Speaker 1: From My Heart Radio. This is missing on nine eleven,
Speaker 1: the story of one woman who vanished on the eve
Speaker 1: of history and my quest to find her. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: John Wallzac. This is the sound of the lobby of
Speaker 1: two World Trade Center, the South Tower, captured on August
Speaker 1: one by sound engineer Benchia Ben, a film and TV
Speaker 1: veteran whose credits include The Wire, Fargo and The Big Lebowski,
Speaker 1: made twenty recordings that day. They stand out as high
Speaker 1: quality audio artifacts. None have ever been published until now.
Speaker 1: Close your eyes, listen. You're in the lobby of the
Speaker 1: World Trade Center. You're in an elevator. Only two weeks
Speaker 1: before nine eleven. All right, m y y way. It
Speaker 1: was the time when they have a tar event trying
Speaker 1: to get thing. Only seventeen days later and again Darien
Speaker 1: said that Will Trade said, yeah, you fellas have a
Speaker 1: tree one here you set up to where the building?
Speaker 1: Can you go to pay that because we have injured
Speaker 1: all over the place. Okay, all right, thank you, very
Speaker 1: sick Billy want lobby getting up in the lobby of
Speaker 1: two lobby and Bill okay, okay, we have like the
Speaker 1: every big in fact, we have vengeance. Go over and
Speaker 1: building four uh, billy everyday air grating, body works. They're
Speaker 1: having numerous people were broken light who was the blood?
Speaker 1: They want to know where we would pretty game in
Speaker 1: the buildings so they can bring everybody down two World
Speaker 1: in the lobby, the lobby. Okay, okay, all right, friend.
Speaker 1: This recording was made at AM. By that point, thousands
Speaker 1: of victims have been evacuated away from the towers, out
Speaker 1: of the danger zone. But there was a triage area
Speaker 1: set up in the South Tower lobby for victims who
Speaker 1: couldn't walk. What snayha, they're helping. It's possible, but unlikely anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking to find out. I'm a Ragius kid nurse.
Speaker 1: I'm currently working right now and I wanted to help out.
Speaker 1: I know they have a triage place set up at
Speaker 1: West Chamber. Yes, is there anything else? Uh? You know,
Speaker 1: any you know path I could take to get there
Speaker 1: at the help? Um, what are they doing? And they
Speaker 1: calling in nurses or what? I don't think they're not
Speaker 1: calling in nurses and das in here, right and it's
Speaker 1: realized I haven't Yeah, no, now they're not calling us.
Speaker 1: Who the dators into the site? You needed to stay
Speaker 1: at the hospitals through all hospitals or want a hospital. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they cure. You're working right now at Bassol. I'm working
Speaker 1: in a in a hospital right now. I was going
Speaker 1: to uh go there. Okay. Now they want over the
Speaker 1: docks and right now they want all the dassors and
Speaker 1: notions to stay at the Bassole. Okay, okay, right. First
Speaker 1: responders wanted people out, not in, even if they were
Speaker 1: well intentioned doctors or nurses. One more tape AM a
Speaker 1: call from the south tower lobby the emergency two World
Speaker 1: Trade Center. We have injured people in the lobby of
Speaker 1: the building. They need medical attention. They're on the south
Speaker 1: side of the building. However, they're not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to come in that way. They have to figure away
Speaker 1: into it because we've got the bree all over the
Speaker 1: outside of the building. Okay, okay, uh that's two World
Speaker 1: Trade Center, right, that's correct, Two World Trade Center, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: And they're on the south side of the lobby. Actually
Speaker 1: have more than one occupant engine, but we have looks
Speaker 1: like serious injuries. They got the guy sitting up on
Speaker 1: a chair. I don't know how that happened, but Jerry
Speaker 1: reported hold up the mn SO, hold on paper. That's wow. No,
Speaker 1: I don't mean why we've got any and you in
Speaker 1: the lobby. Yes, we all first floor Loop Street. It's
Speaker 1: between Liberty Street and Church Street, the building and West Street. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's already a job, man, it's it's E. M.
Speaker 1: S is not picking up. Okay, Well maybe you could
Speaker 1: keep trying. I gave you my infrom and I kind
Speaker 1: of gotta get gold. This was my job. Okay, Look,
Speaker 1: we're sorry, Slarry, Bill, I S E. And what's the celephone?
Speaker 1: Have you calling from? Seven? Okay? I supposed to be there. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're welcome, bye, bye luck. Five minutes later, the tower collapsed.
