The snow fell thick and silent over Riverside, Maine on Christmas Eve, 1989.

Maine street glowed with colored lights strung between lamposts and wreaths hung on every shop door.

The bell tower of St.

Michael’s Church rose above the town square, its white steeple piercing the gray winter sky like a prayer frozen in time.

Inside the church, in the small office adjacent to the sanctuary, Pastor David Thornhill sat alone.

The only light came from a brass desk lamp, casting long shadows across walls lined with theological books and framed scripture verses.

His hands trembled as he sealed something inside the stone wall behind his desk.

His fingers working quickly despite their shaking.

Through his window, he could see families hurrying home through the snow, arms laden with lastminute gifts.

Children laughed and called to each other, their voices muffled by the thick blanket of white covering the ground.

Pastor Thornhill pressed his palm against the wall, his lips moving in what might have been prayer or something darker.

The church bells began to toll midnight.

Christmas day had arrived.

He whispered for words into the darkness.

Forgive me, they’re pure now.

Then he extinguished the lamp and disappeared into the shadows of his church.

On Christmas morning 1989, three children disappeared from their beds in the small town of Riverside, Maine.

There were no signs of struggle, no footprints in the freshly fallen snow, no ransom demands, no witnesses.

For 35 years, their families searched desperately for answers, clinging to hope that grew thinner with each passing Christmas.

But when a demolition crew tore down the abandoned St.

Michael’s Church in March of 2024.

They discovered something hidden in the walls.

Something that proved the children had never left town at all.

What they found in that church would expose a truth so dark, so deliberately evil that it would shake an entire community to its core.

This is the story of three innocent lives stolen on the holiest night of a year and the monster who hid among the faithful for nearly half a century.

If you’re drawn to mysteries that delve into the darkest corners of human nature, subscribe to Ultimate Crime Stories now.

You won’t want to miss how this nightmare unfolds, and you definitely won’t want to miss the shocking discovery that brings it all to light.

Let me take you back to Christmas Eve, 1989.

Riverside, Maine, was a kind of town where everyone knew everyone else’s business, where doors were left unlocked and children played freely in the streets.

population 3,200, one main street, three churches, and a sense of safety that was about to be shattered forever.

At the Morrison House on Maple Street, 10-year-old Emma Morrison was practically vibrating with excitement.

She had spent the afternoon rehearsing her solo for the Christmas morning service, her voice clear and sweet as she sang Silent Night in front of her bedroom mirror.

Emma wore a red velvet dress that her grandmother had spent weeks making by hand, complete with white lace collar and pearl buttons.

Her blonde hair was curled into perfect ringlets, and she clutched a new diary her parents had let her open early, a special Christmas Eve tradition.

At 8:45 that night, her mother Catherine tucked her into bed, kissing her forehead and adjusting her blankets just so.

Emma’s last words to her mother were, “I can’t wait to sing tomorrow, Mama.

Do you think the angels will hear me? Catherine had smiled and assured her daughter that the angels would definitely be listening.

She had no idea how horrifyingly prophetic those words would become.

Three blocks away at the Chun family home on Birch Avenue.

9-year-old Lucas Chun was in his room carefully polishing his grandfather’s silver cross.

Lucas was an alter boy at St.

Michael’s, a role he took with the utmost seriousness.

He had been chosen to lead the Christmas procession the next morning, and he wanted everything to be perfect.

His parents, David and Sarah Chun, had immigrated from Taiwan before Lucas was born, and their Catholic faith was the anchor of their family life.

Lucas practiced his prayers in both English and Mandarin.

His young voice earnest as he prepared for the most important service of a year.

At 9:00, his father David came in to say good night, finding Lucas reading a book about saints by flashlight under his covers.

They said prayers together in Chinese, a ritual they performed every night.

David kissed his son’s head and told him to get some sleep.

Lucas promised he would right after finishing one more chapter.

His father turned off the light and closed the door, never imagining it would be the last time he’d see his son alive.

On the edge of town at the Ellis Foster home on Cedar Lane, 11-year-old Sophie Grant was experiencing her first real Christmas.

Sophie had been in the foster care system for 3 years, bouncing between homes, never staying anywhere long enough to feel like she belonged.

But 2 months ago, she’d been placed with Margaret and Tom Ellis.

And for the first time in her young life, she felt safe.

She felt wanted.

Margaret Ellis was a warm, patient woman who had opened her home to dozens of foster children over the years, and she had a special soft spot for Sophie.

That Christmas Eve, Sophie had spent hours making paper snowflakes to decorate her room, carefully cutting intricate patterns into white paper and taping them to her window.

At 8:30, Margaret came in to read her The Night Before Christmas, a book Sophie had never heard before.

as Margaret read.

Sophie interrupted with a question that would haunt Margaret for the rest of her life.

Can I call you mom just to try it out? Margaret’s eyes had filled with tears as she hugged the girl and said, “Oh, sweetheart, I would love that.” They finished the story, said prayers together, and Margaret tucked Sophie in, kissing her good night.

Sophie’s last words were, “This is the best Christmas ever.” By morning, she would be gone.

Christmas morning arrived with fresh snow and the sound of church bells calling the faithful to service.

At 7:00, Kathern Morrison opened Emma’s bedroom door, expecting to find her daughter already awake and bursting with energy.

Instead, she found an empty bed.

The red velvet dress was laid out for church, but Emma was nowhere to be seen.

The window was closed.

The room was warm.

Emma’s slippers sat neatly beside her bed.

Her new diary lay on the nightstand, unopened to any page.

Catherine’s first thought was that Emma must be downstairs, too excited to wait.

But a quick search of the house revealed nothing.

Emma’s winter coat hung in the closet.

Her boots sat by the door.

Catherine’s voice rose in pitch as she called for her husband, Robert.

By 7:15, they were calling the police.

Their Christmas morning dissolving into every parent’s worst nightmare.

30 minutes later at the Chun household, Sarah Chun discovered that Lucas’s bed was empty.

The silver cross he never took off lay on his dresser.

His window was locked from the inside.

His Christmas stockings still hung by the fireplace, untouched and full.

Sarah’s scream brought David running.

And within minutes, they had torn through every room of the house, checking closets, the basement, the attic, anywhere a child might hide.

But Lucas was gone.

vanished as completely as if he had never existed.

David immediately called the Morrisons, having heard about Emma’s disappearance on the police scanner he kept for his work as a volunteer firefighter.

