The Ranch

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Speaker 14 Tonight, on dateline, we lived in a fairytale where everything was perfect.

Speaker 12 First day of school.

Speaker 14 Then all of a sudden there's that demon, that black spirit, that darkness.

Speaker 17 He just points the gun at my forehead.

Speaker 12 The first thing I started thinking of was my children.

Speaker 18 At first I was like, what does kidnapped mean? My dad was stolen by bad guys.

Speaker 14 I lost everything that I knew just like that. Gone.

Speaker 14 It was such a mystery who was behind this. It was just tearing me apart.

Speaker 18 I was suffering so much.

Speaker 21 I just said i will do everything humanly possible to get your father back if it takes everything we have everything i can humanly do i saw things that i no 12 year old should see a family at the center of a harrowing hostage drama what would it take to survive it i mean just the cruelty incredible fear and agony like when is this gonna end all the hell that we went through together and all the pain

Speaker 14 it has made us unbreakable i'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 22 Here's Keith Morrison with The Ranch.

Speaker 29 The green and white taxi barreled down the highway.

Speaker 10 Something was wrong.

Speaker 21 Why had that man paid 10 times the fare for a simple package delivery?

Speaker 31 The cappy pried open the envelope.

Speaker 16 Was that someone's finger?

Speaker 33 Then why was that man now tailing him?

Speaker 35 Cold fear rising, he pulled into a gas station.

Speaker 36 He begged the police, come quick.

Speaker 31 But the cabby had no idea, any more than this family did, that their terrifying story, more than a decade in the making,

Speaker 31 was about to come to an astonishing climax.

Speaker 14 I was 12 years old.

Speaker 14 12 years old when it happened. And then all of a sudden you

Speaker 14 meet the dark in life

Speaker 14 in a really ugly way.

Speaker 14 It's hard to imagine how we would be like if none of that happened.

Speaker 41 I never go into detail.

Speaker 18 It's always like, well, something happened.

Speaker 18 Now I'm here.

Speaker 42 And here is where it happened to the Valseca children.

Speaker 26 San Miguel de Allende Allende in Mexico.

Speaker 33 A little slice of

Speaker 6 paradise is what it seemed like to them.

Speaker 14 Like my mom used to call it our little bubble.

Speaker 12 Honestly, I was living my dreams and then some.

Speaker 27 This is their mother, Jane.

Speaker 45 J-A-Y-N-E, by the way, a detail that will matter later.

Speaker 12 My whole life I had worked as an actress and did a lot of television commercials, bit roles and movies and soap operas.

Speaker 47 And then 1992, it happened.

Speaker 49 Pure chance.

Speaker 12 Well, it's kind of like one of these fairy tale stories.

Speaker 50 She was 25.

Speaker 52 She was at a payphone near Washington, D.C., when she just happened to lock eyes with an art dealer named Eduardo Velseca,

Speaker 32 who she would find out was a divorced dad of two and the offspring himself of a famous Mexican newspaper baron.

Speaker 12 Colonel Jose Garcia Valseca, who founded over 40 newspapers in Mexico. He was one of the biggest newspaper people, publishers in the country.

Speaker 23 Would be an equivalent in the United States of who?

Speaker 12 William Randolph Hearst, probably. Yeah.

Speaker 44 That's when Garcia Valseca ran his newspaper empire from a luxury Pullman train car, the one which, decades later, Eduardo owned.

Speaker 33 Though when he invited this beautiful woman he just met to Mexico for a train ride, she had no idea that the train was his.

Speaker 12 We're walking toward it. And then this man comes out with a white jacket, white gloves, black bow tie with a silver tray.

Speaker 12 I mean, I was completely speechless.

Speaker 59 She soon discovered the train car was about all Eduardo had, a family fortune.

Speaker 51 The rest, along with the newspaper empire, had long since withered away.

Speaker 61 But Jane fell for a man.

Speaker 5 not money.

Speaker 59 And what Eduardo lacked in fortune, he replaced with laughter and passion and a huge, enveloping personality.

Speaker 63 Jane was in love and soon married and swept off to Mexico.

Speaker 64 One thing Eduardo's heritage did afford them was the chance to live anywhere they wanted in Mexico, and this is where they chose.

Speaker 67 San Miguel de Allende, a colonial town, a place so lovely it's attracted people from all over the world to come here and live.

Speaker 7 Jane and Eduardo loved fixing up and selling old houses, so they made made that their business

Speaker 43 and they made children.

Speaker 12 It had been a big dream of mine to live in the country and to have a big organic garden and fruit trees and horses and lots of animals for the kids to play with.

Speaker 36 It was luck when this place came up.

Speaker 69 A run-down ranch in foreclosure.

Speaker 46 Perfect.

Speaker 12 Every little bit of money that we made, everything that we could manage to save, we started putting into the ranch.

Speaker 49 They built a real ranch house among the mesquite trees and surrounded it with fine big gates and outbuildings.

Speaker 59 A garden for her, a riding ring and fine Spanish horses for him.

Speaker 48 And no surprise, part of their building plan involved that stately old railroad car.

Speaker 12 One of the marvelous parts about ending up with this piece of property was it just happened that the railroad track went right through it.

Speaker 33 Jane was behind their home movie camera as the car was towed to its new home on the ranch.

Speaker 68 We're so happy in the train, Raggedy. Hello, hobby!

Speaker 7 And for three growing children, a magic place, happy and secure.

Speaker 5 Fernando,

Speaker 33 Emiliano,

Speaker 33 and baby Naya.

Speaker 18 100%, yeah, it was paradise.

Speaker 69 That baby is now all grown up.

Speaker 18 I remember we used to have a cage full of rabbits, like tons of bunny rabbits, and that was my favorite thing.

Speaker 26 Little child Emiliano remembers a life lived outdoors.

Speaker 14 I didn't really have an Xbox or a PlayStation or you know electronics. I had dogs, I had a donkey that would take me to school every morning.

Speaker 6 How was that possible?

Speaker 32 Jane wanted the children to get an education beyond what public schools here offered so she and Eduardo founded a Waldorf school.

Speaker 24 Built it right on the ranch, recruited other families to join them.

Speaker 29 Jane's eldest Fernando loved that school.

Speaker 14 It's my mother's pride and joy.

Speaker 41 We knew every single student that went to that school.

Speaker 14 Everybody on the faculty. It was a big family.

Speaker 26 Every morning, the half-mile commute down their own quiet country lane to school had become a family ritual.

Speaker 12 And the morning routine was singing all the way to school, which was really the only routine that we had.

Speaker 54 So now, it was that perfect morning, June 2007.

Speaker 59 And they bumped and sang, noisy and happy, down the dusty road.

Speaker 51 And of course they did not understand, how could they?

Speaker 33 That this was the last moment of pure innocence any of them would ever know.

Speaker 24 When we come back, a violent awakening.

Speaker 12 Immediately, we're hit from behind.

Speaker 17 He just points the gun at my forehead.

Speaker 12 The first thing I said to him was, Please don't kill me. I have three children.

Speaker 22 A terrifying road was ahead, and a journey that would test them all.

Speaker 14 I lost everything that I knew about life, just like that. Gone.

Speaker 12 You have to know that I will do everything humanly possible. If it takes everything we have, everything I can humanly do.

Speaker 12 You know, life was so good for so long for us that it was almost like living in a fantasy. It was almost like on a daily basis, Pinch Me, is this real?

Speaker 32 It was June 2007, two weeks before summer vacation.

Speaker 5 Eduardo and Jane Velseca and their three children arrived at the country school not far from their ranch house outside San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.

Speaker 12 As we pulled into the parking lot, I noticed that there was a small compact car in the far corner of the parking lot.

Speaker 12 And there was a man at the wheel who had a fisherman's cap khaki color on and glasses.

Speaker 51 The prospective parent, perhaps, for next year's class?

Speaker 33 Jane walked the children to their classrooms.

Speaker 12 She stopped at the school office and asked the administrator if she knew who the gentleman was or if he needed help.

Speaker 12 And she looked over and looked across the parking lot and said, I don't know who he is. He must be waiting for someone.

Speaker 51 Eduardo was behind the wheel of the Jeep, listening to the radio.

Speaker 63 The stranger's car was beyond it, at the back of the lot.

Speaker 12 As I walked to the Jeep, I looked across and made eye contact with him and actually smiled. And he smiled back.

Speaker 21 Eduardo put the Jeep in gear, pulled away.

Speaker 72 The strange strange car fell in behind them.

Speaker 12 A pickup truck comes out of nowhere.

Speaker 12 It catches up to us and the man driving turns and looks at us.

Speaker 12 And the look

Speaker 12 was really scary. You saw it.
We both got just a really creepy feeling, just the way the man looked at us.

Speaker 36 Now that stranger's car and the pickup raced to positions beside and in front of the Jeep.

Speaker 12 Eduardo said, something is definitely not right. What is this guy doing?

Speaker 59 And then at moments, it was obvious.

Speaker 63 Jane and Eduardo were being chased, herded like cattle, into a chute with no escape.

Speaker 12 In the distance, we see the compact car that has raced up our interior road, cut in front.

Speaker 63 Here she relived it, the horrified moment as the car in front of them suddenly stopped and Eduardo slammed on his brakes.

Speaker 12 I mean, immediately we're hit from behind.

