Original subtitles

- How long you think this been empty?

- How do you know?

- Yeah.

- Yummy, these cookies sure taste good.

- What's in there?

- Big loads?

- Good balance.

- It's a man's.

- That's the first time I saw it.

- Well I wouldn't think so but that's

the first time it showed up like that.

- So yeah every room it needs washing.

- We used to have a picture.

- Oh not that high.

- I didn't either 'til now.

- It wasn't there yesterday.

- This doesn't have anything to do with it.

Oh. - Yeah.

- Oh. - Yeah.

- Yeah, and he's working on a car.

Yeah the white car.

My name is Mary L. Heist.

- How old are you now?

- 39,

90, I have to think how old I am.

90 is right.

Ronald is my oldest son.

- Go on chill out, you can't get that dirty.

- I couldn't either.

- It's too high.

- Ron was born in 1950, May 7th.

And he was just a normal baby.

He used to be talking, you know mama, dada, different words.

And all at once he stopped.

He just seemed unemotional,

he just didn't connect with a lot of people.

We felt bad, sad, you know 'cause he just

didn't seem to take to anybody, even his own parents.

He just ignored us.

But we knew right from the start he liked to build things.

When he was three, anything to do

with building, he would do.

Even if it was just blocks and things like that.

Even cardboard boxes.

That's the only thing that made him happy,

anything to do with building.

But when we got out here, it must have been 1965,

he found his way.

- How far underground are we?

- How long did it take you to dig?

- Why?

- Any nails in these boards?

- You got coal out of here?

That, what I do, huh?

- Whoa.

So from age 15 to 16 you built this whole house?

- Yeah.

- By yourself.

- Yeah.

Nobody helped you?

- No.

- How'd you know how to build it?

- Did your dad buy blocks for you?

- Yeah.

- And you didn't put a level on that?

- No.

- Never.

- No never.

How'd you level it?

- Yeah.

- That's crazy, I can't believe

you never put a level on this wall.

- And how long this been here?

How do you do that?

How do you make them last that long?

- My wife doesn't particularly like

to go back to Ron's place.

Too claustrophobic.

This topic is not something that she really

likes to talk about because she feels that

I got to handle most of the burden

from the standpoint of

not other people are stepping up and doing their part.

But, I'm the closest son to Butler,

it's somewhat easier for me

to address these things than others.

My name is Tim Heist, I'm Ron's younger brother.

Ron is 12 years older than me.

You know how to open these right?

- Scissors.

- No, just tear open the top corner,

dump it on in.

We shared a bedroom that actually was divided

and Ron had one half, my twin brother

and I had the other half.

Ron used to do things and he'd blame it on Jim and I.

We'd tell our mother that you know, we didn't do this

but why does Dad believe him versus us.

And you know her thing was, Ron's, he's just different.

He was very protective of Ron,

he was very supportive of Ron,

and that was his top priority.

It was always Ron can't do any harm.

Dad was always there to help him out.

He sold cars for a living, he always worked a lot of hours.

It was sometimes very difficult for the rest of us

because it took a lot more to get our dad's attention

or let alone trying to get his time.

Especially when we got to be teenagers,

we went on our own and we didn't necessarily

try to compete for that time.

When we were young we used to think about

the relationship that we'd have with our father as adults.

It never worked out that way.

Heavenly Father we give you thanks for this day.

We give you thanks for your blessing upon

each of us Lord ask this in Christ, oh Lord amen.

- Amen.

- Amen.

- May God be with you guys.

Take a little bit of everything okay.

There's applesauce homemade.

- Tim did you know that the kids

went with Ron on a boat ride?

- What type of boat?

- Oh my goodness.

- What white box.

- Jeez.

- It's a carrier for the top of the vehicle,

those carriers that snap together.

You put 'em on top of the vehicle.

He takes them apart and you get two boats out of it.

- Two what out of it?

- Two boats.

- That surprises me.

I've been in boats before, Vera's, were I just sunk.

No one really talks about Ron's situation

or went to the extent of my parents sitting down with us

and saying, this is how it is.

Everything was more hush-hush.

My dad did what he thought was right.

Why else would my parents let Ron do what they did?

Because they knew what made him happy.

It's your first child and then they realized

well something's not right here.

- They called him mentally challenged, mentally challenged.

He just wasn't talking.

Then he didn't tell people how smart he was.

