Original subtitles

[theme sound effect]

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.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Near Albany, New York, an elderly couple was brutally

murdered in their own home.

Incredibly, police solve the case

only after they enlisted the help of a psychic

named Noreen Renier.

Does Noreen have remarkable powers

that enable her to actually experience

a crime from the victim's point of view?

Tonight you'll see this unique detective in action.

Imagine that you wake up one day in a park

in New Orleans unable to remember your name, your age,

or where you came from.

INTERVIEWER: Well, how did it feel to not know who you are?

It's horrible.

You don't expect things like that to happen to you.

NARRATOR: She goes by the name Gigi.

No one knows what made her forget,

but perhaps someone watching can help her remember.

Alfredo and Cecilia Newball seemed the perfect couple

with a perfect life until the night Alfredo came home

from work and made the sobering discovery

that his wife had vanished.

Did she leave her husband for another man,

or was she the victim of foul play?

Also tonight, the poignant drama of a man

who needs your help to uncover his late father's secret life.

Join me.

Perhaps you may be able to help solve a mystery.

[music playing]

We are in a police evidence warehouse in Los Angeles.

An unorthodox murder investigation is in progress.

What you are watching is real.

It is not a recreation.

MALE: Relax.

Breathe.

Take a breath.

[crying] He heard me.

In the argument, he heard you?

Earlier--

NARRATOR: Noreen Renier is a psychic from Orlando, Florida

who works with the police.

Yes, yes.

NARRATOR: Among the psychics we have profiled, she is unique--

a true unsolved mystery.

Noreen Renier claims that she actually

becomes one with the victims.

She feels their pain.

Speaks their words, and sees the faces of their killers.

It can be a daunting, painful, and exhausting way

to make a living.

However, the rewards for everyone involved

are usually substantial.

To date, Noreen has worked with the police in 32

different states and four foreign countries

on some 385 different crimes.

Perhaps Noreen's most stunning success

was a case involving the deaths of Jake and Dora Cohn,

an elderly couple from Colonie, New York, a suburb of Albany.

FEMALE (OVER THE TELEFONE): Sure.

Yeah, everything's great here, too.

I'm glad to hear that.

You know what I did today?

NARRATOR: At 9:50 PM on May 15, 1986, Dora was on the phone

with the couple's only daughter who lived nearby.

Hey, listen.

How about dinner Friday night?

[laughs] I've been making some new recipes.

Thought I'd try--

NARRATOR: In an instant, tragedy struck.

Yeah, well, any time's fine.

How about-- MOTHER (OVER THE PHONE): Jake!

Mom? MOTHER (OVER THE PHONE): Jake!

NARRATOR: Doris screamed out her husband's name twice.

Her daughter immediately called 911.

Then she telephoned her son, James Mariani

and rushed to meet him at her parents' house.

James.

Mom.

They're not telling anything, and they're not letting me in

- Mom! - Ma'am, I'm sorry.

- What's going on in there. - I'm sorry.

What's going on?

My parents are in there!

Ma'am listen to me.

Listen to me.

I hate to tell you this, but they've been killed.

[gasp] I'm sorry.

I'm very sorry.

MALE: The elderly female was lying

on the floor with the phone still in her hands.

It appeared that she had fallen over while on the telephone.

She was shot in the top of the head on a right to left angle.

The male victim was on the floor in a hallway.

He appeared to be shot in the nose.

The only evidence that we found was the entrance

way door had been kicked in.

Part of the doorstopper was laying on the kitchen floor,

and there was two empty shells also laying on the floor.

NARRATOR: When James Mariani knew at a glance

that the shells were 25 caliber, he

became a suspect in his grandparents murder.

The police asked him to take a lie detector test even

though they knew he had been at his own home

when the murders occurred.

MALE: Did you shoot Jake and Dora?

No.

NARRATOR: The test results were inconclusive,

and the police remained suspicious.

James had a criminal record and friends with criminal records.

I was with just a couple friends--

Larry, Larry and JJ.

The The police interviewed two men

James had done jail time with--

Keith Snare and Robert Skinner.

Both had alibis.

No.

That's my girlfriend.

What's her name?

Sandy.

NARRATOR: The investigation eventually bogged down.

Two years went by.

Then Jake and Dora's daughter heard about Noreen Renier

and asked the police to contact her.

Noreen knew absolutely nothing about the case

except the names and ages of the victims.

