The detective looked down at the photograph on the table, then up at the live monitor. The man in the grainy image from the hardware store wore a black hat with white lettering on the front. The man being escorted into the interview room on the screen right now wore the exact same hat. Detective Bruning felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach.
Two months, and this was the closest they had gotten to an answer. It all started with a family that simply vanished. Omaha, Nebraska. Winter in that Midwestern city was a relentless beast.
The snow piled up in drifts that swallowed sidewalks and cars. The wind cut through even the heaviest coats, dropping the wind chill to fifteen or twenty below zero. Most people stayed inside, huddled by their heaters, waiting for the cruel season to end. One year, it even snowed on Halloween, and no child dared to trick or treat.
That was the kind of winter Omaha could deliver. For the Sepanic family, the cold was something they never truly got used to. Vanderlay and Jacqueline Sepanic had immigrated to the United States from Brazil years earlier. They had first settled in the warmth of Miami, where they had raised their eldest daughter, Tatiana.
Then they had a son, Christopher, a bright-eyed little boy with a laugh that filled rooms. The family had a deep, unwavering faith in God. When an opportunity came to move to Nebraska and become missionaries, they saw it as a divine calling. Vanderlay was a builder.
He had been asked to take on a massive project: renovating an old, vacant school into a new Assembly of God church and mission. He believed this was his purpose, the good thing God had promised them. The school was big, with plenty of classrooms, a gymnasium, and a large parking lot. It had sat empty for years.
The exterior was in decent shape, but the interior needed a great deal of work. Vanderlay convinced his best friend, Jose Oliviera Cuchino, known to everyone as Carlos, to leave Brazil and join him in Omaha to take on this giant project. Carlos was more than just a friend; he became part of the family. They all lived together in a small makeshift apartment inside the school.
Vanderlay, Jacqueline, and Christopher shared one bedroom. Carlos had his own room. They ate together. Jacqueline prepared the food.
They celebrated birthdays together. The couple embraced Carlos as if he were their own blood. The renovation work was hard, but it was easier when you were doing it with family. Just as they were making real progress, the church ran out of money.
The pastors in Brazil stopped sending funds. A crisis hit, and the mission could no longer pay for the work. The family could have packed up and moved back to Miami, where it was warmer and where work was plentiful. They could have gone back to Brazil, where they knew people and family.
But Vanderlay didn’t do that. He decided to start his own business right there in Omaha. He called it IGIT, which stood for “In God I Trust. ” He founded the construction company to provide for his family, but with the dream that any extra income would go back into the missionary school.
He hired Carlos as his lead foreman, and they continued living in the school while building the business from the ground up. The living situation was rustic, and Jacqueline struggled with it. She tried her best to make the most of it, as did little Christopher. Christopher was a normal, happy seven-year-old boy.
He was incredibly bright, speaking three languages and playing the violin. He carried his violin everywhere he went, even to bed with him sometimes. He was the apple of his parents’ eyes, and everyone who knew the family loved that little boy. Carlos himself bonded with Christopher, treating him like a little brother.
They were a tight-knit, loving group, but behind the smiles, there was tension. Jacqueline was deeply homesick. She missed her daughter Tatiana, who still lived in Brazil. They had been incredibly close, and the separation was hard on them both.
Tatiana remembered the painful goodbye at the airport. Her mother had promised her, “Darling, mother is only going to stay for one year or two. Mom is only thinking about your future and our future. ” They said their goodbyes with tears.
The phone became a lifeline. Jacqueline would call Tatiana three, four, sometimes five times a day. It was how she overcame the loneliness of her new life. But in the past few weeks, those calls had simply stopped.
In Miami, their dear friend and pastor, Humberto Solana Costa, began to worry. He had not heard from Vanderlay in quite some time. Other family friends reported the same. They had not had contact with Vanderlay, Jacqueline, or Christopher.
