The Lost Daughter

Emily Father, we got a simple prayer. It's really simple. Help us find Tiffany. We know without your grace, without your blessing, it won't happen. Amen. Amen. Let's go. Do it. For 25 years, Pat and Hillary sessions have been searching for their daughter Tiffany.

And in January 2014, in this forest in Gainesville, Florida, just over a mile from where Tiffany disappeared. There was another girl in 1992 who was actually found here on the site.

They hoped they may finally find her.

I am extremely optimistic.

“What are you feeling going into this excavation? Are you nervous?”

I'm a lot more nervous than I thought I would be. I've done other searches. And this one, I'm a lot more nervous about because it may not be true, but it sort of feels like a file or a raw. You know, I pushed and pushed so many people for so long. I don't know how long I'll do it.

[music] Do you think the emotion comes because maybe it's the end or maybe it's not? Yeah, I don't know. It needs to end. Everybody needs closure on this.

[music] In 1989, Tiffany's sessions was a junior studying finance at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She had dreams of running a company one day.

“She knew what she wanted to do. She knew where she was going to go.”

She was determined to make something out of herself. Tiffany had a good role model. Pat Sessions was a well-known marketing executive for a giant real estate company in South Florida. He oversaw the creation of Western, one of the biggest building projects in the United States. She kind of wanted to be like dad, follow in your footsteps.

I've been told that by her friends. Pat and Hillary divorced when Tiffany was just eight months old. Hillary was in the U.S. Air Force. And as she traveled around the country, she brought Tiffany with her. I was the mom. I was the dad.

I was the disciplinarian, the provider. There wasn't anything that we didn't do together. And we worked as a team. You called her in your masterpiece. I did.

Because I only had one.

“I worked really hard on making sure that she was as nice on the inside as she was on the outside.”

Growing up, Tiffany didn't see a lot of her father. But in her teens, they reconnected. Pat was in his late 30s. A bachelor living in an oceanfront home in Miami's affluent coconut grove. The summers were the times that we spent together in holidays.

Tiffany also got to know her half brother Jason.

My father is always a very active fun guy.

So when we came together for those different times, we were always doing need experiences going on the boat. You know, the beach, different activities like that. So yeah, that's where we really got to know each other. Both of them were single kids, so they didn't have anybody else. They bonded together very quickly.

But for Pat, missing out on so much of his daughter's childhood had taken its toll. It was a lot of ketchup. You know, and overcoming a lot of bad history between her mother and I. Tiffany was very close to both her parents. Kathleen Fresa, Tiffany's college roommate.

She loved her mom and they had a very special relationship. She spoke with her frequently almost daily. I would say on the phone. With her dad, because she was able to renew that relationship with him. That was really very touching for her.

And when Pat bought his daughter a Rolex watch, Kathleen says Tiffany never took it off.

She just loved it partly because it was a Rolex partly because it was from her dad. So, you know, hell, it held a really special emotional tie for her. In fact, Kathleen has never forgotten one of the last conversations she had with Tiffany. Just before she went out for that final walk. Before she walked out, Tiffany said, "I'm going to take off my jewelry."

If somebody comes after me, they're going to have to fight me for the watch.

“Tiffany never returned to her apartment while on the evening walk.”

When Tiffany did not come back, I still had hope at that time. I just really am still pretty hopeful, and I'm continuing to believe that she was trying to safely. There were people in the apartment outside the apartment, milling around, trying to figure out what we needed to do. The day after Tiffany went missing, Pat and Hillary arrived in Gainesville.

I got here, and I didn't even run a car. I did a cab because I assumed all this was going to be overrouted. We quickly and Tiffany would give me a ride back to the airport. But Pat knew the situation was serious when he learned that Tiffany had left the apartment with only her watch and her walkman.

She didn't have her wallet, her driver's license, her car was there, and that was the scary part. You know, all that stuff was there, and we were all starting to get nervous as the day went on.

“I think there was a sense of urgency here.”

Jim Eckert was one of the lead investigators on the case. This young woman didn't have any, I guess, baggage as it were. It wasn't like we had a boyfriend or some strained relationship.

She was a good student. She was pretty much always on the mark, so for her not to have shown up was pretty unusual.