- They just put that diagnosis on him,

my mom and dad weren't able to question anything about that.

And to me that didn't make sense.

He's so capable of doing so many things.

Ron's creativity is amazing, amazing.

- No.

- The fact that he can go to someone's house,

be in there just for a little bit.

Leave, go home, and draw a floor plan

with windows and the way the doors swing,

is just something else.

I saw a movie, Rain Man.

I'm like wow, that's Ron, that's my brother.

He's so precise, that was always something

that I picked up on growing up with him was the numbers.

- What time to you tell people to call you?

- Why that time?

- Exact number of this, exact time it comes up.

And if you stray from it,

and nobody never said anything about Autism,

but after watching the movie, that's truly Ron.

Explain this to me.

- I don't know too many people

that write down everything they've done every day

for the last 40 years, that's pretty good.

That's pretty good bookkeeping.

- You think it is?

- Yeah.

- The older my parents got to be

they just, you know they didn't have the control

over him and it's to that point to where

he was accustomed to doing what he was going to do.

- And what's Ron doing?

- What are you going to do with it?

- Which porch?

- That stuff?

- Yeah.

- Ron can be nice in his own way,

but yet his number one priority is himself.

He would manipulate, lie, tell stories,

and everything else to get his way.

- You're going some place,

tell me where it is.

- Try to keep track of where he was,

forget that.

- Every morning it's the same routine.

Expect him up here about 9:30, take one hour to eat,

then he takes off and I don't see him 'til supper time.

He's always doing something.

- Where was that big ole bridge you had me on?

It was all burned up.

- Right.

- I said I can't walk on that bridge no more.

- My uncle is Ron's brother.

My mother's sister married his brother.

That's the age I was when I first met Ron.

Every time we would be at a family gathering,

we'd sit there and talk.

That's another place where Ron tried to kill me.

- This thing is literally a hundred feet in the air.

On the crick.

- He wanted to drive the car across it

until we realized there was a big whole in the middle of it.

- He'd tell me stories about all the stuff he built.

Unless you see it, you almost can't believe it.

First time I seen his house,

I went through there and he had a maze.

- There's dead ends and it's pitch black in there

and it took me 45 minutes.

- That was easy to do.

- He would ask for cinder blocks

for his Christmas list or his birthday list.

Then he started building the main house,

it built from there.

He wanted more, so he built another building

and then he connected it with tunnels.

He would dig basements underneath

and then connect basement to basement by tunnel.

Ronald built everything by hand.

He does not have big machinery,

he does not have a workforce that does these things for him,

he does it all himself.

And some of those buildings he didn't build,

he would literally find an abandoned building,

and like it, and take it home with him.

- How's you get this here?

- Everywhere I go I tell everyone about him.

And I've drugged, probably hundreds

of people through his house.

- You saw that?

- Mm-hmm.

- Where you going?

- She's panicked already.

- This is cool.

- You know him?

- No I don't, who's that?

- Oh look.

- Ron's right there.

- He's my cousin.

- Oh really?

- Mm-hmm.

- Ron do you know Dale Fry?

- Oh yeah I know him.

- That's my cousin.

- Oh it is?

- Yeah.

- And his brother is Chris and Matt.

- Mm-hmm, those are all my cousins.

- Hmm.

- Oh gosh, I can't wait to tell my mom.

That is cool.

- Dale used to live right across the railroad tracks.

I don't know where Dale lives now,

I don't know where any of them are living.

When you see 'em tell 'em give me a call.

- Okay I will.

- Around six o'clock, 5:30.

- Okay. - somewhere though.

- I will tell 'em.

- What are they signing?

- How many?

- 380 what?

- Per year?

- Yeah.

When did you get these made?

- What's up with the plunger?

- You collect them, my gosh?

- Why do you take the plunger?

- The foreclosures in this area

are ridiculously high.

Butler has really been hard hit.

You can just drive through town

any given day and see a fore sale sign

and it says foreclosure at the top.

Years ago it was a beautiful town.

People had great jobs.

There was coal mines, there was Pullman-Standard,

but when Pullman-Standard went out,

it was like a ghost town.

I mean that's where everybody worked in this area.

And half the houses went empty.

Just within an hour and a half drive,

there's whole abandoned towns.

There's all these abandoned factories

and that's where Ron gets all his stuff.

Some of the places he has taken me to,

you can just hear them bells ringing

and angels singing, it's just.

