"Let's take this video to the Idaho side of the park." "But to get to Idaho, you go out the west entrance." "The west entrance?" "Okay." "Is that the region where, um..." "Have you heard of this constitutional loophole thing?" "Is that the region where that is?" "Constitutional loophole?" "I'm not following that." "You never read any articles about that stuff?" " No." " Okay." "Thanks a lot." " Here you go." " Thank you." " Have a great day." " I will." "Knows nothing." "No one knows anything." "Yellowstone national park." "Around every corner is a reminder of how still life can be." "How vast it can be." "How true it can be." "Until it isn't." "Yellowstone woke up to what has to be the worst crime in the national park's history." "A bizarre triple homicide, where the murderer immediately turned himself in and confessed." "First victim was by the fire." "The second one, I don't know, maybe 10 feet from it." "This is where the third victim was shot." " Okay." " By the back wheel?" "I just really can't understand how a man can commit all these horrific crimes, you know, and then just..." "Talk about it like he's reciting the details of a traffic violation." "Nobody could have expected the side swipe that occurred." "We're talking about a confessed murderer here." "One who showed no remorse, no regret." "This guy should have been put away for life." "There is no resolution." "I mean, it's just this thing hanging over us." "I think most of the country, most of the world, hasn't even heard of this." "Well, this whole thing was swept under the rug." "It's an embarrassment." "My name is Julian pinder." "As a documentary filmmaker," "I believe anything in life can be fascinating when you delve into the details." "I find characters and I tell a story through them." "Their words, their actions, their eyes." "But it's a completely different story when the camera turns on you." "It's nice." "How's that?" "I first heard of this story when I received an email not too long ago." "Three boys were murdered in a remote part of yellowstone national park." "What struck me was that the murders took place on April 27th, 2009, nearly five years ago." "Why was I being sent this now?" "I was unsuccessful in contacting the source of the email." "But when I did a search, incredible images immediately surfaced of a bear chasing a burnt bison down a winter road in yellowstone." "Incredible and unbelievable." "A chase like none other seen before." "These images would prove to be a metaphor for the yellowstone murders." "David drabeck, Thomas Burnett and Cody Gibbs were camping in yellowstone national park, when tragedy struck." "A chance encounter with a stranger proved fatal when williston resident, Dwayne Nelson, killed the young men in a self-described moment of insanity." "Shocking news of a three person homicide early this morning." "The suspect turned himself in just after 5:30 A.M." "In what has to be the worst crime in the national park's history." "I was here, and I received a phone call." "It was our family doctor." "There was an emergency contact thing in Thomas' wallet." "It was the middle of the night." "I didn't know why I was getting a call." "I..." "I dropped to that floor." "And I didn't think I was ever going to get up again." "First thing was..." "Was violence." "Because, uh..." "I heard that someone shot him..." "In the back." "And I... was angry." "I was very angry." "It took a while for grief to set in." "I didn't believe it." "I thought they'd made a mistake, came to the wrong house," "had the wrong boy." "I didn't believe it." "I didn't believe it till I actually saw his body." "On that day I can remember pretty much everything." "I remember the color of the sky, the calmness in the air." "I was just here at my post." "This particular ranger station, um, is the furthest south-west that you can get to by vehicle in yellowstone." "It was just after 5:30 in the morning." "I'd just made myself a cup of coffee." "He walked out of the woods, the West Side, the entrance side." "He left the weapon outside of the door, and just walked in." "The way it happened, you'd think there would have been some emotion." "But like I said before, he seemed so calm and, uh..." "So normal." "Right here." "This way." "It was right in here that they parked the truck." "This is where the third victim was shot," " by the back wheel." " Okay." "It's a bit of a clearing here." "And this is where the fire pit was set up." "Right around here." "This is where the other two victims were found." "First victim was by the fire, and the second one," "I don't know, maybe ten feet from it." "Never stood much of a chance." "The families..." "Come and visit them." "They bring flowers and stuff." "But he just wanted to be outside, all the time." "I mean, he's the guy that organized all those trips, every year." "Even when they weren't around, he'd grab his knapsack and be gone." "Go off hiking by himself." "He just..." "I don't know what it was about him." "I guess he found something in nature that..." "That put him at peace, I don't know." "But he loved it." "This is, uh, Thomas and Alicia." " Great looking couple." " Yeah." "And Thomas on his wedding day." "That's a great shot." "And another one of Thomas and Alicia." "This one over here, this is, uh..." "This is all the boys together." "Thomas, Cody and David." "Oh, you know." "I'll show you this, actually." "Here's..." "I took that on the morning that they left." "They did that trip every year." "Well, David didn't actually join them until the third year." "But, uh..." "This was their..." "This was their fifth year doing the trip." "You know, they'd all come over here in the morning, and they'd have breakfast, and..." "And then they'd leave." "Thomas, he was the one with the pickup truck." "So..." "And that's that." "Sorry." "It's all right." "Okay." "I built a business that I..." "Wanted to leave to him." "You know, I respect what he did and what he loved, but I thought at some point he's gotta grow up and accept who he is and..." "You know?" "At least make a life for himself." "Make a career for himself." " Drive safe." " Will do." "Bye." " Love you, mom." " Bye." "He was going off to..." "Yellowstone