Speaker 1: Nine eleven may have been the most photographed event in history,
Speaker 1: but nearly all footage was captured outside the towers. From inside,
Speaker 1: we have nine one one calls, voicemail, dispatched tapes, oral histories,
Speaker 1: and emails, but very few photos and videos. It's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine now, but in two thousand one, no smartphones,
Speaker 1: no social media. As it pertains to snay Ha. That's
Speaker 1: critical because any image of her in the towers solves
Speaker 1: this case. Surpri using Lee, there was no comprehensive list
Speaker 1: of footage captured in the Towers on nine eleven, so
Speaker 1: I made my own. In the end, I confirmed forty
Speaker 1: five photos. Thirty three were taken by one man, John Labriola,
Speaker 1: as he evacuated the North Tower, twelve were taken by
Speaker 1: five other people, and two are unconfirmed. As for video,
Speaker 1: we have dramatic footage from the North Tower captured by
Speaker 1: French filmmaker Jewels not a plus one other short unconfirmed video.
Speaker 1: So forty five confirmed photos, one confirmed video, to unconfirmed photos,
Speaker 1: one unconfirmed video. That's it. The most complete account of
Speaker 1: what it was like in the Towers on nine eleven
Speaker 1: is a book called One and two Minutes by Jim
Speaker 1: Dwyer and Kevin Flynn of the New York Times. It's
Speaker 1: a remarkable work of narrative journalism. I read it twice.
Speaker 1: Jim died last year. Kevin still works for the Times.
Speaker 1: We focused on the floors that seem to have the
Speaker 1: most substantial influence on the day, meaning the floors where
Speaker 1: there are the planes that actually struck, and then the
Speaker 1: floors above, and we split them up among the five reporters.
Speaker 1: For example, I had the windows on the World, which
Speaker 1: was the top of the of the North Tower, and
Speaker 1: began to try to construct what had happened at Windows
Speaker 1: on the World. I told you I located forty nine
Speaker 1: photos and videos taken inside the towers during the attacks.
Speaker 1: But there are two things I haven't told you. First,
Speaker 1: at least one photo was taken out Windows on the
Speaker 1: World on top of the North Tower, only fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: before flight eleven hit the tower. It shows three men
Speaker 1: at the risk Waters Financial Technology conference. It was taken
Speaker 1: by a Bloomberg photographer who left right before the planehead
Speaker 1: I don't know the photographer's name. Did they take any
Speaker 1: other photos that morning, I don't know neither, just Kevin Flynn.
Speaker 1: I never had the name of the photographer. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: someone who took some pictures and then them developed. And
Speaker 1: it may have been that Bloomberg just wanted to protect
Speaker 1: the privacy of that person. Maybe they were upset about
Speaker 1: having been there and escaped or whatever. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: never got that name. Kevin and I also discussed snay
Speaker 1: House case. The North Day footage is at least all
Speaker 1: incompensing to the point where I think that she probably
Speaker 1: would have reported in to the command desk had she arrived.
Speaker 1: I mean, she sounds like she was a responsible person right,
Speaker 1: And so I don't think she would just like have
Speaker 1: freelance and gone up the stairs without talking to those people.
Speaker 1: And I feel like she would have been captured on
Speaker 1: camera in the North Tower. So I think that looking
Speaker 1: for her in the South tower makes more sense because
Speaker 1: there's no footage of the South tower. Basically Kevin saying
Speaker 1: that if ran into the North Tower, she likely would
Speaker 1: have gone to the lobby command center. Then day footage
Speaker 1: gives us a good view of the North Tower lobby
Speaker 1: and there's no sign of snay huh. So if she
Speaker 1: in into the towers, it's likely she went to the
Speaker 1: South tower. And there are zero photos and no video
Speaker 1: taken in the South Tower lobby besides Labriola and the
Speaker 1: nor Day Brothers. I don't think that there and there's
Speaker 1: certainly some photographs from outside the building from taking from
Speaker 1: the news photographers, but actually inside the building, I don't
Speaker 1: think that there's much beyond that. Yeah, So I've been
Speaker 1: able to document, well, the vast majority of what exists,
Speaker 1: like you said, is the no Day Brothers and John
Speaker 1: Labriola's photos. Past that, I've been able to document nine
Speaker 1: other photographers and videographers, but all extremely limited many just
Speaker 1: a single image from inside the building. From inside the building.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking at it right now, and there are
Speaker 1: three there's a videographer and two photographers. I haven't been
Speaker 1: able to confirm, but what I have one picture from three,
Speaker 1: from one from the one, five from to from the
Speaker 1: sixty one, and then the Were you aware that the
Speaker 1: FBI recovered a disposable camera at ground zero that included
Speaker 1: images taken on the upper level of one of the
Speaker 1: towers and developed the images after nine eleven. No, this
Speaker 1: is the second thing I haven't told you. It's fascinated
Speaker 1: me for eighteen years. Shortly after nine eleven, the FBI
Speaker 1: located a disposable camera at ground zero in the pocket
Speaker 1: of a man who jumped or fell from one of
Speaker 1: the towers. No one I interviewed, authors, experts, curators knew
Speaker 1: about these photos. I first heard about them in two
Speaker 1: thousand three when I read a Baltimore Sun article by
Speaker 1: Laura Sullivan profiling the FBI's Explosives Unit. Three paragraphs immediately
Speaker 1: captivated me. I cut them out and saved them all
Speaker 1: these years. Quote. There is one other piece of evidence
Speaker 1: of the events leading to the collapse of the towers,
Speaker 1: that few outside the unit. No of unit members found
Speaker 1: a disposable camera and the pocket of a man who
Speaker 1: jumped from one of the tower. When they developed the
Speaker 1: film months later, investigators found a chilling chronology of the
Speaker 1: man's experience that morning. The photos show the man, who
Speaker 1: appears to be a construction worker, standing at the window
Speaker 1: as the other tower burns behind him. The photos, which
Speaker 1: include pictures he took as well it's a few taken
Speaker 1: by someone else, also capture other jumpers falling. The man
Speaker 1: looks stricken, his face one of shock and disbelief. His
Speaker 1: family is aware of the photos, investigators said, but it's
Speaker 1: not asked to see them. The units investigators were initially
Speaker 1: confused by the film because the last pictures on the
Speaker 1: roll show the man laughing among friends at a birthday party.
