Original subtitles

[music playing]

Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries.

Just before Christmas 1955, a newborn baby girl was abandoned

in a New York City subway car.

40 years later, Jean Martin still dreams

of finding her birth mother.

Perhaps someone watching will make her dream come true.

If you think sea monsters are nothing more

than fanciful legend, you've probably never

visited Canada's Cadboro Bay.

You've probably never heard the incredible eyewitness

accounts of a mysterious creature

known as Cadborosaurus.

In North Carolina, a night of drinking and joyriding

suddenly turns vicious and a young mother

is thrown to her death.

Also a rare glimpse into the mind

of a criminal, Franklin Floyd is serving

52 years for kidnapping.

But his victim, 7-year-old Michael Hughes,

was never found.

Incredibly Floyd claims the kidnapped boy

is alive and well, but refuses to say where he is.

Stay with us, perhaps you hold the key.

Perhaps your call can help solve one of tonight's Unsolved

Mysteries.

[theme music playing]

For centuries, the stories have fascinated us.

In Scotland it's the Loch Ness monster,

in New York's Lake Champlain is Champ,

there's also Ogopogo at Lake Okanagan in British Columbia,

Canada, and finally in nearby Cadboro

Bay is a legendary Caddy.

The thing I notice most about it was its eyes.

They were big and they were serpent like.

The odor from it was just incredible.

It permeated, it made you want to vomit.

It went down and a hump came up, and then it went down,

and another one came up, and it was like it was moving.

They call it Cadborosaurus, Caddy for short,

the sea monster of Cadboro Bay.

Many people believe this is the carcass

of just such a creature.

Computer enhancement gives us an idea of what it might

have looked like when alive.

Like the biblical Jonah, it came from the belly of a whale.

In 1937, there was a whaling station in the north

part of British Columbia.

And one of the whale boats harpooned

this big sperm whale about six hours

run from the whaling station.

Towed it back, and the flensers got to it fairly quickly.

Flensers are the workers who butcher the whales

once they are brought to shore.

Amazingly a sperm whale has three enormous stomachs.

Inside one of them the flensers made an astonishing find.

Instead of ringing out a big ten foot shark or a giant squid

or a rag fish or something like that,

they came across this incredible snake like thing.

None of them had ever seen before in years

of whaling and flensing.

They knew it was something different.

The whalers took this photograph that very day.

James Wakelen, then a 24-year-old blacksmith's

assistant, is the only witness still alive who saw

the creature with his own eyes.

I don't know.

I got no idea what it is.

I haven't got a clue.

Never seen anything like it.

And I guess somebody thought oh, that's

a queer looking affair there.

We better get the manager or go and see about it.

And he got it brought down, and he took the pictures.

Laid out, the creature measured some 12 feet long.

It had a head shaped like a horse or a camel

and a thin, snake-like body approximately 16 inches

in circumference.

Enormous detail is visible, especially in the tail region,

which shows us that it has a pair of hind flippers

that were webbed together with the tail

to form this whale like fluke, which

undoubtedly provided the main driving force for this animal.

The whalers sent part of the specimen

to the Provincial Museum in Victoria, British Columbia.

There the museum director Francis Kermode

dismissed it as a fetus of a baleen whale and tossed it out.

Even to untrained eyes a baleen whale fetus

bears little resemblance to the carcass examined

by the museum director.

If he just stopped and thought would these men

send down a baleen whale?

They dissected hundreds of these things out of dead whale

uteruses every week.

They knew what a fetal baleen whale,

so that was really not complimentary

to these professional whalers.

If the whalers weren't wrong, maybe the creature was a fake.

One of the most famous photos of the Loch Ness monster

eventually proved to be a hoax.

Skeptics claim the Cadborosaurus photo is no different.

But that hardly explains all the people in the 60 years

since who insist they've seen a Caddy like sea monster.

In 1968, William Haglund was sailing in a remote cove.

As evening fell, he and his sons netted what he now believes

was a baby Cadborosaurus.

It look like at the little garter snake,

but it was a little bit more husky than that.