She's a smart kid, she's resourceful, and if she's in trouble, she's going to be doing everything she can to get out of it. Pat sprang into action. He put his marketing skills to work, and organized one of the largest missing person searches in Florida history. I need your help. I need the work to get out of Tiffany. From day one, he was so driven. He ran like a business.

He really did. We're attempting to find Tiffany, and we're just investigating every lead. Pat brought in Wayne Black, a private investigator who specialized in recovering missing children.

“Pat had within, I think, 24 hours, Tiffany's picture on the inside of every pizza box being delivered in a lateral county.”

You see anything or talk to anyone, I hear anything. Please give us a call. Volunteers blanketed the state with flyers, put Tiffany's face on billboards. And answered a 1-800 hotline. Jason Sessions, just 17, also helped to get the word out. She left the house without keys, without jewelry, without makeup, and that's not Tiffany.

It was amazing to me how small South Florida became and understanding who Tiffany Sessions was and what we were doing and what we were going through.

I really appreciate you calling and probably somebody even calling it back from the FBI. My goal was very simple. It was to make sure that everybody that I could knew what she looked like. To try and get as many people out there looking for her as I could. I'm curious whether that helped you with the emotional side of things to be able to look at this from a business marketing point of view. Yes, because I felt useful because I felt a control.

For every 50 people to pass out of flyer, one story that you're often run does 100 times that. Pat set up press conferences and recruited his famous friends like football legend Dan Marino. What I'm going to try to go to help his team is to try to call on all my friends throughout the NFL. Today you can push a button and you reach a million people on Facebook. Try to get some nationwide coverage for Tiffany and try to help her in those days. TV was my Facebook.

Politician Jeb Bush also helped out and so did America's most wanted host John Walsh who son Adam was abducted and killed in 1981. I know the nightmare firsthand of having a missing child and what he's going through. We can only assume that she is alive and that she is somewhere and we just hope that there will be some type of word and that you will spread the word. People are committed because of Pat because he just asked them come help me and you know he's irresistible in that regard. There is a massive investigation going on what they want from us is information leads physical clues.

Just one week after Tiffany disappeared, over 700 people showed up to search the area around Tiffany's walking route, hoping to find any clues as to what happened to her. There was something out there somewhere and we just had to turn it up. It was freezing cold that day. It was terrible day. It was drizzling. It was cold. When you find any evidence, just stay away from it. Let me know. I'll come take a look at it.

We had busloads of troops that came in to help us with the search we had. Dolphins players, all of our friends and family from South Florida who up here. Start down there by that fence. We went real hard at the area where she walked trying to find the walkmen trying to find her. And it turns up zero.

That was a longest drive home because I was so you forked that we're going to find something.

“I think the hardest part was what do I do now?”

In your trying to solve the case, I would imagine you went up and down and up and down. This road lost a lot. A lot. Former detective Jim Eckert still remembers every step of the walking route. He thinks Tiffany sessions took the night she disappeared.

This was all thick woods. So it would have been fairly easy to snatch it. It was what you call a private place. This was a huge construction site for a lot of people coming and going.

He always wondered if Tiffany's abductor could have worked here at Hunter's run.

We talked to certainly as many as we could and nothing. The hotline was receiving as many as 600 calls per day. But in 1989, technology was so primitive detectives were quickly overwhelmed. We were using dust systems and sticking big discs and computers and most cops didn't even know how to do that. We didn't have a fax machine.

They didn't have a fax machine. So I bought it one. How many leads came in?

“Too many. I've always worried that there was so much that it got lost in the shuffle.”

Something fell through the cracks. Weeks turned to months. First, month or two, still had a lot of hope. Every day that goes by, the odds drop astronomically. And I knew that things were not looking good.

And then detectives received a promising lead. An anonymous inmate wrote that Michael Nicarbucker, a convicted serial rapist and murderer, serving five life sentences confessed to killing Tiffany sessions. You went and taught sure. He was a spooky guy. You got bad vibes off of him.

You know, like, well, did you do this? No. But here's how I would have done it.

Michael Nicarbucker never confessed to detectives that he killed Tiffany.

