Unmasking the Long Island Dungeon Kidnapper | The Disturbing case of Katie Beers | UNSEEN

(bell rings) - Look, we're free. - In 1982, on the 30th of December, right between Christmas and New Year's Eve, a little girl named Katie Bears was born in the town of Masthick Beach, Long Island. But to people familiar with this case, she's ended up being known as the girl in the wall. - Um, tell me something. - Did you own me on the bed? - I just want my door to back, please, bigger back. - Um, and then I'll scream, I'm like rained out. I heard a saying man was coming after her for the night and she said, oh my God, here he comes. - He's fine, he's sending me. - Our biggest concern is that we find this child, you know, well and safe. - My hand hit a nail. - The last time I saw her was when she was walking towards the machine, I started getting scared. - Um, the last thing that little cubby hauled. - Kidnapped, assaulted, trapped, and chained up nine-year-old Katie Beers was abandoned by her mom, then used as a slave by her godmother and her sexually deviant husband before eventually getting kidnapped and trapped in an underground dungeon. For over three weeks, the Long Island police dug deep into this menagerie of characters, each more suspicious than the next in hopes of getting their hands on the captive nine-year-old. - She's behind the wall. She's behind the wall, she's not alive. - But to their surprise, she was already at it. She knew how to save herself. She tried every strategy she could to make him change his mind and ultimately prevailed. This little girl, a 10-year-old, changed a kidnapper's mind. - In the small hamlet of Bayshore, Long Island, busy little girl Katie is living a Cinderella-like existence. Since her mother abandoned her, she has been enslaved by her godmother, Linda, and her husband, Sal. - I was there servant, whether it was to do the laundry, to clean the bathrooms, to cook dinner. That was my purpose to her growing up. I was pretty much her slave. - But her service to Linda was the least of her concern, since the real monster in that house was none other than her own uncle. - From the time that I was two years old, I was sexually abused by my godmother's husband. - When she was seven years old, Katie had enough, and she tried to tell her godmother of the truth about her husband, but her reaction only made it worse. - She told me that I was a (bleep) liar and to get out of her face. - Katie wasn't allowed to attend school and grew up completely isolated. The only friend she had was Jonas Bosito, the typical family friend. But to her, their relationship was special. - I really didn't have any friends my own age. I think in my childhood, the thing that probably made me the happiest was when I got to spend time with John. I would say I loved him. He was always confident that somebody that I would trust. - Amid all of the abuse she already had to go through, Katie's life was about to take a turn for the worse. - Two days before my 10th birthday, I was abducted. - On that day, Katie was left with John, and together they went to spaceplex, her favorite place in all of Long Island. - At spaceplex, you could ride motorcycles, shoot baskets, or even ride a dinosaur. - For my 10th birthday, it was going to be just big John and I. - John was nicknamed big John by the local kids because he was a well-known member of the Big Brother Big Sister program. - Whenever we would go to spaceplex, I was happy. There was never really a care. There were kids running all over the place. - But her birthday would soon turn sour as the worst thing that could ever happen to a child came to be. - When I saw a baby, I didn't see it, I could see it. I didn't see it. (crying) So, I don't know if you're even coming back on your phone. Katie. - That voice, calling out Katie's name, is Linda, her godmother. But while she was contacting the police, they were already on the scene with Big John at spaceplex. They evacuated the site and searched for the rest of the day, but all of these efforts were in vain. - He picked me up and carried me into the closet where I realized he was opening up a door to expose a tunnel. - Whoever got their hands on her was an extremely apt individual. That tunnel was set up behind the walls of his house and carefully crafted by an expert. Katie was forced to crawl until she reached a trap door. And then he exposes this hole and he opens up this door into this room. The only word that I have to describe this room was a dungeon, a place that I couldn't escape. - Inside, Katie saw a dirty mattress and a makeshift soundproof casket surrounded by chains. - My captor looked at me and said, this is your home now. - I heard a saying man was coming after her the night and she said, oh my God, here he comes. So by the time I picked up the phone to get, to talk to her, I got nothing. - This is all of what the godmother Linda had to say about the ominous call she received on the day of the abduction. This was enough to concern