Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack - Season 8, Episode 21 - Full Episode | Forensic Files

tonight on unsolved mysteries in Venice California a late-night trip to the corner store becomes a terrifying
descent into an urban hell which ends in a brutal death for the son of a prominent television actor
when Milly McGregor got hopelessly lost in the wilderness an army of highly trained searches was mobilized for the
rescue effort but they had no luck until a soft-spoken cowboy guided by a mysterious vision came riding along four
years Tim Harrell was totally been abandoned by his birth mother left as an infant in
a garbage can too late Harrell learned that the tale have been a tragic misguided deception
concocted by his adoptive mother and in one of our most bizarre cases a self-styled preacher allegedly
brainwashes a young farmer and turns him into a virtual prisoner in his own home
join me perhaps you hold the key perhaps you may be able to solve one of tonight's unsolved mysteries
[Music] [Music] actor Dennis Cole has appeared in dozens of television shows like The Young and
the Restless Fantasy Island and the fall guy if life was scripted like a Hollywood movie Dennis his only son Joe
might have followed in his footsteps but Joe Cole died unexpectedly barely out of
his twenties I have like 29 years of remembering of doing all of these things I mean I was a kid I was a teenager when
he was born there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about him and you know we've always shared things it's
like I I've done a lot of new things and it's like I have no one to call up say hey hey Joe guess what happened here and
he would do the same thing with me I'm it's like a part of your heart we just taken and pulled out
[Music] there is no good way to lose a child sudden random violence is one of the
worst al unknown gunmen shot Joe Cole during a holdup that netted less than 50 dollars he was murdered in front of his
home in Venice California near one of the most violent sections of Los Angeles [Music]
but Venice Heights is troubles well indeed this beachfront suburb is a scene of a year-round street party for decades
the area has been home to writers artists and musicians Joe Cole an actor and a photographer fit right in
in Venice Joe Cole set himself the task of documenting the plight of homeless Vietnam veterans Cole was helped by his
longtime friend Henry Rollins a writer and lead singer of the Rollins band those men you see talking to themselves
standing next to payphones on streets he would bond with these people where they
wouldn't give you the time of day they would tell the story of their lives to Joe
Joe Cole was murdered before he could complete the work at the time he and Rollins were running a house just
outside Oakwood the toughest part of Venice looking back Rollins has a lesson innocent view of
life on the edge you get in your little rituals when you live in a community you
go you know wash days fried a chicken on Sunday all that and for a predator for a
robber this is what they go on they need habit it was Rollins and Cole's heavy to
shop at an all-night grocery store a block from their house their visit on December 19th 1991 was forget ibly
ordinary until they got to within 50 feet of their front door within one second you are going from the 90 million
thrip to the grocery store home to two guns in your face and you know your reality change is very appropriately
everything seemed to go very slowly and time seemed to kind of hover one robber shoved Rollins to his knees
the other forced joke called face down on the ground a guy who is on me said if you yell or if you scream I'm gonna blow
your head off and I said okay what zoom through my mind was if I speak loud the gun will go off and if I
whisper maybe it won't and the gun is very delicate and has a life of its own and if I'm cool maybe it
won't jump out and bite me get up get up anybody home my roommates home he's watching TV
I lied hoping they would go Oh people in the house you better get out of here but
that didn't bother him at all I'm trying to come up with some kind of way to get
us out of this because it's not as if you're gonna go for some movie stunt like grabbing the gun and wrestling
around that's you know that's fiction I'm at that moment what I thought was going to happen was we were going to be
marched into the house and executed while they robbed the place at their leisure
I heard feet scuffling on the front porch and then I heard gunshots and I remember standing there very you know
perfectly still with my hands up for a couple of seconds afterwards thinking how strange gunshots sounded inside this
room as they the sound ricocheted around the walls and then my legs took off but
I did not know the state that Joe was in I had I didn't even hardly remember leaving the house all of a sudden I was
at a phone and I didn't called the police and told them what I thought had happened though the police arrived
within minutes Joe Cole was already dead and the killers had melted into the night my partner and myself had put in
thousands of hours interviewing hundreds and hundreds of people our investigation
has led us to believe that the suspects probably live in the Oakwood community criminals always talk and they talk to
