Original subtitles

NARRATOR: This program is about unsolved mysteries.

Whenever possible, the actual family members

and police officials have participated

in recreating the events.

What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.

[theme music]

ROBERT STACK: Lee Selwyn, a popular Los

Angeles disk jockey, had a fondness for motorcycles.

Late one night, an argument led to a high-speed dual.

Lee Selwyn was run down and killed.

His murderer is still at large.

Eight years ago, 25-year-old Michael Rosenblum

vanished on the side of a Pennsylvania highway.

His father believes Michael may have

been the victim of foul play.

In Florida, a 77-year-old Don Juan first

steals the hearts of his victims, and then

their cash and jewelry.

Also tonight, we'll update the poignant story of Rogest Cain,

a Los Angeles man apparently suffering from amnesia who

left his home for a simple trip to the hardware store

and vanished.

Shortly after our broadcast, a viewer

called claiming that Rogest is now living in Topeka, Kansas.

When the police investigated this lead,

the man had disappeared again.

Perhaps you can help find him.

Join me.

You may be able to help solve a mystery.

[theme music]

[club music playing]

ROBERT STACK: 26-year-old Lee Selwyn was a familiar face

in the trendy rock-and-roll nightclubs

that populate Los Angeles.

He was a close friend of many popular rock

stars and musicians.

He was also a member of the late-night motorcycle

riding crowd in Hollywood.

[motorcycle sounds]

On October 8, 1988, Lee Selwyn would fight for his life,

a victim of a bizarre encounter with a crazed killer

on the streets of Los Angeles.

It was a fight for survival that Lee would not win.

Lee Selwyn was a man who loved the nightlife of Los Angeles,

and was an important part of it.

But simply because he looked different, Lee and his friends

were arbitrarily targeted for murder.

The sad irony of his death is that he

was only an innocent bystander.

The search for his killer has been taken to the streets

of Los Angeles by his family and the rockers

and bikers who loved him.

LINDA CACIOLA: When he first got his motorcycle,

I guess I was probably a little bit nervous about it.

But I knew that he was careful, and I knew that he wouldn't

take chances-- unnecessary chances--

wouldn't ride on the freeways.

He wasn't a crazy kind of person,

and so I really didn't worry about him.

ROBERT STACK: At 2:00 AM, on October the 8th,

Lee and a few friends left a Hollywood

nightclub, unaware of the danger that

awaited them on the street.

They rode two by two, Lee and a friend named

Beachy, trailing Mike Auerbach and Rob

Kalafut, who rode in front.

ROB KALAFUT: Driving along, and all of a sudden,

out of nowhere, this truck comes flying by me.

As he comes by, he dives in on me laughing.

He's screaming ha ha. He's screaming something.

I don't know; I couldn't hear.

He's just laughing.

Dives in on me.

I look over at Mike, and in LA, this happens every day.

Every day, but not so blatant.

ROB (IN REENACTMENT): What you doing?

What are you trying to do?

Huh?

What?

ROB KALAFUT: I got infuriated, because he

was trying to kill me.

And I'm really close to the guy, yelling

and what the hell are you trying to do?

Trying to kill me?

And he starts screaming at me, and looking like a nut,

on drugs, beer, whatever-- psycho.

Then he rolls his window down and spits

in my face-- right in my face.

And it was just-- anybody gets spit in their face just irate.

So I punched out his mirror.

And he's still rolling his window down, up and down,

spitting at me, growling screaming.

And then he starts reaching down like he's got a gun.

I put my fist through his driver's window.

Soon as I broke his window, he triggered.

Shot out of the intersection, and he's

doing a brody U-turn and Mike and I look at each other,

this guy's going to kill us.

He's coming after us.

He's going to mow us down.

Does a U-turn.

Comes after us.

We're flying down the street.

And I'm just going, and I see his headlights

bearing down on us.

I'm just going we still got to get out of here.

So we choose to go right, and as I looked back,

he comes flying through the intersection, screeching,

bouncing, and coming to a slightest stop.

ROBERT STACK: When Lee got to the intersection,

he turned left, and the man in the truck followed Lee.

He's like a cra-- from what I seen,

he's a crazed maniac, because he just wanted to kill me.

He wanted to kill me.

ROBERT STACK: Instead of Rob Kalafut,

Lee Selwyn became the target of the driver's rage.

DET.

FRANK BISHOP: According to the witnesses,

they were both going anywhere from 60 to 90 miles an hour.

