Narrator Joel Patrick Courtney was sitting in jail in albuquerque. It was december 2004. The married father of three was facing decades in prison if convicted of kidnapping, sexual assault, and battery charges. As investigators began checking out the possible link to Brooke Wilbergers case, a call went out to her family. They had waited more than six months for news, any news, about their daughters disappearance. Now, there was a man in custody who they thought might be able to reunite them with their daughter, just as Elizabeth Smart had been returned to her family. What are you thinking in that when you hear this . Actually, i had prayed so faithfully all fall that whoever had done this would make a mistake. And when i heard the news, i thought, they made a mistake. They tried it again. And No One Else knew what id prayed, because i hadnt told anyone else, because it was always, Find Brooke. You know, help us to Find Brooke. I guess that was a selfish prayer, you know, to help whoever had done this to make a mistake. And then i felt like, they made a mistake. Narrator but if this mistake could help Find Brooke, investigators first had to find out all they could about this latest possible suspect. And specifically, they wanted to know more about that suspects ties to oregon. Detectives quickly determined that Joel Courtney grew up in beaverton, a Portland Suburb about 75 miles from where brooke disappeared. But that had been 20 years before. Police also knew he had lived in several different states. The question was, had courtney been anywhere near corvallis on The Day of the kidnapping . There was one person who could answer that question and many more. Her name . Dina mcbride. She is Joel Courtneys older sister. She lives in portland. My first thought is, cute, dimpled, little blonde hair, mischievous kid, you know, with a sweet little spirit and a hilarious laugh. Narrator days before Corvallis Police got that Phone Call from albuquerque and heard the name Joel Courtney for the first time, dina had received a call herself. It was from joels wife, with word of his arrest in New Mexico. Dina and her mother took in the news together. How did your Mom React . She was horrified. You know, there were very lit very few details. But she felt like The Truth needs to come out. Narrator but The Truth was hard to figure out in those first moments. The Scowling Man in the mugshot was hardly the joel his sister knew when he was little. I remember him coming home from the hospital. I remember him toddling. I remember all the classic childhood milestones. And we were a very, very happy family. At some point, did you see a shift . When he was probably 11ish, he started hanging out with some older kids. I remember my Mom Kind of backtracking and saying, you know, i think thats really when it started. Narrator it was joels drug use. And before long, when joel became a teenager, more reason to worry. He was starting to dabble in some satanism a little Bit And Kind of explaining how much power it gave him, in a sense of, you know, a rush of being in control or whatever. And yeah, he he was pretty good at throwing a punch here or there. Scare you . Yeah, it hurt me. Yeah. So around the same time that he dabbles in satanism, he starts becoming physical . Mmhmm. Narrator but as joel got older and more violent, his sister says he was handsome enough, charming enough, and smart enough to get away with a lot of bad behavior. At some point in time, it was in thing to have Iq Testing in school. I remember not being as smart as i had hoped and hearing that he had a Geniuslevel Iq and Genius Level . Mmhmm. Did he study a lot . Did he read books . He loved to read books, but no, he kind of got away with really good grades with very little effort, which seemed monumentally unfair to me. Narrator Joel Courtneys luck would eventually run out. He had a string of arrests for shoplifting and other offenses and was in and out of Juvenile Detention until he was 18. Thats when joel admitted beating and sexually assaulting a woman he had known in High School. He blamed the crime on drugs and alcohol, and a judge sentenced courtney to probation. He never finished High School and worked various jobs as a fisherman in alaska and as a mechanic. He got married at 23 to rosie, who was from mexico. He and rosie had three children. And eventually, courtney seemed to settle down, savoring his role as a father and building a life in that home in an albuquerque suburb. What kind of father was he . He changed diapers. He got up in the middle of the night. He made lunches. He you know, there are a lot of pictures of him on the Ground Wrestling with the kids and, you know, laying in the grass, you know, looking at Fourleaf Clover Kind of stuff. Kind of just the kind of dad that we had, the kind of dad who was involved and wanted to be there for his kids. Narrator but now, at age 38, this seemingly loving father was facing the trial of his life locked up, caught with a Crack Pipe and a knife, charged with kidnapping and sexual assault. And given his checkered history, something, maybe intuition, maybe the massive Media Coverage throughout oregon of a similar crime, a young, beautiful female College Student snatched off The Street just months before, something compelled dina and her family to ask the question themselves, the very questions Corvallis Police were just beginning to look at. Just the details that we heard about the case in New Mexico, there were some similarities. And so you thought to yourself could it be . No. I mean, you you couldnt even say the whole sentence because it was unthinkable, right . Narrator