Noreen, I sent you some articles that were

present at the crime scene.

NARRATOR: It was November of 1988.

Noreen worked long distance my speaker phone.

MALE (OVER THE PHONE): --glasses that were Doris.

I'm going to start with the glasses.

I'm going to start with Dora.

I'm going to try to tune in and see what she

saw just before she was killed.

[breathes]

She doesn't have to bowl that night.

We'd loved to come.

MALE (VOICEOVER): When she was Dora,

she described how she was on the telephone with a female.

She hears a crashing sound. [breaks door]

Wonderful recipe if you don't have the time.

Oh, Jake!

Jake!

Oh, he's shooting me.

I'm being shot.

NARRATOR: Noreen called out Jake's name twice just as Dora

had before she was shot.

MALE (VOICEOVER): Well, as she's Jake,

she describes how she gets up off the couch,

goes down a narrow hallway, and she's confronted

with someone with a gun.

I know you.

What the hell are you doing here?

Noreen remembers that she felt pain in the center of her face

just where Jake had been shot.

My face.

I'm shot in my face.

MALE (VOICEOVER): She had given a pretty accurate description

of both Jack and Dora and a fairly accurate

description of the crime scene.

This made me take notice and feel that she was

credible in what she was doing.

I'm going to count from five to zero.

As I count, your eyes will become heavier--

NARRATOR: The police were beginning

to feel that Noreen might be able to help

them crack the case.

They asked her to work with a forensic hypnotist.

One in zero.

Now go back, back in time to May 15th, 1986.

Dora, tell me about the intruder.

[breathes]

We knew him.

He was a younger man.

DORA: What do you doing?

NOREEN (VOICEOVER): Brown hair.

And he came to our house for dinner.

He did some work for my husband.

JAKE: I know you.

What you are doing?

I'm not playing, old man.

Where's the money?

What do you want?

Where's the money?

JAKE: What are you talking about?

Where is the money?

[struggles] [shot]

MALE: I want you did tell me his name.

Focus now. We'll take a letter at a time.

Do you see a letter?

S.

MALE: OK.

Do you see another letter?

Following the hypnosis session,

we presented Noreen with a series of 10 photographs.

We had put three of them in there who we felt

were the suspects at this time.

- --the last couple of years. - Oh, you know what?

I don't want to see them.

Why don't you just lay them face down

and let me pick up the energies from them?

OK.

Noreen took the photographs.

As a matter of fact, her eyes were closed, and just shuffled

through the photographs, held them for a while,

held each one.

And then kept placing one, two, three, photographs down.

I feel the strongest energy from these three photographs.

And this one in particular.

He might have been the one that killed Jake and Dora.

NARRATOR: The man in the first photo

had nothing at all to do with the case.

But the second photo was Robert Skinner, a friend of Jake

Dora's grandson, James Mariani.

The third photo was Mariani himself.

NARRATOR: It was not lost on the police

that Robert Skinner's last name began with S. The one

letter Noreen had visualized.

Where were you?

I was with my girlfriend.

What's her name?

Sandy.

NARRATOR: Armed with Noreen's information,

the police checked Robert Skinner's alibi again.

It did not hold up.

Eventually the DA that James Mariani had

conspired with Robert Skinner and Keith Snare

to rob his grandparents.

All three men are now serving lengthy prison sentences.

Noreen Renier had proved vital in solving the case.

When the skeptics ask me, how does it work,

my answer usually is, you've been

using your logical, rational mind for many years.

Explain to me how it works.

How does your memory, how do you learn math?

How does a brain work when you spell?

You don't know.

And neither do I, but you can use your mind and so can I.

If she can help me, I would welcome

anything she can give me.

NARRATOR: Detective Jim Tiample of the LAPD

is currently working with Noreen on the case of 42-year-old

Rosemary Hom, co-owner of a Chinese bakery

near downtown Los Angeles.

She was kidnapped and stabbed to death on November 5th, 1994.

The last person to see Rosemary alive was one of her employees

just before 9:00 AM.

He noticed her van approaching the bakery.

Rosemary slowed down and waved on her way

into the parking garage across the street.

The employee next observed that an Asian man got out

of a parked car and entered the garage

just after Rosemary drove in.

He waited for about a half hour.

She never showed.

He didn't hear anything.

There wasn't anything suspicious.

