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this program is about unsolved mysteries whenever possible the actual family members and police officials have
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participated in recreating the events what you're about to see is not a news
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broadcast tonight on unsolved mysteries san quentin prison once you enter it is unlikely you will
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leave the convicted murderer mark adams fashioned an improbable escape you may be able to help catch him
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the story of a young housewife who vanished from her home in gothenburg nebraska
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her husband wants her back but he must answer allegations that he is the one responsible for her
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disappearance stephen cox was a small town hero handsome popular successful stephen cox may also
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have been a con man who built over three million dollars out of his unsuspecting neighbors
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the people of medford oregon want their money back [Music] a young housewife who disappeared a
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local hero turned back an escaped convict three people whose fate remains a question mark
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perhaps tonight we'll find some answers also a special appeal from the police in
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philadelphia who will ask for your help in tracking down a murder join me you may be able to help solve a mystery
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[Music] the town of gothenburg is located in the heart of nebraska's farm belt
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there is a strong sense of community among its three thousand inhabitants and when a neighbor is in trouble it
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becomes everybody's business on december 11th 1987 a housewife named christy nichol
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vanished her disappearance turned into a controversy that continues to this day christy married mark nichols when she
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was 19. soon after their marriage a daughter was born and in april of 1986 a son
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those who knew christie well felt her life centered around her family christy was a very good student and
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nice looking girl and people liked her but she always had kind of a negative self-image and i think
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christy never felt she did anything until she had her children and there was something she could look
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at and say hey i did this pretty well nobody can do this any better because she was just so proud of her children
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she she loved him i would have never thought that christy would would run away she never she would have
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never left her children i would have never believed that christie's husband mark nichols works at
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a local gas station he was the last person to see her alive there are rumors in gothenburg that say
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he is responsible for her disappearance people in small towns they talk a lot and a lot of these rumors tend to get
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pretty vicious there's been a couple rumors that i'd chopped her up and put her in garbage bags and
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buried her at the dump that's one of the first ones i heard and that one really got to me because i guess they
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were actually up there digging digging around mark nichols claims he is innocent of all wrongdoing
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he wants his wife to come home but until christy returns to gothenburg he remains
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under a cloud of suspicion the police investigation of this case has raised some disturbing questions
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about the events surrounding his wife's disappearance since christie vanished 11 months ago no
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one family members or friends have had any contact with her for this reason the nebraska state patrol has been
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called in officer terry aarons is in charge of the case as the investigation has proceeded it's
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starting to look more and more like a foul play situation there's just a lot
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of things that aren't ringing true that don't appear like your normal missing
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person situation police began to uncover evidence the nichols marriage was in trouble
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mark could you just wait out here they learned that christie had been seeing another man
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ten days before her disappearance she had gone to a local hospital for treatment of an injury she received
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during a fight with the marks and it doesn't look like your thumb is broken however it's the only bad fight i can
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remember is when i was trying to get her to stay home from going out and she was getting so
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upset at me she started to try to hit and kick me and that's when she burned the side of my neck with a
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cigarette she was holding and i tossed her onto the water bed and she landed wrong and kind of twisted
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up her thumb underneath her finger tonight i saw christy on the friday after thanksgiving
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she came to the emergency room complaining of a sore thumb she was acting like a scared rabbit if
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you will she's never been one for great eye contact or been very verbal she obviously wasn't
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telling me everything either mark was in the hallway nearby and i couldn't looking back really tell
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if it was reassuring for her to have mark there or not [Music] christy also told her cousin debbie