Pastor Humberto contacted Carlos to ask if he had spoken to them. Carlos said he had not and claimed he didn’t know where they were. The constant communication that had always existed had died. It was strange, with fifteen hundred miles between them, that the pastor suddenly heard nothing.
Pastor Humberto made the decision to fly to Omaha himself. When the pastor arrived, he met with Carlos. They had last seen the family around mid-December. When the pastor still couldn’t reach them, he went to the police station and filed a missing persons report.
Detectives Chris Bruning and Chris Spencer from the Omaha Police Department took the case. Pastor Humberto asked them to do a wellness check at the school. When the detectives walked in, nothing seemed out of place. The apartment was tidy.
There was nothing out of the ordinary. They questioned Carlos, who said he didn’t know where the family was. He mentioned that Vanderlay had disappeared before, once going to Florida with his family for about a week without telling anyone. They had simply left on vacation and then returned.
Carlos said he was just there taking care of the mail. But as police continued to search, signs of a hasty departure began to emerge. All of their belongings were still there—Bibles, computers, luggage, toothbrushes, hairbrushes. Christopher’s play area was full of toys.
It looked like a place where someone had been living. But most tellingly, Christopher’s violin was still there. That was wrong. Christopher wouldn’t go anywhere without his violin.
He slept with it. Jacqueline’s Bible, her glasses, and her purse were all left behind. To Tatiana, this made no sense. She knew something was very wrong.
Someone mentioned that Vanderlay had complained about the cold. He was tired of the brutal Nebraska winters. Workers said he had talked about wanting to go somewhere warmer. Jacqueline had confided in Tatiana that she was beyond fed up with the weather.
She had told her mother that she wanted to go back to Brazil. She had already talked to Vanderlay about it, saying she didn’t want to stay anymore. She felt miserable and trapped. She couldn’t work in the US; only Vanderlay had a work permit.
She was stuck inside that school with no windows, taking care of Christopher and doing chores. She referred to the place as “the cave. ” She wanted Christopher to have a yard with grass and windows in his room. She was vocal about her frustrations, and it caused stress in the marriage, but Vanderlay didn’t seem to mind living there.
He played soccer in the gym with the congregation on weekends. He had a place for his business and a place for his family. The family had discussed going to Brazil to spend the holidays with Tatiana. But Jacqueline had told her daughter in their last conversation that they were not going to spend Christmas anywhere.
They were going to stay home that year. Tatiana had to go away for a few days and asked her mother to call her at work in two days. But she never called. Tatiana was a little worried but let it go, blaming the snow for possibly disrupting the phone lines.
When she returned to work on the fifth of January, she turned on her computer and found a message: “Dati, I’m Quesia, your mother’s friend. I need to talk to you. ” Tatiana had a bad feeling and fainted right there. She knew something was wrong.
Police began to suspect the Sepanics hadn’t just left on their own. They reached out to the community for help. News of a family vanishing into thin air disturbed the town. Families just don’t vanish.
All their stuff is there, but they aren’t. Then police made a disturbing find: Vanderlay’s car was discovered in a nearby parking lot. The first thought was that something serious had happened to the family. Tatiana was haunted by a joking conversation she’d had with her mother just before she disappeared.
Her mother had said, “Look, if I disappear, would you come find me? ” Tatiana had laughed and joked back, “No, not me. You chose to go to that country, so I would just let the American vultures eat you. ” They had both laughed.
It was just a joke. But now it echoed in her mind. Fearing the worst, Tatiana flew to Nebraska. The community of Omaha was heartbroken and offered to help.
A missing person’s advocate, Diane Luna, set up a command center. They wanted people to be aware that this family was missing and that they were looking for them. Tatiana knew her mother wouldn’t just up and disappear without telling her. She came to Omaha with a deep responsibility.
She had to find them. She didn’t think about her kids or her husband. She dropped everything and came. For a young woman to come from Brazil, not knowing anyone in the US and not speaking the language, it was a act of incredible bravery.