But it wasn't much longer about 16 inches long,

maybe the thickness of my thumb, but it

had little shoulders with little flippers on its shoulders,

and a bit of a neck not much, but and a head on it with two

great brown eyes looking at us.

Haglund sketched the animal in detail.

He decided to take the oddity to the nearest biology station,

but he was at least a day's sail away.

Through the evening, I could hear

this little thing making quite a fuss in the bucket

that we'd put it into.

But when I shine the light down at him,

he'd just opened his mouth and hissed at me.

And you could see that he was quite terrified and quite

put out with all of this.

I felt that maybe if we tried to held him over another night

that he might perish.

I'd just did a great deal of soul searching

and decided to put it back in the water and leave it be.

It was another opportunity lost.

For the second time what was thought to be

a Caddy was thrown back in the bay.

In consultation with a paleontologist

we applied computer animation techniques

to one of the original Cadborosaurus photographs.

The skeletal structure is similar to that of a snake.

A Caddy seven meters long would probably

have at least 360 vertebra that would give the creature

enough flexibility to form the signature hoops so frequently

mentioned by eyewitnesses.

Unlike a snake, which can only wiggle from side to side,

a Cadborosaurus could propel hisself forward

with his tail fluke and steer with his forefin something

like a sea lion.

If this is truly an accurate depiction of a Caddy,

imagine seeing one in the wild.

That's what a pilot spotted while flying a sea

plane over Cadboro Bay, two college boys

saw just 20 yards from shore, and a homemaker

surprised the sea monster right on the beach.

I was walking my dog, Lady, and as we were coming

down the path to the beach, she was

struggling to get away from me.

She just didn't want to go to the beach.

Come on, Lady.

Finally I pulled her and pulled her and she got closer.

And as I turned to look down, I saw this face looking at me.

And it was shaped like a horse face,

and there were eyes that were like a snake.

And as I looked at it, it looked at me,

and then it dropped its head below the cliff.

It sort of took my breath away when I saw it.

And I just was thinking to myself did I really

see what I thought I saw?

You know, what is it?

I heard a sound and thought it was

probably a whale or something.

Looked out, didn't see much.

And heard it again and saw like a strange head

out of the water about 50, 60 feet away.

It had the definite snout with a big large head, really rocky

looking, really greeny-black color, almost

like a garbage bag color.

It was a very odd looking thing.

It was hoop like creature.

It had two vertical hoops.

As we were on approach and landing

we could see that it was moving very quickly through the water.

I would estimate to be about 40 miles per hour.

And we could actually see through the two hoops.

We could see what was on the other side of the hoops,

so it was very strange.

It was the most unique thing I've ever

seen in the waters around here.

I've seen lots of different things,

but I've never seen something like that.

It's our view that the animal does exist, because

of the total mass of evidence.

If these people who act independently over a century

time and 3,000 miles of coastline were in collusion

it would be the biggest con game in the history of science.

There is no way that happened.

These people are totally unknown to each other.

Skeptics abound, outnumbered perhaps only by believers.

Doubters claim Caddy eyewitnesses are mistaken what

they really saw were humpback whales,

elephants seals, basking sharks, or perhaps a herd of sea lions.

Hopefully the next person to get hold of a Caddy

will manage to resist the urge to dump it back in the bay.

Perhaps then this mystery will finally be solved.

We'll be back in a moment with an urgent appeal

from the authorities in North Carolina.

They need your help to track down an accused killer.

[theme music]

Most teenagers would do anything to avoid

being with their parents.

But to 17-year-old April Hart nothing

would be more precious than spending

a few moments with her mother savagely

murdered when April was six.

APRIL HART: I just wante [inaudible]

so that she will be there beside me, to play with me.

And I'll have her there, knowing she's there were me,

and not gone like she is now.

ROBERT STACK: April's mother Sherry

was last seen alive on a January night in 1984.

The 24-year-old divorcee was supposed to meet a date

outside a local restaurant.

Sherry Hart did not come home that night or the next.

Police located several friends who had seen her that evening.

However, they found no evidence of foul play,

no explanation for Sherry's sudden disappearance.

For months afterwards, April heard

rumors that her mother had run off to Florida with a lover.

