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00:12the whole state and country was looking for i was chomping on the bone for every day of every week
00:19of every month i want to catch her well i know but i'm not giving up either i haven't caught
00:26her
00:26but guess what sometimes they don't want to be caught oh without a doubt law enforcement was
00:31under incredible pressure the prison that let her go was embarrassed by this we didn't know what she
00:38was going to do it's kind of like a caged possum if you push them in the corner they're going
00:42to bite
00:43you that was her urgency in in finding her and and then you know all my bosses are talking to
00:52their
00:52bosses and talking to their bosses in a washington i was informed by my supervisor and he had been
00:58in communication with america most wanted everyone ready that wasn't my call that was their call but
01:02at that point i had nothing else to lose here comes the roller coaster again good evening
01:07now our first story tonight is about an artist everybody was at the tv to watch this segment
01:15some artists can take a block of clay and manipulate it and mold it into anything they can think of
01:21she
01:21manipulates people instead of clay and i remember thinking that's not me and even when she was sent
01:29off to prison she never stopped working her craft they don't have a clue they don't know who they're
01:35looking for everyone around her was putty in her hands
01:49rockville correctional facility rockville indiana
01:55a place more than 1 000 women call home tom and i were in a hotel room and
02:03we watched what america's most wanted aired one of those women was sarah pender this is her
02:10entertaining some of her fellow prisoners the longer i watched myself on tv
02:17the worse it got i mean i'm not stupid i knew what they were doing
02:23but behind her angelic good looks and endearing persona former marion county deputy prosecutor larry
02:31sales says sarah pender is a woman to be feared she has a charles manson like ability to manipulate
02:38people to act as surrogates for and committing crimes everything you know america wanted that
02:47wasn't the person i saw that wasn't the person i knew i wasn't the person i talked with all that
02:53stuff sort of ramped up um the scrutiny and the pressure and the fear of her not just in indiana
03:02but obviously since it's on been on america's most wanted everyday normal civilian people
03:09are going to be looking out for her sarah's a convicted murderer she's a con she's a convict
03:14she did con some cons to help her but since she's been out she's flushed them down the toilet as
03:20if
03:20she flushed the two bodies in the back of a dumpster but manipulation is a story i hate to say
03:27it
03:30but it's very common for a man to blame a woman for their actions men will point the finger and
03:39say
03:40the woman made me do it pender is like a chameleon we know she's manipulative and she probably is
03:48already working her charms on someone new let's put sarah pender back behind bars tonight
03:55when america's most wanted uh had got involved um it generated a ton of leads
04:02you know she's at her truck stop right now in nebraska or she's in oklahoma we started you know
04:07it's just like tips were all over the country from minnesota california florida texas i mean there was
04:16no nexus to these locations so you couldn't let these tips lay dormant you had to go
04:23so it was a trade-off but i knew though that it was not favorable for her it just keeps
04:29on putting
04:29the pressure on any movements that she may be trying to make or not be able to make as i
04:35obsessed
04:35with the hunt that's a that's kind of a crazy word to use i guess i was a little obsessed
04:50after america's most wanted aired friends that i turned to whenever i needed help now they were gone
04:59every moment was tainted with knowing that just a glance or someone that i'd been in prison with
05:10or someone with a great memory was gonna spot me and of course again i dyed my hair
05:21and i bought colored contacts changed my eye color to hazel
05:29i went to the eye doctor i bought glasses i did not know how long my relationship with tom was
05:36going to
05:37last
05:40i felt like it was important for me to keep moving
05:45so tom had arranged for me to stay with the niece of a friend of his and it just happened
05:50that
05:51that a friend of hers was looking for an estimator for a construction company that his dad owned
06:00and i got on the bus and i just pretended that everything was fine
06:22a couple weeks later it was literally ferreting through a bunch of leaves from all over the
06:27country that were absolutely crazy leads i mean i had stacks and stacks of stuff that came in from
06:34that from american most wanted i'm like i don't have time to go through i mean these were just like
06:38nutty people but it's what it was it was leaves but it was just not very tangible leaves
06:46then all of a sudden i had a call from an internal affairs investigator at rockville
06:50and he was was was my eyes and ears internally in the prison now the department of corrections
06:56i wasn't aware of this they have an email system set up for where anybody can send messages to and
07:01from the offenders they got an email it was directed to this inmate her name is kp she used
07:10to have a relationship with sarah they thought sarah may be trying to contact kp
