Original subtitles

-[wood creaking] -[dog barking in background]

Downloaded from YTS.LT

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[insects chirping]

-[door squeaking] -[suspenseful music]

[Mike groaning]

[suspenseful music builds]

[suspenseful music crescendos]

[reporter] So strange and in some ways incredible

might be an understatement for this story.

[reporter #2] It's just always a family legend or lore.

[reporter #3] For decades, they were haunted by hunches,

[Mike] 60 years of speculation, and we're still speculating.

[sirens wailing]

[bird screeching]

[soft pensive music playing]

[man speaking]

Hey, guys. What's goin' on over there?

My name is Mike Carroll.

You want to take a tour, guys?

I've lived in this house all my life, 63 years.

This is where I grew up.

You know, we played uh, wiffle ball

and all kinds of crap.

-[dog barking in background] -[birds chirping]

I just wanna let you know I'm in "Q."

I am a "QAnon."

I am a patriot.

I'm a crazy bastard.

[Mike laughing]

For people to understand me,

they have to wait it out,

and they don't have the time for it.

[clock ticking faintly]

Everybody around me, I know they're talking,

saying, "You're crazy."

[music box softly playing]

And I don't care because I believe what I'm saying.

My family would say "He's a hoarder."

OK, I am a collector.

I don't believe on throwing things out because you're gonna

need it, like, ten years down the road.

That screw that doesn't go anywhere, it has to go

somewhere down the road, right?

-[armchair creaks] -[Mike groans]

[Chris] I feel very protective of my dad.

Growing up, he was my hero,

and I feel I feel like now,

kind of the roles are starting to reverse.

All right, let's see what we have.

My father definitely has very abstract,

that's a good way of putting it, beliefs.

-[Michael] Sir? -[Mike] Hey.

-[Chris] Hey, what's up? -[Michael] There he is.

[Mike] Guys, what's up?

[Michael] What are you doing over here?

[Chris] You know, playing Scrabble.

[Mike] Yeah, kicking ass. I'm kicking ass, man.

[Michael] Listen, you better be winning.

That's all I do is win. I only win.

[Michael] Me and him definitely don't share the same beliefs,

for the most part,

in that area, but love him to death.

[Mike] All right, this bucket has to go upstairs.

I don't know what's in it,

but it's got an oxygen tank in it.

[Michael] Well, there is a bent...

[Mike] Believe it or not, it still works.

[Chris] I've been over his house many times

trying to help him clean up.

Usually, it stays that way for, like, a couple weeks,

and then it just kinda goes back to its original state.

Here we go.

This looks like some home videos.

[Mike] Channel 12 -- Channel 12 camera.

Yeah.

Oh, cool.

Something good.

It's a reel-to-reels.

[camera whirring]

[peaceful classical music]

[Mike] I grew up in what I thought was a pretty normal family.

Two-parent home, nice neighborhood,

brother and sisters.

I was the youngest of the four.

My mom's name was Dorothy,

but everybody called her Dottie.

I had a sister named Jean, a brother named Steve,

a sister named Pat.

She's a little complicated,

but that's -- that's a different story.

And then there was Richard.

In the beginning of my life, I thought this guy was my dad.

But then it came to light that my real father

walked out on us.

[projector whirring]

[ominous music]

[lighter clicks]

[cigarette sizzling]

[Jean] My brother, Mike, is seven years younger than me.

He doesn't remember my dad.

I do.

-[projector whirring] -[tense music playing]

I remember him around me all the time.

I know I was daddy's girl.

You know, my dad was there,

and then all of a sudden my dad wasn't there.

This is a picture of me on my dad's motorcycle.

I believe at the time he had a Harley.

[hinge squeaking]

[Steve] My memories of my dad, George Carroll,

they, unfortunately, they're starting to get

a little fuzzy.

[motorcycle revving]

I know that he served this country in Korea,

and, apparently, he loved his kids.

I do not remember my father actually leaving.

[cars whooshing]

So there wasn't, like, this very distinct moment.

[Jean] My mother would say to us that Dad went out to the store

to get a pack of cigarettes, and he never came back.

He kind of disappeared off the face of the earth

all of a sudden, and nobody really knew where he went.

[Mike] Over the years, there were many rumors, many rumors,

and many discussions about,

"Ah, what happened to Dad," you know?

[Steve] We would talk to people.

Then they would give us their theory, and they'd say,

"Well, maybe he was involved with organized crime."

He could've met a woman in Korea, when he was in Korea

and decided to go back.

-[suspenseful music builds] -[clock ticking faintly]

[Mike] Some people that knew my dad, said,

"He's a bit of a troubled guy."

[projector whirring]

My mother made it very abundantly clear how she felt.

And she said, "Don't even think about him,

he was not a good guy."

[Mike] In my mind, he obviously didn't love us anymore.

And he loved whatever he left us for more.

In the '60s, '70s, most women didn't work.

So for my mother, when my dad left, how was she gonna

survive through that time with no income coming in?

My mom had to do what she had to do.

And um, and that's how the relationship between

my mother and Mr. Darress developed.

[Mike] Richard was just a guy from the neighborhood.

He was nobody.

I think it was convenient.

The guy wasn't ugly,

and he had arms and legs, and he could work.

My mom said, "I'll take him."

He moved in. He became my dad.

[camera snapping]

[Steve] It seemed like it was almost seamless.

He basically...

replaced my father.

[projector whirring]

[Mike] I'd like to say he was a good guy, but I can't say it.

He was mean.

[chokes back sob]

[sniffs]

[faint crying]

You guys can keep talking.

I don't want to cry on this thing.

[projector whirring]

As a kid, I -- I just said to myself, I'm like,

"Boy, I really hope that my dad comes back.

I think it was it would be like the best day of my life."

[projector whirring]

But I know I wasn't gonna get what I wanted.

The guy left us. We're done.

He's done.

After a while, you say,

"I just gotta move on."

[rock music playing]

[Mike] I had a paper route when I was a kid.

It was my first real job.

It was pretty cool.

You know, you got recognition for being a paperboy.

I knew all the streets. I knew people.

And there were certain houses in the neighborhood

that actually stuck out because they were really nice.

