1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,600 This program is about unsolved mysteries. Whenever possible, the actual family members 2 00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:13,680 and police officials have participated in recreating the events. What you are about 3 00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:17,080 to see is not a news broadcast. 4 00:00:17,080 --> 00:00:26,600 May 9, 1986, Arizona State Prison. Patrick, Michael Mitchell and two cohorts staged a 5 00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:31,680 daring escape and broad daylight. Since then, Mitchell is suspected of robbing five banks 6 00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:37,760 at nearly one million dollars and has earned a spot on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. 7 00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:42,240 Sixty years ago in Ohio, an eight-year-old farm boy was disowned by his step-parents and 8 00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:47,120 left a fend for himself during the Depression. Today, Victor Scheinman is still looking for 9 00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:50,960 his real family and needs your help. 10 00:00:50,960 --> 00:00:56,040 From Nevada, an eerie tale of two families and one haunted house. One of the family's 11 00:00:56,080 --> 00:01:01,200 claims they took this picture of a benevolent ghost. The other family claims of their spirits 12 00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:03,840 tormented them. 13 00:01:03,840 --> 00:01:08,320 Also the FBI is asking for your help to track down a master con man who was suspected of 14 00:01:08,320 --> 00:01:14,320 brutally murdering his wife and two step-daughters. Join me. Perhaps you can help solve a mystery. 15 00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:33,040 The FBI is looking for a man who is suspected of robbing five banks at nearly one million 16 00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:39,040 dollars and has earned a spot on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. 17 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:44,040 The FBI is asking for your help to track down a master con man who was suspected of robbing 18 00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:49,040 five banks at nearly one million dollars and has earned a spot on the FBI's 10 most wanted 19 00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:50,040 list. 20 00:01:50,040 --> 00:01:57,040 December 14th, 1987, 8.30 am. 21 00:01:57,040 --> 00:02:04,040 Nobody move! Just put your hands up. There's no one who can hurt you. 22 00:02:04,040 --> 00:02:11,040 Two men wearing Ronald Reagan masks held up a bank in Gainesville, Florida. The bank 23 00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:18,040 had not yet opened for visitors. The employees are marking in the weekend deposits. In less 24 00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:25,040 than five minutes, the two robbers made off of nearly half a million dollars. Working with 25 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:32,040 similar MOs, the FBI targeted Richard Joseph Landry, alias Michael Garrison, and the FBI 26 00:02:34,040 --> 00:02:40,040 is asking for your help to track down a master con man who was suspected of robbing five 27 00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:47,040 banks at nearly one million dollars and has earned a spot on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. 28 00:02:47,040 --> 00:02:53,040 Alias Michael Garrison, alias Roger Lanthorn, they all turned out to be the same man, Patrick 29 00:02:53,040 --> 00:02:58,040 Michael Mitchell, one of the most skilled bank robbers in the country. During the last 30 00:02:58,040 --> 00:03:04,040 15 years, his heists have netted close to three million dollars. 31 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:10,040 Patrick Michael Mitchell is an escape artist, a master of disguise. He changes identities 32 00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:16,040 like most men change shirts. Each time he robs a bank, he wears a different comic mask, 33 00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:22,040 Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, even Bozo the Clown. The FBI believes a master Mitchell's 34 00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:27,040 way of thumbing his nose at authority. Today, after 14 bank robberies in the United States 35 00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:33,040 and Canada and two prison escapes, Mitchell is a newest addition to the FBI's 10 most 36 00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:40,040 wanted list. I guess you could best describe him as being confident. He's even vain to 37 00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:47,040 a certain extent and that we believe him to have taken the prescription drug of Retin A, 38 00:03:47,040 --> 00:03:54,040 which supposedly helps your, keeps your youthful appearance. He's been described as having 39 00:03:54,040 --> 00:04:01,040 an athletic build. He likes the ladies. He fancies himself as a gourmet cook. Matter 40 00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:06,040 of fact, we've even recovered some cookbooks from the trunk of one of his cars. So far, 41 00:04:06,040 --> 00:04:13,040 we've developed at least 25 different aliases he's used in the past 11 years. 42 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:19,040 In 1983, Patrick Mitchell was given a 20-year sentence at Arizona State Prison for bank robbery. 43 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:28,040 On May 9th, 1986, he and two other prisoners assigned to janitorial duties staged a bold 44 00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:34,040 escape. It had been meticulously planned and precisely timed by Mitchell himself. 45 00:04:35,040 --> 00:04:37,040 Yeah, yeah, we're out. 46 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:56,040 None of the guards noticed that the three men were missing. No alarms had been set off. 47 00:04:57,040 --> 00:05:02,040 Wearing street clothes, he had hidden in a utility room. The three convicts simply walked 48 00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:09,040 outside. A girlfriend of one of the prisoners was waiting for them. She had been duped into 49 00:05:13,040 --> 00:05:19,040 believing that the men were on a weekend furlough. He escaped but off without a hitch. One of 50 00:05:19,040 --> 00:05:24,040 the men would eventually be arrested in Atlanta, Georgia. Patrick Michael Mitchell, with a third 51 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:28,040 escapee, Johnny Salazar Stewart, headed for Gainesville, Florida. 