So strange and in some ways incredible
might be an understatement
for this story.
It's just always
a family legend or lore.
For decades,
they were haunted by hunches,
60 years of speculation,
and we're still speculating.
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.
I just wanna let you know
I'm in "Q."
I am a "QAnon."
I am a patriot.
I'm a crazy b*stard.
For people to understand me,
they have to wait it out,
and they don't have
the time for it.
Everybody around me, I know
they're talking,
saying, "You're crazy."
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?
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.
- Sir?
- Hey.
- Hey, what's up?
- There he is.
Guys, what's up?
What are you doing over here?
You know, playing Scrabble.
Yeah, kicking a*s.
I'm kicking a*s, man.
Listen, you better be winning.
That's all I do is win.
I only win.
Me and him definitely
don't share the same beliefs,
for the most part,
in that area,
but love him to death.
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.
Well, there is a bent...
Believe it
or not, it still works.
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.
Channel 12...
Channel 12 camera.
Yeah.
Oh, cool.
Something good.
It's a reel-to-reels.
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.
My brother, Mike, is seven years
younger than me.
He doesn't remember my dad.
I do.
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.
My memories of my dad,
George Carroll,
they, unfortunately,
they're starting to get
a little fuzzy.
I know that he served
this country in Korea,
and, apparently,
he loved his kids.
I do not remember my father
actually leaving.
So there wasn't, like,
this very distinct moment.
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.
Over the years, there
were many rumors, many rumors,
and many discussions about,
"Ah, what happened
to Dad," you know?
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.
Some people
that knew my dad, said,
"He's a bit of a troubled guy."
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."
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.
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.
It seemed like it was
almost seamless.
He basically...
replaced my father.
I'd like to say he was
a good guy, but I can't say it.
He was mean.
You guys can keep talking.
I don't want to cry
on this thing.
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."
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."
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?
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.
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.
I'm, like, looking
through the window,
and there's my mom
taking the box.
And they talk
for a couple minutes.
There was anger.
She comes in.
I said, "What's that?
Why was he here?"
She said,
"That's your father's stuff."
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?"
She just kind of downplayed it,
like, and she said,
"He was married
to your dad's mother."
And she died.
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?
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.
When we were young,
everything my mother
said was gospel.
So, once she said
that he left, he left.
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?"
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.
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.
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.
There he is.
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.
After Mr. Darress had left,
it was a whole different scene.
Everybody was free.
I'm the queen of this place.
- Stay there.
- My mother was different.
She was like a person
that just came out.
- I had a wonderful time.
- Oh, I don't want to go home.
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 sh*t.
Let me come back.
My mom, she was
the queen of the night
because she was
a frustrated actress.
I have very little to say
that's not
putting her on a pedestal.
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.
And then, next thing you know...
We got married July 23rd, 1989.
I got pregnant three months
after we got married.
Ave Maria
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.
And that was life.
It was just, like, totally cool.
There ain't country
Time's up!
And then I learned
that my mom was struggling.
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.
- Thank you.
Give me a hug.
Come on, up, up.
She wanted
to stay in that house.
She was there
for 50 years or so.
She was very, very attached
to the home.
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.
The other way Mikey,
the other way.
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.
Well, she begged me, "Do not
let me die in the hospital."
I'm like, "All right,
I'll make it happen."
Happy birthday to you.
When she was sick,
but my dad was always
something on her mind.
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.
When she passed away,
it just kind of devastated him.
That's when he kind of started
with the hoarding and stuff.
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.
I go down to the emergency room.
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."
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."
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.
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...
I realized why we were
estranged from my dad's family.
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.
Mike didn't... didn't
like him from that moment on.
He didn't want to hear nothing,
didn't want to know nothing.
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.
Mike didn't do anything
for a long time after that.
He just kind of handed
it over to me.
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.
Hey, 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."
- Thank you very much
-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."
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, "m*rder."
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 sh*t!"
I didn't know what she meant
by the target,
but Mike understood
what she was talking about.
I realized when I was
four years old,
there was a g*n range
in my basement.
There was a target for sh**ting
b*ll*ts down there, pellets.
The target was on the wall.
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?"
And she said,
"Richard."
It was late at night.
I received a call from Mike.
And he said,
"Are you sitting down?"
and he recounted
the whole session.
He says "And I'll tell you
one thing..."
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.
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.
Nobody saw Richie differently.
The only thing is that he does
carry a little defense
about his father.
When they come back
from the psychic and say,
"The psychic said
our father was m*rder*d
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
m*rder*d 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.
Richie and Steve,
they didn't believe in mediums.