Speaker 1: They took the film to a photo expert in the unit,
Speaker 1: who explained that disposable camera film is developed in reverse.
Speaker 1: Laura is now an award winning investigative journalist for NPR.
Speaker 1: She wrote that article at the dawn of social media.
Speaker 1: It was quickly forgotten, but it's stuck with me for
Speaker 1: more than a decade. I've tried to get the photos
Speaker 1: from the FBI. I failed, And I know what you're thinking,
Speaker 1: Why do you need these photos? If they're graphic and upsetting,
Speaker 1: If the man's family doesn't want to see them, why
Speaker 1: should you to me? There there's a pruder film of
Speaker 1: nine eleven, the only photos captured high in the towers,
Speaker 1: presumably above the point of impact during the attacks before
Speaker 1: the towers fell. Their singular and unique a point of view,
Speaker 1: unlike any other documenting a monumental moment in American history.
Speaker 1: There's an ethical debate to be had about which, if any,
Speaker 1: should be published, but that's for a future date because
Speaker 1: so far the FBI has refused to release them. In fact,
Speaker 1: it appears the FBI lost the photos, raising critical questions
Speaker 1: about how the bureau catalog and handled nine eleven evidence.
Speaker 1: Since I filed multiple Foyer requests trying to get the photos,
Speaker 1: every time the same answer no. First, the FBI said
Speaker 1: it couldn't find any responsive records. Then it said that
Speaker 1: I didn't reasonably describe them. I appealed the latest denial.
Speaker 1: The Department of Justice denied my appeal. The d o
Speaker 1: J said my request would quote require the FBI to
Speaker 1: conduct an unreasonably burdensome search. Your request is not reasonably
Speaker 1: described because you did not characterize the record SAW it
Speaker 1: in such a way that they could be located without
Speaker 1: individually pulling and reviewing thousands of files. End quote. That's
Speaker 1: a crop of shit. We're talking about extremely unique, one
Speaker 1: of a kind photos eleven evidence, but the FBI can't
Speaker 1: find them without individually pulling and reviewing thousands of files.
Speaker 1: So two possibilities here. Either the FBI is stonewalling or
Speaker 1: the FBI lost them. Yes, lost. If I ask you
Speaker 1: to find your car keys and you can't locate them
Speaker 1: without digging through a thousand boxes, what would you call that?
Speaker 1: Last year, I got fed up, so I emailed FBI
Speaker 1: Director Christopher Ray. His office bounced me to the Public
Speaker 1: Affairs office, which bounced me back to the FBI's in
Speaker 1: transigent FOIA office. Here's what I wrote. Quote. I'm seeking
Speaker 1: images developed from a disposable camera recovered as part of
Speaker 1: a massive investigation of immense public interest. The images were
Speaker 1: already shown to a reporter. I described them in detail.
Speaker 1: They are extremely unique, and yet the FBI's response is
Speaker 1: that the records SAW are not detailed enough to find
Speaker 1: their location. How is that possible unless I'm missing something,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to give the bureau a fair chance
Speaker 1: to respond here. I interpret that as either stonewalling my
Speaker 1: request or that the bureaus system for story nine eleven
Speaker 1: evidence is so disorganized it can't locate these images, in
Speaker 1: which case, past these specific photos, this becomes a bigger story.
Speaker 1: The FBI responded, quote, good afternoon. The records are not
Speaker 1: detailed enough to find their location. As such, it would
Speaker 1: be unduly burdensome to pull and review thousands of files, respectfully,
Speaker 1: Public Information Officer, The FBI has consistently been a nightmare
Speaker 1: to work with, and not just in this case. It's
Speaker 1: been sued multiple times over its FOIA practices. Regardless of
Speaker 1: your politics, you should care about this because nobody benefits
Speaker 1: when the nation's premier law enforcement agency decides more or
Speaker 1: less that it doesn't give a shit about FOIA requests.
