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.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Tonight

on "Unsolved Mysteries," 18-year-old Lisa

Marie Kimmel was brutally stabbed in Casper, Wyoming.

Yet for weeks after police believe she was murdered,

hundreds of people across the Western United States

claim they saw Lisa or her car.

For over a hundred years, fortune hunters

have tried to find Arizona's Lost Dutchman Mine.

Many men have died trying.

Today the gold could be worth over $200 million.

Also a story of love and murder in a remote Louisiana bayou.

And illicit romance led to one man's death and a young woman's

mysterious disappearance.

From a murder discovered in the swamps of Louisiana through

a treasure lost in an Arizona mountain range,

our stories have one thing in common--

as yet, there is no solution.

Perhaps you can help.

Join me.

You may be able to help solve a mystery.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): On a little-used suspension bridge

outside Casper, Wyoming, residents

reported seeing unexplained lights in the early morning

hours of March the 26th, 1988.

Police theorize that an unknown assailant, operating

under cover of darkness, brought his victim, a young girl of 18,

to the bridge.

After stabbing her repeatedly, he

threw her into the chill waters of the North Platte River.

The victim was later identified as Lisa Marie

Kimmel from Billings, Montana.

She had been sexually assaulted prior to being killed,

in a manner that suggested some kind of bizarre torture.

The savage nature of Lisa's murder

is not the only perplexing aspect of this case.

Lisa was last seen alive the night of March the 25th.

Police believe that she was killed

a few hours later in the early morning of March the 26th.

But what complicates the investigation

is that nearly 1,000 people claim they saw Lisa Marie

Kimmel or her car during a week when police

believe she was already dead.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Lisa was 18 years old

and worked as a manager at a fast food

restaurant in Denver, Colorado.

On March the 25th, she left town and headed for Cody, Wyoming

to visit her boyfriend.

Lisa's car, a black 1988 Honda CRX SI,

carried the spunky license plate Lil Miss.

The plan was that she was supposed to leave Denver

and, some time after work, and get to Cody to see

me sometime late that evening.

I talked to her about 4:30.

And she was going to be leaving in about a half hour,

that she'd be in about midnight or something like that.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): From Denver,

Lisa had planned to travel to Casper, Wyoming

on Interstate 25.

From Casper she would take a two lane road

to Ed Jaroch's house in Cody.

After spending the night there, she

planned to go on to Billings, Montana to visit her parents.

Weather conditions were good, so Lisa should have made the trip

to Cody in eight or nine hours, arriving at Ed's

house late Friday night.

However at 7 o'clock Saturday morning,

she still had not arrived.

Ed Jaroch frantically telephoned the highway patrols

in three states.

Two days later, the Wyoming Highway Patrol

reported they had stopped Lisa for speeding

about 60 miles south of Casper on March 25,

the night she disappeared.

It was nearly 9:00 PM Friday night, four hours

after Lisa had left Denver.

She was right on schedule.

I was patrolling southbound on March 25.

I 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 Moran Junction.

Good evening miss.

May I see your driver's license?

ALAN LESCO (VOICEOVER): She was well-kept,

driving a nice car, kind of person you'd

like to have for a daughter.

OK Miss Kimmel, I had you on my radar

back there at 88 miles an hour.

Is there any particular reason for your speed?

I'm trying to hurry to Billings.

I've got a friend who's going in for surgery.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): This was the last confirmed sighting

of Lisa.

Her signature on the citation and a routine voice recording

the policeman made verify that it

was definitely Lisa Marie Kimmel who was stopped that night.

As the week went on, we realized

the gravity of the situation.

We knew that the outlook was looking a little grim.

But even at that, even if the outcome wasn't as we'd hoped,

we still needed to find her.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): On April

the 2nd, one week after she disappeared,

Greg Bradford, a mechanic who was spending

his Saturday fishing, brought the search for Lisa Marie

to a sad end.

GREG BRADFORD: When I came up to just about

this spot right here, and I got a real bad feeling

something was wrong.

I felt that somebody died or somebody was hurt real bad.