other people somebody knows something out there that happened to Joe Cole when someone dies in this way it's not
just the loss of a life there's a mother there's a father you know and then all of us the friends who lost this
fantastic person and you never recover from it all the way he always carries some of it and unit it wrecks you year
after year as mutilated a concept as justice is in this country and how it only seems to benefit a certain skin
color in a certain economic place in America real justice is a pretty righteous thing and I'd like to see it
done and exact it on these individuals the only justice that can be done here is to get those guys or guy off the
street so they don't do it to your friend or your sister or your parent or your child
[Music] in a moment Gilly che Smith joins us with the latest news from the phone
center also a veteran journalist needs your help to unlock the secrets of his past
[Music] tonight we have a heartwarming update to one of our most poignant lost love cases
perhaps you remember the story a few days after Christmas in 1961 a diesel engine rumbles out of Dallas
Texas and headed west nearly 200 miles down the line in Abilene Texas Darlene out found oh and a friend
gathered up their children for a trip into town the train reached Abilene at the same time as the two mothers and
their children inexplicably their car came to a sudden dead stop at the railroad crossing
[Music] [Applause] the accident killed three children and one of the mothers that anyone at all
came out of the wreckage alive seemed a miracle Fred I'll follow a US Army sergeant lost his wife and two of his
daughters in the crash his third child LaDonna suffered massive head injuries mommy's an angel
[Music] sure [Music] over the years LaDonna endured a succession of operations that gradually
rebuilt her face but of course nothing could restore her sisters or her mother Darlene I have no memories of my mother
at all I look at pictures of her and I try to remember something it's like looking at a magazine article of a woman
my father has told me stories about us as children with my mom and it doesn't bring back any memories whatsoever none
whatsoever LaDonna is only hope of finding her mother's family rested with his 28
year-old snapshot of her mother's sister Patricia hits key Lee was at the phone centers a dramatic story unfolded Bob
the night of our broadcast Madonna's search came to a glorious end in fact it was more successful than she ever dared
hope for not only did she find her aunt Patricia but she located her maternal grandparents as well before the evening
was out plans were underway for a long overdue family reunion a few weeks later LaDonna was pulling up
to her aunt Pat's house in Sioux Falls South Dakota totally changed my life you believe yeah it's just finding them then
they're great people and they're beautiful I just um I just feel totally might that hole that empty hole is
totally filled she lost her mother I lost my sister and it's just like she found us another mother and I found a
new sister and I just feel like I just feel like we're just connected I really do ladonna x' first visit with her
grandparents in more than three decades made the reunion complete I can't even express it
I just really cannot express how I feel there's just too many emotions going on here and it's just a wonderful wonderful
feeling it's just it's great I just feel like I'm I just feel really like I'm at
home it's really great Madonna's joyous rediscovery of her mother's family was tempered by an
unexpected loss two days after the reunion Madonna's grandfather Stanley hints passed away he was 86 years old
[Music] Tim Harrell a news producer at Los Angeles television station is a veteran
journalist a man whose 30-year career is earned him numerous awards and commendations tim has covered thousands
of stories but for the last six years one story has been a priority now Tim Harrell needs your help yeah I
built Tim heroine our Channel 13 News it's so frustrating to know that Here I am I can go out and get good stories I
can break stories I can do great interviews I can get nominated for Emmys I can win awards but I can't find my
mother tim was raised by a woman named Helen Harold she never made a secret of the
fact that Tim was adopted and she never shielded him from the near tragic circumstances but she said brought him
to her in 1947 [Music] she told me that she had found me abandoned in a garbage can behind Barnes
Hospital in st. Louis before she worked as a nurse and that when she found me I was very sick I had a birth defect known
as a cleft palate and a harelip and she took me in and had a plastic surgeon repair that I also had rheumatic fever
which was a heart problem where I had a heart murmur as well and she took care of that Helen managed to adopt the baby
at a time when single parenthood was almost unheard of somehow she was able to cut through the red tape she always
was concerned that there was never a male force in my life so she made sure I was in military school she made sure I
was in the YMCA she made sure I was in Little League and she went to these things with me I mean she went to the