But he did confess that he was the one who wrote the letter as a mean joke. And these guys do that. I mean, I can show you 50 letters, and I got from guys in jail. I realized early on that I was dealing with a whole subculture of people that were just subhuman.

When the Nicarbucker lead fell apart, Pat offered a cash reward, hoping someone would come forward with information about his daughter. When you put out a reward, it happens in every case you get every nut job. But one lead seemed credible. You get your hopes up. You think, maybe this is it.

It was from a man who said he knew where Tiffany was and that she was sick and in need of medical attention. She's done a hangout. The caller sent Pat on a wild car chase all over Miami. He says you hang out if I'm going to kill her. But the caller turned out to be a professional con artist.

He was caught by the FBI and sent away to prison for a little over six years. I was emotionally up to here. I really thought this guy might really know something. And as the reward climbed to $250,000, Pat endured two more extortion attempts.

And then one year after Tiffany went missing, when Pat thought the news couldn't get much worse. The two women found murdered Sunday afternoon where you have F students. Within four days, five students were murdered in Gainesville. Detectives had a serial killer on their hands.

Did you think Tiffany could have been connected to that? Of course the first day you wondered. Yes, I thought that maybe it was the same person. Weeks later, an ex-con named Danny Rowling was arrested. He later confessed to the five Gainesville student murders,

but he never confessed to killing Tiffany.

Detectives dropped Rowling as a possible suspect when they learned he was in Shreveport, Louisiana, the evening Tiffany disappeared. The biggest challenge always in a case like this is to keep everyone motivated.

When the leads dried up, private investigator Wayne Black tried to keep the momentum of the investigation going.

“The case got cold, so you have to remind them”

it's still the kidnapping, it's obviously a homicide, and let's work it. And Pat and his team kept working it for 25 years.

Yeah, I don't know why about that.

“I mean, there was times early on when I was just overwhelmed”

and didn't, you know, in the frustration I'm knowing what to do. And the good news was even when I'd start to slow down, everybody else pushed me. And no one pushed Pat more than this woman. In 2006, Sadie Darnell became the first woman elected sheriff in Elatua County.

She was just a young cop in 1989 when Tiffany disappeared and that memory stayed with her. It was very jarring and very scary and very haunting to think that that could happen in our midst. And then this many years later, still having it unsolved.

Throughout the years, even though she was never actually assigned to the case,

Sadie would mail and fax pat words of encouragement. September 15, 1995, Patrick, I know this must be difficult

“for you to maintain a constant struggle for Tiffany's case.”

I've always believed it can and will be solved. I've loyalty to you. The overall goal is for you to have Tiffany back. And in some time in the future, peace. Call me anytime to vent, strategize, coordinate, kick-up, etc.

etc. Always Sadie. So when Sadie became sheriff, one of her main goals was to set up a cold case unit and find out what happened to Tiffany sessions. In January 2013, Sheriff Darnell hired Detective Kevin Allen to do just that. He's one of the best I've ever seen.

In fact, in a Kepaskin' War has he been on like a rear. This is the kind of guy that gets the cold case stuff. That's the kind of person that you need on this. She told me very matter-facily, I want this case solved during my tenure here. And Sheriff Darnell told Detective Allen that she wanted him to focus on one man,

a convict by the name of Paul Rolls. I've been in that case for a couple of weeks.

I've never read the name, never heard the name.

She said, "Get down and talk to him. Talk to him right away. Times of the essence." I have an 18-year-old daughter. My daughter is the light of my life. It's that personal to you. Yes.

When Kevin Allen joined the Allatua County Cold Case Unit early in 2013, he knew working on the Tiffany Sessions case would be difficult for him. Just being a parent and just the thought of something happening to your child. I have a picture of Tiffany Sessions, like, keep at my desk. I go to bed thinking about the case and I wake up thinking about the case.

We look at all the cold cases. We can't forget the past and we can't just let it go. Sheriff Sadie Darnell made the Tiffany Sessions case a priority.

“You need to lift up every rock, peel back every layer.”

She started by giving Detective Allen that lead to look into convicted murderer Paul Rolls. What I found was that Paul Rolls was a psychopath, a serial killer. He had sadistic tendencies, sadistic fantasies. And Detective Allen would soon learn that Paul Rolls had a long and violent past that lasted over 20 years.

