Unsolved Mysteries with Dennis Farina - Season 3, Episode 16 | Forensic Files

[Music] next on Unsolved Mysteries a car crash becomes an elaborate cover up for murder and the
victim's husband becomes a suspect in her death a man has a close encounter with a
UFO and is left with a bizarre pattern of burns that no one can explain an outof contr control driver
may also be responsible for the murder of a trucker for over a century Prospectors
have searched for gold worth millions in the legendary Lost Dutchman's mind finally one may be about to find it in 3
days five cases some without endings our team is working on them and perhaps you
can help I'm Dennis finina and this is Unsolved Mysteries [Applause] [Music] [Music]
[Music] VOR Texas it's early Dawn there's been a car crash the woman behind the wheel is dead
her skin cool to the touch at first glance it appears to be a tragic accident but within minutes
puzzling details begin to emerge the dead woman has no obvious wounds and the car is barely damaged soft drinks in the
front seat haven't even spilled a woman's feet are pushed back against the seat rather than stretched
out towards the pedals she isn't wearing a seat belt yet the crash had not thrown her
forward being no damage to the interior of the vehicle and very little if not any damage to the exterior of the
vehicle and the in deepness of the ditch plain to see this was a staged incident
instead of an accident so at that point they thought they had a problem a questionable
death the woman is Kathy pige a wife and mother of two her home is just a 100 yard from the
crash site when police arrive Kathy's husband Steve answers the door who is it vter
police I'm Sergeant Mosley the vder police department are you Mr Paige yes Mr Paige you know where your wife's at
my wife he said well his wife was not home and directly looked straight down the street towards where the car
was this about my wife yes it is sir sorry to advise you sir we found her deceased in her vehicle this morning can
we step inside the res St seemed to be quite upset he began to cry at times and at times threw himself on the couch
crying but yet he would jump right back up and we were talking there would be no
signs of Tears in his eyes this seems strange to me was she in a car accident sir we don't know all the details we're
still police immediately focused their investigation on Steve Page of course I did not kill my wife the evidence
clearly shows that the perpetrator was someone other than Steve pige however many people in the small
town ofor Texas are convinced that Steve Paige did have a strong motive to kill his wife Paige insists he's
innocent see what you think Kathy and Steve pige had two daughters Aaron and Monica they seemed
like the perfect family but apparently the couple had drifted apart in their marriage mainly she was uncomfortable
with who she was or at least that was what she explained to me that she didn't know who she was she wanted to try to
find out who Kathy was because of that we talked about separating for a short period of time and allowing her to
hopefully find herself Kathy's sister Sher disagrees she says the marriage was beyond
repair Kathy was definitely moving on in her life at that point um because the decision was made for the divorce and
that in itself having a decision like that finally be resolved in itself was a rig relief off her back and she was
making plans for that Steve moved out of the house but says his relationship with Kathy
remained friendly one day she asked them to babysit their daughters while she went out with her friend she said she
was going to meet one of her girlfriends after work so I went over there she left
at approximately 11:15 to 11:30 to head to Bowmont to meet her friend person in the
car when Kathy's body was found she wasn't wearing any makeup or jewelry the autopsy showed she had been strangled
and that her nose was broken there were blood stains on her underwear and skin but strangely there was no blood on her
outer clothing Kathy Paige was not killed in her vehicle she was killed at another
location cleaned up redressed and placed back in her vehicle and and after the vehicle had been rolled into the
ditch police reconstructed Cathy's Final hours they learned that she'd had sex shortly before she died
Kathy did not meet her girlfriend but instead spent the evening with a male lover he freely admitted that on the
night Kathy died they had sex at a motel goodbye thanks he came to the police station he
gave us a statement and also voluntarily gave us a polygraph examination which he
passed with flying colors the autopsy confirmed that Kathy did have sex on the night she died
the results also revealed that whoever Kathy slept with had a vasectomy however that didn't match
Kathy's secret lover but it did match her estranged husband he had had sex with Kathy the
night she died and claimed it was before she went out come on she was getting ready she
just got out of the shower I approached her about sex and we had sex before she left before she got dressed
even I personally don't believe that that happened she wouldn't have been with Steve before being with another man
um she hadn't been with Steve in a long time he's already sleeping on the [Music]
couch for Kathy's family there is only one possible scenario it all began with two phone calls I was talking to a