The realization hit them both at the same instant.

Two children from the same church, gone on the same night.

At 7:45, Margaret Ellis went to wake Sophie for Christmas breakfast, planning to make her famous cinnamon rolls, Sophie’s favorite.

The bedroom was empty.

Margaret’s scream brought Tom running from downstairs.

Sophie’s paper snowflakes were scattered across the floor as if disturbed by a struggle or a hasty departure.

The window stood open despite having been locked the night before.

Margaret was certain of it.

But there were no footprints in the fresh snow beneath the window, which had fallen steadily until about 2 in the morning.

It was physically impossible for Sophie to have left through that window without leaving tracks.

Yet she was gone.

Tom called the police, then called the Morrisons, then the Chens.

By 8:15, three families were living the same nightmare, and the entire town of Riverside was about to learn that their safe little community had just become the sight of something incomprehensible.

Police Chief Harold Webster arrived at the Morrison House first.

A 30-year veteran of smalltown law enforcement, Webster had dealt with runaways, domestic disputes, and the occasional theft, but three children vanishing simultaneously from locked houses with no signs of forced entry.

He was out of his depth within minutes.

By 9:00, he had called in the state police.

By 10:00, search dogs were being deployed.

The dogs were brought to each house, given items of clothing to send, and released to track.

But something impossible happened at each location.

The dogs would follow the scent to the threshold of each child’s bedroom and then lose it completely.

As if the children had simply evaporated.

No trail led outside.

No trail led anywhere.

The handlers had never seen anything like it.

It defied every principle of scent tracking they knew.

Search parties formed within hours.

Over 500 residents of Riverside abandoned their Christmas celebrations to comb the woods surrounding the town.

They searched fields, abandoned buildings, the banks of the Riverside River.

Divers were brought in to search Miller’s Pond despite the ice covering its surface.

Helicopters equipped with thermal imaging flew grid patterns over the area.

The National Guard was mobilized by evening.

For 3 days, the search continued around the clock, and they found nothing.

Not a single shred of evidence.

Not a footprint, not a piece of torn clothing, not a lost shoe.

It was as if Emma Morrison, Lucas Chun, and Sophie Grant had been erased from existence between the hours of 9:00 p.m.

on Christmas Eve and 7:00 a.m.

on Christmas Day.

Pastor David Thornnehill was a pillar of strength during those first terrible days.

He organized prayer vigils at St.

Michael’s Church, holding services every evening where the community could gather and support one another.

On the evening of December 26th, he delivered a sermon about faith in the face of darkness, about trusting in God’s plan, even when that plan seemed cruel beyond understanding.

His voice cracked with emotion as he spoke about the three children, calling them by name, describing their devotion to the church, Emma’s beautiful singing voice, Lucas’s dedication as an alter boy, Sophie’s joy at finally finding a church family after years in foster care.

People wept openly as he spoke.

Many would later say that Pastor Thornhill’s strength and compassion were the only things that held the community together during those dark days.

They had no idea that the man offering them comfort was the same man who had stolen their children.

The media descended on Riverside like locusts.

By December 26th, national news crews had set up camp in the town square.

The story had everything that captured public attention.

Three innocent children, a Christmas disappearance, a small town in shock, and absolutely no answers.

America’s most wanted feature the case.

In January of 1990, the families appeared on every major news program, pleading for information, begging whoever had taken their children to return them safely.

Tips poured in by the thousands.

Each one was investigated.

Each one led nowhere.

Emma’s face appeared on milk cartons across the country.

Lucas and Sophie’s photos were plastered on telephone poles and shop windows.

But as weeks turned into months and months turned into years, the tips slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether.

Riverside, Maine, became known as the town that lost Christmas, and the three families were left with nothing but questions and grief that had no end.

The investigation was exhaustive.

Over 300 people were interviewed in the first month alone.

Every registered sex offender within a 100 miles was questioned and cleared.

Polygraph tests were administered to the parents, the neighbors, anyone who had been in contact with the children.

Everyone passed.

The theory that eventually took hold, more by default than evidence, was that a transient predator had passed through Riverside on Christmas Eve.

Someone with no connection to the town who had somehow targeted and taken all three children simultaneously.

But this theory had massive holes.

How would a stranger have known which houses contain children? How would they have gained entry to three separate locked homes without leaving any evidence? How would they have transported three children out of town without being seen by anyone? The theory satisfied no one, but it was the only explanation that seemed remotely possible.

In 1995, the case officially went cold.

The files were boxed up and stored in the basement of the Riverside Police Department, gathering dust alongside dozens of other unsolved cases.

The families were left to grieve, to wonder, to spend every Christmas for the next 35 years thinking about what might have been.

But there was one person who never stopped thinking about the case.

Detective Rachel Torres joined the Riverside Police Department in 2021, specifically requesting assignment to the cold case unit.

At 42, Rachel was a veteran investigator with a personal understanding of what it meant to have a loved one vanish without a trace.

Her younger sister had disappeared in 1995, also without any evidence or leads.

Rachel knew the special kind of torture that came with not knowing.

The way it poisoned every holiday, every happy moment.

The way it prevented you from ever fully moving on with your life.

When she saw the files for the Morrison, Chun, and Grant cases, she felt an immediate connection.

Three children taken on Christmas.

No answers for 35 years.

She requested permission to review the case.

And her captain, perhaps understanding her need to find some kind of justice, even if it wasn’t for her own sister, approved.

Rachel spent months going through every box of evidence.

She read every interview transcript, studied every photograph, reviewed every tip that had come in over the decades.

And one thing kept nagging at her.

Pastor David Thornhill, the beloved leader of St.

Michael’s Church, the man who had been such a source of comfort to the community, had disappeared himself just 21 days after the children vanished.

His departure had been noted in the original investigation, of course, but it had been explained away.

Thornhill had left a note saying he needed time for spiritual reflection that the weight of the tragedy had become too much for him to bear.

His apartment had been cleaned out.

His car was found at the bus station in Portland.

He had withdrawn $5,000 in cash from his bank account the day before leaving.

and then nothing.

No trace of David Thornhill had ever been found.

The original investigators had looked into Thornhill’s background.

His credentials were legitimate.

He had graduated from seminary in Vermont in 1975.

His previous parish had given glowing references.

His background check had been clean.