52 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:35,040 They come into a town a month or two in advance. They come in on several occasions, stay at local 53 00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:42,040 hotels and motels. We believe either by staking out department stores or armored car services, 54 00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:47,040 they then determine when and where they will make their hit. 55 00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:54,040 The way I see it, armored car gets there between 8.15 and 8.20. We'll watch them go. 56 00:05:55,040 --> 00:06:02,040 In the fall of 1987, Patrick Mitchell and Johnny Stewart began planning a robbery in Gainesville. 57 00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:10,040 Mitchell read it a self-story unit with a good view of both the bank they intended to rob and the 58 00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:16,040 armored car company that served the bank. Mitchell pretended to load and unload boxes from the 59 00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:23,040 story unit while he observed the routine operating movements of the armored car company. 60 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:35,040 Patrick Mitchell never went inside the bank himself. Instead, he sent Johnny Stewart to scout the interior. 61 00:06:38,040 --> 00:06:44,040 Actually, it's a pretty good idea. This individual, after they open account, has a legitimate reason for being in the bank. 62 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:49,040 So there will be no questions for an individual who has an account there, walking around, looking around and 63 00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:57,040 conversing with different customers and employees. He can also be there when deliveries are made by the armored car services 64 00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:03,040 possibly, where he can see actually what they're doing and how they're doing it after deliveries are made. 65 00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:10,040 7.30 a.m. the day of the robbery, Mitchell and Stewart meet at the self-storage facility. 66 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:23,040 7.50 a.m. the bank employees begin filing in to prepare for business hours. The bank will open in one hour and ten minutes. 67 00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:32,040 8.00 a.m. the armored car leaves to pick up deposits from several nearby stores. 68 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:38,040 8.10 a.m. the Gainesville police officer receives a bomb. 69 00:07:38,040 --> 00:07:40,040 Are you telling me what time it's going to go off? 70 00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:44,040 It's target, a junior high school in northeast Gainesville. It's going to go off in ten minutes. 71 00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:46,040 The same police district as the bank. 72 00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:48,040 Hello. 73 00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:56,040 8.22 a.m. the armored car guards arrive at the bank, swelling its total deposits on hand to $300,000. 74 00:07:57,040 --> 00:08:07,040 7.00 a.m. the patrol cars are dispatched to the site of the bomb threat 32 blocks from the bank. 75 00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:13,040 Police now believe that Patrick Mitchell phoned in the false alarm as a diversionary tactic. 76 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:20,040 8.25 a.m. Mitchell and Stewart make their move. 77 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:32,040 Go on, anybody move. Put your hands up, no one will get hurt. 78 00:08:37,040 --> 00:08:41,040 Where are the money bags that the armored truck just dropped off? 79 00:08:41,040 --> 00:08:48,040 I was thinking he's either going to shoot some batteries, going to take someone hostage. I was very frightened. 80 00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:56,040 I remembered laying on the floor in the back. I kept thinking I'll never see my husband or my children again. 81 00:08:56,040 --> 00:09:01,040 I started to cry. I remember thinking that he was going to shoot me in the back. 82 00:09:03,040 --> 00:09:06,040 Keep your hands up, no one will get hurt. 83 00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:21,040 This is a bomb. Nobody move and it won't go off. 84 00:09:23,040 --> 00:09:31,040 As the two men flee, Mitchell drops a bag containing $28,000. Nevertheless, their take for the day is nearly half a million dollars. 85 00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:36,040 The bomb is a phony, but it buys valuable escape time. 86 00:09:37,040 --> 00:09:45,040 8.40 a.m. A woman who works at the storage facility sees Mitchell drive away, a rack full of clothes hung across the back seat. 87 00:09:45,040 --> 00:09:49,040 It is the last sighting of Patrick Michael Mitchell in Gainesville. 88 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:57,040 Two months after the Gainesville robbery, Johnny Salazar Stewart was apprehended. 89 00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:05,040 Despite his innocence plea, he was tried and convicted for his role in the robbery in his today's serving of 40-year sentence. 90 00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:14,040 A year after the robbery, Patrick Mitchell's Cadillac was found abandoned in a storage facility in Tallahassee, 150 miles from Gainesville. 91 00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:20,040 The car was clean of evidence, but Mitchell did leave nine cookbooks in the back seat. 92 00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:26,040 During the last two years, Mitchell has been cited in Texas, Georgia, and Alabama. 93 00:10:26,040 --> 00:10:33,040 However he is Canadian and authorities believe he could have returned to Canada. His last known alias was Johnny Grant. 94 00:10:35,040 --> 00:10:43,040 I think it's imperative that we find Patrick Michael Mitchell because I don't believe that he'll be stopping with the Gainesville robbery. 95 00:10:43,040 --> 00:10:54,040 Based on his previous activities in the past 11 years and his hit frequency, I believe that it's not if he's going to hit but when he's going to hit. 96 00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:22,040 Next, the poignant saga of a little boy torn from his family during the Depression. Perhaps you can help reunite him with his brothers and sisters. 97 00:11:32,040 --> 00:11:37,040 Dylan Vale, Ohio, 1929. The darkest days of the Great Depression. 98 00:11:38,040 --> 00:11:45,040 For an eight-year-old farm boy named Frank, the hard times common to all Americans were especially cruel. 