On May 12th, 2014, 19-year-old Adam Scott went for a morning jog in Griffith Park.

That same day, he disappeared without a trace, and only his torn neoprene smartphone armband was found on the Mount Hollywood Trail.

Only 3 years later, one evening in 2017, he suddenly appeared on the doorstep of his home, exhausted, frightened, and covered in footprints that could not be explained by a simple wander in the woods.

Where had he been all this time? Why did his return raise more questions for the police than the disappearance itself? And what terrible secret had been hiding for years, just a few steps away from the place where thousands of people had been searching for him? You will learn about the truth which turned out to be more terrifying than any assumption in this video.

The events in this story are presented as a narrative interpretation.

Some elements have been altered or recreated for storytelling purposes.

On May 12th, 2014 at in the morning, 19-year-old student Adam Scott left his family home on Fernell Drive in Los Angeles for his usual morning run.

Griffith Park, which spans more than 4,000 acres, greeted him that morning with cool temperatures and perfect visibility.

But within an hour and a half, the area became the site of a massive search operation that would last for years.

According to his mother, Patricia Scott, Adam was an extremely disciplined young man who always returned to breakfast at exactly 30 minutes.

So, his absence instantly caused his parents to have a grave premonition of trouble.

The last digital footprint of the boy was recorded by a surveillance camera on one of the private houses at 10 in the morning.

He was confidently moving towards the beginning of the Mount Hollywood route, dressed in light gray shorts, a black synthetic t-shirt, and bright running shoes.

At 15 minutes, his father Richard was already combing the parking lot at the park entrance on his own.

And at 45 minutes, the first LAPD patrol crews joined the investigation.

Investigators noted in their reports that Griffith Park’s terrain is extremely treacherous.

Dense chaparel, twisting canyons, and steep rocky slopes allow a person to disappear from view in seconds, especially on winding sections of the trail where oak trees block the view.

Around in the afternoon, with temperatures in the shade rising to 80° Fahrenheit, the group of volunteers came across the first disturbing physical evidence 300 yd off the main hiking route.

In an inaccessible area where the trail makes a sharp turn over a deep canyon, a single white earpiece and a torn black neoprene smartphone armband lay in the dry soil.

Detective Lambert, who led the investigation, noted in the examination report that the armband had characteristic tears at the seams, indicating a sudden and extremely violent mechanical impact, as if it had been ripped off the shoulder in one sharp motion.

No signs of a struggle, shoe prints, or blood drops were found at the scene, and Adam’s smartphone disappeared without a trace.

After inspecting the area, the detective paid special attention to the testimony of one of the park’s regular visitors, who had heard a strange short clang of metal in this sector at 45 minutes that morning, reminiscent of a blow against a massive structure, but the witness thought it was the work of maintenance.

Dog teams that arrived at the scene at in the afternoon were able to pick up a trail of torn bandages, but it broke off just 50 yards deep in the bushes near a closed technical road that led to the outbuildings.

It looked as if the boy had simply stopped touching the ground or had been forced into a vehicle.

Despite the fact that the technical road was blocked by a massive metal gate, the police did not find any signs of damage or tampering.

By the evening of May 12th, two helicopters with powerful thermal imagers had flown over the entire sector of the northern slope of Mount Hollywood, but the search yielded no results.

At 21 hours 000 minutes, the Los Angeles Police Department officially classified the case as a missing person under suspicious circumstances, and the park was completely closed to visitors.

The house on Fernell Drive, which had always been full of the sounds of life and plans for the future, plunged into deafening, unbearable silence.

Adam’s parents spent the night in the living room, staring into the darkness outside the window, where their only son had disappeared among the silent hills of Griffith Park.

The investigation reached a dead end within the first 24 hours as hundreds of cameras around the park and thousands of people on nearby trails failed to detect the moment when 19-year-old Adam Scott took his last step free, leaving behind only a torn piece of fabric and an earpiece in the dust.

The morning silence of the park that day was not a sign of peace, but the perfect cover for what would later be called one of the most mysterious disappearances in the city’s modern history.

Each passing day without news only reinforced the feeling that the area Adam knew as his home was hiding something far more terrifying than wild animals or a slope accident.