And here you have a young man who is known by his friends,

known by his family, as a very peaceable man who purposely

avoids fights even when confronted,

and even if he is physically harmed by someone,

he'll turn and walk away.

You have a man like that who's out riding his motorcycle

having fun, and all of a sudden he's in a situation where he's

terrorized by someone in a car.

He had to be in complete terror, and this terror

lasted approximately about a five-mile chase with this man

right on his rear end.

According to the witnesses, he was right on him,

and he chased him until the time he actually hit him and drove

him into a telephone pole.

Lee, when he flew through the air,

he flew close to 180 feet before he came to a rest.

This is a murder.

It's a homicide.

Someone intentionally took the life of another person.

It's a homicide.

ROBERT STACK: The massive skull fracture

Lee received in the collision was the cause of his death.

LINDA CACIOLA: I received a call from Cedars.

They said that he was in the intensive care.

And I knew-- I just knew-- but I don't believe it yet.

It's real, but it isn't real.

He was such a big part of my life.

He was my buddy.

He wasn't just my son, he was my buddy.

[music video playing]

ROBERT STACK: At Lee's funeral, hundreds of his friends

paid tribute to him.

This music video, with footage shot at the funeral,

was set to an original song dedicated to Lee's memory

by the rock group Little Caesar.

[music video playing]

LORI SELWYN: It was amazing to see all

these people who really cared.

There's no way that that can be consolation enough.

It was a real tribute to who Lee was,

by how many people were there and how many people really

have shown how much they care.

[music video playing]

ROBERT STACK: Lee's friends organized a rock concert

in his honor, with special guest performances

by Billy Idol and Julian Lennon, among others.

The proceeds from the concert went to a fund offering

a reward to anyone who could bring

Lee's murderer to justice.

DET.

FRANK BISHOP: A lot of people take the opinion

that these guys are motorcycle gang

members, when, in fact, there was four

guys out having a good time.

They happen to like to ride Harley Davidson motorcycles.

What really counts is who they are and what they're doing.

These people weren't doing anything wrong that night,

and they had a right to be out there riding their motorcycles

and dressed the way they were.

Lee Selwyn wasn't even the man who gave him the problem.

It was another one of the motorcyclists.

But this man was so bent on catching that person,

it didn't matter to him who was on the motorcycle.

He had to catch that motorcycle.

And he had to run him over, and that's what he did.

LINDA CACIOLA: It's incomprehensible to me

to think that we could never find this man.

I can't even imagine that I could live the rest of my life

not knowing who did this.

ROBERT STACK: Lee's killer drove a late model

two-tone vehicle with a chrome luggage

rack and tinted windows.

Most eyewitnesses agree that it was

a Bronco II or a Chevy Blazer, and that its colors

were red on white.

Damage to the vehicle included a smashed

outside rear-view mirror, a broken window, and a dented

door, all on the driver's side.

The vehicle would probably have come

into an auto body shop for repairs

sometime after October 8th.

The driver of the vehicle is described as Caucasian,

aged 28 to 32, with green eyes and reddish brown hair

and beard.

Incredibly, four years went by before police finally

got the tip they'd been waiting for.

After a recent rebroadcast of the story,

a viewer called our phone center and told one of the operators

that there was a man in prison in Georgia

who had often bragged about running

down a biker in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles police obtained a mug shot of the suspect.

Lee's friends picked the man out of a photo lineup.

His name is Franklin Legrand Perkins.

On July 30, 1993, just five days before Perkins was scheduled

for parole, he was arrested.

One week later, he was brought back to Los Angeles

by Detective Dan Andrews.

DET.

DAN ANDREWS: Most murder victims will know their attackers--

know their killers.

But this is a case that just wasn't that way.

This was a random event of a person who was basically

minding his own business, and, unfortunately,

was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And I think it's very unusual to identify

somebody and be able to solve the case after five years.

It's a very good feeling.

LINDA CACIOLA: Except for the most important fact, which

is nothing can ever bring Lee back,

I hope this will bring some closure

to this five years of uncertainty

and the pain that goes along with it.

Finally justice can be served.

And also I'm grateful that this man is not out there committing

other crimes and hurting other people

and killing other people's loved ones.

One portion of the grief will be closed or dealt with.

And I know that when I'm driving on the streets,

I won't be looking in other cars wondering

if that might be the guy.

[theme music]

In an earlier broadcast, we presented the story

of Steven Cox, accused of defrauding

his friends and neighbors in Medford,

Oregon, of $3 and 1/2 million.