sister-in-law of Steve's and she said that she knew for a fact that Steve made two phone calls
Steve called this one number and uh the girl answered and he hung up and then the second phone number was called and
they said the name of the hotel and he hung up and so he already knew where she might be or
was I feel like she came in that night and come in the back door after she done parked the car and he was asleep sitting
in a chair in the front room and when she went on in the bathroom and changed clothes took a makeup off took a jewelry
and all off and he heard it probably in the bathroom and he got up and demanded sex with her
or whatever got in a fight Kathy's family believes the fight escalated Steve raped
Kathy then strangled her then Steve realizing what had happened he wants to redress her if you
look at the violent crime profile it fits into a tea you know the remorse she want to redress you don't want them to
be found naked or bloody so there was an attempt to clean her up and redress her
but things were forgotten for instance her jewelry and her socks reason it comes down on me is
because I'm the husband I'm the estranged husband to make it even worse and because of her
actions I am being blamed for her actions she was out seeing another guy so therefore it could only have been me
I must have found out somehow how according to the police and became enr aged and committed
murder Steve has his own theory about who killed his wife okay yeah yeah I received threats on the phone that the
same thing that happened to my wife could happen to me there was a certain person here in Bowmont that was bandied
about as a person who may have been involved it's a very prominent family uh an Italian family even
uh to let you know that they're considered part of the Bowmont Mafia the murder of Kathy pige has never
been solved however Kathy's family won a wrongful death civil suit against Steve
Pig and police still consider him a person of interest in this case if you have any information please
log on to our website at unsolved.com [Music] next a man in Canada claims he had a
frightening encounter with a UFO people who claim to see UFOs typically don't have any evidence to
verify their stories but the eyewitness that you're about to meet came back with
more than a tall tale the evidence of his encounter was actually burned into his body
Steven melac and his wife came to Canada from Poland after World War II Steven was an industrial mechanic in
a local cement plant he was also an avid rock collector I love nature I love birds
animals every weekend I usually travel go to the out in the country and snooping in the rock
one weekend he was prospecting in the Hills East of Winnipeg when he was suddenly distracted by a noisy flock of
geese I notice two cigarette like shape Kinks with the hump in the middle I said what the hell is
that one stay in the air and the other one is coming down down down I start looking for Marks NASA or
something written on it no nothing I didn't see anything on it but still I was thinking that
probably experimenting vehicle from United States Steven made this sketch of the
strange craft just after it landed I do remember one description that he gave at the time he said that
the skin of the craft the outside of the craft was Flawless Stan mlac was only 10
years old at the time it was as though you had milled out of a solid block of steel this disc this saucer with the
Dome on top Steven told his son that after a few minutes the door of the craft slowly
opened when the gate opened there was a G kind of shy talk like a like a kids in
problem or something as he drew closer to the door the light was so bright that he had to
snap down the visor on his safety [Music] goggles then after a few moments the door suddenly shut
Steven says the craft then rotated counterclockwise it knocked them backwards and his shirt caught on
fire after igniting with the fire the craft lifts up 30 to 40 ft and vanished and then I decided say said now
is the time for me to buzz off from here so I started going and shock Steven headed back towards his car he was
nauseous and vomited several times disoriented he checked his Compass trying to find his way Southeast to the
road the needle went haywire Steven made his best guess at the right direction 9 hours later he
finally arrived back home in Winnipeg he was badly burned and still disoriented which left doctors
baffled at that point in time the diagnosis if you can call it that was Burns and sure they were Burns yes heat
caused Burns what they couldn't diagnose and didn't have a clue about was what appeared below the chest on the abdomen
the exact same pattern of holes that was on the grid on the side of the craft in
the same in the same rows in the same number appeared as red spots on his lower abdomen red
dots Steven was released from the hospital but his nausea continued and his body had a strange odor of burning
sulfur there was this sulfur ozone electric burning motor stink about him it's like he's carrying Aura the smell
wherever you walked and you got close to you you could you could smell this nothing bad showers wouldn't take it out
that lasted for weeks Steven was tested for radiation poisoning the results were
