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American Detective with Lt Joe Kenda - Season 6 - Episode 03: To Kidnap a Prince
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00:06the parents of Robert Wiles said tonight this has been a horrifying experience the Toledo
00:12native disappeared in April of 2008 he was last seen in Lakeland Florida the Wiles family received
00:18a ransom demand a few days after Robert disappeared if you hope to see him again
00:23you must follow our instructions without deviation it was a multi-million dollar company they did work
00:30all over the world you want to get the attention of a king kidnap a prince my parents were ready
00:36and willing to give them everything they wanted I mean we all were this was just something that
00:43none of us has seen before no one is doing what they said they would do you just wait and
00:49you
00:49help and you pray where is this kid what happened to Rob in homicide the victim is already gone
00:59they're deceased a kidnapping has an added dynamic as far as you can tell the victim is still alive
01:10your mission is to keep that from changing I spent my career closing murder cases
01:22but I'm not the only one who answered the call
01:27it takes a rare breed to solve the unsolvable to catch a ruthless killer to find justice for the dead
01:38that's what it takes to be an American detective
01:53Tom Wiles is the owner of National Flight Services a multi-million dollar company that services private jets
02:04Tom checks his email when he sees this email it's titled Robert and he thinks that's quite odd
02:12he has a son named Robert he's 26 years old so he reads it and it opens with we have
02:19a Robert
02:22if you hope to see him again you must follow our instructions without deviation I was scared
02:31the demand he pays seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the safe return of Robert and he has to
02:39do
02:39so within five days any attempt to contact the authorities and we will take your son's life
02:47inside group X
02:51oh my god oh my god I did not think it was a joke I was scared of it enough
03:00that I know it called Pam
03:02right away he says somebody somebody took Robert
03:08I was like what it's like this wave just comes over your whole body and just takes
03:14your energy just out of you
03:20I didn't know if we were gonna get Robert back
03:24the uncertainty is
03:28it's horrifying
03:31almost every ransom note ever written contains the phrase do not contact the authorities the reality
03:37is if you receive such a communication call the police
03:48my name is Dan Kelly I started with the FBI in 1990 I specialized in white-collar crime you have
03:58things like bank fraud you have civil rights violations public corruption it's a very important
04:06and a very busy area of investigation for the bureau I had not been assigned as a case agent on
04:14a
04:14kidnapping investigation previously this was just something that none of us had essentially seen
04:23before in 20 years experience on the job so what we want to do is find out what can we
04:32learn about Robert Wiles
04:33who exactly is Robert and why is it that this is happening obviously we use Tom Wiles the father is
04:42a great resource
04:47Tom is the owner and CEO of national flight services they serviced private aircraft and mostly engine repair that's where
04:57the money was but they would also do upholstery painting whatever the aircraft needed
05:02it was a multi-million dollar company and they did work all over the world and traveled all over the
05:10world
05:11so the kidnappers also know that Roberts is the son of a wealthy family
05:18you want to get the attention of a king kidnap a prince
05:24right across from me is my father Tom Wiles
05:28Tom Wiles tells the FBI that Robert is employed by him
05:32they operate in different locations and different cities but they talk on the phone all the time
05:38Tom worked out of Toledo Ohio Robert was at national flight services in Lakeland Florida
05:46Robert was Tom's only son I mean obviously he was going to be the heir apparent to national flight
05:52services but Tom wanted him to learn the business from the ground up I wanted Roberts to really learn all
06:00the aspects of a company what the company did and what customers wanted us to do and Robert was very
06:10good at that
06:14when Robert was assigned to go to Lakeland Florida he was promoted to the position of business development manager
06:21his job was to attract new customers to the business and also to make current customers happy
06:28Robert you know he loved working what was important to him was doing the job right integrity was really important
06:37in our family
06:41after learning this information there is a lot of legwork to be done at this point in time we have
06:48no
06:48information relative to anyone else where is this kid the last time that Robert was seen at national flight was
07:00approximately 7 p.m. on Tuesday April 1st 2008 it is now April the 3rd and his truck is still
07:10there but he is not
07:13so the FBI sends other agents to his apartment nothing is out of place no evidence of a struggle nothing
07:24broken
