ANNOUNCER: Tonight on
"Unsolved Mysteries." ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
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 searchers was mobilized for
the rescue effort. But they had no luck
until a soft-spoken cowboy guided by a mysterious
vision came riding along. For years, Tim
Harrell was told he had been abandoned by
his birth mother, left as an infant in a garbage can. Too late, Harrell
learned that the tale had 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. [THEME 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' only son, Joe, might
have followed in his footsteps. But Joe Cole died unexpectedly,
barely out of his twenties. DENNIS COLE: I have, like,
29 years of remembering 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. We've always shared things. It's like I've done
a lot of new things and it's like I have no
one to call and up and say, hey, Joe, guess
what happened here. And he would do the
same thing with me. I mean, it's like a
part of your heart we just taken and pulled out. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): There
is no good way to lose a child. Sudden random violence
is one of the worst. An unknown gunman shot
Joe Cole during a holdup that netted less than $50. He was murdered in front of
his home in Venice, California, near one of the most violent
sections of Los Angeles. But Venice hides
its 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 pay
phones 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. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Joe
Cole was murdered before he could complete the work. At the time, he and
Rollins were renting a house just outside Oakwood,
the toughest part of Venice. Looking back, Rollins
has a less than innocent view of life on the edge. You get in your little rituals
when you live in a community. You go wash day's Friday,
chicken on Sunday, all that. And for a predator,
for a robber, this is what they go on. They need habit. What do you mean? It's a great flick. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): It
was Rollins' and Cole's habit to shop at an all-night grocery
store a block from their house. Their visit on
December 19, 1991 was forgettably ordinary until
they got to within 50 feet of their front door. Hold it, man. Come on. Put the bag down. Put the bag down.
Don't look at me. Don't look at me. Within one second,
you are going from the 90 millionth trip
to the grocery store home to two guns in your face. And your reality
changes very abruptly. Everything seemed
to go very slowly and time seemed
to kind of hover. ROBERT STACK
(VOICEOVER): One robber shoved Rollins to his
knees, the other forced Joe Cole face down on the ground. HENRY ROLLINS: The guy who
was on me said, if you yell or if you scream, I'm going
to blow your head off. And I said, OK. Yo, you scream, I'll kill you. HENRY ROLLINS: What zoomed
through my mind was if I speak loud, the gun will
go off and if I whisper, maybe it won't. How much money you got? 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. $40.
This is it? This is all you got?
- Yes. Get up.
Get up. - Let's get him in the house.
- Go in your house. Get the bag. Get the bag.
- Get the bag. Put your hands down, punk. Everybody gonna know. Anybody home? My roommate's home. He's watching TV. HENRY ROLLINS: I
lied, hoping they would go, oh,
people in the house, we'd better get out of here. But that didn't
bother them 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 going to go for some movie stunt
like grabbing the gun and wrestling around. That's fiction. And 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. [GUNSHOT] And I remember standing
there very perfectly still with my hands up for a
couple of seconds afterwards, thinking how strange gunshots
sounded inside this room as the sound ricocheted
around the walls. And then my legs took off. [GUNSHOTS] I did not know the
state that Joe was in. I didn't even hardly
remember leaving the house. All of a sudden, I was at a
phone and I called the police and told them what I
thought had happened. 160 pounds, scruffy. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Though the police arrived within minutes, Joe
Cole was already dead and the killers had
melted into the night. My partner and myself
have put in thousands of hours interviewing hundreds
and hundreds of people. [GUNSHOTS] Our investigation has led us to
believe the suspects probably live in the Oakwood community. Criminals always talk. They talk to other people. Somebody knows
something out there that happened to Joe Cole. HENRY ROLLINS: When
someone dies in this way, it's not just the
loss of a life. There's a mother, there's a
father, and then all of us, the friends who lost
this fantastic person. And you never recover
from it all the way. You always curious
some of it in you and it breaks 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 and a certain economic
place in America, real justice is a
pretty righteous thing and I'd like to see it done and
exacted on these individuals. The only justice
that can be done here is to get those guys
or guy off the streets so they don't do it to
your friend or your sister or your parent or your child. ROBERT STACK
(VOICEOVER): In a moment, Keely Shaye 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. Tonight we have a heartwarming
update to one of our most poignant lost love cases. Perhaps you remember the story. [BELL RINGING] [HORN BLOWING] A few days after
Christmas in 1961, a diesel engine rumbled out of