APRIL HART: I just thought she hated

me and didn't want to come back because she had me.

And she didn't feel that she was responsible for me.

And I just didn't think she loved me anymore.

There!

What do you got, Don?

Female.

She's-- she's been here a while.

Yeah.

She's pretty well decomposed.

ROBERT STACK: The truth was worse, far worse.

11 months after Sherry vanished, an unrelated investigation led

police down a 2000 foot cliff.

Locals call it the jumping off place.

It was there that authorities found

the body of Sherry Lyall Hart.

Investigators immediately reopened the case.

Sherry?

Hi, guys.

How you doing?

Well, I was supposed to have a date about a half hour ago,

but--

ROBERT STACK: They located a witness who has seen Sherry

on the night she vanished with two

high school friends, Jeffrey Burgess and Richard Bare.

Where were you going?

Nowhere in particular, just out cruising around.

Cruising around.

ROBERT STACK: Police interrogated

Bare and Burgess separately.

Richard Bare's brother had once dated Sherry Hart.

What time would that have been?

9.

9 o'clock.

Are you sure about that?

No. I'm not sure.

It could have been 9:05.

It could have been 8:55.

I don't-- I don't keep a watch on me

and check in every minute, OK?

We have witnesses that saw you together after 9:00.

And Burgess gave us a different time as well.

So are you sure it was 9 o'clock?

Look. Look.

Let me tell you something.

It was dark.

It was cold.

We dropped her off by her car.

I don't know what time it was.

But the stores were open?

They were open.

OK.

ROBERT STACK: Richard Bare volunteered little information,

so detectives pushed forward with other leads.

We interviewed a great deal of people.

Many people.

And as a result of those interviews,

we feel that we have developed a scenario as to what

occurred that evening.

[inaudible] you guys, I don't know what for.

So where's this place we're going, anyway?

I figured we'd go cruising first.

Uh, a couple buddies of mine are down there.

Meet up with them, and then maybe go to the Twilight club

afterwards.

Sounds good.

At some point in time, this riding around

led them to an area, possibly in the vicinity

of a nightclub or a party.

And during this riding around, Sherry Hart

asked to make a rest stop.

ROBERT STACK: Authorities allege that Sherry and the two men

pulled off the highway about one quarter of a mile

from the jumping off place.

You know what, Jeff?

What's that?

I think the woods are a dangerous place

for a little girl.

I think you might be right.

[laughs]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Sherry, Sherry.

I thought I said take your time. - Come on.

Let's go to the car. - Shh.

Shh. - No.

Stop. - Give me a kiss.

No, Richard.

Stop it!

Richard, stop!

Leave me alone!

Don't!

Richard, stop!

[inaudible]

Stop it!

Stop it now!

[sobbing]

Help me!

Jeff, please help me!

ROBERT STACK: That night, Richard Bare was

apparently carrying a handgun.

What are you doing?

Shut up and stay in the car, all right?

[crying] You're hurting me.

Sh!

[sobbing]

No!

No!

No!

Stop it, Richard, please.

You're hurting me!

Bye.

[screams]

Turn to your left.

ROBERT STACK: Richard Bare and Jeffrey Burgess

were charged with the murder of Sherry Hart.

Turn to your right.

ROBERT STACK: Conviction could have led

straight to the gas chamber.

However, four months after his arrest,

Richard Bare managed to escape from the county jail.

Jeffrey Burgess was released on bail

pending his friend's recapture.

More than 10 years later, the trial has yet to begin.

We let those people down.

We let the victim down.

And we'd certainly like to have an opportunity to get him back,

to let them know that we want to see--

we want to see justice done.

This is probably as brutal a crime

as you will ever encounter because of the horror,

the fear, the fright that the victim

had to feel for several minutes before she

went over that cliff.

Because she would have, in my opinion,

known enough to know where she was.

BETTY LYALL: She was an outgoing person.

She liked people.

She liked to have fun.

She was a mother that loved her daughter very much.

She thought more of April than anybody or anything.

APRIL HART: It won't never get behind me.

I can't take looking at her grave,

knowing she's down there.