07:25so it is a mystery he has disappeared into thin air
07:32so the kidnappers want seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars
07:38the note says that the group x people or person is willing to kill Robert if they don't get what
07:44they
07:44want you have to believe that's true the note demands this occurs by April 8th it's already April 4th they've
07:53only got four days
07:57you're terrified you don't know what's happening you don't know where your brother is I know
08:01my parents were ready and willing to give them everything they wanted I mean we all were give them what
08:07they want
08:09my soul thought is to get Robert back
08:13we had the money however the consensus was that Tom should not pay the actual ransom monies even if you
08:22were to pay those monies there's just no guarantee that Tom is ever going to see his son again and
08:28the FBI
08:29says let us deal with this and we will recover your son by capturing the people that have him we
08:35didn't know
08:36what to think you just trust him and if they ask you to do something you do it you have
08:40faith in them
08:43so the first step in getting Robert back is to determine who is holding him captive who is it that's
08:50demanding seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars you obviously always have to consider individuals that are
08:59close to the actual victim and one of the things that kind of brought our attention was the fact that
09:06Tom was going through a very difficult time with his wife Pam Wiles
09:12Tom and I separated in 2006 we sold our house in Melbourne I told him that I would like to
09:19have
09:20whatever the value of that house is to put away in a savings and he said all right he gave
09:26me that money
09:28and that amount was seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars well my my my there's someone
09:34else that says they want seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars agent Kelly then learns that
09:41national flight services has kidnapping and ransom insurance on the senior employees of the company
09:46to include Robert Wiles so this loss of seven hundred and fifty thousand that has been paid to the wife
09:55could be reclaimed from the insurance company as a ransom payment so logically is there any connection
10:03does Tom Wiles have some things to explain oh yes he does
10:14the FBI is deeply into the case of the disappearance of Robert Wiles
10:21could this kidnapping be an invention arranged by Tom Wiles for the sheer purpose of collecting money
10:31say bring Tom Wiles back in for a confrontive interview
10:37Tom Wiles gave all appearances of genuine grief and agony over the fact that his son was missing
10:46but we have to attempt to get to the bottom of this there is no pleasantness about police investigation
10:54and if your feelings get hurt by that well that's too bad
11:00i was cooperative they wanted to know what i knew we asked him about the kidnapping insurance he said his
11:09employees travel to foreign countries business executives and business employees can be kidnapped in these
11:14countries and exorbitant dollar amount demands can be made for their safe return that's why Tom
11:23Wiles took out kidnapping insurance all right that's a reasonable enough explanation during the interview
11:30Tom Wiles clearly establishes during this time frame that he is in Toledo Ohio and further we had no emails
11:39we had no phone calls to indicate that he might be orchestrating this with anyone else behind the scenes
11:48Tom Wiles had nothing to do with his kidnapping it's for real
11:56for a few days nothing has been heard from Robert or the kidnappers and the critical date of April the
12:038th is
12:03fast approaching the ransom note indicated that 750 000 were to be placed on Robert Wiles's desktop
12:15so what ultimately was decided was that we would take coffee grounds of an appropriate weight for 750 000
12:24dollars in cash and we would place the coffee grounds inside the box so the simple plan is that when
12:32that
12:32person arrives to claim the money they're going to be arrested
12:38Robert's abduction has been kept a secret from all nfs employees no one knows but due to the nature of
12:46the
12:46ransom note indicating that the money is needed to be placed in Robert Wiles's office we needed a trusted confidant
12:55that Tom could place us with the individual that Tom Wiles provided to do that was Toby Holt
13:04the operations manager at national flight services Toby was running the facility in Lakeland
13:12Wiles trusts him explicitly
13:18so what we decide to do is get cameras into Robert Wiles's office
13:25we have to set up a VHS tape recorder and where do we set that right next door Toby Holt's
13:31office has
13:32the VHS recorder
13:36the day of the money drop finally arrives an FBI agent takes the box casually goes into Robert's office
13:44sits on the desk and closes the door returns to Toby's office and he and the FBI arrest team watch
13:52and wait
13:59we had Tampa SWAT come into national flight services they were hidden they were staking out the money
14:06you know in case somebody did come try to retrieve it out of Robert's office the trap is set
