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00:01Sarah Pender was doing 110 years for a pair of Indianapolis murders in October of 2000
00:08before escaping from a maximum security prison.
00:11Investigators say Pender had help and is being passed around from friend to friend.
00:16The Department of Corrections, Indiana State Police, and the U.S. Marshals Task Force
00:21have worked nonstop in trying to apprehend Pender.
00:24Also tonight, a convicted killer is on the loose and a prison guard is now under arrest.
00:29Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
00:31Sarah Pender was serving a 110 year sentence at Rockville.
00:35Prison officials say that Spittler drove a prison van inside the gates and then hit the door.
00:41My heart dropped. I did not know what to do.
00:44I was absolutely scared.
00:50And I was afraid to look out the little peephole because I thought I'm gonna get shot in the face.
00:58And I thought, this is it.
01:09And when I opened up the door, it was my friend Thea.
01:16Thea and I spent time in prison together.
01:21And Peggy had told Thea where to find me.
01:24And so Thea showed up and she said,
01:30Bitch, what are you doing?
01:32I said, well, I did it.
01:34She said, yeah, she did.
01:36Oh my God, yeah, she did.
01:37She said, we gotta get the fuck out of here.
01:39So, I said, well, let's go.
01:51Thea and I drive to her house.
01:57That night, Thea fixed me pork chops, potatoes, green beans.
02:05It was delicious.
02:07It was the best thing I'd had in eight years.
02:11I remember just poking at my food with this real fork and feeling, you know, the metal on my teeth
02:18and thinking, oh my gosh, this is real.
02:21Sarah Pender is still on the run.
02:23These were the most normal things.
02:26Like, I was at home.
02:28Pender was serving time for a double murder in Marion County back in 2000.
02:31I remember I was sitting in a lazy boy chair and feeling the cushion and just knowing that the harshness
02:42of prison was behind me.
02:51In a fugitive investigation such as Pender, you can't sit.
02:56Every lead I went and checked out, my visit to her friend Peggy, maybe didn't bear fruit.
03:04But I left her my business card and she said she would call me if she heard from Sarah.
03:10I said, if I find out that you're helping her, it's going to be a bad situation for you.
03:18That's how I rolled.
03:19Show her presence and then get them to work with you.
03:23Like setting a bird trap.
03:25I was setting areas out there for me that would hopefully spring and would generate a capture.
03:34I was chasing down these lines and meeting these offenders, but I'm also profiling her.
03:43She got someone to give her a phone and help her on the run.
03:48She's good at getting people to do things that are outside the normal human behavior.
03:53Does she get people to do things up until including putting two bodies in a trash dumpster?
04:01Pender was convicted in 2002 for the murder of her two roommates.
04:05Police say she helped her co-defendant dispose of the bodies in a south side dumpster.
04:11I thought, would Rick Hall play ball with me?
04:14Richard Hall was the co-defendant.
04:17That was her boyfriend at the time these murders happened.
04:19He was in Pendleton prison doing his own hundred plus years for the murders.
04:31I thought Richard would know her better than anybody else.
04:35I also thought he may know where she would probably go.
04:41So I introduced myself.
04:43When I told him I was with the U.S. Marshals and I was looking for Sarah, he got a
04:46smile on his face.
04:47He goes, oh yeah?
04:50I had mixed emotions about her escape.
04:54I was happy, poor, good, go enjoy it while you can.
04:58You know, but I was really hurting and frustrated because I looked at my life as being over.
05:09I mean, I'm at a maximum prison because of Sarah.
05:16And they tell me that I will probably end up dying in this place.
05:26Ryan asked me to help, but it was just like, how can I help when I don't know anything?
05:34I don't know where she is.
05:37I mean, Rick knows her so well.
05:40So I said, where could she go?
05:43Do you have any theories about where she may run to?
05:46He thought about it.
05:48Rick told me the name of Thea and that she did time with her.
05:53And that would be someone she would turn to on the run.
06:02It was a hell of a lead.
06:13At this point, my money's cut off.
06:16I don't know how I'm going to support myself.
06:19And Thea gives me a suggestion.
06:25Thea was a stripper and she had been spending time with one of the clients outside the strip club.
