Unsolved Mysteries With Dennis Farina - Season 7 Episode 14 - Updated Full Episode

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Video Summary
AI GeneratedThis episode of *Unsolved Mysteries* examines a variety of chilling cold cases, historical enigmas, and emotional personal quests. From the haunting mystery of the ghost ship *Mary Celeste* to the resolution of brutal murders through DNA and viewer tips, the program highlights the intersection of forensic science, public assistance, and the enduring search for truth and identity.
Next on Unsolved Mysteries, the charming stranger
in a singles bar turns out to be a rapist and a killer.
There's only one lead, and it takes police
to a list of 32,000 names.
What happened to the crew of the famous ghost ship,
the Mary Celeste?
Was it murder, a tragic accident, or something
that cannot be explained?
To his neighbors, he's a businessman who loves horses.
To the DEA, he's an international drug smuggler.
And thanks to our viewers, a violent rapist
is tracked down more than 500 miles
from the scene of the crime.
Five cases, some without endings.
Our team is working on them, and perhaps you can help.
I'm Dennis Farina, and this is Unsolved Mysteries.
Alexandria, Virginia.
Is anyone sitting here?
Uh, no, go right ahead.
On a March evening, a divorced 43-year-old
named Hilda Roche meets a man at a popular singles bar.
It was black, straight up.
Hilda later tells friends that she
had dinner with the man and plans on seeing him again.
But oddly, she never tells anyone his name.
Hilda had said that the guy was single, he was attractive,
he had a lot of money, and she was impressed that he
was driving this beautiful car.
I started to tell her, don't believe everything
this guy's telling you.
The car is profitably rented.
Anybody can make up a big story.
You don't know anything about him.
Watch out.
One week later, the nude body of a woman
is found in a wooded area near a school.
She's been sexually assaulted and then
shot, execution style.
Her identity remains unknown.
Four days after the body is found,
police enter Hilda Roche's apartment
after co-workers report her missing.
It doesn't look like there's anybody here.
In the living room, officers find her wallet.
We just identified our victim.
Got her picture and her driver's license right here.
It is now clear that Hilda Roche is
Evidence in Hilda's bedroom confirms
that she was sexually molested.
The bed and the whole bedroom was in disarray,
and we found her blouse and a pair of slacks
and some pantyhose and some adhesive tape.
And that's indicative of a struggle.
And other evidence that we located in the room
also indicated that some type of sexual activity took place.
Because there are no signs of a break-in,
detectives conclude that Hilda was
murdered by someone she knew.
Most detectives agree that the first 48 hours of a murder case
are the most crucial.
Beyond that, leads grow cold and suspects disappear.
After the killing of Hilda Roche,
nearly three months passed before police
could zero in on a suspect.
When detectives interviewed Hilda's friends,
they learned about the mysterious man
that she met at the singles bar just one week before her death.
Hilda had told her friends that the fellow was from Florida,
drove a nice car, he was a consultant for the government,
and that he lived in these apartments over in Alexandria.
As a matter of fact, she told her
that she even went over to the apartment that evening.
The 1,400-unit apartment complex was the only clue
to the man's identity.
Investigators searched three years of lease agreements
looking for any resident, past or present,
who matched the description of the man that Hilda had met.
We went through approximately 25,000 to 30,000 files.
And out of that, we come up with 32 possible names
that fit the profile of the person
that Hilda had described to her friend.
All police needed was one piece of evidence
that could link any of the 32 suspects to the victim.
Three months into the investigation,
they got their break.
My wallet's missing.
Excuse me?
Authorities learned that Hilda had lost her wallet
on the night that she met the man.
She lost her wallet, she thinks.
For some unknown reason, the man
insisted that he be contacted if the wallet was found.
Reset at the end?
OK, no problem.
A few days later, the restaurant found the wallet.
Yeah, I called before you found the lady's wallet,
tan, going to Hilda Roche.
She had called and said that he was
going to bring the wallet back.
And I'm saying, why did he go to the management
to find out about the wallet?
Why did management call him when they found the wallet?
My first impression was, the guy's putting you on.