But after a half hour of waiting,

he noticed the garage door come up again.

And at this time, he saw Mrs. Hom's coming out of the garage.

But it was the male Asian driving the car.

Mrs. Hom was nowhere in sight.

NARRATOR: 11 hours later, Rosemary Hom's was found.

Rosemary was lying dead on the back seat.

Although no Noreen Renier usually

works by phone, for this case, Unsolved Mysteries

brought her to Los Angeles.

With Rosemary Hom's van parked behind her

and Rosemary's watch in her hand,

Noreen seemed to become the victim.

I'm Rosemary.

My eyes are just slightly closed set, a little close-setness

in the eyes.

There was an oval shaped face.

(VOICEOVER) For the police to make sure

that my credibility becomes strong,

I described what the victim looked like.

Before we start the case, I don't know anything about it.

So they have no way of thinking I've

checked on who this person was.

I described the person, what he looked like,

or she looked like alive, and then I become killed.

Stay with it.

Stay with it.

Just a little longer. Stay with it.

NARRATOR: Remember.

What you are seeing is not a recreation.

Why is he mad at you?

[breathing heavy]

Why is he doing this to you, Rosemary?

He's jealous.

He's jealous.

He's-- [crying] He's hurting my neck.

[mumbling] I don't want to do this.

MALE: OK, OK.

[screaming] Oh, my neck.

My neck.

MALE: Come back, OK?

DETECTIVE: Rosemary starting-- you know counting this one.

The point is that she'd focus in on the one

woman that really caused her death,

and it was extremely painful to her.

That surprised me because that hasn't been in any report.

That hasn't been in any news articles.

It hasn't been on any press releases.

He had very few lines, but the lines

would be very significant.

DETECTIVE (VOICEOVER): She talked

about tattoos, marks on the person that we're looking at.

Just be very complicated.

The tattoo she described is indicative of a group--

a gang, I guess you might say--

that we have charted for several years.

My face is more broad.

(VOICEOVER) I have a police artist that I work with.

And I see the bad guy, and he draws the bad guy.

If the victim saw the bad guy, I can see how the victim saw him.

If for some reason, the victim got shot in the back

or was asleep when they were killed,

I can go there and observe as Noreen what he's doing

and what's going on.

So I can be several--

the victim, the suspect, and Noreen can pop in and out.

I found the most impressive thing about Noreen was,

going into it not knowing anything about the crime,

she was able to describe to me the crime scene,

describe to me where the body was found.

She identified a spot as a dump site.

No one knows about that except us.

So we're going to look at everything

she says with a great deal of credibility.

NARRATOR: This is the full face composite

that Noreen visualized for the police artist.

This is a profile view composite based on the description

given by the employee who last saw Rosemary Hom alive.

[music playing]

Next, a husband becomes a potential

suspect when his wife and stepson mysteriously disappear.

[eerie music]

She was beautiful-- a devoted mother,

by all accounts madly in love with her husband,

and now she is missing.

Seven months ago, Cecilia Newball

mysteriously vanished along with her six-year-old son.

At the time, Cecilia was 8 and 1/2 months pregnant.

Today, her husband Alfredo Newball lives

under a cloud of suspicion.

He says he had no involvement in his wife's disappearance.

And in fact, he claims to have an airtight alibi.

But both police and Cecilia's friends

think Alfredo knows more than he is admitting.

Alfredo Newborn and Cecilia Mia met in 1991.

After a passionate two-year courtship, they married.

At the ceremony, Cecilia's son from a previous marriage, Rene

Perez, was the ring bearer.

The couple who settled in Chatsworth, California.

And almost immediately Cecilia became pregnant.

By September 20, 1994, Cecilia's due date

was only two weeks away.

That afternoon, she sat down to write thank you

notes for a recent baby shower.

What was your Uncle George girlfriend name, babe?

NARRATOR: At around 2:30 PM, Alfredo left for work.

As he reached the front door, Alfredo

says he was stopped short by a strange undefined yearning.

INTERVIEWER: Being pregnant, she looked so beautiful that I

went back and kissed her again.

I love you.

I left her sitting inside the apartment writing

the thank you notes, and that was the last time

that I saw my wife.

NARRATOR: Alfredo works as a nurse's assistant

at a hospital and retirement home for members

of the film industry.

2 and 1/2 hours after his shift began, Alfredo phoned Cecilia.

