Steve McQueen dies.
Nov. 7
Episodes
Hays records audio of himself to help him focus for a TV interview.
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Nov. 8
A true crime documentary crew interviews Hays about the Purcell case.
May 12
1980
May 19
May 20
Last updated January 28, 2019.
Will, 12, and his little sister Julie, 10, went riding bikes but never came home. Will told their dad they were meeting a school friend at the playground, but later the friend tells police they never made plans of the sort.
1990
2015
One of the officers asks Hays if he's having memory problems.
Wayne Hays gives deposition to Arkansas State Police about Purcell case.
Purcell case reopened, unknown person's file for conviction to be overturned.
Burglary at a Walgreen's turns up Julie Purcell's fingerprints.
Hays finds two straw dolls and the body of Will Purcell in a cave inside the park.
Hays and West interview Amelia Reardon and Freddy Burns about kids.
Wayne Hays and Roland West are put on the case.
Tom Purcell reports his kids, Will and Julie, as missing.
Mar.
Hays is a state police detective from Northwest Arkansas who served in the Vietnam War as a long-range reconnaissance patrol. West calls him "Purple Haze."
West tends to defer to his partner, Hays, when it comes to hunting down clues.
Click on the highlighted text to learn more.
Suspects, including Brett Woodard, are brought in for questioning.
Someone gives Julie Purcell a straw doll on Halloween night.
Oct. 31
Hays and West interview Dan O'Brien at the funeral.
Julie and Will's grandmother implies Julie might not be Tom Purcell's biological daughter.
West gets tip on convicted pedophile named Ted LaGrange ("Robert Hebert") from Vice.
LaGrange is cleared by alibi.
A note is sent to the Purcells saying "Julie is in a good place and safe."
Hays is told by Alan Jones that Julie's fingerprint was a full match.
Amelia brings home uncorrected proof copies of her book on the Purcell case.
Documentary investigator asks Hays about "what happened with Julie and her father" in 1990.
Henry reminds Hays that his daughter, Rebecca, never liked being home.
Hays finds himself standing in front of the burned down Purcell house in the middle of the night.
Dan is Lucy Purcell's brother, and Will and Julie's uncle. He stayed in Will's room awhile before the kids' abduction, and left Playboy Magazines there.
The full note says: "Do
not worry. Julie is in a good place and safe. The children shud [sic] laugh. Do not look. Let go."
Wayne Hays and Amelia eventually married and had two children, Henry and Rebecca, but Rebecca is now estranged from her father. Amelia died sometime before 2015.
We learn that Amelia wrote a nonfiction book about Hays and the investigation
and it went on to become a bestseller.
West and Hays discover notes written to Julie and kept in Hoyt Foods bag.
The detectives visit Hoyt Foods plant
to discuss the reward they put out for information about Julie.
Hays finds bag of toys in the woods along with the spot where Will died.
West and Hays talk to a witness who says he saw a man and woman in a nice brown sedan.
Christening photo of Will found, it matches the pose his body was in.
Church pastor tells West and Hays that Julie was expecting an "aunt" to visit.
The straw dolls are revealed to be from a church-going woman.
Freddy Burns' fingerprints found on Will's bike, he's brought in for questioning.
Woodard is followed to his house by a mob and he prepares for attack.
1988
Lucy Purcell dies of drug overdose outside of Las Vegas.
West gives deposition about Purcell case.
Hays and Amelia stake out the Walgreen's where Julie's prints were found.
Amelia gets more information about Julie's fingerprints by flirting with the local police.
West is put in charge of task force re-investigating Julie's abduction, and he hires Hays.
Hays finds image of what could be 21-year-old Julie Purcell on Walgreen's security footage.
Doctor tells Hays he should adjust his lifestyle due to a disease affecting his memory.
Documentary director says multiple witnesses who saw the brown sedan were never interviewed.
Hays has disturbing vision of Amelia asking if he's worried they'll find "what [he] left in the woods."
Hays asks Henry to track down some people, including West.
Documentary director tells Hays that Dan O'Brien's remains were found in
a quarry.
The head of the Ozark Children's Outreach Center tells West and Hays that they cleared the reward with the county prosecutor's office, but the detectives weren't warned ahead of time.
This new witness says the man was black and the woman was white, and that he also saw Will and Julie around a few times.
Julie and Will didn't have any aunts.
She says she sold a batch of them to a black man with a scarred eye.
Freddy says Will was looking for Julie when they saw him.
Hays and Amelia have a bad fight after she comes home from her day of investigating.
We learn that Henry is a police officer just like his dad.
She says O'Brien resurfaced in 1990 but then went missing again.