07:19using another offender's login is she going to be that stupid to use a login of another person and try
07:25to communicate with her former girlfriend inside we could ignore it
07:32we surrounded the house where pender was maybe using this account the american most wanted crew
07:39were there with the anticipation of this could be it this could be the one we were ready to rock
07:45and
07:46roll with what we call shock and awe you know waking people up you got a search warrant come on
07:52out
07:52you know what it's about no i don't have a clue all right we're searching for a girl what girl
07:56sarah
07:57it scared him to death when the eyes came to the door she's got 110 years that we're ahead you
08:03don't
08:05she could have been there unfortunately daybreak revealed pender was nowhere in sight
08:11he said it was truly an offender reaching out to kp nothing more than that uh sarah had nothing to
08:18do
08:18with that but the best thing now i'm gonna back up out of here let the dust settle for a
08:23couple days
08:24is that a feeling of embarrassment a little bit that there you are on national television
08:28no no i don't give a about what americans must want to put it with me i didn't care about
08:35what
08:35washed they were doing their hollywood okay did it keep the light on pender it kept the light on pender
08:54being on the run i had no idea what i was really getting myself into but chicago was very convenient
09:07i felt like i could blend in
09:14each day i went to work and i felt like a normal person
09:20i would put my high heels in my backpack put on my tennis shoes listening to the sound of my
09:28footsteps
09:29on the pavement as i walked up to get lunch i don't know if i ever forgot that i was
09:36a fugitive but
09:37there was not a time that i did not enjoy experiencing new things
09:43i met this guy on the corner walking his two dogs and chatted him up about where did you get
09:52your
09:52dogs and he had rescued them from some place and it was just it was the most normal beautiful thing
10:05and i and i thought this is real life this is real life
10:13those are the times that those are the times that being a fugitive didn't matter
10:29hinder is on the 15 most wanted fugitive list but she might not look like this police say she has
10:35cut
10:35her hair colored it multiple times added a nose ring and a tongue piercing they've got 15 in their
10:41profile and she's the only woman on there it's it's individuals that the u.s marshals at the federal
10:46level feel are the most dangerous people that they are actively hunting
10:53it was really odd to see that i was on this top 15 list
11:01i knew that i wasn't dangerous i know that i'm not a threat to the community but they don't know
11:07that i have strong belief that she hasn't left the state of indiana if she has it's just been for
11:13a
11:14short stint i'm real dangerous with my charming smile sorry
11:27when sarah was elevated the u.s marshals top 15 poster with that came a 25 000 reward
11:33and all that is is to get people to drop a dime on her i was hoping that eventually the
11:38u.s marshals
11:38would just give up and find something else to do more important she may think she knows her
11:44capabilities and she was good but i wouldn't want to be her right now
12:07i worried about sarah every day i lost my daughter because she has to be on the run
12:17i don't know how to explain it it it messes with your mind you know to to not know for
12:27sure
12:28what's around the corner
12:32thanksgiving it's a time of being thankful knowing that she was still alive i was thankful for that
12:43but it's hard not to have your family together sitting at the table
12:51on thanksgiving day tom left to see his family
12:59and so i walked down to the denny's down the street and picked up a traditional
13:06thanksgiving meal with two pieces of pecan pie
13:11yeah it was lonely
13:19when i was sitting in my apartment i had bought a guitar
13:24just a cheap acoustic guitar and i had to go in my room to play it because i was afraid
13:31that my next
13:32neighbor neighbor would hear me playing and singing and that was one of the things that they had put on
13:38america's most wanted is that i like to sing and play guitar and i thought i have to hide this
13:47i have to hide this part of me
13:51i couldn't be myself because then i would be too much like sarah pender
13:59it was emotionally exhausting
14:05i just wanted to resume my normal life
14:10investigators say sarah pender is on the loose and dangerous
14:15you know we received numerous tips and calls but here lately they have uh since dried up and
14:21uh wanted fugitives they're usually on the run for you know days maybe weeks very rarely are they
14:27months when i was hunting sarah though she was she was all-encompassing in my my mind from when i
14:35went to sleep and then i woke up and a lot of times that i'm watching tv with my my
14:40daughter and my son and
14:41my wife and my phone ring i mean from state police detectives the internal affairs to america's most
14:49want it they were all trying to get information to me every lead i went to everything i went and
14:56checked out you have hope and you have you have what if
15:03i was gone all the time and i was coming up empty-handed
15:10and then i i fell down the deep hole of of i started drinking too much