Little League games with me she went to the YMCA with me she took the role of being father and mother inevitably
however the day came when Tim wanted to know more about his past yes what happened to my mother
what on earth are you talking about I'm your mother I mean what happened to my real mother
Timmy your mother was not a good mother she and your father were low-class trashy her favorite term for those
white-trash taking care of you I just hated my birth mother I thought my god how could a human being just throw away
a baby particularly one who had a physical defect and just throw him in the garbage like it was a piece of
garbage I mean that just not away at me and as I got into journalism as I did stories about mothers who abandon their
children you know I always swapped my birth mother in with them and they were always usually people that were
low-class that that had no caring for their children and I would always identify my birth mother with us those
people by 1976 Tim was on staff at the Los Angeles herald-examiner he was married and had a son of his own
that summer Tim received a phone call that haunts him to this desk speaking who's calling
excuse me what are you talking about my mother's at home it came right out of the blue like a bolt of lightning I mean
I've been to riots that covered things in Vietnam but that just was the most emotional thing that I've ever had in my
life to get that phone call don't you think it's a little late to suddenly be taking an interest in my life what I do
understand is you left me to die in a trash can all of a sudden woman all the hatred
baby and a chest exploded I said how could you how could you throw me away like that was a piece of garbage
how could you do that and she said well you don't understand I said I don't want
to understand there's no way you're ever gonna see my son you ever try to contact
me or my son I'll get a restraining order against you I don't know you would think all the emotions just flowed out
of me the city editor who was working there looked at me and he says my god what's wrong you look like you've seen a
ghost and I told him I have she said she was living near San Jose and she wanted to meet Adam later that
day I told him about the phone call and she got hysterical of course not I've no interest in seeing her or my
father I told him to stay away from my family she promised me well not try to find her she abandoned you when you were
a baby nothing good could come out of you meeting her Helen's reaction solidified Tim's decision not to allow
his birth mother into his life six years later in 1983 Helen passed away by then
Tim had divorced and his son had gone to live with Tim's ex-wife it was a lonely
time a moment when Tim became acutely aware of how much family meant to him in 1986 Tim married his second wife Denise
but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing on a trip back to st. Louis in 1990 Tim and Denise tried
to locate his birth mother through adoption records you realize mr. Herold I'm not at liberty to divulge any
information regarding your adoption I don't know where else to go I'm sorry but it's the law
and she said adoptions in Missouri are confidential we played sort of a game of 20 questions
she's just think Bay Area I said San Francisco she says no a little further south and I said San Jose
she said yes she says think relative of your mother your adoptive mother couldn't think of
who that would be your mother have a sister are you saying that my real mother was
Helens sister I'm not saying anything listen I'm gonna go get a cup of coffee seems silly to put this away just to get
it out again later I'm gonna be gone for about five minutes [Music] in those five minutes
Tim learned Helen had lied about every detail of his birth his birth mother was not some cold-hearted stranger who would
abandon him in a garbage can aim as Muriel Carol she was apparently Helens old niece and she had given Tim up only
because she had to let through me like a jolt of electricity they only thought my
mind was is I really wanted to find her now I really wanted to say look I didn't
know and I am so sorry I am so sorry for what I said to you and in how I acted to you
tim was deeply moved to learn that Helen's niece was only 18 when he was born still almost a child herself Tim's
father had just gotten out of the Army and was in no position to be both a husband and father
they gave Tim to Helen and bowed out of his life it aches at my heart to know that I have
a family out there and I don't know who they are may have lived in the st. Louis
area back in 1947 I have to find this woman even if it turns out that she has died I want to go to the grave I don't
want to talk to her I didn't give her an opportunity to explain here I am a journalist I'm supposed to be fair I'm
supposed to be even-handed I'm supposed to listen to both sides and I would even
get my real mother the opportunity to explain what happened I to this day I'm very worried that I don't have that
opportunity [Music] coming up when an elderly woman gets lost in the Sierra Nevadas it seems that
only a miracle concealer but first day Freeman posed as a hard-working man of God but when his employer turned up dead
Freeman emerged as a prime suspect [Music] November 14th 1994 Folsom West Virginia