14:15all of our ducks are in a row as far as we're concerned and you always hold out a little
14:22bit of hope that
14:23there was going to be a pickup of these monies but that date comes and goes nothing is heard again
14:30from
14:30the kidnappers Robert never reappears and the money is never claimed
14:37agent Kelly is struck by the weirdness of this investigation nothing is matching up with anything
14:44he's ever experienced
14:49nobody picked it up why what what happened you know when we're wrong the whole thing was strange
14:57the uncertainty is real hard to learn to live with you just wait and you hope and you pray
15:04you get these thoughts in your mind of is he scared like is is he somebody like hurting him and
15:11like
15:11you have to push those thoughts out of your head it was terrible it was a terrible time
15:20so at that particular point in time there's a bit of a shift in the mentality of the investigators
15:25to open the investigation up and start soliciting the public's assistance in this matter
15:33the parents of robert wiles said tonight this has been a horrifying experience
15:38the toledo native disappeared in april he was last seen in lakeland florida you gonna throw them all
15:44back in yeah robert was born in 1980 he was a happy kid he went to florida air academy for
15:56high school and
15:58then he went on to bowling green university and he was in the rotc program for the air force
16:04and he did great robert and i did a lot of fishing together we did a lot of boating
16:12together he loved to be out on the water rob was extremely compassionate but yet knew how to have fun
16:23my name is robert wiles and i'm from toledo ohio he had this way of speaking to people that kind
16:31of had
16:31them kind of bring their guard down a little bit and people just were drawn to him he was just
16:37that
16:37guy i loved being around him i've got a lot of good memories
16:43in homicide the victim is already gone they're deceased a kidnapping has an added dynamic as far
16:52as you can tell the victim is still alive your mission is to keep that from changing so now the
16:59question is where is he as part of the fbi's investigation into the kidnapping we deployed
17:07its evidence response team to the scene of national flight services it would be very important indeed if
17:16they could find a crime scene his vehicle is still parked in the lot that indicates he never left the
17:23place so the first thing to attack is the building we had agents and support people
17:29who are trained in evidence recovery basically combed over the entire hangar numerous individuals
17:38conducted a thorough search of robert's office the entire upstairs office area and there was nothing
17:46that they found blood any kind of hair any kind of body fluids that would indicate that a murder
17:53happened inside that building he has disappeared from the face of the earth gone so we decided to
18:03interview national flight service employees
18:08now the money drop wasn't an open area it was in the office which to us made no sense
18:15the building itself there's security inside the alarms are set doors are locked if you don't have
18:23you know the key code or a card to get in it would be very difficult leading them to conclude
18:29it appears to
18:30be an inside job but criminal background checks are run on all of these national flight employees and
18:38these records are clean so there's really nothing that is gained to solve this case from the interviews of
18:46the national flight employees
18:50the investigation is starting to get very cold no further contact from the perpetrators robert remains
18:57in the cosmos and no evidence can be found connecting any particular person to the crime and then finally they
19:04get
19:04a break a man who does business with national flight services comes forward and says he has a tip about
19:11a
19:11possible suspect an individual by the name of steve lindsay was brought to our attention
19:19steve lindsay was a mechanic that worked at national flight services for a while we found there was a history
19:26with steve lindsay and tom wiles the fbi learned there was a comment made that steve lindsay if he had
19:35the opportunity would uh break a wooden chair over tom wiles's back gather up these splinters and basically
19:43shoot tom wiles with the breech-loaded splinters now that's a pretty good line
19:52did he mean it we need to find out
19:58fbi agents have been made aware of a former employee named steve lindsay who had been making
20:04threats against tom wiles robert's father that is serious and it's serious enough for the fbi
20:12to take a look at and do a thorough examination of steve lindsay
20:21the fbi learned that steve lindsay was exceptionally good at his job steve lindsay
20:29had a superior knowledge of the tpe 331 engine
20:36the problem was he had had some issues with a national flight services vehicle while drinking
20:46i remember having a discussion with steve saying he had to quit drinking or we're going to have him
20:54doing any work for us tom had given him chance after chance after chance tom eventually fired him
