Elaborate Stories | 48 Hours" Full Episodes | Forensic Files

[Music] something pretty disturbing happened in Circleville starting small and flourishing over
[Music] decades residents began to receive letters but accused the citizens of being involved in some pretty terrible
things embezzlement domestic IC violence Affairs and even murder the Circleville letter writer
knew everything about everyone and knew everyone's Secrets they were vicious and ugly somebody with some
severe psychological problems I would Hazard to guess the threatening Anonymous letters
kept coming hundreds of them most were postmarked from Columbus Ohio about 30 m North which is where I grew up and where
I was living in March of 1977 when small town Circleville began to feel Under Siege when just a walk to
the mailbox could trigger Terror especially in the case of one woman who lived here a school bus driver by the
name of Mary Gillespie Mary Gillespie goes out to her mailbox she receives a letter she opens it it's an anonymous
letter distinct handwriting writing and it's telling her to end the affair with the superintendent of the
school there Gordon Massie Mrs glaspie stay away from Massie I've been observing your house and I
know you have children it's your daughter's turn to pay for what you've done I shall come out there and put a
bullet in that little girl's head [Music] these letters were being sent to newspapers elected officials private
citizens and they're all saying the same thing that basically Gordon Massie the superintendent he needs to be exposed he
needs to be fired her husband Ron begins to receive them as well Mr Gillespie your wife is seeing Gordon Massie you
should catch them together and kill them both he doesn't deserve to live well he got letters saying that if
he didn't do something about this Affair his life would be in danger we know what
kind of car you drive we know where your your kids go to school by August of 1977 everything
changes when Ron Gillespie gets a call late one night enraged he picks up a gun gets in his truck and drives off and
told the daughter that he was going to confront the letter writer he was traveling at a high speed lost control
of the truck went off the road hit a tree and was killed the letter writer had made
threats to Ron Gillespie that he could end up dead then he ended up dead was Ron Gillespie's death an accident or was
he murdered murdered this case has really left its Mark yeah and it's destroyed a lot of people I think there
was a big cover up turned out to be quite a mystery do you think you know who wrote those
Anonymous letters yes I do [Music] [Music] Circleville Ohio has the look and feel
of a quaint Midwestern town in many ways it's sort of an allamerican town still has a pretty rural character
to it and some families have been there for decades its major attraction says journalist Martin yant is the annual
Pumpkin Show let's give him a big hand of Applause guys well it was a good place to
live fairly peaceful till all this stuff started Janet Cassidy is talking about that barrage of anonymous poison pen
letters that began arriving in mailboxes all over Circleville in 1977 small towns have big secrets buried
deep under those freshly mowed lawns it caught the attention of Marie Mayu who researched the story for her podcast
whatever remains this Anonymous author was hellbent to expose every little ugly Secret in
Circleville at first the writers fixated on the married school district superintendent Gordon Massie was a well
thought of man in Circleville and his rumored relationship with the school bus driver Mary Gillespie was a wife and a
mother they were accusing her of adultery you've got the superintendent possibly having an affair with a school
bus driver wasn't that kind of the talk of town yeah it was definitely JW White D grew up in
Pickaway County with her sister Janet have you seen Mary's picture she was Miss Jackson she looks really attractive
there yes she was Mary married her high school sweetheart Ron gesp and you wouldn't find a better person than
Ronnie gpie the couple had two children and settled in Circleville I mean this had to be very
awkward for Mary Gillespie for her children for for Gordon Massie for his wife for his son it must have been awful
I mean it was just sort of this all invasive poison there was nobody that was off limits to this letter writer and
it wasn't just a campaign of letters there were phone calls and offensive signs that began appearing along Mary's
bus route Ron would have to go out and he would have to find and pick up all the signage about his wife and kids
around Circleville determined to stop the riter the Gillespies brought their letters to the Sheriff's office there
was an ongoing investigation they were tapping phones they were watching houses they tried to work with the USPS to
check the mail but the letters continued and small town Circleville was consumed
with speculation was the writer male or female did the writer live in town then in August 197 7 Mary left her
husband and children at home and drove to Florida with her sister-in-law Ron had told her he knew who the letter
writer was and he was going to take care of this problem while they were in Florida they were in rot when they
learned that Ron had crashed his truck into a tree after getting that mysterious phone
call the coroner ruled his death an accident but Ron's brother-in-law Paul fresh hour believed he had been murdered
mured although a number of people told me that he was not a heavy drinker he had almost twice the legal limit of
alcohol in his blood also suspicious under Ron's body police found a 22 caliber revolver the gun had been fired
once so then the question was was he shooting at the letter writer the sheriff didn't give that any Credence at
all but Paul fres kept pushing the Pickaway County Sheriff to take a closer look Pam Stanton was close to the fresh
hours he wanted the truth about Ron's death he wanted to know who was writing the letters
too the attacks on Mary Gillespie and Gordon Massie didn't stop now letters were also being sent to local businesses
government offices schools and people who lived in the area this person was at that point pretty Unbound
not afraid to say anything and it scared a lot of people you know is he coming after me or she coming after
me Mary had always denied having an affair with Massie but after Ron's death she says they began seeing each other
and that's when the threats against her became even more vicious everyone knows what you have
done if you don't believe us just make them mad and find out for yourself Robin Yokum writes Mysteries
but back in the early 1980s he was a crime reporter for The Columbus Dispatch there were obscenities and and threats
to uh do harm to Mrs Gillespie's daughter it's your daughter's turn to pay for what you've
done on February 7th 1983 Mary Gillespie was driving her empty School Bus heading
to pick up kids it's 3:30 p.m. she's about to turn left here on Five Points Pike when she
looks over there and sees a handmade sign on a fence it talks about her 13-year-old daughter and it's obscene so
she pulls the bus over here but when she goes over there to try to pull the sign
off the fence she realizes that it's rigged to wine in a box she says she takes that box home she then opens it
and gets a shocking surprise it was a gun and it was ready to go off when Mary brought the box to
the Sheriff's Office investigators quickly realized it was a booby trap Yokum was in The Newsroom when word got
out and I remember the excitement from a newspaper perspective it's a great story
a woman who had been the target of all these letters finds a a booby trap with a 25 caliber handgun rigged to it all
reporters would want to cover that story especially if there was a dramatic twist
and when did Paul fresh hour become the suspect pretty quickly there's small town
Intrigue a seemingly omnipresent unknown villain extracting revenge on the people
of Circleville by uncovering their secrets a mysterious death an elaborate attempted
murder to this day there's a fierce debate about who that V villain is or was so we'll take you back through the
evidence and the theories and you could decide this sounds like something out of
an Agatha Christie novel doesn't it it does there's a cast of characters the letters would keep coming and then the
inevitable attempted murder but it is very much an Agatha Christi feel to it and just like one of christe's mysteries
the gun found in the booby trap provided the first clue f firearm examiners at BCI Ohio's Bureau of criminal
investigation were able to restore the partially filed off serial number and when they traced the gun it came to a
co-worker of Paul's he said yeah I sold that to Paul fresh hour on the surface says Martin yant it
was shocking because Paul fresh hour and his wife Karen Sue had been close to Mary Gillespie and her late husband Ron
Karen Sue's brother it was kind of an extended family that seemed to socialize together but by 1983 when Sheriff's
investigators went to talk to Karen sue the fresh hours were in the midst of a contentious divorce Karen Sue gave them
quite an ear fool she told investigators that Paul had become infuriated with Mary Karen said that Paul had thought
the world of Ron and Mary before Ron died but after after his death Paul hated Mary hated her over the Massy deal
and then Karen Sue told them that her EST strange husband was behind circleville's Anonymous
letters she had found one letter torn up in a commode and she had found a couple of
other letters hidden in the house when investigators went to see Paul fresh hour Marie Mayu says he was very
Cooperative did he demand to have a lawyer no he answered all of their questions and readily admitted the gun
belonged to him well they asked him how the gun ended up in the booby trap and he said I don't know fresh hour told
investigators his gun had been stolen weeks earlier and allowed them to search his house and his car he even gave them
samples of his handwriting it definitely does seem like he has absolutely nothing
to hide at that point he denied being the letter writer and said he had nothing to do with the booby trap but he
failed a polygraph so Paul fresh hour was arrested for the attempted murder of Mary
Gillespie were you surprised when he was charged with attempted murder yes yeah I
was this was the man Pam Stanton called Uncle Paul and says their families were so close she thought of him as a second
father I mean was he worried his life was on the line his freedom yeah he was scared anybody would be fresh hour was
never charged with sending any of the threatening harassing letters but in Circleville there was an assumption that
the letter writer was finally behind bars on October 24th 1983 Paul frar went on trial at the Pickaway County
Courthouse in Circleville there was a big deal Robin Yokum didn't cover the trial but he followed all the news
coverage you know he was The Mastermind behind this alleged booby trap but almost everything focused on the letters
first up was the intended victim Mary Gillespie she testified about finding the booby trap and then over defense
objections she was asked about the anonymous letters she had received how damaging was that to Paul
