Original subtitles

ANNOUNCER: 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): Christmas Day, 1985, a relaxed,

joyful holiday for 28-year-old Debbie Wolf and her family.

Seven days later, Debbie's body was found submerged in an oil

can in a pond behind her home.

Police say she drowned accidentally.

Her mother says it was murder.

80 years ago, a young mother, Conradina Olsen,

boarded a train in Brookfield, Wisconsin and vanished.

Now Conradina's grandmother has uncovered a string

of bizarre clues leading to an unmarked grave

and more unanswered questions.

1959, Fidel Castro seizes power in Cuba.

Four years later, former Air Force pilot, Geoffrey Sullivan

undertakes a clandestine mission with anti-Castro forces

and disappears somewhere over the Caribbean Sea.

Sullivan's daughter has uncovered

evidence that her father may have been imprisoned in Cuba.

Also tonight we will update our recent story

of a daring prison escape.

Thanks to our viewers, a female prison guard

and her jailhouse lover were tracked down to a motel

in Canada and captured.

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

When Debbie Wolf, a 28-year-old nurse from Fayetteville, North

Carolina disappeared, her family became

understandably concerned.

It began as a tragic, but uncomplicated missing

persons case.

But a number of unanswered questions

hinted at a darker secret.

For Debbie's family and friends, a police

investigation appeared flawed.

Debbie thought that helping people

was the best thing in the world if she could do it.

She thought that if she could be a nurse,

and she could pay back some of the kindness and some

of the consideration that had been given

to her during her short lifetime,

that maybe she would make her own mark, and I think she did.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): On Wednesday, December 25, 1985,

Debbie celebrated a typical family

Christmas at her mother's home.

A day devoted to close friends and good will.

4:00 PM, the day after Christmas,

upon completing her shift at the hospital,

Debbie Wolf left work, presumably heading home.

The next morning, Debbie should have been at work.

She had to be at work at 8:00.

Debbie did not go to work.

Debbie did not answer her telephone.

It wasn't like Debbie at all.

She never missed work.

She would call in if she was even

going to be a few minutes late.

She would call and let them know,

but they had had no word from Debbie,

and I had had no word from Debbie.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): December 27,

the day after Debbie disappeared,

Jennie Edwards drove to Debbie's home

with her husband, John, and a family friend, Kevin Gordon.

Debbie lived in an isolated cabin seven

miles outside of Fayetteville.

Because Debbie was unusually neat and meticulous,

they were surprised by what they found in and around the cabin.

That seat's pushed way back.

Debbie's car was not parked where she always parked it.

Look at these beer cans.

We looked around, and we saw beer cans laying in the yard,

and it was definitely a brand of beer that Debbie did not drink.

Her dogs were running loose, as they normally did,

but they had not been fed.

Debbie!

Debbie, are you home, hon?

I don't see her.

There were small things that were out

of place that Debbie she would not have

put where they were placed.

There was a uniform laying on the floor in the kitchen,

things thrown in the kitchen on the floor,

like maybe she took them off.

It's a uniform. John.

Yeah?

John.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Kevin Gordon found Debbie's purse

shoved back under her bed.

Hey, guys, I think I found Debbie's purse.

Found what?

Her purse? It is.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): It was way up underneath the bed.

PHONE MESSAGE: Hey, Deb, missed you here at work today.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): There was also an odd message

on Debbie's answering machine, recorded earlier

that day before Jenny arrived.

You've been out a lot of days, making us worry

when you miss another one.

Just wanted to make sure you're OK.

JENNY EDWARDS: What concerned me about his message was that

he said that she had missed a lot of days at work,

and she hadn't.

In fact she had only missed a few hours at work at the time

that he put the message on the answering machine.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): 50 Feet from the cabin was a pond.

They searched the entire area and found no trace of Debbie.

Jenny Edwards called the sheriff's office.

She was told that law enforcement would become

involved only after 72 hours had elapsed from the time

of the disappearance.

On Tuesday, December 31, the sheriff's department

finally conducted a full scale search, five days after Debbie

had last been seen.