Speaker 12 And at that point, it was a split of a second, and there was a man coming out of the passenger side of the car, coming at Eduardo, and he's got a hammer in one hand and a handgun in the next.

Speaker 59 The masked man shattered the window, landed a hard blow to Eduardo's head that sent blood gushing down his face.

Speaker 12 The first thing I started thinking of was my children. Are my children going to lose their parents right now?

Speaker 57 A second attacker ran at Jane, yanked open her door, pulled her from the Jeep.

Speaker 61 She screamed, kicked at him, grabbed the fence beside her.

Speaker 36 The barbed wire sliced through her finger.

Speaker 32 Her attacker forced her down.

Speaker 17 While laying on the ground, he just points the gun at my forehead and tells me in Spanish to get up.

Speaker 12 The first thing I said to him was, please don't kill me. I have three children.

Speaker 33 Then they hustled Jane and Eduardo into a waiting SUV.

Speaker 48 Unseen accomplices snapped pillowcases over their heads and tightly bound their hands and feet.

Speaker 12 Eduardo was hysterical. I don't think he was completely hearing me.
He probably had a concussion.

Speaker 32 The SUV sped away.

Speaker 23 Jane tried to comfort Eduardo.

Speaker 63 One of the abductors threatened more pain.

Speaker 12 He kept yelling at him, shut up, you or I'll give you another one.

Speaker 59 At that moment, Elda San Fernando was with classmates on a bus right behind the SUVs.

Speaker 14 I saw the two cars fly down the straight road and take a left towards San Miguel. And it was weird to me to see two huge SUVs going that fast.

Speaker 43 You saw them being taken?

Speaker 14 No, I didn't see them being taken, but I, you know, they were in the two cars right in front of me, and I didn't know. I had no idea.

Speaker 51 In the SUV, under that gagging pillowcase, Jane struggled to breathe.

Speaker 60 She reached out for it warden.

Speaker 12 I felt blood all down his arm.

Speaker 54 Then she felt the blood pouring from her own slashed finger.

Speaker 33 She tried to memorize each bump and turn as the SUV veered onto the highway towards San Miguel.

Speaker 53 Then, minutes later, pulled over, stopped.

Speaker 63 Someone yanked Eduardo from the SUV.

Speaker 60 He screamed.

Speaker 12 I hear the doors of that vehicle open,

Speaker 12 and after I hear them shut, I can no longer hear my husband's muffled screams.

Speaker 63 Jane managed to lift the pillowcase hood just in time to see Eduardo vanish and realize she was alone.

Speaker 48 They'd all left.

Speaker 12 I I was bound, so I threw myself over the seat, ended up in the floor, pulled myself up, opened the door, and literally hopped as if I was in a sack race to the highway in flip-flops.

Speaker 33 An elderly man stopped to help.

Speaker 63 He had a machete, but no cell phone to call police. Frantically, Jane tried to flag down passing cars.

Speaker 38 All hit the accelerator, not the brake.

Speaker 12 I imagine it looked pretty scary to see a woman bleeding, desperate, bound in duct tape, and next to a guy with a machete.

Speaker 63 Then, in sheer desperation, Jane stepped in front of an oncoming bus.

Speaker 12 I jumped in front and I just put my hands up like this. And I hoped you stopped.

Speaker 59 But no cell phone on the bus either.

Speaker 63 Now, the bus driver flagged down a taxi, and the taxi driver called the police.

Speaker 12 I thought for sure that they would just, the police would run off in every direction, seal off San Miguel, and we'd have them. End of story.

Speaker 12 But it didn't go that way.

Speaker 16 No, it didn't.

Speaker 26 Eduardo had been kidnapped.

Speaker 36 And then, as if more terror was possible, police took Jane back to the place where she was abandoned, and there on the ground was a letter.

Speaker 60 It was addressed to her.

Speaker 12 Well, I realized that they'd spelled my name correctly.

Speaker 12 My name is Jane, spelled with a Y. So it was really scary to see on the envelope that they'd actually spelled my name right.

Speaker 9 Nobody spells your name right. No.
No.

Speaker 51 And inside the envelope?

Speaker 12 The ransom note says, Senora, go home, open

Speaker 12 this email with this password,

Speaker 12 and we have Eduardo. Eduardo was with us.
Wait for our message to arrive.

Speaker 84 It was then she understood the kidnappers had been watching them, stalking them, researching every small detail.

Speaker 12 It immediately made me realize I needed to be very careful and very smart about the choices I was about to make. My husband's life was on the line.

Speaker 14 Coming up, reality sets in what would she tell the children i was confused she's very confused i didn't know how to take it whether to cry whether to be mad and who would she turn to for help i thought this is what you're sending me to deal with this when dateline continues

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Speaker 63 Jane Velseja sat in the dirt by the highway on the outskirts of San Miguel de Allende. A cop helped her strip away the duct tape around her hands and feet.

Speaker 63 She tried to staunch the blood from her injured finger gashed on that barbed wire fence. She tried to tempt down the terror that grabbed at her throat.

Speaker 2 Jane had read about brutal kidnappings in Mexico City where victims' fingers were cut off and delivered with ransom demands.

Speaker 21 But this was safe little San Miguel, where Eduardo had always said.

Speaker 12 Do you think anybody's going to come out here in the country? You know, that's not going to happen.

Speaker 16 But it had happened.

Speaker 26 And all she could think of was finding help fast.

Speaker 12 I'm sitting there in the dirt, in need of stitches, and at that point I have two cell phones going.

Speaker 49 But why?

Speaker 63 Wouldn't the police just take over?

Speaker 51 Well, no.

Speaker 49 Jane herself, in this supremely vulnerable moment, would have to decide which police, if any, she could trust to get her husband back.

Speaker 12 You can allow the local or state police to handle the situation.

Speaker 12 You can go to the Mexican Mexican equivalent of the FBI, which is the AFI or AFI, or you can go to a private consultant that you have to pay out of your own pocket, and they will negotiate it privately.

Speaker 48 So as cars whizzed by and the dirt cake blood dried on her skin, Jane placed calls all around the world to private companies that specialize in kidnap negotiation.

Speaker 12 They knew all the questions to ask. They said, how many vehicles were involved? What did the notes say? Can you describe the people? What did their guns look like?

Speaker 63 Must be a sophisticated operation, they told Jane. Negotiating would be difficult and expensive.

Speaker 72 At least $2,500 U.S.

Speaker 59 dollars a day plus expenses.

Speaker 21 Far more than she could afford.

Speaker 36 So Jane decided to enlist the Mexican version of the FBI, the AFI, the elite unit of the Mexican police.

Speaker 69 She made the call, went back to the ranch, cleaned up her wounds, and told six-year-old Naya and seven-year-old Emiliano that their father was on a business trip.

Speaker 85 I was confused.

Speaker 14 I was very confused. I tried to ask questions about the whole situation, but the best that I could get was a, you know, PG version of what was really going on.

Speaker 56 But Fernando was 12.

Speaker 21 He had to be told.

Speaker 1 And anyway, she needed him now.

Speaker 14 She told me this morning we were...

Speaker 14 both your dad and I on the way back from dropping you guys off at school. We were kidnapped.
And they took your father.

Speaker 12 I just said to him, you know,

Speaker 12 you have to know that I will do everything humanly possible to get your father back. If it takes everything we have, everything I can humanly do.

Speaker 36 Suddenly, Fernando understood the speeding SUVs he'd seen that morning.

Speaker 14 I didn't know how to take it. I didn't know whether to cry, whether to be mad, whether to

Speaker 14 just shock.

Speaker 53 Fernando fled then, went to his secret, private place, a rise from which you could see the rest of the ranch.

Speaker 14 I grabbed the keys and threw on the helmet and went for a ride and

Speaker 14 started crying and blowing my eyes out.

Speaker 32 Jane, meanwhile, had one more crucial call to make to her mother.

Speaker 24 also named Jane.

Speaker 3 She lived in her own house on the ranch most of the year, but that day she was home in Virginia.

Speaker 40 Jane called and she says, Mom, sit down. I have something to tell you.
And of course, I didn't sit down. I said, what is it? And she said, well, Eduardo's been kidnapped.
What's it like to hear that?

Speaker 40 Well, you know, I lost it. I grabbed a suitcase and I threw in a toothbrush and I couldn't remember what I needed to take.

Speaker 73 Now, it was evening.

Speaker 12 I'm hoping that I'll get home like they've told me. I'll open the email.
There will be a message. And whatever I have access to, they can have it all.
Okay, just give it back.

Speaker 12 So I'm at that point hoping this is going to be an open and shut deal in less than 24 hours.

Speaker 54 Jane got ready for the arrival of the federal Offee agent.

Speaker 63 The federal police had promised he'd move in right away and live on the ranch until he got Eduardo back.

Speaker 72 She felt like she was waiting for the cavalry to arrive.

Speaker 48 She let hope grow.

Speaker 12 I expected him to roll in in some kind of bulletproof suburban, be big and burly, and hopefully a little mature, and having done this quite a while.

Speaker 49 And then, finally, at 3 a.m., the offe agent called.

Speaker 63 Could someone come and pick him up in town? He asked. He had come from Mexico City by bus.

