and a family he didn't even know. >> i can't imagine sending my daughter off to school and never seeing her again. >> he came up with an outside-the-box scheme to get hall, which would risk the life of that charismatic convict he had just put away for dealing drugs: jimmy keane. >> what happens when i got to deal with all these crazy killers and stuff? what if i get shanked? what if i get killed? am i going to survive this? coming up, a get out of jail free card with a price. >> they had your back. >> they had my back. >> at least, people typically don't admit murder, sexual assaults and murderers to police officers unless they have probably done it. so it was clear, we felt, he was responsible for the trisha reitler disappearance. >> she had just a zest for life, and she would walk in the room and everybody knew she was there. >> trisha reitler, a 19-year-old psych major, was on her way to becoming a family counselor. >> her goal was to be able to put families back together again. >> then in march 1993, donna and gary reitler received that late night phone call every parent dreads. a cop from marion, indiana was on the line. >> he said, do you know where trisha is? in my heart, i knew that something was drastically wrong. >> trisha had walked to an off-campus supermarket and never returned to her dorm. now, nearly 20 years later, her parents are still waiting. >> you purchased her a cemetary plot. no headstone. >> no. not until we find her. >> somebody out there has that answer for us. >> trisha reitler wasn't even prosecutor beaumont's case, but he was deeply moved by her parents. >> that was always a horrible crime to me. i knew about the facts of the case and i knew about the family. i never met them, but i read all the newspaper articles and the accounts of them, you know, asking for help. >> beaumont felt certain that suspected serial killer larry hall was responsible. not only did hall live 25 minutes from indiana wesleyan, he had been identified chasing two co-eds there just a week after trisha went missing. so in the summer of 1995, a month after convicting hall for jesse roach's murder, beaumont was leading a search for trisha. it was in those same indiana back woods where hall had told indiana authorities he dreamt he killed and buried trisha. >> i wanted to do everything we could to find her body. >> but after two days in sweltering heat and humidity, trisha's body didn't turn up. >> we couldn't find anything. it doesn't mean it wasn't there. >> then beaumont decided to try something completely different. >> i came up with the idea of putting somebody in the prison cell with him to see if we could get him to tell us what he did with trisha reitler. >> they didn't think you were crazy? >> most people thought i was crazy, yeah. but i was able to convince them we should do it, anyway. >> and to jimmy keane, the drug dealer beaumont had just convicted and sent to a prison. >> why did this stick out in your mind? >> because i knew he was a con man, he was smart. if anybody could pull it off, he would be able to pull it off. >> you can go into a dangerous environment where a lot of people can't and you can maintain and protect yourself in an environment like that. >> in return, beaumont offered jimmy freedom, but first jimmy would have to exact more than a confession. >> i told him unless we found the body, he would get no credit. no body, you get nothing. >> jimmy was skeptical. he was a drug dealer, not a criminal profiler. and he knew this was a mission impossible. he said no. but then fate intervened. jimmy's dad suffered a stroke. weeks later, frail and sickly, he came to visit jimmy. >> my dad was in a wheelchair. this is big jim, the guy that had been superman to me my entire life. we cried through the window to each other and we talked for a while, and he didn't even know about the offer. nobody knew about it. >> jimmy now realized he had a one-time opportunity to fix the mess he had made for himself and get out while his dad was still alive. >> as soon as we were done with the visit, i called my lawyer and i said, tell beaumont i'm going to take him up on his offer. >> the mission was on. so on august 3rd, 1998, federal martials escorted jimmy into the psychiatric prison. >> once they stepped out the door, i was on my own. >> jimmy's cover story was that he was a convicted web runner that pushed him over the edge and landed him in the psych prison. the chief psychologist couldn't protect him, nor could his outside lifeline, a female fbi agent who visited as his girlfriend to monitor his progress. >> i did have a hotline to her, too, so if i got caught in a dangerous situation, i could get ahold of her, and the deal was they would have me out of there in 24 hours. >> they had your back. >> they had my back. >> at least that's what you thought. >> that's what i thought. >> when keane's mission began, it was all about him, his shot at freedom. he had few feelings, if any, about trisha reitler or her family. all he wanted was to get in and out with trisha's location and as fast as possible. day one. breakfast in the mess hall. jimmy zeroed in on larry hall. >> i was waiting with my tray and i look over and there he is, 20, 25 feet away from me, sitting there all by himself. it felt like a magnet was compelling me to come to him. and finally i bumped shoulders with him on purpose. >> jimmy explained he was a brand new inmate needing directions to the