Dallas, Texas and headed west. Nearly 200 miles down the line
in Abilene, Texas, Darlene Alfano and a friend gathered
up their children for a trip into town. [HORN BLOWING] 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. What is wrong? [HORN BLOWING] [CRASH] The accident killed
three children and one of the mothers. That anyone at all came
out of the wreckage alive seemed a miracle. Fred Alfano, a US Army
Sergeant, lost his wife and two of his daughters in the crash. His third child, LaDonna
suffered massive head injuries. What happened to Mommy? Mommy's an angel. Is she really an angel, Daddy? She sure is. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
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. LADONNA ALFANO: 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. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
LaDonna's only hope of finding her
mother's family rested with this 28-year-old
snapshot of her mother's sister, Patricia Hintz. Keely was at the phone center
as the dramatic story unfolded. Bob, the night of our
broadcast, LaDonna'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. Hi. - Hello.
- Hi. LaDonna? - Aunt Pat.
- Hi. Hi. Oh, it's so good. Oh, you're just quaking. Don't cry. You look great. Thank you. So do you. It's totally changed my life. it's just finding them. And they're great people
and they're beautiful. I just feel totally-- that empty whole
is totally filled. She lost her mother,
I lost my sister. And it's just like she
found another mother and I found a new sister. And I just feel like like we're
just connected, I really do. KEELY SHAYE SMITH (VOICEOVER):
LaDonna's 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 great. I just feel like I'm-- I just feel really
like I'm at home. It's really great. DJ from LA. Hi. KEELY SHAYE SMITH (VOICEOVER):
LaDonna's joyous rediscovery of her mother's family was
tempered by an unexpected loss. Two days after the reunion,
LaDonna's grandfather, Stanley Hintz, passed away. He was 86 years old. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Tim Harrell, a news producer at a Los Angeles
television station, is a veteran
journalist, a man whose 30-year career has 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.
Hi, Bill. Tim Harrell with
Channel 13 News. TIM HARELL: It's so frustrating
just 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. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Tim was raised by a woman named Helen Harrell. She never made a secret of
the fact that Tim was adopted and she never shielded him from
the near tragic circumstances that she said brought
him to her in 1947. [BABY CRYING] TIM HARELL: She told
me that she had found me abandoned in a garbage can
behind Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, where 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 hair lip. 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. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
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. TIM HARELL: 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. Mom, I want to be a news
reporter when I grow up. ROBERT STACK
(VOICEOVER): Inevitably, however, the day
came when Tim wanted to know more about his past. Mom? 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. TIM HARELL: Her favorite term
for them was white trash. --no way of
taking care of you. TIM HARELL: 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 then just throw them in the garbage like
it was a piece of garbage? I mean, that just
gnawed away at me. And as I got into journalism, as
I did stories about mothers who abandoned their children, I
always lumped my birth mother in with them and they
were always usually people that were
low class that had no caring for their children. And I would always identify my
birth mother with those people. ROBERT STACK
(VOICEOVER): By 1976, Tim was on staff at the "Los
Angeles Herald Examiner." He was married and
had a son of his own. [PHONE RINGING] That summer, Tim
received a phone call that haunts him to this day. WOMAN (ON PHONE): Can
I speak to Tim Harrell? Speaking. Who's calling. WOMAN (ON PHONE):
This is your mother. Excuse me. What are you talking about? My mother is at home. WOMAN (ON PHONE): This is
your mother, your real mother. TIM HARELL: It came
right out of the blue like a bolt of lightning. I mean, I've been through riots,
I 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? WOMAN (ON PHONE): I'm sorry
about what I did to you. But there are things
you don't understand. What I do understand is you
left me to die in a trash can. TIM HARELL: All of a sudden,
all the hatred just exploded. I said, how could you? How could you throw me away
like I 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. WOMAN (ON PHONE): I'd
like to see my grandson. There's no way you're
ever going to see my son. If you ever try to
contact me or my son, I'll get a restraining
order against you. I don't owe you a thing. TIM HARELL: All the motions
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. How'd she find you? TIM HARELL: Later that day, I
told Helen about the phone call and she got hysterical. You're not going to
try and see her, are you? Of course not. I have no interest in
seeing her or my father. I told them to stay
away from my family. Tim, promise me you
will not try to find her. She abandoned you
when you were a baby. Nothing good can come
out of you meeting her. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
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.