acting on an anonymous tip police arrived at the house of a well-to-do farmer named Tim good the tip had come
from an unlikely source a would-be thief had broken in and found more than he bargained for the caller had said look
in the basement police came across what appeared to be sparse living quarters on
the bed a grisly discovery the decomposed body of 37 year old Tim good good had been strangled and left
undisturbed for over a year where the body was located it was basically a dungeon or a cell bare walls concrete
floor upstairs of the the residence it was lavishly furnished hot tub Jacuzzi three large screen TVs a wet bar it was
very nice upstairs and was a dungeon in the basement strange the investigation quickly revealed that someone had been
living in the house almost the entire time the Tim Goods dead body had been in the basement all of the air vents were
sealed no doubt to prevent odors from wafting upstairs then police uncovered volumes of diaries written by this man
who was known as Dave Freeman it was Freeman's cryptic writings that would help authorities piece together
the tragic demise of Tim good Tim good owned-and-operated a 350 Acre dairy farm in Connersville Pennsylvania
one of his workers was a young man named Jean Kennedy Kennedy had come from a broken home
and Tim was his unofficial guardian when I first come and live with him instead of making it feel like he was just
giving it to me it was like I was learning salt you know 13 years old fifty bucks a week and being on your own
and a place to live I was free neat for me the author of the Diaries Dave Freeman hired on in 1987 at the time he
went by the name Ben here I found some cooling in the oil pan I'm gonna rethink this filter off and see if it's
contaminated but within months Freeman and his wife Eliza had moved into the main house with Tim and Gina before you
know it it's he was there it's just how it was yeah Tim never even hinted that he knew even like Ben I think in the
beginning he didn't we're gonna be leading a Bible study up at the house leaders evening thought you
might like to come up and check it out by what time Freeman was something of a self-styled preacher Tim God was
estranged from his family and apparently turned to Freeman for spiritual guidance
things to help you out with other people Ben would have an unusual twist to the way he spoke with Tim implying that he
knew more than what most people did and therefore Tim looked at him as being a very wise man I think it started off
that Tim thought he found somebody he could trust you know somebody that was pretty well educated that would more or
less stick with him instead of everybody else turning him away and I think that's
what Tim wanted and needed but Freeman seemed to have his own agenda Jean Kennedy claims that Freeman
began acting as if he owned the farm what are you doing I told you don't come here until you call I live here too yeah
well you can't come in right now I'll be in and out all right look my wife's asleep upstairs you can't come in quiet
my wife's asleep upstairs I understand that but he lives here too okay let's just forget about him all right come on
let's go inside sure it's all right it's okay trust me cool when Ben showed up it
wasn't I'd say about a year after that Tim stop dairy farm you know you'd come down on the farmers no cows there's no
calves there was no dry stock everything was empty Tim looked at me one day and he said you're gonna hate me he says I
sold the farm he says I got a million dollars for the farm maybe a little more and he'd laugh he thought that was
really funny it was real proud of himself Tim turned around and bought another much smaller farm in West
Virginia Jean Kennedy stayed in Pennsylvania but Freeman and his family made the move
with Tim oddly Freeman was now calling himself Dave over by the fence by that big tree yeah you know what come to
think of it you don't have clearing that why don't you get somebody would over there for kindling how much you think we
need Tim would be always out there doing the work and Dave would always be at the
house oh it says the man it doesn't work doesn't eat it seemed more like dave was
the boss instead of Tim I've been the one that owned it it seemed more like dave was
the living arrangements reflected this strange role reversal Freeman's Diaries revealed that while he and his family
lived comfortably upstairs Tim good became a virtual prisoner in the basement please bless this food and
please watch over me the diaries were very detailed he indicated in the Diaries what chores Timothy good was to
perform that day he even indicated what Timothy good was to eat that day if he was allowed to eat that day every aspect
of Timothy Goods life was controlled by Dave Friedman that's right I told you to
clean the basement get up here whenever you clean up yesterday yesterday every single day Tim did something that would
irritate or disgust Dave freedom you see it's just my shoes that's just your shoes basically Timothy good couldn't do
anything that's correct and everything that he did was a mistake or it wasn't a God's way to do it God requires that you
when I first met Tim he used to come to my house all time we were every day seeing each other and talked every day
