Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack - Season 2, Episode 6 - Full Episodes | 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 [Music] tonight's cases feature ordinary people thrust into a vortex of mystery
heartbreak and intrigue each one is searching for that vital clue to end a story that so far has
no ending perhaps you can help join me you may be able to help solve a [Music] mystery
[Music] [Applause] [Music] tonight a special report on one of the most fascinating mysteries of this
century the case of rudolph hess adolf hitler's second in command has shocked the world in 1941 by flying
to britain on a secret peace mission this special segment takes us to scotland and germany where experts claim
that it was not hess who made that momentous flight but a double impersonating him also two
other intriguing mysteries needing but one final clue to solve them someone watching tonight may know the
[Music] truth [Music] 1933 adolf hitler sees his total power in germany by his side deputy reichsfielder rudolph
hess his closest content pess would come to figure in one of the most remarkable mysteries of world war
ii east hitler hitler our history hess is in britain in a messerschmitt he flew from bavaria street to scotland
landing by parachute near glasgow 1941. the world is astounded to learn that rudolph hess has been captured in
scotland while attempting to deliver a peace proposal to secret contacts in the british government
defendant rudolph hess on the counts of the indictment on which you have been convicted the
tribunal sentences you to imprisonment for life 1946 nuremberg rudolf hess is sentenced to life in west
berlin's spandau prison 1987 rudolf hess is found dead in spandau's prison garden
though the cause of death is officially declared as suicide his family and experts are convinced
that he was murdered i have no sympathy for the nazi past or any crimes that hess may have committed but he was a
human being and he deserves a dignity at least to find out if he was murdered who did it
the story of rudolf hess is a mystery that spans almost 50 years not only do some experts believe he was
murdered in prison but startling evidence suggested a man of spandau was not the real rudolph hess
what ties these events together is a global conspiracy that began at the start of world war ii
it may still be going on today [Music] rudolph hess was incarcerated in berlin's spandau prison from 1947 until
his death he was aloof keeping his distance from fellow prisoners and his warriors x-rays are fine doctor
in september 1973 a british surgeon named hugh thomas made a detailed physical examination of hess
thomas had earlier studied hess's medical records and expected to find scars from bullet wounds hess had
received in the first world war [Music] there were no skulls no bullet rooms nor was there any evidence of an
operation they're not things that you can miss at west germany's berlin document center
thomas uncovered the original world war one military records of rudolf hess for the first time i became very very
seriously concerned about the identity of the man in spanda the record showed that he'd sustained it
through shot through the lung in the first world war so i'm left with a situation whereby
a man has total evidence in surgical terms of no wounding and total evidence in documentary terms
of such wounding it can't be the same man if the man dr thomas examined its panda was not rudolf hess
then who was he the answer may lie in a series of events that took place in may of 1941
on may 10th of that year rudolf has told his wife that he planned to fly to berlin for an important meeting
and that he would be home in three days they would not see one another again for
28 years the facts are that at 17 45 hours the real rudolph test took off from augsburg
in bavaria southern part of germany flying north in a messerschmitt 110d we know the aircraft had the serial
number 1545 and the letters njc11 on the side he was tracked by german radar and
defense controllers right across germany and across occupied europe and just after half past seven that
evening was lost to german radar going north over the north sea [Music] four and a half hours after rudolph has
left germany a lone messerschmitt was picked up on british radar heading towards scotland
[Music] at approximately 11 pm a scottish farmer caught sight of an aircraft descending
rapidly great pile hands up you chairman you've all i'm hopping alfred horn pilot gave his name as alfred horn he
asked for a meeting with a duke of hamilton a member of the british parliament who
lived in the area hands on the table t-shirt t-shirt surprisingly the man calling himself
alfred horn carried no identification but he was wearing the uniform of a luftwava officer
[Music] the next morning a meeting was arranged with a duke of hamilton who was at the
time serving as an officer in the royal air force as you were gentlemen [Music] so you captain horn and i believe you
want to see me sir i am not captain horn i am deputy reich fuhrer rudolph i don't recognize you sir i'm here on
a mission of humanity from the fuhrer the fuhrer feels that hamilton ultimately was
convinced that the prisoner was rudolf hess but winston churchill remained suspicious
he sent yvonne kirkpatrick a diplomat who knew hess personally to meet with a prisoner