ALFREDO (VOICEOVER): I just had some kind of very weird feeling

that something was wrong.

But she never answered the phone.

Um, [ringing] I don't know.

For some reasons, I thought that she could be visiting with some

friends or being at my mom's.

[ringing]

NARRATOR: Alfredo called several times throughout the evening.

Finally fearing the worst, he left work early.

Even as he approached the apartment,

Alfredo knew that something was not quite right.

Cecilia's Jeep was parked on the street

instead of in the building's security lot.

Cecilia, are you there?

NARRATOR: Inside the apartment, Alfredo

says nothing was out of place.

There were no signs of a struggle

or a break in and no signs of Cecilia and Rene.

But in Cecilia's Jeep, Alfredo found a sentimental generic

goodbye card.

It was signed simply, Cecilia.

A moment later, Alfredo's concern turned to bewildered.

Cecilia's wedding and engagement rings

have been left on the passenger's seat of the Jeep.

To Alfredo, the conclusion was obvious.

His wife must have left him.

ALFREDO (VOICEOVER): The relationship was always good.

We never had any problems, fights.

Why would she do something like this?

To leave me a note like that and to leave the wedding rings?

It was very confusing to me.

NARRATOR: Desperate for answers, Alfredo phoned the one person

he thought might know his wife's whereabouts--

her closest friend at work, Kevin Annabell.

It was this phone call that would help cast

suspicion on Alfredo Newball.

Hello.

ALFREDO (OVER THE PHONE): Kevin, this is Al.

Al, what time is it?

I don't know.

It's about midnight.

Is Cici there?

What?

No, Cici's not here.

What's going on?

I don't know.

I mean, she's got to be there.

Put her on. I came home.

She's not here.

KEVIN (VOICEOVER): And I was like, you know, Al,

she's not here.

You're really starting to scare me.

What's going on?

And he was unusually Calm like if it were me,

I would have been screaming at the person

I thought where my wife was.

But he was--

I was more nervous and excited than he was.

I felt like she needed to be away

for a few days or something.

I don't know.

It was very strange.

But at least I believed that she was coming back soon.

It appeared that nothing was taken

by Cecilia or her son Rene.

All his toys were left there.

Clothing was left there.

Not so much as a toothbrush.

Hello, is this Alfredo Newball?

NARRATOR: The day after Cecilia disappeared,

the police called Alfredo.

They had been contacted by one of Cecilia's relatives.

DETECTIVE (OVER THE PHONE): Can you

tell me, Mr. Newball, when was the last time

you saw your wife Cecilia?

Ah, yesterday afternoon.

I was getting ready to go to work.

Then, I gave her a kiss, and that was it.

Mr. Newball didn't appear to be that concerned.

And here he has a 8 and 1/2 month pregnant wife,

a six-year-old stepson--

that according to everyone including Mr. Newball,

they all got along fine.

Mr. Newball just didn't appear to be the grieving husband

soon to be new father.

NARRATOR: The suspicions mounted three days later

when Alfredo received a letter postmarked

to nearby Van Nuys, California.

Inside the envelope was a card identical to the one

found in the Jeep and a typewritten note.

CECILIA (VOICEOVER): Alfredo, I have

gone to Honduras with a man I met nine months ago

by the name of Arturo.

He's a doctor.

I don't know if this baby is yours or his.

I love you with all my heart, but you

will not amount to anything.

And I want only the best for my baby.

Alfredo, you can't give us that.

Adios.

Cecilia and Rene.

ALFREDO (VOICEOVER): My first impression

after opening the letter was that she had left.

But then after reviewing the letter several times,

some parts don't sound like Cecilia.

It doesn't strike me as Cecilia at all.

NARRATOR: Kevin Anabel also found

the letter out of character.

Cecilia was--

I would say she was almost obsessed with Al.

And when you're that in love with a person,

you don't just meet a doctor and say,

well, I think I'm going to Honduras.

Let me just write my husband a note.

That doesn't happen.

I took a look at the letter, spoke to friends

and family of Cecilia later on.

And I am convinced that that letter is not from Cecilia.

Whoever typed this letter knew more about Alfredo's side

of the family rather than knowing very much

about Cecilia's side of the family.

My best guess on this is that Cecilia's disappearance

is not by her will.

I believe there is a third party involved in this.

Cecilia speaking.

NARRATOR: Was there a third party?

