The Year We Disappeared | Full Episode | Forensic Files

48 Hours [Music] presents imagine being 9 years old and learning that someone wanted to
kill you your dad your brothers and your mom that's what I found out when I was 9 years
old it All Began on a perfect summer day it was the end of summer August it was hot sunny not a cloud in the sky and we
spent all day at the beach and everything was ideal until that night when everything
Chang changed my uncle was a police officer and he worked the midnight shift my dad left for work just like
normal he hadn't gone probably half a mile from our house when a car pulled up behind him pulled out alongside him and
he was shot through the driver side window of his car with a shotgun the shakun blast tore through his face
and ripped off his lower jaw before he lost Consciousness he wrote not an accident he realized that
they were trying to kill him and he feared for his family's life on that summer night my childhood
ended I was never alone again we were guarded 24 hours a day everybody had a gun we were fenced in we
had an attack dog we had a sniper on the roof with a longrange rifle you couldn't
go out I had hidden a steak knife under my mattress and I would just lay there and
listen I just knew that the people who shot my father were not going to stop until we were all dead
[Music] next door to our house there was an old old graveyard it sounds morbid but it was
actually this beautiful place to go and play there were these old trees that you
were perfect for climbing and grassy lawn to play tag and hide and seek and we spent a lot of time over
there family with Massachusetts was the ideal place to grow up every summer day we would get up in
the morning my mom would pack a lunch and we would head out to Old Silver Beach by the end of the summer we'd all
be brown as berries and just relaxed and [Music] happy that summer it was me my two older
brothers Eric and Shawn my dad my mom my mom was studying to be a nurse and then my cousin Kelly who was
helping out my parents take care of us kids she was there to have fun but she was babysitting was how she earned her
rent my father was a police officer dad's first day in uniform in his uniform my dad looked
incredibly handsome I thought he looked like a movie star to me he seemed Invincible my uncle John was a guy that
you didn't mess with he took his job and his position very seriously the John buby I fell in love with
was an athlete he was handsome he was very self-confident he was one of the nicest
fathers he was a wrestler on the ground kind dad and I hold my little girl close kind
of dad John always gave us the sense of safety and that nothing would happen to us as as long as he was
around August 31st 1979 was what changed our lives forever nothing was ever the [Music]
same August 31st 1979 this was the Friday the start of Labor Day weekend we were out in the
driveway painting my dad's car this was my mom's way of getting us out of the house that night so that my dad could
sleep because he worked the midnight shaft and this is a photo that my mom took of me that night when I was growing
up it was really hard for me to look at because I would look at this girl and I would study her face and I would think
what is that girl thinking about like what is her life like because it felt like after that night
that childhood ended so that night my dad got up to get ready for work my brothers and I would have been
in bed when I heard the knock on the door I was watching Benny Hill and in fact I was laughing I can
remember I heard someone screaming or crying [Music] and um at first I thought it was the
TV and um I woke up and I came out of my room and I saw my Dad's friend Rick Smith was
there and he was in uniform and he was talking to my mom and she was crying and screaming and she kept saying no no no
no and she kept trying to push him away from her I said Paulie there's there's been
an incident involving John and she goes what happened what happened and I said he'd been
shot I made a noise I remember making a noise and falling back against the wall and sinking down I was saying what
what's wrong what's going on and she didn't even acknowledge that I had come out of my room there was a a great deal
of confusion um we knew something bad had happened to him and I told Kelly I'll call you as soon as I know what's
happening and the next thing I knew I was in the cruiser I could see lights lights
everywhere and I could see John's Volkswagen riddled with holes and I thought to myself this is
bad this is really bad by the time we got to the hospital there was a doctor and the nurses and he was he was in a
triage unit the doctors were all over him and he kept beckoning that he wanted to write wanted to
write my dad managed to write a note he said paully and the kids not safe when he wrote that note I knew there was one
person in town that was capable of trying to kill John and that person was capable of killing his whole
family it felt like I was in a storm and I didn't know how bad that storm was going to
get or if any of us were going to be safe again [Music] ever my art Polly had just left with the
police officer instructions were to stay away from the windows and keep the house unlit and
keep the door locked I closed all the shutters and locked all the doors and turned out the
lights I don't know how much time had passed but I saw the lights of a car pull into the driveway I was expecting a
