The Phone Call: "I'm going to make you famous"

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Hunter

Episode 2: The Phone Call – "I'm going to make you famous"

Host: Anaya Echo Hawk
Release Date: October 13, 2025
Producer & Writer: Emma Weatherill

Overview

This gripping true-crime episode follows Lydia Lerma’s relentless pursuit of justice after her son is abused by Andrew Vanderwaal. The episode details the harrowing moments leading up to Vanderwaal’s confession, the immediate aftermath, and Lydia’s determination when the system fails to keep her son's abuser behind bars. Key themes include a mother’s instinct, systemic shortcomings, and the desperate lengths parents go to for their children’s safety.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Pretext Phone Call: Securing a Confession

• Setting: Detective Dayton coaches Jason (Lydia’s ex-husband) through a phone call to Vanderwaal, aiming for a confession that could corroborate the child's allegations.
• Tension: Jason struggles with the emotional trauma of confronting a former friend now suspected of abusing his son.
• Notable Technique: Detective Dayton uses written prompts and body language to guide Jason.
  • Quote:
    • "At some point, you have to just cut to the chase and say, what were you doing with my child?" – Detective Dayton (03:30)
• Crucial Slip: When asked if the child was lying, Vanderwaal initially says "no" before correcting himself, hinting at guilt.
  • Quote:
    • "That slip where the voice comes out quicker than the brain can stop it… that was the first clue I had that I think we can get him." – Detective Dayton (03:48)
• Partial Confession: Vanderwaal admits to 'some criminal acts,' giving police grounds for arrest (04:20).

2. The Fallout: Emotional Aftershocks for Lydia and Jason

• Lydia’s Instinct: Lydia remembers her early suspicions about Vanderwaal and regrets not pushing harder to keep him away from her children.
  • Quote:
    • "I have that gut feeling. I can shake someone’s hand... and I can tell you when someone gives me the creeps." – Lydia (06:59)
• Blame and Guilt: Lydia reflects on the reasons her son disclosed to his father, not her, and expresses regret about possibly scaring her son away with her anger.
  • Quote:
    • "I was that mom that always said, oh, I would kill... There’s a reason my son didn’t tell me." – Lydia (08:48)

3. Police Work and Systemic Limitations

• Vanderwaal Turns Himself In: Unexpectedly, Vanderwaal surrenders at the police station, believing it safer than facing Jason’s wrath.
  • Quote:
    • "I hear that Mr. Vanderwaal has showed up at the police department lobby and said, I want to talk to someone about some bad things that I've done. I was very surprised." – Detective Dayton (09:31)
• Changing Stories: During questioning, Vanderwaal's confessions become inconsistent, suggesting a history of abuse.
  • Quote:
    • "He would initially make statements about, well, this happened once or twice, and then it was four times, and then it was six times…" – Detective Dayton (11:22)

4. The Bond Hearing: Fears of Justice Undone

• Victim Advocacy: Lydia is supported by Kim Jordan, a victim advocate, who empathizes with Lydia’s anger, identifying it as rooted in fear and guilt.
  • Quote:
    • "It came across to us as angry and sometimes vindictive... I think more accurately, it was fear and probably a little bit of guilt of not being able to protect her son." – Kim Jordan (13:52)
• Low Bail, High Stakes: Vanderwaal is released on bond, thanks to his parents, triggering Lydia’s concern he’ll flee.
  • Quote:
    • "She told us right away that he was going to skip bond, that he was going to flee..." – Kim Jordan (14:38)

5. Lydia’s Relentless Pursuit

• Coping as a Single Parent: Lydia describes the impossibility of pausing her responsibilities, even as her world falls apart.
  • Quote:
    • "How does this happen? Who does that to children? ...Okay, break for a minute and then get up." – Lydia (16:09)
• Statistics & Fight for Justice: The odds are grim—less than 3% of child sexual abuse cases end in conviction. Lydia refuses to leave anything to chance.
• Taking Initiative: Lydia begins her own investigation, determined to find more victims and evidence when the police stall.