One of them was this yellow house.

It had a pool with white fence and a big, big frickin' yard.

It was a very pretty yard. It -- it stuck out, OK?

[projector whirring]

I said, "They got money."

Mr. Yagel, who owned that house,

he gave the worst tips, man.

One day, when I was older, the big picture window

in the living room, and I was sitting in the window.

[rocking chair creaks]

And I look out the window,

and you won't believe what I see.

I see Mr. Yagel walking up the sidewalk.

And I'm like, "What's he doing here?

He's one of my paper route guys."

He comes up the sidewalks, and he knocks on the door,

and my mother answers the door.

And like, "What the heck's that all about?"

I've never seen the guy ever leave his house.

But he left his house that day to hand my mother a box.

[fan blades whirring softly]

I'm, like, looking through the window,

and there's my mom taking the box.

And they talk for a couple minutes.

[projector whirring]

There was anger.

She comes in. I said, "What's that?

Why was he here?"

She said, "That's your father's stuff."

[ominous music playing]

There was, like, bonds from, like, a really long time ago.

And then, that's when the questions came,

like, you know, "Mom, why would he have anything of Dad's?"

"Why would my father's stuff be with him?"

[projector whirring]

She just kind of downplayed it, like, and she said,

"He was married to your dad's mother."

[projector whirring]

And she died.

[projector whirring]

It was like something that just, like, punches you

in your nose.

I collected from that house for years.

And my grandmother was there? And she never said hello?

Why didn't my mother say, "You know, you got the Yagels

on your route? Guess who that is?"

That would've been nice, right?

[projector whirring]

And I said to myself, "What happened here?"

Like, you know,

something happened to Dad.

There's something drastically wrong with this story.

And -- and somebody's lying.

[suspenseful music playing]

[dogs barking]

[projector whirring]

[Steve] When we were young,

everything my mother said was gospel.

So, once she said that he left, he left.

[projector whirring]

And that's all I believed for a long time.

But there was a point where we started to think,

"Where did he go? Where is he?"

[Mike] Now I'm getting older, and we're starting

to ask better questions,

and they're getting harder to answer.

As time went on, little bits and pieces were coming up.

There was no police report. Nobody reported him missing.

[Steve] He left,

but the car was there, and his wallet was there.

And then later on, we found out

he never picked up his last paycheck.

I think everybody thought that that was strange.

[Mike] I would often ask my mom, "Where is Dad?

Where's my dad?"

And I always got a weird response, weird look.

One time, she even yelled at me.

I'm like -- like this is crazy,

and I don't want any part of it.

So, you know, I started thinking about maybe moving on,

gettin' out of here.

[rocking chair squeaking]

[young Mike] There he is.

[Mike] I graduated at 18.

I was the first person to go to college

in this family.

I ended up being a respiratory therapist,

working critical care.

Now I'm making money.

I was living my life.

Around that time, my mother

and Mr. Darress got a divorce.

He was cheating.

She took a suitcase and threw it out the front door.

That was a good day. It was a good day.

[Jean] After Mr. Darress had left, it was a whole different scene.

Everybody was free.

I'm the queen of this place.

-Stay there. -[Jean] My mother was different.

She was like a person that just came out.

[Dorothy laughing]

-I had a wonderful time. -Oh, I don't want to go home.

[Jean] She, you know, would open up more and get the fun

back in again, and that's when the skit nights were starting.

Skit night's frickin' awesome, man.

It started in this --

This room, this was a four-car garage.

It was a frickin' auditorium with seats and shit.

[laughter]

[young Mike] Let me come back.

My mom, she was the queen of the night

because she was a frustrated actress.

-[laughter] -[vocalizations]

[Steve] I have very little to say that's not

putting her on a pedestal.

[all laughing]

[Dorothy] Eins, zwei, drei.

When I first met the Carrolls, Dottie was having one

of her skit nights.

It was a lot of fun,

but I wouldn't participate 'cause I was too shy.

-[Dorothy speaking] -[all laughing]

[Mike] And then, next thing you know...

[organ music playing]

[Debbi] We got married July 23rd, 1989.

I got pregnant three months after we got married.

♪ Ave Maria ♪

[Mike] I looked at my kids in the hospital.

I'm like, "Wow, like, I can't believe this is happening."

♪ Gratia plena ♪

They're innocent, beautiful little children,

and they're mine.

["Ave Marie" continues in background]

And that was life.

It was just, like, totally cool.

-["Ave Maria" playing] -[Mike] There ain't [indistinct] country

Time's up!

[Mike] And then I learned that my mom was struggling.

-[man] C'mon in Gary, time's up.

She was having a hard time, you know, paying the cable

and, you know, the little stuff that goes on.

'Cause I think she thought she was gonna

lose the house. -[Dorothy] Thank you.

Give me a hug. Come on, up, up.

[Chris] She wanted to stay in that house.

She was there for 50 years or so.

She was very, very attached to the home.

[Mike] Listen, mom, I'm working now.

I can buy your house from you, and you don't have to pay

another bill for the rest of your life.

We moved into the upstairs. She was downstairs.

[Debbi] The other way Mikey, the other way.

[Mike] It was tough. It was not easy.

One day, Debbi told me she was unhappy.

And I said, "I can't make you happy."

I was divorced in '95.

Not long after that,

we found out my mom had cancer.

[somber music playing]

Well, she begged me, "Do not let me die in the hospital."

I'm like, "All right, I'll make it happen."

[all singing] Happy birthday to you.

[cheering and clapping]

[Mike] When she was sick,

but my dad was always something on her mind.

[projector whirring]

On her deathbed, I asked her,

"Mom, can you tell me anything about Dad?

Can you tell me anything about Dad before you leave?"

April 17th, I remember, 1998.

My mother literally turned her head...

winked at me...

never said a word, and then passed away.

Whatever secret she had,

she went to her grave with that.

[exhales heavily]

[Mike groans]

[Chris] When she passed away, it just kind of devastated him.

[pills clinking]

That's when he kind of started with the hoarding and stuff.

[Mike] All right, so we got a lot of stuff in here.

Oh, let's see.

