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Sometimes the decisive moment is as basic - yet delicate - as a skillful host enticing a subject to do something very simple. For a story on the involvement of the Jehovah's Witness in the kidnapping of a young Toronto girl, Victor Malarek had convincing circumstantial evidence of the organization's role, but lacked concrete proof.

files
Discovering the Santiago files.
Waiting for a key interview with a Jehovah's Witness official at the organization's headquarters, Malarek saw a file that contained a letter referring to the girl from an official with the congregation in Santiago, Chile, dated four years before the girl was found there.

Realizing it belonged to his subject, Malarek put it down but during the interview wanted the official to open the file and produce the letter himself. Casually asking whether national headquarters had any correspondence from the congregation in Santiago referring to the girl, the man replied: "Not that I know of."

"Your files wouldn't indicate anything?" Malarek asked.

"Not the files that I have."

"Could we see the files?"

"This is the extent of my files…" the man told Malarek, opening the folder and shuffling through the pages one by one. "And that was '86. And that's from… where's that from?"

Leaning forward, Malarek said: "This is from Santiago."

Without being overly aggressive, Malarek orchestrated a perfect example of the kind of confrontational journalism that has earned the fifth estate the nickname, "the gotcha gang."

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