Escape from the Schoolgirl Snatcher: How 2 Best Friends Survived the Unthinkable | The Case of Charlene & Lisa | UNSEEN

I'm Harvey Ghien and this is Killer Stories. Every Monday, I'm cutting the lights. I'm telling you a bedtime story. Except, these stories are all real. We're talking Brazen Heist, Devastating Cons, Serial Murders and Cases that defy tidy categories. So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Ghien every Monday. Two 10-year-old girls go missing on their way to school in 1999. Three days later, no trace of them has been found and police are convinced the girls are dead. One of the girls' fathers raised a suspicion after the public learns about his dark past and that the girl's mother died in unusual circumstances. The problem is, the father is innocent and the man who took the two girls has been hunting more kids, planning this for years, outsmarting the police. But no one could have imagined that the two missing girls would come back from the dead, expose their kidnappers' plan, and finally bring him down. It's 1997 and Charlene Wade's outside the social services office for her mother to come and pick her up. Her mother has struggled with addiction in the past, but according to the social worker, she's better now. Charlene waits unaware that earlier that day, her mother had tragically died from an overdose. The young girl is devastated. Yet, not all is lost, while Charlene had been in foster care. Her estranged father, Heath Lunning, had been fighting to regain custody of his daughter. And so, a few months later, Charlene moves to Hastings, England, to live with him. Hi, I'm Hastings. It's a great place to bring kids up. You got to see, you got places like Fairlight and that outside and you're a small town. So, it's great. I love it, I do. Although life at home is beginning to settle, Charlene is still nervous about her new school. She doesn't know anyone there. On her first day, she's terrified. Even more so when she realizes she forgot her pencil sharpener at home. She timidly starts asking around when a girl with curly hair hands her one, saying her name is Lisa, and that they should be friends. Charlene doesn't know it yet, but soon, the two will be inseparable. Two very sweet, lovely, ordinary girls living in a very nice little life. One year later, Charlene and Lisa now walk to school together every morning. January 19th starts the same way. They leave the house at 8.30, Heath, Charlene's dad, doesn't think twice about it. You know, and I thought it was safe enough to do that, to be honest. I didn't see no reason why not. They didn't even have to cross a main road to get to school. I thought it was totally safe. But at 5 p.m., nearly nine hours later, Heath gets a call that will change his life forever. Yesterday morning, as usual, 10-year-old Lisa Hoodliss walked up this quite cul-de-sac to call on her best friend, Charlene, who lives in this house. Around 8.30, both girls left the house for the short five-minute walk to their local school. For reasons still unknown, they never arrived, but nobody who knows the two girls, the same as since. The disappearance of the two young girls is taken seriously from the very beginning. As it turns out, the school hadn't contacted Charlene and Lisa's parents when the pair were absent, and so no one realized anything was wrong until the evening. Police immediately start canvassing the neighborhood, knocking on doors, and asking questions, but everywhere, they're met with the same answer. Nobody has seen anything. The girls have seemingly vanished without a trace. Unfortunately, there's still no new information the next morning, and even worse, the police are already behind. The only started searching 8 hours after the girls were last seen. They need all the help they can get, so they contact the media to spread the word. And hopefully, get a lead from the public. The police also request that both parents make a public appearance, though the parents are distraught over the girls' disappearance. They know that if there's the slightest chance it can help the investigation, they need to do it. If you're staying away because you're scared, or whatever it is, there's nothing to be scared of. You're not going to get told off. No one's going to get angry with you. Just come home. Yesterday was a normal school morning. She says, "I'm going to school now. Bye, Mum. Bye, Dad. I'll see you later." That was it. Meanwhile, the case is handed over to a senior investigator, someone who will look at everything, and hopefully piece together what really happened to Charlene and Lisa. My name's Jeremy Payne. In 1999, I was a detective superintendent, and I was also a senior investigating officer. With detective Payne in charge, the operation ramps up fast. Seventy officers are deployed. Dog units comb the woods. Helicopters scan the coastline, volunteers sweep the fields. The search goes national and newspapers on posters and on every television screen. Charlene and Lisa's faces are everywhere. Calls about sightings of the girls flood into the police station, but none of them turn into real leads. By the end of the day, hope begins to fade. By the evening of the 20th, we had massive resources in place. We've done a huge amount, and we still know further forward. And I'm starting to think, hang on a minute. I thought we're going to find them today. I'll be sure we're going to find them today. And actually, we haven't got any information which is really telling us which way to look. What does actually happen to these girls, and I was getting really worried. But detective