It told police that something was terribly wrong. Search parties were organized. Candlelight vigils were held. Tatiana explained to police that despite Jacqueline’s frustration, Vanderlay had a plan to make her happy.
His company had secured another project—a house that was being divided into apartments. The top level was going to be the family’s new home. Vanderlay had already started demolition and remodeling on the attic portion. He hoped this new home would convince Jacqueline to stay in Omaha.
But their dream was shattered just days before the family disappeared. They were told that due to the type of loan they had acquired, they were not allowed to reside in the home. Five years of Jacqueline’s life had been spent following her husband’s dream, and that dream was now quashed. Investigators began to wonder if this was too much for her.
Did she lose it? Did she want windows and grass for her son so badly that she snapped? Or did Vanderlay lose it? Did he finally run out of dreams and turn dark?
The pressure had been building. Dreams were being shattered and quashed. Then police made another discovery. Vanderlay’s truck was located in an area around 15th and Vinton Street, nowhere near the church, his home, or any of his job sites.
Why would it be there? Was it stolen? Or was it used in the commission of a crime, to cover up a crime against the Sepanic family? Police scoured the truck for fingerprints and trace DNA.
Finding the truck was key evidence. They could dust for prints and look for forensic clues. Was Vanderlay carjacked? Kidnapped?
Taken somewhere and killed? The possibilities were terrifying. Police looked into several theories, including murder-suicide. They zeroed in on Carlos and anyone Vanderlay had done business with recently.
Right before he went missing, Vanderlay had gotten a big contract to rehab some houses. He was looking to make around three or four hundred thousand dollars. He was set to sign the papers and get the down payment, but he missed the meeting because of a big snowstorm. He postponed it to the following week, and then he vanished.
Law enforcement saw this as a potential motive. They had to put the deal and the disappearance together. Did that deal have something to do with him vanishing? The lab results from the truck came back and indicated nothing suspicious.
The investigation continued to collect theories. Maybe Vanderlay killed Jacqueline and Christopher and left. Or maybe Jacqueline killed them and left. Police brought in a cadaver dog trained to sniff for dead bodies, DNA, and bodily fluids.
The dog alerted in the basement. In the furnace room, they found what they thought was blood. For law enforcement, this was huge. They had nothing, and now they had blood.
It pointed to a potential homicide scene. But the tests came back: it was deer blood. Someone had butchered an animal in the basement. The biggest clue in the case of a whole family disappearing turned out to be nothing.
Murder and suicide had crossed their minds, but those thoughts didn’t stick. Talking to family and friends, the marriage seemed good. Tatiana refused to give up hope. She kept believing her family was alive.
She was supported by a growing number of community members who continued to hold vigils. She desperately wanted them to be alive. Then a glimmer of hope. The family’s debit card was used at a store.
Someone was using their bank cards and credit cards at big box stores. This was major. It could be them, or it could be the people responsible for their disappearance. The card was swiped, a pin was entered, and about a hundred and seventy-one dollars worth of items were purchased—space heaters, food, and miscellaneous items.
Were they alive and using their money? Or was something else happening? The activity gave hope, but it wasn’t a certainty. As investigators scoured the family’s accounts, they got word of another case in California.
A family named McStay—Joseph, Summer, and their two children—had vanished without a trace from their home. The similarities were eerie. The McStays were involved in tile work and outdoor fountains, which was along the lines of construction, just like Vanderlay. There was no struggle in the home.
The family’s belongings were there. Their vehicle was located away from the house. It was bizarre. There were just so many similarities that they couldn’t ignore it.
The FBI was contacted. Federal authorities shared a puzzling piece of video showing what appeared to be the McStay family crossing the border from California into Mexico. No one had seen them since. Could the Sepanics have also fled the US without telling anyone?
Tatiana began digging into the financial records herself. She asked the bank for copies of the last checks her parents wrote. She looked at them and told police that her mother’s signature was not on the checks. She knew her mother’s signature.
