What Happened to Amy?

Transcript

Speaker 1 Digline is sponsored by Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

Speaker 1 Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about.
In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply.
See capital One.com slash bank, Capital One NA member FDIC.

Speaker 3 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

Speaker 6 But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 8 Zen is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Speaker 9 Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.

Speaker 11 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 13 Check out Zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 15 Warning, this product contains nicotine.

Speaker 16 Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 5 I'm Lester Holt. Tonight on Dateline, a different kind of story.
The baffling case of a little girl kidnapped. And investigators want you to help.

Speaker 18 She was my first friend. I remember walking by her classroom that day.
It was the last time I saw her.

Speaker 17 What did you think had happened?

Speaker 20 I didn't know.

Speaker 18 I was scared, though.

Speaker 5 She vanished one October afternoon.

Speaker 20 10-year-old Amy Miholovic.

Speaker 21 Is Amy there? Is Amy there?

Speaker 22 She never came home from school.

Speaker 23 She was going to meet somebody and go buy a present for her mother.

Speaker 24 Whatever is wrong, just have her come home.

Speaker 5 It's been a mystery for more than 30 years.

Speaker 20 Who took Amy? These are photos of a lot of your evidence.

Speaker 5 Now investigators are opening their files to us.

Speaker 20 This is more like your Ted Bundy type. Correct.

Speaker 5 Tonight, you'll get the chance to help crack this case.

Speaker 23 We want to hear from you.

Speaker 26 Just call with that minute piece of information.

Speaker 27 You pick and you pick and you pick and boom, it's solved.

Speaker 18 There's still a killer out there, and somebody has to know something.

Speaker 5 Here's Josh Mankowicz with What Happened to Amy?

Speaker 23 You see here, these are all boxes of leads, and they're all numbered. So, the first lead we ever got in this case,

Speaker 23 going all the way down to we're well past 10,000 leads.

Speaker 17 And so, these have all been checked out.

Speaker 23 These have all been checked.

Speaker 20 Mark Spetzel was a patrol officer here in Bay Village, Ohio, when Amy Mihalovic disappeared.

Speaker 20 He worked the case for decades, along with a team of investigators, including Detective Jay Ellish and FBI agent Phil Torsny.

Speaker 25 I know it kind of goes against your creed to be opening up the evidence locker and showing pieces of evidence to reporters.

Speaker 26 We feel that the benefit would be to show people what we have and what we're looking for.

Speaker 25 You're willing to listen to anybody about anything involving things they remember from back then.

Speaker 27 There's a lot of evidence. There's a lot of good work been done on it, but these things always involve one missing piece of a puzzle.

Speaker 27 And if somebody can bring that to us, even now, we're happy to get it and we want it.

Speaker 20 It's a piece they've been searching for ever since October 27th, 1989, the day Amy's mom came home from work to find her daughter missing and called everyone in the neighborhood.

Speaker 20 And she sounds different.

Speaker 29 Hysterical.

Speaker 30 Hysterical.

Speaker 21 Is Amy there? Is Amy there? Please tell me if Amy's there. No, she's not.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 22 Where is she?

Speaker 22 Why are you looking for her? She never came home from school. She never came home from school.

Speaker 21 I don't know what to do.

Speaker 20 It's a day Amy's father, Mark, has lived with for more than 30 years.

Speaker 31 Talking to a customer or somebody, oh, you're Amy Mahalovic's father.

Speaker 31 And I still get that today, Ethan.

Speaker 20 And what do people say?

Speaker 31 Oh, I'm so sorry. And sorry to hear that.
I didn't realize you were Amy's father.

Speaker 31 And one thing I never do, I try not to. Oh, you were? No, I'll never answer that way.
I said, no, I am Amy's father.

Speaker 31 So.

Speaker 20 And it's a day these investigators have poured over for decades. Here's what they've learned and what they want you to know about the day Amy Mihalovic disappeared.

Speaker 32 October 27th, 1989.

Speaker 23 She went to school about 7.20. She rode her bike from her home.
Usually she rides with a friend on this particular day she did not.

Speaker 20 One of the friends Amy normally rode with was Christy Sabo.

Speaker 18 I lived further from the school than Amy, so I would bike to her house, grab her, and we would bike to school.

Speaker 20 Tell me what you remember about Amy.

Speaker 18 I remember her being really sweet and really fun.

Speaker 18 She was also my first friend, my first sleepover.

Speaker 17 And you guys were inseparable.

Speaker 18 Yeah, we were.

