Tanko Talks, Megyn's Hidden Camera Footage - Part 5 of Megyn Kelly Investigates: Baby Lisa's Disappearance | Ep. 1026

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Speaker 3 I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show and episode five of our special series, Megan Kelly Investigates.
We're tackling the disappearance of baby Lisa Irwin.

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Speaker 3 John Tanko, nicknamed Jersey, the handyman in the neighborhood with a long wrap sheet.

Speaker 3 The ex-boyfriend of Megan Wright, the woman whose phone was called by the Irwins stolen phone the night their baby, little Lisa, went missing.

Speaker 3 And the guy who tantalizingly told attorney Cindy Short he just happened to find three cell phones and then tossed them somewhere around the time the baby went missing.

Speaker 3 You've heard his name again and again in this series. Everyone wants to hear from him and find out what he knows.
Well, After 12 plus years, we found him.

Speaker 4 If you're watching, that's him in the red sweatshirt on the bike. We tracked him back to New Jersey, where he was arrested for shoplifting in 2022.

Speaker 4 Now that we know where he is, it's time to figure out the best way to get him to talk. Here's part of my strategy session with our go-to experts, Bill Stanton and Phil Houston.

Speaker 4 So unbelievably, we found Jersey. After all this time, Nobody could find him.
Cindy Short found him, but the cops apparently didn't know where he was for some time.

Speaker 4 Jim Spellman, who's been doing yeoman's work on this case couldn't find him we found him and now we got to decide what to do with him um so got to figure out what the approach should be um

Speaker 8 i'm perfectly happy to just go knock on his door and see what happens well if you go knocking on his door it's very easy just to not even answer or just slam it on your face What I'm thinking about doing is luring him out, and then you

Speaker 8 come between him and the door, which may give you that precious one line, that question that will hook him. And then he will want to stay outside.

Speaker 8 And then when he comes out, he doesn't even have to know where together.

Speaker 7 I got your back.

Speaker 8 And then you confront him.

Speaker 4 I just want to say that the way I would normally do this is I would go, I would ring the doorbell and I would say, Are you John?

Speaker 4 Hi, I'm Megan Kelly, and I'm trying to investigate what happened to this poor missing baby. You know, a lot of allegations have been made about you.

Speaker 3 Will you talk to me?

Speaker 4 I'd love to give you the chance to answer some of the things that have been said about you.

Speaker 8 It's all in the approach. You see, the way I'm proposing it, you get two bites of the apple.

Speaker 9 Megan, if we want the outcome that we can actually get him to open up even a little bit, you and Bill need to stay together. And with you ringing the doorbell, Bill standing slightly behind you.

Speaker 9 If he's outside, then you approach him. Megan, you would approach him first.
Bill

Speaker 9 would stay back bill needs to keep you within near arm's reach distance if we want to get information from him we need his resistance at the lowest level possible and I believe Bill you need to give her the highest level of safety and security possible so how can you just can you describe that Phil so how how would that look in your scenario well I loved your introduction hi I'm Megan Kelly I'd love to have a chat with you and here's the reason I'd love to have a chat with you.

Speaker 9 We have been working on the disappearance of Lisa for over 10 years now.

Speaker 9 And as a result of that, we know a whole lot more than we've ever known to include the players that are involved. And that's why we're talking to you today.
We want to get your side.

Speaker 9 I would not mention investigate or investigation. I wouldn't mention case, anything that has consequences associated with it.
You just want to have a talk and a conversation.

Speaker 9 We call it a transition statement in the interrogation world, because what it does is, is it signals to that individual that everything that they have done to try and pull this off.

Speaker 9 to be successful has failed. And that's when you would get in with the first question.

Speaker 9 What was your role in the disappearance?

Speaker 9 It's a presumptive question. A question you want to make sure if you can get in on camera is the question about the telephones.

Speaker 9 Is there any reason your fingerprints are on those telephones that went missing that night?

Speaker 4 So, you know, this is a tried and true technique of Phil's. We've actually seen no evidence that Tanko's fingerprints are on any cell phones.

Speaker 9 You keep talking. John, you're a smart guy.
You know that at some point this was going to come to this.

Speaker 9 You can help resolve this whole matter that has caused pain and anguish to the parents and to their family. You know, we're not here to argue with you or call you names or anything.

Speaker 9 And what you're doing is

Speaker 9 you're limiting or minimizing the amount of questions because every time he answers a lie, your job gets twice as hard to get that admission.

Speaker 9 But if you can right off the bat, can get him to listen to you, you've got a shot.

Speaker 8 We could talk all about the questions, but the first phase is getting him to stay. The further away, getting him outside that front door gives her more time.

Speaker 8 Time and distance give Megan options. Because unless we get that engagement, all of this is for naught.

Speaker 9 I understand, Bill, but I think you may have a chance to get him to open up a little bit.

Speaker 4 So, Phil, psychologically, at that moment, what are you trying to do? Build him up into thinking like

Speaker 4 that you actually believe he could be helpful, that he's not an adversary or a target, but that we're all in on this together.

Speaker 9 Without trying to buddy up or cozy up to him. You don't want him to make a denial.
Once they deny, that really makes your job difficult. And so when you see them start to make a denial,

Speaker 9 what you want to do is say their name.

Speaker 9 Whether people realize it or not, one good way to keep up, to interrupt a person, stop them from talking is to say their name. It just instinctively people shut up when they hear their name.

Speaker 9 It's a three-step process. You say, John, hang on.
It's a control phrase. John, hang on for a minute, okay?

Speaker 9 And then And then I want to hear your side of it. And you've got your hand up is the third.
So, John, the control phrase and the hand up. And

Speaker 9 it's not in your face.

Speaker 9 It's almost like a defensive gesture.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 4 we're trying to

Speaker 4 stop a denial because. Yes.

Speaker 9 Yes. Stop the denials at all costs, no matter what happens throughout the whole thing.
Just keep saying, John, let's talk about the truth. It's not easy.

Speaker 9 I mean,

Speaker 9 if it were easy, you know, we'd all, we'd have a ton more confessions than we have, but

Speaker 9 people do break and they break at moments for reasons we don't understand sometimes.

Speaker 9 This could be it. This could be the good.

Speaker 8 For the sake of just being taking the opposite tact, I'm going to be contrary on that. I think the last thing he's going to want to see.
is you, Megan.

Speaker 8 And I'm hoping he's going to get loud.

Speaker 8 and in his loud he may say something stupid if we can get one tenth of what phil's putting forth that's tv gold because this man has never given an interview no so 30 seconds two minutes 10 minutes an hour you know no one has ever been able to do this i just don't see him changing now as we pull up to his home in the cul-de-sac yo i've i'm i you're gonna i'm gonna do something i've never i'm happily wrong

Speaker 9 You're absolutely wrong. We do this all the time.

Speaker 8 I will eat my shoe on Megan's camera.

Speaker 7 I hope that. And be happily wrong.
And be happily wrong.

Speaker 9 I am not anticipating.

Speaker 9 a full confession by any stretch. But if you got, for example, an acknowledgement that he had those phones and he did something with them and so forth.
That's tantamount to a confession.

Speaker 8 No, I get it, but it's all about the engagement. Does he take the hook or not? Bill,

Speaker 8 it's the opening 10 seconds. If Megan doesn't hook him in five to 10 seconds, then there's nothing.

Speaker 9 Bill, I've talked to terrorists who are far, far more

Speaker 9 conditioned not to give up information.

Speaker 7 And they talk.

