Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack - Season 4, 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
an unknown killer stalks a family in denver colorado in 1985 roger dean was gunned down in cold blood in his own
house five years later the killer contacted dean's widow and threatened to kill her
daughter unless he was paid extortion money december 7 1941 a japanese sneak attack
devastates pearl harbor nearly 40 years later a woman under hypnosis provided a detailed first-hand
account of that infamous day which occurred a full 10 years before she was born in las vegas an eccentric beautiful con
artist named liza montgomery went on a wild two-day christmas shopping spree and gobbled up 150 000 worth of jewelry
furs and other luxury items join me perhaps you may be able to help solve a mystery
[Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] december 7th 1941 7 38 a.m pearl harbor hawaii
for those who were there and survived it was indeed a day that will live in infamy
their memories are as vivid today as they were 50 years ago smoke [Music] those aren't
[Music] i gotta get it done the narrative you have just heard was related by a woman under hypnosis
she was born in 1952 11 years after the attack on pearl harbor the woman claims no more than a passing
knowledge of the events of that fateful sunday morning yet much of her account is filled with
specific names and details which lead some to believe that she was actually present during the attack
in a past life others however are convinced that her memories are no more than a byproduct of
hypnotic suggestion in either case the details of the story define logical explanation
the woman at the center of this baffling mystery of the mind is asked to remain anonymous
we shall call her sharon johnson in 1979 sharon johnson first visited hypnotherapist frank baranowski because
she wanted help losing weight in 20 years of practice baronowski has placed thousands of patients under
hypnosis everyone hypnotized before no you know when sharon was hypnotized she began to experience a recurring
nightmare of smoke and fire which had plagued her since childhood [Music] water's on fire
no water's burning all right sharon all right all right relax relax deeply relax now i don't
have dreams like that as much as i used to you know just periodically uh the dream started when i was very
small i always remember having the dreams about fires and explosions [Music] sharon lost 30 pounds but the dream
remained unexplained [Music] six months later she visited hawaii for the first time on a group tour with
frank baranowski and some of his friends [Music] it was strange when i was there because
there were places that i i went to when i was there that it was like i've been here before i've seen this i knew where
things were that i couldn't have known about [Music] sharon's visit to the battleship arizona
memorial at pearl harbor triggered the same anxiety as her recurring nightmare she returned to her hotel room and asked
frank to hypnotize her during this session sharon began to speak as never before and a new persona
emerged his name was john gillespie so we take her to the time when she she's sharon johnson we go back to age
12 age 10 age 5 down to birth and then i i asked her to start recalling something
that happened i said when i reached the count of 12 you'll be in the 12th season of your life okay and suddenly
when she's there uh she's talking like a 12 year old what's your name john john glaspie i'm a junior
oh we're yet on the farm at what farm i said where are you about she's what this is omaha
omaha yeah well omaha nebraska as the session continued a chilling account of the surprise japanese attack
began to emerge bombs dropping everywhere they're everywhere let's play super well in farmers with it
in the account several men were named were on board the nevada at the time of the attack
among them a captain stanley a paymaster cooper and then some tossing don't worry
about me take them forward take a fork and scare the main guns in sharon's memory tossing
was particularly prominent he was apparently the son of an admiral and was badly injured
[Music] a few minutes later the story came to an abrupt end [Music] with great pain sharon realized that
john gillespie had been killed very good deeper relaxed up to that point i had not had a past
life regression i wanted to know more about what had happened and and who the person was that
i felt i was in this traumatic experience i just had how about your grandfather what's his
name they call him red over the next few months sharon underwent regressive hypnosis 20 more
times frank recorded the details of these sessions and then set out to see if the
story of john gillespie could be documented in one hypnosis session sharon speaking
as john gillespie listed the names of nine men serving in the uss nevada she also gave john gillespie's serial
number [Music] frank baranowski turned to the office of congressman john rhodes for help good
morning frank bob scanlon senior aide to the congressman was assigned the case thank you
when he first asked for our help and briefed me on the problem i was pretty skeptical i thought you
know we get a lot of strange requests and this has to be one of the strangest i know it's rather incredible but she
gives me names dates and places of people i have no way of checking here when i heard the story and listen to the tapes