I want her to be here with me, so I can just give her a hug

and just have her in my life again.

Recently we profiled a pair of cunning criminals,

two women who, in some circles, had

achieved near folk hero status.

The police knew them as a real life Thelma and Louise.

If you passed them on the road, you

would think they were just best friends out for a joyride.

But over a three month period in early 1995,

Rose Turford and Carolyn Stevens stole

more than a quarter of a million dollars from at least 10 men.

Their MO was simple, yet devious.

Rose and Carolyn lured their victims to hotel rooms

with the promise of an adventurous date.

Rose and Carolyn from the onset

wanted to be the real life Thelma and Louise.

They wanted to experience that thrill and the spontaneity.

And only thing is, I don't believe

they ever considered what they were

going to do to their families.

ROBERT STACK: In March of 1995, Rose and Carolyn were finally

arrested in Houston, Texas.

Their families put up almost everything they owned

to post the $500,000 bail.

The Thelma and Louise bandits were released,

and promptly disappeared.

As it turned out, our broadcast was a catalyst

for a full-scale media blitz aimed

at tracking down the two women.

Here's Keely Shaye Smith with the details.

Well, the story of the Thelma and Louise bandits

appeared everywhere--

newspapers, magazines, and on television--

but it was a t-shirt just like this one which

led to their capture in Toronto, Canada,

less than five months after they had vanished.

The gentleman who gave us the tip saw the pictures

in the "Maclean's" magazine of me

holding the t-shirt up and called

the number on the t-shirt.

KEELY SHAYE SMITH: The tipster knew the whereabouts

of Rose Turford.

She was working at a telemarketing firm in Toronto.

Within 24 hours, both of the fugitives were in custody.

Probably the weirdest thing in this whole chase

was watching those two smile going to jail.

Looking at all the time that they're looking at,

they smiled for the cameras.

KEELY SHAYE SMITH: Turford and Stevens

were extradited to Texas and are currently

being held here at the Harris County Jail in Houston.

I think that anyone who does a series of aggravated robberies

are nothing more than criminals.

They're not anything special.

They're not anything to admire.

They're not anything to emulate.

They're just robbers.

ROBERT STACK: Next, a provocative case

study of a criminal mind.

Meet kidnapper of Franklin Delano Floyd.

And later, a poignant tale of a baby girl

abandoned on a subway.

As a grown woman, she dreams of a Christmas reunion

with her birth mother.

This is Michael Hughes.

He is seven years old and has been missing

for more than 14 months.

In 1994, Michael was living with foster parents

when he was abducted by a man who claims to be his father.

You're acting like I walked up to the McDonald's and took

a strange boy and walked off with him.

And that's where you're wrong.

ROBERT STACK: This is Franklin Delano Floyd.

In fact, he is not the father of Michael Hughes.

Today, Floyd is serving a 52 year prison sentence

for kidnapping Michael.

Floyd insists the boy is alive and safe,

but he refuses to tell anyone where Michael is

or who is sheltering him.

The case of Franklin Floyd and Michael Hughes

is one of the most bizarre we've ever profiled,

a twisted tale of deception and deceit

that truly defies rational thinking.

We now joined Kevin Ogle from our NBC affiliate KFOR-TV

in Oklahoma City.

This is Indian Meridian Elementary School

just outside of Oklahoma City.

On September 12, 1994, Franklin Delano Floyd

walked into the office of principal James Davis.

Floyd said he was the father of six-year-old Michael Hughes.

And then Floyd said he had a gun.

He came in.

He was acting rather nervous, and he said,

what I'm doing is very difficult.

He said, I think I should tell you,

I've got a gun in my pocket.

At that time, he was he was sitting right here.

He reached in his pocket, and he pulled the gun partway out

of his pocket, enough that I could see the handle

in the palm of his hand.

And then he put it back in his pocket.

He said, I'm ready to die.

If you don't help me, you won't live, either.

ROBERT STACK: Principal Davis led Floyd down this hallway

to Michael's classroom.

Floyd then forced both of them into Davis's pickup truck

and ordered Davis to drive out into the country.

Then when we got down here a ways, he told me to stop.