Now, this is a peanut jar my mom had.

It's like, really -- like, it's like 100 years old.

It still has the peanuts in it.

After my mom passed away,

I figured finding my dad was over.

I had to let it go.

Until couple of years later,

I got called into work around 3 o'clock in the morning.

3 o'clock in the morning is, kind of like,

the beginning of the witching hour.

I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but 3, 4,

5 in the morning, you start to get a little weird.

[sirens wailing]

I go down to the emergency room.

-[tense music playing] -[footsteps tapping]

And they said, "Can you get a blood gas on bed 3?"

I'm like, "Yeah, sure."

So I go to bed 3.

And I have to check the armband before I do the blood

to make sure you got the right patient.

I check his band and it says "Yagel" on it.

And I'm like, "Something hits the button."

I'm like, "Whoa."

[tape rewinding]

[projector whirring]

That's the same name as the guy that brought the box

to my mother's house with my dad's stuff in it.

I'm like, "What the heck's going on?"

So I go, "Did you live around 'konkoma?"

He goes, "No, my parents did."

[projector whirring]

[Mike] I said, "Well, I think I was your paper boy."

And he's like, "Really?"

And he goes, "What's your name?"

I said, "Mike Carroll."

And the guy looked at me like, "What?"

He started flipping out.

He was like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe this.

I'm your dad's brother."

Like, what the hell?

I didn't even know he had a brother.

And I said, "Tell me about my dad."

And he goes, "He would have never left four kids."

We have suspicion that something weird happened.

He said there was construction being done at the time,

and we believe because that the opportunity was there

that he was actually buried under your house.

[suspenseful chord strike]

[Mike] What's the chance of me getting called to the emergency room

at that time in the morning to take blood from somebody

and it winds up being my dad's brother?

It's unbelievable.

-All of a sudden... -[clock ticking]

-[machine beeping] -[IV dripping]

I realized why we were estranged from my dad's family.

[projector whirring]

But then he starts talking about my mother.

He got negative on my mother,

and that's when I decided to shut the conversation down.

[Jean] Mike didn't -- didn't like him from that moment on.

He didn't want to hear nothing, didn't want to know nothing.

-[insects chirping] -[soft thuds]

When you say anything about...

his mother.

He's not gonna like you.

That's the way my brother Mike is.

And, well, I am too.

[objects thudding]

[Jean] Mike didn't do anything for a long time after that.

He just kind of handed it over to me.

[log clattering]

[Jean] All my life I was a little girl

looking for my dad.

I was 17 years old when I left the house.

I had to get away from it.

My sister left even earlier than me.

I often wondered what it would have been like

if my dad was still around.

Deep down inside, I was the detective.

I was the investigator.

I was gonna find this man,

and nothing was gonna stop me.

I wanted more information.

That's when I asked Mike to come to the psychic with me.

I consider a medium my telephone call to my mom.

I wanted to know if he was able to give us anything more

that we didn't know.

Some new fact or some new evidence.

[cashier] Hey, Mike.

[Mike] How you doing? How's it going?

So after the Yagel thing, my sister asked me if I'd like

to come to the psychic with her.

And I said,

"Yeah, but you know, I don't know."

-[cashier] Thank you very much -[Mike] I'll talk to you soon.

-All right. -Stay out of trouble.

When Jean started to see psychics and look

into psychics, OK, it wasn't a popular thing with us.

No, I don't believe in psychics.

I thought she was wasting her money

when she went to the psychics.

I'm not supposed to like them because I'm a Christian.

I don't really like the word "psychics"

because they could be anybody.

They're more scammers than anything.

-I'd rather talk to a medium. -I think it's interesting.

I don't personally believe that it's possible.

Jean probably pled with him and said, you know,

"Please go with me."

[Mike] I have to admit that psychics are intriguing.

And Jean's, you know, passionate.

So, I said, "Sure, I'll go to the psychic."

And then, that's when we went to Revered Heil.

I was expecting nothing.

She did a full hour,

and we thought we were gonna talk to my mom.

And she didn't come through.

Like, she was being stubborn, you know.

But there was a lot of discussion about

Jean's daughter having a kid, blah, blah, blah,

for a whole hour.

And I said to myself, "This is bull crap," you know.

"This is a bunch of crap."

So the lady looks at me and goes,

"Did you like the reading?"

And I go, "No."

She goes, "Why?"

"'Cause I just I wanna know where my dad is."

She goes, "Oh."

When it comes to the "M" word, you normally don't say anything

until you give me the permission to do it.

I said, "What's the 'M' word?" She goes, "Murder."

[suspenseful chord strike]

[Mike] Wow.

I go, "OK. Now you got my attention."

She goes, "I'll give you another hour for free."

I said, "So, where is he?"

And she said, "He is in the basement."

She goes, "He's down to the left, to the rear,

underneath the target."

I went, "Holy shit!"

I didn't know what she meant by the target,

but Mike understood what she was talking about.

[Mike] I realized when I was four years old,

there was a gun range in my basement.

There was a target for shooting bullets down there, pellets.

The target was on the wall.

[Mike] It was taken out of there, like when I was very young.

So she knew something that was like 55, 60 years ago,

that nobody knew about, and that was impressive.

And then, of course, I asked,

"So who did it?"

[projector whirring]

And she said,

"Richard."

[Steve huffing]

[grunting]

It was late at night. I received a call from Mike.

[phone ringing]

[groans with exertion]

[Steve] And he said, "Are you sitting down?"

and he recounted the whole session.

[Mike, over phone] He says "And I'll tell you one thing..."

[Steve] It was incredible what she said.

She named things, described things

that I knew were true.

But I was skeptical because it's my nature not to deal

with stuff I can't see and touch, you know?

And uh, yeah, I was worried about Richie

because I didn't want to have to even say

that I thought it was his father.

I didn't even want to go there.

When I was 10 years old, my mom had my brother, Richie.

My name is Rich Darress.

Come on.

[grunting]

I got you, buddy. I got you.

I got you.

I am the half-brother of Jean, Pat, Steve, and Mike Carroll.

I'm kind of an outsider a little bit.

You know, I feel like I'm the Darress sometimes.