The detectives methodically checked the archives of all technical work in the park, trying to find an explanation for the strange metal sound, but official reports stated no work was carried out in that sector on May 12th.

This meant that Adam could have encountered someone who knew the park much better than ordinary tourists and even experienced foresters.

Exactly 1,096 days have passed since Adam Scott’s trail broke off at the threshold of the Griffith Park Technical Road.

Over the course of 3 years, the investigation has become a stack of papers in the archives of the LAPD’s cold case unit.

The Scott family on Fernell Drive went through all stages of public grief, from daily press conferences to complete isolation from the outside world.

The boy’s father, Richard, according to neighbors, left the light above the front door on every night, although official search teams had long since ceased their work, and detectives openly hinted that Adam’s body would probably never be found due to the difficult terrain of the canyons.

On May 16th, 2017, at 21 hours and 30 minutes, the evening silence of the Fernell neighborhood was broken by a dull, uncertain sound.

According to the report of patrol officer Miller, who was the first to arrive on the scene, Richard Scott heard a scraping on the wooden panel of the front door.

When the man opened it, a figure stood on the threshold, which at first was difficult to identify as human.

It was the shadow of the 19-year-old athlete who had gone jogging 3 years earlier.

Now, a man who looked to be over 40 years old stood before my father.

His skin had the painful, almost translucent shade of parchment, a sign of prolonged sunlight deprivation that doctors would later diagnose as a critical vitamin D deficiency and severe anemia.

Adam was wearing a dirty, oversized navy blue sweatshirt and old sweatpants that did not belong to him on the day he disappeared.

According to Patricia Scott, who ran out to hear her husband scream, her son showed no emotion.

His gaze was directed through his parents into the emptiness of the living room.

He could barely stand.

His knees were shaking.

And the paramedics estimated that he weighed no more than 110 lb at 6 ft tall.

This meant a loss of almost 40% of his muscle mass compared to 2014.

At 22 hours and 15 minutes that evening, Adam Scott was taken to Cedar Sinai Medical Center.

Chaos reigned in the emergency room.

The Los Angeles Police Department immediately posted security outside the ward as the return of a victim after such a long time was unprecedented.

Detective Lambert, who arrived at the hospital 30 minutes later, recalled in his notes.

The guy was sitting on the edge of the bed, not touching the back.

He didn’t respond to anybody, didn’t blink when a flashlight was held in front of his eyes, and didn’t make a sound even when the nurse inserted the IV needle.

It was a state of complete emotional anesthesia.

Clinical examination revealed numerous scars on Adam’s body that were of a specific nature.

On his wrists and ankles, old scars from prolonged wearing of metal shackles or tight ropes were clearly visible.

Medical expert Dr.

Harris noted in the report that these injuries were not caused by a single incident.

They had been layered over the years, indicating that the body had been constantly restrained.

Even more alarming was the state of his eyesight.

The guy’s eyes were extremely sensitive to the artificial light of hospital lamps.

He constantly tried to cover them with his hands, which confirmed the version of being held in complete or almost complete darkness for many months.

The worst thing for the family was that Adam completely lost the ability to speak.

The psychiatrists who conducted the initial examination the next morning on May 17th diagnosed him with a state of deep disorientation and reactive mutism.

He could not say where he was, who was holding him, or how he managed to escape.

When Detective Lambert tried to show him a map of Griffith Park, Adam began to tremble uncontrollably and pushed the table away, making only a low, throaty sound that resembled a plea for help.

Dozens of reporters gathered around the home on Ferndale Drive in Cedar Sinai Hospital, but none of them were able to get a word from the family.

All the information about Adam’s condition came only from official police reports, which were extremely brief.

One thing was clear, Adam Scott had returned from the dead, but he brought with him a secret that was too much for his tortured mind to bear.

His presence in the house 3 years later did not bring the relief his parents had been waiting for.

Instead of a son, they received a living ruin.

A man who flinched at every sound behind the wall and sat for hours in the corner of the room, staring at the door as if expecting a shadow from the past to enter.

During the first week after his return, Adam did not take a single step outside.

He refused to sleep in his bed, preferring to curl up on the floor by the window where he could only see the treetops of Griffith Park.

The LAPD realized that every minute of delay gave the kidnapper a chance to escape.

But their main and only lead, Adam himself, remained frozen in his silence, unable to say even his own name.