kirkpatrick thought the man was indeed rudolph hess hugh thomas disagrees the mistakes made
by the man when he arrived were incredible he claimed that he was born in 1899 and when he first landed said 1897
when in actual fact real the real hess's age as you know was 1894. so there's a discrepancy there
it is thought that hitler and other members of the nazi elite used doubles for security reasons
thomas believes that a double was recruited to impersonate hess on the flight to scotland
photographs taken upon hess's departure support this theory as they appear to show a different plane
from the one that crash landed in scotland the plane that took off in germany was marked njc 11. now
the reason we know that is that it was photographed taking off and also helmut kardon one of the
airport assistants there at the time logged it in his book whereby he denoted njc11
was the plane that took off the plane that landed in scotland was marked on the side of
the fuselage v j or nj oq a totally different plane the first people to get to the wreckage
found an aircraft that was almost intact the machine guns in the nose were still
packed with grease they'd never been used this was obviously an aircraft that was
so new it hadn't yet been devoted to operational work british researchers know that that
aircraft was based at a fighter airfield in northern denmark called alborg it was tracked in from that direction
and there really seems no reason to to doubt that it came from denmark rather than germany
there is more evidence that a double had replaced the real hess hesse was a skilled pilot yet the man
who flew to scotland made a number of elementary mistakes the man who approached britain and flew
over scotland was an amateur in every sense of the word he did everything wrong he approached the british coast at the
ideal height to be intercepted by radar instead of under it then he power dived using far too much
fuel and then he flew at only 50 feet across the scottish borders now that meant that people on the ground
could observe the aircraft and track it every step of the way but the pilot was too low to even pick
up his landmarks so whoever he was he was an amateur pilot if the man who landed in scotland was a
double how and why was this deception engineered the answer may lie with the only man in
the third reich more fear than adolf hitler the master of the dreaded ss heinrich
himmler in a moment we will examine a theory that himmler may have been at the center
of a conspiracy that reached from hitler's inner circle to england's house of parliament
[Music] rudolf hess had been hitler's closest confidant but at the beginning of world
war ii his influence began to wane part of the reason can be traced to ss reichsphere heinrich himmler
hess had come to power purely by being one of the first of hitler's loyal supporters
in such a position he was obviously a threat to himmler who aspired to gain control of all of them
and from that point of view he was hated so in essence he was part of a power struggle
1941 hitler's inner circle including himmler were planning for the invasion of the
soviet union argued that peace with england must be secured before this attack and had secretly attempted to contact
members of british parliament himmler may have sensed an opportunity to eliminate his rivals
and he used this double in conjunction with germain to actually supplant hess get rid of his
kill off his and put the double into england to contain to carry over peace proposals to the english hierarchy
according to this theory if the double's initial peace overtures had been successful
himmler would have stepped in finished the negotiations and claimed the credit hugh thomas believes
that adolf hitler was unaware that himmler was secretly in contact with a clique of highly placed nazi
sympathizers in britain according to thomas some were members of parliament and they plotted to depose churchill and
make their own separate peace with germany [Music] during the war both franklin roosevelt
and joseph stalin were suspicious of the official british account of the hess affair
stalin was convinced that the british were plotting a separate peace with germany
dr thomas believes that he was correct the hess affair is the key to the understanding of the
whole plot that was hatched by 30 or so of the top-ranking british hierarchical figures in the country
designed to unite nazi germany and britain against soviet russia and stop the war so that expansion
into russia by germany could exist no question that had the hess affair gone to fruition had himmler's plan
gone right the result would have been a nazi anglo-bloc which would have ruled the
world but the plan didn't work churchill refused to meet with hess and his peace
overture was rejected despondent has attempted suicide a few days later intelligence officers and psychiatrists
continually interrogated the prisoner he claimed amnesia and refused to answer the questions
in 1945 hess was brought home to germany for the beginning of the nuremberg trial
during this trial hess was forced to meet with two of his former secretaries officials hoped this confrontation would
jog his memory couldn't die crawling kinetic involved the prisoner's most significant lack of
recognition is that of his secretaries and these women were greatly disturbed and greatly