They searched the cabin.

Later that afternoon, they brought

the bloodhounds out, which they could find nothing at all.

They then walked around the edge of the pond.

I was there for that.

And they looked across it.

Granted it's a small pond, but it's deep in some places

and it's not that small.

I asked if they were going to put a boat into the water

and at least paddle across it.

They said they didn't know.

It was getting too late and that they

would let me know the next day.

Of course, some of the individuals

there that were friends of the family had been

there a couple of days prior, had done

some searching on their own.

And I think it was mentioned that they

had already looked in the pond.

It was no use for to book in the pond.

So I don't think we did a dive of the pond

or a complete search of the pond on that day, no we did not.

At that time, I asked him if it

would be all right then if I got my own divers

to go into the pond.

And he said, certainly.

Just follow the shoreline.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): New Year's Day,

1986, Debbie Wolf had now been missing for six days.

Kevin Gorton and another friend, Gordon Childress,

returned to the pond.

Both men were familiar with rescue work.

Gordon dragged the pond, looking for evidence.

KEN GORTON (VOICEOVER): He was in the water approximately two

minutes when he called out to me and told me

they had found what looked like a set

of footprints and a drag mark.

As he continued to zigzag back and forth across the pond,

he continued to come over these tracks.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Two sets of footprints were found

along with the drag marks.

These prints remained in the mud for weeks.

GORDON CHILDRESS (VOICEOVER): I went out and went under,

and following the trail, I was maybe six inches

from the bottom, and just kind of like coasting

along the bottom after a good hard kick,

I hit something and my mask flooded.

It looks like a body down here.

Are you sure?

Let me double check.

So I went back down and confirmed the hole.

Spent more time looking, didn't touch, disturb anything.

I couldn't see above midriff, because it was inside of a,

looked like a burn barrel.

It was a rusty 55 gallon drum type thing with holes in it.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The police

were called to the scene.

The dead woman was identified as Debbie Wolf.

An autopsy revealed no trace of drugs or alcohol

in Debbie's system.

There were no obvious signs of foul play.

The coroner ruled the cause of death was drowning,

but was unable to determine exactly when Debbie had died.

A number of discrepancies soon surfaced,

which led Debbie's family and friends to believe Debbie

had not drowned.

Kevin, I want you to come over here and identify the body.

A typical cold water drowning would be eyes open, mouth open,

hands and arms in a very clawed state, just a fight for life,

which was quite on the contrary to the way that Debbie was.

The eyes were closed.

The mouth was closed.

Arms were in a relaxed state, just

her whole body was relaxed.

She looked like she was asleep.

We theorized that if it was an accidental drowning,

that at that point, she may have been out around the pond.

Her dogs were running loose when the family

members and the sheriff's department personnel

were there.

Possibly she was playing with the dogs and fell in.

Another thing that had struck me funny

was the fact that Debbie was clean.

The clothes were clean.

You know her face was not carrying a lot of silt. The day

that me and Gordie went into the water

and spent maybe 20 minutes, it took us both about three days

to wash our dive suits out from just

the accumulation of the silt and mud that

was in the bottom of that pond.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Police also

began to deny that the body had been found inside of a barrel.

After the body was retrieved, and dispatched

to a local hospital, I walked away from the pond up

to the cabin.

As I was walking away, they were discussing

how to mark the barrel and how to bring it out.

And I thought surely they would do that.

I walked back out of the cabin about 10 minutes later,

and saw all their cars leaving.

And I asked one of our friends who were there,

I said what happened?

Do they have the barrel?

And they said, no, they decided to leave it there.

They'll get it in the morning.

The next day they went back to get the barrel.

It seems that the barrel was gone.

All of a sudden it didn't exist, the same barrel that had

been there the night before.

In my opinion and the opinions of some of the investigators,

what appeared to be a barrel to some of the divers

could have been the field jacket, which

may have ballooned out as she was laying at that angle

at the bottom of the pond.

There was never a barrel touched by any of the divers,

according to their statements.

Most definitely, none of our divers

did we ever touch a barrel.