Speaker 20 Christie's home was just a few streets over from Amy, who lived in this quiet cul-de-sac with her mother Margaret, her dad Mark, and her big brother Jason.

Speaker 33 It was a town where everybody knew each other growing up. You knew your neighbors.
It was a great place to learn how to ride bikes.

Speaker 20 Amy made the short trip to school.

Speaker 20 She parked her bike in the rack and headed in. That day, Amy was wearing short black boots, along with silver and turquoise earrings shaped like horses' heads.

Speaker 17 You can see them in these drawings.

Speaker 20 Just normal school kid items that, as you'll see, would become vitally important in the months ahead.

Speaker 20 At 7.45 a.m., the bell rang. Amy began her day in the fifth grade gifted class.
She was a good student and loved to read. Here she is giving a book report.

Speaker 34 They're trying to get to their Aunt Phyllis house because their mom left them.

Speaker 20 Amy adored animals, especially horses and her dog Jake, and wanted to be a vet when she grew up. She also loved to draw and would leave little notes for her dad Mark.

Speaker 20 Dear dad, you're the specialest person in the world, so for that I bring this little gift. How old was she?

Speaker 37 I don't know, probably in fourth grade maybe.

Speaker 20 I like how she signs it, Amy Mahalowicz, as if like, otherwise you won't know who it is, right? Yeah.

Speaker 21 She was very accomplished for her age.

Speaker 21 Kristen came in with this little girl and said, this is my new best friend, Amy Mihalovic.

Speaker 21 And I said, well, hi, Amy, how are you?

Speaker 20 And with that, you were kind of Amy's second mom.

Speaker 21 Oh, absolutely. I adored Amy.

Speaker 20 During one of Amy's classes that day, a young patrol officer visited the school to give a talk about safety. Amy sat there and listened, along with her friend Christy.

Speaker 18 If anybody calls you, don't go with somebody who calls you. And if somebody tries to pick you up in a car, don't go with somebody who's in a car that you don't know.

Speaker 14 Amy was there for that.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 20 That young officer, Mark Spetzel, rose through the ranks. to become chief of police.

Speaker 25 You have to have looked back on that talk to your students.

Speaker 23 I do. And

Speaker 23 it's one of those things, you know, is there something else I could have said?

Speaker 20 Lunchtime. Up to this point, it had just been a regular day at school.
Then, in the cafeteria, Amy mentioned something to one of her friends. Something she said was a secret.

Speaker 23 In talking with her friends, we learned that Amy received a caller calls from a male.

Speaker 23 This male wanted to take her to go buy a present for her mother, who had received a promotion at work, and that they were going going to go to the mall with $45 and buy this gift.

Speaker 20 Did she say that the man had told her to keep this a secret? Yes.

Speaker 20 That secret would become the focus of intense investigation for the next 30 years.

Speaker 5 When we come back, a trip to the strip mall.

Speaker 27 She's seen walking down toward that shopping center as if she's walking with a purpose.

Speaker 5 The kidnapper's plot is set in motion.

Speaker 23 The two 10-year-olds 10-year-olds actually that saw this both describe that a male walked up to her, engage her in conversation. They looked away, and when they looked back, Amy was gone.

Speaker 20 Just before noon on the day she disappeared, Amy Mihalovic told a friend during lunch at school that she had a secret.

Speaker 20 A man had called her at home, she said, and offered to take her shopping to buy a surprise present for Amy's mother. Amy was going to meet the man after school.
Her brother, Jason, knew none of this.

Speaker 20 She didn't say anything about her plans that day.

Speaker 33 No, she didn't say anything out of the ordinary at all.

Speaker 27 I wish she would have.

Speaker 20 Amy didn't mention anything to her friend, Christy, either.

Speaker 18 I remember walking by her classroom that day and looking in her classroom.

Speaker 20 And you saw Amy?

Speaker 18 I saw Amy. That was the last time I saw her.

Speaker 23 After school, which ended at 2.04 in the afternoon, instead of riding her bike home like she normally would, she walked with a couple friends to Bay Square.

Speaker 23 Bay Square is a very small, kind of strip mall shopping area. It's only a quarter mile from the middle school.
So kids would often walk from the middle school to the Bay Square.

Speaker 23 There was a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store there.

Speaker 27 Leaves right on time.

Speaker 20 FBI agent Phil Torsney.

Speaker 27 She's seen walking down toward that shopping center as if she's walking with a purpose.

