[siren wailing]
[Joe Kenda] There are moments in homicide cases
where you think, "This can't get any worse."
And then it suddenly does.
[Joe] There are some people in the world
who are so evil
that nothing means anything
other than their own pleasure.
Brittany!
I dropped to my knees.
I told them, "My daughter is in that house."
Somebody's been murdered and a child is missing.
[woman] I never knew what hate was
until that day.
Brittany!
Then it becomes even worse
when they realize another possibility.
Somebody took the child
and killed the babysitter.
There longer it takes to find her,
the less likely is that she'll be found alive.
Every cop at that scene
knows that.
The child is probably in the hands of a murderer.
I spent my career closing murder cases.
But I'm not the only one who answered the call.
It takes a rare breed to solve the unsolvable,
to catch a ruthless killer,
to find justice for the dead.
That's what it takes to be an American detective.
It's June 22nd.
It's 3:30 in the morning.
We're in a small town in northern Minnesota.
Bemidji, Minnesota.
A call is received at the emergency response center
that a house is on fire.
The fire department responds.
The place is fully involved.
They manage finally to put the fire out.
But the house is destroyed.
They see a mattress in the living room.
They pull back the mattress...
A deceased female victim.
...and they discover human remains.
My name is Rob Fraik.
I'm a former special agent
with the Minnesota Bureau
of Criminal Apprehension.
I remember exactly where I was at.
At an appointment at the VA clinic
in Bemidji.
[phone ringing]
But I received a call.
There's a fire at Hillcrest Manor.
There's a body inside.
I'm on my way.
[Joe] Fraik, at the time,
he had never been around many homicide investigations.
He didn't understand what he was about to see and do.
[Rob] Hillcrest Manor's a relatively large trailer park
on the north side of city limits.
I worked with Agent Gherardi a fair amount.
What have we got?
I got one inside. Deceased female.
Okay.
[Joe] Special Agent Paul Gherardi
had extensive experience in homicide investigations.
This place is gone.
Gutted.
Destroyed.
So it's a mess.
An absolute mess.
[Rob] The initial fax that I received were
there was woman that was found inside deceased.
[Joe] Fraik is informed that the deceased person
who lives in this place
is a 35-year-old woman
whose name is Melissa Norby.
[Rob] Her hands are bound.
You can infer a lot of things from that.
But it's pretty obvious that somebody had killed her
and they tried to light the place on fire
to cover up any evidence at the scene.
[Paul] Our suspect had put a bed mattress over her.
And mattresses are treated to be fire resistant,
which likely helped preserve her body.
The question becomes, "Did she die because of the fire?
Or did she die by other means?"
We assume this is a concealment fire of a homicide
but we don't know yet.
So rather than get lost in what it could be,
let's try to determine what it is.
[Paul] The fire marshal noted an indication
of an accelerant,
because glass is pushed out several yards
from the trailer.
They did find the gas can in the bedroom.
[Rob] There is a possibility
that it was just a completely random act.
But that's highly unlikely.
So, we're gonna be looking for things like a boyfriend,
a neighbor.
There's gonna be some sort of connection.
Who does Melissa Norby know
who might wanna make her look like this?
[Chad Museus] She lived with her 12-year-old son,
who was not at home at the time of the fire.
[Joe] So Melissa has a child.
He's not there because he's staying with a cousin
whose name is Tuesdae Collopy.
Come in.
The BCA came to my home to speak with me and her son.
And they had identified Melissa's body.
And it was really hard.
Everything was very overwhelming.
We were basically like sisters.
We were extremely close.
She loved to laugh. She loved to smile.
When Melissa was 10 years old,
uh, she confided in me
that an older man had sexually assaulted her
and it really took a toll on her.
Ever since that day, she was different.
When Melissa was growing into a woman,
there was always an older man around
who would take advantage of her sexually.
Watching her constantly hate herself...
[voice shaking] ...it was the worst.
Because you can't--
[sighs] ...you can't make it better.