I found a 1938 Wurlitzer jukebox that was rare,

that is now in the Wurlitzer museum in Houston, Texas.

We found a whole abandoned bar.

We had antique bar lights, pool tables,

and a really neat thing that we found

was some memorabilia from the farmhouse

that was in the original Night Of The Living Dead.

A lot of the good that has happened in Ron's life

is because of Chuck Heist, his dad.

I said, "Chuck why did you let him do this?"

He said, "Well he didn't speak until he was nine or 10.

"And when we started letting him build, he opened up."

- Can we get a picture Ron?

You're already on our sweatshirts.

- Yeah.

- Okay, come on.

- His house, his adventures,

that is his connection with everybody.

He loves being the Mole Man.

Chuck just gave him that free reign

to do what he wanted to do.

- I can smell paint down here.

- But Chuck, unfortunately within

the last year he passed away.

- He fell over in the bedroom.

We couldn't wake him up.

I said well maybe we can put him back on the bed.

We just couldn't lift him up to put him back on the bed.

And I said I'm gonna call the ambulance.

The ambulance came, two or three weeks later he was gone.

I miss Chuck a lot, yep.

I'm still sleeping in that chair every night.

Every since he passed away I been sleeping in that chair.

I thought, I can't sleep in the bedroom,

it just seems different.

It's a big change, yeah.

I yeah, I really miss him.

I miss my car man.

- You can tell just from the absence

of my dad that there is a huge void in his life.

- I really thought she might get really upset over it

and have a reaction.

- He wouldn't talk to me,

I've been friends with him for most of my life.

When I was at the funeral, Ron pretended like

he didn't even know who I was.

Somebody asked Ron who's that

and he said I don't even know that name.

He had let his hair grow real long,

it was down past his shoulders, looked disheveled.

- And he just started building constantly.

- Part of the glue that holds Ron together, came apart.

- Did you give any more thought about the future here?

You know do we keep the house, don't we keep the house?

- Not really.

- Not really?

All that stuff takes money, right?

- Yeah.

- Since my dad passed away, I inherited a huge challenge.

How do we deal with the house?

How do we deal with the property?

How do we deal with Ron?

You can't depend that life is always

gonna be the same from day to day Ron.

- But if something happens, what happens then?

I mean you never know what's going to happen tomorrow.

When our mother passes away,

the situation is gonna totally change.

What are you waiting on?

The day to come?

- You hope, we hope.

If I don't do anything then we're at risk

of losing everything down here.

And I don't want that to happen.

His routine, his environment, that's his safety zone.

- To see that taken away from him

is not something I wanna see,

but I fear that that's exactly what's going to happen.

I'm hoping not.

I'm hoping that something can be figured out.

- He thinks he's gonna stay there period.

- I definitely would love to get my mom out of that house.

You know number one, I think she feels very much

a burden on herself that she has to take care of Ron.

- I wish you would cook.

That would be better yet.

- You're a bag of pork.

- It'd probably hurt him to move and do whatever,

it's a big deal.

- You want to be able to tell Mom

that we have an answer, and we don't.

- He doesn't have a way of saying

well how do I afford this.

Does someone else have to pay for this the rest of his life.

I mean, that's something we're not prepared to do.

- To see Ron pulled out of that place

I think would kill him.

Plain and simple, I just don't think

he'd want to live anymore.

And I got a quote done for my porch here

and I just didn't like the number.

My wife was talking about it at work

and the lady she works with said,

"Hey why don't you see if Ron would be interested."

So he came over and wants to do it all himself,

and everything, it's pretty amazing

'cause he's gonna have this thing tore up in no time.

You trust me a lot with just how

you can look at something and say

this is how many feet long by whatever.

- That's right.

- Oh yeah?

- No.

- Ron, you gotta be kidding me.

- What are you gonna play?

Okay.

I better put a pillow on there.

Okay, hey come on now, fix that.

- I'm awake.

Hey that's a blue one.

- Well, where was that?

- Ooh look at that, got three in.

Ron says I'll live to be a hundred so I don't have to worry.

No, you goofed me up.

- We are going to have a therapist meet Ron.

- Ron's never been officially diagnosed with Autism.

- He has to be diagnosed

in order to get the help that he needs.

Hopefully with that diagnosis,

we'll have a better direction of where we need to go.

- I would like to learn a lot more about Ron.

And half of how we answer questions is through testing.