In 1972, he killed his first victim, former beauty queen Linda Fida.

At the time, Rolls was a newly married 23-year-old architecture student. Linda Fida was a neighbor of his. They lived in apartment complex in North Miami. Paul was a stalker. I mean, he would plan and watch his prey. He saw her through the people in his door to his apartment. And that's how he watched her.

When Linda Fida went to do her laundry, Paul Rolls snuck into her apartment and when she returned, he tried to rape her. She fought back and he strangled her. This was a nude young girl in the bathtub. Detective Marshall Frank now retired rushed to the crime scene. One of the things that we found was different on this crime scene

that other crime scenes was a couple of band-aids. Detectives were able to get tooprends off those band-aids. Then a day after the murder, when they knocked on neighbor Paul Rolls door, they immediately noticed band-aids on his toes. So they went and took a tooprend from him, compared it against the print

that they had at the scene. They had their guy. After his arrest, Detective Frank was shocked when Rolls quickly confessed.

Just kind of like, matter of fact, be going over something that just happened.

“Detective Frank says Rolls told him he had sexual urges that he couldn't control.”

I just asked him, "How long have you had these kinds of feelings?" And he said, "For a while now, my thought process was this man has a severe problem." Detective Frank believes Paul Rolls was the most dangerous type of killer. When you met him at that time, he met a nice guy, anybody would trust.

Have more for dinner. He'd never know. You'd never know.

Rolls was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Linda Fida. But in 1985, Rolls' life sentence was abruptly cut short when he was suddenly released and out on parole. I thought, "Oh my God, that's not good." That was the deal back then through prison overcrowding and lots of crime in the state of Florida. The average sentence for life in prison was 15 years.

Rolls only had to serve 13 years of his life sentence. This is the kind of guy that was to not be released from prison. He committed a heinous crime without any guilt at all. In 1988, Rolls settled in Gainesville, where he worked as a pizza delivery man. He also had another job putting up scaffolding on that apartment complex hunter's run,

located right on Tiffany's walking route.

He always stayed under the radar.

When I interviewed his boss at Pizza Hut, he said it was as if Paul didn't want to be seen. He just maintained an extremely low profile as many serial killers do. In 1989, just one year after Paul Rolls moved to Gainesville, Tiffany sessions disappeared.

“How could somebody just totally disappear off the face of this earth with no evidence?”

And it turns out Rolls did not show up for his pizza delivery job on the day Tiffany vanished. And then in 1992, just three years after Tiffany went missing, Beth Foster, that other college student, was found murdered just one mile from where Tiffany went walking. Every time something happened up here in Gainesville, I was concerned.

Tiffany's mom Hillary immediately thought that the two cases could be related. You thought back then back in 1992 that this could be a serial killer. Absolutely. The same guy who murdered Elizabeth Foster could have taken Tiffany. Yeah, and I've said that all this time. But nobody wanted to listen to me.

Private investigator Wayne Black says at the time, police couldn't link Rolls to either crime. Or remember, we didn't have the forensics that we have today. We were really in the dark ages. And even though Rolls, by then 43,

was an ex-con living in the area, police never questioned him, and just two months after Beth Foster's murder,

he quietly left town. Paul Rolls had lived in Gainesville for about four years,

“and I think the heat was on basically at that point, so he got out of town.”

And in 1994, Rolls struck again this time in Jacksonville, when he raped and attempted to kill a 15-year-old girl. She was able to escape and identify Rolls as her attacker. Rolls was convicted, and this time he was sent to prison for good. He was confronted soon after the crime and gave a full confession.

To that crime. Yes. To the young girl. Yes. But what about to the other crimes?

Elizabeth Foster, Tiffany Sessions. He wasn't interviewed about either of those cases in a timely fashion. The dots had not been connected. Over the next few years, as DNA technology advanced, detectives submitted Rolls DNA to the FBI database to see if he could've possibly killed others,

and although it took 18 years. Finally, in 2012, there was a match to Elizabeth Foster. How big of a development was that? Linking Elizabeth Foster's death to Paul Rolls. It was huge.

