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our whole life being turned totally upside down began on June 29th 2014 on a beautiful summer Sunday
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morning Laura heavin was in her home in Tennessee with her husband bill they were getting ready to go to church when
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they received an awful call my son-in-law called probably around 11:00 11:30 on Sunday morning morning and told
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us that Aaron was missing and I'm like what do you mean Aaron's missing Bill and L hadn't seen their
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daughter Aaron in a few months Aaron recently moved out of the Hein family home to start a new life in California
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with her high school sweetheart and now husband John Corwin they moved to a small city called
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29 Palms a blip in the middle of the Mojave what brought the Corwin there was the
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Marine base John was a marine Corporal Corwin officially and Aaron was a Marine's wife
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they lived on the base in a small apartment their first home together Bill and lur hadn't seen the
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new place yet when John called lur had been planning a trip out west to visit Aaron later that week Aaron was 19 years
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old almost 20 I was going to go out for for her 20th birthday but then no one knew where
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Aaron was on the phone Aaron's husband John Corwin told lore that the last place he
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knew Aaron had gone was Joshua Tree National Park and he told me that she had gone
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out to Joshua Tree National Park the day before to look for um places for her and
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I to go to take pictures and stuff when I came to visit in a few days my first immediate thought was
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Aaron got lost Aaron is very directionally challenged Bill Aaron's father worried
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that Aaron wouldn't find her way out I mean Joshua tree is just a desert there's nothing there there's no water
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it's not like you're going to find anything there's no shelter of any type so you're just exposed to the
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elements in addition to her lack of hiking experience Aaron was not particularly prepared for the
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Outdoors she was a very petite 19-year-old um 52 maybe 115 lbs she um was very shy extremely
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naive Bill and La knew their daughter this didn't sound like her she wouldn't go on an overnight hike
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spontaneously she probably wouldn't go on an overnight hike at all Aaron was a homebody she stayed inside her comfort
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zone the heavin thought through what might have happened and quickly discounted some
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possibilities no I never thought that Aaron had run away I didn't think that was even a remotely a possibility I mean
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she just was not a risk taker worried lur pressed Aaron's husband John for more details the last time John said he saw
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Aaron was early the morning before before he said she kissed him goodbye around 7:00 a.m. and he watched her
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drive off in their car he went back to sleep a while later he got up and spent the day playing video games by Nightfall
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Aaron still hadn't come home she was supposed to be back in time for dinner but John went to
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bed the next morning according to John it had been 24 hours since Aaron had driven out of sight
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John alerted the authorities then he called Lore he sounded concerned there wasn't a
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lot of emotion in his voice but that's typical John it's hard to read him to know what his thoughts
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are I'm CBS News correspondent Natalie Morales this is 48 Hours NCIS where we take you inside a case NCIS agents say
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they will will never forget episode 1 where is Aaron while his 19-year-old wife was
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missing John spent most of the day at home he started wondering where is aarin and tried to get in touch with her but
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could not by phone he knows there is not good service in the desert so he didn't
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worri too much but then by Nightfall he was worried Paula Rosa is a producer for
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CBS News in 48 hours he reported on Aaron Corwin's disappearance LaRosa had a lot of experience telling true crime
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stories he knew that generally when someone goes missing the first person investigators turn to when they need
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answers is the spouse in this case that was John Corwin but he didn't do anything he
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didn't call police he didn't really tell anybody on his base so to the author authorities it was initially suspicious
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that John waited to report Aaron missing the sheriff's deputies and Sheriff's Office had a lot of questions for him
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they were like Tell Us Where She Went you know how what did she have with her why did you wait 24 hours to report her
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missing his version of the story is that I thought from watching television shows
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that you have to wait 24 hours before you can report an adult missing but that makes you uh seem suspicious in the eyes
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of of the investigators also he had no alibi per se I he was in his apartment playing video games and he's an
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unemotional guy I mean he's not the kind of guy say my wife is missing you know he's like unemotional and very flat
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affect once John finally did alert the authorities the local sheriff's department in San Bernardino immediately