And if so, was there a connection to Alfredo?

Six months before she disappeared,

Cecilia received a phone call from a still

unidentified woman who may have been that third party.

What?

She had gotten a call that a woman had a videotape of Al

kissing another woman at a baby shower

and that the woman wanted to see the tape.

And Cecilia had agreed to see the tape.

OK, yes, I know where is that.

8:00 o'clock?

NARRATOR: The woman said she would phone

again to arrange a meeting.

That call never came, and the matter

was apparently forgotten.

[ringing]

Then just A few weeks before Cecilia disappeared,

a second mysterious call--

this one from a woman who claimed

to be a coworker of Alfredo's.

[non-english]?

From?

Oh, you work with Alfredo.

A woman had called and said that she was giving Al--

they were going to give Al a baby shower at work

and that she had some baby furniture

and she wanted to Cecilia to pick out

a piece of that furniture but to keep it

a secret because the shower was going to be a surprise.

On the 20th?

Yeah, that's fine.

NARRATOR: Police later determined

that the call had not been made by Alfredo's coworker

and that no shower had been planned.

But by then, it was too late.

Thank you very much.

Bye.

She disappeared on Tuesday, the day

she was supposed to get together with this lady

to pick out a piece of furniture for the baby shower.

Too much of a coincidence for her

to disappear on the same day.

It appears that someone is trying to lure her

away from safety, away from her family, away from her friends,

trying to get her alone.

If she's somewhere, she doesn't

want to come back to me.

But I just want to know what happened to them,

and that's what I really need the public's help finding

something about this case.

It's It's my opinion that Mr. Newball is not telling

me everything that he knows.

As far as Cecilia's disappearance,

he may not have been there when she disappeared.

But it's my opinion that he knows something now.

NARRATOR: What happened to Cecilia

Newball and her son Rene Perez?

Were they abducted and perhaps murdered or did Cecilia run

away to be with another man?

If Cecilia is alive, as Alfredo believes,

she is now the mother of their 7-month-old child.

And Alfredo was concerned both for her and the baby.

ALFREDO (OVER THE PHONE): Well, I want to tell her,

Cecilia, if she happens to view this, please get in touch.

If she doesn't want to write me or talk to me on the phone,

to at least call her dad.

You know, he's-- like, he's not well,

and I just want to tell her that there's a lot

of people suffering right now and still because of this.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: In a moment, the strange case of a young woman

suffering from amnesia.

Perhaps someone watching knows her true identity.

[eerie music]

Imagine suddenly finding yourself

in a strange and alien place.

You scan your surroundings for clues.

Even your own possessions are unrecognizable.

Finally, the terrifying realization--

you don't know where you are.

You don't know who you are.

You are suffering from amnesia.

FEMALE (VOICEOVER): It was horrible.

And it's so sudden-- like, you're not prepared for it.

You don't expect things like that to happen to you.

And, like, I didn't know what to do.

I know I had to go get help somewhere.

The mystery woman of Audubon park

had the vague notion that her name might be Gigi.

Other than that, she knew nothing of her past.

Tonight she is still asking herself

the one fundamental question we all take for granted--

who am I. To help Gigi find the answer,

we turn now to reporter Susan Roesgen of NBC

affiliate WDSU TV, New Orleans.

SUSAN ROESGEN (VOICEOVER): I met with Gigi in Audubon park

where her peculiar odyssey began six months ago.

Gigi struck me as articulate and well-educated.

What's it like to not have any past?

What is it like to be a person living without a past

and not knowing how you got here?

It's strange.

I feel like I have a blank in my head and nothing to base

anything on.

So I have to just go by day by day what I realize day by day.

Gigi, these are the things that you had when you

woke up here at Audubon Park.

Did you recognize them right away as your things?

No, I just assumed they were mine because they were with me.

And there wasn't anyone else close to me.

So I just assumed they were mine.

SUSAN ROESGEN (VOICEOVER): I couldn't help puzzling

over the odd assortment of belongings

that sum up Gigi's life.

Laid out for display, they painted a disjointed picture--

four pairs of scissors, a gold plated table setting,

UPS notices that only company personnel should have,

and deposit envelopes specific to banks in the Northeastern

United States.

And finally there was the makeup.

Gigi was carrying no less than 26 tubes

of lipstick, 24 lip liner pencils,

and dozens of other cosmetics.

