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: One rainy night in upstate New York,

16-year-old Kari Lynn Nixon, ran an errand to a nearby store.

Only 200 yards from her front door,

she mysteriously vanished.

That same summer, Kari Lynn was spotted in South Carolina.

But by the time her parents arrived, she was gone.

In 1937, a man named Doc Noss, explored

secret underground caverns in a New Mexico mountain called,

Victorio Peak.

He claimed to have found 79 skeletons and a vast treasure

of gold rare coins and jewels.

Many believe that the treasure still exists and today

may be worth nearly $2 billion.

In the winter of 1985, Dexter Stefonek

embarked on a long trip from his son's farm in Oregon

to his home in Wisconsin.

At a desolate Montana rest stop, police discovered Dexter's car

torched by an arsonist.

Dexter had vanished.

Tonight's cases feature ordinary people

thrust into a vortex of mystery, heartbreak, and intrigue.

Each one is searching for that vital clue,

to end a story that so far has no ending.

Perhaps you can help.

Join me, you may be able to help solve a mystery.

[theme music]

Buried treasure, the very words have a mythic ring.

And such cases are usually a fascinating mixture

of truth and fiction, fantasy and reality.

Tonight, the legend of a vast treasure

buried in underground caverns beneath a New Mexico mountain.

Today, that treasure may be worth nearly $2 billion.

People say it was discovered more than 50 years ago

by a man named Doc Noss, and his wife

Babe, who stood by him even though some

thought he was a con man.

Babe died in 1979.

But part of our story tonight is a previously

untelevised interview with her.

Graciously made available by her family.

Is the treasure that Babe and Doc Noss

discovered an elaborate scam?

Or is it real?

You, be the judge.

White Sands, New Mexico, 100,000 acres

in the desolate embryo basin.

It is an inhospitable environment,

home only to rattlesnakes and sagebrush,

vultures and mule deer.

In November of 1937, a man named Doc

Noss was deer hunting there.

He hiked to the top of a hill known as Victorio Peak.

BABE NOSS: The women stayed at camp

and the men went out for deer.

And so in that first day hunt, Doc was up on a mountain

to see if he could find any springs or anything.

And he discovered an entrance to something.

He lifted up a rock that was covering this

and there was a big puff of air hit him right in the face.

But he'd found something-- somebodies

old mine or something there, but he didn't know what it was.

ROBERT STACK: Inside the opening was a crude ladder.

When Doc Noss inched his way down,

step by step into the mountain, he uncovered

a vast unexplored labyrinth.

He went deeper and deeper.

Narrow, winding tunnels led into a vaulted cavern.

In one chamber of the cavern, Doc found an old chest.

On the lid were the words, sealed silver,

written in Old English script.

This chest was only the tip of an iceberg.

The entire treasure is today estimated

to be worth $1.7 billion.

Even now, more than 50 years later,

it may still be hidden beneath the craggy slopes

of Victorio Peak.

Doc Noss had been a traveling medicine show man.

In 1933, he married Ova Beckwith,

whom he nicknamed Babe.

They settled down and opened a foot clinic

in Hot Springs, New Mexico.

TERRY DELONAS: Doc was my grandfather.

And I've heard incredible stories about him

all of my life.

He loved adventure and was fascinated with history.

Babe was very strong willed, an ardent,

might be a word to describe her.

She was loving, very generous, and absolutely enamored

with Doc.

There it is.

Yeah.

ROBERT STACK: From the moment Doc discovered the treasure

at Victorio Peak, he and Babe spent every free moment

exploring the tunnels that led deep inside the mountain.

You be careful down in there.

Yeah.

I'm going down in and you keep a close eye out here.

ROBERT STACK: Doc found that the passageways in the mountain

lead to several caverns.

And in one of them, he found 79 human skeleton

stacked in a small enclosure.

In another cave, Doc found amazing riches, jewels,

coins, and priceless artifacts.

TERRY DELONAS: He described three huge, oval top chests

that he opened.

He brought a couple of swords and knives out.

BABE NOSS: He brought out a crown.

And I cleaned it up in my sink in town.

There were 243 diamonds and one pigeon

blood ruby in this crown.

ROBERT STACK: In a deeper cavern,

Doc found what appeared to be a stack of worthless iron bars.

BABE NOSS: This must have been in the Spring of 39'.

I asked him to bring out a bar of that pig-iron

that he was telling me about.