library. hallobliged. >> i contained of slapped him on the shoulder and i said, thanks a lot. i appreciate that from a cool guy like you. >> after that they occasionally talked. but the next step came when jimmy was invited to join hall's breakfast club. >> which in the prison system, it's a big thing of who you're invited to have your breakfast with. >> keane thought he was making progress, but then prison politics got in the way. >> i left the chow hall one morning, and two really big, muscular guys came up to me and they said, hey, the old man wants to talk to you right now. right now he wants to talk to you. >> the old man was celebrity mafia vincent bagato who used to wander around in his bathrobe pretending to be nuts. >> he said, what's wrong with you? what's wrong with you? why are you hanging with those baby killers? you hang with us from now on. maybe someone comes up and puts a knife in your back. and he'd be at my cell early in the morning. jimmy, jimmy, get up. we're going to go play some bocci ball. what about breakfast? we'll get in a round of bocci ball and then go have breakfast. >> that's all very nice except you're trying to get out of prison. >> exactly. >> vincent took up all his time and he barely had time to talk to hall. but then he learned that hall's favorite show was "america's most wanted." so one night jimmy would make a daring move, putting his body on the line just to gain larry's trust. coming up, jimmy's new best friend shares a nightmare. >> it was probably the hardest thing i've ever done in my life, to listen to this kind of stuff and not just rip him apart. >> when "the inside man" continues. 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United-statesNew-yorkTennesseeMissouriHollywoodCaliforniaIllinoisIndianaRiver-cityWashingtonDistrict-of-columbiaUtah charts when the prosecutor larry beaumont slid an accordian file in his direction. on top was a grisly photo of a dead girl. >> i flip the next page, and here's another mutilated dead girl. i'm thinking, whoa, wait a second. >> you're probably thinking that he is about to charge you with something else. >> i had been pretty rough on him in the initial prosecution. >> jimmy was in the dark. he had no idea the crazy scheme beaumont had in mind. >> he said, gem jimmy, listen, this is something we have another person on. he has killed many, many young women, and i personally think you're the one that can help us with this. >> this turned out to be an investigation to try and catch a suspected serial killer. beaumont, an outside the box thinker, believed this convict, jimmy keen, was the one who could somehow crack the case, taking on a unique and deadly mission. >> i realized how serious it was, and i also realized the danger of it. >> but what he couldn't know was how such a daring mission would change his world and the person he was forever. if this all seems fodder for a hollywood movie, brat pitt would agree. the mega star, who was benjamin button, then "moneyball" billy bean, is now interested in playing none other than jimmy keen. >> brad pitt likes the fact that this guy, jimmy keen, risked his life to try to find what he could find. >> clearly, this guy is one of a kind. charismatic, conceded, courageous, and complicated. from an early age, he had the personality, charm, and cockiness who made him dream that a hollywood star that might one day want to play him in the movies. his first big brush with fame came on the football field. >> i heard they called you the asassin in football. that was a good thing, i take it. >> i was taught my my dad at a young age. he said, son, if you don't hit that guy first, he is going to hit you and hurt you first. >> a superstar athlete and mr. popularity in high school, jimmy seemed to have it all as a big fish in the river city of illinois, a blue collar town south of chicago. >> i was most valuable player. i was captain of the team. every year that i played. >> jimmy grew up in the shadow of his father, big jim, a giant of a man who was a cop, fireman, and hero to his son. >> he was my best friend. he was my backbone in pretty much everything i did. >> but a terrible choice he made, as a teenager he began selling drugs. he started small, peddling bags of marijuana here in this park. then he expanded to cocaine. at the tender age of 17 he moved to chicago, where the business and profits exploded. he was now a big fish in a bigger pond. lake michigan to be exact. he was his own in crowd, fast cars, faster women and souped-up living. >> all the hot spots, all the big nightclubs, all the owners i was in tight with. i would come in there and have carte blanche in every place that i went to. >> were you feeling invincible? >> there was a certain point i felt there was an invincible feeling. >> did your pop suspect? >> he didn't suspect it until much, much later. >> it would be a rude awakening for both his dad and jimmy in 1996 when jimmy was just relaxing at one of his chicago homes. >> all of a sudden, kaboom, the whole door just blew off the hinges and came flying into the house. all of these d.e.a., fbi, and locals all came in in single file line with their automatic weapons pointed at me, freeze, get on the ground, get on the ground. >> he had been caught in a drug sting, spearheaded by that hard-nosed federal prosecutor, larry beaumont. >> we scooped him up in an operation that i ran, we called it operation snowplow. >> and in