Payne is convinced of one thing. Charlene and Lisa must have been kidnapped by a known offender. What he doesn't know yet is just how long the registered defender list really is. Even looking only at ESUSX, the scale is overwhelming. Interviewing every one of them would take more than three months. Payne is already out of time. With the passage of time, three days now, it has to be said that the chances of us finding them alive and well are diminished. So by Friday, nothing's changed. We've got no further information. I recall what I was quite downbeat. After three days, the pressure reaches a breaking point, even the military has stepped in to support the search. One of the world's most revered fighting forces, the Gurkhas, joining the police hunt at the seaside town in Sussex, such as the concern now for the missing ten-year-olds. But after all of this, Payne concludes that since nobody has actually seen Charlene or Lisa, it can only mean one thing. Someone is keeping them hidden somewhere. A theory that Charlene's father, Keith, is also convinced of. She hates to dark, and she hates cold weather and rain. My theory is that she's at someone's house. She's got to be in somewhere safe and warm. If you like, if they are in somebody's house, and somebody's obviously looking after them, what do you say to that person? I say that person, please send them home. Please send them home, because it's not helping them and it's not helping a family. Keith hasn't slept in three days. His appearance starts showing signs of extreme exhaustion and stress. On top of his daughter's kidnapping, the media recently uncovered details about his past. Not only did Charlene's mother die of an overdose, but Keith himself struggled with addiction. He was also involved in several robberies years ago. Tabloids threatened to reveal this to the public, wanting to damage his reputation, and sensationalize the narrative, instead of focusing on finding the girls. Back at the station, Officer Payne pays no attention to the tabloid rumors. However, the task of narrowing down a suspect is overwhelming, and so Payne squad contacts an e-spawn child protection team for support. However, they're already busy with an ongoing investigation into a suspicious man repeatedly spotted stalking children near a school yard, unbeknownst to Payne. This fateful conversation will change the course of his career and help uncover the truth about what really happened to the two missing girls on the morning of January 19th. With Charlene and Lisa's lives on the line, police need to act fast, and the only people able to help stop the kidnapper are the girls themselves before it's too late. I'm two young girls have been found out of Hastings. It's almost just too unbelievable to believe. After three days and three nights away from home, Charlene Lunning reunited with her parents. I'm Charlene Lunning. This is my story. January 19th, 1999 starts as a morning like any other. Charlene kisses her father Keith, goodbye, steps outside to meet her friend Lisa and the two walk to school together. We wanted to have a bit of independence, and we've decided to walk the different way down a one-way street. And I've nudged her out of the way because she was about to tread on rubbish that was on the floor. She's stepped out in front of a car with a man driving and then the man has pulled up a little bit further up the road. As the car comes to a stop, both girls feel sorry for almost causing an accident. The man gets out of the car and the girls immediately approach him to apologise. He seemed really relieved that he'd not hit us and he put his arms around us and said, "I'm really glad that you're okay." For the first second, I wasn't worried. I did honestly think that he was just a friendly, older man. The man's gripped titans around their shoulders and instinctively, both girls know something is wrong. In a sudden burst of force, he sees his Lisa and throws her into the trunk of his car. You get to all stranger danger and that goes out the window and I literally froze and just got in the car. I don't want to leave Lisa. I just felt too scared to react. he literally just closed it, got in the car and started driving. Charlene and Lisa are now trapped, confused with no idea where they're being taken. After a long drive, the car finally comes to a stop. The girls are blindfolded as he pulls them out of the car and they walk until they enter a building. They hear a door close behind them. When the man removes their blindfolds, the girls find themselves in a disgusting apartment, the floor is covered in trash and the walls are reek of cigarettes. The man quickly ties their hands and ankles so they can't escape. And soon enough, he drags Charlene into another room, leaving Lisa alone on the sofa. At only 10 years old, Lisa doesn't fully understand what is happening, but when she sees Charlene return with tears in her eyes and the man tells her that it is her turn, she understands and the horror truly sinks in. The man also forces the girls to watch the investigation into their disappearance, as it unfolds on TV. It was difficult seeing our families on the news, but at the same time, it was the only little bit of hope we had. At this point, the police are being flooded by misleading tips and false sightings of the girls. They were seen on a bus and there are two other sightings of them on a train. The fact that we've had three independent sightings, and that of course gives us the great hope that they are out there alive in the world. The man tells the girls that their parents have abandoned