The world outside the hospital room demanded answers, but Adam Scott only silently clutched his scars.

The only evidence of the three-year hell he could not talk about.

During the first weeks after Adam Scott’s return, the main question for LAPD detectives was not only who kidnapped him, but also how he managed to get free.

The boy’s condition did not allow for a full interrogation, but the forensic scientists under the direction of Detective Lambert began a methodical reconstruction of the events of the evening of May 16th, 2017.

Based on initial inspections of the area where Adam could have been and analysis of his physical condition, the investigation concluded that three years of perfect crime had been ruined by a single accidental mistake by a man who had previously demonstrated manic almost superhuman caution.

According to the investigation team’s later findings, the room in which the young man was kept was designed as a zone of complete isolation.

It was a space where time ceased to exist as a linear quantity.

According to the psychologists who worked with the victim, Adam completely lost track of the days and nights within a few months after his disappearance.

In his world, there were no windows, clocks, or sunlight.

Only the rhythmic sounds of the kidnapper’s footsteps and the click of heavy metal bolts.

The security system consisted of several levels.

an internal holding cell, a soundproofed corridor, and a technical exit leading directly to the outside world.

The evening of May 16th began for Adam, like thousands of previous evenings.

However, at 24 hours and 45 minutes, according to the results of the locking mechanisms examination, the wellestablished mechanism malfunctioned.

The kidnapper, who usually operated in complete darkness and checked each lock with surgical precision, made a fatal mistake this time.

The inner door that separated the basement from the narrow technical access to the old utility exit was not locked on the second turn of the key.

Moreover, the massive latch of the exterior door, which was normally locked from the outside, was left in the open position.

Detective Lambert noted in his report, “We are dealing with a human factor.

After 1,096 days of impeccable control, the perpetrator simply relaxed.

Perhaps he was tired.

Perhaps he was distracted by something outside the bunker, a phone call, or a sound outside.

But he left a 1-in wide gap.

That inch was Adam Scott’s only chance for escape.

When the sound of the kidnapper’s footsteps faded, Adam, out of habit, checked the boundaries of his cell and felt an uncharacteristic movement of air.

A subtle draft bringing with it the smell of damp earth and Griffith Park at night was a signal that his brain picked up faster than his consciousness.

The guy, whose muscles were atrophied due to lack of movement, found the strength to stand up.

According to the reconstruction, he moved blindly, holding on to the cold concrete walls that had been his only companions for 3 years.

The technical exit was so narrow that an adult had to move sideways.

Adam, who had lost almost half his weight, slipped through the iron door without making a sound.

On the floor of the corridor, forensic scientists would later find fibers from his old navy blue sweatshirt that had caught on the sharp edge of the metal door jamb.

This detail confirmed that the escape was rapid and desperate.

Once outside the basement, Adam was faced with what he feared the most, open space.

Neighborhood witnesses who later testified recalled that the neighborhood was unusually quiet that evening with only the occasional rustle of leaves.

The distance from the technical exit to the doorstep of the Scottome was only a h 100red yard.

But for a man who hadn’t seen the horizon in 3 years, these hundred yards seemed like an endless desert.

He didn’t run.

He moved in short broken jogs, pressing against the fences and dense shrubbery that he used to trim himself on weekends.

Each step on the gravel echoed in his head like an explosion.

When he finally touched the wooden panels of his home door, his fingers were bloody from how hard he had gripped the stones along the way, afraid he would be grabbed again and dragged back into the darkness.

Security experts who examined the locking system after the case was solved were struck by the contrast.

On the one hand, professional soundproofing and a sealed door, and on the other, elementary in attention at the final moment.

The criminal created the perfect prison.

the police consulting engineer wrote in his report.

But he forgot that even the most perfect machine fails when operated by a human being.

Adam Scott used that single second of mistake to get his life back.

But he didn’t know that leaving the basement was only the beginning.

Although he was physically free, his mind remained trapped in the same basement where he lost 3 years of his youth.

The kidnapper’s mistake gave him the opportunity to escape, but it could not erase the seals of secrecy that lay on every detail of his detention.

The detectives realized that as long as Adam remained silent, the kidnapper remained at large, perhaps right now watching the police examine his accidental miscalculation.

