48 Hours: Season 17, Episode 5

17 - 5: American Taboo

Deborah Gardner, a beautiful young American Peace Corps volunteer from Tacoma, Wash., was murdered while on assignment in the South Pacific island nation of Tonga. Dennis Priven, a 24-year-old fellow Peace Corps worker from Brooklyn, N.Y., who friends say was obsessed with Gardner, was charged with her murder by Tongan police. But in a bizarre turn of events, Priven avoided going to prison for Gardner's murder and received a clean record from the Peace Corps. Many today are left wondering if justice was served and if the Peace Corps was trying to protect the murderer.