upset and kept on at the old man to try and recognize them one of them showed him a picture of his
son whom he didn't recognize that he'd carried a picture of that son with him supposedly on his flight to
england so the man was behaving in a very bizarre fashion he fought them the two secretaries left upset but still
certain that the man they had met was rudolf hess hess was sentenced to life imprisonment
in the converted fortress in west berlin known as spandau prison hesse's new home was to be jointly
administered by the united states britain france and the soviet union one by one spanned out six other nazi
prisoners had died or had been released but rudolf hess had his freedom blocked by a soviet veto
in 1966 he was spandau's only prisoner at a cost of over one million dollars per year
[Music] [Applause] [Music] rudolf has loved to walk in the garden this long trail about 267 places around
to me he lived in a world by himself for the first two years in my talking with hess i never got beyond
food health and weather and everything was bad it took me two years to even talk to him
about anything political he lived in this eggshell time seemed to have stood still for him since 1941 since his
flight by the late 1960s hesse's health had greatly deteriorated even so he refused all visits with his
family the reason why he didn't accept visits beforehand was simply that the surrounding and the circumstances under
which these visits take place in japan were so bad that he said it's better not to see each other and to
write and after having paid these visits after 1969 i can only completely agree with him
in december 1969 when hess's health became critical he finally agreed to meet with his
family it had been 28 years since frauhes had seen her husband her son wolff had last seen his father
at the age of three during this reunion the family was not allowed to touch one another
or to discuss anything pertaining to hess's past despite the fact that she felt his voice
was lower in pitch frau has still felt the man at spandau was her husband it's very difficult for me in prison
he's depressing here it's cold vampire i didn't want you to be upset the embassy is bad i didn't i was
expecting a very difficult situation with all the borders and the directors sitting around
and they knew that under the circumstances the possibilities to really learn to know him were limited
so much i can't be helped my son i have the impression that my father was keeping some secret which
he was not able to relieve to anybody this is the reason why he was kept so long in prison and finally was murdered
in prison [Music] august 17th 1987 at approximately 2 30 in the afternoon 93 year old rudolf hess went out for his
daily walk in his beloved prison garden soviet authorities had indicated to hess's son the general secretary
gorbachev was on the verge of allowing his father's release hess was accompanied by an american
guard and as he continued his stroll a guard became distracted several minutes later the guard looked
for his prisoner [Music] he soon found him rudolph hess was lying on the floor of a
garden shed electrical cord wrapped around his neck the official inquiry declared that
rudolph has had committed suicide but almost immediately charges surfaced that hess had been murdered
now there are so many things against him committing suicide he could hardly open his hands because
of arthritis that he was suffering under and he couldn't raise his arms above shoulder level
now the final report came out it said that he'd hung himself from that little lean to in the garden
that he was sitting under where he was found dead well to do that he's going to have to
raise those hands isn't he above his head to put that cord around something to hang himself he
wasn't capable of doing that i think he was murdered i don't know who did it but that's my true conviction there is
every evidence that he was murdered but further than that disturbingly the cable that was actually
used to murder him was the first thing to be destroyed on the specific orders of the british
military government and the british military governor also ordered the shed burnt down
as well as that they refused all measures of identification of the prisoner hesse's family insisted on conducting
their own autopsy and secured the services of a dr spahn a noted german forensic pathologist
his report showed bruises inconsistent with the official verdict of suicide deep bruising on the neck and especially
the final autopsy by dr shows quite clearly that the man was strangled and the degree of deep bruising
and fracturing of the bones in the neck also indicates that he was strangled very forcibly
dr thomas is convinced that the prisoner shpanda was murdered before his release
to keep him from revealing the treasonous conduct of his secret british contacts during the war
if the prisoner had ever revealed his part in these negotiations it would have led to the discovery of
the whole plot it would have led to the exposure of 30 extremely powerful personages
whose relatives even if they don't still exist themselves are still in control in hierarchical
control of much of british finance and government and that would be totally and utterly unacceptable to any
british government if the prisoner spanned out was rudolf hess as his family in the authorities