And he said it was too heavy, too hard to get out of there.

But he found a small one and he brought it out.

And he said, this is the last one of them babies

I'm going to bring it out.

Here it is, Babe.

Watch it, it's heavy.

Heavy?

Pig-iron?

Well Doc, that is heavy.

BABE NOSS: When I rolled it over I seen

it was shiny where you hit the gravel.

And I said, well Doc, this is yellow, look at it.

And he looked at that and the sun was right at the right hour

to shine right down on it.

And he rubbed his head and he said, well Babe,

if that's gold, and all that other is gold like it,

we can call John D. Rockefeller a tramp.

ROBERT STACK: Doc told Babe that inside the cavern

there were as many as 16,000 bars of gold.

How had this enormous treasure come

to be deep inside the caverns of Victorio Peak?

There are four theories.

It could have belonged to Juan de Onate, the man who founded

New Mexico as a Spanish colony.

Reportedly, de Onate had amassed an Aztec treasure

of gold, silver, and jewels.

Another theory is that a Catholic missionary named

Father LaRue, who operated gold mines

near Victorio Peak in 1797 and stored his gold in a cavern

there.

Doc's treasure could have belonged

to Maximilian, the Emperor of Mexico in the 1860s.

He attempted to get his wealth out of Mexico when he learned

of an assassination plot.

And legend says, he sent a palace full of valuables

to the United States.

A final theory is that the treasure belonged to an Apache

tribe which had raided stagecoaches

carrying California mined gold.

In the spring of 1938, six months after Doc Noss

had made his discovery, he and Babe went to Santa Fe

to establish legal ownership of his find.

How do?

Good afternoon.

Could I help you, sir?

Yeah.

We need some information on filing a claim.

- Just what type of claim? - Mining.

Mining.

OK.

Now just whereabouts do you need this claim located?

TERRY DELONAS: They filed a lease

with the state of New Mexico for the entire section of land

surrounding Victorio Peak.

Subsequent to that, they filed mining claims

on and around Victorio Peak.

We'll have that surveyed for you or you can have a surveyed,

and we'll determine the exact location of your claim.

We'll take care of that survey.

We'll get somebody up there to survey that.

They then filed a treasure trove claim,

which has become the historic Noss

family claim to the treasure in Victorio Peak.

ROBERT STACK: Over a period of two years, Doc mined the peak.

Witnesses say he took more than 200

gold bars out of the cavern.

He then proceeded to hide the bars from everyone,

including his own family.

Not only because he feared theft, but also because

back then, it was illegal to own gold that

was not in the form of jewelry.

TERRY DELONAS: They were hidden in a variety of locations

all over the desert.

Some right by the county roads by a certain marked telephone

pole.

Some were dropped in horse tanks at the nearby ranches.

Some were just buried in the sand

and Doc would put a different colored rock over the top of it

than was natural to that surrounding.

There was a lot of fear and probably

some increasing paranoia, in both Doc and Babe,

because as they solicited more help from more friends,

and neighbors, and supporters, they started to become afraid

that some of these people might try

to steal some of the bullion that they

had re-hidden around the peak.

ROBERT STACK: Finally in the Fall of 1939,

Doc decided to try opening a larger

passageway into Victorio Peak.

So he hired a mining engineer, by the name of Montgomery,

to go with him and help him dynamite out of the way

a particularly huge boulder that was

just sort of hanging in the lower portion of the shaft.

LETHA GUTHRIE: Doc and Montgomery

was arguing very viciously about the charge to be put in there.

Doc said that the mountain was rotten.

And that it wouldn't take a charge like that.

And this Montgomery kept yelling it would.

By the way, he got eight bars for doing it.

[dynamite blast]

ROBERT STACK: The blast caused a cave-in which

collapsed the fragile shaft.

Doc had shut himself out of his own mine, forever.

Now, instead of having thousands of gold bars

to draw from, he only had those few dozen, or 100,

or so that he brought to the surface.

And he became very protective of those bars.

ROBERT STACK: For nine years, Doc Noss

attempted, illegally, to sell his gold

bars on the black market.

In 1948, he met a man named Charlie Ryan

and struck a deal to sell him 51 of the bars.

I could go for that.

It'll take me a couple days to get my cash together,

but how about a week from today?

Do it.

ROBERT STACK: At the last minute,

Doc feared that Charlie Ryan would double cross him.