It just kept coming over me.

I couldn't shake it.

So I just stepped up.

When I stepped up off the side of the bank,

I looked over my shoulder and I saw the lady in the water.

I knew it was a lady in the water,

but your mind tells you it's not true, you know, it's not real.

And then I remember, when we were driving up from Cheyenne,

they said this young girl was missing from Montana.

So, I looked again and I said, "Oh my God, it must be her."

When we went out there, the physical description

matched Lisa.

But at that point, because of the condition of the body,

we weren't sure until we'd gotten her out of the water.

We're not sure, at this point, whether the body

was placed in the river sometime on the 25th of the 26th.

The body just didn't show any signs of decomposition

because it was so cold.

There was some stab wounds in the chest area.

She was sexually assaulted.

She was found nearly nude, but not quite.

They made stab wounds in such a manner that we feel are unique.

And I can't tell you how they were done to the body,

but it would lead 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.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Police scouted the area where

Lisa's body was discovered.

On an old highway bridge one quarter of a mile away,

they found blood which was the same

type as Lisa Marie Kimmel's.

Because the bridge is so inaccessible

and so seldom used, police believe the murderer

may be someone local.

Based on the eyewitness accounts of unexplained lights

on the bridge and an analysis of other evidence,

police believe the time of Lisa's murder

is the early morning of Saturday, Match the 26th,

approximately five hours after she was stopped for speeding.

Strangely, the next seven days, hundreds of sightings of Lisa

and her car, many of them involving

an unknown male companion, were reported

throughout the Northwestern United States and Canada.

Up until this date we've had over a thousand

sightings of this vehicle, a lot of them

from law enforcement officers.

But there's no pattern to them.

That's the unfortunate part.

There's no direction of travel.

They went south.

They went to the north.

They went to the west.

They just were everywhere.

And we were deluged with them at the point

that we thought they had gone to Canada.

We had some sightings in Canada.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Composites

were made of at least 17 men, but none of them

seemed to resemble one another closely enough to justify

issuing a wanted poster.

Three of these sightings believed to be among the most

reliable were reported on the 26th and 27th

of March, after police believe Lisa Marie

had already been murdered.

One of them was in Casper, just 20 minutes

drive away from the place her body was found.

The other two sightings were in Buffalo, Wyoming,

two hours drive outside Casper.

In none of the three sightings did Lisa appear

to be signaling for help.

The Casper sighting occurred on Sunday,

March the 27th, two days after Lisa

had been stopped for speeding.

Diana Houston was driving a van through the downtown area

of Caspar when she noticed the personalized Lil Miss license

plates, because her roommate owned

a puppy with the same name.

DIANA HOUSTON (VOICEOVER): It was Sunday afternoon,

about a quarter to 2:00.

And I saw a Montana license plate on a vehicle.

And being from Montana, it got my eyes.

So I looked.

And the license plate said Lil Miss.

I went by.

I saw somebody with blond hair driving

an had on a yellow sweater.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): 22 Hours

earlier, Donna Kirkpatrick, the County Sheriff's wife

in Buffalo, reported that she had seen

Lisa wearing a pink sweater.

DONNA KIRKPATRICK: Well it was Saturday at noon.

And I noticed a little black sports car had pulled

out right in front of me.

And then I noticed the license plate.

It was a Montana license plate with Lil Miss on it,

L-I-L M-I-S-S. And at that point I decided that I needed

to see who was driving the car.

I was most interested to see if the car went

with whoever was driving it.

I am absolutely positive there was a young gal driving it.

I know the license plate.

I know Montana license plates.

I saw the plate on that car at that time on that day.

And there's not a doubt in my mind.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Curiously, Lisa's parents

are not sure that she ever owned either a yellow

or a pink sweater.

And the highway patrolman who stopped her for speeding,

the last person to have verifiable evidence that he saw

Lisa alive, remembers that she was wearing

a black and white sweater.

Could Lisa have changed her clothes?

Or do the eyewitnesses see another young woman

who resembled Lisa?