Harrell, that I'm not at liberty to
divulge any information regarding your adoption. TIM HARELL: I don't
know where else to go. I'm sorry, but it's the law. TIM HARELL: And she said
adoptions in Missouri are confidential and we played
sort of a game of 20 questions, if you will. She says, 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, of your adoptive mother. I couldn't think of
who that would be. Does your mother
have a sister? Are you saying that my real
mother was Helen's sister? I'm not saying anything. Listen, I'm going to
go get a cup of coffee. Seems silly to put this away
just to get it out again later. I'm going to be gone
for about five minutes. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
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 had abandoned him in a garbage can. My mother's name
was Muriel Gartner. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
She was apparently Helen's own niece,
and she had given Tim up only because she had to. TIM HARELL: It went threw me
like a jolt of electricity. The only thought my mind was 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 how I acted to you. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
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. TIM HARELL: It aches
at my heart to know that I have a family out there
and I don't know who they are. I'm trying to locate
a Muriel Gartner. She may have lived in the st.
Louis area back in 1947 or so. TIM HARELL: I have
to find this woman, even if it turns out
that she has died. I want to go to the grave. I 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 wouldn't even give my
real mother the opportunity to explain what happened. I to this day am
very worried that I don't have that opportunity. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Coming
up, when an elderly woman gets lost in the Sierra
Nevadas, it seems that only a miracle can save them. But first, Dave Freeman posed
as a hardworking man of God, but when his employer
turned up dead, Freeman emerged as
a prime suspect. 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'd 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 a 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, the
residence was lavishly furnished-- a hot
tub Jacuzzi, three large screen TVs, a wet bar. It was very nice upstairs but it
was a dungeon in the basement. Pretty strange, huh? Sure is. What's the story on this? ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The
investigation quickly revealed that someone had been
living in the house almost the entire time
that Tim Good's 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 Collinsville, Pennsylvania. One of his workers was a
young man named Gene Kennedy. Kennedy had come
from a broken home and Tim was his
unofficial guardian. When I first come to live with
Tim, instead of making it feel like he was just
giving it to me, it was like I was
learning something. 13 years old, $50
a week and being on your own and a place to live,
that was pretty neat for me. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
The author of the diaries, Dave Freeman, hired on in 1987. At that time, he
went by the name Ben. Found some coolant
in the oil pan. I'm getting ready to
take this filter off and see if it's contaminated. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Within months, Freeman and his wife, Eliza,
had moved into the main house with Tim and Gene.
- --for years. My father wants to hang onto-- Before you know
it, he was there. That's just how it was. Tim never even hinted
that he even liked Ben. I think in the
beginning, he didn't. Say, Tim, I was wondering. Yeah, Ben. We're going to be leading
a Bible study up at the house later this evening. I thought you might like to
come up and check it out. About what time? ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Freeman was something of a self-styled preacher. Tim Good was estranged
from his family and apparently turned to
Freeman for spiritual guidance. Thinks 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, 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. ROBERT STACK
(VOICEOVER): But Freeman seemed to have his own agenda. [KNOCKING AT DOOR] Gene 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.
- I'll be quiet. Get your-- you little-- I told you-- Hey, what are you guys doing?
Knock it off. Just back off, Ben. OK? My wife's asleep upstairs. I understand that,
but he lives here, too. You OK? Yeah. What's going on? Just forget about
him, all right? Come on. let's go inside. Sure it's all right?