Speaker 9 They

Speaker 4 if you approach them in the right manner i feel like we're formulating a plan where i i kind of like i like what phil is saying like where we show up we just we're kind of open about it we don't pop out with cameras but it's clearly you and me bill walk into the door you're close but i'm like in the lead and we ask to speak with him following you know loosely phil's script yes no what about phil right at the top when i start i ask my first question and he gives me the line that my lawyer told me not to talk about this.

Speaker 4 I'm not talking about this.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 9 You could say, John, look,

Speaker 9 this is not about lawyers. We're not here to bring harm to anybody, including yourself.
We just want the truth. And you have a very critical piece

Speaker 9 of information

Speaker 9 that will help this get resolved.

Speaker 4 So if he's talking

Speaker 4 in any way, in a a confrontational way in a confessional way in a you know friendly way

Speaker 4 i'm going to be wrestling with

Speaker 4 saying

Speaker 4 would you mind if i bring my cameras in and we can have the same conversation because i think that will that will shut it down now i'd much rather have his agreement to doing it on camera i understand why we have to do it with the undercover camera and i think it's a good idea but it'd be so much nicer if we could just have his agreement to do it like that that's your call.

Speaker 8 You'll know.

Speaker 7 You'll know.

Speaker 8 And listen, we got the hidden camera. So

Speaker 8 we got multiple options.

Speaker 4 Well, I mean, I think, I mean, he's gone 12 years without getting caught on camera at all.

Speaker 4 It's amazing how he's managed to dodge. So I have zero expectation he's going to say, yes.
I'll sit down in front of your camera.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 4 But it's

Speaker 4 there'll be a, there'll be a point if he's talking to me where I'm going to at least try. Yeah.

Speaker 9 That's what I, that's how I would have done it if I were in your shoes. Okay.
This scripting, this is what I and my colleagues have done for years and years and years. And it just works.

Speaker 9 It works when often when nothing else does work.

Speaker 7 Wow.

Speaker 4 Well, if we manage to emerge with actually any sort of meaningful comment, never mind confession, but meaningful comment from him on this, I mean, that'll be huge.

Speaker 4 Like I say, nobody's even seen the guy.

Speaker 9 You know, you'll have gotten what nobody else did. You know, nobody else has.

Speaker 4 Well, and honestly, just in all fairness,

Speaker 4 we want to go to him and give him the chance to confront these allegations that have been made. His name keeps coming up.
We actually do want to hear what he has to say about all of this.

Speaker 4 This is his chance.

Speaker 8 All right, let's get moving. All right.
We got to go.

Speaker 4 Work that, work back, go. And so on March 7th, 2024, I got rigged up with hidden cameras.

Speaker 4 I wore a shirt with a camera in one of the buttons and another hidden camera in a glasses case sticking out of my shirt pocket.

Speaker 4 New Jersey is a one-party consent state, so we can record our conversation without obtaining Tanko's permission in case he declines a traditional on-camera interview.

Speaker 4 The crew stayed in a van nearby, and Bill Stanton and I walked down his street.

Speaker 7 This is his house right here.

Speaker 1 The garage is open.

Speaker 8 He's in the backyard, so face me.

Speaker 4 Don't turn around. Face me.

Speaker 1 He's just spotted us. Okay.

Speaker 4 There's chickens back there.

Speaker 9 He's doing his chores.

Speaker 9 So. he's not coming out.
No, he's not coming out.

Speaker 10 So if we want,

Speaker 7 I'll just fucking call him over.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably what I mean. Because now he's seen us and he's not coming out.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to ask him if I go buy those chickens.

Speaker 8 You'd be amazed.

Speaker 4 You want me to do that? No, I don't.

Speaker 5 No, because we don't want to use subterfuge, right?

Speaker 4 Like, I don't want to put him on the defensive right away for perfil.

Speaker 4 I think we want to say, like, I think I want to go over there and say, hey, let's go to the fence and let's do it.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 9 We're committed. Okay.

Speaker 8 You want us to initial talk, or you want me to?

Speaker 4 I do.

Speaker 7 I will. All right.

Speaker 4 John.

Speaker 7 Hi.

Speaker 4 How are you doing?

Speaker 4 I'm Megan Kelly.

Speaker 4 How's it going?

Speaker 4 I'm good. Nice to see you.

Speaker 4 What's going on here? Chickens?

Speaker 7 Yeah, most of us.

Speaker 4 Awesome.

Speaker 7 You have no two horses.

Speaker 4 Two horses?

Speaker 7 Four dogs.

Speaker 4 You've got like a whole farm going on back here. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Thanks for talking to us.

Speaker 4 I've been working for 10 years on the baby Lisa case.

Speaker 7 I know a lot of people have. Yeah

Speaker 4 and it's been tireless for us. I mean we're obsessed.

Speaker 4 I know. You know we we know a lot now.
We have come to an understanding of some basics, what happened and who was involved

Speaker 4 and we are really hoping that you can help us, that you can help us fill out some of the some of the story. We think it's really important to get your input.

Speaker 4 And I was wondering if you would talk to me.

Speaker 7 I'd rather not because my lawyer told me not to talk to anybody.

Speaker 7 It could be a death penalty case, and I don't want to have to sit in prison for five years

Speaker 4 to go to trial. No, the thing is,

Speaker 4 the thing is, it's like

Speaker 4 Deborah and Jeremy have been,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 4 and so all we're trying to do is like sketch out the story and wondering if you can tell us what your involvement was in the disappearance of baby Lisa.

Speaker 7 I don't have any involvement. That's what I'm saying.
None whatsoever.

Speaker 7 I mean, the FBI vacuum bagged the house. If my DNA, you got a million skin cells that go like that, they're going to bag it up and

Speaker 7 they're going to DNA it to me.

Speaker 7 And I'd be trolled. No doubt about it.

Speaker 4 What do you mean?

Speaker 7 Their story is, well, Douglas' story is that

Speaker 7 some just random person came in the house and kidnapped the police.

Speaker 7 So now the FBI's involved, they vacuum bagged the whole house

Speaker 7 and if my DNA was in there, like from dead skin cells, I'd be charged. It wasn't in the house.

Speaker 4 Did the cops talk to you?

Speaker 7 Yeah, they told me this.

Speaker 4 Did they ever take DNA?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 4 They did? Yeah. Oh.
What did they like a saliva? They did. Yeah.
Did they tell you that you were cleared?

Speaker 7 I said I didn't have to, but I didn't anyway. Okay.

Speaker 4 And did they tell you you were cleared and you were good to go?

Speaker 7 No, they didn't say it's still say it's an open case. Okay.

Speaker 4 Well, what we're trying to do is help them because

Speaker 4 the way I see it is we're trying to provide them with closure. You can help us do that and with some comfort, you know, and just figuring out what the story is.

Speaker 7 This is Big Sean Glory,

Speaker 7 ain't you?

Speaker 4 No, he's not a lawyer. He's my friend.
This is Bill.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no.

Speaker 4 In another life, he's a lawyer.

Speaker 7 They do these stories, and

Speaker 7 people just trash my name. They totally trash my name.
You know what I mean? I I was involved with a lot of illegal activity about that.

Speaker 4 Sure, I mean a lot of people get mixed up in drugs and I understand that.

Speaker 5 What do you think happened to the guy?

Speaker 4 Or when you think should happen to the person that they had this?

Speaker 7 I don't know what happened. So, I mean,

Speaker 7 to kidnap me?