Presumably some of these things are

clues to Gigi's real identity.

But so far, they haven't helped a bit.

To date, police have reviewed hundreds

of missing person's files.

Doctors have probed and tested.

Even sodium amytal, a so-called truth serum,

couldn't pierce the fog of Gigi's amnesia.

Now a hospital official named Doyle

Magee has voluntarily assumed the job

of uncovering Gigi's past.

--which is totally confusing.

Do you believe that Gigi sincerely

does not remember her past?

I do.

She has made a conscious effort to assist me

on every phase of trying to find out

who she is through the law enforcement agencies,

through the media.

If she was in fact trying to conceal her identity,

she would not have signed the releases

that allow us to do this.

SUSAN ROESGEN (VOICEOVER): Doyle Magee

is especially mystified by the total absence of anything

personal in Gigi's wallet or handbag.

He fears that this omission is no accident.

NARRATOR: Somebody has gone to great pains

to make sure that we don't know who she is.

The wallets are fairly new.

They had absolutely nothing personal in them--

no personal photos, no credit cards, no checks.

The purse had no receipts.

And you know, I don't know of any lady

who didn't accidentally drop a receipt

or something in her purse.

SUSAN ROESGEN (VOICEOVER): What could

have triggered Gigi's amnesia?

Experts believe she may have seen or experienced

something so horrible that, in defense,

her memory simply shut down.

If someone watching helps you find out who you were,

are you a little afraid to find out who you were?

I want to now even then.

because it's been so long that not knowing that.

It doesn't matter to me whether it was good or bad.

I just want to know.

What do the terms past, present,

and future mean to you now?

Well, the past to me is the past unknown.

The present is this day to day life here in the future.

It's very uncertain for me now at this point.

SUSAN ROESGEN (VOICEOVER): Gigi has been trapped in the limbo

of amnesia since February 1995.

With luck, she will soon discover her true identity.

Otherwise, she has no choice but to close the door on her past,

assemble a new legal identity, and begin

her life again from scratch.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Next, a man needs your help

to find the truth about his father's mysterious past.

[mysterious music]

[whispering]

It is a sorrowful event that we must all face someday--

a death of a parent.

For an 11-year-old boy named Bob Coleman,

it was a time to reflect on everything he had ever known

about his father or at least everything his father had

wanted him to know.

By all accounts, Richard Coleman was an ordinary man who

lived a fairly uneventful life.

Richard worked as a vending machine

mechanic in Washington DC.

He had served in the military and married in 1947.

Bob was born two years later.

And today Bob's strongest memory of childhood

is a love of baseball he shared with his father.

He had a passion to play ball, and we'd go out to the yard,

to the side yard and the front yard.

And he'd pitch the ball to me, and I'd hit it.

And it was something that I enjoyed an awful lot.

And I loved being outside with him

and playing ball whenever we could.

NARRATOR: Richard Coleman passed away in 1961.

A short time later, Bob received the first hint

that his father had been a man with many deeply held secrets.

Curiosity drew Bob to an old trunk

at the foot of his parents' bed.

Inside was a tantalizing collection of his father's

military mementos.

What are you doing, Bobby?

Just looking at dad's old stuff?

Was dad in the army?

Yes, he was, but your dad didn't really

like to talk about it, honey.

He did something in the army that he wasn't proud of.

Why don't you just close it up?

BOB COLEMAN (VOICEOVER): I remember many, many times

asking my mom about my dad and specifically honing

in on the items in the foot locker.

And she didn't have too many explanations other

than that she believed that my dad had done something

he wasn't real proud of and that his words

were, it's over and done with.

NARRATOR: 14 years past.

Finally in 1975, Bob's own experiences in the military

drew him back to the forbidden contents of the trunk.

Bob was flooded with emotion as he

once again held the uniform which had

so fascinated him as a child.

BOB COLEMAN (VOICEOVER): It had the silver bars

of her first-lieutenant still on it.

It had the insignia, interestingly enough,

of a Medical Corps [inaudible],, which would indicate

that the person who wore that uniform

was a medical doctor in the army.

NARRATOR: Was it possible that Richard

Coleman, vending machine mechanic,

had been a doctor in the army?

For Bob, the very possibility triggered

a vivid childhood memory.

[screams] Oh, oh my god.

I'm bleeding. Richard!

Richard! Oh--

SUSAN ROESGEN (VOICEOVER): My mom had cut

her hand up very, very badly.

