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next
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on unsolved mysteries a desolate road a
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teenage girl driving alone
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and one fatal bullet under hypnosis
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a witness may have described her killer
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guests at the southern end gets
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something extra with the price of their
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rooms
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ghosts of former residents who died of
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foul play
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he's brutal cunning and responsible
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for 10 murders and 50 rapes
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authorities need your help to catch him
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is earth on the doomsday collision
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course with a deadly asteroid
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it's happened before and it will happen
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again
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cunning deceit and lies
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maybe you can guess who's telling the
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truth i'm dennis farina and this
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is unsolved mysteries
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[Music]
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[Music]
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valdez north carolina
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on the night of december 22nd a recent
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high school graduate
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rhonda henson attends her first ever
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company
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christmas party
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[Music]
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at midnight rhonda leaves with two
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girlfriends
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after dropping off her companions rhonda
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plans to make the 10-mile drive
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to her home where she lives with her
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parents
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at exactly 1am rhonda's mother wakes up
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from a sound
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sleep with a strange premonition
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i woke up feeling panicky scared
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because i felt like something had
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happened rhonda i
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felt like rhonda was dead i felt like
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she had been in an automobile accident
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i got up and i had a little cb scanner
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that you listen to you know your
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accidents and all that stuff on it
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and for some odd reason i just turned it
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on you know thought maybe you know if
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it'd been actually not here
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on the scanner and the minute i turned
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it on
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it came over you know if they'd been a
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homicide
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120 check a vehicle in the ditch
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footage springs mountain at i-40
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complainant
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rhonda's car was discovered just a half
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a mile from her house
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the driver's door was open and a few
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feet away
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rhonda was found dead she was lying on
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her back and her arms
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appeared to have been deliberately
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placed at her side
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she had been killed by a single bullet
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fired by a high-powered rifle
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it tore through the trunk of her car
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through her seat
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and penetrated her heart
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the hardest thing is living every day
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wondering
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who did this rhonda was the most
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loving caring person that you've ever
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known romney was the type daughter that
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everybody would like to have
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at first the murder of rhonda henson
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appeared to be a random act of violence
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but as the investigation unfolded
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disturbing clues emerged
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suggesting that ronda may have been
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murdered by someone she knew
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several weeks after ronda's graduation
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she began to act
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strangely previously happy to drive
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alone
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she started asking her father to go with
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her on trips
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into town and on one of these trips
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she made a disturbing statement dan i've