[Joe] So Melissa's had her issues with men over time
and she dates people of less than sterling character.
Do you know of anybody that would have wanted
to see your cousin killed?
[Tuesdae] There were a few characters in Melissa's life
that I thought might know more.
I not really sure. I just know that they're acquaintances.
[Joe] She says that she has a friend
who lives in Bemidji
whose name is Larry Erickson.
Larry had apparently been in some sort of romantic relationship
with our decedent.
Larry agreed to come in and speak with us.
Just got a few quick questions for you.
Larry had told investigators
that he was home all evening watching movies.
He denied any contact with Norby.
Denied knowing about the fire.
Were you guys romantically involved?
No.
He denied any type of physical relationship
with Melissa Norby,
which was contrary to what we had learned earlier.
[Joe] Erickson says she's been a good friend of his
for some time.
"But we had a confrontation a couple months ago
and it's kind of damaged the relationship."
Did you say "confrontation"?
We like confrontations.
So Fraik is immediately interested.
He's in close proximity.
He was up around the time that the fire started.
And I thought Larry was looking really good
as a suspect.
Larry, can I take a look at your phone?
You don't need to do that.
Why would you need to do that?
And Larry proceeded to start destroying his phone.
Hey!
Well, now you have my undivided attention.
What is in that phone
that speaks to the death of Melissa Norby?
Let's find out.
[Joe] What can be learned from this phone?
Larry becomes so angry
that he becomes physically aggressive towards Fraik.
You can't.
The interview, um, wasn't going well.
He had started to physically destroy his phone.
Hey!
You are clearly involved in some sort of activity
you don't want exposed.
All right, we're done.
[Joe] So we're gonna find out.
This phone is gonna be examined
for content.
[man] Hey, Detective. Come on in.
[Joe] Fraik checks back with the tech team.
"What's in the phone that's connected to this case?"
"Well, it's not exactly connected to your case."
What does that mean?
He said, "Photographs and videos of him and his girlfriend
in, shall we say, compromising positions."
"Oh, God.
It's a personal porno collection.
Is that what we're talking about?"
"Yeah."
Nothing of any value.
Larry ultimately alibied out and he wasn't involved.
Definitely probably not our guy.
[Joe] Okay. So now what sounded so promising,
like it often does,
collapses.
While this is going on with Fraik,
crime scene investigators are still processing the scene.
[indistinct police radio chatter]
They examine the victim's car.
Find anything?
[Paul] Bemidji investigators did find mail
inside of Melissa Norby's car...
that gave a name of a person.
Rob Auchus.
[Joe] We don't know why that mail is in the car.
The reasonable conclusion is he's a friend,
an associate.
Investigators are questioning neighbors.
"Do you know a guy named Robert Auchus?"
"Oh, yeah. I know Robert."
"We'd like to talk to him."
"Well, you better hurry up."
[Rob] We learn that several hours after
Melissa Norby's house burns down,
this individual leaves town on a bus.
What are you doing that for, Robert?
Are you getting away from what you've done?
Any investigation, it's always time is of the essence.
So we wanted to find that person right away.
We called the Cass County deputies.
We said, "We need you to stop the bus for us."
[Joe] If someone truly is believing
they're gonna escape somewhere by riding a commercial bus,
they haven't given a lot of thought to this.
The police, with one phone call,
turns the bus into a holding zone.
They stop the bus
and they recover Mr. Auchus.
[Heather] And he talked about his relationship with the victim.
He was upset that the victim was deceased,
but hadn't had a consistent relationship with her
for some time.
[Joe] "So, Mr. Auchus,
why are you suddenly on a bus
going four or five hours away?"
He said he was leaving town for some medical treatments.
[Joe] He has a perfectly reasonable explanation
for his behavior.
He has to go to this doctor.
And that's where he's going.
And Holden confirms all of this.
Auchus it out.
He's not involved in this.
[phone ringing]
This is Fraik.