police crew Cruiser to pull into the yard and it was [Music] not there was a guy in a red car and he
had a rifle I didn't recognize him I can remember that the children at least Sean
was very panicked saying who's that guy he's got a he's got a gun is he coming to kill
us I was scared I was in great fear that that individ ual was going to come in and kill whoever was in the
house get in the back of the house get in the back of the house there was a lot of things going
through my mind to flee was not an option there was no way out all I could think of is we need to
hide and make it look like there's nobody still at the house everything everything was Whispers
I said we need to be quiet until they go away then we heard someone knock at the
door knocking Lou or knock knock knock Kelly just said stay quiet stay quiet and I'm just talking to myself
saying he's going to go away it's going to be okay we're going to be okay please
stop knocking at the door please go away [Music] and then it stopped I took a deep breath thinking
thank God it's over he's going away and suddenly I heard knocks at the back door it was then that I realized they
weren't going away that's when Kelly said this is the plan I want you guys to go into the
attic and hide in there do not come out of the attic until I come and get you or until your mom
comes home don't come out for anybody else all I could think was we're going to go up in the attic and this guy's
going to come looking for us and we have to be so quiet and not move it was hard to balance on the
Rafters and I was in a night gown and I didn't want to fall into the insulation which was very prickly so I was just
trying to stay still really hard and not move or make a sound and we just waited for whoever was going to whoever
was going to come up [Music] there the kids are in the Attic guy still knocking at the back
door not going away and I remember thinking what am I going to do the first thing I had to do is protect those
children and make it look as though they weren't home and if there was entry into
the house that I was the only one in the [Music] residence I walked over to the window
which is right beside the door and at that moment the guy pulled out a police badge he said he was a fouth police
officer and that he was here to watch over John Busby's family we heard Kelly say he's a cop it's okay
you can come down and then once we heard that we were like okay it's safe throughout the evening more police
officers showed up to watch the home and at that point I realized that it just wasn't going to be okay the next day
[Applause] they were trying to get an airway down they couldn't get it down so they
started giving him morphine and I heard somebody say he won't go down we we can't get him to
relax and get the airway in one of the officers behind me and I think it was Rick Smith he said we have
somebody at the house with the kids we've got somebody there and others on in route and it was like you could see
John just relax he relaxed he laid back and they slipped an airway in I really believe that John
overwhelmed the doctors at the the felic hospital they'd never seen anything like
that they didn't know quite what to do John looked like a monster his beautiful handsome face went
right to hear normal and then it was like T tissue had stretched and stretched and stretched and right about
here on his chest was his chin there was no jaw I wondered how how are we going to
repair this how are we going to put this back together from the Falmouth Hospital they
took him by ambulance to Mass General Hospital they reassured me that they'd got in him
there in enough time to keep him from bleeding out but it would depend on how strong he was to come through the
[Music] surgery police in Falmouth today are looking for suspects who fired into the
face of an officer there 36-year-old John Busby was driving to the morning after the shooting we left to go stay
with my uncle near the hospital where my dad was staying in Boston no one was told where we were
going and when we got there we were told not to tell anyone where we were staying
or who we were staying with this was the beginning of the year that we [Music] disappeared what do you think of the
police response chat now on Facebook and Twitter [Laughter] [Music] [Music] when John became uh aware in the
recovery room his eyes fluttered some and then he started going from tube to tube and then he realized he couldn't
talk and I I saw a look in his eyes almost of you know I I can't talk and then he saw me sitting
there and he wrote don't leave leave me like [Music] this he didn't want to be on a
respirator or be an invalet like that and if the choice came I needed to let him go I needed to
let him die I said you can't leave me here you can't leave me with these three kids I I can't be left alone you have to
stay you have to come back we'll make it he couldn't speak he couldn't breathe he couldn't eat he couldn't even
drink water I mean he couldn't do anything because they had wired shut what was left of his
face once I saw him I thought wow they really meant to kill him and I remember going to bed some nights and I would
just lay in bed and think my dad everybody likes my dad who could want to kill my
[Music] dad my father knew the instant that he was shot who was trying to kill him and
he was able to communicate that to the officers who were there on the scene when I first saw him he was
shaking shaking like a dog he was holding the towels up to his face and and I I asked him who did this John and