claim then why were there no scars on his chest from his world war one bullet wounds
why did his plane take off from germany with one set of serial numbers and land in scotland with another
but if the prisoner spanner was an imposter why did he remain silent for 46 years
the remains of prisoner number 7 rest in this small bavarian cemetery but who really lies in this grave
rudolph hess or an imposter a willing participant in a global conspiracy of vast proportions
the only man who could answer these questions was silas before he could speak the inscription on his grave reads
simply it was worth the risk history may never know what truly lies behind those words
one final footnote to this story the official british file on the hess affair was
scheduled to be made public in 1971 but that year only selected portions were released the rest remaining
classified as the owner of the british government it was further stipulated that this
sensitive material remained locked up until the year 2016. next the story of a woman who walked
away from a terrible car crash in rural montana and has not been seen since her family believes she may
be suffering from amnesia [Music] april 20th 1989 a lonely country road near circle montana
at approximately 8 15 in the evening peggy bueller was driving towards nearby great falls to visit her sister
peggy's mother and father were with her [Applause] behind her was another car driven by
carol heitz an off-duty police dispatcher carol could see peggy's car clearly then
she saw a car approaching in the wrong lane [Applause] euless car narrowly missed a head-on
collision carol pulled over the side of the road but it was too late peggy's father took the wheel from his
shaken daughter and headed back down the river carol had emerged from the wreckage
dazed but not seriously injured then a woman emerged out of the darkness it was the driver of the car that had
hit her [Music] she just stared never said anything nothing just stared at me i will never
forget her then the viewers arrived peggy's father went to assist the victims and she began to go for help
but before peggy drove off she too saw the mysterious woman as i looked out across the accident
i noticed someone on the other side of the fence standing there like a spectator not like that that it
had happened to her [Music] the woman vanished into the night [Music] but within half an hour police had
traced the car to its owner thirty-eight-year-old patricia mien they immediately began to search for her
we didn't know what was out there we didn't know whether we're looking for a hurt person sick person or a fugitive
four officers and myself proceeded in and we proceeded in behind the dog and approximately three
quarters of a mile from the scene we picked up some tennis shoe tracks about a size six that appeared to be
fairly narrow belonging either to a young boy or probably a woman at 3am patricia's tracks disappeared and the
search was suspended until the following morning [Music] for five days this intensive search
continued on land and from the air all that was ever found were patricia's original tracks
two theories were developed to explain how she eluded her trackers the first is that she may have stowed
away on a hay truck that was parked about a half a mile from the accident the other theory is that patricia simply
hitched a ride out of the area she was a very caring individual never wanted to hurt anyone in here she
had a very traumatic accident where she may have thought instantly that she hurt
or killed another person and her mind blocked that out she had walked away from the scene of
that accident and has not been found since [Music] since her disappearance patricia meehan
has been spotted throughout the united states but has made no attempt to contact her family and friends
at first it was thought that her fight was an attempt to evade prosecution for leaving the scene of an accident
but eyewitness reports that patricia's increasingly strange behavior had given police and psychiatrists good
reason to believe that she is no fugitive patricia mean may be suffering from a rare and dangerous form of amnesia
born in pennsylvania patricia moved to oklahoma to attend college in preparation for a career in day care
she worked in that field until 1985 and then due to her love of animals moved to
montana to work on a ranch before her disappearance family and friends noticed that patricia had become
depressed withdrawn she was i guess taking all her own life what had she accomplished i think she
missed having children because i think now she found out she really does love them after patricia disappeared her
family found a role of undeveloped film still in her camera in this haunting self-portrait she looks
out at a world that she may have decided to abandon it appears that pat was experiencing a very difficult time
in her life and was involved in a rather dramatic accident which may have involved
a head injury the combination of these factors may have caused amnesia she does not
know who she is has lost memories of the past and is out searching for herself throughout the country
[Music] since her accident patricia has been spotted at least 100 times between montana and seattle mainly at truck