The restaurant manager couldn't remember much about the man,
but she did agree to undergo hypnosis
and was then able to recall a phone number.
The hypnotist told us that this would
not be the exact phone number.
He said, you know, most of the numbers
are going to be the same.
They're going to be right.
He says, but they might be transposed or something.
You're going to have to work with it.
When detectives compared the phone number
with those of the 32 apartment residents,
they came up with a nearly perfect match.
The number belonged to 38-year-old Gregory Barker.
He had moved out of the apartment complex
soon after Hilda's murder.
Based on a psychological profile of Barker,
along with crime scene evidence, Detective Cahill
developed a chilling scenario of what
happened the night Hilda Roche was murdered.
I thought you were going to come tomorrow.
Well, I have.
My wallet, thank you.
I believe that Gregory Barker came over to the house
with the intention of returning the wallet to Hilda
and possibly something else in mind.
Yes, come in.
Come in, I'm sorry.
During his visit with Hilda, he had a violent altercation
with her down in the living room.
And sometime later, up in the bedroom,
her clothes were taken off, and a sexual activity
occurred there.
He, at that time, took her against her will
out of the house down to the school,
which is located about 9 and 1⁄2 miles away from the house.
Get out.
She was taken out of the vehicle,
and she was naked and led up a path about 150 feet
through a wooded area between a housing
development and the school.
At the time, he just brutally murdered
her with a gunshot to the head.
From doing a background investigation on Mr. Barker,
we don't believe that this is the first murder
that he committed.
We don't believe that this was the last murder he committed.
We believe that he could be responsible
for numerous murders.
We feel that possibly he could even be a serial murderer.
We're very sure of the fact that he's smart,
and he's very dangerous.
Update, the night we profiled Hilda Roche's story,
a viewer in Phoenix, Arizona, recognized Gregory Barker
as a local businessman who used the alias Alex Graham.
The next morning, FBI agents arrested him at his office.
After standing trial in Las Vegas on unrelated charges,
Barker was brought back to Virginia.
A jury found him guilty of first degree murder,
and he was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Gregory Barker will not be eligible for parole
until 2023.
Next, what happened to the missing crew of the ghost
ship Mary Celeste?
On a crisp November morning in 1872,
a clipper ship sailed out of New York Harbor and into legend.
Her name was the Mary Celeste, the most
infamous of all the ghost ships.
By December, she was floating off the coast of Portugal
with no one on board.
Mrs. Briggs, you must be looking forward to tonight.
The evening before the Mary Celeste was set to embark,
her captain, Benjamin Briggs, his wife, and a guest
sat down for a farewell dinner.
He came from a family of seafarers.
He was considered quite a religious man.
Captain Briggs was a noted captain.
He could be stern and so on, but he was
always noted as being fair.
Are you bringing the children?
Sophie will be coming with us, and Arthur
will remain here in school.
The guest that evening was Captain David Morehouse.
His ship, the DeGrazia, was scheduled
to sail for Europe more than a week after the Mary Celeste.
Morehouse would soon become deeply
involved in the bizarre events that were about to unfold.
Well, here's to a smooth crossing in column six.
God willing.
The next morning, the Mary Celeste
set sail with Briggs, his wife, their two-year-old daughter,
and seven crew members on board.
Below deck were more than 1,000 barrels of pure alcohol,
highly prized in the Italian wine trade.
It was a dangerous cargo.
Alcohol fumes were volatile and could easily explode.
From New York, the Mary Celeste was scheduled to sail more
than 5,000 miles past the Azores,
through the Strait of Gibraltar, and into the Mediterranean,
finally docking at Genoa, Italy.
10 days out of port, the ship was hit by a severe storm.
Excuse me, Captain.
Ma'am, I've taken in the topsails,
but she's still breezing up.
The ship was battered by winds and rain
for more than a week.
I'd like to take in more sail.
Let's have a look.
According to the captain's logbook,
the Mary Celeste stayed on course.
After 10 days, the weather cleared.
In his log, Briggs placed the Mary Celeste
just six miles off the Azores.
