The Last Broadcast (1998)

1. - I'd come to this project with many

2. of the same assumptions that you have,

3. concerning the Jersey double murders

4. and the guilt of Jim Suerd.

5. His characterization is a troubled young man,

6. responsible for a spree of horrific,

7. ritualistic homicides in the Pine Barrens.

8. The question in my mind was why?

9. Why would a man commit such crimes?

10. After reviewing hours of archived footage

11. generated by Steven Avkast and Locus Wheeler,

12. the hosts of "Fact or Fiction",

13. I've been forced to change my perspective.

14. The question now for me is what?

15. What really happened that night

16. and is Jim Suerd truly responsible?

17. Ironically, in the course of this project,

18. Jim Suerd has died in prison under mysterious causes.

19. His death will forever shroud the reconciliation

20. of this case.

21. As they said on "Fact or Fiction", "You decide."

22. - 911, what is your emergency?

23. - My name is Jim Suerd.

24. I just hitchhiked here from...

25. from the middle of pine barrens

26. and I can't seem to get,

27. I can't seem to find the people

28. that I was in the Pine Barrens with,

29. and I was camping with them last night doing a project

30. - Are you lost?

31. - I'm not lost.

32. I'm just trying, I can't find the people

33. who drove me here and,

34. You know I looked around for them

35. and I went back to the site where we had parked

36. and they're not at the van

37. and they're nowhere to be found

38. like I don't know where they are.

39. - Their vehicle is still there?

40. - The vehicle's still there and I had to

41. hitchhike to this payphone.

42. - How far are you from the vehicle right now?

43. - I'm about five five,

44. somewhere you know five, 10 miles from it I don't know.

45. - Okay, Jim.

46. We'll send someone out.

47. - Yeah it would be a good idea,

48. I got a really bad feeling about it.

49. You might want to send somebody out quickly,

50. I have a bad feeling-

51. - WBRK time it is five o'clock.

52. It's time for that afternoon drive that you love so much.

53. Hey, guess who made missing reports?

54. It's those hosts from "Fact or Fiction".

55. Missing. Ha

56. Bob, you know those guys gonna be showing up sometime

57. in the next day saying, "Surprise did you miss us?"

58. Let's go to the phones and we'll ask you.

59. Do you miss them?

60. - We have found bodies.

61. At this time we don't know who they are,

62. or how many we have found.

63. We cannot assume at this time that it is

64. the "Fact or Fiction" crew.

65. At this time, we have arrested Jim Suerd

66. for the murders of Rein Clackin and Locus Wheeler.

67. - Behind me is a house where Jim Suerd

68. resided until his arrest nearly seven months ago.

69. Inside, amongst his dirty laundry, blood evidence was found,

70. linking him to the grisly "Fact or Fiction" murders.

71. Today, Jim's own life hangs in the balance

72. as jurors decide his fate.

73. - I had heard of the "Fact or Fiction" murders.

74. They were big news for a period of one year,

75. and then like so many things in today's fast-paced world,

76. were forgotten.

77. I was intrigued by how this case, this story,

78. was so well documented.

79. How, in spite of the remote location of the murders,

80. and the rural nature of the people prosecuting Jim,

81. that these were murders of a high tech age.

82. I was intrigued by the fact that the four individuals

83. were indeed children of a digital age.

84. Mostly though, I wondered why the man named Jim Suerd

85. would commit such horrendous acts of violence.

86. - This is Johnny- - And Locus.

87. - And we are live in the Pine Barrens where tonight

88. we are doing a first-ever, internet broadcast, cable,

89. ham radio, broadcast all live, all real

90. and we are doing it with the help of a psychic

91. and a sound man

92. who has the ability to record sounds from other worlds,

93. otherworldly sounds.

94. - Yeah, that's right, Steven.

95. We're here in the Pine Barrens southern New Jersey

96. live and direct, coming right at you

97. in your living room, first-ever web

98. simulcast cable-cast and everybody

99. is on the edge of their seat and I know you are,

100. because I am and I'm sure Steven is too.

101. - A little later we're gonna be showing you the campsite,

102. but right now we're gonna do a little recapping,

103. and you're gonna see some tape of the history of the legend

104. of the Pine Barrens and the Jersey Devil.

105. - They actually lived their show, "Fact or Fiction".

106. Here's this real eerie circumstances that come to play

107. And they were actually the victims of it.

108. - He had the opportunity.

109. It appears as if he had the motive.

110. He did lure those people up there in a in a veil of secrecy.

111. I would say yeah he fits the profile.

112. - Who was Jim Suerd?

113. The answer proved more difficult than I imagined.

114. His mother had died four months before the murders,

115. His father, five years before.

116. The only two people that I was able to speak with

117. that knew him personally were his landlady,

118. Joyce Dryer and a childhood psychologist

119. named Dr. Dale Orstall.

120. - I was sort of a father figure to him, I feel.

121. Sort of a surrogate father, if you will.

122. He didn't talk a whole lot about his family life

123. but one of the things I know

124. is that his father left them when he was very young,

125. ran off with another woman.

126. He had few friends if any.

127. Very reclusive.

128. - I remember him being quite a loner.

129. He seemed to stay in his room quite a bit

130. when he wasn't at work.

131. And the computer seemed to be a highlight

132. in his in his life.

133. - With the advent of the Internet,

134. of course he got into that years after I was seeing him.

135. It wasn't even available I don't think at the time.

136. It opened up a whole new world

137. for a guy like Jim.

138. - Often he would be on the internet with people

139. and as we know the horrible situation

140. that has come up because of the internet fiasco,

141. with him being blamed for these murders.

142. - The internet was the first of two interests

143. that would attach him to the "Fact or Fiction"

144. television show.

145. The second interest was a bit more obscure.

146. - Jim had this fascination for magic.

147. I mean a true fascination,

148. I mean he like I told you he was very reclusive

149. so I believe he must have spent countless hours

150. in his room alone

151. working on tricks.

152. And he used to come in and start the sessions and he had to

153. show me a new trick and often

154. was a simple card trick but very quickly he

155. built skills and became very proficient at magic.

156. - The internet and magic,

157. both interests generally considered harmless.

158. Both interests that could have a sinister edge to them.

159. Either way, it was a combination that virtually

160. sealed his fate in meeting Steven Avkast and Locus Wheeler,

161. The hosts of "Fact or Fiction".

162. - Welcome to "Fact or Fiction".

163. Welcome to "Fact or Fiction".

164. Yes we are rolling.

165. We are on we are ready to go.

166. Locus you joker, you knew it all along that we were on,

167. didn't you?

168. - Yeah welcome to our new show,

169. well actually it's not a new show, it's got a new name.

170. Thanks to everybody out there who helped us come up

171. with this great name,

172. "Fact or Fiction"

173. - That's right.

174. - "Fact or Fiction" was one of those fluke successes

175. that no television producer would ever predict.

176. Short on production value, talent and execution,

177. It maintained a following of youth probably more amused

178. by its Kitsch value than anything else.

179. Steven Avkast, the creator of "Fact or Fiction"

180. is remembered.