- It's OK. Trust me. Come on. When Ben showed up, it wasn't
I'd say about a year after that Tim stopped dairy farming. You'd come down on the
farm and there was no cows. There was no calves,
there was no dry stock. Everything was empty. Tim looked at me
one day and he said, you're going to hate me. He says, I sold the farm. He says, I got $1 million for
the farm, maybe a little more. And he'd laugh. He thought that
was really funny. He was real proud of himself. ROBERT STACK
(VOICEOVER): Tim turned around and bought another much
smaller farm in West Virginia. Gene Kennedy stayed
in Pennsylvania, but Freeman and his family
made the move with Tim. Oddly, Freeman was now
calling himself Dave. Hey, Tim, how
about when you're done with that clearing
some more of that land over by the fence. Over by that big tree? Yeah. And you know what? Come to think of it, when
you're done with clearing that, why don't you get some of that
wood over there for kindling. How much do you
think we'll need? GEORGE ANDERSON: Tim was
always out doing the work and Dave was always
at the house. You know, the Lord says,
the man who doesn't work doesn't eat. GEORGE ANDERSON: It seemed
more like Dave was the boss. Instead of Tim being
the one that owned it, it seemed more like Dave was. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The
living arrangements reflected the strange role reversal. Freeman's diaries revealed
that while he and his family live 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 Good's life was controlled by Dave Freeman. I'm studying like
you told me to. Is that what I told you do? Is there anything else
I told you to do, Tim? You told me to
clean the basement. That's right I told you
to clean the basement. Get up here. When did I tell you to
clean that basement? Yesterday. Yesterday. MALE SPEAKER (VOICEOVER):
Every single day, Tim did something
that would irritate or disgust Dave Freeman. You see? It's just my shoes,
Ben, that's all. Just your shoes. MALE SPEAKER (VOICEOVER):
Basically, Timothy Good couldn't do anything correct
and everything that he did was a mistake or it
wasn't God's way to do it. God requires that you pray. I'm sorry, Ben. When I first met Tim, he
used to come to my house all the time. We would every day see each
other and talk every day. We talked a lot about
farming and stuff. And he was going to get his farm
cleaned up and do a lot of work to it and everything. But then at the end, Tim
started stay away from me. ROBERT STACK
(VOICEOVER): 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 Good's farm. GEORGE ANDERSON: My grandkids
was out yard and they seen them and they started hollering
at me and telling me that Dave and Eliza was back. so I told them that I was
going up and talk to David and find out about
Tim because Tim had been gone for about a year. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
The road to the farmhouse was blocked by a fallen tree,
so Freeman had gone up on foot. Hey, George. How's it going, buddy? Where you been? Oh, I was just
up at the house. Looked like somebody
broke in the back window. Have you seen Tim? I asked him where
Tim was at and he said he hadn't seen Tim 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 diaries and
I believe that they were surprised by the neighbors. And there there's no
way that he could have removed anything from the
home without the neighbors observing that. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): 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 lived in the house for
approximately seven months after his death. They apparently left when
they ran out of money. Good's bank account,
which had previously held almost $1 million,
now contained less than $2. Dave Freeman
indicated in his diaries that Timothy Good questioned
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. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
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. The Sierra Nevadas in
northern California have changed little
since the first pioneers came through 150 years ago. Today, the steep
trails are the province of weekend explorers like
63-year-old Milly McGregor. Despite a mild heart
condition, Millie thinks no more of an
all-day 10-mile trek than she would a stroll to
the corner grocery store. But when she set out
on Labor Day in 1995, Milly never expected she would
take a wrong turn into a life and death ordeal, and
she certainly never expected a near magical rescue. MILLY MCGREGOR: It seemed
like it started off good, had a good
trail and a ways back that trail split
off to two places and I 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. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Perhaps it was the altitude, perhaps the exertion. For some reason, Millie's heart
medication made her queasy and disoriented. Before she knew it,
Millie was lost. The beautiful scenery now
became a terrifying maze. As the sun went
down, Millie 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 OK. That first night,
it was terrible. I didn't get no sleep
at all that first night. I walked the floor and