In the meantime, investigators hear from the medical examiner
the official cause of Melissa Norby's death.
Asphyxia.
She is dead as a result of ligature strangulation.
Ligature is anything applied to the neck
to cause sufficient pressure
to stop the breathing of the victim.
As far as trace DNA,
if heat alone won't destroy it,
fire will.
[Rob] At this point, we're getting several hours into the investigation
and we don't even really have anybody that we're looking for.
Every hour that goes by,
this person can get further and further
from the scene.
[Heather] I don't know if it was over the radio
or if it was a phone call at the time,
but I still get tingles.
Brittany!
[Paul] A female came up to the crime scene,
made contact with officers on scene
and she told them that her 5-year-old daughter
has spent the night with Melissa Norby.
[Joe] She's five years old. Her name is Brittany.
Oh, God.
Now we've gonna from adult to child, for God's sake.
Where is this kid?
They have no idea.
None.
It's now noon-ish the day following the fire
and here comes this distraught woman
whose name is Amanda.
Brittany!
Oh, where's my daughter?
[Joe] She's demanding to speak to someone in charge.
[Amanda] My phone had rang.
It was Tuesdae, which is Missy's cousin,
on the other line.
And she said, freaking out,
"Please tell me it's not true.
Tell me Melissa's house is not on fire."
And I was like, "Brittany's over there.
What the hell are you talking about?"
I freaked out, I hopped in my vehicle
and I made it over there in five minutes.
All I really remember was me saying,
"Please tell me that's not the house."
I dropped to my knees.
It was like, "Okay. That is her house."
I told them, "My daughter is in that house.
Brittany is in that house."
I've known Melissa since elementary school.
We were inseparable.
We grew up.
Her son was my nephew and...
my kids were her niece and nephews.
Melissa and I, we'd always take the kids to the beach.
Slumber parties, movies.
Just a lot of fun family time.
Brittany is the baby of the family.
Melissa was Brittany's aunt.
Just like a second mom.
Brittany would light up every time Missy would say,
"Hey, do you wanna come over and spend some time with me?"
[Joe] She goes on to explain that it's common for Brittany
to spend the night with Melissa Norby
in this trailer.
[Amanda] Melissa had called me at like nine o'clock at night.
"Do you mind if I take Brittany?"
She said her son is with Tuesdae.
Well, where is Brittany now?
The investigators do a thorough search
of the remains of the house.
They find no evidence of any other human remains.
They do a thorough search of the area.
No result.
The child is not here.
When you get information that there's a child missing,
that's what knocks the wind out of you.
Then it becomes even worse
when they realize another possibility.
Somebody took the child
and killed the babysitter.
The longer it takes to find them,
the less likely is that she'll be found alive.
Every cop at that scene knows that.
She was close to the age of one of my children.
You start thinking about how scared your kid would be.
I think that mom instinct just kicks in,
no matter what.
[Joe] So now it's all-hands-on-deck.
Nobody's going anywhere
until we find this kid
and who's responsible for this.
The focus must remain
on associates of the adult victim.
So, as I was going through Melissa's phone records,
I was looking for anything that maybe stand out
that wasn't a local number.
Every hour that goes by,
this person can get further from the scene.
This child could be anywhere in the United States, almost,
including up in Canada.
[Joe] Where have we not dug yet?
It has to be somebody that knows about that child.
It's somebody close.
So how do we find somebody close?
They dispatch agents to Tuesdae Collopy's house
and they talk to the son.
Do you know if your mom was seeing anybody in particular?
They ask, "Is there anybody
your mother has been recently seeing?"
And he says yes.
Well, who might that be?
He's like, "It was Chance."
Chance?
Chance.
And I was like, "Chance?"
[Joe] Well, they call him "Chance."
But that's not his real name.
The kid says, "I don't trust him."
[Chad] Now, Chance isn't his real name.
She called him "Chance" because,
in her world,
he was her last chance at love.