21:02steve begged for his job back and tom had said i'm not hiring you back and he really got upset
21:08at tom
21:10there was tension and outright anger and angry people are dangerous
21:19so the bureau has to take a look at steve lindsay and say could he be perpetrating this
21:26scheme of the kidnapping of robert wiles to severely strike back at tom wiles
21:32all the agents believed it was an inside job because of the security of a jet maintenance facility
21:40but steve lindsay probably still has the access codes and maybe even the keys
21:48so he fits the bill
21:53so we are able to conduct an interview with steve lindsay when they ask him about his relationship
22:00with tom wiles he's not the least bit shy he hates tom wiles he admits to wanting to hurt him
22:08but lindsay was adamant that he had no involvement he said tom's one that had fired him and uh he
22:17wasn't
22:18really upset with robert he comes across as believable but everybody says they didn't do it we still need
22:25more the investigators looked at all of his text messages and although steve was a brilliant mechanic
22:33he was a very unsophisticated individual he wasn't very good at punctuation word syntax and he didn't
22:42have that level of sophistication that the ransom note would demand ultimately steve lindsay had to be
22:50eliminated as a subject so they've exhausted all leads and robert is still missing but so is his cell
22:58phone as we know our cell phones are connected to us at the hip today and even back in 2008
23:06so what we did
23:09is we obtained his cellular telephone records we can see that robert wiles's phone is not only used
23:19on april 1st the day of the kidnapping his phone is also used on april the 2nd his phone also
23:28continues
23:29to ping on thursday april 3rd so whoever took robert seems to have his cell phone and they're driving around
23:36with it when you're seeing the cell towers uh looking at his phone well it looked like he's
23:42traveling a toll road well now you got toll booths involved there's three toll booths out there on the
23:49polk parkway and they each take pictures of every car that passes through so what do we do we file
23:55subpoena with the florida department of transportation to obtain all of the video footage of the turnpike toll
24:02toll booths we get tom wiles in tom wiles looks to see if there's any vehicles that he may recognize
24:13coming through the toll booth they're assuming that this is an inside job and maybe the car
24:18is a car that tom will recognize as being one of his associates or employees or even a friend
24:27i just remember cars coming through the toll group on the lakeland freeway it took a long time to watch
24:35it polk parkway is a very busy place and hundreds of cars go through those booths call it what you
24:44will
24:44and a one in a million shot by tom wiles so he's watching this seemingly endless video and suddenly
24:51says stop the tape and he focuses on this car it's a bmw convertible and he says i know that
25:01car at first
25:03i just think it was possible lo and behold he picks out a silver bmw of his operations manager it's
25:12toby holt well i'll be damned tom wiles has identified toby holt's car passing through a
25:26toll booth on the polk parkway at the same time that robert wiles's cell phone is pinging off a tower
25:33at that location and that just becomes a powder keg moment in this investigation
25:42ironically who does tom wiles supply us as a trusted confidant
25:47toby holt the operations manager at national flight services
25:53when things start to come together and the pieces of the puzzle start to fit you can feel it
26:01after that i had come to the conclusion that toby was a snake not only did he move from witness
26:09to
26:09subject he became a target in this investigation so now we are getting subpoena for the cellular
26:18telephone records of toby holt we compare it to the cell records of the victim robert wiles and we see
26:26an
26:27exact same route that these two phones are traveling on thursday april 3rd 2008
26:36two days after he disappeared that is a damning piece of evidence his bones tell him holt's the guy
26:47i place a phone call to toby holt and i asked toby if he can come to our office for
26:52additional
26:53interview readily agrees so they start by asking toby his whereabouts on the day that robert disappeared
27:01toby holt advises us on tuesday april the 1st he sees robert between 6 and 6 30 p.m he
27:11leaves national
27:12flight services and tells us that he's going to hooters on south florida avenue in lakeland it's a
27:18frequent watering hole for him after that he said he was checked into a hotel he was meeting with a
27:25mistress and then agent kelly hits him with the evidence the photographs of toby on the polk parkway
27:35they were placed in front of him he looked at the photographs and readily admitted that's me
27:41that's my vehicle okay great so now i pull out the overlay maps that show the cellular routes
27:49of robert wiles's phone and toby holt's phone i push them towards toby holt and i ask him can you
27:58offer
27:58us an explanation toby says robert's phone must have been in somebody else's car the real kidnapper was