181. - Steven, I always got bad bad vibes about Steven,

182. you know he always came in here with this,

183. you know attitude that you know,

184. all he was doing is making a little cable show.

185. I mean, nobody ever goes anywhere with this stuff.

186. But he had this idea

187. he was destined for stardom and was gonna be rich, you know

188. millions of dollars and you know he basically

189. had that that big you know

190. director stereotype that you think of,

191. you know, you think of the big

192. Hollywood directors and I mean he really

193. just had to put it in perspective.

194. - Steven's long-time friend, Locus Wheeler,

195. was the co-host of the show.

196. Their pairing was like oil and water.

197. - Locus, I think,

198. he and Steven would have problems

199. getting along sometimes but I think

200. Locus, he knew what he was doing.

201. I mean with this he knew it was just a little

202. cable show and I think he was just in it for the fun.

203. - Somehow, Steven, a misguided egomaniac and Locus,

204. a sardonic slacker,

205. managed to keep turning out shows

206. for the better part of 1995.

207. The ideas were slim.

208. However, they did latch onto one idea that intrigued many.

209. - We're also doing something new.

210. We are on IRC tonight.

211. And we have joined- - IRC is in the house.

212. - You can say that, I'm saying it's swingin'.

213. - Well I'll have to say one idea they came up with,

214. it was actually, well at first it was pretty cool

215. but it got to be pretty freaky too.

216. They came up with this idea,

217. you know how most TV shows will have like call ins.

218. Where people call in the phone and talk,

219. well they tie this into the internet

220. through IRC chat, except, so people could like, you know

221. ask questions on the show, but they rigged up

222. some sort of text-to-speech converter so

223. like whatever they typed in was actually said

224. on the show like it was a voice.

225. - It was this idea that provided the impetus

226. for what would ironically give Steven the fame he so craved.

227. By the fall of 1995, the one-joke television show

228. was losing popularity.

229. By November, the show was about to self-destruct.

230. Everybody had this sense.

231. - Once again, Steven in his delinquency and procrastination

232. has made it so we are too late to find the snow angel.

233. - At this desperate time,

234. Steven turned to viewer suggestions,

235. one of which would take hold in his mind.

236. It provided the seedling with which Steven hoped

237. to rebuild the show's popularity.

238. - You know we had a call we have an IRC come in

239. and it's real eerie voice, I mean it drove me nuts.

240. I almost couldn't stand this after a while because just

241. hearing this voice like

242. "Hello, why don't you do a piece on-"

243. Why don't you do a show

244. about the Jersey Devil?

245. - Steven's idea was to do a first-ever

246. live broadcast of "Fact or Fiction".

247. It would be broadcast simultaneously

248. to cable television and the Internet.

249. The promotion's began immediately.

250. And with ratings dropping in an ever-increasing speed,

251. the concept was implemented immediately.

252. - This Jersey Devil cablecast,

253. I mean I for one, I knew it wasn't gonna work.

254. I mean these guys couldn't even make

255. a halfway decent TV Show.

256. Suddenly they want to jump into doing you know

257. big time live from the Pine Barrens

258. and have radio and Internet and this and that and,

259. I knew it was gonna be fiasco.

260. I didn't really think was gonna end up like it did but,

261. I knew it wasn't gonna look pretty.

262. - Since the show was going to air

263. from a remote location,

264. Steven hastily looked for people who might be able to help.

265. A former employer of his, Sam woods, was approached.

266. - This is the room of Sam woods.

267. I used to cut his grass.

268. He's a filmmaker

269. and he used to do soap operas and

270. we're gonna ask him if he wants to direct the show

271. Because I think he'd be perfect and he's a name

272. and that could really be good for us.

273. So I've had to talk to Locus and try to

274. convince him about it, but he's going for it,

275. well here they come so, I'm going to turn it down.

276. - Steven- - That's right.

277. - And I'm Locus. - Locus.

278. - Nice to meet you.

279. - Well they say that up to up to 50,000 people

280. could possibly be watching at any time,

281. but they don't know exactly how many

282. but we're selling lots of T-shirts.

283. So that's a good sign I think.

284. Anyway we have this idea we want

285. to taking this like direction

286. where it's gonna become much bigger

287. and it'll be really cool if you

288. could you know help us out; if you could direct the show.

289. I know that you used to direct lots of soap operas.

290. - Network soaps.

291. Right, right.

292. - This union of cable access show

293. and former Network soap director never made sense to anyone.

294. Though it was later discovered that Steven

295. was paying Sam out of his own pocket

296. in an act of desperation to save "Fact or Fiction".

297. - We're in business yeah, yeah this is cool.

298. - Sam Woods, a once successful

299. television soap director

300. became one of the people I would question

301. about these events.

302. In stark contrast to his work,

303. meeting him was another road sign

304. on my travel into a surreal world.

305. - Well, this devil hunt thing never appealed to me.

306. We're getting into a pretty flaky area there, you know?

307. I think the kids were they were asking for it with that one.

308. Not the kind of not the kind of work I do,

309. you know what I mean?

310. Not what I do.

311. - For the internet end, Jay McDowell was enlisted.

312. - Well, they came to me with a seedling idea

313. they said you know

314. we wanna, we want to use some

315. of this technology you've been using for teleconferencing

316. for video conferencing and we want to, you know,

317. we want to turn this into a broadcast thing.

318. They had heard some talk about it

319. they had seen some sites that were trying to

320. do some stuff like that, so they wanted something

321. like that they wanted to do it

322. a live, a live thing rather than like, you know,

323. streaming cam video.

324. They wanted to actually broadcast and compress it all live.

325. So they basically just came to me with that seedling

326. of an idea and I had to figure out, you know,

327. the technical aspects of how to make it happen,

328. and make it real and

329. you know, kind of the packaging for it

330. what it was really gonna be in the final product.

331. - Steven and Locus decided

332. that they needed additional help

333. at the actual location.

334. They searched vaguely for a sound man and a guide

335. and on December 7th, 1995, worlds collided.

336. - Okay, we're at Rein's and we've come today

337. to meet him in hopes that he'll be able to help us

338. out on our trip to the Pine Barrens.

339. Basically Rein is an audio whiz

340. and supposebly he's been able to document,

341. supposedly he's been able to document

342. you know paranormal occurrences on tape.

343. So that's what we're gonna see today.

344. We're also going to be meeting Jim,

345. who does some psychic things

346. and we'll see, you know.

347. Hopefully these guys will fit the bill

348. and we'll be able to go down to

349. the Pine Barrens with them, you know.

350. Could use the extra help.

351. Is that good?

352. Yeah you got enough?

353. I hope this damn mic works.

354. You ready?

355. Okay.

356. Remember, play it cool.

357. Play it cool.

358. Is this gonna blow us this airplane sound?

359. - Come on.

360. - Steven, this is Rein.

361. Right Rein? - Yeah.

362. - I'm Locus. - Locus?

363. - Locus.

364. - I'll just turn it off. - So you just taped us?

365. - Yeah, I guess so, accidentally.

366. - So do you have a surveillance setup

367. here or something?