Thanks to our viewers, the four-year search for Cox

has ended.

In 1982, Steven Cox formed an investment

company, offering his clients a 25% return on their money.

Cox was able to convince many people

in Medford to invest their life savings,

totaling $3 and 1/2 million.

At first his business prospered, then in 1984 it began to sour.

On September 22, 1984, Steven Cox

vanished, and allegedly took with him over $200,000 in gold,

silver, jewelry, and cash.

Within minutes of our broadcast in November,

six viewers called our 800 number

to report that Cox was living in Boise, Idaho,

under the assumed name Robert Bradley Davis.

However, just hours before the broadcast, Cox

disappeared again, telling his wife he was going to Hawaii.

Update.

Stephen Cox has been arrested in Lake Mead, Nevada, 25

miles southeast of Las Vegas.

Five days after he fled from Boise,

Cox checked into the Lake Mead Lodge motel.

He registered under the name John Strauss

and listed an Arizona address.

EDNA REED: He was not the normal guest.

He stayed in his room all day long.

He would only leave at night.

Very seldom did he leave in the daytime.

And we noticed that the license plates

were not the same as he had put down on his registration card.

And that made us a little suspicious, but yet

nothing we could put a finger on.

ROBERT STACK: Two weeks later, Edna Reed

made a startling discovery.

EDNA REED: One day when I was out on the grounds,

I saw the guest come out of his room.

And instead of putting his trash in the bin

in front of his room, he took it up to number 35,

which was several doors away.

And when I went to empty the trash out of that bin,

I found the crumpled-up letter.

And like any curious female, I read the letter.

When I read the letter, I saw the part

that said something about the "Unsolved Mysteries" show

being a bombshell.

I showed the letter to my husband Harold,

and between the two of us we decided

it was time definitely to call the rangers

and tell them about the guest.

ROBERT STACK: Lake Mead park rangers immediately

ran a computer check and discovered

that the car belonged to someone other than John Strauss.

ROBERT MCKEEVER: On the morning of the 14th,

we began to look for the person by going to the Lake Mead Lodge

to see if we could identify, in fact, who he really was.

When we got there, the vehicle was gone

and the person was gone-- had been gone for 15 or 20 minutes.

ROBERT STACK: The next morning, park rangers spotted Cox's car

and pulled him over in the parking

lot of the Gold Strike Casino.

ROBERT MCKEEVER: After we made the traffic stop,

he produced identification-- a driver's license

issued to a Robert Davis.

And we checked that name and date of birth

through the NCIC computer, and found

that it was an alias used by one Steven Cox

and that there was a warrant for Mr. Cox.

At that point, we placed him under arrest.

ROBERT STACK: During the search of Cox's car,

park rangers uncovered a small fortune.

ROBERT MCKEEVER: When we looked in the passenger compartment

of the vehicle and in the trunk, we

found suitcases and other luggage-type bags filled

with jewelry, rings, necklaces, collector-type baseball cards,

some gold coins, silver coins.

And I was really very curious to know why he had it

in the vehicle, and if, in fact, this

was the stuff that he was wanted for taking in the first place.

[theme music]

ROBERT STACK: April 2, 1988.

Baldwin Borough, Pennsylvania.

A suburb of greater Pittsburgh.

30 volunteer firemen gather on a steep bluff overlooking

the Monongahela River.

SEARCH SUPERVISOR: I want you to pay attention

around the bases of trees and on a level benches

as we go down the hills.

Look for anything that you find out of the ordinary.

ROBERT STACK: At the suggestion of a psychic,

we are here to search for the remains of Michael Rosenblum,

a young Pittsburgh man who has been

missing for over eight years.

For Maurice Rosenblum, this search

is his latest desperate attempt to determine

the fate of his son Michael, who disappeared

on Valentine's Day in 1980 from a road that runs

along the foot of the cliff.

MAURICE ROSENBLUM: There is not the slightest

possibility in my mind that he could be out there alive.

I pray that that one in 10 million chance would happen,

but I just can't believe it.

I just can't believe it.

I guess you always have some hope.

Long as I don't have a body, there's always hope.

Over the last eight years, Maurice Rosenblum

has spent almost a quarter of a million dollars

doggedly pursuing every lead to find his missing son.

Strangely, many of those leads suggested

that the authorities interfered in the investigation.

Maurice's lonely quest has uncovered

disturbing indications of an important document

may have been forged, a questionable arrest

warrant for his son was issued, and crucial evidence

was ignored.