he got out a pen and a notebook that he always carried with him and he wrote not
an accident Mel rainy John did not see who shot him but he knew exactly who would want him
dead Melvin rainy was in the trash hauling business he had contracts all over Cape
Cod and it was very lucrative he was a convicted asinus he had a reputation of getting
even with individuals by sneaking in the night and burning properties his favorite saying was I
smell smoke I smell smoke which meant you know without directly threatening it meant there's going to be a fire in your
future your house your car whatever I'm going to burn something of yours Melvin rainy was also suspected of
murder he was suspected of killing three people and in two of those cases the bodies have never been
recovered melbour Rainey was married to a woman named Wanda mados rainy and um in 1971 she went missing he claims that
he dropped her off at the bus station and she was never seen again about a year later a teenage boy in
Falmouth named Jeff Lanigan went missing he was dating a 17-year-old girl who had been babysitting for the Rainy
family who Melvin was also interested in Jeff Flanigan was found shot to death his body was recovered in a
cranberry barog directly across the street from Melvin rini's home and then a former employee of
Melvin rainy a 17-year-old boy named Paul alwart was set to testify against Melvin in a grand jury arson
investigation the police promised that he would be protected they escorted him to the
Martha Vineyard fairy where he could go out to where he had some family and stay
there until the trial he got on the ferry he didn't get off Melvin reeney basically walked free
on all all of those accounts I think because people were afraid to prosecute him and I'm talking
about policemen afraid of him because they had families and they go to bed at night and you don't know if he was going
to burn the house down with your kids in the house I knew that the police chief's
car had burnt in his yard and everybody assumed that it was you know Melvin but nobody could prove
it I think Melvin Rainey considered himself Untouchable and that extended to his immediate family so if the police
tried to give a ticket to anyone in his family he would March into the police station and have the ticket torn up and
have it erased from the log book well my dad was either brave enough to take on Melvin Rainey or he was fool
hearty enough to take him on if you broke the law he didn't care who you were who you were connected to you were
going to get a ticket you were going to go to court so he had run-ins with them my dad was conducting traffic at a
roadblock at a fatal accident and Melvin rainy's brother John Ry was there in his
semi and instead of waiting for this scene to be cleared he just decided to drive straight through the accident
scene and he actually hit my father with his truck he went to his house and arrested
him and charged him with assault and battery with a deadly weapon and just prior to that court
hearing John Busby was shot I thought instantly that Melvin Rainey had shot him and now we're going to start after
Melvin I think there were a lot of cops on the force who wanted to go straight to rainy's house and just drag him out
but there were a lot of other people people who were positions of power who were really too scared to to do anything
about it I would challenge anyone to go to any Police Department and ask the question
if one of their officers was shot in the line of duty what would they do and I can tell you that the response will be
they're not going to stop investigating that crime until an arrest is made this did not happen in the town of
fouth when John Busby was shot this is the police log from that night you know the local paper does the log
of accident fight in progress disorderly group noisy house at the hour of my dad
shooting there was nothing they didn't put it in they took it out of the police log I mean they've
got everything else in here dog barking two drunks near Russell and fou Heights um you know every single te anything in
town is in here and for some reason the police log doesn't state for that night that a police officer was
shot to my knowledge the Falmouth Police Department never interviewed Melvin reeney regarding the John Busby
shooting I've often wondered just exactly how this little guy could get away with the stuff
that he got away with without even being questioned it was clear to a lot of us that there was something behind the
scenes that was much more powerful than Melvin Rey Melvin Rey had something on someone whether he was paying people in
envelopes or whether he had pictures from some sort of sexual act he clearly had so much control that the police
didn't go after him nobody was going to do anything about a crime involving Melvin
[Music] Rey Michael John did not want to die Michael John wanted to live and live
to take care of what happened to him their biggest mistake was they didn't kill him that was their biggest
mistake 48 Hours presents will [Music] continue my name is John BOS they didn't but I
[Music] did someone's going to do a voice over for me I'm a little hard to understand
but these are my words and this is my [Music] story I was on my way into work the
midnight shift a vehicle pulled up behind me pulled out as if to pass it didn't pass
it matched my [Music] [Applause] speed I got word while I was in the hospital that the investigation had been
been totally botched I determined there was only one way that Justice was going to be done