Speaker 20 Amy walked to the plaza with another little girl and mentioned the man to her. That girl later told Christy about the conversation.

Speaker 18 She told me that Amy told her, you know, I'm going to meet a friend. And she thought nothing of it.
She was like, okay, have fun. I'm going shopping with one of my friends.

Speaker 26 And then she would have just walked down the sidewalk here

Speaker 26 to the plaza to the right.

Speaker 20 Detective Jay Ellish retraced the very few steps Amy took that day.

Speaker 17 So she would have felt completely safe walking over here and hanging around.

Speaker 26 Very safe. A lot of kids from the middle school would have been here.
People shopping. You can see how many cars are here.
It would have been just like this in 1989.

Speaker 20 At 2.15 p.m., two kids saw Amy in the plaza, standing by this black pole.

Speaker 23 She seemed to be waiting for somebody. And they both described that at some point a male walked up to her, engaged her in conversation.

Speaker 23 They looked away, you know, carried on their business talking with their friends, and when they looked back, Amy was gone. The two 10-year-olds actually that saw this

Speaker 23 helped provide a composite drawing of the individual that they saw.

Speaker 20 These are the composite sketches based on descriptions from two 10-year-olds who each had different memories of the man. They were widely circulated.
and came to symbolize the face of Amy's abductor.

Speaker 20 But police want you to know they may not be entirely accurate.

Speaker 23 These were done by recollections of a couple 10-year-olds who were standing at opposite ends of this shopping area, down here and down here, with Amy standing in the middle.

Speaker 20 Investigators do believe the man is a white male with a medium build who was 30 to 35 years old at the time. He would be about 60 to 65 years old today.

Speaker 25 So you want to hear about anybody even if they don't match the sketch and even if they didn't look like that then.

Speaker 23 That is correct.

Speaker 20 Police say the man was somehow able to gather enough information about Amy to get her to trust him.

Speaker 23 That's a key to determining who did it, right? Is to figure out

Speaker 23 what is his method of operation that he's able to identify the mother with enough information to use their employer's information and also know the child's name.

Speaker 7 However, the man did it, it worked.

Speaker 20 Amy walked off with him, willingly, right in front of everyone. The spot where Amy was taken was directly across the street from where the police station was, barely 500 feet away.

Speaker 20 This was Mark Spetzel's view from his old office window.

Speaker 23 Amy was standing about four posts down and right down that sidewalk there when she was last seen.

Speaker 20 You literally could have seen it happen if somebody had been looking out the window at that moment. Yep.

Speaker 20 Just after three that afternoon, Amy's big brother Jason got home from school and noticed Amy wasn't there.

Speaker 33 I walk in the door where she would have normally been in, you know, the TV room, watching TV or doing homework outside with Jake.

Speaker 33 Sort of noticed that she wasn't around there, so I looked at the house, looked in her room,

Speaker 33 made a phone call to my mother about, hey, where is she?

Speaker 20 Their mom, Margaret, was at her job, working for a local newspaper called Tradin' Times. She wasn't too concerned because Amy had told her earlier that she'd be at choir practice that afternoon.

Speaker 33 I'll hang up, go back to doing my own homework and whatnot.

Speaker 20 Not long after that conversation, another phone call would become one of the most haunting moments in the case.

Speaker 23 At 3.30, Margaret gets a phone call from Amy.

Speaker 31 The kids would call Margaret at work when they got home and were safe.

Speaker 20 And so Margaret assumed that call came from home. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 17 What did Margaret say?

Speaker 31 Just, you know, hey, good to have you home, Amy. Make sure you get a snack or something like that.

Speaker 31 There was no

Speaker 31 sense of urgency.

Speaker 20 In that moment, Margaret did not realize that phone call, at the time almost too routine for her to remember, would be a call she would never forget.

Speaker 5 Coming up, that phone call from Amy did not come from home.

Speaker 20 He lets Amy call her mom. I mean, he's taking a huge chance.

Speaker 27 He's willing to take risks.

Speaker 20 This is somebody who can come across as charming and ingratiating. More like your Pet Bundy type.

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 5 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 36 Hi there, it's Andy Richter and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, The Three Questions with Andy Richter.

Speaker 36 Each week, I invite friends, comedians, actors, and musicians to discuss these three questions.

Speaker 38 Where do you come from?

Speaker 36 Where are you going? And what have you learned? New episodes are out every Tuesday with guests like Julie Bow and Ted Danson, Tig Nataro, Will Arnett, Phoebe Bridgers, and more.