court, beaumont showed keen no mercy. >> he was coming at you on all fours. wasn't he? >> oh, god. he was a bulldog. >> jimmy was convicted and slapped with a ten-year sentence. >> it was a pretty stiff sentence. i knew he didn't expect to get ten years in that case. >> your father was in the courtroom. >> right. i knew i had let him down, and probably one of the biggest ways you could let somebody down. >> keene's future was bleak. he faced ten years away from his glamorous life, the fast women, fancy cars, the big bucks. but in 1998 just when all hope seemed lost, his old nemesis, beaumont, came to him with an offer of freedom, attached to the accordion file he slid across the table. in return, keene would have to agree to risk everything and become an undercover informant in one of the roughest prisons in the country, the maximum security lockup in springfield, missouri. it was a psychiatric prison, with both hard-core killers, and the criminally insane. >> these people all have life sentences. they're all in there, and they're crazy, and they have nothing better to do than to try to hurt you or kill you just for some fun. >> if he accepted beaumont's offer, keene's target would be a suspected serial killer, a mysterious man in a van. coming up, every picture tells a story. >> when i put the picture down, he flinched, raised his arm up and refused to look at the picture. you in heaven. wrapped in luxury. you in action. you in motion. you in luck. play in style. talking stick resort, scottsdale. book now to enjoy cactus league spring training rates. >> several years before jim where i came to arrest and conviction, his personal life, as he tells it, was nonstop fun and games. there were a lot of hot clubs here in the 1990s. this was a place you were doing business as well. >> lived, worked and played right here, yes. it was a good time. >> back then, he had no idea about the danger lurking 150 miles south and a lifestyle away that would change his life forever. rural tranquil georgetown, illinois, is where terry roach and her husband, loren, were raising their 15-year-old daughter jesse, and two other children, far removed from big-city crime. >> everybody knew who everybody was. so they were more conscious of what was going on usually. you could count on somebody to get after your kids if they needed it. >> in 1993, jesse was a high school sophomore, devoted to home and family. >> jesse was really very much of a homebody. so one bike ride up the road and back, she was done. then she would be watching "gone with the wind." >> one monday in september, jesse went out for a bike ride, but just minutes later her sister noticed jesse's beloved bike down on its side in the middle of the road. >> not on the side of the road, in the middle of the road? >> yeah. she would put the kick stand up, never lay the bicycle down. i immediately went down there and there's the bicycle. i knew something was wrong. >> deputy sheriff gary miller was dispatched to the scene. >> the more we learned about the family, and the girl's background, we just didn't feel that she was staying away by choice. >> the haunting image of a bike tipped over and abandoned terrified all the investigators, and of course, jesse's family. >> i mean, you never lose the hope for them to not come walking in. you still hope that. i mean, we knew she was not just going to walk away. >> after six weeks, jesse's parents' worst fears were realized. her body, beaten and sexually violated, was discovered in a cornfield. >> it can never be easy telling a parent that their child is dead. >> no, it wasn't. but at least we were able to tell them, this is her, she's gone. we were able to erase all doubts. >> gary miller had a murder case to solve, and it was now a federal case involving prosecutor larry beaumont as well, since jesse's body actually had been found across the illinois state line. for the next year, miller did lots of legwork, but to no avail. >> every day you get up, are you thinking about this case? >> every day. >> what have i missed? >> exactly. >> i know this case really shook him from the beginning. he would check any and all leads that would involve young girls and run them down. >> then late in 1994, miller's persistent finally paid off. a man in a van had been reported chasing two teenage girls in jesse's hometown of georgetown. miller traced to a man a three-hour drive from georgetown. >> your heartbeat starting to pick up? >> oh, yeah, this has got to be checked out. >> miller learned that hall was a gung-ho civil war reactor, a pretend union soldier who traveled the midwest to fight fantasy battles. miller immediately drove to wabash to interview hall, who wasn't saying much. so miller showed him a photo of jesse roach. >> when i put the picture down, he flinched, raised his arm up and turned in his chair. and refused to look at the picture. >> convinced larry hall was hiding something, miller became obsessed with making a case against him. days later, back in illinois, miller turned up a huge lead. he found witnesses who vividly remembered hall from a revolutionary war reenactment in the georgetown area the very weekend before jesse was abducted. to them, hall stood out for his bushy mutton chop side burns. but also for playing a soldier who was fighting the wrong war. >> he was wearing a civil war uniform, and he had a civil war hat. >> at a revolutionary reenactment? >> exactly. >> armed with