Years go on, decades go on, and nothing's happening. No one knew information, so it was energizing. It was wonderful. Sheriff Darnell knew that if Paul Rolls, who was now 64, had killed Beth Foster, he could also have killed Tiffany Sessions.

She was a young wife female. They lived in the same quadrant of our county. Paul Rolls didn't show up for work the day that she went missing.

He got to look at him.

“Detective Allen couldn't wait to confront Rolls,”

hoping he would cave and confess to Tiffany's abduction.

But when the detective went to question him in December of 2013, Rolls was in a coma and dying of lung cancer. Did you hope that maybe he'd wake up? Oh, sure. And with a last twinge of conscience, you know, could, would, should say, I did it.

And this is where she is, but not didn't have him. Paul Rolls died almost two weeks later. But Sheriff Darnell was not giving up. I sent an email to Kevin Allen saying, "Crap, crap, crap. Get down there and get his personal belongings as soon as possible."

Something in her gut told her to get a hold of Paul Rolls personal property.

And what Paul Rolls left behind changed the entire investigation.

I got chills when Kevin showed it to me.

“When detective Allen went to retrieve serial killer Paul Rolls personal belongings from jail,”

it was 24 years after Tiffany's sessions disappeared. It was just one box. He didn't think he would find much. And it just got a lot of letters and loose writings stuff. But then he came across Rolls a dress book.

Sir, I should copy this, this might be relevant. And there in a dead center of the book is a date, two, nine, eighty-nine. I went, "Oh my gosh." Because that's a date if you disappear. Then he saw what Rolls wrote next to the date.

Then number two, I knew Linda Faita was his first victim.

And chronologically, Tiffany's sessions would have been his second victim. I almost fell down when I saw it. What was going through your head?

“We have a possible link to the Tiffany's sessions disappearance from Paul Rolls personal property.”

It's a huge break. Lucky. Really lucky. And that's not all that was in the address book. Rolls had also written down the names of all of his other victims.

Linda Faita, Elizabeth Foster, and the 15-year-old girl Rolls raped and attempted to kill in Jacksonville, a minor whose name we won't disclose. Some serial killers like to keep a diary. Some keep artifacts.

Some like to write down what they've done, a feeling of accomplishment. Look what I did. I've got two, three, four. As a can I say it? This could be the smoking gun piece of evidence.

Sheriff Darnell has been looking for all these years. I was literally shaking, holding that to see it and to see the depth of what that meant. After all these many years, there's a possibility. Just a possibility that this case could be solved. Once he discovered the address book, detective Allen ordered up cadaver dogs

to search the site where Rolls buried Elizabeth Foster. They all alert about 20 feet from where Beth Foster was buried. So what did that say to you? They're assuming it remains here. And it could be Tiffany.

It could be Tiffany Sessions. He obviously was in a comfort zone. There he left Beth Foster there for a reason. So he may have left multiple bodies there. So on January 13, 2014, just one month away from the 25th anniversary of Tiffany's disappearance.

Pat sessions and detective Allen have gathered a team of people to help at the excavation. 25 years ago we started. I hope we're going to finish. I want to be there for the end of this if it is. Some members of the team have been searching for Tiffany since she went missing.

I've probably been on over 20 searches for Tiffany. Dr. Michael Warren is a world renowned forensic anthropologist and expert in identifying human bones. I've had Tiffany Sessions master follow my desk for 21 years. He's been actively involved in the search for Tiffany since 1991. She's just been one of the cases that I would really like to resolve.

And he knows it is not going to be an easy task. It's very hard to go out and do an organized search over such a large area. So we've got to be pretty aggressive.

I've memorized her dental pattern and her dental chart.

I don't know if it's her or not.

“To find her would just be remarkable feeling.”

They're planned to dig for five days. I feel good about the operation. I feel good about the people on the ground. So we're all thumbs up trying to stay positive. After clearing the trees, they now begin the tedious job of sifting through every bit of dirt.

Looking for pieces of human bone. And in the afternoon, they do find a bone. But it's not human. It's a deer bone. Pat is disappointed. But he knows they have a lot more ground to dig.

We waited this long, worked as hard to get here. It's amazing. The commitment from everybody.

And if they don't find Tiffany here, Jason will never stop looking for his sister.