28:07trying to frame him and therefore was following him in his own car i had an immediate response for
28:14that i said toby we sent teams of people to interview every driver five minutes in front of you and
28:24five minutes behind you all of the individuals interviewed did not know tom wiles did not know
28:33robert wiles once he learns that information his face from the shoulder blades up to the top of his
28:42head turn flush red and toby shakes his head i don't have an explanation for you guys i'll tell you
28:52this
28:53i watch a lot of crime shows i know law enforcement can trace cellular records why would i do something
29:01like
29:01this they then ask toby if they can search his car yeah i've got nothing to hide sure our evidence
29:09response team went down and searched that vehicle under the hood of the bmw inside of a white plastic
29:18trash bag further contained inside a handgun case was a 40 caliber six hour weapon and also a magazine
29:30kelly's first thought would be mine well for all the watching of cop shows you can't hide a gun worth
29:37of
29:37shit because now i've got the gun that you said you didn't have and then he says that sometimes he
29:45would
29:45put it there because he would travel in bad areas and he needed it for protection it was a far
29:54-fetched
29:54absurd answer are you going to be in a position to ask your muggers can you give me a few
29:59minutes
30:00so that i can lift up the hood of my vehicle unpack my six hour 40 caliber it just didn't
30:07make any sense
30:09and mr holt is not just a liar but a bad liar he's hammering nails in his own coffin lid
30:16but we had no lawful right to seize that weapon at that time there's not a body we have no
30:25legal grounds
30:25to charge him so holt was able to leave the premises but we believed that toby holt was obviously
30:32involved in what ultimately happened to robert wiles everything about toby holt says he's a lying
30:39son of a bitch they now need to set about proving it there's a lot of legwork that goes into
30:46disproving
30:47his alibi of april 1st 2008. we send agents to hooters hooters had video where you could see the
30:56entrance and exit doors and we watched video before and after the time frames and never saw toby go in
31:06or out
31:09they then go to the hotel where he says he booked a room for he and a mistress and there
31:14he is on the
31:15cameras checking in going upstairs to the room within two minutes he drops a bag in the room comes back
31:21out and he leaves he leaves the swan hotel around 9 15 he doesn't come back till close to midnight
31:29that's an appreciable amount of time where he could be doing something else so where is he where did he
31:35go
31:39so we went back to the cellular telephone records there was so much more information in those
31:45cellular telephone records for instance there was a 411 directory call at 8 41 p.m on tuesday april 1st
31:53the day of robert's disappearance so one of the detectives responds to 411 headquarters and says do you
32:00keep records of these calls oh yeah of course we do so they line up holt's number and they said
32:07all right
32:08this call was forwarded to the home depot on south florida avenue in lakeland why do you need a home
32:15depot at 8 50 at night when you're supposed to be in a hotel room that you're not in
32:22so we went to home depot and asked them for video and of course businesses will overwrite their
32:28surveillance so we asked them give me all the transactions that came through from 10 minutes to
32:339 until you closed and there were two receipts both were cash purchases we see a purchase of four
32:39to five feet of husky black plastic vinyl sheeting in two rolls of duct tape the kind of supplies you
32:45would need if you want to dispose of a body we took all of that information and we came to
32:52the
32:52investigative conclusion that toby holt was the murderer in this matter there was no kidnapping there
33:00was two days of consideration how do i cover up a murder so now we have a shift a big
33:08shift in this
33:08investigation the problem was this is a nobody case we have no witnesses we have no weapon a knife a
33:19gun
33:20it is a very difficult case what the task force needs now is an aggressive prosecutor and they know just
33:28the guy i thought he was guilty as hell there was no question in my mind about that i'm like
33:34yeah
33:35that's what we want to hear you know let's roll so finally all the work has paid off but they
33:42have a
33:43problem they go to arrest him and he's not there we learned that he actually was in the country of
33:50columbia at the time toby was on a business trip working for a company out of the east coast of
33:56florida
33:57the initial feeling was i hope he doesn't stay there you know it's going to be a heck of a
34:02time to try to get him extradited back to the united states columbia is not known for their
34:07cooperation for extraditions this is potentially an enormous problem
34:17holt is in columbia on business and the task force is worried they may not be able to force him
34:22back to