Two hours after Donna Kirkpatrick saw Lisa,

another eyewitness also saw her in Buffalo.

This time, a mysterious man was with Lisa.

WITNESS (VOICEOVER): I was busy at the register.

But a car pulled up.

And they said Lil Miss on the Montana license plates

on the front of it.

And there were two people in the vehicle.

There was a very attractive young lady at the wheel.

The individual that was with here was a small man,

I would say 135 to 140 pounds.

Dark hair, dark eyes, rather large eyes.

And he had very fine features.

It wasn't button nosed or anything like that.

They were aquiline, I think, is the word that the poets use.

And he was swarthy complected.

And he was small.

He fit into the car.

He didn't look out of place or anything like that.

A few minutes later when I turned and looked again,

the car had gone.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): If the three sightings of Lisa

Marie Kimmel are reliable, they raise

some disturbing questions.

Was Lisa killed as the police think

she was, during the early morning hours of March

the 26th?

If she was, who was the woman seen driving Lisa's

car in Casper in Buffalo?

If Lisa was not killed on the 26th,

why was she in Buffalo, more than two hours off the course

of her planned journey?

And if she was in jeopardy, why did she not signal

for help when she was sighted?

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Next, the story of the legendary Lost

Dutchman Mine.

The clues are scarce.

The stakes are high-- millions of dollars in gold.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The Superstition

Mountains in Arizona cover 160,000 acres

of desolate, rugged terrain.

According to legend, these mountains

contain the richest deposits of gold

in America, the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine.

There are hundreds of stories hinting at its location.

But they're all tied to one man, a German prospector

named Jacob Waltz, who was said to have

discovered the mine in 1876.

His nickname was The Dutchman.

TOM KOLLENBORN: Jacob Waltz was a student of mining,

and he knew what he was doing.

The old timers were very, very astute to the fact of geology.

They knew what they were looking for.

If you're going to go out in these mountains anywhere

and look for gold, you really want to go to places

where gold has been found.

The Superstitions would be an exception.

You wouldn't go in there.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Waltz was one of the few

who was prepared to prospect in unpromising locations.

And apparently, he was rewarded.

15 Years later in 1881, when Jacob Waltz was 80 years old,

he decided to hide his mine.

He is said to have dug a hole six feet deep at the entrance

to the mine.

He then laid in two sold layers of ironwood logs,

filled the hole with dirt, and topped it with stones

from the surrounding area.

The Dutchman bragged that you could

drive a pack train over the entrance to the mine

and never know it was there.

For over 100 years, fortune hunters have searched for Jacob

Waltz's hidden treasure trove.

Several months after Waltz hid the mine,

he contracted pneumonia and was taken to the home of a friend,

Julia Thomas in Phoenix.

She tried to nurse Jacob back to health.

Before Jacob was died, he told them

that there was gold from the mine stashed under his bed.

Well I don't understand.

And he said that's what I've been living on all these years.

He took out the box.

They opened it.

And their comment was, "My God, that's rich.

It's got to be just a pocket."

And he said, "No, it isn't."

He said, "It's a vein."

He said, "There's enough in sight

to make millionaires out of 20 men."

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): As his end drew near,

The Dutchman gave Julia and Rhinehart

Petrasch a local miner, clues to the location of the mine.

Take the old-- the old northwest corner

of the Superstition Mountains.

Take-- take the trail in.

And he left a number of clues, but several times he

said, "I've almost got to show you where it is

or you'll never find it, because you've got

to know exactly where it is."

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Waltz died

before he could give them a map that showed

exactly where the mine lay.

Even though there are hundreds of maps in existence today,

none of them came from Jacob Waltz.

The only direction that Julia and the Petrasch brothers

had when they ventured into the mountains

were the verbal cues Waltz had given on his deathbed.

CLAY WORST (VOICEOVER): He said, "The setting

sun shines into the entrance to my mine

and glitters on the gold."

So it must have faced to the west.

He said, "You take the first gorge

on the south side from the west end of the range."

He said that "you can see Weavers Needle to the south

from above my mine."