I'm not a Carroll.

I don't feel like I'm part of the Carrolls so much.

They don't want to tell me anything,

so I find out things much later.

[Mike] Nobody saw Richie differently.

The only thing is that he does

carry a little defense about his father.

[Richard] When they come back from the psychic and say,

"The psychic said our father was murdered

and it was by a Richard." I'm a Richard Jr.

I have a Richard Sr. as my father.

So they're insinuating right there

that my father has murdered their father.

Having my four siblings think that my father did that,

that's horrible.

That's a big, you know, an animal to take on at that point.

Is it possible? Sure, it is.

Is it likely?

Probably not.

[all cheering]

[Jean] Richie and Steve, they didn't believe in mediums.

They just felt that they were frauds, scams.

"You're gonna believe them?"

-[ducks quacking] -[car whooshing]

[ducks quacking]

[Jean] But I remember things that they didn't understand

because I was older.

Before my father went missing,

I was, I would say, around seven, eight years old.

I remember getting up one morning,

getting dressed to go to school,

and I saw this man sleeping on the couch in the living room.

I didn't know who he was.

And the next day, it was told to me

that his name was Richard Darress.

He had just gotten out of jail.

And my dad said, "Come home with me, and I'll give you

"a place to sleep until,

you know, you can get on your own."

[Richard] I never knew my father and George Carroll

knew each other

until much later in life.

I'm in my 20s, and I called him.

I said, "When were you gonna tell me this?"

And he told me the whole story.

The version I've heard is that my father, he was a teenager,

and for whatever reason, he stole some equipment,

ham radio equipment, you know,

from the federal government. Stupid move.

He went to prison for a year and a half.

Does his time.

I was told that his parents were embarrassed.

"You can't live with us anymore."

So he went to a bar one day with all his woes.

And he's sitting at the bar, talking to a guy, saying,

"Hey, I need a place to stay." And that guy he was talking to

said, "Hey, I'm doing construction on my house.

If you help me build the house, you can sleep on the couch."

That person he was talking to was George Carroll.

They were working on putting another extension,

a dormer,

onto the house.

He's in the house.

He's living in the house, working at the house

when my father disappeared.

[Mike] Somewhere along the line, my mom

starts talking to him, he starts talking to her,

and somehow something blossomed.

[Richard] You don't know the order of operation.

Did they have an affair? There's no facts there.

Maybe she fell out of love with my father,

fell in love with Darress.

You know, it kind of makes sense.

You know, Darress was there. He was the common denominator.

[Richard] Just the fact that my father was there working on the house

and sleeping on the couch does not mean he has anything to do

with George going missing.

These are a box of photos from my dad.

He was a photographer for a local county newspaper.

I loved my father.

I learned a lot from him.

This is me and my mom.

It says I'm three months old here.

It's a wild picture.

Yeah, this is a -- the summer vacation cabin

we used to go to.

A lot of good times with my family, my father, my mother.

[Jean] When I look at this picture,

it takes me to a dark time.

I felt very, very uncomfortable

of all the pictures

that he would take.

I'm looking...

at my brother Steve's face,

Mike's face,

I actually...

feel...disturbance

inside me.

I feel that that was like...

it was disturbance. I could see it on their face.

[Mike] My sister Jean,

I said, "She's going crazy."

That's when I made the decision to start doing it.

I didn't do it for the family. I didn't do it for me.

I did it for Jean.

I said, "I'm gonna go find him.

I'm gonna dig."

[Mike] People at my job, they looked at me like,

"You're crazy." My family, "You're crazy."

The only person that was with me was Jean.

Just about everything I do in my life

has always been questioned.

And you know what the bottom line is?

I always win.

I started digging and sifting the dirt into a garbage can

and looking for bones on a screen to see

if there was anything like a bone.

All I had to do was find one bone, and that job was over.

I was digging for like a year and a half.

Nobody else helped. Nobody else offered to help.

I couldn't give it up. I couldn't stop.

One day, I go to his house, and there's a six-foot

pile of dirt in the basement.

He was actually starting to cut through the foundation,

the house was gonna cave in.

Oh, my God.

"You gotta stop doing this, Mike.

You're gonna wreck your house."

[Mike] I had to stop.

I didn't find anything,

and it was very disappointing to me.

I really wanted to find something.

[mouse clicking]

[faint indistinct voices from computer]

[Chris] I felt bad for my dad 'cause he spent a lot of time talking

about it, and then he doesn't find what he was looking for.

And I think it kind of took a little bit of a toll on him.

I think he started to become a little bit,

I guess, like, depressed.

[indistinct voices continue from computer]

[Chris] On top of it, me and my brother,

we went away to college, so...

I feel like, in a way, he kind of felt a little

abandoned by us.

[cabinet clicks]

[Chris] My dad gradually started to just stop caring

about the house as much.

And, you know, there would be a leak.

He doesn't care.

It's just dripping into a garbage pail in the living room.

At the time, we had many conversations with my dad,

my brother and I,

about potentially moving.

[Chris] He told me that he will never leave that house

unless he found if his dad was in that basement.

[CPAP machine whirring]

[Mike] I think down deep inside, I had a mission.

And I wasn't gonna leave here until I tried.

[baby babbling]

[faint noise from TV]

[Chris] If I was going to get my dad to move out of that house,

I knew that I was gonna have to dig.

The problem was we didn't know where to dig.

I started googling ground penetrating radar companies.

Ground penetrating radar is usually used

in commercial applications to find electrical

and plumbing pipes underneath the ground.

So I thought, if it could pick up those kind of things,

maybe it could pick up a body.

The real obstacle was my dad's basement.

So full of stuff.

Dumbbells, barbells, weightlifting equipment.

[metal scraping]

[Chris] All of that stuff had to come all the way out of his basement

to be able to use the radar.

All my nieces and nephews were there, handing stuff

from the basement to the yard.

[hinge creaking]

It took the whole day.

I was so happy because I knew now we're gonna get going.

[radar beeping]

The radar team is two men.

Took them several hours.

I was kind of expecting there to just be nothing.

And it's like, OK, there's nothing

under the floor.

Like, now we gotta move on from this.