Most importantly, he had an alibi for Christmas Eve.

Multiple neighbors confirmed seeing lights on in his apartment throughout the evening.

The church secretary had spoken with him by phone at 11 p.m.

to confirm the schedule for Christmas services.

There was simply no evidence that he had been anywhere near the three children when they disappeared.

But Rachel couldn’t shake the feeling that the timing of his departure was too convenient.

21 days.

Why exactly 21 days? Why not leave immediately if the grief was too much? Why wait 3 weeks? She decided to dig deeper into Thornhill’s past, going beyond what the original investigation had uncovered.

What Rachel found chilled her to the bone.

She started with Thornhill’s previous posting at St.

Catherine’s Church in Burlington, Vermont, where he had served from 1982 to 1987.

A few phone calls to the Burlington Dascese revealed something the original investigators had apparently missed or deemed unimportant.

In 1986, two children from St.

Catherine’s congregation had died in a house fire.

The fire had been ruled accidental caused by faulty wiring, but both children had been members of the church choir that Thornhill directed.

Their names were Amy Patterson and Joshua Martinez, ages 8 and nine.

Rachel obtained the fire marshall’s report and read it carefully.

The investigation had been thorough, but the cause was listed as inconclusive, not definitively accidental.

There had been some irregularities in the burn patterns, but not enough to prove arson.

The children’s parents had never suspected foul play, and the case had been closed.

6 months after the fire, David Thornhill had requested a transfer, citing a calling to serve a new community.

Rachel pushed further back into Thornhill’s history.

Before Vermont, he had served at a church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from 1977 to 1982.

This took more digging as the church had closed in 1990 and records were scattered.

But Rachel was nothing if not persistent.

She finally tracked down the former head pastor, a man named Father Michael Brelin, now 89 years old and living in a nursing home outside Philadelphia.

When Rachel called him and mentioned David Thornhill’s name, there was a long silence on the other end of the line.

Then, Father Breastlin said something that made Rachel’s blood run cold.

I always wondered about David.

There was something behind his eyes, something that didn’t match the smile.

Father Breastlin told Rachel about a church camping trip in 1981.

Thornnehill had been supervising a group of children on a hike when one of the boys, a 10-year-old named Christopher Dean, had apparently fallen into a river and drowned.

His body was found 2 mi downstream the next day.

The death was ruled accidental.

Christopher had been an alter boy, one of Thornhill’s favorites.

Father Breastlin said that Thornnehill had seemed devastated by the death, but there was something about his grief that felt performative.

Rehearsed.

He cried at all the right moments, Father Breastlin said, but his eyes were dry.

Rachel began building a timeline.

1981, one child dead in Pennsylvania.

1986, two children dead in Vermont.

1989, three children missing in Maine.

All of the children had been actively involved in church activities.

All had been under Thornhill’s direct supervision in some capacity.

The deaths had been years apart in different states attributed to different causes.

No one had ever connected them because there was no obvious pattern, no reason to link a drowning in Pennsylvania to a fire in Vermont to disappearances in Maine.

But Rachel saw the pattern now and it terrified her.

She expanded her search, looking for any other churches where Thornhill might have served, any other unexplained deaths or disappearances of children.

What she found over the next 3 months of investigation was a trail of tragedies stretching back nearly 5 decades.

David Thornnehill had been ordained in 1975.

For the next 49 years, he had moved from church to church, never staying anywhere longer than 8 years, often leaving after some tragedy befell a child in his congregation.

Rachel found a fire in Columbus, Ohio in 1995 that killed three children from a church youth group.

The assistant pastor at the time was listed as David Hill.

Different last name, but Rachel pulled a photo from the church newsletter and her heart began to pound.

It was Thornhill, perhaps 15 years older than his main driver’s license photo, but unmistakably the same man.

In Montana in 2003, a child named Jacob Reeves disappeared after serving as an alter boy.

The case remained unsolved, but the visiting priest who had been running the children’s ministry that year was named Thomas Hill.

Again, Rachel found a photo.

Again, it was Thornhill.

The pattern continued.

Arizona, 2011.

Two children dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in a church basement.

The pastor who discovered them and called it in was David Hillman, Oregon, 2019.

A child fell into an abandoned well on church property and died.

The assistant pastor was Daniel Thornnehill.

Each time he used a variation of his name, David Daniel Thomas Thornhill Hillman.

Just different enough to avoid automatic detection if anyone was searching databases, but close enough that he could respond naturally if someone called him by name.

Rachel realized she was looking at a serial killer who had been operating for nearly 50 years, hiding in plain sight within the very institutions that were supposed to represent safety and moral authority.

The scope of it was staggering.

She estimated based on the cases she could confirm that Thornhill had murdered at least 24 children, and there might be more she hadn’t found yet.

He chose children who were deeply involved in church activities.

Children whose faith and innocence made them easy to manipulate.

He gained their trust over months, then killed them in ways that could be explained as accidents, or in the case of Emma, Lucas, and Sophie, simply made them disappear.

and he had gotten away with it for decades because he was patient, methodical, and smart enough to move before anyone could suspect him.

Rachel knew she had enough to reopen the investigation, but she needed more than historical patterns and circumstantial evidence.

She needed to find David Thornnehill.

She needed to prove what he had done.

She contacted the FBI and special agent Marcus Webb was assigned to the case.

Webb specialized in serial predators.

And when Rachel laid out everything she had found, his expression grew darker with each revelation.

This is one of the most successful serial killers I’ve ever seen.

Web said, “The fact that he’s never been caught, never even seriously suspected until now is terrifying.

We need to find him before he kills again.” Together, Rachel and Web began the process of tracking Thornhill’s movements after he left Oregon in 2022.

They checked every variation of his name they could think of against church employment records, social security databases, tax filings.

For months, they found nothing.

It seemed as if Thornhill had finally gone to ground, perhaps retired, perhaps dead.

But then Web got a hit.

A small church in Cascade Falls, Washington, a town of about 4,000 people in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, had hired a new assistant pastor in March of 2023.

His name was David Thomas.

He was listed as 72 years old, though Thornhill would be 74.

Close enough given that he was likely using false identification.

The church’s website had a staff page with photos.

And there he was, older, more frail looking with deeply lined skin and white hair, but the bone structure was the same.

The eyes were the same.

Rachel stared at that photo for a long time, thinking about Emma Morrison, Lucas Chun, Sophie Grant, and all the other children whose lives this man had stolen.