This single unlocked door was fatal for the maniac.

But it also opened the door to a truth that was far more frightening than any assumptions the family or the investigation had made.

Immediately after Adam Scott’s return and hospitalization at Cedar Sinai Medical Center, the Los Angeles Police Department made an unprecedented decision.

The case was given highly confidential status and most of the investigation materials were classified even from official press releases.

Detective Lambert, who led the investigation, later explained this in an internal report.

The conditions in which the young man was held for 1,096 days went beyond the scope of an ordinary criminal offense.

We were dealing with a form of psychological and physical torture that was aimed at the complete destruction of the individual.

Sheriff’s Department officials said that disclosing the details could not only harm the investigation, but also permanently destroy the victim’s chances of at least partial rehabilitation.

Investigators who conducted an initial examination of the place where Adam was held were confronted with what they called the absolute sterility of evil.

The room was designed in such a way that the victim had no chance of identifying his captor.

According to the interrogation protocols of the parents who recounted their son’s fragmentaryary reactions and the conclusions of forensic experts, the kidnapper followed a maniacally precise protocol.

Every time the door to the cell was opened, the room was pitch black.

Any light source was under the strict control of the criminal.

The main obstacle for the detectives was that Adam, even when he began to partially respond to the world around him, could not provide any description of his tormentor’s appearance.

According to psychologist Dr.

Steven Green, who worked with the boy in the early days, Adam was in a state where the image of the kidnapper was devoid of human features.

The criminal always appeared wearing a massive mask that completely covered his face and a special voluminous jumpsuit that hid his physique.

All actions took place in absolute silence.

The kidnapper never spoke to the victim using only a system of gestures or physical coercion.

For Adam, his captor was not a person.

Dr.

Green wrote in his notes, “He was an impersonal force, a shadow that appeared from the darkness and returned to it.

Forensic experts found that the walls of the room were covered with several layers of industrial strength soundproofing material.

This meant that even if Adam had been screaming at the top of his lungs, no sound would have escaped the concrete bunker.

This isolation was intended not only to hide the crime from the neighbors, but also to create a sensory deprivation effect for the victim.

The LAPD brought in FBI behavioral analysis experts who confirmed that such cruelty showed that the kidnapper enjoyed not only the fact of detention but also absolute control over his victim’s perception of reality.

The detectives reports of June 2017 mentioned that Adam Scott’s condition deteriorated every time they tried to ask him direct questions.

The seal of secrecy was not only on the papers in the department, but also on the boy’s memory.

He showed the classic signs of long-term post-traumatic stress disorder with dissociative symptoms.

This meant that Adam’s brain had blocked the most traumatic memories as a defense mechanism.

The investigation was at a dead end.

They had a victim who survived, but this victim was in fact an empty witness.

The secrecy of the case gave rise to numerous rumors among the residents of the Fernell Drive neighborhood.

People began to notice that the police were particularly interested in the technical documentation for old buildings and underground utilities that ran under Griffith Park.

However, no charges were officially filed.

Detective Lambert realized that the kidnapper was probably somewhere very close by and might even be watching the police’s every move.

The fact that Adam could not see the face of his tormentor made every passer by, every neighbor a potential suspect.

The particular cruelty of the conditions of detention recorded by doctors included not only restrictions on movement, but also a specific diet that was aimed at keeping the victim in a state of constant weakness.

This explained why Adam did not resist for 3 years.

He simply did not have the physical resources to fight.

Lambert kept all these facts under the top secret label, fearing that publicity would provoke the perpetrator to take radical action or make him disappear completely.

The silence that reigned in Adam’s room was a reflection of the silence that had reigned in his underground prison for years.

The LAPD tried to break through this silent barrier using the most advanced forensic techniques, but the main mystery remained unsolved.

The kidnapper, who acted in the dark and hid behind a mask, left behind not only the young man’s shattered life, but also a perfect void in place of evidence.

Each sheet of the case, sealed with a seal of confidentiality, only emphasized the scale of the tragedy.

The crime was so carefully planned that even the victim’s return home did not guarantee justice.

The investigators realized that they were looking for a ghost who had been the sole master of Adam Scott’s life for 3 years and that this ghost could still be part of their daily lives, hidden behind a mask of decency.