6. Investigating Vanderwaal’s Past

• Gathering Evidence: Lydia explores Vanderwaal’s room, uncovering trophies and keepsakes belonging to various children.
  • Quote:
    • "In that box, there was a baseball cap, a baseball glove, a Nerf gun... It was like when you find the trophies of a serial murderer." – Lydia (21:56)
• Frustration with Police: Lydia’s attempts to have the evidence collected are stymied by police protocols and the wishes of another victim’s family.
  • Quote:
    • "Nobody would answer my calls. And it was just the most frustrating process because this is evidence." – Lydia (22:56)
• Detective Dayton’s Perspective: He elaborates on the delicacy required and explains why certain materials couldn’t be seized without family consent.
  • Quote:
    • "None of the items in and of themselves were criminal to possess. So we can't just seize things just to seize them." – Detective Dayton (24:14)

7. Pursuing Other Victims

• Canvasing the Neighborhood: Lydia researches Vanderwaal’s past residences and seeks out former neighbors, hoping to identify additional victims.
• Parental Reluctance and Disclosure: Most families deny abuse occurred; only one is willing to engage with police.
  • Quote:
    • "However, the other child was not ready to speak yet... and that's okay." – Lydia (26:48)

8. Healing and Resilience

• Therapy and Nature: Lydia supports her son with therapy and healing time outdoors, drawing on her Lipin Apache heritage.
  • Quote:
    • "Here was my son, so happy to be on his Tennessee walker horse on Traveler... That horse saved him." – Lydia (29:54)

9. System Failure: Vanderwaal Flees

• Missed Hearing: Vanderwaal does not show up to a court date, confirming Lydia’s predictions.
  • Quote:
    • "We're waiting and waiting and waiting... he doesn't show up. And finally, the court determines that he failed to appear." – Lydia (31:20)
• Law Enforcement Frustrations: Lydia’s faith in the system collapses, vowing to take the hunt into her own hands.
  • Quote:
    • "They had told me to sit back. I did, and look what happened. He slipped through their fingers. And no, I was done dealing with their bullshit." – Lydia (32:20)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Detective Dayton (on getting a confession):
  • "At some point, you have to just cut to the chase and say, what were you doing with my child?" (03:30)
• Lydia (on maternal instinct):
  • "I have that gut feeling. I have that radar in me... And I had that feeling." (06:59)
• Kim Jordan, Victim Advocate (on Lydia’s emotion):
  • "I think more accurately, it was fear and probably a little bit of guilt of not being able to protect her son." (13:52)
• Lydia (on taking matters into her own hands):
  • "I'm gonna make you famous. I'm gonna spread this word, and I'm gonna track down every victim..." (17:50)
• Lydia (on finding evidence):
  • "When I found all of these items, I remember I was shaking. I was absolutely shocked." (21:56)
• Detective Dayton (on procedural limitations):
  • "None of the items in and of themselves were criminal to possess. So we can't just seize things just to seize them." (24:14)
• Lydia (on horseback healing):
  • "That horse saved him." (29:54)
• Lydia (on her resolve):
  • "I was done dealing with their bullshit. And I was gonna do everything I could to track him down." (32:20)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment Description | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:01-05:18 | The pretext call, coaching from Detective Dayton, and securing Vanderwaal’s partial confession | | 06:59-09:17 | Lydia’s gut suspicion and maternal guilt | | 09:31-11:58 | Vanderwaal turns himself in, confession inconsistencies, and reaction from Lydia and police | | 13:34-15:37 | Meeting Kim Jordan, the bond hearing, and Lydia’s distress over low bail | | 16:09-17:50 | Lydia’s struggle to maintain normalcy and decision to seek more victims/evidence | | 18:22-24:14 | Lydia’s investigation, discovery of physical evidence, and frustrations with law enforcement | | 25:34-27:01 | Efforts to identify other victims, revealing the scale of grooming by Vanderwaal | | 29:06-31:01 | Lydia and family finding healing in the outdoors, coping through heritage and nature | | 31:12-32:33 | Vanderwaal flees, the system fails, and Lydia commits to “the hunt” |

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Conclusion

This episode is a testament to the power of a mother’s love and gut instinct, alongside the heartbreak and frustration felt when the justice system falters. Lydia’s journey pivots from family ordeal to organized investigation, challenging both her own limits and the failures of law enforcement. The episode ends on a note of determination: when the authorities lose track of Vanderwaal, Lydia vows to hunt him down herself.

Tone: Raw, emotional, urgent—and deeply personal.