And he had me get out of the truck and go into the woods.

He left Michael in the truck, and he

followed me into the woods.

He said to sit down by that tree and put your arm

between those two trees.

So I couldn't sit, so I just did like this

and put my hands behind me.

And he handcuffed my hands behind me like this.

ROBERT STACK: Five hours later, Principal Davis was rescued.

For the next two months, there was no sign of either Franklin

Floyd or Michael Hughes.

Police swore out a warrant for kidnapping.

Finally, Floyd is arrested in Louisville, Kentucky,

but Michael was nowhere to be found.

The authorities began to probe into Floyd's background.

They discovered a past remarkable

for his demented behavior.

In 1975, Floyd, then 32, had turned up in Oklahoma City,

going by the name Trenton B. Davis.

With him was a young girl.

Floyd claimed she was his daughter, Suzanne.

Over the next decade, Suzanne and Floyd

moved from town to town, using a variety of aliases.

In 1988, Suzanne, then 17, gave birth to a son, Michael.

Incredibly, Floyd claimed to be the boy's father.

Even more incredibly, he then turned

around and married the woman he'd claimed was his daughter.

Then in 1990, when Michael was 2,

Suzanne was killed in a mysterious

hit-and-run accident.

The prime suspect, though he was never charged,

was none other than Franklin Floyd.

Floyd vanished, but only after he had

left Michael with foster care.

Michael's foster parents remember him as a child

with many difficulties.

He was not up to grade for his age.

He wasn't-- he didn't have muscle

control like he should have.

He did not talk at all.

He was very hysterical.

So he just wasn't-- he was--

I want to say malnutrition, but that ain't the right word.

No.

He was delayed so severely that he was in an infant stim class.

And he tested out at nine months.

When he was two?

When he was two.

ROBERT STACK: Six months after abandoning Michael,

Franklin Floyd was arrested on a parole violation.

At that time, a routine blood test delivered

a stunning revelation.

Floyd was not Michael Hughes' biological father after all.

I want to plead for the return of my son,

who I love with all my heart.

I have never harmed my son, and the case has

been reversed by the supreme--

ROBERT STACK: When Floyd got out of jail,

he requested that custody of Michael be returned to him.

--rectify the injustice--

ROBERT STACK: His request was denied.

Six months later, Floyd would abduct Michael Hughes

from his first grade classroom.

Michael has not been seen since.

We would like to have some information from the public

indicating that this child had either--

has been seen out there, is out there somewhere,

or they may know something about him being

assaulted or possibly murdered.

That's what our interest is.

Well, you know what people say.

The reason you won't tell where he is.

- Because they think he's dead. - That's right.

Well, they just have no evidence of that.

Michael is not dead.

Why won't you tell us where he is?

It's none of your damn business where he's at.

You don't have a right to love him, care for him,

and cherish him, because he ain't yours.

ROBERT STACK: From the start, the case of young Michael

Hughes had been marked by disturbing unexpected twists,

and now there is one more.

Only recently, the police learned

that Michael's mother, Suzanne, was not Franklin

Floyd's biological daughter.

In fact, she may also have been kidnapped by Floyd.

How did she come into your life as a little girl?

I very bluntly say that she was abandoned to me,

and I raised her.

If I actually told you and you believed me,

or I could prove it you, you know what you'd do?

You'd try to pin a medal on me for taking her.

Where'd she come from?

You really would.

I can't tell you that.

I wish I could.

But I'm going-- I'm going to tell you right now,

I did her a favor.

That's one of the biggest mysteries

that we have in this case.

As to who this girl is, we have absolutely no idea.

We know that she is not the biological daughter

of Mr. Floyd.

And we feel that there's a very good possibility

that this young girl may have been abducted or kidnapped

when she was probably three or four years of age.

And we would like to find out her true identity.

We don't know that.

ROBERT STACK: In a moment, two armed robbers

hit a small town post office and terrorize the postmaster.

Epes, Alabama, with a population of just 300,

is the very definition of off the beaten path.

The local post office is much like the town itself--

small, quiet, and friendly, a most

unlikely target for robbery.

