Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack - Season 1, Episode 8 - Updated Full Episode | Forensic Files

this program is about unsolved mysteries whenever possible the actual family members and police officials have
participated in recreating the events what you're about to see is not a news broadcast
tonight on unsolved mysteries san quentin prison once you enter it is unlikely you will
leave the convicted murderer mark adams fashioned an improbable escape you may be able to help catch him
the story of a young housewife who vanished from her home in gothenburg nebraska
her husband wants her back but he must answer allegations that he is the one responsible for her
disappearance stephen cox was a small town hero handsome popular successful stephen cox may also
have been a con man who built over three million dollars out of his unsuspecting neighbors
the people of medford oregon want their money back [Music] a young housewife who disappeared a
local hero turned back an escaped convict three people whose fate remains a question mark
perhaps tonight we'll find some answers also a special appeal from the police in
philadelphia who will ask for your help in tracking down a murder join me you may be able to help solve a mystery
[Music] the town of gothenburg is located in the heart of nebraska's farm belt there is a strong sense of community
among its three thousand inhabitants and when a neighbor is in trouble it becomes everybody's business
on december 11th 1987 a housewife named christy nichol vanished her disappearance turned into a
controversy that continues to this day christy married mark nichols when she was 19.
soon after their marriage a daughter was born and in april of 1986 a son those who knew christie well felt her
life centered around her family christy was a very good student and nice looking girl and people liked her
but she always had kind of a negative self-image and i think christy never felt she did anything
until she had her children and there was something she could look at and say hey i did this pretty well
nobody can do this any better because she was just so proud of her children she she loved him i would have never thought
that christy would would run away she never she would have never left her children i
would have never believed that christie's husband mark nichols works at a local gas station
he was the last person to see her alive there are rumors in gothenburg that say he is responsible for her disappearance
people in small towns they talk a lot and a lot of these rumors tend to get pretty vicious
there's been a couple rumors that i'd chopped her up and put her in garbage bags and
buried her at the dump that's one of the first ones i heard and that one really got to me because i guess they
were actually up there digging digging around mark nichols claims he is innocent of all wrongdoing
he wants his wife to come home but until christy returns to gothenburg he remains
under a cloud of suspicion the police investigation of this case has raised some disturbing questions
about the events surrounding his wife's disappearance since christie vanished 11 months ago no
one family members or friends have had any contact with her for this reason the nebraska state patrol has been
called in officer terry aarons is in charge of the case as the investigation has proceeded it's
starting to look more and more like a foul play situation there's just a lot of things
that aren't ringing true that don't appear like your normal missing person situation
police began to uncover evidence the nichols marriage was in trouble mark could you just wait out here they
learned that christie had been seeing another man ten days before her disappearance she
had gone to a local hospital for treatment of an injury she received during a fight with
the marks and it doesn't look like your thumb is broken however it's the only bad fight i can
remember is when i was trying to get her to stay home from going out and she was getting so
upset at me she started to try to hit and kick me and that's when she burned the side of my neck with a
cigarette she was holding and i tossed her onto the water bed and she landed wrong and kind of twisted
up her thumb underneath her finger tonight i saw christy on the friday after thanksgiving
she came to the emergency room complaining of a sore thumb she was acting like a scared rabbit if
you will she's never been one for great eye contact or been very verbal she obviously wasn't
telling me everything either mark was in the hallway nearby and i couldn't looking back really tell
if it was reassuring for her to have mark there or not [Music] christy also told her cousin debbie
frederiksen that she had been abused by mark when i went to see christy she was working at the bar
and she was having problems with her husband she would tell me that her husband would
beat her when we left the bar christy showed me a bruise on her side and it really scared me i told her she
needed to go get help from somebody and i asked her how it had happened and she said her and mark had gotten
argument and he had thrown her around and she just acted like it wasn't a big deal it was something that happened
a lot as far as a violent argument which there seemed there seemed to be a lot of rumors going around that i was
always beating up on her that's that's just totally wrong oh hi on december 9th two days before
her disappearance christy went to an attorney to begin divorce proceedings what can i do for
you christy well i need some help what's your problem i need someone to help me get through
christy was frightened that mark would find out and for this reason went to an out-of-town lawyer well just
relax we do a lot of divorce work i've handled hundreds of divorces but she had to rank up in the top five of