On May 18th, 2017, exactly 2 days after Adam Scott appeared on the doorstep of his home, Detective Lambert and a team of forensic scientists began a detailed reconstruction of his escape route.

Using high-powered lights and special ground scanners, investigators began walking from the door of the Scott home on Fernell Drive in the opposite direction.

As Adam was in a state of deep disorientation, the only guidance for police was barely visible footprints in the dry gravel and fabric fibers caught in shrub branches.

At a distance of about 90 yard from the Scott property on the very border between the two properties, where the steep slope to Griffith Park began, an old garden structure caught the detective’s eye.

It was a dilapidated tool shed that had been abandoned for years and overgrown with wild ivy.

However, according to the forensic officer’s report, one detail seemed unnatural to the professional eye.

Despite the general neglect of the structure, the massive door hinges were thoroughly greased, and under the layer of dust on the floor, traces of frequent friction could be traced.

When the detectives pushed aside a heavy rack of empty canisters in the far corner of the building, they found an entrance.

It was a massive hatch hidden under sheets of old plywood and a layer of earth.

Underneath, a vertical metal ladder led down to a depth of about 10 ft.

Inside, police found a 12×5 ft room that was completely covered with professional soundproofing panels.

The report stated that even the operation of a jackhammer inside this room would have been completely inaudible on the surface.

It was here that Adam Scott spent 1,96 days of his life.

A few hours after the discovery of the bunker, Detective Lambert made a request to the Los Angeles City Land Records.

The results of the check were the first major breakthrough in the case.

It turned out that the plot on which the garden structure was located had belonged to the Wayne family until 2005.

This surname instantly forced the investigation to turn to the archives of school and sports incidents.

The name of Marcus Wayne, the son of the former owners of the land, repeatedly appeared in the reports of local college security officers alongside the name of Adam Scott.

From the testimony of the former sports team coach, which he provided during the official interview on May 19th, it became clear that there was a long and intense feud between Adam and Marcus.

Both boys were leaders of the track and field team, but Marcus always remained in Adam’s shadow.

The culmination of their confrontation occurred on May 5th, 2014, just 7 days before Adam’s disappearance.

On that day, during the final 400 meter race, an open fight broke out between them.

According to the college protocol, Marcus Wayne tried to cut Adam off on a curve which led to the fall of both athletes.

After the finish, the conflict escalated into a brawl which resulted in Marcus being suspended from competing for the entire season, effectively ruining his chances of an athletic scholarship.

Detective Lambert suggested that this event could have been the trigger for a pre-arranged revenge plan.

Marcus, knowing the area of the former family property, and having access to the abandoned basement, could have used his knowledge to pull off the perfect kidnapping.

The LAPD established surveillance on Marcus Wayne, who was living in Glendale at the time, working in ventilation system maintenance, a job that gave him the skills and access to materials for soundproofing rooms.

During a preliminary search of Wayne’s garage, detectives found several packages of the same neoprene used to make Adam’s smartphone ban found in the park 3 years ago.

In addition, traffic surveillance footage from 2014 miraculously preserved in the archives of a gas station near Griffith Park captured a black SUV registered to Marcus’s father driving past the park entrance at 45 minutes in the morning on the day of Adam’s disappearance.

Friends of Marcus interviewed by the investigation recalled that after the incident at the stadium, he became withdrawn and often expressed insults against Lucky Adam, who in his words took everything from him.

One witness said, “Marcus wasn’t just angry.

He was obsessed with the idea of justice in his own sense.

He said that Scott should feel what it was like to have your world confined to the walls and not be able to change anything.

” These words recorded in official testimony became a key argument for the prosecutor’s office to consider Marcus as the main suspect in the case.

At the end of May 2017, the investigation focused entirely on the figure of Wayne.

His background, access to the crime scene, and technical skills created a logical picture of a long and methodical revenge.

Each new piece of evidence about their old conflict added weight to the theory that Adam Scott was the victim of a man who had been plotting his destruction for years.

Investigators were preparing for a formal arrest, believing they had finally found the man who had kept Adam in the dark for a thousand days.

However, while Marcus Wayne was in the crosshairs of detectives, no one realized that every clue they found was too obvious.

and the real owner of the basement continued to remain in the shadows, watching the police from a much closer distance.