negative no one could explain what caused the strange burns on his body or the sulfur
odor the Physicians were actually unable to determine many of mik's ailments they
knew for example he was physically thermally burned his chest was burned and singed but the pattern lower down on
his chest was very very unusual it was eventually determined that it was a chemical burn not a radiation burn
although he did have some symptoms that might have suggested that some people that some sort of radiation effects
might have been involved 6 weeks after the encounter Steven and a friend went looking for the
site Bob come quick after several hours they found a burnt out Circle the same size as the craft Steven had seen it was
more than 30 ft wide this is it I knew it I told you on this Barren patch of rock was a circular
ring of vegetation dead pine needles dirt leaves that sort of thing the rock had been swept clean except for this
ring which was surrounding this area they also noticed that a few of the trees appeared to have dead branches as
if something had either come in and and touched them or brushed by them with a an intense heat or some other
effects within days a team of experts from the United States working with the Royal Canadian Air Force converged on
the site they took measurements cataloged soil samples and checked for radiation the levels appeared quite High
and the health department considered quarantining the area later however they discovered that
the high level were caused by an unrelated vein of radium which ran under the entire
region n this is my colleague Dr Shaw he's a radiologist meanwhile Stevens Burns suddenly flared up
again his doctors remained puzzled after every 3 months my Burns were coming back showing up again and
burning and burning and vomiting to this day you can if you let you can press into his
skin and feel subcutaneous scar tissue in the form of those burns on his chest which he playfully calls his buttons and
it's there you cannot deny this this is there cracks one year after Steven's close encounter he and a friend return
to the site so where is it is it in this crack just about Center a little north of
Center the guer counter Rose very very dramatically at that point they scooped out almost half a Jar full of what
appeared to be molten rock or molten metal of some sort quite radioactive according to Ed Barker the
material was an extremely rare grade of silver it was coated with pitch blend ore which contained both radioactive
uranium and radium why would particles and metal fragments of this size and radioactivity
have been missed by all previous investigators and this is one mystery that we don't have definite answers to
this day I'd like to think that one day we'll get a letter from the US government and it'll say we have the two
craft in a hanger over here and we were experimenting with them at the time sorry and I'd want to go and see them
and I'm sure Dad would too and that would be great what would be worse is to have this
thing dragged to a point and drag on where it's never explained Steven mlac and his wife
remained in Manitoba until his death over 30 years after his encounter The Unexplained burn marks on
his chest never went away no matter what others said Steven died believing he had
seen something not of this Earth next a highway stalker may be connected to the coldblooded murder Long Haul
[Music] trucker Chandler Oklahoma and Anonymous caller reports a body lying beside a phone booth at a
highway rest stop authorities arrive to find the man has been murdered coins are scattered all around
his body the dead man is Dwayne mccorkendale a 27-year-old truck driver and father of
twin girls he has been killed by a single shotgun blast fired at close range the apparent motive
robbery if Dwayne had been killed in an accident I could have stood it a lot better it seemed so ironic that he was
killed for money when the last thing a trucker will do is carry very much for that very
[Music] reason every day thousands of big rigs roll across the highways of America CB
radios are their Lifeline to the rest of the world but for Dwayne mccorkendale a
casual conversation over the airwaves may have signed his death warrant double wh headed back to Kanas
City come on back Dwayne's final run began like any other he left Detroit Michigan headed for Oklahoma City laugh
the two baby girls waiting for me back there mccorkendale made a regular run bringing parts to an Oklahoma City
Automobile Plant we have no reason to believe anything was different that night he enters the turnpike he's given
a a ticket with the time on on it and through that ticket we're able to determine that he made no other stops he
drove directly from the turnpike gate to the rest area other truckers reported that late
in the afternoon Dwayne told him he was pulling over at the Chandler rest stop to call his wife yeah I'm going to pull
over here at this rest and call her wife see how things back at home we'll catch
you on the other side we see you later it's double we going byebye we theorized that someone had been listening to him
on the CB uh and actually followed him into that rest area or perhaps was already there waiting for
him it looked like he was walking up to the telephone perhaps counting change out in his hand since there was change