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opened up an investigation but they needed help for this specific case the sheriff's
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department can't just go there and start talking to people they have to go through protocol right they have to
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alert the military and when they do the NCIS gets involved NCIS the naval criminal investigative service most of
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us may recognize this name from television NCIS never heard of it that's embarrassing the television
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show NCIS follows a cast of characters including NCIS special agents field agents forensic Specialists and more
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through 21 seasons of scripted Prime Time television drama but the NCIS is a real life
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Federal agency NCIS is sort of like an in-house FBI for the Navy there are only about a thousand
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special agents based all over the world in Japan Singapore barin Italy and yes at the Marine base in 29 Palms
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California they are stationed at the base and they get involved holding the sheriff's
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department hand to let them know how the military operates NCIS special agent Clifton Randolph Jr was alerted by the
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sheriff's department that a Marine's wife was missing the initial story we received was Aaron had gone to Joshua
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Tree National Park to look for a nice hiking routes for her and her mother who was coming out later on that week that
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was the last time that corpal Corin had seen her driving in their blue Corolla away from the uh
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installation the Marine base what special agent Randolph called the installation was the largest Marine
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Corps Base in the world in addition to housing in NCIS office there were about 900 families who lived on base by
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2013 that included the Corwin however the base was not exactly busy 48 Hours producer Paul Arosa remembered the
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first time he ever drove by the base if you're driving through 29 palms and you make a left somewhere and you just drive
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for about 30 minutes or less you'll come to the Marine base which is huge but there's a big gate there's a big gate at
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the base because there's a lot of security and we we were not allowed out there if you were a resident of the base
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like Aaron Corwin was every time you came home you pass through a large gated entrance with a security checkpoint from
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there a sort of Main Street led to a small downtown area of buildings including offices a mess hall a library
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a small hospital and even a bowling alley housing for the military families branched off this main area into
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secluded Suburban plots and culde acts from where ncis's office is located on the installation is not far from where
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Aaron Corwin lived with Corporal Corwin uh practically a mile maybe two the rest
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of the base's immense acreage almost 71,000 acres in total was taken up by vast military training areas including
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airfields and shooting ranges you know they fire artillery shells there all the time and they have you know people out
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in the desert and doing all sorts of things in the early 2000s the majority of units in the Marine Corps deploying
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to a rock trained here not too far from the bases residential area there was a Sandy stretch protected by mountains
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named mini Baghdad but when Aaron moved to the base her entire world shrunk to those few
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miles right inside the Gated entrance in such Close Quarters special agent Randolph said he got to know his
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neighbors well there could could have been a chance that you run into her at the grocery store or you pass her at the
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gym I might have come across her and not even know it but there's that person that needs your help and you need to do
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everything you can to help in his office special agent Randolph got to work his first step was
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to take what the sheriff's department knew and ask him self what don't we know there was an immediate concern for what
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could have happened to Aaron that she did not return uh as soon as he thought she was going
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to special agent Randolph had questions what if Aaron didn't go where she said she was headed what if she just got on
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the highway and drove but what if she actually was at Joshua Tree National Park the park is larger than the state
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of Rhode Island how could they ever comb through nearly a million acres of land special agent Randolph thought
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through all the possibilities with one main focus where where is Aaron you want to find where Aaron is from the moment
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someone is reported missing and the last person to see that person being a corpal
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COR one Aaron's husband you're racing the clock because you don't know the circumstances that are involved in this
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person's disappearance there was one big problem working against the NCIS agents
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and Aaron time you got to get on it quick because that person might need you sooner than later and time is not on
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your side so special agent Randolph dispatched a team of NCIS experts I provided analytical support to Cliff
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Randol in the Aaron cor investigation analyst Ashley deelen was sent to the 9 Palms Marine basee from
