“Shut up.”
“YOU’RE A BAD MOTHER.”
“Should kill you right now. Have my gun to her head.”
“I’M GOING TO BLOW HER HEAD OFF.”
“Then you’re going to have to COME UP AND KILL ME.”
“THIS WAS a domestic situation that was going bad. extremely bad.”
“Please.”
“It’s a hostage situation. He’s about to kill her.”
“This doesn’t have to go down this way.”
“We were about to storm the room and take her chances.”
“Charlie, you can’t kill her in front OF HER SON.”
“SHUT UP.”
“My mind is going a million miles an hour. How do I stop him from doing this?”
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“Why’d you leave me?”
“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU.”
“YOUR PETS ARE STUCK.”
“ARE YOU OKAY?”
“LEAVE HIM ALONE. HURRY UP. Come on.”
“911. Where’s your emergency?”
“That Sunday when I came into work, there was a complaint involving the uh possible disappearance of Cheryl Hart that was reported by her family.”
For two days, no one has seen 26-year-old Cheryl Hart and her four-year-old son, Charlie. A fact that scares her family for one clear reason. Cheryl’s ex-boyfriend, Charles Leaf.
“Charlie had just been released from prison. He was well known for his violent behavior and the history of domestic violence.”
“When Cheryl once tried to leave him, she said he raped and threatened to kill her. Now he’s fresh out of prison for kidnapping their son, little Charlie.”
“He had taken the child from Cheryl and disappeared for a period of time.”
“Though Cheryl has a restraining order, her family doubts a piece of paper will stop Charlie from getting what he wants.”
“There was mail and newspapers that had collected in the mailbox and in front of the house.”
“Something was not quite right there.”
“We did find a door that was unlocked and open.”
“Police.”
“We found one bedroom door that had been forced open with pieces of the broken door and the lock scattered along the floor.”
“It appeared that it had been kicked open.”
“As I lifted the mattress to find anything concealed, I found a very large kitchen knife directly under the mattress where she would have been sleeping. That indicated first that Cheryl was in fear enough for her safety to have to keep such a knife underneath her mattress. Second, she did not have the opportunity to get it out.”
“We found little Charlie’s room, uh, but he was missing as well.”
“All signs point to a kidnapping. And if her ex did it, Cheryl and her son are in serious danger.”
A search for leave comes up empty. So, police haul in the next best thing, his new girlfriend.
“She was not forthcoming and had very little information to provide.”
“But when detectives run her car tax, something clicks. I realized I had seen that car just recently. It was a very distinctive car, a Chevy Nova from the early ‘7s.”
“The day before Cheryl’s abduction, Burns was working security at a hotel parking lot when the car pulled in.”
“What caught our attention was the way the car drove through the parking lot, up and down the parking aisles, but never chose a parking place. I suspected that the occupants were up to something.”
“It turns out Cheryl Hart works at this hotel. Detectives think Charlie must have been scoping the place to get his hands on her that night. They brought the new girlfriend back in and confronted her with this information.”
“Can you tell me a little bit about that?”
“This prompted her to disclose that she knew Charlie had planned to kidnap Cheryl and Charlie Jr. Charlie was going to head south to property that he was familiar with. from his childhood.”
“It’s the information they need to confirm Leaf is behind this. But if he’s fled the state, Trumble PD needs help. So they place a call to the one agency that has what it takes to hunt down the fugitive, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“At that point, we had a federal kidnapping warrant that turned it into an FBI investigation.”
“Federal authorities have launched a nationwide search.”
“The FBI alerts law enforcement throughout the Southeast.”
“Man, who allegedly kidnapped his girlfriend and their four-year-old son and fled the state of Connecticut. Charles A. Leaf Jr. has been charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.”
“We knew the background about his having assaulted Cheryl in Connecticut on multiple occasions.”
“But even for the violent leaf, this kidnapping amps up his rage to a new level.”
“We had a woman who had been very badly abused previously and a child out there that were being held possibly at gunpoint. So we had to do everything we could to try and locate them.”
“Trouble is, Leaf and his two captives could be anywhere.”