He asked an acquaintance, Tony Jolly,

to help him rebury the gold in a new hiding place.

TONY JOLLY: And we got in the pickup

and we went out across the desert, a long ways.

And we started digging and we dug 20 bars of gold

out of the ground, right there.

I said, Doc, what's going on?

And he said, well, there's a fellow coming tomorrow

that's going to fly in here.

And he said, he was supposed to take this gold and sell it

and split with me.

And he said, I got word that he's going to sell it and keep

right on going with the money.

And we reburied those bars of gold.

It turned out to be 90 more.

I handled, and I saw, 110 bars of gold.

ROBERT STACK: The next day, Doc and Charlie Ryan

got into an argument.

And Ryan pulled a gun on him.

Sit down.

TERRY DELONAS: Ryan accosted him and said

they'd better discuss this problem of what

had happened to the gold.

Ryan was actually telling him, if you

don't tell me where the bars are,

you won't leave this room alive.

You're just trying to jack up the price on me.

This is just a hoax. There's no gold.

I told you we couldn't trust him, Charlie.

I told you that.

Just a con man, Charlie.

He's going for his gun.

It's in his truck, shoot him.

[gunshot]

ROBERT STACK: Doc died instantly.

And was photographed by police where he lay.

The date was March 5, 5th 1949.

For three years, Babe Noss and her children

struggled to clear the passageway to the treasure.

In 1952, when they were less than 12 yards from the opening

to the central cavern, disaster struck again.

The State of New Mexico was forced to relinquish Victorio

Peak and the land surrounding it,

so the United States Army could expand

the White Sands Missile Range.

Babe and her family were forced off their claim by the Army.

What are you all doing on our claim?

Mrs. Noss, this is a missile range.

It's unsafe for you to be up here.

TERRY DELONAS: She was eventually

escorted off the site by military police

and federal marshals.

Well, I sure as don't like it.

TERRY DELONAS: Protesting all the time that she did

not want to abandon her claim.

She wanted to continue her excavation work.

I can do it myself.

She was assured that she would be able to return to the site

as soon as it was convenient and not an interference

to national security.

[babe noss arguing with army]

TERRY DELONAS: My grandmother continued

to petition the Department of the Army

at White Sands Missile Range level and pentagon level,

asking for permission to go back and conduct a proper excavation

to reopen the treasure cavern.

She was repeatedly, continually, and consistently

denied access to the peak.

Interestingly, some of the personnel from Holloman Air

Force Base and White Sands Missile Range

inadvertently stumbled into a cavern on Victorio Peak

and reported finding a room stacked full of gold bullion.

THOMAS BERLETT: The area that Victorio Peak is located in

was 100% off limits to everybody in those days.

Using hunting as a excuse, we wandered

into the area quite regular.

After spending a lot of time, a lot of weekends in this area,

we found the entrance lower on the mountain

that we suspected was there.

We started digging.

We spent August and September in this hole.

And a large blockage was a very large boulder

that we had to tunnel under, that led him to the first room

that we discovered.

In the middle of this room was two stacks of material.

And they were bars of something.

And as we scratched it, we knew right away

that it was actually gold.

We marked and identified one of the bricks

inside with my initials on it.

And we stood it on end, on the large piles.

We then discovered another small room that was off to the side

of the room we were in.

It was a bit smaller in size.

In the middle of this room was a pile in a pyramid shape.

The reason that we didn't bring anything out

of the mountain on our first visit to the cavern

was simply because we were military.

We were in the middle of a top secret missile

range that was forbidden to everybody to be in.

The last thing in the world we wanted to do

was to jeopardize our position, and our find, by removing

something prematurely.

ROBERT STACK: Eventually, the airmen

informed their superiors about the gold they

had found at Victorio Peak.

They were denied permission to explore further.

So they took steps to ensure that no one else

could salvage the treasure.

THOMAS BERLETT: The following weekend, we

returned to the entrance, and we dynamited

it in four different places, and blasted the whole thing shut.

ROBERT STACK: Over a year later, the Secretary of the Army

created a top secret classified military operation

at Victorio Peak.

In 1961, Babe Noss, along with the State of New Mexico,

filed an injunction against the Army

to stop them from excavating at Victorio Peak.

She was protesting, vehemently, that the Army would

be excavating on her claim, while they

were denying her access to do the same thing.

ROBERT STACK: In 1963, the Army sought

exclusive rights to Victorio Peak, including mineral rights.