Speaker 36 You can also tune in for my weekly Andy Richter Call-In Show episodes where me and a special guest invite callers to weigh in on topics like dating disasters, bad teachers, and lots more.

Speaker 36 Listen to the three questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 6 But with Zen Nicotine Pouches, you'll you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 13 Check out Zen.com/slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 39 Try Angel Sauff for your tushi.

Speaker 40 It's made by angels.

Speaker 39 Soft and strong, budget-friendly.

Speaker 40 Pick up a pack today.

Speaker 20 Angelsoft.

Speaker 19 Soft and strong, simple.

Speaker 20 At 3.30 p.m. on the day she disappeared, Amy Mihalovic called her mom to check in the way she always did.
Even though she was at that moment with her kidnapper.

Speaker 27 When Amy calls her mother, she doesn't appear upset. There's no indication anything's wrong.
There's no red flags up. She doesn't say anything to her mother.

Speaker 20 That shows an astonishing amount of daring and planning by that man. I mean, he's taking a huge chance, and yet he goes ahead.
He lets Amy call her mom.

Speaker 20 He has no idea how that conversation is going to go.

Speaker 27 He's willing to take risks, but risks he's comfortable with.

Speaker 27 And people do that when they plan things out suggesting that he knew that if amy's mom received a phone call she wouldn't start looking for her right away right and he uh he bought himself also

Speaker 20 some time to make sure amy still felt comfortable police don't know where amy was when she made that call because back then local calls within an area code weren't even logged They do know this.

Speaker 20 Amy was in the hands of a calculating and devious planner.

Speaker 23 You're talking about somebody who's intelligent yet will commit a heinous crime. It's a very unusual pairing.

Speaker 20 FBI agent Phil Torsney wonders if Amy might have called from the Westgate Mall, which was about six miles from the shopping plaza where Amy was last seen.

Speaker 27 It's very likely during the initial part of this abduction,

Speaker 27 she's still shopping.

Speaker 20 Torsney says a woman gave a detailed description of a little girl who looked like Amy in the Westgate Mall that day between 3 and 4 p.m.

Speaker 20 roughly an hour after Amy was taken.

Speaker 29 She said the girl was with a man.

Speaker 27 It was really her walking through a food court into the mall with a white male.

Speaker 20 Now, police want to know if anyone out there remembers seeing anything similar at the Westgate Mall that day.

Speaker 25 And even though this is 30 years old, you're kind of hoping maybe somebody remembers them.

Speaker 20 5.30 p.m. That's when Amy's mother returned home from work and realized Amy wasn't there.

Speaker 20 She raced to the school and to a horrifying sight. Her daughter's blue bike was still parked in the rack.

Speaker 23 We immediately took it at face value that, yeah, this child was missing.

Speaker 20 Amy's dad, Mark, arrived home from work to a chaotic scene.

Speaker 31 Margaret was running around the house, you know, Amy's not here.

Speaker 20 Could you tell something was really wrong? Oh, yeah. You didn't think this was Margaret overreacting.

Speaker 31 No, no, this was the real, real, this is the real thing.

Speaker 20 Mark took the family dog and went right out to search for Amy himself.

Speaker 33 You took Jake down to the shopping center and had him try to find Amy.

Speaker 20 Neighbor Jean Silver rushed to the local NBC station. with Amy's class photo.

Speaker 21 And I said, look,

Speaker 21 I'm not leaving until you put put this picture on.

Speaker 21 And I didn't leave until they put the picture. And I drove in the yard.

Speaker 22 I heard this primal scream.

Speaker 21 Margaret was screaming because she saw Amy's picture on the television.

Speaker 20 And realized all of a sudden, she's that mom and this is that kid.

Speaker 6 Yes, she did.

Speaker 37 She...

Speaker 21 she was heartbroken.

Speaker 20 Amy had been missing for about five hours in the company of a man who'd lured her with lies, a man who'd meticulously planned the whole thing.

Speaker 20 Who was he? Investigators have an idea about his profile, and now they want you to hear it too.

Speaker 20 So that's another thing that you want viewers to think about is was around back then who

Speaker 20 likes kids, can get kids to trust them, is a planner, is manipulative, and is methodical and not impulsive.

Speaker 27 All those things. Manipulative is the key.
It may be able to interact socially with other people. Some of the people that are like this, people even find them somewhat charming.

Speaker 20 So you're not looking for some frightening freak. At least that's not how they present themselves.
This is more like your Ted Bundy type.