the umpteenth time, and it was just..." "He was on my last nerve that day." "We'd had a little spat at dinner the night before, and then he go... traipse off to the..." "To the park, and I just, you know..." "The last thing I said was just, you know, "good luck finding a career." "In the woods."" "Or whatever I said." "It just..." "There are only four people who truly know what happened that night." "Three of them are dead." "The only eye witness account comes fro Dwayne Nelson, the man who pulled the trigger." "You know, once the suspect is talking, they don't shut up." "It's like they need to get it out." "But let me tell you something." "With Dwayne, he gave us everything." "It was almost like the..." "It was rehearsed." "I'm standing outside the Cheyenne police station, where Dwayne Nelson will soon be moved to the courthouse to attend a preliminary hearing in a case that is being dubbed "the yellowstone murders."" "A bizarre triple homicide, where the murderer immediately turned himself in and confessed." "I just really can't understand how a man could commit all these horrific crimes, you know." "And then just talk about it like he's, uh..." "Reciting the details of a traffic violation." "If you could say something to Dwayne Nelson, and you had that opportunity, what would you say to him?" "If I could say anything to Dwayne," "I would say that I want my son back." "I would say that I want Cody back." "Out of the way." "He's never offered me an apology." "He's never taken any responsibility for his actions." "What will I have to say to him?" "Nothing." "We're live now." "He will pay for the murders of these boys." "And he will understand what it feels like to have something taken away from you." "If I could even just..." "Understand why this person did this, then I could maybe move better to forgiveness, but..." "Because it's just so..." "Senseless and random." "It shook my faith for a very long time." "Cheyenne police spent three months looking for a motive." "They found none." "With Dwayne's confession, they were certain of a conviction." "There were still questions that needed answering." "I canceled my flight home and headed to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where the hearing took place years ago." "I think the only regret I have is..." "Is maybe the, uh..." "The over-confidence that we were..." "That it was a done thing." "A surefire win for us." "But I, uh..." "I honestly didn't think that it would go through." "I wouldn't call it arrogant, but certainly, it seemed like an easy case to me." "You wanna take your feelings out of it, but we're talking about a confessed murderer here." "One who showed no remorse, no regret." "We had murder weapon." "We had fingerprints." "Security footage, and a population screaming for justice." "And who wanted him put away for life." "And at that time, there was no doubt in my mind we were gonna do just that." "The fact that I got the Nelson case was a surprise." "My first, uh..." "Murder trial." "And I knew it was gonna be a big deal." "Uh..." "And it was a big deal." "Dwayne's case was very unique." "Okay?" "What you had here was a classic plea pardon case." "There was no logic to his motivation." "Absolutely none." "Which set it up for an insanity plea." "I wanted to change the location of the trial." "I wanted to, uh..." "Make sure that we had an impartial jury." "He wouldn't stand for it." "The loophole was brought up to me almost exactly 24 hours before we went to the hearing." "So we looked at it." "We looked at it, we danced around it, it was a conversation." "And, uh..." "And then we looked into the legalities of it." "Then we ran with it." "Will the defendant please rise." "Based on federal and district law, the constitution and with no legal precedent to draw from," "I have no choice but to side with the defense." "Mr. Nelson, you are free to go." "The murder trial in Cheyenne this morning has taken yet another unexpected turn." "During today's preliminary hearing, confessed murderer, Dwayne Nelson, was acquitted of all charges due to what can only be described as a flaw in the system." "...an unusual case." "And families are understandably shocked with the judge's decision." "Imagine a murderer being allowed to walk the streets as a free man." "That's exactly what took place here today." "I remember there was absolute confusion and shock." "All hell broke loose." "Right?" "It was..." "Insanity." "We weren't prepared for that." "I wasn't prepared for that." "This guy should have been put away for life." "It was so far beyond logic." "So far beyond reason." "It was... it was..." "Beyond justice." "And the worst part was feeling the shift." "You know, 'cause it was like Dwayne was no longer the bad guy." "I was." "And it was the assistants that came in and gave us the news initially." "So they could be the recipients of all of our grief and all of our anger at that moment." "And then the head team came in and explained to us what had happened." "The loophole in the law changed everything." "And unless we could prove that the murders were premeditated, or that a felony was committed leading up to the murders, this crime could not and cannot be tried." "You need a motive." "We need motive to move the trail, to get him out from under the protection of that goddamn loophole." "We had covered all the bases." "We had looked for any connection between Dwayne Nelson and his murder victims." "But there wasn't any." "Dwayne was from north Dakota, and the boys were from rapid city." "So, as Dwayne confessed, it was an isolated incident." "There was no motive." "We were all regular..." "People who didn't even understand half of the system to begin with." "And once we began with the whole state line, federal, the state..." "I think we just assumed that they would work it out." "I don't think anyone really understood the ramifications of this." "I think there was a feeling, certainly in me, and I know in a few of the others, was that this was just maybe the first step in crossing this huge hurdle, and that we would stick with it," "and there would be appeals, and everyone would throw their weight behind this." "And as the weeks, and