Speaker 7 Or

Speaker 7 God forget a homicide?

Speaker 7 Motherfucker, Kerry, sticking emails on me.

Speaker 4 Do you think that the person who took the baby did it spur of the moment or that it was planned?

Speaker 4 Do you you worked in the in the neighborhood that night, right?

Speaker 7 Not that night, but yeah, I was in the work in the neighborhood.

Speaker 4 In general. So why would somebody have said they saw you outside of the Irwins house that night?

Speaker 7 People lie a lot.

Speaker 4 And you didn't know the Irwins at all, Deborah and Jeremy?

Speaker 7 I think I I'm not positive, but I think I met Deborah at a bar

Speaker 7 one time, the Olocal bar.

Speaker 4 Okay. Okay.

Speaker 7 It used to be called Bams, I think.

Speaker 4 And I know you know Megan Wright. Yeah.
We've talked to her. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And you guys used to date, but

Speaker 4 did she have any involvement in this whole thing?

Speaker 7 I would doubt it. Like, you know, I don't know.
But if the police are being honest about her getting a phone call from one of the Irwins' phones, then somebody connects, she's connected.

Speaker 7 That just kind of makes sense.

Speaker 4 Now, did you have those phones?

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 we understand that you told a lawyer, Cindy Short, that you found those phones.

Speaker 7 She was hearing whatever she wanted to hear. I didn't tell her I found those phones.
I said I found phones that night, but I didn't find them.

Speaker 4 No, nothing?

Speaker 7 Oh. Why? It's because she's asked me a million questions and I didn't want to

Speaker 7 just make her happy, whatever.

Speaker 4 What did that happen to those phones? You think the same person who has the baby has the phones?

Speaker 7 I don't even know if the phones are missing. I don't know if that's fact or fix, but no, but no clue.

Speaker 4 What did you hear about that? Anything?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 4 Did you ever hear anything about the phones and where they went or whether it was connected to the baby?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 4 Nothing? No. Why do you think? Because you knew the neighborhood a little bit, certainly better than we do.
Why would somebody take a baby?

Speaker 7 You know what? The FBI asked me the same question.

Speaker 7 And I'm like,

Speaker 7 only thing I come up with is to sell it to maybe somebody that can't have kids.

Speaker 7 You know, I mean,

Speaker 7 it sounds crazy, but

Speaker 7 if you

Speaker 7 had a whole of this, that's the best case scenario that could have been happening that that kid is

Speaker 7 now 13 and

Speaker 7 school,

Speaker 7 you know, has a rich family, you know, something like that. I mean, that's the best case scenario.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Well, what do you think? I mean, I know that

Speaker 4 there were a lot of people in the area who were on drugs, meth, and so on, and we heard a little bit of that from Megan.

Speaker 4 Is there any chance somebody got messed up on drugs and did something to the baby?

Speaker 7 I can't.

Speaker 7 I don't know. People, I don't see a happening.

Speaker 7 But not anything's possible.

Speaker 4 What do you think happened?

Speaker 7 You know what? I was thinking the parents have something to do with it because they hired all these

Speaker 7 lawyers, high-priced death penalty lawyers.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 what was the other thing about that?

Speaker 7 You know, the story just don't tell her. She got drunk and fell asleep, woke up, and the babies loved.

Speaker 7 Is that salary?

Speaker 4 Well, why would anybody say that they saw you outside of the Irwin's house that night?

Speaker 7 I don't know.

Speaker 7 I don't know, but I wasn't.

Speaker 4 You've never been in that house? Never. Never once.
Never once.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 if your fingerprints are on those phones, what does that tell us?

Speaker 7 What you tell them? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Like, why would your fingerprints be on those phones?

Speaker 4 I don't know. I'm I'm just trying to figure it out.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 7 Well,

Speaker 7 you're not, you're telling me this is fact, that my fingerprints are on the phone. But I don't believe it.
Because I

Speaker 7 don't I don't believe I ever possessed a phone. Okay.

Speaker 4 And you heard that story. You mentioned that the one of the phones called Megan Wright that night.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 4 You believe that?

Speaker 7 Well, no.

Speaker 7 Police are on the lie just because they want to

Speaker 7 have a direction to go in and use

Speaker 7 something as

Speaker 4 a way of

Speaker 7 getting the information that they want.

Speaker 7 Did she...

Speaker 4 One of the theories is that she really wanted a family, she wanted a kid.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's totally not true.

Speaker 4 That's not true. She never said that to you.

Speaker 4 Why did you guys break up?

Speaker 4 Why did you two break up?

Speaker 7 Because

Speaker 7 I was

Speaker 7 scarned out for all,

Speaker 7 and I had a job to go do at the Watsons house. And she...

Speaker 4 Is that the one down the block?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 She

Speaker 7 called the police, told her I was going to be working here.

Speaker 4 She called the police and told them you were going to be at the Watsons that night?

Speaker 7 Why? That night. Oh.

Speaker 7 The night that we broke up.

Speaker 8 She died you out.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 She broke up and I never talked to her again after that. Maybe, I don't know, four or five months might have went by from when the baby was missing.

Speaker 7 No, no, till we broke up till the baby mother.

Speaker 7 Never, ever talked to her again.

Speaker 4 You didn't? You didn't go to her house?

Speaker 7 I pulled him up on the front lawn in a stolen brand one time, but I didn't talk to her.

Speaker 4 Did you ever set anything on fire of hers or around her?

Speaker 7 No, they're investigating her answer until I said the car was on fire.

Speaker 4 That wasn't you.

Speaker 4 So you got questioned by the cops and the FBI. Yeah.
Separate? Yeah. Two separate? Yeah.

Speaker 4 And they took your DNA? Yeah. And then how did it resolve? What did they say to you when it was all over?

Speaker 4 Was it just two sit-downs, one with the cop, one with the FBI?

Speaker 7 No, it was FBI in

Speaker 7 a homicide interrogation role. Uh-huh.
And

Speaker 7 checked those

Speaker 7 scheme to see me

Speaker 7 actually to visit me in jail.

Speaker 4 That was that scary?

Speaker 7 Yeah, the funny score. Oh my god, are you gentlemen?

Speaker 4 You're thinking they're looking at you for possible kidnapping?

Speaker 7 I'm thinking that they're exploring all the time it was.

Speaker 4 And was it just that one time? Yeah.

Speaker 4 For a few hours or how long?

Speaker 7 A few hours from maybe

Speaker 7 a little over an hour.

Speaker 4 Okay. Maybe so.
Okay.

Speaker 7 You know.

Speaker 7 it's not too long. Maybe an hour.

Speaker 4 Was it right after the baby went missing?

Speaker 7 No, because I was still on the run.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 So I have I

Speaker 4 a couple other questions. I'm sorry to take up so much of your time, but do you know who Dane Greathouse is?

Speaker 7 Dane? Yeah.

Speaker 4 I believe I've met him a couple of times.

Speaker 7 Maybe we've got high together. I don't know.

Speaker 4 I already made up a rap

Speaker 7 with some lyrics in it that say,

Speaker 7 I'll make you disappear like baby bee something.

Speaker 7 So I don't know. That was kind of weird.

Speaker 4 Is there any reason that you would have called Dane Greathouse on the night the baby went missing?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 4 No, no,

Speaker 7 like I said, I only met him once or twice. And

Speaker 7 we weren't really friends and we just, you know,

Speaker 7 I hadn't happened to have something or he happened to have something and that was it. Okay.
What, like, we exchanged numbers or talked after that or anything.