Coming Up, new clues provide an Answer And Break brookes Case Wide Open this was dynamite to us. Narrator when dateline continues. When you have moderate to severe eczema, its okay to show off. With dupixent, show off your clearer skin and less itch. Because you have plenty of reasons to show off your skin. With dupixent, the 1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists and allergists, you can stay ahead of your eczema. It helps block a key source of inflammation inside the body that can cause eczema to help heal your skin from within. Many adults saw 90 clearer skin, some even achieved longlasting clearer skin and fast Itch Relief after first dose. Serious allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Tell your doctor about new or worsening Eye Problems such as Eye Pain or vision changes including blurred vision, Joint Aches and pain, or a parasitic infection. Dont change or stop asthma medicines without talking to your doctor. Show off to the world. Ask your Eczema Specialist about dupixent. An alternative to pills, voltaren is a clinically proven Arthritis Pain Relief gel, which penetrates deep to target the source of pain with nonsteroidal antiinflammatory medicine directly at the source. Voltaren, the joy of movement. [coughs] when caroline has a cough, she takes robitussin. So, she can have those one on ones again. Hey jim can we talk about Casual Fridays . Oh sure. Whats up . Get fast, powerful Cough Relief with robitussin, and find your voice. Robitussin you can feel it, when your dream becomes a pursuit. And with vitiligo, the pursuit for your pigment is no exception. Its time you had a proven choice to help restore whats yours. Opzelura is the first and only fdaapproved Prescription Treatment for nonsegmental vitiligo. Proven to help Repigment Skin over time. Restoring whats yours. Its possible with a Steroidfree Cream that you can apply yourself. Opzelura can lower your ability to fight infections including Tb Or Hepatitis b or c. Serious lung infections, skin cancer, blood clots, and low Blood Cell counts occurred with opzelura. In people taking jak inhibitors, serious infections, increased risk of death, lymphoma, other cancers, and major cardiovascular events have occurred. The most common Side Effects were Acne And Itching where applied. Repigmentation is possible. Ask your Dermatologist Today about starting or refilling opzelura. Pursue it. About starting or refilling opzelura. Time seemed to tick by so slowly during those long months when investigators were searching for clues in the disappearance of Brooke Wilberger minutes, hours, days. But in early december 2004, more than six months after she went missing, it was as if the clock suddenly sped up. Police in corvallis, oregon were struck by the parallels between Brookes Abduction and the crimes Joel Patrick Courtney was accused of in albuquerque. From our perspective, its his Signature Crime right next to the university of New Mexico campus, a young woman, you know, attractive, broad daylight, abduction in a vehicle, drives away. So yeah, we we were real excited that we were on the right track at that point. Narrator by the time police learned Joel Courtneys name, joels sister, dina, and her family had been thinking about the same connection for days. We couldnt even say the words out loud. We actually were up until late hours of the morning going back over the calendar, thinking, could he have done that . And we decided to pray about it. What were your prayers . We really prayed that god would would give us wisdom that we would make the right choices, that we would speak when we needed to speak and not speak when we when it was not wise. Narrator dina waited, saying nothing, until a week later, Corvallis Police looking for information about her brother, called her. In that moment, do you know in your heart that he did something . In that moment, i did not know that. I thought too many coincidences to automatically discount it, right . You cant just assume because hes your brother, somebody that you love, that he couldnt have, right . Narrator what dina told police was revealing. During their first interviews, she shared some dark family secrets. When she was a teenager, her brother, joel, had attacked her. He would come in in the middle of the night, and put a hand around my neck, and attempt to sexually assault me. More than once . More than once, yeah. And i had a great, oldfashioned Windup Alarm Clock that met his head. Narrator two more Courtney Family members would soon come forward claiming joel had raped or tried to rape them. The further we got into the investigation, as far as the number of people we interviewed, the more sexual assaults came to light. Narrator and more pieces of the puzzle were coming together quickly. Despite their troubled past, Dina And Joel had maintained a relationship over the years. Joels sister now showed police these photographs of joel and his family, not at their home in New Mexico, but visiting dinas home in the Portland Suburbs in may 2004, the very month Brooke Wilberger disappeared. Joel, his wife, rosie, and three kids needed a place to stay. Joel had gotten a job supervising a cleaning crew, a job that meant hed be traveling all over the state of oregon. We were under the impression theyd be there for a couple of months. A lot of the time, there would be you know, he would bow out fairly early on. Ive got to go Do Something for work. And so it was mostly rosie and the kids with the rest of us. So he was traveling quite a bit . That was my understanding, yeah. And then this bombshell. May 24, the Day Brooke was abducted, was