and I was going to have to supply it I was going to have to get healthy get out of the
hospital and kill this guy [Music] we came back from Boston we drove to our house and when we
pulled into the driveway there were police cars in the driveway the police made it clear that
we needed to be protected we had at least two guards our property 24 hours a day and they were
well [Music] armed everywhere I went there was a cop I had a police officer follow me to
school wait outside my classroom all day in the lunchroom everywhere I went my first day back to school we went
down to the lunchroom a boy came over to the table leaned over to me and said you
know why that cop's here don't you because somebody wanted to kill your dad and somebody's going to come and kill
you they were thought of as being different at that time and not in a special way but in a way of almost like
a virus kids had been told don't sit by her they were transferred out of my classroom because what parent wants
their kid next to you know a ticking Time Bomb basically life was spent speculating who somebody was who was
traveling Too Close to You didn't matter where you were you thought about who's beside me and what could they do to
[Music] you we had police protection for the first few months when we were [Music]
home when it started costing the town so much money that it was busting the bank
I guess they decided to protect us in a different way an 8 foot fence an alarm system and a guard
dog his name was Max I did not like max if I was in the yard without my dad that dog had to be chained up if he
thought somebody was going to hurt my dad even if it was me he would just bite your throat
out getting him meant that our family dog tiger had to be given away because she was terrified of him
we had gone from a really regular family where my parents were really loving to things being very serious all the time
we used to go to the beach do things together as a family and now we just I mean we really just didn't leave our
house as a group anymore my uncle was very quiet and you could almost see the turmoil in his
thought process you could see he was thinking thinking all the time there was a simmering anger that was
building all physicality between us and him ended because he was injured you felt like you couldn't get close to him
physically or emotionally anymore his personality was just so different he just seemed like he was in a different
world two or 3 days would go by and I would just stay in my room felt like my head was going to
explode I started pushing my family away from me pushing my wife the children away from
me we were living in our own prison and the people who had done that to me were living their normal
lives the only way out of this mess was leaving town moving my family somewhere safe by then I would be healthy and
strong and able to arm myself with an untraceable [Music] weapon I was going to cut through the
woods across from the dump and I was going to wait for Melvin to empty his truck there was no way I could miss him
he'd be a Sitting Duck and that was my plan put a hole in his head right through the
windshield and finish him [Music] [Music] off I would come home from school sometimes I would just go into my
room and sit on my bunk bed and I would just stare out the window window and wait for it to get
dark I just wanted the day to be over I just wanted the days to go by I wanted the waiting to end for whatever whatever
was going to happen the only place we could think of that no one would ever think that we
would live is in the middle of the country and when we put the names of places that had accepted me as a nurse
in a hat and Drew out Tennessee we gave it a go once we knew where we were moving my parents made it
very clear to us that we couldn't tell anyone anything about where we were being
relocated Max our killer dog was sold back to the training center and the town of Falmouth was kind enough to let us
keep the money and we would need every scent of it my compensation for getting shot in
the line of duty was $200 a week he was shot twice he was shot once physically Al by a shotgun and he was
shot the second time by the town when they gave him the boot they said it's it's easier for you to just go live
someplace else than live here and we'll save money and you'll be on your [Music]
way the town ordered a police escort for us as far as the born Bridge goodbye and
good riddance we weren't their problem anymore I assumed the so-called investigation
into my shooting would end as soon as we cleared the bridge that morning and I was
[Music] right as we were driving South it was August when we moved and it just got
hotter and hotter every day that we were driving it felt like we were driving into hell
and I do remember thinking you know after everything that we've been through and how crappy Our Lives had become and
now this is what we get this is our Escape our new life was to move to this place which was in the middle of
nowhere it just felt like you know adding insult to injury it was like and then after this here's your prize here's
what you get you know [Music] we had to assume disguises almost to fit in and to not stand out and make make
ourselves too obvious I became like the girls at school I pretended I had a Southern
accent I got a perm I started wearing lip gloss and I lied I lied about our past why we had moved there what had
happened to my father what was wrong with his face you know when you tell a lie for