There There was no doubt in my mind,

I'm 100% positive that it was an old burn barrel or something

of that nature, metal, rusted, 55 gallon type

drum that the body was in.

I remember the barrel that was sitting by Debbie's cabin.

This is known here as an oil barrel.

It's a big round metal drum.

Farmers use it for burning trash.

However, she didn't use it for that.

Instead we used it for target practice

when we were out there shooting pistols.

After I had called law enforcement that we had located

a body, I went over to the spot where the barrel was

and the barrel was gone.

The indention of the barrel was still there on the ground,

but the barrel was no longer there.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): A few months later Jenny discovered

another inconsistency.

When I got a chance to examine the clothes that

were on Debbie's body, I looked at them very carefully

and realized that those were not Debbie's clothes.

The pants were very, very much too long for Debbie.

The field jacket-- Debbie had owned a field jacket that

had belonged to her brother, and that

is a totally different field jacket than what

was found on the body.

The bra cup size, three sizes too large

for her, and around size, it would

be two sizes too large for her.

The shoes, Debbie wore a lady's size seven,

and these were a men's size six, which winds up

being about three sizes larger.

I don't know what clothing belonged to Debbie

or what didn't belong to Debbie.

Of course, her mother would probably know that information

or have that information and know more about what

belonged to her than we would.

Of course, as investigators all we can do

is ask questions and try to get some answers.

We do know for a fact through our investigation

that the tennis shoes she had on were her tennis shoes.

We have photographs of her with those tennis shoes

on prior to her death.

And that's as much as I want to comment on the clothing.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Jenny Edwards became convinced

that Debbie had been murdered.

Hi, how are you today?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Among her duties at work,

Debbie was assigned to coordinating

the hospital volunteers.

I don't want to go out with you.

I've told you time and time again.

One volunteer in particular seemed

to bother her quite a bit because he had a history

of psychiatric illnesses.

You wait here.

Wait here.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): According to Jenny,

the volunteer obtained Debbie's home phone number.

Hello?

MAN'S VOICE ON PHONE: Hello, it's me.

Look, I told you I don't want you calling me here anymore.

MAN'S VOICE ON PHONE: I want to come over.

You don't even know where I live.

MAN'S VOICE ON PHONE: Oh yeah, I know where you live.

I'm coming over now.

Look, I wouldn't--

He was investigated by the sheriff's department

the night that the body was brought to the surface.

However, he provided an alibi and refused

to take a polygraph, so he wasn't questioned any longer.

He left several days after that to go out of state.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The second man

suspected by Jenny Edwards was also a hospital volunteer.

Hey, Deb.

There was another volunteer at the hospital

at the same time that wanted to become romantically

involved with Debbie.

Debbie discussed this with everyone, including him

and told him that she would be his friend, but nothing else.

She was interested in someone else

totally away from the hospital.

You know I've got a boyfriend.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Jenny is convinced

that this was the man who called Debbie the day after she

disappeared, expressing concern that she'd been

missing from work for days.

MAN'S VOICE ON PHONE: You've been out a lot of days.

Makes me worried when you miss another one.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): The second suspect

was also questioned by police.

Anyone that the family requested

that we talk to or interview, we tried to interview.

Of course, through the information

we received during these interviews,

there was nothing there that we could use

in any criminal prosecution.

There was nothing there to indicate

to us that this was a homicide.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): What really happened to Debbie Wolf?

Her mother believes she was taken hostage

by one of the two suspects, kept alive for several days,

and finally killed.

Later, she believes someone returned to the pond

to remove the barrel so that a ruling of foul play

would be dismissed.

And there are people out there who

know what happened to Debbie.

They know who's responsible, and I'm

hoping that they will come forward

and finally say something.

Debbie was a lovely person, and she was loved

by very, very many people.

And I think that she has a right to be put to rest finally.

And I'd like to do that.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Next, how viewer tips in Canada

led to the capture of a woman who allegedly helped

her lover escape from prison.

Last month, we profiled the case of a corrections officer

from Maryland whose secret love affair with a prison inmate

changed her from a devoted mother

into a wanted fugitive on the run.