being very distressed and upset and nervous and needed help and when she explained certain uh
abuses that she had been subjected to we decided to make some telephone calls to call the authorities and to report
certain crimes that had taken place christie i feel that she was very sincere and honest in what she was
telling me i don't know what motive she would possibly have had to conjure up a story about being abused by
her husband if it didn't in fact happen i was convinced and i am still convinced that
it happened what was christy's state of mind when she left the lawyer's office was she preparing to run away as mark
claims or was she planning on fighting for the custody of her children as her mother believes
[Music] i can say that the day that christie was in my office on december 9th she was not
panic-stricken to the point that she would run or leave and in fact she had planned to come back when she left she
had made an appointment to come back to my office the day after this meeting december 10th
christy and mark went christmas shopping with her children this was the last afternoon she would
spend with her family i felt real uncomfortable the day before she left because uh i felt a lot of anger
coming from her that evening the couple hired a babysitter and went to the local bar where christy worked
[Music] when i babysat the night that she disappeared i was surprised that those two were going out the both of
them were going out because i knew they weren't getting along when we were at the bar things seemed to
be going real well i felt there was a good attitude about herself and myself and a lot of laughing
and carrying on mark and christy left the bar around midnight and drove to an all-night
convenience store at 12 30 they headed for home according to the babysitter mark arrived
home between 12 30 and 1 o'clock in the morning the babysitter was doing her homework in
front of the television and doesn't remember seeing christy tom banks is an electrician that says for
the time being i was about five six yards behind her when she reached the door and she walked right by
the living room where the babysitter was at back towards the kids bedroom and went into the main bathroom
it seems strange because mark had paid me with cash when christian pays me with a check it was unusual for
mark to pay me said enough yeah that's fine thanks that was everything i really can't believe that i didn't see
her because i would have heard footsteps and i would have heard her go into the bathroom because i was
there i mean what five between five and ten minutes so that i would have been able
to hear christy somehow but i didn't hear or see christy according to mark christie went to bed
immediately after the babysitter left the last time he says he saw her was at 2 am
when he went to sleep beside her and that's the last thing i remember that my kids woke me up the next morning
and the first thing i noticed was she wasn't in the bed mark claims he searched the house and
noticed christy had taken a suitcase full of belongings with her but both family cars were still sitting
in the front yard at 9 30 in the morning mark received a phone call from christie's mother who
lived 100 miles away even though he knew his wife was gone mark told her mother that christy was still in bed asleep
didn't want to worry her at the time because i didn't know where she was so i told her that she was still in bed
sleeping because i didn't think she felt real good at 11 30 a.m mark took his children over
to christy's grandmother's and asked if she could take care of them as he was planning to search for his
wife you take the kids well i didn't think much about at the time but like i say
later he never asked me at all or telephoned me you know to take care of the kids
where they always did before that was really about strangest thing yes can i help you he never asked if
christy was at my house or if i'd seen christy i just said that christy was missing
and he acted like he was shook up i spent approximately two hours just riding around town trying to spot her
maybe coming out of the store or i drove some residential streets where we knew some people
when we checked out mark's story about driving around looking for christy we could find nobody in in the city of
gothenburg that had seen him driving around at 1 37 p.m mark filed a missing persons report
with the gothenburg police department what time did you see her last i saw her last when i went to bed about 2am this
morning i was i was real upset because there was no indication whatsoever that she would
just pack up a suitcase and just leave during their investigation the state patrol discovered that mark
moved out of the house the day after his wife's disappearance a few weeks later he boxed up all of her clothes and sold
both of their it looks like we got cars spot on the plastic in march of 1988 three months after she disappeared
christy's suitcase was discovered in a roadside rest area 30 miles west of gothenburg
police found it surprising that earlier mark had precisely detailed all of its contents
it appeared to everybody present that the suitcase had been placed there instead of just thrown out
the items were neatly laying around it was like the person that put them there wanted them to be found
if my wife had left me i wouldn't be able to look through the closet and tell you what she had taken i
probably would be able to tell you maybe what suitcase she had taken but he was listing items of clothing
right down the line and knew what she had taken the area surrounding gothenburg has been
searched extensively no other trace of christy nichols has ever been found today the case is stalled
[Music] it is difficult without locating christy nichols or her body to determine what if any
charges would be appropriate we basically are concerned about the way she disappeared