“That’s him,” she said.

Webb nodded.

Grace Community Church.

He’s running the children’s choir and Wednesday night Bible study.

There are currently eight children in his program.

The implications hit them both simultaneously.

Thornhill was hunting again.

Web coordinated with Washington State Police to set up surveillance on Grace Community Church.

An undercover agent posed as a newcomer to the area interested in joining the congregation.

She attended several services, confirming that David Thomas matched the age progression photo the FBI had created based on Thornhill’s last known images.

She reported that he seemed frail but mentally sharp, that he interacted extensively with the children in his programs, that he lived alone in the church rectory.

Most chillingly, she observed him taking particular interest in a 9-year-old boy named Ethan Crawford, who sang in the choir.

Thornhill’s pattern had always involved selecting specific children, grooming them over time.

They couldn’t wait any longer.

The arrest was scheduled for Sunday morning, March 29th, 2024.

Before the church service began, Rachel insisted on being present.

Even though it meant flying across the country, she had made a promise to the Morrison, Chun, and Ellis families that she would find the truth.

She was going to keep that promise.

Sunday morning arrived clear and cold in Cascade Falls.

At 7:00 a.m., FBI agents and local police were in position around Grace Community Church.

At 7:30, David Thomas emerged from a rectory, wearing his pastor’s robes and carrying a Bible.

He looked like any other elderly minister preparing for Sunday service, his expression peaceful and benign.

Rachel stepped forward with Agent Webb and four other agents flanking her.

David Thornhill,” she said, her voice steady despite the adrenaline flooding her system.

The old man froze, his peaceful expression flickered for just a moment, and Rachel saw something dark move behind his eyes.

“I’m David Thomas,” he said, his voice thin with age, but steady.

“You must have me confused with someone else, dear.” Rachel took another step closer.

“We found them,” she said.

Emma Morrison, Lucas Chun, and Sophie Grant.

We found the chamber you built for them.

We know everything.

For 10 seconds, Thornhill said nothing.

Then his mask cracked completely.

“God’s will is beyond your understanding, child,” he said, his voice changing, becoming harder, colder.

“Those children were never meant to suffer.

They were being saved.

They arrested him without resistance.” As he was handcuffed and read his rights, he seemed almost relieved, as if he had been carrying a weight for decades and was finally setting it down.

As agents led him toward the waiting vehicle, he turned to look at Rachel one more time.

They were beautiful souls, he said.

I gave them eternity before the world could corrupt them.

That’s love.

That’s sacrifice.

You’ll never understand.

Rachel felt rage rising in her throat, but she kept her voice level.

You murdered children, she said.

You tortured them and killed them and called a holy.

There’s nothing to understand except that you’re a monster.

Thornhill smiled, a thin, terrible smile.

I gave them paradise, he said softly.

Then the car door closed and he was gone.

But Rachel’s work was far from over.

With Thornhill in custody, she needed to return to Riverside and solve the 35-year-old mystery of what had actually happened to Emma, Lucas, and Sophie.

She knew they were dead.

Thornhill’s reaction had confirmed that, but the families deserved to know how they had died, where they had been kept, where their remains could be found.

She needed to search St.

Michael’s Church.

But there was a problem.

The church had been abandoned since 2009 when the congregation merged with another parish and moved to a newer building.

The old structure had deteriorated badly over the years.

The roof had partially collapsed.

Windows were broken.

The building had been condemned and the city council had voted to demolish it and turn the land into a memorial garden.

The demolition was actually scheduled to begin in less than a week.

Rachel called the Riverside City Council and requested a delay, explaining that the church might contain evidence in a murder investigation.

They agreed to postpone the demolition by 2 weeks, giving her time to conduct a thorough search.

But when Rachel entered St.

Michael’s Church for the first time in her investigation, she quickly realized the scope of the problem.

The building was a labyrinth of rooms, passages, and storage areas accumulated over 80 years.

The basement alone had a dozen different sections.

It would take months to search every inch properly, and the building’s structural integrity was questionable.

Rachel brought in structural engineers who confirmed her fears.

The church was on the verge of collapse in several areas.

They couldn’t safely conduct an extensive search.

The building needed to come down before it fell down and potentially hurt someone.

Rachel made a decision that would change everything.

She contacted Morrison and Sun’s demolition, the company hired to tear down the church, and asked if they could do the work slowly and methodically with police observers present at all times.

If they found anything unusual, anything at all, they were to stop immediately and call her.

The company’s owner, Frank Morrison, no relation to Emma’s family, agreed.

He was a lifelong Riverside resident who remembered the 1989 disappearances vividly.

“If there’s even a chance those kids are in there,” he said, “we’ll tear that building down brick by brick if we have to.” And so on the morning of March 15th, 2024, the demolition of St.

Michael’s Church began.

Frank Morrison supervised personally with his son Jake operating the excavator.

Rachel Torres stood watching along with two other detectives and a forensic team.

All of them hoping and dreading in equal measure what they might find.

Jake Morrison’s excavator approached the east wall of the church, the oldest part of the structure built in 1944 when the church had first been constructed.

According to the building records Rachel had obtained, this wall had undergone foundation repairs in the summer of 1989.

The work had been done by a local contractor named Valley Construction, and the permit had been requested by Pastor David Thornhill himself.

The timing made Rachel’s instinct scream.

She had asked Jake to start with this wall specifically.

The excavator’s bucket swung toward the stone wall and struck with a grinding crash.

Stones tumbled, dust billowed, and the wall began to collapse inward.

Jake had done this kind of work hundreds of times.

But something about the way the wall crumbled made him pause.

He shut down the excavator and climbed out of the cab, his face pale.

“Boss,” he called to his father.

“You need to see this.” Frank Morrison approached the partially demolished wall.

Rachel right behind him.

Through the settling dust, they could see into a hollow space that had been sealed inside the wall.

And there, arranged carefully on a wooden shelf, were three small backpacks and three pairs of shoes.

Children’s shoes, old and dusty, but still intact.

A pair of red Mary Janes.

A pair of black dress shoes, boy size.

A pair of white sneakers with pink laces.

Rachel’s hand went to her mouth.

She recognized those shoes from the missing person’s reports.

The red Mary Janes were Emma Morrison’s.

The black dress shoes were Lucas Chens.

The white sneakers were Sophie Grants.