Speaker 12 He looked like a high school or maybe freshman in college student with a backpack, a baseball cap, glasses,

Speaker 12 tiny. And I thought, what is going on? You mean this is what you're sending me to deal with this? And so the first thing I asked him after shaking his hand was, Are you armed?

Speaker 12 And he said, no.

Speaker 12 And I said, why not, for God's sake?

Speaker 59 Seasoned criminals had engineered a seamless plan to steal her husband.

Speaker 21 And all she had on her side was a short, skinny kid. with no apparent backup, no car, and no gun.

Speaker 78 Coming up.

Speaker 14 She felt like her whole world collapsed.

Speaker 22 Kidnappers send a message from the shadows, a demand impossible to keep.

Speaker 12 Now I'm thinking they're just gonna kill him.

Speaker 31 Jane stared at the kid from Afi with what could only be described as dismay.

Speaker 76 Her husband Eduardo had been kidnapped.

Speaker 6 She was frantic and now the federal police had sent her an unarmed boy.

Speaker 9 The young man took one look at Jane, saw her disappointment, and then spoke.

Speaker 12 He had a very confident smile on his face. He takes off his glasses and hat and says, Look, would you really want me arriving in a bulletproof suburban and coming out with a machine gun?

Speaker 12 How would that look if you're being watched?

Speaker 12 We could be putting your husband at risk.

Speaker 48 The agent, Jane learned, was older than he looked, was an experienced hostage negotiator.

Speaker 79 He brought his weapon into Jane's house.

Speaker 33 It was a laptop computer.

Speaker 12 He actually selected a place here in the dining room where he would be the only one to see his computer screen. He was in a spot where he could see all the goings-on in the house.

Speaker 36 His name is a federal secret, his face a blank.

Speaker 35 Our interview requests went to the highest level.

Speaker 90 We were denied.

Speaker 50 We do know he was constantly online with a team of agents in Mexico City, analyzing what clues they had, advising Jane's agent on strategy.

Speaker 43 Not just Jane's agent, of course.

Speaker 35 We have as many as 25 kidnappings at a time.

Speaker 63 And here in a giant room that looks like NASA, more agents track hundreds of surveillance sites around the country.

Speaker 23 But on day one, all that expertise coughed up only this one piece of very bad news.

Speaker 72 The people who grabbed Eduardo, they were almost certainly, said the police, part of a fringe Marxist political group called the EPR.

Speaker 33 Jane's agent considered the evidence and offered a dismal prediction.

Speaker 12 This is not going to be over in 24 hours, like you'd like. As a matter of fact, this is not a matter of days or weeks.

Speaker 12 Based on previous experience with this particular group, this is going to be months if you're lucky.

Speaker 95 What was it like to hear that?

Speaker 12 I thought I was going to go crazy. I thought for sure I'd have a nervous breakdown right then and there.

Speaker 69 Jane's seven-year-old Emiliano looked on, helpless.

Speaker 14 I remember opening the door and seeing that look in her eyes.

Speaker 39 What look?

Speaker 14 She felt like her whole world collapsed, and I could see that through her eyes. And I couldn't really communicate and try to help her because I didn't know how.

Speaker 90 In historic San Miguel, though Eduardo was a prominent local citizen, life went on as if nothing had happened.

Speaker 69 Even though he had been a known anti-poverty activist,

Speaker 74 a panelist on a local TV show,

Speaker 93 in fact, this is a recording of the very broadcast aired the night before he was taken.

Speaker 24 This is the host of the show, Lucy Nunez, co-owner of the TV station.

Speaker 29 But what was she able to do to free her friend Eduardo or find his kidnappers?

Speaker 1 Not a thing.

Speaker 39 How often was it reported on the television or radio?

Speaker 96 No, we never said anything.

Speaker 49 A request she said from the federal police.

Speaker 96 They said no comments in the radio station, no comments in the channel, because we don't want these people to be afraid or whatever, and they could do something to Eduardo. So

Speaker 96 it was like shh, mouth closed, like everybody was acting that as if nothing was happening.

Speaker 79 Everybody, perhaps, but Jane.

Speaker 33 Remember, the kidnappers said, go home, you'll get an email with our demands.

Speaker 51 But on day one, there was no email.

Speaker 2 Nor on day two, nor three, nor day four.

Speaker 59 And then, after five full days and nights of sleepless torture, Jane turned on her computer and read the news.

Speaker 12 For the liberation of Eduardo, we are demanding the amount of 8 million U.S. dollars.

Speaker 57 8 million?

Speaker 51 Send the money, said the email, in U.S.

Speaker 79 currency, $100 bills.

Speaker 12 Now I'm thinking they're just going to kill him because I didn't have that kind of cash.

Speaker 9 Anybody familiar with the idyllic ranch here outside San Miguel, anybody who'd heard of Eduardo, scion of a famous publishing empire, might quite reasonably have assumed he was among Mexico's super rich.

Speaker 64 The kidnappers made a mistake, though, because the wealth the Velsecas had was all in the property.

Speaker 66 And besides, whatever signing authority existed was with Eduardo, not Jane.

Speaker 68 They took the wrong Velseca.

Speaker 12 I didn't have access to anything, really, beyond what was in our checking account.

Speaker 54 The fact of the matter was, the Velsecas were house poor.

Speaker 4 They'd put everything they had into the ranch.

Speaker 31 And at recession prices, even if she could sell it, she'd get a small fraction of $8 million.

Speaker 51 There in the dining room, Jane showed the email to her Alfi agent and realized he was not surprised.

Speaker 12 You know, Jane, you have to realize that this is the way this works. You're going going to be learning the ropes here.
They hope to get that amount, but this is where we start negotiating.

Speaker 31 The kidnapper set the rules.

Speaker 35 Rule one, Jane must communicate with them only through want ads in a specific newspaper.

Speaker 63 Her first ad, they demanded, would go in the animals and pets section.

Speaker 37 She wrote, looking to buy a chow chow dog vaccinated with complete pedigree.

Speaker 26 They started out at 8 million.

Speaker 23 What did you respond?

Speaker 12 We're very concerned for the puppy's well-being, and

Speaker 12 your request is beyond our economic possibilities.

Speaker 14 Just that.

Speaker 25 And then waited.

Speaker 16 And then waited.

Speaker 78 Coming up.

Speaker 29 At last, word from Eduardo.

Speaker 22 Heartbreaking letters.

Speaker 64 Harrowing photos.

Speaker 14 I opened up pictures that I wish I hadn't seen.

Speaker 22 And one agonizing phone call.

Speaker 12 I told him how much I loved him.

Speaker 12 and that I would do anything to get him back.

Speaker 87 When dateline continues.

Speaker 59 Life at Jane and Eduardo's ranch was divided now into the joyous before

Speaker 59 and the somber after,

Speaker 74 Jane's mother moved in with her daughter and the children clearly hurting.

Speaker 40 Emiliano had a meltdown

Speaker 40 saying that we were all lying to him.

Speaker 40 And at that point, it's really amazing how Fernando is such an amazing kid.

Speaker 40 He just put their beds together and he says, come on, Emiliano, we know dad's coming back, but we're not lying to you.

Speaker 9 Jane decided she had to tell the two young ones the truth.

Speaker 2 There was no business trip.

Speaker 18 I still didn't understand. Like, at first I was like, what does kidnapped mean?

Speaker 37 She said,

Speaker 3 look,

Speaker 14 your father has been taken from us by bad guys.

Speaker 14 And we need to keep this a secret. You may not tell anyone in school.

Speaker 68 Did you keep it a secret?

Speaker 14 I kept it a secret, 100%.

Speaker 97 Why a secret?

Speaker 69 The federal agent knew the family was being watched, spied on, days and nights.

Speaker 29 If the kids talked, maybe the kidnappers would hear.

Speaker 40 We had a bonfire out on the cobblestones, and we were saying prayers for Eduardo.

Speaker 40 And suddenly, Jane says, get in the house, get in the house. And the Offee agent had signaled her.
And he knew that there was somebody watching us nearby in the grass, which was really close by.

Speaker 58 Jane and her federal police advisor dutifully placed those bizarre want ads, saying they didn't have the 8 million U.S.

Speaker 57 ransom.

Speaker 33 And the response?

Speaker 54 A few weeks into the ordeal, Eduardo's kidnappers turned up the pressure.

Speaker 72 They began including in their untraceable emails letters from Eduardo himself.

Speaker 49 I'm suffering more than I can manage.

Speaker 48 They beat me.

Speaker 49 They tie me up.

Speaker 57 I'm naked.

Speaker 38 I haven't eaten. I'm going crazy.

Speaker 58 I can't handle this torture anymore.

Speaker 12 That was horrible. It destroyed me.

Speaker 63 So she began selling things.

Speaker 54 First to go, the Spanish horses Eduardo loved so much sold for a fraction of their value.

Speaker 12 I sold sheep. I sold machinery.
Everything I could sell, I sold.

Speaker 49 All the fire sale prices.

Speaker 14 I remember taking up all my money from my piggy bank and just giving it to my mom and saying, here, please just use this to get dad back.

Speaker 60 I just want him back.

Speaker 54 All of it made hardly a dent. They wanted $8 million.

Speaker 62 She raised $20,000.

Speaker 12 They had started saying in their emails to me that if I didn't come up with the money on a certain date, that they were going to start cutting off his fingers.