the fact that she has not contacted her children she hasn't contacted her family
she uh did not take one of the family vehicles and basically the continued long absence all
point to that perhaps foul play in some form is involved i'd have never done anything to hurt my wife
i just that's just the person i am i'm a lot of people think i'm a violent person
i'm not i'm not i'm not a violent person i hope i hoped and prayed that she was alive but if she isn't
i'd still want to find a solution to this case i'd like to have her buried someplace
forward no she was i want very much for christy to come home that uh if for some reason she doesn't want
to come home you know christy at least call somebody you know let us know where you are
whether you're all right by all accounts christy nichols was trapped in a marriage gone wrong
nobody can say for certain if this is what motivated her disappearance all we know is that christy nichols has
vanished without a trace and her family and friends would like to know why in a moment the story of a remarkable
escape from san quentin prison last october we examined the mysterious disappearance of gail delano
a 35-year-old mother of two who vanished from her hometown of wiscasset maine after her second divorce gail delano
sought companionship by placing personal ads in a local newspaper on june 21 1986 gale drove to a
restaurant in the nearby town of brunswick she had told her two teenage sons as she
was meeting a man named john who responded to one of her ads gail delano's family never saw her again
two days later police found her car abandoned in the restaurant's parking lot later that day a restaurant worker found
gail's keys in the same spot where her car had been parked [Music] two weeks later gail's purse was found
though it seemed untouched it contained no money for two and a half years investigators and gayle's family were
baffled update mobile alabama the two and a half year search for guild delano has come to
an end tragically she took her own life shortly after she disappeared a forensic administrator in mobile
watched our program recognized gail's photo as a woman who had died in a local hotel room in 1986.
and when i saw the photograph i immediately saw the resemblance between ms delano
and an unidentified body that we had in our laboratory in mobile after two weeks of forensic tests
positive identification was made police now theorize that gail delano orchestrated her own disappearance
they believe that after she drove to the restaurant she hid her keys somewhere on
the car removed all the money from her purse discarded it and then flew to alabama that evening
she checked into a hotel in mobile where she registered under the name jackie stafford
three days later police discovered her body she had died from a drug overdose on november 11th gail's family held a
memorial service for her in brunswick maine gail's family showed remarkable courage
as for two long years they searched for the truth her loss saddens us all and to her
parents and sons we send our deepest sympathy california's san quentin prison is
justly known as one of the country's most secure maximum security prisons few cameras are
permitted behind its walls but recently unsolved mysteries was allowed inside so he might document one of the few
times a system failed and help recapture an escaped prisoner in the summer of 1986 an inmate named
mark adams mysteriously vanished the events leading up to his escape began on a summer night
in august of 1979 on that evening three high school students entered a municipal baseball
park located in the quiet community of modesto california hey you know who's over to mark's house
they gathered in the dugout to drink some beers to chat about school and their friends
[Music] three figures appeared out of the darkness over the previous few weeks there have
been other robberies by these ski-masked individuals give me your wallets in the earlier
attempts nobody had been injured give me your wallets why don't you guys just leave us
alone [Music] one boy mike ridenour was dead another wounded an eyewitness description of an
automobile spotted at the scene led to the arrest of three robbers the trigger man
16-year-old mark adams was tried convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life located on san francisco bay san quentin
is an impenetrable fortress 21-armed posts around the three-foot thick prison walls
lined with razor-sharp barbed wire today over three thousand hardened criminals call the prison home
charles manson is only one of its infamous residents in his 136 year history other criminals
such as siran siran carol chesman [Applause] massive cell blocks a major portion of
the san quentin's current population are repeat offenders it is the end of the line
of a hardened criminal san quentin prison is different from other prisons because of its
design there are armed officers inside the institution they're in gun walks and manned areas
where there's weapons inside the institution mark adams was here because of the physical plant
and security that san quentin can provide inmates like mark adams when adams entered san quentin he was 19
years old he would have been eligible for parole in the year 2007 he began his sentence under close
scrutiny but after six months restrictions were relaxed his privileges included a job working with computers as
a clerk in the prison's academic department mark adams was essentially a model prisoner
he worked very well with people he obeyed the rules and he would seize any opportunity he
could to stay out of his cell when we had special projects where he'd have to work some overtime he was only
too happy to assist i'm sure that mark adams took advantage of his position he probably checked schedules he
probably checked timing he wanted to leave no margin for error on june 10 1986 four years to the day