[radar bleeping softly]

Eventually, they call us down to the basement.

Walk down the stairs, you see big squares.

It's more like a five-by-five foot square.

[Chris] There was a disturbance in the ground.

The perfect size for there to be a body under there.

Oh, my God, they have something.

There's an anomaly here, and this could all be true.

All that was left to do now was to do the digging.

[sirens wailing in distance]

-[sirens wailing] -[ambulance rumbling]

[Mike] But then, um, I had a stroke.

-[muffled dinging] -[labored breathing]

[Chris] I'm used to seeing my dad as being a strong guy.

He was a little bit messed up. He couldn't really walk good.

I realized I couldn't dig anymore,

so I just felt that the job was done.

I realized that I was probably never gonna find my dad.

But then I...

had a talk with the boys, and they said that, uh --

"Well, then don't worry about it, we'll do it."

[Chris] You know, he's my dad, I love him.

And I would do anything for my dad.

So, of course, I'm gonna try to help him.

I -- I told him this many times.

He was my hero, growing up, in a lot of ways.

So...

[Mike] I have to tell you...

I'm blessed...

in so many ways.

I think my stroke, uh, told my kids, like, you know,

you're gonna lose your dad.

You might wanna tell him now

how important he was in your life.

And I think that's what they did by stepping up

and promised me to dig, promised me to find my dad,

promised me I was gonna be OK,

promised me they were gonna be there.

That's, like, a gift a lot of people don't get

in their lifetime. I'm very grateful for that.

[loud thud]

[Chris] I just went down there with a hammer and I found like

a little like chisel-type thing

and I just started chipping it away.

[metal clanking]

Before you know it, they were digging, like,

twice a week, three times a week,

'till 10 o'clock at night. And I'm like, "Wow."

[clanging]

They were doing it.

[shovel scraping]

[Chris] We didn't have, like, professional equipment.

[shovel scraping]

My brother did a lot of the heavy lifting.

He's the muscle man.

[Chris] Mike, he kinda takes a back seat a little bit

with the physical stuff.

[Chris speaking]

[Michael] I feel like I'm gonna go down with you.

I did help with the digging, of course.

but my role was more the documentarian.

[Chris speaking]

[Michael] I thought if we do find something,

the police need to see this.

[indistinct]

[Chris speaking]

[Michael] We were digging for months.

They said it was six feet down. We dug eight feet.

We dug way bit more past, and there was nothing.

[metal detector beeping]

We found a wrench at one point.

but it was just scrap pieces of metal.

But in the process of digging, there was a cinder block wall

that got exposed right on the edge

of the chalked-out area of the radar.

My son came up and said, "There's a wall underground."

I'm like, "What's a wall doing under the ground?"

I said, "You need to go break that wall."

-[clanging] -[rock crumbling]

[Chris] I just broke through sideways and I saw a cavity.

And I said, "That's not right. It's a vault."

[metal clanging]

[Michael indistinct]

[Chris] But I don't wanna mess things up in the hole.

So right away, I thought that was suspicious.

And also the dirt was, like, it was like a wet dirt.

It was a lot different than, like, the sandy dirt outside.

I felt like I was onto something

and I felt like I was very close.

I couldn't sleep that whole night.

[ducks quacking]

[Chris] The next day, it was the day before Halloween.

[sprinkler shuttering]

[Chris] I was digging there by myself.

All of a sudden, I came across this like, very decomposed

type of fabric.

I started pulling it.

It was just ripping like threads.

It was just basically tearing apart as soon as I touched it.

The first thing I thought is,

this has to be some sort of clothing.

All of a sudden, I hit something with the shovel.

Right where that fabric was,

I was just hitting something hard.

And I just stopped right there,

and I'm like, that's -- that's him.

I found him.

[Mike] I was sitting up here, and Chris comes up, you know?

You know how tough Chris is, right?

He's as white as toothpaste, right?

I mean, I never seen him looked that freaked out.

I told him, "You need to come down here right now."

I said, "All right I'm coming down."

[heavy breathing]

I get down there, and I'm standing

at the hole, looking in.

And I said, "I can't see nothing.

I got to get in the hole."

And I got down on my knees and crawled into the tunnel.

He's a healthcare professional,

so he knows the body.

And he's like, "That's not a bone."

And I'm like,

"Yeah, it is." I mean, what else could it be?

"Chris, can you come down here again and just dig

with your hands around it?"

And he did that.

He just sat there for a minute. And he took, like, a deep sigh.

And then I realized I was looking at a pelvis.

And he's like, "Boys, this is a bone."

He's like, "This is, like, a human bone."

I put my hand right on the dirty bones.

"Dad, we got you.

We got you, Dad. We found you."

[Chris] And he just started crying.

And he hugged us, he thanked us,

and he said he always believed that this was the case,

and finally he's proven true.

[Mike] Yeah, it was crazy.

[sighs]

It was crazy.

Felt good.

Not only would that I found my dad, but I was...

validated.

Everybody said, "I was wrong," right?

Payday.

I win.

I always do.

["What A Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong playing]

♪ I see trees of green ♪

♪ Red roses too♪

[Jean] I couldn't contain myself.

I was hysterical, hysterical.

[Steve, sighing] Uh...

I thought it was a freaking miracle.

It was just a miracle, you know, with all

of the discussions, and the stories, and the rumors

and the theories and all that stuff

that we talked about for years.

And here we are, looking at my father's remains.

[partygoers chatting in background]

[Richard] I was on a business trip, and I'm in Chicago.

I got the call from Christopher.

That was...

probably the most emotional day of my life.

Your whole body turns numb.

You start reflecting on your entire life, a little bit,

not just who did it -- was it my father?

Was it my mother, or anything like that,

it was, "Oh, my god, my siblings.

What did they just endure their entire lives?"

I said, "I have to get to them.

I have to be there for them."

I think it was 12 o'clock. We all decided that tomorrow

we're gonna call the cops.

I'm not gonna call them tonight.

There's no reason for it.

He's been in the ground for 60-something years.

And besides, we wanted everybody to be together.

[Mike, in background] And then he uncovered the --

[people talking and chatting in background]

[Richard] I was home by 8, 8:30 the next morning

from Chicago at Mike's house

in the hole.