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got something to tell you but i'm afraid
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to
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you know i said no matter whether it's
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good i'm bad tell me
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and she said i'll think about it and she
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never did explain never did tell me why
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what it was you know she's afraid to
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tell me
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well you keep your mind on your job okay
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her mother also recalled the strange
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conversation
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shortly before rhonda's death i was
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wondering if
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it's ever okay to go with a married man
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i said rhonda there's never a time that
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it's all right
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to go with a married man the only thing
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that comes from that is people getting
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hurt
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rhonda's comments suggested that she was
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under some kind of
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personal pressure the police
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investigation began to uncover
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evidence that someone may have been
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stalking her
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the night that she was killed
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between 12 15 and 12 30 on the morning
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that ronda henson was
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murdered a witness drove under
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the interstate 40 bridge on mineral
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springs mountain road
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she observed a blue chevrolet
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facing in a northerly direction with two
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white males in the vehicle
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the car was parked next to the same
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off-ramp that rhonda used to exit
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it was spotted 30 minutes before the
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fatal bullet was fire key
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and just 200 yards from where her body
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was found
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later that evening another witness
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traveling down the same road past
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a similar blue car with a single man at
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the wheel
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speeding away from the motorcycle as he
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continued down the road
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the witness saw ronda's vehicle parked
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at the same spot
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where her body was found a woman was
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slumped over the steering wheel
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and a man was standing at her door the
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witness did not get a close look at the
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man and drove on
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assuming the couple had been drinking
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there were some latent prints on the
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driver's door
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but these latent prints have not been
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identified
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please put the witness under hypnosis
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and ask them to recall
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more details this is the actual
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audio tape of that session chevelle
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looks blue serving them all i believe
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looks like the front end has been messed
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up
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the same primer i promise gray
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he's not a big guy he's six foot
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five ten he's
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not made himself it's on
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a dark brown headed guy
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the witness also remembered seeing a
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second car parked down the road
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from ronda's vehicle it was a black or
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dark blue
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trans am some believe that car
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may have been driven by the murderer who
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killed rhonda henson
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and why authorities are certain that she
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would never have stopped for a stranger
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was rhonda pulled over by someone she
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knew who then fired the fatal shot
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was the man seen at rhonda's car the
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murderer or was he someone who happened
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by
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and then left the area when he saw that
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ronda was dead
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we have some different stories but to
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really be able to substantiate these