06:31And she knew that he wanted to have a threesome.
06:35She suggested that we have sex with him and that he would probably give us money.
06:43At the time, I was willing to give up my body.
06:46Absolutely.
06:47My body, my attention, my affection for freedom.
06:56That night, Thea arranged for us to meet at this motel room and introduce me to Tom.
07:04He was a businessman.
07:07He was clearly in his late 50s, but he was well-built.
07:12He was dressed nice, smelled wonderful.
07:15So I didn't have any worries about him being this dirty old man.
07:22Thea told him that my name was Brandy.
07:26And that I had just been released from prison.
07:28And that I needed to make some money.
07:34I retired about five years ago.
07:36I have a freight brokering business.
07:38I don't have anything to do.
07:40And my wife travels a lot.
07:42I'm playing golf.
07:45After a while, my golf game got down in the 70s.
07:47What else can you do?
07:48That's pretty damn good.
07:50So I started actually living in the strip joints.
07:55The bottom line was sex is my drug.
07:57And it just took me over.
08:01So I was sitting there going,
08:02Hey, let's get a threesome.
08:04I want a threesome.
08:13I mean, she comes up and gives you a nice hug and sweet as this.
08:18And then it's like, okay.
08:21And so we had this rendezvous.
08:39After the threesome, Tom asked me what I was going to do for the rest of the evening.
08:44And I told him that I didn't know.
08:45I didn't really have anywhere to go.
08:47And so he said that I could stay in the room because it was already paid for.
08:51And so I was kind of asking her, you know, so what are you going to do?
08:53You know, she goes, well, I think I'm going to go on the strip or sure could find a job
08:59or something like that.
09:07I feel like I'm on the scent.
09:10Thea was working in the strip club industry.
09:15And Rick had told me that if she really needed to get means or help, she would go to Thea
09:20or go to there and start hustling.
09:23I didn't know specifically where Thea was working, but there was various strip clubs here in Indianapolis.
09:30And I went out there and spent some time in these places to see if Sarah was there.
09:37At this point, you don't want to configure law enforcement at all.
09:40So you go in there like a baller, the shot caller, you know, and what I mean by that is
09:44you better have your money with you.
09:46The more money you spread, the more you're going to see her as a normal guy.
09:52One of the distinguishing marks on Sarah was that she had a tattoo of a bullseye on her butt cheek.
09:58And I went out there looking for tattoos, looking for anybody that looked like Sarah.
10:02I stayed out until I couldn't stay up anymore.
10:06I saw a lot of ass, but I didn't see bullseyes.
10:16I was frustrated, but I didn't feel defeated by any means.
10:21Because I will find out who's helping her.
10:29After the first day I was with her, it was like eating a Lay's potato chip.
10:34You can't just have one. I was hooked.
10:38The next morning, Tom came again, brought me McDonald's for breakfast.
10:44And he offered to pay for another night at the motel room, so I had somewhere to go.
10:50And that he would keep me company.
10:55So I said yes.
11:00Tom and I were laying in bed and he turned on the TV and was flipping through the channels.
11:10Investigators say Sarah Pender is on the loose and dangerous.
11:14A Marion County jury convicted her in the year 2000 in a double murder.
11:19Pender escaped from the Rockville Correctional Facility, allegedly with the help of a correctional officer.
11:27When I saw that on the news, that's when I started going, holy shit.
11:33This is so far outside my realm of life.
11:36I feel like a damn goldfish swimming with sharks.
11:39I can't even comprehend this.
11:41I don't know what to do.
11:43I honestly don't know what to do.
11:45I was like, damn.
11:57Pender was convicted in 2002 for the murder of her two roommates.
12:01I didn't want to tell Tom the truth.
12:04But I didn't know what to say.
12:06And I'm a terrible liar.
12:07So I told him the story.
12:19The evening that Drew and Trish were murdered, Rick and I were out with my dad and stepmom.
12:29When Rick and I came home, Drew and Rick immediately started arguing about money that Rick's sister owed to Drew
12:38for drugs.
12:41Rick's talking about, you know, fuck this motherfucker.
12:44And, you know, he said, you probably want to leave.
12:47And I told him, I have nowhere to go. Where am I supposed to go?