After 35 years, they had found the first proof of what had happened to the children on Christmas morning 1989.

Rachel immediately called for the full forensic team and secured the scene.

No one was allowed to touch anything until every photograph had been taken, every measurement recorded.

The backpacks were carefully removed and examined.

Emma’s backpack was purple with a unicorn patch stitched on the front.

Inside were school papers dated December 23rd, 1989, a lunchbox with her name written on it in marker, and a small stuffed rabbit that Catherine Morrison had mentioned in her original missing person report.

Lucas’s backpack was blue canvas worn at the edges.

It contained an alter boy handbook, prayer cards with Chinese characters on the back, and a small wooden box that his father had made for him to keep his treasures.

Sophie’s backpack was pink with a butterfly design.

Inside were her foster care papers, a new box of crayons still in the wrapper, a Christmas gift she had never gotten to use, and tucked into a side pocket, a handmade card that said to mom, in shaky child’s handwriting, never delivered.

But Rachel knew there had to be more.

She brought in ground penetrating radar equipment to scan the foundation around the hollow space where the items had been found.

The radar operator, a specialist named David Chun, no relation to Lucas’s family, spent 2 hours slowly working the equipment over every inch of a east wall foundation.

When he finished, his expression was grave.

There’s a larger void below the shelf level, he said, pointing to the readout.

It extends down about 12 ft and appears to be deliberately constructed.

There are multiple chambers or compartments.

This wasn’t an accident or a gap in the construction.

Someone built this.

Rachel authorized excavation to continue, but slowly, carefully, with archaeological precision.

It took 2 days to safely expose and access the lower chamber.

When they finally broke through, Rachel descended a temporary ladder into the darkness with a high-powered flashlight in hand.

The chamber was approximately 8 ft by 8 ft and 7 ft tall.

The walls were stone and concrete, professionally constructed, soundproofed with insulation that had deteriorated over the decades, but was still recognizable.

On the floor were three sleeping mats, rotted but still visible in outline.

Remnants of blankets lay folded nearby.

Plastic cups and plates, child-sized, sat on a small shelf built into the wall.

There was a flashlight with batteries long corroded and dead.

There were coloring books, their pages yellowed and fragile.

There was a children’s Bible, the kind with pictures and simple language.

And there, carved into the stone wall with something sharp, scratched painstakingly over what must have been hours or days, were initials and a message.

EM plus LC plus SG.

We were here.

Please find us.

Rachel had to step out of a chamber for a moment, overwhelmed by the evidence of what these children had endured.

They had been kept here in this dark hole beneath the church while their families searched desperately for them above ground.

While their faces appeared on television and their photos were plastered across the country.

While prayer vigils were held in the very church that served as their prison.

They had been here the whole time and no one had known.

No one had found them.

When Rachel regained her composure, she went back into the chamber with the forensic team.

They searched every inch, documenting everything.

And in the cracks between stones, folded small and wedged tight, they found three pieces of paper.

Three notes written in children’s handwriting, preserved by the dry environment of the sealed chamber.

Emma Morrison’s note was written in purple crayon on a page torn from her Christmas diary.

The handwriting was a shaky but legible.

Day eight, I think.

I’m trying to keep track, but it’s hard in the dark.

Pastor David brings food once a day, sometimes just bread and water, sometimes soup.

He says we’re being purified.

He says our parents gave permission for special religious training.

I don’t believe him.

Why would they let him keep us in the dark? Why would they let us be so scared? Lucas cries at night when Pastor David takes the light away.

Sophie won’t talk anymore.

She just stares at the wall.

I try to be brave for them, but I’m scared, too.

It’s so dark when he takes the flashlight.

I count the stones on my wall to pass the time.

47 stones.

I’ve counted them so many times I could draw them with my eyes closed.

We pray so much.

Hours and hours.

My knees hurt from kneeling on the stone floor.

He says, “We’re angels waiting for heaven, but I don’t want to go to heaven.

I want to go home.

I want my mom.” Lucas Chen’s note was written in pencil on the back of a prayer card.

The writing tiny to fit the small space.

I don’t know how many days anymore.

I lost count.

Maybe 2 weeks, maybe more.

Pastor David makes us memorize scripture.

Long passages.

If we forget even one word, we don’t get food that day.

Yesterday, Sophie forgot the 23rd Psalm and he didn’t give her dinner.

She’s getting so weak.

She can barely stand up now.

Emma shared her bread with Sophie when Pastor David wasn’t looking.

The bells ring above us.

I can hear the church services, the organ, people singing.

I scream during them.

I scream as loud as I can, but no one hears.

The walls are too thick.

He says screaming is a sin.

He says we must be silent like lambs being led to slaughter.

That’s from the Bible, but I don’t think it means what he says it means.

My throat hurts from not screaming.

I pray to God, but I don’t think he hears me either.

Or maybe he hears, but he’s not answering.

I don’t understand why this is happening to us.

Sophie Grant’s note was written in a child’s uncertain handwriting on a page from one of the coloring books around the border of a picture of Jesus with children.

Please find us.

We’re under the church, under St.

Michael’s.

Pastor Thornhill took us on Christmas.

He came to our houses late at night.

I don’t know how he got in, but suddenly he was there in my room.

He said there was a special surprise at the church for the good children.

He said it was a secret.

I followed him because I trusted him.

He’s a pastor.

He’s supposed to be good, but he locked us down here in the dark.

It hurts here.

It’s so cold and dark and scary.

Emma and Lucas are nice to me.

They try to make me feel better.

They’re my first real friends.

I wish I could have been their friend in real life and not just here in this dark place.

If someone find this, please tell Mrs.

Ellis I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I broke my promise about making Christmas breakfast together.

I wanted to I wanted to stay with her forever.

I wanted to call her mom.

Rachel read each note multiple times, tears streaming down her face.

These children had been alive down here for weeks.

They had suffered, starved, hoped for rescue that never came.

And then what? The notes were dated to roughly mid January 1990, about 3 weeks after the kidnapping.

What had happened after that? Rachel knew they needed to search deeper.

The ground penetrating radar had shown additional voids in the foundation, below, and around the main chamber.

She authorized continued excavation and what they found over the next 2 days would haunt everyone involved for the rest of their lives.

Below the main chamber, sealed behind carefully bricked walls, they found three more hollow spaces.