368. - Well, for the time being I did.

369. I have like plugins, I can plug into the wall and stuff,

370. if I need to.

371. At one point this was like a working studio of some sort.

372. - I think maybe Jim has arrived now.

373. Can you...

374. - Hi, I'm Rein. - Hey, how are you?

375. - We pre-determined that we met.

376. - Hold on, hey hey yeah Jim what's up?

377. - How are you? - Doing pretty good.

378. - Lotus. - Um, Locus.

379. - Locus, Locus.

380. - Hi. - How are you?

381. I'm Jim.

382. - It was inevitable that the combination

383. of the internet,

384. a television show about paranormal happenings,

385. and similar ages, would draw Jim Suerd to "Fact or Fiction".

386. - So just to give some, a little background,

387. you know basically we're going to be doing this

388. webcast, cablecast in the in search of the Jersey Devil,

389. the Leeds devil,

390. down in the Pine Barrens.

391. And basically why we've gotten you guys together here is

392. because you have skills regarding audio

393. and paranormal activity so we're hoping

394. that you can help us in that way,

395. and you have these psychic abilities.

396. - Psychic abilities,

397. I feel that I can, I can really help out.

398. I understand what you're trying to do and

399. I really think that I can help out.

400. - You can help us find help us find a location.

401. You can help us tap into whatever we need.

402. - I can pinpoint that location.

403. - Jim came to me one day and told me

404. how excited he was that he had met these

405. people over the Internet.

406. It was some show, "Fact or Fiction",

407. and he was to be their guide in the Pine Barrens

408. and what really amazed me, I just didn't think

409. he knew or had any knowledge of the Pine Barrens to be able

410. to even be a guide.

411. But he seemed so excited about it.

412. - Is this, is this good?

413. - Do you want to hold them up or do you want me to just...

414. - Just like this.

415. Don't touch, you can't touch.

416. Okay.

417. - Six Spade.

418. Seven Spade.

419. Four Spade.

420. Five Spade

421. Eight Club.

422. Eight Diamond.

423. - Come on, man.

424. - I saw him probably about two or three weeks

425. before the incident.

426. I ran into him at a shopping mall.

427. And he was very excited about his life.

428. He said he was studying acting.

429. His magic was coming together.

430. People were appreciating it.

431. Combined with the acting, I guess he did a few gigs

432. on a small level but it was

433. it was going very very well.

434. - Give him more ashes.

435. There's something on his arm.

436. His arm.

437. 1395.

438. What does this mean?

439. - I don't know.

440. - Back off, back off.

441. Are you recording this?

442. - Was Jim psychic?

443. It was not likely.

444. The card demonstration,

445. and the supposed psychic fit, in which numbers appeared

446. on his arm,

447. were nothing more than simple tricks

448. known to any amateur magician.

449. To Steven and Locus, Rein Clackin and Jim Suerd were perfect

450. for "Fact or Fiction".

451. Youthful, eager and strange.

452. On December 15th 1995,

453. Steven Avkast, Locus Wheeler,

454. Rein Clackin and Jim Suerd

455. headed for the Pine Barrens of New Jersey

456. to do a live broadcast

457. in search of the Jersey Devil.

458. Jim Suerd would be the only one to return.

459. - 911, what is your emergency?

460. - My name is Jim Suerd and I just hitchhiked here

461. from the middle of Pine Barrens.

462. And I can't seem to get, I can't seem

463. to find the people that I was in the Pine Barrens with

464. and I was camping with them last night doing a project.

465. - Are you lost?

466. - I'm not lost, I'm just trying to,

467. I can't find the people that drove me here.

468. And you know I looked around for them and I went back

469. to the site where we had parked

470. and they're not at the van and they're nowhere

471. to be found like I don't know where they are.

472. - Their vehicle is still there?

473. - The vehicle is still there.

474. And I had to hitchhike to this payphone.

475. - How far are you from the vehicle right now?

476. - I'm about five, five, somewhere, you know,

477. five, 10 miles from it.

478. I don't know.

479. - Okay Jim, we'll send someone out.

480. - After Mr. Suerd made the call,

481. we went to the area that he specified

482. and did a preliminary look around,

483. under a missing-persons investigation.

484. - I mean I just figured that was one of the little stints

485. to do just to try to get that extra sensationalism.

486. So I didn't think anything of it at first.

487. You know I kind of expected them to try something like that.

488. - We have a 187.

489. Repeat, we have a 187.

490. This isn't a missing person's report anymore.

491. 912?

492. - We're clear.

493. Do you need emergency support?

494. - 1012

495. No.

496. This guy's definitely DOA.

497. - One body we found approximately 2.5 miles

498. from the campsite.

499. The other body, we found approximately three miles

500. from the campsite.

501. - The body of Steven Avkast was never found.

502. Large amounts of blood in the snow and a hat

503. were all that remained of this third victim.

504. - In any murder investigation,

505. anybody associated with the victims is a suspect.

506. Our job is to eliminate suspects based

507. on the evidence that we sift through and that we gather,

508. and as we sifted through

509. and gathered this evidence there was

510. only one suspect left at the end and that was Mr. Jim Suerd.

511. - Who led everybody to the site?

512. - I did.

513. - You did.

514. Did anybody else know where you were going

515. to set up and camp?

516. - Well, I was asked to uh, to find a place to camp.

517. And I thought that I was doing a good job at it

518. and Rein continued to provoke me and uh

519. and then give me a hard time about my ability

520. to locate the place

521. that we would camp and ultimately it just

522. led to an argument and I ran away from the group.

523. - Did you hit him first?

524. - I don't know, I might have pushed him.

525. Sometimes I can't remember if I, you know.

526. I ran away from group and I found the spot that I thought

527. would be good to locate the Jersey Devil.

528. - After we got the permission from the state

529. of Pennsylvania to search

530. Mr. Suerd's residence, we went to his residence

531. and we did conduct a search

532. for anything that we felt would help us in this case

533. and we did find the garments

534. that Mr. Suerd was wearing that night,

535. with the blood of the three victims on it.

536. Interestingly, the garments that Mr. Suerd

537. was wearing were merely

538. lying right on his bedroom floor,

539. along with the other dirty laundry that was there.

540. - Even as Jim was arrested,

541. the evidence continued to mount against him.

542. - We could tell that the nature of the blows

543. with the weapons that were used

544. were consistent with the size and build of the accused.

545. In this case it was very clear that the attacker

546. was using both hands with two weapons and was ambidextrous.

547. And the suspect in this case is ambidextrous,

548. which is quite rare.

549. - He was the only survivor

550. in the place where nobody else was.

551. It doesn't look that good for him.

552. - Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

553. we will show that on December 15th 1995,

554. Jim Suerd maliciously and with premeditation

555. killed Rein Clackin and Locus Wheeler.

556. We will show, without doubt,

557. how he planned this well in advance of that day.

558. We will show, with video shot by the deceased,

559. that Jim Suerd was, and is, a devious and cunning person.

560. Using the guise of psychic

561. to perpetrate these horrible acts.

