Wife lived with her husband for 35 years, unaware of who he was... The secret of Alex Cooper.

hello friends our world is full of mysteries that are hard to unravel there are puzzles that we're still unable to solve due to the lack of technological development or the evolution of human society at the same time there are man-made mysteries that we're also struggling to solve those often leave us confused and learning the truth about them can be truly shocking in fact it is this kind of a mysterious story that happened to alex cooper the protagonist of our story today he seemed to have everything but his life got ruined when his past caught up to him as he reached old age let me take you back in time to 1987. alex cooper was a 65 year old man who had already achieved a lot alex spent his childhood in an orphanage but it didn't stop him from living a decent life and becoming a respected person in cranbrook british columbia canada back then he had a beloved wife five adult children and eight grandchildren all his life he'd been trying to prove the whole world that he only deserved the best and he was quite successful at that he had a big house a loving family and loyal friends not something to be taken for granted but it all was gone in an instant alex had been running a successful cleaning business for over 20 years until he decided to try something new in 1986 he bought a small truck and set about delivering groceries the work wasn't difficult and the income allowed to both provide for the family and save up for a vacation years went by and it was time for alex cooper to retire his beloved wife was looking forward to the moment when they would finally have plenty of free time and would be able to fully enjoy their life however no one could even imagine what awaited them april 4th 1987 alex's adult daughter liela and her husband went to the neighboring downtown to do some shopping but before they even reached the supermarket they saw alex's car parked on the side of the road near a bridge the engine wasn't running and the car was locked which implied that the owner was somewhere nearby when we got closer to the car we saw that dad wasn't there i thought that he had gone down to the bank to fish but to our surprise he wasn't there either the man's daughter recalled the girl was worried because the whole situation seemed a little alarming so she called her mother margaret to find out what was going on talking to her mother made her worry even more margaret told her that alex hadn't returned from work the day before and she had no idea where he could possibly be she had stayed up all night calling their friends but none of them had seen alex or knew where he was after hearing the news liela headed to the city and contacted several hospitals but he hadn't checked in anywhere the family had no choice but to call the police and report their father and husband missing half an hour later the police arrived at the location and immediately began investigating they examined the car which turned out to be in good working order there was alex's jacket and his fishing tackle in the back seat all of this indicated that alex didn't actually go fishing the news was shocking to a small town like theirs so the police launched a search operation that same day people from his social circle had no idea where he could have gone realizing that it was necessary to act quickly the police hurled all their effort into searching the nearest crowded places such as cafes and restaurants and soon they got lucky they managed to find witnesses who stated that they saw alex on the day of his disappearance in a small restaurant less than a mile from the place where his car was found a little later the police had their own hypothesis having learned from margaret about her husband's strange habit of carrying large amounts of money with him and never putting it in his wallet the first thing that occurred to the police was that alex had been robbed it did make a lot of sense someone could have accidentally noticed the stack of banknotes when alex was paying at the restaurant and decided to mug him at the same time alex cooper's daughter assumed that her father could have felt unwell by the river or he could have gone down to look at the current without taking his fishing rod with him and then he might have slipped or simply lost consciousness after which he could have fallen into the river and drowned since the river current was very strong the body could have been carried away several kilometers from this place however all of these were just assumptions lacking real evidence the very next day the police reported to the media that alex cooper had gone missing they were hoping to get at least some additional information by involving the community and it really did give results calls started to come in soon concerned drivers reported a similar looking man hitchhiking on the road that day not far from cranbrook this seemed even stranger than the disappearance itself because no one could believe that alex a loving husband dad and grandad could have given everything up all of a sudden and disappeared in an instant however the authorities presumed that alex could have left voluntarily as for the family members they all agreed that it couldn't have been him they could not accept the possibility that alex could have faked his disappearance after all it wasn't like him to act so irresponsibly and just leave without saying anything there was no warning he was very successful and happy he was going to retire soon and his life was good there was nothing to run away from however be that as it may the police didn't have any leads neither the interviews with relatives and friends nor the involvement of the media were of any help it's been a year now since my beloved husband went missing although the search continued it gave no result in 1988 i had to officially recognize him dead margaret admitted sadly that is how one day the woman lost her meaning of life as well as her loved one and no one in the whole world could answer the question where alex had gone and what happened to him that day then red tape procedures followed and as margaret herself recalled she couldn't even imagine what kind of truth would soon be revealed i started going through the documents because i was asked to provide alex's birth certificate but to my surprise i couldn't find it anywhere i had to go to canada's archives to restore it but what i learned there shook me to the core the archive workers told margaret that there had never been a birth certificate issued in the name of alex cooper in his hometown but that wasn't all actually it was only in 1952 that the first records about a person with that name appeared surprisingly it