Speaker 1: To learn more about the disposable camera photos, I wrote
Speaker 1: to Donald sac Laban in two thousand three. He was
Speaker 1: the agent in charge of the FBI's explosives unit. He's
Speaker 1: the person who showed the photos to Laura Sullivan, the
Speaker 1: Baltimore Sun reporter. Sac Laban is now in prison in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, he pleaded guilty to both child porn charges
Speaker 1: and to leaking classified information. I mailed him a letter
Speaker 1: in prison. He wrote back, quote, Mr Wallsac, I don't
Speaker 1: think there's much I can add to your information about
Speaker 1: those photos. As best I can recall, the film slash
Speaker 1: camera was found at the w TC site and sent
Speaker 1: to our lab for processing. I mentioned it in the
Speaker 1: Baltimore Sun article, mostly because it was a unique item.
Speaker 1: I do not recall the name of any person associated
Speaker 1: with the camera. There were hundreds of thousands of photos
Speaker 1: related to the nine eleven investigation. I imagine these images
Speaker 1: are tucked away in some storage bin. Good luck with
Speaker 1: your endeavors, sincerely, Donald suck Laban, I wrote again, pushing
Speaker 1: for details. He responded, Dear Mr Wallzac, as you may know,
Speaker 1: I'm currently serving a term of incarceration for disclosure of
Speaker 1: national security information. While the items you seek may not
Speaker 1: be classified, I still do not feel comfortable discussing them.
Speaker 1: I the interview to the Baltimore Sun with the full
Speaker 1: knowledge and authorization of the FBI. I no longer hold
Speaker 1: that authority. Good luck with your endeavors, sincerely, Donald suck Lavin.
Speaker 1: There was one final person to interview the only civilian
Speaker 1: to ever see these photos. I'm Laura Sullivan. I'm a
Speaker 1: correspondent with NPR. I started out as a print reporter
Speaker 1: and one of my first real jobs in journalism was
Speaker 1: as a two year intern at the Baltimore Sun, and
Speaker 1: that turned into a real job at the Baltimore Sun,
Speaker 1: which is where I was on nine eleven. I was
Speaker 1: a reporter in Baltimore. So I was covering. This is
Speaker 1: back in the heyday of newspapers, and we had all
Speaker 1: kinds of resources, and there was actually a beat where
Speaker 1: you covered the National Security Agency in the Naval Academy,
Speaker 1: which were like our local agencies in that area of
Speaker 1: our of the Baltimore Sun readers, and so that was
Speaker 1: my beat, and I remember the morning sort of hearing
Speaker 1: it on the radio. Actually, I mean as print reporters,
Speaker 1: you know, we sort of started day late and ended
Speaker 1: it late, and I remember jumping in my car and
Speaker 1: sort of driving down to Annapolis, not really sure what
Speaker 1: I was going to be covering at all. The next
Speaker 1: day they sent me to Washington and I never left
Speaker 1: after that, And so I started covering the Justice Department, Homeline,
Speaker 1: Security Department, and all kinds of terrorism and the FBI.
Speaker 1: And it was crazy. It was every single day for
Speaker 1: for months and months and months. It just never ended.
Speaker 1: And so you know that brings us to this this article.
Speaker 1: So I email you out of the blue this year
Speaker 1: and I say, I want to talk to you about
Speaker 1: an article you wrote eighteen years ago. Did you kind
Speaker 1: of just wonder like, what what is this? What is this?
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my god, what did I possibly right?
Speaker 1: What did I do? Now? Been some who? I mean,
Speaker 1: you're just you're saying, oh god, it must have I
Speaker 1: must have just done something crazy twenty years ago. So
Speaker 1: on December one, two thousand three, you wrote this article
Speaker 1: for The Sun headlined FBI team puts together pieces from
Speaker 1: scenes of terror bombings. When I asked you about the article,
Speaker 1: did you remember it immediately or did you have to
Speaker 1: go dig around for it? I had a sudden flash
Speaker 1: of being in the FBI's evidence area, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I think there was some sort I did some sort
Speaker 1: of story about the thing that came to my mind
Speaker 1: when you said something about the camera was picturing Mohammed
Speaker 1: addas suitcase. I don't know. I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: really remember this story at all. I'm not sure I
Speaker 1: remember too much about it, but I had a flash
Speaker 1: of Mohammed out as suitcase, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: think there was some sort of story. And then I
Speaker 1: went and looked for it. I couldn't find it. It
Speaker 1: was like I didn't know what the search for. I
Speaker 1: was like Laura Sullivan's son camera, Like it was like
Speaker 1: there was no way to even find the story. So
Speaker 1: then thankfully you sent it to me, So then it
Speaker 1: and then it came sort of rushing back. I don't remember,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like you you just have little pieces.