During the last week of May 2017, Marcus Wayne remained the central figure in the investigation.

In the interrogation room of the Los Angeles Central Police Department, Detective Lambert spent hours studying the young man’s reactions, trying to find a crack in his defense.

However, despite the obvious motive and the discovery of neoprene in his garage, Marcus did not demonstrate the audacity of a criminal, but the confusion of a person who does not understand the scale of the charges.

According to the interrogation reports, he acknowledged an old feud with Adam Scott, but categorically denied any involvement in his kidnapping.

While the press was already preparing headlines about the revenge of the failed athlete, Detective Lambert began to notice serious inconsistencies in the evidence collected.

The main stumbling block was the timeline.

The investigation methodically compared the dates when, according to the testimony of residents of neighboring houses, strange activity was noticed near the abandoned garden structure.

On October 11, 2015 and March 8, 2016, random witnesses saw a figure disappearing into the bushes near the border of the households in the evening.

However, a check of Marcus Wayne’s cell phone geolocation and his workplace records showed that he was at a maintenance facility in San Diego, 120 mi from Griffith Park on those days.

These alibis were too solid to ignore.

Lambert realized that the presence of neoprene in Marcus’ garage could only be a coincidence since he worked with insulating materials on a daily basis.

The detective decided to change his strategy and ordered a second, even more detailed examination of the bunker itself.

The forensic report of June 1st, 2017 contained a critical detail.

The soundproofing and door sealing system was not homemade.

It was professional equipment of the highest class, the installation of which required not only skills but also the use of specialized vacuum fasteners.

The investigation initiated a full review of all construction and renovation permits within a 200yard radius of the Scott home over the past 5 years.

The results were staggering.

In July of 2013, 10 months before Adam’s disappearance, a request was registered on one of the neighboring properties for major renovation of the underground garage and creation of a professional music studio with increased sound absorption.

This facility was located just 110 yards from Adam Scott’s bedroom.

Delving into the technical documentation, the detectives found that the purchase of materials for this studio completely matched the serial numbers of the panels that covered the bunker where the boy was held.

Moreover, the scheme of connecting electricity to the garden structure was disguised as garden illumination, which was powered by the general network of the same neighboring plot.

This meant that the offender had not just found an old basement.

He had methodically prepared it using legal construction work as a cover to create the perfect prison.

Detective Lambert recalled in his later reflections that at that moment he felt a chill.

Marcus Wayne, with his overt aggression and clear motive, was the perfect almost poster boy for the suspect.

He was a convenient screen behind which it was easy for the real criminal to hide.

The real owner of the basement acted much more sophisticated.

He didn’t just kidnap the boy.

He set up a place of detention right under the noses of the police and his parents, ensuring that he could watch their every move.

The investigation began to methodically check who exactly had access to the plans for this renovation and who actually controlled the process of installing soundproofing.

It became clear that the kidnapper was a man with a cold, analytical mind who had not only held the victim for a thousand days, but had been actively involved in the community, perhaps even expressing sympathy for the Scots by keeping the keys to the basement where their son was dying in his pocket.

Lambert’s special attention was drawn to one fact from the case file on the disappearance of 2014.

During the massive searches of Griffith Park, some volunteers repeatedly offered to help the investigation in coordinating groups in the very sector where the bunker was later found.

Someone constantly diverted the searcher’s attention from the garden buildings, convincing everyone that everything has already been checked and there is nothing there but old tools.

The shadow of the real owner began to emerge through the dry reports on the purchase of building materials and the evidence of garage repairs.

This was not a sworn enemy from the past, but someone much closer, someone who had an impeccable reputation and was absolutely trusted.

Detective Lambert realized that while they were keeping Marcus Wayne in the interrogation room, the real kidnapper could be sitting in the Scott’s kitchen, pouring them tea and listening intently to the latest news from the police station.

Every step of the investigation was an open book for him.

The real hunt had just begun, but now the LAPD realized that they were not looking for a criminal, but for the perfect neighbor whose true face was hidden behind a mask of selfless help, Lambert ordered immediate covert surveillance of everyone in the Scott family’s immediate social circle.

Realizing that the enemy was at arms length, on June 5th, 2017, Detective Lambert officially signed an order to remove suspicion from Marcus Wayne.