Tonight, a dramatic update to this story.

For ten years, 46-year-old Sandra Kay Beeman

worked as a prison matron at a maximum security facility

in Cumberland, Maryland.

30-Year-old Edgar Kerns was being

held at the Cumberland Prison while waiting sentencing

on charges of check fraud.

Come on, Eddie, hurry up.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): On August 29, 1990,

Edgar Kerns and another inmate, James Barnes

made a daring escape.

It appeared that they had taken Kay Beeman hostage.

Authorities were shocked when they later

learned that Kay Beeman had actually helped with the escape

and that she was in love with Edgar Kerns.

I haven't complained, have I?

No, you never really much have complained.

I guess you maybe fall in love with somebody

and you do some strange things.

But Kay's pretty well lost about everything

that she ever had over this one incident.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Just six hours

after our broadcasr, Sandra Kay Beeman and Edgar Kerns

were captured in Canada.

On September 10, 12 days after the escape,

Beeman and Kerns checked into the Beach Motor Motel

in Hamilton, Canada.

They registered as husband and wife

under the assumed names, Fred and Sandy Smith.

I was watching TV, and all of a sudden, this lady's picture

come on.

So I called my wife in.

She was out in the kitchen ironing.

And I said, do you recognize this lady?

And she said, yes, she's the lady that's living in Room 12.

And by this time, the gentleman come on.

And I said, uh oh, he also lives in there.

So I reached over immediately and picked up the phone

and called the police.

When we got to the Beach Motor Hotel,

the information from the Mitchells was to the effect

that they hadn't left the room.

And it wasn't their policy to leave

the room during the evening.

We were convinced they were still inside the room.

The officers of the Emergency Response

Unit, which was equivalent to a swat team forced the door open.

The room was found to be vacated.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): A witness later told authorities

that he had seen the fugitive couple getting into a taxi cab

earlier that evening.

We were able to determine the name of the cab

and a check with the cab company revealed the driver.

I picked them up at the beach strip, just up from the motel.

And I asked them where they were going

and they said the Red Rose Motel.

When we got to the motel where the cab driver said

he had taken them, one of our officers

was able to determine from the office register

at that location, that they had in fact booked in

and that Kerns had in fact used his right name.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): A few minutes later, the Emergency

Response Unit moved in.

OK, let's go.

SGT. MIKE HOLK (VOICEOVER): Three or four officers

of the Emergency Response Unit approached the front door

of the motel room.

It was at that point that someone

from the inside of the room looked out through the drapes.

He's at the window!

SGT. MIKE HOLK (VOICEOVER): The officers then forced open

the door and entered the room.

Kerns, he was forced to the floor of the motel room

and held in a position of safety.

The female in the room was in the bed

and her hands were handcuffed above her head

to the headboard.

At that point, they are both persons who were arrested.

Kerns was removed by my partner and myself

and transported to Central Station.

He wanted to know how we had learned of his whereabouts.

We asked him if he had ever seen the program before.

He said, yes, he had.

We told him that he was on it tonight.

He was astounded.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): On October 30, 1990,

Sandra Kay Beeman and Edgar Kerns

were returned to Maryland.

Next, a woman's search for her missing grandmother

collides with a mysterious legend of murder.

Amid the windswept prairie, near the small town of Ellis,

Missouri lays a lonely, unmarked grave.

Legend has it as a resting place of an unknown woman

found murdered near the railroad tracks years ago.

For as long as anyone can remember,

the grave has been maintained by railroad workers,

adorned with flowers every Memorial Day.

In the past three years, we have featured

many stories of lost loves.

Our next story also concerns a missing loved

one, but with an odd twist.

The woman disappeared 80 years ago.

This is a story of a granddaughter's

relentless search that has brought her face

to face with a mysterious legend of murder in a small town

and dark family secrets kept hushed for nearly 100 years.

Brookfield, Wisconsin, the early 1900s.

38-Year-old Conradina Olsen said goodbye to her four children.