eventually months, passed, and we realized," ""no." "No, this isn't..." "This isn't changing." "This really is not changing in our favor."" "There was an incredible amount of anger." "I don't feel guilty for adhering to the constitution." "I don't feel guilty doing what's right according to the law." "Right?" "I don't feel guilty for letting a man walk because the constitution says that he should." "I'm doing my job." "The court did their job." "We all did our job on this." "He walks." "He's supposed to walk." "Right?" "Simple." "The fuck are we on?" "Left on the main street." "Daniel matcek was a local yellowstone newspaper reporter." "He covered the hearings and spent a lot of time researching the murders." "It's a small town, and I've lived here my whole life." "And nothing like this has ever happened before." "So I have a responsibility to tell the story." "I actually call my article "the inconceivable truth"." "It's so funny that it became a constitutional debate." "Three boys were shot and killed." "In cold blood." "This is not a constitutional issue." "It became a constitutional issue because Dwayne made it a constitutional issue." "There's three dead boys, and no one went to jail for it." "No one was punished for it." "What did he do?" "Six months for illegal possession of a firearm in a national park?" "It's a joke." "That is a joke to those families." "I am still angry." "I'm still in shock." "I still feel completely betrayed by a system that not only did I think that was on my side, but I was assured it was on my side." "Who came up with the loophole defense?" "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "We started throwing around..." "It was an idea that..." "Looked more and more interesting the more we looked at it." "And we started to run with it." "But you don't recall who came up with the one..." "I don't recall." "I find that impossible to believe." "You find that impossible to believe?" "Yeah." "Look, uh..." "It was the basis of your entire..." "I was told that you were coming in here to talk to me about practicing law in Cheyenne." "Well, this is part of it." "Not specific elements about specific cases." "Okay?" "You want that stuff?" "If you want it, you can go down to the court, there are court records, you can take a look at all that stuff." "Okay?" "It's all there for you." " Okay." " All right?" "Are we good here?" "Can we just back up a little?" "'Cause I'm good." "I'm good." "All right?" "Thank you very much." "I appreciate you coming by, I really do." "Thank you." "Thank you." "I went to the courthouse, but was denied access to the records." "I was told the documents had been sealed, but they couldn't tell me why." "Investigating the loophole, however, was much easier." "The constitution is the supreme law for every citizen living in the United States." "But the constitution that protects us also let a murderer go free." "Article three, section two of the constitution..." "This, however, does not clarify where the jury should come from." "So the sixth amendment was written, requiring that the jury must be..." "So based on the constitution, any person charged with murder must be tried before a local jury that comes from the state and district in which the crime took place." "Yellowstone national park, established back in 1872, recognized as the first national park in the world." "It is predominantly situated in the north-west corner of Wyoming." "But approximately nine percent of yellowstone overflows north into Montana, and west into Idaho." "The strip of the park located in Idaho is where the law and civil rights collide." "Yellowstone park is not governed by state law." "It is ruled under federal law." "So any crime committed in the park must be tried at the courthouse in mammoth hot Springs." "Or in Cheyenne at the federal district court." "So what does this all mean?" "The jurors must be drawn from this small strip of land of approximately 50 square miles." "There is only one problem." "No one lives here." "You cannot select a jury of 12 from an area that has a population of zero." "Hello, sir." "Can I ask you a question?" "Sorry to interrupt you." "I know you're in the middle of your meal there." "But, uh..." "You or anyone from your herd happen to have been in the region where there's, uh, a supposed constitutional loophole, near the Idaho side?" "No?" "Or any of your family or associates?" "Nothing?" "Deutsch?" "Speak deutsch?" "It's just right up here." "So if these maps are right," "I think this is pretty much the line here." "So somewhere around here..." "Is the loophole in the constitution." "And somewhere around here is the no loophole in the constitution." "So the boundary is kind of right there." "Most people, when they hear about it, they focus on the simple matters of the case." "They..." "Broad strokes." "The murders, the hole in the constitution." "And understandably so." "I mean, these are the boldest parts of the case." "But you can't, and you really shouldn't miss the kind of mind boggling things that happened from the murders up until the court hearing." "All right?" "Number one." "Dwayne turns himself in voluntarily almost immediately." "Number two..." "He confesses, within his rights, without representation or legal counsel." "Number three..." "He refuses to plead insanity." "Number four, he refuses to move the trial." "Now if you add all those four things up, and he goes away for a triple homicide, you can say, "fine."" "But he didn't." "He got away with it." "And not because he had a fair trial, or there was reasonable doubt raised." "But that there was a hole in the constitution." "An overlap." "Now you consider those four things again." "Without them, he goes away for a very, very long time." "So you're suggesting that" "Dwayne knew exactly what he was doing?" "That's exactly what I'm suggesting." "Of course, the only person that's gonna know the answer to that is Dwayne." "Why haven't there been further investigations into this?" "Well, this whole thing was swept under the rug." "It's an embarrassment." "A hole in the constitution!" "No, I think the right people leaned in the right places to make sure that this all went away before it became