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stories we don't have that information
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that's what we're looking for those
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little pieces of information that we can
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substantiate
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what happened
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a 20 000 reward is being offered in this
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case
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[Music]
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if you have any information please log
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on to our website
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at unsolved.com
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next a 200 year old mansion is now a
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hotel
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where ghosts are as common as guests
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in saint francisville louisiana sits
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the myrtles plantation a 200 year old
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mansion that's been converted
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into a bed and breakfast it claims to be
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one of america's
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most haunted houses
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shooting poisoning and lynching
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at least eight people have died violent
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deaths here
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and some say their spirits are still on
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the property
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i've had enough happen to let me know
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that other people live here that we
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can't always see
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legend has it that in 1796
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the original owner general david
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bradford
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built the house directly on top of an
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indian burial ground
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since then hundreds of ghostly sightings
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have occurred
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could it be that spirits are haunting
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the plantation
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the myrtles plantation is said to be a
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window into the supernatural
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guests here know their stay might
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include a ghostly encounter
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i guess i have to say i really didn't
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believe that there were actually
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ghosts or spirits there
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that it was just folklore and legend and
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it wasn't until i was already in
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that things began to happen that
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convinced me that yes they are here
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[Music]
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but by then it was too late financially
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i couldn't afford to be scared
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when amy campbell and her friend
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michelle came to stay at the bnb
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one october they were well informed of
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its ghostly past
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we were very hesitant if we were going
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to stay all night because we had heard
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that the place was
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haunted we had heard that there were
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ghosts that visit people at night that
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tuck you in
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fix your clothes we weren't sure we
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wanted to experience any of that
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i was sleeping for a little while and i
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woke up feeling bouncing on the end of
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my bed
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and i saw a little girl jumping on the
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end of my bed
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and i thought surely i'm dreaming and i
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stuck my head back under the covers
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it kept bouncing and bouncing and
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bouncing it felt like forever
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and all of a sudden it stopped and i
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looked back
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up at the little girl that was jumping
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on the bed was gone
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the child ghost is thought to be
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cornelia woodruff
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one of four people who died in a series
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of tragic events
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175 years ago
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cornelia was the daughter of judge
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woodruff
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whose family lived at the myrtles in the
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early 1800s
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when the woodrus house slave chloe was
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caught eavesdropping on the judge
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he decided to punish her this is the
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third time i've caught you i wasn't