Speaker 59 And when Jane didn't, couldn't pay, the answer was swift.

Speaker 12 It said that

Speaker 12 I'd been fooling around enough

Speaker 12 and that Eduardo had sent me a package.

Speaker 72 She was horrified.

Speaker 59 Was it his fingers?

Speaker 72 The federal agent, afraid for Jane's safety, sent someone else to follow the kidnappers' directions to the buried package wrapped in plastic.

Speaker 63 And it was not severed fingers.

Speaker 62 It was a sheaf of IOUs signed by Eduardo.

Speaker 37 With these, wrote the kidnappers, Jane could get a loan for the ransom.

Speaker 12 I was supposed to now hopefully be more successful in raising funds that way.

Speaker 5 Oh, she tried.

Speaker 59 But local businessmen dismissed the IOUs as likely forgeries.

Speaker 5 Summer passed.

Speaker 47 And then October, four months into his captivity,

Speaker 69 the children pulled out home videos and huddled in their mother's bed.

Speaker 12 For a long time, the kids watched it every single day after school. And

Speaker 12 sometimes when they weren't around, I'd go in and just watch the part where he blew me the kiss and said, I love you, again and again.

Speaker 40 I love you.

Speaker 50 Day of the Dead revelers paraded San Miguel's streets in November as the kidnappers showed Jane how near death they were willing to take Eduardo.

Speaker 36 The email, Eduardo is going to receive his first gunshot in his left leg unless there is a change in the total amount offered to seven figures.

Speaker 21 It wasn't a bluff.

Speaker 97 A photo followed with the bloody proof.

Speaker 12 I snapped that day. I.

Speaker 12 couldn't cry.

Speaker 12 I didn't react.

Speaker 23 Did you see these photographs of Eduardo?

Speaker 12 I told my agent that he needed to start being my filter, that I would not be reading any more letters, and I would not look at any photographs if he wanted me to get through this and get through this sane.

Speaker 56 Nor did Jane share the photos or letters with the children.

Speaker 97 Or so she thought.

Speaker 14 I completely understand where my mom was coming from, not telling me exactly what was going on. But I had this urge to know.

Speaker 23 So what'd you do?

Speaker 14 I went on to her email and opened up pictures that I wish I hadn't seen. It was a picture of my father with no clothes on in a box with duct tape over his eyes, around his head.

Speaker 25 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 14 There was blood everywhere.

Speaker 67 What'd you do with that information, that picture, that image?

Speaker 14 Kept it inside.

Speaker 14 I just kept it inside.

Speaker 74 Two weeks later, they shot Eduardo again, this time in an arm.

Speaker 59 Then the phone calls began.

Speaker 12 I thought it would be someone disguising their voice, and that's what I'd been trained for.

Speaker 59 The agent had warned her it might happen, had even prepared dialogue for her to memorize, and kept this erase board handy so he could prompt her.

Speaker 33 But it wasn't the kidnappers who got on the phone.

Speaker 12 I was shaking. I didn't know what to do.

Speaker 6 It was Eduardo, but the things he said.

Speaker 59 This could not be the man she loved.

Speaker 48 But it was.

Speaker 12 And then he started calling me names. You're such a bitch.
How could you do this? It's my money. And it was more of the same that I'd been getting in the letters that they had forced him to write.

Speaker 74 She turned to the young federal agent.

Speaker 12 And he told me, Jane, you've been preparing for this. You can do this.
Just relax.

Speaker 13 They knew, both of them.

Speaker 76 He'd been given a script to read.

Speaker 12 We were both playing a role.

Speaker 12 After I answered the immediate questions and got the information that I wanted to make sure that they heard, which was very important to save his life, then I said, I changed my tone and in came me.

Speaker 12 And I told him how much I loved him.

Speaker 12 And how much his kids missed him.

Speaker 12 And then I would do anything to get him back and then the money didn't matter. I'd give him everything I could.

Speaker 12 And then I could hear his tone change completely, and

Speaker 12 it was the real hymn.

Speaker 12 He told me he loved me too. And then they hung up on him.

Speaker 28 A joyless Christmas arrived.

Speaker 1 And then New Year's.

Speaker 3 How long before they killed him?

Speaker 78 Coming up.

Speaker 14 I kind of knew in my heart that I would never see my father again.

Speaker 22 Despair sets in.

Speaker 40 She'd threw the telephone across the room and hit the wall. She was so angry with them.

Speaker 64 Then, from the shadows, a light was their hope.

Speaker 98 Hey, weirdos, I'm Elena.

Speaker 85 And I'm Ash, and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 98 Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 41 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 98 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 19 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 102 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 99 Yay! Woo!

Speaker 104 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

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Speaker 107 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

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Your future self will thank you. Your pet won't.

Speaker 11 They don't know what insurance is.

Speaker 66 Gossip, as everyone knows, has a way of sneaking past even the most determined efforts of official secret keepers.

Speaker 26 And soon, San Miguel de Allende chewed warily on a story that made the rounds.

Speaker 4 Eduardo Velseca kidnapped.

Speaker 36 He must have made enemies, went the story.

Speaker 29 But this was payback.

Speaker 56 He was probably already dead.

Speaker 12 Friends would say things to me like, oh, Jane, I'm so sorry about Eduardo. We liked him so much and speak about him in the past tense as if he were dead.

Speaker 63 Even on the playground, classmates told Jane's children to give up hope.

Speaker 12 The little kids would go up to my children and say things like, oh, I heard your daddy's dead, that they found him in a plastic bag in the Parque Juarez.

Speaker 14 I'd say that was around the sixth month

Speaker 14 that I kind of knew in my heart that I would never see my father again.

Speaker 56 And even if they did.

Speaker 14 If he's going to come back sane, if he's going to come back crazy, if he's going to come back, you know, having to be in a mental institution.

Speaker 13 And Jane?

Speaker 29 Well, this is her mother who heard Jane talking to the kidnappers.

Speaker 40 She would cry and yell at them on the telephone and

Speaker 40 once when they hung up on her, she'd threw the telephone across the room and hit the wall and broke the phone.

Speaker 40 She was so angry with them.

Speaker 40 You can either collapse or challenge them.

Speaker 30 Get sad or get mad.

Speaker 40 And as the time went on, she got angrier and angrier.

Speaker 30 And then Jane would turn on her computer to find messages from a man barely hanging on.

Speaker 4 I need you like never before.

Speaker 90 Help me. Be compassionate toward me.

Speaker 29 I can't take it anymore.

Speaker 69 She had troubles of her own, by the way.

Speaker 90 Breast cancer.

Speaker 79 But she kept that to herself.

Speaker 36 And as the ordeal continued, she occasionally slipped off to America for tests.

Speaker 12 I just got there. I would have MRIs and blood tests and visits with the oncologist and whatever was necessary.

Speaker 12 And I'd get back on the plane and come back.

Speaker 88 She got an idea.

Speaker 16 The kidnappers were obviously watching her, so Jane very publicly pulled up a moving truck, got out some bubble wrap, as if she was giving up.

Speaker 1 Leaving.

Speaker 40 She was packing up that furniture, and she didn't even tell me. I had to ask her, I said, are you moving? Are you going back to the States?

Speaker 29 Of course not.

Speaker 56 But that bit of theater seemed to work.

Speaker 40 After that, moving the furniture around, the tone of the emails changed. To what? They began to drop the amount of money that they were asking.

Speaker 35 Now, instead of millions, the kidnappers demanded hundreds of thousands.

Speaker 2 That was money she might be able to borrow from some well-heeled friend.

Speaker 12 So I started asking people, and some people would tell me, yeah, sure, call me on such and such a date, but then I wouldn't get a,

Speaker 12 they wouldn't answer my calls or return my messages.

Speaker 94 Why?

Speaker 12 Well, that they somehow by helping me, they would expose themselves to this sort of a thing somehow.

Speaker 75 Eduardo's grown children from his earlier marriage did everything they could to help, but they didn't have that kind of money.

Speaker 75 And so they all felt very alone as they tried to keep hope going at the ranch.

Speaker 12 I want you to look at the camera and give a message to your daddy because he's going to see this when he gets back.

Speaker 110 Dad, I love him so much, and he's the best dad in the whole wide world, and I know he's coming back soon.

Speaker 79 And then, quite literally, in the depths of their despair, something completely unexpected.

Speaker 69 One person whom Jane had not approached for loans wrote a big check, demanded no repayment or collateral.

Speaker 13 There was one single condition.

Speaker 35 The benefactor's identity be kept secret.

Speaker 32 And Jane finally received the email she'd worked so hard to get.

Speaker 56 We have a deal, it read.

Speaker 69 Be ready to deliver the money.

Speaker 88 The final amount of the request of the family and police was withheld, a fraction of the original demand.

Speaker 4 But it had to be in U.S.

Speaker 88 $100 bills, and it had to be done in secret.

Speaker 12 I had to go in and count it in a back room, make sure that everything was all in order.

Speaker 33 Then she called on her acting skills, stuffed down her anxiety, and walked out of the bank.

Speaker 12 A couple people recognized me. This is a small town.
Everyone knows you.

Speaker 12 So I stopped and talked to people and even put the bag down on the floor between my feet as if it was a yoga bag. I felt like I was stuck in a movie that I couldn't get out out of.