The results of a detailed geoloccation check and corroborated testimony from his employers in San Diego left no room for doubt.

On the key dates when activity was detected in the bunker area, Marcus was 120 mi from Los Angeles.

The investigation found itself in a situation that criminologists call ground zero.

The apparent enemy turned out to be just a coincidence, and the real culprit continued to remain unidentified, despite the fact that Adam’s place of detention had been found.

Detective Lambert decided to go back to the very beginning to the technical documentation for the renovation of the garage, which was mentioned in the case file.

His attention was drawn to the fact that the order for the installation of professional soundproofing was not placed with the owner of the house where the work was being done, but with a third-party contractor, a gasket company called Acoustic Pro Systems.

After analyzing the financial chain, investigators from the economic crime department found that the accounts of this company were closed 3 months after Adam’s disappearance.

However, one digital trace remained.

The down payment for the equipment, $4,500, was made from a credit card belonging to a private security consultant, Dylan Stewart.

That name made Lambert stop.

Dylan Stewart was no stranger to the case.

During the 3 years that Adam was missing, Dylan was what Patricia Scott called their family’s guardian angel.

He lived in the house across the street, just 90 yards from the Scots.

It was he who first brought hot coffee to the police on the night of the disappearance in 2014.

He was the one who printed the first 10,000 postcards with Adam’s portrait at his own expense and personally pasted them on every pole in Griffith Park.

Dylan Stewart became Adam’s parents right-hand man, overseeing their communications with the press and even helping to moderate the search page on social media.

According to neighbors who were reinterviewed on June 7th, Dylan was present at almost every Scott family dinner over the past year.

He knew about every step of the investigation, every new theory the detectives came up with.

The investigation team began to realize a terrible truth.

The ideal volunteer was not just helping.

He was conducting an internal audit of the investigation.

Being inside the family circle, he guaranteed himself that the police would never get too close to the garden structure on the border of the plots.

The final turning point in the perception of the steward’s figure occurred on June 10th, 2017.

Detective Lambert was in the Scott’s living room discussing the condition of Adam, who was still in the hospital under psychiatric observation.

Dylan, as usual, was there to help Richard set up the video surveillance system on the front of the house.

During the conversation, Dylan suddenly noticed that Adam was probably having a hard time getting used to the new type of lighting in the ward and mentioned that the boy was always afraid of the harsh yellow light that now causes him to have panic attacks.

Lambert instantly captured this moment.

The information about Adam’s specific reaction to the color of the lamps and the details of his phobias developed in captivity was only disclosed by the doctors in a closed report to the police 2 hours before this meeting.

None of the family members knew these details yet.

When Lambert later checked the Cedar Sinai Hospital’s visitation logs, he saw that Dylan Stewart had tried to enter the intensive care unit under the guise of a close relative, but was denied.

How could he know about Adam’s condition with such accuracy? The answer was obvious.

He not only knew Adam, he was the architect of his fears.

An analysis of Dylan’s cell phone activity over the past 3 years showed that every evening around minutes, he made a short walk out of the house toward the property line.

The coordinates of the signal stopped exactly at the point where the disguised entrance to the basement was located.

Dylan Stewart enjoyed a double game, the scale of which was hard to comprehend.

By day, he held the hand of Adam’s sobbing mother, promising that they would find her son.

And by night, he would walk only 110 yards to descend into a concrete bunker and become the only god for the very boy whose portrait he had just plastered around the city.

This form of psychopathy, as defined by FBI experts, was based on a pathological need for absolute power.

For Stuart, Adam was not a person.

He was a trophy, living proof of his intellectual superiority over the entire Los Angeles justice system.

He controlled both the victim in the basement and those who were looking for him.

Each step of the detectives was just a part of a big game for him in which he was always a few steps ahead.

Detective Lambert realized that every day that Dylan remained at large was a threat to Adam, who began to slowly return to reality.

The mask of the perfect protector began to crack under the weight of financial evidence and the occasional warning from the criminal himself.

The LAPD began to prepare an arrest operation, acting with the utmost caution as steward with his experience as a security consultant could be armed and dangerous.

The main goal was not just to arrest him, but to obtain indisputable evidence that it was his hand that held the keys to the bunker, which had been in darkness for a thousand days.