562. The proceedings that summer turned out

563. to be one of the greatest spectacles

564. of Baroake County history.

565. The trial attracted a strange assemblage of cult followers,

566. ritual homicide fanatics and others seeking

567. to satisfy their morbid curiosities.

568. Eventually, it became a matter of trying

569. to keep the tabloid press at bay.

570. An effort which was not entirely successful.

571. - When the court case came up,

572. the media frenzy was hysterical.

573. I felt like they were, you know,

574. somebody was watching me like every minute.

575. They were talking to everybody,

576. everybody who had the slightest thing to do with the show.

577. Who knows, they probably even talked

578. to every single viewer that said they watched the show.

579. Reporters day in and day out

580. and police here just taking everything they could;

581. every videotape, every prop,

582. and I mean it was ridiculous.

583. I don't know what they were looking for,

584. all they were getting was a bunch of bad television.

585. - In an election year,

586. what the prosecution was looking

587. for was an open and shut case.

588. And in the state of New Jersey versus Jim Suerd,

589. they found it.

590. Not content to leave any stone unturned

591. they decided to utilize the very video that

592. Steven Avkast and Locus Wheeler had shot.

593. The man, who would later by the press come

594. to be known as "The killer cutter",

595. was hired to go through this video.

596. And put together an incriminating image of Jim Suerd.

597. - The prosecution contacted me

598. in early January 1996.

599. They had a pretty good case against him, it seemed to me

600. from what I saw.

601. They had blood evidence, they'd found the blood

602. and you know this was the only guy there.

603. And he was the only one that knew where it was.

604. But they wanted to clinch this case.

605. They didn't want, they really wanted to get him.

606. They didn't want there to be any question

607. that he had done it.

608. So they came to me with all this videotape,

609. like 15 hours of videotape.

610. And this was video that these guys who did this cable show

611. had shot on location.

612. I'd never really edited anything like,

613. I mean I'd never seen anything like this before,

614. I mean this was like video from the crime scene.

615. And normally, you know, I've got, you know,

616. hours and hours of people

617. talking heads like, you know in some room

618. somewhere badly shot.

619. This was badly shot but at least it was

620. out in the woods, you know.

621. It was different.

622. - The prosecution's video

623. was intended to show facts.

624. Perhaps, not inadvertently, it also created an intimacy

625. with the murdered three,

626. that the defense was unhappy with.

627. - We're stopping to get some gasoline.

628. - They protested it, deeming it an unfair swaying

629. towards a guilty verdict.

630. This was not enough reason for the video

631. to be struck down and so it was used.

632. The first point demonstrated that Jim was indeed

633. leading the group into very remote regions

634. of the Pine Barrens.

635. Areas where there was no hope for help or aid

636. from the civilized world.

637. The following represents excerpts

638. from the first section of the prosecution video.

639. Over 54 minutes of video, showing the four wandering deeper

640. into the pines, was shot.

641. It is estimated that the four walked for more than two hours

642. before Jim finally decided upon the location

643. of their operations.

644. - Hey guys he's starting to go.

645. Let's get the stuff together.

646. So what's the deal, Jim?

647. - Something's come right through here.

648. - When Jim finally found the perfect location,

649. it was more than three miles

650. from their van and the nearest access road.

651. The second point was to make evident a defendant

652. who had an agenda.

653. An agenda warped enough to commit these murders.

654. - I've been contacting the supernatural world

655. for the last week.

656. Last couple days I've been

657. in contact, getting my spiritual self together

658. for this journey.

659. We've put ourselves out on and

660. we are headed in the right direction, I can assure you.

661. I can feel it.

662. It's a gut instinct in my body that,

663. we're going to find the Leeds devil,

664. and we're going to settle this case,

665. once and for all.

666. I feel that I know what I'm doing here and for you

667. is perfectly authentic.

668. I have a feeling inside, it's it's a definite feeling,

669. we are at a place where with the Jersey Devil,

670. we will encounter the Jersey Devil.

671. I know we're headed in the right direction.

672. - Repeated phrases such as,

673. "We're going to settle this thing

674. "once and for all"

675. and "I know we're headed in the right direction",

676. seemed to clearly show Jim's agenda.

677. It didn't take much to read into these phrases,

678. and see an individual with a plan that was to be carried out

679. in the desolate Pine Barrens.

680. As the prosecution's video progressed,

681. Jim's personality changed

682. from a quiet and shy person,

683. to one that presented the prosecution with an opportunity

684. to show the violent nature just below the surface.

685. - Look man,

686. I'll see you back at camp, man!

687. - I don't know what Jim's doing.

688. I think he's talking about burning something.

689. - An agenda proven,

690. and a potential violent streak proven,

691. the prosecution solidified their first-degree murder case

692. against Suerd with video taken in the barn.

693. Video in which the original date

694. of the trip appeared on Suerd's arm.

695. The defense attempted to have this also struck

696. from the records,

697. claiming the video of Suerd to be that

698. of a character he was playing.

699. The prosecution countered by agreeing fully

700. with this assessment of Suerd and the events in the barn.

701. Events that had taken place a full two weeks

702. before the trip;

703. the best argument for premeditated murder.

704. The trip began at sunrise.

705. Steven ran a video camera much of the time,

706. documenting what should have been amusing

707. but banal preparation.

708. - Locus, do you wanna do a blurb about?

709. - Yeah, I'll do it.

710. - Locus.

711. - Yeah but I'm getting light,

712. the backlight's killing your face.

713. - What do you mean the backlight's killing my face?

714. Why don't you adjust it?

715. What do you mean you can't?

716. Okay you ready? - Yeah, yeah.

717. - Okay, we're here at Rein's barn, and we're getting, okay.

718. Here.

719. Come on, I'm trying to get at this on camera.

720. - The trip, guided by Jim,

721. took them into the loneliest

722. of areas on a lonely cold day.

723. - Here's to you, Steven.

724. - A stop at a gas station

725. was the last obvious landmark,

726. before they moved into the unidentifiable roads

727. of the Pine Barrens.

728. At a certain point, at Jim's request,

729. they stopped, parked and started

730. walking into the woods.

731. Following the psychic visions of Suerd.

732. - I understand.

733. He's gonna do it this is part

734. of the show we gotta do it in a place he thinks is right.

735. Because if we're gonna find something

736. yeah we could fake it, but I don't go for that.

737. I think we should go for real

738. and he's off doing his thing that's why we got him here.

739. We knew this was gonna be it.

740. We knew, we all talked about.

741. We knew we were going to be way out here.

742. - Here he comes. - Let's see what he says.

743. - Where did you get this guy from anyway?

744. Psychics R US?

745. - I think this is a pretty good idea.

746. Us waiting around and then him finding the spot you know

747. and then taking the stuff over to it.

748. - Yeah, we still gotta go back to the car

749. and get stuff, man.

750. I don't think he even knows that.

751. Is he volunteering?

752. I don't think so.

753. - Well, I know he's not carrying too much.

754. But you know what he said about that.

755. It's a vibe thing.

756. - Tensions increase as they work further

757. into the forsaken Pines.