99 00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:57,040 I had the chickens to feed and the grass to cotton, chores to do, and of course I was busy. 100 00:11:59,040 --> 00:12:03,040 I didn't mind that so much because I'd like to have been fed afterward. 101 00:12:04,040 --> 00:12:10,040 For as far back as he can remember, Frank's hardships went beyond his thankless chores. 102 00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:15,040 Have you fed the chickens yet? What have you been doing, you're such a lazy boy. This whole barn has to be clean. 103 00:12:15,040 --> 00:12:18,040 This new hay has to be spread and those chickens have to be fed. 104 00:12:18,040 --> 00:12:21,040 I went so hungry the smell of food made me sick. 105 00:12:21,040 --> 00:12:23,040 No supper for you. 106 00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:32,040 I wasn't allowed in the house. I'd sleep at the barn most of the time or with the dog. 107 00:12:34,040 --> 00:12:40,040 I was bitter, angry, and a very upset young man, say the least. 108 00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:47,040 By age nine, Frank's life had completely disintegrated. 109 00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:53,040 His parents informed him that he wasn't even their son and ordered him off the farm and out of their lives. 110 00:12:54,040 --> 00:12:57,040 Frank was told that his real parents didn't want him either. 111 00:12:57,040 --> 00:13:02,040 They had turned him over to the State Welfare Department just days after he was born. 112 00:13:02,040 --> 00:13:08,040 Frank was left to fend for himself. He had no family and no idea who he really was. 113 00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:15,040 The search for a missing family and one's true identity can be a difficult ordeal. 114 00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:22,040 Many times years of research end with disappointment and the dust-covered files of some county record department. 115 00:13:23,040 --> 00:13:27,040 For those who do succeed, the solution can sometimes be more painful than the quest. 116 00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:32,040 When a child discovers he was abandoned by parents who simply didn't care, 117 00:13:33,040 --> 00:13:39,040 this was a fear that haunted nine-year-old Frank, who's search for the truth would last more than half a century. 118 00:13:43,040 --> 00:13:49,040 After being put out of his home, Frank was shuffled from state institutions to foster families and back again. 119 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:53,040 I was a ward of the State of Ohio. 120 00:13:54,040 --> 00:13:57,040 I ate at the soup kitchens. 121 00:13:58,040 --> 00:14:02,040 I stole food off the front of stores. Just to eat. 122 00:14:02,040 --> 00:14:04,040 No, it was not a thief. 123 00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:09,040 I didn't know anything about my parents. 124 00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:13,040 I was told all types of stories like the family deserted me. 125 00:14:14,040 --> 00:14:16,040 I just was lost. 126 00:14:17,040 --> 00:14:19,040 Frank? Frank? 127 00:14:19,040 --> 00:14:21,040 Frank? 128 00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:23,040 As a teenager, Frank's troubles continued. 129 00:14:24,040 --> 00:14:26,040 Did you hear my question? 130 00:14:27,040 --> 00:14:29,040 Did you read your homework last night? 131 00:14:29,040 --> 00:14:33,040 The belief that his birth parents had willfully abandoned him left Frank dispirited and aimless. 132 00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:35,040 Frank, this is the third time in two weeks. 133 00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:40,040 You're going to stay after school and write the entire chapter on pronouns until you finish. 134 00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:43,040 But at 16, his life took an unexpected turn. 135 00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:47,040 A concerned social worker confirmed that Frank was not his real name. 136 00:14:47,040 --> 00:14:49,040 He had been born Victor Scheiman. 137 00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:51,040 The counselor also made a promise. 138 00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:58,040 If Frank applied himself in the state in school, his real parents would be in the audience when he received his diploma. 139 00:14:59,040 --> 00:15:01,040 He told me my name was Victor Scheiman. 140 00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:08,040 I had a family that he would see that my parents and that would be there on my graduation day. 141 00:15:09,040 --> 00:15:11,040 And I buckled down when to work. 142 00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:13,040 Thank you. 143 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:17,040 Brad Carney. 144 00:15:17,040 --> 00:15:20,040 The day Frank had worked so hard for finally came. 145 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:22,040 He was going to meet his real family. 146 00:15:23,040 --> 00:15:26,040 Frank asked that he officially be graduated Victor Scheiman. 147 00:15:26,040 --> 00:15:29,040 It's the first time he'll lose his real name. 148 00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:32,040 Victor Scheiman. 149 00:15:36,040 --> 00:15:40,040 I thought if my parents were in the audience, they would hear the name and they would respond. 150 00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:42,040 Lisa Goldblatt. 151 00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:50,040 Nobody showed up. 152 00:15:50,040 --> 00:15:52,040 Andy Robinson. 153 00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:56,040 And what's turned out to be one of the sorryest days of my life. 154 00:15:58,040 --> 00:15:59,040 Tina Marie Miller. 155 00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:06,040 I wrote to the Bureau of Charities, the Welfare Department, State of Ohio. 156 00:16:07,040 --> 00:16:13,040 And the answer they got that I received that nothing could be found. 157 00:16:13,040 --> 00:16:16,040 They knew very little. 158 00:16:17,040 --> 00:16:21,040 And that my family had just disappeared without a trace. 159 00:16:22,040 --> 00:16:24,040 So I gave up. 160 00:16:29,040 --> 00:16:33,040 At a complete dead end, Victor had no choice but to move ahead with his life. 161 00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:38,040 In the 1950s, he married Eleanor Kell and started a family of his own. 162 00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:43,040 For 34 years, Victor all but abandoned the hope of finding his family. 