And that's what Dr. Gastgeb's doing.

- We're going to be doing

all kinds of of different activities okay.

And there's not always a right answer.

We just need you to let me know

what you think the answer is okay.

- Mm-hmm.

- We give the individual something to do

and we try to learn about them

through watching them solve problems.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so they're giving the opportunities

to initiate and respond to conversations,

and then it gives us an algorithm for scoring

those behavior observations.

- Now we have a book here and what's different

about this book than books that you might read

is it only has a few words.

So we're actually gonna tell the story from pictures.

So I'm gonna start so that you get an idea how to do it.

Then I'm gonna let you tell me the story for a while,

then I'm gonna finish the story.

So Tuesday evening around eight,

there was a turtle sitting on a log.

And the sun came down and the moon came up

and the turtle looked up and all of a sudden

he saw these frogs floating all over the sky.

Now I'm gonna let you tell me the story

and then I'll finish at the very end.

You can just tell me whatever story you want.

There's no right answers to any of this.

- They don't, I know.

- I have an understanding, this is understanding

concrete versus abstract cognitive skills.

And individuals with Autism

actually aren't so great at the abstract and the pretend.

They're just much more concrete, black and white thinking.

- Yeah, so you're gonna have to suspend disbelief.

You're gonna have to pretend

this is like a fiction story here.

Okay so make up a story that doesn't really happen.

What is in the book?

What's happening on this page.

- Mm-hmm.

- Everybody describes him as creative,

but yet when asked to pretend, to make believe,

he actually wasn't able to do it.

- So what's happening on this page?

- So they're flying, they're having fun.

- Yeah.

- They don't belong there but that's okay.

- Okay, I'll finish up for you.

Next Tuesday something new was flying in the sky,

but it was not a frog, they were pigs.

- A lot of things he just wants to do

what he wants to do.

- Yeah.

- And otherwise he just isn't interested.

I said, "Why don't we go to a movie?"

"I don't want to go to a movie."

But when it's something about building houses

or finding the way to go someplace,

he's gonna do any of that.

He's really good, in fact he could build a house,

he could put electric in the house,

that's how good he is in that.

Do you want to go back there?

- I would like to if he wants to invite me.

And he's great with numbers and weights and measures

and mechanics and his skillset

because he's really fixated on those narrow interests

and has learned as much as he can about that.

- Wow, you're really quick.

- People of his generation

commonly did not get support.

And I think there are many ways that his situation

could not have turned out as positive as it did.

Some of those people are in group homes.

And he's still not out of the woods.

- You've thought about the next 10 years,

like your plans, your hopes, your dreams,

what would you like to see happen?

What would you like to do?

- So pretty much what you've been doing?

- Mm-hmm.

- Anything else you'd like to do that you haven't done?

- Okay.

Most people have felt sad at some point,

what makes you feel sad?

- Yeah, is that a part of your life now?

- Mm-hmm.

- And how does it feel when you're sad?

If you had to describe it.

- But for Ron, his Autism also contributes

some pretty amazing qualities that many people are drawn to.

I have actually have never seen

a collection so large as Ron's.

It's positive in a sense that people find it interesting.

- You know what that thing is?

- It's a train signal light.

- No.

- I was thinking astronaut helmet,

but I know that's not right either.

- I think this allows him to have connections

outside of his family that he wouldn't naturally have

because he's not going out there and seeking them.

- Yeah.

- What is that?

- We gotta get out of this place.

- Sorry.

- When you say town, you mean abandoned?

- Yeah.

- Okay, that's a lot of adventure.

What do you say we get cracking?

My name's Sean Burke, I live in Pennsylvania

and I work in a steel mill.

Ronald said to me, "Sean, there's a place

"I want you to see and it's in the woods

"and it's called Robinsville."

- He said, "It's this whole town

"that just was consumed by the woods."

And I said, "Now this I gotta see."

- Ronald knows I can't help myself

and anytime there's an adventure to be had,

he always ropes me into it.

It's a pretty neat little area down there.

- Oh yeah.

- There must have been some coal mining down there.

- He knows every little nook and cranny

of Western Pennsylvania.

- Now this, what is this road we're driving on here?

- This is a driveway?

- Yeah.

- We're going through quad trails, downhill signs,

we're in the middle of nowhere.

You don't know where you are.

You don't know if you were gonna find something.

You have no idea.

Whenever he tells you the story or what to expect,

he's telling you the truth in his mind.