after he was put behind bars adam secured an authorized pass allowing him to leave work early
i'll see you later where are you going i'm going to the dentist office okay i'll see you tomorrow
at approximately 2 30 p.m adams left his job and walked to the security checkpoint
showing his pass he was observed heading to the dentist's office that was the last time anyone remembers
seeing him at 4 15 p.m the inmates return to the cells for the afternoon head count
the 415 count when there's no hitches will take approximately 45 minutes to clear inmate let me see some skin
if something is wrong with a clown if there's one person that cannot be accounted for most often
there's a simple explanation for that miscount you can't find any error then you go
sell by cell bed by bed with an officer and a picture of those people assigned to those cell blocks in that particular
cell good 2a11 id 2a12 negative nah showing adam's in here at approximately 4 45 adams was
confirmed missing immediately san quentin locked down all access to the prison inside and out was sealed tight
every prisoner was confined to his cell their few privileges revolt an intensive search by correctional
officers was fruitless no trace of mark or the method of his escape was found [Music]
authorities have three theories as to how he escaped the first suggests that adams put on
civilian clothes and walked out with the regular visitors passing through three different armed
gates in order to accomplish this adams would have had to show a photo id of the first
two gates [Music] a second theory proposes that adam simply went over the 25-foot prison wall
when an inmate has to make that move from a blind spot over the wall he has to go from an area
of concealment to one of his ability it can happen in a matter of seconds but in those few
moments that it took to hit the wall and scale it the officer's looking in another
direction an escape is perpetrated the chances that adams could have made the climb are extremely slim
shortly after his escape three inmates attempted to scale the wall all three were immediately captured and
one was injured in a struggle with officers we considered also in our investigation of the possible
ways of escape is could he have gained access to a vehicle it's possible that mark adams could have
studied vehicles which do pass in front of his area of assignment [Music] every day approximately 225 service
vehicles enter and exit the prison each must pass through a guarded inspection area for a thorough search
[Music] there is a remote chance adams could have found a place to hide and then when the search ended he would
have been driven straight to freedom [Music] if there were a mistake in the security
system adams would have been the type to look for he would have been the type to find
it and he would have made plans to exploit it and as a result that's precisely what he
did it's been two years since mark adams has escaped from san quentin prison and in those two years we have not found
any concluding or convincing evidence to tell us how mark adams escaped [Music] in a moment you'll meet eugene richmond
he vanished after defrauding his friends and neighbors at three and a half million dollars
came back to face the music his alleged accomplice stephen cox is still at large
[Music] in 1981 lorraine ronda was 68 years old and newly widowed [Music] her husband had left her 100 000
it was all lorraine had she invested it with a man named stephen cox in 1976 a drunk driver left michelle wit
crippled for life the insurance company awarded her 75 thousand dollars michelle invested her money with the
same man stephen cox on september the 24th 1984 stephen cox disappeared he has not been seen since
is there anyone in this room has anything to offer in this case at this time if so please step forward at bankruptcy
court in medford oregon a packed audience of more than 200 angry investors came forward
and i am one of the investors who invested with uh steve cox in excess of one hundred
thousand dollars they told authorities that they had given cox in excess of three and a half
million dollars every penny was gone can be done so that we can get our money back how
did stephen cox get three and a half million dollars from the people of medford well cox was a hometown boy the people
of medford knew him and trusted him they hope that if he's watching tonight he'll return and deal with them
honorably face to face in high school stephen cox was a popular student and an all-around athlete
he was captain of the football team letterman on the basketball team named oregon's all-state baseball team
he went to college in oregon and after he graduated married his college sweetheart deborah
they settled in medford didn't believe it no in 1982 he started his own company s d cox investments that's what i'm
talking about let me get it hold on a second let me get it up on the screen here
when he first began all the indications we have are that his intentions were good he had had some
luck uh with commodities with other investments gold and silver and other things and he really wanted to
make money for other people at the same time he made money for himself stephen cox attracted investors by
offering a rate of return as high as 25 percent good morning michelle hi how are you i'm
fine how are you good to see you both there was only one catch in exchange they received nothing more than
cox's iou in the form of a promissory note michelle whit needed twelve hundred dollars a month to pay for her
round-the-clock nursing care despite the lack of security she decided cox's high return was worth the risk
and that 20 24 ballpark that we were talking about is something we're definitely going to be able to get
for you the 75 000 was invested and for three and a half years i got a monthly payment of 1250.