15:20i would decompress in the evening with with absolute vodka and wake up in the headache in the morning
15:28i suffered chasing her ass for four or five months
15:35yeah i take ownership i wasn't around so that's all i want to say about my personal life
15:48the fear is not about returning to prison because i know what prison is
16:01the fear was that i would lose my freedom not that i would go back to prison
16:10one thing is punishment and the other one is loss
16:18i had started packing my things because i was moving in a couple of days to a new apartment
16:28it kept me on the move to avoid detection
16:35and then
16:40it was a loud knock it's 11 o'clock at night and he says maintenance
16:46and i shuffled across the parquet floor in my little pink slippers
16:52and i remember looking out the peephole
16:58and i see these four strapping men
17:03i think a couple of them had on you know bulletproof vests
17:09my initial reaction is grab my go bag go out the back there was a back stairwell my escape route
17:21and i paused
17:25this was it you got me the universe let me out of prison and now the universe is telling me
17:32it's time
17:32to go back and i opened up the door just let me get my shoes
17:48and here are four men escorting me out of the building in handcuffs
17:57just walking to the car
18:03like nothing else is different in the world
18:22i remember i was in the car driving with my family going to see my in-laws
18:28and i got a phone call saying that pender was apprehended in chicago by an anonymous tipster
18:35that's how i found out merry christmas december 2008
18:41would have been nice to be the one to track her out and put the cuffs on her yeah but
18:44you guess what
18:46she didn't out with us she was put back in the cage
18:50i turned my family around i went to chicago
18:59when i finally got to meet sarah the first thing she said she goes you know what you're much better
19:04look in the person he didn't strike me as someone particularly special
19:15basically ryan had been obsessed with finding me for four months
19:21ryan talked to me like i knew him like he knew me
19:28there was a relief she was happy to see me i was happy to see her because she's tired of
19:34running
19:34she told me she was tired she wasn't the only fugitive that i've caught where she's like yeah
19:37i'm tired of running i'm tired of looking by my back
19:40does ryan harman know you ryan harman knows me as much as you know me
19:54and we got in the car to take her back to indianapolis
20:04we had u.s marshals undercover following out of chicago
20:09i was in the back seat with her and i put a digital recorder in my pocket
20:12i hadn't known i didn't know anything about who helped her while she was on the run
20:17i had plan a b c and d you know and my friends like it really i don't like this
20:21guy he's older
20:22he's in his 50s he's very clean cut what was the name his name was tom that's when she first
20:32divulged to meet her friend thea had introduced her to a guy by the name of tom welch tom is
20:38someone
20:38who is uh he's a sex addict and so he spends a lot of time and money in strip clubs
20:45and what have you
20:48so basically what yeah in the beginning it turned into an arrangement he's the one that sent her to
20:54cincinnati and he acted chicago and gave her a phone and gave her money and all for getting her nuts
21:00off
21:02but man i didn't expect to hear what i heard and i was so goddamn close to getting her
21:09if he hadn't entered the picture i mean she was choked
21:12law enforcement pull into the indiana women's prison in this maroon torres sarah pender in the
21:18left back seat pender now with red hair wearing a purdue sweatshirt they escort her inside the prison
21:25news everywhere outside the prison i mean it was i walked into a guillotine of like a it was crazy
21:32sarah how's it feel to get caught and then
21:43i gave my life for that hunt
21:47i lost a lot i lost my marriage my children right after this capture i didn't know that was going
21:57to
21:57happen didn't surprise me when it happened but it happened because of her
22:04big question there
22:08was it worth it
22:12i don't know
22:17the data is january 8 2009 time is approximately 1 30. i'm present with a tom welsh reference sarah
22:27pender matter tom if you can just start me at the beginning once upon a time first time i met
22:34her at
22:34the hotel there at uh speedway i mean we were literally six eight ten hours of just sex just
22:44you know and so uh i hate to say i started to have feelings after about the third day i
22:49mean
22:49we're dating we are freaking dating it's not like oh there's a cop there was none of that she's on
22:55the
22:55run she's a u.s marshal's top 15 fugitive and you're carrying on a relationship like you picked
23:00her up off of tinder
23:03i wasn't hiding anything i just got into a love thing and then i saw that she was captured
23:12that's when my world came apart not only that you were going to or somebody was going to talk to
23:17me but my wife
23:21he told me his story with the attorney president because the prosecutor agreed to give him a
23:24proper statement which means you give him a cleanup statement won't prosecute you well i listened to
23:29what he had to tell me he should get 24 years
23:39when i was returned to prison they told me that i was sentenced to one year
23:45in solitary confinement