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frederiksen that she had been abused by mark when i went to see christy she was working at the bar
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and she was having problems with her husband she would tell me that her husband would
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beat her when we left the bar christy showed me a bruise on her side and it really scared me i told her she
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needed to go get help from somebody and i asked her how it had happened and she said her and mark had gotten
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argument and he had thrown her around and she just acted like it wasn't a big
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deal it was something that happened a lot as far as a violent argument which there seemed there seemed to be a
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lot of rumors going around that i was always beating up on her that's that's just totally wrong
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oh hi on december 9th two days before her disappearance christy went to an attorney to begin
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divorce proceedings what can i do for you christy well i need some help what's your
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problem i need someone to help me get through christy was frightened that mark would
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find out and for this reason went to an out-of-town lawyer well just relax we do a lot of divorce work i've
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handled hundreds of divorces but she had to rank up in the top five of being very distressed and upset and
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nervous and needed help and when she explained certain uh abuses that she had been subjected to
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we decided to make some telephone calls to call the authorities and to report certain crimes that had taken place
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christie i feel that she was very sincere and honest in what she was telling me i don't know what motive she would
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possibly have had to conjure up a story about being abused by her husband if it didn't in fact happen i was
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convinced and i am still convinced that it happened what was christy's state of mind when
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she left the lawyer's office was she preparing to run away as mark claims or was she planning on fighting
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for the custody of her children as her mother believes [Music] i can say that the day that christie was
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in my office on december 9th she was not panic-stricken to the point that she would run
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or leave and in fact she had planned to come back when she left she had made an appointment to come back to
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my office the day after this meeting december 10th christy and mark went christmas shopping
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with her children this was the last afternoon she would spend with her family i felt real uncomfortable the day before
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she left because uh i felt a lot of anger coming from her that evening the couple hired a babysitter and went
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to the local bar where christy worked [Music] when i babysat the night that she disappeared i was surprised that
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those two were going out the both of them were going out because i knew they weren't getting
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along when we were at the bar things seemed to be going real well i felt there was a good
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attitude about herself and myself and a lot of laughing and carrying on mark and christy left the bar around
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midnight and drove to an all-night convenience store at 12 30 they headed for home
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according to the babysitter mark arrived home between 12 30 and 1 o'clock in the morning
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the babysitter was doing her homework in front of the television and doesn't remember seeing christy tom
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banks is an electrician that says for the time being i was about five six yards behind her
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when she reached the door and she walked right by the living room where the babysitter was
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at back towards the kids bedroom and went into the main bathroom it seems strange because mark had paid
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me with cash when christian pays me with a check it was unusual for mark to pay me
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said enough yeah that's fine thanks that was everything i really can't believe that i didn't see
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her because i would have heard footsteps and i would have heard her go into the bathroom because i was
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there i mean what five between five and ten minutes so that i would have been able
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to hear christy somehow but i didn't hear or see christy according to mark christie went to bed
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immediately after the babysitter left the last time he says he saw her was at 2 am
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when he went to sleep beside her and that's the last thing i remember that my kids woke me up the next morning
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and the first thing i noticed was she wasn't in the bed mark claims he searched the house and
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noticed christy had taken a suitcase full of belongings with her but both family cars were still sitting
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in the front yard at 9 30 in the morning mark received a phone call from christie's mother who
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lived 100 miles away even though he knew his wife was gone mark told her mother that christy was still in bed asleep
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didn't want to worry her at the time because i didn't know where she was
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so i told her that she was still in bed sleeping because i didn't think she felt