163 00:16:45,040 --> 00:16:50,040 But in 1984, Victor learned of an organization in Reynoldsburg, Ohio called Reunite, 164 00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:54,040 a support group for people searching for lost loved ones. 165 00:16:55,040 --> 00:17:00,040 An old school chum told me about this group and I thought, well, what have I got to lose? 166 00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:03,040 A little bit of time? I can spare that. 167 00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:07,040 So I went and I was very amazed. 168 00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:09,040 My name is Victor Scheinman. 169 00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:14,040 I was born September the 5th, 1921 in Alliance, Ohio. 170 00:17:14,040 --> 00:17:17,040 Victor told the group the story of his childhood. 171 00:17:17,040 --> 00:17:21,040 That evening, he met amateur genealogist Rose Murphy. 172 00:17:21,040 --> 00:17:28,040 This man has spent his entire life, 60 plus years, without any knowledge of his history. 173 00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:31,040 I couldn't believe that that could be true. 174 00:17:32,040 --> 00:17:38,040 And it just, it went crossgreens to everything I believe in because I think everyone has the right to their history. 175 00:17:39,040 --> 00:17:45,040 Rose Murphy was determined to find Victor's family and solve the puzzle which had eluded Victor his entire life. 176 00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:51,040 She began sifting through a labyrinth of state adoption records, county welfare files and old newspapers. 177 00:17:52,040 --> 00:17:58,040 Incredibly, less than a week later, she discovered the obituary of a Hungarian immigrant named Lena Schemann. 178 00:17:59,040 --> 00:18:07,040 Lena had died in 1921, just hours after giving birth to her 11th child, the baby's name, Victor. 179 00:18:08,040 --> 00:18:16,040 When I contacted a Hungarian language professor, he said that he would venture to guess and would probably be right 180 00:18:16,040 --> 00:18:24,040 that the family name was actually Simon, a common Hungarian family name, but pronounced by a Hungarian-spoken person 181 00:18:24,040 --> 00:18:35,040 and heard by an English ear would be spelled as Schemann or Schemann or any other forms of spelling, depending upon the person hearing it. 182 00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:42,040 Within 20 minutes, I had located Victor's original birth certificate that had sit here for 64 years. 183 00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:48,040 They hadn't caught it because they're searching for it as the Schemann family rather than the Simon family. 184 00:18:50,040 --> 00:18:57,040 Information found in the obituary and birth certificate enabled Rose to reconstruct the events surrounding Victor's birth. 185 00:18:57,040 --> 00:19:04,040 Victor's father, Dan Simon, had worked for the railroad in Alliance Ohio just 100 miles from where Victor had grown up. 186 00:19:05,040 --> 00:19:12,040 Just before Victor's birth, a tragic series of events was set into motion that would separate him from his family. 187 00:19:12,040 --> 00:19:19,040 The bones and Dan Simon's ankle were shattered. 188 00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:24,040 He was rushed to the hospital. 189 00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:30,040 The bones and Dan Simon's ankle were shattered. 190 00:19:30,040 --> 00:19:35,040 He was rushed to the hospital. 191 00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:40,040 That afternoon, Dan's wife, Lena, went into labor. 192 00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:47,040 Push! That's it! You've got to help me! Good! 193 00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:54,040 I can imagine a tremendous struggle going on physically as well as emotionally. 194 00:19:54,040 --> 00:19:59,040 I can't believe I'm in this. 195 00:19:59,040 --> 00:20:11,040 I can imagine a tremendous struggle going on physically as well as emotionally in that room as Lena gave life to Victor and lost her own in the process. 196 00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:24,040 I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff may come. 197 00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:31,040 According to her obituary, Mr. Simon was taken from the hospital to the funeral. 198 00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:36,040 With this broken ankle, the father being totally unable to care for the child, 199 00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:46,040 welfare placed the child for foster care and in fact indicated in their records that the father agreed to that foster care only with great regret. 200 00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:53,040 Well, here he is. Strong and healthy boy. His name is Victor. 201 00:20:53,040 --> 00:20:55,040 We've decided to call him Frank. 202 00:20:55,040 --> 00:20:57,040 Frank? Frank is your name. 203 00:20:57,040 --> 00:21:04,040 I feel very strongly that his father returned to welfare after he recuperated and was out of the hospital and said, 204 00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:08,040 you know, you have my son Victor Simon. I want my son back. 205 00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:13,040 He could very possibly have been told we don't have anybody by that name, which they didn't have. 206 00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:19,040 They had a Victor Emanuel Shimon. They didn't have a Victor Simon in their records. 207 00:21:24,040 --> 00:21:30,040 Victor Simon can take comfort in knowing that he was not truly an unwodded child, 208 00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:34,040 but rather a victim of an unlikely conspiracy of events. 209 00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:38,040 However, several pieces to the puzzle of his life are still missing. 210 00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:46,040 I hope that I meet some member of my family to know that I belong. 211 00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:49,040 I want to know what happened. 212 00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:55,040 I want my children to have their side of the family like uncles, brothers, sisters and so on. 213 00:21:55,040 --> 00:22:01,040 I just want to see somebody and talk to somebody that I belong to. 214 00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:10,040 When we return, a brutal attack leaves a mother and her two daughters dead. 215 00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:13,040 The woman's husband is wanted for murder. 216 00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:25,040 Las Vegas, city of big dreams and high rollers. 