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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 there's a multi-million dollar company they did
00:30work all over the world you want to get the attention of a king kidnap a prince my parents
00:36were ready and willing to give them everything they wanted I mean we all were this was just
00:42something that none of us has seen before no one is doing what they said they would do you just
00:48wait
00:49and you help and you pray where is this kid what happened to Rob in homicide the victim is already
00:59gone they're deceased the kidnapping has an added dynamic as far as you can tell the victim is still
01:09alive your mission is to keep that from changing I spent my career closing murder cases but I'm not
01:23the only one who answered the call it takes a rare breed to solve the unsolvable to catch a ruthless
01:33killer to find justice for the dead that'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 he has
02:12a son
02:13named Robert he's 26 years old so he reads it and it opens with we have a Robert if you
02:22hope to see him
02:23again you must follow our instructions without deviation I was scared the demand he pays 750
02:35thousand dollars for the safe return of Robert and he has to do so within five days any attempt to
02:42contact the authorities and we will take your son's life inside group X oh my god oh my god I
02:56did not think
02:56it was a joke I was scared of it enough that I know it called Pam right away he says
03:04somebody somebody took
03:06Robert Robert I was like what it's like this wave just comes over your whole body and just takes your
03:15energy just out of you
03:20I didn't know if we were gonna give Robert back the uncertainty is it's horrifying
03:31almost every ransom note ever written contains the phrase do not contact the authorities the reality is if
03:38you receive such a communication call the police my name is Dan Kelly I started with the FBI in 1990
03:55I specialized in white collar crime you have things like bank fraud you have civil rights violations
04:02public corruption it's a very important and a very busy area of investigation for the bureau
04:09I had not been assigned as a case agent on a kidnapping investigation previously
04:17this was just something that none of us had essentially seen before in 20 years experience on
04:26the job so what we want to do is find out what can we learn about Robert Wiles who exactly
04:35is Robert
04:36and why is it that this is happening obviously we use Tom Wiles the father is a great resource
04:47Tom is the owner and CEO of National Flight Services they serviced private aircraft and mostly engine
04:56repair that's where the money was but they would also do upholstery painting whatever the aircraft
05:01needed there's a multi-million dollar company and they did work all over the world and traveled all
05:10over the world so the kidnappers also know that Roberts is the son of a wealthy family you want to
05:18get
05:19the attention of a king kidnap a prince right across from me is my father Tom Wiles Tom Wiles tells
05:29the FBI
05:30that Robert is employed by him they operate in different locations and different cities but they
05:35talk on the phone all the time Tom worked out of Toledo Ohio Robert was at National Flight Services in
05:44Lakeland Florida Robert was Tom's only son I mean obviously he was going to be the heir apparent to
05:51National Flight Services but Tom wanted him to learn the business from the ground up I wanted Robert to
05:59really learn all the aspects of a company what the company did and what customers wanted us to do
06:08and Robert was very good at that
06:14when Robert was assigned to go to Lakeland Florida he was promoted to the position of business development
06:21manager his job was to attract new customers to the business and also to make current customers happy
06:28Robert Robert you know he loved working what was important to him was doing the job right integrity was
06:36really important in our family after learning this information there is a lot of legwork to be done
06:46at this point in time we have no information relative to anyone else where is this kid
06:55the last time that Robert was seen at National Flight was approximately 7 p.m. on Tuesday April 1st 2008
07:06it is now April the 3rd and his truck is still there but he is not so the FBI sends
07:15other agents to his apartment
07:21nothing is out of place no evidence of a struggle nothing broken so it is a mystery he has disappeared
07:27into thin air
07:32so the kidnappers want $750,000
07:38the note says that the group X people or person is willing to kill Robert if they don't get what
07:44they want
07:45you have to believe that's true the note demands this occurs by April 8th it's already April 4th they've only
07:53got four days
07:57you're terrified you're terrified you don't know what's happening you don't know where your brother
08:00is I know my parents were ready and willing to give them everything they wanted I mean we all were
08:06give
08:06them what they want my soul thought is you get Robert back we had the money however the consensus was
08:17that Tom
08:18Tom should not pay the actual ransom monies even if you were to pay those monies there is just no
08:24guarantee that Tom is ever going to see his son again and the FBI says let us deal with this
08:30and we
