On Mar 28, 2024, in Everett, Washington, at around 7:00 AM, four-year-old Ariel Garcia was declared missing. The boy is Hispanic with brown hair and brown eyes. He is 3 feet, 1 inch tall and weighs 37 pounds. Ariel went missing at an apartment on Vesper Drive.

Ariel’s mother, Janet Garcia, struggles with drug and alcohol. To the point that it made her leave for days. And frequently without notice. Her grandmother described her daughter as being both violent and unpredictable.

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May 20th, 2020, two police officers arrive at a Grand Forks, North Dakota apartment complex. It’s around 2:00 PM and a sunny day. The officers are there to serve eviction papers to 41-year-old Salamah Pendleton and his mother Lola Moore. Nothing will go to plan.

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On August 18, 1988, Noberto Piertri walked away from the Lantana Community Correctional Work Release Center. At the time, he was restricted to the center's grounds while he awaited transfer to a more secure facility. Or, in other words, he escaped.

Heather Claypool is sleeping. It’s early morning hours. A small creak stirs her. Between squinted eyes she scans the side of her bed. It was probably someone downstairs. She lived in an apartment. Heather drifts back to sleep. Another creak. She sits up. There is a man crouched at the end of your bed.

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Around 10 p.m. on January 30, 1993, Lynette Tschida went to the Winn Dixie store in Eustis, Florida. It was at the Grove Square Shopping Center in Lake County. She saw a young man and a teenage boy sitting on a bench near the entrance of the store.

As she walked in the store, she noticed how intense the older one was. He was tall, muscular. His smooth, but dark skin and handsome features betrayed by a scowl. He watched Lynette enter the store and she felt his eyes on her back as the automatic doors slid shut.

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Nine year old Brisenia is sleeping in the living room of her home. She’s not sleeping in her bedroom because she’s so excited that she got a new puppy. At that age these experiences are so magical for us.

Her mother told her that her bed was freshly made with clean sheets. If Bresenia wanted to sleep with the puppy, then it needed to be in the living room. It was an easy choice. Raul Flores and Gina Marie Gonzalez, his wife, are sleeping in their bed.

It’s 1AM in the morning when someone knocks on their door.

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July 25, 2018

Lakemoor, Illinois

Officer Brianna Tedesco starts her shift. It’s 11:00 p.m. She’s scheduled until 7:00 a.m. Tedesco is dressed in her duty uniform of shirt, pants, and outer ballistic vest. She has her Lakemoor Police badge and name plate pinned to the outside of her vest and is wearing a duty belt which includes her standard duty gear.

Her body camera is equipped and, along with a squad camera microphone, she has a microphone clipped to her left shoulder. Listener, the body cam and microphones will give us insight into the worst day of Officer Tedesco’s career. And present to us the night that she peered the eyes later described as soulless.

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July 2009

Escambia County, Florida

Leonard “Patrick” Gonzales Jr., age 35, is broke. He’s desperate for cash. So desperate that his mom is paying his bills. Patrick, of course, finds this embarrassing. Against his wife Tabitha’s better judgment, he invested their savings into a Karate School. Savings that the two saved up together working at Long-Wiggins’ antique business.

But the Karate business, like 40 percent of businesses in the United States, went belly up. And that little venture has placed Patrick (and by extension Tabitha) in financial jeopardy. Patrick felt like he was letting his family down. Both his wife and his children. But he had an idea. His ticket out of this whole mess was 66-year-old Byrd "Bud" Starling Billings

Escambia County, Florida

Leonard “Patrick” Gonzales Jr., age 35, is broke. He’s desperate for cash. So desperate that his mom is paying his bills. Patrick, of course, finds this embarrassing. Against his wife Tabitha’s better judgment, he invested their savings into a Karate School. Savings that the two saved up together working at Long-Wiggins’ antique business.

But the Karate business, like 40 percent of businesses in the United States, went belly up. And that little venture has placed Patrick (and by extension Tabitha) in financial jeopardy. Patrick felt like he was letting his family down. Both his wife and his children. But he had an idea. His ticket out of this whole mess was 66-year-old Byrd "Bud" Starling Billings

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