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real good at 11 30 a.m mark took his children over to christy's grandmother's
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and asked if she could take care of them as he was planning to search for his wife
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you take the kids well i didn't think much about at the time but like i say later
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he never asked me at all or telephoned me you know to take care of the kids where they always did before that was
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really about strangest thing yes can i help you he never asked if christy was at my house or if i'd seen
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christy i just said that christy was missing and he acted like he was shook up i spent approximately two hours just
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riding around town trying to spot her maybe coming out of the store or i drove some residential streets
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where we knew some people when we checked out mark's story about driving around looking for christy
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we could find nobody in in the city of gothenburg that had seen him driving around at 1 37
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p.m mark filed a missing persons report with the gothenburg police department what time did you see her last i saw her
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last when i went to bed about 2am this morning i was i was real upset because there was no
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indication whatsoever that she would just pack up a suitcase and just leave during their investigation
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the state patrol discovered that mark moved out of the house the day after his wife's disappearance a few
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weeks later he boxed up all of her clothes and sold both of their it looks like we got cars spot on the
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plastic in march of 1988 three months after she disappeared christy's suitcase was discovered in a
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roadside rest area 30 miles west of gothenburg police found it surprising that earlier
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mark had precisely detailed all of its contents it appeared to everybody present that
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the suitcase had been placed there instead of just thrown out the items were neatly laying around
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it was like the person that put them there wanted them to be found if my wife had left me
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i wouldn't be able to look through the closet and tell you what she had taken i
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probably would be able to tell you maybe what suitcase she had taken but he was listing items of clothing
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right down the line and knew what she had taken the area surrounding gothenburg has been
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searched extensively no other trace of christy nichols has ever been found today the case is stalled
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[Music] it is difficult without locating christy nichols or her body to determine what if any
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charges would be appropriate we basically are concerned about the way she disappeared
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the fact that she has not contacted her children she hasn't contacted her family
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she uh did not take one of the family vehicles and basically the continued long absence all
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point to that perhaps foul play in some form is involved i'd have never done anything to hurt my wife
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i just that's just the person i am i'm a lot of people think i'm a violent person
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i'm not i'm not i'm not a violent person i hope i hoped and prayed that she was
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alive but if she isn't i'd still want to find a solution to this case i'd like to have her buried someplace
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forward no she was i want very much for christy to come home that uh if for some reason she doesn't want
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to come home you know christy at least call somebody you know let us know where you are
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whether you're all right by all accounts christy nichols was trapped in a marriage gone wrong
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nobody can say for certain if this is what motivated her disappearance all we know is that christy nichols has
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vanished without a trace and her family and friends would like to know why in a moment the story of a remarkable
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escape from san quentin prison last october we examined the mysterious disappearance of gail delano
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a 35-year-old mother of two who vanished from her hometown of wiscasset maine after her second divorce gail delano
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sought companionship by placing personal ads in a local newspaper on june 21 1986 gale drove to a
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restaurant in the nearby town of brunswick she had told her two teenage sons as she
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was meeting a man named john who responded to one of her ads gail delano's family never saw her again
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two days later police found her car abandoned in the restaurant's parking lot
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later that day a restaurant worker found gail's keys in the same spot where her
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car had been parked [Music] two weeks later gail's purse was found though it seemed untouched
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it contained no money for two and a half years investigators and gayle's family were
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baffled update mobile alabama the two and a half year search for guild delano has come to
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an end tragically she took her own life shortly after she disappeared a forensic administrator in mobile
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watched our program recognized gail's photo as a woman who had died in a local hotel room in 1986.