Speaker 20 This is somebody who comes across or can come across as charming and ingratiating.

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 20 As the sun began to set that October night, Amy's parents hunkered down, desperately hoping to hear from their daughter.

Speaker 31 We had a phone in the kitchen, wall phone, and that's where Margaret slept that night, right underneath that phone.

Speaker 20 In the kitchen, on the floor. On the floor.

Speaker 20 Yep.

Speaker 20 The long night passed, and the call Margaret longed for did not come.

Speaker 5 Coming up,

Speaker 20 was Amy the only target?

Speaker 30 The person on the phone introduced himself as my mom's boss by name.

Speaker 5 Two women speak from the shadows.

Speaker 20 There had to be a movie, or you thought to yourself, this could be me on the posters.

Speaker 24 We have called everyone we know.

Speaker 20 The day after Amy Mihalovic was taken, her parents went on TV asking for help.

Speaker 28 Just find her, tell her to come home.

Speaker 24 Whatever is wrong, whatever is wrong, just have her come home.

Speaker 28 If anybody has seen her get into a vehicle, we need, I think that would help quite a bit.

Speaker 20 Detectives pushed forward with their investigation, looking for any information about the man who'd called Amy at home.

Speaker 23 We wanted to know if anybody else out there, any other school children of this age group, had received similar phone calls.

Speaker 20 They sent out a letter to thousands of local students and received a frightening response.

Speaker 20 In the months before Amy disappeared, Two young girls living in a neighboring town received calls almost identical to Amy's. Police believe the girls may have actually spoken with Amy's kidnapper.

Speaker 20 Time went by. Those two girls are now grown women.
Even all these years later, they've asked us to shield their identities. A measure of the lasting damage this crime has inflicted on so many.

Speaker 20 They still wonder if that man is out there watching.

Speaker 30 The person on the phone introduced himself as my mom's boss by name.

Speaker 20 He knew your mom's boss's name. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 29 We're calling this woman Pam. She was just 10 years old when the man called her.

Speaker 20 What did he want?

Speaker 30 He expressed that my mom was getting a promotion. He was really excited about it.
And he wasn't sure what to get her for a gift. And they wanted it to be a surprise.

Speaker 30 And he wanted to pick me up after school to go pick something up because they wanted to get something special.

Speaker 20 But when the man overheard Pam tell her brother about the call, His tone suddenly changed.

Speaker 30 He was like angry almost, like, you're you're gonna ruin it. And at that point, I was like, well, I'm sorry, I can't go.

Speaker 20 You really saw several different sides of this guy because at the beginning, he's sort of, you know, trying to charm you.

Speaker 30 It was like excitement and wanting to collaborate and all that. And then it was,

Speaker 30 oh, wait,

Speaker 30 she's not an easy target.

Speaker 41 Just the unknown is

Speaker 40 scary.

Speaker 20 This woman, who we'll call Katie, spoke with the man several times before her older sister made her hang up. These calls would only happen when your mom was out of the house?

Speaker 40 Yes.

Speaker 20 As if the person knew that your mom was out of the house or just a coincidence? I think they definitely knew that my mom was out of the house.

Speaker 20 Katie says she noticed a car parked outside her home around the time the man was calling. and remains convinced he was watching her.

Speaker 20 There had to be a moment where you thought to yourself, this could be me on the posters.

Speaker 41 Over the years,

Speaker 41 I've thought about that a lot. I mean, I pray on it and I pray for my family and I pray for Amy and I pray for Amy's family.

Speaker 41 And, you know, it ripped the family apart, it ripped the town apart.

Speaker 20 Armed with this new information, investigators searched for a link between the children who'd been called. They got all the families together in a room.

Speaker 17 and had them fill out questionnaires.

Speaker 23 Did they shop at the same places? Did they go to the same dry cleaners? Did they use the same same dentists? Did they get their car fixed at the same place? You know, where did they frequent?

Speaker 23 So we asked all these questions to try to draw comparisons and commonalities to see if we can get some investigative leads.

Speaker 20 Great idea. Did it go anywhere?

Speaker 23 Unfortunately, not.

Speaker 20 There is one undeniable link, the story the man told about knowing each girl's mother. It's his signature, and it's unique.

Speaker 20 Investigators want to know if that MO rings a bell with any other law enforcement agency out there.

Speaker 26 It's not going to be something that this person is going to just be able to turn off after he abducts Amy.