this new information, deputy sheriff miller returned to wabash for a second crack at hall. this time, he pressed his suspect harder, stressing that hall's fellow reenactors had seen him near georgetown. >> he came along to the point where he said, well, you know, i go to so many reenactments, i could have been there, and i just don't remember, because i go to a lot of them. >> he's giving a little more ground. >> yes, right. >> miller sees the opening and kept at it. finally he said hall came clean, and confessed that he abducted, sexually violated and strangled jesse roach to death. >> how much detail did he give you about the killing of jessica roach? >> very good detail. what he actually did, and what took place. >> not only that, miller says larry hall confessed to other killings, including a co-ed from indiana wesleyan university from marion, indiana. deputy sheriff miller didn't know much about tricia, so he called on the local indiana police who had been handling that case. but when marion detective jay kay and other indiana cops arrived, hall was suddenly telling a much different story. he denied confessing to any killing, including jesse's and tricia's. what's more, he claimed it was all a misunderstanding, about disturbing dreams he had. >> he takes us out to a location where, in my dreams, i strangled her here and left her lay here. we searched the woods, we searched the area and never really found anything. >> the indiana cops who were familiar with hall were not at all surprised by his actions. some of them, like jay kay, thought hall might be a wannabe, a pretender who gets his kicks from confessing to crimes he didn't commit. is it possible he's simply obsessed with these cases and not involved. >> there's no doubt in my mind that he does follow these cases, that he does read and is attracted to cases all over the country. you know, so the question does come, is he a wannabe. >> deputy sheriff miller and prosecutor beaumont, however, felt certain they had a real killer on their hands. a serial killer with a unique m.o. he would drive across the country to play reenactment and play fantasy soldier, and prey on young women and kill for real. >> the fbi started discovering girls who were in fact missing at these various areas at the time larry hall would have been there. >> but the only case for which prosecutors had sufficient evidence was jesse roach's. larry hall was arrested in connection with her death, even though he denied making that confession to miller. hall went on trial in 1995. as a prosecutor, what's the best card you're holding? >> we had a statement, his confession, saying he did it. >> beaumont called deputy sheriff miller to the stand to testify that hall had indeed admitted that he abducted and killed jesse after he spotted her with her bicycle. >> she was walking her bike at that point. >> miller testified that in his confession, hall gave him a detail that only the killer would know, that jesse was not riding her bike, but walking it, a safety precaution the roaches insisted she follow when she's on the narrow road. that was never in the press that she was walking her bike that day. >> right. >> when you heard that, did that give more credence to the story? >> oh, yes. >> oh, yeah, that just sealed it for me. i knew he was the one. >> a jury unanimously agreed. it took just three hours to convict larry hall. but prosecutor beaumont believed this was just the tip of the iceberg. he felt certain hall was a serial killer and now he had to find a way to prove it. so he began investigating tricia reitler's abduction, a case that wasn't his, for a family he didn't even know. >> i can't imagine sending my daughter off to school, and never seeing her again. >> and he came up with an outside the box scheme to get hall. which would risk the life of that charismatic convict he had just put away for dealing drugs, jimmy keene. >> what happens when i deal with all these crazy killers and stuff, what if i get shanked, what if i get killed, am i going to survive this. >> coming up, a get out of jail there's this island -- and it's got super-cute kangaroos. barrow island has got rare kangaroos. ♪ chevron has been developing energy here for decades. we need to protect their environment. we have a strict quarantine system to protect the integrity of the environment. forty years on, it's still a class-a nature reserve. it's our job to look after them. ...it's my job to look after it. ♪ >> people typically don't admit sexual assaults and murders to police officers unless, many of the, they probably have done it. so it was clear, we felt, he was responsible for the tricia reitler disappearance. >> she had such a zest for life. and she would walk in the room and everybody knew she was there. >> tricia reitler, a 19-year-old psych major at indiana wesleyan university was on her way to becoming a family counselor. >> her goal was to be able to put families back together again. >> then, in march 1993, donna and gary reitler received that late-night phone call every rent dreads, a cop from marion, indiana, was on the line. >> he said, do you know where tricia is? in my heart, i knew that something was drastically wrong. >> tricia had walked to an off-campus supermarket, and never returned to her dorm. now, nearly 20 years later, her parents are still waiting. >> you purchased a cemetery plot. >> yes. >> no headstone. >> no, not until we find her. >> and we