Speaker 1: You know, you've done thousands of stories, and I just
Speaker 1: have little pieces of that. After I read the story,
Speaker 1: I remember the room, I remember that suitcase. I don't
Speaker 1: know why that left such an impression on me. I
Speaker 1: think because it was like, you know, this it was
Speaker 1: like brand new because I never made it onto the flight,
Speaker 1: and you know, it just was so creepy. Here was
Speaker 1: Mohammadada's suitcase. And then I remember him showing me the photos.
Speaker 1: So walk me into that evidence bay. What was the
Speaker 1: big cavernous warehouse? What? What do you remember of this?
Speaker 1: The weirdest thing is I can't remember where I was
Speaker 1: was I in Virginia. Was I in Maryland. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I didn't get on a plane for this story. They
Speaker 1: would have never paid for that. So it was somewhere
Speaker 1: in the vicinity of d C. And I do remember
Speaker 1: it took a long time to get these sort of
Speaker 1: this sort of access to these interviews. But this was
Speaker 1: my be, you know, covering the FBI. And I was
Speaker 1: always asking to do features, especially when you're sort of
Speaker 1: at the sun. You gotta fight against the big dogs
Speaker 1: at the Times and the Post and and they're right,
Speaker 1: always trampling all over your So the more features you do,
Speaker 1: the more people you get to know. And so I
Speaker 1: was always asking for things like this, And I was
Speaker 1: always like taking random tours of things. Whenever they had
Speaker 1: a tour, I was like, I'll go, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: blood Drive, I'll go. This is the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: I did a lot of. And I remember it was
Speaker 1: a giant room. It was very clean, and it was
Speaker 1: very gray, that's my memory of it. I remember walking downstairs.
Speaker 1: It was just like concrete and metal and big and
Speaker 1: gray and open. And uh, I barely remember the the
Speaker 1: guy Satchel Ben at all. And he comes across like
Speaker 1: a really great character in my story. Sort of tragic
Speaker 1: the way that ended. But then he just went through
Speaker 1: the stuff. There was just piles of stuff, like like
Speaker 1: plastic tubs, like labeled plastic tubs of stuff that they had,
Speaker 1: which I found riveting, just sort of like the little
Speaker 1: details of the day. And then I remember him showing
Speaker 1: me these photographs, which really struck me. The photographs themselves
Speaker 1: weren't that these were not professional photos. These were just
Speaker 1: sort of like they they weren't in an of them.
Speaker 1: It was like a man in sort of a beige
Speaker 1: outfit standing by a window. That's like my memory of
Speaker 1: these photos. I remember the birthday party thing too, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a dramatic photo. It was just sort
Speaker 1: of the emotional pull of them that they were taken
Speaker 1: in this moment of just tragedy. And so I just
Speaker 1: I don't know, they just always they that they resonated
Speaker 1: with me. It's interesting because so I've read this article
Speaker 1: when I was fifteen. I was on a Christmas vacation
Speaker 1: with my family and I saw it in the newspaper.
Speaker 1: I'm so impressed you were reading the newspaper fifteen. Can
Speaker 1: I just say, well, that's what I was gonna say
Speaker 1: it dates me too, because I actually cut it out
Speaker 1: of the paper. Um, I still have it somewhere. And
Speaker 1: then all these years later I had to go figure
Speaker 1: out why I had these three paragraphs like who wrote this?
Speaker 1: Where did this come from? You know? But uh, and
Speaker 1: that that was the light reading I was doing around
Speaker 1: Christmas in two thousand three. I mean, yeah, do you
Speaker 1: were in some kind of a dark place like terrible thing?
Speaker 1: It's stuck with me, I mean it. You know, all
Speaker 1: these years, I've saved that little piece of paper, so
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you more or less for
Speaker 1: the last eighteen years. You know what I find so
Speaker 1: frustrating and reading this article now is the sentence that
Speaker 1: I wrote, apparently where I said his family is aware
Speaker 1: of the photos but has not asked to see them.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what, Like, I want to go back and
Speaker 1: inquire more about that. What do you mean they don't
Speaker 1: want to see them? Are you sure you've showed them?
Speaker 1: How you sure you've talked to them? Who was this family?
Speaker 1: I just I'm frustrated with myself that I didn't follow
Speaker 1: up with that a little bit more like, you know,
Speaker 1: I just took his word for when he said, well, well,
Speaker 1: we let the family know that we had these, but
Speaker 1: they have not asked to see that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know why that. It's something about it doesn't
Speaker 1: sit with me, right. You know, It's interesting all these
Speaker 1: years I had to actually go back and find the articles,
Speaker 1: so I didn't remember who wrote it. I just knew
Speaker 1: I had this little piece of paper that described the
Speaker 1: disposable camera. But I always wondered, like, why didn't this
Speaker 1: reporter follow up? Like it's such a fascinating little tidbit.