Speaker 4 How about Cody Allnut?

Speaker 7 My name sounds familiar, but I can't put a uh face to him.

Speaker 4 Um Boris Dubinsky, do you know him?

Speaker 7 I can't put a face to him. And I don't recognize the name.

Speaker 4 And I'm also wondering now, is there any way, you've been very generous with your time, can we do this with, like, can I bring a camera person over here and we can do this properly? Absolutely, man.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 Because I'd love to get your side.

Speaker 7 I hate, I hate being,

Speaker 7 when they refer to me as a link to this case, I don't want no involvement. I'm not involved.

Speaker 7 When you do a show,

Speaker 7 your viewers

Speaker 7 are not sure giving your viewers an option.

Speaker 7 This person do it, and this person do it. This person do it, and this person do it.
You see, I don't want to deal with you in person. I don't want some people who think, I might have done that.

Speaker 7 That's not me.

Speaker 4 Yeah. John, if I can answer, you seem like a straight-up guy.
First-time lady with a hypothetical, I really appreciate it.

Speaker 7 One of the labels of Sophia to have a conversation with you

Speaker 7 to

Speaker 9 know.

Speaker 7 Like I said, I really don't want to be part of it. this if there's she also information i can give you that you can you know just run with it and maybe um

Speaker 7 find out what happened that's great but i don't want to be on team i don't want to do all that yeah you gotta respect that yeah

Speaker 4 do you think

Speaker 4 taking her was planned or do you think it was the spur of the moment thing

Speaker 7 what's your guess I don't have a guess at all.

Speaker 4 Like, because you knew a lot of the players in the neighborhood, you know, like, to me, it seems too sophisticated to have a baby be sold, you know, as a, like, who would be able to just steal a baby on the spur of the moment and then sell it?

Speaker 7 Well, you don't know a spare of the moment. Maybe it was fun.
Who knows? I don't know.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 7 I don't know. If I got a sucker ball, you know, I'd be able to tell you.

Speaker 4 Well, how can Deborah

Speaker 4 have gotten rid of the baby's body without it being detected? You know, that's one of the things that keeps stumping me.

Speaker 7 No, I understand.

Speaker 4 Like, if Deborah killed the baby inadvertently or on purpose, I don't think most people think if she killed the baby, it was on purpose. Maybe she dropped the baby, maybe whatever.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 If she did that, she got rid of the body in a way that she fooled even the cops. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So, how could that have happened? Like, you knew the neighborhood.

Speaker 7 How could it happen with anybody?

Speaker 4 Like, what was the backyard like? Do you know what...

Speaker 4 Describe the area a little bit.

Speaker 7 Where?

Speaker 4 Around the Irwin's house.

Speaker 7 I don't know. I've never been there.

Speaker 4 But you were, I mean, a neighborhood handyman, right?

Speaker 7 Well,

Speaker 7 it's only for the Watsons.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 7 Older.

Speaker 7 His hands wouldn't work anymore because he had arthritis. So he needed me to do something to get me a cloth.

Speaker 4 That night, did you work at the Watsons the night the baby went missing? No.

Speaker 4 You didn't turn on the sprinkler or off the sprinkler?

Speaker 7 Um

Speaker 7 He said, once the grass started growing, I didn't have to do anything. Oh.
He said, once you start working, I keep moving.

Speaker 4 So, why would a neighbor say they saw you in the area?

Speaker 7 I don't know. It's the third time he asked me.
Okay.

Speaker 4 Sorry.

Speaker 4 I'm going to lose my own.

Speaker 7 I don't know. People will lie.
I don't know. Yeah.
Now I'm in the area.

Speaker 7 Now, at first, he said it was on Earl Towns.

Speaker 4 You say you. Well, I'm asking you beyond, because you know,

Speaker 4 there's there's the one set of neighbors that say they saw somebody who matches your description. They didn't say you

Speaker 7 with a baby

Speaker 4 that night, like around midnight.

Speaker 4 You remember that?

Speaker 7 I think early back there was a witness that

Speaker 7 seen somebody carrying a baby.

Speaker 7 I didn't get all that about fits in my description type.

Speaker 7 See, this is this is,

Speaker 7 you know,

Speaker 7 it's just weird because it's like

Speaker 7 like I said it's gonna put in people's minds that I could have possibly had something to do with him. Why don't I

Speaker 7 deserve it?

Speaker 4 That's I mean and that's not us.

Speaker 4 You know that there are witnesses in the case saying you know look at look at this guy as you know and that's we have to look into that and we're very open-minded to all the possibilities.

Speaker 4 I mean I've said before when I first went out there when I arrived on scene in Kansas City, I thought 100% it was Deborah. 100%.
That's what I thought.

Speaker 4 Over the years, you know, I've considered everybody. I consider you.
I don't know. I don't know what the answer is.
To this moment, I don't know. But I definitely wanted to talk to you to get your,

Speaker 4 you're a lot closer to it than I am, so you got better answers than I do.

Speaker 4 What were you doing that night?

Speaker 7 You know, if I was to, I tell you then you'd go there and I had to be that person that's that sends you something. Mark Google.
Hey, you're looking pretty healthy now.

Speaker 4 Organic eggs?

Speaker 7 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 4 That's a pretty good setup.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So, okay, so you were not in the neighborhood that night and

Speaker 4 okay. So nobody, if anybody saw somebody looking like you, it wasn't you.

Speaker 4 Is there anyone you think we should talk to or what can we do to help advance advance this? Any thoughts? I have no clue.

Speaker 7 I have no clue.

Speaker 4 Can we talk for just one more minute about Cindy Short and that visit she paid you in the jail?

Speaker 7 Cindy Short.

Speaker 4 Well, the lawyer.

Speaker 7 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because she definitely told us that you told her you found those three phones.

Speaker 7 And I told you, I told her that, but

Speaker 7 I wasn't being honest.

Speaker 7 I don't even know why I said maybe I was still spun out. I don't know.

Speaker 7 I don't know why I said it.

Speaker 4 She said she thought at one point you were like

Speaker 4 wrestling with maybe a confession. She didn't say that you confessed anything.

Speaker 4 It's not true.

Speaker 7 I told him to tell her I had nothing to do with her. It's like I'm telling you,

Speaker 7 I don't know anything about this.

Speaker 4 Does this case...

Speaker 4 I don't do pay attention to it, like when it hits the news. What does it bring up for you?

Speaker 7 You know what? There was a story about

Speaker 7 the early missing baby and they went through all this thing. Things are an hour long.
And then I'm at the end.

Speaker 7 You know, the very last person they speak about. You know, so it kind of made me feel like that.

Speaker 7 The program

Speaker 7 was designed by somebody to make it appear

Speaker 7 that the story ends here with this guy. You know what I mean? Yep.

Speaker 4 How do you do you feel like it affects you with your neighbors in your life?

Speaker 7 I haven't talked to them. Talk to them to nobody.

Speaker 9 That sucks, too.

Speaker 4 That totally sucks. Well, let me ask you this.

Speaker 4 How do you want, like, what do you want my viewers, my audience, to know about you and this case and the things that are being said about you?

Speaker 7 I don't have any involvement in what's a lot of

Speaker 7 zealand.

Speaker 4 Never touched that baby.

Speaker 4 Never saw that baby. No.

Speaker 7 Never saw it.

Speaker 4 Well, thank you for talking to us. I appreciate it.

Speaker 7 If you could tell and be honest with you.

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 7 honestly, he's the best followers.