a national uproar." "So the government basically helped a guilty man go free, is what you're saying?" "No." "I'm saying Dwayne helped himself." "This cover up is just a happy consequence for him." "When you dig into Dwayne's past, you're gonna find a broken, shattered man." "I don't know." "I watched his interrogation, his confession." "Was that a man on the edge, or a man in complete control?" "The only person who really knows what happened that day is Dwayne." "I decided to head out to williston, north Dakota, to see what the people of Dwayne's hometown had to say." "Have you heard of the yellowstone murders and Dwayne Nelson?" " Yes." " Yeah." "You have." "Can I just ask you a quick question about them?" " Oh, no." " No?" "We really don't wanna answer any questions." "Okay." "Thanks very much anyway." "No, I'm really not interested." "No?" "Okay, well, thank you." "Sorry, not right now." "I really must run." " Okay." "Thank you." " Sorry." "Ever heard of Dwayne Nelson and the yellowstone murders?" "Uh, yeah." "Sir, I don't wanna talk about that." "Can you just answer just maybe on... no?" "Fuck!" "People in town were reluctant to speak at all." "But those closest to Dwayne before the murders welcomed us with open arms." " Hi, Rachel?" " Hi." "Yeah." "How are you?" "Julian." " Julian?" "Hi." " Yeah." "This is Adam." "Right." "Come on in." "I'll take your coat." "Okay." "Thank you very much." "So you knew Dwayne?" " Yeah." " Yeah?" " Dwayne and Carol." "Yeah." " Okay." " They were like family." " Were they?" " Lovely couple." " Okay." "After graduating high school late," "Dwayne married his sweetheart," "Carol harson, at the age of 23." "She met Dwayne..." "Actually we were in the car together." "And we were going to, uh..." "To the bar and..." "It was winter and the car got stuck." "And, um..." "I was driving, and she was out trying to push the car, and Dwayne came by and he was sort of like a knight in shining armor." "I wasn't too sure about him at first." "He, uh..." "He was really quiet." "Like really quiet." "And smart." "But he, uh..." "He just was..." "He wasn't what I thought Carol would go for." "He was a great family man." "Him and Carol, they were..." "They were close, and..." "You know, I..." "He's the kind of guy that you'd wanna emulate, I guess, is a good word to use." "You probably had it growing up, too, that buddy, you know, that you could just conversate with." "You know?" "There was no dead space when you spoke with him." "Oh, us going back." "Bear took us into yellowstone many times." "I would..." "I would tag along when my family didn't want me around, or whatever." "And Dwayne..." "Dwayne and bear, they went in pretty much all the time." "Sorry, "bear"?" "Bear, his dad." "He called bear." "Um..." "Yeah." "Yeah." "He was, uh..." "You know, sometimes you get..." "When the husband's watching TV, you know, the wife's always complaining." ""He's not with us enough." "He's not with us enough." Right?" "But you know, Carol, she just..." "She let him be him, and he let her be her." "Five years into their marriage," "Carol gave birth to their first child, Lily." "However, when Lily was only six-years-old, there was a deadly accident in their home." "A fire erupted in their kitchen." "Dwayne heard his child's screams from outside, and ran to try to save her." "But the fire had raged too long." "Lily was already dead, and Dwayne suffered third degree burns on his hands and arms." "It's devastating when your child dies like that." "I can't imagine myself, but for them..." "It was horrible." "I think Carol somehow dealt with it better than Dwayne, in a way." "The scars that he had, that was like his memory of her." "He just shut down." "It's remarkable," "I think that their marriage survived that." "Because lots of marriages don't, you know." "When you lose a child, it's..." "It's a terrible, terrible thing." "He was ecstatic, you know, when Carol became pregnant again." "You know?" "But, um..." "He was, um..." "Absolutely terrified of losing another child." "If that was gonna happen, you know, you'd want it to happen to like, and evil person, you know." "But I mean, he was..." "He was one of the good guys." "It's terrible." "Then Carol was diagnosed with cancer." "And she was four-and-a-half months pregnant." "So..." "She had to make a choice." "Take the chemotherapy and risk the health of her baby, or..." "Well..." "When Carol died, that was it for Dwayne." "He still lived in town, but he practically disappeared." "Could you tel me about how the death of Carol affected you on a personal level?" "She was my best friend." "Um..." "And I still miss her." "It was hard." "Uh..." "It was hard." "The loss is just so deep, that anything you say is stupid." "You know?" "It's gonna get better?" "You're gonna say that to him?" "It's gonna get better?" "'Cause it's not gonna get better." "I wasn't in touch with him much, you know, at that time." "But you know, that's life, right?" "I mean, people drift apart." "That's what happens, man." "Everybody leaves everybody in the end." "Right?" "Uh, the baby was..." "It was not..." "Quite right." "It was premature." "And, uh..." "His little lungs weren't formed properly." "It's understandable that such a series of tragedies would change a person." "For him, it..." "He had to find a reason why these things happened." "It was inconceivable that it could just..." "That that could just happen." "I don't blame him for thinking that." "What I do blame him for is what he did." "What I blame him for is the fact that he sought out a way to punish us all for what he thought happened to him." "There was no way of contacting Dwayne." "Any numbers I managed to dig up rang without a machine." "There were no email addresses, nothing." "Through further research," "I found a po box located in a small town, just outside of windsor, Ontario." "He was living in Canada now." "The more research I did, the more questions were raised." "After his wife passed," "Dwayne spent a lot of time at the local library." "We were all so broken up about it." "After Carol passed, he never really recovered, I think." "I didn't wanna pry too much." "And he wasn't the kind of person who made you