fresh hour at his trial that was very very damaging the defense argued there was no direct
threat to Mary's life in the letters so they weren't relevant to the case but the judge allowed in 39 of them it was a
break for the prosecution who claimed the writing on the booby trap shared similarities to those letters
the letter and the writing that was on the 2x4 was the same block handwriting sort of the same Cadence and the same
message as the anonymous letter writer the state brought in the BCI handwriting analyst who compared the writing on the
booby trap to the letter sent to Mary and then to samples of Paul fresh hour's handwriting they had handwriting
analyses that indicated that the letters could have been written by Paul Frau and
a second expert originally a defense witness agreed I mean that's pretty damaging isn't it when a witness hired
by the defense ends up testifying for the prosecution I can only imagine it was something you'd want to
avoid it was far more difficult for the prosecution to prove fresh hour made the
booby trap was Paul fresh hour's fingerprints found on the gun or the box that held the gun no and they didn't
have a whole lot of evidence about the booby trap other than he admitted it was his
gun there was circumstantial evidence fresh hour had taken the day off from work the same day the booby trap was
found and that box that held the gun an industrialized chalk box like this one was easily found at anheiser Bush where
Paul worked they had his gun in the booby trap and they had the chalk box so they thought they had plenty of
evidence but no one saw fresh hour near the booby trap he had a pretty good Alibi for most of the day Paul fresh
hour didn't take the stand but multiple defense Witnesses testified to seeing him at home he was having work done on
his house the reason he said he took the day off as the trial progressed I'm thinking a lot of this stuff just
doesn't add up you know where are the fingerprints where's the physical evidence but it was enough evidence for
the jurors they found Paul fresh hour guilty of attempted [Music] murder how did you hear the
verdict even after all this time it's still hard isn't it I got home and everybody was
just a basket case and they were crying everybody was upset he received the maximum sentence 7
to 25 years in prison when Paul fresh hour was convicted did everybody in town breathe
this sigh of relief the letter writer is caught if it's over I think that's that's a fair assessment they've linked
him to the letters they linked him to the booby trap we're going to get this guy out of our community get him in
prison everything will kind of go back to normal except it didn't because the letters never stopped
[Music] Paul was living a a pretty good life had never had any problems with the law
basically he lost everything lost his home lost his job went to prison it was inconceivable to Paul Fresh's family and
friends that the man they so admired could be convicted of attempted murder it's just Preposterous there's no way he
wasn't dum enough put his own gun in a booby trap and anybody could have gotten that
gun and even today former investigative journalists Martin yant and Robin Yokum question whether fresh hour's verdict
was fair can I tell you I'm 100% sure that he didn't do it no I can't if I can tell you had I been sitting on that jury
I I would have never sent a guy to prison based on that flimsy evidence the more I got involved in the case the more
I saw there were just too many question marks at trial the prosecution had branded Paul fres hour the Circleville
letter writer but once he was locked up how did menacing Anonymous letters keep coming I'm not done about one or two
letters there were hundreds of letters that went out after he was in prisoned the Pickaway County Sheriff couldn't say
how fresh hour was able to write and send those letters but he was certain Paul was re responsible the prison
Warden disagreed his Warden insisted that would be impossible they kept him in isolation
they did not allow him to have pens or paper he was strip searched all his incoming and outgoing mail was inspected
there is absolutely positively no way Paul freshire was writing those letters and smuggling him out from prison no way
after yokam and yant wrote articles about Paul fresh hour they also received letters and
inexplicably so did Paul fresh hour behind bars letter writer bragged about setting him up he said when we set him
up we set him up good and who did Paul think had set him up Karen sue his ex-wife his ex-wife Paul fresh hour's
lawyer raised that very possibility during his closing argument who hated Paul enough to try to get him into
trouble if you read the divorce decree who stands to profit financi eventually if Paul is convicted goes to
prison Pam Stanton says that during that divorce battle Karen Su lost her home custody of their daughters and was
living in a trailer on Mary Gillespie's property Uncle Paul's out of the picture
she got it off and Karen Sue was one of the first to link Paul to the anonymous letters remember she told investigators
that she found some at their home including that one in the commode Karen tried to piece it back together when
Paul was not at home and said she could make the name of glesby out on the letter could she show them these letters
no she didn't keep the letters does that make sense not to me why wouldn't she run off right away to the Sheriff's
Office and say look this is from my husband he's the letter writer she didn't do any of that until after the
booby trap was found do you believe that Paul freshh hour did set up the booby trap and tried to kill Mary Gillespie
nope I don't I think somebody stole his gun to set him up and it worked in the early 1990s when Martin
yamp began investigating fresh hour's case he discovered evidence and police reports of an alternate
suspect there was another bus driver who saw what I think is very significant was
something that never came up at trial and it points in a whole different direction investigators never followed
up but yant did the female bus driver told him that 20 minutes before Mary found that booby
trap she had driven by the same spot she said she saw a man standing beside an El
Camino that looked like this one but the man turned away from her and acted like
he was going to the bathroom so she didn't get a good look at him the description didn't seem to match Paul
fresh hour she said he was a large man with Sandy hair and Paul was not large and he had very dark hair and wasn't
Karen Sue at that point dating a man who was large with Sandy hair yes and what about the
elkino there's no evidence that any inquiries were made about who might have an El Camino didn't in fact Karen Sue's
brother have an El Camino that's what I've been told but Marie Mayu believes trying to connect the booby trap to
Karen Sue is tenuous at best there's someone who looked like the man she was dating driving a car that looked like it
could have been her brothers none of that points back to Karen Sue I don't believe that she framed her husband for
this or was responsible for it 10 years after Paul fresa went to prison the Intrigue surrounding the case caught the
attention of the television series Unsolved Mysteries but in December 1993 before filming even began the show
received a postcard with an ominous threat forget Circleville Ohio if you come to Ohio you elos will pay the
circle well writer it didn't deter the show from going to Circleville even Paul fresh hour who had just been released on
parole agreed to talk I'd really like to see some really look at this case on the
letters reopen the letter part of it and get in find out who wrote the letters Pam Stanton says Karen Su was not happy
that Unsolved Mysteries was in town or that Pam agreed to be interviewed I got a phone call and her telling me it would
be in my best interest not to go Karen Sue didn't participate in the program but according to Pam she kept track of
everyone who did she sat in a car on the other side of the the intersection and took pictures of
everybody going in and out for the interviews if true Marie Mayu says that doesn't prove anything what's more Karen
Sue has never been considered a suspect by police I think she's a a very convenient villain we reached out to her
but she did not respond to our requests for an interview there are so many twists and turns in this case all of a
sudden something will surface makes you rethink what you were thinking Martin yant is right and there's another twist
to come after Paul fresh hour went to prison how do you think the letters continued
it took nearly 20 years but in 1994 the Circleville letters abruptly stopped when Paul fresh hour was
released from prison did people when he got out still think he was the letter writer yeah
there he was very hurt and he was hurt with what it did to his family a very unil War had been raging for years
between Paul fresh hour and his ex-wife Karen Sue even their two daughters were divided over their dad and caught in the
middle was their son Mark he was so loyal to his mom but he loved his dad too but with Sue you were going to be
her son or his son Pam Stanton says Mark chose his mom and never once visited his
his father in prison he wouldn't tell me why he just said he couldn't it was Paul fresh
hour's gun discovered in the booby trap that helped land him behind bars he did tell some people that the gun had
been stolen according to Martin yant fresh hour strongly suspected that the thief was his own
son and I did interview one man that said he specifically told him that he thought it was Mark the
son and this was before there was any talk of a booby trap before the booby trap fresh hour kept his suspicions
about his son to himself says yant family loyalty meant more to him even though his son had totally rejected
him why didn't he say more why didn't he point the finger at his son Paul get his
son in trouble oh no Uncle Paul had never done that but he knew he would he could go to prison I don't care Uncle
Paul would have died before he'd have seen Mark go to jail all this destroyed Mark the divorce the letters it all
destroyed him in a way that could never be fixed Just Before Sunrise on September
11th 2002 in Portsmouth Ohio a man's body was found floating in the scota river it was 39-year-old Mark fresh hour he
had shot himself his mother Karen Sue later told police her son had suffered for years
from depression and I firmly believe when Mark took his life he could not deal with the guilt any
longer if Paul fres actually had nothing to do with the booby trap is it also possible he had nothing
to do with the letters as he told me I didn't write the letters I didn't do this even after he got out of prison he
approached the FBI and asked them to investigate the case the FBI never responded says jant but today nearly
three decades later one of its former star profilers agreed to examine the Circleville letters for 48 hours Mary
eleno tul has explored some of the darkest Criminal Minds from the Green River Killer sir you the unber to the
unibomber whoever the writer is they're flying under the radar screen coming across as very normal and people would
not suspect them who was the cille rider or were there multiple Riders otou believes one
solitary author churned out every letter when you have one person person and one