[Amanda] Toward the end there, she was secretive about guys
because I didn't approve of half the guys she would be with
and her cousin really didn't care for them either.
[Tuesdae] Melissa continually made poor choices
about love and about her own self-respect.
And, clearly, in Melissa's case,
it was a weakness.
[Chad] We immediately thought,
"Well, why is she not using his real name?"
Is he married? Like, why are we not seeing him
in her social media?
'Cause we're several hours into this investigation
and we have a pretty good handle
on who she's talking to online.
And he's nowhere to be found.
And then her son said, "Yeah, he has a food truck."
[Chad] There's not a lot of food truck's around here.
Well, let's make a call to the city clerk
and figure this out.
[Rob] I remember I was at the law enforcement center
when the food truck information can back.
Okay, listen up, folks.
[Heather] It was later in the evening
we were in a briefing,
so I remember it was like
the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
[Chad] City clerk said, "Yeah,
there's a new food truck in town.
It's Jake's Eats,
owned by Jacob Kinn."
It's one of those moments in your life
that you'll never forget where you were standing,
what the room smelt, heard and felt like.
And it got quiet.
Oh, my God, Jacob Kinn.
Well, we all knew who Jacob Kinn was.
He was on probation for a sexual-related offence.
He was one of those guys
that would be fully capable of kidnapping a girl.
[Joe] He is the guy.
He's the guy.
Even if you haven't seen him yet.
He is somehow. I know it.
[Joe] Investigators are looking at the record
of 32-year-old Jacob Kinn.
He is currently on probation
for possession of child pornography.
He is friends with a woman who's now dead,
who had a child in her possession,
and now the child is missing.
[Rob] It just seemed so obvious once his name came up.
Of course this would be him.
Why are we looking for all these other suspects
when he should have been suspect number one.
[Joe] It is always the case in investigations
you're gonna get the wrong guy in your sights.
But when you get the right one,
that's when you can feel it in your bones.
[Chad] I talked to Mom and Dad that evening.
They were distraught.
[Amanda] My emotions were like everywhere
because, well, I lost my sister
and then my daughter was gone.
[Rob] So early evening on June 22nd,
we went to Jacob's residence.
Pretty rural area,
almost an off-grid type cabin.
He had left.
We walked around the property.
Hey, Holden.
-Huh? -Look.
[Rob] There were some pretty obvious indicators
this person might be it.
There's a spot of dead grass next to other gas cans,
which surely indicates that he got a gas can
from right here at his house
and used that to light the arson fire
of Melissa Norby's home.
It's pretty damning evidence.
However, no little girl.
[Joe] The search for Brittany is continued
as day becomes night.
At that point, everybody's out running leads.
They're literally doing everything they can
to figure out where this little girl might be...
[phone ringing]
...where Jacob Kinn has been for the last 24 hours.
[Jacob on phone] Hello?
[Joe] The probation officer reaches Jacob by phone
and he tells him to report to police headquarters
right now.
He did not make it to the law enforcement center
till midnight.
[Rob] When he arrived, we noticed on his vehicle
there was tall grass hanging underneath it.
It looked like it had been driving through a field.
Jacob Kinn's feet and pants were also wet.
Again, we had got a ton of rain.
Your feet and pants don't get wet
if you're walking in a parking lot after a rain.
But they would get soaking wet
if you were walking through a field.
He was interviewed by Special Agent Paul Gherardi
and Special Agent Chad Museus.
Agent Gherardi and Agent Museus
are interrogators.
Jacob Kinn screwed up
by stepping into an interview room
with Chad and Paul.
After the probation officer called Jacob Kinn,
we were able to get the cell phone location.
Based on where his cell phone pinged...
he was in Bigfork,
30-40 miles away from Clear Lake
where he said he was.
Kinn is denying any type of relationship with Melissa.
He denied knowing the little girl
or ever having contact with the little girl.
He would give short one-word answers.
He's pushed away from the table.