Julia and the Petrasches were so anxious to get

in the mountains, they actually went in mid-summer

when the mountains were hotter than hell in a [inaudible].

And it must have been a real ordeal, for all of them.

They went in there for almost five weeks.

They came out without any gold.

And this was noted in "The Arizona Republican" in 1892.

In fact they called it "a queer quest" in search of gold.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Julia had invested

everything she owned into this expedition,

but she returned penniless.

Julia Thomas never attempted to return to the Superstition

Mountains again.

Rhinehart Petrasch was accused by his brother Herman of not

paying attention at Jacob's bedside,

writing the clues down incorrectly.

They never spoke again.

Rhinehart continued to search sporadically

over the next 50 years.

When his eyesight began to fail, Rhinehart

realized he would never find the mine and took his own life.

For over a century, treasure hunters

have occasionally claimed that they have

clues to Waltz's lost mine.

And a few of them may even have found it.

But curiously, they all died before they

could tell their tale.

When we return, the story of Walt

Gassler, who five years ago claimed he'd found the mine.

On his last trip to the mountains,

he lost his life before he could reveal his secret location.

The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine is

one of the greatest living legends

of the American Southwest.

Some people say that it's just that, a legend.

On the other hand, government studies

indicate that there's a large quantity of gold located

somewhere in the Superstitions.

It is said that this matchbox was made

from the high grade ore that Jacob Waltz had

in his possession when he died.

The ore is so rich that if the mine were found today,

it could be worth over $200 million.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Almost 100 years

later, a modern day treasure hunter

claimed he had found the mine.

His name was Walt Gassler, head chef at the Biltmore

Hotel in Phoenix.

Using clues handed down from Jacob's deathbed description,

Gassler has spent most of his free time

looking for the famous ore.

- Bob Corbin Walt. - Walt Gassler.

Nice to meet you. Have a seat.

Thank you.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): When his health began to fail,

he contacted two other prospectors.

What you got?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): One of them

was Bob Corbin, the attorney general of Arizona.

This is a map to the area where I have my camp.

BOB CORBIN (VOICEOVER): He wanted to get together with me

so that we could perhaps go with him

and continue looking for the mine with his directions

after he had died.

And he gave me his notes, as well as

a map as to where his camp was and where

he believed the mine to be.

That's a good location.

It could be there.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Two months later,

Gassler called Bob's partner, Tom

Kollenborn, a local historian.

Gassler was excited and claimed that he had finally

located The Dutchman's mine.

TOM KOLLENBORN (VOICEOVER): Walt Gassler

call me on Sunday evening.

He said, "I'm going to the mine.

I know exactly where it is.

You and Corbin have to go."

I just can't possibly break away in the morning.

I could if you'd just give me a little bit of notice.

I'd sure want to go in with you.

TOM KOLLENBORN (VOICEOVER): He said,

no, I can't wait any longer.

I'm going to to it.

And I'll-- I'll-- I'll see you when I get back.

But I'm leaving in the morning.

TOM KOLLENBORN (VOICEOVER): Walt Gassler

was convinced that the mine existed from the clues

that he had.

Some of those clues he would not reveal.

And the next morning, his wife took him out to the trail

and dropped him off.

See you in three days.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Walt hiked

alone into the Superstitions, never to be seen alive again.

Three days later he was found dead by ranch hand Don Shade.

An autopsy proved he had died of a heart attack.

I don't have a license to talk like a coroner.

I thought he was dead, probably, two to three days.

He looked to me like a nice little old man

that found a lovely place to give up the ghost.

- Tom Kollenborn? - Yes?

I'm Roland Gassler.

How are you doing Roland?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): One month after Walt's death,

Tom Kollenborn had a surprising visitor.

TOM KOLLENORN (VOICEOVER): This man came over to my house.

And he said he was Roland Gassler, Walt Gassler's son.

And we were talking a few minutes.

And he said, "Well, you know my dad found The Lost Dutchman's

in the Superstitions.

And he got out a piece of gold, showed it to me.

Boy, that stuff really looks good.