feel comfortable." "He liked it here." "He didn't talk to anybody." "We just left him alone." "Quiet." "Quiet guy." "It's a small town, we all go to church, and..." "I think when we found out that Dwayne had done these things, there was a real feeling of betrayal." "How could somebody that was part of our community have gone so wrong?" "I'll tell you." "It was all anyone talked about for a long time." "But nobody really wants to talk about it anymore." "They were three young boys, you know, and..." "I don't know, it's..." "I've got a lot of mixed feelings about the whole thing, obviously." "Why would he..." "Do that?" "You know?" "He knows what loss is." "Right?" "He knows what loss is." "He lost Carol, he lost Lily." "You know, these boys, they're someone's son." "Right?" "He knows what it's like to lose a child." "He knows." "I was still confused as to why a seemingly good natured, hard working family man would brutally murder David, Cody and Thomas." "Three young men, who by all accounts, were innocent." "Cody, growing up, was lovely." "He was smart and funny." "Very, uh, very happy kid." "Very open kid." "And wonderful with other children, whether they were younger, older, or his own age." "He was always..." "A very compassionate child." "Thomas met Cody at..." "They were doing..." "They were both going for their bronze cross." "They were trying to be lifeguards." "And they were both in the same..." "I think they were both in the same instructor's class." "And they hit it off." "And the next thing I knew, they were really good friends." "So do you remember how David met Cody and Thomas?" "David met Cody and Thomas in junior high." "He was, um..." "He was always very..." "Full of life and mischief and jokes." "He liked to pull practical jokes on us and things like that." "I caught them trying to take the canoe." "And they didn't know how to use it, and they weren't wearing life jackets." "I gave them a rather stern talking to, and then immediately jumped in the canoe myself to show 'em how to do it, and capsized the canoe." "That's probably the..." "That's probably the most I've ever seen Cody laugh." "The very nature of a documentary is truth and reality." "But what truth are you presenting?" "A murderer's, a judge's, your own?" "It's a perception of the truth." "What was the real story?" "What really happened?" "There was no doubt that Dwayne's story was heartbreaking." "There was an unrelenting feeling that something was missing." "It wasn't that everything didn't add up." "It added up too perfectly." "Yeah, roll it, man." "It's fine." "Yeah." "Just come over here for a minute and watch this." "Okay." "What you got?" "I want you to see this, man." "Look at this." "When did they start going up there?" "I think Cody and Thomas were going out there for a few years before David joined them." "Did David spend much time in yellowstone on his own?" "No, he didn't." "I mean, not to our knowledge." "No, he wasn't the outdoors-man that Cody was." "In Dwayne's confession he states that it was David who suggested the site that they moved to." "I remember that, but..." "Like I told Patrick, that had to be a mistake." "Cody must have suggested it." "I mean, our boy wouldn't have known to go to that spot." "See?" "Dwayne specifically said that it was David who suggested that site." "I mean, we've got the..." "You know, he could have gotten the name wrong." "Yeah, then he might not have as well." "I've got the confession right here." "A transcript of the exact confession that Dwayne says," ""I was gathering to leave when Dave suggested something a little different." "About an hour..." And blah, blah, blah." ""...that Dave stumbled across a large area of these on previous trips."" ""Dave suggested something a little different."" " That's what Dwayne said." " Okay." "And everything Dwayne says is so precise and so specific." "So, wait." "You're thinking there's a connection between Dwayne and Dave?" "A motive?" "I'm just thinking that everything so far is so clean and so clear," "and this is really the only whisper of something that doesn't compute." "So what are we doing at 6:27 A.M.?" "We got a call from Theresa Fitzgerald." "The librarian?" "The librarian." "She received a visit last night as she was closing up, from Dwayne Nelson." "Theresa hasn't spoken to anyone in years and years." "And we go to visit her, and a few days later, suddenly Dwayne shows up?" "You think he's following us?" "Well, obviously he knows about us and he's worried about something." "He definitely worried about something." "I don't know if there's that much to tell." "So did you feel threatened at all when he came in?" "Oh, no." "No, he's very polite." "It was just a shock." "But he did ask you if you'd been talking to anyone?" "Yeah, he did." "And I told him about the documentary, but after all, I only really talked about Carol when you interviewed me." "See, what's weird is that" "I've contacted everyone we interviewed, and Dwayne hasn't tried to get a hold of any of them." "So I'm wondering what I'm missing here." "I don't know." "I don't know if there's anything more to tell." "He came in in the morning, left at night." "I told him he could..." "Sign out anything he wanted, but he said he preferred to be in the library." "Was that to be closer to his wife, do you think?" " Oh, I assumed so." " Yeah?" "The only other people spent that much time here are students doing research." "Right." "Did he ever take any of the books home that he was reading?" "Uh, nope." "Not that I can remember." "And if you don't check a book out, is there any record of what you've been reading?" "No, of course not." "Do you have any idea what he was reading?" "Like I said, he just sat in the back." "Where was that again?" "Over in the corner there." "Okay." "Why did Dwayne come back now?" "According to Theresa, he stopped visiting the library about a year before he committed the murders, and had never been back since." "So what was he doing here?" "The answer was staring me in the face." "Adam..." "Something so obvious," "I'd missed it on the first visit." "Of course he was looking at the law books, man." "What else are you gonna do in your local library law