have no answers. and somebody out there -- that's what eats at me, somebody out there has that answer for us. >> tricia reitler wasn't even prosecutor beaumont's case, but he was deeply moved by her parents. >> that was always a horrible crime to me. i knew about the facts of the case and i knew about the family. i never met them, but i read all the newspaper articles and the accounts of them asking for help. >> beaumont felt certain that suspected serial killer larry hall was responsible. not only did hall live 25 minutes from indiana wesleyan, he had been identified chasing two co-eds there just a week after tricia went missing. so in the summer of 1995, a month after convicting hall for jesse roach's murder, beaumont was leading a search for tricia. it was in those same indiana back woods where hall had told indiana authorities he dreamt he killed and buried tricia. >> i wanted to feel like i did everything i could, to see if we could find her body. >> but after two days searching in sweltering heat and humidity, tricia's body didn't turn up. >> we couldn't find anything. it doesn't mean it waste there. >> then beaumont decided to try something completely different. >> i came up with the idea of putting someone in the prison cell with him to see if we could get him to tell us what he did with tricia reitler. most people did think i was crazy. but i was able to convince them we should do it anyway. >> enter jimmy keene, the drug dealer beaumont had just convicted and sent to a low-security prison. why did he stick out in your mind? >> because i knew he was kind of a con man. he was smart. i knew if anybody could pull it off, he would be the one to pull it off. >> you can go into a dangerous environment where a lot of people can't and you can maintain and protect yourself within an environment like that. >> in return, beaumont offered jimmy freedom. but first jimmy would have to exact more than a confession. >> i told him, unless we found the body, he would get no credit. no body, you get nothing. >> jimmy was skeptical. he was a drug dealer, not a criminal profiler. and he knew this was a mission impossible. he said no. but then fate intervened. jimmy's dad suffered a stroke. weeks later, frail and sickly, he came to visit jimmy. >> my dad was in a wheelchair. this is big jim, the guy that had been superman to me my whole entire life. we cried to each other through the window and talked for a while. he didn't even know about the offer. >> jimmy now realized that he had a one-time-only opportunity to fix the mess he'd made for himself, and get out while his dad was still alive. >> as soon as we were done with the visit, i called my lawyer and said, tell beaumont i'm going to take him up on his offer. >> the mission was on. so on august 3rd, 1998, federal marshals escorted jimmy into the psychiatric prison. >> once they stepped out the door, i was on my own. >> jimmy's cover story was that he was a convicted weapons runner whose 40-year sentence pushed him over the edge and landed him in the psych prison. a psych prison filled with killers. his one inside contact, the chief psychiatrist, couldn't protect him. nor could his outside lifeline, female fbi agent who visited as his girlfriend to monitor his progress. >> i did have a hotline to her, too. so if i got caught in a dangerous situation, i could get ahold of her, and the deal was they would have me out of there in 24 hours. >> they had your back. >> they had my back. >> at least you thought. >> at least i thought. >> when keene's mission began, it was all about him, his shot at freedom. he had few feelings, if any, about tricia reitler or her family. all he wanted was to get in and out with tricia's location, and as fast as possible. day one, breakfast in the mess hall. jimmy zeroed in on larry hall. >> i was waiting with my tray, and i look over and there he is, 20, 25 feet away from me, sitting there all by himself. it felt like a magnet was compelling me to come to him. finally i bumped shoulders with him on purpose. >> jimmy explained he was a brand-new inmate, needing directions to the library. hall obliged. >> i kind of slapped him on the shoulder and said, thanks a lot. i appreciate that, from a cool guy like you. >> after that, they occasionally talked. but the next step came when jimmy was invited to join hall's breakfast club. >> which in the prison system, it's a big thing of who you're invited to have your breakfast with. >> keene thought he was making progress, but then prison politics got in the way. >> i left the chow hall one morning, and a few really big muscular guys came up to me and said, hey, the old man wants to talk to you right now. right now he wants to talk to you. >> the old man was celebrity mafioso chin, the odd father who used to wander around new york city in his bathrobe pretending to be nuts. >> he goes, hey, boy, what's wrong with you? what's wrong with you? why are you hanging around with those baby killers there for? you hang with us from now on. you hang around them people, maybe somebody comes up and puts a knife in your back. and he would be at my cell early in the morning, jimmy, get up. we're going to go play some bache ball. >> it's all very nice, except you're trying to get out of prison. >> exactly. >> the chin was taking up jimmy's valuable time, making it harder to even talk to hall. but then he learned hall's favorite show was "america's most wanted." so one