758. And then a key point in the prosecution video arrives.

759. - Jim, are you a psychic or a psycho?

760. - Look man!

761. I'll see you back at camp, man!

762. - Approximately one hour later,

763. judging from the sun,

764. a camp is being built.

765. Discussions are already being had about Suerd.

766. Suerd is not helping.

767. He's keeping to himself.

768. For the next two hours, the video of the group

769. is a collection of promotions for

770. future cable shows; the camera frequently left

771. on between takes.

772. - This is Locus reporting from the Pine Barrens

773. and I'm with Rein.

774. Our sound man.

775. Gee, Rein I'm pretty parched.

776. - I sure am, too.

777. - Wow is that is that mulberry

778. natural spring water?

779. - Yes from Mueller's.

780. - Wow, how about, I wish I could have a

781. sparkling glass of that.

782. - Boy I'm telling you and in a gallon jar.

783. - Jug.

784. - The mood is good.

785. - Let's do that again.

786. - Jim does not join them, instead staying

787. in the tent on IRC.

788. - I don't really feel like I'm being taken very seriously,

789. by really any of you.

790. - I'm taking you seriously.

791. We set up here you know.

792. - I'm doing what, what I do and

793. I don't appreciate being laughed at.

794. - Well it's just a stress thing.

795. Look we're gonna be going on in a bit.

796. You gonna come out for the broadcast?

797. - I think that I'll probably stay in here.

798. Stay on IRC.

799. - Okay.

800. - At 10 p.m.

801. in what will be the last broadcast,

802. "Fact or Fiction" goes live.

803. - This is Johnny- - And Locus.

804. - And we are live in the Pine Barrens

805. where tonight we are doing a first ever,

806. internet broadcast, cable-

807. - Jim has been on IRC for two hours and 30 minutes.

808. A surveillance camera records the camp to VHS tape.

809. It runs for two hours before shutting off.

810. At one a.m.

811. the last tape in the series of 22 tapes shot

812. by Locus Wheeler and Rein Clackin

813. reaches its end.

814. - I think this is a way for him

815. to try and scare us or something.

816. - Man, this thing's still on.

817. What the hell's going on? - Oh, I must have left it on.

818. We should change tapes.

819. Did you change tapes?

820. Here, I'm gonna change tapes in this.

821. - There is no indication that this is done.

822. No other footage exists.

823. The tape show a group of men going through a wide range

824. of emotions.

825. Seemingly enjoying their jaunt into the pine barrens.

826. The tape shows the brooding nature of one man

827. who does not share in the frivolity.

828. The tapes do make clear the maladjusted nature of Jim Suerd.

829. Though Suerd maintained his innocence,

830. the facts were indisputable.

831. Four people went into the Pine Barrens, only Jim returned.

832. Blood of all three was found on on Jim's shirt.

833. His pushing Rein showed a potential violent streak.

834. The angle and depth of the cuts

835. and lacerations matched somebody of his height and weight

836. and more importantly ambidextrous nature.

837. The number, which closely matched

838. the date of the murders appearing through ashes on his arm,

839. was deemed to

840. be a good case for premeditated murder.

841. The tape showing the four walking further

842. and further into the woods,

843. virtually guaranteed a seclusion from civilization

844. that would make the killing easier.

845. The defense's one victory was

846. getting the third charge of murder,

847. the murder of Steven Avkast, dropped.

848. Though a body is not necessarily needed to prove a murder,

849. the prosecution had more than enough evidence

850. with the two bodies that were found.

851. On July 16th 1996

852. Jim Suerd was found guilty on two counts

853. of first degree murder.

854. He was sentenced to two life terms

855. to be served consecutively.

856. - I think the whole trial was a kangaroo court of sorts,

857. a pig circus.

858. I mean it's...

859. the police obviously didn't do their homework.

860. They're not investigating to the best of their ability,

861. because there has to be,

862. there has to be some evidence indicating somebody else

863. or something else.

864. - The case they built up against him,

865. it was all circumstantial.

866. They didn't have any actual evidence that he did this

867. but I mean he was the only one there.

868. They really had no one else to go on.

869. - I don't consider having the blood of

870. victims all over your clothes as circumstantial.

871. I mean that's pretty hard evidence as far as I'm concerned.

872. You don't get blood

873. on your clothes from a murder victim, you know,

874. just out of the air.

875. I mean, you have to be there conducting those murders

876. to get that blood on your clothes.

877. I don't consider that circumstantial in the least.

878. - And I can't explain that I can't explain why

879. there would be blood on my shirt.

880. - Would you agree that it looks bad?

881. - Excuse me?

882. - Would you agree that things

883. don't look very good for you right now?

884. - I don't, I don't the way that you're telling me

885. it doesn't look that good for me but I

886. can't understand where this evidence came from.

887. - The evidence of blood on Jim's shirt

888. was a strong point for the prosecution.

889. DNA tests showed

890. indisputably that it was the blood of the three

891. that had gone into the woods with Suerd.

892. As I look at the images of DNA patterns and pools of blood,

893. I wonder though

894. if perhaps the jury anxious not to ignore DNA evidence

895. as it happened in other trials

896. perhaps looked too closely.

897. Through the magnifying glass

898. of the prosecution's microscope, the evidence was solid.

899. However a macroscopic view begged another question.

900. Could the master of this orgy of violence have walked

901. away from his work with merely the equivalent

902. of 17 eyedrops of blood on his shirt

903. and nothing else?

904. - You know, every piece of evidence they would get,

905. they'd try to tie it somehow, instead of thinking

906. okay well gee, does this have anything

907. to do with something else

908. would always take a piece of evidence and go,

909. well gee how could Jim have used this?

910. And it's kind of like, after a while,

911. it's like building up a house of cards,

912. after a while, they just kept building up building up

913. and eventually they had enough built up

914. to get a case against him.

915. - I wasn't really monitoring their conduct outside

916. of camp.

917. I was doing my thing.

918. - What were you doing?

919. - I was on the IRC.

920. - In the tent?

921. - Yeah.

922. - All night?

923. - All night

924. - About what time did you start on IRC?

925. - Probably around 8:30.

926. - When we interviewed some of the individuals

927. that Mr. Suerd claimed to have been talking

928. with on IRC that evening,

929. and we've looked at their logs as well, too,

930. their chat logs from their computers,

931. and we have determined

932. that there was about a 45 minute gap

933. between when Mr. Suerd made one comment

934. to when he made the next comment.

935. And 45 minutes is an awfully long time to not

936. be responding to other people on the Internet.

937. - They say the signal dropped out

938. so you know Jim could have walked away

939. and I guess that is possible.

940. - It is possible, yes.

941. You don't necessarily have

942. to be a world-class sprint runner,

943. to cover that amount of ground in 45 minutes.

944. - In a way I have to raise doubts

945. of this one guy doing all that to these bodies.

946. - The murdered pair,

947. they were darlings of the media.

948. It was one of the reasons they jumped

949. on this whole thing so quickly

950. and had to come up with a conclusion

951. of what happened was just that:

952. it was their very own.