We report the body.

They don't respond. We report the body.

They don't...

Nobody responds. What's going on?

Why?

[children yelling]

The day we reported it was Halloween 2018, October 31st.

They find a skeleton in the basement.

Yeah, right. There's no way we're gonna

waste our time, we're getting prank calls

all over the place for bodies.

So they didn't show up.

And then finally, you get a couple of "Keystone Cops"

with their coffees walking in.

"Hey, come on down to the basement."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll come in the basement."

And then, like, their jaws,

they dropped their coffees. "Holy shit, we got one".

They called their superior,

their superior called his superior.

Before you know it, the archaeologist was there,

the forensics team was here.

[sirens wailing]

[officer] If you can just hang out for a second.

[indistinct]

[Richard] It was the craziest scene

I've ever seen in my entire life.

[Chris] Every street was blocked off.

There were hundreds of cop cars.

It was crazy.

I remember going outside. I look up, and then I'm like,

"I can't believe this." I look down...

there's a seven-foot T-rex, Mario, and Luigi

in the crime scene. Trick or treating.

It was just, everything was so surreal.

They brought this giant crime lab,

and they had all these people in hazmat suits.

[Mike] I wasn't allowed downstairs.

I'm like, "Wait a minute, I didn't kill him.

I was one and a half years old. I didn't do it."

They don't know if this is a fresh death

or a 60 year-old-death at that point,

so they're putting everything on it.

[siren wailing]

[Chris] There was a lot of press.

They were trying to get interviews.

They were trying to talk to me.

[reporter] The investigation is expected to continue through the night.

[Mike] I don't know who called them, but boy,

did they come like rats --

little roaches running with their microphones

and their booms and shit.

The press is everywhere.

They're trying to find out who the bad guy is

from every camera crew. Microphones everywhere.

[reporter #2] ...with the family and is there tonight with more...

A Long Island family may have literally

unearthed the answer to a mystery.

There was no record of a death investigation at that time.

Two daughters and two sons, the oldest was nine.

[reporter #3] A mystery is unfolding on Long Island.

Looks to be apparently a murder.

[Richard] Who did it, you know, was one of the questions

you would hear all the time. "Who killed your father?

Who put him in that hole?"

They don't care who they hurt or what it's doing

to the family inside, our siblings,

the Carrolls, the Darresses. They just want the story.

They want to find -- they want the villain.

And for the -- my siblings, the bad guy in this story

is Richard Darress.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Mike] When we found my dad,

you know, it was kind of like we answered one question,

but we got 100,000 new questions.

[Chris] They were able to determine the cause of death,

which was blunt force trauma to the head.

[Mike] That was the biggest find.

And then never heard from them again after that.

[plastic crinkling]

It seemed like the police decided it was so old

that it's not really worth pursuing.

[Steve speaking]

...in 1963.

So, Mike, can you take them off the list?

[Jean] Richie was always foremost

on my mind.

You know, here's my father being murdered,

and his father possibly being...

you know, the murderer.

[Richard] I've heard over and over again from my siblings that,

"We know your father did this."

But the fact that he was very poor to them, all of them,

it's a very low hanging fruit, very easy target to,

you know, put this murder on him.

There's been a lot of protecting of Richie

for a long time.

But when we look at the basement and we have

any kind of theory about, you know, what happened,

it all points to Darress.

[ominous music playing]

[Steve] There was a rectangular opening in the basement floor

where the water pump was.

And every house back then had a water pump,

we didn't have city water. And that's where he was.

That's where we found him.

-[Chris] This is the end of like, soil. -[Steve] Yeah.

[Steve] Darress was in the house.

He was intimate with...

pouring cement.

The opening to the floor was there already.

The dirt was there.

The concrete, the mixer was right there.

It was so easy. Everything points to him.

[Richard] We may never find out what happened,

if he was murdered, whatever,

this could have been an accident.

Like, did he trip in the hole, hit his head on the cement,

and now he's...

You know, I'm just...

There's other possibilities.

But when I talk to my siblings,

we have to look at all the different stories.

[reporter]...remove the remains and are now trying

to determine the cause of death.

[reporter #2] Steven Carroll was just five when his dad, George,

went missing in 1961.

[reporter #3] No paper trail as to what happened...

[Jean] I spoke to Richie and I said,

"I know this is very sensitive and very hard for you."

-[cameras clicking] -[reporters talking]

[Richard] It's a tough spot for my siblings.

They want to say who did it or who they believe that did it,

but they don't wanna hurt me and my family.

[reporter #4] The other half of the mystery, who buried him

in the family basement?

The brothers won't publicly speculate, but they say

they have theories and hint at domestic discord.

There was a lot of talk about trying not to use

the Darress name.

-[cameras clicking] -[reporters talking]

[Richard] I think at one point they said,

"We're not gonna talk to the media,"

but how do you not talk to the media?

You know, when they're lined up out the door.

They're not going away. You gotta say something.

[reporter #5] You have no idea who may have done this?

I do.

[reporter #5] Mike Carroll wouldn't elaborate on that.

He would only say that the last person who likely knew

what happened to his father died over three months ago.

[Richard] When Mike started digging, my brother Steve, I believe,

came to me and said, "I want to go talk to your father."

And I'm like, "Maybe that's not a bad idea."

So then we made arrangements to go.

We were gonna leave on a Monday morning

and fly out there and then come right back home.

I called him Sunday night, he had passed away.

We lost the shot.

Anybody that would have had this intimate secret,

if there was one to be told, they've all passed on.

But what if there's another story there?

[tape rewinding]

[Richard] I've heard stories about George Carroll.

He wasn't, you know, the best husband.

I've heard the term "heavy hands."

There were comments by my mother early on

that my father was abusive.

I want to believe that it was post-traumatic stress

from Korea.

[Mike] When he came back from Korea, he was rough with her.

[Richard] I know my mother had scars and stuff like that.

Just recently, Steve said he did reach out

to my father's brother, my uncle.

I said, "What do you think happened?"

And he said, word for word, "I have no doubt

"that my brother was involved,

but I do believe that he was defending your mother."