he seemed to know what he was doing and i'm sure he did know what he was doing hey hey gene good to see you thank you
cox's business doubled then tripled eugene richmond an old friend was brought in as a partner
well it'll work it'll work good good um well you know i've known steve since you
know we were in grade school together i mean he was always somebody i looked up to
you know he was the you know the high school quarterback of the football team and you know just
just that typical guy that everybody wanted to know and be around you know the way i look at it mortgage
papers basically whatever steve cox asked me to do i did and i just trusted him unequivocally eugene richman
was the forceful personality in the partnership there's a nice house you have here oh
thank you eugene richmond was the one that went out and got people to invest their money
ms rondo i'm uh sorry i have to bother you at a time like this when eugene richmond made his sales
presentation to lorraine rondeaux she gave him all the money her husband had left her i
know that your husband has left you some money i'm confident that i told every investor that their money is at
risk i would have investors ask me what happens if st cox goes belly up and i would sit right in my
chair and look him straight in the face and i'd say you're gonna lose your money well eugene
richman is a liar then because he never did never told us not me never told me that
if she was not aware that her money was at risk then either i failed in my job to tell her that or
like a lot of people didn't want to hear it eugene richmond never told me that that
my money was unsafe in any way that everything was secured that they had money if i wanted all that money right now
they had money laid aside that they could pay off any one of first by us s decox investments was
flourishing the firm bought a restaurant a neighborhood bar a video arcade two jewelry stores
and an inventory of gems worth hundreds of thousands of dollars when you have a situation where a local
businessman looks successful and other people are going to the bank with the checks and making the deposits
that will get around that facade works people see the porsche drive by and their heads turn people see their
mercedes drive by and they think that guy's successful they don't realize that maybe that guy
is is not making ends meet and he's two payments behind on the porsche by 1984 many of stephen cox's
investments began to go sour in my opinion steve was not a good businessman in steve's case he made some wrong
decisions well i'll talk to you tomorrow about that that deals that's a whole separate thing now i
don't you know there's some real estate that wasn't panning out the way it was supposed to pan out and you had to feed
it he had a restaurant he was feeding and instead of just cutting it off he wanted to hang on so that's the
important part you know he was competitive he didn't want to lose every thousand dollars fifty
thousand dollars you heard me the first time what happened is steve cox uh had some luck at the very beginning he had
some good fortune he made some money and as he continued to pay 22 or 25 interest he had to get more and more
people involved at the bottom in order to be able to do that it's like a pyramid scheme
there's nothing to back up his promises to pay back this money that's a house of cards eventually it
has to fall well look what do we need to do to turn this thing around you know what we need to do we need to
turn those numbers around the way you're going to turn those numbers around is getting more clients
all right i see you've got my flowers yes i did eugene and thank you so much as a last resort eugene went back to
lorraine rondeau and asked for her last five thousand dollars do you have some savings to
cover them with well i've been in the hospital and eugene came over to the house to see how
i was doing and he said do you have money enough and i said i have some in savings
so he suggested that i take the five thousand and put in so that i would be getting some interest
so i wrote him a check for five thousand i couldn't even tell you right now whether she invested any money or not i
do not recall at that time when i saw her i had no idea that i was going to be going or
steve was going to be going i mean i didn't even know i was going to leave with steve until the day that i
left we have a problem i've got to leave the area it came to a point where steve just said
i'm leaving town and i'm going wait a minute you're going to leave and and i'm going to stay here and face this
entire thing by myself what am i going to do everybody's going to come knocking on my door and say
where's my money and i felt like i was going to get lynched important thing is deborah and i
are leaving town now are you going with us or not can you make a choice was to stay here
or go with him are you with us and um i ended up by leaving with steve and his family
i'm going with you steve okay all right definitely there was a premeditated decision on the part of