“More than 300 m south of Trumble, Connecticut in Rapahannock County, Virginia, a deputy obtains a warrant to search an abandoned car.”
“It’s on a maroon Chevy.”
“When he does, he learns it’s the car the FBI is looking for.”
“There was nothing in the vehicle that, you know, looked like someone had been shot or no blood or anything like that. So, we were looking for the three of them at that point.”
“The FBI deploys its SWAT teams from the Washington and Richmond offices.”
“Commanding in the field is assistant special agent in charge Virgil Young.”
“When they searched the car, they found probably the key piece of evidence of a receipt showing that Charlie had purchased a a carbine and 200 rounds of ammunition.”
“I found a receipt here for a firearm.”
“So, we assumed that he was armed and extremely dangerous.”
“The FBI’s Richmond SWAT unit led by Wayne Wedell prepares for a firefight.”
“I had ballistic protective gear. I always have handguns and shoulder weapons to carry. I had camouflage clothing.”
“Anytime you get a highprofile investigation, there is certainly a little bit of adrenaline rush.”
“This is something serious. It’s a kidnapping. People’s lives may be in danger. It’s something we are anxious to get out and do.”
“Agents believe that without his vehicle, Leaf and his hostages can’t have gone far.”
“Let’s do it.”
“He’s got a woman and a child with him. So, we assumed that he was wasn’t going to be making any 50-mi marches. We didn’t think that he had a ton of camping equipment. So, let’s go out and look at the farms and the summer homes in the area to see if there’s any indication that they are there.”
“Rapahannock County spans 265 square miles east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The FBI dispatches helicopters and alerts the press, asking the public for help.”
“But the real burden falls on the agents on the ground.”
“The area that we had to search was huge. Initially, our search was on the buildings in the area and that’s how we set up the sectors for the searches.”
“There are a lot of summer homes and weekend homes that were unoccupied. We would look for any sign of someone having broken in. A door kicked in or Jimmy Marks or windows broken. We saw nothing.”
“After hours of house to house searching, the agents finally get a tip.”
“Somebody in one of the cabins said they saw someone out in the woods.”
“We divided up the area to be searched and we did it on a search line. It was very cold, very rainy for most of the week. Really a pretty miserable time to be up there.”
“What’s worse, the fugitive has an advantage.”
“Leaf was somewhat of an outdoorsman. He was comfortable in the woods. He could live off the land and so on. And this made our job harder because he didn’t have to be close to civilization.”
“They hope he’ll surface eventually for food and supplies. But when after a couple of days of searching and researching some areas, everybody was pretty disheartened.”
“Many of the search teams are sent home. Special agent Wedell’s unit, including Terry Nest, remains to track Leaf down.”
“Our job was just to start from scratch and try to find him. The biggest challenge is to be alert and having that SWAT team stay focused.”
“An FBI agent’s mission is to save lives. A mission jeopardized as precious seconds tick by. Somewhere out in the cold Virginia woods, a violent madman holds captive a terrified woman and her little boy. Without a break, soon their time will run out.”
“FBI and local law enforcement authorities are searching for Charles Anthony Leaf, who is accused of abducting his common law wife, Cheryl Hart, and four-year-old son, Charlie Leaf III. Leaf is described as a white male, 6’ 3 in tall, weighing 160 lb.”
“Name is Charles Leaf. The man is armed and dangerous.”
“7 days have passed since Charles Leaf kidnapped Cheryl and their son, Charlie. The FBI’s Richmond SWAT team pushes deeper into Virginia’s Blue Ridge Foothills to chase the fugitive and his captives.”
“The FBI is asking anyone who’s seen these individuals in Sperryville, Rappahannock County, or elsewhere to immediately call the FBI in Richmond.”
“We had a mission to try to save Cheryl and her child, and we had a mission to try to apprehend Charles Leaf. This is real life. It is not going to end in a hurry. I just know that we had to keep at it.”
“5 days after police found Leaf’s getaway car, agents check on a reported burglary in a nearby store.”
“There was milk and orange juice and lunch meats taken.”