Speaker 26 It would most likely be a person that maybe did it before because he did a very good job of luring Amy to the shopping plaza on October 27th of 89.

Speaker 20 So maybe what you're looking for is a case like this that happened before that that wasn't as refined and that this was the Amy case was him getting better at. Very possibly.

Speaker 26 Maybe not a case where someone was abducted and killed but maybe a case where this guy had some type of sexual relationship with a child and got away with it or maybe he did do time for it and he was out at that point.

Speaker 20 Fall turned to winter.

Speaker 20 There was still no trace of Amy.

Speaker 42 Snow-covered ribbons remembering Amy shiver all over town.

Speaker 18 Life changed a lot. There were times when we would cry and just be scared, just be scared, not knowing what's going on,

Speaker 18 talking about when is she going to come home.

Speaker 20 December 11th was Amy's 11th birthday. She'd been missing for 45 days.

Speaker 39 Margaret invited me in

Speaker 39 on Amy's birthday.

Speaker 20 Connie Deacon was a reporter for NBC station WKYC and lived just down the street from Amy. She

Speaker 39 still believed that Amy was alive and she was going to throw this birthday party that she hoped that if there was some publicity, someone would see this and would decide to let her go.

Speaker 39 There were birthday presents stacked up on the fireplace.

Speaker 35 It's very difficult to have a birthday party without the birthday girl.

Speaker 39 I was holding back tears. So was my photographer.

Speaker 20 Even Christy Sabo, just 10 years old, did her best as she reached out to her friend the only way she could.

Speaker 34 Happy birthday, Amin. I hope you're still alive, and I hope you can hear me, and I hope you come home soon.

Speaker 37 Weird feeling to be talking to your friend through television?

Speaker 18 It was weird. I was nervous.

Speaker 39 I felt for Jason. When we were off camera, he would just cling to Jake.
He was their dog, big black dog.

Speaker 31 A lot of the way I handled it was

Speaker 33 to not be in the way. A lot of days were spent riding my bike with Jake, going up to the lake,

Speaker 27 and just sort of watching the water.

Speaker 20 Mark tried to keep to the family routine as best he could.

Speaker 31 Amy had a paper. It came out every Thursday.
And I would get up before I went to work, and her and I

Speaker 31 and I and the dog would go deliver the papers

Speaker 31 before school.

Speaker 20 And after she disappeared?

Speaker 31 I kept the paper route running for maybe three weeks, but I still delivered the papers on Thursday morning, me and

Speaker 32 me and the dog.

Speaker 20 So she'd have something to come back to? Yep.

Speaker 5 Yep, we delivered the paper.

Speaker 5 So.

Speaker 20 For Margaret, there was the added torment that the kidnapper had used her name to lure Amy away.

Speaker 35 It's the constant pain, it's the constant torment

Speaker 35 of wondering what she's

Speaker 35 going through where she is

Speaker 35 and why.

Speaker 35 and keep asking why

Speaker 20 it would be months before Amy's mother would find out what had happened to her little girl

Speaker 5 coming up I talked to Mrs.

Speaker 5 Mihalovic this afternoon she was adamant Connie it's not her it's it's not Amy a discovery on a country road heartbreak in Bay Village I remember just putting my head on and crying when dateline continues.

Speaker 5 Hey, everybody.

Speaker 2 It's Rob Lowe here.

Speaker 23 If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe.

Speaker 43 And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J.

Speaker 2 Fox.

Speaker 43 There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 13 Check out zinn.com/slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 40 If you're an experienced pet owner, you already know that having a pet is 25% belly rubs, 25% yelling, drop it, and 50% groaning at the bill from every vet visit.

Speaker 40 Which is why Lemonade Pet Insurance is tailor-made for your pet and can save you up to 90% on vet bills.

Speaker 40 It can help cover checkups, emergencies, diagnostics, basically all the stuff that makes your bank account nervous.

Speaker 40 Claims are filed super easy through the Lemonade app and half get get settled instantly.

Speaker 40 Get a quote at lemonade.com slash pet and they'll help cover the vet bill for whatever your pet swallowed after you y'all drop it.

Speaker 20 Reporter Connie Deacon was at work when the news broke on February 8th, 1990.

Speaker 39 Into our newsroom, we had the scanners going all the time. And the word was that a body had been found about 50 miles south of town in Ashland.

Speaker 23 Connie, this is far more than a news story to you.

Speaker 20 Deacon had become friendly with Amy's mother, Margaret, and called her right away.