person only who has that secret that person can take the secret to the grave number one do you think it's male
or female can you tell right and I knew that would be one of your first questions when it comes to a letter
writer gender is very difficult to discern that's because the writer was clever consistently deceptive and
manipulative says otol you see the manipulation continue throughout these letters she went all the way back to the
writer's first letters in 19 1977 hunting for hints about gender and found some the letter writer kept
referring to I'm the boyfriend of a woman they wanted to make you believe I'm not a woman I'm a
man and seeing how they were trying to hide who they were makes me think there could be a good possibility it's a
female altogether ool inspect Ed 98 letters finding the word choices and the grammar
revealing how educated is this writer can you tell I would say this is not a highly educated
person because of the quality of the sentences and how they were put together significant says otoul considering that
Paul freshh hour had a job as a manager at anheiser Bush and a master's degree she says there were other identi
identifying Clues from the anonymous writer and as you read these letters you can see the letter writer is really
having a good time what does that say about that person the letter writer is pretty
callous and this person would have to know I'm hurting people and that's okay with
me a sign the writer might have been suffering from a personality disorder says OU meaning that he or she knew the
difference between right and wrong but simply chose wrong so that would suggest to me that in their regular everyday
life they sought ways to be a bully to be intimidating if that's the case Pam Stanton says that does not sound like
her Uncle Paul did he have a like a dark side to him or anything never Uncle Paul
was never bitter never angry do you think the letter writer was Paul fresh hour right now I have my doubts sitting
here today I'd say I can't rule him out but I'm looking at other reasons that tell me it it might in fact be somebody
different and otoul does not believe the secretive writer would risk exposure by
setting a booby trap in a public place that suggests to me that may have been done by somebody else who took took
advantage of this situation the mystery seemed to only deepen but one expert is convinced she
does know the identity of the Circleville Rider 100% [Music] sure could there have been copycat
letter writers see the letters for yourself on Facebook at 48 hours [Music] when the 1980 Robert bredford prison
drama Brew Baker needed extras in the Columbus area Paul fresh hour channeled his experience as a former prison guard
to play one on the big screen little did he know he'd eventually serve a decade for attempted
murder and although never charged with terrorizing Circleville with the letters he had to live with people believing he
was the writer but not sisters Janet Cassidy and June Whitehead what is one thing that you really want to see
corrected I don't think Paul was guilty I think he served those 10 years in prison I don't think he was guilty of
the attempted murder and I don't really think he was the letter writer and with former FBI profiler Mary
Ellen ool believing the writer could be someone other than Paul fresh hour it calls into question the testimony of
those two handwriting experts at his trial linking him to the letters so 48 Hours turned a forensic
document expert Beverly East looking for her independent analysis I don't want to
hear the story cuz the documents tell me the story that story says e Begins by identifying distinct writing patterns in
Paul fresh hour's known writing in this case letters he wrote to a friend the G in Grimmer is a very unusual G looks
like a six a number six and that's unusual that's very unusual she then studied a selection of 49 of the
anonymous letters spanning from when they first started in 1977 through the 1990s and found that unusual G shaped
like a number six in several of the Circleville letters including one scent while Paul was in prison so Gillespie
Gillespie get in Gillespie and Gordon you've got that number six e says numbers can tell a story of their own
numbers don't lie numbers don't lie pointing to this ZIP code written by Paul there's this ambiguous number three
that might also be be a two it's like he's not sure if it's 42112 or 43113 in the anonymous letters on the
ZIP code I found the same mistake while e admits that there are writing patterns in the anonymous
letters that don't look like Paul's after showing us almost 100 examples of his distinct qus that she
was able to identify she's convinced one person was responsible I would go into court and
swear on the Bible on the evidence I found and when you say you'd swear in the Bible what would you say I would say
one person wrote all of these and the one person is this person Paul fresher Paul
fresher and if you saw that a document examiner today thought in fact he did write those letters would that change
your mind no and there is historical basis for skepticism you know that some document
examiners have been wrong in the past you know I canot speak for others there are always going to be times where
people are inaccurate and it's not because the science is not accurate it's because that particular examiner has not
done due diligence to arrive at the opinion that they should do you can't be wrong you because
somebody's life and livelihood is at the end of your opinion so I am not wrong while studying the thousands of
pages in the case File Marie Mayhew made a discovery that supports e findings investigators have found Paul fresh
hour's fingerprints on about a dozen letters postmarked while he was incarcerated those fingerprints are
there and they're his do you think that Paul fresh hour is the Circleville letter writer yes I honestly
do former FBI profiler marelen o tul says she cannot explain those letters but she also cannot ignore that during
fresh hour's decade in prison the Phantom writer mailed hundreds of letters if a crime continues on and you
have someone in custody for a long period of time you you have to say somebody else is sending these letters
they're not happening by Magic somebody else is writing the letters if in fact Paul fresa was the letter writer is it
possible that he mass-produced letters went to prison and then had somebody else send them while he was
in anything is possible that would have to be investigated and rolled out Paul freshh hour died June 28th 2012
and at age 70 still fighting to prove his innocence instead What's Left Behind is an unfinished portrait was Paul fresh
hour the successful loving family man he appeared to be or a cruel even dangerous
criminal mastermind whatever your conclusion Paul fresh hour predicted when interviewed by
writer Robin Yokum 35 years ago that his is notoriety as the Circleville letter writer would long outlive him when I'm
dead and in my grave people are going to believe I'm sending those letters unfortunately Paul died and
we'll never know we'll never know [Music] a modern-day Indiana Jones hid a treasure chest and left Clues if you've
been brave I give you title to the gold but was the cost of the quest too high this treasure hunt did claim at least
five lives if he could have stopped this madness it wasn't worth it 48 Hours next
on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus [Music] [Music] Mary Louise day was a a girl that lived
in Seaside in about 1981 she disappeared what do you mean she disappeared she disappeared off the face
of the [Music] earth I just knew something was wrong in the house Mary day is my
sister one day Mary was in California and then she was gone laying about one night with Kathy I
asked her you know I was like what happened with Mary you know and she was like sh don't say anything we're not
allowed to talk about Mary when I was 18 and I was like I can you know go and try to find
her it was a very hard case to deal with other than the family nobody knew she was
gone didn't seem to really concern them she started running away you turn around she was gone you turn around she
was gone I've never seen a case like this my mother told me that there were a lot of places in California that you
could bury a body and they'd never be [Music] found I started believing she was murdered the dogs went into the backyard
we just had an indication from the cab dogs that there was human remains there and our guys started digging and
and uh my heart was pounding we were looking for a little girl's body and we found a little girl's
shoe [Music] William told me that uh he didn't kill Mary day but his wife told him that he
was possessed that night and that he had a demon inside of him I've never heard anybody say that
before this is a crazy [Music] case Mary disappeared no trace of her for 22 years and then what happens and
then when I get a phone call he told me uh hey uh Captain he says you sitting down he said got to let you know that
they say that they uh they found Mary day and I'm like this case just gets weirder and
weirder [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Seaside California Detective Joe bertina
first heard the name Mary Louise day back in 2002 he'd been asked to lead the investigation into her
disappearance the case was a tangle of weaves that went all different directions Mary was 13 years old when
she vanished in 1981 seemingly Without a Trace there was no evidence that she was
alive Joe's boss at the time was Steve cirone not a trace of her as an adult no social security record of her having a
job getting uh welfare benefits we have nothing on this person's identity she didn't exist she didn't
exist Mary's existence came close to being completely erased there's no record that her stepfather William H or
her mother charlot had ever reported her missing it's hard to believe allowing a
child to walk away or a child go missing and it's not reported I can't remember a time when a child was not
reported by the parents I couldn't understand how a mother could not go to the ends of the Earth to find her
child it was this woman Sher kelgar Mary's sister who finally got authorities on the
case I wanted to know what happened to my sister Mary Sherry was 10 when Mary went
missing as an adult she filed a missing person's report and told the police about Mary's troubled childhood the
information we have through the sisters is that it was a very dysfunctional household in their early days Mary day
middle sister Kathy and Sherry were in and out of a foster home their mother could not take care of them Sherry was
adopted by the Foster family we were separated when I was 6 years old Mary and Kathy were returned to
their mother Charlotte by this time Charlotte had married William hul and the couple had two kids of their
own H was a soldier the family moved around a lot from Base to Base at one point detectives say Mary's
stepfather had been reportedly physically abusing her children's Protective Services had
taken custody of Mary she was eventually turned back over to the family in my opinion the system
failed at the time Mary disappeared hul was assigned to Fort or on the California coast north of