12:55And so I walked around the neighborhood.
13:00When I came home, everything seemed really quiet, like extra quiet.
13:12And the house was dark.
13:17And it felt wrong.
13:27I heard a noise.
13:30I didn't understand what the noise was.
13:34And I called out for Rick.
13:37And there was no response.
13:42And I looked.
13:44I didn't see Drew or Trish or Rick.
13:49There was blood on the floor.
13:51There was blood on the floor.
13:59And when I got to the living room, I saw Rick.
14:08Rick was bent over.
14:12He was putting Trish's body into a blanket.
14:21I do remember being very afraid.
14:27And thinking that, what do I do now? What do I do? What do I do? Because I didn't know.
14:35I said, Ricky.
14:41And when he stood up, he turned around.
14:43And he just looked at me.
14:52For a moment we just stared at each other.
14:55And I clearly thought to myself, I'm about to die.
15:02And so I just froze.
15:04I just froze there.
15:06And I waited.
15:12And then I put my hands up and I just said, what do you want me to do?
15:19Rick told me to get another blanket.
15:21And so I did.
15:31I remember Rick dragging Trish's body across the floor to take her out.
15:38And when he put her body in the back of the truck, I saw that Drew was already in there.
15:57But I didn't know what to do.
16:02Except stand there.
16:08This felt so helpless.
16:16Rick told me to get into the truck.
16:19And I did.
16:26I remember very clearly thinking this is not real.
16:30And making up that everything was fine.
16:35Rick drove only a handful of blocks away to a dumpster behind a building.
16:50I only saw when I looked in the rear view mirror.
16:58And I didn't want to see anything else.
17:00And so I just looked forward.
17:03And I pretended not to see.
17:24Sarah says she had nothing to do with this, that I was the one that did it all.
17:29And that's not the truth.
17:31That's not what happened whatsoever.
17:44As far as the night that this all took place.
17:49I'm still in the middle of some of my appeals.
17:52So I can't get into the full details of everything that took place.
17:59but I did not, I did not, I did not murder Drew first.
18:13When I was talking to Rick, he openly said he walked in and returned home
18:21and Sarah was rocking back and forth holding a shotgun while two dead bodies were there.
18:25That's what he claims.
18:31Who are you going to believe?
18:34Me with my background, knowing that here it is, I'm a drug dude in the business,
18:41six, three and a half, six, four, 325 pounds, ball head, goatee, looking like this.
18:47Or some girl that's kind of looking, just working her way through being a young adult.
18:54Who are you going to believe?
18:59Those females won't lie, they're not going to be deceiving.
19:17Sarah, she was saying, Tom, this is all bullshit.
19:20I wasn't at that murder.
19:22I wasn't even there at the house.
19:25I said, what do you mean?
19:27She goes, Rick had a tamper, Rick killed them.
19:32Did she ever mention that that day that they were killed, she went and bought a shotgun?
19:38I don't think so.
19:52Rick just asked me to buy a gun, and I said yes.
19:57I didn't question why he would want it.
20:04There wasn't a lot of discussion about it.
20:09Rick couldn't buy a gun because he had a previous felony.
20:13So, at 7.30 in the morning, he drove us to Walmart, and we walked in.
20:19He picked out the gun and ammunition that he wanted.
20:23And I bought it, paid with a check and my ID, thinking that this was what I was supposed to
20:32be doing.
20:50Did I know if Drew or Trish was going to get killed with that shotgun?
20:57No.
20:59Sarah was playing her game, was pointing everything at me at the very beginning.
21:06I just don't know what really happened.
21:09What I can say is that Sarah wanted that shotgun.
21:15It was Sarah's idea to go for the protection.
21:19I mean, I was in the drug business.
21:22If I wanted a gun, I could have one.
21:24I mean, getting a gun was not a problem.
21:27It would not have been a problem.
21:30Oh.
21:39The victims, a white man and a woman, were discovered last night in a dumpster behind the Teamsters Hall in
21:45the 800 block of South Meridian.
21:47The two had been shot to death.
21:51It's not an everyday occurrence to have bodies in a dumpster in Indianapolis, let alone two bodies in a dumpster.