them, that he'll be the one taking care of them from now on, a terrifying thought that Charlene cannot accept, no matter what, she has to find a way out. He didn't leave us alone often, but the one time that he did go and get in the shower, we started looking in the kitchen. The two girls dig through the kitchen drawers, looking for clues, or a weapon that they can use against their kidnapper, but the man has already removed all the silverware. There was nothing that we could do to protect ourselves. As they're about to give up, Charlene notices something buried under a pile of trash. I found a letter. It's addressed to Alan Hopkinson, the girls now know the man's name, and where they are being held. We were only in Eastbourne, we wasn't far from Hastin, we're not even far from home, so it gave me a little bit of hope thinking we might get found, and I memorized his whole address, including his postcode. Suddenly, they hear Alan pulling open the shower curtain, he's coming out. The girls rush back to the sofa, the door opens behind them, but using every ounce of courage left in them, they keep their eyes locked on the television, bodies tense, doing everything they can to pretend that nothing has changed. It's January 21st, Charlene is alone, tied up in the living room while Lisa is with Alan, as Charlene silently plans their escape, a familiar voice suddenly interrupts her. It's her father, Keith is on television, speaking directly to her. I remember seeing the pill, and I could see in my dad's eyes that he was begging for me to come home and I could see how hurt he was, but at the same time I could sort of see that he believed that I wasn't alive, that is what I could feel. It's now the night of January 21st, the girls have been trapped with Alan for almost three days, when out of the blue, he tells them it's finally time to go home. The best friends look at each other in disbelief, Charlene feels like she's dreaming as a wave of relief and excitement washes over her. Finally, she'll see her dad again, Alan leads them outside and into the trunk of his car. After an hour, the car stops, Charlene already knows something's wrong because the right to hastings would have been far shorter. When Alan turns off the engine, the young girls can hear seagulls calling and waves crashing and as the man pulls the two girls from the trunk, Charlene and Lisa realize he's brought them to a steep cliffside, an hour away from their home. Alan grabs the girls by the arms and drags them towards the edge. Charlene doesn't understand what's happening, then in one continuous motion, Alan grips Charlene by the collar and leans her over the cliff's edge. I squeeze, I felt like it had come to the end and maybe he was done with us and now he needed to get rid of us. Charlene doesn't see her life flashed before her eyes on the contrary. She feels almost relieved, anything to escape the nightmare she's been going through over the last few days. And then within seconds he's pulled me forward and said I want you for one more day. Back at Alan's apartment, the girls are terrified. He just tried to kill them and something in him has shifted. He's a lot more agitated, pacing back and forth, yelling at the girls and not letting them sleep. By that point, he was pure evil and to be honest, I was sort of giving up hope on that day and I thought this is going to be it, we're going to get murdered. When morning comes, the tense silence is shattered by a knock on the door. The girls freeze and Alan doesn't make any move to answer. I was sitting on the bed tied up when I heard the knock at the door. Then there's another knock and then they'd said that it was the place. Charlene and Lisa look at each other, smiling ear to ear and barely able to believe it. Does this mean they're finally saved? Alan immediately instructs the girls to keep quiet and not move. The officer keeps knocking though and Charlene can see Alan's composure slipping as he paces in the entryway, swearing to himself, but he still makes no move to answer the door and the officer has been knocking for several minutes now. The girls worry he might leave. He knew somebody was in the flat, but he wasn't going to go away until the door was open. Alan slowly turns the key in the lock, opening the door and greeting the officer. The girls are still too scared to make a sound, huddled out of sight in the living room. And as the officer talks to Alan, it becomes clear he's not here for the girls. In fact, he's come to see Alan Hopkinson about stalking complaints from kids at a nearby elementary school. He tells Alan to come down to the station for questioning, Hopkinson grabs his wallet and jack it and begins to walk out, but it's clear the officer has no idea that Charlene and Lisa are trapped in the apartment. Then, almost as an afterthought, Alan suddenly blurt out, "Oh, by the way, I've got the two missing girls from Hastings." The officer is in complete shock. This visit was supposed to be the Eastborne Child Protection team's final priority before joining Charlene and Lisa's investigation with Detective Payne. However, unbeknownst to everyone, both teams were actually looking for the same man, Alan Hopkinson. And my old police officer come into the room with a massive smile on his face and he literally said, "We've been looking for you, too, and we was just so happy." When the girl step outside, the light hits them, blindingly bright, after three days in the dark apartment, the news of their rescue miraculously alive spreads like wildfire in the media and amongst the public, but officer Payne makes