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If you or someone you know is affected by issues raised in this podcast, support resources are provided in the episode description.

Transcript

[A]

BBC Studios Just to let you know that this episode contains some strong language and deals with sexual abuse. In a small, windowless interview room on the third floor of Fort Collins Police Station, two men sit awkwardly waiting. Someone's tried to make the room comfortable with a couch and a comfy chair, but it doesn't work. Detective Dayton, a man with steel behind his warmth, is used to this kind of thing thanks to his years in law enforcement. But the other man isn't. He stares at his phone nervously, willing it to ring. It's only been a few days since he showed up at his ex wife Lydia's house and told her what his housemate, Andrew Vanderwaal, had done to their son. But it seems much longer. At 15:27, the phone rings. It's Vanderwaal, Lydia's ex. Jason glances at Detective Dayton, panicked, before hitting answer and putting it on speakerphone.

[B]

Hey, what's up?

[A]

Jason feels his heart explode out of his chest. This is the man that he called his friend and housemate only a few days before. Now that he knows Vanderwaal abused his six year old son, the very sound of his voice makes him want to vomit. He looks up to Detective Dayton for support.

[B]

I just remember the raw emotion of the father eventually confronting Mr. Van der Wallen.

[A]

The detective gestures to the whiteboard where he's written up notes on what to say on the call. Jason manages to clear his throat in reply. Jason tells Vanderwaal that his son says that he's been touched by him.

[B]

We didn't have physical evidence as a result of the exam and we still didn't know if we would or not. If you have a conflicting statement situation, that's generally not going to be enough to criminally prosecute someone.

[A]

They wait for Vanderwaal to respond. This call could make or break the case.

[B]

So even if we have an amazing disclosure from a child, if someone refutes that, as most suspects will, it can be very difficult to move forward.

[A]

Finally, Vanderwaal responds. He denies having touched the boy. Jason doesn't know what to say next. Detective Dayton encourages him to keep talking. He scribbles more notes on the whiteboard.

[B]

Hey, let's go in a different direction or, you know, ask him this something directly.

[A]

Vanderwaal suggests that they talk later in person. Jason says that this can't wait. If there's going to be a confession, they need it to be on tape. They need it to happen now.

[B]

I would use body language to indicate keep going with this theme. It seems to Be working. Let's see what we can get.

[A]

But they don't get anywhere.

[B]

At some point, you have to just cut to the chase and say, what were you doing with my child? This is what my child told me.

[A]

But Vanderwaal denies it. On the whiteboard, Detective Dayton writes a new question for Jason to try.

[B]

Was my child lying when he told me this? And I remember Mr. Vanderwaal saying no and then catching himself and saying yes. And that was the first clue I had that I think we can get him. During this pretext phone call, that slip where the voice comes out quicker than the brain can stop it, Vanderwaal is.

[A]

Rattled and starts to change his story.

[B]

And he was able to get Mr. Vanderwaal to admit to not the full extent of what he had been doing, but he certainly confessed to some criminal acts of child sexual assault.

[A]

Detective Dayton locks eyes with Jason.

[B]

There was an immediate sense of, yes, we've got this guy.

[A]

Vanderwaal is scared about what will happen now. He asks Jason, are you going to.

[B]

Go to the police? And he is allowed in that case to lie and be deceptive, which we want.

[A]

Jason avoids answering. He doesn't want Vanderwaal to know he is already with the police. The phone call ends at 16:09. So what next? Detective Dayton now has enough evidence to arrest Vanderwaal. But there's a problem.

[B]

We didn't know where he was.

[A]

Vanderwaal thinks Jason is driving back to Fort Collins. He's scared of what Jason will do to him when he finds him.

[B]

I think anyone that heard the emotion in the father's voice during that pretext phone call would be well aware that this person was really hurting. And people in that state of mind may do something rash or violent.

[A]

Vanderwaal is cornered. He thinks Jason is out to get him. What's Vanderwaal going to do? From BBC Studios, this is the Hunter with me, anaya Echohawk Episode 2 the Phone Call Lydia is at home when she hears the news from the police station about Andrew Vanderwaal's confession. She tries to concentrate on cooking dinner for her son and daughters, but her mind keeps wandering. She thinks back to the first time she met Vanderwaal. He used to live up the street from Lydia in Fort Collins, Colorado. Lydia was suspicious of him from the first time she met him.