section?" "You don't go to the library, hoping to find an overlap in the constitution." "I mean, one that will allow you to get way with murder?" "No, you don't." "But he must have known about this loophole beforehand." "Otherwise, it's just what he says." "It's a bunch of, you know, coincidences that let a guilty man go free." "But, Julian, there are a ton of cases where people have gotten off on ridiculous technicalities." "Yeah, but if we find a motive, then we can prove Dwayne orchestrated the entire thing." "Presuming there's one to be found." "It's like what matcek said, man." "It's not a guy who's crazy." "He's in complete control." "Patrick, sorry to bother you again, but I just got back from the williston library, and it seems Dwayne was just there." "I also found out that Dwayne spent a lot of time there before the murders, in the law section." "I mean, he was looking at law books." "He was doing research there." "Doesn't that indicate some sort of premeditation, or a motive, or something suspicious?" "Okay, but he comes out of hiding, and he goes directly back to the library?" "Isn't that also suspicious?" "Okay, no." "Patrick, I get that." "But can I just ask you another question here?" "There had to be a motive." "There had to be a link between Dwayne and one of the boys." "I kept coming back to David drabeck." "According to Dwayne, he was the one that took them all to the so called "zone of death"." "I hope David's mother might have some answers." "Any connection maybe through construction?" "One more quick question." "Um, did David ever go to north Dakota for any reason?" "Have any friends or family up there?" "And who are we talking about, Mrs. drabeck?" "What was her name?" "Mrs. drabeck, would you be able to send me that letter, do you think?" "Earlier today, I got this letter from Nancy drabeck." "She sent me the letter that Kayleigh Brighton sent her now Kayleigh Brighton..." "Is not a photographer." "Kayleigh Brighton..." "Is an environmental biologist, at a university that happens to be right above north Dakota." "Come around here, man." "Check this out." "I typed in Kayleigh's address earlier today." "And she lives right above Regina, saskatchewan." "The three boys are from rapid city." "Check out this route." "Look at that." "Right in the middle." "Williston, Dwayne's hometown, right where we are." "You're ready for a road trip, buddy?" "What are you hoping to find?" "There's a missing link between Dave and Dwayne." "And I know this girl's got some answers for us." "Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds?" "This one girl?" "And what does this have to do with Dwayne and Dave anyways?" "Well, you saw the map." "And I've just got a good feeling about it." "What do you think she'll tell you?" "I have no idea, man." "But I have three hours and 26 minutes to figure it out." "She knows something." "I can't see anything in there." "Whoa." "It's a fucking pig, man." "Look at this." "Hey man, we're looking for Kayleigh Brighton, actually." "What's the camera for?" "Well, we're just hoping to talk to Kayleigh here for a second." "What do you wanna talk to my wife for?" "Listen, man, we drove a long way." "I'm just wondering if I could talk to Kayleigh for a second." "Shut your camera off." "Okay." "But is she here?" "Is she... she your wife?" " Shut your camera off." " Hey, man." "Listen." "Hey, hey, buddy." "Hey." "It's up to her, you understand?" "Okay, buddy." "I don't want you going up there shoving a camera in her face." "Also, you know, when you go up there, you make sure that camera's off." "I'm sorry what happened to the guys." "But the thing is we don't have the Internet here." "We didn't." "So I just heard about it on the radio." "That's how we heard about it." " Right." " But we..." "My parents let me know." "And it was a tragedy." "Definitely devastating." "I mean, I just can't believe that happened." "Yeah, it's a real shock I'm sure, to hear that" " about a friend." " Yeah." "So, okay." "You got me alone." "I don't even know what you're looking for though." "I mean, to be honest, I don't know what I'm looking for either." "I'm just chasing every lead." "But you have no idea about who Dwayne is, or..." "No, I have no idea." "I'm sorry." "With, um..." "With David, we worked at camp together, we hung out with the same friends." "And I might have been with him for 10 days total." "And you guys never had a relationship or anything like that?" "No, we were just friends, that's it." "All right, Julian, let's get you miked up." "Here you go." "What are you doing with this?" "I watched this a bunch of times." "I know there's something..." "She's like..." "She's hiding something for sure." "Dude, you're reaching, man." "Everything checks out." "It's off, man." "Something's wrong with this." "Come on, man." "It's a dead end." "You know it is." "Here, take this." "We got work to do." "Sometimes, when you're searching for something so hard, you'll connect the dots with wavy lines and convince yourself they're straight." "Sometimes they just don't connect at all." "There's Patrick right there." " How you doing?" " Okay, good." "You?" "Listen..." "Could I see those case files for a moment?" "I can't give you those case files." "I could look at them in your office if you want, even." "I'm sorry, but they're private files." "I know they're private files, Patrick." "But could I just look at them, maybe for a second?" "Sorry, I'm late." "I know there's something in there, man." "Patrick, maybe I can schedule something with your assistant?" "Patrick!" "I had actually accomplished what I had originally set out to do, which was to document this bizarre murder case." "My opinions had changed, but a theory is just speculation." "Without proof, without an interview, without any shred of motive," "I was left staring at the obvious." "This was simply a freak occurrence, nothing more." " Adam?" " Adam." " What?" "Look at this." "We got a package, man." " Wake up." " What is it?" "Wake up." "Come on." "Come on, I'm trying to sleep." "Take this." "Adam, here." "Come on." "Take the camera." "Let's go." "Come on." " You rolling." " It's rolling." "There's nothing in this." "It's a joke?" "Do