34:23the columbia government it's a thought that crosses your mind obviously but then we found out that he
34:29was on the flight back to orlando
34:38when he arrives at the airport there's a group of people waiting there to see him
34:43they're not happy relatives there are other people that have badges and guns
34:50toby holt didn't have the typical reaction i mean it wasn't like are you guys crazy it was
34:55kind of like they got me let me think about what i can say to get out of this
35:04a florida man sits behind bars tonight accused of killing and kidnapping toledo native robert wiles
35:11he was charged with first degree murder kidnapping and extortion after he was arrested it's gut
35:19wrenching i mean it just rips your heart out but by then we all kind of assumed that that's what
35:26happened and so now we want to know what happened to rob these detectives have turned up a number of
35:36circumstances that are quite suspicious but we need to find out what toby holt's motivation could be
35:42we currently don't have one but they're still looking we learned there was some animosity towards
35:50robert because toby holt believed that he was essentially quote giving away revenant well that
35:56created tension because toby holt at the time was the general manager a substantial amount of his salary
36:03was based on the profit of the lakeland facility toby holt felt that robert was undercutting him
36:11and that was causing national flight service to lose money and by them losing money toby's losing
36:18his bonus money as well based on his financial records that the fbi went through we've learned toby
36:27he lived way above his means mr holt lives a questionable lifestyle he has at least a dozen
36:35girlfriends he had a number of confidants at national flight that would cover for him in relation to his
36:42wife he was dating any and everybody he could meet you know playing the role you know going to the
36:49restaurants constantly and uh so i think it all caught up to him given the absence of a crime scene
36:58there is no way to know how this all transpired but some reasonable conclusions can be made through
37:05speculation i believe that there was some very bad blood between the two and it becomes a slow
37:12simmering pot on a stove and eventually it boils over and something awful comes of it there very
37:20well could have been a situation where they had it out where robert says i am going to tell your
37:27wife
37:27about all these mistresses i'm going to expose you for that you're also going to be fired
37:34that leads to a physical altercation and perhaps toby becomes overwhelmed with rage
37:45reaches in his gesture pulls out his 40 cal
37:50and uses it
37:55boom diddy boom diddy boom so long robert
38:01and at that point we know that there is black plastic sheeting and two rolls of duct tape on april
38:07the first that has been purchased from home depot
38:13you would assume then that the body is wrapped in that and disposed of
38:20so now we get into the speculation where did he dispose of the body
38:26we don't know it was never found
38:31every retention pond in this state there's alligators
38:37could that have been done yeah alligators are always hungry and things disappear bones and all
38:45gone disposal in florida is as simple as it gets
38:51toby then comes up with a kidnapping plan the 750 000 ransom demand so connecting the dots
38:59it's perfectly understandable why the money wasn't picked up he knew it was a trap
39:08ultimately the case matter went to trial in 2012 approximately a three-week trial
39:17it came down to obviously where a jury had to make a decision the verdict was guilty of manslaughter
39:25and guilty of extortion and he's not guilty of kidnapping because there was no kidnapping
39:31it was manslaughter because i had too many unanswered questions but he did something
39:38he did something and he needs to be accountable for that something that he did the judge gave him 15
39:45years for the manslaughter and 15 years for the extortion consecutive there is obviously some elation
39:52with that conviction however on the flip side you have the victims in this and you have to feel for
40:02them they have to put their head on a pillow every single night and know that their son isn't coming
40:08back
40:10i don't think there's ever going to be any type of peace that you find you just learn to live
40:17live
40:17your life and move along each day but you know the people who knew robert love robert they're not going
40:26to forget about robert right across from me is my father tom wilts he was a good man i was
40:33very proud of him
40:38i miss him every day of my life
40:44i just can't believe it happened
40:51the torture it's done to the family
40:56they have no body to bury they have no degree of closure whatsoever
41:02justice is neither cruel nor kind it is merely indifferent
41:10on the next american detective i've been talking to this woman online his life was falling apart
41:17but she was putting it back together did they know where the money was going
41:22unfortunately three innocent people had to pay the price
41:27who did this to your family
41:29i don't know
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