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and when i saw the photograph i immediately saw the resemblance between ms delano
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and an unidentified body that we had in our laboratory in mobile after two weeks of forensic tests
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positive identification was made police now theorize that gail delano orchestrated her own disappearance
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they believe that after she drove to the restaurant she hid her keys somewhere on
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the car removed all the money from her purse discarded it and then flew to alabama that evening
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she checked into a hotel in mobile where she registered under the name jackie stafford
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three days later police discovered her body she had died from a drug overdose on november 11th gail's family held a
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memorial service for her in brunswick maine gail's family showed remarkable courage
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as for two long years they searched for the truth her loss saddens us all and to her
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parents and sons we send our deepest sympathy california's san quentin prison is
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justly known as one of the country's most secure maximum security prisons few cameras are
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permitted behind its walls but recently unsolved mysteries was allowed inside so he might document one of the few
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times a system failed and help recapture an escaped prisoner in the summer of 1986 an inmate named
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mark adams mysteriously vanished the events leading up to his escape began on a summer night
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in august of 1979 on that evening three high school students entered a municipal baseball
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park located in the quiet community of modesto california hey you know who's over to mark's house
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they gathered in the dugout to drink some beers to chat about school and their friends
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[Music] three figures appeared out of the darkness over the previous few weeks there have
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been other robberies by these ski-masked individuals give me your wallets in the earlier
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attempts nobody had been injured give me your wallets why don't you guys just leave us
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alone [Music] one boy mike ridenour was dead another wounded an eyewitness description of an
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automobile spotted at the scene led to the arrest of three robbers the trigger man
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16-year-old mark adams was tried convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life located on san francisco bay san quentin
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is an impenetrable fortress 21-armed posts around the three-foot thick prison walls
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lined with razor-sharp barbed wire today over three thousand hardened criminals call the prison home
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charles manson is only one of its infamous residents in his 136 year history other criminals
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such as siran siran carol chesman [Applause] massive cell blocks a major portion of
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the san quentin's current population are repeat offenders it is the end of the line
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of a hardened criminal san quentin prison is different from other prisons because of its
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design there are armed officers inside the institution they're in gun walks and manned areas
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where there's weapons inside the institution mark adams was here because of the
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physical plant and security that san quentin can provide inmates like mark adams
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when adams entered san quentin he was 19 years old he would have been eligible for parole
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in the year 2007 he began his sentence under close scrutiny but after six months
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restrictions were relaxed his privileges included a job working with computers as
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a clerk in the prison's academic department mark adams was essentially a model
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prisoner he worked very well with people he obeyed the rules and he would seize any opportunity he
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could to stay out of his cell when we had special projects where he'd have to work some overtime he was only
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too happy to assist i'm sure that mark adams took advantage of his position he probably checked schedules he
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probably checked timing he wanted to leave no margin for error on june 10 1986 four years to the day