Speaker 4 Look,

Speaker 4 I know you don't talk a lot, so I appreciate you letting me come on here and ask these questions.

Speaker 7 This whole shit fucks me up.

Speaker 4 I'm sure.

Speaker 4 I'm sure.

Speaker 7 Not that I'm feeling guilty about anything, but just the fact that

Speaker 7 they feel I'm being put involved with in something that I'm not involved in.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 All the best to you. Thank you.
Say well.

Speaker 7 I hope you guys don't care too much shit. I mean,

Speaker 4 well, we're gonna tell a story, and I'm gonna tell them what you told me. They'll hear from you.

Speaker 4 Okay. Thank you.
All right.

Speaker 7 Have a good day.

Speaker 3 Well, that was interesting.

Speaker 7 Wow.

Speaker 10 Now I got to eat my fucking chill.

Speaker 7 Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 Start with the tongue, Bill Stanton. That's what I recommend.
Start there.

Speaker 4 Oh, he's got it.

Speaker 4 Delicious.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 4 It's so good to have you guys here in this setting. I'm so, I've been looking forward to this from the moment we walked off property there, Bill.

Speaker 4 And I'm, just so the audience knows, I have not spoken with Phil or Bill at all about this since it, since the day I've, I haven't spoken to Phil at all.

Speaker 4 So I have no idea what he thought of the whole exchange. And yet we spent so much time preparing for it.
So this is exciting. Bill, we walked out of there.

Speaker 4 We got into the van and really could not believe it. Like, I think you and I were both like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, you know.
And then I asked him if he would sit down with our cameras.

Speaker 4 He said, no.

Speaker 4 But talk about your impressions, Bill.

Speaker 8 There was so much going on in my head for your safety and our safety.

Speaker 8 And then when he started talking and he was so relaxed, so this man, what I felt he was doing was trying to sell us and you weren't having any of it.

Speaker 4 I couldn't believe how

Speaker 4 much he talked. I really thought at any second, we're going to get kicked out of here.

Speaker 8 The fact that we were there that long is phenomenal to me. That was my least likely scenario to happen.

Speaker 4 And then, Phil, you're the human lie detector. What did you think?

Speaker 9 Megan, I thought that your interview with him was great.

Speaker 9 It elicited a lot of deceptive behavior.

Speaker 9 The overarching mistakes that he made primarily were his failure to deny definitively.

Speaker 4 I'm thrilled to hear you say deception detected because that's what I thought. I walked out of there and I was like, I've got more doubts about this guy than ever.

Speaker 4 But our whole team did not feel that way.

Speaker 4 And I just thought there were my own baby Phil lie detector abilities, right? Just because I've followed you for so long, were going off like crazy. I thought there were many indications of deception.

Speaker 4 He had too many explanations. And I remember asking you about Megan Wright, what would a truth teller sound like?

Speaker 4 And you said, I can't tell you that exactly, but there would have been a whole lot more. I didn't do it.
You know, I didn't do it. So let's, let's play the first exchange that we had with Jersey

Speaker 4 where he brings up the death penalty, which, you know, Bill and I were both like, whoa, what, huh? Let's watch that. I was wondering if he would talk to me.

Speaker 7 I'd rather not because my lawyer told me not to talk to you.

Speaker 7 It's a... It could be a death penalty case, and I don't want to have to sit in prison for five years.

Speaker 4 You know, you go to trial you know the thing is

Speaker 9 you ask him a very difficult question but in a very low-key manner and one of the reasons that he talked to you so much i believe is that you didn't give him a reason to dislike you and you let his guard down some and in doing so he gave some lengthy lengthier responses than uh than he needed to and that's where the deceptive behavior began to come to uh fold in uh in that in this particular case,

Speaker 9 he said, I don't have any involvement. And he used the present tense.

Speaker 9 I don't have any involvement. That was his messaging throughout all of this.

Speaker 9 But in reality, the truthful person is going to focus on the crime itself and say, I didn't have any involvement in what happened that night.

Speaker 9 And it's the equivalent of saying, you know, where the truthful person says, I didn't do it, versus the deceptive person says, I wouldn't do it. He's trying to impress the latter message on you,

Speaker 9 but it's clearly, clearly deceptive.

Speaker 9 When also, when he said, that's what I'm saying, I didn't have any involvement, or I don't have any involvement, that's what I'm saying. That doesn't mean

Speaker 9 that isn't what it is, so to speak. In other words, he's not saying, I wasn't involved.
This is just what I'm saying at this particular point. So that one was a real key right off the bat that

Speaker 9 there's probably more lies to follow.

Speaker 4 Well, we did accurately predict that his first instinct

Speaker 4 would be to say, the lawyers aren't going to let me talk. You know, didn't foresee the death penalty line, but he did try that.

Speaker 4 And thankfully, thanks to your guidance, Phil, we shut it down, got him off of that sticky place. And then I launched with the first Phil Houston question.

Speaker 4 And wondering if you can tell us what your involvement was in the disappearance of baby Lisa.

Speaker 7 I don't have any involvement. That's what I'm saying.
None whatsoever.

Speaker 7 The FBI's acting down the house. You find DNA.
You got a million skin cells. You go like that.

Speaker 9 They're going to bag it off millions of days.

Speaker 7 They're going to DNA into mixed.

Speaker 7 And I'd be true. You got money.

Speaker 9 And there, the deceptive behavior that really stood out was his immediate aggression against the FBI.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 the truthful person wouldn't be thinking answering truthfully is going to land me in prison for five years, you know, or just because this is a death penalty case.

Speaker 7 Oh,

Speaker 4 okay, I got it. So

Speaker 4 it's whenever you say the truthful person would have said it this way, that helps because you do think about yourself wrongfully accused of being involved in something as awful as this.

Speaker 4 What involvement did you have? Yeah, you'd say none.

Speaker 8 And Megan, think about it. He's saying

Speaker 8 they would find my DNA

Speaker 8 at the location.

Speaker 8 I mean, why would his DNA be at the location? They've never seen him there before. He's never said he was there before.

Speaker 4 But then he seemed, Bill, to be trying to say they would have found my DNA. If I'd been involved, they would have found that DNA.
Because I was like, what? Right.

Speaker 4 I thought he was saying the same thing. And then he seemed to try to clarify: if I were guilty,

Speaker 4 the evidence of me having been there would have been all over the place.

Speaker 8 Well, maybe, maybe it would have been found if

Speaker 8 half of Kansas City and mainstream media wasn't in and out.

Speaker 4 Yes. Okay.

Speaker 4 But back to Phil's point, I think, Phil, I mean, I don't want to put the words in your mouth, but I feel like what you usually say in this circumstance, Phil, is the truthful person doesn't engage in convincing behavior.

Speaker 4 They don't need to say, they would have found my DNA. They would have found my fingerprints.
They're just kind of like, I didn't do it.

Speaker 4 I don't have to convince Megan Kelly otherwise. Yeah.

Speaker 9 He's using the convincing statements. And then you look at how he's standing on the ladder.
He's trying to look very nonchalant up there.

Speaker 9 But in fact, he's very threatened by you and very intimidated internally by the questions you're asking, Megan.

Speaker 9 But he doesn't really, you didn't give him an opening to, you know, criticize or accuse you or attack you. And that made it very, very difficult for him.

Speaker 4 Why, why was he up on the ladder? Because the audience, the viewing audience will see, the listening audience needs to be told.