The State of New Mexico denied the Army's request.

Even so, aerial photographs showed a proliferation of roads

crisscrossing the peak.

Word of Doc's hidden gold leaked to other treasure hunters.

An anonymous group hired Boston attorney, F. Lee Bailey.

They were seeking permission from Attorney General John

Mitchell, both to excavate at Victorio Peak

and to sell gold bars.

The secret of the gold became public at the Watergate

hearings when John Dean testified about F.

Lee Bailey's client's requests.

Mr. Mitchell raised the fact that F.

Lee Bailey had a problem that he would like to bring up.

He said that Mr. Bailey had a client

who had an enormous amount of gold in his possession.

And would like to make an arrangement

with the government, whereby the gold could be turned over

to the government without the individual being prosecuted

for holding the gold.

Mr. Mitchell raised the fact--

NORMAN SCOTT: F. Lee Bailey and his group,

which consisted of a number of military and ex-military

people, had a vast treasure in gold bars, located

somewhere out in the southwest.

In fact, in an area very closely, if not exactly,

where the late Milton Noss had made, allegedly, his find.

ROBERT STACK: Because of the enormous publicity,

the army finally allowed a group of private claimants,

including Babe Noss, F. Lee Bailey's clients, and airmen

Berlett's partner, as well as representatives of the Apache

Nation, and the alleged heirs of Jesse James

to undertake a 10 day expedition in 1977.

Led by professional treasure hunter, Norman Scott,

his purpose was to determine, once and for all,

if treasure really did exist at Victorio Peak.

It's sort of a Department of Army policy

that there's been a lot of searching up here

and we've found nothing yet, or they've found nothing yet.

So I don't really expect any particular gold treasure

to be found, but I might be quoted incorrectly

too if they find something.

There's no question that gold like bars

came out of this mountain.

No question about it.

And in behind-- there's paintings

down there behind the shaft.

We came here based on legend, research.

We are verifying or refuting same,

by electronic and personal observation.

ROBERT STACK: During the expedition,

a scientist from the Stanford Research Institute, Lambert

Dolphin, conducted ground radar tests

to determine if there was an underground chamber

deep inside the mountain.

LAMBERT DOLPHIN: But I noticed on the radar screen,

some echoes quite frequently at a very great

depth, 300, 400 feet deep.

And that led me to the conclusion

that there was indeed a large cavern at the base

of the mountain, about where Doc Noss

had said there was a cavern.

Then they came over here and went this,

and this is the one that break through.

Ova, now we're going to take you up to the chimney entrance,

now.

ROBERT STACK: The 1977 expedition

was the last official attempt to find the treasure

inside Victorio Peak.

The crown Doc found lies buried, along with other parts

of the treasures, somewhere in the New Mexico desert.

After Doc's death, his heirs never

recovered any of the gold bars.

But Tony Jolly, the man who helped him hide the bars

in the desert, went back years later,

and retrieved 10 of them.

After more than 50 years of legend, controversy,

and intrigue, the heirs of Doc and Babe Noss

are still fighting for their rights.

And we have decided that we will

finish the work that Doc Noss started,

that Ova Noss tired to finish.

We will, eventually, get Victorio Peak open,

so that the mystery of what's inside the peak can be solved.

My point of view, as Governor of New Mexico,

is this is a solvable mystery.

It's always been exciting for us to talk about it.

Let's do it right now.

It would be interesting to the state.

Certainly would be interesting to our economy.

And we'd have an opportunity to tax

these people if they were fortuitous enough

to find the gold.

If the mountain has not been penetrated,

and materials removed from this mountain,

this will be the biggest thing that this country

has ever seen.

ROBERT STACK: Babe Noss died in 1979.

And every year her heirs have petitioned

the White Sands Missile Base to allow

them to dig at Victorio Peak.

Every year the request has been refused.

Recently, Terry Delonas took his case to Washington.

The Army finally agreed, in principle,

to allow the excavation, but claimed

that because of technicalities, an act of Congress

would be necessary.

This year a bill will be introduced

by New Mexico congressman which may

finally give the green light.

If so, an expedition could take place by the end of the year.

And if it does, "Unsolved Mysteries" will be there.

Perhaps we'll find only an empty cavern, with evidence

of riches long ago removed.

But perhaps, just perhaps, we will

find the greatest treasure the modern world has ever known.

