True Crime Brewery contains disturbing content related to real-life crimes.

Medical information is opinion based on facts of a crime

and should not be interpreted as medical advice or treatment.

Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome to True Crime Brewery.

I'm Jill.

And I'm Dick.

So today we're talking about the kind of crime that makes you just stop, stop writing your tracks

and ask yourself a simple question.

What in the hell were they thinking?

Well, as we're going to find out, they probably weren't thinking real well.

No, maybe it was desperation or greed.

I don't know, but you're right.

This was a foul up from the start.

So this was November 1992.

Sydney Riso, a respected executive, a husband and a father,

stepped out of his home on what should have been an ordinary morning.

Then, within moments, he was just gone.

What followed is a case that shocked a quiet New Jersey suburb and baffled investigators,

a carefully planned kidnapping, a million-dollar ransom demand,

and a crime that at first seemed calculated, deliberate, even ruthless.

But, you know, as the truth began to unravel, the story became

...