i figured that our office in washington certainly should be able to get into naval archives and either prove or
disprove what this young lady had said using congressional privileges scanlon obtained the nevada's roster of officers
from the national archives in washington dc amazingly eight of the nine men sharon
mentioned were listed [Music] i remember when i received that and first read it i told my secretary that i
don't know whether to point with pride or view with alarm this was a strange result that i really didn't expect
however the ensign tossing who would play such a prominent part in cher's past life memory was not included on the
list [Music] ensentosig was originally shown in all naval records to have been in long beach
california the morning of the attack on pearl harbor when in fact he was on board the nevada
and was was tragically injured that morning in fact i think as we found later he lost a
leg due to the attack on pearl harbor unsolved mysteries contacted robert tosic a former ensign in the united
states navy tossing declined to be interviewed on camera but incredibly confirmed many
details of sharon's account he was on board the nevada that day and in fact had to have his leg amputated
[Music] the name john gillespie does not appear on any of the ship's rosters the navy admits the only records that
they carried were the pay masters records on board that ship the fires raged incessantly for two days
all of that was destroyed fire would also frustrate any attempt to verify the serial number of john
gillespie in 1973 flames ravaged a naval warehouse in saint louis destroying the service
records of thousands of seamen from world war ii uh how about your grandmother sharon's past life memory also included
information about john gillespie's personal life under hypnosis she stated that he was
born in 1921 in omaha nebraska the son of john gillespie senior and grandson of harry gillespie
in census records from 1899 frank found what he believes is proof that john gillespie did exist
when we came across this frame we founded harry gillespie wife item a son benjamin son john and
that john was john gillespie's father and he would have been 24 years old when john was born exactly the right age
yes you can read about nebraska you can read about the farmlands you can read about omaha and lincoln and all of those
places but unless you have experienced something then where do you get specific names
specific places i mean your history how valid are sharon's so-called past life experiences
at least one expert feels that sharon may have absorbed details from books from the power of hypnotic suggestion
well the information about tossing is easily available to anyone who looks for it in a book that
tells a story the events at pearl harbor have probably been as written about as any incident in this century no she
never did any reading about pearl harbor it was one of those things that she just didn't care for when somebody would
mention she would just shut her up and just walk away he asks leading questions of his subjects
he seems to take control of the regression rather than allowing the person involved to be in control and to
volunteer information in an attempt to refute the critics both frank and sharon agreed to undergo
polygraph tests with glenn whiteside a polygraph examiner for 20 years who has been board certified in four states
in my opinion sharon and frank absolutely are not conducting a hoax they did not get their
information out of records books they are not using mind conditioning or hypnotic suggestion
they are not perpetrating a hoax in any way any place else under hypnosis sharon revealed that john
gillespie had a hawaiian girlfriend named sugar this composite was made from cher's
description john met sugar while he was stationed at pearl harbor if she exists sugar would today be 70
years old for most of us the incredible facts of this story seem hard to accept how could a woman living today have such
vivid memories of someone else's life and death at pearl harbor 50 years ago is there any way to prove the details of
sharon's account beyond a shadow of a doubt probably not but for believers there is no need to
next a killer has returned to torment the family of the man he murdered [Music] littleton colorado is an affluent suburb
15 miles from denver its residents are for the most part business and professional people
roger dean was typical he and his wife dj had lived in littleton for 15 years november 21 1985 seemed like an ordinary
wednesday morning except for the car nobody recognized parked outside the dean home
some remembered it as a 68 pontiac others as a 76 oldsmobile but all agreed on one thing
they had never before seen the lone man who sat inside at the time they thought nothing of it
but at the time roger dean was still alive dj come out here at approximately 7 a.m roger dean called
his wife dj into the bedroom jay come out here what is it roger all right lady shut up
and get on the bench oh shut up and get on the bed shut up tie your hands the masked intruder forced roger to tie
a blindfold dj then he took roger into another room as dj lay bound helplessly on her bed
she could hear roger and the gunman talking but she could not tell what they were saying
you had enough time to think about it how much money have you got in your savings account i don't know how much
money have you got in your savings account i don't know dj heard the gunman rifling through