In a moment, the story of a 16-year-old girl who

vanished one evening, just over 200 yards from her home.

What happened Kari Lynn Nixon?

[theme music]

Au Sable Forks, population 3,000.

Located in the shadows of New York's Adirondack Mountains,

Au Sable Forks is a friendly, family oriented community.

Violent crimes are extremely rare.

Indeed, anything out of the ordinary

is likely to attract attention.

But in 1987, Au Sable Forks was stunned

by the mysterious disappearance of a 16-year-old girl

named Kari Lynn Nixon.

Kari was an above average student,

the pitcher on her high school softball team.

Hardly the type of girl who would willingly invite trouble.

On the evening of June 22, 1987, at approximately 9:30 p.m.,

Kari left her home to on an errand for her father.

She headed for a neighborhood market a few blocks away.

Kari left the market and headed towards her home,

the time was 9:55.

As Kari took the familiar path along Palmer Street,

to her house, she exchanged greetings with a neighbor.

- Hello. - Oh, hi, Kari.

How are you? - Pretty good.

How are you?

Just fine, thanks.

ROBERT STACK: The time was now 10:05.

At 10:10, a group of boys walked by,

but saw only an empty street.

Somehow, in the five minutes between 10:05 and 10:10,

and just 700 feet from her home, Kari Lynn Nixon

had disappeared.

She was innocently walking down the street

in a neighborhood that she was born and brought up

with, that I was born and brought up on,

and something happened.

And she wasn't in her bed at 6:00 in the morning.

And my immediate reaction was terror.

And it's been a nightmare ever since.

ROBERT LEU: We began a large air and ground search

of the about 50 mile radius area of around Au

Sable Forks, New York.

We had many volunteers from the local fire departments,

and the Air Force Base came over.

The results of all these searches,

and all the leads, and everything we've

done in the last year and a half,

nothing has been found, not one thing.

She's walked off the face of the earth,

as far as we're concerned.

Kari wrote some letters to a friend.

And in these letters, she indicated

she would like to live in Hawaii, moved to Florida,

possibly California.

And in fact, leave the town of Au

Sable Forks when she turned 18.

She expressed this fact two or three times.

ROBERT LEU: My theory on this case

is Kari Lynn Nixon was abducted.

And she was dressed in sweats.

Her father gave her $20 for groceries.

She went to Thomas' store for her father, paid

$3 for the groceries, left Thomas'

store with a bag of groceries.

If she was a runaway, she would had done none of those things.

She would have been dressed better.

She would have taken money with her

that she had in her bedroom, after we searched her bedroom.

She is a victim of a kidnapping.

ROBERT STACK: There was other evidence that the young girl

had not run away.

Kari was close to her family and they often bowled together.

Everything pointed to a happy, stable relationship

with her mother and father.

GARY NIXON: I am 100% positive she didn't run away.

As far as I'm concerned, somebody

pulled up alongside of her, whether it

was somebody she knew, or not necessary somebody she knew.

But one way or the other, somebody picked her up.

Was Kari abducted?

Or did she run away?

By the Winter of 1987, the investigation

had reached a dead end.

But in November, New York State Police

received this letter from an anonymous writer

in Flint, Michigan.

The letter reads, look for Kari Lynn

Nixon in the Eutawville, South Carolina area.

Despite the tenuous nature of this lead,

Kari's family traveled to Eutawville.

They blanketed the small town with flyers.

The family was as surprised as the police

when a local resident remembered having spoken

with a 16-year-old, who had shyly given her name,

it was Kari Lynn Nixon.

Shirley Kannapel is the Eutawville resident

who reported this encounter.

She had seen Kari's picture on one of the flyers

posted by the Nixon family.

SHIRLEY KANNAPEL: I recognized her immediately

from the way she looked because I'd just seen her,

just about three weeks before that.

And her hair, her earrings, and the name--

it was the same girl that had been introduced

to me, Kari Lynn Nixon.

There's been numerous towns people

around the Eutawville area that said

they've seen this young lady.

And like Ms. Kannapel, she's seen her.

She was even introduced to her.

And I just actually believe, 100%, that she is still alive.

All right.

What I want you to do, Shirley, is

to relax your body as much as possible,

but concentrate on the sound of my voice.

ROBERT STACK: Shirley was unable to remember

many details of her sighting.

So at the request of the New York State Police,

she underwent hypnosis.