Now, Les, you be good.

And Gus, I'll see you tomorrow.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): She told them

she was going to Milwaukee for a doctor's appointment

and would return the following day.

Are you sure you don't want to come along?

No, I'd rather stay here,

Goodbye, children.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Conradina Olsen's family

never saw her again.

For the rest of his life, Conradina's eldest son, Edwin,

would regret not getting on the train that morning.

He felt that if he had went with her,

she would have been back.

She would have come back to them.

My father, he suffered for this all of his life.

He couldn't accept why and how she went away.

He never knew why she went away and didn't come back.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): In 1983, Geneva Fuchser

began investigating her grandmother's disappearance,

hoping to find answers to the questions that haunted

her father his entire life.

She learned that in 1891, 20-year-old Conradina

Heitman married 30-year-old Carl Olsen, a railroad coachman.

By all accounts, Carl and Conradina's marriage

was not a happy one.

Would you listen to me when I'm talking to you?

I want this house clean.

In all of my research, I found out that my grandfather was,

I don't know if he was abusive physically to my grandmother,

but I did understand that he was not good to her.

But back in those days, when there was a bad marriage,

people didn't get a divorce.

One of the people just walked away from the marriage.

And this is actually what I had thought for many years

that had happened to her.

But now I don't.

I feel she was taken.

Something bad had to have happened to her.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): In September of 1985,

while working at her gift shop in South Sioux City, Nebraska,

Geneva had a bizarre encounter with one of her customers.

From this chance meeting, a startling possibility

began to emerge.

This was a quiet day, at, oh, I suppose around noon,

this lady come into my store.

I knew there was something different about her,

but I couldn't grasp what it was.

And she walked around a bit.

I usually let people walk around my store, so I don't bug them.

And so she came up around the counter and we got to talking,

and she told me her name was Susanna.

I'm looking for a Pegasus.

Pegasus?

And she says, well, I'm a psychic.

Well, no, I'm a psychic.

And just, out of a clear blue sky,

she said, you want to ask me about your grandmother,

don't you?

And I was amazed.

I said, yes.

And she said, do you have anything

of your grandmother's here?

And I said, yes.

I said, I have a marriage license

and I have their wedding picture.

And she closed her eyes and she says, now don't talk.

Be very quiet.

And then all of a sudden, she said,

I can see her boarding a train.

I can see children crying.

I can see her being beaten.

And I feel that your grandfather knows what happened to her.

It just kind of sent shivers down my spine.

I was flabbergasted.

I thought, I don't believe this.

How could she know?

How could she know this about my grandmother?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Later, in Susanna's office,

Geneva was given more possible clues about her grandmother's

disappearance.

I'm going to have you start by signing your name.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Susanna

told Geneva that she would soon be receiving

a packet of old letters.

The letters would pinpoint the year that Geneva's

grandmother disappeared.

Ellis has something to do about where

she is at this point.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): She also told Geneva

that the name Ellis was somehow connected to the disappearance,

and that her grandmother was buried in an unmarked grave.

--that she got on the train--

And she says, also, I see within a year's time,

you will be getting a letter from an unknown source yet

not heard from, somebody you don't even know of,

that is going to tell you where this grave is.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Incredibly,

several weeks later, Susanna's first predictions

seemed to come true.

Thank you.

Within two months time, I did get a packet of old letters

and pictures also.

There was many of them from in the 1800s.

And within these old letters, it states

there was some dissension in the marriage,

and it also states that the last known heard from her

was around 1910.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Encouraged

by this new information, Geneva sent

a letter detailing her search to a Midwestern newspaper.

The editors found the story interesting

and printed the letter.

I got in contact with Geneva when

I read a piece in a monthly magazine

that she was looking for her grandmother.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Bill Carpenter wrote to Geneva

and told her of the unmarked grave near Ellis, Missouri.

He says there's quite a story about this death.

Off And he says, it is an unmarked grave

and it's along the railroad right of way.

And when he said it's along the railroad right of way,

I couldn't believe it.

I just-- tears come to my eyes.

I just wanted to cry.