montere they were living in Seaside which is kind of a military town at that time and that's where she was last
[Music] seen Sher who kept in touch with her birth family later visited them when I
went to visit my family I asked them uh what had happened to my sister Mary Kathy I was like shh don't say
anything we're not allowed to talk about Mary but Kathy did say her mother sh told them Mary had run
away at the time I wasn't sure what I thought except that it didn't make sense to me when Sher grew up she filed that
missing person's report by the time Seaside Police launched its investigation in 2002 there was little
to go on the neighbors barely recall the family living there nobody really knew this family and they sure didn't know
Mary day Mary had never been enrolled in school in California and her parents never told anyone she was
gone bertina says they had at least one reason to keep quiet Mary had been getting government checks because her
birth father had died in an accident they were taking on Mary's Social Security checks cashing them
detective vertina it's March 3rd 2003 camera bertina went to the seaside home Mary's last known
whereabouts he brought Kathy with [Music] him pictures used to be there all us Kathy was just 11 when she last saw
her sister that day lives in my head a lot it feels like you're opening up a scab
you're opening up and it it hurts Mar here this Mary's in mine Mary was at home along with Kathy
when the rest of the family went out they came home later that evening and while they were gone the dog became
sick and was dying in the kitchen area when William saw that he immediately accused Mary of poisoning
the dog he started yelling at us and I got scared all hell broke this is the corner where he was
Hitler and the fight was back here I can hear her yelling there's nothing we can we can
do he hit her last time I saw her she had the blood coming down her [Music] mouth Kathy said after Mary disappeared
her parents ordered the kids to stay away from one particular area of the backyard I'm not supposed to come over
this far you weren't supposed to come over here who told you that my father the clues were adding
up and detectives felt they could be dealing with something much more Sinister than a runaway teenage
girl they brought in a team of cadaver dogs dogs trained to find human remains as the dogs went into the
backyard they each hit on one particular spot near a tree we started to dig as a father my heart was
pounding and as we dug I saw a little girl shoot my heart started pounding even more and I
thought here we are we found her [Music] in 2003 the missing person's case of Mary day was quickly becoming a homicide
investigation with police facing the Grim task of digging in the dirt with the caber dogs
alerted and we kept digging and there was no body I said well we must be here and then and they
kept digging they were sure that a body had been there they were positive they said you know our dog dos don't lie and
four of them independently hitting on the same spot before we dug the dog handler said it's been moved at this
time there was no question that the parents were the suspects in the possible homicide of a little girl from
1981 we knew that we had to find the [Music] parents they found them in Kansas it was more than 20 years after
Mary disappeared her stepfather William H had left the Army and was now at a Kansas
prison working as a corrections officer he and Charlotte were still together she agreed to talk with local
detectives about the daughter who vanished so long ago you don't have whoops and chains do
you oh absolutely not I remember watching the interview and realizing that she had something to tell
us you know life is full of regrets if you go back and say you know if I had did this and this and
this her body language and then her sinking down in her chair and saying words to the effect of uh you know
sometimes you do things in your past and then comes back I knew that there was something there when was the last time
you heard from Mary 8 month last time she ran away Charlotte said Mary running away was no big deal she did it all the
time oh what a mess it was like trying to get a Nightcrawler out of a wormhole just grabbing it it was gone grabbing it
was gone I mean how many times did she run away you know all these questions I can't answer okay when you was back in
California m did you guys take any kind of steps to find her we should have we should have but you didn't my
husband said we filed a police report with the Selena Police Department if we did I don't
remember there is no record of a report I couldn't understand a parent um number
one not reporting their child as runaway uh but number two treating this case the
status of their missing daughter as basically no big deal it didn't seem to really concern
them they were not really really surprised at us being there detective bruttin later questioned
Mary's stepfather William I just asked him tell me about the last time that you saw Mary he told
me that well he was going room to room checking eyes with the kids and he discovered Mary wasn't in the bedroom he
tell Charlotte she panics he panics to call the police and he knew I wasn't buying that I said William she runs away
all the time why did you panic I never got a good response the detective pressed Hol and
brought up the story of the sick dog and he said five or six times you know she did she poisoned my dog and I was really
angry she tried to run out of the house I didn't want her to go so I caught her before she got out of the front door
she was kicking me punching me so I pushed her and when he's doing this he's making
a a choking yeah just your he's yeah with his hand and it's like a hand strike that I've seen before it's a
martial art technique so I asked him where did you hit her with that and he said well in the upper
chest I said could it have been the throat he said well it may have slipped off and hit her hit Mary in the throat I
wanted to know on a scale of 1 to 10 his anger when he had done this when he had
struck Mary and he said on one a scale of 1 to 10 I was a 15 I said you're this angry I think you may have killed
her and he looked at me and said no I didn't kill her but the next day my wife Charlotte
told me that that night she saw Satan in my eyes and she said I was possessed by
a demon and then it dawned on me that he's admitting but not admitting that he killed her and I said okay William I
believe you you didn't kill her but what about that demon inside of you could that demon have killed
Mary and he looked at me and he said yes the demon could have killed her when he
walked out did you think you were letting a killer go yeah yeah Joe said yeah we don't have of a
body but he said this this guy came so close to confessing that it was as close as he's ever had anybody come is that
enough to go to a prosecutor and say I don't know if we're ever going to get the body but we we have a lot of the
pieces of the puzzle yeah uh the da wasn't ready to file at that time did you think there was enough I thought
there was probably enough um I was not worried really because I thought we are building the case here
and then just as the detective's confidence was growing the case took an unexpected turn remember police had no
record of Mary Louise day as an adult there were no credit cards no driver's license or ID recorded
anywhere there hadn't been a trace of Mary in more than two decades until police in Phoenix Arizona
made a traffic stop I got a phone call I was at home I left work and he told me uh hey uh C he says you sitting down I
said what happen he said no he says I'm just going to let you know that a Phoenix Police Department in Arizona
pulled over a car and they say that they uh they found Mary day what do you make of William and
Charlotte's stories here's Charlotte's unusual response to police searching for her missing daughter on Facebook book at
48 [Music] Hours November 2003 Phoenix Arizona it was a routine traffic stop a pickup truck with stolen plates when
police ran the IDS of the passengers one of them hit a woman named Mary day he said Joe
guess what uh Mary day has been Val and I I was stunned investigators had put Mary day into a missing person's
database long ago she identified herself with a phoenix identification card or Arizona
state identification card back in California Detective Joe bertina felt like a ghost had just
appeared in his mind Mary day had been murdered more than 20 years earlier at the home of her parents you talked to
William and Charlotte in April of 2003 and then 7 months later or so a woman named Mary Louise day just falls out of
the sky I was stunned his boss Steve cirone could not believe it Joe went down there and he
met her and he sent a picture of her and we went what wait a minute no all right
and it looked like it could be her and I said said wait a minute all these other
bits of circumstantial evidence the father almost confessing to almost confessing to the murder of a of a
little girl and now here was this woman 700 miles away with a valid Arizona state ID
strangely that ID had been issued only 3 weeks earlier while the homicide investigation was underway well you must
have found the timing awfully suspicious yes it was very suspicious when detective Brina went to Phoenix the
woman he was sure had been murdered told him she had run away from her mother Charlotte and stepfather William when
she was a teenager she'd basically lived under the radar and by her wits ever since but she seemed hesitant and her
story seemed sketchy later in a phone call Mary told Bera she had some awful me memories did
you want to talk about what happened that last night it hurt I'm sure it does but what happened that last night I'm so
confused anymore I don't know it's real or not I remember youing my head into the is that when you started bleeding no
already Bing hit my head into the coffee table I think I out maybe that's why I put all the pieces together tell you but
she didn't remember anything about the sick dog was that Troublesome to you that was
yeah investigators say it was hard to pin down much of anything about her past two decades they began to wonder if the
woman with the freshly minted ID was really who she claimed to be you refused to call her Mary Louise de you called
her Phoenix Mary in phone conversations Phoenix Mary was sounding increasingly frust
frustated can I thr one question ask you if you don't mind go ahead Mary if you would have found my body how was you
going to be able to prove who the hell I was DNA oh so since I'm still alive yall
can't prove who I am there's no record of you ever being anywhere it's like you haven't existed up until
now off on just dat and then yall can do detecting from there I said all right let's get a DNA test on
this woman let's let her prove that she's the daughter of Charlotte we're going to disprove that she's married of
course because there's no way that her DNA is going to match except it did match I really fell on the floor I
couldn't believe it the DNA came back positive to being a daughter of Charlotte the case was closed
Sherry invited her long lost sister to move in with her in most cases that would be the end of the story but not in
this case so now DNA matches case closed yeah well if it were that simple right once Phoenix Mary moved in Sher