tried to watch a little TV and I couldn't even do that. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Search and rescue teams 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. MILLY MCGREGOR: I
know the first night I spent 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 he's warm, he's got a coat, at
least he has water. And I sort of started
praying for myself that I would get out of there. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Day two 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 Milly McGregor. By the end of the second
day, we still had no clue-- no footprints, no dropped
clothing, no hits from the dog. There was no sign of Mildred. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
With an army of searchers unable to find
Milly McGregor, it seemed a tragedy in the making. But no one counted on
the 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 Milly was last
until the evening of the second day of searching. What's he going
to use that for? Well, there's a lady that's
lost up in Cisco Grove. She's been up there
a lost I think for a couple of two
or three days and he's part of the search and rescue. There's a lady that's lost? Yeah. I know where she's at. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Randy
says that 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 Milly on
the mountain's southern slope. It just flashed
like a big screen TV. It was 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 didn't doubt him. There was a real strong
feeling around him. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Even though it was well past midnight, Randy collected
his friend, Frank Smith, and headed for the mountains. Coming close. We're getting there
real close now. Randy just looks up there and
he goes, she's right up there. He put his hand up there and
just pointed to her exactly in a certain area on the
side of that mountain. He goes, she's right there. She's right there. ROBERT STACK
(VOICEOVER): Meanwhile, Milly hunkered down for a
third night of withering cold. MILLY MCGREGOR: That night,
I gathered up pine needles and just kind of
put them all around. I even put some in my hat
to help keep my head warm. I had an extra pair of socks
so I put those on my hands. The night was a very, very
long, was like minute by minute. The moon come up and
you watch and watch and pretty soon the moon goes
down and then it gets colder. When the moon goes down, it
got dampish and it was cold-- real cold. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
That night, Randy and Frank also slept under the stars. They were up at
the crack of dawn. First stop, the
search command center. It 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 the fancy search
gear that they had. We were just a couple of
scruffy-looking cowboys with long-eared mules. It was a job and
it was just something that we were going to do. There was absolutely no
guessing or anything. He knew where she was at and
we were going to go get her. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
By now, Milly hadn't seen food or water for three days. MILLY MCGREGOR: 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. ROBERT STACK
(VOICEOVER): 45 minutes of writing 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, just straight. MILLY MCGREGOR: I was kind of
thinking, now what do I do? And I saw Randy coming
up on the mule-- Help! Help! MILLY MCGREGOR: --and
it was spectacular. It was just like
he appeared there like magic, just unbelievable. I really needed that. Thanks a lot. Good to see you. I was amazed that she was-- after three days up
there in that cold weather to see her standing up. I know three days of
myself out there would have darn sure been tough. And for a lady, she
has a lot of spirit. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Thanks to Randy's vision, Milly's harrowing
brush with death ended in a triumphant
ride down the mountain. At the command center, the
sight of Milly and her rescuers created quite a stir. Most of the guys kind of stood
around speechless, thinking, that can't be Mildred. We're still looking for her. We have a million dollars
worth of equipment out there and resources and
she's coming back to camp on the back of a mule. MILLY MCGREGOR: I probably
looked like I was 100 years old, but I felt great. I don't know why it happened
and why Randy was picked or-- and Frank, too. And I pray for him because
I think God used them. I don't know any other
way of explaining it. I'm not even going to try
that to me feels right. ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER):
Randy Spears, a quiet, unassuming
cowboy 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, it was nothing less than a
divinely inspired revelation. Next Friday marks the
start of an all new season here at "Unsolved Mysteries." Tune in for these
intriguing cases. In the 1960s and '70s,
an unknown killer called the 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 young Trish Zamba was
struck by a debilitating nerve disorder, doctors
said only a miracle could save her from
a lifetime of pain, and Trish believes one did. Join me next Friday
for all this and much more on the exciting
season premiere of "Unsolved Mysteries." [THEME MUSIC]