08:31will recover your son by capturing the people that have him we didn't know what to think you just trust
08:37them and if they ask you to do something you do it you have faith in them so the first
08:44step in
08:44getting Robert back is to determine who is holding him captive who is it that's demanding seven hundred
08:51and fifty thousand dollars you obviously always have to consider individuals that are close to the
09:00actual victim and one of the things that kind of brought our attention was the fact that Tom was
09:07going through a very difficult time with his wife Pam Wiles Tom and I separated in 2006 we sold our
09:16house
09:16in Melbourne I told him that I would like to have whatever the value of that house is to put
09:23away in
09:23the savings and he said all right he gave me that money and that amount was seven hundred and fifty
09:30thousand dollars well my my my there's someone else that says they want seven hundred and fifty
09:36thousand dollars agent Kelly then learns that National Flight Services has kidnapping and ransom
09:43insurance on the senior employees of the company to include Robert Wiles so this loss of seven hundred and
09:52fifty thousand that has been paid to the wife could be reclaimed from the insurance company as a ransom
09:58payment so logically is there any connection does 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
10:31so they 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
10:45but we have to attempt to get to the bottom of this there is no pleasantness about police investigation
10:53and 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
11:14these countries 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 Tom
11:30Wiles clearly establishes during this time frame that he is in Toledo Ohio and further we had no emails we
11:39no 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 fast approaching
12:04the ransom note indicated that 750 thousand dollars 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
12:23thousand dollars in cash and we would place the coffee grounds inside the box so the simple plan is that
12:31when that person 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
12:45but due to the nature of the ransom note indicating that the money is needed to be placed in Robert
12:50Wiles's
12:51office we needed a trusted confidant that Tom could place us with
12:58the individual that Tom Wiles provided to do that was Toby Holt the operations manager at national flight services
13:07Toby 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 the 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 you
14:06know 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
14:23hope that there was going to be a pickup of these monies but that date comes and goes nothing is
14:29heard
14:29again from the 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 you
15:05get
15:05these thoughts in your mind of is he scared like is is he somebody like hurting him and like you
15:12have
15:12to 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 appearance of Robert Wiles said tonight this has been a horrifying experience the Toledo native
15:39disappeared in April he was last seen in Lakeland Florida you gonna throw them all back in yeah
15:47Robert was born in 1980 he was a happy kid he went to Florida Air Academy for high school and
15:58then he went
15:58on to Bowling Green University and he was in the ROTC program for the Air Force and he did great
16:07Robert and I did a lot of fishing together we did a lot of boating together and he loved
16:14to 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
16:44in 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
17:23so the first thing to attack is the building we had agents and support people who are trained in evidence
17:30recovery basically combed over the entire hangar numerous individuals conducted a thorough search
17:39of Robert's office the entire upstairs office area and there was nothing that they found blood any kind
17:48of hair any kind of body fluids that would indicate that a murder happened inside that building
17:57he has disappeared from the face of the earth gone so we decided to interview 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
18:30to be 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
18:46of the national flight employees the investigation is starting to get very cold no further contact from
18:55the perpetrators robert remains in the cosmos and no evidence can be found connecting any particular
19:00person to the crime and then finally they get a break a man who does business with national flight
19:08services comes forward and says he has a tip about a possible suspect an individual by the name of
19:14steve lindsey was brought to our attention steve lindsey was a mechanic that worked at national flight
19:23services for a while we found there was a history with steve lindsey and tom wiles the fbi learned there
19:31was a comment made that steve lindsey if he had the opportunity would uh break a wooden chair over tom
19:39wiles's back gather up these splinters and basically shoot tom wiles with the brief loaded splinters
19:48now that's a pretty good line did he mean it we need to find out
19:58fbi agents have been made aware of a former employee named steve lindsey who had been making threats
20:05against tom wiles robert's father that is serious and it's serious enough for the fbi to take a look at