we talked a lot about farming and stuff and he was gonna get his firm cleaned up
and do a lot of work to it and everything but then in Tim to start to stand away
from in fact George Anderson did not see Tim good or Dave Freeman for about a year he assumed they had left the area
then one afternoon in October of 1994 a taxicab came up the road headed for Tim goods farm my grandkid was out in the
yard and they'd seen him and they started hollering at me time McDavid lies it was back and so I told me I was
going up and talked to Dave and find out about Tim my god Tim had been going for
about a year the road to the farmhouse is blocked by a fallen tree so Freeman and got up on foot hey George how's it
going buddy where are you man oh I was just up the house looked like somebody broke in the back window I asked him
where Tim was at and he said he hadn't seen him for a long time and he had no idea but he said he had walked up to the
house and somebody had broken the kitchen door and he said he opened the door and looked in and he said that's as
far as he went I believe that Dave Freeman came back to the good farm to remove the diary's and
I believe that they were surprised by the neighbors and there's no way that he could have removed anything from the
home without the neighbors observing that later that day George Anderson's son in
law gave Freeman and his family a ride to Washington DC he dropped them off at a service station along the Beltway they
have not been seen since two weeks later police discovered the decomposed remains
of Tim good grocery receipts indicated that Freeman and his family had lived in the house for approximately seven months
after Goods death they apparently left when they ran out of money goods bank account which had previously held almost
a million dollars now contain less than two dollars Dave Friedman indicated in his diaries the Timothy good question
him about the money and Dave Freeman was starting to realize that he didn't quite
have the control on Timothy good that he had once had and I believe that that quite possibly led to his demise
[Music] [Music] [Music] next tragedy seemed inevitable when a massive search for a lost hiker yielded
nothing then a quiet cowboy rode to the rescue apparently spurred on by a divine vision
[Music] the Sierra Nevadas in Northern California had changed little since the first pioneers came through a hundred
and fifty years ago today the steep trails are the province of weakened explorers like 63 year-old Millie
McGregor despite a mild heart condition Millie thinks no more of an all-day ten mile trek and she would have strolled to
the corner grocery store but when she set out on Labor Day in 1995 Millie never expected she would take a wrong
turn into a life-and-death ordeal and she certainly never expected a near magical rescue it seemed like it started
off good had a good trail and a ways back that trail split off to two places and I'd picked out the one I thought I
should go on I was probably several hours maybe more like three hours beginning to climb and I got chest pain
[Music] perhaps it was the altitude perhaps the exertion for some reason Millie's heart
medication made her queasy and disoriented before she knew it Mele was lost the beautiful scenery now
became a terrifying maze as the Sun went down Willy began to realize she would be
spending that night alone in the wild I was kind of relieved knowing that I didn't have to hike anymore I was
worried that my husband would be worried but other than that it felt like I would
be okay that first night it was terrible I didn't get another Guinness sleep at all that first night I walked it floored
and what trying to watch the TV and I couldn't do that search and rescue team sprang into action the next morning but
an entire day in the wilderness yielded nothing not a single clue Milly faced another night in the bitter cold I know
the first night I spend a lot of time praying that my husband wouldn't worry the next night when I was still there
and I was cold and I was thirsty and I sort of said well at least at least he's warm he's got a goat at least he has
water and I sort of started praying for myself that I would get you know get out
of there day 2 concern was mounting how many 30-degree nights could Milly survive
authorities pulled out all the stops additional search teams and mounted patrols were recruited from neighboring
counties helicopters equipped with infrared sensors took to the skies but it was as if the earth had opened up and
swallowed Millie McGregor by the end of the second day we still have no clue no footprints no drop clothing no hits from
the dog there was no sign of Mildred with an army of searchers unable to find Millie McGregor it seemed a tragedy in
the making but no one counted on a soft-spoken cowboy named Randy Spears riding to the rescue Randy lives in the
area however he says that he was so busy that week he wasn't aware that Millie was lost until the evening of the second
day of searching what's the use that for well there's a lady that's lost up in Sisco Grove she's been up there lost I
think for a couple two or three days and he's a brother search and rescue I know