The search for Michael has led to a scandal

in which a police chief was fired and then

reinstated after a hearing.

Maurice Rosenblum is not satisfied

with the investigation into his son's disappearance.

Michael Rosenblum began experimenting with drugs

during high school, and soon became a heavy user

of a prescription pain killer that altered his moods

and made him erratic and irritable.

Michael's life spun wildly out of control, but throughout,

he retained the strong support and love of his family.

BARBARA ROSENBLUM: He was into drugs

at the time that was a bad time for all of the kids

that were ever into drugs.

There was a thing that just came out then called tough love.

And it was supposed to be-- the thing to do was

tell him you're through here.

You can't live here.

You're out.

If you won't live according to my rules, you're out.

I had never done that.

And the one time that I listened-- that I did

that-- I never saw him again.

MICHAEL (IN REENACTMENT): Let's get out of here.

LISA (IN REENACTMENT): Why?

MICHAEL (IN REENACTMENT): Don't worry about it.

Let's just go. I'll talk to you later--

ROBERT STACK: The night of February 13, 1980, a month

after he was released from a drug rehab program,

Michael began acting abnormally.

Barbara Rosenblum found a bottle of pain killers in his bedroom.

She banished Michael and his girlfriend Lisa

from their home.

They left in Lisa's car.

BARBARA ROSENBLUM: I said to Michael,

don't come back until you are completely off drugs.

Until you want to live your life the way

you should, and that's the way it is.

I've always faulted myself for that,

and I probably will 'til I die.

That I didn't say OK we'll try again.

Maybe tomorrow will be different.

LISA (IN REENACTMENT): Michael, Michael,

would you please stop and wait for me.

Michael!

ROBERT STACK: The next morning, Michael awoke

with a severe drug hangover.

Lisa drove him to the local hospital,

but he refused to be treated.

LISA (IN REENACTMENT): Wait for me.

Let me just walk beside you.

[sounds of air pump]

LISA (IN REENACTMENT): Michael, just come with me.

We'll go back to the hospital.

It will just take 5 or 10 minutes.

MICHAEL (IN REENACTMENT): I don't

have to go to the hospital.

LISA (IN REENACTMENT): Just listen to me for a minute.

MICHAEL (IN REENACTMENT): I don't

have to go to the hospital. I'm fine.

I'm fine.

ROBERT STACK: According to Lisa, Michael

became increasingly agitated.

15 minutes later, he left her stranded at a local gas station

and drove off erratically.

Michael Rosenblum's last words were, go to my parents' house.

I'll see you there in two hours.

Has not been seen since.

MAURICE ROSENBLUM: I figured well, he took her car

and he took off for a day or two, and he'll be back

or he'll call.

We waited that night.

There were no calls.

I became seriously worried.

My wife felt immediately that it was a terminal

situation-- that he was dead.

I didn't.

He would never have just left.

When he left, there was money in his bank account.

There was clothes were in his closet.

And if he were going to have gone anywhere

he would have said to us, I plan to do such and such

and I'm going to take my money and go.

But all of that-- his money is still in his bank account.

His clothes were in his closet since-- they're gone.

And that wasn't his style.

It wasn't his way.

ROBERT STACK: The following day, the Rosenblums

filed a missing persons report with the local authorities,

the Pittsburgh police department,

who began an immediate search for the car.

Private investigator Stephen Tercsak

was a detective for the Pittsburgh police

when Michael Rosenblum vanished.

STEPHEN TERCSAK: You need a starting point.

Any homicide case, your dead body is your starting point.

In this case, the car would have been a starting point.

So important we find the car as quickly as possible,

and then take the steps to notify the media for their help

and asking the general public if anybody

saw the boy who was in the car.

Do they know what happened to him?

ROBERT STACK: After the Pittsburgh

police had searched for two weeks,

they found no car and no body.

So Michael's father began his own search.

He offered a reward for information,

posted flyers, and traveled as far away

as California, visiting with friends

Michael may have contacted.

MAURICE ROSENBLUM: I launched the investigation myself

because I was concerned about finding

him, and seeing if I couldn't put him back on the right track

again.

So I was after him for myself to kind of soothe things over.

Put it back together again if I could.

It was too late.

It was too late.

It was just too late.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: Three months later, on May 21, 1980,

the police department in Baldwin Borough,

a Pittsburgh suburb, notified Lisa

that her car had been found.

According to official records, the car

had been impounded on the day that Michael vanished.