Speaker 4 He didn't need to be up there. His work, of course, was paused while he was talking to me and to Bill, and he easily could have stepped down and come over to us or been face to face.

Speaker 4 So what did you make of his

Speaker 9 choice to stay elevated and on the ladder if you recall he was standing up in a straighter posture when you got there he wasn't leaning on the ladder in that manner and when you guys walked up then he immediately leaned over and he hunched down he was intimidated He doesn't know who you are.

Speaker 9 He doesn't know what your intentions are. So he's a little scared.
And so that anchor point movement that we saw represented a spike in in his anxiety.

Speaker 9 And he sits tight and just look like he's not threatened. And that's the thing you'll see in prison a lot.

Speaker 9 You know, the key is, is people have to look and act as if they're not threatened by anything or anyone around them. And he's given his prison time, he's pretty good at that.

Speaker 4 The ladder is not only elevating him, but it's a barrier between him and me. There is that sort of defensive thing of it's in front of me.
I've got my arms around it.

Speaker 4 I'm safer behind this ladder.

Speaker 4 And we'll definitely get into why did he talk? Because that was our big debate before Bill and I went. Is he going to? But I've got to get to the phones before we do that.
So

Speaker 4 that was the one thing we discussed beforehand.

Speaker 4 If he would admit to us what he told Cindy Short, that he found allegedly the three phones on the night baby Lisa went missing, that that would be a tantamount to an admission.

Speaker 4 Well, here's how that went in part. Now, did you have those phones?

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 we understand that you told a lawyer, Cindy Short, that you found those phones.

Speaker 7 I'm assuming

Speaker 7 whatever she wanted to hear. I didn't tell her I found those phones.
I said I found phones that night, but I didn't find them.

Speaker 4 No, nothing?

Speaker 7 Oh. Why? It's because she's asked me a million questions, and I didn't want to

Speaker 7 make her happy, whatever.

Speaker 4 So the listening audience knows one of the things he did there, Phil, which you've called attention to in the past, it can be part of a cluster of deception, is hands above the midline.

Speaker 4 He started to move his hands up like, oh, she did this, she did this.

Speaker 4 And you've told me in the past, and I know from your books, By the Lie, which everyone should read, when you're lying, the nervous energy has to shoot out of you somehow, whether it's your leg crossed and...

Speaker 4 foot cooking or you start to rock but hands above the midline touching your nose touching your head moving around, can be part of a deception cluster. So what did you make of the phone's answer?

Speaker 9 Exactly where you were going, Megan. Again, it represents a very significant spike in his anxiety level here.

Speaker 9 And it's interesting, why on earth would someone who's telling the truth need to admit that while they weren't uh didn't say they had taken the phones that were missing, but they found other phones on that particular night by by coincidence, so to speak.

Speaker 9 Who in their right mind would do that if you're telling the truth? Because,

Speaker 9 and what he recognizes is that by saying that he even had phone, that he did find phones that night is almost as equally incriminating as the fact that the phones, he had the phones that were missing.

Speaker 9 It's clearly one and the same. So that's what led him to say, in my opinion, what led him to say, oh, I was just lying to her at that particular particular time.

Speaker 4 I was surprised that immediately he knew who Cindy Short was and he knew about the phone conversation. He didn't stutter like, what?

Speaker 7 Huh?

Speaker 4 Oh, that was nonsense.

Speaker 8 If you think about it for that one moment, let's postulate that he is guilty. Let's assume, let's just for argument's sake, say he's guilty.
Every breath, every moment is burned in his brain, right?

Speaker 8 And to me, this question of the phones is one of the most pivotal points made because if he found that phone, right?

Speaker 8 If he had the phone, that tells us he was in the house. I mean, it tells me he was in the house and he called Megan Wright.
And that's why he was going back and forth.

Speaker 8 Is it advantageous for me to say I found the phones? Or, oh, no, I was just lying.

Speaker 4 He figured out to say he has the phones suggests he had the baby. And he knew

Speaker 4 he didn't want us going there.

Speaker 4 But this, like, Phil, this was the most obvious lie, I would say, even to the casual observer without the Phil Houston training, because why would a guy sitting in jail talking to a lawyer make up a lie about having phones when he didn't have phones, quote, to make her happy?

Speaker 9 I think one of the reasons he might have been doing that as well is that

Speaker 9 between that night and today, or the day that you're interviewing him, he has probably told someone, one or two people, that he did find phones that night.

Speaker 9 And then realized that when you ask him the question, and uh-oh, I need to come up with a reason as to why I had phones, or maybe someone saw him with phones that night.

Speaker 8 And that Megan Wright was dialed. Megan Wright's number was dialed.
He had to make it, in my opinion, he had to make a story.

Speaker 4 Oh, I found the phones and then he realized it's not his best interest to say he had oh i didn't have the phones yeah exactly exactly that was his weakest part because there were other moments where i thought okay you know what he's he's doing better here and one of those moments was when he tried to say he and megan right broke up and he never saw her and i said you didn't you didn't stalk her at all or however i phrased it you know you didn't show up at her house and he owned that one right away i phoned up on the front front lawn and the stalling ran one time but i didn't talk to her so what was your reaction to that fell because he could have said no i never did but he kind of owned her story of driving the truck onto her property and scaring her a little

Speaker 9 i i think uh megan what he's trying to do there going back to the concept of convincing statements or persuasion behavior, what he's trying to do is he's trying to say, hey, if I did something wrong, I'm more than willing to step up and admit it.

Speaker 9 And often

Speaker 9 that convinces

Speaker 9 people who aren't really attuned to the behavior and the reality of the situation, and they buy into it. And that's what he's hoping would happen here.

Speaker 4 I'll tell you what, Doug Brunt, my husband, he watched this whole thing and he had one big takeaway having watched Jersey. He said, you know who he reminds me of?

Speaker 4 He said, he reminds me of this guy exactly, Frank Pantangeli from The Godfather, when he testified before Congress on whether Michael Corleone was in fact the godfather and a member of the crime family, and he had now had a change of heart before the

Speaker 4 here, here it is. Watch.
Tell me if this looks like Jersey.

Speaker 6 I don't know nothing about that.

Speaker 10 Do you deny that confession?

Speaker 3 And do you realize what will happen as a result of your denial?

Speaker 6 Look, the FBI guys, they promised me a deal.

Speaker 6 So I made up a lot of stuff about Michael Corleone, because that's what they wanted.

Speaker 6 But it was all lies.

Speaker 9 It's the same sequencing of deceptive behavior that we just saw, almost identical to what we just saw with

Speaker 9 Tanko.

Speaker 4 It's amazing. Okay, so what's your takeaway now, having watched it, Phil? Like the...

Speaker 4 When it wrapped up, having watched the, you know, 25 minutes, what did you walk away saying? There are signs of deception, and

Speaker 9 there's no, there's little doubt in my mind, in my opinion, that he is directly involved, if not unilaterally, the person that took the baby.

Speaker 4 That's strong.

Speaker 9 Not just from this interview, but it's from the history of the evolution of the case and the things that we learned about him over the years

Speaker 9 and

Speaker 9 the connections to others

Speaker 9 and the evidence that we heard that, you know, about his activities that night,

Speaker 9 all of that collectively suggests in my mind that, you know,

Speaker 9 this is our guy.

Speaker 4 So why did he talk to me, Phil? That was our big debate. That's why Bill had to eat his shoe because he said he's not going to talk.
And you said he'll talk. It happens.
And sure enough, he did talk.