23:50that was an administrative move which certainly we have that latitude if we feel like somebody's
23:57still a danger to other inmates to the whatever if they're a danger we'll keep them locked up
24:07i was told by officers by staff you embarrass the department of corrections therefore
24:14they're going to keep you in solitary confinement
24:21solitary confinement is cold nothing but steel and concrete
24:27there's a concrete slab with a thin mat with a steel toilet and a steel sink
24:34and that is it
24:37all you have is your mind and it just ravages you
24:41you think about all the things that i had done
24:45all the things that i didn't do
24:48it just eats eats at you in this cycle and and you can't get it to shut up
25:02in my mind i thought i was getting out at the end of the year
25:07but i was told that i would not be released and when they told me it was indefinite
25:17my mind started like winding down almost
25:28so i was sitting on the floor and i was trying to play solitaire
25:36but the numbers didn't make any sense to me
25:47i see things but i don't know
25:52something is happening something is happening i don't know what's happening something is happening to
25:56me
25:57literally in my mind
26:01i'm just gripping apart and just this part of me just floats away
26:12and then nothing i have no thoughts i have no feelings nothing it was just
26:22like white noise
26:25whenever i would think about
26:29the future
26:34i couldn't see it
26:41and there was just this darkness there was this abyss
26:49i just kept sliding and i was afraid i was very afraid to lose my mind
27:12i knew i knew that it was taking its toll on her
27:17but i didn't know how to help her
27:20i didn't know what to say i didn't know you know where to go what what do i do
27:28it was close to mother's day and i get a phone call around eight o'clock in the evening
27:37it was larry sales the prosecutor
27:41and he says bonnie i've done 72 murder cases and one was a mistake and that was sarah
27:50and she started crying said bonnie
27:54you may not believe this
27:56but it's my opinion based upon what i know now
28:00that your daughter sarah did not receive a fair trial
28:05after sarah was arrested an author by the name of stephen miller decided he's going to write a book
28:12on the case so he asked me if i'd go to homicide
28:18department with him to help them look at the homicide file so i got it out and we're going
28:26through it and i recollected most of the stuff was there but there was a file there that said floyd
28:35pennington he testified against sarah that she admitted to him that she got rick hall to commit
28:42these murders and inside the file there were two legal size sheets of paper and i saw what it was
28:52i said oh shit there was a whole list of violent criminals drug dealers criminal gangs and even
29:04somebody named pennington a relative of floyd's that was there i told it a snitch list and it was a
29:11list of people that he would turn in to get a better deal it was like a rat crawled up
29:18out of the
29:18sewer to try to gain some advantage for himself and convince me that he was telling the truth
29:26about sarah pender maybe because i wanted to be convinced i should have had that i don't know why
29:34they didn't give it to me but it made me realize that there was more to the sarah pender case
29:46in 2013 when i was a reporter for the indianapolis star and larry had called me and said look i
29:54have
29:54some problems um with this case i need to tell you about it one thing that especially after the trial
30:02years after the trial i recognized was something that should have been considered even more than it
30:08was at the time it was the letter identified as being written by sarah where she confessed to the murder
30:20i knew in my heart that she didn't write this letter
30:25and i thought there's no way what you know where do you come up with this i had five handwriting
30:33experts
30:34that all said the same thing that she did not write that letter
30:42the circumstances around how that letter was delivered to prosecutors was always a little bit
30:48suspect it was not found by the guards it was handed over by rick and his attorney
30:59with rick hole he had had a cellmate my name was steve logan rick asked him i want you to
31:08do me a favor
31:10rick gave him her letters sarah had written in the beginning and steve copied her handwriting
31:19stephen logan and being an affidavit admitting that he wrote that confession letter rick hole had him write it
31:29made him write it there was a uh letter that was used at the trial that uh
31:41was manufactured you know i didn't write it uh somebody else did so that uh i mean i just
31:53it hit me like a you know a loaded bricks this is what happened allow myself to be set up
32:02both for
32:03pennington and the phony letter
32:08the prosecutor who called this woman female charles manson is now saying i was wrong she's not that if you
32:20have prosecuted sarah for murder absolutely not larry sells is working with pender's new attorney to
32:28present the evidence to the marion county prosecutor's office pender's attorney is still waiting to meet
32:33with prosecutor curry's office about the case
32:46i had been in solitary for over five years
32:53and when they told me they were going to let me out into the transitional unit and they were going
32:59to
32:59put me on close observation it felt really good just to hear them say well we're going to try letting