Maurice Rosenblum wanted to know what happened

during those three months.

MAURICE ROSENBLUM: We couldn't believe that they

had that car for 91 days.

Absolutely couldn't believe it.

The Pittsburgh police had contacted every police

department in this area looking for that specific car,

and here that car was discovered in the police bonded tow yard

less than three miles from where we're sitting right now.

STEPHEN TERCSAK: I think everybody was

quite upset to say the least.

I know there was a lot of discussion

about it-- the old terms of policemen-- can

you believe this?

Can you believe what Baldwin done?

ROBERT STACK: River Road, where Lisa's car was found,

connects Baldwin Borough with Pittsburgh's south side.

A Baldwin police dispatcher was definitely

contacted by the Pittsburgh police

when they searched for the car, but no one

can say whether the information was ever officially circulated.

[music playing]

Just two hours after Michael left Lisa,

a Baldwin police unit found her car on River Road.

Two of the tires were flat, the keys were gone,

and the engine was cool.

Michael had vanished into thin air.

15 minutes later, the car was towed to the Baldwin Borough

car pound, where it would remain,

resting on its bent tire rims, for the next three months.

STEPHEN TERCSAK: One of the question

that throws your whole investigation off--

if we start in the beginning, we knew that car wasn't

on River Road, the whole picture would have changed drastically.

My personal feeling is-- being a police officer 28 years-- if we

had known that car was found in Baldwin,

that morning within hours I strongly

believe we would have known by now

what had happened to Michael.

MAURICE ROSENBLUM: When they found the car after 91 days

my immediate reaction was that he was gone-- dead.

ROBERT STACK: Maurice Rosenblum wanted an explanation,

and the Pittsburgh police department

went to Baldwin Borough to investigate the delay.

The Baldwin police claim that they had mailed

Lisa a letter the day after the car was found,

saying they had impounded it.

Lisa says she never got the letter.

The police eventually produced a copy of the letter,

but Lisa still insisted she never received it.

MAURICE ROSENBLUM: In my opinion,

they deliberately misled the Pittsburgh police

in the search.

Assuming that my son was never even involved,

why didn't they search for the young lady that owned the car?

Because all this was done to cover a more sinister fact,

that's why.

ROBERT STACK: Around the same time,

Maurice claims he received two anonymous phone calls.

[phone ringing]

MAURICE ROSENBLUM: The first one came in during the time

that the car was gone.

They said that he was arrested, and I

wrote it off as a crackpot.

After the car was found, I received a second telephone

call just simply said that your son was

arrested by the Baldwin police.

Click, they were gone.

ROBERT STACK: The six months Maurice Rosenblum searched

for his missing son Michael, his offer of a big reward

had borne no fruit.

The only concrete clues were the discovery of the car

that Michael had been driving, and the two

mysterious phone calls alleging that Michael had been arrested.

Then on July 15, 1980, the Baldwin police issued a warrant

for Michael Rosenblum's arrest.

He was wanted in connection with a robbery that

had taken place in April, two and a half

months after he had vanished.

Now the big twist in this whole thing

was that everybody that's talked to the people who were

the victims of the robbery, they both told everybody

from day one that the person to come in there was a white man,

and he had aviator mirrored sunglasses

on that covered high above his eyebrows and down almost

to the bridge of his nose.

So the only part they actually could see

would be the forehead and the chin line.

But yet the composite was made without sunglasses.

And I have been in police work for 30 years.

When I looked at the composite, there's no doubt in my mind

that this composite was made from that first flyer put out

on Michael Rosenblum back in February.

It's just too perfect.

ROBERT STACK: A week later, the warrant was dismissed.

Maurice Rosenblum was left with three disturbing questions.

Why had the Baldwin police department

failed to respond to the Pittsburgh police department's

request for information when they

had Lisa's car in their possession for three months?

Why had they issued a warrant for Michael Rosenblum's arrest?

And the mysterious phone calls.

Was there any truth to the accusation

that the Baldwin police department arrested

Michael the day he disappeared?

Maurice took his suspicions to the office of the Pennsylvania

Attorney General.

The Baldwin police department was investigated

and cleared of any wrongdoing.

But the case would not die.

Six and 1/2 years after his son disappeared, Maurice

received an anonymous letter urging

him to talk to a woman named Jean

Haslett, who had worked as a dispatcher

with the Baldwin police.

The letter led to accusations that the department,

headed by police chief Aldo Gaburri,

had mishandled Michael's case.