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another NCIS office on the Camp Pendleton Marine base only a few hours away when she arrived in 29 Palms she
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met her colleagues got up to speed on the investigation and do right into work I do database checks regularly review
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social media open source information so whatever's in the news and outlets and looking for information she scrubbed
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through Aaron's social media it was 2014 and face Facebook was all the rage what
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was the last thing Aaron posted on her profile when was she last active online basically going onto the internet and
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searching for all potential information that could be of interest in your investigation like special agent
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Randolph analyst delfen understood what was at risk if she missed any detail that could prove vital I absolutely felt
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the pressure and the stress surrounding Aaron's disappearance because is as Cliff mentioned we had limited time and
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we wanted to find her as soon as possible so I got to work right away in order to find Aaron the agents
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needed to learn who Aaron was they needed to understand her her personality her temperament what she liked and
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disliked and they needed to understand her relationships her marriage and her family so they picked up from California
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and headed to Aaron's Hometown oakd Tennessee where Aaron's life began Aaron was born on July 15th
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1994 when she was 2 weeks old her birthmother placed her in foster care but very soon Aaron found her home Aaron
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came to the house when she was 17 days old she was an incredible sweet baby we were blessed to be chosen to her
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[Music] parents by the time Aaron turned three the heavin family officially adopted her
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she joined a house full of siblings we fostered several children we adopted five of them and Aaron was the fourth
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adopted child Bill and lore also had two biological children they all lived together in a nice house in a small city
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of Oakridge about 25 Mi west of Knoxville Tennessee it's a hidden city tucked along the black Oakridge mountains and
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for much of its history it was kept a secret one of its nicknames is the city behind a
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fence Oakridge Tennessee if you don't know anything about it was an atomic city um oakd
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Tennessee did not exist before World War II and the military built oakd Tennessee
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for people to developed the atomic bomb Paul Rosa visited Aaron's Hometown and he noticed a through line from Aaron's
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childhood in Oakridge to her future on the Marine base in California you couldn't just leave oakd
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Tennessee and go for a drive out into the country everything there was a gate everything was controlled it was sort of
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a sheltered closed town and Aaron herself was very sheltered she was homeschooled so much of her life took
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place in the family home on Sundays the family went to the local church it was the family and it was the church and it
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was the the horse ranch and that's it now the horse ranch the East Tennessee Riding Club was Aaron's
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favorite place in the world as a child according to lore it was like her second home Aaron spent all her time at the
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Stables you know in Tennessee I mean you know her mother famously said she would
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sleep there if she could Aaron's mother lore said she was a quiet and shy girl and sometimes she seemed to be more
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comfortable around animals than people Aaron loved the animals horses cats dogs rabbits guinea pigs but they
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all loved her too she was like a calming force and they knew they could trust her
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and they knew that she was the one to respect and listen to good boy Shake Aaron could even train cats this
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was her leading her cat through tricks and lay down one more time good boy Aaron was an animal Whisperer she
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could get them to do things that the average person would not be able to so when Aaron discovered the East Tennessee
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Riding Club and began to experience working with horses she excelled when she first started I assured her we would
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never get a horse and we ended up with two um we spent many many many many hours here another local family the
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Corwin were also frequent visitors Aaron and John um met at the barn they met when Aaron was in fifth
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grade she was 10 John was just a year older John's younger sister had a horse there also and Aaron went to their house
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a couple different times in a small city with a sheltered life Aaron found the Corwin Family House
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exciting she would go and play but she was always especially shy around John JN seemed shy around Aaron too John Corin
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was a very quiet young man they grew up together slowly and patiently at first and then once she turned
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I think she was 15 and they kind of reconnected and you know did a lot of texting and messaging on Facebook and
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that kind of stuff and they started dating on her 16th birthday and John actually asked me if it was okay if he
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took her out on a date John was a serious and stoic teenager his aspirations were always