Speaker 1: It immediately captivated me. Um so that and then as
Speaker 1: soon as I found out that you wrote the article,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, well, she went on to very
Speaker 1: distinguished career where she had, you know, three three peabodies
Speaker 1: and a lot of serious investigative work. That's why. That's
Speaker 1: why she didn't follow up on the disposable camera. But
Speaker 1: I think because I saw the photos, I think there
Speaker 1: was kind of a sense of like, okay, I've seen them,
Speaker 1: and you know that I remember them not being like
Speaker 1: very The photos themselves were not the thing that was gripping,
Speaker 1: you know. It was literally like a man in a
Speaker 1: construction outfit or in something beige standing in front of
Speaker 1: a window. It wasn't like he was like holding up
Speaker 1: a sign saying goodbye to his family, or you know,
Speaker 1: taking pictures of people huddled in a corner. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like that. There was no there was no drama to
Speaker 1: the actual photographs themselves. It's like he took a picture
Speaker 1: of the building burning across the street. So like when
Speaker 1: you would imagine, I guess you would do if you
Speaker 1: didn't think you were necessarily going to die. But you
Speaker 1: maybe we're getting sense. I don't. I'm just you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just extrapolating like what he might have been thinking,
Speaker 1: Like he had a camera on him, the building, his head,
Speaker 1: he takes some photos and then things turn for the
Speaker 1: worse for him. So maybe for that, I was like,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the photos themselves, but that it captured this
Speaker 1: moment that was his last moments that he didn't really
Speaker 1: know when he was taking the photos were his last moments.
Speaker 1: It's interesting though, because you say it doesn't capture anything dramatic,
Speaker 1: but it's a high level view of one of the
Speaker 1: towers burning, and you wrote in the article that it
Speaker 1: also shows people falling out of the towers. So and
Speaker 1: I don't remember that as well. But yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: I must have seen, and they captured other jumpers falling.
Speaker 1: He must have been taking a picture of the maybe
Speaker 1: the jumpers and other building, or the jumpers in his
Speaker 1: building falling. It's interesting because obviously I've told you I've
Speaker 1: tried to obtain the photos for literally eleven eleven years now.
Speaker 1: But even if obviously if I got them, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: just immediately published some there's obviously a huge ethical question
Speaker 1: of what to publish. But since I haven't seen them,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, you're the only civilian who's
Speaker 1: ever seen the photos. And I'll also tell you that
Speaker 1: literally nobody knows they exist. So your article came out
Speaker 1: at an interesting moment because it's right at the dawn
Speaker 1: of social media and it's very hard to see that
Speaker 1: detail escaping people today. But at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody remembers this article. You couldn't even find it, like
Speaker 1: I had to go digging for it. And so like
Speaker 1: I've interviewed Kevin Flynn, who co wrote a hundred in
Speaker 1: two minutes, I interviewed the chief curator of the nine
Speaker 1: eleven Museum. I've talked to authors zero people that I've
Speaker 1: talked to are aware of these photos. And from my perspective,
Speaker 1: what part of why it captivated me is because so
Speaker 1: few photos and videos were captured in the towers on
Speaker 1: nine eleven, that because it was this turning point in technology.
Speaker 1: I actually went through and found every single photo and
Speaker 1: video that I could, including confirmed, confirmed and unconfirmed photos
Speaker 1: and videos, and it was less than fifty I think
Speaker 1: it was forty nine. So these are are really presumably
Speaker 1: you know, he died, so presumably taken above the point
Speaker 1: of impact. So these are really unique view of a
Speaker 1: monumental moment in American history that we've never seen before.
Speaker 1: Taken high up in the towers. There's there's nothing like them. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think when I read that, I mean, you've
Speaker 1: seen the photos. But I think that when people learn
Speaker 1: about these photos again, there's just going to be this
Speaker 1: really strong, I don't want to say morbid curiosity, because
Speaker 1: it's beyond it's beyond that, because it's such a different
Speaker 1: point of view of history. What else do you remember
Speaker 1: about them? That they were that I did not know
Speaker 1: who it was, and he did not tell me, and
Speaker 1: I already knew that I was like in a special
Speaker 1: space and there was only so much I could push.
Speaker 1: I definitely never knew who this camera belonged to, or
Speaker 1: who or who or even who took the photo. I mean,
Speaker 1: who you know? Is the birthday party the same thing.
Speaker 1: There wasn't like a lot of clarity, and there wasn't
Speaker 1: and there was still a real sense, I mean, this
Speaker 1: was just two years after. There was a real sense
Speaker 1: that this stuff was very private, that this belonged to
Speaker 1: the grieving families of the victims, and that it was
Speaker 1: not to be chased down, or that I was not
Speaker 1: supposed to go knock on someone's door and say, why
Speaker 1: don't you want to see these photos? Or did they
Speaker 1: even know? Do you know these photos? It was like
Speaker 1: I was lucky to be there in the first place,
Speaker 1: looking at the toothbrushes of the hijackers. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: where are the toothbrushes? I guess I you know. And
Speaker 1: it's part of this doesn't surprise me at all, by
Speaker 1: the way, because I'm working on this story that this
Speaker 1: is not. That's about nine eleven, and the FBI cannot
Speaker 1: find the only known video of the nine eleven hijackers
Speaker 1: at an apartment party in the Los Angeles about nine
Speaker 1: months before the attack. It is the only known video
Speaker 1: of the hijackers. Multiple people saw it from the nine
Speaker 1: eleven Commission, and they have lost it. They have lost
Speaker 1: let me repeat this. They have lost the only video
Speaker 1: of Hamsey and Midhar who win Los Angeles before the attacks.