there at the base of the phone booth and was killed as he stepped up to make the
call whoever was involved in this killed mccorkendale just shot him in the back and he was dead before he
ground then checked him to see if he had any money on him any valuables at all people like that are to us scary
because those type of people in our minds are very likely to do it again we got the only items missing were
Dwayne's keys and his wallet investigators estimate the Killer's total take was no more than
$25 early on in the investigation our leads were thin one of the things that the agent started doing is he started
putting notices in the trucker magazines across the United States and the call started coming
in within days several truckers called investigators about a brown Ford Pino equipped with a CB
radio time of the mccor Andale death we have reports that the pinto was driving very erratically on the highway uh
trying to cut 18 wheelers off hey man what do you think you're doing trying to get somebody hurt out
there well you don't know who you're messing with good buddy we'll drive anyway we won't hey man ain't no way to
B come on now behave out here you going to get somebody hurt so we've already killed one trucker and we'll kill
another if you stay our way and when the truck driver would call them on the CB they were abusive they they said that uh
leave us alone or or we'll do to you what we did to to this other trucker 3 weeks later authorities received a call
from another trucker who reported a strange encounter he had the day before the murder while he was having lunch at
a rest stop he was approached by a young woman L you got any dope you can let us
have really need something she looked kind of trashy I mean it looked like she had been on something and she was just
awful shaky he might be my friend we um we've been down in Texas visiting some friends we're trying to get back to
Alabama can you can you help us find the road to get there I kind of turned to reach to get a map and next thing she's
got her hold the front half inside the truck we just need a few Bo I really need about that time this Brown penel
pulled up and then she jumped down off the truck and they took off the next day just 13 Mi south on the
same Highway Dwayne mandelle was gunned down after I read that article I thought
maybe I'm lucky that I didn't get out of the truck otherwise I might have been the one that would have got
shot while we have no way of knowing if the pinto was actually involved in this or not it is without a doubt our
strongest lead and we have got to locate the pinto and ultimately the people to talk to them to see if if nothing else
we can eliminate them from this from this situation today authorities are no closer to finding the Pendle and Dwayne
mccor canel's killer than the day he died the occupants of the penno are described as a white male and a black
male sometimes accompanied by a white woman if you have a tip that could help solve this case please visit our website
at unsolved.com next legend of the Lost Dutchman's mind it's worth millions of dollars in gold and
it's just waiting to be [Music] found Arizona Superstition Mountains a desolate Wasteland but Legend has it
that these mountains contain the richest deposits of gold in America the Lost Dutchman's
mine the exact location of the Lost Dutchman's mind remains a mystery it was supposedly discovered by a German
prospector more than a 100 years ago today all that L gold would be worth over $200
million Jacob Waltz was a student of Mining and he knew what he was doing the old-timers were very very St to the fact
of geology they knew what they were looking for if you're going to go out in these mountains anywhere and look for
gold you really want to go to places where gold has been found superstitions would be an exception you wouldn't go in
there but Jacob Waltz did Prospect in those rugged mountains and apparently struck a rich vein of
gold when Waltz was 80 years old he decided to hide his mind to protect it he dug a hole 6 feet deep at its
entrance he then laid in two rows of logs and topped them with the dirt and Stones Walt who was nicknamed the
Dutchman bragged that you can drive a pack train over the entrance to the mine and never know that it was
[Music] there several months after Walt closed up the mine he got pneumonia and was
taken to the home of his friend Julia Thomas on his deathbed he told her there was gold from the Mind stash under his
bed he said that's what I've been living on all these years he took out the box they opened it and their comment was my
God that's rich he said it's a vain he said there's enough in sight to make millionaires out of 20
men the Dutchman gave Julia and a local minor Reinhardt Petr only Clues to the mines location the northwest corner of
the Superstition Mountains take the take the trail in he died before he could give them a
map that showed the exact location of the mine soon after waltz's death Julia Reinhardt Petr and his brother Herman
searched for the mine using the vague Clues Waltz had given them he said the settings Sun Shines
into the entrance to by mine and Glitters on the gold so it must have faced to the West he said you take the
first gorge on the South Side from the West End of the range he said that you can see Weaver's needle to the south