long enough and it sort of becomes your [Music] reality those people that lived in Cape
Cod that little girl and my dad and all of us they really did disappear I mean we relocated to Tennessee but the people
that we were are gone forever the first couple of years that we lived in Tennessee we watched very
carefully we lived in a very isolated area John watched cars that went by the house to see if they slowed down and
that finally wore away it went away he kind of looked like the old John except for the fact that he had this
huge mountain man beard I believe that John needed that type of place for a healing process we
lived on a large farm he did a lot of work on that farm when he was physically able he split wood we would never need
just for the physical smashing of an an axe through a piece of something from time to time I had to
return to Boston for surgery and that meant shaving my beard off and every time I shaved my beard off
I would see what they had done to me and the angle would just come flooding back while I was up in Boston I visited
my uncle he always called me nephew he said nephew come down in the cellar I got something I want to show
you we went down the cellar he opened up a gun case and there was a 22 caliber rifle
it had a scope on it and on the end of it was a silencer it was everything I needed I looked at the gun my uncle had
put together I wrote a few words in my notebook and showed it to [Music] him thank you for all your effort I
won't need it when John returned from that surgery he came through the door and before he said
hello or anything else he looked me straight in the eye and he said I'm done I'm done with surgery I'm done with
going back there I'm really done and I said I'm done too I really felt we had turned a corner
that he was leaving the revenge and his hatred behind and that he was going to to embrace his family and his life we
were heading forward with the person that John grew into to be the Manny is today in 2003 there was actually a break
in my dad's case there was a confession the rainies had started turning on each other fighting over
money and they'd gone into the police and started spilling family secrets 24 years after my dad's shooting
John Rainey finally came clean he placed the entire blame for my dad's shooting on his brother Melvin
rainy Melvin's brother told the whole story of the night of John's shooting Melvin sat in the back seat he
had a ski mask on according to his brother he had a shotgun which he put out the back
window as they slowly passed John's Volkswagen he shot around from the shotgun which went through Jon's
face in a sense it was Vindication John was right all those years he'd been right it was Melvin rainy who wanted him
dead they remain unpunished and they will remain unpunished because the statute of limitations the sad part of
this Vindication was the fact that it came to light after the stat I limitations so no legal process would
happen in some ways Melvin did get punished Melvin is in a state institution he has what is reported to
be pix disease which is a disease that affects the brain I'm told that he's in a state of dementia you know what goes
around comes around he he's getting what's rightly his I guess [Music] this is the only childhood I
had to have lived through it and be here today I just feel like it's made me who
I am it's touched every part of my life I write books for kids I'm a mom and I'm a wife well I can't think of
anything else that I would yeah I have it all quite frequently I compare what has
happened to Melvin and what I'm going through now there's no doubt in my mind that I
won no [Music] question we now live in paradise and we are so content with one another we've
come through a storm and now we're at peace [Music] another Amazing Story of Survival I opened up the door and said
it's the police department Marty are you home something was wrong because she would
not just miss work Marty is a big bunch of dynamite and a little bitty package she might weigh 97 lb soak and wet there
was a person laying on the floor covered head to toe in blood I started crying and saying all I want to do is talk to
my mom who did this who did this to you Marty someone had broken into my grandma's house maybe it was the same
person and maybe someone was after our family whoever did it was still out there 48
Hours presents Live to Tell coming up next

48 Hours Presents: Live to Tell: A little girl is terrorized when a killer wants her family dead To watch full episodes of 48 Hours Mystery, CLICK http://cbsn.ws/1cai8zp

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Brief Summary

John Busby survived a shooting; his family's life changed forever as they sought justice against the shooter, Melvin Rainey.

Key points

A Perfect Summer Day. A childhood memory before everything changed forever.
The Night Everything Changed. The night of the shooting that altered their lives.
The Aftermath of the Shooting. The immediate chaos and fear following the attack.
The Threat of Melvin Rainey. The looming danger from a known criminal.
Living in Isolation. The family felt trapped, both physically and emotionally, in their own home.
A Dangerous Plan. The narrator reveals a dark plan for revenge against Melvin.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I was never alone again.

Reflecting on the aftermath of the shooting.

1:53WatchDec 28, 2013

Tension

80/ 100High tension

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