Each one was approximately 6 ft long and 2 ft wide.

The dimensions of a child’s grave.

The first space they opened contained skeletal remains in remnants of clothing.

a red velvet dress rotted but still recognizable.

The bones were small, fragile, arranged in a fetal position.

The forensic anthropologist Dr.

Patricia Aungquo examined them carefully at the scene before they were moved.

Female child approximately 10 years old, she said softly.

I’ll need to do full analysis at the lab, but preliminary examination suggests death by asphixxiation.

The space is too small and too well sealed.

There’s no ventilation.

She would have run out of oxygen within hours of being sealed in.

Emma Morrison had been buried alive in a brick tomb, sealed in the darkness, suffocating slowly.

The thought of what her last hours must have been like, was almost too much to bear.

The second space contained more skeletal remains.

These, in the remnants of alter boy robes.

In the bones of the hands, still clutch tight after 35 years, was a silver cross on a chain.

Lucas Chun had gone into death holding onto his faith.

The cross his grandfather had given him somehow returned to him or perhaps never take it away.

Dr.

Aonquo’s examination confirmed what they already knew.

Male child approximately 9 years old.

Same cause of death.

Asphyxiation in a sealed space.

He had died the same way Emma had, alone in the dark, running out of air, perhaps praying until his last breath.

The third space was the smallest, built for the smallest victim.

Sophie Grant’s remains were clothed in the remnants of a night gown with a faded flower pattern, and there, mixed with the bones, were fragments of paper snowflakes, the ones she had made on Christmas Eve to decorate her room.

Somehow, some of them had been with her when she was taken.

or perhaps Thornhill had retrieved them later, adding them to her tomb as some twisted gesture.

Dr.

Akono’s voice shook slightly as she confirmed female child approximately 11 years old.

Cause of death the same.

Three children sealed into brick tombs left to die slowly in the darkness beneath a church while the congregation above sang hymns and prayed for their safe return.

Rachel had seen terrible things in her career.

She had worked homicides, child abuse cases, the worst that humanity had to offer.

But this was different.

This was evil on a scale that defied comprehension.

David Thornnehill had kidnapped three children, kept them prisoner for weeks, starved, and terrified them, forced them to pray, and memorize scripture, all while presenting himself as their savior.

And then when he had finished with them, when his sick ritualistic timeline had concluded, he had sealed them into individual tombs and left them to suffocate.

The cruelty was almost incomprehensible.

But at least now Rachel had answers.

At least now she could give the families what they had been searching for for 35 years, the truth and their children’s remains, so they could finally lay them to rest.

The phone calls Rachel had to make were the hardest of her life.

She called Catherine Morrison first.

Catherine was 73 now, her voice thin and wavering when she answered.

Rachel had called her before to tell her about Thornhill’s arrest, but this was different.

Mrs.

Morrison, Rachel said gently.

We found Emma.

We found her remains.

I’m so sorry.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

Then Catherine’s voice barely a whisper.

Where was she? Rachel explained about the church, the hidden chamber, the seal tomb.

She explained that Emma had been kept alive for several weeks, but that Thornhill had ultimately killed her.

She explained that they had found Emma’s note that her last written words had been about wanting to go home, about wanting her mother.

Catherine Morrison’s sobbs echoed through the phone.

35 years of grief, finally finding release in the confirmation of what she had always known, but never wanted to believe.

Her daughter was gone, had been gone since January of 1990, had died terrified and alone in the darkness.

“Thank you,” Catherine said when she could speak again.

“Thank you for finding her.

Thank you for bringing her home.” The calls to Sarah and David Chun and to Margaret Ellis were equally devastating.

Each family had lived in a state of frozen hope for 35 years, unable to fully grieve because there was always the chance, however slim, that their child might still be alive somewhere.

Now the hope was extinguished, replaced by the terrible certainty of death and the horrifying details of how that death had occurred.

But there was also, in a strange way, relief.

The not knowing had been a special kind of torture.

Now they knew.

Now they could grieve properly.

Now they could lay their children to rest.

But Rachel wasn’t finished.

Thornhill was in federal custody, and she needed to extract from him every detail of what he had done, not just to Emma, Lucas, and Sophie, but to all of his victims over nearly 5 decades.

She flew to the federal detention center where he was being held and sat across from him in an interrogation room.

Agent Webb beside her.

Thornhill looked smaller than he had at his arrest, diminished somehow, but his eyes were still sharp and clear.

He had waved his right to an attorney, saying he wanted to talk.

“Rachel suspected he wanted to brag, to finally share the work he had spent a lifetime hiding.

“Tell me about Emma, Lucas, and Sophie,” Rachel said, her voice professionally neutral despite the rage simmering beneath.

Thornhill leaned back in his chair, a small smile playing at his lips.

They were perfect, he said.

I watched them for months before I took them.

Emma’s voice when she sang, so pure and clear.

Lucas’s devotion when he served at the altar.

You could see his faith shining through him.

And Sophie, that poor lost girl who just wanted to belong somewhere.

They were beautiful souls trapped in a corrupting world, and I saved them.

Rachel kept her expression blank.

Tell me how you took them.

and Thornhill told her everything.

He had planned the kidnapping meticulously for six months.

He had identified Emma, Lucas, and Sophie as his chosen ones.

Three children whose faith and innocence marked them as worthy of his special attention.

He had built the chamber during the foundation repairs, using the legitimate construction work as cover to create his hidden prison.

He had stocked it with minimal supplies.

Water, bread, blankets, a Bible, religious materials, everything they would need for their purification.

On Christmas Eve, after midnight, he had gone to each house in turn.

The doors were locked, but Thornhill had learned lockpicking years ago.

It was a useful skill for someone who needed to move through the world unseen.

He entered Emma Morrison’s house first, creeping silently into her room where she slept.

He woke her gently, a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming, and told her there was a special Christmas surprise waiting at the church, but it had to be a secret.

Emma, trusting her pastor, had followed him out into the snowy night, wearing only her night gown and slippers.

He brought her to the church through the basement entrance down into the hidden chamber.

Then he went back for Lucas using the same method.

Lucas had been harder to convince, more suspicious.

But Thornhill had the authority of his position and Lucas’s natural obedience to work with.

Finally, he took Sophie, who followed him most easily of all because she wanted so badly to believe that someone cared about her.

By 3:00 a.m.

on Christmas morning, all three children were secured in the underground chamber.