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listening
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i will not tolerate it the judge ordered
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chloe's ear cut off
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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afraid of also being sent to the fields
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to do hard labor
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she devised a plan she ground poisonous
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oleander leaves
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into a birthday cake hoping to make the
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family sick
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and then she would redeem herself by
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nursing them
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back to hell i picked your favorite cake
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with sarah
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she may have thought she was boiling
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just enough on leander to make the
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family sick
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already knowing what was wrong she would
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take care of them
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be the hero and be left in the household
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to take care of them
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but chloe's scheme backfired young
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cornelia her mother
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and sister all died from the poison
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a lot of guests want to know what
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happened to chloe after the poisoning
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it's believed that she was killed by a
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mixed mob black and whites were probably
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together
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of course the other slaves were probably
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afraid of what was going to happen to
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them
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she was supposedly beaten hung and then
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thrown into the river
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it's believed that cornelia along with
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her mother and sister
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has joined chloe in haunting the house
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[Music]
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several years ago mark and holly parenti
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spent a frightening night at the myrtles
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mark had been reluctant to visit but
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knew that his wife would be intrigued by
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the hotel's history
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it's known as one of the most haunted
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plantations
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in america and i wasn't looking forward
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to finding out why
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come right now it is it's a beautiful
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house
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it was scary the thought of being in
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this haunted house
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was very scary more probably to mark
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than me but i was scared too
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[Music]
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perhaps mark and holly had reason to be
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nervous
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another of the resident ghosts a former
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owner named
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william winters was supposedly gunned
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down during the late 1800s
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he is said to haunt the main staircase
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mark in holly's room was just beyond
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that flight of stairs
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my mind had gotten to me a little bit
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because i wouldn't let her
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turn the lights off so we're laying in
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bed and she's
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sort of having a nervous chit chat and
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what i heard was a very
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deep sounding bang
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sounds like the steps
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as soon as i heard that noise you know
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the adrenaline rush
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no no how do i stay here oh come on
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no i want to look if i had to venture a
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guest
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it sounded like footsteps
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the reason william winters was murdered
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remains a mystery
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winners william winners
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it was late one night in 1870
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when a mysterious horseman appeared on
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the myrtle's front lawn
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who's there are you william winners
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yes i'm william winners
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whoever was there shot him in the chest
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he made it back through the double doors
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trying to reach his wife sarah
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she was upstairs
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he only made it to the 17th step