from above my mind they went in there for almost 5 weeks they came out without any gold and
this was noted in the Arizona Republican in 1892 in fact they called it the queer
quest in to go Julia invested everything she owned into the Expedition but she returned
broke she never again set foot in the Superstition Mountains Herman Pat trash accused his
brother Reinhardt of getting Jacob's directions wrong they never spoke again Reinhardt continued to search for
the mind but when he realized he would never find it he took his own life almost 100 years later a modern-day
treasure hunter claimed he found the mine his name was Walt gazler head chef at the builtmore hotel in Phoenix Walt
used Clues handed down from Jacob's deathbed and spent years looking for the legendary M nice to meet you have a seat
thank you when his health began to fail Walt contacted two Prospect s Bob Corbin
who was then the Attorney General of Arizona and Tom cinor a local historian he wanted to get together with
me so that we could perhaps go with him and continue looking for the mine and with his directions after he had died
and he gave me his notes as well as a map as to where his Camp was and where he believed the mine to
be two months later Walt called Tom he was very excited and claimed that he had finally located the Dutchman's M Tom how
are you doing wal Gast called me on Sunday evening he said I'm going to the mine I know exactly where it is I just
can't possibly break away in the morning you and Corbin have to go Walt gastler was convinced that the
mine existed from the clues that he had some of those Clues he would not reveal and the next morning his wife
took him out to the trail head and dro him all see you in 3 days Walt hiked alone into the superstitions never to be
seen alive again his body was founded 3 Days Later an autopsy proved he had died of a heart
attack I'm Colin yes I'm Roland gastler how you doing Roland one month after Walt's death historian Tom cinourn had a
surprise visitor and he check was Rowan gastler Walt gastler son she said well you know my dad found the lost Dutchman
in the superstitions and he got out a piece of gold showed it to me Bo that stuff really looks good it looked very
similar to the gold that allegedly came out of the LOF du mine where did this come from came right straight out of my
dad's backpack Bob Roland insisted his dad had found the lost man he wanted to retrace his father's steps and he took
back Walt's old maps and notes yes that is my dad you're his son you're the one that should go
to two months passed Tom never heard whether Roland's search was successful one night after giving a
lecture Tom was approached by another stranger Mr cinor yes hi I'm Roland gastler I've been this claimed that he
was Roland gastler I think my jaw dropped 10 foot to the ground it wasn't the same guy I said I ought to ask you
for driver's license or something I said you're the second rolling gastler I've run into in the last couple of months
sure looks like you're Roland gastler yes sir after meeting two Roland gers I wondered who was really Roland gastler
I'm yes it appeared the first Roland gastler was an impostor he apparently wanted Walt's Maps so that he could find
the mine himself but where did he get the gold ore sample it came right straight out of
when Walt died the sheriff's report listed a backpack among his belongings but the real roling gastler never
received it Don shade the man who found Walt's body also remembered seeing the backpack and he noticed the stranger in
the area that day there was another man in the area at the time when Tom cinor later gave us a description of the man
that came to him and showed him some gold it jibed up with the man that we saw in here some believe that the fake
Roland gastler was in the mountains when Walt died and stole the backpack with its precious ore i' like to believe Walt
found it he spent so many years looking for it and the last thing he would have done in his life before he died would
have found the Mind I'd like to believe that when Jacob Waltz died he left a trunk of gold and a list of Clues he
also started the legend with which has captured the dreams of three generations of treasure
Hunters I have good reason to believe that the Dutchman's Legend could be true I've seen the ore that was under his bed
when he died I've seen the assay report on it and a today's gold prices that ore
would be worth over $2.2 million a ton it's the richest gold ore I've ever seen in my life and I've seen a lot of gold
door this could have been gassers trick in the trail cuz Superstition Mountains have been reclassified as a federally
owned Wilderness Area if the mine were found today by the fake Roman gastler or anyone else all the gold would belong to
the government this does not prevent modern Prospectors from still searching for the
Lost Dutchman's Gold [Music] Mine next a pretty co-ed goes for a morning bike ride and never
returns Bloomington Indiana 19-year-old Jill Burman leaves her home after breakfast she doesn't have to be in
class until noon so she heads off for her morning ride Jill treated a bike ride like a
workout she took it pretty seriously and she wanted to ride hard and her friends
have told me that going for a bike ride with Jill was not very much fun because they couldn't keep