Speaker 1: And they no longer have any idea where this video is.
Speaker 1: This video existed, it's it's it's in a footnote of
Speaker 1: the nine eleven Commission. The nine eleven Commission. People saw it.
Speaker 1: It was a real thing, and it is totally gone.
Speaker 1: They have no idea where this thing is. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you lose, like I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of evidence from this, I'll give them that, But like
Speaker 1: disposable camera, they lost the video of the hijackers before
Speaker 1: the attacks. So I don't know where this stuff goes.
Speaker 1: I mean, I actually I do after all these years
Speaker 1: of covering law enforcement, that somebody needs it for something else,
Speaker 1: and then they put it in a different box, and
Speaker 1: then somebody takes it home because they want to review
Speaker 1: the evidence, and now it's in somebody's basement, and then
Speaker 1: somebody dies and then they send it out to junk
Speaker 1: or whatever. That's what happens to this stuff. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because that's the other big issue here. So part of this,
Speaker 1: part of what interests me is obviously the images themselves.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I thought the same thing. I mean, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that about the video obviously. That's that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of incredible because I already scripted this episode. This
Speaker 1: is the last piece of it before we put it together,
Speaker 1: and that that's something that I raised. Two is just
Speaker 1: how is this evidence stored? How is it cataloged? Like
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know that about the video.
Speaker 1: But even these images that I've always gotten to know
Speaker 1: when I filed for a requests, which you know from
Speaker 1: the FBI, doesn't surprise me. But uh, but the different
Speaker 1: excuses every time, and the most recent was we wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to locate these without manually sorting through thousands
Speaker 1: of files and thousands of boxes. And I hesitated to
Speaker 1: use at first the word lost. But it's like I
Speaker 1: I joke in the show, like if if I ask you,
Speaker 1: you know, where are your car keys and you say, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go search through three thousand boxes to
Speaker 1: find them, like you lost them, They've got a lost. Well,
Speaker 1: the other thing is those three thousand photographs. It's been
Speaker 1: twenty years. They belong to the American public. These things
Speaker 1: should be accessible, foilable, and open to public viewing. At
Speaker 1: this point, there's not a lot of secrets that need
Speaker 1: to be kept after nine eleven. And I guess I'm
Speaker 1: obviously a journalist, but I just feel that this belongs
Speaker 1: in the public sphere. And if there are thousands of
Speaker 1: photographs from nine eleven, then we should be able to
Speaker 1: see them and and people should be able to review
Speaker 1: them for just this reason, so that we can track
Speaker 1: down exactly what happened that day and what that experience
Speaker 1: is was like, so that we don't forget it. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And beyond these photos specifically, there's still so many unanswered
Speaker 1: questions obviously about the hijackers, about possible foreign ties to
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, about I was looking at the timeline of
Speaker 1: the hijackers recently. I was just in Portland, Maine a
Speaker 1: few months ago, and I've drove by the motel where
Speaker 1: they stayed on September ten, and and and there's just
Speaker 1: you know, there's still the quote, why were they in Portland?
Speaker 1: Like there are auto was in Portland. There's so many
Speaker 1: unanswered questions, Um, I agree with you. I'm working on
Speaker 1: that right now. Well, I guess I'll ask you in
Speaker 1: terms of the FBI. Obviously you have much more experience
Speaker 1: working with this kind of stuff than I do, and
Speaker 1: I want to be fair to the FBI. Am I
Speaker 1: missing something or like I I? Like I said, I
Speaker 1: hesitated to use the word lost, but I've tried for
Speaker 1: eleven years and they've thrown a million different excuses at me,
Speaker 1: and it just by their own admission, they can't find
Speaker 1: these these images and you're telling me they can also
Speaker 1: find a video that was cited in the nine eleven report.
Speaker 1: Is there something I'm missing or is It's just like,
Speaker 1: is there a Do you think that there's a bigger
Speaker 1: systemic problem with how nine eleven evidence was cataloged and handled?
Speaker 1: I think that's an excellent question, and I mean I do.
Speaker 1: I wish I knew the answer to it. I'd say
Speaker 1: the fact that there isn't just a very clear outline
Speaker 1: of what there is and where it exists, then yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a problem with how this evidence was handled over time.
Speaker 1: It was a sprawling investigation. This was the largest investigation
Speaker 1: and FBI history, and it's warehouses full of stuff. But
Speaker 1: there's really no excuse for not knowing at this point
Speaker 1: exactly what you have, where it is, and what it means.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure you know the years that I've covered them.