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he died there in her arms
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all i know was that it was enough for me
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you know it was enough for me to make me
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want to leave in a way i think we were
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both hoping it might have been our
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imagination
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but it definitely wasn't
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there are certain times that uh i'm
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uncomfortable here
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uh certain times that yeah you could say
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i get the creeps
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you can feel a sadness or you can walk
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in and you hear
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especially upstairs footsteps you know
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you hear them
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someone is right behind you you can stop
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the footsteps stop
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once you have the encounter and you
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feel the sensation you will know
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that their intention is not to harm you
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they are truly here to protect you they
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protect this home
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this is their station this is their life
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this is where they live
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next a series of brutal rape stretches
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across
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400 miles and a dna match
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links them to the same suspect
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[Music]
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sacramento california
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[Music]
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i remember waking up with a flashlight
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shining in my face
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and i was looking down the barrel of a
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gun
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and he said uh don't move
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don't make a sound or i will kill you
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give me your hands and
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within a moment's notice my life was all
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of a sudden
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in the control of somebody else just do
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as i tell you
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this rape victim whose identity we are
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not revealing
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at her request is one of more than 50
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women believed to have been assaulted by
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a serial rapist
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who terrorized the sacramento area
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during the 1970s
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the mysterious attacker known as the
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east area rapist
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has never been identified now advances
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in law enforcement technology
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have linked him to a series of murders
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that happened a decade
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earlier authorities need your help to
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track down this
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very cunning and very dangerous criminal
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the east area rapist displayed some
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unusual habits
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including lingering in the victims homes
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for hours i know that at some point he
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was out in the living room smoking
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and the police felt that he maybe had
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gotten into my refrigerator
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i think he was in the house anywhere
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from two and a half to three hours
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[Applause]
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i lay there for what seemed like a long
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period of time
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with no noise and then all of a sudden
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i couldn't see i couldn't move and i
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couldn't
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yell and i remember wondering is this
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it is this the way i'm gonna die
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after sexually assaulting his victims
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the rapist would quietly
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sneak away can you tell me maybe a
00:18:30
little what he looked like
00:18:31
maybe how tall he was the east area
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rapist very definitely
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did a psychological rape along with the
00:18:38
physical rape
00:18:40
in the manner in which he would threaten
00:18:43
the victims
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the length of time that he stayed in the
00:18:46
home
00:18:47
his crime was different and unique
00:18:51
the first 15 attacks occurred in houses
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were only women and children
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were at home but then the rapist began
00:18:58
targeting homes
00:19:00
in which a man was also present when the
00:19:03
rapist would come in
00:19:04
he would at gunpoint order the female
00:19:07
