August the 7th, 1992. It is an ordinary day for Martha ‘Doe’ and her husband Allen Roberts. In the morning, they share breakfast. Allen leaves home to meet with Sam Wagner who expressed prior interest in buying property Allen had been developing. Allen arrives at the meeting location and waits for an hour or so until he realizes he has been stood up.

Allen heads to another property and lays sod for the rest of the day. He returns home that night and finds Doe’s vehicle in the driveway. He steps into the garage and discovers the mail sitting there. Once he enters his home, he is startled to discover the woman he has been married to for 43 years missing. Her asthma inhaler rests on the counter and she isn’t in the garden. Allen panics and intends to call police.

Before he can pick up the phone, it begins ringing. On the other ends, a stranger. A man with an Asian accent demanding ransom money. The mysterious called threatens to split Doe’s head open if Allen doesn’t pay $100,000. There is only one problem. The caller doesn’t provide a drop off location. The call ends and Allen immediately calls the authorities. Soon, police arrive at the couple’s Eads, Tennessee house and search the 150-acre property.

They will discover nothing leading to the whereabouts of Martha Roberts but they would identify a possible suspect, her husband. The ransom call would be traced to a nearby payphone and authorities found nobody when they searched that location. They installed recording equipment on Allen’s phone to ensure they could collect evidence if the man called again and he would.

He would call many times with the next call coming later that night. While authorities worked to track down anyone with the name Sam Wagner, the caller would begin calling Doe’s friends, relatives, and members of the media. While he would make many demands, he would never set up a drop location. That would change when he called Joe Birch with WMC-TV. The anchor would record the call before discussing it with investigators and his boss.

They agreed to air the phone call in hopes of drawing out the suspect. It worked. After the phone call was aired, the man called back. This time, he was angry and he wanted the network to stop covering it. Birch managed to convince the ransom caller to schedule a drop. A staff member of WMC-TV would agree to take the money and meet with the extortionist but there was one problem.

The mysterious man would never show. Authorities were back to square one. Soon, the kidnapper would get desperate and make a serious mistake. That mistake would lead to his arrest and conviction. In this video, N’ Cuffs will retell the 1992 kidnapping of Martha ‘Doe’ Roberts and the investigation that ensued.