October 30, 1987, began like any other day

for Opal Johnson, the postmaster in Epes.

OPAL JOHNSON: Everyone that came into office

was people that I knew, almost, except for hunting season.

And then there were strangers came into the post office

quite often.

So that's why I did not really notice this guy when

he came to the window, because I thought

he was someone there hunting.

ROBERT STACK: At around 11:00 AM,

two strangers, one white and one black, came in for stamps.

Uh, one stamp, or the whole book?

This is a robbery!

Whatever it is, go ahead and take it!

Go ahead! - Get in the back!

Get in the back! Move it!

Move it! Move it!

After the black male jumped on the counter,

he immediately began to give orders.

- You the post master? - Yes.

Where's the safe at?

OPAL JOHNSON: He seemed to be real

familiar with the operation of the postal service.

The black male gave all the orders.

He would-- he told the white male everything to do,

and he did it.

Get over there. Get over there.

All right.

I am.

Stay put and nobody gets hurt.

Check her purse! Check her purse!

Nothing. There's nothing.

There's nothing.

You took it all.

You best not be lying.

[inaudible].

Do whatever he says, whatever he says.

OPAL JOHNSON: I never took money to work with me.

I had $1.38.

Is this all there is?

That's all!

I don't have much money on me.

That's all there is. - Kill her.

- No! - Gotta be calm!

Be calmer.

Kill her!

And the white man says, man, let's don't do that.

He says-- said she did everything we told her to.

He says, OK.

We'll take her with us.

ROBERT STACK: The thieves made off with about $700

in cash and stamps.

One of the men forced Opal into her car

and followed the other out into the country.

It would turn out to be just a 10 minute ride.

For Opal, the most frightening 10 minutes of her life.

OPAL JOHNSON: When the white boy got into the car,

he put his gun across his lap with his finger

still on the trigger, and it was poking me in the side.

And he was extremely nervous.

What are you doing?

You're gonna shoot me.

Don't do anything stupid and it'll be all right.

ROBERT STACK: Finally, the tiny convoy

pulled into a remote clearing near [inaudible] Lake,

three miles from town.

Whatever you do, don't make him mad.

I can't control him when he's mad, OK?

Open the trunk. Open the trunk.

- Get out of the car. - What--

Get out of the car.

What are you doing?

What are you going to do to me?

No, I don't want to!

No!

What are you doing?

Get in the trunk.

Get in the trunk now!

OPAL JOHNSON: He said, give me your rings.

I like those rings.

And as I was taking my rings off, I looked at him,

and his eyes looked as if he hated the world.

They were just piercing, and he was just angry.

It's like he was angry with everyone in the world.

I was sure that they were going to kill me.

Man, let's go.

We need to dump the car.

OPAL JOHNSON: And I just thought, well,

they'll drive my car off into the lake.

- She's seen our faces. - Who cares?

We got a gun.

There's people coming.

Let's go!

OPAL JOHNSON: They got in their car, and they left.

And when I could not hear it any more,

I began to feel around in the corner to see if I could go

into the car from the backseat.

And it's metal across there.

No possible way.

So then I found a tire tool.

And I took the tire tool, and I began to work on that lock.

And when I broke the lock enough, the trunk popped up.

And I come out of that trunk running.

ROBERT STACK: Within an hour, Opal

had provided police with a detailed description

of the two men.

The first suspect could now be in his late 20s.

He was 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed

approximately 130 pounds.

He had brown hair and green eyes and was

probably not from the South.

The second suspect was about six feet tall and slender.

He would now be in his late 30s.

He had long, heavy sideburns, greasy hair, and dark eyes.

Authorities believe he may have had family in the Epes area

and that he may have previously worked in the mail service.

When we return.

40 years ago, a baby girl was abandoned

on a subway in New York City.

Can you help turn a Christmas mystery

into a Christmas miracle?

40 years ago, the approach of Christmas

brought no joy to a lonely young woman in Brooklyn, New York.

On the afternoon of December 11, 1955,

she boarded a subway train, rode four stops,

and exited without a word.

For reasons unknown, she left behind a tiny baby girl.