Speaker 1: This is a budget issue, this is a resources issue.
Speaker 1: It takes people, take space, it takes you know, you've
Speaker 1: got to rent these things, and there's sometimes there's not
Speaker 1: always a will to keep all of that. And then
Speaker 1: you also have to have somebody, I mean, you basically
Speaker 1: need a library of people to organize it all and
Speaker 1: put it into some kind of form that people can
Speaker 1: can find it. But what I think is somewhat it's
Speaker 1: very hard for them to defend is why there aren't copies.
Speaker 1: There should have been copies of these photos. There should
Speaker 1: have been copies of these video of the video, and
Speaker 1: that I don't understand at all. Are you still trying
Speaker 1: to obtain or find the video? Yeah, it's gone though,
Speaker 1: it's gone, like they've pretty much acknowledged a and then
Speaker 1: then the legal case that they're in right now that
Speaker 1: they can't find it. Huh, Okay, Well, these photos in particular,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, nobody that I've talked to
Speaker 1: knows about them. And from the point of history. I
Speaker 1: guess I would ask you, would you want to see
Speaker 1: them again if you had, if you had the opportunity,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming the answer is yes, Yes, I definitely would
Speaker 1: like to see them again, and I think the rest
Speaker 1: of the public should see them too. I just hope
Speaker 1: that all of this evidence is somewhere, you know. I
Speaker 1: hope these photos and I hope their toothbrushes, and I
Speaker 1: hope all of it has been kept somewhere, because while
Speaker 1: it feels like it's just like a macabre like kind
Speaker 1: of look into a tragedy that caused so much pain
Speaker 1: to somebody, and it feels like you're just like stuck
Speaker 1: in the details, it's in the details that that all
Speaker 1: the information is. It's like I think, over time and
Speaker 1: over the decades that passed like nine o leven will
Speaker 1: become just this thing that happened in history, and it
Speaker 1: you know, it's gonna end up like kids are gonna
Speaker 1: watch it and you know, oversimplified years from now, and
Speaker 1: it's just going to become this kind of this moment
Speaker 1: that that isn't real anymore, and there's something in these
Speaker 1: details and and actually looking at the belongings of the
Speaker 1: hijackers and the belongings of the victims on that day
Speaker 1: that make it real and that make people understand that
Speaker 1: this was this horrific thing that our country endured and
Speaker 1: is still dealing with twenty years later. And that's why
Speaker 1: all of these things are so important, and we can't
Speaker 1: lose them, and we need to make sure that they're
Speaker 1: available so that people can see them because it brings
Speaker 1: you back in such a real way. Homework one. If
Speaker 1: you know the name of the Bloomberg photographer who left
Speaker 1: window us on the world right before the attacks began,
Speaker 1: please contact us too. If you work on the hill,
Speaker 1: if you're a reporter, or if you're concerned citizen, fight
Speaker 1: for Fourier reform, especially as it pertains to the FBI.
Speaker 1: The bureau should be more transparent. It shouldn't be allowed
Speaker 1: to indiscriminately trample over foil law with that bid excuses.
Speaker 1: And if you're a National security or d o J reporter,
Speaker 1: ask the FBI about how it handled catalog and stored
Speaker 1: nine eleven evidence about why it can't locate specific unique
Speaker 1: photos evidence without manually sorting through thousands of files. You
Speaker 1: can reach us by phone at one eight three three
Speaker 1: New tips that's one eight three three six, three, nine,
Speaker 1: eight four seven seven again one eight three, three, six, three, nine,
Speaker 1: eight four seven seven, or you can reach us via
Speaker 1: email at tips at iHeart media dot com. That's tips,
Speaker 1: t I p s at iHeart media dot com. Also,
Speaker 1: we obtained unique, unpublished nine eleven an audio, which we
Speaker 1: plan to share with you soon, so keep an eye
Speaker 1: on our feed. Ben Bolan is our executive producer, Paul
Speaker 1: Decan is our supervising producer, Chris Brown is our assistant producer,
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson is our producer. Sam Ti Garden is
Speaker 1: our research assistant, and I'm your host and executive producer
Speaker 1: John Waalzac. Cover art by Pam Peacock, Donald Sockleman, voiced
Speaker 1: by Ben Boland. Special thanks to Tamika Campbell at I
Speaker 1: Heeart and to Christoph Zapary in New Orleans. Also thank
Speaker 1: you to Ben Chia, Kevin Flynn, Laura Sullivan, and ASoP Rock.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend Kevin's book one hundred and two Minutes,
Speaker 1: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the
Speaker 1: Twin Towers. Original theme music by ASoP Rock. Check out
Speaker 1: a SOOPS website at ASoP rock dot com. If you
Speaker 1: like this show, check out our first season, Missig in Alaska,
Speaker 1: about the nineteen seventy two disappearance of two congressmen missing
Speaker 1: on nine eleven. Is a co production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Greenfork Media