Dominic Verone, the head of the Long Island Police kidnapping division. - By the time she gets to the machine, Katie had already hung up. That disturbed me because there's been a lot of times when these abductions are not really abductions, they made it look like abductions. And statistically, he was right. - She swore she'd come home around. - As over 95% of kidnappings are actually perpetrated by close family members, but this wasn't the only unusual thing about that call. - It just struck me as not believable. And I mean, he was disturbed by the fact that a nine-year-old child would use the word kidnapped. Also, how does a nine-year-old child get away from an abductor and able to use the telephone? But he had to put his suspicions on the side for now. The priority was Katie. As every minute counted in that kind of case, they needed to find her and fast. - As much as I was concerned about some of the problems with the call, you did hear a girl in distress. This girl was in danger. - There was absolutely no trace of Katie at spaceplex, almost as if she was never there. The only clue they had was the recording of Katie's distressed call to Linda, so Verone decided to bring out the big guns. - We sent the audio tape of that telephone call, as well as the device that it was recorded on. Juke the FBI. - While he was waiting for the FBI, Verone continued his investigation. Naturally, he started by looking into the most likely suspects. - The main players were Marilyn Beers, the natural mother, a dysfunctional, incompetent mother, Linda Ingolary, the godmother. - My main concern is to let people know how much I can add for her. - She was used by the godmother to run all kinds of earrings. Sailing Larry had been charged with sexual abuse on Katie Beers. - The whole girl don't want to live a master speech with her mother. - But there was also a fourth suspect, outside of the family, the last man to see her before the abduction. - Join us for zero, not a relative, but a family friend. He said something dirty happened. - The FBI eventually shared what they found with him. It seemed that Katie's call was made from a phone booth in front of spaceplex, which is weird since they still had found no trace of her inside of the recreation center. And she apparently tried to call Linda 19 times before she decided to leave a message on her answering machine. But all of these clues were nothing compared to the result of the audio analysis, the FBI carried out on the call. - I never forget the call I got from the scientist at the FBI lab, who gave me the next bit of breaking news. It wasn't actually Katie who broke free and made that call. It was a recording. It was someone who tape recorded Katie and wanted us to believe of it to seem that the call came from that telephone booth next to spaceplex. - The detective was starting to put the pieces together and it became evident that the culprit fooled them all. The kidnapping of Katie has been used as a front to something far more sinister. - The phone call was a scripted plot by an individual to make us think that Katie Beers was abducted. - Back at the dungeon, Katie knew what was going to happen and decided to fight as hard as she could. She noticed the door of the casket was loose and went at it. - Eventually I had kicked it long enough and hard enough that that snapped and I was able to kind of safely exit. - To her, this was such a breakthrough. She thought she may finally be able to find a way to escape, almost forgetting that the casket was itself inside of the dungeon. - Then I had nowhere to go. I remember trying to like go on the shelf and see if there was anything there that I could use for some sort of self-defense and there were a bunch of keys up there. So unknowingly, I grabbed one of those keys and hid it underneath the mattress. - Before she had the chance to try to come up with a way to confront him, she heard him coming. It was too late now as the footsteps started to get louder and louder. - As soon as he came down, he saw the door open and he then raped me for the first time. For the rest of her time in captivity, her abductor would assault her multiple times every day but out of respect for Katie. We won't be covering any of her subsequent assaults. - I was able to have the TV on 24/7. It was on the news that I saw that the police had figured out where the call had come from. They knew that it was pre-recorded. - This information led the police to put together a few theories regarding Katie's whereabouts. - There's still questions you have. - Meanwhile, Katie was able to hear each of her family members testimonies by watching the news, starting with Marilyn, her biological mother. - She's my daughter back. - When I saw Marilyn on the news, I think I cried a lot because I could see in her eyes that she had missed me and that she wanted me to be found. - That gave me some relief and some hope. - Her mother was convinced that Linda and Sal were behind the kidnapping because they lost her