to tie up the the male in the house
00:19:11
and then he would remove the female to
00:19:13
the other part of the house
00:19:15
where he would also tie her up and
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then he would put the dishes on the
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husband if i hear one place
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i'll while he was in the other room
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occupied with the sexual assault he
00:19:29
could hear
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whether or not the male was trying to
00:19:32
get free
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yeah there was so much fear in the
00:19:38
community
00:19:38
so we were holding town hall meetings we
00:19:41
understand your concern
00:19:43
they were incensed to think that a man
00:19:46
could have been in the home when these
00:19:48
rapes occurred and not have done
00:19:49
anything about it
00:19:52
i think that he liked the excitement
00:19:55
of the game i think it was as much a
00:19:57
game
00:19:58
with the investigators as it was before
00:20:01
what he was doing to the victims
00:20:05
the rapist sadistic game sometimes
00:20:07
extended
00:20:08
beyond the attack itself hello
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several victims reported getting
00:20:14
disturbing phone calls
00:20:15
from the rapist years later who is this
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i felt by what he said to me that he had
00:20:22
been
00:20:22
still watching me and stalking me i felt
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absolutely terrified
00:20:28
i think the phone calls were just his
00:20:31
way of saying
00:20:32
you're still my hostage even though i'm
00:20:35
not in your house
00:20:36
psychologically you're still my hostage
00:20:43
police believe that this recording made
00:20:46
by one of the victims
00:20:47
is the actual voice of the rapist
00:21:09
by the late 1970s the east area rapist
00:21:12
had apparently moved
00:21:14
50 miles to contra costa county
00:21:17
five more assaults were reported there
00:21:20
then
00:21:20
the attacks abruptly stopped
00:21:24
everybody speculated on where this guy
00:21:26
might have gone or why he went
00:21:28
why he might have stopped and there was
00:21:31
nowhere to go with it
00:21:32
we had no real physical description
00:21:38
the trail grew cold but over the years
00:21:40
criminalist
00:21:41
paul holmes continued to work the case
00:21:44
he ran dna profiles and semen recovered
00:21:47
from the five rapes in his county
00:21:50
and then he tried to track down the
00:21:52
rapist holes began contacting agencies
00:21:56
across the state
00:22:00
400 miles south in orange county
00:22:03
forensic scientist
00:22:04
mary hong had used dna to link
00:22:07
six rape murders in her county to a
00:22:10
single killer
00:22:12
in 2001 mary got a call
00:22:15
from paul holmes let me grab that file
00:22:18
independently he was thinking that
00:22:20
this guy has to be committing these
00:22:22
crimes somewhere else so he
00:22:23
actually was calling these agencies and
00:22:26
finding out if they had any cases that
00:22:28
fit his profile okay i've got d3 1516. i
00:22:32
had him read me the profile that he had
00:22:34
on this case
00:22:36
okay and i compared that to the profile
00:22:38
that i had in our cases and they matched
00:22:40
all the way across
00:22:42
wow looks like we've got a match at that
00:22:43
point we knew that we had
00:22:46
just connected the series of sexual
00:22:48
assaults in northern california
00:22:49
with a series of homicides down in
00:22:51
southern california
00:22:54
in southern california during the 1980s
00:22:57
the east area rapist began murdering his
00:23:00
rape victims
00:23:01
and their partners he was the suspect in
00:23:04
10
00:23:05
such killings i don't know of anyone
00:23:08
like him he's a very unique
00:23:10
offender 50 rapes that we're aware of
00:23:13
10 murders that we're aware of we
00:23:16
suspect that he's probably
00:23:17
responsible for more rapes and murders
00:23:20
and crimes
00:23:21
outside of what we've identified
00:23:25
police think a clue to the attacker's
00:23:27
identity
00:23:28
might be found in his habit of stacking
00:23:31
plates
00:23:31
on the victim's partner during the
00:23:34
assault
00:23:36
it's a signature aspect of our offender
00:23:39
is it possible that someone abused him
00:23:42
and treated him the same way terrorizing
00:23:46
him perhaps
00:23:47
as a boy when he grew up as is possible
00:23:51
somebody out there has to know something
00:23:55
about this person and if
00:23:58
the information could come forward will
00:24:01
it ever bring closure to the victims
00:24:04
only that they would feel safe that he
00:24:07
is not
00:24:07
out there to attack again i don't want
00:24:10
to end my career without having solved
00:24:12
this
00:24:12
if it's not solved by the time i retire
00:24:15
i'll think about it till the day i die
00:24:18
update there are new developments in
00:24:20
this case here's one of our staff
00:24:23
with details a suspect in the case of
00:24:27
the east
00:24:27
area rapist now popularly known as the
00:24:30
golden state killer
00:24:31
was arrested more than 40 years
00:24:34
after the initial crimes joseph james
00:24:37
d'angelo
00:24:38
admitted to committing more than a dozen
00:24:40
murders
00:24:42
he pleaded guilty to 26 charges and was
00:24:44
sentenced to life
00:24:45
in prison without the possibility of
00:24:48
parole
00:24:52
next is planet earth on a collision
00:24:54
course with a deadly
00:24:58
asteroid
00:25:08
imagine the entire country devastated in
00:25:11
less
00:25:12
than a minute a large city wiped off the
00:25:15
map
00:25:15
in a matter of seconds a nuclear
00:25:18
nightmare
00:25:19
no a natural disaster unlike anything in
00:25:22
human history
00:25:24
and it will come from outer space
00:25:31
july 16 1994
00:25:34
a frightening preview the most powerful
00:25:37
chain of explosions
00:25:38
ever witnessed by scientists they began
00:25:42
when huge fragments of a giant comet
00:25:45
called shoemaker levy slammed into the
00:25:48
planet
00:25:48
jupiter well out of this series of
00:25:51
fragments
00:25:53
there were actually 15 that survived
00:25:55
that we saw hit the planet
00:25:56
and of those about four or five were the
00:25:58
big ones
00:26:00
when each of those largest fragments hit
00:26:02
jupiter had had about the same energy
00:26:05
as if you had taken all of the nuclear
00:26:07
bombs in the world
00:26:09
dr jean shoemaker is co-discoverer of
00:26:12
the shoemaker levy common
00:26:15
put them all in one big pile and set
00:26:17
them off all at once that's about
00:26:19
10 000 million tons of energy
00:26:24
[Music]
00:26:25
one of the explosions created a cloud of
00:26:27
debris as large as the earth
00:26:30
if it happened there can it happen
00:26:36
here large collisions like shoemaker
00:26:39
levy occur only once
00:26:41
every hundred million years but we're
00:26:44
not entirely safe
00:26:45
there are thousands of asteroids and
00:26:47
comets streaking through our solar
00:26:50
system