steve cox and eugene richmond to fold up and leave town let's quit beating around the bush
they planned to leave for at least a month before they just didn't show up one morning
thanks for sticking around you guys i realize it's your weekend i'll make it short
on friday september the 21st 1984 eugene richmond told his employees that he and cox would be out of town on
business through monday usual we'll be back on tuesday so unless you've got any questions uh
see you tuesday that weekend according to eugene richmond stephen cox cleaned out their office
safe taking over two hundred thousand dollars in gold silver jewelry and cash cox also took their
financial records which were stored on computer disks he and his wife deborah emptied their
house and packed their belongings into a rented truck [Applause] [Music] along with eugene richmond they
furtively departed medford their final destination hawaii stephen cox deborah cox and eugene
richmond dropped completely out of sight and the people of medford oregon had lost three and a half million dollars
but the story of the missing medford millions was not over the authorities learned that stephen cox
might have disappeared from medford because he feared for his life [Music] ten months after stephen cox his wife
and eugene richmond vanished leaving nothing but a bankrupt company that owed the people a medford three and
a half million dollars the authorities had a surprise visitor debbie we appreciate you coming in for
this interview today and in july of 1985 stephen cox's wife deborah returned to medford and through her
attorney agreed to cooperate with the authorities what was your position with s d cox
investment she wasn't actually wanted as far as being a fugitive we did want to talk to her
but there were no criminal charges pending then within a week eugene richmond also wanted to surrender
himself and so arrangements were made for him to surrender himself in the company of his
attorney and to be interviewed and then to be processed on the fugitive warrants that were outstanding for him
at the time but for the most part the information that we did glean from these interviews
was really not helpful to us how much money did you have to live on and how much did you take with you
sergeant sweeney concerning that matter we're not answering those questions today
you accept any responsibility eugene richman wouldn't make any statements that could be used to incriminate him
and he couldn't really say anything about stephen cox without incriminating himself
as a result of that we're still looking for sd cox or stephen cox one thing richmond did tell the police
was that in 1983 cox had become involved with a mysterious investor every day on those
rocks was fantastic all right i'm glad to hear that he should be i just want to remind you
stephen i'm not a man who likes to lose money there was an investor that invested
hundreds of thousands of dollars with sd cox investments and as security for his investment
he had taken out a life insurance policy on stephen cox before steve and i left town okay and i went to him and said
let's shut this thing down bring in a judge and just do a chapter 11 and you know just
close it down you know you know steve said i can't and it was because of this fella because
he owed him money and steve just felt like if he didn't pay this guy back he would
just hurt steve or his wife or his kids or something since especially since we know of the
threat we know who the individual is the individual would have to be a fool to come back and
kill stephen cox because he didn't get his money back eugene richmond pled guilty to charges
of racketeering and served two years in prison stephen cox is still at large the message i'd like to send stephen cox
is that he should come in turn himself in and face up to the people that he's really
really hurt short of steve cox winning the lottery and coming back and paying back all of his
investors i don't foresee them ever being able to recoup any of their losses steve cox is the one who's in prison
right now he's the one who's doing time right now and he will continue to do time until he
turns around and faces the situation until he lives up to his responsibilities because steve every day has to wonder
if somebody's going to walk in to where he's working or if he's going to be at the market
and somebody's gonna see him it's a small world stephen cox is six feet two inches tall
has blonde hair and blue eyes and weighs over 200 pounds he is now 38 years old and he may be
wearing a toupee as well as a beard or mustache [Music] update stephen cox has been arrested in
lake mead nevada 25 miles southeast of las vegas five days after he fled from boise cox
checked into the lake mead lodge motel he registered under the name john stroups enlisted in arizona address
[Music] he was not the normal guest he stayed in his room all day long he would only leave at night very seldom
did he leave in the daytime and we noticed that the license plates were not the same as he had
put down on his registration card and that made us a little suspicious but yet nothing we could put a finger on