Speaker 36 The AFI agent refused the kidnapper's demand that a family member deliver the ransom.

Speaker 29 Instead, two ranch employees, brothers, volunteered to deliver the money.

Speaker 16 But was Eduardo even alive?

Speaker 49 She demanded proof and got in return a heart-stopping photo.

Speaker 10 It was him, all right.

Speaker 2 But the once robust, youthful Eduardo was now a gaunt, emaciated stranger.

Speaker 4 Would they let him go?

Speaker 32 She was at their mercy.

Speaker 78 Coming up.

Speaker 12 My stepson found our offy agent crying.

Speaker 46 Her worker kidnapped two.

Speaker 34 Now you've got no employee. You've got no husband.
You've got no money.

Speaker 12 That wasn't enough for them.

Speaker 22 Soon, their world would change again with a stranger at the door.

Speaker 18 My mom looks out there and she walks over to the window and looks closer.

Speaker 12 He could barely talk. He just whispered.

Speaker 87 When dateline continues.

Speaker 47 Jane Velseca was desperate to get the ransom paid and free her husband.

Speaker 32 As directed, she gave the satchel packed with cash to the brothers, dropped them at a designated hotel in Mexico City, and returned to San Miguel.

Speaker 6 Well, the brothers waited with the bag of money.

Speaker 29 Two days.

Speaker 80 And then finally, an email with instructions.

Speaker 2 Wear summer clothes, though it was winter. Mark a letter T on their car with duct tape.

Speaker 6 Bring no weapons, no cell phones.

Speaker 29 The address was a fried chicken place where they found a note taped to a payphone.

Speaker 13 More directions.

Speaker 53 And on it went.

Speaker 75 A macabre scavenger hunt from restaurant to convenience store to restaurant.

Speaker 51 Each stop with a note on a payphone and a map to the next location.

Speaker 9 For hours, they drove the giant city.

Speaker 12 In the final note, on the inside the note said,

Speaker 12 this is a photograph. Make sure that the person that meets you at the next destination has the missing piece.

Speaker 52 It was the proof of life photo with a hole where Eduardo's face should be.

Speaker 12 He was instructed to go down a dark alley at a specific spot. and meet this person who would have the other piece of the photograph.

Speaker 36 Now the brothers understood it was at an end and they followed the kidnappers' directions with absolute precision.

Speaker 39 There were eyes on them.

Speaker 65 They knew it.

Speaker 55 They pulled up to the end of an alley as they'd been ordered.

Speaker 55 One of the brothers picked up the bag of money, opened the door, got out of the car, walked down the alley, and to the remaining brothers' horror, disappeared.

Speaker 54 A strange car hovered nearby as if to guard the exchange.

Speaker 97 It was a police car.

Speaker 9 At the Valseca ranch house in San Miguel de Allende, Jane and the federal agent huddled around the dining room table and waited.

Speaker 3 Hours passed, an eternity.

Speaker 9 The tension in the room became unbearable.

Speaker 36 And then, finally, one of the two brothers Jane had sent to drop the ransom made contact.

Speaker 35 He was still sitting in his car at the mouth of that dark road.

Speaker 16 He was terrified.

Speaker 12 Finally, the Offi agent told the younger brother of the two who had gotten left behind to please go back to the hotel room and stay by the phone.

Speaker 62 The rest of that night and all the next day, Jane, the offee agent, and the young man in the hotel room in Mexico City watched the phone, willing it to ring.

Speaker 48 It did not.

Speaker 12 It took about 24 hours and then I got an email. It said in a cynical way, we have the person you sent with the money.
We've counted the money. It's all there.
In unmarked bills as we had requested.

Speaker 47 But now, said the kidnappers, Now they were holding Jane's employee and would keep holding him so that when they released Eduardo, he and Jane would have to cough up even more money to get that man back.

Speaker 34 Well, wait a minute, at that point, now you've got no employee, you've got no husband, you've got no money.

Speaker 12 But that wasn't enough for them.

Speaker 12 These people not only want everything that you have, everything that you can sell, everything that you can get a loan for, everything that you can borrow, they want to take, they want to

Speaker 12 wipe you out.

Speaker 63 No one, not even the seasoned federal offee, predicted the kidnappers would take the money and the man who delivered it. That agent was by now practically a member of the family.

Speaker 79 He'd befriended the employees chosen to go to Mexico City with the money.

Speaker 59 He'd been the cool one who kept Jane going through her months of crisis.

Speaker 60 But now, he left the room, stunned.

Speaker 12 My stepson came into the house shortly after. He found our Offee agent crying in the back alley.

Speaker 16 They had failed.

Speaker 4 Had they killed him after all?

Speaker 69 And if not, where was he?

Speaker 16 The kidnappers promised Eduardo's release 48 hours after the drop, and there was no word, no call, nothing to suggest the kidnappers had or would make good on their claim.

Speaker 36 And here at the ranch, there was a family to care for.

Speaker 4 Life had to go on.

Speaker 23 Two days after the ransom drop, in a sad, distracted ceremony, they lit candles on a cake.

Speaker 26 and marked Fernando's 13th birthday.

Speaker 14 The only thing I wish for was, if my dad's alive, please just bring him back.

Speaker 32 And then the rest of the day they tried to resume something like a routine.

Speaker 6 Routine in limbo, forced normalcy.

Speaker 7 There were small teeth to brush, bedtime stories to read.

Speaker 32 The next morning, her heart heavy, Jane wheeled herself out of bed, got breakfast for the kids.

Speaker 12 As I'm clearing the dishes, someone walked by.

Speaker 12 It was very quick, and it was someone who looked very thin and frail and very, very old and had a baseball cap, fluorescent yellow baseball cap on, dark clothing.

Speaker 10 Now, what?

Speaker 63 She knew the kidnappers had been watching the house.

Speaker 9 Was this one of them?

Speaker 9 Here was some fresh horror.

Speaker 22 Coming up, who was that quiet stranger, face to face with a ghost?

Speaker 12 He just felt so cold.

Speaker 12 It was literally as if he was already dead.

Speaker 98 Hey, weirdos! I'm Elena.

Speaker 85 And I'm Ash, and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 98 Each week, we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 41 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 98 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 19 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 102 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 99 Yay! Woo! Aye!

Speaker 104 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

Speaker 105 But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 107 Zen is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Speaker 108 Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.

Speaker 107 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen. Check out Zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 107 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

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Speaker 33 It was her 16th winter in Mexico. Eduardo had been gone seven and one-half months.

Speaker 57 She'd sold what she could, sent the money, played her hand, and still didn't know.

Speaker 53 Had they murdered the love of her life after all?

Speaker 59 It was morning in the kitchen.

Speaker 79 Jane stared out the back door of the ranch house in San Miguel.

Speaker 58 And that's when she saw it.

Speaker 33 There was a skeleton out there, a walking dead man.

Speaker 18 My mom looks out there and she walks over to the window and looks closer.

Speaker 28 It took a moment to register.

Speaker 4 It was Eduardo.

Speaker 43 She opened the door.

Speaker 12 I pulled him into me and put my arms around him and he just felt so cold.

Speaker 12 It was literally as if he was already dead. And I just started kissing him all over his cheeks.
He could barely talk. He just whispered and

Speaker 12 told me I love you so much.

Speaker 33 It was as if his freedom had come at the last possible moment before death. And there by the door, as she held him in her arms, he begged her for her special banana pancakes.

Speaker 12 He said, when I was trying to dream about what it could be like coming back if I ever was able to,

Speaker 12 I could always see you standing there at the stove and see you from the back

Speaker 12 picking my food.

Speaker 60 It was the morning after Fernando made his wish over his birthday cake for this very thing to happen.

Speaker 94 That's some birthday gift.

Speaker 25 Just grateful.

Speaker 14 Best birthday gift of my life.

Speaker 112 Got my dad back.

Speaker 14 I just sprinted down the hallway and I saw him in the kitchen kneeling down like this with his arms open.

Speaker 14 And I gave him a hug and the first thing that I noticed was touching his bones and he was pale and he looked dead

Speaker 14 but conscious.

Speaker 18 I remember I didn't believe that that was my dad. I thought my mom hired an actor to play my dad.

Speaker 79 The old Eduardo crept back into that cadaverous body, surrounded by his children, his plates of food, and the woman who fought for him every minute of those months, who cried for him, who saved his life.

Speaker 71 Always Jane.

Speaker 12 He followed me around a lot. He wouldn't let me out of his sight, not even to use the restroom.
He wanted to follow me everywhere.

Speaker 4 And here he was restored.

Speaker 95 I hadn't seen myself in a mirror for seven and a half months.

Speaker 61 I'm living extra hours now, he told us.

Speaker 7 But in those first hours of freedom, he found it hard to stand.

Speaker 32 He could barely walk.

Speaker 69 He had lost half his body weight, weighed barely 80 pounds, and could not believe how truly awful he looked.

Speaker 36 The first time that I saw myself against the mirror and I lifted my t-shirt, I pulled it back on immediately.

Speaker 95 I couldn't believe I looked like pure bones and skin.

Speaker 115 I just...

Speaker 109 It was too much.

Speaker 21 Of course, given what he'd been through, he probably shouldn't have survived at all.

Speaker 5 The doctor who finally examined him noted late-stage severe starvation, liver damage, concussion, three broken ribs, and severe stomach infections.