He's sitting back with his arms crossed.
He had some non-verbal body language
that he was uncomfortable.
[Chad] His responses to our questions
made us not very optimistic.
I was worried we wouldn't have a good outcome.
[Joe] Jacob is being Mr. Innocent,
not knowing anything about anything.
That's pretty normal
for a guy with experience in the system.
He'll make no admissions of any kind.
It's been almost 24 hours since the murder,
and Jacob says,
"If you don't arrest me, I'm going home."
"No, we're not gonna arrest you, Jacob.
Not yet, anyway."
[Paul] He was allowed to leave
about 4:30 that morning.
[Chad] We took his phone,
we took his clothes
and we took his jeep.
His dad came and picked him up.
He left angry.
And we left there feeling as though...
we had a double murder.
We sent surveillance units out because now we knew where he was at.
[Joe] Our perpetrator has 12 or 14 hours
to decide what to do with this child.
The statistics are overwhelming.
The longer this takes,
the less likely the outcome will be good.
At that point, we just really thought
he brought her somewhere rural,
and that the next morning,
we were going to begin trying to locate
where he put her.
[Heather] I came home and I remember
I laid down in the cot
and my oldest had been waiting for me to come home.
And all she did was reach up and took my hand.
So I fell asleep holding her hand.
[voice shaking] And...
that just intensified that we have to get this kid back,
whether she's alive or dead,
because I would wanna know.
Mmm-mmm.
I don't wanna talk about that anymore.
Too many memories creep back for me, my boy.
[Rob] Myself and Senior Special Agent Don Newhouse
got in his car to drive to Bigfork.
We really needed more information
on what he had done up in that area.
We called Itasca County Sheriff's Office,
our neighboring county.
[Joe] It turns out his brother owns 40 acres of ground in Bigfork.
What's up with that?
What is drawing him to the 40 acres?
[Rob] Jacob Kinn could have put this little girl
anywhere in northern Minnesota.
Why would Jacob Kinn put her on property
that's deeded to somebody that shares his last name?
And without missing a beat,
Agent Newhouse explained, "That's controlled access.
He's gonna go back."
We had to do basically a map reconnaissance of the area.
We had a specific gravel road in mind
that led to the property.
And when we pulled onto the gravel,
I could see one set of tracks.
At that point, we stopped, got out
and we continued to walk
following the tracks
until we came to the top of a hill
and we noticed a pickup camper parked along the wood line.
We walked up and the doorknob was wrapped tight
with electrical tape.
I felt like, one way or the other,
we were getting close.
They both know they're gonna find that child
one way or the other.
The question is,
is it the child or the child's remains?
[Rob] I grabbed my shirt
and kind of just pulled on the tape.
And I flipped the door open.
And there's a little girl sitting there on the bed.
I'm basically in disbelief in what I'm seeing
and trying to muster together the words.
Is it okay if I come in?
Okay, you don't have to be scared, okay?
We're the police.
Okay, my name's Rob and this is Don.
How old are you?
Yeah. Um...
Yeah, I've watched that video quite a few times.
[inhales] Um...
It's... Yeah, you know. You get the same reaction...
every time.
Um...
I don't know if a lot of folks realize really
how hard some of these cases are.
[Joe] There she is.
Not the end of the story,
but no longer necessary to search for Brittany
'cause the police have her in their arms.
[Rob] We got back to the car and I said,
"Don, take a picture and then send this out to the group."
[Paul] I still get chills talking about today,
how many years afterwards.
I can't almost physically describe that feeling.
[Heather] I cried so hard in the car
because I was so happy that she was alive.
[voice shaking] And so, um...
Sorry.
[Chad] I've had a great career.
I've done a lot of really cool things.
The outcome, finding our missing girl,
definitely the best of my career.
Definitely.
[Amanda] My phone rang
and he says, "Amanda, we have your daughter.
We have Brittany."
And I said, "Please tell me she is alive."
And he said, "Yes. She's alive."