TOM KOLLENBORN (VOICEOVER): It looked

very similar to the gold that allegedly

came out of The Dutchman Mine.

Where'd this come from?

Came right straight out of my dad's backpack.

Bob Corbin told me that you had a map that belonged to my dad.

I wonder if you'd let me have that?

TOM KOLLENBORN: Well I don't have the map anymore Roland.

But I do have your dad's manuscript.

Yes, that is my dad's.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Apparently Walt

really had found the lost mine.

And his son Roland planned to use the map

and notes to retrace his father's steps.

Well I knew that you'd be interested,

and I want to thank you for being cooperative on this.

OK. Well, all right.

- Well, see you later. - OK, bye.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Two months

later as Tom was finishing a slide lecture,

he was approached by another stranger who claimed he

was Roland Gassler, Walt's son.

Mr. Kollenborn?

Yes?

Hi, I'm Roland Gassler.

I've been wanting to meet you for a long time now.

Well I've sure met several Roland Gasslers lately.

Walt Gassler--

TOM KOLLENBORN (VOICEOVER): And I think my jaw

dropped 10 foot to the ground.

It wasn't the same guy.

I said, "I oughta ask you for a driver's license or something."

I said, "You're the second Roland

Gassler I run into in the last couple of months."

Sure looks like you're Roland Gassler.

Yes sir.

After meeting two Roland Gasslers,

I wondered who was really Roland Gassler?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Who was the first man who

claimed to be Roland Gassler?

It appeared that he was an imposter who needed Walt's map

so he could search for himself.

But how had he gotten hold of the gold ore sample?

It came right straight out of--

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): When Walt died,

the sheriff's report listed a backpack

among Walt's belongings.

But the real Roland Gassler never received.

Don Shade, the man who found Walt's body,

also remembered seeing the backpack.

And he said that there was a stranger in the area.

DON SHADE (VOICEOVER): There was another man

in the area at the time.

When Tom Kollenborn later gave us a description of the man

that came to him and showed him some gold,

it jibed up with a man that we saw in here.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Some believe that the fake Roland

Gassler may have been in the mountains when Walt died,

and stolen the backpack with his precious ore.

I'd like to belief Walt found it.

He spent so many years looking for it.

And the last thing he would have done in his life before he died

would have found the mine.

I'd like to believe that.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): When Jacob Waltz died,

he left a trunk of ore, a list of clues,

and a legend of lost treasure which has captured the dreams

of three generations.

I have good reason to believe that The Dutchman's

legend could be true.

I've seen the ore that was under his bed when he died.

I've seen the assay report on it at a jewelry store in Phoenix

which did exist at that time.

And at today's gold prices, that ore would be

worth over $2.2 million a ton.

It's the richest gold ore I've ever seen in my life,

and I've seen a lot of gold ore.

This could have been Gassler's trick in the trail,

because he's been up here on--

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The Department of the Interior

reclassified the Superstition Mountains as a federally

owned wilderness area.

And if the mine were found, all the gold would have to be

surrendered to the government.

But this does not deter Tom Kollenborn and Bob Corbin.

For them, the search for the Lost Dutchman Mine

is a fascinating mystery and a tradition

that keeps alive one of the most enduring legends

of the American Southwest.

In a moment, the story of two lovers who

met secretly deep in the swamps of Louisiana.

30 years ago, their illicit romance ended in murder.

[gun shot]

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The Louisiana bayou country--

surrounded by human swampland lies Lake Pontchartrain,

just west of New Orleans.

November 24, 1956, at 9:00 AM on a chill Saturday morning,

a local hunter and his young son unintentionally

surprised a pair of lovebirds in an isolated

area known as Frenier Beach.

What are they doing Daddy?

Never you mind.

Let's go.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The next morning,

the two passed by the same spot and made a grisly discovery.

The man they had surprised the day

before lay dead of a gunshot wound

in the front seat of the car.

The woman was nowhere to be seen.

The victim was identified as Thomas

Hotard, a 46-year-old engineer from nearby Laplace.