The date of the entry was November 25, 1872,
the last entry ever made by Captain Briggs.
10 days passed.
Something strange off the starboard bow, Captain.
On board the DeGrazia, the crew made a surprising discovery.
Looks like she's floundering.
A couple of sails have blown away.
It's the Mary Celeste.
Captain David Morehouse chose the DeGrazia's first mate,
Oliver DeVoe, to lead a boarding party to the Mary Celeste.
They came near her, saw no one on deck.
They thought maybe at first that it might have been what
they called a fever ship, and they
thought that maybe people were aboard down below,
DeVoe discovered that one of the ship's lifeboats was missing
and its compass was shattered.
And he was puzzled by a long rope that
snaked across the deck and off the stern of the ship.
In the cabins, personal possessions, money,
and gold jewelry were left behind.
The captain's navigation instruments and the ship's
papers were missing.
But DeVoe says that he found no evidence of foul play
and no reason for the Mary Celeste to have been abandoned.
But one thing was certain.
The ship and her cargo of alcohol
could be worth a fortune in salvage rights to whoever
brought her back to port.
And that's exactly what Captain Morehouse decided to do.
In England, Captain David Morehouse
prepared for a straightforward salvage claim in court.
But Morehouse soon found himself facing government accusations
that he was involved in the disastrous fate
of the Mary Celeste.
And you were the first to board the Mary Celeste.
Is that correct?
That's right, myself and my second mate, Mr. Wright.
The government's chief investigator
was a flamboyant Irishman named Frederick Solly Flood.
He was very suspicious.
He had a certain bend for the dramatic, I think.
He kind of immediately saw foul play.
And all during the proceedings, he
tried to indicate that, you know,
there had been some sort of conspiracy involved here.
And Captain Morehouse and Captain Briggs.
Flood first tried to prove that Morehouse and Briggs
had planned the events in advance.
Do you think it's possible that the two of them
might have been in collusion?
Sir, Captain Morehouse is an honorable man.
Faced with a lack of evidence, Flood came up with a more
sensational scenario, mutiny and murder.
And how many are empty?
Well, I found five or six right here.
The Mary Celeste was impounded, and Flood's inspectors
discovered that nine of the alcohol barrels were empty.
No, I think it more likely that the crew of the Mary
Celeste opened up these casks.
In the captain's cabin, Flood found what he believed
was proof of a mutiny.
Blood stains on Briggs' sword.
And what was a sword like this?
Flood tried to prove that the crew of the Mary Celeste
had broken into the alcohol and in a drunken fury
murdered Briggs and his family before fleeing in a lifeboat.
Look at the stain on the sword.
Begging your pardon, sir, but I think
you'll find that to be a ruse.
Well, I'll have a medical expert.
The test would later show that the stains were not blood.
Flood just absolutely refused to admit
that there hadn't been a murder.
But he never did get any satisfaction
from the government.
And they just repudiated everything that he said.
The Mary Celeste is released from custody.
A salvage settlement is awarded to David Morehouse
in the amount of 1,700 pounds.
What really happened aboard the Mary Celeste?
Many believe that the answer lies with the ship's
explosive cargo and the nine empty barrels.
That many barrels of alcohol leaking into the hold
would have created a lot of fumes.
But Byers believes that on November 25,
the last day Briggs and his crew were known to be on board,
the weather had finally cleared enough
to allow the hatches to be opened.
Got a water in there.
We'll have to vent the hatches.
I'll alert the captain.
I think immediately he sounded the alarm,
knowing the dangers of this cargo
and its chances of spontaneously combusting.
Overwhelming.
What's to be done?
I think he planned to get everyone in the lifeboat
and trail behind the main ship with the idea
the cargo would either vent itself and cool off or explode.
You, man the piece.
Come on.
Let's go.
He believes the sails were lowered
to prevent the Mary Celeste from picking up speed once everyone
had abandoned ship.
A single rope was all that tied the lifeboat
to the Mary Celeste.
What destroyed their plan, really,
was that they didn't have time to get all of the sail
off of the vessel.
They piled into the boat and started trailing behind.
And suddenly, a gust of wind came up
and started moving them.