His perception of reality and your own

sometimes are two different things.

We come to this valley where three creeks meet.

Can't say you're wrong.

- Yeah.

- Up the creek valley he goes.

We get to the top

and sure enough, just like he said.

It was a little village that was consumed by the woods.

All these houses,

grand old houses, a huge, huge barn,

and you're thinking what happened here.

Why did they leave this?

Man they built this thing.

This is old worldy transplant, this is outrageous.

- Yeah, the whole place.

- That's a lot of money in boards here.

- Yeah.

- Five, six, 14.

- It's also not the sixth.

- He knows his cars.

Your dad had what?

- He had a 1924 Model T, 1928 Model A.

- The illustrious Piney Mansion.

- And it's kind of this myth of a place.

- It's hard to get to,

and every year it's getting worse.

- Anybody that's familiar with cars knows

what a Duesenberg is, it's the creme de la creme

of American classic cars.

It would be worth a ton of money.

Just a super charger off the Dusenberg's engine

would be worth five figures at least.

Is it easy to find?

- No.

- He has the license plates from all the cars in his place,

but I have never met anybody that's been there

or saw it but Ron.

Where is this from?

How'd you get it out?

That's from Piney?

- So is there anything left?

- Yes.

Where does Piney rank

in the houses you find?

- But that one's got more stuff

in it than any of the others.

How'd you find Piney?

- And how long ago was that?

- What happened to the driveway?

- If it's there, we have to find it.

- In going through the diagnostic criteria for Autism,

it's very clear he's on the spectrum.

That is what contributing to that rigidty

that's been so difficult for you guys as a family.

Sometimes we can help them to be more flexible,

but he is not flexible.

- I often said to my parents if they would

hold him accountable, it would make him more functional.

- It's hard not to feel frustrated with your parents

because part of you is why didn't they get help,

but to be honest, your mom did try to get help,

and then they didn't know what else to do.

And so they just sort of stopped reaching out.

So in a sense it was a systemic problem I think.

So, the big question is, does he stay there or not

if your mother's not there?

People in his generation, if you ask where are they now,

some of them are just living in group homes.

- That's one of the solutions, however do we really

want to take him out of that environment?

That's really not something that we want to do

unless it actually came down to his safety

or medical condition would dictate that.

- My concern honestly isn't for his safety there,

'cause I feel like it's actually fairly safe for him,

but my concern is about liability.

- Oh yeah.

- He's necessarily in danger but he's not noticing

other people's safety and he's dragging people through

who might get hurt and who then might actually sue.

- Yes, the attorneys visited the place, looked it over

and basically said someone could sue you

and you could lose everything.

- Yeah, I'm not sure what his monetary needs will be,

but if you wait to the point where everyone

feels like there's an emergency situation,

it might actually be a little difficult

in order to get him what he needs.

So the best time to start moving forward

in terms of exploring supports would be now.

- We do want the best for him, but we all have our own lives

and we all have our own families,

so trying to continually focus on Ron,

it's a huge challenge and there's no easy out.

We know we're not gonna get his cooperation.

We're gonna have to force it.

- I live up by you.

- Oh you do?

- Yep, soon as I seen you walking down I said,

"Oh, he wants to go through something."

- Yeah.

- Oh yeah.

- I don't know, the guy's been dead for 25 years.

- Oh, that long.

- Today, I'm reaching out to an Autism expert at Yale.

I'm really hoping that he has some ideas,

maybe he can even give us more options

than what we are aware of currently.

- Given his age there's very few options

the kids that were seen by doctors in the 50s and 60s,

Autism existed as a diagnosis

but there were no experts on it really,

it was just a couple of people who originally described it

and no one knew what to do with those kids.

And so by in large they got institutionalized,

even if they were fairly intelligent.

So it was really brave to not institutionalize.

- You're running out of time.

- I mean in your opinion, if he is to be

taken out of that environment,

what do you perceive happening to him?

- I think it's predictable

that he would have problems adjusting

because you take any 60 year old person,

take all their favorite things away and put them somewhere,

they're gonna lash out.

Then you compound that with Autism

where you have emotional problems,

then yeah it's pretty cruel to do that to somebody.

- Yeah we discussed that quite a bit.

I mean I'm really scared of what's going to happen.

There is nothing I can think of,

other than trying to keep him in there,

that's going to be beneficial to him.