one of those days when Joel Courtney was traveling. He had a court date, turns out, over on the Oregon Coast on that drunken driving charge, but he never showed up. According to court records, he called the courthouse and said he was going to be late. And that Phone Call was made from the very town where brooke disappeared, right here in corvallis. Joel courtney then disappeared for about 36 hours before returning to dinas home in the Portland Suburbs. He walked through the door and announced kind of loudly, youll never believe where ive been. And i said, ok, where were you . I was kidnapped. There were these guys. There were guns and knives, and we were in the woods, and it was rainy and cold. And there was a girl there, and we were hiding. And, you know, there was blood, and it was awful. Narrator at the time, dina chalked it up to joels chronic drug abuse. Hes delusional . Mmhmm. You just think hes coming off some bad drugs . Mmhmm. You dont call 911 . No. Narrator dina says she didnt feel like she was in danger in that moment, so she did not call authorities. But all those months later, sitting with investigators, she suddenly realized how crucial that strange conversation with joel might have been. Just as i was saying it, it occurred to me, oh, my word, could he have been was he talking about that . Narrator and she remembered, the very next day after brooke disappeared, her brother, joel, would visit his doctor in portland, complaining of Chest Pains and anxiety. But all this information, while damning, was nothing more than circumstantial evidence of joels potential involvement in brookes disappearance. Without brooke or if she were dead, her body, detectives had no physical proof linking joel to the crime, until, that is, police learned what joel was driving the Day Brooke disappeared, a green Dodge Caravan with Minnesota License plates supplied by the Cleaning Company he worked for. The minute you hear a green minivan with a minnesota plate, somebody remembers that that was one of your tips . Oh, Absolutely. Narrator actually, two separate tips pulled from The Database of thousands called in to police. The first at 9 30 am, just an hour before and 100 Yards North of where brooke was kidnapped. A blonde Osu Student said a white male adult in a green minivan approached her and opened the back of his van to look for a map. When she saw a blanket on the floor, she rushed off, telling the man she was late for class. Then, a University Athletic Official called to report a man in a Dodge Caravan, possibly green, with minnesota plates asking a female student for directions in the Stadium Parking Lot in close proximity to where wilberger was abducted. The witness was later asked to identify the man in this Photo Lineup and picked out Joel Courtney. I mean, this was dynamite to us. This told us, this is our guy at the moment. You know, we needed to focus on him and find the van. Thats our one piece of physical evidence that weve got to get now. Narrator and thats exactly what the fbi did. Agent Joe Boyer found the van in Washington State and had it taken apart piece by piece and shipped to an Fbi Lab across the country. We knew that if we were going to prove that Joel Courtney was responsible for this, the best chance we had was to find evidence of brooke being in the van. Narrator the Wilberger Family was informed. They wanted to know The Truth but were almost afraid to discover more about Joel Courtney and his crimes. I googled him and passed it on to you. You googled him . Sure, yeah. What was it like to see his face . You know, i just looked at him, and and at that point, it was just a numb feeling, you know . Even then, i didnt feel hatred. You know, it was just i was all about getting brooke back. I want to know what you did and where she is. Narrator but neither the wilbergers, nor investigators, nor Courtneys Sister could ever have guessed how they would get the answer to the question, where was brooke . Coming up, evidence finally implicates Joel Courtney in brookes kidnapping. Thats the smoking gun. Thats the nail in the coffin. Narrator but will that help bring Brooke Home . When dateline continues. The moment i met him i knew he was my soulmate. Soulmates. Soulmate [giggles] why do you need me . [laughs sarcastically] but then we switched to tmobile 5g home internet. And now his attention is spent elsewhere. But im thinking of her the whole time. Thats so much worse. Why is that thing in bed with you . This is where it gets the best signal from the Cell Tower ive tried everywhere else in the house theres always a new excuse. Well if we got xfinity you wouldnt have to mess around with the connection. Therapys tough, huh . Mmm. Its like a lot about me. [laughs] a Home Router should never be a home wrecker. Oo this is a good book title. Introducing a revolution in Pain Relief. Absorbine junior pro, the strongest numbing Pain Relief available. Its the only solution with two Max Strength anesthetics for fast penetrating Relief Absorbine junior pro. Nothing numbs pain more. In the months after Joel Courtney had emerged as a suspect in Brooke Wilbergers disappearance, brookes mom had desperately tried to hold on to the hope that her daughter was still alive. But Cami Wilbergers heart was finally giving in to what her head was telling her. I just had this sick feeling. Even though i would never give up hope you know, my My Motherly Hope was always there, i knew Deep Down that, you know, she was probably gone. Narrator and it would be another mom in another state who would move the story forward. Joel courtney had already been interviewed by the fbi but refused to