Authorities later determined that the woman who

had been with him the day before was 31-year-old Audrey Moate,

a divorced mother of three.

She has not been seen for 32 years.

JACK DEMPSEY: This was probably the largest

case that ever hit the area.

It was all over New Orleans.

It was all over Baton Rouge.

Everybody was talking about, and they all wanted

to know, where's the woman?

Where did she disappear?

Why did you disappear?

Did they kill her?

Did they bury her body?

Did they throw her in a lake?

Three months before this happened,

my mother told my grandmother that "if anything happens

to me, take the kids and get as far away from here

as possible."

Why would a 30-year-old-- 31-year-old woman

in 1956 in a environmentally crime-free area say this?

Three decades ago, the case of Thomas Hotard and Audrey Moate

was one of the most publicized and sensational stories

in modern Louisiana history.

The case still provokes discussions

among the old timers in the area.

Most of those involved in the initial investigation

have since passed away, but the mystery

of the incident at Frenier Beach has remained

to baffle the next generation.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The newspaper obituaries in 1956

described Thomas Hotard as a quiet, hardworking family man,

active in the church and with the Boy Scouts.

He worked for a local chemical company.

It was here in 1952 that he met Audrey Moate.

Audrey was originally divorced mother

15 years younger than Hotard.

In addition to their work, the two

shared an interest in scouting.

They were often seen together in town organizing

their troop's activities.

DEKKI MOATE: My mother was a woman

that was way ahead of her time.

She was a single parent in '56, and she

was a kind of woman that was very loving, very giving.

Perhaps she's the best friend I ever had.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Even though Thomas was married,

he and Audrey fell in love.

But their romance was a deeply held secret.

Audrey told her family that she had to work every Saturday,

but it was a lie.

For two years Thomas Hotard kept the same schedule,

telling his wife that he too was working on Saturday.

Unbeknownst to both their families,

Hotard and Audrey spent these stolen days together.

Good now.

Where have you been?

DEKKI MOATE: I remember, we used to go on picnics together.

He taught me how to develop film.

He was there on my birthdays.

I thought they were friends.

I didn't realize they were lovers.

I found out later when I read the newspaper accounts.

But I just thought they were friends.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): On Saturday, November 25

Thomas and Audrey met in the plaza around 7:30 AM, then

drove together to their secluded lover's lane

at the edge of Lake Pontchartrain.

[music playing]

(SINGING) Speed and slow.

Rock a body to and fro.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Ironically, that Saturday

was Audrey's birthday.

It was a special day.

And it was to end in tragedy.

Police later estimated that by morning's end,

Thomas Hotard had been shot to death,

and Audrey Moate had vanished, apparently forever.

(SINGING) Oh honey, finally we can make it

if we take it sweet and slow.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): When the hunter

made his grim discovery the next morning,

he went straight to Percy Hebert, the sheriff of St. John

the Baptist Parish.

Hebert was the first to arrive at the scene.

Hotard had been killed by a single shot

from the 16 gauge shotgun, fired at point blank range

through a side window.

At first Sheriff Hebert thought that the missing

woman had probably killed Hotard in a lover's spat.

However, once he began to investigate the crime scene,

he made some unusual discoveries.

Scattered on the ground were the partial contents

of a woman's purse.

Inside the car he found the car keys still in the ignition,

and women's clothes crumpled on the floorboard.

From the articles of clothing that were found in the car,

the only thing she could have been wearing

was a bra and a slip.

Her sweater, her underwear, her stockings, her shoes, skirt,

all of that was in the car.

The car had the bed made down in it.

In other words, it was one of those old Nashes that had a bed

that could be folded down.

The evidence indicates that they were

probably in the act of making love when the murder occurred.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): It appeared that the woman had

tried to flee, spilling the contents of her purse

in the process.

50 yards from Hotard's car, Hebert found

a pair of footprints made by small bare feet,

probably Audrey's.

Just behind them was a print of a man's heavy boot.

Five feet away was an area where it appeared

a scuffle had taken place, and a set of car keys was discovered.

There was no other physical evidence, and no indication

that the murderer had an accomplice.