up Jill is a business major at Indiana University everyone describes her as a funloving All-American Girl I filed her
purse later that day Jill's parents become alarmed when she doesn't return home it's way after dark it's very late
it's cold outside and I was alternating between being sad or worried or maybe even angry thinking why would she do
this why would she go off and not tell us what she's up to it was then that we both were really
I think terrified as to just what might have happened to her Jill Berman had vanished police
thought she might have been abducted or that she had been the victim of a hit and run accident but there were no signs
of Foul Play and no body there were just no answers news of Jill's disappearance
spread quickly soon hundreds from the community joined investigators in their search local cycling clubs traced the
routes that she may have taken they had groups of people not only searching the roads but about 15 50 ft
or so off on each side of the road and the woods and The Ravines and and places that we know that Jill like to
ride despite their massive effort Searchers found no trace of Jill but then a vital clue
surfaced a resident of Bloomington reported that on the same day Jill had disappeared he had found an abandoned
bicycle the serial number identified it as Jill's bike investigators searched the area
where the bike was discovered but they found nothing authorities were puzzled Jill was last seen headed south
but her bike was found 10 mies Northwest of her home that's not a route that she
would have been on that day that's about 10 Mi away it's through town it's through a great deal of traffic and she
wouldn't run in the traffic we've had any number of theories in this and certainly one of those
theories is that Jill was targeted and that they place the bicycle in an area different from where she was last seen
in an effort to try and uh uh at least lead us away from the area in which he was in fact
abducted she's not with the bike and the bike is somewhere she would not have ridden and this isn't making any sense
this is even more more mysterious and more scary now because now I don't know what to
think the day after the bike was found a Walkman radio mysteriously turned up in
the parking lot of a local church it was the same model and color as the one Jill
usually took with her while [Music] cycling at the same moment the Walkman was found an eyewitness saw a suspicious
pickup truck leaving the parking lot there's no indication that that pickup truck was related to the Walkman
however we've attempted to try and find the um not only the pickup truck but certainly the the individual driving it
we've been unsuccessful in doing that a year later in Kentucky a female cyclist was almost
abducted a driver intentionally hit her and then tried to drag her into his car but he was chased Away by a witness a
police artist made this sketch of the suspect authorities believe he may have been involved in Jill's
disappearance another theory is that Jill was the victim of a hidden run accident we believe that it was
certainly possible that that Jill was struck by a group of people who were high on drugs alcohol or both that these
folks panicked and instead of leaving her or trying to get help for her they put her and the bike and a vehicle and
and took her however there was very little damage to Jill's bicycle perhaps Jill was not on
her bike when she was hit that's one of the hardest things about this whole situation is the not
knowing without knowing whether she's alive without knowing where she [Music] is I miss that smile I miss her
laugh it's a nightmare that just keeps going on every night we uh light the candle on
the front doorstep and it stays lit all night until the next morning kind of a Beacon of
Hope and just as a reminder that Jill is still missing and every day we pray that
that's going to be the day that we find you [Music] update 3 years after Jill Burman
disappeared her remains were found in a remote area outside of Bloomington it took another 3 years for
authorities to piece together a case against John R Meyers who lived just 3 miles from where Jill's bike was
found he apparently had become upset with his ex-girlfriend and took his anger out on
Jill a jury found Meers guilty of murder he was sentenced to 65 years in prison [Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music]

Brief Summary

Four cases: Kathy Paige's suspicious death, UFO encounter, trucker's murder, and Lost Dutchman's mine legend.

Key points

The Mysterious Death of Kathy Paige. Kathy Paige's death is ruled suspicious after police find evidence of foul play.
UFO Encounter Leaves Lasting Marks. Steven Melac's close encounter with a UFO results in unexplained burns on his body.
Tragic Murder of Trucker Dwayne McCorkendale. Dwayne McCorkendale is murdered at a rest stop, leaving behind twin daughters.
The Mystery of Jill Burman. 19-year-old Jill Burman vanishes after a morning bike ride, sparking a massive search effort.
Tragic Discovery. Three years later, Jill's remains are found, leading to the arrest of John R. Meyers.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I did not kill my wife.

Steve Paige insists on his innocence amid suspicions.

3:34WatchMar 9, 2017

Tension

70/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.