I just cannot see a positive outcome

unless he's allowed to stay in that environment.

- My biggest fear is that he'll lash out

outside of an institution and then end up

in the legal system, 'cause that's the only group

that won't refuse to take him.

- Right, and that's definitely

not the right place for Ronald.

- No, once that happens once it's just a revolving door.

- I appreciate you coming on here.

- Yeah, I wish I could be of more help.

It's a tough situation, take care.

- I don't know I'm kind of depressed now.

I'm here talking to him, what options do we have here?

If they wanted somebody to come in

and look after Ron, state funding does not exist for that.

Like he said, is he gonna end up in prison?

I work at Butler Memorial Hospital

in their behavioral health program.

I see people from group homes all the time,

they'll come in with scabies, malnourished,

prison would be better than some of these places.

I've seen neglected people that have bed sores

down to their bone, it's just unbelievable.

- They're a few good ones.

- I don't see another option.

I mean we have to find a way to keep him in there.

It's just, what else is there?

- Why do you have all the clocks back there?

- Any reason why you set it up like that?

- Are all the clocks on time?

- No.

- Barney Fife.

- Have you seen that movie?

- Indiana Jones, have you seen that?

- No.

- Do you know who Steven Spielberg is?

- No.

- You never heard him before this?

- No.

- How 'bout Brad Pitt?

- You know who Michael Jordan is?

- No.

- LeBron James?

- No.

- Seinfeld?

- No.

- Titanic?

- That movie?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- G-L-I-D-E.

- So you try to write

all of the songs in one group down?

- So you don't forget 'em?

- Why do you write 'em down then?

- When Amanda did her evaluation,

she determined Ron is Autistic.

Did you or Dad ever talk about Ron's future?

- No, we just seemed to go along

with what was going on at that time, going to special ed.

- I remember telling Dad what I thought,

he didn't want to hear any of it.

- Yeah that's it.

- He didn't agree with those.

- We should've even thought about it

after he graduated from high school.

- Yes.

- But Ron did try to get jobs a couple of different places.

But every time he'd last about one month and that was it.

- You know if something had to be done tomorrow

it would be basically relocating him.

- You mean to live somewhere else?

- You almost have to rule out the house

being one of the options?

- Where would he go, would he want to--

- We need to talk about, you know this house

and the land and how much effort it took to maintain it

and you're always trying to have to do something,

fix something, repair it.

You know that was Dad talking about that,

let alone having Ron to try to do any of that stuff.

- I know.

- I mean unfortunately he created

his own worse nightmare back there.

- Oh you're not kidding.

He just keeps on building and building.

- What he has back there

is a huge safety issues to begin with.

- That's true.

- Do you want him to stay in that?

He's built structures that really

don't allow anyone really to live there.

Years ago my dad allowed him to run his own wire

back to his house, that way he can have electricity.

He built more and more structures,

he runs more and more wiring through it,

and he tries to heat all those places in the winter.

The power bill has been over a thousand dollars a month

and in fact, he's burned out the meters

because he draws more than what the meter's

capabilities are or capacity is.

- What do you call them?

- So we know there's a lot of safety issues there.

You know not only is it putting his place at risk,

but it's putting the main house at risk.

The filth, the safety, health,

all those things he's gonna put in jeopardy

because he doesn't have any desire to change it.

- You know it's not good for him longterm wise,

but on the other hand, you know that's the environment

that he has that comfort level.

- Mm-hmm.

- There are resources out there that can help,

but he's gone have to learn how to deal with the changes

that he can't say no to.

How much resistance he creates,

you know does he go into hiding and that type of thing?

That's a whole nother issue.

But he can't let his personal desire

block something that is better for him longterm wise.

- But yet his friends just love coming to visit him.

- Yeah you know, they think all this is fun

and this is a great environment you've got Ron,

but that's frustrating because there's people

that are going to have to make a commitment to make it work.

So far, I don't think any of his friends

have signed up to make that commitment.

- Any one of us could move into that house,

but I've got four kids, you know I've got a full time job.

- I'm like you, I've got kids, I don't have the time.

- All the time, it's hard to deal with.

- I had thought having somebody

move in to Mary's place.

- Yeah.

- Would be perfect, to just kind of look after Ron.

Do what they did.

- Yeah cook his meals.

- Keep an eye on him.

- I think that's a great idea.

- But you're gonna have to have the finances to back it.