22:04Once we identified our victims, Andrew Cataldi and Trisha Nordman, we were able to connect the location of where they
22:16had lived.
22:17And we knew that the home was being rented by Rick Hull and Sarah Pender.
22:26Rick clearly was a suspect.
22:29We knew Rick had been dealing drugs.
22:32Police came to believe that this man, 22-year-old Richard Hull, who lived with Cataldi and Nordman, was the
22:38likely murderer.
22:39He was placed under arrest and charged with Andrew and Trisha's murders.
22:47We just didn't know if Sarah was involved.
23:03Okay.
23:05Can you please state and spell your first and last name?
23:10Sarah Pender, S-A-R-A-H-P-E-N-D-E-R.
23:16Okay.
23:17And can you please tell me your age?
23:19I'm 21 years of age.
23:23At any time, did it occur to you to tell the cops or anybody in law enforcement what happened?
23:31Yes, I wouldn't recall the cops when it happened.
23:34I was scared.
23:36I was torn between protecting myself and telling the truth, because I'm not a liar.
23:44I am such the most honest person and kind-hearted, gentle person.
23:47I don't think anybody will tell you.
23:52She was flipping her hair and fixing her blouse and fixing her shirt.
23:57I thought she was the type of woman that maybe thought she could talk her way out of this.
24:06But we knew that Sarah had purchased a weapon.
24:09She helped conceal the evidence.
24:12I felt like she was more involved than she let on.
24:19She was saying, Tom, I was 20 years old.
24:22I was stupid.
24:23I was the stupidest thing in the world.
24:25But see, and you probably found this out.
24:28She is extreme intelligent.
24:30I mean, I don't know if she tests out as a genius or whatever.
24:33But her IQ's got to be up there.
24:36Yeah, well, she made the physics at Purdue.
24:39And that doesn't just take anybody.
24:43Yeah, I mean, she's a smart cookie.
24:50I stand firm in my convictions that she is a very, very dangerous person.
24:57She's capable of doing about anything.
25:01After Sarah escaped from prison in 2008, my daughter said, well, Dad, aren't you a little
25:09worried about what she might do?
25:13And you're the one that convicted her.
25:16Don't you think we ought to be concerned about her coming here?
25:21I said that I think Sarah's in a dark, evil demon within.
25:28I think it's a good thing for Indianapolis and everybody else that she's found as soon
25:35as possible, because I don't know what she's capable of doing.
25:42When I was a youngster, I was an actor.
25:47Then I realized a little later on, you need to be gainfully employed.
25:52So I fooled around into practice of law and eventually ended up working as a deputy prosecutor
25:59in Marion County Prosecutor's Office.
26:02Sarah Pender had been charged with two murders.
26:05I was getting the prosecute.
26:08I loved that.
26:09You know, I felt pretty good about the evidence in the case.
26:23I tried to feel optimistic about the trial the best I could, because I had no idea what
26:31the evidence was, and I just didn't know what to expect.
26:37Before the trial, I thought that they just made a mistake and everything would be okay, that
26:45it would be fixed.
26:46I remember sitting there thinking I couldn't wait to get home, lay in my bed, eat lasagna,
26:59and figure out how I was going to move forward with my life.
27:10When the trial started, Sarah was trying to convince the jury that although Rick did all
27:17these horrible things and committed these murders and that she was with them, that she
27:23didn't actually participate, she said she was scared, she thought Rick Hall might shoot
27:31her, but she didn't help him.
27:35And I argued to the jury, she had that opportunity to leave the day after the shootings to go to
27:43law enforcement.
27:44Just why in the hell didn't he get out of there?
27:47Leave.
27:48Go.
27:48Go.
27:50But she didn't.
27:58I've covered lots of murder cases.
28:01I'm a journalist.
28:02I look for evidence.
28:03I look for facts.
28:04And in Sarah's case, the facts Larry put forward were really compelling.
28:09Larry introduced a witness named Floyd Pennington.
28:15Floyd had been locked up in jail on a robbery charge.
28:20She had some sort of steamy pen pal relationship with him while they were both locked up in
28:27jail.
28:29When Floyd entered the courtroom from the opposite side, I wanted to yell out, like, why are you
28:35doing this?