Speaker 4 And the audience knows, because they went through this with us, but like he hasn't talked in all this time. You know, as you know, I always go by my own daughter.
She's about to turn 13.

Speaker 4 That whole time, he's kept quiet. He's never made a public statement.
He's never even been caught on camera in any meaningful way. So, why did he talk?

Speaker 9 As I said before, Megan, you approached him in a non-threatening manner. It's very counterintuitive in these situations.

Speaker 9 In fact, when we train law enforcement, one of the hardest habits to break is taking that immediate intimidation or intimidating posture and voice

Speaker 9 and accusations and so forth. You did none of that.
You came up in a very polite manner, very professional manner, and you said, listen, we'd like to talk to you as if you were

Speaker 9 giving him the option. Now, he didn't know you weren't really going to give him the option, that you would probably continue to ask questions and so forth.

Speaker 9 But

Speaker 9 he was willing at that point to say, okay, let me see where this goes.

Speaker 9 right now i'm up here on this ladder i'm in a safe place so what's the harm and maybe i can gain some ground in the meantime and because of the what you ask him and and how you ask them it allowed you to gain ground and he wasn't realizing that he'd let his guard down and he's now talking to you in narratives instead of one word uh answers or refusing to answer or whatever he's thinking, okay,

Speaker 9 maybe I can, you know, pull off a fast one, you know, with this lady.

Speaker 8 And in and in retrospect, when you think about it, guys, we were literally in his backyard. He had the high ground.
He felt safe. We were in his territory in his yard while he was up.

Speaker 8 He felt he was in control.

Speaker 4 That's a good point. It was kind of ironic that he ended the exchange with honesty is the best policy.
Honesty is the best policy, like touting his own honesty, which is another tell, Phil, is it not?

Speaker 9 Oh, absolutely. It's one of the most used, convincing statements there is.

Speaker 9 But the timing of when he did it was quite interesting to me. It was interesting because

Speaker 9 it suggests that he felt he played a good role here. that he really accomplished something in the manner in which he answered your questions.

Speaker 9 He was kind of, you know, being a peacock here and saying, hey, you know, I've been very honest with you. And in reality, he knows he's been anything but that.

Speaker 4 Well, and then he followed it up with this thing has been effing my head up, but I'm not guilty of anything. But it's been, which, what did you make of that statement?

Speaker 9 It's again, truth in the lie, as many of these other statements that he made. He's saying something he's telling that's truthful.
It did mess up his head. But

Speaker 9 in reality, a truthful person, that's not going to happen.

Speaker 9 In other words, if they'd have gone, truthful person 10 years later or 13 years later is not going to be terrified and fear that they're going to go to jail or they're going to get the death penalty, whatever the case may be.

Speaker 9 Yet these are all these things that he's saying. And these are the things that are worrying him.
And so I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a day that goes by that he thinks about that night.

Speaker 4 What did you make of Phil, when he said, I said, why would somebody, do you think it happened spur of the moment? Do you think it was planned out? And he didn't bite there at all.

Speaker 4 He's like, I don't know. And then I rounded back again and he said, I don't know.
And then he's like, you already asked me this. You know, he

Speaker 4 did, he was pretty firm on that one. Like, I don't know.
And stop asking me that. That I thought was a point in his favor.

Speaker 9 Remember what we said earlier, how he said, I don't have any involvement. That is is his agenda in his mind.

Speaker 9 And so when you ask him a question that is similar to that now, he's already got the answer framed out. And that's why it looks and sounds more truthful.

Speaker 9 Give you another example of that. At one point, you asked him, I think, about fingerprints or whatever on the phone.
And he gave what on the surface would appear to be a truthful answer.

Speaker 4 Why would your fingerprints be on those phones?

Speaker 7 I don't know.

Speaker 4 I don't know. I'm just trying to figure it out.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 7 Well.

Speaker 7 You know, you're telling me this is fact that my figure bricks are on the phone. But I don't believe it.
Because

Speaker 7 I don't believe I ever possessed a phone.

Speaker 9 I suspect

Speaker 9 by the end of the night, his fingerprints were no longer on that phone.

Speaker 9 And he knows that and he's wiped them off. And so that's something that he can say, you know, truthfully.

Speaker 4 Yeah, with confidence, right? He challenged whether his fingerprints were on the phone. And the other thing he challenged with confidence was this.
Why would a neighbor say they saw you in the area?

Speaker 7 I don't know. It's the third time he asked me.

Speaker 4 Okay. Sorry.

Speaker 4 I'm losing my own.

Speaker 7 I don't know. People who lie.
I don't know. Yeah.
Now I'm in the area.

Speaker 7 Now, at first he said it was one of our own towns.

Speaker 4 You say you. Well, I'm asking you beyond because, you know,

Speaker 4 there's the one set of neighbors that say they saw somebody who matches your description, they didn't say you

Speaker 4 with a baby that night, like around midnight.

Speaker 4 Do you remember that?

Speaker 7 There was a witness that

Speaker 7 seen somebody carrying a baby.

Speaker 7 It fits my description.

Speaker 4 So he did know, he knew facts about this investigation in a way that I thought was pretty telling as well.

Speaker 9 But that was a

Speaker 9 great example of deception. He didn't say I I wasn't there.

Speaker 7 Oh,

Speaker 4 I failed to see the forest through the trees on that one.

Speaker 7 Oh,

Speaker 4 again, so that's the Phil Houston twist. The truth teller would have said, I wasn't there.
So she definitely did not see me.

Speaker 9 That's the fact that is the best ally for the truthful person. Tell the truth.

Speaker 9 And in his case, he can't, the truth has consequences associated with it.

Speaker 9 and that's what makes it difficult for him now now the advantage he has a little bit is he's been asked a lot of these questions over the years and so he has some frame of reference but what was different this time is somebody's talking to him in a

Speaker 9 almost a kind way

Speaker 4 you weren't judgmental of him and that was really important so having watched megan wright and john tanko talk about their relationship and their time together, what takeaways?

Speaker 9 If you assume for a moment that our assessment of John Tanko is correct,

Speaker 9 and then you look at what

Speaker 9 Megan is saying about him,

Speaker 9 she clearly is trying to distance herself from him. It appears likely, so much so that it appears likely to me that she knows what he's been up to to and likely she knows what happened that night.

Speaker 9 And as a result, she doesn't want to go down if he, if he is, you know, if Tanko is finally

Speaker 9 arrested, you know, uncovered or identified as the perpetrator and is arrested, then she would then become a co-conspirator.

Speaker 9 And she realizes that. So she's trying to leave the impression in everyone's mind that she has nothing to do with him.

Speaker 9 And long before

Speaker 9 the baby went missing, she had nothing to do with him. And she's trying to create that image.

Speaker 4 That was by design.

Speaker 9 Well, when you ask Tanko any questions about Megan Wright, he becomes very protective of her and immediately says, no, she's not involved. and exonerates her.

Speaker 9 And I believe he's doing that because he knows that she knows and

Speaker 9 knows what she knows. And as a result, he has no choice but to defend her.

Speaker 9 That's very interesting.

Speaker 4 She wasn't sounding that way about him, however. Like, I don't know what he's capable of was more her line.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9 He has no choice but to defend her. She has other options.
She isn't the person that actually did it.

Speaker 4 You're so interesting, Phil.

Speaker 4 Fascinating talking to you. Okay, now we're going to bring in Jim Spellman.
Very excited to have Jim Spellman with us, a reporter of CNN at the time this story broke, now independent.