217 00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:30,040 This desert town has attracted every kind of crook and con man. 218 00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:34,040 However, during the last decade, the dry climate and limitless entertainment 219 00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:38,040 have also begun to attract a large retirement community. 220 00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:45,040 Frank Allen, a Los Angeles businessman, bought his dream retirement home in 1986. 221 00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:50,040 He was located in an elegant gated community ten miles from downtown Las Vegas. 222 00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:55,040 As a temporary measure, he rented the house to another family, 223 00:22:55,040 --> 00:23:00,040 maintaining a room for himself as well for his frequent business trips to Nevada. 224 00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:05,040 But Frank Allen had no idea that Joe Smith, the man who was renting his house, 225 00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:07,040 had an unsavory past. 226 00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:14,040 Joe Weldon Smith, who called himself a real estate investor, had a long history as a con man 227 00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:17,040 and had once been convicted of attempted grand theft. 228 00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:22,040 He lived in the Nevada house with his wife Judith and her two daughters from her previous marriage, 229 00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:25,040 12-year-old Christie and 20-year-old Wendy. 230 00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:32,040 On October 6, 1990, Frank Allen expected to have the house to himself. 231 00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:36,040 Joe Smith has said that he and his family would be out of town for a few days. 232 00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:41,040 Instead of a restful weekend, Allen had stepped into a nightmare. 233 00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:49,040 I locked the door behind me and went up the top of the steps and unlocked the bedroom and went in. 234 00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:57,040 I started undressing, took off my jacket shirt tie, and suddenly stopped in my track and said, 235 00:23:57,040 --> 00:23:59,040 something is wrong. 236 00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:02,040 I said, I don't know what it is, but something is wrong. 237 00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:15,040 Joe, what the hell are you doing? 238 00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:23,040 I grabbed him at the wrist on that arm, his right arm, and that's when I shook him and I said, 239 00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,040 Joe, what in the hell are you trying to do? 240 00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:30,040 And then it was clear to me that he was trying to murder me. 241 00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:40,040 Coming down the steps, I said, now I've locked myself in with these double-dead boats 242 00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:43,040 and I don't have time to reach for a key. 243 00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:47,040 So I ran across the four-year into the living room, dining room, 244 00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:51,040 and sure enough, he went the opposite direction to hit me up in the kitchen. 245 00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:54,040 And I doubled back for the front door. 246 00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:59,040 I still didn't think I had time to stumble for keys, so I went straight through the door. 247 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:14,040 He stood in the door and glared at me and then walked back in the direction of the bar. 248 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:21,040 And I drove my car up to the guard gate and said to the guard, call the police, there's a man in my house. 249 00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:26,040 Joe, Joe, it's the police. You're in there, come on out. 250 00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:36,040 Ten minutes later, local police arrived at the house, expecting to find Joe Smith still inside. 251 00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:40,040 They quickly made their way from the living room to a downstairs bedroom. 252 00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:42,040 Joe, come on out, Joe. 253 00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:47,040 They thought they had cornered Joe Smith hiding under a blanket. 254 00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:52,040 Instead, they were confronted with a tragic scene of 12-year-old Christy Cox, Miss Deppner. 255 00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,040 She had been strangled and bludgeoned to death. 256 00:25:56,040 --> 00:26:02,040 It was obvious that she had been dead for quite some time. She had several wounds to the face and to her head. 257 00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:10,040 In the next bedroom, they forcefully entered that also, and that's when Wendy Cox was found laying beside the bed. 258 00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:18,040 She had approximately 32 wounds to her head and defensive wounds to her hands, and she had also been strangled. 259 00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:31,040 Officers went upstairs, searched the open rooms, the game rooms and so forth, and then went to the master bedroom, entered that, the doors were closed, they entered that bedroom, and that's when they found Joe Smith lying in the bed. 260 00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:38,040 Joe Smith, Joe's wife and mother of the two girls had also been bludgeoned to death. 261 00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:44,040 Police later determined that the three victims had been dead for approximately 18 hours. 262 00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:54,040 Hello? 263 00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:59,040 Two hours after the bodies were discovered, Smith telephoned his wife's daughter-in-law. 264 00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:03,040 He denied all involvement in the murders. 265 00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:07,040 Joe, what's going on? It's after four in the morning. 266 00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,040 Are you sitting down? 267 00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:11,040 Yes. 268 00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:17,040 Approximately four at thirty in the morning, on October six, called her on the phone, told her that her mother and sisters had been murdered. 