Significantly, the woman's purse itself was never found.

It was not until 10 hours later that the authorities

decided the missing woman definitely was Audrey Moate.

At 7:30 that same Saturday night, Sheriff Hebert

found Audrey's car parked next to the cafe

where she had met Hotard.

The keys found at the crime scene fit the ignition.

In a box on the back seat, he found the verses of a song

from a musical, "The King and I," hand-written

by Audrey on a small file card.

It read like an obituary for her secret, lost love affair.

We kissed in the shadows.

We hide from the moon.

Our meetings are few and over too soon.

We speak in whispers, afraid to be heard.

When people are near, we speak not a word.

JACK DEMPSEY: This was quite a scandal.

It was quite a shock to this sleepy little town of Laplace

back in 1956.

Everybody was buzzing, was talking about it.

They all had their own theory of what happened.

They all had idea of who could have committed the murder.

They all had an idea of where Audrey Moate was.

And they all wanted to help the sheriff

because they saw a woman answering that description

going door to door.

And all kinds of confusion, believe me.

Confusion reigned supreme about that time.

[phone ringing]

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): On December 6,

two weeks after the disappearance,

Audrey's former mother-in-law received a strange phone call.

Perhaps Audrey was still alive.

Hello?

WOMAN (ON PHONE): Mom?

Audrey?

WOMAN (ON PHONE): Mom, I'm in trouble.

Audrey, is that you?

WOMAN (ON PHONE): I need help.

Audrey?

Audrey?

Audrey?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Then a waitress

in New Orleans reported that she had seen Audrey

in her restaurant around the same time

that Mrs. Moate received the phone call.

Here you go.

Will be there anything else hun?

No.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The waitress

said she recognized Audrey from seeing

her picture in the paper.

Audrey appeared to be very tired and her clothes were shabby.

Audrey then left the restaurant when she realized

the waitress was watching her.

This is the last reported sighting of Audrey Moate.

DEKKI MOATE: I couldn't let myself believe she was gone.

I kept thinking she'd walk through the door.

I couldn't relate to Mr. Hotard being dead, at all.

That didn't register.

But my mother not coming back, I-- I thought

everyone was lying to me.

I just couldn't accept it.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): As the years went by,

the sensational story slipped slowly from the headlines,

and eventually disappeared from the newspapers.

The murder of Thomas Hotard and the disappearance of Audrey

Moate soon became an obscure footnote in Louisiana folklore,

until the case was suddenly revived

more than 20 years later.

In 1980, a sick and ailing old man

told his family that he knew what happened to Audrey Moate.

You remember that Hotard fellow, what got killed

in the swamp, that big search for everybody, looking around,

never did find out who killed him, and that Moate women,

what they never found?

There ain't nothing in that swamp

that goes on that I don't know.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Several months before he die,

Ernst Acosta made a startling confession.

He claimed that his common law wife at the time, Caroline

Schlesser had murdered both Thomas Hotard and Audrey Moate,

and that he had helped dispose of the bodies.

And they were aggravating her.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Caroline died in 1979.

And it was Caroline who had shot both those two.

[train whistle]

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Acosta and Schlesser

lived on the edge of the swamp, less than a mile from

the Frenier Beach murder site.

Both had surly reputations.

And Acosta was known to sit in his front yard

and take pot shots at any passers-by that

strayed too close to the house.

MARVILLE CARONNA: My father was a very mean person.

He had no respect for nobody.

And if you would come up to him and ask him anything,

he wouldn't answer you.

He would grab the gun, show it to you, and then tell you,

"What the hell you want?"

And then if he didn't like what you wanted, or what you said,

he would tell you, "Hit the road Jack."

Caroline was in the same manner.

She slept with a gun underneath her pillow at all times.

And she was another person that the gun would come first.

I always go in town--

MARVILLE CARONNA (VOICEOVER): She would ask questions later.

Because next week I don't want them kids here.

I don't want them around.

I don't want them underfoot.

ERNST ACOSTA: You don't want them kids here next week?

No, I don't want them.