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after he was put behind bars adam secured an authorized pass allowing him to leave work early
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i'll see you later where are you going i'm going to the dentist office okay i'll see you tomorrow
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at approximately 2 30 p.m adams left his job and walked to the security checkpoint
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showing his pass he was observed heading to the dentist's office that was the last time anyone remembers
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seeing him at 4 15 p.m the inmates return to the cells for the afternoon head count
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the 415 count when there's no hitches will take approximately 45 minutes to clear inmate let me see some skin
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if something is wrong with a clown if there's one person that cannot be accounted for most often
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there's a simple explanation for that miscount you can't find any error then you go
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sell by cell bed by bed with an officer and a picture of those people assigned to those cell blocks in that particular
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cell good 2a11 id 2a12 negative nah showing adam's in here at approximately 4 45 adams was
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confirmed missing immediately san quentin locked down all access to the prison inside and out was sealed tight
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every prisoner was confined to his cell their few privileges revolt an intensive search by correctional
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officers was fruitless no trace of mark or the method of his escape was found [Music]
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authorities have three theories as to how he escaped the first suggests that adams put on
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civilian clothes and walked out with the regular visitors passing through three different armed
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gates in order to accomplish this adams would have had to show a photo id of the first
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two gates [Music] a second theory proposes that adam simply went over the 25-foot prison wall
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when an inmate has to make that move from a blind spot over the wall he has to go from an area
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of concealment to one of his ability it can happen in a matter of seconds but in those few
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moments that it took to hit the wall and scale it the officer's looking in another
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direction an escape is perpetrated the chances that adams could have made the climb are extremely slim
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shortly after his escape three inmates attempted to scale the wall all three were immediately captured and
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one was injured in a struggle with officers we considered also in our investigation of the possible
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ways of escape is could he have gained access to a vehicle it's possible that mark adams could have
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studied vehicles which do pass in front of his area of assignment [Music] every day approximately 225 service
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vehicles enter and exit the prison each must pass through a guarded inspection area for a thorough search
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[Music] there is a remote chance adams could have found a place to hide and then when the search ended he would
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have been driven straight to freedom [Music] if there were a mistake in the security
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system adams would have been the type to look for he would have been the type to find
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it and he would have made plans to exploit it and as a result that's precisely what he
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did it's been two years since mark adams has escaped from san quentin prison
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and in those two years we have not found any concluding or convincing evidence to
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tell us how mark adams escaped [Music] in a moment you'll meet eugene richmond
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he vanished after defrauding his friends and neighbors at three and a half million dollars
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came back to face the music his alleged accomplice stephen cox is still at large
00:29:27
[Music] in 1981 lorraine ronda was 68 years old and newly widowed [Music] her husband had left her 100 000
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it was all lorraine had she invested it with a man named stephen cox in 1976 a drunk driver left michelle wit
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crippled for life the insurance company awarded her 75 thousand dollars michelle invested her money with the
00:30:09
same man stephen cox on september the 24th 1984 stephen cox disappeared he has not been seen since
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is there anyone in this room has anything to offer in this case at this time if so please step forward at bankruptcy
00:30:29
court in medford oregon a packed audience of more than 200 angry investors came forward