Lambert ordered roundthe-clock surveillance, realizing that the true enemy had been closer than anyone could have imagined all along.

Dylan Stewart continued to play his part, not yet knowing that his own maniacal attention to detail had given him away this time.

On June 12th, 2017, at exactly 00 minutes in the morning, the quiet neighborhood of Fernell Drive was surrounded by Los Angeles Police Department SWAT teams.

The operation to arrest Dylan Stewart was being prepared in the highest level of secrecy as Detective Lambert feared that the suspect, with his professional skills as a security consultant, could destroy key evidence or commit an act of aggression against the Scott family.

However, the arrest took place almost routinely.

When the SWAT team kicked in the door of his house, Stuart was sitting in his living room with a cup of coffee, staring at the monitors that broadcast images from the surveillance cameras.

He did not resist, only silently held out his hands for the handcuffs, maintaining an icy calm on his face that one of the officers would later call the most frightening expression of the absence of a soul.

During a large-scale search that lasted more than 12 hours, forensic scientists found evidence that finally removed any doubts.

In a secret compartment of Stuart’s massive oak desk, they found a set of keys to the basement and the same dark polymer mask that Adam Scott described as the face of his captor.

In addition, gigabytes of video files were found on Dylan’s computer hard drives.

He had been recording every day of Adam’s imprisonment for 3 years with a hidden infrared camera.

The steward did not just hold the boy captive.

He turned the 19-year-old’s suffering into an endless series for his own viewing.

During the first official interrogation, the minutes of which were later partially disclosed in court.

Dylan Stewart behaved not like a criminal, but like an analyst reporting on a successfully completed task.

Detective Lambert recalled in his memoirs, “He showed no remorse, no sign of human compassion.

When I asked him about his motive, he only smiled slightly and replied that he wanted absolute power.

For him, the real pleasure was not in the physical violence, but in the knowledge that he was the sole master of another person’s life and death.” Stuart described his double life in detail.

How he would bring food to Patricia Scott and comfort her during the day and returned to the basement at night to remain the only voice and the only reality for her son.

The trial, which began in January 2018, became one of the most high-profile in California.

The indictment presented by the prosecutor’s office included kidnapping, aggravated false imprisonment, and torture.

Adam Scott’s testimony was provided in writing due to his inability to speak in the presence of a large number of people.

In these documents, the boy described how Stuart manipulated his consciousness, convincing him that the entire outside world had died and that he was the only savior.

Based on all the evidence, including the digital recordings of the defendant himself, Dylan Stewart was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of early release.

After the verdict was announced, the Scott family decided to leave Los Angeles forever.

The house on Fernell Drive, once a symbol of comfort, became a place of unbearable pain for them.

Every bush, every path in Griffith Park, reminded them of a thousand days of horror.

They sold the property for well below market value and moved to a small town in Montana, hoping that the open spaces and lack of dense forests would help Adam start over.

However, 3 years in complete isolation left scars on the boy’s soul that will not heal.

According to the rehabilitation doctors, Adam learned to speak again, but his speech remained quiet and intermittent forever.

He has developed a strong phobia of complete silence.

A white noise generator is running around the clock in his new room as the absence of sound brings back memories of the concrete bunker.

He also began to experience uncontrollable fear of the excessive kindness of strangers.

For Adam, every sincere smile or offer of help now seems like a threat, a mask behind which another lifealtering agent may be hiding.

The story of Adam Scott has become a cruel reminder for the people of Los Angeles that the limits of human power can be terrifying when it falls into the hands of a sociopath.

The Griffith Park case proved that sometimes the worst enemy is not a random mugger or a mystical evil in the woods.

It’s the person who holds your hand in moments of despair who cries with you at the funeral of your hopes, but who also holds the keys to your prison in his pocket.

Detective Lambert, retiring 2 years after the case, said, “We were looking for a monster in the dark bushes of the park, and all the while he was drinking tea in the victim’s living room.

” This case forever changed the protocols for searching for missing people, forcing detectives to pay attention to those who are overly active in their desire to help.

But for Adam Scott, these changes in the law no longer mattered.

He escaped from Dylan Stewart’s grasp, but remained a prisoner of his own memory forever, where the silence of Griffith Park still echoes the footsteps of his ideal protector.