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clear to him when they first started dating he already knew he was going to be a
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marine at 7 John began the process to join the Marine Corps he took tests for aptitude
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and strength and he planned to go to basic training in boot camp the summer after he graduated high school and
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meanwhile despite their young age Aaron and John became serious fast they started talking about marriage Aaron
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full of excitement told her mom we knew how young and naive she was and we had hoped that they would wait a couple
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years so that she could get a little bit of more maturity under her belt the couple went to John's senior
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prompt together Aaron was barely 18 when he proposed this may sound a bit early for
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marriage but it isn't that uncommon for a military couple Young Marines who choose to enlist right after high school
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will move to whatever location the military assigns them and for many young marines the
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ahead includes marriage married couples get preference when it comes to securing
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housing on base the reason why they wanted to get married was to get on the base housing list um and you had to be
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married and they knew John was getting ready to be deployed so John like many marines
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before him wanted to start this journey with his high school sweetheart but lore wasn't sure Aaron
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understood the reality of marrying a Marine we had quite a few conversations on what
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life as a military wife would be um I tried my hardest to prepare her mentally emotionally for what was in her
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future at 18 years old John chose the Marines and Aaron chose John she went to Las Vegas for the Marine ball and they
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got married well they were in Vegas on a beautiful fall afternoon in 2013 Aaron was stuck inside unpacking boxes
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the treelined view from her childhood bedroom in Tennessee was replaced with the Sandy expanses and cacti of 29 Palms
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California by all accounts she was still a newlywed she and John had not yet celebrated a year marriage despite a
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condo full of boxes Aaron was alone and she moved out there got their apartment all set up before John got home from his
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deployment John's deployment in okanawa Japan continued on for another few months and Aaron's New Life as a
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19-year-old Marine's wife began if she ever felt isolated in Oakridge life on the Marine Bay
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challenged her even more Aaron went from living in a house full of siblings to An
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Empty Apartment all she could do was wait for John to come home I think Aaron was enjoying some
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aspects of being a marine wife and other aspects I think it was harder than what
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she anticipated Aaron tried to develop a routine she went to the commissary a few
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times a week to pick up groceries otherwise wi she spent her time watching TV and scrolling Facebook she texted her
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friends back in Tennessee often after a few months JN came home but not much changed for
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Aaron John was not deployed again after she moved out there but being in artillery he went out in the field every
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month for at least 5 days sometimes more and so she would be home alone during those times that he was out in
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the field she was lonely but one day according to her mother lore things started to improve
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when Aaron made her first friend on base Aaron was busy unloading her saddle out
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of her car when she bumped into her nextd door neighbor Nicole and Aaron clicked because of the horses Nicole Lee
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lived right next door to Aaron and John she was a fellow Marine's wife and when Nicole saw Aaron carrying a saddle she
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invited Aaron to come by the ranch where she kept her horse the White Rock horse
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rescue it was just a 40-minute drive from the Marine base and with Nicole's invitation Aaron was immediately
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reminded of her favorite place on Earth the Riding Club in Tennessee she probably felt a Pang of homesickness and
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excitement Aaron first came here with Nicole to look at horses introduced me and said I want to find a horse I need a
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horse I rode when I was back home she had a horse and she had to leave it and so now she was homesick and so she
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decided that uh getting a horse riding it would give her some pleasure some happiness Isabelle megley is the founder
00:24:14
and CEO of this Desert Rescue Ranch but she was never tucked away in an office somewhere Isabelle preferred to be
00:24:22
outside with the horses and the people who volunteered to take care of them are rehabilitate rescued horses
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that have been abused and then I also take in horses that aren't abused and find them homes and then I always invite
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any individual who would like to come and volunteer at the ranch to help me cuz we have no paid
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employees 48 Hours producer Paul Arosa met Isabelle while he was covering Aaron's story he reached out to her for
00:24:53
an interview but she never got back to him he figured they'd visit the horse ranch anyway way so we go there and the
00:25:01
horses are everywhere right off the public road and the ranch itself is absolutely not fancy I mean it's very
00:25:10
rugged it's you know in a desert community it's out in the open and you know you just see horses running back
00:25:18