Obviously if he lives 35 more years,

you're talking a lot of money.

- Yeah.

- What's I'd like to see happen is some finances set up,

so whoever moves in there,

is gonna be able to financially cover ...

- What did Tim say the plan is?

- I would say a million dollars plus.

- Even if it's not a Dusenberg,

if the cars are in the shape that he says they're in.

- Well he has plates that were last registered in the 50s

for all these supposed vehicles in his place,

he showed me these plates,

and they look like through in good condition.

He's very convincing.

- He said these cars were in beautiful shape.

He said you look like you can just get in them

and drive them away.

- This is my one possible theory.

You know whenever you cross that bridge,

across the Clarion River, there's a camp

or some sort of a residence that the driveway

has been completely consumed by grass.

And if you look on your map,

you'll see two buildings beside each other.

And then if you look one woods line beside it,

you'll see two buildings that are roughly the same size

that are half consumed by the woods,

but they're down in the valley.

It fits the description, it's in the same location

of Ronald's original map, and you just

come around that hillside and you come done into the valley

and you're still in the woods,

but you're coming right into the back side

of these two buildings.

I wonder if that's what he was doing.

You know there's little oil well roads

up on that hillside.

- They're everywhere.

- And one of them tapers down

and you can see it taper down through the woods

and it leads right in behind those two buildings

on the edge of that woods.

And that's my theory is what

he's talking about is right there.

And the only way to find out for sure,

you camo up, and you go in, and you circle around

and you go and see for yourself to see if it's there.

- Hi Joy.

I have my entourage with me.

- I see, hi I'm Joyce Cunningham,

I'm the administrator here. - Tim Heist.

Good to meet you.

- This is our main dining area.

This is where we do a lot of our activities

and things also. - Yeah.

- We're actually going to have a country kitchen here

where we'll be serving their meals

and everything right out there.

The other day we started making stuffed apple cookies,

they tuned into little mini pies.

They love doing things like that.

- All right.

- I'll take you over this way.

- So where did we park when we came up here the last time?

- It was right here.

- Right here.

- To his lower road?

- Yeah.

- The Piney Mansion is a place

that we've spent a small fortune,

countless hours, trying to find.

One time he took us through a tunnel

that had probably caved in 50 years ago.

- There's a giant mound of rubble.

Ron said, "This isn't good."

- Climbing over rocks in this tunnel

and there's stuff falling above us you know.

- I'm thinking to myself, this is absolutely crazy,

what am I doing in here?

We exited the tunnel and I'm like whew,

I'm glad that's over.

And now we're staring at a 300 yard long

abandoned train bridge that's just railroad ties

on rusty iron work, 300 feet off the Clarion River.

I made two steps on there, and I'm looking at tree tops.

- You're side-stepping across this thing.

I said, "Ron there better be something good

"on the other side of it."

- We start walking and we get halfway across

until we looking at a gap in the ties, we're down 300 feet.

He walked over and he walked on that steam beam,

got back on the railroad ties, and then kept on walking.

So we crossed the bridge.

- When we got there we found nothing.

- Oh there it is.

- Oh right there.

- Alrighty.

- If he would choose to have a private room,

he would have a bed, a dresser, a nightstand, a wardrobe.

And then if he's in a private room, he has his own bath.

- Bath yeah.

- It's a private.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- Okay.

- And there's no shower.

We have two shower rooms, one on each end of the hall.

The TVs are included in the room, which is nice.

- I'd come up three or four times with him

and each time we'd go in a different way.

You would think that you can't miss it.

Well, you can, the woods are so dense,

the pine trees are so dense.

Right here is where we go off this little ridge.

You can be walking through the Pine Forest

and fall right off the face of this thing

and not even realize it.

- Holy Christ.

- It's a little tricky.

- We're in trouble.

- Give me your hand, you got it.

- We've actually found houses

where the brush was so thick, that you're standing

on the porch before you know there's a house there.

And that's how thick it is at Piney Mansion.

- Well how about he gets there and you know,

like a week later he wants to leave?

How do you deal with that?

'Cause that's one of our biggest concerns.

He is very used to getting his own way.

- This would be a big change for him.

- Okay.

- Each home's gonna have rules

and he will have to follow them.

Some people they can't do that do.

If he decides not to follow the rules,

the home can give him a 30 day notice.

- You guys ready?

- I think we wore Mike out.