269 00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:23,040 And he had killed one of the people that did the killing and knew who the other ones were. 270 00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:30,040 Where are you? It doesn't matter where I am right now. You just have to believe I had nothing to do with it. 271 00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:39,040 If I don't kill myself, I'm going to find the guys who did it. I know who they are, and I'm going to kill them. 272 00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:50,040 In my opinion, it was a ruse by Mr. Smith to get support from Judas Smith's family members and make them believe that he was not involved in the killings. 273 00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:58,040 Joe Smith fled in a gold Lincoln Continental with Vanity, Nevada license plates, reading, Smitty Two. 274 00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:03,040 He is wanted on three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder with a deadly weapon. 275 00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:09,040 Smith is fifty years old, six feet tall, and weighs a hundred and sixty pounds. 276 00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:15,040 He has brown hair and brown eyes. He may be working in real estate. 277 00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:19,040 Police are still puzzled by what appears to have been a motiveless crime. 278 00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,040 By all accounts, a Smith's marriage was a happy one. 279 00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:31,040 Though Joe Smith was in dire financial straits, he was not named in his wife's will, nor did he have life insurance policies for her or her daughters. 280 00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:36,040 Authorities believe Smith may now be somewhere in the southwestern United States or Mexico. 281 00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:47,040 Just minutes after we profiled Smith's case, an anonymous viewer called our telecenter to report that the fugitive was living near Los Angeles, California. 282 00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:54,040 Smith was hiding out at this motel, but managed to escape before he could be apprehended. 283 00:28:55,040 --> 00:29:03,040 Once we established that Joe Weldon Smith was in the Los Angeles area, we focused our attention to his brother, who we knew that he had close contact with. 284 00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:09,040 After five days of surveilling this brother, we established where the suspect was residing. 285 00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:18,040 Twenty minutes later, Joe Weldon Smith was arrested at another local motel where he was registered under an assumed name. 286 00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:25,040 Inside Smith's room, detectives recovered several credit and identification cards. 287 00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:30,040 Smith told police that he was in the process of creating a new identity. 288 00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:36,040 At the time of his arrest, Joe Smith indicated to me that he had seen the last hearing of the Unsolved Mystery Program. 289 00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:43,040 He also told me that it was very tough being a fugitive, and he always knew that someone would be knocking at the door one day. 290 00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:45,040 He was kind of glad it's all over at this point. 291 00:29:48,040 --> 00:30:05,040 Next, former residents claim that this house is haunted, but are the spirits friendly, evil, or just a figure of overactive imaginations? 292 00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:25,040 In the tiny hamlet of Fish Springs, Nevada stands a 120-year-old Kansas-style farmhouse. 293 00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:31,040 It was originally built next to a graveyard in Virginia City and has been moved three times. 294 00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:37,040 Some people find it very odd that the houses managed to survive for more than a century. 295 00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:43,040 Others believe the explanation is simple. They say this house is haunted. 296 00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:55,040 I'd like to see it destroyed. I think it is a center point for spirits. The house is something keeping it alive. 297 00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:59,040 Man, I'd like to see it burn to the ground. 298 00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:09,040 I've always loved older homes, and I'm fascinated by them, by their building, and the fact that they have so much history that they've withstood all that time. 299 00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:17,040 I just feel like they have the memory of their own, just like people. They can remember the past and things that have happened there. 300 00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:33,040 There's something about haunted houses that even the most skeptical among us finds difficult to resist. 301 00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:38,040 Perhaps it's because they bring back childhood memories and things that go bump in the night. 302 00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:45,040 Or perhaps they just like a good ghost story. This is a tale of two families, the Kelceys and the Robinsons. 303 00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:52,040 Both families believe they had supernatural encounters while they lived in the Nevada house, but the end result would be very different for each. 304 00:31:52,040 --> 00:32:00,040 Is this a story of a congenial and well-meaning spirit? Is it the tale of a fearsome poltergeist, or is it simply a tale? 305 00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:04,040 You, no doubt, have an opinion of your own. 306 00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:14,040 The Kelcey family bought the house on their second 1978, 100 years to the day after the man who built it had died. 307 00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:19,040 From the beginning, there was something eerie about the house. 308 00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:30,040 I felt like we had gotten more than we bargained for, and I wouldn't walk through the house in the dark at all for fear that I was going to run into something, something that wasn't supposed to be there. 