The Disturbing Case of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah

0:00 Speaker 1: On the morning of February sixth, nineteen ninety six, ten

0:03 Speaker 1: year old Zachary Zach Ramsey walked out of his home

0:05 Speaker 1: in Great Falls, Montana, just like he had done countless

0:09 Speaker 1: times before. The streets were covered in snow, the cold

0:12 Speaker 1: winter air biting at his cheeks as he kicked little

0:15 Speaker 1: clumps of snow along the sidewalk on his way to school.

0:18 Speaker 1: Zach was the kind of child every neighborhood adored, energetic, friendly,

0:24 Speaker 1: and fearless. Teachers loved him. Friends waited for him every

0:28 Speaker 1: morning before the school bell rang so they could laugh,

0:31 Speaker 1: run around, and enjoy a few final moments of freedom

0:34 Speaker 1: before class began. That morning, Zak wore a blue denim

0:38 Speaker 1: jacket with green sleeves, stonewashed jeans, black high top sneakers,

0:43 Speaker 1: and a football jersey with Ramsey printed across the back

0:46 Speaker 1: in bold gold letters. He had no idea evil was

0:50 Speaker 1: waiting for him. Somewhere near an alley behind the four

0:53 Speaker 1: hundred block of Fifth Avenue North, sat an off white

0:56 Speaker 1: four door sedan with its engine quietly idling inside. Was

0:59 Speaker 1: a man, A man who had spent most of his life

1:02 Speaker 1: fantasizing about hurting children. A man police would later realize

1:06 Speaker 1: should never have been free. His name was Nathaniel Barjona,

1:10 Speaker 1: and by the time authorities finally searched his home years later,

1:14 Speaker 1: they would uncover one of the most disturbing crime scenes imaginable,

1:17 Speaker 1: including coded journals filled with horrifying recipes titled Little Boy

1:22 Speaker 1: Pot Pie, French Fried Kid, and Little Boys Do. What

1:26 Speaker 1: investigators would begin to suspect was almost too horrific to

1:29 Speaker 1: say out loud. Zach disappeared sometime between seven thirty and

1:34 Speaker 1: seven forty five that morning. First, nobody panicked. His friends

1:38 Speaker 1: assumed he was sick and had stayed home, but when

1:41 Speaker 1: school officials called his mother to report his absence, alarm

1:45 Speaker 1: quickly spread throughout the community. Zach was never late. Search

1:49 Speaker 1: parties formed almost immediately. Hundreds of volunteers flooded the snowy

1:54 Speaker 1: streets of Great Falls. Police officers searched alleys, fields, dumpsters,

2:00 Speaker 1: and abandoned buildings. Then they found Zack's clothes. His genes

2:04 Speaker 1: were discovered stuffed inside a dumpster near the alley where

2:07 Speaker 1: he was last seen. His denim jacket was found discarded

2:11 Speaker 1: in a nearby field. Witnesses began coming forward with chilling

2:15 Speaker 1: accounts One family reported seeing an overweight man in an

2:19 Speaker 1: off white sedan nearly run Zach over in the alleyway

2:22 Speaker 1: that morning. Another witness said they saw Zack crying while

2:26 Speaker 1: an obese adult male followed closely behind him. Then came

2:29 Speaker 1: the name that would terrify investigators, Nathaniel Barjona. Several witnesses

2:35 Speaker 1: identified him near the alley that morning, dressed in a

2:39 Speaker 1: dark police style jacket. For Detective Bill Belushi, the moment

2:43 Speaker 1: he heard Nathaniel's name, everything changed, because Nathaniel already had

2:48 Speaker 1: a horrifying history involving children. Nathaniel Barjona was born David

2:53 Speaker 1: Paul Brown in nineteen fifty seven in Worcester, Massachusetts. From childhood,

2:59 Speaker 1: there were signs something was deeply wrong. He suffered from

3:02 Speaker 1: hydrocephalus as an infant, a condition that caused fluid build

3:06 Speaker 1: up around the brain. As he grew older, his behavior

3:09 Speaker 1: became increasingly disturbing. He stole constantly, harmed animals, picked at

3:15 Speaker 1: his skin until it bled, and displayed violent compulsions that

3:18 Speaker 1: horrified classmates and neighbors alike. At just seven years old,

3:23 Speaker 1: he lured a little girl into his basement using a

3:25 Speaker 1: weege aboard before attempting to strangle her. That was only

3:29 Speaker 1: the beginning. As a teenager, Nathaniel began impersonating police officers

3:34 Speaker 1: to lure children into his car. He abducted boys, assaulted them,

3:39 Speaker 1: tortured them, nearly killed them. In one horrifying attack in

3:43 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, he handcuffed two boys and brutally assaulted

3:48 Speaker 1: them in a secluded area. He jumped repeatedly on one

3:51 Speaker 1: child's chest until he believed he had killed him. Yet,

3:54 Speaker 1: despite arrest after arrest, despite psychiatric evaluations warning authorities Thatananiel

4:00 Speaker 1: was obsessed with violent fantasies involving children, he repeatedly slipped

4:04 Speaker 1: through the cracks of the justice system. Again and again.

4:08 Speaker 1: He was released, again and again. Children paid the price.