953. - As professionals in law enforcement,

954. we do not feel the pressure from outside sources,

955. be it the media or otherwise to conduct our investigations.

956. We conduct them to the best of our ability at all times.

957. There were no other suspects to apprehend or to interview

958. or to consider.

959. All the evidence pointed that Mr. Suerd was the only suspect

960. and therefore all we had to do was gather

961. the evidence to prove Mr. Suerd's guilt.

962. We did not have to gather evidence to gather other suspects.

963. - On January 2nd, 1997,

964. an event occurred that forced me

965. to rethink the making of this documentary,

966. the very thesis with which I had begun this journey.

967. Jim Suerd was found dead in his jail cell

968. of undetermined causes.

969. On January third, a package arrived at my door which I think

970. in no way was

971. coincidental with the death of Jim Suerd.

972. The acquiring of mysterious video tape has changed the mood

973. behind the making of this documentary.

974. Gone is the attempt at pure objectivity

975. with which we started.

976. Now we question, who gave us this tape?

977. And more importantly, what, if any information, does it hold

978. that was never brought up in the trial?

979. Going to the authorities with this new tape

980. is pondered but rejected.

981. To them the case is closed and with Jim's death,

982. appeals are a moot point.

983. Nothing is ruled out.

984. The tape could be a hoax.

985. I am conscious of one thing though.

986. My search for the truth behind the "Fact or Fiction" murders

987. has in some way become part of the story.

988. - There was this discussion on the last tape that

989. they were going to change tapes.

990. But whether that ever happened or not,

991. I don't know.

992. I didn't see any other tapes

993. and from what I saw of the camera

994. it was pretty damaged.

995. So if there was any tape in there,

996. I doubt that it ever could be played.

997. - My name is Michele Monarch.

998. I'm a magnetic media data recovery specialist.

999. The particular videotape that I was given was mangled almost

1000. beyond recognition.

1001. I digitized sections of this particular video,

1002. placed it into the computer

1003. and am now reconstructing the actual picture frame by frame.

1004. And I have to guide the computer to complete these pictures.

1005. There was some that were easily captured by the computer.

1006. Others were unrecognizable,

1007. and I'm rebuilding them now at this time.

1008. - As the tape is reassembled by Shelly,

1009. it becomes apparent that some sections are rather viewable.

1010. - And I'll say, yeah I'm here

1011. while Locus is out hunting for the Jersey Devil.

1012. And I'll be like, "ah, shut up"

1013. Yeah, you can be like, "I don't see him."

1014. No, no, we better not do that because, we've got to deliver

1015. on this show.

1016. This is the big one here.

1017. Okay are we ready there, Rein?

1018. - Right now. - Do you want me

1019. to still be rolling on this stuff, Steven?

1020. Do you want to state that, that whole thing.

1021. I think I kind of could hear you.

1022. I've been rolling the camera just messing

1023. around shooting camp stuff but could you,

1024. what was the deal with-

1025. - I don't care if he hears this or not on camera.

1026. Don't I mean this is never gonna make it

1027. anything but the cutting room floor

1028. as they would say film days.

1029. From what Sam was saying.

1030. Sam, boy even he was-

1031. - All right, there it is.

1032. - I don't want to be like a bitch all night.

1033. I'm going to take a walk out into the woods and do a scout

1034. out of the location.

1035. I also have to go the bathroom.

1036. Get on the trumpet, do the sound.

1037. Newark's doing his thing.

1038. Yeah, I know the airplanes from Newark.

1039. But each we got

1040. we got a little bit from that one machine going, but I want

1041. to see that one reel going

1042. I wanna see you on that trumpet,

1043. I want to see you working for the reason you're out here.

1044. And Locus, come on, 1R 144 double X awaits you.

1045. Do some work, man!

1046. - Sure Steven, anything you say, big guy.

1047. Comin' right at you.

1048. - All right, I'm gonna go here.

1049. I'll be back in about 10 minutes.

1050. - Okay, man. - Okay.

1051. I'll be on that before you get back.

1052. - Hey, do me a favor and switch on the machine will you?

1053. There goes a little tyrant.

1054. Here, come on I got the camera rolling

1055. and do a Steven imitation for me.

1056. Oh no I'm talking about Steven being a pussy I'm not talking

1057. about Jim being a pussy.

1058. Jim's one psycho motherfucker.

1059. - He's scary, man. - Let me get that on camera.

1060. - That thing isn't running, is it?

1061. - Of course it's running.

1062. We're supposed to record everything.

1063. Give me a Jim, why don't you do that line that you said

1064. when you were out in the woods?

1065. What did you think when Jim pushed you?

1066. - I was a- - Louder.

1067. - I was a little bit, I don't know, it was weird

1068. and kind of it freaked me out, man.

1069. I didn't really expect him to be violent.

1070. I thought it was like,

1071. see that's what I don't get, man.

1072. He's like totally like

1073. I thought he was like one of those guys like

1074. you know those peace, fucking meditation dudes or something.

1075. I didn't think he did that.

1076. - Following these recorded moments,

1077. a large portion of the tape is smashed.

1078. It is a section that Shelley will attempt to restore.

1079. The next section that is immediately viewable,

1080. happens somewhere in the middle of the tape.

1081. - Steven!

1082. - The first thing that is apparent is that this

1083. is tape shot by Locus and Rein.

1084. Steven is nowhere to be seen.

1085. They are searching for him.

1086. On her third day of restoration,

1087. Shelley makes another discovery.

1088. The anonymous tape is not from one, but two cameras.

1089. Both Rein and Locus took cameras into the forest.

1090. - Hold on a second.

1091. Let me get the light up here.

1092. This is "Fact or Fiction."

1093. We can't find Steven.

1094. Here we are in the Pine Barrens on a trip that he drug us

1095. out here for.

1096. We did a webcast, simulcast, cast cast cable cast

1097. that really was pretty poor if you ask me.

1098. But that doesn't matter at this point because Steven,

1099. our main host, is missing.

1100. Johnny.

1101. Johnny Love is gone.

1102. He's gone and we can't find him.

1103. All I want to do is drink some beer.

1104. At the camp.

1105. See this is for you, Steven.

1106. Even though we don't know where you are,

1107. we just want you to know that we're being really loyal

1108. to this whole "shoot everything".

1109. - Oh, man, come on, now.

1110. - In the sixth day of her work,

1111. Shelly puts together a stunning piece of tape.

1112. It is a moment in time that proves so much.

1113. - Footprint, I think it goes off this way.

1114. Do you see anything over there?

1115. - He's been gone for a while.

1116. Do you know what time it is?

1117. - It's I think it's late

1118. it's like, 2:45.

1119. - 2:45? - Yeah.

1120. - Rein and Locus were alive

1121. and speaking the time to one another and they were supposed

1122. to be being killed

1123. and they're alive and they're saying the time on the video.

1124. To me that proves that

1125. Jim absolutely was not killing them at that time.

1126. Jim is an innocent man and this was not investigated

1127. in any way shape or form.

1128. It was overlooked.

1129. So many details were overlooked.

1130. Also, if he's an innocent man,

1131. there's a killer on the loose.