“Marlboro cigarettes, which we knew at that time were Charlie’s cigarettes, and other items that you might use camping. Anyway, so when the storekeeper said, ‘Gee, I’ve had a breakin here.’ So happens we’re looking for someone here in the area there that needs the things that were stolen, we said, ‘He’s there. I mean, we know he’s there as of as of, you know, 5 hours ago at most.’ That’s when it was, ‘This is serious. We need more manpower down here.'”
“As the Richmond agents turn out in force, extra reinforcements are brought in from Washington DC to join the manhunt. At one of the rural vacation homes, Washington SWAT team agents make a sharpeyed discovery. They found something in the barn uh that appeared to have come from the store burglary a couple of nights before. Then they started seeing what else might be out of place there.”
“One of the Washington SWAT members looked at the electric meter on this house and he noticed it was moving. No lights but electricity being used. Probably somebody in there.”
“I think we got him.”
“Okay, we got to get in there.”
“Everybody’s energy level was skyhigh. with full clearance to enter the house. Richmond SWAT leader Wayne Wedell directs the assault.”
“When we got to the site, we decided we needed to enter the structure. Again, the Washington field office was to take the bottom floor. The original SWAT team was to do the top floor.”
“When things like this happen, the adrenaline kicks in and you’re not as tired. You’re just kind of anxious to do your job and do what you’re trained to do and hope it comes out successfully with no one getting hurt. We were all carrying shoulder weapons. We all of course had handguns. I was carrying an MP5.”
“FBI. FBI.”
“We did what we call a dynamic entry. In other words, we went at it in a hurry. Get in. Get it done.”
“FBI. FBI.”
“FBI.”
“Two guys had their weapons pointing up to the second floor providing cover for Wayne.”
“As I looked up the staircase, I saw a landing at the top. I saw a door to the left and a landing to my right. As I ran up the steps, I’m looking to my left to see if anything comes out of that room. And as I started turning to the right, I saw the gun barrel.”
“It’s Charles Leaf.”
“He had a good head shot on me. He had a good angle. And way I was carrying my MP5, there was no way I could swing past the banister to get toward him.”
“Get down.”
“That’s when I yelled, ‘Get down.'”
“And we started backpedaling down the steps.”
“What are YOU DOING HERE? GET OUT.”
“It would have been unsafe for Wayne say to continue advancing on him where Wayne could not shoot. The room for error isn’t there. He had to give a”
“You never turn your back on your enemy. Never. You always face your enemy.”
“What are you guys doing in here? My house. Get out. Who are you?”
“We lost nothing. We know where they are. We’re way ahead of the game.”
“Get out of my house.”
“And now we can think about an emergency response plan.”
“Outside, assistant special agent in charge Virgil Young knows they’ve got trouble.”
“When I hear the yelling uh starting, that’s when I went into the house.”
“We got a man up there.”
“No longer is this a manhunt. It’s now a hostage situation. That’s when I had to change from being a SWAT team leader to being a hostage negotiator. I got into a barricaded position and I began talking to him.”
“Who are you?”
“He wanted to know who we were, what we were doing there. And I told him we were the FBI and I asked if he was Charles Leaf. He didn’t answer.”
“Are”
“I asked him if Cheryl and his son were there?”
“They’re safe.”
“and he said they’re okay.”
“That’s good.”
“As the SWAT leader, Wedell is trained for hostage negotiation. It demands the tactical use of words, not weapons, to diffuse the explosive situation. With lives on the line, every word counts.”
“You did a great job hiding from us, Charlie.”
“To save Cheryl and little Charlie, he needs to calm Leaf and slowly win his trust.”
“LEAVE ME ALONE. GET OUT.”
“He was screaming and yelling and cursing, telling us to get out. Get out. Leave him alone. Leave him alone.”
“Get the hell out of here. All of you.”
“And I had to settle him down.”
“Leave me alone. I don’t want to be bothered. Get out of here.”
“I didn’t want to use the word abducted, kidnapped, forced against their will.”
“We’re here to help you.”
“That’s what negotiators do. They stall for time. The idea is to get that person’s emotions down so their rationality, their reason can rise.”
“We’re just here to help you get out of the house.”