you have a phone on you?" "I do." "There's two videos here." "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait." "I wanna get one with all of you." "All right." "Come on, you guys." " Yeah?" " Yeah." "Oh." "This is something." " Good?" " Yeah, great." "It's the annual yellowstone boys' weekend." "All right?" "Wild." "Who the fuck got this?" "Ooh!" "Holy shit." "No, no, no." "No, no!" "Holy fuck!" "Ad, who the fuck dropped this off, man?" "Let's figure this out." "Here." "Right here." "Let's go down to the front desk..." " Hello, sir." " Hi." " How are you?" " I'm good." "Can I ask a big favor of you?" "There." " So this is this morning?" " Yeah." "Okay." "That's 5:15." " Yeah, there he is." " Yeah, yeah, yeah." "He's gonna come out over there." "See?" "And this is my door here?" "Yeah." "That's number 15." "Who the fuck is that?" "You don't have any other..." "Nothing where we can see someone's face?" "You might catch his face on the other..." "Who is that?" "Is it Dwayne?" "All right." "This good?" "Yeah, it's great." "I watched the videos for two days straight, and I didn't catch anything." "But then, anything in life can be fascinating when you delve into the details." "The director, the crew." "Kraft services..." "And beautiful America." "Come here." " Come here." " What do you need?" "Set up the camera over here and look at this." "All right, all right, hold on." " Quit fucking around." " I'm coming, dude." "Put that down and look at this." "Check it out." "You gotta see this." "Yeah." "All right." "What am I looking at?" "Just leave that alone for now..." "Yes, yes." "Look at this, look at this." "You gotta see this." " What am I supposed to be looking at?" " What's that?" " See that logo right there?" " Yeah, on his jacket." "Yeah, have you seen that before?" "No." "You've seen that before." " Okay." " Look." "At Dwayne's house, which is right here..." "Look at this." "What's that right there?" "That's the same logo." "Yeah, what's that?" "That's a water filtration system that every house in this area has." "It's the same company, man." " It's enrg." "Look at this." " Whoa, whoa." ""Enrg."" ""Enrg."" "So?" "That's the same company, man." "Enrg." "It's a fracking company." "Jesus!" "That's Cody's dad, man." "We might have just found the motive." "Raymond fucking Gibbs." "Wait, wait, wait." "The ceo of enrg, usa." "We were looking at the wrong guy the whole time." "The city of williston has avoided the current economic crisis due largely to the success of an old fashioned oil boom." "Improvements in drilling technology have introduced the process of hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as "fracking."" "It's a controversial process, but it's used in abundance in north Dakota, specifically in williston." "Fracking is a destructive process that is used to extract natural gas from rock that lies deep underground." "A well is drilled, and millions of gallons of toxic fluid is injected." "A mix of water, sand and chemicals, at a high enough pressure to fracture the rock and release the gas." "Fracking is currently exempt from major environmental laws, including the safe drinking water act." "Toxic spills and gas leaks are far too common." "It's a process that destroys our land and puts us all at risk." "I recently filmed a documentary" ""trouble in the peace"." "In it, I examined this very same issue in a small farming town in northern British Columbia." "A single father's struggles to protect his daughter from the dangers that a fracking company have brought to his community." "It's difficult." "And yeah, sometimes it's really discouraging and we think..." "Why bother anymore?" "And it's..." "I don't know." "I don't wanna be a coward." "Dwayne Nelson's daughter died from an unexplained fire in the kitchen sink." "Dwayne's wife developed cancer after receiving a clean bill of health a year and a half earlier." "Dwayne's son was born with several birth defects, likely caused by harmful chemicals ingested during pregnancy." "Was all this just a coincidence?" "Or were these murders an elaborate act of revenge?" "Please enter your password." " Still rolling?" "" "Rolling." "You have one saved message." "Okay, get this." "To review your messages..." "First saved message." "End of message." "To replay this message, press one." "Isn't there some kind of law that's protecting him?" "Like a double jeopardy or something like that?" "What's "empanelled" mean?" "But with a motive, then..." "Holy shit." "Okay." "Yeah, unless he gave us that footage out of guilt, and he wants to confess." "Okay, thanks a lot, Patrick, I appreciate it." "Like hell." "...What do you mean?" "Like hell we're gonna give the footage to the authorities" "and let them handle..." "we're gonna give the footage to the authorities." ""We" who?" "Us." "You and I." "We're gonna do the Dwayne interview because we have the opportunity to do it." "If you do this, I'm walking." "But we're here to do the Dwayne interview." "That's the whole point of this story." "Get the fuck out of my way." "Fuck off." "Come on, soldier." "Yeah, yeah." "This is insane, dude." "What do you mean this is insane?" "This is what we came here for, man." "Do you realize the guy is following us, and he's a murderer?" "We came here with a purpose." "We are following a story." "A purpose to stay alive." "You heard Patrick, all right." "If he admits to a motive, he's not protected anymore." "So we're gonna walk away now after all this time?" "Yeah, we're sitting ducks." "We came all this fucking way." "You know what?" "Fuck you." "Stop being a pussy." "Things finally started to makes sense." "The more I thought about all the events, the more I began to comprehend how Dwayne got away with murder." "There was the connection to Raymond Gibbs and his son." "But Dwayne killed three boys." "That was the scary part." "Ingeniously scary." "If he killed Cody alone, it's far easier to draw the lines together." "So he diluted the motive." "Kill Cody, you have murder and motive." "Kill them all, it's a random act of violent insanity." "Adam did have a point." "I decided to take a copy of the footage and a letter to the cops, in case anything happened." "When I