309 00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:41,040 Just as you're getting to sleep, you would hear footsteps walking up and down the stairs. 310 00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:43,040 What's wrong? 311 00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:50,040 My husband would tell me that he heard a swishing noise, like the rustle of the old chiffon skirts was how he described it. 312 00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:52,040 Sounds like swishing, doesn't it? 313 00:32:52,040 --> 00:33:00,040 We got really scared, or I did anyway, thinking that either there really was something happening in the house, or we had just seen too many scary movies, 314 00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:04,040 and my imagination was running wild because it was an old house. 315 00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:14,040 The Kelcey's daughter, Jennifer, who was then four years old, had an even more bizarre experience. 316 00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:27,040 I'd just woken up for some reason, I don't know why, and I remember I rolled over and I looked at my bedroom door, and I saw this little boy. 317 00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:40,040 He looked like he was sad, and the man he just looked like he was really concerned, and it was just only there for a few seconds, but then it just disappeared, it was weird. 318 00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:48,040 They didn't look familiar to me at all, but the way they were looking at me just seemed like they knew me. It was just really weird. 319 00:33:49,040 --> 00:34:03,040 For some reason I keep thinking that the levitation was the same night that I saw him, for some reason I just combined the two together in memory, but I just remember laying there in my bed, it seemed like my whole bed was just floating. 320 00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:24,040 After Jennifer told me what had happened, I was very scared that things were starting to happen that aren't supposed to happen normally, and I told my husband about it, and he asked me if she was actually levitated, and I said from what she was saying that's what it sounded like. 321 00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:43,040 Jim and Susan Kelsey often heard strange footsteps approaching their daughter's bedroom. They were concerned for her safety. In desperation, the Kelsey's decided to call in the local man, Daniel Martin, who had a reputation as a psychic. 322 00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:53,040 When I first talked to Mrs. Kelsey, she was more concerned, confused, because she didn't understand what was happening. 323 00:34:55,040 --> 00:35:05,040 After visiting the house, Martin returned to his home and put himself into a deep trance. Incredibly, Martin says that while he was in the trance, he met the Kelsey's ghost. 324 00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:32,040 I contacted an entity, appeared to me as a sailing man, that's what came to my mind, he had the mustache, and at that time I asked him, who are you? And he told me his name was Samuel, and he told me at the time that his purpose there was to protect the child, and he was there not to harm anyone. 325 00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:43,040 When I explained to him that he was frightening the family, and Samuel promised not to do these things in the future, not to frighten them by doing frightening things to them. 326 00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:59,040 Jennifer asked me, she said, does that mean he's going away? And I said, I don't know. And then a couple weeks later, things had quieted down, and she asked me if he had moved away, and I said, I didn't know, and she said, well I don't think he did, she says I think he's up in the attic. 327 00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:20,040 The Kelcies became convinced that their ghost, Samuel, was a spirit who meant them no harm. Three years later, in 1981, they moved to a more modern house nearby. The old home was leased to a potential buyer. By now, the Kelcies had three children, including an infant son. 328 00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:24,040 Right there. Wow. 329 00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:45,040 When my son was seven weeks old, I had taken some pictures of him, and I'd run out of flash, and I had the rest of the roll of film to use up, and so I decided to try to get the pictures taken of him anyway, and I propped him up on the love seat next to the lamp and some stuffed animals around him, and proceeded to take the rest of the roll of film, figuring there should be enough light. 330 00:36:46,040 --> 00:37:08,040 When I went to pick the pictures up, I opened them up and I pulled them out, and there was a man on the first picture, and I thought these aren't my pictures, so I went through them, and after that initial picture, everything in there, the roll was of my son, and I checked my negative, and the man was on it. 331 00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:31,040 The only way I can explain the photograph is that it is of our ghost Samuel, because my daughter had told me about three weeks earlier that she felt that he had moved with us, and I didn't believe her, and I just saw the picture of him, and it was his way of telling us that he had in fact moved with us. That was the only explanation there was. 332 00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:47,040 The mysterious photograph became front page news and fish springs. Interestingly, nobody in town recognized the man in the picture. Unsolved mysteries brought in photographic expert Vernon Miller to analyze the snapshot. 333 00:37:48,040 --> 00:38:03,040 I can't say precisely how this image was formed. There's not enough evidence. The image is three dimensional, and has reflected qualities, where the skin is tight against the skull, it's brighter, and there's highlights there. 334 00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:23,040 A manifestation of a ghost is usually thought of as transparent or self-illuminant, and this is definitely reflected light. I detected lines, horizontal lines across the image. In conclusion, I would say that Samuel's ghost was made off of a large television screen. 335 00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:38,040 The picture of Samuel is not a fake. There's a lot of things that can't be explained, and I just think this is one of them. I know I can't explain how somebody came out in my picture that wasn't there when I snapped it. 336 00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:50,040 The Calcies insist they have never photographed their television screen. Could the picture be a simple accident, even a hoax? Or could it really be a ghost? 