Now this was another prediction of Susanna's that came true.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): At the turn of the century Ellis,

Missouri was a small farming town.

According to local legend, a fashionably dressed woman

got off the train at Ellis.

How dare you?

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): She was seen arguing with a man.

Witnesses reported that it appeared

to be a lover's quarrel, that the couple

stormed east down the tracks.

The man was later seen returning to the station alone.

He boarded another train and left town.

Three days later, the woman's body was discovered

alongside the train tracks.

She had been murdered.

There was nothing to identify the woman

to reveal where she had come.

According to the legend, railroad workers

buried the woman in a field a few yards

from where she was found.

I want to think this is my grandmother's grave.

In my heart, I think it is.

And I don't know what else could have

happened to my grandmother.

I think with all my research, I would have

found out something, anything.

But this is what it has led to.

And all of these predictions have all come here.

They've all-- how could this not be my grandmother.

I certainly wish her well in finding her grandmother,

but I remain rather skeptical about the story because

of the fact that we have newspaper articles

about the unknown grave dating from before 1910,

when her grandmother apparently disappeared.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): This newspaper article

does seem to discount Geneva's conclusion.

It was published in 1888, 22 years before Conradina

Olsen disappeared.

It describes a dead woman as being less than 20 years old.

Conradina Olsen was 38 when she vanished.

40 years ago, I talked to an 85-year-old

man that had worked for the railroad all of his life.

And he said that the lady that they found along the tracks

was approximately in her 30s.

I feel that it is her grandmother.

That's my feeling.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): If the woman found

murdered alongside the railroad tracks was Conradina Olsen,

then who was the man seen arguing with her

at the Ellis train station?

At the time my grandmother disappeared, I've always

heard the story that my grandfather also

went away for a period of time.

I don't want to believe that my grandfather

did anything with her.

I don't believe he did.

I don't want to believe it.

But the way this is all coming about,

I don't know what to think about it.

Until I find for sure, this is my grandmother,

I will always have that doubt of not knowing,

and I want to know, not only for myself, but for my father.

I'm going to find her.

I feel that there's somebody out there that knows what happened

to her and I just want to know.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): When we return,

the disappearance of an American pilot apparently

on an anti-Castro mission in Latin America.

One eyewitness claims he was imprisoned in Cuba.

September 23, 1963, Waterbury, Connecticut.

28-year-old Geoffrey Sullivan, a former Air Force pilot,

prepared to depart on a mysterious covert mission.

SHERRY SULLIVAN: The way my mom relates it,

my father was supposed to come back in five days.

Give you a call soon as I get a chance to.

SHERRY SULLIVAN: I don't know if he was nervous,

but he gave her his St. Christopher medal,

which he wore all the time.

He explained to her that this would be his last trip.

I'm going to miss you.

Miss you too.

Not because he wasn't coming back,

but because he didn't want to be involved in this type

of operation anymore.

He took off that morning.

And that was the last time she ever saw him.

He never came back.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Four days later, Geoffrey Sullivan

disappeared over the Caribbean.

The mystery of what happened during those four days

still haunts his daughter.

Sherry Sullivan was seven years old when she lost her father.

Today sherry is a private investigator

living in Bangor, Maine.

For the past six years, she has sifted through a labyrinth

of bureaucratic red tape and false leads,

hoping to uncover the truth of her father's fate.

No one wanted to say he wasn't coming back.

As it rolled into the years, it was the kind of thing

that just wasn't talked about.

I mean, no one knew what to say.

And none of us were ever allowed to go

through a grieving process because as far as we

were concerned, he wasn't dead.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Geoffrey Sullivan enlisted in

the Air Force when he was 18.

In 1957, he earned his wings.

Two years later, Sullivan received an honorable discharge

and became a freelance commercial pilot.

That same year, Fidel Castro's revolution triumphed in Cuba.

The Communist threat was now only

90 miles from American shores.

Almost overnight, both US government backed

and independent covert operations

were launched to undermine Castro's regime.

One of the men involved in these operations

was 37-year-old Alex Rorke, a journalist

and photographer from New York.