MARGARET HASLETT: Mr. Rosenblum showed me an anonymous letter

that he received indicating that if he contacted me,

I had information regarding the vehicle

that the Baldwin police towed.

I then told him that approximately two or three

months after the vehicle had been towed, the chief of police

ordered his clerk, Fred Capelli, to type

a letter notifying the owner of the vehicle

that it had been towed.

And the letter was backdated to February 15th,

the day after the vehicle was towed.

I didn't take this upon myself.

I was instructed to do all this.

ROBERT STACK: Fred Capelli was Chief Gaburri's clerk.

He corroborated Haslett's story.

FRED CAPELLI: Approximately May 20th,

the chief told me to type a letter in reference

to the car that was towed from River Road.

I never thought anything about it.

I did what I was told to do.

He's my boss, so I did what he told me to do,

and I didn't question it.

ROBERT STACK: Fred Capelli claims

that after he typed the letter, the chief ordered him to sign

the name of Chester Lombardi, the senior officer

at the River Road scene that day.

Lombardi has since died.

FRED CAPELLI: He had asked Chester Lombardi to sign

the letter and Chester refused to sign

it because it was backdated.

So the chief told me to go ahead and sign Chester Lombardi's

name to it, but don't mail it.

He said, put it in the file.

And that's what I did.

MARGARET HASLETT: To backdate a letter

and place it into the police files is an unusual thing.

And in the nine years that I was involved in police departments,

it was not something that I had ever witnessed before.

[typewriter sounds]

ROBERT STACK: Based on these new revelations,

Maurice wrote an angry letter to the Baldwin Borough Council,

demanding an investigation into what he thought was a cover-up.

In October 1987, the Baldwin Borough Council

held a hearing on the matter.

They dismissed Chief Gaburri for interfering

with the investigation into Michael's disappearance.

SAMUEL MCPHERSON: When he was discharged,

he appealed that to the Civil Service Commission,

and their conclusion was that the chief was not guilty.

ROBERT STACK: The Civil Service Commission

voted to reinstate Gaburri as police chief,

finding there was no misconduct.

They have never published a transcript of their hearings,

but clearly they didn't believe Fred Capelli.

Why they didn't believe me?

Because the chief had friends on that Civil Service Commission,

and they wouldn't believe me no matter what I said.

ROBERT MCFALL: There's been some innuendos made about the way it

was handled, and all I can say is this commission rendered

its decision strictly on the evidence and the testimony that

was presented at the hearing.

This matter has never totally been resolved

to satisfy anybody in law enforcement

who knows what he's doing.

MAURICE ROSENBLUM: The time that I'll

let this go is when it ends.

And it's not over yet.

It's not over.

We're getting close, but it's not over.

ROBERT STACK: Maurice Rosenblum's

persistence may have paid off.

During the search of the steep hillside

last April, a six-inch fragment of what appears to be

a human bone was discovered.

SEARCH SUPERVISOR: You want to bring it up, Paul?

MAURICE ROSENBLUM: I contended all along that something

had happened to him.

But the possibility that I might have proof in my pocket

makes you kind of sick.

ROBERT STACK: The search also turned up patches of corduroy

and a piece of shoe sole.

Both items are consistent with the pants

and boots Michael Rosenblum was wearing when last seen.

These objects were discovered above River Road,

overlooking the spot where Lisa's car was

abandoned over eight years ago.

[theme music]

Last month, we examined the strange disappearance of Rogest

Cain, the 62-year-old father of seven from Los Angeles,

California.

On February 19, 1986, Rogest Cain

told his sister that he was going

to a local hardware store.

His family never saw him again.

A month after his disappearance, Rogest's car was found.

Inside were many of his important papers,

including the deed to his property,

as well as his glasses and false teeth.

Rogest Cain's family believes he is alive

and may be suffering from some form of amnesia.

THERESA WARNER: I don't give up.

I still pray, and I'll find him somewhere one day.

I just feel it within my heart.

ROBERT STACK: Update.

Topeka, Kansas.

The night after our broadcast, police received a call

from a man who believed he recognized

Rogest Cain as a local resident named Elmer Jackson.

DET.

SGT. ED KUEHL: A caller said when

he'd seen him on TV, that he was positive it was him.

And in questioning him, that's when he come up

with the mannerisms, the fact that he had

no dentures at that time, a scar on his body, which I don't

think anybody probably knew except maybe the Los Angeles

police and the relatives.

ROBERT STACK: Acting on the caller's tip,

police attempted to locate Elmer Jackson,

only to discover he had disappeared.