[C]

I have that gut feeling. I have that radar in me. I can shake someone's hand. I can feel people. And I can tell you when someone gives me the creeps. There's a reason for it. And I had that feeling.

[A]

And Vanderwaal's behavior did nothing to quell her fears.

[C]

He had befriended the neighbors across the street from him who had a daughter that played with my middle daughter. And I remember just thinking, who is this creepy, childless guy that likes to hang out with us? I would never want my children alone with him.

[A]

She recalls that when she split with the children's father, Jason and Vanderwaal moved in with him. Lydia had her antenna up. When Jason was out at work, Vanderwaal would offer to take the kids to school.

[C]

And I'm like, no, I don't. I don't give a shit if you're living there and you're there with my kids. You are not taking my kids to school. I will drive over there, pick them up, and I will get them to school.

[A]

Lydia raises all these concerns with Jason.

[C]

He would tell me, oh, no, Vanderwaal would never do anything to hurt our kids. He loves them, and he made every excuse, and. And I just had that gut feeling. So it was just that back and forth of the arguments, and me like, I want him out of the house. I want him out. But I. I didn't fight hard enough.

[A]

And she's also blaming herself for not being open enough with her kids. Her son had told his father about the abuse. He hadn't come to his mom. She now thinks that she'd pushed him away by being too outspoken.

[C]

I was that mom that always said, oh, I would kill. I would do this or I would do that. And our children hear those messages. They know what it means to kill. And there's a reason my son didn't tell me. He had plenty of opportunity to tell me what was happening, but he told his father.

[A]

That evening, Detective Dayton is working late at the police station, teaching a class on Internet safety for the other detectives. Midway through the lesson, at 1917, he gets a text from an officer at the front desk.

[B]

I hear that Mr. Vanderwaal has showed up at the police department lobby and said, I want to talk to someone about some bad things that I've done. I was very surprised.

[A]

Detective Dayton can't leave his class, so another officer has started the interview with Vanderwaal.

[B]

So I had really mixed feelings. I wanted to interview Mr. Vanderwaal myself, but I also didn't want to interrupt what was already happening. I thought that might throw more of a wrench into the works. And if he was there to confess, potentially, to other crimes, I thought it best that he not know that the police had already been involved and were preparing to arrest him.

[A]

Detective Dayton taps out a reply.

[B]

I relayed to Lt. Byrne that no matter what came out of the interview he was having, there was already probable cause, which is our term, for enough evidence to arrest Mr. Vanderwaal for sex assault on a child.

[A]

Detective Dayton goes back to teaching, trying to keep his mind on the class and not what's happening in the interview room down the corridor. When the lecture finally ends, Detective Dayton races out of the room to find out what's happening with Vanderwaal. As per his instructions, Vanderwaal has been placed under arrest and transported to the local jail. Detective Dayton heads over there, and then.

[B]

I actually met with him out there, spoke to him briefly, and then completed the paperwork to charge him with those crimes.

[A]

Detective Dayton reviews Vanderwaal's confession video recorded by his colleague.

[B]

Mr. Vanderwaal's story continued to change, and he would initially make statements about, well, this happened once or twice, and then it was four times, and then it was six times. But he said, well, it was five, and so the numbers weren't adding up. Indicated to me that in most of these situations, it's not once or twice. It's likely been happening for a long period of time.

[A]

When Lydia hears that Vanderwaal is in custody, relief floods through her.

[C]

We had the confession, so it was pretty much a slam dunk case.

[A]

They now have not one, but two recorded confessions from him, and she's not surprised. He turned himself in because he thought.

[C]

The children's father was driving back home. There's no way he was going to face my children's father. My children's father would have killed him. And he knew it would be safer to be in jail than to be here when he got home.

[A]

Vanderwaal's now in custody. All they need to do is go through the legal process that'll start tomorrow morning with his bond hearing. Lydia is relieved that Vanderwaal can't hurt her son anymore. But that night, she starts to worry. On the call, Vanderwaal said that this only happened once, but Lydia's son said that it happened more than that. In the video confession, Vanderwaals changing his story yet again. And if Vanderwaal is lying about that, what else is he lying about? Having known Vanderwaal for years and seeing how he interacted with other kids, Lydia suspects this isn't the first time Vanderwaals abused a child. The next morning, Lydia is at the Larimer County Justice Center. For Vanderwaal's bond hearing, Lydia has assigned a victim advocate called Kim Jordan.