00:26:51
is it possible that one could collide
00:26:52
with our planet
00:26:54
well in fact it's already happened and
00:26:57
more than once
00:27:00
40 miles east of flagstaff arizona is
00:27:03
meteor crater long before the dawn of
00:27:06
civilization
00:27:08
a massive asteroid slammed into the
00:27:11
desert floor
00:27:12
scientists estimate its velocity at more
00:27:15
than
00:27:15
40 000 miles per hour
00:27:19
meteor crater is the first recognized
00:27:21
impact crater on the earth
00:27:23
it's 4 000 feet across about 600 feet
00:27:26
deep
00:27:27
it was formed by an iron asteroid about
00:27:30
50 yards in diameter
00:27:32
and it was formed very close to 50 000
00:27:34
years ago but if you'd been there
00:27:36
you wouldn't want to bend too close if
00:27:39
you had been standing
00:27:40
where flagstaff is today 40 miles away
00:27:43
you would have probably been knocked
00:27:44
over by the shock wave
00:27:45
buildings would have been collapsed
00:27:49
large meteors striking the earth aren't
00:27:51
just ancient history
00:27:53
in 1908 a fireball raced through the sky
00:27:56
over siberia it exploded above the
00:27:59
remote area of tanguska
00:28:02
spraying debris with the force of a
00:28:04
thousand
00:28:05
atomic bombs to get a good idea of a
00:28:09
devastating effect of this impact event
00:28:11
a city that i know very well houston has
00:28:14
surrounding it a highway a beltway
00:28:17
highway
00:28:17
610 loop everything inside the 610 loop
00:28:21
would have been flattened and charred
00:28:23
all the buildings
00:28:25
all the infrastructure nothing would
00:28:27
have been standing inside that area
00:28:29
anyone who lived there would have been
00:28:31
dead
00:28:33
such devastation did occur on a
00:28:35
worldwide scale
00:28:37
at least once in the history of our
00:28:39
planet it was 65
00:28:41
million years ago during the age of the
00:28:44
dinosaur
00:28:45
a giant meteor five miles across plowed
00:28:48
into mexico's yucatan peninsula
00:28:51
where the small town of chiksaloop now
00:28:54
stands
00:28:56
the surface expression would not lead
00:28:59
you to believe that there is an impact
00:29:01
crater there
00:29:02
you have a nice flat yucatan peninsula
00:29:04
with
00:29:05
really no topographic signs that a
00:29:08
crater
00:29:08
180 to 200 miles across exist below
00:29:14
so what would it be like to witness such
00:29:17
a cataclysmic event
00:29:20
well immediately before the impact we
00:29:22
think you would see
00:29:24
a comet keep in mind that this object is
00:29:27
traveling at about 140
00:29:29
000 miles per hour
00:29:33
you don't have a lot of time between the
00:29:35
time it goes into the atmosphere and the
00:29:37
time that actually strikes the earth
00:29:38
lasts much less than a second obviously
00:29:42
the impact at chixolube was heard and
00:29:44
felt
00:29:45
in every corner of the earth the ground
00:29:48
surged upward tons of rock and dust
00:29:51
formed a massive
00:29:52
curtain hundreds of miles across and
00:29:55
hundreds of miles
00:29:57
high as this dust started to make its
00:30:00
way into the atmosphere
00:30:01
it would block the sunlight completely
00:30:03
it would be as dark as night
00:30:06
as some of this material started to
00:30:08
re-enter the atmosphere however
00:30:10
things would begin to light up not by
00:30:12
the illumination of the sun
00:30:14
but by the illumination of countless
00:30:15
meteorites shooting stars streaking
00:30:17
through the upper atmosphere
00:30:21
these balls of fire ignited a raging
00:30:23
inferno
00:30:24
that spread across the entire western
00:30:26
hemisphere
00:30:28
the smoke joined with the impact debris
00:30:31
and covered the earth
00:30:32
with a suffocating cloud for at least a
00:30:35
year
00:30:36
there was no sunlight triggering a new
00:30:38
ice age
00:30:40
roughly 75 percent of earth's plant
00:30:43
and animal life died the most well-known
00:30:46
victim
00:30:47
was the dinosaur the consensus
00:30:50
is today that dinosaurs were doing
00:30:53
very nicely up until this event
00:30:57
and immediately after this event they
00:30:59
were gone
00:31:00
and they never came back according to
00:31:04
nasa
00:31:05
more than 5 000 asteroids can be
00:31:07
classified
00:31:08
as near earth of those nearly 1 000
00:31:12
are considered potentially dangerous for
00:31:15
the planet
00:31:16
in 2004 scientists discovered a new
00:31:19
asteroid
00:31:20
named apophis a chunk of interplanetary
00:31:24
rock
00:31:24
between 700 and 1000 feet
00:31:27
across although it's too soon to know
00:31:30
for sure
00:31:31
there's a small chance this near-earth
00:31:33
object will
00:31:34
eventually collide with our planet the
00:31:36
date
00:31:37
april 13th 2036.
00:31:42
the hazard of impact in terms of loss of
00:31:45
life on the earth
00:31:46
you don't take out just a hundred
00:31:48
thousand lives lost
00:31:50
you could wipe out half or more of the
00:31:53
entire human population
00:31:55
if an event similar to the one that
00:31:57
formed chickula
00:31:58
happened tomorrow then there would be no
00:32:01
civilization
00:32:03
there is no doubt about that it would be
00:32:06
widespread devastation death
00:32:09
like we have never even imagined
00:32:13
and there's no protection for it it's
00:32:15
just one of those things that
00:32:17
we have to live with fortunately however
00:32:20
events like chichalub are extremely rare
00:32:28
next the amazing encounter of identical
00:32:31
strangers who may be
00:32:33
long-lost relatives and later
00:32:36
a horrific accident leads to a rescue by
00:32:39
a mysterious
00:32:40
good samaritan
00:32:51
in december of 1943 ken palmer was the
00:32:55
second lieutenant
00:32:56
in the army air court he was traveling
00:32:58
from texas
00:32:59
to wisconsin during a change of trains
00:33:03
he had the most remarkable encounter of
00:33:06
his life
00:33:08
ken had the feeling that someone was
00:33:10
staring at him
00:33:11
and then he saw why he was being
00:33:14
watched by his exact double
00:33:19
i was amazed and both of us
00:33:22
saw it and both of us reacted so much to
00:33:25
it
00:33:26
both of us sat down our bags and stared
00:33:30
and until i got a hold of myself
00:33:33
and extended my hand he didn't move
00:33:37
he was just frozen looking
00:33:40
at himself in a different uniform
00:33:45
i'm ken palmer
00:33:49
my name is palmer my first thought of
00:33:52
course
00:33:52
was that he's closely related
00:33:56
we began to exchange our father's names
00:33:59
our grandfather's names where we lived
00:34:02
things of this nature and that didn't
00:34:05
get it
00:34:06
my grandfather's from brownsville the
00:34:08
two men couldn't find a single relative
00:34:10
in common but when ken mentioned an old
00:34:13
family legend
00:34:14
he was stunned by the stranger's
00:34:16
response
00:34:17
my family often talks of this uh lost
00:34:20
treasure in india
00:34:22
two palmer brothers were at uh party in
00:34:25
the court of st james
00:34:26
they uh they cut the uh the queue off a
00:34:28
court official yeah that's right they
00:34:30
had to flee
00:34:30
england i mean that's the story left the
00:34:33
did he know about it