started to have her own doubts the first thing I noticed was she it sounded like
she had some weird Midwestern southern accent it's weird to me the detectives had
noticed that too that's an interesting dialect you have Mary what do you mind I don't know if I've ever quite heard that
particular manner of speaking they you go try to prove who I am huh yes ma'am we are Phoenix Mary also said she never
used her real name nobody know me as Mar I gave that name up years ago what name would they know you by Monica
it's a name she said she made up I did notice that she had magazines in the name of Monica
Deo Sherry's sister Kathy was also unnerved no that's not Mary why what makes you so
sure something's off you're telling me that your gut is saying it's not her my gut she says the
woman claiming to be married didn't even remember that their birtha left them an
inheritance they could collect at age 18 it was their shared Escape Plan and they
had a code word for it was there a a code word or some sort of secret between you and Mary yeah it was
it was called mohawk mohawk was your secret word yep and Mary did something else strange
she wrote a note to detective bertina she emailed Joe in her email said something to the effect of I've
been lying to you about who I am and that was new information oh my God I said this is a whole new ball game still
the case remained [Music] closed but then in 2008 Steve cirone now seaside's police chief got a phone call
from investigators at the army base in Fort Ord another set of cadabra dogs have been working on an unrelated matter
and had found something Ford was a huge place and he said look we brought the kadab dogs out here and they went over
hundreds of homes and he said we got a hit on one of the homes you'll never believe who was living in this house he
said William hul and his family lived in this [Music] house in 2008 caver dogs alerted near a
second home where the hols had lived the house they had moved to shortly after Mary disappeared so what do you thinking
that a body has been moved by this family from one location to another yeah once again police dug and once
again they came up short was Mary moved twice was this little girl who may have been killed back in 1981 was her body
moved twice although the case had been closed sir conone felt something was seriously
wrong I don't know I don't know but we have to investigate this he hired Mark Clark a retired homicide
detective from nearby Selena's California absolutely the most bizarre case I've ever come up against reviewing
the evidence collected over the years Clark was convinced there was a murder and missed opportunities there's so many
parts about this thing that could have solved this case back then that is really frustrating he believes they let
the parents off the hook too soon mom and dad say she ran ran away don't ever talk about her again they tore up her
pictures threw away her clothes and that was it most damning he says are Williams
own words his comment was I couldn't have killed Mary my body would have done it but it
wouldn't have been me would have been that demonic personality cuz I blacked out Clark says he would have arrested
William Hull you just admitted T to homicide and we're letting him go Clark also focused on that shoe
detectives found another detective asked Kathy about it they first asked did you
guys ever wear canvas tennis shoes and Catherine said kids and she said yes and he pulled out the shoe and it's pretty
chewed up but you can tell that it's a tennis shoe with a canvas body to it and she said exactly
that and he consulted with the Body Farm a renowned research facility that studies what happens when bodies
decompose he says they found soil samples consistent with a body being buried what do you think happened to
Mary Lou day she was killed in 1981 and uh probably around July Clark believes the woman now claiming to be Mary day is
an impostor there's just too many things that point to Phenix Mary day being somebody else but what about that DNA
test showing she's Charlotte hul's daughter well Mark Clark has a theory that he says explains it all even if it
is a little far-fetched he says Charlotte Hull had another daughter a secret daughter born before Mary and
given up at Birth Clark believes Phoenix Mary is that secret daughter so you think Phoenix Mary is the actual sister
of Mary Louise day who goes missing back in 1981 yes he looked into Charlotte's background
there's some circumstantial evidence that Charlotte had a couple of marriages where she would be involved in
extramarital Affairs and become pregnant from those Affairs Clark says the GS could have
reached out to Charlotte's secret daughter when they felt they were in trouble I believe she was somehow sought
out by Charlotte and William to pose as Mary day to avoid prosecution it was an elaborate plot he says the holes knew
that police were investigating Mary's disappearance and they asked her secret sister to assume her identity cirone
says the hols had the wherewithal to do it what if they took the birth certificate of Mary which they probably
had and the soci security card for Mary what if they gave those cards to the other sister and said you're now
married CLK says the scheme put an end to the investigation and also put money in Phoenix Mary's pocket there was an
inheritance we thought the motivation would be the inheritance because she could collect that inheritance with a
crude interest that inheritance was now worth roughly $60,000 Cherry helped Mary get her cut
we reached out to William and Charlotte H through a relative they said they had no
comment Mark says the impostor Theory accounts for a lot of inconsistencies for example Mary's odd
southern accent the accent was really thick Sher and Catherine both said that Mary day never had an accent she has a
Southern accent it's a pronounced southern accent can I go one place T next if you don't mind go ahead Mary if
you would have found my body how would you going to be able to prove who the hell I
was Mary did claim that she had spent some time in the South as an adult but was only there briefly as a child when
experts say it would have given her that accent and I let four separate Southern
dialect experts listen to the interview and they all concluded that it would have taken living her her formative
years up to nine or 10 in the South to acquire this SN accent and there was that email that Phoenix Mary sent saying
she wasn't who she claimed to be after about a year of living with Sherry Mary moved out on her own but the mystery
just wouldn't Die Another detective was about to take a crack at the case we have to be very careful all of
us in law enforcement not to make our story fit our ideas were what we believed [Music]
happened in 2017 Sher K calgaro still wanted answers about the woman claiming to be her sister uh basically everyone
that's ever met her uh has a lot of doubts I have my own doubts we took Sherry to visit Phoenix
Mary in Missouri where she'd been living for a few years I'm hoping that she will
admit she will confess to us who she really is okay good luck bye bye Mary was living here and suffering from late
stage cancer she wasn't up for any more visitors that day as Mary's help was failing the new
acting chief of Seaside Police was determined to solve the case once and for all Judy the laws chipped away at the
idea that Mary day was murdered for starters additional test showed Mary's DNA matched not only Charlotte but also
the birth father and then there was that little girl's shoe I put it in the palm of my hand and
I mean it fit in the palm of my hand it was very small had a hard time believing
that a 13-year-old would have to be I mean I saw her stature in the picture she wasn't that short the also traveled
to Mary's home she says Mary herself filled in the gaps she wanted to convince us she was Mary and it seemed
sincere Mary said she began calling herself Monica when she ran away because she
didn't want police to take her back home Mary also mentioned a new name Mory a woman she knew in those early days on
her own in California the laws track down Mory Kimmel I got her when she was 15 very
naive and in innocent about her almost like childlike at the time more had two young
daughters of her own she just won my heart and my girls loved her you know that that may have
been the only and the best family life she ever had in her entire life I'm realizing that now you know I wanted to
nurture her you know but after about a year one day Mary was gone I was heartbroken B discovered that Mary had
moved around a lot City to City living on the margins honestly when I talked to her
she just seemed like a Survivor she also solved the mystery of why Mary suddenly
got that Arizona ID she needed state aid to pay for surgery she had her gallbladder taken out that led her to
obtain her proper driver's license or ID in the name of Mary Lou day a local nonprofit at helped Mary track down her
real birth certificate the law chalks up Mary's foggy memory to trauma and a lifelong
battle with alcohol those gaps in memory to me can be legitimate especially if someone's
been an alcoholic from the time they've been a teenager as for that email Mary sent to detective vertina saying she'd
been lying about who she was vela's Mary sent a follow-up email right writing quote I'm not sure myself what I was
trying to say in that email again from someone who was still a severe alcoholic in using and then vas came up with the
Smoking Gun one of Mor's relatives had a photograph the picture really did it it's Mary she says and it was taken at
least a year after the alleged murder we took the photo to trace see it I see this a state-of-the-art facial
recognition Company CEO Shawn Moore so we're going to look at the results of our face matching algorithms on the
images that you all sent us okay and it's it's trying to see what it's trying to see the probability that we're
matching a young picture with one of the older pictures so if this is the same person correct it's a probability that's
it's the same person the top photo is Mary before she disappeared the other photo is the one that Judy vas dug up
what are the numbers telling you and the numbers are telling us that it's the same person he says that's a
99% probability with that photo Judy vage submitted her report and closed the merry day
investigation this time for good after all these years the woman at the center of this case finally agreed
to meet with me this is the Mary that I'm met fragile but not feeble it was clear from seeing
her in person that this was a woman who had not had an easy life still she didn't seem to be trying to hide
anything in fact she said it's very frustrating trying to prove who you are when there is no
proof Sherry is finally at peace was all of a sudden it felt like I had a weight
lifted off my shoulders it was just like it's done this is hurt that's pretty much the end of that story it's not that
simple for Mark Clark I've seen the report I'd be lying if it didn't make me second guess my investigation even
though he can't prove his theory he can't quite shake his old hunch that Mary is an impostor do you believe that
William H murdered Mary Louise day based on the evidence I've found [Music] yes as for Steve