where she's at Brandi says it in his mind's eye he envisioned the silhouette of a Sierra peak located around 50 miles
from his ranch though he had never had any kind of psychic experience randy somehow knew with absolute certainty
that he would find millie on the mountains southern slope just flashed what big-screen TV is like i got this
picture of a mountain with my hand in front of it and i said i know right where she's at it was something you
didn't mess with you know you didn't doubt him there was a real strong feeling around him even though it was
well past midnight randy collected his friend frank smith and headed for the mountains
randy just looks up there and he goes she's right up there put his hand up there and just just pointed to her like
exactly in a certain area on the side of that mountain he goes she's right there
she's right there meanwhile milli hunkered down for a third night of withering cold that night
I gathered up pine needles and just kind of put them all around when I couldn't even put some in my hat help keep my
head warm but I had an extra pair of socks so I put those on my hands like what's at night was very very long with
like minute by minute you know the moon come up and you're watching watched and pretty soon the moon goes down and then
it gets colder when the moon goes down I got damn fish and it was cold real cold
that night Randy and Frank also slept under the stars they were up at the crack of dawn first up the search
command center there was a little strange because they all kind of looked at us like who are these guys because we
didn't have the orange vests and all that fancy searcher gear and that they had these companies scruffy-looking
Cowboys with long-haired mules it was a job and it was just something that we were gonna do there was absolutely no no
guessing or anything he he knew where she was at and we're gonna go get her I [Music]
know Billy hadn't seen food or water for three days I was not real strong at that
time I was shaky and it was like every step I prayed and I kept picturing in my mind a glass of cold water and a bathtub
[Music] forty-five minutes of riding took the Cowboys three miles from the command
center randy says he sensed they were getting close to Milly he and Frank separated to cover a wider area Randy
just kept going and I watched him go up I mean he was just on a light beam dude straight I was
kind of thinking now what do I do and I saw Randy coming up on the mule and it was spectacular it was just a light he
appeared there like magic just unbelievable I was amazed that she was after three days up there in that cold
weather to see her standing up I know three days out of myself out there with a dark shirt been tough and for a lady
[ __ ] she has a lot of spirit thanks to Randy's vision millie's hammering brush with death and hidden a
triumphant ride down the mama at the command center the sight of million to rescuers created quite a strain most of
the guys kinda stood around speechless thinking that that can't be Mildred we're still looking for her we have a
million dollars with her equipment out there and resources and she's coming back to camp on her back of a mule I
probably looked like I was a hundred years old but it felt great I don't know why it happened and why the brandy was
picked her and Frank too and I pray for them because I think God used him I don't know any other way of exploiting
it I'm not even gonna try because that's that to me feels right Brandee Spears quiet unassuming cavalier
perhaps blessed with a vision that guided him through the wilderness straight to Milly McGregor some may call
it luck but to Randy and Milly there was nothing less than a divinely inspired revelation
[Music] next friday marks the start of an all-new season here at unsolved mysteries tune in these intriguing cases
in the 1960s and 70s an unknown killer called a Zodiac terrorized Northern California in the 1980s and 90s the
infamous Unabomber terrorized the nation now a startling scenario could the Unabomber and the Zodiac be the same man
when Yantra cember was struck by a debilitating nerve disorder doctor said only a miracle could save her from a
lifetime of pain and Trish believes one did join me next Friday for all this much more on the exciting season
premiere of unsolved mysteries [Music] you [Music]

Brief Summary

Joe Cole's murder, Milly McGregor's rescue, and Tim Harrell's search for his birth mother are featured in this episode.

Key points

The Tragic Death of Joe Cole. Joe Cole, son of actor Dennis Cole, was murdered in a violent robbery.
LaDonna's Heartwarming Reunion. LaDonna finds her mother's family after decades, filling a deep emotional void.
Tim Harrell's Search for Truth. Tim Harrell uncovers shocking truths about his birth mother after years of searching.
Tim's Demise. Tim Good's life became controlled by Dave Friedman, leading to a tragic end.
Miraculous Rescue. A cowboy named Randy Spears, guided by a vision, finds lost hiker Millie McGregor.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's like a part of your heart we just taken and pulled out.

Dennis Cole reflects on the loss of his son Joe.

2:49WatchMay 23, 2019

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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