[D]

When I first met Lydia, we didn't get off to the best start. She was understandably very upset.

[A]

Kim is energetic and sporty, with long, golden brown hair tied up in a high ponytail. Her role is to support Lydia through the legal process.

[D]

You know, it came across to us as angry and sometimes vindictive. I think more accurately, it was fear and probably a little bit of guilt of not being able to protect her son. Even though, you know, it wasn't anything that she missed, it wasn't a failing of her as a parent. And I don't think that's accurate. I think Vanderwaal was just that good at what he was doing. But I think that was a little bit driving her emotion as well. You know, if you're a parent at all, you feel guilty about everything all the time. So I can only imagine the level that something like this would bring out. So I think that was the root.

[A]

Emotions at the hearing. Vanderwaal's bond is set at $7,500. Lydia isn't happy about this.

[D]

She told us right away that he was going to skip bond, that he was going to flee, and was very honest that she was not happy with the bond amount that was set and that she didn't frankly didn't trust us to do what she wanted us to do. So it was rocky to start, for sure.

[A]

Kim reassures Lydia she's handled dozens of cases and she knows the procedure. She explains to Lydia the reasoning behind bonds.

[D]

It's not supposed to be a punishment, so the intention of bond is to make sure that they show up to court. It's not necessarily to keep them incarcerated. So the idea behind it is, you know, you pay me $10,000, if you don't show up to court, you're gonna lose that $10,000 forever. Before I started working in criminal justice, I think I always assumed that bond was to keep people in jail. But, yeah, it's just to make sure that people come back to court.

[A]

Vanderwaal's parents pay 10% of his bond, and so he is released from custody. He's not allowed to return to the house he shared with the children's father, Jason. So he's going to couch surf with friends through the court proceedings. While the legal process rolls on with Vanderwaal, Lydia is struggling to deal with everything she has to maintain her day to day life while juggling the court case and trying to Keep things normal for her son.

[C]

I think about being in this kitchen right here making his lunch. And then I would. I remember I just dropped down and I just sat here thinking, how. How does this happen? Who does that to children? You know, why? Yeah. And it's like, okay, I got to get up. I got to make his lunch. I got to get him to school. But all you want to do is just sit right. Right here. You just don't want to get up. You don't want to go. You don't want to do anything. How do I put a face on? How do I go to work? How do I make money? I didn't have the luxury of staying home. I was a single parent. I couldn't just give up my job and have someone take care of me. Nobody's taking care of me. So it's like, okay, break for a minute and then get up.

[A]

Even though Vanderwaal has been arrested, the odds are still against them. Less than 3% of child sexual abuse cases end in a conviction. In his confession, Vanderwaal claimed that Lydia's son was the only child he abused. But the police issue a press release asking for other victims to come forward, looking for more evidence to strengthen their case. Lydia shares the press release on social media, hoping to get more attention for the case. When she next sees Vanderwaal at the courthouse, she pulls up this press release on her phone and shows it to him.

[C]

And I said, I'm gonna make you famous. I'm gonna spread this word, and I'm gonna track down every victim, because I knew. I knew that my son wasn't the first, and I had hoped he was the last.

[A]

But she's not going to just wait around for people to spot a press release and hopefully come forward to the police. She's going to do her own investigating to see if she can find evidence of other victims.

[C]

As soon as he was arrested, I was already going through his personal belongings.

[A]

Vanderwaal is no longer able to go back to the house that he shared with the children's father, Jason. But all of his belongings are still there. So Lydia heads over to the house.

[C]

Vanderwaal had the room on the far side, and the children's father had the downstairs area.

[A]

Lydia goes into Vanderwaal's room.

[C]

It was a total mess. He. He was just a pig. I mean, there were things everywhere on the floor. Papers, boxes, books. It was like, think of just a filthy bachelor. And that's what the room was like.

[A]

She starts trying to make order out of the chaos. She sifts through his stuff, taking photos of everything that she thinks might be of use or offer some kind of clue.

[C]

I really got to piece together who this person was.