sure their parents hear it first before the rest of the world catches up. We have had a very positive line of inquiry, and two young girls have been found out of Hastings. A man is in custody. It was just absolutely amazing to find them in those circumstances. We'd found the girls now in the rest of history. I was really great. I'm really nervous. I'm really, I'm really chuffed. What I heard about two minutes ago, I was, you just said that basically two girls have found in Eastborne and a man has been arrested, but basically, yeah, it's been confirmed that it is Charlene and these things really shut. Really old and bonix. Great news. Kids don't come back when they've been abducted. It's as simple as that, so I was amazed. I've never experienced anything like it. It was crazy. I couldn't get out of the police car without all these reporters around me, and I remember my dad ran up to me, and he wasn't a cuddly sort of man, but the first thing he'd done was run up to me. It grabbed me so tight, and it was just such a relief. Back at Hopkinson's apartment, police uncover numerous pieces of disturbing evidence proving just how dangerous he really was. At the block of fats in Eastborne, where the girls were found by a police officer, a forensic team has now finished its detailed examination of the apartment. Some of the things that were found that really, really concerning was there were images of children. There was no book, they would have the class details with the names. It was like maps of schools and routes in, routes out. Over the next few days, Charlene and Lisa are brought into the station to tell pain everything, how they were taken, what happened at Hopkinson's apartment, the terrifying cliff moment. At only 10 years old, the two girls bravely explained the events in detail. As hard as it is to relive, there's a lot at stake. But that man did to them was hideous and unforgivable, but they're alive. It was last night that the detective superintendent who coordinated the message search of the girls confirmed that the man from Eastborne who'd been detained for over 32 hours had been charged. Alan Edward Hopkinson, 45 years, was charged with 10 offences, including kidnapping, false imprisonment, and abduction, and other challenges relating to serious assaults. While Hopkinson awaits trial in East Sussex, his lawyer appears on TV. He wishes to make it clear that he's very sorry about what happened to the little girls, and he does hope that they can put metal. is behind them, given the course of time, and he's also asked me to say that he wishes that he himself could put the clock back. In a weird way, I felt like he was playing mind games still even after, because it was like we had to be grateful that we weren't going through a court case. On May 28th, Keith leaves Charlene at home and heads to the sentencing. He wants to see the face of the man who took his daughter, as the verdict is read, nine life sentences. Keith is relieved, a sentiment shared by detective pain when he addresses the media one last time before closing the case for good. He is a rinsely dangerous man, and he should never, ever be released into society, unless we can be totally satisfied that he wouldn't re-offend again. And as I suspect that will never happen. Once he got sentenced, that was it for me. I was so grateful to just be home that I just thought, well, he's never going to affect me. He's never going to come near me again, so I'm not going to let him win. Public outcry also forces a change in UK school policies. In Charlene and Lisa's case, valuable time was lost when their disappearance went unreported by the school for over eight hours. Now, as a result of the case, teachers must act immediately and notify parents when a child is absent. After returning home, the press airs a public reunion with Charlene and Lisa, along with both their families. The nation watches closely, desperate to know if the two girls are all right after everything they went through. The first time we saw each other, we just held each other and we was just so glad that we've done this and we've overcome it and we're here and we're alive and we're back where we should be. Lisa, what was the first thing you did when you saw your parents? I went over and cousin them so much. And did you miss the most? My boyfriend? And my boyfriend? Yeah, right. You got it. What's your boyfriend's name? Stevie. Stevie, that was her boyfriend at the time, Stevie, and my face is like, oh, but she'd mentioned that she missed her boyfriend. As they get older, the girls start growing apart, sharing that kind of trauma is not easy. But over time, the two survivors eventually rekindle their friendship and even write a book together to tell their story and reclaim their voice. I just always know that no matter what, we will always have that special bond. She's got a special place in my heart forever. I do get the option to write to the girl board and give my opinion on how I'm feeling, how life's going, but I choose not to, because he'll get to read whatever I write and I don't want any communication with him. He will think that he is still in my head and he's not. He doesn't have any time in my brain, he doesn't take up my life. It's made me very appreciative of life. I'm really proud. I'm really proud of who I am, I'm really proud of the story, I'm proud that I was found and proud that I'm alive. Don't let our things ruin your whole life. In the last chapter, Lisa finishes with these words, "We will be best friends for life, because we were abducted together, but because we love one another."