and forth there's a few structures that look like they're down in their luck while Arosa was videotaping the sites on
00:25:24
the ranch he noticed a small group of people approaching him it's sort of a rag tag bunch of young children and
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young young people and this older woman um and I said are you Isabelle megley I said we're from CBS News blah blah blah
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I sent you an email I called you and she said oh yeah I meant to call you back I
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just never got around to it and I said well we're here now and we want to talk to you so once we were face to face she
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was happy to talk to us Isabelle is a very weathered uh person I mean she's been outside a lot
00:26:02
during her life you can tell Isabelle was exactly the sort of person Aaron knew well a fellow animal Whisperer with
00:26:09
a managerie of pets following her around the land and when Nicole introduced the
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two of them Aaron knew exactly how Isabelle could help her and so when she found her horse Aaron was with uh Cassie
00:26:24
it was like her partner it was decided Aon would volunteer on the ranch she would pay to adopt a horse and take care
00:26:32
of it and then she'd be able to ride many military families from the 29 Palms base enjoyed the ranch for Nicole
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it was a family affair she'd spend the day at the ranch with her Marine husband Christopher Lee now that included Aaron
00:26:50
so it was like a threesome so when they would come they would all take their horses and play with them and then they
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would leave together they and they would have a good time the the three of them it was very rarely the
00:27:04
four so where was John Aaron was not supported by John for this activity cuz he was not interested in it he uh would
00:27:16
come here with his motorcycles or his things for play in the dirt and that's what he would do why she would ride and
00:27:23
she'd say please come over and watch me ride my horse he said I'm not interested
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so they they were never cozy together I kept waiting but he was he was very difficult to interact with Isabelle felt
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she came to know their relationship well Aaron was always fighting with John over
00:27:43
what John told her to do and so she would come here and say at least I'm free and she was a different person the
00:27:51
only one he couldn't control was her relationship with the horse Aaron would Pile in with the Lee family for the ride
00:27:58
to and from the horse ranch thanks to them she could see her horse whenever she wanted her relationship with the local
00:28:07
community grew while her marriage strained I'm a very good judge of animals and people go right along hand
00:28:15
inand with that Isabelle welcomed the Marine families onto her Ranch and she observed later she became a valuable
00:28:24
source for the NCIS agents work working to find Aaron [Music] Corwin on Monday June 30th 2014 Aaron
00:28:41
had been missing for 48 hours news spread across the Marine base quickly it was big news for such a small
00:28:52
area analyst Ashley deelin had her eye on Aaron's social media she made note of the people who seemed to be close to
00:29:01
Aaron who had recently tagged her in a post who had commented she searched through Aaron's Facebook friends and
00:29:08
looked through their friends to figure out how people knew each other there was a lot of useful information publicly
00:29:16
available Analyst at chelen just had to determine which leads were worth following what was real and what was
00:29:25
speculation in such a small commity commun this proved difficult early on everybody was talking about it everybody
00:29:33
was commenting on it on social media people were looking for her there was Buzz on base and at certain points it
00:29:41
even became like a bad game of telephone before long the news about Aaron reached Isabelle's horse rescue
00:29:50
the phone rings and Aaron corin's girlfriend called me said have you seen Aaron and I said no but she went missing
00:29:58
I said missing she said yeah and then the detectives started coming with that was an awareness of all
00:30:09
the things I had been watching that happened was a key part of the investigation with any missing person
00:30:21
you want to return that person to their family and their loved ones because they
00:30:25
care about that person and from working a case like this you develop a care for the livelihood of that person you don't
00:30:30
want to see anything bad happen but in the back of your mind it's a Race Against Time and you know that you're
00:30:37
running out of it for a concerned mother the waiting game was Misery we really had no clue
00:30:45
what happened it was almost like we were walking in a different world kind of numb after the 48h hour mark with no
00:30:55
sign of Aaron it was all hands- on deck for the NCIS agents as the days go by it's it's
00:31:05
becoming more and more likely that you're not going to find her alive NCIS paired up with San
00:31:12
Bernardino's search and rescue team they had three main objectives to determine a
00:31:17
safe plan of action to locate Aaron Corwin and to bring her to safety first they had to assess the
00:31:25
situation based on the story John told they needed to look for Clues special agent Randolph and his team
00:31:34
knocked on doors on base asking if anyone had any information about Aaron any other story to corroborate or
00:31:43
contradict her husband's was John Corwin telling the truth this season on 48 Hours NCIS the
00:31:52
search for a missing Marine's wife uncovers secrets that nobody expected she was so trusting and always
00:32:02
saw the good in people that she did not see the warning signs that I'm sure were
00:32:09
[Music] there from CBS News and CBS Studios this is 48 Hours NCIS original reporting by 48 Hours
00:32:24
producer Paul Arosa Anthony Batson is the senior producer for 48 hours Jamie Benson is the senior producer for
00:32:32
Paramount audio special thanks to 48 Hours executive producer Judy igard CBS studi senior vice president Rob luchow
00:32:41
and Paramount audio vice president Megan Marcus our podcast was written and produced by Jay venables Isabelle Kirby
00:32:49
mwan Cara shillan Max Johnston Megan adoli and Ian Enright additional reporting and recording by is Isabelle
00:32:58
Kirby mcgaan Jay venables and Megan adoli our executive producers are Megan adoli and Ian Enright theme and music by
00:33:07
epidemic sound original music from goat rodeo with additional music from Paramount Final Mix by Rebecca sell Ian
00:33:17
Enright is our fact Checker our production manager is Megan aduli I'm Natalie Morales if you're
00:33:25
enjoying the show be sure to give it a rating and review it helps more people find it and hear our reporting if you
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