cirone I will admit that once I read Judy's report and I saw that picture I definitely leaned towards the identity
of Mary as being Mary Louise day the little girl that we were looking for still he says he is certain of one
thing thing those Kadabra dogs were on to something they were positive positive positive they said you know our dogs
don't lie they don't lie who was buried in those grave sites [Music] do you believe that the woman claiming
to be Mary day was really her hear more about investigator Julie vas's meeting with Mary at 48
hours.com known as the Doomsday mom her two children murdered Lori started referring to her children as zombies
inside the lorri bow de Bell trial how the jury found her guilty 48 hours Saturday on
CBS listen to the My Life Of Crime podcast with me Aon [Music] morard I think Forest wanted to become a
legend and I actually think he succeeded he was described as a modern day Indiana
Jones Forest came up with the idea to hide a bronze chest filled with gold somewhere in the Rocky
Mountains I bought this beautiful little treasure chest and I started filling it
up with wonderful things there's 265 gold coins hundreds and hundreds of gold nuggets he wrote a 24 line poem guiding
people to the location of the treasure that's exactly it he created effectively a treasure map in the form of that
poem I'm going to read the poem so here it goes as I have gone alone in there and with my treasures
bold I can keep my secret wear and hint of riches new and old there'll be no paddle up your creek just heavy loads
and water high so here may all and listen good your effort will be worth the cold if you've been brave and in the
would I give you title to the gold and I read that poem and oh God it was like a
hook no place for the meek the bug got in me and I couldn't let it go I tried to climb up into that cave there I
couldn't sleep I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever heard how much was that treasure worth I I think that 1
million is a pretty good Mark to [Music] use I made at least 85 tricks I didn't find the treasure yet we had so
much fun it was crazy since there's a mountain Li in the area we don't want to take any chances
so bring in our gun I have spent over 2,000 hours this is where I ran into my rattlesnake searching for Forest fence
treasure well I made it hard deliberately if it was easy anyone could do it for at least five people the search
for fen's Treasure was the last thing they ever did yes unfortunately you know this treasure hunt did claim at least
five lives Randy Bilu was the first Paris Wallace also died in the ri Grand River Eric Ashby died in the Arkansas
River there was a gentleman who was hiking in Yellowstone and ended up falling off of a cliff
two men who went out with snowmobiles I've got them in sight still one of them froze to death and the other one was
hospitalized Forest Fen was a bad person if he could have stopped his Madness before it became what it
became it wasn't worth it how does Forest Fen respond to that by to some degree digging in his heels
he didn't like the idea that anyone would tell him to bring his hunt to an end because of a few
deaths and he said that if somebody was murdered because of the hunt that would probably be too much
[Music] [Music] [Music] hiat topa Ridge near Dinosaur National Monument 53-year-old Mike sexon froze to
death this is the last known photo of him taken in March 2020 as he hiked in that remote area Days Later Mike's body
was airlifted off the Mountaintop hey he's coming up all right he's about halfway Mike became the fifth person to
die while searching for Forest f hidden treasure Mike was full of life Mike was an adventurer and always smiling always
laughing big deep chuckle friend Liz key struggles to reconcile Mike's love of adventure with his terrible loss I'm
glad that he took this adventure I am very sad that he's gone I miss Mike every day I miss his hugs when I'm
stressed I miss his support I miss his voice his laughter Beth Van o today is forced to
cope without her longtime boyfriend Mike had been her Rock after she suffered a brain injury he was more than just my
partner he was in some ways my caretaker after Mike's death Liz felt compelled to
send Forest Fen an anguished email how many people have to die before your game is done I receive
an email back and and he just gave his condolences to Beth Forest F was a very complicated
person Dan barbaresi explores fen's complexities in his new book Chasing The Thrill Obsession death and glory in
America's most extraordinary treasure hunt he believed in stories that were bigger than just your run-of-the-mill
standard tale and he dreamed big he believed in big things and F had lived a big life
beginning with his days in the Air Force when he was shot down twice in Vietnam and later as the owner of a well-known
Southwestern Art Gallery how did a retired fighter pilot reinvent himself in Santa Fe New Mexico with not just an
art gallery but one of the most famous art galleries in America I think he would tell you at least about the show
you can put on and there's no question Fen put on a good show his Gallery attracted
celebrities like Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis Steve Martin and Ralph Lauren but there were recurring Whispers
that Fen may have built his impressive collection by plundering ancient Native American pblos there were certainly some
questions about how he came in possession of some of those artifacts over time in 2009 long after Fen had
sold his Gallery his home was raided by federal a from the Bureau of Land Management and It ultimately turned out
that Fen was not charged with anything in that case the next year Fen self-published
his Memoir The Thrill of the chase to get families into the Great Outdoors Fen put a little incentive
inside his Memoir that distinctive 24 line poem he claimed it contained clues that would lead one clever person to the
10x10 in chest of gold he'd hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains if you can follow the clues in the poem to the
treasure chest you're going to be amazed at what you find then launched a modern-day treasure
hunt but it was slow goinging at first it felt like a small little treasure hunt for a few people who knew about it
when did that change and why it got noticed by the larger media there were a few big pieces one in
hemispheres magazine when in Newsweek I think the name of that reporter was the same as my name whatever it was was a
very hard name to pronounce but I'm pretty sure it was Tony that much I've got It's pronounced deople by the way it
really started to raise the profile of it in a significant way it wasn't long before tens of
thousands of people were on the hunt in 2015 months before any of the Searchers died Ben spoke to CBS news about the
likelihood of anyone finding his treasure it isn't impossible but you're not going to stumble over it you have to
deliberately go to it FN said the spot he chose was so beautiful he could imagine it as his
final resting place the original version of the poem actually talked about his bones being there next to the treasure
chest itself Fen dropped that idea The Searchers had their own reasons for going on the hunt and it became clear
that many were seeking more than a box of gold I think a lot of people really wanted to be part of something bigger
than themselves maybe there was something missing in their lives and for others it was that they felt that people
hadn't believed in them to the extent that they should have Searchers shared their passion and
began to compare so-called solves their interpretation of the clues in the poem it was all online until some got the
idea to meet in real life so of that was born fenur exactly what it sounds like it's a forest Fen jamere
each summer fen's fans flocked to Santa Fe where Forest Fen was their star attraction I think I described it as as
meeting a beetle you know it was that kind of thing everybody just lined up literally to get their their brief
moment with farest F people use the word eccentric but I don't think that's the right word for him he was just his own
man Sasha Dent was living in Albuquerque when she took up the chase I probably searched for Forest F's treasure about
300 times she became an Insider forest was such a a major part of my life and Sasha saw firsthand the good that came
from Fen game there was account after account of families who were brought together because of forest fence
treasure hunt there were relationships built on the treasure hunt and marriages and that includes her own
[Music] marriage Beauty another of F's favorites was was ktia lus a singer songwriter who
knew F in the '90s before he wrote his Memoir when she later came across Finn's book well Gold Fever struck that very
night I couldn't sleep all night long I'm either Google or thing Googling reading the book again underlining
highlighting she estimates she spent $775,000 over 7 years of searching it was a great time she says even during
some dangerous moments I had a very close encounter while I was searching for the treasure with a
cougar and I just froze but then I lifted up my hoodie really tall and made myself
bigger I went marching really strong and did like a pseudo chant really loud hey
oh yeah hey hey hey [Music] Kata came away unscathed but others were not so lucky
this is not some dis aied hunt where at the end of it everything turns out okay the reality is if you don't take this
thing seriously it will get you look just to the right of that tree off in the dist I see it you see it
that's where we're going for 5 years no one could find the location of F's treasure but the Searchers had become a
tight Community if it's snow covered it's pointless I think we were like a support group for each other you're
among people who get that it's not just about the money he says it cannot be stumbled upon it's about being the one
who cracked the code I have looked and I have looked and I have look and the other people they get it I know at least
probably 30 places where it's not you would talk about your solve as they called it but you never gave the exact
location I told you we're not going to be in Yellowstone the distances didn't work out really well for me Toby Unis
hosted a popular YouTube show about the hunt everybody believed they were going to find their treasure there was no
acceptance of the idea that someone else would find the treasure and divorced grandfather Randy
Bilu was convinced he had as good a chance as anyone I met Randy a couple times at some of the fen
Gatherings Randy was always my protector Randy grew up on Long Island New York and his sister Kathy lebold remembers he
loves sports and animals Randy learned of fen's treasure in 2013 and started searching the next year I think he was
excited about the adventure of the hunt and um he thought if he found the treasure that he would use the money to
help his family and if you knew Randy you knew Leo his long-haired Jack Russell Leo was his best buddy and he
took him everywhere Randy and Leo moved to Colorado to be closer to the search area and at the beginning Cathy says he
was good about letting his family know when he was going out on the trail but later that
changed I think he thought he was getting really really close to it and and um he just wanted to you know excite
