On the night of October 1, 1993, a 12-year-old girl was kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom during a sleepover while her mother slept in the next room. It was a stranger abduction from the home—the rarest and most terrifying kind of kidnapping. What followed was one of the largest manhunts in FBI history.
Polly Klaas became a household name. Her face appeared on the cover of People magazine, on national news every night, and on more than 8 million flyers distributed as far as China. Thousands of volunteers joined the search. The FBI poured resources into the case, collecting fibers, fingerprints, and the single palm print that would eventually crack it open.
But the investigation was haunted by a devastating mistake: deputies had stopped the suspect just two hours after the abduction, but they let him go. They didn't know about the kidnapping. They didn't know they were face to face with a twice-convicted kidnapper named Richard Allen Davis. Two months later, a palm print found in Polly's bedroom would finally match. But by then, it was too late.
This is the story of the kidnapping that changed American law forever. The case that inspired California's "Three Strikes" law. The case that transformed the FBI's approach to solving crimes. And the case of a little girl whose smile would never be forgotten.
Thanks for listening to The FBI Files. New cases every week — follow now so you never miss one. This podcast is a narrative retelling based on publicly available information and is intended for entertainment purposes.
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