This picture actually is the reason
I call them family.
The Sheriff's Department, the BCA,
everybody involved,
they're family.
[Joe] There's always moments in law enforcement
that reenforce the idea
of why you took the oath in the first place.
This is one of those days.
Kinn is wanted for murder and kidnapping.
And now the whole State of Minnesota
is looking for this creep.
We're setting up a perimeter near the camper
where the girl was found
because we know that's where he's gonna go.
And that's where they find him...
[siren wailing]
...on the road back to the camper.
[Joe] They find him sleeping in his father's truck.
Put your hands behind your back.
[Joe] Being the criminal genius that he is,
he's decides it's more important
to sleep in a vehicle that's being looked at
by every policeman in the State of Minnesota.
They bring him in.
Here he is.
[Paul] We asked what changed from the previous night,
and I showed him the picture of Rob and Brittany
and Brittany alive.
His eyes kind of rolled back.
[Joe] Well, okay, Jacob.
That'll still work.
And you're being held without bond
for first degree murder,
kidnapping of a minor child.
And they lock him up.
But what happened that Jacob decided to kill Melissa
and burn her house down around her?
[Chad] I remember the anger,
the surprise,
the frustration
when we saw those text messages.
[Heather] The technical service agent
was going through the electronics.
And he said, "Holy [bleep],
you're not gonna believe what I found."
Jacob Kinn had basically demanded
that Melissa get the little girl
and bring her to the house
the night that he decided to kill Melissa Norby.
And Melissa Norby helped do that.
And her actions directly resulted
in this little girl's abduction.
Disturbing to the point of absolute shock.
It is apparent from the texting
that Melissa is part of the plot.
Were she alive,
she'd be in custody.
But she's in a drawer at the morgue.
[Tuesdae] I can say that I would never have expected
this from Melissa.
She didn't always make the best choices.
But I just...
I would have never have thought she was capable...
of this.
I'm really angry at her still.
[Amanda] I never knew what hate was...
until that day.
It's like...
how can somebody that you've known for 30-plus years
do that to you?
[Joe] Melissa Norby had the same problem
that Jacob Kinn has,
a twisted sexual desire that overwhelmed her.
Overwhelmed her judgment, her kinship with other humans,
her friendships.
All of it meant nothing.
These people are scum.
Both of them.
As the case proceeds forward,
Jacob decides to accept a plea bargain.
Jacob stands up in court
and he says,
"Well, the plan was to kidnap the child
and keep her as a sex toy for the two of us.
Melissa also enjoys rough sex
and edge games.
In the alternative lifestyle,
you bring someone to the edge of death
to enhance their orgasm."
He puts the belt around her neck
in a manner of erotic asphyxia.
Jacob says something went wrong...
and she died
during this experience.
When she dies, he panics...
and he throws gas everywhere,
kidnaps the 5-year-old girl...
...ignites the place and runs away.
So, at the end of the day,
Jacob Kinn gets 52 years in the Minnesota State Penitentiary.
I would have handled that completely differently.
If anybody needs a bullet,
it's Jacob Kinn.
[Chad] I'll never believe she died of an accident.
I think, all along,
the plan was to kill her.
[Rob] Melissa didn't know
she wasn't part of the long-term plan.
She was gonna be dead and burned
and Jacob was gonna take the little girl.
[Amanda] For Brittany, it's hard for her to talk about what happened.
But she makes it through.
She's still the rock that she was.
The way I parent now...
is...
I baby them,
because I never know
if it's gonna be the last day I'll see them.
Parenting is really difficult now.
That's what makes it hard as a mom.
[Rob] You do your best to separate
what you're doing at work from your family life.
And, um, sometimes, you just can't.
Is it okay if I come in?
[Joe] The Mariana Trench is child's play
compared to the depth of depravity in humans.
It doesn't happen in Mother Nature,
not in the animal kingdom.
Humans are disappointing
in so many ways.
That's what makes them so dangerous.