drawers going to the bank let's go all right i'll give you go suddenly the gunman fired
the bullet ricocheted striking roger dean in the arm at the front door he fired again five
times at point-blank range [Music] roger dean died before paramedics could be summoned
after i started hearing the gunshots i made my way down the steps and i did get outside
and from there things are a little blur i think someone that was driving by must have come by
and taken my blindfold off i'm really not even sure of that i just knew that raj i saw raj went over to him
and he was lying in the street and then he was taken away and i was taken to the
neighbors from the start authorities were struck by several oddities in the case
roger had twine fiber embedded in only one wrist it appeared that roger had never
actually been tied up by the gunman went on up the street there also roger was wearing contact lenses
when he was shot look at these glasses here yet strangely in an upstairs bedroom his eyeglasses were found
covered with duct tape police began to theorize that the twine and the glasses were both red herrings
planted to give the impression that roger had been blindfolded and bound whoever wore them we believe that roger
hired an individual to come over to basically kidnap him take him to his bank withdrawal thirty thousand dollars from
their account and then obviously drop roger off someplace so roger could report a robbery and he
would have that thirty thousand dollars to himself the investigation two other unusual
facts emerged in the year prior to his death roger dean had taken nearly thirty thousand
dollars from his business and deposited the money in a private account unbeknownst to his wife
also on the day of his murder roger was seen sipping coffee in his garage at 7am
on most weekdays roger left the house no later than 6 15. what we make of that timing is that
he was waiting for this individual to come and meet him at his house we also believe that the individual was
probably sitting in his car when roger lifted the garage door which was a signal for this individual to get
out of his car and walk over to roger's home this is the man that i was married to for 26 years and
yes there had been personal problems in the last few years especially since the death of our son
but i knew the man too well [Music] in my heart i cannot believe that roger had anything to do with this
[Music] tragedy was not new to dj dean two years earlier her son had been killed in an automobile accident
within a few months another accident took the lives of her parents dj and her daughter tammy tried
desperately to rebuild their lives then five years after roger dean's murder dj received a chilling anonymous
letter its author claimed to be the man who had killed her husband the letter arrived on july 21 1990
[Music] it demanded 100 thousand dollars if roger's murder did not get the money
he planned to kill again [Music] do you know that i've met your daughter tammy on a few occasions
she is a very attractive blonde and a very good model do not make me kill her your son is dead your husband is dead
do not risk your daughter she is the last one left i was in total shock i mean this was like something that
doesn't happen to you this only happens in the movies it makes me angry that we had just started to get on with our
lives and put the past in the past and it's all brought up to you again you know this person isn't letting us
continue and we never did anything to deserve this dj and tammy notified the local
authorities in the fbi the fbi had no doubt that the extortionist was who he claimed to be
roger dean's killer dj and tammy were given round-the-clock protection the killer had told dj that he would
telephone her on july 27 1990 fbi agents moved into dj's home and set up a wiretap operation
wait for the second ring now okay dj pick it up hello listen your husband owe me money and i
want my money if my husband owed you money i'll pay you what he owed you i want my money
i'll give it to you the fbi traced the call to a phone booth in denver all right i'll call you tomorrow
but before they could get there the killer had disappeared i don't believe my husband owed anyone
this money but that was what he said and the phone calls continued and continued and continued
after nearly a dozen phone calls the extortionist told dj to drive to a supermarket 20 miles north of her home
and wait for further instructions okay dj be calm with an fbi agent hidden in her car and
surveillance trucks and a swat team for backup dj attempted to lure the killer into a trap
okay she's out of the car and she's headed across the parking lot now she's headed towards the
i waited and i waited and i waited i could not believe i was really having to go through this chair
and then finally when i did get hello a call yes i was given instructions as to which streets to take and where to make
the drop the extortionist told dj to leave one hundred thousand dollars in an alley
behind an apartment complex in downtown denver at 10 p.m on august 19 1990 dj left the
money once again shadowed by the fbi [Music] hello you haven't followed instructions
yes we have no you haven't you haven't followed instructions and now i'm gonna hurt you
he called about it seemed like forever but a couple of hours later and was using a lot of profanity and
said that she had basically not followed his instructions had not done what he had told her to do