The signature looked similar but wasn’t exactly the same. A handwriting expert determined the signature might be Jacqueline’s, but the check also bore someone else’s handwriting. Were they being forced to sign? Were they under stress?
If someone was forging checks, that didn’t look good for the family. Investigators finally had something to go on. They got the history of the accounts, including checks, ATMs, and all withdrawals from the personal bank account and the IGIT bank account. They got warrants for the credit cards, which came with locations.
They went to those locations and got video footage of individuals using Vanderlay’s credit cards. Tatiana and the police studied the footage. A man was caught on tape, but the person using the card was not Vanderlay or Jacqueline. The only identifying feature was a distinctive black and white hat on one of the males.
The case had gone from a simple missing persons investigation to a potential homicide investigation. Far from the frozen grounds of Omaha, a grim discovery in the California desert led to a break in the McStay case. All four bodies were found buried in the desert. The lead suspect was Mr.
McStay’s business partner. Police in Omaha ruled out any connection between the two cases and focused on the security video of the man using the Sepanics’ debit card. The police told Tatiana that her parents might have been murdered. It was extremely hard for her to hear.
She couldn’t accept it. At first, she accepted that they might be missing because she needed to think that. But she did not accept that they might be dead. She demanded answers and proof, but they couldn’t give it to her.
That was really hard. Police zeroed in on Vanderlay’s employees. They went down the list, hoping to talk to every single person ever employed by IGIT. Vanderlay had the reputation of being a fair and generous employer.
He gave people second chances. He brought individuals in who needed jobs to provide for their families. His lead foreman was Carlos Cuchino, his closest friend. Carlos was such an integral part of the team that he brought in his own brother-in-law and two of his childhood friends from Brazil to help with IGIT and the school.
As Vanderlay’s work increased, he needed more workers. He asked Carlos to hire crews, and Carlos brought them over from Brazil. But as investigators dug deeper, they sensed that all was not well. Vanderlay had gotten very frustrated with Carlos.
The quality of Carlos’s crew’s work wasn’t good. Vanderlay ordered Carlos to fix the problem, and Carlos pushed back. Carlos felt arrogant and at ease because he lived with the boss. There was talk that Carlos had been out drinking, something Vanderlay didn’t allow in his home.
Vanderlay looked at Carlos as a member of the family. He gave him opportunities he didn’t give everyone else. He took a liking to Carlos, but Carlos took advantage of that, which caused friction. They were butting heads, at each other’s throats.
Vanderlay had had it and fired Carlos. Carlos was stunned. He called his wife in Brazil and made crazy threats. He was so angry he said, “I swear I’m going to kill him.
” His wife said he was venting. He was pissed at Vanderlay and threatened him, but he also promised her he wouldn’t kill him because of Christopher. He claimed they had patched things up. Vanderlay ended up rehiring Carlos because he felt bad that Carlos wasn’t sending money home.
But Vanderlay told him, “I do not trust you anymore in the way I once did. You will no longer be my right arm. ” He also cut his wages in half. Investigators now had a possible motive for a disgruntled worker.
How far would Carlos or another worker go to get even with his boss? They decided to bring Carlos in for questioning. Carlos claimed he didn’t know where the family was. But it wasn’t what he said that got their attention.
As he was being escorted into the interview room, they watched on a live monitor. He was wearing the black hat with white lettering. It was the exact same hat as the man in the surveillance photo, which was laid out on the table. They had the still picture in front of them, and they had him on the TV screen wearing the same hat.
The investigators grilled Carlos about the credit cards and the family’s whereabouts. He denied ever using the credit cards or having them. He stuck to his story through interviews that lasted well into the next day. So they brought in two more employees, Elieser Batista and Valdir Santos.
They both denied knowing about the family’s disappearance or using their cards. Police obtained a warrant to search the house Carlos shared with the two crew members. They hoped to find the actual bank cards. If someone has your personal bank card, you have to know something about where the family is.