custody after she filed charges against Sal for Katie's sexual abuse. - When Sal, my god, mother's husband, was on the news saying that he wanted me to be found. I was angry. - If anyone had motive for her to be abducted or murdered, it was, hey, who faced serious criminal charges for sexual abuse. - But Verone wasn't so quick to jump to conclusions as he also had good reasons to believe that not only Marilyn could be the culprit, but that she may also have tried to frame someone else for her alleged crime. - My mother, Marilyn Veers and Little John, Katie's brother, became aware of what was going on with Katie and there was ample motive that they may set up an abduction just to get her away from a bad situation. - They'd be able to walk her out, have Katie make the phone call, tape record it, put it right there, and leave John Esposito holding the bags. - After a while, the investigation into the family members wore down. Each and every one of them had solid alibis and no clues were discovered at any of their residences. So the police started to look into the last man on the list, the most unlikely suspect. - The investigators retraced John Esposito's footsteps, but it was 30 minutes to an hour that we couldn't fully explain and appreciate. We obtained a search warrant and get a full inspection of John Esposito's residents, but there was no evidence of the crime. - The background check came in the next day and turned out to be extremely suspicious. Once they contacted the Big Brother Big Sisters Association, the program the suspect proudly claimed to be a member of, they learned the dark truth about Big John. - John Esposito painted himself as a Big Brother, detectives discovered that he tried to join that organization and they did a background investigation on him. - We learned that he had been involved in abduction of a seven year old child, 15 years prior to Katie's disappearance and they rolled him out as being a Big Brother. - We were ramping up the pressure on him, following him wherever he went. - This caught the attention of the media who also started to scour around his house. - Police searched Esposito's property, the main house and the converted garage out back where he actually lived. - I knew that the number one suspect was Esposito. Like I could see the news was camped out in front of his house. - And if you haven't guessed yet, the kidnapper was, in fact, John Esposito, aka Big John. All along, the man Katie called her best friend was actually planning and scheming until the day he finally kidnapped her. - Big John was probably the last person that I could have imagined having ever hurt me in such a way. - Katie was relieved that the police finally got on the right track, but at this point, Verone doesn't have anything to incriminate Esposito and even worse, he still had no idea what he did with Katie. - As each day went by, they were becoming more convinced that what we were gonna find was not live Katie beers, but a body of Katie beers. A few days later, Katie woke up in the dungeon. - Esposito had put a chain around my neck. I had realized that the key that I had grabbed was actually for the padlock. So I was able to at least release myself prior to unattaching it. I would count how many links were on the end of it and up to the wall as well. - When she would hear Esposito coming, she would quickly chain herself up again in the exact same way he did, but this tended to happen less and less since the police convinced that he was behind her disappearance, almost never left him alone. Instead, they kept an extremely tight surveillance schedule around him and his house and Verone even went inside to interrogate him. - And I could see a drain out of his face, the concern. I was very disturbed and very concerned that John Esposito had something to do with her abduction. - Out of options, Esposito started making desperate requests to Katie, but the little girl knew better. - Let's make police believe that you're dead. Play dead, I'll take a picture of you. Once police see that, they'll give up on you. And Katie, the bright little girl, wise little girl that she was knew that that could be her death sentence. And she refused to play dead and let him take a picture of her. - From that point on, I rarely slept and I also did not eat any of the food that he could have altered because I was fearful that he might put something in the food, a sedative, a sleeping pill, something. So that way he was able to get the photo that he wanted so the police would stop looking for me. - After this, Katie decided to confront him to barrage him with questions in hopes of making him realize the insanity behind his actions. - How I was going to like go to school, what I was gonna do to survive. I wanted to get married and have kids and he would always have witty remarks right away. Like, oh, you'll have kids with me, you'll marry me, you'll do this with me. So I would always tell him, no, I don't want to do that. I was disgusted. I was 10 