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and i am one of the investors who invested with uh steve cox in excess of one hundred
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thousand dollars they told authorities that they had given cox in excess of three and a half
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million dollars every penny was gone can be done so that we can get our money back how
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did stephen cox get three and a half million dollars from the people of medford well cox was a hometown boy the people
00:31:00
of medford knew him and trusted him they hope that if he's watching tonight he'll return and deal with them
00:31:05
honorably face to face in high school stephen cox was a popular student and an all-around athlete
00:31:15
he was captain of the football team letterman on the basketball team named oregon's all-state baseball team
00:31:22
he went to college in oregon and after he graduated married his college sweetheart deborah
00:31:28
they settled in medford didn't believe it no in 1982 he started his own company
00:31:36
s d cox investments that's what i'm talking about let me get it hold on a
00:31:39
second let me get it up on the screen here when he first began all the indications
00:31:44
we have are that his intentions were good he had had some luck uh with commodities with other
00:31:50
investments gold and silver and other things and he really wanted to make money for other people
00:31:56
at the same time he made money for himself stephen cox attracted investors by offering a rate of return as high as 25
00:32:04
percent good morning michelle hi how are you i'm fine how are you good to see you both
00:32:09
there was only one catch in exchange they received nothing more than cox's iou in the form of a promissory
00:32:16
note michelle whit needed twelve hundred dollars a month to pay for her round-the-clock nursing care
00:32:23
despite the lack of security she decided cox's high return was worth the risk
00:32:28
and that 20 24 ballpark that we were talking about is something we're definitely going to be able to get
00:32:34
for you the 75 000 was invested and for three and a half years i got a monthly payment of 1250.
00:32:43
he seemed to know what he was doing and i'm sure he did know what he was doing
00:32:52
hey hey gene good to see you thank you cox's business doubled then tripled eugene richmond an old friend was
00:33:01
brought in as a partner well it'll work it'll work good good um well you know i've known steve since you
00:33:07
know we were in grade school together i mean he was always somebody i looked up to
00:33:10
you know he was the you know the high school quarterback of the football team and you know just
00:33:15
just that typical guy that everybody wanted to know and be around you know the way i look at it mortgage
00:33:20
papers basically whatever steve cox asked me to do i did and i just trusted him unequivocally eugene richman
00:33:31
was the forceful personality in the partnership there's a nice house you have here oh
00:33:37
thank you eugene richmond was the one that went out and got people to invest their money
00:33:43
ms rondo i'm uh sorry i have to bother you at a time like this when eugene richmond made his sales
00:33:49
presentation to lorraine rondeaux she gave him all the money her husband had left her i
00:33:54
know that your husband has left you some money i'm confident that i told every investor that their money is at
00:33:59
risk i would have investors ask me what happens if st cox goes belly up and i would sit right in my
00:34:06
chair and look him straight in the face and i'd say you're gonna lose your money well eugene
00:34:11
richman is a liar then because he never did never told us not me never told me that
00:34:19
if she was not aware that her money was at risk then either i failed in my job to tell her that or
00:34:27
like a lot of people didn't want to hear it eugene richmond never told me that that
00:34:33
my money was unsafe in any way that everything was secured that they had money if i wanted all that money right now
00:34:42
they had money laid aside that they could pay off any one of first by us s decox investments was
00:34:50
flourishing the firm bought a restaurant a neighborhood bar a video arcade two jewelry stores
00:35:00
and an inventory of gems worth hundreds of thousands of dollars when you have a situation where a local
00:35:10
businessman looks successful and other people are going to the bank with the checks and making the deposits
00:35:16
that will get around that facade works people see the porsche drive by and their heads turn people see their
00:35:22
mercedes drive by and they think that guy's successful they don't realize that maybe that guy
00:35:26
is is not making ends meet and he's two payments behind on the porsche by 1984 many of stephen cox's
00:35:37
investments began to go sour in my opinion steve was not a good businessman in steve's case he made some wrong
00:35:46
decisions well i'll talk to you tomorrow about that that deals that's a whole separate thing now i
00:35:50
don't you know there's some real estate that wasn't panning out the way it was
00:35:53
supposed to pan out and you had to feed it he had a restaurant he was feeding and
00:35:57
instead of just cutting it off he wanted to hang on so that's the important part you know he was
00:36:01
competitive he didn't want to lose every thousand dollars fifty thousand dollars you heard me the first
00:36:07
time what happened is steve cox uh had some luck at the very beginning he had some good fortune he made some money
00:36:18
and as he continued to pay 22 or 25 interest he had to get more and more people involved at the bottom
00:36:25