4:12 Speaker 1: By the time Zach disappeared in nineteen ninety six, Detective

4:16 Speaker 1: Belushi was convinced Nathaniel was involved, but proving it became

4:20 Speaker 1: nearly impossible. For years, Belushi fought to get search warrants

4:25 Speaker 1: for Nathaniel's property, Judges repeatedly denied them. Nathaniel moved constantly,

4:31 Speaker 1: staying just ahead of investigators while continuing to linger near

4:34 Speaker 1: schools and playgrounds. Then, in December nineteen ninety nine, everything

4:39 Speaker 1: finally changed. Detective Belushi spotted Nathaniel near an elementary school

4:44 Speaker 1: for the third time in a single week. Nathaniel was

4:47 Speaker 1: carrying pepper spray, a fake badge, a toy gun, and

4:51 Speaker 1: dressed like security personnel. This time police arrested him and

4:56 Speaker 1: finally they got their warrant. The search of Nathaniel's ho

5:00 Speaker 1: home quickly turned into a nightmare. At first, investigators found

5:04 Speaker 1: what they expected, fake police gear, security jackets, badges, weapons.

5:10 Speaker 1: Then they noticed something strange in the kitchen upholstering. Hanging

5:14 Speaker 1: from the ceiling. Nearby were disturbing albums filled with photos

5:18 Speaker 1: and cutouts of children, documents about bondage and restraint, and

5:22 Speaker 1: articles about violent sexual behavior. But the most horrifying discovery

5:27 Speaker 1: came later. Police found coded journals. When investigators finally cracked

5:32 Speaker 1: the code, they realized the journals were recipes, recipes with

5:36 Speaker 1: names like little Boy pot Pie, French Fried Kid, Little

5:41 Speaker 1: Boy Stew. Investigators were sickened. They didn't know if these

5:46 Speaker 1: writings were fantasy or confession, but deep down, many feared

5:50 Speaker 1: they already knew the answer. The deeper police dug, the

5:53 Speaker 1: worse it became. Nathaniel had newspaper clippings about Zach's disappearance.

5:58 Speaker 1: Hidden inside the home, he had a handwritten list of

6:01 Speaker 1: fifty four boys names, including children he had attacked years earlier.

6:06 Speaker 1: The final name on the list was Zachary Ramsay. Next

6:10 Speaker 1: to it was a single word, died. Then investigator's uncovered

6:15 Speaker 1: evidence that made the case truly horrifying. A large piece

6:19 Speaker 1: of plywood in Nathaniel's garage appeared to have been scrubbed

6:22 Speaker 1: with bleach and hacked repeatedly with a meat cleaver. A

6:25 Speaker 1: luminol test revealed traces of blood. Police also found human

6:29 Speaker 1: hair inside a meat grinder. At another property connected to Nathaniel,

6:34 Speaker 1: investigators discovered bone fragments belonging to two unidentified boys between

6:39 Speaker 1: the ages of eight and thirteen. Neither was Zack. Even

6:43 Speaker 1: more disturbing were reports from neighbors. In the days following

6:46 Speaker 1: Zach's disappearance. Nathaniel reportedly hosted cookouts and served dear burgers

6:52 Speaker 1: that neighbors said tasted strange. Yet Nathaniel didn't own a

6:56 Speaker 1: hunting license, and after Zack vanished, records showed he mysteriously

7:01 Speaker 1: stopped buying groceries for weeks. Despite the mountain of horrifying

7:05 Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence, prosecutors could never conclusively prove Nathaniel murdered Zach Ramsay, and, heartbreakingly,

7:13 Speaker 1: Zach's own mother refused to believe her son was dead.

7:17 Speaker 1: She became convinced by a psychic that Zach was alive

7:20 Speaker 1: somewhere in Italy. Without a body, without definitive forensic proof,

7:24 Speaker 1: murder charges could not stick, but investigators refused to let

7:29 Speaker 1: Nathaniel walk free again. Instead, prosecutors focused on surviving victims

7:34 Speaker 1: who could testify against him. Children he had kidnapped, children

7:39 Speaker 1: he had assaulted, children who survived. Finally, after decades of

7:44 Speaker 1: terrorizing children across multiple states, Nathaniel Barjona was sentenced to

7:48 Speaker 1: one hundred thirty years in prison without parole. It was

7:51 Speaker 1: the first time the justice system truly stopped him, but

7:55 Speaker 1: for many, it came far too late. In two thousand

7:58 Speaker 1: and eight, Nathaniel Barjonah died alone in his prison cell

8:02 Speaker 1: after suffering a heart attack. He took countless secrets with

8:06 Speaker 1: him to the grave. To this day, nobody knows exactly

8:09 Speaker 1: what happened to Zachary Ramsay, but many investigators believed the

8:13 Speaker 1: truth was hidden inside that house, all along a house

8:17 Speaker 1: with coated cookbooks, a blood stained garage floor, a meat

8:21 Speaker 1: grinder containing human hair, and a predator who spent decades

8:25 Speaker 1: hunting children while the system repeatedly allowed him back onto

8:28 Speaker 1: the streets. Nathaniel Barjonah wasn't just a monster. He was

8:33 Speaker 1: a monster that authorities had multiple chances to stop, and

8:37 Speaker 1: for too many children, those chances came too late.