00:34:35
he added details that i checked out with
00:34:37
dad later and they were accurate
00:34:39
things that i didn't know so it was
00:34:42
perfectly obvious that we were
00:34:44
related and yet we couldn't understand
00:34:47
how we could be
00:34:49
you write down your name and address
00:34:52
when i get back home i'm going to
00:34:53
contact you i took
00:34:55
his name and address stuffed it in my
00:34:58
pocket i'll write it
00:35:00
goodbye goodbye
00:35:03
i picked up my luggage and scooted off
00:35:06
from my train
00:35:08
if i'd had the sense that god gave geese
00:35:12
i would have stopped right then and
00:35:16
uh we would have spent some time
00:35:18
together
00:35:20
[Applause]
00:35:21
when i got on the train and settled i
00:35:24
reached in my pocket to get that slip of
00:35:27
paper
00:35:28
it wasn't there it all fell apart at
00:35:31
that moment
00:35:32
i i was devastated
00:35:36
ken never saw his double again and all
00:35:38
attempts to find him
00:35:39
have been unsuccessful
00:35:45
these pictures of ken palmer were taken
00:35:47
in the 1940s
00:35:49
the man he met looked virtually
00:35:51
identical
00:35:52
like ken his last name was palmer his
00:35:56
first name may have been robert
00:35:58
or james
00:36:00
[Music]
00:36:02
i would like very much to find him and
00:36:05
or
00:36:05
part of his family how many times are
00:36:08
you going to walk across the station
00:36:10
and see that double
00:36:14
out of all the people in the united
00:36:16
states we walk into one another
00:36:19
and we set down our bags and stare at
00:36:21
one another
00:36:23
magical moment
00:36:27
ken believes that his double lived in
00:36:29
the eastern united states
00:36:31
possibly new jersey at the time the man
00:36:33
was either a technical or staff sergeant
00:36:36
in the army air corps if you have any
00:36:39
information
00:36:40
that could help clear up this case
00:36:42
please log on to our website
00:36:44
at unsolved.com
00:36:46
[Music]
00:36:50
ocala florida
00:36:54
48 year old wilma drew was just a mile
00:36:57
from home
00:36:58
she had driven up this hill hundreds of
00:37:00
times
00:37:02
but a few miles away a car had entered
00:37:04
the highway
00:37:05
going the wrong direction it was headed
00:37:08
straight for wilma
00:37:09
at 55 miles an hour
00:37:12
[Applause]
00:37:13
david vititope was driving right behind
00:37:16
wilma
00:37:17
as we were approaching the crest i saw
00:37:20
headlights approaching us
00:37:22
and the minute the lights came into view
00:37:24
i immediately tried to get over in the
00:37:26
right hand lane to avoid the collision
00:37:29
[Applause]
00:37:33
automatically just in my gut knew that
00:37:36
somebody was going to be dead
00:37:40
david stopped the help the driver and
00:37:42
passenger in the wrong way car
00:37:44
seemed to be moving but wilma was not
00:37:48
she was pinned in her car the steering
00:37:50
column
00:37:51
wedged up against her chest the driver's
00:37:54
window was open
00:37:55
but the other windows and all the doors
00:37:57
were jammed
00:37:59
go out to my truck i'll get a tour i
00:38:02
decided to run back the truck to grab a
00:38:03
tire
00:38:04
tool try to pry the door open or
00:38:06
whatever i could do to try to get into a
00:38:08
sister
00:38:08
possibly better another good samaritan
00:38:12
matthew white also stopped to help the
00:38:15
two men didn't know it
00:38:17
but wilma's neck had been broken cutting
00:38:20
off
00:38:20
her air passage she was suffocating
00:38:23
all the doors are jammed her driver's
00:38:26
side window was busted out
00:38:27
and we couldn't break the windows out so
00:38:29
we were trying to get
00:38:31
someone who has something that could
00:38:32
break the window
00:38:35
david tried flagging down help a tanker
00:38:38
truck stopped
00:38:39
remarkably the driver seemed to know
00:38:41
exactly what to do
00:38:43
and how to do it
00:38:53
after i busted the window he climbed in
00:38:55
into the back seat
00:38:57
and reached over and lifted and held
00:39:00
wilma's head up
00:39:02
[Music]
00:39:04
wilma took a breath let's get this thing
00:39:07
off her give her some room
00:39:11
matthew and david struggled to lift the
00:39:12
steering column off wilma's chest
00:39:16
the trucker kept her neck motionless
00:39:19
the ambulance arrived 10 minutes later
00:39:24
okay sir i need you to let go and come
00:39:25
out of the car okay i'm not letting go
00:39:27
until you put a brace
00:39:28
around her neck get out of the car the
00:39:29
paramedic was just insistent
00:39:31
that he let go of her head and got out
00:39:33
of the car
00:39:34
and the the man would not let go
00:39:36
overhead until
00:39:38
um i held it while he got out and the
00:39:40
paramedic got in
00:39:42
you got her yeah gently wilma
00:39:45
was stabilized but during the confusion
00:39:48
no one saw the truck driver leave
00:39:50
no one had a chance to get more than a
00:39:52
glimpse of what he looked like
00:39:55
wilma's husband came upon the crash
00:39:58
scene
00:39:58
a short time later when i saw the
00:40:01
vehicle
00:40:02
in my mind nobody could have lived
00:40:04
through it
00:40:05
i remember a lady asking me if that was
00:40:08
my car and i said yes and my wife's dead
00:40:11
and she says no she isn't they just you
00:40:13
know left here where they're in the
00:40:14
helicopter
00:40:17
it took 11 operations and almost a year
00:40:20
to begin to repair the damage
00:40:22
wilma's right leg had been nearly torn
00:40:24
in half her left ankle was shattered
00:40:27
her brain stem was so damaged that it
00:40:29
caused
00:40:30
permanent double vision and one of the
00:40:33
vertebra in wilma's neck
00:40:35
was completely severed
00:40:38
the neural surgeon told us he's never
00:40:40
seen anybody survive that injury
00:40:42
and he can't understand why she's still
00:40:44
alive
00:40:45
and that was kind of eerie
00:40:49
i don't know why it happened to me but i
00:40:52
know that there is a purpose for it
00:40:55
and it's even peculiar that i've never
00:40:59
experienced any anger
00:41:01
i'm just very thankful to be alive she
00:41:04
breathing
00:41:05
yeah the neurosurgeon said he did it
00:41:07
exactly right
00:41:09
had he done it any different it wouldn't
00:41:11
work
00:41:13
he gave the doctor something to work
00:41:14
with and
00:41:17
he just saved her life and gave her back
00:41:19
to us
00:41:21
thank you just really seems so
00:41:23
insignificant
00:41:24
as far as the way we feel that someone
00:41:28
would take the time to
00:41:29
get involved and to do all he did for me
00:41:33
and then just disappear
00:41:38
[Music]
00:41:41
update after seeing himself portrayed on
00:41:45
unsolved mysteries the truck driver
00:41:48
contacted our phone
00:41:49
center we put him in touch with wilma
00:41:52
he explained that he used to be an emt
00:41:56
and that's why he just knew what to do
00:41:58
when he came upon the scene
00:42:00
three years after her accident wilma was
00:42:03
finally able to thank the man
00:42:05
who had saved her life he was thrilled
00:42:08
to hear
00:42:08
that she had survived the accident
00:42:19
[Music]
00:42:31
[Music]
00:42:43
[Music]
00:42:52
you