I don't have any doubt if I drop dead tomorrow. You know, he'll just keep on going. I hope he doesn't have to. Maybe we'll get lucky. Yeah, I'll continue looking forever.

As long as there's a lead to follow, we're going to continue looking. With just three days left to dig, Tiffany's mother Hillary is adamant. The search will be over. This is definitely the one. You know why? The pieces are fitting.

Everything is fitting in place. This is it. [music]

“Is it hard to imagine that Tiffany might be in that spot?”

I don't know what's worse. Having absolutely no idea what happened to her. Or having someone as bad as Paul Rolls haven't done it. Believing serial killer Paul Rolls murdered his daughter makes it even harder for Pat Sessions to understand how after receiving a life sentence in 1976,

he was ever released from prison. That makes me sick. Tiffany would probably be alive today if they had went to Gaia. [music] On day three of the excavation.

We're really moving some dirt. There isn't a chance we're missing anything. Pat starts to wonder if Rolls may have buried Tiffany's someplace else. Am I losing optimism that we're going to find Tiffany this go around? It's hard not to.

Later that day, Pat's fears come true.

“When excavators finish digging in the areas where the cadaver dogs alerted”

and find nothing. Certainly dogs are very good at finding the recently dead who are giving off these human specific sense. Forensic anthropologist Dr. Michael Warren says cadaver dogs sometimes can be unreliable when trying to solve cold cases.

Skeletons are a different thing. They just don't have any odor associated with them. [music] And with no focus on where to dig. By the end of the week, the excavation comes to an end.

We have not found Tiffany's sessions. It was a disappointing year. I'm really disappointing.

But we're never going to find out if we don't keep trying.

[music] Good morning, everyone. And thank you for being here. This has been a long journey. And then just three weeks after the dig.

Sheriff Darnell goes public about Paul Rolls. He was in this community. He murdered in this community. He had made comments about this site being a dump site. Darnell hopes that someone will know something that leads them to Tiffany's remains.

If you had any involvement with him, if you know of anyone who had involvement with him, bring it forward. For Pat and Hillary, there's a sense of finality to this moment. They think they have their man, even if they don't have their little girl.

And above all, they're grateful. I want to thank the people who have come over the last 25 years. They're especially thankful to Detective Kevin Allen. This is the guy that's made everybody work. He's the one who gave Pat and Hillary the answers they've been longing for.

I think he saw the case. I think we found who took Tiffany.

I think anyone who has children is touched by the case of Tiffany sessions,

especially myself. I know the sheriff too. Oh yeah, you take care. It was an emotional day for all of us. Tiffany's case is still officially open.

But over the years, Pat and Hillary have tried to bring closure to other parents of missing children.

Hillary has worked with advocates on child protection legislation

and Pat works directly with families. You know, you try to find something as corny as it sounds. Try to make some meaning out of something trying to do something positive or a terrible thing.

“And I think that's the best thing I could do.”

You know, somebody calls me "I'm there." My cute little missy. I'm very comfortable here in your room. On bad days, like sometimes her birthday. I come in to sleep here in the room because I just feel very close to her at that time.

I honestly do think that if Tiffany were here, she'd say, "Get over it." I don't think she'd want me to be spending my entire life. I mean, I already spent 25 years in this. Trying to do something that isn't going to bring her back. So if you imagine that she would tell you not get off Dad, move on.

Why you keep doing it? For my own benefit.

“To try and to do what I think I should have done.”

I don't want to ever. If she walked in the door tomorrow, you know,

I want to be always be able to say that I did the best I could do.

It's all right, buddy. If you know anything about Tiffany's disappearance, please contact a Latua County Crime Stoppers Tip Line at 352-372-7867. On August 2, Lioness, the hitter original series from Taylor Sheridan, returns on Paramount Plus.

I'm scared, Kills. Kills, Kills became that world. The world didn't become this. Toys been this way. Steering so we sell Donna.

Keep running!

“Michael Kelly, he tried to touch us here.”

It's a two-way street buddy. With Morgan Freeman. They're falling up from this is ridiculous. And a cold kid, man. This isn't the end of a fight.

This is the start of one. Lioness, new season streaming August 2, August 2nd, only on Paramount Plus.