By writing a series of articles about Cuban exiles,

Rorke became active in the campaign to overthrow

Castro's government.

Geoffrey?

- Yes, Alex Rorke? - Alex.

Nice to meet you.

You too.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): In 1961, Geoffrey

Sullivan and Alex Rorke met.

Rorke soon hired Sullivan as a pilot

for his clandestine anti-Castro activities.

When Geoffrey Sullivan shook hands with Alex Rorke,

he sealed his own fate.

After the Cuban revolution, a staggering array

of anti-Castro operations sprung up in the United States.

Many of them were organized by shadowy characters.

It was a murky underworld of these clandestine operations

in which Geoffrey Sullivan became caught up.

March, 1961, US backed Cuban exiles prepared to invade

Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

On April 17, they were defeated in less than a

day because the US government failed to supply air support.

In October of 1962, Soviet missile silos

were discovered in Cuba.

For seven days, the world was on the brink of nuclear war.

After the missile crises, operations against Cuba

were still carried on by the US government,

but they were trying to be more discreet about it.

And that they did shed some of the more

loose cannon operations.

And I think Alex Rorke's could have been classified as such.

There was a public order to men like Alexander Rorke

and Geoffrey Sullivan to stop their operations

against Cuba altogether.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): On September 23, 1963,

eight days after the official warning was issued,

Geoffrey Sullivan left Waterbury, Connecticut.

The next day he resurfaced in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

with Alex Rorke.

In Fort Lauderdale, Sullivan and Rorke met with two men.

One of them was Frank Sturgis, who had also been

named in the public warning.

Years later, Sturgis had become well known for his role

in the Watergate scandal.

Rorke told me he did buy a b-25 bomber, and that he wanted

to take the B-25 to Nicaragua.

He wanted to sit down and talk with General Samosa

in order to have a base of operations in Nicaragua

and to ask the general to fit out the B-25 for bombing

missions inside of Cuba.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Sturgis convinced Rorke

that they should first meet personally

with Nicaraguan officials.

The four men rented an airplane and agreed

to depart for Nicaragua the following morning.

The next day, Rorke's wife drove him to Opa Locka

Airport in Fort Lauderdale.

How are you doing?

Como esta?

Nice to see you again.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): On the way,

they picked up another man.

My wife, Jackie.

Jackie, this is Kiki.

Mrs. Rorke didn't know who this gentleman was.

He spoke broken English, but she drove the both of them

to the airport where my father was and dropped them off.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): At approximately 8:00 AM,

the Travel Air twin engine plane took off from Fort Lauderdale.

On board were Geoffrey Sullivan, Alex Rorke, and the stranger.

Curiously, Frank Sturgis and his associate were left behind.

What transpired during the next 48 hours

remains a jumbled maze of unanswered questions.

According to the official FAA report,

Sullivan's flight activities were highly unusual.

He returned to Fort Lauderdale three times

with very little explanation.

On his third return to the airport,

the planes landing gear remained retracted.

Your landing gear appear to be up.

Sidestep to the right.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Sullivan

did not attempt to land at Fort Lauderdale again.

Five hours later, he arrived at North Perry airport,

just 30 miles away.

The plane made a short puddle hop over to Hollywood, Florida,

which is a very short distance away,

and told the people there to refuel.

And the operator of the flying service

said that it hardly took any gasoline to refuel it.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): What should

have been a 20 minute flight had taken nearly five hours.

No one knows where the plane was during that time.

At 1:30 PM, Sullivan and his companions

departed North Perry.

The official flight plan listed Tegucigalpa, Honduras

as their final destination.

Sullivan next contacted the tower

at Miami International Airport.

At 3:43 PM, he filed a revised flight plan listing Tocumen,

Panama as his destination.

Sullivan attempted to file a flight plan for a destination

that was some two hours beyond the normal range

of his aircraft.

When he was informed of this by the air

traffic controller on duty, he then changed his destination.

However, this destination was also well beyond the range

of the aircraft he was flying.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Seven hours

passed, again with no accounting for the plane's whereabouts.