and that now he was going to do what he had said that he would do to me because of that he would hurt me
[Music] the fbi kept the bundle of cash under surveillance until dawn it was never picked up whether or not he
spotted something whether or not he just took for granted that the law enforcement was
involved or whether or not he got cold feet and although he didn't detect any type of law enforcement he just
was too scared to actually make the pickup i think all those are possibilities when he didn't
pick it up i was devastated because i thought this is not over i was totally devastated
there's nothing more that either one of us want than for this to be solved and for whoever
murdered my dad to be caught and at the same time for him to be also caught for the fact that he's still
terrorizing us he is still making us live a nightmare that continues on and on all the time
in his last call the extortionist told tammy he still planned to kill her and that he would strike when she least
expected it authorities know only the suspect is about six feet tall and uses an
extensive vocabulary interestingly they feel that the extortion letters are written by a man
and a woman working in conjunction [Music] in the past four years 68 wanted fugitives profile and unsolved mysteries
have been captured thanks to vital information provided by you our viewers one recent case is out of a convicted
con man wanted by nevada police for murder on october 6 1990 henderson nevada police entered the home of 50 year old
joe weldon smith inside the house they found the bodies of smith's wife judith and his two
stepdaughters all three victims had been strangled and bludgeoned to death hello two hours after the bodies were
discovered joe smith telephoned his wife's daughter-in-law he denied any involvement in the murders
joe what's going on she called her on the phone told her that he had killed one of the people that did
the killing and knew who the other ones were i'm gonna find the guys who did it i know who they are
and i'm gonna kill them in my opinion it was a ruse by mr smith to get support from judah smith's family
members and make them believe that he was not involved in the killings joe weldon smith was charged with three
counts of first-degree murder his whereabouts remained a mystery until the night of our broadcast
[Music] just minutes after we profiled smith's case an anonymous viewer called our
telecenter to report that the fugitive was living near los angeles california smith was hiding out at this motel but
managed to escape before he could be apprehended once we established that joe willand
smith was in the los angeles area we focused our attention to his brother who we knew that he had close contact with
after five days of surveilling this brother we established where the suspect was residing
20 minutes later joe weldon smith was arrested at another local motel where he was registered under an assumed name
inside smith's room detectives recovered several credit and identification cards
smith told police that he was in the process of creating a new identity at the time of his arrest joe smith
indicated to me that he had seen the last airing of the unsolved mystery program he also told me
that it was very tough being a fugitive and he always knew that someone would be
knocking at the door one day is kind of glad it's all over at this point [Music]
next a beautiful young con artist embarks on a wild shopping spree [Music] las vegas nevada the city of light in
the desert a seductive town of high rollers and big spenders where money flows quickly and
easily [Music] on the weekend shortly before christmas 1990 an eccentric young woman named liza
montgomery began a bizarre and most unusual shopping spree remarkable even and free-wheeling las
vegas on friday afternoon december 21st liza dressed to the nines visited local businessman mark husby
she was responding to his newspaper ad offering to sell a full-length mink coat and a two-carat diamond ring
hi eliza how are you come on in oh thank you the license personality was like uh
that of us excited school director here is your cashier's check oh my god there it is and there's the ring eliza i told
you to bring cash i know but the bank was closing enough anyway that's just as good i mean don't
worry about it i mean it's a good check well can i see your id please oh sure i asked to see her identification because
i had told her when she came to the home here that i did want cash but uh i settled for the cashier's check thank
you well let me walk you to the car oh all right thank you as i was saying goodbye
to liza uh and i walked her out to her car uh it seemed very unusual to me that she
how she treated the main coat uh she just uh literally shoved it in the car as if it
meant nothing to her have a nice christmas oh you too liza's shopping marathon was just
beginning that same evening she purchased two rings which she had selected the previous week she paid with a cashier's
check in excess of 39 000. and here are your rings oh thank you they're just beautiful liza
had been coming to us for about three months she was always well dressed so we never had a problem believing whether or
not she could actually afford anything she wanted to that's good you know you're very fortunate to get both of
these diamonds at this price well that's why they call me lucky here's your cashier's check oh great
this looks fine the next day liza continued her rounds clad in the mink coach she had bought from mark husby and