Thornhill had prepared a mattress and blankets for each of them along with a small table with water and bread.

He told them this was a special religious retreat that their parents had agreed to it but it had to be kept secret to test their faith.

He told them they would be staying there for a period of purification after which they would emerge spiritually transformed.

The children confused and frightened but not yet terrified believed him initially.

Why wouldn’t they? He was Pastor David, the kind man who led their church, who had always been gentle with them.

But as days passed and the truth became clear, as they remained locked in darkness and cold, as their food was rationed and their bodies weakened, they understood they were prisoners.

Thornhill visited them once a day, bringing minimal food and water.

He forced them to pray for hours, to memorize long passages of scripture, to confess their sins, real or imagined.

If they failed to meet his standards, he withheld food.

If they cried or complained, he left them in complete darkness.

He was breaking them down spiritually and physically, preparing them for what he believed was their ultimate salvation.

How long did you keep them alive? Rachel asked, her voice tight.

6 weeks, Thornhill said.

That’s my sacred number.

42 days.

The same amount of time Jesus spent in the wilderness.

It’s enough time to strip away all earthly attachments, all worldly corruption.

By the end, they were so weak, so focused on prayer and scripture.

They were as close to pure spirit as a human can be while still alive.

Rachel’s hands clenched into fists onto the table.

And then you killed them.

Thornhill’s expression hardened.

I released them, he corrected.

There’s a difference.

I gave them sleeping pills dissolved in water.

Told them it was communion wine.

blessed for their transformation.

They fell asleep peacefully, all three of them together in that chamber.

And while they slept, I sealed each one into their own separate resting place.

The compartments I had built below the main chamber.

I bricked them in carefully, lovingly.

They never woke up.

The carbon dioxide levels would have rendered them unconscious, then stopped their hearts.

They passed from sleep to death to heaven without ever knowing fear or pain.

Rachel wanted to scream at him that death by suffocation was neither painless nor peaceful, that those children had likely woken in terror as the oxygen ran out, that their last moments would have been pure nightmare.

But she kept her voice steady.

And then what? And then I stayed for three more weeks.

Thornhill said, “I needed to ensure there were no complications, no unexpected discoveries.

I conducted their funeral rights in private, blessing their tombs, praying for their souls.

And when I was certain everything was secure, I left Riverside.

I left a note explaining I needed spiritual retreat, and I moved on to my next calling.

Rachel leaned forward.

Your next calling? You mean your next victim? Thornhill smiled.

I mean, my next opportunity to save innocent souls from damnation.

Emma, Lucas, and Sophie were not my first detective.

They were not even close to my first.

I’ve been doing God’s work for 49 years.

And then, with a calm demeanor of a man discussing his career accomplishments, David Thornnehill confessed to 24 murders spanning five decades.

He provided names, dates, locations.

Some Rachel already knew about from her research.

Others were new, cases she had never connected to him.

There was Daniel Wright in Pennsylvania, 1977.

His very first, a 10-year-old boy who drowned during a church camping trip.

Thornnehill had held him under the water in a river until he stopped struggling, then staged it to look like the boy had fallen and hit his head.

There were Amy Patterson and Joshua Martinez in Vermont, 1986, killed in a house fire that Thornhill set after locking them in a basement.

There were three children in Columbus, Ohio, 1995.

Another fire, another locked room.

A boy in Montana in 2003 kept in a sealed basement for 2 months before Thornhill suffocated him with a plastic bag.

Two children in Arizona, 2011.

Carbon monoxide poisoning that Thornhill administered deliberately while they were attending a church sleepover.

be supervised.

A girl in Oregon, 2019, who didn’t actually fall into a well, but was pushed by Thornhill after he decided she had been sufficiently purified.

The list went on and on.

Each child had been involved in church activities.

Each had been carefully selected for their perceived innocence and devotion.

Each had been killed in ways that could be explained as accidents or in cases like Emma, Lucas, and Sophie simply made to disappear.

Why children? Rachel asked.

Why not adults if you’re so concerned about sin? Thornhill looked at her as if she had asked why water was wet.

Because children are the only humans still capable of true innocence, he said.

Adults are already corrupted, already lost.

But children, especially devout children, who haven’t yet been fully poisoned by the modern world, they can still be saved.

I chose the best ones, the brightest souls, and I preserved them before the world could ruin them.

I gave them eternity in a state of grace.

That’s love, detective.

That’s the purest form of love there is.

Rachel stood up, unable to sit across from him for another second.

You’re going to spend whatever time you have left in prison, she said.

And when you die, there’s no heaven waiting for you.

Just an end.

That’s all you get.

Thornhill’s smile never wavered.

“We’ll see,” he said.

“We’ll see who was right.” The trial, when it came 6 months later, was swift.

Thornnehill plead guilty to all 24 murder counts in exchange for a sentence of 24 consecutive life terms without possibility of parole instead of the death penalty.

His cooperation in locating victim’s remains where possible was considered in sentencing.

19 sets of remains were ultimately recovered from the various locations he provided.

Five children were never found.

Their bodies destroyed in fires or buried in locations that had since been developed.

At his sentencing hearing, Thornhill was given the opportunity to make a statement.

He stood frail and elderly and addressed the courtroom full of victims families.

“I understand that you cannot see what I have done as anything but evil,” he said.

But I tell you truthfully that I acted out of love.

I acted out of faith.

I saved your children from a fate worse than death, which is a life lived in sin.

God knows the truth of my heart.

And when I stand before him, he will vindicate me.

History will remember me not as a monster, but as a man who sacrificed everything to save innocent souls.

The judge, a woman named Judith Henderson, who had presided over hundreds of criminal cases in her 30 years on the bench, looked at Thornhill with an expression of pure contempt.

Mr.

Thornhill, she said, I have seen evil in many forms in this courtroom.

But I have never encountered anything quite like you.

You have hidden behind faith and piety while committing acts of unspeakable cruelty.

You have betrayed the trust placed in you by congregations across this country.

You have destroyed families, stolen futures, and caused immeasurable suffering.

And through it all, you have felt no remorse, shown no empathy, demonstrated no understanding of the magnitude of your crimes.

God may judge you in the next life, but this court judges you in this one.

You will spend the remainder of your days in prison.

And when you die, you will be remembered not as you wish, but as you are a predator who prayed on children, a killer who hid behind a collar, and a coward who could not face his own evil, but had to dress it up as righteousness.