[A]

Andrew Todd Vanderwaal was born on April 20, 1990, and was brought up as a Mennonite in Michigan. Mennonites are known for their tightly bound communities and their distinctive clothing of plain coats for men and hair coverings for women.

[C]

He was homeschooled, so his diploma is signed by his parents, which I think is an absolute joke.

[A]

According to the documents she finds, Vanderwaal left home when he was 19 to join the Air Force.

[C]

He was just always getting in trouble in the military, whether it was his online activities or he just wasn't doing what he was supposed to do. He failed some of the physicals, his academic transcript at the community college. He pretty much failed out of everything that he tried.

[A]

And it wasn't long before he was asked to leave.

[C]

He was honorably discharged with the inability to reenlist. So the military said, we're going to give you an honorable discharge, but you can never reenlist because you suck.

[A]

His resume reveals that throughout Vanderwaal's adult life, he'd always had lots of roles in the community.

[C]

He would coach children's baseball, he would coach children's hockey, and he couldn't even play any of the sports. But here he was inserting himself so that he could have access to these children.

[A]

And he was also involved in the church.

[C]

He was like this Bible thumping Christian. You know, everything was about his church and his mission work and his involvement and the youth groups. And he wrote in his journal, God let me be the light in these children's lives. And I thought, there is no greater evil than someone who uses their faith to victimize people, to victimize children.

[A]

After going through every document she can find, Lydia opens up his dresser. What she sees inside makes her skin crackle.

[C]

He had GI Joes and he had little Hot Wheels artwork by children.

[A]

He.

[C]

He had letters, he had paintings and pictures.

[A]

Out of the corner of her eye, Lydia notices something on the top of his closet. It's a box with Van der Waals name on it. But the box is covered in tape to keep it sealed. Lydia brings it down and starts ripping off the tape.

[C]

In that box, there was a baseball cap, a baseball glove, a Nerf gun. There was a little homemade Christmas ornament with a picture of the child on it. There was a baseball cleat. There were toys and just little trinkets. That belonged to this other child. It was like when you find the trophies of a serial murderer. When I found all of these items, I remember I was shaking. I was. I was absolutely shocked.

[A]

Immediately, Lydia phones Detective Dayton and tells him that someone needs to come and investigate these items. Who is this boy whose belongings are in this trophy chest and what happened to him? Who are the children whose artwork Van der Waal kept?

[C]

And so as I'm going through everything, I'm calling people, I'm calling law enforcement. Nobody would answer my calls. And it was just the most frustrating process because this is evidence. It paints a really clear picture here, and nobody would listen to me, and nobody would come get it.

[A]

Detective Dayton says there's more going on behind the scenes than Lydia knows about.

[B]

She contacted me regarding a box she found. We were walking a delicate path at that point. There was another family that had been contacted by me, and we strongly suspected that their child was another victim of Mr. Vanderwaals. At the time that I spoke with them, they were adamant that their family and name not be part of any police investigation. We really strive to respect those boundaries.

[A]

Detective Dayton is pretty sure that the objects in this box belong to the child in question, but it's up to the family if they want to be part of a police investigation.

[B]

And I was really stuck between, is there any necessity in getting these items and inadvertently dragging this other family into this investigation. And some of the items had some identifying information on them, including initials or a last name. And so they would have been available to the defense if we had seized them as evidence. And on top of that, none of the items in and of themselves were criminal to possess. So we can't just seize things just to seize them. We have to be able to show a nexus to the crimes that we're investigating. Didn't want to inadvertently bring in this other family against their wishes.

[A]

Lydia is fed up with law enforcement. She has a background in social media activism and has already posted the press release about Vanderwaal on her channels and is encouraging people to spread the word. But then she goes further. She manages to identify some of the kids in the photos that she found in Vanderwaal's room. She starts working backwards through all the other places that Vanderwaal has lived, trying to identify victims.

[C]

You see my house right there will go around here. These are all the places he was living before he moved in with the children's father. So back here, he is living here again, having sleepovers with the neighborhood kids. All the guys in the Neighborhood are getting together. They're all drinking beer. The kids are running around, and Vanderwaal's just there hanging out and getting close to the dads. You know, it's just the classic grooming process.

[A]

Lydia reaches out to these other families directly to see if their sons are also victims. Most of the kids say that they.