When the Mary Celeste lurched forward, the lifeline snapped.
The vessel just sailed on without them
and left them there.
The Mary Celeste drifted another 380 miles
before Captain Morehouse found it.
No trace of Captain Briggs, his family,
or the crew was ever found.
The Mary Celeste's fate was sealed as the most
legendary of all ghost ships.
Next, a newcomer to town is revealed
as the mastermind behind a worldwide drug empire.
West Glover, Vermont.
This is where wealthy New Yorker Brian Brophil
decided to buy a 30-acre farm to escape the big city.
He told people that he had made his fortune manufacturing
toothbrushes and had come to the country to settle down.
He loved Vermont.
And he really became friendly with a lot
of the local people.
He had this easy way about him that
made people very comfortable.
Bye-bye, baby.
Tough to part with this one?
Nancy Buckley met Brophil when he called about a puppy
that she advertised in the local paper.
He was open and friendly and was either
knowledgeable in an area that you were interested in,
or he was very curious and wanted
to learn about something that you knew a lot about.
And both of those things ingratiate him to you.
He was an accident waiting for a place to happen.
He knew nothing about country life,
but he was willing to learn.
He was very obviously a city boy.
He couldn't hide that.
Brophil impressed his neighbors by spending
thousands of dollars on a special breed
of horse called a warm blood.
Warm blood.
He's warm.
Brophil then paid thousands more to board the horse
with another neighbor, Peggy DuPont.
There were a couple of things about Brian
that seemed a little strange.
The first was that he paid in cash for his board.
He had two horses, so he would pay me $500 in cash.
My husband immediately said, oh, he's a drug dealer.
And I said, he's not a drug dealer.
You're out of your mind.
He's a nice person.
And besides, he had to go to the bank
first to get the money he told me so.
Peggy's husband had no idea how right he was.
One February day, 20 Vermont State Police, DEA agents,
and US Marshals paid a visit to Brophil's farm.
The agents found a crop of more than 2,000 marijuana plants.
Brophil was visiting Susan and Frank Mador
at their farm in Virginia when a friend
There was a marijuana bust in West Charleston.
They're looking for you, Brian.
He just was real calm.
He said, jeez, I better make a phone call.
So he went and made a quick phone call.
And he came back and said, you're
going to have to take me to the airport.
He said, because I'm going to have
to straighten this mess out.
He said that he was worried about his reputation
and what is somebody trying to do to him.
And this can't be right.
I've got to get home and straighten out my reputation.
I sincerely believed him.
The Madors didn't know that they were driving Vermont's biggest
pot dealer to the airport.
Brian Brophil then dropped from sight.
Back in Vermont, authorities were just
beginning to realize the scope of his operation.
The agent's initial reaction was just one of pure awe.
Nobody's ever seen such an operation nationwide.
It was one of the most sophisticated operations
that has ever been seen.
Brophil's marijuana plantation featured automated
irrigation and lighting.
A heating system protected the plants
from Vermont's hard winters.
Authorities estimated that the operation
had been taking in as much as a quarter of a million
dollars a month.
Agent Andre LeBeer then contacted
the International Law Enforcement Agency, Interpol.
He was stunned to discover that the giant marijuana
farm was just a small part of Brophil's massive drug empire.
He got involved with a good lifestyle.
He traveled to a few exotic places with these people
and got addicted to their lifestyle.
He wanted to become a playboy.
The quickest way he could do that was
to become a narcotics smuggler.
Initially, Brian traveled to Southeast Asia
and the South Pacific, where he procured
small amounts of narcotics.
He would take these narcotics and tape them to his body
and walk through customs.
He did this in countries that execute
people for drug activity.
Brian would walk through customs without sweating
a bead and making friends.
After months of work, Agent LeBeer
was able to find an informant who
was part of Brophil's work.
All right, this is what I found out.
He's working on his mother load.
His mother load?
Yeah, his mother load.
He talked about this one for a while.
This is the one he's going to retire on.
According to the informant, Brophil
planned to smuggle $20 million worth of heroin
into the United States, most likely along the Oregon coast.