Speaker 48 He hobbled around, bent and brittle, had to be supported up or down the stairs.

Speaker 16 It's like they suck the life out of me.

Speaker 95 They just took everything away from me.

Speaker 34 Dead in a way.

Speaker 71 Alive but dead.

Speaker 25 Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 61 And yet, within those first hours and days of freedom.

Speaker 12 He was already laughing and

Speaker 12 it was as if, drip by drip, life was coming back into this skeleton.

Speaker 23 Kind of like the first day of the rest of your life, isn't it?

Speaker 12 Completely.

Speaker 59 And then she'd see a cloud on his face or sense the torment in his dreams at night. He'd suddenly be haunted again.

Speaker 114 I have these flashbacks of I'm not sure if I'm dreaming.

Speaker 114 And is this true that I'm out or it's just a reflection of my thoughts?

Speaker 14 I would wake up early every morning and go check if that wasn't a dream.

Speaker 46 I'd wake up,

Speaker 14 yeah, I'd run up to his room and knock and see him get up. Okay, he's back.

Speaker 77 But they all knew their living nightmare wasn't over.

Speaker 7 The kidnappers still held their employee, were still threatening the whole family with death.

Speaker 4 And Eduardo needed to tell Jane, as he is about to tell us,

Speaker 90 about his astonishing ordeal.

Speaker 78 Coming up.

Speaker 61 This is unbelievable.

Speaker 66 How do you keep your sanity?

Speaker 22 More than seven months in hell. Exactly what had he endured?

Speaker 118 I thought, this is it.

Speaker 117 He's gonna shoot me.

Speaker 115 And then I started hearing these sounds, and

Speaker 115 I didn't know what he was gonna do.

Speaker 87 When dateline continues,

Speaker 59 Eduardo Velseca is a charming and outgoing man. Hallelujah.

Speaker 68 Do you have a message for us in the year 2000?

Speaker 67 With a ready laugh, an infectious zest for life.

Speaker 65 How?

Speaker 55 We wondered, given what you're about to hear, is that still possible?

Speaker 48 He calls it the box.

Speaker 63 So this is exactly the same size.

Speaker 8 Exactly.

Speaker 32 We built a replica, a precise copy of the miserable container in which Eduardo was held held for seven and one-half months.

Speaker 6 Here's where the air goes in.

Speaker 36 Here's where it's pumped out.

Speaker 73 You know,

Speaker 30 I wouldn't fit in this damn thing.

Speaker 10 No, no, no, no.

Speaker 58 Just like the original, the inside surfaces are covered in dark, abrasive rug, a single bulb in the ceiling, an electronic eye watching.

Speaker 33 The box is only slightly wider than our own shoulders, barely long enough to lie down in.

Speaker 61 This is unbelievable.

Speaker 66 How do you keep your sanity?

Speaker 117 When I first arrived here, and I repeat myself over and over and over, calm you mind down.

Speaker 63 When he first came here, that was the violent ambush in the Jeep outside the school.

Speaker 59 Then the bloody, semi-conscious, hooded ride that followed, a blind hustle into a building, up a stairwell, on someone's shoulder, the stripping of all his clothes, the sudden confinement in a box.

Speaker 35 Since the first minute, that's the only thing I ever saw, just that box.

Speaker 48 Then, the vicious daily beatings and the rules.

Speaker 59 Rule one, no talking, ever.

Speaker 63 Communication was by handwritten note. The kidnappers would signal when they wanted to enter the box.

Speaker 79 Always twice, always like that.

Speaker 63 And that was your signal to do what?

Speaker 117 To put a pillowcase over my head. and immediately go like I am right now and put my head against the wall.

Speaker 23 So you see, you never never see their face.

Speaker 54 Never, ever, ever.

Speaker 73 They watched him on the webcam, kept him naked, fed him an occasional piece of fruit or a salad.

Speaker 79 A small bucket served as his toilet.

Speaker 28 It was rarely emptied.

Speaker 72 His kidnappers kept the light burning day and night, blasted the inside of the box with high-volume music.

Speaker 20 I say, please, just turn off the music just once, please.

Speaker 117 They say, if we turn off the music and you're able to hear what we talk about then we have to kill you how loud was this music very loud to the point that i lost 15 percent of my hearing on the right side the beatings said eduardo intensified each time he was ordered to write jane a new letter begging her to pay he broke my bones and all that just kicking me and i couldn't feel a shape of my head anymore.

Speaker 117 It was full of bumps.

Speaker 49 He secretly marked off the passing days on saved scraps of paper.

Speaker 32 Slowly he starved.

Speaker 72 If they gave him a bit of chicken, he'd eat the bone as well.

Speaker 62 An egg, he'd eat the shell.

Speaker 59 And the tortures intensified. The kidnappers sent him notes, telling him Jane didn't care about him, had moved another man into the ranch to live with her.

Speaker 51 And in the endless hours of coffin-like solitude, doubts ate at his mind.

Speaker 115 I start feeling mixed feelings.

Speaker 117 I thought maybe she's feeling that they're gonna to kill me anyway, and they're going to take the little bit of money

Speaker 117 that we have.

Speaker 63 They forced him to write those accusing letters to Jane, he said.

Speaker 72 And when she still didn't pay, they gave him a note announcing they would shoot him.

Speaker 117 They came in, they covered my face, they handcuffed me,

Speaker 117 they put me face down on the floor, so they put a gun right on my leg. and they shot me right there.

Speaker 52 And the pain is tremendous.

Speaker 117 It's like a bomb coming from the inside of your body out.

Speaker 10 Then two weeks later, again the announcement in advance, you will be shot.

Speaker 117 And now he shot me in the left arm and right here. And again, he didn't want to shoot

Speaker 117 the bomb. So

Speaker 117 he went from here and it came out on the other side. I was not afraid of dying because I couldn't take it anymore.
If I had had

Speaker 115 a piece of glass or if I had had anything I would have killed myself.

Speaker 59 And so he thought of home, of his wife's banana pancakes.

Speaker 73 He imagined the faces of his children.

Speaker 115 I will hear Fernando saying that I miss you

Speaker 7 and I will see Emiliano so confused.

Speaker 115 I will miss Naya seeing his beautiful green eyes.

Speaker 63 He was in his box for a total of 225 days.

Speaker 48 And then one morning.

Speaker 117 He put me against this wall with the handcuffs and I thought this is it. He's gonna shoot me.

Speaker 117 It was hard.

Speaker 115 And then I started hearing these sounds and

Speaker 118 I didn't know what he was gonna do.

Speaker 116 But they didn't shoot him.

Speaker 47 Instead, they shaved him and dressed him.

Speaker 109 and took the proof of life photo Jane was about to find in her email.

Speaker 59 And then they tied the hood back on his head and put him in a car and brought him here.

Speaker 29 They ordered, face the wall.

Speaker 7 It was a cemetery wall.

Speaker 3 To die?

Speaker 69 A voice behind him said, start counting.

Speaker 95 So I started counting from one to two hundred right here.

Speaker 36 Did you get all the way?

Speaker 37 To 200?

Speaker 109 Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 46 Oh, I was so scared.

Speaker 20 You know, I didn't want to to screw it up.

Speaker 5 And then he turned around and they were gone.

Speaker 67 You have been in that box all that time.

Speaker 66 And here you are standing all alone in the middle of the night under the sky.

Speaker 64 What was that like?

Speaker 95 The first time in seven and a half months that I could feel the wind.

Speaker 95 And I could move my legs and just move away from the wall.

Speaker 95 And it felt really like walking in a different planet.

Speaker 74 His legs were so weak, he stumbled and fell as he hobbled to a nearby road.

Speaker 7 He felt in his pocket, a few pesos in there.

Speaker 69 He had no idea where he was.

Speaker 95 It was an old man already sitting there waiting for the bus from Mexico City. And I told him where I was going, Rancho Los Charcos, and he told me this is the right bus.

Speaker 74 Which is how, early that morning, Eduardo Velseca arrived at his own back door and asked his wife to make banana pancakes. Unmitigated joy

Speaker 46 and terror.

Speaker 16 Terror?

Speaker 16 Oh yes.

Speaker 57 It wasn't over.

Speaker 12 I couldn't even relish in the moment having my husband back because we were still dealing with these people.

Speaker 4 Now remember, the kidnappers were holding Jane and Eduardo's employee.

Speaker 93 The man who'd volunteered to deliver the ransom and for his trouble was snatched to the drop site.

Speaker 69 So now a new round of emailed demands began arriving.

Speaker 12 We started negotiating. It was like the whole thing all over again.

Speaker 6 But this time, the kidnappers promised to kill not just the employee, but the whole family.

Speaker 77 All of them.

Speaker 39 So he's still terrified, you know.

Speaker 12 I just couldn't believe it wasn't over.

Speaker 97 The federal police asked them to go to Mexico City to be debriefed by senior officials.

Speaker 51 But they weren't prepared.

Speaker 77 How could they be?

Speaker 33 For what they'd hear there.

Speaker 22 Coming up, the entire family suddenly in danger again.

Speaker 14 I lost my best friends. I lost my home.
Everything changed. Every single thing that you could imagine.

Speaker 22 And the cruelest setback of all.

Speaker 20 That was the worst thing in my life. More than the kidnap and all.
That was terrible.