Speaker 35 I talked to Mrs. Mihalovic this afternoon.

Speaker 39 She was adamant. Connie, it's not her.

Speaker 39 It's not Amy. She honestly thought Amy was somewhere in the area being cared for by someone who wanted a child.

Speaker 20 Within hours, authorities had their answer. It was Amy.

Speaker 42 It all came to a heartbreaking end about a quarter of a mile down this quiet country road.

Speaker 31 They came home and

Speaker 31 the chief of police was at the house. Our minister came to the house.
I think somebody from the FBI came to the house and we all sat around and

Speaker 31 held hands and they explained what they found.

Speaker 20 Christy heard the news at school.

Speaker 18 We all found out it was Amy and there was guidance counselors in school and I remember just putting my head down and crying.

Speaker 25 You went to the funeral?

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 18 Yeah, it was huge.

Speaker 18 It was my first funeral

Speaker 18 for my friend.

Speaker 20 All of Bay Village there? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 18 Then some.

Speaker 39 It was packed.

Speaker 20 It was...

Speaker 20 Her poor mom and dad and brother, her poor family.

Speaker 31 The thing that still sticks in my mind is going past

Speaker 31 the Bay Village Police Department and seeing the fight at half-staff.

Speaker 31 And after that, excuse me, after that, and it was just

Speaker 31 the police all the time,

Speaker 31 always questioning, always asking, always looking for something. They never stopped.

Speaker 23 For 105 days, we were looking for Amy. We weren't looking for a killer.
We were looking for Amy. The day her body is found we're now looking for a killer.

Speaker 20 That search began here, County Road 1181 in Ashland County, 50 miles from Bay Village.

Speaker 23 The perpetrator more than likely is comfortable with this area to dispose of a body.

Speaker 25 Because this isn't just a place you'd stumble onto or drive by. Not at all.

Speaker 23 It's well off the highway. It's not as if you kick a couple rights off the highway and you're there.
It's very rural, very out of the way, yet for some reason, this perpetrator chose that location.

Speaker 20 Investigators collected every bit of debris within a mile of where Amy was found. Her body yielded few clues.
There was some indication of sexual assault, but nothing conclusive.

Speaker 20 Medical examiners believe she'd been in the field for a while. and was most likely killed shortly after she was taken.
Amy had been hit on the head and stabbed in the neck.

Speaker 20 The most telling clue might be what was not found at the scene. Her backpack wasn't there.
It contained a Buick binder like this one, which her dad had given her from his job.

Speaker 20 It said, best in class on the clasp.

Speaker 20 Also missing Amy's boots and those horsehead-shaped earrings, the ones she put on that last morning.

Speaker 25 Is it reasonable to believe that the items that were missing from Amy, her backpack, the binder, her boots, the earrings, that those were retained by her killer?

Speaker 26 It's possible. Possible they were kept as a trophy.

Speaker 25 So one of the things you're looking for is whether anybody has seen these earrings or a pair of child's boots like that. Correct.

Speaker 23 But these items are extremely unique items that if anybody had ever seen them before, they'd probably recollect it.

Speaker 20 The decades have brought many theories about what happened to Amy Mihalovic.

Speaker 20 Recently, the case was in the headlines again with a possible person of interest. No arrests have been made, and police say their overall investigation continues.

Speaker 23 We could go on and on about just the number of investigative leads that have been followed up on.

Speaker 20 10,000 tips, 30,000 interviews, and 100,000 man hours later. They're still looking.

Speaker 26 Every officer that works in our police department is aware of the Amy Mihalovic case, whether they worked there in 1989 or if they started after that.

Speaker 26 And it's something that we never will forget about.

Speaker 20 There is one more clue, a very important one, that investigators want you to know about.

Speaker 20 It might just be the key to solving this whole case.

Speaker 5 Coming up, that clue revealed at last. Will you be able to help?

Speaker 23 It's so unique that we're hoping that somebody can identify that. If you saw it someplace, we want to hear from you.

Speaker 20 When detectives found Amy Mihalovic in this field, They gathered every shred of evidence they could find.

Speaker 23 Anything that didn't grow there, we basically grabbed up. Could have been cigarette butts, papers, whatever.

Speaker 20 Including this green curtain.

Speaker 23 It's very unique. It's a homemade curtain.
Almost looks like a bedspread was made into a curtain.

Speaker 20 The curtain, along with all the other evidence, was periodically tested over the years.

Speaker 20 Because maybe the constant march of DNA science might one day yield a clue.