But LeBeer could never pin down the exact place or time.
He confirmed our speculation that Brian
is a major narcotics smuggler and is continuing
to smuggle his narcotics.
What we didn't learn is the specifics.
When all of this happened, I was in shock.
And I just couldn't believe that he
could live such a double life.
He lived this lie so perfectly that he obviously
had no life of his own.
The brah not exist.
Federal agents pursuing Brophil might have also
thought that he didn't exist.
Three years passed with no sign of the fugitive drug dealer.
Update, on the night this story aired,
viewers in Paso Robles, California
recognized the fugitive as one of their neighbors.
Authorities immediately moved in to make an arrest,
but Brophil had vanished again.
Our understanding is that Brian watched the show.
The show aired at 8 o'clock, and Brian was gone at 8 to 15.
He had left all his personal belongings behind
and was just gone.
He was living comfortably with no fears.
We weren't even close to him.
He could have wrote a textbook on how to hide.
He was that good.
But not good enough.
After Brophil left Paso Robles, tips from our viewers
helped authorities track him to the city of Carlsbad
in Southern California, where he was finally arrested.
He was brought back to Vermont and convicted
of the manufacture, possession, and intent
to distribute narcotics.
Brian Brophil served seven years of a 10-year sentence
and has since been released from prison.
Next, a woman discovers she has two siblings
that she has never met.
And later, a trusted apartment handyman
commits a brutal rape.
On a previous broadcast, we brought you
the story of Sue Scribner.
When Sue was 13 years old, she learned of a secret
that her mother, Calista, had been keeping
for more than 15 years.
When I asked her why she had been crying,
she told me about having a boy and a girl
twin that had been adopted.
It's time I told you.
Told me what?
I was really surprised because I was 13.
And it's a shock to find out that you
have a brother and sister that you didn't know about.
The twins were both born with congenital heart defects,
and Calista felt that she couldn't provide them
with the care that they needed.
Three weeks after they were born, the twins were adopted.
Calista never saw them again.
The twins being adopted, it just stayed with her forever.
She never got over it.
For 10 frustrating years, Sue searched for the twins
but could never find any information about them.
Update, 10 days after we featured this story,
one of our viewers reported that Sue's brother and sister
were living in Orlando, Florida.
The twins had no idea that they had been adopted
and were shocked to learn about the family they never knew.
Finally, Sue met her brother and sister for the first time.
I'm doing good.
The reunion brought together six of the Scribner
children and their families.
The very first time I met them, I think
all of our knees were shaking.
It is emotional, but I think we've all cried enough tears
and we didn't need a lot today.
I can't wait to get to know them.
I'm really very excited about it.
You have all these questions in your mind, gee,
what did I miss out on all these years?
What would they really like as kids?
I think that my newfound family is wonderful.
I think they're absolutely adorable.
You can lose me for another 50 years.
It's like we've known each other all of our lives,
even though we haven't been around each other
more than five hours.
She used to be small.
Doesn't really matter now what kind of life any of us had,
because it's what's left that counts.
We know where all of the children are now.
Our next story is about a courageous woman
who was raped, who we'll call Deidre.
Deidre has decided to come forward
with the goal of finding her attacker
and putting him behind bars.
Deidre lived on the Upper East Side in New York City.
It's an expensive area, but Deidre
had been lucky to find a rent-controlled apartment.
She lived there for several years
until the building was scheduled to be torn down.
As the leases ran out, the tenants moved away.
Eventually, Deidre was the only person
living in the building, which was badly in need of repairs.
In the end, it was one of those repairs, a leaky ceiling,
that led to Deidre's violent encounter.
It's me again.
Sorry, it's just a mess today.
The landlord hired a 31-year-old handyman named David Gause.
When he was first hired, it didn't seem strange at all.
It was just somebody else coming in to do
some work in the building, that's all.
After Gause fixed the ceiling, the landlord gave him more work.
While doing the repairs, he lived in a basement apartment.
At 9 31 morning, Gause knocked on Deidre's door.
I thought you were coming up yesterday
I had other things to do.