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Speaker 69 Officials of the federal police listened very carefully while Jane and Eduardo told their terrifying story.

Speaker 90 But what the officials said in response was shocking.

Speaker 69 And final.

Speaker 74 You must leave the country.

Speaker 97 Now, they were told, for your safety.

Speaker 51 Their guard hustled them back to the ranch, allowed 48 hours to prepare.

Speaker 65 And then, in a moment, it was over.

Speaker 68 They gathered what they could carry, left behind clothes and dolls and donkeys and dogs and bunny rabbits. And they left.

Speaker 68 Left forever.

Speaker 65 The kidnappers had left Eduardo alive, if barely.

Speaker 68 But paradise,

Speaker 94 paradise was lost.

Speaker 14 I lost my best friends. I lost my home.
I lost everything that I knew about life.

Speaker 14 Just like that. Gone.

Speaker 25 They came to America, to Jane's mother's place, to start all over again.

Speaker 41 I wanted change after that happened.

Speaker 14 I wanted a new environment. I wanted...
change. We needed a reset button after everything.
Everything changed from one day to another. Everything.
Every single thing that you could imagine.

Speaker 14 It's literally two different lives.

Speaker 6 That kidnapped employee, by the way, the kidnappers, simply released him nearly three months later.

Speaker 77 No ransom at all.

Speaker 51 The federal police continued to maintain that the kidnapping was the work of a Marxist revolution party called the EPR.

Speaker 51 But there were no arrests.

Speaker 69 There were no answers.

Speaker 50 And gradually, the memory of their terror was mixed with nostalgia for the life they'd left behind.

Speaker 36 Which is in part why, a year and a half after Eduardo's release, he and Jane decided to return with us to their beloved ranch. But it had to be secret, Eduardo told us.

Speaker 90 No one could know they were coming.

Speaker 14 Because you never know who is informing these people because they knew everything about the kids.

Speaker 45 They knew everything about us.

Speaker 16 So anybody could be there telling them, you know, here they're back.

Speaker 59 Bodyguards would come along, too.

Speaker 63 A strange accessory now, given what a free and happy place the ranch used to be.

Speaker 55 That first night, though, in your old bed in the house. Is that a little weird getting back into that?

Speaker 116 Oh, it was great.

Speaker 25 I mean, really.

Speaker 12 And I slept well knowing that we had bodyguards.

Speaker 63 It was just as they left it.

Speaker 49 Their clothes still filled the closets.

Speaker 58 Family portraits decorated their rooms.

Speaker 36 Even the dogs greeted them them as if their forced departure had been yesterday.

Speaker 47 Okay.

Speaker 69 There was a happy reunion at the school Jane helped found.

Speaker 77 They led her around the campus to show off the progress they'd made in her absence.

Speaker 98 Wow, it looks amazing.

Speaker 9 How painful that absence had been.

Speaker 23 Their trip back to the ranch coincided with Eduardo's 61st birthday, so Jane hastily organized a fiesta fiesta with only close and trusted friends.

Speaker 74 And they in a magic evening were transported back into the world they left behind.

Speaker 77 A world they loved.

Speaker 114 It was just wonderful.

Speaker 45 For Yenny and I was just like 100% therapy.

Speaker 116 to go back to the place and feel happy about it and feel safe about it.

Speaker 114 It was fantastic.

Speaker 59 The unease, if that's what it was, that accompanied Jane and Eduardo back to their ranch in San Miguel had vanished. This was home and it was tugging hard.

Speaker 48 Come back.

Speaker 10 And then?

Speaker 55 What just happened, just now what happened?

Speaker 12 Okay, well Eduardo came through the door with the lawyer and told me that now the whole entire train has been destroyed on the inside. It's been ransacked.

Speaker 35 It was the Pullman car, Eduardo's inheritance from his famous father, the train in which he'd wooed Jane as they fell in love.

Speaker 23 He'd brought it to the ranch, a sort of magic shrine to their love and his past.

Speaker 2 Someone, well, they were right here at the ranch, had broken in, smashed it up.

Speaker 29 They were being watched.

Speaker 69 It felt like a warning.

Speaker 33 And the police?

Speaker 95 We called them, they say they couldn't come because they didn't have gasoline.

Speaker 14 Imagine the answer for a police force to say that they cannot go to the ranch because there is is no enough for gasoline.

Speaker 91 And quite suddenly, they knew it was over.

Speaker 12 I'm just feeling like that. I'm so overwhelmed with the situation that we're living in in Mexico today that I just can't stand it.
I just cannot bear it anymore. I want to get far away from here.

Speaker 26 So Eduardo said goodbye to his native land.

Speaker 9 Jane was his country now.

Speaker 69 The woman he saw at the phone booth all those years ago, whom he wooed on his train car, who made a family and saved his life,

Speaker 23 who, as he sat crumpled in his box, kept him alive and in love.

Speaker 118 I always knew love is important, but never as important as I know now.

Speaker 118 So you learn, it changes your life forever, for sure.

Speaker 6 But it does not make life fair.

Speaker 2 We have to tell you, though it is difficult to do so, that Jane Velseca's breast cancer returned full force.

Speaker 75 And four years after she fought for and won Eduardo's freedom, she died.

Speaker 30 That had to be a dark time for you.

Speaker 94 Terrible time. That was horrible.

Speaker 20 Did you at any point? That was the worst thing in my life, more than the kidnap and all. That was terrible.

Speaker 14 It was definitely the most difficult time of my life losing that woman.

Speaker 48 Yeah.

Speaker 18 She was a hero. She was...

Speaker 12 She was a badass.

Speaker 18 Yeah, she was amazing. I look at her as like the person I want to become one day.

Speaker 14 I'm very lucky to have had a woman like that as a mother.

Speaker 16 Very lucky.

Speaker 16 Now,

Speaker 29 her presence hovers over everything.

Speaker 29 But they are realists.

Speaker 51 She is gone.

Speaker 13 Nothing they can do.

Speaker 109 So, did it matter anymore finding out who kidnapped and tortured Eduardo all those 225 days or catching whoever it was?

Speaker 14 I put that away. I wasn't even thinking of it.
Of course, I wanted justice, but I didn't.

Speaker 6 But you accept that you probably will never get it.

Speaker 116 Exactly.

Speaker 14 I was pissed off, and I was sick and tired of suffering out there, that I was happy to be back here, and all I wanted to do is not think about what happened.

Speaker 66 Did you at some point along the way think, I'm never going to find out who did this to me, who did this to us, and I'll just give up.

Speaker 45 After the time went by, and I know these guys, the police and the government, and all of that, they will never call me back and they didn't care about it.

Speaker 64 I totally lost hope.

Speaker 16 And then, out of the blue, total fluke, something amazing happened. All because of one nervous cab driver and a severed finger and a harrowing tail.

Speaker 78 Coming up.

Speaker 20 And It says they grab a very dangerous kidnapper. Then we really seriously think that it's the same guy that grabbed you.

Speaker 22 After all these years, an arrest.

Speaker 29 And could it be?

Speaker 22 Was this his prison?

Speaker 116 Wow, it really, really looks like this is the place.

Speaker 87 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 30 The news from San Miguel de Allende had been dramatic, remarkable.

Speaker 2 Here it was from the state attorney general.

Speaker 69 A months-long kidnapping solved with an arrest.

Speaker 111 The kidnappers demanded large ransoms that must be paid in U.S. dollars.

Speaker 76 But was this the revolutionary group Eduardo had been told about again and again?

Speaker 16 No.

Speaker 2 This was a Chilean national, a resident of San Miguel, and his kidnapping business appeared to be freelance for the money.

Speaker 74 The kidnapper had been charged with abducting this resident of San Miguel.

Speaker 69 Her finger was cut off during her ordeal.

Speaker 36 Eduardo, now living in a Washington, D.C.

Speaker 38 suburb, heard of the arrest from a Mexican newspaper reporter.

Speaker 20 He says, I work for Reformer, and I don't know if you are aware they grab in San Miguel a very dangerous kidnapper.

Speaker 45 Then we really seriously think that it's the same guy that grabbed you.

Speaker 92 Wait, his kidnapper?

Speaker 2 Now Eduardo had to know, and so did we.

Speaker 75 Was it true?

Speaker 59 So, November 2019, more than a decade since he'd been taken, We took him with us to San Miguel to find an answer that suddenly mattered a great deal indeed.

Speaker 29 Reporters Veronica Espinosa and Ana Luz Solis report extensively on the kidnappings in San Miguel.

Speaker 66 How many kidnappings were there in San Miguel in the last 10 years?

Speaker 13 Ten kidnappings that I know.

Speaker 47 And in every case, naked in a box, the starvation, the extortion methods, all were the same.

Speaker 49 And bit by bit, this peaceful and prosperous colonial town became fearful.

Speaker 12 The people don't have the same trust they once had in this paradise.

Speaker 74 But now, by all appearances, they got him.

Speaker 35 The person behind it all.

Speaker 82 There were a series of statements made by federal authorities and from the state attorney general's office that said that he was, in fact, the leader of all these kidnappings, including Eduardo's.

Speaker 59 And after he was caught, the kidnapping stopped.

Speaker 36 Anna Luz took us to the place.

Speaker 32 The kidnapper was apprehended.