started this documentary, it was a passion project based on a crazy story." "It's not a story, it's a tragedy." "But I never thought it would lead to this." "I never though I would fear for my life." "That's it, right there." "When I get there, shut that down." "He was very, very adamant about..." "The fact that he'll tell us where to set up and what to do." "You all right?" "I'm fine." "Okay." "I know you don't wanna be here." "Dude, I'm fine." "Jesus!" "Where the fuck does this man live?" "All right." "Shut it off." "Let's do this." "Where's your camera guy?" "It's just me and you." "Okay." "This isn't an interview, is it?" "No, it's not." " Where is your son?" " Oh..." "Just leave my son out of this." "Okay, you've got something to say, so why don't you just say it?" "You don't need me here." "It's not true." "I do need you." "Why?" "I think that if you see something that is completely wrong and unjust," "you have a philosophical moral obligation to speak up against it, even if you cannot change it." "You've seen my film." "Yeah." "I've seen a lot of things, Julian." "And nothing's changed." "But an eye for an eye?" "Is that really your answer?" "Are you even now with Raymond?" "Oh..." "If..." "If a child is ripped away from you like that..." "There's no replacing it." "There's no eye for an eye." "But you are a murderer now." "I didn't ask to be a part of it." "But as I man," "as a husband and as a father, you do what's necessary." "You found it necessary to kill three innocent boys?" "These people get away with murder every day." "Hell, you made documentaries about it." "But you're just sitting there..." "You're sitting there and you're judging me, just like everyone else." "Those people, they..." "They manipulate the laws." "And you can speak up, you can..." "You can protest." "It doesn't matter." "I'm just the first guy to play their..." "Their game by their rules." "Are you saying that you planned and carried out the murder of Raymond Gibbs' son?" "Julian, I'm saying" "Raymond Gibbs hasn't suffered enough." "It still doesn't hide the fact that you killed Thomas Burnett and David drabeck." "Do you think I'm a monster?" "You murdered three boys." "And you filmed it." "Yeah, I watch that film every day." "I watch that film every day." "Because if I didn't," "I would not have the strength to..." "Okay, Dwayne, we'll take a break if you want." "Dwayne!" "Dwayne!" "Jesus!" "...Fuck!" "Dwayne!" "Oh, shit!" "Adam!" "Dwayne?" "Dwayne?" "Holy shit." "Oh!" "Holy shit, dude." " Call an ambulance." " Are you okay?" "Call an ambulance." "I am, I am." "What the fuck." "His kid's in the back." "What did you do, man?" "...camera guy?" "It's just you and me." "That's good." "This isn't an interview, is it?" "No, it's not." "Are you saying that..." "I wanted something good to come from this." "I thought that I would find it in the truth." "Raymond Gibbs hasn't suffered enough." "Some people congratulated me on getting to Dwayne." "Cornering him into the truth." " Jesus!" "Fuck!" "Dwayne!" "Holy shit!" "Adam!" "But there's more to it than that." "Dwayne?" "Dwayne?" "Holy shit." "Oh!" "Holy shit, dude!" "Are you okay?" "Call an ambulance." "I am, I am." "What the fuck." "His kid's in the back." "Dwayne's son had died two months earlier." "About the same time I had received the anonymous email about the yellowstone murders." "Losing his son was the final straw." "Dwayne was clinging to his son's life more than he was clinging to his own." "When I returned home, I had another email from chasingbison bear." "No subject, no message." "That image was always a metaphor for me." "The chase through yellowstone." "But I never fully understood if I was the bear, or if I was the bison." "The hunter or the hunted." "Now I realize I was neither." "I was just the guy with the camera, who captured the story." "...or whatever." "And Dwayne..." "Dwayne and bear, they went in pretty much all the time." "Sorry, "bear"?" "Bear, yeah." "Barry was his dad." "Yeah." "Dad's just a..." "Barry was his dad." "Yeah." "Unlike me, Dwayne actually looked up to his father." "I should have paid more attention to the email address from the beginning." "Two names appear under the handle "bison Barry"." "One, a sports director from a university radio station in Cleveland, the other a part time writer for the west yellowstone newspaper back in the '70s." "His full name, Barry Robert Nelson." "Father to Dwayne Nelson." "What caught my eye most was one article in particular, written back in 1978." ""Idaho - population zero."" "...as the yellowstone murderer was found dead in his home early this morning." "Police have yet to reveal the full details surrounding his death, but early reports suggests suicide." "The whole time, I believed that Dwayne wanted to admit the truth." "But as way to cleanse his soul." "Now I know that this was all part of his plan." "Everything from the get go had been on his terms." "Everything." "The murders, the loophole." "Even this film." "He wanted revenge, he got it." "He wanted the truth out there, he got that, too." "He used me, he used the justice system, he used us all." "I struggled a lot with whether I should release this film, and whose story I was trying to tell." "I wanted something good to come from this." "I thought that I would find it in the truth." "The truth was worse." "One man picked a fight with a multi-million dollar company, whose fracking process was poisoning his home and killing his family." "But nobody won here." "Not at the expense of a man's life, his family's, and three young men." "I think there's a lot more to it than even Dwayne's letting on." "You know, maybe something that can shed a better light." "That's Dwayne." "He's just gonna bottle it up and tell you what you need." "Bye bye." "Okay." " Muah!" " Muah!" "I love you, dada." "Love you, dada." "Oh, so sweet." "The fact that he could kill those three boys seems unreal to me." "But..." "You know, you put a man through what he went through," "I guess everybody would have a breaking point, so..." "Yellowstone national park." "Around every corner is a reminder of how still life can be." "How vast it can be." "How true it can be." "Until it isn't."