I couldn't make it.
I came up to borrow a frying pan.
Oh, OK, just a second.
No, it's no joke.
After he raped me, it seemed like he was calmer.
But then he got a crazy look in his eye again,
and he took an ice pick out of his pocket.
I thought for sure that he was going to kill me.
Hoping to save her life, Deidre came up with a plan.
No, no, listen, you don't understand.
Wait, no, we could be together.
I made him believe that he was my boyfriend.
It totally disarmed him.
He got really confused about the whole thing.
Here, I have this other money.
Take this, too.
Really?
Yes, go find those guys, pay them the money, and come back.
We'll go for breakfast, we'll be together.
Gause claimed that he needed the money to pay a debt.
Deidre gave him all she had.
Deidre's call to 911 brought an immediate response.
I'm up here!
I'm coming right up!
But David Gause was long gone.
The police background check on Gause
turned up a long list of previous arrests
and felony convictions, including armed robbery,
assault, and grand larceny.
After we identified David Gause, I also
contacted other police departments
and learned that Gause was also wanted for a rape that occurred
in Nassau County, Long Island.
In that rape, he raped an acquaintance of his,
and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
It still affects my life.
I don't trust anybody.
There's no enjoyment left.
I know that he's raping other women,
and I know that other lives are being destroyed.
I'd like to see him off the streets.
I'd like to see him put away forever.
Rape is a crime that is usually repeated until they're
caught and put away.
So there's no doubt in my mind, if David Gause is not caught,
that he will go on doing what he's
used to doing, raping women.
Update.
After this story aired, we received numerous tips
from our viewers reporting that Gause
was living under the name David Johnson
in Laurenburg, North Carolina.
He was then arrested at his home.
Part of the healing of a rape victim
is the person being apprehended and her getting her chance
to gain her power back.
I was happy for the victim's sake
that after five years, she now gets a chance for justice
in the court system.
David Gause was returned to New York
where he was convicted of rape, sodomy, burglary, and robbery.
Gause was sentenced to a prison term of 20 to 40 years.
He served his time and has been released.
A man has only one clue to the identity of his father,
a monogrammed handkerchief.
Previously, we brought you the case of 18-year-old Lisa Marie
Kimmel of Denver, Colorado.
Lisa left home on a Friday afternoon
to visit her boyfriend in Cody, Wyoming, and her parents
in Billings, Montana.
Police officers stopped Lisa for speeding
about 60 miles south of Casper.
I was patrolling southbound on March 25.
Noted a small car northbound at 88 miles an hour
according to my radar.
I turned around and pursued the car.
I stopped her near Orrin Junction.
Hey, Miss Kimmel, I had you on my radar
back there at 88 miles an hour.
Lisa signed her ticket and drove off,
but she never arrived in Cody.
As days passed with no word, her family began to fear the worst.
As the week went on, we realized the gravity of the situation.
The outlook was looking a little grim.
But even if that, even if the outcome wasn't as we hoped,
we still needed to find her.
One week after Lisa disappeared, a man
fishing on the North Platte River in Casper
found a body in the water.
She was found nearly nude.
She was sexually assaulted.
There were some stab wounds in the chest area.
And I can't tell you how they were done to the body,
but it would leave the appearance that somebody
took their time in doing this.
It's hard to understand why somebody would do something
like that to another human being.
Police discovered Lisa's blood on an old highway bridge
a quarter of a mile away.
They suspected that the killer had bludgeoned and stabbed
Lisa there and then dumped her body into the river.
There was no trace of Lisa's car.
Update, 14 years after Lisa Marie Kimmel was murdered,
authorities cracked the case.
Their check of the Wyoming DNA database
matched an inmate named Dale Wayne Eaton who was
in prison on a weapons charge.
When police searched Eaton's property,
about an hour's drive from where Lisa was last seen,
they found Lisa's car buried underground.
It had been there for 14 years.
They also learned that Eaton had kept
Lisa at his house for six days.
A jury found Eaton guilty, and he was sentenced to death.
Lisa's parents were awarded Dale Eaton's property
in a civil suit.