Speaker 52 He told the story of the cabby who was paid 10 times the fare to deliver a package that felt disturbing.

Speaker 37 And when he felt the package, it was like something really strange in there.

Speaker 2 Inside was the finger of the kidnapped woman and a ransom letter. But the cabby could see the man who gave him the package and the money was tailing him.

Speaker 30 Taxi came along and parked,

Speaker 37 what, just stopped up here or something?

Speaker 20 Right where you see that car coming?

Speaker 10 Yeah, that's where he came the cabby was terrified hurry he begged the police the police told him just pull up like you were putting us in the in the car and that's when they they came in the cops arrested the man but had no idea yet who he was and while they figured it out that man made a phone call to this modern suburban apartment on the outskirts of san miguel nancy was kept three months in his house right in a resident i mean a very suburban-looking place, right?

Speaker 13 Right.

Speaker 36 Where for months the kidnapper and his confederates had been holding that French-American woman, naked, starving.

Speaker 23 A wooden box for a cell.

Speaker 7 The details so similar to Eduardo's case.

Speaker 20 So they had the wood around and they had sort of like plastic that kills the sound. Sort of like in a, how do you call that?

Speaker 30 Like a sound-proofing material.

Speaker 65 She could scream and not be heard.

Speaker 52 That's right.

Speaker 69 And the kidnapper's phone call from the gas station was to his confederate in there.

Speaker 95 So he said, the criminal said, tell Carlos to clean the box.

Speaker 20 So one hour later, after that call, Nancy was totally walking by herself.

Speaker 76 They just let her go.

Speaker 71 They just let her go.

Speaker 4 Then Arnaluz took us farther out, beyond the suburbs,

Speaker 7 to this brightly colored country house surrounded by acres and acres of privacy.

Speaker 93 Here, she said, was where the kidnapper lived a solidly middle-class life.

Speaker 20 And if I close my eyes when we were coming

Speaker 52 on the car right now on the way here, it's very similar what I felt, the cobblestone, the cobblestones and all that.

Speaker 32 As we approached, Eduardo was tense.

Speaker 35 Was this where he was held all those seven and a half months, more than a decade ago?

Speaker 20 She's certain that when the time I was captured, he owned this house and nobody else was living here. So that's a great possibility that they kept me here.

Speaker 20 I can recognize...

Speaker 116 Wow, it really, really looks like this is the place, my friend.

Speaker 34 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 10 All right. This is incredible.

Speaker 97 The property is derelict.

Speaker 57 It has been long abandoned.

Speaker 32 Eduardo scoured the floor plan

Speaker 50 based on sounds he heard in captivity.

Speaker 73 What's it like to be in here?

Speaker 30 Knowing that it could be the place?

Speaker 36 It will feel like finding a treasure.

Speaker 20 Because just knowing that these guys kept me here and all that opens

Speaker 36 another level in my mind that this is the place.

Speaker 20 But you know, I'm not 100% sure and I'm going to tell you why.

Speaker 20 Because after a few months, they changed me to another box.

Speaker 20 And what I remember very clearly is that we walk in the same second floor for a while.

Speaker 47 And this is pretty pretty small.

Speaker 61 This is very small.

Speaker 98 Wow.

Speaker 6 And then we saw it.

Speaker 16 Look at this.

Speaker 6 Lying in the dust of this abandoned place.

Speaker 58 Look at this. It's a picture of him and his wife.

Speaker 37 This is a picture of the kidnapper.

Speaker 2 That's right. That's the main guy.

Speaker 53 We found on the floor

Speaker 57 the electric bill with his name on, and that's him and his wife

Speaker 57 kissing her.

Speaker 54 The words that go with these grainy pictures, the name, the identity, the person, were like a knife in the heart.

Speaker 88 A betrayal like no other.

Speaker 78 Coming up.

Speaker 82 I don't even want to look at their faces.

Speaker 14 I don't want anything to do with them.

Speaker 22 A heart-stopping realization. The man who kidnapped Eduardo was very close to home.

Speaker 20 That's too much to digest.

Speaker 7 There's always more to the story.

Speaker 28 To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Dateline series with Josh and Keith available Wednesday.

Speaker 20 This is like a laundry room.

Speaker 9 There are some shocks, some betrayals almost beyond describing, that can suck out faith in humanity, in trust.

Speaker 48 Look at him.

Speaker 36 Like this photo of what looks like a loving husband.

Speaker 1 His name is Raul Escobar, and he is a kidnapper.

Speaker 20 That was really incredible.

Speaker 6 The man who tortured, starved, shot, cut off his victim's finger was, said many who knew him, charming, a good friend, a willing helper, the life of any party.

Speaker 66 Got married in the beach house of his last victim.

Speaker 20 I was in shock.

Speaker 35 And the connection between Escobar and Eduardo may may be even more painful.

Speaker 30 Three years before Eduardo's kidnapping, Escobar enrolled his son in the Waldorf School, eventually became a school trustee.

Speaker 32 It was the very school Jane Valseca built on their ranch.

Speaker 32 And there, he had access to personal information about Eduardo's family and a perfect vantage point to watch Jane as she negotiated to win her husband's freedom.

Speaker 1 But it got even worse.

Speaker 52 Not only for that,

Speaker 20 but he was married to a woman from Chile and she had a son

Speaker 20 and the son was dating my granddaughter.

Speaker 46 Here they are.

Speaker 93 Years after Eduardo's release, this is the kidnapper's stepson with Eduardo's granddaughter.

Speaker 20 She really loved the whole entire family. So to know that this is the guy then destroyed our family.

Speaker 45 and then we have to leave our country and all that because

Speaker 20 that's that's too much to digest.

Speaker 66 Do you see his service on the PTA and involvement in the school as being a cover for his criminal activities?

Speaker 116 Oh, without a doubt.

Speaker 20 The answer to that is very simple.

Speaker 45 He looked like a wonderful father, a wonderful husband,

Speaker 39 carrying all that.

Speaker 50 Escobar is serving a 60-year sentence for his last kidnapping, the woman whose finger he severed.

Speaker 76 He has since been transferred to a jail in Chile and will potentially serve more time for other crimes.

Speaker 88 And according to authorities, the evidence links him to many, if not all, the San Miguel kidnappings, including Eduardo's.

Speaker 64 Several of those who were also touched by the trauma

Speaker 83 at one point agreed that perhaps they would like to talk to us, tell the story.

Speaker 65 Some of them held even longer than Eduardo.

Speaker 66 But when it came time,

Speaker 25 no,

Speaker 65 they did not want to appear on camera.

Speaker 25 They're afraid.

Speaker 97 The reason?

Speaker 2 The kidnapper's known accomplices fled the country after his arrest.

Speaker 46 But maybe there were more.

Speaker 24 No one knows for sure.

Speaker 35 Some say they've moved on to another part of Mexico.

Speaker 91 And Escobar?

Speaker 88 His sentence is very long, but...

Speaker 66 Do you have any hope at all that the authorities will try to investigate him for your kidnapping and the other kidnapping?

Speaker 20 From 1 to 10, 0.

Speaker 20 I know the authorities don't give a damn.

Speaker 69 The federal government won't comment on potential prosecution of Escobar for the other San Miguel kidnappings.

Speaker 4 But as for the Valsacred children.

Speaker 82 I don't even want to look at their faces.

Speaker 14 I don't want anything to do with them. I want them to rot in jail for the rest of his life.
Yeah, I wish I could say that I've forgiven and be as big as my mom and my father are, but it's just

Speaker 14 not the case.

Speaker 77 But they've moved on.

Speaker 24 They're in Colorado now.

Speaker 69 College, jobs, and they've inherited from their parents a stubborn refusal to live in the past.

Speaker 14 I just try to stay grateful every single second that I get up in the morning and know that

Speaker 14 I'm okay and that I have these people in my life. I mean, after all the hell that we went through together and all the pain, it has made us unbreakable.

Speaker 94 Well you went through it together.

Speaker 14 Exactly. And we're finally settling into it I feel like.

Speaker 35 The lovely ranch house outside San Miguel is owned by developers now.

Speaker 9 They're digging away on 16 new home sites here.

Speaker 64 What's it like to see your place carved up this way and changed in this these significant ways?

Speaker 20 A lot of emotions for sure.

Speaker 118 I don't see myself backing here again at all.

Speaker 25 So

Speaker 20 I try not to be emotional about it and not to think so much about it because it's just painful.

Speaker 92 And so is this.

Speaker 3 The Waldorf school has left the Velsea Ranch.

Speaker 1 The classrooms and playgrounds, Jane's dream, are abandoned.

Speaker 3 Derelict.

Speaker 8 Took forever to do these things.

Speaker 109 Slowly, little by little.

Speaker 116 I planted those big trees now, you know, and now they're big.

Speaker 61 So that tells me, wow, I'm really getting old.

Speaker 20 Yeah, the beautiful memories.

Speaker 53 I can't just

Speaker 116 feel sadness

Speaker 8 in my heart, you know, life is too short.

Speaker 52 You don't let the sadness in.

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 8 You have to find excuses for being happy every day instead of bringing excuses not to be happy.

Speaker 67 That might be the secret of life.

Speaker 64 Yeah, it's a place.

Speaker 22 That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 Central.
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.

Speaker 27 I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News. Good night.

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