They just felt that
they were frauds, scams.
"You're gonna believe them?"
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."
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.
Somewhere along the line, my mom
starts talking to him,
he starts talking to her,
and somehow something blossomed.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
I had to stop.
I didn't find anything,
and it was
very disappointing to me.
I really wanted
to find something.
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.
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.
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.
He told me that he will
never leave that house
unless he found if his dad
was in that basement.
I think down deep inside,
I had a mission.
And I wasn't gonna leave
here until I tried.
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.
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.
It took the whole day.
I was so happy because I knew
now we're gonna get going.
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.
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.
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.
But then, um, I had a stroke.
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."
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...
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.
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.
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."
They were doing it.
We didn't have,
like, professional equipment.
My brother did a lot
of the heavy lifting.
He's the muscle man.
Mike, he kinda takes
a back seat a little bit
with the physical stuff.
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.
I thought
if we do find something,
the police need to see this.
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.
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."
I just broke through
sideways and I saw a cavity.
And I said, "That's not right.
It's a vault."
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.
The next day, it was
the day before Halloween.
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.
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."
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."
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.
Yeah, it was crazy.
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.
I see trees of green
Red roses too
I couldn't contain myself.
I was hysterical, hysterical.
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.
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.
And then he uncovered the...
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?
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 sh*t, 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.
If you can just hang
out for a second.
It was the craziest scene
I've ever seen
in my entire life.
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.
I wasn't allowed downstairs.
I'm like, "Wait a minute,
I didn't k*ll 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.
There was a lot of press.
They were trying
to get interviews.
They were trying to talk to me.
The investigation is expected
to continue through the night.
I don't know
who called them, but boy,
did they come like rats...
little roaches running
with their microphones
and their booms and sh*t.
The press is everywhere.
They're trying to find out
who the bad guy is
from every camera crew.
Microphones everywhere.
...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.
A mystery is
unfolding on Long Island.
Looks to be apparently a m*rder.
Who did it, you know,
was one of the questions
you would hear all the time.
"Who k*lled 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.
When we found my dad,
you know, it was kind of like
we answered one question,
but we got 100,000
new questions.
They were able
to determine the cause of death,
which was blunt force trauma
to the head.
That was the biggest find.
And then never heard
from them again after that.
It seemed like the police
decided it was so old
that it's not really
worth pursuing.
...in 1963.
So, Mike, can you take
them off the list?
Richie was always foremost
on my mind.
You know, here's
my father being m*rder*d,
and his father possibly being...
you know, the m*rder*r.
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 m*rder 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.
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.
- This is the end of like, soil.
- -Yeah.
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.
We may never
find out what happened,
if he was m*rder*d, 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.
...remove
the remains and are now trying
to determine the cause of death.
Steven Carroll was
just five when his dad, George,
went missing in 1961.
No paper trail
as to what happened...
I spoke to Richie and I said,
"I know this is very sensitive
and very hard for you."
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.
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.
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.
You have no idea
who may have done this?
I do.
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.
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?
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 a*usive.
I want to believe that it was
post-traumatic stress
from Korea.
When he came back from
Korea, he was rough with her.
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."
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.
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.
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.
I think the truth matters.
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.
My sister was very,
very complicated girl.
She was more of a wild child.
Pat just made decisions
early on in life
that were just different than
what we would've done.
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.
My aunt Pat confided
in me about a lot of the abuse
that she got from Richard.
How he molested and r*ped 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.
You know, when I look
back, I just felt that she knew
it was happening to me,
and it was her way out.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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."
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 m*rder*d 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 m*rder of my dad.
Mom was afraid.
She was scared.
She was abused, just like
everybody else.
I'm the queen of
the whole place.
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 m*rder at this point."
You got it, buddy.
You ready?
You ready?
Let's go.
Let's go.
The truth is,
we're never gonna know.
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,
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.
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.
- I love that smell.
- Thank you.
Hold on.
Feels like a whole new
beginning when you spray
- that, right?
- That's what it's for.
- Exactly... It clears the air.
- Yeah.
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?
Yes, I do.
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.
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.
- 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.
Listen, buster,
I make the rules here.
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.
Well, that's out.
I think that's a little
off-key there, OK.
Nope.
There's nothing we can
do about the past.
So, we're not gonna delve
on the past.
You gotta stand up and bow.
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?
Good job on the left hand.
- What?
- Good job on the left hand.
- Good job, Mike.
- You guys are awesome.
All right, time
for Captain Crunch.
Let's go.
Oh, gosh.
Change is good.
Change is good.
Beautiful day out today.
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
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Secrets We Bury, The (2025)
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