33:05you out i know that larry sells found new evidence that changed his mind about my case and
33:17i believed that i was going to go home i always believed that if you had new evidence to prove
33:27you know your innocence that that was what you do and they fix it now we have something that the
33:36authorities will you know will pay attention to on i just knew i was going home i knew it would
33:43take some
33:43months but i just knew i was going home and being so happy and imagining all these things that i
33:51wanted to
33:51do with my family
34:10by the time that i received the no
34:18i had grown enough to know that
34:23that it would absolutely devastate my parents if i killed myself
34:38and i have not told people that
34:44but i also know that it's my only shot at freedom
35:04i know what it's like to be in prison where you don't belong
35:09and who better to represent somebody like sarah than me
35:12how do you find just the defendant not in tankless murder second degree
35:18i was in prison for almost 18 years until i was exonerated and when i got out i made a
35:26conscious
35:26decision to go on to law school and represent people who i believe were wrongfully convicted
35:32or people who were abused by the system and i really think sarah fits into both those categories
35:42even with the evidence out there unfortunately there's no possibility of just exonerating sarah
35:49the track we're on the track we're on is asking for mercy
35:52i have a session i'm old james jay snyder
35:55you're up resigning all right be seated good morning because to put her in solitary confinement
36:01for five uninterrupted years so outstrips the crime she committed and i believe that the sum of
36:10it lends itself toward modifying the sentence we're going to try to convince the judge that
36:18i'm worth letting go state of indiana versus sarah pender so she is present and by counsels
36:25and the state is here by mr cicchini judge we are here for a modification hearing but that is
36:31because of the brutal murders of trisha norman and andrew kataldi 25 years ago their lives were cut
36:38short at young ages and as evidenced by the letters that their family members submitted to the court
36:43today they continue to grieve their losses and it continues to impact their lives on a daily basis
36:48and there has been a great deal of scrutiny about miss pender's role in the crime and and what she
36:53did
36:53or did not do while we're not here to relitigate that judge uh we have to recognize that the prosecutor
37:00on the case who sought and obtained the 110 year executed sentence has recently changed his opinion
37:05about both the veracity of that conviction as well as the justness of that sentence
37:10and that is leaving the court with the difficult task of what to do with miss pender's sentence
37:15to hand down a just decision of this matter thank you uh it is the defense motion so i'll hear
37:20any uh
37:20witnesses and evidence you have to present hence call roland pender your honor has she matured since
37:26she's been in prison oh very much yes very much she's matured she uh i uh i i i seek
37:33advice from sarah
37:35you can't make up for time lost and i've lost 25 birthdays 25 christmases 25 everything i pray that i
37:48can
37:48have the rest of my life with my daughter to hug her every morning yeah today is one of the
37:57biggest
37:58days of my life because i'm asking for the chance to be free and to not die in prison you
38:05know i know
38:06that i deserve to be punished for what i did wrong and for what i did not do right did
38:12you and trisha's
38:13families i want to tell them that i am so sorry for the terrible loss that you've suffered and for
38:22the role that i played in it i have paid for it 10 times over with 25 years in prison
38:29and five years
38:31a month and 12 days in isolation but your honor today i'm asking for your mercy and if you grant
38:40my petition i promise that you will never see me again i want to go home and keep working to
38:46make
38:46myself and the world a better place thank you thank you miss pender she has reformed and if you strip
38:56away
38:57that reformation all that we have left is vindictive justice our petition your honor is to trim count two
39:05to run concurrent with count one such that sarah is eligible for immediate release thank you your
39:11honor all right thank you mr delaney uh so what i am going to do uh first i'm going to
39:17hold this under
39:18advisement i i want time to uh to contemplate this decision all right so thank you uh all for your
39:25advocacy here today uh and i'll have like i said i'll have my ruling in due course thank you god
39:31all right
39:31thank you all very much i have a room waiting for sarah it's all ready for her
39:52i'm hoping that that she can actually see the outside
40:03and enjoy what life she has left
40:06and what will happen if if she doesn't
40:23i really have a hard time thinking about that
40:28i know that it would kill her it really would and she might not make it
40:44when i think of freedom i think of all the tiny choices that i want to make whether i want
40:50to
40:51leave the toilet seat up or down whether i want a hot or cold shower all these things that i
40:56haven't
40:56been able to choose over the last 25 years freedom means autonomy but mostly it just means being with the
41:32people that i love