years old. I was trying to get him to think about the long term of him kidnapping me. - Esposito began to crack between the overwhelming police presence, Verone constantly tailing him and Katie's incessant nagging and questioning. He confided to her that he was planning to either end his life or run away. - She knew that if she let it happen, he would probably kill her or leave her to die in the dungeon. - I told him that I was sick and I wasn't feeling well. I think between the police department laying on him at his house all the time and my questions and then me saying that I wasn't feeling well, finally wore him down. - So all of this pressure is mounting. He finally speaks to his attorney. He says, I have something very important to tell you and he tells him, I know where Katie is. And the attorney says, what do you mean? He says she's behind the wall. - And this is Verone and everybody else involved in the case, understood that John Esposito wasn't your usual kidnapper but an actual mastermind. - Esposito escorted police and the district attorney through all the steps of unearthing the dungeon and police watched incredulously as he went through this 30 plus step process of revealing the dungeon that he had built. - There was a bookshelf with wheels on it and you'd have to pull that out. And then there was vinyl laid on the floor and you pulled the vinyl back. And then there is a 200 pound concrete block that's there. And you had to know to go into the garage and get this block and tackle, to hook it in the ceiling, to hook it into the 200 pound block and then raise this block up. And then you drop down about seven foot into this underground chamber and then there's a passageway. And as you crawl, you dropped into this underground chamber where Katie was kept. - Apparently this whole affair had been in preparation for years before he took her. - I had realized that I had actually played in this underground dungeon while it was being built. So he had this vision to build this underground dungeon. And when he had this vision, it was specifically to kidnap me. - When Verone finally broke in, Katie couldn't believe what was happening to her. - The door opened and there was a man that I didn't recognize. And I remember them saying, we're the police, you're safe now. - Everyone's just overjoyed, she was alive. - You all right, Katie? - Verone was similarly surprised, but for a different reason. - Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. - Maybe it's Maybelline. - We were amazed, you see a nine year old look like she just come back from a trip to the movies. She's sitting in the sofa, bubbly, upbeat. And we just knew from that moment on that she was gonna be a survive. - Now in the hands of the police, Katie finally revealed the truth about what happened. - Um, and you were supposed to be safe once they never did. - John Esposito had confessed to everything. Esposito was convicted of kidnapping the first degree, and he was sentenced to 15 years to life. - Not only did the detective save her from Esposito, but throughout his investigation, Verona uncovered all of the abuse she had suffered at the hands of the people who were supposed to take care of her and decided to place her into foster care. - I entered foster care as soon as I was released from captivity and that was a salvation for me. - I had a mom, I had a dad, I had brothers and sisters. It was absolutely fantastic. - They also continued the legal procedure against her uncle Sal, and so. was essentially put him behind bars. To this day, Katie will always be grateful towards her own, as he saved her in more ways than one. For 17 days, I was his life. He was one of the ones that just did not give up, and I'm grateful of the relationship that I have with him. I wrote a letter to Katie after the whole thing was over. Dear Catherine, I don't know you very well, but what I do know is enough to show. You as a remarkable young girl, with a strong determination to live. My only wish is that we could have found you sooner, and you didn't have to be down there so long. Not many adults could endure or survive what you went through. Be proud and continue to be strong. I know you will be successful. In the end, she was a true survivor, refusing to let her past bring her down. Instead, she achieved everything she ever hoped for. My life is exactly what I had always wanted. Two parents who love me, and husband and two kids, and a wonderful family, and tearing up. He tried to trap and use her, but she liberated herself. Today, she is a best-selling author, and works with a national center for missing and exploited children. I think the best part of my story is knowing that you can recover, and you can persevere and your life is 100% what you make it to be. She wants every survivor of any kind of abuse to know that they are more than what happened to them. I was determined to not let my childhood traumas come into my adulthood. They've shaped me to who I am, but they don't define me.