“I’m trying to build up some type of personal resolve in the guy for the guy can feel good about himself. I told him that he done a good job hiding from us. I asked him where he had learned his skills.”
“It’s like a seessaw. One goes up, the other goes down. So that hopefully as time goes on, the guy sees there’s no way out of this other than surrender. And that’s what you’re looking for.”
“Come on, Charlie. You can we can work this out.”
“I was surprised at how quickly Charlie calmed down.”
“I did a good job keeping from you, didn’t I?”
“He was not irrational. He was not saying really outrageous things.”
“Still, Agent Wedell can’t let his guard down.”
“I kept thinking that he might come around the staircase and start shooting. I had my weapon up and at least two or three other team members had their weapons trained on the upper staircase, too.”
“Wedell has control of the situation, but he’s going to need relief.”
“I know that I’ve got to get reinforcements in there. We are going to need hostage negotiators from the special operations unit and we’re going to need more SWAT personnel. We want the best that the FBI has to really handle the uh the hostage situation.”
“As night falls, Wedell’s team tries to adjust to the darkness without overstepping its bounds.”
“We need to be able to see upstairs. So, we turned the lights on on the stairwell. I didn’t ask for his permission. And I think that probably aggravated him. He started yelling and cursing.”
“Keep the damn lights off.”
“There’s no negotiation. The light was going out.”
“It showed me it wasn’t a toy weapon. He had ammo that was functioning.”
“Though he may be backed into a corner, Leaf is not about to surrender nor release his hostages.”
“At one point, Cheryl called down and and said,”
“‘What date is it today?'”
“Why?”
“Why did you want to know that? And she said, ‘I just wanted to know what date would be on my tombstone.'”
“That changed the dynamics immensely. Everything was geared back up again. I didn’t expect that we were going to get Cheryl Hart out of there alive.”
“A few hours into the hostage standoff,”
“keep the damn lights off.”
“Kidnapper Charles Leaf is showing no intention of releasing his ex-girlfriend Cheryl Hart.”
“Get out.”
“Or their little boy. And though the FBI has reinforcements on the way, everyone fears they’ll come too late.”
“In the early morning hours, I get a call from the FBI headquarters switchboard operator saying I should drive to Sperryville, Virginia to assist in an ongoing situation involving a man holding a woman and child hostage. My FBI car was in the office, so I had to take the family station wagon out there, and essentially I had little with me beyond what I was wearing other than my revolver.”
“Hey, Wayne.”
“Well, thank God you’re here.”
“A mentally exhausted Wayne Wedell is happy to see his mentor.”
“Wayne, I think, was anxious for me to take over the role as the primary negotiator.”
“I’ve known Gary Nesner for several years. In fact, Gary was my instructor in the hostage negotiation course.”
“Wayne threw me a bulletproof vest cuz I certainly didn’t have mine with me.”
“Thanks.”
“It was good for us to know that Gary was there. He he had been very successful in a lot of hostage negotiations.”
“For 10 grueling hours, Agent Wedell kept Charles Leaf in check.”
“Hey, Charlie. My name’s Gary. I’m with the FBI.”
“Now, Nesner will call on every bit of his eight plus years experience as a hostage negotiator to free Cheryl and her son.”
“There were three or four tactical agents from the SWAT team standing there. We used to have a a very interesting law enforcement sort of butt our heads and make fun of each other. You’re the knuckle draggers and they would call the negotiator the interior decorator. But most importantly, they were keeping me safe. Uh my little five shot revolver really wasn’t going to give me much protection.”
“Charlie, we’re here to help you. But I wanted to start off gently downplaying what had happened, the kidnapping and the abduction and so forth. No one had been hurt yet.”
“We want to work things out. Okay. Is there anything we can do or get for you?”
“There had been a request by Leaf earlier for the clothing which was in the dryer and the basement and it was denied at that time.”
“Yeah, you can get our clothes, man.”
“Leaf had broken into the house to give Cheryl and little Charlie a chance to get warm and wash up.”
“Terry, grab me those clothes, that laundry bag over there.”