[tense music playing]

[Richard] So paint this picture --

Mom is getting physically abused to no end

by your father, George.

And my father's working on the house.

And he walks into the room, and she is getting beaten up.

And my father has to get involved to save Mom.

So maybe my father becomes my mother's hero

and saves her from getting beaten up by George Carroll.

Is that possible? Sure it is.

Is it likely? Maybe.

[Jean] My mother was a good woman.

I'm not gonna try to make more out of it.

And on the other hand, I know how and what kind of evil man

Mr. Darress was.

To be honest with you, I never really felt my mother

knew anything about it.

I thought it was all him. I thought it was Mr. Darress.

[Richard] Human nature is, you know,

you're not gonna point it at Mom.

You're gonna point it at the bad guy.

But how does my mother not know about this?

With everything that we know today, her not filing

a missing person report, her not showing her kids

to the grandparents and keeping them apart, and the Yagels

and everybody involved, she had to know.

But if she happened to be involved with any of this.

She had a reason.

[Chris] I think the truth matters.

[grill sizzling]

[Chris] I'm not content with just, OK, we found him,

but now we don't know 100% what happened.

Just move on.

So I kind of felt the need to start looking for myself

and finding certain things the police might have missed.

Around that time,

my aunt Pat was diagnosed with cancer.

At that point, she really was, kind of,

estranged to the family.

But she decided she wanted to tell her story,

and she wanted to tell it to me.

[Jean] My sister was very, very complicated girl.

She was more of a wild child.

[Steve] Pat just made decisions early on in life

that were just different than what we would've done.

[Mike] She's considered the black sheep.

She was on her own path.

Pat ran away when she was 15. She literally ran away.

And the guy she was staying with was 25.

So you got a lot going on here that's wrong.

She hurt Mom really bad,

and I don't like that.

But then I learned something down the road.

[Chris] My aunt Pat confided in me about a lot of the abuse

that she got from Richard.

How he molested and raped her,

and was able to get away with it.

Nobody would listen to her.

Even her mom refused to acknowledge it.

Darress was able to manipulate the situation to make Pat seem

like she was just a troubled kid making up lies.

And because Pat felt so abandoned,

and that she wouldn't be believed,

she ran away for years.

I never believed my sister's story.

How do I put that?

OK, I'm having a tough time with that one.

For a moment, I have to think.

Can we take a two-minute break?

A lot of what my mother said to me about her made me believe

that she wasn't believable.

Pat, you know, was a bit, I think she stretched

the truth about a lot of things.

[Jean] You know, when I look back, I just felt that she knew

it was happening to me, and it was her way out.

[ticking]

The abuse started when I was about eight years old.

It was just all wrong. It felt all wrong.

All you know is that something is being done

that you don't like. and you tend to just

take yourself somewhere else and think of something else

just to get through it.

He just...

would just touch me inappropriately.

And...

it was terrible. Absolutely terrible.

I think I'll just leave it at that.

I kept that a secret for a long time.

It was just the times then.

[Darress] The best thing you can do, no matter what happens,

at the end of the evening, every day of every year

of your life,

say "I love you," no matter what happens.

I found out all of this about the abuse to Mike,

Jean, the stories I heard about Pat, all came out

after I got married.

Do you know what?

She was more my family than my father.

She was there every day.

If I knew what I knew today,

he wouldn't have been at my wedding.

I wouldn't have put them through that.

He wouldn't have been invited.

[solemn piano notes]

[Mike] This is all what's left of my sister.

I'm not too sure what to think of that.

Her daughter left all this stuff here,

and she never came back for it.

[Mike] I don't think these are worth anything.

I believe it 110%.

And I --

And I won't even come down a notch on that one.

Because what 15-year-old runs away from a safe place?

[wasp buzzing]

[Mike] This is embarrassing, a little bit.

But as a five-year-old kid, like, I'm scared every day.

I remember being pretty young, and...

remember getting the strap, and I'm saying,

you know, "That hurts."

We had to be totally naked.

I'm like, "Why? It hurts enough."

I came up with a technique that if I went to sleep,

I would rock

like an idiot so violently that Darress couldn't grab me

and strangle me. I'd have a chance.

I love my mother,

but for her to allow that,

there's a big giant question mark.

[Jean] My mother was controlled by him the whole time.

I don't know what my mother knew,

but when my mother was dying of cancer,

she actually approached me before she died.

And she asked me,

"Was I in love with him?"

My mother actually asked me that,

if I was in love with him.

And I said, "You know what, Mom?

I couldn't stand the man."

[muffled voices from TV]

[Jean] This is how great this man was a manipulator.

He would gaslight her and change the story around

to make me look like I was the bad person.

[Mike] My mom can't say that she didn't know something.

There must have been things like, you know, him waking up

at 2 o'clock in the morning and sneaking downstairs

or sneaking into the bedrooms.

I just don't think she knew how to handle it.

Which leaves me questioning, like, what the heck?

[Jean] I forgive my mom.

I understand that she probably -- she went through...

She probably went through hell.

She deserved, really, a whole lot more,

because she was a good person.

[Mike] My mom and Jean were super close,

regardless of the stuff that went on in this house.

Jean never gave up on my mom,

and my mom never gave up on Jean.

I understand that it was not my fault.

I know that he was a sick person.

I've learned that now.

After all of these years, I learned that now.

It turned out that there was a lot of families

that had that secret.

I was not the only one.

Mr. Darress was a predator everywhere he went.

[sinister music playing]

[Chris] As I started doing more research,

I found Richard Darress had a pattern of abuse.

He went to a new family. He did the same thing there.

He was sexually harassing the daughter.

So it shows what kind of person he is, and that he repeatedly

showed this behavior.

He's a predator. That's the bottom line.

Don't be fooled by the words and the bullshit

that he's gonna sell you. He's a predator,

child molester. That we know.

[Steve] I had a conversation with my cousin.

She told me, my aunt, told my father that Darress

was exposing himself

at the house.

He was exposing himself to the girls.

So this is when he had just moved in, I guess.

And I wonder, to this day, if that was the day

that my father died.