[C]

Weren'T abused, but of course, there's a lot to be said in the way you ask a child. When you ask a child, did this happen to you? In that stressful kind of voice, a child's going to say, no, no, nothing like that happened. And of course, the parents are going to be relieved and think, okay, nothing happened to my child.

[A]

But one family that Lydia contacts believes that their child was abused by Vanderwaal.

[C]

However, the other child was not ready to speak yet. It wasn't enough to proceed with criminal charges because he just wasn't ready, and that's okay.

[A]

Detective Dayton is a bit cautious about Lydia's approach.

[B]

We didn't want things to look like, quote, a witch hunt, unquote, where we were trying to throw out this huge dragnet.

[A]

Eventually, one other family reaches out to Detective Dayton. They're willing to take things further.

[B]

They had a very similar story in that Mr. Vanderwaal had lived with the father.

[A]

Detective Dayton arranges a forensic interview for this child.

[B]

And I hate to use the word amazing, but the child did amazing and made a very, very believable and descriptive disclosure of additional child sex assault charges. And at that point, given the rest of the investigation, the confessions we had about Lydia's child, this was enough to add another victim with additional criminal charges.

[A]

The case against Vanderwaal is getting stronger. It's looking more likely they'll be able to convict him. Him. Lydia is supporting her son by taking him to therapy with a trauma specialist. But she also leans on the healing nature of being outdoors. Lydia and I met through the indigenous community of northern Colorado. She's Lipin Apache, and I'm Pawnee. So this area is sacred to both our peoples. The Rocky Mountains are our home, and nature is our oldest form of healing. So after Vanderwaal's arrest, Lydia takes her son and her two daughters out for a horseback ride in the Rockies. North of Steamboat Springs. The weather is unusually cold for early November. Light snow is starting to fall on the pathway up the mountain.

[C]

And I remember melting into my mule and just feeling like I wanted to die and so hurt. But here was my son, so happy to be on his Tennessee walker horse on Traveler, and he's so happy. And my girls, you know, they're happy. And they're on their horses on Morgan and Fred. And it was okay. And as devastated and as broken as I was, I could get on the back of my mule and I could ride with my children.

[A]

Lydia shows me a photo of her son on his horse.

[C]

Okay. Yeah. Look at this picture here of him. He's crossing the river on Traveler. And look at how little his little legs. And he's guiding them across the river. But see how he's commanding that horse at such a young age? You'll see here his little hands up. Yeah, look at how little he is. Love that horse. That horse has taken care of my boy for a long time. I can't tell you how many times I spoke to Traveler and I cried to that horse. I hugged him, I thanked him for taking care of my baby boy. That horse saved him.

[A]

On January 17, 2017, Lydia arrives at the Larimer County Justice center in Fort Collins for VanderWaal's next hearing.

[C]

And Vanderwaal wasn't there.

[A]

Lydia, the district attorney, and the legal teams grow restless.

[C]

We're waiting and waiting and waiting, and I'm like, what the hell? And like, he doesn't show up. And finally, the court determines that he failed to appear.

[A]

Vanderwaal has fled. A warrant is put out for his arrest.

[B]

Warrant for failure to appear, you are commanded to arrest Andrew Vanderwaal. Pursuant to Rule 5, Colorado Rules of criminal procedure, the arrested person is to be taken before the nearest available county court.

[A]

Lydia had told the district attorney that the bail was too low and that Vanderwaal was a flight risk. And she's been proved right. Just like she told Jason not to trust Vanderwaal and he dismissed her. Nobody is listening to her. How could she trust the police to find him? She doesn't trust anyone but herself.

[C]

They had told me to sit back. I did, and look what happened. He slipped through their fingers. And no, I was done dealing with their bullshit. And I was gonna do everything I could to track him down.

[A]

And if there's one thing I know about Lydia, if she says she's going to do something, she gets it done. The hunt begins. This was episode two of the Hunter. The presenter is me, Anaya Echo Hawk. The voice of Andrew Vanderwaal was played by Tom Haines. The producer is Emma Wetherill. Sound design by Melvin Rickaby, production management by Juliet Harvey. And the executive producer is Joe Kent. You can contact the team on thehunterbc.com if you've been affected by any of the issues raised in this podcast. Details of organizations that can help are available in the episode. Description the Hunter is funded and made by BBC Studios, a commercial company that is wholly owned by the BBC.