stops but patricia has managed to hitchhike out of the area before authorities and
her family were able to intercept her i don't know how she's eating i don't know where she's sleeping
from the sightings uh quite a few of them she was seen crying and that really hurts
when i hear this any mother would be afraid for her child i don't care what age she is
and it seems like she needs help more than ever now one of the confirmed sightings of
patricia occurred in may of 1989 in bozeman montana ironically this was only a few miles
from her home [Music] good morning one today can i get in and down here fast patty came in the door and wanted to be
sat quickly and served quickly she asked me um if she would be able to be out of there in rather a hurry and i
said well we do breakfast in 10 minutes you'll be out very quickly and then i made a
commentary that she must have to be back to work at nine o'clock since it was almost nine
it was about 8 30 20 till she said no i'm just going shopping i couldn't understand what it was so
important for her to be there right at nine o'clock go shopping you know she was in such a
huge hurry how are you this morning waitress brenda clements also noticed that patricia was acting strangely
what stood out in my mind is that she seemed really disoriented really spacey just looking off into space and
and i heard her like talking to herself but i really didn't hear what she was saying
because i had other people and other customers take care of she sat at that table for an hour and a half or more
easily she was just you know looking out the window looking people walking by that's when i walked up to her and i
asked her are you okay are you are okay sure i was just wondering if there's anything
i could do you know because she was just like lost i felt like she didn't know where
she was or who she was from all the evidence patricia's condition is not improving
if she is not treated soon the damage could be irreparable for when and if patricia's memories
return the shock could threaten her sanity well more than anything else in the world i want her back with us
when we would then know that she'd be safe not knowing who she's going to get a ride from and
that's my biggest worry i think just praise on your mind day in and day out and you pray to god and hope that she's
with some good people in a moment the story of a woman found murdered after she was seen with a man
at a local supermarket was he a friend or an unknown killer [Music] arlington virginia may 11 1988 3 am
police arrive at a local schoolyard where the body of a young woman has been found
she has been raped and shot once at point-blank range homicide detectives bob carrigan gay
mercer set about examining the physical evidence i think when you arrive at a crime scene
at three o'clock in the morning and you find a young woman shot to death she was sexually assaulted and then
murdered i think you start out with kind of a sick feeling in your stomach um kind of a disgust for for crime in
general the condition of veronica's clothing indicates that the rape was not a random
act of violence in most rape cases there's some signs of force maybe there are tears in the clothing
which there were not any on the scene it may have been more like a date rape someone that she knew and it went too
far later that day the victim was identified as veronica jefferson a 24 year old government accountant
recently moved to the washington dc area from oklahoma veronica had recently become a cpa and
at the time of her death she was working as a finance officer for the cia nothing in her background suggested any
motive for her murder the day after the murder veronica's red camaro with his distinctive personal place reading ms
vlj was discovered parked at a supermarket just two blocks from her apartment the vehicle was unlocked the keys
missing the vehicle was examined for fingerprints using a portable argon laser the car appeared to have been wiped
clean the interior of the vehicle was also examined john looks like we have a receipt inside time and date
stamped this receipt showed that veronica had left the market at 9 30 p.m purse on a
left rear seat surprisingly veronica's cash and credit cards were found intact a box cutter this box cutter and the
location of the car focused the investigation on workers at the supermarket detectives kerrigan mercer began to
question the store's 186 employees and you agreed to cooperate okay i'll take you too won't you follow me
how about this gentleman one good suspect admitted that he had seen her the day that she was killed
in the supermarket and he was able to describe her all the way down to her red shoes
uh did you ever talk to her yeah i talked to a few times i sort of had a thing for her but she wasn't
interested in me when we were able to narrow the field down from 186 down to six it was my job to
get a sample of their blood to either eliminate them and go on then to other investigative
leads or possibly to to find the individual that committed this crime these tests were important as body fluid
found at the crime scene showed a rare blood type common to only four percent of the population
the suspect could definitively be identified by cross-checking this blood type with a dna sample
also taken from the body fluid however in this instance there were no match-ups all six suspects were cleared