driving an old battered moving van honey if you could just write down that number
she purchased what she called a surprise gift for her husband 23 000 worth of furniture
throughout the weekend liza continued her seemingly endless christmas shopping always paying with cashiers checks
at nine different stores she picked up an additional one hundred thousand dollars worth of jewelry furs and luxury
items all along the way liza made a big impression and raised quite a few eyebrows
people were becoming suspicious starting with businessman mark husby [Music] shortly after selling lies of the mink
code and ring usb began to question where the liza's check was good he drove to an exclusive gated community
looking for the address printed on liza's identification card hi do you have a lives montgomery living
here at 2901 wrenching will air dry no sir are you sure i'm positive that address
doesn't even exist hughesby immediately returned home and called the police i explained to him that unless or until
the bank received that check and officially notified him that it was counterfeit or somehow forged there was
really nothing we could do at that point even if we were able to find her we'd have no authority to detain her simply
because the address on a cashier's check was somehow an error and that we couldn't detain her just based on that
be careful with that meanwhile back at the furniture store liza was having difficulty squeezing everything she had
bought into the van if you want you can borrow one of our trucks and we can follow you over there
no thank you are you sure i mean after you surprised your husband i'd be glad to help you set up some of the furniture
i don't care what you have to do just get it in there just just get it in okay the store owner was troubled by her
belligerent attitude once a van was loaded he decided to follow in his own car just to see where
liza would go [Music] before leaving the amateur sleuth gave his wife a walkie-talkie and took one
for himself [Music] she's turning away from rachel bel-air i knew she was lying i call the police
okay we learned from dispatch that the check had already been passed at the furniture store and that it was in
the name of liza montgomery which was the exact same name that mark usb had given us
based on that information we felt that there was enough corroboration now since there were two checks floating
around that she needed to at least be stopped and identified sounds of it only 10 minutes away maybe
six if we hurry the furniture store owner followed liza's van to a residential neighborhood
five miles away he described each event as it unfolded she just pulled over into a residential
street and met up with a man standing next to a red convertible [Music] now he's getting into the truck she's
getting into the car [Music] they're leaving together and heading north on jones
okay my husband says that the woman made contact with the man the store owner's wife attempted to keep authorities
abreast of her husband's wearable buys the store owner to try and keep up with the vehicle if he can and we'll be there
momentarily within two or three minutes the van and the red convertible head is south the store owner remained on their
heels [Music] when the vehicles reached an intersection on the outskirts of town
the van made an illegal right turn and sped away she stopped her car well i better get
out of here the store owner was fearful that this angry woman in a white mink coat might
be carrying a weapon he sped off with a convertible and hot pursuit [Music] after nearly a three mile chase the
store owner pulled to the side of the road liza whizzed by and disappeared the police were just minutes away but it
was too late they combed a five-mile area searching for eliza and her accomplice they ran
checks on various garages and warehouses hoping to recover the stolen goods but the perpetrators on the property were
gone in summary she hit at least 12 places that were aware of and the amount of loss to all of those in
in total was over 150 000 the last of the places she hit was a gaming supply store
at which time she bought three slot machines almost as if she wanted to take a souvenir of las vegas with her out of
town eventually the van and the convertible were recovered liza had rented both vehicles at local agencies in each case
she persuaded the rental clerk to accept a 500 cash deposit in lieu of a credit card the cash was never reclaimed
[Music] usually we only find this type of skill amongst people who are going to get involved in a scam that's worth
thousands upon thousands of dollars for the most part some of these nickel and dime
con games fall through when the victim looks straight through the suspect and is able to see that it is a con game but
when we talk about big money like this if they're going to get away with it they're going to have to be very good
and liza was one of the best liza montgomery did leave behind one significant piece of evidence when she
rented the van the clerk made this copy of her state id card [Music] when we return an intriguing eyewitness
account may help solve a string of bizarre disappearances [Music] february 4th 1990 4 30 a.m
sheriff's deputies responded to a call at a convenience store in orlando florida
two customers had found the all-night market open but curiously unattended no one was minding the store
and a friend of mine works here and i stopped in to say hello and she wasn't here i don't know where she is she just