20:13and do a thorough examination of steve lindsey the fbi learned that steve lindsey was exceptionally good
20:26at his job steve lindsey had 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 gonna 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 lindsey and say could he be perpetrating the
21:26scheme of the kidnapping of robert wiles to severely strike back at tom wiles
21:33all the agents believed it was an inside job because of the security of a jet maintenance facility
21:40but steve lindsey 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 lindsey
21:58when they ask him about his relationship with tom wiles he's not the least bit shy
22:03he hates tom wiles he admits to wanting to hurt him
22:08but lindsey 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 more
22:27the investigators looked at all of his text messages and although steve was a brilliant mechanic he was a
22:34very unsophisticated individual he wasn't very good at punctuation word syntax and he didn't have
22:42that level of sophistication that the ransom note would demand ultimately steve lindsey had to be eliminated as
22:51the subject so they've exhausted all leads and robert is still missing but so is his cell phone
22:59as we know our cell phones are connected to us at the hip today and even back in 2008
23:06and eight so what we did is we obtained his cellular telephone records
23:14we can see that robert wiles's phone is not only used on april 1st the day of the kidnapping
23:22his phone is also used on april 2nd his phone also continues to ping on thursday april 3rd so whoever
23:32took robert seems to have his cell phone and they're driving around with it when you're seeing
23:38the cell towers looking at his phone well it looked like he's traveling a toll road well now you got
23:45toll
23:45booths involved there's three toll booths out there on the polk parkway and they each take pictures of
23:51every car that passes through so what do we do we file subpoena with the florida department of
23:58transportation to obtain all of the video footage of the turnpike toll booths
24:04we get tom wiles in tom wiles looks to see if there's any vehicles that he may recognize coming
24:13through the toll booth they're assuming that this is an inside job and maybe the car is a car that
24:20tom
24:20will 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
24:43call it what you will and a one in a million shot by tom wiles
24:48so he's watching this seemingly endless video and suddenly says stop the tape and he focuses on this
24:54car it's a bmw convertible and he says i know that car at first i just think it was possible
25:05lo and behold he picks out a silver bmw of his operations manager so behold
25:12holt well i'll be damned
25:21tom wiles has identified toby holt's car passing through a toll booth on the polk parkway at the
25:29same time that robert wiles's cell phone is pinging off a tower at that location
25:35and 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
26:37two 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 pm
27:11he leaves national flight services and tells us that he's going to hooters on south florida avenue
27:17in lakeland it's a frequent watering hole for him after that he said he was checked into a hotel he
27:24was
27:24meeting with a mistress and then agent kelly hits him with the evidence the photographs of toby on the
27:34polk parkway they were placed in front of him he looked at the photographs and readily admitted that's
27:41me that's my vehicle okay great so now i pull out the overlay maps that show the cellular routes of
27:49robert wiles's phone and toby holt's phone i push them towards toby holt and i ask him can you offer
27:58us an
28:01explanation toby holt says robert's phone must have been in somebody else's car the real kidnapper
28:07was trying 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
28:23and five 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
28:40up to the top of his head turn flush red
28:47and toby shakes his head i don't have an explanation for you guys i'll tell you this
28:53i watch a lot of crime shows i know law enforcement can trace cellular records why would i do something
29:01like this they then asked toby if they can search his car yeah i've got nothing to hide sure
29:08our evidence response team went down and searched that vehicle under the hood of the bmw inside of a
29:17white plastic trash bag further contained inside a handgun case was a 40 caliber six hour weapon and
29:26also a magazine kelly's first thought would be mine well for all the watching of cop shows you can't hide
29:36a gun
29:36worth of shit because now i've got the gun that you said you didn't have and then he says that
29:44sometimes he
29:45would put it there because he would travel in bad areas and he needed it for protection
29:52it was a far-fetched absurd answer are you going to be in a position to ask your muggers can
29:59you give me
29:59a few minutes so that i can lift up the hood of my vehicle unpack my six hour 40 caliber
30:06it just didn't make
30:07any sense and mr holt is not just a liar but a bad liar he's hammering nails in his own
30:14coffin lip
30:16but we had no lawful right to seize that weapon at that time there's not a body we have no
30:25legal
30:25grounds to charge him so holt was able to leave the premises but we believed that toby holt was
30:31obviously involved in what ultimately happened to robert wiles everything about toby holt says