us all with the news that he had found it on January 5th 2016 Randy and Leo headed out to the Rio Grand northwest of
Santa Fe with a small raft temperatures hovered around freezing he was gone for 10 days before
he was reported missing I had a sinking feeling that something was really very wrong flight nurse Aaron Johnson was
part of a medical helicopter crew sent out to look for Randy on the initial search they found
nothing and headed back up River and that's actually when we found his raft it's a raft it's uh
blue they landed on a Sandy Bank of the river and were in for a surprise there was a small dog that was there and
barking at us he had a sweater on which was pretty dirty but I'm quite certain that that sweater saved his life there
were three of us on the ground the whole time aside from the raft and his dog we
could find really nothing else no backpack nothing Leo seemed frightened but Aaron
eventually coaxed him to eat a cliff bar the pilot had on board and at the point
where we had to leave I had a big thick jacket and I just threw it over him and scooped him up and brought him on the
helicopter Kathy saw the heartbreaking news on TV only Leo had been rescued it was
uh probably one of the worst days of my life the treasure hunting Community got word of this and many of these people
wanted to help determined to find ry's Body drone Pilots shot hours of footage that was
posted online so the treasure hunt community could go through it frame by frame looking for signs of
Randy other Searchers put boots on the ground it was rugged I mean it was harder than any treasure searching any
of us had done it was rough we searched very very hard every day for over a month Boris Fen wrote in a helicopter to
look for Randy Fen also met with Kathy when she came to Santa Fe Fen was sympathetic but told her he wasn't
willing to call off the treasure hunt I think a lot of people could argue that his priorities are perhaps not what they
should be that instead of the people or the human cost he cared a lot more potentially about his treasure hunt and
the treasure hunt was everything to fend even though it put his family at risk forest was harassed over the years his
family was harassed there's a man who's done prison for stalking forest's granddaughter
get on your knees get on your knees and this man Robert Miller was arrested for burglary in 2018 at fen's Santa Fe home
so what the hell is going on I thought the poem directed me into here I thought it said poem yeah the the treasure map
the treasure punt you know so you came on the property cuz of Po are you serious yeah what did his family think
about all this uh I think his family had a hard time with it honestly even with all of that Forest saw how much good his
treasure hunt did for how many people and he know that the good far outweighed the bad the search for the treasure
continued as did the search for Randy 6 months after he went missing his body was found on the
riverbank obviously we were devastated that he wasn't alive he was a great father grandfather
and uncle Uncle to my son with Randy gone Leo was adopted by none other than Aaron Johnson Leo the
nurse who rescued him good boy in the 5 years with his new family the ultimate rescue dog has even learned some new
tricks okay turn around Kathy is happy he's found a new home good boy but she thinks about her brother every day I
wished he' hadd been more careful I wish he hadn't gone out that day but you know
he was enjoying what he was doing Randy was not the last to die searching for fen's
[Music] gold the next year the hunt claimed three more lives he had become obsessed by V's
treasure and that was the only thing that mattered to him in June 2017 a year and a half after
Randy Bilu died three more men lost their lives in a matter of weeks Jeff Murphy was searching in Yellowstone
National Park very tragically just misstepped and ended up falling off of a cliff and passing
away around the same time writer Dan barbaresi went on his first search with his treasure hunting partner Jay rer
what was it like going from four months of research on a computer to being out there in the wilderness the first thing
that stood out to me how much bigger a point on a map is in real life you know you look on a map oh this isn't that big
I can cross this area with just my finger alone once you're actually out in the wild you see how big those distances
are and how much land there actually is out there pretty quickly it really hits you in the face pretty fast reality
wasn't the only thing hitting Dan and Jay in the face we're out there thinking that we're
you know adventurers explorers and all of a sudden it starts hailing and we very quickly realized that we had
absolutely no idea what we were doing days later in that same exact area a Colorado Pastor named Paris Wallace
set off to search the Rio Grand near the town Junction Bridge As you move through
life there are those points where you have to seek God to find out what he wants you to do and he crossed the river
by himself and it was high waters then paris's body was recovered 4 days later a few miles down river his death
spurred the New Mexico State Police Chief to ask Fen to call off the hunt Fen refused there was a huge amount of anger
at Fen over this I mean you can understand why I mean this is a treasure on it doesn't need to exist and yet he
wouldn't stop it even after multiple people had died that's a pretty hard stance to
take Fen Justified continuing the hunt by pointing out that any outdoor activity came with risks in the
summertime we jump in a swimming pool but if somebody drums in the swimming pool should should we drain the pool or
should we teach people to swim that's the way I feel about it and the treasure Community rallied around Fen in support
of the hunt here I go 99.9% of people who go out looking for his treasure make it home safely
with tons of memories and new experiences to treasure and fan did keep warning Searchers to be safe be more
careful be more mindful he constantly reminded everyone to not go anywhere a 79 or 80-year old man couldn't go many
Searchers Dan says set off on the Treasure Trail with great excitement but sometimes were unprepared for how Wild
the Wilderness can be Searchers like Eric Ashby understood the risks and were willing to take them fear was not part
of his game he didn't know how to be afraid Paul Ashby raised his son Eric as a single father in the mountains of
Tennessee Eric grew up playing sports riding motorcycles and was taken by the quest at the center of the Lord of the
Rings trilogy Eric was a great kid everybody who knew him loved him in 2016 Eric moved to Colorado he told his dad
he was headed west to take part in his own Quest F's Thrill of the Chase he became
obsessed dad I can do this was he motivated by the money the treasure represented or by the recognition
solving it oh sincerely the recognition the money to him was totally irrelevant Eric told his father he was
going out to search the Arkansas River outside Canyon City Colorado more than a week later Paul got a phone call from a
woman who said her name was Becca she told me on the phone Mr Ashby your son is drowned he
says I'm sorry Mr Ashby your son is dead and she hung up Becca turned out to be Rebecca n who had worked with Eric she
and three men were with Eric at the river and they had drawn up this contract outlining exactly how they'
split the treasure she later told police what happened that day he said he had swam the river that we were about to
cross 10 times before and so you know we we figured though we should be sry Becca said they'd bought a
two-person raft But Eric got in alone and had no life preserver so he just um jumped out it looks like he had made it
to the Rock but then they didn't see him anymore and that was right where the Rapids you know would have taken him
Becca told police two of the men went down river to look for Eric where they saw a photographer who told them he
called 911 the photographer also captured this photo of Eric's empty raft hearing
someone had called police Becca and the others went back to their car and went home a decision Becca tried to explain I
want to know why why no one stayed there to tell us this information because again
now e in hard to see what we should have done but in the moment we never been involved with anything like that Eric
stepped in a situation that was impossible nobody could have done it the thing that makes it worse is that nobody
stopped him and that it was just a case of oh well Eric was worth so much more to
me than oh well after Eric's body was recovered Paul traveled to the river to see where
his son had died I took the Excursion train that comes down the Gorge and one of the company managers was on the train
with me and he went into the bar the lounge car and come back with a beer he says this is for you and your
son and we shared our last beer right there Paul says he never heard from forest Fen if you had been able to reach
Forest F what would you say to him say Mr f is this something one you're going to have to go to whoever our maker is
and say yes these people were drowning or dying falling off cliffs whatever and I could have stopped it and I chose not
to I was honestly surprised that it didn't end in that summer of 2017 but the hunt did not
end and in March 2020 a fifth man died about 2:00 in the morning I looked up the stars were out I
looked over you know to my left and there was Mike it was like oh I I I remember telling myself oh no
Mike what do you think of forest fen's decision to continue the treasure hunt learn more about the search for the
treasure at 48 [Music] hours.com Mike was the kind of guy that walked into a room
smiling and made everybody feel better just by coming around Beth Van o says her longtime boyfriend Mike sexon knew
about Randy Jeff Paris and Eric the others who died while searching for fen's Treasure I think Mike knew of the
danger he just maybe ignored a little bit of it or thought he could get around it it had been nearly 3 years since any
Searchers had died I think people thought that maybe they had gotten past that point where people aren't going to
die anymore looking for this Mike was convinced he knew where the treasure was along the Colorado Utah
border in Dinosaur National Monument he made nearly a dozen trips there but he needed someone with a four-wheel drive
truck to help that's how his poker buddy Steven inow got involved with the hunt I
was very excited to be with Mike on these trips I just enjoyed traveling with him this is the first time St even has
spoken publicly about their ordeal that began in late February 2020 the men rented snowmobiles in Denver and set off
for Mike's spot the snow bills proved to be too heavy for the depth of snow that
we had Mike and Steven got stuck but managed to call 911 is anybody injured no no we're not injured just
stuck looks like I've got a pretty good location on you I'm going to get you some help headed your way okay
they were rescued but the close call didn't deter the pair from going back out just a few weeks later on March 17th
2020 days into the covid pandemic Mike was adamant that he wanted to make another trip before the quarantine