was the year when margaret and alex got married it turned out that her husband simply didn't exist until then at least not on paper but how was it possible it was beyond anyone's comprehension it wasn't just the relatives that were wondering about it but also the police officers and even the journalists that were involved with the case everyone was interested in one thing who really was this pleasant and respectful family man that had left a bunch of riddles behind i told our children everything and they were also shocked it was hard to grasp that the man with whom i've lived for 34 years and whom we thought we knew so well was hiding so much from us margaret told the reporters but even that information didn't answer the question of where alex had gone and what had happened that day over the next four years the cooper family didn't really live but rather existed in a state of constant uncertainty and things could have probably remained like that and the mystery could have never been solved however on may 27 1991 five years after the man's mysterious disappearance new information was finally found so what new facts emerged in alex cooper's case was he even alive in order to answer those questions let me take you to toronto 3.5 000 kilometers from cranbrook where the local police received a missing persons report for a man called david cooper who went missing on may 27 1991 the man lived alone it was an attentive neighbor who called the police when he didn't see david for several days the patrol arrived at the call and opened the door from the help of david's landlord they searched the place and found a photograph of david on the table the police took it to the station so they could add it to their database of missing persons i'm sure many of you already guessed what an incredible surprise was coming imagine the shock of the toronto police when they found a similar looking man in the database the one that went missing several years ago in another part of the mainland in that photo david was standing with a newborn baby in his arms when margaret saw the photo she got teary-eyed and confirmed that it was her husband alex holding their grandson in his arms the photo itself was taken in 1985 a year before he mysteriously disappeared looking into that man's happy face it was difficult to imagine what could have made him hide from his whole world now it became clear to everyone that david cooper was no one other than alex cooper who had disappeared five years earlier under strange circumstances however there were still no answers to the questions of what had happened because now both alex and david were listed as missing but as it turned out the most interesting part was still ahead two days later on may 29 1991 unsuspecting david aka alex returned to toronto upon entering his apartment he noticed traces of somebody's presence and so he went over to his neighbor to find out what had happened david explained that he had been on a business trip a little longer than usual however upon learning that his apartment had been searched by the police the man got very nervous grabbed his things in a hurry and disappeared before the police arrived he would have probably stayed on the run if it wasn't for the canadian television who showed the story of alex or david cooper the man whose identity remained a mystery in october of that same year fortunately the tv show was very popular at the time and one of its viewers from hamilton soon reported to the authorities that the missing man lived in his town on his street now all they needed was to find out why alex or david cooper was constantly moving from place to place and most importantly what secret was he hiding finally after many years of countless attempts to track down the missing alex the police finally managed to catch the fugitive on january 10 1992. the man had no choice but to give up his real name and reveal the secrets that had long been bothering his family and the police so who was alex cooper my real name is albin arsini arsenat back in 1948 when i was only 26 years old i was an ordinary bank employee falsely accused of robbing one of the union pacific railroad offices where i used to work i wasn't going to be held responsible for what i hadn't committed but nobody listened to me so i just fled in 1952 alvin married margaret under a false name and that was the beginning of his new life for 35 years he lived happily with his beloved wife and children but the past caught up to him when he reached his retirement age the man didn't want to tell anyone how he managed to get fake documents for the name of alex cooper but the reason why he fled from his family was even more incredible than the story itself as the man said i had been hiding my real identity for many years but when it was time for me to retire i had to provide a birth certificate which i didn't have and i realized that i would be exposed if i didn't submit the documents everyone would begin asking questions sooner or later i couldn't bring myself to confess the truth to my family that i had been deceiving them for over 30 years so i decided that it would be best for me to disappear alex said however another shock awaited the man if he had known then that the real robbers of the union pacific railroad office had been caught and punished half a century ago he wouldn't have tried to hide who he really was but be that as it may this story has a happy ending after being interrogated in toronto the man returned to british columbia to his family the wife and children of course forgave alex and they all started over but most importantly they knew that he had nothing to hide they finally knew the whole truth about this father and husband the last years of the family's life were peaceful because they had reunited margaret passed away in 1996 and alex cooper followed in 2007. so that's it friends what do you think about this story what would you do if you were in this man's shoes or those of his family be sure to leave your opinion in the comments and that's all for today give the video a thumbs up if you liked it see you soon bye too soon

Channel: Life Stories

Views: 2,601,816

Rating: 4.7754135 out of 5

Keywords: Story, life story, real-life story, story, mysterious story, disappearance, a man disappeared, disappeared for 5 years, left the family, he was considered missing, riddle, an incredible story, love, family, no one knew where he was, investigation, found after 5 years, found family after 5 years, returned home, mysterious case, cooper, afraid to return home, used a cover identity, interesting stories, family reunion, touching story, husband, wife, husband returned home

Id: uU8ZQWPoHHA

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2021