30:38he's a lying son of a bitch they now need to set about proving it there's a lot of legwork
30:45that goes
30:45into disproving his alibi of april 1st 2008 we send agents to hooters hooters had video where you could
30:55see the entrance and exit doors and we watched video before and after the time frames and never
31:04saw toby go in or out they then go to the hotel where he says he booked a room for
31:12he and a mistress
31:13and there he is on the cameras checking in going upstairs to the room within two minutes he drops a
31:19bag in the room comes back out and leaves he leaves the swan hotel around 9 15. he doesn't
31:27come back till close to midnight that's an appreciable amount of time where he could be doing something
31:33else so where is he where did he go so we went back to the cellular telephone records there was
31:43so much
31:44more information in those cellular telephone records for instance there was a 4-1-1 directory
31:49call at 8 41 p.m on tuesday april 1st the day of robert's disappearance so one of the detectives
31:57responds to 4-1-1 headquarters and says do you keep records of these calls oh yeah of course we
32:04do so
32:04they line up holt's number and they said all right this call was forwarded to the home depot on south
32:11florida avenue in lakeland why do you need a home depot at 8 50 at night when you're supposed to
32:17be in
32:17a hotel room that you're not in so we went to home depot and asked them for video and of
32:26course
32:26businesses will overwrite their surveillance so we asked them give me all the transactions that came
32:31through from 10 minutes to 9 till you closed and there were two receipts both were cash purchases
32:37we see a purchase of four to five feet of husky black plastic vinyl sheeting and two rolls of
32:43duct tape the kind of supplies you would need if you want to dispose of a body we took all
32:49of that
32:50information and we came to the investigative conclusion that toby holt was the murderer in this
32:58matter there was no kidnapping there was two days of consideration how do i cover up a murder
33:05so now we have a shift a big shift in this investigation the problem was this is a nobody case
33:13we have no witnesses we have no weapon a knife a gun it is a very difficult case what the
33:24task force
33:24needs now is an aggressive prosecutor and they know just the guy i thought he was guilty as hell
33:31there was no question in my mind about that i'm like yeah that's what we want to hear you know
33:37let's
33:37roll so finally all the work has paid off but they have a problem they go to arrest him and
33:46he's not
33:46there we learned that he actually was in the country of columbia at the time toby was on a business
33:54trip working for a company out of the east coast of florida the initial feeling was i hope he doesn't
34:00stay there you know it's going to be a heck of a time to try to get him extradited back
34:04to the united
34:05states columbia is not known for their cooperation for extraditions this is potentially an enormous
34:12problem holt is in columbia on business and the task force is worried they may not be able to force
34:22him back to the columbian government it's a thought that crosses your mind obviously but then we found out
34:29that he was on the flight back to orlando when he arrives at the airport there's a group of people
34:41waiting there to see him they'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 kind of
34:56like
34:56they 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 wilde
35:11he was charged with first degree murder kidnapping and extortion after he was arrested
35:18it's gut wrenching i mean it just rips your heart out but by then we all kind of assumed that
35:26that's
35:26what happened and so now we want to know what happened around
35:33these detectives have turned up a number of circumstances that are quite suspicious
35:39but 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 revenue well that
35:56created tension because toby holt at the time was the general manager a substantial amount of his salary
36:03history was based on the profit of the lakeland facility toby holt felt that robert was undercutting
36:11him and that was causing national fly 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 lived
36:28way above his means mr holt lives a questionable lifestyle he has at least a dozen girlfriends
36:36he had a number of confidants at national flight that would cover for him in relation to his wife
36:42he was dating any and everybody he could meet you know playing the role you know going to the restaurants
36:50constantly and uh so i think it all caught up to him
36:56given the absence of a crime scene there is no way to know how this all transpired but some reasonable
37:03conclusions can be made through speculation i believe that there was some very bad blood between
37:10the two and it becomes a slow simmering pot on a stove and eventually it boils over and something awful
37:18what comes of it there very well could have been a situation where they had it out where robert says
37:26i am going to tell your wife about all these mistresses i'm going to expose you for that you're also
37:32going
37:33to be fired that leads to a physical altercation
37:40and 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 wiles 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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