Speaker 4 And Jim, you've been watching this whole thing. You've been watching the series.
You've been working with us on this. What did you make of this exchange with John Tanko?

Speaker 10 Well, first off, I want to echo the kudos to you, Bill, and your crew for getting this and going in there. That was not easy, and it definitely took guts and courage to do it.
Well done.

Speaker 10 This struck me as somebody, remember, he didn't know you were recording him, who's scared that the next visitor is going to have a badge on them right after them.

Speaker 10 And he was working whatever he could to try to find out what you might know and then to feed back something that's going to make him look good.

Speaker 10 I mentioned this earlier in a previous interview, Megan, but I'm in recovery. I've used crystal meth, smoked crack, cocaine, et cetera.
23 years I've been clean last year.

Speaker 10 And I work on a near daily basis with addicts in recovery. And there's a kind of person who does nothing but lie.
Even when there's no reason to lie, they lie.

Speaker 10 You ask him what color a blue car is, they'll say red.

Speaker 10 And this strikes me like that kind of person who just immediately is on the hustle, immediately is trying to weave something that's going to help him come out better at the end of the day.

Speaker 10 And, you know, with the phones, with the phone question,

Speaker 10 This really has made me focus on the investigation back in Kansas City and by the FBI and why at at this point, they have not told us why they moved on from John Tango, why they have not revealed all of the details about the phone.

Speaker 10 And I think when this show comes out, it will be negligent if the chief of police there, Stacey Graves, doesn't immediately appoint a new detective that was not involved to make this a high-profile cold case, release whatever information they can that doesn't jeopardize an investigation and bring this into the public eye again.

Speaker 10 And I would include men offenses with the family. I don't know who was responsible for that division, but it wasn't Lisa and she deserves better than that.

Speaker 10 And this investigation should be immediately reopened in a vigorous way.

Speaker 4 Well said.

Speaker 4 I couldn't agree with what you just said more. And that's really our goal is to have somebody just take a fresh look at the case, fresh eyes, new eyes, take a look at the case.

Speaker 4 He told us for the first time there that he had not been cleared by law enforcement. That was an interesting admission.
I think he didn't know that I believed he had been cleared.

Speaker 4 Otherwise, maybe he would have just gone with that. But it's because I asked it in an open-ended way, like, were you cleared? And he said, no, no one ever told me that.

Speaker 4 I thought that was very interesting.

Speaker 10 And the police in Kansas City and the FBI on occasion told me they used the language they had moved on from John Tank,

Speaker 10 never, of course, being absolute about it. But I think it's clear they have because look where he is, you know.
And I mean, none of these people have faced any kind of serious, you know,

Speaker 10 investigation that they know after those initial weeks and months. Lives have just gone on.
People's lives have gone on while the family and Lisa's are in suspended animation.

Speaker 4 Why else, Jim, would there be a 10-year gap between the last time the Kansas City police called Jeremy or Deborah and today.

Speaker 10 It's inexcusable. No matter what they did or what the police did, somebody's got to get over this, right?

Speaker 10 And I think as part of reopening the case, the Kansas City police need to deal with the media, take their lumps and get this case

Speaker 10 back out there. No one's going to come off looking great if they reopen this in a sort of more high-profile way.

Speaker 10 But what other way is there to jog memories, to convince the community there in Kansas City that their children are being cared for, that they matter, than to start getting some of this stuff out there.

Speaker 10 One of the things I was really surprised to hear Deborah say was that they had taken hair from them to test for drugs.

Speaker 10 So if that's true and it was negative, then why would the police not release that at this point?

Speaker 10 Why not put out whatever can be put out there that can close down avenues that people are discussing and maybe just somehow jog some some other memory of somebody you know that may know somebody who knows somebody maybe it's not tanko but someone who is tangential to tanko maybe not somebody uh who was in the house but someone that was near and around the house that day somebody knows something there has to be a nexus to this house to know there's a baby there to know that jeremy's working that night something has to happen to change this it's just unacceptable that it's up to people like you and people like bill to be on this guy's lawn and not a much larger investigation.

Speaker 4 And you know what's really chilling is here we are all these years later. They've never found remains of any kind.

Speaker 4 And, you know, if this were a murder, an intentional murder, an accidental death, let's face it,

Speaker 4 whoever did it of the characters we're talking about, you wouldn't think that these are, you know, sophisticated criminals who actually managed to avoid the police detection and then got rid of the body in a way that very few criminals are able to, where it never got dug up by a dog, never came up if it had been put in the water, you know, like we saw with Lacey Peterson.

Speaker 4 Like this is the one criminal who managed in just that short window of time to conduct the perfect crime.

Speaker 4 No DNA, no fingerprints, no proof of any kind, dispose of the body in the way that it never came back. So there is a real possibility, if you look at that,

Speaker 4 that she wasn't killed.

Speaker 4 We haven't really talked about it that much, but that she really wasn't killed and that she was either sold or given to somebody or showed up on the doorstep of a firehouse in some other town, that would make some more sense given the absence of a body.

Speaker 10 And remember the investigation in those early days and weeks, the amount of searches of woods in that area,

Speaker 10 when the address came up, the area of the intersection that Cindy Short says he reported that the phone grab, I immediately put that into. Google and looked at images.

Speaker 10 One of the very first live shots I did when I, the first weekend of this case, was a big search right there that included the National Guard and the FBI of

Speaker 10 that area.

Speaker 10 And all of those similar areas that kind of are, you know, around this neighborhood that have open woods or something were heavily searched in that kind of search that we'd find any type of remains or something.

Speaker 10 So I think that it's extremely unlikely that out in public woods or anything, that there were any remains to be found within a mile or two radius of the house.

Speaker 4 You're amazing. Thank you so much for the great work you've done on this.
You've been a highlight of every episode. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 8 And Jim, Jim, thank you.

Speaker 8 And, you know, sharing that, you know, once an addict, you've shown that it can be overcome and it is debilitating and you overcame it and you just add that much more character to everything you do.

Speaker 8 Thank you.

Speaker 7 Thanks, Bill.

Speaker 9 Yes, indeed, Jim. Thanks a ton.
It's a pleasure to meet you.

Speaker 3 And that's the conclusion for now of our Megan Kelly Investigates series, but it's not the end. So we would love to hear from you.

Speaker 3 And from your questions and feedback, we will put together an episode six. Remember, we did this with the Idaho murders, and it worked out really well.

Speaker 3 And then we will bring you that episode in a couple of weeks. What do you think happened? What's your theory? What do you find persuasive? Who did you believe? Who did you not?

Speaker 3 And do you have any actual leads? Especially if you live in the Kansas City area, or even if you don't, you might know one of the players. You might know something you want to share with us.

Speaker 3 Please send your thoughts to me. It's meganmegyn at megankelly.com.
We will be reviewing all of your emails, just as we always do. And I thank you sincerely for joining us along this journey.

Speaker 3 We'll see you soon.

Speaker 3 If you're watching right now, please take a look at this picture of Lisa as she might look now. If you're listening, you can see the photo on YouTube or just go to MeganKelly.com.

Speaker 3 If you see her or think you might have any information that can help find her, please write to me. The address is megan, M-E-G-Y-N at megankelly.com.

Speaker 3 You can also pass along tips on the Baby Lisa story to the Kansas City Police Department or encourage them to get active on this case. That would be very helpful.

Speaker 3 Reach out at kcrimestoppers.com, kcrimestoppers.com, or call them at 816-474 TIPS, T-I-P-S, that's 816-474-8477.

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