They burned all the buildings to the ground
on what would have been Lisa's 36th birthday.
Clues about family history can turn up in unlikely forms.
For a man named Charles Steuben, the clue
was embroidered on a handkerchief that
was tucked away in a dusty old file
more than a half a century old.
Los Angeles, California.
Charles Steuben was born in 1935 and grew up an only child.
When he was a teenager, Charles discovered
a clue that made him question his place in his own family.
I found a photo of my parents together on vacation in 1935.
The picture is annotated September 1935.
But my mother's not pregnant, so I began to think,
well, if I was born on the 17th of September,
it would have to be after that.
But we know that a woman who's just had a baby, first of all,
is not going to go on vacation, and she's not going
to leave the baby behind.
And so that's odd.
But when I found it, I was probably a teenager,
and I just, oh, that's interesting,
and filed it away in the back of my mind.
When Charles earned a Navy college scholarship,
he wrote to the State Department of Public Health
for a copy of his birth certificate.
When it arrived, he was disturbed to see
that it was mostly incomplete.
There's some stuff missing here.
I noticed that, too.
I think it's sometimes when it's a copy,
they just don't put everything in.
There was no hospital listed, no city, no attending physician,
and no time of birth.
There were more blank spaces than filled in spaces.
I said, this is a funny looking birth certificate.
How come this other stuff isn't there?
And my mother didn't know quite how to answer my question.
Mom, they don't even stay with the state I was born in.
Charles began to suspect that he had been adopted,
but could never bring himself to ask his mother again.
Charles was 54 with two grown children
when his mother passed away.
He decided that it was time to try to uncover
the secret of his past.
A family friend finally told Charles that he
had indeed been adopted.
Charles visited the Children's Home Society in Los Angeles,
where the adoption had been handled in 1935.
He had no idea what his file would contain.
In the envelope was a handkerchief,
which had been found with me back in 1935.
On the handkerchief, a purple W had been embroidered in silk.
There was a tangible connection with my past
that someone, probably my mother,
had put this handkerchief with me as a kind of a token,
a memento.
To me, it meant that I'm sorry I got to do this,
and maybe someday we'll get together again.
Charles' research took him back to September 25, 1935.
It was a typical Wednesday evening
in Boyle Heights, which at the time
was the Jewish neighborhood of Los Angeles.
At around 8.30 PM, a woman named Gladys Rossworm
went out to move her car from the street to her driveway.
Oh my god.
The abandoned baby was only a few days old.
He was wrapped in a blue blanket.
Tucked inside was a linen handkerchief
with the embroidered W. Gladys notified
the Children's Home Society.
Who put you here?
The baby was eventually adopted by a Jewish couple, Harry
and Yetta Steuben, whom Charles would come to know
as his mother and father.
55 years later, Charles still didn't
know who his natural parents were
or why they had abandoned him.
He began searching through the Los Angeles birth records
for September 1935.
His only clue was the handkerchief.
The W was probably the last name of my father.
This was a man's handkerchief, and it
was a custom at the time for men to have
embroidered handkerchiefs with their last name,
the initial of their last name embroidered on them.
So that allowed us to narrow our search down
to boy children whose last name began with W.
Charles placed several ads in the Los Angeles Times.
And surprisingly, two different people came forward
with the same information.
The most plausible story regarding
how I came to be abandoned is probably
that the father was probably Jewish and my mother was not.
There was a businessman who was very prominent in the 30s
and 40s in Los Angeles.
This gentleman had a number of girlfriends,
and it was quite possible that I could have
been his illegitimate child.
I'm certain that my mother was put under tremendous duress
and having to make a very difficult decision
in very trying times.
And she did what she thought was best.
Charles never gave up hope that one day he would discover
the truth about his birth family.
Update, after this story aired, Charles
was contacted by a viewer, Dr. Stephen Baskin.
He recognized parts of Charles' story
and suspected that he and Charles might be half brothers.
DNA confirmed their relationship.
However, their birth mother, Rose Wasserman,
has passed away.
This photograph was found in her scrapbook.
Charles believes that it may hold a clue
to his father's identity.