337 00:38:50,040 --> 00:39:02,040 For 15 months, the new tenants at the Fish Springs House reported nothing out of the ordinary. But then in October of 1989, the house was rented to another family. 338 00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:15,040 Steve and Mona Robinson knew nothing about the house's ghostly past. Soon, however, the Robinson family was caught up in the middle of its very own ghost story. 339 00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:39,040 I felt that there was ghosts in the house, but then I kept telling myself, no. And things started happening more and more. The footsteps, the bangs. I'd bring it up to Steve once in a while, and he would say, no, there's got to be some reason why all this is happening. 340 00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:46,040 You know, it's an old house. We even thought about pipes. You know, we thought of all kinds of things. 341 00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:54,040 The Robinsons became extremely concerned when their 11-year-old son, Garrett, began to have frightening experiences. 342 00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:06,040 I started hearing noises upstairs, and I was walking, banging and stuff. 343 00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:17,040 After I heard the laughing, I went up to the top of the stairs. I was scared, though, because I heard all these footsteps already. 344 00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:27,040 And there was a whole bunch of them walking around, banging, full of us upstairs. 345 00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:38,040 I started hearing humming, three different voices. Fire one, a yelling, and a roaring. 346 00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:50,040 I didn't even open the door. When I got out, when I was inside my driveway, there was all this banging out the screen door. 347 00:40:51,040 --> 00:41:01,040 And then, for some reason, I looked over to the window, and I saw this old guy, and he had this rain on his face. 348 00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:07,040 A smart kid, and a real mean one, like he was trying to be mean. 349 00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:14,040 Six-year-old Miles was the next child to fall under the spell of the house. 350 00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:30,040 I remember one night, I was getting lifted out of bed. I got lifted up pretty high, and I didn't know what was happening. 351 00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:34,040 I just got lifted up. 352 00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:46,040 Well, I had told my husband then that I didn't want to live there. And he said, well, he goes, they're not going to hurt us. He wasn't afraid. 353 00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:53,040 Finally, Mona Robinson reached the end of her rope. 354 00:41:54,040 --> 00:42:05,040 My husband and I were getting ready to go to bed, and I couldn't sleep. And I could hear bangs in the hallway, coming down the stairs. 355 00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:12,040 Then all of a sudden, I heard right behind my bed, in a man's voice, call me bitch. 356 00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:23,040 It was a bad voice. Mad. Angry. 357 00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:33,040 I thought, you know, that she was going nuts, but at the same time, I believed her. 358 00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:42,040 She or she used to go to bed. She was always afraid that once we got into bed, the noises would start. So she'd stay up all night long. 359 00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:56,040 I thought like they were trying to drive me crazy. I would never believe anybody that told me what has happened to me. I wouldn't believe them. 360 00:42:57,040 --> 00:43:03,040 I do believe now because we had it happen to us. You never believe anything like that until it happens to you. 361 00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:13,040 On January 31, 1990, the Robinsons moved out of the house less than four months after they had moved in. 362 00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:21,040 The Kelsys, who still owned the house, once again called in Daniel Martin. Once again, he put himself into a trance. 363 00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:27,040 Once again, he claimed he met ghosts, this time different ones. 364 00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:37,040 That time, I encountered three entities, two men and one woman. 365 00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:44,040 My first impressions when I approached these entities were that they were of the Virginia City era back in the old days. 366 00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:55,040 These entities were not destructive. They were just contankerous, kind of a rowdy little gang of troublemakers. It had been and still was. 367 00:43:56,040 --> 00:44:08,040 Martin says he asked the spirits to leave the house, but it was too late to do the Robinsons any good. They were already settled in a new home, far away from hauntings and poltergeists. 368 00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:15,040 To most of us, this saga sounds incredible, but the Kelsys and the Robinsons take it very seriously. 369 00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:23,040 It is interesting to note that last year, the Kelsys sold the house to a couple with two children who bought with full knowledge of the stories of spirits and haunting. 370 00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:35,040 The new owners have been in the home for eight months and have reported no unusual phenomena. Perhaps ghosts, like many other things, exist only in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps. 371 00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:59,040 On our next Unsolved Mysteries, for a lonely widow, Eric Kessler is like a dream come true. Charming, elegant and cosmopolitan, he has a perfect qualities for a potential husband and a master con man. 372 00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:10,040 His elaborate schemes have allegedly netted more than $150,000 from at least four vulnerable women. Authorities are convinced that his list of victims is much longer and still growing. 373 00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:15,040 Join me for our next edition of Unsolved Mysteries. 374 00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:03,040 Unolved Mysteries