They hoped that her memory might be jogged.

PSYCHIATRIST: And you should be feeling

very warm, secure, and relaxed.

Shirley, I want you to go back to the day

that you saw the young girl that we talked about before.

SHIRLEY KANNAPEL: It was a hot day.

A little red-headed girl comes up and asks me

to meet a new friend of hers.

Shirley, I want you to meet my new friend, Kari Lynn Nixon.

Nixon?

Where you from?

New York.

SHIRLEY KANNAPEL: You down here to stay?

Yep.

Can you describe her to me?

- She's got long, brown hair. - Yep.

SHIRLEY KANNAPEL: Where you staying at?

Across the lake.

SHIRLEY KANNAPEL: Where at across the lake?

[inaudible]

ROBERT STACK: Kari seemed shy, unwilling to offer

much conversation beyond her name.

What was your first name again?

Kari.

SHIRLEY KANNAPEL: And I said, well, Kari Lynn

Nixon, that is a pretty name.

And I walked away from the group.

I had worked for about 4 and 1/2 years in a program

where some of our clients were runaways,

and you pick up on things.

And the way she evaded the questions,

I thought then she was a runaway.

ROBERT STACK: After the session, authorities

investigated the circumstances of Shirley's sighting.

They found the girl who was allegedly with Kari,

but were disappointed to discover

that she suffered from a memory lapse

and couldn't recall the incident.

After failing to find any other confirmed sightings of Kari,

the investigation, once again, reached a dead end.

Over a year and a half has passed since Kari

Lynn Nixon vanished.

Police have investigated 70 sightings,

conducted over 1,500 interviews, and examined

over 200 unidentified bodies.

And they still have no idea where Kari Lynn might be today.

KATHY NIXON: I love Kari very much.

We just want her back.

We just need to know that she's all right.

If she has decided that something

else is better for her, she will have our total support.

I just need to know that she's not hurt.

SHIRLEY KANNAPEL: I am 100% convinced

that I have met you, Kari.

And if I had any message at all to give to you,

would be just call home.

Call your mom and dad, let them know you're alive.

You don't have to go home, just call

and let them know you're alive.

ROBERT STACK: Today, Kari Lynn Nixon

would be almost 18-years-old.

At the time of her disappearance two years ago,

she was five feet three inches tall and weighed 105 pounds.

Her eyes are blue and her hair is brown.

She was known to wear two earrings on her left ear

and four on her right.

As the years and the investigation dragged on,

Kari's parents began to give up hope

of ever finding their daughter.

But all that changed in March of this year

when they saw a videotape of a concert

given by the popular singing group, New Kids on the Block.

On June 5, 1989, the group filmed

their Hanging Tough Live concert in Los Angeles, California.

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK: [singing] Let's do it.

My favorite girl, oh, oh, oh, she's my favorite girl.

ROBERT STACK: Among the crowd of teenage fans,

Kathy and Gary Nixon saw a familiar face.

KATHY NIXON: We couldn't believe how much this girl

looked like our daughter.

So we just kept rewinding it, and going over, and over,

and over and-- we just couldn't believe

it because we never really had any hope that she was alive.

And then there's this girl that looks so much like her.

I'm not 100% convinced, but it looks like our Kari.

If I'm viewing the tape, I picked

the girl out immediately, the first time it ran through.

It was obvious to me that this girl did look like Kari Nixon

and appeared to be her.

ROBERT STACK: This detail enhanced photograph

was made from the videotape and compared

with a picture of Kari taken shortly before she disappeared.

RICHARD SYPEK: There's obviously many similarities, the hair

length, the hair color, the shape of the face, the chin,

the mouth.

And it displayed a multiple of earrings

in the right ear, in which Kari Nixon

has four earrings in her right ear and two in her left.

So the photo enhanced, finished product,

further convinced the Nixon's that this

could be their daughter.

ROBERT STACK: Members of the New Kids on the Block

did not recognize the girl in the crowd.

But after hearing Kari's story, wanted

to make a personal appeal.

JONATHAN KNIGHT: Well, I'd just like

to say to Kari, that if you're out there, the best thing to do

would just be to call somebody.

And, you know, even if you go to your local police

and just tell them your situation, then

maybe they can help you out.

Or if any of you viewers out there,

who have seen her at a New Kids show,

or just seen her on the street, if you could contact someone,

you know, to let them know where she is,

or if she's all right, or anything.