MARVILLE CARONNA (VOICEOVER): They were the perfect pair.

They were two of a kind.

And they loved guns.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Marville Caronna

claims to know of at least two occasions

where Hotard and Audrey came to the house.

Both times they apparently argued with Caroline,

but no one knows why.

MARVILLE CARONNA (VOICEOVER): My father

said that they knew something about Mrs. Caroline Schlesser.

What you want here Hotard?

We don't want any trouble.

MARVILLE CARONNA (VOICEOVER): What they knew, I do not know.

We ain't go nothing to talk about boy.

THOMAS HOTARD: Now Miss Caroline--

MARVILLE CARONNA (VOICEOVER): According to him,

Mrs. Moate was related to Mrs. Schlesser some kind of way.

All right, make sure.

This is the last time boy.

Come on.

And you better watch your manners.

And don't talk that trash talk in my house.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The night

before the body was found, Marville says her father

was away visiting his children.

Apparently Caroline phoned him, and he rushed home.

[wolf howl]

Acosta told his daughter that both Hotard

and Moate had actually been killed

by Caroline in the house.

He claimed that he and a neighbor

carried Hotard's body back to Frenier Beach

and placed it in the car.

They then tied Audrey's body to an old Civil War cannon

and dumped it in the swamp.

DEKKI MOATE (VOICEOVER): I told him,

I said "Daddy, how could you all have

killed Mrs. Moate and Mr. Hotard?",

because Mr. Hotard was killed in the car.

He said, "Believe what you want to believe.

I'm telling you what happened."

I brought Miss Caronna to the sheriff's office,

and she was given a lie detector test on everything

that she said.

And she passed it.

It said that she was telling the truth.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Wayne Norwood

joined the sheriff's department of St. John the Baptist Parish

in 1983.

He heard about the Hotard-Moate case

and became intrigued by it.

For the past five years, he has conducted an unofficial

investigation on his own time.

Right on the other side of the track right

at the edge of the swamp is where the old Acosta

house used to be.

And according to Miss Marville, about where you see

the big cypress stump is about where the cannon used to sit.

And we hope to go back in there a little

later on when the water goes down and do some more diving.

Hopefully we'll find something then.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Wayne Norwood

is convinced Audrey's body was indeed thrown into the swamp

tied to a cannon.

And he has combed the area with a metal detector.

But he believes Acosta may have worked the truth

when he told his daughter the other crucial details

of that night.

WAYNE NORWOOD: Mr. Acosta said that his wife

had actually done the killing and that he

had helped hide the body.

But this is one of the things that I disagree with.

I think that this was his way of telling what had happened

but not letting the kids know that he

actually did the murder, just relieving his conscience.

I think this was his way of doing it.

I would imagine since he watched the area back there real close

and he run hunters off all the time

that he had to know what was going on because people had

seen this automobile, and a man and woman,

park back there every Saturday just like clockwork.

My theory is that he had been watching them.

And this particular time that he was watching them,

and probably got excited.

And I think it was a sex crime.

It had to be sheer panic.

It had to be intense fear.

I mean, to watch your lover get his head blown off,

and then fear for your own life, I'm sure.

WAYNE NORWOOD: He only lived about a mile

from the murder scene.

There were no tire marks, according to the investigation.

And, he only had to take her about a mile to the house.

So this would be why there was no tracks

and a quick disappearance.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The scene

of the crime has changed considerably

since that tragic Saturday morning in 1956.

The actual spot where Thomas Hotard died is now 100 yards

offshore, reclaimed by the waters of Lake Pontchartrain.

And Audrey Moate?

Her fate remains a mystery hidden in the murky

swamp surrounding the lake.

DEKKI MOATE (VOICEOVER): I think it's always

going to be in the back of my mind, in my heart,

to want to know what happened.

I hope that whatever happened, that it

was correct, that she didn't suffer,

that she wasn't put through a lot.

But I need to know.

For every mystery there is someone,

somewhere who knows the truth.

Perhaps that someone was watching.

Perhaps it's you.

[music playing]