four days after veronica's murder dramatic new evidence surfaced when an off-duty police officer claimed he had
seen veronica the night she was killed and the company of a man who was at the wheel of her car
that evening i was on my way to work it was approximately a quarter of 10 in the evening while i was waiting to
make a left there was a car approaching me from the opposite direction i had his bright lights on me that's
what first drew my attention to the car as this car turned the corner he ran over the curb and i don't mean just
bumped it but really ran over the curb as the car turned i noticed a license plate on the car they were personalized
tags and they read ms vlj i figured the car belonged to the girl in the passenger seat the driver was
apparently very involved in conversation as he was driving slow and weaving up up the road
it did not seem like there was any trouble in the car um it seemed like they were engaged in a very in-depth
conversation the woman got out of the car she bent down and they had words for 15-20 seconds
she um wasn't in any distress she wasn't frantic they just seemed to be friends and he was saying goodbye
i got tired of watching and went around the car and on my way the more and more i
thought about it the more i wish that i could have pulled this person over at this time
and in some way maybe that would have prevented the death of miss jefferson after doug
taylor's account on what he saw and who was driving we felt that it had to have been someone
that veronka was familiar with a friend an old friend someone she really felt comfortable with
in order to let her let them drive her car from veronica's roommates and family we were able to get a list of
male friends and acquaintances of veronica's all her male friends that we know of to
this point have been interviewed blood has been taken and all have been eliminated
as suspects after veronica's friends were cleared the investigation reached a complete standstill
but in may of 1989 a year after the murder two eyewitnesses came forward they remember seeing veronica in the
supermarket less than two hours before she was killed on the night in question my wife and i
both went to the supermarket to pick up a few items on arriving at the deli counter i noticed this very
attractive i would say beautiful girl hello hi yes a man approached her and started a
conversation with her solid right no come on i know it's got to be sound with you looking that good
i had the distinct impression that he was trying to pick her up because i generally had the feeling that
he did not know her or had not been in any previous company of hers a few minutes later mrs flanagan saw
veronica outside the market talking with the same man i couldn't hear what they were saying
but i could watch the body language and i had the feeling that something was wrong
she continually looked around the parking lot she looked as if she was searching for
someone who knew her or someone to get her out of this situation but she did smile at him she did laugh
and i had an uneasy feeling about it but it wasn't that dramatic enough that would have made me push ahead
to say do you need help [Music] according to the flanigan's testimony veronica was approached by a stranger
who later may have killed her but doug taylor saw her with what appeared to be a friend at the wheel of
her car there's a possibility that the suspect was once involved with veronica and no
one else knew that he feels that his identity will never be known because of that fact
the man described by the flanagans was a black male approximately six feet three
inches in height and weighed about 170 pounds he was described as a clean-cut bodybuilder type
we continue to investigate unsolved homicides until the end they may not be solved but
they're never forgotten i think it's important that the killer understand that we will not
stop looking for him and it's important for him to know that so he doesn't think that because a year
has passed that he's gotten away with this crime because he has not we are still looking
and we will find him [Music] for every mystery there is someone somewhere who knows the truth perhaps that someone
is watching perhaps it's you [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Brief Summary

Rudolf Hess's impersonation, Patricia Meehan's disappearance, and Veronica Jefferson's murder are discussed in this episode of unsolved mysteries.

Key points

The Mystery of Rudolf Hess. Exploring the perplexing case of Rudolf Hess, who flew to Britain on a peace mission.
The Identity Question. Was the man in Spandau prison really Rudolf Hess?
Hess's Death: Suicide or Murder?. The official report claims suicide, but many believe he was murdered.
The Mysterious Woman. After the accident, Carol encounters a silent woman who haunts her memories.
Patricia's Disappearance. Patricia Meehan goes missing after a traumatic accident, leading to a nationwide search.
Amnesia Theories. Two theories emerge about Patricia's disappearance: stowing away or hitching a ride.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He deserves dignity at least to find out if he was murdered.

A plea for justice regarding Rudolf Hess.

3:32WatchMay 21, 2019

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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