1132. - Shelly's work slowly gives voices to the dead.

1133. Ghosts caught on video.

1134. - I don't know, I feel weird about it.

1135. I feel weird about it.

1136. Why is he acting so weird?

1137. - The processing of the tape is quickly

1138. becoming more difficult for Shelley.

1139. Now only bits and pieces tell the story of what happened

1140. in the woods.

1141. On February 5th, Shelley presents a section

1142. of videotape that is nothing short of horrifying.

1143. It intensifies the question of who the killer is.

1144. - Oh.

1145. - On February 7th, Shelley finds what she thinks

1146. is the same moment in time from Locus's camera.

1147. It cannot however be viewed.

1148. She remains hopeful as she begins the process

1149. of trying to reconstruct a lost video.

1150. - The computer needs me to direct it.

1151. It doesn't know how to reconstruct a circle.

1152. Maybe it would have an opening at the side

1153. and I have to teach it to continue the circle.

1154. I'm a guiding factor.

1155. - While Shelley begins the process of attempting

1156. to restore video,

1157. I will attempt to find a truth

1158. within the film I have already shot.

1159. - In sitting there waiting for these video edits to render,

1160. I did wonder about

1161. certain aspects of the case.

1162. Sometimes I wonder, am I doing the right thing?

1163. Did this guy do it?

1164. It seemed to me, from all what I saw,

1165. that you know it was pretty likely

1166. that he did it.

1167. I mean you had the blood evidence and stuff like that,

1168. but then there was the one guy

1169. that they never found his body.

1170. What happened to him?

1171. I mean, could he have done it?

1172. I don't know.

1173. - It is an obvious question.

1174. A question I had presented to all the people interviewed.

1175. The tape restoration is showing Locus

1176. and Rein searching for Steven,

1177. which only makes the question more relevant.

1178. What happened to Steven Avkast?

1179. By process of elimination, I proceed.

1180. - We did find some blood

1181. and of course the infamous Johnny hat

1182. that was found.

1183. We were never able to find any more remains

1184. of that person so we don't know if he's dead or alive.

1185. - They never found Steven's body, Johnny,

1186. but they found his hat.

1187. So, I mean, I don't know.

1188. It's just weird that the only thing left of him is

1189. a hat?

1190. - All right I'll be back in about 10 minutes.

1191. - Okay man, I'll be on that before you get back

1192. - We don't think that Mr. Avkast

1193. would be able to set up Mr. Suerd

1194. because the amount of blood that we found

1195. Of Mr. Avkast is so great that he would have bled to death

1196. trying to set Mr. Suerd up.

1197. - There goes the little tyrant.

1198. - Oh whoa, check it out.

1199. Shine that over there.

1200. - Oh wow. - What's that?

1201. - I don't know, man.

1202. - Looks like a light.

1203. Yo, it's Steven's light.

1204. Steven's light.

1205. Yo Steve!

1206. Steven!

1207. - In finding that Jim's alibi holds up,

1208. we have to attempt to answer the question raised:

1209. who killed these people?

1210. The likely suspect would appear to be Steven.

1211. As I watch these frames though, I see no recognition

1212. in Locus's face.

1213. I see Locus, a man larger than Steven, turn tail and run.

1214. As does Rein.

1215. Steven Avkast, being the culprit of the horrendous massacre

1216. that took place in the minutes that follow this tape

1217. is impossible to believe.

1218. Along with the amount of blood

1219. that belongs to Steven Avkast,

1220. this makes me believe that he also was murdered

1221. in the Pine Barrens.

1222. I am now also of the belief

1223. that the killer was somehow something more horrendous

1224. than possible to imagine.

1225. What could have killed three healthy men?

1226. What would have left no footprints?

1227. What would have torn the men into 47 pieces,

1228. leaving no evidence of a struggle?

1229. - We could tell by what was a left in the infliction

1230. of the wound that it was

1231. a serrated type weapon, that much we know.

1232. - There were no knife fragments or

1233. any evidence of the actual weapon used

1234. other than the cuts themselves.

1235. - Well we're a rural County, we have people

1236. who are not greatly educated.

1237. Rumors and folklore are common.

1238. I put no credence in anything of that nature.

1239. I just go by the facts that the police

1240. are able to ascertain.

1241. - A monster?

1242. Yeah, I think this person's a monster.

1243. I don't believe

1244. fact or fiction.

1245. I don't believe the fiction.

1246. I think this is a person and I'm gonna find out who it is.

1247. I'm gonna reconstruct and do my job

1248. to recover what has been lost, the facts.

1249. - It is as though the Jersey Devil

1250. is a monster reborn in a digital age.

1251. Reborn on the Internet.

1252. A demon captured on IRC logs, mangled video,

1253. whispers in the dark.

1254. It is to these that I look.

1255. - It's totally anonymous I mean you can't trace a call.

1256. You don't know if it's man, woman, old, young.

1257. You don't know anything you don't know where it's from.

1258. I mean in one way I don't know

1259. why the cops didn't try to do anything you know

1260. and try to figure out well who made that idea?

1261. Who came up with that suggestion?

1262. Why don't you do a show

1263. about the Jersey Devil?

1264. - We have this show "Fact or Fiction".

1265. It's a paranormal variety show.

1266. You know we have guests come on,

1267. that kind of thing.

1268. Well, things have kind of been a little slow

1269. over at the station so we thought what we would do

1270. is we'd we'd make a little excursion

1271. there was a suggestion, via IRC,

1272. A suggestion via IRC to-

1273. - And also to the mail bag.

1274. - Yeah.

1275. - That guy, D something.

1276. Whatever his name was.

1277. - One thing about IRC that's really hard is that,

1278. it really is hard to trace it because, I mean, it's not like

1279. you know the phone number they're calling from.

1280. I mean this could have been like Shanghai

1281. where they were writing this message from.

1282. You just don't know.

1283. That's part of the beauty and part of the evil of it.

1284. - It is amazing to be so near yet so far

1285. from the possibility of knowing who the killer is.

1286. D something.

1287. - We thought what we would do

1288. is we'd we'd make a little excursion.

1289. There was a suggestion, via IRC, to-

1290. - And also from that mail bag.

1291. - Yeah.

1292. - That guy D something, whatever his name was.

1293. - It's just not practical to keep logs to that stuff.

1294. I get so much email, so much,

1295. it would just clog up my system.

1296. I erased it as we went along.

1297. I mean, once a job

1298. once a point got finished I killed the email, got rid of it.

1299. It was it was like a to-do list.

1300. I check it off, I get rid of this stuff.

1301. So, once things weren't pertinent anymore,

1302. I just get rid of them.

1303. So I don't have anything of it really.

1304. I mean there there were like a couple of emails that we had

1305. at the very end there

1306. But there's nothing illuminating there.

1307. - It gets harder and harder

1308. to

1309. stick with your original gut feeling.

1310. Because of the media, you know.

1311. The attention that the whole case is getting,

1312. how one-sided, lopsided the whole thing is.

1313. And you start to think,

1314. maybe, maybe he did do it.