in order to be able to do that it's like a pyramid scheme there's nothing to back up his promises
00:36:31
to pay back this money that's a house of cards eventually it has to fall well look what do we need to
00:36:36
do to turn this thing around you know what we need to do we need to turn those numbers around the way you're
00:36:40
going to turn those numbers around is getting more clients all right i see you've got my flowers
00:36:45
yes i did eugene and thank you so much as a last resort eugene went back to lorraine rondeau
00:36:51
and asked for her last five thousand dollars do you have some savings to cover them with
00:36:56
well i've been in the hospital and eugene came over to the house to see how i was doing and he said do you have
00:37:02
money enough and i said i have some in savings so he suggested that i take the five
00:37:08
thousand and put in so that i would be getting some interest so i wrote him a check for five thousand
00:37:15
i couldn't even tell you right now whether she invested any money or not i do not recall
00:37:20
at that time when i saw her i had no idea that i was going to be going or steve was going to be going
00:37:26
i mean i didn't even know i was going to leave with steve until the day that i
00:37:28
left we have a problem i've got to leave the area it came to a point where steve just said
00:37:33
i'm leaving town and i'm going wait a minute you're going to leave and
00:37:37
and i'm going to stay here and face this entire thing by myself what am i going to do everybody's going
00:37:42
to come knocking on my door and say where's my money and i felt like i was going to get
00:37:46
lynched important thing is deborah and i are leaving town now are you going with
00:37:49
us or not can you make a choice was to stay here or go with him are you with us and um i ended up by leaving with steve
00:37:58
and his family i'm going with you steve okay all right definitely there was a premeditated
00:38:05
decision on the part of steve cox and eugene richmond to fold up and leave town let's quit
00:38:13
beating around the bush they planned to leave for at least a month before they just didn't show up one
00:38:19
morning thanks for sticking around you guys i realize it's your weekend i'll make it
00:38:25
short on friday september the 21st 1984 eugene richmond told his employees that he and cox would be out of town on
00:38:32
business through monday usual we'll be back on tuesday so unless you've got any questions uh
00:38:39
see you tuesday that weekend according to eugene richmond stephen cox cleaned out their office
00:38:52
safe taking over two hundred thousand dollars in gold silver jewelry and cash cox also took their
00:38:59
financial records which were stored on computer disks he and his wife deborah emptied their
00:39:09
house and packed their belongings into a rented truck [Applause] [Music] along with eugene richmond they
00:39:18
furtively departed medford their final destination hawaii stephen cox deborah cox and eugene
00:39:28
richmond dropped completely out of sight and the people of medford oregon had lost three and a half million dollars
00:39:34
but the story of the missing medford millions was not over the authorities learned that stephen cox
00:39:39
might have disappeared from medford because he feared for his life [Music] ten months after stephen cox his wife
00:39:49
and eugene richmond vanished leaving nothing but a bankrupt company that owed the people a medford three and
00:39:54
a half million dollars the authorities had a surprise visitor debbie we appreciate you coming in for
00:40:05
this interview today and in july of 1985 stephen cox's wife deborah returned to medford and through her
00:40:13
attorney agreed to cooperate with the authorities what was your position with s d cox
00:40:18
investment she wasn't actually wanted as far as being a fugitive we did want
00:40:23
to talk to her but there were no criminal charges pending then within a week eugene richmond also wanted to surrender
00:40:31
himself and so arrangements were made for him to surrender himself in the company of his
00:40:37
attorney and to be interviewed and then to be processed on the fugitive warrants that were outstanding for him
00:40:44
at the time but for the most part the information that we did glean from these interviews
00:40:50
was really not helpful to us how much money did you have to live on and how much did you take with you
00:40:57
sergeant sweeney concerning that matter we're not answering those questions today
00:41:01
you accept any responsibility eugene richman wouldn't make any statements that could be used to incriminate him
00:41:07
and he couldn't really say anything about stephen cox without incriminating himself
00:41:11
as a result of that we're still looking for sd cox or stephen cox one thing richmond did tell the police
00:41:19
was that in 1983 cox had become involved with a mysterious investor every day on those
00:41:24
rocks was fantastic all right i'm glad to hear that he should be i just want to remind you
00:41:29
stephen i'm not a man who likes to lose money there was an investor that invested
00:41:34
hundreds of thousands of dollars with sd cox investments and as security for his investment
00:41:41
he had taken out a life insurance policy on stephen cox before steve and i left town okay and i went to him and said
00:41:51
let's shut this thing down bring in a judge and just do a chapter 11 and you know just
00:41:56
close it down you know you know steve said i can't and it was because of this fella because
00:42:03
he owed him money and steve just felt like if he didn't pay this guy back he would
00:42:10
just hurt steve or his wife or his kids or something since especially since we know of the
00:42:16
threat we know who the individual is the individual would have to be a fool to come back and
00:42:23