kind of disappeared deputies immediately search for any signs of the missing clerk
behind the counter they found a work smug neatly folded [Music] the cash register was locked and there
was no evidence of a robbery the store appeared to be just abandoned there was absolutely no signs of any
struggle nothing appeared to be missing from the store with the exception of the store
clerk the missing clerk was 26 year old deborah diane poe who worked days at a local newspaper and nights at the store
deborah had moved to orlando just four months earlier with her friend and roommate lori tillman
debbie and i were more like sisters than i am with my own sister we had a very unusual friendship we
could fight like sisters do we could ignore each other like sisters do but we were there for each other if we ever
needed anything we could count on one another good evening sir the most dangerous time for convenience
store employees is the graveyard shift this was deborah's shift five nights a week from 11 p.m to 7 a.m
she was behind the counter alone how you all doing treat me ladies nice on a saturday night
there you go she needed to work and get the money she had a brand new car to pay
for she wanted to buy a house and she wanted to start a business so if it meant working two full-time
jobs that she really didn't like that's what she'd do just after eleven o'clock on the
night she disappeared a friend of deborah's dropped by to discuss some house plans with her
it's cool that's what i want i don't know if i can afford it police verified that debra waited on customers from the
time her friend left until 305 a.m i gotta take care of her i'm sorry okay when her friend returned at 3 50 a.m
debra was nowhere to be found her vehicle was parked where she parked it that night when she came to work
it had not been disturbed it was locked and her purse was sitting on the backseat
investigators concluded that deborah po had probably been abducted it looks to be about 25 cash in here
they soon discovered that debra was not the first store clerk in florida to disappear on the graveyard shift
six months earlier on august 6 1989 29 year old donna callahan disappeared from a convenience store in gulf breeze
florida as in deborah's case there were no signs of struggle at the scene donna was three months pregnant and left
behind a two-year-old daughter [Music] five weeks later on september 18th 36 year old darlene messer was abducted
from a lake city convenience store two days later darlene's body was found in a nearby creek she had been
bludgeoned to death three victims all single females in their 20s or 30s all had vanished while
working the graveyard shift alone investigators believe that the cases were linked but had no suspect
then three days after deborah poe's disappearance authorities were contacted by a young woman who read about the case
in a local paper she came forward after realizing that she may have stood face to face with
deborah po's abductor i stopped by a convenience store about 3 30 to pick up a pack of cigarettes and
there was only one person in the store and it appeared to be the clerk looking back on it he didn't know where
the cigarettes were which isn't that uncommon if it's a new clerk and i had to point out which ones i
wanted no the regular ones up top over there he had long stringy hair he was wearing an
earring of a cross smoking and a skull's ring and he had a rock t-shirt and the name
megadeth across the top we cannot locate anyone else that has been able to tell us whether or not this
individual was in the store when they were in the store he might have been a customer that
walked in and was walking around looking for the clerk he might have been an individual who is
taking an opportunity to shoplift or steal some things or he might be responsible or in part
responsible for the abduction of deborah pope there's a of good possibility that we're
dealing with an individual who is a serial type of person who abducts these people
debra poe is officially listed as missing she is 26 years old 5 feet 2 inches tall
and weighs approximately 105 pounds if we don't find her alive then we can at least put her to rest
give her give her a decent service go after her killer do [Music] [Music] join me next time for an all-new edition
of unsolved mystery [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

This episode includes: Past Lives, Murder & Extortion, UD: Smitty, 48-Hour Fraud & UD, Mystery Clerk & UD.

Brief Summary

A woman recalls Pearl Harbor under hypnosis, while a murder case and a con artist's spree unfold in Denver and Las Vegas.

Key points

The Mystery of Pearl Harbor. A woman under hypnosis claims to have memories of the Pearl Harbor attack, despite being born years later.
A Chilling Letter. DJ Dean receives an anonymous letter from her husband's killer, demanding money and threatening her daughter.
Joe Smith's Murders. Joe Weldon Smith is charged with the murders of his wife and stepdaughters.
Liza Montgomery's Shopping Spree. Liza Montgomery embarks on a wild shopping spree in Las Vegas, using counterfeit checks.
Deborah Poe's Disappearance. Deborah Poe vanishes from a convenience store during her graveyard shift.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

How could a woman living today have such vivid memories?

13:50WatchMar 16, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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