By the next day, the infant was something

of a celebrity, dubbed Miss Subways by the local press.

Despite the publicity, no one ever claimed the baby,

and a year later, she was adopted.

Christmas means different things to different people.

For Jeanne Martin of Long Island, New York,

the holiday season is a time of reflection and hope.

Jeanne you see, is Miss Subways, and the mysterious woman on

the train was her birth mother.

Perhaps tonight, someone watching

can help Jeanne Christmas dream of a reunion come true.

Jeanne grew up in a happy, loving home.

From an early age, she knew she had been adopted.

But through the years, Jeanne's questions about her past

fell on deaf ears, almost as if her parents

were protecting her.

Michael, no.

No.

Oh, Michael.

Get out of here.

You go keep your eye on the grill.

ROBERT STACK: As her own children grew,

Jeanne became more and more curious.

[inaudible].

We're almost ready.

ROBERT STACK: Finally, in July of 1992,

Jeanne once again pressed her mother for answers.

You know, Ma, this may not be the best

time to bring this up again.

Oh, no, Jeanne.

But I really feel I need to, for the kids' sake.

For medical reasons.

You're gonna hate me.

No.

You're gonna hate me.

Now, Ma, I'd never hate you.

I love you.

Jeanne, you were abandoned.

Abandoned?

On a subway.

JEANNE MARTIN: I was shocked at her reaction, which threw me.

It was basically the--

driving home that day, it was a total identity crisis,

because nothing belonged to me.

There was no name.

There was a name on the adoption papers,

which I thought to be my birth name, but that wasn't mine.

I had no birth date.

My religion wasn't mine.

There was nothing.

Just nothing.

ROBERT STACK: Once she got over the initial shock,

Jeanne began a search.

At the local library, she spent hours in front of the microfilm

viewer, sifting through newspapers from 1955,

the year of her birth.

JEANNE MARTIN: I was letting the microfilm roll

and I saw the top of the policeman's hat,

and it said Miss Subways, and I saw this baby.

And I was devastated.

Oh, my god!

JEANNE MARTIN: I just felt like all the blood had just drained

out of my face and my fingers.

I went numb.

That was me!

JEANNE MARTIN: I was nauseous.

I felt faint.

It was incredible. - --copy of that?

Yes.

Yes.

Oh, yes, I want a copy of it.

ROBERT STACK: The newspaper account gave Jeanne

a tantalizing glimpse into her unknown past,

a past which began when a lonely young woman entered the subway

station at Coney Island.

She walked slowly and carried an old, battered suitcase.

The woman took a seat off to herself in the lead car.

Several passengers recalled that the woman

opened her suitcase, shielding it from view,

and took something out.

She exited the train at the Van Sicklen Street station.

Seconds later--

[baby crying]

Watch this.

ROBERT STACK: It was Jeanne, no more than five days old

and wrapped in a blanket, with a full bottle

of milk tucked inside.

Somebody left this baby on the train!

Hey, tell the motorman not to leave the station.

So the baby was just left on the train.

Imagine that. I can't believe it.

Jeez, I hope she's all right.

You go up there.

One right here, one in there.

The passengers were able to provide police

with a vague description of the young mother,

but no one had any idea who she was

or why she had abandoned her baby.

Extra, extra!

Get your papers here!

ROBERT STACK: The next day, the saga of Miss Subways

was splashed across the front pages.

This photograph of baby Jeanne was seen by thousands.

But Jeanne's mother never came forward.

Now some 40 years later, Jeanne Martin

is convinced that her birth mother had her best interests

at heart, choosing to leave her in a place

where she was certain to be quickly found

and turned over to the authorities.

JEANNE MARTIN: My feelings are desperate people

do desperate things.

I need information.

I need somebody who remembers something,

somebody who remembers a neighbor,

maybe even someone who was on the train who saw her or maybe

even recognized her but at the time

was afraid to come forward.

I'm ready to meet her.

Anytime, anywhere.

From all of us at "Unsolved Mysteries" to all of you,

our best wishes for a safe and joyous holiday season.

May peace be with you, and may all your mysteries be solved.

[music playing]