28:37Floyd was charming and he used proper spelling and grammar.
28:42And that's unusual for a lot of people in jail.
28:46After seven months of writing, Floyd and I decided to organize a trip to the hospital.
28:57They, uh, feigned some sort of illnesses so they could talk in person.
29:08He told her that he wanted to have a better, stronger relationship, and she did too.
29:16But he needed her to confide in him, tell him the truth about the murders.
29:27So Floyd said that Sarah had told her that she wanted to get rid of the roommates to, you
29:35know, for money or drug dealing or whatever it is they were into at the time.
29:42She bought the shotgun.
29:43She got Rick angry enough and convinced him to commit these murders.
29:51I wanted to scream out, like, this is not happening.
29:55He is lying.
29:56How could anyone believe this man?
29:59How could anybody believe him?
30:03And I said she had a Charles Manson-like ability to convince people to do bad things.
30:10During the trial, Larry came out and told the jury how there's also this one letter.
30:21It painted a picture of Sarah, uh, and, and not as a, you know, innocent victim.
30:30It was something that was certainly shocking.
30:33My dearest Richard, I just snapped.
30:37I didn't mean to kill them.
30:39It must have been the acid.
30:42There was nothing I could do to defend myself.
30:46And all I could think about was, I didn't write this.
30:48I didn't write this.
30:49I didn't do this.
30:50I'll never forget you.
30:52I love you.
30:53And I miss you so much.
30:55Love all of us.
31:00Larry and his closing arguments sort of gave two possibilities of ways of proving Sarah's guilt.
31:07In one, it was that, like that letter said, Sarah was the one who had actually pulled the trigger and
31:16shot the victims.
31:17And the other scenario Larry put forward was Floyd Pennington's statement that Sarah had manipulated Rick into doing these crimes.
31:28It doesn't matter if the jury believes one or the other, um, she's still guilty of murder.
31:37And they said, you have a responsibility to convict her.
31:42And they did.
31:43The jury came back in and the judge wrote, she was guilty of both murders.
31:56Sarah Pender was sentenced to 110 years.
32:06All I remember is crying.
32:14Oh, I cried, you know, because what do you do?
32:19I felt like my heart was ripped out.
32:26I was lost because there was no way that I could sit in prison for 110 years for something I
32:34didn't do.
32:39Investigators say Sarah Pender is on the loose and dangerous.
32:44A Marion County jury convicted her in the year 2000 in a double murder.
32:49Tom stayed with me for a few days.
32:53Our relationship deepened.
32:55And I just trusted that Tom was not going to go home and call the police.
33:01He was all these things that, from the outside looking in, was a very normal, upstanding citizen.
33:07But in his private life, Tom was a sex addict.
33:10And he saw an opportunity for me to be his sex pet.
33:17Clearest day, I remember, he asked me if, this is the oddest thing.
33:22He asked me, do you love me?
33:26I said, no.
33:28He said, do you think you could love me?
33:32I said, yeah, I think I could love you.
33:36He said, okay.
33:38He said, do you want me to take care of you?
33:41Yeah.
33:42And so I began to look at the relationship as, I need to play a role.
33:48She was tremendously compassionate and seemed like she cared and all that.
33:52And I'm starting to think, I'm, I hate to say it, I'm starting to have feelings.
33:59You know, he's my sugar daddy.
34:00And I never got greedy.
34:04I never wanted him to think that I was using him.
34:08I always wanted him to know that he was using me.
34:13I don't know if when in prison, she learned psychology.
34:19I don't know.
34:20She, she trances you.
34:24Tom wanted to go to a casino.
34:26He enjoyed gambling and wanted to show me off as something like a prize.
34:34I was worried that someone would recognize me, but I had cut my hair, dyed it.
34:40I was made up in this little black dress and a necklace.
34:46It was a very reckless thing to go to the casino, but it made him happy.
34:50It made him want to keep me.
34:54One of the things that made me valuable to Tom is that I would do whatever he wanted me to
34:59do.
35:00And so when Tom wanted to go out, I said yes, because I would have said yes if he asked
35:05me to turn the sky purple.
35:12But every moment was tainted with knowing that someone that had seen me on the news could spot me.