Within days, Rogest Cain's son Lynn flew to Topeka

and joined the police search.

LYNN CAIN: From what I know, he's been in the area

about a year, a year and a half.

And a truck driver picked him up, decided to name him Elmer,

and gave him his last name, which was Jackson.

So he goes by Elmer Jackson.

He's been working several jobs that

are side jobs here and there, laying

bricks and things like that.

ROBERT STACK: Lynn Cain and the Topeka

police canvassed the neighborhood where

Elmer Jackson was last seen.

They passed out fliers of Rogest Cain's picture,

but were unable to locate him.

LYNN CAIN: It's been the best lead so far,

or the only lead for us up to this point.

And we were unsuccessful today, but maybe tomorrow.

or days to come.

[theme music]

ROBERT STACK: On July the 29th, 1988, a brazen daylight robbery

took place in a suburb of Palm Beach, Florida.

The thief had a key to the house.

He was highly selective and seemed

to know just what he wanted.

Not one fingerprint was left behind.

It was a quintessential inside job.

At the door, the thief paused long enough

to leave a note for his victim.

He signed it L.

[sound of door closing]

The active social life in the warm, healthy climate

of Florida make it a welcome new home

for retiring senior citizens.

Many of them are widows and divorcees who often hope

to remarry, and, in fact, love does bloom frequently

in the warm Florida sunshine.

But sometimes these widows and divorcees

become easy marks for a particularly sleazy type

of con man-- a con man who moves in on their emotions

and makes off with their cash.

MUSICIAN: OK we're going to speed it up

for you with a little shuffle.

Let's all get up and dance.

[band music playing]

On May the 20th, 1988, a widow who was asked that her identity

not be revealed went to a Friday night singles dance

at St. Mary's Church in West Palm Beach.

We will call her Mrs. K. Eligible men were not

plentiful at these dances, so when a good-looking man named

Arthur Frankford approached Mrs. K and asked her to dance,

she was flattered.

ART (IN REENACTMENT): Good evening.

MRS. K (IN REENACTMENT): Good evening.

ART (IN REENACTMENT): My name is Art Frankford.

MRS. K (IN REENACTMENT): Hello. ART (IN REENACTMENT): And yours?

MRS. K (IN REENACTMENT): Emily.

ART (IN REENACTMENT): Nice to meet you.

Would you like to have this dance?

MRS. K (IN REENACTMENT): I'd be delighted.

MRS. K: When I first saw him sitting up against the wall,

I thought he was too old.

You know it is a singles dance and you do look him over.

After he had asked me to dance, I realized he wasn't as old

as I thought he first appeared.

ROBERT STACK: Mrs. K and Arthur Frankford

danced every dance that Friday evening at St. Mary's Church.

It was the beginning of a two-month whirlwind romance.

MRS. K: From the day that I met him 'til the time that he left,

never once was I suspicious of any movement

he made, as far as to question his character, or who he was,

and that he was a liar and a thief.

ROBERT STACK: Frankford told Mrs. K he was a geologist.

He said he had worked for the government,

primarily in Alaska, and had just retired

after 21 years of service.

He told her he owned a house and several other rental properties

in nearby towns, and lived off that income in addition

to his retirement pay.

MRS. K: So one night he come home

and he said instead of renting another place for himself,

he thought it would be better if he lived here.

Once he moved in, it was great.

I would come home from work, he'd have my dinner ready.

He would do the grocery shopping.

He would make dinner.

He would clean the house.

Vacuum the house.

There was no reason to have anticipated what he did.

[music playing]

He came to the house one day with money.

It was wrapped in a plastic grocery bag.

And he said that he'd sold the house.

That he had rented it out with the option to buy.

And he asked me if I would put it away for safekeeping.

ART (IN REENACTMENT): I'd like to ask

you to put it in the safe.

MRS. K (IN REENACTMENT): It's a lot of money.

But I'd like to give you the combination so you can--

ART (IN REENACTMENT): No no no no no no no no,

don't worry about the combination, please.

MRS. K: I offered him the safe combination

because it was his money, and he refused the combination.

He said he didn't really want it.

MRS. K (IN REENACTMENT): All right.

ART (IN REENACTMENT): Thank you.

ROBERT STACK: Eventually, Arthur Frankford

did allow Mrs. K to give him the combination to her safe.