kill stephen cox because he didn't get his money back eugene richmond pled guilty to charges
00:42:30
of racketeering and served two years in prison stephen cox is still at large the message i'd like to send stephen cox
00:42:39
is that he should come in turn himself in and face up to the people that he's really
00:42:44
really hurt short of steve cox winning the lottery and coming back and paying back all of his
00:42:54
investors i don't foresee them ever being able to recoup any of their losses
00:43:00
steve cox is the one who's in prison right now he's the one who's doing time right now
00:43:08
and he will continue to do time until he turns around and faces the situation until he lives up to his
00:43:14
responsibilities because steve every day has to wonder if somebody's going to walk in to where
00:43:23
he's working or if he's going to be at the market and somebody's gonna see him it's a
00:43:29
small world stephen cox is six feet two inches tall has blonde hair and blue eyes
00:43:37
and weighs over 200 pounds he is now 38 years old and he may be wearing a toupee
00:43:45
as well as a beard or mustache [Music] update stephen cox has been arrested in lake mead nevada
00:43:55
25 miles southeast of las vegas five days after he fled from boise cox checked into the lake mead lodge motel
00:44:03
he registered under the name john stroups enlisted in arizona address [Music] he was not the normal guest he stayed in
00:44:12
his room all day long he would only leave at night very seldom did he leave in the daytime
00:44:19
and we noticed that the license plates were not the same as he had put down on his registration card
00:44:26
and that made us a little suspicious but yet nothing we could put a finger on two weeks later edna reed made a
00:44:33
startling discovery one day when i was out on the grounds i saw the guests come out of his room instead of
00:44:41
putting his trash in the bin in front of his room he took it up to number 35 which was several doors away
00:44:47
and when i went to empty the trash out of that bin i found the crumpled up letter and like any curious
00:44:53
female i read the letter when i read the letter i saw the part that said something about the
00:44:59
unsolved mystery show being a bombshell i showed the letter to my husband harold
00:45:05
and between the two of us we decided it was time definitely to call the rangers and tell them about the guest lake me
00:45:12
park rangers immediately ran a computer check and discovered that the car belonged to someone other than john
00:45:18
strauss on the morning of the 14th we began to look for the person by going to the lake
00:45:24
mead lodge to see if we could identify in fact who he really was when we got there the vehicle was gone
00:45:28
and the person was gone and had been gone for 15 or 20 minutes the next morning park rangers spotted
00:45:35
cox's car and pulled him over in the parking lot of the gold strike casino after we made the traffic stop he
00:45:42
produced identification a driver's license issued to a robert davis and we checked that name and date of
00:45:49
birth through the ncic computer and found that it was an alias used by one stephen cox and that there was a
00:45:54
warrant for mr cox at that point we placed him under arrest during a search of cox's car park
00:46:02
rangers uncovered a small fortune when we looked in the passenger compartment of the vehicle in a trunk we
00:46:10
found suitcases and other luggage type bags filled with uh jewelry rings necklaces um collector
00:46:19
type baseball cards some gold coins silver coins and i was uh really very curious to know
00:46:27
why he had it in the vehicle and if in fact this was the stuff that he was wanted for taking in the first place
00:46:45
[Music] every parent's worst nightmare is loss of a child to a violent stranger
00:46:55
tonight the philadelphia police department needs your help in solving the brutal murder of a four-year-old
00:47:00
girl we have with us lieutenant arthur durant investigating officer in the case lieutenant durant could you tell us a
00:47:06
little something about barbara jean and her family barbara jean was four and a half years
00:47:11
old she was the only child of sharon and john fay she lived with her parents in the northeast section of
00:47:17
philadelphia which is a relatively crime-free middle-class section what are the circumstances of a murder
00:47:25
on july 12 1988 approximately 3 p.m in the afternoon while our mother was at work barbra jean
00:47:31
was out front of her house playing her father went to check on her and was unable to find her
00:47:37
he became frantic started searching the area for he checked with the neighbors he called
00:47:42
police the police came and they searched the area approximately two hours later barbra
00:47:47
jean was found stuffed inside a cardboard box approximately two blocks from her home
00:47:51
she'd been bludgeoned to death what clues do you have to the identity of the killer
00:47:57
four eyewitnesses observed the man at st vincent and castor carrying a cardboard box the man has
00:48:03
been described as approximately 25 to 35 years old white male 5 foot 8 180 pounds
00:48:12
sandy brown hair with a little bit of blonde up front at the time he was wearing a white t-shirt
00:48:16
cut off jeans and he was carrying a cardboard box that previously contained a 13-inch
00:48:21
color hitachi television set how can our audience help solve this tragic crime we feel there's somebody out there
00:48:28
tonight that might have seen this male on january 12 1988 or might know somebody to engage in this type of
00:48:35
criminal activity that might have been in a philadelphia area and fits its description
00:48:50
[Music] for every mystery there is someone somewhere who knows the truth perhaps that someone was watching
00:49:10
perhaps it's you [Music] [Applause] [Music] you