They didn’t find the cards, but they found something even more damning: clothing in the rooms matched the clothing worn in the surveillance videos. They could pretty much name the store where each item was worn from the footage. It was enough evidence to charge the men with fraud. But investigators worried they were still no closer to finding the family.
The evidence proved fraud and possibly forgery, but not murder. There was no body, no crime scene. They didn’t know where the crime was committed or where the family was killed. Then police got a tip from an unlikely source in Brazil.
The wife of one of the workers, Valdir Santos, said her husband had confessed to her that he had killed Vanderlay. It was something he couldn’t hold in anymore; he had to tell someone. Now law enforcement was going to get a firsthand account of what happened. After talking to the wives, police went back and confronted Elieser, Carlos, and Valdir.
They denied any involvement. Valdir was charged with murder and pleaded not guilty. With no physical evidence and only a secondhand confession, investigators knew they had a challenging case. As proceedings got underway, Tatiana gave emotional testimony about her family.
This prompted Valdir to make a startling admission. He watched her testify and immediately started crying. They took a break and decided to come back the next day. The next morning, they called Tatiana and told her Valdir had decided to confess.
He wanted to give her peace because he knew all of her struggles, and he wanted peace, too. The courtroom was chaos. Valdir asked for considerations for his confession, and he was led to the judge’s chambers. Detective Bruning met with Valdir in an interview room the day after she took the stand.
She looked him in the face as he sat down and decided it was time to tell the truth. Valdir said Carlos had promised them well-paying jobs. So in 2009, he brought the Portuguese-speaking workers to the US. They were completely dependent on Carlos.
Valdir said Carlos was a ruthless foreman who had no respect for Vanderlay. Carlos liked to be in charge and didn’t like anyone telling him what to do. He got frustrated living by Vanderlay’s rules at work and in his home. The final straw was being fired.
At that moment, Vanderlay signed his death certificate. Two months later, the men struck. They hid out in the stairwell and waited. When Vanderlay came, they started beating him until he was dead.
They killed him over money. After they killed Vanderlay, they forced Jacqueline to give them the PIN to the bank cards and to sign a book of blank checks. Then Valdir and Carlos left. They made the first ATM withdrawal to make sure the PIN was correct.
Then they stopped and got gas in the van, filling up a tank—the sixty-one dollars of gas that was the first transaction that night. Their next goal was to drive around and figure out what to do with Vanderlay’s body. When they got back to the apartment, Carlos ordered them to kill Jacqueline and Christopher. Valdir agreed to lead authorities to the bodies, which he said were disposed of in a river on the outskirts of Omaha.
Part of his deal was that when the river flooding went down enough, he would walk them through everything that happened at the riverbank. Divers found Christopher’s body, but there was no sign of Jacqueline or Vanderlay. Valdir’s plea deal got him a sentence of 20 years in prison. His confession was enough to charge Carlos with murder.
Valdir said he felt Carlos was trying to keep blood off his own hands so that if everything came down, he wouldn’t get pinned for it. In August 2013, Carlos was found guilty. He avoided the death penalty but was given three life sentences. Tatiana couldn’t understand it.
Carlos and Christopher had been like brothers. It was very sad that he was involved, that he could have done this. The police knew they were looking into the eyes of someone who was so cold-blooded that he could kill the people who took him in, treated him like family, and gave him a job. They helped him provide for his own family, and he did that to them.
Elieser Batista was deported to Brazil before he could stand trial. Tatiana felt in her heart that he was involved, but it was unfortunate the information about him came too late after he was deported. Jacqueline and Vanderlay’s bodies are still missing. Tatiana still wonders what they did to Vanderlay.
He was so trusting. They betrayed him in the most horrific, dark, and callous way imaginable. They killed him and his family. There can be no bigger sin than that.
Tatiana still remembers her mother’s smell. She still remembers kissing her and knowing she can never do that again, and not even having a body to bury to be at peace.
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