And there was a lot of blood.

She was bleeding profusely.

And I remember my dad taking control of the situation,

sizing up the emergency.

He applied pressure to the cut and actually

knew about pressure points and did something that I don't

remember because I was small.

But he did something that he actually was able to stop

the bleeding pretty quickly.

And he took control of the situation

in a way that would lead me to believe that he

knew more about the medical field

than somebody who was not trained.

Atta boy. See?

Everything's fine.

NARRATOR: Why would Richard Coleman

abandon medicine to become a vending machine mechanic?

Bob could no longer ignore the fact that his father was

not the man he thought he knew.

The trunk yielded other perplexing clues.

Though the uniform was from the Second World War,

Bob discovered several prestigious medals

from the first World War almost 30 years earlier.

The awards included a legion of honor ribbon

and a Croix de Guerre, the French cross of war.

Another items from the First World War

raised still more questions.

BOB COLEMAN (VOICEOVER): It was a World War I certificate.

And as I looked at it, I remember noticing that items

had been written over.

Someone had gone back after it was issued and put my father's

name, Richard Coleman, and a service number

and other information were written

over the original inscriptions.

NARRATOR: The same envelope which

contained the certificate held a piece of paper which

appeared to be a crib sheet.

On it, Richard Coleman had practiced

writing the same words and numbers that had

been forged on the certificate.

Bob checked with the Veterans Administration.

He wasn't really surprised to learn

that the discharge certificate had belonged to another man.

But a second discovery left Bob truly stunned.

There was no record of a Richard Coleman

ever having served in the Army Medical Corps

either in the First or Second World War.

That's his room right there.

NARRATOR: The sudden developments once again

thrust Bob back to his childhood in the final days

of his father's life.

Hi, Sharon.

Hi, honey.

I'm just glad to see you.

How are you feeling today?

I'm feeling a little better.

Good.

Has anybody come to visit you?

No, you're the first one.

What about your brothers and sisters and your family?

Shh, shh.

[kiss] We're dad's family, honey?

Yes.

You are.

BOB COLEMAN (VOICEOVER): I remember asking several times.

Well, my dad's sick.

He's probably going to pass away.

Where's his family and why isn't anyone up here to see how he is

or to visit him?

What a beautiful dress you have.

And my mom really wouldn't answer it.

She didn't have an answer, I guess.

And I never--

I never got any satisfactory explanation for that.

NARRATOR: Who was Richard Coleman?

And just what secrets was he hiding?

The trunk held one other important clue--

a roster supplement from a New York City gun club.

It listed Richard as a member in 1944

and gave his occupation special patrolman.

From tax records, Bob learned that his father had been

employed as a security guard at a bank in Manhattan

from 1943 to 1945.

However, the bank had no employment

records for a Richard Coleman.

When Bob researched his father's address from 1944, yet

another startling detail surfaced.

My father may have lived with an Alice Coleman.

And I don't know what her maiden name was, but voting records

indicate that they were married and that she was a housewife

and that she lived with Richard Coleman.

I've never been able to confirm their marriage because there's

no record that I can find.

And indeed, I don't know where Alice Coleman went to

because, after 1967, she does not appear

in the Manhattan phonebooks.

NARRATOR: Was there something in Richard Coleman's past

that made him change his identity?

Why did he keep his apparent marriage

to Alice Coleman a secret?

And why, despite a trunk filled with mementos,

did the military have no record of his serving

in either World War?

Bob's mother passed away in 1983 without giving him any clues.

Today, Bob Coleman is determined to find the answers

whatever they may be.

BOB COLEMAN (VOICEOVER): I'm not trying to judge my father.

I'm trying to learn about him, and I'm

perfectly aware that there may be something

that he did 50, 60 years ago that was pretty bad perhaps

and that would have prompted him to change his identity

and to obscure his past.

But it's also something that's very important to me

because it's my father, and it may be the only way

that I ultimately end up really knowing who he was

and what he did.

And I'm very passionate and very committed to doing that

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Can faith work hand-in-hand

with modern medicine?

On our next unsolved mysteries, we'll

bring you the inspirational stories

of a woman and a young boy who battled serious illnesses

and fully recovered.

Some believe that the power of prayer helped save their lives.

Join me next time for another intriguing addition

of Unsolved Mysteries.

[eerie music]