“Agent Nesner breaks a cardinal rule of hostage negotiation. The prevailing thought was you don’t give someone something unless you get something back. And that’s a good principle in a bargaining interaction. However, this was not bargaining. Charlie wasn’t there to trade clothes for a hostage. This was an emotional situation. and it was important we demonstrate that we were there to help him and try to resolve this peacefully. I tossed the clothes upstairs and that’s the first time I saw Cheryl. She looked extremely stressed, uh, a bit disheveled, um, very frightened.”
“It’s a small gesture, but it takes baby steps to get the big results. The key is to get Charlie talking.”
“Charlie, I want to help you. Okay.”
“As Nesner works on leave, the FBI’s hostage rescue team arrives. The elite counterterrorism unit trains for operations that demand surgical precision and lethal force, like this one shaping up to be.”
“We needed to find a route that we could go without discovery and we were uh not completely undercover darkness. So we had to sprint around a circuitous route in order to avoid discovery and gain access to the house.”
“It’s a big deal when the HRT comes in. They have snipers who shoot all the time. They’ve got training from all over the world. Amongst the HRT guys that came into the house was J Holland who I had worked with in the Washington field office and knew him very well.”
“HRT’s here now.”
“We had enough agents to cover the perimeter with our sniper teams and to relieve uh the Richmond SWAT team inside the house.”
“HRT is trained to play nice with negotiators. But if things go south, Moholland’s team has the authority to override Nesner and seize the hostages by lethal force.”
“We could respond in an emergency fashion if need be, but we always take the lead of the negotiators and let them start things off.”
“So far, Nesner hasn’t had much success.”
“Hey, Charlie, you like the woods?”
“But after nearly an hour, he finally connects with Charlie.”
“Yeah, I love the woods. I had a four-year-old son who was little Charlie’s exact age and we did compare notes on the antics of a four-year-old that um took us away from the drama at the scene.”
“Don’t you want to teach little Charlie how to survive out there?”
“Yeah, I always hope to take Charlie out camping and go do some hunting.”
“The purpose being to get him thinking and visualizing that this was really going to happen.”
“One of the things that Charlie wanted before we proceeded uh was to get the personal effects that he and Cheryl and little Charlie had from a leanto they had built in the mountains not far away.”
“Here we go, guys.”
“Finding these items was heartbreaking. That is a sad, heartbreaking scene for a child to have to reside in.”
“The hide was actually no bigger than a pup tent.”
“Here’s a guy. He’s threatened to kill these people, but he wants his son’s toys and Easter Bunny. It was kind of eerie.”
“The agents have done what Charlie asked for.”
“I said, ‘You can look out the window. You can see that I was being brought.'”
“Helicopter pilot Tom Kelly has instructions to load them and start the engine.”
“Once the helicopter was running is at the point in which Charlie and Cheryl and the little boy were going to come from the house down to get in the helicopter and then we would leave.”
“Though confident the snipers will shoot Leaf before he reaches the chopper, Agent Kelly is packing an insurance policy, a revolver concealed in his boot.”
“If all else fails, then at least I have something that I can work with to help mitigate my own situation should it arise.”
“With the snipers in place,”
“it’s go time.”
“I said, ‘Okay, Charlie, now we’re ready to leave the house and good luck.'”
“Clear now.”
“When I saw Gary walk out of the crisis site, he had his uh ballistic vest in his hands. I looked at his face and I realized negotiations are over. We’d done everything that we could at that point to take care of every contingency we could. It was going to happen and there wasn’t anything that we can do to change it at that point. All we could do is watch.”
“Primed with a 308 caliber rifle and a high-powered scope, each sniper covers a narrow field of fire between the house and the helicopter.”
“The sniper teams had to be very aware of where everyone else on the tactical team was located. Since the three of these individuals were were moving from one location to another, it’s absolutely critical to be aware of where others are located so you don’t end up in a crossfire situation. It requires muscle control, breath control, and very committed focus. And a clear mind cannot be thinking about anything other than the task at hand.”
“Most importantly, the sniper’s lethal shot must kill instantly. terminating all motor control.”