saturday night in the tv room, jimmy would make a daring move. putting his body on the line, just to gain larry's trust. coming up, jimmy's new best friend shares a nightmare. >> it was probably the hardest thing i've ever done in my life, to listen to this kind of stuff. and that just ripped him apart. >> when "the inside man" continues. by the fall of 1998, after several months in missouri's toughest federal prison, jimmy keene could have won a popularity contest. he charmed everyone, just as beaumont knew he would. he even won over some convicts with his lending library of pornographic magazines. and he had managed to placate the chin and the mob faction by day, while circling his prey, suspected serial killer larry hall with one-on-one bull sessions at night. >> we just talked about a lot of normal things, hung out, made him feel like i was wanting to be his friend. >> but it wasn't fast enough for keene, who feared someone might recognize him, and blow his cover. >> if you went by the fbi's technical terms, i was pretty much staying right on pace. but from my point of view of being in this place, it was starting to get very hard. >> on the outside, the mission mastermind, larry beaumont, could only sit and wait for secondhand news on how this crazy scheme of his was going. were you pacing the floors waiting for updates during all this? >> i don't know if i paced the floors, but i was eager to get updates. i had information he was starting to trust him. they were talking, that kind of thing. >> but beaumont had absolutely no idea that a break-through moment had arrived. it was a saturday night. keene and hall were in the prison's tv room watching "america's most wanted" again. >> here comes this big prisoner, and he's a big, muscular buff guy. he walked over to the tv and turned the channel. and hall looks at me and says, mumbles under his breath, he says, hey, that's not right. i was watching that. i thought, you know what, this is a prime opportunity for me. >> jimmy, a martial arts expert, who continued working out in prison, was ready for this moment. he got up and changed the channel back. >> he jumped up and he's slobbering all over the place, you turn that channel again i'll rip your head off! you don't touch that tv. he's going on all crazy and stuff. he turned the channel and sits back down. i just looked at him and turned the channel again. he jumped up and starts cussing at me. i finally threw a particular cuss word at him that i knew would set him off. as soon as i did, he took a wild haymaker swing at him. i come up with an upper cut and nailed him and kicked him through three rows of chair, and beat him to a pulp. >> hall had a ringside view of saturday night's event. he staunchly defended jimmy as the retaliator and not the instigator when they asked prisoners about the tv room brawl. you're larry hall's new hero. >> yeah, i became his new best friend and hero, too. >> jimmy could sense that his heroics brought him even closer to hall, and now he was ready to make a bold move. in the prison library, jimmy had figured out a strategy to draw hall out on tricia reitler. >> i noticed he was reading his hometown newspaper. that was really important eventually for me to start cracking into his psyche. >> even though the goal was trisha's body, jimmy decided to ask first about something already public knowledge, hall's conviction in the jesse roach case. jimmy fibbed that his mother lived near wabash and read about jesse's case and others involving hall. >> she gets that newspaper from that hometown where you're from. and i said, in all the newspaper stories, they say you've killed multiple women. >> that was a big risk. >> it all was a big risk. i said, larry, i don't care what you're in here for. just be honest with me. that's all. just tell me what happened. i'm still going to be your friend no matter what. i've had girls do me wrong in my life. i understand how girls can get under your skin and how they can be bothersome to you. >> jimmy said he pressed hall about jesse roach. at last, hall began to open up, recalling that september day in 1993. >> he was driving down a back country road and he seen her walking her bicycle. >> hall then told jimmy exactly how he abducted and killed jesse. >> you must have been revolted. >> oh, god. lester, it was probably the hardest thing i've ever done many my life to sit there and pretend to be his friend, to lisp to this kind of stuff, and not just rip him apart. but i knew what the mission involved, i knew what was at stake for me, what was at stake for the people's families who were still trying to find their daughters. >> a major transformation was taking place. jimmy was starting to care about more than just himself. and now he was determined to squeeze the most crucial confession out of larry hall, and not just for himself, but for the family of tricia reitler. >> i started thinking, i don't know where this is still going to lead, how long this is going to take, but something's now happening. >> coming up, a disturbing discovery. has jimmy keene solved the mystery of the missing girls. >> what are these? he said, they watch over the dead, jimmy. he said, they do. >> when "the inside man" continues. [ crickets chirping ] [ traffic passing ] ♪ [ music box: lullaby ] [ man on tv, indistinct ] ♪ [ lullaby continues ] [ baby coos ] [ man announcing ] millions are still exposed to the dangers... of secondhand