Was that the day that he went home and he confronted

either Darress or my mother, and then Darress got up

behind him and hit him with the pipe wrench?

[Mike] I think he stood up to him, told him to get out.

But the thing is, let's assume it's true that,

you know, that did happen.

Then my mom is the question mark.

She knew that this guy was in my house, our house,

and he was unbalanced and unsafe.

And my question is, why would you allow him to stay here?

As a man, as a father,

I don't understand how somebody could just not acknowledge

the crimes against your kids like that.

That leaves me hanging.

[Chris] I've kind of been thinking about how

all the abuse that she let happen to her kids

that no mother could ever allow

kind of plays a role in the story.

And I thought maybe it's possible that

there was some sort of blackmail type of situation where

Darress and my grandma were having an affair,

and he said, "Don't worry, I'll take care of this.

You won't have to know anything."

And maybe...

Darress buried him, and from that day forward,

he has that over her, and maybe she was too scared

to say anything about the abuse because he would just say

that she murdered my grandpa.

If my mother did tell the authorities about

the situation between Jean and my father, it's gonna

open up the can of worms of the death of George Carroll,

and then they lose now both parents and their home

and their whole livelihood.

It's a big bind. It's a big bind to be in.

I'm not happy the way I'm thinking about this,

to be honest with you.

I believe my mother just was making sure that she took care

of her children, and that was the number one priority

to my mother.

No. Mom did not know

he was under the house.

There's nothing you can tell me

that indicates my mother was a willing participant

in the murder of my dad.

Mom was afraid. She was scared.

She was abused, just like everybody else.

[Dorothy] I'm the queen of the whole place.

[Steve] I have often thought, "Why, if my mother knew,

why didn't she ultimately tell us when she was sick?"

But now I think about it, I go, "I don't think I would have

told my kids."

I think if my mother

contemplated...

telling us what actually happened,

it would tarnish the way we thought of her.

And we thought very highly of her.

We loved her.

I'm gonna tell you one very interesting

moment of my wedding.

My mother and my father were on the dance floor.

My mother was looking up at my father, nodding her head,

and my father was just crying hysterical.

What were they saying?

I get emotional because they're just talking about me,

how I've I grew up.

"We raised a good kid."

You know, good life, good family,

or were they talking about, "Hey,

we potentially got away with murder at this point."

You got it, buddy. You ready?

You ready? [Richard grunts]

[excited panting and whining]

Let's go.

Let's go.

The truth is,

we're never gonna know.

[engine roars]

[Mike] You know, Richie, he volunteered to come

and help me put the dirt back in the hole.

I'm so glad it was him, because it needed to be him.

That's how I felt.

And we did it together.

I do feel...

that...

as incomplete as this is...,

it's the closest I've ever been to...

following through with love.

The truth is,

[sniffles]

this whole thing is about loving something that we didn't

know was there. We have faith in it, though.

And that's pretty damn cool, you know?

Like, you have faith in it.

My mission was to find my dad.

And that mission is completed.

I have my dad with me at all times.

I think of him every day. I talk to him every day.

It just feels great to have him with me at all times.

I'm sorry he's in a wonton soup container.

I hope he liked wonton.

[chuckles]

[Steve] Well, there wasn't much

that I ever had that my father actually owned or gave to me.

I guess the shoes just kind of give me some connection.

This is all I have.

But the thought of him wearing these shoes when he was

in that hole, and they were in the ground

for 55 years, it's just,

it's kinda hard to wrap my brain around it.

-[Jean] I love that smell. -[medium] Thank you.

Hold on.

[Jean] Feels like a whole new beginning when you spray

that, right? -[medium] That's what it's for.

-Exactly -- It clears the air. -[Jean] Yeah.

[medium] So we have no negative vibes when I start channeling.

So.

My little...

space.

Actually, both your mother and father are coming in.

To answer a question that's been on your mind,

he said, "Nobody else was there."

It was just him and his friend when it happened.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

[Jean] Yes, I do.

[medium] Your mother just ran over and gave you a big hug

and a kiss, and she...

She's literally apologizing to you for the...

more than abuse.

-Do you understand that? -Mm-hmm.

[medium] She didn't, she went like this, I didn't see.

I didn't see. But she does know.

And she does see now.

She's very emotional.

She said, "Can you please tell her I love her?"

You could tell her that. Well, I could tell her.

-[medium] Yeah, she's right here. -That I still love her.

I always did. No matter what.

I really wish that when my mom was dying

that she told me the truth.

I wish, but that didn't happen.

Come on, let's do it.

[Michael] Listen, buster, I make the rules here.

[Mike] OK.

You know, it's a conundrum.

I don't have answers, but ignorance is bliss.

I guess that's what you do. You don't blame your mom.

I don't wanna blame my mom.

[quiet piano notes]

[Michael] Well, that's out.

I think that's a little off-key there, OK.

[off-key piano notes]

[Michael] Nope.

[piano notes continue]

[Mike] There's nothing we can do about the past.

So, we're not gonna delve on the past.

You gotta stand up and bow.

["Moonlight Sonata" by Beethoven]

Thank you very much there.

Look at this guy.

Holy crap. These are my boys doing that.

I just gotta move on.

Well, another era gone.

What do you think, baby?

[Michael] Good job on the left hand.

-What? -Good job on the left hand.

-[Chris] Good job, Mike. -[Mike] You guys are awesome.

All right, time for Captain Crunch.

Let's go.

[Mike] Oh, gosh.

Change is good.

Change is good.

Beautiful day out today.

["So Alive" by Love and Rockets playing]

[all cheering]

♪ But your hair is long and brown ♪

♪ Your legs are strong, and they're so, so long ♪

♪ And you don't come from this town ♪

♪ My head is full of magic, baby ♪

♪ And I can't share this with you ♪

♪ Feel I'm on a cross again lately ♪

♪ But there's nothing to do with you ♪

♪ I'm alive huh, huh, so alive ♪

♪ I'm alive, huh, huh, so alive ♪

♪ I feel I'm on top -- on top -- on top -- on top ♪

-[tape continues skipping] -[all laughing]

-[music resumes] -[cheering]

-[cheering] -[clapping]