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tonight on unsolved mysteries two seemingly unrelated cases lay dormant for years
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until two veteran california criminalists employ the latest in dna profiling technology to prove an
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unidentified serial rapist and an unknown serial killer are one and the same authorities now need your help to catch
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a notorious murderer who has prayed on california since at least 1976. donna baldio finds a threatening note
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outside the bank where she works demanding money the author of the note threatens violent
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retaliation if donna does not heed the warning five weeks later a deadly fire erupts
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outside of her apartment coincidence or was donna baldio the target of a vicious extortionist
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an alarming number of children in a rural western town are diagnosed with leukemia
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two have already lost their lives what is happening in fallon nevada to create what doctors call a
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cancer cluster a well-known colorado family man responded to a call for help and never came back could the stranded
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motorists who place the distress call have had anything to do with the disappearance of dale williams
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join me perhaps you may be able to help solve a mystery or perhaps you may encounter one that
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simply cannot be explained [Music] october 1976 an affluent suburb outside sacramento california
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[Music] i remember waking up with a flashlight shining in my face [Music] and i was looking down the barrel of the
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gun and he said uh don't move don't make a sound or i will kill you and within a moment's notice my life
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was all of a sudden in the control of somebody else the rape victim whose identity we're not
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revealing at her request is one of more than 40 women believed to have been assaulted by a man who terrorized the
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sacramento area during the 1970s the mysterious attacker known to police as the east area rapist was never
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identified incredibly more than 20 years later dramatic advances in law enforcement
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technology determined that the same man was responsible for a series of murders in the 1980s
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authorities seek your help in tracking down a suspect who's eluded police for
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nearly 30 years during the 1970s the man who would defy detection for decades established
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himself as a unique offender with unusual signature habits including boldly lingering in victims
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homes for hours i know that at some point he was out in the living room smoking and the police felt that he maybe had
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gotten into my refrigerator i think he was in the house anywhere from two and a half to three hours
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i lay there for what seemed like a long period of time with no noise and then all of a sudden
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did you miss me i couldn't see i couldn't move and i couldn't yell and i remember
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wondering is this it is this the way i'm going to die eventually after sexually assaulting his
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victim the rapist would quietly sneak away can you tell me maybe a little of what
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he looked like detective carol daly interviewed many of the rapists victims a mask the east area rapist
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very definitely did a psychological rape along with the physical rape in the manner in which he would threaten the
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victims the length of time that he stayed in the home richard his crime was different and unique
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did you find anything for lieutenant richard shelby this would become one of the most
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demanding cases of his career it was a high priority it had a lot of publicity he had a lot of victims the
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guy's dangerous our office and city police both had special teams working it give me an
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evidence back evidence recovered near two crime scenes indicated the rapist had spied on his
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victims before he struck well it casts all of this too proud to hear you he knew it well
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sit right here and look right in her window [Music] some of the cases he knew the victims he
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knew their time their schedule they knew that of the neighbors and some were crime of opportunity they weren't
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supposed to be there there they were so he took advantage of it the first 15 attacks occurred in homes
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only inhabited by women and children but then the rapist became even more brazen he targeted homes in which a man
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was also present when the rapist would come in he would at gunpoint order the female
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to tie up the the male in the house and then he would remove the female to the other part of the house
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where he would also tie her up and then he would put dishes on the husband if i hear one plate rattle i'll kill
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everyone in the house while he was in the other room occupied with the sexual assault
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he could hear whether or not the male was trying to get free i can't think of any other rapes that i
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worked other than this one where a suspect was willing to go in and do the types of things that the east
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area rapist did when there were other people in the house there was so much fear in the community
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and there were so many rumors out there about what the east area rapist was doing so we were holding town hall
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meetings we understand your concern they were incensed to think that a man could have been in the home
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when these rapes occurred and not have done anything about it in this particular meeting a gentleman
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got up and said i don't believe that could happen but if he ever comes into my house
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i'm going to be ready that man and his wife would later become victims it led me to believe that the
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rapist was in the audience that night and probably followed this couple home i think that he liked the excitement
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of the game i think it was as much a game with the investigators as it was for what he was doing to the victims
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the sadistic game being played by the rapist often extended beyond the attack itself
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hello several victims reported receiving disturbing phone calls from the rapist years later who is this i
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felt by what he said to me that he had been still watching me and stalking me i felt absolutely terrified i think
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the phone calls were just his way of saying you're still my hostage even though i'm
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not in your house psychologically you're still my hostage by the late 1970s the east area rapists
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have moved west to communities in contra costa county 50 miles from sacramento authorities traced five more sexual
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assaults to him there before the attacks abruptly stopped everybody speculated on where this guy
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might have gone and why he went why he might have stopped and there was nowhere to go with it we had
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no real physical description [Music] years passed the trail grew colder than 400 miles south at the orange county
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california sheriff's department forensic scientist mary hong compared semen samples from several unsolved rape
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murders in the southern california area and linked the crimes to the same perpetrator
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meanwhile back in contra costa county sheriff's department criminalist paul holes ran dna profiles on semen
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recovered from the east area rapist assaults in his county then in 2001 paul holes contacted mary
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hong let me grab that file independently he was thinking that this guy has to be committing these
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crimes somewhere else so he actually was calling these agencies and finding out if they had any cases that
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fit his profile okay i've got d3 1516. i had him read me the profile that he had on this case
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okay and i compared that to the profile that i had in our cases and they matched
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all the way across wow looks like we've got a match at that point we knew that we had
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just connected the series of sexual assaults in northern california with a series of homicides down in
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southern california we felt before he left sacramento that he was ready to kill his behavior was
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becoming more and more bizarre and the threats that he was making to the victims
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were more severe his just his demeanor was changing the east area rapist had become a southern california killer
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leaving a trail of desks in his wake charlene and lyman smith of ventura newly was keith and patty harrington of
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laguna niguel with hune of irvine five years later the next murder took place on may 5th 1986.
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janelle cruz also lived in irvine like the others she had been tied up sexually assaulted and bludgeoned to
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death in her home larry poole of the orange county sheriff's department has headed up the
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southern california investigation we don't have anything that we've linked
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to him after may 5th of 1986. doesn't mean that it doesn't exist doesn't mean that it's not
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out there for us to acquire we're just not aware of it however based on the killer's ammo
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larry poole has come to believe that the man he's pursuing also murdered two
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couples in santa barbara before and after the string of cases connected by dna began
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i don't know of anyone like him he's a very unique offender 50 rapes that we're aware of 10 murders
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that we're aware of we suspect that he's probably responsible for more rapes and murders and crimes outside of
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what we've identified with a biological link to the northern california rapes confirmed
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investigators now had 50 additional cases to comb through in search of new clues to the serial killer's identity
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the east area rapist mo of stacking plates on the victim's partner during the assault
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is believed to be particularly unique [Music] it's a signature aspect of our offender
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is it possible that someone abused him and treated him the same way terrorizing him perhaps
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as a boy when he grew up it's it's possible if the old police adage of serial
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killers do not stop unless they're caught is true how is it possible this one hasn't been
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heard from since 1986. he could be dead he could be disabled and is no longer capable of doing what he
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once did as a serial killer he could have moved to another state changed his mo somewhat and
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has committed multiple offenses that he's been identified for and we've just yet to link him up
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larry poole believes there's another possibility that this serial killer could be
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incarcerated perhaps on death row for an unrelated murder pool advocates dna testing of every
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death row inmate however in california investigators are blocked by an injunction that prohibits
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the extraction of blood from any prisoner on death row against his will [Music] there are approximately 600 men
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who are among california's most heinous notorious criminals who do not have dna profiles compared
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against the data bank i think that we need to do whatever we possibly can to identify him
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and to miss that opportunity i i think is is is criminal please somebody out there
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has to know something about this person and if the information could come forward
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will it ever bring closure to the victims only that they would feel safe that he is not
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out there to attack again i don't want to end my career without having solved this and if it's not
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solved by the time i retire i'll think about it till the day i die [Music] [Music]
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[Applause] [Music] the chateau dijon apartments houston 3 30 a.m on february 1 2002 curtis ford awoke to
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a series of strange sounds in the stairwell outside his apartment the banging that i heard sounded like a
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herd of elephants running up the stairs and then i heard which was like a knock at the door
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and then i heard the same right down the stairs [Applause] so i looked up and this wall of fire
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just shot out my side balcony window just shot straight up and out looks like my
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whole apartment lit up i couldn't believe that the amount of force that this thing had
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curtis escaped the fire unscathed three of his neighbors would not be so lucky [Music]
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the fire of the chateau dijo apartments was quickly ruled arson few details have been released to
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exactly how the blaze started but authorities say may not have been a random act that the arsonist was
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possibly trying to harm a specific resident of the building that person was donna baldw
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donna baldio lived a quiet life with her 22 year old son jai l lewis and eight-year-old daughter
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bunny sue terry by all accounts a family was close and had no enemies but several weeks prior to the fire a
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disturbing incident may have given someone motive to attack donna donna baldio had worked at wells fargo
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bank for 10 years she was currently a manager at a drive-through branch located outside of
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houston on december 22nd donna was the first to arrive at work she immediately noticed an odd piece of
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paper lying in front of the bank's entrance encased in a protective plastic sheath
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was a note it demanded all the money from the bank and if anyone called the police they
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would face dire consequences it was a well-crafted note well verbalized and specifically threatened
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employees if they didn't cooperate in turning over all the banks money that day that they would be retaliated
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against donna retreated to her car five minutes later another employee showed up
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don't stop just follow me they drove to a nearby convenience store and contacted
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the supervisor who called police i pulled up like normal uh parked the car donna had done exactly what the note
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had explicitly instructed her not to do authorities found no fingerprints on the note
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nor were there any clues as to who the author might be the investigation never turned up a
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suspect while investigators had no evidence that pointed directly at the suspects leaving
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this note for donna baldio personally she is the person who found it and in this instance donna baldio did
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not comply five weeks later the blaze erupted in the stairwell at donna's apartment
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building donna's unit was one of two located on the second floor two more units were downstairs
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authorities speculate that donna's daughter bunny was awakened by the mysterious knock
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unaware of the inferno outside she opened the door buddy stop no donna and her son jai then ran into the
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flames desperate to rescue curtis ford donna's downstairs neighbor witnessed the unfolding nightmare
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jai's laying there on the landing and i saw him burning and i just grabbed his
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ankle and pulled him down you know and he was just like screaming at the top of his lungs like my sister's dead i
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mean he just couldn't believe the fact of this going on i mean it was just horrible horrible horrible
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curtis saw donna repeatedly enter the flames horrifying screams for her youngest child went unanswered
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the look on her face just would break any person i mean i couldn't sleep for
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the next two months because of it emergency workers arrived at the apartment complex within minutes
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donna and her children were the only victims of the fire donna and jai had been critically burned
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over their entire bodies they barely clung to life hysterical over bunny's fate
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when the smoke finally cleared the eight-year-old was found dead in the stairwell this was
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absolutely one of the most horrible events i've seen in my 30 years in the fire department because they were
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literally burned alive there donna and jai were rushed to the hospital friends and family gathered
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around their bedsides hoping for a miraculous recovery you couldn't even recognize him you
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couldn't even recognize john you couldn't even recognize donna and so we came out we were just
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devastated jai was pronounced dead at 10 30 that morning donna followed her son one half hour
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later an entire family was gone who would have committed such an appalling crime and why
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was this the reprisal threatened by the extortionist or perhaps there is another equally
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tragic explanation it has been reported that over the past three years fifteen fires are broken out of the chateau
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dijon apartment complex her death and her children's death could be related to the series of arsons
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in that same apartment complex including one that happened on the same stairwell
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just a year before when the dust settles on this it's it's probably gonna be somebody
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that she knew and i just got that feeling about that that this is more somebody got mad at her
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for whatever reason no one knows why [Music] fallon nevada population 8 000 for those who moved here it seemed like
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the perfect place to escape the urban sprawl and raise a family but there is something terrible
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happening to the children of fallon you go it all began with dustin gross honey where'd you get
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this bruise i fell off of my back when i was giving him a bath i noticed bruises on his back
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in his arms and i asked him what was he doing um why did he have these bruises and he
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told me he was playing with his friend on the big wheels and i thought okay that makes sense that's
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where the bruises come from honey what are you doing well he's been tired all day
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but then the next day my husband had noticed a lot more bruises and brought it up to my attention
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i saw he had bruises all over his body his arms his legs his stomach his back and little red blood specks
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on the surface of his skin and i knew that something was wrong at that point you're
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going to feel all better brenda took dustin to the local hospital and he was immediately transferred to
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the uc davis medical center blood was drawn a diagnosis was made the doctor told us that dustin had
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leukemia i knew what leukemia was i knew it was a cancer but i didn't actually realize how severe
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brenda soon learned the seriousness of dustin's condition acute lymphoblastic leukemia strikes
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children usually between the ages of two and nine it causes the production of millions of
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defective white blood cells destroying the immune system and can be fatal dustin immediately underwent aggressive
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chemotherapy you wanna take your pills i've never went through anything like that before
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in my life um not knowing good what to expect what my child's going through um seeing
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him lie there so lethargic and so lifeless i think that that's probably the hardest
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thing that i've ever had to deal with it was not easy dustin gross was not alone over the next
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two years 14 more children contracted childhood leukemia in the fallon area an astronomical number in a community so
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small two have lost their lives authorities are now convinced that the outbreak is
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not a coincidence parents are in a state of panic desperate to find answers before more children become ill
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and possibly die within weeks of dustin gross's diagnosis two more children came down with
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childhood leukemia the cancer treatment facility at the local hospital run by rn barbara de
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braga was overwhelmed even at that point i was just thinking it's just coincidence it's just a
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terrible coincidence but it's a coincidence but then shortly after the third then we
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got a referral for a fourth barbara de braga feared that she was looking at an abnormally high occurrence
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of the disease known as a cancer cluster she contacted the state assembly person
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for the fallon area and an official investigation was launched a state epidemiologist dr randall todd
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prepared an all-out inquiry the devastating disease threatened a spin out of control
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striking victims number five and six a couple of days after there was a seventh case diagnosed
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and so this started to to kind of make the hair on the back of my neck stand up a little bit it was
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it was a frightening time we have a series of questions we want to go over with you and we're going to use this
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office right here okay that's okay an alarm dr todd immediately sought a common denominator shared by all the
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victims that might explain the epidemic could it be an environmental toxin and uh how is the water supply to that
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house is it it's a well okay so interviews with parents however produced no answers
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and dr todd watched helplessly as new cases continued to appear zach beersley was a ninth child
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diagnosed with childhood leukemia when i heard i was number nine in a cancer cluster
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at that time my child was so ill that all i could think about was how do i get out of this mess with a healthy child
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after i found my feet if you will i realized that it was important to get involved in the
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investigation and that's when i found the strength and rolled my sleeves up and said well what can i do
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and then you start to fight and you don't look back you know [Music] tammy beersley readily opened her house
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to a phalanx of scientists search for the common denominator continued what did all these children
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share that might explain their illness [Music] there was a team of people that came into our home and
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vacuumed took dust samples air quality samples water samples [Music] biological testing scraped our mouths
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blood tests but these tests were inconclusive perhaps the problem was not in the
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children's homes but in the surrounding environment was there something unique about fallon
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that could explain why a cancer cluster appeared here researchers began with the water
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the one thing that that makes this community sort of stand out is that they have one of the
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highest rates of naturally occurring arsenic in their water supply of any place in
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the nation researchers also found mercury in a nearby lake and several irrigation
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canals places where the children were known to play [Music] and there was another unusual feature
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about fallon that raised red flags residential homes are freely intermixed with farmland
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they have to to treat these fields with pesticides and fertilizer and this type of thing so
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you're now having that very close to the living community rather than maybe in a
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normal farming community where it starts on the outskirts of town radioactivity was also a possibility
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underground atomic tests were conducted near fallon during the 1960s [Music] arsenic mercury pesticides
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there seemed to be no shortage of toxins in the environment incredibly sad as it so far failed to
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link any of them to the outbreak in fact no studies have ever demonstrated that these contaminants
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play a role in contracting childhood leukemia working on this really is like trying to do
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a gigantic jigsaw puzzle what we can say is that in fact we likely will not have
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the complete puzzle put together at the end of this investigation there was one final possibility
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fallon is located 10 miles from a major naval air station used to train fighter pilots
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the jet fuel contains benzene a known carcinogen there is a pipeline which transports jet
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fuel the pipe comes right through and underneath fallon and winds up at the fallon naval
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air station we wondered was there fuel getting into the water supply but we didn't find any evidence that the
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water had been contaminated with jet fuel perhaps the residents of fallon were inhaling the jet fuel
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this theory is currently being tested on laboratory mice at the university of arizona
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human trials may take place in the near future we can actually measure on a person's
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expired breath remnants of of jet fuel exposure that that technology has been developed
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over the last five years while authorities search for answers the parents of the children suffering from
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leukemia in fallon try to remain optimistic [Music] zach beersley has been undergoing
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chemotherapy for the past 17 months although he is responding well it is still too soon to know if he'll beat the
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disease there's a a fear inside of me i have two other children and one on the
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way and i'd like to find out what's making children become diagnosed with leukemia here
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before i bring another child into the world [Music] after two years of intensive
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chemotherapy dustin gross recently had an end of treatment party his cancer is currently in remission
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but there is always a fear that it may one day return i am worried for my family and my other
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children and for dustin still i will never give up on pushing the research to find what has caused
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childhood leukemia and a cluster in this community obviously the more research and continued research is going to get
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us closer and closer and i feel that we will find it but we cannot let up [Music]
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[Music] sunday july 4th a family swimming at the confluence of the san miguel and dolores
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rivers in western colorado made a grim discovery submerged in the muddy waters was a
00:32:06
pickup truck the montrose county sheriff's department responded to the scene
00:32:12
and it quickly became apparent that this would be more than a simple vehicle recovery operation
00:32:20
investigators realize this might be the break they desperately needed in a case that had captured the attention of
00:32:25
surrounding communities a truck belonged to a man who suddenly vanished six weeks before
00:32:31
hopes however were quickly dashed when no other signs of the missing man were recovered
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authorities need your help to solve this baffling mystery the recovered pickup truck was
00:32:43
registered to 42 year old dale williams the longtime area resident was a devoted
00:32:48
husband and daughting father of two teenage daughters day alone and operated an auto body shop
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in the nearby town of nukla on the evening of may 27th dale failed to make it home for dinner
00:33:04
his wife diana assumed he was preoccupied with a job at the body shop and lost track of time
00:33:12
by bedtime however diana was concerned hi dale it's me i called the shop a couple
00:33:18
of times no answer okay give me a call as soon as you get in bye so i thought well maybe he just didn't
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hear the phone cause using air ratchets or something you know i went to bed about 10 and i
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laid there and i felt like something's wrong i tossed and turned all night woke up
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several times and he still wasn't home [Music] diana looked at dawn and was horrified
00:33:47
to discover dale had not made it home all night as soon as she got her kids off to
00:33:54
school diana drove straight to dale's garage [Music] when i first walked in the shop the door
00:34:07
was unlocked the hood was still up on the van his tools were they were just laying around
00:34:13
the vehicle like you just walked away from it for a few minutes went over to my mother-in-law's and she
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hadn't heard from him the day before or that morning dale often shopped at junkyards looking for spare parts to use
00:34:33
at the body shop when was the last time diana and her mother-in-law thought that would be a
00:34:37
good place to start their search when we didn't find him at the junkyard we thought we'd probably find him along
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the way the road somewhere where he'd maybe ran off the road we felt like that something had happened
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to him for sure but we felt like we would find him but as it happened we didn't find him
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within a few hours dianna williams notified police and word of dale william's strange disappearance spread
00:35:06
through nuclear investigators began piecing together dale williams day they learned dale made a brief stop at
00:35:14
tammy lawrence's office about 12 15 that afternoon i had a windshield that i needed
00:35:21
repaired on a truck of ours hey joe what's up listen i stopped by to let you know that i can't do your
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windshield until next wednesday that's okay i thought it was strange that dale stopped in because he didn't
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have to stop and tell me he could have called me dale was in a hurry he told tammy he was
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on his way to help a stranded motorist maybe he felt uneasy about who he was gonna go give a toe
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i really don't know all right see you later bye that was the last time that i saw dale
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williams [Music] the investigator determined that dale's friend tom ross had been with him just
00:36:03
before tammy saw him tom and his young son has stopped by the body shop late that morning
00:36:10
just getting close to the noon hour and he said i'm real busy today got a full
00:36:14
shot but he said i got time for one game of darts if you want to if you got time i said yeah sure hey
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nice job nice job hold on a second uh phone call come in hello and they were broke down they said about
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three quarters of a mile east of the bedrock colorado store just a little country store
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yeah yeah i think i know where that is i was under the impression that it might have been a lady that
00:36:38
called nothing that was actually said it was just the way he talked and stuff yeah i know it's the other road it's the
00:36:44
only way to go dale's shop hit auto body repair he was not a mechanic so it was unusual
00:36:50
for him to receive a call for roadside help i did feel odd that they called dale for assistance sorry
00:37:00
you guys uh i'm gonna have to take off at the same time dale was one that was
00:37:06
willing to go and help somebody if they were broke down we said our goodbyes at the shop door
00:37:12
that's the last time i ever saw dale [Music] the citizens of nuclear responded to the
00:37:17
emergency situation missing posters were printed up and distributed by dale's friends and family
00:37:25
makes me feel really great to know i'm in a small town and everybody cares [Music]
00:37:32
however diana would soon come to understand that not everyone in her small town did care
00:37:37
[Music] we had missing posters up and and i noticed i put some in the post office
00:37:46
and about two days later they're all gone so i put some more in there they just
00:37:51
two or three days they disappear that ultimately resulted in us installing a hidden camera in the post office in new
00:38:01
club and that led to us being able to determine who was responsible for the disappearance of those flyers
00:38:11
within a few weeks the camera hidden by police captured images of this man tearing down the flyers incredibly he
00:38:18
was ultimately identified as a former long-time family friend of dale and diana williams
00:38:24
the individual depicted in the photographs was questioned and he denied any involvement
00:38:32
in dale's disappearance he also was able to give us an alibi for the 27th of may
00:38:40
1999 and for the most part that alibi is consistent and has been confirmed could dale's disappearance have had
00:38:52
anything to do with some bad blood between the two men twelve months before dale vanished diana
00:38:58
and dale helped move the mystery man's ex-wife to another state without his knowledge
00:39:03
he was angry at dale for helping his ex-wife move and get clear out of the area and then
00:39:10
we wouldn't tell him where she was at or anything like that and i feel like he was really angry with
00:39:17
dale for that [Music] a month after helping the man's ex-wife move dale found some disturbing items
00:39:25
outside his auto body shop he went to work he noticed some pictures torn up there
00:39:30
just laying all over the ground the torn photographs had been stolen from his shop
00:39:36
they depicted dale and diana with her now divorced friends and happier times several 22 caliber bullets were also
00:39:43
scattered across the ground [Music] several days after that diana made a strange discovery in the night drop box
00:39:52
at the video rental store she ran a 22-caliber revolver diana and dale later discovered the gun
00:40:00
like the torn photos had also been stolen from dale's auto body shop i was really nervous because i didn't
00:40:07
know what to think and dale just told me to not worry about it things would be okay and
00:40:13
things will settle down whatever happened it was more to scare him he felt like than anything
00:40:21
police interviewed dale's former friend about the burglaries but he denied any
00:40:25
involvement in the break-in dale's life seemed to return to normal then 11 months after his body shop was
00:40:33
burglarized dale williams suddenly disappeared six weeks later dale's truck was
00:40:42
recovered from the river an analysis of the vehicle in its recovery site provided more clues
00:40:48
the truck's ignition was turned on the vehicle was in gear and the angle between the highway
00:40:54
and the river was extremely sharp each detail seemed to indicate that someone had deliberately steered dale
00:41:00
williams truck into the water once diana viewed photographs of dale's truck she was certain someone other than
00:41:12
her husband last drove the vehicle she took particular note of the partially open driver's side window
00:41:19
dale usually drove with the driver's window all the way down but never halfway always down or up
00:41:27
somebody put it in there to get rid of it somebody who knew the river generating further speculation police
00:41:43
have not located the stranded motorist dale williams went to help was a mystery caller a woman as dale's
00:41:49
friend surmised and why has that person never come forward go there investigators may already have that
00:41:56
answer the purported distress call was placed from a stolen cell phone [Music] dale williams loved ones must also face
00:42:08
yet another perplexing scenario there are those who claim that dale's truck was parked in this normal spot at
00:42:15
his body shop by 1 30 pm the day he vanished if true dale or someone else drove his
00:42:23
truck back into town within 90 minutes of his responding to the distress call outside of town
00:42:31
there were even reports from witnesses who claimed to have seen dale williams early that evening
00:42:35
at a market in the neighboring town of natarita i do believe that the people who saw
00:42:40
dale williams between five and six o'clock at the local grocery store did in fact
00:42:45
see dale and that they are people in the community that their word can be trusted
00:42:53
so what happened to dale williams and where is he now i believe dale either seen something he
00:43:01
shouldn't have or knew something he shouldn't have and somebody was looking to shut him up
00:43:07
maybe he was ready to go to the cops and tell what he knew and that was their way of shutting him
00:43:12
up dale williams has not been seen since may 27 1999. he stands 5 foot 7 inches tall and
00:43:21
has light sandy hair and blue eyes [Music] join us next time on unsolved mysteries
00:43:41
[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you