At 10:22 PM, Sullivan contacted the Miami tower once more.

This time he filed a flight plan for Belize British Honduras.

The official FAA report states that he

refueled just after midnight in Cozumel, Mexico.

This was the last official sighting of the plane.

Geoffrey Sullivan and his companions

were assumed lost at sea.

Despite a massive search, no trace of Geoffrey Sullivan

or Alex Rorke was ever found.

23 years later, Sherry Sullivan and her attorney, Carl McHugh,

petitioned the United States government for information

concerning Sherry's father.

To date, they've received over 5,000 pages of documentation

from 14 federal agencies, including the FBI and the CIA.

OK that's the national security.

Very shortly after we initiated our Freedom of Information Act

request to the FBI, my attorney spoke with an FBI agent

on the phone, who wanted to question him about whether he

really wanted to get involved in this type of thing,

and suggesting that maybe we'd be better off if we didn't.

He indicated that we were opening a can of worms

as he put it.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): More than a third of the 800 pages

received from the FBI were censored.

According to Sherry Sullivan, information

found in these documents indicates

that at least another 400 pages exist, but were withheld

for national security reasons.

It made me more curious.

It was almost really the confirmation

we're looking for in a way, saying, there is something

here.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): In the FBI documents,

Sherry found the named Floyd Park.

When she reached Park by telephone,

he told Sherry he had seen her father two days after he

reportedly disappeared.

Till next time?

Have a good flight.

Good luck.

Floyd park indicated that he had seen my father and Alex

and a Spanish fellow in Belize.

We have not been able to verify the identity of Floyd Park, who

he is really, and what he was involved in the '60s

and how my father would have known him,

why they would have stopped to see him.

We weren't really able to get those answers from him.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Sherry Sullivan

only talked to Floyd Park once.

She has been unable to locate him since.

But Park did tell Sherry that her father and Alex Rorke

might have been taken prisoner in Cuba.

I think there's a very good chance

that they ended up in Cuba.

I mean, they had been involved in clandestine operations

in and out of Cuba.

Fidel Castro, from what I've heard

had a bounty out on my father and Alex

because he knew what they were involved in.

He knew they were going in and out of his country.

So there's a very good possibility that they

could have ended up in Cuba.

Probably some way they landed in Cuba.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): In 1986, Sherry

spoke with Marty Casey, who had been in Cuba two years

after her father disappeared.

I was with two Cuban exiles from Miami

and they met a fellow that they knew from the area.

He was working in the compound.

- Mucho gusto. - Como estas?

Americano?

Si, soy Americano.

Que bueno.

He recognized my American accent.

I was speaking Spanish, and he asked me, you know Rorkey?

And I said, Do you mean O'Rourke.

O'Rourke.

No, Rorkey.

The pilot.

No, el piloto Sullivan.

No, no, the other guy was the pilot.

It's Sullivan, which would be the way

to pronounce it in Spanish.

And I said, well, how do you know them?

And he said, I was in jail here with them two years ago. .

Had no reason whatsoever to doubt him.

Because I was the one that thought

that Rorke was O'Rourke.

And I thought that Rorke was a pilot,

and he was the one who corrected me.

He knew.

I didn't.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): Another name

Sherry found in the FBI documents was Enrique

Molina Garcia, allegedly a double agent

for Castro's government.

Sherry believes Garcia was the mysterious third man

on the plane, and that he tricked her father and Alex

Rorke into flying to Cuba.

Unconfirmed reports do place Garcia in Havana years

after Sherry's father disappeared.

When I was little, I used to go over to my grandmother's

house and wind up his watch all the time,

and that was my way of keeping him alive, I think.

He was in that watch and if I kept the watch going,

he'd still be living.

And of course, I'm not little anymore.

But the little girl inside me, the little 7-year-old girl

that never gave up hoping thinks he's alive.

ROBERT STACK (VOICEOVER): For every mystery,

there is someone, somewhere who knows the truth.

Perhaps that someone is watching.

Perhaps it's you.

[music playing]