smoke... and some of them can't do anything about it. ♪ [ continues ] [ gasping ] don't start by lifting 400 pounds, running a marathon your first day out or jumping on some crazy fad diet. start small, because small changes are easier to stick with than the big ones the more you know. jimmy keene's five months of hell, five months making nice to a killer he despised, had finally paid off. hall had described in gruesome detail how he murdered jesse roach. >> i opened that door, and he's feeling that he can trust me enough now. >> but jimmy felt he needed to wait a bit before going for the goal line. >> i had to slowly keep prodding. i didn't want him to think i was piling on. >> so he carefully plotted his next move. days later he thought the time was right. he tried that hometown newspaper ploy again. >> i said, you know, the newspapers say that you killed this girl from the college over here. i said, what happened there? >> jimmy couldn't be sure how hall would react. had he been too blunt, too direct? no, it was all clicking. according to jimmy, hall began to open up about tricia, and said he drove his van right up to her that day he saw her outside school. >> he said that he tried to kiss her, and when he did, she started fighting very violently. he said she was a very strong girl and she fought stronger than anybody had ever fought before. >> did he admit it? >> he said that he had killed her, and he knew he had done it again. these are his words, that he knew he had done it again, and he said he went way out in the woods and buried her way out in the woods. >> jimmy needed more specific information. luckily, he seemed to stumble into it a few nights later when he spotted hall inside the prison wood shop, a restricted area. >> there's nobody at the door, no guards or anything. as i came up from behind him, he had all these little different statues lined up, 10, 15 of them maybe. and i couldn't tell what they were at first. as i got closer, i noticed he had a big map laid out. he dove on that map and folded that thing up really fast and slid it off to the side of the table. i was like, what are these things anyway? he said, they are these little falcons and they watch over the dead, jimmy, they do. they looked like a good size chess piece. >> jimmy had a feeling it was a journal keeping. >> that map had little red dots all over of it illinois, indiana, wisconsin. you looked down at this map and you could see all of those little spots are burial spots where he's got somebody. >> all those months of dangerous, painstaking work had paid off. jimmy had cracked the case. mission accomplished. once you see the map, the falcons, you want to tell the fbi about it, right? >> i did. i went to the hotline i had for the fbi girl. i called. i got some type of a voice recording, it was after hours. >> so jimmy left a message for his fbi contact to come get him, the map and the falcons, his freedom and the answers to tricia's parents' prayers were now just hours away. >> i was elated. i felt i wrapped this up. >> you're expecting the troops to come marching. >> expecting the troops to come marching in. it didn't quite work that way. >> what he couldn't know is his fbi contact didn't get his voicemail. and his one inside contact, the chief psychiatrist, was on vacation. you got a little full of yourself, didn't you? >> i did. i went back to my cell. i was really happy. i thought, you know what, 24 hours, they said they'll have me out of here. i got what they need. this is it. so i went across to his cell over there. >> impulsively, jimmy decided he just couldn't leave prison without giving his fake friend a piece of his mind. >> the repulsiveness i felt throughout the whole time i had to stay being his friend, and the disdain and dislike i had for him, i thought it was good for me to unload on him and tell him what i really thought of him and who he really was. i said, you know, i'm going to be going home tomorrow, larry. you're a crazy killer. and i started calling him everything you can think of. >> with that, jimmy returned to his cell and waited to be released. you're going home the next day you think, and things took another turn. >> about 5:30 in the morning i hear some little lady in a white doctor's smock come walking in. >> it was hall's psychology, and she was furious that jimmy had blasted her patient, turning him into an emotional wreck. >> she told the guards to grab him, take him, throw him in the hole. so they put me in the hole. i'm not worried, so what, the fbi will be here. they told me 24 hours they'll have me out of here. >> but morning turned into afternoon, into evening. and the cavalry still hadn't arrived. this was hard time, at its hardest. >> you can't see if it's day or night, because you're in the hole. but you can tell what the time of the day or night it is by what meal's coming through the door slot. next thing you know, here's breakfast, lunch, dinner, here's coming breakfast, lunch. i thought, where are these guys. my thoughts were, they did me wrong. they got what they needed. they got the info and they pulled the rug out from under me. >> while jimmy was wondering where they were, beaumont was looking for him, too. >> we were like, where could he be? he's in the prison for god's sakes. >> they lost you. >> they lost me. >> but had they also lost their best chance at finding the body of tricia reitler. larry beaumont successfully larry