Speaker 20 And in 2016, it did.

Speaker 23 What we found was there were minute hairs identified on this curtain, and these hairs were identified as being dog hairs.

Speaker 20 And not just any dog hairs.

Speaker 23 When Amy went missing, one of the things the investigators did was they took samples of their dog, Jake's hair, for later comparisons.

Speaker 20 Jake is long gone. His hair outlives him.
Carefully collected and preserved in this vial for decades. A lab compared it to the hairs on the curtain.

Speaker 20 The result was a huge leap forward.

Speaker 23 So the dog hair and the hair on this curtain matched up. So based upon that, there's the theory that possibly she was wrapped in that curtain.

Speaker 20 Jake, Amy's constant companion during her short life,

Speaker 20 may have provided a crucial key to finding her killer.

Speaker 31 She loved Jake very much.

Speaker 20 And now Jake may help solve her murder.

Speaker 33 10, 13 years after his death, he's still trying to save Amy.

Speaker 33 He was a good dog. He was the best dog.

Speaker 20 And now the curtain has yielded a new clue, one detectives are revealing for the first time.

Speaker 20 Further testing uncovered even more hairs. This time they were human.
And they were Amy's.

Speaker 20 Strengthening the theory that Amy was wrapped in that curtain and that the killer may have used it to transport her body. Investigators really want you to take a close look at it.

Speaker 20 It doesn't look professionally made.

Speaker 23 Yeah, it's not something that back in the day would have bought at Sears or JCPenney, certainly. Somebody made it just quickly out of something they had.

Speaker 23 But it's so unique that we're hoping that somebody can identify that.

Speaker 20 You want our viewers to look at that curtain and say whether they have seen anything like that before.

Speaker 23 Yeah, if you saw it in a house, you saw it someplace, we want to hear from you.

Speaker 20 Remember, the curtain may have been a brighter green back in 1989.

Speaker 20 The quilting and design are unique, as is the crude way in which it was sewn together.

Speaker 26 We think that it would be someone that would recognize it and say, you know, I remember that curtain being in so-and-so's house or that curtain being in so-and-so's barn.

Speaker 26 We're hopeful that somebody will see that curtain and say to themselves, you know, I suspected this guy maybe of this. Oh, and by the way, I remember seeing that curtain on his property.

Speaker 26 It's like a needle in a haystack, but we're hopeful.

Speaker 20 We are not made to bury our children. It leaves parents shattered, sometimes unmendably so.

Speaker 20 Shortly after Amy disappeared, her parents' marriage fell apart. Mark says the relationship was already on the rocks before the abduction.
Twelve years after Amy's disappearance, Margaret died.

Speaker 20 She was only 54.

Speaker 20 Whoever killed Amy kind of killed Margaret, too.

Speaker 25 Oh, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 31 Then Margaret sold her house and moved out to Las Vegas, where her mother lived.

Speaker 20 She was broken by that. Oh, yeah, she was broken.

Speaker 20 Mark Mihalovic keeps in touch with the investigators.

Speaker 31 Will the police solve it? Yes.

Speaker 20 You're convinced they will? Yes.

Speaker 20 Mark Spetzel, who spoke with us before he retired as police chief, kept Amy close right up until he left.

Speaker 20 You still have the poster of Amy in your office?

Speaker 37 I do.

Speaker 23 Yeah, I don't need it as a reminder, but I keep it there just so she knows we're still doing it.

Speaker 20 Phil Torsny retired from the bureau and moved away, but still works the case when he can.

Speaker 27 Well, I've been doing this a long time, and here's what I know: the only time a case doesn't have the potential to get solved is if nobody's doing anything. And I feel good about it.

Speaker 27 We're doing something, and we're always doing something.

Speaker 17 I hope this is some help.

Speaker 27 I hope it's the last interview I have to do on this

Speaker 27 before it's solved.

Speaker 20 Amy's bike still sits in a small room at the Bay Village Police Department.

Speaker 20 Her case notes remain front and center.

Speaker 20 She's been gone for more than 30 years. But Amy Mihalovic is still here, and she's waiting for justice.

Speaker 20 Maybe you can help her find it.

Speaker 5 If you have information you think might help with Amy's case, please call the Bay Village Police at 440-871-1234.

Speaker 5 Investigators are offering a $50,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction. That's all for this edition of Dateline.

Speaker 5 We'll see you again next Friday for our two-hour 30th season premiere at 9-8 Central.

Speaker 20 I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 23 Good night.