“If they’re holding a weapon on a hostage that involves taking a shot that would be so detrimental to the brain that there would be limited opportunity for reflex action, meaning a head shot.”
“Each sniper has a green light to take a shot if he has it.”
“After nine days on the run and a 20our standoff with the FBI, Leaf steps out of the house and stays one step ahead of the snipers. Leafs using Cheryl and little Charlie as shields against their gun sites.”
“Charlie Jr. was on his dad’s shoulders. Cheryl was walking in front of them. He had a sawed off rifle in one hand.”
“Charlie was tied around his back and his head was very close to leafs. I was not willing to take a shot at that time.”
“No shot.”
“No shot. I’ve got no shot.”
“I was hearing various snipers report in. I have no shot. I have no shot.”
“No shot.”
“I’m a little bit nervous at that point.”
“If they get to the helicopter, it’s game over. Their fugitive will escape with two hostages and possibly gain another. The pilot Tom Kelly.”
“I pretty much knew at that point that they were probably going to make it to the helicopter.”
“The closer they get, the more attention I pay to what Charlie is doing with the rifle.”
“The FBI has a contingency plan for just this situation.”
“I’m looking directly at Cheryl. As soon as she is just under the tips of the rotor system, I just keyed the radio and said, ‘I’m gone.’ and went straight up in the air vertically.”
“The next thing I heard was a loud boom. That was the sound of a flashbang.”
“The diversion throws them off balance.”
“Charlie went down on one knee.”
“He crouched and his wife was in front of him. I saw daylight between Leaf’s head and his son’s head. I took the shot.”
“Charles went down. All three of them went down. I wasn’t sure if Charlie had been shot or one of the others. I didn’t know. My heart kind of stopped beating and uh I held my breath.”
“The next focus I had was little Charlie through my scope to see if he was okay.”
“Thing that went through my mind was he’s down. My initial thought was, ‘Oh my god, we’ve killed the little boy.'”
“I see Leaf on his back with little Charlie under him and four legs and none of them moving. It was kind of a sickening feeling. Did something go wrong? And then little Charlie squirms out from underneath.”
“That was one of the greatest joys to see little Charlie get up. Come on. I saw Terry Nest scoop up the boy and Cheryl was running away from the scene and I ran as hard as I could towards her. I didn’t know if she was armed. I grabbed her, handcuffed her. You never know which way the victim, the spouse, which way they’re going to go if something happens. That’s why I cuffed Cheryl and she said, ‘He can’t kill me no more. He can’t kill me no more.'”
“I just remember talking to God and letting him know whatever happened I was okay with. Um, and I just waited for a bullet to go through my head. And then I heard um some bangs, then Charlie lying on the ground with my son underneath him.”
“The little boy was shaking. He was absolutely petrified.”
“We’re going to get you, okay? We’re going to get you in a safe place. I said, ‘Little Charlie, this is Gary. You’re going to be okay. Your mom’s fine.'”
“We had EMTs out there within seconds of Charlie going down, but he was dead instantly.”
“The sniper bullet severed Leaf’s brain stem, instantly, killing him and eliminating any possibility of injuring Cheryl. Her nightmare is finally over.”
“Charlie was so much of a monster to me. I didn’t think just a bullet could kill him.”
“We didn’t take Leaf’s life. He took his own.”
“We would not have done this if we had not believed with all of our hearts that this was the only way we were going to save him.”
“The incident not only changes Cheryl’s life, it changes the way the FBI handles future hostage negotiations. This was probably the first incident in FBI history where a negotiator not only recommended but was utilized to facilitate this tactical resolution. The hostage rescue team went back and said, ‘Hey, this is the way we are supposed to work with uh with the negotiators. This is how we want to run critical incidents in the FBI.’ Today, FBI agents are trained to use the negotiator as a tactical tool. If deadly force is the only way out of a hostage situation when he helped rescue Cheryl and little Charlie, Gary Nesner helped redefine FBI hostage negotiation.”
“Later, I drove home and my wife had seen what happened on the news and she stood in the front porch and in her in her very fun way said, ‘Uh, Welcome home, Batman, and I’ll take out the garbage.'”