beaumont successfully snuck informant jimmy keene into a springfield prison in 1998. he just didn't expect to lose him there. goes off your radar. >> he disappeared. a couple weeks we didn't know what the heck happened to him. we were getting frantic. >> two weeks later, only after keene's psychiatrist contact returned from vacation did they finally find jimmy. >> i knew the fbi was there. and she kept apologizing. she kept saying, i'm really sorry. something happened with the message. >> investigators got to search the wood shop and hall's cell. but by then, the map and the falcons, items jimmy believed could lead to tricia, were gone. what were you thinking telling larry hall you're out of here and dressing him down? >> people probably wouldn't understand the mounting pressure, that kettle is ready to boil over at any time. it just felt good to unload on the guy. >> the problem as i see it, you've unloaded on him, he knows you're against him. but nobody has that map. >> i'm disappointed i didn't wait another day or two at least. i should have waited a few more days. i wish i could have done more for them. but i did all i could do. >> meantime, the people who would benefit the most from a successful mission, tricia's parents, only learned about the operation ten years later in 2008 when the story came out in a "playboy" magazine article. the reitlers are thankful for jimmy's courage and the details he said he got from hall. but they're furious he blew his cover before finding their daughter. >> why would you have been so close and give it up like you did? >> i try not to dwell on that at all. because it eats at me. and it's very hard to deal with that he was that close. >> jesse roach's parents find small consolation in that jesse was the victim who tripped up hall. >> if something good could possibly come out of losing jesse, it's the fact he's in prison and he will never get released. >> hall remains in federal prison with no possibility of parole. in recent years, he actually has made more murder confessions, to reporters and investigators. >> i sincerely believe that there are young girls out there somewhere who are alive today because larry hall is in prison. >> do you think he's killed before? >> i think he killed before, and i think he would kill again. >> jimmy did tell beaumont that hall had killed again, but there was no documentation. it was just jimmy's word. so to be sure, the prosecutor made him take a lie detector test. and jimmy passed with flying colors. >> he was telling us the truth. so the bottom line is, we had further information that larry was responsible for tricia. >> a grateful beaumont decided to reward him for full credit for his brave undercover work, releasing him from prison and scrubbing his criminal record clean. >> from his perspective, he expected to get nothing. but from my perspective, of course, he spent time in the looney bin with this guy and went through this whole process. >> for 15 years, jimmy had been the only one to see those falcons that hall said watched over the dead. >> the problem is, we never got them. they disappeared. we don't know what happened to them. >> you've never seen the falcons? >> no. >> i want to show you a picture. >> that's one of the falcons. >> "dateline" took pictures of a falcon, when we met larry hall's twin brother. he said larry carved the falcon in the wood shop at the springfield prison, and then mailed it to their mother. i showed a photo of that falcon to both beaumont and jimmy. what's it like for you to see that after all these years? >> it's definitely bizarre. but it's also reassuring to me, lester, and i'll tell you why. now these falcons back up everything i said, this is exactly what it looked like. >> after becoming a free man in 1999, jimmy got to spend five more years with the father he idolized before big jim passed away. and he's kept his nose clean, not wasting his incredible opportunity. >> he sees the whole experience as something that gave him a second chance at life. >> he's done well in real estate, and co-wrote a book with author hillel levin, in with the devil, which tells jimmy's compelling story of redemption. he said he's now working on several hollywood projects, most notably the movie version of his book, the academy-award winning producer of departed is interested and owns flem rights. and brad pitt, from springfield, missouri, helms is interested. >> i've talked with brad pitt and his people, and brad pitt loves the relationship that i had with my father. he loves the fact that this happened in his own hometown. >> but jimmy is especially proud, he said, that his book reenergized some cold case investigations, several targeting hall in indiana and wisconsin. at least one near a civil war reenactment site. investigators recently dug up locations where hall spent time over the years. and found articles of women's clothing, and a belt modified with wooden handles, all sent out for dna testing. but cold case detectives following fresh leads still haven't developed enough evidence to bring charges. >> the walls are closing in on him. there would be no cold case files open if it weren't for me. none. i did a good deed, and i did a lot of good things, and that's where i feel the redemption comes in. i've done something good for the things that i did wrong. that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us.
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