I'm probably just gonna sit here

for a half an hour until I feel my chins.

Ron says we're not even halfway there yet.

- You're gonna miss that Dusenberg.

- I ain't carrying it back.

- Well, if you start having a heart attack,

call my phone, we'll come back for you.

- I don't think we can get a helicopter in here.

- I kind of feel bad leaving him there but ...

- We have more men here than women,

by about a two to one ratio.

Our average age is 59 and all of our residents

carry a mental health diagnosis.

- Okay.

- That's the primary reason they're here.

Everyone here has lived on their own

and we're unsuccessful at something.

Whether it be bathing, dressing, medication management,

you know all of those things.

- I better check on him, make sure he's still alive.

- He might not have no signal.

- No service.

If we tried to call 9-1-1 we'd be in trouble.

You hear that?

- I hear it.

- Those voices sound like they came from

right over there on the hill.

- I would say.

We better keep quiet, sound travels.

- I got that eerie feeling

of being in someone's crosshairs.

That's what's gonna happen.

Told my wife that this morning.

If you see the top of my head come off,

you just hit the ground.

- In this building here, we have two bedrooms,

bathroom, bedroom, bedroom.

We have 4,000 in and out.

Same thing in this building.

The guys that are in here are just like dug in.

Not a lot of turnover.

- looking for you.

- How was the dentist this morning Howard?

- It was good, he fixed me.

- Good.

- This almost looks like a driveway.

I don't know.

- We've got to be getting close.

- I got a good feeling about this road.

- You find it steep?

- You guys see that structure up there?

What the hell is that?

We have found something.

- I really wasn't sure if we were moving forward

or what was happening, so.

- We, yeah, I can say Ron can stay where he's at,

but is it really the right thing to do.

I mean just from the standpoint, it's an older home,

needs a lot of maintenance and repair

and it's like he doesn't want to do anything.

- Right.

- You know it's like you know are we really just

prolonging something that we should do.

- Right.

- Upfront.

- Okay.

- What is this?

- I don't know.

Some kind of a workshop.

It's pretty quiet in there.

- This is probably a campsite, I would imagine.

- A campsite.

- The cabins are pretty clean.

- Yeah.

- I don't think anybody's been here recently,

but they're definitely watched and maintained.

- Yeah, Ronald's sitting up there.

- You think he's spooked because of those voices?

- Yeah, let me collect Ronald and we'll figure out-

- I twisted my ankle. - You want to go back?

- I don't think we can go back through the woods.

- What about Mike?

- He's probably already found his way back.

The buzzards looking for us.

Boy does this suck.

I was really hoping to find it today.

Just like Ron said it would.

But being that we have been on every other inch

of this entire area, this was the only spot

that we hadn't been in, this was it, no Piney Mansion.

Now someone's gonna have to lend us a million bucks.

Oh no.

- I don't know, I just don't know.

I don't think Ron would make it up,

but it's not here.

I hope it is still up here, I really do.

It's that one story that never goes away.

As long as he holds on to it, then I'm going to too.

- It's got to be somewhere else.

- Has to be.

- But we've been everywhere.

You're sure it's in this plot of land.

- When the warm weather comes, we'll go back again.

- It's 2:11, let's get rolling.

- Yeah let's head back.

- Yep.

- I'm-

- We gave it a shot Ron.

- We can do that.

Now over there.

- Would he have loved those cars?

- Oh yes.

- Gotcha.

- I understand the challenge that my parents had

throughout their life dealing with Ron.

They did what they had to do.

Once my mother passes away, I don't expect that

we'll be able to support him there beyond five years.

- So I am making the final decision to say you have to move,

you have to transition to a different environment.

- I hate the idea of him

being pulled out of that place.

But I don't have the power to stop it.

I can't imagine going into a group home

to hang out with Ron.

He's probably gonna be withdrawn, he's not gonna talk,

and if he does talk, what's he gonna talk about?

Memories, 'cause that's all he have at that point.

- I wish I could give Mom a solid plan.

She wants to know that he's going to be okay.

- Take one day at a time and hope for the best.

That's what I always say.

- There's no happy ending.

No, it is what it is.

- Ronald is a survivor.

He can't not be a survivor, he'll find a way.

- What stories would I tell people.

I wouldn't have 'em.

He's literally one of God's masterpieces.

Why would you want him to conform

when it's his nonconformity that makes him who he is?

- Where we going today Ron?