started Mike and Steven drove to Salt Lake City where they rented snowmobiles they thought would be better on the
terrain on the second day in the wilderness they left their truck 5 miles from the main road and headed off for a
day trip on the snowmobiles we left a lot of our Provisions back of the truck thinking we're just going to be gone 3
or 4 hours we take off the snow bills and we're on the South Side of the Mountain this time and we ran ask noow
it became dry they left even more supplies on the snowmobiles and set off on foot with a
sled to carry home the treasure which Mike believed was close we had some some candy bars a couple of energy bars and
uh maybe a gallon and a half of water between the two of us it didn't look that far away but it proved to be a
ridge over Ridge over Ridge that took a lot longer than I thought it was going to take by 6 o00 on Wednesday I was kind
of nervous I hadn't heard from him when the men hadn't returned the snowmobiles Wednesday night the rental
company called the police who called Beth and Steven's wife not knowing was just the worst just the most awful
thing Mike tried to hike to Higher Ground to get a cell signal but hours later returned
unsuccessful at that point both men were so exhausted all they could do was lay where they
were the next day it began to snow they had no more water I remember my hands and knees eating the
snow crystals and blood was dripping from my mouth staining the snow I cried for help I asked God I asked Jesus just
anyone call 911 we need help desperate for hydration Steven began drinking his own urine and felt
warmth spread throughout his body and I I could just feel that was a moment that
I'm going to live and I told Mike he's got to quit eating the snow when he was shivering and told him what he needed to
do and he said he'd rather die on Friday we could hear helicopters on the other side of the Mountainside
and we knew they were out searching for us and so that gave us hope but we never
saw the helicopter that night I woke up about 2:00 in the morning and Mike was about 6 feet away from
me he's on his hands and knees with his arms cued around his head his head flat on the ground and he had no shirt on and
so I knew he had died and I knew why I hypothermia people suffering from extreme cold can feel hot in the moments
just before they die I I remember telling myself oh no Mike later that Saturday Steven heard the helicopters
again louder this time and saw them down in the canyon below with all the strength he could muster he grabbed the
orange sled and he waved it toward the helicopter and then just like in the movies the helicopter rose up above the
cliff and I knew I was saved and I passed out next thing I knew two guys were picking me up asking me if I could
walk I couldn't even stand and I I just remember Whispering goodbye Mike Mike was later taken off the
mountain in a body bag Beth got the devastating news that afternoon I mean you can say I love you but until
somebody's really gone and you can't say it anymore you just don't realize you have more
than that to say a year later Beth and Mike's friend Liz key finds solace in that last photo
his Grand the look in his ey am yes this is where I want to be I am very sad that
he's gone but I'm glad that he he did what he loved to do Mike was the fifth person to die
seeking fenn's treasure he was also the last because only 3 months later Forest Fen made a stunning
announcement the message was very short and simple it said the treasure has been
[Applause] found early last summer just as thousand of treasure Hunters were about to begin
looking yet again for Forest F's chest of gold they got a piece of news that left
them reeling my heart stopped honestly I was like oh my God uh I cannot believe this has actually happened did somebody
really find it or you know and if so who the news broke on June 6 2020 when Fen made the stunning announcement in a
brief post he sent to a Blog used by the searcher Community Fen wrote the treasure has
been found and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago I do not know the person who found
it but the poem in my book led him to the precise spot overnight the Gold Rush that had
sustained The Searchers was over and many were left feeling a bit cheated we didn't have a name we didn't
have where it had been found we didn't have any other any other information other than it had been found where he
had left it and is it really really really true that they found it I want to see you know so the guy did send
pictures for the first time Searchers could see Forest pouring over the contents of his famous Treasure Chest it
look pretty authentic to me you know very authentic but like everyone else Kia yearned to know the finder's solve how
had he deciphered those clues in the poem The Finder wouldn't say but a month later Fen revealed the treasure had been
found in Wyoming then 2 months later on September 7th 2020 Forest Fen died at his home where
he had just turned 90 years old I I find myself thinking of forest often and um I
miss our conversations very [Music] much the finder may have remained Anonymous forever except for a lawsuit
that required the fen family to reveal his name the finder knew it was only a matter of time so he came out to Dan
barbaresi who wrote an article for outside magazine who did find the treasure a man named Jack Stu found the
treasure and he was uh you know a medical student who had gotten obsessed with this Chase uh around 2018 he you
know was very very committed to his Sol hey guys this is Jack in this online message to other Searchers our challenge
is to try not to make guesses Jack Stu had shared his approach to cracking fence poem it is simple and clear and
straightforward you need simplicity in yourselft Dan says Jack had been searching for at least two
years and then one day in a Wyoming Forest Jack says he uncovered the chest it had almost been covered by leaves and
debris but Jack said the lid was still visible he became very paranoid that somebody was going to stumble upon him
in that moment Jack says he High tailed it to Santa Fe where these photos were taken they seem to back up back story
but Fen Watcher Toby Eunice was skeptical here is my theory the hunt was moving forward forest was
aging the family forest's family was frustrated with a state of the surch their houses had been broken
into their children had been threatened with kidnapping they were never lovers of the forest Fen treasure hunt Toby has
no evidence but believes that that Fen knowing he had only months to live looked around for someone who was close
to finding the treasure Toby believes Fen reached out to Jack but I imagine this is how it went I want you to know
that I'm dying I want you to know that I don't want to leave this treasure hunt to my family and I'm going to ask you
for a favor Forest had a a saying that he used often there's an old saying two people can keep a secret if one of them
is dead Jack refused our request for an interview but denied he had any help from Fen as he wrote
online I am not and was never employed by Forest nor did he pick me in any way to retrieve the treasure I was a
stranger to him and found the treasure as he designed it to be found I do not believe it is part of a
conspiracy engineered by Fen to give Jack the treasure or anything else of that sort Dan is in a unique position
because he's the only journalist who has interviewed Jack Jack even allowed Dan to examine the treasure these photos
have rarely been seen you were able to actually hold the treasure to touch it to see it in person yes you know I have
seen and touched and felt and gone through the chest it was kind of an incredible moment honestly Jack told Dan
he will not reveal the exact spot where he found the chest because he fears it would become a tourist attraction
that would ruin the area's Serenity and natural beauty I think we will never find out
truly where it was found and there could be another reason fen's original intent to lay down and
die at the very spot where he hid his treasure I don't want to be buried if I had my way I'd lay down
under the tree go and uh just like a big old Buffalo lays down and dies Go Back To Nature become
become part of the Earth again jack says he offered to put F's ashes in that special spot but will not
say if the family accepted his offer Dan says he doesn't know what Jack intends to do with the treasure whether he will
sell at peac meal or as one or per perhaps lease it for display what is in the end the legacy of forest Fen I think
the legacy of forest f is extremely complicated I think that there were a lot of good things that happened because
of it there were also some really bad things that happened because of it but if you're Paul Ashby who lost his only
son Eric to the hunt one of the five menant to die chasing the thrill fen's Legacy is not complicated at all he was
Reckless he was willing to ignore the fact that people were dying because all these other people worshiped
[Music] him a lot of people still do look up to Forest Fen and maybe that's not so
surprising when you feel a dream you know Live Your Dream Out follow your heart and okay so I didn't find the
treasure but I found many Treasures this in itself is the biggest treasure of all
that I found so many magical wonderful things I could never replace um without that treasure hunt I'm so grateful for
Forest thank you thank you Forest [Music] CBS next Saturday 48 Hours brings you backtack episodes all summer long this
week killer contestants he is the serial killer that we always suspected him to be you just want to wake up and have it
not be real 48 Hours Crime Time double feature next Saturday 98 Central on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus

“48 Hours" reports on cases involving unbelievable stories with several twists and turns. Watch the YouTube mini-marathon, featuring "The Fenn Treasure," "What Ever Happened to Mary Day?" and "The Circleville Letters."

00:00 The Circleville Letters 41:55 What Ever Happened to Mary Day? 1:23:40 The Fenn Treasure

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Brief Summary

The episode investigates the Circleville letters, Ron Gillespie's death, and Paul Freshour's controversial conviction for attempted murder.

Key points

The Circleville Letters. A series of anonymous letters terrorizes a small town, revealing dark secrets.
The Trial of Paul Freshour. Freshour's trial reveals damaging evidence linking him to the letters and booby trap.
The Circleville Letters Stopped Abruptly. In 1994, the Circleville letters ceased when Paul Freshour was released from prison. Did people still suspect him?
Mary Louise Day's Disappearance. Mary Louise Day vanished in 1981, leaving her family and authorities puzzled for decades.
The Discovery of Human Remains. Cadaver dogs alerted detectives to a potential burial site in the backyard, raising hopes of finding Mary.
Mary's Mysterious Disappearance. Mary vanished years ago, leaving her family in turmoil. Her stepfather's panic raises questions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It does seem like he has absolutely nothing to hide.

Commenting on Paul Freshour's cooperation with investigators.

14:29WatchOct 19, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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