MRS. K (IN REENACTMENT): You know Art,

I'm getting very excited about--

ROBERT STACK: By the end of July,

Mrs. K and Frankford had lived together for one month,

and had settled into a comfortable domestic routine.

MRS. K: When I came home from work that night,

we started to play gin.

And during the course of the gin game,

he stopped what he was doing and he says to me--

ART (IN REENACTMENT): Emily, you really love me.

MRS. K (IN REENACTMENT): Yes I do, very much.

ART (IN REENACTMENT): Guess that means

I can get away with anything.

MRS. K: At that time, I thought he

meant the gin game, because he would like to try to cheat.

He had to win.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: The day after their card game,

Mrs. K arrived home to find the bed

she shared with Arthur unmade.

MRS. K: My bed's always made.

Either Art made it or I made it, whoever was last up.

Even then it did not appear out of the ordinary to me.

Until the time that I walked into my closet

to change my clothes and discovered all the clothes

from the closet missing.

And then I realized that he had left.

ROBERT STACK: Mrs. K was heartbroken.

On the hall table she found a note.

The note Arthur Frankford left said,

sorry things too possessive.

L, which was their code for love.

Then Mrs. K remembered giving him

the combination to her safe.

MRS. K: I didn't realize until the time that I read the note

and went back and opened the safe,

and then I discovered that I was robbed.

ROBERT STACK: Her most expensive jewelry, valued

at $4,500 dollars, was gone.

Also missing were several items that

had belonged to her late husband--

his wedding ring, handgun, work ID card, and driver's license

renewal form.

Mrs. K notified the authorities.

Took a lot of courage to call the police.

I wasn't in a hurry.

I didn't want to say it out loud to myself

that Art was who he was.

ROBERT STACK: Detective David Hoyt

came up with sordid background information

on this senior citizen Don Juan.

DET.

DAVID HOYT: Arthur Frankford was wanted for check forgery.

Also burglary to a condominium.

He was using a AKA, or Also Known As, James Ferguson.

ROBERT STACK: Police also learned that Mrs. K was not

Arthur Frankford's only victim.

The president of a senior Olympic center,

where Frankford worked for a short time,

remembers receiving telephone calls

from three women who had been conned by Arthur Frankford.

MANYA JOYCE: And they took me into their confidence,

admitting that they had invited him to live with them.

They were sexually involved with him.

And it made them very, very vulnerable, of course.

And, of course, he stole everything

he could lay his hands on when he was in their home.

[band music playing]

DET.

DAVID HOYT: Arthur Fielding Frankford

preys on the emotions of women in their late 50s, early 60s.

Often passes himself off as 65 years of age.

In reality, he is 77.

This is sort of a game to him.

And I know he's probably somewhere

else in the United States preying

on other women the same way.

ROBERT STACK: Arthur Frankford is six feet tall,

weighs about 165 pounds, and has gray hair and blue eyes.

He has been known to use the alias James Ferguson,

and may now be using the alias of Andrew Kearns,

posing as a widower from West Palm Beach.

He would have the identification papers

and wedding rings to substantiate

this false identity.

Update.

Within minutes of our broadcast, two viewers

called our 800 number to report that they

recognized Arthur Frankford.

DET.

DAVID HOYT: The individual said, I

know where Arthur Frankford is.

I'm his ex brother-in-law.

My name's Floyd Meadows.

I asked him if he had ever seen this Arthur Frankford do magic.

He said, yes he did, and he does it very well.

This is one of the keys that I never

released to the press or any other medium,

that Arthur Frankford does magic.

We received another call about 20 minutes later

from a white female says, Arthur Frankford lives next door

to me in Whitley, Kentucky.

This was the confirmation call that I was looking for.

At that time I knew we had our man.

ROBERT STACK: Two hours later, Frankford

was arrested at his home in Kentucky

by the McCreary County sheriff and Kentucky state troopers.

He was living under the assumed name James Ferguson

with his new wife of two months.

During a search of Frankford's house,

police uncovered several identification and credit

cards with different aliases.

They also found a handgun that may have

been stolen from Mrs. K's home.

DET.

DAVID HOYT: We got other calls from women that say,

yes I've been married to this man.

I've divorced him.

He's left me holding the bag.

And what I need is for the people

that had been victimized by Arthur Frankford

to come forward.

It's time for the public to stand up and say,

hey, we've had enough of Arthur Frankford.

This man has preyed on the public long enough.

[theme music]

For every mystery, there is someone

somewhere who knows the truth.

Perhaps that someone is watching.

Perhaps it's you.

[theme music]