On Christmas Eve in 1992, an 18-year-old woman named Danita Gullette stepped outside of her place of work into the freezing Dayton, Ohio night air, and began walking toward her mother's house. After a few minutes, Danita decided to call her mother to ask her something that couldn't wait until she arrived. So Danita stopped at a payphone, slipped a few coins into the phone's coin slot, then dialed the number she knew by heart. At her mother's house, the phone started to ring, but when Danita's sister picked up the receiver, the phone was silent. Around the same time, the Dayton police received a call about a disturbance at a payphone in town. This would be the start of one of the most incomprehensible crime sprees in American history.