That would be a big help.

We need to find this girl.

Find out who she is, whether it's Kari

or not, just so that if it's not,

we can go on to something else, to try and find her.

I love you, Kari.

And I need to talk to you.

[music playing]

Many of us have ridden along a lonely stretch of highway.

It is an unsettling feeling when you go for miles without seeing

other people, and you know that a cry for help

would not be heard.

We're about to see the story of a man

whose worst fears came true.

It all began innocently, when he said goodbye to his son

and set out to drive alone, across five

sparsely populated states.

In the Winter of 1985, 68-year-old Dexter Stefonek

prepared to drive from his son's Oregon farm

to his home in Wisconsin.

Six years earlier, Dexter had retired

from a Wisconsin paper mill.

He had been married for 44 years,

but in 1984, his wife, Vivian, died.

A few months later, Dexter went to visit his grandchildren

and his son in Corbett, Oregon.

But as the first anniversary of Vivian's death approached,

Dexter wanted to go back home.

He came out and we thought that he'd probably

spend the winter with us.

And then it got to be a difficult time of year for him.

And I tried to convince him to not leave then.

Now with your mother dying, you

know I'm going to be out here to see you as often as possible.

I had a good time, but I've got to go back.

DAVID STEFONEK: Winter was already set in,

there was really nothing he needed to go back to Wisconsin

for.

Kiss the kids and wife me.

We discussed that even if he got partway home

and decided to come back out, that was fine, Turn

around and come back out again.

He was anxious to get home.

And he drove away.

That's the last I saw him.

ROBERT STACK: Dexter Stefonek left

his son's home in Oregon on the morning of November 18, 1985.

Dexter had made the 2,000 mile trip from Oregon

to Wisconsin many times before.

Because he wanted to finish the drive as quickly as possible,

he told his son he would not stop at motels,

but would pull into a rest areas instead.

November 19, 1985, on a bleak stretch of Montana Highway,

at the Bad Route rest area, a burning car was found.

When I arrived at the rest area

and pulled in behind the vehicle,

the inside was completely engulfed in flames.

I went over and talked to the State Highway Department.

And they informed me they didn't see

any person inside the vehicle.

ROBERT STACK: A computer check of the license plates revealed

that the car belonged to Dexter Stefonek,

of Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

It was only 26 hours after Dexter had

left his son's home in Oregon.

The Sheriff's Department immediately searched the area.

Worried that Dexter might have begun walking for help

and been overcome by the bitter cold, they found nothing.

Sheriff Jim George had an arson expert examine the car.

He found that the fire had been set

deliberately, using gasoline.

Sheriff George also noticed that the driver's seat

was pushed all the way back.

JIM GEORGE: Dexter Stefonek, being a short man,

would have had to have the seat all the way

up to the front to drive it.

So it had to be a larger man driving that vehicle, six

foot or larger.

ROBERT STACK: Law enforcement officials with stymied.

Who was the 6 foot tall man who had

driven Dexter Stefonek's car?

Could this person have set fire to the car?

Finally, where was Dexter?

Had he been killed?

Or had he simply disappeared into the harsh Montana winter?

Sheriff George attempted to establish

the chronology of events for the morning

that Dexter's car had been burned.

His car had been discovered just after 10:00 a.m.

Nearly three hours earlier, Fred Siegle,

custodian of a Bad Route rest area,

had arrived for work as usual.

FRED SIEGLE: I got to the rest area between 8:00 and 8:30.

There was a pickup parked there, and there was nobody around.

I really didn't pay no attention to it.

ROBERT STACK: About 15 minutes later, at 8:45 a.m.,

Clyde Mitchell, a Montana Highway maintenance supervisor,

made a stop at the rest area.

CLYDE MITCHELL: Fred's pick-up was there and a white Chevy

pickup, facing southeast.

Went into the utility room and talked to Fred.

And asked Fred if he had seen anybody,

or how long the pickup had been there.

And he didn't know how long it had been there.

So then I took a closer look of it.

I saw Arizona plates in the back.

Walked around the complete outfit and noticed

it was a four wheel drive Chevy, with blue trim

and a cowcatcher on the front.

At the time, I didn't think there was

anything suspicious about it.

ROBERT STACK: At approximately 9:15 a.m.,

Clyde left to complete his regular rounds.