1315. Maybe there's a side of Jim that I don't know that,

1316. that was capable of such an atrocity.

1317. - As this journey nears its end,

1318. I begin to fully understand the essence

1319. of what this is about.

1320. The media upon which these events were recorded.

1321. The media that should have been able to provide a truth

1322. more pure than ever before, has somehow become the story.

1323. This has become more than a search for the truth

1324. behind the "Fact or Fiction" murders.

1325. It has become an indictment of truth

1326. and how it is viewed through the lens of the media.

1327. - Pretty exciting moment here

1328. because the fact or fiction logo is on screen

1329. which means one thing.

1330. That we are now actually getting our

1331. feed live to the cable company-

1332. - Reality television, the news,

1333. the 60-second clip of truth, have made even the strongest

1334. of doubters wonder.

1335. - Are you a psychic or a psycho?

1336. - Look man I'll see you back at camp, man.

1337. - Man, why you gotta be so-

1338. - What did you say to him?

1339. - Wait what do you mean he's gonna

1340. be where we were at camp?

1341. Where the hell is the camp?

1342. This is the whole fucking thing, where the hell is the camp?

1343. - We can't lose him. - Well, we're losing him.

1344. - Go find him, man.

1345. I'm not gonna go anywhere near him,

1346. what a fucking asshole, man.

1347. - Just cut the damn camera already.

1348. - What is the truth?

1349. The editing process, it's like sifting that stuff out

1350. ultimately, I mean not necessarily with these legal videos,

1351. but with a

1352. documentary film, I mean ultimately it's

1353. what the filmmaker perceives as the truth.

1354. I mean, don't you think, that's what you're trying

1355. to do, right?

1356. - The mistakes that were discovered on this journey

1357. were stunning.

1358. Shoddy police work and a judgmental video

1359. presented the world with a person guilty

1360. before ever being tried.

1361. I know Jim is not guilty.

1362. I know that the truth is still at large,

1363. potentially closer than anyone can realize.

1364. It is as though the real killer planned a media event

1365. so amazingly cunning

1366. that it could be thought of as scripted.

1367. A kill ready for primetime, so to speak.

1368. Perhaps the demon we call the Jersey Devil

1369. did kill them in the Pine Barrens.

1370. But if so, the Jersey Devil is the electronic image,

1371. the sound,

1372. The communication to the masses,

1373. Somehow twisted into a surrealist electronic world.

1374. - Do you think Jim did it?

1375. And with the exception of authorities directly accountable

1376. to the answer,

1377. I have felt that the answer given has been,

1378. it doesn't matter.

1379. The truth is what time has made of this event.

1380. It has been good for business.

1381. Often murder is.

1382. So many involved benefited from this event.

1383. The inevitable book deal is being replaced with a career

1384. in the business of image control.

1385. And most of the people interviewed are ready to embrace it.

1386. - I guess a grim irony here, as these post-its can attest,

1387. the fact that when we have some real dead bodies,

1388. then the sharks start circling.

1389. Strange that an incident like that would be a prelude

1390. to a new phase in my career.

1391. - It's interesting, after the court case was over

1392. with all the publicity and everything surrounding it,

1393. you know, I started getting phone calls

1394. for a couple job leads.

1395. I mean, you know, so in one way,

1396. this might have helped me out of here.

1397. - How long will it take to process the entire tape?

1398. - It's not my intention to process the whole tape.

1399. I don't need to do that.

1400. It could take hours, it could take days.

1401. I need to process a particular piece of tape

1402. that could potentially reveal a killer.

1403. - Shelley continues to extrapolate information

1404. from a frame

1405. while I will reenact the events of December 15, 1995.

1406. This is one of the stops that the guys made on the way

1407. to the pine barrens.

1408. I know this because

1409. of the extensive documentary footage that they'd

1410. taken taken of this place.

1411. I don't know what good this will do.

1412. I think it's just to keep myself clear on what happened.

1413. You know the order of events.

1414. Strangely the weather is almost identical to the way

1415. it was that day.

1416. I'm now traveling an access route

1417. that I know Steven and Locus had taken

1418. for the Jersey Devil Project.

1419. We're in the midst of the Pine Barrens at this point.

1420. And what I'm hoping to do is see if I can't do a recreation

1421. of the campsite,

1422. perhaps the murder scene.

1423. Hopefully traversing this won't be too big of a problem.

1424. I'm using this video camera just as a matter of convenience.

1425. Using film out here would prove

1426. to be logistically too difficult.

1427. Hopefully we can get you some good footage

1428. and really try demonstrate

1429. the intrepid nature of Steven and Locus.

1430. - I feel with some more work that I will find the killer.

1431. I will see the face of the killer.

1432. - This site is a very close approximation

1433. of the one used by Steven and Locus on

1434. the night of the Jersey Devil episode.

1435. They'd chosen a clearing similar to this one as base camp

1436. for the telecast.

1437. When they ventured onto the Pine Barrens with their cameras,

1438. they would never return alive again.

1439. The documentary footage that they generated

1440. on that evening proves irrevocably,

1441. that Jim Suerd was not responsible for their murders.

1442. That Locus and Rein Clackin were actually alive

1443. at the time they were ostensibly killed.

1444. And that the police case was shoddy at best.

1445. What is the Jersey Devil?

1446. It's a man wandering into the Pine Barrens never

1447. to be seen again.

1448. It's a mangled animal found on one of these access roads.

1449. Or perhaps it's something that rests within our psyche

1450. and we'll never truly understand.

1451. I've been on this project for months now and haven't come

1452. to a clear definition

1453. of what actually happened or who was responsible.

1454. All I know is that it's a mystery

1455. and it may permanently remain so.

1456. What is the Jersey Devil?

1457. I'm now outside of Shelley's studio.

1458. All the media.

1459. All the interviews.

1460. The truth comes down to this one frame.

1461. I've determined that this is no time to be distracted

1462. or set aside in the course

1463. of the events that I've set into motion.

1464. My next step will be going to the Pine Barrens

1465. for a reenactment of the murders of Steven Avkast,

1466. Locus Wheeler and Rein Clackin.

1467. I'm as strong in my resolve as before in proving

1468. that Jim Suerd

1469. was not responsible for these murders.

1470. That he had neither the intellect

1471. nor the logical capacity to carry them through.

1472. I think that the replayment

1473. of our events here

1474. will be quite compelling in the demonstration of

1475. Suerd's innocence.

1476. This site is a close approximation of the one chosen

1477. by Steven Locus as the

1478. site of their "Fact or Fiction" Jersey Devil broadcast.

1479. They'd-

1480. This site is a close approximation of the one chosen

1481. by Steven and Locus as the site

1482. of their "Fact or Fiction" Jersey Devil Broadcast.

1483. They'd chosen a clearing similar to this one, as base camp

1484. and ventured into the pine barrens with their cameras.

1485. This site is a close approximation

1486. of the one chosen by Steven

1487. and Locus as the site of their "Fact or Fiction"

1488. Jersey Devil Broadcast,

1489. They'd chosen a clearing similar

1490. to this one as a base camp.