two weeks later edna reed made a startling discovery one day when i was out on the grounds i
saw the guests come out of his room instead of putting his trash in the bin in front of his room he took it up to
number 35 which was several doors away and when i went to empty the trash out of that bin i found the
crumpled up letter and like any curious female i read the letter when i read the letter i saw the part
that said something about the unsolved mystery show being a bombshell i showed the letter to my husband harold
and between the two of us we decided it was time definitely to call the rangers and tell them about the guest lake me
park rangers immediately ran a computer check and discovered that the car belonged to someone other than john
strauss on the morning of the 14th we began to look for the person by going to the lake
mead lodge to see if we could identify in fact who he really was when we got there the vehicle was gone
and the person was gone and had been gone for 15 or 20 minutes the next morning park rangers spotted
cox's car and pulled him over in the parking lot of the gold strike casino after we made the traffic stop he
produced identification a driver's license issued to a robert davis and we checked that name and date of
birth through the ncic computer and found that it was an alias used by one stephen cox and that there was a
warrant for mr cox at that point we placed him under arrest during a search of cox's car park
rangers uncovered a small fortune when we looked in the passenger compartment of the vehicle in a trunk we
found suitcases and other luggage type bags filled with uh jewelry rings necklaces um collector
type baseball cards some gold coins silver coins and i was uh really very curious to know
why he had it in the vehicle and if in fact this was the stuff that he was wanted for taking in the first place
[Music] every parent's worst nightmare is loss of a child to a violent stranger tonight the philadelphia police
department needs your help in solving the brutal murder of a four-year-old girl we have with us lieutenant arthur durant
investigating officer in the case lieutenant durant could you tell us a little something about barbara jean and
her family barbara jean was four and a half years old she was the only child of sharon and john fay she lived with her
parents in the northeast section of philadelphia which is a relatively crime-free middle-class
section what are the circumstances of a murder on july 12 1988 approximately 3 p.m in the
afternoon while our mother was at work barbra jean was out front of her house playing
her father went to check on her and was unable to find her he became frantic started searching the
area for he checked with the neighbors he called police the police came and they searched
the area approximately two hours later barbra jean was found stuffed inside a cardboard box
approximately two blocks from her home she'd been bludgeoned to death what clues do you have to the identity
of the killer four eyewitnesses observed the man at st vincent and castor carrying a cardboard box the man has
been described as approximately 25 to 35 years old white male 5 foot 8 180 pounds
sandy brown hair with a little bit of blonde up front at the time he was wearing a white t-shirt
cut off jeans and he was carrying a cardboard box that previously contained a 13-inch
color hitachi television set how can our audience help solve this tragic crime we feel there's somebody out there
tonight that might have seen this male on january 12 1988 or might know somebody to engage in this type of
criminal activity that might have been in a philadelphia area and fits its description
[Music] for every mystery there is someone somewhere who knows the truth perhaps that someone was watching
perhaps it's you [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

This episode includes: Missing Mom, Update: Personals, San Quentin Escape & UD, Medford Millions.

Brief Summary

Three unsolved cases: Christy Nichols' disappearance, Mark Adams' prison escape, and Stephen Cox's fraud scheme.

Key points

The Disappearance of Christy Nichols. Christy Nichols vanished from her home, leaving behind a cloud of suspicion around her husband.
Mark Adams' Improbable Escape. Mark Adams, a convicted murderer, orchestrated an escape from San Quentin prison.
Mark Adams' Escape. Mark Adams escaped from San Quentin, leaving authorities baffled about how he did it.
The Disappearance of Stephen Cox. Stephen Cox vanished with millions, leaving investors in despair.
A Mother's Nightmare. The Philadelphia police seek help in solving the murder of a four-year-old girl.
The Tragic Case of Barbara Jean. Barbara Jean, a four and a half year old girl, was tragically murdered in 1988.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I would have never thought that Christy would run away.

A friend reflects on Christy's character.

3:26WatchJul 26, 2021

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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