15 minutes later, at 9:30 a.m., as Fred Siegle

was leaving the rest area, Dexter Stefonek's brown

Plymouth Horizon pulled in.

The driver got out carrying two large plastic containers.

Are you having any problems?

No.

I'd just run out of gas and I had to go get some.

FRED SIEGLE: Yeah.

He was around six feet tall, between 35 and 40-years-old,

real light complected, and was clean shaved.

No sign anything was wrong with him.

No.

There was nothing unusual about him.

He didn't seem to be excited or nothing.

ROBERT STACK: The authorities have no idea who the man was

or what had happened to Dexter.

Less than a half hour after Fred Siegle saw the man

at the rest area, Dexter's car was

discovered there, in flames.

Nearly four months later, a local couple,

Bill and Cindy Shaw, went to a remote landfill

17 miles from the Bad Road rest area.

CINDY SHAW: My husband and I came up to dump some garbage,

and there was a wallet laying on the ground.

And it still had the driver's license and it was current.

So I handed it to Bill and he looked at it.

And he wondered if it belonged to the man

whose car burned up at the rest area a few months before.

And later we just started looking around.

And there was a bunch of stuff in the dump that

didn't belong there, that hadn't been there

when we were there before.

And we each kind of went our own direction,

trying to see if there was anything else that didn't

quite belong in the dump.

Boy, there's a shaving kid, a suitcase--

There's a boot over here that's practically new.

ROBERT STACK: Both Cindy and her husband,

Bill, found several pieces of men's clothing.

Bill picked up a boot, and when he stood up,

saw a man's foot partially hidden beneath a mattress.

Bill and Cindy called the authorities.

The corner positively identified the body as Dexter Stefonek.

And said that he had been shot twice in the head.

LANCE SILHA: There were marks on his hands.

There was damage done to his neck and throat area.

And he had a bruise, or damaged area,

on the frontal part of his skull.

That was probably caused by a beating or some type

of injury of that sort.

ROBERT STACK: Sheriff's investigators discovered

that there was money in Dexter's suitcase,

so robbery seemed an unlikely motive.

Also, the clothing which had been conspicuously placed

around the landfill belonged to Dexter,

and appeared to have been placed there

just days before it was found.

CINDY SHAW: The things that we found

that day were just not things that had been here before.

And it really bothered me that the week before everything

was normal.

And seven days later all of this stuff appeared.

ROBERT STACK: Strangely, Dexter Stefonek's body

seemed to have been in the landfill for several months.

The condition of the body would indicate

that it had probably been in the dump site from the time

that the car was found burning, until the time it

was discovered.

I have no reason to believe that it wasn't.

ROBERT STACK: One week later, the authorities

found one final clue, a small line

of graffiti written in pencil, in the Bad

Route rest area men's room.

It began with the words, hot jock.

And other key words seemed to refer

to Dexter Stefonek's murder.

Hot jock from Wisconsin, 1185--

LANCE SILHA: My own theory is that someone

wanted us to see it.

Hot jock could be a CB handle, it referred to shot,

it had the Wisconsin written in the graffiti,

and a date indicating November.

ROBERT STACK: Sheriff George believes the graffiti

was written by the killer.

JIM GEORGE: I think he would telling

law enforcement something.

I think he was taunting law enforcement

or bragging to law enforcement about committing a homicide.

ROBERT STACK: The Sheriff has attempted to reconstruct

Dexter Stefonek's last hours.

He believes that Dexter arrived at the Bad Route rest area

soon after 7:00 a.m., on November the 19th,

and that his murderer was already there.

Dexter was hard of hearing.

It is the Sheriff's theory that the killer tried to get

his attention and failed.

Sir, sir, could you help me?

I've run out of gas.

Could you take me to town to get some gas?

What's your problem?

Get out of the car!

Get out of the car!

ROBERT STACK: It is unclear at what point

Dexter Stefonek was actually killed,

but the authorities are convinced

that the mysterious murderer abducted Dexter.

And after killing him, hid his body in the landfill.

Sheriff George believes that the murder returned to the rest

area, doused Dexter's car with gasoline, and set it on fire,

both to destroy evidence and to distract officials,

so he would have time escape.

Dexter Stefonek's killer is still at large.

Only two clues exist, the description

of the suspect's vehicle and the sketchy description

of the suspect himself.

For every mystery, there is someone,

somewhere, who knows the truth.

Perhaps that someone is watching.

Perhaps it's you.

[theme music]