35:21Others have talked to police saying they think they've spotted Pender.
35:25I became more paranoid.
35:27Sarah Pender.
35:27Sarah Pender.
35:28Sarah Pender.
35:29Sarah Pender.
35:34I realized it was important for me to keep moving and get out of Indianapolis.
35:40So I asked Tom to help me.
35:52Tom fixed me up with a job down in Cincinnati, working with a friend of his that was a general
35:57contractor.
35:59It was really hard to be away from my friends because they had become such a support system.
36:05And so that sort of solitude was difficult.
36:17One day at home, the FedEx guy came and I thought mom might have ordered something.
36:23She said she didn't order anything.
36:26And then I got to looking at it and it had my name on it.
36:31Then I opened it up and I seen it was a little track phone, one that can't be traced.
36:37And then I looked in there again and seen there was a little note in there from Sarah.
36:46It was roadblock after roadblock after roadblock, but you can't give up.
36:53I've got certain things in place and then boom, I get notified by Peggy.
37:01She was nervous and she goes, Sarah, mail me a phone and she's going to call me this Thursday.
37:05What do I do?
37:06I was like, don't do anything.
37:07I'll be there Thursday.
37:09So when Peggy reported that to me, that took me from cloud one to cloud nine.
37:13I was excited.
37:15It gives you that other shot of adrenaline if I'm going because I'm getting closer.
37:34When Peggy got her phone mailed to her, I called down our tactical operations truck from Detroit.
37:41He came down for this because once his phone came up live, we needed to track and where she's bedded
37:46down at.
37:49When we got to Peggy, you could see Peggy was nervous and God love her.
37:55You know, here we are, federal agents and this is a big deal.
38:01We're all waiting for this thing to start ringing.
38:03And all I told Peggy was when she calls, be normal.
38:11When the phone rang, it scared me.
38:13I jumped.
38:14I didn't know what to expect.
38:19Eventually, Peggy answered.
38:23And I immediately felt relief from this tension that I had.
38:31I mean, she was talking really kind of like quiet, you know, so I don't know where she was at.
38:39Peggy was crying and she's like, they know that I helped you.
38:43I don't want to go back to prison.
38:44Please just turn yourself in.
38:45That was so hard to hear her be scared.
38:51My colleague was out in the truck.
38:53He was trying to locate which tower and which antenna where she was at.
39:00I'm trying to keep Peggy on the phone because the longer I had the conversation going,
39:04the better it was for us to get where she was at.
39:11I begged her to turn herself in because they had orders to shoot to kill.
39:19I told her I can't turn myself in.
39:21This is what I chose to do.
39:24And if I go back, I'm just going to kill myself.
39:26And I told her if they find me and they shoot me, they're only going to do me a favor.
39:35Those are words I'm sure Peggy didn't want to hear.
39:37And it was the first indicator that Sarah didn't want to go back alive.
39:43That goes beyond me speculating.
39:46I heard it from the horse's mouth that she's, she's accepted violence as opposed to a peaceful surrender.
39:54I remember apologizing and saying, Peggy, I'm so sorry.
39:58I'm so sorry.
40:00And then she hung up.
40:03And I believe that was the last time I talked to her.
40:07After the phone call, it literally took a beeline out to the truck.
40:10The technical guy finds out it's on a tower outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, near several motels.
40:19So we'd have to only conclude she's bedded down some of these rooms.
40:23I mean, God, that made perfect sense.
40:27We had the nest.
40:33I felt that urge, that excitement.
40:35It's like a dog on the cinema trail.
40:39So U.S. Marshals from Cincinnati went out and canvassed the area where Sarah was making this phone call.
40:45I was confident I'd get her.
40:55But the Marshals called back from Cincinnati and basically said, hey, we've canvassed all these places.
41:00Nothing.
41:00No one's seen her at all.
41:11Looking back, I was goddamn close to her.
41:17But a good hunter will never give up.
41:20I've never had to shoot anybody.
41:22Never have.
41:23But I can assure you as I'm sitting here, the magazine that I carried in my gun, that first bullet
41:29had her name on.
41:47I know.
42:05But I still hope to have an interesting connection with you.
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