Court is adjourned.

Thornhill was led away to begin his sentence.

At 74 years old with multiple health problems, no one expected him to live more than a few years.

But that was long enough for Rachel’s purposes.

She had given the families what they needed.

Answers remains to bury and the certainty that their children’s killer would never see freedom again.

The memorial service for Emma Morrison, Lucas Chun, and Sophie Grant was held on Christmas Eve 2024, exactly 35 years after their disappearance.

The service took place in the memorial garden that had been created where St.

Michael’s Church once stood.

Three trees had been planted, an oak for Emma, an elm for Lucas, and a maple for Sophie.

A memorial stone bore their names and a simple inscription.

Taken too soon, never forgotten.

The entire town of Riverside turned out for the service.

Kathern Morrison, now 74 and using a walker, stood between her two surviving children and grandchildren.

she had never thought she would have.

Having believed for so long that her life effectively ended the day Emma disappeared.

Sarah and David Shun stood together, their other children and grandchildren gathered around them.

Finally able to lay Lucas to rest after 35 years of not knowing.

Margaret Ellis, 71 and still carrying the weight of losing Sophie, stood with several of the other foster children she had cared for over the years, all of whom had come back to support her in this moment.

Rachel Torres stood at a respectful distance, not wanting to intrude on the family’s grief, but unable to stay away.

She had spent 2 years of her life working to solve this case, to bring these children home.

She needed to see it through to the end.

As the service concluded and people began to disperse, Catherine Morrison approached her.

The old woman took Rachel’s hands in her own, thin and frail, but surprisingly strong.

“Thank you,” Catherine said.

“Thank you for not giving up.

Thank you for bringing Emma home.

I can finally rest now.

She can finally rest.” Rachel felt tears streaming down her face.

“I wish I could have found her in time,” she said.

Catherine shook her head.

No one could have.

Thornhill was too careful, too patient.

But you found her in the end.

That’s what matters.

Emma’s home now.

As the sun set on Christmas Eve, casting long shadows across the memorial garden, Rachel stood alone looking at the three trees.

She thought about Emma Morrison, who had loved to sing and had died with a prayer on her lips.

She thought about Lucas Chun, who had held on to his faith literally to his last breath, dying with his grandfather’s cross in his hands.

She thought about Sophie Grant, who had finally found a family only to have it stolen away, who had died with paper snowflakes she had made scattered around her.

Three innocent lives cut brutally short by a man who believed he was doing God’s work.

Rachel also thought about the other 21 children whose names she now knew.

Daniel Wright, Amy Patterson, Joshua Martinez, Jacob Reeves.

All of them gone.

Their lives stolen by David Thornnehill’s twisted ideology.

But at least now their families had answers.

At least now they could grieve properly, could lay their children to rest, could begin the slow process of healing that only becomes possible when uncertainty ends.

It wasn’t enough.

It would never be enough.

No amount of justice could bring those children back.

But it was something.

As Rachel walked back to her car, her phone buzzed with a message.

It was from Special Agent Web.

They had just received a call from a family in Nevada who had lost a daughter in a church fire in 2011.

They wanted to thank Rachel for finally giving them answers about what had really happened.

The message ended with, “Three more families called today.

Word is spreading.

You gave them closure.

Good work, Torres.” Rachel sat in her car for a long moment, thinking about her own sister, who had disappeared in 1995 and was never found.

She had become a detective because of that loss, had dedicated her life to finding missing people because she couldn’t find the one who mattered most.

She hadn’t found her sister, but she had found Emma, Lucas, and Sophie.

She had found 21 other children.

Maybe that was enough.

Maybe that was all she could ask for.

She started her car and drove through the quiet streets of Riverside, past houses decorated with Christmas lights, past families visible through windows gathering for the holiday.

Life continued as it always did, even after tragedy.

The town of Riverside had lost three children 35 years ago, and that loss had marked every Christmas since.

But now, finally, those children were home.

Now, finally, their families could begin to heal.

It wasn’t a happy ending.

There could be no happy ending to a story like this, but it was an ending.

And sometimes that was the best you could hope for.

David Thornnehill would die in prison 3 years later in 2027 from complications of pneumonia.

He never recanted his confessions or expressed remorse for his crimes.

His last words, according to the prison chaplain who attended him, were, “Tell them I was right.

Tell them I saved those children.” No one listened.

His body was cremated and his ashes were buried in an unmarked grave.

No memorial service was held.

No one mourned him.

He had spent nearly 50 years believing he would be remembered as a savior.

But in the end, he was remembered only as a monster.

And even that memory faded quickly as the world moved on to newer horrors, newer tragedies.

But Emma Morrison, Lucas Chun, and Sophie Grant were not forgotten.

Their memorial garden became a place where the community gathered every Christmas Eve to honor their memory and the memories of all children lost to violence.

Their names were spoken aloud each year so that they would not fade into obscurity.

They had been murdered by a man who believed he was giving them eternity.

But they found eternity in a different way.

In the memories of those who loved them, in the community that refused to let them be forgotten, and in the example of three young lives that mattered, that meant something, that were worth remembering.

This is the story of how three children vanished on Christmas morning in 1989.

And now, 35 years later, the old church finally revealed its darkest secret.

It’s a story about evil hiding behind goodness.

About predators who use positions of trust to access victims.

About families who never stopped searching and never stopped hoping.

But it’s also a story about justice delayed but not denied.

About a detective who refused to let a cold case stay cold.

And about a community that came together to remember three children who deserved so much more than the short lives they were given.

If you’ve stayed with me through this dark journey, I want to thank you for bearing witness to Emma’s, Lucas’s, and Sophie’s story.

Their lives mattered, their deaths mattered, and the truth of what happened to them matters.

No matter how painful it is to hear, here on Ultimate Crime Stories, we don’t look away from the darkness.

We shine a light into it.

We examine it.

We learn from it.

And we honor the memories of those who were lost to it.

If this story moved you, if it made you think, if it reminded you to hold your loved ones a little closer, then please subscribe to Ultimate Crime Stories.

There are too many cases like this one.

Too many families still searching for answers.

Too many children whose stories have never been fully told.

Together, we can make sure they’re not forgotten.

Together, we can demand justice for the victims and accountability for those who harm them.

Thank you for watching and remember the truth always comes to light even if it takes 35