Madeline Shoaf: And we waited. And we waited. That was another long, sleepless night.

At Elizabeth’s house on the edge of the wood, the surge of excitement prompted by that text message sank in the bitter recognition of another dead end.

They had searched the place the message said she was and found nothing.

So who really sent the message anyway?

Was it Elizabeth?

There might be a way to find out.

The sheriff made a call, put some technical people to work on the electronic footprint the phone left behind when that message bounced off some local cell towers.

Sheriff McCaskill: And we were able to come together with the marshal service and triangulate between the three cell towers in the area and get the number. And when the number came back that's when the big break came.

A "big" break indeed.

The phone, it turned out, belonged to someone well known at the sheriff's office.

In fact, he was a wanted man; they'd been looking for him for almost a year.

His name was Vinson Filyaw, 36.

He lived right in Elizabeth’s neighborhood with his girlfriend Cindy Hall – or at least that's where his single-wide trailer home was. Whenever the law turned up, he wasn't there.

But he must have Elizabeth.

So now, armed with a search warrant, deputies rushed right over. And what they found there? Well, it wasn't Elizabeth. But it wasn't good.

Sheriff McCaskill: I guess that's the sickest I was -- I ever got. But we looked around, and put everything together: the facts that, you know, he abused alcohol and drugs, the fact that there was so much pornography in the house, the fact that this young lady was missing. You put them all three together and you think about what you've got. And it really -- it really scared you.

Vinson Filyaw wasn't home, but Captain David Thomley discovered the reason -- one of the reasons -- he'd been able to escape detection for so long.

Capt. David Thomley: In the trailer, in the back bedroom that he shared with Miss Hall, the first thing that caught my attention was the fact that there was a mattress on the floor without the railing. And after we removed the mattress, we could see that there had been a hole cut in the floor of the mobile home ... And we kept looking and we found that under the trailer, you could tell where there had been some activity under there, where somebody had actually been dropping through the floor. And making footprints –

Keith Morrison: And then, if you guys came to the trailer, he could just drop down in there.

David Thomley: Right.

Then the captain had a look around Vinson’s back yard. Today it looks like nothing more than a trash pit, but back then Thomley discovered somebody had been digging underground hiding places -- bunkers.

David Thomley: This is actually the first bunker that we located behind Cindy Hall and Vincent Filyaw's residence. When we found it had a door, it was constructed with a roof. You could see it but I don't think most people would have realized that's what was actually there until you opened the door and entered.

Keith Morrison: What else did you find?

David Thomley: We located a, what we described as a fairly fresh bunker located also behind the trailer.

Keith Morrison: In that house over there?

David Thomley: In that little shed there. We found a fresh mound of dirt that was covered by a carpet, a piece of carpeting. And we actually entered that bunker. It was around six or seven feet deep at that point.

Bunkers? Underground hiding places? Escape hatches?

Perhaps Vinson dug those places because of the other thing detectives found.

It was an outstanding arrest warrant, based on what Vinson allegedly did to a young girl named Amber, or as Vinson used to call her, Peanut.

Amber: I was 11 when it first started. My mom just decided he was good enough to move in with, so, in the fifth grade we moved over here.

Keith Morrison: And lived with Vinson?

Amber: Yeah.

If Vinson had taken Elizabeth as she walked home through the woods that day, no one could have a better idea than Amber of how she might be suffering. Amber is 15 now, but the appalling memory is fresh.

Amber: It was an October night and he was drunk. And then he had came home and he had told me that he wanted to play a game.

Keith Morrison: What did he do to you?

Amber: He used his fingers. The farthest I can say he went was one night he was doing that and then it's like I black out and he's on top of me. And that's all I can remember.

That went on for months, Amber says, because Vinson later claimed she was given Benadryl by her mom so she would sleep thru the abuse.

Amber: I just know that I’d wake up and my jeans would be off and it scared the living hell out of me.

But there was more. Amber noticed Vinson digging what he called a storm cellar in the back yard. That, of course, is the one Captain Thomley discovered when he searched the place much later.

Amber: He had always told us that it'd just be for storms but there's times where he'd put me in that hole and lock it from the outside and so I’d be struck in there until he'd let me out.

Vinson had warned her, she said: never breathe a word. But finally, one terror overcoming another, she told a trusted teacher.

Video   Not the suspect’s first time As authorities search for 14-year-old Elizabeth Shoaf, they learn their main suspect is already wanted for abusing another girl. Dateline NBC

And that's why Vinson became a wanted man and why, in the search for Elizabeth, the small bubble of suspicion that she was a runaway now burst.

The cops knew instinctively that Filyaw would be following the sexual criminal's pattern of escalating behaviors.

It would be worse for Elizabeth than it was for Amber.

Vinson's talent for hiding in plain sight would have improved.

Sheriff Steve McCaskill: Just what we were all afraid of, that we had someone who was out of control, someone who had already committed criminal sexual conduct and who had another victim somewhere doing the same thing.

Keith Morrison: There's a progression in these things.

Sheriff Steve McCaskill: We felt he was progressing to become a serial killer. I had absolutely no idea we would find this young lady alive, not with what I felt like was going on.

Back here at their house, Elizabeth’s parents once again let their hopes rise. At least there was a suspect, someone to look for. A name.

But they were told some things about the man -- not everything.

And so they did not fully realize as they talked together here at home that their horrible situation had just gotten worse.

Madeline Shoaf: You're just sitting there praying that the worst hasn't happen to her, you know. That he doesn't harm her, you know.

But they did not, could not, expect what happened next.

They were at home, watching the news on TV.

And there it was: the text message, the details, a picture of Vinson.

What were the police thinking? Filyaw could be watching. Why would they tip him off?

If he saw that report, and realized that Elizabeth had somehow managed to sneak out that text message, he'd surely kill her.

Madeline Shoaf: I was furious. They did put her life at risk.

Sheriff McCaskill: Well, we presented it to the media because we wanted him to know that we knew.

Keith Morrison: Wasn't that dangerous in some way?

Sheriff McCaskill: I mean let's face it, he could have killed her at any time. I was thinking it was a risk. But I was thinking it was a risk worth taking.

The risk was Elizabeth’s life -- if she was alive. She hadn't been seen for nine days.

Still, if they didn't flush him out now, then when?

Keith Morrison: Were you alone at this point, right around here, or?

It was the next morning, just after sunrise.

Captain David Thomley and a few others worked their way into the thickest part of the wooded tangle, an area too difficult for easy movement.

David Thomley: We had started a what we call a "line search,” where we spread out our officers ten, fifteen yards so we can see and communicate with each other. And we just start walking the woods. I was, I guess, second from the end of that particular line. We'd been in the search maybe 30 minutes.

That's when he heard it: a sound that is for him unforgettable.

MORE FROM CRIME STORIES

Crime stories Section Front

Justice halted: The murdered prosecutor Hard lessons: Teacher-student love turns lethal Bullies caught on tape: Aggressors, or victims? Clark Rockefeller: Famous name, infamous life How the phony French 'Rockefeller' conned Americans The crossbow incident Mystery of the missing millionaire The devil's business Deadly intentions Murder on the mind Crime stories Section Front   Add Crime stories headlines to your news reader: