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This program is about unsolved mysteries.

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Whenever possible, the actual family members and police

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officials have participated in recreating the events.

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What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.

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Tonight on Unsolved Mystery, in Los Angeles, 22-year-old

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Matthew Chase made a midnight trip to an automated

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tele-machine.

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The Matthew had not been seen since.

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A hidden bag camera showed Matthew next to a mysterious figure.

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On Valentine's Day in 1986, a Houston housewife was murdered.

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Her husband was a suspect.

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He steadfastly maintains his innocence.

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His alibi is airtight.

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Risen.

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The Loris Valadiz has no past.

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No past.

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She wants to find the mother she never knew and answer a

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question that has haunted her entire life.

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Where is Matthew Oldman?

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We also tell you the touching story of the refugee family

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emigrating to America.

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During World War II, they fled their home in Hungary and were

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forced to live in a box car barely surviving in war-torn Europe.

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Forty-three years later, they are trying to find a mysterious

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American soldier who, on memorable Christmas,

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changed their lives forever.

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Join them.

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You may be able to help solve a mystery.

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During the Christmas season 43 years ago,

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a Hungarian family who'd escaped from the ravages of the

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Second World War met an American GI named Philip.

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This refugee family was living a hand-to-mouth existence in

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an abandoned train in rural Austria.

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The kindly soldier offered them friendship when they had

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few friends, food when they was often hungry,

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and faith when despair seemed insurmountable.

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With Philip's help, the family survived their ordeal.

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They now live in America, and they want to reunite with

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their benefactor so they can thank him for a Christmas

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that changed their lives.

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May 1945, as Hitler's Third Reich crumbled,

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refugees from Eastern Europe choked the highways in rural

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roads, some escaping the Nazis, others the vengeful Russian army.

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Carl Dente and his family fled from Budapest in Hungary,

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one step away from the guns of the Red Army.

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The Russian army just a few miles behind us,

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so I have only one thing in my mind,

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just to get the family with me out from there.

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You know, it's a very strange feeling when you leave a country

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when you was born.

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But a thousand, thousand family was leaving,

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just leave everything behind, just running the way.

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After their perilous journey, the Dente's and other refugees

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found temporary sanctuary in Austria,

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in a town occupied by the Americans.

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As the fall turned to an extremely cold winter,

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a family was forced to live inside a boxcar.

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Despite their hardship, Carl and his wife,

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Terezia, managed to survive and provide a shelter

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for their five-year-old daughter, Brigitta.

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The winter came in, we had a tough time to get food,

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we had no clothing, we had no other place to go.

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One thing I was very happy,

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my family never was complained.

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My wife never complained.

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A few days before Christmas, an American soldier named Philip

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came to meet Brigitta's parents.

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He had met their daughter at her American-run school.

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Somehow managing to surmount the language barrier,

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Philip asked if Brigitta would come as a guest to a Christmas party,

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given for the refugee children by the American Occupation Force.

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I want to take Brigitte to a Christmas party.

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Christmas, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, Santa Claus.

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Christmas. Right.

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Brigitte?

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Yeah.

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Yes. Yes?

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Yes. Yes. Christmas. Yes.

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She'll have fun.

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Thank you.

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Thank you, ladies.

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Brigitte?

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When Carl was able to scavenge some material,

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Terezia made a party outfit for their daughter.

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She never experienced any Christmas party before,

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and after leaving already so long in a little freight car,

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no candy, no sugar, hardly anything, hardly any food.

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So it was a big gift for us to knowing how happy she will be,

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and she was happy.

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Over 40 years have passed since that night,

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but to Brigitte, it seems like only yesterday.

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He looked very, very handsome, like a Prince Charming.

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And I remember the shiny U.S. button on his lapel.

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Philip made me feel very, very special

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aside of making me feel safe and happy.

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He made me feel like a big girl.

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Well, I got like a princess.

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It's like someone opened a magic door.

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There was lights and music and a very happy atmosphere.

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It was like the lights went on.

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I remember the food was very, very fancy.

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I had not seen anything like it, probably ever.

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I felt like I was in a dream.

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I never wanted the dream to end.

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It was a big change in our life, a little happiness.

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You know, give us a lot of confidence of the human race.

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Merry Christmas!

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When they come in back from the Christmas party,

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we have just like a little celebration.

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Brigitte starts to open her present.

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We are very happy, you know, to see all the daughters so happy.

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We met somebody very nice.

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Who did a nice Christmas for our of us?

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After the war started, it was our first Christmas,

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we have a little happy time with somebody because of Philip.

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That's a memory you never forget.

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That evening Philip and the dante's discovered

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that though they didn't share a language,

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they shared a friendship.

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We had a difficult time to communicate,

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but he was so friendly, you know,

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we had a lot of laughing, a lot of good time.

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We was happy that night.

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We never expected him to come in back.

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We thought so Christmas party over and, you know,

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we have a beautiful memory at the end of it.

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But Philip did come back.

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He became a real life Santa Claus,

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giving the children candies and the parents food and other necessities

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that helped the family endure the many hardships of life without a home.

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But one day, their friendship came to an end.

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I came to tell you I'm leaving.

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Soon. Yes, tonight.

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I want you to have this to remember me by.

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Thank you.

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Good bye.

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One afternoon Philip showed up and told us his troops transferred to French.

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He's very sorry he had to leave.

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He gave us his photograph, he gave us his address.

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I was wondering if we're going to ever see him again.

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Just like you leave part of the family.

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It took 11 years of struggle and hardship

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for the Dantes to finally make their way to America.

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Though Terezia passed away a few years ago,

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Carl and Brigida currently live in Michigan.

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Unfortunately, during the family's flight across Europe,

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they lost most of their possessions, including Philip's address.

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All they have to remember him by is this picture.

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Based on the appearance of Philip's uniform,

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military experts believe he was a private.

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Philip also told Carl and Brigida that he was from Maine.

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These may be important clues as to Philip's whereabouts.

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In an hour of our broadcast,

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it was Pauline Dofty of Augusta, Maine,

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called our 800 number to say that the man named Philip in our story

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is her cousin Philip Pelletier.

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He's a retired postal worker who lives in Hammond, Indiana.

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We immediately called Carl and Brigida Dentie and helped to arrange a reunion.

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On Wednesday, December 28, 1988,

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Carl and Brigida's 30-year search for Philip came to an emotional end.

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Bridget?

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Yes, Philip?

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Yes, all right.

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Oh, I can't believe.

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Hello, Louisville.

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Hi, Bridget.

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Nice to see you.

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Nice to see you.

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Well, it's really pretty hard to tell you just how I feel after all so many years

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and trying to recollect everything that we went through together.

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It's very hard.

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It's very exciting.

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It's almost unbelievable.

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Oh, my gosh.

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It's something like a Christmas miracle because when he left,

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I was thinking about it.

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I ever see him again.

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And here we go after 43 years, we back together again.

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It's just like a dream came too hard to believe it.

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Sometimes I had a feeling I was going to wake up.

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You were five, right, at the time at the Christmas party?

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The minute that I saw him, I could see the warms

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and the happy look on his face, smiling.

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Like, we really never had lost touch in a way.

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Carl, Brigida and Philip spent the afternoon looking through photographs

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that brought back memories of that special time they spent together.

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We're going to stay with touch.

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We're going to try to visit each other as much as possible.

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We're going to renew the friendship that we had before.

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You know, it's a friendship forever.

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Next, the story of a young man who went to get some cash at midnight

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from an automated tele-machine disappeared.

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Every day, thousands of people do business with their banks

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using an automated tele-machine to become a normal part of our life.

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However, anyone standing alone in front of a bank at midnight

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withdrawing cash in the automated tele-machine would naturally feel apprehensive.

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It is hard not to nervously look over your shoulder

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as you wait for the computer to take care of your financial business.

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At midnight on June 8th of this year,

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a young man in Los Angeles visited one of these machines.

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What happened to him suggests our fears might be more real than imaginary.

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Los Angeles, June 8th, 1988, 11.45 p.m.

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Oh, I forgot to deposit my check.

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Returning home from dinner with his roommate, Teresa Dowell,

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22-year-old Matthew Chase,

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remembered that he needed to deposit his paycheck.

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Wait, why don't you take my car?

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Okay. Great.

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Teresa had met her car and asked if he could pick up some cat food on the way home.

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Okay, see you in a few minutes.

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Matthew Chase had known Teresa and her brother Steve since childhood.

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They all moved to Los Angeles from Medford, Oregon.

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That night, when Matt left their house, he took only his bank card with him.

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He left his wallet at home.

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It should have taken Matt approximately 10, 15 minutes to run the errand.

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The bank was about two blocks from our home, and normally he walked.

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And that particular evening, he'd taken my car,

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so at the most, 15 minutes would be sufficient.

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We know that Matt did arrive at the automated teller that night,

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but he never returned home.

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Five months later, his friends and family are still searching for him.

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The next morning, when Matt still hadn't come home,

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his roommates call the police.

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Hello, my name is Matthew Chase.

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They then call the bank, and by using Matt's social security number,

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convince him that it was Matt calling.

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They wanted to find out if he had used his bank card the night before.

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There have been transactions, great.

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The bank said he had several times.

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Can you tell me what time they were made, what day and...

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Steve and Theresa call the police again.

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A light came on indicating that this is not going to be a normal run-of-the-mill case.

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It's going to be something that requires some in-depth investigation.

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And it may not turn out to be a good case, as we call them.

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When we reviewed the bank records, it indicates that he made a successful deposit of a paycheck,

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received cash back, and then returned to the same branch approximately 30 minutes later

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and attempted to withdraw $280, which he knows is over the amount of cash he can receive per day.

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The theory there would be that either he was being forced to attempt to withdraw these amounts,

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or he was signaling to the bank, to the computer, for help.

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That night, two more attempts are made to withdraw cash.

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The first was for $200.

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It was refused because of insufficient funds.

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Then a minute later, $100 was requested.

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Again, as Matt's paycheck hadn't posted, this amount was also refused.

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Eleven minutes later, the card was used at another branch in a different neighborhood.

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Again, the withdrawals were unsuccessful.

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This time, a hidden camera took photographs of Matt.

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Then, a strange man appeared, standing at Matt's shoulder.

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According to these surveillance cameras at the branch, the person standing next to Matt was somewhat shorter, somewhat stockier.

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And overall, he shouldn't have been in the photograph.

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No one is going to let someone stand that close to him while they're using an ATM machine where they can see the pin number.

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Police suspect that Matt may have been abducted by the man in the photograph while he was making his first transactions.

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00:16:52,000 --> 00:17:01,000
Then, in an attempt to call for help, they speculate Matt may have deliberately entered erroneous amounts, hoping to attract attention.

254
00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:06,000
Over the next day and a half, there were five more withdrawal attempts.

255
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:12,000
By this time, Matt's paycheck had cleared, so $400 was paid out from his account.

256
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:16,000
Finally, the card was confiscated by the machine.

257
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:24,000
We put a freeze on the card, thinking that, number one, getting the card back would tell us where the bank was,

258
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:28,000
possibly where these people are and where Matt might be.

259
00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:34,000
And number two, that the police might be able to go get fingerprints off the card.

260
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:38,000
When the card was dusted for prints, none were found.

261
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:44,000
Police believe that either the card was wiped clean or that Matt's abductor used gloves.

262
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:53,000
Matt's mother and father came down from Oregon to search for their son, and the car he drove to the bank.

263
00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:02,000
At first, we had great hopes. I think that we were going to stumble onto the car somewhere near proximity of where they lived.

264
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:08,000
I believe after a couple, three nights of doing this, we became very frustrated.

265
00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:16,000
Los Angeles can be a dangerous place at night. We saw a lot of things that were very frightening, I think.

266
00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:26,000
And that only made it more real to us that something perhaps very serious had happened to Matt.

267
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:33,000
Police believe that Matt may have been injured in a mugging and was walking the streets with amnesia.

268
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:38,000
Steve and Teresa distributed Matt's picture at a local rescue mission.

269
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:41,000
Hi. Could you do me a favor and keep an eye out?

270
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:47,000
I talked to several of the people there, and a couple of the volunteers that worked at the midnight mission said,

271
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:52,000
when I show them just his driver's license, because I'd run out of posters, said,

272
00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:56,000
oh, yes, we have seen him. He's been in here several times eating.

273
00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:00,000
He's really, and then they just started describing to me, and they said,

274
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:04,000
he's very tall and thin, isn't he, and very lanky.

275
00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:15,000
And I said, yes, exactly. And for them to get that from one of those tiny pictures from a driver's license is really miraculous.

276
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:18,000
And we thought, well, wow, they really have seen him.

277
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:21,000
And we thought we were just so close to finding him at that point.

278
00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:27,000
On June 27, almost three weeks after Matt's disappearance,

279
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:33,000
the car he had been driving was finally found by the police, abandoned close to where Matt had vanished.

280
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:38,000
When they found that car, they ran the license plate via the SVS system,

281
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:45,000
and it indicated that it was associated with the missing person, and that I wanted the vehicle held for latent fingerprints.

282
00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:51,000
The criminalist dusted it for fingerprints, looked at it for other evidence of a crime,

283
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:55,000
and the car was completely void of fingerprints.

284
00:19:55,000 --> 00:20:02,000
And this finding the vehicle with no fingerprints would be very unusual in that you and I driving our vehicles in a normal manner

285
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:08,000
will leave prints on certain items within, and this vehicle had absolutely no prints inside.

286
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:13,000
Police did find one clue in the car, a blue bandana.

287
00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:16,000
This bandana did not belong to either Matt or Teresa,

288
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:20,000
and investigators believe it may have been left by Matt's abductors.

289
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:22,000
I don't know what happened.

290
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:34,000
I know that I hope none of the things that I've dreamed about and wake up in the night and think about are the things that could have happened to Matt.

291
00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:41,000
I am very hopeful that he's somewhere and that he's all right.

292
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:48,000
And I really think that I will be with him again sometime.

293
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:55,000
Today I sense that he's still alive, and that has kept us going,

294
00:20:55,000 --> 00:21:00,000
and we'll never stop looking for him until we find him, and I know we'll find him.

295
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:06,000
He means a lot to me. He's my best friend.

296
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:15,000
Matthew Chase is 22 years of age. He is 6 feet 2 inches, 150 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes.

297
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:20,000
He also has a small tattoo of a dollar sign behind his right ear.

298
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:25,000
On March 29th, one chapter of this mysterious case came to a close,

299
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:31,000
when the Los Angeles Coroner's office positively identified the body of Matthew Chase.

300
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:38,000
His remains were discovered in a ravine in nearby Pasadena, September the 17th of last year,

301
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:40,000
three months after he disappeared.

302
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:46,000
Identification was delayed by the difficulty in tracking down dental records.

303
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:49,000
The cause of death was a gunshot wound.

304
00:21:50,000 --> 00:22:00,000
We had estimated that he had been down in this canyon area since the last week in June of last year to September 1st.

305
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:08,000
When he was located, this case is being handled as a robbery homicide at this point.

306
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:16,000
The man in the bank photograph is wanted for questioning and the disappearance and death of Matthew Chase.

307
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:25,000
This is an artist's rendering of the prime suspect in this case, based on computer enhancements of the bank photographs.

308
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:29,000
Matthew's car was also stolen and later abandoned.

309
00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:33,000
The killer may have been seen driving this car in early June.

310
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:37,000
It was a red two-door 1983 Volkswagen GTI.

311
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:42,000
When this car was recovered, a blue bandana was found inside.

312
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:46,000
It is thought the bandana may have belonged to the killer.

313
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:49,000
I do hope to find his killer.

314
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:57,000
I think that we need to see this through and we will see it through and this person must be brought to justice.

315
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:35,000
The 10.06 in the morning of February 14th, 1986, Valentine's Day.

316
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:41,000
A young affluent Houston Mary Lou Geride was found in her home shot four times.

317
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:45,000
She was rushed to the hospital.

318
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,000
There she was pronounced dead.

319
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:50,000
She had been murdered.

320
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:58,000
Mary Lou's parents believed that their daughter was murdered by her husband, Stephen Geride.

321
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:05,000
Stephen is adamant that he was not involved and has a minute-by-minute alibi for the morning of the crime.

322
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,000
You will hear both sides of the story.

323
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:14,000
On the one side, the anguish of the loving parents who lost their daughter.

324
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:19,000
On the other, a grieving husband who has to deal with a weight of suspicion.

325
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:24,000
You'll be able to analyze the evidence in this brutal slang, but watch closely.

326
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:27,000
The details of time and place can be crucial.

327
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:31,000
Hello, Maria. Happy birthday, Maria.

328
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:35,000
Mary Lou's body was discovered at 10.06 a.m.

329
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:40,000
At 8.15 a.m., Stephen Geride called Mary Lou's mother, Maria Serato,

330
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:44,000
and asked her to go over and help Mary Lou prepare for a lunchtime party.

331
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:49,000
Go over a little bit early and help Mary Lou get ready for it. Super.

332
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:56,000
As soon as I hang up with him, I dialed Mary's number and she didn't answer the phone.

333
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,000
And he got me very concerned because I thought, how strange.

334
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:06,000
She's supposed to be already running around the house doing the last things. What was she?

335
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:13,000
So I left. It took me about 20 minutes to get to her house.

336
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:21,000
To my surprise, there was no answer in the back door.

337
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:25,000
And everything looked in perfect condition. Nothing was disturbed.

338
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:31,000
The front door was not locked.

339
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:36,000
And that was a shock, rather, for me, because Mary was a very careful person.

340
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:39,000
Her door was always locked.

341
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:43,000
Mary, Mary Lou.

342
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,000
Mary, Mary Lou.

343
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,000
Oh my gosh. Where are you?

344
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:52,000
I thought something was wrong. So I walked to the back of the house.

345
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:59,000
Maria searched systematically. She found Mary Lou lying on the floor.

346
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,000
She looked like she had fainted or something.

347
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:08,000
And I started to kiss her in her face and touching her.

348
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:11,000
And she looked like she was dead.

349
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,000
And it got me completely. I was just like a wild person.

350
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:20,000
I thought I was in a nightmare.

351
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,000
10.30 a.m.

352
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:30,000
The paramedics tried to revive Mary Lou, attempting to restart her heart with an injection.

353
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,000
Mary Lou was already dead.

354
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:44,000
Unfortunately, this procedure would later make it impossible to determine an exact time of death.

355
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:54,000
Mary Lou had been shot four times with two different guns, a .380 and a .22.

356
00:26:55,000 --> 00:27:00,000
There was no sign of a gun in the house, nor were there any physical signs of a break-in.

357
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:07,000
In the bedroom, Mary Lou's jewelry box was open. Could robbery have been a motive?

358
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:14,000
It was jewelry laying in there, like she had been selected jewelry or something that she was going to wear.

359
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:21,000
Whoever killed Mary Lou didn't come in the house to steal anything.

360
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:24,000
Mary Lou's husband disagrees.

361
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:35,000
Well, there was many things taken. The gross value was about 25 to 30, maybe $40,000 worth of jewelry.

362
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:39,000
Fur coats are from other valuables.

363
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:44,000
There were a lot of valuable things in the house and nothing was disturbed.

364
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:48,000
This was a well-planned murder.

365
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:58,000
Mary Lou and Stephen had been married for three years. Stephen was an insurance agent and Mary Lou worked for him.

366
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:05,000
The couple went on vacation to Hawaii and Europe and appeared to be happily living the good life.

367
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:17,000
It was extremely exciting and the most fulfilling relationship that I have ever had with an individual.

368
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:29,000
It was a torment of a marriage. The last two and a half years of her life, it was nothing but crying about one thing and another.

369
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,000
They were fighting over money.

370
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:39,000
She brought out the strongest qualities in me, made me more productive than I had ever been in my entire life.

371
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:45,000
We allowed each other to develop to the fullest.

372
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:56,000
As Mary Lou's husband, the police naturally viewed Stephen Gerai as one of the possible suspects and requested permission to inspect his handguns.

373
00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:07,000
The ballistics report proved that Stephen's guns were not used in the shooting. Stephen also gave the police a detailed account of his movements on the day of the crime.

374
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:15,000
Normally he worked in his office at home in the early morning. This time he changed his routine.

375
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:25,000
I woke up at about five that morning. I went upstairs and worked on the computer. I had an extremely busy day.

376
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:31,000
There were some things that I had to finish up. Mary Lou was still in bed, told her that I would call at seven.

377
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:39,000
I know that the security system is on when I left the house at about 625, 630.

378
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:53,000
I went down to 711 and got another cup of coffee. I left there and went to the post office, picked up our mail for the day.

379
00:29:54,000 --> 00:30:02,000
From there I went to a donut shop and picked up donuts.

380
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:03,000
Good morning.

381
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,000
Yeah, I'd like...

382
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:13,000
Then I went to precision glass Don Richardson's company and talked with him for a moment.

383
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:18,000
I started to leave, realized that I had forgotten to call Mary.

384
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:23,000
I went back in at the reception desk and called her at almost 730.

385
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:30,000
She was up. She said she was busy, busy, busy. So I told her goodbye.

386
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:31,000
Goodbye.

387
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:43,000
From 730 when he called Mary Lou to 1006 when Mary Lou's body was found, Stephen was often in the company of witnesses who have corroborated his alibi.

388
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:51,000
A private investigator, Bill Elliott, hired by Mary Lou's parents, examined Stephen's alibi in detail.

389
00:30:52,000 --> 00:31:00,000
The witnesses that we interviewed indicated to us that it was not his habit or pattern to leave the house before 9 or 10 in the morning.

390
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:07,000
And this particular day he claims to have left the house between 6 and 630.

391
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:16,000
When Stephen left home, his first stop was at the 711 only two blocks away, less than a five minute drive.

392
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:22,000
We interviewed the people at the convenience store where he went first.

393
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:30,000
And it was their recollection, a very positive recollection, that Stephen did not get there until three minutes, until 7 o'clock.

394
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:40,000
A variation in the alibi that would have given him time to do things as far as getting rid of evidence and that kind of thing.

395
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:56,000
The curious thing is Mr. G. Rye had not only gone to these places that morning, but the following day he went back and reminded these people that he had been there the day before, which is something that I found unusual.

396
00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:06,000
The evidence regarding the time of death is clouded because of the EMS crew moving in to attempt to resuscitate Mary Lou's car.

397
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,000
Time of death is questionable.

398
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:19,000
Therefore the alibi that he gave may be good and may not. I have no way of determining this.

399
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:30,000
Two years earlier, Stephen had purchased insurance policies on both their lives. Each policy had a total value of $435,000.

400
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:42,000
Mr. G. Rye was a big spender, liked to spend a lot of money and liked to live the high life at a higher level than his income was capable of supporting.

401
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:51,000
In Harris County I found a little over $120,000 of hard-cast judgments that he had against him.

402
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:58,000
Ten months after the murder, Stephen filed to collect the $435,000.

403
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:04,000
Outraged, Mary Lou's parents went to court to prevent him from collecting the money.

404
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:10,000
They claimed he had been the cause of Mary Lou's death and would attempt to prove it in court.

405
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:17,000
We learned things about the insurance money and it was on my daughter's name.

406
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:28,000
So all that may cross suspect that something was wrong and that he was in part responsible for the death of my daughter.

407
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:34,000
Stephen Gereye believes there is another reason that the Serratos found the lawsuit.

408
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:41,000
Well, there's two things that make the world go round in that sex and money and it definitely wasn't sex, was it?

409
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:51,000
Just as the trial was beginning, after the jury had been picked, an out-of-court settlement was reached between Stephen Gereye and the Serratos.

410
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:57,000
But which side had requested the settlement, Stephen or Mary Lou's parents?

411
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:03,000
My attorney came and got me and said that Serratos had made an offer to settle the case.

412
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:05,000
You can imagine that we...

413
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:07,000
We didn't. They did.

414
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:11,000
We didn't have a reason to. Why do we want it to do that?

415
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:28,000
I was adamant that when my attorney presented this to me that it would not be as an admission of guilt and that rather that the Serratos would realize that I was not involved, or why would they make the offer and that we would settle on it.

416
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:34,000
If it had been my daughter and I thought that person was involved, there was no way I would ever take a settlement.

417
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,000
But they did.

418
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:42,000
You're not to discuss any aspect of the settlement of this case.

419
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:49,000
The court documents can't reveal who asked for the settlement, since Judge Sklar ordered the record sealed for two years.

420
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,000
And I assume that you wish me to approve the judgment at this time.

421
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:54,000
Yes, your judge.

422
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:55,000
All right.

423
00:34:56,000 --> 00:35:05,000
After Mary Lou Gerai was buried, the headstone on her grave was smeared with mud and vandalized, and then stolen.

424
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:14,000
The headstone has been replaced. It now reads, Mary Lou Serratos.

425
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:24,000
It is very uncomfortable for us to go on living knowing that somebody did something horrible and it's not been punished.

426
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:32,000
No, I did not kill my wife. Mary Lou was the perfect woman for me.

427
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:43,000
We had a wonderful life together, exciting. We traveled. We built one hell of a business and a fantastic compliment for each other.

428
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:51,000
The police continue their search for information about the two weapons that were used, a .380 caliber and a .22 caliber pistol.

429
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:54,000
They feel these guns will lead them to the killer.

430
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,000
Next, the story of an orphan, Dolores Valabes.

431
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:05,000
It was told by her stepmother that she was left on the doorstep in a suitcase. She wants to know where she really came from.

432
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:07,000
Maybe you can help.

433
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:27,000
Dolores Valabes has no parents, no history, no heritage. She doesn't even know how old she is.

434
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:35,000
The stepmother who raised her, Maria, the only one who could tell her who she really is, lies buried in an unmarked grave.

435
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:46,000
What Maria did tell Dolores is a chilling story. She said she found Dolores when she was an infant, abandoned in a suitcase on the front porch.

436
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:52,000
Her only companion, a black kitten. The story has haunted Dolores all her life.

437
00:36:53,000 --> 00:37:04,000
It scared me the fact that I could have possibly been left at the doorstep and I never wanted to believe it and I was determined to find out the truth.

438
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:14,000
I feel like there's relatives of Maria that know the truth, but they're still afraid of Maria in her grave.

439
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:24,000
Dolores feels that the mysterious power of her stepmother Maria reaches beyond the grave to keep Dolores's identity buried with her.

440
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:29,000
Every day Dolores wrestles with a simple question, who am I?

441
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:32,000
Who am I?

442
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:38,000
Every time Dolores Valabes looks in the mirror, she can see her Spanish heritage, but she can't prove it.

443
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:45,000
Her lack of a documented past has caused her many practical problems. She's not been able to get a passport.

444
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:55,000
She's borrowed from receiving money, do her and her stepfather's will, and her daughter could not qualify for Mexican American college scholarships because Dolores' birthright is a mystery.

445
00:37:55,000 --> 00:38:05,000
Dolores Valadez is looking for a past and identity. Perhaps someone in our audience can help Dolores find the answer to her question. Who am I?

446
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:21,000
In 1947, the year Dolores believed she was born, San Bernardino, California was a bustling city, swelling with its new Mexican American population.

447
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:27,000
San Bernardino was a town where Dolores grew up, in the home of Maria Valadez.

448
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:39,000
Maria was a midwife and a powerful curandera, a healer who worked with potent herbs and ointments. She was respected and even feared in the community.

449
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:47,000
Maria had been told that she could not have children of her own, so she adopted to, a boy named Mingo and a girl named Vicky.

450
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:55,000
For some reason, she never adopted Dolores. The baby, she said, was left on her doorstep in a suitcase.

451
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:09,000
As a child, Dolores felt isolated, and although Mingo and Vicky were told who their natural parents were, Dolores' background was left a mystery, a topic to be avoided.

452
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:19,000
I never felt like Maria really wanted me. I never really felt accepted by her. I felt a lot of resentment.

453
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:33,000
I felt afraid of her many times, where we always would tell me various stories about how I didn't really belong in the family and so forth and so on.

454
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:40,000
She would tell me that I arrived in the suitcase and was left in front of the steps.

455
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:49,000
I really didn't want to believe it, but I would tell her, well, tell me the truth. Why don't you just tell me the truth? Where did I come from?

456
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:53,000
And she would just turn around and ignore me.

457
00:39:55,000 --> 00:40:00,000
It's a real strange feeling to think that nobody really wanted you.

458
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:11,000
The only thing that I can remember is my mother said that Dolores came in a suitcase, and that's it, and it was dropped right there.

459
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:17,000
And I thought they were just kidding. You know, and I was just a little girl myself.

460
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:32,000
When Dolores was in the fourth grade, Maria died. Dolores scripted for morphinages to foster homes. Until in 1963, she settled down and began to turn her life around.

461
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:37,000
She completed high school, trained as a flight attendant, and got married.

462
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:46,000
In 1970, after the birth of her daughter Erika, Dolores decided she had to know the truth about her own birth.

463
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:53,000
Starting at the San Bernardino Hall of Records, she pursued a paper trail that she hoped would lead to the identity of her parents.

464
00:40:56,000 --> 00:41:01,000
Despite her high hopes, there was no record that Dolores had ever been born.

465
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:09,000
With no trace of her birth, Dolores went looking for a record of her baptism.

466
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:19,000
Finally in a church five miles outside San Bernardino, she found a baptismal record with her birth date and the name of Maria Valadez.

467
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,000
Dolores also found a new clue.

468
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:31,000
The record showed that Dolores had two godparents, Rodolfo Minhares and Rufina Rodriguez.

469
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:42,000
Back in the 40s, people were more inclined to think of children being out of wedlock as something to hide.

470
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:50,000
So there's a possibility that Dolores's godparents are her parents because I've seen that before in other cases.

471
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,000
Dolores had one other clue to her past.

472
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:02,000
Maria had told her that as an infant, Dolores had been hospitalized for diphtheria.

473
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:16,000
One of my searches was going to the county hospital in San Bernardino and on the admissions card, they listed a woman named Esther as my mother.

474
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:21,000
Dolores had never heard the name of Esther Valadez before.

475
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:29,000
The hospital form stated that Esther was deceased but in fact no death certificate was found in the San Bernardino Hall of Records.

476
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:37,000
Strangely, Dolores's admission forms also stated that Maria was Dolores's aunt, not her stepmother.

477
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:44,000
And Dolores's birth date was listed as September the 17th, which was not the birth date she had always celebrated.

478
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:48,000
Clearly the records may have been falsified, but why?

479
00:42:49,000 --> 00:43:02,000
Several times we have run into cases where Mexican families who have had large numbers of children have given a baby, one of their children away, one of their newborns, away to one of the other family members who have been childless.

480
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:12,000
If this was the case with Dolores, none of the family members would ever talk about it and they would virtually carry it with them to the graves.

481
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:24,000
If someone gave Dolores to Maria, who did it and why? Perhaps the answer lies in Maria's years as a midwife.

482
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:31,000
Dolores had heard a family rumor that Maria once kept a baby girl she helped deliver.

483
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:35,000
According to the rumor, the baby's mother was a family friend.

484
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:39,000
Dolores decided to question her.

485
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:46,000
Hello, my name is Dolores Valadis and I grew up in the Owl Street area of San Bernardino.

486
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:52,000
This lady lived in the Valadis's home around the time that I could have been born.

487
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:05,000
She was nervous and couldn't keep her composure very well.

488
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,000
I've heard rumors that you were my mother. Are you my mother?

489
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:15,000
No, I'm not your mother and as much as I would love to be your mother. You have not given me any proof.

490
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:25,000
And I look very much like her daughter's picture. I could be her twin, but she keeps denying that she is my mother.

491
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:34,000
She's mad. I mean, she wants to know who are her parents. You know, she doesn't want anything from them.

492
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:43,000
All she wants is, what is my name? When's my birthday? That's all she wants. She doesn't want anything else, but that.

493
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:53,000
Dolores had isolated three possible mothers, Esther, the woman named in her hospital records, Rufina, her baptismal godmother,

494
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:58,000
and the reticent family friend, but none of the leads had paid off.

495
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:11,000
Dolores felt her last hope was Mingo, Maria's adopted son. He had been reluctant to talk, so while we were interviewing Mingo, Dolores confronted him.

496
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:17,000
Dolores claimed that when they were younger, Mingo had told her that he knew the truth.

497
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:24,000
Oh, you didn't? I'm positive that years ago you told me that you couldn't tell me the truth.

498
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:27,000
No, I don't remember that.

499
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:32,000
You don't remember that? So you don't know anything about her?

500
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:46,000
Sometimes I get the feeling that he's still afraid of Maria, even in her grave. And there really isn't anything to be afraid of. People don't come back from the dead.

501
00:45:47,000 --> 00:46:07,000
I have felt very frustrated and very discouraged, but I still have a feeling inside of me that there are people out there that know they're just afraid.

502
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:17,000
I have prayed a lot about my parents coming forward or somebody coming forward with the truth.

503
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:29,000
I don't want to hurt anyone by them admitting that they're my parents. And if they want to come forward and acknowledge that I'm their daughter, that would really make me happy.

504
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:37,000
I have a very strong feeling that somebody out there is looking for me too.

505
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:06,000
I have a feeling that I'm going to be able to tell you the truth.

506
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:12,000
I have a feeling that I'm going to be able to tell you the truth.

507
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:18,000
I have a feeling that I'm going to be able to tell you the truth.

508
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:24,000
I have a feeling that I'm going to be able to tell you the truth.

509
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:29,000
I have a feeling that I'm going to be able to tell you the truth.